Sam Abuelsamid  0:01  
Coming up on episode 196  of wheel bearings Roberto drives a couple of polar opposite vehicles the 2021 McLaren GT and the new Toyota Mirai. Nicole tries out the Kia Sorento and I drive the 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat, we do a deep dive on the Ford F 150. Lightning that's coming about a year from now we talk about legalizing level three conditionally automated driving systems in the UK. Caterham is working on an electric version of the seven and we answer some listener questions. Finally, if you enjoy the show, please make sure to join our Patreon and leave us reviews wherever you can. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker  0:42  
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Sam Abuelsamid  1:04  
Did you know you can support wheel bearings directly head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media and you can become a patron today. Your contributions will help fund the platforms and tools we use to bring the podcast to you. And exclusives improvements are already on the way thanks to your generosity. So if you want to be part of an automotive podcast, like no other head to patreon.com, slash wheel bearings, media This is Episode 196 of wheel bearings. I'm Sandra ball savage from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:37  
I am Nicole wakeland. With let's go autobytel this week,

Roberto Baldwin  1:41  
right? And I am Roberto Baldwin. And I'm gonna say in gadget this week because I'm shooting video with them this week.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47  
Excellent. fancy looking forward to hearing about that. All right, the call What are you driving,

Nicole Wakelin  1:53  
I had a very brief stint in the 2021 the Kia Sorento x line, so it looked kind of fancy. I liked this I had three days and it was a very short loan. And now I have a different car. Like I just got used to it they took it away. But you know i i've already a fan of key is one of the things that I like about key is that you get you get a car that looks always on the outside and on the inside, like more than what you paid for it. They do a really fantastic job of I don't know how they do it. Like the materials, the design, everything about them makes them feel like more than they are like if you took the little key a badge off. You'd be like, Oh, I don't know who made this. It must be somebody fancy Haha, it's like you just don't realize it. And I think they did that with this one. I mean, the one that I was driving the exci that was $43,965. And it felt like it was more than a $40,000 car It felt easy. Like you're driving in something that was like 10 grand more because the interior is beautiful. It just looks so good. So that's like my favorite thing about key is in general, like how do they do that? What magic do they use that they can pack? The look and the quality of their materials into their cars for the prices that they do? So I mean, it's it's

Sam Abuelsamid  3:13  
Sorento right, not the the old one that Robbie was driving in Hawaii, right. This

Nicole Wakelin  3:17  
is I know, I was thinking that you wrote I'm like, this is the new one. I have the current one. You have the whatever one. Yes, this is the new the new Sorento. So yeah, so it was it was a good job. I was thinking about you were saying about how it worked out for you guys in Hawaii. And I think it was a great choice. I mean, it has, it has the features you want it you know it has a good set of standard safety. It's got like a 10.25 inch infotainment screen. And it has second row captain's chairs. I love the captain's chairs. I know you lose the seat when you don't have the bench seats, but the captain's chairs just like I don't know, I guess if you have a family and you always need three kids to sit in the backseat, it's one thing but the rest of the time I like a little division. And I like that grownups feel like they have grown up seats when they sit in the middle. You know?

Roberto Baldwin  4:05  
Yeah, that's it's you, you it's comfortable. You feel very important when you're in a captain's chair versus a bench. You know, it's and the to your point about Kiev, feeling like a much more expensive vehicle. It I think it's still a little hard to get the general public behind Kenya. I literally today my cousin one of my one of my 50,000 cousins, sent me a message asking She needs a third row SUV, and she was asking about the Q seven. I was like, well, there's two seven, there's Alice, I'm all but you should definitely drive the telly ride.

Nicole Wakelin  4:39  
And when she's

Roberto Baldwin  4:41  
and she's like, Oh, really I'm like no, I'm telling you, you should really go drive to tell you right you're going to get there. You're going to look at it you're gonna realize wait does that's a that's a key you're gonna get inside, you're going to drive it you're probably going to fall in love with it. But I think it's really there still that that barrier that you know that that barrier. They're like, well I don't know.

Nicole Wakelin  5:01  
It's so hard and you're right because anytime like someone will say I'm looking for in an office doesn't even matter I'm looking for a crossover. I'm looking for an SUV three rows. And I throw key out there because they're good affordable choice they have they hold up you don't have to worry about being broken down on the side of the road like they they're their oil well, but you know, that'll happen in any car believe us. But so that they're a great car. But there's they have this sort of stigma from earlier kiya that they cannot shake like people who remember kids being something that they were looked cheap. They felt cheap. They didn't they they were the car, the compromised car once upon a time like, well, I gotta buy something. He is affordable by IKEA. They haven't shaken that with the general public. And they really should, because they are not that car anymore. They are so much better. My mom had an old 2007 I think Curio, oh Lord of mighty that thing was not. That was not good. It was not good. So when people say no key, I'm like, No, I get it. My mom has one of those. That's not what they're building today. But,

Sam Abuelsamid  6:10  
you know, for the last, I don't know, two, three years, at least, you know, QIA has consistently been at the top of the JD Power initial quality survey. You know, the only people that actually bought key is, you know, we'll tell you, these are great cars, they don't have problems with them, they work really well. And, you know, and they look good, too. And, you know, they're their design language has been evolving, you know, over the last year or so as well, you know, with the, with the new Sorento and the K five and, and what we're gonna see coming up soon with the, the AV 600, or the AV six, sorry. You know, they've really been making they're maturing their design language, you know, I mean, I've always thought for the last decade, I thought they've been great looking vehicles, that they had a really cool, unique look to them. And I like what they've done with the new Sorento I had a chance to drive the do the first drive of the the hybrid version of the Sorento back in November, I

Roberto Baldwin  7:11  
think,

Nicole Wakelin  7:11  
oh, how is that it's,

Sam Abuelsamid  7:13  
it's excellent. You know, it's it's basically the same hybrid setup that was in the Sonata that you were driving last week, with, you know, conventional six speed automatic transmission, and the electric motor in there. But instead of the, the 2.5 liter, or the two liter, came a two liter that's in the, in the Sonata, they use a 1.6 turbo, so it's got a little more overall power than in the in the sedans. And it was fantastic. I mean, you, you could not really tell that it was a hybrid from the wind drove, you know, except for when the engine shut off, and it went into electric mode. But, you know, the vehicle itself was great, I really, really enjoyed driving it in the the new interior is, is quite a nice upgrade from what they had before which, which wasn't bad to begin with. But I really like some of the details, like the door panels, by the door handles that the kind of diamond pattern that they put in the in the metallic finish by the door handles, you know, it's just a really nice little detail. And also across the, across the top of the dashboard on the passenger side, they have it there as well.

Nicole Wakelin  8:23  
Yeah, that's that's it, there's these, there's so many little details. And I think that's what makes it look so different. Like those little details, those little accents are what taken interior from being Okay, it looks good, it's nice, it's fine, whatever, to being a while somebody spent some time to actually make this look good and make this feel good. And they do it in all of their vehicles. And you see a very definite improvement as you move up the trim ladder like sometimes you don't see much change depending on the car, you know, it's like oh, so they went from, you know, cloth seats to leather Finally, on the top trim, but how else do you know that this one is better? You see it in here, when you get up to things where they have packages in terms of they've got like this one has, has a Bose surround sound system. It has heated steering wheel, it has aluminum sport pedals. It has, you know, all these little details the leather seats that look like expensive leather, they're really good looking stuff. You don't find that with every OEM in a car at this price, but like I said, this was $43,965 it's not like it's a, you know, $18,000 compact sedan. This is a significant vehicle. It's a good size. You're getting a lot of car for that price, and it drives beautifully. It's nice and quiet. It handles well it's can more than easily get out of its own ways you're trying to get on the highway so there's no sense of that guy coming up behind you and wondering if he's going to be in your back seat if you can't get moving fast enough, you know, so it's it's nice to drive it handles well and it's just it's just a stellar experience to sit in that vehicle

Sam Abuelsamid  9:59  
was that the 2.5 turbo under

Nicole Wakelin  10:01  
2.5 turbo, yes. So that's

Sam Abuelsamid  10:04  
like 281 horsepower.

Nicole Wakelin  10:06  
I think it's 281 Yeah. And 311 pound feet of torque. So it's when it goes it goes you know, it's not it. You don't you in terms of how it drives it feels like it's feels lighter than you would think for you know, when you you look at it, you think, Okay, this is gonna drive like kind of a heavy vehicle. It doesn't it drives like something much it's more sporty er than you would expect for its size.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:30  
Excellent. Yeah. And what kind of fuel economy you get out of it.

Nicole Wakelin  10:34  
I didn't check. I only I only had it for three days on the money. So I didn't get you know, driving in enough to say, yeah, the fuel economy is, you know, good or bad. But I know I didn't have to put gas in it. So you know, pipeline take that. And I didn't need gas this week.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:55  
What about you, Robbie, what did you have?

Roberto Baldwin  10:57  
So I had two vehicles this week. And I guess I should just start off with the big number. The big one. The I had the McLaren Gt $214,000 of luxury McLaren. I think that's you know, luxury plush

Nicole Wakelin  11:14  
McLaren non luxury McLaren luxury version of

Roberto Baldwin  11:19  
McLaren are typically they're they're they're they're essentially just sports car. Yeah, they're they're, they're super cars, but they're really sports cars you get in and you're you know if if, if you're not a fan of having your teeth rattled when you hit a bump, then yeah, McLaren McLaren's are really made for the track. And the GT is there. You know, it's a grand tour of their Gran Turismo of vehicle and I feels like they really didn't have to. There's not really any compromise. I think when it when you get into the GT versus they've you know, what you would expect from a McLaren when it comes to performance wise? I mean, zero to 60 in 3.1 seconds. I mean, well, there you go. That's all you gotta say. Done, done and done. It was sluggish compared to a Tesla, though. Yeah, but if I couldn't take a Tesla at the corners I was doing either.

Nicole Wakelin  12:13  
No, I have never once ever even sat in the McLaren. I've never driven one. I've never I know. nothing other than what you were telling me

Sam Abuelsamid  12:22  
now that you're a nactoy juror, we're gonna have to address that.

Nicole Wakelin  12:27  
I would like to think it someday I would just end up with one that would be very nice.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:33  
They do have a new car coming out this year. The Arturo? Yeah. So I mean, it I would say that should be eligible for North American car of the year. So

Nicole Wakelin  12:40  
let's see who's eligible to end up in my driveway. Those are two different things.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:46  
Generally, manufacturers try to get you know, anything that's out. That's, you know, on the list, they try to get it to all the doors, so I'm sure that they will get you one. I will.

Roberto Baldwin  12:55  
It'll be a surprise for you, though, won't it? It's just like one day, it'll be

Nicole Wakelin  12:59  
a surprise. They're always surprised. It's like how What's today's cars? It's, it's rare. It's once every six weeks or so. I know. It's I knew what was coming today, because I knew the queue was a short load. But yeah, normally surprise. So that will be a surprise. I'll be very excited with if that happens.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:14  
So Robbie, you know, how grand was the touring experience in the McLaren gt?

Roberto Baldwin  13:21  
It was very grand. It was very comfortable. You know, I gave a couple people including my wife rides in it. And they were they they they all commented on how smooth they drove. And then these are people from, you know, my wife who's only driven like just regular cars. And she's been in a few super cars with me, but she doesn't seem to care. But she's like, well, this is kind of nice to a friend of mine whose father owns like Ford GTs. And he knows what, you know, a supercar feels like, you know that and he's like, this is actually really nice. We're driving around San Francisco, which isn't you know, it's his potholes and you know, there's road issues and it was Yeah, it It drove very well and comfort mode even in sport mode. It felt you know, very you know, it's a respectable you know, you get the nice leather seats, you can get cashmere if you want apparently they didn't really care and microfiber and I don't know where it goes,

Nicole Wakelin  14:15  
like where would you put cashmere on, on.

Roberto Baldwin  14:20  
On the headliner on something I don't know, just

Nicole Wakelin  14:22  
like reach up and be like, Okay, I'm not I'm not complaining about I'm like, that could be kind of cool. I like the

Sam Abuelsamid  14:29  
line, the glove box and cashmere. So when you reach in reach and grab your registration for the police officer, you know,

Nicole Wakelin  14:35  
given that you'll be doing that like once a week when you drive in McLaren. So it needs to be a nice comfortable spot for you to continually reach into.

Roberto Baldwin  14:45  
In that any car that I have that is any type of sporty. When I'm driving around the highway near my house, a charger or a challenger will pull up next to me and try to raise me every single time and I'm like, no No, I'm not gonna race you and a McLaren, because you're just driving a black charger. And those are a dime a dozen around here. I'm in a bright white McLaren. We're getting pulled over in this. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  15:11  
exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:12  
Who's going to get a ticket? Well, and also, how many of those plain black chargers are unmarked police cars?

Roberto Baldwin  15:19  
Exactly. They're like, hey, look at this money.

Nicole Wakelin  15:23  
That was my favorite things about driving charges that you drive up and people get out of your way cuz they all assume you're a police car until you're not like, I'm not just moved though.

Roberto Baldwin  15:34  
Yeah, no, it was I was I was very pleased that how how comfortable The vehicle was. I mean, it's still you know, you're still gonna feel it's not a BMW. It's not a Mercedes. It's not even you know, it's not an Aston Martin it's you still feel something? But I preferred it over the Aston but the Vantage

Nicole Wakelin  15:50  
so could you Is it like daily driver it? Could you really daily?

Roberto Baldwin  15:57  
I think you could you could This is the daily driver McLaren. So if you're super rich, you have let's say a G wagen. And you hate something just a tad around town. Sometimes you want to go a little bit quicker. Yeah, get a McLaren for $214,000 and I will tell you every supercar every sports car I get is the most terrifying experience because there's always the concern about that front spoiler that friend spoilers kind of my existence. Mm hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:27  
Are those steep driveway ramps and spilling over

Nicole Wakelin  16:30  
to cement the little cement things that they put at the edge of a parking spot so they know and you're like I end up it's like I'm five feet away from it. Like you can pull in a little I'm like oh, I guess I can that's close enough.

Roberto Baldwin  16:45  
You're triggered you're 24 inches from the curb? I'll let you know that's good.

Nicole Wakelin  16:48  
That's close enough. That's too close. Who knows? It could shift a little bit while we're inside eating dinner. I wouldn't want it to fall and hit the car Yeah, but

Sam Abuelsamid  16:54  
I think well i think you know the GT if I'm not mistaken. Like you can lift open up the rear glass cover and you can put long objects in there you know across the top of the the engine bay right so like yeah, I think I think I saw somebody put a surfboard in one

Roberto Baldwin  17:10  
well, that had to be a really tiny it's not that big. Okay, it's um you know, they're and they're selling like very very very expensive like maybe like golf clubs, but you can put labels on there or snowboard in there. You can put you can probably put one maybe two carry ons and they're really the it's like 15 cubic feet or so of lug of space what is it's that 14.8 cubic feet of storage in that bag but it's very like laid out in and shallow and long as you can get stuff in there. The the sort of the money even though it's it's less cute, it's only 5.3 cubic feet. The front I guess you got the stowage area in the in the the front of the vehicle. That's like a nice square you can just shove you know that's why carry on bag in there. Yeah, I stuck my bags. Yeah, you can put your grocery bags you carry on bag everything you want in there anything you don't want to get warm while you're driving around because that storage area behind you with that giant hatchback. It's right above the the engine so I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend putting ice cream there or computers. Anything you don't want to get one. If you if you get some food to go maybe it's a good that's a good place to put it.

Nicole Wakelin  18:25  
That's how you eat like you don't need one of those little fancy little warming bags. They have like a Domino's like No wait, I'm just gonna put this on top of my engine. We're good. Put this on the

Roberto Baldwin  18:33  
backseat behind the front seat of my McLaren say we're

Nicole Wakelin  18:36  
fine. Like what do you make those fast food runs all the time and your recliner and like you do.

Roberto Baldwin  18:43  
Um, you know, it's you know, through what I haven't, I had a bunch of stuff. I had my my backpack. I had my camera gear packed up. I wanted to say sticks. What's the tripod I had, you know, I had a bunch of I just kept throwing stuff in there. I'm like, yeah, this is fine. I really didn't put anything in the in that long. Because I'm always terrified. They have like little crossmen like, like, they have like nets you can put in there and all this stuff that comes with it. But it's always like, what if I stop and it all just comes? Max me in the back of the head.

Nicole Wakelin  19:13  
Now the uncomfortable.

Roberto Baldwin  19:15  
Exactly. And it'd be warm at the same time. So no one wants that.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:19  
And you don't want you don't want pizza all over the back of your head. So

Roberto Baldwin  19:21  
yeah, you don't want pizza all over the back your head. I'll be a mess. But no, it was I was I was pleasantly surprised. You know, it's it's what is it that it's four point. Ooh, what is the clearance 4.3 inches and then the front end, you can lift it up to 5.1. So pulling into my driveway was fine even without lifting up the front end, I was able to go over speed bumps, which I had to super fast about 1824 months ago. And that thing was terrifying because it didn't have any sort of lift and everything. Felt like Mount Everest. I was that I'm glad that they only gave me that car for like two or three days here. I was I was very happy about that. And we had a pocket at someone's house who didn't have any sort of lip to get into the garage. But they did have a little bump. And we had to drive over that so damn slow. So yeah, the, the GT it's one of the least expensive and not the least expensive McLaren. I feel like it's gonna be a big hit with the LA crowd, the people who want you know, the doors to go up like this, and the, you know, the cachet of owning McLaren. But also who don't want to have it scrape up all all the time and don't need their kidneys, you know, battered about every time they hit a speed bump.

Nicole Wakelin  20:40  
You can even try something like a McLaren here. Forget trying to get in and out of the driveway. Just because our roads are such a mess this far northeast, like a typical road. You're like, Oh, I just bought them out the car. Whoops, you know?

Roberto Baldwin  20:52  
Yeah, I drove it over to Treasure Island, which has that sort of same issue. They and they take a few more pictures. And by the time I got over there was like, my third day with the car and I was like, yeah, it was fine. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Driving over speed. Yeah, yeah. Like I you know, the first day you're terrified. Yeah. The more you drive, the more comfortable you get. And you're like, well, there's actually room to do stuff with. I think there's got to be there's there are people potentially other auto journalists too. Who might poopoo it, you know, because it's not a true McLaren. For whatever reason.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:25  
The McLaren for posers?

Roberto Baldwin  21:28  
Yeah, it's like the McLaren for it's like people who are still angry about the chi in the sales of the Porsche Cayenne help Porsche. They'll allow Porsche to make a 911 burian for every single person who wants to buy lemon? Yeah, every every and if you want a 911 variant, just call them they'll make it for you. They

Nicole Wakelin  21:45  
don't tell us what you want. We'll build that.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:50  
That's that's exactly the thing with Porsche you know, they they will literally build you anything you want. As long as you you know, give them your checkbook and give them just just sign the cheque we'll fill in the numbers later

Nicole Wakelin  22:03  
when we figure it out. We'll let you know what you paid.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:05  
You want you want to match what color on your drapes? Not a problem we can we can do there. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  22:11  
sure there was a Rolls Royce send me some history about Rolls Royce for a guy wanted the wood inlay. inside his Rolls Royce came from a tree on his family's property. Like it was one of the trees on the estate and it had fallen down or since I would like to use this wood inside my Rolls Royce. I'm like, Really? You have an estate and you use one of the tree. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin  22:32  
Well, you see, that's the difference between a rich person and like a regular person. Is that a regular person? Like Yeah, I got a farm and a tree fell over. But no, this person had an estate,

Nicole Wakelin  22:40  
right? Yes, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin  22:42  
I got a bunch of land up. Up north. Nope. No, you have an estate.

Nicole Wakelin  22:46  
You have an estate?

Roberto Baldwin  22:48  
Yes. So yeah, the Rolls Royce. And then I also I'm currently driving the moroi I've driven it before. It's an it's a nice to read by one of the best looking sedans about the bet the best looking sedan in my opinion. But it's also hydrogen, which means I can only drive it here.

Unknown Speaker  23:08  
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  23:09  
I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:11  
There's, I mean, there's there's a decent number of hydrogen stations around the Bay Area. It's not It's not that bad. You know, I've driven I drove the original MRI around there and the the Honda clarity and what else? Next? Oh, that's it. Now I drove the next show down in Southern California. But I drove I drove the clarity and the nmri both, you know, around the Bay Area. And you know, it wasn't wasn't it wasn't that much of a problem to find hydrogen stations. It was expensive, but it wasn't you know,

Nicole Wakelin  23:42  
we we actually apparently have hydrogen stations at least in mass like in the Boston area. But you can't really use them for your car because there's also last time I checked with Toyota and it could have changed last year but I probably not there's a law on the books that you can have gas canisters, in tunnels or on bridges within the city limits and that is a gas canister so therefore you cannot take them awry. Any place for you to go through a tunnel or over a bridge? So they have the facilities to fuel them up but they can't legally drive them so not working so much at the moment so so presumably

Sam Abuelsamid  24:20  
you could not you also could not drive a natural gas vehicle or propane.

Nicole Wakelin  24:25  
I would think any cut it was like it was the can't the gas is what did they say but it was like the get the canisters of gas. You couldn't take a canister gas canister even though it started assume anything. That would be a gas canister would technically violate that particular law and they were trying to you know, do what they could to say, Hey, can we make some adjustment to account for vehicles that run this way? But because there was no real public demand, there was no real like incentive on the part of the

Sam Abuelsamid  24:56  
water fuel cell vehicle, right? Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  24:58  
yeah, it wasn't enough for And to be let's go to bat for those three people. Nope. So it hadn't happened yet. That was it was a little while ago that maybe your gross I had that they were talking to him about that I can't imagine is changed could have. Maybe the law changed during the middle of the COVID epidemic, but I doubt it.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:13  
So Robbie, did you? Did you ever get a chance to drive the original MRI?

Roberto Baldwin  25:17  
Yeah, I drove the original Mariah. That was an ugly car. The new one? Yeah, a new one is much better. Even driving a new one's much better than the old one. You know, I think driving a Camry was it wasn't you know, it wasn't anything exciting. It was you know, I drove it around San Francisco for I think a day. This new second generation, it's rear wheel drive. And it's funny because when when they announced it like oh, it's rear wheel drive. Did you do that for performance? Or like no, that's just where it worked best. You know, based on how we laid everything out in the hydrogen system. Everyone in the rooms like oh rear wheel drive awesome. Excited I mean engineers like now that just worked fifth

Sam Abuelsamid  26:04  
place that's less space left for a motor Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  26:06  
yeah. And you know they shrunk down a lot of the elements of the height there hydrogen power train between the first and the second generation you know, you get in the car it's super comfortable. it you know, drives really well. It's kind of plush. It's you know, you have it feels it feels closer to a Lexus then then then then a Toyota. It's sort of like what what Pando was trying to do with the clarity line. You know, trying to like up you know, push up the interior. But you know, it's it's it, you know, handles pretty well, it has like a little bit of a you know, that Cadillac, you know, what he called the, some of the way floating, floating is there. Yeah, it floats a little bit. You know,

Nicole Wakelin  26:47  
see with your hands, he's like making this floating motion. I'm sorry. Is he trying to show us

Roberto Baldwin  26:54  
everyone? We're gonna have to put gifts in there of just me doing things. You know, it's it's, it's definitely you know, it has an it's an easy power train, but it's still not for me, it's zero to 16 9.1 seconds, even in sport mode, as you know, so it's the new year not so

Nicole Wakelin  27:10  
it's a little bit slower than the McLaren just a little, just a tad bit. Tiny bit. It's

Roberto Baldwin  27:16  
just what is it six seconds, but what six seconds between, between friends.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:21  
Take a few more of your friends with you in it though. You can only have one friend in the McLaren UK. And they're

Roberto Baldwin  27:26  
all going to be real comfortable in. In the MRI. Um, yeah, it's you know, overall, it's, it's a good, it's a good sedans, a good car. It's just, it's sort of trapped by the infrastructure and Toyota. they partner with people, but they don't put any money in to it. And it's, you know, they don't think Chad is ever going to give up on hydrogen. I think hydrogen is great for long haul trucking. I think that's where it's gonna find its place in the world. But for for passenger vehicles, I mean, we've been talking the last you know, I feel like I've been talking to to to about hydrogen for the past seven, eight years. And every year like, oh, we're getting away more, you know, it's this. This is expanding in California. And this is expanding in California. And this is expanding in California and this and every year you get like one or two stations additional state. I know shell now has stations with hydrogen here in Northern California. But for the most part, it's the the infrastructure sort of built out is just too slow. There's not you know, it's it's the man versus like, how much do we need? it? You know, they can't they don't have the government behind them like South Korea.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:34  
Yeah, that's, that's definitely an issue. Not the very first media trip I ever took when I started writing for auto blog back in fall of 2006. was with Honda to California, for a drive of the, the sex, it was still the concept. And you know, this is before the first clarity brought us out when we drove it at Laguna Seca. And, you know, Honda, you know, Honda's the other company, you know, besides Hyundai and Toyota that, you know, is still really into fuel cells. And, you know, they were they were pushing it hard then and still hasn't really gone anywhere. There's so far that right now, there's 51 hydrogen stations in North America between the US

Nicole Wakelin  29:21  
51 in all of North America, yes. You think about how the the electric the Evie charging infrastructure and how much more robust that is, but still, how unwilling people are to accept that they have a place to charge their Eevee and we have 51 interview feeling. You got a ways to go before anybody is convinced on that. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  29:42  
yeah. I've been I've asked I've asked you to put point blank about and I'm like, Well, why would I buy this car that I couldn't drive let's say if I wanted to go to Ohio, but I can buy an Eevee and I can charge that. Any I mean, I might not have a charging station but I can charge it at home. I can refuel this car at my house versus I Hydrogen which is if you just can't get to it, that's it. You're dying. Right so it's it's it's a it's a weird push I think Toyota will continue to do it you know, they've been doing it with down in Long Beach with their sort of long haul or not, not long haul short haul trucks down there. So they've been, they've been working on it for the trucking, you know, side and the shipping side. So it again, it makes way more sense for that. It makes a little bit less sense for passenger vehicles, but I see Mariah is on the road. like actual people in Dubai, there's

Sam Abuelsamid  30:27  
actually a surprising number of marinas and clarities around the Bay Area. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  30:32  
it's a it's a pretty I think they get a it's a good lease, you get free fueling and you get 14 or 21 days of free. Like car rental. So if you want to go on a trip,

Sam Abuelsamid  30:44  
you know you can if you want to drive to Vegas,

Roberto Baldwin  30:45  
you can you can drop your moroi off I guess at the Toyota dealership, and they'll give you a I don't know Camry or

Nicole Wakelin  30:51  
just get super fortunate so you could just take a rental and go wherever the heck you wanted to go. like

Roberto Baldwin  30:56  
wow, that's good. You want to drive to LA I mean, you I think you could dry I think there's there's a hydro station along the five between LA and San Francisco. Yeah, Fresno. Yeah, but I wouldn't I don't know. I that's one of the ones where I'm like, I don't know that someone would have to pay me for that. That has to be a story as opposed to just be going. But you know, if you want to drive la you could you know, I guess turning your Mariah and they'll give you something else. I don't know if they'll give you something. Anything you want. There's probably like some, you know, a few

Nicole Wakelin  31:28  
totally like pages and pages of ifs ands or buts. But

Sam Abuelsamid  31:32  
yeah, probably probably just give you like an Avalon or you know, a wrap. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  31:36  
Yeah, let's, yeah, Mariah McLaren, the AM's of the world.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:45  
And I had something completely different. The 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat. So it at one point last week, when we were doing the transition, when they were dropping it off, I had 14 110 horsepower in my driveway. Because, you know, with the TR x parked next to the Durango, you know, to hellcats in the driveway. You know, that the Hellcat? You know, as we discussed last week, you know, it's just, it's an absurd engine in 2021. But it's a great engine. I love it, you know, the noise it makes is wonderful. But strangely enough in the Durango, you know, the Durango is a three three row SUV based on the same platform as the current Grand Cherokee. And, you know, it's it's essentially a longer version of the Grand Cherokee. And in the unlike in the, the TR x, you know, the Durango is not lifted up or anything it's you know, it's it's, you know, at a normal height. And it was odd because it's actually seemed louder in the Durango than it did in the in the pickup, you know that the engine was making a lot more noise and just driving around town. it you know, there seemed to be more of a drone from the from the engine. And I could after driving it for a few days, I could definitely see where it would start to get a little tiresome after a while. You know, there was just a little too much of it wasn't there just when you're accelerating hard. I mean, it was there all the time.

Nicole Wakelin  33:21  
Do you think it would get tiresome or do you think you were going in that like, okay, you had it, it was fun and cool. And then it started to get tiresome, but then if you kept it for another week, would it have gone the other way? And now it's just become a background noise you're not even aware possible?

Sam Abuelsamid  33:36  
It's hard. It's hard to tell, you know, I'd have to get one you know, for an extended you know,

Nicole Wakelin  33:40  
yeah, I think is a one month loan of the director four years, you know, yeah. Explain it for you. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:48  
Yeah, that could that way I could be absolutely sure that it wasn't something that was going to go away you know, or Yeah, and I wouldn't be able to tolerate for an extended period of time. Unfortunately. The the Durango Hellcat is going to be a one and done product one model year only. They're building 2000 of them for the 2021 model year. And that's it. For for 20 once those 2000 are built, there will not be any more because updated emissions regulations. They can't they are not able to make the Durango Hellcat meet the new evaporative emission standards.

Nicole Wakelin  34:25  
emission standards ruining all the final No.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:33  
But, you know, I mean this thing is just stupid fast. You know, I went out to a remote location where there was nobody around that I could disturb. hit the switch on the center console for launch control. The One of the nice things about this. They're both the TRS and the Durango. The launch control is really easy to use just just one switch on the center console below the below the infotainment system. Hit that It's enabled, put foot on the brake, put your Put your left foot on the brake your right foot on the gas pedal all the way to the floor. When the message on the cluster says you can take your foot off the brake now you do that and it just shoots and three 3.4 seconds or 260 and it was, it was fun, it was very good. You know, the thing is expensive. It was let's see, the base price on the Durango Hellcat starts at $81,000. And the are actually at 2004 90. When you factor in the the delivery charge, and the one that I had, which had a few options on there had the rear seat DVD entertainment system for two grand, the trailer tow package, the premium interior group, the suede headliner, and assorted other stuff. And the 19 speaker, Harman Kardon audio system came to a grand total of $90,350, which is a very expensive Durango. But it's actually about the same price as the Grand Cherokee trackhawk that drove a couple of years ago. And when I when I had the Grand Cherokee, I had that one in like February. And it was hard to find a dry road when I had it. But it was it was still, you know, remarkably capable on a cold wet pavement on that with that one. Did zero to 60 in 3.6 seconds. And the

Nicole Wakelin  36:36  
tough you had to pick. You can have the Durango or you can have the Jeep you can only have one, the only one it's it's like the Highlander not the Toyota the guy with the sword.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:47  
One would probably take the Jeep, jeep Oh yeah, cuz I don't really need a three row you know, so it's a little a little bit shorter, a little bit lighter, not a lot lighter. I mean, these things are all pretty hefty hefty with anything with a Hellcat, and it's going to be pretty hefty. Right? But yeah, I think I like and I kind of like the look of the Jeep a little better. But, you know, the, I don't mind the Durango either. You know, I think I like to Durango you know, as a three row SUV if you if, if that's what you need, you know, I think it's a it's a really good looking three row SUV. And for 2021 dodge has revamped they've redone the interior. So it's it's gotten, you know, another midcycle refresh. So it's got an all new dashboard looks even a little more premium than before. It's a good looking setup, and it has the new Uconnect five infotainment system in there, which is based on Android automotive. So it's, it's got built in Amazon Alexa voice services. So you know, if you're, if you're an echo user, you can, you can use the infotainment system just as you would your Echo at home use does all the same commands. And you know, it's it's roomy and comfortable. For you know, in this case, six people because it had captain's chairs in the second row. The front seats, you know, since it's got a Hellcat in there, they've put the sport seats in there, which are quite comfortable. They're, they're a little wider than most sport seats, which I think you know, is appropriate given kind of who the likely customer is for this vehicle. You know, it's not, you know, it's not like the narrower sports seats that you would typically find in a sports car. But they definitely keep you in place. Or else. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's good. It's a you know, it's a good vehicle. You know if that's, you know, if you're looking for a stupid fast, you know, three row SUV and

Nicole Wakelin  38:41  
who isn't? Oh, of course.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:43  
Yeah. It's what when you don't need to haul You know, when you don't need to, you know, go racing across the desert, you know, you want to just drive around town. You know, it's it's a good choice,

Nicole Wakelin  38:53  
and I'll work yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  38:54  
it's it's it's really tough for me in my brain, even though I just said, you know, like clarens only $214,000 but it's really hard for me to wrap my head around the $1,000 dogs $90,000 Dodge Durango? Yeah. Because a Dodge Durango at one point about 10 years ago was the punch line. And like a like something I was doing with somebody else who in automotive and and yeah, the one year I can understand you know, it's only a one year mission because there's not an admission law that FCA doesn't hate. Right now, I don't know how I know how Lantus feels. Now I can tell you that there has never been there's never been an admission in law that has an earth the phone the fine folks at FCA.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:36  
But well, they're they're scrambling this stuff to help cat into anything they can while they still can before they have to start going electric.

Nicole Wakelin  39:44  
So sad when the hell cat isn't like when it just has to go away. I mean, it's also like that's a pretty darn cool name like they could they you know, whoever came up with it. I'm like, good job. Give that guy a raise because that's a fantastic

Sam Abuelsamid  39:59  
job. Stupid alphanumeric

Nicole Wakelin  40:01  
data shot like the 594 c two. It's like how gag Okay, that you know.

Roberto Baldwin  40:08  
name is Jim Hellcat. It's

Unknown Speaker  40:10  
HTML cat

Sam Abuelsamid  40:13  
111 other element of this thing. It does have somewhat of a thirst for premium fuel. petroleum products. Yeah, yeah, it it did do a little better than the TR x which got like nine and a half miles per gallon. This one got a hole 11 miles per gallon.

Nicole Wakelin  40:30  
We gotta do double,

Sam Abuelsamid  40:32  
double digits.

Unknown Speaker  40:33  
That's something big.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:35  
Yeah, it's ready to 12 City 17 Highway 13 combined. And I managed about 11

Nicole Wakelin  40:42  
I know. That's That's terrible. But at the same time, you're not buying this know you give two hoots about Fleet Fuel economy. This is not even remotely on your list if that's if that's your top 10 this is Nigel

Sam Abuelsamid  40:56  
in the grand scheme of things, you know, since they're building sell few of them, you know, it's not gonna have any real impact Anyway, you know, I would, I would guess a fair number of them are probably going to end up as garage queens. You know, and then, you know, the rest will, you know, will be pulled out on Saturday morning to go to cars and coffee or something like that. And that's about it. Or Friday night at the drag strip.

Roberto Baldwin  41:18  
He couldn't be right to this centuries GMC typhoon.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:22  
Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know if you if you ever had a chance to drive a typhoon or a cyclone.

Roberto Baldwin  41:29  
We we I try our we tried to get my friend's dad to buy one. He was he was looking for it. And we were really pushing like you gotta get your dad to buy the typhoon. He's a big car guy. And he was we were so close. We were so close. And he got the Jimmy and

Sam Abuelsamid  41:44  
when my first job out of college, I was working at the GM Proving Grounds I was working for what was then delco moraine on ABS systems. And this is a 1990 1991 when the when the cyclone was just announced. And they brought one over to our garage and had a chance to take it out on the track and play around with it a little bit. And it was wicked fast in a straight line. But that was literally all it could do.

Unknown Speaker  42:14  
stop firing the wheel everything is easy. You stop

Sam Abuelsamid  42:17  
crazy. cornering No. But going from zero to whatever speed it could get to and very few seconds. It was great if

Nicole Wakelin  42:27  
it basically had one job and it did it well all the other jobs

Sam Abuelsamid  42:32  
one job gonna do it well. Gonna be good at it. And that one job the rest of it. Yeah. And so and yeah, it's funny cuz that was you know, the cyclone and the and the the typhoon were based on the the first generation s 10 s 15 platform. And I know actually all through college, I drove an 84 GMC s 15. So I I had I had basically that truck but with a little puny little Isuzu 1.9 liter four cylinder and a four speed manual. And you know so it was it was funny going into this thing. But anyway, this you know, the Durango handles much better rides much better, you know has actual brakes with idea Brembo calipers on there. So he can stop it can turn you know, so it does all that all that stuff that you expect of a performance vehicle and hauls you know, six or seven people. So it's it's good. It's worth it. Go for it.

Roberto Baldwin  43:32  
Buy one, go buy one it's only $90,000 already wrote at something you know, by the time you get out it's gonna be 90 you

Nicole Wakelin  43:40  
could get two of those or McLaren

Roberto Baldwin  43:42  
you get two of those are one McLaren. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  43:45  
well, we like I said you buy one tr x and one Durango Hellcat. Yeah. And then you've got 1400 horsepower. And you know if you if you need to, you know go to Lowe's and get some bags of cement. You know, you can throw those in the TR x. Of course you got to lift them up, you know into the

Nicole Wakelin  44:03  
little workout to get him into this era.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:05  
And then you know, if you got to take the kids you know on a road trip to visit Grandma, you know, then you take the Durango

Roberto Baldwin  44:12  
there life is perfect and done. Yes, exactly.

Unknown Speaker  44:18  
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Unknown Speaker  44:42  
This Friday, critics are going to quiet place Part Two sinsational This is the experience theatres were made for a quiet place Part Two only in theaters rated PG 13. All right, time for some news.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:59  
So the Let's start off with a quick one. The United Kingdom is about to legalize conditionally automated vehicles. There are a lot of the headlines, various headlines out there, you know, they're talking about legalizing autonomous cars or self driving cars. And it's a little bit of an exaggeration. It's not quite that back, just about a year ago, now, a little less than a year ago, the un eceee, which is a un body that works, there's 60 member countries that are part of this. They, one of the things they do is harmonized regulations across different countries and, and part of the part of that is harmonized automotive regulations say automotive safety regulations. So, they, they passed a regulation for what we call level three conditionally automated cars. So these are cars, that you can take your eyes off the road, and hands off the wheel, under certain conditions, but then you also have to be prepared to retake control within about 10 seconds if if the vehicle tells you to. And the regulation states that you can only do this on divided highways, geo fenced divided highways at speeds up to 60 kilometers or 37 miles an hour. And there has to be a driver monitor system and all that. And so countries are gradually you know, member un EC member countries are gradually deploying those regulations, they're, they're taking the global regulation, and adapting their own whatever their current regulations are to fit that. And so that's what the UK is doing. You know, it's basically a traffic jam pilot system. You know, if you're stuck in traffic on the highway, stop and go traffic, you can turn that on, and you can sit back and relax and do your email or text or something you know, can't climb in the backseat and take a nap What do you think you got any interest in something like that?

Nicole Wakelin  47:01  
I know I think it I mean it sounds like a good idea but I think it's not really cool until it can do its fees more than 37 miles an hour like the it's so it's just like he said it's just a traffic jam aid at the moment you know, it's not something that's really going to let until I can I don't know sit in the backseat read a book or take a nap it won't really feel like I'm in a self driving car. It'll just feel like I'm in something that helps me drive and make sure I don't hit that road cap that rave in the road or whatever and you know, helps but doesn't really drive for me unless it can drive for me all the time. I'm still gonna be paying 100% attention because I'm not gonna know that moment when it's gonna need me so it doesn't really feel like a self driving car.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:45  
I'm glad you'll be paying attention because there's a there's a guy that was just arrested in the Bay Area for riding in the backseat of his Tesla

Nicole Wakelin  47:55  
you see I can't do that because he cuz he was like you just know they go it needs you it's a crate it needs me let me climb from the backseat but no I need it to not need me or or the road has my full 100% attention for me there's no halfway either I am driving or you don't need me to drive anymore there's not this like wait a minute No, no, no no. Either need me are you

Roberto Baldwin  48:17  
that's that's sort of the debate that a lot of automakers are having for a while was whether or not they wanted to go to level three or just skip level three and go directly to level four level five because level three requires you not to be totally paying attention but to have to take over and so you you you end up with we already have complacency with level two and level like two plus or whatever you want to call autopilot and supercruise where especially with with autopilot there's no end car monitoring of the person other than holding the steering wheel and you know adding a little bit of torque to the steering wheel. So we already have issues with complacency on that if you have this level three system I feel like people you just can't trust people without

Sam Abuelsamid  48:59  
some sort. I think you can stop right there you just can't trust people

Roberto Baldwin  49:04  
Yeah, and I think level three is you know I enjoy like a BMW has something similar to this where you start to pay attention but you can take your hands off the wheel like supercruise up to I think I think it's probably 37

Sam Abuelsamid  49:17  
yeah seven Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  49:18  
yeah so you can you know you're in traffic I get stuck in traffic a lot when I have to go into the city if I could I guess Check Twitter which I you know, while instead while I was doing that I guess that would be better as opposed to watching the road but I'm always going to be watching the road just because that's you know, I I've been in enough Tesla's I've been you know, where they just did crazy things in in autopilot mode. I have no idea how this person got in the back of their car. They got arrested but they're sure if whatever

Sam Abuelsamid  49:49  
he claims to have done like 40,000 miles that way.

Roberto Baldwin  49:54  
Fourth from the day he claims probably a lot of things. That's happening. You're an idiot.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:59  
Yeah. No, I want headlines.

Nicole Wakelin  50:01  
So I look at it like you know, when you're saying you have to take over even like you're checking, say you're checking Twitter or whatever. And the car is now like, go ahead, check your Twitter, I'm fine. I got this, the minute it doesn't, you know, it's that that like, if you're immersed in what you're doing holding your phone, reading your book, in whatever not paying attention thing that you're not paying attention to suddenly have the car demand your attention. There is that that brief moment where you're sort of doing that Wait, what what what do I need to look at? Is it from the front? Is it from the back? What's happening? So if there's that sort of emergency reaction type thing that you're required to do, you're given up a couple of precious seconds, where your mind is like, Where's the danger and you don't know where you're looking? So I feel like I need to be looking because I'm gonna look at my driver's side window. I know it's coming from the right and now I have not done the right thing and the truck has hit me or whatever. I feel like you're, I just feel like a no, I need to be paying attention to driving until it can say like, I will get you out of the way that backtrack barreling towards you. Yeah, I want to be focused on what the road is doing and what what the car is doing. I wouldn't be able to relax and read the book. I'd still be like with one eye watching what was going on. You're always

Roberto Baldwin  51:08  
you're always looking left and right look

Nicole Wakelin  51:10  
like look really shifty. Now like, I'm really nervous because I can't really focus on like, Wait is a car okay?

Roberto Baldwin  51:17  
Yeah, driver, that driver monitoring with cameras, make sure your eyes are on the road. And I still feel like we should probably just skip level three.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:26  
I agree. But unfortunately, automakers are gonna do it. Anyway. They're, they're doing it. So I don't have to deal with it

Roberto Baldwin  51:32  
out. He tried to do it a couple years ago. And then they were like, Oh, wait, no one will let this.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:37  
Put the hardware in. But they never actually enabled the software to do it. Yeah, because it wasn't legal. But Mercedes is doing it this year on the S Class. And there's, there's a few others, GM is going to launch ultra cruise probably in 2023, which is likely to be an L three system. There's a bunch of others. A BMW is doing it on the IX, they're gonna have a level three system on there. So we'll see. Have either of you ever driven the Caterham seven or a lotus seven for that matter?

Roberto Baldwin  52:14  
I have not. And it makes me sad that I have not.

Nicole Wakelin  52:17  
I also have not also it makes me sad Roberto that we have not driven that. Now

Sam Abuelsamid  52:22  
I have not driven one either. But I would love to drive one. I've seen lots of them at car shows and cars and coffee and stuff like that. But I've I've never had the opportunity to drive a seven. And you know, for those not familiar with the seven, you know, this was a car that was originally designed in the early 1960s might have actually been in the late 50s BY COLLIN Chapman as the Lotus seven, and Lotus built them for a long time up until the early 70s. which point they decided to stop. And they sold all the tooling to another British company called Caterham, who has continued to build them ever since. This is you know, basically like a 1950s, late, late 50s, early 60s era, you know, racecar you know, it's a it's a very tiny little roadster front engine roadster, really ridiculously light. Beautiful, it looks so cool. It is a cool car. And over the years, they've put in many different engines in there. And, you know, because it's so light, you actually don't need a ridiculously powerful engine to make these things really, really fast. And, you know, when load is built them, they actually sold them as kits. So you could buy a seven kit and assemble it yourself and Caterham I think still sells them as kits or you can buy it fully built and cater them is now working on developing an electric powertrain for this thing. But um, you know, I'll be really curious to see how they managed to electrify this thing and keep the character of a seven because you know, I think I think they only weigh about less than 1500 pounds. And you know, putting any any number of any decent size battery in there for a decent size range, although really given the nature of the seven is probably not a car you want to take on long road trips anyway

Nicole Wakelin  54:18  
right? You're not going to meet this you're not going to need this you know 350 400 mile range no one's no one's doing that. So you could have a smaller battery in a smaller range and it probably wouldn't make any people upset

Sam Abuelsamid  54:30  
are 2530 kilowatt hour battery in there give you 100 miles and that that's probably going to be more or less how you're gonna want to do Yeah, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  54:37  
that is that is actually one of my dreams. I just want 100 mile convertible. That's it. Yeah, I just wanna drive around town, maybe cruise into the city every once in a while. drive around the roads up here. 100 miles range convertible something just a tool around.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:55  
My Miata. Do I take it out? You know, drive around for a couple hours? Yeah. Come back, go nowhere in particular, just just to drive, you know,

Roberto Baldwin  55:03  
strive in the drive, yep, a quarter milk or something, I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:10  
I do do that sometimes you take it over to fresh time to grab some milk. If I run our milk in the morning,

Nicole Wakelin  55:14  
that's all it'll sit in the Miata is the thing. That's all you got room for its milk or eggs, not both.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:22  
I can put both milk and

Roberto Baldwin  55:25  
milk and eggs. And I could

Nicole Wakelin  55:27  
only have six things of eggs, you can't get a fold.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:34  
Sticking with the electric theme, now, the big news of the week, the Ford F 150. Lightning. So this is this is coming out mid 2022, roughly about a year, a little more than a year, just over a year from now. It This is the electric f150 that Ford has been promising for a while now. They, they actually released a video of a prototype, I guess about a year ago, showing it towing a 1 million pound train, you know, at least you know, about 100 feet or so. But yesterday, as we record this, I went out to Ford's roamio Proving Grounds here in Michigan, and had a chance to actually ride in this thing and check it out and learn all about it. And yeah, I was I was a little concerned. You know, earlier when Ford announced the transit, and they announced that it was only gonna have a range of 127 miles. You know, and this is the the electric version of the big transit cargo van. And, you know, at the time, Ford said, you know, that they talked to, you know, transit owners, transit operators, and you have to ask them, you know, what do they need, you know, figured out, you know, and looking at the telemetry data from the vehicles, you know, figure out how they use them, how much battery they need to have in this thing, you know, to make it useful to them. And, you know, it turns out, you know, I mean, most, most people by transits are, you know, fleet operators, you know, delivery companies and stuff like that, you know, they're usually operating within a limited geographic area, they're not driving long distances, and 127 miles turned out to be sufficient, because it turns out that most transits drive about 75 miles a day. And I was a little concerned that they were going to do something similar with the F 150. And, you know, basically just do kind of a simple conversion of F 150. You know, pull out the EcoBoost engine and you know, shoving a battery in a motor. And, you know, make it kind of a, you know, a compliance thing, you know, mostly for like landscapers and things like that. Turns out, they actually did a whole lot more. I mean, this is almost an entirely new truck. That looks like an F 150 has some different styling on it. The bodywork is the exterior, the exterior skin is all unique to make it more a little more aerodynamic, will smoother, and different lighting and everything. But the entire frame is also unique, it's completely it's a completely new frame that's different from the gas and diesel f 150s. has the same mounting points for the cab and the bed because the cabinet bed structures the same. But you know, I mean, this is, you know, this is a real f150 you know, it's got everything that you expected an F 150 come standard with dual motor, four wheel drive, 563 horsepower, 775 foot pounds of torque. On every single one, there's no rear wheel drive version, there's two different battery sizes, 230 mile range and 300 mile range. And they'll have four trim levels from the base work truck, the XSLT, the platinum and the limited. And it's going to start at $40,000 for the work truck. And you know, it only comes as a crew cab. And, you know, so the work truck is going to be basically equivalent to the the standard Excel. And if you price out a gas engine XL crew cab with four wheel drive, that's $42,500. So this thing is actually cheaper than a gas and the equivalent gas f150 has about twice as much power and three times as much torque and almost twice as the towing capacity of the 3.3 liter V six and the XL for less money. And if it's still if you still have tax incentives available when it comes out. It'll be even cheaper than that you barely get it for like $30,000 and they did a lot of really cool things with this thing. Like the the if you get the extended range battery, it's got it comes with it's got two onboard AC chargers and it comes with an ADF wall box for charging this thing. So you get that for free, you just have to get it installed in your garage. And what else Oh, it has the pro power on board system that you have on the the other 2021 F 150s. So the base setup is 2.4 kilowatt output with I think six AC, one 120 volt outlets, including two in the front. And there's, by the way, there's a front front trunk. And there's an optional 9.6 kilowatt version that comes with 11 outlets. So you get

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:37  
to only 11

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:38  
outlets in the front, two in the cab, six more 120 volt outlets in the bed and a 240 volt outlet. And so while we were there, they, they had a whole bunch of stuff hooked up, they had a cement mixer, and an air compressor and a whole bunch of shop lights and a stereo and a miter saw all running at the same time off this thing. And it was only drawing about four kilowatts. So this thing's got a lot of power available. And on top of that, they also have a feature that they're calling pro backup, or pro power backup, I think I can't remember the exact branding off the top of my head. But basically what it is, if you if you get that feature, they've got a partnership with sunrun, which is a company that does solar installations, and you get an inverter that you can install in your garage. And it's got a CCS DC charging outlet plug in, and you can use that you can get 9.6 kilowatts out of the truck that feeds back into your house, or your business or whatever, when if your power goes out. So you can basically pretty much power your whole house off of this thing for up to three days.

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:01  
Ah, that would be cool. Okay, so

Roberto Baldwin  1:02:03  
is it really just Hyundai and Ford now that has vehicle to grid now or vehicle to infrastructure?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:10  
Well, the Hyundai system is actually what they're doing. They have just it's more like the pro power system where it's basically just a power take off, or they've got an outlet that you can power stuff off of. So it's not it won't actually power your home

Roberto Baldwin  1:02:24  
doesn't go back into the charging system at

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:27  
Nissan on the leaf. The leaf actually has support for vehicle, their vehicle to home setup, and, but it's through the chademo outlet. And there are products in Japan that you can get you know that basically a box that you can hook up to your house and plug in and the inverter that Ford is offering through sunrun is a smart inverter that it'll automatically switch so as soon as your power goes out, it'll automatically switch to drawing power from the truck. And the the Nissan system does the same thing but nobody's ever offered a box for it in the US market.

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:04  
That's actually really cool that you can power your house I just think about all the people who have generators here for when we have power outages which we frequently get during the winter when the you know, snow is heavy enough to take down lines, and you rarely need it for more than a short time. You know, the power is not generally out for three days straight it has happened but that's really unusual. Normally, it's like Oh, you got two or three hours you got five or six hours you don't have power would be really nice to just think well we can leave the truck plugged in. And that'll keep the house toasty and it'll keep the food from going back in the fridge. And that would be that's that's hugely appealing to someone who has had to deal with no power for a few few hours at a time in the winter.

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:44  
Yeah, and in Northern California especially because of the pg&e will turn off power for daytime during the summer and it's all because we have because they don't want to start a fire like they do every year so yeah so they you you you'll be you know you'll be off the grid for a few days sometimes you know people you'll hear from you know friends who are 4876 hours we are right next to a switch to a station to like one of the substations so are we are one block from having our power shops we've never had our packs wow which is good for me because I work from home but yeah, it's it's it's a it yeah and for

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:22  
for situations you know where you've got rolling blackouts where they might shut it off for a few hours at one location and shift to another location for a few hours and so on. You know that that ability to automatically switch back and forth so that you know as soon as when the power goes out, it'll start taking power from the car and then when it comes back on it'll automatically switch and start recharging you're recharging the truck again. And what you know they've got there's a thing in the in the menus in the truck, you can set a minimum to allow to go down to so that we at least you know 50 or 75 miles of range or whatever whatever amount of range you want, so

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:00  
it's not like you can clean you out. And then suddenly you go to get in the truck. It's like, I have no battery. Yeah, no,

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:05  
I wouldn't be bad, especially if the fire happens to happen.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:09  
Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot a lot of neat features like that. The, the, the front trunk, you know, because, you know, this thing is shaped like an F 150. You know, it's, there's a big space in there, you know, it's actually 14.1 cubic feet, for the front trunk. When they opened it up, they had two golf bags in there. But I mean, you know, this is the size of a good size trunk, you know, on a regular car.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:33  
That's the funny thing, like you can normally see the frogs, and they're these tiny little things. So like an add on thing. It's like, Oh, you can, you can't even carry on in them. Like they're very, very tiny. It's like, no, this thing is, it's huge, you have a huge space. So you said bigger than the average, bigger than some of the trunks you'll find on a typical sedan. So it's like that is that's a significant amount of additional cargo that you can lock down and, you know, keep inside and keep safe. That's kind of Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:58  
they've got hooks in there and cargo nets, you know, so you can, you can put your groceries in there and keep them restrained. So they're not sliding around, and there's a little there's a tray in the front part of it, there's a cover, you can lift it off and stick it in there as a partition. And then there's a drain just like there's a namaki front trunk. So you can use it, you can fill it with ice, or, you know, if you strap your wet gear, fill it with shrimp, you know, have your have your tailgate parties in there. Although you know, because it's electric. You know, what you can also do is you can just you know, stick a mini fridge in the bed and just plug it in and

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:35  
filling your funk with ice. Come on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:37  
You can fill the front with ice from there, but you can stick the beers in the fridge.

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:41  
Okay, fair enough. All right,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:43  
guys.

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:44  
Or you can use the ice for a blender and you can have mixed drinks.

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:48  
There we go. Look at all these interesting things we thought

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:51  
through and you have more than enough power to drive the blender. So

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:55  
you have enough power to drive the blender. You have the eyes, you have all the space. Yeah, he's got yet everything.

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:01  
He missed the mark Sam when they had like miter saws and all this practical stuff, whatever they should have had was like a blender. So Margarita is and like, Oh, now I get it.

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:12  
I had the f150 with the power, I forget what's called power thing. And we hooked up a television, Nintendo Switch and a toaster oven. And we made a little pizza bagels playing Mario Kart out in the middle of the field. Did they tell you what sort of what architecture is built is a 400 800 volt it's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:37  
a 400 volt system. So charging 150 kilowatt charging, you know, so it'll, it'll fully charge 150 kilowatts in about an hour. You know, and they they're not saying right now what the battery is. But from from what they said, you know, we figured out that it's probably roughly about 150 kilowatt hour battery for the extended range and probably somewhere around 110 or so for the the standard range version. It's Eau de the suspension, it's called spring suspension, all around independent suspension on the rear, you get the motor at each end, semi trailing arm rear suspension, which I thought was was unusual, it wasn't wasn't what I was expecting there. You don't find too many of those anymore. What else see the Oh, you know, it's got the the optional the 15 and a half inch touchscreen that's in the Maki you get the same one with the big volume knob on there is available in the in the lightning and sink for a and all that good stuff. Oh, they talked about charging and range estimation. And they're they're enhancing the the range estimation system in there. Because you know, one of the one of the things, one of the big challenges is with, you know, knowing how much real range you actually have left. And a couple of weeks ago, Ford announced a new feature that's available on the F 150 on the regular f 150s. Now this smart scale system, where they put some sensors under the bed, like between the bed and the frame rail that you can use when you're loading up the truck, you know, you you actually know how much weight you're putting in there. So you don't overload it, which is a really cool feature. Yeah, so you know, the trucks got a 2000 pound payload, you only put 2000 pounds of cement in there, or whatever your whatever you're loading up. And there's also a smart trailer hitch as well. So you know that the trailer tongue weight isn't too high. Well, what they're doing, they're going to have the same those same features on the lightning, but they're taking the information from that and incorporating that into the range estimation. So you know, if you're driving around with the truck empty, you know, you don't have that load in there. You're going to be able to go farther. You start looking thing up. And then you know, it'll know how much load you've put in there. And it will adjust the range estimation. And it also cool. It also adjusts the range estimation based on individual driver profiles. So in sync for, you know, you can have driver profiles tied to each key fob, or to your phone if you're using the phone as a key system. So when you get in, you know, based on the fobs you're holding, it'll load up your profile, or you can select it manually, if you want. And then it keeps track of the way that you each individual driver drives, you know, so somebody is a lead foot and somebody else's more efficient, it will, depending on which driver profiles loaded up, it will customize the range estimation based on who's driving it. Oh, and and one other thing, you know, because this thing can tow 10,000 pounds. You know, one of the problems, you know, back a few years ago, when Tesla introduced the Model X, you know, I said, you can tell what this thing, Dan Edmonds who used to be@edmunds.com, no relation to the family that owned the site. He did a bunch of range tests, or it did a bunch of trailer towing tests with a Model X, towing a trailer around, you know, he went to Arizona and a few other places. And one of the challenges that he always found, if you've ever gone to an Eevee charging station, they're all all, they're almost all set up now, you know, pull in bays, you know, because you're usually sitting there for, you know, 30 minutes an hour, however long. And they're not designed like gas stations, you know, we're designed to drive through. But if you're towing a trailer, that's a real problem. And so, Ford is working with, you know, working with some of the charging network partners like electrify America to add drive through charging bays at some of their stations. So, he is actually doing first ones this year. There's a station. I think, again, Baker, California at somewhere between LA and Las Vegas. They're putting in a drive thru charging Bay there for people towing a trailer, and you're doing a couple of other locations as well to start with and then they'll they'll expand it from there. So you know, if you're towing a trailer, you don't have to unhook your trailer and then pull into the bed to charge. So it'll be a lot more convenient. Cool.

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:30  
Yeah. That's something you wouldn't think of as a rule, but yeah, it's good that they thought of it because once you have that truck that actually has some capability and utility, you do not want to have to back up every time you charge. No,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:42  
no, definitely.

Roberto Baldwin  1:12:44  
Tesla says they're supposed there they are. They said, Who knows what they're doing now. But they said that after a cyberattack because they were like, Oh, you can tow things they're like, how? Because you hit the back every Tesla up until its spot like what trailer? Do I hook my trailer, leave it down the street and then pull in? Like, oh, we're gonna have drive thru superchargers and you know how quickly Tesla is able to just drop a supercharger somewhere. It's, it's pretty impressive. So I feel like they're going to but I mean, cybertruck I feel like

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:13  
a truck like

Roberto Baldwin  1:13:17  
they still need more than the one truck that Ilan drives around.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:20  
Yeah, that the cybershot is probably gonna have to, you know, that's probably not going to be out until some at least middle of next year anyway, and maybe longer than that. You know,

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:29  
you think it'd be out by the middle of next year, at least. Okay. Hold up, Nicole.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:39  
We did have a couple of Twitter questions about the F 150 lightning. Tom Goble asked how much how far how fast so you know, how far 230 or 300 miles for the standard and extended range batteries so similar to Maki, but with bigger batteries because this thing's heavier. How much starting price 40 grand, fully loaded limited with all the available options they said will be somewhere around probably close to 90, which is not that much more than what you would pay for a gas or diesel f150 limited and how fast while with two motors and 563 horsepower at the moment, at least until the Raptor r shows up. This is actually the most powerful f150 ever. And during the demo I got it did zero 60 in about four seconds. So it's pretty quick. Can I get a stepside bed? No.

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:41  
No, no. No one should have a step side.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:44  
Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:45  
I have I have I have I hate step side beds and I know a lot of people hate me for hating stepside beds but I don't understand them. I don't know why they exist. Because your space. No they don't. Then the removing space from the bed. A truck His utility vehicle, and we're like, well, I'm removing space. Why? Well, you see those two little steps right there? Well, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:10  
It's sort of kind of looks like a 1950s pickup truck.

Unknown Speaker  1:15:13  
Yeah, I guess.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:17  
Let's see price range charge times charging time. So this was one of the interesting things they mentioned. You know, because the battery is bigger, you know, obviously, the bigger your batteries, the longer it takes to charge, the standard range version, the standard, the 230 mile range version, they, it has a single AC onboard AC charger, for charging the battery. And they said their goal was, you know, that you should be able to fully charge the thing, and under eight hours overnight. And so, for the long range version, in order to meet that, they had to add a second charger on there. And that's why they also give you the 80 amp, which the 19.2 kilowatt wallbox to charge it with. And that will charge it in under eight hours. At you know, at home with that wallbox and then up from from 150 kilowatt DC fast charger, you can do it in about an hour for a full charge. See, what else was there? pro power onboard? Yep, it does have that, as I mentioned, and 9.2 or 9.6 kilowatts available from 11 outlets, you can end with a 240 volt outlet on there, you can even hook up your MIG welder, you know, so weld stuff up, they kept, you know, they deliberately kept the box size, the same box dimensions the same as any other f150. Because they expect a lot of the customers for this thing are going to be commercial customers that are going to want to take advantage of the reduced operating costs of this thing. And so, you know, a lot of those customers have various upfit gear that they put in their trucks, you know, whether it's a landscape or you know, tool racks or, you know, luck contractors, whatever. And, you know, they often you know, when they buy new trucks, you know, when they retire a truck and get a new truck, they'll take that gear and take it off the old truck and put it on the new one. And they can do the same thing with this one. They can take the stuff off their old truck, put it on here, no problem at all. Leave the generator at home. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:29  
maybe they just left pays for their mini fridge.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:32  
Exactly. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah, I mean, that's that's all the questions I think we've got for right now. Anything else you guys want to know about the lightning? reorder start on the 19th? When it's unveiled $100 for pre order?

Nicole Wakelin  1:17:55  
How many pre orders you think they're gonna get right off the bat? What did that cyber truck had like a quarter of a million in like 2.5 seconds? Do you think they're gonna get a ton of them?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:05  
I think they'll get a lot. I don't, I don't know that they'll get that many. I don't think they'll get that many. No, no, but one thing that I did ask about, you know, they're, they've been building a separate facility next to the rouge plant in Dearborn, where they build f 150s. You know, their electric manufacturing center, I think it's called. And for, for that one, you know, I was assuming that what they were going to do there was just do the sub assembly of the skateboard for the same and then ship that inside and, and, you know, made it up with the body on the main line. But in fact, that's actually a complete separate assembly line that they're using for that. And they're all they're going to build there is the the lightning, that's Wow, it's got a completely separate factory just for the lightning.

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:54  
Well, when the Ford F 150, like prints money, like it does for Ford, you can sort of Yeah, let's just make another another factory

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:01  
factory more money.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:02  
It's fine. Now, I think I think this thing's gonna do really well, you know, because it does all of the things that you expect an F 150 to do. And it does other stuff to like, you know, like the power capabilities. And, you know, it's, I think that, I think that there's a lot I mean, there's gonna be a lot there's going to be customers, those that tell a lot, all the time, will probably not want to get this one right now, at least not this first generation one. You'll probably still want to go with the diesel. Because, you know, you can go farther with it. You know, you don't you get there's you're not going to have the the challenges of charging it when you're when you've got a trailer hooked up. But and that's why you know, Ford is going to continue to offer those for a while. But I think for a lot of customers, you know, this is going to be this is going to be a great option. You know, I mean, I know living here in Michigan, you know on Friday afternoons if you hit I 75. Heading north from Metro Detroit on a Friday afternoon, you will just see a train of pickup trucks heading north to Northern Michigan. You know, in the summertime, they're hauling jet skis. In the wintertime, they're hauling snowmobiles, and you know, Sunday afternoons, same thing had heading back the other way, heading back towards the Metro Detroit, southbound and there's there are three electrify America stations along the way in northern Michigan, in Gaylord and Bay City and I forget where the other one Cadillac, I think, you know, so, you know, going basically along the routes that people take in Michigan to go, you know, to go up north on the weekends, you'll be able to stop and charge these things up. And I would be shocked if electrify America doesn't install, you know, drive thru chargers at most of those are all three of those stations. By the time the f150 comes out.

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:58  
Well, we have the same thing. We have the if you're going to mount the White Mountains Lakes region in New Hampshire, which is people from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and even a little further south, there is a spot to do charging that's like where everyone goes before it splits depending on the direction you're heading is Tesla superchargers. And you know, just generic Evie chargers. I can imagine doing the same thing because it's similar situation. All you see are people with boats and campers and all sorts of stuff hooked up to the back. And that would be the ideal place for them just be able to drive in and out rather than the whole backing up thing. Well, I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:30  
think that's it for this week. Anything else? Anything else you guys want to add?

Unknown Speaker  1:21:35  
I got nothing.

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:36  
Sorry. I dropped in last week. Yeah, whatever.

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:38  
Roberto. We were awake. I just want to let you know we got some coffee. We were ready to go. No, Roberto.

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:44  
That's okay. We're fine. Yeah, I am on the Pacific side of the country. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:49  
It's still early for you now.

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:52  
Now it's late. Now I hate the phrase because because of me recording later. So I'm like, oh, gosh, it's getting late. I'm tired. You

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:57  
got to leave the house at two in the morning.

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:59  
I had to leave the house in the morning to get a flight no problem chairs to sleep. I'm good. I'm good. It's cool. The sun's

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:03  
still out where I live. I can see

Unknown Speaker  1:22:06  
sunshine and be quiet

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:09  
down here about an hour and a half ago. So. Alright, well thanks, everybody. And we will talk to you next week.

Unknown Speaker  1:22:17  
Bye guys.

Unknown Speaker  1:22:25  
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