Sam Abuelsamid  0:01  
Coming up on episode 195 of wheel bearings, I'll be talking about my thoughts on the 2021 Ram 1500 trx. Nicole will share her thoughts on the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. Robbie drives the Daimler eM2 and goes for a ride in the Daimler e-Cascadia semi, both electric of the announcement of the new Timberline sub brand for Ford's SUVs and Citroen comes back to the US market for its free to move car sharing program. All coming up next.

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Sam Abuelsamid  0:51  
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

Welcome to Episode 195 of wheel bearings and seems that Robbie is still sleeping late on the west coast. So I'm not sure where he is. Hopefully he will join us at some point along here. But I'm Sam obul salmon from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:36  
And I am Nicole wakelin. And this week, let's go with sports car market because I just started writing a column. Yeah, excellent. Yeah. Alright, so

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45  
the call. Yeah, we've been driving this week,

Nicole Wakelin  1:48  
I have been driving the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid, which I like. Okay, my favorite thing, two things about this that are gonna seem like this silly things. But it's really a sexy looking car like hybrid used to be kind of boring. They have really beautiful wheels on the Scarlett,

Unknown Speaker  2:04  
or worse or worse than boring. Worse than boring.

Nicole Wakelin  2:07  
They were like, yeah, they were miserable cars a few years back. But this one looks really good. Like, it really does look like a good car. I was sitting next to an Audi at Home Depot yesterday. And from the back. I'm like, you know what, these both look pretty cool for the back. And also inside, I have this pet peeve when there is no room to put anything on the center, like in the center console, like you can put like not even a spot for you to toss the key. And I know that people have purses or whatever I don't I like carry my key in my wallet, my hands, I can't put anything down there. And as soon as you use the cup holder, that's the moment I go to get my Starbucks. And now I'd have to take out at I don't have anywhere to put things. I have like a cup holder and there's a little slot between the two. So you can put your phone in there. Then there's a spot in the front where you can stick your wallet and your key and whatever junk you have. I love the design of the inside of this car so you can put your stuff somewhere. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:59  
I think if I recall correctly on the hybrid, there's also a space under the console as well, right? Yes, there's

Nicole Wakelin  3:04  
there's room galore in this car. And that was like the first thing I noticed because I sit down. And also you know it's 2021 it's the time of COVID. So I have a little tiny little bag that has masks in it. So if I forget about ask or my husband forgets a basket my kids do that just comes with every years. It's the it's the spares of air and it's not like I can leave him in the glove box because it's a press car. So I have to take it with me each week. That little little bag have a little spot to sit. So that's nice. He seemed like little silly, like not important things. But when you live with a car every day, they do start to grate on your nerves when they're not right. And yeah, well done today. I like

Sam Abuelsamid  3:44  
I think this is one of the advantages that we've gotten from vehicles moving away from mechanical shift leavers, you know, where you have the shifter that's tied by a cable to the transmission to just a push button electronic system, because now all of a sudden, you just have that little, that little push button array there. And there's nothing underneath it. Right. So all of a sudden, that opens up all kinds of space to do other things in and around the console.

Nicole Wakelin  4:11  
Yeah, but even if it's even if you have an actual shift or like people have stuff like you need to put your you need to put your keys somewhere you need to put your wallet somewhere. I don't understand these that have like, I don't have a huge phone. It's an average size phone and I suppose like I have nowhere to put it so I'm like shoving in my pocket or then you open up the little storage thing. Even in there. I've had some cards just like literally I can't fit my phone in there. If I can't fit my phone in that center storage thing. You haven't done enough it doesn't you know, it's like, account for the fact that people have little things that they need to carry with them and give us a spot to put our little stuff

Sam Abuelsamid  4:49  
because everybody needs a place for their stuff as the late great George Carlin would say

Nicole Wakelin  4:53  
yes, everybody needs a place for their stuff and the Hyundai Sonata has a place for your stuff that maybe It's nice to drive I enjoy driving it. I mean, it's, you know, the first hybrid I ever drove was a civic way, way back when it was like civic or Prius where your only choices. So I remember I always have that memory of what hybrids were back then. And it felt like you were driving like a lawnmower engine that would like we like go right through the hood of the car at any moment. I love that this you don't really know you're driving a hybrid until suddenly you don't hear the engine. You know, that's that's your only clue when it's very quiet. You don't feel the transitions. You don't notice it? which I feel like is how it should be. You shouldn't always be aware when that engine turns on and off.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:41  
Yeah, well, one of the things when the Hyundai first introduced their original Sonata, hybrid 2010, I think at that point, they were one of the first automakers to go to this kind of layout using a traditional step gear step ratio transmission, you know, so it had a conventional six speed automatic, paired with the electric motor and the engine, unlike the the Toyota hybrids, and the Fords, and the Honda's that had sort of an electronic CVT, continuously variable thing, where, you know, in those, like you talked about, you know, you get that buzzing from the engine, because you get on the accelerator, the engine revs up to its torque peak, and then just sits there, you know, that's what they call it motorboating effect that is really kind of unpleasant to drive, you know, and even even a non hybrid with a CVT, a lot of cvts behave like that it's great for Plus,

Nicole Wakelin  6:36  
it's why cvts get a bad rap, and rightly so because they just, they just don't sound nice. Nobody wants to listen to that. And I mean, they're better. They're, they're getting better. I mean, each iteration, each time an OEM comes up with an order, it feels like they're a little bit better, and they do a little bit more work to sort of dampen that sound. So even if it's doing that you're not hearing it quite so much, you know, driving the car riding inside of it. But yeah, that's that's never what you never want to, you never want to hear your engine in a way, or you're working that you think, is something breaking, am I doing? Am I pushing on that accelerator too hard, am I about to kill my car, and that's what they kind of sound like sometimes, I don't like that. So I appreciate that. This just feels and sounds like driving a normal, you know, a regular gas power train with you know, you think just have a regular automatic transmission in there, you have no idea that there's any hybrid stuff happening there. till you're aware of that, like the sudden silence, which is a nice silence and it doesn't even have a particularly it has the sound that it makes you're talking about this before the show, like they have to make a sound under a certain speed so that you don't accidentally, you know, hit pedestrians, the idea being the pedestrians won't won't hear you if the car makes absolutely no sound, and they're more likely to step in front of your car by accident. This will make a sound that's I'm okay with the sound. It's okay. Some of them are annoying, I still haven't found anything as annoying is the internal beep that the Prius makes in reverse, which makes me want to, like stab my eyes out. It's so annoying. I don't understand that. But this one isn't bad. So

Sam Abuelsamid  8:12  
yeah, it's fairly subtle. It's, you know, it's just enough that people outside the vehicle are going to hopefully notice it. You know, if you're trolling around a parking lot, or something like that, you know, somebody's low vision, you know, to alert them that you know, or, or even touching, even somebody that can see is to alert them, you know, if they're not paying attention, you know that there's there's a vehicle approaching? Because you don't have the sound of the engine. What, what kind of fuel economy Did you get out of this one?

Nicole Wakelin  8:41  
I looked yesterday, and I've been driving, I tape and driving mostly, like city driving. I haven't been on the highway that much. And I think I was averaging somewhere around 44 and change. So not bad. I mean, I think that's pretty good. I forget I'm trying to look at the official, what do they say they say 47 combined is what the official number is. And I think it was like 44 144 last time I looked so I'm in the zone for that. So pretty close.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:09  
You're slacking them because I think when I when I drove it last year, I got closer to 50

Nicole Wakelin  9:14  
Oh, Amy and I got cuz I wasn't trying I was just driving it like a normal person I was trying to hyper bio.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:23  
I mean, if you can, if you can get 44 miles per gallon out of you know, a pretty good sized family sedan like that. You know, that also happens to have halfway decent performance. Yeah, that's, you know, I'd say that's fine. You know, and, and the reality is, if you you know, as you go up in mpg because of the way mpg works out, and you look at how much fuel you're actually saving every additional one mile per gallon you get, you're reducing the total, you're reducing the amount of fuel that you're saving. So like when you go from 10 to 20 miles per gallon, you're saving a lot more fuel than if you go from 30 to 40, or 40 to 50. And so the difference in how much fuel you actually consume, how much you use over the course of a year, with, you know, with a car that's getting 45 Yeah, if you're getting 44 or 45 miles per gallon versus 50. It's, it's inconsequential, right, you're talking, you know, probably less than, you know, 50 $75 a year worth of fuel. So it's, it's a, it's a very small saving. So it's, you know, if anything in the 40s, you think you're doing great and good. And, and it,

Nicole Wakelin  10:41  
I guess it'd be more important right now, if you're driving a hybrid, because what I think it was yesterday, there was that hack of that one pipeline. I don't know if you saw that news. So supposedly, it supplies 40 something percent of the fuel to the east coast, and the pipeline was hacked, and everyone's panicking about fuel prices. So we'll see if next week we're going, Oh, God, Oh, God. Oh, God, we don't have gas prices of $10. Again,

Sam Abuelsamid  11:04  
we'll see what happens. Yeah, and, you know, there's been some reports that, you know, we can expect to see higher fuel prices this summer, as well, because, you know, more people are going to be traveling, you know, as they as they get vaccinated, you know, trying to get back to something resembling a normal life. So, you know, having that extra fuel economy will definitely help and, you know, down the road, you know, if we, if we start to see higher fuel taxes or anything like that, you know, it never never hurts to have extra fuel economy.

Nicole Wakelin  11:35  
Exactly. It's a good thing, it puts money back in your pocket one way or the other. Whether you drive a little or a lot it does, it does add up over time. I think what too, you know, so many people have been home for the last year, you know, working at home, not even forget the vacations and stuff just working at home. And you sort of gotten used to whatever your monthly gas bill is, is what it is right now. And hoping everyone goes back to work. It's going to be this shock. What Oh, gosh, I get stuck at the gas station more than once a month to put gas in my car. That's a lot of money.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:04  
Yeah. So in the one that you were driving the, the, the electric motor that's part of the power train isn't the only source of electricity into the battery. It is not you had another feature on there.

Nicole Wakelin  12:18  
Did we also have the solar roof on my Sonata Hybrid, which looks really snazzy, and it was funny, my husband looked at it, and sort of did a double take like what Oh, cool. That's solar, my 17 year old looked at it and said, What's wrong with your roof? Like, it just didn't register at all, but that's what she was looking at. So I mean, it's, it's a cool thing. But I, we were talking about this, again, I don't know how much, you know, we're in New Hampshire, where I get a modest amount of sun, and it's not particularly strong in the month of May. So I don't know how much I'm actually getting in terms of improved fuel economy. But maybe if you lived in California, where the sun was blazing hot, almost every day of the year, and you got full sun no matter where you parked. But that's not the case here. So I think it's kind of it's nifty, but I don't know how much it's helping.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:07  
Yeah, according to Hyundai, if, if the car is parked, you know, in direct sunlight, you know, with the sun shining on that roof, you can fully charged the hybrid battery in about six hours, which means, you know, that six hours will get you about a mile and a half of electric driving. Yeah, which is what we get from a full charge. And if the battery is fully charged, and you put it in Eevee mode, you'll get about a mile and a half of driving. Yeah, because hybrids are not, you know, normal hybrids are not really designed for, you know, electric driving, except for very short distances at lower speeds. You know, it's designed to assist and recapture energy from your braking, things like that. But, you know, the thing is, you know, the roof of the car is not flat. And solar panels are very subject to, you know, actually being angled towards the sun, you know, the, the angle, look, the rays of the sun hit the panel have a huge effect on the efficiency, you know, how much power can generate. And when I had one, I think, you know, I had it parked outside in the, in the sun for a full day, and I think it barely got like, half of half of the charge. Oh, really. And the thing is, there's actually a little meter in the instrument cluster and the digital instrument cluster that shows you the, the, the charging power you're getting from the solar panel, and it's like a little four bar gauge in there. And, you know, as you're driving down the road, you can actually see like, if you're driving, I live in a neighborhood where, you know, we've got lots of trees, and you know, drive under the shade of a tree, you can see it drop, come back up again, when you get in the sunlight when you're when you're out of the shadow. So, you know, it's really more of a gimmick than Anything that's going to get you any significant amount of, of power for driving. But we're where it actually can be interesting. And I can't remember if the if the Sonata can do this or not. I know, previously, in the past, like Toyota has offered a solar panel on the roof and a couple other manufacturers offered rooftop solar panels that could be used just to you know, to power the ventilation system in the car. So when you're parked out in the sun, you know, you can pop the sunroof open or you know, or just, you know, just run the ventilation fan inside, so it doesn't get quite so hot inside the cabin of the car. Yeah, that could be useful.

Nicole Wakelin  15:39  
That would be cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:40  
Yeah. But I don't think the Hyundai system can do that.

Nicole Wakelin  15:45  
I you know, I'm gonna be honest and say, I don't know, I don't think that it does, but don't quote me on that. I could be wrong on that. I don't see anything about that. And if it does, I didn't know that it did that. So there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:56  
So So, you know, solar roofs are cool, but not really that useful on a car. And it also means that if you get the solar roofs you can't get the sunroof.

Nicole Wakelin  16:04  
I know that's a big it's funny, I went to open because we've had some decent weather here. And I went to open the sunroof that doesn't exist. It's like, oh, finally Sunny, and there's no roof on this car that I can open.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:18  
So So how much was that Sonata Hybrid.

Nicole Wakelin  16:21  
I'm slightly chopped off on my form $36,000 and change. So not that and that's for the Sonata Hybrid limited. And I mean, it's got a lot of features. It's it's you feel like it's, you don't feel like there's anything missing on this, you know, you've got a nice comfortable well equipped city and so 36 and change and for what do we say a combined 47 mpg? That's, you know, it's it's a pretty good

Sam Abuelsamid  16:46  
deal. Yeah. You can't complain about that.

Unknown Speaker  16:48  
Yeah, that's,

Sam Abuelsamid  16:48  
I suppose what I would rather drive around in that Sonata Hybrid than in a Prius.

Nicole Wakelin  16:56  
Oh, yeah. I know. I feel like we're knocking Toyota. Sorry, Toyota. But yeah, I

Sam Abuelsamid  17:00  
mean, the current generation Prius actually drives really well. Yes. But it's really hard to look at.

Nicole Wakelin  17:07  
It's this style thing. You know what I feel like I gotta say, I feel like there's like an attitude that comes with praise. Like you drive a Sonata Hybrid. You drive it's not a hybrid. You have a no bata hybrid. No one people might not even notice that you're driving a hybrid. It doesn't scream like I'm a hybrid. I'm green. I'm fuel efficient goby, you get into a Prius. And it's like, oh, yeah, I care about the environment. So I'm buying a Prius. So like, I feel like it's making a statement that way. I'm like,

Sam Abuelsamid  17:34  
virtue signaling. For a long time, that was the thing, especially in California, where people were buying priuses You know, when the Prius was basically the only hybrid you could get, you know, a lot of people who were, you know, wanted to show their green credentials, you know, it would buy a Prius, you know, nowadays, you know, you go to California and you know, priuses or taxi cabs right, you know, and, you know, the Tesla Model threes and model S's Are you know, I think we're past the virtue signaling stage with those now, but you know, the the Prius is now the new Camry of California

Nicole Wakelin  18:11  
it is that's a good way to put it. No, we didn't buy

Sam Abuelsamid  18:13  
not that the Prius I mean, the the Tesla is the Camry of California we

Nicole Wakelin  18:17  
didn't buy the reason we had a Civic Hybrid back when they did that was because my husband at the time didn't want a Prius because like i don't i don't want that sick. I don't want that attitude. I'm not that guy. And that looks good. It looks more normal. He's like I want a normal looking car don't leave like Oh, look at him. He got a Prius he's like no, no, I just have a really long commute and I can't afford gas right now. That's it.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:38  
I had the opposite of

Nicole Wakelin  18:41  
we were we were like almost carbon neutral, not even close with what you were driving.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:47  
It was the anti carbon neutral,

Unknown Speaker  18:48  
the anti carbon neutral Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:50  
And this you know, this vehicle kind of represents the along with one other kind of represents, I think most likely the end of an era. So I had the Ram 1500 trs Crew Cab four by four. This is this is the you know the Ram pickup with the Hellcat VA the supercharged Hellcat VA. And, you know right now, for the moment at least, this is the most powerful and fastest pickup that you can get anywhere full size pickup. Yeah, at least until the Hummer. Evie hits the road this fall. And it has 702 horsepower from the supercharged 6.2 liter V eight. It sounds amazing. I mean, for somebody for anybody who's an automotive enthusiast who likes the sound of great engines. I mean, this thing sounds fantastic. You know, it's got that rumble and roar. It's definitely not something that you're gonna sneak out of the neighborhood early in the morning. Definitely no, it's not like a Ford on the Mustang. A few years ago, they introduced what they call their good neighbor mode. You know for the dual modes. And this is a quiet mode for the exhaust. So right as you're pulling out of your driveway in the morning, or if you're coming in late, you can pop it into quiet mode, it doesn't make quite so much noise. Not on this thing. There's there's nothing, absolutely nothing, nothing tone down about this truck. So this is the TR x is is still anthesis response to the F 150. Raptor. But then, you know, turned up to 13 Yeah, yeah. So you know, the current the previous generation Raptor, and the initial versions of the new one that are not on sale yet. They should, they should be hitting dealerships sometime to spring, US Ford's 4.5 liter EcoBoost 3.5 liter EcoBoost v six you know, with about 450 horsepower, the, you know, the TR axis at over 700 horsepower. It's got these Bilstein remote reservoir dampers on it, it's lifted up, it's got great big tires on it. It's got, you know, the full full boat solution, you know, for off roading, four wheel drive low mode, you know, property in a real four wheel drive system. It had the optional 12 inch Uconnect infotainment system. I love that. And I you know, driving this thing, it's been a couple of years since I drove a raptor. But the thing I remembered about the previous generation Raptor, and I haven't driven the new one yet, but the previous generation Raptor, always felt really soft in the suspension, you know, it's got a lot of wheel travel, you know, it's designed for high speed off road running, but when you're driving it on the street, it just felt kind of soft and sloppy. And you know, the, you know, going around a corner you could feel the body roll, if you hit the brakes, you feel it diving, and it just never felt very confident to me. Yeah, this thing. This has got the same kind of vehicle dynamics and body control wheel control that I experienced with the the Wrangler or the sorry, the gladiator, the gladiator Mojave you know, which was their their first desert rated model, the TR x is not doesn't technically have the desert rating that Jeep Jeep is planning to add to others, but it's got that same kind of feel it's really well controlled. You know, it's it's still comfortable. It doesn't you know, it doesn't pound us you're driving on the street, you know, hitting potholes and things like that, but I took it out, you know, onto some some back roads near me here. You know, some bumpy dirt roads. I didn't have a chance to do any real off roading with it. But, you know, going on the, you know, bumpy dirt roads. You know where we'd had some heavy rain and you know, some pretty good potholes. I did a few launches on there. Zero to 60. And with without launch control in 3.7 seconds with Launch Control turned on 3.4 seconds. This is on a gravel.

Unknown Speaker  23:11  
Oh my gosh.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:13  
Yeah. As I mean this and this this thing weighs three tons. It's a 6000 pound truck empty. Yeah. And yeah, because it's designed for off roading. It's got running boards that are tucked right up against the body. So they're they're really almost useless because you know, they don't stick down for you. If it's a high step up. Not like it. Yeah, Rebecca would not have a good time we

Nicole Wakelin  23:41  
get a dangle from the steering wheel as she tries to pull herself up. Yeah, well, unfortunately,

Sam Abuelsamid  23:44  
I mean, there there are grab handles on both eight pillars on the driver's side and the passenger side. But yeah, it's it's a it's a pretty good step up into this thing. But I mean it drives great, which is characteristic of the Ram 1500 you know, ever since the previous generation when they launched it with coil springs. It's had the best driving dynamics of any pickup truck. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  24:09  
So

Nicole Wakelin  24:10  
I had a chance to drive this too when they launched it back in October. I want to say it was late October last year they did a dry program and they had us take it off road they had us on some twisties it was sort of like in a mountainous area or somewhere in California can't even remember where now but I agree with you about the on road handling that is a big off road truck It is nothing petite or small about it but it handled really well we're on a highway where the speed limits are good, like 55 miles an hour but those big sweeping you know curves you get as you're going along on a mountain and it's very controlled you feel it's surprisingly controlled. And then they have to take it on a dirt track where we really got to push it and catch some air in it. And honestly the thing that was funny you know they had someone in the right seats not like you were driving this on your own and as you you know hit certain speeds they couldn't you at least hit As much so that you catch some error when you come down the other side, you don't even feel it. And like, I'm watching these guys, and I'm saying like, it was I like much lower than I was like, No, that's about what you were doing the same thing. And I'm watching how high they are, and how they're coming down. And like, really, because it didn't feel that way on the inside and the inside you kind of like, oh, like, it's so controlled, and it's so smooth, but I'm watching him for the outside, like, Oh my gosh, bam, you don't feel that on the inside at all. So it was, it was a joy to drive that it was really fun. It was it was it was nice to be able to have a situation where you could, like, I'm not going to do that on my own with a press car, take it off road and jump it like no, but if ram says, Hey, we have this track, we're gonna put a guy in this car with you, we're gonna let you push this and we're gonna make sure that you know what you're doing and you're in, you know, an environment where it's, it's okay for the truck, it's okay for you all that'll work. And it's okay, I'll do it. And if I'm not, I'm not someone who does that every day. And it was so easy to do and so comfortable and just a redonkulous amount of fun. Like I really enjoyed it and what you were saying about the sound of that? Yeah, I'd wake up all the neighbors and I wouldn't care because it just sounds so good. Like, Hey, guys, look what I got for

Sam Abuelsamid  26:13  
five inch tail pipes on the back there. It's It's nuts. You know? And there there is no logical reason for anybody to buy this thing.

Nicole Wakelin  26:21  
No, absolutely not.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:23  
It's you know, it's it's it's ridiculous. But, you know, it's

Nicole Wakelin  26:26  
like stupid unnecessary over the top truck. And I love it.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:32  
Yeah. You know, we you know, we were talking about fuel economy with the the Sonata Hybrid.

Nicole Wakelin  26:39  
So it matched the Sonata. Right? It like did better. Yeah, way better, right? No.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:46  
I barely got 10 miles per gallon. Average.

Nicole Wakelin  26:49  
But we're if you were if you were

Sam Abuelsamid  26:50  
getting ready to 12 combined, I barely got 10.

Nicole Wakelin  26:53  
See you got 10 so worth it to have one. Oh my gosh, that's one, like a third, less than a third of the gas was just stuff but worth it for the fun of driving it.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:03  
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of 33 gallon gas tank in it. So I mean, you know, it's not like you're going to be, you know, filling it up every five minutes. So that that helps. But, yeah, if, if, if you actually, you know, want something to go off roading in. Yeah. And if you're, if you're going off roading, and you should go and rock crawling in trail in tight canyons, and trails, and so on, you know, this thing probably isn't the best choice because it is so big, it's just, you know, it's like five inches wider than a standard RAM, because you've got those big bulging fenders, it's got a wider track. But you know, if there's enough room to fit this thing, you can go pretty much anywhere. I mean, it's got skid plates galore, covering all the important bits on the bottom, big steel skid plates, which is why it weighs 6000 pounds. But you know, and a heavy duty frame and every nail and reinforced frame. And on those big tires, you've got lots of ground clearance, you know, the lots of height approach and departure angles, so that's not a problem. But if you want to get into the tight stuff, you know, something the size of a Wrangler is actually probably a much better choice. Yeah. But you know, if you're, you know, if you wanted to, like go to, you know, racing the Baja 1000 You know, this wouldn't be a terrible choice. Yeah, you know, it could probably handle that with you know, just add a roll cage, and you'd be fine. You know, and,

Nicole Wakelin  28:31  
but you're right on the size because they did have what they have is do is highway driving the track and then they had one very small like bit where we're just climbing up a rocky, you know, slope and they had some spotters there a little left little right, you know how to skate and they were sort of loose, large rocks. And it handled it No problem. But it was this giant swath of rocks. You know, it's, it's, there's nothing on either side. That was good to take part of your car with it, you know, you need a big space and even some of the tight turns as you're going through, it's like, that would not be tight in a smaller vehicle in this you kind of think, okay, they said it can make it through here. So I'm gonna believe that you know, it, it feels

Sam Abuelsamid  29:11  
that power folding mirrors so I mean, you can

Nicole Wakelin  29:14  
tuck those in, but you know, the rest of the truck, but

Sam Abuelsamid  29:17  
fortunately, this you know, the one I had also had the digital camera mirror inside, which is great, because now I can actually see behind me because, again, when you're up so high, you can't you know, anything 20 within 20 feet behind you, you're not going to see it right, you know, at least you know, maybe maybe farther back. So the camera mirror system is great for being able to see what's behind you. There's also you can also turn on at lower speeds below 20 miles an hour, you can turn on the front camera. So you can you know, get a little help maneuvering around. You know, it's not quite like what GM is promising for the Hummer EV where I think it's gonna have something like 18 cameras available so you can see everything underneath and around and I can't wait

Nicole Wakelin  29:56  
to see what that image looks like on the infotainment screen. Like, how are they getting all of those cameras? one cohesive image, like how I don't know how that's gonna work, but it'll be cool to see.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:08  
But, you know, as I said, this, this truck, you know, it starts at $70,000, you know, 69 995 and 17 $100 delivery charge that this is something we talked about previously, as FCA, they're still anthesis delivery charge now is up to 17 $100 on on the trucks and SUVs. So I mean, really, that should be bundled into the base price. So you're really looking at a minimum of, you know, 70, almost $73,000 $82,000 for the site,

Nicole Wakelin  30:43  
it is not a cheap toy, but it is a fun toy.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:45  
And the one I had, you know, with the various options on here, came to 87 370 total.

Nicole Wakelin  30:53  
So 87 plus the 1700, then still on top of that, so you're looking at

Sam Abuelsamid  30:57  
that includes that includes all in 87. And that includes that eight, almost $1,000 trs level to equipment group and a bunch of other options. So, you know, the one thing about you know, the the ram crew cabs is, the cab is huge. If you're if you're relegated to the back seat. It's like riding in a limousine. Yes, it is a ton of leg room back there. So whether you want to fold it up and put stuff in there, lock it away. Or, you know, if you're just gonna have passengers back there, you've got lots of room to work with. Ram doesn't offer, you know, some of the cool, neat features that are on the new f 150 like the pop up and lockable cargo area underneath the second row seat that you have there. But it does, it does still offer a lot of a lot of neat things. Because of the the wide fenders on the TRS, you can't get the rambox option on this, which is one of those unique features that ram has had for more than a decade now. But nobody else has offered it, which is nice, you know, if you're, if you're actually using your truck for Truckee type things, you know, you have that those ram boxes on the side of the bed that you can put tools and stuff into.

Nicole Wakelin  32:17  
I was talking about this

Sam Abuelsamid  32:20  
place for your stuff,

Nicole Wakelin  32:20  
please for your stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:22  
But, ya know, I mean, this thing's really, you know, really comfortable to drive stupid, fast, stupid, loud. You know, it does, you know, because of the high ride height, the towing capability is reduced, you know, so you only have 8100 pound towing capability only 80 181 you know, if you if you need the maximum towing, you know, 12 and a half 1000 pounds towing you need to go for one of the regular Rams. But, you know, 8100 is enough for most people. Yeah. And then, as I was saying, you know, this is kind of like the end of an era, you know, that they'll probably build these for a couple of years. And then, you know, it'll probably go away the Durango Hellcat, that is actually in my driveway right now. It's a one year only thing. So I actually at 1.1, Tuesday, I actually had 1400 horsepower,

Nicole Wakelin  33:23  
to put up all the horsepower in your driveway.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:26  
Yeah. You know, and I actually, I had a conversation earlier this week, there's an article on the detroit news about, you know, kind of where Dodge Ram goes from here. Because Dodge, you know, the Dodge brand in particular has become, you know, a muscle car brand for still antas you know, over the last few years, you know, they've pared it down. And basically now you just have the Durango, the Challenger and the charger. And all of them are available with big v eights and hellcats. And, you know, we talked about, you know, where, where does it go from? Where the where does that brand go from here? And really, you know, I think it's what you saw on the Wrangler for by he, you know, going electrified, adding, you know, probably, you know, probably see at least a hybrid version of, you know, these future trucks, yeah, and cars and SUVs. And, you know, probably a plug in hybrid, you know, because you can get enough extra power out of there. That you know, probably not with with the supercharger, but you know, maybe with the the new inline six, twin turbo inline six that son lantis has been working on with a plug in hybrid, I mean, you know, you're gonna get probably pretty close to the same kind of performance you get out of the sight.

Nicole Wakelin  34:41  
And sound I like this, I know you're gonna lose that I are we get at a point where now when those of us like,

Sam Abuelsamid  34:47  
well, if you if you do the V eight with a hybrid, yeah, you can still have the V. The V eight sound. Yeah. Yeah. And then you know, when you go off road, you know, switch it off and, you know, go nice and quiet. Just like The Wrangler for buy. Yeah, and I think we're, in addition to this one, you know, Ford is going to be doing a raptor, our version of the new Raptor, which Rumor has it has no confirmation yet from Ford Rumor has it that it's going to have the 760 horsepower supercharged V eight from the, from the GT 500 in there. So these two are, I think are the last that we're likely to see like this and everything else after this is going to be electric, you know, the Hummer?

Nicole Wakelin  35:29  
You know, I get it. And I think you're probably right. I mean, it probably is the end. I don't want it to be the end. I just like the I know, gas guzzling trucks, terrible killing the environment. pandas are dying because of it, whatever. But I just, I like the feel of the sound and the visceral experience of it. And I'll be sad, when that sort of goes away, I know, the performance can still Eventually, the performance can be duplicated. But

Sam Abuelsamid  35:55  
the feel of it, it's not, it's not the same kind of experience.

Nicole Wakelin  35:59  
It's not the same kind of experience. And maybe it's like, it's gonna make us all old farts is that happens, like, remember when I was a kid that VHS blah, blah, blah. But I like that experience. It's like manuals slowly disappearing. Like, you know, there was a time when everyone knew how to drive a manual. And there was a certain experience of driving a manual transmission where you got to do the footwork, and you got to shift the gears with your hands. And as opposed to paddle shifters or whatever. There's a certain experience you lose, and I feel it's, it's kind of the same way.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:27  
Yeah, I remember back in early 2008, when I did the first drive of the Tesla Roadster for Autoblog. And it was the same same kind of thing, you know, driving this thing in Northern California up along skyline drive, you know, in your near Silicon Valley, you know, it was this was an amazing sports car, you know, fantastic handling. It was it was like driving, you know, I mean, because it was derived from the Lotus Elise platform. And, you know, he had a lot of similarity in the way it felt. And it was really fast. But, you know, without the sound, it was it was such a different experience. You know, you lose you do you lose that visceral component. But, you know, it is what it is. We gotta we gotta evolve. We gotta move on. Yes,

Nicole Wakelin  37:12  
it's I guess it's it's what's coming and it's just like the, the way V's drive. I mean, they're it's, they're great experiences, but they're different. I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:22  
I don't know. I'm just glancing over at the monroney here for the the TR x. Yeah, it says on there, you know, they have the comparison against average vehicles for fuel fuel consumption. Oh, God, how bad is it? You spend $12,750 more in fuel costs over five years? Only $12,000 the little ratings there for fuel economy and greenhouse gases? Yeah, one to 10 rating for you know for that? Oh god. One out of 10

Nicole Wakelin  37:55  
Oh, no. Is it really?

Sam Abuelsamid  37:56  
Yeah, well, I'll say just to give you your rating is also one out of 10

Nicole Wakelin  38:00  
so here's your comparison to the Sonata Hybrid so you save $3,250 if you buy this the small grading is a seven on a one to 10 and my fuel economy and greenhouse gases is a nine I am entirely we are we are opposing vehicles.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:18  
On the other hand, you know I could park the TR x right on top of that Sonata and not even notice

Nicole Wakelin  38:24  
it was high enough you might be able to park over the Sonata like would it just click the top of that solar roof

Sam Abuelsamid  38:30  
almost like scratch it up a bit. you

Nicole Wakelin  38:32  
scratch it a little bit. That's it a little skid plates right on top of there, that's all

Sam Abuelsamid  38:36  
Yeah. Sticking this in here in the middle of the show because unfortunately, Robbie was not feeling well last night and didn't set his alarm this morning for recording. So we're doing this after the fact after Nicole and I recorded the rest of the show. But Robbie is here now to share with us stuff that he drove and wrote in this week for the garage and what did you drive you that's something a little bit different. Well,

Roberto Baldwin  39:05  
I'm surprised I drove anything because clearly I can't participate in adult and adult life because I don't know how to set an alarm clock

Sam Abuelsamid  39:15  
are overrated

Roberto Baldwin  39:16  
I mean I do have a dog I have a cat who wakes me up I have another cat who wakes me up I have a lot of animals that wake me up. I also have allergies that knocked me out so the allergies one today. But But yeah, so I drove a couple things. This week I drove the Acura MDX, which y'all have already talked about. So I'm not even gonna dwell on that I drove the accurate type, pls type s, which I'm actually not allowed to talk about yet. So I can't talk about that. So too accurate is one we've already talked about. One I can't talk about and then something completely different. The Daimler e m two which is if you're if you're if you're scrambling to try to figure out what the hell I'm talking about. It's not an E Class is not an E Class. That's not an M class. It's not an M class. It is a panel truck. It is a electric panel truck. While Nikola and Tesla have been talking about making these giant electric trucks, they're gonna play on the road. Diamond has been doing it you know, they've been they've been working on their em two and their e Cascadia. Both of them are freight liners. Daimler owns Freightliner if you weren't aware, Daimler owns a lot of the largest brands. Yeah. You'd be surprised how much Daimler and Volvo own in the trucking world are Volvo Trucks Volvo and Volvo Trucks are two completely separate group, which is different

Sam Abuelsamid  40:45  
for Volvo Cars group.

Roberto Baldwin  40:47  
Yes, it's a whole Yeah, it's it's is it confusing? Yes. Does it make them a lot of money probably. So the I wrote in the IE Cascadia, which is the giant semi. And it has 360 to 525 horsepower, and as a range of about 250 miles from a battery pack capacity of up to 475 kilowatt hours. Now, if you're thinking well, they're never going to be able to drive from LA to New York, and that that's not what this truck is for. It's essentially for getting things from the port to a warehouse, usually in an a, an environment that is urban. So think New York, think Los Angeles, especially Long Beach Pedro area, think of Oakland think San Francisco, Florida, anywhere where there's a port, and you have to move large amounts of stuff from the port to a warehouse where then it gets sort of sprouted up spread out either nationally or locally. And for additional local driving, they have the E M two. And that's what I got to drive. I don't have a class eight, commercial driver's license. So they didn't let me drive the semi. And I kind of didn't want to because it had to be trailer on it. And I'm sure I would have taken out half of Oakland with it. But I get to drive the E M two, which is a class six, seven, essentially, like one of those big panel trucks you see driving around.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:16  
Yeah. And like, when you when you order appliances or furniture, it's it's the kind of truck that'll be delivering that stuff. Or that moving van.

Roberto Baldwin  42:24  
Exactly, yeah, like a large moving van. Or Yeah, you said appliances or furniture because typically they're they're delivering a couple things at once. It's a larger than your typical u haul but not as large as the semi if that, if that helps. So I drove that. And it was a very it was a it was a weird experiences. If you've ever driven or been in a large panel truck like this, you know that, you know, they're diesel's that are loud, they have a diesel sound, they have a lot of torque. And it's funny whenever you're in one of those vehicles, and when you're about to go, you can feel a sort of parched shift, it's sort of it's sort of twist the entire body of the vehicle before it goes you get that little lurch is like it didn't it didn't have any of that because it doesn't have a drive shaft that doesn't have you know

Sam Abuelsamid  43:10  
motor mounted at the, at the axle at the rear of

Roberto Baldwin  43:13  
the motors mattered at the rear axle. So it's it just goes and it's quiet. And it's smooth. And it's very um while I'm driving it I'm pulling up to because you know, we're down by the airport. while I'm driving this vehicle we're pulling up to other semis other classic seven trucks. And they all have diesel engines and there's cluck like you know, they have that that diesel sound. And you can see you know, as they go, you know, the the cab shifts everything, you know, everything you you anticipate from a very large truck going forward. And then you're in this and it's quiet. And you're just kind of cruising and it is it is so weird. And the that regenerative braking, they have 10 different settings. And so you can use your they want you to be able to to adjust it on the fly. So right now that the cab is they're redoing the cab, so the vehicles I drove are prototypes, they're using the show off to potential clients, people who are going to buy these. And then 2022 when they hit the road, they're also getting a cab redesign. But the sort of the push button shifter had a you know, up and down and you could adjust the amount of regenerative braking so you could set up all the way up to 90 if you're going down here you can set it down to like, you know, 20 if you just you know or 10 or zero and just cruise it was it was pretty great. And you're right yeah, if you're going downhill if you just if you only have a few choices of regenerative braking, you might not be going fast enough you know you might if we've all you know driven down here you have regenerative braking he gonna have to like feather the the accelerator in order to keep up with traffic with this. You can adjust the rake Well, there's too much braking. Let me adjust a little bit.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:56  
So you know, there we go. more granularity in that in that control.

Roberto Baldwin  45:00  
Yeah, they're getting more granularity and control. It's you know, it's it was it was pretty. It was pretty cool. First of all, it's automatically cool to drive a big truck. Yeah, I don't care who you are. You're driving this big giant truck. You you sort of wish that you know, in my if you're of a certain age, like me, the first thing that pops in your head is the song convoy. For those who don't know what those are those you don't know that go look it up on YouTube. Make sure you look up convoy and not convoy to convoy to is a horrible, so in convoy went a little bit better. But in the late 70s, early 80s, those sort of becoming a trucker was sort of a thing. And so, you know, when you wrote them that it's pretty great. So yeah, so it has they're saying it's, it's on the 400 volt architecture, instead of like an eight or 900, which I'm still you know, Mercedes is the same way they're not, you know, the stone the school 400 volt architecture, but they said old charge an 80%, and about 90 minutes, they can get and wait, I'm sorry, 80% in 60 minutes, the Cascadia is 80% 90 minutes, it has a battery capacity of up to 315 kilowatt hours, the battery sits right under the cab, it has a range of 230 miles, has 180 to 300 horsepower. But it has all this torque, of course, and they didn't give me any torque numbers, because, you know, it's it's a prototype, and there's probably going to be a little bit of a few changes here and there, especially, you know, the cab is going to be completely redesigned. But for the most part, if you live in a city, you know that there are a lot of trucks that are driving around constantly delivering things here and there, they sort of become part of the background, but they also are part of, you know, the pollution that's being, you know, spirit into the air where you live, and you know, Daimler Volvo, and to a lesser extent, Tesla and Ecolab just because we have no idea what's going on over there. You know, they they are they're working towards sort of eliminating, you know, pretty, especially in cities a pretty large amount of, of co2 that's being released into the air. And especially now because we have become so used to having things delivered to our home. Like things have to show up to those Amazon work warehouses somehow. And that involves, you know, big giant trucks in delivering them for imports, you know, to where you take

Sam Abuelsamid  47:36  
the Cascadia from the port or from the airport, where the you know, the 747 freighters are landing. Yeah, that to the to the warehouse, and then from there it goes on to the smaller vehicles.

Roberto Baldwin  47:47  
Yeah. So yeah, it's it's, it's, um, it was it was a I've driven I drove the the Mitsubishi few show, which a few years ago, which is a smaller sort of panel truck, which is also owned by dialer. I know it's it's very, it's all very confusing.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:07  
A lot of consolidation in the truck business. Yeah. And VW Group also has a truck group as well called, which they spun off are they separated last year as treyton, which in Europe has the scandia ma n brands, but here in North America, they just bought Navistar. So they're also working on electric trucks.

Roberto Baldwin  48:32  
It's interesting how much of the trucking business is owned by people you didn't realize and you know, it's it. I don't know, it's it's just, uh, you know, people are used to the word you know, they're used to Freightliner, they're used to Mac they're used to, you know, and so when you have those, those names that have a ton of history behind them, you know, when you buy them is just sort of back off and let them do what they need to do. You know, in the trucking industry, you don't, you don't just buy a truck, every truck is typically custom built. Initially, these won't have as much customization as a diesel truck. Just because, you know, they're, they're spinning up, you know, the production of them. So they won't have nearly as much customization but they will get there at some point. So if you have a very, and every driver has some or fleet manager has some sort of special need for their trucks. So as long as what you need is available in these trucks. And there's a ton of you know, just like your, your, your passenger TVs, there are ton of federal incentives that sort of bring the price down. You know, it seems like there might be a little bit above parody, you know, it won't be it probably won't be parody, but there'll be a little bit more. But when you look at the long run, and that's what fleet fleet managers and these fleet and these trucking companies do. They're looking long term. They're

Sam Abuelsamid  50:01  
thinking about the operating costs too. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  50:03  
exactly. It's talking about maintenance and service and oil changes and all this stuff. And, you know, you still there's still a lot of services you have to do on these trucks, but not nearly as much as you would on a diesel vehicle. So it's, you know, it'll be interesting next year to see how well the sell how many end up in the market? And, again, you drive it it was it? I mean, if I could drive it.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:27  
So are they going to also offer the EM to, like, you know, this one you drove? And the one that the ones have shown? Or, you know, the box trucks? But, yeah, that same chassis, I think that they, the convention, the diesel versions, they sell that for things like trash trucks and other applications to dump trucks, flatbeds, are they going to offer the electric version for those other use cases as well,

Roberto Baldwin  50:52  
they wouldn't get too deep into what the customization was available for the for each vehicle, but I think as you know, I think they're the goal is to get to that, because a trash truck just stops and goes all day, you really don't, you know, it's, it's, it's not exactly you don't need, you probably don't need more than 100, you know, probably

Sam Abuelsamid  51:11  
smaller, smaller battery version for

Roberto Baldwin  51:13  
Yeah, yeah. So you save money, you know, you have that. So, you know, they are they are they are talking about, sorry, my dog is barking in the background. You know, they they are, they want to be able to offer the customization throughout the entire line, but they said it's just going to be less initially, and then more later on. So we'll see, I think that they that that in the long run, and maybe even if within a year or so they'll probably, you know, again, if it sells well, then then they're going to be selling them and they're going to be manufacturing them in Oregon on the same plant or they're building the other trucks. So it's not like they have to build a special you know, they have to adjust the line, but they're going to be building them on the exact same line. So it's, you know, it's pretty smart because, you know, building an entire facility just to make these trucks, especially at the beginning where, you know, maybe they sell a couple 100 versus the 1000s upon 1000s they're selling seems seems a little insane. But it's, you know, they're they're, they're easing into it, but they are, you know, they're they're out there, they're selling them they're, you know, I met the team that's that's selling them there's like, they got people showing up. They have whole days they went to they were here in Oakland, they were going to Fresno, they're just going cross countries trading them to fleets And so yeah, yeah. Demonstrating leads have fleet managers and trucking company owners and whatnot, just come and drive the trucks and, and let them if they I did find out if they dry, if they drive the if they have the CDL commercial driver's license, and they drive the Cascadia they do take the trailer off so they let them okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:47  
So what was the the Cascadia like,

Roberto Baldwin  52:50  
it was sort of the same thing it was it was in a city just a little bigger and you can adjust the the regenerative braking via a stock on the steering wheel. And so you can sort of push it forward, push it back, push it in, so you can adjust it on the fly. And I they were they were talking about how one of the things they have to sort of teach the drivers is that they can do this this is something that they can do to save to increase range and save energy etc. And in the long run save money for their for their, their overlords and their bosses.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:26  
But it didn't like brakes.

Roberto Baldwin  53:27  
Yeah, let's wear on the brakes. I mean, it's it was but again, you know, you're sitting in this big truck and you're parked next to another Freightliner or, you know some other truck and it's making you know, cars, you know, it's making that giant, loud diesel noise that if you know if you're driving down the freeway, you're gonna be at some point you're gonna be parked next to a semi truck and they're they're not quiet. You know, sometimes when they take off, a little puff of smoke comes out of the top, even though they're not supposed to at this point. You know, they have the, you know, to deal with engine brakes, which are very loud after 2007 you know, the before, after, I'm sorry, prior to 2007 the engine brakes were very loud, they had to like, figure out a way to make those quiet. So if you live anywhere near a freeway, you know, that is the you know that noise? Yep, that is that is the truck stopping and with generate with the regenerative braking that you don't you want that won't happen anymore. So you don't you don't have this this sort of loud, annoying vehicle like sort of barreling through your neighborhood if you live in an urban area. You know, and it's it, you know, it's less noise, less pollution, and I still get my socks that I ordered from Amazon. That's kind of the that's all you know, that's all we want. All we want is a better world off. And we all want a better world but also our stuff and you know, these these two truck it looks like that there. You know, Tyler has a huge reach in the trucking industry. So I think they have a lot more polls and some of the automotive startups that are out there.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:58  
Yeah, and that'll Trucks also owns Thomas built the i think that i think they're the biggest manufacturer of school buses in North America. And they're launching electric versions of those tubes, which I assume are going to use the same. The same hardware probably across the the Thomas built buses as well.

Roberto Baldwin  55:16  
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure they're gonna have the same hardware. I mean, it's, it's, it's interesting because they don't really win because I asked about talking with the, with the passenger division with the Mercedes with Mercedes Benz. And they were like, well, we I mean, we kind of talked, but not really, that it's just not, you know, the difference between the engine, I'm sorry, but the the motor in xeno and EQ s versus the difference in the motor. And, you know, the, the cascade is, you know, that that motor that they that I saw was huge. It's just like, like, half the size of a beetle. It's that's the, it's just this giant, electric, Neo beast, it is an in on the east cat cascading a single or tandem axle and it's just Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty insane. It's, it's, it's, it's one of the things people don't really think about when I think about the electric vacation of transportation is all the other cars that aren't passenger vehicles, and all the other vehicles that are sort of, you know, making, you know, creating smog, creating noise creating this creating that. Because, again, you because you kind of, they're so big, and they're so part of the background and just sort of shoot past them when you're driving, that I think people sort of ignore the fact until they get stuck behind one, then they're just like, ah, why are special? Why are there special roads for these people? Or for these trucks? anyway? Yeah, they're called trains and boats. But at some point, at some point, they have to get to, from here to there. So yeah, so it was it was it was a, it was, it was really fun. Just because anytime you get to drive giants, it's always

Sam Abuelsamid  56:52  
it's always fun to be in a big truck.

Roberto Baldwin  56:54  
It is, it is really fun to be in a big truck,

Sam Abuelsamid  56:57  
like being a kid again.

Roberto Baldwin  56:58  
Yeah, and I think the fatigue issues, some of the fatigue issues that you have, the drivers have with being a big truck, because of the noise and the vibration, like that is severely reduced, all you hear is the wind. So that's good for the drivers. If, you know, if reduces maintenance costs, that's good for the fleet. And if reduces all the other things, you know, the the sort of environmental issues, it's good for us. So it's sort of a win, win win. And then I'll just keep saying when for five minutes, if it all works out, I'm sure there always be people who are like, you know, when I was you know, convoy, rubber ducky, you know, when they Long, long distances that you know, I think that's where hydrogen comes in. That's where you know, the hydrogen fuel cells really work. What Nico is working on, Yoda to Toyota has been working on Yeah, Toyo has been working on on on hydrogen trucks forever, they have a whole system set that set up down in and Piedro in Long Beach area. So you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, certain tasks or certain tasks for certain power trains. So it's, it looks like, you know, a couple years, you're probably gonna, you know, next year, we're going to probably start seeing these diamonds on the road. I think in three or four years, we're gonna see you seeing a lot more electrified vehicles on the road, whether they're battery powered or hydrogen fuel cell powered.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:16  
Yeah, that's, and I think, as you said, it's gonna make a big difference, especially in cities, you know, where these trucks are doing deliveries, and so on, you know, they're, they tend to be the biggest polluters, and, you know, so it's, it's gonna make a huge difference and quality of life, both air quality and noise levels, and cities and, and suburban areas, too.

Roberto Baldwin  58:35  
Yeah, the, you know, the, the, the trucking companies, the fleet managers, they'll hold on to something forever. And so, you know, they'll just swap out the cab and throw it on top of an old motor or an old engine, old chassis. And so, you know, it's gonna be a little while because, you know, they're there, every penny counts for them. But I think, you know, as the transition happens, eventually, you know, the trucks become more of a liability than they're worth. And then when that happens, and they start looking at, okay, what's next, what's going to save me money in the long run. And for some of those, you know, some of those, especially the smaller ones are probably going to wait three or four years before they, you know, looking to EBS or hydrogens, but some of the bigger companies where you're dealing with, you know, 1000s and 1000s of trucks every day, you know, if you can, if 10% of them are going to save you, you know, an additional 10% of your, your, your your, your, your, your output in cash, then you're going to be pretty happy.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:32  
Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, thanks so much, Robbie. And we'll get this spliced in and cut back now to the coal that I talked about. The Ford Explorer, timber line. Did you have any comments on the timber line?

Roberto Baldwin  59:47  
I don't have any comments on the Timberline. I think it's the the the sort of, I guess I'd maybe I do Alright, let's hear it. It's just the the building the off road capable anything that's based on just a regular SUV and a regular SUV now is the passenger view. It's a it's a minivan without sliding doors. That's how I see large SUVs, their fancy minivans without sliding doors, which makes them the worst minivan. I love minivans, I think minivans make make way more sense than SUVs. No one's you know, it's it seems like a lot of it's a lot of money for something you're going to take off road once or twice, maybe other people, you know, and they're they're already vehicles that people buy specifically for offer only they buy Jeeps, they buy for runners, you know, I was gonna see, maybe a few people buy defenders for that. But for the money, they don't buy g wagons for it, which is a huge miscarriage of justice, they

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:56  
drive those in Beverly Hills, exactly, Miami Beach,

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:59  
the no one takes these amazing vehicles off road. So it's it is a you know, adding these there, there's, you're adding additional, you know, it's a lot of money for something you're never going to do, which is a very American thing for us to do. It's, you know, we buy things, buy things

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:19  
we want not because he said them,

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:21  
exactly, we think we need, we think we're gonna do a thing. And then we don't.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:29  
Which is why you want your socks delivered tomorrow,

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:32  
which is exactly, which is why I want my six socks delivered tomorrow, instead of just getting into a car and driving to target. But you know, again, it's your money, if you want to buy this if you want to, if you're going to go off road, you know, thumbs up to you if you're in a part of the country where you have to go off road or you have to deal with you know, inclement weather, and you want something a little extra something, something in order to tackle that just more than just you know, all wheel drive, which is completely capable on any vehicle handling, you know, and you get some good get some good tires, you get them all, you can do anything. And anything that is there very few cars that are just gonna like spin you into a ditch with all wheel drive and winter tires. And, you know, it's it's ubu How about that?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:17  
Exactly? Do you spend it how you want,

Roberto Baldwin  1:02:20  
it's your money, spend it how you want, but maybe, I don't know, maybe just get a regular Ford Explorer and then get a Jeep there. It's like if you're gonna go off road, like go off road, like, you know, be ready to like, the zombie apocalypse, you can just drive over zombies and whatnot,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:39  
or, you know, get it get a ramp tr x, which we were talking about earlier, which will pretty much go anywhere. I mean, it's again, it's one of the most ridiculous vehicles you could possibly get. I mean, who the hell needs a 700 horsepower supercharged pickup truck. But sure is fun.

Roberto Baldwin  1:02:56  
jumping over, you can jump over creeks

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:00  
zero to 60 in three and a half seconds on a bumpy back road.

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:03  
Why do you need it you don't you don't need no one needs that much power, but people are going to buy it. And then 1% 2% are going to spend some of their time off road. Anyway, you know, and most of those are because of this is where I live and this is what I do type situations if you live in you know, there people live in Colorado there are people living in Wyoming, you know, you need something that's off the road. If you live in, you know, parts of Hawaii, you know, you need something for you to live in Alaska, you need something that's off road, if you live in the bay area where I live, and there are so many of these types of vehicles and they're so many big large trucks. Unless you're hauling something I'm kind of judging you on Sorry, I grew up in a town where everyone who had a had a truck was hauling something we had to go you know, we had horse trailers attached to these we had like big bales of hay, you move things around in them. And then if you weren't doing that, then you're everyone just kind of like why do you have that? Yeah, I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:58  
mean, here, you're in Michigan, you know, I live in Southeast Michigan, but if you head north on I 75. Almost any weekend of the year, you're likely to find people with pickup trucks or big SUVs, towing trailers with depending on the time of year, either jet skis or snowmobiles, or, you know, dirt bikes or something else. And so a lot of people around here do use them that way a lot don't but a lot of people use them, especially for the towing capability. Oh, yeah. But it's, you know, even even even this thing, you know, the TR x is is just total overkill. And as we were talking about, you know, it's probably going to be the you know, this is this and the the upcoming Raptor are which we don't have any details on yet, but which may well have the supercharged V eight from the GTA 500 in it. That's the rumor anyway. You know, these are likely the end of an era because these are going to start to get supplanted by electric pickups that have even more performance, capable already starting with the Hummer EV this fall and the cybertruck and other stuff.

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:05  
Yeah, yeah, I think that torque is going to be Evie, torque it change. It's such a game changer in so many ways because, and I, I feel like a broken record I say this every time somebody talks about EBS, if you put someone in an Eevee, and let them drive it, they're going to want an Eevee. Because most of the time, they're just going from stop sign the stop sign, and they like that little like, extra oomph that Evie gives them. You know, because top end horsepower doesn't really matter if you just have this really nice bit of torque on the back end at the you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:38  
it's the old saying, you know, people buy horsepower, but they drive torque torque, you feel, you know, it's the thing that gives you the drivability off the line. And, you know, of course, you know, with an Eevee, you get the torque you miss out on that sound, you know, there's nothing quite like the sound of the vsba

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:57  
there that is, that is incredibly true. I know, I've had friends who are not even really car people get into, say, the Mustang bullets, and then just have the you know, turn up the the exhaust and just drive that and they're just tickled pink, they are so happy with that noise. And if you were outside the car, and they heard that car going by, they'd be like, Oh my god, I can't believe what is this. But when you're inside the car, and you are in control of that noise, and that and it is it is something else. It's very, it's a visceral primal experience. And then when you have the Eevee you don't you kind of don't have that you have you can a couple cars have weird space noises. But But you know, when you drive around town, you kind of don't you know that. That gets old quick. And then it's so smooth, that lack of vibration that sort of just sort of off the line. It's It is so it is such a unique experience that people again, just go to a dealership, find a friend who has an Eevee and just drive it. And if you don't like it, then fine. You don't like it? You know, maybe. But I guarantee you it's going to change your mind on EBS. If you're one of these people who are like if it's either gas or nothing, I'm like, wow, you know, it can be both. Yeah, most most American households have two cars. You can have both and a plug and a plug. Yeah. Well, lots of us have electricity.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:24  
Alright, thanks, Robbie.

Unknown Speaker  1:07:25  
Thank you.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:27  
I'll talk to you next time.

Unknown Speaker  1:07:31  
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Unknown Speaker  1:07:32  
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Unknown Speaker  1:07:35  
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Unknown Speaker  1:07:57  
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Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:31  
of news items this week is a relatively slow news week. First thing Ford launched a new variant of the Explorer this week. And it's actually going to be the first of a new get another sub family for their SUVs, the Explorer Timberline and so they're going to be adding Timberline variants to a bunch of their other SUVs. You know, this is supposed to be a more a more rugged looking little more off roadie version of the Explorer. Yeah. What do you think of this thing?

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:08  
I'm cool. I guess it's I mean, I think isn't everyone kind of tried to do some sort of offer the variant either your luxury brand that's coming up with your Uber luxury thing, like Denali and avenir. Or you're not a luxury brand and you're trying to come up with your rugged off road capable line for your whole thing. So I guess it makes sense, or isn't surprising maybe that they've done that and it looks pretty good. I mean, I'm looking at the picture. It looks pretty slick. And it does have some genuine additional capability in there. It's not just an appearance package because some of them do that. It's like we made this look off roadie, but it's got a sink Not a single thing different from the non offroad version, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:49  
right so this one, you know it's got a different front facia with its cutaway more so you have a shorter or a steeper approach angle. They they've got actual real skid plates on they're not just pieces of plastic molded to look like skid plates. But you know, they're actually protecting the important bits underneath, right? The Bridgestone dueler All Terrain tires, new dampers, you know, they've got some lights integrated into the, into the grill on either side of the blue oval logo. I do like the dark green color that they're offering on this.

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:28  
Is it just a dark green? I didn't get that part of it. Is it only in the dark green or

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:31  
it'll be available? And

Unknown Speaker  1:10:33  
sometimes they do that, like only with this color, you know?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:36  
Yeah. Now, so they've got press photos of silver and, and the green, but the green is the hero color for this, you know,

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:46  
which makes sense. Timberline? Yeah, right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:48  
And so there'll be adding Timberline variants to other you know, probably certainly I think to the the Broncos sport, maybe the edge, I don't know if they'll do for the escape or not. Because, you know, they they've taken the escape and kind of diverged it from the bronco sport, you know, because they're both on the same same architecture, you know, in the Escape is more the car like you know, crossover variant you know, for for street use and urban driving, but they're definitely going to do more timber lines going forward, probably the expedition will probably get a timber line. And it is also a torsen limited slip differential on the rear axle. few other things, it the it does come with the the 2.3 liter turbo, the 40 EcoBoost four cylinder. So it should be an interesting option.

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:42  
I think it's probably good to be modestly more. I mean, it definitely has some capability to be interesting to like just drive straight up explorer and then drive this one back to back to see how much like can you feel that difference? Do you notice that differences? Do you feel the capability they baked into it? Or is it you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:58  
I think where you're likely to feel it most is just from having the the alternating tires Yeah, you know, just having more grip when you're off road, right? Because, you know, the the all season tires that they put on normal ones, you know, the the Explorer is actually reasonably capable a couple years ago when they launched it. I did the the drive program out in Portland. And you know, we did some off roading with it and, you know, it's it's fairly capable even in standard form, I can an Excel t form. And this, you know, is derived from the XSLT you know, just kind of stepping it up a little bit more. It's not quite up there, I would say with something like Jeeps, Trailhawk models, you know, which you know, that's that's that's their off road rated versions.

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:40  
They didn't even try they did I was just it's funny that you say that because the toe hooks and I lost the color because the Jeep has those red toe hooks on the Trailhawk which is like a signature toe hooks.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:52  
They've got the red toe hooks up

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:54  
there they're called Red amber toe hooks.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:57  
Wow, never read Ember. That's I

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:59  
don't know what they're called Jeep Jeep name for the read. I don't even know much read. Just read. That's a very exciting No, come on gee.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:08  
I've always been shocked at how much effort they come into how much effort they expend, trying to come up with descriptors to add to the color names, you know, like red Ember, or midnight blue. Midnight Blue is kind of boring but you know some some of the names that they come up with for the various colors

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:28  
Yes, well this is this color forged green metallic forged green metallic. What does that even mean? I mean, it sounds cool but forged green what you like took a toe forge and you made the green I don't get it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:40  
you know if you stuck a piece of steel on a forge it's not going to come out looking green like that.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:44  
It is not

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:45  
i'm not sure really what that is supposed to

Unknown Speaker  1:13:48  
be. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:49  
I don't know. But yeah, nope, no pricing yet on this, but it should be at the summer I think

Unknown Speaker  1:13:55  
no looks good. I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:56  
think it's probably gonna you can get enough chips to build them.

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:58  
Oh my gosh, there's such as you know what, I actually see the shortage of lots of vehicles from the chip shortage. You can see it you drive by our local dealerships. It's like there's no cars out there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:07  
Yep. Yeah, they're missing everywhere. Citron another part of another one of the what 14 still lantis brands you know, this is one of the classic French brands. They last year they they launched the car called the ammy. Which French for friend. It's a it's a little two seat pod. It's electric. I think I think it's like eight horsepower or something like that. You know, it's designed. They designed it mainly for their their freedom move, pro mobility service that they offer they they launched it last year in Washington DC and Portland, Oregon. They also have it in a bunch of European cities and one of the things with the free to move service is they they have car sharing there but they also integrate some of the some other services as well. So, you know, if you need a ride hail or something like that, you can use that to, to find, you know, rides in whether you want to drive yourself or have somebody else drive you. And I'm not sure exactly what services they're offering here in the US, but they're there now, including the Citroen ammy in the car sharing fleet in the Washington DC area.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:30  
It has a top speed of 28 miles per hour. Am I reading that right?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:35  
Yeah. Can you eat Oh, it hasn't horsepower.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:39  
But at a range of 45 miles, okay, so you really are just looking for the shortest little like, I need to drive six blocks, and it's pouring rain or freezing cold. And that's it. Because you can't even get like on the way to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:51  
go to the grocery store. You know, something like that,

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:53  
I guess. I mean, it's really cute. It's like the most adorable little car It looks like something you know what it reminds me of the cars the kids have that are always yellow with like the red roof that you know, little plastic

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:04  
cars. Tiny tikes cars. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:06  
looks like a tiny tykes car. But it's real. Yeah. I don't know though. It's 2008. with eight horsepower and a top speed of 20 miles per hour. I think my seven year old may have been able to beat it, though. Their feet move pretty fast.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:19  
Almost. Yeah, maybe? Well, you know, think about it, though. Like in a dense urban environment. You're almost never going 28 miles an hour. And

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:28  
it was true. But I'm just thinking like, you couldn't. You can still there's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:32  
before the pandemic, the average speed in Manhattan was eight miles an hour.

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:37  
Okay. I mean, no, I get that. But I mean, you couldn't, you couldn't even for one second get off of like, well, even in Manhattan when you got kicked under the name zeros, but you kind of as you're exiting the city or coming into the city, they're sort of the sides, they get kind of speedy, fast, you wouldn't be able to hit the actual speed of traffic there, you would get

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:55  
on the driver's door like a West Side Highway or

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:57  
picking up like that you would be run over in a second. And you would be run over you'd be roadkill. So you really just have to intend to drive.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:07  
A lot of New York City cabbies would would run right

Nicole Wakelin  1:17:09  
over Yeah, boom, you're dead. Yeah, they've run they run over you like the teawrex you'd be just be gone.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:18  
So it'll be interesting to see how popular these these are going to be doing it for a six month trial to start with.

Nicole Wakelin  1:17:25  
And as I'm like picking on it, I mean, I guess it's it's a cute card is a nice little solution. If you really just need a super short jaunt. And it's adorable. It really is a fun little car.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:38  
I'll be curious to see how much they charge.

Nicole Wakelin  1:17:40  
I know, I was scanning down the story. And I don't see anything talking about pricing?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:46  
Yeah, I don't think that they've announced the pricing yet. You know, and that's been one of the challenges. And I'm not sure. Like with free to move, you know, how, how they're doing it, whether it's, you know, a free floating car share, or you have to return the car back to where you picked it up from? Yeah, because this is this has been one of the problems with car sharing services and why they've kind of struggled to really get enough traction in the US market, even even in other regions as well. Yeah, they started off, you know, Zipcar kind of model where the cars are parked in a specific location, you'd go, you'd reserve a car, you go pick it up, and you drop it back off at the same location, you didn't have to put it in gas or anything or charge it, you know, that was all taken care of. You'd never worry about insurance and basically short term car rental. And then they went to some companies went to free floating car share, kind of like what they do now with the scooters, where you can drop it off, you don't have to take it back to where you picked it up from you just drop it off anywhere. Right? And the problem with that is, it's actually really expensive to operate that because periodically, you've got to have staff that go around, find the cars and relocate, reposition them,

Nicole Wakelin  1:18:59  
bring them out.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:00  
Yeah, to bring them bring them back to the places where people are actually trying to use them. Right? If you drop one off somewhere where there's not much not much usage, you know, it doesn't make any sense. So it'll be interesting to see if they can actually make a go of it. You know, most of the other car share programs like GM shut down their Maven program last year BMW shut down their, their, their reach now or ride now or something. Drive now.

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:31  
Now, but it's no longer so

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:32  
yeah, I've done where other cartago they've all been shut down because they couldn't make any money off of it. So

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:38  
you wonder where this is because this is such a cheap little car. You know, it's not like it's not a huge, it's not the same investment in capital is those you know what these tiny

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:50  
little cars My guess is it will probably be, you know, return it to where you picked it up from so you can plug it back in,

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:56  
right? Yeah, otherwise you just leave it there. And you've run it down and now your car's dead and dead in a parking lot. Good luck.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:06  
Yeah. All right. Enough of the Citroen friend?

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:10  
Yes. The I mean.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:14  
So we had one listener email this week from Brian McMillan. Say good morning, afternoon or evening. First off, I just want to say how much I love the show and appreciate what you all do. All the news of Rebecca and Dan's departure is certainly saddening for the listeners. It does seem that Nicole and Roberto have picked up right where they left off. Keep up the good work.

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:34  
Thank you. Thanks, Brian.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:37  
As a recent ice to Bev converter, so that's internal combustion to battery electric. converter pun intended, I wanted to share my thoughts experience in regards to your discussion on episode 191. When answering the listeners question about buying an ice versus an Eevee. My wife and I have always been road warriors when it comes to travel, as she is not particularly fond of flying. So in 2014, we purchased a brand new Dodge Caravan, and proceeded to put close to 100,000 miles on it in five or six years. While we still own this vehicle, it is rarely used anymore as both kids are out of the house and our daily driver is a Tesla. My Tesla is a 2020 model three long range all wheel drive as become our new road trip meal. between work and pleasure travel. I've put more than 6000 miles on her about six months. That's right. That's right around the average most the average is about 12,000 miles a year. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:21:27  
so he's right in there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:28  
Yeah. With our longest road trip traversing over 1500 miles round trip, our experience has been that road tripping in an Eevee is specifically a Tesla is actually better for our needs driving sell. We've always been the type of family that enjoys the journey. And when traveling, stopping is needed for bathroom and snack breaks, not eating meals in the car, and typically never driving straight through to our destination. So with our Tesla, that combination of autopilot and charging stops, makes the trips much more enjoyable and relaxing while not adding extensive trip time versus ice travel. While there is no doubt that road tripping with an Eevee will add time to your trip, there are ways to maximize it like staying at hotels with destination charging along the route. from our experience, these destination charges are abundant, free and fairly easy to find with a search on Google Maps, then for supercharging along the route stations are easily accessible, strategically placed such that range anxiety is not an issue at all. While Tesla does get a bad rap for various reasons, and deservedly so in some cases, I can absolutely recommend a Tesla today to anyone that likes to roadtrip for the reasons mentioned above. And I have to agree, you know, I mean, for for the thing, you know, all the things I've complained about with Tesla. And the thing, probably the thing that they've done the most right is the build up of the supercharger network. Because it made it did convince people that you can go anywhere with an Eevee. And they've got currently about 1000 locations across the across the US with about 10,000 chargers. So there's an average of about 1010 chargers per location. You know, some are some are six, some are 12 or 18, and some of the really popular spots. But yeah, I mean, that that is absolutely a really smart thing that Tesla did. And you know, electrify America and other companies are trying to replicate that now with their networks. But there's you know, they're not there yet. You know, the Tesla or electrify America has about 600 locations now. At but I think one of the things that Tesla has also done well, it's generally done a pretty good job with reliability of their superchargers and that's something where a lot of the other charger networks have had challenges as with reliability

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:47  
that's and that's what I see here because I agree with everything that he said there especially with Tesla, but I mean I see in my area the number of times that the charging stations that are not Tesla's just aren't working you go up in there's there's there's just you can't even get them to work or you seem to have done everything right you plug it in something's not that the cables something that is the cable is not right, something's been right. You know, there's there very frequently issues with the actual physical chargers that are around us. We don't have as many New Hampshire. It's a function of just where I live. But the Tesla there's a bunch of superchargers at a rest area on a major sort of thoroughfare heading up to the White Mountains which is anybody who's traveling north to come like vacation up here, you're going to go by him. So if you've been traveling from New York or Massachusetts or wherever there's a good stop for you can stop you can get some you know, get something eat, take a bathroom break and charge a vehicle and I frequently see Tesla's they're like, sometimes on like busy, busy weekends, there's maybe only one or two open spots. But that means there's quite a few people that are charging and having no problem doing it. So I definitely think like what you're describing there, Brian, I totally get it. think if you're the kind of person who travels that way in a road trip, and I like to travel that way, I don't generally just get the car drive as fast as I can on the busiest highway, get there and be done with it, I sort of like to stop and check stuff out too. And I think if that's your style of road tripping, they're much easier to live with Tesla or otherwise. But if you're on that, I think back to when I was in college, and that road trip where you know, you're just coming home from school, or you're, you know, and you've, you've got to drive, 14 hours of driving, and you just want to knock that out as fast as you can. That's when, you know, that's when it becomes more of a challenge. Which is, you know, I don't know, how many people do you think are doing a road trip? Because they're really trying to stop along the way? Or how many are really focused on the destination? I don't know, what the I don't know, see? I'm like, How many? How does that play out? You know?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:51  
Yeah, you know, I think there's, there's clearly a split there, I don't know what the split is, you know, but I think a lot of people, this, this is, as we start to continue to build out the charging infrastructure across the country, this is one of the things that needs to be thought about is, you know, where you locate these, these chargers, you know, you want to, you know, the reality is that, even with DC fast charging, you know, you're still, you're going to be sitting around somewhere for probably, you know, a half hour or so, at a minimum, if you're on if you're you know, if you, if you're going from near empty, and you want to fill it up to get, you know, maximize your range, you're probably going to be sitting around for anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes, at the least. And so you need to have those chargers located somewhere where you've got, you know, some sort of amenities, you know, certainly bathroom, but, you know, something to eat, or, you know, other things that you can walk to, to see. And, you know, this is this is another one of the challenges is not just putting it, you know, putting the the charger, you know, just random rest areas, but ideally putting them somewhere where people have some options of other things to do for a half hour or an hour while they're waiting for the vehicle to charge. And, you know, but I think I still think that, you know, the biggest challenge is the reliability. JOHN Volker, you know, recently wrote something about this, he was testing the VW ID for and, you know, he went to a couple of different electrify America stations and, and grant EA did have a problem with a bunch of their charging stations, particularly on the East Coast with one of the vendors that was supplying the the Chargers themselves. And they have since ended their relationship with that particular supplier, and converted over to another supplier. But you know, this is, this is not an issue exclusive to EA, charge point blank, EV go, I've had issues with with all of them at some time, at some point in time or another where you plug it in, nothing much happens. You know, GM just announced last week or week, it was last week, the altium 360 charging network, you know, so within their, within their app for their vehicles. They're integrating, I think, start with six different charging networks. He has a charge point, Evie, go blank, green lots, a couple of others, and they're going to have 60,000 chargers that are accessible through there, that you'll be able to see them on the map, you know, in the vehicle, you plot your route, easily. And this is something that automakers also need to do is make that better integrated. So you know, when you put in your destination, if your destination is 500 miles away, and you've got 250 300 miles of charge, you have it automatically show, okay, here are the places where there's chargers available that you can go and use and you know, ideally, you know, have a filter on there where you can put other things that you want, you know, so if there's a charger, you know, if you if you want to, you know have have a lunch break or you know, go to a museum or something, you know, find those other things nearby as well.

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:14  
I had a bolt Evie at one point and was looking for a charger I went we went down to the cape down that way. And so we're coming back. It's a super long drive, but you know, and was looking for someplace where I could charge it and I thought we found a place we get there and it's literally the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life. Like we're in this sort of old abandoned, like mill buildings in the city in Massachusetts. There's one office here, and then in this parking lot where there is nothing except like like it looks like no one's parked in this parking lot in 30 years. It's like half overgrown. There's one Evie charger, and we're sort of driving up and I'm kind of like huh, so do I just leave this car here and then wander back And see if there's someplace where we like it was weird. I'm like that, I'm sure there was some method to the madness when that was put in. But if it's sending you to a charging station like that, and it wasn't like the bolt sentence there, it was just like, that's what we found a way search, just like, this is not helpful. Because I'm just parking here and wandering about this area, I feel like I said, they will never see me again, they will find the car and nothing else, you know? Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:24  
I think about three years ago, at the the there's this event, this event every summer in Traverse City in northern Michigan called the management briefing seminars put on by the Center for Automotive Research. And my friend, Bob grotzinger, who writes for awards. He had a bolt press car that he was going to drive up to Traverse City, and it's about 250 miles from Metro Detroit area up to Traverse City, which is generally, you know, within the range of what the bolt can do. And, you know, he had planned to stop along the way, you know, to top it off, you know, just to make sure that he got there safely. And he stopped at, you know, two of the two of the charging locations that were identified and the nav system, we're at offices of consumers power, which is one of the two main utilities here in Michigan. And he stopped at the first one, the charger was there, but it was not working. Went to the second one. Same thing, charger was not working. He was eventually you get off I 75. We take some secondary roads to get to Traverse City, he found a spot where he and his wife could grab some lunch and plug it in for an hour or two to get some more miles or get some more miles in the battery and managed to get it to Traverse City. And then when he got to the hotel where the event was the Grand Traverse Bay Resort up there, they had five chargers there. Two of them were Tesla only chargers, the other three were CCS chargers, the three CCS chargers, none of them were working the two Tesla chargers were occupied, but you know, couldn't use those anyway. Right? Right working but none of none of the CCS chargers were working. And, you know, they were being operated by some small network charging, you know, charging network provider located I think in Washington State, and Bob tried to get on the phone with them to see if they could reset it, see if they could do something they couldn't, they can't get them working, finally ended up he around the the grounds around the hotel, you know, in the wintertime, they have all these Christmas lights. So they have plugs that that set up all over all around the

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:44  
Christmas lights to plug in this car,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:46  
the Christmas lights weren't plugged in there, but he saw the little post with the you know, with the outlet on there, just a standard 110 volt outlet. And since we were going to be there for four days Anyway, you know, he just plugged it into a standard one took the cord and plugged it in and use that and by the time it was time to go home, it was charged back up again. But you know, this is the kind of ridiculous thing that both automakers and the charging network providers, you know, if they want to get people to adopt TVs, you know, they have to do what Tesla has done. Yeah, and really make that process seamless.

Nicole Wakelin  1:33:20  
It's I think that's the biggest thing that when you know, it's not so much. I mean, I know we would say range anxiety, it's not the sort of most that you're going to run out of range before you get where you're going. But when you get where you're going, will what's supposed to be there actually be there and will it actually work? Which is it's different thing. It's not like I'm gonna run out before I get there sick. No, I planned everything just perfectly. I will get here I'll be able to charge What do you mean, all four of your charging stations are not working. Now what I do, where's the nearest one where you got to go a town over because you're on vacation and you're someplace world's like,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:53  
well now what do I do? You know, it's that that inconsistency with being able to charge when you get there, that's a huge obstacle for a lot of people. It is and so that's that's something that the industry really needs to address. You know, if they if they want to any of GM want hopes to sell a million TVs by 2025 they're gonna have to fix this and Same goes for Ford and everybody else You know, these things need to be as reliable as a gas pump. I mean it's it's pretty rare that you go to a gas station and there's no working pumps,

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:24  
right like there's one pump that's not working out of the 15 that are there something you know there's and it's not even if that one pump even you have a gas station for some reason a gas station is having an issue. There's a pretty darn good chance you can drive five miles down the road or across the street. And there's another gas station like it's just you're like okay, well that's kind of a pain in the butt. I wanted to go to this one. I'll go across the street or right down the street. Would that is not always an option with TVs. It's just not maybe it will be at some point but until it's that easy to get past the it's not working when I get here. There has to that's that's going to be an obstacle for a lot of people.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:00  
Certainly. All right. Got anything else for this week? No, I think we're good. All right. Well, that has been Episode 195 of wheel bearings. Hopefully we'll have Robbie back next week.

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:12  
What happened to him? Where'd he go? Did he sleep in?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:15  
Maybe there was an earthquake. I mean, was there an earthquake California

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:17  
cuz that would be sad if you're picking on him. And it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:19  
was there was one earlier this week. There was a decent sized one, but, but I mean, that's, you know, pretty much a daily occurrence.

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:27  
I know. It's like, when isn't there an earthquake in California?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:29  
When you live in when you live in the Bay Area, you know, having the ground moving under your feet is not an unusual thing. Hopefully that's not the case today. But we'll we'll we'll catch up with Robbie next week.

Unknown Speaker  1:35:41  
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Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:58  
I don't know about the purple cat eyes.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai