Sam Abuelsamid  0:01  
Coming up on episode 197 of wheel bearings Roberto Baldwin drives the Acura TL x type s Laguna Seca and the Ducati multistrada V for Nicole and I take polar opposites from the GM SUV lineup the 2021 Chevy Suburban and I have the 2021 Buick envision. In the news we talk about the f150 lightning pro for an SK innovation team up to produce lithium ion batteries. Kia launches their new Evie six hand we talk about the weight problem with the Hummer EV and we answer some listener questions. And finally, if you like the show, please make sure to leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you happen to listen that allows reviews thanks. Did you know you can support wheel bearings directly? Head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media and you can become a patron today. Your contributions will help fund the platforms and tools we use to bring the podcast to you. And exclusives improvements are already on the way thanks to your generosity. So if you want to be part of an automotive podcast, like no other head to patreon.com, slash wheel bearings, media This is Episode 197 of wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:14  
I'm Nicole wakelin from autobytel.

Roberto Baldwin  1:17  
And I am Roberto Baldwin. And I have a new YouTube channel called roll so just look up Roberto Baldwin on YouTube and you'll figure it out.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25  
Excellent. Excellent. Well, Who wants to go first?

Roberto Baldwin  1:29  
Robbie? Which I will go first. This past wasn't this past week, but it was a I feel like a few weeks ago probably I drove the new Acura 2021 Tl x type s title passes back passes back accurate is back as a as a performance. I mean, they came back with NSX in 2015. But not everyone can afford an NSX Yeah, very few people can afford kidding. I know I've been asking around. It turns out not everyone's independently wealthy.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:07  
Even of those who are independently wealthy, very few of them are buying NSX is unfortunately

Roberto Baldwin  2:12  
which is insane because the NSX is an amazing vehicle grade. It's so wonderful you get all the fun of a supercar and all the the reliability and dependability of an accurate slash Honda Indy what's what's the what's there not to love. I drove the Acura TL x type s, they let me drive it at Laguna Seca, which was fun.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:36  
That's like,

Roberto Baldwin  2:37  
Yeah, I got the drive down the corkscrew. It is an impressive vehicle I was I was pleasantly surprised. It is quick. It has a turbocharged it dual spool turbocharged V six, which they built specifically for this vehicle. It has, you know you put it what's nice is when you get into one of these vehicles, and when you when you put this thing in Sport Plus mode, you can feel the tension like the steering ratio changes, you feel everything getting ready to attack whenever you're about to do, but then you put it in comfort mode and it's actually, you know, a very comfortable vehicle you could you know, drive it to Vegas, or or I don't know, whatever people do on the weekends drive really far.

Nicole Wakelin  3:25  
When that button actually makes a difference. Because sometimes you push the you know, sport comfort button and you're sitting like I feel absolutely nothing I hear absolutely nothing like you can't tell the difference. So

Roberto Baldwin  3:35  
Exactly. All they do is remap the the

Nicole Wakelin  3:38  
panel. This is nothing anybody can tell.

Roberto Baldwin  3:42  
But no, it's you know, they, they, they pulled the brake system over from the NSX. Which, which is great because the brake throw is really short. But it's not like the Giulia where you you step on it. And often you're like, Oh, you know, you still have a lot of control. But it's very short. And I love good brakes, because good brakes keep me from running into this is true.

Nicole Wakelin  4:04  
I'm looking at it right now, like pull up the website as we're talking $52,000 that's all it starts at. Is that right?

Roberto Baldwin  4:12  
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's a little bit cheaper than I think the a4 and whatever BMW

Nicole Wakelin  4:21  
for 52,300 to be precise according to their site. So

Roberto Baldwin  4:26  
it is a it is a very tech orientated, you know, sports sedan, you know, they're using electronic brakes. You know, they're adjusting the steering ratio and everything through electronics, everything is electronic, which most cars you know, they do it but but the the automaker doesn't really make a big deal about it. An accurate sort of saying, Yeah, we're doing this, and the result is a pretty large wide sedan that feels smaller than it actually is when you're driving it which I to me is always a plus when you get into a sport sedan, and it ends Feeling like, you know, whatever series or whatever class lower than what it is, if it feels smaller and nimble, then that's, you know, a plus Good job engineer.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:10  
Yeah, you know, it's, it's nice, you know, when, when you're gonna, when you have a car that you're going to be using it as a daily driver to have that little bit of extra room to spread out. Especially, I mean, your case, you know, you're tall. Yeah. So having that having that extra room, I'm sure you appreciate. You know, but then, you know, to not have it feel like it's huge when you're, you know, when you're going out, you know, hitting the, the, the country roads on the Saturday morning.

Roberto Baldwin  5:38  
Yeah, it is it I really, really liked it. I was, you know, I'm a you know, I've been a Honda fan ever since, you know, my second car, which was a Honda and and my third car was my Honda and then my fourth car was a Honda. But you know, you have to sort of look at where the market is and where this car fits in that segment. And in that segment, it's a it's a pretty screaming deal. And it's the return of the type s and you know, they're going to be stuck, you know, an MDX is going to have a type s, of course, because everyone has to have a really fast SUV, but there's going to be more type S's coming down the line, which I'm very happy to report. And yeah, Acura is properly coming back as that, you know, the precision crafted performance brand within the Honda.

Nicole Wakelin  6:22  
Yeah, I saw the MDS coming as a type s. I love. I love that car. So I'm excited to see a type s in that. That makes me happy.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:30  
Yeah, I've got a question for you, Robert. Since we haven't talked about an accurate since you joined the lineup. I'm curious to hear your impressions of the accurate type touchpad because it's been a controversial element ever since they launched it on the RDX a couple of years ago.

Roberto Baldwin  6:47  
So I Okay, so here, I use a tablet with a pen like a Wacom tablet. And the way a tablet works, instead of like a touchpad is wherever my pen is, that's where the mouse is on the screen.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:58  
So absolute positioning,

Roberto Baldwin  7:00  
absolute positioning, that's what I use when I use a computer. When I work on computer, I'm actually holding my pen right now, it's just like second nature to have it in my

Nicole Wakelin  7:08  
screen is proof.

Roberto Baldwin  7:13  
And so when they put me in the RDX when they first launched, I was like, Oh, this makes complete sense to me. And, you know, I've gotten in the MDX last week when I went to drive the TLS, the TLS. So I actually like it. Just because I don't have to reach really far they have that little area where you can place your hand, and wherever my finger is, that's where it is on screen. And so if I learn that the navigation is the top left hand corner, I just put my finger in the top left hand corner, I don't have to look at the screen, I don't have to look at the touchpad I can look at the road and and enable that it's sort of it's it's the sort of one of the well, it's sort of the closest thing to have that muscle memory of where the buttons are, when you actually have buttons in your car, you know, just kind of reach over and turn up the heat, turn it down or adjust the volume. It's sort of it's, it's it's almost like that. And so I understand people were like, absolutely hate it. But I think if you had it for like, a few weeks, you would sort of, I think I think you would get used to it.

Nicole Wakelin  8:10  
So Roberto is the one person that likes that tonight, I'm just kidding. It's like, most people don't like it. Just you

Sam Abuelsamid  8:21  
do like it. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  8:22  
yeah, it is, I

Roberto Baldwin  8:23  
do think it's very confusing for people who are used to a touchpad on their, their laptop. And when they first do it, you know, you're used to swiping and moving and doing things. And I think that is very frustrating. And, and I've had a few people who have actually asked about, you know, in their computing lives using like a Wacom tablet to work. And I'm like, the first two weeks are going to suck because your brain takes a while to rewire your brain to wherever you're, you know, absolute positioning, wherever your hand is, wherever the pen is, that's where your mouse is. And so I think it's the same thing with the with acuras touchpad system.

Nicole Wakelin  8:58  
I think that's, that's true, it just takes a little bit. Like if I spent more than a week at a time with it, it would probably become intuitive very quickly. It just because we're always in these cars for a week, or like, you know, a day when we're doing a drive program. But it does seem like it would just be something that you would get the hang of over time, you know, like any of them. Like using any infotainment you just have to use them for a while and most of them you start to become comfortable with.

Roberto Baldwin  9:20  
Yeah, the big bummer though, is that doesn't work in Android Auto or CarPlay. So then you're like kind of scrolling like it's at Lexus. And then that's a pain in the ass. So.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:32  
All right. So you also had something else that you're writing that you were talking about is just before we started recording.

Roberto Baldwin  9:42  
Yeah, I actually I wrote in I threw my helmet down. It's right behind my chair because I was writing late. I am writing the Ducati multistrada v four, and it's a motorcycle and if you're not into motorcycles by, but what this bike has, it's the first production bike. It has. It is radar for adaptive cruise control and blind spot monitoring. So you can turn on adaptive cruise control on a motorcycle. I've been using it, and it works really well. And my concern was, you know, there's a complacency when you drive a car. When you start using adaptive cruise control, and lane keep assist, you sort of start getting lazy about paying attention to what's going on. I think we're the differences when you ride a motorcycle is that you're tuned to always be super Uber alert about what's going on around you. So that for me that hasn't changed while while I'm using it. So if you're a very alert motorcycle rider, then you it'll be unlikely that that's going to change but it does make it so your you know, your right hand you don't get that like club always holding the accelerator entire time, you know, rolling, you know, every time I have to move if you have to do anything with your right hand whenever you let go. Your motorcycle just slows down. Who

Sam Abuelsamid  10:55  
knows. So yeah, this isn't a sport bike. Right? I forget what they what the classification of this bike is.

Roberto Baldwin  11:02  
It is um, it's it's it's. So it's, it's the multistrada line and the whole time many and then Stratta. It's so the idea is that streets, yeah, it's four different bikes in one. So it's a touring bike, you can set it in sport bike mode, you can set enduro mode, you go off fly off on sign offline off road, and then there's an urban setting that makes it easier, the shifts aren't as, as they're smoother, it's smoother shifting, because you're shifting so much when you're in an urban environment. And the first time I wrote one of these, I wrote the 1260 a few years ago, I was like, Okay is the jack of all trades master of none, in that and and that's why I went into it. And it's, you know, it's they're expensive bikes, you know, but but it, it actually feels like all those bikes when you do it, and you know, it's not the best sport bikes, not the best enduro bike, it's not, but it is a really good almost like facsimile of those bikes while you're riding it sort of I buy this one bike, and I can do all the things I want to do, instead of buying a smart bike, and an enduro bike, and a touring bike, and a commuter bike, I can buy one bike, have all those things and most the time, you know, with these bikes, people either are touring with them, or they're commuting with them because they have a very high, you know, high seating position. You can see pretty far they're great for commuting. You know, I had to do a lot of lane splitting to get here. I still was late but to get here.

Nicole Wakelin  12:29  
Like you said, it's an expensive bike. So what counts is like what is it an expensive bike?

Roberto Baldwin  12:34  
Like $20,000? Yeah, it's you know,

Nicole Wakelin  12:38  
a person who doesn't know a lot about motorcycles or you know, fess up to begin with. So I'm like What counts is an expensive bike I was curious compared

Sam Abuelsamid  12:44  
to a Harley Livewire that's a bargain Well yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  12:49  
yeah, I mean, I I am I am torn by the hardware the Livewire because you can get a zero zeros, electric motorcycle company, they've been around for years. their bikes is just getting progressively better. Everyone got excited about the Harley Livewire because it's Harley, it's the Livewire. But the zero is like $10,000 cheaper. Yeah, I'm just like, what you're paying, you're sort of paying for the Harley name. And I haven't written the Livewire that yet. So I can't like really judge it on how well arizer doesn't, right. But those zeros, especially the last five years, they've they've really brought it they've put out some really great bikes, what some wonderful, you know, accessories and components. You know, and you know, they have sort of bikes for different different types of writing. I'm gonna let my cat out because he's

Nicole Wakelin  13:39  
out in the background. It was

Roberto Baldwin  13:44  
two seconds. The catio was right outside my window. Like I built a catio it's like a patio for your cats. So they can go outside, but they don't like go outside and

Sam Abuelsamid  13:55  
screened in like a

Roberto Baldwin  13:56  
screened in. It's like It's like a knife for your cats. Like a little screen in your kitty. Okay, yeah, yeah. So we so he came in, and then suddenly he needed out of here. Yeah, that starts at $20,000. It's, you know, it's it's a, it's a fun bike. I really, you know, and then adding the dis any additional safety on a bike is always I'm always all for it.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:21  
Yeah, and especially, you know, something like the blind spot monitoring seems like that would be a really handy feature to have. Yeah, they're

Roberto Baldwin  14:29  
there. You know, for the most part when you're writing or when I'm writing at least I am constantly checking my mirrors but there's also that look back where you're looking left and right before you change lanes, but every once in a while, you know, you look in your mirror and someone's just flying and you don't see them and you miss them you start to move on and also New Year's cue. Yeah, and you just you're like you know, you're that close to death. And having the blind spot marine like it pops up on your, you know, on your side mirror like it doesn't in an automobile and you're like, oh, there's a there's a car coming or there's a car Right there. And so, you know that that right there to me is I mean, that's worth the price of admission. And the adaptive cruise control is fun, it's great. It, you know, keeps your right hand from getting tired. But the other blind spot monitoring, it's, it's pretty great. You know, they have a

Nicole Wakelin  15:15  
car where you have to, like start paying extra to get these little bits on the motorcycle, or do they like, you know, like, the trim level kind of thing? Or is it on everyone? Like, it's, it's

Roberto Baldwin  15:22  
on everyone, it's sort of their selling point for this one. But you know, I can see where they're, you know, they can kind of, you know, start selling things. I

Nicole Wakelin  15:32  
think I was just curious if it was like, if you want this nifty gadget, you got to pay an extra X number of dollars, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  15:37  
or start start doing a subscription where you pay pay by the month for it.

Roberto Baldwin  15:41  
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Everyone loves that everyone.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:45  
The coal? Yeah. What have you been driving?

Nicole Wakelin  15:48  
I am driving a very tiny little vehicle that is, you know, easy to drive around a spark? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Chevy Suburban. And it is, it is huge. Same thing. They're practically the same. I don't know that there's a horse, right. Yeah, I don't understand why they sell both of them. They really just have one. So I was driving the suburban. So I could, you know, rip my house off a foundation if I wanted to just tow it along with me. Or maybe just stick it in the backseat, because it's that big. It's huge. It is a huge vehicle. But I have the one with the three liter turbo diesel. So you

Sam Abuelsamid  16:25  
could pull your house off?

Nicole Wakelin  16:26  
Like, yeah, I really could pull my house right off the foundation should I choose to. So that's 277 horsepower, 460 pound feet of torque. You know, it's freaky about driving it when you're not actually towing anything, is that you mash the gas. And it's huge. Like you have this sense of like, I'm getting on the highway, I'm going to need to move I had better hit that gas hard. Or I'm going nowhere. But with turbo diesel and nothing you take off like nobody's business. It's like whoops, okay, let me ease up on that a little bit. I don't need all that power. There's nothing in it. But me and my, my husband. That's it, you know. Now it was it's, I liked driving it. It was funny. We had a contractor at the house for something and he was all about it. He's like, I want to replace my truck with this. I want to get this instead, you know, so he was all excited because of the diesel. That was his entire reason for wanting he's like I wouldn't get it without a diesel because I need something that has the oomph to be able to tow What does this tow up to 8000 pounds at this kinto. So it's it definitely I thought that was interesting that he's he's a truck guy, just a truck guy. But he's thinking okay, I could actually move over to this because this gives me the benefits of having all the extra seating and the versatility, but it still can do some truck guy stuff and do the work he needs it to do. And it's it's a beautiful interior. I mean, it's got it. It's not cheap. This was I got to double check here, not at $2,000. So it's not it's not an inexpensive choice. But if you're going to go for something that's you want that large SUV and you need the capability. I mean, it's a great way to go. And it has cool standard stuff like it has a 10.2 inch touchscreen. I love it when you don't have to that standard like you don't have to like Oh, you're gonna get a four inch touchscreen on the very basis. If you want anything extra shell out some money. It's like no, you can get the base one you're still gonna get this giant touchscreen. So I was pleased with it. I liked it.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:24  
Cool. Yeah, what what kind of fuel economy you get with it?

Nicole Wakelin  18:28  
I never look at fuel economy. I'm just terrible. I don't why should I just it's something I never think to look at in a vehicle. So and I should be more

Sam Abuelsamid  18:36  
especially with the with the diesel. Yeah, I think in that in that vehicle. I think that that's, that's an interesting element. Because, you know, right now I've got Cadillac Escalades in the driveway that's got the 6.2 liter VA, and it has a thirst for petroleum products. But you know, I can't remember the pricing in the suburban, but in the in the Cadillac you can actually get you can choose either the 6.2 gas v eight or the diesel, for the same price. There's no price premium for the diesel. And I think I think that the price premium on this on the Chevy's about 20 $500 or So

Nicole Wakelin  19:16  
actually, I'm double checking it saying 15 $100 if at all. Okay, I believe it's 15 I'm looking at a sort of blurry copy of a monroney here, but it looks like it's about 15 for these, which isn't that bad. It's sort of great but feel Academy it's supposed to get, it's supposed to be 22 combined, which Not bad, not great, but it's a it's big. I mean, it's not a small vehicle. This is huge. So 22 mpg and if you're going to diesel,

Sam Abuelsamid  19:45  
carry eight passengers and tow 1000 pounds, you know, you can't complain about that.

Nicole Wakelin  19:50  
It's not it is not a spark, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  19:52  
no, it is not. You could park a couple of sparks in the back. If you fold the seat. You could

Nicole Wakelin  19:56  
park a couple in the back toe, a few on the back. You could Have a fleet of sparks wherever you go, everyone can get out of the vehicle and get into their own spark and go about their business. When you,

Sam Abuelsamid  20:06  
when you when you go into Boston, you know, you can park the park to suburban on the perimeter and just drive the spark into town, you know, that last

Nicole Wakelin  20:16  
mile solution now, last mile solution is by a suburban and put a spark inside of it.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:21  
You know, back in, in the late 80s, or early 90s, Honda had a car in, in the Japanese market, a kei car was the Honda City, I think, or it was either the city or the today that actually had a little fold up motor scooter that went in the back, you know, so you could take that out, you know, fold up the handlebars and everything and ride off in that thing, same thing, you know, with the spark in a suburban, you know, and you can actually park the spark in downtown Boston,

Nicole Wakelin  20:48  
you could and then it wouldn't be a scooter. So you would not be frozen to death for six months of the year riding your scooter no Boston, you would be precise.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:58  
So I also had a GM vehicle this week, a GM SUV that's a little bit smaller than the suburban I had the new Buick envision, which is the it's the second generation of the Envision. And the Envision for those that don't recall is the first product that GM has imported to North America, from China, it's actually built in China is built exclusively in China. It's a compact crossover, you know, same sizes and Equinox or rav4 CRV Ford Escape. And I think it's a really nice size, you know, the first generation envision was, it was a nice vehicle to drive, but it was a little frumpy looking, you know, wasn't wasn't real exciting to look at, you know, this new one, you know, has, I think a much more contemporary style to it just got, in a lot of ways, it's more like the Mazda CX five, where, you know, they push the eight pillars, the base of the windshield back a little bit, so you've got a little bit of that longer hood profile, you know, even though it's a front wheel drive, you know, front wheel drive, slash all wheel drive, crossover. But it you know, the, the interior is really nicely done, the, the, the touchscreen is angled towards the driver, you know, so you know, very easy to hit that very easy to see it, it's got the, the only engine available in there is the two liter, four cylinder turbo gems for two liter four cylinder turbo in this particular vehicle, it's rated at 228 horsepower, and 258 pounds of torque. And, you know, again, it, it feels, you know, feels plenty strong enough, you know, there's no, no shortage of performance here, you know, it's not gonna outrun, you know, a Tesla Model live performance or anything like that. But, you know, it's more than adequate for, you know, all of your daily driving needs. The the model, I had also had all wheel drive. And it's, it's fuel economy is rated at 22 City 29 Highway, I got 26 all around over the course of a week. It's, it's really nice to drive and, you know, quite quiet on the highway, the one I had, didn't have all of the, you know, the kinds of a das you know, Driver Assist features we've come to expect on a lot of vehicles today, like, you know, adaptive cruise control, it did have blind spot monitoring and Forward Collision Alert, but no ACC, which was a little bit annoying, because I had to drive it all the way up to, you know, to Romeo, Michigan, to the Ford proving grounds to for the demo on the the F 150. Lightning. And, you know, that's slick a 9085 90 mile drive from my home. So I would have liked to have had and, you know, I had to be there at eight in the morning. So very early, I would have liked to have had ACC for that trip, but alas, had to, you know, monitor my distance to other vehicles the whole time. No,

Roberto Baldwin  24:07  
motorcycle you could have written there. I know. I know. I'm aware of

Sam Abuelsamid  24:12  
that. Nine speed automatic said you know, materials and fit and finish inside was you know, first rate, no complaints there. And it is priced. The one I had was priced at $41,790. So this is the essence model, which is the high end trim starts at 37. Six. This one was 40 almost 42,000 including delivery. Interestingly, that even though it's coming from China, the delivery charges only 12 $100 you know what hurts me we've, I know in the past and over the past year, we've talked about delivery charges on some vehicles and how they keep creeping up in a kind of hidden price increase, particularly at FCA, you know they're charging something like 17 $100 for delivery fees now on on the Rams and the jeeps. So 1200 bucks is a relative bargain for that on this one. So yeah, I mean, generally, you know, really nice, you know, slightly more premium, compact crossover, you know, so if you're looking at something like the Lexus, and x or the, you know, the Lincoln course they're like the base trim levels of the course there. You might want to take a look at one of these as an alternative. You might like the, the style a little better or different, especially compared to the Lexus. But yeah, definitely worth taking a look at.

Nicole Wakelin  25:42  
I have that back in February. So a couple months back now, and I kind of had the similar feelings about it as you did, and I liked the interior on it, like Buick does a good job, you know, they want to be the upscale brand. But how do you be upscale without being so upscale that you become truly a luxury car brand that stupidly expensive? And they walk a fine line there? It does feel the interior is a really, it's attractive, it's elegant, it they do a good job for the prices? Because Would you say that's like 41 something?

Sam Abuelsamid  26:14  
Yeah, just try 42 grand

Nicole Wakelin  26:16  
just for a 42 and it you know, you don't get inside, it doesn't feel it doesn't have that, you know, $60,000 luxury car kind of aesthetic. But it feels like you did a little something extra. I think they did a good job at giving it a little bit of extra just with the way they've done some of the trends and the quality of the materials. So I was a big fan of the Envision.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:32  
Yeah, and the exterior design too, I think, you know, really stepped up, stepped it up this time around for the second generation model. Alright, let's jump into some news items. Let's start off. Let's start off with an electric pickup truck. That for the moment at least is not the Ford f150 lightning. The GMC Hummer EV that is launching this fall. Interesting little tidbit of news came out a few days ago about

Nicole Wakelin  27:05  
not a little tidbit, technically, it's a huge tidbit.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:07  
It is it isn't really you know this, this is a pretty big truck, although it's actually not as big as the F 150. You know, it's kind of slots in between a mid size like the Colorado and a full size, like the Silverado. And this thing weighs 9034 pounds, curb

Nicole Wakelin  27:29  
weight, 9000

Roberto Baldwin  27:31  
pounds. It's a beefy, beefy truck. I've seen it in real in real life, I've sat in it, there are a lot of H's on it, which I assume are where all the weight where all the weight comes from, because everything is an H A must be

Nicole Wakelin  27:44  
nice is a big letter. So pounds 9000 what do you do to make this thing Wait, I want to know, what is the what was the structure like? Well, we can't really do any weight saving. So just deal with it. 9000 pounds. What happened there?

Sam Abuelsamid  28:02  
I'm assuming, you know, they've talked a lot about how they reduce the development time, you know, and this they did this, this whole program and like 26 months from, you know, started the program till job one. And apparently, you know, they kind of skipped over the step where they do weight optimization that would be ready in no time. Let's just let's just make the entire underbody skid plate out of cast iron. lead.

Roberto Baldwin  28:34  
There, there is nothing more Hummer than the fact that the Evie weighs 9000 pounds that is on brand. That is

Nicole Wakelin  28:44  
this is true. This is totally over the top, which is Hummer, so I guess they're staying true.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:51  
Well, and just for just for reference, you know, if you think back to the original h1 Hummer, which was the civilian version of the military Humvee, how is it that way? Those only weighed 1000 pounds 1000 pounds heavier.

Nicole Wakelin  29:05  
Now, are they doing this? I feel like there's an engineer somewhere listening going, wait, wait, wait, I can explain Hold on a second. Now,

Sam Abuelsamid  29:12  
granted, you know, you know, I talked to a rep from GMC The other day, you know, just to verify this when when the news came? And he said, yeah, that's the weight for the edition one or first edition or whatever the whatever the first one they're they're building is. And you know, that one's loaded. I mean, it's there's got no options. Everything is standard on there, including like 18 cameras, you know, I mean, cameras, you know, a

Nicole Wakelin  29:40  
few cameras. I mean, that would use like an NBC or something that's

Sam Abuelsamid  29:46  
like big big Hasselblad or something.

Roberto Baldwin  29:51  
That's it's almost part of that sort of weird, that game where you have weight versus battery. Like how much but you know, they want 350 miles They had to add more battery but that added more weight but you need more battery in order to move the weight of the battery and then it's just this big chunky car truck and so it's like well how much is that is battery and how much you know where where where's the line where's the

Nicole Wakelin  30:16  
like sort of like the break even point version like you know like aware that adding extra battery the wait no longer makes it worth it to keep doing this

Sam Abuelsamid  30:25  
you know they've said you know it's a 200 kilowatt hour battery for this one and you know and I think they've said you know that the the energy density of this this battery their new altium batteries is somewhere around 250 watt hours per kilogram so this battery should weigh about somewhere between 25 and 2700 pounds which is you know bigger than most other TVs but most other TVs you know have at most like 100 240 kilowatt hour battery you know this you know this is 200 kilowatt hours yeah it's gonna be heavy but still that's only you know, let's let's be conservative and say you know 27 2800 pounds you know where the hell is the other you know 6006 and a half 1000 pounds in this say I

Nicole Wakelin  31:11  
I'm baffled I don't know when we see it. Will you seen it? revert? Oh, does it Yeah, like I said all the ages. I mean, like you said

Roberto Baldwin  31:19  
it feels heavy. It feels big and heavy. Just looking at it. Like I didn't look savvy but it looks heavy. You walk out there you're like this feels it is a it is it's Husky I guess you would call

Nicole Wakelin  31:36  
it it's like you nicely called it fat.

Roberto Baldwin  31:39  
Oh, he's big. It's big. It's got big bones. I mean, it is

Sam Abuelsamid  31:47  
American vehicle, you know morbidly obese.

Nicole Wakelin  31:50  
Is it is it is it is none of us are ever gonna drive this car now. They're gonna really get them down to them all the way from get away from our

Roberto Baldwin  31:58  
get away from our Hummer, EV I mean, if I get it, it is drives great, fine. But it is. It is something else it is

Sam Abuelsamid  32:07  
1000 horsepower, and, you know, zero to 60 in three seconds. You know, because

Nicole Wakelin  32:12  
if it performs the way it's supposed to perform, who cares how much it weighs? Is that gonna be what it comes down to? I

Sam Abuelsamid  32:17  
think it I think one of the one of the challenges, you know, there's there's actually a lot of roads in the United States are a lot of bridges that you cannot cross with a vehicle that weighs over 8500 pounds.

Nicole Wakelin  32:30  
Oh, wait, you're kidding me. It's like 80 filing

Sam Abuelsamid  32:32  
a matching number 8500 is the upper limit for class one and class two a vehicles. So once you go past 8500 pounds, gross vehicle weight, so that's the weight of the vehicle plus whatever payload is in it, then you're into class to be you're into medium duty trucks. And you know, this is 9000 pounds empty.

Nicole Wakelin  32:55  
So nobody in it, no cargo, no

Sam Abuelsamid  32:58  
nothing you put, you know, for adults in this thing and some cargo, you know, you're, you're gonna be certainly over 10,000 pounds, you know, and maybe potentially approaching 11 depending on how much gear you've got with you.

Roberto Baldwin  33:11  
It's five tons of fun with you and all your friends. That's what it is. It's certainly

Sam Abuelsamid  33:16  
better be fine with that weight. Is Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  33:19  
really have now I'm really curious to see because I i've been curious to see it because it does look really neat. And I wanted to see it in person at some point, obviously, but seeing like pictures and then seeing that 9000 pound number and like now you really want to see it like I was like, does it feel like 9000 pounds like are the doors like you need to like work out to be able to shut the doors. Like I want to know what makes it night that's about I saw

Sam Abuelsamid  33:43  
that the EV day GM last year, you know, and grant, you know, the one they had there was actually still a clay model. It wasn't it wasn't even a full mock up of you know, full prototype. And it it didn't. It's big, but I mean it doesn't look especially enormous compared to a lot of modern trucks and and compared to the the ram tr x I drove a couple of weeks ago. It's not really any bigger than that. In fact, I think it might be like physically dimensionally smaller than the TR x and the TR x weighs 6500 pounds.

Nicole Wakelin  34:17  
I pulled up next to a tr x with my daughter and she was in her new little rogue sport and I felt so small. I was like oh my god, it's like T rex is just towering above us as she's falling into the spot. You should

Sam Abuelsamid  34:29  
try sitting next to it in a Miata.

Nicole Wakelin  34:32  
Even more so. I feel like it could drive over you You might have the clearest, most

Sam Abuelsamid  34:37  
almost not quite, but I pulled out my Miata into the driveway to wash it when I had the TR x and had it parked next to it and I'm looking up at this thing. Oh boy,

Roberto Baldwin  34:48  
pull under and change the oil in your Miata and pull it out.

Nicole Wakelin  34:51  
Yeah, just lay on the roof on your back.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:58  
Sticking with electric pickup Trucks a little more on the the F 150. Lightning, which has now been revealed. The by the time that this recording is out, we will have the official word out on the F 150. Lightning Pro, which is the commercial truck version. So this is, even though it's badged as Pro, it's actually the base version of the F 150. Lightning, which is the electric f 150. And this is the one that's targeting commercial customers. And I actually wouldn't be surprised if this is actually the best selling version of the lightning. Because you know, there's, there's a lot of appeal for commercial customers for this thing, especially in terms of low operating costs. This is the one when they talk about a $40,000 F 150. Lightning, this is the one that's going to be 40 grand is the lightning Pro, with the standard range battery pack, 230 mile battery pack, the extended range version for 300 miles of range, that one's going to be $50,000. So 10 grand more for the extra 70 miles of range. And yeah, so this is this is going to be configured, you know, pretty much like an Excel like a regular f 150 XL, basic work truck vinyl interior. But it still has, you know, a lot of features like the pro power on board, you know, to power your tools. It has a 12 inch touchscreen with sink four in there. In a lot of the other goodies,

Nicole Wakelin  36:33  
isn't it a fancy version of sync did I read it's like think for a or something, which is like the latest and greatest fanciest version of sync ever made

Sam Abuelsamid  36:42  
for a is the version that's on the portrait. 15 and a half inch screen.

Nicole Wakelin  36:46  
Gotcha. Okay, that's where I'm seeing the forest

Sam Abuelsamid  36:48  
green from the the Maki, and that that 15 same 15 and a half inch screen will be in the Lariat and platinum versions of the light on

Nicole Wakelin  36:57  
the top. Okay, I wasn't sure what got the four a

Sam Abuelsamid  36:59  
Yeah, so there's there's four trim levels, there's the the Pro, which is the base, the XL t, which is the the middle level, and then the Lariat and the platinum, and malaria and the Platinum get the big screen and the four a which has a different slightly different user interface because the different layout and then the floor is just the the landscape layout. So any thoughts on this thing?

Roberto Baldwin  37:26  
I mean, they're their forte is been building, you know, commercial grade, you know, contractors, fleet, you know, the F 150. That's, you look in, in almost any municipality, they probably have a ton of F 150s, if you talk to most contractors are driving around in a white f150. And so this is, you know, it, this is a huge, huge base of customers, and making sure that like, Hey, we're making this for you. And it has all these telematics and all this information that helps them sort of track how the trucks being used, you know, track individual drivers, like all the things are sort of baked into it. I mean, it's, it's sort of a no brainer, and it really, really, like puts a stake in the heart of Lordstown, which was trying to like, Hey, we're making a, you know, a commercial grade truck for everyone to use, like, are you gonna buy the F 150. from Ford that's less expensive from a brand that's been around for 100 years, or you gonna buy from Lordstown? Which is,

Sam Abuelsamid  38:24  
yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I was watching the briefing earlier today. On the, the, the commercial truck, and, you know, they talked about some things like, you know, from that telematics data that they have, you know, from from all their customers, I found that 95% of the commercial users drive less than 175 miles a day, which is actually, you know, quite a bit, but 95% less than 175 miles so that they figured for the vast majority of customers, that 230 mile range is actually going to be more than adequate. And then, you know, you've got the longer range version available as well. One of the one of the other key things they mentioned, you know, is that for now, 2300 of Ford's dealers across the United States are AV certified. So they're certified to, to service these things to work on these things. And they will have the tools and the spare parts. So even if you have something like a battery, you know, that neat, you know, that has a bad module in it, that you can take it to a Ford to one of these certified for dealers, they can pull that battery replaced the module and have it back in and back to same day. You know, where's Lordstown has no surface network. You know, who's gonna work on these things when they have problems, which they probably will?

Nicole Wakelin  39:47  
Yeah, poor Lordstown.

Roberto Baldwin  39:50  
I mean, Lordstown is a boondoggle from the start. I mean, it's a company it's a company based on a failed another failed company that's paying the failed company for every truck. They Build. So it's just you when you, when you look at everything around Lordstown, you're like, Wait a second, what's going on here?

Sam Abuelsamid  40:07  
You know, what I feel I feel bad for the people that live in that area that got laid off when GM closed the plant when they stopped building the crews there. And, you know, then, you know, Lordstown swept in and you had some guy from Washington who came in and made a big deal about all this, you know, about how this was going to save, you know, the, the, the, you know, the Northeast Ohio region, turn it into, what do they call it? electron alley, I think or something like that. You know,

Nicole Wakelin  40:38  
like, is it goes electric Avenue, that song for the days, so everybody enjoyed that earworm now.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:45  
So, but you're right, Robbie, this, you know, Steve burns, the CEO of Lordstown, you know, he, there was a lot of shady stuff that went on when he ran workhorse group. And, you know, workhorse, you know, has never had much success at all, you know, and they basically, they essentially got this plant for free from GM. Yeah, they, they, technically, they paid gm $20 million for the factory. But GM had to give them a $40 million loan, so that they could pay GM back $20 million for the factory. And they still have some cash left over,

Nicole Wakelin  41:22  
because that's some fun accounting.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:24  
Oh, yeah. So, you know, I think, you know, the only reason that this enterprise even exists is because, you know, when GM shut down the plant, you know, they got so much bad press, they just, they just wanted it to go away. And they said, Fine, take the plant. We'll give you some money. You know, do something, please, you know, and meanwhile, GM is building a battery plant, you know, basically next door. So,

Roberto Baldwin  41:50  
well, when Lordstown went in Lordstown goes out of business and they can just take back over that and build more stuff or another automaker could like come in and like you know,

Nicole Wakelin  41:58  
they can just keep still sell it to the next one. The next one and sell it to the next one. Yeah, eventually they'll make a profit.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:05  
Maybe Maybe when rivian is ready for a second plant they can come in and take

Nicole Wakelin  42:08  
it over. They could be like Hey guys, let's take that off your hands. We can help. We got

Roberto Baldwin  42:13  
we got a lot of money in the bank and the actual car actual trucks that run if you

Nicole Wakelin  42:17  
will vehicles, so hey,

Roberto Baldwin  42:20  
unreal partners, not letters of intent.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:24  
Next up, hiya Evie six as we record last night in Times Square. Kia had a big event and unveiled the Evie six which is their first purpose built Evie. Not their first Evie they've had the soul before and they've got the the Kia Niro Evie as well. But the Eevee six is their first entry off of this new global global electric platform that Hyundai Motor Group has developed that's going to be used by Hyundai Kia and Genesis vehicles over the next several years I think they've they said they're gonna have 23 different models off of this platform by 2025 and we've already seen the Hyundai ionic five which should be arriving here this sometime this summer. Evie six is coming beginning of next year. What do you think of this car?

Roberto Baldwin  43:19  
I it okay first of all, I am still angry not angry but disappointed that no one said hey maybe we should not call it the E GMP. Because it says he GIMP further further electric electronic platform.

Nicole Wakelin  43:34  
Oh geez. Until you What is he talking about? I looked at it. Uh huh.

Roberto Baldwin  43:40  
Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Now I've ruined it for you and everyone listening

Nicole Wakelin  43:45  
Dang it, Roberto.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:46  
Yeah, sorry about that.

Nicole Wakelin  43:48  
That's okay, get over it.

Roberto Baldwin  43:52  
I but I you know, I really I'm happy that the Hyundai Group is going with an 800 volt system for the F 150 or 100 volts. Being Mercedes 400 volts. I'm like, What are these people doing? You need the 800 volt system if you want to have that quick charging, if you want to just point at Tesla and say, Hey, we can charge as quickly as whatever you're building you know now we're just waiting for the infrastructure in order to actually yeah quicker is like you know, what, is

Sam Abuelsamid  44:18  
it 353 350 kilowatts, so you know, they can go to any of the 600 plus electrify America stations now and find a 350 kilowatt charger and top this thing up, right?

Nicole Wakelin  44:32  
It can get up to it can go for 10 to 80% which is 210 miles in 18 minutes Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:38  
Bam. That's fast that is that that's that's faster than a Porsche icon. Yeah. icon only does 270 So yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  44:47  
it's you know, I like I like the way it looks but the the honey like better ionic five.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:54  
Yeah. I mean, this this is this is an interesting new design direction. I think for kiya I think the, the one of the neat elements is at the tail, you know, it's got kind of this little mini duck tail type of thing you know, that incorporates a light strip all the way around it. You know, calling this thing a crossover you know, it's it's more more like you know i'm not sure what the hell to call this thing.

Nicole Wakelin  45:25  
Is it a criminal? Yeah c v right crossover? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:30  
And it's a slightly taller five door hatch. Yeah, it

Nicole Wakelin  45:33  
looks sort of hatchback but I get it I get the cursor it's a squished crossover

Sam Abuelsamid  45:38  
Yeah, it's got a very short doesn't

Nicole Wakelin  45:40  
have any kind of marketing ring to it though Mukesh crossover. I but but it's it's it's very low. The roof is very low. So I don't I don't know. But But is it?

Roberto Baldwin  45:53  
Is it lower isn't a trick because they onic fives like the same height as like a CRV

Nicole Wakelin  45:58  
right? Like this Really? Like I'm looking at the trick. So is it just make it look very low to try to make it look somehow like you know, everybody wants to sleek and sporty thing going on? Yeah. Is that what they're

Sam Abuelsamid  46:09  
trying to do? Short hood? You know, cuz Yeah, it's really short comes right up, you know, to like the middle. Yeah, wrap to the front axle. So you've got a long greenhouse that I think makes it visually look lower than it is.

Nicole Wakelin  46:22  
I like the profile though. Like, there's this one really cool profiles they have and it looks pretty. It looks slick. I like it. I like it.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:32  
Cooler they are, they're going to have the GT model with live 176 horsepower, zero to 60 in less than three and a half seconds, which will be the quickest kit ever.

Nicole Wakelin  46:45  
The quickest kit ever, ever. I think it's gonna be cool. I like the interior design stuff that they showed off too because Keo is just sort of fun stuff with lighting. It's like It's its own little segment fun with lighting from kiya, they always do these neat little interior treatments. And when you look at the interior shots of this, they've done some neat stuff. It's, it's got some nice interior lighting, and it seems like it has a nice design. I like how they have even the cell phone charger positioned on the center console is the start button on that too.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:16  
Looks like it Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  47:18  
the start buttons on the center console, that's kind of slick, it just has a different look, I like it when they do something different and attractive and eye catching. And it definitely has that

Sam Abuelsamid  47:28  
it also has an augmented reality heads up display. So you know, heads up display will display information in multiple planes, you know, so heads up displays today, you know, you see the information floating above your hood somewhere and everything's in in the same plane, you know, so it's the same focus point, but this is going to be multiple planes. So when you're using navigation, and you know, it's telling you where to turn, it'll actually it'll look like the arrows are actually on the road at the point where you're supposed to turn it and as you get closer to it, you know, it'll grow and

Nicole Wakelin  48:06  
Okay, they show an image of exactly what you're talking about. And they show the one that just as arrows pointing to the left which kind of looks like the traditional head up display we're all used to but the the arrows to the right that are angled and look like there that is actually kind of neat that we really need to teach because there's the worst when you're trying to follow the right turn and you're looking at a right you're like where's where's my right in real time? Oh wait there it is behind me like you know, right so to see this and have a kind of angley like right about here that would be really neat. I like this do that and all the head up displays

Sam Abuelsamid  48:37  
there while there there will be several next year the Cadillac lyric is also going to have the same type of system similar

Nicole Wakelin  48:43  
kind of thing that's a cool system. I would like to see that live and in person and see if it keeps me from missing as many turns as I currently Miss.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:52  
Of course since this is electric and it's so quiet, you'll actually really be able to take advantage of the key sounds of nature feature

Roberto Baldwin  49:01  
it's raining here like a lot Okay, sure. I'll just turn that

Sam Abuelsamid  49:04  
off sitting in a Paris cafe.

Nicole Wakelin  49:06  
cafe what I had I kept coming up to cafe and something I was driving and my dad was like why does it sound like a coffee shop in the car? I'm

Roberto Baldwin  49:13  
like this I wonder if it still has the recorder like the voice recorder. Like you can just record your voice like there's a voice recorder and yeah, Hyundai's and so sometimes I will just like record my voice and like, hey, it's Roberta Baldwin. Hi, fellow automotive journalist. And then I'll just leave it there and go on my way. I have no idea. I

Nicole Wakelin  49:34  
want to get a car that you drove into that in Dang it, but you're too far away.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:40  
Okay, let's get on to some listener questions or comments. First one was an email that came in from Jonathan bhana steel. And he sent us a photograph. There's no actual question. Just send us a photograph and just have the comments. Shouldn't this be in Australia and If you scroll down and look at that, you will see a photo of what appears to be a Holden ute, which is the Australian word for pickup truck. You know, this, these are, you know, back before GM and Ford stopped building vehicles in Australia. They used to build these car based pickup trucks, you know that were essentially modern day iterations on the classic El Camino idea. And interestingly, this car was photographed, oh, five minutes from my house. Right in front of the FCX food Co Op, where I go. Every Saturday morning to pick

Nicole Wakelin  50:40  
I was stocking you as the waiting to see you out here Saturday morning, grocery run and he's like, wait, cool car. Forget about Sam. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:50  
But, you know, thinking about this? Yeah. You know, there's a there's a regulation that now they changed some years back, that once a car that was built for an overseas market is more than 25 years old, you can now import them into the United States, without having to go through the process, federalizing it without meeting us emission standards, and you know, putting us headlights and bumpers and all the other stuff. So if it's over 25 years old, you can import it. This car is very clearly not 25 years old. You know this, this is a car that was built somewhere in the latter half of the 2000s, maybe early 2010s. Based on on the model that this is and so you wouldn't, you wouldn't have been able to import this, you know, without not going through the normal federalisation process and getting it sorted

Nicole Wakelin  51:48  
that many things that you would have to change on this.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:51  
There's quite a few Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's there's a fairly significant number. But there is one possible explanation for why this car exists in Ypsilanti. If you'll recall back in 2008, before, or was it maybe was 2009 and 2008, just before everything went sideways, and GM went through bankruptcy, and they killed off Pontiac and Saturn and Saab and Hummer, they at the 2008 New York Auto Show there. The Pontiac press conference had a very interesting pairing on the stage. Bob Lutz and 50 cent there to announce the Pontiac g8 su T, I think they called it, which was basically one of these units. Because, you know, Pontiac had been selling the g8, which was a US version of the Holden Commodore for several years. And people had been clamoring, please bring us the pickup we you know, we want a modern El Camino. Yeah. And so they announced it, they showed it on stage at the New York Auto Show, I was there at that press conference. And that's the last time we ever saw, does less than a year later, the Pontiac brand was dead, GA was dead, the pickup was dead.

Nicole Wakelin  53:17  
Everything was dead.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:18  
But in that time period in that interim, you know, GM had certainly brought over some of those vehicles. And they, you know, they were doing the development work and going through the certification process, because it was it was supposed to go on sale in 2009. So they would have had some here that were us legal. And my guess is that this is one of those development vehicles that somehow slipped through the cracks and got out of the Milford Proving Grounds,

Nicole Wakelin  53:46  
because it shouldn't have if, as a developer, it should have like died. It should never have made it its life should have ended in a squish. But unless,

Sam Abuelsamid  53:55  
you know, unless it was like a late pre production model, you know, because when they're going through the launch process, you know, once they've finished development, and they're going through, you know, getting getting everything, you know, the final certification, the last, you know, few dozen few 100 pre production cars that they build are technically what they call saleable. So they, they are compliant with all the rules. But, you know, they're those are usually kept, you know, within the company, and they're driven by employees, you know, to for a few months as part of what they call a captured test fleet to shake them out find any last minute bugs and things like that. My guess is this is one of those late pre production models, that was considered saleable. And some GM engineer decided I want it, bought it and then replaced the Pontiac badges with holding badges.

Roberto Baldwin  54:53  
Oh, maybe. Yeah, because it because it was in the if they had kept it as like a museum piece, then it would still have the Pontiac badge. Right. That was my thought I'm like, but if as the holding badges,

Nicole Wakelin  55:05  
right the hold of badges mess up that theory, yeah. Interesting system random. I don't know. You see now you have to pay more attention when you're at the market. Sam, see if you can see this guy, throw yourself in front of the vehicle and say stop. We need to know how you got this here.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:21  
I will definitely be keeping an eye out for this vehicle. Now.

Roberto Baldwin  55:24  
I feel like if we call GM they're gonna they're gonna like, Chase like hunt this guy down and

Nicole Wakelin  55:30  
you guys you busted.

Roberto Baldwin  55:33  
Come on. Don't be a narc. Don't be a dark.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:37  
Okay. We also got some questions from some listeners on Twitter. First one is from somebody named Rebecca drive. So no idea who she is. heck is that? I don't know. But she had three questions. Really? Sorry, three. I know she's overdue. It's

Nicole Wakelin  55:56  
not really allowed for future reference. Rebecca, it's one question per listener,

Sam Abuelsamid  56:00  
or at least one question per tweet,

Roberto Baldwin  56:02  
per tweet. All three of them are the same question. And we're the same tweet, same

Sam Abuelsamid  56:06  
tweet. Yeah. So the three questions are what is the meaning of life? What are you wearing? And are you my mother? So let's start with you, Nicole.

Nicole Wakelin  56:17  
What was the being like? Is it 42? The answer to the meaning of the question, isn't that am I getting the right thing Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and one of those things?

Sam Abuelsamid  56:26  
I do believe that is the correct answer.

Nicole Wakelin  56:27  
I believe 42 is the correct answer. Thank you very much. What am I wearing a jean jacket? Are you my mother? Nah, No, I'm not. I'm not happy with that one.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:37  
Robbie, you have.

Roberto Baldwin  56:39  
Okay, so the meaning of life is have fun, but not at the expense of others. I am wearing a hoodie and a shirt. I had to wear a button up shirt because I had a Dr. program earlier today. And what was the last question? Oh, no, I

Sam Abuelsamid  56:55  
have no I yeah. Rebecca's mother.

Roberto Baldwin  56:58  
I don't believe so. I'm pretty sure I'm not I would say I'm 97% sure that I am not Rebecca's mother.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:05  
Okay. I can say with I'm gonna go with 99% certainty that I'm not Rebecca's mother.

Nicole Wakelin  57:13  
Only 99 has that 1% possibility. I

Sam Abuelsamid  57:16  
appreciate that. You can never be absolute about these.

Nicole Wakelin  57:19  
Okay, that's fair. That's fair, Sam, that's fair.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:22  
You know, you always got to leave a little wiggle room. And I have worked in PR in the past. So I know the importance of leaving of using weasel words. What am I wearing? I'm wearing a Mustang t shirt and shorts. And the meaning of life is whatever the hell you think it is. Whatever you want it to be. Whatever, enjoy, enjoy it. All right. It is coming up on 928 eastern time and I believe you have to leave right goal

Nicole Wakelin  57:57  
I do I have to disappear. I'm picking up a child who is arriving back from college and she will be at the airport staying there sadly with her baggage, if I don't show up. So I'm going to have to cut out a little bit early guys, but it's fun. And you know, be nice while I while I disappear and you finish the podcast and I'll see you guys next week.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:14  
Alright, see you next time. Bye. Alright. And then next next question came from Coach Cabrera. What is the long term plan for disposing of all these electric car batteries? It's a good question, because there's going to be a hell of a lot of them. I think the big thing is recycling, trying to recycle because we're going to be making so many batteries. In fact, one thing we didn't talk about was Ford. This morning announced joint venture with SK innovation. They're going to get into battery cell production as well, along with GM and Volkswagen is to lattice and probably other automakers. And you know, they talked about Ford alone, for just for North America expects that by 2030. They're going to need 140 gigawatt hours a year worth of lithium ion batteries. And so that's going to take a lot of raw materials, you know that raw materials that are not currently mined and processed like lithium and manganese, nickel and cobalt, at least not in sufficient quantities. And so the key is going to be recycling these batteries and getting those raw materials back out of depleted batteries and putting them back into new batteries.

Roberto Baldwin  59:30  
Yeah, a lot and so there's there's recycling, you want to extract all the the important bits back out of the batteries and, and a lot of automakers are still talked about how you could repurpose the batteries because if you take a battery out of a car, which is a pretty extreme environment, and you do something like a power wall like Tesla's power wall, where you have an environment where you could the battery isn't being charged and discharged as as quickly and as heavily as it would in a car and it would work great in you know, homes. In, you know, manufacturer settings, or you know, in those, like, you know, the giant sort of power grid, instead of using peekers, you know, more and more utilities are using batteries connected to some, you know, either solar or wind. And so that's another way that you can, you know, continue to use the battery as long as it has something usable in it. And then once once it gets to its, it's completely depleted, then you start, you know, ripping them apart and, and and getting all those those sweet, sweet delicious minerals.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:31  
Yeah. Did you see the the video that Volkswagen put out? I don't know, I guess about a month and a half two months ago. They have a pilot recycling plant in Germany. And they had a video showing the shredder that they have for battery modules.

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:46  
Oh, wow. No, I missed that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:48  
Oh, I'll I'll I'll put I'll put a link to it in the in the show notes. But basically, if you think of what a paper shredder looks like, imagine one scaled up that can take an aluminum box, you know, that's maybe two feet by, you know, eight inches high and a foot wide. And just drop that box in there. And it shreds it into little shreds into little chunks that they can then take and process to extract all those materials back out of it. It's It's really amazing to watch. Wow,

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:21  
it's funny, because you think well, maybe they open it up and they very gently pull things out like nope, shred it and suck everything.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:28  
Yep. You know, they, all they do is they make sure that the you know, the battery is completely discharged first before they stick it in there and then just drop it in there and shred it and run it through a bunch of processes to get the and they VW claims that they can get back about 95% of the key raw materials out of this. The aluminum the lithium, manganese, cobalt and nickel.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:57  
Wow. That's impressive. And that's now and that's you know, that's as we're sort of on the cusp of start, like, you know, Evie is becoming mainstream vehicles. You know, in five years, I would hope they could, you know, bring that up to 98 99%.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:10  
Yeah, absolutely. All right. One last one, from ole egg. Cold caller pave cold call you pave. Sorry, if I've mangled your last name there Oh, leg. In light of the changes that waymo recently, they've had some management changes, john Kraft jack stepped down as CEO. And actually, they just a report, a report just came out saying that they're looking to raise another $4 billion and external funding. How many players in autonomous cars will we have in five years? Do you see any being acquired by the car manufacturers? So right now, I would, I would wager that it by 2025 26 timeframe, we will probably be down to maybe 10 major players, it might it might well be less than that. You know, I think most of the smaller companies will have gotten either acquired by somebody or gone out of business by that time. And probably by the end of the decade, we'll probably be down to five or six. But I don't actually see most of these companies being acquired by by automakers. You know, there there are a number of them like Cruz that is majority owned by GM and Honda right now. Argo AI is mostly owned by Volkswagen and Ford. But I think, you know, I think what's more likely to happen is rather than being acquired by car makers, they're, they're gonna stay independent. And in fact, the ones that are currently controlled by automakers are all looking at potential IPOs in the next couple of years, including potentially waymo. You know, which might IPO you know, out of out of alphabet. So, you know, if you've heard anything different,

Roberto Baldwin  1:04:05  
no, you know it I think what's what's happened in the last year and a half, two years is everyone has come to the realization that autonomous vehicles are incredibly difficult. It is not as easy as everyone thought they knew it would be hard, but they didn't realize how hard and they didn't realize how the resources needed that this this the cash and individuo needs $4 billion, 4 billion that is that is a lot of money and Weibo has been testing forever. And they still you know, we still don't have an autonomous car, as far as you know, and I still am I'm still thinking we're, you know, another decade before, you know someone can buy a consumer autonomous car. It is it is it is far more difficult than people realize. And I think there was a rush like there's a rush right now and Evie stocks. I think there was sort of a rush on You know, investing in autonomous vehicles, and now that Russia has sort of come to an end, is everyone sort of like, Oh, this is really, really hard? And so yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of consolidation. And, you know, like, like, you know, like you said, there's going to be companies that are invested in by automakers, but don't, you know, outright controlled by them, because the automakers at this point, are sort of like, well, this is a lot of money, why don't we just, like help these other people, and then when they have it, then we can use it?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:32  
Yeah. And, you know, in the meantime, you know, what they're doing is they're taking some of the lessons that have been learned, both, you know, in terms of software, but also, you know, some of the heart of some of the sensor developments, and incorporating that into more advanced Driver Assist systems. So, you know, we're gonna, we're starting to see cars coming to market this year. Next, with LIDAR sensors, we're gonna see, start seeing vehicles with imaging radar sensors, near infrared cameras, you know, all kinds of features that were developed for automated driving. But, you know, some of that technology is ready now. And so they can start getting some return on their investment by by incorporating that and improving the capability of their their systems, and making making conventional vehicles, human driven vehicles safer.

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:24  
Yeah, I mean, the the use of LIDAR as an additional sensor in the vehicle to make it safer is, is great, because, you know, there's there there are, you know, there's limitations to a camera, there's limitations to radar, there's limitations, ultrasonic. And so when you have a no, essentially, if you have a lot of sensors, you have a lot of redundancy. So if something isn't working, because of inclement weather, or you know, something got on the sensor, you know, that's just one more piece of equipment that's going to, you know, maybe emergency brake, maybe emergency, you know, you know, turn left or right, you know, every, every little sensor, everything you put on the, that creates additional redundancy, especially in emergency situations is a good thing. And you know, the price is coming down on things like LIDAR and software, you know, before it's like, it's $160,000, or some ridiculous amount, and, you know, that those prices have dropped a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:15  
Yeah, I mean, some of the, you know, some of the low end flashlight ours or, you know, in the range of, you know, up to a couple of $100 now or less, which, you know, that's that's the point where it starts to become viable to install those on vehicles. And, you know, the high performance, LIDAR 's are still several $1,000. But, and those are, you know, still primarily just for, you know, the fully automated vehicles. But, yeah, I mean, we're gonna see a lot more of that technology, filtering down into the vehicles that we drive every day over the next couple of years.

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:49  
Yeah. Is he smarter safety features is essentially what's what's coming for the next, you know, 510 year?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:56  
Yep. All right. Well, that's it for this week. You got anything interesting going on this week?

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:04  
Uh, what do I have going on this week? I'm getting the pole star tomorrow, the pole star to Ivo x revinate. I've driven it, you know, briefly, you know, like, you know, for an hour or two, so I'll have that for a few days. And I'll have a review of that. Coming to end gadgets Yeah, I'm getting the ID for for like the 30th time I'm doing a video review of that. Yeah, and then I'll also get the Honda Ridgeline and the Eau de I can't remember the little, like, crazy thing. Raptor. No. Anyway, they have like a little four wheel drive. Like it's Yeah. Crazy off road thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:45  
What's it called? Yeah. The talent, the talent. Yes. On

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:50  
the talent. side, the side by side, you can take your friend and scare the hell out of them on a dirt road or sand or whatever. Cool. So yeah, I got a Oh man. I have a lot of stuff going on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:03  
Well, you know, when you're a freelancer, it's better than the opposite. So,

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:06  
yeah, yeah. He's just always like, Okay, I gotta do this. I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:09  
gotta find somebody to pay for all the stories.

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:11  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we just got into here. You want to give me some money.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:16  
All right. Thanks, everybody, and we'll talk to you next week. Thanks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai