Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 198 of wheel bearings, we have a full garage this week in the news, Lotus is selling the tooling for building the lease, Tesla is eventually going to start shipping vehicles from its new plant in Texas. But for anybody inside of Texas that wants to buy one of those vehicles, it's going to have to be shipped out of the state first sold there and then brought back in. We also discussed Tesla's decision to drop radar and Mazda has discontinued the CX three and the six sedan in North America. And we've wrapped it all up with some listener questions. All coming up right now on wheel bearings number 198. 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 198 wheel bearings. I'm Sam abou el Samad from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:16  
I am Nicole wakelin from autobytel.

Roberto Baldwin  1:19  
I am Roberto Baldwin from let's say Engadget this week,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23  
right? So Cole, yes. What have you been doing this week?

Nicole Wakelin  1:28  
I've been driving several cars this. I started out with a gigantic Nissan Armada, the 2021 Nissan Armada, in the fancy Platinum trim,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41  
it's comparatively gigantic by Nissan standards,

Nicole Wakelin  1:44  
it's it? Well, you know, it just I don't care what the actual dimensions are. But it feels huge. Like you literally feel like you're driving a tank, which I guess is good. If you got your family on board, you kind of feel like someone could smack into you. And they just keep going and bounce off. You be like, Oh, I'm sorry, was that a Mack truck didn't notice like feels so it feels very safe in this very, very enclosed. I like it. I like the amount and I think the inside of it is fantastic. There's something interesting about the you know, it's big, it's bold, it's it's a beefy car, but you get inside it everything is so beautiful. Like I had the Platinum trim, which is way up there. And it's I mean, you do feel like you could again tow a house off a foundation there's no no doubt that it can do every kind of capable thing that you might possibly want to do. And they made some updates this year, I guess it will be considered what like a refresh. There's a little bit of a styling update and it does it was looking a little old a little like last year's news for a while and it does look a little more modern and a little bit more with it. And I love the interior of this it's it's it's not an inexpensive car it's almost $70,000 and you want it to look like a $70,000 vehicle and it does it looks at and it feels it and it's super comfortable and super roomy. So I was I was a fan of the Armada I would say plus one if you're looking for a vehicle that has the capability to tow hold a ton of cargo and have your family inside and comfortably so we don't feel like you know, the kids in the second row will not be able to touch each other if you put them in car seats and across from each other. They won't even be able to attempt to walk you know put their arm across the imaginary central light they can't even reach it so yeah, I was I like the Armada.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:30  
So last time you had the suburban Chevy Suburban Yeah. If you were in the market for a full size body on frame SUV like a you know, a true SUV not a crossover thing, right Yeah. Which Well first of all, forget how much was the suburban Do you remember?

Nicole Wakelin  3:51  
I don't remember the suburbs pricing off the top of my head I feel like it was more than this but also remember the suburban I had had the diesel engine you don't have a diesel industry. So you've got a level of that's a pretty big change you know so and I remember it being a pricey addition to the suburban luxury strip that out let's say we were just talking gas power train versus gas power train. I think it's hard because it's suburban is more has been more recently redone it feels slicker and more refined. I don't know that driving wise it does just in terms of the interior impression. I mean, these are vehicles that you're if you're getting something this big with this kind of seating your your caring family a lot like why would you bother getting something this big if you're if your family isn't in there and you're doing a lot of road trips or, you know, weekend adventures to the cabin or something? And I think the Armada has a nice combination of feeling upscale but also feeling like your kids aren't going to destroy it in two seconds. It has a certain durability to it. And as far as driving them both at what I was saying the beginning the Armada, just really it feels tough, it feels substantial, not that the suburban doesn't. But the Armada feels more substantial to me than that. So I think, despite it not having been all new for quite a while with a little bit of a facelift that they did, I think I would go Armada.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:14  
Yeah, you know, the Armada, along with the Infiniti QX ad are both based on the Nissan Patrol, which is an SUV that they've been selling overseas for a long time. And the current generation of the patrol, which is basically what they're still building now, that actually debuted in early 2010. So this thing is, you know, more than 11 years old, this current generation, it's gotten several, and updates along the way, but it's still the same basic vehicle they launched over a decade ago. And you know, it doesn't look fundamentally different, you know, the most different now's when they refreshed the QX ad a year or two ago, you know, after they launched they are after they launched this generation of the Armada in 2016. A couple years later, they refresh the QX ad to kind of separate it a little more visually, it's got a different grille, different lighting, things like that. But you know, this, this is really kind of an old vehicle.

Nicole Wakelin  6:15  
And but it doesn't, I feel like the just the little tweaks they made this year, the styling tweaks, inside and out, were just enough that you don't look at it and think, Oh, this is an old Nissan product, it just doesn't feel it felt like that to me last year. Last year, you kind of look to it, this sucker is old. Now, it has a little bit of an update, so you don't feel it. And by the way, I went and dug out the monroney for that Chevy Suburban that I was driving last week. So the Armada that I have is $68,250, which is not cheap. The suburban was at $2,465. A significant price difference, huge price difference. So you do get the diesel in there, which can't find the price of the diesel. So I mean, there's that, but that's a big price difference. Like for more updated last time, it was all new was more recent vehicle, are you willing to pay 70? Like 20, grand, you know, or not 20, grand math is hard. $12,000. Whatever. It's early on a Sunday for me. So I still think I go with Armada, which is not normally like normally, I'm going to go for the one that's been more recently updated. Because it feels like the changes are so significant that when you compare it to something that's as old as the Armada is to something newer, it really really looks it, I don't feel like it looks it or feels it anymore, I feel especially that don't underestimate how much just changing small things in a car, changing the grill a little bit, changing the dash a little bit, suddenly gets rid of the sort of old vibe of it, you don't even realize how much that makes a difference. And it does.

Roberto Baldwin  7:51  
Yeah, well, I think it Nissan really needs to do this, because they've been in you know, they've been in trouble financially, and, and even their, their, you know, everyone feels like they've sort of fallen off. They're sort of mid premium, you know, platform if you can get Nissan's as rental cars, and that's not you know, and First they know that that's hurt there, that's hurt, that's hurt, you know, the Nissan brand. And I think if they can if they can refresh things without doing big huge changes. I mean, Toyota does this all the time, and continues to dominate in so many markets. If Nissan can do the same thing that's good for them, because they really, really, really need to get people to think, Oh, these cars aren't, you know, 1015 years old. anymore. These are actually new cars, at least they look new and they feel new, regardless of whether or not the what's going on underneath is new.

Nicole Wakelin  8:43  
Right? It makes a first impression now that doesn't feel like an older car. It makes a first impression that feels like a modern, recently updated car despite the fact that it's not a lot of it isn't.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:53  
Yeah, yeah. Especially especially, you know, that the new screen the new touchscreen they have, you know, it's much larger than before. You know, the last Armada I drove a couple years ago, or maybe about a year and a half ago. It still had the old touchscreen, you know, and and something I've complained about for a long time with Nissan's is that they, they sourced really terrible displays, you know, the displays, the screens they used were just awful, you know, they were dim, low contrast, you know, they they didn't they did not look good. You know, and you know, they suffered problems with glare, and if you wore polarized sunglasses, you know, they kind of disappeared. So, you know, this new one, it's looks like it's got a much better display. How is the display on this one?

Nicole Wakelin  9:40  
Actually, you can notice the difference. That's a large part of what makes the inside of the Armada feel more updated. The OLED display was fussier, not as clear, not as crisp everything when you sit down and you look at that dashboard, feels cleaner, more refined, more modern, and that's a huge, huge deal. You know, we all use tech every day and that infotainment screen that's all tech and you know we're getting new phones every two years and new whatever you know things have a very short shelf life in the tech world before they're just they're obsolete or they look that way the old Armada looked that way when you looked at that dashboard now this screen is very crisp very clear everything is it like I said it's I know it's not an all new but it feels so greatly changed for the small number of changes that they made

Sam Abuelsamid  10:29  
Yeah, I mean, I've always liked the driving dynamics of the Armada you know, I always thought you know, for a big heavy SUV like that it actually had pretty decent ride quality and and handling when they first launched this, the patrol based Armada here in the us a few years back, they did a drive program out in in Carmel. And you know, I spent some time driving it out there and you know, I was I was quite impressed with it at the time.

Nicole Wakelin  10:57  
Yeah, it's it's that it's hard to make really a truly a huge SUV, feel anything, feel good to drive feel sort of lighten its feet feel like it's substantial enough to do what you need it to do capability wise, but still not feel unwieldy and uncomfortable and just like so heavy, you know, you change lanes and you wait for just swing along with you. And some of them do that, you know, and this way, you know, you change lanes, I was driving it in pretty heavy traffic and city traffic in Boston. And it was, you know, tight lanes, lots of traffic and you can you can sort of weave in and out as you need to without feeling like oh gosh, this is it's too heavy. I can't manage these turns. I can't manage these corners. It's it's really a great SUV to drive. I enjoyed driving it I enjoyed the look of it. And I really liked the updates that they did. So that was my my overall and now I now I've moved from giant heavy SUV to something a little more friendly.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:58  
What was that?

Nicole Wakelin  11:59  
Now I am in this week I am in a Subaru Forester which is now I'm driving you know the the poster child brand for New England like you can't live here and not have a Subaru and I've never owned one. So I feel like I'm covering my bases. Every time I get a press car. I'm like, Look, I'm driving one for a week, guys. I'm good.

Roberto Baldwin  12:18  
Does it come with a dog? Because I feel like every Subaru needs to come with like a lab or.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:25  
or or a box of puppies. Puppies,

Nicole Wakelin  12:28  
no dog, no box of puppies. I felt a little cheated. But you know, I won't let that get in the way. You know. I like this one. I like it.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:37  
But the last auto show I was at. I think that all of us that any of us were at the Chicago Auto Show last year, beginning of February last year. And the highlight of that shelf bar none, you know, because there's usually not a whole lot of news and just the Chicago show. The highlight of the show was clearly the Subaru puppy corral.

Roberto Baldwin  12:56  
I mean, they every American show, they have the puppy corral and every American show you're like okay, I gotta look at do this. And I got to do this and I got to go write about this. I got to take pictures of this and oh my god, puppies.

Nicole Wakelin  13:09  
Everything cuz it's like I have this really good debut. I have to go look at this. Oh, wait. And they'd be like, yeah, and what always cracks me up is like there's, you know, not everyone's super formally dressed. But some people are like in suits and skirts and stuff. And you're all being like professional business people and then they're like sitting on the floor. In a pile of puppies. It's like that's okay, my suits covered with dog here now no big deal.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:31  
It's worth it.

Nicole Wakelin  13:33  
The thing was super is that they have standard all wheel drive, they have that capability. They're not those the capability that like I'm going to go rock crawl up a mountain, but they're enough that you can really do a little bit off road. You can but then you can easily go on city streets and they don't feel like they're off road vehicles. That's what I like about Subaru because there's so many off road worthy cars that once you put them on the pavement, they're so jarring, so bouncy. So the suspension system is just too tailored for off roading. So the minute you have to take that car into the office, your teeth are rattling every bump you go over in the road, and that's never fun. Subaru does a phenomenal job of making it so you can take it in the dirt. You can take it off road, you can have a little fun with it. But then when you drive it to work on Monday morning, you're you know feeling state in your in your teeth. It's and that's what the forester does and it and it has more room than aleena than some other crossovers. It has that sort of I always want to call the station wagon I know it's not but it's got this like crossover II station wagon kind of vibe happening with the look in the way it I don't

Roberto Baldwin  14:38  
think there's anything wrong with the word station wagon I one of the first

Sam Abuelsamid  14:43  
Americans won't buy one.

Roberto Baldwin  14:46  
Don't say it to the average buyer. It's like minivan as long as you don't say the word minivan. If you show someone a minivan, they're like, Oh, that's cool, but then you'd say the word minivan right? Oh, no, nevermind.

Nicole Wakelin  14:55  
I think there's this like bad perception but I'm like kinda sorta you is like a station wagon and there's station wagons are kind of cool. There's good reason like minivans, there's really good reasons to buy them station wagons, there's really good reasons to buy them. So I think the forester walks that line between crossover and station wagon and leans more towards station wagon than a lot of other vehicles. And I actually liked that about it because it has a huge amount of room we went and got bark mulch yesterday, because yard work in 40 degrees in New Hampshire, because it's only May. And we were like, we took that car and I thought, Oh, I wonder if we're gonna have enough room and we had enough room in that like, literally, I'm like, I should have done more shopping at Home Depot. Like there's so much space in the back of that and it's so easy to toss things into it has a really low low floor too. So as you're hauling stuff up, you don't feel like you're you know, lifting it to chest height and you're just lifting it a little bit. So the capability the utility, and then there's the comfort factor, it's a comfortable car, you know, it's easy for the family to ride along and roomy. It does, you know, it does what it's supposed to do. And I'm a fan how much was 34,000 and change.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:08  
That's not bad.

Nicole Wakelin  16:08  
And this is the limited which is I believe one trim down for that. I want to say there's one more drawing a blank I want to say they have another trip up there. But it's it has like heated seats and leather seating surfaces. It has their eight inch, you know, infotainment screen. This one includes a Harman Kardon eight nine speaker audio system, a heated steering wheel. So this isn't like a bass blur version of the forester. This is a pretty well equipped version of it. So there's not a lot that you're going to want to add to it. You know, I'm sure there's bits and pieces you could add, but it's not something you think well I spent $34,000 on this, but I didn't get the cool stuff. You got the cool stuff. I think the only thing that I'm not keen on and this is just me, I let's not just be it's the entire planet of the automotive journalists. I don't like cvts his role and this one is can get this one can get a little bit noisy on the highway. Like as you're accelerating hard to get on the highway. You're like oh yeah, this has the CVT. Yeah, notice it in town, but suddenly to get up to you know, 65 miles an hour you're like oh, there it is.

Roberto Baldwin  17:13  
Yeah, super sticking with the CVT is still like, it makes a really good really even they make great cars, but at the same time we're like, oh, yeah, but the CBT right. Just give me the CBT and then you Yeah, but you know, I feel like the people who buy it don't care. That's the weird thing. I

Nicole Wakelin  17:30  
don't think they do either. I really because you're not is it you get it's like even if it's a little bit no and it's not like horrifically noisy like they were a few years ago but I just I'm aware of it. But you're not you're not

Sam Abuelsamid  17:40  
the noise of the trends the transmission or the the engine just because of where this you know the revs that the CVT is putting it out like

Nicole Wakelin  17:47  
the engine it's the what the CVT does to the engine I should say here so that you hear it you know, you know you're driving a CVT when you're when you get when you're trying to get on my way just

Roberto Baldwin  17:57  
weirdly mapped i think is that what it's just

Sam Abuelsamid  18:01  
doing doing the motorboating thing where It revs up to 4040 500 RPM

Nicole Wakelin  18:06  
you don't just sit there town driving but when as soon as you start to get on the highway it's like oh, gosh, that is that is about and then once you get up to speed and you ease up a little bit it's like okay, I'll calm down now but that that hard acceleration

Roberto Baldwin  18:19  
you just reach over and turn up your jack Johnson CD and then you're like yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  18:23  
just drown it out.

Roberto Baldwin  18:25  
Please I kept for like me I kept the with jack Johnson song but it seems like the kind of you know if you had a forest or that's what you'd

Nicole Wakelin  18:32  
you would have to be playing

Roberto Baldwin  18:34  
jack Johnson or NPR you know what's

Nicole Wakelin  18:37  
NPR? I don't know that that could drown it out NPR is there just oh that's true. Delivering

Roberto Baldwin  18:42  
so they need it they need a whole commercial where they have they should they listen to the LGBT with NPR and listen to the new whatever transmission and you can hear you know Ira Glass say whatever he's saying. And they're like and then there's Subaru and then there's a dog driving

Nicole Wakelin  18:56  
because there has to be a dog

Roberto Baldwin  18:58  
you know you know you know what's funny is that they have the the forester like sport and all they do is put little red trim around it and for some red is sporty but it looks at for some reason whenever I see one of those like that looks really good and it's just like a little some little red bits they add to make it look better and for some reason

Nicole Wakelin  19:14  
it's my there's there's there's like a million appearance packages on all these different cars out there it's like what is you know, it's the trail boss edition What does it do it has red or green or we are we put it we put a slightly larger spoiler on the backer is that they did almost nothing they change the color you like, Oh yes, I will pay an extra 3000

Sam Abuelsamid  19:33  
which we get. You get a Pollstar engineered Volvo you know and it comes with yellow,

Roberto Baldwin  19:37  
yellow See? The yellow seatbelt car got cooler? Yeah, so much better. Yep. seatbelt midnight, like Midnight's the blackest

Nicole Wakelin  19:45  
a little. Yes, black everything, just a little bit of color or black everything out. So you're just like, stealthy like FBI van version of whatever car you're driving.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:55  
Toyota just this week, announced was it midnight edition of the Prius. You know, all blacked out.

Nicole Wakelin  20:03  
So does it make the process actually look like a badass? No,

Sam Abuelsamid  20:07  
it just makes it a little less. You know, so it's it's not quite as noticeable.

Roberto Baldwin  20:13  
Well, I can't see it, so it's a little bit better.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:15  
Yeah, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin  20:17  
It doesn't show up on radar stuff like that.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:19  
I don't I don't think priuses actually show up on radar anyway, I think that they are completely stealth, regardless of what color they are, you can

Nicole Wakelin  20:25  
never see. They're just invisible. I was gonna say cuz they don't go fast enough most of the time. But you know,

Roberto Baldwin  20:31  
I had a video shoot this week and the support car was a gray Prius. And so I would have to follow it in like Bay Area traffic and it was it would be right in front of me and it would disappear. I'm like, Oh, God, where the cargo where the? What's right there. It's right there. It's right there. Okay, I could tell it was the car because had a GoPro on it. That's

Nicole Wakelin  20:48  
the only that was you can't look for the GoPro you didn't just look for a GoPro just kind of floating along in space.

Roberto Baldwin  20:54  
It was sort of like, oh, no prob. But yeah, the Prius itself just kept disappear. And once it was two cars ahead of me, we were stuck in traffic. There was an accident, blah, blah, blah. But it was gone. As far as it was like two cars ahead of me. I'm like, Well, can you guys text me the directions to where are the address the where we're going? Because I can't find the car. It's gone forever.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:11  
All right, Robbie, what have you been driving this week? What were you following that preseason?

Roberto Baldwin  21:15  
This week? I was following the preseason, the ID four, which I think I feel like I've talked about like, maybe too much. So but I so I'll move on to. I was driving the Pollstar to this week, which is it's very kind of complicated because they're there. They're the performance arm of Volvo, but Pollstar to as a pulsar as a company is is not in there. Like sister companies. It's very weird the way they have it all set up. It doesn't matter, but it's Pollstar two. It's the first Evie from this company. The first their Pollstar one was a hybrid. I drove it, I shot video, I did a video review of it. And I really dig that car. It is the sensibility and solid build quality of a Volvo Volvo, which for some reason, I can't say the word Volvo very well. So that was a fun day shoot video. But it's, it's like that the you know, I mean that that minimalism. That minimalistic interior of the Volvo and all the things you kind of like about Volvo. But it's like really quick, really fun. Evie, and so yeah, I drove that this week. It's it's pricey. It's you know, was 59 990. So it's $60,000 for the for the arm. Sorry, 50 $55,000 not 50. So that's $5,000 cheaper. Their math says about 55 sorry, for the for the version I was driving. there's a there's a rear wheel drive, single motor version coming out, probably this year. That'll be less expensive. But it is you know, it's it's it's going up squarely up against the the model three and it is it doesn't have the range of the model three. It's you know, nothing does Tesla continues to dominate when it comes to range. But it is it is a great little car. I really really like I like the way it drives. I like the way it looks even you know sometimes you look at it looks a little too tall. But for the most part like the way it looks like the way it feels. It just feels like a nice, solid, premium. sporty Evie. And I it's it's Yeah, it's sort of I've driven it a few times before for like a few hours. You know, they kind of here's the car for two hours go driving around. But I had it for about a week. And yeah, through the week, I was like, Oh, yeah, I really liked it, I can see the market for it. It's still that, you know, Volvo and pulsar are always going to go for a premium market, they're always going to be expensive. You know, you're not, they're not going to build an ID for they're not going to build a Chevy Bolt. They're not going to build anything like that. So you know, don't expect a cheap Pollstar ever. But yeah, and you know, Android automotive OS using it for the week. I was like, this is really, really nice. I really like because you can just ask it and tell it things because it has that, you know, Google Assistant system, which is, I mean, it's difficult to beat google assistant. I mean, Google Assistant is better than than CarPlay. And I, to be honest, Amazon Alexa, every time I use it, it's always, gosh, I don't know. It's not like Google's better. You know, then I talked about there's there's privacy issues, there's tracking issues, there's all these things that go along with using Google in your car now, because you're already using it on our phones, and a lot of us are using it. You know, maybe they have a home assistant, maybe they have a tablet and maybe they have a TV. So you know, it's just one more bit of information that Google has about you. But overall, you know, it's a it's a great operating system for vehicles. You can ask things like how far is LA and how much is Bitcoin?

Sam Abuelsamid  25:03  
All you really need to know

Roberto Baldwin  25:04  
all you really need to know is how far is LA and how much is Bitcoin and both of those seem to mesh very well

Sam Abuelsamid  25:13  
and can I use my Bitcoin to pay for charging on the way to LA exactly? That would have been the question

Roberto Baldwin  25:18  
like can I play I use Bitcoin to pay for charging and the way there I like the fact that the charging port isn't over engineered and has a little button when you just want to unplug it. I think charging port should be just like yes, you know, the filler hole in your car some

Nicole Wakelin  25:34  
of them over engineered

Roberto Baldwin  25:36  
like i think i think that the Cadillac one the the E Tron, the E Tron SUV one like it's it's mechanical, and it's moving. It's doing all these like crazy things. There's like, I just need a little flap that it's open. And then you shove it in. And that's it. And there's like some

Sam Abuelsamid  25:51  
Okay, some a lot of them. Yeah, I mean, on the premium cars like the lyric and the the Audi's they've got a door that comes out and down out of the way.

Roberto Baldwin  26:03  
Yeah, it's, it's, it's very fancy, very cool. But at the same time, like, I just want to charge my car. Why is this happening?

Nicole Wakelin  26:09  
To see how one of those doors will work when it's really snowing. You know, those moments when you can't open your car door, because the ice in the winter has frozen your car door shut. And if you ever had that, like banging on the door, like you're literally use your fist to break the ice. Like, how's it gonna work with your charging? I just want to charge my car?

Roberto Baldwin  26:28  
Because it's Yeah. You don't want to punch up mechanically controlled thing,

Nicole Wakelin  26:33  
right? Like, how do you break that? You know?

Sam Abuelsamid  26:36  
Yeah, I talked to Audi when they launched the E Tron, and I'm trying to remember, I think it's actually got a mechanism that will actually pull it in slightly, and then push it out, you know, to try to break the ice.

Nicole Wakelin  26:48  
So it can tell it's smart enough to go, oh, I've had a snowstorm with ice and I can't open out so tries to pull in and then push out Well, it's more

Sam Abuelsamid  26:55  
you know, just that there's there's a torque sensor in the motor in the mechanism that normally opens the door. And if it's if it's getting too much resistance, if they could tries to open the door, and there's too much resistance, it'll pull it back a little bit to try to separate the ice a little bit and then push it out again.

Nicole Wakelin  27:12  
Now I'm hoping that I get an Eevee when we have a winter storm just so I can like leave it in the driveway, let it get could totally go to life and say okay, all right, what's the best door,

Sam Abuelsamid  27:21  
the pole star to you know, they it's kind of sedan shaped, but you know, kind of a high riding slightly high riding sedan, but it's actually a hatchback. So, I think from a practicality standpoint, that actually gives a somewhat of an advantage over the model three, because, you know, the, the model three, you know, I think sits a little bit lower in a more traditional sedan, but it's got that relatively small trunk opening, which, you know, makes it a lot less useful. If you're trying to put stuff in the trunk, where's this thing? You know, the whole, you know, it's like a lot of European cars, you know, like the, the Audi, a five Sportback and the a seven things like that. You've got this sort of fastback sedan profile, but you know, that when you open it up the the trunk, you know, what would be the trunk lid opens up with the rear glass, you have a nice big opening to put stuff in there.

Roberto Baldwin  28:14  
Yeah, it's easy to get stuff in. It's, it's got a ridiculously small frunk which, I don't know the Frank thing. Unless it's big. I don't I don't care about it. Unless it's like, you know, it's like the F 150. Or the or something else unless it's something huge. I don't Yeah, I'm not really that that that interested. Unless you unless it's gonna be big, you know,

Nicole Wakelin  28:40  
but you don't want to you know, the franc is cool. It's like because some of them like if they're, they're very small they don't do a lot but like if you've kids and you've got like the muddy stuff and you want to like pack things in your car, you know, in your vehicle, but you want a little partitioned for the swimsuits, the muddy boots, the wet snow pants or whatever. The front is perfect for that. Like it's its own little partition

Sam Abuelsamid  29:02  
Well, except except in some a lot of these cars. It's so small that it's not even really useful for that I mean, but in many cases, it's really only big enough to basically stick the charging cable in there that like the the Jaguar I pace and the Audi e Tron.

Roberto Baldwin  29:16  
Yeah, that's what's in there. Well, then it's pointless,

Nicole Wakelin  29:17  
then I'm with you. Roberta then like why

Roberto Baldwin  29:19  
but yeah, it's only the it's only Yeah, it only has this charging cable in there. I'm like, Alright, fine. I'm never opening this unless I want to, let's like, go visit somebody. It's gonna be something I think people are gonna use very often. But yeah, that that the hatchback opens pretty wide. You can get a lot of stuff in there. You wouldn't have children if you have a pole star too and let them you know, you wouldn't let muddy children in your Pollstar to

Nicole Wakelin  29:39  
maybe you just take your money

Sam Abuelsamid  29:43  
for the Subarus for

Roberto Baldwin  29:46  
two and you have a Subaru or you would have to stare for the math like xc 60 or xc 90 for the kids and then the whole star twos like we're going somewhere nice tonight.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:58  
So the pole star wasn't The only thing you have this week yeah what else you've been driving I've

Roberto Baldwin  30:02  
also been driving the the Honda Ridgeline and you know Honda has the you know they've been talking about the ridgeline for forever that it's you know, it's pretty much all the truck that most people need. And it is a it is marketing speak and it is completely true. After driving it this week we went we picked up some some giant fence panels from a Tractor Supply Store. We You know, I'm probably going to use it to pick up some some mulch later. I know that you're always buying mulch when you own a house by the way, when you buy a house. Even if you don't need it, you're just I guess I got to pick up some mulch.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:39  
Gotta keep it in stock, you got to know when you're going to need more.

Roberto Baldwin  30:42  
Yeah, mulch. And I you know, you use it for towing so it'll tow fine. You know, towing capacity is 5000 pounds, which isn't huge. It's not like you know, the tundra, or the Tacoma beats it in, in towing. But I mean, for most people, that's more than enough I they gave it to me with a Honda Talon on a trailer. So I took that out yesterday and so yeah, it was it was fine, you know, driving and he was towing. It didn't feel like it was being you know, bogged down by the town. The town's not that, you know, it's a side by side, it's like a, like, I guess like, the equivalent like a modern Dane, modern day dune buggy is sort of the easiest sort of, of comparison for those who don't know what a side by side is. Yeah, I took it up to two to a park. I drove it around. And but yeah, you know, it's it's a you know, I think, Sam earlier you said, you know, the brakes could be a little bit better. And I think that's true. I think the brakes can be about 10% better. But I feel like most cars the brakes could be about 10% better.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:48  
But you can never have too much break.

Roberto Baldwin  31:50  
You never had too much breaks I am I'm a strong believer in like, hey, let's let's all just make the brakes a little bit better. Everybody come on, let's all get together spend a little extra, a little extra money. How about we give you How about you, you you spend $400 on better brakes and we'll give you $500 for how's that sound? Yeah, it starts at a you know, the the width, the width, the destination and handling a 30 $38,000 right up there with like, the Tacoma has a nine speed automatic transmission, it's 280 horsepower, 262 pound feet of torque, which is you know, it pulled the trailer, no problem pulled it to the talent, no problem. I didn't feel like it was being you know, you know, other than going uphill where you can he can kind of feel it like, you know, working a little bit harder than then we'll say, you know, anything bigger, something with a VA or a diesel? Which would they would have eaten up that hill no problem. But again, it's, it's like just the right size. It's not too tall. I feel like most modern trucks have gotten incredibly tall for no reason. You know, you look at trucks from like, the 80s and 90s 2000s. You know, even though they can say well, you know, the front is you know, this they're not that tall, but the way they're designed and the way they they they make you feel when you're driving it makes you feel like you're driving in a school bus. Because you're so tall and you can't see anything in front of you can see what's in front of you like like a like a like a tradition like an SUV. It's got a unibody it's got unibody construction, which you know, if you're used to driving SUVs and and sedans and whatnot, it's going to feel a bit more comfortable as opposed to body on frame. And yeah, no I I'm I'm I'm I turned out I'm a fan of the the Honda Ridgeline after years of sort of like like, okay, okay, yeah, sure. Okay. And then you drive it like, Oh, okay. Well, what

Nicole Wakelin  33:45  
are like everybody's sort of poopoo is the rage line, like, Oh, it's a truck but not really. And but it's it is,

Roberto Baldwin  33:52  
I think, I think it's the you know, what, I think that the body on frame thing is such an It is almost like a cult, the body on frame thing is the same thing as the air cooled Porsche. If it's not an air cooled Porsche, it's not a real Porsche. It's not body on frame. It's not a real truck, and you're like, why are you gonna rip the bed off your truck and put a flatbed on it? Are you gonna like what are you gonna? Why do you need the body on frame? What is your

Nicole Wakelin  34:16  
goal? Why is that a necessity?

Sam Abuelsamid  34:19  
Like, like you said, you know, like, like Honda says, you know, it's all the truck most people need, I mean, 5000 pounds towing, you know, that was plenty to tell, you know, a Talon. You know, that's enough to tow a couple of jet skis or a couple of snowmobiles, you know, smaller trailers, even, you know, a smaller boat, you know, like a 20 foot boat, you know, is for no more than about 4000 pounds. So, you know, you can, you can generally do you know, unless you need to tow a horse trailer or something. Yeah. Or, you know, a 30 foot Airstream. You don't really most people don't need more than 5000 pounds towing capability. So I think, yeah, it's plenty, you know, and it's it. Got a roomy cabin. And the originalline remains the only pickup truck out there that has a lockable trunk in the back of the bed.

Roberto Baldwin  35:08  
Which is so huge. It is so deep we threw I took three other people with me two adults and a child to go right and drive that talent. And so I opened up the trunk and there was so much room in there we stuck a bunch of helmets in there, I had a tiny cooler, I was just like, Well, I was like looking around my house to find more things to put in there it is it there's there's way more room than I anticipated. And that and that sort of that that bed trunk and it has like a has a drain hole. So if you so so if you do have children with messy stuff, you can throw their messy muddy, disgusting clothing and boots and whatnot in there. And then take it out and then later on just get the hose and hose it out.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:46  
Yeah, for for your tailgate parties. You know, just don't even bother with a cooler just fill the trunk with ice and, you know, yeah, let the water drain out the bottom. And

Nicole Wakelin  35:55  
the first time I ever drove the originalline I was an event with a whole bunch of different OEMs. But Honda literally had it there with full of ice what on display, and they just put all these you know, sodas and water bottles and stuff. And I'm like, that is a lot of cool beverages for everything. Everybody i think is huge. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  36:12  
Yeah. And they, you know, they they also you know, that they gave me the you know, they they it was delivered with the with that side by side the Talon. And it's really that that's some synergy right there. Because their whole life part of their spiel is like, you know what people buy these, you know, the Toyota f150 and the jacket up in order to go off road and do all these things. But most the time that car is stuck on regular pavement, you know, driving around, and sometimes those those trucks never go off road, they just look like they're, they're ready, they're ready for something that's not going to happen. And they're like, you know, you can take the ridge line Yes, you can go off road with it, but it's not going to be a rock color. But we have this entire division, our power sports division of motorcycles and side by sides and jet skis, we own a jet if you guys want to.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:58  
which by the way is a great jet I love

Nicole Wakelin  37:02  
if you're in the market for a

Roberto Baldwin  37:04  
million, it's very much like hey, you can tow all the things all the other things we make and actually have fun off road versus you know, driving your truck off road and to sort of jump over to the Talon where I went they didn't have like trails for side by sides, the trails were all for motorcycles and ATVs quads. But they had an four by four area for big, you know, four by four trucks that I could take the side by side too. And they were all driving like five miles an hour up things and I'm just flying by I think I was having you know, it's fun to take your like the car you drive every day off road you're like Oh, look at me, I'm driving, you know, real slow and I go look at the things I can do. But then some jerk and this tiny little like dune buggy thing just goes flying past you. And just like flying over like, oh, maybe I should have bought that.

Nicole Wakelin  38:00  
I just poorly.

Roberto Baldwin  38:01  
Yeah. So overall, yeah, yeah. And that talent. Man I think is it's it's about 21,000 bucks. It's not cheap. There's they have a two seater and a four seater. I had the two seater about 104 horsepower 1000 cc engine. And it is if you'd like off roading and you know, especially if you're getting older if you've been riding motocross it's it's II don't even have to be you know, a motocross please just get in and drive it it's got a DCT it's it's better than the than the Subaru dual clutch transmission which is like the Polaris their main thing has a DCT and that dual clutch transmission is outstanding cuz it just goes it just boom cuz you know that, that that that CVT you when you first start off, it's like okay, right. Yeah, the DCT is it's great on the road. It's a little bit tougher though, when you're trying to get on the trailer because just like instant let's go instant torque because it doesn't weigh anything.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:00  
All right. I also had a giant SUV the past week, I had the Cadillac Escalades sport platinum, again, I actually had one couple of months ago but that one was missing one key feature that I was looking for, which was GM second generation supercruise system. So you know the the escalating the escalate like they the GMC Yukon and the Chevy Tahoe, you know comes in two lengths. You get the standard length, you know which for Chevy, they call it the Tahoe the longer wheelbase version is the suburban, you know, they also have you know, to verten to the likes of this one, this was the short wheelbase so it's about the size of similar in size to the the Armada, but quite a bit more expensive. And you know, even compared to the latest Armada feels quite a bit more premium to you know, we talked about this a bit last time. You know, this this generation of gems full size SUVs are the first ones to get independent. suspension. And so they've got a lot better ride quality, the rear floor is a lot lower. So the that third row seat is actually up off the floor. Now if you've written in previous generations of Jim's SUVs, he tried to get back into that back row, you know, the seat was always mounted on the floor because the floor had to be higher to allow room for the the rear axle to move up and down. That's no longer an issue with the same, you know, the the differential stays in one place. So they have lower floor, the lot more comfortable to sit back there. Even have you know, decent amount of leg room now you're not net knee up kind of position. You were the old escalator suburban. And the you know, this one's still got the big displays, you know, three giant OLED displays, spans about 37 inches across, including 17 inches for the infotainment screen in the middle. But what really differentiated this one, as I said, from the one I drove a few months ago, was supercruise. I drove supercruise. back for the first time back in the fall of 2017, when they first launched it on the Cadillac CT six. And they, for a variety of reasons, GM opted never to add that version of supercruise to any of their other vehicles until now, because the electrical architecture in those vehicles didn't support over the air updates for everything. And so they decided to wait until they launched vehicles with their their new electrical architecture that allows them to do those otaa updates and improve the performance and capability of the system. And the the escalate is one of the first batch of vehicles to have this. And so this is a second generation system still uses four cameras, forward facing camera, a rear camera and two cameras on the mirrors that looked out and keep track of where the lane markings are relative to the vehicle or where the vehicle is relative to the lane markings. It's also got five radar sensors. And then there's also a driver monitor infrared camera on top of the steering column that looks at you because this, this is a hands free system. But it's not a fully autonomous system. You know, it's it's intended to be supervised. So you do have to keep your eyes on the road. You don't have to put your hands on the wheel when it's active. But you do have to watch the road and be ready to take over. And so they they were GM was the first one to use this infrared driver monitor system to watch your face and watch your eyes in particular, to see where you're looking. And so if you if if the system decides you need to take over or if you're not paying attention, it'll start to alert you. Cadillac has the nice haptic seats so that instead of you know annoying audible tone, it actually just buzzes the seat when it's trying to get your attention. And it has a light bar in the top of the steering wheel as well to give you a good indication of what mode you're in when it's green. supercruise is active and working. When it switches to blue, it's ready, but it's not active. And when it's red, it means you need to be taking over control. One of the new features that they've added for the second generation version is the auto lane change. So all you have to do is tap the steering column or the start of the turn signal stock. And the system the sensors will start looking to see if there's anybody in the adjacent lane in whichever direction you tap. So if you tap the left turn signal, it'll look to the left or look to the right for the other one. And when it's all clear, it'll execute the lane change and just continue on driving. And it works really, really well. I mean, it was during the week I had it it was pretty much flawless.

Nicole Wakelin  43:58  
I feel really smooth changing lanes. I always wonder about that, like with the lane change thing was that, like you've looked and you said, Okay, I can change lanes. Like if you were driving when you hit that? Is it as quick as you are to go. Yep, I've got room. Are you sort of sitting there waiting? Or is it giving that weirdly like, Oh, no, I need room for two cars, not just this car to get in there. Does it seem like it makes intuitive sense to you?

Sam Abuelsamid  44:20  
I would say it's relatively conservative for safety reasons. But you know, it's not overly so. So, you know, I mean, there are there are spots where, you know, I've might have gone, you know, a little bit quicker, but not not by very much. It wasn't it wasn't annoyingly slow.

Nicole Wakelin  44:41  
So it wasn't enough that you thought Come on change lanes. It's clear Get a move on. It wasn't annoying.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:46  
Yeah. No, as soon as it was clear, it would it would go so and so and it was very smooth in operation. You know, no, no jerking around or anything. So I I liked it a lot. You know, and As, as these systems go, you know, supercruise is still I think the best system out there in terms of its reliability and ability to, you know, to, to accurately judge what's around it and do the right things. You know, it is, it is a little more limited than, you know, some of what Tesla's autopilot can do, like it doesn't do, you know, on ramp to off ramp navigation, you don't give it a destination, you know, it just tries to follow the road, you get on the road on the highway. And it is geo fence. So, you know, it's using high definition maps. So it knows, you know, to more than 200,000 miles of divided highways, that's the only place that will let you activate it, it won't let you activate it in the city or, you know, on rural roads, things like that. So, you know, they're, they've biased it towards safety. But the things that it does, it does very well. And it does more now than it did back in 2017. And, yeah, I think it does, it does it does it really great, does a great job with it. You know, the last time I drove the escalate, it was still wintertime. And you know, and they escalate, they offer you have the choice of two engines, you can get the 6.2 liter V eight, or the diesel that you had in the suburban. And there's no price premium for the diesel, you can pick either one for either engine for the same price. And both times I've had the the gas v eight and the escalate. They the VA when I had it before, in the wintertime, it only got about 13 and a half 14 miles per gallon. This time, I averaged about 17 miles per gallon because it was warmer out. But you know, did you know, you know, GMC, Chevy small block or GM smallblock V. eights are fantastic engines, he really can't go wrong with one of those. But it was nice to see is a little more efficient. But I think you know, if you're doing a lot of especially highway driving, I would definitely recommend taking a look at the diesel as a as an alternative, especially if you're going to tell with it. But just in general, you know, if you're planning to use this vehicle like this with supercruise a lot, you might want to consider the diesel which gets you up, you know, into the mid 20 mile per gallon range, which would be a lot more tolerable. The the supercruise package on the new escalator is a 20 $500 option. When it first launched on the CT six, it was $5,000. So it's it's the price has been cut in half. And one thing we know now that we didn't know back in 2017, is that because it requires updated maps all the time, it does require you to have an OnStar connectivity package. And GM includes three years of that, that OnStar connectivity when you buy the vehicle. But then after that you have to pay like $25 a month for an OnStar subscription to keep using supercruise. And the early CT sixes you know this came up a year ago, when some of those early CT sixes started hitting that three year mark. All of a sudden, people started getting a bill from GM saying you got to subscribe to OnStar. A lot of people were not pleased with that, because it wasn't clear when they bought the vehicle that that was going to be the case now they're they're making it a little more clear that you'd have to do that. And the same is going to be true for all the other automakers Ford blue cruise and Nissan's propilot, version two that's coming. They're they're all going down this path where you'll get a few years of use out of it. And then you have to pay for a connectivity subscription after that to continue using it.

Nicole Wakelin  48:40  
So would you pay 20 $500 extra to have that if you were in the market for a Cadillac Escalade,

Sam Abuelsamid  48:46  
it depends on on what my driving, you know, what my use case was for driving. You know, if I was still doing a lot of commuting on the highway, I might well do that. Because you know, it does. It does make long highway drives easier. You know, and this is one of the things about all of these types of hands free systems or systems is even though you, you can now take your hands off the wheel, you still have to pay attention. And so it's it's reducing the cognitive load on the driver in some respects because you're not constantly trying to follow the road. But at the same time, because you do have to pay attention. It's creating a different kind of cognitive load. And so I don't know that it's necessarily more relaxing. It's easier in some ways, but it's more challenging in other ways because of that, that need to continue supervising the system. I think, you know, GM does, the way they've got set up they've done a really good job of, you know, making it very clear to the driver when the system is active or when it needs you to take over much more, more so than that. I think any other manufacturer has to this point. So I think that's, that's a good thing. So we'll see, you know how how things turn out with some of the other systems, hands free systems that are coming to market this year. But for now, I still think supercruise is is the best of these systems. And even more so now with things like the lane changing in the last morning, I had it, I was driving up to Holly Michigan for the Nissan Pathfinder drive. And I got on the highway, engage supercruise and didn't touch the steering wheel again, until I got off the highway, you know, 60 miles north, all I did was tap the turn signal a couple times to change the change, change lanes automatically, but never actually took over steering control at any point in there. And what one thing that GM was the first to do with supercruise, when they launched it, and they continue to do, because they've got that high definition map information, they know the backing and the radius of all the turns along along these roads. And so one of the things that does as as you're going along, if you're coming up, if you're approaching a curve, that the maximum safe speeds through that curve might be less than what your current set speed is for the system, it will automatically slow the vehicle down as you enter the curve. And then resume your set speed as you as you pass the apex of the curve. So you know, there's a couple of curves along in the highway, just on the north side of Ann Arbor, you know where I was going, I had it set at 75. And it dropped the speed down to about 63 as it went through the curve, and then resumed the set speed I had and then did the same thing again for the next curve and then stayed at the same speed for the rest of the trip.

Nicole Wakelin  51:46  
Did it feel annoying? Or did it feel like the right speed? Like it was it felt like it should slow down too? Or was it being overly cautious?

Sam Abuelsamid  51:53  
No, you know, I think it was it was a reasonable speed for especially for you know, big, big vehicle like this. Yeah, yeah. And but both of these Escalades that I had the one I had previously and this one were both in the white tri coat paint with them because their sport trim, everything was all black, the the black grille, black mesh grille and black trim around the headlights and around the around the side glass, you know, no chrome or anything. It was all all blacked out. This thing kind of it kind of looks like, you know, like it would be the official ride of the commander of an imperial Stormtrooper division in Star Wars.

Nicole Wakelin  52:30  
He would need a cane Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:32  
That's true. Yes, it wouldn't. But other other matters great.

Roberto Baldwin  52:37  
I am I was on that the initial drive that they did with supercruise, from New Mexico to like Santa Monica, California, where they just like two days of using supergroup, and more so they like it. Like you said, I think more so than that a lot of other automakers I feel like Cadillac really, or GM really did the right thing when it comes to driver monitoring. Helping drivers figure out you know, what's going on with the vehicle with that light bar that's on the steering wheel. Initially, I was like, and this looks kind of goofy. And but then when you start using it, you're like, Oh, this is a really good idea. Cuz this is exactly where you know, your eye sees this as you're looking at the road. Of course, you know, the driver. Again, the driver monitoring the high definition maps and just making sure that you're paying attention while this systems active and yet for the cognitive load. Yeah, that's sort of reduce I find these systems are mostly helpful when a I'm trying to eat while driving on the freeway.

Unknown Speaker  53:32  
near me when I'm stuck. Make

Sam Abuelsamid  53:35  
sure you don't put your food in front of your eyes. Yeah, there's a little disengage.

Roberto Baldwin  53:38  
Or or when I'm, when I'm stuck in traffic when I'm stuck in traffic, like, you know, just in just even just adaptive cruise control is great, because I'm just like, because traffic just annoys me traffic's not driving traffic. You know, it's, it's the worst aspect of being in a car is being stuck in traffic. But if I can just turn something on, and it sort of does, you know, it keeps track everything is where it does it. It sort of reduces my stress level and my anger at the fact that there's so many people on the road and we're first we're all going somewhere and we're all very important, but whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:10  
Yeah, I had that. I did that that initial drive from Cleveland to Chicago to Memphis. And then a few months later, I had one when I was out in California, and I went up, I went up to twit, I went up to the twit studio to do a segment with Leo with that, and driving back from Petaluma. I went around the East Bay side instead of instead of taking the the Golden Gate Bridge, I've been across the Bay Bridge. And, you know, I had an encrypted supercruise most of the way I did have to take over controls were getting onto the bridge, but then all the way across the bridge. Again, I never touched the steering wheel until it got to the west side of the bridge. And as you're coming into San Francisco, at which point you know, it's it's no longer a highway there yet. You have to take over full control but all the way from getting you know, getting on the bridge from the toll gates in or the the toll booth on the east side all the way across, you know, across Treasure Island and into the city. pans off, I just sat back and let it do its thing, you know, in the morning rush hour traffic?

Roberto Baldwin  55:15  
Yeah, no, no, it's I you know, I think yeah, it's it's it's probably my favorite advanced driver assistance system out there still even you know from 2000 whenever we 17 I can't Yeah, 17 time doesn't make any sense anymore to me. But yeah, no. And again, it all comes down to that initial like, Hey, we need to keep an eye on people like, Hey, we need to make it so people can they know what's going on? And, you know, let's use like technologies. Let's use, you know, redundant technology, radar and cameras and, you know, HD maps. And so yeah, I think it's, it's the smart way to go. It's, you know, as we sort of transition to whatever level people you know, three or four in however long that's gonna take.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:02  
Yeah, that's gonna take a while. Tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. But bottom line, bottom line price on this escalated was $113,065, including delivery, that's a lot is

Nicole Wakelin  56:17  
luxury cars, luxury

Sam Abuelsamid  56:17  
priced. And this, this is the flagship of the Cadillac line, at least until the Scholastic arrives next year, or the year after, whenever, whenever it actually goes into production. And that's going to be their electric sedan flagship. So speaking of redundancy, or lack of redundancy, Tesla, they decided to remove the radar from the model three in the model y the radar sensor, that's part of that's been part of the autopilot system, since the beginning,

Roberto Baldwin  56:48  
I have so many thoughts about this, like a YBY. See why this is this is just this is backwards, you're the the old, you know, when when Tesla came out with their their sort of autonomous day or their they had an investor event? Well, they talked about their their computer, their chip there. And they kept saying the word redundancy, well, we got to have redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, and at the same time, you know, either I've been poopoo in LIDAR, I'm like, well, that's a redundant system, you know, you have cameras, radar, LIDAR, you have three different systems, if two of them fail, you still have at least one other system, you know, this is this is you're literally talking about people's lives when you're talking about the systems. Because if you don't have a redundant system, and it fails, like you have a, you know, it suddenly fails, instead of like, you know, failing over time, because bugs or weather or whatever, then then the person has to take over immediately, and they might not be ready to take over, especially when talking about a lot of not a lot, I don't wanna say a lot, you know, a set of Tesla drivers who are who are complete idiots who decide that that autopilot is self driving. So removing radar is such a, it's such a backwards move, which I think, you know, either it's a, they want to crow about how great their, their system is, their, you know, their, their, their, their machine learning and their AI or be it comes down to money, you know, they're losing a lot of they're going to be losing a lot of EV credits was the lantis going, you know, slanted doesn't need to give them money anymore for Eb credits. So they are that's that's a that's profit that they're losing. And so if they can make the manufacturing of their cars cheaper by removing radar, then I mean, that's, that's and that's a bad bad reason.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:33  
That's $40 from the bill of materials. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  58:36  
It's It's so I, I just I it's it's such a and it's hard, it would be hit hard for me to trust something that doesn't have a redundant system. And when you're talking about, you know, advanced drivers assistance, you need redundant systems throughout, from the sensors to the computers to the to the to the wiring to the the network to everything needs to be redundant, because you're talking about replacing some of the actions that a human makes. And if there is no redundancy, then it's not really that safe now, is it?

Nicole Wakelin  59:10  
No. Well, they already have it. So it was says it was beginning with deliveries now in May of 2021. So theoretically, there's vehicles out there already that are no longer equipped with radar, right?

Sam Abuelsamid  59:23  
Yeah. So the way that the system was set has been set ups, say launched version two auto pilot in October of 2016. They have eight cameras around the car, and 12 ultrasonic sensors, which are really short range, low resolution sensors, that's the little parking buttons you find around the car, and then one long range radar in the front, and they've gotten rid of that radar, I guess, cars built in the last two weeks or so, no longer have the radar sensor, at least for the North American market. Apparently one's going to Europe and those in in China and other markets still have the radar. So it's only for North America or they've taken out the radar.

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:04  
Is that because we require it somehow, like, you know how the standards are different in Europe than they are here? Do we make them? Do we let them get away with it?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:12  
Well, we do let them get away with a lot, which is unfortunate. But I'm one of one of the big differences in most other markets is meant when manufacturers make a change that affects like any of the safety stuff, they have, or will just in general, before they can put a vehicle on sale, they have to go through a Type Approval Process. So here here in North America, in the US, manufacturers get to self certify. So there's a whole bunch of regulations over what vehicles have to do in terms of crash, safety, and all the all these other systems. And basically, the manufacturers have are supposed to do the testing, submit the paperwork to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they look it over or sign it off, and then the car goes on sale. In Europe, they have to go through a Type Approval Process where they actually give the vehicle to an independent third party that does the testing and validation. And they're the ones that sign off. And so if if Tesla wanted to remove the radar in Europe, I think that they actually would have to go through the Type Approval Process, again, do an amended type approval before they could sell it that way in Europe. And, you know, I think that they probably figure at least for now, European customers would not be too thrilled about losing the radar sensor in American

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:32  
customers like Coca Cola, whatever,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:35  
apparently, yeah. You know, or they don't realize it, I mean, already, you know, within a couple days after the Tesla made the announcement, Consumer Reports and IHS, both came out and said, You know, we're reducing the safety rating, you know, so that the Top Safety Pick plus for the, for the model three in the model y from IHS went away, Consumer Reports reduced their safety rating for the car. And, you know, you know, I'm having a hard time coming to grips with this, the Tesla is seems to be particularly Ilan musk seems to be so obsessed with doing this with cameras only, which I think is just stupid, especially if, if they actually have any hope of ever really getting to full self driving, which they're not going to do with with the current system. But that's, you know, even if they, if they want it to get there, you know, a big part of a fully self driving system is it has to be fail operational, you know, is this concept of failsafe versus fail operational, you know, when I was still an engineer, you know, when we're working on abs and traction control, stability control, you know, one of the things you had to do was, you had to have diagnostic software and Eric could detect anything going wrong with a sensor or an actuator or software and alert the driver, and the driver was the backup system. So failsafe, you have to detect a fault and let the driver know, and the driver takes over. But with an autonomous vehicle, if there is no driver in the vehicle, or there might not be any controls in the vehicle, it has to be fell operational, which means that you detect a fault with one system, there has to be a backup, you know, redundant system and preferably, also diversity. So you want the redundant systems should be different from each other, not the same thing. And, you know, then you have a system that can take over and provide at the very least, reduced the performance control to till the vehicle can get to a safe location. And getting rid of radar, you know, eliminate some of that redundancy. You know, the having just cameras is a terrible idea. Because, you know, cameras, and cameras are great for a lot of stuff, but they also have a lot of limitations. And especially the way Tesla has them configured on their car. It's, it's problematic, and I think that, you know, people would be foolish to, to buy one of these without a radar sensor.

Roberto Baldwin  1:04:12  
Yeah, that's the Yeah, and the things that can that can sort of disable a camera or the sun. I've had two cameras on, you know, the superguide one, the supercruise Drive, it turns out the infrared camera that was looking at me at one point, the sun was directly behind it and pointed right at it, and so it couldn't detect my face anymore. That's the same thing. You know, I've been fixed that now. By the way, that's good. But I've you know, I've been in Tesla's where I was driving into the sun and the the, you know, the autopilot system just wouldn't it was just like now, no, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna work right now. It's like, Okay, I understand this. But you know, you drive you know, the car in front of you kicks up a bunch of mud. I think you wrote about bugs,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:52  
bugs,

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:53  
five minutes of driving in the winter, and every sensor on your car can be coded because they're low and they're all code with ice, and it feels like Christmas trees have like lights on your dashboard telling you all of the self driving functions don't work, no more, all that stuff, nothing works. It's like drive like old school because nothing you think is gonna work is going to work. And it doesn't even take like a horrible storm, just like winter, just regular winter.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:17  
Yeah, you know, you know, the way Tesla has their cameras configured, you know, three of the cameras, they've got a trifocal camera system in the front, behind the windshield by the mirror, and they're all clustered together. So there's a long, telephoto wide angle and an ultra wide angle. And, you know, they're with nominally within the swept area, the windshield wipers. But, you know, the cold that, you know, in wintertime, you know, the this, the last couple inches of the windshield wipers, you know, rarely worked very well, when you start getting ice build up, and

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:51  
you can ice for a bit, and then you get that, you know, you have the perfect little windshield wiper spot that you can see. But that is it, then suddenly, the ice and snow that's above it gets heavy enough to fall into your field of vision for a second. And as you're trying to get that off the window. It's blocking where those things like sensors cannot see through that, like, I can still see where I'm going. But there's little chunks of ice sort of falling. That's gonna mess them up to its

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:17  
Yeah, and like you said, like radar is not that expensive. It's super effective. It's it's, you know, we've been, we've been using it for forever.

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:25  
It's a weird twist, you think there's something else behind it? I mean, I guess the money saving thing, but you think like, you read little thing, they're gonna rely on camera vision and neural net processing? Do they have some other plan out there of which we are unaware that would make this all make sense in another month and a half?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:42  
I doubt it. It's I really don't think it

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:45  
is, hey, look what we can do. Where, and there's gonna be people who are gonna be like, yeah, look what Tesla's doing. And you're like, Yeah, but other cars are coming out that have all these sensors. And when one fails, these other ones work. You know, that's, that's, yeah, like, why, why? Why be braggadocious about safety, maybe be a little you know, and not in safety. Like, we have a lot of sensors that we're going to help you but more braggadocious like, we're removing sensors, we're removing,

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:12  
taken out static, and we're, we're taking that stuff away movie

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:15  
redundancy from this from this, you know, this, this, this, you know, this this thing of metal and steel and glass and plastic barreling down the road at 70 miles an hour, we're gonna take some stuff out, we're gonna, we're gonna,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:29  
and part of the part of this, because the system actually has less performance. Now, they've actually limited the capabilities of autopilot. So, you know, like, the auto steer system now is limited to 75 miles an hour, it will not work above 75 Also, some of the automatic emergency braking no longer works until they, you know, update their software some more and try and get it working again. But, you know, instead of waiting until they actually had that stuff working to remove the radar, they decided to take it out now, you know, and hope for the best

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:01  
it's so it's such a it's such a weird, weird decision and and and a lot of the any anything that's weird that happens at Tesla comes from Ilan that's it's the outset. I mean,

Nicole Wakelin  1:08:13  
yeah. And I'm looking, it also gets rid of smart summon, if your vehicle has an emergency lane departure avoidance, they're disabled it delivery. Yeah. So those two features poof, like we Yeah, well, if

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:24  
you thought okay, smart summon never really worked anyway, so But

Nicole Wakelin  1:08:27  
I mean, technically it was there, but like so smart summon and emergency lane departure avoidance. God,

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:33  
so if you ordered a car at the end of April, for like a June delivery, you're like, oh, cool, I'm gonna use smart summon, or I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna have this that this, these features that I can rely on and then when the car gets delivered, now, you know that when your car gets delivered, it's not going to have those features, because they've decided to remove hardware and the software hasn't caught up to to their Tesla vision.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:57  
It's okay. But people have been paying up to $10,000 for full self driving for almost five years now. And they still don't have that. And they never really will.

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:08  
Yeah, it's it's, I would like Tesla's the engineering for Tesla's batteries and motors is amazing. And then it sort of gets weird after that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:19  
Sticking with with Tesla for a moment, that is, john Volker wrote an interesting story for the drive this week. Sometime, probably towards the end of the year. Tesla is supposed to start building building cars building while model wise at their new factory in Austin, Texas. And eventually, I think the the cybertruck is supposed to be built there as well. But there's this weird little anomaly. They're going to be building cars in Texas. But they can't sell those cars in Texas. They actually have to ship the cars out of Texas first. Sell them to like if somebody in Texas wants to buy a vehicle that was Milton Austin, it has to be shipped out of the state first, they have to buy it and title it outside of Texas, and then bring it back into Texas because Texas is one of those 20 or so states that does not allow car makers to sell vehicles directly to consumers. What do you guys think?

Roberto Baldwin  1:10:20  
This is a really good article, because it kind of talks about how like, it seemed like, well, they wooed Ilan into building this factory in Texas, and, you know, injecting, like billions of dollars into the economy and having all these jobs and you're like, hey, Craig, you know, people need jobs. And, you know, Texas is seems like a nicest place most of the time. And so, yeah, that'd be great. You know, we bring your factory here, bring your technology here, bring your Okay, yeah, but you can't sell your thing here. I'm sorry. You gotta you gotta ship it to to, you know, Arizona or to Oklahoma or wherever.

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:56  
You should be like, little ancillary like I want to buy it in Texas. And I can't like right on the border, you know, like the parking lot is in Texas. But the building where you buy it is actually

Roberto Baldwin  1:11:05  
like state line like in, in California, the state, there's the road to Las Vegas, there's a place called state line. And Ryan on the other side of the line is like a bunch of casinos as soon as you get into Nevada. So that's what's gonna be are like the going into Oregon, where they don't have sales tax, right. So right at the border, you can go into Oregon and buy a bunch of stuff for that sales tax, and then come back into California.

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:26  
We have this huge we have no sales taxes, this huge shopping mall, and they were arguing about how they were going to put it on the plot of land. And they're like, well, one, you know, part of that's going to be in Massachusetts. So you have to collect sales tax like no, probably like shift the whole plan the parking lot is in Massachusetts, once you get into the building new structure

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:43  
structures all on the state line.

Roberto Baldwin  1:11:46  
So they can collect tax on parking, if he ever charged for parking

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:50  
in Massachusetts, a few minutes. So come up with that plan.

Roberto Baldwin  1:11:53  
This is Yeah, I feel like I'm sure somebody at Tesla is. Well, Elan musk. He was he's fuming about this because he was tweeting, I'm shocked. Yeah, so he you know, you're talking about a lot of money dropped into a, into a state after just railing against California and all of its regulatory stuff when it came to to COVID and the shutdowns and, you know, California driving companies out, and then he, you know, builds this huge factory in Texas, and then the regulatory system in that cup that cut that state won't let allow him to sell the actual thing he builds in that state. Obviously, Tesla is not the only company that's going to be affected by this. A lot of the other Evie startups like rivian, lucid, and others are going to have the same issue because they want to sell directly. And I mean, there's this whole argument about, you know, franchise dealers versus direct sales.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:50  
And I think that there's actually, you know, for a lot of people, there's actually a lot of benefit to having a franchise dealer system, you know, as much as people complain about the purchase process from dealers, you know, and trying to be up sold all the time. There, there are advantages, you know, both from a business perspective and, and from a consumer perspective, because you can have a lot more outlets, you know, a lot easier to, you know, to get sales and service than it is, you know, with the, with Tesla's much more limited network of stores, you know, in about 30 odd states. So, you know, I think that it's, it's past time for states to start repealing some of these franchise laws that they have, you know, I think that it's probably not, I think it's not unreasonable to, you know, to say that, okay, for a manufacturer that already has franchise dealers, you know, maybe you can't sell direct to consumers and compete with those franchisees because, you know, those franchisees are independent businesses, they invest a lot of money in their stores and in the real estate in the building the training of their of their service staff that part's tools. And you know, you don't want to just take that away from them. But you know, if for a company that doesn't have a competing franchise dealer in the state, you know, why don't sell direct just get over it? I think, you know,

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:19  
I think Volvo has a nice sort of medium like system for that with Volvo care by Volvo because initially it was almost like direct sales and then like a bunch of dealerships are very very upset about that which I understand because you know, you know, Volvo dealership I'm sure is very expensive and so you know, you you know you can get your care by Volvo and then you go pick it up at the dealership and then so you have that all I can take it somewhere to get it fixed and I can take it here to get you know, to get things picked up and then they also give the option to work if you have if there's a vehicle and I think on the Volvo lot you can do a care by Volvo lease program with the vehicle that's on that lot. So yeah, I think there's there's, there's there's a way to have a happy medium Where you have this, like almost direct sales, or you know, you have an app, you load up the app, you figure out what you want you, you say, I want to buy this car, and then you just go to the dealership and pick it up. And then you know, you can you have that relationship when you do need somewhere to service because I think the service issue is a huge, huge issue. Because if you buy a Tesla, because Tesla's are all, you know, they're all their dealerships, all their service centers are owned by Tesla, they can't, they don't have a really wide network. If you live 300 miles from a Tesla, you know, service center, you can either wait someone, maybe to drive to your house and fix your car, and then they get there. They're like, Oh, yeah, I can't fix this in the Natal even now, what do you do?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:35  
I don't I don't have the parts for this. Yeah, to come back next week.

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:38  
Yeah. So I think there's, I think there's a there's a, there's a nice happy medium that can be that can be done with with this system. But it requires like both both parties to sort of budget a little and allow, you know, change and allow people to buy things the way they want to buy them. Some people like going to dealerships I personally do not. But yeah, I think that's insane.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:00  
Now, you know, over the last year, you know, through the pandemic, we started to see some hybrid models develop, you know, where, you know, dealers are doing a lot more of the stuff online, you know, a lot more of the purchase process online. And we'll we've got a listener question later, that will, we'll get to where this ties in as well, but the, you know, being able to do your shopping online, and, you know, have you'll have them deliver the vehicle to you. And, or, and then take it back, come pick it up when you need service. You know, I think like, there's a lot of advantages to that, or, you know, like what GM is doing, you know, as they start to wash their TVs with with Hummer, you know, you will, they're working with their dealers, so the dealer will actually take care of the actual final transaction, but the whole process of shopping and purchasing will happen online. And you pick a dealer, and this is what Ford also did with the Maki, you know, where you order it online. And during the order process, you select your local dealer where you will take delivery, and you know, they'll handle the service and everything. So I think that there's, you know, there's some in between here, you know, where you can have, hopefully the best of both worlds.

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:12  
I feel like that should have been part of the negotiation of putting a giant factory.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:17  
I think it actually was, you know, they I think they talked about that. But unfortunately, the way the Texas Legislature works, you know, the Texas constitution limits the legislature to only being in session for no more than 140 days out of every two years

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:35  
is ridiculous, which mostly as anything I've ever heard,

Nicole Wakelin  1:17:39  
weird in arbitrary,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:40  
right. And you know, they're actually coming up on their limit, like, I think might be this weekend. And, of course, they couldn't deal with the Tesla problem, because they had to go ahead, they had to rush to put some voter suppression laws in place instead, that was that was far more important to keeping republicans in power. But

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:57  
instead of jobs, we got to make sure that people instead of jobs for regular people, we got to make sure that these elected officials keep their jobs. So he exactly

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:08  
a few months ago, Lotus announced that they were going to end production of the lease and its assorted variants, the axes and the Evora this year, as they start to start production of their next new model, which the name escapes me at the moment, but they're going to be there. They're going to be starting production of their last internal combustion sports car later this fall. And so the all the tooling to build the Lotus Elise, which served as the basis for the chassis of the original Tesla Roadster, among other things, is for sale. You can buy it. And this is not the first time that Lotus has done this. Going back to the early 70s. When they decided to stop building the Lotus seven, they sold off the tooling to canora who continues to build that car to this very day. And then in the early 90s when they cancelled the M 100. Milan. They sold that tooling to kiya and Jia shipped the holy equipment over to South Korea and continued to build the lawn for a few more years they built I think about 1000 or so in Korea before they finally gave up on it as well. So now the the Lotus Elise toolings for sale. Anybody want to buy it?

Roberto Baldwin  1:19:25  
I checked my pockets. I don't have quite enough money for the tooling. So I

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:30  
went if I give you a couple of dollars, I have like a $5 bill, I'm sure would that put you over the edge

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:35  
lucky Chicken 50 bucks. All right. Well, I'm

Roberto Baldwin  1:19:37  
looking at my backyard and there's a big swath of land that I have at the bottom of a hill. That's there's nothing there. It's it's that like, I don't have a fenced in. It's mostly just like deer that like hanging out down there. And just, you know, we could set it up in your backyard deer and deer and ticks. And so I can still like hang out. I'm cool with the deer. I'm not cool with the ticks. Yeah, we could just stop I could just start making building leases I'm sure the neighbors would be totally cool with it too.

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:04  
They wouldn't do they love your backyard.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:08  
Alright, so to one of mine well we'll put it in our bed tomorrow

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:12  
I'll just run out I'll run an extension cord from my house down that hill that'd be fine

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:19  
and finally some sad news from Mazda the Mazda six is going away from the US market as as the CX three which I'm less upset about Yeah, I'm gonna miss the six they you know the sales have been declining the CX three was you know it was gonna be going away anyway once they launched the CX 30 Yeah, because the CX three never sold as well you're too small for the US market but seeing the six the six sedan is kind of sad that I've always liked that car I love the way it looks and really like the way it drives I

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:54  
think most of us liked and I just don't think you know regular people want to sit in so

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:00  
unfortunately that is the case i

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:02  
think it's a and when you're when you're going up against like say the Accord it's a tough that's a tough battle.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:07  
Yeah, the court and the camera.

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:09  
Yeah, those are those are those are tough. That's a tough battle. I mean, it's you know, I'm sad that a sedan is going away. Anytime a sedan dies or an angel loses its wings. So Look what you've done people look at you've done

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:21  
an angel just stop flow bump. Just crawling around now.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:27  
So while while we're talking about sedans let's get into listeners questions Brynn Baron Housen sent one in said Are we seeing the slow decline of Honda I hate to say it but they're falling way behind Hyundai and Kia on multiple fronts. hybrid electric power trains design both interior and exterior and tech they may have some loyalists but can can they can they compete for new drivers What do you guys think?

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:54  
I you know what I kind of agree with Okay, so I sort of agree then also disagree so how's that? I think they have a more nuanced I think, kiya the Kia Hyundai have been killing it especially on the hybrid, especially it's especially on the electric front. Like they they like everything that Kia and Hyundai have been doing with electric vehicles was something that you would have expected Honda to do already. I think Honda of the 90s Honda of the early 2000s they would have been at the forefront of this I think Honda now is seems like um and you know the interior of a kid you know that Ridgeline I have the infotainment system is is ridiculously bad. It's just a feels like the very first Android tablet you may have purchased way back in the day. It's just it is it is it is you realize it is

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:43  
still running Android 5.0 Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:45  
is it is it you are you you are it is essentially begging you to plug your phone in because you do not want to even look at this. And so I think that that that's going to hurt Honda in the very long run if they don't sort of get it together on that turn because people who are buying cars as as, as younger people start buying cars they're they're they're they're expecting something they're expecting a level of technology in a vehicle that at least in the infotainment wise and electric wise, Honda's not delivering that said it's it's it's it's super hard to beat Honda quality. And you every Honda you get in the car, you close that door you're like yeah, this is why you buy a Honda, you just that door close.

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:31  
I totally agree. That's the thing. I everything you said but it comes down to is like if you want a car that you know it's going to be solid and stable and hold up and probably you're just going to finally get rid of it. Because you're just I want a new car. I'm tired of this one. Like it's not that there's anything wrong with it. They couldn't keep running for another 50 years. You buy a Honda, they just keep going and they do exactly what they're supposed to do. And then they are reliable. And that hasn't changed. I guess that's a good thing that hasn't changed. But yeah, on the tech front, they do feel you wonder at what point that will there. Where's the tipping point there where the despite the reliability that the infotainment is so that people don't forget it, I will take a less reliable vehicle if I can just have infotainment that feels like it's from today.

Roberto Baldwin  1:24:16  
Yeah, I feel like the coolest thing has done in the last few years is the Honda II, which they won't bring the United States and meanwhile the ionic five is coming. And I'm like, well, the ionic five is what the Honda he could have been. And you know that that I'm excited about the ionic five. I'm very excited about the ionic five. I haven't driven the ionic five. I shouldn't be excited about a car I haven't driven yet.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:40  
But I'm on paper. It looks really really promising.

Roberto Baldwin  1:24:43  
Yes. Yes. So I think you know, I think Honda's You know, they're working with GM for an Eevee. So we'll eventually get some two of them two of them. So we'll eventually get some e V's from them. You know, they're sort of slow to that game, you know, and when it comes to that stuff, they're very conservative company. I don't think that average person realizes hon into it are super conservative, they're going to, they're going to squeeze every last bit of money out of whatever they're doing a platform or whatever, a really old infotainment system because they can kind of coast on that reliability thing. And when people ask me like, well, I want a car and I want this, and I want this, and I want this, and then, you know, you kind of want to give them the, you know, the Mazda, you know, the CX five at the same time, you're like, you know what, get the CRV or the rav4 it because you know, it's going to last until they don't want it anymore.

Nicole Wakelin  1:25:35  
I like to think somewhere there's somebody at Honda that saying, Okay, we got this reliability thing, and it's gonna keep us going for a while and there's no no questions, no problems, no comment. complaints, like the reliability is rockin how far like you said, How far can we make this, this infotainment, this tech we have worked before suddenly, and suddenly, okay, we got X number of years, guys in x years, we've got to come out with something that's gonna knock it out of the park, because whatever that is, we're gonna keep that for the next 15 years. So, you know, like, whatever the next iteration is, I would think would be sort of like a significant leap forward to bring them up. And then I bet they'll just kind of Okay, now hold here for a while until we have to do it again. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:14  
I mean, we we all had a 2017 civic hatchback. And love it. Yeah. And the four years we've had it, yeah, it has the, it has never had to go in for any unscheduled service, the only thing we've had to do is oil changes and tire rotations. It's it's never it has not had a single thing. go wrong with it in that four years. And that's not something I could save for the previous two cars that we had before that, you know, and they, you know, they were built by a German brand. So, you know, you're right, Robbie, this this thing, this thing has been dead reliable. Our daughter, our older daughter had a 2008 Honda Fit that she got, you know, right when she got her driver's license when she was 16. She finally got rid of that car about two months ago. You know, she drove it for 13 years and never had any problems with it. It was great. But finally got rid of it and got something a little newer. I had

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:16  
a I had a Honda Civic and 90 Honda Civic about 92 for 15 or 17 years. And the only thing I broke the timing chain, that timing belt because I didn't change it. That's Yeah, and I had a I had an i and at 160,000 miles I had to swap out the clutch.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:35  
Yeah, that's aware right. 100,000 miles

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:39  
so the clutch You know, there's like, like the weird little wear I wear items. And it's just this thing. I read an oil a few times. It just kept going. Like, come on. I'm like, oh, where the hell am I Why don't I have the oil on a slow leak in the oil gasket. And I never ever fixed it. Because I was like,

Nicole Wakelin  1:27:57  
I was just like,

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:58  
I got this. I we're good. We're cool. Yeah, it's you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:02  
you hear it. But Honda Honda does need to do more on the electrification front. I think besides just fuel cells, that's not going to be enough. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:09  
the clarity line was was sort of a weird, the fact that they brought us clarity, the three clarity vehicles but won't give us the Honda he was just like, these are okay. You know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:20  
I can't, I can't blame them. You know, I think that the Honda, you know, while there are enthusiasts who would love to have the Honda II in the US market, I don't really see it as something that would sell at enough volume to justify bringing it here.

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:34  
I think it would have been like a weird little halo of vehicle is like they like the NSX you know that k Acura NSX. They're not gonna sell a lot of NSX is they put a lot of money into it. You know, I think the same thing. I think maybe they would have sold 20,000 units, which would have would have been fine. But people will look at it, they would have talked about it, they would have been you know, and it would have changed that sort of idea that Honda is behind on on Evie,

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:56  
exactly. It doesn't it doesn't matter really how many they would have sold in the end, that would have been the perception that they're they're moving in a direction that there's not a perception. They're moving right now. Yeah, that would have been, it would have been worth it possibly just for that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:10  
Alright. Let's see. Next up. Jeff Curtis asks, How likely is it that the government will reinstate or raise federal tax credits for Tesla's also heard about an increase to $12,500? So I think I think Congress will do something to bring in, you know, that's part of the proposal, you know, the the infrastructure proposal from the Biden administration, I think Congress will ultimately do some sort of new incentives or revised incentive program for EBS. I think that this proposal that came out of a Senate committee this week for you know, $12,500 tax credit, is nuts. I think they I think they need to get away from the tax credit thing, and just do a point of sale rebate, because, you know, especially for, you know, lower middle income customers, you know, a lot of them are not even going To be able to take advantage of tax credit that big, the only ones that we're going to be able to get the full 12 and a half $1,000 are higher income people, and they don't really need that tax break. Yeah, it should be a point of sale rebate. And I also think that the the incentive should be based on a cap on the purchase price of the vehicle, like maybe $50,000 or less. So, you know, I think that there's no reason that anybody that can afford $100,000 car, you know, like a Hummer, Evie, or a Model S or Model X, should they don't need a tax break, you know, they can afford

Nicole Wakelin  1:30:40  
it. I mean, they might not need a tax break. I mean, they can afford a $50,000 car. But if you're contemplating whether or not you want to make the move to an Eevee, in a different point of view, not so much just like oh, they don't need the money, they're already making a lot of money, they can afford it. But if it encourages people to move towards IE V's The more you see on the road, the more you accept that as being a viable mode of transportation. And I think it does something to moving to getting people to switch to IE V's.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:09  
But I think, you know, for especially for the more premium vehicles. I know, I don't know that seeing a few more of those on the road is going to be that big a help? I think it would be I think it would be more of a help to see a lot more mainstream vehicles, mainstream e V's, you know, in the 30 to $45,000 price range, you know, ionic fives, t v sixes, Hyundai Kia, VW, Audi fours, you know, and whatever else comes out. I mean, there's a bunch of other stuff coming, you know, making those cars more affordable, I think, would have a bigger impact in terms of getting more unit volumes out there.

Roberto Baldwin  1:31:46  
Yeah, I think New York and California both have a cap on the state tax incentive. I think it's $60,000. But I, you know, yeah, the the sort of point of sale, like, you know, tax baton tax rebate, or I'm sorry, cashback or whatever, I think that's, that's a bit more exciting for for folks who are who are looking to buy these vehicles. Because you go in, you're like, Oh, I'm gonna get this much money back here, like, Oh, no, no, no, no, hold on, let me tell you how this works. And then becomes it's like, Oh, okay. And then when you when you may add complexity to a system like this, it's it's sort of, especially when you when you when you're dangling 12,500, and you know, that's based on, you know, they're gonna keep the 7500, then you get 2500 more if the car is built in United States and additional 20 $500 more if the car is union made, which I'm like, a cool, you know, building that you built in the US and union made, you know, that gives, you know, these an incentive for union go union. But, yeah, it needs to be some, I think they need to change it from from a tax credit to, we're gonna take this much money off this car, when you buy it at the lot when I go and buy.

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:52  
Yeah, that would definitely I agree that that would definitely be easier. Forget all these rebates, just say you buy an Eevee we're gonna take x off that, yeah, that would be much.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:01  
And especially given that, I think, a large proportion of customers, if not most customers, you know, they a big part of their buying decision is based on what is the monthly payment going to be, and, you know, they know how much they can afford to pay every month. And, you know, if you've got to go in and pay, you know, $45,000 up front for something like, let's say, ionic 500, where they haven't announced pricing yet, but let's say, you know, as an example, or the ID for, okay, 40 $40,000 for an ID for, and, yeah, if the payments on that workout to, let's say, $400 a month, and you can only afford 300 Well, you know, you're gonna walk away from that deal and buy, you know, maybe buy a Tiguan instead. Whereas if that's if that rebate is at point of sale, you know, instead of $40,000, now you're talking 30 to five, you know, or 30, or whatever it comes out to, and now your monthly payments are something that's in the range you can afford, you're more likely to buy that vehicle. So I think that, you know, because of the way particularly for Americans, the way Americans tend to buy cars, I think that it's it's more important to ditch the whole tax credit thing and just do point of sale rebates.

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:17  
Yeah, I think I i've talked, whenever I talk about the ID for always, I try to talk about their, their lease deal. It's like 379 for three years, and three years of free charging with that. And I think that feels way more compelling because that tax thing sort of like works into the lease, way more compelling than the $40,000 price, you know, price because because, you know, three years, you know, 45, you know, for, you know, $450 $500 a month that's a lot of money, especially when you're, again, we know when that was painfully broke as a student. I mean, I think my tax, I think I paid maybe $1,000 in taxes and then, you know, as you sort of work up, you know, you might not know what you're paying taxes might not even come up to 12 times appointment, like you're saying, maybe it's 5000 you're like, Oh, well, now I just feel like I've lost, you know, 7500? Because I'm not? Well, you know, I'm not I don't make a lot of money. So if it's kind of tricky, it's a trick.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:12  
Yeah. Well, and that's part of why leases have been so popular with AV customers over the last, you know, 10 years, because they, you know, the leasing companies actually factor that seven that tax credit in because they know, they're going to, they're going to get the tax credit. So they factor that into the lease price. You know, so you get that monthly payment down. And so a lot of people have opted for the leases, because they can get those really good deals on it. And they don't have to deal with the hassle of trying to claim the tax credit the following year. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:35:46  
Now also in battery technology moves pretty quickly. So I'm always when people are talking about an Eevee I'm like, look into a lease. Because in three years battery battery battery technology is going to advance and might not advance a lot but it might event you know, we might we may be you know, everyone keeps talking, it's gonna be four or five years from now, but maybe solid state maybe someone will have that could not track. But you know, everything moves really quickly. You're gonna get that tax credit upfront. And then yeah, if you have a car that has 250 miles and in three years cars are coming out with 500 miles because some some smart student at Stanford like did I don't know drop the coke in inside of his battery and now it makes it work better. I don't know who says all it took was coke cola classic. Turns out it's the real thing. Yeah. Yeah, so it's Yeah, it's the Yeah, I catch up front on the table. Bam.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:39  
Yep. All right. Next up, Jeff Turner. He had a question about the F 150. Lightning said on the podcast said that vehicle to home integration with sunrun is done through the CCS connector so that that's the DC charging connector that's on on most new vehicles, most new TVs? Can you confirm I've been assuming that they would do this through the the ac 1772 connector. So when you look at the the Evie charge the charge port on most TVs that are not Tesla's there's two parts to the charge part. There's the original, the round part that has five pins in it. That's the set the sae 1772 connector, that's for AC charging. So if you're plugging in a home, that's what you're going to use. And then CCS is the same thing. But it adds two more big pins for the direct current fast charging that right below it. And so what Jeff is asking, he thought that it was going to use to the power backup through the only through the the AC connection, since they already have an inverter on board for the outlets on the vehicle. There's a difference between using an onboard inverter with an AC connection versus a DC connection to a stationary inverter in the home essays a standard for roaming inverters because the interconnection requirements are more complex. So the answer the questions they are in fact, using the DC connection, the direct current connection says drawing power directly from the battery, it's not going through the vehicles onboard chargers at all. And what sunrun installs in your in your garage is a smart inverter that is tied into your home electrical circuitry and the main power line coming into your home. So it automatically detects if you have a power outage, and it automatically switches over and it's drawing DC directly from your battery. It's not going through the inverter in the car in the truck, because it's more efficient that way and that it does the it does the AC conversion in that smart inverter unit. And that that is the way they're doing it. So it is in fact using the CCS connector.

Roberto Baldwin  1:38:47  
So if you're just a regular person, you just plug it in. It'll work.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:51  
Yes, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin  1:38:55  
Plug it in, it'll work. Don't worry about it. But yeah, this is I mean, that's great information.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:00  
Alright, last one, from Jared says, Did you all ever have do the how to test drive a car on the show? And I don't think we ever did. I think we've kind of dabbled a little bit in it, but like to get your thoughts from both of you on what are some tips for test driving a car when you're going to purchase.

Nicole Wakelin  1:39:19  
My first tip is to get the sales but not to ride with you. kick them out of the car, find someplace that will let you just drive the car without the sales guy in the backseat or writing next to you because they tell you things that might not be relevant to you and they're constantly chattering and just have you in the car. And whoever you often ride with whether that's your spouse, or your kids in the backseat, put the car seats back there, put everybody in the way you would drive and get the salesmen out so you guys can just drive and talk to each other about what you like and what you don't like and that's that's my biggest things for test drive in your car, get rid of the sales.

Roberto Baldwin  1:39:57  
Yeah, get it out there. Also, if you have the opportunity, if you Have a friend or a family member in your life who is really really into cars and might be a bit of a contrarian. Try to get that person to go along with you. And don't just do one drive in the car. Try to do like more than one do a couple come back later. Don't let them like suck you in like, well, if you stay here today, there's a guy on the lot has been looking at this car, there's no guy on the lot looking at that car, by the way.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:21  
Or if there is, you know, unless you're buying something that's particularly rare Limited Edition. They will there's no there's gonna be another.

Roberto Baldwin  1:40:28  
Yeah. So bring your like your sort of like car because it's so easy for No. And I think all automotive journalists, we all talk about this, the idea that when someone asks you, Hey, would you buy this car? Or I'm looking for this type of car, they already have a car in their mind what they're gonna buy? Yeah. And if you don't say, well, well now, if you try to, like talk them out of it, they're just like, still bring someone with you, who will drive the car with you and be like, well Really? Is this really what you want and then kind of like, kind of kind of Curb Your Enthusiasm for this vehicle. I think you know, it's in and someone who can who can you know, pop the engine and listen to it and tell you if like it needs a valve job or about the throw rod or if it's like, you know, there's, there's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:11  
always especially for a used car. Yeah, pay

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:13  
per use car. You know, just just bring, bring people with you throw the person out, do multiple test drives.

Nicole Wakelin  1:41:23  
I'll say the same do multiple test rides. If you live someplace where the weather can be like it is in New England, where you have snow and junk on the road. If you can at all find a way to drive that vehicle in really crummy weather if your timing works out. Like if you're thinking of buying a car a year and a half from now, this winter, go drive it. Yeah, in the winter, like go to the dealership in the winter when it's snowy. and say you know what, I want to take it out when the roads are slick. So you can see how it actually handles in slick weather. Because sometimes all the gadgetry in the world just doesn't make up for the car isn't the right one for you. When it snows, yeah, you know, try and take it out and experience a little bit of the weather. That's kind of challenging. Don't take it out in a blizzard and kill yourself. But you know, take it out when the weather's not perfect. And see how it drives.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:09  
Yeah, and you know, most important thing is don't ever let yourself be pressured into anything by a salesperson. That's one of the good things that came out of the past year is that most dealers now, you know, have programs where you know, for test drives, you know, they can deliver a car to you, and you can take it for a test drive delivered to your home. And, you know, try to, you know, expanding on what Nicole just said about, you know, the weather, just in general try to drive it in the same kind of environment that you're going to drive in. If you have a regular highway commute, you know, 30 or 40 mile highway commute, take it out on the highway for you know, 20 minutes half an hour as part of the drive, make sure you drive it in the same kinds of conditions that you do. Or if it's urban stop and go. Same thing. On the highway, you want to look for things like wind noise and road noise because those things and really try to pay attention to those things because they they don't, you know, on a on a 20 minute test drive, they may not bother you that much. But six months down the road, when you're experiencing this every day, it will start to grate on you. If it's something that annoys you that so really, really think about those things, you know,

Nicole Wakelin  1:43:22  
like like take, you know, toss your keys, your key and your wallet and whatever else you carry with you. Where would you put it in this car, don't just walk in, you know, with carry this stuff. If you're always carrying certain stuff that you bring it with you where the heck are you going to put it like, live in that car, the way you live with your own car, and I can't, I can't emphasize enough if you've have kids, get those kids in the car. I know the sales, some sales guys cringe thought I remember when my girls were little like, you're putting your you know, dirty sticky finger kids in there. Yeah, because I'm gonna buy this expensive vehicle if I can't get my kids in their car seat in the back of that car and not feel like I whack my head on the doorframe because the angle of it is just wrong with my kid in my car seat. Like, try it out with your kids, especially if the kids are little because you're going to have to get in and out of that door. If it doesn't open wide. You're going to have to be the one to finagle getting them buckled. If they're at a point where they buckle or just you know, cutting them into the car seat. That makes a big difference. And again, it's one of those things you think, oh, whatever, I'll get used to it. No, it'll drive you nuts. Or if it doesn't work the way you want. Yeah, it gets worse, the longer you have to deal with it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:27  
And if you're if you're getting a three row SUV, and you plan to use that third row,

Nicole Wakelin  1:44:31  
use it,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:32  
try it out, see if you can actually get in and out of there.

Nicole Wakelin  1:44:36  
Even if you think you're gonna put kids back there, same thing. It seems like a great idea. But if your kids can't get back there by themselves, and you have to get the kids back there, you might have to be a contortionist. So make sure you check this carefully to see how easy it is even for little kiddos to get in there and buckle themselves in. If they're at a point where they can do that.

Roberto Baldwin  1:44:54  
Yeah, no, don't let them upsell you on stupid things and don't let them use weird fuzzy math and always be willing to work. Walk away. Just be willing. Because there's a there's a lot of dealers out there and they all want your money. So if you

Nicole Wakelin  1:45:06  
they tried to get my daughter to spend the extra money recently when she purchased her first car to have it simonize because to be I don't even know what that means. It's like this under

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:18  
way better than they used to be. He

Nicole Wakelin  1:45:20  
literally said I laughed out loud. I went, What Simon I says go Yeah, do you know what I'm like? I know what that is. I just haven't seen anybody put out a car since 1975. What the heck, dude?

Roberto Baldwin  1:45:32  
Yeah, I've seen the I've had people, they've did the thing where they put the edge numbers onto the windshield. And they're like, Oh, this is a $500 thing where that's your number. So if your car gets stolen, like it'll be easier to find. Like, I'm like, if the car gets stolen, I don't care because I have insurance. The car gets stolen disappears. Oh, well, that's the end of that. That's why you have insurance.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:54  
cars get stolen, they tend to go straight to a chop shop anyway. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  1:45:57  
right. And that's not going to matter that you have a number etched on the shield, it's no longer attached to the car,

Roberto Baldwin  1:46:02  
or like hold on is the number on that windshield. Now there's a lot of ridiculous you know, the internet is your friend, do a lot of research, find out exactly what you want. You're not in a hurry unless you are and you know, sometimes you have to buy a car right away because of new job or whatever. But most of the time you're not in a hurry. Don't take it take a month, take two months take six months, you know maybe drive the car you think you want to buy six months before you buy it because cars don't new cars, but they don't change after a refresh or a new version for a couple years. So you have you have time. Take the time.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:35  
My daughter, my daughter spent over a year going back and forth over what she wanted to buy finally ended up buying what she originally wanted after going through a whole bunch of other stuff, changing your mind multiple times over what you know what you wanted to get. You know, back in December, we went out one day and went went to a Hyundai Dealer, a Mazda dealer and a Kia dealer to drive you know, the ionic hybrid, Mazda CX 30 and kia seltos and Dale, she was gonna go for the Mazda and then changed your mind and finally ended up buying a Toyota 86 which is what she wanted in the first place.

Nicole Wakelin  1:47:14  
Yeah. It's worth it to go through all those iterations because then if you buy something, especially you don't know much about cars or haven't driven a lot you're thinking, Oh, that one looks like something. Oh, what if I'd like that better? We'll go drive it go figure it out. First. We'll take a person test drives you sometimes you love them right off the bat. Sometimes you hate them. Maybe you need to go back and drive what you drove the first time and go back just Yeah, don't feel pressured and drive everything that you think you might want to buy and walk away if not even if it's just like the deal if the dealership sets you off the wrong way if the salesman is this creepy sleazy just walk away There's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:53  
your money. So

Nicole Wakelin  1:47:54  
yeah, and you're gonna find it's not like there's one Nissan dealership and that's it or one Jeep dealership go find another one. There's probably another one five minutes away, you know? Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:48:03  
the Yeah, the weird money thing. A couple of times. I've gone either bought purchase car or gone with someone to buy a car. It's the the numbers guy comes in. I'm like, I we only want to pay, we only want to pay $300 a month? Well, if you look at the gas and the maintenance cost, you know, you're paying 350 my god, it's like really 300 like, and you just have to like, sit there and look at this person and say, I want to pay $300 a month well that and you just have to keep saying what you want. And if they if they again if they're pressuring you just walk out and you can go to another dealership and say hey, they did all this stuff to me. And they're gonna be like, yeah, those guys are the worst and they're gonna try their hardest not to do those creepy things. They'll try to do other sleazy things but they won't do those ones.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:42  
And chances are as long as you didn't make an offer that is you know absurdly low. If you walk away you'll probably get a call a couple hours later or a day later saying Hey, are you still interested in that car? I think we can do a bit I think we can do a deal for you

Nicole Wakelin  1:48:56  
a call you'll get 180 calls stop you'll get a call you get a text they'll put up like a plane with a banner Hey Nicole you interested in garlic? They're gonna make sure they come back to

Roberto Baldwin  1:49:07  
you. I went to a dealer we wanted to buy a Honda Civic hatchback that's what we wanted and we went in like oh we don't have it but we have this or we have this and we have all we have this one but it's this year and we have this and this and finally it's like Alright, well we're just gonna leave and suddenly they found the right the the correct generation of Honda Civic hatchback that we wanted at the price we wanted and it was just like why did you Why did we go you just wasted everyone's time including your you could have sold two cars in the time. You spent two hours trying to talk me into buying you know something else?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:49:39  
Yeah, that's that's the kind of nonsense that makes people hate dealers, you know, but if you can, if you can find a dealer that doesn't do that sort of thing and there are out there, you'll you'll be a lot better off.

Nicole Wakelin  1:49:49  
Search for the one that you feel right at go with a dealership that feels right for you. And if your friends recommend another one, you walk into it, you hate it, find another one go someplace we like the people you're spending all your money with

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:00  
All right. I think that's enough for for this week. Anything. Any last thoughts you guys want to share this week?

Nicole Wakelin  1:50:08  
I have no other thoughts. I need coffee. That's my thought right now.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:11  
So all right. Well, thanks everybody for listening and if you feel like the show, make sure you please give us a rating on Apple podcasts or anywhere else where they have podcast ratings to help people find us and we'll see you next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai