Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 202 of wheel bearings in the garage we have the 2021 Acura TL x a spec, the brand new 2022 Mercedes Benz S Class, the 2022 Kia carnival. Don't call it a minivan please. We hear from Honda about the name of their new upcoming Eevee will be built by GM. If you're waiting on a new Jeep Grand Cherokee l you might have to wait just a little bit longer because storage lot near the plant got flooded recently. The Woodward dream Cruise is back this year. And Volvo has decided to make luminarc LIDAR standard on its next generation xc 90 coming next year. All that and more coming up next. Did you know you can support wheel bearings directly head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings media and you can become a patron today. Your contributions will help fund the platforms and tools we use to bring the podcast to you. And exclusives improvements are already on the way thanks to your generosity. So if you want to be part of an automotive podcast, like no other head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media This is wheel bearings Episode 202. I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:18  
I am Nicole wakelin. And this week we'll do a shout out to how about true car.

Roberto Baldwin  1:25  
And I am Roberto Baldwin. And this week I got something from Engadget

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31  
excellent. All right. Well, Robbie, why don't we start with you? What did what did you do for in gadget this week?

Roberto Baldwin  1:38  
So I did like just like an entry level boring sort of a car I did the Mercedes Benz s class.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45  
I went down to Oh, so yeah, just like a Hyundai Accent

Roberto Baldwin  1:48  
like a Hyundai Accent, the Hyundai Accent of the Mercedes,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51  
four door sedan, four doors

Roberto Baldwin  1:52  
or four wheels. It's got a steering wheel, they're the exact same car super easy to confuse the two super easy to confuse the two. No problem at all. Yeah, no, I drove the latest Mercedes S Class the 2021. And it is I guess I'm happy to report still a Mercedes S Class, it's still it still brings in you know, as sort of the pinnacle of the the, the the regular car like luxury sedan, the S Class is still the top of the heap. I mean, you can go my Bock And talk about Rolls Royce. And you know, when you go sort of insane, yes, you can get things above the S Class. But when it really comes down to it, the the sort of volume vehicle for luxury is still the S Class. And it is still really nice, really comfortable. I drove it for four hours, four or five hours from LA, down to the ER up to the central coast. And then the next day, I drove it back to LA. And the entire time I was very comfortable. I felt like I was being pampered. It is and this year or for this model year, you know, they've done you know, a little bit of a design refresh it, you know, it looks a bit more modern, but doesn't stray too far from what the what do you expect from an S Class. The interior is very nice. They've actually sort of, I don't know, if you want to say cleaned it up or tacked it up, I'm not sure which where you want to where people sit on that they've added some more technology to the interior, they've they've changed the orientation of the display from too far away from your hands, landscape too much closer to you portrait, so you can actually reach it now which means you no longer have that little touch wheel a little touchpad that they had in the center console that that is now gone because you can actually reach the the the infotainment system, it's got the latest version of mbu x and apparently has the latest virtual assistants in there. It's seemed to work fine. You know, I sometimes it's kind of tough when they're like, Oh, we've made it so it's more natural. And you just keep saying things to it. And then it doesn't you're like, Well wait, how much more natural assistant and when I was using it before, you know, it's, it's it's it's difficult to sort of turn, you know, figure out a how much more natural it is when you you can't really do drives or at least at this point, or the point I drove the car with like other people in the car. Like you can't have an engineer who is saying, Oh, well this is how it's more natural just because we're still sort of slowly moving out. of COVID but overall, yeah, no, it's uh, you know, I drove the, the, the S 580. And it is very quick. Well, and quick as in it's a you know, it's an S Class quick, but it doesn't pretend to be a sport sedan. It is very happy and very willing to show you that it is a large luxury sedan, and so drives like that. Even in sport mode, you're not going to get like, you know, sporty steering, you know, you know it, it handles well, but you're also going it's still gonna eat it, you know, it's its main concern is to eat up the bumps, to smooth out the road to make everything like you're, you're you're driving on a cloud. And and you know, in normal mode driving on the cloud, and I don't know, Sport Plus mode, you're driving on a jagad Cloud, I guess I don't either way, you're still getting that you're still getting that, that, that that float? You know, you can get it with either the three liter inlines six turbo or the four liter V eight by Turbo. And, you know, it's I drove the by Turbo. It was powerful. You know, I put the hammer down a few times. And it it delivered. I don't know. I think most people are be driving these in urban areas. So maybe they're going to go with the enlight. Six, I think it probably works best for most folks. But if you if you really need to go fast, you can do that. It is not cheap. The S 500 starts to add about $110,000. And the S 580. starts at 116 $300 300,000. Yeah, about $116,000. It's a lot of money, it's more money than it's it's more money than some people pay for their house. So there you go. If but, you know, it's the S Class, and it has a 3d display, which I'm sure you're all going to have questions about.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:34  
So, I'm assuming you're referring to, you know, this being equivalent to the price of a doghouse in your neck of the woods, right?

Roberto Baldwin  6:42  
Oh, yeah, where I live, you couldn't buy a parking spot for that. Um, but I've seen houses for sale and like other states, like Idaho and Ohio at the end, and I am always amazed, like, I can buy a house for $40,000 like, like a, like a, like a stand up house. Or I can buy a house for you know, 100 and something $1,000 we once saw our house on Craigslist for 200 and something $1,000 in Hawaii, it was on the Big Island, it was really far away from the ocean and sort of, and my wife thought it was an error. Because, you know, we've lived up here for so long. She's like, well, this has to be wrong. And like no, no, can't be correct. You can look around, you know, it's it's in the middle of nowhere. It's not you know, it's not prime real estate. It's It's It's sort of, you know, as far away as you can get from the from the ocean on the island of Hawaii. She's like, oh, okay, all right. Yeah, no, it's it is. Yeah. And and in the Bay Area. $116,000 will get you? Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely not. You can't buy land. You can't buy a dog house. Yeah, you can. But yeah, you could you could lease a dog house like that could be the Lisa dog house on someone else's land, like it like in the roof of the condo. And then they have that little like maintenance shed on the top of the building. Like you might be able to, to get in there for that much money. That little, you know, five by five maintenance shed.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:05  
So I assume that there will also at some point, be an AMG version of the S Class as well. So Oh, yeah. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Roberto Baldwin  8:14  
That is Oh, yeah, no,

Sam Abuelsamid  8:16  
that would be the more sporty one.

Roberto Baldwin  8:18  
Yeah, if you're going if you really, really need to go fast and an S Class for some unknown reason. Then there is there will be an AMG version, anything anytime Mercedes Benz comes out with anything, just bet there's going to be an AMG version. If there's going to be a Mercedes been like wagon for your child, there will be an AMG version of it. Even if it's not powered, they will like they will tune the suspension and I'll give you better bearings. There will be an AMG version of everything Mercedes makes because they know people will buy it.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:51  
So I'm curious about the the new infotainment system, the new mbu x, you know, one of the things they talked about when they announced the EQ s, with its, what 57 inch, you know, piece of glass that spans the entire dash, you know, but it's actually, you know, three separate displays in there. They talked about this idea of this zero layer interface, you know, with the idea of, you know, what, having such a big screen, you can bring all the stuff to the top surface, so you're not digging down through menus to get to different functions. Do they have the same sort of thing in the s class, infotainment, even though it's a different shape and layout, it's,

Roberto Baldwin  9:32  
I mean, you can search you can set the the infotainment screen into like two different settings, one where you have to swipe left and right, you know, to so when you're, you know, you have this like carousel, essentially, of features. But if you tap and hold down on the Home button, it'll create a grid, which I think is better because sliding, you know, sliding left and right is one additional thing you have to do. And you're like, you know, you swipe you look down. No, that's not it. you swipe you look down. No, no, Mr. Gaines. wiping right? Oh, no, wait, it was on the previous one, he had to swipe back. So you can put it on a grid layer. And then you kind of see everything you tap on it. And then for the most part there, you know, I think what they're what they're really trying to, you know, with the zero layer stuff is on the EQ s, I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty cool because it sort of learns everything you're doing. You know, it sort of starts popping in and after about a few weeks of driving, so it's gonna be really difficult for any of us to test it because we get a car for a week, and it's not gonna learn how we interact with our car in a week. But the idea is that after about two weeks or so it'll, it'll you know, oh, every Wednesday, you go here, and so we'll start like, sort of surfacing these behaviors that you do. In order to reduce the amount of time you're like going, Oh, wait, every, you know, it's Wednesday, I you know, I go to this Starbucks to pick up coffee or meet somebody. So it's, you know, I might open up the navigation and we put in the Starbucks, it'll just like, oh, by the way, this is happening. If you have, you know, a meeting, you know, somewhere, whatever, it's, it sort of starts surfacing what you're doing with your life, this version of mbu x i think they're, I think what they're going to do is probably hold off on it from the s class until the town EQ s and then it'll come out to the S Class. I think it's, you know, it's like the, you know, the first car that had this was the a class, which is sort of crazy to put it on their entry level vehicle. But, yeah, I think it'll, it'll eventually permeate throughout the rest of the lineup. And, you know, they're, they're really pushing for a lot of voice control. When it comes to this, which I am a fan of when it works. Well. I'm not a fan of it. When I have to, like do a script, we're gonna say, you know, it's like, Oh, you didn't say it, right. And then it pops up instructions on how to ask for directions while you're driving. I'm like, well, this is not better.

Nicole Wakelin  11:44  
Do you think it ever works? Well, yes. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  11:48  
It's worked well, for me. I think a Google I'm sorry, Android automotive works. Well mbu X has worked well, for me. Siri works well for me sometimes. So Apple, you know, apples maps. Who out I'm sure somebody else has a good setting

Nicole Wakelin  12:08  
series where Siri works for me. But 99.9% of the time, whatever, OEM. I don't know if it just my voice. I don't enunciate. I don't speak up enough. But it's forever getting like one of the five words that I've spoken. Like, and then it's asking me something ridiculous. Like the nearest ice cream is here. I'm like, that's awesome. I asked for directions to the airport. Like I just don't know what is happening and never seen. Right?

Sam Abuelsamid  12:37  
That's that sounds that sounds like the system that Volkswagen has in their vehicles, which is just utterly hoped. Oh, yeah. It's back. Last last fall. Rebecca had a VW Atlas and then I had the Atlas sport a couple months ago. Yeah. And it was it's just completely the voice controller embedded voice control is just completely useless. Yeah. She I think Rebecca was, you know, she did something she was sitting in front of a post office, trying to get it to give her directions to the post office. She was sitting right there. And it was giving her directions to all kinds of everything but a post office. Yeah. And I tried it and it was utterly worthless.

Nicole Wakelin  13:20  
Yeah, that's me with all of them. So if anyone's really looking to test their, their voice activated stuff in the car, call me because if it works for me, it's going to work for anyone.

Roberto Baldwin  13:30  
But it's, it's I mean, it's unfortunate that you know, you have to go up up to the, you know, the highest tier of automotive or plug in your phone in order for it to work. Because, you know, the you know, the Volvo system works well, because it's Google. I mean, it's Google has been doing this forever. The Mercedes worked well because they know that they want to sell an S Class based on this technology. So it has to work very well you know, in even in the a class when I was using, I was able to like add stops along the way and adjust my route all with my voice, which was really nice. And this is I think they had that available before Google did which is pretty impressive for an automaker to do anything before a tech company does. But yeah, you know, but then once you once you leave that you know Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, those are all I just get angry. I just I'm like, Oh, forget it. I just, there's a lot of I forget it,

Nicole Wakelin  14:20  
because it half the time I don't even try because I'll start like no, you know, I should really try this out. I'll start to try it out. Like Forget it. It's already making me cranky. And I Siri take me here. You know,

Roberto Baldwin  14:30  
I'll tell how tall are you?

Nicole Wakelin  14:32  
I am five foot six.

Roberto Baldwin  14:35  
I wonder if it's too short, literally, because the microphones are typically up now. in in the in the headliner, I wonder

Nicole Wakelin  14:45  
did I have exactly the right height however somehow I

Roberto Baldwin  14:49  
was in bounces

Sam Abuelsamid  14:50  
by the way your average height for a woman?

Roberto Baldwin  14:54  
Yeah, but yeah, they shouldn't. That shouldn't be an issue though. But it might be

Nicole Wakelin  14:57  
a good theory that what what if, like, however, I position My seat somehow my voice is not going up enough in my voice like ricocheting off the steering wheel and going directly into the format's.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:09  
Every time you want to issue a command, just look up at the ceiling.

Nicole Wakelin  15:12  
And just go look, I'm speaking to God.

Roberto Baldwin  15:15  
That's it. That's much safer. The whole system

Nicole Wakelin  15:17  
totally makes it safer than looking at the road. 100%

Sam Abuelsamid  15:21  
Yeah, I certainly better looking at the screen.

Roberto Baldwin  15:25  
That's true. Every every time it pops up, it returns any auto. Any vehicle returns with a script on how I have to ask for, like directions like Oh, say the state, say the address. I'm like, nope, no, no, you've already failed. There's no there's no reason. I'm not gonna mention this. I'm not going to talk about this. Or if I am I'm gonna say this is a 1998 1980s. I mean, this should not be I it is difficult when it really comes down to it like software is super hard. I mean, just ask Volkswagen, anyone who's driven the ID four can tell you that software is very hard.

Nicole Wakelin  16:01  
driven the ID for I would really like to drive the ID for

Sam Abuelsamid  16:04  
it's a it's a car, they move my schedule up. I'm getting one on Tuesday.

Nicole Wakelin  16:08  
Yeah, lucky. I don't even know if we have one. I should enquire.

Roberto Baldwin  16:12  
Well, if you if you're lucky, by the time it comes, they'll have updated the infotainment system because

Nicole Wakelin  16:16  
there we go. So maybe it's a good thing that I don't have not driven.

Roberto Baldwin  16:20  
It is it is a man it has has this voice control. I think it was just so latent, or there's so much latency that I was just like, ah not gonna work.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:34  
What about the overall responsiveness of the mbu X was was that pretty good? It was

Roberto Baldwin  16:38  
good. It was it was quick to housings. Yeah. It's funny, because when I tried it out in the pre production vehicle in LA, like last summer, last, I don't know whenever that happened during COVID. I was talking about how it wasn't late there was I didn't see any latency. But as soon as I said, there wasn't any latency on the video, you can see like LA, there was, like, fly by Guy, there's no latency. And it is like, through and then it moved over. And I'm like, oh, and so people on YouTube were like, Oh, yeah, this guy doesn't know what the hell he's doing. But you know, using it now, there wasn't I didn't there wasn't any, any latency there was any issue. There wasn't any like, really, you know, there's always there's always gonna be a little bit of latency. Especially, you know, the way you're touching it the way you're using it. You know, sometimes you know, you have you've been touching the same spot over and over again, maybe your slimy greasy hands, I have very slimy hands.

Nicole Wakelin  17:35  
Wash your hands. Roberto,

Roberto Baldwin  17:36  
I do. I'm like a salamander. So, you know, as you're as you're swiping, you know, sometimes you build up a nice little layer of whatever. But yeah, for the most part, yeah, I didn't, I didn't have any I didn't see the you know, they said that the the, they've updated the GPU in there, which is always a good thing. Because, you know, when you're, you're in the vehicle, and again, it's another a, it's, it's, you know, you're buying an S Class, you should, you know, you're wanting the best of the best. But also, it's a safety issue when you're, you know, when you do something and it frustrates you, because it's not moving like it's supposed to, suddenly you're thinking more about the bad infotainment system than you are about the road. Even if it's just for you know, a few seconds, it's still you know, it's not ideal. I will say there was a little bit of stuttering with their a our head up unit. And it was it was it's it's sort of, I felt like I was sort of nitpicking it. But again, it's an S Class. So what happened with

Nicole Wakelin  18:33  
you shouldn't be nitpicking it for that cost.

Roberto Baldwin  18:35  
Exactly. So what happens with their augmented reality, head up display as you come to an intersection or an interchange or whatever, arrows fly out of nowhere, and they show you where to go? And it's not any animation is not quite as smooth as I would like. Like, there's a little bit of, there's just a tiny bit of stuttering that I think maybe, that I feel like, as someone who has a friend who was a Mercedes Benz master mechanic, they might completely the the thing, the stories he's told me about, he's like, yeah, fixing the car is fine. It's finding the squeaks. He's like, people would come in and there'll be a squeak or whatever. He's like, that would kill you. Because you're like, I don't know, where the hell is this squeak that I'm looking for? Because people are buying a Mercedes s class and they, you know, they want the best of the best. They're paying a lot of money. And I

Sam Abuelsamid  19:27  
want it to be perfect. Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin  19:29  
So there's a little bit of just a slight bit of stuttering in the animation as the the arrows fly. That sort of cool and like safe, like, for me, like great for safety. Because you know, you don't have to look down at the screen. And it just sort of like, Oh, this is where I have to go, especially in a weird interchange. Or if you if you're, if you're an American and you have to use a roundabout, because some cities have roundabouts you're like, What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? You

Sam Abuelsamid  20:00  
know, we have lots of we actually have lots of them around here.

Roberto Baldwin  20:03  
We have we get more and more every year here in the Bay Area. But people come and visit these, you know, they have some in Santa Cruz, they have some in San Francisco they get they're like, what the hell is happening? What is this insanity,

Nicole Wakelin  20:16  
they put a to do roundabout so they built our high school in the small town that I live in in New Hampshire and they thought it was brilliant. And they put these beautiful light posts like for them around it on the inside. And no one accounted for the length of the school buses that would be driving through there every morning. within the span of a week. Three of them had been taken out by buses, the fourth one they took down now there are no lights along me. I'm like, who didn't think it's literally in front of the entrance to the high school. It's like nobody considered how tight that was and the corners and what is wrong with you people. But yeah, that's

Roberto Baldwin  20:49  
Hmm, I guess the the, the bus driver lobby isn't as powerful in your small town is

Nicole Wakelin  20:56  
apparently not that they didn't have enough input to say, guys, we need a little bit more room than what you've given us to make that dinner.

Roberto Baldwin  21:02  
I remember in San Francisco, they were trying to put like some sort of like, not median, but on the side like little like, extend the sidewalk a bit at corners. And the fire departments like Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can't go around that corner if you extended that far. And they're like, Oh, these fire trucks we just bought Yeah, we can't. Fire Trucks need to get the fire. We're just gonna dry right over these. And they're like, Oh, yes. I think they figured something out. I don't know what it was.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:32  
That in front of across from the house we used to live in before we moved four years ago, they put in, they did a road diet on that road went from four lanes to two lanes in each direction to two lanes, one in each direction with a bike lane on either side and a center left turn lane. And for some reason they decided to put a pedestrian Island in right in front of my our next door neighbor's house. Yeah, so it was like just adjacent to our house. And had you know big flashing lights. And you know, people wanted to cross the street there. You press the button and the lights flashing cars are supposed to give right of way. And it within three weeks after they put in that island. The first car had already run over the island knocked down the lights on the island on the side on the lot on the island. Within six months, it had been run over at least five times it was about an average of just just about once a month. I noticed last week, they finally removed it, they just took it out completely dug it out. So

Nicole Wakelin  22:38  
like Forget it.

Roberto Baldwin  22:41  
Was it? What is it an engineering issue? Or is it just bad driving? Both?

Sam Abuelsamid  22:48  
Like it's something I think it's both

Nicole Wakelin  22:49  
Yeah, some planning planning department guy should be like, yeah, so this sounds really cool. But let me tell you what's gonna happen if we build this and that guy didn't work for your city? Or he didn't have Okay, so

Roberto Baldwin  22:59  
in some cases, what I see they have they have yellow poles like yellow, like, like, almost like a fence around it. So it's like a bright yellow, they did have that. So you could see

Sam Abuelsamid  23:09  
Yeah, or is that you know that Yeah, they had to had there were still four bright yellow posted on the four corners of the island, you know, and now a utility pole with a bright, very bright flashing light assigned, you know, so as you're approaching it, you know, it says, you know, basically, you know, stay to the right, no left turn at this intersection, you know, because, you know, the the left turn lane was, you know, occupied by the island. And yet people kept running over the thing. And it's not like it was in a low visibility area. Yeah, there was you could see it company as you're approaching it from, you know, quarter mile away in either direction. I don't know. I mean, it's like a magnet. You know, as soon as they put it in there. It was drawing any car that had any steel into it, they must have put a giant electromaax people

Nicole Wakelin  23:54  
would turn away and just suck them right

Roberto Baldwin  23:57  
now I feel like yeah, and the response should have been the putting more of those in to get people used to them. Because like, okay, we're just gonna reduce pedestrian safety because people clearly don't know how to drive in this town.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:10  
Well, what they did was they actually put in another island two blocks away. So you know, now now they're, the accidents are gonna happen somewhere

Nicole Wakelin  24:18  
just shifted outside from in front of that house to your new house.

Roberto Baldwin  24:22  
I'm so yes, exactly confused. They kept on like, a blind hill or a blind corner, or even within like the first month because people are used to four lanes to two lanes, you know, you make changes to a major thoroughfare. People get confused. You know, they would put like random stop signs up in my hometown. I was a little kid and all sudden you just see car like, Oh, God. sliding through intersections because there was a stop sign when there wasn't one before. But just like, Hey, here's a bright, visible thing people like huh, what's that crash? Like moths to a flame?

Sam Abuelsamid  24:59  
Mm hmm. Yep. All right. Oh, I did have one other question for you about the S Class. The Driver Assist features. When they announced it last fall, particularly for Europe, they talked a lot about, you know, having level three, partial automation, you know, having a LIDAR sensor and all the other sensors on there, being able to, you know, do hands free driving with it. Is any of that stuff coming to the US market version of the Escalade?

Roberto Baldwin  25:28  
I am not sure I will probably have a better idea of that probably later this summer, though. I'm thinking, I'm guessing I'm guessing they're probably going to, because I feel like they they might be in the same boat. As you know, Audi was when Audi did with their, you know, they had their level C level three, traffic, pro thingy. And, and they were getting ready to do and then they realize, Oh, wait, no, no one's gonna let us do this. Because I think it's probably easier for automakers, especially the German automakers to sort of roll something out in in their, their home country, you know, German, you know, the German automakers, you know, a lot of German like the state of Germany that the country of Germany own steaks and all these soy and he's and he's a lease firm. Yeah, well, and they

Sam Abuelsamid  26:15  
have they there has there is a regulation now in Europe for level three automation. Yeah, so they have a framework it's it's gonna be legal over there

Roberto Baldwin  26:24  
where here it's it's a patchwork of insanity. You know, you're looking at you know, every 50 states, which means you have 50 rules about what's going what's going to happen and so I don't know we'll see we'll see how how I really think it's gonna come out in Europe and then maybe, you know, I probably lobbying right now with us regulators to sort of figure something out in order to get it over here and at least in some areas, and maybe geo fenced you know, where's the if it's legal in Nevada or where everything's legal there but it's not legal in California or it's not legal in Arizona or Utah. And so when you when you pull into the state like right before you get there like you know, it's like Hey, no, I'm turning off your cool stuff. Sorry. Well contact contact your local representative in order to

Nicole Wakelin  27:17  
win that'd be the best way to get people to realize they need to ask their their powers that be to make something legal. It's like every time I drove over the border it tells me I can't use fill in the blank. Well call your senator.

Roberto Baldwin  27:27  
Yeah, call your local senator. Contact nitsa you know, they've almost completely worthless but contact them anyway. It's a shame that's why I've come to listen to

Sam Abuelsamid  27:43  
Nicole call. What What were you driving?

Nicole Wakelin  27:46  
I was driving something significantly more affordable than what we're bear. I was driving I had the 2022 Kia Carnival, which is all new and it is not a minivan it is technically a multi What are they calling a multi purpose vehicle MPV i think is what they're just calling it. Because minivan like we talked about a while ago, like like wagon is a bad word. So but essentially it's a minivan So, but it doesn't, you know, like when Mazda

Sam Abuelsamid  28:16  
did their first minivan, they literally called it the MPV Yeah, so back in the 90s

Nicole Wakelin  28:23  
See, so it's like they're trying to pretend it's something it's not and I get it you know, marketing matters, but that's that's basically what it is. And but you know, styling wise and they're all the minivans are kind of doing this. It has a very SUV look like if you were to look at the side of it. If you didn't see that little track that goes along, you know, the cargo area for that door to slide. It looks like an SUV. Same thing from the front in the back. It has very SUV styling, so it's a good looking vehicle power. It's a 3.5 liter V six a 290 horsepower. So it moves you know, it's a heavy, it's not a lightweight vehicle, but it's more than capable of getting up to highway speeds and it does it quietly it has nice little eight speed automatic in there. And it gets decent fuel economy. It's supposed to get a combined 22 mpg. I took it on a long weekend up into the White Mountains so a lot of highway driving but then once you get there, you're driving in these twisty turny up and down steep, you know, sort of mountain roads, any place that you go, so you're it has to work, you know, I averaged after the weekend 24 MPG, which I didn't think was too bad because that being their combined. You know, like gokyo, their number wasn't way off. I thought that was pretty good. And it was also with me and my husband, my daughter, you know, and all of our stuff to go away for the weekend. And when we were driving around up there, it was the vehicle of choice because it was between that and something that was a little bit more tight for all of us. So there were six of us riding around in that the whole weekend. So it wasn't like it wasn't loaded up with stuffs. So it was fun to drive. I like, Dude, it's beautiful inside. And that's the thing like a minivan is not about being this powerful beast of a vehicle. You're not trying to win races. You're not trying to impress anyone at a stoplight. You're trying to have something that does the job of carrying around your family and your friends and their stuff in a way that's comfortable, whether it's just tool around town or you're going on a road trip. That's, that's why you buy one of these. And the carnival does it It also has and this was something they have, Well, two things cargo wise. It's got tons of cargo room, but it depends on the trim you get. So they have these fancy second row seats called VIP lounge seating. And it is Yeah, right. Doesn't it sound really cool. It's It's very cool. So they're sliding reclining seats, and they also have like a little foot rest that pops up. So basically, you have your lazy boy in the second row of your carnival. And they're unbelievably comfortable. Like literally my daughter sat back there. She's like, what are these seats? Do? I'm like, push a button. She's like, Oh, I'm taking the second row. And normally she tries to call shotgun. She's like, No, no, no, no, no, I'm sitting in the second row. So they're really comfy. The drawback is that you you have to take them out if you like there's no way to remove them. Like you can't just like oh, fold them down or whatever. They're No, they're there. If you want to use that second row cargo room, tough luck. So you've you've only

Sam Abuelsamid  31:24  
or they're not removable at all. I

Nicole Wakelin  31:26  
was trying honestly, Sam I was trying to figure out if they're removable at all, and I couldn't find something to remove them. But when you look even online like they list the specs for this. This one only has like it's cargo first row cargo second row cargo third row, nope, only to second row when you look at the cargo in this, which makes me think I wasn't missing something. I mean, somebody from Kia Feel free to correct me if I missed it. Oh, he does stop there. Roberto has his dog on the screen and I'm totally distracted by German Shepherd. But so you can't so if you want that, you know that minivan length, you don't really have it so we overcame that I wanted to bring your Curio cabinet to the dump and we folded it all the way flat. It's like the cureat went over the top of the seat and then so we kind of finagle it but that's the drawback that you you don't if the cargo thing is is like you want to all the time be thinking oh I want the second row no I don't want the second row I want cargo these seats this package which is the sX prestegious literally the top tippity top trim of the lineup think twice before you do that this is really more for somebody who's like my priority is people people and people and just need the cargo space behind the second row.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:42  
So it's more like a real SUV in that respect that because real SUVs, you can't take out the second row

Nicole Wakelin  32:47  
right? Yeah, so again, you know it's not calling itself a minivan it's calling itself a multi purpose vehicle so there you go. You You can't I mean if you get the other if you get there's four terms I want to say altogether so if you don't go with the SX prestige, if you've just stepped down to the Xs s x, it changes and then you can you know, then you're okay, you have 145.1 cubic feet of cargo room behind the first row. So yeah, that's something to consider, but those seats, they're so comfy like I'd be willing to say forget it, I'll find somebody else to haul my stuff to the dump. Because I want the second row seats. They're brilliant, they're unbelievably comfortable. They make that car feel like a luxury vehicle like I know kids will just think they're cool like cool, whatever but like adults, I think my brother in law fell asleep for the 10 minute ride to Starbucks the one morning he just lounging back there you know. And pricing wise it's a key so key always packs a lot of stuff into a vehicle for a shockingly low price point. So the FX prestige that I had which is the top of the line which had those fancy seats, which has quilted leather trims it has a 12.3 inch infotainment screen I mean, it's lacking for nothing is 46,100 Wow, that's I mean, it's not like it's cheap. It's not bargain basement for what you're getting it sure as heck is cheap. You know?

Sam Abuelsamid  34:11  
What, yeah, that's, that's a couple of grand less than the than the Sienna that I talked about last time. And, you know, while it doesn't have a hybrid powertrain, you know, it's got a lot of stuff that you can't get in the Toyota like those VIP seats, the VIP

Nicole Wakelin  34:25  
seats and if you step down one level the SX which loses those seats, it's 41 one so so even like I think the most the cheapest one the LX the basis 32. So even if you're getting the most basic version of this which you get a smaller infotainment screen you know your terms aren't as fancy and stuff, but you're still getting a good looking vehicle and then you can have seating for up to eight because it's only obviously two seats when you do the VIP seating as opposed to a bench seat that you can get in some of the other trims. So I liked it. I liked it a lot. Everything was nice. The infotainment screen was super easy to use. driving it was a lot of fun. I mean, like I said, I drove it, it was like two hours plus to get to where we were going. So I was just in it for two hours and the way back two hours of, you know, end of weekend, traffic coming down from the White Mountains in New Hampshire, so it was not fun and driving because it's slow and stopping. It's really comfortable and really easy to drive. So is a family vehicle. If you want to, like fully featured family vehicle that does exactly what that is supposed to mean and hold your family. It has 9 million cupholders, it's comfortable. It's roomy. The Carnival is a good choice. I was quite a fan.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:38  
So let me ask you this. If you had to choose to ride or carnival. Which one would you go? Oh,

Nicole Wakelin  35:45  
okay. It depends who I am. Can I say it that way. So the sliding doors are if you've got small kids, sliding doors are the best thing that have ever been invented in the history of vehicles because it's just so easy to get a squirming toddler in the seat, when you can slide the door open and fully lean into the car. You don't have to, you know, open the door, prop the door, you know, open it with your hand, pull it open, try to sit yourself in there wedged yourself in get your toddler in that seat. It's a pain when a child does not want to sit in their seat to work in anything that has a door that swings open. If you have kids that are a little bit older, or that's not an issue like you just you don't care, you know, the go ahead and get the telluride if you want something where you've got little kids all the time, and you want them to be able to get in and get out. You want to be able to strap them in if they're young enough that you have to do that. I would go with a carnival. How's that? So it depends what mom I am at what mom age, what my kids are, what age they are that would determine stage and stage in life. Yes.

Roberto Baldwin  36:46  
I'm curious how I wish you had to tell you right on the carnival at the same time. So you could test because we I know we talked about having to be a contortionist to get into that third row. So you could test like how much of a contortion you have to be to get into the third row of each vehicle.

Nicole Wakelin  36:59  
I will tell you it wasn't you know, it wasn't that bad. I should preface it the person who went into the background The first time was my niece and she's a gymnast. So I guess that's not fair. But my my sister in law climb back there too. And she's, you know, my age. She's a mom, she's and Susan had no problem getting back there, you know that and there's enough space, the VIP seats, they just don't slide front and back. They also do that left right thing so you can pull them apart a little bit. So the space in the middle is bigger or kind of push them both to the left a little or both to the right a little bit. So you can make you can pick where you want that little extra bit of space to be. So we split it in the middle and they just walked right down the middle. But it was it wasn't it didn't seem like either one of them was having to be a contortionist to get back there. But now you're telling me one other

Sam Abuelsamid  37:50  
one other aspect of the one of them might make it just be a factor in your decision would be all wheel drive because I think that the carnival is front wheel drive only right? And the

Nicole Wakelin  38:04  
carnival is front wheel drive only. So if you're living someplace, I mean, that's another consideration if you're living someplace where you want all wheel drive, then the carnival is out. So that would be a lot of people, you know snowbelt folks, that's a lot of you. But well,

Sam Abuelsamid  38:22  
not you know, not necessarily, you know, I mean, a lot of snowbelt people you know, think they need all wheel drive but the reality is, you know, they don't

Nicole Wakelin  38:34  
well isn't a big thing. If you really look at the tires Yeah, I was gonna say the tires like the thing it's you know, I've tested like a million vehicles with in you know, I live in New England we get lots of snow and occasionally get tires. And the first time I ever drove a car like I had snow tires on cars when I was a kid because you either had snow tires and you had regular tires, you swapped them every year come heck or high water or you your car went everywhere. And then you have all seasons and I never paid attention to it much. And then I drove on snow tires again for the first time like and I thought oh my god, this is entirely different. They make such an amazing difference in the snow. So if you're just looking for a little extra traction, and you really like a car and it's front wheel drive, you can get that if you get a decent pair of snow tires what you you know, you don't it's not as good as having snow tires and all wheel drive you know, it's the all wheel drive will get you out of some stuff that you just are not going to get out of it or front wheel drive vehicle, but a decent pair of snow tracks snow tires, goes a long way to making any vehicle very snow worthy. I drive a Dodge Charger for crying out loud it's rear wheel drive. I put snow tires on it. I'm fine.

Roberto Baldwin  39:40  
Tires are amazing now

Nicole Wakelin  39:41  
Yep, they're massive, amazing. This like boring black pieces of rubber but the technology and how they work is actually pretty weirdly fascinating.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:51  
Yeah, I mean that the the rubber compounds you know the difference that makes you know, depending on the the temperature, the road temperature, I mean that's That's the big thing about winter tires. It's not just the design of the tread blocks, but it's also the rubber compound. Yes. They'll show you all season tires and summer tires get really hard when it gets cold when it gets below 40 degrees,

Nicole Wakelin  40:13  
I did a thing with God, I'm not gonna say the tire company, because I'm drawing a blank, I want to say was Michelin but they had you driving on an ice rink, and they had to show like in so they could stage it and have a cold and have you see how just all seasons handled versus winter tires. And they have this little thing that they gave us the demo. And it was like a little, you know, like six inches long. And it had three pieces of rubber. And there was just a winter Pete winter tire, a summer tire and an all season tire. And they'd have them sitting in the rink, so they were all cold. And when you could actually feel how very much different each of these three rubbers reacted to that cold, and just how hard the summer tires got, you're like, Oh, this is they're not really just saying this, there's a significant difference in how each of these tires behave. So there really is some tech there that makes if you want winter tack go for winter tire, really, you know, it's a pain in the butt to have to change your tires every spring and every fall. But it does make a significant difference. It's it's huge performance difference in your car in the winter.

Roberto Baldwin  41:15  
Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna be so much happier, especially if you have to commute every day. And if you have to get them in early in the morning, when you know you're going under an under an overpass, and also it's icy. You know, the first time you're on summer tires, and suddenly your car gets sideways because you're at a underpass. You're gonna be like, yeah, I should have got those winter tires.

Nicole Wakelin  41:34  
Well, you know, I have I had one time I got a vehicle that should have been great in the winter, right. And we normally get everything either has all seasons or snow tires here during the winter months. We don't get tires that are summer tires, and I don't generally look to make sure I do now because I got a car that had summer tires in January. And I went out and it was snowing. And I'm like what the heck is happening? Like I turned the wheel of in my neighborhood are going 50 miles an hour. The wheels literally turned it I'm just still going straight just goes on like and I couldn't figure out what was happening. I was literally perplexed. I got to where I was going for breakfast and suddenly clicked on like, wait a minute, I wiped the snow that is coated totally coating the tires off. I'm on summer tires. When I got home. I parked it. I'm like guys, I cannot drive this. It's literally not safe. I'm going to wrap this car around a tree because it just goes it wasn't a car. It was literally the tires. That was that was what the difference was. They

Roberto Baldwin  42:26  
gave us a lot even in the winter. They they gave me summer tires sometimes. So once I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go up to Tahoe. It was like, January, February. And then right before I was supposed to meet like my cousin up there to go snowboarding. I'm like, Oh, you know what I'll take I'll take this car instead of my car. And I was like, Oh, hold on. Let me go look at the tires, summer tires. I was like, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:49  
Yeah, the, the first the first time I ever had a mini for review car back in about 2008. It was I got it December. And they sent it to me with summer tires on it. And it was fine for the first couple days. And then it snowed, it got cold and it snowed. And there's a hill in my neighborhood, and trying to go up that hill. Going up this little hill, slowing down, slowing down, slowing down, finally, halfway up, it comes to a stop, would not go another inch of the hill. Just it's a start. So I just had to back all the way back down the hill and go back around a different way to get home. Yeah, because I just had no grip here. It was completely switch.

Roberto Baldwin  43:26  
Also, when you have that back, and when you have to back up, you're like, Okay, what's going to happen? Because you're like, Okay, I gotta like really be, you know, I gotta be real careful. Are you?

Nicole Wakelin  43:34  
Are you backing up? Or are you just like, you know,

Roberto Baldwin  43:37  
we can find ways down in an Automat? Was it an automatic or a manual

Nicole Wakelin  43:42  
that I was I had no automatic when I was in my horrible experience.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:47  
I think it was a manual. So

Roberto Baldwin  43:49  
that helps a little bit. So you can do a little engine braking, to keep from from from sort of locking up by like food, just looking at the break and sliding into the neighbor's yard.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:02  
Yeah, as, as a former engineer that spent long winters working on abs and stability control systems and places like international Falls, Minnesota and rvr, Sweden, you know, I'm quite familiar with the with with what happens to tires, and they get very, very cool.

Nicole Wakelin  44:22  
It's not good. It's just not good. But

Sam Abuelsamid  44:25  
you and you get out you get out on a you know, on a 1500 foot long sheet of ice on a frozen lake, you know, and you hit the brakes, and you just glide all the way to the other end.

Nicole Wakelin  44:36  
It's not even like you're not even like this crazy out of control thing. You just hit the brakes the cars like nope, it just will just go in a straight line until the fall that speed. It's like no I'm gonna stop and about 40 feet. Have fun.

Roberto Baldwin  44:49  
We're still going this way. Yeah. Okay, yeah. Good Times tires. Get good tires.

Nicole Wakelin  44:56  
Yeah, get good tires.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:01  
Doesn't matter what kind of powertrain you have for the electric or gas or diesel tires are probably one of the single most important component of your car in terms of how it handles and rides and its overall safety. All right, I had the the Acura TL x a spec, which is kind of the kind of the middle of the the lineup, you know, it's it's the, the, the best of the the mainstream models, it's not quite the type s. But it's really like it a lot. You know, when they when they launched the, the a spec version of the previous gen TL x, it made a huge difference. And the way the car drove, you know, steering was better is handling was better. And, you know, so this when they launched the new TLS, last year, it, they had an ace back from day one. And, you know, in this case, instead of V sex, like the old TLS, a spec hat, it's got two liter, turbo four cylinder, which is basically it's the same engine that you'll find in the RDX. And it's essentially a slightly detuned version of the engine from the Civic Type R. So it's 272 horsepower. And I believe about 300 or so foot pounds of torque. And it you know, it's a, it's a fantastic engine, I definitely recommend you know, that you just put the car in sport mode and leave it there instead of and in Eco mode, because in Eco mode, you will feel some noticeable delay, when you step on the accelerator pedal, it was actually kind of surprising. It was it was much more reluctant to take off. But in sport mode, and even in normal mode. You know, it's it's very, very responsive. When you step on it, just about at all, how

Nicole Wakelin  46:56  
many modes, how many modes do you have? Is it just normal, eco and sport?

Sam Abuelsamid  47:00  
Just Just British? Okay, just curious what your options were. Yep. And within sport, you know, I think there's some individual settings that you can, you know, you can, you can customize it, you know, for, you know, a little bit tighter steering, or heavier steering, a little less steering assist and throttle response and things like that. One of the things I've long really liked about acuras ever since the first time I drove, and RL way back when is the super handling all wheel drive system. So this, this was one of the first all wheel drive systems with torque vectoring. And it's got, you know, electronically controlled clutches in the rear axle, that will sum the torque to one side or the other, you know, when you're cornering, to help the car turn in and help it go where it is, you're pointing it. And the first time I ever tried it actually was on a track. And it was amazing how much better it made, it made the car feel so much more neutral, you know, just goes exactly where you point it, and has plenty of grip, a lot of fun to drive. And you know, the system is still fantastic. Even now, it's still one of the best systems out there. The One of the interesting things I noticed on this that I hadn't noticed that it's been a while since I drove a newer Acura particularly the RDX, probably two years since I drove that, that was the first one that had their, their touchpad system that is a touchpad with absolute positioning. So we've talked about this, I think when you had the, when you drove the type s a few weeks ago, Robbie, the, you know, instead of picking up your finger and swiping across the touchpad to get around, basically, wherever you put your finger down on the touchpad, that's where the selection is on the screen. And you know, it takes a little bit of getting used to but once you get used to it, it works really well. But that functionality actually only works if you're in the the native embedded infotainment system. So if you're in one of the accurate screens, it works that way. If you plug in either an iPhone or an Android phone and use CarPlay, or Android Auto, the functionality of the touchpad actually reverts back to the traditional functionality. So you don't actually get that absolute positioning on the touchpad which I thought was really strange. When I when I drove the RDX a couple years ago, they hadn't yet implemented the launch. They didn't have the the CarPlay and Android Auto software running working yet. So I only used it with the standard infotainment and so this was the first time I tried it this way. And so it you know, going back and forth those two modes if I was in the you know, the the native infotainment interface, or Android Auto, it worked very differently. And it took me a few minutes took me a little while to get used to that. And it's, it's definitely not as good with the kind of traditional, you know, pick up your finger and swipe to get around. This, this is why the Lexus touchpad system was terrible, you know, for the same reason that's not a good interface to use in a car, and hopefully, hopefully accurate will address that and make that work properly when you're using a smartphone projection system. The let's see, the EPA fuel economy rating on the rd, rd TLS a spec is 24 miles per gallon combined, I got about 21 because, you know, I was driving it as an a spec should be driven. Still getting 21 that way was was pretty good. And let's see what else Oh, bottom line price 47,007 75 which, you know, is not cheap, but it's, you know, for this type of car and this new TLS You know, I think the design of it is is really well executed. You know, they they move the, the base of the eight pillars back at you know, the proportions of the car look more like a like a traditional you know, rear wheel drive architecture, even though it is a transverse front wheel drive, you know, so it's got kind of a long hood. The cabinet is kind of set back, you know, and compare it to something like a BMW or Audi or Mercedes I guess this would be like an E class size. You know, it's it's got great proportions and I really liked the new design language on the acuras

Nicole Wakelin  51:46  
I think it looks really good. I you know, I've never not been a fan of the Acura styling. I think that looks good. But I think they made this one look a little bit sporty or a little bit more attractive. I it's so easy for cars like this to go one of two ways. You made them so sporty that suddenly they look like they're, they're trying to attack the track. And that's not the car they were made for. Like they're so aggressive, you're afraid of it in the parking lot, or it goes the other direction. It's like I am so mild mannered and sleek. You will not even notice me, and they did a good job with this one. I think the styling is is really slick on this. I think it looks good. I like it in that and I in all trim levels. I was looking at that type s too. And I Oh gosh, those look good. They look really good.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:28  
Yeah. All right. Let's move on to some news of the week. And let's start off with with stick with Honda for a moment. Honda. Earlier this year, I think maybe it was late last year. But at some point recently, Honda and GM announced a deal where GM would build a pair of battery electric vehicles for Honda. Honda, you know, as you know, has been very focused on fuel cells. They've never been a big fan of batteries. They've done. They've done a bunch of hybrids. But they you know, the only battery electric vehicle that they've sold was the fit Evie, which was a conversion of the second generation fit. And they only believe they only leased those and they only leased I don't know maybe about 2000 of them. And you know relatively short range. Evie. So this is going to be their first purpose built Evie. And it's going to be called the prologue. It's going to be a crossover built by GM. Honda's doing the body design and interior and suspension tuning. But GM is going to build it using their altium platform. So it's going to be just like a Hummer EV underneath. I believe it's going to have 1000 horsepower and three motors

Nicole Wakelin  54:01  
might weigh slightly more even possibly

Roberto Baldwin  54:04  
20,000

Sam Abuelsamid  54:05  
could be 10,000 pounds. pounds. But you know the calling it the prologue because this is kind of the beginning of Honda's journey to electric. In the second half of the decade, they plan to launch their own new, dedicated Evie platform. So it's going to be it's called the E architecture. That's probably we'll start probably start seeing those vehicles in 2026 27. The prologue is launching in early 2024 as a 2024 model, and there's also going to be an Acura built on the same platform, both crossovers and you know Honda's said you know, by 2030, they want to be selling 40% of their of their sales want or should be zero emissions 80% by 30 2030 Five and 100% by 2040. They want to completely eliminate internal combustion by 2040. I actually

Nicole Wakelin  55:06  
like their numbers better than what some OEM say, I don't know about the 100% by 2040, but some of them are like, in two years, we'll have no gas power trades and like, I think you guys are getting a little ahead of yourself there. I like that they're 40% by 2030 Sure, we can hit that. We could maybe do that. 40 I feel like that's fair. Like that is a reasonable number hon. Doug,

Roberto Baldwin  55:28  
you go to build them. That's, that's really what it comes down to. They have to actually

Nicole Wakelin  55:32  
tells Roberto detailed

Sam Abuelsamid  55:34  
it and people will just automatically buy him right.

Nicole Wakelin  55:36  
That's how that works, right? Whether people want TVs or not, you're just gonna buy them when there's no choice. That's everyone's gonna lose. Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  55:45  
yeah, I believe I believe that is the way it works. That's how it works. So the other thing that the Dave Oh, I can't remember his last name now.

Roberto Baldwin  55:59  
Oh, do we forget about the clarity? The clarity, Evie? Because it was such an easy card. Yes, we did. Yeah, we forget. Did we forget the whole lineup of cars that didn't have very good range, but we're really nice inside. And we're really pretty on the outside? Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  56:13  
the fuel cell one had good range, you could go 300 miles in the fuel cell in the Bay Area.

Roberto Baldwin  56:20  
300 miles around my house.

Nicole Wakelin  56:22  
Just in a circle.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:26  
You could drive from from the Bay Area to LA You know, there's a

Nicole Wakelin  56:31  
place there are hydrogen fueling

Roberto Baldwin  56:32  
stations or is but I hydrogen stations go offline for whatever reason, like, pretty pretty, pretty regularly. So I wouldn't trust. That's That's why really are they they sort of just go offline. You're like, oh, okay, which is likely why Honda and Toyota both offered up like, you know, 14 or 21 days of free car rentals. You know, for your fuel up. Yeah. So if you wanted to go on a trip, you could get like a I guess a CRV or you can tow it as me, you know, a rav4 or Camry or whatever. So because I yeah. And they were at one point there was a there was a hydrogen. There was a shortage. And so he just couldn't get hired. Yeah, I guess they would. They were, they were they were they were giving out cars. They were like, oh, here you go. You can rent this instead, free rentals, free car rentals. So like, you know, whatever the I guess whatever dealer stock was available there. Like

Sam Abuelsamid  57:27  
I don't know this one. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's it's for Unfortunately, there weren't that many customers to deal with. So

Roberto Baldwin  57:34  
yeah, the 12 people were like, hey, all six

Nicole Wakelin  57:36  
of them had the free car of some other some other one for the week for,

Sam Abuelsamid  57:41  
for what it's worth, you know, Toyota did sell, you know, I think about almost 7000 of the first generation MRI in California. And I think Honda and Hyundai have sold a couple of 1000 of theirs. So I mean, it's not a lot. But I mean, there's you know, there's some out there. But, you know, the the battery Evie version of the clarity was pretty bad. It had a very small battery and only had an 85 mile range. You know, which was, you know, they unless you're only using it just to commute around town is pretty easy. They

Roberto Baldwin  58:16  
told me that it was they were they for instead of focusing on range, they were focused focusing on interior luxury.

Nicole Wakelin  58:24  
To have a luxurious interior. It was

Roberto Baldwin  58:26  
not it was like accurate level and it was like it was like, like between Acura and Honda. It was it was it was squishy. It was nice and comfy squishy.

Nicole Wakelin  58:36  
Is that the is that the measure of luxury house? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  58:40  
It was like a lazy boy recliner level

Nicole Wakelin  58:41  
of one to 10.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:44  
The surface does it, you know, does it yeah, it presses a surface,

Roberto Baldwin  58:48  
your finger gets stuck, and you get to pull it out and makes up sound.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:55  
So during a briefing the other day, Dave Gardner, the executive VP of Honda of America, did say that, you know, while they're moving towards this all electric future, they are going to significantly ramp up their hybrid offerings as well. I guess right now, first half of this year, about 7% of Honda sales are hybrids. And they've got hybrids in the in the insight and in the CRV right now. And so, you know, they plan to add hybrids across most of their power their most of their product lineup over the next couple of years and want to get that, you know, up to about 25 to 30% of sales being hybrids in the next few years. Which, you know, given you know where we're at has been going that you know, that's not a bad strategy. As far as the prologue goes, he said that they expect sales volume for the prologue to fall somewhere between the passport and the pilot and the passport sells about 40,000 units a year pilots about 140,000. So that's, that's, that's your range somewhere, somewhere in between Oh,

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:08  
okay, somewhere between these two cars,

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:11  
so it could be 41,000 nothing.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:14  
It just they can sell 50,000 prologues. That's, that's not bad. That's a start.

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:18  
That's a good number.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:19  
That's more than that's more than Chevrolet's ever sold bolts in a year. So Chevy's never sold more than about 25,000 bolts in a year. Is

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:28  
that really what the numbers for the bolt? Oh my gosh,

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:31  
they also never like the talk about the bolt after it's ever after it was initially launched. They like had us all drive it like 16 times. And then you never heard from them about the bolt again, cuz they were like sort of focusing on fleet sales. They were just like, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:46  
yeah, so. All right, next up, Jeep. If you were planning to get a grant, Sharky L, and you were hoping to get it fairly soon, you might have to wait a little bit longer. We had some heavy rains here in Southeast Michigan over the last few days. And there was flooding in quite a number of areas including apparently a marshalling yard not far from jeeps. Jefferson North assembly plant in Detroit, where a whole bunch of Grand Cherokees exists in Grand Cherokees, Grand Cherokee ELLs and assorted other vehicles were parked. Here we're up to pretty much up to the door handles in water and in many cases, so I think a bunch of those vehicles are probably going to end up getting scrapped or you know, refurbished and sold as used or something new sent to auction. So you may, you may have to wait a little bit longer. If you were expecting, excuse me an early delivery of a grant shark. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:49  
there's like there's pictures and it's just a flood of water and all you see are like rooftops, sticking out, like, Oh, that's painful. They just built those. But

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:01  
that always sucks when that happens. Also, for those that are into classic cars, and traffic jams, cruises coming back.

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:14  
That's me. I'm into both of those things.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:18  
Have you ever either Have you ever attended the dream cruise?

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:20  
Oh, I've always wanted to and I have never attended but one of these days I Well,

Roberto Baldwin  1:02:25  
I live too far away.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:27  
It's basically you know, about a 10 mile long traffic jam, you know, on a Saturday, you know, from early in the morning until evening, you know, just a parking lot of, you know, all kinds of classic and interesting and unusual, unique cars we've seen we've seen all kinds of strange stuff there. I generally don't go to it. Because I don't like traffic jams. I can usually see a lot of those cars at various other places. And you know, sitting on the side of Woodward avenues is not my not my cup of tea but but for those that enjoy the dream cruise it was cancelled last year for obvious reasons. But it's back for to sponsoring it this year. And, and still lantis already announced that they're gonna be bringing back their their, their dragstrip nights. I forget. They basically they set up a one Eight Mile drag strip for roadkill nights. That's that's what I was looking for. They're bringing back roadkill nights and doing some drag racing up somewhere around the northern end of Woodward Avenue towards Pontiac. So if you're if you're if you're into that it's coming back in August and Pebble Beach will be going on. I believe the same weekend it's that's always one of the things about the dream cruise depending on on your taste in cars. You could either go to Pebble Beach and see the really expensive stuff or go to the dream cruise and see the other stuff

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:07  
you decide which end of the spectrum you want to go to pick Roberta which one would you go to your pebble or Woodward only one

Roberto Baldwin  1:04:16  
okay so I've been to pebble a bunch of times I don't want to get stuck in traffic and I can just walk around pebble also when I'm at Pebble I get to drive like weird cars. I don't think I'm gonna they would they would let people would let me drive their old car. So

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:37  
you'd have to ask you maybe you get to Hey buddy, can I drive your car sure you were nice.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:44  
But you know at Pebble Beach would you ever see an amphicar or like an old 1960s Mini with an Integra Type R engine mounted in the in the in.

Roberto Baldwin  1:04:56  
The thing is that you're not gonna see like the weird cars at Pebble Beach like are the blues The Blues Brothers? You know the blues will be Oh, well well now you tell me the blues mobile is gonna be there to hell with Pebble Beach. Still, does it still need a cigarette? A new cigarette lighter? Probably that's the point.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:15  
Yes, I believe.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:18  
I really want to see if I had to pick a pick Woodward just because I like all the fancy cars, but I'm not a fan of walking around and just looking at like, oh, there's a $2 million limited edition one made and this one has that. Whatever. It's cool. Okay, move on. I want to see like I love to see cars. I love the more real cars that people regular or regular people are driving and when they like I decided to do this freaky weird thing to my car. I'm like you go Do you like I think that's cool. I like seeing that kind of stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:48  
Okay, I'm just doing my annual one offs at Woodward.

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:50  
Yeah, I'm gonna change my answer because I've seen I've seen all the Porsches and all the old Ferrari's I really need to see I've been to Pebble Beach enough times where I'm like, Alright, I saw this one last year. Oh, look, there's another Hudson. Okay, cool.

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:03  
Like fancy cars are cool. fancy cars are fancy. They're beautiful. They're amazing. You're afraid to walk too close. Because if I don't know like the the edge your watch touches the paint, you scratch it, you just caught that person. $2.5 million. Like, I'd be afraid walking around at Pebble Beach. I wouldn't be afraid walking around at Woodward.

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:19  
I have to you want it you want to hear a fun fun story. If you cover the actual if you're a journalist and you go to the actual concourse, you have to have a $1 million umbrella. Yeah, yeah, we have a $1 million umbrella liability policy.

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:38  
So every year you accidentally bunk one of those guys

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:42  
walk around with a camera or whatever. You don't need it to like cover everything else. But in order to get to it and get like the press pass. You have to show off a 1 million so every year whenever I've Dude, I when I was at Engadget, I would have to tell my my my EIC who would then find the insurance person and then they would print out a piece of paper or they'd send me a PDF and I would send it over and then they Wow Yeah, no, it's no joke so bye. Yes and I probably won't do like

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:11  
accidentally scratching a paint or doing something to a car is not unwarranted because for them to make you carry that paint some idiot journalists like me has managed to do that and cost some guys several million dollars to fix the paint job and the Ferrari you've seen now three years in a row. I think

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:25  
they do it just to keep the keep the the sort of the restaurants and the riffraff and the riffraff who are there? They're like, well, we don't really trust you. Like everyone else. There is very fancy compared to me. Like there's a instead of taco stands. I'd like caviar stands. So

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:42  
yeah, I'd take the tacos to see that's the wrong time, but I would take the taco stand

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:50  
taco stand every time. Oh, speaking speaking of taco stands. What? One thing we forgot to mention on the left. We're

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:56  
talking about tacos now. Tom. Okay, go ahead.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:59  
Yes. What we neglected to mention that when we arrived in Austin for the bronco drive, they took us to a place in Austin called fair market and they had a taco truck or taco trailer there. They had the most amazing brisket tacos.

Unknown Speaker  1:08:14  
Oh, it was fantastic.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:16  
Yes. And he's Oh, if you're ever in Austin, look for taco Bronco, and gawkers get tacos. Taco Bronco,

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:24  
every any drive program that includes tacos is the best drive. There was a Porsche Cayenne drive program up in Northern California a few years ago. And for lunch, we had tacos and I'm still talking about it. I don't remember what I had on an Audi drive was probably like some fancy sandwich or steak or whatever. I don't care.

Nicole Wakelin  1:08:39  
But like the last, the last word I can remember Is it the Toyota Palooza they had in Plano, there's a place called Hutchins barbecue that catered the event at the track. And it was so good. I ordered the barbecue and got it at home and we ate it last weekend. And it was amazing. So houchins barbecue, go online order that stuff. That stuff's amazing. So there you go. Food tips and car information.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:01  
Excellent. We've got it all covered. All right. So one, one last news item that I added on here after we started recording remembered. I had a visit earlier this week. I believe it's the first visit I've ever had from a billionaire. Austin Russell from, from Volvo from level from luminar. Stop by with one of their vehicles with with their LIDAR sensors on there and got some information about big announcement that came out from luminar and Volvo last year, Volvo announced that on the next generation xc 90 that launches in 2022. It's going to feature a some sort of automated driving system that Mr. Russell is describing as a level four system. We'll see if it actually qualifies for that. But they would be using luminar LIDAR And then this week, they actually announced that that hardware is actually going to be installed as standard equipment on every vehicle with their new SPI two platform starting with the XC 90. So, you know, the, you know, what you'll, what they're doing is they're kind of following the pattern of Tesla where they install all the hardware for autopilot on every vehicle. And then eventually they take some of it away from but

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:28  
that what they plan to do Volvo good to know

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:31  
that the new Volvo's are going to have you know, full suite of sensors and compute including luminar, LIDAR, cameras, radar, and all powered by an Nvidia Oren based computer. And that's got like 200 trillion operations per second from that chip. And then the bass versions will have kind of a level two Driver Assist functionality like hands free driving on the highway, and then optional with an over the air software update, you can get what they're calling a level four system, I still haven't had a chance to talk to Volvo about it to find out what's really going on there. But basically, when you get to level four, now you're talking hands off, eyes off brain off, you know, according to Austin, you can you can take a nap while you're using this while driving on the highway.

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:25  
But Austin might see a nap. But will the TSA and everybody else so you can take in not TSA and it's whatever government agency it is. I'm just going to pick out when they say no. To that's that's the kicker, right? Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:40  
yeah, we don't know. But, but they're definitely gonna have standard LIDAR. On, on on all the vehicles they build. So that's that's kind of interesting.

Roberto Baldwin  1:11:49  
What is interesting. It is an honest when it comes to the trusting ABS systems and level four. Volvo has a pretty good track record with safety. That's kind of their jam. So if they're like, yeah, we're gonna do

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:04  
they're like, oh, jam is safety. Safety. Third jam. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:11  
well, you know, one of the interesting things is Volvo was the first automaker to actually come out and announce that they when they release automated driving systems, when the system is in automated mode, they are taking complete responsibility, complete liability for anything that happens. So if you're using this as automated mode, and there's a crash or something goes wrong, Volvo is accepting liability for that,

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:38  
which is a huge, has anybody else? I'm not saying

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:41  
that the drivers responsible

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:43  
has made that kind of commitment to we have that kind of faith in our system that if it doesn't work, right, we're gonna say ups are bad.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:52  
I don't think every automaker with with one exception that I've talked to, you know, has basically said that off the record, I don't think Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:01  
but it's the on the record part, they'll tell you behind, so nobody else so just okay, go Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:06  
I believe that are the only ones so far. But they're also the only ones so far that are going to, you know, that have said that they're putting such a system on sale for consumers. So this is not a robo taxi This is there's gonna be automated highway driving. So it's not not even city driving. So we'll see. I don't know. But I mean, they're, Volvo's definitely said that they're going to take responsibility for it. Alright, let's wrap it up with some listener questions. First one up from speedmaster. Have you heard of anything the size of a Ford Maverick coming from any manufacturer that might have a real four wheel drive system, either part time with a transfer case, or maybe a torsen, or similar center death of either view or anything? I mean, the only other similar vehicle I know of that's been announced is the Santa Cruz

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:58  
and that's just that's the only thing I can think of is Santa Cruz. So

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:02  
maybe they'll make a baby Gladiator. Would that be nice, like a little tiny Gladiator? I will Yeah. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:09  
I would speculate that's not gonna happen. But you know, it's gonna do a small. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's been speculation for a while that still lantis would launch a small compact pickup for Ram. And, you know, when they defend when they do you know, it'll probably share a platform with jeeps so I wouldn't be surprised if they offer you such a system on on a ramp, small ramp pickup or a small Jeep pickup if that's what they branded as,

Nicole Wakelin  1:14:38  
Aren't they the only ones that and I just try to think they're the only ones who don't have something that size. Like everybody has a weed truck except for Ram. Right? All the trucks

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:47  
know right now. There's just the maverick in the Santa Cruz. I mean, GM doesn't have anything. Yeah. Nobody. Nobody else is offering a small thing like that right now.

Nicole Wakelin  1:14:57  
Like sort of, yeah, that's true. They are all a step by

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:59  
step. originalline that Tacoma?

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:01  
I'm trying to make like the Tacoma the same size, but you're right. It's not the maverick small.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:04  
Yeah, no, it's quite a bit larger. You know, I wouldn't be surprised you know, the maverick share is on Ford c two platform which is also used for the bronco sport, which does have a quote unquote proper four wheel drive system. So I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they they offer that four wheel drive system you know in maybe something like a maverick Raptor you know or or map Maverick Well, what would they call the was the Ranger that I drove a couple weeks ago. Remember? tremor Maverick tremor. Yeah, so maybe maybe they'll do a maverick tremor with with the four wheel drive from the from the bronco sport.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:49  
Like Maverick wraps. Sounds cool.

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:51  
I think so. Yeah. Raptor sounds way better than tremor tremors. Yeah. That happens after an earthquake. I go we're having some tremors, some aftershock,

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:59  
Maverick rafter that's like that is after you run. I like that better. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:16:03  
it's a clever girl. Yeah. Nice.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:07  
Alright, another one from speedmaster. What's the horizon look like for battery technology improvement. Any chance we could be close to doubling or tripling the battery energy density, it seems like that's the big roadblock at this point. So I've actually, as it happens, I've been working on a project for my my day job, very topic for a client. You know, there's a lot of companies that are working on solid state batteries, which they claim will, you know, double the the energy density, I don't think we'll get to tripling anytime in the foreseeable future. Unless, you know, somebody comes up with some magic, new chemistry. But I think it's, it's reasonable that by the end of this decade, you know, by or by later in this decade, we will have some solid state batteries that do double the energy density. And, you know, when you when you double the energy density, now you have the option of you can keep the same range as you had before. And so if it's 200 miles, or 50 miles or 300 miles keep that range, but you can make the battery half the size and half the weight. And so you know, that makes it more efficient, it also reduces the cost makes it easier package. Or you can you know, keep the same battery, physical battery size and double the range. So, you know, that stuff's coming. GM is working with a company called sts in Massachusetts, that they're building a pilot production facility that they plan to be building cells for prototype cells in 2023. Ford, Ford and BMW are both investors in a company called solid power that has cells they're going to, they're actually going to have cells that Ford is going to be testing in vehicles next year in 2022. And, of course, is quantum scape, which is has Volkswagen as its big partner, and they're also making some big claims for their solid state cells. So that's, that's kind of the next big thing on the horizon, but probably not until after 2025

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:13  
Yeah, I mean, Toyota and Samsung are both working on something and what's nice is that you get that you know, you can get that smaller battery because you because of the the density but it also charges quicker. So you know, you're you're feeling Oh, yeah, I can get 250 miles of range. But now I can charge in like five minutes like I do my car. That may mean that's the dream.

Nicole Wakelin  1:18:33  
That's more exciting than the range because just to get it to be able to I want ease to be like just gassing up your car boom, you go in you get you feel up and you're gone.

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:42  
It's lighter. So you know, you're hitting you know, everything about the dream of solid state is is a wonderful dream. And I felt like it's always been five years away. But recently, it feels like the five years. It's always been five years away.

Nicole Wakelin  1:18:56  
It's really, is it really five from today? Should

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:58  
I start counting from five years from but I feel like now because so many five, five to 1010

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:04  
Oh, see already seems like five to 10. So another five years ago? It's five years now.

Roberto Baldwin  1:19:09  
Yeah, there's,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:10  
I've been I've been following this stuff long enough to know never to count on actually being 535 years

Roberto Baldwin  1:19:16  
away, Sam. Yeah. But But I feel like there's enough like, like, like fuel people like with big, big, big deep pockets are actually being like, Oh, you know, what if we really want to make battery electric more exciting to the person who doesn't live in California or the person who, who actually does have to do those long drives, which again, is not a lot of people. But you know, As Americans, we always think we're going to go on a 400 500 mile road trip, which most of us actually don't do very often. But for Florida online, you're at all really like yeah, so but for peace of mind, which is something that we really enjoy here in this country. You really got to have something that says hey, you know, you get 300 miles of range out of this car. By the way, you can just go to the place like you would when you're, you know, when you're like you, when you're gassing up your regular car, you can just go there, plug it in, go inside, get a big gulp, get some beef jerky, get back on your car, and you're, you're good to go. And then that's when that's when people would be like, oh, okay, yeah, this is cool, dope, I'm down.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:20  
Yeah, that is, you know, one of the big promises of solid state and we'll see if, see if that happens. And solid state cells should also be safer. And that's one of the reasons why you can charge it faster. Because, you know, one of the one of the problems with existing batteries is in between the, the electrodes and the cells, it's all filled in with an electrolyte material to it's a chemical compound that contains oxygen. And if you get a short circuit in the batteries to have the electrodes touch and use, it starts to heat up. And what happens is the, you heat up that electrolyte, and it actually gives off oxygen. So you know, when you have a grease fire on your stove, or your, you know, a gas car that catches you know, crashes and catches fire, you can smother that flame, you know, just put a lid over it or smother it with foam or water, whatever. And, you know, it'll go out because you're starving the fire of oxygen. But with a battery, if the fire starts, or with current batteries, if a fire starts, it's actually even once you smother it, it's still generating oxygen internally from the electrolyte and feeding it that's why sometimes takes four six hours to extinguish a battery fire instead of five minutes. So, you know, with solid state batteries, you get rid of that liquid electrolyte material that's got oxygen, it's all literally solid, hence the name. And so you can't do that won't won't have a fire that can go on indefinitely like that.

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:53  
Yeah. Todd state's the that's the I don't wanna say magic bullet. But it's it's kind of magic kind of magic. Yeah, it is kind of magic at the the issue right now is that they only last like five charges. They don't lower 100 charges or 100. For the urge. That's the kind of match that's one

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:09  
of the that's one of the issues. Yeah, they're also really hard to make.

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:13  
Yeah, we can make.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:19  
Alright, one more from from Adam this time. Just something to note. In a lot of ways, Forza has replaced car magazines for young kids. My 12 year old enjoys the visuals and learning about the tech and cars. When I was his age I had subscriptions to for carmax. Bonus Forza doesn't appear to demean women. That's actually a really interesting point. What What do you guys think about, you know, driving, oh, this is the new replacement.

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:44  
I don't think they're new. I think it's been around for a long time. I granturismo I think most of my friends learned about skylines because granturismo they learned about the the STI, they learned about all these cars that they could unlock in the in this video game from the late 90s. And then they became very interested in you know, I worked with with, with, with with guys who were younger than me for a little while for a lot lot of my time. But you know, when they were like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna get this car and I you know, I'm like, Oh, wait, how'd you learn about this car? Because usually, you know, it, you know, Car and Driver or motor week or whatever, you know, they're like, Oh, it was in the video game. And then you know, you sort of like, understand and learn about the driving dynamics of the vehicle from the video game. And so I think it's it's been a, it's kind of been around for a while. I know a guy who got an STI because of Gran Turismo in the late 90s.

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:36  
Yeah, no, I agree. I think it isn't new. I think people kids have been getting into cars that way for years now that adults get into cars that way playing that and suddenly they're seeing things. You don't have to be a kid. You're just, you're just an adult, you play that game, you're like, what is that? Suddenly now? It's on your wish list? You know, I think that's replaced car magazines for a lot of people and a lot of kids. And I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good, they're good. I think I like video games, though. I think they're good things. And I think games like that are fun, because they teach, they share stuff that's real, you know, like real car. Those are real cars. They aren't you know, you're learning something. That's a real thing. And I think that's good. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:17  
Yeah, yeah, I have a ps4 and, you know, so I haven't played Forza, but you know, Gran Turismo, you can go in and tweak the suspension settings, you know, there's all kinds of stuff you can change in there and change the behavior of the car. And, you know, they actually do a remarkably good job of modeling the physics of the cars and so you can, you can really feel the difference in the behavior of the car. You know, when you go in and change spring rates, change the roll center, change the stabilizer bars, you know, change the brake balance, all this stuff is it's, it's really cool. I personally, I like granturismo because, you know, I prefer a game you know, when I'm racing on the track. Rather than an open worlds game, or at least like Forza horizons, you know, they've got a couple of different versions of Forza. But it gives it's a gives me an opportunity to play around on the track with a lot of different kinds of cars that I wouldn't normally get to drive. And I like the point that Adam makes, you know, but, you know, not demeaning women, you know, I think I think it is, you know, all these games are, you know, are quite neutral in that respect, you know, that, you know, it's not, they're not really geared to male or female. You know, it's anybody that wants to play, you know, and you don't see, you know, people you know, scantily clad or anything like that, you know, it's really it's about the cars and about the driving. Yeah, I would agree.

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:47  
I think that I think it's, you know, the the Miata, I think, is a good example, I think the Miata was, for a long time was sort of like, it was pigeon holed as a car for women, or a car for gaming. And that's, that's no, you know, you read some some automobile magazines in the 90s. And that's what they were like, sort of pigeon holing it as, and then these kids were all playing this game. They're like, Oh, man, the Miata is really cool. And it's sort of like it needed. Now you have a spec Miata is driving around courses non stop, like, that's, that's the, that's the Go to car. The answer is Miata. Well, and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:23  
you know, it gives them a is always the answer.

Nicole Wakelin  1:26:26  
But the games give you the cars. They're, they're just the cars, you've got the car, what you do with it, what you make of it, what you decide. You think about it, or what it means to you is all based on just how you play it, how you change settings, how you adjust things. There's no, like I said, Roberta, there's no journalists, there's no one portraying it as well, this car is for Nope. If you like this in the game, if you think it looks cool, and you one day want to drive this, then it is the car for you. It removes that. That idea that you've been told the only person who can drive this is fill in the blank, which is a good thing.

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:00  
Yeah, no, it's I mean, reading, I look back and love the car magazines and some of the stories and there you read some of this stuff from the 90s, even early 2000s. You're like, Oh my god, this is cringy who allowed this and, and to be honest, there's still some of those people out there who still write like that. And I, I am concerned that there's there's fewer and fewer people fewer as every

Nicole Wakelin  1:27:24  
every year, I think the number of people who do that kind of thing. And then the number of readers who accept that kind of thing. is is you know that shrinking that?

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:35  
Yeah, it's shrinking. Yeah. Because it's like, wait, you know, and you know, for me, my my mom's the person who taught me how to drive fast. My dad's the person taught me how to fix cars. So it was like the idea that like, Oh, well, you know, one of my favorite magazines in the 90s was sport compact car, sport compact car. It was always interviewing dudes with pictures of scantily clad women. Yeah, so yeah, we're we're moving away from that. And if you're playing Forza II, that's not even a thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:04  
Yep. Yep. All right. Well, I think that's all we've got for this week. Any last thoughts?

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:15  
I can't wait for next week. I have a fun car next week.

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:17  
Oh, that's a teaser. It's gonna tease us with this fun pocket. I you know, I wanna

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:23  
it makes your Mercedes look like I'm gonna

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:25  
I'm going to to to amend my my Bronco sport tirade from the last what

I think like to tie right. Okay, so I still I say so this is I'm gonna, I'm just gonna quickly say, there have been a few cars that I've driven over the years that I've gotten so excited about, or I've had such high expectations of that when I get in them. I'm slightly disappointed the Supra. I know, no one should be disappointed in a super super great car. The first time I the first time I drove it the first hours was like, and then I drove it for a little bit longer. And I started to like, Oh, this car is great. It's the same I think the bronco sport I think I got so sort of wrapped up in the hype of the bronco and I again, I'm not a fan of the the steering, but I think everything else it's fine. It's it's a pretty car.

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:08  
So I saw it in the highway today. I'm like, oh, there's the car. The Roberto hates that I

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:13  
just hate the sneer. So I am I am.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:16  
So there's the car that Roberto hates the steering on

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:18  
there you go. Yeah. Okay, I'll think that you know, I'm just gonna, in my review, when I do my video review of it. I'm essentially just gonna tell everybody get the bigger engine and drive it around the block a few times do a lot of cornering if it's fine for you. It'll be fine. It is. Yeah. Also it hit me in the head a couple times with the with the tailgate the tailgate at the perfect height right hits me right. I can't see it. So I felt like it was helpful if you weren't eight feet tall. Like it was attacking me. I feel like the car might have been attacking me.

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:50  
It was mad at you smack

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:53  
it could sense your attitude towards it can feel

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:55  
the anger.

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:57  
Yeah, yeah, that the steering just I don't know why. Anyway, yeah, so it is not as horrible as I made it out to be. Okay, unless you were just a nitpick about staring then maybe just go drive around

Nicole Wakelin  1:30:12  
and it's horrible. Okay. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:15  
All right. On that note. We'll see you next time. Bye