Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 203 of wheel bearings. In the garage we've got the 2020 21 Mazda CX nine signature, the Mercedes Benz e 450 wagon, the Hyundai Sonata and the Aston Martin dbx x. And in the news we talked about the Volvo concept recharge and some Volvo's plans for their upcoming electric vehicles and automated driving systems. gmms investment in a low cost low carbon lithium producer for their upcoming batteries. And the Concours d'Elegance of America moving to Detroit. And then we've wrap up with some listener questions all 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

Welcome to Episode 203 of Wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:13  
I'm Nicole Wakelin. And this week, we'll go with sports car market.

Roberto Baldwin  1:17  
And I'm Roberto Baldwin, and we're gonna say TechCrunch this week.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21  
Right? And I think sports car market is probably a good choice, Nicole, given some of the listener questions we have at the end of the show. I think it actually. So you had something interesting in your garage this week, something interesting and something slightly less interesting.

Nicole Wakelin  1:39  
To start with. Okay, so I'll start with I'll leave

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42  
it up to you.

Nicole Wakelin  1:43  
Okay, and people just have to guess which is which by the time the segment is Exactly, yes. It's gonna be hard guys. So I have a 2021 Hyundai Sonata limited, which is a sedan, and it's a good sedan that looks good. I actually had us in a Hyundai Sonata not that long ago. So I'm kind of like, Oh, hey, we're back for a second roll. I like the Sonata. I like Hyundai's, because I think they actually pack a lot of features in for a really good price. I mean, that's like the Hyundai and Kia way, you get a lot of features in at lower levels on the trim lineup for less money than you do with other OEMs. This one, which is like pretty well tricked out is 35,000 on the money like exactly 35,000. I want to know who actually made that happen,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:27  
including delivering perfect.

Nicole Wakelin  2:29  
That includes delivery, and the carpeted floor mats, which were different in additional $155. Yeah, exactly. $35,000 with delivery. So I'm a fan of this. It's got a 1.6 liter turbocharged engine, it's got 180 horsepower. So it moves when you hit the gas. It's smooth, it's quiet, which is what you want. I mean, sedans are just you know, they're they're nice cruisers, you're focusing on having people be comfortable. And it does that, and it's not harsh, it's not, it's not something that you're going to win any races in. I mean, it has enough power and it gets moving. It's not like it's underpowered, but this is at its heart like an efficient sedan that does the job of carrying you nicely and comfortably and having the features you want in terms of things like it's got to this one has a 10.25 inch touchscreen navigation system. You got your Apple CarPlay you've got your what's the other one Android Auto, you've got all of that stuff you have a really good suite of standard safety, which I always appreciate because there's still some OEMs that you know, they'll they'll put one or two things on a base trim and then you really have to start going up if you want to.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:37  
We're looking at YuGiOh

Nicole Wakelin  3:38  
Yeah, like it's like oh we have all these safety features. Oh wait two are included on the base trip

Roberto Baldwin  3:44  
we have a backup camera you're like you know that no, you can't say that anymore. You can't see backup camera

Nicole Wakelin  3:50  
right let's like that

Sam Abuelsamid  3:51  
anything that is required by law cannot be included in the list because everybody has to have it.

Nicole Wakelin  3:57  
See and I'm looking at their list and nothing on this list is required by law so go Hyundai so this one see it look at here's the list of the advanced safety technology, blind spot spot collision avoidance, rear cross traffic Forward Collision Avoidance with pedestrian detection, Park collision avoidance front and back surround Oh, they did surround View Monitor but I guess that's fancier than just a regular rear view camera right? Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  4:21  
but yeah, that you know, that gets the cameras on the side and on the front end.

Nicole Wakelin  4:24  
Yeah. That counts because Yeah. Right. Yeah, everything view front and rear parking sensors, remote smart parking assist and blind View Monitor. And safe exit warning. That's all part of this and you're exactly $35,000 sedan. Bam, bam, boom for exactly 35 so I'm a fan of the Sonata. I was a fan of it the first time I drove it. Hey, I'm still a fan of it. The second time I drove it. I don't have a lot of I don't think I had limited last time. I feel like I had a different

Sam Abuelsamid  4:57  
No, I mean this time is trying to

Nicole Wakelin  4:59  
Oh It's time. Yes. This time I have a limited, okay. Yes. So I mean it looks good. sedans have this tendency to either be styled to look, absolutely dishwater doll, and they're boring and you wouldn't even notice them. They have this sort of silver like accent to sort of that runs along the hood. Kind of it's like, it looks good. It's a good looking car, it attracts your attention. I'm, I'm a Hyundai fan. I like Hyundai's in general, because I just feel like they're at unbelievable value. And this one is quiet and smooth and comfy. Plenty of room in the backseat for my husband sat behind my daughter who had been playing with the seats, and they were like, way back. He's six, three, he's still back there. So. So yeah, so that was my that was one of the cars I had.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:46  
So the the engine in that one. I think that's that's the 1.6 turbo, right? Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  5:51  
it's the 1.6 turbo, it's 180 horsepower, 195 pound feet of torque. So it's a decent amount of get up and go like you push the gas and you're gonna move, you're not going to like, you're not going to have trouble merging with highway traffic, you're not going to have trouble trying to find that extra bit of power if you're passing someone who's a little slow on the highway. And it's got an eight speed automatic with paddle shifters if you so choose. Right. Yeah, you missed because,

Sam Abuelsamid  6:16  
you know, everybody driving a sonatas paddle should attending there. Yeah, well,

Nicole Wakelin  6:20  
you know. So my daughter, she's 17, by the way, just as you don't think she's like a toddler or something. She's 17. She's like, what are those, because for some reason, they just caught her attention. They're very large pedal shifters with, you know, their mountain. And I told him, she's like, why would you want those on this? I was like, Oh, ouch. Correct. And she's 17. And she just knows that from the few cars that she's driven. And from riding along in cars with me, I'm like, well, maybe, maybe you want to feel like you're

Roberto Baldwin  6:50  
you want to downshift a little a little bit more you don't want you don't want to control like in the you know, you're at the Auto cross with your Sonata.

Nicole Wakelin  7:00  
Right, like you do like one day on every weekend. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:04  
Well, that is the beauty of auto cross, though is you can take anything and literally anything you know, at least anything that is self propelled and and run it so you could take a sonata

Nicole Wakelin  7:17  
Well, you know, what's the thing is you can doesn't mean you should I mean, you could take the Sonata on an autocross course. But you know, it's not something that I think I'm going out on a limb here but I don't think the typical Hyundai Sonata owner would do that. But if there's one listening out there who takes their Sonata and does autocross with it, please feel free to message us

Roberto Baldwin  7:37  
or send us a video.

Nicole Wakelin  7:40  
Send us a video using the paddle shifters.

Roberto Baldwin  7:43  
I am a fan of the Hyundai Sonata so Siena Hyundai Sonata autocross would make my day

Nicole Wakelin  7:49  
somebody must have when they can do that.

Roberto Baldwin  7:50  
Yeah. Someone someone's making an appointment right now.

Nicole Wakelin  7:54  
right this minute.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:56  
The thing I like about the Sonata is it's got enough style without seeming overdesigned, like a certain Toyota midsize sedan. Which, you know, can can be a little bit over the top, you know, I think there's it's got the right balance. You talked about, you know, a lot of midsize sedans you know, kind of disappear into the background. This one definitely doesn't do that. But it's got just enough that it doesn't, you know, whack you upside the head all the time.

Nicole Wakelin  8:23  
It's currently sitting in my driveway with a far flashier vehicle that it doesn't look completely overwhelmed by and I kind of thought you know, that's something to hold your own against what's stored in the driveway right now.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:34  
So So the other one is the underwhelming vehicle then right,

Nicole Wakelin  8:38  
the other one is completely underwhelming, not exciting. Not attention getting vehicle at all. I have a 21 Aston Martin DB x, which is slightly more than a 35,000. Let's see

Sam Abuelsamid  8:53  
it just add a couple of zeros.

Nicole Wakelin  8:56  
Yeah, a lot of zeros. So it's 170 791 76 900 but as equipped sitting in my driveway $219,186 so you could buy for what six Hyundai Sonata is or an Aston Martin DB x? Take your pack? Seems reasonable? Seems reasonable. Yeah, you could buy six cars or one car. So and truly like it's a really stylish looking car. But it's funny like sometimes when you have a very fancy press car and you have just a normal what the rest of us humans drive. Suddenly what the rest of us humans drive looks really sort of sad and dull sitting in the driveway next to it actually, truly the Sonata is like, Hey, you look pretty good sitting next to that car that is six times your price like it did well. So the Aston Martin DBS, it's so funny to even talk about a car like this. If you want to buy a car that's $219,000 you just kind of kind of do it. You're not going to look to see you know, you just have to want already made an Aston Martin. Like you've made your decision not like well We see is the fuel economy isn't up to snuff, it's like no, I want that buy it, here's my money, I kind of feel that's how you are if you're buying cars at that price level.

Unknown Speaker  10:09  
Alright, but

Sam Abuelsamid  10:11  
the thing about I think the thing that's strange about, you know, the premise of the D bx is, I'm old enough to remember that the, the, the idea of SUVs from companies from brands like Porsche and Aston Martin, and Lamborghini was just completely anathema. You wouldn't even consider it. I mean, an Aston Martin SUV, that's insane. And yet, there it is.

Nicole Wakelin  10:38  
And it was funny, I put up a couple of pictures on social media, put some pictures in Twitter, and I put some pictures to send my personal Facebook page because I was sharing and we share what I have, especially when it's really fun. And there were actually people who were sort of like, gosh, how desperate are they that they would do an SUV? Who does that at a luxury performance car is like, everyone, everybody much?

Sam Abuelsamid  11:05  
And I think you know, desperation is not an entirely inappropriate word to use for Aston Martin in the last few years. You know, they have financial challenges, as you know, had to be refinanced. So yeah, I think that's a reasonable word to use in that context.

Nicole Wakelin  11:22  
But I think even if they hadn't had their financial missteps, this car would still be here. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, it's not like they're like, we have to do this because of our finances. It's no, we just have to do this. Because this is what you need to do in 2021. Like, you have to have an SUV or are you even making cars anymore? You know,

Roberto Baldwin  11:40  
Lamborghinis, best selling car ever is the owners.

Nicole Wakelin  11:44  
Yeah. I can't I feel like every time I say the name of that, I say differently.

Roberto Baldwin  11:48  
They every time I had, when I did the video of it, I had to keep going over to the to the PR person who orders, orders, orders, orders. And I might be saying it wrong again. Who knows? I just kept walking over during me like, wait, orders or orders. She's like, Alright, I walked back over. I do my little stand up about the car and then I come I'm like, Oh, shit, I walked back.

Nicole Wakelin  12:12  
See, I can't ever do a video on that car. Because I can't I will never say it the same way twice. It'll be a different way every time the word comes out of my mouth. So

Sam Abuelsamid  12:19  
Well, that makes it more interesting.

Nicole Wakelin  12:20  
dB x, I can say right? It just makes it more exciting. It's a fancy car thing you say it however you want to say it. You're gonna pay a couple $100,000 you call it whatever you want to call it. But I mean, it's it is exactly. It's kind of exactly what you'd expect an Aston Martin SUV to be it's it's unbelievably stunning and luxurious inside. There's leather, everything. There's void to everything. There's chrome everything that you know, an Alcantara headliner, it's, it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful drives beautifully. You have six different drive modes in this thing. There's two that are off road modes. I really want to know who's taking their $220,000 Aston Martin DBS off road I'm sure there's one guy but like off road to his cabin where he has his valet pocket but and then there's like Sport and Sport Plus mode and you can feel it change as you go through the modes but without favorite thing in the sport. Plus, it gets so loud it's obnoxious. I'm like oh that's really like it's like it goes from like a nice little PR to like in your face. It is so loud. And it's fun to drive. I mean it's an absolute joy to drive it. The only thing I don't like the there is something I don't like about this guy. I don't like the infotainment system because it doesn't have the touchscreen it has the spinny little Mercedes Benz type thing like a little rectangle that sits on and then there's like a dial underneath it. Not a fan but I hate to I hate not having a touchscreen it's it's just I

Roberto Baldwin  13:51  
hate it typically the more expensive you the more money you spend on a on a car and a luxury car crash from a nice automaker the worst the infotainment system gets.

Nicole Wakelin  14:00  
Yes, it's usually like everything else is brilliant, but the infotainment system made me a little stabby but other than that, sure if I had $219,186 I would buy that instead of six Hyundai Sonata

Roberto Baldwin  14:18  
but you need to get started on Hyundai Sonata rental company.

Nicole Wakelin  14:21  
I could I could just rent them, lease them a little money

Sam Abuelsamid  14:24  
put up, put them on Toro and use the income from that to pay for the DB x.

Nicole Wakelin  14:29  
Exactly. That's the way to go. You got to buy six out of six Hyundai's one Aston Martin rent out your Hyundai's to pay for your Aston Martin. That's it. That's the money get it out Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:40  
Yep. And maybe you know on occasion we'll put the the Aston on on Toro as well. You know for because what could possibly go wrong with putting your $200,000 British luxury SUV? You know, on some?

Nicole Wakelin  14:55  
Yeah, with your car rentals. 42 Yeah. 542 horse power in Sport Plus mode that turns all the nannies off. Nothing could ever go wrong with that. Just handing that to a random person. Nothing

Roberto Baldwin  15:07  
totally fine. Totally fine. Come out. Super, super, super duper awesome. Uh huh.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:14  
Yeah. And just as a reminder, for those, you know, who still think the idea of an Aston Martin SUV is, you know, heresy. Don't forget, next year, the Ferrari Porsche saying it's come Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  15:27  
it's got all those 911 variants that you love, you know, how Porsche can build a 911? Very, for every single customer that's out there. Those are all paid for by the Cayenne and makhan.

Nicole Wakelin  15:39  
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:40  
Yeah. Yeah, this is this is this is why this, this is why, you know, the 911, the, the guyardo, or the her con, you know, the DB 11. That's why those cars can exist, because there are people who will go and buy these SUVs, you know, and that's, that's what pays the bills.

Nicole Wakelin  16:01  
So if you could do a dB 11 or a DB x, what should you do?

Sam Abuelsamid  16:06  
Well, oh, no contest, I would do the DB 11 Okay,

Nicole Wakelin  16:10  
so what I just had to ask that you mentioned db 11. I'm like which impractical? I guess it's a little bit practical, the DB x But

Sam Abuelsamid  16:18  
okay, no, I mean, you know, my kids are grown there. They can take care of themselves. I don't need to haul them around. I can afford an Aston Martin. I can you know, I can have my stuff FedEx or just buy new stuff. When I get to wherever it is. I'm going I don't you

Nicole Wakelin  16:32  
can have somebody else drive your car behind you with the stuff that you need and meet you wherever. Exactly. You drive. You

Sam Abuelsamid  16:38  
have the valet have the valet drive the Range Rover with all the stuff. You know what I get you get it you know,

Roberto Baldwin  16:47  
I'm good. You get yourself a net what's the Junker car would you get yourself a cheap car to drive around either your dogs the beater you get a beater you get a 2004 Jaguar x type that according to was at carvana. I wanted to look at how much the Jaguar was worth for two carvana $270. And you cram all your stuff in it.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:17  
The other day, I was looking up the value of my car my Miata on the Haggerty car evaluation tool. And then I looked on KBB and you know, on Haggerty is like, but eight grand or something like that. On KBB. A 1990 Miata was like 500 bucks. It's like

Roberto Baldwin  17:40  
that's just like different. This is taking into account the the sort of the enthusiast audience

Nicole Wakelin  17:47  
taking into account the crazy of how much use cars right now one of my husband's colleagues just bought a new car. He honestly forgot what he said he bought but he traded in a 2007 2008 2009 Wrangler that had about 80,000 miles on it. He got $24,000 from the dealer for that car. Wow.

Unknown Speaker  18:07  
dollars.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:09  
This morning, when I was walking the dog, I ran into one of the neighbors and she was saying her daughter, she's got a 2006 accord Honda Accord. And she just had to put 1200 bucks into fixing the fixing something on it. I can't remember what. And she's been getting an itch to buy a new car and I said Please tell your daughter. Do not buy a new car right now. Wait until at least the end of the year early next year. Just keep the Accord running for now. Because there's there's nothing out there to buy. I mean, you're gonna pay through the nose for anything good if you can even find it. which is unfortunate, but that's the way it is right now. All right, Robbie, what about you? What have you been driving?

Roberto Baldwin  18:50  
Oh, whatever. I've been driving hold on me. Look. I've been driving the Mercedes Benz e 450. All Terrain wagon. It is a very, very fancy wagon is what it is, is

Sam Abuelsamid  19:04  
it's got formatic so it's the Mercedes Benz Outback.

Roberto Baldwin  19:08  
It is the Mercedes Benz Outback. Yeah. If you if you like, Oh, you know, I kind of want an Outback. But I also want to go really, really fast or no, not just fast. I want to be pampered. Like I've never been pampered before. Then you can get yourself to eat for 50 formatic All Terrain wagon. I love wagons. I love station wagons. I love sport wagons. This is not Oh, you

Sam Abuelsamid  19:30  
wouldn't be allowed to write about cars if you didn't.

Roberto Baldwin  19:33  
Yeah, I didn't. And hold on. I get crazy that hey.

Nicole Wakelin  19:39  
Does your dog like wagons?

Roberto Baldwin  19:41  
I don't know. They don't get to go in the wagons. I don't know. I yeah, I was wagons. I was unaware of the auto journalist wagon. excitement when I started doing this and when they suddenly asked me Oh, what kind of car do you like and like Oh, I like this or like typical. I'm like, Well, what What? I don't get it it's an E Class sedan that just happens to be a wagon. That's that's really what it comes down to it. You know it has the inline v six inline v six doesn't make any sense as

Nicole Wakelin  20:19  
the event of you being a poser I mean,

Roberto Baldwin  20:22  
good job. And the inline six turbo engine as EQ, EQ boost like pretty much every other Mercedes Benz out there now. 362 horsepower, 369 pound feet of torque and nine speed automatic it is smooth. And I don't want to say butter what's what's smoother than butter? Like

Sam Abuelsamid  20:44  
whipped cream, melted brown butter,

Roberto Baldwin  20:46  
melted brown butter, it is it is so some has a little bolster that little side bolsters that, like squish you as you go as you go around corners. Oh, the automatic one. Yeah. Yeah. So it keeps you from sliding out your seat even though your your seat belted in. I'm a fan of those. Because they're just so like, I'm driving a wagon. I'm driving a station wagon. But thanks, Mercedes. Thanks a lot. You it's got a nice wood interior. The the dashboard has this this nice wooden interior, which I'm sure it's probably a lot of money. It's all let me see what it is. Money. I'm gonna look at see how much this this interior. I don't see it. But it is so nice. You open up the rear and the little the cover light goes back automatically everything that you think a Mercedes Benz would have as a wagon, you're gonna get in this car. It's all terrain apparently, which means you could probably take it off road. The, the version I have, it starts at 67,600 the one I have is $20,000 more. It's 87,700. So let's just say 90, you know $90,000 for your, for your for your very, very fancy station wagon.

Unknown Speaker  22:14  
And

Roberto Baldwin  22:15  
it's and I keep I feel like it's a Mercedes but yeah, it's a Mercedes everything about it's so comfortable. It's got the little it's got the little pillow headrest, which I love every time I drive a bunch of cars and then I get into, you know, an E Class or, or an S Class. I'm like, Oh, now I remember why people spend so much money on these cars.

Nicole Wakelin  22:39  
You know what I always looked at Okay, the speakers who makes the the audio the radio if they have the speaker grilles are always metal and they're perforated and have like the little they're the prettiest speaker pattern.

Roberto Baldwin  22:51  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, beautiful

Nicole Wakelin  22:53  
spiral pattern. It's

Roberto Baldwin  22:55  
like a galaxy.

Nicole Wakelin  22:56  
Right? I'm like I know this is literally just the cover on the speaker but Ooh, it makes the car look so fancy.

Roberto Baldwin  23:02  
And Mercedes. They popularize the interior lighting accents. Ambient Lighting, I've been lightening lighting. I always set it to peppermill peppermill is a it's a red and blue. The peppermill is a I agree. I would say maybe a slightly high end greasy spoon diner in Las Vegas that every time I have to go to CES I like to go the pepper mill to eat too much food that is probably been deep fried for far too long. And yeah, I love driving around and peppermill mode

Nicole Wakelin  23:37  
Yeah, I have to go to this place next time. It

Roberto Baldwin  23:39  
is great. Go to the pepper mill. It is it is it is like a really fancy Denny's is what it is they have like they have trees and stuff. Yeah, it is like fancy Denny's.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:49  
You got to is that is it in one of the hotel No,

Roberto Baldwin  23:51  
no, it's it's down at the end of the strip packs. The famous Mexican the top Korea that everyone goes to.

Nicole Wakelin  24:00  
Oh my gosh, I just pulled up the website and the colors.

Roberto Baldwin  24:02  
Yeah, there you are. Yeah, that's the peppermint. does look like ambient lighting, grab whatever device you have in front of you if you're not driving and look up peppermill restaurant near Las Vegas.

Nicole Wakelin  24:12  
It comes up okay I get it. Yeah, totally.

Roberto Baldwin  24:14  
They have Yes. Yeah, yeah, we've been driving it around. Mercedes Benz is a das system is probably you know without having hands free or the other like sort of level 2.5 etc. is one of the smoothest out there like of all the cars that that I drive and I try you know adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist. Other than there's one thing I'll talk about in a second. Cut ins it doesn't like do crazy things when there are cut ins when when people out in front of you it's very smooth sort of coming up just getting up to speed. But there is one thing and that is Mercedes Benz his idea of lane Kip lane keep assist where if you get too close to the edge, like it just shoot you back over It is it is jarring the first time, the first 200 times you've used

Sam Abuelsamid  25:08  
it doesn't gently, you know, shove you back into the middle of

Roberto Baldwin  25:12  
it sort of like whoa, what are you doing, buddy? You need to figure, especially if you're at the edge of your pulse. Yeah, if you're pulling off the freeway, and like let's say there's some traffic and you're sort of like pulling off just slightly ahead of where you should put off or you're you're kind of going into the white lane on the edge of the road. It will it will adjust you they were like No, no. But yeah, no, it's it is it is I love this this car that I cannot afford and I probably wouldn't buy just because I can't afford it and you know there are plenty of well not plenty. There are other wagons could afford

Nicole Wakelin  25:46  
it. Would you buy this one? Like say this is your price range?

Roberto Baldwin  25:50  
I probably would get the V 60. Okay, I probably get the V 60. Just I get cuz I'm I'm even if I were rich. I think I would still be cheap, which I am. I are thrifty or frugal. I don't know what the word is. I've never owned a new car. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, the only new vehicle I've ever purchased was my VESA. We did lease a vehicle that was new, but we've never I've never bought a new car. It's always been used because I'm just like, Oh, I can save a couple grand because it's cheaper to buy this and you know, it's less you know, less impact on the environment because the cars already out in the world and mods will get the most out of it. And, and I and I know how to work on car so something goofy goes wrong. I'm totally fine.

Nicole Wakelin  26:34  
And I have never bought a used car in my life because I always want a new one. I just love the thrill of being the one who is the only one who ever in the history of ever drove it except the guy who drove it the what seven miles Yeah, get it from the assembly line into the parking lot of the dealership. Yes, I have only ever gotten new cars.

Roberto Baldwin  26:52  
I've only ever purchased two used cars so I'm I do

Nicole Wakelin  26:55  
keep them forever in a day. I mean, it's not like I buy a new car every three years I think my cars typically I do have them for like 10 or 11 years so I get my money's worth out of

Roberto Baldwin  27:04  
the car we've had the least amount of time was our MINI Countryman and I think listeners will probably understand why. Because

Nicole Wakelin  27:12  
that's Yeah, here you know what I needed to say?

Sam Abuelsamid  27:15  
It was it's, it's it's an it's another one of those cars it's great to drive in terrible to own.

Roberto Baldwin  27:21  
Exactly, it was I think the seals were getting ready to go. The clutch was getting ready to go. It was when we we traded it in for RB z, which is also used we after we signed the paperwork and the gentleman got up and walked away. I leaned over to my wife I'm like that Mini is going to explode she's like watch it I didn't tell her the full extent of the issues that were that were creeping up on the mini that you know in like 10,000 miles something bad was

Nicole Wakelin  27:55  
your wife is thinking like to kill that man by accident.

Roberto Baldwin  27:58  
And so yeah, I'm all that money is. She's like, Oh, okay. So yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  28:09  
we're more like you, Nicole. I mean we we have bought used cars like you know, I bought my Miata used and you know, but used car for used cars to the kids. But for my wife I've always bought her new cars and I've owned some new cars and but we keep them you know, at least you know eight to 10 years you know so like having having no car payment you know, pay it off and and then just keep driving it for for many many years. Those are the gravy years until Yeah, until you know until you know the it's discovered that the manufacturer cheated on the emission controls and and offers to buy it back for you for several $1,000 more than its market value. Right yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  28:53  
I don't think all of every car I think I've ever traded in life. I've known what I wanted but then by the time I get to the point where I'm to the dealership, like I'm waiting for it to come in and I always time it just right so it's like okay, the old cars working in the three weeks it takes to get the one I want it's like the muffler falls off misfiring like the transmission starts to go and I roll into the dealership kind of like come on baby hold together hold together Together we're so close We're

Roberto Baldwin  29:17  
almost there that would that was the mini when we were like okay, we got to get this like I'm filling it full of oil I think I swapped out the the plugs it was falling plugged like there was no I swapped out and they went they they were just like okay, whatever Yeah, it's a mini here's you know and then we were repeat customers it was shift the the people who just bring you a car let you drive it around if you'd like to get to keep it. Yeah. And they're like, Oh, you bought this from us or like yeah, okay, we'll give you an extra couple. You know, I think it gives an extra $800 and $100 or whatever, for being returned customers for it. And I was just like, Oh, all right. Cool. Get it away from us.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:57  
Yeah, when? When? When Volkswagen announced the diesel buyback program. My wife decided she wanted to get the Honda Civic hatchback which was just coming out at that point. But the the version with the A das features was several months later was launching several months later after the the hatchback was launching. And so we hung on to the the Jetta for another six months or so. And in that time period, right around the time they announced the buyback, actually we had a wagon 2010 TDI wagon, and it had the panoramic moonroof. And so it's got this sunshade that can retract back and open it up. So you have the glass or you can close it, you know, to get a little shade. And one day, my wife was in the garage getting ready to go somewhere and she hit the button to put the sunshade back. And it went back got back about halfway and then one side stopped and the other side kept going. And so you know, she came back inside told me what happened when I looked at it, start googling you know how to fix that. And turns out that if you take it to a dealer to repair that, apparently was a fairly common problem on those cars. And if you take it into repair, it's about 15 $100. It's about 400 bucks for parts and about 1000 bucks for over 1000 bucks for the the labor because they basically have to rip the entire headliner out and all kinds of other stuff to do it. And, and I said, You know what, forget that. I went out, got a box cutters, rip the thing out, cut out the remnants of it, went to AutoZone and got some Window Tint film and put it on the inside to get our semester shade. like that until we turned it in. So

Nicole Wakelin  31:50  
when we were in for the Jeep Grand Cherokee launch a few weeks back, they actually had US tour the facility, the factory where they build them. And at one point, you can actually see the mechanism that is there just to make these into the sunroof that slider slide open. And because they didn't have any the headliner, it's all like, you know, the innards of a car. And I literally looked at that. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that is a lot of mechanicals, up under that headliner just to make that work. So when you were saying how much it cost him like, Oh, yeah, I can see that. Because it's all buried in there. It's like behind, you'd have to take all of that off to get to it. So I can see how it would be crazy expensive and a box cutter in some shape film there, some film would do the trick instead.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:32  
This is why Tesla, for example. You can't get an actual opening sunroof on their cars. They just put a sheet of glass on there and glue it on. And hopefully it'll stay. But it never. It's never supposed to move. Yeah, every once in a while they do but what did you drive? It depends. I mean, if it. Let's see, I had the Mazda CX nine signature, which is I haven't driven this particular configuration before is the 2029 2021 cx nine signature. All Wheel Drive has the 2.5 liter turbo, which is a lovely engine that I really, really enjoy. And, you know, this is Mazda's biggest vehicles. They're their big three row crossover. Saying that, you know, it's not quite as big as, say, for example, a Hyundai palisade or a Kia telluride. So it's it's one of those ones that's kind of an in between her. That's, you know, maybe close, I think closer in size to the Kia Sorento than the telluride. Yeah, so it's got that third row for emergency use for you know, smaller people. But it's definitely not somewhere where you would want to relegate your, your, your, your closer adult friends. You know, it's it's definitely a little tight in that third row. And this version, the signature, comes with second row captain's chairs and a really nice second row center console. So it's definitely it's a six seater. But yeah, as with all monsters, you know, it's got a lovely interior, you know, the signatures, the top of the line model, you know, you've got leather trim on the dash, and, you know, everything is really well executed, it looks like significantly more expensive vehicle than it is, you know, it looks like something, you know, it's got the kind of interior that you would expect from a Volvo or an Audi, or even, you know, a Mercedes Benz. And, you know, that that's what, you know, that's the direction Mazda has been going in recent years, you know, trying to get that more premium feel in their vehicles. You know, the 227 horsepower is kind of, it's a great engine, 310 pounds feet of torque, but it you know, in this bigger vehicle, it's kind of, that's kind of the limit of what it's capable of, you know, so it's, it's, it's got, you know, more than adequate performance. But it's definitely not what you would call a sportier crossover. You know, it's not quite up there with what you would get, you know, again, I'll use the Sorento as an example, you know, their, their new 2.5 liter turbo that they have is, is actually feels quite a bit stronger than the Mazda engine, you know, it's about 270 horsepower, I think. But, you know, the the Mazda does have plenty of torque, it's a six speed automatic, all wheel drive 20 inch wheels, you know, it's a very handsome looking vehicle, but it's also now pretty much the oldest model in the model remaining in the Mazda lineup now that the the six is gone. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised to see the CX nine get replaced in you know, sometime in the next 12 months with a new version. But, you know, for if you're looking for something now, that you know, you don't need quite as much interior volume as what you would get. And the you know, the larger three rows like Like I said, they'll tell you Ryder, the palisade you want something that's got a little bit sportier feel to the driving dynamics, you know, this is definitely a good one to take a look at. In the MSRP on this one was 46,605. And with delivery, and the extra 500 bucks for the machine gray metallic paint came to $48,200 which, you know, is right in the ballpark of what you would pay for the high end versions of, you know, those Korean crossovers. The 23 MPG, EPA rating combined, again, is in the same ballpark, despite only having two less gears in the transmission. You know, because it is a little slightly smaller, slightly lighter than those vehicles. So it does okay. I think I got about 21 with it during my driving with it for a week. So, you know, it's it's definitely, you know, worth taking a look at if, you know, if you're something something, you know, bigger than, you know, like on the upper end of the mid size segment, let's put it that way as a descriptor. So cool. That's any Connor, Mazda CX nine signature

Roberto Baldwin  37:18  
on their website for the three pictures of the interior on the gallery, the person getting into the third row as a child. You Yes, I thought, Oh, that makes the child get into the third row. Because it's a it's a, it's just sort of, I feel like a lot of these third rows are just there, because people want to say, I have a third row just in case.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:38  
And I yeah, I mean, you

Roberto Baldwin  37:40  
know, I have I have a child.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:43  
Yeah, well, and the thing is, if you've got a child that small, they should probably be in a child seat anyway, or a booster seat, which means that, you know, you don't want to have to deal with that in the third row, you know, putting them out there in the third row into a booster seat. That's so it's, you're really better off. And in fact, I ended up you know, just folding down the the third row, because I had to go get some stuff, not mulch, but I had to go pick up some stuff. And you know, so I just pulled it down the third row and left it there. Because, you know, this is not the kind of vehicle I would want to put mulch into. So you know it but I enjoy driving it. Yeah, it's it's it's like, like any monster it is. It is an enjoyable vehicle to drive. It inspires you to want to go places.

Nicole Wakelin  38:31  
Yeah, yeah, I like to see zine. And I do think that that third read, like you said, is very much in this one is, is sort of a token, third row, I mean, no one really wants to ever in any vehicles into the third row. But this one is definitely on the tighter side. I feel like it's the kid who's not in the car seat anymore. But still, you know, that Junior High kid that can crawl back there, doesn't need the car seat, but can still get back there and not feel like they're squished. But it's not something that you would want to ride in for very long. And you could I have no idea how you would get a kid back there, like a little kid in a car seat. I feel like you would have to be a contortionist or under five feet tall to be able to get halfway into that buckle them in and scoot yourself back out again.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:15  
That's that's pretty much it. You know, but you know, if you're, you know, if it's if it's you and your partner and another couple, you know, it is a you know, any fall down that third row and you know, maybe going for a weekend getaway, you can put all your stuff in the back, you've got lots of room floor for whatever you need for the weekend, or, you know, for a road trip, and you know, whoever's in that second row is going to be very, very comfortable in those in those captain's chairs, you know, and they've got that center console in there. So I think, you know, it's, it's definitely a really good combination for that sort of use case.

Nicole Wakelin  39:52  
Yeah, it is. And they do really like you were saying they have a beautiful interior. They have a striking interior. It is right up there with cars that are significant. generally more expensive in terms of the comfort and the quiet of the cabin they're always very quiet you feel very insulated from the road from the traffic from like wrote the wind noise if it's like rainy and windy you don't hear it like you will in some other vehicles. So it definitely captures that luxury car vibe as a passenger it nails it.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:22  
Yep. One One thing to note, if you are among the part of the population that is averse to center control knobs for your infotainment system as opposed to a touchscreen, then yeah, this is definitely not the vehicle for you. Because Honda does or Mazda does not believe in touchscreens, they think it's a bad idea and I'm inclined to agree with them. But so you will have to learn to deal with that center control knob but it does work well. So

Nicole Wakelin  40:51  
I don't like it. I want to touch screen I don't care. I don't care that you don't like them. Sam, I want to touch screen every time I use the control knob. Or that I feel like I'm like I'm spinning like I I want to touch screen period the end that's what I want.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:09  
Alright, whatever you can have your touch you can you can have your touchscreens we will agree to disagree on that one. Okay, all right.

Roberto Baldwin  41:20  
happy medium is a well, well integrated voice control system. But

Nicole Wakelin  41:25  
oh look at you being the peacemaker repaired.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:27  
I think I good actually.

Roberto Baldwin  41:31  
Because you don't have to like really just say things give me the thing I want and give it Don't leave

Nicole Wakelin  41:36  
what you're saying if you say give me the thing and it's like no, I'm gonna give you this other thing, then it's no good at

Roberto Baldwin  41:42  
all. Why has to be like a good one. I can't be a good one they can they have to test them on Niccolo? Because apparently, none of them understand what

Nicole Wakelin  41:51  
here's me, right. No one, none of them understate, which is why I'm a touchscreen fan and sort of reach out, touch the screen, show it where I want to go. I don't want to have to tell it the same thing. 10 times are spinning goofy dial for an hour and a half. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:06  
Speaking of touchscreens, although this week had a had a tech moment event where they talked a lot about their the technology that's going to be coming to their upcoming vehicles. And most of pretty much everything they talked about is actually going to be launching next year on the replacement for the XC 90 which apparently will probably not be called the XC 90 evidently Volvo has decided that alphanumerics you know, as they move to all electric vehicles, they can they can ditch those and actually adopt real names, which will be interesting because vamos never actually done that in its in its history. It's always had some sort of alphanumeric designator for everything it's ever built. Going back to its origins in the 1950s so I will be curious to see what Volvo comes up with for a name for this one. But you know, it's going to be an Eevee it's going to have standard standard equipment equipped with all of the sensors that needs to eventually do some form of level for automated driving. Although that will not be a feature that will be available from day one on the car but it will be available later on with over the air updates as they say so someday maybe possibly within the within the lifecycle of that car maybe it'll actually get that capability but it will at least use things like the LIDAR sensor to enhance the the pedestrian detection and other other capabilities for the Driver Assist features that it will have at launch and and they dropped a concept called the the Volvo concept recharge. What do you guys think about this thing?

Nicole Wakelin  43:59  
I think it looks kind of cool. Actually. Styling wise I like how they change the front they have that what they call that? Thor's hammer headlight design? And I always think it's so cool like whenever I see one behind me right I can tell so Volvo behind me because a little Thor's hammers, they kept that that's kind of like they changed it up. They gave it more like a like a closed, like there's no grill grill, you know, it's flat. But um, I like that they did that. Also, I need to point out that there's a large 15 inch standing touchscreen. I just

Sam Abuelsamid  44:30  
that's, that's using that's using the Android automotive system that yes, that's also on the Pollstar too right now.

Roberto Baldwin  44:39  
I am a fan I like it I liked it that went in when they announced that they were gonna give it a name. They were like it'll be a name like a child like like a child like you name a child was sort of like the the theme they're going for. So this is like their child I apparently and all the all the gas vehicles ahead of it were its parents. And now you've it's the next dinner. Remember Pepsi had the Newton, the choice of a new generation. I think that's that's, I think that's kind of what they're going for. Is this. This is the new generation of Volvo. And it's electrified and it has names like, Kyle or, or Susan. I don't think those are great good car names, but maybe

Sam Abuelsamid  45:21  
well, and they're also not very Swedish.

Roberto Baldwin  45:23  
They're also very Magnus,

Sam Abuelsamid  45:26  
the Volvo mag Magnus. There you go,

Nicole Wakelin  45:28  
Volvo Magnus. I think I can get behind that. That's pretty cool.

Roberto Baldwin  45:33  
Henrik Henrik.

Nicole Wakelin  45:36  
Fisker. You can't do that. There's a guy in a company with the vamos

Sam Abuelsamid  45:40  
Well, yeah, but he used his last name not as first name. So no, but I agree with the CTO, Oscar. Yeah. Okay.

Nicole Wakelin  45:49  
Okay. I don't know. I think of Henrik Fisker. I don't know why, but you say Henrik Fisker, well, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  45:54  
he was. How can you? how can how can you know, Hakan Samuelsson is the CEO of Volvo called the Volvo hockin.

Roberto Baldwin  46:02  
That seems so anti tip tip like to put a spotlight on yourself as a Swedish individual. It's so not

Nicole Wakelin  46:10  
true at all. That's wrong.

Roberto Baldwin  46:12  
They were like, No, no, no, no. I'm sure someone floated the idea like an American PR person. What about the hog? No, no, we don't. They just, they just turned off his zoom channel, like, you know, that connection that will not be we will not be discussing that any further.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:30  
I think you know, what, what's interesting about this, this concept, at least, I'll be curious to see how close this is to the production model. Compared to the current xc 90, it's got a much lower roof profile, you know, shorter greenhouse. And it, you know, the current xc 90 is much more upright design. And this looks more like a cross between, like the V 90 and, you know, somewhere between a V 90 and an xc 90, you know, maybe closer to like the V 90 cross country model. You know, so it's, it's more traditional wagon, like, but, but taller. So, it'll be interesting to see where they go with this.

Roberto Baldwin  47:12  
Looking at the concept and the greenhouse, I think the issue you have with the Pollstar two will will will rear its head again, in this this vehicle because if you look at the interior shots, the the headrest, the top, the bottom of the headrest is almost parallel with the window sill Yeah, your arm, so your beltline is gonna be really high. So your arms gonna be up there again, which I know you're not a fan of. So so that's that that might be an issue going forward. Volvo vehicle is that I like the idea is that there they are. In it was funny during the the tech event, well not funny, but it was interesting that they were talking about you know, people kept asking about well is this going to be level three is going to be level four in Volvo kept, like, sort of waving that off. And like we have to think we have supervised and unsupervised. And that's how we're looking at because, you know, whether the difference between level one three and four and like what this is, and then you start you get into this weird gray area between level three and four as your as an OEM and so I think they're just like, no, we're not going to deal with that sort of that the ambiguity like it's either supervised that means you're driving or it's unsupervised. The car is driving and of course Volvo they were also they reiterated the fact that they are responsible if while the car is unsupervised, which means it's driving itself and it gets in an accident, they're they're at fault, which is you know, pretty good.

Nicole Wakelin  48:44  
You know, I really think supervised and unsupervised. Because truly to the average person, you say level one level two level that doesn't mean anything to anybody, and someone's gonna have to like literally Google What the heck that means. Try to get some definitive understanding of that and then sit down in the car but if you say supervised, most people are gonna get Okay, I gotta pay attention. If you say unsupervised, it makes sense that Okay, now I could read a book like that's a much that's really a much better way to say it's something that the average person can understand and as opposed to someone who has to be somehow in the industry to understand what all these various levels

Roberto Baldwin  49:18  
because you're always as a writer always having to explain what level three is or level four or level two point like it's a level three and then you have to like spend like five graphs. breaking down the division? Are you showing that SAE like the little the new graphic that they put out a few years ago, right?

Nicole Wakelin  49:32  
You have to come up with some way to couch like, Oh, it's a level three, which means this which is better than a level two, which isn't as good as a level four. And you've just spent five paragraphs to explain one thing because it's that complicated and convoluted as opposed to unsupervised, supervised like that would that would simplify that whole thing and probably be way better for people to understand. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:51  
Yeah, I agree. Totally. You know, and this is, this has been a challenge for a long time ever since, you know, the the level taxonomy came out. I mean, that was developed by engineers for engineers. You know, it was never intended to be a marketing label that was applied. Yeah. And you're right, Robbie, they, you know, they were very scrupulous during the presentation in the q&a about not using those terms. And I like that. And for what it's worth, you know, the the day after the the event, I had a chance to talk with Eric coaling, who is the head of product presents Act, which is the division of Volvo that is doing all the software for this stuff. And they're working with closely with luminar, the LIDAR manufacturer, and he clarified that Yeah, at launch, it will only have supervised Driver Assist, the unsupervised capabilities will come at some later date, when if and when they feel that it is safe enough, you know, so it's very much very consistent with, you know, Volvo's long term philosophy of focusing on safety, you know, they're not going to release an unsupervised system until they are really confident that it will actually be safer than the human driver. And right now, it doesn't look like they don't think that's gonna be the case in 2022, when this vehicle launches,

Roberto Baldwin  51:17  
yeah, you're not going to get a beta. And you're, you know, Henry, Henry green is gonna be on Twitter, like say, hey, the beta will be out in two weeks, you know, you know, that's not gonna be a baby,

Sam Abuelsamid  51:28  
you're gonna promise we definitely, definitely, maybe definitely in promising two weeks, maybe it's

Roberto Baldwin  51:33  
probably for reals this time, guys, you're gonna have we're gonna have a real, real real,

Sam Abuelsamid  51:38  
he's an end, you know, and, you know, this stuff turns out to be a lot harder than we thought, yeah. Who would have

Roberto Baldwin  51:44  
guessed who to who to who to get that being as smart as a human behind the wheel was going to be tough,

Nicole Wakelin  51:51  
tricky thing to figure

Roberto Baldwin  51:52  
out, you know, am I, you know, the LIDAR, cameras, radar, redundancy, when it comes to these things, you need redundant systems. And these, you know, having all three of them on a vehicle is, to me is, is is incredibly important, because you're talking about people's lives, and not just the lives of the people in the car, talking with people to live the lives of the people outside of the car. Because if your car can't tell the difference between, say, you know, a horse and a dog, or, you know, because it's too far away, because it's just using photos, or it's just using cameras, or it's it has difficulty in bright sunlight. But you know, you feel, you know, you've been complacent, you've been lulled into complacency, because it's worked for like the last six months without any problems. And then one day, you're driving straight into the sun, and now it's not working and you don't know what to do. That is Yeah, because cameras have, well, the issues that cameras have all these sensors have some sort of issue their, you know, their strengths, and their weaknesses, and every, every single one of these sensors, and you want the redundancy so that the weakness of one sensor is taken over by the strength of another, as opposed to just throw up one thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:04  
Yeah, and, you know, in addition to the sensor redundancy, you also need computing redundancy. And one of the things that with the new platform that's going to be used for this vehicle that follows moving towards centralized computing cars, you know, high end cars today can have upwards of 100 electronic control units scattered around the car. And they're, they're starting to consolidate that. And Volvo is taking control of a lot more of the software away from their suppliers. As they as they integrate that they're going to have to Central, what they call their core computers in this thing, that are each powered by the Nvidia oron system on a chip, which is a really high powered compute compute device. It does 250 trillion operations per second. Which, For comparison, a couple years ago, I talked to Brian Zalewski, the CEO of Argo AI, and he was he was the head of the software effort on the the Carnegie Mellon team that won the DARPA challenge in 2007. And asked him how much compute power they had in that thing, and that Chevy Tahoe. He said, That thing was running 10, Intel Core two duo chips and blades. And so that had roughly about 1.8 billion operations per second. So this thing that the the oron a single chip has about 500,000 times the performance of what was in that in the in that car that one of the DARPA challenge in 2007. And how and with that, they still can't do the hill full self driving at the beginning.

Roberto Baldwin  54:45  
It's it is yeah, it's still you still can do it. Yeah, it's it's it's tough, but it feels like I've you know, whenever I hear in automakers sort of doing the due to do the due diligence, sorry, has a hard day. To do to in order to make this a reality I feel a lot better about you know, I guess autonomous driving level four, whatever you want to call it unsupervised driving in the future because the worst part and you know, most of this is still going to be on the highway. But the worst part of driving is when you're not driving, which is commuting communities driving, commuting, just standing in a very long line. That's that's what commuting is. In order to get to work. We do it I'm standing I'm sitting in a long line listening to podcasts. I'm it sounds like fun. No, it's not accurate

Nicole Wakelin  55:33  
description of what a

Roberto Baldwin  55:34  
commute is, it is not fun. It tired of listening to this person go on and on about whatever that podcast is about. It's breaking our living should

Sam Abuelsamid  55:45  
be listening to the wheel bearings podcast,

Roberto Baldwin  55:47  
you shouldn't be listening. If you're going to be stuck in a long line on your way to work, you should be listening to a podcast about cars. So we can tell you like Hey, hey, it's gonna get better. We swear. I mean, not next week, or maybe next year, but soon will not promise someday.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:05  
Things are gonna break from, from cars of the future to cars of the past. This week, the organizers of the concours elegance of America, which is here in Detroit, that's one of the four big concours classic car shows in the US along with Pebble Beach, Amelia Island and the Greenwich concours in Connecticut. They had a press conference. The event was recently acquired by Haggerty, the car insurance company, or actually they just do car insurance. They do insurance for all kinds of stuff, but they focus on classic cars, boats, various other things. Anyway, they acquired the show, and Maciel Haggerty, who is the CEO of Haggerty may announced that next year, right now, the show for the last about eight or nine years has been in Plymouth, Michigan, which is this town about 1520 miles west of Detroit. Before that, for the previous 30 years before that, it was up in Oakland County, North of Detroit at Meadowbrook Hall. It's going to be moving into Detroit proper next year for the first time. And it's going to be at the Detroit Institute of the Arts. So in the area around the DEA this fabulous Art Museum, they're going to be having all these amazing cars on display there. And one of the things I've always liked about, about the show, the concourse, is that, you know, they have always been focused on, you know, trying to get really interesting cars, you know, that that will get people excited about about cars. It's not, you know, they're not precious about, you know, cars, you know, just having, you know, the most highly restored, you know, better, far better than they were new, you know, classic cars, but they weren't really interesting cars, you know, so some, you know, in the past, they've, you know, they were one I think they were the first concours to ever have a class for drag racers drag cars. And you know, that's, that's always a perpetual favorite. And a couple of years ago, they had a class for rally cars. And they had, john Campion was there. Unfortunately, the late john Campion who died recently. He was there with several of his cars from his collection, including a Lancia, delta S for a rally, oh, 37 and several others. And Jim glickenhaus has been a regular participant at the concours of America. Hopefully he'll be back this year. One of the the the really interesting classes they've got this year that they announced the design class, the special design class this year, which is going to be judged by a group of automotive designers is the wedge class. So it's 1970s wedge cars. You know, that design trend we had in the 1970s. So, my friend Richard Schroeder writes for automotive news, he's going to be there with one of his tr eights. in that class. There's, I'm sure that there will probably be a lotus Asprey and maybe a Lamborghini antosz but I'll be I'll be fascinated to see that but you know, what do you what do you guys think about these sorts of shows like Pebble Beach and Greenwich and Amelia Island? Have you attended any of these and what do you think about going to these events?

Nicole Wakelin  59:39  
I've never been to it because there's nothing that's really close to me at all. They're always a pretty good hike. So I've never been to one there's a lot of appeal to them but I think it's you like you're saying this one has like stuff for drag racing and I think there's something to be said for having some more approachable cars like they don't have to be all these fancy perfectly restored to the bolts. You know, thing From 1928, or whatever, those are always beautiful, but it's kind of neat. I like seeing cars that I feel like real people love and drive and loved and drive drove at some point, not just something that's been sitting in someone's garage as a showpiece is beautiful as those are I like, I don't know, I like the cars that were real cars. And once upon a time they were, they were what we saw on the street, and everybody was driving. Everybody was coveting them. So like the wedge cars you're talking about, which makes me think of James Bond, every single one of them, I don't care what I don't care. They're all James Bond cars. That's cool. I think that's kind of fun. And so I think these kinds of shows are neat. I think they keep an interest in the heritage of automotive design alive. And I think they're, for people who are interested in automotive and interested in design, it's probably fascinating to see that to be able to see how much things have changed and to know that what they were making, not 50 years ago, but 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, is very different than what they're making today. And there's always a chance to do something new and to iterate that design into something new and exciting. I think that's kind of cool.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:05  
I've been to Pebble Beach a bunch of times, and it's on one hand, it's like okay, I've seen I feel like I've seen this I've seen this Model T again and again. And you know, there's a lot of cars there that you know, it's the same cars over and over and over again. And it is someone who has a lot of money who flew in on a private jet and this car was trucked in and is kept in a hermetically sealed vault somewhere with the with the humidity set at like the perfect you know, it's it's their Model T and their cigars like both of them are set kept in the same room.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:41  
I think it's it's kind of uncommon humidor Yeah, the car Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:44  
Yeah. So you know, those are they're fun to look at like once, maybe twice, but then there's like, Okay, this is again, this is a car that's, you know, it was it was driven, you know, 100 years ago, and now someone's just like, been babying it for the last 4050 years and there's a lot of cars like that especially at Pebble Beach. I think Pebble Beach is where you know, you really go and you're like okay, this is where all the fancy rich people put their money but you do see you know some weird older vehicles. I'm always fascinated whenever I see something from you know, like China or from Russia but that's few and far between at Pebble Beach and there's a lot of old Ferrari's which are always cool to look at but you know once you see one for old for Are you seeing them and so I you know I'm I'm more excited about the concourse of America but it isn't Detroit which means I probably won't be going to it. I actually won't be going to Pebble Beach this year to the to the concourse just because it's scheduling conflicts but that having said all the that it's if you're a car person going to these are is is outstanding because you know you are going to see the museum pieces the cars that haven't been driven the cars that are in like just ridiculous pristine condition but you're also going to see like you know weird little things here and there that have somehow slipped in that the the organizers are like Well okay, let's let's let's let's let an mg majored in okay one well that one in that someone like took good care of our maybe the Batmobile or maybe you know it's it's and there's always there's the cars in the periphery, you know people bring their cars and sometimes you'll see some interesting stuff you can strike up conversations with with people. I a fun story I like to tell at Pebble Beach was I was talking to my friend about they had the they had the Japanese cars for I think infinity had a Japanese cars. They were showing off and I was talking about my 69 Datsun roadster, my very first car, and I was trying to buy it back and I wanted to buy it back and make it into an electric car. That's sort of My dream is to buy it back from a friend of mine make into electric car, have, you know a little low mileage electric car to drive around my neighborhood? And this woman behind me? She heard me talking about the car. She's like, Oh, yeah, I had a 1600 and I had a 2000. I'm like, Oh, great. And then I was sort of, you know, kind of afraid to say yeah, I want to I want to do a retro mod on it and make an electric car. Because I'm at Pebble Beach where everything is it has to be exactly how it was when it came off the factory floor floor. And it turns out she's she was a she her and her husband owned the the Evie conversion company in San Diego that does all the Volkswagens and Porsches and stuff like that. So it was just like, you know, a fun little, you know, conversation that I had with someone who's also a car person. And so, you know, those things sort of pop up and you know, maybe I'll make some friends or some contacts or whatever. So it's, those are fun, but you know, you can also just go to a car show in your block if you're lucky. I think a day is probably a good day to go to car shows. Yeah, at neighborhood parks. It's Fourth of July. We're

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:55  
Yeah, no, I'm sure there's plenty of good car shows around. I was just to the cars and cars Yesterday, were, you know, there was a very eclectic collection of vehicles, you know, from, you know, old American muscle cars to, you know, to modern, you know, supercars. You know, it was a Lamborghini there, there was a early 2010s Porsche Cayman, somebody had an original 1964 Cobra 289 Cobra, they're they're not not a replica, but the real thing. But, you know, again, one of the other cool things about the the concours of America and you know, Pebble Beach, there's all kinds of other events that go on, you know, they call it Monterey car week. Now, there's all kinds of other events going on around that, you know, that week around that event, you know, the and the event here, you know, last, you know, typically three days. And there's actually some stuff that goes on earlier in the week. But on the Saturday morning, the show is on Sunday, the official concours is on Sunday, but on Saturday, they have some cool events. There's a ride and drive program, there's a cars and coffee. And there's also the concours de lemons, which is specifically for you know, beaters and all kinds of oddball stuff that you can bring in that's, you know, those things are all free and open to the public, you don't have to have a ticket or buy a ticket for anything, which is fun. The whole event this year, runs from July 23, to the 25th. of this year, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And, and I'll have a link on the in the show notes where you can buy tickets for the concours, if you're interested in it runs from 10 to 430, on July 20 10am, to 4:30pm on July 25. At see what else. Yeah, and there's all there's also some Saturday, there's some interesting seminars, you know, on various topics that you might be interested in one of the cars that's going to be on display at the concours is black ghost, a 1970 Dodge Charger, that is in the the Detroit muscle cars 70 to 71 class. And there's also another seminar on the Ferrari Monza. And they had one of the the press conference is actually going to be four of these modern Ferrari monsters at the show on Sunday. So lots of lots of interesting things to do. Alright, next up, GM made an announcement this week, we've been hearing all kinds of announcements over the last 612 months, about car companies getting into, you know, they're going to be building all these TVs, and then they're going to be getting investing in building their own batteries. And of course, if you're going to build batteries, you got to have the raw materials for those batteries. And right now, you know, for the batteries and TVs, you know, we rely a lot a lot on things like lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt. And most of that stuff currently is not produced in North America, you know, if they're going to produce batteries here, you know, they've got to have the raw materials. And, you know, most of the the lithium used in batteries today is mined in either South America or Australia, most of its processed in China, and then it's got to be shipped here to make batteries. And, you know, lithium is very common in, you know, in the earth, and then in the environment. But there's just hasn't been very much of it actually mined. And so, GM is partnering with a company called controlled thermal resources to produce lithium in Southern California from a geothermal field. And so this, this is kind of a interesting approach. Because, you know, one of the challenges, you know, with with producing the raw materials is, you got a lot of processing that has to happen, which, in itself, you know, in addition to the mining, actually, you know, takes energy as well. And so, the Salton Sea in Southern California, they've been developing geothermal power production, using the the hot steam coming out of there, out of the German geothermal field to run turbines to generate electricity, and what CTR want is going to be doing and they started prototyping this and they're gonna they plan to have a pilot production facility running by 2024

is to extract the the brine, the hot brine from this geothermal field, separate the steam from it to run the turbine, and then use that electricity that are generating some of it will be used to separate the lithium from the brine, and the rest will give get fed back into the grid. And then once the lithium is extracted, the Brian gets pumped back into into the geothermal field and so this is potentially going to be a very low cost low carbon, or no carbon approach to lithium production. And GM thinks that they can get all the lithium that they need for their North American production out of facilities like this. What do you guys think about, you know, mining and development of of these resources to in order to make this transition to EBS?

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:26  
I mean, I think it's a good idea to come up with sources that are outside of the traditional means that we have right now. I mean, if we're going to have that many V's, you got to come up with something else to get some of these products. Did they say, Sam? is this? Are they going to have to open a whole bunch of places like this in order to support the lithium that they're going to need? Or was this what they say like this will provide us with 25%? Like, how many of these do they need to make that happen? That?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:51  
They're not sure yet? Okay. Yeah, that's, that's something they're still I mean, this is still a process that's in development. But, you know, that, you know, I talked to Tim grou, who is the director of electrification strategy at GM, and at the end of the episode, I'll include a interview with Tim will Pat and paste that in here. But, you know, he thinks that, you know, by the end of the decade, they can be producing all of the lithium that they need for their North American production. And what what they're trying to do is move towards localization of a lot of the resources, you know, so for stuff they're doing in China, they'll, they'll get it locally in China for stuff in North America, they'll do it here, and, and so on, you know, because that it also dramatically reduces their transportation costs, removing all these raw materials around. So he does think that they can get all the lithium they need in North America by the end of the by the end of the 2020s. But whether it'll all be from this facility, or from a mix of this and other facilities that are not yet. Interesting,

Roberto Baldwin  1:11:57  
what I mean, it's seems like they're what, what i what i appreciate is they're they're trying to come up with these, these processes that aren't as as bad as you know, the petroleum industry. I mean, we use petroleum for a lot of things, not just for gasoline, but you can just look at the Gulf of Mexico this week with it, the water was on fire. So if we can reduce the ocean being ablaze, like it's like, like, like, it's, it's, it's the beginning. Yeah, if we can, if we can find ways to sort of reduce our, our insane impact on the planet, and we're always going to have an impact on the planet, regardless of what we do. But you know, we want to reduce that as much as possible. Because at the end of the day, if things go awry, it's not the planet that's going to go away, it's going to be us planet will be fine, the planet will just reset itself and everything will grow again, and it will be all gone. So, you know, when you when you really think about, like, being environmentally sane, is for the longevity of you know, the human race. How about that? So if you can, you know, if you know, as electrification becomes more and more the future of transportation, we got to figure out ways to make sure that we're able to source all this stuff without, you know, repeating the mistakes of the past. And I think this, this sort of helps.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:23  
Okay, so with that, why don't we move into some listener questions for this week, and we've got quite a few of them. So let's start off with Coach Cabrera. This is actually one from last week that came in after we recorded the show. Do you think the EPA and states will continue to tighten smog requirements to get older cars off the road? What do you think?

Roberto Baldwin  1:13:49  
I think the EPA, it really comes down to the individual states, I think still, especially with California, I live in California, so we have, you know, district as admission standards in the country and a lot of states sort of follow suit to whatever California is doing. Getting older cars off the road is a bit tricky, because you have to take into account that some of those older cars are used, you know, not everyone can afford an Eevee you know, I have you know, the average you know, if you're working class, you know, it's fun to be like, Hey, we all moved TVs in the earth is going to be great. Yeah, but that doesn't mean you know, $35,000 for a car, even if it's you know, isn't going to work for a lot of people, you know, they start to buy you know, these older vehicles, these gas powered vehicles and you know, a used car is, is you know, is environmentally sound buying a used car is environmentally sound, because you're not having, you know, the the initial cost of the, you know, the, the the building that car, it takes energy to build a car. Yeah, it takes energy to build a car. It takes a village people a village of energy. And so I think the old cars off the road, there might be another Cash for Clunkers type situation. In the future, I was kind of hoping there'll be one like, like a, you know, an Eevee for clunkers. thing. But I don't think that's that's going to happen anytime soon. But I think that's probably more where we're gonna see as opposed to, you know, taking older cars off the road now reducing the amount of new cars that are at our gas power, that's definitely going to keep happening.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:20  
Yeah, I think they'll continue to do it not so much like you said, not to get old cars, off the road, because there are people who who are driving older cars, because it's all they can afford. And you know, if you need to use car, it's not going to be a 2020, it's going to be you know, if you're, if you're tight on cash, it's going to be a 2012, or something, and it's not going to get the fuel economy of anything that we're doing today that it's not going to, you know, the smog requirements that were existing, then are totally different, I think people, you have to be really careful of, of trying to do things that make the environment better, which is a worthy cause, but at the expense of people who still need to drive a car to get to a job that they really need and don't have a lot of options. But I think that tightening those requirements, doesn't so much get older cars off the road sooner, but I think it does encourage automakers to continue producing cars going forward that will meet those and then some, and I think it does that more than pulling cars off the road. Because you can't you like you said, You can't just okay, we're gonna price everybody who can't afford something made in 2018, right out of having a car, you just can't do that you impact people's lives and their livelihoods too much. So I think it's an admirable goal. But I think there's a certain balance that has to be found there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:31  
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, as an example, you know, the, the average price, average transaction price on new vehicles recently hit just about $40,000. And actually, this a couple of days ago, we hit had the the June, sales announcements from the automakers. And Ford, for example, in their sales release, said that their average transaction price in the first half of this year, was up to almost $47,000. And that, in part, that's because, you know, they've discontinued all of their lower end cars, that, you know, they no longer sell the Fiesta and the focus and the fusion, you know, so, you know, they're selling nothing, but you know, SUVs and crossovers and trucks now, which are all considerably more expensive. So they're, you know, the average price of a Ford vehicle is almost $47,000, which is crazy. You know, now, that's, that's gonna go down, that average is gonna go down, you know, later this year, when they launched the maverick, their small pickup, because that's going to start at 20. Grand. And, you know, they have also said that they're going to introduce, you know, some more affordable vehicles, affordable electric vehicles. So that'll help. But yeah, I think, you know, the vast majority of people never buy a new car, they buy used cars, you know, they sell about three and a half times as many used cars every year as we sell new cars. And so, you know, most people rely on, you know, affordable used cars. So, I think it would be it'd be foolish to try and do something, you know, certainly, you know, you're not going to do anything retroactively that says, you know, cars built before 2015, you know, suddenly have to have, you know, better emission controls than what they were originally built with. I mean, that would be, that would be crazy. Nope, nobody could afford that. But, you know, what you might see some states that don't currently have, you know, emissions tests to in order to register your car, like you do in California, and some states where you got to take a smog test, you know, you might see some more states adopt those, so that at least the older cars have to be kept up to the same standard as when they were new. But I think even that's going to be problematic, because that's going to add costs for you know, for a lot of people that rely on those cars for transportation. And I think, you know, we're just going to have to, you know, hopefully they the industry will, you know, work to bring some more affordable ease to market which you know, will eventually trickle down into the used car market. And, and make, you know, make those e V's more affordable to more people. Yeah. So, let's see, next up, Brianna Wu, friend of the show, who was on a couple of times, way back probably about three years ago now. asked us and Brianna is a fan of Porsches and she's got I think three of them I think she's got or maybe three Yeah, three, I think she's got a an eight and 86 or 87 911. Targa a more a newer 1787 18 Cayman, and also a 986 Boxster. first gen Boxster says, Do you think 9986 Boxster prices will stay at the current level? Is it on the verge of becoming a modern classic? You know, we've seen over the past year or two that a lot of Cars especially Porsches have climbed dramatically in price. You know, and the the nine, the first generation boxsters are still relatively affordable by, you know, by Porsche standards, you know, at least by maybe not necessarily to, to keep them running and maintain them. But what do you what do you guys think?

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:24  
I, you know, what i when i when anything was built in the 90s, and the early 2000s right now is, is the prices are just ridiculous. And I don't see I don't see those prices going down at any point. I think Generation X is, you know, we're, we're getting a little bit of money. Some of the millennials are certainly, you know, they think they're looking at these older vehicles is like, oh, like, you know, maybe Gen X may have looked at Boomer vehicles before, but I think there's there's, I don't I don't see the prices of a Boxster going down, which is sort of funny, because I remember a lot of people in the late 90s, early 2000s, sort of like poopoo in the Boxster. They're like, what is this? This is, this is what is this? And now I think a lot of people kind of come full circle. We're like, Oh, you know, the Boxster might be a nice car, you know, you could convertible drive around, it'd be great. So if

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:13  
anything hangs around long enough, and suddenly becomes cool again, you know, and I think that's where the boxer is right now. I think, and I don't think it's getting any cheaper. I think people like, it's gonna stay there. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:22  
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And looking at the haggard evaluation tool, you know, for a 97 boxer. Yeah, that was the first model year the Boxster. A concours quality one, they valued currently valued at $25,000, an excellent quality they put at 16. Five. Yeah, and you know that the cool thing about the Haggerty tools, it does show you the change in value, you know, the values over time. And they've, they've actually been the boxers have actually been fairly steady for the last three years. You know, they, the price has been pretty flat, but they have had a bit of an uptick in the first half of 2021. And, in fact, you can get a good one for it says, 9800, you know, so, you know, 10 grand for a Porsche is pretty cheap, you know, of course, parts are going to cost you a fortune. But, you know, that's that's not a crazy amount of money for a used car like this. But you know, as the prices of nine elevens, and, you know, other particularly nine elevens, but, you know, other Porsche sports cars have gone through the roof in the last couple of years. You know, I think, you know, more and more people are going to be taking a look at the Boxster as a viable option. And I, I would be shocked if these prices don't go up significantly in the next 12 to 18 months. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Also, another question from Brianna. There's a white 90s Toyota Supra just decaying on my block, and I want to give it a good home. And she wonders about you know, whether it's okay to, to go and, you know, knock on the door and offer to buy it. What do you think?

Roberto Baldwin  1:23:14  
I had a, what did I have? I don't know, I had a car. And I kept having people it was it was, I didn't have the money to fix it. For a few months, I was in college, and I kept having people put notes on my car. Oh, was my 90 Honda Civic, Honda Civic hatchback. And this is like the late 90s. And I kept having people put notes on the car to buy the car with the phone numbers and stuff. And I wasn't like appalled, or annoyed or anything. I was like, Oh, well, if I this is an opportunity, if I ever want to sell it. I can I think putting a note on the car might be nice. I saw a gentleman with a with an mp3 a few years ago, not a few years ago, like six months ago, I gave him my business card. Like if you ever want to sell this, give me a holler. So I don't think it's It's out of the question to sort of ask people in some, you know, the the idea of keeping a project car forever and never doing anything with it. You know, a lot of people do that. They're like, Oh, any day I'm going to work on this any day, I'm going to work on this any day, I'm going to work on this. And maybe that that note or that knock on the door. I think right now probably a no would probably be safer, just because people are still a little nervous about people coming to the door because of COVID. But I think a note might be the thing that sort of pushes them over the edge, like hey, you know, I see this or if you ever want to sell it, please, you know, be sure to contact me sort of thing. So I don't see why anyone would be angry about that.

Nicole Wakelin  1:24:36  
I would Yeah, I'd leave a note or knock on the door. And when why not at the very least what you're saying to someone is, you know, hey, I love your car. You aren't looking to sell that by the chance. I mean, it's not like Hey, your car. If you were to say like, everything's just falling apart in your driveway, can I buy that off for you? Because it's an eyesore. That's one thing. But hey, your car's really cool. Are you looking to sell it? I don't think anyone's gonna get upset about that. It's all in how you proceed. Yeah, I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:02  
totally agree and, and, you know, like, like I said, you know, if it's something that, you know, somebody just hasn't figured out what they want to do with and, you know, you're willing to put in the effort to fix it up and and get it running again. Absolutely. I mean it's it's better it's better to have you know, somebody that wants it and and has the resources to do something with it than to just let it continue to decay. Yeah. All right, next up, Coach Cabrera asks, our Eevee is considered a luxury car a model three feels very plasticky compared to a gas or hybrid car at the same price point

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:42  
is coming down who's building that Evie? I mean, I've sat in the EQ s and that feels very much like a very futuristic s class and of course the S classes the S Class it's the you know, the the luxury of luxury cars so I think it really comes down to the automaker and what they're where they're positioning that car, I mean, Tesla's money has to go into batteries and and and motors it you know, it doesn't really go all that much into the interiors, the interiors are still pretty sparse. They're not the sort of minimalism that you get in a Volvo it's something completely different and you know, it doesn't feel very luxury when you get into a Tesla and I haven't gotten to the New Model S plaid but you know, I it's it's it's really down to the automaker and where they're going to position that car now. I think.

Nicole Wakelin  1:26:30  
I don't I don't think they're flat out considered luxury cars. But I do think there's a even with a cheap, Evie, what because they like a leaf or something. There's still a sense of exclusivity, to having an Eevee not necessarily that it's a luxury car. But if you have one and now you guys, well, you Roberta, you're in California, and Evie is really popular here. They're not I'm in the northeast, and you don't see him like you do out there. So there's a certain sense of like, Oh, they have an Eevee. That's, that's unique, that's different, not necessarily that it's a luxury thing, but just that, okay, you're thinking a little outside the box. And that's kind of cool. And it's sort of exclusive here, whether you're buying a leaf or you're buying a Tesla or whatever. So there is definitely a different, you know, I don't think they're considered luxury cars. But I do think people, a lot of people look at them as being sort of exclusive in different in unique, regardless of whether they have a plasticky interior, or a really beautiful interior.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:28  
Yeah, I mean, when they first launched the Model S, it was fairly expensive and remains expensive. To this day. Yeah. And it was compared against a lot of luxury brands, like, you know, BMW and an Audi and, and Mercedes Benz, because it was at a similar price point to those vehicles. And, you know, similarly, the model three, you know, is, is in the same price range as a three series. You know, but I think just because something is expensive, doesn't necessarily make it luxury, I think, you know, luxury is something very different, you can have something that is relatively affordable, you know, like, say a Mazda that feels more premium, it feels more luxury, but is not does not necessarily price that way. And, you know, conversely, you can have, you know, something that is more expensive, but doesn't feel like a luxury car. So, you know, it's certainly a premium car based on its price point. But I, you know, I would not certainly the model three or the model y i don't think I would consider those to be luxury cars. But I think I think we will start to see more affordable, we are going to see more affordable e V's coming to the market, you know, over the next couple of years, you know, that are much more mainstream, you know, that have a similar price point. And you know, another good example, the Chevy Bolt, until the 2022, bolt went on sale this spring, you know, the refresh bolt? The, you know, it was typically priced around $40,000. And nobody would call that a luxury car. See, Nicole, you got to you got to leave. So,

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:10  
yeah, I've got to be on my mom sending me a message. I'm not quite sure what's going on, but I got a deal.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:14  
All right. Well, take care and we'll talk to you later. Okay. The last couple of questions here. Okay. Sorry about that. But no problem. So, yeah, the I mean, the bolt, you know, a $40,000 bolt is certainly not a luxury car. So, yeah, I think you know, you got to separate price and luxury. They're two different things. All right. Next up, AJ asks, Is the Camaro going to survive? how did how did GM go into Colorado Canyon without a plan for an SUV off that platform? So it's really two separate questions. So first, you think the girl's gonna survive?

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:51  
I'm surprised it's still around. He just kept like, because I just did a quick search and I think the 2020 sales During the calendar year decreased by 38%. So it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:07  
was not a great year.

Roberto Baldwin  1:30:08  
Yeah, but 30,000 units sign your blood, not a lot of car fluids or a big company

Nicole Wakelin  1:30:14  
like everything is fine. We checked all of that.

Roberto Baldwin  1:30:19  
I don't know. I mean, maybe they might do a refresh maybe they might do a sort of another nod to the past a little bit to try to try to try to sort of get get the get people excited about like people are saying about the Mustang and about the challengers. But yeah, it's it's a I'm sure there are people at GM right now who are like, what are we gonna do about the Camaro? Are we gonna let it like run out and then just not not refresh it? Or are we going to go all in and, you know, try to try to hit that nostalgia hit that everyone you know, we got the Nissan Pro, we got the, you know, the Mustang, we got to do anything that's old is new again. Are they gonna try that again?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:59  
Yeah, well, you know, the, the Camaro is certainly not as old as the Challenger and dodge has managed to keep, you know, that one, you know, fresh with, you know, continuously more powerful versions of the Hellcat, and you know, that thing selling better than it ever has. So it's not, it's not the, you know, an old car can't sell well. But, you know, this current generation Camaro is always it's never met expectations in terms of sales, you know, is as good as it might be, in a lot of respects. I think that, you know, they'll probably keep it going for a couple more years. You know, basically just kind of chugging along with maybe some mild updates. And then, you know, there has been some speculation that they might move it to an Eevee platform, you know, make make it make the next generation Camaro electric. Yeah, which could be interest, give

Roberto Baldwin  1:31:50  
it I'll give it a lapse of a few years, let it just sort of go away, and then bring it back like the Hummer or making an Eevee. A Camaro, Evie. Car, American lightning, you know, stuff like that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:01  
It's certainly it's certainly doable. I mean, we've seen other manufacturers do it. And what about the the Colorado Canyon and the lack of an SUV off of that platform?

Roberto Baldwin  1:32:11  
I am, anytime someone doesn't make it an SUV, I'm always wondering why there must be some reason. I feel like because they're just there, you know, SUVs and trucks, they can charge a premium for almost the same amount of stuff as you have in a sedan. And so why Why haven't you done that? So I'm, yeah, I'm perplexed as well. Maybe you have some better insight as a former

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:33  
I yeah. I don't know. I mean, there's no reason that there was no reason they couldn't do it. You know, and I think, you know, there's against another one where there's been speculation at various times that, you know, they were going to do some sort of GMC off road or, you know, to challenge the Wrangler, and now, the Bronco, which they've never done, I mean, that would be the the obvious platform to use as the basis for that. And for whatever reason, they've they've never given the green light to that program. You know, I think, again, now, you know, it's at the point where GM is going all in on EBS, I think that they're probably going to let you let the Colorado Canyon run its course, you know, do some updates to it over the next few years. And, and then, you know, do you know if they're gonna do that GMC, Wrangler, challenger, then, you know, make it electric? Do you use the altium platform? And do you know, like, you know, in the past with the Hummer, you had the, the Hummer h2 and h3, which was off the, you know, the previous generation Trailblazer platform? Do you know, do something similar with with this one? You know, make a smaller, a smaller Hummer? Yeah, essentially, an H an electric h3

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:53  
some that doesn't wait 9000 pounds?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:56  
Hopefully. Alright, last question from mightiness. How long until the non Tesla charging experience is good enough. And you've you've also had the chance to drive some e V's that are not Tesla's just as I have, you know, what's your experience been? Like, with charging at electrify America charge point TV go? And, you know, when do you think they'll finally get their act together?

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:22  
It's getting better. It is a there's a progression of them getting better. I think the charge points and the sort of smaller companies that have been around forever, like there wasn't a lot of Evie. So they're not getting a lot of money in order to make their systems better before you know, every time you went to a charge point, you had to, you know, you had to have an account, you had to have this you had to do this, you know, and they're getting to the point where now they accept, you know, a credit card, or you know, if you have a Mustang Maki I went to electrify America I just plugged it in and it's it's getting there. I think there's some growing pains especially for electrify America. They're sort of the sort of de facto challenger right now to Tesla's supercharger network they are, and they're investing heavily in building out very quickly. But there have been a lot of growing pains, you know, you hear stories of like, Oh, yeah, half of these electrify America stations aren't working or they'll get there and there's maintenance going on. So there are growing pains for these, for these for these companies and for these charging stations, but I think they're, they're getting there. I think we're probably about 18 months, two years before, when you pull up to just electrify America or any of them, where it feels as seamless as a Tesla station. I think there's a, you know, I'm giving him a little bit of leeway. But you know, two years is a long time in the Eevee world. And at that point, we're gonna have some, you know, we'll probably have more views on the road. You know, if you look at the roadmaps for a lot of OEMs. And so I think it's, it's, it's, you have to be good enough, you have to be as as seamless as as gas. And I don't think they're quite there yet.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:03  
Yeah, I think, you know, the the plug in charge standard, which EAA was the first charging company to adopt that goes a long way in that direction. Right now, I've got a VW ID for which we'll talk about next week. And I went to the EAA station down the road yesterday to charge it up. And you know, it like the Mach II, you know, it also has support for plug in charge, and I pulled in the first charging stall, I want to plug it into it, I plugged it in, it wouldn't communicate with the stall. Yeah, it's wouldn't said, Sorry, can't do anything, I don't know what to do. threw up some error code. So I pulled over into the next stall, and plugged it in there. And I plugged it in, and it authenticated and just start charging automatically, I didn't have to mess around with anything, it was all the car was already set up on the EA network. And it just it took care of it. And that's the way it should be. EA has had some issues with one of their suppliers of charging that the actual charging equipment, and they have stopped doing business with that particular supplier. And they're going back and retrofitting a couple 100 of their stations with new chargers from a different vendor, the vendor they've been using, they used for the rest of their stations. And hopefully that will take care of it. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely an issue that all of the charging providers, and we're actually working on scheduling, getting somebody from charge point on the show, probably in a couple of weeks, to join us to talk about some of these problems. And so we'll, we'll dive in a little deeper into that. But, you know, as we start to get all these TVs coming to market, the charging providers really need to get their act together and make sure that those things are working all the time that they have to be as reliable or more reliable than gas stations. Because otherwise, you know, people aren't going to want to buy TVs.

Roberto Baldwin  1:38:04  
Yeah, and the issue for a lot of them is that electrify America, all these they actually have to have the car in their their shop in order to make sure that the software handshake between the car and the charging station works. It's not like you know, you just build a car and you just take that car to the gas station, you put gas in it, like there has to be a connection between that vehicle and the charging station in order for the whole system to work. And they have every car is a little bit different. And every you know, so they have to bring these cars in and make sure that they work and then send it back to the the automaker or they have to fix there and it's Yeah, it's a bit more complicated than than just like, here's a car, plug it into the wall like you would your phone. Not really

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:45  
even that doesn't always work. I mean, you know, I've had issues with that, too, where, you know, I've had cars that I plug in, and soon as I plug it in, you know, it'll trigger circuit breaker or trip a GFCI outlet, because because there was an issue with again, with the communications and what the car was trying to pull. So you know, even even home charging it, you know, there there are issues. But yeah, I mean, you know, you go to a gas station, you stick the nozzle in the hole and pull the trigger and it starts flowing. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't the pump, the gas pump doesn't care what kind of car it is, as long as it's got the right size, filler neck, and you can stick the nozzle in there. But you've got a lot of communications going on back and forth between the car and the charger, you know, both to authenticate the car, you know, figure out which card is so that can bill you correctly. But then also, you know, because, you know, not every car will accept a charge at the same rate. So the car has to tell the charger Okay, I'm good for 125 kilowatts, or I'm good for 350 kilowatts, or I'm good for 150 and you know, because you can't the charger can't pump in more electrons. You're pumping electrons in faster than the battery, and that car can accept it. So there's all these things that have to be negotiated between the car and the charger before it all works, and, and, you know, so there's hardware issues, and there's a lot of software things that have to be worked out. And in the case of Tesla, you know, they're, you know, because superchargers only work with Tesla vehicles, it's a lot easier. It's kind of, it's kind of like with, you know, you know, Apple Macintosh versus windows, you know, Apple only has to support one brand of computers with their operating system. Yeah, Mac OS, or iOS, you know, with their devices. And, you know, Microsoft support hundreds of different brands of computers with all kinds of different hardware configurations. So it does become more of a challenge, but hopefully, we'll get it sorted out. Alright, that's it for this week. Thank you very much. Keep listening right after this. For my interview that I did with Tim grew the director of electrification strategy at General Motors about their partnership with controlled thermal resources to manufacture low carbon and low cost lithium in California. Robbie, any last thoughts?

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:11  
No, have a have a good week, people. Thanks for listening. Alright. Bye. Bye.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:19  
Talking today with Tim groom, the director of electrification strategy. I believe that's the correct title right. at General Motors. And, Tim, thanks for joining me today. You just announced this morning that General Motors is investing are partnering with I don't know if there's actually an equity investment in a company called controlled thermal resources. Yeah. Controlled thermal resources. Yes. Thank you for that. I don't mean to jump in on you. Sorry. Yeah. And, and the goal is to start localizing production of lithium, which, obviously, you know, with the announcements that GM has made of its plans for cell production, over the coming years, now you're up to four plants through your joint venture with LG Chem, which is LTM cells, LLC, that's a lot of batteries, that's going to require a lot of lithium. And currently, most of the lithium that's used in batteries, I believe, is sourced primarily from South America, and from Australia. And and most of it, as far as I know, is processed in China. So what what is the advantage for for GM or for any automaker, with trying to localize lithium production, you know, both the the mining extraction and the processing of lithium for batteries?

Unknown Speaker  1:42:53  
Yeah, so, um, with anything, when you're dealing with a high volume manufacturing situation, we've, we basically have a situation where we want to do the best value with the highest quality for our customers. And so if you look at this investment, it's really to accelerate the innovation of this, you know, lithium extraction and purification. And if you look at, you know, CTR controlled thermal resources, right, they have a very novel process, with very low carbon footprint from a geothermal lithium field, where you can take this geothermal brine, and then you can directly extract the lithium from it. And it's high quality lithium. And so we're always searching for the best innovations in the value chain here to get the best lithium at the lowest cost within a region of manufacture. And so we're going to make a lot of vehicles in North America, and it's a very natural thing to have us, you know, invest in this. Now. It's not finished yet, right? This is truly an innovation investment. And more importantly, it's a commercial collaboration, to say, Well, how do we work together to take the best of their experts, plus the best of General Motors experts to really drive this cost of lithium down on this direct extraction process? And, and so an interrupt me, Sam, if I'm going on too long, but I just love talking about this stuff. is really, yeah, it's really all about, you know, how do you, you know, find these fundamental differences where there are no tailings, right? It's low carbon, but it also is not weather dependent, as many mining operations are and so you can run 24 seven and a continuous process to feed the plants. And they've got a great leadership team there with a great technology that will go then try to enhance and accelerate. And you know, we're really talking about bringing on a very revolutionary process and 2024 sooner, just to support our Eevee and autonomous vehicle. You know, 30 2035, you know, zero tailpipe emissions goal of General Motors. And so I always like to say, we say what we do, and we do what we say. And when it when it comes to this, this is an example of what I call the continuous innovation that GM does. If we look at our innovation, we have continuous innovation where we're working on the supply chain, we're getting more operating equipment efficiency, we're really bringing this cost down and keeping this quality system up. And that's coupled with our breakthrough innovation with like, the LTM platform is an example of that. And then it's our true next generation innovation coming forward, where this lithium competed into the next generation cells in the future. And so this is a great example of some core continuous innovation, that GM is the first one to invest in to try to accelerate it to get it to be reality as fast as we possibly can.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:59  
So last fall, when Tesla held their battery day, they talked about doing the localized lithium production as well in Nevada. And they talked about a process where they dig up clay, mix it with salt, extract news that would extract the lithium and then put the clay back in the ground. Can you talk a little bit more about the process that CTR is using? Because I think it's it's quite different from from what Tesla's doing.

Unknown Speaker  1:46:25  
Yeah, and but the fundamentals are the same, right? I mean, the lithium is mixed with undesirable material. And essentially, you know, how efficiently and how low carbon, you can pull that out of that undesired material and purify it, is what you're looking for. And so, you know, I don't work for Tesla, I'm not a total expert in any way. But in general, you know, you know, when you deal with clay lithium, you describe it fairly well, right, you've got to dig it up, you've got to put it through some type of assault or solvent to separate it. And they have to return that material. And the great thing about the Ctr processes with the geothermal brine, they've got a very innovative technology that directly gets that lithium out of there without additional steps. And that's why we are investing in trying to accelerate it. And you know, it's to the point now, where their prototypes are working, well, we've got the lithium in, we have good results from their lithium on the testing we've done so far with it. But we have to be very diligent and disciplined moving forward, because lithium is the main transporter of these electric vehicles, you know, if you kind of get to the fundamentals of the electric car, the lithium ion will release an electron, let it run through a motor, and then return it back into the lithium ion back and forth, you know, hundreds of 1000s of times throughout the lifecycle of the vehicle. And so we have to make sure that this lithium is pure, we have to make sure there's there's all this longevity associated with the purity of the lithium. And we have to also make sure that as we scale this thing up, that we can keep that 24 hour operation running and that it doesn't break down and it doesn't have high maintenance intervals. And that's part of the breakthrough innovation that we're working with CTR on to say, Well, it looks really good. Now. Now let's go make it a reality. And you can imagine these industrialized plants, right? I mean, they are just massive plants that you have to ramp into improve every step of the way, that you can keep that quality up. And that 24 hour operation running with no breakdowns. And so that's the phase we're entering now that we're trying to accelerate, you know, even before 2024, to say, we can really outdo a traditional mining technique, you know, which is, as you described, right, dig it up, separate it, clean it, and then put put the tailings back in. And this is all just direct, where we pull it straight out of the geothermal brine.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:45  
So how much for a typical lithium ion battery? I mean, how much actual lithium Do you need, like, you know, say, per kilowatt hour of battery capacity?

Unknown Speaker  1:48:58  
Oh, that's a good question. So remember, if you do it in kilograms, and things like that, it's a very light metal. So it's a little bit deceiving. If I would say, you know, it's by weight, it's a relatively small percentage of the battery. But by purpose, it's the main transport medium. And so you know, you want to make sure that it's pure, there's no impurities in it, and that it can transport throughout the life of the vehicle, through the separator and through the electrolyte. So it's a relatively low number when it comes to you know, the cell, the foil, the electrolyte, the binders that you put in there, but it's got a very important job to do with throughout the life of the battery.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:49:44  
I guess. Yeah, I mean, right now ultium cells is announced plans for four plants with roughly 140 gigawatt hours a year of capacity to support those four plants. And presumably there'll be more at some stage. You know, how many tons Have lithium would you need for that, for that capacity of batteries? ourselves? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:50:07  
I don't have that number off top of my head. And I'll tell you a lot of that number is going to change throughout the year, as we get more efficient with how we use this stuff. Quite frankly, now we have a little bit of reserved lithium in ourselves to make sure it lasts the life of the vehicle and in secondary use. And as we get better, we're going to try to do our best to reduce that. But, uh, you know, it's tons and tons to make that happen. And, you know, the good news is that Imperial Valley there has got a lot of supply, and it could feed many, many of our factories.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:41  
So with, you know, that that first pilot plant, I guess it's a pilot plant that's expected to be up and running in about 2024. What What do you see is that the timeframe when you might be able to source the lithium, the lithium, you need at least for your North American facilities, locally or in North America? Is that something this decade? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:09  
Oh, wait before then. I mean, we're moving fast at General Motors here. Okay. And so it's all just, well, how do you make prudent investments, and we invest, as soon as we have proof that we, we have the confidence to make it happen. And I don't know if you caught one of our videos on the Hummer. But, you know, we talked about revolutionary innovation. And it's not just the innovators that know how it is today, but it's how they can make it in the future. And so we're looking for these revolutionary innovators to say we've got enough confidence go take that next step and make that investment to industrialize this. And so far, it's worked out really well for us our joint venture with LG energy systems and Ohio, with this collaboration, and this commercial collaboration has yielded all kinds of efficiency improvements, all kinds of manufacturing detail that the GM manufacturer, manufacturing engineering group has brought to the LG energy systems manufacturing group, and we just are seeing meltable benefits from that. And so, you know, started in 2024, if it does prove to be the best thing for our customers, we will ramp it fast, and we'll get everything we can out of it. You know, within a couple years.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:52:25  
You know, as you transition from, you know, the NMC batteries you're using today and the bolt and bolt, Evie and Evie, to nmca for your ultium cells. And then at some point to potentially to a lithium metal cell that you've talked about with the work you're doing with SBS does going from nmca to a lithium metal, how much impact does that have on the aside from what you've already described in terms of the efficiency of using lithium, just that sort of transition does that have much of an impact on how much lithium you need to use.

Unknown Speaker  1:53:03  
Um, it always is a little more efficient when we do our innovation technology like that. And so if you look at the NMC to the nmca, the aluminum doping basically gives you a better structure. So you don't have to overbuild the cathode as much to meet the life of the vehicle. And so that's a more efficient use of the lithium throughout the lifetime of the vehicle. As we move to lithium metal, we look to the same type of efficiencies to say it's going to get a little bit better. Now, categorically, it's not like it gets 50% better, right, we don't over build the cathodes by 50%. Today with extra lithium in there, it's more than a couple percent range that we do with that. And you know, as the energy density goes up, and these these actual battery packs get smaller, you know, we had talked previously about the structure of the battery pack. Well now that goes way down on the structural demands simply because the lithium is lithium cells are lighter, and they take less space. And so you get a lot of these multiplying effects going together. Where you know, now the vehicle is actually a little less load on the battery as it's going the same distance. And you can get less lithium from that as well at the system level. And so I rambled on there, Sam quite a bit with some assuming a lot of familiarity with you and your listeners. I hope that wasn't good for you.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:54:27  
Now that's good. I'll, I'll put in the show notes. I'll put a little glossary about what NMC and MCA and lithium metal mean, as well. So, one, one last area, obviously, you know, last year and in particularly 2021 has been particularly challenging for almost every industry, particularly the auto industry, in terms of supply chain resiliency, you know, I mean, everybody's been exposed to challenges with silicon shortages and, and so everybody's reevaluating. They're how they manage their supply chains where they're getting materials from? how, you know, with the shift to, you know, North American sourcing of lithium houses, how do you expect this to impact GM? In terms of things like transportation costs and improving the resiliency of your supply chain?

Unknown Speaker  1:55:23  
Yeah, there's, there's the obvious, you know, reduction and transportation cost that is kind of one for one. And, you know, the cost of inventory, as you're processing it, right. And you're not having to carry it on your books while you're turning it into a vehicle with all that, but but more importantly, it's the well, you also have to stabilize that material. Okay, so we call it lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate. And you have to stabilize that lithium just to get it from place to place and to get it into a cathode active material manufacturing plant. The real innovation that we're going for here is to say, Well, how do we fundamentally take steps out, okay, so that we don't have to, you know, have a six week shipboard type, type, shipment type situation, going forward. And by by localizing it and centralizing it in the regions of sale, and you know, altium is a global product, they'll be multiple regions that we manufacture this in, we always look to minimize the fundamental steps it takes to stabilize the material and get the high quality out of it. And so you can imagine that, you know, in the bulk shipping, and and, you know, that it's it's not a huge burden today, to put it across the oceans. And you save that, but the real benefit is when How can you innovate your processes, so you take steps out, to have the material be high quality and stable, because it's just more local? And there's less, you know, transit time?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:56:54  
Do you see GM also getting into taking a more active or direct role in raw material sourcing for some of the other key materials in the cells as some other OEMs have done? Things like the nickel manganese?

Unknown Speaker  1:57:09  
Sure. And for sure, um, and if you look at what happens right now, I mean, we already have very well established groups and well established practice commercially and quality system wise to go manage things like nickel, because we use it in our steel moving forward with that. And so so that's part of the groups that we're expanding, but it's always and that's why we use the term strategic investment and commercial collaboration. Okay, because we have to be humble. And you know, you mentioned clay, Clay processing of lithium, right. And, you know, we think that the Ctr method is much better and much more efficient and can run 24, seven, but we may be wrong. And that industry is going to continue to innovate and move forward. And we always have to stay on top of this, to have this agility to say, how are we going to get the best value for our customers to tie all this off and reached the bottom of that cost curve? You know, we talked about, you know, we're well under $100, at full scale on the altium system. We don't know the bottom of it yet. And it's because of that humility, that we have to say, we think this is great innovation today, we want to accelerate it, but we want to keep it the best innovation of tomorrow. And if there's something else out there, that's better. We're going to be agile and shift into it. And that's a very constructive way, especially in an expanding industry, right? If you look at our $35 billion investment that we're putting into this, it's all expanding in these areas. Okay, and so you don't leave people behind you just move with them into the next better technology and the next better innovation.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:58:50  
And on that note, I'm gonna wrap it up. Thank you, Tim. This has been a great conversation and I appreciate your time.

Unknown Speaker  1:58:59  
Yeah, it was great talking to you and have a great day.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:59:01  
You too. Bye bye.