Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 207 wheel bearings, we drive the Acura MDX Ace back the Jeep Wrangler for bi e the Audi e Tron Gt 2021 Genesis g v 80, g 70 and the 2021 Honda Santa Fe. We also talk about President Biden's executive order on electric vehicles, the Detroit smart parking lab, road tripping in an Eevee and the cancellation of the New York Auto Show 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

This is Episode 207. wheel bearings I'm Sandra ball Samad from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05  
I am Nicole wakelin. We'll go with two car this week.

Roberto Baldwin  1:09  
And I am Roberto Baldwin. We're gonna say Kelley Blue Book. Oh, a new one. A new one. Yeah, I haven't actually written the words without ADO. But they're coming.

Nicole Wakelin  1:22  
We have to edit that out shortly.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24  
Well, maybe by the time this is posted.

Roberto Baldwin  1:26  
There'll be written I think so. I think yeah, I think there'll be written by that. I have like five days. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32  
Okay. Cool. Why don't you go first, where did you draw

Nicole Wakelin  1:35  
all the cars? Just all of the all the cars, all the cars, okay, but I stuck with one brand. I drove actually, four out of four. I'm going to talk about three one I'm going to hold for next week. We'll start with the 2021 a Hyundai Santa Fe 2.5 turbo all wheel drive calligraphy, which is the fancy schmancy new trim level of the Santa Fe and it is in fact really fancy. Like it's absolutely beautiful inside I I've said this about the Hyundai brand before but they pack so much into a vehicle for such an amazing price that when you look at the sticker, you're like wait, this is clearly a typo. This belongs on a different trim level that's like two down from this. So the car was driving was $43,000 which isn't like it's like cheap, cheap, but it's not outrageous expensive. So it's 43 actually 43 430 as a 2.5 liter turbo four cylinder that is new. That's a new engine this year, with an eight speed dual clutch. 277 horsepower, 311 pound feet of torque it has. So that's new it has an updated interior updated exterior. It's not an all new because it has kind of refresh stuff. But it feels very different. It

Sam Abuelsamid  2:47  
just came out a couple of years ago.

Nicole Wakelin  2:48  
Yeah, so it's not technically an all new but I mean it's got new engines new outside look new inside look so it's not technically all new, but it's a heck of a lot of new. I guess I'll say it that way. A lot of new. And it I mean, this is a midsize crossover five passengers. It's very roomy. My husband is six foot three so he's my test case for all you tall folks out there and I have him move the front seat back to where he's really super comfortable and then try to get him to sit behind that front seat. He can do that no problem like he can it's not even like it's close and he's thinking Gosh, if I move my feet, two inches my knees are gonna smack the seats no it's really roomy you can to put two six footers front and back to each other so surprisingly roomy inside has a lot of room for cargo I think it's just about 72 cubic feet give or take of cargo rooms you can put a ton of cargo inside there. And the interior of it is stunning. Like if you're familiar with the palisade you'd have the Palisades sort of elevated Hyundai even like it was so it looks so good inside. Not that there are other vehicles didn't but the palisade looks amazing. This is like palisade level, like it feels like they're like okay, palisade did really well, let's, let's try and copy that with what we're going to do with the not quite all new Santa Fe, and I feel like they did it. It is roomy, it is comfortable. It is nice to drive. It's a very, it's responsive, but it's not a sporty car. It doesn't have that aggression that some truly sporty cars do. But it's still it's got 277 horsepower. It's a turbocharged engine it moves. You hit the gas, it gets out of its own way. So I enjoy driving this and I think that it's the interior. It's got like Napa leather. I mean this calligraphy edition is crazy. It's so pretty that it makes me nervous. Like if I had kids I was putting in this that were little I'd be like oh god oh god, what are they going to do that leather? Oh God, please don't eat your mandarin oranges from Wendy's have on these seats because who knows what it's gonna do to leather. But it was I like this car. I like Hyundai's I think they do a good job. So this is that new calligraphy edition. If you're looking for that upscale, truly an upscale, not quite luxury but really kind of close to it. The Santa Fe does it in this trip and for $43,000 if you go to a real honest to god luxury brand, you aren't going to get it for $43,000 and even if you do get it for 43 it's going to be stripped down To have all the the the worst interiors that luxury car offers, so it's not actually going to feel as nice or look as nice as this one does inside.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:09  
Not? And does it actually have any calligraphy in it?

Nicole Wakelin  5:14  
Did it have calligraphy? I don't think it did. That's a good question. I don't think it did. I feel like somewhere Oh, I should have looked at like the badge on the back was a written like, oh, fancy script? Like what's the one that does that? Who does that the Buick there avenir trim, you know, the avenir avenir words are written in kind of this fancy script. But no, it does not actually have calligraphy, which I guess is a bit of a disappointment. Are they is that false advertising? Now, Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid  5:44  
You know, infinity has, you know, the autograph trim levels? And you know, they don't actually have any autographs on the car. So it's par for the course I guess. I guess. just random. Everybody's got everybody's got limited and platinum. So yeah, I think they wanted to come up with something different, you know, to set them apart. You know, as they're your premium trim level. It's, you know, it's interesting that, you know, Santa Fe's is getting up to this level of you know, kind of that price point and that level of degree of luxury that you know, a decade ago, you know, the Genesis the original Genesis and was kind of barely hitting that level. Right. And now you're doing that with with the Santa Fe, then you've got Genesis on top of that. So I think I haven't driven the refreshed Santa Fe yet. But the last one I drove with the two liter turbo you know, which has now been replaced by that two five was was really impressive. You mentioned it's got a DCT the dual clutch transmission that

Nicole Wakelin  6:47  
I believe it's an eight speed dual clutch. I thought that's what I saw there. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:50  
Okay. Okay, cuz they had they had an eight speed before. But it was a standard regular automatic transmission. I didn't realize they were putting the dual clutch

Nicole Wakelin  6:59  
hopefully I'm not lying to you. I thought that's what I saw.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:02  
No, that could be a wouldn't surprise me if they were doing that is that that's a new transmission this year that they also have in the velociter. And and I think in a couple of other models as well. So

Nicole Wakelin  7:15  
yeah, no, it was a great it really was a great car to drive i i've, when you're talking about Hyundai's being you know, the 10 years old and they were different. They were so very different 10 years ago, like it's funny, because it was the last time I checked in this numbers could have changed the average age of a card American Rose was like 11 years old, most people kept their cars for 11 years now it's about 12. Well, is it about 12 now, okay, so it's changed slightly. So you think about that, if you're if the average person has kept their car for 12 years, their impression of what Hyundai is, is 110% wrong, like every way shape, or form. So I feel like I'm always trying to convince people like when they're like, oh, what car should I get for whatever like friends even that, you know, they're actually gonna listen to what I'm saying. I'm like, you guys, you should check out the Hyundai they're like, ooh, I make no no no, no, no, no, no, no, you haven't been in one in a decade. Cool. Check it out. Honest to God you just got to trust me on this. You're going to be impressed with this because they're they're so much better in every way than they were back then. I wish more people would give them a chance because they are much better vehicles than they were once upon a time

Sam Abuelsamid  8:22  
Yeah, totally. That's the same is also true for for kiya

Nicole Wakelin  8:27  
Yeah, sister brand. Oh, and by the way, I

Sam Abuelsamid  8:29  
completely different company.

Nicole Wakelin  8:30  
Yes. Not even really close. So I double check so CMD I just pulled up the specs. So the HP dual clutch is what's on the 2.5 turbo it's just they have an eight speed just an eight speed on the two five liter the non turbocharged and then they have a six speed on the hybrid. So yeah, it's just on the 2.5 turbo that it gets the dual clutch cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:53  
Okay, all right. What are the other two cars Okay, I

Nicole Wakelin  8:55  
have all these papers ready oh cart Yeah, cuz I had to take notes because there's so many cars okay. So we were mentioning that Hyundai also has another brand that is somewhat upscale in nature Genesis, that's exactly what I was driving. So I had the 21 Genesis g v 80. Which is their SUV. And much like Hyundai makes their sort of mass market not technically luxury cars feel like luxury cars. This Genesis feels like a much higher end luxury car It looks it when you see it sitting there it when you open the door. The materials in this thing are absolutely stunning. The way it rides the quietness of it, it has that luxury cars always kind of float unless it's like truly a performance card. There's this floatiness to them, like oh, that wasn't a bump. It was just like a little wave in the road that you're going over like there's this floatiness like we are going to keep you so comfortable. You're not quite going to be sure what send your wheels but it's not going to be harsh and it's not going to bother you. You're just going to comfortably float along the highway. That's what this does supple, supple. I like that that works supple. So that is what you get when you drive the gV 80. This is a bit more expensive than our Hyundai Santa Fe it is $72,375. But you are getting again, you're getting an eight speed automatic, a 2.5 liter, four cylinder, I forgot to write the horsepower because I had an incomplete monroney. But it is an aggressive vehicle. This one feels like it has that power. It has that sort of power when you hit the accelerator. Instead of suddenly it throws you back in your seat you have like Oof, this is a performance car. Here we go. It takes you there quickly, but very in this sort of I always like the word to say well mannered, it's not going to disturb the passengers. It's not going to make your coffee slosh out of the cupholder if you forgot to put your lid on your coffee, it's very well mannered and everything it does. But mostly the thing about this is it feels every bit the luxury car, the look of the materials, the feel of the materials, they have these seats and I'm trying to find it and of course because I'm trying to find it and I'm Live on the Air now I can't find it. But their seats do this like a thing where they the bolsters, like you know, the act of bolstering that comes into hold you on the corners. Like I said, it's not really active bolstering, it's active, like you're going faster, we're just going to hold you in place and you're not even going to know it because then all of a sudden you break and you feel the bolsters release, if you don't even realize that they were getting tighter, it's just like, oh, you're slipping down. We'll relax now. So it I mean it has feature it has so many features. This is ridiculously long list. There's perforated leather, leather inserts, there's contrast stitching, there's like this pattern to everything. There's leather quilted leather, like on the doors, there's all these metal trims, even the covers on the speakers are just beautiful. Everything about this car is beautiful, it looks like a luxury car. And again, it's $72,000 it's not cheap, but you feel like you're sitting in more than $72,000 you're feel like you're sitting in something that's at least 10 grand more than that. And then there's like these premium features it has this unbelievable audio system. So you miss me going through the neighborhood this afternoon coming back to do the podcast with a sunroof open because beautiful day in New Hampshire and it happened to be like this very gangster stuff and I am not that girl but I'm like I don't care i'm enjoying this audio system bouncing through the neighborhood. It is a really beautiful powerful and every bit of luxury car again it's just like the Hyundai the Genesis thing is the same thing you get more bang for your buck than you do in other brands like no matter what the trim level and this was the prestige

Sam Abuelsamid  12:41  
Did you just did the one you have had have the the 3d display the instrument cluster display

Nicole Wakelin  12:49  
Yes. Oh it did it had that and it looks that have you seen that on another car?

Sam Abuelsamid  12:53  
Yeah, I drove it a few weeks ago. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  12:55  
Okay, so the 3d say Okay, you know what made you think of it totally made me think of Tron that's all I could think of looking at it like something about the blue the way the colors and like I like to think of was drawn. I'm like this is like Tron but it's not a video game. It's actually the car I'm driving. It look like if you see a reporter you're gonna look at it and go oh my gosh, Nicole is totally right. Sean on the dashboard. Yeah, so it's really neat. Like you kind of wrote a look at it. If you think just like I actually move my sunglasses like it's my my sunglasses don't know it really still looks 3d even if I'm just staring straight at it. So it's very cool. That's again a part of the Data Factory thing. Yeah, it's a part of the library thing like is it necessary Do you need that? No, but does it make it feel like you're driving something that's a little special? A little different? Like your your level above everybody else? Yeah, it makes it feel like you're driving something that's worth the price it's it's little details like that that make a luxury car feel special and feel luxurious. And that's one of them. Yeah, that 3d clusters cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:56  
Speaking of details, yes. What about the the infotainment controller?

Nicole Wakelin  14:01  
Oh, I had a hard time with it. Here's the funny part. My daughter got in the car for a hot minute. Don't get mad at me Genesis because she had to move the car could block terrain and I wasn't home. So she couldn't she looked at it and saw like it. She's like what, which one of these changes the gears and which one of these? What because there's the dial that has you know, Park reverse neutral. That's the spinny one and then there's the dial for the infotainment she said she initially saw the letters for the you know for the gears and just like spitting the info David just like nothing's nothing's happening. Wait, it's the other one. Like she was

Roberto Baldwin  14:37  
like that was the instructions for the wheel for the right

Nicole Wakelin  14:40  
she's like, I don't understand there's too many little round dials here. What's happening? It is a little I don't know what you think Sam Did you like the little spinny dial?

Sam Abuelsamid  14:50  
You know, I generally don't mind rotary controllers like that. But that particular implementation, you know, like I said before, the the knurling that They put on that outer perimeter, I think does not give my does not give my fingers quite enough traction. So you have to press down hard enough to get it to turn that you often end up clicking it by mistake because it also clicks, you know, so if you press on, you know, the 336 912 o'clock positions, you know, it acts as like a D pad as well. So if you press too hard to get it to turn, you end up clicking it at the same time and end up clicking on the wrong thing.

Nicole Wakelin  15:31  
100% I found the same thing, what I tried to do is what I found myself doing I could like you said I couldn't quite get there wasn't enough knurling on there to get this to grab it. Like I just couldn't grab it with the ball, like the pad of my fingers. I kept using my nails, like if I put my finger down because a girl had pretty nails. If I use my nails, then I could grab it. I'm like, I don't have to be grabbing this with the tip of my nail all the time. But that was the only way that I felt like I could really get it as if I kind of put my nail against it, then I had enough traction. So it is something about that is just a little hard to use. Like the idea of it is cool. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:05  
For for that for that particular surface on all the other controls that have the same texturing Yeah, I think it works really well. It feels it feels really good. And it feels precision, you know, like a precise piece of hardware. But just on that one particular control

Nicole Wakelin  16:21  
something something's not quite right about it. Because Yeah, when I just tried to spin it with my finger, I just couldn't spin it with the paddle my finger just wouldn't. I couldn't get it to grab the way I wanted to. But when I put my finger down so my nail kind of caught it a little bit then then I could pull it on. Like that's clearly not what you should be doing. I mean, you shouldn't have to have nails to to get that to feel like you have a good grip on that. So yeah, there's a little something weird about that textures. I don't know if it needs to be just a little bit deeper maybe, or not quite as like it's it's very fine. Like their tiny little, you know, it's a very fine mesh. Maybe it needs to be a little bit larger so that there's more bump to it. But I agree that was a little bit awkward was was not super keen on that.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:02  
Have you driven any of the newer Genesis is Genesis Genesis

Roberto Baldwin  17:05  
the Genesis? Yeah, with the with the weird. Well, it's it is weird. It's sort of a weird situation. I feel like there's so much going for the car, and then you have this really odd infotainment system control that you're like, Oh, yeah. It's like, yeah, it's Yeah, Todd.

Nicole Wakelin  17:23  
I feel like if attainment controls are the things that most let me down in a car, like I can't forgive a lot, and there's a lot of things. You're like, Oh, that's not great. And I'm fine. But the infotainment like Why? Why can't automakers just say like, this is what we're doing. Everyone seems to like it this way. Stop messing with it. Just make it easy. Make it simple. Make it clean. It doesn't need to be this fancy. like ours is better. No, it's not. It's more confusing. Just leave it alone. Stop messing. Stop reinventing the wheel. Leave it alone.

Roberto Baldwin  17:52  
The irony is that the Hyundai setup has like here's a tablet, essentially. And we just make it look nicer. And you just stab it like you do your tablet. You're like, Oh, this is one of the best infotainment systems on the market. Because they didn't try to do anything crazy. Yes. And then the Genesis line. Yeah. Then the Genesis line. Yeah, there's like weird. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  18:10  
Like, wait, can I still touch the screen? Okay, here we go. Okay. Yeah, a little spinny knob was just not it was not. That was Yeah, not a fan of the spinning up. And I have one more.

Roberto Baldwin  18:24  
Another one.

Nicole Wakelin  18:25  
I have one more guest. This one. Guess Who

Sam Abuelsamid  18:31  
was it to Honda?

Nicole Wakelin  18:32  
No, I'm staying on theme. You guys. It's another Genesis.

Roberto Baldwin  18:36  
Oh, sorry.

Nicole Wakelin  18:39  
I had the Genesis g 70. Which is my favorite of a lot. Honestly. It was my favorite list. I had it for a weekend. I was in Milwaukee. I drove it from Chicago to Milwaukee, and then told around Milwaukee for the weekend. And I drove back to Chicago. So I actually had a pretty good drive in it like a decent long drive. I can honestly say I can't remember the last time I drove a car that Farkas like an hour and a half hour and 45 minutes with the traffic and stuff that we hit. I don't even feel like I've been driving for that long. Like you normally know you've been driving for that while you're like okay, I need to get out of the car. Now. I'd like to get out for just a little bit. Nope, one of the most comfortable sedan rides ever in a car across the absolutely terrible pavement that they have from Chicago to Milwaukee. It's like if you're not careful, you feel like it could swallow your whole tire yet you won't feel it. You'll just because nothing. None of the roughness and the bounciness and the harshness of the road ever comes through. Super, super comfortable ride. Very, very comfortable. A beautiful interior. The backseat is tight though. Again, six foot husband, five foot eight daughter said no. I'm gonna sit behind you mom because she couldn't get in the car but there was literally like, no like room behind him when he had the seat, push back. So if you have taller people, you're not gonna be able fit everyone in the rear seats once she was back there behind me, she was fine. So that was my the one criticism of that was that it is it's got tight leg room and it has a really aggressive here's a weird one. The lane keep assist, you know to keep you in your lane how it you know, it'll that you know you feel push the wheel a little bit, it was getting super confused because they're doing lots of construction. So where you have that pavement where it's I guess it's like cement. So you can see the seams between the pieces. And between the lanes, there's like a seam as we're changing lanes because they've painted new lanes, because now we're all shifting half a lane to the right. It's grabbing that seam from the pavement and throwing me back to the left. It was enough that I actually turned it off. Because my husband's like, what is it is it windy, I'm like, it is not windy, the car is fighting me because it's not reading the lanes, right? Because it's not following the construction so that I'm driving and like find this in the infotainment system, because you can turn it off in there. That's where you can, you know, the driver settings. It was super aggressive. It was having none of it. It was like I will decide what the lane is. I'm like, No, no, no, I think the DP wl please, please don't do that. Yeah, so that was my that was my biggest challenge. With that I literally had to turn it off. It was so aggressive.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:21  
Yeah, the Hyundai and Genesis highway drive assist system, their lane centering system generally works really well. But yeah, like you said, the situation you described where you've got two separate indications of where the lane might be in the system is clearly getting confused and picking the wrong one. And that's, that's a real problem. And you know, that that's something that, you know, all of these types of systems are going to have to deal with, to try out something was supercruise or Ford's blue cruise there one of these days as well and see what

Roberto Baldwin  21:52  
they're doing and construction near my house on Interstate 80. And supercruise got confused by it, because they did it kept moving them the lanes kept moving, like every night, it'd be a little bit over a little bit this way or a little bit that way. And they had like the little these like essentially like stickers that they had put on it. And it was just like, I'm supposed to be over here cuz the you know, the map tells me to be over here. But this is telling me to be over here and the walls right here. So maybe this is where I'm supposed to be others. It was it was it? Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't like super aggressive about it. But it was, I was like I gotta take over. This is

Nicole Wakelin  22:32  
one of those things you think you're like, Okay, you know that the technology is great, but it's not as if I don't know where everybody else but like here, there's construction all the time. Unless there's snow on the ground, there's construction happening here and your lanes are changing. And you've got those little sticky markers on the lane and then they peel up the sticky markers then you have like a black mark where the sticky markers were in the actual original lane and now where they put the new sticky markers. So there's like three different choices for what the side of the road is going to be. And it's like cars like I have no idea what's happening here. And it can be it's disconcerting so it's not necessarily like that dang that Genesis but it's a technology that there are moments when man when it fails it fails miserably to the point that you think I gotta turn this off because it's it's I am now looking like a drunk and start driving down the road it's just lane keep assist.

Roberto Baldwin  23:21  
Yeah, there's there's there's a lot. It doesn't matter what I've been in I've had almost every car like do something insane. Tesla's Yeah. supercruise Hyundai's Honda's Mercedes they all and mostly I'll get confused they do.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:34  
Most of these will tell you you know in the manual, you know that you shouldn't use it in a construction zone anyway. You know only use it where there's clearly marked lanes. So you know, but of course you know, nobody does that. You know until you have to be like you did like

Nicole Wakelin  23:50  
you're yeah like you're doing a road trip you'd have to be like turn it off. Oh wait turn it on. Oh wait turn it off like it's it because the construction is like you have construction for 20 miles and you don't have construction for 30 and then you haven't like so it if you really had to turn it off for a highway drive which is really when you want lane keep assist right you're driving down the highway you don't want to zone out it's gonna like bump you back in like hey you pay attention lane is over here. That's the moment kind of when you want it on those long drives and on a long drive that's when the roads just construction here construction there it's changing you just it's also not easy to turn off like it's inside like some of them you can just push a button right on the dashboard and you know turn that off this was I didn't see a dashboard button if there was there I missed it. But you have to go into the infotainment and like vehicle settings safety systems you know lane keep assist then you can turn it off which is why I have my husband and like go in there and do that now with that was so with that and the the narrow backseat, but I it also again hadn't had a killer audio system, right. I don't know what exactly Genesis is doing to make their audio sound so unbelievable. their cars. Were like cruising down the highway with the audio way too loud and totally loving the ride. That was fantastic. And it was just Gosh is that thing comfortable it's so comfortable over those crazy potholed seams in the road construction messed up highway you just didn't feel it was incredibly comfortable at which is saying something

Roberto Baldwin  25:13  
messed up highway

Nicole Wakelin  25:15  
messed up highway. Yes that's that's the rule messed up highway.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:20  
I forget who they are. They've got a branded premium audio system on Genesis now and I forget which brand it is, but I think on the gvhd, I think it has something like 19 speakers Yes. 1000 some watts,

Nicole Wakelin  25:34  
it's Wait a minute. It's 15 speakers, I found it. It's 15 speaker lexicon system and the G 7015. speakers. It's a sedan people 15 speakers, I

Sam Abuelsamid  25:46  
don't even know. Because comparatively small sedan,

Nicole Wakelin  25:50  
and a small sedan. So yeah, so there is there is an abundance of sound in that car and it is fantastic. Like it's, I feel like you when you have a luxury car, it should look pretty. It should ride smooth. It should feel like a luxury car when you sit down that like whoosh, cushy kind of seats, and it shouldn't have a killer audio system and the G 70. checked all those boxes.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:13  
And the gvhd is 21 speakers 21

Nicole Wakelin  26:15  
so it gets an extra six speakers first exercise.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:20  
That wasn't me you got an extra row in there. So it's a bigger vehicle is more place to package it's

Nicole Wakelin  26:24  
definitely bigger. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  26:25  
cram some more speakers in there. cram all in squish squish squish. house for speakers. What do we do with all these speakers? We have

Nicole Wakelin  26:35  
to deal with Genesis.

Roberto Baldwin  26:37  
Let's shove as many as we can.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:41  
All right, Roberto, what have you been driving?

Roberto Baldwin  26:44  
I drove the Audi e Tron GT and the Audi RS e Tron GT. So these are the halo ebvs from Audi. You might have seen it in 2008 2019. The LA Auto Show when it was revealed with it was 19. Yeah, I can't set the time time makes no sense. It's a beautiful car. And I dig the way it looks. I think it's beautiful. And when I did I, I got to drive it back then. But it could only go like 20 miles an hour or 25 miles an hour while being surrounded by police officers. Because it was a concept car so it didn't have like suspension or stuff like that. This is a production vehicle. In fact, when they told us like, Oh, we asked, well, when will they be in showrooms? They said Oh, last week, so yeah, so it uh, yeah, the the, the the Audi e Tron gt starting at I'm just gonna say $100,000 is in showrooms right now. And the RS e Tron gt starts at $140,000. So they're very pricey, and they're also very, very much based on what you it's the same architecture as the Porsche icon. So if you you know, Porsche Tyco on turbo Turbo S all those the the Audi e Tron GTS shares a lot of bits and pieces and platform and all the juicy bits with the the TT icon but it it also feels a bit like a different car. It's it's like a tie con, but a bit more. I guess classy, maybe a little bit more subtle. It's not as powerful it's not as it's not as much a driver's car is not as much it is a driver's car, but it's not as aggressive on the road. How's that? It's, it's it. The the the the steering is not as tight the suspension not as tight the acceleration is not as like, oh, but you know, he's still doing you know, zero to 60 and 3.9 and 3.2 seconds.

Nicole Wakelin  28:49  
So it's not acceleration go Roberto, the acceleration is not okay. It's not as

Unknown Speaker  28:54  
Okay,

Roberto Baldwin  28:54  
that's the

Nicole Wakelin  28:56  
technical phrase. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin  28:58  
Yeah, so I mean an Audi No, they were like well, you know, we're trying to make you know, it's a GT it's a grand tour. So it's not but then they had us drive it on, you know, Angeles crest highway above la so you know, they wanted us definitely to drive it and feel how drove in the mountains and I had a blast driving that thing. I really liked it. The the the regular e Tron has 469 horsepower and 464 pound feet of torque, and then it has this 2.5 boost mode, which you know, is something that Porsche has had on their, their ice vehicles and now on the PT icon for a while, but it has this boost mode. That increases the power to 522 horsepower and 472 pound feet of torque. So you get a little extra something, something when you want to pass someone or you could stick it in launch mode, the RS e Tron GT. It has 590 horsepower, and 612 pound feet of torque, which is a lot. Yeah. And when you put it in boost mode, the horsepower stays the same. So you still get the 500 90 horsepower, but the torque goes up to 637 pound feet, which is sort of bonkers. When you're behind the wheel of a sedan.

Nicole Wakelin  30:10  
So would you buy that? Would you you Roberto, would you buy that? If you were going to do like, just, you know, going to work today on a Tuesday? Would you buy that car just to drive around? Or would you only buy it if you were gonna, I don't know, put it in a tracker do something crazy. Like could you see but here's

Roberto Baldwin  30:24  
the thing. It's the driver. It's a wheel so so that's so the the E Tron gt I completely see the market for that. This is people who want a very nice, a beautiful looking, less aggressive version of the TT icon. It looks nice in the PT icon. It's a bit more comfortable than PT icon. It's it's you know, it's it's Audi. The RS is where you end up with this really weird thing because it starts bumping up against Porsches offering. So then you're like, well, do I want the Porsche? Or do I want the RS? Like what would you do? What would you think? I think well, I you have to make the call. I would get the Porsche

Nicole Wakelin  31:03  
you would get the Porsche but

Roberto Baldwin  31:04  
I'm but but I'm also like the guy who owns a BRC and drives around with a manual transmission and is like burning down his tires drifting around corners. So that's, you know, so I am, but I am the outlier. I think I think we all think that we're going to be that person. But the reality is, most people are not that person. Most people, they get a nice car, it looks really pretty. You know, it's like the people who buy the Lamborghinis in LA. And if all they do is drive from their house to the club into the house of the club, and sometimes on the freeway on the 405, at five in the morning, when they got a quarter mile of open space before they hit more traffic. You know, they they they slam the accelerator for half a second they kill half a second. Yeah, yeah, I think that I think the, you're going to get a lot of that with the IRS, people are gonna buy it because it is the IRS because it is, you know, more powerful. It is a beautiful car. I think it looks better than icon, but I prefer the TT icon as as an individual who wants to go a little bit faster and have a little bit more performance.

Nicole Wakelin  32:04  
So you do the TT icon because fast car fast. But you do the Audi because pretty car pretty.

Roberto Baldwin  32:10  
Yeah, but it's still fast, but the fast cars a little faster. Okay. So you know, it's it. And of course, everyone you know, everyone wants the range. The E Tron gt has 238 miles of range, the RS has to 32. So you're not really lose it six miles. So you're not really losing a lot of range that way. I'm sure like, like Porsche, like all the Volkswagen Group vehicles, that number has been under reported. They've been picking the lower number from the EPA when their stuff is getting tested. So I'm sure it's gonna be probably around 245 to 15 when people actually get these on the road. I remember when I did the Porsche drive ahead of the EPA, when the EPA number came out, I'm like, well, that's not right. icon is wait a lot, a lot. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  33:00  
well, and also, a lot of the icon tests have shown it to get like 280 to 85 miles. Yeah, it's highway driving.

Roberto Baldwin  33:08  
It's ridiculous. I drove that thing up, again, up Angeles crest highway up around, I did this big loop and went up the back of Angeles crest, and then came back down into Glendale. And I was like driving as you know, a journalist, you know, an automotive journalist, which means you're pushing a car, you know, you're stopping and you're you're taking off you're doing you know, you're using boost mode, you're doing Launch Control, you're doing all these things, that should decimate the the range, and it does decimate the range, but it wasn't as much as you would think based on what the EPA rating is for the vehicle. So it's, you know, Volkswagen is is a probably a bit gun shy when it comes to anything that has to do with anything and for good for good reason. Yeah, for good reason. It has an 800 volt system, which is nice, which means it will charge it up to 270 kilowatts at a you know, at a charging station that supports that. So it says you can go from five to 80% in about 23 minutes, which is if you're you know, driving, you're going on a long drive, you know, again, you're probably going to get more than that. 238 Let's see, do 250s I go 250 miles, you pull over, you get from five to 80 in the time it takes you to go inside and get a big gulp or some beef jerky or whatever. A coffee or coffee. I don't drink coffee. So I always think I always forget that.

Nicole Wakelin  34:31  
You don't drink coffee.

Roberto Baldwin  34:32  
I drink I drink tea. And then when I'm traveling, I drink espresso.

Nicole Wakelin  34:38  
Well, it's supposed to it's totally coffee. It's

Roberto Baldwin  34:39  
like super coffee, but I'd like but just like a coffee like I don't get up in the morning we like aren't going to have a coffee. I don't that's not me. I don't I taste like I don't order coffee. I don't like make coffee. I have all these things. You know, you sometimes you get things in the mail, and a lot of times it's like, Hey, here's an awesome craft or here's the thing to make coffee or they'll send you coffee. I

Nicole Wakelin  35:01  
will send me the coffee because I drink all the coffee. I give it a fee all the way okay?

Roberto Baldwin  35:06  
I usually just give it away to whoever I give me.

Nicole Wakelin  35:10  
Coffee

Roberto Baldwin  35:11  
anytime automaker's send me stuff I just give it to children a separate copy I give to the children coffee. Start early start early kid.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:20  
I I quit drinking coffee for the most part a couple of years ago and now when i when i get containers of coffee from automakers. My wife still drinks coffee she makes a cold brew. So wow Am I give it to her. See your

Nicole Wakelin  35:32  
wife is saying but you're crazy. I approve your wife's cold brew habit but I don't know how you I drink coffee. I love coffee coffees life I have coffee from everywhere in my cabinet. Wow from Arizona. So I'm from Mexico shortly we'll have coffee from New York City because that's where I'll be this week.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:47  
So if I see you coffee but coffee Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  35:51  
just get I just expect to see an associate or program Roberto. I just want you to have like an extra suitcase that I can check with all of your coffee paraphernalia in it. But I will take that come to New Hampshire with me.

Roberto Baldwin  36:00  
I do drink a lot of tea.

Nicole Wakelin  36:02  
I do drink a lot of tea too. I have actually got new tea. This week from steep ology.

Roberto Baldwin  36:08  
Oh, I got it. I just drank berries, Irish dark tea. Just like just that's it. One kind of tea and Chai I drink Chai. Okay, so that's that's kind of it. That's it. And then Red Bull, which is a horrible habit. I I was making so many of those when the young when I was younger, and I was reading news and just like, you're you're just running You know, you're writing 12 articles a day. You're like, ah,

Nicole Wakelin  36:35  
I love how you've like cut out coffee. Like it's a habit. But you're like, no, that Red Bull. No,

Roberto Baldwin  36:39  
I never even really drink coffee that wasn't like, No, no, I never know. Yeah, it's but I do. I do like

Sam Abuelsamid  36:45  
I did. I would. Yeah, I would make a pot of coffee in the morning and you know, drink it all by mid afternoon. And an auto shows. You know when they had espresso stands espresso at all? Oh, yeah. cr stands. You know, I would. I would drink like 1012 espressos a day at the old covering an auto show

Nicole Wakelin  37:03  
and another show go crazy. But then you're up at like five o'clock in the morning and suddenly you're going to bed at midnight and you have to write stuff in you know, and it's the coffee is you kind of need that

Sam Abuelsamid  37:13  
bad stuff to my blood pressure. I'm sure

Roberto Baldwin  37:17  
yeah, yeah, so yeah, so so I don't know how we got a coffee but anyway, I don't know when you when you pull over. It also has a two speed transmission like the TT icon. So you have that low end for taking off and then that that second gear for for cruising. during launch control Lila's they took us to an airfield to drive the vehicle. So we could do launch control. You can hear the wheels chirp and first and second gear so that was fun. But we I mean when you have something that has man hold on again 612 pound feet of torque here's Yeah, so I yeah, I enjoyed the vehicle I am I like the way it looks. Seating front seats fine. backseat if you're tall. Sorry.

Nicole Wakelin  38:03  
No joy.

Roberto Baldwin  38:03  
no joy. Yeah, there's there's a I'm six three. So when I have the seed bag, there's maybe a child a child gets it back there. You can put some children back there are some very your short friends. Or if you're all short, you can comfortably put four people first one and leave 181 tall friend is gonna ruin it for everyone.

Nicole Wakelin  38:23  
Everything's out. Forget it. Oh, we can't go anywhere. You're too damn tall.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:27  
Yeah. Not not quite as spacious as the the a seven then in the backseat.

Roberto Baldwin  38:32  
No, no, no, it's it's it's pretty. Yeah, it's pretty tight. It's pretty tight in there. I think it has a lot to do with the design. Really? I think the design took over where you know it looks Yeah, I think that

Sam Abuelsamid  38:45  
pretty steeply sloped rear end

Roberto Baldwin  38:47  
Yeah, the drag coefficient is 0.24 I believe I might have that written

Sam Abuelsamid  38:55  
that's what I recall you saying in the video.

Roberto Baldwin  38:57  
Okay, yeah, yeah, I did a video you can go listen to that. And you can get

Sam Abuelsamid  39:02  
the videos on on wheel bearings dot media if you want to check it out. I posted it on there a week ago.

Roberto Baldwin  39:09  
Oh cool. Yeah, you can go go there and check it out and and point and laugh me forgetting to play 3.2 second run instead of a 3.2 second run. And I was I was decimated by the fact that I couldn't get I couldn't do the 3.2 but but Steve I going fascinate core in a straight line has never been like that exciting to me. Especially when you're using launch control because then it's just sort of the luck of the draw and how much you ate that day. I didn't eat lunch. I was so busy doing

Nicole Wakelin  39:40  
a faster time if you didn't eat

Roberto Baldwin  39:42  
but I'm also but I have been eating a lot of lunch for the last 18 months. And

Nicole Wakelin  39:49  
power of many lunches combined

Roberto Baldwin  39:50  
power many lunches has your time it did its

Nicole Wakelin  39:56  
best excuse I've ever heard. I'm gonna be like I don't know I've eaten a lot of lunches these last year.

Roberto Baldwin  40:00  
I remember who was it Robbie, one of the one of the IndyCar drivers was complaining, because I can't remember her name. She was the first to drive Indianapolis Danica Pat Danica Patrick. He was saying that it's not fair because she's so light. She has away anything.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:17  
Yeah, well, she's tiny. She's like five. Yeah, yeah. But I remember the first time I ever saw her she.

Roberto Baldwin  40:22  
Yeah, so but but maybe, maybe Robbie should. I don't know eat less. And also, Emerson Fittipaldi probably weighed like 60 pounds when he won the Indy 500 he's also a tiny person. He's essentially a jockey in a car. So yeah, anyway, eat less if you want to go faster is my story.

Nicole Wakelin  40:42  
Let's go faster.

Roberto Baldwin  40:43  
Don't you know what it's like like a 10th of a second in your daily life doesn't matter. So enjoy that sandwich. Just you'll be slower.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:51  
Yeah, like that philosophy better eat a sandwich. Unless, unless you're making your living, you know, driving around in circles, then get enjoy the lunch sandwich. Alright, I had two quite different SUVs. Over the past couple of weeks. I had the first one was the new 2022 Acura MDX super handling all wheel drive advance Ace back. And so this is this is acuras three row bigger three row crossover with the ACE back there. I think that there's a type s coming eventually but that's not available yet. But right now, they've got the a spec which in this case, in the case of the MDX there's only one power train. It's the Honda's lovely 3.5 liter V six naturally aspirated V six 290 horsepower. It's been around in in various iterations for quite a long time now but it's still a really nice engines very smooth makes a nice sound when you when you really get into it. The the ACE back gives you some nicer looking wheels and black trim looks a little sportier, a little tighter suspension setup. The overall the the new MDX it incorporates acuras new design language, you know, their precision crafted design or whatever, whatever it is. So it's kind of similar look and feel to

Nicole Wakelin  42:34  
relax. They call it

Sam Abuelsamid  42:37  
Yeah, I really like the the grill, especially on the a spec. It's got this diamond pattern in there. So you've got these looks like little diamonds that all kind of emanate from the center from the accurate badge in the center and spread out towards the edges it's it's a cool looking design in

Roberto Baldwin  42:58  
my brain they're all attacking the accurate thing so that's I guess maybe yours your yours makes way more sense where they're coming out from the accurate because you're going so fast. I kind of like in my brain. They're all like,

Nicole Wakelin  43:11  
it's like under siege.

Roberto Baldwin  43:13  
Yeah, but but it makes way more sense in your brain now. Now I look at it correctly.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:24  
On the the ACE back, you get 20 inch alloy wheels all season tires. It's like I said, it's not it's not any quicker than any other MDX because they all have the same powertrain, but it drives really well. The ride quality is really good, it's roomy, it doesn't have the kind of that really luxury feel of the gV 80. You know, it's a very, I mean, it feels premium, but not, you know, kind of that traditional luxury feel that you get into in the Genesis. So it's a very different kind of feel to it. It has the same touchpad system that's in the T LX. So it's the absolute positioning touchpad. So, you know, if you want, if you're looking, you don't have to scroll back and forth on the pad, you just put your finger down on the pad where they place it's analogous to whatever it is you're trying to touch. So if you're trying to hit the icon in the upper right corner, you tap the upper right corner of the touchpad and it works. The the LS studio audio system is really good. To my ears, you know, which have been damaged by many years of way too loud music. You know, I don't think I could necessarily tell the difference between this the elf system and the Acura and the lexicon system and the Genesis or the revel system and a Lincoln or any of the others. You know, as long as any of these premium sound systems to me just sound really good.

Nicole Wakelin  45:00  
I think the lexicon sounds better.

Roberto Baldwin  45:02  
I think it's funny that these vehicles are all you know, all as you get older, you can afford a nicer car with nicer audio. But as you get older no matter what, even if you don't do anything, you're just you're hearing just naturally degrades. So we're getting, like a nice, you know,

Nicole Wakelin  45:18  
maybe we maybe think that these are all better in reality, they're like, we got to find a job an extra $1,000

Roberto Baldwin  45:24  
or some children in there, it's a self and let them figure it out.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:28  
It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. You know, if you, if you're, if you're spending that extra money, then you're going to convince yourself that it's better. And I'm, you know, they all sound really good to me, you know, audio file I have exactly, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  45:43  
I have a BRC, and it has the worst sound system in any vehicle on the planet. And every time I get in that car, and I'm like, I love this car, and I turn the radio on, like,

Nicole Wakelin  45:53  
with a 2010 Dodge Charger, check out that audio system poof.

Roberto Baldwin  45:57  
Oh, it's Battle of the bad audio is bad.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:02  
And my 1990 Miata, you know, it's,

Roberto Baldwin  46:05  
oh, yeah, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  46:06  
nothing to write home about as far as but, you know, I drive with the top down all the time, you know, and, you know, the year the engine so, you know, it's fine. I'm not, I don't drive for the sound, different sound speakers

Nicole Wakelin  46:18  
and the newer ones put in my thinking of a different car, put speakers in the headrest. And somebody put speakers in the head.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:23  
Yeah, well, actually, they did. They did right from the very beginning, they offered that as an option. And it did not come with those speakers from the factory. But you can unzip the covering around the headrest, and you'll open up and the the cutouts in the foam in the headrest or their speakers. I did put speakers and they had these little oddball they were like about to buy four inch oval shaped speakers from the factory. And of course, you can't buy those anywhere. So I just got a pair of little three and a half inch round speakers and, you know, adjusted the foam a little bit and stuffed them in there. It works fine. But it's it's still not it's still not a high end audio system by any

Nicole Wakelin  47:08  
stretch not a 15 acre lexicon or when 19 speaker LS or

Sam Abuelsamid  47:12  
whatever the heck no, no, definitely, definitely not. So you know, the the MDX comes with the full suite of of a das features like adaptive cruise control and Collision Mitigation braking and Lane Departure Lane Keeping Assist all that all that stuff. So you get all the good stuff. The sticker price on the one I drove, excuse me was $62,175 including delivery charge. It's EPA rated at 21 miles per gallon I think I got about 2019 or 20 during my time driving it. So you know it's it's an enjoyable vehicle to drive, you know, four three row SUV you know, it's not the, you know, the sportiest you know that you're going to find you know, it's nothing You know, like a an X five M or something like that. But you know, it's it feels it's got good driving dynamics and the super handling all wheel drive the torque vectoring all wheel drive system always works really well for you know, making the the vehicle track around corners,

Roberto Baldwin  48:17  
and the better name really.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:20  
Yeah. handling all wheel drive

Nicole Wakelin  48:23  
the brand

Roberto Baldwin  48:25  
name of any all wheel drive system on the planet. I know, the quatro is you know the most iconic but really super handling all

Nicole Wakelin  48:32  
wheel drive. Good, is it it's super handling.

Roberto Baldwin  48:35  
It's a Saturday morning cartoon.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:39  
Yeah, exactly. Alright, so that's the Acura MDX. at the opposite end of the scale. I also drove another 60 plus $1,000 SUV, which was the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon four by E. So this is the plug in hybrid which I think Nicole I think you guys own one now is yours a Rubicon er

Nicole Wakelin  49:03  
it is we've had it for about a month now. So yes, it is exactly what we own in firecracker red. Fancy Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  49:11  
I had the billet silver and so you know this is this is a Wrangler. You know if you're familiar with a Wrangler, this is largely like any other Wrangler, you know, drives pretty much the same except you know, slightly quicker because it's got more power, it's got another you know, it's got 100 kilowatt electric motor in there stuffed in there between the engine and the transmission. And it'll go about 2122 miles on a charge when you plug it in. And so you can get, you know, 22 miles of electric driving with without running the engine, and I took it out and did a drive loop with it, which included a bunch of driving on some, some dirt roads, some gravel roads. North of north of the city here. And then a little bit of highway driving and some some mixed urban suburban driving. And I managed to get down to 22 miles of driving range before the engine finally kicked on the it's rated overall at 49 miles per gallon equivalent, which for a Jeep is pretty remarkable. You know, if you don't plug it in, and you just drive it as a hybrid, you're going to get like low 20s at best, which is, you know, granted better than most Wranglers will do certainly better than they've traditionally done. But if you want to get the most out of this, yeah, you need to plug it in at night, you know, just plug it in, it'll charge up overnight. You can do most of your daily driving without using any gas and it's quiet. I didn't get a chance to do any off roading but I did drive it on on various gravel roads with some some pretty hefty potholes in there and it's actually a really pleasant drive you know even with the windows down and I had the the sky The sky one touch power top you know see you hit the button and the whole fabric roof slides back which is you know, that's one of the nicest features on the the Wranglers I think although it's expensive at $4,000 but

Nicole Wakelin  51:27  
that's what we got just because it's so convenient

Sam Abuelsamid  51:30  
Yeah, but you know base price the cheapest Wrangler for by he starts at 51,700 this one with all the options on it six almost $66,000.65 890 including the 15 $100 delivery charge it did have you know things like adaptive cruise control Lane Keeping Assist also had the the leather interior which you know, if you're if you're planning to go off roading, you know with a Rubicon I'm not sure why you'd necessarily want the leather interior but yeah, whatever how many

Roberto Baldwin  52:05  
people who bought the Rubicon are going off roading. 20% I think there's the hardcore 20 maybe like like 10% or like hardcore the 5% of those are 5% of people are hardcore that other 50% are like go off every once in a while everyone else once a year they'll go to the mountains and drive to some snow or go down a dirt road to like I don't know pick up a rock

Nicole Wakelin  52:28  
well and that's the thing with any the capability like in the Wrangler or even in the bronco is like it can do all these absolutely amazeballs things but how many people do that? Like three you know it there's so much much more capable than what anybody is ever really or most people are ever really going to need but it doesn't negate the funnel of knowing you could do it.

Roberto Baldwin  52:50  
Yeah, you could like zombie apocalypse

Nicole Wakelin  52:53  
right just drive right over this

Sam Abuelsamid  52:56  
Yep, a higher percentage of Wrangler and Bronco owners are going to do that then probably for any other SUV

Nicole Wakelin  53:02  
Oh yeah, but

Sam Abuelsamid  53:02  
that's still not the majority

Nicole Wakelin  53:04  
it's still most of our Yeah, if you say it like far more likely in those cars but still out of 100% of raw brink, the Wrangler and Bronco owners what 20% 15% 10% are actually going to push these as hard as they can be pushed.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:19  
Yeah, but you know with the with the Rubicon you do get you know the the two range four wheel drive, you know, so you got for high for low. You get the sway bar disconnect in the front locking differentials all around so you know, if you if you get into the the rough stuff, you know, chances are you'll be able to get yourself out. And if not, you know, then somebody can always hook up a toe strap to those nice blue toe hooks. That's how you can tell you got the plug in hybrid because instead of the red toe hooks on the on the trail Hawk or the regular Rubicon, you get blue toe hooks or blue trim for the plug in hybrid.

Nicole Wakelin  53:54  
I was talking to someone about a Jeep about my husband wanting to do things that the Jeep could do but he doesn't have the offroad skills to handle. And I'm like he seems to think he'll be able to get out of it just to the Rubicon and he's like yeah, tell him tell him if he does get himself stuck the only thing that is getting himself out is a helicopter because if he gets that stuck nothing's going to be able to get in to get them out.

Roberto Baldwin  54:15  
You could take a class right now

Nicole Wakelin  54:18  
no we're gonna actually get to Moab and I have a class all lined up so we can not everybody's doing so now he'll be able to take advantage of it he just Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:29  
And one other thing about the the four by you the plug in hybrid, it's only available on the four door you can't get that powertrain on the two door Broncos or the two

Roberto Baldwin  54:40  
Wranglers can't get it on a two door Bronco

Sam Abuelsamid  54:42  
Bronco Bronco yeah yeah, but yeah two door Wrangler No, no plug in hybrid, just the four doors but you know that accounts for 80% of Wrangler sales now anyway, so no big deal. So yeah, that's the the Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon for Like he and let's get into some other stuff.

Roberto Baldwin  55:05  
There was a if there was a bronco hybrid would you be all into it? Would you be would you think it? Where would you put it between the Wrangler for buy in a bronco hybrid plug in hybrid?

Sam Abuelsamid  55:17  
Well there is a there's gonna be a bronco hybrid?

Roberto Baldwin  55:20  
yeah i mean it's it's it's a good thing to happen yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  55:24  
yeah I you know I had I've driven the the F 150 hybrid. And so it's gonna be basically the same powertrain in the bronco. And so I think they'll probably be pretty close roughly equal about especially if they do a plug in hybrid version of the bronco you know that there probably won't be a whole lot of difference between the two

Nicole Wakelin  55:47  
I think a lot with a bronco versus Wrangler is whether it's the hybrid or they're just any is that you know, your one isn't so much better or so much worse than the other that you go like, well, I got to get this one because the other one's terrible. It's it gets down to a lot of just personal preference, you got to drive them both. Or if you're like really a bronco fan, you're going to go for the bronco if you're a hardcore jeeper you're going to stick with your Jeep, would you be just as happy in the bronco or vice versa? Probably. But you're I don't I don't know. Unless Unless for just something each one's got some

Sam Abuelsamid  56:17  
advantages and

Nicole Wakelin  56:18  
right like you're you're better here but you're worse there. We'll come to the other brand and it flips the other you know, there's there's pluses and minuses with each of them that makes them it's hard to say what is really like better than the other. They're just different than each other.

Roberto Baldwin  56:33  
I just want to start and

Sam Abuelsamid  56:34  
it also depends on which we start a fight, fight fight.

Roberto Baldwin  56:40  
I was adding drama to the podcast, but it turns out we're all adults. Oh, well.

Nicole Wakelin  56:45  
We're all reasonable adults.

Roberto Baldwin  56:48  
Like what should I get? I'm like, Well, what do you alright?

Sam Abuelsamid  56:54  
Let's see. Did we mentioned the New York Auto Show was canceled? shows if you're planning to go to New York for the auto show it Don't bother. Wait till next week. next spring. Maybe

Roberto Baldwin  57:04  
don't go that it's off.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:08  
Yep. And I'll I'll actually be in New York tomorrow as we record this. I hadn't out there to drive something. Oh, why we're driving it in New York? I have no idea. No, it totally makes sense to drive

Nicole Wakelin  57:19  
that vehicle in New York. I get it. 100% I get it makes total sense.

Roberto Baldwin  57:24  
I don't know what vehicle we're talking about. But um, I never

Nicole Wakelin  57:28  
guess what you what it will think about what vehicle you would probably think would be perfectly not suited to the streets of a city and

Roberto Baldwin  57:34  
oh, to that. Alright, then. Well, there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:39  
All right. This week, Joe Biden, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that suggests that the auto industry should aim to sell half of its vehicles with a plug by the end of this decade. Did you guys have a chance to take a look at what was what was in there and get any thoughts on it?

Nicole Wakelin  58:00  
Half a vehicles of a plug is he make is this just like I'd like to see this happen pie in the sky thing?

Sam Abuelsamid  58:07  
Yeah, it's a touchy like,

Nicole Wakelin  58:08  
I'm gonna make this. It's doing these things. I

Roberto Baldwin  58:14  
2030 is fine. Hey, like, if What year is this? 21 it's nine years away. All this stuff is gone. This isn't this is like getting excited. This is like saying, and you know, when I turned 30 I'm gonna eat less pizza. You're like, hey, that's crazy. But now you're probably gonna eat less pizza when you turn 30 it's it's very much something that's gonna happen anyway.

Nicole Wakelin  58:35  
But do you think that percent 50% think we'll get that far in nine years?

Roberto Baldwin  58:39  
Probably. Yeah. What's a plug that

Sam Abuelsamid  58:42  
thing the industry is aiming for anyway. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  58:44  
the industry is already like, we're going to do this. Yeah, everyone's already pushing for it. Everything's gonna have either a hybrid, you know, you because we also have to think about outside of the United States, you know, if you're building a platform, that everywhere else in the world is a plug in hybrid. And then you're like, well, I guess I'll just make it a nice vehicle in the United States. It's just like, you know, what is here, here? And then we know that a hybrid to do well, I mean, the Prius the ugliest, probably most boring car on the planet does amazing. And so people yeah, people are fine with that anymore. But well, yeah, at the time. Yeah. Well, for a long time.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:19  
Everybody's buying rav4 hybrids now instead of Prius.

Roberto Baldwin  59:22  
rav4. Yeah, still toy? Four prime one. Yeah. They get the the prime the rav4 prime.

Nicole Wakelin  59:28  
Yeah. If you could buy the rav4 you could buy the Prius. What would you buy? Oh, I

Roberto Baldwin  59:32  
get the red orange. Oh, God.

Nicole Wakelin  59:35  
So there you go.

Roberto Baldwin  59:36  
Yeah, I've driven I like to call it the red four just because

Nicole Wakelin  59:39  
because it's cool.

Roberto Baldwin  59:42  
I wouldn't say it's cool. I just like to say that. It is it is. It is a great value. It is a Toyota it's gonna last 7000 years and you're going to get all the cool stuff that you want from to it is going to happen in the rav4 it it has a lot of stuff. It's got a lot of room. Just go by it. rav4 CRV hybrid, both of those, I just just go throw your money at them and drive around and be happy.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:08  
But, yeah, so the the, clearly, you know, the executive order. You know, while it doesn't specifically mandate 50% plug in vehicles by 2030. You know, it was it was clearly done in conjunction with the auto industry saying this something you can achieve. Yeah. Okay, good. 50% sounds like a good number. And that's that's what everybody in the industry is targeting. Yeah. Hey, Ford and GM and still lantis and Volkswagen. Yeah. Except for the Eevee only companies like Tesla and Fisker, you know, all the traditional automakers are, are most of them are shooting for, for, you know, half of their vehicles by the end of the decade, you know, and they, they threw in, you know, plug in hybrids in there as well, in order to satisfy Toyota because Toyota doesn't like battery electric vehicles. So they're, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:00  
plug in hybrid, they have hydrogen in there don't say they have hydrogen is Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:04  
but zero and low emission via

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:08  
5050 50% of the total is going to be memorize. Still only driving around my house.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:19  
That, you know, the other thing that they were trying to

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:23  
say the favorite part of that whole thing was that Joe Biden was just like, I want to drive one of these. And apparently, like, the keys were in the jeep. And they're like, well, the keys are in that one, boom, Biden driving around in. Like, from everything I've read reports, it literally how it happened. He's like, I really like to drive one of these and the Jeep guy, just like laser in it. Go Go take a first. That's what happened when he was here in Dearborn.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:43  
I love that. With the f150. Lightning,

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:46  
it was more marketing, than you would have spent it a year and you just got it for free by having keys in your car.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:52  
Yeah, go drive the car.

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:54  
drive it wherever you want. I feel like we'll bring it back, Joe.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:57  
I don't. Yeah, I think yeah, I think the only people who are like sort of about all this. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:04  
The the the other stuff that was in the executive order, is looking at expanding the charging infrastructure. Yeah, so the thing that the auto industry all said was, you know, we're we support this, you know, we think we can do this, as long as as long as we get support, you know, in terms of expanding charging infrastructure, and, you know, getting some incentives for vehicle sales, you know, to get some tax breaks. And so the executive order also calls for changing the tax credit, changing from tax credits to a point of sale rebate, which will help actually lower the monthly payments for people make it more affordable, instead of only being people who actually have enough taxable income to be able to get the claim the full tax credit the following year. So that'll help more people be able to afford TVs, if if they can get Congress to do it. Because the problem there is, Congress has got to actually do something for any of that to happen. And you know, well, chances are that are probably pretty slim.

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:06  
I'm just yeah, just give people the money to buy the car, you're gonna give them anyway, you're making it too complex with the tax thing. The IRS is already a mess, don't just here, here's your rebate, get your money, buy your Eevee have a have a have a good old day, don't make them like do their taxes, taxes already suck, don't make it worse.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:28  
And then, and then the last part of the executive order was also basically reversing what the previous administration did with the corporate average fuel economy standard, not going quite back to what it was under Obama. But getting closer to that. So under the Obama administration, they were targeting 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. For Fleet Fuel economy. What the Biden executive order calls for is 52 miles per gallon in 2026. So the industry gets a little bit of a break there, you know, because of the transition to bigger, heavier vehicles. But and then, you know, continue ramping it up from there through 2030 as well. So, that's, that's what came out this week.

Roberto Baldwin  1:04:16  
That's what the oddest industry wanted in the first place. And then the Trump thing was just bonkers. And then the whole auto industry is like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because it created all this uncertainty, especially we have to deal with car to California. No, no, no, no. What are you doing? What do you do? Yeah, I know. I guess they got what they want.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:36  
They were already planning for 54. Anyway, yeah. So they already had their product plans in place to try to hit that and then they got undercut. So speaking of IE, V's and Evie charging, I drove up to Traverse City this past week, and a Maki and because the reason you know It's from my house. It's about 250 miles to Northern Michigan. And I wanted to see what it was like doing a road trip and an electric vehicle in northern Michigan, because I hadn't done that previously. And it actually, for the most part worked out really well. I had, you know, the Chargers I used I use six different chargers over six days, 600 miles, a little over 600 miles of driving. And I actually didn't have to charge that many times. I could have gotten by with charging just probably twice. But, you know, I wanted to experience the different chargers in different locations, make sure they all worked. I had no issues there. You know, when I went to electrify America, plug in charge work perfectly, plugged it in, and authenticated, the car started charging, no problem at all. The big complaint I still have, though, about most of these public chargers, is actually finding them. Because, you know, you get things like electrify America or even Tesla superchargers. You know, they're usually located next to a mall or a big box store in the parking lot. And they're, you know, these chargers are usually about five, six feet tall, so about the height of a person. And if it's a full parking lot, there's almost never any signage for these things as to exactly where they are in the parking lot. So actually finding the precise location, you know that in the navigation, it will tell you, yeah, it's at this Meijer store or this Walmart or whatever it is Lowe's, and yeah, then somewhere in that parking lot, you actually have to physically locate those chargers. You

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:40  
just cruise cruise in the parking lot like a weirdo, just like

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:45  
you're looking around you and if you're in a mall parking lot, and it just says, you know, presently, Molly, that's that's 52 miles of parking, which entrance did you decide was the one got the Evie charger? Could you give me a hint?

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:58  
I called electrify America about a charging station at a mall. And it was on like the third floor or the fourth floors. And so there was the ground floor. There was the basement floor. There was the first floor, second floor and then third floor. And I pulled in and I drove around the first floor. I'm like, well, maybe it's down. So I went down to the set to the underground floor. I'm like, okay, maybe the second floor. So then I went to say, Okay, if it's not an end, it's on the top floor. Then I went up to the top floor. And I got like something and I call it like, yeah, you need to say where it's at. Because just saying it's at the mall, is you have to give it you have to give people the floor and even if you have to just give them the the northeast corner at least something It can't just be the mall. I believe

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:41  
they need to give you think like the mall on the target side or the mall by Nordstrom or something. Yeah, give me a region of the mall where I should start driving circles. How close is the circles to get closer and closer to where it is?

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:54  
How close is it to a pretzel? I just want to press the mall pretzels

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:57  
near anti answer not that's all.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:02  
Yeah, so the the first EA station I stopped at was actually on a Sunday afternoon, the parking lot was mostly empty. So it was easy to find. But then the next day or the day after that, I went looking for a charge point. charger that was about a 10 minute walk away from the Airbnb we were staying at. And it was in a hospital parking garage, same similar kind of situation to what you're describing. Yeah, and it was on the second was on the second floor, you know, tucked away in a corner, you know, where I could have been driving around and not even noticed it there. And, you know, I was using the charge point app. And the charge point app works in Android Auto. So it shows you you know gives you the addresses of where the where the charges are. But it doesn't show you all the notes if you actually take you know, unplug your phone and look in the chargepoint app and click on on the charger. It actually does have some more detailed notes. And in there it said Oh, it's on the second floor of this parking garage. But it doesn't show you that in in Android Auto or Apple CarPlay for some reason. So that's something for for chargepoint to address. But you know just in general in any navigation system if you're going to if you're going to put locations of charges and this applies to Google Maps and Apple Maps, which all do charge your locations and and in via the built in nav systems and cars same thing goes for you know for sync you know their nav system you know please put more precise detail and for those that are installing chargers, yes. If you're gonna if you're gonna have a charger in your parking facility, put a sign at the entrance. Yeah, I'd say the the Evie chargers are on the second floor. You know

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:48  
gonna be just give us the people or even the floor

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:53  
like a little plug symbol and go that way

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:57  
or something. There's 1000 exit signs. There's 1000 parking signs, like, I don't know, put up five charging signs, just say, Oh, go up this go to the third floor, and then just have a little like, go this way, go this way. No, you're almost there. I swear. Yes, it's in the far corner where it's going to take you 20 minutes to walk to the mall, but you're going to get charged, give us some information.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:17  
And and, and if it's, you know, if it's in a parking lot in the mall, you know, the, you know, the ground level parking lot, or you know, big box store, put a sign there yet. Looking for gas gas stations have huge signs, you know, but they do want to do that for the Chargers

Roberto Baldwin  1:10:33  
giant light up sign and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:34  
put it at 20 feet up in the air and say, whatever in the URL there. Say, here's the Chargers right here.

Roberto Baldwin  1:10:39  
You put a lightning bolt there, it'll be awesome. We'd like a heavy metal do

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:43  
a lightning and the bolt should point in the direction of the charger. So you just keep following the bolt. Like, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:50  
I like it. There you go. Good user interface design.

Roberto Baldwin  1:10:55  
Not anymore. Let's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:00  
while I was in Traverse City, I also had a chance to chat with Craig Stevens, from Ford, Craig. Kevin Maul from Bosch, and oh, I can't remember her name now. Heather. I'm sorry. Heather Wilbert are from bedrock about the new Detroit smart parking lab. And there's an interview that I will paste in right here. And we'll be right back and answer some listener questions. announcing today, this new program. That is I guess, you could call it a development of what we saw last year, with the automated valet parking system that you demoed in Detroit last year. Building on that, and expanding it, give us give me an overview of what's what your what Ford and Bosch and the state of Michigan are doing.

Kevin Mull  1:12:00  
Yeah. And we'll throw bedrock into the elevator is or Yeah. And ACM, ACM. Yeah, well, we can explain all that, too. So Craig, if you don't mind, I will help them, maybe they start with a little bit of the overview. So, you know, the project last summer went really well. And I think that what kind of the catalyst was for this was the collaboration that we had, you know, felt so easy and natural, and it was the right mix of collaborators that, you know, we kind of said, you know, we don't really want this to end here. And we started thinking about what the next thing could be. And then, as our discussions evolved with Trevor Paul's team in the state of Michigan, you know, we wanted to bring them into the program, and through that dialogue, and, you know, to best align with their mission, we decided we wanted to kind of expand the scope to you know, not just valet parking, we would call that a, you know, a very significant project that we did together, but we wanted to make this more of an innovation platform, and broaden the scope to include logistics first and last mile logistics use cases. And Evie, charging, you know, still inspired around parking, you know, parking inspired, but, you know, much broader than just the automated movement in the vehicle. So, we decided that, we also wanted to have a, you know, very legitimate operator to run the lab for us. And that's where we brought ACM into the dialogue and, and, you know, they were really accommodating plus, and we agreed that they would become the operator of the lab. And then of course, you know, we'll talk more about this later, I suppose. And we were able to to bring enterprise in as our launch project. So it became Ford and bedrock in the state of Michigan and Bosch, collaborating together bringing ACM on as our operator enterprise and as our as our launch projects.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:07  
So to just step back a little bit for those that are not familiar with it, the the original project was using the Bosch automated valet parking system combined with Ford vehicles with built in conductivity. You got sensors in the parking facility that detect where vehicles and pedestrians are and where they're moving around within the facility. And then as the vehicle comes in, driver stops on the on the parking pad gets out system communicates over Wi Fi to the vehicle and then guides it and sends the commands for where it should go. Right. Right, correct. spot. Okay. So with enterprise I guess, where where does it go from here with this new you know, as a platform are companies like enterprise and other potential partners Are they going to be using that same setup? Or are they going to be adding additional things to that? How's that all going to work?

Craig Stephens  1:15:09  
I think that's that's why we went with the short small pocket magnet. So people to experiment right with with whatever they think is going to help their business right there is. Parking is a pain point for everybody. Right. So it's a pain point for consumers is a pain point for commercial vehicles. It's a pain point for cities, right. So I think this intent here is to create a place where people experiment with eliminating that pain point.

Kevin Mull  1:15:42  
And if I could add to that note, regarding the, what you saw last summer, with the automated valet parking, the infrastructure providers have big elements of that. And, you know, we think infrastructure obviously, is going to have a big impact on automating autonomous vehicle movement, you know, down the road. But where enterprise comes in, as we're pivoting that platform, that you saw the the automated valet parking, that was a, you know, a consumer parking use case, we're going to use the same technology, but apply it to a rental car use case and how we can, you know, potentially impact the operations of a rental car company in moving vehicles around their their operation, you know, in between rentals when the vehicle needs to be cleaned and charged or fueled, before the next rental. So that's the focus of the Enterprise Project.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:38  
So my understanding is enterprises had a program of doing quick turnarounds, obviously, you know, for a business like that, you don't want the cars sitting around idle for any longer than necessary, you want to be able to get new customer brings it in and get it cleaned up fueled, and and get it back out to another customer soon as possible. Because just like aircraft, and when they're sitting idle, they're not generating revenue for you. So is, is enterprise, I guess, what sort of things are they going to do? Are they going to have some some of their team come in and practice doing hail as vehicles go in and out, you know, practice doing the things that they would normally do at a at a rental facility? Or are they actually going to operate a rental facility out of this garage in Detroit or,

Kevin Mull  1:17:27  
or we're basically going to simulate that vehicle path. But with automated vehicle movement, and just check with the true feasibility, can this level of automated vehicle movement really fit into the into their use case can connect, so it's just a proof of concept. We're working together to you know, analyze that to see if all those steps that could have some level of automation to optimize the process on their behalf. So they will be there, their experts will be there with us to instruct us on how the vehicle should move and what the steps should be. And then we'll work together to figure out if that really is feasible in their environment.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:14  
I understand, you know, one of the one of the things that they may be looking at as part of this is also automated charging for EBS, which actually today, you know, as we're talking is particularly appropriate, and given that the Biden administration is supposed to make some announcements today about plans for future emission standards and Evie adoption. So is enterprise going to be doing something around automated Evie charging? As part of this, this test program?

Kevin Mull  1:18:46  
It is yes, that's something that we're going to look at as to, you know, what would the impact we have using the technology to move the vehicle to and from charge station as part of the process? So we'll do a simulation of that in the lab, and then we'll run some analysis to see, you know, at the the volume of vehicles that they have to process at one of their facilities, you know, is that type of charging, you know, going to optimize their process? Or does it need to be done in different ways. So it's a, we will take a very good look at that. As

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:23  
well, the the vehicles that are going to be used all those are going to be the same Ford vehicles that you were using for the tough program last year for

Craig Stephens  1:19:31  
we have those two, two vehicles available. And the idea is if we, if we take this next step of automated parking, so that we have automated it today, but as Kevin said, Really the next step needs to involve the infrastructure, right? So if you're involved in the infrastructure, for it's not going to provide all the infrastructure or visa gonna provide all the infrastructure. So we need to set up standards right, how the vehicles the infrastructure are going to enter Bass. And so the vehicle, we will use our vehicles to help understand what that interface is and develop that interface and share that interface right with with others who might want to achieve the same end result. So as we do that, we will undoubtedly end up taking that interface and putting it onto other vehicles, other platforms.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:22  
Is there is there any work going on? Already, in terms of standards process for something like this to develop standardized interfaces, communication protocols or anything else?

Craig Stephens  1:20:35  
There is a project in Germany, and it's cross industry project. We're both involved in that this will be the first step in the US. That's correct.

Kevin Mull  1:20:44  
Yeah. And as part of the agreement with ACM, they're going to help us establish that Standards Committee and then they will, they will chair that committee for us.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:00  
Is that going to be through SAE or just through just directly led by ACM? Okay. So what what other potential types of projects do you perceive? What what are kind of what are the sorts of applications do you see possibly being built on this, this sort of platform? Yeah,

Kevin Mull  1:21:22  
I think each of us, you know, bedrock, posh Ford, we have our own ideas. And that was part of the the open innovation platform, we have to really stress the open part, we all agree that, you know, anybody can come in there and test even if it's somebody that, you know, one of us, you know, as our own individual company, you know, may not naturally work with, but we said, Look, it's just open. And I think that the breadth of the opportunities, it could be something that bedrock applies, that, you know, physically moves the vehicle around, maybe it's not, you know, some level of automation. Or it could be something associated with the gate system in the garage or cameras in the overhead that, you know, watch where the cargos attract the vehicle to see what parking space it goes to make to be reserving parking spots for delivery vehicle. And, of course, we will focus definitely on on Evie charging, that's a that's a big component. So it's meant to be very, very broad. And we want people to leverage the grant program that the state of Michigan has made available to us as part of the lab to make applications and then our team will review all those applications and, you know, decide which projects come in. So that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:40  
team will be bedrock, Bosch, Ford and ACM. In the state of Michigan in the state of Michigan. Yeah. So how much funding has the state made available? In total for this? Or is there a specific number?

Kevin Mull  1:22:56  
Yeah, I don't want to say that number just yet. Because I think that that's something that the state would indicate, but it's a it's a pretty significant number.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:03  
Okay. And after enterprise, do you, when do you expect to see perhaps more partners coming in and trying things out? The lab,

Kevin Mull  1:23:16  
we have a very active pipeline. So there are a number of projects that are kind of in the queue waiting to get the application formalized now that it's going to be live after today. And then, you know, we will kind of accelerate our evaluation so that we can get the the next projects in the, you know, in the ideas that they're, you know, we want multiple projects going on in the lab, if possible. So if there's, you know, physical area available and technology platforms in the garage that are available for access, you know, if we can coordinate it, we want multiple projects at the same time.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:57  
Right. What about some of your direct competitors, other OEMs or other suppliers? I would assume that, you know, given the part of this processes, you know, developing standards, you might actually want some of some of your competitors to come in, and, you know, work on things like interoperability.

Craig Stephens  1:24:18  
That would be great. That's, I mean, that was part of the discussion that we had at the very beginning, right, the egg as if, when we're talking about the infrastructure being part of the eliminators pain point. There has to be a cross industry platform. And so with, we hope that this effort, the standards work, and having a facility where people can come and test will accelerate that are welcome.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:48  
Obviously, you know, Bosch has been doing some of the work with the automated valet parking in Europe as well and in Germany Are you also planning to Do something like the trademark parking lab at a location in Europe is, is that part of the plan and to enable some of the companies over there to participate a little more easily.

Kevin Mull  1:25:12  
I mean, I think all of us would be open to that. But right now our focus is here in, in the region. But I think, you know, we're gonna get significant learnings from from that, and then we'll decide how to, you know, extend or scale, what we're doing. I think one thing that's important to note, too, is Heather's here from bedrock. And they've made this amazing facility available to us, you know, state of the art garage, you got to see it last year. So it's a great platform to work from. But no, we don't want this to only be parking, garage related parking activities. So if there's something that's, you know, curbside or you know, something in a surface lot, or whatever we want to test that to, we do have the ability with ACM even to do things that may not fit into the four walls of the garage, we could extend out their platform do do do some things that will run as well. Yeah, for example, I think, you know, the heart of it is going to be in the bedrock facility that's kind of the linchpin, it's perfectly positioned between downtown and corktown. So, you know, core to bedrock, have made massive investments in those areas. And we feel like we're right at the intersection of those investments. And now, we're really going to work together to figure out how to optimize the technology that's available.

Heather Willberger  1:26:34  
It's part of bedrock. And as a real estate owner, we're really keenly interested to understand the consumer experience, tenants, you know, residential tenants, commercial tenants, and how we can leverage a smarter parking technology just to make life a lot easier. So people can park when and where they choose to. The other big piece that we're interested in, is really going to be around stainability. And how we can leverage some of these parking technology tests to optimize sustainability.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:04  
It would make sense for a company like bedrock on and manage a lot of properties, and especially for sale, for example, for residential properties or commercial properties. Things like, you know, being able to manage charging, you know, either residential or workplace charging for multi unit dwellings. That's as we move forward with more Evie adoption, that's going to be a big thing is managing that charging infrastructure and enabling all of your residents, whether it be residential or commercial, to take advantage of that. And, you know, maybe automatically shuffle cars around for them as they get, we get charged or need charging.

Heather Willberger  1:27:44  
Yeah, and I think the other piece that we'll be keenly interested is culturally in society begins to shift as we come out of COVID. You know, what does parking utilization look like across all of our portfolio? And are there opportunities to think about using parking decks, Deaf decks in non traditional ways, so that we can really take advantage of the space?

Craig Stephens  1:28:07  
those comments, I think one of the things that made what we did last summer, so valuable, and were catalyze some of the ideas of coming up with the smart marquee lab, in that the perspectives that were dropped for, from their customers perspective, right. And their space utilization, really saw that there were multiple stakeholders, right in eliminating this sort of low speed moving vehicles around problem parking problem. And together, we could do some interface and then some of the parts. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:46  
Well, any any final thoughts like to share about this project? And maybe where things go in the future?

Heather Willberger  1:28:56  
Well, publicly Intel latias board and ACM partners has worked so hard for so long, it's been an incredible collaborative journey with a wonderful Public Private Partnership, which I think is really the secret sauce, entire thing.

Kevin Mull  1:29:12  
And it's been a it's been fun. It has been and I think, you know, once we open the doors, so to speak, I mean, it's obviously not open to the public. But once we get some of these demonstrations going, you know, one thing to be clear about is, I think, you know, with with ACM as our operating partner, you know, obviously, there's a lot of really important testing, but also very confidential testing that's going on there. The lab has a little bit of a different orientation, you know, I like to to explain it as almost like a trade show floor, where we want people to come in and exhibit so it's, it's testing, but it's also demonstration. And that's where, you know, we go in the direction that Heather was alluding to where we want to get feedback from All those different stakeholders. So, you know, we want the lab to be as open as possible for that sort of thing to mean, we'll protect the assets that are in there, obviously. And we'll make sure that confidentiality and all that is protected, but it's not, you know, a lockdown proving ground, it's somewhere where we want to be able to design our projects where people can come in and access them.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:22  
Yeah, and clearly user experience, you know, has to be a key part of these kinds of technologies, you know, whether it's individuals that are bringing their car into Park, new residence, or a business, like, like a rental agency, you know, how are the employees going to interact with with this technology and get the best use out of it? So,

Kevin Mull  1:30:42  
and I think that's a very cool thing about the property is, you may recall from being there, you know, behind the assembly garages, the assembly property, which is mixed use commercial and residential space, so we literally have access to those quote unquote, users, you know, right across the alley. So it's a great spot in that regard.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:03  
Great. Well, thank you all so much for your time today. This has been a fantastic conversation, looking forward to see what kinds of interesting results come out of this program. Yeah, thanks. Thank you, Sam. We'll have you have you over once we get going. That's great. All right. Thank you. All right. All right. Let's do some listener questions. William Charles asks, could electric car manufacturers extend range by sacrificing acceleration? Well, they could. Or you could just sacrifice the acceleration yourself. You know, they don't be silly ranges based on the range. The range is based on, you know, how you drive. So you know, you don't have to use that acceleration. You know, if your car's got 600 foot pounds of torque, if you don't have to use it, every time

Nicole Wakelin  1:31:53  
I get better, or easy on the gas, I take it easy on that accelerator pedal, when it's a nav and poof, things would be better.

Roberto Baldwin  1:32:01  
I think it's I think some of the selling point of the Eevee. Initially, when you first get it is the fact that it has that low end torque you're like, like that, that is just that again, anytime you put someone in an Eevee they're gonna be like, Oh, now I get it. But yeah, you you know, just Well, after a while, you know, you drive your car, you probably put in Eco mode. When you're just cruising on the highway, you probably you know, maybe don't slam on the accelerator when you're cruising around town. Because you realize, you know, in California Gas is almost five bucks a gallon. So he's like, Lord, yeah, I have a picture of like a gas station in LA when I was in LA for the E Tron drive. It was like almost six, but it was some ridiculous number. I took a picture. And I should I should have posted on social media. But I didn't feel like having people yell about how horrible California is. Oh, 619 for Super plus. At a mobile. So much. It was Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of the outlier.

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:56  
I want to write about my $3 a gallon gas now. Yeah. Can't complain much about

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:02  
that'd be belly aching. 25 here.

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:06  
But yeah, and but what's nice is that our what's not nice isn't a car, when you take your foot off the accelerator, you're not making more electricity. You can make

Nicole Wakelin  1:33:15  
it easy. It's like you're doing good stuff like this. Whoo.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:18  
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So the thing to remember with an Eevee, and also for gas cars, but especially for E V's is your range is going to be you know, affected by the three T's, temperature, terrain, and technique. And, you know, if it's cold, you're going to get less range. Or if it's too hot, you'd also get less range. If you're driving mountainous regions, you know, you're probably going to get a little less range, although you will make it up on the downhill side. And technique, how you drive, you know, if you have a lighter foot on the accelerator, because the reality is, if you put a less powerful motor in the vehicle, it's probably not going to have a huge impact on the range. Because the way the range is measured is you know, fairly low levels of acceleration anyway, for the EPA testing. And you know, so basically, in the EPA testing, there's a lot of performance that's never getting utilized. So if you don't utilize that performance on the road, you're going to get better range. If you do you know, if you if you are constantly testing the launch control in your E Tron GT, you're not going to get 235 miles of range,

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:24  
but you won't care. And also Americans aren't going to buy a car with like, you know, we have we have a base level of power we want in vehicles. And every once in a while a car will come out like a version of a vehicle. I remember there was a version of the mini that was less powerful. But it was much it was cheaper in Europe, and I was like Why don't they bring that here and when he's like, because that would be stupid. No one's gonna buy this. It doesn't have any power. Yeah, we're gonna buy the the cheap, wimpy mini in the United States, whereas in Europe, you know, like, Oh, I'm just driving around town. I just got to get my stuff done.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:55  
And the American and I it's you know, when you're paying $8 a gallon for gas.

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:58  
Yeah, in the United States. Things a NASCAR race. So Wait, you mean it's not everything is a NASCAR race?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:07  
Alright, Coach Cabrera asks, What trim level is the sweet spot when ordering an F 150 lightning especially if you want all the driver safety features available. So actually a lot of the driver safety stuff is going to be there even on the base trim level the the which is actually the Pro. But, you know, in general, you know, I think anytime you're looking at you know, a Ford vehicle or for for you know, most anything, you know, you're the sweet spot is really kind of the mid trim levels. So in the case of the F 150 lightning it's got four trims, you got the Pro, which is the base work truck, the X lt the the Lariat and the platinum. The X lt is probably the Yeah, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:35:50  
I think once you get past the XL T, it just gets sort of, it's too much. And again, that's that to me personally, as a person who thinks trucks are like, like cameras, they're tools for hauling stuff around and scratching up and driving over things and picking up hay. And then I get into, like, Well, like I like I do. But then you get until it's like, yeah, and then mulch. But then you get into the platinum and it's so fancy and nice. And lots of people love that. And you know, that's, that's wonderful for you. But for me, I'm like, No, this is way too nice, because I'm going to get all dirty using the truck. And now I'm going to get into this nice

Nicole Wakelin  1:36:27  
fancy takes you price from being like, Oh, I'm buying a truck to Oh, good lord, I'm buying a truck with every last penny that I have when you start going for those higher. Like, I know, I'm eating like I'm eating like a college student. But look at my truck. You know, you just it they're so expensive. When you get to those higher level.

Roberto Baldwin  1:36:45  
I'm a luxury vehicle with a bed.

Nicole Wakelin  1:36:47  
Yes. Which I need to sleep in it because you can't afford your rent.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:55  
Alright, Joe m asks, What would you recommend in a retractable hardtop and our overall best year Miata trying to get the most bang for the buck trying to stay about $10,000? Well, that's getting a lot harder to do with the Miata Miata prices like a lot of other older cars have started to go up quite a bit. But if you want the retractable hardtop, I would recommend that you take a look at the the third generation because they only offered that on the third generation, they've got the RF on the new one, which is a little bit different. But the you know, the third generation the NC miatas, which were from about 2007, I think 2006 or seven until, like 2014 or 15. They had a retractable hardtop option, which, you know, in profile looks just like the soft top except it's a three piece hard top that disappears into the same space. It's really nice. And I don't think you're going to get one of those for 10 grand, but you you probably can find a nice NC for that $10,000 price range. That's probably your best bet. Good luck. Any any thoughts on that? No. Okay,

Roberto Baldwin  1:38:08  
yeah, you're the Miata guy.

Nicole Wakelin  1:38:10  
That's that's kind of a Sam question. So

Unknown Speaker  1:38:12  
yeah, what

Unknown Speaker  1:38:13  
Sam said,

Roberto Baldwin  1:38:14  
what Sam said I'm too tall for me. So I don't pay that much attention other than I wish I was. I wish they fit tall people. That's my that's my issue with me on top people.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:26  
That my my friend who I bought my Miata from my 1990 he just bought an NC softtop. I think it's a 2012. And I think he paid about 11 or 12 for it. So I think you can you can find some higher mileage ones for that 10 grand range, but not with the hard top. Yeah. All right. Chuck Goolsbee asks, we just put an offer on a house that may very well be our forever home.

Nicole Wakelin  1:38:55  
gratulations.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:55  
The only day is as far as automobiles go, is that it is at the end of a two plus mile gravel road that is very washboard rotted, so we're selling my wife's BMW five series KBB pegs at at $7,000 more than we paid. Thanks to those elevated us car prices right now. And I will very likely have to buy an enclosed trailer to shuttle my collector cars up and down to actual pavement when I want to drive them. I want my winter beater car. I figured my winter beater car a 2008 Subaru Outback Wagon will become my primary year round driver and the M roadster will only come out like my like Sam's first gen Miata. What to replace my wife's 535 ai with when we met she was driving a big Lexus SUV which sadly succumb to a mule deer bucket 50 miles an hour, a constant risk here in Central Oregon. So I think a good all wheel drive SUV or crossover would be best for her. She prefers luxury and is an easy tech like CarPlay over performance and all wheel drive and great tires will get her up and down are nutty ready mountain road, leaning towards another Lexus or Toyota or open to a Subaru or a Mazda? I do recall you folks raving about one of the Korean SUVs or crossovers lately but but admit to not paying attention to your discussions around SUVs that I selfishly don't care

Nicole Wakelin  1:40:15  
to listen to we're not answering your question nevermind

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:19  
remind me of some better options. So so so he was a what would you suggest for Chuck in a nice and a nice SUV with easy to use infotainment and some some luxurious and decent level of luxury over performance?

Roberto Baldwin  1:40:37  
I was gonna say x five, but that's probably a little bit too pricey just because they're used to the five series. And you can sort of be Apple CarPlay or just, you know, it's essentially you know, it's it's a five series up off the ground. Maybe they'll tell you, right,

Nicole Wakelin  1:40:52  
oh, I was gonna say tell you right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:54  
Yeah. what he's referring to Yeah, probably either the telluride or the palisade.

Nicole Wakelin  1:40:59  
I know he's driving like with the with the BMW thing he's driving or his wife is driving. Very different vehicle. But I go drive to telluride. It's not all about performance. It's beautiful inside it's a good price. It's roomy as heck. It'll that's it's it's I would say telluride that would be my first thought.

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:19  
So I'm gonna have a big dragon a trailer with this I'll tell you right it's 5000 pounds towing capacity, which I think should be fine. What's your what's what's he rolling around in? What's his

Nicole Wakelin  1:41:31  
in? Oh, eight Outback

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:33  
nobody's lm roadster maybe we have since collected

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:37  
them roadster.

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:38  
I could show my collection cars up and down to actual pavement when I want to drive them. Um, yeah, I think that would be fine. Because this is kind of sounds like you just Yeah, yeah. tell you, right, give it a give it a go. Give it a chance. drive it around, see if you like and,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:55  
and if she wants something a little more classic, classically, luxury flavor, you know, then the palisade would be the other alternative. So either the palisade or the telluride although I think the telluride is more in keeping with the Central Oregon vibe.

Roberto Baldwin  1:42:10  
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I

Nicole Wakelin  1:42:11  
like that between the two. I go tell you I bet drive both of them. See what you think. See what she likes to look up the feel of the comfort of and but definitely give them both a shot.

Roberto Baldwin  1:42:20  
When I'm speaking to Tony when I was in Germany. I don't know whenever that happened a couple of weeks ago, there was someone towing a single horse trailer so it's the horse trailer for one horse with a Subaru Legacy wagon. Excellent. You don't need the big giant. You don't need a 15 100 Ram or 2500 Ram the tall your one horse. You just need a Subaru Legacy wagon.

Nicole Wakelin  1:42:46  
Your one horse. Just one horse get a Subaru gets a Subaru Legacy wagon.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:54  
Okay, finally, Adam jordison asks, here's the backstory family of five all three kids are pre teenage so no more car seats. Thankfully, we bought a 2012 Chrysler Town and Country in November of 2011. But it only has 60,000 miles on it right now. That's laughable mileage for a 10 year old country. Yeah. Here's the question. What is the outlook for three ro electric vehicles on dealer lots by the end of 2022. When a phv be the best option. I'm not going to I'm not going to go and try and purchase a vehicle this year because of the current state of inventory of dealerships and potential for markups. However, I was curious about the marketplace. How the marketplace outlook, how the marketplace may look in 18 months. So I mean, if you like minivan you like the country? Obviously I would definitely consider the Pacifica plug in hybrid Pacifica

Roberto Baldwin  1:43:44  
plug in hybrid that you got a lot of kids Yeah, I don't know if I don't know where he lives. Where do you live? Does he say he didn't say okay, so does not say I'm I'm going to say that. Yeah, the Pacifica plug in hybrid probably be best for right now that are 2022. Just because I don't know if you live in California, if there if there is an Eevee available at the end of 2020. With that, then yeah, go for it. But if you live in, like Ohio, get the get the P have.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:13  
Yep. Yeah, I'm not. I mean, there there are going to be a bunch of three row electric crossovers coming whether they'll actually be available for sale by the end of 22 or sometime in 2023 is not clear. You know, if there's if you see if you can waste a run in a three row. I don't what's

Roberto Baldwin  1:44:35  
that the Fisker ocean,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:37  
the Pfister ocean?

Nicole Wakelin  1:44:38  
Rebecca page he called

Roberto Baldwin  1:44:41  
her back and asked her you know, you know, what he can do is wait an extra year and get the the ID buzz. Hmm get the electric

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:49  
Yeah. 20 you get the buzz.

Roberto Baldwin  1:44:52  
Wait an extra year cuz you still got 60,000 miles. So by 2023 this one by 2023 He'll it'll he'll be 80,020.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:05  
Clearly, if they've accumulated 60,000 miles over 10 years, you know, they're currently not driving long distances with this thing. So, you know, any V's going to be a great option? Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you can wait till 23 get the ID otherwise get the the Pacifica hybrid. Your

Roberto Baldwin  1:45:24  
kids will be so stoked if you get that as opposed to I love minivans. I think minivans are amazing and awesome. But I don't know any teenagers are like, yeah, minivans. But if you if you had an ID buzz, you'd be the call every time your kids would want you to drop them off in front of the school instead of down the street. So if you want to be the cool parent, I'm just saying,

Nicole Wakelin  1:45:45  
that's what you need to do is you need to wait till 2023 2023 Adam,

Roberto Baldwin  1:45:48  
be the cool parent.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:51  
There you go. And with that, we're all done. We're out of questions for this week. Yay. That's it.

Roberto Baldwin  1:45:58  
That sounds weird when I say Yeah. Like I'm celebrating, just like we're done with.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:07  
It's late. It's late. It's late. All right. Thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Bye bye.