Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up next on wheel bearings Episode 210. We've got the Volvo XC 90 to recharge the Porsche makhan, the BMW 430 II electric resto mods, and we have a special guest, Mr. Jamie kipman to talk about Elan Musk, and his car collection. That's 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 210 of wheel bearings. I'm Sandra ball savage from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  0:57  
I am Nicole wakelin, from truecar.

Roberto Baldwin  1:00  
And I am Roberto Baldwin will say motor one this week.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05  
And we have a special guest joining us this week, Mr. Jamie kipman. Jamie, thank you so much for stopping by this week and chatting with us and really appreciate it. Pleasure. So tell I'm sure it will be interesting to listen to and to read your you've, you've got such an incredible way with words. And what what prompted me to reach out to you is I saw actually I heard your interview on marketplace yesterday about the article that was just published in the the road rat, correct that the right name of the publication is correct. About Elon Musk and the title is Elan musk doesn't care if you like him. We're gonna come back to that in a little bit. But before we do, let's start off with the garage and talk about what we're driving this week. Nikola, why don't you go first?

Nicole Wakelin  2:04  
Okay, I will go first. I had the perfect car to have for the end of summer because summer is pretty much over here in New England. It's gonna snow any day now. So I had a 2021 BMW 430 I convertible, which is super fun to drive. I thoroughly enjoyed this. And I wanted to and I have to give it was like a but it was it was beautiful. It's so pretty. But that grill people the to the grill what has happened there I wanted to get behind the grill on the front of the BMW and I swear to God, I'm like sitting there looking at it outside the window. I'm like, I can't I just can't. Even my kids. My daughter actually said to me he was 17 it's not like she's a toddler and asks odd questions. serious question. Mom. Does it look like that? Because it does something like she thought there was some like engineering reason why it was so big. I'm like no honey, it it just looks like that. So well, it's hard to get behind. But like she really thought it was like there's got to be a reason why they would do that to the car. But so other than that and taking some serious getting used to having that in front of your car. It's It's beautiful. I love the softtop the new softtop is fantastic. It is so good. And I realized as I was driving down the highway, I briefly we had some rain and I'm driving the highway and I'm driving by these big tractor trailers, which is normally the kind of thing when you're in a soft top, you almost have to stop conversation for a second because it gets very, very loud. I sort of forgot that I was in one like, it's so quiet with that top up, you wouldn't even know that it was a convertible, which is pretty impressive. And you can even feel it when you touch the top of it. You can if you push against it, you can feel that like the sort of insulation and padding there. It's significant. So it's very, very quiet. When you choose to leave the top up, she up baby could sleep in there. Because the babies about all that would fit in the back seats. The back seats are very small. It says that four people can sit total in the car you can fit to there is no way on God's green earth that my husband could have sat back there.

Roberto Baldwin  4:04  
Maybe they sit in the grill.

Nicole Wakelin  4:06  
Maybe that's what it's for. Is there like a lever? Yeah, and they just sit there all in? Yeah, like on the front. But the back seats my my teenage daughters could sit back there but it was a squeeze. So it's you know, it's it's, it's a two seater. Really it's a four seater in a pinch. But yeah, you can you can just barely make it work for four. It does have a surprisingly roomy little trunk they gained a little bit of extra space by the change to the convertible top this year. So I think it's like nine cubic feet which isn't a ton of space but it's a convertible it's not like you're buying an SUV that's that's decent. You could actually fit your groceries back there and power cars you

Sam Abuelsamid  4:44  
could also use the backseat for groceries.

Nicole Wakelin  4:47  
You could you could you but the the you can't flip the seats up quickly. There's a latch on the back like that it's easier for the pastor, the person writing the back to flip open to get them to just like put pop forward, but even then it's not like As far as for like the

Sam Abuelsamid  5:05  
convertible, so the top should be down anyway

Nicole Wakelin  5:07  
but it's also I live in New Hampshire so there's like three days a year you can do that. So when it's raining and the top is up if we wait for it, so it was quicker to flip the chocolate put into the chunky just squish them in and watch the eggs. So let's see power comes from a two liter turbo for with children. 55 horsepower, 295 pound feet of torque eight speed transmission. They're not like blow your mind numbers, but it's moves like that. It's a responsive car. It's fun to drive it sounds has a nice little like, Oh, I'm a sporty little BMW kind of verbal going on there. Yeah. Oh, I see. This is what I wish we had video that showed out the show Rob Roberta just did this little like dance thing when I said it was a sporty car. Like we need to see this sometimes. So driving is a lot of fun. I mean it it's a BMW kind of drives like a BMW, which means that you know, it's, it's an engaging drive, it's sporty without being so harsh that it feels like it's gonna rattle your teeth. So it's comfortable. It's like a sporty car that you can enjoy your time behind the wheel and not think I can do this for about half an hour and then I will have had enough like you could go on a long cruise in this. And it has all the fun bells and whistles inside has a great big I think the standard screens eight inches but I have the 10.25 inch screen so it's a good bit bigger. 16 speaker Harman Kardon audio system, that sounds fantastic. So I like thumbs up and it was I mean, it's expensive. I don't know is it crazy expensive? Maybe my standards for crazy expensive have slipped since I've been doing this but base is 53,100. So definitely not, not cheap. When you add on all of the many things they've added on there's a there's a whole bunch of em sports stuff on the one I had. So there's like you get special breaks and blue calipers and a differential and you get some you know, it's like M Sport logo on the door sills. So mine went from 53 one all the way up to 67. Two.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:03  
So took a little bit of a job. That's that's not that's not crazy, though. I

Nicole Wakelin  7:07  
mean, like, it's like, sure. It's not the price of a Camry but it's it's is a sports car. It is a luxury car. It's a convertible. So I felt like if I had $67,000 and I was looking for a fun little sports car, this could fit the bill. So I was pleased and it wasn't that brilliant blue. I don't what do they call it? It can't just be blue. Port porta mayo. I'm saying portimao I'm gonna put them out or pretty nice. Yeah, pretty much what you said Sam, it was that Blue Metallic is the rest of it. I can say Blue Metallic. The color was beautiful. It was absolutely absolutely beautiful, beautiful color.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:45  
So yeah, so that was Hey, Jamie, last

Nicole Wakelin  7:47  
gasp of summer that I get to.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:49  
Yeah, Jamie, I'm curious what you think of BMWs new design direction with the oversized grill

Jamie kitman  7:58  
kidneys. You know, I just had an M four and then three. And I started out you know, I mean, I generally disappointed if I had to give you a two word answer. But I would say that, you know, I you get increasingly numb to it immune. And you know, maybe that'll look normal in a while. I mean, be really for the last 20 years or more. Since when BMW was a style leader. I mean, they sort of still are, you know, even if people should have stopped following them in the middle 90. But it seems like that you tend to get used to it. And I think there's just a pressure to do something different that drives them. But I don't I don't really understand it. I'm sure you're surprised for a company that seems in many ways, conservative that they go with kind of like radically awful. Things like that.

Roberto Baldwin  9:07  
And they're sticking to it. Yeah, backing down. Now think No,

Sam Abuelsamid  9:12  
not yet. Anyway.

Jamie kitman  9:14  
I mean, I seem to recall hearing that, you know, the the bangle bustle that was on the seven series around the turn of the century, and people were up in arms. I mean, at the time, I defended it on the grounds that, you know, everybody complains that everything looks the same. And of course, everything was starting to look like a BMW is the Japanese and started copying the BMW and pretty much everybody was making a car that looks sort of like a five series. So here comes BMW, and they sort of break the mold a little bit and then everybody's complaining. So I think, you know, in general, I don't look to my colleagues in the automotive press for really design direction. the automobile industry and I don't think anybody really knows what they want until they see it. In any case, the I the anecdote was that the seven series, I think it was the best selling One was that first bangle, but in one and and it, you know, migrated to Lexus and others who did more or less the same thing. So I personally don't care for it. But you know, generally like, whatever I guess is my view.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:32  
Yeah, I think I could probably live with it on the internal combustion cars. Sorry. No, there. Yeah. Sorry, I muted myself for a minute because Daisy was barking. I could, I could live with it. I think on the internal combustion cars, I don't like it, but I could live with it. There. Were I think it really, really annoys me the most though, is on the new e V's on the I four and the AI x, and particularly on the AI x where it is just, it has grown so far out of proportion. And it's not even at all functional, there is no opening at all. There's a small grill opening at the bottom. So the entire kidneys, kidneys are blocked off. So it just I just I don't understand the design direction at all. With BMW right now. But let me let me put this out for a vote what which would, which would have no you less the Civic Type R wing, or the giant size kidneys.

Roberto Baldwin  11:37  
The wing annoys me less because that is what you would anticipate on that car for that type of buyer.

Nicole Wakelin  11:44  
I think I'm going to agree because it works on that. They're not sticking it on the back of an accord. You know, it works on the car, it's on there sticking that grill on everything.

Jamie kitman  11:54  
Right and then right. And the final point is, is that the grill is kind of like the first thing you see, you know, it's like somebody who's got really bad teeth or something. It doesn't really matter what their backside looks like, because you're so freaked out by that point.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:13  
As soon as they smile, it's like, you don't know what to do. Right? Okay. All right. What have you been driving,

Roberto Baldwin  12:25  
whatever I've been driving, hold on, I gotta double check, oh, I drove the 2022 Porsche makaan s, the latest version of the Porsche. And probably the last update before the lineup also includes an Eevee. So I go to the Porsche, I actually drove the Porsche makhan. And the mechanics, I drove the base level and the, the S version, and I'm just gonna say the the base, just the regular makaan. If you were just a person who wants a car that handles well, and you're not an enthusiast, or someone who wants to push a car, the regular makaan is fine. It's fine. But to really get that portion, you know that the that promise of a portion where you have that wonderful handling, but you also have the power, that that you know, that that is that goes hand in hand with that handling. You got to get the mechanics and that's that's where it really comes down to is you got it? Yeah, gotta get the makaan s. I know that the price differential is is pretty scissors as a 10,000 bucks. Yeah, it's about 10,010 and a half. So the mechanic starts at $65,400. Isn't that a cheap SUV? The regular makhan starts at $54,900 is the least expensive Porsche you can buy. But when you drive,

Nicole Wakelin  13:44  
that's the cheapest Porsche you can buy is $54,000.

Roberto Baldwin  13:47  
Yeah. I think the camera starts at 60, low 60s, maybe mid 60s.

Nicole Wakelin  13:52  
I don't think I've ever looked that up before I have them all priced out.

Roberto Baldwin  13:57  
Yeah, so if you're, you know, if you're looking for a Porsche, but you know, you don't want to spend a lot of money. You want to have room for maybe some kids or some friends or you need storage. Yeah, that's that's what the makaan comes in. And the people are I'm sure people are still angry about it. It's been out since 2014. It's not a real pours, because it's an it's an SUV. It's not a real Porsche, because it's not air cooled. It's not a real Porsche, because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the reasons why Porsches are, you know, modern Porsches aren't real Porsches? all the reasons why SUVs aren't real Porsches all the reasons why you V's are not real Porsches. When it comes down to when you drive these things, they still feel like a Porsche they're still you know you How about why does this cost so much? drive a Porsche then you'll know that's that's really what it comes down to. Yeah, I really, really liked it. I'm always surprised by how well Porsche is able to engineer handling on an SUV. The makhan and cayenne are both just ridiculously well handling SUVs or they're well handling sedans that they were sedans they would handle really well. You know The the S has that 2.9 liter twin turbo V six that was in the last generation I guess the current vehicles GTS so you're getting a nice little bump in power nice little bump and and both horsepower and torque it's got that seven speed PDK which is PDK so good. It's It's It's one of my favorite trans automatic transmissions out there if you had to have an automatic transmission I guess the PDK is the one to have coming in and out of corners it downshifted when it was supposed to, it actually was supposed to everything, everything that you would do with a manual transmission, the PDK about 80 85% of the time it takes care of so that's all that, you know, praise for backroads driving. There is 63.4 seconds. Here's a fun thing, though. So it starts the again, the one I was driving started at Hold on, let me double check. $65,400 the price tested. That was a lot more. So 100 grand, and this is a $103,600 I saw Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna put the sport Chrono package. Okay, yeah. All right, well, then I'm gonna put the the break. I'm like, Okay, well, you probably don't need those super breaks. But okay. And then did you know, they just keep adding and adding and adding and adding and that's sort of the Porsche ways that people buy a car. And then it just, it just skyrockets because you just keep adding all these? These? It is, it is insane how it's, it's $40,000 more. It's a whole other car.

Nicole Wakelin  16:40  
It's a whole nother car.

Roberto Baldwin  16:41  
Yeah, it's a whole other car.

Nicole Wakelin  16:42  
So get your Porsche or you can just buy another car

Roberto Baldwin  16:45  
or you just buy another car, like a

Nicole Wakelin  16:47  
backup car,

Roberto Baldwin  16:48  
like a second car, you just put it in the back.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:53  
And that's not even the GTS, you know, that takes you up. Yeah, the the starting price of the GTS is another 15,000. On top of that. I think it's like seven. Yeah, you go from 65,400 to 79. Nine to go from an S to GTS, which gets you an extra an extra 2555 horsepower, which is not bad, but it's only three tenths of a second 30 to 60. Yeah, so that's a that's a that's a lot of money for each 10th of a second.

Roberto Baldwin  17:27  
It it's a lot of money for each 10th of a second. There is Yeah, there, there is a discernible difference in acceleration between the makhan. I'm an economist. But then once you start getting to the GTS, and then you're just like, Wow, so much money. And at that point, you're like, Well, why are you but I I'm still a little confused by the super high speed performance edition SUVs as a human as just a regular person that as an automotive journalist, they can just get a sports car. But that's that's a whole other issue in the world. People don't you know, people want SUVs, people are going to buy these. Why not make them? If you're if I make it and I offer it, people will buy it. And that's that's Yeah, folks will buy the car. So yeah, no, I am a fan of the makaan. s. I probably wouldn't outfit it Which one? It was $40,000 worth of options. Yeah, probably not. Probably, they think of the two car, okay. every vehicle I owned has an equal fortune. which just goes to show how cheap I am. So there's that as well. Yeah. And there was no i didn't get any EPA numbers because there are no EPA numbers yet. And I was driving German spec vehicle. So navigation and all that was sort of it had no idea where it was that I kind of think I'm in America, I don't know, where have we gone? What's that thing, which is always fun when you drive German and or European or Asian spec vehicles where the cars is like, you don't you don't really realize that a the radio doesn't work. And the navigation is really confused. How did you get here?

Sam Abuelsamid  19:12  
Jimmy, you got it. Do you have any thoughts on the makaan?

Jamie kitman  19:16  
Um, yeah, I mean, I liked it when I drove it. By coincidence, I just had been driving a 718 Spyder Porsche, which also suspiciously cost $103,800 with options and it was great. And you know, a call me appears but I'll take a Boxster came in or 911 over any SUV any day in less, you know, I need to carry more people. But in general, I, you know, I would I would die on that rock about what it's stupid to put you know, 600 horsepower into an SU Be and encourage people to go around corners faster, and then we're accelerating faster. But while we're on the subject, I also kind of feel like, it's, it's, you know, it reached the point of no return. Look, you know, 10 years ago, where cars are simply getting too fast. And every every extra 50 horsepower, man, you had to have more electronic controls, so people didn't kill themselves, and you had to kill the torque that was going into the wheels and correct for all the errors people were going to make, because they had cars that were too powerful. But it's really reached the point and I think electric cars just taking it completely over the edge. And there's a part of me that thinks, well, I guess it's if you're, you know, appealing to people's reptilian brain, you know, well, faster is better, because because it is. So maybe that helps sell electric cars, which, broadly I think are, you know, a probably a good idea. But they're just too fast. I mean, I had a, just a regular take on for us not long ago, and it was so fast that I really thought I was gonna black out. And it was, you know, there were two even faster ones available that you could buy from Porsche for a lot more money. But I seriously was like, I don't know how people could do this. And the old guys who are probably driving them, they will black out. I mean, it was like he was he can do being strapped to the you know, like the front landing here of an FAA team, taking off who's just like, you know, everything blurs and you get lightheaded. And you know, you hope you don't run into the back of something when that's happening. So I, you know, I had kind of more fun, you know, I guess I subscribe to the old adage of have more fun driving a slow car fast, in a fast car slowly. So after they came into the Porsche way today, and less left me a Mitsubishi Outlander which raring to get out, I instead drove a 1960, a bunch of fulvia berlina, which will, more my speed because, you know, you're, you're really working it out, to, you know, get up to highway speeds, but it's, it's great, you know, just just to jam. It,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:25  
I totally agree with you on that. That's, you know, that's why I drive in 1990 Miata, you know, very, very much in that same vein of slow car fast. So, yeah, I think you, I think you're absolutely right. about, you know, I, when I was in my younger days, you know, I used to think that you can never have too much torque. And then I started driving some of these modern TVs, as like, yeah, yeah. You can't have too much torque. We can't actually use Yeah, yeah. You know, and now we're getting stuff like the Model S plaid and maybe someday even the next generation Tesla Roadster, which, you know what, he's musk wants to put SpaceX thrusters on there, pull their thrusters and shoot 60 in one second. That's ridiculous.

Jamie kitman  23:18  
It's an arms race, really. And that's, you know, I mean, the automobile industry has demonstrated for a long time that they they love a good arms race, whether it makes sense or not, whether it comes back to bite them in the astronaut, you know, they'll you know, they'll Oh, Auntie

Sam Abuelsamid  23:36  
Yeah, during still lattices, Evie day, a couple of months ago. They, you know, they acknowledged that, you know, yeah, we've pretty much done I think we've done all we reasonably can with internal combustion with the, the Hellcat engines. And so now we're gonna go electric, so we can go even faster. You know, it's, it's, it's just nuts.

Jamie kitman  23:56  
Right? Yeah, I understand the impulse. And I think that's okay, if that was part of their portfolio, but the way they've been talking in the last couple of weeks, it really sounds like that's all they're planning to do. And the idea of like, sensible transportation, and I think that, you know, I mean, I think the industry, you know, is has wrapped itself around especially, it's still Lantos, the American companies have wrapped their heads around, you know, the transition to electric power and in a super array, and this is sort of the way that dodge seems to have gotten there, but, but you got to, you know, wonder if they realize that, you know, making cars that go that fast driving that fast, making cars that are so heavy, because you need so many batteries because they go so fast that you use the power too quickly. Otherwise, you have an unacceptable range. I mean, there's still, I would have thought, you know, no matter how clean your power is, and we know we're close to having a clean electrical grid, that the idea of driving around 9000 pound cars, like the new Hummer 9500 that goes zero to 60 in 2.4 seconds or whatever. I mean, that's, you know, that's it may not be quite the same affront to the environment as a you know, as a big block that was in its day or, you know, something much heavier. But but it's still it can't be the way forward overall for for the world.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:30  
Yeah, totally agree. All right. Anything else on the makhan? Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin  25:38  
No, I think that is it. I also had a chance I had a chance last year to drive that 718. Boxster. car. It's my best friend. I called it my best friend. That's

Nicole Wakelin  25:51  
your bestie BFF

Roberto Baldwin  25:53  
is my new best friend.

Jamie kitman  25:55  
Although it also reminds me What a great deal used boxers are. I mean, you can still get them. I've seen $6,000 first gen boxers and $8,000 $10,000. But like, what a lot of performance and you know, pretty safe feeling car and last balki package. Not a terrible idea. to shed some of that on the $40,000. You don't spend often enough you're McCann on Boxster, and then taking $30,000 and go and have a good time.

Roberto Baldwin  26:28  
Don't Don't say anything because you're going to people are going to start putting them on bring a trailer and that will be the end of the unexpected and expensive box.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:38  
So yeah, we were actually just talking about that last week. When we were in Napa. I was talking with Jason Fogelson. He's looking for some, you know, some kind of fun project car. And the conclusion that several of us came to is probably a first gen Boxster would be his best bet, you know, in terms of something reasonably affordable. At least to purchase if not necessarily to buy parts for but yeah, that would that would probably be his best bet. So I think he's actually looking for one now. All right, did you want to talk about this other vehicle you had listed here Robbie,

Roberto Baldwin  27:17  
I can talk about it and quick rather quickly because I have not had a chance to take it off road which is sort of the whole deal with this. I have the the bronco the Ford Bronco. I finally I finally got behind the wheel of one and five minutes find the wheel I'm like, Oh yeah, I get it. I understand. I get it. It's big and ridiculous and off roadie and it's it's like the Wrangler in a defender had a baby and they just slapped some forward patches on it and called it a day Yeah, I haven't had it again. I haven't had chance to to take it off road yet it is the Badlands which that's essentially its its only job even though I'm pretty sure 85% of all the Badlands in the world will spend very very very little if probably no time actually going off road. I it was one of those vehicles where people came over and like you want to go drive into the bronco and they're like Yes, yes we do. I have an xc 40 right now. recharge the Eevee xc 40 and they were a little less excited about that yeah, they were they're kidding me. So yeah, it is very you know it's it's people across the street have asked me about Yeah, it's one of those those those cars people a lot of people have been asking about it. I understand and it's it but it's also you know, it's it's just ginormous. It's is is a lot larger than the participate. I don't know I got the two door it's just tall. It's just it just feels very Yeah, it feels it's it's it's big and yellow and it's it's you know, it's fun to drive. But it still feels a bit like a I feel like I'm driving a school bus sometimes. So it's you know, but I want to take it I'm gonna this time to sometime this week before I head off to Germany I will take it off road and I'm sure I will thoroughly enjoy it. My wife likes it. But it is also it is not a plug in hybrid or an Eevee so it's sort of off the table for us as we're currently looking for a new something car

Sam Abuelsamid  29:26  
Have you driven the bronco Jamie?

Jamie kitman  29:30  
No, I haven't defended but they haven't offered one up yet here to me in New York. I have driven the Broncos board which was okay but has nothing to do with the regular Bronco but I heard a lot of people saying nasty things about it like you know, my friends in the press but I thought it was it was fine.

Nicole Wakelin  29:56  
About the Broncos sport people are being nasty. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was fun. It's not the same cars the bronco it's not intended to be that hardcore off roading kind of car so if that's what you're expecting Of course, there's a point in boat for what it's supposed to be. I thought it was great.

Jamie kitman  30:10  
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, as probably occurred to you all there's you know, there's a living be made by being perpetually grumpies

Nicole Wakelin  30:19  
this is true.

Roberto Baldwin  30:22  
It's a button escape. And when I drove it, yeah, escape which is not a great it's so much better than escape, but

Jamie kitman  30:34  
I think that's right, it look it looks better. Even if it's the same car It looks it looks to me it looks better. And, you know, you know if it helps people live that dream, you know, without having to buy a real Bronco. Why not? Yeah. I mean, the real Broncos fuel economy numbers are a little bit startling in the year 2021. They are pretty good. They're really bad for how those four cylinder engine that's getting 20 miles per gallon or something like that on a good day. That's pretty bad.

Roberto Baldwin  31:07  
But the tailwind

Sam Abuelsamid  31:10  
downhill. It does have the aerodynamics of a barn so

Nicole Wakelin  31:18  
it's kind of like a toaster just like a little toaster. Square.

Roberto Baldwin  31:22  
Happy Little Toaster.

Nicole Wakelin  31:23  
Happy Little Toaster. Alright, speaking

Sam Abuelsamid  31:28  
of plug in hybrids, I had one in the in the driveway since I returned from our little sojourn in California last week. The Volvo XC 90 t eight recharge inscription. So this is the the top end of the top end of the Volvo lineup. The xc 90 is there there, semi large three row SUV. The third row is on the tight side. You know for for three roads. It's it's adequate but not not exceptional. I've driven this thing several times over the last several years in various guises, the TI six the TI eight. I don't know if I've ever had a ti five. So the TA is the plug in hybrid, where you've got the two liter four cylinder up front with a turbocharger and a supercharger for about 315 horsepower and then another 100 horsepower electric motor on the rear axle and battery that according to the EPA gets you about 18 miles of electric driving range. I actually last time I had one I managed to actually get it up to 21 miles before the engine kicked on. You know, 100 horsepower from the electric motor is not a lot. But it's you know, it's actually adequate for you know, cruising around town, and, you know, as long as you don't accelerate away from stoplights too quickly, but even if you're if you're in if you've got it in hybrid mode, you know the engine will come on for a bit and then it'll shut off. Once you ease off the accelerator. The the inscription yeah that the dexy 90 you know has a really lovely interior you know, great materials, nice leather, nice nice wood. I still have the plug in hybrids, they have a different transmission shifter than they do on the gas engine models the gas engine models for now still have you know, traditional mechanical transmission shifter, the the plug in hybrids have an electronic switch for a shifter and it's got this lovely looking crystal shift knob stubby little shift knob. But the thing that has annoyed me ever since the first time I drove one of these about three years ago is when you go to put it from either from Park into either reverse or into drive, you actually have to push it twice you if you do it just once you'll end up in neutral and then take your foot off the brake and the car starts rolling and so you have to remember to always hit it twice when you're going from park to either neutral or driver reverse and understand why don't clutch

Roberto Baldwin  34:16  
oh it's it's not doing

Sam Abuelsamid  34:18  
well that's it you have to do your double clutching except without

Roberto Baldwin  34:21  
double clutch it you got to double clutch it that's not doing double clutch.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:28  
The the the other thing that you know, annoys me less than it used to but still annoys me is the Sensus infotainment system. So this doesn't yet have those new Android automotive based system in it. It's it's the old one that it's got the nine inch screen and you can swipe between three different pages and that kind of changes modes as you do don't know if you swipe if you're if you have it on the media Action, you know, for whatever if you're listening to the radio or listening to something on Android Auto or CarPlay, and then you swipe over and you go to get your, your vehicle information, and then swipe back then that disappears. And it's just kind of a pain to use. I don't really like it. Fortunately, it has got, they have improved the performance of it over the years, it used to be a lot more laggy and slow than it is now. But it's it's reasonably fast now. But it's still not a good interface. But that's going to be going away next year when the replacement for this thing comes out, which is going to be all electric there's there's going to be as far as I know, no gas engine version of the replacement for the XC 90. And this one that I had, what came out as a let's see, base price on the XC 90, ti eight is 69,007 50 with the options on this one, which included the lounge package with the back, backrest massage front seats, 1700 bucks for that. And the advanced package with the heads up display and the 360 surround view camera and other 1500 bucks and the Bowers and Wilkins premium sound system for 3200 and a few other sorted options came to a grand total of $81,690. delivered. And remarkably, even though it has to come all the way from Sweden, they only charge $995 for delivery. So it's a bargain compared to getting an F 150 which comes from about 20 miles away from me and the charge 18 $100. So

Unknown Speaker  36:36  
that was

Nicole Wakelin  36:39  
2000 there was something that just had a $2,000 destination. I can't remember. Was it the wagoneer?

Sam Abuelsamid  36:46  
Sounds about I think it was Yeah, I think the wagon

Nicole Wakelin  36:49  
tires, yeah, to grade

Roberto Baldwin  36:55  
came all the way from Sweden and it's still

Nicole Wakelin  36:57  
less than the wagon Here comes from here.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:59  
Yeah. What? What do you think about current Volvo's? Jamie,

Jamie kitman  37:04  
I like them. I actually just spent 10 days with my youngest son going to a baseball park tour of you know, sort of the area around New York, we went to Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and back in an XC for you recharge, and I really liked it more than I thought it would people. You know, were really enthusiastic about not just the car and talking about about it. But the color that they have, they have this new kind of sage green color that people were like stopping in traffic to ask about it. They were just like, I just, I love that color. And it made me think about, you know why there ought to be more pastel paints. But I think that they, you know, when there was a time, not that long ago, when when, under three, were saying I remember reading several people in a piece in automotive news, where people were saying, Oh, you know, there's really no reason for Volvo to exist now that, you know, how he is doing so great. You know, there's BMW, there's no place for them to go. And, you know, Ford can figure it out, they might as well just go away and I felt that was, you know, dumb, you know, if they could make a decent car, that they you know, to get their reputation as being a safe brand, which you know, was founded in elements of reality. But, you know, that would cost you know, 10s of billions of dollars, if not more to create that for yourself out of whole cloth. So I thought, you know, everything that they've done, since they were, you know, taken over by Julie has been in the way it kind of sensitive way that Julie has allowed them to engineer their own cars and, you know, just do the things you would like to do, if you could afford to do them has been has been really good. And I think it's, they've been rewarded with the strong sales in the states their best ever, and I think they're completely credible. And I in general, I always feel like when there's an established brand that's done well, that, you know, that falls by the wayside completely or is allowed to die, that it's, you know, somebody really screwed up, because that's like, you know, there's it's so hard to get into the car business. Now, if you have a going concern that ever, you know, flirts with profitability. It's like, you know, I mean, come on somebody somebody ought to be able to figure this out.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:51  
Yeah, it's a shame that you know, some brands like Saab, you know, never quite did manage to figure that out GM never, you know, Well, they couldn't figure it out on their own. And

Jamie kitman  40:03  
GM has like Donald Trump like properties of killing everything. And I think that it was really unfortunate. They, you know, unlike feely, I think they fundamentally misunderstood the brand, which is, is, you know, I think Ford did a better job with Jaguar, you know, I'll be it. You know, they've got a lot of work left to do now. But I think that, you know, GM didn't understand what made Saab Saab and, I mean, it was telling right away when they started laying off engineers and, and using opals as the basis for subs and then even lesser cars. And the telling thing was, is that I think the, what do they call them, the endcaps, European Crash Rating is first tn killed. Saab went from the equivalent of like, a five to a two and the crash test. And that, you know, should that show that they hadn't really lost the plot right there. But then the layoffs and things like that. And of course, the ultimate in so was the nine 7x, the Chevy Trailblazer. And all the money went into the badges and moving the ignition key to the floor, which was, you know, as a one time sub person that was, you know, probably the least important part of this Nabis. But they save that and Chuck the rest.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:39  
Yeah, Julie's kind of done the opposite with with Volvo, they let them engineer their own stuff, to do their own design. And then they've actually borrowed from that for some of the stuff that they're doing in China with with Lincoln CO and, and now zeker, and some of their other brands. So they're, they're leveraging the strengths of Volvo for the rest of their group instead of the trying to force what they already had on to Volvo. Right?

Jamie kitman  42:06  
You you hear a lot of people talk about leveraging, you know, those things and synergizing. But often, that's exactly right. They, they do the worst thing, you know, they throw out the good and double down on the bad. So you know, I mean, it gives me hope for companies like Lotus and London taxi and other properties, you know, iconic properties that they've acquired.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:35  
Alright, so let's dive into some conversation. The reason why we had you join us this evening, Jamie, which is well, first of all, because you're incredibly interesting writer. I've been reading your stuff for many, many years in many different publications, and always enjoyed the way you the way you put words together. And a great example of that is your latest article for the road rat about Elan Musk, why don't you what what prompted you to write this article?

Jamie kitman  43:11  
Well, basically, as I noted in the article, I was a musk agnostic. I mean, I you know, he seemed like, you know, I mean, I don't expect much from you know, entrepreneurs in the way of being nice guys. And, you know, I didn't really he didn't seem like a very nice guy. But, you know, what he achieved was hugely impressive. So and, and the cars were great. I mean, I was, you know, sort of vaguely troubled by the fact that, that the true believers were, you know, seemed like they were unwilling to admit that there was any, possibly, you know, less than perfect thing about musk and Tesla cars. But to answer your question in the word, they asked me to write a story. And so, I immersed myself in everything I could read about musk. And, you know, I came away, sort of where I started, which is that, you know, he is a he's, he's a, you know, what, I guess, was it Hey, goal or Khan called a world historical person, the people who, you know, they're just the right guy at the right time, and they're just destined to be famous, and in his case, rich, and I think, you know, he's, he's, he's a brilliant guy, but he's also he's kind of a huckster, and I think that's sort of what the piece explores. I think that the surprising part to me is I come around some years ago to going like you got to give this guy a lot of credit for Moving the whole electric car game along, you know, and the model asked for whatever bombs it had, he came out of the box. So well, you know, it was such an impressive piece of engineering. And he had he had, he had really overcome the big hurdle. With with a bright idea about like, what, you know how you would sell an electric car to the public and how you would not lose your shirt doing it and how it didn't have to be, you know, a penalty box, you know, in the way that, you know, some economy cars were in that, you know, was a badge of honor for, you know, your environmental his types, but really didn't interest people who were going to spend money on cars. So but so I, you know, I credited him for that not and there's no, no question that the world is closer now to widespread adoption of electric cars than it was. And, you know, a lot of that, through least some of it has to do with him. So I applaud him for that. Less savory was the discovery, which, you know, I wasn't the first person to realize this, but but as I paid more attention to it, it started to, you started to see a pattern where he was,

you know, very much in charge of his own narrative. And there were there were elements to it, which were, were false, and which, I guess overly stated his contribution to the technological side of the question, but also in the promises he made for his cars, the way he treated his workers and the way that he was seen as a pure force for pure good with respect to the environment, which I don't think is as clear, as some people think it is. And, you know, the very fact of his notoriety in the way he operates in the world, we're in now he's been able to let go his press office and really doesn't isn't held to account by the press, because he doesn't talk to them. And he has very much in the fashion of Donald Trump, an army of online, you know, supporters who are will Savage, anybody who has anything critical to say about him, whether or not they're trading in facts, were just the general bitterness of the automobile industry, which was, you know, there was a lot of acrimony towards mosque, which, you know, some part of which I would say, was sour grapes. But it's also true that he hasn't been treated by the public or the government in particular, as a carmaker but and certainly the stock market for more as a tech company, which was, you know, tech companies were already pissing off Detroit and other car makers long before it because here are these people who didn't make any money necessarily, who were being rewarded with massive stock valuations, which were reflected in their personal incomes, while these guys who are running heavy industries were, you know, doing, you know, 10s of billions of dollars of business and earning often billions of dollars in profits, and there's shares were flat, their paychecks were flat or down. I mean, you know, what a misery for them. So I think he caught a lot of guff from people who wanted to sit around and criticize him within the industry, but but actually should have probably been paying more attention and getting their ships out to see the great electric car. See sooner.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:48  
Yeah, I think that that's, that's an interesting point. Obviously, I think they looked at Tesla, and saw that they were certainly gaining some traction in the marketplace in terms of their sales growing, but until relatively recently, they had never had, you know, I mean, last year was the first time in their history that they had had an annual profit and whether or not you actually believe that they were, in fact, profitable is is a whole other question that the article doesn't get into. And there's a lot of questions about their accounting practices, but, you know, the, the rest of the industry, you know, looked at it and said, Yeah, there's solid stuff, but they're not making any money, you know, and they're not selling that many compared to the whole industry. So let's just go keep doing what we're doing and not really invest a whole lot in this, you know, you know, some companies GM invested some with the volt and then the bolt, but it was still, you know, relatively minor compared to and they weren't, they weren't doing things as, as out there as what Tesla was doing in terms of things like their electrical architecture and and the charging networks and Things like that to really try to build it up. Why? Why do you think that is?

Jamie kitman  50:05  
Oh, I mean, I think that, you know, they that's been a problem in the industry for, you know, my entire life, you know, probably, I mean, if you look back, you know, back, at least to the 1960s, where, you know, senior management would was really, you know, they had a comfort zone, they know, what had worked for them in the past, and that's what they tried to do. And that's what they, they keep trying to do. But I think, you know, they, you know, they they had to complete the different hands, they'd been dealt than, then then Musk was in Musk was, you know, Musk is a genius in that he was able to game the system to his advantage. One of the people I interview calls him, you know, like one of the great brand seekers of our time, I looked that up in the dictionary, and it's basically somebody who, you know, uses and manipulates government policy to benefit themselves financially. And that's really what, what Tesla did. So I think that, in general, you know, they, they, you know, the, you know, certainly General Motors being a good example, who could have owned the electric car space, from the time of the Evie one on then, you know, had the boat gone differently. I mean, even before they knew that they had a problem with their batteries, they were already backpedaling on that car, they didn't market it seriously at all. I think that they've been burned by taking chances in their minds in the past, you know, going back to the days of the copper cooled Chevrolet and the 1920s and the Corvair, you know, the few times they've really tried to do something different, you know, on to the four wheel steering pickup trucks. It didn't it either, you know, was proved some sort of embarrassment to them, or, and it didn't make them money. And then, you know, you, you you that dovetails with the growing and, you know, unfortunate tying of everybody's compensation share price. And the absolutely crazed, you know shortsightedness of most American corporations and world's corporations, sadly, that it may be, you know, the long game that kept Tesla and musk were playing very hard for them to even think about replicating, they could never get away with it. You know, I mean, you look at I mean, there are a lot of problems with Saturn. But there was there was a lot of success around Saturn, which sadly had nothing to do with the cars. But they ran away from that too. Because it just wasn't it wasn't what they knew there was politics internally, that you know, other things were being starved for Saturn's benefit. So I, you know, it's very hard to, you know, this is my observation. I'm not an MBA or a, you know, a former industry executive. But it seems like it's very hard to change an ingrained, large, highly political culture to do something you've never done before, that you don't really understand and that your shareholders are not going to give you a chance to know the majority wants, you're not going to give you a chance to execute. So what's the point of having a five year or 10 year plan? That's really a 10 year plan? If you're going to be fired in year two?

Sam Abuelsamid  53:37  
Yeah, that's that's a good point. Robbie, Nicole.

Roberto Baldwin  53:42  
Um, yeah, I've covered Ilan and Tesla for well, entirely too long, which is anything more than two days? And yeah, there there there is a you know, when you talk to employees, both former and current, there is a sort of underlying acknowledgment, but not if they're not overtly, but acknowledgement of well, you know, it has this idea and we're just going to do it until he we either a he changes his mind or B he forgets about it, and we just go back to doing things the way it shouldn't be done for a lot and we then this is, you know, when you talk about things that have to do with the press department, I mean, there's no longer a press fleet. If you know everyone who's reviewing Tesla's or they're renting random owners Tesla's which is, you know, probably isn't ideal. But you know, they if you just rent a Tesla on Turo, and then you just take it to the track and you do a zero to 60 run, boom, you got a billion views. You don't have to do an actual review anymore. You just have to, like make it go real fast. And so it's it I think, right now, it's it's, I think the you know, you talked about how they're playing a long game, but I think they're currently there's a lot of shortsightedness going on at Tesla because I think they've they played along And they've won with the help of a lot of you know, like you said Evie credits. But those, you know, of course, the lantis FCA is major was a major contributor to that. And those are, those are going away have already gone away. And I think there's a they're in a weird space right now, because the vehicles they have out are out and they still have this other, you know, the cybertruck, that keeps being delayed, which is, you know, just regular Tesla stuff stuffs going to be delayed. But But I think, as in this sort of this, this this sort of law of new Tesla's, everyone else is finally bringing out EBS. And there's there is a hunger for people to get on the TV that isn't a Tesla, just because they've been turned off by Ilan.

Jamie kitman  55:45  
Yeah, no, I think that's, that's absolutely right. And I don't mean to, you know, just go like, well, they figured it all out. They belong game, I think. I wouldn't say that they've entirely run out of ideas. But I mean, it's a fascinating situation, because Musk has so many other distractions, I mean, he everything he can think of, he can raise the money to do so. I mean, SpaceX is, you know, is a phenomenal second career to have, you know, on the boil while you have a first one running the world's largest electric car startup. And, I mean, I guess, for the fortune of us, good, to the good fortune of us astronauts, they have other people who were, you know, more traditional, you know, in their, their business style running that, and their commitment to safety and things like that. I think Tesla has a lot of problems that are a function of Musk's, you know, over promising what he can do, what his cars can do. His idiosyncratic management style, the lack of a, you know, a proper hierarchy and things like that, you know, I think those are both like their double edged swords, like, the great things about tesslar because in some large measure, because of musk and the unfortunate thing, but one of the interesting things I found talking to former Tesla employees was the idea that he's burning out on the job. And he's, he's, they, they read some of his more zany, you know, tweets, and things like that as being evidence of him wanting to just get pushed out of it. So he can just declare victory and go on to his, his next thing. I mean, he just, he always has a new project. And if they don't stick, he just goes away. You're you know, you have a situation where he's heavily invested his whole fortune is, is tied to or most of his fortune is tied to Tesla. At this moment, it makes him incredibly rich. That could change I mean, if you read about, like, you know, Billy Duran or other you know, of the great lunatics of the early days of, of the, you know, of the automobile. You know, they were great until they weren't great. And then, you know, Duran supposedly wound up running a bowling alley in Michigan. So what happens to Musk is a good question, what happens to Tesla, what happens if Tesla gets bought out by somebody else? What What about Tesla? That's good. Can they besides the name can they even save at that point? Yeah. But the other thing that is a a dark cloud, I think, is the fact that the government certainly in the post, Trump era is on their case, a lot more than they had been. And they in my research suggested that, you know, the Trump administration has really soft peddled their, you know, all of the government's examination of testifiers Tesla crashes, the, the, you know, a pretty clear dishonesty in the way autopilot was marketed right on from the fact that they called it autopilot, leading you to think that it was autopilot, when in fact, it really wasn't autopilot. Those those could all, you know, really slow them down. And, you know, how much of that is a political decision in the White House? We don't know, you know, or I don't know. And certainly, how much was it a political decision of the Trump administration not to do that? I found fascinating the fact that Musk was completely on board with the the the, you know, Trump world when he refused to shut down his factories, despite the orders the California government to do so. And for a guy who's supposed to be a scientific genius to deny you know, that COVID was killing people which he was essentially doing. Which seems, you know, kind of weird and You know, we know he had secret meetings with Trump. And, you know, that stuff is really, it's really it's hard to get government agencies to really grant come down on any manufacturer of any size. So it's, it's not impossible to imagine that they chose to go easy on him.

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:23  
You know, Jamie, I have a question for you, though, with looking at the overall tone of your piece, I know you've acknowledged that, you know, he's sort of that sort of Mad genius kind of character that he is. But overall, like, there's a you have like, six points to consider about the techno King, you call him a techno King? No, he calls himself the tech or he calls himself the techno King, and you refer to him that way. But they're all pretty negative, like he's not so innovative. He's not so safe. He's not so green. Not so innocent. It's a long series of negatives. And I, although I know, you know, there are a lot of negatives that you can point out about him, and about what he's done. And you acknowledge, yeah, he's got SpaceX going on. And, you know, he's helped move EBS forward by maybe by the cult of personality that he is, but that he said that other you know, other automakers weren't able to make that happen. You know, they're they're hamstrung by the constraints of being a general motors that has 9 million bureaucrats that need to approve every move that they do. was, was it a really a bad thing if he managed to do what he did? Even if what he did was sort of in an unconventional way? Like, if not for him will be still six years back in terms of Evie adoption and the push for EBS?

Jamie kitman  1:01:30  
It's a fair question. I don't think that he everything he did was necessary to do that. I don't think he had to say that his cars were going to work on autopilot. When they couldn't, I don't think necessary to treat his workers badly make people through a pandemic, or, you know, many of those things, I don't think it was necessary for him to take credit for, you know, inventing Tesla, writing the other guys kind of out of the history, who were the real founders of the company. None at all this stuff I side is negatives, I think are their negatives. And I guess my point was, is that if you're going to take a fair assessment of the man, that you would include those things, and I think some of those things, you know, they they really haven't helped the business, one of the two revelations that I think probably the most newsworthy in the story have to do with the idea which is extremely popular on the boards with the Tesla's Dan shoes, the idea that he's trying to help other people electrify their, their model lineups, when in fact, I interviewed people who told me that he discouraged them from electrifying, didn't want to share technology with them, encourage them to instead save the money and buy the tax credits from him, which, you know, floated his company. So he could have been more helpful that way. And also, with regard to were any of

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:15  
those guys willing to go on the record, or were they all anonymous, so they were off the record? So nobody would really say who they were. Okay. Well, they did. I knew who they were.

I know, you know, who they are. They didn't

Jamie kitman  1:03:25  
want to, they didn't want to go on the record. Because as I point out in the story, every single person I talked to, you know, save one, I think we're like, I don't want to be on the record. There is absolutely no quote, upside to be seen as criticizing musk or praising him. You know, the one of the guys I cite is the guy who runs the the website electric. He said he'd written over, I think 7500 stories about Tesla and musk 95% of them were favorable. And he wrote a story that was fact base about fires and stationary Tesla's and he got death threats from Tesla people, just on the basis of you know, Sam saying some, some things about me coming on the show, to talk about Musk, you know, and then then, not having read the magazine story, but piecing together the idea that maybe it's it says something bad about him. You know, I was getting hate emails and tweets and things like that, about it. So it's, it is an unusual situation. But I guess all I would ask people is not you know, we don't have to condemn him. I don't regret the test that exists. I don't say I do. But I think that, you know, he's not he's not a god. I think that people put a lot of faith in the guy who figures out the game, you know, first so You know, people put a lot of faith in Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. And, you know, they had a lot of really bad ideas. And when they spread them to other areas, they were, you know, they not only weren't necessarily profitable successful, but you know, they were fairly hateful. And, you know, we're bad for the people who work for them, and they were bad for, for the society. And, you know, I think that loss is in danger of doing that, if you look at what he talks about,

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:30  
but you think he's more in danger? Do you think what he's doing for society is going to be overall? Yeah, if you had to, you know, take the scales of justice out there, that there's some negative, it's not like it's all in favor, but do you really think that it's the the the net effect here is even when you take things like auto pilots name, I think it you think the net effect is a negative effect. In the end,

Jamie kitman  1:05:50  
I think that, as I said, in the story, that, I think that as with, with all of these sort of historical industrial giants, it's, it's great. And in the best that it can be is gray. And that, you know, there's a lot of chapters left to be written, and it will be interesting to see how he deals with them. But, you know, personally, you know, I think it's great, on some level that he's going to have 24,000 satellites, in low orbit around the Earth in a few years. With our government's help, it will make him you know, indescribably rich, he's barely described the rich as it is. And, you know, maybe he's moved by the desire to bring internet communication to people in the hinterlands. But at the same time, you know, that's a lot of space garbage to worry about. And a lot of, there's a lot of language in the starlink that satellite companies, agreements with customers having a debt are kind of off point, but they have to do with like, who he has to listen to, once he gets to Mars, which is what he's trying to find. That's his big play, he says, is to get to Mars himself and to get man to Mars. But he basically in that rejects the world's governments as having anything to say with what he you know, can get up to on Mars.

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:18  
That's like, that's like the plot of every science fiction why it is it's ever been out there is that Mars Martians want to be Martians. Venetians want to be the nation's nobody wants to be tied to what's on Earth. So that just like, who wants to be tied to a government, that's just a continent if you're on a planet, you know?

Jamie kitman  1:07:32  
Well, yeah, I mean, I guess but I mean, you know, I guess I'm one of the lucky few who doesn't go to sleep at night thinking about how awesome it's going to be when I'm on Mars. But

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:44  
Mars, Mars is not awesome. By the way, like you show up in Mars, you're wearing a spacesuit you're still getting pummeled by radiation. It is not the utopia then that musk and others have have made it out to be

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:55  
like, you've been there. You're like, it's not as cool guys. I was there.

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:58  
I was there last week. It's really crappy. It is not. Yeah, it is not the utopia that must like to make it out to be the savior.

Jamie kitman  1:08:07  
And he's he calls himself the Imperator of Mars. So which is hilarious? Well, it is it is hilarious. But he's also trying to go to Mars. Yeah, you know, I mean, there's a part of me call me old fashioned. But if if I had $150 billion, and the philanthropic thing I was doing was trying to get my self to Mars. You know, I, I can't help but wondering whether somebody wouldn't say, well, maybe there's something better you could do with all that money, if you could vaccinate the world or something like that, if

Nicole Wakelin  1:08:40  
no, President went to thought it was pretty cool to go to the moon. And we all liked him way back in the day, you know, go to the moon. Things and

Jamie kitman  1:08:49  
a lot of people who weren't that enthusiastic about going to the moon, but yeah, I mean, you know, sure. That's great. He was an elected president. He was doing it. He wasn't using tax but he was using taxpayer dollars but by people who voted for him not, you

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:05  
know, better or worse, at least Musk is using money, he found a way to get some

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:10  
taxpayer money. I didn't. I didn't no one voted for musk.

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:16  
No, that's an option because at this point, that's

Jamie kitman  1:09:19  
that's a minor point. But I think I you know, people can obviously think and do what they want. No, he's not gonna listen to me. I think that, you know, I'm generally suspicious of people who whose followers attribute godlike properties to them and act like they can't do any wrong and that they don't you know, that they don't have this. This actual record of things that they've doing, how it's affecting people. He is a using a you know, everybody is hypocritical to one degree or another. I think he is a He is a world class hypocrite in that. You know, I mean, on the one hand, you're telling people that, you know, everybody's got to get an electric car, because that's how we're going to save the planet. But I won't share my technology with other companies, I won't share my charging network, which would make owning an electric car more palatable to a lot of people. And at the same time, I'm going to be basically offering rich people rides to Mars, which is probably not the most environmentally friendly thing to do. And I'm championing Bitcoin, which is an incredible energy suck, and not, you know, regulated in the slightest as a currency or as, you know, a use of electricity, and, you know, causing pollution, then changing your mind about whether you were for it while still going to Mars, you know, they're all they're all and then changing it back again, a month later. I mean, he's a Mercurial guy. He's having a laugh, sometimes I'm sure he's not, you know, and, you know, he's brilliant. So I just think, when you're profiling somebody, if you do want to take their full measure, you talk about the bad things is along with the good things, and that's what I set out to do.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:21  
To go back to what you were saying earlier, about, you know, could he have done some of these things without being the kind of person that he has been? I'm wondering, like, for Tesla, for example, you know, over their history, particularly over the last 10 years, you know, they have numerous times been on the verge of insolvency. And, you know, after they did their initial public offering in 2010, they said that, you know, Musk said that, you know, they would never have to raise capital, again, they would be able to self fund themselves going forward. And since that time they have done, I think 13, capital raises and raised something on the order of about $18 billion from the capital markets. And a big part of that, is because despite being a money losing enterprise, he's had these fans that have been willing to every time they need money, and they go out and sell more shares of the company, they've been willing to put money into that and pump up the price of that stock. If he hadn't behaved the way he has, with employees and all the other things he's done, do you think he could have built up that kind of fan base, that would have given him all that money over the last 10 years that have allowed has allowed the company to get to this point? So do you think it actually could have survived? If he if he hadn't done that?

Jamie kitman  1:12:48  
I couldn't say, honestly, you know, what, how would have done I think this, I think you'd make an excellent point that they've almost been insolvent. And the way out of that has often he's pulled a rabbit out of his hat by promising something that didn't happen at all, or it didn't happen when he said it was going to happen. And he is he's that, you know, he's mesmerized, you know, a part of the investment community along with the, you know, just the, the centene population. I think that, you know, it's it's all closely intertwined. But, you know, I think part of it is the way that that the stock market responded to the tech boom. And I think that, that that was, you know, partly owing to him, but also partly due owing to the fact that he was doing something new, that the market did not use its ordinary metrics for evaluating what he was doing. And that's, you know, one of the things that makes carmaker so jealous, conventional car makers, but, um, so, you know, promises and, you know, relatively small successes mean a lot mean a lot, apparently, you know, I mean, I think people have, you know, there's a sense that the world is changing, and people want to be there, and he certainly seems like a change agent. You know, I mean, I don't think you can argue anything but that he is a change agent and, and people want to be there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:25  
Alright, any other thoughts on Ilan and Tesla before we move on?

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:32  
I have so many thoughts. But we'll be here for hours,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:35  
hours and hours.

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:36  
I mean, I've written articles that I was that have been extremely critical of Ilan and then friends who have tweeted about it have been attacked by Ilan and then his fans where they've gotten death threats and he doesn't care.

Nicole Wakelin  1:14:49  
Well think that said he doesn't care. I think that anytime you're that public of a figure and whether people like you or hate you and whether you're saying good or you're saying something bad you will get hate mail death threats.

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:59  
It is a is a completely different level versus anyone else I've ever covered. I've been covering tech which means I've been covering a lot of very narcissistic individuals and the and you at some point you have to take a bit of responsibility for the cult of personality that you've built around yourself and Ilan has not done that. I guess you do but what do you what do you do take away the keyboard from people that you think said something in your defense that like, oh, he said something that was really slow but you can you can you can you can temper the the you can temper the attacks that have been happening to individual individuals, including journalists, and especially female journalist, which at one point he was very adamant about going after for a while, he never said boo to me. But he went after a female journalist who was tweeting my article.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:50  
Yeah, and he's gone after people like Laura kolodny from Bloomberg and Lynette Lopez and many other female journalists that have written about him. I mean, I don't even I've been writing about Tesla for almost 15 years, and I've I've gotten, I've been on the receiving end of a lot of that hate that, fortunately, never any death threats. But I've gotten a lot of negative feedback from his

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:09  
negative threat, negative feedback and death threats for things that have nothing to do with Ilan Musk, that are much smaller scale things that when the right rabid fan has had gets their hands on it, all of a sudden, you know, you get exactly the kind of things you hear that women don't want to have to deal with on the internet that have nothing to do with Ilan, I'm just saying it's not. And those people aren't the ones responsible for what their fans

Jamie kitman  1:16:31  
hold them for a while. There's a lot of misogyny and in, especially in people who follow the automobile industry in cars generally. That's unquestionable, but I do think that I agree with the fellas here that there's, there's something people can do. I mean, and that's why I think the comparison to Trump is, is is at not I Trump is a much worse person, in my view, and has done much more harm to the society, but it is a similar thing where you don't you're not accountable, and and your people are, whatever he does, for it, I don't care if it contradicts what he did last week, or what I said yesterday, I'm for it, and you there is a way to deal with it, which is you see somebody do something like that. And he's you call them out, you know, you either privately or publicly, you know, point out that they're they've gone out of bounds, you know, that was not that, you know, you're right, that in almost every sphere that their people are going to say, do inappropriate things, but but better organizations and better people, you know, they don't allow things to be done in their name, that are just, you know, terrible, you know, I mean, you know, When, when, you know, I mean, not that I'm a huge fan, but when the woman at the debate between john mccain and Obama started spouting some, etc, about Obama being, you know, a Muslim from, you know, far from Africa. And, and john mccain, you know, in, in his supporters face was like, you're wrong, man. You know, that's just not true. And that, you know, that was, he was hailed At the time for, you know, that being courageous, but I think that's the sort of thing that, you know, anybody should do in that circumstances, like, Don't Don't let lies, people lie on your back. And don't let people you know, make, you know, violent threats to people who have just expressed their opinion, especially when, you know, I mean, when you when you don't defend yourself, to let these people go out, and then just not have any agency for the fact that you've, you've essentially sic them on somebody. You know, that's a cop out at the very least.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:59  
All right, on that note, let's shift that shift the conversation a little bit. One of the questions we got from a listener that I put it out today was to ask you, Jamie, about your car collection. I know you got a number of older vehicles. Why don't you tell us about what what you have and you know, what you've had and what you have today and, and if there's any like to have?

Jamie kitman  1:19:26  
Yeah, I mean, you know, I have too many cars now. And I had even more too many cars before my children went to college. And right now I'm on a lot of pretty heavy Peugeot gag. What not not gag. What is the word? Oh, hell, I'm blanking. I know

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:54  
what you're thinking of it. I can't think of it either.

Jamie kitman  1:19:57  
But jag it's improved. Pooja Yeah. Yes. And so I'm really loving those I guess I should just start by saying, I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in the town of Leonia New Jersey, which was the headquarters for British Leyland. And so I got as young person, I got a really warped idea of what cars, people would drive around. Now there's like 500 people who were to this place in the town of 6000 people. So there's an inordinate amount of mgbs and triumphs and jaguars and Land Rovers and I saw the Range Rover prototype when I was on my bicycle when I was seven or something like that, and all kinds of things like that. So I started out pretty much as an automotive Anglophile and so I've owned MGS and triumphs and jaguars and a bunch of lotuses, and I still have a lotus patina and I have a 1936 Riley Castro for the real eyeballs out there. And I had been into Volvo's and subs and have not now and, uh, what else haven't had a lot of German cars but admire them a lot, never owned a Porsche. And I'm really into launches and who Joe's and I have a, a 60, a travel all that's kind of my word track. International and I have a 92 Oldsmobile silhouette, which I bought at the height of the pandemic, from the fellow in Palm Springs. without sight unseen. I should mention that in my copious spare time, I've run a picture car business that we work on a lot of TV shows flying cars, so I can often deduct the prices of the cars and rent them out to movies. And so that, in part played a role in my buying the Oldsmobile silhouette, which you'll remember is the Cadillac minivans from get it was, it's been in the TV show doctor death, which is just out now and paid for itself. So what I would like to get it I guess, I've reached an age where there's, there's not that much new stuff that or new old stuff that I want to get nothing that I've sold, you know, has, I've lost a lot of sleep over. So that's why I can't really like you know, you know, probably some other friend. Sure, I'd like to get a maitre D jet. And oh, you know, an AR 10 gordini or something like that. But I still have a hankering for another another Lotus, the land the new is, what is the name of the new Lotus, the mid engine, not the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:08  
MA The Mirror, mirror.

Jamie kitman  1:23:11  
That's pretty great to me. I really liked the avoir a lot. I like you know, 920 eights are looking good to me Porsches. I don't know why. But

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:24  
something cool about the 928

Jamie kitman  1:23:26  
Oh, yeah, they're there. They're their cruisers. My son just bought one for 1300 bucks, that he managed to get running. And it's, it's pretty great. I mean, that's the real value proposition. I can't I you know, I, I've been fortunate that 10 cars I own went up in value, and I was able to sell them that kind of saved my bacon during the recession. But But I, these things get too expensive. They it scares me and I kind of want to not even get out of them not. I can't afford to go there. You know. So there's a lot of things that used to appeal to me that I'll never, ever. I've never my dad, one day when I was just probably like 10 get a neighbor who had a DB for Aston. That was perfect. If somebody had given him as a president, he had some rich friend. And he offered it to my dad for 1500 bucks. And he was like, Yeah, what would I do with that? And then his next day and kid at the local shell station offered him the 289 Cobra for 2000 bucks, which was cheap, even then he was like, no. And so you know, there was a day and like the like right before the crash in the late 80s where had he bought them you know, would have been a $3,000 investment would have become worth over a million dollars and I'll never own either those cars or I wouldn't mind it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:55  
What the What got you into cars in the first place?

Jamie kitman  1:24:59  
It's unclear I know my parents brought him home from the hospital in the NGA roadster that they had bought in dawn around Europe, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:07  
probably at the fumes from that probably.

Jamie kitman  1:25:10  
Definitely part of it. No seatbelts, no nothing and, and, you know, led gasoline of course. But they they had gone long after they'd been married, but before they had any children on a trip to Europe and where they'd bought this mga and I heard that story a lot. And for whatever reason, it really resonated with me. It just seemed like, such a fun and exciting thing to do so but by the time I was, you know, was supposedly the first word I spoke was, I had, we were driving up the east side drive, and I saw a Volkswagen Beetle, and I said, volts in driving. And I was obsessed after that. And it sort of just outstripped my parents. And I bought my first car when I was 12 was an old mga $50 was for friends and we fixed it up, and, but never got it running. And then some guy came in, wanting to buy the back half of it and gave us like, 100 bucks. So we were like, Oh, wow. Sure. Now, that would seem like sacrilege. But um, so, yeah, so I've just I've always been into it, and I probably I'm well over 100 cars, if not 150 cars. But I have some that I haven't marked to jag that I've owned since 1987. That's the one I've had the longest, though not necessarily the one I keep. If I had to get rid of them all. I think I would still keep an MTA which I have. And I would probably keep a launchy phobia. They're my two favorite cards I once interviewed. Oh, no, I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. He's the guy who designed the Range Rover engineered the Range Rover and British guy just died a few years ago. To be much better story if I remember his name, but you'll find it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:09  
Jerry McGovern. Oh,

Jamie kitman  1:27:10  
no, this is the you know, he goes back to the old area and 60s. Oh my gosh. In any case, he I was really excited to meet him and I had asked him we were on a three day rally together what his favorite car had been in his life and he said it was an amga coupe which I felt vindicated in by

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:39  
Oh, man.

Jamie kitman  1:27:41  
He also worked on the Triumph Dolomites grant he was he's remained through the Leyland, really Leyland years but he was

wherever engineer let's see if I can figure this out. So drive me nuts. Hopefully we'll edit this part out.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:04  
Charles Spencer King that's it. David bash it. Yeah, he was his nickname is span

Jamie kitman  1:28:19  
span King. Yes. That's the guy. Yeah. He died in a bicycle accident, ironically. In England, but yeah. lovely guy. He was he was fascinating too. He was really pissed off with Landrover at that point, because he felt like they there was a lot of things they could do in the area of suspension to make defenders less rough riding and he was also an enemy of giant a pillars which he felt blocked people's vision, which are subjects that are still near and dear to my heart. So yeah, I guess one of the things about my Cujo obsession currently is that I really like cars that ride well. And I don't I'm not I can't really understand why the current generation of car buyers seems to have forgotten everything that we knew about how to make cars ride well, you know the whole obsession with bigger wheels and tires when you know that we know that makes for a worse riding car. And I think a lot about what autonomy will do to what you know how sophisticated suspensions are, you know is it really doesn't really matter if you're not driving what a card if it has no steering field, you know, like well, you know, what's gonna make a car sporty versus one that's not I would put it out to you guys. You know, like, does it really matter if it's riding on a you know, antique SUV, chassis or Something more modern.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:04  
I think I think when we get to that stage, you know, what, we probably will want to pivot back to comfort because, you know, I don't, I don't see most of those vehicles, you know, driving in a really sporty manner. I think when people want to have that kind of sporty feel, they're going to want to drive themselves as opposed to be driven. And so I think we may see, you know, a shift back to that more plush, ride plush, but well controlled, you know, which is, I think, you know, one of the differentiators, you know, older American cars, you know, were often plush, but they were also floaty, and, you know, moving around a lot, you know, and what you want is a balance of you want that you want minimize body motion, but you want to absorb the road, so you're not really feeling it. Yeah. Right. So go ahead, Robbie.

Roberto Baldwin  1:31:04  
Oh, so yeah, we need to go back to smaller wheels and larger sidewalls.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:09  
Absolutely.

Roberto Baldwin  1:31:10  
Cuz I know, I know, it looks cool. That's the entire reason. That's it. That's the only reason we have giant wheels. And it was way cool. But yeah, it's it's sort of ruining the ride for a lot of these luxury vehicles.

Jamie kitman  1:31:22  
It was funny, I was at the GM proving ground once it was getting driven around in the old 1930s Buick y job, and which was like, so cool. But when we got out to look at it, it had 13 inch wheels. And I was like, you know, why did they do that? And here's like, who's like for ride. And then we got into the escalator with the 22 inch dubs. And it was like she had and the thing that was funny was that the guy was like, Oh, yeah, you know, they're terrible. But my observation from the outside was that for several years, carmakers were just like, you know what we don't, we're not going to sell you 20 inch wheels, because it'll, it'll diminish the ride and handling this car. And finally, you know, after about a minute, two dealers were like, I'll tell you 20 inch wheels. And then, you know, the car makers were all just like, oh, the hell with it. You know, like, here you go. Here's your 20 year old. He encountered him when he was we went on the first walk around the, the IPAs, he just sort of said, Yeah, I know. I know, the wheels are too big. That's what people want, you know, they can they can live with them. So you know, that's the problem with giving the people what they want

Roberto Baldwin  1:32:47  
to give them what they want.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:49  
Yeah, it originally, you know, going to bigger wheels originally started with the need to have clearance for bigger brakes and wanted, you know, better better braking performance. And that was fine. If they had stopped, you know, at like,

Nicole Wakelin  1:33:04  
bigger and bigger and bigger.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:07  
Now 18 1920 to 24 inch wheels. It's crazy. Yeah. Although, you know, think cars like the Shelby GT 500. You know, that's got 15 inch brake rotors to begin with? Yes, you've got to have big wheels.

Jamie kitman  1:33:21  
And in fairness, there's still there's something to choose between different car makers do some do a better job of accommodating absurdly large wheels than others. And, you know, the worst case scenarios where they're just like, okay, let's just slap on some bigger wheels. And that's, you know, that's it. But I used to have Mini Cooper that I felt when I put steelies and snow tires on it, it rode significantly better than it did on the bigger wheels with run flats, which was sort of distressing to realize

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:04  
as the, as the world shifts towards electrification. You know, one of the interesting trends in the last 1015 years has been the concept of resto mods, you know, taking these old classic cars and putting modern hardware in the modern engines, modern brakes suspension. So you've got that classic look, that vintage look, but it drives like a more modern car. And now, you know, we're starting to see, you know, I mean, there's been people that have done electric conversions on old cars, especially especially old VW beetles need Porsche 911 popular ones for their ones for this, but with what do you think about the electrified cars?

Jamie kitman  1:34:48  
I have no doubt about that. I guess Yes. We sort of search every shoe that we would want officer is really hard for me. Northwich running running one, but but I wrote for a story, e type Jaguar had converted into like a power and driven e types. And only one once. And I thought it was it felt a lot like an E type big, you know, I missed the engine noise, but it was very fast, and it was very pleasant. And so I, you know, if people can afford it, that's what they want to do I really have a problem with that, in general, with resto mods, um, for reversible changes, you know, I know, in the picture car business, it's, it's maddening because, you know, you're looking for a bunch of, you know, 73 gm stuff, and you find a bunch of cars, and then they all turn out to be on 20 inch rims, and, you know, and, you know, and they're just, they're unusable. I mean, it totally kills the period vibe. And frankly, I think most things are best the way they originally style today. So I would, you know, I don't think I'm going to be doing any resto mods myself. A one guy was talking about an interesting project, though, recently, he, when Saab had to get rid of their two stroke in the 96. Forgive me if I go deep in anorak, territory here, but they were looking for a v4 that would fit and be more powerful. And they originally approached launchy, about using the fulvia engine, but it turned out to be too expensive. And they use the Ford v4 from Europe, which was not it was a pretty coarse engine, and not that powerful. So his idea is to build a Saab 96 with a launcher for the engine. And that's the kind of resto mod I can get behind.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:57  
Yeah, that that would be fun. Yeah, the reason I asked, because one of the things we're starting to see is car makers that have traditionally offered crate engines for people doing, you know, either restorations or resto mods or racing vehicles track vehicles. They're, they're now starting to offer electric conversion kits, or at least they've announced them. Last year, GM did a concept, they took an old Chevy k five blazer and put a Chevy Chevrolet Bolt, electric motor in it, they put an adapter on there. So it bolts up to the hydromatic transmission with the bolt battery pack in the back of the blazer. And they announced plans to offer this kit with the the power electronics and the wiring and the motor and everything to do these kinds of modifications that a couple of weeks ago, during the Ford, or during the Woodward dream cruise, Ford announced or tweeted out that they were going to launch the Ford illuminator package from Ford Ford Performance, which is an electric motor, which is presumably going to be they haven't given details yet there. They said they're gonna have more details at SEMA in November. But I'm guessing that this is probably going to be one of the electric motors that they're using for the for the F 150. Lightning, modified so that it can be installed in a variety of different vehicles. And I think it's going to be interesting to see how they do is like the big challenge, installing the motors is fairly straightforward. For the most part, the big challenge with most of these cars is where do you stop the batteries? And I'll be curious to see how they what kind of solutions that come up with for that, because that's, that's, you know, it's hard to package those, and they'll figure out where to put them near the balance await out? And how to do the battery management system for stuff like that.

Jamie kitman  1:39:02  
Yeah, and and, you know, related safety issues and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a growing recognition in the kind of in the, you know, old industry that they need as many revenue streams as they can think of going forward. And, you know, if it makes them money and helps them, you know, stay in business. It seems relatively benign to me, you know, I think that there will be gasoline cars around for a long time, certainly, once were gone, but, you know, I think that there's a whole world that it's almost hard to imagine. You know, that that's going to exist in in a completely electric sphere, which will be retrofitting cars to do that, but also, you know, I mean, when you think about the hot rodding possibilities, With you know, chips and computers and war batteries and you know more motors and things like that bigger motors, you know, I mean, it's, it's, you know, generations of misspent youth away you know

Roberto Baldwin  1:40:17  
I'm still holding out. Oh sorry, I'm still holding out hope that I can buy my my first car which was a 69 Datsun 2000 that my friend now owns that he has removed the bat he removed the engine out because he bought another one that he wanted to put the engine in. So he bought mine to put the though he bought mine and bought another one because the other one the body was straighter. And but the engine was kind of crap on that one. I want to buy that car back. And this is like a 10 year quest, so I can make it so I can do a resto mod Eevee out of a an old roadster All I need is like 60 miles of range. I'm not going to go anywhere. I just want a convertible Evie that's all I want in the world and no one's needs

Nicole Wakelin  1:40:55  
to be practical in any

Roberto Baldwin  1:40:56  
way. No, it does not need to be practical in any way whatsoever. I think a lot of people have been like you know salvaging stuff engines or leafs and getting battery packs from from from from Tesla's and stuff like that. So I like the idea that like, Oh, you can just buy a new one. Which is nice. I think a Maki or a lightning motor though probably a little too powerful for a car that weighs about 12 pounds.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:24  
Maybe? Well, I think what the other day I actually tweeted out something about this I think john Volker had posted something about it. And I suggested that GM is new altium batteries because one of the interesting things GM has done with the batteries for their new e V's is they've incorporated the battery management system into the individual modules instead of at the battery pack level. So the idea is you can reprogram them so you can mix and match ones with different cells different chemistries and balance them out in software and if you know i i copied Mark Royce on that and said what do you think Mr. Royce with this with this? Is this sound like something you might do and he actually liked the tweet so you know, maybe that's the direction the GM is going to go with their their crate motor packages is used the altium modules and an offer into sell individual modules. So you can take those because you know smaller than a full battery pack. Yeah, I can take those and stuffed them in somewhere in the car

Roberto Baldwin  1:42:37  
that stuff in random spots. I'm already like Tron like Okay, I gotta put some some in the trunk but I don't want to be back heavy. So there's some in the passenger and then a few up front so you're running like wires back and forth in order to

Nicole Wakelin  1:42:49  
everywhere you look there's a little bit of battery

Roberto Baldwin  1:42:51  
a little bit of battery here a little bit of battery here.

Jamie kitman  1:42:55  
Anyway, there's space you got to redo the suspension because now it's gonna be all bogged down. But I think it's can happen in a wonder about some of the new technologies. I was reading a while back about the idea of the external airbag that you know your car will sense it's about to hit a pedestrian or somebody that will set its airbag off so the though Yeah, I mean, if a modern Silverado you I don't know how many airbags

Roberto Baldwin  1:43:27  
just bouncing away. I mean, you're still getting hit by something.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:30  
Yeah. Hi, and and but at least you know, at least then it's the pavement that's killing you.

Roberto Baldwin  1:43:41  
Yeah, and also what happens if like a tumbleweed because there's some large tumbleweeds comes out and also that this is

Jamie kitman  1:43:47  
I think I they they were said a bicycle helmet. Did you see that? That when it Oh, yeah. And then it became an airbag to that Yeah. That was pretty cool. I had a near death scooter experience when I was sent to test a an electric scooter. Chinese brand I don't even remember the name but it was perfectly great. And I was riding actually to go pick up my mga at the local gas station where you know, is one of those like, upgrade scooters not like a motor scooter. But like a Razor scooter that way? Yeah. 27 miles an hour. And you front fork collapsed and round from it at 25 miles an hour. And it's like the only time I ever went out without my helmet. And I managed through it just like muscle memory to keep my head off from scraping the pavement. But like I screwed myself up so much that I wish I had airbags and oh, yeah, absolutely. The dragon turned out I had been on. I've been releasing it from the collapse position in the wrong way. So it was Really? I told the company I was, you know, I wasn't sure. And they were like, well, it's kind of your fault. But I was like, well, you would say that. And then they showed us manual that I hadn't. Yeah. And they were like, but just just so there's no hard feelings we'll send you are new, even faster model.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:25  
For complaints.

Jamie kitman  1:45:31  
I'm happy to ride a bicycle. But, you know, I just, yeah, the faster one. thing when people were like saying, segways, we're going to take over the world. I mean, it's a great way to live. And if you think about people riding on sidewalks at 15 miles an hour on segways, you know, like, how many people were going to be hurt? by that? You know, there's, there's, I mean, the more you know about the automobile industry, and the more you think about people, it's like, so many things people invent are have so many inherent dangers that people really don't want to talk about. Today, Mardi Gras a day in history, because Algeria became the last country to sell leaded gasoline and to the, to the driving of like, although the whole world still uses it for propeller planes, which is probably not necessary and bad for you. But I mean, just like, you know, that would be one example. But the just the, the correlation between speed and injury, you know, I mean, human beings really plumbed in ways that nobody ever thought of for the longest time. And so, you know, you know, I'm pro electric car, but I guess I think about like, well, what is it that we're not thinking about? That is going to be a really big problem with all this stuff.

Roberto Baldwin  1:46:59  
unintended consequences?

Jamie kitman  1:47:01  
Yeah, the unintended consequences? What What, what might they be? I mean, you can see the materials and whether they're properly recycled is an issue. You know, I like to tell people who are critics, well, they'll recycle them properly, but we never recycled anything properly. That's that's probably optimistic. fires, you know, I mean, there's gasoline car fires every day. But you know, at least you can pour water on them. So battery fires might be more difficult. And they might have to have fire suppression systems built in, that are are, you know, capable of dealing with them quickly. I'm sure the list goes on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:50  
Yeah, there are definitely going to be plenty of plenty of issues that we've got to deal with, including the the affer mentioned grid, you talked about earlier. We've still got lots of lots of stuff to sort out there with just how we're going to get all the energy for these V's. Why don't we wrap up with a couple more listener questions? And then we'll let you go. Jamie. For Brent Baron housing asks, I think you've all made it clear that you are in favor of the electrification transition and understand the need for it, climate change, etc. So do you ever feel guilty reviewing the gas guzzlers, large SUVs, pickups, anything from dodge as part of the DOD, part of the job?

Nicole Wakelin  1:48:35  
no guilt whatsoever. Things that are out there

you go. Oh, did I never feel guilty. So there we go. I'm like, I love driving that stuff. I'll drive it as long as they make it. Sorry. So no guilt, zero guilt.

Roberto Baldwin  1:48:58  
I think there's, I think I do have a tinge of guilt based on you know, some of the cards that are out there. And it's like, Hey, this is a good car. And I and but it's it's also where is electrification at when it comes to a lot of these vehicles, like does it fill in? Is it capable of filling in the need for that vehicle? And right now, from from any of those vehicles, it doesn't it doesn't really fill it in but but I think that hybrids plug in hybrids do fill in that need. It's, you know, and I think there's that it comes down to the automakers make these large, gas guzzling cars because they make a lot of money them, you know, these cars make a ton of money for them, and they sell a lot of them. And that's why, you know, as we see the trends, the transition to electrification, you know, people are selling SUVs, they're signing small SUVs, it's a growing market, they're not smelling, selling small sedans, they're not selling station wagons, which would be perfect for an SUV because they're there. They're long they have a lot a lot of room for Battery, but they also have better, you know, you can get better drag coefficient out of them. No, people want SUVs for whatever reason, you know. And so if they're, I think individually as a human who lives in California and is watching, you know, the state burn, you know, six months out of the year I there is I do have a bit of a tinge of guilt. But at the same time, whether or not I review these or not, they are going to be purchased. That's that's the other thing. And I think there is a as I as I talked to people, and I tell them, like you know what, buy your big giant truck and this is something I've been saying for years, buy your big SUV, buy your big thing that you want to take to the lake and drag your your, your your motorcycles or your jet skis or whatever. But really look into try an Eevee I think people once they drive one, I think that really changes their mind about what Evie is, or just drive it for like five miles. Because it's it's, it's not what you think it is. It's a lot of fun to drive. And I think that second car should be an Eevee for most people. And I've written this article before, and I've been, you know, sort of beating the drum, you know, you're going to buy the big giant truck, you're going to buy the big gas guzzling, whatever, because that's you. And that's, that's, that's so America, nothing more American than buying something that you really don't need for a for something that's never going to happen, but you're ready. But also, you know, look at that, I think, for me, it has been like very much like, okay, you're going to buy this, I can't stop you, I'm going to tell you which one's the best. And but I'm also going to tell you, you know, you should go out and you should try and Evie. And you should make that your second car because that second car is going to be the one you're going to drive all the time because you just want to run to the store and you don't want to try to park your F 250 like super calf at the target, when you can just park your ID for Go in, go out and get on with your life. So I think I balance it out by sort of an edutainment and telling people Hey, you know, what, drive an Eevee? That's cool. Do it come on?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:52:09  
Yeah, I totally agree with that, you know, I mean, I, you know, it does tickle my lizard brain, you know, driving, you know, really fast cars and trucks. You know, I, my logical brain knows that, you know, most of these vehicles are ridiculous. But as he said, You know, people are gonna buy them. And, you know, so, you know, we're, we're going to, you know, we try to help people understand, you know, what are they getting, you know, further for the money. And, you know, I've always, as long as I've been doing this stuff, you know, when people ask me, you know, what to buy? You know, I always start with a series of questions about what their use case is, what are they going to do with it, and, you know, try to help guide them in the right direction, you know, rarely works, you know, they usually are looking more for affirmation of what they've already decided on, but, you know, at least tried to guide them in that direction. And now, you know, we're getting to the point where there's a whole bunch of new e V's coming to the market, you know, I'm increasingly comfortable in recommending to people that they at least consider these vehicles go out. And if they can, you know, test drive them, see what they're like, you know, because I think that in, as you said, in, in the vast majority of cases, you know, an Eevee, with 250 to 300 miles of range, is going to meet 99% of their needs, you know, and for the rare occasion, when they meet might need something else, they'll read something,

Jamie kitman  1:53:40  
right? I sort of sidestep that problem, personally, by writing the first anti SUV up Ed piece for the New York Times to 1994. And I stopped getting invited to car launches for quite a while. And then basically, my magazine was like, we're not going to send you to drive that because you will hate to just hate it. And so, you know, I sort of was forced to take a more open minded view of them and evaluate them for what they were But yeah, I mean, they raised it raised a lot of issues. But But going back to something you both said, People call me all the time and would go like, Oh, I know you're gonna hate me, but, you know, like, we really are digging this Ford excursion. And you'd be like, you know, I'd be like, well, for why and they're like, Oh, you know, we have two kids and, you know, you know, like, you might go away somewhere and you're like well, I remember when people used to get an A beetle was five kids in the backseat and go on vacation. You know, so I know it can be done. But you know, but often they would get them and then they'd be sick of them quickly because they did it, they felt embarrassed, and it was they were clumsy and things like that. SUVs got a lot better. So that's one thing that makes me I mean, I've gotten, you know, driven SUVs to get 37 miles per gallon. And when that's happening, you know, what, if they were a car, if it was the station wagon, which I'd prefer, they got 40 miles per gallon, 42 miles per gallon? That would be better. But, you know, at that point, I think it's not, you know, like, Whatever I do I, you know, in general, I have a concern with the idea. Well, it's like, what, it's what people want, and what, you know, they, you know, we got to give the people what they want, people, you know, people want a lot of things, you know, that they shouldn't do, and I'm not advocating that you outlaw things like that, but I would, I would tax things based on their consumption differently, in an ideal society that would reflect what they were doing to other people's health, to the roads, you know, to the off roads, with these these much heavier vehicles in the way that trucks are taxed much more heavily. And, you know, could be the whole tax policy could be done differently. I think, you know, people want to, you know,

you know, people want to drive drunk, they want to have sex while they're driving. You know, that doesn't mean it's a good idea, people and, you know, people go, Oh, well, that's where they make all their money. Well, you know, you can make money selling, you know, drugs to schoolchildren to make lots of money, but like, that doesn't mean you have to do it. You know, I feel like the industry is disingenuous when it says like, Hey, you know, we've Our hands are tied, we've just given the people what they want. Well, yeah, but you know, I mean, that's true about, you know, the food industry where people eat too much stuff that's bad for them, and they could really eat more healthy foods that, you know, ensure it's their fault, sort of, but it doesn't, I don't think it escapades. And from any responsibility, you know, the whole notion that, because it's bigger, it ought to cost more, you know, or that an SUV that's based on a Ford Focus should cost almost double what a Ford Focus does. You know, that's, that's artificial, and that was created. And, you know, it was it was a giant con of the, of the world public, that people think well, Oh, right, it's three inches taller. So I should pay $10,000 more for the same pieces. You know, it was it was a game changer, where the companies and you see what their fundamental impulse is, you know, and not that there's anything surprising or illegal about it, but when, you know, where there became chip shortages, suddenly, they're like, well, you only have enough chips for our most expensive cars. Sorry, everybody. You know, I mean, you know, maybe that's natural response. But, you know, it's not that civic minded. And, you know, profit maximization is the is the biggest game I it's probably been true for always, but I think that they were exceptions to the rule. And, you know, the, they invent these kind of paradigms that people just buy into that the idea that, that I've called out my 1994 show, or you're selling these, this, this housewife, a, you know, a 6000 pound suburban, on the basis that she's going to be safer, which was demonstrably untrue, then, when big SUVs rolled over, at 400%, the rate of regular cars, that you know, you're that's because you love the environment so much while you're getting 12 miles per gallon, and that, you know, that you're going to actually go off road, which they knew statistically, wasn't going to happen either. So, you know, if, if it's just people buying what they want, you know, what, why are we spending, you know, $40 billion dollars a year marketing SUVs, and, you know, $130, marketing station wagons.

Roberto Baldwin  1:59:19  
It's interesting, because they, you know, they, the, the sort of, well, we're going to, we're giving them what they want with the large trucks, and then they come out with the maverick and the Santa Cruz, and people are, like, overwhelmingly very excited about those vehicles, which means that they've been spending years and years telling us that people don't want small trucks, and then they show us a small truck. And we're like, yeah,

Jamie kitman  1:59:38  
we're when Cheyenne came out, and they were incredibly successful out of the box. And then they in the second generation, they bloated everything up. And they kind of were stiff, and you know, people before that even happened, people were like, Well, why did you make it get worse gas mileage and make it bigger? If it was such a success? And they were like, well, we're just giving the customers what they told They want it. But what they wanted was the original size on the one they bought. And now you're telling us that, you know, it's not it's two years later, and they don't, that's not what they want anymore. You know? So I, that I think that, you know, I mean that that may be is insoluble is like how do you get a clean electrical grid, it's such a macro problem but but, you know, you're basically, there's a part of them that's playing to the worst in people I want to do was doing when I did this story for the New York Times Magazine, when they thinking backward and the Cadillac Escalade, or whatever the XT, whatever the pickup truck is called. And I got sent into some deep, like basement, like, you know, marketing think tank that Ford had. And I was talking to these people about it and about, like, you know, the psychology of SUV buying and pickup truck buying. And they were remarkably frank about how it was tied to people's, you know, sexual feelings and other feelings that like, I was like, well, like who buys a f 350? Who's your, your basic customer, and they're like, he's a lonely guy. And I'm,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:01:23  
like, well, so how does feelings of inadequacy?

Jamie kitman  2:01:26  
How does that help? And they're like, well, he, he's the guy who wants to be the guy who when your neighbor goes, I got to remove two refrigerators. He's like, I'll come help you do it. I got room my truck. Like, okay. And and they also were saying, you know, like their research and show them this is, you know, 1999 or 2000 2001 that people and women were driving most of the SUV buying decisions. And they're one of the things they explained other than people liking to ride a pie, and feeling safer, because they were up by and feeling safer, because they were told they were safer. Because they were in a 6000 pound car was that minivans and before them station wagons had like really crashed woman spirit. When they pull up to a traffic light, some guy would pull up, you know, some handsome young man. And when he realized he was, you know, probably had a car full of kids, he wouldn't look at her. But when you were in an SUV, and he couldn't see in the back because the windows were smoked out. And because you were up so high, You looked like you were in play, even you know, even if you were a you know, not looking to be in play, it made people feel good to know that they were getting checked out in that way. which seemed really like, you know, weird insights into what

Roberto Baldwin  2:02:55  
what goes into marketing. Marketing is a creepy, creepy, creepy place.

Jamie kitman  2:03:01  
It is a new engine line you call power strokes. And and like what exactly does that mean? They were like, Well, what do you think? And I was like, sounds kind of dirty. And they were like, exactly. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, all right. It's a great world.

Roberto Baldwin  2:03:25  
Power Stroke, everyone. But yeah, title of the title of the show. We're,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:03:31  
we're, we're all doomed. Okay, one final question I want to address from Shawn Whitehurst. And his is curious about what advanced Driver Assist technologies are going into massive vehicles. larger vehicles. Will you haul in a few years enable a novice to tow safely? Do fire trucks have surrounds you cameras? Can a garbage truck tell the color of a dumpster and align perfectly to fit it or to lift it? So as far as the fire trucks surround view cameras, I don't know. If they don't today, they probably will in the next few years in the next generation of trucks. Same thing with the garbage trucks. I imagine you know, at some point they will start equipping those with sensors that help to help the drivers to see you know where the dumpsters are the garbage cans, the the U hauls. That's that's an interesting one. You know, I think that is something that we will see actually starting to happen you know, to enable safer towing because we're already in you know, in trucks that people buy today. There you've already got features like trailer sway control, and trailer backup assist that and GM has got their their invisible trailer technology where you can mount a camera on the back of the trailer. And then it's connected to the truck and you can see on the screen inside you can actually see See what's behind the trailer. And I, I expect that we will see those kinds of features coming into as companies like u haul replace their fleets, I imagine we will see some of those kinds of features being put into there because, you know if, you know for the companies, it makes sense for them to do that. If they can, if they can make trailer towing safer and easier for their customers, they're less likely to incur damage to their vehicles, so it's going to cost them less and their customers are more likely to come back and rent from them again if they have trucks that have those kinds of capabilities on our so I do expect we will see that

Roberto Baldwin  2:05:42  
I want to I want to talk I want to counterpoint that u haul thing because every you have ever, ever rented as always been like about 2030 years old. Nothing I will not nothing works but about 80% of the anything that's supposed to work on the U haul does not work

Nicole Wakelin  2:06:01  
true. That's they never they're always like the worst examples of vehicles that are actually still road legal at this point. So I think

Roberto Baldwin  2:06:08  
I think it'll, I think it'll it'll it'll end up in New halls as it ends up in this as the standard feature for the lowest of the lowest trim of those vehicles. Because you got to make a lot of money off that insurance then make out later and and I don't think you halls ever cared if anyone's ever scraped up one of their things because they just like they either a they charge an arm and a leg because you didn't get the insurance. Or B they have the insurance. They collect the money and they never fix the screen.

Nicole Wakelin  2:06:38  
Yeah, have they ever willingly fixed anything? No,

Roberto Baldwin  2:06:40  
my cousin moved. And we parked somewhere and the U haul broke down and they were like, too bad.

Jamie kitman  2:06:48  
What happens? Yeah, all this talk about trailers reminds me of one pet peeve though I just have to chair it's like, why is it that cars can't tell anymore that the stated limits for what an SUV based on a car will tell are often double or more than capacity. Which is another way to steer people into more profitable SUVs. Camry if you try if you you know you couldn't get a trailer hitch or Camry, but you know things that you can. They're like, Oh, it's 1000 pounds. That's Max, you can tell to tell us more you all trailer, you can't do 1000 or 3500 whatever they say rav4 is and there's no towing package that will get you there. So I think that's part of the conspiracy.

Roberto Baldwin  2:07:37  
I saw a Subaru Legacy wagon. This is about a month ago, towing a single horse trailer in Germany. So if you have a Subaru Legacy wagon, and you have a single horse trailer, you should have no problem towing your horse around.

Jamie kitman  2:07:58  
Yeah, no, well, Europeans have a much different thing. I have a friend who has a V 90 Volvo who had basically shifts and to Europe to get the Volvo tow kit for the V 90 which they wouldn't recommend it to dealer here. And they were trying to get him to get an xc 90 instead, what he really didn't want to manage to figure it out now can tow is alpha racecar with his Volvo. But he's the only guy on his blog who can do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:08:27  
Excellent. All right, I stand corrected on u haul.

Roberto Baldwin  2:08:31  
I just don't trust u haul.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:08:33  
That's awesome. 1520 years from now, you might have some u haul that has some trailer backup as SR trailers as

Roberto Baldwin  2:08:39  
soon as it's as soon as it's like they don't have a choice. They have to buy it with the A comes with the car, then they'll do and they'll like yeah, okay, fine. I'll be the last one in this vehicles. Yeah, it will be used. Just janky old 40 year old u haul is rolling around try not to get hit by autonomous vehicles.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:09:00  
All right. On that note, I would like to sincerely thank Jamie kipman for joining us this evening. This has been a great conversation. Thanks so much for for being here. Thank you guys. Thanks. Bye. I will talk to you next time. Bye bye.