Sam Abuelsamid  0:01  
Coming up on episode 212 wheel bearings got the 2022 Hyundai Tucson hybrid. The single motor Pollstar to rivian won't be doing any tank turns anytime soon. Robbie share some highlights from a mobility in Munich. lucid air can go 520 miles on a charge. And GM picks a LIDAR supplier for ultra cruise. All coming up next.

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is Episode 212 of wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid of guidehouse insights. 

Nicole Wakelin  1:01  
I'm Nicole wakelin of autobytel. 

Roberto Baldwin  1:05  
I am Roberto Baldwin, of, let's say wired.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10  
Excellent. What Nicole Have you been driving this week? Well, it actually wasn't last week because I was out driving during drive programs and running away to Disney World for the week. But I want to talk about the car I drove like two weeks ago, I had a chance to drive the Pollstar to.

Nicole Wakelin  1:27  
They did a launch for the new single motor, which is the front wheel drive and the new dual motor which is their all wheel drive. This is the first time I've ever driven a pollster. Have you guys ever driven these before? I'm betting you have?

Roberto Baldwin  1:41  
I we have?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42  
I have? Yeah, I had one back in July for like three or four days. Yeah, they actually launched the the dual motor last year. Yeah, the dual motor around for a while,

Nicole Wakelin  1:55  
the dual motor they've had around for a while. But they they there's one, there's one change to it they have now. Well, there's more than one change. They made some a lot of little changes. But they now have this mechanical heat pump in this. And it increases the range. And they said it increases the range by about it's optional. It doesn't it's not a standard thing. It's part of this package. That's the Plus package. And it's like $4,000 for the Plus package, but has a whole bunch of other stuffs in it, hence the plus. But they say it increases the range by about 10%. They can't put that in any of the official range things though. But because it's optional, the EPA says no, you can include that. That's not really official. It doesn't it doesn't count. But you can get it

Sam Abuelsamid  2:45  
unless they certify it separately in wishing they could they would have the option to okay

Nicole Wakelin  2:49  
the way they said it was like because yeah, optional thing that a standard thing. You couldn't really include it. But that

Sam Abuelsamid  2:55  
yeah, I mean, if it was, if they certified it separately, if they made it part of the trim level, and they and they certified it separately, but then that's also adds a whole lot more cost.

Nicole Wakelin  3:05  
How much does it cost to get the EPA to certify a car?

Sam Abuelsamid  3:11  
More? I mean to go 330

Nicole Wakelin  3:12  
dollars? Oh, then forget it. Roberto, that's completely unreasonable. I wouldn't pay a dime over 29.

Roberto Baldwin  3:18  
More than more than

Sam Abuelsamid  3:21  
Yeah, it's on the order of hundreds of 1000s of dollars. Go through the whole Yeah, to go through the whole testing process, and do all the paperwork. So we when you have might even be upwards of a million dollars. Wait. So

Nicole Wakelin  3:36  
when you have some of those cars that like, I can't even think of one like the taillights, there's 15 different variants. There's like the ACE back and there's this and there's that do they have to certify every single one of those separately? Or is that one big certification?

Sam Abuelsamid  3:49  
Typically, they will certify each powertrain combination, but not necessarily each trim level. Okay, cuz sometimes trim was, you know, again,

Nicole Wakelin  3:59  
you know, it's the same power tree. Yeah, well, trim gets a little bit better than that trim, because it has, you know, whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:06  
Yeah, well, it depends on on where, like, what the weight is, because when you do the certification, you know, the vehicle goes, you know, as part of because they do the testing on a dynamometer, when they figure out the loading for the dynamometer part of that is simulating the weight. So there's a test weight class, and these are like about 100 250 pound bands, you know, so between 2021 50, between 2150 and 2300 pounds, and so on. So if the options that are the equipment that's included on a particular trim level, bumps it up into another test weight class, then you know, then they will have to recertify it, you know, if they can get it within that same range for the for the test weight class, and it's got the same powertrain then they don't have to certify it separately.

Nicole Wakelin  4:57  
Wow. Now instead of looking at those EPA numbers and thinking this is a pain in the neck to write up I'm gonna think oh my gosh, this cost them a small fortune to get all these numbers.

Roberto Baldwin  5:05  
There There are the ethics exam, six trim levels trub levels, trim levels. Yeah really extreme levels for the accuracy LX on the PA side. Yeah, I just think separate cars they did an all wheel drive the holder of a spec, front wheel drive, the front wheel drive a spec, and then of course the new type s and the type s with a lot of tires. Wow, I don't think I realized also accurate money. So it's just like, yeah, like

Nicole Wakelin  5:33  
money. No, but I thought it I knew that it was expensive, but I just didn't think about the fact like, Oh, you mean every single like is all those variants? Wow, well, I can see why Pollstar might not want to do that just for the heat pump.

Roberto Baldwin  5:46  
But just make it standard and like but 18 months and then they could they'll read EPA it then

Nicole Wakelin  5:52  
that would make sense if they did do it. Yeah. But yeah, right now it's not it's only in the plus pack four grand for the plus pack, but you also get a glass panoramic sunroof, including the projected Pollstar symbol on the roof which you gotta say like that alone is worth $4,000

Roberto Baldwin  6:09  
it's worth 2500 2500 we've tech charcoals

Sam Abuelsamid  6:14  
sold at least 1500 for the heat pump. A Harman Kardon

Nicole Wakelin  6:17  
premium audio system with fresh air subwoofer I don't even know what that means. I'm

Roberto Baldwin  6:23  
fresh air with Terry Gross.

Nicole Wakelin  6:26  
You get you get one

Sam Abuelsamid  6:28  
superimpose it superimposes the bass the bass the low frequencies from Terry Gross show on top of what

Nicole Wakelin  6:35  
is always in the background. What are the high level illumination interior and inductive charging 15 watts for a smartphone rear for lid in lid with bag holder and a heated steering wheel and heated rear seat all of that for grant

Roberto Baldwin  6:51  
receipt for your puppy it's a bargain

Nicole Wakelin  6:54  
what you want heated rear seat your friends you don't want your friends to have cold baths where you're like I don't like my friends.

Roberto Baldwin  7:03  
They can just get there. We had a Del Sol and I bought a Dell soul from a friend and when he bought it I'm like What about giving people rides? He's like are you so good people right and then I bought the Dell for him and that was our car and we were like given people ride them off. I guess they just follow us I don't know

Nicole Wakelin  7:19  
driving their own cars gonna have to do it the hard way figure

Roberto Baldwin  7:22  
it out. I'm not a bus

Nicole Wakelin  7:26  
wow there's a certain title for the show. I'm not a bus. Okay, so did you see the heat pump so you have the the single motor which is the fork it's like five again rebel about $4,000 is $4,000 less than the dual range it drives Have you It drives differently I mean you know that it doesn't have as much as much power it doesn't Yeah, if you're looking for the most like yeah performance but if you're not really all that concerned about the slight the different performance it's still just as it's really a fine I find sounds like I'm like we're fine we're fine it's all fine but it's perfectly fine. I don't I would not go for the dual range unless I really wanted all wheel drive like unless I like Robbie I wouldn't buy it if I were you because you're in sunny California where you don't have to worry about snow. Sam if it were you I go for the dollar range because you're in the wilds of Michigan where it's new wild the wilds I know. So we're gonna cave I'll give you an indication he yeah cooks over fire. So but if you want the dual motor that was actually coming out next month that's the new ones for span October but the single range isn't due out till January. So you'll have to or the single motor rather than do up till January so have to make do for a little while. I've actually it's a very interesting it's such a plain car. It's very like, like you know, it's it's there's nothing happening and so there's nothing to attract your attention inside. It's the most mellow, like minimalist car I think I've ever driven in my life.

Roberto Baldwin  9:00  
It's very Swedish like even beyond like its apparent cut Well, I don't even know what you call Volvo and Pollstar now anymore, because they're probably Geely. And they kind of like yeah, we're part of Volvo, but I really, I mean, the Pollstar headquarters. What right and

Nicole Wakelin  9:16  
yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  9:18  
Bobo owns the majority of pole star and Geely owns the rest of it.

Nicole Wakelin  9:23  
But pole but Volvo is the the pole star is so clean, minimalist no fanciness that's unnecessary inside that it actually makes a Volvo look overdone. Like that's how simplified and how ugly. Yeah, it's just like snapping. And that and the fact that it comes in five shades of black it's like great. Yeah, it's like and they give them all these really cutesy names. It's like thunder void moon, magnesium, midnight. Oh, there is one bright color snow, but it's basically light gray, dark gray, medium gray off. Gray and charcoal gray like they're all just gray you the only color and all these images of the yellow brake calipers that like pop out from behind the wheels that said so yes, it was interesting to drive it I mean being the first time I've ever driven this I did think it was it was it's weird because it's so clean inside and it's it almost feels like under done like I wanted them to do just a little bit more, a little bit more car and my car a little bit more pop in my car. The little logo on the panoramic sunroof was just not enough.

Roberto Baldwin  10:33  
One more button,

Nicole Wakelin  10:35  
there was a logo too in the in the gear shift, like the gear shift is has a cutout in the middle, it shines a little pulse start logo, like in the gear shift, like

Roberto Baldwin  10:46  
logos, what else do you want? There's Swedish,

Nicole Wakelin  10:48  
two logos I want.

Roberto Baldwin  10:51  
There's also country, it is very much like Well, there's also one

Sam Abuelsamid  10:54  
on the steering wheel

Nicole Wakelin  10:56  
there. Yes, that but that one doesn't count cuz everybody has that I wanted like the one on the seal and the ceiling or the roof of the car. And this is cool. And the one in the actual gear shift just called but I really liked it. It was it was neat to drive. I don't know what I was expecting. But it was so minimalist. I was almost caught off guard, but it was a nice car to drive very quiet, very comfortable with it. And like I said, whether you get the single or the dual motor, they're both responsive vehicles. So it's not like you get the single motor and suddenly think oh my gosh, I'm driving this like slow, sluggish, nothing of vehicle. It's it's still a responsive powertrain and I wouldn't

Sam Abuelsamid  11:31  
listen, I sing about an Eevee. Yeah, you know, because you've got that instant torque, even even with the single motor, you still got I think 260 horsepower or something like that, you know, and the dual motors 400 horsepower, is surprisingly quick. Yeah, I mean, you look at this thing, it doesn't look like a sports car, you know, it doesn't look like something that should be going zero to 60 and four and a half seconds. It really feels looks like

Nicole Wakelin  11:56  
it's a super mild mannered sedan. In fact, it was kind of funny when they were all sort of parked across the street from the hotel where we were staying. And I didn't realize they were out there initially. like it'd really be normally you see all the cars for a program. You're like, oh, there's all the cars were driving. And I had this morning, like, Where? Where are the things? I'm like, wait, oh, that's five of them right across the street. That is that right there? Like you kind of they they're just, they're so mild mannered. But what what did you say? horsepower? The single motor is 231 horsepower. Is that what you said? Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid  12:27  
How's it 232 31? I said 260. But you gave it too much 231

Nicole Wakelin  12:31  
in the single litre with like, like, tone it down. This is a Swedish car. 243 pound feet of torque or the dual has 408 and 487. So it's a pretty significant difference. It's not a minor difference. And yeah, you do feel it. But that 231 in that instant torque in the single motor. You don't you don't miss the extra from the dual motor in a way that you think oh, man, there's no performance to this. This is this is drudgery. No, it's still really fun to drive. I enjoy the most,

Roberto Baldwin  13:02  
though it's insane. The nice thing about oh, you know, it's insane is that the engine that holds that power train that's in the Pollstar to, it's in the XC 40 recharge. So you get in that little like SUV, you're like, Oh, this is fine. You need you push down the cylinder. And also you're just slammed up against your seat you're like,

Sam Abuelsamid  13:26  
yeah, you know, and then the nice thing about, you know, the fact that it only comes in, you know, these monochromatic shades, you know, and it's got a fairly nondescript design, is that, you know, you could probably drive it at 120 miles an hour. And, you know, cops probably wouldn't even notice you drive by. It's like a stealth fighter. Like you're

Nicole Wakelin  13:46  
driving a Mustang. Bright Red or something. These bright, vibrant colors, you stand out. This is just like you could be going faster and all the cops gonna see as the Mustang.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:56  
Yeah, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin  13:57  
Swipe past the Mustang. What was that? I don't know. When? When?

Nicole Wakelin  14:04  
Yeah, so it was it was a fun car to drive. I enjoyed it.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:09  
Cool. All right. I had the a Hyundai Tucson hybrid, the 2022 Hyundai Tucson hybrid. And yeah, when they launched when they revealed the the new Tucson. Was it this year, or was it last year? I can't remember. I think it was early this year when? Yeah, I think it was early this year when they first showed it off. Yeah, the thing that struck me about it was it looks significantly larger than the old Tucson and it is larger and it's like six inches longer. It's it basically splits the difference between the old Tucson and the old Santa Fe. So it's a surprisingly large vehicle, although, you know, turns out it's actually right in the same ballpark as most of the competitors in that same segment like the CRV and the rav4 The Escape, but it just, you know, partly I think, you know, kind of proportions of it actually make it look longer even than the old one. Because the old one had kind of this stubby design, especially at the front and at the back, you know, it's kind of where's this one, you know, kind of carved off more. And it's a really, it's an interesting design. It's a new design direction for Hyundai, you know, we started to see this last year on the new Elantra you know, with kind of the the faceted side panels and everything, you know, sharp edges moving away from the, the wood fluidic design, I think they called it before, you know, to this is more, you know, almost crystallin shaped to it. And then the other thing that they did with the, with the Tucson, especially in the front, is you get this hidden lighting, you know, you when it's turned off, you see this big, you know, it looks like a big black grille. And, you know, again, with kind of these diamond shapes in it, and then as soon as you start it, you know, big sections on either end of it light up from behind. So you know, you don't see the lights when it's off. It's just, it's just all blends together. But then it all lights up. And we first saw it a couple of years ago at the LA Auto Show on a concept that they had. And they you know, they brought the same idea to production. And I think it's a it's a cool look. Yeah, and as with before, they have a conventional internal combustion version, but this year they're adding they added a hybrid and there's also a plug in hybrid version coming in a few months. I think that launches early 2022. I don't think it's available quite yet. The hybrid is the same powertrain that is in the new Kia Sorento hybrid. So it's the 1.6 liter turbo, which, you know, Hyundai and Kia have had various versions of this for several years and in a variety of different products. In this case here, when it's paired up as part of the hybrid system, it's got 180 horsepower, 195 foot pounds of torque. And it's paired up here with a 44 kilowatt electric motor and 1.4 kilowatt hour lithium ion battery. So the the total output of the total system output 226 horsepower, 258 foot pounds of torque. And it's it's really smooth driving the power train, you know, unlike and it feels very natural. Because unlike Toyota, Hyundai does their hybrids using a conventional auto six speed automatic transmission. They don't they don't have this CVT style setup for their hybrid system that Toyota does. And on the toilet is on most of the toilet or hybrids. You know, when you accelerate, he puts your foot down and you hear the engine rev up to about 4000 RPM, and it sits there until the engine catches up to it. That motorboating effect. You don't get that with with a hunt with Hyundai hybrid say they feel much more natural. But this thing has enough horsepower enough electric power 59 horsepower from the electric motor, that it can do a surprising amount of electric only driving when that when the battery's charged up. You can go easily a couple of miles. And if you're if you're light on the accelerator, you can get this you can pull away from a stop and drive for quite a ways on just electricity alone without ever starting the engine, which is surprising and then even when it does start up. You don't feel any shuttering or anything it's fairly it's the engines quite quiet.

So I think the power train is really good. The interior of the new Tucson is interesting because when you look at it when you see pictures of it interesting it looks it looks very modern. Yeah, I think it's a good design. You know it's got a large touchscreen display in the center and you've got a digital instrument you know rectangular digital panel in front of you for the instrument cluster. And it the way it flows down it doesn't unlike a lot of modern cars, you know the touchscreen is not sitting up like a tablet on top of the dashboard. It all it's integrated and it flows down from the dash you've got a flush surface. And when you look at it from the side, it kind of folds under it looks like it folds underneath at the bottom it's I think it's a really nice design. Although all of the the climate controls and everything Along the bottom of that surface below the touchscreen, are all also capacitive touch controls so that there's a volume. There's no volume knob. It's all it's all touch controls, which I'm not crazy. But the the other thing is, even though it looks good, when you start touching surfaces, you find that most of the surfaces in there are actually hard plastic surfaces. They're nicely drained. So they don't look particularly cheap, but they don't feel premium when you touch them. Which at the price point is the one that I was driving I was the one I had was the limited all wheel drive was $37,350. And then I think there's $1,000 delivery charge on top of that, so 30 3038 and a half $1,000 for that. And it doesn't feel particularly premium for what you get, you can get the base, blue hybrid all wheel drive, starting at 29,000. And I don't think that there's a front wheel drive hybrid. No, you don't know front wheel drive hybrid. So the hybrid, the hybrid Tucson is only available with all wheel drive. And you know, it's a little on the pricey side, given the way it feels inside. It is very roomy. The backseat has lots of headroom, lots of leg room, there's lots of cargo space in the back and we took it to you know to Daisy and my wife and I and we went out to the lake and had the the roll up paddleboard and chairs and stuff in the back was plenty of room for everything. So that was good, you know, lots of equipment on the limited it's got the full suite of Driver Assist features, you know, adaptive cruise control highway drive assist, which is basically a kind of a level two lane centering system, which works works really well on Hyundai and Kia vehicles. The Forward Collision Alert, the whole the whole gamut. You got Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. But like I said, I I'm not crazy about the the touch controls for the audio and the and the climate controls along the bottom surface of that center stack. But I do like the way it looks I just not crazy, but the way it all feels. So that's the Oh, one other thing the fuel economy that I got to really match up with the with the EPA numbers, which is kind of unusual these days. It's Yeah, it's EPA rated at 37 miles per gallon. 37 City 36. Highway. I only got 3333. Yeah. When when I when I had the the Sorento hybrid went for the launch, late last year. It has the same powertrain in there. It actually is slightly longer. Because it's a it's got a third row in there, although it's a small one. And I you know, when I had it, it was wintertime, it was cold up. And I actually got I think 36 with that one. So I'm not sure why this one only got 33. You know, even driving around town, you know, where I was able to get lots of region, I still didn't get it much over about 34 and a half. And then with highway driving, it was a little bit less than that. So it averaged out over the week to about 33 miles per gallon. Which is not, you know, it's not terrible. But, you know, compared to what you can get with the Toyota Highlander, which is even larger. It's not hard to get 35 out of a Highlander. You know, or 40 out of the rav4 hybrid. You know, it's not exceptional. So

that's the Hyundai Tucson limited hybrid all wheel drive.

Nicole Wakelin  24:02  
So many words. There's a lot of words Yes. Huge car

Roberto Baldwin  24:08  
longer than the car sized car. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:12  
So Robbie, you drove some stuff but you can't tell us about it right?

Roberto Baldwin  24:16  
It's Yeah, so I drove some stuff you know and I and there's a third thing that I drove because we bought a car but I'll talk about the other things first. So I drove the BMW i x and the BMW i for which other their their latest Evie is is the fifth generation of BMWs iDrive sorry, they have a drive which is the power train and they have AI drive which is the infotainment system. Don't ask me why. And I can't tell you how well they did or did not drive but I did drive them and you'll find out about them at the end of this month and the middle of next month. But yeah, no III V's from BMW Um, which we, you know, shouldn't be surprising. Maybe the i three will the I was sort of a have z. But yeah, yeah, fifth generation. So it'll be it'll be what I can tell you about it. It'll be interesting to talk about it in relation to what everyone else is doing. We have the EQ s we have the E Tron up there and so it's it'll be it'll be a conversation. We can't have yet we can't have yet. We can talk about though another Evie, which is the 2022 kona electric, just recently refreshed. And then a few days later, my wife and I went down and bought one. So now 2022 kona electric. It is the the refreshes they refresh the front. The the the front of the vehicle, they lowered the price. And I'm sure there probably be a couple other things. For the most part, though. It's it's pretty much the same car 258 miles of range. It is. It is astoundingly odd that Hyundai is you know, this car isn't new. It's been around for a few years. But their their efficiency numbers are right up there with like Tesla. Like just insane that Hyundai Hyundai, not Ford. Just little Hyundai. So my wife, she drives with a bit of a lead foot. So I bought the car on. We bought the park car on Friday. And then Saturday morning, I left for a week. And my wife who's never really driven an Eevee was left with a car for a week. And she was she went she got charged to do all the things. And then when we she picked me up from the airport. And she's like, oh, by the way, can you put me in sport mode? Real quick for me. All right, because that's how she drives my drive. My wife drives the sport and is ready at all times. I looked down at her the efficiency like the kilowatts per mile. And it was 4.1. Which is really good when you think about it. 4.1 for every mile. Yeah. Which is right again, up there with like, I think the well, a year ago, I

Sam Abuelsamid  27:26  
know I mean 4.1 miles per kilowatt hour.

Roberto Baldwin  27:29  
Yes. Sorry. That's the net Yes, we use 4.1 miles per kilowatt hour. Sorry about that, which is right up there with like, you know, the model three, and the model y which Tesla has been doing and Tesla, you love them hate them, whatever their efficiency numbers are out of this world insane when it comes to how well they're there, their vehicle to do. So yeah, from Hyundai, so we bought the car, it's front wheel drive, it's not all wheel drive, but that's fine. I don't plan on really taking it up to Tahoe for snowboarding. We have you know other things that do that. And it drives Well, it's got, you know, 201 horsepower, so it's not super fast, but you still have like 200 and hold on to me. A torque number is is obviously higher because EV torque 291 foot pounds of torque. So you know you stomp on the gas, you get that zero to 30 zero to 40 that everyone really likes anyway. That's there. It's a fun little car to drive. It's got plenty of room. It's probably while we bought it when I when I reviewed it a long time ago. I really enjoyed it. And I'm surprised that it's taken everyone else this longest sort of catch up to Hyundai. I'm just gonna keep saying that. When it comes to I mean the idea for essentially like, Hey, we dropped a Hyundai from a few years ago.

Nicole Wakelin  28:55  
Did you What did you have before? You had an Eevee? Before this Robbie, what did you replace something or

Roberto Baldwin  29:00  
so what happened was is that my wife has hurt her ankle. We have a br z with a manual transmission. Oh, she it's her left ankle so you know shifting gears is become it can be difficult. We also have the free 2004 Jaguar x type, which is a 2004 Jaguar, so it is about as dependable. As half Ford it's half mid 2004 and half 2000s half mid 2000 Jaguar. It is a Christmas tree of check engine lights. Yeah, so she ated broken down. It might not broken down but it failed to start on her a few times when she had to go to work. And while she was at work, she works in any sort of rough neighborhood at a hospital. She makes and I told her this when the car wouldn't start one day was I told her that you make entirely too much money to have a car that is unreliable. In a neighborhood that you do not need. You shouldn't have a car. It's unreliable. So we had looked, we looked around for some other vehicles. We can't we looked at the ID for a bit. But we decided to go with the Hyundai.

Nicole Wakelin  30:19  
Hyundai whenever the ID for I think,

Roberto Baldwin  30:21  
you know, she has friends who had Volkswagens and Volkswagens are either outstanding or not. I mean, that's, you know, you sort of hit or measure Volkswagen, you know, you get a great car that has zero problems, or you get a car that's, maybe it made me as a few other problems. There are also some issues with the Volkswagen that I think would have infuriated her, I think the infotainment system that's still not been updated and fixed, I think that would make her angry. And then also, there's like this sort of weirdness where you have to push a button in order to roll the rear, rear windows down, there's only two little, you know, toggles for Windows, and so nach at its at its sort of default position, you can roll down the front windows left or right front windows, if you want to roll the back windows down, you have to push a button, and then it sets it to back windows and then use those same buttons, those same toggle.

Nicole Wakelin  31:15  
Why did they do that?

Roberto Baldwin  31:16  
I think you're trying to be you save the switch, save a switch, save to switch, there's also the there's also the the situation with the side mirrors, where the first time I drove the 84, I thought it was broken. I couldn't get the buttons to create, it's the same sort of button situation where you have to sort of push a button until it gets into the right position. And then you can adjust the side mirrors and I kept pushing the button, the actual knob for the side mirror. I'm like, Oh, this isn't work. I can't adjust the side mirrors. And it turns out just so there's like these little things that that Volkswagen did or like, hey, look at us for being and I was just like, that's just gonna piss off my wife. So as a couple, there's a few things I like the 84 I think the 84 is a great little car. I think that that the infotainment system needs to be fixed as soon as possible because I think every day that they haven't fixed it, it's bad for that vehicle when there's other vehicles on the market. Namely the Kona, the Maki. For people who have a little bit more money, the XC 40 recharge. I mean, there's, of course the model y. So they're there they need to sort of get it together when it comes to that. But yeah, that was that was sort of you know, my wife doesn't really like the way Volkswagens Look, she was okay with the ID score, but she like, you know, I'm like, Okay, what about Hyundai and her last Hyundai was a 1987 Hyundai XL. Wow. You know, she wasn't she was a little, you know, used car when she was in high school. And again, the 1987 Hyundai XL is just a trash vehicle. It is just bad. Everything about that vehicle is bad. They were cheap, though. They were super cheap. Yeah, it was cheap. Like when you you know, buy cheap buy often sort of. And so she had a sort of a an issue with Hyundai's even though she had made a bunch of Hyundai's that I had that I had reviewed. And so I sort of talked her and I sort of hopefully nothing goes wrong with this car because I've really talked about Hyundai in the last few weeks how they've gotten there they're a better automakers and they were

Nicole Wakelin  33:19  
adjusting to get the one day in the entire fleet that is going to be an utter piece of trash in your you have it

Roberto Baldwin  33:28  
Yeah, I got that one broken Hyundai. What they have that good board, they have the warranty and so I think it'll be fine. I also we also get free maintenance or like, Oh, great. What am I gonna do with that was an Eevee. I'm like, I guess something. Anyway, yeah. So we drove it like it. Good. The levy if you're a person who's We leased it, and I wrote an article on a site about why we decided to lease instead of buy and it really comes down down. It comes down to battery technology and the next generation Evie, is there going to be showing up in the next few years. Fair enough. There we go. So that's the three cars I drove back

Sam Abuelsamid  34:04  
the next generation of Hyundai's or

Roberto Baldwin  34:07  
Oh, we tried to hold on

Sam Abuelsamid  34:09  
just a few months away.

Roberto Baldwin  34:10  
Yeah. Which I really tried to hold out for the ionic five I saw it at the the the Munich Auto Show. I read and I was like, oh, man, this is dope. And, but we kind of needed a car now. It's just one of those things where you're like, Whoa, fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:29  
Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's get into some items. Speaking of the Munich auto show the eye mobility show you were there. And we weren't so what did you see that was interesting besides the ionic five

Roberto Baldwin  34:53  
oh, so I saw the the mission are the Porsche mission are which is there the Horses sort of it's their they read they essentially created a sports car, Evie, and you know, it's a concept and but the they were very coy about the idea that you know, sort of like I got a wink I'm doing a wink right now I'm not very good at Winky sort of winking at the fact that what we're seeing in this vehicle is going to be making its way into possibly a cane and, and then, of course, some sort of sports car or racecar. I'm I, I really, really, really like to take on. And so the idea that Porsche is making now a proper Porsche sports car. That is an Eevee at some point in the future I'm excited about because I think the engineering and Porsche what they've done with the TT icon, they're going to just you know, advance that and make it you know, better for someone who wants a fast a very fast You know, I guess people was a proper Porsche. What else was cool? Oh, there was the the new Volkswagen the ID hole. Wait at life. Sorry. The ideal life, which is their mid to 20,000 ish. Evie, it's a little, you know, for cruising around the city. It looked great. We're not going to get in America, because we don't like small cars. The end.

Nicole Wakelin  36:27  
Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  36:28  
so I went over to shoot, I tried to go over shoot video of it for my YouTube channel. And unfortunately, there was a line to get into into because there they had all the COVID protocols, even though everyone had to be vaccinated to get in and we all had to wear masks, there was still a limit on how many people can be in, in these in the booths. So I got over to the at the Volkswagen booth, it was full. So then I just left and I came back later. And I there was a long line of video teams waiting to shoot video. So I looked at it, I got Oh, this looks cool. And then I left because it's not coming in United States. And that that makes me sad because we didn't get the ID three. And so there's you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  37:15  
how big is it I mean, is like roughly the size of the Polo or closer to a golf

Roberto Baldwin  37:20  
closer to a golf i think i think it's smaller, because I think the ID four is actually bigger than the golf it three I'm sorry, is larger than the golf. Just a just chunk here. It's just a chunkier car than the golf because battery etc. And so yeah, the ID life is is a bit smaller. I also was very excited about the idea of a G wagen. The E to G come in, they showed off their near production concept vehicle at the votes that I'm sorry at the Mercedes booth, and it just it looked like any, it just looks like a G wagen. With a bunch of lights on it. That was essentially what it comes down to. Like we took a G wagen. It's like a battery in it. We ripped out the motor and put a put a four EV motors in it, which I'm very excited about. And then we put a ton of lights on it. Where do you think we should put light? Yeah, let's put some light lotta led anywhere. Anyway, lots of Le DS. Yeah. Which of course have all disappear when it goes to market. You know, just looks cool. When you're you know, at the thing is Yeah, garnered a lot of interest because g wagons and hold on. That's the closest door dogs are losing their minds. There we go. Sorry about that. Just keep coming in with their toys barking at each other jumping on top of things. The G wagen is Yeah, it's a G wagen. I looked inside, it doesn't have the large like hyper screen setup that we're seeing in the EQ s and available in the qeii. It just has sort of the traditional, you know, to screen setup, but you can't have that hyper screen and still have that handle, you know, for the for the passenger, right above the the glove compartment. So I think maybe that's what they're going for. But yeah, for for motors, you know, true torque vectoring. Because every motor, every wheel can do something completely different from anything else doesn't rely on a clutch doesn't rely on any sort of differential doesn't rely on any of that. It's just four different motors and it'll have a proper low gear. So it'll have a two gear set up. Somehow.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:29  
I don't know, on the to do range, four wheel drive system.

Roberto Baldwin  39:33  
Yeah. So you can set you know, you can shove it down in the low and then pull up a tree out of the ground or something. Like do what you do, I think yeah, I think it'll it'll do well, especially in California where the G wagen does very well, especially in the LA area. What else was cool?

Sam Abuelsamid  39:54  
What did you think of the EQ II?

Roberto Baldwin  39:57  
Yeah, it's a smaller EQ is really it's just You know, it's it's like the class, the class is just like, you can't afford the S Class, but you still want to be fancy. Yeah, just get the E Class. And that's, that's the QE. It is, you know, it is

Sam Abuelsamid  40:15  
in the design, the design of the QE, even more so than the EQ s, you know, it's going to this kind of jelly bean shaped, it's kind of just a blob. And

Roberto Baldwin  40:26  
I'm not sure if I like it, really, they're really going for that, you know, they, you know, that's and that's sort of the future of Mercedes Benz design, you know, they told me at the EQ S Drive, that sort of what we can expect from from Mercedes Benz, I think it is a little blob ish, but they're also trying to like, you know, drag coefficient, they want to get those huge, huge numbers. Because you know, you're buying a Mercedes, if you're buying a Mercedes, you don't want to be the person with a Mercedes with 200 miles of range you want you know, 350 400 looking, you know, you spending a lot of money on a Mercedes Benz. So you you want to be able to say, Well, yeah, I could drive from, you know, LA to San Francisco and only stop once or whatever. I you know, I'm still a little disappointed that, that Mercedes is still in the 400 volt system. So, you know, it's I think it's 200 kilowatts, I think, is the charge rate. If it was 800, you know, they could go to 350. And really sort of, like really hammer in that that, uh, that luxury and convenience of having a Mercedes but you know, the EQ S is a great car, I drove it in suite, not Sweden, Switzerland. I got around. But, uh, yeah, the QE I think it's gonna be it, you know, it's it's essentially the class instead of having to lift gate, the large sort of fast back lift gate, it just hasn't has a proper trunk. So if you're in the trunk, the queue is, is your jam. What else happened? I try to think of all the I had to shoot a lot of video. So

Sam Abuelsamid  42:05  
there was one more What about the BMW concept? The Oh, the circular call it the? Yeah, the eye vision killer killer?

Roberto Baldwin  42:13  
Yes. Yes, I think it's, it's interesting. I think it's something that every automaker needs to start thinking about when it comes to recycling because you can say, Oh, this car is 100% recyclable, but you have all these materials that are like weaves and mixtures and when you do that, now you have to create a whole other issue because you have to essentially pull those materials apart in some way in order to recycle them and when BMW is saying like, Oh, it's all moto materials. So you know, this is just this, you know, the, whatever the door panels made out of is made out of one material, so it's easier to recycle. Yeah, it's I think it's it's, it's something that automakers should be thinking about because you can say that your car is you know, has has great Evie range, and it's very green. And you can say that your factories are powered by, you know, the rain and rainbows and wind and the sun. But if the actual vehicle itself becomes a bit of a challenge to to either to recycle then you're Yeah, it's like you're almost there. And you blew it at the end. This class this close, Mr. by that? Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:27  
All right. What else did we have here? Oh, speaking of EBS and long range lucid I think by the time by the time the show's out, it should actually be official tomorrow but the lucid air is going to have the the the maximum range version which I think is the not the dream edition but the the Grand Touring is going to have a official EPA range of 520 miles by far and away the longest of anything on there out on the road. And you know these are going to be going into into full production in the next couple of months is the plan the you know this thing has a 118 kilowatt hour battery pack which they're apparently using 113 kilowatt hours so it's it's a bigger pack than anything, you know, the biggest Tesla's have 100 kilowatt hour pack. If you sat in the in the lucid air, Robbie, I sat in one several years ago when they first unveiled it you know this, this 520 miles is really impressive number four, for the driving range and you know, it's also very efficient. I don't have the the numbers right at hand for the efficiency but it actually works out to be about 17% more energy efficient than the most efficient model Last, which is, you know, you're talking earlier, but Tesla having better efficiency than anybody else, you know, this thing takes it, you know, raises the bar even more, which is going to be interesting, you know, comparing against cars like the EQ E, and the US, but also, you know, stuff that's coming from GM. The The, the Hummer is, you know, that thing is gonna have a 200 kilowatt hour battery pack, and it's gonna have somewhere between 303 150 miles of range. This has got the same amount

Nicole Wakelin  45:39  
as a Sherman tank.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:41  
Yes, yes. Yeah. Maybe slightly more, I think than the tank. Yeah. With the, you know, the the lucid, you know, 520 miles from 118, or 113 kilowatt hours is really impressive number. So hopefully, we'll get a chance to drive these sometime in the next few months and, and see what it's really like and see what kind of range it actually gets in the real world. But yeah, with that, you know, if you can get 500 miles, I mean, you're talking you can easily go LA to San Francisco without stopping and beyond, I think Motor Trend, actually. Yeah, Motor Trend actually did that. They actually did a, they got an exclusive first drive in the air, they did something they did some kind of program with lucid. And I think they went with one of the versions of the air, they went well over 460 miles. So, so not too shabby.

Roberto Baldwin  46:39  
I was part of that, that it was, I think it was Motor Trend. Bloomberg and current drivers when I was at current driver, and it was a ride along. And in my ride long we got 458 miles from the prototype vehicle. And so I which meant I was sitting in a car in the backseat of a car, and they end with a mask on and we they put up a we put up a like a plexiglass screen, because it was like it was last year last August. So it's right in the middle of COVID they're like, do you want to do this? And I'm like, and I was like, Well, what are we gonna COVID we have to? And it was Yeah, 458 miles, and at that time they were they were targeting 517. So the fact that they're getting 520 is, is is great. And you know, they are you know, the lucid team is essentially it's almost all former Tesla employees, it's all people who know how to make an efficient, you know, it's it's the, you know, the head engineers is Peter Rollins and he was the he was the guy who created the Model S essentially. And so now he now he's he's the CEO of lucid, and he has all these engineers over there and I you know, I've gotten him, I've talked to them. And they are they're very much like, well, we're not really, we want to have the most efficient vehicle on the road. And they they strive to really, really get an efficient vehicle. Like their their power their their motors, like really tiny and efficient and everything they're doing over there is, is sort of, it's very impressive. And yeah, they were the battery people before they, you know, for was it formula II as a different name. I forget what the name is. But yeah, a TiVo? TiVo? Yeah, so it's, it's, you know, so they have this sort of the battery technology, they have years and years of battery technology under their belt. We have a bunch of former Tesla employees over there Tesla engineers who are who are more than happy to sort of, you know, destroy Tesla's lead as the, the the king of range and I'm sure once Ilan sees this news, he is not going to be happy about the idea that they are being he is being bested by his former employees. And so it'll, it'll alien starts a bit of a range war, which is good for everyone. It's good for us. Because you know, right, yeah, a 520 pound vehicle a 520 mile range vehicle means that everyone is now on notice. Like you have to like really bring it you need to be better at your you know, you need better efficiency from your, from your motors, you need better efficiency from your, from your battery packs, you really have to make a vehicle that that that at least gets close to that and then that trickles down to the cars that the rest of us can drive. But I did sit in the back Yeah. Oh, I saw this. So this the car I drove it was like, it was sort of you know, it was it was it was a beta test car. It was a mule. But I have sat in the back of a near near production vehicle with like most of the the fanciness that the lucid area. It's very comfortable. It's a very fancy. It's very nice inside.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:56  
Yeah, well, what I was gonna say was the you know, the important thing about these efficiency gains They're getting, you know, this is a pretty good sized car. And if you can get that kind of efficiency out of such a large car with, you know, pretty large battery pack, if you can take that and translate that into something that is more mainstream, you know, and take you take that battery and take half of that battery pack size, you know, take 100 and, you know, take 60 kilowatt hours. Now, you can have, you know, really good range, and because if you cut that battery in half, you know, you've taken a significant amount of weight out of the car. So that adds to the that builds on the efficiency even more. So you can start to get, you know, much more affordable cars, would that still have, you know, close to 300 miles of range? And, you know, in that 250 to 300 mile range, range area, if you can, if you can get that. I mean, that's realistically, that's good enough for pretty much everybody. You know, very few people really need more range than that. So I think that's, this is a good sign. You know, hopefully we'll see this, this technology trickling down into more affordable vehicles over the next few years.

Roberto Baldwin  51:16  
Yeah, I mean, yeah, if you if you cut it in half, but you know, the cars on the smaller the battery pack is going to be smaller. So the loser knows what you're talking like, it was 270 if you cut it in half, but then you take into account all the weight savings that you're getting, you're talking about 320 probably from a smaller, like, fancy, which is impressive.

Nicole Wakelin  51:34  
I know he needs the range. For the most part. None of us need those huge range numbers. Anyway, it's for the the odd road trip, you know, most of the time, we'd be fine with far less so.

Roberto Baldwin  51:43  
Yeah, we don't Yeah. You don't really go anywhere really

Nicole Wakelin  51:47  
mean I'm sorry. What did you say? 4050 miles in a day. But yes,

Roberto Baldwin  51:50  
I'm driving 400 Yeah, that's a long I get 400 a day if that's your average day with a long day and are like you sure you wanna you're you're cool with this? I'm like, Yeah, yeah, we're closer we did as long huge loop. Then we stopped and I talked to the CEO and, and then we just did his other long loop until the evening and then I was done. And then I was very tired. I went home. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:19  
Speaking of new Evie manufacturers is another one that actually just today as we're recording, roll their first regular customer production vehicle off their assembly line. And that's rivian. You know, we've been hearing about rivian for a few years now. They finally are ready to put their vehicle in production. There's there's just not quite as efficient as the lucid you think. See, what was it? It was theirs. They have a pickup truck. It's a midsize pickup truck, so it's closer in size to like a Ford Ranger or Chevy Colorado than to an F 150 or Silverado. It gets 314 miles of range from a 135 kilowatt hour battery pack. But you know, it's also not quite as aerodynamic as, as a lucid err. It's Yeah, it's a it's a pickup truck. It's a big blocky truck nail. So you this is what you should expect from something like that. But the the launch edition rivian r1 tees will be going to customers, probably in the next week or two, the first ones will be delivered. But one thing those customers won't get is the tank turn feature that we saw in some of reviens videos that they put out last year. So Robbie, you were mentioning the the G wagen has four, four motors on there, one for each wheel. rivian is doing the same thing, they've got a Ford Motor setup. And you can control them all independently. And they put rivian put out a video from their testing cars either earlier this year or last year, showing what they call tank turn because you know with with actual tanks, because they're on tracks, you know, you can, you can run the tracks in opposite directions and literally turn on its own axis. And you can do the same thing with the rivian r1 t, you can run the wheels on one side forward and run the wheels on the other side and reverse and turn down 360 degrees on its own axis. But that feature is not going to be available at launch. And it is possible it may not ever actually make it into production. And rivian explained to Motor Trend that the reason why is turns out to actually be a lot harder to do safely than you might think. If you're on if you're on level ground with a uniform surface, it's pretty straightforward. You just do But you're putting wheels on one side going forward, the wheels on the other side and reverse and no problem. But if you're on any kind of slope, or there's any difference in the surface that they're on, things can get hairy really fast. You know, if you're on a little bit of a, an angle, or and you've got, you know, suddenly one wheel catches more grip than the other three wheels, the whole thing can just shoot off in some random direction. And that, that, that would not be good. So it turns out to be a really, really hard control, probably

Nicole Wakelin  55:33  
love to so the testing for this in which they discovered that it was harder to do this than they thought, like, somewhere, there's gonna be random videos of a ravine very nicely during the turn, like, going the wrong direction.

Roberto Baldwin  55:47  
Yeah, what's funny is that they show that in a video, and I was talking to them, they're like, yeah, we didn't, was just like a thing we did. And we didn't realize people would be excited about it. And they didn't seem very excited about the idea of like giving it to customers. I think it was just one day, like a weekend do not realize and the customers like, well look what it can do. This should be the thing that I should be able to do.

Nicole Wakelin  56:12  
To make me buy a vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin  56:14  
I'm never going to use this. But I could at some point. And yeah, I think I think it was one of those things. We're not understanding that when people see something, they automatically want the thing. Even if they

Nicole Wakelin  56:28  
never use it, you never need to ever

Roberto Baldwin  56:30  
use it. And I think i think i i don't think it's ever gonna. And I don't think it's ever going to come to fruition, or it's going to be on like some special edition or I don't know, it seems. Again, it's cool to see. But like, you know, Sam said, it seems very dangerous.

Nicole Wakelin  56:50  
can kill us all. But let's go with it.

Roberto Baldwin  56:52  
Don't do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:56  
We've got lots of other things that can kill us. Do you know on the road, so why not? Yes,

Nicole Wakelin  57:01  
to add that to the list is

Roberto Baldwin  57:02  
add a growing list of things that should be

Nicole Wakelin  57:06  
deadly features on our cars.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:10  
If you get big 5000 5000 pounds sedans and go from zero to 60 in two seconds, you know, yeah, that's just as dangerous.

Nicole Wakelin  57:18  
That's totally fine. It's

Roberto Baldwin  57:21  
just a giant rocket. Essentially a comment. I

Nicole Wakelin  57:25  
think you're good. You've got a seat belt, a common airbag.

Roberto Baldwin  57:29  
Everyone's showing off their comments. Show off you

Sam Abuelsamid  57:33  
could possibly go wrong.

Roberto Baldwin  57:35  
Well, I could possibly go wrong with that. I guess everything every time we've ever seen the end of a cars and coffee, we can see what goes wrong. Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:44  
Every time you see a Mustang spinning out coming out of a cars and coffee lot. Okay. Finally, last item I've got before we hadn't had some listener questions is GM. Well, actually, GM didn't actually announce this. There's a LIDAR company is based in San Jose called Sept on. And I first met these guys at CES, I don't know, three years ago, three or four years ago. And they've got kind of an interesting LIDAR sensor, you know, the way they do their beam steering system, they've got something they call micro motion technology. Basically, they're using something like a speaker driver to vibrate the steering mechanism to steer the laser beam to scan across the field of view. Well, anyway, earlier this week, Sept on filed their s for form with the SEC, which is the form that you got to file if you're going to do a merger with a SPAC a special purpose acquisition company, which, you know, we've had all kinds of, you know, private, privately held, you know, startups that have gone public through mergers with these spax over the last year and a half. And the latest is cept on there, they're planning to go public at a valuation about one and a half billion dollars. But one of the little details that was buried in the middle of this 150 odd page filing with the SEC was they acknowledged that they they have their first production program with General Motors now. Yeah, I talked to stepped on from time to time. And they actually told me several months ago that they they had a production design when with a top five global automaker, but they wouldn't say who it was. I had my suspicions that it was probably GM for ultra cruise, but they've now confirmed that that it will be coming in 2023 on as part of the GM ultra cruise system, which is the the next generation beyond supercruise. So this is we don't know exactly what functionality it's going to have. Mark Royce, the head of product development at GM has said that it'll have the ability to do some automated driving capability on city streets. Again, you know, we don't know exactly under what conditions you know, or where it will be able to do that. But it's, it's coming in 2023. And it will have a LIDAR sensor built in there from Sept on. So that was kind of cool.

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:31  
It sounds like the future. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:33  
it just sounds right. Yeah, exactly. So we've got a bunch of listener questions that came into the email. So in addition to our, our Twitter, you can also send us listeners, you can send us questions by email at feedback at wheel bearings, dot media. And I went through the inbox today and caught some emails that have come on in over the last couple of weeks that I hadn't been paying attention to, unfortunately. So I'm gonna start off with the first one, from Michael r burns. And this is, this is actually kind of a long email. There's a bunch of questions in here, so I'm gonna throw them at you a bit at a time. So here are Michael's questions, starting with the Volvo XC 40 recharge test drive, which you referenced earlier, Robbie, the vegan interior does it feel just like the VW leatherette? Or is it more like the waterproof outdoors? The interior of a Subaru? Did you feel like you're getting less for your money than a traditional cloth or leather interior?

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:41  
It does not feel cheap. It feels nice. It does not feel leather. Rhett doesn't have that weird plasticky. leatherette feel that you sometimes get where he's like, Well, why? Why did you even get this? Why did you even give me this? So yeah, it feels very nice. It feels you know, the the issue with it's not an issue what Volvo wants is their you know, their cars are a bit more expensive. I mean, the than, than the other TVs and that it's a it's a premium luxury vehicle. And that's what they're selling. And so they you know, they want to make sure that when you get inside that vehicle, you feel like you're in a premium luxury vehicle. It's Yeah, so no, it doesn't feel cheap at all. I don't feel like I was getting if I were to buy it, I wouldn't feel like I was getting scammed by the word vegan interior.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:28  
Okay, yeah, yeah, there's other other vehicles increasing number of vehicles now that have vegan interiors, you know, they're non leather interiors, I think, you know, the, the Mustang Maki, you know, they call their material active x, which I think is is all it also doesn't have a plasticky feel to it. It's not, it's not like a real supple, Nappa leather, you know, some really high end leather like you'd find in a bandleader, Mercedes. But it feels nice. It's a nice feeling material. It's fairly soft and supple. So I think, you know, a lot of these modern materials that are coming up with are quite interesting. A lot of

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:08  
like companies like they partner with other companies to get these nice, these nice materials in the car. So it's not just like Volvo like figuring it out. They have they partner with a company that that's their sole job is to make, you know, high end materials out of like, just random crap that we throw away.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:29  
Next, he Mike also had a question about the Android automotive experience. Did you have any issues with latency versus other touchscreen infotainment systems, any crashes, any lockups and actually, the cold you could also touch in touch on this because A, Pollstar also has this Android automotive infotainment system. It's on a bigger screen than what's in the in the XC 40. But it's basically the same system. So Did either of you notice any issues with latency or other other issues with it?

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:04  
I didn't, I didn't experience any issues. And it was, in fact, it was really quick, I thought that the responses really good, you know, just using the touchscreen, pinching and zooming like, okay, I want to we actually got turned around in a little mountain area and where it was trying, like, Let's wait a minute, where are we let's let's open this up a little bit wider and see where we are. And it was very responsive, even just trying to move it around to find out where we were in relation to where we were going. I didn't have any issues with the crashing, or any lockups or anything like that. It was, it was a pretty seamless experience. So I was pleased with it. I didn't have any issues. Robbie.

Roberto Baldwin  1:04:40  
I had zero issues with it. I think a lot of it comes down to like Google and Volvo worked really hard to make this work really well. It's the first enter Android automotive vehicle. It is a lot. You know, there's a lot of Google, you know, a lot of Google in there. You know, we're we're some automakers are growing. I try to like sort of hide Android automotive. Volvo and Google decided, you know, kind of put it up front. Like you can say, Hey, you know the word I've gotten in trouble for saying, hey, and then the wake word on on podcasts and on videos before so I'm not gonna say it, but you know what it is? You know? Hey, Gee, thanks, gearman. Hey, Guillermo Hickey. Yeah, no, I didn't have any issues. It was quick. I do wish that there were more apps in the Google Play Store. Especially when it comes to EBS. I think the only thing that was in there was charge points. Like EAA wasn't in there at the time, electrify America, they might be in there. Now. I'm not sure. Because I know that they they recently started making it available on Android Auto and on CarPlay. So it might be available now. In Android automotive, I'm not sure. But the ability to sort of download apps was was pretty great. But I wish there were more. There were more more than music and media apps. That's what's that's essentially what sort of fills up that, that, you know, a lot of stitcher and NPR and just anything that's music or podcast related, they're all in there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:16  
Yeah, I think I think we will be seeing more apps coming to the store. You know, obviously, you know, a lot of the the, you know, things like games and so on, that you get on mobile devices are not necessarily suitable for running, you know, on the vehicle screen. But I think we will, I think we will see more more stuff coming over the next year or so, especially as more OEMs start watching their Android automotive systems. GM is bringing their first ones out. In fact, just last week, I think Chevy revealed details of the the 2022 Silverado refresh, and it's going to be getting an Android automotive based infotainment system along with the the 2022 Sierra, GMC Sierra, and the new e V's starting with the Hummer and the lyric are all getting this system. So I think as more more vehicles have this platform in there, you're gonna see more developers making their apps available to to download through the Google Play Store on those vehicles. Let's see the if you're using Android Auto or in the future Apple CarPlay does it take over the whole screen or only a portion of it? example will it be like CarPlay in is 2018 Ram 1500 Quad Cab where the screen is occupied by the projection and toggle between phone or app menu and the major categories like radio climate etc. So does it take up the whole screen or I think it I think it only uses half the screen like it does with the current Volvo census system right

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:01  
Yeah, I think so. It's not available yet still CarPlay is still not it's still coming I talked to Volvo about this I asked about what's what's the deal with CarPlay and they said it is coming there will be an over there will be an update coming but I assume that's going to because CarPlay is really built is really built around a landscape orientated screen and in the Volvo it is a portrait screen so I'm sure there's going to be you know the your your your CarPlay or Android Auto which I'm not even sure why you would use Android Auto at this point in this vehicle because everything you kind of want is there really but you will you know i don't think Android or CarPlay is going to be work well as a portrait mode so you'll you'll get that landscape CarPlay and then underneath it or below or above it will have access to other items that are in the in the infotainment system like sensors for

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:05  
Yeah, what about the the dog friendliness of the cargo area did the dog we hear in the show get a ride in the recharge? I think that was Bowie if I'm not mistaken. If so what sighs and breezy and did he fit comfortably in that cargo area? Or did the sloped window cut down too much on the height? Michael has a greyhound and a compact SUV like the Jeep Cherokee makes him hunker over like he's garga Mela Smurf Smurf convenience store

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:34  
it is a great description I actually because there are a lot of the automakers asked me not to put my animals in the car. So Bowie is a German Shepherd. He so he's a big dog is like 100 pounds of goofiness who looks terrifying to anyone who comes near our house but it's actually quite nice. The dog friendliness of the cargo area. I'm trying to think if he would fit back there. I'm sure he will I mean being back towards the very back would would probably make them hunched over. Typically what we do in the in our arcona is we just leave the backseat up we don't put it down and then the dogs just sit in the backseat because you get a little bit more height. And I think it's probably about the same sort of situation the compact SUVs when it comes to dog if you have you know a large dog and you try to put them you put the seats down and so now you're losing some some some headroom, I guess you would do dog room. It would probably fit but I think for Greyhound you're probably going to end up more likely having it with the seat up like we do with Bowie. Nico, our other dog who is essentially like a miniature German Shepherd, she she would fit fine. She's She's about 40% OF BOWIE sighs

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:53  
Okay, next, Michaels. next batch of questions here go off in a completely different direction regarding Evie regulations and tax benefits. There was a story this past week about how the US gets it wrong with doing tax credits versus direct discounts. European countries give the break at the time of purchase, which seems to be helping with Evie adoption. What legislation at the federal level is underway to push the Evie tax credit to the moment of purchase rather than April 15 of next year? Are any manufacturers looking at enticing buyers with a discount on the on the car if you agree to forward the tax credit in the next year to the dealership? So right now, there there had been some proposals to transform the the Eevee incentives from a tax credit situation to a point of sale rebate. But so far, nothing like that has been introduced in Congress, the Congress would have to make that change. And what they have introduced earlier this week, there was a bill introduced to or actually was last week to change the Evie incentive system, which had a number of changes. That included also providing additional incentives for us bill TVs, and for even more for Evie is built in UAW plants. And Honda and Toyota are very upset about that. But we'll see whether or not that actually gets passed. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. In fact, Honda's going to be getting its first two TVs from GM, at least one of which will be built in a UAW plant so that that vehicle will be eligible. But the other thing that they did change is the current tax credits. It's not a fully refundable tax credit. So you know, it's 70 $500. But if your tax bill is only say, $4,000, then all you're going to get is the $4,000. So you can only get a credit for up to whatever your your tax, your tax bill

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:07  
make money.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:10  
Right. So the one of the things in this bill is it would be a fully refundable credit. So regardless of how much your your tax bill is, you would get the full amount of the incentive back. So, you know, potentially, if they pass the whole thing with the UAW, you know, the union built American built vehicles, and you bought an F 150, built in Dearborn, or a Hummer built in, in Detroit, you would potentially get up to 12 and a half $1,000 back, and you would get that back in full, there is also an income limit tied with that. So, you know, if you make over a certain income, then that would be phased out, you wouldn't you would not get that amount, which I personally think is a good thing. But right now, there's no Unfortunately, no moves in the US to switch that to a point of sale rebate, which I think would actually be an even bigger benefit to people because most consumers when they go looking for a car, you know, part of their purchase decision is what is my monthly payment going to be, you know, because, you know, people have a budget that they can work with, they know they can spend $300 a month or $400 a month or $200 a month, on their on their car payment. And if you're looking at a $40,000 vehicle, and you're gonna get 70 $500 back next year, you've got to finance you know, say you put $5,000 you got to finance $35,000 and that's what your monthly payments gonna be based on not $32,000. So it's, you know, it's it's, it would be better for people if they could do that. It would also be I think, a lot harder to administer a system like that, but This is one of the reasons why a lot of people lease their TVs rather than buying them. Because, yeah, because, you know, you'd mentioned, Michael mentions, you know, our manufacturers looking at enticing buyers with the discount, if they agree to forward the tax credit, you can't really do that. But if you lease, you are technically doing that, because when you lease, it's actually the you know, whoever is financing the lease, whether it's, you know, GM financial, or Ford credit, or, you know, whatever, bank is actually handling the lease, they technically are the purchaser of the vehicle, they get the tax credit, and then that gets factored into your lease payment. So that's why when you look at leasing an Eevee, the payments are often so much less than they are if you're buying and you know, taking out a loan to buy the car, because that that tax credit is built into the lease payment. So yeah, if you know, that's, that's probably the best way to go right now.

Roberto Baldwin  1:16:02  
Yeah, we that was another reason why we leased is because you look at it, you're like, Okay, this is how much the car is. And now we're going to add like your 7500, and then the 1500 for California. And then there's some other credit that I don't and you know, so now your car is only cost this much. And now we're going to now we're going to set the lease up based on your three years and however many miles etc, that you want to pay on this lease for this vehicle. So you can't you you kind of get the money off the bat with the lease. But of course, in three years, you know, I don't have anything to show for it. I don't have a car anymore. But at the same time. I mean, at the end of the day, when you get rid of the car, you don't have at that point, one way or the other. So yeah, so we're saving money monthly, we have uh, you know, we have an Eevee any battery degradation is an our problem after three. And then as battery, you know, as battery technology progresses, we'll be you know, we'll be able to say, Hey, you know, 258, you know, miles from this 60 something, I think 68 kilowatt hour battery, well, now they can get it from a 30 kilowatt hour battery. And now that you know, these cars are far more efficient, and they found more, you know, you get either more miles or you get a lighter car, which you know, includes more miles. So, yeah. And then of course, the the big thing is that eventually the the the ID buzz will be available in America, and we'll see how that works out for us. Who doesn't? Who doesn't want to sweet microbots? TV?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:33  
Exactly. All right. Larry Bailey asks, I'm one of the many that pre ordered a Ford Maverick hybrid. But what I'm seeing now online, is Ford is only building Mavericks with the two liter EcoBoost engine. Have you heard anything about this? So yeah, there were some some reports online that Ford was building only the two liter Mavericks. Mike Levine, who's the head of Ford product communications, responded to that on Twitter a few days ago, and said, No, they are building hybrids. I think I think what you know, we'll probably see, you know, what, and what is typical for any new product launch, anytime a manufacturer launches a new vehicle, is they always front loaded with the more premium models, because those are the customers that are often more more most willing to buy most enthusiastic to buy right away. And so they want to get the maximum profit margins on those vehicles up front. But, you know, they also do build the bass models and you know, the lower trim levels, they just don't build as many of them. But Mike said that they are building hybrids right now. And they will be available from day one, when the when the maverick goes on sale, I think sometime in October. So they are they are coming. You know, part of the problem, I think, right now as well is that, you know, the hybrids might also be more impacted by the chip shortage. Because with the the electric system in there, you know, it's going to have more controls. So there might be some impact there, which might limit some of the availability, but they are building them as much at least as much as they can. Okay, Dave Marsh asks, he said two thoughts came to mind from a recent podcast, one was regarding towing. One thing to keep in mind is that the EU market has more liberal tow ratings than the US. My experience has been the vehicles here with little low or no tow ratings are rated to pull moderate loads over there. Example my Mazda five has no tow rating here, which is rated for 1500 pounds in Europe. So let's address that one first. Any any thoughts on why? You know some of the vehicles that don't have tow ratings here? Do have them In Europe,

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:02  
I actually don't know the answer to that question. I'm curious if you guys have an answer.

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:05  
I don't know what the answer is. But I again, I like to tell the story about the last time I was, you know, the time before last I was in Germany, and there was a Subaru Legacy wagon Tawana horse trail. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:19  
Actually, earlier today I saw somebody posted a video, I think it was from Tick Tock. I put it in our slack. I don't know if you guys saw it of they were driving along and they saw a camper or a trailer being towed behind a Ford Expedition, which itself was being towed behind an old Buick lesabre. And between the lesabre and the expedition was not a tow bar, but a tow strap. And the Buick was like, packed full of stuff. It was it was crazy. Yes. Yes, it's amazing.

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:00  
Was there someone at some point, they have to slow down? Someone has to be in that Ford.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:07  
Maybe there was somebody in the Ford? I'm not sure I couldn't see. But you know, people, people will do strange things sometimes very unsafe. We do not recommend that. Yeah. You know, we recommend that you follow the manufacturer's directions. And if the vehicles not ready for towing, please don't tow. You know, I have had a vehicle in the past that was not ready for telling, but I had a tow hitch on it, but only to use for a bike rack for a hitch mounted bike rack. So I think part of the problem is here in the in the US, you know, there's greater concerns with product liability lawsuits. And so I think when it comes to things like towing, especially with certain types of vehicles, manufacturers tend to be a little more conservative with the toll ratings. Yeah. And, you know, there's also the business side of it, you know, they would prefer that if you want to tow that you buy something that's a little bigger and a little more expensive, you know, and maybe better suited for towing. So, you know, instead of buying a small car or a minivan, to tow your your little pop up trailer, you know, they would prefer that you buy a bigger SUV or a pickup truck to do it. So I think I think those are a couple of different factors that play in there. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:36  
I've seen Germany you see a lot of small cars towing a lot of stuff and you're like, all right. Cars, very small

Nicole Wakelin  1:22:44  
towing things, you would never see them cars, it would not even remotely be considering towing in the US.

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:49  
Yeah. And you got this. What is that a boat? I saw someone towing a boat with something on what was it something small? What's it called? I think towing a boat, a boat, like a proper boat, not like a little like tiny boat, but like a boat. I was like what is happening in this on this continent, but there it is fine.

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:12  
What's happening on this continent? What is happening?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:15  
You know, when you know the other thing that helps, you know, at least until relatively recently, you know, diesel engines were a lot more popular there. So, you know, those engines are a lot better suited for that torque. Especially, you know, yeah, Germany, you know, diesel diesels are great for towing and you know, they were never as popular here. You know, with with small gas engines. He definitely, a lot of times don't really want to be towing. And then the other thing that David Marsh asked was about comments about Eevee range efficiency, which we talked about earlier, strikes me the cast applied the experience and reasoning from internal combustion efficiency curves to Evie drive trains. As you know, I see engines are tuned for cruising operation loads, not full beans, and full beans, the ice sacrifices efficiency for power example, they run rich at full output, not to mention all the friction and rotational losses that build at higher RPM. electric motor tends to hit peak efficiency at full load and higher rotation speeds. I get that high, I get that high current flow makes more heat in the electronics but but does pedal behavior especially considering region benefits make that big a difference in overall efficiency. If so, what are the big drivers here? So, yes, actually, your behavior does have a huge impact on efficiency, it may it may be a little bit less than what it is for a lot of internal combustion engines. But it does, you know, putting a lot more load on an electric powertrain does make a big difference in your efficiency. If you're led putting it all the time, you will see your range drop a drop off a lot. You know you you get heat building up but you also get it No more friction from tires more aerodynamic drag and motors may have their peak efficiency, you know, not at zero speed but it's also usually not at full load either it's usually somewhere in between the peak efficiency of most motors is probably somewhere in the you know 50 to 60% load range and lower rotational speeds if you if you look at the efficiency curves for an electric motor, it usually will start to drop off as you get higher up to higher and higher speeds. And you know, those motors are also pulling through a gearbox you know, it's it's a simple reduction gearbox is not a as complex a transmission as you have with an engine. But you do you're going to get losses through that as well and you know, the faster that's running you know, those gears are running through lubricant that's also going to put more you know, create more friction. So yeah, there is definitely a drop off in efficiency with if you drive an Eevee more aggressively. Jim, man hard ass Oh, good. Oh,

Roberto Baldwin  1:26:09  
I was gonna say that effort whenever I have an Eevee in for review, and then I go and I drive a gas car, a gas powered ice. I'm always a little irritated that every time I take my foot off the accelerator I'm not like building an aid I'm not getting yeah i'm not i'm not somehow creating more gasoline to put back into the engine I'm like well this is just inefficient What's going on here?

Nicole Wakelin  1:26:31  
I'm just losing gas I'm break I'm

Roberto Baldwin  1:26:34  
wasting I'm not getting anything. This is a waste Why am

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:37  
I doing this heating up the air around my breaks? Exactly. I'm not doing and yeah, so Yeah, actually regenda I didn't mention region but yeah, region does have a big impact in the the more region your vehicle and Evie is set up for that will help to restore some of that efficiency. So you do get a lot back from from strong region systems. So you know, if you've got an Eevee that's got, you know, let you select one pedal driving mode. Use it take advantage of it. You'll you'll benefit in terms of range. Jim manhart actually has more of a comment than a question in a recent podcast says I referred to the BMW grille his kidneys. I don't think you can use kidney to describe them anymore. That's you know, that's the traditional descriptor for the BMW grille designs the twin kidneys. I don't think you can use kidneys describe them anymore. I think we have to switch to calling them beaver teeth.

Nicole Wakelin  1:27:35  
On the new one, I have said that they look a little little buck teeth.

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:39  
They're very very large.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:40  
big big buck teeth.

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:42  
They are pronounced Yes,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:43  
they are now they're very very large.

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:47  
I can say that. I can see that the very large.

Nicole Wakelin  1:27:49  
Yes, because we can see that we can all we can

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:53  
all see the various

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:57  
exceptionally large beaver teeth. Okay, we do have a couple of other ones. quick ones that came in on Twitter. Coach Cabrera asks, I own a 1984 Nissan 300 z nada turbo. What are is the best place to look to find the bluebook value? Most appraisal sites don't go back that far. Yeah, I think like Edmunds and KBB only go back to about 1990 I don't know. Do you guys know where you can find

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:24  
you can look on bring a trailer and if that car has been sold, or multiple versions of that vehicle have been sold, you can sort of track like what they're selling it now. Now of course, bring your trailers usually, you know, the cars is in good shape. You know, it's it's it's good condition, or excellent condition. That's what that's sort of the whole deal is bring it together. But 1984 I think the prices on that probably are going to keep rising because the radwood phenomenon, you know, everyone in all the Gen X, all of us are getting old. And now we all want to buy the old cars that we have. We were kids. So we're like ready to throw down some of our hard earned cash and bust into our 401 K is to buy a 1990 Honda Civic dx.

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:04  
Okay, you know, where you can find some good values on old cars, not read book, The magazine, Red Book, but Red Book. There's a red book that says it's a car valuation site that does car values. The town clerk's used to use them years ago when they were trying to figure out how much back in the days before you had, you know, computer that would tell you exactly how much your car was worth to determine how much to charge you when you register your car in certain towns. And red book has values Red Book values, as I remember, and I haven't looked it up online, you might have to do some Google foo, but they give values back very very far for cars. To give you an idea of what cars are worth. So there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:47  
Okay. Oh, you know, just remember as well. Haggerty has evaluation tool on their website, Google Haggerty evaluation tool. So for something like the the Z and 84 z that would probably be good. Place to look that one up is on Haggerty. And then one more from Adam Miller says, Why is it that some states like Indiana charge an extra fee to license hybrid and electric vehicles, while the federal government is giving tax breaks on them? Well, this is pretty straightforward. And you're going to see this in a lot more states, states rely heavily on fuel taxes to pay for road construction. And since hybrid vehicles, and electric vehicles use either less or no fuel, but they still put wear and tear on the roads, they're looking at owners of those vehicles to pay their fair share towards the cost of upkeep of the roads. And, you know, certainly we have challenges in this country with infrastructure and paying for paying for road infrastructure. So that fee is taking the place of what you would have otherwise probably paid in gas taxes, if you were driving a standard internal combustion engine vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin  1:31:04  
Yeah, and they can't even go against the you know, they can't use the EA chargers and all that because most a was an 80% of people charge at home. So how are they going to like track that? are like Well, yeah, Jenny, Bill went up. 12%. So what's 3%? for that? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:18  
I mean, unless, unless everybody was required to have a separate meter. Yeah, you know, hooked up to their, their Evie chargers. You know, and you did the same thing, you know, on public chargers? It would be it'd be really hard to do. So that's, that's why they're doing these these new fees. Yeah, I mean, the other option that some states are looking at, you know, is just a vehicle miles traveled tax, you know, and moving away from the fuel taxes entirely. And, you know, you just however many miles a year you drive time some factor for the weight of the vehicle. You know, because the weight of the vehicle has an impact on how much wear and tear there is on the roads. That you know, that's how much you owe in your rotax every year. Sorry, Evie. Owners. I think this is like every Reddit is gonna have ruts in it all the way down.

Roberto Baldwin  1:32:20  
What happened? Someone up the street bought her Hummer. Evie huh?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:26  
Okay. That's it for the questions. I did have a chance last week to talk with James kuffner, who is the CEO of woven planet holdings, which is a subsidiary of Toyota that is responsible for a lot of their future mobility, development, autonomous driving, connected vehicles, all that kind of stuff. I'm going to tack that interview on the end here of the show. But before, before we get to that, I'll say goodbye. See you next time.

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:05  
See you next time I find people of the roads

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:10  
try to interview with. Here's the interview with James kuffner. Talk to you next time. Hey, everybody, it's Sam. Today, I've got a special interview that I did with James kuffner, the CEO of woven planet. For those of you that aren't familiar with woven planet, it is a subsidiary of Toyota. And they're doing a lot of really interesting things for the parent company. So sit back, relax and enjoy the interview. Oh one one last thing. You will frequently hear James refer to the president in his comments. He's referring to Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota Motor Corporation. And that's sort of the, the way that people are executives, top executives are referred to in Japanese business culture. So enjoy the interview. James,

first, let's start off with woven planet. You know, for the for the people that are listening to this podcast, they probably don't know what woven planet is so neat, stop and explain kind of the overall philosophy and the strategy of woven planet as a subsidiary of Toyota.

James Kuffner  1:34:29  
Yeah, well, the goal of woven planet is really to be a bridge between the research and

the mass production. And that was the original mission of the company when we founded it as an advanced development company between the Toyota Research Institute and Toyota Motor Corporation. And since then, we've evolved. We've taken on more projects, the woven city was announced. We've announced our software platform and Our old corporate structure wasn't sufficient. And so we ended up relaunching the company as a woven planet group in January. And what I see our role is, is trying to become the center of excellence for software development, to complement the tradition of excellent hardware and electromechanical systems that Toyota Motor Corporation is famous for with the Toyota Production System. So being able to mass produce very reliable, high quality, electromechanical components at scale at low cost is something that Toyota has been building its business on. But the reality is that today's mobility requires millions of lines of code, and exponentially increasing complexity, features and software. And that's why new tools are needed. And we need to gather really excellent engineers who are skilled at software architecture and development to make the best products. So we've embarked on this big mission to gather those people at woven planet, and to help the company establish a full model change, as the President likes to call it from a car company to a mobility company. So exploring all kinds of new mobility, the new technology is opening up so many new possibilities in the space, whether it's connected technologies, automated driving, electrification, and sharing. So all these things together is what welven planet is trying to do with a particular emphasis on gathering some of the best software engineers in the world to work together to make great products. And some people have been confused at Toyota, you know, we have this mission about software first. And what that means is that you design the software and logical architectures before you design and pick the hardware components, whereas the previous way of building cars, you choose all these hardware components. And then you do four years of system integration and testing. But that doesn't scale Well, when you've got such complexity on the software side. And so putting in abstraction layers, designing a very good logical software architecture in advance of choosing the hardware components is the software first approach or software defined architectures approach that have revolutionized personal computers and smartphones. And we're trying to do that here for automotive. But some of the Toyota engineers have come to me and said, Oh, I'm just a hardware guy, I don't matter anymore. And I said, No, no, that isn't that all what we're saying. What we're saying is that we need both good hardware and good software together to make good products for our customers. But well, but but as a philosophy or an engineering strategy, we design the architectures first, and then we integrate. So we absolutely need and continue to rely on to the strength in electromechanical hardware manufacturing, it's just that now we can have software developed in parallel, we can have more features, better quality for our customers, and we can ship new features to our customers, even after their purchase the vehicle with wireless over the year updates. So it's a big change. We're really excited. There's still a lot to learn. But I'm pretty happy with what we've been able to accomplish this year so far.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:24  
Yeah, that is it is a fascinating turnabout in working from the software first. And certainly for the engineers, you know, I don't think they have anything to worry about, because you could have billions of lines of code. But if you don't have actuators, and sensors and compute platforms, and an electronic electrical architecture, to make it all do something, it is meaningless. So

James Kuffner  1:38:47  
Exactly, exactly. We can make a simulation, but at the end of the day, it's got to, you know, move people and goods when the rubber hits the road. So absolutely. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:58  
there's that I understand there's there's three main components to woven planet holdings, you've got core, alpha and capital and give a little, little description of what each of those is and how they fit into that. That overall philosophy.

James Kuffner  1:39:14  
Yes, so when just going back a little bit, you know, we had a pretty clear focus when we started tier ID in 2018. It was a joint venture between denso, ICN, and Toyota, and we were to deliver automated driving IP software technology and systems to Toyota. We launched our team a product on the Lexus LS this year and the next generation near I chose a teammate. And that was great. But what we learned during that process was that we had a lot of tools that needed to be improved. So we also started building our area and software platform, our automated mapping platform And these new initiatives, and then weapon city was announced and woven planet took a role in helping manage and lead that project. So we had a lot more on our plate. And one of the things I spent 20 years in Silicon Valley, and one of the things that I've learned is that if you've got a startup, it's very good to have focus. But if you take on too much, you may be distracted, you might may or may not be able to deliver everything. So I wanted to create agile teams that had very clear focus. But we also wanted to do more in parallel and grow our company. So taking a playbook from Google, if you if you remember, I used to work there. And when I was there, the company reorganized itself, where its core business of search and ads was branded as Google. But then they created a holding company on top alphabet. And they had Google X now known as alphabet, eggs, which incubated a lot of new products and ideas, spin offs, like Wei, Mo, and verily and so on. And then you also had an investment arm, there was Google Ventures back then now capital G, that does partnerships and investments. So basically, that's, that's that recipe is what we did for tier ID, I took our core business, the old structure of tier ID, which became woven core, we created a holding company, woven planet holdings on top, I have woven alpha, which is our new projects, initiatives, like our platform, automated mapping platform and, and software platform. And I have an investment on woven capital that has announced some some new investments and and we've done some acquisitions. And so that allows us to have partnerships and to move fast. But each of the kind of group companies in in in the holding under the holding company have a very clear mission and focus, but they work together synergistically. And I think it creates a very nice structure. We're still learning and we're still evolving. But that that is part of the reason why we we relaunched the company as woven planet, it's trying to balance out having a broader scale and scope of projects that you're working on, like woven city, but also a very clear focus so that the teams can make decisions quick and move fast and, and hopefully have positive impact.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:24  
Okay, yeah, I definitely want to come back to woven city. But before before that, yeah, Toyota, traditionally is a fairly conservative company, with a lot of focus on safety, as a result, hasn't always rushed into introducing the newest technologies first, you know, wants to make sure that they're right and working properly. Nothing wrong with that. But can woman planet be seen as an incubator, I think you've used the word incubator before to try some of those new ideas more quickly, kind of in parallel to the parent company. And then bring those back into Toyota. And it sounds like that's, that's what you did with with teammate. When, before before you came woven planet? So do you see woven planet influencing Toyota's overall culture over time? And how do you see that maybe playing out?

James Kuffner  1:43:21  
Yes, that's a great question. I mean, absolutely. You know, we aim to be a company that is innovating in the mobility space and bringing to market all kinds of new technology and features and we work closely together with all of our partners. To do that. I do think that there is a little bit of a misunderstanding about Toyota, Toyota does bring to market world first products all the time, it's just that they don't talk about them that much. They sort of let the market decide and let customers decide. I mean, we shipped our first electric vehicle, the rav4 in 1996, a lot of people forget that, that we actually shipped an electric vehicle 25 years ago, it wasn't a market success, but we certainly learned a lot from it, and we, you know, made ever better batteries. And that became, you know, a lot of the things we learned we were able to bring to market really the were the world's first you know, viable commercially successful hybrid power trains, and all kinds of advanced safety features we brought world first pedestrian avoidance on our Lexus Safety Sense. Even our teammates, you know, is an automated driving system for for highway level two, that if the driver for some reason doesn't take over, the car will pull over to the side of the road instead of stopping in lane like many other systems, which is a lot safer. So we have a lot of world first things that we bring to market is just we don't toot our own horn that much we we let customers judge whether or not we done something good And then try to adapt and learn from it. But absolutely, I see woven planet is as strongly positioned to try to help lead in the mobility space with a woman city, we see this as a strategic asset that where we can accelerate our development of automated driving and safety technology and hopefully, work together with all of our partners and colleagues in the toy group to bring great products that, you know, have the tradition of reliability and reliability and trust and quality that our customers expect. So, you know, it's a big mandate. But I do think that, you know, innovation does require the ability to, to learn, and a good way to learn is to try something new and see how it works. And that's absolutely the spirit of experimentation and entrepreneurship that we're trying to adopt here at woven planet.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:52  
Do you see woven planet ever becoming a customer facing brand? Or is it like alphabet going to stay more in the background, and let the various products that come out of these efforts and transition into the other parts of the tweeter group, you know, take the get the fame, I guess,

James Kuffner  1:46:12  
I think probably the ladder. But one of the nice things about the structure we have is is quite flexible. One of the reasons that another reason that we launched this structure is we just completed two strategic acquisitions that now have established woven planet offices in Silicon Valley, New York, Seattle, London, in addition to our Tokyo, and other Japan, based offices, so that allows us to grow flexibly and, and yeah, we may end up having some consumer facing brand. But at the time, we're really focused on working with our partner companies to supply technology to deliver more value. And think about how some of the product brands may be strengthened with woven planet technology. So maybe someday it'll be powered by woven planet, but I'm not sure, you know, if customers will directly face our brand.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:13  
So getting into some of those acquisitions and investments. Over the last several years woven planetoid made quite a few investments, numerous companies in the automated driving space, including, you know, you've had t ri, I think, you know, kind of kicked it off. But there's also the investments in Uber ATG, and now Aurora, since that transaction, mobility, and your most recent acquisition of level five, from Lyft. Do you do you expect to eventually bring some of those things together? more closely under the umbrella? Or do you see them remaining in parallel? Are they you know, are you kind of trying to hedge your bets with different efforts that where there's some overlap? How does that play out in the AV space?

James Kuffner  1:48:01  
Yeah, I think, you know, there has been some amazing progress in the last 10 years in this technology. But there's still a lot of unknowns and a lot of uncertainties and capability gap, frankly, between the dream of having an AI system that could drive as well as a person. And, and because of that uncertainty, there's different approaches that are being taken, people are trying out new things. And we're trying to learn and to be cutting edge. And learning through partnerships through our own in house efforts, as well as investments that we can make, will help us stay on top in part of the cutting edge. And everything that has been evolving over the past couple years is aimed at maximizing learning and, and helping us get ready for this technology that we do know will have a big transformative effect on mobility. So for me, our in house efforts with T RI and woven planet, we we know that not all the good ideas are going to come from us that there's a lot of smart people working really hard trying out different things. So I think hedging bets is a good way to look at it. But also every market is very different. Every part of the world has different needs different regulations, each society has a different willingness to accept or adopt automated driving technology. Some of my friends in Brazil are saying please, you know, ship it today, we don't want any more human drivers. But, you know, everyone's different. And so I think because of that uncertainty, it makes sense to physically to make multiple bets and to try to learn and also to do strategic partnerships as well. So that's the approach that we've been able to take, you know, not everybody can do that. We're four To have enough resources and capability to be able to do multiple engagements, but I do see, at the end, I see a lot of this technology, dramatically improving safety, which is one of the reasons why Ted has been pretty consistent. There's been a lot of talk about driverless taxis. And that is definitely a very important use case. But you know, fundamentally the perception, the prediction, and the planning technology that goes into those systems can really, really enhance safety. It's just like automatic emergency braking has made such a positive impact on reducing rear end collisions. Even if the driver is in attentive or fails to react, the system can help a lot. And so there's over a million people dying every year from traffic accidents, we know that this technology can can can make that number a lot smaller, but we need to invest in it and commercialize it. And we've got to learn.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:02  
You mentioned earlier mapping is one of the areas you're looking at. Another of your recent acquisitions was car mirror, really interesting startup, doing crowdsource maps? Do you see that technology from car Mehra as something that might get integrated into Toyota sooner rather than later? You know, Toyota sells and took me across the various brands, you know, 10 million vehicles a year, globally. And that's, you know, and men, most of those now, or at least a significant proportion of them are equipped with cameras. Do you see that technology being fairly quickly moved into Toyota vehicles in the near term, to start helping build out maps and maybe building a competitor to something like mobilize REM platform, their road experience management platform?

James Kuffner  1:51:53  
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we, we have had a lot of great progress. And, you know, we worked with karma for the past three years, and to had announced even back in 2016, and 17, our crowd sourced computer vision based mapping, synthesis technology for road surface imagery. So now, it's really trying to commercialize that and bring that to scale. So absolutely, I think, you know, one of the, one of the annoying things about road surfaces and road geometry is that it changes all the time, lane markings get repainted, there's construction, but you can crowdsource the maintenance of that map data. And that's really our value proposition at woven planet for our automated mapping platform, we can, we can utilize probe imagery, to repair and keep up to date and fresh all of the mapping data. And that is scalable with the volume and size of Toyota. And in fact, living planet has always been thinking even beyond just Toyota meters, a huge company, but there's still about 10% of the business. So, you know, I think for women planet, we really want to be a company that can change the whole industry.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:53:14  
Do you? Do you see technologies like cameras mapping, or even some of the AV technologies is something that Toyota would be potentially willing to license to other automakers to utilize in their vehicles?

James Kuffner  1:53:30  
Yes, I think so. There's, you know, all options are on the table. I do think that we have had a history of licensing our technology, whether it's our hybrid power trains, to other OEMs because it's the right thing to do for our planet, to reduce carbon emissions in a practical, scalable way. But I think, you know, for for this Advent, especially advanced safety, technology, and technology related to zero emissions, like, you know, open sourcing all of our 6000 fuel cell patents, and open sourcing much of the safety technology. These are things that are morally right, I think, for for for the company, you know, things that are really competitive, that customers will differentiate. Toyota may hesitate, but I do think that if it's related to safety, reducing traffic, reducing pollution, those are definitely things that we want to basically be open about to help push the industry forward.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:54:32  
We talked a lot about, you know, on the technology side, but what about the mobile mobility services? Is that something that's also being developed within woven city? Is that an area that you've got responsibility for?

James Kuffner  1:54:47  
Yes, absolutely. You know, the goal of woven city is really to become a human centered living laboratory that will explore three kinds of mobility and Their intersection, the mobility of people, the mobility of goods, and the mobility of information and how those intersect. And in some ways, this pandemic that we've been suffering through, has accelerated that mission, because so many people have ordered things to be delivered, whether it's food or packages and or explored virtual telecommuting, working from home, like, like we are talking today, I think this kind of technology that is at the intersection of how people live and work, and communicate is really important for the cities of our future. And that's one thing we're trying to accelerate and learn at scale with a woman city project. So services that provide those mobility, we're also looking at smart energy, sustainable energy, we're looking at smart agriculture, you know, food loss in Japan, and it's very similar in in the other parts of the world is over 50%, there's a lot of reasons for that. mismatch between supply and demand in proper storage, just waste at the at the grocery store, or at the restaurants. But you know, Toyota has built up this Toyota Production System, managing a supply chain with no waste and, and just in time, and so we think that some of the things that we learn about the supply chain for manufacturing cars may be able to help, you know, smart urban agriculture. So you can get fresh vegetables or herbs or ingredients just in time delivered to your home, in exactly the quantity you need, instead of having to overbuy when you only need a little bit. And so, you know, we're looking at all of that. And I'm also you know, I'm, I think for technology development, we should never develop technology just for technology's sake. It should always be to support happy, healthy human life. And that's something that the President really believes in, he wants to not to be just a car company, but to be a company that mass produces happiness. So I think it goes back to you know, his great grandfather is to kichi Toyota, looking at his mother weaving, and how hard she was working and saying, I'd like to invent a machine to help her weave cloth. And that's actually the, the DNA of the name woven. It's going back to that original philosophy of building technology to help people. And Toyota still makes most of the world's automated looms, and totally industries. But of course, in a very entrepreneurial move kiichiro Toyoda took the profits from the weaving business to start a car company. And I think, President I could todos, taking that same playbook saying, I've got profitable car business, can I take the profits from that business and invest for the future. And that's what wasn't planted is presentato made a personal investment also in woven planet. And so there's a very strong commitment. And we have a lot of responsibility. We have a huge mountain to climb, but we've got Mount Fuji to inspire us. And we are moving forward.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:58:18  
So just be clear is woven city is is that is there actually a physical location where you're prototyping all of this that is called woven city, or is that just the name of a project that's encompassing a number of other things.

James Kuffner  1:58:33  
It's actually a place It is about point seven square kilometers at the base of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka, Japan, at the former site of the Toyota Motor East Japan factory. And the history actually goes back to the great tsunami 10 years ago in 2011. That devastated the Tohoku region led to almost 20,000 people losing their lives. But it wasn't just a personal disaster for the lives of so many families. But it was also an economic disaster because many businesses had closed people that lost their jobs. People were no buying no longer buying agriculture grown in that region because of fear over Fukushima. And so the President was thinking how to that can help. And he decided that the best way was to create 1000s of jobs, and build a factory in Tohoku to employ people. And they did that. But they had to make the hard decision to close the aging factory that was in Susana at the base of Mount Fuji. So we had this big site. And instead of having this negative decision to close the factory, they turned it into something amazing, which is we're going to actually invest in a region to build a smart city of the future, physically, at a location that we can move fast. We can change infrastructure, we can Learn at scale, and deploy these new technologies and services with real customers and people who are using them every day, to get to work to take care of their families to learn and study. And so that is really the heart and the genesis of the vision of the woman city idea. So at Consumer Electronics Show in 2020, President Toyota announced it and then shortly thereafter lovin planet was then here, it was asked to run the woman city management team and and sort of help push this project forward with a lot of the Agile philosophy that we've been utilizing at woven planet. woven planet is really a blend between the best of what a Silicon Valley software startup company adopts, in terms of its working style and culture, and the Toyota Production System, attention to detail, quality, and trying to really blend those things together. But in order to have innovation, we know that we can't do it by ourselves. And that's the reason why explicitly the woven city product is meant to be a project that's beyond just one place. It's really to build and accelerate the development of technology for the entire world because in fact, our cities of the world have the same issues of pollution, traffic, safety, sustainable energy, all of these things are really important for human life going forward. And we want and we hope that weapon city will become a catalyst and an accelerator, and that the Tata Group can help lead the world in solving some of these really hard problems. So that's really our grand ambition and mission. It is a beautiful place with a wonderful view of Mount Fuji. So we were able to successfully break ground in February, and we've got a camera mounted on a building, taking a time lapse photography of all the construction. So I hope to put together a reel so you can watch everything being built, but it's really, really exciting. It's it's gonna take quite a while to build out the entire area. But the President has said that this is a city that's never finished. It's always evolving. In the same way you know, our current cities of today are like that nobody would ever say oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:02:21  
what what? Look at all the trains it's definitely not quite done yet.

James Kuffner  2:02:28  
Alright. ever evolving that that is what we aim for.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:02:33  
Well, thank you for your time today, James. This has been a great conversation and hopefully one of these days I'll I'll be able to visit woven city and see what see what you created there.

James Kuffner  2:02:44  
Thank you. Absolutely. love to have you here. Thank you so much.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:02:48  
All right. Have a great day. You too.