Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 221 of wheel bearings got the brand new Nissan Frontier, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, also the 2023 Acura Integra. We talk about how we review our cars. And we also have a bunch of news from the LA Auto Show, including interviews with Mark trip and Cooper Erickson from Toyota and Henrik Fisker, CEO and founder of Fisker Inc, all about the new Fisker ocean, Evie, all that and more coming up next.

Episode 221 of wheel bearings, I'm Sam Abuelsamid guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:00  
And I am Nicole Wakelin from Autobytel.

Roberto Baldwin  1:05  
And I'm Roberto Baldwin from Engadget.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08  
And this week, Nicole and I are sitting in the same room again, this time in Encinitas, California, where we're in a couple of hours going to see a new Toyota. But Robbie, why don't we start with you this week?

Roberto Baldwin  1:26  
Oh, first things I'm doing are things I've done.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29  
Have you driven and

Roberto Baldwin  1:33  
I drove the EQ s, and then they took it away. And then now I'm, I'm getting ready to go to the World Car of the Year awards drive, which means I'm going to drive 810 like 15 cars over the course of two days. And yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. Because you get an hour in each car. You got Angeles crest highway, and then Andrus crest highway. So you get this really nice road to drive it on. And then you know, at the end of the year, we we vote and then you know, they figure out like the finalists. And then I got those cars again, I get into my house usually for a few days. And I drive those again, it's all very exciting. I think a lot of there are a lot of Car of the Year awards. publications have their own there's a North American Car of the Year. And I think for the automakers, it's a it's a pretty big deal because it gets them it gives them the opportunity to say hey, look, our car was liked by a lot of different people. And with World card is actually people from all over the world. So we have cars, we have a right hand drive. Volkswagen will be driving. So that'll be fun.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:35  
That is one of the cool things about world cars that it's not restricted just to what's available for sale here in the US. It's stuff that's from Asia and Europe and, and everywhere.

Roberto Baldwin  2:47  
Yeah, I got the drive the Jimny Oh, yes, a couple years ago, and that was everyone loved it. Because it was such a something that you couldn't you you couldn't get here in the United States. And it was just essentially I got tiny Wrangler. And you're like this is this is the car. This is the little Jeep that you take. Well, I guess not a Jeep. This is the SUV you take to the beach. Yeah, this is a Suzuki you take to go to the beach. Any tacos is what I decided is like to take the top off, you grab a bunch of friends, you get some tacos, you go driving around the beach. At the end,

Sam Abuelsamid  3:18  
I think that the Jimny if I'm not mistaken, is even smaller than the sidekick that they used to sell here back in the 90s. Right.

Roberto Baldwin  3:26  
Yeah, yeah. It's it's a it's a pretty tiny car. It's it is not made. It's funny because you drove it. I drove it up Angeles crest highway, and it's not really made for driving up Angeles, because that's not its natural habitat. So but you know, he's still you know, you can, when you have the same road, you're able to sort of judge steering and, and suspension and wheel and everything, you know, the whole everything, because you're doing the same road over and over and over again with a bunch of different cars. So you can sort of judge them on where they belong within both their segment and as a car as a vehicle at large.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:03  
Cool. All right. Well, Nicole, what do you been driving?

Nicole Wakelin  4:06  
Oh, it's actually what I drove just before the last time we podcasted but I couldn't really talk about it yet, because the embargo is about to lift, but I can talk about it now. So I was in the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's all new. They took us out to Moab so that we could give it a go. It's it's a jeep, it does Jeep things. So it has that kind of capability. And they do let you you know, you don't want to charge a premium for Jeep and they just have you drive on like a tiny little dirt trail. They really make you drive it someplace where you have to have some capability and you've got spotters, they're telling you you know, turn the wheel a little bit left to the wheel a little bit, right. So it really did do what you would expect to Jeep to do. It has the capability to climb up rocks and steep ascents and loose gravel and all that stuff. How many people will do that in the grand cherokee kinda like With the wagoneer and the grand wagoneer, who really knows? But if you wanted to you could. I liked it. I think the thing that they did it was really kind of cool is they made it much better on the inside. Like it wasn't as if it was bad before. But now they've used even higher quality materials. It feels like more money than it actually is. And it's not cheap. The base trims start off somewhere in the neighborhood of like about, let's see, I think it's about 40 37,000. So not crazy, but not super cheap. But when you get up to like the summit reserve, it's $63,000. So that is not a cheap vehicle. But it also feels like a $63,000 car you get like quilted Palermo, leather seats and a 19 speaker Macintosh audio that has little things in the screen, like a little, even a little meters. Yes, you see the meters going back and forth. So it feels like exactly what they say it's you know, okay, this is our top trim. This is really fancy, it's gonna have a little bit of luxury, you open the door, you think, okay, yeah, this is, you know, pretty luxurious, we drove the V six and the V eight, the four by he just sat on this rock, it looked pretty, we couldn't drive that one yet. So he didn't get a chance to do that. The other big things about it this year, they added a good bit of cargo space, six cubic feet, that's not small. So they added more, they said, you can now put a thing of golf clubs completely, like straight across the back, like guess before you had to cancel a little to the side, it couldn't quite go the width. Now you can and they changed how the wheel are inside the car, like how the arches go. So it kind of is like I think a little lower and a little smaller. So again, that's part of how they go that extra six cubic feet. So that's pretty cool. It has massive tow ratings, it can handle up to 7200 pounds, which is pretty impressive for a two row. And this doesn't come with a three row it's the three row is the grand cherokee L, right, which was a few weeks ago. Yeah. So which is lot the same except longer, bigger, less likely to be able to take it through the off road stuff without losing a door panel or two. But it's the same idea. It's just if you need three rows instead of going for like okay, what the specific trim or I want to add this in as an option, you actually have to technically go to the grand cherokee L, which they technically treat as a different vehicle even though the trim breakdown is pretty darn close to the same. Let's see what else what other cool, nifty is oh, it has We tried the latest version of you connect is on there. You get like, you know, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, all that kind of good stuff. You can have your navigation show right on your instrument cluster, which is pretty snazzy. That's it's a good I've always liked you connect, I find that it's still a really good infotainment system. It's easy to use. And you can really customize not just the the screen where you have like three different cards showing or like for whatever, but even the menu bar at the top if you would have put things right into that menu bar, just a tiny little thing like, like we were saying if your kids are always turn on the Wi Fi, you can just put the little Wi Fi logo up there and you can turn it on without having to dig into a menu. So I liked it. You know, I think it's good onward. I think it's good off road. If you want an off road SUV that is really nice and comfy and pleasant to drive. It has all the fancy amenities you could want for you and your family. Grand Cherokee doesn't.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:29  
Yeah, the Grand Cherokee, the two row you can get that one as a Trail Hawk. Yes, you can't you can't on the URL.

Nicole Wakelin  8:38  
That's true. That is the one big difference. You can't get the Trail Hawk. In fact, the trail hot we drove the other trends out and about in Moab. But we did take the Trailhawk we went up to the top of a little trail they had for us. So you can't get a Trail Hawk on the Grand Cherokee. So that's the only difference but it does still have the four wheel drive stuff, but not quite the capability I guess is the Trailhawk with its fancy skid plates and bright red tow

Sam Abuelsamid  8:59  
hooks. Did you drive the V six or the V eight or both? I drove both okay.

Nicole Wakelin  9:06  
I did some towing. I towed an old vintage, like army Jeep in the VA, which is pretty cool. And one of the cushions almost flew off the back like the cushions in the thing I was and he's like, Hey, can you slow down I said what's happening? I think we're gonna lose a Christian and you can see like flap, flap flap flap. So it's fine towing. I mean, if you tell him that you don't feel like you're towing. It's very competent. It has more than enough power. And then I drove the V six around to and again it it. It's a big vehicle but it still feels like you have enough power to do it. Whether you're just slamming the gas because you really need to accelerate hard to get to traffic or if you're just trying to accelerate up some of the steeper inclines it gives us this very twisty mountain road has some nifty switchbacks on it and accelerating up through that where you have to slow down quite a bit to get around the switchback and then you're going up. It was no problem.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:58  
So from the drivers See, does it feel any different from the oil?

Nicole Wakelin  10:03  
You know? I don't really think it does. I was trying to decide does it feel? Heavier, longer different? Not really, if it's different, it's not different enough. Like, it's been a little while since I drove the oil. But I don't remember thinking that the oil felt gigantic, and this suddenly felt petite. You know, I think they're close enough in size that you don't really notice a difference, I think where you notice it as if you were going to go off road in the owl, because the extra length would make a huge difference. Yeah, you know, but it also comes with way more cargo room like if you were if cargo is your thing, even with help third row, that's what you want to do, because there's a lot more cargo space

Sam Abuelsamid  10:41  
in the in the two row or in the three row three row.

Nicole Wakelin  10:45  
Three row. Yeah, you want to go with the LF cargo is a big thing. Or the third row is a big thing. Yeah, the L is what you want to do.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:52  
Okay. Yeah, I had the L, what, three weeks ago, I think now. And I liked it a lot. It feels it feels a lot like what, you know, Grant shark is it felt like for a long time, he has get good driving dynamics and everything. And it was it's big, but it's a much more reasonable size than the wagon year that I had the week before that.

Nicole Wakelin  11:15  
That thing is huge. That's that's a small tank.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:19  
What's pretty close to a large. All right. Anything else on the grand cherokee now

Nicole Wakelin  11:26  
that we have that it's supposed to be arriving in dealerships? Now? I think it's technically said fourth quarter, the four by E. They are no cagey. Like when's it coming out? Early next year? So first quarter, early next year, so February, early next year? So

Sam Abuelsamid  11:46  
did they? I can't I can't remember. Have they said anything specific about the power training that is it still the same? deleted? And

Nicole Wakelin  11:53  
you know what? I didn't I don't have it in front of me. But they did tell us we do have the power training. Only thing we don't have. I don't think we had official fuel economy numbers on that yet. But they did give us the power train. I feel like I had it plugged in a hybrid two liter turbocharged four cylinder.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:07  
Okay, so it's the same thing that's in the Wrangler.

Nicole Wakelin  12:09  
Sorry, I had to dig that out. Yeah. So that's so we know what the powertrain is, but we have no idea exactly what the range they told us what they're aiming for, but we don't really know yet. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:20  
Excellent. All right. I had the new Nissan Frontier, which is the frontier, the old frontier, the 2021. Frontier, is basically the same as what's been around since I think about 2007 or so. So it's, it was due for a redesign. And they, they did a good job on it. The it's got the same 3.8 liter that actually debuted last year. So for the last jet last Mali or the old frontier, they put the new engine in there. And that's it. You know, it's a nice engine, it's, it's about 310 horsepower, I think. Yeah. 310 horsepower, 281 pounds feet of torque 3.8 liter V six. The, this one feels much more modern than the old one did. You know, like, like, most of the other midsize pickup trucks, you know, the Ranger, the Colorado and Canyon. So on, it's it's fairly typical. The interior is truck like in that, you know, it's it's hard plastics, you know, there's not too many soft touch surfaces. It's not a luxury vehicle. But it's durable. The design, you know, the interior design is good that the exteriors you know, more modern, and it's consistent with the look of what they've done with the, with the new Pathfinder the road, you know, kind of the horizontal lights in the front, things like that. It's got a nice kind of chunky design looks looks trucky this particular one that I had was a crew cab Pro X model, which I don't quite get what the point of this one is, because they've had the pro the Pro for X on the Titan for a few years now. Which is kind of their more off roadie four wheel drive version of the Titan and now that they've got a pro for X on the on the frontier, but I don't quite get why they did a pro x which is rear wheel drive.

Nicole Wakelin  14:26  
It's okay. That's I thought that's like the difference right wheel drive is just the Pro. No, there's no drive is the probe for ag right. So did they just did it? I think

Sam Abuelsamid  14:36  
so. It's got the sport bar on the bed. Okay, well, it's got the wheels that look you know, if you look at them, you know, they've got like fake bolts in there make it look like beadlock wheels. You're not but they're not. So it's kind of a poser off from Aaron's package. It's an appearance, trim, but you definitely don't want to take this one off. Frode because you don't have four wheel drive, but that that said, you know, it's still it's still a good truck. You know it's got decent towing. It's got a decent sized bed for a crew cab, the reverse plenty of room in the rear seat you know comparable to to the competition. The list price MSRP on this one was $34,240 with the off road style step rails, another 750

Nicole Wakelin  15:32  
style. Yes. So they're not really offered step rails. They're just off road style

Roberto Baldwin  15:40  
style trucks so you know, this on an off road truck. That's an off road style

Nicole Wakelin  15:46  
style but not actual off roading I get it now.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:50  
It's got the pro convenience package with the spray in bedliner. The Utila track system which is which is nice you know for it's got all the tie downs and cleats and everything of 120 volt outlet in the bed and also another one in the rear rear console heated mirrors and seats heated front seats Trailer Hitch with wiring artists so you know all that good stuff. What else? Oh, the the pro premium package, which gets you defender premium audio with 10 speakers, leather front seats, which are pretty nice. They're fairly comfortable. They don't have much in the way of adjustments basically just for aft and and recline. But you know, that's fine. They're comfortable enough. And auto dimming mirror that that's like $2,800 for that. And that includes the 17 inch beadlock style alloy.

Roberto Baldwin  16:44  
Whoa, what? For the mere? I guess the mirror comes with the wheels, right?

Sam Abuelsamid  16:51  
Yeah. So that's the whole package. That's the pro premium package. Okay, you get the deal. All right, other seats, the dimming mirror, the auto tilt, slide, sunroof, and the beadlock style alloy wheels. All 500 bucks, the sport bar technology package or sport bars 1000 $1,100. So all all in this thing came to $44,220 which is not inexpensive. But you know, you can a lot of money first

Roberto Baldwin  17:23  
off road style. But a jazz hands of opera.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:30  
But you could you could get the frontier two wheel drive Kincaid King cap frontier starting at $28,000. So it is available, much

Nicole Wakelin  17:40  
like you want to if you didn't want to have to pay that extra for a truck that isn't any more capable that just looks more table. Yes, you get the base trim, maybe somewhere along the way, put on fancy wheels or put on some side steps or something.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:55  
Yeah, you know, and even the base model still has that new V six engine in it. And that's it that's standard across the board. So you know, you're getting some stuff that's useful and some stuff that's kind of pointless. But, you know, I was really impressed with the driving dynamics of this thing. The ride and handling was really good. I drove it over some rough roads. You know, it's got really good body control does a good job of soaking up the bumps. I was actually surprised it actually got decent fuel economy at 23 miles per gallon, which is better than I was expecting. That's that's pretty, pretty impressive. I think was the EPA number on their EPA combined is 20 miles per gallon. It's 24 highway. I got 23 combined. So that you know that's a that's a pretty decent number for a truck like this. Yeah. Yeah, it's no, it's no hybrid Maverick, but it'll do. So that is the the 2022 Nissan Frontier Pro X Crewcab. Four by two automatic V six.

Nicole Wakelin  19:03  
That's an awful lot of words for tractus not enough Road Track. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  19:09  
Automatic V six,

Sam Abuelsamid  19:10  
all the things, all the things. All right. Since we are here in Los Angeles this week, we're actually going to over the next couple of days, I'll be doing a bunch of interviews. And will those will be included in the in the show here after after we're done talking we'll have a conversation with Henrik Fisker, somebody from Nissan's and we from Jaguar Land Rover, hopefully Toyota. And we'll patch all those in here. But before we tie it up for today, I do want to talk a little bit about the accurate Integra. Have the two of you seen this yet?

Nicole Wakelin  19:52  
I saw pictures but I have not seen it in person.

Roberto Baldwin  19:56  
I have not Yeah, I'm still in the Bay Area. I leave and a few hours for LA. Yeah, so I'm almost there. I've actually seen it in person yet. Yeah, I haven't touched it. Rub my face on it at all.

Nicole Wakelin  20:08  
Is that how you test cars Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin  20:11  
It is. Yeah, it's important it's important that my face gets a feel like how's it feel against my cheek how we

Sam Abuelsamid  20:18  
test cars in a moment because we do have one listener question. But what do you what do you think about the way the Integra looks?

Roberto Baldwin  20:29  
It's well, let's just say that it should have been a coupe that's my big that's that's really sort of my big takeaway. I feel like it's just a little bit too long. It's a Ford or it's a sedan, which feels very not very Integra. I haven't driven it. So I don't know how well drives I just feel like it's just it's, it's just feels like it's too long. Like the front like, you know, it's it's the current accurate design. aesthetic and so and the back I like it's I think I really do think that if they had just made it UK I think a lot of the sort of like people who are out there being like, people are because it's very Yeah, it's very polarizing.

Nicole Wakelin  21:26  
I mean, it's not a bad looking for door, but it's a four door.

Roberto Baldwin  21:31  
It is hard. Okay. So I think also you have to deal with the fact that this is accurate. Again, bringing back something that when it was out originally, people absolutely adored it. Even every generation of Integra people really liked and then it went away. And this is like the NSX and the SEC people love the NSX and then it went away. And they brought it back and I was like ooh, even the exactly and the NSX is great. The new NSX is a great car. It is a if you want a supercar that you can just take to the you know Honda Acura dealer to get it fixed. You should get an NSX the Integra I think it's the same thing. It's the thing where same thing where you're you're bringing something back that has a very emote people have a very emotional attachment to whether they owned it Integra or they wanted an Integra. They you know they they want you know that that is something especially for Gen X and millennials it was one of those vehicles and I think bringing it back again as a as a sedan with four doors sort of kicked everyone a lot of people in the teeth because the Tigers on a four door car take 10 years

Nicole Wakelin  22:39  
to integrate after Yeah, I think was around maybe two and we bought it so it was probably something in there ish for a year maybe a little bit earlier. My husband loved that thing. He drove it into the ground because he didn't take care of it. So it didn't take him as long as it should. I love that thing. I showed him pictures of this though, and he liked it. But he didn't like hate on it. He was like oh, it's not my old Integris like oh, that's that's nice. That's nice. That's lovely. He wasn't excited though. Loved

Roberto Baldwin  23:11  
and it's weird because the oldest I mean you had four doors on the old Integra but didn't look like a four door sedan. That's the problem it will it should have been a coupe I think it should it was

Nicole Wakelin  23:19  
like it really wasn't it was

Roberto Baldwin  23:21  
it was sort of a scam in the

Nicole Wakelin  23:23  
back it was like enjoy your knees being up under your chin like it was tight.

Roberto Baldwin  23:28  
I feel like they should have just made it a coupe I know the old one you could have for dough but that didn't look like I said it was so small it's like my car with like the BR Z having no seat and seating for four. No it doesn't.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:41  
It has a shelf with a pair.

Roberto Baldwin  23:46  
Yeah, in the back. That's your call and they want to sit like with their feet on the other side and yeah, you can put a dog back there if the dogs like yeah the dogs not happy I just it's just it feels like it's this should just made it a coupe. I'm just gonna keep saying they should have made it a coupe. And and and just have a coupe and yeah, it doesn't

Nicole Wakelin  24:07  
look as sporty. Like I'm looking at an image here. Somebody's too long and it's gotten in 86 and it's got this new one right above it. And the 86 is like this really sporty sleek looking thing in 80s language you know, it's more squared off. We have but it is heavy. It's got a sporty or look to it. The new one is like just kind of like city

Roberto Baldwin  24:31  
cubes. Like if you put your finger over the word Integra here's like Oh, it's another it's another. I'm literally doing that as I'm swapping our finger on the screen right? Oh, it's just not accurate. So Dan, and

Sam Abuelsamid  24:42  
I certainly I certainly sympathize with that feeling about it. But the problem is if they made it a coupe nobody's gonna buy them. You think they're good? Yeah. But

Roberto Baldwin  24:53  
that's what they say about the BR z and the and those things sell. That's what they said about this and they would

Nicole Wakelin  24:58  
have if they did it cool. You Because I wonder like you even people who love the integrity name, right? So maybe you're willing to say like, oh, it's back. I'm gonna buy one the style jet, but I look at it and go, oh, it just looks like a sedan. No no nostalgia. Are there enough people who are looking at the Integra and saying ooh, snazzy News sports sedan? Did it feel like it's gonna do really well, like more of those people than then people who wanted their old Integra back?

Sam Abuelsamid  25:24  
What about? Presumably, they're going to do a type pass of this because they're doing type passes of all the other? Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  25:31  
everything's getting a type pass. Yeah. Oh, you know, the,

Sam Abuelsamid  25:34  
this one that they're showing now has the 1.5 liter turbo in there, which is probably gonna have somewhere around 220 225 horsepower, probably a little more power than what's in the Civic Si. Yeah, the the Type S is probably going to have the two liter from the type bar from the Civic Type bar. So 300 and some horsepower. If it's if it's got the driving dynamics of a Civic Type bar, and that engine in it. Okay, I think people might get a little more excited about it.

Nicole Wakelin  26:06  
That's true. We'll have to prove that to them. No, people will have to hear that like because if you look at that, you just think it's like he said you cover up the integral logo in the bottom there. And it's just another sporty sedan. Yeah. You don't get any of that looking at it maybe when we all get in it and we drive it and we all say oh my god, you guys this is amazing.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:25  
But sporty sedan with a six speed manual gearbox

Nicole Wakelin  26:28  
that's true with a manual automated challenge to find

Roberto Baldwin  26:32  
you know what it would have made it cooler what would it mean if it was shorter and less weight I know how you look at the Supra the super came back and I know the super is also polarizing but people love that Supra. Now there's a there's a manual transmission coming in, allegedly. Next year you're after. It's it's I don't know. I feel like it's too long. What are they? I mean, they could have made it Sudan and then next spring, like this spring, so not that far away. Yeah, so it's coming. It's coming. I don't know. I haven't seen in person. Maybe when I see it in person. It won't look as I don't know, Louis. It's just feels I'm always excited. I wanted to say when there's a manual transmission so you know, if you miss your manual transmission in your record, you got the new integrity coming. So there you go. How about that? How about I just say it's an accord si with a manual transmission. I feel now I feel fine. I feel fine about it. You know what I'm okay with it. If it's the Accord si with a man transmission or engine.

Nicole Wakelin  27:38  
We just take the pieces we like and give it a new name. It's all good guys. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  27:42  
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just hard when you say Integra and they look at you're like, Oh, yeah. And again, it really comes down to that nostalgia thing where if it wasn't the integrity it was probably named something else. We'd all be all this is cool. But it's the Integra and it Yeah, you end up you fight yet the fight against Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  28:01  
and identity around a car. And you know, it can't look exactly the same because it's been too long. Since they got rid of it. It's gonna change. Yeah, it's hard to capture the right amount and the selja and the right amount of like modern card look and design and technology. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:17  
But one thing can't argue with it's good that at least has a name instead of three random letters

Nicole Wakelin  28:22  
yak or 594 dash x or something.

Roberto Baldwin  28:26  
I don't know what to does doing. It. It's like It's like It's like buying products from Sony when you buy them. I really feel like they're doing that because they don't want to make that car that's either like, you know, let's just give it a horrible you know, you know, what's your password? What's the password your they just someone pulled up their password manager. I gave him like a six character thing.

Nicole Wakelin  28:48  
You know, I take out a name for this car.

Roberto Baldwin  28:51  
Name Generator. At least Suber is like a soltera. You're like, alright, that's it's the sun in the earth. Okay, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:59  
What you just said, you know about Toyota not wanting to build this thing. It's my understanding from talking to somebody at Subaru that actually Subaru did all the engineering on this. So it's basically this is a Subaru design. And Toyota has just revamped

Nicole Wakelin  29:13  
it and gave it a weird name.

Roberto Baldwin  29:15  
That's what they give. They have all that money and they have all that that huge investment and super, they're like, hey, hey, remember when you helped you with the BRC? And that other thing? Give us a card, right? All right, we're gonna call to soltera. Like, we're gonna call it a string of numbers and letters.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:30  
With with mixed case, just to make it mixed

Roberto Baldwin  29:32  
case.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:33  
Interesting. challenging for

Roberto Baldwin  29:35  
all of us. To be honest, I don't what is it called the BR

Sam Abuelsamid  29:39  
or Bz. And it's lowercase, or uppercase Zed for case X.

Nicole Wakelin  29:48  
Yeah, be Oh, my It's one of those uppercase I'm just seeing.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:52  
Everything else is uppercase. Oh,

Nicole Wakelin  29:53  
yeah. B z for my god that makes it feel like a Z for us.

Roberto Baldwin  30:02  
So what kind of car you have? Oh, I got a BZ for x o br zt. No, no, no, no, I got the BZ for x at a Toyota and I had the Toyota sotera

Sam Abuelsamid  30:15  
Yeah, with the 4x in there, the 4x Presumably implies, you know, four wheel drive crossover, except that they're not all four wheel drive, it's four wheel drive is optional, and it's standard rear wheel drive

Nicole Wakelin  30:28  
vz, sometimes 4x That was too many words.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:33  
You know, I was reading through the the press release for this thing. Got under embargo yesterday. And if you get the front wheel drive version, you get 150 kilowatt front motor, so it's 200 horsepower. So it's about the same as what you have in your Kona Evie and what's in the bolt and the VW ID for if you get the all wheel drive to motor version, they don't keep that and add a rear motor. They actually give you 280 kilowatt motors, so you get almost the same power only like 1010 kilowatts more. But it's now split between the axles, which is kind of a weird choice

Nicole Wakelin  31:15  
to match the weird names. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  31:17  
just by this altar was all over. I think you get it. It's easier to explain to your friends when they are Hey, what do you got? I got a solitaire. Oh, yeah, TV. Yeah, I got it. All Wheel Drive. It's got this symmetrical all wheel drive that that makes Subaru Subaru. They're gonna throw some dogs in it. And just be happy.

Nicole Wakelin  31:35  
I mean, if you haven't shown is it even a Subaru? Not even a Subaru? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  31:39  
Yeah. Is it even a Subaru? Unless there's a dog in it? Absolutely. Not

Sam Abuelsamid  31:42  
really? No.

Roberto Baldwin  31:43  
That's the law. That's Subaru law.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:48  
Alright, before we get into the interviews, I got one question that came in on Twitter from Andrew Pappas. How do you consistently test and review a car? Is there a first thing you do? Are there certain roads, you always use? Do you have a checklist?

Nicole Wakelin  32:04  
I always drive certain roads at home, there's at least a certain route that I take during the course of the week I have a car. So I get some highway driving, I get some little driving downtown and then hit this really twisting sort of country road outside of my house that I try that which is also great for testing. Stuff like Lane Keep Assist, because it's hard for things to see. So I test that kind of stuff there. And then there's things that I just kind of generally look for, I suppose you know, does it does it fit what they said it's supposed to fit? If it's a sports car, does it feel and look like one? If it's a family car, does it feel and look like one? You know, the comfort of it, the power of it. But I do try to I do drive it on the same couple of roads at some point, just because I feel like that gives me sort of a baseline and because I know how other things handle on those specific roads. But yeah. Well, you Robbie,

Roberto Baldwin  32:56  
I have, yeah, I have I have the same the specific roads that I use all I drove all the cars on. And I would get it's weird, because what I do is I try not to look at them. And Ronnie, before I drive the car, I tried to figure out how I try not to look at the price. I tried to look at like how much power it has, I tried to look at any of that information for the first couple days. Because I want to sort of in my brain figure out where I think this car should be. I don't want the price to sort of like throw me off and say, Oh, well, it should be you're right. It is worth, you know, $80,000 or 70 or whatever. So I drive it and I try to in my brain I figure out like, okay, based on what this car is, who makes it, how well it drives, you know, the options, etc. And where it is just in the segment, then I Okay, it should be about this much. And most of the time, it's pretty, you know, I moved in a few $1,000 within you know that that thing if it's like wildly off, then I know there's something going on. I know that either

Nicole Wakelin  33:53  
20 grand, or 50. What am I missing? Yeah, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  33:56  
either either the car feels like it's not worth the money, which is bad. That's that's the bad. That's the bad something crazy is going on. It's not worth the money. Or you're like, oh, based on everything else in that segment. And that at that price this car is just not you know, it's it's not. It's not it's not keeping up with us. If it's the other way, if the car feels like it's worth more than what it actually is you get that a lot with the kids and the Hyundai's then you're like, oh, oh, this is a good value. And that's Yeah, but I have the same routes I have I do the same things. I have the same. I have a mountain road city roads, and then I have the two essentially two, same. What do you call it? highways that I drive on? And so one is like four lane and one is like two lane in each direction. So some once a month for I guess, and then for EVs for an Eevee test. I have a route it's like 75 point something miles because people Want to know how well did it do in range? And most time, you can just look at the you can just figure it out with miles per kilowatt hour. But you know, people still want it range and certain. And most the time I don't even like it's not even if it's really off from what the automaker says, then I'll mention it. But if it's within a few miles, it's sort of like not really Yeah. With their EPI is if it's really good compared to their EPA. And then I throw some Yeah, yeah, but yeah, essentially do the same thing. For the most part for all vehicles. And different regardless of whether or not it's a supercar, or it's a, you know, entry level, you know, $20,000, whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:42  
Yeah, I've also got a, a loop that I do for testing fuel economy. And like for plug in hybrids, I use it for electric range, you know, and it's a mix of urban suburban, a little bit of highway driving ranges between like 25 and 5565 miles an hour. So I go through that route with most of the vehicles and check out what they get. And like I said, for the for the plug in hybrids are full, I'll give them a full charge and do that until they run out until the engine starts, starts coming up coming on to get an idea of what kind of real range they get on electricity. What about, like setting up the car when you first get it? Do you bother to take a look at the manual or you just dive in and try to figure out how to pair your phone and just

Nicole Wakelin  36:32  
dive in? Because I don't think anybody ever really looks at the manual. No one does like, like, you get a rental car does anybody like hey, you got some paper? Hold on, we had to do this, you just sit down and start figuring out and I feel like that's what most people do. So I feel like I should be able, especially one of us should be able.

Roberto Baldwin  36:48  
Yeah, you know. And yeah, I did like

Nicole Wakelin  36:51  
probably said something is very wrong. If I am really stuck trying to kind of get things going something is gone sideways.

Roberto Baldwin  36:58  
Yeah, I typically will sit down and try to figure it out. I think the only time I have to like consult the manual, and this has sort of gone away within the last like few years. Especially with with with with sports cars, or supercars was launch control. Because every large control was like the contract code for your super NAS like it was like up, down, left, right? Hold this, put the brake hold this note, but don't be idle within 30 seconds and you got something's gonna pop up and oh, you messed up. We got to do a lower limit. He's like,

Nicole Wakelin  37:29  
Yeah, I don't think I've ever done lunch control. Right on the first tried any car ever in my whole life? I tried it for someone like wait, nope, no, no, no, no, I did not do the right order of operations. Let me give that another try.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:40  
The first, the first time I ever tried launch control on a production car was like 2008 on an Audi era. And that was the first generation alright, and it was like about a six step process. And every time I tried it, is as soon as I actually tried to launch it would throw up an error saying, you know, clutch overheated or something? It's like

Roberto Baldwin  38:04  
yeah, what was the soup? The the super fast, the Ferrari SuperPass. I was trying to figure out launch control. And I couldn't figure it out. And it didn't have the owner's manual. And so I had to call them and I'm like, can you send me a PDF of it? They're like, yeah, we can't really do that. Because people will we don't have electronic versions of Ferrari things. Because the aftermarket people like they'll they'll get it and they'll print it and then they'll sell it. Because Ferrari like there's a whole Ferrari. Yeah, the Ferrari brand has such has this like very weird group of individuals who, if there's anything that they can like, essentially steal and like, recreate and sell. They will. Yeah, so I was like, All right, well, yeah, maybe it's fast. It's the super fast and you're always like, Okay, where am I gonna do because you don't want to do launch control, unlike any like streets with humans ever. And so you're always trying to find somewhere and sometimes you get to go to a you know, like some some some private land or a private road or, or if you're lucky attract will let you like do something. But by the time I like, I'll forget it. You know what, it's fast. It's, it's no, yeah, forget. It's, it's not just fast. It's super fast. But you know, it's always good. Yeah, and that's, I think, yeah, it's in the name. And that's one of the problems with with with was reviewing these really quick cars that are essentially, probably not going to be used on tracks at any point, but you don't get the you know, you're just you get to drive like 2030 Maybe if I'm lucky 70% If there's no one on the road, on like, the roads through Moran that I use, and I can like open it up a little bit. But that's that hardly ever ever happens. And so you're always just like, Okay, well, I'm doing 60 around this corner, I can be doing 90 But I can't do 90 Because it's unsafe and there's people and there's you know, there's there's, there's bicyclists and there's this and that There's ever everything in every like every inside blind corner, I just slow down. If it's an if an outside I can see I'm like, okay, I can speed up now I'm slowing down. So it's like this really weird like ballet that you're doing, because you want to a figure out how well the car drives would be do not, you know, you're not putting any other humans in any other danger because you're, you know, driving quicker than you probably should be on the road.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:24  
Yeah, that's that's always a challenge testing stuff like that, and doing it on public roads. You don't want to be irresponsible, you know, either with endangering others or endangering our own driver's licenses. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  40:41  
I will say that one thing that I've noticed when I'm driving, if I'm dry, doesn't matter when I'm driving, and I'm on these back roads is very windy roads that are here in the Bay Area, is that there are certain and it's always a dude. It doesn't matter what they're driving, I will come up behind them. And it'll be coming up behind them very quick. And I'm not speeding, I'm not doing like 80 miles an hour, I just I drive a lot of cars. I know how to drive around corners very quickly, within you know, and they will not move over. And if someone comes up behind me I've had I've been in a type bar and someone's come up behind me and a Subaru, like a legacy. And I moved out of their way. And I was like, You know what, you know, this road, I've never driven this road, it's kind of wet and rainy, you know, this road, I'm going to pull over and let your all wheel drive magic. Go past me. And get back on there. I was in the type bar. So, but you'll be driving and you'll get stuck behind somebody and you're like, Alright, I'm just gonna back off cuz I don't want to push anyone, but then they try to keep up with you in front of you. And they start driving into the other lane. You're like, oh, no, no, no,

Nicole Wakelin  41:42  
no, no, I'm gonna cause a TradingView response.

Roberto Baldwin  41:45  
So don't, don't do that. Don't try to keep up with other people and put an end and in doing so you're driving over the line to make corners because you're driving over the line to do a corner, you're not driving correctly. You're not a good driver. You're a bad track. And typically, I'll just pull over, I'll just pull over and let them go. Because I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because this is a whole other issue because they're gonna let there's a head on collision. And then they're like, Oh, this guy was making me go fast. I'm like, No, I was. I backed off. I wanted you to pull over I gave you to turn out you didn't and I backed off. Anyway, don't drive beyond your limits. Don't Don't let machismo put you in danger. And I don't know. You're nice to people.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:29  
Yeah. All right. And I think that's all I got for now. Keep listening for the interviews, and we'll be back next time. Bye, guys. Bye. Hey, everyone, Sam again. Right now we've got I've got an interview with Mike Tripp, the Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Toyota North America. And right after that, I'll be talking with Cooper Erickson, Group Vice President for product planning and strategy. Both of these conversations took place after we got the reveal of the Toyota Bz 4x. The first Evie that's coming to market next spring. And then stick around after that and we'll have Henrik Fisker, the founder and CEO of Fisker Incorporated, talking about Fisker ocean, another Eevee. That's coming to market next year. So here in Encinitas, Mike trip, and you are VP of Marketing, Toyota North America,

Mike Tripp  43:31  
VP of vehicle Marketing and Communications Toyota USA. Alright, so

Sam Abuelsamid  43:35  
the reason we're here is the evolution 2.0. It's all about electrification and Toyota's electrification strategy and all the different approaches that you're taking as a brand. Obviously, there's been a lot of discussion around recently, especially around your the company's approach or attitude towards battery electric vehicles. Explain for the audience, you know what, what is Toyota's approach to electrification?

Mike Tripp  44:06  
Sure, so from an electrification standpoint, we're excited to reveal here as you know, the Bz 4x, which is our battery electric vehicle, and is the latest addition to our growing lineup of electrified vehicles. And when we talk about electrified to us, there's two components that you have to have one, a high voltage battery, and second is an electric motor. And we've been, as you know, putting electric motors and batteries in vehicles for over 20 years. So our strategy is a portfolio strategy where we offer today with the Bz 4x one will be four different electrified power trains hybrid plug in hybrid fuel cell, and now electric or BV. And we believe that that's the best solution today to give a diverse customer base, different choices based on what they need and where they drive vehicles. So today, we offer four.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:54  
So with four different options. You talked this morning in the presentation about people's understanding of those options a lot of consumers don't most reality is most consumers don't really understand the technology they're using, you know, whether it's under vehicles or phones or anything else. So what what have you found Toyota, as far as your understanding of the way consumers understand electrification?

Mike Tripp  45:22  
I think consumers understanding of electrified electrification varies, as you said, and the reality is, and we've talked about this this morning that you can't have, first you have to have awareness, but the gap between awareness and knowledge is still rather large, right? There's a growing awareness about electrification, rather, it's be EVs or hybrids, or even fuel cell. But all of our role, your side, and our side is to bridge that gap between awareness and knowledge. And some of the ways that we've done that not only through our dealer network, but also through a lot of our online activities. And today, if you go to twitter.com, for example, not only are you going to get marketing information, what you as you would expect, well, you'll also get videos and information that explains those different technologies, and how they work and what the trade offs are for each of the technologies. So that's our approach from an education sample.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:11  
When most people, most Americans, particularly think of electrification, they're aware of hybrids and Toyota, those those two go together here, they know, everybody knows the Prius. And, and, you know, you've got hybrids and a lot of your other models now, but when they think of electrification, they think of Tesla. What Why is battery electric? In at least in from Toyota's view? Not necessarily right now, the the best or the only urge, why should not be the only option?

Mike Tripp  46:42  
Yeah, Sam, electric and B. Evie is a great option for certain customers. But there's trade offs with that technology. And if you think about it, the trade offs are, where and how you're going to charge the vehicle. Also the range that you can get out of one charge, and then how long it takes you to charge, what we've seen is that today, if you have an electric vehicle, 90% of consumers also have a secondary vehicle in their household, and 80% of the charging of the EVS is done at home. So if you have those capabilities, then electric vehicle is probably a good solution. However, what about consumers that live in an environment where they don't have the availability to charge at home, but they still want to get an environmentally friendly vehicle that performs well and contributes to carbon neutrality, that's where, for example, with us, we have great solution. Hybrids, if you drive them in a city 50% of the time, they're on electric, but you don't have to worry about when and where and how you charge it, you can also take them on longer road trips. So if you look at the diversity of consumer base that we have in the United States, and the different driving patterns, we believe the best solution to reach the most customers is to have a diversified portfolio of electrified options, which means having a great BV, like we're gonna have with Easy Forex, but also having a range of hybrid vehicles in here in California, we also have our fuel cells.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:02  
And one of the interesting things I think most people don't realize, because they don't think about the math around this is, you know, when you because, you know, for nearly 50 years now we've, we've looked at fuel economy, from a mpg perspective, you know, and we want to add, you know, keep adding more and more miles per gallon. But as you for every, every additional mile per gallon, you add the amount of fuel that you save, shrinks, because it's a it's a non, it's a nonlinear unit that we're using there. So once you get past about 3540 miles per gallon it, the incremental benefits start to get really, really small. And the benefits of going from hybrid to battery electric, you know, become incrementally, you know, consequently, smaller. You talked earlier about kind of the environmental benefits that you know, that Toyota has brought with the 18 million hybrids you've sold. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Mike Tripp  49:01  
Yeah, I think the key is everybody is moot. Listen, the enemy is greenhouse gas. Everybody has agreed that is the enemy, therefore carbon neutrality, right, reducing our carbon footprint is everybody's right, everybody. So that's the goal. And to me, if that's the end goal, then there's varying strategies to get there. And we, over the last 20 years bringing hybrids to the market have sold. You know, if you look at the electrified vehicles we put in the marketplace, we have, you know, over almost 18 million vehicles globally and over 4 million vehicles in the US that have been hybrid, which means we've reduced greenhouse gases with those vehicles already we've been reducing greenhouse gases for the last 20 years. The reality is, as we talked about earlier for Evie that's that's a great zero you know as ZEV solution, but not all customers can participate in that solution to reduce greenhouse gases. Not everyone can today. Therefore, by buying a hybrid, for example, or again, we talked about fuel cell here in California, it allows us to reach a greater number of consumers that can help us achieve the ultimate goal, which is reducing emissions. And obviously, net neutrality when it comes to our carbon footprint, we've made a stated goal is that by 2030, globally, 80% 80% of our vehicles that we sell, by 2030, globally, will be an electrified solution. And if you look at, typically we sell roughly 10 million vehicles a year, that means there'll be 8 million people contributing to reducing our carbon footprint, because of our range of electrified vehicles. And oh, by the way, we said 20% will be Eevee, or zero emissions vehicles. So that's 2 million people by the year 2030. So we also are a company that doesn't historically, talk about what we're going to do we believe that proof is in what we're doing today, and what we've done. And we're very proud of the fact that for 20 years through our hybrids, and through our fuel cell vehicles, we've done a lot to reduce our carbon footprint, and we're gonna only do more in the next one years.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:06  
Yeah, I think one of the stats you mentioned earlier, was the investment you've made in electrification so far, you know, that would have brought to market about roughly 260,000 beds. And, you know, the equivalent savings you had from the 18 million hybrids came out to what about five and a half a million equivalent to five having five and a half million?

Mike Tripp  51:32  
Yeah, you know, man, we do some fuzzy math sometimes on our side. But yeah, the reality is the component tree in the investment, I mean, that again, okay. So if we look at BVs. Today, what is the biggest blocking factor in bringing more bees to the market, obviously, it's the infrastructure, the availability of the components necessary for BV is and as I said, not every consumer today has the at home infrastructure to drive a BV. It just doesn't have not in the US, not today. But if you look at the investments we've made in the hybrid vehicles that we brought to market over the last 20 years, and you were to then translate and say, okay, instead of 18 million hybrid vehicles, if we put the investment into EVs, to your point, it would have been about 250,000 EVs that we could build. And roughly, the difference in, you know, carbon emissions is much less significant than the investment that we showed. And we've made in hybrid. So, again, we were very proud of our hybrid, we're going to continue to invest in that technology, because we believe it meets a certain customer's needs, we're going to continue to invest in BVs, because we believe that meets another customer's needs. And we also are going to continue to invest, you know, in hydrogen and fuel cell because we believe that meets yet another customer's needs. And by bringing a portfolio of electrified power trains to the market, we're going to reach more customers, we're going to bring them into the toy family, and every one of those customers is going to be able to participate towards our goal by 2050, to be net zero when it comes to our missions.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:00  
And Toyota has, you know, one of small handful of companies that has also been very heavily involved in development of hydrogen fuel cell technology, which you've mentioned, where, you know, right now, you've got one fuel cell vehicle in the market. All right, you're on the second generation of that car now. And the new one is vastly improved overlays over the first generation. But where, you know, what back? You know, when I first started writing, in 2006 2007, there was a lot of enthusiasm for fuel cells, you know, at that point, you know, we we didn't really have any modern BEVs on the market yet. And, you know, there was a lot of enthusiasm that, yeah, we, you know, fuel cells are going to start to take off, we're going to start to make this huge investment and infrastructure never really happened. Where do fuel cells fit into this, you know, 15 years later, and part of the the ecosystem of electrified vehicles.

Mike Tripp  53:58  
You as I said earlier, we believe it's still one of multiple solutions to reach a certain customer. And if you look at the biggest blocking factor today on fuel cells, it's the availability in the infrastructure around hydrogen. And so we're continuing to work with our partners to expand that not only here in California, but we're looking at other markets around the United States. I think we remain optimistic on hydrogen, because if you look at globally, and countries like Germany and some of the other countries in Asia, there continues to be interested investment in hydrogen and like any technology, as more and more companies get involved, then that brings down the barriers to entry. And so the fact that we've been there first and why are second generation Muriwai excited about we're also taking that technology, where it makes sense is really heavy duty trucking and industries with not only fixed range, but also where we see that the the ZEV impact of hydrogen and the fact that you unlike Evie today, you can fill up relatively quickly and get a lot of use out of that technology we see Commercial trucking and some platforms like that, which is why we've invested there as well. So we believe over time, our efforts, not only with what we've done with MRI, we'll also as additional competitors get into the hydrogen into the fuel cell game. And as some of the infrastructure barriers come down, combined with what we're going through our commercial vehicles, heavy duty vehicles, we see that continuing to grow. You're right. 10 years ago, it looked like perhaps BV and hydrogen was going to grow at the same pace. But the reality is the infrastructure has not been there to support that. But we're optimistic on that as a solution as one of four power trains that we consider electrified and

Sam Abuelsamid  55:42  
anything else that we haven't talked about that you want to bring up about Toyota and electrification the other listeners should be thinking about.

Mike Tripp  55:49  
Yeah, I, the most important thing. We talked about this earlier, right, I think there's a The exciting thing for the auto industry is that there's a growing awareness in interest in electrification. And we believe that as consumers become more educated and more knowledgeable about the different executions of electrification, the more they're going to see that there's a wide range of vehicles out there, some of which may meet their particular need today, and some of which candidly, don't because of their driving patterns, or where they live or the lifestyle that they have. And, you know, our encouragement as more people get exposed to the different versions of electrification, and power trains that are out there. And the more we can generate awareness of what we're doing as a brand and knowledge that bridges the gap between awareness and knowledge and desire, the more excited we are, listen, we, we've been doing this for a long time. I said earlier, it's not our first rodeo. When it comes to electrification, we've put batteries and high voltage or motors and high voltage batteries in cars for a long time. So we're excited we have 11 hybrids, we're only going to expand our electrified options. And all we ask is that consumers do their research so they can determine what brand and what models work best for them. And I think it's safe to say that if you don't do your research, what you think you know about electrified options, or electrification may not be true. So do your research. And then come give us a try at Toyota because the best experience you can have with our brain is to get the talk to get behind the wheel drive with our vehicles. Alright, thank you very much, Mike. Sam, thanks for your time.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:18  
Cooper Erickson, Group Vice President of Product planning for Toyota North America. Thanks for joining me here to talk about the the BZ forex and about Toyota's strategy overall with battery electric vehicles. I spoke on my trip earlier about kind of the broader electrification strategy for Toyota, which is a little bit different from what a lot, a lot of other companies are doing, you know, working building on your on your strikes as a company, you know, 20 plus years of history with hybrids, and, and, more recently, fuel cells. But now, getting into your first dedicated, Bev, you've done three before two generations of rav4 and the Scion IQ. Ms. The first one is purpose built is about. So what, you know, from a product planning perspective, what was what was the goal was the strategy around this particular vehicle.

Cooper Erickson  58:19  
Well, thanks for that. First, it's not a vehicle specifically designed for the US market, it is a global product as part of the BZ global product portfolio, that that has been announced to have roughly 15 vehicles, you know, between now, and 2025. So the reason we grabbed on to this for the North American market, and this was, of course, several years ago, during the product development, it wasn't something that we just dreamed up we've been working on this probably takes five years, you know, for vehicle development. So it's been it's been a while it really fit the market. Well, it's a legitimate SUV, great interior space, no compromises, you know, smallest segment one of the largest segments in the automotive industry. And it's got, you know, the right sized range for for the average consumer. And so we felt it was a great next step in our portfolio proliferation. Sure, there'll be more to come we'll respond to, to customer demand and, and address the market as it as it grows. But it was a great segment to be in and it was the right product for us to grab for the North American market.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:37  
What you know, the choice of vehicle it's going to have around 250 miles of range, which I personally don't think is a problem I think that's actually kind of the sweet spot for most people but what was the the the thinking when there are others that are shooting for hire or that are like Tesla's obviously at least claiming higher ranges on their third label values. What was the thinking for Toyota in that 250 mile?

Cooper Erickson  1:00:06  
Yeah, I think it's, you know, a couple of things. One is, one of the biggest challenges the automotive industry faces is the supply of batteries. So we have to be really careful how we handle that precious material. The supply chain is not mature, there's a lot of activity going on globally in the US to get the BV the battery supply chain up to where it needs to be. But it's not up there yet. And so we need to be careful that we're not putting too much battery in a vehicle that a customer doesn't need, and is utilizing just to have an advertising. So the second thing is the customer use case, the average customer commutes, you know, 30 miles a day, you know, I think I think it's 98% of all commutes or something like that. So the idea of carrying around too much battery is actually inefficient. And it's not good for the environment, because you're using energy and energy isn't for you, you're plugging it in, energy is coming from somewhere, batteries are really heavy. And so we're trying to hit that sweet spot of, you know, spreading the battery supply that we have over more products and meeting the customer needs. And then I guess if I was gonna add a third thing on to it, it would be our focus isn't the initial range, our focus is, is maintaining that range for as long as possible through the life of the vehicle. And we're, you know, we're targeting 90% of initial range after 10 years. So, you know, that is a differentiator for us. And not to say that we're not going to have a product that has higher range down the road. You know, when we look at the others, other brands, we have a luxury standpoint, that's that's a bigger expectation with with luxury products. But in the Toyota world, we think you use the term sweet spot, we think it's pretty much in the sweet spot. And its affordability to batteries are really expensive. So if we try to keep the vehicle to be affordable for our consumers, and that small SUV segment.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:18  
So Utoya as a brand, as a company has a lot of history, working with high voltage batteries, and making sure that they last and you know, those 18 million hybrids, you know, something you don't hear about anymore, you know, that you we used to hear about, you know, in the early days was, Well, how long is this battery going to last? And how much is it going to cost me to replace them, I have to replace this battery, you know, for 1000s of dollars after three years. That's not something you really hear about with hybrids anymore. So what was there anything specific, you know, as you move to a Bev that you've done to? Because you're probably using a lot more of the battery capacity in this vehicle than you typically do in a hybrid configuration? What what sorts of things have you done to get that 90% retention rate after 10 years? Well,

Cooper Erickson  1:03:10  
I'm not a battery engineer. It gets pretty, pretty granular. I probably couldn't explain it. The the general thinking is we were focusing on that long term durability. And there's different batteries for different use cases and hybrids that you mentioned. They can use a battery that's a different energy density, that releases the energy differently. You know, how we cycle that battery? The bottom line is, it's designed for the life of the car. That's that's the way we approached hybrids. And early on, like you said, people were thinking it's gonna be expensive. I'm gonna have to replace it all the time. I think a couple things have happened. One is people have learned through history, you know that they last a long time. But also, we recognize that was still an objection here four or five years ago. And we changed our battery warranty on our hybrids to 10 years 150,000 miles to alleviate that concern from the customer's mind. Now, it didn't really cost us anything because there really isn't anything bad. So it'd be a good bet. But, you know, I guess the lithium ion batteries we're currently using were Panasonic and CA TL. We're working with them on on durability first. And I'm not sure how they're managing that from a chemical, you know, battery makeup standpoint.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:37  
So you mentioned Panasonic and CTL. Panasonic's been a longtime partner on the hybrid side. Is this the first application you've worked with CTL

Cooper Erickson  1:04:46  
for two in the US? Yes, but I believe in Europe and China. We've, we've worked with them on other paths, but I would have to get clarification on that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:59  
Is it going to be a mix of both suppliers and or is it going to be split like kind of regionally so like the North American product gets one supplier, Europe may be different than the other one or so

Cooper Erickson  1:05:11  
in the US market, we will have both, okay. And the way that it's broken down is the all wheel drive X mode, all wheel drive variant will have one battery, and the, the front wheel drive will have a different matter. Okay. And

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:26  
I think in the specs, it listed two slightly different capacities slightly more for the all wheel drive.

Cooper Erickson  1:05:32  
And I think the way that the batteries behave, and the way that they manage the energy, one was more suited for having dual motors, and higher output, and all wheel drive, the other one was better suited for a single motor. So I think it's just matching the battery to the drive type. And that's the way it is. So you don't have a choice of battery. You know, it's either all wheel drive or front wheel drive, and it is the ones of one kilowatt or one and a half, something like that bigger than

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:02  
Yeah, it's just a small difference. Okay. One of the interesting things looking at the specs, is on the front wheel drive version, you've got 250 kilowatt battery, which is pretty typical of a lot of the electric crossovers that are out there today. And on the all wheel drive version, instead of keeping the same front motor, you've got 280 kilowatt batteries, one or motors, one at each end. Is is that actually a just a detune? Or using a detuned version of the same motor? Or is it actually a smaller motor that you're using? And what's what was the thinking there? Between that Oh, figuration? That's

Cooper Erickson  1:06:41  
actually a great question. I think it's a different motor, I don't think it's a detuned. Motor, I think it's a different motor. And from my understanding, the reason for that was the, the two motors. We don't have that for acceleration performance. And the fun to drive aspect as much as we do enabling you in the multimode X mode, all wheel drive system, you know, mud, snow selectable, you know, off road capability. So, I think the, the use case was we don't need a 150 and an 80. It'll, it'll do what we needed to do with two ATS and keeping that price point for consumers in the space that they can, Ford and the vehicle still going to perform in a way that they're gonna be satisfied with

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:33  
the the X mode you mentioned, can you talk a little bit more about that? What What exactly is x mode? What what does that get you?

Cooper Erickson  1:07:42  
Yeah, it's just, you know, multi train mode. So it just tunes the power delivery to all four wheels. Depending on the traffic conditions that you're in, you know, you can adjust it for different, different settings. But then on the on road performance, even on dry pavement. It really does a great job gripping and accelerating through corners.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:10  
It gives you a real confidence in a more balanced front.

Cooper Erickson  1:08:12  
Yeah, you know, I mean, a rear drive car has a certain bias that you know, feels you know, that rear end squats and feels as a certain feeling. And from drive cars have a different feeling. So, yeah, it gives it a more premium, planted driving experience, regardless of condition. But then you have the multiple terrain select X mode capability as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:35  
Okay. The one, this vehicle was developed in partnership with Subaru. They have their own variant of it this Alterra. What are there any notable differences between the two vehicles?

Cooper Erickson  1:08:50  
Yeah, I know, there's styling differences. But I, I would have to look into that. To tell you the specifics. I think for the most part, they're very similar being built at the same factory. There's some styling differences. And I'm sure there's some interior, you know, electronic system differences. But I'm not sure if we have a list of that. I haven't really seen that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:13  
Okay. What about the the charging speed went in this morning during the presentation? That was one of the things that was brought up. And one of things that we've got us we've found from our consumer surveys, is that the three main barriers to adoption for EVs for consumers are the upfront costs, the availability of charging and the time it takes to charge compared to a gas vehicle. What kind of charging speed are you going to have on on this vehicle?

Cooper Erickson  1:09:41  
Well, it will accept up to 150 kilowatt charge. Now, I actually need to look into this. I think one of the batteries may accept only up to 100 kilowatt. But in either case, 150 or 100. It's roughly a 71 kilowatt hour batteries. So it's going to take, you know, 30 minutes to 45 minutes for a full charge on a DC fast charge system. Of course, if you're on a level one charger, it's going to take the same length of time it would take any it's it's kilowatt hour,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:20  
presumably 10 kilowatt, a level two, AC like

Cooper Erickson  1:10:24  
240. Or yeah, level two, I think is around that 10 ish kilowatt, whatever we're doing now, are you six or something like that? So yeah, I mean, charge times are the same as any other Evie, that the only difference in charge times for an Eevee is really going to be the maximum that will excite the DC faster, and some of them are working on, you know, 250. And I don't think there's one of those market right now, frankly, most of them are probably under 150. So 150 is really competitive. And, and that's gonna be good. If you have availability, the DC fast chargers, which aren't super easy to find, but they are around,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:01  
they're getting better. Yeah. And that. That's the that leads me to the next question, which is, you know, the availability of charging, you know, one of the some of the other manufacturers for GM, and others are starting to do is trying to reduce the friction and charging for using public charging for their customers. And because we've got this patchwork of a bunch of different charge network providers, Evie, go ChargePoint and Electrify America and so on. What, if anything, is Toyota doing to make it easier for consumers, you know, buyers of the busy Forex to charge from any available charger without having to juggle four or five different accounts, subscriptions with these different companies?

Cooper Erickson  1:11:55  
Well, based on your explanation of other brands looking into that, I think it's pretty safe to say it's a concern that we all see. And we were taking it seriously, I don't have any announcements for you today. When they do the ride and drive vehicle, you know, press event, next year, we'll get into a lot of detail on this stuff. But the bottom line is we have you know, there's there's two areas of charging that we want to make seamless and easy for the consumer. One is at home. And the reality is, most of these vehicles are being purchased by people who will charge them at home. So setting something up to make it very seamless and painful to figure out what they need at home to optimize Lessini charging. Painless.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:42  
You said painful. Oh,

Cooper Erickson  1:12:44  
I simply want it to be painless. Painless. Yes. Yeah. as painless as possible. As painful as possible. Yeah. So we want to we want to just make it easy for him at you know, at home. And then when they're out and about, we want to look at that the same way how can we reduce the need to have five different subscriptions to these different services and, and the location of them? What the wait time on all those things? We were looking into that we've been making some good progress, but nothing real specific to to announce right now. Okay, we recognize the problem and we want to solve for it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:23  
All right. Anything else above the busy Forex or just your your bed plans, in general, that listener should be thinking about?

Cooper Erickson  1:13:34  
I mean, we were proud of our contribution to the environment. I don't think any brand has done more to healthy environment than Toyota. And I know some people don't see it that way these days. But the bottom line is we have a strategy. And we're not. We're not a brand that that really talks a lot about obsesses with what we're going to do 10 years from now. Never mistake that for us not having a plan and not having things in the works. We just like to talk about things a little bit closer. The further out you go, the more we need to reserve the right to force correct and change and be agile. And I think that's the name of the game these days. We're keeping a close eye on the customer. And as customer demands change, we're gonna be there for our customers. And we're going to be a leader in in reduction of greenhouse gas for the next 20 years, the same way we have been for the last one, two years.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:33  
All right. Thank you so much, Cooper. Appreciate it. Thanks, Sam. All right, Henrik, big day, public unveiling of the production version of the ocean. Interesting. I was talking to somebody earlier after the press conference. And they described you as the phoenix rising from the ashes, which I think is very apt. You know, given your history it's I've been following you, you know, going back to the days of Fisker Automotive, we think at first interviewed you in 2009 or eight, at that choice show when you go on a date, yeah, you unveiled the karma. And it's, it's been fascinating to watch the very different approach that you've taken this time around, compared to the previous effort. And you talk about the overall strategy for the company now and how you're approaching the market of bringing, bringing Evie to the market.

Henrik Fisker  1:15:33  
I mean, just to step back, when when I started, you know, working in EVs back in sort of 2005, or six, or whatever it was, obviously, nobody was interested in EVs, and nobody wants to back it. So it was extremely difficult. There was no real supply chain, we have to go at the time with a startup battery company was ultimately failed and ever, we couldn't continue. I think when you fast forward to today, we are starting to see more of a supply chain not available, we have probably four or five, maybe five large, international global battery companies now have tested, durability, tested batteries for many years. And they're all sort of in a similar level, we were able to of course, strike a deal with ch o was the world's largest battery manufacturer. And the strategy for me was that, we need to make sure that the technology we put in the vehicle is tested durability to test to and also is the absolute, absolute latest technology. So that's why we decided to develop a process which we call FF pap, which stands for, you know, very, very fast development time of a vehicle. So it basically means we're able to develop a vehicle less than two and a half years, where normally the industry is probably around four years. So when you buy a new car, the technology in that car is probably three years old, because it was decided three years ago. And I don't believe that works any longer. Because the technology moves so fast, that we need to be able to choose technology closer to the launch of the vehicle. So our technology was chosen this year, but everything in the vehicle, whether it's the battery cells, our screen and a whole bunch of other things. And that's only possible if you have a fast enough development process. So that was a goal from us from beginning to be able to go out to the market. So we got a vehicle with class leading technology. And we've just shown, you know, all vehicles have the longest range of any crossover issue be on the planet in this price range. I mean, there is no crossover, it should be the 140 mile range under $450,000. So in the choppers over 350. So you know, but to achieve that, you need to be able to have the latest technology, you also need an in house team that understand the in house engineering team to understand all the different variables that makes a long range. Now one of the easier way to make a long range is by making sort of a soapbar car that is super dynamic and ends up looking like a hatchback or a fastback or a sedan looking Fastback. But what people really like is an SUV. So the challenge for us was we couldn't just rely on making an aerodynamic soapbar we have designed a muscular, good looking as surety. And therefore we don't have the advance of aerodynamics. It's still aerodynamic, but never as much as a hatchback. So we had to go in and look at other areas to get the range. So we looked at everything from the tires, we develop a Bridgestone to silicon carbide inverters to the super efficient powertrain. We looked at the battery pack together to see how we get it as energy dense as possible, we looked at how we actually create the volume of the battery pack between the wheels in the actual chassis, which is also unique. So we had to look at all these different elements to get to that long range. And that can only happen if you have a really smart in house engineering team to understand all these elements coming together. So you know, coming into the bigger business model was we also have this car to be affordable. And today when you buy a car, you know there's the cost of making that car and build the materials. But then there's a whole bunch of other 1000s of dollars that goes on top of that before it gets to the consumer. And we wanted to take some of that out and is of course dealer margin. It's 1000s of dollars that are put on top to run your facilities globally. I mean, somebody has to put the lights on and pay for electricity and taxes on the factory. and all that. So we said, We want an asset light business model, because the goal was to get an affordable vehicle in the market, because that's how you're going to make a real impact in the world. Because you know, an end of the day, our vision is a cane future for all. And that can only happen if everybody has access to a cool electric vehicle. And that's why we wanted that price of 37,500 as a base price. So it took a lot of effort to get down to that price and being able to sell it at this level.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:31  
And speaking of that base price, we talked yesterday, and you were you were explaining that pricing versus, you know, what you did with the karma, and what a lot of other Evie startups are doing, you know, going to the high end of the market versus a more mainstream part of the market. Can you explain that strategy

Henrik Fisker  1:20:55  
again. So I worked in my corporate career at Aston Martin, BMW and Ford. And what I noticed was, the cultures in different car companies is that is usually set by kind of where that company established to sell what level in the market. And I think it's pretty clear, if you have a huge team working on $150,000 car, the mentality in that team is we can spend wherever we want. And it's very difficult to change that mentality when you suddenly want to make the $37,500 car because every penny counts. And you have to be super innovative, about how to cut costs without losing any of the product qualities. So we have created a premium vehicle for a real reasonable price. But it's a huge team effort not only within the company, but ultimately the suppliers, long, long discussions and redesigning parts to get them cheaper, working with suppliers, how do we redesign this part to take $2 out of it, but keeping the quality keeping the look and feel so that that mentality is what I wanted to build up in Fisker. And that's why our next vehicle is not $100,000 vehicle, neither, it's actually going to be below 30,000. And I think you've got the right team to get to that point. Later, we will come out with $100,000 vehicle maybe more, a super cool sports car sexy and all that. But that's not that difficult to do. I've done many of those in my lifetime. And

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:35  
then you know, the the emotion concept a few years ago was a great example. Yeah, and

Henrik Fisker  1:22:39  
you know, we work further on that. And then we'll we'll probably do something somewhere in that direction. But it's not a priority right now, I want to create an amazing sustainable car company that also sustainable business.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:53  
Can you give me specific example of something that was done in the development of the ocean, that helps to bring down that cost without, without sacrificing the kind of quality and the, the the field premium field that you're looking for?

Henrik Fisker  1:23:12  
So I can give you I can give you one, one example of that. So for example, we did a little internal survey. And with people we knew people, those in the company, you know, and they drove electric cars, and what are they like what they use, and we found out, at least for the people we serve is that very few people, when they had a front, the front trunk actually used it. Because you know, you're kind of opening a hood. And it's just odd to come out from the supermarket you opening up your hood, you might as well just open up the trunk, that's what is there for and is probably rare that you've filled up the entire trunk with something. And now you got to use your phone, that's at least what we figured out. So we sat down and say, hey, if we don't, if we don't really need it, what can we do to take out costs. So we realized that in in a normal, put that you open our front, you have hinges latches, you have latch, you have hinges, you have seals, all that amounted to quite a lot of money. So we decided to a fixed hook that is just fixed with a couple of screws, we taken off a service, but the customer doesn't need to go into that book. And we then decided since we did that, we could even remove some things from that's normally intruding into interior, we could move that out in the front and then be figured out when you move things closer to where the energy is coming from, or whatever it is. We now save money on the hoses, the length of the hoses, etc. So it turned out to be quite a lot of saving to just ditch that front in this car.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:48  
Okay, yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's a great example. You know, obviously Tesla has made that concept of the front, you know, something very popular with people. But, you know, there are also some very good reasons Not to go that direction, you know,

Henrik Fisker  1:25:01  
we wanted to make a $37,500 car. So you can't put everything in there correct, you can do that if you make a few $100,000 car. So there is certain things where we have to make some decisions that we don't think we need that particular stuff in the vehicle. And you know, there's some other areas that I don't even want to point out, because you probably would never see it, you wouldn't notice it, I pointed out, the key

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:26  
thing is find the things that customers won't notice in their day to day use of the vehicle. That doesn't compromise their experience. Yeah,

Henrik Fisker  1:25:35  
exactly. I mean that as another example would be that our entire skateboard is aluminum, which is great, this is light and all that. But we decided we want to have a low cost of ownership, one of the issues with having a full aluminum body is you have a very high insurance. And you can see that in some of these aluminum vehicles. The second is, when you have a fender bender, it's very expensive to repair. So we decided to go for a steel and composite body that ultimately is lower cost lower to maintain in terms of if you do need some repairs and get repair to anybody shop. So that was another example where you physically you don't see any difference. Yes, it's a few pounds more, but we didn't feel that that was enough or justification to raise the price of the car. And you're going to have a much higher insurance premium.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:30  
And you mentioned earlier about the the various partnerships you've developed with companies like Bridgestone and CTL. I think one of the key ones really for this particular vehicle is your relationship with magnet and magnet steer, how's that benefited Zephyr

Henrik Fisker  1:26:46  
obviously, the benefit there is you got a organization, which is up and running producing vehicles, they got to, you know, I don't know how many hundreds or 1000s of engineers that have made many different cars, they have done so many launches with different vehicles, Soviet entering into organization where there's nobody who needs to be taught what to do, they don't need to like ramp up to learn to do something. But if you're an Eevee startup, and you build a factory, you have to ramp up you have to teach people you have to get a supply chain together. You got all that Zarya maca, you know, they have the supply network. They know how to get inbound logistics all that's already done. So it meant that we could be freed up the Fisker engineers could be freed up to just face it to concentrate on developing an amazing car. We didn't have to think so much about manufacturing, we worked very closely with magnet term, we also worked with them on the whole virtual build and development apart, because you obviously want all these parts will fit perfectly together. So I think that was a huge advantage.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:54  
And as you said, because they already built hundreds of 1000s of vehicles a year, that factory in Austria, you know, they've already got enormous economies of scale, both from components that they produce in a magnet already produces. Almost every element was one, one customer, they're

Henrik Fisker  1:28:11  
the third largest auto supplier in the world. And they have all these other companies macro seeding, that make the lighting. So that was an advanced as is that as an Eevee startup, you also have to go out to suppliers and convince them that you're going to be successful, convince them that you are going to sell all the vehicles that you say you will and convince them you will start production on time. Because if a supplier buys into your story, but you're one year late, they are losing money, because they're about to set up everything to start production. But you're coming back saying sorry, Billy. Now in our case, of course having makna. So manufacturers saying we are going to start at that date has a lot of believability and especially if they go to another man and he built in credibility or building credibility. And then you go to another mega company like Magna lighting and say, Hey, guys, we need lights. And we're working with Magnum. Here's an American company. And now you create all that kind of believability and you move in the same direction. Also speed wise, we have to convince all our suppliers to move at our speed and not traditional speed. So that also helped magnet adjusted really quickly. So that's new type of speed, because they obviously also want to be the leader in the game, ultimately, because that will help them in more business. So it was sort of a good ripple effects that we have with all the suppliers.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:33  
So your official started production is scheduled for one year from today. Once vehicles are rolling up the line Oh, you will have you've already got vehicles being produced now and that's going to ramp up pre production vehicles for testing and validation. But once once you're producing customer saleable vehicles, how are those going to get to customers?

Henrik Fisker  1:29:54  
So we obviously logistically we have all the shipping everything already figured out from Magna And we will have to couple of ways to deliver vehicles. Either we will have, we will have some large distribution centers outside the cities where you can go out and pick up your car. Or we will be we'll be able to get delivered the car at home or at your office. So those are the two you don't have. You don't want to build dealerships where these vehicles are shipped to and they sit there and expensive, you know, real estate and all that we don't want to do that. That's again, coming back to let's give the customer as much value for the money as possible on the product.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:32  
And how how will customers buy the vehicle? Before before they

Henrik Fisker  1:30:37  
just lay on our website, this correct? Come on up directly from the app, we have already a ton of people that have looked download our app, you can buy it right there. And you should be able to do everything digitally. You don't have to go anywhere, you can do everything digitally.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:53  
And then what about service? How is that going to be?

Henrik Fisker  1:30:56  
So service, we already have service partnerships. And that means that you don't have to wait to get service from a car because we already will have hundreds of service facilities because we have done it. We've signed up partners for that. One of them here in the US is Cox, automotive them divisible pivot, the origin service for fleets, etc. And then you got Europe, there's multiple different depending on which country Scandinavia, for instance, group home economics. So we have already in the middle of signing all these groups up. And basically, we will know either we will know if you cause an issue, or you will know it, we will send us a note, I lifted the car for you app will then move an appointment to come and pick up the current service and bring it back. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:39  
And presumably, just as with the logistics of shipping vehicles from the factory, to the distribution centers, or to customers, Magna will also be taking care of getting parts because that's certainly for one of your primary competitors. That's been a big complaint of their customers is getting the time it takes to get a lot of parts.

Henrik Fisker  1:31:59  
Yeah, I mean, we are setting up locally in the US, of course parts distribution center, which we have Mac that has a perfect logistics system, but they will send all the parts. It's all digital now. So you will actually when you know you need a part it can go extremely fast. I think you should be able to deliver parts within days and not weeks. I mean, there can always be some very unique parts you don't expect but things like bumpers and stuff that that there's more often an issue because you have a fender bender, those things should be available very fast.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:31  
All right. Well, yeah. Having watched you for close to 15 years now, you know, as you've tried to establish yourself as an automaker, it's interesting to see how you learned from the lessons of the past and and this one seems very promising. Good luck to you and good luck from getting this established. Thank you very much. Like you're off to a good very good start so far. Thank you appreciate. Thanks for your time. Good. Good. She again could see ya