Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 Coming up on episode 232 of wheel bearings got the 2022 Ford Explorer Timberline, the Cadillac CT five V black wing, the Subaru Outback wilderness and Infiniti QX 60. Ford's new E Transit and the key V six All that and more coming up next Roberto Baldwin 0:25 this is episode Sam Abuelsamid 0:26 232 wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid with guidehouse insights, Nicole Wakelin 0:34 I'm Nicole Wakelin from which they go with I was gonna say a new one and I can't remember what new one I was gonna say. Well, we're spot on say I'm just gonna go with Forbes wheels because that's what popped into my head. And Robbie is laughing at me which is a Wakelin That's it. That's it today. Roberto Baldwin 0:52 I Roberto Bolden from Engadget Look at that. I'm on the ball today. Go Robbie. I'm breaking T. I'm going through puberty. Apparently. T to T. Sorry, Nicole Wakelin 1:05 I feel left out. Roberto Baldwin 1:08 Oh, well. What are we talking about car. T. Sam Abuelsamid 1:13 Since we missed you last week, Nicole to go first. Nicole Wakelin 1:16 Okay, so first to talk about the car that I had the week that we missed. When I was actually off in Disneyworld with Rebecca our dear departed host from here. Roberto Baldwin 1:24 We thought Wait, wait, wait, she's just not here. She's still alive. Nicole Wakelin 1:29 She just abandons left the building. And she's she's for real she was alive when I last saw her. No, I'm 60 What? She was alive when I last saw the Infiniti QX 60 which was all new this year. If he doesn't stop laughing, I'm gonna have to stop this whole podcast recording. I will turn this podcast around Robbie. Roberto Baldwin 1:54 Okay. This way. Nicole Wakelin 1:58 So the new QX 60. They've got four trends, it starts at about 40s Just under $47,000. What hasn't changed despite the fact that it's all new, it still has the same engine and transmission, which I did find kind of weird. It's no it doesn't. Oh, it does engine transmission engine new transmission. Sorry, same engine new transmission. So it's, it's, it's which is weird. So then it's only kind of partly new under the hood. It does make a difference though, the new transmission is quieter, and it makes the power deliver a little smoother. So as you're driving the whole, if you accelerate really aggressively, it's a smoother acceleration than it was before which this is a luxury car and you kind of want that has decent handling to it. It has a beautiful interior. I really like the interior of this. You know, people have mixed feelings sometimes on infinity. Like they're trying to be really upscale, but they don't do it. I think it's beautiful. I think this is a really gorgeous interior. It looks and feels like the luxury car that you think it's gonna be. There's also captain's chairs that you can get on this. But there is limited availability, you can only get them on one trim their standard on the autograph. That's it, which is the top trim. So if you want the fancy captain's chairs, you have to get the fanciest most expensive version of the QX 60 Which like yeah, if you want to spend that money, but it doesn't mean that you can't get that on on the mid range trims. infotainment is good. It has a 12.3 inch touchscreen. It has apple carplay that's wireless, which is amazing. I'm all about the wireless device stuff. Now I had to drive a car unexpectedly this weekend from Columbus, Ohio, to Boston. And I felt like there were wires everywhere like as we're trying to plug things in to be able to have a wireless charging pad and wireless connectivity would have made it feel much less like a clutter Fest in the front seat of that car for that ridiculously long drive. So you know the best clutter fest I hate the wires I've now anti wire on the anti not having a touchscreen and I'm also anti wire there's a good amount of room for cargo in the back. If you fold everything down, you've got 75.4 cubic feet, that's pretty huge so you can fit a lot into the back of this and even if you're just going like in the back you still have a good amount I'm trying to think here I've lost my number. Well the third row I think there's 41.6 behind the second row so it's it's a good it's a good amount of cargo room so you can fit plenty of stuff in there. I had no problem fitting luggage for the three people that were in the car plus random winter coats and boots and all the junk that we had to throw in there this in the past so it's it was fine. And it's been really crummy weather here in New England. So I also had a shovel shoved in the back. scraper in case I get stuck. So I'm a fan of the QX 60 I liked it I think they did a good job overall with the update on this. I think probably the maybe the maybe the weakest point is the infotainment isn't as maybe intuitive as some other systems so it takes a little bit more time to get the hang of But you still have that massive 12.3 inch touchscreen, which I like because it does make it easier to see what you're looking at, especially if you're following navigation, which again, I had a very small touch screen or very small screen on the car that I was driving. If it's like, going through cities, suddenly that small screen becomes the worst thing you've ever experienced in your entire life when you're in an unfamiliar city, and you've been driving a lot. So I like the very large touchscreen. So overall, cubic 60. Pretty good car comes out. Well, Sam Abuelsamid 5:31 you would buy both drove it last summer. Yeah. Summer. Nicole Wakelin 5:35 It was summer. This summer. Yeah, I Sam Abuelsamid 5:37 feel like it. You know, when we were in Northern California, it felt right. It was kind of cold. But yeah, I think it was seems like it was August or something when we were up there seems about Nicole Wakelin 5:46 right towards the end of the summer. Yeah. And, you know, this Sam Abuelsamid 5:48 is based on the this as the previous one was based on the Nissan Pathfinder, but it's much nicer, which concern last week, I talked about the Pathfinder, you know, and how much nicer it is and the previous generation, you know, this, this was a pretty significant step up, and I agree with you on the infotainment, you know, it's the Nissan and Infiniti infotainment system is, is okay, it's not great. It's not as modern as some of the other systems out there. Nicole Wakelin 6:17 Yeah, it just feels it's not like it doesn't work well, or it's really missing any key feature. It just doesn't Something about it just feels like you said, a little bit dated. So if you really like that very, sort of high tech feel, and you want it to look and feel like something really new and like cutting edge, it does not get that vibe, but that doesn't mean that it's inadequate, or somehow frustrating or anything like that. It's It's good. It's just not as good as what some other OEMs are offering, especially for a luxury car. Sam Abuelsamid 6:43 You had the autograph, right? Nicole Wakelin 6:45 I have actually driven like three different trims of this. Thanks. Roberto Baldwin 6:50 So you've given them all, I've given them all. Nicole Wakelin 6:53 So I like the autograph. I you know, I if I could, there's a pretty significant price difference, you know, so when you're getting up to, let's say, you're starting at 46 850, then you're eventually ending up for the autograph at 60,003 50. So it's a pretty significant price hike. And you know if so if you're just looking for those captain's chairs, you're basically paying what does that math $14,000 to get captain's chairs, I mean, you get other style. So Sam Abuelsamid 7:23 get that removeable center console in the second row to you do Nicole Wakelin 7:27 which is pretty cool. That's you know, that's fancy. That's fancy pants, but that makes it worth it. This is really worth the grand the other 13,000 is for that removable center console. Roberto Baldwin 7:41 But you could take a console out. I know. Right? I think it's stored somewhere around Nicole Wakelin 7:47 yeah, just toss it in back and all that cargo room in the back. Roberto Baldwin 7:51 He took a lot of cargo room. Sam Abuelsamid 7:53 So did you have anything else that you drove? Nicole Wakelin 7:56 Yes, great. Switch, literally switch gear, see my reference. I also drove and this is what is currently in my driveway. This very minute covered in salt is a 2022 Subaru Outback wilderness, which I took a picture of input of my Twitter today. What are those things called the go beneath your feet in the car, Sam? Sam Abuelsamid 8:17 I have no idea. Nicole Wakelin 8:19 As he called them foot thingies. Some people call them floormats we're talking about he's like those foot thingies. I'm like I took a picture of what? So the floor baths which are covered with salt. And really, they they're they have all this snazzy super wilderness. The logos like it has this golden silk with its orange and it's on the floormats. And they're these black rubberized formats. And they seem completely crazy and like too much, but now we've had a blizzard. And there's literally so much salt in the roads in New Hampshire that when you drive down the highway, there's just like white cloud that follows you along the roadway. And I'm looking at what that salt is doing to everything cringing for what it's doing to the carbon like thank God. This has these neat nifty rubberized formats otherwise, this the interior of this car be destroyed. So they have the wilderness for the forester and for the Outback. They get I think they're technically called bronze accents. I believe I referred to them as orange. At one point in someone nearly ripped my head off but I believe they're technically bronze. They look kinda Sam Abuelsamid 9:20 should never ever miss identify a color name of a PR person or a designer. Nicole Wakelin 9:26 It wasn't a PR person. It was like random Joe on Twitter. He's like, where are you colorblind? I'm like, oh, sorry. They're bronze. Bronze the orangey kind of situation. A color that's hard blue. Yeah, Orange. G Yeah. Did you guys see it? It's it like if it was Sam Abuelsamid 9:44 orange to me, Roberto Baldwin 9:45 if I've had the car they just call it wrong. They call it bronze is actually a darker color. If they really want to see it's they want to be splitting hairs. Let me get my Pantone color wheel out color wheel and Nicole Wakelin 9:57 determine exactly what color it is. I'm like yeah, well Ever. So this orangey bronzy kind of trim stuff. And you see in an accident on the outside and on the inside, so it makes it look a little better. The Wilderness gets some cool stuff that the rest of the Outback line does not have. It gets an advanced axe mode. That increases the all wheel drive engagement makes it a little bit handle a little bit better if you're in situations like snow or deep mud. I drove this in ridiculous snow and it was amazing. We got home and our driver was completely plowed in. So I think there literally had to be about two and a half feet of snow bank. And I said, let's see. Drove drove right through it. I mean, it like drove through it. It was just kind of like button pump. Like I went over speed, whatever. What didn't he was like, no big deal. So I was Uber though. It was very Subaru was peak Subaru. I'm like, Can you do it? Let's find out. This one does have a little bit more ground clearance to the wilderness has point eight inches of extra ground clearance. Honestly, I don't think that point. Eight inches was what made it I think you'd done it in the regular the regular Outback too. But you know, probably the X mode. The X mode, I'm sure it was the expert. So I mean, this is, this is the kind of car you buy it because you live someplace like where I live, you know, it's got the versatility to hold a bunch of cargo and back. It's not this huge, gigantic like SUV. It's got a little extra ground clearance and it's rugged. I mean, even like it's talking about the floor mats, but everything. It has a nice interior without feeling like you have to worry about all that salt and snow getting on your car, or worry about the dog running through with his paws, you know, galloping over the seats and leaving a trail of muddy footprints. You know, Subaru makes these these vehicles for active lifestyles. And that sounds like such a cliche, but it really is some you know, that's exactly what this is. It's made for that person. You feel like it can stand the rigors of whether you go outside or whether it's rough weather or whether it's your dog or whether it's your kids, when they do the things that they do to a car. Like this kind of stuff can destroy some cars or seriously, you know, ruin like make the interior show its age a lot faster. In a Subaru you it's like it just shrugs it off kind of like that snowbank at the end of the driveway, it just shrugs all that off. So I appreciate it. And it was the perfect thing to have for the bumbo Genesis snowstorm that we had is called. Yeah, they really call it that. It's called Bombo. Genesis. I can't explain to you in meteorological terms what that means that I will just got a lot of words. I know which means no, but then the pressure does this and it I don't know, but they say bumbu Genesis Roberto Baldwin 12:42 jambojet. I'm looking forward to that vehicle from Hyundai Motor Group at Nicole Wakelin 12:46 the Babu Genesis. It's a little fancier than the regular Genesis is the Genesis. It's only available in Snow White, but um, oh, yeah. So yeah, so those are my those are my two vehicles. I have this Subaru Outback, which is like your rugged, outdoorsy tackles anything and then the QX 60 Which is your super fancy pants, but also does a pretty good job. Most toggles tackles most stuff, but probably not as keen on having your dog run through it. As the Outback is. Roberto Baldwin 13:18 I mean, there's no reason why why a bunch of places that are just in enveloped by snow for a very long time. A lot of those folks have Subarus, I mean I had a WR x which is like the fast Subaru the wack Yeah. And I had just all seasons on it. I would take that thing snowboarding up to Tahoe like 2030 days a year yeah just be doo doo doo doo just flying past like SUVs and ditches and big trucks and whatever because just like it's low it's got this really nice all wheel mechanical all wheel drive system. And yeah, yeah, man. Nicole Wakelin 13:50 I don't my neighbors. My neighbors have had I think I think they just like she gets rid of one and buys another one. Like there's been this constant. She's like something happens just decides to upgrade but it's always another Subaru and she loves it. She never gets stuck. And she drives through the same crummy side roads that I do to get to my house and like I've seen her like, like blast through snowbanks, just like I did it because there's, Sam Abuelsamid 14:14 at least there's at least three houses in my neighborhood that have multiple Subarus in the draft. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 14:18 they're good when somebody has a what is it is the Crosstrek I think in like this bright orange. Yeah. And it was when it first was around and it's like, I still recognize my call. There's Lauren, her bright orange super track, because it's like, it's like a little beacon in the neighborhood. Sam Abuelsamid 14:38 All right. What about you, Roberta, what did you have? Roberto Baldwin 14:41 So I wanted to continue my adventures with the CT FFIV. The Cadillac CT FFIV. I talked very briefly about last week just because I only had it for like a day or so and drove for a week. And I can tell you that it is outstanding. It is. It is a very fun car. It is a very expensive car. It starts at $84,000 The version I had was 113 $500. So, you know, the cost of your parents first house probably, maybe the second house, it gets horrible gas mileage. They they're saying this 15 miles per gallon, I'll get about 14. And this isn't even when I was on the freeway, for a lot of times I use it to drive up and down to Sonoma a few times. But yeah, it's it's it is such a great manual transmission sports sedan. It's so much fun. I really, really enjoyed having it. I was sad to see it go. They ended up having to take it away a day early. Oh, they didn't have to. They asked me and I'm very nice to my fleet. And they're like, Hey, we're super busy on Friday. We pick it up Thursday. My dad's fine. Nicole Wakelin 15:53 Should have been like, No, I want one more day. Roberto Baldwin 15:58 One more day. But uh, yeah, man transmission six speed. I think I talked I don't know if I remember if I talked about it on the show. But it does have a very high bite for the, for the clutch. Other than that, and once you get used to it, it's fine. You know, it's just it's I asked a couple other people I wanted to make sure because one or two people. journalists were like, That's fine. And like some other journalists like No, I, I experienced that, too. And then I went out into the world and talked to some journalists. And they were like, yeah, the same thing I did wasn't great. And I'm like, Yes, it was. So it has a you know, that Tremec transmission, which it's hard to go wrong with one of those. Yeah, the inside is Cadillac. The power is magic. It's rear wheel drive. You can see you know, when and when you get in, they know what you're going to do. So like in the dash cluster, you get your speed, you got your whatever things you want to see on the right hand side. But on the left hand side, there's a picture of the car and a picture of the wheels. And it says cold, cool, normal because they don't want you just flying around corners with cold tires. Nicole Wakelin 17:03 make you crazy man. Roberto Baldwin 17:04 Like a crazy man. Sam Abuelsamid 17:07 Not like like the 24 Hours of Daytona this past weekend. Roberto Baldwin 17:11 Yeah, exactly. It's got the Pilot Sport for us. Wheel summer wheels on it. It wasn't it wasn't really it wasn't cold. Over the last week, it was just like, you know, 40s But you know, you still had to like sort of warm it up. In order to not go sliding sideways around corners. If that's you know, your thing or not, whatever, a 6.2 liter V 816 Manual. Let me get you the numbers for all the exciting 668 horsepower 659 pound feet of torque. No matter what giros in whenever I depress the accelerator for a little extra power, it was there. It was ready to party at all times. That's the si te fi ve ready to party at all times zero 63.4 seconds. More than a few times. I was surprised by how much power and how quick it was. I really really enjoyed the car. I'm glad Cadillac did it. I know this is it. This is that's that's the end I've heard that CT four v is actually better. But yeah, I haven't driven that one yet. So we'll see. It's you know, smaller car was it's one lesson number Nicole Wakelin 18:20 two lesson one lesson number two lesson Roberto Baldwin 18:23 so you know you're already cutting weight down there, you know go from from V two to V six and you know, smaller car so we'll see we'll see but a CT five Blackwing if you're rich and you want to own a piece of history, I think this is this is the one of the cards to get if you're a fan of Cadillacs. Because after this it's all EVs baby. That's it. Sam Abuelsamid 18:49 You know is the the end of the line for gas Cadillacs. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 18:53 and, and manuals. That's the big, big part a manual Cadillac. I mean, when you really think about it, someone said, Hey, here's a manual five series you'd like Oh, snap, that's exciting. But you're not you're not going to get that that's not going to happen. So Cadillac say, hey, hey, we heard you like manuals. Nicole Wakelin 19:09 We got one of those. Roberto Baldwin 19:10 Yeah, a couple of those land around. We got a big pile of them. You go you got $4,000 We'll help you out. Sam Abuelsamid 19:18 I've always been a fan of that supercharged small block and its various iterations going back to the the LSA in the CTSV a couple of generations ago and the LS nine that was in the ZR one to the 22,009 zr one Corvette, and now this I can't wait to get my hands on on this one. Because you know, it is a lovely engine to drive. Roberto Baldwin 19:45 One of the one of the LS engines just didn't they just say it's going to be discontinued. Sam Abuelsamid 19:50 The LS seven crate engine I Roberto Baldwin 19:51 think is seven. Okay. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 19:54 I saw that earlier today. Roberto Baldwin 19:55 You can't you can't solve all problems with an LS swap but you can solve A couple at least a few, a few problems you can, but not all of life's Yeah, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 20:08 But but you know, the worst problems you can solve by just swapping in an LS, you know, small. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 20:14 yeah, that takes care of the worst of your troubles right there. Roberto Baldwin 20:16 It's not all of them, Sam Abuelsamid 20:18 what's your worst? Once you have that running, you know, everything else will just kind of fall away. So, kids doing Nicole Wakelin 20:26 horrible in school, get it out of a swamp, that's all you need. Sam Abuelsamid 20:30 And the beauty of those small blocks is, even though it's a large displacement engine, it's actually a remarkably compact engine for how much power you get out of it. You know, because it's, you know, people look at it. It's an old pushrod design, but it's actually a surprisingly sophisticated engine. And, you know, they managed to get a lot of power out of a very small and surprisingly lightweight package. It's like a little neutron star. Yeah, pretty much. Roberto Baldwin 21:00 There you go, everybody. Alright. Sam Abuelsamid 21:03 I did not have a VA engine this week. I only had four cylinders. And what I was driving for you guys. You got half a Cadillac? Yeah, half a half a Cadillac. I had to the 2022 Ford Explorer timber line. So before last year, or Yeah, last year started announcing Timberline editions of their various SUVs. I think so far, they've announced the the expedition and the Explorer. I'm guessing that probably later this sometime this year, we'll probably hear about a timber line escape or maybe Bronco sport. These are the more off roadie versions of their respective models. So in the case of the Explorer, you get slightly more ground clearance, you get Bridgestone dueler, altering tires, a Torsen, limited slip, rear differential skid plates, some really nice attractive, you know, relatively subtle red trim stripes on the the front facia, and are they read, Nicole Wakelin 22:16 they can read the stripes actually be subtle isn't the fact that they're read demandable not, they're very Sam Abuelsamid 22:21 thin. So you know, they don't, they don't scream at you, you know, it's enough to say, hey, there's something different here. And, and the, the wilderness also has these auxiliary lights, LED lights in the grill, that the the switch for them is actually just on the left hand side, under the dash on the underside of the dashboard just below where the headlight switches. And the there's a little LED that they've installed there to let you know when those are on. So the the bottom half inside the head, there's a rotary knob for the headlights on the Explorer. And then there's a two two part switch inside that the top one is for the fog lights, the bottom one turns on these auxiliary lights and then there's this, this little orange light below it that comes on when the when you're when you turn the exhilarate lights that really looks tacked on, you know, that looks like something, you know, an aftermarket thing that somebody installed themselves, really and that little, unfortunately, it's kind of it's out of the way you don't really notice it very much. But if you look at it, you realize that was really an afterthought. Roberto Baldwin 23:37 In the rotary portion, it's just, it's just Sam Abuelsamid 23:40 below the rotary thing. It's just to show you that you're using the auxiliary lights right, which you don't actually need because those things are so bright, you know, when you're on Roberto Baldwin 23:49 a road in the middle of nowhere, you're not exactly right. Sam Abuelsamid 23:52 You absolutely do not ever want to use these driving around wherever there's any other vehicles around because you will blind people. And these things are really bright. And they are you know, they basically flood the whole area in front of you. So absolutely don't turn on those auxiliary lights if there's if there's other cars coming towards you. But the the only engine you can get in the timber line is the 2.3 liter EcoBoost which is the base engine in the Explorer. And it's a nice engine. I mean this is you know the same engine you get in the base Mustangs. It was in the Focus RS in a slightly more powerful version. Ford used it in a bunch of different vehicles, both front wheel drive and rear drive. And in this particular application, it makes 300 horsepower 310 foot pounds of torque, which is plenty it's relatively loud, but not obnoxiously slow obnoxious Lee so and it's it gives you more than enough performance you know for This thing and the Explorer with the four cylinder weighs somewhere around 4500 pounds. So it's a nice responsive engine. I didn't get a chance to go off into any really deep snow with it to see how well the the Bridgestone douleurs work. But I did drive it around on some, some rural dirt roads that had some mix of snow and ice covering on there. It was fine it behaved behaved itself really well. While controlled. Yeah, the Explorer is it's a good upper mid size three row SUV in the same class as a Kia Telluride, Hyundai palisade. More it is it is a rear drive architecture. And it's it's more of a true four wheel drive than the all wheel drive systems that are on on the those front wheel drive based crossovers. So it does have more, I think it has more off road capability than what you'll typically find in those. If you do decide to take this thing off road, it only has 8.7 inches of ground clearance, which I think is probably it's about the same as what you get in that Subaru. So it's not a huge amount of ground clearance. But you do have the skid plates on there. So if you bashed it any rocks, you're hopefully not going to punch a hole in your oil pan. The see the base explorer starts at about 33 and a half $1,000 The Timberline is 46,245 and the only options that were online were the $165 cargo area management system, and the $1,700 twin panel moonroof, which with the $1,245 destination charge brought the final tab to $49,120. Which is kind of pricey. You know, it's not it's comparable to what you'll pay for a loaded Telluride or palisade but as I said, it's got a little more off road capability. The towing it'll tell about 5300 pounds with the four cylinder. One thing that little disappointing in all the current generation explorers is the the screens for the infotainment the this one has the the base eight inch touchscreen, which by today's standards seems a little small, small. Yeah, it's not it's not terrible, but it's a little on the small side. And you can't get the the the optional 10 inch screen that they have on some on the Platinum and the Explorer St. But even that one, you know, the way they did that one, you know, they it's it's portrait style, and they didn't do a really good job on the portrait style 10 inch screen with reorganizing the information on there, I think once they finally upgraded the Explorer to sync four, because it's still running sync three. Once it gets synced, it'll probably be better. And they'll probably do that next year I think for mid cycle refresh. Oh, and the I think the only color you can get on the timber line is dark green color, which is actually a really nice color. I like it a lot. But if you want some Oh no, sorry. There are a few other colors. There's there's a blue stone blue. A couple of Gray's. Nicole Wakelin 28:34 Why do they call the dark green. It can't just be dark green. Sam Abuelsamid 28:37 It is. Nicole Wakelin 28:38 It's just dark green. Sam Abuelsamid 28:39 It is forged green. Roberto Baldwin 28:42 Oh or, like green. That's right. But not a word. Sam Abuelsamid 28:48 But you know why you would call it forged green? I don't know because anything that you're going to put into a forage is never going to come out looking anything like this color. Nicole Wakelin 28:58 Should be forest green or pine green or or leafy green. leafy green leafy greens. Not really. Roberto Baldwin 29:07 It's too dark broccoli, green salad greens. It's Sam Abuelsamid 29:10 a very dark green. Yeah. Arugula, green forest. forester. Pine. Yeah. Forest. Nicole Wakelin 29:16 Green Connor conifer, right? Yeah, for green. Sam Abuelsamid 29:21 So that is the 2022 Ford Explorer timber line. So let's move on to some other stuff. Other stuff, other stuff. So let's start off with our friendly periodic reminder that when you buy vehicles that have any sort of over the air update capability and conductivity you probably shouldn't consider that you actually own any of the features on there. There's always the risk that the manufacturer could decide for no apparent reason or at least no no reason that makes any sense to you that no, you can't have this feature anymore. And especially, it's especially annoying if it's something you paid for, like, you know, if you bought a Tesla and paid 10, or $12,000 for the full self driving package, and then you decide to sell it. And he realized that the whoever you sold it to, doesn't no longer has that feature. And so you can't get that added to your resale value. You know, that's kind of annoying. And there's another another bit of news that popped up the other day about Tesla that they're doing. That is also annoying. I saw this and also one of our patrons, John Bonta. Steel, also sent in this link. Turns out that Tesla is now monitoring how often you adjust your seat position. And if you adjust your seat position too frequently, they will, it'll turn off. They won't let you adjust it anymore. Roberto Baldwin 31:01 They turn it off now or is there the capability to turn it off? Because they have the hacker green? I forget the hacker who found who finds everything in those. So I don't think it's on yet. But it's Sam Abuelsamid 31:12 there. Yeah. Well, the fact that they would even consider something like this. That's correct. Yeah. is ridiculous. Roberto Baldwin 31:20 A lumbar support buddy. Nicole Wakelin 31:22 I love that. It's called quote, seat abuse metrics. Like I'm sorry, you have over adjusted your seat stop being abusive, we're turning that off for five minutes and come back, it's like they sent you to the corner, you go sit in your timeout spot and come back to us when you can play nicely. Like Roberto Baldwin 31:38 my seats a lot too. There's always like a little minutia like a little bit here a little bit. Like if I'm gonna be like, if the divers are gonna be a little bit aggressive, I like adjust a little bit if it's not gonna be as aggressive. I just a little bit like on me just my lumbar support, if I'm only in the car for a few minutes. And Sam Abuelsamid 31:53 this is a long road trip. You know? Nicole Wakelin 31:56 Listen, though, it goes on to say when they got further in and it says 90 seconds of use in five minutes will trigger the warning message? Well, 120 seconds of use and five minutes will disable the motor. So you just have to be adjusting that solidly for two solid, right? Yeah, two solid minutes in any five minute period. Two minutes of adjusting as a lot of seat adjusting, Roberto Baldwin 32:18 like the choice of like, is it two minutes of adjustment? Or is there is it reset, or have you let go have a button Nicole Wakelin 32:24 120 seconds of use in five minutes, they disable it 90 seconds of use in five minutes, you just get a warning. So they do Roberto Baldwin 32:34 that the thing is, we don't know what their definition of uses, like there is every time you let go or is it or is it like you can use it and then five set like there's a five second window between each time you touch a button that it says oh, you know, Nicole Wakelin 32:48 you're actively moving the button. That's two seconds. Now it's not timing you because now you're not using the button and now you're moving it again. So that's more seconds. Roberto Baldwin 32:57 I feel like it's probably there's probably a little bit of like time in there that they've built in for 120 seconds because how would you be there when it just be impossible Nicole Wakelin 33:06 like rocking back and forth BACKWARD FORWARD back to the seat and is just playing with the seat while you're driving? How does that even work? Roberto Baldwin 33:18 Which is also brings up the fact why because they had to have seen this sort of behavior somewhere. And if it's if it's if it's how you say where someone's using it for two minutes straight, like how many people are using it for two minutes straight for them to say you know what? Let's put this thing in this weird edge case Sam Abuelsamid 33:38 my guess is they probably had some warranty claims with because if you're doing this you know that much and motors gonna heat up this yes Nicole Wakelin 33:48 that that there was something about there's they've changed the vendor it says Tesla appears to have a new front seat vendor for the model three and model Y so maybe something changed was still like, but you think that many people were like, like, like Robbie said, how many people are doing that? That's why it's burning out like you're just is it like it just a nervous tic you're just like up down up, down up, down up down not paying any attention. Roberto Baldwin 34:14 You know, it's manual massage. You know, the Mercedes Benz if it doesn't have massage seats, you can set you can set it where it like, just sort of adjust the seat every few minutes. Yeah, every few seconds. It's like it's not a real massage. It's sort of like we're just kind of like move the seat a little bit so like your body doesn't get stuck in one spot. Maybe that's what someone's been doing. They're like manually massaging themselves lumbar Nicole Wakelin 34:41 Tesla. Do you know anyone has a test that you don't know that's just I want someone to do this. I want someone to constantly if anyone's listening Sam Abuelsamid 34:48 to Alex Roy and as I was Nicole Wakelin 34:51 driving when you're not moving so there's no driving. Just just do it back up just like see if you get this like yeah, I need to know if this happened. See if he can. If he paused and counted three between adjustments I just need someone to let me borrow their Testa for five minutes to play with the Roberto Baldwin 35:06 seat or take longer and five minutes. Yeah, it's it's there. It's like, can you leave a Tesla for two days? Like that's important science? Nicole Wakelin 35:18 I do know one person who hasn't, I'm gonna hit him up, I'm gonna make him I'm gonna say you have to play with the Tesla. You have to sit the driveway and do this for me. He's gonna be like, what? Roberto Baldwin 35:26 Oh, they probably they're like, oh, no, we're just turning this off after it got found. Sam Abuelsamid 35:31 See what happens? First, you get smoke coming from out of your seat? Or does you get a warning message? Roberto Baldwin 35:36 What happens first fire or warning? Nicole Wakelin 35:40 I'm doing it. I'm messaging him right this minute as we speak. Sam Abuelsamid 35:44 Now. All right. While you do that, let's move on. Last week, Roberto, you went to a program, not just basically in your backyard with Ford, that they were doing for Ford Pro. And you get to well, you get to drive one vehicle and ride along in another Why don't you tell us about that. Roberto Baldwin 36:05 So Ford had their four pro event up here in Sonoma, which was near my house, any event that's near my house is automatically the best event. Because I just drive there, and the CT FFIV. That's what I drove up to the Ford event. So the idea was that they were showing off the Pro versions of their vehicles. And these are vehicles that they're building for businesses, it's not for you and me, it's for business. Unless, of course, you have a business, I don't have a business other than me just sitting around writing, and I don't need a transport for that. So the transit, the transit is their electric version of the transit vehicle, it's one of their really well, so if you look around your town, you're gonna and you just sort of pay attention for about an hour while you're driving, you're gonna see a lot of transits are rolling around. It's their little van. It's the it's like this, these have the economy line. But now the transit came over from Europe. And the transit is doing pretty well for what it is, well, they decided to make an easy version of it. And I drove it. And in addition to driving that, they also talked about their telematics system, which seems if you're a if you're a business, or you're the boss of a fleet, you know, if you're the fleet Boss, this telematics system is actually pretty cool, because, you know, it keeps track of all the vehicles all the drivers how much energy they're using, how much gas they're using, and not only will work on Ford vehicles from 2020, with modems, but you can get an ODB like little dongle that you can plug into other vehicles, so you can use it your Silverado, you can use your tundras or whatever. But back to the E Transit transit is their their van, it's the exact same dimensions as the regular a transit. So anything you've built out for your transit, you can just shove it into the transit, it has 126 miles of range, which doesn't seem like a lot, and it's really not a lot. But when you take into consideration when you have these businesses, you know, maybe they're going to a site, maybe they're just moving things around town, they don't really drive that far. You know, Ford did some research and they got about 70 I believe it was 78 was the average miles driven by transits. So, and ended up working really well with 126 Miles is almost about 15 miles extra based on the average use of the vehicle. And I got to drive it and it's really nice because they replaced the rear suspension with a what's that word when the suspension isn't independent rear suspension, it's like the same as your foot. They have independent rear suspension. So if you've ever driven a transit, you know whenever you hit anything, the back of the transit just like it's just a clanging machine even there's nothing back there. Is everything. Sam Abuelsamid 38:59 A big giant steel box? Yes, a big giant steel box. Roberto Baldwin 39:03 So so they because of the the the motors back there, the battery is you know, it's in the middle but also you know, it's it's towards the back. And so it's you know, you're creating all this extra weight, you couldn't just have that boring, straight, you know, axle back there, you had to have this nice independent suspension and because of that it rides nicer than the regular transit. So it was it's it's it's it rides nicer, it's quieter. You probably don't think a lot about road noise roid road noise in your daily life you don't you know, unless you have a very loud veiling, you got a wrangler or something, you know, the CT five years, it had a lot of road noise, but it's also like a performance vehicle. But if your job is to sit behind the wheel of a van for eight hours a day and just drive around, turn it on, turn it off, turn it on, turn it off So, removing that road noise is or at least the engine noise is actually really nice. When you have a nice, a much quieter experience, it doesn't screw with your brain as much. So I feel like it's probably for those who have to drive these vehicles is probably going to be a more comfortable experience, you are going to be tracked probably a little bit more than you were before. But you know, if you're the person who's been driving around in your transit vehicle, like a bat out of hell, I mean, your boss has already noticed anyway, so they've already yelled at you. So now they just asked, yeah, several times. So now they just have that information, like right away. And what's fun. And, and actually, the opposite of fun is that it'll scold you while you're driving. And it doesn't just say slow down, or, you know, don't break hard, and has this whole long spiel that takes a few seconds, that tell you like when you're, it's like, oh, for maximum that that I don't drive this. It takes a few seconds for it to tell you not to just slam on the accelerator, a slap on the brake Nicole Wakelin 41:08 chastises you like You dummy, don't do what you're doing drive like this. Roberto Baldwin 41:12 Exactly. So it's not like this really quick like, please do not, you know, do this. It's just like this whole wall. Don't do this. And this is why and just like, oh my god, it's gonna be a better employee, a better employee saving money saving the Nicole Wakelin 41:28 environment, HR department right there with you. Yeah, yeah. Roberto Baldwin 41:32 This is Phil from HR, he'll be riding with you today. So it's a little, it's a little like that. And it turns out my if I was in a hurry to get back, because we were running out of time, because we had to get back in order to ride along in the f150. Lightning. So on our way out, when we're shooting video and just drive it out, it was fine. It only happened when I was like, you know, trying to make it happen. But then on the way back, it was just yelling at me constantly, because I was like, We got to get back. We got we're gonna get there with like five minutes to spare, we gotta hurry. It's like, please do not driving. The car was just yelling at me every time I don't like it wouldn't have time to finish telling me how bad I was. Before I slammed on the accelerator at the stop. Sam Abuelsamid 42:19 It just it just keeps keeps going until it finishes the current message, it doesn't interrupt and start over again, from the beginning. Every Roberto Baldwin 42:24 time they get interrupted and started over, I think it interrupted the next message. So if I'm slamming on the brakes to get to a stop sign, it starts telling me something. There's no one around, it's like slam on the accelerator take off and it's like, Oh, hold on, there's a whole other issue going on. Clearly this guy needs to be fired. i What's nice is that Ford was I'm sure tracking this because that's the whole point of this vehicle. So they're probably looking at isn't like, Oh my God, who is this? Because you don't need because, you know, I don't think people realize when you go on Drive programs, they're actually tracking the car. A lot of times those something in the car I've been in, I've been in vehicles where like, especially in Europe, where you'll pull over to do something, and someone will appear out of nowhere and be like, Hey, we just want to make sure everything was okay, because they thought maybe had broken down. It's a brand new vehicle. It's a prototype. I'm like, no, no, no, we're just taking pictures like, okay, cool. And you like how do they know where we are. And you lift up the trunk. And he looked up a little thing. And there's like a little thing inside like, you're being tracked by Batman. So now now now afford Pro you can do that with every vehicle, like Batman. Sam Abuelsamid 43:30 Yeah, a couple years ago, I interviewed Jim Farley, before he was CEO of company. And you know, one of the things he was telling me the story, he was in San Francisco with another Ford executive. And generally, California has not considered a great market for the domestic automakers. But they were standing on a corner in San Francisco. And he said to whoever he didn't say who the other person was, but he said, Look at look around, look at look at all these Ford vehicles all around us. And they said, Well, I don't see any. And the problem is the other executive was looking for Ford cars and trucks, trucks, SUVs and stuff. The types of things that people pay attention to when they think. Yeah, and but if in fact, he said, No, if you look around, look at all these white transit vans and transit connects. And, you know, F 150s, you know, you know, for various for various commercial operators, you know, they that that's their biggest market in California. You know, the biggest base of customers is those commercial customers. And as they go to electrification, that's, you know, that's a key market segment for them because they understand what those customers need. And you know that operating costs are a huge factor for those customers much more so than for regular consumers. I had a transit that I borrowed from Ford in late 2020, to help my daughter move, and it was similar to the one you had in the video there, Robbie, you know, the tall roof long body one, wow. And that, you know, driving around here, you know, that thing got about 12 miles per gallon, you know, going from 1213 miles per gallon and a big van like that, to an Eevee. You know, we're using way, way less energy even even when that thing's loaded up. You know, that's, that's a huge cost savings for them, for the operators of those vehicles. So, I think, you know, I think the E Transit is gonna be a big hit for Ford, Roberto Baldwin 45:44 oh, it's gonna be I think it's gonna be a huge hit, just I mean, efficiency wise. You know, the, you have all these various, you know, you can set up how you want your region to work, you need to have it 100% Or you can like, you could tap the brake, you tap the brake, once, you get 30%, you tap it twice, you get 60, you tap it a third time, you get 100%, which is great, especially in like, again, San Francisco, there's all these giant hills. And so you don't want 100% regen, you don't want like sort of stopping. Yeah, you don't you don't want one pedal driving, when you're doing that. You want to be able to adjust it a little bit. And if you could just like, you know, just very quickly tap at your foot and just get used to that, you know, you're you're 60% on a hill like California, you know, you're making money. Which is, you know, you're well, you know, you're you're generating energy, which is something you're not going to do in a gas vehicle. And you know, San Francisco is silly with, with, like, you know, transits and f150 There's so many white f150 Because there's a ton a ton of contractors in San Francisco it is. It is a it is a city always under under construction. There's just hundreds of millions feel like yeah, if you leave at a certain time of day, if you leave after like 10am It's nothing. The only thing on the road is F 150s. And then Ubers just clogging everything. Sam Abuelsamid 47:12 Yeah, you know, the vans, you know that they're used by electricians, plumbers, delivery companies, caterers, florists, you name it, they you know, they're all using transit vans. Roberto Baldwin 47:24 Yeah, no, it's it's an it was interesting as they they did talk a little bit about van life, I was there just very, and we're not going to talk about future projects, blah, blah, blah. But if you're the type person, you know, I know, people who have bought transit vans or friends of friends for their band for Burning Man, which is very northern California thing. So you know, in the future, there's going to be a van that probably has 250 miles, maybe 300 miles. But right now, I mean, you really want to hit that core audience, you want to hit that core, customer group. And Ford is happy to sell you an E Transit. And that's not going to work for you still have the transit there. Yeah, no matter what. Ford is happy to sell. Yeah, they got to cover. And then the F 150. The reason I was driving the E Transit so badly at the end of the day, we got to sit in it. It has Ed torque. It just you get inside of it. It just looks like the current generation F 150. Which again, for especially for business customers, that's all they want. Right? You know what I mean? They don't need fancy schmancy stuff. They don't need gimmicks they want this is, you know, if if your employee gets out of one f150 into another f150, they shouldn't have to like, oh, wait, hold on, where is everything, you just want them to get into the truck and go deliver or go pick up or go to the worksite and do the work? And so yeah, the F 150 has, you know, they have their onboard power in the back. There's two there's six, six powers. Yeah, there's six outlets, there's two in the giant frog. The thing is huge. are like 400 pounds and Sam Abuelsamid 49:01 you get four in the front before in the trunk, front trunk. Roberto Baldwin 49:05 There's two in the front. There's four you can get four in the bed. You can get an extra 240 and another 120 in the bed. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 49:13 I think if you get if you get the 9.6 kilowatt the structure the more powerful version oh you get four in the front trunk. Roberto Baldwin 49:20 So you get a there's 10 there's two in the car. Yeah, you can get a lot of power. So yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's it is definitely you know, what Ford is doing. For you know the F 150s Number one selling vehicle ever. That's at this point. Three decades and number one selling vehicle for decades and then one selling pickup making that an Eevee is a huge, huge, huge deal and then making sure that the commercial segment, get that EV is also huge because again there's you know after a certain hour in San Francisco and I'm sure in other cities and other towns and even here out in the burbs Lot F 150s A lot of you know they Just the when one dies, they just take all their bits off of it and shove it on the other one a new one, and then just go back to whatever they're doing. And that's, that's, you know, that's what they want. And that's what Ford is giving them. And they're give it to them in an Eevee with a lot of these cool little options that actually work for them as a business as opposed to just sort of gimmicky stuff that the rest of us like Nicole Wakelin 50:23 Mickey stuff, all the necessary extra stuff, Roberto Baldwin 50:28 the sort of, you know, the stuff that we like, you know, for the kids, Nicole Wakelin 50:32 or the kids like playing with seats just for the kids. Roberto Baldwin 50:36 For the kid, don't use the seat up too much, though. You don't want to wear that motor down. Without her Don't worry about that motor. Sam Abuelsamid 50:44 Okay, another thing that I think both of you got to drive last week was the key of Evie six. Yes. And tell me about it. How was it? Sorry, Nicole Wakelin 50:57 no, go ahead. First, Robbie. Roberto Baldwin 51:02 It's really you know what, it's really good. It's actually and I think the ionic five isn't the the Evie six. And the reason they they look like this is in pictures. They're like way smaller than they do in real life. That's because the wheels have been pushed out. The wheelbase is really wide on these as they push out to the end. And so the vehicles you have in your brain as a point of reference are the smaller vehicles that you could do that with. And so you look at it and then you get there and it's about it's like an inch and a half within like a three series BMW. That's how big it is. It's not a small car. It's a medium sized sedan, essentially, they call it a CU V. Which is just a fancy Sam Abuelsamid 51:41 if you call it a sedan or hatchback nobody's gonna buy it. No one's gonna buy it. Roberto Baldwin 51:44 Yeah, so yeah, the crossover Yeah. Have to crawl across. It's a it's a it's a it's a wagon. Nicole Wakelin 51:55 Robbie. Oh, my Roberto Baldwin 51:56 face wagon. How about you? Anyway, um, I really liked it. I think they only had us driving the GT Line. So we had the all wheel drive with drive the all wheel drive and then the rear wheel drive version. Yeah. Well, I actually said, Whoa, when I stuck in in sport mode while I had my foot on the accelerator, Nicole Wakelin 52:16 like, Whoa, where did you do it? Like a surfer was like, Whoa, Roberto Baldwin 52:19 no, no, it was more like, whoa, cuz I wasn't anticipating as much power. My only and I'm really this I feel like I'm almost picking on like, trying to find something wrong with this vehicle is that the power to handling ratio like it has. So it's just so quick, that if you're going on really tight corners, you have a lot of body roll. That's it. And so you do you are going to like it will break free I got to break for you. Well, I'm just me. Nicole Wakelin 52:50 This This was this what was this the all wheel drive one or the both of them, I was able to get them both. So see I found with the I didn't have that problem as much with the all wheel drive, it felt much more stable, much more competitive. Because we were on these they had a really cool driver, but is very, very twisty, like extremely twisty, which is good. But also if the car isn't up to it, it's bad. So I felt like on the first button to the rear wheel drive, I felt like it was a little bit sloppy. But then the second batch I had the all wheel drive and it was fine. Fine. It was great. actually really like Roberto Baldwin 53:23 the second the second the first portion was a lot of really wide sweeping turns. The second portion was a lot of really tight and I had an opposite while I had all day and the wide Sweepers and then the rear wheel drive and the short tight ones. But again, I you know I'm driving, you know, I'm pushing the vehicle more than the average person more than 90% of people who drive this car not going to do what I was doing. So it is it is again it is really like sort of splitting hairs just to find something wrong with this. Because there was room in the front there's a look but the seat all the way back where I fit in the driver's seat. I got in the backseat and they're still like knee room. There's you know, you put the seats down. It has that cool little capacitive touch thing which I thought I wasn't gonna like and then I ended up like, Oh, so you can change the call. Yeah, below the the the touchscreen is this capacitive touch this capacitive touch area that you hit a button and it's either the controls for your climate control in your stereo, or you hit the little button. It's the control like the quick keys for the for the Who's it what do you call a touchscreen I just talked about for your infotainment system, man. My brains are Nicole Wakelin 54:34 no words today. We're all like Mondays because we're recording it on Monday night instead of a Sunday. That's what it is. Roberto Baldwin 54:43 But no, I really I enjoy the Annika I like the five better. But at this point at this point it's really I really think it's just down to you drive those cars and you just forgot which one you like better. I don't think one's really like if you if you if you think about them as As vehicles on the road, they're both outstanding EVs. They're both you know, but you're just like, Well, I think I like this one done. I think it really is like that, Nicole Wakelin 55:09 which sounds like a not answer answer, but I agree with you, Robbie, that it gets to that point where we, you know, there's so close in so many ways that Oh, this one's got a little bit of an edge here, but that one has a little bit of an edge there. It's It's such it's such small differences between the two and the things that you might like about one or not like versus the other that it really does come down to put your button the driver's seat and drive it and see how you like it. Like for you for your body for your driving style for everything you personally like. Do you like it? Because really, they're both great vehicles. I don't think you can go wrong with either one. I like them both. And I like the styling of both like and that the taillights on the back of the key on the Evie six. Those are cool the way Roberto Baldwin 55:53 it's way cooler in person, it kind of turns you off, go and look at it because you're like oh, Nicole Wakelin 56:00 it's slick looking in person. And I also like that what I like at the front you know you like so many EVs have because you don't need the you know, the grill the cool everything it's just like this block like just like just kind of the front this one's still kind of the way it they've sculpted it down and the way they've created it kind of looks like there's a grill but it's like there's not but there's a little bit underneath like I like the front that it looks like a traditional car more is as opposed to this weird cars SUVs word are like Evie thing like we got to make it look funky and different in front. No, don't do that. That's weird. Make it look like a normal car and I like how they did the front of it. I thought it was I like the styling a little bit a Scotia better on the Evie six A Scotia Stratego. Roberto Baldwin 56:42 See I like the ionic five the styling on the Ionic. That's where it comes down. That's completely wrong. Now you got to choose from it. Sam Abuelsamid 56:52 That's why Hyundai Hyundai Motor Group has these two, actually three different brands. Yeah, because they're, I mean, these are under the skin. These aren't the same car, as is the new Genesis gV 60 That's coming later this spring, you know, they're all three are the same car, but they all look quite different from each other. You know, I suspect that, you know, I think the, you know, the ionic and the, kiya. You know, both drive got a pretty similar performance, they drive pretty similarly to each other. You know, I don't know how much they'll refine that or change that for the Genesis. You know, certainly the Genesis will has a different interior look to it. But yeah, I mean, it basically comes down to you know, typical, take a look at it, either one, I think is going to be a great car. Yeah, it's just which one do you like, the looks up better? Roberto Baldwin 57:43 Yeah, that kind of comes down to and you know, it's funny, because, you know, when you when you when you drive these vehicles, I you know, I was pushing the vehicles pretty hard. Because it's the GT Line. And that's what when you when you give us the GT Line, that's what people kind of want to see. But at some point, when I was in the rear wheel drive version, I was driving, we were driving around clear, like clear, like a lake and Northern California, just sort of like driving, I was doing about 40 to 55 miles an hour, just sort of, you know, cruising, and I was getting 4.9 miles per kilowatt hour. And that thing. That's crazy. That's because if you do the math, it's about four miles per kilowatt hour now Keya wouldn't give us the they said they didn't know they wouldn't get I don't know, they just wouldn't tell us what the gross versus usable battery pack is. So you know, we don't you know, like Well, it's, Sam Abuelsamid 58:33 it's 77.4 for the for the extended range version is Roberto Baldwin 58:39 Yeah, so is that but they wouldn't tell us that that was the gross that's all the battery or if that's the usable so it's in and that makes a difference when you're trying to calculate efficiency because if it's the gross and the usable is lower that means it's insanely efficient car you're probably looking at 4.5 kilowatt if you do it at that's if that's 77.2 usable, or they're allowing you to use to use the entire pack it's still four miles per kilowatt hour based on what their you know, their EPA targets was but I'm getting 4.9 just cruising around in the rear wheel drive and it has 310 miles of range and you're like what is happening? This is crazy amazing this is amazing and you know they've been thinking has been and Hyundai have been slowly sort of like really high up there when it comes to the efficiency numbers like one of the reasons I bought the Kona Electric is because the efficiency now it's like we're getting Sam Abuelsamid 59:31 crazy efficient. Yeah, yeah. And this these things also charge really fast. 350 Yeah, it's it's does the same 10 to 80% charge in what 18 minutes, which is ridiculous. Roberto Baldwin 59:46 That that's enough time to get out of the car. You don't realize how quick time how quick time passes when you go into the like the how long you're sitting at like the store or whatever going into get food because I remember when I was driving a model three really to Las Vegas one year for CES, I was like, Okay, well, I'm almost enemy plug it in. And I think it was like 200 Something kilowatts, and I went in to get food, and I'd be sitting there and I wouldn't be doing my food, it'd be like, Hey, you got to pay you got, you know, 30 more minutes where we start charging you for, or 10 more minutes for which are charging for idle time, like, Oh, God, right when you run, run, run. So when you get to 350 It doesn't have to have you know, this weird 500 miles of range or even 400 miles range because it charges so quickly. If Well, that is if you can find the charge. There's that. Yeah, if you find an eh station, that's 350 and working, even attending like 250 to 7300 You're still going to be like Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:47 Okay. All right. Let's answer some questions from the listeners. First up this week, we've got one from Z vm 327. He says, I leased a plug in hybrid Volvo six v 60. Pollstar great dependable daily. And I applaud you for buying a station wagon. None of this jack data v 60. vs. XC 60 Roberto Baldwin 1:01:13 v 60. Pro V six. Nice. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:16 Yeah. I love the V 60. Pollstar. Anyway, it is the the first car I've ever leased. I did. So due to charging to changing technology and complexity. Is, is technology at a point where in three years above, he's thinking mentions the Eevee, six, our best value hasn't been devalued to a point making a lease still a better bet. So, you know, right now, it's kind of a weird time, me when it comes to residual values, because, you know, we've got the the chip shortage, and there's so little supply of new cars. And so, resale values are way higher than they traditionally have been. I was I was actually looking at the the resale value of our car or 2017 Honda Civic today, because I was just doing some comparison against something. And it turns out, we paid 24,000 for new five years ago. And it's still worth or it's worth right now. It's worth almost $22,000 After five years Roberto Baldwin 1:02:25 are we bought our Beardy for 18? Five I believe, and I could sell it for 2021. Right now, why? Well, I know why, but still crazy. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:36 But you know, to the question here, you know, I think we are getting to the point where a lot of these newer EVs you know what, because one of the problems in the past with EVs, especially like the early leafs and volts and some of the other ones is that they, they did have really terrible resale values, because people didn't know what kind of condition the battery was going to be in. And what we've, what we've learned is that batteries, actually, most EVs actually hold up really well over time. So except for those air cooled leaf batteries, which tend to degrade more than most others, all the others pretty much hold up pretty well. So, you know, I think, you know, in three years time when your lease is up on the the Volvo, you know, you could probably go look at a pole star three and, or, you know, or a Volvo, you know, whatever the replacement is for the V 60. It'll probably be out around that time. And it'll probably be a great choice for you, you know, to buy it, you know, you probably don't have to worry about leasing, you know, the resale value will probably be fine at that point. Roberto Baldwin 1:03:43 Yeah, three, yeah. I mean, there's there I mean, there's always the the problem with with with BEVs is just the technology is moving so quickly. But at the same time, it's like, well, I don't I'm not going to get the new phone because another phones coming out. I'm like, You know what, at some point, you're going to need a Nicole Wakelin 1:03:55 phone. Forever. Roberto Baldwin 1:03:59 Yeah, you can't delay in this like, well, this is the year you know, I heard somebody say that somebody just somebody that somebody and then solid state comes at the end of that sentence. Maybe it's still Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:10 eventually Sunday. Roberto Baldwin 1:04:11 I think we still got a little while first because there's the once they actually figure it out, then they got to do like couple of years of testing and lab lab and I say three years I think you're you're not going to buy a bag and then six months later, someone's gonna be like we finished we figured out solid state. It's gonna be in a car tomorrow. No, no. Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:28 Well, even Toyota is one of the companies has been working on solid state batteries. One of many that's been working on solid state batteries and many expected to be the first to launch something with solid state said like a week or two ago that yeah, we're we're looking at we're probably going to watch solid state batteries in 2025. There's going to be in a hybrid, not in a battery electric because we still don't know if we can do a large format. Large size. Yeah, solid state battery. So it's going to be in hybrids before it's in in BEVs. All right, next question from John healthiest. With the terrible weather here in the North lately. He's in Ohio, I was having an online discussion with other maki owners on what is the best mode to drive the car in during adverse snow and ice conditions. One friend drives in one pedal mode normally and keeps it in one pedal mode. I also drive in one pedal mode all the time, but did not feel confident in bad conditions. I switched the car to whisper He's normally and engage mode and turn off one pedal and push the L button on the shifter for more gentle regenerative braking. I want more control. And after 40 years, after 40 years of driving 40 years of driving internal combustion. I don't want my reflexes to take over and a bad situation, let off the accelerator and find instead of coasting I'm now sliding sideways. Is there any better suggestion for bad conditions? Nicole Wakelin 1:05:53 I never thought about that. Roberto Baldwin 1:05:55 I think John is correct. With because I you know, here's I'm going to tell a little story about the Evie six where I was going around the corner, I was going a little too quick. And you know you've left you slowly left because you don't want that weight transfer of slamming the brakes because it pushes the the front of the car down and lift at the back. So now you're losing everything, you know. So it creates so I was in one pedal mode, essentially while I was doing it. And so I felt it like oh, wait, maybe? Yeah, so I think John is correct. So yeah, because you are giving away your art your art just automatically put it on the brakes and one pedal mode. Nicole Wakelin 1:06:29 Because this essentially the same thing is like if you've slammed the brakes on, and you don't want to do that, Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:35 yeah, well, I would add a couple of caveats there. One, I think, particularly if you have a single motor version of either the maki or the Evie six and the ionic five, because the single motor versions, those are rear wheel drive. And so the regen is all going to be coming off the rear axle. And that is going to exacerbate things. So if you if you lift off the accelerator, you know, on a slippery road, you know, you're going to be doing all your braking on the rear wheels, which is not what you normally would get, and in most cars, and so it is good. So it probably is a good idea to turn off the one pedal drive mode, when you know when you're in those kinds of conditions with that vehicle. If you have dual motor all wheel drive, then I think it's less of an issue because most of that braking, most of that regen braking is going to come off the front axle. And there when you got the heavy braking on the front, it's going to be more stable than it would be, you're not going to be as likely to have the back end coming around on you like that. The other thing I would say is, you know, once you get more used to driving it in those kinds of conditions, and you know, what I would recommend is, you know, when you get a chance, go out, you know, find an area, whether it's a big empty parking lot or you know, a row back road somewhere where there's nobody around, do a little practice, and get used to how it feels get get used to the feel of how you modulate that pedal, you know, so try it with one pedal driving. And you know, just practice that. And I think once you once you build up that muscle memory with one pedal driving, you're not going to be as likely to just automatically just lift your foot off the accelerator and have that reflex, like you mentioned in there. Roberto Baldwin 1:08:29 Yeah, what he said, I think the lowest version of one pedal would probably be best just for especially now because he will slow you down as opposed to just gliding, which is probably not what you want. Because usually you would like lift your left and then like kind of like see what's going on and then slowly put on the brake. But I think if you have the gentlest version of regen on your vehicle, I think it would just that would actually worked out really well. Especially on the all wheels. Sam Abuelsamid 1:08:55 And of course you know the thing you know, you still have electronic stability control on there. So you know if the car does start to oversteer or understeer, it will adjust the region automatically. You know if it's braking too aggressively for the amount of traction you have, so it'll it'll cut back on that diesel. Roberto Baldwin 1:09:15 Yeah, good times. All right, the magic of all wheel drive in an Eevee though, like every tire is like adjusted within milliseconds. Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:22 Yep. All right. Next one is from oh that flow Florence ion if you Oh, if you're a listener to all about Android or gadgets from Gizmodo, or read Gizmodo, you'll be familiar with Flo. Flo has got a daughter who's coming up on her second birthday in a couple of weeks. She wants to know what is a cute mom two seater that I could consider for my post child life crisis. Yeah, Miata or BRC? Or, you know, yeah, a gr 86. You know, there's not a whole lot of You know, relatively inexpensive two seaters out there anymore. Roberto Baldwin 1:10:05 But the ones that are out there are outstanding Nicole Wakelin 1:10:10 Miata I mean Miata is the answer is always Miata, right? I mean, for good reason. I, Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:15 especially if you live in California, you know where you got, oh, yeah. Great driving rains, and it doesn't rain very often. Nicole Wakelin 1:10:20 Exactly. Roberto Baldwin 1:10:21 Yeah, I think see me out. And by the time and my time flows child is is is bigger rather than older, whatever. I don't know how children work. I guess they get older than they lead. Allegedly. There might be. There'll be an easy Miata. So then you can have an Eevee Miata. So that means you get all the fun torque of an Eevee enemy yada. I mean, how great is that? Especially we just kind of cruising around town and as you know, by then, let's say it has 200 miles from a, you know, 40 kilowatt hour pack. Dope. Yeah. Start saving up your money flow. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:10:59 start saving the pennies. Save them pennies. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:01 Alright. Next from gifted Napper. Okay. Not really car related in the last episode. I couldn't help but notice that Roberto said he was a vegetarian for a long time. Have you rejoined us on the dark side? We're Berto if so welcome back. Also just curious why I see lots of people go veg, but I rarely see people go the other way. And, okay, so So what's your story on? Because I mean, vegetarian. Roberto Baldwin 1:11:32 So I used to work on a farm and I had family that hunted so I've like killed animals and I've like slaughtered animals. And so I know the the the mechanics of what goes into farming and ranching I used to I was an FFA for God's Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:45 sake. So you know how farmers I know how to know how the sausage I Roberto Baldwin 1:11:49 literally helped make sausage. I used to weigh cheap. I had a whole sheet run it. Yeah. I never raised pigs because pigs are such a pain. The I think it's sick all the time. They're very powerful. Sheep are really easy. Anyway, long story short, I had always realized if I didn't have to kill animals to live, then I wouldn't. And so for 17 years, that's what I did. I didn't kill any animals. And I didn't die. And so it's pretty easy, is actually for easy. The reason I went back is actually I just told people, I just wouldn't explain why I became why I started eating meat again, that that said, that doesn't mean I won't go vegetarian again, at some point in the future. It's really not that hard. It's it's a vegetarian. You know, I didn't there was never any issue where I was like, oh, no, I'm not eating the right food. Or everyone has that story about that vegetarian friend whose skin and bones now. That wasn't me. So yeah, well, you know, right now I'm eating meat. Who knows in the future? Maybe I won't. It's nice that we live in a time where you can you have that choice? And yeah, whatever you want to do. I guess it's fine. Let's this people don't eat people. That's, please, please don't do that. Don't need people but everything else i Yeah, that was all Yeah, I got I have a lot of weird thoughts about what people eat and what they won't eat. I'm like, so you guys won't eat horses, but you like cows. I'm like, cows are way easier to deal with it. Horses. You ever deal with a horse? God? There's like, what are you gonna do the horse if you don't ride it, you gotta do something. Anyway. So now we're going to get a lot of hate mail about people who love horses. I, one of my classes, I learned how to train horses. So I've trained horses, I've ridden horses. I know a lot. I was on the horse judge team. So I know a lot about horses. Don't send me email or yell at me because I said people should be horses. Sam Abuelsamid 1:13:38 Well, and the other thing is now, you know, we we have some you know, if you if you actually like to eat meat, you know, you like the texture and the flavor and stuff. We're actually starting to get some real viable alternatives, you know, plant based alternatives, you know, like beyond Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods and stuff like that. Roberto Baldwin 1:13:56 Yeah. What's the deal with that? I'm vegetarian for like 17 years. And we have the same like morning star like I just ate the nuggets, because making chicken flavored stuff is like a no brainer. And then as soon as I stopped being vegetarian, like, Hey, look at all these cool new science we're doing with meats with fake meat. I'm Unknown Speaker 1:14:11 timing. Roberto Baldwin 1:14:12 Wow. Just time to read it backwards. I did it backwards. I should have I should have just kept eating meat and then went vegetarian a few years ago, Sam Abuelsamid 1:14:20 right. Alright, another one from Brianna Wu. Okay, you can get a great 997. That's a Porsche 911 built I think is like 2004 or five till about 2012 for around 45 to $55,000. You'd have to spend 100,210 to get a good example of a 997 turbo. Is it worth the extra? Roberto Baldwin 1:14:44 Is the 997 the one that had that issue where the engine would explode unless you? Yeah, I think it might have been the 9970 My friend because so there was a 997 and there was an issue and if you didn't fix the issue, the engine would explode it Just and you'd have to pay like 15,000 or $20,000 to fix this issue, but then once it was fixed, it was fine. But the people who'd still got it fixed, the market was still like, really? It was really bad. Like they couldn't even though they. So I think it might have been the 997 that had that. Sam Abuelsamid 1:15:15 I think you're right. I think it was the 997. So, is it worth spending? You know, double for a turbo? Roberto Baldwin 1:15:23 I don't think so. That's for double No, it's Nicole Wakelin 1:15:25 a lot if it was a Roberto Baldwin 1:15:26 les it's a lot. And B, it's a Porsche. If you don't get a you're not probably going that fast. Where if Sam Abuelsamid 1:15:34 you're driving it on the street, it's it's still handled Roberto Baldwin 1:15:37 like a Porsche, and Nicole Wakelin 1:15:39 you really need the turbo Reatta. Most of the time, you're like the turbo. It's not like your track driving it all the time. Or are you? I don't I don't know. Sam Abuelsamid 1:15:48 She does occasionally. Occasionally. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 1:15:51 She lives. Trina has a lot of horse Nicole Wakelin 1:15:53 occasions. She lives in Boston. She's not even driving. Because she's got Sam Abuelsamid 1:15:57 she's already got four, four Porsches. Roberto Baldwin 1:15:59 Yes, a fleet of Porsches. Nicole Wakelin 1:16:03 She's a fleet? Can I come? Can I Roberto Baldwin 1:16:06 have my heroes to be to Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:08 go do a comparison test on the power seat moto? Nicole Wakelin 1:16:12 There we go. Roberto Baldwin 1:16:14 I think that you're better, you're fine with the non Turbo version, if you can afford it, if you can afford to double. And that's what you really, really want. It's fine. But I think for most people, I think the non the non Turbo version. So Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:29 non turbo 911 is slow, right? Nicole Wakelin 1:16:33 Yeah, you're not you're not buying a Hugo. It's just a non turbo nine. Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:38 Talking about zero to 60 in three seconds versus four seconds. Nicole Wakelin 1:16:42 Yeah, that extra second? Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:45 Probably even the, the gas probably even less than that. All right. Gupta, AJ asks, do they make 35 inch road tires that can go on the F 150. Raptor don't really need to have trail running shoes for daily highway driving. So I took a look on Tire Rack earlier today, to see what was out there. And there's not, there's not really a whole lot of choices. You know, for that size of wheel and tire for, you know, something like a raptor that are a pure street tire, pretty much everything in that size, you know, is at least classed as an all terrain tire. Now, that said, there are you know, I was looking through, you know, the available stuff on Tire Rack, you know, in the standard size, it's on the Raptor, it's a 17 inch wheel. And it's I think it's a 315 70 or 75. Tire. And, yeah, there are a wide there all classes, all terrain, but there's a wide variety in there, there are some that are definitely more like a street tire than something you're going to go run Baja with. And so, yeah, I would, I would take a look at some of those, you know, there's some some good options there. You know, if you want something that, you know probably is going to run a little more quietly on pavement than you know than some of the standard tires that are on there. If you do want something that is a true street tire, you know, what you're probably going to have to do is go to a different wheel size. I did find one that Michelin defender LTS. It's Oh, if you put it on a 20 inch wheel. And it's a 35 inch by 12 and a half on a 20 inch wheel. So it's that it's the same rolling diameter. But that is that's the only one I could find that is just a straight up Highway tire. That's not an all terrain tire. So that's pretty much your only option that least that I could find. Roberto Baldwin 1:18:58 See there spend like three grand on new wheels and tires. Yeah, you don't have to listen to this all the time. And then have to change your tires out every Sam Abuelsamid 1:19:08 Are you just gonna be better suited to driving on the street? Roberto Baldwin 1:19:11 Yeah, yeah, this is the big it's Yeah, I see people driving around with their giant, you know, off road tires. I'm like, Oh, those will last about I don't know, eight months. Good luck about half. Yeah. Like, that's why you don't know. You know what, you'll figure it out. You'll figure it out. And then you see that later on Nicole Wakelin 1:19:28 hard way? Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:19:31 All right. Last one from obscurity. How favorable Do you think Id buzz will compare with the Korean Evie twins, the ionic five and Evie six. I'm worried that VW is nostalgia tax will price it out of my consideration. I'm also scared VW will botch the entertainment system. Those are both very legitimate concerns are valid concerns. Nicole Wakelin 1:19:53 Yes. I think are they doing anything new with your infotainment? Is it going to be better than Are they are they fixed? thing that Sam Abuelsamid 1:20:01 they've done updates to the the ID four, and from whatever it has gotten better, Nicole Wakelin 1:20:07 like a better enough that it's it's decent. Sam Abuelsamid 1:20:10 I want to try it. I haven't tried the update. Okay. Roberto Baldwin 1:20:14 But all it has to do is work. Yeah, it that's really what it does it function get rid of it to get rid of the latency. I know they did the ID three updates in Europe a few months ago. So I guess the ID fours finally got an update. I haven't, I haven't, like kept track of it. But all we have to do is make the infotainment system work. And if for the ID buzz, that means just upgrading the processor and you know that they're going to show it off in March. And hopefully by the time he hits the market, they'll have fixed everything. So all the issues because now we're talking about the ID four, and the ID three is over a year now. Right. But the vehicles on the road, buddy, boy, so you get two years you get to fix and then money issue. Sam Abuelsamid 1:20:57 It's gonna be about at least a year before the ID Buzz is on sale here in North America anyway. So some sometime early next year, I think. Yeah, supposed to watch here. Yeah, the the other you know, the other thing to keep in mind is that, you know, this is, while it's electric, like the the Hyundai's, you know, it's a very different kind of vehicle. So I don't know how many people are actually going to cross shop the two. Roberto Baldwin 1:21:22 It's, I'm, I'm still excited. But you know, just because if it looks correct, if they don't, there's there's been some, there's been a few leaks, where it kind of looks, and then there's a few leaks that makes it look cool. And it's like, I don't even know, I'm just gonna wait till March 9. Because half the leaks are like, and then at some point, they were putting it on the old the the current van, they're throwing the, the the power, the the power train and the drive train into an old van. And he said, Yeah, yeah. And then people were like, Oh, look, this is the ID buzz. I'm like, No, it's not. It's like a test VHS. Yeah, it's just the meals, like when people are throwing, who did it someone put something on top, a Silverado on top of their stuff, at one point. And Sam Abuelsamid 1:22:09 yeah, every manufacturer does this. They they test new components in the current generation vehicles before they get around to building proper integration prototypes that have all the correct bodywork and everything. Roberto Baldwin 1:22:21 So hopefully they don't, they don't design the fun out of it, and the infotainment system doesn't suck. And it's, again, it's just the latency. It's just so it's just want you to Sam Abuelsamid 1:22:34 imagine it, they are doing a pop up camper version of it. I heard that they're not California to North America. Roberto Baldwin 1:22:43 They'll probably call it the ID buzz California or whatever the ID whatever. And it won't come to California, but they'll let us drive it and tell you all about Sam Abuelsamid 1:22:51 it. Yeah, they'll they'll bring one to California. And they'll let Jason torchin ski review it and do a video a great video review for for Jalopnik and that that'll be the last we ever hear of it. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 1:23:01 I got I got invited to drive the idea to the California Yeah, they invited me to go and my my bosses were like, no, like, is it gonna be available here? I'm like, no, they're like, well, Nicole Wakelin 1:23:12 then no, but, Roberto Baldwin 1:23:13 but it's gonna be cool. And they're like, it'll get lots of views. Yeah, that was a thing. I probably should just say it's gonna get lots of views like Yeah, but it's not gonna be here. Like, yeah, but page views. I know. I as well. Sometimes you just gotta, you know, I guess pageviews isn't the answer everything. Sam Abuelsamid 1:23:30 But yeah, you know it. I don't I don't think the ID Buzz is going to be inexpensive. You know, it's probably it's probably gonna start close to 50 grand. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it'll, it'll have the nostalgia tax. But, you know, I, I think it should be a pretty, pretty good vehicle. I mean, so hopefully the infotainment system. If they fix the infotainment system, then it'll probably be great. Roberto Baldwin 1:23:57 I hope that that when they when when you drive it the internal sound is just a recreation of that. That Volkswagen motor sounds cool. Yeah, yeah. Boxer. The air cooled boxer. That weird. I can't even make the sound but we all know it. We've all been in a Volkswagen Beetle or in a Sam Abuelsamid 1:24:17 body. You can you can do that electronically. Roberto Baldwin 1:24:19 Yeah. Yeah. Like sound like Sam Abuelsamid 1:24:22 yeah, you can make it sound like an air cooled boxer or a 997 turbo or Roberto Baldwin 1:24:27 or 997 non turbo, just whatever you want. But I I kind of hope they kind of do that. If someone from Volkswagens listening just do it. Just make it on there. And put take make three people set up a downloadable option. Yeah, you could doubt like, oh, I pay $10. So I can make my car sound like this. It's yeah, that's fine. Here's my $10. Here's my credit card, Volkswagen. Sam Abuelsamid 1:24:50 Alright, that's all we got for this week. I want to thank everybody for sending in your questions and for continuing to listen, and we'll talk to you next time. Nicole Wakelin 1:25:01 Bye