Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 238 of wheel bearings. We've got the Ford Maverick the key V six and carnival Jeep Grand wagoneer the VW ID Buzz is back. GM PG and Ford are testing bi directional charging Hyundai Honda and Sony teamed up for EVs. rivian is still struggling with production, and no more gas Subaru STIs All that and more coming up next.

This is episode 238 of Wheel Bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  0:39  
And I am Nicole Wakelin. And this week we say roadshow by CNET.

Roberto Baldwin  0:45  
I am Roberto Baldwin, and I had Tom's Guide. For Tom's guide. I just did a big, I just did a big thing for them back. I'm half finished with the big thing of doing for them. So yeah, Tom's guide and welcome back, Robbie.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00  
Yeah, feeling better.

Roberto Baldwin  1:02  
I am I'm feeling much better. Don't get migraines, kids. They're debilitating. Migraines are the Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  1:10  
They're not good.

Roberto Baldwin  1:11  
They're not good.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13  
All right. Well, since you didn't get to talk last week, let's start with you that

Roberto Baldwin  1:16  
Oh, no. Okay, so let's first talk about the Ford Maverick. I love the Ford Maverick. A little truck from you know, a little pickup. I had the Lariat but it had the hybrid. Sorry, it's early because the time change. Let's start over. I had the Ford Maverick It was awesome. It had the hybrid. I was in Lariat package. I drove it around. I threw 100 pounds of rock in it twice. It drives great. I did a I did some 3d printing for it. I cut down a bunch of wood and shoved it in the back into

Sam Abuelsamid  1:53  
a cup holder that you used in the video. I did I printed that I

Roberto Baldwin  1:56  
was going to print I was printing a box a heading gadget written Onyx. I did the the article in the video for Engadget and so I was print, I designed a box and I was printing it and then my 3d printer was just getting all weird and was like oh, I need to like take it apart and clean out the nozzle and I was like okay, I don't got time for this anymore. So, but if I had a maverick, I could just sort of print anything for all over the place. And yeah, I pitched it as a nerd truck. And then once I got it, I ended up liking it way more than I anticipated. I averaged about 38 and a half miles per gallon and a pickup. So driving around without a rock in the back and rocks in the back. Yeah, just buying.

Nicole Wakelin  2:37  
So you didn't carry mulch. I feel like that's still if I didn't

Roberto Baldwin  2:39  
get any mulch. I don't know what we don't I mean, I guess we need mulch but I think we're in the middle of planting everything so there's no point in getting mulch because you just gonna have to like move it and dirt gets on top of it and then it gets Yeah, so we're not quite the mulch yet because we're doing a lot of planting where the mulch goes

Nicole Wakelin  2:56  
I couldn't even do planting I we had snow yesterday I think the ground is still frozen solid except where it's a foot of mud that you step into unwittingly

Roberto Baldwin  3:05  
you get one of those

Sam Abuelsamid  3:05  
doing right now here so Is it snowing? Oh god,

Roberto Baldwin  3:09  
you can get a posthole digger you know those giant drills a friend

Sam Abuelsamid  3:17  
those don't work great when the when the ground is still frozen you really need to wait for it to thaw even if they're not really sharp enough.

Roberto Baldwin  3:24  
Okay, see I see like Sam's tried this he's like you know, we got to dig a hole

Nicole Wakelin  3:28  
like the voice of experience Hey guys just considering doing

Roberto Baldwin  3:31  
Arius No. Yeah. So back to the Ford Mavic I think I sent the video I did say in the video that I do not care for regular cruise control. I don't care about it I don't ever use it I've had in a lot of cars

Nicole Wakelin  3:47  
everybody loves cruise control little virtual high five I

Roberto Baldwin  3:51  
adaptive cruise control I'll use traffic but cruise control is just I don't know I don't know

Sam Abuelsamid  3:57  
well once you've gone adaptive going back to just plain old cruise control it does nothing but hold you at a constant speed. really seems like why why did they ever do this?

Nicole Wakelin  4:09  
Our cages

Roberto Baldwin  4:10  
people are like well if you're on a long drive I'm like I don't I just leave my foot there Yes. On drive like I have bad ankle I used to skateboard when I was young so my ankles are like pepper Mills when you turn when you move them they like crack. Oh, I'm on a long drive. Sometimes maybe once or twice I will set the cruise control so I can like you know sort of stretch my right ankle and then I turn it right back off. So I'll so if I'm in for like seven hours. I'll use cruise control for a grand total of 45 seconds. So I you know it's it's I think the the Ford Maverick is best served as a I only need these couple things and everything else I don't need it is a huge, utilitarian awesome vehicle. You can just I was like you know what? You should really get the bed like The little spray in bedliner so you don't scratch it, you don't destroy it. Because when you're shoving that wood in and out, you know, the wood gets, you know, and I actually I cut a piece of a two by nine, instead of two by six to put into the back. And there wasn't you have to sort of like angled the wood in order to get into to the slot. And so in order to get the slot, I end up kind of scratching up the top, top part of the inside of the bed, the little plastic part. And then trying to get it out was like a 15 minutes like a 15 minute fiasco. I'll just like take the

Sam Abuelsamid  5:36  
call and just cut the wood in half again. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  5:39  
right in the bed. Neighbors like what's he doing? Oh, god, he's gonna lose a finger. Yeah, no, it's it's a great little truck. Good luck probably getting one because every time I talk about it, or someone retweets, whatever, you know what I said about it? Everyone is like, yeah, I got my own order. Oh, I got my order. I had someone follow me. I was on the freeway. I was going to Treasure Island where we did the video shoot. And off the way up the Bay Bridge. They followed me off that and then they followed me on to Treasure Island and then they followed me to the parking lot.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:10  
Yeah, word park and I buy that off you

Roberto Baldwin  6:13  
just look at it. They had ordered one. This person he's like, I have a I have a Tacoma. He's like I do woodworking so I have that. But my wife wanted something. We wanted a truck. This seems great. And I showed it to him. I yeah, I really like he's like all that this looks awesome. He's very happy, get back on his motorcycle and rode away.

Nicole Wakelin  6:29  
You know? It would sound crazy. Except when I was at the Chicago Auto Show. They had a maverick there, obviously. And I had someone who lived in New York tweet me when I messaged mentioned something about it saying, is that just there for you guys's media, or is it there? And I'm like, No, I'm pretty sure all the tears here you're gonna see what you see. You think I'm thinking of going there just so I can see it? Because I have won an order. And I haven't actually seen it yet. Like, can I really see it? I'm like, Well, I, I guess if you want to try to shake up, but this guy's ready to try Chicago he lived? Yeah, that's a serious commitment to like, well, I probably should check this out. Before I wait. However long you didn't say how long the wait was, but I guess long enough that you felt like I want to make sure I want it. I'm going to drive Chicago first.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:15  
But my next door neighbor ordered one in early October. And had not actually seen one in person yet. And when I had one here for review and November, mid November, you know, he and his wife came over and they were really anxious to take a look at it. And I took them for a drive in it. And you know, so that was there. They hadn't obviously they haven't hadn't had a test drive even you know, they Yeah, had an order. Because I just thought it was so cool. And they loved it. And you know, they got theirs in early January. And it's fantastic. And they got the the what is the bright blue color? Forget

Roberto Baldwin  7:53  
arctic blast or something? I think that's I think that's a Slurpee flavor.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:57  
Yeah. But they got that bright blue color, which I think is a great color. Have you ever either view

Roberto Baldwin  8:02  
every blue color doesn't cost anything? Yeah, velocity it those colors. They don't cost anything. You can get the XL. Like the cheapest one. And that's blue. And it doesn't cost anything.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:13  
Yeah, they got they got the velocity blue XL hybrid. Yeah, it's like 20 grand plus, delivery and tax. And that's it.

Nicole Wakelin  8:21  
Have you ever ordered a car like that? Like ordered something? You haven't seen it? You haven't driven it? You haven't done it? You're good? No,

Roberto Baldwin  8:29  
I can't. I can't. That's not Yeah, that doesn't work in my brain.

Nicole Wakelin  8:33  
I mean, I can't even fathom doing that I can fathom ordering something that I maybe have not had as much time in as I want. Like, I saw it. I checked it out. I love it. It's my heart, a Twitter. I'm going to get it but just like it looks really good in that picture. Here's my money.

Roberto Baldwin  8:47  
It took three months for me to order this this 3d printer. Because I went to like my friend who works at making magazine and I made him give me information. I did all this for the 3d It's like 400 bucks. So I guess

Nicole Wakelin  9:02  
you're not gonna exactly make that commitment for 20,000.

Roberto Baldwin  9:05  
Yeah, yeah. So I'm fortunate that you know, I have this job. So if I do like something I get to eventually drive it typically before other people. Yeah, but you know, it's a $20,000 car. So I'm like, okay, so it has all these little sayings, but it's probably not going to drive very well. No, I drive Great. Front wheel drive truck though. That's awesome because it rained here while I had it. And I think everyone who owns a truck and rear wheel drive truck knows what happens when you're in the rain and a truck is there a private Yeah, so you get a little little tell slide eat a little something. And none of that. None of that because all the weights up front. You know the motors up front that the whole Yeah, it was it was great. It was wonderful. I really liked it. I liked Oh, yeah, it was I went in expecting to like it. I went out thinking man, maybe we should buy one of these. So that's yeah, that's that's uh, that's that's because I think well, you know, we do a lot of stuff and you know, we're using the JAG and we could put the dog He's in the back and

Sam Abuelsamid  10:01  
in the back room in the back seat for the dogs. Yeah, they just sit in the backseat Jaguar. So, you know, you still have your mulch and your stones and then the bed. Yeah. So so yeah. And, you know, the, you know, because the the Maverick, you know, is that's all I mean, you know, it's, it's hard plastics, we're not talking premium materials there, right, but it's gonna be durable. You've got tough fabric seats, you know, that the dogs are it's gonna stand up to the dogs without any problem.

Nicole Wakelin  10:30  
Cheap is it I mean is is not like luxury is the insight is I think they honestly did a really good job with it, though. Like, it doesn't look cheap. It doesn't look like a luxury car, but it doesn't feel like oh, Lord, everything in here is the cheapest possible plastic that a human can get away with putting in a car without some regulator saying that doesn't count. You know, like it, it feels decent, the trims are attractive. They're not fancy and I love the in the center console Turn River there's a piece where like, you can stick like, you know, your keys or whatever you're gonna toss in there. And there's like a little rubber thing that you can actually pull entirely out.

Roberto Baldwin  11:03  
Oh, yeah, that little layer thing, little thing. And I'm like, that's actually

Nicole Wakelin  11:05  
like, not that it's a high end thing. But it's like, you could have just made it a piece of molded rubber that didn't move and now it's a pain in the butt to clean note, you can take this out, you can tidy things up, you can put it back in it gives you a little traction, so things don't rattle around in there and they sit this nicely. That's a small little thing, but it improves your quality of of like your writing because you're not listening to stuff jangle around inside of there.

Unknown Speaker  11:25  
It's cheap, basic, but solid.

Roberto Baldwin  11:26  
Yes, yes. Yes, it doesn't have like when the first gen Nissan Kicks like the door panel, which is a slab of plastic. And you get in this and it's like, you know they molded in. They added a little, you know, design flair to it.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:41  
I got the cutouts in the armrests in the door so you can fit the water bottles in

Roberto Baldwin  11:45  
you can throw your giant water bottles in there and kiss you you know, we're we start rationing water and you need to start selling it for trading it for gas or whatever.

Nicole Wakelin  11:54  
Yeah, it's cheap. Yeah, that's that's we actually ration your gas. of gas. A

Roberto Baldwin  12:01  
little dollar gas. It's a Mad Max bMobile Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, and I talked to this guy, Robert Trapp about you know, he designed or he before Ford put out their CAD drawings, which by the way are very difficult to deal with. If you're just used to using like STL files for 3d printing. He had already designed like the the little plug that goes in there, so I end up just using his stuff. But yeah, he's like, Yeah, I mean, this and this. And there's there's a Nintendo Switch holder, and he created like a wireless charger for a phone. And no, there's all these like cool little things. And because they've sort of opened it up to all you know, saying, Hey, here's this fit system was Ford integrated tethering system. So now I just had fits system system. Because, yeah, it's like when you say ATM machine, because they opened it up to the, to the makers, they started, you know, 3d printed other things, because I already have the vehicle, I'm already making something for it. So that little cubby hole that's next to the, the infotainment screen like someone's created something that you can, you know, use fits for that or they, you know, they people are just gonna keep making things for this vehicle. And so you have this really robust maker scene behind it. That is sort of growing as more and more people buy this vehicle and yeah, I mean, I really like Ford

Sam Abuelsamid  13:22  
incorporates that same kind of slot into other future vehicles.

Roberto Baldwin  13:27  
I think I mean, I think they should it seems

Nicole Wakelin  13:30  
it's not like it's a complicated Hi Dennis.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:32  
Changing the more it is your car. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  13:35  
just like something that since it's been so well received, it would make sense like

Sam Abuelsamid  13:39  
Bronco Bronco would be great for that to incorporate some of those slots.

Nicole Wakelin  13:43  
You want to put in your Bronco think about all the cool things people would come up with if they did that.

Roberto Baldwin  13:47  
Yeah, the Bronco and the Wrangler just are just basis for crazy add on all

Nicole Wakelin  13:53  
the crazy stuff like okay, here's here's what's gonna hold all my stuff where do you see how

Roberto Baldwin  13:58  
I got? I bought a shovel that I'll never use so I'm gonna put it on here.

Nicole Wakelin  14:02  
foldable shovel that folds at 18 different spots. We're gonna close like a map but it fits like this.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:09  
So I have a question for you. Yeah, Lariat, which is the top trim level you got? Larry LT and Larian How much was it?

Roberto Baldwin  14:16  
It was Oh darn you know I should have looked this up sorry. Oh, no, you gotta give me two seconds it had the Yeah, it was the Lariat but it had the hybrid and it had the the the the spray in bedliner which I think you know if you're going to get anything that's the thing to get. It had cruise control which you know, whatever. And Monroe me I probably could have just looked at my article, but now

Sam Abuelsamid  14:52  
there's six grand Oh, so

Roberto Baldwin  14:55  
this one so it's the MSRP for Lariat was 25,498 had the the floor and they had some non carpeted mats, they had the the spray in bedliner, which is 500 bucks and then had Ford copilot 360, the additional stuff so that it has, like, when you're backing up, it's yells at you and it sort of helps you stay in, in, in, in your would it cost lane again? Surely that was 540. And then delivery is like 1500 bucks. The destination. So that's that's a lot of money. Anyway, at the end of day is $27,660 Okay, so that's, that's not too bad. Yeah, so it's not too bad. So if you really want to go like add a bunch of like just random things to it. You can I am I am very pro like it the, the XL, who cares about cruise control? Maybe and, and get the spray in bedliner and then just be done with it and just roll around on steelies and you can get any color all the colors are free. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:59  
Because, you know, I've, uh, one time I went through and priced out, you know, just to see how high you could get a maverick. Yeah. And if you take a maverick with the two liter EcoBoost, and all wheel drive and all the options, you can get it up into the mid 30s. And, yeah, I don't know that I would necessarily pay you know, 34 $35,000 for a maverick.

Roberto Baldwin  16:23  
Because then you're looking at originalline nearly Wow. Yeah. I think there's more space. Yeah, at originalline. Even at

Sam Abuelsamid  16:29  
27 I think it's still you know, I think it's a really good value. I still think you know, kind of XL T with you know, copilot 360 is kind of the sweet spot. And that's, that's what I had that that was like 24 and a half 2424 24 and a half, something like that. And I think that's kind of the sweet spot. And usually, you know, with Ford's Ford trucks XL T is usually that's the one that's kind of the best ever. Yeah, combination of value and features.

Roberto Baldwin  16:55  
It's the Goldilocks version. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think and I think a lot of people are probably going to XL T again, I'm, even though I'm the tech guy that's like my jam. I'm like, I don't need all this stuff. I'm like, you can just plug in your phone and has. You can use Android Auto, you can

Sam Abuelsamid  17:13  
even play even the bass, you know, the Excel 20 grand you get, you know, the eight inch touchscreen infotainment with Android Auto and CarPlay support, you know, so you don't really need to do anything else.

Roberto Baldwin  17:25  
That's it. Yeah, that's it. That's what you're gonna do. Anyway. So bam. So

Sam Abuelsamid  17:28  
you got to get navigation with that. So yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  17:31  
Done and done. Yeah, Ford Maverick big fan. I feel like it's going to be super difficult to get a hold of one now. Because a people like them, and B. Now that the price of gas has gone up, and we also have the course the fact that we have a chip shortages and supply chain issues, and now there's a war and it's just yeah, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  17:54  
Well, I think I recall, I think that they've stopped taking orders for 2022 models. You know, the order books full, you know, so now at some point in the next few weeks, or a month or so they'll start taking orders for 2020 threes.

Roberto Baldwin  18:11  
I really hope that this sort of gets under the skin of a lot of other automakers. And then I know we have the Santa Cruz, which is great. But I think there are other automakers to kind of look and be like, oh, oh, we've sort of ignored this like, this entire segments for years. And if people really want I would have people before the more formatic was announced, and like where do you want my work to car to have already I work your current driver? Like, why can't I get a small truck? I just want a small truck. I'm like, well, there's originally No I mean smaller like you remember the 90s Yes, small truck. Like yeah, like why can I get a small truck? And I'm like, I don't know, because it seems like you and a bunch of other people want that?

Sam Abuelsamid  18:50  
Well all through college I drove an 84 GMC s 15 which was even you know smaller than this. And it was one of those stripper models you know it's just a regular cab came from the factory the bench seat, no air conditioning manual crank Windows no radio, you know it had had to put in a radio and eventually found a set of bucket seats from from a scrapyard and put those in you know, but you know had the manual transmission and actually I did put cruise control on that because I had to do a lot of long drives back and forth

Roberto Baldwin  19:26  
to get it from the factory did you get JC Whitney

Sam Abuelsamid  19:29  
what wasn't JC Whitney but it was it was an aftermarket system that you know had to install an actuator on the on the throttle cable and put a little magnet on the drive shaft and set up the the little pickup so it could figure out what the speed was and calibrate it and everything did

Roberto Baldwin  19:45  
have a little dial in the car like a little box with about Yeah, it was

Sam Abuelsamid  19:49  
it was actually one that clamped on to the turn signal stock.

Roberto Baldwin  19:52  
Oh, nice. Fancy.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:54  
Yeah. So yeah, let me know. But, you know, that's that you know, back in 80 That was the sort of thing we did you know, we didn't there were no I didn't come with those kinds of features.

Roberto Baldwin  20:05  
Yeah, the the idea that I think people don't realize we're buying cars now who didn't who weren't around? Yeah, you did. Cars just didn't have air conditioning. Like you got to pay money for. If you wanted to be cold when it was hot outside, you had to pay a lot of money. And most people just like Nah, just look on the window. Yeah. What else did I do? Oh, I dropped the the key V six. The second time I you know, I did the first drive. I did a review of it for the verge. And it is a still outstanding, it's just such a great little Evie. I'm gonna keep calling it a wagon. They're gonna call a crossover. I like to think that it's the return of wagons. And it's a wagon Evie and I can say enough nice things about it. It is just it's comfortable to ride around in it's great. You know it rides well. I still say and I feel like people are there I think this feels like this is sort of a some contention. Some people think the EB six rides better is better ride better than the ionic five I think it's the other way around with the ionic five has less body roll but having driven boats but now now but then some friends are like no I think the Eevee six grades better and I think the ionic five has more material. So now I feel like I have to get both of them in at some point in time.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:27  
Yet Sam, I have not yet driven the Eevee six that didn't get to go to the drive and they haven't had him in the local fleet yet. So hopefully, it was soon

Nicole Wakelin  21:38  
I like the Eevee six I think I like the Eevee six better of the two I think right that was my I'm trying to take my jar member significant difference between them though. Is there significant difference there? Do you want the

Sam Abuelsamid  21:49  
calculator identical?

Roberto Baldwin  21:51  
Yeah, I think the same car but it really comes down to which again, this is me driving very fast on very technical roads that Evie six Drive Program. Remember? I was I was like this is this is a stinger drive.

Nicole Wakelin  22:08  
Yeah, it was me like this is an odd choice for this vehicle but I you know Yeah, it was a fun drive. It was very fun but it did make you work for it like yeah, a Hyundai the ionic five was not as technical so

Roberto Baldwin  22:22  
I just kind of cruise around Southern California. Right.

Nicole Wakelin  22:25  
So um, yeah, very different drive programs.

Roberto Baldwin  22:29  
Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, well maybe if I'd had the ionic five on those roads, I would have maybe been the same maybe it would have been less who knows? Either way I feel like either one you buy you're gonna be happy it's really I think it really comes down to to design like what do you want

Nicole Wakelin  22:43  
the styles are very different. I you know what, I love the MX five. All the little over the pixels little squares, little to remember. I think some part of it makes me feel like I've sat down in a like team like 85 video game or something. Squares. Minecraft. Yeah, like I like how that looks just because I think it looks it just looks different. I love how it looks on the outside of the cart. Like it's strikingly different. It's unique. And like I had appeals to me it makes it stand out a little bit from the crowds.

Roberto Baldwin  23:12  
Yes, yes, I think the Hyundai Motor the other crossovers. Exactly. Yeah, it's it looks like a 90s hatchback, pixel retro, futuristic vehicle. I like yeah, it looks like a design student who was like top of the class design the car and I was like, Oh, that's awesome. Oh, they'll never make it and Hyundai Hold on.

Nicole Wakelin  23:34  
Like, wait, hold on.

Roberto Baldwin  23:36  
Hold my beer. I got this. Yeah, it is a you know, lots of if you have a family, lots of leg room for a tall person in the back. Let's you still have room for to throw your stuff at. And both of these vehicles are much bigger than you think they are. dB six is about the same size as a three series.

Nicole Wakelin  23:57  
They're very hard. It's like they look very small. And then you sit down and say like there's a lot more room in here than you think there is. I when I had to sit in the backseat for a while on the Hyundai program. It was I was on and the front seat was pushed all the way back. So I was trying to do a video and it's kind of like hiding.

Roberto Baldwin  24:15  
Oh, yeah, the hide, right. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Like

Nicole Wakelin  24:17  
your passenger side as far back in the right corner as you can get in the back of the car. Any of the seat pushed all the way back. And he's just thinking like, gosh, I am actually sometimes you are actually squished and like I'm totally fine back here. This is fine. And you wouldn't ever drive with the seat that far back unless you're a giant. Well, you might Rob Robert.

Roberto Baldwin  24:34  
Yeah. Yeah, normal people wouldn't. That's that's my little caveat. Whenever I talk about research, well, if you sit behind a tall person, it's gonna be tough. But then yeah, I have the Eevee six, I had those seat all the way back for me. And I got in the back seat and I didn't have to move my seat forward or anything. And I was like, Oh, this is great. And then I put the little

Nicole Wakelin  24:54  
thing here looking like these might be a little bit small, no open door and

Roberto Baldwin  24:58  
it's an optical illusion. The wheels are pushed out really far and then the design so it's sort of Yeah, it tricks you even when you're in front of it until you get right up like super close to it, it still seems smaller than it is

Sam Abuelsamid  25:09  
smaller than the trend. And for what it's worth the Evie six actually is to it. Strangely enough, it looks it when you look at it in isolation, it actually looks like it might be a little bigger than the ionic five, five because of its shape looks smaller. But the the Evie six is actually smaller. It has about four inches less wheelbase than the ionic five, which is I mean, it's still you know, 114 inch wheelbase. It's still wheelbase for Yeah, that size. But it is marginally smaller than the than the Hyundai

Roberto Baldwin  25:43  
it Yeah, I got we got into the EB six. And we were driving around my wife we got in and she's she's like, Oh, this is really nice. I'm like, Yeah, this is the same. You know, it's the ionic she hasn't seen the ionic five yet. It she's like, Well, why didn't we get this? Like, within, like, a few minutes and most times she gets into a car. She's like, Yeah, this is fine. Whatever it is, you know? When would you like? Yeah, I'm like, well, it wasn't ready, yet. They go, alright. Okay. And she, you know, she likes her. I'm like, Dude, I like your car. She's like, No, no, I like my car. This just seems way

Nicole Wakelin  26:11  
better. I know. And I could get this. Like,

Roberto Baldwin  26:15  
what is this

Sam Abuelsamid  26:17  
guy? Do with that X type for a few more months if I could have gotten this instead?

Roberto Baldwin  26:22  
Yeah, well, yeah, that's a whole getting trapped in a bad neighborhood. And one of the morning doesn't make it for. Yeah, the X type is dx type. It is what it is. So anyway, yeah, I drew I was fortunate I drove two really nice cars, two cars. I really like two cars that, again, I probably go with the ionic five just because of design. But you know, same thing. So we'll see. Good times. Great. Nicole, what about you?

Nicole Wakelin  26:52  
The car I drove is worth more than both of the cars that Robbie drove put together. Two or three times over. I was maybe twice. You could buy many several of those are one of these. The 2022 Jeep Grand wagoneer series three, four by four. It's the return of the grand wagoneer. Which we had one of these when I was 12. So we had no, no, yeah. My parents bought it. It was burgundy with the genuine faux wood paneling on it. Because,

Sam Abuelsamid  27:26  
you know, why would you want to fake wood for wood paneling?

Nicole Wakelin  27:28  
Right? Oh, wait. Yeah. So in my mom love the car, my mom is five foot one. So to get behind the wheel of a car that big. She suddenly feels like I own the road. She loved that thing. I think she probably cried when she got rid of it. She was really sad. So I actually took my mom out to lunch, who is now 84 and had to use a little step to get up because it's too high. When you lower the right height. She was in heaven. She's like, this is so much nicer. Oh, this is what she was so excited to ride in this car. So I was excited to be able to take her out for driving and take her out to lunch. One of the things I noticed talking about that the steps, so they have the deployable step, it's really wide, which is awesome. Because if you're using that because somebody is trying to get in like somebody who's older, or even kids, because you need to get sometimes those steps are very tiny and they don't feel very secure. This is like you can put your foot on this and like stand on it and both your feet are completely on it like your heels not able to stop it's very

Sam Abuelsamid  28:26  
writing about the wagoneer is wide.

Nicole Wakelin  28:28  
Yes, as wide. So I liked that feature. I thought that was kind of a neat feature that you know until you've tried to put get up onto a car or have to help somebody up or help kids up. You don't realize how a narrow step is really a pain in the butt. But a nice wide step makes it easier for everybody. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  28:47  
put slips off like a ball or foot. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  28:51  
and if you're watching you can't go to step on it and they miss judge and when they really narrow their foot goes through like under like I've seen kids do splits it's Yeah, so having like sidestep plus one. So I really like that. As far as the power behind this thing it is a 6.4 liter V eight engine with 471 horsepower and 455 pound feet of torque and it feels like this amazing beast when you drive it if you mash that gas pedal on the highway because you're trying to navigate heavy traffic. It is just fantastic. It's not that like sports car acceleration that's aggressive and angry and like makes you but it is like get out of my way it is so it is so strong and so beefy. It's fantastic to drive this. It does however, feel like you were taking not just your lane, but all the lanes like No, it's not my lane that's mine. This highway is mine move out of the way every other lane in the highway. It feels huge, which can make it a little bit of a challenge in you know parking lots I drove by many a parking space because I just thought I don't even trust myself to be able to get into that spot. And then once I Given I'm not entirely sure that I can get out because there's so little room left.

Roberto Baldwin  30:05  
Yeah, get out to the trunk.

Nicole Wakelin  30:06  
Right yeah, just gonna crawl out the hatch and crawl over the two rows of seating behind you and like crawl out the back of the grand wagoneer. So it is big, so you have to be used to being big when they did this launch. They did it in New York City. And they had this drive that in New York City.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:22  
Oh, good, great driving down the Hudson Parkway. And that thing was nerve racking.

Nicole Wakelin  30:26  
It was nerve racking and you know, it's just as I mean, I'm you know, in rural New Hampshire, it's just as nerve racking here when you get on the highway or get into narrow spots it is you have to be really comfortable driving a big car everything about this is big if you're gonna say one thing about the Jeep Grand wagoneer big that

Sam Abuelsamid  30:42  
it's it's four inches wider than a Ford Expedition and about three inches wider than a Suburban. Yeah, so and those are not Oh, yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  30:50  
So it is we will out big everybody. Inside though it out luxuries everybody. It is absolutely beautiful. Grand. It's grand inside. It has to like an extra screen you get a screen as the front passenger where you can control select functions on the vehicle. It has wood trims. There's this nifty little it's like metal thing. This is grand wagoneer. And it's not like embossed, but like laid into the front on the dashboard where the wood is. There's what on the center console. The leathers are beautiful and plush. There's all this contrast stitching, there is not a single spot that you look in this vehicle from the floormats to the headliner, that you don't think luxury car, luxury car, luxury car, everything in this is absolutely beautiful. So on that front, if you're looking for a luxury SUV, it nails it. I mean, there's no doubt you feel that. And then of course it has the capability of a Jeep this is got four wheel drive, and I did not there is no way on God's green earth that I would take this car by itself without no em off road at all. Because I feel like if I did any damage to it, like that scratch just cost you $10,000 I'm not doing that. But it does have the capability. We know like what there's a point where just like, I can't, I can't wouldn't do it. And we have so much snow on the ground and mud. I feel like between the snow mud, it's just a bad call and a grand wagoneer for me right now. But you could I mean, you could if you wanted to it definitely has the capability, which is kind of what makes this special. I mean, I don't know how many people are going to spend just, you know, grand total 100,800 My

Roberto Baldwin  32:24  
god, that is way more than most of the cards I had. Yeah, I both like so both of the cards I had, let's say

Nicole Wakelin  32:29  
how much were they together?

Roberto Baldwin  32:32  
46. Let's just go up to 70. Let's just round up to 70, maybe 75.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:37  
And the two of them. So you can open that up again as much for Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  32:43  
So you know, completely different target markets, but so it's expensive. So you're paying a lot for it. I don't know how many people are gonna buy this and are actually planning on offering in the weekend. I kind of feel like if you buy this, you actually also have a Wrangler. And that's free to go off roading on the weekend cuz that's

Roberto Baldwin  32:58  
the G Wagen people. Yeah, exactly.

Nicole Wakelin  33:00  
So there's a lot to recommend this. I

Sam Abuelsamid  33:03  
don't know if you need to go out on the you know, on the back 40 of the estate, you know, hey, check something out.

Nicole Wakelin  33:08  
You're going to shoot.

Roberto Baldwin  33:10  
You gotta go check on that. You gotta go check on your ranch hands. You don't want to you kind of get in the jeep. It's dusty mess. Comfort. I'm gonna take this onto the little dirt roads and the I'll know I'll be fine.

Nicole Wakelin  33:26  
No, and it's neat that they brought it back and I don't remember exactly when it was discontinued. But it's been a while. I mean, my parents brought theirs and TDT so

Sam Abuelsamid  33:35  
it's been it was 30 years it was 1992 that

Nicole Wakelin  33:39  
was released. Okay, so it's been a while since been around and you know, the thing that I suppose will kill you now is the gas prices like suddenly to put the gas in this? This would kill you. I don't have the fuel economy on I know here radio 13 city highway. Well, yeah, how much is it gonna cost you to fuel this thing right now? Like, oh, my God a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:02  
I drove the regular wagon here. Not the grand one. So it only had the 5.7 liter Hemi in it. Yeah. Indianapolis last October only? Yes. Yeah. And, you know, on a 600 mile round trip, highway drive. It average just over 17. Yeah, highway. Yeah. So you know, with the sixth floor, you're probably luck gonna be lucky to hit 1515.

Nicole Wakelin  34:26  
And I want to say like, oh, gosh, that's a big deal, because gas prices are stupidly high right now. And who knows how long they're gonna stay that way. But for the same token, you just spent $108,875

Roberto Baldwin  34:36  
Not the kind of person who worries about gas prices. Yeah, it's

Nicole Wakelin  34:39  
probably not something that's at the top of your list. If you're spending no money whatsoever. It's not great. No one wants to spend more money no matter how much money you've got. No one wants to spend extra like it cost me 50 bucks to gas up this week and last week, and now it's 105. Like no one wants to do that. So that I mean, that's the big downside, but in terms of the capability, the style Luxury, the comfort it is absolutely beautiful. It's huge. We had a piece of furniture that we ordered three months ago, it had a four to six week delivery timeframe. Thanks COVID. So we finally have it and it came in. I'm like, it's the right week. Oh my gosh, the stars align. I don't have a convertible, I actually have the grand wagoneer backed it up to the little, you know, drop off pickup thing at the furniture store. And I thought how is it gonna fit and like, we could put three of this shot this like giant table inside of it. It's like, it fits. there's still room in the back seat. Okay, what else can we buy? Yeah, what else can we buy that they have in stock right now. So it's, you know, it has an incredible amount of room roomy for passengers removed for cargo and it's just, it really is a beautiful, quiet, comfortable ride. It has a little bit of that, you know, because it's gigantic. It has a little bit that floaty kind of feel, you know, so it's Yeah, so you're kind of like, whoo, whoo. If you hit bumps, it's not bam, it's just ooh, and you sort of bounce?

Roberto Baldwin  35:57  
Okay, 25,000 of the 100. Nate, there's just right. It's like you're on a cloud

Nicole Wakelin  36:01  
zactly is just to make you feel like you're on the cloud. So overall, I mean, I like the Grand wagoneer. I not sure. I don't know, I don't know how many people, I think you're buying it for status. I want a vehicle that says I can go off road. I really love the Jeep brand. I have 100k in my pocket to buy this and have this really super fancy vehicle to drive around with the kids in the hall, whatever. I want to haul maybe bark mulch, although I couldn't put bark mulch in that beautiful cargo area. But

Roberto Baldwin  36:30  
you know, it's it's the rich person who still wants to look a little country, right, like a G Wagen. Because that's all elitist. Whatever

Nicole Wakelin  36:39  
you fancy pants wrong.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:40  
Last summer when they when they did the last drive in New York, you know, they were talking about, you know, the the market for this thing. And they said that 25% of Jeep sales in the US are in the New York metropolitan area. So that whole you know, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, a quarter of all the jeeps bought in the US are bought in that region, which is you know, those people they're not taking these things off road. Even Wranglers, you know, they're there. They're buying, you know, wranglers and wagon wagon ears and and Grand Cherokees. And they're using them to shuttle the kids to, you know, to their fancy private schools and right go to their Pilates classes and, and CLL

Roberto Baldwin  37:22  
being crowned is that well being? Okay, well, there you go.

Nicole Wakelin  37:27  
Pardon why they had done the drive in New York because we all kind of sort of have the same questions like why are we driving this

Roberto Baldwin  37:33  
giant thing?

Nicole Wakelin  37:35  
Well, that's the kind of person is sort of the person who has you know, upscale person in this area, who's going to take it outside the city, you can go to the country club or go to the going to drive and go antiquing or whatever the heck it is you do when you have $100,000 card. But this is this is the sort of lifestyle they will have. They won't necessarily be driving it downtown all the time. You're going to drive it out and take it out, you know, and away from the city with your family with your friends. And that was why they choose to do it in New York City that was there.

Roberto Baldwin  38:03  
So the family cabin, it's like five bedrooms and has three fireplace.

Nicole Wakelin  38:06  
It's bigger than both of our houses put together. Right, exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:09  
So we both just drove the Lincoln Navigator a couple of weeks ago the refresh 22 navigator which which would be your preference the navigator or the grand wagoneer

Nicole Wakelin  38:20  
Okay, that's a hard question because they're very inset the link the Navigator has more of a traditional like I am a fancy pants luxury car, even just

Roberto Baldwin  38:28  
my pants, they are fancy. My pants they're very fancy was

Nicole Wakelin  38:31  
a Jeep is like my pants are fancy, but they also have lots of pockets for cargo. So it's, it's,

Roberto Baldwin  38:37  
I also own a hatchet,

Nicole Wakelin  38:39  
hatchet in my pants and a little loop thing. So I feel like it's a very

Sam Abuelsamid  38:43  
different one, leave it in there when you climb in. You wouldn't want to cut on beautiful other

Nicole Wakelin  38:47  
beautiful seats, but I feel like they're very different. It's a very different customer Lincoln is sort of a more refined sort of elegant luxury where Jeep is it's still just as luxurious but it feels a little bit more like you're you want luxury you still want to make an impression you're still saying you're driving a pricey car but you're a little bit more down to earth is the vibe that you want. Like I'm not afraid of the

Sam Abuelsamid  39:10  
wagon yours for the for the for the rich ranch owner. Well, Navigator is for the the yacht club member. Yes.

Nicole Wakelin  39:17  
How's that? Yes. I think it's the person who imagines they are Yacht Club member or the person who imagines that they own a ranch one way or the other. But yeah, it's it's a different vibe. And I also think like, I don't know, they sort of cachet of the brand. Jeep has a really distinctive, it's a Jeep you know, everyone has a certain impression of Jeep nobody nobody has think I don't know what's deep about these days. Everybody knows Jeep it's off road on its rugged Lincoln, you're like they're still around like not everybody.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:50  
Nice cars in China.

Nicole Wakelin  39:52  
They begin but we're not in China. So but you know, it's a very different it's a it's an entirely different customer. It's looking for one or the other, they both hit a very hard of the of a similar market different different person.

Roberto Baldwin  40:07  
Different rich people,

Nicole Wakelin  40:09  
rich people fro show but different rich people.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:12  
Okay? I had something completely different from any of this stuff. I also had a Kia but I had the 2022 Kia carnival SX prestige. Remember, it's kind of all because of the current Karneval SX prestige. And, you know, anybody who's been listening to me for any length of time knows that I am a big fan of minivans as family haulers. I think that they are, you know, unless you need to haul six kids and an 8000 pound boat or a horse trailer, you know, the minivan is always the better choice for hauling the kids. And, you know, I know but just don't call this a minivan anymore. It's no longer minivan. It's now an MPV if you ask Kiya, which, you know is the same thing. But, you know, they like like the, like the refresher or like the new Ciana that came out last year from Toyota, they have both gone in kind of the same direction in with the design. The hood line is now more horizontal, you know, more upright grille. So it looks a little more SUV ish, you know, trying to get away from that, that stigma of you know, the soccer mom minivan, which I think is ridiculous. You know, it's like, forget about those stereotypes, if it fits your purpose use it. And I think, you know, the carnival, or carnival fits the purpose of a lot of families a lot better than than a, an SUV does. You've got lots of room in there, you've got lots of cargo space in the back and behind behind the third row seats, you still have over 40 cubic feet, because you've got that nice deep well in the back there when when you fold the rear seats down. When you get rid of the third row seats, you know, they flip back and fold down into that well, but when you're when you're using those seats, you still have a really deep well. So even if you're carrying six or seven people, you still have room for lots of stuff back there, which is you know, almost double what you're going to find in a lot of three row SUVs, maybe more in some cases. So you know, I think that that is excellent. I like the new design, it fits in with kind of the new design direction that key has been moving, at least with their non electric vehicles, you know that vehicles like the Sorento and the Telluride. It's the one I have, has the the black painted wheels. It's the what they call it, not Aspen blue. It's It's like they call oh they call it tough or sorry, ASTRA blue. Which, you know, when you look at it, it looks you know, more gray with a hint of bluish green to it. But you know, it's it's fine, I can I can live with that color. I would prefer something a little bolder shade of blue. And then it's got a Tuscan number interior. So this is the prestige. So it's got all the all the options in there. Really nice leather interior. The the second row seats, in this one, it has the executive seating in the second row. So you've got a pair of captain's chairs that can recline, they've got foot rests come up. So kind of like a first class. Domestic aircraft seat, very, very comfortable, very pleasant place to be. It's got the rear seat entertainment system, which is great, lots of USB ports everywhere. And like most other modern keys and Hyundai's the larger ones, it's got the USB ports that are on the inner, the inboard side of the seat back of the front seats. So they're really easy to access really easy to get to, for people in the second row.

Only two sort of complaints that I have about this one, the front seats feel a little flat. That is you know, they don't I think what it is when you look at them, they look like they have some notable side bolsters, but I think they're wider than most seats are. So when you're sitting in them, they they feel kind of flat and you don't feel like you're getting much lateral support when you're going around corners, but they're otherwise fairly comfortable. And then the fuel economy, you know, again, going back to the current state of state of affairs with fuel prices, the fuel economy is not great. The EPA EPA estimate is 19 City 26 highway 22 combined. I've been averaging about 20. It's been pretty cold this week. But 20 to 20 and a half is what I've been getting in mixed driving, which is not not exceptional. And unfortunately Hyundai does not or sorry Kia does not yet offer any sort of electrified powertrain in here. So, you know, the Ciana now comes standard with a Toyota hybrid powertrain, and it gets mid 30s fuel economy, the Chrysler Pacifica which is the other one of the other main competitors in this segment, is available with a plug in hybrid that gets you 30 to 33 miles of electric driving range. And then after that you're still in the mid 30s fuel economy for mpg. The I'll be curious to see what Honda does with the Odyssey. It should be coming up for a redesign sometime in the next 12 months or so. And I would be surprised if they don't incorporate a hybrid powertrain in there of some sort. But and I actually wouldn't be surprised if you know maybe for 2023 that kiya will probably add some sort of hybrid powertrain option to the carnival. They already have a very good one that's in the they've got a plug in hybrid that's in the Sorento and some other models as well. Which should have plenty of power it's like 275 horsepower, I think for the the total for the the plug in hybrid system in the Sorento this one is 290 the V six 3.5 liter V 60 Here's 290 horsepower 260 foot pounds of torque it's fairly smooth. They're driving on the highway there was a little bit more wind and road noise or mostly mostly road noise not so much wind noise but road noise that was coming through than I would have expected but not not too terribly objectionable. You do have the sounds of nature available since it is a modern Kiyah so you can always turn that on and get that you know the the sound of the Paris cafe or the crunching through the snow or the bathroom.

Nicole Wakelin  47:20  
Did you pick a sound to enjoy on your carnival drive?

Sam Abuelsamid  47:24  
The switch switched around between a couple of different sounds

Roberto Baldwin  47:28  
to Rio de Janeiro like yeah that's trying to offer a nice that's what yeah. Or Latin jazz or

Sam Abuelsamid  47:37  
yeah you know some New Orleans carnival

Nicole Wakelin  47:40  
have one that's like vehicle specific like you get something that makes sense for that vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:45  
That's a really good idea instead of just having the same set of five six sounds across the entire lineup. Yeah, like five standard ones and then one specific

Nicole Wakelin  47:54  
carnival and one that's for the EP six and what Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  47:58  
no, that makes a lot of sense.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:59  
I will have to share that information with the product planning team at that key of the next time I talked I

Nicole Wakelin  48:04  
think that's a good idea Kiya,

Roberto Baldwin  48:06  
you can send your checks to bilberries

Sam Abuelsamid  48:10  
admin at wheel bearings dot media otherwise, you know, I mean, this is this is a great minivan. Yeah, it's a great family hauler, you know, you've got the dual sliding doors, you know, they're power operated. You know, all the things that we have come to expect in modern minivans are here. It's you know, sharp looking, it's attractive. And it just it does it does what you need for people holler.

Unknown Speaker  48:41  
All folks,

Sam Abuelsamid  48:43  
oh, the price I didn't I didn't mention the price. The one I drove, as I said is pretty much loaded came to $47,770 including an $1,175 destination fee. The base price on the on the Carnival, you can start off with the LX trim, just $32,300 so somewhat more affordable, although your color options are very limited with that one. But other than that, you know, that's the standard. The base vehicle is a very solid vehicle. It's a it's a it's a great people hauler

Nicole Wakelin  49:21  
so yeah, we when I drove it, we had it even to have a planned trip up to the White Mountains to go camping and it was my husband and I my daughter and all of our stuff. And it was great. It was actually nice for I mean, it was a pretty lengthy road trip up there and it's well lit up all that stuff. No problem. So I was a fan and then my friends that were with us. We ran out briefly for something with secure car like this is cool. This is a minivan so they really liked it. So it was

Roberto Baldwin  49:48  
Yeah. I'm always trying to talk people into buying minivans and SUVs, especially people with kids then they're all it's always a pushback like well, I don't know like no minivans are cool. SUVs are basic. minivan.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:02  
With the sliding doors, you don't have to worry about kids opening or banging into the car next to them. You're carrying a kid and

Roberto Baldwin  50:08  
you're walking up to the car, you can hit a button and the door opens. Can you do that in a Ford Escape? Nope,

Sam Abuelsamid  50:13  
nope. And also you don't have to reach up as high. It's you've got a much bigger aperture to get in there and get the kids strapped into their seats and things like that. It's just way easier to handle.

Roberto Baldwin  50:27  
Nice use of the word aperture by the way, yeah. Plus one person there.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:35  
Alright, let's let's let's stick with the minivan theme for a moment. The long long long awaited return of the VW bus is almost back, it's almost here. At least if you live in Europe, it's going to be a little bit longer here in North America. This week, VW officially unveiled the production version of the ID buzz. And I'm glad that they kept the ID buzz name from the concept instead of just giving it some arbitrary seven or eight or 743 thing just like

Nicole Wakelin  51:11  
put the Yeah, like they're coming with just one number after a stop stop. It was.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:16  
So the ID Buzz is is here. They showed off the the production version, which goes on sale in Europe late this summer. I think they start taking orders in Europe in May. And then deliveries starting late summer. For the European market, they are getting a shorter wheelbase to row version of it. We're not getting it here in North America until early 2024, when we will get a slightly longer three row version of it because apparently Americans can't be satisfied with just you know, I would have

Roberto Baldwin  51:53  
been really happy with that sort. But whatever. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:57  
Yeah. Interestingly, all of the all the photos that they have shown in this thing and the the examples, the prototypes that they had, all have the include, including even the cargo but the cargo buzz version, the ID, Buzz, cargo, all have the two tone paint screen paint scheme with the white above and color down below. So and the white and the front, kind of swoops down down to the front bumper. So you kind of evokes that look of the classic type two bus from the 1950s I think wanted originally launched when they had the the V coming down there. What do you guys think of the the buzz?

Roberto Baldwin  52:38  
Oh, it's horrible. No, I'm just Okay, so I waited first for a long time. And then I got very concerned when all the spy pictures are coming out and people who are who, you know, I know, in the Bay Area, they were also very excited. Then they saw the spy patients, they are also concerned. And then now that they've shown it off, like the design hasn't deviated too much from the from, from the concept, it still has that sort of flavor of you know, the old vehicle, you know, you still have to deal with regulatory issues and stuff. You can't make something exactly, you know, old school. But no, I really like it. I'll it'll be interesting. I do wish we were getting a shorter wheelbase here in the United States, I think that would be perfect for my wife and I and our dogs and our cats. But you know, Americans want big cars and most wagons happy to, you know, make it larger and probably throw a larger battery in there. And, and

Nicole Wakelin  53:31  
I like to I think it's gonna do very well. And you know, you're talking about the stigma of a minivan and how many vans or you know, dorky and horrible and awful. And this isn't a minivan this is the this is a bus, you know, so you're okay, you can get this stigma if

Roberto Baldwin  53:48  
you have a minivan, right? It's like no,

Nicole Wakelin  53:50  
not the same thing. This is like the old Volkswagen bus. So you're okay, so they've

Roberto Baldwin  53:55  
I still cool mom. You're still cool. Cool,

Nicole Wakelin  53:57  
mom. And actually, you're driving this year cool, mom. Yeah. Electric. Right. So this is like an electric car. It's not really minivan. It only thinks it is. It's really cute. I think this is going to do well. Do we get pricing information on this? No, no? Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  54:16  
yeah. I think yeah, I think they're gonna announce the pricing closer to May when they start sales. Start the orders in Europe. I've heard rumors is gonna be pretty pricey.

Nicole Wakelin  54:29  
No, no, yes, ma'am. Your rumors,

Sam Abuelsamid  54:33  
you know, it is electric. And it's, it's bigger than an ID for although it's using the same powertrain and battery from the 84. So I would guess that the starting price is, at a minimum going to be mid 40s Here in the US and loaded up you're probably going to be looking, you know, 60 Plus,

Nicole Wakelin  54:55  
it's still pretty competitive with you know, as long as it actually is competitive with comparable money. The answer okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:00  
Yeah, well, especially when you when you factor in operating costs, I mean, yeah, it's gonna be a little more expensive probably to buy than then the comparable minivans. But it's gonna be a hell of a lot cheaper to operate. Because, you know, you're not gonna have to worry about 20 miles per gallon from this thing. And it's it's rear wheel drive, 200 horsepower, 201 horsepower, electric motor on the rear axle. I would guess that for at least for the US, and probably globally, they will probably offer an all wheel drive version as well, with a front electric motor, you know, lots of room in this thing, you know, the battery and the little motor in the back there said, Nice flat floor. The, the interior, the infotainment is pretty consistent with the look of what you have on the ID three and the ID four. Same type of, you know, small digital cluster in front of the driver, the the touchscreen in the middle, all the photos show with the white trim around the the cluster on the front there. Hopefully they will, I would assume that for production, you know, they will also offer black versions because you know, if you're going to haul family around in this thing, probably don't want all that white trim in there.

Nicole Wakelin  56:20  
On the cargo version, they show him with black. Oh, do they Okay,

Roberto Baldwin  56:23  
yeah, the cargo version? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:27  
All right. And there's, and unfortunately, we will not get the cargo version here. Because chicken tax would have to pay a 25% tariff on it. So we'll only get the people hauler version. And one thing that is not been decided, apparently, is whether we will get the California camper version. So in Europe, they will have the option of the the classic pop up camper on the ID buzz. During the presentation, there were two versions of the present when they did the reveal earlier this week, there were two versions, there was the global version, the European version of that presentation. And then it was a shorter America only version with Scott Kiko who's the president of VW of America. And he did reference the California camper. And he said, we'd like to hear from, from fans, and you know, whether we should have that here. So I think that they're still trying to decide whether to offer it here. But that, you know, that would be a very distinct selling point that no other minivan offers is to have that, that classic pop up camper, on this thing, people

Roberto Baldwin  57:39  
are going to spend a lot of money on Yeah, so this thing is, yeah, it's, yeah, a lot of people have been waiting for this. And there are a lot of people a lot of money who'd be more than happy to spend, you know, to drop 110 120 on a California camper version of this because the the regular California camper version is just like $103 or something crazy. $103,000 And so they don't sell the United States, they just let us all drive it. So I bet I think the I think they're going to be fine. I know that Volkswagen America is very they're always a little concerned about bringing a car over because they're like, Well, you know, we want to make sure it fits. And we sell a lot of Germany offered Volkswagen American ID three, and they said all you have to sell is 20,000. We'll let you have it. If you can, if you can tell us yourself $20,000 20,000 of these 20,000 units, go for it. And Volkswagen America is very much like Well, we really want to come out with something that is a you know that growth market, which is that crossover SUV, so I think yeah, so I think they're going to be a little like, I don't know, but now that's there's there's no way that is not going to be a winner. There's no way they're not going to have to like put people off for like 18 months in order to build it because it's gonna Yeah, yeah, people are people, people in this country have a lot of money. Some of them, not me. But some people have a lot of money. They're more than happy to spend it on nostalgia, and EVS and camping, because the van life thing. It's a thing. And it's not I don't think it's not going away post pandemic I think it's it's I think people were like, Hey, this is actually kind of nice. I don't have you know, I have this thing I can drive around when I'm in town, but then I can also just take it off for the weekend. Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  59:29  
well, I'm just glad that they're gonna sell even any version of this thing here in North America, because it would have been really easy for VW to just say, No, we don't need that here. We're not going to sell that many of them but

Roberto Baldwin  59:43  
it would have been there. I know there have been a riot people are still angry about the Honda II okay. And that doesn't have that didn't have like 20% of the excitement around it, but the ID buzz has so I think you Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:02  
What one of the other features that will be standard on here is bi directional charging, like, like you have on the, the Ford F 150. So it'll it'll support any of you have to have a DC wallbox bidirectional wallbox in your garage, you can plug it in and you can power your house off of this thing. If your power goes out or when your campsite, you can plug stuff in and run it off of there. So that's that's very nice. And speaking of bi directional charging, had a there was also an announcement this week from General Motors and PG and E, that they're going to do a bi directional charging pilot with a bunch of new GM EVs in Northern California, which is the area that pg&e serves? I don't know, I think I think they kind of dropped the Pacific Gas and Electric name and that just go with pg&e now. But they're going to start this summer. With that, in pg&e, is labs. And this is one thing that GM hasn't talked about with their new EVs yet is bi directional capability, for obviously made a big deal of it with the F 150 with their intelligent power backup. But GM hadn't really talked about it, even when we asked them, you know, whether it would be there. And so they're going to do some testing. And one thing that's different with what they're doing with PG, and E, is they're integrating this into what they call a demand response system. So with the with the F 150. With their their system, if you have that smart inverter from Sunrun in your garage, and it's plugged in, it's got a transfer switch in there. So when your power goes out, it, the transfer switch automatically switches over. So it disconnects your home circuitry from the grid when the power goes out. And it starts pulling power from the battery in the truck and powering everything. But it's it's all done locally, it's all controlled locally, what GM and pg&e are doing, same basic idea, you've got this inverter and transfer switch, but it can also be installed in addition to being controlled locally, it can also be controlled remotely by pg&e. And, you know, certainly, I'm sure you've had experiences Robbie, you know, pg&e has had a lot of problems, you know, with during hot periods, with having too much power demand and having to go to rolling blackouts and things like this. And what they want to be able to do is for people that have this demand response system set up, they can automatically switch them off the grid. And they know they can retain power, but they can reduce their the load on the grid by taking a few 1000 Or you know, 10s of 1000s of homes, off the grid for a period of time running them off their EVs and, and they control that from, you know, from their end, not not locally at your home. What do you think about that?

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:16  
i Well, okay, so first of all, as pg&e, which there is no love for pg&e in Northern California to be to be fair, I mean, they've a lot. A lot of the fires that have happened up here, pg&e is fault, because pg&e didn't, you know, they got we're not going to work on we're not going to cut down trees, we're not going to do the the maintenance that's needed, they've been cutting costs, and in order to make sure that, you know, they're making a lot of money for years, and now it's biting them on the ass because now they're having to pay, you know, these huge settlements, which we have to pay for, by the way, the consuming our energy costs go up because they lost a huge lawsuit because they burned down a town, and then another town, and then another town. And it's you know, so it's, it's on that enemy saying, Ah, on the other, you know, if you if I'm sure there's probably going to be something you have to opt into, and if you opt into it. Yeah, I mean, if they can, if they can make it work, pg&e recently said they're going to start burying their, their, their, their electric lines, which is something people have been asking for decades for. So those electric lines don't get, you know, blown over in the wind hit a tree and then burned down hundreds of 1000s of acres. So they're doing that so they're they're all they're going in the in the correct direction. I think this is part of that. I like the idea of bi directional charging your house doesn't use nearly as much energy as your car does. You know, and if I can even if I can set it up my own like right now I have a level two charger to charge the car between midnight and 3pm that's off peak here. And then from 3pm to like midnight. It's it's it's pretty charging, or its peak power, you know, you're paying like almost double for electricity. If I could charge my car at night, and then when peak happens, I can pull my, you know, I can start pulling power from my vehicle. Let's say I buy that, that that Volkswagen buzz that Id buzz, you know, it's 84 kilowatt, which is more than I'll ever use in my house. I'm not driving every day, you know, I work from home, my wife takes the other car to work. If I can charge you know, I'm essentially saving money because instead of paying double for double the price for electricity, I'm paying off peak, you know, prices for electricity for my home. So it's Yeah, I think it's, it's good and also if we can help you know, if we can reduce you know, blackouts because a blackout is, you know, it's it's inconvenient for me, it's horrible for people who need medical equipment in their home, it's horrible for hospitals and a toilet rule for people who, who actually need to have their electricity on for, for a variety of reasons. For me, if it powered was out of my Oh, no, I hope everything's charged. It is. Okay, fine.

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:10  
I think it's a cool idea. But as long as they allow people to opt into it, I think the idea of them just saying, Nope, we're making this power decision for you whether you want it or not.

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:19  
Yeah, I think most people would opt into it. Most people are buying EVs. You know, I don't see this, that people are gonna be like, Oh, no, but it's pg&e. That's, yeah, it really comes down

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:29  
to me. I'm on the East Coast. And I think of him as the company that starts all the fires. That's literally how I think

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:34  
their brand is yeah, we burn things down.

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:37  
Fires by accident. Oops, yes.

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:39  
We're not good at what we do. We have one job and we're not good at it. I'm good at

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:43  
it. Yeah, so GM is gonna they're gonna start the testing and PG and these labs this summer. And then by the end of the year, they plan to expand the pilot to consumers. And they're also couple days after the GM announcement, they announced that Ford is also going to participate in this so they'll be using the F 150. Lightning as part of this as well. For the demand response, so cool, that should all be kicking off but before the end of the year. All right. Staying with EVs, some more onda and Sony signed a memorandum of understanding to look at potentially forming a joint venture to maybe make EVs

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:27  
a memorandum of understanding it's a plan to make a plan. Exactly. It's an idea. It's a it's a letter that we to plan to have a plan. Hey, so you want to do something? Yeah, maybe we'll do something later. Yeah, that sounds like it's like when you and your friends are like college. Hey, we should get some lunch sometime. Yeah, that sounds great. We should, and then you leave.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:50  
Yeah, so Sony has shown two different Evie concepts at CES and 2020. And then another one this year, the 2021 was a sedan. This year they showed an SUV. And it was never clear if Sony actually really wanted to get into the business of building cars, or they were just using this as demonstrators to show off all their various technologies that they'd like to sell the car companies and apparently, Honda's interested in maybe taking that and turning it into a real product. So we'll see. On this first new EVs are coming in North America coming courtesy of General Motors in 2020 for the Honda prologue, and as yet unnamed, Acura crossover based on Jim's Altium platform, but looks like they're gonna throw in there potentially throw in their lot with Sony as well.

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:46  
So I talked to Sony, after the 220 20 ces, where they showed off the the vehicle again. And they told me, I'm like, Are you making this car? And they're like, Nah, we're not gonna make this car and then they went and then they turned around and told someone else that they were going to make and I was like, what, what is going on with with with them, and now they're going to but they're not. Well, maybe we'll make it maybe we won't. It's it's all very, you just make what what is? What is i? Okay, fine, fine. Fine. Just do whatever you're gonna do, but it's

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:22  
like the most tentative of maybe, I don't know. We have any kind of plans. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:28  
they, I mean, it's a get into it. And they can make a nice car and they're working with Magna or they're working with Honda or they're working with GM or Volkswagen or whoever. Great. That's fine. If you can make a good, a nice Eevee that people want and I don't know, maybe have a Walkman in it. That's great. And they come to the PlayStation five

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:47  
for the first EV with a cassette player. Yes. Headphones from Wired head row, a little orange foam. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:59  
That was very nice. specific

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:03  
tools. Alright, well, we'll see what happens with Honda and Sony rivian made some more news this week, which did not impress a lot of people apparently need

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:15  
any good news for months, everything nothing

Roberto Baldwin  1:10:18  
happy is coming up with some cool cars. I was like, Yeah, we love these trucks. All right,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:22  
hold on. We're just gonna mess it. We only made a few of them. No, we only made a few they had. They had their q4 earnings call this week. And let's see in q4 of 2021, they lost but 1.1 or a q4 versus previous $2.5 billion in losses in q4. And that's that's a lot of money. And they are projecting for this year for 2022. That they're going to lose $4.75 billion. He, yeah, they turns out their their factory in Illinois has capacity, theoretical capacity for 50,000 vehicles a year. They are currently projecting that they're only going to produce 25,000 vehicles this year. Oh my gosh. And that includes the Amazon delivery vans. Even though that includes the van that includes the vans, that's their total production 20 Oh,

Roberto Baldwin  1:11:28  
so people are getting maybe 3000

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:30  
reservations and less than 50,000 people people will get an actual vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:37  
Yeah, well, less than 25,000,

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:40  
less than 25,000. Sorry, we'll get oh my gosh.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:43  
So it will probably be on the order of somewhere between 15 and 20,000 of the r1 T and R one s and then the rest will be the delivery vans

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:53  
that they had a whole bunch of people cancel when they first did their whole, it's not gonna cause you to think it costs a weight, we're backpedaling, and now they have, hey, we're not gonna make what we thought we were gonna make. Did you feel like is a ravine if you're like holding an order? You'd be like, You know what, enough I've been burned once burned twice. I'm ever gonna get a car.

Roberto Baldwin  1:12:13  
It's still it's still beat the cybertruck the market, though.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:15  
That's true. was the first electric pickup truck

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:19  
when I feel like was ready. And you have that you have the expectation that it would happen with Tesla. Yeah. You know, you're there's no doubt it's like, you might get a truck baby this year. Who knows? Like, we are going to build the truck and you believe them?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:35  
Yeah, I listened to the earnings call. And they talked about they're, they're having trouble getting some of the parts from suppliers. You know, it's the the whole supply chain challenge. Everybody's having, having a hard time getting getting parts. And if you can't get parts, you can't make vehicles. You can't. If you can't get all the parts, you can't ship them to customers, especially if it's an Eevee you need all those chips in there for and yeah. So they're, they're struggling a bit with with production. You know, so it's not the same kinds of problems that Tesla had a Tesla was just, you know, with the launch, everything they've built, you know, they've had trouble just putting them together, they, they were able to get the parts they just couldn't put it together, right. rivian just can't get the parts they need. Yeah, and that's that's a real issue. So far, through through May eight, they have produced 20 425 vehicles since last September. So when they started production, which is not a lot of vehicle. Yeah, that's for each of Ford's f150 plants cranks out 50 trucks or 60 trucks per hour. So 120 an hour between two plants.

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:50  
And understand that sounds really close the differences seem very

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:53  
big. No, no, not at all. So if you're waiting for rivian You're probably going to be waiting a while longer,

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:00  
maybe maybe six in the meantime, get an Eevee six or something. Get it you know get a Ford Maverick in the meantime, go a little Maverick or Maverick drive it around. They'll tide you over until you have to get into your ribbon shows up it gets pretty good yeah, it gets good gas mileage. Yeah, yeah, just just get that instead for while you wait while you wait and that data you know and then like a few years, Maverick

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:27  
probably be able to sell them advocate a profit. Yeah, probably.

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:31  
If the supply chain still have keeps doing it'll probably Yeah. Or you know, even if you don't sell the property you got you know, you got a good little truck for 20,000 bucks. Yeah, of course that might not show up to your house for six months. So maybe I don't know. I hope you just weren't waiting for that car as your

Nicole Wakelin  1:14:47  
Yeah, that's pretty much the deal. Just don't be waiting on that with any sense of urgency whatsoever.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:52  
Speaking of not waiting with a sense of urgency. Hope you weren't waiting for a new generation Subaru WR X STI. Oh wow. Ah, apparently not gonna happen. I love the STI.

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:05  
I love the WR X. I'm a big fan of both of those vehicles.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:09  
Stay you're crying big tears that Yeah, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:12  
I bet I you know, I would the gas powered one so if they if they can deliver an Eevee STI that drives like the STI that's it that's that's it I got what I don't care, I don't care then you know they killed it the gas powered STI and they deliver like something that's just as good. But electrons

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:34  
are not under the shade as long as it drives the way in sgic drive.

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:38  
Yeah, this I just yeah, the all wheel drive system, the hand handling everything about the WX NSTI are just for me as this is the kind of car that I absolutely adore. Just I can just take it anywhere, do anything. And it's just gonna be like Yeah, yeah, let's do this. Let's let's party. That's, that's yeah, I drove the last gen, I guess current generation, the final generation of guests sti and I was yeah, the only thing that sucked is it it's not a it's not a wagon. Round. No, it wasn't rad. You know?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:12  
On an STI you don't need brown you need that blue the classic right? Yeah, see the broulee blue.

Roberto Baldwin  1:16:18  
You can see the brown see people know that you're you're legit because you've got all the mud

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:22  
on it. Yeah, you don't want you don't want the brown thing in? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:16:27  
You want you want people to know. You know, I you know, I've just completely aside I'm always concerned about people who buy the ARX and STI and then they lower them. I'm like, What are you doing? What are you doing? Not only car. No, you're doing it wrong are so many other vehicles you can buy and lower. But it's your car, do what you want. Don't listen to me. But at the same time, it's sort of don't do that. Just a smidge.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:50  
I think it's gonna be interesting to see how the soltera drives. I think that'll be an interesting indicator of maybe where Subaru you know what Subaru might be able to achieve with the, with the STI and to see if there's any difference in the way the soltera behaves from the toilet of B BZ for x? Yeah, because from what I've been told, Subaru actually did most of the development on this vehicle. Oh, that's so it's more Subaru than it is Toyota.

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:20  
Right. That'll be fun. Yeah, I was unable to go drive it because of conflicts. So I'm but I'm eagerly. I'm very excited about the Saltair and seats to see what happens. And it's easier to say than the whatever the Toyota thing is called. Yeah, that I've completely forgotten every time I said BZ for x, right? Yeah, so it's beyond 04 times I guess that's that's the only way I can remember.

Nicole Wakelin  1:17:47  
Remember it that'll work

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:47  
yes or no sorry that the number is kind of the indicator of where it fits in the range size wise. The BZ five will be larger. Z three will be smaller.

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:58  
I want to get the big one crossover.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:01  
One like a little we don't know yet.

Nicole Wakelin  1:18:03  
It's just it's just like a two seater.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:05  
Yeah, Mikey. Might be the Alexa

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:09  
mister to Jerry 86. It's Mr. To that mercury go. Give us up Mr. To give us a Mr. To electric Mr. To.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:19  
Okay. Before we get into questions, I just want to let people know if you're listening to this early this week. If you are in Austin, and you're going to South by Southwest, make sure you come by the convention center on Thursday afternoon at 130 Central time, I think it is in Austin. I will be on stage interviewing Peter Rawlinson, the CEO and CTO of lucid motors. So if you're around or if you're watching, if you're doing the online version of South by this year, you can check that out online as well. So make sure you make sure you check it out.

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:58  
Good Peter Peters, an engineer and you're an engineer. So if you're like a nerd, you're this is gonna be a good talk. Yeah, every time I talked to Peter, it's it's it's like, you know, there's it's less like, like media training and more like nerdy nerdery. And so he's a he's a fun, he's a fun interview.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:12  
Yeah, well, and also, this week, lucid launched a video series called Tech Talks on YouTube. And the first one is like 3540 minutes long. And it's all Peter going through explaining, you know, their approach to efficiency and how they designed the batteries and and the motors and everything on on the The Lucid Air. And there's some math in there. He's got a he's got a table it's a whiteboard and he's doing the equations on there explaining how they came up with the size and every

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:45  
minute you give an engineer a whiteboard and post it notes. It's all over.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:48  
Oh, yeah. Notes too. Yeah, you can have

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:51  
those stuck in between to create your flow chart in colors depending on the where you are in the flow chart.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:58  
Absolutely. All right, let's answer some questions from the listeners. Cory Wallace asks, love the podcast. What are your thoughts on skipping out of getting extended warranty on new vehicles to save money? I've had multiple vehicles and never use the warranty and I'm thinking of buying a new 2023 Kia Niro PHV when it comes up this fall, what do you guys think about extended warranties?

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:21  
I've never bought one in my whole life ever.

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:23  
I did a lot of calls about them. Like a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:29  
I used to get a lot of calls about them before I got before Google enabled automatic call screening on the phone. So now all that stuff just go straight to the spam folder. I never never even rings my phone. I've never gotten I have. It is about to expire. Yeah. I haven't owned for 10 years. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:49  
Yeah, I've gotten the I have gotten the thing where you pay and like you can bring it into and get it service for free, like the extra money. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:01  
you're paying prepaying for maintenance. Yeah, I

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:04  
have done that. Once I did that, on the low on the, the the lease for our FIA. That way, we just you know, because we were you know, my was my wife was in school I was working with live in the Bay. We live in San Francisco at the time, so we didn't have a lot of money. So I was just like, if I just pay for it now. And then while I'm traveling my wife you take it in, there's no like surprise. Oh, yeah, they we can rotate the tires, and it was $100. And then we got to change it. It was like, so that was I don't think it was worth it. Like monetarily wise, but I think peace of mind just getting it done. And not having a surprise, you know, was was was was nice. But yeah, I extended I don't know, I've never done. I don't know that their way

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:47  
you get you got to be careful with those. You know, when you go to a dealer when you're buying a new car, more often than not, you know, those extended warranties are not coming from the manufacturer. These are third party warranties that, you know, it's being done by some other company. There's usually a lot of a lot of details you got to look, you got to look over the contract really carefully, and see how much of a deductible what's actually covered? Yeah, these these things are generally extremely profitable for dealers, which is why they you know, was probably the longest part of buying a car is the time you spend in the f&i office, going through all that stuff as you're signing your paperwork, you know, they're trying to sell you all these other extra insurance and

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:36  
trackers, the tracker is the one they tried to get us to get on our key. And I was like, no, they're like, well, and they just kept lowering the price. About $250. I'm like, No. And then we got home in the kiya I'm sorry, the Hyundai and then the Hyundai app, you can track your car with the Hyundai app. So yeah. And I was like, Well, what if it gets stolen? I'm like, that's what I have insurance for. I don't care if the car gets stolen. I'm like, Fine, that's gone. Who cares? That's why I'm paying insurance. It's not it's not a classic car.

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:00  
Hey, did you a ton of stuff with that for I wrote for car talk for a while for their blog. And they did it into like with what extended warranties do and what they include and what they don't include in the ones that are well received by the public and the ones where people feel like no, I'm getting taken for a ride. If you really want to look at me, I don't have links, they don't have any bit Car Talk if you Google it, they have extensive deep dives on with what they each offer which ones they recommend and don't recommend, and just what exactly you're getting for your money and sort of the kind of things to look out for. I'm not a big fan of them as a rule but like I just a little shout out to car talk if you go Google them and look on their site, you will find a ton of information because you are getting them from third parties and there's a lot of third parties offer them that you can buy with an X number of you know, weeks of buying your new car you can add it on blah blah blah. So definitely

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:50  
send me a link.

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:52  
Yeah, let me see if you can make because they really did a ton with that. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:57  
okay. James Gardner asked about our thoughts on the RIP STI just sold my 15 last year and looked like it was the last that looks like it's the last of the model. We already talked about that. Dave Dan visma asks, and based on on the context here I'm going to guess the Dan does not live in the US probably lives in type diesel. Okay. We have four older cars, a 91 Mercedes 190 E for the love and Oh 4x type diesel for the commute a 98 discovery for the kids discovery to for the kids in the dogs and a slow slow ours Oh far many one was another one that was never sold here though. The bass bass bass Mini 1.4 Auto for my wife who can't drive a stick? Is there a PHV out there that could replace them all?

Roberto Baldwin  1:24:49  
Five cars one a lot. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  1:24:52  
Or a four four cars. Four cars.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:55  
gonna replace them with one. Yeah, I mean, I think I think There's some options in there. You know, I don't know how many kids you've got how many you know what size of dogs you've got, you know, I mean, if you've got, if you've got a couple of, you know, a master for a bernese mountain dog, you know, some of these suggestions might not necessarily work. But, you know, or if you've got three or more kids, that could also be problematic. But you know, I did, I was thinking about it earlier as I was writing the stuff up. The Toyota rav4 Prime, I think is a great option. You got lots of cargo space in there. The Peugeot 3008 is also available the plug in hybrid, Hyundai Tucson plug in hybrid, if you need something a little bigger. You know, depending on what your budget is, you know, bit based on the fact that these are all older cars, I'm not sure you know, if you can swing a Volvo XC 90 plug in hybrid, but that's another another option to consider. It's on the larger size. The VW Touareg R E hybrid, also plugin or if you really need extra space, Ford offers the TOURNEO CUSTOM with a plug in hybrid option so that's their that's their mid size van. It's the in Europe the you know, the transit vans are all the vans called transit our cargo versions so transit, custom Transit Connect with the little one, the Transit Custom, and then the big transit that the passenger versions are branded as Tornado. So the tornado is kind of the mid size smaller than transit bigger that connect. That's also available as a plug in hybrid. So if you need lots and lots of space that you know, that's probably your best option in Europe.

Roberto Baldwin  1:26:48  
Yeah, it's hard to go wrong with the rav4 prime

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:51  
fan that that one I like it. Well, you can get one

Roberto Baldwin  1:26:53  
you can get one it's hard to go wrong. The ones that are sitting next to diesel. Wow. Yeah. Should be stuck right there. You should be why the X type deaths. It's it's I don't think they ever offered the diesel here. They didn't offer to nestle. They only sold like a few wagons, and a few manuals on the 2.5 to three liters for all wheel drive one. There weren't a lot of them. And the ones that were here are either my father in law bought it. There's a few people who bought them but most a lot of them were like Ford, Ford employees because it was part of the you could get it. So you could look a little fancier than just driving around in the Taurus or whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:37  
Yeah. Okay, Dave Marsh asks, Is it me getting older or headlights just incredibly bright on new cars? I find the way they wash out my night vision and make my older car headlights near useless with oncoming traffic. I have a couple of vehicles of all heights so it's not just a driver elevation thing.

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:58  
Oh yeah, they're way brighter than they used to be.

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:00  
It definitely in there's different kinds. Everyone had halogen headlights once upon a time and now you don't necessarily make it brighter. And also, you swap out your what I found that if you swap out your LEDs, I'm sorry. If you saw put your halogen headlights for like an LED converter, you can actually make them blindingly bright by accident. It breaks all kinds of rules. Yeah, they because the reflectors aren't the right way. So you can get a kit that'll do it, but you're not supposed to because that kit isn't designed to work with the reflectors and such in your existing headlight assembly. And it was fine with halogen bulbs, or if you got new halogen bulbs, but you put an LED in there and you blind the bejesus out of oncoming traffic, which it looks better to you as the driver, but it's killing the person across from you. So that's also a problem.

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:40  
Also, they're more and more people just driving around with their brights on what I live in a in a I live in San Francisco, I live in the suburbs now. And there's no reason ever in most of these areas for you to have your brights on. There's no reason in a city to have your brights on ever. Unless you're get lost and you're in the middle of like the warehouse district. And then the only car around

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:03  
to use them is like when I'm out in the middle of nowhere here like most of the time, even in New Hampshire. I don't have them on just when I really get off to a cybersec Okay, um, the deep dark depths the wilderness here, I need my beans.

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:15  
Yeah, and they're just driving around their brights on your flash and they don't care. They're just like, I don't care. Like if you can't see if you can't drive without your height, your high beams. You shouldn't be driving. That's the rule.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:25  
That makes sense. Well, in rural areas in rural areas, it definitely makes sense to drive with your your high beams on you know, especially if you live someplace like around here or New Hampshire where you've gotten lots of lots of animals deer that you know, that are, you know, might be crossing the road in front of you or wild turkeys. You want to see those things as soon as you can. But other than that, yeah, most of the time, you shouldn't need them. Fortunately, I mean, most modern cars have auto high beams anyway. So you know they will autumn they should automatically switch off Switched down to low beams as soon as they detect, you know, oncoming vehicles. And then NITSA did just finally approve change the the headlight regulation, allowing adaptive headlights. So we're gonna start seeing those coming to market, you know, in the next year or so. And even some vehicles that are already on the road, like Audi's and some others already have the, the hardware in place for adaptive headlights, high beams. So they might actually be able to get software updates that enable that so that it'll automatically dim the lights, you know, where, you know, so you'd have high beams on all around the cars that are approaching, but dim the lights right, you know, on the car itself, so you don't blind other drivers. So and can do all kinds of other cool stuff as well. And stuff? Yeah. All right. Last one from Al Beck. He asks about the impact of the Ukraine war in the auto industry, will this impact the US market, which automakers are most exposed? On the last part, I think, motor housing group, yeah, Volkswagen, apparently a lot of their wiring harnesses built at a factory in the Ukraine. And they've had to pause a lot of production right now because they can't get their wiring harnesses. But more generally, the other the other big things, the two main things that are going to be an impact, because there's not a lot of autoparts built in the Ukraine or in Russia. The two main things are supplies of palladium, which predominantly come right now at least predominantly come from Russia. And that's used extensively in catalytic converters. So you may find it we'll probably see thefts of catalytic converters going up as those prices go up. And then with Ukraine, about 60% of the neon gas that's used globally is produced in the Ukraine. And Neon is not generally used directly in automotive production, but it is used for the lasers that are used for making semiconductors making chips. So if we didn't have enough problems with chip production, a lot of the neon that's used in chip production is going to be unavailable for a while. So that's it for this week. Thanks, everybody. And we'll talk to you next time. Bye guys.