Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 242 of wheel bearings. We've got the Mini Cooper SE. We drive the Hyundai Santa Cruz, Mercedes Benz EQE, the new Toyota Bz4x and the GMC Hummer EV and cruise AV gets pulled over in San Francisco. All that more coming up next.

This is episode 242 of wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid of guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  0:33  
I am Nicole Wakelin. Let's see Kelley Blue Book today.

Roberto Baldwin  0:40  
And I am Roberto Baldwin. Forbes wheels.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:44  
And let's start with you, Roberto. What have you been driving? What have you been playing with?

Roberto Baldwin  0:50  
I have been driving so many things. But here are the things I'm going to talk about. I drove the brand new. I was gonna say Mazda, I don't know why. I'll start with an M, I have a little bit of jetlag, I drove I went all the way to Europe, to Germany to drive the new Mercedes Benz EQ II. They're not as fancy as an S Class. C Class version of the EQ lineup.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23  
But it looks just like an S class.

Roberto Baldwin  1:25  
It does, you know? Yeah. Okay. So here's the weird day. So we fly over there. Get there?

Nicole Wakelin  1:32  
And we look, how does fine go again?

Roberto Baldwin  1:36  
Except for 15 hours.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41  
making that sound effect.

Roberto Baldwin  1:42  
It is it's just like.

Yeah, we get there and you look at it. And it's the same design language as the EQs. It looks like just a smaller version of the EQs. Yet for some reason, it looks actually nicer because it's smaller. That design. I don't Yeah, I You just kind of have to see it in person. I think it looks a bit nicer, that design language on a smaller vehicle. Okay. So there you go. That's the look thing. I think people are there either. Like it I think I said, either they like it or they hate it. I don't think anyone really loves the new design of the EQ. S or the I guess the new EQ II. But yeah, it's fine. Whatever you get inside, it's a Mercedes, it's just like essentially the same as the EQs. It's very fancy, you can get the hyper screen if you want 56 inches of, of, I don't know, touchscreen terror. It's got the, it's got the passenger screen. That's so if the passengers watching, I don't know, movie or whatever. And then because the hyper screen has the in car monitoring system, it has the little camera right there in the right above the instrument cluster. If you turn to look at it, it'll like sort of pause it and be like, Hey, you can't watch that. So it doesn't just watch, it doesn't just have drawn it, it actually pauses it, I think they've put a filter or something, something happens where you can't see it. They're like no. So that's cool. I didn't get the chance to try it though, because in the time of COVID, we still have drive partners. So but you know, we only have so much time with these first drive. I but I got to drive the 300, the 350 and the 500. So the 500 is also coming to United States. It is coming later than the 350 though 350 will be first and it will have just that single portrait screen it will not have the gigantic HyperX screen available when it gets here but but you'll be able to get that later on. And you'll also be able to get the more powerful 500 The 350 is how you say and your and in English. rear wheel drive is rear wheel drive only. And the 500 is all wheel drive. formatic you know the old the old Mercedes Benz formatic that's that's just a fancy word for all wheel drive. The EQ II has 288 horsepower, 391 pound feet of torque. And when you stop on the gas, it's fine. It's not it is definitely not a rocket. It's not I think I like that more and more vehicles that are EVs when you stomp on the gas or I'm sorry, the accelerator because there is no gas. When you stomp on the accelerator, it'll pedal. Yeah, it doesn't just jerk your head backwards. Because that's fun. Three times. It's fun for you three times and then every time a friend gets in the car, you're like, Hey, look at this man after a while, after a while and you're like yeah, I just want to go from here to here. Hear. And so the 350 doesn't have that sort of like it's just a very nice, very smooth acceleration curve. And especially if you're looking at a luxury car, it's so stuck. The EQ is really, really smooth just driving on the road and very, very quiet. You're just kind of more sounds by the way,

Nicole Wakelin  5:26  
of course, to get over to, to drive the car in the first place. Oh,

Roberto Baldwin  5:29  
yeah, it's much better on the ears. It's far less, you're attacking by the outside world, when you're driving the QEII as opposed to sitting in a plane flying over.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:41  
I must say, I'm looking at the pictures of the interior right now. The vents on the dashboard. look very much like jet engines like, Oh, yeah. The front of the jet engine.

Roberto Baldwin  5:53  
Yeah, the whole Mercedes. The Mercedes Benz deal now is like making things look like like planes on the inside. Like little jet engines, all those vans.

Nicole Wakelin  6:02  
It looks awesome. That doesn't it? Yeah, it looks good. It looks really cool.

Roberto Baldwin  6:05  
And then you get the little accent lighting, you can put it all the different colors again, I always pick the Peppermill colors. It looks like really cool. The you know it? You know, I like the hyper screen. In theory, I think it's very nice. It's huge. But the regular screen, it's just without the passenger screen. It's it's more than adequate. It's, it's huge. It's still huge. You just don't have that other screen over there on the right hand side. And so the passenger? I don't know they have to if they want to do things with the navigation, they have to turn left and or it's Yeah, I mean, the passenger screen is great if you want to listen to different music than to drive or if you want to watch something if you want to use the internet or, but a lot of that stuff, you know what else people have usually is their phone. Or you don't

Sam Abuelsamid  7:00  
want to sit there in the car for three hours holding your phone in front of you. That's or your iPad or whatever. You just do. Yep, it's nice. It's nice to just have it there. And you can just sit back and relax and yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  7:14  
But it wash over me. So yeah, I guess there's that. So you can do you know, if you're into that, then you can get the hyper screen. If you're not into that, then just get the regular screen. You knew you will need the hyper screen setup though. If you want to get the augmented reality turn by turn line arrows because it needs those are the ads very cool. And it's really nice how well it sort of attaches to the road itself to the road and it's doing that because it's using you know, location of your face. Hyundai same thing on their vehicles. They had the ionic five and I think DV six all also have anyway. Yeah. But vehicles have him

Sam Abuelsamid  7:52  
on the Hyundai's is not as sophisticated. It doesn't actually move around in space.

Roberto Baldwin  7:58  
Yeah, exactly. Because it can't, it doesn't know where you're exactly where your head is. It can't track your eyes. So it's, you know, it's just sort of like, hey, there's a thing coming up. And there's the arrows. And it's good. But it's definitely not, like you say, as sophisticated as the Mercedes Benz version, where it's just like, right there. It's all floating. It's all dynamic. It's very, yeah, it's very impressive. So so if you if you if you want that, then you're going to need the the hyper screen. And that's very helpful. If you happen to be driving somewhere, you have no idea where you are like a teeny tiny European street, or all the teeny tiny European,

Nicole Wakelin  8:37  
you get lost. Is that are you telling us you got lost in a teeny tiny European street somewhere? I

Roberto Baldwin  8:42  
missed the turn. You have to like do a bunch of things to get like where you need to go. But it's yeah, it's like, oh, no, I missed the turn. Oh, it's not that big of a deal, actually, to be. I think, I think missing your turn while visiting Europe when you had to use a map. And like a co pilot, that that's that's a much tougher, like, oh, gosh, we're never done. But now yeah, you know, Google Maps are in car maps, like everything's like, Oh, it's just redirecting it, because I've driven through Europe before, you know, before smartphones, and you just sort of like, Oh, I missed my turn. Oh, hold on. Let's look at the map is pull over, it takes a little bit longer, but you're still gonna get where you're gonna get. They haven't said any information on pricing, yet. They haven't shared any information on range. They do have, I think their WL TWLT P scale. You know, the super generous European scale says it'll do 660 kilometers per charge, which is about 400 miles per charge. Once the EPA gets a hold of the vehicle will be far less than that. So you know, don't don't be looking at that number. It has a 90.6 kilowatt hour capacity battery pack, so you shouldn't be too concerned about how probably going to be able to drive in this thing it's March DC fast charging up to 170 kilowatts which is good but not great you know with with other companies hit me up and anything below 200 for a luxury vehicle seems kind of

Sam Abuelsamid  10:22  
I mean, Mercedes Mercedes is still using a 400 volt they still

Roberto Baldwin  10:26  
use your Yeah exactly 400 volt Hyundai is doing 800 Hyundai just want to say it again. Hyundai is doing 800 Mercedes is doing 400 Again it's it's a Mercedes you sit in it's comfortable. It's just you know, massage seats all you know you can you can option this thing to the sky. And you're going to have a nice time you're going to be very comfortable. And that's really what this this the EQ is all about. Just smooths pristine comfort and quiet. We drove it you know, they had us driving through the mountains and you know, you're like, Oh, we're doing some dynamic driving but you really I mean you can but it's really just like, oh, this is so nice. It's nice and comfortable.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:14  
You know, you listen to whatever the next generation German taxi cab.

Roberto Baldwin  11:17  
Yeah, it's the next generation realizing that

Sam Abuelsamid  11:21  
the taxi cabs are all Mercedes E classes,

Nicole Wakelin  11:24  
which is the weirdest thing you're like, you know, here taxi cabs are all like or Ubers they're all like junky cars like the really I'll take my Mercedes taxi Thank you very much.

Roberto Baldwin  11:34  
Pardon me I'm taking my you get in and every and we took a taxi while I was while we were in Germany. And every taxi drivers exact same everywhere in the world. They're always driving incredibly fast. They're always stomping on the stomping on the gas stomping on the brake stomping on the gas stomping on the brake stuffing it there's no they don't know how to modulate the trigger pedals is on off switches. Yeah, it's everything is binary. It's either all on or all off all at all. Yeah, it's MBU x Oh, they have has zero layer which I'm, I really like the MBU X infotainment feature where it's just, here's the map the thing you need anyway. And then like a few little floating modules that give you information for things you want to use. Whenever I'm using I've never have to like I've never find myself using zero layer and being like, oh, I need to find some more information. It's always just like, oh, there it is. And little floaty thing is,

Sam Abuelsamid  12:32  
it's right right there where you need it. Is is the EQ ie a hatchback like the EQs or is it to have

Roberto Baldwin  12:39  
a proper trunk trunk, it doesn't have the little hatchback just like, which means it's a little bit tougher to get large things in the trunk,

Sam Abuelsamid  12:46  
it's seems like an odd choice. Given that it's a little smaller than the s, you would think that it would be the other way around that the E would be the hatchback. And the S would have trunk because it's bigger.

Roberto Baldwin  12:57  
They you know, they gave me a reason. And I've completely forgotten it because I was tired.

Nicole Wakelin  13:05  
Of jetlag.

Roberto Baldwin  13:06  
I'm sure it's in my notes somewhere, they gave me a reason I wrote it down. I don't have it in front of me. But yeah, just it just has just a regular trunk again, which so you you have less room to put things in. I had a I have a number for the the storage in the trunk, but they are double checking it. But I'm just gonna say it's around 15 cubic feet. That's fairly typical of cigarettes and some other some other vehicles out there. So you get it's a nice, it's a nice trunk, but there double check it on that so you can't if that's wrong. Don't send me it's not your files. If you have angry emails sent, please address them to Sam. What else we want to know about this vehicle, do the 500 is of course faster, dual motor quicker. All the things that you want 408 horsepower. Again, it's it is quicker. It's it's a bit more, more more sports sedan esque. But the reality is, is that it's it's again, just a nice comfortable ride just

Sam Abuelsamid  14:25  
in Encinitas. There

Roberto Baldwin  14:26  
all four wheels returning at once.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:29  
Other than you know, bigger, bigger numbers are faster. Is there any particular logic to the numbers like do they have any meaning like, you know, is it equate to the torque and newton meters or anything like that? Okay.

Roberto Baldwin  14:47  
Okay, so the so the EQ II has 280 horsepower, you're like, well, that's not quite that isn't the EQ 350s 280 horsepower? We're like, well, that's not right. And it has 391 pounds. On feet of torque, I'm like, well, that's too high. And they're like, Okay. Sure, maybe we can let me look and see what I mean. Let me look at Newton meters. Hold. Give me a second. Where's my where's my piece of paperwork? Right now? 1010 1010 10 Nope, that's not right.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:16  
That's 530 Newton meters. So no, that's not right either.

Roberto Baldwin  15:20  
either. Maybe it's kilowatts.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:24  
That would be smaller. So that would be 80 horsepower would be like 225.

Nicole Wakelin  15:29  
Thank God, you guys. I'm totally just tearing the Charlie Brown voice in my head.

Roberto Baldwin  15:37  
I'm sure someone at German in Germany will tell me what it is. But I'm not in Germany right now. I'm at home. So. Yeah. So yeah, Mercedes Benz EQ. It's a nice quiet comfortable. Not wagon.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:53  
Did I say wagon? No, you were over budget, but you stopped yourself.

Roberto Baldwin  15:57  
2023 Mercedes Benz just start over. Here we go. Everyone ignore everything I just said. 23. From your mind 2020 through 2020. Mercedes Benz cqe sedan with a proper trunk. comfortable, quiet. I have no idea how much it costs,

Sam Abuelsamid  16:18  
presumably somewhat less than the $102,000 starting price of an EQs?

Roberto Baldwin  16:25  
Well, yeah, yeah, it'll be less than that. But it's a weird because the EQs is less expensive than the S class. But I don't think the EQ E is going to be less expensive than the E class because the E Class starts at like 60. Ish. So maybe it'll be a parity maybe it'll be a little bit more. I can't see this thing starting at 5550. Maybe it will. I don't know. I was when they when they when they share the EQ price. And I was like, Well, okay, then. Fine. Okay. I thought it'd be more.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:55  
When When does it go on sale here in North America?

Roberto Baldwin  16:58  
It'll be on sale sometime this year.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:01  
Okay. On December 31st,

Nicole Wakelin  17:05  
yeah. Sales Sunday at a price of some amount?

Roberto Baldwin  17:08  
Yes, it'll probably it'll be the 350 will be out before the 505 100 is also due this year. So on the 27th of December, what will be the 29.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:19  
And since it is 2022, you will have to pay an exorbitant dealer markup on whatever the sticker price ultimately is anyway.

Roberto Baldwin  17:29  
Oh yeah, they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna rip you off. They're gonna take all your monies. And you're gonna cry, cry cry.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:37  
Alright, Nicole, are you ready?

Nicole Wakelin  17:39  
I am ready. So you had a Mercedes but I know the price and I know when it's out so

Roberto Baldwin  17:47  
you're like, hey, now with your luminol already pants.

Nicole Wakelin  17:51  
My knowledge. I'm all fancy pants here. Okay, so I had the 2022 Mercedes Benz GLS 450 which is a seven passenger SUV. It is just get right to the price they don't really forget about it. Base price on this puppy is $77,200 with the wide assortment of package stuff, options, special paint, heated rear seats, driver assistance, boy, comfort AMG line, it is 97,150.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:26  
I was like 130 or 140. I

Nicole Wakelin  18:29  
know the fact that it came in under 100. I was kind of impressed. And I went down. I'm like, this has got to be Oh, I didn't even hit the $100,000 car. So by a Scottish just just by a smidge. So it is half

Sam Abuelsamid  18:41  
the price. A bargain,

Nicole Wakelin  18:42  
right. So it is powered by a three liter six cylinder turbocharged engine, 362 horsepower, 369 pound feet of torque and a nine speed automatic transmission. It's a big vehicle. It's definitely not tiny, but it moves. I mean, you push the gas and it moves and like Robbie was saying, it's got that Mercedes thing where it's aggressive, but it's like I am mild mannered aggression. I am not like in your face angers like you can take me you know aggressively through the twisting turns. You're just kind of

Roberto Baldwin  19:12  
enjoy yourself. It's I guess thoroughbred. It's not it's not a crazy squirrel.

Nicole Wakelin  19:20  
What can't we pause? What car would qualify is accelerating like a crazed squirrel. Robbie.

Roberto Baldwin  19:27  
Oh, what like Oh, kona n. Okay. And what is the way that car drives is like a crazed squirrel. I absolutely love it. But it's it is not a Mercedes and it's just like front wheel torque spin everywhere. Crazy squirrel

Nicole Wakelin  19:46  
that's there. So this is it. This is just a beautiful, powerful response of luxury car. It's very roomy. I found two things that totally drove me nuts. One it has a heated steering wheel. I will be If I could figure out how to turn the darn thing on menu, I looked at every button I was getting so aggravated on my egg cannot figure by the way, I'm telling my husband, this is actually how the story works. I'm telling them how cool the thing is where you can say, hey, Mercedes, and it'll do whatever it is that you wanted to do. And

Sam Abuelsamid  20:16  
here's your next up turn on the heated steering wheel. Literally, he's like, Wait,

Nicole Wakelin  20:19  
a Mercedes turn on the heated steering wheel, turning on the steering wheel. That was the only way I could do it. I couldn't

Unknown Speaker  20:26  
find any I couldn't do,

Nicole Wakelin  20:28  
I asked it to do and I'm like, thank you. That's okay. The first time that the voice control in a car has ever been the solution to a problem, rather than causing additional problems for me. So when

Roberto Baldwin  20:40  
you finally made a friend, I know, I still don't

Nicole Wakelin  20:43  
know if there's a button or a knob. I mean, we're sitting in there in the car, me and my husband or my dad. I'm like, okay, none of the buttons that I can visibly see do this. None of the menus that I can see do this. I don't know where it was. I don't know. It was people. I couldn't find it. And we spent a good time trying to know couldn't find it. Nothing that looks like it would work. We push buttons that adjusted other things. No, he did. Certainly. So, but nope, couldn't find it. So Mercedes, like where the heck is the button? Anyway? Someone's gonna be like Nikolas right in front of the middle, the steering wheel still couldn't find it. The other thing, this is a really weird thing. So it has, what do they officially call them illuminated running boards they are if I got this right, falling across this chart, they're $650. And they're just what you think they're running boards on the side of the car. They are the single most oddly placed running boards ever. And I thought it was just me until my teenage daughter complained about it, they're too high. So when you go to step out of the car, if you actually step on them, you're like standing over like you're looking across the top of the car. But if you don't step on them when you get out, they stick out just far enough that they're jabbing you in the back of your calf, and possibly making a really dirty Mark along your pants because there's dirt on the bottom of the car there in the strangest spot and I kept hitting it as I was stepping out I thought this is so weird. What is wrong with me? I'm just like, these things are really weird. They keep I don't you stand on them or not? Because they make you too high. And I'm like it's so it wasn't just me. So they have oddly positioned illuminated running boards which are an option don't get those they don't belong.

Roberto Baldwin  22:17  
Well, I don't I mean for me most running boards don't belong on any car but I'm very tall. So I'm always having to step past every running board except for like one except for like a giant like GMC 1500 or something ridiculous where it's like some for some reason raise for no whatever. Whatever we have already bought them all. Oh out the car. Yeah, so

Nicole Wakelin  22:38  
I so normally I can use them and I like I either do or don't depending on the carpet effects used using my step up and I sit in the car the right way or if I choose to skip it, I just step over it. This one you can't it's I don't know. It's like it's just they're messing with you every time you get it out of the garden step I mean you have like step up and crouch to get in because now you're too high or do you step over and then it's like this weird it's weird I disliked Yeah, so those are my two little complaints about this car are so finicky it's ridiculous but they drove me crazy the whole week I had the car

Roberto Baldwin  23:12  
do you think maybe the the the heated steering wheel button was on the running boards

Unknown Speaker  23:21  
reached out it was illuminated serial, little button tap

Roberto Baldwin  23:25  
it with your foot. You just

Nicole Wakelin  23:27  
tap to see that you just opened the door tap the running board close it again your history was on that had to be at that makes perfect sense. But I mean other than my two ridiculous quibbles with this car, I really did enjoy it. It was it's it's a nice car. It's quiet. It's beautiful. It has that very It has that Mercedes luxury thing like if you truly just want this beautiful luxury car that cuddles passengers that has a smooth almost floaty ride but not so floaty that you feel like you're disconnected from the road as a driver, like you're still engaged with the cars, you're behind the wheel. But it's not. You don't have to work for it. It's so relaxed, and it's so easy to drive. an unbelievably quiet like you can sit in the driver's seat and have someone all the way in the back. And you can just carry on a conversation as though you're sitting right next to each other. It doesn't matter if it's windy and rainy, and you're on the highway, going 65 miles an hour. It's still this quiet, well mannered car and I happened to notice I was coming out. I drove back and forth to Boston all the time. And there's a section of road that is rode in the loosest sense of the word. It's really showing the difference. I like wranglers and Broncos, but it is technically a road in downtown Boston and it's horrible and driving it in the Mercedes. I thought oh my gosh, you don't feel this. You don't feel it. And I can see that it's a wreck. You don't hear it and I know how it's felt and how it sounds driving over that in numerous press cars in this one. You'd actually think that Boston spent some money on their height on their roads, all all visual appearances to the contrary. So it is it does what a luxury car should do which is give you this beautiful Elegant passenger experience with enough engagement that you enjoy driving the vehicle. But unless you're getting like a super high performance version of something you don't want to feel like you have to work too hard to do it. And that's exactly what this one does. Nice perfect calm luxury vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin  25:14  
Nice non AMG.

Nicole Wakelin  25:17  
Yeah, nice non angelic if you want to like a little crazy go AMG, isn't that and that's the thing like I like the crazy but if you don't want the crazy maybe you don't want the crazy every

Sam Abuelsamid  25:26  
day. Sometimes you want something a little more mild.

Nicole Wakelin  25:29  
You just want to be mild mannered and enjoy the drive and kind of relax and yeah, so this would be the car for that so that was sometimes

Sam Abuelsamid  25:35  
you don't want the extra spicy

Nicole Wakelin  25:37  
so you just went you just went the miles you know or just regular even you don't just I'm not looking for that like I have to sign a waiver to eat those wings. I don't need that level of SPICY tonight just medium level.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:47  
You don't want to craze squirrel all you don't want to

Roberto Baldwin  25:50  
crazy squirrel wanna crazy squirrel all the time.

Nicole Wakelin  25:54  
Exactly. So that is so that is the Mercedes Benz GLS 450, which I really did enjoy aside from the missing heater button and the running boards. Now the other car that I drove I drove to and over the course of the last few weeks where I haven't had a chance to be on the show because life has been crazy. I also drove the Hyundai Santa Cruz, which is their little chocolate, chocolate. I like chocolate. It's a chocolate.

Roberto Baldwin  26:28  
I like a truck

Nicole Wakelin  26:29  
medallion. Just a medallion of truck not a full size truck and Bonin truck just a truck medallion. Yes. So I have the Hyundai Santa Cruz which is was new for 2022. And it's like a small truck. It has a neat little cargo cover that can support like a person can stand on it. That's how support like how strong this little cargo cover is. So it's sturdy. It's comfortable inside. So it reminds me in some ways of the honda ridgeline where it's a truck, but it has a ride that's more like a car, which is not a bad thing. And if you want truck, some truck capability but you don't necessarily need to be like crazy about it. You're just like, I would really love to have a bed so I could put in my my bikes or I could put in things just a little bit too big or like sporting equipment or yard stuff. Project stuff. It's great for that, like an academic talk, mulch. My husband got mulch this weekend. He sent me a picture and I totally thought he wasn't even a truck. He just stuck it in the back of his Wrangler, but I was like mulch. So it is that kind of vehicle. I mean, it's designed to be that way. It's not. It's not like this insanely offroad capable car. It's not our truck. It's not this overpower performance truck. It's just a decent nice little truck smaller size that makes it great if you're someone who goes on more urban areas. We're trying to even drive just a straight up boring f150 Without any lifts or anything can be a challenge to park those things in a city. This is not this is this is easy to live with every day while still giving you a little bit of trucks capability. I really am a fan of the Santa Cruz. I like it. You guys have driven this right both you've driven Santa.

Roberto Baldwin  28:18  
I have not driven to Santa Cruz yet. I've driven the maverick which is the American Santa Cruz.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:24  
I've driven it briefly at the mama rally last fall back to back with the with the maverick. Oh, have you driven the maverick nickel?

Nicole Wakelin  28:34  
I have I've driven both?

Roberto Baldwin  28:36  
Oh, what's that? Like? The both of you? How do you now we got to make a

Nicole Wakelin  28:41  
note. We could agree which what what did you think of the Santa Cruz and then what do you think of the maverick?

Sam Abuelsamid  28:47  
New the Santa Cruz is good. It's basically it's the same as the Tucson you know, the interior the cabin is you know, it's the front half of it is basically a Tucson and then you've got a bed on the back. And, you know, it's it's it's decent. You know, there's some stuff about the new Tucson that I'm not crazy about like some of the stuff that should be physical controls like the climate controls. They've done it as touch controls, which I'm not I'm not a fan of in that respect that go go with knobs it's simpler. But you know, otherwise it's you know, it's fine. The you know, the Maverick is you can get it for well at least theoretically get it for significantly less money than the Santa Cruz and it's with the hybrid it is way more fuel efficient. You can't right now, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Hyundai drops their hybrid powertrain in the Santa Cruz because they already have it in the Tucson and they may even do the plug in hybrid which is also in the Tucson so, you know that will kind of even out that part of it. Although I can't imagine that Hyundai will offer a $20,000 Santa Cruz hybrid to go up against the $20,000 Maverick.

Nicole Wakelin  30:05  
I don't think it will. I think Ford has that nailed that that. But I think the thing is, and correct me if I'm wrong last time I looked like the availability and the Maverick was just terrible like you couldn't get like, it was a great idea but good luck getting one. But if if they were both on the lot today the maverick I think the maverick has a bit more to offer. And it's just it still looks great inside. And it's just so dang cheap. I mean, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  30:30  
starting to 20 I'm remembering like right at this like 9999 or

Nicole Wakelin  30:34  
something. So it's basically funny and the Santa Cruz starts at just a smidge under 24 So you're talking, you know, like $4,000 That's not a small amount, you know, especially when you're at this lower price point and you're trying to get something let's say your first time buyer or something you're on a budget that's a huge chunk of change you know, that's gonna make a big difference in how much you're gonna pay and the hybrid thing fuel economy especially with where gas prices are right this minute and again, is a huge amount of money you're putting back in your pocket by having a Hybrid Hybrid instead of just having a straight up gas engine. So I don't dislike the two I mean neutral but between the two Sam, I agree with you that I would go with Maverick before I would go with Santa Cruz

Roberto Baldwin  31:15  
dot.ca

Nicole Wakelin  31:17  
But I do think the Santa Cruz has a has a little bit of a cushy on the one thing I will say it has a it has a more it has a more comfortable interior. It's a little bit more nice. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  31:28  
it does feel a little more premium. Yeah, we're

Nicole Wakelin  31:31  
your what you sacrifice for that price difference. So

Roberto Baldwin  31:33  
getting that that Hyundai premium interior right you're getting that premium interior

Nicole Wakelin  31:37  
feel and the Santa Cruz and the Maverick is really lovely inside they do a great job. But it definitely feels more it's price point. It feels like they've you know they've they've done things to be not it doesn't look cheap, but just like economical because it's nice. It doesn't feel crappy or cheap. But the Santa Cruz actually feels kind of It feels kind of nice inside. So if you want that nicer vibe go for the Santa Cruz.

Roberto Baldwin  32:00  
Yep, nicer vibe.

Nicole Wakelin  32:02  
I survives in the Santa Cruz.

Roberto Baldwin  32:03  
Yeah, I haven't driven the Santa Cruz. I'm kind of sad because I see them around. I've seen a lot of Mavericks and Senator Cruz people are buying them when they can get them here in the Northern California. So people like him. So now my

Sam Abuelsamid  32:19  
nice. My next door neighbor loves is XL hybrid. Maverick XL hybrid. They got it in January. They ordered it in October and got it right beginning of January. So it was about two and a half months to get it ordered. They ordered it right when it was

Nicole Wakelin  32:42  
finishing that I didn't even know neighborhood in f1 50 hybrid in October and they just got it just just got it

Sam Abuelsamid  32:51  
that surprised Yeah. The The only thing the only thing my neighbor was disappointed was when he realized that getting the XL he didn't get cruise control. But there's a company that does an aftermarket cruise control system. That's that's pretty easy to install in there. And so he's he's ordering that and getting that putting, putting in. Like 250 bucks person

Nicole Wakelin  33:14  
I think in the universe that was really not a fan of cruise control. I just never

Roberto Baldwin  33:20  
Oh, I had a whole thing about it. Well, I don't know was I here I just come you might about how much I don't like I don't care about cruise control. Yeah, it was maybe it wasn't

Nicole Wakelin  33:29  
but I feel like most people love it like it's deal breaker type material. And I'm like

Roberto Baldwin  33:33  
cruise control cruise control is basic. I never use cruise control. I never use cruise control.

Nicole Wakelin  33:39  
My husband added it to his accurate intagra The old original one. And it was this little square box thing that was stuck to the dashboard.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:49  
I added it to my 84 GMC s 15 When I was in college oh you're

Roberto Baldwin  33:53  
doing a crazy long drives though. That's right. I was driving back and forth. Yeah, no cruise control because you just ran into a back of another car i adaptive cruise control a thumbs up regular cruise control thumbs down. Just drive. It's fine. I agree.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:08  
Alright, so I also had an Eevee this week that I drove. And it's the Mini Cooper se which is like the Mazda MX 30 A short range Evie it's officially rated I think 114 miles by EPA 114 combined, which is not much but if you need an urban runabout you know it's it's enough. Let's see. Yeah, 114 miles. And you know, if you're just driving around town not driving, doing long road trips with it. It's adequate. But man, this thing is so much fun to drive.

Roberto Baldwin  34:54  
It I was sad when they they had to take mine away.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:57  
Yeah. 181 horsepower. You One guy just just to hit the torque steer sometimes if you're accelerating hard out of a corner, you can you can feel it tug a little bit on the steering wheel. The you know I love the size of the mini the mini hardtop you know it, it's that nice small compact, but you know it still feels roomy enough inside. You're taller than I am Robbie in myself 511 I have plenty of room inside that thing. Mine was in the chilly red color, which just looks fantastic. The when was delivered to me it was still on snow tires, which was fine because it was cold that week. And, you know, the back seat in the Mini is you know, basically useless unless you have very short people in the front seat back seat and air quotes the back seat, there is a back seat that's got a couple of seat belts there. And in theory, if there's people that are short enough in the front seats, you could possibly put somebody back there. But, you know, really considered as more of a two seater with, you know, a nice big cargo area. The the one that I had the base price on the Mini Coopers 20 994 $1,000 signature plus trim package that gets you the power folding mirrors, the panoramic moonroof, the auto dimming mirror and a bunch of other stuff, a premium Harman Kardon sound system and nav. The minis still have the older version of I drive in there, which means that it doesn't have support for Android Auto. It does support Apple CarPlay, but not Android Auto. So if you're an Android user, keep be aware of that, you know, you'll have to just use plain old Bluetooth streaming from your phone. In that case, the you know, they they've figured out over the years how to integrate a touchscreen into the big center dial that used to be the speedometer. You know in the in the first couple of generations of modern minis that was where the speedometer was and that center, that big center dial along with the the radio and there's a series of lights around the perimeter of the giant round circle in the middle. That is also your state of charge indicator. And as your as your charge drops, you'll see the lights gradually deplete going around the circle counterclockwise. And then there's also a little digital not touching and just a little digital display in front of you. That's that's the speedometer on this one. And also your other gauges for state of charge and range and stuff like that. I got that because it's because it only has a fifth or a 32 kilowatt hour battery pack. They only have support for 50 kilowatt AC DC fast charging, which is fine, you know, because it'll still do a full charge in about half an hour on a fast charger because the pattern is just not that big

Roberto Baldwin  38:12  
of a battery.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:13  
It's funny, I did take it after going for an extended drive on a Saturday morning. I did stop by my neighborhood Electrify America station. And it was the first time that I've been there when there was multiple other EVs all charging at the same time there. There was somebody there with a Kia Niro, Evie. There was a Maki from Ford, which was part of the Ford charge angels team, which we talked about last week. Well no it was that was the same one we talked about last week. And then there was also while we're there, somebody pulled up in an ID four so there's four four vehicles that the using the six bays at this charging station. And the couple of days later after I was there finally got my 240 volt outlet installed in my garage so yeah, I managed to test charging here at home and I have a 9.6 kilowatt charger but the the mini will only charge 7.2 kilowatts and I plugged it in and and let it charge and indeed it was charging cranking right along at some point two kilowatts until it filled up the battery. The energy efficiency on this thing is actually quite good. It was getting about 3.7 miles per kilowatt hour, which is which is pretty pretty decent. Yeah, better better than most EVs you know, at $34,750 all in for this particular one, including a delivery charge of only $850 which is surprisingly models, tiny little cars. Yeah, that's true. You can you can you can throw one in the space of one Hummer, EV Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  39:58  
you could just throw it in a backpack or Yeah, seven overhead

Nicole Wakelin  40:02  
at the delivery charge on the Mercedes I had $1,050.

Roberto Baldwin  40:07  
Below.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:09  
Although, you know, it's only coming from Alabama. This one is this one's coming from England. One One thing to be wary of, you know, while I really enjoyed driving this, there's there's only one one real complaint I had about the car, which was the seats. The bolsters on the seat back, were were fine, it was really comfortable, just just the right spacing. But the bolsters on the seat cushion, felt really narrow, and we're pressing in on my thighs the whole time, much more so than almost any other car I've driven even, like driving like the M for competition, a couple of months back, you know, that had the carbon fiber seats, you know, that was just, you know, totally unadjustable carbon fiber shell with a bit of padding on it. Yeah, these, these were were quite narrow. And I did find it rather annoying after about an hour or so driving. But since you can't go very far in this thing anyway, probably an hour, you're

Roberto Baldwin  41:11  
done, you got to pull over anyway.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:15  
But the other thing to be wary of a friend of a friend of ours, lives in California, who happens to have a Mini Cooper SE. And she got hers in December of 2021 has been having a very bad experience with her local mini dealer with her car. And excuse me, her, her Mini has been she's had some serious, serious issues with it. Back in February, I think it was in February, it had to have its whole power electronics module replaced. And her local mini dealer where she bought the car could not figure out even how to diagnose it to figure out what was wrong with it. They actually had to send it to a BMW dealer in San Francisco to get it diagnosed and repaired because the mini dealer did not know what to do. He got it back. It's been working for the last month or so. And now today, she tweeted out that she got a notification that it won't charge, it won't, she won't charge anymore. And she's got to contact service. And she tried contacting the mini dealer again. And then even though you know a BMW dealer, and BMW owns many, even though the BMW dealer did all the service on the car and had the car for three weeks, three, they can't find any records of of it ever being serviced. What's so they like they don't talk to each other. And so now she's so fat up that she's just about ready to, to do a lemon law claim on this thing and turn it turn it in and get her money back on this thing. So many over the years has had some issues with dealers and customer service. So that is something to be wary of if you're thinking about buying one of these, but man it is so much fun to drive. I mean, like every mini ever, you know this thing is like a little go kart. And it's got so much torque from the electric motor that it's just it's a blast. So it you know, it's a little bit of caveat emptor there buyer beware, what what you might have to deal with.

Roberto Baldwin  43:33  
Dun, dun, da. It's always sad when you liked it, the dealership network is just like, and that's what like makes you not want to get the car that no,

Nicole Wakelin  43:42  
that's why people hate dealers, like, you get one bad experience, but they're part of the car ownership experience. It doesn't take much to have that completely taint you for a whole grand. It's not just that you have a bad experience of the Mini. It's not just that you don't like that dealer, you're like many they're awful. And some of these dealer he's not, you know, well find a guy you got the bad one. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:10  
I had one. I've personally been fairly lucky with the dealers I've dealt with over the years that I haven't had any such experiences. Or at least mostly not. But you know, the problem is, you know, people see the brands sign on the building when you pull in. And they don't most people don't realize that dealers are independent businesses. And you know, they they see the brand on there and they assume that the manufacturer has more control over it. And dealers really need to especially with EVs dealers need to do a better job of taking care of their customers of you know, helping them when they want to buy an Eevee and then helping them with after sales service, you know, doing it, you know, providing proper maintenance, proper service and diagnosis, you know, When there's an issue and getting it fixed promptly, and it's really a shame to see something like this happen, especially when it's such a fun car to drive. Alright, let us move on. So we had the Mini Cooper S E, and the two of you got to drive another Eevee that is ever so slightly larger.

Nicole Wakelin  45:25  
Just a little bit. Not very much. I mean, just the scope just the tiniest little bit larger. Maybe.

Roberto Baldwin  45:32  
Like let's say you had a house. Yeah. And you wanted to I don't know live in that house. Yes. But the house is also a car that's the GMC Hummer.

Nicole Wakelin  45:44  
Accurate. It's about that.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:46  
Except your house, probably lighter.

Nicole Wakelin  45:48  
You can put the house in the bed of your truck and take it with you.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:52  
Unless you unless you want to carry a spare tire low

Roberto Baldwin  45:56  
weight, tires. Weight is weight is the battery killer. Too much weight. You can't just put like an extra tire in there. That's a bunch of weight. heavy heavy 9000 pound vehicle

Nicole Wakelin  46:09  
heavy, heavy vehicle GMC Hummer. So but what did you think driving it? I mean, what was your?

Roberto Baldwin  46:16  
Okay, so I'm gonna start with the Hummer brand has always been big and over the top and ridiculous. It there's there's nothing small or subdued. Or logical, really about the Hummer. It's always just been way too big way too much way too. It's America. It's yeah, and that's America on wheels. Yeah, it is America on wheels and the Hummer EV delivers all of that. It's way too big. It's way too inefficient. It's way too heavy. And then you drive it are like

Nicole Wakelin  46:54  
so much fun.

Roberto Baldwin  46:56  
It's it's fun and weird and goofy. And I mean I wouldn't buy one but I'm more than happy to drive one around.

Nicole Wakelin  47:05  
It's even if you wanted to buy one you either already bought it and you have the edition edition one. I believe it's called one Yeah. Or you're waiting. You're waiting because you can't get the edition one is done. And now we're on to I've just drawn a blank it's like the V 2x and the V two in the evening X they're all coming out but like later like you can reserve those but you will have no Hummer in your driveway today.

Roberto Baldwin  47:29  
Yeah, no Hummer in your driveway. It's yeah, it's big and crazy and we did most of our driving off road where you were going pretty slow when we were on road it it's fine because as Watts the freedom you got to be in like it was

Nicole Wakelin  47:46  
what's the freedom because they're viewed

Roberto Baldwin  47:48  
WTF WTF

Nicole Wakelin  47:55  
but it's everything like stickers and stuff who totally forgot what it meant. I'm like, why are they putting what up on all their stuff? Oh, wait

Roberto Baldwin  48:04  
wants to know what's the free and again this is one of those things for like hey, like how cool we are like like like Ford Broncos goat. Alright, go over any train. It's yeah, we know what you're doing. But no, it's big and insane. And if you drive it on the road and you like stomp on the accelerator like it dies you know dives back you start with a break it dies it drives like a big gigantic very heavy truck that has to deal with the pesky pesky laws of physics. Yeah, we went up bro, we got

Sam Abuelsamid  48:42  
to do a center of gravity. That's about four feet in the air.

Roberto Baldwin  48:45  
Yeah, we got to do wants to freedom. But of course the car like lowers itself like a service elevator. And then you take off really quick you're like yeah, but it has all the lights and everything and the rumbling chair and the sounds and one of the cool things

Nicole Wakelin  49:06  
was talking about the lights and everything they have it's the oh god the Unreal Engine. Is that the right yeah, the Unreal engine on the infotainment system. So it's like you get this beautiful little video every time you change from one mode to the next. It is real and like oh my gosh, just like watching is like watching a video game. It is some of the Christmas most striking graphics like ooh, it's going over the moon now what's happening? Oh, wait, I should be driving. Watch screen.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:35  
I watched your video. Robbie on gadget. And it did seem to take a while to go from like one screen to another. I mean, was that maybe was was that an accurate impression? I mean, did it seem to be kind of

Roberto Baldwin  49:50  
like you'd turn it and then it would go and then you turn it it's not like immediate so it turned it and then it would happen with the screen but

Nicole Wakelin  49:57  
you also don't have to wait because it does Take that there's that secondary, you're waiting for your fancy little cutscene to come through there. But you don't actually have to wait. Like it's kind of like done its thing before the cutscene has finished. Yeah, like you're

Roberto Baldwin  50:10  
in the mode. Yeah, and waiting for the cartoon. You just wait and vote happens. And then the cartoon happens. And it's very cool and impressive. And it's, you know, again, it's video game cutscenes, essentially. But it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, I mean, when you when you're towing you're towing like a Saturn rockets. When you're in like a regular mode, you're just kind of driving on the moon. And then when you're in like terrain mode. I think you're driving over Mars. I can't remember what it looks like Mars. I don't know if it's supposed to be Mars. It was Mars. Like, the reason you're going off road on Mars.

Nicole Wakelin  50:49  
They have this whole like moonshot Moon theme. thing to it all. In fact, if you look at the speaker, grilles on the, the side on the doors, they have a topographical map of the moon. And then on the one there's even a little astronaut blueprint. I think it's on the driver's side. If you look, there's a little bit printed

Roberto Baldwin  51:08  
dead pedal used to be a moon boo. And they removed that. Oh, was it? Yeah. So when they had the first like, like pre production model, they were sort of touring around, you'd go and see how large it was. It had the dead pet the dead pedal was, was the boot and so I'm like, Oh, is it dead pedal boot. They're like, Oh, we took that out. I'm like, Oh, that would have been

Nicole Wakelin  51:30  
cute. I never saw that. Well, it probably added too much weight, at least. Because right because this is all about you save a couple hours a night waiting at every possible opportunity. But I liked it. I think it was fun off road. My end that WTF mode really is absolutely ridiculous. It's it is just bonkers. That I did find that if you are driving it on road, it does have some pretty hefty blind spots. It's a little hard to to see. Like you feel like you're turning you're kind of doing that you're just looking to your right. You're like oh, by the way to the right, because you're it's got blind spots galore. But it is unbelievably

Sam Abuelsamid  52:13  
18 cameras or

Roberto Baldwin  52:14  
something like that. So nine cameras 18 views.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:17  
Oh, okay. Well, they're

Nicole Wakelin  52:18  
looking at you with a fake facts and figures.

Roberto Baldwin  52:20  
I know I will. I was I was I was less. I had less jetlag when I was in Arizona, because

Nicole Wakelin  52:25  
you were more you're like on it when it came over. I thought I knew I thought it was really neat. It was and it was it was interesting to hear the design and the effort that went into creating this and how they were just trying to kind of go all out and say like, Okay, we have a brand that everybody knows, but it's coming back is something entirely different, like the antithesis of the gas guzzling Hummer. It's now an Eevee.

Roberto Baldwin  52:52  
It's an electron guzzling Hummer,

Nicole Wakelin  52:54  
electron guzzling Hummer? Well, I think that's kind of neat. I like it. I think, you know, you wonder how many people are going to spend the current one is, what is it $110,000 For the sold out edition one. And I think eventually, by 2024, when we get through the next three trims, we have one that's 80,000. But it's like the next like, it's, you know, as it goes through, they gradually get to the less expensive trim, but you're gonna wait two years to get to the cheapest one. This one is at, like 79

Roberto Baldwin  53:23  
and you're gonna buy this thing like crazy. I mean, it's, it's, it's inefficient. It gets like one point something miles per kilowatt, it's heavy, it weighs nearly as much as a lunar lander. Cars like 9042 pounds or whatever, that last lunar module to dry weight was like 9400 and something pounds. So just throwing, like people in there, you weigh as much as the thing that landed on the moon.

Nicole Wakelin  53:56  
And, you know, stick with their moon theme thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:00  
And for a giant truck like this, you know, it doesn't have it's only what 1200 pound payload capacity I think and 7500 pound towing, I mean, the towing you would expect because usually when you have a high riding pickup like this, you know, the same thing is true for the ramp. 1500 TRX, you know, or the Raptor, when you when you jack them up like that, you know, the towing becomes more challenging. So they reduce the towing capacity but 1200 pound payload, you know, for a truck the size is pretty small. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  54:32  
yeah. Yeah, you can't you can't you can't drag that lunar module right.

Nicole Wakelin  54:35  
I feel like you are in no way buying this because of any practical anything.

Roberto Baldwin  54:42  
It is not a utilitarian vehicle. It is a look at what I got. You didn't

Nicole Wakelin  54:46  
buy the original Hummer for any practical anything. It was like great big, giant vehicle by that's kind of what you're doing with this. You're just adding great big giant Evie.

Roberto Baldwin  54:57  
By well the the original the h2 Who was horrible at going off road? It was just a suburban it was just not a good off roading vehicle this thing unless you can take it off road we went up some things

Nicole Wakelin  55:09  
go off road we did some we did some decent little off roading in this. I got

Sam Abuelsamid  55:16  
to get to try crab walk. Yes, yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  55:19  
I use crab walk before, which is the weirdest Oh my watch. Okay, so the thing with crab walk, which is really cool. I feel like crab box is gonna get you out of that thing that you shouldn't have been stupid enough to try to get into in the first place. It's like, oh, you should not have done this. Now you'd

Roberto Baldwin  55:33  
like a reverse button for stupid.

Nicole Wakelin  55:36  
Reverse stupid. Like the oops, I shouldn't have done this. And it doesn't it's not like it's not perfectly to the like perpendicular to the side. It's sort of like slightly at an angle like it's not perfectly sideways. So you're kind of slightly sideways and forward a little bit. But if I saw some people trying to try it, it takes a little getting used to it's really funky and it feels like it's broken. You're like a broken guard because it just doesn't nothing is moving the way you expect it to move. But I watched someone do it and they crab walked right into like this giant shrubbery behind him like No, no no stop crap walking, just go straight go straight goes. So I think it was because he didn't get quite the angle. It gives you have to relearn the angle that you're going at you think you turn and you know where you're going to turn you go straight, you know, we're gonna go suddenly you're going at this weird angle and your mind is like, it's like you're like you've just got your driver's license. I don't know where this thing's going. So it's a little weird. That was

Sam Abuelsamid  56:39  
this, this thing strikes me as the the 2022 alternative to the the international CX T. Do you guys ever see one of those Navistar built these. They launched it I think around 2007 or something dropping a link to it in the slack. Basically, they took a an International Harvester medium duty truck, and put a Ford Super Duty pickup bed on the back that's sold these things. The only time I ever saw one of these out in the wild was actually when I was one time when I was in Silicon Valley, in some business park, there was a bright yellow one that somebody was driving. And I mean, just think just absurd. Not not really useful for anything. But, you know, it shows that you've got maybe more money than sense.

Roberto Baldwin  57:34  
It's for the sake of big the Hummer big for the sake of big it's, it's I think a lot of people are gonna buy it who probably wouldn't have bought an Eevee in the first place. And you know, it's still better than, you know, running a car on dead dinosaurs. So, yeah, so at least you got that, but it's gonna take days day, if I think if you just plug it into your wall at home, it will take over a week in order probably Yeah. Because it says, Okay, so the, the, the whole like GMs. Okay, well, what's the usable capacity? Well, it's 205. I'm like, okay, but there's an EPA piece of papers as to 12. They're like, well, there's that. They just kept, like going around in circles. And I'm like, Oh, my God, you're hurting my head. They couldn't. They wouldn't like one of neither of them is the official number. But they're both the official number was

Sam Abuelsamid  58:30  
because there is no because this isn't a light duty truck because it weighs over 8500 pounds. It doesn't technically have to be certified. It doesn't have to have a range or Yeah, but it has to be on the label or anything like that.

Roberto Baldwin  58:46  
But they still should just be able to give me a straight answer about like usable capacity, and they won't they're not sharing the gross capacity. So it's actually it's, it's at least

Sam Abuelsamid  58:55  
from the EPA numbers, you can you can back calculate it it comes out to 247 kilowatt hours. 247,

Roberto Baldwin  59:01  
which is 24 modules, which is

Sam Abuelsamid  59:08  
yeah, it's huge. And this is this is basically two batteries stacked on top of each other. And it's each each one of these layers has almost the capacity of the extended range battery in the f150 Lightning which is 131 kilowatt hours. So you got

Roberto Baldwin  59:28  
you slammed them on top of each other.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:31  
You got it. You got 122 124 kilowatt hour batteries stacked on top of each other. Yeah, and the lightning is gonna have 131 Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  59:41  
it's it's it's insane. But like you're all that money you're spending there's like a billion little features that you get, it's not like you spend a lot of money on a big battery or just spending money. No, it's a ton of stuff. And the Unreal Engine stuff is pretty impressive. You it does take like a like a beat or so for Want to launch? So did GMC Hummer America. That's what it is big it's too much. It's expensive. And at the end of the day, like, you know, this place is pretty cool.

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:15  
I don't know if I know really, really freaking cool. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:20  
All right. Well, in the last couple of weeks we also the colon, I had the chance to drive another Eevee for the first time and actually, you drove a different version of this, you know, Nicole, and I drove the Toyota BZ for accent and Nicole, I don't know if you drove the Subaru soltera. But you did. Robbie.

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:39  
Oh, no, I didn't get the drive anything.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:41  
I thought you drove the salt. Oh, I

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:43  
had I had I had I had it. I had other things I had to do. There's too many things going on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:48  
Okay. Well, so we we drove the BZ for x in Encinitas. What did you think of it? This is this is Toyota's first purpose built Evie.

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:00  
Okay, so it's it's fine. Fine. Didn't say that about something a while ago, it's fine, fine. Fine. That's fine. It does what it's supposed to do. It's a decent little EV, I feel like the competition in that little segment, that kind of that style, that size is really, really tough. And I think there are better options out there. I think it's a nice first try. But I wish especially on the interior Toyota had done a little bit more with it than what they did with it. Like what made it look a little less plastic fantastic. I don't like interiors that feel like that I want to it doesn't need to be leather and you know, wood, green ash, you know, trim or whatever the heck they put in cars with I feel like there's some really good options out there that are just they create a warm and welcoming passenger experience. And I feel like the busy Forex didn't necessarily feels a little down market. And

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:12  
concern, it starts at $43,000. Exactly. And for

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:15  
the prime. It's not priced down market. But the interior and I don't mean it was I was describing something and I said it didn't feel cheap. It just wasn't as for the Maverick, it doesn't feel cheap. It just felt like a more affordable car. But nothing about the maverick I looked at Oh, that feels cheap. BC 4x had a little bit of a cheap feel inside. And it's not a cheap vehicle. It's expensive. So I feel like they kind of missed the mark on that. I feel like when you look at things like the EB six, and I just forgot what the Hyundai is car. Five, those are in the same vein, and they're looking miles ahead of what Toyota offered in this dam.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:56  
One thing I did like was the fabric, whatever the hell it was on the dashboard.

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:02  
Oh, that fabric it? Yes, it did.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:06  
I liked that because it didn't you know, it wasn't. It wasn't leather. It wasn't hard plastic. It was something different. And it wasn't just a, you know, a grained plastic. I mean, obviously it was something synthetic that was dumped is technically plastic, right? Polyester, but

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:23  
I thought it looked cool. But I also had the thought of you know how if you don't clean your car all the time, your dashboard gets dusty. And all I could think was honestly because my point is that if you go because it's not, it has a cool texture to it. But it's almost like it's sort of trout, it is going to trap every last piece of dust and dirt that comes into your car. And the only way you're going to get it off is by putting the fancy little brush attachment on the hose on your vacuum cleaner. Excuse me, and it's not like even have to be a neat Nick that that is that it's gonna suck up a lot of dust it looks it looks really cute. But I just see it as being something that is going to show the dirt and the dust whether it's actually you know, whether you haven't cleaned it or you just happened to get a lot of dust in your car. Because you went someplace there's a lot of dust in the air. It's going to show it's really going to show it's gonna be a little bit pain in the butt to clean.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:15  
Yeah, and the Yeah, I thought that was a little too much piano black. This is often the case on the on the center console. The shifter was kind of interesting. You know, so it looks like a rotary shifter but there's a solid, or there's a ring that like a chromed ring around the perimeter that you push down and twist, right to go to drive or left to go to reverse. And then you push the button in the middle to get neutral. And then the park button is in front of that. I thought that was a kind of a clever, somewhat clever implementation that wasn't too annoying to use.

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:57  
I will give you that it was a different way because you know the I'll keep trying to come up, they sort of reinvent the wheel with how they're going to do those shifters. You know, because you don't need to have a physical thing that shifts on the steering column of old and trying to come up with some different way. And some of them are confusing, and some of them are good. This was, this is pretty good. Although I did hear a couple of people who had a moment of like, how do we get into reverse again?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:18  
What took me it took me a minute to figure it out the first time, right.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:22  
So that's one time so the first time you get in your new BC 4x, you're going to look and think, Wait a minute,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:27  
I turn on the steering wheel,

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:29  
right? Yeah, exactly. How do I try? I didn't have that problem of how do I do it on the heat? It's here. But then you're like, I know how this is. So yeah, that's a momentary throws you but then it's it's it. It makes sense. In the end? Yeah, I didn't mind that. I thought that was kind of a neat, neat way to do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:44  
Yeah, I mean, overall, driving, it was fine. You know, it was not not exciting. But you know, it was, it was uneventful.

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:52  
What's the range on?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:55  
It goes from let's see, the low end, at the upper end, the front wheel drive, XL Lee with the 18 inch wheels, gets 252 miles, and then the all wheel drive limited with the 20 inch wheels, is 222 miles. So you know, it's not particularly impressive. It's certainly it's kind of in the same ballpark, as you know, the where the base is, you know, the standard range batteries for the Hyundai and the Kia. It's less than the VW ID for but a maximum 252 miles. Not not that great. You know, certainly not going to get that 300 miles, you also don't get the really fast charging, it's only 350 kilowatt charging. You know, which is okay. But you know, again, compared to the Hyundai and the Kia with their 230 kilowatts, you know, it's, it's not going to keep up with those. The the instrument cluster is kind of interesting in this thing, because in most vehicles, where there is an instrument cluster, it's usually down lower. So you're looking at it through the top half of the steering wheel. And this one is up on top, and there's like a channel that goes across the top of the dash and the cluster is out kind of near the base of the windshield. So it's up above the steering wheel. And it's almost like, you know, like the like the those cheaper heads up displays that have the glass that flips up. It's in that same kind of position. But it's easier to read, then those are, yes. So it's, it's, I thought that was, again, kind of a somewhat clever solution, if not necessarily the most attractive.

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:53  
I felt like it was cool. But I had a weird, I had a hard time finding the right seating position for me that I was that I could see the road and still see everything on the instrument cluster, I somehow kept getting it. So I had to look like between this the gap in the steering wheel, and I couldn't. So like a few things would be hidden. Like I couldn't see the when we were filing you know, you're following how many miles you have before each turn when you're on these drive routes. And I couldn't quite see the miles that I had driven so far. So it was like I kind of had to duck down a little bit or look up a little bit. And if I tried to lower the steering wheel to see over it, then the steering was just too low. Like it was almost like my hands would hit the tops of my legs. Like when I had them on the if I put them at the bottom of the wheel if I lifted up too high. Well now it's now I'm looking at my hands and I'm barefoot, what are the motorcycles? But eight really coppers. Yeah, like when your hands way up? Yeah, I'm like, well, that's how you drive this, I gotta lower this down. It's just I have a little trouble. Like it was a neat design. But I felt like and the person I was driving with she's, I'd say she's about the same height as me. But she experienced the same thing when she started messing with the seats, and try and she's like, I can't seem to see all of the instrument cluster at the same time, I have to choose which pieces I want to see or which pieces I don't, because she couldn't quite get it to show what she wanted without having to look through the middle of the steering wheel.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:17  
So it sounds like this. That's definitely something that if you're considering this thing, you definitely want to actually take it for a test drive and drive it and you can Yeah, it works for you. One One thing even for me, I was able to see the steering the cluster clearly all the time, you know, my my seating position and steering wheel position was fine for that. But you know, you definitely want to drive with your hands at nine and three or 10 and two with this thing. You don't want to be driving along with your your hand on the top of the steering wheel rim, because it will block your hand will block half of the cluster if you're doing that. So you won't see the cluster if you're driving that way. One, one. A couple of other complaints I had about this thing On the first time out, when we were starting when the battery batteries were full on these things, if you if you try to engage the region Boost, which gives you the higher region, it's not as strong region as what you get on a lot of other EVs, but it's stronger regen when the battery is full, when you lift off the accelerator, or when you actually just when you try to engage the region boost, it will give you a message on the cluster that says that region is not available right now. And the way it reads the way the text reads. It's it comes across as though it's an error message like there's actually something wrong. And what it is, is just the you know, the batteries fall in it, it can't absorb any more energy from regen and in most other EVs. In fact, in all other EVs, you know, they don't bother to tell you that part, it just adjust the blending of friction brakes and regen. And you know, when you lift off the accelerator give you friction brakes instead of regen. In that case, if it can't, if the battery is too full, to absorb any energy. And you know, that I talked to the several of us actually spoke with the Toyota folks and told them that, hey, you know, this is probably a bad way to do this, because it implies that there's something wrong, when you know, it's behaving perfectly normally. And you should, you know, just just don't even bother with that message. You know, just don't delete. Drivers don't need to know that.

Nicole Wakelin  1:11:33  
Don't put that in there, because it makes it feel broken in a weird way. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:38  
And then one other complaint I had was about the new infotainment system, which, you know, in most respects, it works works really well. And it certainly works better than any previous Intune system, the voice control is actually really works really well. You can control climate control and other stuff with voice commands, you can tell it to turn up the temperature or turn down the temperature and do a whole bunch of other things with it. So that part of it worked fine. My complaint with it was that it will only show you it's a 12 and a half inch or 12.3 inch display, it's a widescreen display, it's fairly large. But you can only display one thing on there at a time. So usually, when you have such a large display, they will, they will split it up and give you like two panes and you'll have a smaller pane on the left hand side. And then a larger window on the on the on the smaller pane on the right, and the larger pane on the left hand side. So you can have like your navigation map in the big window. And then in the small window, you can have your media player controls. So you can you know, if you want to pause or, or fast forward or something, you know, you can just tap over there on that side of the screen to control whatever you're listening to. And then you have the map and and the way that Toyota has done this, they have decided that because they've got more robust voice control, they're only going to allow you to see one thing on the screen at a time. There's no, there's no windowing allowed. So if you're looking at the nav screen, you can't see any of your media controls. And their their explanation was that well, we we think, you know, just use the voice recognition if you want to pause it or, or fast forward or do anything.

Roberto Baldwin  1:13:29  
Trolls at all, if you have the map on like nowhere else in the car, there's no

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:33  
like no art, while there's a volume right away the volume button on the steering wheel. Yeah, there's

Roberto Baldwin  1:13:38  
no, but there's no forward and back for music on the steering wheel

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:41  
there. You can go forward and back. But there's no pause. Or if you want to change the mode or anything like that, then you have to tap on the screen to go from the nav screen to the media screen or to the phone screen. So you can't have two things on the screen at one time. So there's none of the zero layer type of interface that you have in the Mercedes, which you know,

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:02  
Mercedes and check that out.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:05  
Yeah. Let's see. What else was there? Yeah, that was the main things I guess the one other thing related to the to the region was when you even when you have the region boost on, and the battery is somewhat depleted, so you can get region it won't bring the vehicle to a full stop with strong regen. And I asked them about that. And their their rationale, which I disagree with is that, you know, they want the driver to stay engaged. And they want the driver to actively move their foot from the accelerator pedal to the brake pedal. You know, they think that that keeps the driver more engaged. And I don't buy that argument and

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:54  
that's that's because we need one pedal driving. You're like you have to figure out like Okay, where can I lift So, in order to arrive at that line,

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:02  
because you have to really carefully modulate how much pressure you are, yeah, you're I, you are almost more engaged

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:12  
when I think so too. Because it's like a video game. I was like, I'm gonna do it. That's why I like I think Volvo's impulse Stars system is the best. It's the most intuitive. Because that's the one like, like, after two or three uses. I'm like, oh my god, I'm hitting the star.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:26  
I found the same thing. Like right away. You're like, I got it. I got it. I got it. It's like you're really excited. Like Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:34  
That's pretty engaged. Now.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:37  
It says Robin cheering

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:40  
you just sit at the stoplight? Yeah. Everyone, people in cars next year, like ah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:48  
So you know, in using a baseball metaphor, which, since I don't care about sports, I don't. I don't know if it's accurate or not. But you know, I think it's a decent base hit. You know, for a first effort and a dedicated Evie. I don't

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:03  
even know what a base hit is. So yeah, sure. It's a decent base set.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:06  
Yeah, but it's not a home run by any stretch. That

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:09  
is no, it is definitely not a home run.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:14  
But they're only planning to bring 7000 BC for access to the US this year. Due to their supply constraints, presumably with batteries or something and then ramp them up sometime

Roberto Baldwin  1:16:26  
next year on batteries or something No,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:28  
no batteries. They just said supply constraints. So they're only they're only going to get 7000 here this year, which presumably equates to the number of EVs that they need to sell to satisfy the California ZEV mandate.

Roberto Baldwin  1:16:44  
I think it's a Twinkie den.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:46  
And they're going to start like like Hyundai and Kia they're going to start off selling them in ZEV states like California and, and the other states that follow the California Rules. And by the end of the year, they want to gradually ramp it up to being available in all 50 states but since there won't be that many of them anyway, most other states probably won't get if any at all.

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:07  
That's a tough that's a tough sell. Yeah, here are all the things that are on by the way the Hyundai Sonic five in the Evie six both exist. Yeah, also my just my Kona Evie has better range and it's just a yard. Yeah, right old Kona was not old, but you know, the car has been out for a few years.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:30  
Now. All right, so that's the Toyota Bz. 4x It's okay. It's fine. Not great. Not great. Okay, it's fine.

Nicole Wakelin  1:17:40  
Review the Toyota Bz 4x It's okay.

Roberto Baldwin  1:17:44  
It's okay. That's fine. Those are the worst things to write though. It's not like great it's not horrible. It's just like, alright.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:53  
drives fine you know? It for for the person. The average person that drives a Corolla. rav4 Camry. Probably be completely satisfied with it. You'll be mostly satisfied. fine enough. Yeah. All right. Jeep. We talked a few weeks ago about the new still antas hurricane six cylinder engine turbocharged six inline six cylinder. It's finally got a home. It's gonna launch in the new Jeep Wagoneer L. The debuts this week at the New York Auto Show. As if the wagoneer and grand wagoneer weren't quite large enough. They've admitted a foot longer.

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:36  
Yeah, it's like this. It's like a took a Subway sandwich put at the end of your Jeep and let's put this on the car you fresh

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:47  
and the other than the fact that it's longer, you got seven inches more wheelbase. So you've got more legroom more room in the third row. And 50% more cargo space thing is like 44 cubic feet of cargo space behind the behind the third row seats now. So you can store all kinds of stuff back there.

Roberto Baldwin  1:19:08  
Everything you own in the back of the Jeep. wagoneer owl you own just throw it in there you'll have room

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:14  
and and both the wagoneer and the grand wagoneer l both come standard with the new hurricane six cylinder engines. The wagon, the wagon near the base wagon, Eric gets a 420 horsepower version of it. And the grand wagoneer gets the 510 horsepower hurricane 510 is what they're calling it for obvious reasons. It's more power more torque than the VA it's in the standard length wagon ears which will probably also get this engine for later in 2022. And about one to two miles per gallon better fuel economy to Well, I mean when you're starting, like 15 for the dress For the grand wagoneer I don't

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:01  
even think you can look at fuel economy if you're buying this car. It is cool. I love this thing. You're buying this fuel economy is not even on your

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:12  
concern. There. It's

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:13  
not even on the list of things that you were thinking about when you bought a car.

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:18  
Like where are you going to park your private jet or right who's going to house sit in your house in the Hamptons or?

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:25  
Exactly, exactly. There is like fuel economy what didn't even know what that is? Like? What does that mean? What does that mean? I've never heard of that before.

Roberto Baldwin  1:20:33  
Which private school will your child go to stuff like that? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:38  
Those Oh, CERN's? No no pricing yet. On the the ELLs? Presumably there'll be a few $1,000 More than the standard length will the standard length versions and they will be available later this spring. I think they started restarting production any day now if they haven't already to. And they, it looks pretty much the same as the the standard version. Except, you know, when you look at it and profile you see it looks a skosh longer. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:21:11  
but longer. It's $5 for dollar long, longer. $5,000 Oh, it's $5,000 foot long. That way you can see the fire, you can seeing the $5 footlong song 1000 foot low.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:26  
Last item is Lincoln. Next week in Los Angeles, we'll be unveiling a concept version of their upcoming Eevee crossover that's coming. Presumably the last we heard was in 2024. But they may try to accelerate that if they can. And they released a little teaser video that doesn't really show us much except that it will have a light up Lincoln star in the front. And that'll be in the show notes if you want to look at it. Alright, let's answer a few listener questions. First up from Andrew Pappas, how much will the GR Corolla cost? Isn't that the only question right now

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:12  
that we talked about this last week? I just talked about this randomly was a random

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:16  
thing. I think we might have speculated about it. Oh, we talked about the Corolla. But I don't know if we? I mean, I don't know. Nicole, you were at the reveal workshop? I was. Did they tell you give you any kind of hints? I'm trying to

Nicole Wakelin  1:22:32  
complete and total blank. I am going to be totally honest. I don't remember discussing pricing at all.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:39  
Did they say when it's even going to be on sale?

Nicole Wakelin  1:22:41  
I don't even know. I you know, I'm gonna be honest. I was caught off guard by this question. I was so focused on the rest of the show. I didn't practice art. Okay. No, Sam.

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:51  
All right. Well, it's great to have and again,

Nicole Wakelin  1:22:54  
you know, I was I was actually mostly just jetlagged.

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:57  
There. Wow, that's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:01  
absurd. Certainly, we can certainly speculate it's coming out

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:04  
until the fall. So we do have, we've got some time. So I think, what is it saying fall of this year. So I feel like we've got a ways to go before we have any hints of what it's going to cost.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:18  
Well, since since it's a 300 horsepower, hot hatch, we can presume it's going to be similarly priced to other 300 horsepower, hot hatches, like the Focus RS and the the Civic Type R, so probably, somewhere between 38 to $40,000.

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:36  
I'm gonna say it's gonna start just over 40. Like, okay,

Roberto Baldwin  1:23:41  
I'm gonna say 37,000 No, $1 I'm gonna say $1. That's how it works.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:48  
So you're assuming we both got over? Prices, right?

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:52  
Because the Focus RS was like, what, like, 42 or something.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:56  
Now, they started at 35. And I think by the time they went out of production, they were about 37 or 38.

Nicole Wakelin  1:24:02  
I'm still gonna go with I'm gonna go with

Roberto Baldwin  1:24:05  
Supra. What's the super started? Good question for you.

Nicole Wakelin  1:24:12  
Let's say 43 to 90, according to the Google, I just did 43.

Roberto Baldwin  1:24:16  
Okay. So it has to be between the GR 83. And it has to between between the between that and the Supra.

Nicole Wakelin  1:24:24  
I'm guessing this is 43 to 90 is the base on the 37.

Roberto Baldwin  1:24:29  
I'm gonna say 3737. I'm gonna guess it's a lot of car. I mean, it's a lot of power, but it's like it's got a tiny engine. It's fewer

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:37  
standard Corolla hatchback starts at 21

Roberto Baldwin  1:24:43  
cylinder, it's only got three cylinders. So your 100 horsepower per cylinder. 100 horsepower for cylinder. It's not that big. So you don't need all those materials that you have on the larger cars. So I'm gonna I'm still gonna be our x is what 30 The GRE six

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:03  
years your 86 starts at 27. Seven. Yeah, so that's and the SuperS 43

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:09  
supers 43. Yeah. I'm gonna say 37. Maybe. I feel like it has to come in between they have to, but but the markups gonna be $20,000 on it. Yeah. So it doesn't matter what

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:23  
we say. So, in reality, it's gonna cost you 60 grand

Nicole Wakelin  1:25:26  
$1,000 That's what we're going with Andrew 60 grand is what you better save up if you want this come fall.

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:30  
Yeah. It's gonna be like the type

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:36  
and your left arm and your left arm, one leg and your right arm for shifting or shifting

Nicole Wakelin  1:25:41  
your right arm but the left arm Forget it. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:45  
All right. David Lama asks, is it still the standard for cars to come with a spare tire and the jacket? I heard from someone that this isn't the case anymore. Car? Yeah, it did varies widely. A lot of a lot of vehicles still come with a spare tire, and a jack. My wife's Honda Civic.

Nicole Wakelin  1:26:06  
That's that the all new Mazda CX 50 doesn't come does in fact, come with a not full size spare but a donut. And a really impossible to use Jack and little wrench to get the lug nuts off there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:18  
This sounds like the voice of experience.

Nicole Wakelin  1:26:20  
It might perchance be the voice of experience.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:23  
Did you actually have to change the put on the doughnut by yourself or on the off

Nicole Wakelin  1:26:28  
road? Currently by myself? I did put a I did we change the tire me and journalist Nick miles. We were driving and it was it was all happy and good. And then we stopped and grabbed a coffee and came back out. And he's like, what? Oh my goodness, this is a little English accent. Oh. And you can see that it's like, you know, to be nice, like me, like, oh, 27 Oh, 26 like, oh, and I get out of the car and I'm looking at the tire and I'm like, wait, turn off the engine and he turns off the engine. It's just Yes, we went I think when we stopped whatever it was, we must have put the pressure just the right way. And it just let all the air out. So we got out of the parking lot and just kind of like drove out of the Starbucks crazy. And it was going to take Mazda about an hour for their chase car to get to us. So we said we met. Is there a spare inside here? Sure enough, there was so we broke the spirit of the back and change the tire in a parking lot. And excellent. We're on our way. So yeah, that one does.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:29  
Okay. Yeah, a lot lots of cars, especially larger SUVs, trucks. But even even, you know, some of the smaller ones still come with a spare tire. And in a lot of a lot of hybrids and battery electrics don't because they stuffed they've stuffed that space with battery. So, you know, that's why, you know, oftentimes they just have an inflator kit. And in some cases, you know, they also bypassed the spare for an inflator kit to save weight. That's not necessarily to save so much money because you know, the doughnuts don't aren't that expensive, but it's actually more often to save weight, because of the way they do the fuel economy testing. I remember back in 2011, when Chevy launched the they had a version of the cruise that was rated at 42 miles per gallon highway. And among the things that they did to get that 42 miles per gallon, was they they actually managed to they took out some stuff and reduce some weight to get it down to a lower test weight class because when when they do the fuel economy testing on the dynamometer they set up the load on the dyno based on the weight of the vehicle. And you know, they have kind of, you know, 100 100 pound or 150 pound windows, you know that you have to get into. And so they found that they could save about 20 pounds by replacing the spare tire with an inflator kit. And then that, along with a couple of other things allowed him to get down into a lower test weight class, which made it easier for them to hit that 42 mile per gallon or 42 mile per gallon threshold. So sometimes they do little tricks like that which can be annoying to customers, but you know, they can advertise those big numbers

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:33  
done done. Secrets of mpg efficiency.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:42  
David also had another question. I was just looking at some older electric vehicles like the volt leaf I'm Eve Online and I'm interested in taking a look at these in person. What are some things to be aware of when looking at electric vehicles? Is there any way to test the battery health

Nicole Wakelin  1:30:00  
I honestly don't know that is there a way to test the health of the battery?

Roberto Baldwin  1:30:03  
I mean, those have a lot of range. So you just put it in evey range if it's the volt, and just drive it. That's kind of what it gets,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:13  
aren't you? Actually yeah. It depends. The the rent it depending where you're buying it from. There was actually I was just was interviewed a couple weeks ago by somebody from Ward's auto, about a story that we're doing about Mannheim, Mannheim is the biggest auto auction company in the country. You know, they they process a lot of the cars that get our trade ends or get returned from lease, and they auction them off and sell them to dealers, who then you know, put them on their used car lots. And last fall, Manheim actually started doing battery testing on the vehicles that come into their auction system on the EVS and hybrids that come into their auction system. So they actually have developed some test procedures. And they, you know, they, they run through a bunch of tests, and they come up with a score out of five points for the battery health. And so they look at, you know, what is the capacity in the battery left in the battery and various other factors. And I'll put links to this in the show notes. But if you're, if you're buying a used vehicle, from a dealer, at least, there's a pretty good chance that it went through Manheim. And you can ask the dealer if they have any of the battery health results from the, from the auction company from from Manheim. And if they do, you know, chances are, though, if it's good, they'll probably put that on the window sticker anyway. And they'll they'll be happy to share that with you. And if they declined to tell you give you any information, well, you may want to look somewhere else, right? Yeah. At the very least, you know, see if you can, you know, take it for a test drive, you know, drive it around, you know, start it up, see what the, what it reports is the range that's left, you know, because if the, if the battery has lost capacity, you know, if it's fully charged, you know, you'll be able to tell, you can see, you can find out what it was originally, and see what it's reporting as the as the available range, you know, at that point when you're driving it.

Roberto Baldwin  1:32:34  
And then you have to do maths.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:37  
While you just see, you know, if it's less, you know, if it was originally 100 miles, and it's only giving you 80 miles with a full charge, then you know, you've lost, you've lost a bunch of range, and you might not want that one. I know, I was actually just talking with somebody last week. He used to work at GM, and he's still got a first generation Chevy Volt for the first model, your 20 2011 Chevy Volt. And it's down when it was new. It had 36 miles of electric range. And it's down to only 25 now. And it's just got over 100,000 miles on it, too. So last question from Josh Felts. When When do we expect to see the North American version of the ID buzz really curious how the longer wheelbase will affect the proportions? Coming in 2024, they said

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:34  
that he wants to, but I think he wants to see it. Like the actual like, and we haven't seen what it looks like. Yeah, we short wheelbase. Yeah. So what's it what's it auto show? Maybe Pebble Beach? So yeah, I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:47  
wouldn't be surprised if they showed a pebble.

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:49  
Yeah, cuz they showed it off the pebble before they had a bunch of people drive the concept. So maybe Pebble Beach, maybe August. Yeah. What else is between now or

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:59  
maybe in the fall at the LA show? Oh, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:03  
la show.

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:04  
Because la will be coming back a little bit like it was sort of low key this year, maybe by next or this past year, but maybe this year, it'll be a little bit more robust. And that would be a good place for Volkswagen.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:16  
So that makes sense. They might also show yeah, it could also do it at the Detroit Auto Show in September. Because the Detroit show in 2018 was where they originally unveiled the concept.

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:28  
Maybe I think it's I think it'd be fall. I think we're gonna see it this year.

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:32  
Yeah, probably. I think it'll probably be LA. I think you guys are right. But if I bet if it says Pebble Beach, I'm gonna come back and say I was right. I also said for now, but for now, I'm just gonna agree with y'all

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:44  
are betting $1. Okay, go ahead.

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:47  
$1. That's what's gonna be available.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:54  
All right. Well, that's it for this week. Thanks, everybody for listening and we'll We'll be back next time bye

Roberto Baldwin  1:35:02  
bye