Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 Coming up on episode 245 of wheel bearings. We've got the VW GTI the Kia Soul Range Rover Evoke electric Corvettes, the Dodge Hornet and more all that coming up next this is episode 245 wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Guidehhouse insights. Nicole Wakelin 0:28 I am Nicole Wakelin. And I'm going to mention my new podcast fast women which is on Newsweek. Sam Abuelsamid 0:33 Nothing better than FAST Women. Nicole Wakelin 0:35 Exactly. Roberto Baldwin 0:39 Is it like a guitar? Well, after the Nicole Wakelin 0:42 No, it's not quite that guitar. You know, maybe you should need to record something where there's guitar Well, for us. Roberto Baldwin 0:53 And I'm Roberto Baldwin, from a bunch of bands who's going to do a guitar well for Nicole's new podcast. Awesome. Sam Abuelsamid 0:59 Excellent. All right. Let's see Robbie, you were hanging out on the beach last week. So what were you driving Roberto Baldwin 1:10 so last week I Okay, getting a rental car of course it's still a little crazy it's not as bad as it was but you know you're still like a little late Oh, what am I gonna get? But when I signed up through Avis like oh, do you want a Kia Soul or similar like well yeah, I do want a Kia Soul or similar because and then I ended up I got there as soon as I landed, you can get on the app and you can make sure you can like lock in your car. And I got the Kia Soul I got a little black you know 2020 Kia Soul, you know, car rental spec. And I wanted the Kia Soul because a the Kia Soul is exactly what it needs to be as that car it doesn't it's not trying to be like too crazy. But it also feels really nice for what it is. And you have a lottery put that back seat down. It's essentially a box and boxes are used to store things in, which is why when we move we move with boxes not with like triangles or ovals. You stick everything in box like it's like a moving Tetris puzzle. Yeah, it's like a moving Tetris puzzle. So I got the Kia Soul. It had wireless CarPlay. Again, car rental spec, which is just, you know, the cheapest one they can get. And it you know, only had one USB port that was sort of it's it's sort of like why only one of us could charge our phones at a time, which was fine because most time I get off the because I go swimming. And sometimes I take my phone out and make a little video of the water for No, no one wants to see video of water by the way. But you do it anyway. So you can't charge your phone. So I got the Kia Soul. I drove it around the island of kawaii for a week. And it was absolutely marvelous. We could even with the back seats up, we could stick in our fins, we could stick in a tiny cooler, a couple bags. You know we'd had throw our backpacks in the backseat at some point. But it was great. And I got 35 miles per gallon over the course of the week. Sam Abuelsamid 3:08 Which considering gas was probably what about seven bucks a gallon and Roberto Baldwin 3:13 that was okay, so that was surprising. Gas was less expensive and why he was in San Francisco to deal with like the taxes of California gasoline taxes are pretty high. So I think Hawaii is gasoline taxes are probably lower. But also they have to ship everything so it kind of brings it up. So it was 545 for for for a gallon of gas which was essentially it was like 551 here. I think it's like 530 Now here or something. I don't know I don't get a lot of gas because we have the Evie. So I'm always like, Oh, what is gas cost? How much is a banana? Yeah, yeah, so we, of course also slowly gets 35 miles per gallon. But the sort of caveat is that no one speeds in Hawaii. No one's in our hurry. No one Yeah, if it's 40 Everyone's doing 40 Maybe, maybe 45 Like no one there again. And the top speed limit on clients 50 miles an hour. That's it. That's and I got to 60 at one point, Nicole Wakelin 4:15 I was like, Oh man, man, you Sam Abuelsamid 4:18 gotta control down Waimea Canyon or something? Roberto Baldwin 4:21 No, no, we didn't we just just going between Princeville and Kufa. Okay, so we were just yeah, like, oh, there's a power we can do. 50 And we were doing 60 And I was like, Oh, it was Madness Madness. So in our interest man, so you're not driving very fast, which means you're not losing using as much you know, gas and so the 35 If it had been on a freeway Of course it would have been lower. In but no, the Kia Soul, car rental. Everything you need. You have your phone. And it's great because especially when you're when you're when you're traveling. You don't want to learn a new navigation system. And most of them are still kind of crap especially when it comes down to rental specs. It's like the lowest of the low so whatever navigation they have in there is navigation for like five or six years ago because they want you to upgrade to the next level blah blah blah. Sam Abuelsamid 5:12 Fortunately the island of Hawaii Kawaii is only 30 miles wide and what 20 miles north to south so it's kind of hard to get lost. Roberto Baldwin 5:20 Yeah, there's only one like there's one main road if you can find the one main road or like Alright, cool. Sam Abuelsamid 5:25 wraps around the island from one end of the Nepali coast to the other. Yeah, you're like, Alright, we're good. We're good. And in between you have a dead volcano. And in between, yeah, dead volcano. Roberto Baldwin 5:36 So ya know, so if you are going on a trip, I highly recommend when you are looking for unless you have like a bunch of kids, or you need a lot of room or you want a convertible, which by the way, if you get a convertible in Hawaii, everyone knows you're a tourist, if you get a convertible or you get a jeep, like, oh, Nicole Wakelin 5:55 that's fair. I hadn't thought of as a Jeep thing. But yeah, Roberto Baldwin 5:58 oh, yeah. The jeep, the Jeep, the Jeep thing is very much like, and people own Jeeps. And in Hawaii, they'll like do something to them. So they don't. But yeah, we did a Jeep ones we went for like once I was like, oh, we should they were like, oh, we'll give you a Jeep for $5 more a day. And I was like, All right, this before the refresh. And I absolutely want to I want to drive that thing into the sea. Now the new Jeeps are great, but the old Jeeps not so much. They went kissel rental 35 mpg in Hawaii, if you just you and two or three other people, it's plenty of room. Sam Abuelsamid 6:36 And you know, if you're looking to buy a cheap car, assuming you can find one, you know, the soul. I mean, what you probably had was the LX trim, that's usually what you find in a rental fleet as the most basic 119 1290 bucks, you know, and then probably about 1000 bucks for the delivery charge, you know, 2020 grand, you know, for all that stuff that you just described. Roberto Baldwin 7:00 For Google car, it gets pretty good gas mileage. Yeah, the first time I drove the soul is when I broke, I broke my ankle a couple years ago. And so I couldn't do this, that's the only car we had was the either the BRC or the mini me, it doesn't matter. They were a manual transmission. And it couldn't drive it because, you know, my ankle was broken. And so I would have to hobble down the stairs in my apartment down the street to the car share place and they had a Kia Soul and I was just like, and I got in it and within three blocks and while this car is amazing. Nicole Wakelin 7:31 I wasn't the Kia Soul is that car that like it looks because it's so you know, like you said it's giant box like this is going to be miserable is gonna be awful. This is gonna be like this is kind of fun. I sort of like this little thing. Sam Abuelsamid 7:43 You know, it's not I mean, it came out, you know, around the same time as the Scion xB and the the Nissan Cube. And both of those cars are long gone. No longer available. Yeah, no, this is the only one that survived. You know, and it's because it does have that kind of funky attitude to it, you know, slightly different design. I mean, it's still a box. But you know, it's it's kind of a cool looking box. Nicole Wakelin 8:07 I think I'm remembering right when they launched the most recent one in the presentation. And they talked about it and all the other little boxy cars are no longer of this world. And but then they talked about the design that is and I want to say compared it to like a Warthog. I think they're like, it's kind of like, and that's like right, can you see it now? Yeah, so I always Sam Abuelsamid 8:26 think about when it's also the one that the hamsters drive around it. Yeah, do Nicole Wakelin 8:30 the hamsters anymore and it'll bring back the hamsters and I like the hamster isn't like the masters. It's like Monster zoom, zoom, bring back zoom zoom. I liked that Roberto Baldwin 8:40 better. Zoom, zoom kid. He's like 35 Now he's like zooms just heavy sigh Sam Abuelsamid 8:50 Okay, what about you, Nicole? Nicole Wakelin 8:52 Okay, so I had some mentally had for a short time this week, because I guess it's only up in my region for a little while. So I had like three days at this. But as a fun three days, I had the 2022 Range Rover Evoke our dynamic s because the more words you have to describe your car, the cooler it gets, the more you can charge for it, the more you can charge for it. Speaking of. So the base price on this is 46 Three, I had a lot of extra bits and pieces. So it was 54 Six. So it's a pretty significant amount of extra stuff. The most expensive of which there is a Blind Spot Assist pack that has Blind Spot Assist clear exit monitor and a rear traffic monitor. That was annoying. That's not the most expensive No, sorry, most expensive. The panoramic panoramic roof was $1,800. And this 20 inch wheels was $1,850 I don't think I would want the 20 inch wheels enough to pay nearly two grand for them to cool. Sure to grant cool. Really. Yeah, so those are the two major Roberto Baldwin 9:52 just and you're also you're losing like right quality and you're getting bigger. Nicole Wakelin 9:58 But to be fair, though the right column this It actually was quite nice. Like I was looking at all this and thinking, this is not gonna be great, but you know, it's still a luxury car, you know. So it has it, the ride quality is actually pretty good. I didn't do it through my usual through the the tunnel coming from the airport, but I did happen to drive to Boston on their craptastic roads, and it handled it all very well. What I most notice about a traveling though is you know, back and forth, it's like a 45 minute to an hour drive from downtown Boston. And despite this being like a little s and SCV crossover, I know I'm gonna call it SUV, being a small SUV, and those not being known for being like really easy and smooth and wonderful to drive on a highway. I had to watch my speed because I'm just like flying along and all of a sudden I look down and like, Oh, that is faster than I meant to be driving right now because it is just so smooth and easy and controlled to drive it that you don't realize you're going as fast as you're going. Which I guess bad thing because you could get a ticket. But good thing in that it just is that nice to drive. It's not super roomy, it's like there's definitely bigger Range Rovers that you can pick them this one. But I like this one, it has a two liter turbocharged four cylinder with 246 horsepower, two and 69 pound feet of torque and has a nine speed automatic, it's got plenty of power. I mean, when you mash the gas on this, you're gonna move you're gonna get out of your own way, it's easy to get it up to highway speeds, it handles really well, I I really liked this, I think the only thing you know took a little getting used to was the, the controls. And once you get used to it, it was awesome. But the controls for the heat. And for Yeah, they're these little round dials, but when you press them, they do other things. So think around if you put your thumb and your finger together about that big, and it looks like it's just temperature going to turn it left, right, Tim goes up, Tim goes down. But then if you push it, it's also the air flow like how fast is the fan on and then you push the other side. And now you've got your settings for like your snow, your mud and ruts your I always called Cactus marks as a cactus on on Range Rover products. But it looks a little like your sand mode. But it's cactus mode. So it's neat, but it has a moment when you're first playing with controls. You're like, wasn't that a half a second ago the temperature and now it's my drive modes. What do they do because you accidentally pressed when you just meant to turn it. So it takes a second read and then you think oh wait no these just multifunctional things. Very cool. I thought the infotainment screen now I'm trying to find the size on it. And I can't find it glancing at this real quick. It's not Oh, it says 10 inches, 10 inch net with navigation, blah, blah, blah. So it's a 10 screen, the way it's positioned, it feels kind of small. I don't know if it's just the way it's set in the dashboard a little bit, but it feels on the small side. And it doesn't look as crisp as what you find on some cars in this price point. Like it just felt and I happen to use the navigation that was actually their navigation not my you know, Apple, you know, Hey, Siri, take me here kind of navigation. And it wasn't great to follow. It's not very clear. It's not very crisp. I mean, it's sure it's telling you the right way but it just was not the best. In fact, there was a point where you're driving through the city and there's like an upper deck and a lower deck and they're slightly off center but you know it's end the lower deck traffic was massively backed up. So all I see is this giant red line and this navigation I could not figure out like what am I missing? Should I be getting off the highway here because this looks like I'm going to be bogged down in traffic forever. It didn't give me enough detail to go wait a minute that's the lower deck that I'm on so I'm going to stay put not go to surface streets because this is fine if I was going into the city it would be a mess. Some of them you can tell the difference like they'll do a split so you know even if it's like buried a little bit yeah like a tiny little bit and you can see like wait, the red is not actually my road it's parallel or under or above my road you can't tell on their screen now to be fair, I don't often use the native navigation in cars because your phone does it so well. But I do just to check it out and on this instance of like yeah, that navigation isn't as nice as I would like it to be and I think the screen something about the Christmas it just didn't it didn't look the way I expected but as far as driving it and the smoothness and it feeling Range Rover you know that luxury but with a bit of ruggedness. It was really good the cupholders are too small. There's my I had giant coffees. I said I said to the guy I went to largest iced coffee you have I swear to God it was the big gulp of coffee so it was like Well, I'm awake for the rest of the day. But it wouldn't quit it almost didn't fit in a cup holder the couple's very tiny it's really designed for either a soda can or like it only can be one of those those like to go containers or to go cups it has like the narrow bottom and the fat part of top yeah if it's not really narrow like I put it on like oh god I don't know if I can get that out of there now and I'm gonna pull this out scored off the top and there's gonna be coffee all over my $60,000 Range Rover and it could be big trouble. So I barely got it like okay, not putting it back in there to get it out. But so I like it. I mean, I like it overall, I think I think it looks cute on the outside. I like how it's very cool, like styling and yet Still, when you open up the tailgate there's a good amount of room it's you know, it's it looks more squished in the back than it actually is when you get to put stuff in. Sam Abuelsamid 15:08 Yeah, to your comment about the the tenant screen seeming kind of small. I think that I'm just looking at pictures of it. I suspect that's probably because it's a it's a widescreen display. So it's got a kind of a really wide aspect ratio. So it's not very tall. And it's very, Nicole Wakelin 15:25 it feels very squished. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 15:27 I don't I don't remember on the evoke it the screen tip up when you're using it, or is it just because it's fixed in the dashboard it Yeah, so it's kind of a an angle away from you. So when you're looking at, you're not looking at it perpendicular to the site, it's, like, looks like it's about a 45 degree angle. So that's gonna make it look even smaller when you're looking at looks. Roberto Baldwin 15:51 Like I know, it's washed out, Nicole Wakelin 15:52 it says 10. It's not tiny. It's not like it's a five inch screen. But the way it's positioned, it's, it kind of feels like you're using a five or six inch screen. It feels like a much smaller screen than it is even though I know realistically, numbers don't lie, in this case, how big it is. But yeah, the positioning of it is kind of weird. Roberto Baldwin 16:09 Well, then it's got to be also washed out because it's at such an angle, if you look at your phone, like if you look at a dead on and then you try to tilt it, I mean, it's just a little bit but it starts to look a little it'll probably start to look a little washed out and I'm sure the you know, the screen in your phone is probably nicer in the screen and the ridge over so it's made even worse. And so it's a weird, it's a weird decision Sam Abuelsamid 16:29 is when the volare which is the the next size up from the evoke, it's like in between the the evoke and the regular Range Rover. That one I think the screen actually does tip up so it's more vertical when you're Yeah, when when you turn it on. And, you know, so I think it looks it's gonna look like it's larger. So right kind of strange that the one in the VOC doesn't do that. It's been a second Remember, Nicole Wakelin 16:53 it's very definitely one of those you get in and, you know, it feels like you know, you get into a car and you know, for sure there's two different screen sizes. You have a standard that's an eight and you have the fancy pants versions that have like a 10 or 12 or whatever screen when you first sit down my thought was oh, do I have like a base screen? I'm like, oh, no, this is this is not a base screen. You know? Roberto Baldwin 17:13 It's the base. It's the base Range Rover is what you got. Yes, I gotta be Sam Abuelsamid 17:18 right, it's the entry level to the rate over lineup. Nicole Wakelin 17:21 The funniest thing my daughter said to me so we spent the weekend down in Boston as we're driving went down this really fancy shopping street for kicks and giggles and there's like G wagons and like really expensive cars all over the place. And then someone had like a Range Rover SV autobiography all tricked out, you know, super expensive. And it's no that's the same company that makes the crash like Oh, I thought we were driving. This is from her. He's written a million cars. Oh, I thought this was just like a regular car. Is this supposed to be a nicer car? And she didn't listen to her short here that I know is like, oh, no, like I said you don't you think? No, it just doesn't really feel like it. It just sounds like Oh, I thought it was a doubt like she's like we're driving a Nissan or something you noticed that was just her impression? Not knowing but I thought Oh, so that's not good. Sam Abuelsamid 18:08 Earlier you mentioned the the price of the package with the blind spot monitoring. How much was that again? Nicole Wakelin 18:13 That was I haven't bagged the button. So it was the let's the blind spot actually is not that crazy. The blind spot is a 830 I have the world's smallest print on this Monroney it's the wheels that are 1850 and the panoramic roof that is 1800. I think it's 830 for the Blind Spot Assist package, and there's like an $800 Climate package. And then I have random bits and pieces I paid like you know, it's like five or $600 Here $200 there for all sorts of different little bits and pieces that they've added Sam Abuelsamid 18:43 because just as a point of comparison, that $20,000 Kia Soul we were talking about a few minutes ago. Yes, that comes standard on that $20,000 base. Kia Soul LX let Nicole Wakelin 18:53 the blind spot thanks. Roberto Baldwin 18:55 Yeah, I didn't hit anyone. I didn't hit anyone. So it comes down to Nicole Wakelin 19:00 my monitors. Yeah, Nope, you're gonna pay an extra I think it's $830 for it. Are there any extra things you really shouldn't be paying extra for in here? I mean, aside from that extra for paint 300 bucks for sound system. Oh, it's an extra almost $200 for a garage door opener. You know the HomeLink garage openers in the visor. Yeah, that's like 200 bucks. I don't know what this is. What is a hand over pack? It's $25 Is it some like dealer prep thing? It literally says hand over pack Roberto Baldwin 19:27 $25 like a pack like Pac K Pac Pac k like backpack but just pack maybe there's just like a little bag inside that has your like, Sam Abuelsamid 19:37 paperwork and stuff your paperwork Nicole Wakelin 19:38 they charge you $25 To get the paperwork for your car. I don't know Roberto Baldwin 19:42 where you're gonna pay no work. But if you want the paperwork in a nice little like, Nicole Wakelin 19:46 oh like a little drawstring satchel or something. Exactly. Sam Abuelsamid 19:48 Yeah. Yeah. 21 all those paperwork floating around you Nicole Wakelin 19:54 know, just be crazy slopping around your car. Roberto Baldwin 19:56 Every time you open the window just flies around. Nicole Wakelin 19:58 You can't have that camp kind of Chaos in your little luxury SUV. Sam Abuelsamid 20:02 Chaos need refinement? Yes, fine Nicole Wakelin 20:05 refinement is a $25 handover pack. Sam Abuelsamid 20:08 There you go. Lovely. All right. So that's the Range Rover. Ah, I had the 2022 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, Jetta TDI T GTI Autobahn so this is this is one of only two golf's that are now available in the US all the all the regular more pedestrian VW Golf. Americans don't want to buy those anymore. They don't want to buy small, compact hatchbacks and stuff like that, except for Kia Soul apparently. So VW is discontinued all the golf except for the GTI and the Golf R, and the Golf Rs, the high end 300 Some horsepower, all wheel drive, super golf, and the GTI. I haven't driven the new golf car yet. But in the previous generation, I actually preferred the GTI to the golf car. Because the GTI is lighter. You know, the all wheel drive on the Golf R even though it's got more power, it feels kind of disconnected, it doesn't feel as lively, it doesn't feel like you can toss it around. Because it's got so much grip that it just does exactly what you tell it to do. Whereas the GTI, you take that thing through corners, get that inside rear wheel hooked up, and it feels more fun and lively and spirited. And the same is true for this for this new one. I really liked this GTI this one came with, you can get it with a seven speed DSG. But I highly recommend if you're going to buy a GTI get a six speed manual, it's it's absolutely the best way to go. So this is the mark eight golf platform. So the latest and greatest generation that debuted at but a year or so ago in Europe. And the the biggest complaint I have about this is the infotainment system, which I think shares a lot of its heart with the what you find in the ID four. It's an all new infotainment system. It's not it doesn't have the sluggishness and the lag that you find in the ID four. But it's a similar, it looks like a similar interface. It's not bad, it's not terrible, it does have support for both wireless Apple CarPlay and wireless Android Auto. So you don't actually even have to plug your, your phone in to use those. And so if you're if you're going to, if you're going to use those great, you know, you can get it once you get your phone paired up, you don't you don't have to mess with anything when you get in the car and start it. The the phone projection interface comes up. It's that works well. But like the ID four, they've eliminated most of the physical controls. So you've got touch controls for volume and temperature and stuff, you know, in a strip along below the center touchscreen, which please stop stop doing. Roberto Baldwin 23:24 It's so weird. Okay, it's okay, can you keep going? Because there's a whole issue I have with this. Nicole Wakelin 23:29 Oh, Robbie has a rant I said. Sam Abuelsamid 23:32 You know, traditionally GTI has always had a golf ball style shift knob look look like a golf ball, they've sort of retained that you look at it from the from the driver's seat looking at it, it looks more like what you find on most other cars. Now, you know, kind of smooth on the sides and a top surface, some red trim on it. But when you put your hand on it, you can feel the dimples on the back and if you twist your head around and look at the front side of the shifter that's facing away from you, it has that golf ball kind of finish to it with the dimples so that's a nice little throwback. The seats are really great and this thing really comfortable and supportive. Even though there's not a whole lot of adjustments, you know, like like in the Civic Si really good seats. Not a whole lot to complain about really with this thing. You know, fuel economy is about 28 miles per gallon. lot you know the back seat is surprisingly roomy and there's there's decent cargo space in the back. I always suggest that you know for smaller cars like this, if there's a hatchback available, go for the hatchback instead of the sedan because it's so much more useful because you have that nice big opening could fold the back seats down and put big stuff in there if you need to. So the base GTI starts at Oh, I had it here somewhere. starts at about 29,000. And this one was about 38,000 and change for the Autobahn version, which is the fully loaded version with the 20 inch wheels and everything. While I look that up again, Robbie, give us your rent. Roberto Baldwin 25:19 So I get home one night I've been driving this car first of all, the haptic the the sort of soft touch buttons on the steering wheel are a train, they're horrible, yes, because you're turning your if you have hands that are larger than medium has, you're just like, you're just hitting all the buttons while you're driving. They're hard to like use. And it turns out that the below the touchscreen, where you have the controls for the heat for your climate controls and the volume, that that isn't illuminated at night. So I'm going to turn down the music and what I'm doing is I'm turning up the heat, like what's going on what is going on. So yeah, or Sam Abuelsamid 26:01 if you you know, if, like sometimes, you know, when I'm driving, I, you know, I will stick if I'm trying to hit the touchscreen, I'll stick up my index finger to hit the touch targets. And I'll use my middle finger to sort of brace my hand. Because, you know, when you're driving along, you're reaching out for touch screens, why touchscreens and cars, you're the end of your arm tends to move around a little bit. And so, you know, I use my middle finger to brace there while I'm hitting the touch target so it's more precise. And I often you know, I ended up hitting those controls with my middle finger as I'm doing this. So that that's very annoying. And you're right about the the touch controls on the the three and nine spokes on the steering wheel. Roberto Baldwin 26:45 It's it's such a it's such a great little car. And then they're like oh by the way, we're gonna screw it up this way. We're gonna screw it up we put it in the 83 we put in the 84 No one likes it but you know what we already made all the parts so Nicole Wakelin 27:00 there's somebody else that has little touchscreen like a little tiny touchpad that's like like a one centimeter by one centimeter square. Does Mercedes and I hate it because I'm forever turning the wheel and it's like what what what are the lights on what is happening with the heat the radio what what is going on and I've literally just turned the wheel and managed to hit it three different ways. Yeah. The steering wheel I do like this will be so cool. Sam Abuelsamid 27:24 Yeah, so the the found the the prices again here because they didn't send me a Monroney for this one. The s The GTI S starts at 29 Add and then 1000 bucks for so 31 grand for the s 35 Almost 36 for the SC and the Autobahn is 38 330 which with the delivery charge comes to 39 720 That's a $995 delivery charge which considering is coming from all the way from Wolfsburg is not bad. It's the Autobahn has heads up display which I could not find any anywhere to actually turn that on. I could not find a control or button or anything for that so I could see it there. I can see where there's the thing on the top of the dash for that, but I could never actually figure out how to how to enable it. It also has adaptive dampers on it. Leather seats, heated rear outboard seats, power driver's seat memory, light assist, and sorry the 19 inch wheels not 20s And they look great and I think I really liked the look of of the market golf and especially the GTI. The the the front, the the lower part of the facia, and it's got this kind of honeycomb grille there that echoes the look that you see on the the ID models like on the on the ID buzz and the ID four. And the fog lights are the driving lights in the corners are behind that inside of that. It's a cool it's a cool look. It's distinctive looks different from other stuff on the road. But it still looks like a VW. So aside from those annoyances with the touch controls, I really liked the rest of it. Roberto Baldwin 29:14 Just get used to it, I guess. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 29:18 So that is the 2022 vw GTI Nicole Wakelin 29:22 and I have to tell you, you can't see this. Can you see this? Like getting your guys screams guys? Oh, I have a pillow that they gave me from the thing and it's actually the plaid interior. Roberto Baldwin 29:32 Fancy. Nicole Wakelin 29:34 Yeah, it's like my favorite little random press thing and like I could put that pin on my chair. So I have a little looks like and you tap. Sam Abuelsamid 29:41 Very nice. Alright, let's talk about some of the stuff that happened this week. Let's start with the Corvette during during a interview, I think on Monday and it's funny how you know a whole bunch of Evie related announcements. or semi announcements or teasers came out on Monday and Tuesday morning, just before Ford had their big celebration to launch production of the f150. Lightning. That's amazing. GM kicked it off with, with news of the Corvette going getting an electrified version in 2023. And then an all electric version at some point in the unannounced future, which maybe around 2425. And a dropped a little 25 second teaser video of the Corvette wrapped in camo on on a snow pad during winter testing. And in profile, when you see it watching, for the first time ever, you see the front wheel spinning up, telling us that, you know, this is probably going to be something similar to the configuration of the Acura NSX, where it had electric motors driving the front wheels and probably another electric motor in the rear. And, and the VA engine in there as well. Nicole Wakelin 31:07 Are we excited for this? I think we really didn't even just kind of knew that this was coming. It was coming. But it's just like, oh, so here it is. Sam Abuelsamid 31:14 Yeah, I mean, they've kind of hinted at it for going back to, you know, when they launched the CAA agency eight a couple years back. You know, and I think, you know, when I've asked Mark Royce about it, you know, he said, he nodded and said, Yeah, it's coming eventually. You know, wouldn't say when. But the I think the thing that is strange about this is that for the last three years, Mark Royce has been adamant that GM was done with hybrids that they weren't going to do any more hybrids, you know, after they cancelled the vault and they cancelled the the Malibu hybrid and everything else that had both an engine and an electric motor. He said, we're all in on electric. We're going electric. We're not doing any more hybrids. And here they are doing a hybrid Corvette, which why? Roberto Baldwin 32:07 Oh, well, yeah, I mean, I think you have to look at the I try not to make an old white dude joke but it's that's the that's the to bias Corvettes. And you're probably out of anyone who you're going to need to sort of tuck into electrification, it's going to be all white dudes. Yeah, I think that's probably the reason like okay, we'll start with the hybrid. They'll get used to that. And then they'll get and then you'll get to electric one. I mean, it's it's to say we're not doing any more hybrids and the kilovolt a thing that people loved. Like psych I think they needed a transition. I think they were probably afraid that they were going to lose people. They went straight to evey just because people old white dudes, I saw a gentleman get up a new Corvette the other day who was wearing jeans and a black leather jacket. And I was like you sir, are killing it Nicole Wakelin 33:06 I when I saw when they Annette when they officially were confirming all this was the amount of outright hang hand wringing on the part of everybody who is an old school must have guessed and did nothing else like people were people are either sort of Yeah, well, yeah, we knew it was coming. Yeah, whatever. Or no, at the end times, if people weren't there was no in between. There's no okay, fine, cool, whatever, either really super excited. Or you were jumping off a cliff. Roberto Baldwin 33:33 And I think that's why there's the hybrid is kind of just sort of lower, just sort of like ease them into it. Like, if you want someone to get into Radiohead, you make him listen to a little bit of Coldplay first. I mean, no one wants to listen to Coldplay, like on purpose, but, you know, you kind of get him like, Okay, here's the people, they have some stuff. All right, here's some Radiohead. Okay. Slowly, slowly. Sam Abuelsamid 33:58 And I'm guessing that this probably won't be a plug in hybrid, though. Because not put enough battery. Yeah. Because, you know, the fuel tank is down the center tunnel there. And I don't think there's enough room anywhere for a battery big enough for a plug in hybrid. If you still have the engine. I mean, once once you take the engine out, take the V eight engine out, you know, then you've got plenty of room for a battery for an Eevee version. But not not for not for a plug in hybrid. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 34:31 they'll use that hybrid just for launches. I'm guessing like majority of it is just low end torque takeoff to get people like oh my gosh, yeah. Oh, dear. I don't know. I don't know how like, gentlemen. Nicole Wakelin 34:44 Mini Pearl, like what have you like? Roberto Baldwin 34:48 I don't know, I'm trying to get into the mindset of a person who's older than me and drives a Corvette. Nicole Wakelin 34:55 Okay, and that's how we lost all of our Corvette listeners. I'm Roberto Baldwin 34:58 sorry, I'm not Trying to be I'm trying to be very nice yes it's like it's yeah it's like me people people of a certain age like myself were ridiculously insane about the Honda Civics Honda Civics Come on. I mean, obviously we serve a car we absolutely love the Honda Civic. But if you're like really Honda Civic so so yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 35:22 I'm kind of at that bridge age there were, you know, I love Honda Civics and crazy Honda Civics. But I also love driving Corvettes. You Roberto Baldwin 35:32 know, the There you go. You're the you're you're you're the you're gonna be like the AR what's the person who? I was gonna say a person but he's a war criminal. So I'm not gonna say his name. But Nicole Wakelin 35:44 Sam into a war criminal. I missed Roberto Baldwin 35:47 someone, someone who's a person who talks to both sides. Who has a foot in both Oh, Sam Abuelsamid 35:55 Henry Kissinger. Roberto Baldwin 35:55 Yeah, I was gonna say Henry Kissinger. I like it. You got that? Like someone who talks to the side and war criminal? Yeah. Oh, Henry Kissinger. I'm not nearly as old as Kissinger. So but you know, you can like kind of get both sides and like, hey, my Sam Abuelsamid 36:12 knowledge I've never committed any war crimes. It's good to hear. Roberto Baldwin 36:16 And I've driven Corvettes that and I liked the Corvette. And you know, what I really liked about the Corvette is a little hidden spot, you know, behind the touchscreen. You put your stuff in it. Like secret? Yeah. Oh, Corvettes are wonderful. And they're really great for doing burnouts, which I found out and then I got kicked off at I kicked off out of a place because I was doing burnouts. Nicole Wakelin 36:36 I don't like the giant row of buttons that like Sam Abuelsamid 36:38 between the drugs. Yeah, that's the, that's the main thing I don't like about the car. It goes all Nicole Wakelin 36:42 the way like down from like, it's like start somewhere behind your head feels like it just wraps all the way around you all. It's this huge long row of buttons. And it also makes it very awkward. No, it's all about the driver, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you are the passenger, you have nowhere to put your left arm. You kind of do this like Well, I'm activating things. Okay, I'll just, I'll just hold my left arm like over my shoulder like it's in a sling. Roberto Baldwin 37:05 Just call yourself you said, because you're so happy you're in a Corvette with your Nicole Wakelin 37:10 Corvette and give yourself a big hug. Yeah, so I just I, it looks a little weird to me. And in practice, like riding in that car. It's just Roberto Baldwin 37:18 awkward. You know what it's for. It's like you use your left arm to hold up your right arm because as you're driving down the street, you get rid of one high fives because you're gonna Nicole Wakelin 37:28 I get it now you figured this to me. You Roberto Baldwin 37:32 have a very fast you have American supercar for 60,000. Yeah, come on. That's a that's a screaming deal. Absolutely, man deal. All right, like the Corvette. Sam Abuelsamid 37:45 I especially love the sound of a Corvette when you stand on it and open it up. It's a big bat. Just sounds fantastic. Roberto Baldwin 37:53 It does sound delicious. Yes. Fantastic. Fantabulous. Sam Abuelsamid 37:57 I wonder I wonder if they'll keep that that sound when they when they go electric? I doubt it or pipe Nicole Wakelin 38:02 it in make a fake sound like, you know, like we've created the sound. It's not real. Roberto Baldwin 38:06 Well, that's, here's my thing about sound. The sounds that are coming out of your car. Those aren't those those are tuned, you have to just Nicole Wakelin 38:16 rubbish. That's your reality and your logic. Stop it right now. Roberto Baldwin 38:21 I'm very interested to see what what Lamborghini wants to do with sound. Sam Abuelsamid 38:24 Yeah, I mean, the sounds in performance cars with internal combustion and modern performance cars with internal combustion engines, you know, they, they do have all these tubes running around feeding in intake sounds and exhaust sound from various places into the cabin. They're not. They're tuned, but they're not synthesized. So that they're not being made out of bits by your audio system. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 38:49 but it's like a clarinet versus a fence. Sam Abuelsamid 38:53 Yeah, kinda. That's like all right. The next thing that GM announced on Monday was that all of their ultium EVs are getting something that they're calling the ultium energy recovery system, which is a fancy way of saying, Yeah, we're putting a heat pump and everything, every every new Eevee we're building. So there's actually some cool stuff that they've that they've done with this. One of the things when the month, the Tesla Model three came out. And if you've ever watched any of the videos from Sandy Monroe, Monroe and Associates is a company here in Michigan that does tear downs and competitive analysis on vehicles. And when they did a teardown on the model three a few years back, one of the things that got them really excited is something that Tesla calls the octo valve. So for all the cooling all the coolant flow around the car between the battery and the motors and everything else. If you if you look at a Mustang Mach II, at least a current one, because they're they're working on an updated version of it, but the current one is using a lot of off the shelf components from other internal combustion Ford vehicles. And so you've got a whole bunch of pieces that are routing the the coolant flow around. And what Tesla came up with is this one device that's got a bunch of valves in it. And it can flow the coolant in different places depending on where it's needed. And it sounds like GM has done something very similar with their energy recovery system. And so they're using the heat pump for the air conditioning, as well as for the heating on their new EVs and heat pumps are great because they're way more efficient than traditional air conditioners, or resistance heaters that you have on on a lot of EVs. And so, one of the things that they described, when I was on this briefing call with them was on the Hummer, when it goes into that, WTF mode. What, what they do, in order to get the maximum performance out of the Evie, they actually have to cool down the motors, but heat up the battery to get it up to its optimal temperature to get the most voltage out of it. And so they use this, they use the heat pump and this this multi valve thing to circulate coolant through the motor, extract the heat from the motor, and then that heat then gets routed and goes into the battery to warm up the battery to get it to its optimum temperature. And overall, you know, they they claim traditionally, heat pumps had been more expensive than classic climate control systems and EVs. But they claim because of the way they design this, you know the reduced the total number of components simplified the thing that cost wise it's actually about comparable to the H vac system on on the bolt. But it's much more efficient. And they claim that it's going to give their their new generation of EVs about a 10% boost in range. Which we haven't seen much of that on the on the Hummer yet, but we'll see how it looks out on the on the Cadillac lyric this summer. And that's going to be standard across the board on everything from that. That little Equinox Evie that they're building all the way up to the Hummer and the Silverado and everything in between. Roberto Baldwin 42:25 That's cool. Yeah, cool. I wish I could afford a heat pump for my house. But we don't use we only use the air conditioning like four days a year. Well, maybe more. Anyway, Heat pumps are awesome. It's the same emphasis, same price. They got it down to the same price as the H vac system then yeah, they're gold. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 42:46 they claim it's cost neutral and also weight neutral. Which again, they really really need to do more of that on the Hummer. Roberto Baldwin 42:54 Yeah, well and Hummer is the Hummer is the Hummer, I use three just we just have to accept the fact that that hovers just big and audacious and that's that's exactly what's supposed to be big, audacious and inefficient. Yeah, Hummer. Nicole Wakelin 43:10 I love the Hummer. I like love it. It's ridiculous. And I love it. Roberto Baldwin 43:15 I don't think I don't think I'd want a Hummer. I think it would, I would I would prefer the rivian or the Ford Maverick or really almost any other thing Nicole Wakelin 43:24 on the road the other day, the first Maverick I've seen in the wild. I feel I don't know if they're just like hard to ship here. No one's buying one. But like, oh my god, someone's driving a maverick. It was really kind of cool to see it. Roberto Baldwin 43:36 I'm seeing more and more of them. I saw one Maverick and one Santa Cruz in Hawaii. So they get in the truck. Yeah. Everyone loves trucks in Hawaii. Well, it actually makes a lot of sense to own a truck because everyone's surfing or you work. You know, a lot of people were surfboard or scuba gear in the back. Yeah, they're all in the bad sense. Yeah. And the roads are always kind of like washed out at some point. Like you want something big and oh my god, like all the truck things that I like that they kind of like about here in the Bay Area in Hawaii. I'm like, Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, you actually need that. Sam Abuelsamid 44:10 Alright. Dodge Hornet. Hornets coming. In an interview earlier this week, Tim can discuss the head of the Dodge brand confirmed that the Hornet is real. It's coming. I don't think they said exactly when it's going to launch. But it was an interview with the Detroit News. And it will be the next vehicle to join the Dodge lineup. And right now the Dodge lineup consists of just the charger Challenger and the Durango. They're going to reveal it this August. So my guess is we'll probably see it sometime around. Around the time of the Woodward Dream Cruise and It's going to be based on the same platform as the alpha male Denali that we saw earlier this year. So compact crossover. It's going to be available as a plug in hybrid as well. First plug in hybrid from from the Dodge brand. What do you think about bringing a hornet to the lineup? Roberto Baldwin 45:20 Bring back to Magnum? Sam Abuelsamid 45:23 Love to see a Magnum. Roberto Baldwin 45:26 Oh my god, it's so big. It's a big long year. It's all this room for batteries. Yeah, all right. I'm derailing it because I'd rather I'd rather have a Magnum than a hornet but yeah, good. Isn't this an official Nicole Wakelin 45:37 image that we're seeing and Sam Abuelsamid 45:39 that's that's a render they Photoshopped on something that looks basically like the this is on the Motor Trend site. So this is fake any fake fake. Put on something that looks like the the Durango front end. Yeah, that's an ollie. Yeah. I mean, hopefully it looks something like this. Nicole Wakelin 45:59 I mean, if it looks like that, I wouldn't complain. That looks really cool. I think it's kidding. I like it when they like Hornet. That's cool. I like that name. Like it fits along with the little, the little, little b the little b thing that's super b Thank you. Roberto Baldwin 46:14 I like it. I'm gonna be he's really super like Nicole Wakelin 46:18 super that really super be thing I feel like it keeps the theme. It was that or go with angry cats and I felt like that so I'll go with the Hornet. Sam Abuelsamid 46:28 Yeah. The other thing that you can discuss reconfirmed is that they are going to show a concept version of the Dodge e muscle car sometime this year. No, no word on exactly when we'll see that. But given that this week, they also announced the return of the Detroit Auto Show in September. might seem like a good time to show something off like TV show that people Nicole Wakelin 46:54 are very all the muscle car guys. I know more so than the Corvette guys are freaking out. Maybe I know more muscle car guys. Over the Corvette guys are freaking out about the whole hybrid thing with the Corvette. The muscle car guys are like you will ride my powerful gas engine from my cold dead hands like they do not. They're very angry Roberto Baldwin 47:11 about this. They don't want it. Have they? Have they driven an Eevee yet? No. And I've said Nicole Wakelin 47:17 have you driven an Eevee? Would you take what I actually convinced one friend who is like a muscle car guy? It's it just will you just go drive an Eevee for me like I actually convinced him to go drive a Maki. And he did and he's like, Well, yeah, that was actually that was really that was something else. That was the first Eevee he's driven right? It's a really cool car to drive. It was really aggressive. It was this he's like, No, I don't want it. I want my gas engine. I'm like, but you can have both dude help. No, Robbie. No. He was just No, I want it to sound like Hellcat. I want it to be all hell catty. I want it to spew emissions. I want it to do all the things. Otherwise it is an inferior imitation of what a powerful car should be. And I'm like, Okay, I got that. If you drove it and you liked it, you're still saying no. No, Roberto Baldwin 48:05 I like this thing. I don't want it. Nicole Wakelin 48:07 I like the thing, but I won't buy it because stubborn, okay. Roberto Baldwin 48:12 Hey, you know, you can keep your car. Nicole Wakelin 48:16 No, no, it's like, no one's gonna steal it from you. I don't actually have to pry it from your cold dead hands driving as Sam Abuelsamid 48:22 long as you want. And especially when you consider the you know, classic muscle cars. You know, these are typically not cars that handle very well. So they're not cars that people take to track days on road courses. Right? If they do anything with them, they're going to take them to the drag strip. And that is where an Eevee is just gonna blow it away. I mean, you got to look on YouTube at all the videos of Model S plaids blowing away dodge demons, you know and other stuff Roberto Baldwin 48:52 just breaking hearts just in quietly quietly breaking. Yeah, yeah, that's it. You can have have your muscle car. You don't drive your bus car to work everyday Do you? Like you get up you shine it up. You're just the carburetor don't live in the drive. Nicole Wakelin 49:12 I don't know if he changes drive his muscle car to Roberto Baldwin 49:14 work at all. But everyone that I know has a muscle car they like they like it comes out on the weekend. They Nicole Wakelin 49:21 live in California. I'm going to make a gross generalization. I assume it's not the case where you are Sam? Sam Abuelsamid 49:26 No. You do see you do see them much more frequently. Daily use here Roberto Baldwin 49:32 around here. Here everyone's like okay, I have my super dope muscle car. Here's the Honda CRV that I drive to work now. I don't want to mess up my muscle car. I have the CRV I can throw all this crap at it. The kids can make a mess. The muscle cars special that's that's your special special. Your special stuff Nicole Wakelin 49:52 is still special, but they'll take it out in the middle of a blizzard in January like there's no reason there's no case when you cannot take your money. Just like car out for a drive what is wrong with you? Roberto Baldwin 50:03 I mean, I grew up my parents had a javelin. We had a child and a charger like these are all the cars I grew up like riding and as a kid. Oh yeah, muscle cars are great and amazing, but I need to get somewhere. Sometimes. Sometimes I don't want to adjust the carburetor just to go to the store. I'll have a second car but like, Oh, I gotta go by some point. Nicole Wakelin 50:26 You're gonna take them every chance they get. There might still also be a crossover and SUV or a large standard, something that's like if they've got kids when Sam Abuelsamid 50:35 they need to haul some mulch. They pull up the truck or the SUV. Alright, he Nicole Wakelin 50:38 actually has the truck is the mulch hauling vehicle. Roberto Baldwin 50:41 Okay, I just don't want people putting mulch. I just want people putting mulch in the back of the muscle car. That's Nicole Wakelin 50:47 I've never seen him put mulch in the bed in the back of his beat up truck. Yes. And his muscle car neck. Sam Abuelsamid 50:51 Alright, I must confess I have put a few bags of mulch in the trunk of a charger. Nicole Wakelin 50:58 So not a war criminal buttons, but most of this charger. I don't know. What do we Roberto Baldwin 51:02 do? I mean, we can call the Hague we can just check it. Sam Abuelsamid 51:08 But to what you said earlier, Robbie about the bringing back the Magnum I do think that they should bring back the MagnuM and back in 2008 when Tesla was just starting development work on what would eventually become the Model S one of their first development mules actually was a Magnum, they took a Magnum body and they studied powertrain out and they put they put a battery and electric motor in there. And there was there was some spy photos that popped up of this thing in San Carlos, where Tesla was based at the time you know, Magnum was no tailpipes on it or anything. See, so there was there was there was at least one electric Magnum. Roberto Baldwin 51:52 Ah, see just one dark magic Magnum was dope car. And it's they sold so many I saw him everywhere. Sam Abuelsamid 52:01 I don't know. Apparently not enough. I guess not enough. Roberto Baldwin 52:04 I feel like they're all over the place in California. Like Everywhere you look there was a Dodge Magnum. Maybe Nicole Wakelin 52:09 I remember them being that popular Roberto Baldwin 52:11 here. They were really popular here. Sam Abuelsamid 52:12 They were reasonably popular around here to around Michigan, but I guess not enough. California and Michigan that was it. Christ, Chrysler FCA employees and, and some surfers was bought Nicole Wakelin 52:27 it. It's a very limited, limited range of people. So that's Sam Abuelsamid 52:33 yeah. All right. Nissan, this week showed off a what they're calling their concept zero, which is actually a Nissan Skyline sedan, which is the same vehicle that is sold here as the Infiniti Q 50. But equipped with a bunch of new sensors. And it's they're using it for development purposes for their next generation driver assist systems. And among the sensors on this thing are Luminar LIDAR sensors. So their first use of, of iluminar LIDAR. And so this is see this is actually Luminar second partnership with a Japanese automaker, they the first one was with Toyota, Toyota is still uses Luminar LIDAR on their automated driving development vehicles. But Nissan's using this for Lidar and they did, they did a bunch of demos with it. They had a briefing call on Monday, showing off some of the crash avoidance capabilities that they've built into this thing. So it's not really designed for full automated driving, but they're using it to that one of the demos they showed was the following another car the car pulls out of the way because there's a tire rolling down the down the highway towards Nicole Wakelin 53:57 like, happens on a daily Sam Abuelsamid 53:58 basis. Yeah, absolutely. Roberto Baldwin 54:00 I had a tire go through my windshield once. She says Did you really well, not all the way through just smashed it up really bad, like down to almost tidying my hand on the steering wheel. That's what happens. Sam Abuelsamid 54:11 Yeah, okay. I've never had just for you. I've never had one rolling towards me. But you know, it's pretty common around here at least, to find tire carcasses laying in the middle of the highway that had been thrown off by trucks. Roberto Baldwin 54:23 Oh, yeah. Cuz they don't have to because it's an inside tire. And they're like, Well, I don't have to do anything about that. So just shoot it off. That's what happened. I have a giant tire carcass from a truck like smashed through my windshield. That was a fun day. Sam Abuelsamid 54:36 And the demo they showed. So the LIDAR detecting this thing, and immediately evading doing an evasive maneuver to avoid it. Another demo had them avoiding a pedestrian crossing the road, similar to the demos that Luminar was doing at CES this year. It showed a bunch of different demos and showing How the LIDAR can help. And then this is also equipped with higher resolution cameras and radar and stuff. And they're planning to watch something in production around 2025 so Roberto Baldwin 55:12 cool that they're far away. Yeah. I think I've seen one tire rolling on the road once. Just like rolling. Nicole Wakelin 55:21 Yeah, I've never seen this I've seen dead Roberto Baldwin 55:23 figure. Like a truck. Like it wasn't didn't talk about the car like it fell off a truck and we're just sort of bouncing and it wasn't in a wheel. It was just the tires are. Sam Abuelsamid 55:33 The thing I've seen a lot of, especially in the last few weeks around here is deers deer carcasses on the side of the road. A lot. You know, as as the fawns have been born a lot, you know, they've been a lot of deer move here in Michigan, and I've seen quite a few that have gotten hit. So that's a bummer. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 55:55 bringing us down there. Watch out for deer. Sam Abuelsamid 56:02 So so far in 30 plus years of living in Michigan. The only actually I've been hit by a deer one time. I've never I've never actually hit a deer. Nicole Wakelin 56:15 It ran into your car that happened on one side of her car and scared the daylights Sam Abuelsamid 56:20 driving down the road jumped out from you know from the trees on the side across the road and ran into the side of my car and snapped the mirror off. Roberto Baldwin 56:30 So haha, gotcha. And they ran off. Sam Abuelsamid 56:33 Well, no, that was laying in the middle of the road. And I pulled over and got out and went to call the sheriff's department to let them know that there's a deer laying in the middle middle of the road and by the time somebody picked up the phone the deer had got up and wandered off back into the woods again so Roberto Baldwin 56:49 I hit a fun ones. But like I was going I Nicole Wakelin 56:53 stopped let's move on no Roberto Baldwin 56:54 no here this is your what is no listen listening story to listen to the story. So I hit the font I stopped enough for I just sort of knocked it over and it wouldn't get up. So I stuck in the back of my dad's 260s Z. And I drove and I was like I was falling like this as I was in high school and I was following my girlfriend she had a truck so I stick this little deer will find in the back of his FTZ Sam Abuelsamid 57:18 and then why didn't you put it in the truck? Roberto Baldwin 57:21 Okay, so I put it in the back. Okay, first of all high school. So just stupid idiot brain. Also, we didn't we didn't want to jump out and like hurt itself more. So you drive to town, because there's my hometown out in the middle of mountains we drive in. We go to the gas station, and we call animal control. And then Animal Control person comes out and he looks at and he's like, there's nothing wrong with this deer. He's like, he says and he's like, also this year should be freaking out. I'm like what he's like, this is this isn't right. This is this is what you shouldn't you just be chillin in your car. He should have destroyed the inside of your car as soon as you did this. I'm like, so he told him where to take the deer and he took it back and yeah, so it lives. Yeah. Unless that guy took them out and ate him or something but Nicole Wakelin 58:07 let's hope No, Roberto Baldwin 58:08 I don't think he did. I don't think the animal the animal control guy was just like whoa this is crazy. But I had a little deer I was just driving around he's just looking around looking out the window just like a little like a little puppies. Okay, it's the best day ever. Sam Abuelsamid 58:21 Well, the way I figure it you know there are so many deer in Michigan that you know if some small portion of them end up getting hit by cars and being left on the side of the road. You know they need something to feed all the turkey vultures yeah in the scavengers DD two right that's true Nicole Wakelin 58:46 cute turkey vultures are horrible, they're cute. Roberto Baldwin 58:50 They clean up the roadkill they clean up all the dead animals how not road killed but also road killed Sam Abuelsamid 58:56 you know the the these circles and possums and everything else that you know things dies and every animal dies sooner or later. All right, enough of this Nicole Wakelin 59:13 war crimes happen from cars to just killing BMD everywhere, but go ahead. Okay. raccoons Sam Abuelsamid 59:25 and skunks don't forget the skunks. Oh. A Colorado car dealer group. Last year opened up the what is believed to be the first hybrid and EV only used car dealership. It is we're somewhere somewhere in Colorado. They they were finding that with the growing interest in EVs and hybrids that they figured it made sense to have a they had an unused lot that was Available in Colorado in Colorado Springs here it is Phil long EV outlet and Colorado Springs and they basically sell nothing but hybrids and Evie sir. And it's been surprised at how well it's been doing they've sold they've been selling about 15 to 20 a month, which is more than they were expecting and it's doing doing quite well and I'm I'm figuring we're probably going to be seeing more of these in the in the coming years. Roberto Baldwin 1:00:33 If you're looking just to save like I want to save money on gas and you have to go to a card you know use a lot of regular lot and you get there and you're like okay, well where are the EVS? Where are the hybrids? Where are the plugins? They aren't just go to one stop that has it all you know everything there's going to be let's extract Nicole Wakelin 1:00:50 first and like why would you do that but I'm thinking new cars but if it's used cars that kind of makes sense like just let's cut out you trying to sell me the used gas guzzling whatever I am only here for an Eevee all he's gonna suggest instead of the one you want is another one like Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:04 salespeople they're you know, they're not going to try and push you to something else because they have nothing else to sell Nicole Wakelin 1:01:09 they have nothing else to sell you they don't have some you know, they don't have a charger on the lot they're trying to get rid of Nope. Roberto Baldwin 1:01:14 Also they probably know more about the vehicles on the lot and the technology I think a lot of times when you go into a dealership and the person trying to sell you a car sorry sell you gas cars because they don't know enough about the Evie or the P HEV or the hybrid to give you like the answers that you want so that you know it's a lot easier for me to sell your charger How about just put you in this charger Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:38 so this this Evie Evie and hybrid lot has 10 Evie chargers installed including four fast chargers and they have let's see their store their customers can some some some customers find the Chargers via their navigation systems and hop off the interstate. They can come by grab a drink and relax shop for another use use Divi it's pretty I think it's a pretty cool idea. I suspect as I said I think we'll see more dealers starting to do this over the next year or two. Roberto Baldwin 1:02:11 This is this is the exact same thing I told I wrote an article about Tesla should open up it this is like four years ago about how Tesla should open up its charging network to other cars because then he could put like at every like the nice charger stations they could put like a model three in there. And then you could like oh look at this model three while I'm waiting for my you know Chevy Bolt to charge to charge up yeah, these beats they're doing the thing that I told Tesla do a good job, people. Nicole Wakelin 1:02:39 Somebody listened to you, Robbie. Roberto Baldwin 1:02:41 So it's not like a crazy genius idea. It's just that idea. Nicole Wakelin 1:02:45 Crazy genius idea. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:48 All right, let's answer a few. A few questions from listeners. First up, Richard DeCarlo. I have this crazy fascination fascination on getting an all wheel drives 2006 Honda Element. Don't ask me why? I want to customize it either lowering it with some nice wheels and tires or turning it off road. Found some clean ones for around $10,000 But 150,000 Miles 20 Miles per gallon. Am I crazy for wanting one? Roberto Baldwin 1:03:13 No, no. The price is on the element of like skyrocketed because people love the element. Like you could get one like three years ago from the same car for like 5000. But it's just gotten more and more people are getting turned to the house. It's just Nicole Wakelin 1:03:28 so cool. Roberto Baldwin 1:03:29 It's such a great car. Nicole Wakelin 1:03:31 I've always said that we sold ours I loved that thing. Roberto Baldwin 1:03:34 My brother has one I have the right of first refusal when he goes a solid Nicole Wakelin 1:03:38 first refusal if you sign an official contract to that effect, Roberto Baldwin 1:03:41 almost like he can't sell you. Like let me I have a drummer friend who sold his element. I didn't realize he owned an element. I was so angry. How dare you How dare you sell that and that, like tell everybody who's in all these bands who also need to haul gear? Nicole Wakelin 1:03:58 Yeah, who is very much like to have that car? Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:00 Yeah, an element seems like it would be a prime candidate for an Eevee conversion. Roberto Baldwin 1:04:04 Yep. I wrote an article about how Nicole Wakelin 1:04:08 economy is abysmal. I said I Roberto Baldwin 1:04:11 read an article that they should bring a bunch of cars you should bring back this should be EVs and one of them was the Honda Element. And a lot of people were like I was gonna click on this and then yell at you on Twitter. But I didn't because I wanted to say I bet you didn't put the Honda Element on there but you did. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:25 I can't yell at you because oops. Roberto Baldwin 1:04:28 Honda Element Evie, make it happen Honda Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:31 and get you know, get one of these e crate motor kits from Ford or GM they're selling now. And they'll find find an element that's got a blown engine or something or blown transmission, rip all that stuff out. Put it put an electric motor in and a battery. Good to go. Boom. Died. Done. All right. Coach Cabrera asks, Is Toyota going to be able to meet the standards of the f150 lightning or Tesla's cybertruck? Well, the cybertruck Should be easy since it doesn't. What do you think we'll be able to meet the standards of the lightning Roberto Baldwin 1:05:07 eventually, Nicole Wakelin 1:05:09 was to say, well, when they do something, Roberto Baldwin 1:05:12 that's the thing is Taylor really doesn't want to do this still. They're sort of like, Ah, they're like, they're like the kid whose parents made them clean their room, they're like, Fine, I'll clean it, but I'm not gonna be fine. Nicole Wakelin 1:05:23 If I can't ever eat dinner again, until I clean my room, I'll clean my stupid home fine. Roberto Baldwin 1:05:28 Once they I think once they embrace it, then yes, but even to like really close on the fact that you could like shoot a Toyota with a with a, like a one rocket like a rocket launcher, and it'll still drive. Like they really just sort of like cruise. I mean, the the new tundra, I feel like some of the tech in there is behind what Toyota or what Ford and dodge and everyone else is offering. But it's also a Toyota so you know, you're gonna buy it, and you're gonna be able to drive it through a brick Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:59 and roll a million miles later, it's Nicole Wakelin 1:06:02 gonna be driving forever. Like, he just you just, you do whatever you want to it, and it's just like, okay, I'm fine. I'm fine. Roberto Baldwin 1:06:08 Like, I don't have the the newest shiny, but you know, I'm gonna last forever. And that's, that's, that's, that's the that's the sort of model is like, it's not the newest shiny, but you know, what, just kind of be fine. It'll be fine. Because it's 15 2070 years and you're still driving this, you're not even gonna be remembering it. That I mean it. I think when the Toyota Tundra electric, I don't know what they'll call it comes out, it'll probably be a little, you know, this little piece of vz tundra. Yeah, it'll be a little bit behind like, whatever the F 150. Lightning is at that time. But also Toyota like even though they don't want it, you know, they're gonna be like, well, we're gonna do it. We might as well make it something that lasts 7 million miles. Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:49 Or maybe maybe it'll be the Bz 10 T. Oh, God, the numbers for the size and the names and then the last letter is for the body style. So you know, just 10 truck Roberto Baldwin 1:07:02 every just give it a damn name. Even the rap for Nicole Wakelin 1:07:06 names, just have names names are easy to remember these, this alphabet soup with all the numbers. No. Roberto Baldwin 1:07:14 BZ for AI. Nicole Wakelin 1:07:17 And then it's like lowercase b capital Z for capital X. Can we just at least make them all lowercase? Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:24 Or don't forget the B is also superscripted. Yeah. Nicole Wakelin 1:07:27 Oh, should I do that? Roberto Baldwin 1:07:29 Oh, no, no, yeah, see Nicole Wakelin 1:07:30 what level and complication to anyone's like don't Roberto Baldwin 1:07:33 embrace like every CMS when you superscripted Nicole Wakelin 1:07:37 to come up with something that is not their way of doing it on a website and you just do it that way and you stick with that. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:44 All right. Let's stick with Toyota for brand bearing housings question. Maybe more of a question for the next time you interview a Toyota rep. But how do they think it was acceptable to deliver the Bz 4x with DC fast charge speeds as low as they are, at least for what we've seen from early reviews, and otherwise good vehicle with a rather major flaw. And for those that don't recall, the front wheel drive Bz 4x, which has the the Panasonic battery chargers at 130 kilowatts, and the all wheel drive version that uses the CTL battery. And the same is also true for the Toyota soltera. Only charges at 100 kilowatts maximum. And brand s given their hostility to towards BEVs. I can't help but wonder if this is intentional to be like, see, hydrogen is so much faster. Meanwhile, Hyundai and Kia are blowing them out of the water on this front. Roberto Baldwin 1:08:40 I know why they think it's like well, you know what I'm not wearing I'm gonna just not invest in an 800 volt system, which is, you know, one of the reasons why it's slow. It's a 400 volt system. So if you don't want to do it, you're just gonna like, we'll do this thing for now. And we'll work on it better one later, I guess. There's a lot of heavy sign at Toyota when they were Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:05 they clearly did this very grudgingly. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:09:09 it's it's hard to come up with a good reason. Because there isn't one unless there's just You're so not all in with this plan. Everybody. We're not all in I do kinda in Roberto Baldwin 1:09:22 a hydro see hydrogen is so much faster. Yeah, if you could find one. I mean, everything's Yeah, well, there's that. Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:29 It'll take it'll take you more time to drive around looking for a hydrogen station than it will to spend the hour charging a PC for X, DC fast charger. Roberto Baldwin 1:09:39 Or you might get to the hydrogen charged hydrogen station and it might be out of order, which happens a lot. Yeah, I think I when I was driving them her I, I think on average is like 20% of the stations were out of order. And like Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:51 60s, there's only what 4546 of them. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 1:09:55 And then I guess like six eight months before that there was a hydrogen shortage. So like all of them were out of war. Nicole Wakelin 1:10:02 I just remember doing the driving the MRI, and they were trying to show us how easy it was to fuel up and we went to this one charging station. It's all just a journalist, there was one regular just consumer who came to fill up her car. And we had a conversation with her, really, she she lives with one, it's her day to day. And her biggest frustration was this pump doesn't always work. And if there's, you know, two or three people in line ahead of me, that is a long time and the next nearest station is so far that it makes it completely impractical. So I just kind of have to like, suck it Oh, right, the second half, and she's like, and then then the nozzles get frozen. They freeze and you can't release them. And as she's telling us this, she like we all let her go in front of us. Conversely, we're just on the drive, but she's trying to like go to work or whatever, like you feel up. We're just trying to see how this works. If you don't care if we all like you know, watch, and she couldn't get the nozzle like it literally took like five or six minutes of just kind of futzing around with it before it finally decided, Oh, I'm warm enough to remove. And she said it happens all the time. Roberto Baldwin 1:10:59 So cold, see frost around? Yeah, you couldn't Nicole Wakelin 1:11:03 you couldn't literally see like the like a little bit of frost around that thing. And the thing was that the Toyota guys said, yeah, that's our new, improved nozzle that doesn't do that anymore. I'm like, No, we were at the one did it I was like, so it was like heartbreaking. I'm like, I'm sorry, Mr. Engineer, but no. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:23 All right, final question from Niall Berkery, who works for a company called AI motive. I know, Niall. Although highly unlikely. What are the implications if Tesla is successful with camera only full autonomy? Roberto Baldwin 1:11:38 Well, I mean, the implication is that still doesn't have a backup system. That's the implication. So it's like, hey, this thing works. Unless like one and you know, there's only one point of failure. Whereas if you have radar, you have LiDAR, you have cameras, you have ultra, if you have all those, then you have multiple points before it fails. This is a single point of failure. So yeah, I might, they might be able to get it to work. But it's also going to be the one that fails the most often. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:05 Yeah, no, absolutely right. You need you need to have a diverse set of sensors that can function in different conditions because you can't a camera system is never going to work in fog. You know, a radar always works in fog, different under different conditions, you know, different different lighting conditions, different weather conditions, you know, some sensors are going to work better than others. And when when one doesn't work, you want something else as a backup, Roberto Baldwin 1:12:39 redundancy. Redundancy that's done the game and diversity. Yep. redundancy and diversity. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:46 All right. I think that's enough for this week. We're still not war criminals, as far as we know. Nicole Wakelin 1:12:53 Apparently really killed deer a lot. I guess I'd have been killed. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:58 I just there's a lot of dead deer around. Okay. Roberto Baldwin 1:13:03 Went over. I knocked one over and I took a little drive Nicole Wakelin 1:13:06 over and then they took a free drive to make up for the infraction. Sam Abuelsamid 1:13:08 So Okay. And, and the one contact I had with a deer was the deers fault because it ran into me. I didn't get me. The deer Roberto Baldwin 1:13:18 was attacking Sam. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:13:20 actually, truth be told the deer was attacking Sam, we now know the real story. Roberto Baldwin 1:13:25 So actually, I'm the only one person here who's actually hit a deer. Sam Abuelsamid 1:13:30 All right. We'll talk to y'all next week.