Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 Coming up on episode 247 of wheel bearings we've got the BMW M240i, The Volvo XC 60 recharge the Mazda3 with a turbo. Our first drive the new Nissan Z, Lordstown finally sells its plant. Ford selling off its rivian stake and scout is coming back is an electric SUV. All that more coming up next this is episode 247 wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Guidehouse insights. Nicole Wakelin 0:37 And I am Nicole Wakeman, and we're gonna stick with the FAST Women podcast Roberto Baldwin 0:43 and I am Roberto Baldwin from engadget, English gadgets, I don't know anything gadget means I worked there for five years. No idea. They made it up. It doesn't mean that gives moto Yeah, doesn't mean it doesn't make any. Any sense. Just the word Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 0:58 What Engadget was just a reaction to Gizmodo is creation, you know, because moto came out there and start doing well and so are actually now I think Peter Rojas started Gizmodo left and hooked up with Jason Calacanis and started getting gadget to compete with the one he started with. Roberto Baldwin 1:17 So good times. Sam Abuelsamid 1:18 Yeah, there you go. Anyway, enough, enough of the tech blog history. What are you been driving Robbie? Roberto Baldwin 1:25 Oh, this week, I've been driving the b&b the BMW the VM. One more time. Sam Abuelsamid 1:32 The VMs probably better than an Alpha Order alphanumeric name. Roberto Baldwin 1:35 Yeah, it's the BMW 240. i This is BMW is tiny little Sport Coupe. It is a fun little machine it is an actual coupe. It is not a coupe with four doors is a coupe with two doors not a Grand Coupe. It's not the Grand Coupe which they also have they have they have a four door reg Coupe which Sure why not? This is the as part of their their two series coupe. It starts at $48,550. It is not cheap. But it is fun. It's got a three liter twin turbo, I'm sorry, yeah, twin turbo inline six that inland you know, BMW makes, let's just say the world's best inline six. Let's just say that. And it's an all wheel drive is X Drive. It does not have a manual transmission anymore. Bummer. This, this this latest latest generation the two series Lost the manual transmission. So you get paddle shifters. And of course you get you know, automatic that's my heavy sigh for the loss of the main transmission on the two series. I do I like to two series a lot, just top to bottom. I think it's a fun. It's the the epitome of what the three series was for it for decades. And now it's you know, that number has gone down Sam Abuelsamid 3:01 as a three series because everything gets bigger, you know that everything gets bigger. They gotta keep introducing new ones from the bottom to fill in the gaps. Roberto Baldwin 3:09 The other one series here for a little while in the early 2000s. My friend had one. He liked it. He sold it but he liked it. This Yeah, so is the M 240. Coop it gets let me tell you what they tell you it gets combined 26 miles per gallon. I did I ended up I haven't done a lot of backrow driving yet with it. So I was getting about 27 miles per gallon and do a lot of freeway driving. I've had a lot of errands to take care of. And typically what will happen is I'll do an errand I'll go to the place. And then on the way back, what I'll do is I'll set my navigation to home but avoid highway or avoid freeway. And if you do that in Northern California, you're gonna get you're gonna end up on a windy road is what's going to happen. Yesterday, I ended up having to do far more returns than I anticipated. I had a lot of stuff. I had a lot of junk in my trunk at that point. And the idea the idea of literal. Yeah, I had literally a lot of junk in my trunk and I had to get home quicker than I you know, I was out longer than I anticipated. And the idea of just all that stuff slanted or in the back of the vehicle seemed like a like a like a bad scene. So I haven't done a lot of back roads driving in this this time, but I have driven this vehicle before I drove it in Palm Springs with BMW. They have a big test fest every year. They bring out all their cars, and you just take turns like you get in a car and you drive it for like an hour and a half and you get a car you drive it for an hour and a half to get the car and you drive for an hour and a half. And then they also have cars that you can drive on the track which is really fun. And that's where I got to do the mini SAE on the autocross course and I didn't do very well. But did you have fun? Oh I did have fun. I did have fun. I like to say that I am better a better driver than your average person. But when it comes to automotive journalist, I'm like maybe in the middle, maybe top ish middle, but I'm yeah, there are some people who are far better than I am. I went on a dry program where it was just me and Tim Stevens doing like performance driving. And that was just, no, it was no Congressi. Well, I mean, it was Tim's used Sam Abuelsamid 5:23 to racing his Subaru around on a frozen lake. Yeah. So you know, he knows cars. Roberto Baldwin 5:29 And Tim's like the nicest person in the world. So it's, it's also it's also fine. When the nicest person in the world is doing better than you. You're like, it's fine, because he's the nicest person. Yeah, you're like, okay, cool. So yeah, no, this is a fun, fun car. This is, I don't know if I've said this on the podcast before about this vehicle. This is the vehicle when you have a BRC or a Miata, or something like that, and you want to sort of step up, he wants something with a little more luxury. You want to step up in the world, you still want that fun drivability, but you want to like move up a little bit a little more premium, a little more premium is what you're getting with this. And you don't want to go to the you know, you're like, I don't need anything flashy, like the Supra, or the Z or anything like that. I want something that feels a bit more adult, but it's not quite adult. It's it's it's like your late 20s. Like that's like when you're when you're you're an adult, but you still want to like you know, you still want to go out and jump off cliffs and stuff. That's what I like to call the, the two series. So this is the M 240. I, it's again, it's all wheel drive. Now, they also have the 230 I coupe, which is cheaper, it's 30. It starts at 36,350. It has a smaller engine, it has a an inline for still twin turbo two liter. But it's rear wheel drive. And again, I've driven both of these and this thing, it's a it's the zero to 60 in the 240 psi is for 4.1 seconds, zero to 60 in the 230 is 5.5 seconds. And you're thinking about well, that's a lot of time. But you know what, you're also getting rear wheel drive, and haven't driven both of these cars. If you are a fan of rear wheel drive, if you'd like that little extra playfulness, and you can you know, you can turn off the traction control. It's a really screaming deal, actually, I mean, you're not going to have that speed that you would have with the M 240. Ai. But it's Yeah, I actually really liked the 230 I think I might have liked it better. Really. Yeah. And you know, this is the same thing I had with the old two series, the previous generation, where I liked the less powerful version of the vehicle better, because it weighed less because you know, smaller engine, and it was horrible drive. And you know, that one had a manual transmission. So if you're looking for a manual transmission, you got looking to use car section. But yeah, you know, it really kind of comes down to what you're looking for, if you want something that's a bit more tolerable, maybe not as powerful, you know, the 230 is a great little car, if you want something that's, you know, you're all you think about is power and going in a straight line. And you know, the 240 is the one to get either vehicle is going to make you happy if that if you're if you're looking for that sort of traditional ultimate driving machine. When you're driving in the BMW, Sam Abuelsamid 8:27 if you miss the old e 36, Euro three series, you know, the 325 is the early mid 90s. This, this is the closest you're gonna find that, you know, especially that 230 with the four cylinder, it's actually more powerful than that 325 was, but you know, it's closer in size. It's to that three series of that era. Roberto Baldwin 8:51 Yeah, you get this nice, short, you know, shorter wheelbase. It's nice, lighter vehicle. It's again, it's possible. It's fun. You know, it's a it's a two door coupe. It's definitely not for your family. You could put kids in the back if you needed to. If you have car seats well good luck. If you have smaller children who are I don't know how the kids had to be whether in car seats. I was like 1213 Nicole Wakelin 9:14 You're supposed to be 12 years old, and I think but there's also a 12 Oh, I made that up. I think it is because if you are certain height like if you haven't accepted Sam Abuelsamid 9:25 the height and weight seat belt hits the right Nicole Wakelin 9:27 spot and you're the right way in and your legs bend at the seat instead of like sticking straight out like that. Roberto Baldwin 9:33 They don't have that little booster seat. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 9:35 the booster lets it then but if your legs just bent so there's Yeah, but they say at about 12 So nice guess Roberto Baldwin 9:42 Wow. So it was yeah, there you go. So if you have a well at that, I just think of a third my if I had a 13 year old they'd be just be like, lanky and awkward. Nicole Wakelin 9:50 I don't think no many 12 year olds would have made it that far. Like because they're too big. I mean, there's a car seat and it's stupid because like you don't fit in it. I feel like it's doing more harm than good. But as long as the seat belt like If you have to be a certain way, it's appropriate. Yeah. Even if you're a chubby kid, you made a wait if you're too short still, if the seatbelt like hits their neck if it's not like I'm an adult, yeah, you want to cry when it going over the shoulder and you want their legs to be able to bend at the knee to hang over the seat not still be sticking straight out, because that's a good accident. Yeah. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 10:24 All right. Let's make sure that all that makes sense. And I just remember the seatbelt that I had when I was a child was my mom putting her arm out because no one uses seatbelt in the 80s. Nicole Wakelin 10:34 My mom did because she was a nurse. You want horror stories to make you wear a seatbelt. Even back in the day? My mom has got them. Yeah, she was a proponent of seatbelts from the time I was a little kid. Roberto Baldwin 10:44 Yeah, we didn't. I didn't have a nurse mom. So so the vehicle I had, with all the bells and whistles that they you know, typically will give us $57,295. So more, more than the 48 550 a lot that stuff. You know, there's the driver assistance package, it gives you adaptive cruise control is 14 is 1500. And then they have a premium package with heated steering wheel heated front seats, heads up display live cockpit stuff. 2750 If you live in, say an area where the temperatures if you live in like so if you live in California, essentially most of California, you probably don't need this, you know, unless you really love heads up displays the heated seats and stuff. Heated seats are great when you're back in California or if you go snowboarding. Yeah, yeah. Oh, the destinations only night. It's only 1000 bucks. 995. It's like a downright bargain. And this one was built in. Oh, this one was built in Mexico. With the Yeah, so yeah, it's one of the medical built vehicles. Maybe that's why it's cheaper. But that's probably everything. Sam Abuelsamid 11:57 Just just for just for reference. As you were saying those prices, I decided to look up e 30 6am. Threes on bring a trailer. Oh, and the current highest price for a 32,000 mile 99 M three went for $52,000. Roberto Baldwin 12:16 So you can get Okay, so 52. And let me hold on let me pull up the price of the 230. i This is the this is the rear wheel drive. 36. So $12,000 Less no 52. Yeah. All right. So here's $16,000 Sam Abuelsamid 12:37 Here's one that sold for $30,000. So you could have a brand new mt 40 I with all the options or 230 Roberto Baldwin 12:44 for 36 or 244 48. Or you can have an old car Charlie Brown Nicole Wakelin 12:51 people get all I'm hearing. Roberto Baldwin 12:55 Yeah, so yeah. As long as you're not getting hosed by a dealership? Yeah. Oh, good luck with that. Big Yeah, that's. Yeah, so that's the BMW M 240. Ai. A fun toss will vehicle for people who want you know, like super power but don't want super, super powers. Does it give you Supra. Okay? It's like, hey, like the Supra. But you want to look like an adult. Sam Abuelsamid 13:24 And the Supra literally has the same engine that's in that empty for Roberto Baldwin 13:27 now. It's Unknown Speaker 13:32 skimo secret's out. Roberto Baldwin 13:34 The secrets are out the SuperS firing car. It is cool guy like driving the Supra. Yeah, but I know a lot of friends who were just like no. Sam Abuelsamid 13:42 Like, just because Oh, it's because it looks because the legs Nicole Wakelin 13:45 I like it. I like a Supra. Roberto Baldwin 13:48 I like I think it is daring. I'm happy that a manual transmission is finally coming to the Supra. Nicole Wakelin 13:53 I wish like a better Do you like it better now that there's a manual transmission coming? Roberto Baldwin 13:56 I like everything better when it hasn't manual transmission. That's that's an acceptable answer. And don't don't send me Don't send me Twitter messages. While you know the automatic transmissions are now you know, they switch gears much quicker than the average. I don't That's not. That's not what's not the point. No. Was that the point? Being being faster than then than than an automatic transmission is not what? Nicole Wakelin 14:20 Yeah, that is not the goal. If that's what you think the goal isn't you don't get it? Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 14:26 All right. Nicole, what about you? What was your goal? Nicole Wakelin 14:29 Okay, my goal was I had two cars this week, or actually one last week that I'm talking about now, so I'm just late to the game. So last week, I was driving me Volvo x c 60, recharge T eight inscription. Because the more words in your name, the cooler your car, and the more you can charge for it. And the more you can charge for it, it's like buy the letter, you can just charge more for this than 90% of cars that are on the market right now. So plug in hybrid, which I think I'm a huge fan of like I think that little that little extra you know, it's not like you can go for three Everybody feels like he can only be your tuner miles and just all electric but that like little chunk of electric range. It's such a, like, playing with it's like, oh, I didn't use the gas today. Yeah, like it's like, yeah, it's like a little gamification of driving your car. So it's kind of fun. Like, yeah, like, No, we must stop. I wasn't hitting the max, we provide a place to charge up. So this one actually gives you 36 miles of all electric range, which is pretty good. Like you can run errands around town. That's that's a good amount of Evie range. So that was pretty fun. And I used I use mostly electric I was kind of proud of myself. And now that we have a charger here, I could plug it in. So it wasn't like so then we were battling to get a charger charger. I have it. I have a because we have a plug in hybrid. So I would like fight. Oh, Vince was plugged in or his was Yeah. So we were charging him both. It's like we're the we're the little electrified family in the neighborhood this week. Yeah, we were all sorts of environmentally conscious, I recycled more and everything. It was amazing. Anyway. So it has a turbo two liter turbocharged engine, 455 horsepower, and 523 pound feet of torque. So Sam says Sam Abuelsamid 16:07 that right? That's what that's what the calculator says. Sam calculated three Nicole Wakelin 16:11 different numbers for me before the show, guys. I have all these scribbles. It's like no, not that one. That that would struggle with 523. So it's a nice responsive engine. I mean, it's it's, it's it's a fun car to drive. It's not like a sporty car. But it's responsive. It's quiet. It's you know, Volvo is sort of like a luxury brand, but not a luxury brands. Like they have these really elegant interiors that are very sort of like that. Refined. There's nothing flashy about them. They are Swedish. It's very Swedish, like good quality materials. And this is roomy. This is a five passenger crossover. And it had the Oh, the crystal gearshifts like, oh, yeah, a fancy gear shift. Yeah. Which that also makes you nervous. Because every time like if I had a ring in my hand and my ring hit it or my like, bracelet to them, like oh, God, if I break that, how much does that cost? How fragile is that your ship? I could not buy this because it's freaking me out, man. So it was Sam Abuelsamid 17:04 a little sleeve to put over it. I know he's Nicole Wakelin 17:07 a little leather sleeve. Yeah, like you put the plastic over the couch that your Sam Abuelsamid 17:12 sleeves. Shifter toasty. Yeah. Nicole Wakelin 17:16 That's what I need. Because I every time like I wear braces and every single time it went clean. Your shift I'm saying so. So enjoy driving this and it the thing is, it's not cheap. So all together. This one ran $72,840 That is not inexpensive plug in hybrids. Nope. So you can definitely get cheaper plug in hybrids out there. I feel like that that the Eevee range though. I mean, correct me guys, if I'm wrong. That's a pretty decent Evie range. Sam Abuelsamid 17:51 Yeah, it's at the high end of what you can get today. And you know, the the one you're driving, you know, they just released a refresh, effect a mid year refresh. Because if you got an early 22, XC 60 recharge, it only has half that range. And so they increased the size of the battery give it a more powerful electric motor. So yeah, that's, you know, 35 to 40 miles is that the upper end of what you're gonna get from plug in hybrids today. Nicole Wakelin 18:22 Okay, so you're getting a decent range for plug in hybrid, you're getting an attractive car, it's beautifully appointed as a nice, quiet, smooth ride. It's roomy, it has that very essentially Volvo ease kind of thing going on. So it's an elegant car. I like it. I mean, this is if I was looking for a you know, not super luxury car, but still something that has that really high end vibe to it. This definitely delivers and I just the material in terms, I've always been a fan of how Volvo somehow makes their cars look really, really like outright. I know 72 grand is not cheap, but they make them look much more expensive than that. By simplifying everything. It's not like we've thrown everything we can at this car, it doesn't have you know, four kinds of wood and chrome and this and that. It's very muted, but somehow they look really beautiful. And I'm a fan of that when they can pull that off. And this definitely does Sam Abuelsamid 19:13 do have the wall seats or the leather. Um, I have the wool seats. I like those. I like those. Nicole Wakelin 19:20 I think look, they look amazing. I worry about I mean, if you have kids, I always worry about this disease. I guess maybe I had really sloppy kids. I mean, just to clarify guys, my kids just had kids they're all like my kids were like 18 and 19 years old now they are no longer making a mess of my car and my eyes still still starts to twitch when I see fabric and cars and things like oh god oh god one cup of milk. Oh god one one like chicken nugget ground into the seat at like a panic like it's kids make cars dirty. So I hope that I'm feeling like they should be you know, hold up well, but you know, that's always my concern. I'm a big fan of leather seats. If you have kids, which sounds counterintuitive, but you can wipe everything off of them. Just wipe it off. wipe it all off. They get anything on there. Okay, wipe it off kid has upset stomach. No worries, wipe it all off your car doesn't smell like that for a month. So, alright, but yeah, they're beautiful. You don't have kids go for it. Sam Abuelsamid 20:12 Yeah, we drove that one in. Was it March or something when we were out in Palm Springs, and I really liked those wool seats. They look they look fantastic. They felt really good. Yeah, and it's nice on a really hot summer day when you get in you know, you don't instantly feel like your back is getting burned by the hot water. Nicole Wakelin 20:32 Exactly. It's not like searing a layer of skin off of your body. So that was what I had last week. So I had the fancy plug in hybrid from Volvo. This week. I have a not quite as fancy but very fun vehicle from us. I have the Mazda three, hatchback, two Oh turbo, all wheel drive with Premium Plus package in snowflake white pearl. I like that name. New Fleetway pearl. This one, considerably more affordable. It is the base on this is 34. Four. But they put a little bit of stuff on this one. So it's actually 35 Eight, which is that's downright affordable. It's small, I mean, it's not something you're going to pack the family into, unless you're not often having the family back there. But it's a fun little car. Let's just which is fun. Isn't that the thing your driving enthusiast, you should be able to get behind the wheel of a Mazda and feel like you this is a car for someone who likes to drive and doesn't just need like an appliance to get them back and forth to the office or you know, to just dump the kids at school something that you enjoy driving. I had a couple of nice trips down into Boston to the airport in this so I had some long drives. And it was nice that it was fun to drive on the highway like really fun. But even in stop and go traffic. It's not torture, like some cars that are a little bit more fun when you're kind of just cruising when you're suddenly and stop and go they don't modulate that really well and it's sort of like oh this is uncomfortable. I just want to get where I can open it up. This one was actually even fine driving in rush hour traffic that I got stuck right in the middle and so I enjoyed this the only thing you know that I am not a fan of the infotainment system is not my favorite. We've discussed this before it works just fine. I dislike Sam laps. So I feel if you've listened to a single episode of the podcast you already noticed but it's I mean it's it's delivered that sort of fun Mazda spunk it's like a spunky little car it moves. You feel like if you're trying to accelerate in the highway rush hour, no problem do it it's not going to be an effort to get up to speed and once you're up there if you're trying to pass lower cars it is absolutely a breeze to pass lower cars. The right is mostly quiet it's it's pretty smooth there we have surfacing the streets in our neighborhood however, and some of them are like driving off road right now. And I like to think I'm like oh this guy this poor Mazda. Oh, good lord. There's no way to get out of my house when I'm driving over this. But you know what it did pretty well. We we had to watch for the now three inch raised manhole covers like I do not need to take the bottom of the Mazda off of the Mazda. Let's let's do a little Frogger go around. Don't Sam Abuelsamid 23:08 don't want to punch a hole in the oil pan. Nicole Wakelin 23:10 No, I did not want to do that. Yeah, so But even an over that, which is ridiculously like there's really dirt in portions of our road right now just dirt. So it's kind of a mess. And it even handled a ridiculously rough road surface that you would hardly ever have to drive. It still is pretty composed and pretty comfortable and easy. Which is something because you can drive over this road unless you had to because you lived here. Sam Abuelsamid 23:32 And the thing I like about this, you know when they added the turbo option to the Mazda three last year, is it comes with all wheel drive. And back in the day when they still had the Mazda Speed three, which was the last one with a turbo. I don't know if you ever drove one of those. Nicole Wakelin 23:49 I don't think I ever got a chance to try but Sam Abuelsamid 23:52 they had a tendency to turn suddenly every time you stepped on the gas pedal. Oh that's not torque steer torque steer door Roberto Baldwin 24:01 torque steer the Olden that was the olden days. Yes does not know everything has Nicole Wakelin 24:06 to work. You can mash the gas and it goes in a nice straight line. Roberto Baldwin 24:11 You know what? I'm gonna be that guy. The all wheel drive versions of the Mazda three aren't you can't get it with the manor transmission. And when they asked why they're like, oh, that's people don't want that right. That's not true. Unknown Speaker 24:25 No, you lying liars? That's not true. Yes, they do put Sam Abuelsamid 24:28 it on. The correct answer is not enough. People want that. There are people who want it. There's just not enough of us to Nicole Wakelin 24:37 drive. There's Robbie and this other guy in Cincinnati Roberto Baldwin 24:41 will drive the front wheel drive version. You can get a manual transmission but not the all wheel drive but you can't get the turbo with the front drive. Exactly. So it's a niche of a niche. We're like, well, we sell 15,000 of these. What's the take rate on manuals Sam Abuelsamid 24:59 it's kind of hard to do. justify spending several million dollars to certify a manual transmission that you're going to sell 50 of, especially if you're only selling $35,000 If Roberto Baldwin 25:09 you but if you look against like the other vehicles that are in this, this sort of Id like the the, the BRC the GR 86. I mean, the take rate on manuals was much higher there. And you can say, Oh, this is a fun performance vehicle for those people. Those people would be like, Yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, that's that, that that market that that segment market segment is where manuals thrive, and it's where the manuals live now, now that sort of enthusiast like, you know, 30 You know, 25 to $40,000 price range, but, you know, Sam Abuelsamid 25:42 except Except most of those people aren't necessarily looking for a car ship like the Mazda three they're looking for something that looks like a PRC. Roberto Baldwin 25:49 It does the Mazda three people still love that Mazda three. Nicole Wakelin 25:54 This is kind of like a bubble but situation looks very wide. Yeah, has a plentiful rear end. It made me act like it's it looks fine. For the side looks great from the front looks like a monster. But I was just walking into like, man that has a very rounded, Roberto Baldwin 26:08 maybe got back car. Nicole Wakelin 26:10 Yeah, it's cute. But I'm like, also little bubble, but happening back then. And bubble. But Sam Abuelsamid 26:18 all right. I had a return visit from the Ford F 150. Platinum power boost that I had, actually back in like February. I had it back then. Because I wanted to try out blue cruise on the f150. And we talked about it then and turned out that the software was not correctly flashed onto this particular vehicle. And so the blue Cruise was non functional. And so they let Ford know that the blue cruise wouldn't work. And they checked into it when they got the truck back and found the problem and reflashed it and so they sent it back to me. And so I drove it around to a bunch of highway driving with this thing. And compared to when we drove the Lincoln Navigator out in Arizona, about a month and a half ago, with active glide, which is just the Lincoln branding for blue cruise. This one was definitely better. You know, when we were when we were out in Texas to drive the lightning couple weeks ago, I talked to Chris Bellman, who's the lead engineer on this stuff. And he said, Yeah, they have been making some updates to Blue cruise. You know, one of the things that that I'd complained about, particularly on the navigator was a lot of false positives from the torque sensor on the steering wheel, telling me you know, put your hands back on the steering wheel. Even though my hands were on the steering wheel, I was just holding it very steady. They they've made some changes there. So that was a lot less prevalent, it's still got a few of those, but it was a lot less prevalent than than it was when I drove the the navigator Sam Abuelsamid 28:03 in general, you know, the system is getting a little better overall, in terms of the blue cruise performance, but it's still not as good as supercruise you know, it's still you can feel it. You know, if you're watching, watching, you know, out over the edge of the hood and watching the lane markers you can see and you can feel that it tends to wander a little bit more within the lane than supercruise does. You know supercruise you get out there and it just it's Rocksteady right in the middle of the lane love super good. And this system was still not a lot, but just just enough that you can notice it. And of course, you know, there's you know, when you get to certain curves in the highway, you know, it tells you put your hands back on the wheel. And I've you know, complained about the the interface, the graphical interface for blue crews, you know, it's just Roberto Baldwin 28:55 blue and then it's white. Yeah, like, Oh, God, I guess I should have my hands. What am I doing? Sam Abuelsamid 29:00 It's not it's not as obvious, you know, what mode you're in and what you should be doing. And Ford's aware of that. And I think I suspect that you know, we're going to see some changes in that in future models. But overall, you know, the rest of the truck you know, it's an F 150 It's big and brawny. I did a mulch run. Put in nice put in approximately 650 pounds of mulch in the bed according to the the onboard scales. Nicole Wakelin 29:33 You know what I actually have a bag of mulch in the garage that I put out yesterday so I didn't technically get it but I had a Mazda and I was doing the mulch thing. Sam Abuelsamid 29:40 Oh, there you go. Yeah. So yeah, I got like 10 big bags of mulch and put them in there and handle them no problem at all. You know this, this was the hybrid. One thing I did notice that I don't think it had really noticed before with the swan, or with the hybrid is you know, every once in a while All Yeah, it would seem like I don't know it wasn't quite sure if it was when it was engaging or disengaging the clutch between the, the engine and the electric motor. But you'd feel just a slight bit of jerkiness every once in a while like it wasn't completely smooth and seamless. It was fine most of the time. But every once in a while you could feel it kind of being indecisive it seemed like and also didn't get as good fuel economy as I would have expected. The the four wheel drive f150 Crewcab hybrid is EPA rated at 23 miles per gallon combined city and highway. I never got it to 20 I think the most I got up to about 19.8 overall average for the week was about 19.5 or six. Which, you know, is not bad for a big truck like this, especially considering this is a Platinum with the big wheels and everything. But still, you know it's not it's not great. Especially, you know, when gas is you know, even here in Michigan, it's you know, for 25 or 30 a gallon. You know, if you're out in California, it's probably what about $62 A gallon now? About Institute maybe? So Roberto Baldwin 31:17 it's only 6175. Okay, sorry, I Sam Abuelsamid 31:20 didn't mean to exaggerating. It's Roberto Baldwin 31:23 a It's over $6 A gallon right now. And my my neighborhood, regular daily 3604 590 something 590 something if you want to buy like cheap cheap gas, which I refused to do. I'm not cheap, low quality. Yeah, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 31:44 I pulled up the numbers in fuel economy.gov for the hybrid f150 versus the lightning. And one of the things if you haven't looked, if you haven't gone into fuel economy.gov One of the nice things they have in there is in the comparison tool, it does an estimate based on the the the label numbers of what you would cost, what your fuel costs would be over five years, compared to an average new vehicle. And the hybrid, if you were to actually hit that 23 miles per gallon, it would cost you about $2,000 a year more than the average of all new vehicles over five years. Whereas the lightning, it will save you $7,250. So the net difference in fuel costs over five years between the hybrid and the lightning is $9,250 which is more than the price difference between an F 150. Hybrid platinum, and the the lightning platinum. So the lightning platinum is about it's about but $1,000 price difference between that between the lightning and the gas Platinums. And you're going to save over $9,000 And given that I didn't actually hit 23 I only got you know, just under 20 That cost that savings is going to be even more. So you know if you if you are thinking about an F 150. Unless you actually do need to drive or tow long distances. You really should be considering the electric version instead. Because it'll save you a lot of money. Roberto Baldwin 33:33 Yeah, when I did that price, that price differential between my BRC and our Kona electric this one gas was $5 a gallon for 100 miles. And it was like $18 versus $6 I was like oh, oh, maybe I'm not gonna we don't we don't drive the jaguar in the busy nearly as much as we should right now. Because gas is six out and you're trying to get gas I'm just like, oh, this hurts. This hurts. Sam Abuelsamid 34:01 Yeah. So that's the SCF 150 Oh, and the price on this one was about $81,000 for the for the 2020 2022 f150 Platinum, four wheel drive PowerBoost hybrid. So little bit more than the than your XC 60 Of course, it can do a lot more than the XC 60 Cam as well. I'm Roberto Baldwin 34:28 much more mulch there's so much more logic and but you know what? Nicole Wakelin 34:31 I'm not I'm fine with pickup trucks before everyone who loves a pickup truck starts like sending me death threats, but I've never owned a pickup truck. They don't have a need. Yeah, like I don't really need a pickup truck for the amount of pickup truck II stuff I do. But I the f150 Lightning makes me wish that I did. Yeah, it makes me wish I had a reason. Like, what's my cause? Why what excuse Can I come to it? Why do I do this? So it's not completely just just hauling air. That's I love it and it's what you save on that The gas like having electric and being able to make power your house. I love well, Sam Abuelsamid 35:05 especially for you living in New England. You get cold winters you know I'm sure you occasionally get some power outages in the wintertime. Nicole Wakelin 35:13 I have once or twice had a power outage and it is no fun when Sam Abuelsamid 35:17 when you get an ice storm knocks him down Yeah, it'll lock the Nicole Wakelin 35:21 lines down and depending you know, I've had neighbors who them without power for almost like a week and a half at that point. There's damage to your house if you do not have a way of getting at least a little bit of electricity running through things. Roberto Baldwin 35:33 You know, you know, the ID buzz walls have bi directional charging. So if you want like a cool van you can do that's still two years away, though. That's still two years away. But that's also you know, u haul thing. Nicole Wakelin 35:46 But why do I need a van? Roberto Baldwin 35:48 I don't know. Because you'll cry because you want something? Crimes, solve crimes. Yeah, with your dog. Sam Abuelsamid 35:56 I was actually thinking the other day. I was reading something about the Toyota BRC. And the same applies to the Subaru soltera. The four wheel drive versions of the soltera and BRC are only rated at 228 miles of range. Roberto Baldwin 36:13 Oh, you mean the Bz 4x Sam Abuelsamid 36:15 Did this sorry, the Bz 4x The Bz 4x Roberto Baldwin 36:19 See how the name is just like the Sam Abuelsamid 36:23 Bz 4x in the soltera. The soltera only comes in all wheel drive. There is no front drive version of this Altera Subaru you know so you get 228 miles of range. And that thing the the bass lightning pro with the standard range battery is 230. And it costs $5,000 less than the BRC or the Bz 4x. The Bz 4x in the soltera. Unknown Speaker 36:51 So it's almost like you don't even need a reason to the drop. It's now become just like Sam Abuelsamid 36:56 the economically smart choice. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 36:59 so I just go Roberto Baldwin 36:59 by what Ford when it comes to trucks they have the Maverick, which that's the vehicle I every time I think about the maverick I'm like, man, maybe I need a maverick. Yeah, maybe I just need a $20,000 truck for mulch, because it's like the perfect size 99% of people who need a truck. Yeah, and for like home stuff and art stuff and bad stuff. I'm like this thing is and then all the I still have all the cutting wood that I use for the thing and I'm like, you know, I've cut this word already. I might as well just go by the vehicle to pick the one exactly. I had to use the word to prop up something so I could paint it like I need some slabs of wood. Oh, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 37:35 Yeah, so it's already pre cut for the it's already in the Roberto Baldwin 37:39 already. I have the cup holder still that is 3d printed. Unknown Speaker 37:44 So you might use 3d printed a couple older for it. Roberto Baldwin 37:48 Yeah, 3d printed a cupholder for it. I was 3d printing a box that said Engadget because it was for a guy. It wasn't gadget video. And it got 90% done. And then the 3d printer just went it ran out of a run out. They ran out of stuff. And I was like, well, Sam Abuelsamid 38:03 so you might you might as well sell the JAG and you know, take what little you get for that and put it towards the downpayment on a maverick. Nicole Wakelin 38:11 There you go. Yeah, but Roberto Baldwin 38:13 the down payment on the Maverick is going to be a lot. I feel like everything. Unknown Speaker 38:18 Maverick when would you even get it right now? Probably about 20 to 24. And what about the lady? Like, where are we any Sam Abuelsamid 38:23 better? Pump the same? Unfortunately. So probably sometime next year? If you ordered one? Roberto Baldwin 38:28 Yeah. Same thing with the beer. Same thing with the new BRC? Like, we're not making those anymore. We ran out we ran out. Oh, oh, about the super blue Cruise is when I was driving to Maki, I don't know, week or two ago. And which book blue cruise and I driven it before. Also in Northern California during the dry program. And it has it has it has improved a lot. But again, it's not as nice to supercruise but it has, like just on the road. I'm like, Oh, this is so much better. Or getting close. Yeah. Which is good. Which is you know, at least improvements are good. I mean, they're working towards, you know, getting to supercruise level quality. Instead of just sort of like, you know, they could just put it out and like well, we'll do an update in six months. I feel like they're like constantly getting doing the updates to that. So. Sam Abuelsamid 39:18 Alright, let's see what we have on the list. Oh, okay. So I also drove another car the other day. Yeah. And on Friday, I had a chance to go over to the Nissan r&d center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, where they had a pair of new Nissan Z's one in blue with a manual transmission and one in red with an automatic and I of course grabbed the blue one, because that is the proper thing to do as one should one should if you're going to drive Nicole Wakelin 39:51 can you to be friends, Sam? This is good. Okay. Otherwise stop recording I'm out. Sam Abuelsamid 39:58 So It wasn't that long ago that there was a lot of uncertainty if a new Z would even happen, you know, because Nissan's set some financial challenges in recent years. But last fall, you know, they unveiled the Z proto and showed it showed it to her actually knows 2020 Yeah, the fall 2020 When they showed us the Z proto and, and now they're building it, and then they're gonna start shipping them to customers pretty soon. And I had a chance to spend a couple of hours with one. And boy, is it good, it is really, really good. And, of course, you know, the, the obvious competitor for the Z, you know, has been for decades, the Supra and it's, you know, it's been super in Z. And the I would say this time around, the Z is absolutely the one to get. It's it's based on the same basic architecture as the old 370 Z, and there's no numbers associated with anymore. Now it's just Nissan Z. Unless you're in Japan, where's the Fairlady Z as it should be. So it's got the same 100 and 100.4 inch wheelbase, same basic suspension layout, but it's all been retuned. It's got different caster angles and stuff for a little better steering feel. But they replaced the 3.7 liter naturally aspirated V six they had before with the three liter twin turbo V six from the Infiniti Q 50. Read sport 400. So now has 400 horsepower, 350 some odd foot pounds of torque. And, you know, because it's a twin turbo, you know, all that torque comes on pretty early peaks at about 1600 RPM, This thing feels great. And I love the way the new Z looks, you know, it's, it doesn't look look retro. But you know, it's got just enough of the, you know, a few cues to kind of harken back to, you know, the original first generation Z, you know, it's got that similar profile. And even though it's on the same wheelbase as the 370, it's got slightly longer front overhang and rear overhang. So when you look at it and profile, it's got a little bit more of that long hood, rear rear cabin feel of the first generation because those first generation z's, you know, they had an inline six cylinder, the actual first and the second generation, when they went to the 280, ZX, they had an inline six, like, like the superhet. But, but then, when they went to the 300, ZX, they went to a V six, and they've all been V sixes since then. So they've had a little bit shorter hood, but they stretch that out a little bit more. So it's got a little bit more of that look of the, of the of the classics. And I just love the way this thing looks, especially with the two tone paint option, where you get the black roof, and then the chrome strip that runs across the top of the side glass. The interior, the one I drove was insert Syrian blue on the outside. And then it had a two tone black and blue interior, which looks really cool. I really liked that that color combination in there. You know, the, the, you know, unlike Toyota, you know, they're still they're offering it from day one with a manual transmission. So you can get a manual or a nine speed automatic, same price, no, no price premium for either one. Absolutely go with the manual. It was a hoot to drive, it's, it's got surprisingly good ride comfort. But then when you get into some curvy roads, it just hangs on the engine is really responsive. It just feels really good, really stable and composed. Even when there's bumps in the in the curves. You know, nothing seems to upset. And I, I just had a blast with this thing. It was great. And it starts at $40,000 with with delivery charge, it's 41,000 and I think $15 or something like that, which is quite a bit cheaper than the Supra. You can get the the four cylinder Supra starting at about $43,000. And then so they have the base Sport model. And then there's the Z performance, which has slightly bigger brakes and goes from 18 to 19 inch wheels and has some options as standard equipment. And that one starts at 50 grand so it's an extra 10 grand to go to the performance. And then they also have a limited edition launch version called the proto spec which adds the you have the option of that same yellow paint that they had on the Z proto concept and the sort of dark gold bronze ish wheels that were on that one. Come on, only on the those As the promo and that one's an extra $3,000 on top of the performance. So all in, you know, for the max version, you're looking at $54,000, roughly. And I highly recommend this and, you know, unlike the unlike the controversial styling of the Supra, you know, I don't think there's anything controversial about the Z. I think it just looks great. It's the same engine and all three vehicles. Yeah. Same 400 horsepower engine. Roberto Baldwin 45:28 Just get the base engine. Yeah, get the base one you don't need. Yeah, you don't need bigger wheels. Come on Sam Abuelsamid 45:33 the the bigger brakes, I think it'd be nice. Roberto Baldwin 45:36 The bigger brain. I'm a big fan of bigger brakes. But Sam Abuelsamid 45:38 yeah. I mean, they're not huge wheels when you're only going from 18 to nineteen's, that's so then you get some other stuff thrown in there as well. But no, it's it's, you know, if you're looking for a sports car, and, you know, this, this is a proper sports car, you know, there's no pretense of, you know, some dinky little back seat that is not useful for anything. There's two seats. That's it all done. You know, no, two plus two nonsense, you know, not much cargo space, you know, you got room for a couple of duffel bags in the back. And that's about it. You know, it's it's two people and you know, enough stuff for a weekend getaway. And that's it. Roberto Baldwin 46:18 Good. Good. I'm happy for Nissan, and that's fine. Yes. I'm sad because I was invited on that drive program. And it was while I was on vacation, I was like, Oh, well, I'll be in Hawaii. So I guess it's okay. To complain so much. Yeah. I don't like Las Vegas, which is where the drive was, I think. Yeah, yeah, I think they did it. So that's, that's yeah, I was like, yeah. I don't care where we're driving, as long as the roads are nice. Yeah. But yeah, I'm very excited once it gets into the fleet. And I can, I can whip it around the northern California windy road. Sam Abuelsamid 46:53 Yep. It's, it's, it's a it's a lovely car. Alright, let's get into some other stuff here. Lordstown motors, finally completed the sale of their factory to Foxconn. Just with just a few days to spare before the whole thing would fall apart. And even with that, even with the $260 million, or getting from Foxconn, they've still burned through most of the cash that they had from they're going public. And they say they want to build 500 trucks by the end of this year. But they still need another 100 and $50 million to do that. Because I'm guessing suppliers are telling them. Yeah, we'd be happy to sell you some parts. You just got to pay us up front. No, no 90 Day or 190 day terms. You know, it's like just the money. We build you cash on delivery. Roberto Baldwin 47:50 Cash on delivery. It's this is this is the expected end of this. This whole path is it should have been anticipated. Lordstown has been a boondoggle since its inception. Unknown Speaker 48:02 It loves that word. Roberto Baldwin 48:04 I love the word. The idea that there was workhorse which was a company that didn't build anything, they built like one or two trucks that that crashed and burned. And then they started Lordstown but then Lordstown has to pay. It's the same people but Lordstown has to pay workhorse for every truck it makes. So the company the people who made one company built another company because the first company failed. But the second company has to pay the first companies the money. So it's like they're getting money both ways. Sam Abuelsamid 48:35 I know it's, it's insane. And to buy the factory from GM, you know, because GM had close the close down the Lordstown assembly plant. And they were getting a lot of grief from the ex president. You know, because, you know, the ex president wanted to create jobs in Ohio because he needed Ohio needed to win Ohio to win reelection. And so he was giving Mary Barra all kinds of grief. And so, you know, GM said, Okay, fine. We will loan Lordstown $40 million, so that they can pay us $20 million for the factory and still have $20 million of working capital. And then, you know, when it was clear that they were never going to get that money back. They just converted that to equity when when Lordstown went public. And, you know, I think GM you know, basically long ago just wrote off that investment, is it Yeah, we were fine. It was a small price to pay to get that guy off our backs, just so there was Roberto Baldwin 49:33 marketing money. They took it out in the marketing budget. Sam Abuelsamid 49:37 For marketing, I mean, that was cheap. Yeah, yeah. Right. Roberto Baldwin 49:40 So like, let's, let's give it to these idiots and we'll move on with our life. Sam Abuelsamid 49:47 So, yeah, you know, I I would be shocked. If Lordstown motors ever delivered a single truck to a customer. And especially now you know that Ford is actually shipping f150 lightnings Why would anybody buy the Lordstown? Because they'll feel like Nicole Wakelin 50:05 people who are behind the curve, like these sort of startups that we're gonna be first to have this? Well, you aren't now you have a problem? Sam Abuelsamid 50:10 Well, not only that, but you know, the lightning pro starts at 40 grand, the the Lordstown endurance. When they did their last earnings call, they kind of slipped in there that they had raised the price from the original $52,000 to $65,000. So now, the the Lordstown truck costs more than 50% more than the Ford but has less towing capability less payload as killing for Roberto Baldwin 50:39 the same market? Yeah, it's not like it's Rivia Moravians going for this sort of high end like advanced so Sam Abuelsamid 50:44 I was gonna buy it. Yeah. Yep. On the plus side, though, now that Foxconn actually owns the factory. They have someplace where they can build the Fisker pair. So, you know, that's right. That is going to be the pair. Yeah. So that's, that's what the that's probably the only thing that's ever gonna get built there. Roberto Baldwin 51:00 Yeah, I feel more like a pair is gonna show up here before a pair appear before anything. It's like it's fair. We're up here. Sam Abuelsamid 51:12 Speaking speaking of Evie startups that have legacy automakers as, as investors rivian. Their their stock has been on a downward slide. Ever since the IPO spiked up right after the IPO to like, I think it hit the peak of like $180 a share or something crazy like that. And it's been now it's down in the mid 20s. Ford owns about 10% of rivian. did, they did prior to prior to last Monday, they own up roughly 10% of rivian shares. Monday was the end of the lockup period. So for those not familiar with this stuff, when when companies go public, there's usually a period of several months, during which early investors are not allowed to sell off their shares, they have to hang on to it for a while. And so last Monday was the end of the lockup period for rivian. So insiders and employees and other investor early investors can start selling their shares. So Ford immediately sold off 8 million shares on Monday for I think about $200 million and reviens share price dropped down to about $20 a share, and then bounced back later in the week too. But 26 or 27, and so forth, took advantage of that opportunity, that dead cat bounce to sell off another 7 million shares this past Friday. And I would be surprised if If Ford still owns any reviens shares within the next couple of months. I think they're just gonna look for any peaks in the market and, and use that to take any profits that they can still get off of that. Roberto Baldwin 53:00 I think even for IBM was doing well Ford would sell them off just because I think there was a there was a there was a time when rivian and when rivian was going to help Ford build EVs and then Ford like oh, wait, we can do this. We actually don't need remember the rivian Howard Lincoln. Yep. And they're like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we're not going to do that. Now. Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind. Everyone's loaded. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense anymore for Ford to have anything to do with rivian. Because Ford can do it on their own. rivian is, you know, there. I think ribbing would be doing better if it wasn't for the fact that you know, the supply chain semiconductor, all that stuff. I think they're Nicole Wakelin 53:35 I mean, that to be fair, that probably did mess up more than a few companies look at the havoc with companies like Ford like Roberto Baldwin 53:41 yeah, like, big companies. Yeah. Big companies ever problems like tumbling. Yeah, the two companies who are probably going to make it which are rivian and lucid. They're having even bigger problems because they just can't, you can't compete with the time on the production Nicole Wakelin 53:57 that are gonna make you think rivian and lucid are the two that are going to survive from the startups. Sam Abuelsamid 54:02 I think they have the best chance Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 54:03 they have the best chance that yeah, there's up there maybe Fisker and maybe Fisker? Yeah. I think Fisker. I think there's there's I think Fisker is gonna be very niche. Nicole Wakelin 54:12 What about vinfast? Do you think they're gonna survive? Roberto Baldwin 54:14 I don't know. I think they're doing I mean, they do. Well, Vietnam. We I think we're still sort of a little early with fenfast Nicole Wakelin 54:20 So that one's a question mark. Roberto Baldwin 54:22 Yeah, that was a question mark just because and also it's an another country so it has I think there's a whole other thing you have to deal with like whether or not it succeeds here. It's like Alfa Romeo like is awful Romeo gonna succeed here. Well, if it doesn't, they had the rest of the of Europe to take care of Europe. I think vinfast will probably and and, and maybe anything else is coming over. That doesn't matter. But yeah, so we'll see. Yeah, but but selling off all that Arabian stock. They're just like, yeah, they don't want to be a thing associated with rivian anymore. Sam Abuelsamid 54:51 Yeah. Plus, they Roberto Baldwin 54:52 still got that Amazon mega Amazon order. They got to build Yep. Sam Abuelsamid 54:58 Yeah, they got they got a whole bunch of vans to build for Amazon, I gotta make some bands. Alright, so we were talking earlier about the Toyota BZ for X, slash br Z slash whatever Motor Trend. Got one for you know, we, Nicole and I both on the first drive on the BC 4x. And I think the two of you both driven the soltera. And Motor Trend has gotten one for a little longer period of time and they did some charging testing with it. And we already knew that you know, charging was not as good, especially DC fast charging capability was not as good with the busy Forex as some of its competitors. And turns out that it gets even worse especially if the temperature starts dropping. This will the link to this will be in the show notes. But Motor Trend published the charging curve, what they got when they tried to do DC fast charging, and this this was at an ambient temperature of 64 degrees, which is not exactly cold. You know this clear this, this is pretty modest temperatures. And with the all wheel drive one which has the CTL battery, which nominally can charge, charge it up to 100 kilowatts, they never got it above 65 kilowatts. And it only held that until about 33% charge. And you know, all all DC fast charging, you know, at some point in the charge curve, it starts ramping it down so you don't overcharge the battery. This thing started ramping down at like 33% state of charge from 65. And by the time they were down to like 90% or 90 92%. It was down at one kilowatt. I mean it was just barely. They could not they could not fully charge it from a DC fast charger. Unknown Speaker 56:54 And that's it a DC fast charger. That's insane. Roberto Baldwin 56:56 Yeah, so that they do this like multiple times or just one time. Looks like they Sam Abuelsamid 57:01 did it one time Roberto Baldwin 57:03 that I don't want to harp on Motor Trend. Sometimes I've gotten to the charging station. Yeah, I mean sometimes they Yeah, sometimes it's so tough with these tests with the charging tests because I always tried to go to the exact same station the exact same location for my tests. And even then I'll go with the same car like two days in a row and one day it'll be like crazy fast. And the next day it'll be like war. But still this is this is this is this is a bummer. Sam Abuelsamid 57:34 Yeah. Well, I guess I guess even even in the owner's manual for the BC 4x You know, it says for the for the BC 4x. All wheel drive model charging may slow down more than other models in weather conditions below 32 degrees Fahrenheit and may not be possible when the temperature drops to around minus four Fahrenheit and below Unknown Speaker 57:54 which circumstance Roberto Baldwin 57:57 all over winter, Nicole Wakelin 57:58 not drive this vehicle. So good luck with that because it's too cold. Sam Abuelsamid 58:01 So if you if you live somewhere cold and want an all wheel drive, Evie, don't buy this Altera or BC for x, Roberto Baldwin 58:09 which is ah, Nicole Wakelin 58:11 that's horrifying that you couldn't charge it. I mean, I get things go sideways for EVs when the weather is cold, but they always go slower, but they always go certainly not slow stop. Yeah, no charging. Roberto Baldwin 58:23 Not gonna work. Especially if you charge me because, you know, I charge at night. And you know, I've lived in Kansas City. Yeah, and I lived in Kansas City was negative 45 during the day. Yeah. So it was, you know, let's say it's negative 60 At night, do I just get up in the morning and my, my, my, my Eevee just doesn't go. Nicole Wakelin 58:42 It's like Sorry about that. But I didn't charge last night because there was a wind chill have like getting towards. Roberto Baldwin 58:47 So you had to put the bat the heater on the car, like you got to put in the garage and then was that the diesels you have to put like, Nicole Wakelin 58:54 you put a little blankie on top Unknown Speaker 58:56 of lanky and warm it up. block heater up a little block heater for your Ewok Roberto Baldwin 59:01 unit for my Eevee Sam Abuelsamid 59:03 To their credit, even though they looks like they only did one test they did drive it around for a while to get the battery warmed up before they went to the charger. But still, you know, I mean 64 degrees, you know is that's not cold? No. Roberto Baldwin 59:17 Yeah, that the 350 charger in my area is on the other side of the bay. So it takes me 30 to 40 minutes to get there every time I want to do a DC fast chargers to make sure like you know, it gets at least close most of time. I don't really talk about the the numbers in the article. But most time it usually will hit close to it and I'm like, well that's good enough. If it's 240 and it hits 230 or 227. Like there you go. That's once you get over like once you get over like 170 Like it doesn't even matter anymore. It doesn't matter how fast it's so fast. You're just like, oh, I don't have time to go to Starbucks. Oh, I guess I better go drive some more drives in circles. Sam Abuelsamid 59:55 So the busy Forex has mediocre range compared to its competitors. It costs more and charges really slow. So Toyota will Unknown Speaker 1:00:07 be doing here. Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:09 I don't know what what are they doing here? Roberto Baldwin 1:00:11 Again, it's like I think it still goes down to like the teenager whose parent tells them to clean their room and are like fine, but I'm not gonna do a good job when Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:19 they open the closet door. shove everything in there everything. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 1:00:23 It's technically clean. It's technically an Eevee. Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:29 Yeah, well, Nicole and I are both going to be in Texas in a couple of weeks with Toyota for another program. So I'm going to be asking more about Palooza to add a palooza to Roberto Baldwin 1:00:43 I thought about did I thought about going to that it's a long time. Unknown Speaker 1:00:47 I'm only there for three days. Roberto Baldwin 1:00:49 Oh, they want me there for a week. Yes, you can. Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:52 You can have options. Yeah, there's there's different there's different waves. The there's a couple of longer waves and a couple of shorter waves Nicole Wakelin 1:01:01 for a week or there's I just want to do a normal Drive Program. I prefer I'll do a normal Drive Program. Roberto Baldwin 1:01:06 Thank you. Yeah, I'll talk to I'll call them and say I just want you to normal thing because I can't I can't Nicole Wakelin 1:01:10 be in touch. Yeah, no, I did the same thing. I couldn't go quit that. Look. Roberto Baldwin 1:01:14 I got too much work to do. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:15 And I wouldn't I wouldn't want to be in Texas for that long. Roberto Baldwin 1:01:18 Yeah, I can only get so much I can understand. That's what I'm gonna say. I'm like, I can only see so much barbecue. Nicole Wakelin 1:01:23 That woman that diva Q who did the barbecue thing at the Ford f150 Lightning. She's like a world renowned barbecue pitmaster winner and now I follow her on on like Instagram and I'm seeing all this barbecue all the time. And I kind of just want to have barbecue for a whole week. Because I want to get what she makes. I'm like, Oh my God, what did you make this time? Oh my god, that looks amazing. Roberto Baldwin 1:01:44 Every Texas trip, I'm like, oh barbecue, and then they're like, Oh, we're going out to dinner at a nice restaurant. I'm like, no, no, no. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:51 Well, if I if I if I go to another drive program and in Austin, I'm gonna have to do what Jordan Golson did when we did the grand cherokee four by II program, which is he ordered ahead to Franklin's barbecue. I ordered a brisket in advance and picked it up on the morning before heading to the airport took a little cooler and packed that in there and then when he got to the airport he got some ice from one of the one of the restaurants in the airport and filled it up with ice and then when he got home he just superheated it to heat it up and said it was so good. Roberto Baldwin 1:02:31 I just needed him the plane. Well, there's that region there would you do it? I mean, my barbecue. Nicole Wakelin 1:02:42 Imagine if you're like the guy sitting behind him and you smell this amazing barbecue in the plane. And you see Jordan like he doesn't share it. That's like not bringing it up for the whole class. Like keep that guy Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:55 gonna keep the barbecue throw him off the plane throw Nicole Wakelin 1:02:57 Jordan off plane. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 1:02:59 you gone barbecue stay. Sam Abuelsamid 1:03:02 All right. Last one is the return of scout. Do you guys both remember scout? Unknown Speaker 1:03:09 My neighbor had one when I was a kid. I turned had Roberto Baldwin 1:03:12 one scout. My friend had one and we got it stuck in the snow because he didn't go as fast as I told him to. And then I was wearing I was wearing sweats. And we were going to the feed store which is a very small town thing to say we're going through a field we feed stores Scout to go buy feed for our sheep he's like I'm gonna go to this thing. I'm like you gotta go faster we're gonna get stuck down I don't want to be the leads on this show. We got to go faster it's gonna get stuck and it didn't go fast enough. I got stuck. And I'm out there in like a T shirt and sweats. Like digging out because he didn't have a he was like I got everything in here but a shovel. We needed a shovel. A shovel. And then we we ended up walking to the rest of the way the feed stores like like a half mile and sitting in the back because they felt bad for us. And then his his his grandfather showed up with a tractor and pull this out. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:03 It just gets more and more middle of nowhere. Granddad showed up with a tractor I mean, just keep going. So yeah, Roberto Baldwin 1:04:09 so every one I'll get an email from someone who's like oh, you coastal elites. You don't owe your pet you know your dough here. Just listen to that story. Unknown Speaker 1:04:20 In case you're wondering, the real Robbie, there you go. Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:25 For those those not familiar with the scout brand, this was an SUV and pickup that was made by International Harvester back in like the 60s, early 70s and into the 70s on camera and maybe maybe even into the 80s before it was finally discontinued. And you know, this was a competitor for the Bronco and Jeep and other stuff. Yeah. And of course, International is owned by Navistar. The truck company and Navistar was acquired last year the year before by Triton which is the The heavy truck division of Volkswagen Group. So Volkswagen owns the rights to the scout brand. And they announced last week that they are bringing back the scout brand for an electric pickup truck and SUV. And that's, you know, there's a sketch that was released. Their targeting 250,000 annual sales. And what do you think about this? Nicole Wakelin 1:05:31 I like the SUV, the truck look squished. Yeah, I know that it's just a it's just a sketch. So it could look absolutely nothing like this. But the trick of not not so much. But that. Yeah. Why I like the SUV doesn't look weird. The dimension. Roberto Baldwin 1:05:47 Tablets do so too far back? Nicole Wakelin 1:05:49 It's yeah, something something that's just a sketch kind of thing. I mean, they did deem it worthy enough to release it. Maybe it's more accurate than we think. But Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:59 you never know. Might not be that accurate. But, you know, there's definitely some, you know, some cute design cues from the old scouts. You know, MIT, hopefully they're planning to have a big frunk in the in this thing, you know, to justify having that long hood. But Nicole Wakelin 1:06:15 they do. I just remember the old scout and it being like the car whenever we all had to pile in and go somewhere, my friend Pam, him and her dad, it was her dad's cat. And we had to pilot it was like, you could fit it totally illegal number of number of children and stuff. That thing. And it was like the we all have to go together. Well, let's go take the scout. Like I want it to be like that still, but I'll be totally legal about how I use it. Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:40 So no, production is scheduled to start in 2026. So it's still you know, four years away. But it can be pretty cool. Yeah, have an electric competitor to the you know, by that time, we're gonna have an electric wrangler and some other electric jeeps and probably an electric Bronco. So could be could be fun. Roberto Baldwin 1:07:01 Yeah, we'll see. It'll be interesting to Nicole Wakelin 1:07:04 see really cool. SUV looks awesome. I love the SED. Yeah, I'm in for that not in for the truck. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:10 Okay. All right, we have a few listener questions today. Let's start off with Big Daddy Henshaw. Hey, wheel bearings crew, which wouldn't? Which one? Would you choose the new Z or the Supra with a stick disease still on an old platform and seems kind of like a pig with lipstick on it. The Toyota Supra as well, who's well is more German than Toyota, but seems more modern. So, you know, I talked about it. Yeah, it's not an old architecture. But the Z drives thoroughly modern. It drives great. And I would, I would choose the Z over the Supra. Roberto Baldwin 1:07:51 I haven't driven the Z. I like her Nicole Wakelin 1:07:53 so I can't voice an opinion. I liked the super though. I do so I don't dislike it. I would like it more with the stick. So I think I would like it more. But I don't know if I would like it more than the Ask me again after I finally have a chance to drive the ZIF daddy and then we can answer. Sam Abuelsamid 1:08:08 We'll bring that one back for for an encore. Yeah. Let's see. Oh, hold on. Let me forget to do the word wrap on this suck and actually read it. From Coach Cabrera. Is it recommended to charge an Eevee outside of your home? I see most people are parking their EVs in their driveways, what happens if it rains in the Eevee are plugged into their chargers? Absolutely nothing. Roberto Baldwin 1:08:33 Nothing happens. It just it's just it's polite. It's either, you know, they had to build them so that humans could use them. So yeah, so they're built, it could rain all you want you can have rain on the charger, you can have a ringing on the charge port doesn't matter you just plug it in. Nicole Wakelin 1:08:48 Yeah, care and you can even get some like there's different brands out there and I'm gonna forget that there's like you know, you have tires that are like severe snow service rated with a little three Peak Mountain snowflake on them, you can get chargers that are like severe weather related so even if you live like in Alaska, where it's freezing and there's chaos all the time you can get a charger that can sit outside in the snow and be totally happy so yeah, you're fine. It's most proof Roberto Baldwin 1:09:15 Yeah, no, that's fine. You can just plug it in you're not gonna get shocked you're not gonna get Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:19 they're they're all weather proofed. And you know, if you if you look inside the charge connector, you'll see all the terminals are set way back and the reason why these things you know, have these deep sockets on them. So the terminals are nowhere near the the perimeter you'd have you'd have to like stick a nail or a screw or something in there to even contact the the terminals in the in the connectors. And there's lots of rubber seals and everything. And they're you know, they're designed to be weatherproof so not not going to be fine. Roberto Baldwin 1:09:48 And I parked my entire driveway because my my garage is full of stuff now. Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:53 Yeah. Well, same. Same for me. I don't own an Eevee but I you know, I drive a bunch of them. and have the charger. The the outlet is actually inside the garage but the cord goes outside. And I've always charged charge to EVs outside and never had an issue because I have my Miata in the garage and my wife's car gets the other half of the garage so no no Nicole Wakelin 1:10:18 plug in for like a year. So it's been through a year of New England winter and all the weather that we have and plug it in outside and it's never had a problem. Roberto Baldwin 1:10:26 Easy peasy lemon squeezy, easy peasy lemon Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:28 squeezy. All right. Last one is from Ajay Gupta. What's the breaking point at which GM and Ford decide to buy a chip fab plant in Asia and shifted stateside to get a handle on ship production? This applies to many ancillary supplier factories to Roberto Baldwin 1:10:45 I mean, I know there's there's automakers especially recently they're starting to think okay, we it's it's a worldwide network of supplies is ends up not working out so hot recently. Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:58 Well, it's not so much a worldwide, but rather concentrated network, you know, having your suppliers be around the world is fine, as long as they have multiple locations in different regions. Roberto Baldwin 1:11:10 Yeah, so I don't know if they're gonna, if Ford and GM are going to buy a chip plant, I think you know, I think it's more I think they're they're concerned more is the same like would be embedded Mercedes where they're looking into oh, we need to make sure that there's a battery plant, that we have a giga factory near our, our production facility. Building check plants is really, really expensive. And it takes a really, really long time. Nicole Wakelin 1:11:35 Even for the issues we're having right now, if they did it today, by the time they have it ready to go, the current issues are going to be sort of resolved, one would hope Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:44 that it takes forever to build and it's not like you know, it's not like these plants are for sale, you're not going to be able to just go to TSMC and say I want to buy your fab and ship all the equipment to the US. That is not going to happen. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:57 You know, what, what is happening is you know, all these various chip producers are building new fabs in the US and also in Europe to handle the demand. You know, so TSMC has a fab under construction in its Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. They're the biggest chip manufacturer in the world. And they they're building a new fab in Arizona, that I think comes online next year. Intel's got some new fabs going up in Ohio, and also in Europe. Global Foundries is expanding Samsung's building another new fab in Texas. So everybody's expanding globally, but they're diversifying their locations. So they're not all in one place. Roberto Baldwin 1:12:45 And a lot of them Southeast Asia, where there's a lot of monsoon issues and yeah, that's what that's that's what kind of like that's what kind of started the whole like, fad, like one one place got messed up like as a monsoon. And then it was just like a domino effect. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:59 Yep, monsoons, earthquakes, fires, trade wars, you know, all this stuff. It's never a good idea to have all that stuff. You know, essential components concentrated in just one place. And that's, that's why they're also localizing production of battery materials, battery raw materials. Roberto Baldwin 1:13:18 Gotta have it everywhere. Yep. It takes a village. It does. takes a village to build a car. Nicole Wakelin 1:13:29 Takes A Village. Sam Abuelsamid 1:13:30 All right. I think that's all we've got for this week. Thanks, everybody, and we'll talk to you next time. Nicole Wakelin 1:13:36 Bye. Bye.