Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 Coming up on episode 255 of wheel bearings we got the Chevrolet Bolt, Evie the f150 Lightning, Mazda is new six cylinder diesel parking in San Francisco for trademarks, a couple of new names Tesla, opening their superchargers to other other EVs in the US this year, and how to look up markups all that more coming up next this is episode 255 wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights. Nicole Wakelin 0:39 And I am Nicola from from the FAST Women podcast. Roberto Baldwin 0:42 And I am a virtual Baldwin from let's say, Sam Abuelsamid 0:47 Okay, what have you been driving this week? Mr. Baldwin? Roberto Baldwin 0:51 This week? I've been driving a little car you probably haven't heard of it. Is that the Ford F? 150? Lightning? Never heard of Nicole Wakelin 0:58 that. What is that? Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 0:59 What is car? What are cars? Sam Abuelsamid 1:02 Well, especially what is the f 150? Lightning? Roberto Baldwin 1:05 What is an F 150? Well, it's part of the F series, which is the number one selling vehicle in America for 40 years in a row for 40 years number one selling vehicle for years. They don't F 150 versus F 250 versus F blah, blah, blah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:21 It's about two thirds F 150. And Roberto Baldwin 1:23 we all know it's it's mostly f1. And it's not Nicole Wakelin 1:27 just I think it's cool. It's not just like the best selling truck. It's the best selling vehicle period. And all Roberto Baldwin 1:33 and yeah. A lot of that has to do with fleets, which is and you know, contractors by the f150. And landscapers by the end point. It is a workhorse. It is a machine. It is the new mule of America, it is America's horse. America's horse is the Ford f1 Except Sam Abuelsamid 1:54 given given how many of them there are round. Mules are sterile. So I don't know mule is necessarily the right Roberto Baldwin 2:01 have you put into a two F two F 150s. Together, they're not making more f1 50s. That way Sam Abuelsamid 2:08 you could put two F 150s together and one could charge the other one. Roberto Baldwin 2:11 That's true. So there's a lot of titillation, but there's no baby F 150s There's no Ford Mavericks popping out the bed after six months, nine months, I don't know what the gestation period is on the Ford F 150. If it were you know, fertile, but the f150 lightning and the big deal about this is that again, number one selling vehicle America, huge fleet contractor blah, blah, workforce, work mule, whatever you want to call it. Elephant for the United States, and they made an Eevee out of it. And it's not just they didn't like try to try to make it all fancy, they didn't change it. Essentially just said, Hey, let's take the f150 Take the motor bits out and put the some electric bits in and then just call it a day. And you know, they have the giant, you know, Frank, which is actually pretty cool. You know my my whole deal with Frank's is if they're small, I just don't care if there's no point this one is like a proper front you can put things in it. So if you go shopping, you don't want to put them in the cab of the cars because people can look in and see them. You don't want to put them in the bed because people can just grab them out. You can put them in the giant trunk which I did today. I had to go buy dog food I had to go to Home Depot I had a lot of little errands Unknown Speaker 3:26 Did you buy mulch? Roberto Baldwin 3:28 I did not buy mulch didn't actually need mulch, but I have not bought mulch you should Nicole Wakelin 3:34 have just bought one little bag of mulch and mulch to small section of garden area just one bag Roberto Baldwin 3:39 when there's all pristine mulch and the rest of it just all faded, Nicole Wakelin 3:43 right. But as you get your trucks they'll just gradually bring them all back to pristine you know when one bag this week or next week. We're back in three weeks. Roberto Baldwin 3:51 One bag of mulch at a time. So yeah, Ford F 150 Lightning it is. I'm just gonna say the best f150 outside of like one big important area which is towing. If you're towing around town if using it for work you need to tow you know, a little generator you got to tow you know the generator. Yeah, well, you actually don't even need to generate but you need to tow the cement mixer like all the sort of workforce out of around town things you need to do awesome. If you want to tow it to the lake with your boat. Unknown Speaker 4:26 Don't well it depends on far Roberto Baldwin 4:29 unless the lake is pretty close in Philly. I live in California where lakes are few and far between and most of them are mostly empty. Thanks climate change. So yeah, Ford F 150. I've been driving it around. And it's a I have the extended battery version, which means it has a 131 kilowatt hour battery pack which is enormous. That's a lot of battery. That's not a big as the kids say you Big any big, big any big? According to Nicole Wakelin 5:02 Nicole me? Yes, cuz I'm all with the kids, I'm Roberto Baldwin 5:06 assuming is younger than me. So that is a dual e motor extended range battery, it's a $10,000 option if you want to go 300. And I believe it's 20 miles, yes, 320 miles in this vehicle, if you don't want to do that and get the regular range battery to 230 miles, I did a range test with this vehicle, the same range tests I do for all the vehicles and I got 322 So Ford is you know, same thing with a Maki, they're just dead on with their with their EPA, the EPA tests so I mean, you get what you get is essentially what I'm saying if you're, if you're if you're concerned that it's gonna be like 20% below compared to other now no doubt on so good for them on that it is not necessarily but it is still a truck. And this is the thing that people need to realize is that these are still trucks, trucks are not necessarily efficient. Up by an F 150. It's not gonna get the same gas mileage as a Ford Focus. If you get the f 150. Lightning is not going to get the same efficiency as say a Maki, I think I was getting like 2.3 kilowatts, 2.2 or 2.3 kilowatt hours per, or miles per kilowatt hour miles per kilowatt hour, sorry, 2.3 miles per kilowatt hour. So yeah, it's still a truck. Now that doesn't go away, it still has of you know, the front of it is essentially just a giant billboard for Ford a big flat space, there is a little bit of, you know, it did kind of smooth that out a little bit to make as an Eevee. But it's still a big Sam Abuelsamid 6:45 line, some something that large, you know, even even if you make it really slick and have a low coefficient of drag, you still have a lot of frontal area. And drag is you know, frontal area times coefficient of drag. If your frontal area is big, you're gonna have a lot of drag no matter how slippery it is. Roberto Baldwin 7:04 And plus you have a bad and there's a there's a lot of things that work against trucks when it comes to any sort of coefficient, like no one yeah, you can cover it all up and try to make it look at the cybertruck But that's not even a real thing yet. So Ford has a real thing. cybertracker Not so much. There's like two or three out in the world somewhere. There's a pop up a lot more f1 charities in the world. They're actually selling to people. Um, it's, it's really quick. It's it's, you know, it's an Eevee I think it's like four ish seconds zero to 60 No matter what trim level you get, they're all dual motor, they're all all will drive. So you're still you know, it's it's it's it's quick enough where I didn't think about it when you're thinking about driving a truck and when I go I went to leave an intersection I accidentally hurt my wife she's in the seizures bolted I startled my wife. How about that? I don't think she's not in pain or we had to go like how sillery do that's the thing is I didn't accelerate that much but it's so it's been so quick off the line. And so that's a thing that I guess if you want to do trucks you can which I see a lot of trucks barreling down the freeway at some ungodly speed even though gas is I mean it's under $6 A gallon now because gas prices are going down but still like 570 is still a lot of money. Still not cheap. Cheap, cheap, or not cheaper but still are Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, so I got the we had the do I know I thought the XL T Yeah had the XL T Oh, they were gonna give me another one but I want the xl to xl T. Nice inside has a little folding like armrest you can put the Sam Abuelsamid 9:00 works on the the cookie table, Roberto Baldwin 9:04 the cookie table. That's yeah, you put your lap coffee table or a burrito? Nicole Wakelin 9:10 Well, like doesn't crumble cookies will fit nicely on it. Just you know Roberto Baldwin 9:16 you could put a cheese a cheese board on it couturier you could put a plate of ribs on it Sam Abuelsamid 9:26 if you love you probably. You probably could. Pizza. Nicole Wakelin 9:30 I feel like a medium medium pizza large. Not so much but a medium. Definitely a small pizza. Roberto Baldwin 9:35 Yeah, you could put a medium pizza and you could put two smalls, you know oh too Nicole Wakelin 9:38 small. So you can each have your own personal size pizza. Roberto Baldwin 9:41 Yeah. Or you could share you can I want this one you want. Sam Abuelsamid 9:45 Half and half half. There are just so many ways that you can use an f1 so many Nicole Wakelin 9:48 ways. You know many ways that you can table. Roberto Baldwin 9:51 You can open up the trunk and there's you know, there's power everywhere. I think that you can get up to 11 outlets. You can open up the front you can plug your stuff in there you can do Like there's, you know, there's a power outlet in the dash. So if you need a laptop or a blender for your, for your new parties, you can do it in the truck or on the trunk in the, in the bed. There's power back there. You can charge another, you know, computer car, you can charge the vehicle, another Evie. And these 9.6 kilowatts. Yeah, no, it's got a lot. There's a lot going on with this truck. And it's really, it's, it's exactly I think it's exactly what Ford needed to do with this vehicle, and needed to do to sort of really push EVs forward, um, the vehicle, I got the opportunity lightning was the Excel T started at $53,000.50 297 40. You know, and then the destination is $1,700 Fine. Then they put like, you know, 9500, the $10,000 battery pack, and then there was some equipment $9,500 on that, and then a tow package was a 250, and then some lockable storage, and then the spray in tough bedliner, which is 600 bucks. Overall at the end of day $75,000. Which, if you're looking at Ford F 150s. And you see them on the road, that's not that bad. Yeah. It seems like it's a lot of money. And it seems like a lot of money for a truck until you look at like the average purchase price of an f1 15. It's up there. Yeah. What was it? 7574 Nicole Wakelin 11:34 texts are not cheap. Not cheap. Sam Abuelsamid 11:37 Yeah, I think average transaction price on an F series, an F 150. Now is somewhere around 52 or $53,000. Roberto Baldwin 11:45 Yeah, so that's that's and that includes all the fleets all the Ford pros, which there's a less expensive version of this vehicle for, for fleets and for for people who actually need to do work with this vehicle. It's got a smaller infotainment system screen. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 12:01 it's only 12 inches. Yeah. That's right. It's really tiny. Roberto Baldwin 12:06 It's, it's fine. It's, you know, it does wireless CarPlay and Android Auto. So if you're into that, it didn't have a charging pad anywhere though. Really wireless charging. I think that's probably something that just or I just couldn't find it because there's so many cubbyholes, and they Nicole Wakelin 12:24 got lost and all the features lost and medium pizza sitting on the table. And you just Yes Roberto Baldwin 12:31 cares about any of that. Yeah, no, overall, you know, you still have the Ford sensing system, which is nice, especially when you're backing out of spots with a giant truck. It didn't have a blue cruise. So I didn't get to test that. But I'm, you know, they are getting better with blue cruise. So I'm assuming that, you know, those that'll just continue to get better. I hope fingers you know, good on them for making things better. Had the tailgate step. LED box lighting it 20 inch alloy dark gray wheels, the whole shebang. Sam Abuelsamid 13:11 Hey, those 20s are good for an extra 20 miles of range over the 20 twos on the on the platinum. So you should always Roberto Baldwin 13:18 get the smaller wheels. Absolutely. Especially on a truck, on a truck, on a car on everything. Because unless you're like, unless you're more show than go unless you're like I have to look beautiful, that's fine. But at the end of the day, like more sidewall means it's going to be a nicer ride. It's just there's a lot going on where you know, you know as a kid, I was like, yeah, I gotta have I bet big seven teens on my, on my my Del Sol with like sport springs. By then I drove it through San Francisco and it was like a tease rattling extravaganza. I had raised springs in the trunk. I'm like, Well, I'm not putting those on. Never putting those. Sam Abuelsamid 13:58 When I when I bought my first Mustang back in 1990. It was a 91 five litre LX and that was the first year that they went from 15 to 16 inch wheels on the five liters. And it's like wow, these things are so big compared to you know, everything else. It's like now. Those are puny. Roberto Baldwin 14:18 Yeah, I had Thirteen's on my civic and then I put fifteens on it. And I remember I was like, Wow, I'm the man. Young Robbie crazy robbing crazy Robbie. Anyway, Ford F 150. Lightning, a great truck, a great f150 If you're looking for a truck, especially a work truck, you could probably get the pro we can get the Pro and Sam Abuelsamid 14:46 the pros actually a really good bargain. It is a good burger that's Roberto Baldwin 14:49 like the one to get really to be honest, get the Pro and put the bed lining in and then you're done. Everything else is just Sam Abuelsamid 14:55 40 grand out the door and you know, at least until the end of the year. You still get a $7,500 federal tax credit on four TVs, they're probably going to hit their their 200,000 limit sometime later part of third quarter. So, until until the end of the year, you get the full tax credit and then next year it'll start to phase out, Roberto Baldwin 15:18 get while the getting's good people. Yeah. Even though the tax credits should be should not fade out as far as I've made that I've whined about the fact that we're telling, telling automakers you did a good job. Now you don't get any money. Nicole Wakelin 15:33 You're penalized. We gave you a bonus, but now we're taking it away. Roberto Baldwin 15:39 Oh, well, I guess at some point, everyone's going to be passed that thing. Sam Abuelsamid 15:43 Yeah. Toyota just passed the 200,000. Mark near did it last week. Yeah. Although they start to phase out in October. Roberto Baldwin 15:53 So well, hybrids. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 15:55 hybrids and plugins. They sold a surprising number of Prius Prime's they sold about 120,000. Prius Prime's amazingly enough. Roberto Baldwin 16:04 Oh, no, that makes sense. Because the prime because people were already hacking the, the Prius to make it a plug in hybrid. There was a couple on my street when I lived in San Francisco, you can see them like they're just like, there was just like a, like a plug. They just like crammed in. Until like one of the bumpers. Like, that's awesome. Yeah. And people were like, You got to duty and Toyota was, you know, I don't know, there used Sam Abuelsamid 16:26 to be a couple of companies that sold kits to do those retrofits, you take everything out of the trunk and drop a battery in there and hopefully gently drop gently lower a battery and Nicole Wakelin 16:40 just drop that sucker right in there. Roberto Baldwin 16:44 For the F 150 Lightning, I have to do some more Hollan probably tomorrow with it. So yeah, go grab some more mulch. I wish there was a maverick electric that's that's my take away. Sam Abuelsamid 16:56 That will be nice. Some spy photos that indicate that there might be a plug in hybrid Maverick soon so Roberto Baldwin 17:04 that's cool too. I guess I'm fine with the plug in hybrid Maverick Sam Abuelsamid 17:10 alright the call you didn't have in this week Right? Nicole Wakelin 17:14 I had no there was some we had some mechanical difficulties I guess what the vehicle that was slated for me so I got an extra week in the ultimate that I drove last week which continues to be exactly the same as it was it did not change since the last episode we recorded it no new colors new color. It didn't change color. It didn't change trims it didn't suddenly more. Sam Abuelsamid 17:34 Sitting in my tires didn't get two inches larger. Nicole Wakelin 17:36 No nothing happened. I was really disappointed. I thought it might just evolve just sitting in the did not evolve. It stayed the same. terribly disappointing. I know I was I was completely misled by the marketing. But yeah, so same car had last week Sam Abuelsamid 17:48 last. Well, I guess that's what happens when you don't have over the air update capabilities. Exactly. They Nicole Wakelin 17:52 couldn't make all that stuff better. Dang it. Come on. He's on step up your game. Sam Abuelsamid 17:57 All right. Well, I I had I was supposed to have the Cadillac CT, five Blackwing. But it had been damaged during a previous loan, and they were waiting on parts for it. So instead, they sent me the 2022 Chevrolet Bolt, eu v premier was supercruise. Wow. And last year when they before, before they did the big recall on the bolts, they had a local drive program here in Detroit. And so I had a chance to spend a couple of hours with with a Bolt EV Sam Abuelsamid 18:33 a little over a year ago. And so this is the first time I've had a chance to spend extended time with it. And, you know, if you've ever been in a bolt, this is basically the same thing, but six inches longer. So you got extra rear legroom. It's the same height as the as the regular bolt, little more cargo space, a little more rear seat space. And that's that's good, you know, and it also has all the other upgrades that they did to the bolt and and also for the Eevee last year. So it's got a restyled front facia, the regular bolt is the front fish is a little bit taller, the hoods a little more horizontal, so it has a little more, you know, crossover ish hint to it. This takes that a step further. Still isn't really a crossover but kind of sort of looks vaguely like a small crossover. So same powertrain, same battery that's in the regular bolts. The interior was extensively redone for the new one because one of the complaints since the book came out in 2017 was a lot of people complained about the hard plastics and how it you know, felt kind of cheap. I always thought you know, they had nice texture and yes, it was hard plastics, but it had nice texturing on it. So it didn't necessarily feel as really cheap cheap as a lot of cars with hard plastics. But this Evie had some nice soft touch surfaces in their same 10 inch center display and digital instrument cluster that's been on the bolt since the beginning it has updated seats which are also a bit more comfortable than they were before. Again that was one of the other complaints about the bolt is some people found that the the seats were not very comfortable front seats in particular were not very comfortable. I never really had an issue with them but these you know, these are a little better, a little little more padding added to them. The back seats in for a car this small, are shockingly roomy. And being an EVs you know part of what helps that got 150 kilowatt motor 200 horsepower motor, so this thing is reasonably quick. It'll do zero to 60 and but six and a half seconds, which is more than fast enough for what almost anybody needs. It did pass the paddleboard test which is you know, opened it up and my my inflatable paddle board in the back and it fits comfortably, along with a couple of beach chairs and bag with some towels and assorted other stuff to go to the lake. There's more than enough electrical power to use my electric pump to inflate the paddle board when we got to the lake. To Daisy along with this, she was fine in the back seat, she had plenty of room in the back seat. And we paddled around the lake with with her sitting on the front of the paddleboard. So that was fun. Nicole Wakelin 21:40 Well, you didn't send pictures this time, she was so cute. Last time I did pictures, I Sam Abuelsamid 21:44 didn't take my bag from my phone to keep it waterproof. Sam Abuelsamid 21:50 But let's see what else this one was equipped with supercruise. The bolt still has the first generation of supercruise because it hasn't, it doesn't have the new or updated electrical architecture that's on other GM EVs and some other vehicles. So it doesn't get the second generation that can do the auto Lane changing and assorted other features. But so this is basically the same system that was that launched on the Cadillac CT or the CT six, back in 2017. And it's still it hasn't been improved since then. But it's still the same basic feature set. And it still works really, really well. You know, I driven the F 150, but three or four weeks ago, and both the the F 150. And the rivian, which doesn't have hands off hands free driving capability. Both of those tended to wander more within the lane and staying within the lane. But they didn't do as good a job staying like right rock solid in the center of the lane, the bolt, rock solid in the center of the lane all the time, the system really works really well. And it's the only one that does, as you're driving down the road as you're coming up on a curve. It knows from the maps that there's a curve knows what the radius of the curve is, if your speeds a little bit above what's optimal for that curve, it'll slow you down a few miles an hour as you go through the curve and then resume your previous speed as you exit the curve. You know, something that Ford really needs to get get on the ball and do and instead of just having you know just saying Oh, put your hands back on the wheel please you know. Sam Abuelsamid 23:32 So GM GM is really doing it right as far as these types of systems go. The the bolt Evie base price for the 2022 models. For the premier, which is the higher trim level that I had on this one is was $37,500. And then the sun and sound package added another 2500 bucks, that's the premium audio system and the Chevrolet infotainment three plus with navigation. If you don't get that if you just get the base infotainment system it's it actually still has navigation, or doesn't have navigation, but it has support for wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. So you you can just use your Google Maps or Apple Maps 2200 bucks for supercruise and 395 bucks for the bright blue metallic paint which I would highly recommend. It's an excellent color. So the grand total, including destination 995 bucks came to 43,005 85 now a month or so ago, we talked about GM announcing that they were lowering the price for the cruise for the 2022 Sam Abuelsamid 24:57 or 2023 model year so those when they About sometime in July or August, they will have a sticker price that is about $6,000 less than the 2022 models. Shortly after making that announcement, they also decided, You know what, for people that have bought the 2022 models and paid the extra money, we're basically going to give you the difference. So there if you buy a 2022 bolt or Bolt EV right now, you will get a $5,900 rebate on our goals. So that brings the price down to 37. Five for this version is pretty much loaded with everything. You can also get the the base bolt, Evie, the base price on the bolt, a UV for the 20 twos is about 35,000. So that'll get you down to about 29,000. With that with that rebate, so you can get this car, you can go buy this right now for about $29,000 including delivery, which is actually quite reasonable. Most of the driving I did was actually highway driving because I had a bunch of appointments in various places. And so my overall average for the week was about 3.7 miles per kilowatt hour, which is slightly better than the lightning it's got a range of 247 miles, which just would easily do when I was driving around town doing doing a loop around town, I was actually getting about 4.7 miles per kilowatt hour. So if you're doing you know more of a mix of driving or predominantly around town, you can actually get you know, close to 300 miles or more out of this car. So you're looking at you know, a sub $30,000 Evie with lots of room for for adults and some stuff and and paddleboard and other stuff in the back. Sam Abuelsamid 26:53 Under 30 grand. So if you The only downside to the bolt and the Bolt EV is they're still limited to only 50 kilowatt DC fast charging. So not not great for road trips, it'll take you a while to charge for road trips. But if you if you're not taking road trips, and you're driving around town or even, you know, round your region, and you're charging and you can charge at home, it's it's a fantastic option. So that's the Chevy Bolt up. Nicole Wakelin 27:26 Chevy. Chevy Chevy. Sam Abuelsamid 27:30 Alright, let's get into a few of the stories of the week. Okay, so Mazda apparently has not given up on diesel engines yet. Amazingly enough, why not? Surprisingly, the, the two liter four cylinder diesel that they've had, that they briefly sold here in the CX five is actually quite popular in Japan. I'm told Nicole Wakelin 28:00 that this will pan Sam Abuelsamid 28:04 you're right, it's not Japan. And but Mazda who just recently launched a new model in Europe called the CX 60, which is a little bit slightly larger than the CX five, and will probably be the replacement for the CX five here in the next year or so. And they launched it over there with a three litre inline six cylinder gas engine, which has been rumored for a while. And they just announced a second option for the CX 63.3 liter, inline six diesel for your Honda. Roberto Baldwin 28:39 Yep. Why are still buying? I don't know what the what the split is on diesels. It's still Sam Abuelsamid 28:49 I think it's still around 20%. Back in 2015, it was like 60% Roberto Baldwin 28:55 Yeah, so it's it's not doing great. As Europe especially Europe is really pushing EVs. It's a, it's a laugh, like, Well, we made it like just just get it out there and get as many well, and then this is how we make our money and then we can hopefully start making EVs that people want. I hope that's the I don't know, we feel like that's the plan. We've already done all the work on it. We've been working on for I don't know probably like 10 years. We we really thought this Evie thing was gonna be like a, you know, a fad, like the internet and you know, clean drinking water, but it wasn't. Who knew? Oh, man, we already did all this work. So let's try to sell as many as possible in Europe and in Japan, and hope for the best. Sam Abuelsamid 29:43 Yeah, you know, this session, they've got two variants of it. 200 horsepower, and 245 horsepower, or 250 for sure. Sorry. The 200 horsepower version apparently gets 48 miles per gallon on the W LTP. Cycle. In Europe, which is probably going to be, you know, about 3940 miles per gallon EPA equivalent, which is actually, you know, surprisingly efficient for bad, you know, for an engine the size, you know, this much torque. It's 407 foot pounds of torque, and has a 48 volt mild hybrid system. But it's seems like, you know, a company like Mazda that has limited resources, you know, they're, they're, you know, a relatively smaller automaker, you know, they sell about one and a half million vehicles globally every year. And it just seems like if you've got limited resources, why would you spend it on designing this? Nicole Wakelin 30:47 I mean, it's a weird place. It's Sam Abuelsamid 30:50 always the legends. You know, they're great. Yeah. But it just seems like Roberto Baldwin 30:57 mentum within the company that we're already working on it. Yeah. It turns out EVs were coming quicker than they anticipated. And they're like, Ah, well, they're already like, 80% done. Nicole Wakelin 31:08 I mean, it could be like, well, it because really, like you might be right, because it's not like they design a car this week that comes out next week. They're going so many years head that they're trying to get, right. So their company, so it's not like, Yeah, and so they're trying to plan out like so far in advance. Maybe it was a situation where they just would, okay, this is where we're gonna go and it's like, Oh, crud, crud, well, we got to keep going in this direction. We got to finish with this. And then we can, you know, switch gears, but it's not as easy for them to make that switch as it would be for some. Roberto Baldwin 31:39 I think they're just hoping to break even on research and development of this engine. I think that's where they're good for right now that we just got to breakeven. Nicole Wakelin 31:47 Let's not lose money. Please don't let us lose money. Just don't let us lose money. Just to break even guys. That's all we're looking for just enough. Maybe we just think they're gonna do it. Sam Abuelsamid 31:59 Maybe if they put that this engine in the Miata? No. Nicole Wakelin 32:04 Sam, stop. Sam Abuelsamid 32:07 I wouldn't want to do that. Can you imagine Nicole Wakelin 32:09 what that would sound like? And Roberto Baldwin 32:13 there's nowhere to like, hide the sound is Nicole Wakelin 32:16 no way to hide anything. It's too small. The packaging. Oh, my God. Don't worry, we won't do that to me. We won't let them we'll stop before we let them do that. Sam Abuelsamid 32:29 Okay, so anyway, we'll probably never see this engine in the United States. I think they only sold about 2000 of the CX five diesels. Roberto Baldwin 32:41 That's not worth it sounds I see for a tiny company. Anytime. Sam Abuelsamid 32:46 All right. Mr. San Francisco. Yes. Sam Abuelsamid 32:51 Apparently, you're not allowed to park in your own driveway in San Francisco. All right. I know, a lot of in a lot of communities with HOAs. You're, you're not allowed to park more than one or two vehicles in your driveway. And you're not allowed to have, you know, anything that isn't, you know, pristine and attractive in your driveway, but to not be able to park anything at all in your driveway? What's going on here? Roberto Baldwin 33:12 So okay, so first of all, I'm gonna preface this with anything anytime one thing happens to one person in San Francisco. The entire nation believes that it's indicative of the entire city it is it is. Oh, it is. It's like every time like, Oh, someone in Florida did something. Like that's not all a sample size. Sam Abuelsamid 33:31 But but the thing is with Florida, these things happen so frequently. Better. Okay. cliche, but there has to be some truth in there. Roberto Baldwin 33:40 Yeah. But okay, so is this ridiculous? Yes. Would this happened in another city? I'm sure it has to be completely honest. This person has been dropped parking in this like little parklet in front of their house forever. They have already for like 34 years or whatever. Yeah, it looks like a little legit like little parking space. I'm sure at some point, they had the little carve out done in there. And no one ever told the city and then one day, some board person on the parking department was like, Hey, wait a second. This is like a parking spot. You can't park in this spot because it probably wasn't designated as a parking spot before because what happens in San Francisco is that you see a lot of lawns that have been concreted over. People will put concrete on their lawn. They'll remove it and then they park their car on it. Yeah. Nicole Wakelin 34:36 Are not legal at all. Roberto Baldwin 34:38 That's the thing. Down to the weird as as people just do is like double parking. Everyone in San Francisco double parks, we all double park. That's just something you have to do in order to live in a city and we've all gotten a ticket and we're all like, Alright, fine. Nicole Wakelin 34:54 Because we're living here. Roberto Baldwin 34:55 It's the it's the cost of living. There are two wonderful feelings when you live in San Francisco. The first First one is finding an apartment. The second one is finding a parking space. Like you're like, Oh, I found a parking space you're so happy. There's there's two, there's far more people in San Francisco now than there were when I moved here. In 2000, there's like 100,000 more people, which means there's more vehicles. And of course, Uber and Lyft have made it even worse. It's Uber and Lyft. It's sort of a nightmare. And so, you know, they have their parking spot, and they think everything's cool. And then the city's like, Nah, like, well, that's, it's it's a, it's a jerk move. But it's also bureaucracy. And it's the same sort of bureaucracy that someone in Des Moines, Iowa is probably dealing with right now. And in Kansas City, and in all these other cities. But because it's San Francisco, it's San Francisco's an easy target. Nicole Wakelin 35:47 I gotta be so just to reinforce the idea that San Francisco is an easy target. So we lived in the same neighborhood for 25 years. And all of a sudden, arbitrarily at one point, maybe five or six years ago. They're like, You can't park in this in the street overnight, or like, since why? And they literally came around in the middle of the night and like everybody who happened to randomly have one of their cars parked in the street, where there's it's not even like there's parking spaces. It's so empty, like just park there's every and they gave a riddle tickets, no parking tickets. And then they came through we asked her like what and like I called because we got on and like what? What's the I just What did I do wrong? I parked in like, You can't park on your street. It was like since when she was like, since like 1912. Okay, apparently, it's been an ordinance that's been on the books since like the beginning of time. And arbitrarily, some random guy decided to start enforcing it. And now if you park on the street in our neighborhood, you'll get a ticket. Sam Abuelsamid 36:42 Apparently, there must have been a budget shortfall Nicole Wakelin 36:43 this year. I know exactly what your budget weirdnesses they've just got like everyone's been doing it forever. And yet, suddenly. Oh, I guess I guess we can't No, thanks. Roberto Baldwin 36:55 It's really ridiculous because people park their motorcycles on the sidewalk, which is completely illegal. And I've never parked a motorcycle on the sidewalk. I've never parked my best foot on the sidewalk. I park it in a garage or on Robbie ticket. No one they should be getting tickets because they're blocking the sidewalk. There's all these people park their cars on the sidewalk and just like you can't park your kid you're blocking the sidewalk. But you know, but now we got we got these. This one couple has this one house? And yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 37:25 And the thing is, this wasn't just any ticket this a $1,500. Fine. I Nicole Wakelin 37:30 know how did it get to me that much. That's such a weird number. It feels like they ignored something for a while Sam Abuelsamid 37:35 since the accumulated fine for 34 years of parking. Nicole Wakelin 37:40 Once they admit it, it's like wait a second, click, click, click click, click now you always do it in 50,000. Roberto Baldwin 37:44 I don't know if you're looking at because you're not supposed to park on, you know, on the sidewalk, but I don't think it's $1,500 Fine. It's such a weird, weird Sam Abuelsamid 37:53 little. And they're not even on the site. They're Roberto Baldwin 37:57 on the sidewalk. But there's also there's also a cutout. So at some point someone was like, Yeah, that's fine. Was there not a permit for the cutout? Is it all because like, oh, that cutouts not supposed to be there. So we're going to charge you for that. And then you've been parking there. So we're going to charge you for that is cumulative of all these things that apparently they've been doing wrong Nicole Wakelin 38:14 for him. And just no one called him out. And Roberto Baldwin 38:17 there's no one called them out. It's there to it. Now it's i i think there's a lot more to the story that it has to do with permitting and where they're parking than what we what we know. But at the end of the day, it's ridiculous. It's also ridiculous in our culture. Nicole Wakelin 38:35 My neighborhood there's like literally it's like there is no we don't even have numbered or anything or like parking space lines were so rural there's no lines just make up your own spot when you do Park during the day like a good neighborhood but no, you just just not at night. If we're if you're on the road, I'm on the on the street after midnight, I think was that the guy said, after midnight, you're officially considered overnight parking and then you can't park something. So when if I like went to good friends and we went to a late movie like, Oh, we're gonna get a ticket. You're parked outside? Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 39:08 See? That's it. There you go. So that's where that's the issue is that the parking enforcement is sort of ridiculous, ridiculous and arbitrary and ridiculous and arbitrary. And these people in San Francisco are getting hosed by it. And Nicole is apparently also Nicole Wakelin 39:26 out here in rural New Hampshire. Dang it, I get that there's people in San Francisco. Except my find I think I paid $10 Roberto Baldwin 39:34 I miss a little bit more. Well, yeah, that's Nicole Wakelin 39:37 obviously been to the shape for the $10 It wasn't over 1000 But I was still like, why? Roberto Baldwin 39:42 It was 45 I remember it was like $25 And then I got a ticket. It was $45 a year a few years later. And then like, years after that I got the ticket. These are all the same ticket like double parking or Yeah. And it was $75. So over the years that had gone up, I lived in the city for 20 years. years 19 years I don't a long time, and but every every few years ago, but I didn't get a lot of tickets because I'm very careful, I'm always keeping an eye I only have one, I only got two double parking tickets. So good. Again, for the most part, like cops will drive by either like me or whatever. There's other, there's others that there's other issues going on in the world right now Nicole Wakelin 40:23 for Cisco, here's some additional issues rather than you and your motorcycle to worry about. Sam Abuelsamid 40:30 Alright, right now Ford is on the fourth generation of the escape that they launched three years ago and you say escapade, Nicole Wakelin 40:43 watch Finding Nemo 1000 times with my children as skabe Sam Abuelsamid 40:48 Alright, anyway, when they designed the current generation of escape, they decided to split it basically into two vehicles and make one that was more more car like which is the one that is called the escape now and then the other one they decided to make a little more rugged off roadie, you know more like a real SUV, and they call that the Bronco sport. Apparently, that's not enough because evidently now they're looking at doing a escape active. Which, Nicole Wakelin 41:23 what does that mean? I don't know. Just to give you an idea and blah blah blah. Let's see. It doesn't tell you why. Right. Like what does active mean is the other one the escape? Sedentary I guess. Sam Abuelsamid 41:39 Yeah, I guess you know, this is supposed to be a little bit more lifestyle ish. You know? I don't know. It's the Nicole Wakelin 41:47 jazz hands version of Roberto Baldwin 41:50 that platform having the escape. The Maverick and the Broncos sport is great boom there you go. You got three solid cars this game you still have all the all those we have those three vehicles escapes the weakest one is the maverick. The Maverick and the Broncos sport are those are the ones to get and the Bronco sport they haven't they can't even make enough so now they're making another vehicle in the same platform just don't just don't Sam Abuelsamid 42:15 just use that capacity to make more more Roberto Baldwin 42:17 Maverick Maverick people want the maverick? Yeah. Guy man chasing me down on a motorcycle because I was driving a maverick. Maverick and like Yeah. Oh my God. Is it yours away? No, no, no. He's like high 100 Rs Rs. COVID I haven't been able to look at it and we can go forward and look around. When I had to escape, no one follows me. No one cares. Nicole Wakelin 42:36 No one cares at all. No, Sam Abuelsamid 42:38 it just blends into the background. It's a harsh Yeah. Yeah, this this the one that they have the spy photos of here on auto blog. Has a refresh. It's obviously midcycle refresh so do new front facia. It doesn't it doesn't really look any more rugged or anything than a current escape so active to you know, not really Roberto Baldwin 43:02 just like every other SUV in the world every other crossover in the world it's come on guys. You have you have three vehicles on this platform don't make a force. Or if you're gonna make a fourth make it cool. Sam Abuelsamid 43:15 Yeah, do something distinctive. Roberto Baldwin 43:17 Come on. You're killing it lately. Ford Nicole Wakelin 43:19 Don't they know. Now don't don't screw it up. You're enrolled. Roberto Baldwin 43:23 Here's the thing this keep active they'll send like 200,000 units. Nicole Wakelin 43:27 Is it just is this just a trademark? are they actually doing Sam Abuelsamid 43:30 it? They trade they trademark the active name. But they haven't said anything trademarked yet. They have active on some models in Europe. Like they have the and there's there's rumors of a fusion active wagon coming which is sort of an Outback Subaru Outback style vehicle activity, that that would actually be pretty cool. Yeah, and in Europe, they have the EcoSport active and the Fiesta active, which they get an extra inch of ride height. Doesn't look like this escape in these photos has any extra ride height though? I don't know. All right. But that's not the only new trademark application from Ford. They also have thunder for that one under. So the story in the drive is speculating that the thunder name will be used for off road EVs. But I don't know I mean, why, you know, they already have raptor and they have tremor, you know, why not? Use one of those names? You know if you're going to do a more off roadie f150 Lightning, you know, call it a f150 Lightning tremor, or thunder or Raptor. You know, but it's Nicole Wakelin 44:49 just that there's a lightning and now there's thunder. Sam Abuelsamid 44:52 Yeah. Well, what I was thinking was what would make more sense with the thunder name, you know, thunders. You know, kind of maybe a little less paw or fold and then lightning. Do that as a plug in hybrid. So have a plug in plug in hybrid truck. You got a plug in hybrid Maverick coming. There's probably going to be a plug in hybrid Ranger and probably a plug in version of the the F 150. Why not? You know, MIT call those the thunder. So Roberto Baldwin 45:21 they can get that AC DC song? Yeah, I think I really think they're just doing it to get that AC DC song. Nicole Wakelin 45:27 That's it. That's the entire marketing strategies. Sam Abuelsamid 45:32 Under struck for commercial. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 45:34 I would totally name something thunder, just if I could get an AC DC song. Nicole Wakelin 45:40 I worked on one reason I love dealing with that. I Roberto Baldwin 45:43 worked at a place where they were trying to get the rights to an AC DC song for like, whatever. And they just they couldn't do it. They were like, No. Ah, wow. So but maybe four. Could you because you know, Angus. I believe Angus is a big he's a he's a car aficionado? Sam Abuelsamid 46:00 Yeah, I think he had a Ford GT for a while. Or is it Roberto Baldwin 46:03 Brian? Not wait, Brian. Oh, man. I don't know enough. Sam Abuelsamid 46:08 All right. Speaking of EVs, Tesla will apparently finally start opening up some of their superchargers in the US to Nan. Yes, yeah. What do you think? Well, I use a supercharger. Instead of Electrify America, Roberto Baldwin 46:26 I wrote an article like six years ago saying they should do this. I talked to somebody, let's just say at a car company that starts with ti about it. And I was like, yes, you should do this. And all the Tesla people yelled at me. No, you're just stupid me, Deborah, Deborah, Deborah. But Tesla is that's the killer. First of all, that's the killer app for a Tesla is the charge the charge station because everything else everyone's caught up to everyone else's caught up to them. They've caught to one battery technology, motor and everything else that Tesla has. They've everyone else has caught up to him technology wise, except for the Supercharger network. And if this is a way for them to get money, that's great, because they're going to charge money, it's probably going to be a premium if you want to charge at the Supercharger network, etc. But no, this is I mean, this is, on one hand, I think it's a really good deal because it's going to make them money. And in the article I wrote 100 years ago, it's also a way to get people who are like, Oh, I have 100 ionic five. But you know, let's put a model three, you know, you're going to be pulling in with your other Eevee and see all these Tesla's, and that's like, oh, maybe I should get a Tesla for my next vehicle. Or you can have a little showroom there. There's all these sort of conversion things that they can do at the supercharger networks, especially the really nice ones along interstates where you can probably maybe convert some of these other Eevee owners into Tesla owners. On the other hand, if this is the number one reason to buy a Tesla, you lose the number one reason to buy the Tesla. If you can do it in ionic five, you can do it a Chevy Bolt, if you can do so it's I think it's great for infrastructure overall for the entire industry. I don't know how great it is for Tesla, though. Nicole Wakelin 48:10 Yeah. I think the same thing. I don't know. I wonder how much I mean, I think it'd be a great boon for people saying, well, now I don't have to find a chart. It's like easy to find a Tesla supercharger, those are easy to find comparatively. You see them everywhere. You don't even have to look for them when you're like stopping by roadsides. And if you're at any kind of, you know, remotely reasonable roadside stop, there's probably a Tesla Supercharger right there. So you have to think about it. So it makes it more likely that you can think okay, well, you're it's super easy to take that drive that AV six or that ionic five or whatever it is that you're driving, but I don't know, I'm not sure how much that benefits Tesla aside from the cash in their pocket for letting you use it. I don't know that that would convert someone. I mean, it could You're right. I hadn't really thought about that. But what it really convert someone from going with a, you know, like, I'm going to ditch my Hyundai now and get a Tesla. You know, I don't know if that would happen. Sam Abuelsamid 48:59 Well, I think you know, what one wanted one other advantage that Tesla has, is that, you know, third superchargers generally tend to be a lot more reliable than certain other companies like Electrify America. You don't very often see people complaining about superchargers not working. You know, when when you plug in a Tesla, it almost always gets us now sometimes they don't run as fast as they should. But they usually don't not work at all. Roberto Baldwin 49:31 I was at one in Las Vegas, that was give me four kilowatts. I was like, Oh man, yeah. The person who laughed the person who's parked next to me laughed and went up. And I was just like, I'm never leaving this place. I hope I don't miss my meeting. Sam Abuelsamid 49:47 Yeah, well, I think you know, the other thing is that, you know, there's seven and a half billion dollars of federal money from an infrastructure bill coming for charging infrastructure and any Buddy wants any of those dollars is going to have to make their their chargers are going to have to be accessible to everyone. So, if Tesla wants any of those any of that money, which I'm sure they do, they will have to make their chargers open to everyone they can. They can't, they can't restrict them to any one brand of vehicle. Roberto Baldwin 50:22 Well, that but that also opens up issues with reliability because Tesla only has to work with Tesla, right? It's like, you know, it's like you're you're plugging in your iPhone to your to your MacBook Air. That's fine, because it only has to work. It doesn't have to work at the zoo doesn't have to work at Google or any of those other things, it just plugs right in. Now Tesla will have to bring in other automakers vehicles and get the software to work. You have to work with other automakers to make sure the software and the Tesla superchargers worked with the software the vehicles that are doing so you might initially I think there's gonna be some some some hiccups just because it's not easy. You can ask Electrify America, they'll tell you. Nicole Wakelin 51:00 Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if that does become a problem. If it's like the Tesla folks are still able to easily charge their Tesla's and everybody else is like, dang it. This isn't doing what it's supposed to do, Sam Abuelsamid 51:08 you know? Yeah. And the other thing with the infrastructure bill is the chargers that get funded through that bill will have to use CCS connectors, so they wouldn't be able to use the proprietary Tesla charging connector. So be curious to see if they Tesla starts deploying superchargers in North America are at least in the US with CCS. They already do in Europe, because they already mandated several years ago in Europe that all EVs have to use CCS. So the superchargers in Europe already have CCS connectors. But you know, I'll be curious to see if they do that here. Or if they just make customers use an adapter. Roberto Baldwin 51:53 I think there'll be adapters available, because there'll be like one CCS charger. Yeah, I like 12 chargers, initially, like, well, if I just have the adapter, he's just like, pull up, pull up. I think that'll probably but it'd be what ends up happening. I don't know. I mean, I hope it I hope it comes to pass. I think, you know, again, Tesla Supercharger network, you can't beat it. I could drive across the country. There. If you're driving across country, and someone's like, well, I want to take a Tesla, I want to take our Hyundai onic five, and like, you know what, I really love the Hyundai onic. Five. But unless you want to do planning, like you used to in the 90s, where you had like a, you know, your map out like, Oh, we're gonna do it. Yeah, this road and this. That's what you have to do with electric vehicle to drive across United States, you have to actually plan or use a better route planner, but you can still like, you still have to do some planning tests later, just like you get in the car cars, like you can go to here and charge and you know what, when you're done, go over there and charge him. You know what, go over there. It's just seamless. Nicole Wakelin 52:45 Yeah, we thought we were doing our own. We drove down to Tennessee, that was my biggest frustration. It's like if we wanted, you know, we just have a plug in hybrid. So it's not like we had to charge. But it was still kind of that. Like, I don't want to have to stop here or have to stop there. Like I just want to stop or I want to stop and there aren't chargers everywhere. We want to stop and to heck with it. You know? Roberto Baldwin 53:04 You do a lot of shopping at Walmart though. Nicole Wakelin 53:06 I would have to do a lot of shopping at Walmart. Sam Abuelsamid 53:10 Alright, speaking of shopping at Walmart, the GMC Hummer, you were complaining earlier, Robbie about the efficiency of the f150. Lightning. The Hummer is by far and away the least efficient levy on the market. I think it's rated at something like 47 MPG II. You know, where's the F 150s? About 70. And the bolt Evie is 125. So the I forget the name of this organization. Roberto Baldwin 53:48 AC e Sam Abuelsamid 53:50 Yeah. It's the only find it here. It is the American Council for energy for an energy efficient economy. And on their website, one of the things that they do is they they do a lot of research on, you know, all kinds of energy efficiency things and one of the things that they've done is they've got they've built a site called greener vehicles, and they go through EVs and figure out, you know, how much how much energy is these things actually using and a bunch of other stuff. And they give gifts, vehicles a score. And the worst Evie that they've ever scored. Is the bolt TV or the Hummer, EV a Hummer? Nicole Wakelin 54:42 I'm sorry, I will Sam Abuelsamid 54:45 tell you, when they translate it with you know, what is the average co2 mix because the thing you got to remember about EVs, they don't have any direct emissions from the vehicle. But depending on where the electricity is coming from, there's still emissions. So ciated with it. And the Hummer EV, based on the average mix of electric electricity sources in the US emits 341 grams per mile of co2. Now, compared to the old Hummer h1 20 years ago, that's actually really, really good because the Hummer h1 Did 889 grams of co2 per mile. But the gas powered Chevy Malibu that you can apparently still go out and buy, if you can find one somewhere is rented only at 320 grams per mile. So it is more efficient and emits and has less emissions associated with it than a Hummer, Evie. Roberto Baldwin 55:47 Currently based on the how the grid is built? Yeah, yes. Nicole Wakelin 55:51 So that could change as the grid changes. Sam Abuelsamid 55:53 Yeah, it will and it will changes Roberto Baldwin 55:54 as the grid continues to evolve. You know, the, the plan is to make it cleaner and cleaner, which is becoming cleaner and cleaner. And not because every you know, all these companies are all you know, they all love the environment. It's just solar and wind are actually really cheap compared to coal. Yeah, we could we could build a peeker or we could just get a bunch of solar a solar array and throw some batteries in there. And that's way cheaper and we can start it up anytime. We can just throw that in there within a few months as opposed to a couple of years to build a disgusting gross diesel and or coal peaker? Yeah, so it's Yeah, so but also, I mean, the Hummer EV is ridiculous. Nicole Wakelin 56:33 It is ridiculous. There's nothing logical in any way, shape or form. No, it is. Roberto Baldwin 56:37 Everything about the Henry. Evie is ridiculous. Um, gaane. GM knows it's ridiculous. GM, they've had to have known him was ridiculous. I don't think they were going for like, Hey, look at this wonderful, like green vehicle. It's wonderful and green compared to the h one. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 56:58 And if you want to see how different cars are compared against each other, if you go to greener cars.org, I'll put the link in the show notes. You can see the full database and search through their search, find the greenest cars, the greenest car on their list is actually the aforementioned Toyota Prius Prime, which is has a green score of 69 followed by the Hyundai ionic plug in hybrid, which is now no longer available. 68 The Mini Cooper se at 67 and the Mazda MX 30 actually does pretty well with 65 which is quite nice. But you know, doesn't have very much range. So there's that and then of course the meanest you know, is the the Hummer by are actually not that the Hummer is actually not the meanest, the ram TRX is the meanest with a score of just 22 and the Jeep Wrangler, not the four by E but the regular Wrangler is a 28. So yeah, that's not great. All right. final story is we've talked before about dealer markups on new cars and you know, some of the ridiculous markups that some dealers are charging with the limited availability that we have on a lot of models right now. So apparently, there's a site out there called markups.org. And if you want to go through and check, you know, they it's crowdsourced. So it's a database that somebody has put together and you can search by model search by location. And you can see what markups dealers are charging on various models. So around me here in southeast Michigan, they've got six listings for the f150 lightning. The best is Bill Brown, Ford and Livonia not far from where I used to work. They have zero markup, and they're one of the biggest Ford dealers in the country. And so they they have they're not charging any markup on the lighting and also preferred Ford is also not charging the markup. On the other hand, Milan's Ford, somewhere here in Michigan is charging 20 grand, so Nicole Wakelin 59:29 $20,000 Yep. Sam Abuelsamid 59:32 Which is not the most enlightening Yeah, there was there was another dealer that was charging like 69,000 That was basically 100% markup. So if you're, if you're looking to buy a car, and you want to see what what dealers are charging, or find a dealer that's not charging markups. You can go to markups.org and search and hopefully find find a good deal on a new vehicle. It's Nicole Wakelin 59:59 a really cool way to make sure that like it before you get out there and you think like, oh, they haven't been stalking you get there. Yeah. But we're gonna charge you an arm and a leg to get it for you. You know, Roberto Baldwin 1:00:08 there's a lot of places that wanting to put the prices on online anymore, right? Nicole Wakelin 1:00:11 So you don't you have no idea whether you're going to get there and the price is going to be reasonable or outrageous, which seems wrong. I feel like if they're gonna put it online and forget it, I'll go to the next guy in line. Because, yeah, that's hiding something from me. You know, Roberto Baldwin 1:00:23 we're buying the Hyundai, we were asking about a bunch of different cars with much different dealerships. And like a lot of places wouldn't this wouldn't have surprised like, oh, we won't want to make a deal. Until you know, you get here and like, Well, I'm not coming in now. I just told him like, Well, I'm not coming in. There's not it's none of my it's, it's not to my it doesn't help me to come in either. You tell me what the price of the car is, or I just You just don't get money for me. And they decided not to get money from me. Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:52 Just fine. Yeah. So markups.org Before you go car shopping? Good, good resource. Thanks to Jalopnik for that one. All right, let's answer a few questions. Paul Kavanaugh asked any predictions on the fate of the first Vietnamese car company to set up shop in the US that would be vinfast. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:15 One of the unique details about this company is that they are going to be the first in the US to offer a separate lease for the battery for EVs. So you buy the car and then you have a separate monthly payment for the battery. And, you know, upside of that is you you get you know, they'll guarantee the battery you know, if the battery starts to degrade, they'll you know, they'll swap it out no problem. And Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:44 you can also do, there's a couple of different tiers of battery leases, based on how many miles you think you're going to drive so you can have you know, if you're not going to drive that far, you can get the cheaper one. Or if you're going to be doing more driving you can get the unlimited package. What do you guys think about vinfast and this battery deal? Nicole Wakelin 1:02:08 It's not a deal. It's not a deal. Why do you say it's not a Roberto Baldwin 1:02:11 deal because you're still paying for the lease of the car and then you have to pay this additional amount? And the amount of miles you get is very low. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:18 For the for the cheapest Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:02:20 it seems like a deal when you think about the idea of it. It seems like it's gonna be like oh, this is gonna be great then when you look at the details of the deal, it's kind of like maybe not so great. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:30 Well and it would be better you know if the if the Evie was you know if it was actually cheaper but it's not the vehicle itself is not actually that that affordable and it's I think the the base price is like $54,000 and that's before the battery lease. And have you had a chance to look at one of these in person yet. Nicole Wakelin 1:02:54 No, I haven't I don't think I've seen one now. Oh, Roberto Baldwin 1:02:57 I think I probably saw it at a car show I Nicole Wakelin 1:02:59 know maybe the car show but that's about it. Sam Abuelsamid 1:03:01 They had him at the at the New York Auto Show and they were in LA as well. And the one when they were in LA they the ones they had there didn't have interiors yet but the ones in New York yeah apparently the I didn't get a chance to look at the interiors but apparently they were not great. Yeah, the fit and finish although you know, granted they were pre production cars so you know we'll see you know when they actually get here they're supposed to launch here by the end of the year but yeah the the pricing on these you know even with even with the battery leases not It's not doesn't sound like a great deal right now so we'll see if they make some changes and some adjustments to that Roberto Baldwin 1:03:45 Yeah, I think they'll probably do away with those at some point once it comes to market but you know Hyundai when they first came over here their cars are horrible that's true there was pure trash and I think what helped Hyundai is they were came over around the same time as the Hugo and so everyone just focused on the Hugo it was so much that was like a dumpster fire literally, it was literally a dumpster Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:08 fire they did they did have a tendency to catch fire. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 1:04:11 or not shift gears there's a lot of things that they did or didn't do that they weren't they shouldn't have been doing as cars. So you know it we'll see how that works out later on as time progresses. And you know, a few years 10 years from now, you know, 15 years. I mean, Hyundai is now you're like, people ask me what kind of car I'm like, have you looked at Hyundai's lately so that's not a thing I would have said in the 90s Nicole Wakelin 1:04:31 now and people still are surprised when you say Hyundai i think if they haven't looked on their list they wait that's a that's a piece of junk that's terrible like clearly have not looked at one in a while. Go find a dealership go look at one you know well that's Roberto Baldwin 1:04:42 that should be one of their concerns is like coming over here. You need to come over here strong because if you come over here with a Hyundai XL, that sticks with you for decades. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:04:51 that it's so hard to break that reputation because Dundee is genuinely a great brand. It's a great value, but it is hard to convince people and mean people give you the stink eye when you suggest it like this, like you're nuts. It's like, what was last time you drove a Hyundai? Like, well, I don't know, like 15 years ago, they weren't now it's 15 years later, give them a try now and it's people don't want to believe you, they really think you're nuts. Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:16 Alright. Marcelo asks, he heard me on Leo Laporte, the tech guy radio show where I do a weekly segment every Sunday. And he says, Hi wheel bearings team. On the tech guy show on July 3, Sam suggested leasing over buying or financing an Eevee this had me do a double take on what I was planning. Do you feel the same way if it's a luxury vehicle over $160,000 Thank you for your insight and your fantastic content. Marcelo PS, I ordered a Topcon GTS expecting delivery this fall, August or September. So Roberto Baldwin 1:05:52 Well, first of all, I'm very jealous of Marcelo getting a Thai kanji. We don't even care what he does. Now. He's He's fine. Everything is downhill from this though, sir. I'm sorry. Your life is getting the Thai kanji. Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:12 What about the leasing question? I mean, you know, I mean, actually, I think last week, we talked about the fact that Ford is now going to stop allowing buyouts customer allowing you to buy your vehicle at the end of the lease. If it's an Eevee does does that does any of that change your opinion on leasing one way or the other? Nicole Wakelin 1:06:34 I think if I couldn't buy it out, that would probably impact my decision. Because yeah, I think that would probably make me think twice about it. Roberto Baldwin 1:06:44 I am team leasing I think I've written like three articles about leasing there's a lot of reasons I like one is and three years you know, there's going to be different EVs, the, you know, they they're moving so quickly, the the advances on these vehicles, especially battery technology, in three years, there might be something battery wise, that you're gonna be like, oh, man, I can get 500 miles on the GTS now, as opposed to the to something that I can get in the one I just purchased. So there's that. And also luxury vehicles, most people kind of lease luxury vehicles. Yeah, no one buys Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:22 much higher, much higher portion of leases in the luxury market, then in the mainstream market. Roberto Baldwin 1:07:28 And then there's, I don't think it's as big of a concern as it used to be, but there's all there's also battery degradation. If you have a GTS, you're probably gonna be blasting that thing all over the place. And you're like, well, I need a supercharged which, of course, is going to lead to more battery degradation. So those are sort of Yeah, I feel like the technology is moving really quickly. And then any issues if you're concerned at all about battery degradation, if you can afford to lease go for lease, if it works, if it makes sense for you financially. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:58 Yeah, I would agree with that. I think especially for EVs you know less so for for gas engine vehicles, but for EVs you know, what, you know, what's going to be available three years from now is you're gonna have more selection, more models, more more price points, more form factors. So it probably is a better idea to lease although if the supply chain crisis continues on, oh, God, do you want to buy and you know, Sam Abuelsamid 1:08:29 make sure that there's actually something else to replace it with at the end of the lease, because if you if you lease and then you can't buy it out at the end of the lease, and there's nothing available to to buy to replace it and could be a problem. Yeah. All right. Last one is also another listener from the from the radio show. And this from Gina says, even though I'm not a huge car person, Joy listening, purchased a used 2017 BMW AI three for $17,000. About 18 months ago, I had a battery charger installed on my home, I only got about 150 miles on a full charge. So I'm limited to where I can go. However, I generally stick close to home anyway. If I do need to travel, I rent a car. I'm just wondering, what do you think? At what point should I consider trading it in terms of its life expectancy? I do like it very much beyond all that. Well, first of all, I'll say that I think this is a great approach to take with EVs you know shorter range EVs, you know if it can use it for your daily driving, and you know, on the occasional times when you need longer range, rent a gas car, right. But what do you think about when, when Gina should consider trading it in? Nicole Wakelin 1:09:46 I would not trade it anytime soon. Roberto Baldwin 1:09:51 It's a carbon fiber vehicle, like carbon fiber car Unknown Speaker 1:09:54 17,000. Nicole Wakelin 1:09:56 I don't like why would you trade it in? I wouldn't talk to that. Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:00 technology, technology, you're getting Roberto Baldwin 1:10:03 a bath of technology in your little life. Or your little ie three. No, that's it's a great 150 miles, especially if you're just cruising around town. Looking for you. That's perfect. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:10:14 I would keep it if it's working for her all the time. She doesn't need that more than 150 Fish is too close to home. And why do you need something else? If it's working in your if you're not having to rent a car every other day? Because you need longer range? It's like an occasional thing thing, then stick with what you got. This is working. Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:32 Yeah, yeah. And that battery, you know, the battery in there is probably going to go you know, at least, you know, it's probably still going to be good for you for at least another seven to 10 years. Yeah. By which time you know, because it's not that big of a battery. You know, it's only like, I think a 40 kilowatt hour battery and those later i threes. You know, it actually probably won't be that expensive to replace. Roberto Baldwin 1:10:59 Oh, yeah, that's true. It's probably gonna be right now. That's if I could get it a three for like nothing. I would totally I remember when they were like super cheap. Yeah. Because the because people were like, freaked out about the range of kids. You can get an A three for like a nickel, and I really, really sad. I will say that my wife does not like them. She doesn't like it. She's like the way it looks just the way. My favorite story about the three is the I had went in for review. We're walking down the street towards the car. This one we lived in the city. And I'm like, oh, we'll take your review car. She's like, we're not driving that blue thing. Nicole Wakelin 1:11:39 She's like, I'm gonna walk it honey. It's 20 miles. It's okay. I'll walk. I'll see you there and Roberto Baldwin 1:11:44 I liked it a lot. I liked the little cars even though my big guy. I like little I don't need like, Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:51 it's actually surprisingly roomy because it's tall. Yeah, a Roberto Baldwin 1:11:54 little door in the back. A little like sight Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:59 can fit the dogs in there. You could Roberto Baldwin 1:12:01 just open a little door dogs. Most dogs could jump and back. Yeah, fine. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:06 All right. That's it for this week. Thanks, everybody for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Bye.