Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 258 of wheel bearings, you've got the Maserati Levante Trofeo, the Toyota Corolla hatchback, Mazda Miata RF, and American made VW ID4, expanded supercruise network Toyota offering to buy back EVs and more. All that coming up next

Sam Abuelsamid  0:21  
This is episode 258 of wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  0:27  
I'm Nicole Wakelin from the fast women podcast.

Roberto Baldwin  0:29  
And I'm Roberto Baldwin, from ARS, Technica.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:33  
And Robbie, you apparently, again, don't have anything in your driveway. So cars at

Roberto Baldwin  0:39  
all and I'm on like a car sabbatical just because I have so much work to do. And some of it is actually reviewed cars that I just haven't had the chance to write up. And the other is the fact that I have other work that I have to do. And if I have a car, that I want to drive the car and then of course I need to drive the car. And so I'm like, as a adult, I'm trying to do adult things, and the adult thing right now is to not have any cars for a few weeks until I've grown up. I know it's in its whole horrible. It's not well, it's not so bad because I get to drive my VRC around. It sounds like we I mean, I really, really love driving the beat might be rz. So it's like it's totally fine to actually.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18  
Okay. Speaking of fun, little two seater, or should be two seater cars. Uh huh. Have you been driving me? Mr. Cole? Well,

Nicole Wakelin  1:31  
despite my typing Volkswagen Miata in the show notes, I am not driving that that is not a vehicle in driving the Mazda Miata or the MX five they like to call it now right? You don't call it a you know, call it a Miata? Isn't that the thing?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45  
It'll always be Miata

Roberto Baldwin  1:47  
Miata and some weird thing decision to know.

Nicole Wakelin  1:50  
I mean, like it has, it's such a no name would be like saying I'm gonna gonna call it Mustang anymore. We're gonna call it like something. No, it's Mustangs. A Mustang and people know the name. So anyway, so I'm driving the Mazda Miata. I had that it was it was kind of a crazy week because we also had the New England motor press had their ragtop ramble this week. So I drove that and drove other things and drove back and forth and then having a car number four for the week. So it's been crazy. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  2:15  
I don't have no cars. And Nicole has, she's picking up the slack.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:18  
Well, speaking of speaking of the ragtop, ragtop ramble, I was looking at the pictures you were posting on Instagram. Uh, huh. None of the cars there were actually ragtop

Nicole Wakelin  2:28  
this note, some of them were reckless. The problem with the whole ragtop bamboo concept is that there are not a lot of convertible cars out there. And the OEMs want to participate and we like that so it's, it's the idea is if you have a ragtop send it but if you don't have one, send whatever you got sandwich you got that you think would be fun for all of us to drive. So I mean, like we had, you know, Ram 1500s We had fours we had a little bit everything.

Roberto Baldwin  2:52  
Yeah. Okay, so the Ram 1500 Just put people on the back and Bo rakta Yeah, definitely tired.

Nicole Wakelin  2:58  
The bed is right on top of the mom. The idea is, well, if

Sam Abuelsamid  3:02  
you have the if you have the big panoramic sunroof, you open that almost like a reptile.

Nicole Wakelin  3:09  
Yeah, but with less wind in your hair. So I have the Miata, which actually, technically not a rag top.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:16  
Oh, yeah. The RFO Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  3:18  
I have the RF

oh my god the I Have you could see the face that Sam just gave me like, What kind of bastard child are you driving this week?

Roberto Baldwin  3:28  
She just got a BRC, if that's the RF just get the BRC.

Nicole Wakelin  3:33  
But it was something so I had that drive around for just like a very short time at the house at home. Before that. I went on the ramble and drove other cars and then have a yet a third car in my Drive and that fourth car in my driveway because I have to do drive program on Sunday from my house to where I'm going. So I've driven me out of it plenty of times. And I it's kind of funny. I feel like reviewing the Miata, you either look even put our F in the show notes just to make sure.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:55  
It's just just just for the notes.

Nicole Wakelin  4:00  
It has just appeared as we're talking. So it's, you know, the Miatas little two seater convertible. It is tiny. I mean, Sam, I don't even know how you get into that it is so it is small. It is small. It is small, small, small. My husband at six three was like Oh, dear God, how how do I get into this?

Sam Abuelsamid  4:18  
Well, I actually drove the last time I drove an RF was in May at the mama spring rally at Road America. And they had an RF there is one of the cars that we could drive on the track. Okay. And the downside is, you know, on the track, we have to wear a helmet. And because it was because it was a rainy day, we couldn't drive the RF with the top open. So I got in this thing. Sitting there, my head cocked to one side, you know, to fit, you know, I pulled the seat as far forward as I could and reclined it as much as I could, you know, so my knees were up around the steering wheel, and it was it was probably The first non good Miata experience I've ever had in my life. You know, so, if you, if you plan to do trackdays with a Miata RF, you know, you want to make sure that you're you know, sufficiently or have sufficient sufficiently little physical stature that you will actually fit. Either that or you'll need to like take the seat out and take, you know, get get some different brackets, you know, so you can actually lower the seat in the chassis and so

Nicole Wakelin  5:35  
it's so it's it, but you know, it's, it is definitely a two seater for not tall people. But it is very fun. I mean, it has a great little manual transmission. It is so much fun to drive. It's and you know, the upside to having the RF that Sam apparently hates is

Sam Abuelsamid  5:51  
I don't hate it. It's just not good for will the helmet with the top closed?

Nicole Wakelin  5:57  
I don't know the eye roll when I said it was a hard top was like, Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  6:01  
I always prefer the soft top. Yes.

Roberto Baldwin  6:04  
Miyata? Yeah, that's the whole weird thing. So when you tell me when I see someone who bought the RF, I'm like, really? That's what I mean. Today. I

Nicole Wakelin  6:12  
literally saw someone who bought one here. I like today, one coming toward me in the same color. And everything is like, why did you do that? Like I wouldn't choose that. Why did why was that your choice? I just got out of that. Why did you choose that?

Sam Abuelsamid  6:25  
Give you a point of reference. You know, my feelings when it comes to me out is the license plate on my Miata as Drive Open? So

Nicole Wakelin  6:34  
yeah, so as I'm like picking on it kind of a lot. I actually love a car in the car. It's very fun to drive. It has a very limited use case. You know, if you live in the northeast, it's going to be impossible to utilize the open top situation or even drive it I think on the streets a good portion of the year because it's it's a sporty low car, it is not designed for something that where there's snow that you can have to drive through because I have to disagree with that opinion. So you can you really drive through deep snow in this

Sam Abuelsamid  7:03  
deep snow, but you can certainly drive. With winter tires on there. You can absolutely drive me out all year round. Oh, well, I

Nicole Wakelin  7:10  
mean, you can like on this one with the winter tires. But like all I see, I always think about like living in there and you live in Michigan. It's not just a matter of like snow on the road. It's how deep is the snow on the road and how deep is the snow is the roads, crossovers. You're in an intersection where you have this sort of berms of snow from the plows were suddenly there's, you know, like a foot and a half of

Sam Abuelsamid  7:32  
it here is you have to remember that the Miata is a momentum car. It's all about the momentum. Because it's not it's not exceptionally powerful. So if you've got a track or an autocross, you got you want to do things so you maintain your momentum. The same thing is true when you're driving in snow. As long as the snow is not more than about four inches deep, you're good.

Nicole Wakelin  7:51  
Four inches deep is not very much snow i We very often have more than four inches of snow in a given moment. So it would so I would fear for its safety. Not the safety just like the poor car would get destroyed. The first time they met a snowbank full of ice that I tried to drive through getting out of the grocery store parking lot, like I destroy the front end. But it is it's it's really fun. It's really cute. It is. I love that they and I don't know how many cars do this? Is it because of the whole convertible thing that everything comes through the speakers in your head like everything was in the headrest. So when I made a phone call, it's not speakers in the car. It's the speakers in the headrest, so you can very clearly hear everyone, which is kind of cool. I like that. I think they should all kind of do that. Honestly.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:32  
Yeah, actually, the Miata was one of the first cars to ever have headrest speakers like that. And that in the early years, they were optional. And mine came from the factory without those but you can you can unzip that the top part of the seat. And if you open it up, you can see in the foam there's actually cutouts for the speakers. So I installed the speaker, the headrest speakers in mind and ran them to the stereo. Because you know when you're when you're driving with the top down as you should in such a car as having all the audio right behind your head. It makes it much easier to hear. Yeah, it

Nicole Wakelin  9:09  
was really cool. I thought that was the end. It's like I don't know what other cars do that right now but it was just so perfect. Like this is great. Like, you know, even if he has a top up, it's loud, you know, convertibles aren't quiet. So to have that right at your ears instead of filling the tiny little cabin I thought it was pretty neat. Very fun to drive. Just cute makes you smile when you see it happy car I liked it. It's you know, the thing is with if you're buying something like Miata you're you're committing to the idea that you're cool with the fact that it's small. It's for two people the cupholders are impossible. It's a little you know, can be a little bit loud but like man for the days you can drop that top and you can enjoy the sun worth it. Worth it. So worth it. Absolutely. Yeah. So I am a fan despite picking on it. I am a fan of the Miata.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:58  
Well, the Miata Rf is by no means a bad car. It is just the least great Miata. Oh, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  10:07  
That's that's definitely what it

Nicole Wakelin  10:09  
said. Well said Sam is the least great Miata, and that was unfortunately, that was the only we did not have any soft top Miatas at the ramble, but I did. I brought it down there. And then I drove. I had two more cars that got to drive that were fantastic.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:24  
Anything you want to tell us about or you want to save that?

Nicole Wakelin  10:26  
I can save it for later? I can tell you about it now.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:29  
Okay, well, we'll save it for later. Okay. All right. Well, since Robbie didn't have anything to drive this week, I had to and they were really they were basically the same car. You know, they both had same wheels and internal combustion engine, step ratio transmission. They had four doors and a hatchback. So you know, there were basically the same, right?

Nicole Wakelin  10:52  
totally the same description. nothing different between these two vehicles, guys,

Sam Abuelsamid  10:56  
both 22 and two model year cars, Toyota Corolla hatchback and Maserati. Lavon TAITRA. Fail. Yeah, totally the same. Yeah, absolutely. The same with which one do you want to hear about first,

Nicole Wakelin  11:08  
the Corolla, as it was here about the Corolla first,

Sam Abuelsamid  11:11  
okay? So the Corolla This is the hatchback version of the Corolla, which is quite a bit more sporty looking than the than the sedan. And it's, it's actually quite, quite fun to drive. Yeah, this is definitely a hell of the better to drive a slow car fast variety. This is not the Corolla G are by any stretch of the imagination. It's it, it is not exceptionally quick. And it's also not exceptionally large. But it's, it's, it's more than adequate. It's got a two liter, four cylinder naturally aspirated engine. With me finding here, I think it's about 158 horsepower, or sorry, 168 horsepower, and 151 foot pounds of torque, which peaks at 4800 RPM. So not a whole lot of low end torque in this thing. But you know, it's also relatively lightweight. So and because you have a manual transmission, it's pretty easy to turn the front tires get get the front tires going. And, you know, manual transmission, very nice, six speed, it's the transmission, this is this is by no means, you know, like a GTI, or a Civic Si, in terms of the quality of the transmission, it's got relatively long throws to it, it's a fairly long shift lever, but it's still a manual. And you know, that forgives a lot of other issues. So you know, if you're, if you're looking for something that's that's reasonably enjoyable to drive, not too expensive. You can get the hatchback, the Corolla hatchback starting about 21 and a half 1000, which is puts it at the low end of what's available now in terms of new cars, assuming you can find one. The one I had was was an SSE, which is the the higher trim level, and it came up to a grand total of, or is it here $25,954 delivered. Since, you know, I was making full taking taking full advantage of the manual transmission and kind of thrashing it around a little bit. I didn't quite hit the the EPA label numbers for it, it's ready to 28 miles per gallon city 36 highway 31 combined, I got about 28 in all around driving, including a fair bit of highway driving. You know, if I had been a little more time with it, I could have gotten into the into the low 30s pretty easily. But, you know, this is I also I like the paint on this one, the color combination, it was a the two tone that Toyota offers on this with the black roof, and then this kind of lighter, bright blue lower. So everything from the belt line down is blue.

Nicole Wakelin  14:14  
Like that. I see what you're talking about. I think it looks good. I like to teach on to it looks Yeah, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  14:18  
a sharp combination. One of the, you know, this is a compact hatchback. But it while it is nominally in the same class as cars like the Honda Civic Hatchback. It's actually a fair bit smaller, it's about six inches shorter. And when you look at it in profile, you can see that the rear end is much shorter than on the the Civic hatchback, for example. So it's got a shorter wheelbase by several inches. And then basically there's very little rear overhang which you know, from a design standpoint actually looks pretty good. But if you get it with the with the optional All spare tire you can also you can get it with a tire inflator kit. So no spare tire, but I would not recommend that, in general if you can, if you can avoid it. If you get it with the inflator kit, then the rear cargo floor is several inches lower. If you get it with the spare tire, the rear cargo floor is is basically flush with the bottom of the tailgate, which makes loading fairly easy. But it also means that the the cargo area is fairly shallow, it's only 18 cubic feet, which is not you know, it's not bad. But compared to the Civic, the Civic has about 20, almost 26 cubic feet of cargo area behind the seats. So, definitely have a lot less cargo area in this one than you would with the Honda or if you had a GTI or something like that, which is also a little bit bigger. So overall, you know, generally genuinely nice card drive, you know, it's it's not like I say it's not as sharp as a GTI or civic SI, or, you know, or a civic hatch sport, civic hatch, Sport trim, but it is it's it's more than adequate and it's very reasonably priced. I traded that one back to Dr. Shop for this other hatchback which is a little bit larger, a little bit more powerful. Would you say? Larger, a scooch. Larger Yes. And also just a scooch more expensive. So in fact, the Maserati Levante TR fail that I had that they sent over for me. One of the options on here, there was not not a whole lot of options, but one of the options on this car was a special paint job that you can order. Oh, God.

Roberto Baldwin  16:57  
Oh, god, it's just he told me

Nicole Wakelin  16:59  
this already tells you so it was actually talking about this yesterday, and I was in a car where the paint was like, was this crazy option? I know. Mazda ready $6,000.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:11  
Keep going. This is the fury fury. Fury serie corsia. Paint and Russell magma. So volcanic Red Base. 10,000 $17,000. Oh

Nicole Wakelin  17:26  
my god. Just 17 grand for paint the best GDP you've ever seen in your entire life. It's fabulous.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:37  
And it's this metallic red. And I talked to the the mazar it PR guy after I looked at this order sheet, and I said, Am I reading this correctly? He said yeah, this is this is a special, special option. They do. It's a chance braid. They don't run it through the standard. Oh, well, then it's worth the 70. You know, they do each coat. There's three base coats of the red. They do each coat they they Buffett polish it and everything. And then prep it for the next coat. So they do spray three, three coats. And then the clear coat is a tinted clear coat. And when you look at it, I mean it looks really like a really deep finish on there. Yeah, so it does look really good.

Nicole Wakelin  18:23  
Now $17,000 Good. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  18:26  
but it's made out of volcanoes. Yeah, actual volcanoes. Resaca volcanoes, like you know, even sacrificing far too much into volcanoes. They

Nicole Wakelin  18:35  
sacrifice Yeah. Now we're taking it back and we're taking it

Roberto Baldwin  18:37  
back. Take that volcanoes

Sam Abuelsamid  18:42  
I was taking I was giving my daughter a ride somewhere earlier today before they dropped it off. And we drove past somebody had a Mazda CX 30 in the driveway in Seoul, Crystal red. And I'm thinking I'm looking at that. And while the paint on this, Missouri It was absolutely fabulous. I don't think it was as good as soul crystal red. You gotta be really honest.

Roberto Baldwin  19:09  
The red though is really I

Nicole Wakelin  19:11  
mean, the monster man is like the best read that you can get. I mean, yeah, so it's hard to beat that but I would first dollars they better beat it.

Roberto Baldwin  19:22  
Yeah. Well, that's we're talking about like how the color itself the red on the Mazda? It's just the workmanship that went into the Mazda Rottie though I mean, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:31  
No, I mean, I totally understand. There's a lot of labor that went into Yes, paint on there. Yeah. It's a lot of work. And you know, when you when you consider you know, the craftspeople that are working on this, it is I would fully expect it to be expensive. But moving past the paint, the hump you know, this is a, you know, a mid size two row SUV. You de travail is the top trim level for the Devonte. They have GT and a couple of other trims. The bass, the GT starts, it has a three liter V six, as well, as does one of the other trim levels. This has a twin turbocharged 3.8 liter V eight. And when you open the hood, you look at it. And you Yes, this is an Italian V eight high performance Italian VA, when you look at, it's got the red crackle finish on the valve covers and the intake plenum, just like a Ferrari engine, like you would expect. You know, it is glorious as this engine looks, you know, they weren't going to do the kind of you know, the thing you typically find on almost all new vehicles reopen the hood, and you just see this massive piece of plastic that covers everything that's underneath. Like they want to show they clearly want to show off this engine. And in the travail it's rated at 580 horsepower, at least for the US market. For in other outside of North America and outside of North America. It's 590 horsepower. I'm not sure why we get less but the

Sam Abuelsamid  21:20  
this engine, when you especially when you put it in courses, sport mode, the the sound of this thing is just magnificent. You know, it's not like it's not like a small block Chevy, or a Ford coyote V eight. It's a very different kind of sound. And it sounds like what you would get, you know, from a Ferrari V eight, for example. Yeah, this is not, this is not a Ferrari engine. But it was I think Ferrari assisted in the design and development of this engine. And so it's got that sound, it's not a flat plane crank. So it's only got a maximum RPM of about 70 to 7300 rpm.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:01  
But it still sounds fantastic. You know, this is a two and a half ton vehicle, it weighs just over 5000 pounds. So this is not this is not a sports car by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, it does go zero to 60 in about four seconds, 3.94 seconds. And it has a top speed of 187 miles per hour.

Roberto Baldwin  22:25  
Because why not? Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:28  
I mean, that's what SUVs are for? For going Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  22:31  
absolutely.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:34  
But, you know, it, it's funny after driving the the E Tron GT last week, you know, this does not feel as quick, even though it's got it's got more power, because it does, even with similar levels of power, you know, the, what you get from an electric propulsion system is that instantaneous response when you step on it, and this, you know, because it's a turbocharged engine. And it's, it's not necessarily tuned for, at best, you know, for the maximum low end torque, it has decent low end torque, but it just does not the same kinds of response you get from and so even though this is a very fast vehicle doesn't necessarily you get spoiled driving an Eevee you know, with the way it feels as opposed to you know, the heart numbers, and so it doesn't feel quite as quick as it is. Which is actually probably for the best anyway, you don't necessarily want to be driving a two and a half ton SUV that fast. But you can if you want to. So it's got the set FHB transmission, lovely interior, this one had the carbon fiber package. So you got the shift paddles on the back of the steering wheel or they're the style you find on some high performance vehicles, especially high performance Italian vehicles where there there's a big long paddles that are fixed on the steering column rather than you know, bread on the back of the steering wheel. They're done in carbon fiber, carbon fiber trim all around lovely beautiful soft leather everywhere I'll Conterra headliner, the all glass moonroof, you know all that kind of stuff. It's quite roomy in the backseat as well lots of cargo space in the back. And it was actually surprisingly efficient. I was expecting this thing to be just a complete gas hog. And while this is no Miata or press in terms of its fuel efficiency on a trip up to Traverse City, Michigan on Monday, it averaged about almost 21 miles per gallon. And you know, over the course of the last four days you know averaged about you know, including some around town driving averaged about just shy of 19 miles per gallon with For a two and a half ton SUV with 580 horsepower, that's not too shabby.

Roberto Baldwin  25:05  
From a big beefy VA with all wheel drive. Yeah, that's, that's really good. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:08  
One thing that I found particularly amusing, when I was looking around, I was sitting looking at the drive mode buttons. Next to the shifter, one of the modes is off road mode, which, you know,

Roberto Baldwin  25:21  
takes years,

Sam Abuelsamid  25:23  
takes springs and lifts it up a couple of inches, and, you know, got out and looked at it, and I've got pictures of it, you know, off road mode. And you can see it's definitely riding a little bit higher when it's an off road mode. But, and it even has hill descent control, you know, to help you when you're going down a hill to maintain your speed, you know, so you're not, don't have to ride the brakes too much. But you know, this thing is riding on 290-530-2222 inch tires, which I'm just saying, who's gonna take this thing off road on those tires? This is insane.

Roberto Baldwin  25:59  
This is for when you're visiting the friend who has the estate, the horse estate. And when you get there, it's like a little it's like a little dirt road. And you're like, what, I don't want to ruin my $17,000 paint job. Let me lift it up a little bit. So driving, there's fewer, there's less of a chance of the gravel smacking up my very expensive paint job.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:22  
Yeah, because you definitely don't want to be dragging that paint job over some boulders on the Rubicon Trail.

Roberto Baldwin  26:28  
No, no, it's definitely yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:32  
So bottom line, you know, the total price tag on this thing came to $173,000. Or sorry, 173 $550. So, this is not inexpensive, a little bit more than that Corolla just slightly more than a Corolla. I mean, do close, close. I mean, I think people would be cross shopping these

Roberto Baldwin  26:58  
if you're a billionaire. Those are the exact same prices for Yeah, they might as well be yes. Yeah, the miles will be the same price. No, no, no difference between the two.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:08  
So yeah, I mean, it was it was comfortable to drive. You know, I spent multiple hours driving back and forth between Traverse City and, and my home this week, did not feel at all fatigued, even though there was no massaging seats for $173,500 No massaging seats, but they weren't. They were very comfortable, very supportive seats, did not feel at all fatigued. And it felt great. Oh, and unlike some, you know, fancy Italian cars of the past. There was no funky infotainment system. It was just a standard, still Lantus Uconnect five infotainment system. So everything just worked. I plugged in my Phone, Android Auto popped up, it was all just it was all good.

Roberto Baldwin  27:55  
All works. That's one of the selling points of the Lamborghini orders is it just has, it just has a reskin version of Audi's MMI

Sam Abuelsamid  28:04  
Maserati did not even reskin it. They're just you know, straight up Uconnect five, same thing you would find in a Chrysler Pacifica or a Jeep Compass. Yeah, that's

Nicole Wakelin  28:13  
because they spend too much time trying to make the paint look pretty

Roberto Baldwin  28:15  
Yeah, put the put the thing in don't let's not let's not our that's not our thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:19  
That was a fancy analog clock above the touchscreen. But the touchscreen. Just it just worked.

Roberto Baldwin  28:26  
Just just just give them the thing that works. People want it to work. I don't think they're gonna care.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:32  
Yep. All right. Did Was there something you'd wanted to add to that? Me know, Robbie. Oh, when I was getting into Uconnect

Roberto Baldwin  28:42  
Oh, you can now you can explain. I'm still sad about the VW Miata though.

Nicole Wakelin  28:48  
Sorry, I know. I said you have some pretty hefty expectations for the two seconds that my brain typed VW Miata. Wait, wait, no. Fluke Mazda, I mean for that for that half a second. It was in the show notes

Roberto Baldwin  28:59  
and MTB powered Miata that changes my entire like life like your whole life my entire my entire car buying plan right now would be completely altered like me being Miata? Yeah, everything ionic five, No, Id buzz No, I'm just getting the MBB Miata and we'll just keep the Kona electric. Your life is done. The BRC? done done everything.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:25  
Well, as long as we're talking about me b. Let's talk about the 2023 vw ID for Okay, let's the ID fours for the North American market. Starting with the 2023 models will no longer be sourced from Germany. That W Bolton that we built in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Chattanooga. Chattanooga after they spent $800 million to update it. They're building the the ID for there now. Cool, and and it has a Little version with an available lower price, less range, but a bigger touchscreen as standard equipment.

Roberto Baldwin  30:08  
But all the people want. Yeah, exactly. That's I think I think we're I think we're approaching the point where people who are who have had electric cars like this is their second or third electric car, and they're thinking, You know what, I don't need 400 miles. 200 Miles is probably fine.

Nicole Wakelin  30:25  
Do you think that many people are on their second? I don't think California like California, I think that's probably much more likely. But I wonder if the rest of us.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:34  
I think the rest of y'all on Tesla's are on there.

Nicole Wakelin  30:38  
No, you're 100%. Right. And think of that most Tesla people.

Roberto Baldwin  30:41  
And I think a lot like a model a lot of Model S people, especially in the Bay Area. They're they're not they're not getting new model. They're getting tight cones. The Tiguan has, you know, has less EPA rated range? But I think they're like, Yeah, I didn't really know it's fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:56  
And the reality is the real world range is actually comparable to the real world range of the Model S. So

Roberto Baldwin  31:03  
yeah, that's true. I think that's VT I think the two what what what are they saying it's a 208 miles for the low for the 68 kilowatt, I'm sorry, 62 kilowatt hour battery, that's probably going to be more closer to like 220. The, the way Volkswagen does their their EPA. There. It's a big word that I can't remember. Vacation certification, there's another thing that they have to do is that it doesn't matter. Anyway, they always take the worst number. When it comes down to Volkswagen group as a whole. When it comes to EPA numbers are like, what's the tuna? What's the numbers we can have? You take the worst one. We want the worst one and then just you know, so when the people driving, they're like, Well, I'm getting better than what I thought

Nicole Wakelin  31:43  
they're all pleasantly surprised. Yeah, you did the expectation.

Roberto Baldwin  31:46  
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:48  
So the new base, Id four, which is creatively called the ID four standard.

Nicole Wakelin  31:57  
Wow, that's a stick no one is hurt themselves thinking of that name. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:03  
At least it tells you what it is. It's true.

Roberto Baldwin  32:05  
That's true. Once you get a standard. All right, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:09  
No nonsense with trying to figure out what Gran Turismo or pro what what is an ID for pro

Roberto Baldwin  32:17  
enter professional,

Nicole Wakelin  32:18  
because you don't want the who would want the ID for amateur, which makes me feel like there should be that one out there. Like, I want the one that knows what it's doing.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:27  
So it starts at 37 495. And of course, VW is still eligible for $7,500 tax credit. And it's now looking like the the as we're recording this on Friday, after whatever the build is called inflation Reduction Act, probably do anything but looks like yeah, got enough people on board, and it's gonna get voted on tomorrow. So perhaps by next week, it will be law. And with this one, you know, as we talked about last time, you know, the changes to the to the incentive programs, with that new with that new bill mean that only vehicles that are built in North America would be eligible for incentives. And they also have to have a certain percentage of domestic content in the battery. And one of the other changes in addition to building the ID for here in Tennessee. They are also now sourcing the batteries from the SK plant in Georgia. Dot dot dot. Yeah, so no more batteries. No more LG batteries from Europe. They're getting SK batteries from Georgia. In all the all in both battery sizes, they have the 62 and the 88 kilowatt hour battery for the pros. And the the 12 inch infotainment screen that was optional before 10 inch was standard 12 inch was optional. That's just standard across the board on all trim levels. Everybody gets 12 inches.

Roberto Baldwin  34:05  
Everyone gets so overall, I know they fix the infotainment system. According to y'all. I haven't actually driven it, for instance, that's happened. But there is one thing that they did not change that they should have. And that is the rear windows. They still have Yes, a little like rear button to use the same. Yeah, I downloaded the images. I know I enlarged enhanced and it's still when you're the driver, you still only have two buttons, or two levers to open and close the window. And if you want to do the rear windows, you have to hit a button and then do the rear windows.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:40  
Well as I think as as we talked, I think we talked about this last time, or maybe I was talking to somebody else about it. But I think one of I think you know part of their future product plan is that that extra button to enable the rear windows will become a subscription

Roberto Baldwin  35:00  
Do you want to roll

Sam Abuelsamid  35:01  
five or $10 a month to be able to use the room windows. So if you don't pay for the subscription, Window button just becomes inactive.

Roberto Baldwin  35:09  
Well, you want to roll up and down those rear windows while you're driving. Mr. Rockefeller.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:18  
Just just hit this ACCEPT button on the touchscreen, and we will immediately start showing

Nicole Wakelin  35:23  
your windows.

Roberto Baldwin  35:25  
Yeah, I downloaded. I was like, Alright, hold on, let me see. What are they doing? And I looked at it and I'm like, oh, Volkswagen. Come on. Because you're only saving one button. Really? Yeah, one, one. I know. It's not you're adding more.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:45  
You're adding complexity, you're making it more difficult for people to figure out what to do. There's more steps involved. And you're saving one button. Yeah, you're not one

Nicole Wakelin  35:55  
button. That one button though? A whole button.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:00  
Oh, wow. What are you gonna do? Oh, and I talked to Volkswagen just wanted to confirm if, if the 62 kilowatt hour battery if they were just software locking the big battery to 62 kilowatt hours, or if they were actually just installing fewer modules in it, and it is the latter. So there are actually physically fewer modules in that battery pack to make this smaller capacity. So it'll be lighter. So it actually and because it still has the same 200 201 horsepower, rear motor, rear axle motor, it might actually be slightly quicker than the extended range rear wheel drive version.

Roberto Baldwin  36:41  
It's the promise of MTB modular here, like I always pull some modules out.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:45  
That's what the M stands for is modular. It's right there.

Roberto Baldwin  36:48  
Yeah, there you go. It's the modular M EB ATM machine.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:55  
What else do we got here? Oh, they've also added plug in charge functionality as standard on the ID fours for 23. Which, in theory, at least means that you should be able to go to Electrify America station, plug it in, and it should just automatically start charging and Bill you as needed. And assuming that your local EAA station is actually functional, that might even work.

Nicole Wakelin  37:20  
And you can just plug in Kenya now can you

Roberto Baldwin  37:22  
be doing so? Well for a few months, and then it just like all fell apart? Again, I don't know. There's probably like an update that went out and broke everything but like

Sam Abuelsamid  37:34  
all right, what else we got here? Oh, let's stick with BMW. There was some BMW with VW for a minute. Too many letters. So a couple of months ago, innovyz, which is an Israeli LIDAR startup, made a big announcement. They were their first production contract was with BMW to supply LIDAR for BMW further, level three, partial automation system that may or may not sometime come out in 2023 was supposed to come out in 2021. And then 22, it may may come out next year. Anyway, innovyz announced last year announced their next generation LIDAR sensor, which is going to be considerably cheaper, supposed to be under $500. And in May this year, they announced they had gotten a deal design wind from a major manufacturer worth $4 billion, which assuming that their sensors are in fact $500 or less, that would mean 8 million LIDAR sensors. And they announced this week that that customer for those lidars is Volkswagen carry at which is VW software division that's making all their all their driver assist and automated driving stuff going forward for all the VW Group brands. And this is supposed to launch in 2025. But

Nicole Wakelin  39:06  
this is supposed to sound so confident.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:09  
The reason why I'm not as confident as I once was, is, you know, we didn't talk about this last time. But Herbert Dees, the now former CEO of Volkswagen Group, yes, he was fired. And apparently one of the main reasons why he was fired was because of chaos at Karianne which is doing all the software for all the VW Group vehicles and not just doing a Das. They're doing the infotainment and every all the software for all the cars. And apparently things are not going so well to carry out and a lot of programs are falling behind schedule because of the software team there. So it might launch in 2025 Maybe, maybe maybe 26 and 27

Roberto Baldwin  39:57  
I you know I did a I did a thing was Zooks A few weeks back a week back two weeks. I don't know I did a thing with Zooks they're making like those ride hailing little autonomous Robo taxis. Yeah, little Robo taxis. They're making little Robo taxis. And the entire time I was there talking to him talking to the founder and talking to the team. And we're like, well, what's the timeline? They're like, Yeah, we don't really want to talk about timeline that like, you know, it's close. But we don't want to talk about timeline. And to be honest, if you're working with anything that has anything to do with automation at all, are really just software to be honest. Don't don't just don't give a timeline. Just don't because we can all remember when when when Ford's when Mark Fields came up with like, we're gonna have Robo taxis at Ford's, and 2019 are like, Oh, okay, that's cool. Okay, sure.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:41  
But let's 21 Other people give timelines and miss them and still have companies that are worth $900 billion.

Roberto Baldwin  40:47  
Well, that's yeah, that's I don't Well, I mean, they were Are they still worth that much? I mean, there's been a big hit to that, that it's a bit

Sam Abuelsamid  40:55  
backed up in the last couple of weeks. It was back up over 900 bucks the share of the other day. And we're talking about Tesla here

Roberto Baldwin  41:05  
talking about Tesla. I'm sorry. Yeah. I don't know how much. It was down six

Sam Abuelsamid  41:09  
and a half percent today after they had their annual meeting yesterday. Back down to 864.

Roberto Baldwin  41:14  
Yeah. So you know, I think there's there's

Sam Abuelsamid  41:18  
still a $900 billion market cap. Yeah, it's still a very,

Roberto Baldwin  41:20  
it's still a company that's worth more than it should be. To be honest. No, yeah. Yes. Tesla may be worth a lot of money. Yeah. Should Tesla be worth this much? Oh, God, no. Oh, heavens, no. But you know, the stock market is not the economy, the stock market, a lot of times doesn't deal with reality.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:40  
There's a lot of things about what the stock prices are, you know, Tesla's stock price in particular is in large part based on the promises that Musk has made about, you know, self driving and Robo taxis and all the revenue that they're going to generate from, you know, 20 million Robo taxis.

Roberto Baldwin  41:59  
People just, you know, at some point, I think, folks, they buy in, and once you've bought in and you put so much money in, there's no you're not going to like back off, you're not going to be like well, maybe he's right, like, no, no, no, it's gonna happen because you have so much money invested. Like, you can't, you can't Yeah, I have so much money invested in this thing. There's no way these Beanie Babies are gonna have millions again. $500 on a bear in 1990, whatever, I'm swear, it's gonna be worth money. For the love of God. Please let it be worth money again.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:38  
Or that crypto that you bought?

Roberto Baldwin  42:41  
That's a tough Oh, god. Yeah. And but you look at it. Like, I think when you're a journalist, and you look at things, you're like, alright, this doesn't make any sense. But the average person doesn't like jump in and you know, doesn't have a the context for all this stuff that's happening, and B doesn't jump in, and just start researching stuff for fun, which is a weird thing that journalists do. I don't cover this, but I'm going to reach her to hell. And then he gets you like, Yeah, this isn't a good idea. But if we had just said, You know what, I'm going to sell one NFT for $1 million, and then walk away. We'd all be doing better. So we're not exactly geniuses.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:21  
Well, speaking of NF T's I got a PR pitch from somebody today. Pitching CEO of of some company, he was headed head of NF T's at a company that shall remain unnamed. says he'd be a great guest on Forbes wheel bearings or guidehouse insights to discuss insight on breaking NFT news and its implications. And I just responded back to look at a teaser, a huge scam, and I'm not gonna give them any oxygen. No, thank you.

Nicole Wakelin  43:52  
Thanks, but no, goodbye. You're so funny. Oh.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:59  
And anyway,

Roberto Baldwin  44:01  
you're an artist that's made a lot of money off of entities. I'm very proud of you. But also people should just be buying art. It shouldn't have to be an NFT. In order for people to buy art. You can buy prints like here's print, well, you can't see an appointment. Yesterday, I pointed out things on an audio podcast of ours we bought for my friends.

Nicole Wakelin  44:20  
The real thing people it's real,

Roberto Baldwin  44:22  
like you guys can't even see it. That's the thing. I'm pointing out a painting that I'm a friend that you guys can't even see. I gave him money for a print of his painting. Just do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:34  
By art Yes. By by print of a painting or a photograph or by a sculpture or something by something physical, yeah, by something nice physical object and put it in your, your abode, you know, wherever you live. And sit there and enjoy it and show it to your friends when they come over.

Roberto Baldwin  44:53  
There you go. Alright.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:56  
I think we were talking a little bit about automation. So let's stick with That theme for a minute. Before we get on to the last story, GM this week announced that they were more than doubling the roads where supercruise works. And for those who don't remember supercruise is GMs hands free Driver Assist system. That is geo fenced to only work on specific roads that GM has mapped, and they feel that the system can operate safely on. When they first launched it in 2017, it was about 130,000 miles of roads, they eventually grew that to 200,000 miles of roads. And originally it was just divided highways, limited access, divided highways, and the print the most recent upgrade, it actually opened it up to some divided trunk roads, you know, so like rural, rural highways that are still divided. Now they're going from 200 to over 400,000 miles of roads. And the system will apparently be able to work on two lane roads like route 66, the Pacific Coast Highway, Trans Canada Highway

Roberto Baldwin  46:04  
50, closed highways sort of that's a bonkers, yeah, Pacific Coast Highway and La like, okay, I can see that Pacific Coast Highway in Northern California.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:19  
I would be interested to see how well supercruise works on there. Yeah, that could be a very interesting experience, I know that the first time I try it, I will be keeping my hands very close to that steering wheel hovering right over the wheel. Absolutely. One, one of the things they did say on the call for that is that, you know, because you've got these, these rural two lane roads, some of the things that they will disable when you're on those kinds of roads. And because they know what the road is, because they've got high definition maps, they can turn certain features on or off based on what road you're driving on. So if you're on a two lane road, it won't, it won't do auto lane change, or lane change on demand, you'll have to if you want to pull out to pass somebody, you'll have to do that manually, you're responsible for that. Or if you're coming up to a traffic signal or a stop sign, it knows where those are, because they're on the map. And it's also got the cameras. And so as you're approaching those, it will start flashing the light bar red. And it'll say put your hands back on the wheel. And you'll have to take control again, you know, so it's not going to automatically try to respond to red lights recognize red lights or, or stop signs and, and bring the car to the stop. If you don't respond, then it will bring the car to a stop anyway. But you know, it will it will ask you to take control back in those situations. So that's going to be coming out on new build vehicles this fall. And then sometime in the fourth quarter, they will start pushing out an OTA update to all the all the vehicles that have supercruise on them. And, you know, by the end of the year, you know, all those vehicles should be able to operate with supercruise in many more places.

Roberto Baldwin  48:13  
To

Nicole Wakelin  48:15  
nifty I love supercruise so that's cool.

Roberto Baldwin  48:18  
Yeah, cruise.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:20  
All right. 111 last story before we get to q&a. Toyota Toyota is having a rough start with EVs. Wow, wow. They not long after they started selling the big 4x and also Subaru selling the soltera they had a recall for them and told people to stop driving the cars because wheels could fall off.

Nicole Wakelin  48:49  
I mean, really, like the reason the wheels could fall off like using some technical thing that involves engineering and numbers and math about the wheel wheels.

Roberto Baldwin  48:57  
Which is which is you know, that's that's a saying oh, the wheels fell off on this situation. Literally the wheels are falling off.

Nicole Wakelin  49:06  
literally falling off like no we're not kidding. Actual actually

Sam Abuelsamid  49:09  
falling. You know, this seems like it should be a fairly straightforward thing to fix is like, you know, bolts and whatnot. Yeah, do you know just you don't even have to have people bring the car to a dealership? Just I mean, there's not they haven't sold that many of them. Just send a technician out with a torque wrench.

Nicole Wakelin  49:26  
They're not torqued on well i don't i don't know

Sam Abuelsamid  49:29  
they haven't said they have they have not said what the problem is why they're

Nicole Wakelin  49:34  
nuts aren't wait this is I'm reading the story from CNN and it says because nuts or bolts could loosen and wheels or axles can become disconnected.

Roberto Baldwin  49:43  
Like there's some sort of some sort of vibration system that's rope pulling the nuts off if you do like sharp turns and acceleration and just like

Sam Abuelsamid  49:52  
I don't know put up an Eevee there's no what's what's gonna vibrate. I don't know.

Roberto Baldwin  49:55  
I don't know. This is a very weird this whole thing is just stopped driving. weird, strange don't drive your car that you just bought from us

Nicole Wakelin  50:03  
immediately didn't drive it because the bolts that hold the wheels can loosen even after a relatively small number of miles, allowing the wheels to detach, just drive it along. Whoa, who last? Well, wait, that was me and my brand new Eevee. Toyota doesn't know yet how to fix the issue.

Roberto Baldwin  50:19  
This is like Toyota. This is like we build where Toyota, we build cars that last for millions of miles, like Top Gear, took one of their trucks stuck it in a building blew up the building and the trucks still stuck. Just like we don't know. The wheels fall off man. Babies are crazy. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:40  
A few years ago that they bought back a truck from a customer a Tundra from a tractor customer that had driven it a million miles. Yeah, just so they could study it and figure out what did we do right on this thing that made it last so long, you know, so they could make sure that they incorporated all that into the new tundra?

Roberto Baldwin  50:55  
Well, they didn't incorporate into the Bz 4x I can tell you that currently not drive it. It's a 12 mile car you drive at 12 miles and then you just

Nicole Wakelin  51:04  
That's it. So apparently the Subarus are only off the hook because with the soltera because they haven't delivered any yet. Oh, that's it? Like that's according to a statement from spokesperson Jessica Tillman. She said in an email, so they haven't delivered him to anybody yet. So that's why we haven't heard the recall. Because it's, it's not out there yet.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:23  
So apparently, Toyota is offering to buy back cars from some customers. You know, until they until they fix this problem.

Nicole Wakelin  51:31  
Can you imagine they don't know what's going on? Like we're gonna just take a little time you gotta get to this part. Here's your loaner. It's like we don't know. We don't know. We don't know park your car. I'm sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:42  
Maybe it's a problem with the studs or the I don't know if they're if they have studs and lug nuts or, or bolts holding the wheels on on this one. Because the bolts in this story. Okay, so maybe the problem is the the bolts themselves are defective and they might actually be stretching. So there might be a metal problem with the bolts.

Roberto Baldwin  52:04  
We sourced our bolts from a recycling center down the street. It turns out a recycled Pepsi cans are not great for ball work. Who knew? This is this this goes back to my whole like theory that Toyota built this car the way you know a sullen teenager is told to clean their room. Like I'm going to do it but I'm not going to do it because

Nicole Wakelin  52:27  
I have to I'll do it fine. Whatever. We made

Roberto Baldwin  52:30  
the rap we made the you know what we made the Prius Why are you guys hassling? Like there's a lot of like, you know, we made we made hybrids cool. He was a low

Sam Abuelsamid  52:40  
we made hybrids and everybody else put together Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  52:43  
we have the rav4 prime. Like we just come on.

Nicole Wakelin  52:49  
Like you know, wheels wheels are okay, so to start off, this is only 260 ez four x's have been delivered so far. To handle it. So it's like yeah, tuner 60 In the grand scheme is a very small number of people so I can see why they'd say like, this is the same thing with the buyback. It just says they'll give you a

Roberto Baldwin  53:10  
loaner. It's funny though. The 260 It's a big enough problem. They're like Oh, right. On the road

Sam Abuelsamid  53:17  
they already found this problem right?

Nicole Wakelin  53:19  
Yeah, cuz yeah, it's enough of them that they're like Oh, crud everybody stop.

Roberto Baldwin  53:23  
Oh, dear. Man, what should we do about that? I don't know. I guess just throw some money at it throw money at the problem.

Nicole Wakelin  53:30  
They're even going to drop it to the dealers will pick up customers BZ for exes, bring them to the dealership and provide a free loaner. Like don't even like don't even drive at your dealership get out of that

Sam Abuelsamid  53:40  
cars on the flatbed, we will send

Nicole Wakelin  53:42  
a flatbed. This is sear that leads seriously, it must be an issue that they're like crud.

Roberto Baldwin  53:47  
What are they giving them as loners? Because they make enough cars?

Nicole Wakelin  53:52  
Yeah, exactly. They need to find out. Yeah. What are you getting for a loan or when there's no girls out there at all?

Sam Abuelsamid  53:59  
Looking around? I was just going back through my notes from when we were at the Toyota headquarters in June. Yeah. Bob Carter was talking about sales and their inventories. And, you know, this was this was right at the end of May. And he was talking about, you know, for May, you know, we're gonna they were expecting to have between 173 and 174,000 sales for May. And at that point, they had 12,600 cars in inventory, which is like two days supply. And yeah. And you know, their sales, Twitter sales were down quite a bit in July, simply because they could not get enough vehicles. They did not fit it had nothing to sell. And so yeah, I don't know if it'll go buy some used cars or something to go down to the local Mannheim auction and because they have 100 cars and give those as loners

Roberto Baldwin  54:55  
they have the courtesy vehicles and I'm assuming each I don't know how many each dealer has maybe two maybe three, but a lot of these are probably sold in California. So there's that so

Nicole Wakelin  55:06  
they're sort of concentrated in one area.

Roberto Baldwin  55:09  
I'm assuming like half of them were probably sold by Toyota SF. SF like, like general managers looking around like, what do we got? What do we got? We have this there's a Corolla in for a new tire Tim getting back.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:27  
Some somebody just traded in a 1990 Camry. Yeah, let's clean that up and give it to

Nicole Wakelin  55:36  
me all these random used Toyota, we're sorry Toyota, but this is kind of funny in its own little way.

Roberto Baldwin  55:47  
Is gonna be fine. They can't sell the

Nicole Wakelin  55:49  
car. I know they're selling can't even make enough to sell.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:52  
They survived the sudden acceleration. Recall.

Nicole Wakelin  55:56  
No more significant than

Roberto Baldwin  55:58  
way worse than

Sam Abuelsamid  55:59  
that was many millions of cars. Yeah, yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  56:03  
260 Easy, easy peasy.

Roberto Baldwin  56:06  
I would like to add that to just like, take a second and be like, you know, maybe we should just do this ourselves. Let's just do a really good job and make a really good easy. Let's look at what we're doing. And then just apply that to EVs. How about we do that? Just apply it because we're not going to be first because we're far from that. We're not even going to be like fifth. We're going to be like last but when we come out with the Super Eevee you just wait and it's killing. It's killing everyone. Not killing like it's awesome. Not like actually killing Yeah. Then we're gonna just do that. Just like take a step back and say, You know what, let's just get some smart people put them into TV. A gr 86. All man, that would be awesome. Now I'm now I'm rethinking my Miami

Nicole Wakelin  56:50  
VW Miata no longer an option.

Roberto Baldwin  56:54  
I don't really fit in the Miata to be honest. Gr 86. Evie, though.

Nicole Wakelin  57:01  
Vehicles, you could never happen with

Roberto Baldwin  57:04  
their fake manual transmission that they're built that they're patented.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:08  
Yeah, that's probably why they patented that can make an electric one. I just

Roberto Baldwin  57:12  
yeah, just just, you know, you know what to do. Toyota? Yeah. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:19  
So the reason I drove the Maserati up to Traverse City, Michigan this week, I was at the the measurement briefing seminars, which big annual conference put on by the Center for Automotive Research. And while I was there, I had a chance to sit down with all the BC Boyle. Olabisi is the she is the VP of product planning and mobility at Hyundai Motor America. And we chatted about a whole bunch of stuff with EVs and charging infrastructure and Hyundai home and evolve plus, which is their subscription service that they're playing with that they're experimenting with EVs, and a whole bunch of other stuff. So I'm going to drop that interview in right here. And we'll be right back with some listener q&a. Hey, everyone, it's Sam. This week, I was up in Traverse City, Michigan, for the Center for Automotive Research is annual management briefing seminars conference at the Grand Traverse Bay Resort, and had a chance to sit down with Olabisi Boyle. BC is the Vice President of Product and mobility at Hyundai Motor America. And so she basically oversees all of the product planning strategy for the company for for North America, really, at least for the Hyundai and Genesis brands. And we sat down for a chat about Hyundai and where it's going, what what they're doing. Really interesting conversation with BC. Sorry about some of the background noise, we were sitting in the lobby of the Grand Traverse resort. And there were some families around some kids in the background. I tried to suppress that down as much as I can, but you can still hear the conversation pretty clearly. So enjoy

Sam Abuelsamid  59:12  
swat a chatbot. But you your role at Hyundai how its first couple of years has been and then kind of some of the challenges that the company is seeing and trying to address as move into this era of electrification. Yeah, so let's start off with even Hyundai two years now. Yeah, you've had a good career, you know, across the several different companies like your FCA or Ford, and visa and visa. So you got some different perspectives. So let's just start off with with Hyundai, and what that's been like for you. How was your time at Hyundai been so far?

Unknown Speaker  59:53  
You know, it's been the best time to be at Hyundai and I'm For a couple a couple of reasons. So. So one I wanted to join Hyundai because we had a pretty dynamic leadership team under Jose Munoz. Right, but that was one piece. But then when I got here, I started discovered, we have a transformational vision from our chairman, as well. And how the last two years what that has been, is helping bringing all those pieces together to where we are. And now I'm noticing I was talking about it when I first got here because I, you know, new discovery for me. But now I sort of feel other people are noticing as well. Yeah. And so what why did that last few years have been so great is? So I'll take it, take it in chunks, right. So there's a there's a piece of it. Let's talk about on the ed side, right. So, you know, at the time when I first got here we had the EVS that we had were Ionic and the Kona Evie, right? So actually Hyundai has been exactly Hyundai has been in the business for a while. So that's one piece of it, then. So now that I'm here, now we're at the point where we have the egfp platform, right, that allows us to spawn this ionic five and six, seven. And so I got the part of the launch of the ionic five, and everything that that comes with, you know, with the end, and the thing that I love about is not only bringing the technology, we're bringing the consumer experience. So on the technology side, for the end, you've got, you know, the charging 10 to 80%, in 18 minutes, the 800 volt architecture that enables that you have 100 plus ATR you have all about on the technical side, right, then we've also thought about the features on the interior. So, part of my role also is making sure that we have the North American voice for the vehicle that's going to be launched here. So I routinely go over to Korea, and we review all the Genesis vehicles or the Hyundai vehicles, and I give a North American point of view. And we're large part of the volume for and so our voice matters a lot. And so that, you know, you work with the engineers that are designing the center console, which by the way, are women that design the center console, and designing the heads up display and everything that goes along in the interior, that makes it an experience for people. So not only do we come correct with this technology, but we're also bringing the experience. The other piece of my role that I get to do here from North American standpoint is, alright, you have a vehicle you have to technology, you might even have the experience. But I have to drive that thing every day, I have to take my child to daycare. So am I going to have a place to charge? Or is my building going to have home chargers? You know, maybe I live in an apartment. And so what was great under Jose, you should be at this what we call the mecca of mobility of education, connectivity and autonomous. And then I make a committee, we brought in a couple of things. And so on this experience. So one of the things was, how do I buy this vehicle here these EVs might cost more. And so one of the things that we wanted to do was Evie subscription program, which we call the BB plus. But we wanted to make sure that our dealers involved one of the things I feel is really great about our approach is we want to we see the dealers as our partners in this Evie transformation. And so what we got to do is work with some dealers to launch the Evolve plus programs such that you have and we have to work with, in conjunction with our business unit, our Hyundai capital, so that we can make this pencil for the consumer pencil for the dealer pencil for HMA. Also pencil funding. And so that's some coordination. But everybody was willing to do that. We got great dealers to work with us. We got Hyundai capital. And what we did is we found you can come in, put a credit card down for a month. try before you buy you get the Electrify America, two years on your Ionic CLI for two years. Free charging for 30 minutes. And so we had to work with it Electrify America on that piece of it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:20  
Which salt which we'll come back to Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:04:23  
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's part of the experience, right? Because some people have their home chargers at home. Some people are like, well, when I'm at home, I'm not at home. Where am I going to charge and let's let's try to optimize those opportunities for our consumers. And so we worked collectively to launch that with dealers. And we had so many learnings from it, you know, people could come in. Also, a little bit during the Toshiba is a new sales channel channel and an easy way to try this and if it didn't work for me, and now we're having because it's been going on a little bit now. Conversion, where now I don't want to just Subscribe today, I want to actually movie beach. But it was also maybe one word, also going to the chip shortage an opportunity for maybe a gap. And and so it lacks people who maybe would have never considered an Eevee. Like, this thing wasn't so bad. And while I'm waiting for what maybe the car that I came in for whatever the case may be, so we have evolved plus that was from a subscription and a new sales channel opportunity. And a way that works and pencils consumers in a price range that they could work at, then Hyundai. So this is how do I bring the eco friendly, like an entire

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:39  
ecosystem around? Right, which is something that's worked great for Tesla, right? People with the tests Tesla's solar panels, that the power walls and the car and

Unknown Speaker  1:05:51  
because all of that is they do their research? How do you bring all those elements together? So with our ability, can we bring all those elements together and make it sort of easy for you. So first was launching our ionic five, which we did in February this year, second piece of it is going to be the home charger. So that's the most key thing that's out of those four elements, the charger and the energy storage, charge, charge your energy storage, and solar panels, energy sources, the charger is important. So with that, we're going to launch in about couple of weeks here. And then the third piece of it that we want to launch in third and fourth quarter are the energy. Storage, oh matter and that right? And then that you have at home, right? So when your electricity goes out, you know, if you have a thunderstorm in Traverse City, does that happen? And and then the fourth piece will be the solar panels. And so what we also want to do is make sure we have a variety of vendors that we work with. So there's many options for consumers. So we've launched it in pieces, we didn't want to launch it all at one time, because we're also again, working in partnership with the dealers. So then there's the Hyundai home piece, again, the experience, we know we're coming correctly acknowledging the experience matters. So we have Hyundai home we have evolved. Plus, part of it was when we first launched with Electrify America on Kona and ionic, we were kind of testing out, we found out what people really wanted. They like the two years, did like unlimited for 30 minutes, all that. And so we put that on the ionic five. Now we're going to bring it to Genesis. And we're moving that on. So we'll have that we'll probably also work with other partners as well. Because the idea is, when we talk about challenges for EB is I'm afraid that it won't go far. And then what am I going to do, I'm afraid I won't have a place to charge it. I don't know how I bring this to my house, I have to take care of all those. The last two years have led us through our Mecca committee really sort of make inroads in bringing that that piece together, you definitely have the technology. But then now we're learning I just got back from Korea last week. Now what we're doing is we're looking at our vehicle is do we have the platform that allows us for all sorts of segments, because after a while, when you're in the car business, you care about the driver? Right? You know, what is it is his approach? Most people are like, Look, I just want a car, and this one saves me some money and gas, that'd be good enough for me. You know, I mean, that's, you know, everybody doesn't think necessarily as we are in the business. And so what we want to do is, you have a vehicle that works for you and your life and the segments that you need, whether it be car purpose built, built, go for cargo or for medical emergencies, or whatever the case may be, or is it SBS or whatever the case may be. And so what does that platform allow us to do for you interior spaciousness and interior storage. So the way you use your vehicle, most people don't even care whether it's TV or not NV, except to save money on gas. And so it needs to be a vehicle that work for me, not just any kind of

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:57  
they want, they want to know that every day when they need to go somewhere,

Unknown Speaker  1:09:01  
it's going to be ready for without any problem, right? And so that press the button goes slit, they also want things that people expect in their car, you know, and so what we're doing is making sure their features people want features that resonate with, with people features that make their life easier as they go along. And we have our discussions and debates to make sure that that's something that will work for North America, because it's a little bit different for Korea, it'll be a little bit different for Europe, and so on, so forth. And so I find that there's a lot more upfront planning to make sure that it's not just an Eevee for EVs, or even to meet the mandates and the climate regulations, right. But it needs to meet those. But on top of it, does it meet the consumer needs? It's a vehicle that works for them in their life, that adds stress to it. Right. So the one thing great you asked me sorry, long answer that question. Oh, that's great over two years, is to sort of help it sort of with a team get to that point, working with the team in Korea working like team here, to sort of bring it to bring those pieces, we really have to understand the challenges, we really have to understand the consumer, we really have to try some things, we have to partner with our dealers, we have to partner with other business units. And, you know, I may be wrong, whatever. But I laugh a little bit, because now they're like, you know, I'll get texts from friends. I've been in auto industry a long time, I was bored at work. And now I'll get even visa friends that are really into cars. And they'll they'll send me these texts, and they're like, Wow, every time you might I say I unexcited once a year, you end of the year design. And I love talk design. Oh my goodness, I was in Korea last year. I saw thank you when I was over in Korea last week. We've just taken design to a new level both on Hyundai and Genesis. Right. So again, a vehicle that looks good people still care about a vehicle that looks good, whether it's Eevee or not, it's the fact that it's easy. All the better. And so we had the opportunity, even when we came out with with ice vehicle or Santa Cruz, we're gonna design on that look of design versus other competitors, I would have to say maybe I'm a little biased. But that's a sport activity vehicle that you know, Instagram

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:18  
read. And it is certainly more stylish than a maverick, I will give you that.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:24  
I didn't mention any competitors. I think you did. I didn't say who was my stylist. But, but it drives you I don't know if you had the opportunity. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I also think it drives and handles a little better with that 2.5 liter servo. And so even from I call it taking care of today and taking care of for tomorrow. So you know, we have a palisade family vehicle, right, we have our Santa, the Santa Cruz, which has great appeal. But by the way, one in appeal investment segment recently, and in the within with any responsible company should have taken care of the future. And the future does involve. But the other piece when you talk about joining the company and why I was saying I had mentioned our visionary Chairman earlier is okay, so we have our EVs. We've laid out a platform, we have future platforms coming that will take us in segments that meet everyone's needs in terms of DD, but we also have hydrogen, right? And so and the thing people remember, conversations I'd have earlier when I first got here, they're like, Well, you know, the hydrogen battle is over. I'm saying have you seen the climate objectives that we have to meet? It won't only be solved, maybe those can be in commercial vehicles, which you need to develop technology. It's not a one or the other, we have significant goals that we want to address. So we've already come correct on Evie. Hydrogen is further back in the infancy of its journey. But we've made some progress. We have our next so we have our excellent trucks. And then we're also looking at eventually new technology, again, as our leaders vision in our joint venture with motional. Right. And so we have our ionic five that is in our motional that's going to be autonomous vehicle that we're looking at, and have some opportunities in Vegas to sort of run that around. And then I'll

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:19  
San Diego, that Monica.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:21  
Exactly, exactly. So here it is 100. So like I said, I get these texts, and they're like, I'm like, I've been telling you that we've been doing this for the last two years, you're just catching up. And so the so you have EVs you have your terms of mobility, you have your hydrogen, you have your autonomous vehicle, and then we're bringing robotics into it, right? You know, you have some opportunities where maybe you can have a, basically an autonomous vehicle, but because of Robotics has legs, that you climb up a brownstone in New York, and settle itself down so someone can grow the wheelchair. It's aligned with our progress for humanity, where we want our technology to sort of serve people. It also uses our robotics technology. And then, you know, as we recently bought Boston Dynamics. And so from a perspective of the last last two years, that mobility solutions to actually meet progress for humanity, the mobility solutions to make us into a smart mobility company, the news channels that end up getting set set up as new ways to buy and sell and pay for EVs that we're working on. And the leadership that allows us to be as progressive and innovative to do that, and make the deals EA and make the deals with Shell, even that wants to move into hydrogen and set up hydrogen stations. We're going to start out in California so that we can collectively meet these these climate challenges that we have. I mean, it's just been two years. I look another two more

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:57  
years. Okay, question number two, it's all Yeah, that's great. I love that sorry. No, it's great to just, you know, be able to ask questions and just let you let you run with it. That's fantastic. Um, you covered a lot of a lot of areas. And I think a big, big theme out of all that, what you just said, was around the experience. And there's so many aspects to experience, you know, to the user experience of the vehicle, the ownership experience, the buying experience. And, look, let's start with the kind of the buying experience, dive into that a little bit more. One of the challenges for, for the Hyundai Motor Group over the last several years really, even before the pandemic had some really great EVs, you know, going back to the the ionic and Nero and the corner was availability. There simply weren't enough. available. And I know from conversations I've had, with people in the company, going back to 2018 2019. Because of constraints on battery supply, I think was one of the big ones. You weren't able to ship as many of those EVs to North America as like to focus. Prioritize some of the supply for markets like Europe, where the mandates require more EVs. What, what is Hyundai Motor Group doing as far as are you? Are you, you see a path to where that availability challenge? Because I know I've heard from a lot of people over the last six, eight months since the Guyana Clive and its siblings have watched that they'd love to chat. They can't find one. Is there a path to when availability of some of those vehicles is going to be improved? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:16:59  
One, it is improving? You know, we have I'll tell you, we have these governance meetings are led by Jose Munoz. And now, Randy Parker, and one of our key challenges is discussing that availability. What's been great is because we've done so well, in North America, we have a lot of opportunity now to work with our colleagues in Korea, just prioritize some of that North American zamore allocation Exactly. And we're doing and that's really, and the leadership in Korea has really been supporting us with that. And now part of it was kind of overall capacity constraints that wasn't just North American, you know, and so a little bit that hasn't come to the completely been resolved, but we're improving in that way. And now, especially with the way North America has performed, we have a lot more opportunities to sort of

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:55  
demonstrate that people here actually want to buy these.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:59  
More. So there's that the opposite. I let Randy and Jose talk about exactly how much but where we are is that is an improving situation as we go forward, for

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:08  
sure. Okay. Then, the other piece, once the vehicles are available from dealers, dealers themselves, you've talked, mentioned dealers numerous occasions during the first question. One of the complaints you hear a lot from consumers, especially, particularly around EVs, is that a lot of legacy legacy OEM dealers are thrilled about selling EVs. I think not going to get as much service revenue after sales like that. And sometimes, you know, they try to push people towards internal combustion vehicles, even if they come in looking for an Eevee. Or maybe they're they're not as well educated as they should be about the EVS and to answer questions for consumers. What what's being done to try to improve that situation to improve the experience for customers that want to shop for an Eevee?

Unknown Speaker  1:19:05  
So you know, talk about a little bit of the evolution of Zebedee over two years. So when I first got here, I wouldn't say everybody but it was more what you described. Maybe not everybody been so excited about the electric vehicle. What I found over that evolution over two years, I literally just had a conversation with our one of our regional gyms in the Chicago area. And it was mentioned that when you got when I get when we talk about how excited everybody is about the electric vehicle. You know, the pressure on me where this dealer will call me and say that I can't give you gave more than that one. And you get this into that when she goes oh my god, like every time like you because what we have is we have these ongoing monthly touchpoints with our dealer counsel, but then we have to Like quarterly and brought that one in September with the news and nada, nada. And I will say the evolution of time. And I've actually, with the head of the dealer, nada, and definitely I know about the heads of our dealer councils on the Hyundai and Genesis side, that sort of mindset is really opening on they see the benefits, so much. So they see the benefits, they're arguing and fighting each other over who gets the electric vehicle. Because this is the thing as we transition to on this road to electrification, and you see that there's new sales opportunities and new sales channels associated with EVs. And I think one thing of benefit of working with Hyundai is we see the dealers as a partner. Because when the not early adopters who can afford really expensive EVs that came out at first, but the people that need kind of to get to work every day, they're going to go into the dealer and say, How does this work? What does this work for me, that's where they'll find out about Hyundai home, that's where they're kind of about subscription for a while, if you don't want to, like make the investment and get a lease or whatever the case is, that's where they're going to find out, Oh, this is how you bring a charger to your house. This is how I can help you out with this. So we know the dealers are partners, and we have shared this evolution and our thinking and our strategy, and what our lineup is going to look like. So where the evolution from what I've joined to, from two years ago to now, that attitude of I don't want, there are partners in this now, even the most, let's call it skeptical, I see the you know, we'll be out and we'll have our discussions and the same people will kind of be like about this. I'm not talking like that now. They're like DC when's the next one? When can we get our annex five? And I'll be like, Okay, let's talk to Randy. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:50  
they see the consumers actually want Yes, they're starting to change there.

Unknown Speaker  1:21:54  
And they see the opportunity, they see the people that are walking in to even ask about it and try that. And so now it's about training. It's about do you have your charger set up? So when they come in? Is about do you have all the guidelines, so you can meet and get your eye on? Because we want requirements? If you this is, this is now something that you have to qualify five boards to some degree. It's just like, you got your charges in place. And he met these needs that you met that? Do you have someone who's can talk intelligently about what how the TV's gonna work and how it's gonna work. And they're like, I got on my list I got I'll have, I'll come into me and they're like, Oh, I got my charges in there. And that didn't happen.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:33  
Yeah, two years ago. Okay. Speaking of charters, that is also a pain point for a lot of consumers. And if you can, most people, at least today anyway, have somewhere between half and two thirds of consumers have have the ability to charge at home, off street parking. But when you want to take a longer trip, or for you know, as you as the market expands, and you get into the used car market, and people that are buying older EVs that don't have access to off street parking, they're going to be relying on public charging infrastructure. And I'm sure you wear that today. Not where it needs to be not where it needs to be, both in terms of availability, but reliability.

Unknown Speaker  1:23:22  
Because you'll get the end maximum when

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:25  
I went to my local EAA station last week with the DVD that I was driving, that was nominally capable of charging at 270 kilowatts. I plugged it in, and it was 350 kilowatt charger, and I got five kilowatts. That is not an acceptable course. And that that was on the one that was working. The other one was completely awful. So and I talked to a lot of people, this is a not uncommon problem. Is there anything that Hyundai is doing in terms of your relationships with EAA or other charging network providers to put some more pressure on them or something to to help them to address this problem?

Unknown Speaker  1:24:09  
So there's the companies, you're talking about the infrastructure piece, there's also working with government, because it's great to put the mandates out that we need all the DVDs, but we need to also have the requisite structure so that we don't have the issues that you just discussed. So we are again, part of our mega committee. One of the things that we do is and working with our Government Relations Office, is what are we doing to locally, we're basically held locally in California, but throughout the state, explain what we need to do with infrastructure, when we go into new things like because we're doing this on electric, but also hydrogen. So that's why we made the deal with Shell to develop 15 new stations in the California area and sort of work on Project Neptune's as to what we can do with that because we don't want to just develop the technology And now make a demand that's really hard to do. So you have to work with partners like Shell and EA and will work with others, you have to work with the government. So they understand what's required to do that. PhDs are important AGVs. And for the reason for that, because it's everyone's to go straight to the end. But this is also a culture and a behavior change for people, I'm used to, I go to the gas station, the gas station, and every corner of the cases, maybe I do a TV first, then I'm maybe pulled to a plug in a TV, and then I moved to battery. So we also want to work with them to understand the transition as we go to mass adoption is important. By the way infrastructures, we got a massive is important, we're going to partner with every opportunity of infrastructure from the shell to EA that we can because we want to make sure it's available for our consumers, we also going to use our opportunity to influence them as we need to make sure that they are all maintained when we do make that part. So you've got the infrastructure, and then the awareness, the awareness, the so how do we make it through our apps and know where all the locations are? Also on an awareness piece is? How do you make it to that? I didn't realize that there was places I could charge but some people think they can only charge. That's another place to dealers. Right? And I'm explaining all that. So the infrastructure, the awareness, the working with government, the partnership, everybody

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:27  
signs up with those EAA stations, you know, that stick up above the SUV. We're in we're in this parking lot is that EAA charger? Exactly, exactly. every gas station is got a 40 foot sign in the air.

Unknown Speaker  1:26:41  
And that's not a charge. That's not a very technical. So you know, it's solution. But it's, it's just a common awareness thing that people need and communication that is needed. Again, I do think in all of this, we have to understand I call it the road to electrification, it is a journey. I think, if you and I are having this conversation 510 years from now, especially on the electric thunder, not so much. The maybe the b2b side will be like now we have much more infrastructure or the case. But we had this conversation back probably when I was recording practice. 1015 years ago, you had nothing and no one was working on. And all of that. So I think we had an opportunity.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:20  
I want to be mindful of your time. Yeah. So I just want to couple a couple more things. One on fuel cell. You've got the next show out there. So it's a great vehicle. Maybe about 45 hydrogen stations in California, roughly do and of course Hyundai is also got the fuel cell trucks. And I think he's gonna start deploying some of those in North America this year, in Europe for a while and Korea

Unknown Speaker  1:27:48  
morning, demo tech faces the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:50  
US, do you see yourself being a part of the solution for light duty vehicles? Or is it something that's gonna really be focused more on the medium to heavy duty markets,

Unknown Speaker  1:28:02  
I think there's more opportunity, especially because you want to get the infrastructure to support it on the medium to heavy duty market. That doesn't mean that we want to forget light duty. But I think if you build up the infrastructure that that'll help it now to scale downs for the year more opportunity to scale. We do that. And so that's why we want to look at those opportunities. Now. That is, that is behind in the journey. But for our collective universe, we're gonna need all of you to make this if it won't just be DVD and Passagen.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:43  
Okay. I know I remember I wrote an article when I was writing for all the blogs. 15 years ago, I wrote I wrote an op ed piece, saying the end of the end of the petroleum monoculture. monocultures in any ecosystem are always a bad thing. Right. It's unreliable. And there's, we're going to need multiple kinds of solutions to do this. One last topic I want to address the I don't think you brought it up at all, is software and services. We're getting into this year of the software defined vehicle. And a lot of car companies are talking about new generating new revenue streams, software services. And heard a whole lot from from Hyundai about that. Is that an area that

Unknown Speaker  1:29:34  
you're absolutely so we know we have connected car and RGB. So you've got blue Lincoln? Yeah, we have. Korea we do have in car payment. Right. And so we're looking at the solutions there. I wanted when we bring to North America to be a solution that really works for people here. But this is this is the key thing. I see this strategically as getting the technology in the stack, such that when the use cases has become available. There there. I'm in my new I don't know, pools, sport activity vehicle, Evie, and Instagram ready, and I'm sitting there and gosh, I would love this cup holder that looks like my Santa Cruz shaped in a certain way. And I get 3d printed and I can voice activate it and pay for it from digital credit card that's in my head. So there's going to be use cases or I'm going through and I see the I drive by the dry cleaners and I'm over the say, oh, pay them on the way back on the way passing through. And it just hit me because I was driving by my drag. So how do I make those services in, in the car, I can easily pay for them via voice. And so that's one opportunity. And then, because of that, do I now have merchants and sellers that want to be on my head unit screen because of that, like they were on on this piece. But in such a way before we have autonomous vehicles that it's safe, and I'm not trying to manage your phone and drive at the same time. Are there ways for different features that we can download on demand that are not features that used to be there before that people expect and now they're mad that you're charged for it. But features that didn't be that weren't there that help you with your productivity that maybe you didn't ever have in the past. But gosh, it would be really useful for me. And but not everybody wants it. But I want it and I'm willing to pay for it? Well, I'm willing to subscribe to that, or I'm. So there's lots of opportunities. So what I want to do while we're doing that is make sure that this technology is in the stack to accommodate those use cases. So that once the use cases come which I feel in the next two, three years, they will we're we're good to go. What I don't want is like oh such as such as come up with XYZ. So now let's run and try to get that. So let's get the technology that enables that to happen. And then the use cases that help people be productive while they're in the car, help people get their kids homework done help people pay off their dry cleaners that people ordered this or that have this delivered when they pass this, like I can order this, I can get the tickets, because I just heard the Taylor Swift concert in that, oh, the tickets are there. And I can just order them and things that you happen to be in your car while you're doing. And it's a use case that you're able to pay for. And then features that allow you to do that on a continual basis that not everybody wants. But if they do want it, they can download it to their cart feature on doing.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:24  
So let's see $14 month heated seats from Hyundai anytime soon

Unknown Speaker  1:32:29  
not for features that people already are used to use to get the old fashioned way. There will be new use cases.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:36  
Okay. Great. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you the pleasure talking to our good, good, thanks. All right, let's answer some listener questions. Let's see. So first up from Gupta Ajay. He has a question about dealerships. Could you discuss the law around needing dealerships? And is anyone looking at doing away with that requirement? Would you please would you be nice? It would be nice to use the ridiculous would be nice to use the ridiculous delivery charge to have the vehicle at least delivered to my door as ordered and at the listed price someday.

Nicole Wakelin  1:33:20  
Is it technically laws? Or is it all contracts stuff between OEMs? And dealerships?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:24  
No, there was two, there are laws. And the problem with this is it's it's all at the state level. So there's 50 there's 50 Different laws and 50 different states. So some laws and sorry, this this was not from good to AJ, this was from Wes. AJ had a different question. But at any rate, the the laws. In some states, they allow manufacturers to sell directly to consumers, places like California. But like California, for example, they only allow manufacturers to sell direct to consumers, if they don't already have any existing franchise dealers. The the franchise dealer system goes back to the early days of the auto industry in the early 1900s. When manufacturers you know, things were a lot different. You know, manufacturers were churning out cars. And they had to figure out you know, how are they gonna sell these and start get some cash flow to pay for the parts and pay pay their employees and everything. And so they came up with the the franchise dealer system, where basically the manufacturer sells the car to the dealer. The dealer puts up the money, you know, they pay for it, and then they turn around and sell it to consumers and they handle service and delivery and all that stuff. And it was good for manufacturers because it allowed them to have more steady cash flow and get the money coming in wanting as soon as the car was built and delivered to the dealer. They get paid for it. And then they can move on and build more cars and deliver more of them to dealers. And the problem is that, you know, dealers were quite successful with this model, they made a lot of money. And they donated a significant chunk of that money to state and local politicians, dot dot dot, who in turn, wrote laws to protect those dealers that were giving them all this money. And they said, you know, they said that, you know, for manufacturers, that, okay, you've got these dealers that have invested all this money in your dealerships and your parts and service, and everything. So you're not, you're not allowed to compete with them anymore. You can't sell directly to consumers. And the laws are a little different in every state. But that's kind of the gist of it. Some states do allow manufacturers to compete and sell directly. But most are see, and about half of states, they only allow them to compete if they don't already have dealers. So when Tesla came in, they had no dealers, they were they went ahead and set up their own company on stores. And you know, other other companies like lucid and rivian. And, and vinfast are doing the same thing. But that also means that in some states where they're not allowed to compete at all, whether they have dealers or not like Michigan, for example, they can't have company owned retail outlets. And they, you know, they, in turn, cannot sell cars directly to consumers in Michigan. If you're in Michigan, and you want to buy a Tesla, you have to go online, order your car, and then go to Ohio or Illinois to take delivery. You cannot take delivery in the state of Michigan, it's illegal. Is anyone looking at doing away with this requirement? No. Because, you know, the dealer still donate a lot of money to politicians, as long as dealers as long as, as long as we have a system in this country where people donate to pay for campaigns. You're gonna have stupid laws like this.

Roberto Baldwin  1:37:15  
Yeah. It's funny that Tesla has their manufacturing facility in Texas, a state where they can't actually sell the vehicles and they'll be building in Texas. Yep. Well, a cyber Well, maybe not a cyber truck, but another vehicle that's actually for sale from Tesla, you gotta go

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:32  
to go to Oklahoma to buy,

Nicole Wakelin  1:37:33  
you have to leave

Roberto Baldwin  1:37:35  
the whole time, you got to sing the songs from the from the musical Oklahoma. That's the law.

Nicole Wakelin  1:37:41  
That's all I got. That's all you want to hear, trust me.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:44  
And, you know, as far as the ridiculous delivery charge? Yeah, really, you know, even if a manufacturer doesn't break out the delivery charge, they're building that into the price, you know, there is a there's an inherent cost to deliver vehicles, you've got to put them on a truck or a train or a boat, you know, and ship them somewhere. And that costs hundreds to 1000s of dollars, depending on where they're coming from. And, you know, so that's going to be factored in somewhere. You know, I, we've talked about this before, it shouldn't be a separate line item, it should just be built into the MSRP. Because if it's not optional, then it shouldn't be broken out.

Nicole Wakelin  1:38:20  
It's not like you can say I declined, I'd like to go pick it up at the factory, I want my money back. If that doesn't work.

Roberto Baldwin  1:38:25  
I'm curious if that like aligns with like, if let's say someone builds an Eevee. That's $59,990 And California and in New York, you can get a state tax credit on that vehicle. But if the delivery charge is a different line item, I wonder I should probably should have looked into this before I start talking. But if that's a different if that line item is different, does that mean that car is still valid for that state level

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:50  
taxes is a $60,000 threshold for the there's a six? Yeah, there's a $60,000 threshold, usually those things are based on MSRP. The delivery charge is not part of the MSRP. Like the the this new, you know, the the inflation Reduction Act, the new the new federal tax credits, it's based on MSRP. So so they don't, don't count on include that in there. But interestingly, the first company that is actually while the delivery charge is not included in the MSRP General Motors no longer actually, when the advertised prices for their vehicles include the delivery charge, good. If you dig if you dig in, you'll see the MSRP is actually a lower number. But then they never talked about the MSRP anymore. They talk about the price as delivered, which is good. I'm glad to see them doing that and I'd like to see everybody doing that. Yeah, yeah. And if you if you got to do some weird accounting shit, the background, you know, to say that, you know, it's a separate line item, but you know, we're not going to talk about that line item. That's fine. You know, just tell people what to To actually going to Costco AJ had a tweet, there was a picture or a little video clip on a beach. Oh, okay, I guess is as this is looking out from somewhere onto a beach somewhere on nice sunny beach. This are Michigan. And

Roberto Baldwin  1:40:23  
I don't even know where that's at that could be like behind him. There could be fires that could be a war, but I'm gonna go with that.

Nicole Wakelin  1:40:31  
I like this. Yeah, I'm gonna also go with that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:33  
the video clip looks looks lovely. It's a lovely beach. You know, and I would certainly wouldn't mind spending time there. But I would probably rather live in Michigan because we don't have earthquakes or fires or.

Roberto Baldwin  1:40:47  
And yeah, drought

Nicole Wakelin  1:40:49  
details.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:53  
All right. Jay Barnett asks, really would love to better understand the apprehension from automakers to limiting vehicle speed, it's become almost as taboo is something like placing a limit on the number of bullets a weapon can hold? Well, Volvo actually, you know, to their credit is actually limiting vehicle speed to I think 111 miles an hour. Vehicle

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:17  
ridiculous. No one should be driving that fast. But no, let's let's carry on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:22  
But yeah, they're they're limiting your vehicle speeds. I mean, you know, that Devonte, you know, 180 787 miles an hour and that thing, it's,

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:33  
it's all it's marketing. It's, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:36  
it's about bragging rights. Yeah, it is saying mine's bigger than yours.

Nicole Wakelin  1:41:40  
That's exactly what it is.

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:42  
The reality is, you don't need to be going, you should not be going 100 miles an hour, at any point on the road in the United States.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:51  
Period done. And you also don't need to go zero to 60 in two seconds.

Roberto Baldwin  1:41:55  
Yeah, that's nice. Bragging rights, but it's also how many people are doing launch, launch control after they've had their car for a month? Or a week, you're like, Yeah, I did some Launch Control. Well, let me get on with the rest of my life. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  1:42:10  
I played with have I'm done now. Next. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:42:13  
Yeah. It's, it is literally marketing and bragging.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:18  
Yeah, I mean, for what it's worth, you know, I think most manufacturers are actually limiting the speeds. Lee least compared to what they could do on their EVs, just because they want to make sure that they still get a decent range. And, you know, the aerodynamic drag goes up as a function of the square of the velocity. So the faster you go, you know, if you, if you double your speed, you your aerodynamic drag goes up by a factor of four. So, you know, EVs are very susceptible to arrow drag, which is why, you know, when you're driving on the highway, your range drops off pretty dramatically if you're driving it, you know, 85 versus 65. And so most of them are limiting the speed of their EVs to not much more than 100. There are exceptions, of course, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:43:14  
I don't. I mean, I know there's a whole sector of the automotive journalism industry that doesn't believe that speed kills. They're like, Oh, it's like, no, that's just physics. It's a sudden change in speed. Yeah, like, well, if I'm going really fast, I saying it'll falling doesn't kill you. I'm like, Yeah, but eventually you hit something. Like the fall, the act of sudden deceleration is when the hit. It's the same thing with driving. And I it's, it's really I sort of eye rolling whenever you encounter that, and I'm just like, Ah, you're just, I don't know, it's it is bragging rights. And the reality is, you can have a lot of fun going up to 60 miles an hour, to be completely honest, in a car, you autocross I mean, you're never really going that fast. But you're doing like these, but you're gonna have a lot of fun doing autocross. So it's Yeah, I don't I don't know. It's it's the they're the people are going to they're afraid there's going to be backlash, because of course, there will be. And there'll be op eds, because of course, there will be. And then something about freedom, because of course, there will be there will be, but but we're already limiting the lot of things on vehicles, but whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:21  
And, you know, what you could do is you could do like what GM does with supercruise. You can geofence it, so that if you're, if you've got a high performance car, you're taking it to a track day, and you're on a race track, open it up, you can unlock it, there you

Roberto Baldwin  1:44:36  
go crazy. days or four, well, maybe that's crazy. Don't don't throw it into the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:42  
public road. You limit it to say 90 miles an hour maximum.

Roberto Baldwin  1:44:46  
I think 90 I think 90 is a good number because there's a lot of places where you can do 70 And there's places you can do 80 And there are some times you're you know, if you're out running the cops, you're gonna want to be able to do 90 Yeah, at least 90 You don't need to go any faster. 90 To be coming. Let's be honest, anything above that it's just that's just that's just dumb. You're just being dumb. If you're not reading the cops, or the mob, or the, or the Yakuza, or you know anyone who you've angered, maybe a spouse, you don't really need to go faster 90. Just drive what you do is just drive into a parking a parking structure where the helicopters can't see you. And then you ditch the car right away the end. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  1:45:28  
And there's your story.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:31  
All right. How do you last one last comes from and that what would it take to make wagons cool again? Is there an Eevee? One plan from any of them big manufacturers? Or is everything just a crossover now?

Nicole Wakelin  1:45:44  
Now we'll think they're cool, except for automotive journalists.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:47  
Wait a minute. Cool. wagons have always been cool wagons

Roberto Baldwin  1:45:50  
of automotive journalists, either an automotive journalist or a deep enthusiast automotive like you just love all cars and the rest of the world are like, Oh, no, no, no, wagons are awesome. And they're never gonna listen to us. Because we all just keep saying how awesome wagons are. You know what, no one will sell wagon to sell them. Volvo is like, Hey, we're gonna sell some wagons. And everyone's like, except for us. We all got excited. We're like, Yay, wagons. And then they everyone else like we all did nice write ups on the wagons. They all got great reviews. And nobody bought them.

Nicole Wakelin  1:46:25  
Nobody bought them. So guess what? No way.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:28  
I mean, the only person I ever knew that bought an accurate TX wagon was was a journalist.

Nicole Wakelin  1:46:37  
Boy, there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:39  
And find that a TX wagon.

Roberto Baldwin  1:46:42  
The space. Volkswagen had the space vision Evie wagon that they showed on. gorgeous, beautiful. And then we had a talk with with what's his name? CEO of not Herbert. Volkswagen us. He's now doing scout. Oh, Scott keel got so we had a whole conversation with Scott. And at some point he's like, I think he's like, I think that people at some point, kids are gonna be like, Oh, SUVs are the things my parents drive. And they're going to look at other vehicles. And I like to think that's true someday. Hopefully, fingers crossed. But so far it's not. And we don't have this space vision. Yeah, space. Awesome. Awesome. Electric wagon coming

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:25  
out. Maybe, you know, we'll get some someday.

Roberto Baldwin  1:47:30  
Part of the fun of going to Europe is just staring at wagons because their wagons. Forget all

Nicole Wakelin  1:47:35  
the sites in Europe and I'm just here to stare at the wagon. Wagon. I'm good. I'm good. Give me another coffee and go sit here and watch the wagons.

Roberto Baldwin  1:47:43  
What is that Parson on? wagons.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:48  
I love wagons. They are they're great. They mean they have all the all the benefits of a car with some extra cargo space.

Roberto Baldwin  1:47:55  
It's everything you want. Yeah. My favorite car was was my was my WR X wagon. It was a wagon that went fast. Yeah. And it all wheel drive. It was outstanding. I could I could. I could rally. And then also go to Home Depot and pick up some mulch. Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:14  
You'd be surprised how much mulch you can put in a wagon.

Nicole Wakelin  1:48:16  
There you go. You don't need a truck. You just need to do your rally thing and then go pick up the ball

Roberto Baldwin  1:48:20  
pick up all right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:22  
Let us say goodbye for this week. Bye bye. Bye bye bye