Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 Coming right up on episode 259 of wheel bearings. We've got lots of Hyundai's with the elantra N, the Santa Cruz and the 2023 palisade. We've also got the Mazda CX 30, a road trip and the Nissan Rogue. Electrify America goes flat pack. Ralph Nader calls out Tesla EVs are getting more expensive, and Cadillacs got some interesting new names. All that more coming up next. Sam Abuelsamid 0:33 This is wheel bearings episode 259. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights. Nicole Wakelin 0:40 And I am Nicole Wakelin with a FAST Women Podcast. Roberto Baldwin 0:43 I'm Roberto Baldwin, from the Drive Sam Abuelsamid 0:47 and Mr. Baldwin, since you haven't had anything to drive for the last couple of weeks. Nicole Wakelin 0:53 It was really an empty block on the show notes. Does he have something? Oh, Sam Abuelsamid 0:57 he's got something in there. He's got something in there. Tell us what you've been driving around in. Roberto Baldwin 1:01 So I well, I didn't have it at home because now I have to travel for like the next couple of weeks. But I drove the Hyundai Santa Fe I'm sorry, not the Santa Fe, the Santa Cruz. The their truck do Nicole Wakelin 1:18 you thing, little Truckee Roberto Baldwin 1:20 thing which I haven't done yet. The truck. I like that. It just hasn't hasn't come up. So I got to drive it while I was in North Carolina. I drove the all wheel drive. four cylinder turbo addition. So I drove the expensive one. And it has a little I don't know how to say that the name of the thing on the back that cup on the bed. Tano Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:43 it's probably the same way twice. I go tono. Then tonto, then Tonto then to No, I just I make it up as I go. I don't know either. Roberto Baldwin 1:50 I've never heard it said out loud Sam Abuelsamid 1:51 before. That's, that's a tonneau cover. Tonic. Roberto Baldwin 1:55 It's one of those words like when you're a little kid, you read a lot of books. And there's all these words, you know, but you don't know how they sound. Sam Abuelsamid 2:01 If you're talking to the head of product, PR still Lantis it's demo, Rick demo. But if you're talking about the cover on the back, it's a tunnel. Nicole Wakelin 2:11 No good to remember that will actually work if I think tunnel. Oh, no. Well, thanks, Rick. Appreciate that. Roberto Baldwin 2:18 Yeah, so I drove a little tunnel on the back end. It was we were in North Carolina. We're driving up to this little mountain road. And it did really well for a truck. It's all wheel drive, of course. So it's also really an SUV Sam Abuelsamid 2:30 and it's only sort of a truck. It's really Hyundai Tucson. Tucson with a bad Roberto Baldwin 2:35 chocolate. It's like the maverick the Mavericks like you know the edge but in both instances, throwing truck bodies on top of SUV platforms is a pretty sweet gig to be. Yeah, no, it was it was a fun little car. I really enjoy I enjoyed it. Far more than I anticipated. The you know, the only downside of this vehicle is that it's more expensive than the maverick. The only downside is that the maverick exists. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. That is really that's really about it. Nicole Wakelin 3:08 I think that I think the Maverick is is not as nice a ride as Oh no, no Sam Abuelsamid 3:14 the Mavericks not as nice. The Maverick is absolutely more much more basic. Nicole Wakelin 3:18 Yes, the Maverick is basic where the Santa Cruz is like who has a nice little truck inside here. Roberto Baldwin 3:23 Yeah, if you're looking for it's the same I mean, this is when we've talked about it again and again and again. You get a Hyundai you're getting more than what you pay for. Compared to pretty much anywhere else. The interior is the same you're getting more than what you're paying for. It is if you're if you're looking at the Maverick and like you know like you know it's basic it's it's not as nice as I want just you can get the Santa Cruz and then be like, Oh, this is nice. Yeah, doesn't have his all the utilities and have 3d printing doesn't have all the little slats in the back. Or slots in the back for random pieces of wood, which I still have in my backyard all the random pieces of wood for the maverick video shoot Sam Abuelsamid 4:02 today have to go by a maverick so you can use those. Roberto Baldwin 4:05 I actually thought that like about two weeks ago, I was in my backyard and I was moving some wood around and I saw all there was like four or five pieces that I cut specifically for that vehicle. And I was like I should go by Maverick. Nicole Wakelin 4:18 You got these event $4 with a wood you might as well hold Roberto Baldwin 4:23 $200 worth of wood Nicole Wakelin 4:24 oh sorry, good might be much more sense to buy a truck touch it now totally makes sense. Roberto Baldwin 4:30 If you wanted ours with a wood, I might as well run out by a $20,000 vehicle that I am not going to get for like eight months and b is going to cost me $30,000 Because the world is insane right now. But back to the Senator Cruz. No it was it was you know, I only had it for about about an hour. I didn't get to haul things with it but I did get to move open and close the trunk and use the tono tonto, tonto, no, tonto, tonto, okay, I'm gonna remember that. I'm gonna forget it and about 30 seconds tonto. Yeah, no, I really liked the Hyundai Santa Cruz is a great little truck. If you're looking for a small truck and you want something a little bit more fancy than the maverick if you demand satisfaction when it comes to an interior, I'm not saying the maverick interior is bad. It's actually really good for the price you're paying. But the Santa Cruz is just nicer. It's just, it's just nicer in and out. Sam Abuelsamid 5:28 It's more stylish, you know, to add a little more premium looking interior. Roberto Baldwin 5:33 It's like a tiny Ridgeline. Now the tiny Honda Ridgeline, Nicole Wakelin 5:37 that's how I was thinking it is like us took originally just shut down and put a Hyundai badge on it. Roberto Baldwin 5:42 Yeah, if you'd like it even has a little trunk inside the inside the batteries, but little things in there. So as deep as originally, but yeah, if you're looking for it, you're looking at the Ridgeline, you're like I was just a little too big. Hyundai's like, Hey, hold on, hold on, hold on. We got to get we got you covered. We covered because it was the all wheel drive. And it was the the, the the Turbo version. The price was $40,000. Oh, which is? Yeah, I don't think you need the turbo really to be quite honest. I will drive. I mean, that's up to you as a human. Whether or not you think you need all wheel drive. But I don't know, I think I'd be fine with Sam Abuelsamid 6:26 it. And if all you're doing is hauling around mulch, you can probably get by with just the four wheel drive. Roberto Baldwin 6:32 Exactly, exactly. But you know, you live somewhere, maybe its nose and you want that little extra piece of mine. Sam Abuelsamid 6:37 I'm still tonto. Yeah, I'm still a little surprised, you know, given that this thing is based on the Tucson platform, and you know, from the from the doors forward, it's basically a Tucson I mean, there's very subtle differences from from the Tucson that they didn't think about putting the plugin or the hybrid powertrain in here from from launch as for did with the Maverick, and I talked to the head of product planning for SUVs at at the program in Canton, North Carolina this week about that? And he said yeah, there was some some challenges with the packaging for the battery, and the Santa Cruz and there's they're still working on that, that they realized that they'd like to have a hybrid version in there. But they haven't worked all that out yet there. So hopefully before the end of the product cycle for this one, though, they'll have a hybrid version to go up against the the maverick hybrid. Nicole Wakelin 7:40 Ooh, so if you so let's assume they have a hybrid version, and you could go with a hybrid Santa Cruz or Maverick, then what would you do? Roberto Baldwin 7:48 I would still get the maverick just because it's it's less expensive. I don't need fancy when it comes to a truck. I'm very like every in my brain still for me personally, every the vehicles that are like a truck should be a truck. A truck should be something that I'm hauling like horses with and throwing hay in the back like that's like my whole history with trucks is that it was always like a work machine. Like if it gets scratched. No one cares because it's a truck Nicole Wakelin 8:16 with any like Fancy Pants King Ranch platinum Oh no, I Roberto Baldwin 8:20 don't want any of that none Nicole Wakelin 8:21 of the fancy terms you're like I want the work truck whatever the XL or Roberto Baldwin 8:27 give me a truck is a work truck. An SUV should be something that I could go off road with. It's essentially just a slightly nicer wrangler you know Nicole Wakelin 8:40 English are exactly the same. Roberto Baldwin 8:42 No if I'm looking at an SUV if I'm looking at SUV I want an SUV to be a slightly nicer Wrangler. I want to be nicer than a wrangler inside with doors to close and windows don't know make weird noises but I also want to be able to go off roading and so like the whole you know hatchback should be hatchbacks and yeah, wagon should be wagons but what well I think wagons is the one thing so what you don't your family somewhere really fast that's Sam Abuelsamid 9:05 so what you're saying is you don't actually want vehicles to crossover between segments. They should be intermingling. Roberto Baldwin 9:14 No well I don't want I don't want coops that have four doors. Or A's I want a coop with I want a two door coupe I want a manual transmission in a sports car. I want it Yeah. So then again I have I have so what are you gonna do Nicole Wakelin 9:32 with thanksgiving to also make sure like that your turkey doesn't touch your mashed potatoes. Oh Roberto Baldwin 9:37 no, what a food I cram it all I wasn't Nicole Wakelin 9:39 sure how far I can Sam Abuelsamid 9:40 make one like once you chew it's all turning into one big mass anyway, so Roberto Baldwin 9:46 yeah, I want I want everything all smashed together. But again, this is just me. And so when I look at cars, I look at how the rest of the world would want them but for me personally it would be the maverick just because I want to very simple just a truck Boom, done like the Miata. You just want to roadster and it's just it's it. It's a roadster it didn't you're not trying to like, hey, let's kind of gussy it up with some No, it's a roadster, you get a drive. It's fun. Okay, Sam Abuelsamid 10:14 I like that. And this is why we have choices. So you can, you can pick the one that works for you. For somebody that wants a little bit more visual style. They can go for the Santa Cruz. Roberto Baldwin 10:26 I really like it's I really like it too. But I want a truck that's a truck. I want to try I want to try. I want I want to feel I want to feel okay, putting the dogs in the back of the maverick. I feel like if I can put them in the back of the Santa Cruz but I'm gonna feel a little bit like I'm gonna put a cover down in the Santa Cruz Maverick. And the maverick they're just getting in. It's like my at my house. We have the the Kona the Kona Evie. Yeah, we have a cover inside the car for the dogs. But in the Jaguar. Now they just write on the leather seats. We don't care. I'm the Jaguars today and the dogs just sit right there right on leather seats good for them. They deserve the nice feel of their bums. Nicole Wakelin 11:09 Leather on their little butts. This is the report we're talking about like that. What's your priority? Well, my dog's butt is comfortable. So I'm gonna buy the guide Roberto Baldwin 11:20 dog is comfortable. And as far as I'm concerned, the the Jaguar to me is just a work vehicle. It is a working vehicle is used for just hauling things around and including the dogs. Sam Abuelsamid 11:31 Well, I was listening to the accidental tech podcast the other day and one of the CO hosts Marco Arment was telling a story he he and his wife and son live on Fire Island in New York. And he has in addition to his Tesla he's got an old Toyota FJ Cruiser that he bought, which was in the hope that he was going to be able to get a permit to drive on the island because you have to have a permit to drive on the island. And he noticed that the FJ was starting to get a little rusty and and other stuff. And he started looking up the resale values of them. And he he realized that he could actually sell the FJ Cruiser for more than he bought it right now he could sell it traded in for more than he bought it for last fall. And so he took his 10 year old son to go car shopping and to get a replacement for that. And he looked at the Wrangler plug in hybrid before by ie the Landrover defender. And what was the other one? Oh, the Toyota four runner and he had his had his son come along to give his ratings on the thing, including, you know, rear rear seat comfort and rear visibility while driving. And and also his third rating was how it smells and they ended up they found that the the Wrangler while it had a great powertrain, you know, plug in hybrid. And you know, obviously great four wheel drive capability. It was really cramped and everything, you know, even in the four door wrangler the the foreigner just felt old. Which fair. And so they ended up buying the Land Rover Defender instead. That is Roberto Baldwin 13:27 a solid choice. Yeah. Yeah. That defender so nice. Yeah, it's it. Well, I mean, it's nice that Marco can afford Nicole Wakelin 13:34 it. Also, there's a little pricing discrepancy between those things he was listing Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 13:38 yeah. Well, Sam Abuelsamid 13:40 I mean, the the Wrangler that we're looking at was 70 grand. Nicole Wakelin 13:43 Yeah. Oh, my gosh, there was it was like a Rubicon then. Right. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 13:47 Yeah. And actually, the defender they bought was actually a 18 month old used one. It was a 2007 pricing probably because the new defenders that the dealer was asking a $15,000 markup on a new defender. Of course they were but he got the used one with like, I don't know 15,000 miles on it or something. For a really good price. So Roberto Baldwin 14:13 you know, that's a that's a perfect example of like, it's a Jeep just nicer. Yeah. The Jeep just nicer. Like you Sam Abuelsamid 14:21 can't take the doors off. You can't take the doors off. Roberto Baldwin 14:23 That's fine. That's it I mean, it's great and fine if you do that, but I don't I don't think people I think people do Nicole Wakelin 14:31 that once we take the doors off. Sam Abuelsamid 14:33 prising number of people drive around here and wranglers with the doors off yeah, I Roberto Baldwin 14:38 had an uncle who I don't think he ever had the doors on I never got into his into is a renegade is back when the bank would render the gate. Yeah, it's like the old old old old Tiger was on the on the CGI one point. Yeah, it was a trim level and I don't think he ever had the I think he might have had a roof but I never saw it and I never ever saw the doors. Maybe he Nicole Wakelin 14:59 could have really Good deal this doesn't come with doors or roof not a problem. Don't need them anyway. Sam Abuelsamid 15:04 Actually finally seen a couple of Broncos driving around the doors off in the last couple of weeks. So good for them. And you know what the few Broncos Nicole Wakelin 15:10 I've seen because obviously far less to lose on the road. I have not seen a single one that wasn't closed up tight as a drum. Every single one. There's nothing removed from that everything buttoned up. No extra. No outside elements were intruding into those vehicles. Roberto Baldwin 15:26 You haven't seen woman's doors off yet? Yeah. She called my uncle. He'll be like, What are you doing? What's the point of having a vehicle you take the doors off? You leave the doors. I remember as a little kid, like, five, six years old. Just be like, That's the road. I can see the road. Sam Abuelsamid 15:45 Were you at least buckled in? Nicole Wakelin 15:49 Yeah, it could be back in the day. It could have been questionable. Roberto Baldwin 15:52 Me. I think that might have been the only time the only vehicle I buckled in in like the early 80s. I didn't wear Yeah, we never like our parents never. My mom Nicole Wakelin 16:03 was a nurse. So she was like you will be properly secured in a vehicle at all times. Because she just she'd seen some stuff over the years. And she's like, you will wear your seat belts. Roberto Baldwin 16:13 Yeah, we were just sort of like fancy free and flopping all over the place. Nicole Wakelin 16:17 And you survived. And here you are, despite the lack of seatbelt usage. responsible child that you were Sam Abuelsamid 16:23 I got I got through my childhood without ever seeing a bicycle helmet. So yeah, that's true. We did some crazy stuff on our blog site, no Nicole Wakelin 16:31 helmet. You know what I was, I was watching Stranger Things. And there was a moment where they had the kids riding and they had like, pads on their knees and pads on the skateboard. Roberto Baldwin 16:40 That's the skateboard. Sam Abuelsamid 16:42 You know, that about that was totally inauthentic. 80s it was Roberto Baldwin 16:46 that was the the most inauthentic and in that entire series is that moment. I was watching. I was like, No, that's not right. Because I remember even in the late 80s If anyone showed up with pads, or a helmet, right skateboarding, oh my god skateboarding was so incredibly it was it was it was an outsider thing but also very elitist. Like once you became a skateboarder like you didn't wear pads, you had to listen to punk music and like there was there were rules to be Nicole Wakelin 17:13 seen bother you because as soon as it came on the screen, I can't tell you what else was happening. Because all my brain did was like, whoop, that's not the 80s that is not Roberto Baldwin 17:21 Yeah. Especially the mid 80s. No, we Yeah, I remember late 80s Some kids showed up. We were all skateboarding. Some kids showed up with pads. And we were like, What are you doing? And he's like, my mom won't let me skateboard and we're like, Is your mom even here? And he took the pads off we we pierced Well, I didn't I didn't I didn't really talk much so all the other kids made fun of him. But I didn't stop him. When we peer pressured this kid into writing unsafe into putting his life in danger and I think he hurt himself. Nicole Wakelin 17:53 Nicely done Robbie. scraped up knees. scar on the side of his face his kid Robin when I was little who bullied me into not wearing a helmet. Roberto Baldwin 18:02 Yeah, I broken my arm once and I still skateboard it with my arm broken arm I'll How was the brace that they made me Where am I remember my mom being like, can you not do that? And I'm like, Well, what do you mean? Like an idiot? Nicole Wakelin 18:15 Yeah. All right, totally off track. But wait a minute. Sam Abuelsamid 18:19 Did you drive Nicole? Okay, Nicole Wakelin 18:20 so I had the 2022 Mazda CX 30. And I'm going to try and look at this meroni Without crinkly it is the single crinkly it's like it's lightly put it in saran wrap. I don't know what's happening here. So I have this vehicle for the week. It is the 2.5 Turbo, which means it is 2.5 liter turbocharged four cylinder. 227 horsepower. 310 pound feet of torque. Six speed auto. It is $36,345 Wow. Okay, give me guesses on destination because I just looked Sam Abuelsamid 18:51 1200 1295 Nicole Wakelin 18:54 Oh my god. So you guys are really close. 1225 Roberto Baldwin 18:56 Oh, over Yeah. Confessions. Right. Okay. Showdown. Nicole Wakelin 19:01 Wow. 25 That's a lot. So, which wasn't where I was going, but I just looked when I looked at the price of my good gravy. So I had this. It's super fun. I mean, monsters are pretty much always fun to drive. I don't think you generally get behind the wheel and go wow, this is boring. Like that just doesn't happen. And this one was no exception. It's a really fun little car drive. It looks it looks sleek, it looks sexy. Like it has a nice look to it. It has that like Monster isn't technically a luxury brand. But they have that like aspirational luxury vibe or they look a little upscale, they look a little fancy look a little different. So it's a sweet little car sitting in the driveway and I had a good time driving it. Took it around town a good bit took it downtown into Boston, on my usual trip. There's this tunnel, they're doing construction, and it's certain times the tunnel is now closed. And every time I go through the experience of driving through this tunnel is entirely different one time the walls are like ragged cement that looks like something that's going to cave on in on you. The last time we went through I had this and it was like the road wasn't a row. Dude, I'm like, did you pull up everything and then just sprinkle it back on the pavement? It was the rough ride. I was like what has happened here? It was awful. Like everyone's basketball. Yeah, just a sprinkling of asphalt. Everyone's slowing down, like what the EverLiving. Heck, I'm gonna say it handled it really well, because we kind of all went into that tunnel at the normal speed and then got inside and did this like Whoa, baby what's going on. So it really well in some truly terrible road surfaces in Boston right now. So I enjoyed driving it and thought that's pretty good. Like, it's definitely the kind of vehicle if you're going to go on a long trip, whether that's road trip situation, or maybe have a long commute and just really, really comfy but you don't have something that's fun to drive. I feel like the CX 30 checks that box. I like it. I still don't like that there's not a touchscreen. I can't get by it. I know Sam, two screens are unsafe, Nicole, you should all be controlled some other way. Saying anything your eyes are saying. So yeah, no touchscreen. But which I never like but otherwise, you know, and it has the nice interior, it has all the things that make it feel again, like that sort of aspirational luxury thing. There's leather trim seats and a power driver's seat and you have the you know, they're heated front seats, which it's 90 degrees, not using that today. And you know, you've got the sunroof, it's it's a nice, it's a nice car, and it has that sort of luxury vibe. And again, you know, 36,000 it's not super cheap, but you're getting a little bit of a luxurious experience without truly having to go into that price point, which I think is kind of nice. And if you need it's not especially spacious you know, crossover SUV I don't know how they qualify this one, but it's it's big crossover crossover. Unknown Speaker 21:39 So you know thing that Robbie doesn't like, the thing that Robbie doesn't like, Nicole Wakelin 21:43 it's not especially spacious thing really Roberto Baldwin 21:45 tall hatchback. Nicole Wakelin 21:46 Yeah. I agree hatchback. So if you have real serious cargo needs, probably not for you, but the person who wants to because it has standard all wheel drive now across the lineup. So if you want all wheel drive, you want something a little more upscale, you want something that's fun to drive, and you you know, need that little SUV vibe, but you don't really need you're not doing the mulch thing. This is it's a great choice. So I like it. Sam Abuelsamid 22:07 Yeah, I love Mazda, as you know, because, you know, they have they have tried to make their vehicles more premium. And they really feel premium. But the prices haven't gone up dramatically. They're still priced pretty competitively with cars that feel like when you get when you get in the Mazda you got soft touch surfaces, it feels like a much more expensive vehicle than it does Nicole Wakelin 22:32 it does I mean, because for 36 When I think about how this looks just the sleekness and sexiness of it on the outside plus the interior, the comfort level, it's very, very comfortable. The trims the accent stitching, like when you take it all together as a package, and you really evaluate just look at it. It looks like it should cost more than it does. It doesn't look like it's a vehicle that cost under $40,000. It really doesn't you think it would be somewhere in the 40s. So I think they do a really good job of delivering that without having to make you break the bank like you want sort of what I guess luxury light, maybe if you want that Mazda can deliver that, and especially in the top terms of some of their like bigger SUVs and stuff. They're They're beautiful. They're really, really stunning. Sam Abuelsamid 23:12 I just wish you could get the turbo engine with a manual transmission. Sam Abuelsamid 23:15 Well, don't get me started on that. That would be you know, that could be a modern take on the mazdaspeed3. Nicole Wakelin 23:21 It could but it's not so no, just you know, Roberto, you can't have it. No, no, no, Roberto Baldwin 23:28 I'm not gonna say I'm just going to be quiet and not Sam Abuelsamid 23:30 a modern mazdaspeed3 Without the torque steer. Nicole Wakelin 23:33 Yeah, it would. That would be amazing Mazda. So that was my that was my review vehicle. But I have one other vehicle to talk about. Can't talk of another one. Absolutely. So I also drove the Nissan Rogue and the reason I drove the Nissan Rogue was they wanted me to do a little road trip in this. So I live in Southern New Hampshire and they were doing a little event where they had your road tripping to Saranac Lake, which is like in the Lake Placid area in New York, and sort of like a lifestyle a thing so you can bring someone with you and I brought my my daughter who's going to college in two days. I'm not crying Oh fine, I'm fine. By so we did this little road trip and it was super fun because you don't often just get stuff me sort of hand you a car and say meet us here. Like See you at dinner. Like like take the car and go. So we drove up and it was the thing that's different about it this year. It has a new a new engine. So 1.5 liter turbo three cylinder two and 201 horsepower 225 pound feet of torque. It's their variable compression turbo it says VC turbo. If you look at their little lingo it's really fun little car and the thing is we were taking it this s now would you call this an SUV or crossover SUV. Roberto Baldwin 24:47 brogue Yeah, SUV, SUV, okay, small SUV, Nicole Wakelin 24:50 small SUV SUV, we were taking this SUV like from Southern New Hampshire through the mountains in Vermont into upstate New York. So it's pretty like there was some steep terrain in there, like you're doing some winding mountain roads. And you could hear that the CVT a little bit like there's moments where it kind of drones but it only was really when I was like, really on a steep incline, like you only really noticed it when you're doing things that you typically don't do, because the roads get really twisty and steep, but surprisingly fun to drive. Because there's a lot of swinging back and forth on those roads, like twisty attorneys, and we found a mountain, we took a right instead of a left and there was a mountain, we also got lost for 45 minutes, because I'm gonna tell you when you're selecting an item, like you know where you're going and you want to restart your nav. You know how it like resorts on your felt like when you're using CarPlay and we'll make flour was just like flour for the name of the road. But then a lake Fletcher had popped up when we stopped at a bookstore and I glanced and it must have shifted slightly. So I took us to Lake Fletcher, which is in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, 45 minutes the wrong way. I saw some great barns, a lot of cows and it was when I was on this really really like ratty dirt road I'm like, this can't possibly be you're more aware of Nissan wants me to be let me double check this. Roberto Baldwin 26:05 You got to do some dirt road driving. We did We Nicole Wakelin 26:09 did some action a little and I'm like, oh, and I get there and they're like we're gonna guess if your car and tidy. I'm like, Yes, sorry, I found a dirt road by accident. So it was like it was white when we left, not so much when we got there. So we had a really nice drive. And it was funny. It proves such a nice, comfortable road trip vehicle like they have the zero gravity seats too, which I know again, sound over the LM reaction. It sounds like marketing things. But it's like I looked it up and it's you know, it's supposed to hold your body in the position to reduce the number of pressure points and mimic sort of the weightlessness like the right posture for your spine and everything. So you don't get as tired. My four ish hour drive was more like five and a half because I went the wrong way. And I didn't have any that road warrior weariness honestly, that you get after you've been behind the wheel for a while. So it was pretty comfy. So I gave it high marks for it seats and for the new engine, low marks to me for not knowing how to put an address into navigation and taking myself into the middle of nowhere in Vermont. So that was those were my two. My two vehicles that I drove. Sam Abuelsamid 27:08 Yeah, I had a chance to drive to spend a couple of hours with with the updated rogue. Earlier in the spring, when they were first announced the new engine, the 1.5 liter three cylinder turbo. And, you know, I mean, the rest of it is unchanged from right from last year. But that that engine is a huge improvement over the old 2.5 liter four cylinder. Nicole Wakelin 27:31 And the thing is, it's funny because it's like I can't remember the exact horsepower difference and it does jump up on horsepower, but it's only by a few. Right. So it's not like this gigantic leap in horsepower, but the engine itself is so much better the turbo, Sam Abuelsamid 27:44 there's a lot more torque. Yeah, there's only a little more horsepower. There's a lot more torque, low end torque. It makes it feel different. Nicole Wakelin 27:50 Yeah, it feels much stronger. Like I said it was accelerating on some pretty you know, when you get into the mountains anywhere. It's not like you're in steep terrain, and you need something to get up because it's off road. It's just steep and cars struggle with it. A lot of the time in this didn't really struggle it was it held its own, which was pretty impressive. Sam Abuelsamid 28:07 Cool. Well, we'll be talking more about dirt roads in a few minutes. But I had the Hyundai Elantra n, which is the latest of the N series cars from the Korean brand. It's the same powertrain that is in that was in that was in the velociter n because the velociter N has now been discontinued sadly. But essentially what you're getting with the launcher n is a velociter end with a slightly more in some way slightly more practical package. You get the latest generation of ultra styling which is kind of Hyundai's current design language with the sort of faceted creases, sharp creases in the body work looks it's a sharp looking car, especially with the all the end stuff on there the front air dam or the front splitter. With the red accents. The one I had was in the performance blue which is the signature color for the end brand for Hyundai. This is a 2.5 liter or two liter turbo four cylinder 276 horsepower 255 foot pounds of torque fantastic engine. I think this is it's basically the same engine that was in that Santa Cruz that you drove Robbie, but with tuned for a little more performance. And you can get the allotter N with a six speed manual just as you used to be able to and and the velociter. I had the one with the eight speed dual clutch transmission, which when I talked previously about the velociter and with that same setup when you put it on the steering wheel, there's a button for to engage end mode which is their, their performance mode. And when when you put it in and mode, it just transformed system. I mean, it's it's fun to drive all the time, you know, whatever mode you're in. But really when you put it in Add mode, it transforms, especially the way the the transmission behaves. Because when you're, when you're accelerating hard, you know, it keeps it in gear, revs it up close to redline. When you're braking hard into a corner, you will feel feel it and hear it downshifting doing exactly the kinds of things you would do if you're driving a manual transmission, you know, quickly, you know, so Matt doing the rev matching and everything has its downshifting. It sounds great. Obviously, you're not quite as engaged. Because you're not, you know, manipulating the clutch and the shift lever and everything. But it does the thing you know, so it's it controls the transmission in the way that you would want to control it if you were doing it manually. So you're always in the right gear, so that you, you have the revs up, you've got the boost up. So that as you're coming through coming past the apex of the corner, you can accelerate out. So it's, it's great in that respect, is this one, as an end model, it has the the lightened sport bucket seats, so you've got extra lump or extra side bolstering on this thing. It's a simplified seat, it doesn't have a whole lot of adjustments to factors, very few adjustments, moving the seat back and forth, is completely manual, you gotta reach down in front of you grab the bar, slide it forward and back, you gotta work Roberto Baldwin 31:42 for it the way God intended. Exactly, Sam Abuelsamid 31:45 and you can recline the seat, and that's about it, I think I think there's a height adjustment on the driver's side. And that's, that's all you get, the passenger front passenger doesn't even get a height adjustment. But, you know, aside from that, it's also got an electronic limited slip differential. And this is a front wheel drive car. But it's got a limited slip differential in the front. So again, that helps with your, with your cornering, putting the power where it needs to be. Again, also with the end mode, you get a little more, there's a variable exhaust Variable Valve System and the exhaust so that it sounds considerably louder in end mode. You know, it's, it's, it sounds fun to drive. And it is a lot of fun to drive. And despite, you know, being lowered and having low profile tires, and big wheels and everything, it's actually also surprisingly comfortable to drive even, you know, on roads that are less than ideal, as we have them here in Michigan. So you can you can have a great time with this thing. still use it very comfortably as a daily driver. The one thing that I was sad not to see in this car that was in the previous two velociter ends that I've driven the manual and the DCT version is the same performance blue seatbelts in the velocities, they always had the seat belts that in that that signature blue color they have for the end brand. And this one just had plain old black seat belts did have the contrast stitching in that blue color. But I kind of missed the seat belts. It's kind of a just a fun little nice little touch. If you have a performance Roberto Baldwin 33:26 like sub brand or trim level, you should have different colored seat belts beyond Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 33:33 it seems reasonable me I mean, when you when you get a Pollstar engineered Volvo, they're, you know, they're bright yellow seatbelts, and I think on AMGs they had their red fibres call. I think they like the red. It's been a while since I drove one last one, I think had red ones. Anyway. Great, great car. As equipped with the DCT. The launcher N came to $35,145 including 10 $1,095 freight charge. Most stuff is standard equipment on here. I think the only options on here were the $400 for the blue paint, and $1,500 for the DCT. Everything else is standard on here. And one thing I noticed on this one, actually going back I've noticed on the last couple of Hyundai's and Kias have driven as well as on the car we'll talk about next. sounds of nature is gone. There's no more sounds of nature isn't really why they stopped putting it in there. Oh, Nicole Wakelin 34:40 it was You're kidding. Okay, well, Sam Abuelsamid 34:43 I mean, I can understand it on the allotter end because you want to hear that engine, you know, because it sounds so good. But on some of the other ones like when I was driving the Tucson plug in hybrid a few weeks ago, it didn't have sounds of nature, which I think would have been really good when you're driving around in evey mode. Nicole Wakelin 35:00 Wow, this makes me sad. Roberto Baldwin 35:03 Sit on a sidewalk cafe. Sam Abuelsamid 35:06 Yeah. I guess you'll just have to drive the car to a sidewalk cafe get out and sit there for a while Roberto Baldwin 35:14 though. Did you look under media? Sam Abuelsamid 35:17 I didn't. That's where it's at now. Oh, so they just moved it we just moved because it used to be at the top level of the menu it's like a whole like a top level like that was Roberto Baldwin 35:26 one of them right there morons and nature. One of the more important thing of the vehicle was out yet now it's in media because we Yeah, Unknown Speaker 35:33 okay. I'm glad that didn't get rid of that minute Roberto Baldwin 35:37 when we talk about the next vehicle out. Okay, that's, that's one of the things did you know you could do this and while we're just cranking it, listen. Sam Abuelsamid 35:45 Alright. Well, with that, why don't we move ahead to the next vehicle something that all three of us drove this past week? At the same time? Roberto Baldwin 35:55 You really blew it, Sam you could have Yeah, could you do better? I mean, really could have done a podcast in the car while riding around time. Yeah, the same time Sam Abuelsamid 36:04 Absolutely. Please. Doing it while we're driving around on a dirt road for an hour now Nicole Wakelin 36:08 rugged off road trail that we were on the road rugged off road trail. Sam Abuelsamid 36:14 So the vehicle we are referring to is the 20 of the refreshed 2023 Hyundai palisade which all three of us went to Asheville, North Carolina this past week to drive Yes. What did you think Roberto Baldwin 36:28 it's still a great vehicle. It's i It's a great vehicle made better with like just some smart updates to tech, and a few other things. And then it also not let you leave your child or your animals in the car anymore without hassling you and people around the vehicle. Nicole Wakelin 36:44 And I also like the updates on the outside. They changed the Unknown Speaker 36:46 grill. Oh yeah. Nicole Wakelin 36:48 It looks far far better outside than it did before. Which was not as great. Roberto Baldwin 36:55 The XR T Yeah, it was not didn't look nearly as nice as right. But the the XR t which is the all black like most time when the midnight black, whatever people want to call them. But this one looks really. Yeah, like the best looking one, Sam Abuelsamid 37:09 especially with the light body and then everything else in black. Yeah, quite sharp. Roberto Baldwin 37:15 Fantastic. And it still has the sounds of nature because we used it while we were driving through this crazy off road adventure. And when I say crazy, I mean, like a really long driveway. Nicole Wakelin 37:26 That's the perfect description. Roberto Baldwin 37:29 So we listen to the waves and to a cafe, all the regular things that you definitely need to listen to while you're driving around. Sam Abuelsamid 37:36 We had what about 35 minutes or so from the hotel to the Biltmore Estate. Yeah, which is beautiful, which, which is beautiful. And it's also the home of a Jaguar Land Rover off road driving facility, which is what we will be used, except, you know, as good as the palisade is, and it's a wonderful vehicle. It has a three row family SUV. Unknown Speaker 38:04 Not really an off road vehicle. Nicole Wakelin 38:06 It's not and I liked the idea that they wanted to take us like, hey, it can go off road and but I almost think it hurt does more harm than good as they're kind of proving by our conversation. But like, no one's really taking this off road. And when you tell a bunch of journalists that you're going to take us off road. It needs to be more than a really long dirt driveway. We're all kind of like guy there were a couple of mud puddles. But like really seriously, how many vehicles could you not have taken on this course? You can probably name them on one hand like a Miata. Sam Abuelsamid 38:34 Yeah. Like BRC? Roberto Baldwin 38:38 Except for like, you know, I think I could take my beers. Yeah. I mean, it was like one little there's one little downward turn and then pull back up that I think I would have had little trouble with the BRC, but I think I could have made it. Nicole Wakelin 38:51 That was the problem when they take you on something that it's just so easy to drive. i The guy and the guy was hit the spotter didn't help because he's like, Okay, guys, I'm hopping out of the car. I'm going to help you up here because we have a bump and I'm like, Where? Where do we drive? Roberto Baldwin 39:03 Oh, we did it like you like you passed him and I was still looking for it. I was like, I passed Nicole Wakelin 39:08 him on one spot because there was a hill there was a hill and that we had to be careful of and I was just going up and he gave me frantic slow down is if I was going 85 And I'm like, was that the hell? He was all worried about mixing the walkie they're like click like everybody. Oh, we need to slow down here because we need to make sure we're paying attention. I'm like, Dude, I can do this in a Camry I think I'm good. I'm not like hooning up the hill here and it just Yeah, it was fine on the very long dirt drive. Well Sam Abuelsamid 39:33 we spent what about an hour and 20 minutes or so on that trail? It was a while now Roberto Baldwin 39:40 45 minutes each I think yeah, it was like I would Nicole Wakelin 39:42 rather just driven it honestly just give me some more road time in it. Like I didn't need to do that. Just let me drive it on some roads and twisty turny bits and highway like because that's how most people are going to use it. I mean, it did Roberto Baldwin 39:52 go into the Kayo a in the palisade or to like a music festival Sam Abuelsamid 39:58 in the will have no problem at all. And you'll be able to handle the situation Roberto Baldwin 40:02 in the dirt. And it was still comfortable inside. Yeah, everything he was, but it was okay. We, you know, three miles an hour. Nicole Wakelin 40:12 He was in the Land Rover guy, the guy. I mean, he knew his stuff clearly. But he was very dramatic. It's like there's a bump. There's a hill, be careful, and we're just looking like Roberto Baldwin 40:23 we're all looking for the hump and a hill what it Nicole Wakelin 40:25 looks like when you're using Waze. And it's like, is there an accident and you're looking and ready to push like there is or isn't and you're like, was it was it here? I guess I hit No, because I don't see anything like you just have no idea kind of how that was. The pig. We did. Roberto Baldwin 40:41 We saw a puppy. We saw Sam Abuelsamid 40:43 Yeah, we saw it. We saw that. We saw him too cute what we had. We had we kept having to stop like everybody going back and had to stop because he kept walking out in front of the Palisades. Whoever was in the passenger seat would jump out and kind of guide him back over towards the house. So that truck go by and then they'd get in and they'd run back out in front of the next one. Sam Abuelsamid 41:07 He was very cute. And there's a couple of people saw saw bear although that was on the afternoon. Drive after lunch going up to Mount Mitchell. They saw a black bear. Roberto Baldwin 41:21 Oh, I didn't see the bear. They people showed pictures of them seeing the bear Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 41:25 Jill Jill salmonella was driving with Gary Whitson Berg. They got a picture of the bear and somebody else saw the bears well I can't Maru now but that was that was that was after we got away from the off road part. That was when we're on a regular paved road. Very nice road by the way as well. Yeah, we my partner and I drove the Hyundai five up the mountain. That was that was an excellent vehicle for that drive. Nicole Wakelin 41:53 We are drive up the mountain it was our day it was cloudy of a mountain. Did you even go all the way to the top of the mountain? Sam Abuelsamid 41:58 We did? It was it was overcast up there and we actually had some rain on the way down there was there was rain coming through some thunderstorms Nicole Wakelin 42:06 are super Misty, like you couldn't see anything to feed and yeah, you Roberto Baldwin 42:10 couldn't see anything. We took the venue up. And so we got most of the way and then we just turned around right? We've already driven the venue wasn't that you know, and then we went back and then I got the palisade I drove that I took that out for an hour and I hit crazy rain as if it was easy. Like it was raining a laugh and it was raining like just huge giant drops. And I'm like okay, let's see a lot of rain whatever fit in that's not something I'm used to because California but then at one point all sudden it just felt like for a good minute the rain drops so quickly and so hard that you just couldn't see it was just like why it was like Blizzard whiteout conditions of rain for like a minute and and I had their their their driver's assistance feature on and I couldn't say anything but the car knew to slow down. It realized the vehicle in front of us all I saw a little blade, just faint red lights pop on when someone put their brakes on. And so yeah, so their, their their camera system, and Nicole Wakelin 43:09 it takes Roberto Baldwin 43:12 Yeah, probably not the camera, their radar. Radar, completely worthless at this. Yeah, the cameras are sort of completely worthless at that point. So, no, it was Yeah, so yeah, so I had kids that 20 minutes, which are 40 minutes to the place, which meant I got it for 20 minutes and then 45 minutes of off roading 65 minutes and you know, three quarters of it is driving under five miles an hour wasn't enough for my article. So I went back and said, Hey, I need to drive this car somewhere. And they said, Oh, here yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 43:42 All right. Let's see what else came up this week. Oh. So speaking of EVs for a moment, Electrify America announced a deal with IKEA this week. And they're going to be putting in a bunch of Electrify America fast chargers which hopefully, will work at IKEA locations in 18 states across the US after putting in about 200 chargers for the public to use and a similar number for IKEA to use for their delivery vehicles because they're getting 40 transits. And so they're gonna the first batch of those will be installed by the end of this year and all of them will be installed by the end of next year. So now you can drive your drive your Eevee to IKEA and maybe possibly be able to charge it up while you're getting lost inside that massive store. Nicole Wakelin 44:42 I mean, I think about it, you would have enough time to fully charge your vehicle because how long does it take to average get through an Ikea I mean you spend you get there when they open after lunchtime with you once you've had your Swedish meatballs you finally leave so and there's sentimental stuff in here. So when your cinnamon rolls can forget those so by the time you do all that you can really charge your vehicle Roberto Baldwin 44:59 or you you I mean, that's the crazy thing is that even the slowest vehicles are charging like 40 minutes and then takes a good three or four days to get through an IKEA and what's really nice is that after you've had a big argument with your with your significant other to come back to a fully charged vehicle, right because that's what IKEA does, it breaks down that break down you know really Sam Abuelsamid 45:17 makes relationships yeah FgFs you've been meandering through those curvy aisles you know trying to try to figure out you know, trying to find the thing you're looking for. And you finally just plop yourself down in a sofa or on one of the one of the beds and say I give up Nicole Wakelin 45:37 like forget it. I'm just gonna sit here and eat my meatballs and cinnamon rolls and I give up with everything I've done yeah, Roberto Baldwin 45:41 I think it works best. What's nice is that you can go in if you're in get food and the time it takes to charge so that's really I mean, I think going to shop at IKEA and then charging IKEA is you're going to end up with a huge bill for just sitting there you're going to be that person who just leaves a Nicole Wakelin 45:57 car charged but your car sat there for an extra eight hours. Roberto Baldwin 46:01 Yeah, exactly. So I think that going in and and or if you're the person like sometimes I'll go to I can't do exactly what I want i'll just head straight to the head like a little shortcut sitting just go straight to the warehouse and just grab the thing you need and get the hell out like that's me. Like I'm just in I'm out I'm on with my life I'm on the internet I'm like I'm shopping here. I don't want to get lost. I don't want to they don't give you the little paper measuring tape anymore IKEA I've noticed Oh really? Sam Abuelsamid 46:28 I'm been in one in a while still have them Roberto Baldwin 46:32 I mean maybe they just ran out Sam Abuelsamid 46:35 probably supply chain problem Sam Abuelsamid 46:39 they're putting they're putting in 225 chargers at 25 IKEA stores across the US. So that means there's going to be but you know almost somewhere between eight and 10 per store which is pretty good. So chances are if you get there there will there's a pretty decent chance there will be one available. Whether there will be a working EA charger available is an entirely different situation different Nicole Wakelin 47:02 question altogether. Roberto Baldwin 47:04 Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, they need to start putting them at Trader Joe's. That's another place I think Nicole Wakelin 47:09 you could spend hours at Trader Joe's. Roberto Baldwin 47:12 No, you're not doing that in Trader Joe's that long. It's well you know you're not in trader. You're in line Sam Abuelsamid 47:17 for trade. Yeah, right. The checkout line. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 47:22 They're always like, like, you know, the whole store is slightly askew, and then the checkout lesson. Sam Abuelsamid 47:29 All right. Well, let's, let's stay with EVs. And this is something that Nicole found. I'll let you take the lead on this one. Nicole Wakelin 47:38 Are we going to talk about the Cadillac situation Sam Abuelsamid 47:41 talking about the situation with Cadillac? Yes. Okay. So Cadillac and Nicole Wakelin 47:45 somebody shared this with me another colleague like first thing this morning and then I looked at him and my first thought was Is this a joke like actually didn't believe it? And this is from a report at Automotive News. That Cadillac has trademarked the following names for future Evie models. These all end in IQ. It's optic symbolic ascend IQ, Loomis stick and Vista IQ, I guess is how you'd say all those given their naming convention, but also, these are the ones that got me the Escalade and Escalade ESV become the Escalade IQ, an Escalade IQ L Okay, fine, whatever we're going with this whole IQ thing, but if you're pronouncing that is IQ on the end a sundeck Loomis stick the stick, then Derek just didn't shoot lyric. Didn't you just create them? The Escalade? IQ? Roberto Baldwin 48:36 Yep. Okay, Escalade apparel. Sam Abuelsamid 48:39 Apparently no one had escalated market urged Cadillac marketing actually said these names out loud. They wrote them down. I wrote them on a whiteboard and said, Yeah, okay, that looks good. I like that. And nobody bothered to say it out loud. Nicole Wakelin 48:50 And then your long wheel based is the Escalade IC L. I mean, what, what were the way kids you I know it's supposed to be IQ, but you don't pronounce the Q like a Q in any of these other fancy pants names is they're doing all this. And granted, these are just trademarks. So who knows which of these would happen, right? But you've already said it's lyric. You've already said it's elastic. So if you do the IQ is how you pronounce it ending it's going to be the ethical Escalade IQ Sam Abuelsamid 49:16 and even if you said I mean some people have said you know, Scholastic is select cell Mystique, you know, then it's Escalade Eek, which isn't really any better Escalade Nicole Wakelin 49:26 um, yeah, that's no better. i It's scary. What I don't I don't think that you know, no Cadillac was called do that. You've only trademark this you have time to change your mind. Don't do this. Roberto Baldwin 49:37 Just so no one else will steal those those awesome names from them. Nicole Wakelin 49:44 Right, because I'm sure the Roberto Baldwin 49:46 you don't set up the trademark. If you don't take care of your IP. And if you don't defend your IP, then anyone can do whatever they want with it. That's true. Defend your IP. I just IP X. Nicole Wakelin 49:58 The Escalade it I mean, the Escalade V series Escalade V I called the Escalade, and I thought that was fun. And that's like sounds like something fancy, right. But the Escalade ik does not sound like something fancy, it sounds like Sam Abuelsamid 50:10 escalada. Let's go lotic Nicole Wakelin 50:12 Escalade ik Escalade IK is a little better, but again, they call it an Escalade. I'm using the name from that old SNL skit about the Escalade that gets stuck in the snow in Atlanta. That's why I called the Escalade. But anyway, yeah, the the Escalade EQ, Roberto Baldwin 50:28 IQ, IQ, IQ Cadillac, no. Nicole Wakelin 50:31 So basically, that's my thought on this naming. Do you guys like this idea? Sam Abuelsamid 50:36 The rest of the names I don't have an issue with you know, the the spelling is, you know, weird so that they can actually right, actually trademark it. You know, and they're all there. They're fine. When, you know, when Steve Carlyle, the former president of Cadillac, a couple of years ago told us that, yeah, we're ditching the CT and the X t names, branding. And we're going back to two names. You know, it's like everybody was offset. Yes. Great. Finally, it's about time. And then the rest of these are, I have no issue with but yeah, the the Escalade, IQ Escalade IQ, either one is it's it's either unappealing or clumsy. If you insist on saying Escalade IQ you know, that's, that's not any better either. That's not Nicole Wakelin 51:30 exactly doesn't roll off the tongue like leave it alone. It's an Escalade. Just and the funny thing is, it's like it's not like it's a brand. Like people who don't know the first thing about Cadillac, you probably very likely know what an Escalade is. Anyway, you're not, you're not even really a car person. You probably know what an Escalade is. Because it's like the baller big SUV that movie stars and soccer players and you're like everybody, everybody that's big and bulky. You want to buy an Escalade to show that you've arrived but I don't want an Escalade ik just an Escalade, Roberto Baldwin 51:59 they can just do what Kona, the Hyundai did with the Kona and just be like the Escalade Evie, or the Escalade electric done. Nicole Wakelin 52:05 Yeah, with that Escalade Roberto Baldwin 52:08 brand, the brand. The brand doesn't get sullied with like too many names. There's just like, this is a trim level. Yeah. And then eventually, it'll just be the Escalade, because it'll be an Eevee. I'll be I'll be EVs. But don't overthink it people. Nicole Wakelin 52:22 Yeah, I feel like they did too much. I'm like, stop marketing somebody, somebody rein those guys in. Sam Abuelsamid 52:29 All right. Well, as more and more EVs come out, you know, we were kind of hoping that EVs will start to get cheaper. But unfortunately, for now, they're actually getting more expensive, because the price of the materials that go into evey batteries has gone up through the roof in the past year. Back in June, GM announced that prices on the Hummer were going up by about $6,200. And I think prices on some of the some of the other models, I think the for for the 24 model leader that because they've already sold out the 23 model year lyrics, but for 24 I think those prices are going to be going up. And now this a couple days ago, Ford announced just as they were reopening the order books to start to let people start ordering 2023 model year f150 lightnings Yeah, that $40,000 Lightening pro app anymore. It's now $47,000 Wow. So the prices are going up anywhere between six and $7,000 Depending on the trim level. The extended range platinum is now $96,874. And the Pro is the cheapest one at $46,974. All before the $1,700 delivery charge. Yikes. Roberto Baldwin 53:50 I think we were all looking at like price parity like coming down the road and a few years before you know COVID And then they just got thrown into the wood chipper and then tossed all over the guy just all over the landscape. This guy I mean, we still got the cheaper bolt. The bolt got cheaper. That's true. The Chevy Bolt got cheaper I think it got a little bit cheaper like buy a scooch what else Sam Abuelsamid 54:18 yeah, that's it for we talked about last week. Roberto Baldwin 54:23 Oh yeah. The idea for a cheaper less Unknown Speaker 54:26 base model Roberto Baldwin 54:27 that yeah, less expensive it for? Yeah. So there's a few things that are cheaper but yeah, for the most part people really want as apparently gotten all the new stuff is gonna get is getting more expensive because they're all new and fancy. And they're like yeah, we can make it for this much and then everything happened like we told everyone we can make this much and we can't. We got to stay in business. Sam Abuelsamid 54:51 Well, at least at least the standard range that that lightning pro you know for that extra $7,000 You do get an extra 10 miles of range this year. It's gone up from two 230 to 240 miles, Roberto Baldwin 55:03 you go $700 per mile. It's pretty sweet gig. Bargain. It's a bargain over the life over the lifespan of your vehicle, you're gonna be like, yeah, I get my $700 miles here. Alright. Sam Abuelsamid 55:18 Last item of news for the week, Ralph Nader's, back in the news, he's been relatively quiet of late. The guy who basically killed the Corvair back in the 1960s, with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, and has been a consistent advocate for automotive safety for more than 50 years, is now has now set his sights on Tesla. And he has issued a statement this past week, calling on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to recall, Tesla's full self driving software and autopilot software saying no one is above the laws of manslaughter. And, you know, this, this comes, you know, the last week or so, somebody else whose name escapes me at the moment, but he's the CEO and founder of green hills software, I think, yeah, green hills software, which is a company that makes operating systems for safety critical systems. So they do real time operating software for for safety critical systems. And, you know, the the folks at green hills have always been really focused on safety and security in their software. And green hills software is used in a lot of automotive applications, as the operating system for safety critical stuff. They put out a video showing a model three, he has a model three, doing a what should have been a automatic emergency braking demo, along with with another car and running towards a child sized mannequin, and not stopping and running right over the mannequin. Similarly, you know, since last fall Luminar, the LIDAR company has been doing a similar demo, showing off, you know, what they can do with their LiDAR, when used in a driver assistance application like that. And they they started doing these demos last September at IFA in Munich. And they did it at CES earlier this year. And they've done it some other places, having a Lexus RX with Luminar LIDAR on it. And a Tesla, I think Model X is what Luminar was using, going the same speed, down down the road, towards a pair of child sized mannequins. The Luminar vehicle always detects the mannequin stops in time. And the Tesla always runs it over. And so some of the Tesla fanboy community this week gotten rather upset at that. And there was one guy on Twitter, who's his Twitter user handle his whole Mars blog. But it's actually a guy who had previously gotten permanently banned from Twitter. Oh, wow. Yeah. But for some reason, they've opted not to ban him again. Even though he got his back on Twitter. He, he put out a call on Twitter, asking for volunteers. And he said, I don't have any kids. But if you want to let your kids, you know, participate in this test, I will prove that the Tesla will stop before it hits the kids. And if not, if it's not going to stop, I will intervene and stop the vehicle. Roberto Baldwin 58:48 We're gonna put your kid at risk. You're kidding. Can I borrow your child so I can maybe hit it with a car. But I won't. But you know. Sam Abuelsamid 58:57 And, you know, some other Tesla fans have been setting up their own versions of this, of this test, you know, creating their own, you know, pedestrian mannequins, child size pedestrian mannequins, and they also have been running into the same problem that Luminar and the Greenhills folks had, where, you know, the car is not detecting child size mannequins. And the problem, the reason why this is happening, is because Tesla doesn't use radar or LIDAR. They don't use an active sensor that can actually measure the distance they're using, because they only use the cameras. They they have to use inference in the software to estimate how far an object is away. And what they're doing is they they classify, you know what the object is, you know, if it's a vehicle or if it's, if it's a pedestrian, and then based on basically looking at how many pixels it takes up, they estimate what is the size of this object? And then from that work back and figure out, okay, this. So they, they're, they're assuming you know that a pedestrian is, you know some height, let's say, you know, five foot seven average and based on how many pixels it takes up in the image there work back from that to figure out, okay, this is how far away it must be. And that's an extremely inaccurate approach and I wrote a white paper last year on for, for my my day job on on measure doing accurate distance measurement for driver assistance and automated driving systems. And as an example I used in there, you know, if you're using that kind of approach, which is what vision only systems use is, you know, I put pictures, rear pictures of a Ford Transit and a Ford Transit Connect. And, you know, the system is generally not going to be able to distinguish between those two doesn't know which one it is, or you know, any other vehicle because it's not really designed to be that precise. But, you know, those two vehicles are very different in size. And if you're using that approach to estimate how far away something is, it's going to think that that Ford Transit Connect, because it's about only about, you know, 75%, as tall as the full size transit is going to be significantly farther away, and it's not going to break in time. It's, it's going to run into it. So, you know, I'm, I'm all in favor of NITSA, you know, coming out and doing something, you know, to stop Tesla from testing beta safety critical software, I don't think anybody should be testing beta versions of safety critical software with untrained customer drivers. Roberto Baldwin 1:01:41 Especially ones you want to just run down children. Yeah, we're gonna stop, we're gonna stop. It's, it's funny, because they they're like, oh, it's worked just as well. I mean, the whole thing and film called force perspective, and they use, they use it a lot when you don't want to do any, like, especially back in the day before they had like, strong enough computers to, to, to make people bigger Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:02 than they are and small Lord of the Rings movies. Roberto Baldwin 1:02:05 Yeah. So they use force perspective. And it's because the depth of field in a camera isn't it's you don't have you know, it's not stereoscopic, it's not like your eyes, where you can figure out how far something close is any you also have to use your brain and how, how life has always worked, and how you figure out how things that are smaller, doesn't mean that person, you know, 100 yards away, is a teeny tiny and they're just farther away. And so it's yeah, it's it's this, this, this sort of visual trick that they use in in movies. Because it's, you know, it's a camera, and it's not your your eyes and your brain working in conjunction to determine what something is and how far away it is. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:44 And unfortunately, Tesla's using that same approach in reverse, to try to estimate how far away something is, and it's just, it's a fundamentally wrong approach for a safety system. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 1:02:55 It's really weird because they were when they when they talked about their computer system. A couple years ago, one of their their investor days, they just kept saying, redundancy, redundancy, how important redundancy is. And yet, when it comes to their sensors, they're like, Yeah, we got one. But you can't use you can't, you can't use the rallying cry of redundancy, which is incredibly important for any sort of system. Whether it's just drivers assistance, or you know, full level threes, level four, you're gonna have multiple things, making sure everything is working correctly. You can't you can't run around with that bander. And then except for that one thing that looks at the route, and doesn't see for everything, except for that thing, because we're cool. We're cool. We're cool. It's cool. Sam Abuelsamid 1:03:42 All right. Enough complaining about Tesla. Let's answer some listener questions. We've got a bunch of them this week. So the first two I want to address are related to plug in hybrids, and they're not in the right order here on the list. So let's start off with Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:05 with the question from Michael H. says hi wheel bearings cast haven't heard much about PHE V's on the show I'm contemplating about getting a brand new Mitsubishi Outlander PHE V older style, but with a good price, or wait until they release the new style. bigger battery but more expensive. Thanks, loves show. So we actually do talk a fair bit about plug in hybrids. I mean, we've reviewed a lot of them, you know, just two, three weeks ago I had or a few weeks ago, I had the the Tucson Hyundai Tucson plug in hybrid, we've driven a bunch of other ones. And of course, Nicole, you and you and your husband own one you've got a wrangler for BI e so what what do you think? Should Richard or should Michael get the old Outlander PHE V. The plug in hybrid or wait until the new one arrives later this fall? I mean, if Nicole Wakelin 1:04:57 you don't care about the the latest and greatest situate And then I don't see why not. I don't think there's going to be some drastic leap forward in terms of what the battery offers. I don't know. Do you think so Sam? Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:09 It will have significantly more range than the old one. Nicole Wakelin 1:05:12 So it'll have like, what's significantly more for a plugin? It's not like they have hundreds of miles of range. Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:16 I think it'll be in the in the mid 30s. And what miles? And what is it right now current one, I think is about 20. That's pretty that's. Nicole Wakelin 1:05:26 So that will be the difference. So if that difference if going from, like, 20 ish, I know it can see Sam was looking this up as I'm talking, going from whatever it is now to 30. If that much of a range difference makes a difference to you, like as a rule than wait, but you're gonna pay a good chunk more if you wait to get the brand new one. Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:42 I don't want to 24 miles. Nicole Wakelin 1:05:45 So if it's 24 Nico Smith, so that's it. I mean, so it's a chunk. So how much does it extra? I mean, if you, if you're going to be getting around town and getting through most of that what you do with that smaller range, then I wouldn't worry about it that much. You know, but if you if you want that extra range, I think I'd wait. Roberto Baldwin 1:05:59 I think they I think maybe wait, just because maybe fingers crossed, prices will go down. Just quickly across the board. I know. I know. If you don't need a car right now, if you don't absolutely, positively, don't buy a car right now. It's sort of like my is now my new thing. Because I think everyone's like, Oh, 18 months a year, hopefully, you know, by the mid of middle of next year, you know, it'll be vehicles will come back down to earth or at least a bit, come back, come back down, they'll start to lose some of their insane value valuations. So I yeah, I am a firm believer of just unless you absolutely positively need a vehicle right now. Wait, just it doesn't I don't care if we're getting to use one and the new one, they're probably used ones, you know, in, you know, in the middle of next year. There'll be a new one the middle of next year. And hopefully both of them will be far less expensive than if you bought them you know, right now or in the fall. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:02 One One other thing I would add to all that is, you know, the old Outlander plug in is the operative word there is old. Is that is an old generation of Outlander. Yeah, yeah, it's it's about it first came out in that form, I think about 2009 or 10, somewhere around there. And it wasn't particularly state of the art then. So what you might want to do, just for, you know, to see, the base vehicle itself, regardless of whether it's the plug in hybrid or not, is, you know, go to a Mitsubishi dealer. Check out the new Outlander. You know, I mean, they don't, they're not selling the plug in hybrid version yet until later this fall. But just check out the base gasoline, Highlander, or Outlander, and compare that against that the older model Outlander plug in and see how you like just the VT the base vehicle regardless of the powertrain, because the new one is way nicer than the old one. There's a lot that's better about it. And so I would definitely do that. And then you know, kind of decide, Okay, do I want to spend the extra for the plug in hybrid version of this new Outlander or am I Am I satisfied with the old Outlander and if you are satisfied with the old Outlander, if it's good enough to meet your needs, then go you know, if you can hold off, you know, if you can get a good deal on that old Outlander right now, you might want to go for it. But otherwise, you might want to wait, if you can, depending on what your current transportation needs are. But it sounds like you don't desperately need one right now if you're even considering the new one. So, you know, at least go and take a test drive in the gas Outlander and compare it to the old plug in hybrid. All right. Sticking with pH GVS. UMass car on Twitter asks, Can all PHE V. vehicles drive at highway speed without the engine? I think among current ones, some some of the earlier ones like the the original Toyota Prius plug in, could not it did not have enough electrical power to do that. But I think of the currently available plug in hybrids. Yeah, pretty much all of them can drive, you know, 7075 80 miles an hour, just on electricity. Obviously, they're not going to get that full range, you know, so like, if you're driving a rav4 Prime, you're not gonna get 40 miles of highway driving on a charge like you can in more urban suburban driving. Because, you know, as your speed goes up, you get a lot more aerodynamic drag and everything, a lot more load. So, you know, it's probably gonna cut the range to probably somewhere in the high 20s If you're driving, you know, 7075 But that's, that's still good, you know? Nicole Wakelin 1:10:00 The other thing too, if you aggress if you're accelerating really aggressively onto the highway in electric mode, sometimes they'll kick to the gas engine, or you're gonna like, boom, you have no Evie range left, because you've just blown through it, because you're mashing the gas pedal. So yeah, there's that too. Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:16 So how far can your Wrangler go at highway speeds on electricity? Nicole Wakelin 1:10:20 I don't know that I've I've tagged out specifically highway versus city driving, but it gets cut. I'm drawing a blank now. But it gets just when we've done the range, whatever the specified ranges, we generally want, I think so we normally get a couple miles more than what they say like almost all the time, if it's 21, we're getting a few miles because my husband drives it more than I do, honestly. And he really pays attention to that. He's always coming in slightly higher, and he does a mix of highway and city driving typically. So he's got a little bit more range than what it says. And that's, you know, partly driving around town, partly getting on the highway and him going to work sometimes. So always a little bit higher than what they've specified. Unless you're super, super aggressive. You're driving an Eevee then it's just like being super aggressive driving with a gas engine, you know, your fuel economy suffers. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:08 Alright. Rick sweat, I think is hopefully that's how you pronounce it, if not sorry. Rick. asks, With the success of the Maverick, how soon will it be before other automakers develop a competitor? Well, I think we kind of addressed that one earlier. There's already a competitor which launched it almost the same time. This the Hyundai Santa Cruz, but I'm sure that within the next couple of years, we will see competitors from other manufacturers as well. We will probably see, we'll probably see something from GM. There's been rumors for a long time that still Lantus was going to do a small Ram pickup based on something from the Fayette lineup in Europe. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:54 But you will probably see additional ones but you do have the Santa Cruz now. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:02 Coach Cabrera asks, How will the new Evie incentives affect the prices of new and used EVs? Is this a death sentence sentence for luxury startups like lucid and Rivia? rivian? Nicole Wakelin 1:12:13 I don't think it's a death sentence for luxury because people buying luxury cars if you're buying a car that was that much to begin with? Yeah. $7,500 You're like, cool. It's not like oh, no, no, we're not buying a vehicle. 7500 is not making a difference. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:27 If you can afford 100 $250,000 vehicle, right? You're probably not that concerned about it. Yeah, it's Roberto Baldwin 1:12:33 not that loosen rivian There, there are real concerns or supply chain issues. That's that's what's that's what's messing with those two companies. It's the I mean, if you could have gotten the incentive, cool. But if you didn't, the people who are buying those are rich. Nicole Wakelin 1:12:49 I wonder though how much it'll even impact like, I feel like it could impact people who are more average income folks, because that could make a difference. And suddenly, I also almost feel bad for the OEMs because they priced all their vehicles, right? They figure all this out, based on assuming that we're gonna have this evey credit for likely X number of years or months or whatever, you know, because they've done all their sales forecasting, and they're budgeting and figure it all out. And it's like, Oh, guess what, we made a new lot. And now none of the vehicles that qualify when you figured all that out, qualify, just like that, boom. Roberto Baldwin 1:13:19 So this one guy to vote for it, he changed a lot of stuff, and he missed a lot. Nicole Wakelin 1:13:24 So I'm like, Yeah, so I don't know, it's so I think it could negatively impact some of the other OEMs. But I honestly, I think for a lot of people, if you're really determined to go for an Eevee I don't know how much that tax credit would genuinely sway you. I don't know how much it would impact it'll be I'll be curious to see if like the numbers overall go to win that Roberto Baldwin 1:13:46 a lot of people still buy Tesla's and they haven't had a tax credit and, and they're still state credits, you know, they're still state and local credits that people can get, regardless of what the federal government is doing. True, just sort of weird after last week, or it was the last week or week. I don't know, when we were like, oh, it's not that complicated. And then I'm like, Oh, God, it's Sam Abuelsamid 1:14:04 so I spent more time in the last reading because of that bill. Roberto Baldwin 1:14:10 Because at first you're like, This is what you're getting. You're like, Alright, and then they're like all the amendments, and then you look for the bill, and you're like, Oh, my God, Nicole Wakelin 1:14:17 it's from the government. I'm here to help. No. Oh, don't help us. Roberto Baldwin 1:14:24 From where's he from West Virginia? Sam Abuelsamid 1:14:26 Yeah, let me hear the whole country, Roberto Baldwin 1:14:29 coal country. Let's play some litter Atlanta and just forget everything happened. Sam Abuelsamid 1:14:35 Yeah. So one couple of things that are happening. I think last week, we did talk about what Fisker had announced just before we recorded, which was if you lock in your, your order, convert your reservation into a firm purchase order that you would still be eligible and afterwards after the show, I had a chance to sit down and look through More of the bill. And I did find what's known as the transition rule. So up until the time that President Biden signs the law and signs the bill into law, it's now been Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed it. So probably sometime in the next week or so, it will get signed into law. But until that time, for any company, any automaker, that still has eligibility for incentives, which is all of them, except for Tesla, and GM, right now, if you have a reservation, and rivian, lucid others, I think Volkswagen also put out announcements in the last couple of days that you can, you can utilize this the same transition rule. So if you, if you go and you convert your reservation that you have to affirm purchase order, then up until the time the new laws enacted, that will still be eligible. So you will still be able to claim that $7,500 Next year, on your on your taxes. And that also applies to Toyota. Even though they're not currently selling the BZ for x, you can get it on the rav4 prime or the Prius Prime. They're both eligible for the 7500 bucks. So if you order one, and you have a non binding or a non non refundable deposit, you can still get your money, still get your 7500 bucks. That's something Roberto Baldwin 1:16:26 you're looking for a Hyundai Motor Group, you better do it now, because they're not going to have their their factory have been for a little while. Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:31 Yeah, yeah, that that factory is not going to be till 2025 Probably. Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:37 And as far as the prices on the EVS, it's probably not going to at least in the near term, it's probably not going to have much of an impact one way or the other. Because in the US we talked about in the near term, they've got upward price pressure, because of the just the price of the raw materials. But longer term, because until, until they get to a point where they're where they've got domestic production of the materials, and so on, so that they're eligible for the full credit, there's going to be price pressure, there's going to be pressure on them to keep the prices down, they're not going to raise the prices, because they know most consumers, most of these vehicles are not going to be eligible for credits. So they're going to have to, you know, try to cap the prices, raise them as much as they can to cover the costs, but but not raise them any more than that. Just because people won't be able to afford them anyway. So. Roberto Baldwin 1:17:32 So either you have to hurry up, or wait. Yes, that's true by this week. Yeah, by this week, or wait, like if you don't need a new car again, if you don't need a car, this is the worst. Yeah, hold on, hold. Everyone. Hold on. I got two more years on my lease for the code. I'm like, Okay, two years, hopefully things will sort of like shake themselves out. Just Sam Abuelsamid 1:17:58 another question we had related to the new tax credits from Jim Manhart. You know, one of his questions, if you're able to transfer the credit to the car dealer will you be skirting the income limits under the new Evie tax credit law. And this is something we don't know yet this. There's a lot of details that are missing from the law that will require the IRS, the Treasury Department to actually issue some specific rules about how all of this is going to work. This is one of those things. Because you, you now have the option to either save the credit and claim it on your next year's tax return, or when you buy the vehicle, you can transfer the credit to the dealer, assuming the dealer still has to register first with the IRS to be able to do this. If the dealer decides to register with the IRS, then they they can you can transfer the credit to the dealer, the dealer has to give you an immediate discount at the time of purchase. So you lower your monthly payment on the vehicle, which is good. And then the dealer gets the money back from the IRS. Exactly because of the law also puts income limits on people buying EVs and getting credits like it's $150,000 for an individual filer 300,000 for a couple filing jointly. If you make $175,000 as an individual filer, you're not eligible for any of these tax credits, right. And how's that going to work with the transfer we don't know yet. Probably going to be something like you know, based on your previous year's income, you know, to initially do the transfer and then next year when you file your taxes, if your income was over the threshold, then you'll probably have to pay it back to the IRS. So that's that's probably going to be something like that. It's going to be something complicated. Nicole Wakelin 1:19:58 No, it's so simple. Everything is clear cut and easy to understand. Sam Abuelsamid 1:20:03 If you're if you're no risk of exceeding that 150 or $300,000 limit, then it's it will actually probably be a lot easier to just sign the paper to transfer it. But if you're close, if you're near that threshold, you might want to consider, you know, just doing it not doing the transfer and doing it yourself. Unless, you know, you're gonna put it put aside the money just in case you go over the threshold for the following year. Let's see. Richard had asked, you guys talked about the power window switch on the ID for last week. They aren't the first to be cheap reminds me of my Dodge SRT four. They saved a few bucks by making the rear windows manual. And I'm assuming that he's talking about the neon SRT four, which did in fact have manual crank windows on the back doors. Even with power windows on the front. I can't remember. It's been I haven't. It's been like 1213 years since I drove the caliber srt four, which was the last one that they did like that. I don't think that had manual crank rear windows, but the neon definitely did. Roberto Baldwin 1:21:11 God I hated the neon. We had a neon and it was just a piece of trash. It leaked. It was just a piece of trash that cars just trash. Sam Abuelsamid 1:21:23 The first generation or the second gen neon. I think it was the first one. Okay. It was cute looking though. Yeah, it Roberto Baldwin 1:21:30 looked really cute. And so we actually got it from this cheap. My sister in law and it was inexpensive. And it was cute. But it was there was a reason why it was an expensive it's still cute. I wish they just done a better job at building it. But they had just done a better job at building it. It would have been, you know, I know people love that car. When we talked about it, but it's it was yeah, it was. I mean, if they brought it back like a little neon, Evie. And they just sort of updated the the design. I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is it actually. The computer actually died while I was driving. He's just driving awesome. The car just shut off. And I was like going downhill in San Francisco. I'm like, okay, and then we just pulled over and we took it into the Nicole Wakelin 1:22:20 hill. So I just kept coasting. I think I Roberto Baldwin 1:22:23 was going downhill. downhill. I remember we take the ticket in the guy like, yeah, the computers dead. We gotta go. And we're like, Oh, forget it. By giving it to like to cash for kids or cash for cars or kids for cash or Unknown Speaker 1:22:40 cars, programs or a car for a town. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 1:22:43 I think we donated it and it was gone. Thank God. Sam Abuelsamid 1:22:48 All right. Chris Emery asks, I listened to Sam on the tech guy with Leo and now I found wheel bearings. I'll be listening here to thank you, Chris. We appreciate that. I've gone from a hybrid to a plug in hybrid and I'm now ready to jump into the Eevee pool. You had suggested looking at the Kona Evie one day with Leo. That one does fit my budget. So I have the Kona Evie and the Chevy Bolt, Evie and Kia Niro, Evie on my list. My problem is either due to the supply chain or regional restrictions. The Hyundai sales manager told me they simply were not they were simply not delivering Kona, Evie to Florida. I cannot find anything in stock and no one will take future leases. Any ideas on how to get into an Eevee in South Florida. I know calmer. Yeah. Yeah. So this is one of the things that Hyundai and Kia for the past several years. They've only been selling their plug in vehicles in California and the other states that follow the California Evie mandates of which Florida is not one of them. So that means that you can't buy directly from a Hyundai dealer or a Kia dealer in Florida. But there are ways around this you know one option would be to go to one of the Evie mandate states like say go to California and take a little trip to California. Buy the car there and then drive it back. Maybe a little road trip. Yeah. You know do a little transcontinental road trip or you know go to Colorado or you know one of the other states we're just selling them. If you want the Kona or the Nero or any other Hyundai or Kia Evie, that's kind of, especially if you want one new that's kind of your only option. You can buy used ones in Florida and other places. So you might want to take a look at what's what's available in the US market although it's probably gonna be pretty thin. But but that that's also an option. Then really the bolt is the only one that right now of those vehicles that is available in all 50 states. So a Chevy dealer should be able to sell you one in Florida or move you Have you know that's not Roberto Baldwin 1:25:05 Florida Isn't it like pretty? I've never you know, I've never been to Florida so I don't Nicole Wakelin 1:25:09 depend it depends where you are. You've never been to Florida. I've Roberto Baldwin 1:25:13 never been to Florida every every drive program to go to Florida. I'm like, Oh, I can't make it. I can't make it. I can't make you live in Florida. I've Nicole Wakelin 1:25:20 never been to Florida. I Roberto Baldwin 1:25:21 don't have any I live on the West Coast. Why do I need to go to Florida? I got Hawaii Nicole Wakelin 1:25:26 they have better names. I don't know Florida oranges or thing right. Do you like oranges? Roberto Baldwin 1:25:30 We have oranges in California. Nicole Wakelin 1:25:35 But you're not known for like Florida. Isn't Florida all over orange. Unknown Speaker 1:25:38 Yeah. But Florida has only got better marketing for their oranges. Like Florida has really good orange market and go to Florida, Roberto Baldwin 1:25:44 Idaho. It's like Idaho and potatoes. Which I Nicole Wakelin 1:25:47 drove through Idaho just trying to find like someplace and I couldn't find any point I was like I need I couldn't find potatoes like Roberto Baldwin 1:25:54 cheese. Cheese in California. We have we have oranges. Sam Abuelsamid 1:25:58 We have to tell you the one real reason you want to go big pay a visit. We have Roberto Baldwin 1:26:02 Disneyland here. Why? Sam Abuelsamid 1:26:05 It matters. There's one really good reason to go to South Florida. That is Cuban food. Oh yeah. Cuban food. Florida. Jacksonville. You know, don't go to Orlando. Go to South Beach. You know, hang out on South Beach for a week or so get an Airbnb. That's what my wife and I did a few years ago and did an Airbnb in South Beach. Great Cuban food. Roberto Baldwin 1:26:30 Now you only reason that's the only reason to visit Florida. Forget Sam Abuelsamid 1:26:35 the oranges. You know if you see if you see Alex Roy driving around, you know, give them away. Roberto Baldwin 1:26:40 Oh yeah. Say hi to Alex. He's hanging out with Ali Troy. Alex Roy. I need Cuban food. That sounds like a good time. Actually. Sam Abuelsamid 1:26:49 Not the worst thing you could spend your time on. All right, last one. From Jim Petten dry button drink. I'm sorry, Josie Pittenger. Either Roberto Baldwin 1:27:00 way that is dri dri hit injury. Okay. I'm Nicole Wakelin 1:27:04 sorry. If I messed it up, please. Sam Abuelsamid 1:27:05 You know, feel free to write back to us. And, you know, give us some pronunciation guides. And actually, you know, in the future, anybody that wants to, you know, in addition to Twitter, you can there's a link on the wheel bearings dot media site for contact, if you want to send a question that, you know, takes a little bit longer than, then you can fit in a tweet, which is what, what Christina and Chris did use the use the email link on the site. And then, you know, provide us some guidance on pronunciation because we really do want to try to say people's names, right, Nicole Wakelin 1:27:39 we try but sometimes they're they're not as intuitive as people think. Sam Abuelsamid 1:27:43 Frequently not obvious. Nicole Wakelin 1:27:44 I can't say Sam's last name. So that should give you an indication we need to have pronunciation Roberto Baldwin 1:27:49 about Sam, you know, Sam, like, What's his last name? Sam Abuelsamid 1:27:52 That's the car guy. Sam, the car guy. Roberto Baldwin 1:27:55 You know, Sam? Sam Abuelsamid 1:27:57 All right. Anyway, Jim asked on the fifth of August. He spoke of limiting vehicle speeds. I was stationed in Germany during the oil embargo. So this was the 1970s. And the German government lowered the speeds on the Autobahn 200 kilometers an hour, which for Americans is about 62 miles an hour. A lot of the public said it was it was their right to go as fast as they wanted. Roberto Baldwin 1:28:21 Yeah. When I was a kid, and we were getting our license, it would they kept saying it's not a right. It's a privilege privilege. Yes. I mean, it's not a right. It's a privilege. I think that's I think that's the whole argument right there. Driving is not a right. It's a privilege is Nicole Wakelin 1:28:36 but I do think that 62 is too slow. And a highway. Roberto Baldwin 1:28:40 Yeah. Well, it's also during the during the oil embargo. Nicole Wakelin 1:28:43 So yes, whatever. 62 is still too slow and Roberto Baldwin 1:28:46 62 in a car in the 70s was pretty quick. At that six. Yeah. Wait a minute. Probably about 75. Nicole Wakelin 1:28:59 So wasn't as much of a drastic decrease as we're thinking because it's 20. Sam Abuelsamid 1:29:03 I grew up in Ontario, Canada, where the speed limit was, in fact, 100 kilometers an hour, two miles an hour. But new buddy drove 62 miles an hour. Yeah, if you're, if you're going 62 You are getting passed by pretty much everybody. You know, the average speed on the highways was typically between 120 130 kilometers an hour, so about 75 to 80 miles an hour. Which is about what it is here in Michigan, most of the time, Roberto Baldwin 1:29:31 that's what is here in California. 65 But everyone's doing at least 7070 Well, here's the weird thing about my house. They're either doing the regular speed limit 7075 Or they're doing like 100 or they're doing 45 I don't know what I don't know what's going on. And it's only this weird stretch of road near where I live, where people are driving, just everything just 10 tents and then flipping their cars and bursting into flames or driving. Like they haven't Our fourth gear, like in third gear is good. This is good 4045 miles an hour on the freeway where everyone's doing 65 seems completely safe, which isn't, it's not a hazard. So if you're gonna drive that slow, please put your hazards on, because that's not there's a thing called anticipation. And people do not anticipate you'd be driving crazy, Sam Abuelsamid 1:30:21 you know, especially on highways, the thing that is most likely to cause crashes is, is not necessarily high speeds will you know, if you're driving faster than you're capable of controlling the vehicle, yes, say for that vehicle, that that that does cause crashes. The other thing that causes crashes is significant differences in speed. So, you know, especially if people are not paying attention, if they're not paying enough attention, if everybody's driving the same speed, things tend to go fairly smoothly. But when you have vast differences in speed, that's when problems start to happen. And so you, unless there's a mechanical problem that prevents you from kind of going with the flow of traffic, you should try to stick fairly close to the flow of traffic. Sam Abuelsamid 1:31:10 You know, by the same thing, you don't want to be going significantly faster than the flow of traffic, if the flow of traffic is going 7075 miles an hour drive, you know, try to drive that speed, you know, because you want to minimize the need for overtaking and changing lanes, you know, if everybody's just going along with that speed, if you go that speed, it's going to be safer. But if you've got somebody bombing along at 100 120 140 miles an hour, when everybody else is going 70. That's when trouble happens. Roberto Baldwin 1:31:42 Yeah, a lot of people don't understand, especially people in their 20s and 30s, don't realize how much the vehicle is keeping you from dying. Like if you're in your 40s or older, you there have been times where your car has just lost it at like 2030 miles an hour. Because we didn't have all, you know, anti lock brakes, we didn't have traction control. We now have seatbelts Sam Abuelsamid 1:32:05 when I was a kid, we barely Roberto Baldwin 1:32:06 had a seatbelt. Apparently we didn't have seatbelts in my family. But if you're you know, right now that the cars are so much smarter, there's so much safer. But the issue is, is that when you lose it, when it does break free, you're breaking free at an incredible amount of speed if you're breaking free at 80 miles an hour, whereas like when we were kids, when we broke free, like 25 or 25. We're like, oh, gosh, you kind of like Sam Abuelsamid 1:32:28 the consequences are not as great as you have far less kinetic energy to dissipate when you come to a stop. Because it's not actually the speed that kills you. It's the sudden change in speed when you hit something exactly. deceleration. Roberto Baldwin 1:32:43 Can you see, I see vehicles like people are just flying around these back and forth, back and forth, you know, flying through traffic, and you can see the car like doing its best to keep this person safe. And then at least once a week there's you know, some kids, they're in a you know, an SUV. Typically it's an SUV, because that's the family car, and they took it out from their parents and it broke free once it broke free. That was it. It's 10 Every Yeah, everyone's in trouble. There's a fire. There's this. There's that. Yeah, it's yeah, it's and it's kind of terrifying. They're like, Yeah, I'm a great driver. Yeah, you're a great passenger right now. The cars really Nicole Wakelin 1:33:24 doing a lot because doing all the work. Sam Abuelsamid 1:33:26 And this is actually one of the dangers with having so many vehicles now that have four wheel drive or all wheel drive, especially in poor weather conditions. Yes, the extra traction will will help you to keep going. But if you drive, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean you should be driving at higher speeds. If you're in a snowstorm, you should not be going down the highway at 70 miles an hour, even if you have four wheel drive. Because, you know if that if you lose traction and you will lose traction at that speed and you go off, that just means you're going to go further off the road into the woods or wherever you know you're you're going to get in trouble at higher speeds but you're still going to get in trouble. So you should still be slowing down in poor weather conditions and you know taking all that into account in your in your driving and be responsible. Roberto Baldwin 1:34:22 I will drive is not a magic is not the magic bullet that people assume it is. Nicole Wakelin 1:34:26 Yeah, people think it does everything and it doesn't it doesn't say don't be stupid. Roberto Baldwin 1:34:31 I had this argument with people all the time and they didn't they do not believe me. I'm like a two wheel drive front wheel drive a rear wheel drive vehicle with really good winter tires will do way better than your all wheel drive vehicle with all seasons and they're like No, no, I'm like I know the marketing people have done such a great job telling you how great all wheel drive and I love an all wheel drive vehicle, especially for acceleration and pulling out of corners. But that's not how it works. Nicole Wakelin 1:34:57 Here's winter tires. I can't say enough good things about winter. hairs like seriously, if you're someplace where you have one that goes below like 4045 degrees for most of the winter, you should put winter tires on your car and bliss acts are my favorite, favorite favorite list. I have them on my car. I love them. I show them vibrator dash for them the name I mean, like, what are you driving, I'm driving a blues x. Well, Sam Abuelsamid 1:35:17 when my wife and I got first got married 30, almost 30 years ago, she was driving a Mercury Sable with all season tires, and I had a five liter Mustang. And in the wintertime, I put winter tires on it. And that thing didn't have ABS or traction control or any of that stuff. And it was way more stable in the snow than that front wheel drive stable ever was. So you know, I, I personally have you know, in the course of my engineering career spent a lot of time driving on snow and ice, you know, developing stability control and traction control systems. And you know, I've driven a lot of different kinds of tires from you know, high performance summer tires, to studded winter tires, and everything in between. And winter tires are absolutely the thing I took 120% agree with you, Nicole, you know if you live somewhere where it's where it snows, or where it gets cold, winter tires are way better than any any all season tires. And I know Nicole Wakelin 1:36:15 it's and people think that like, oh, but it's such an extra expense. Well, it's not really because you're you're not driving you're all seasons or whatever else you have on so they're being shelled for a few months out of the year it just and they're gonna last longer, they're gonna last longer because for part of the year now you're putting the winter tires on the car and they're doing the mileage that you're all seasons would otherwise be getting. They've done some dry programs where they've had this test like, accompanies all season tire and accompanies winter tire on ice to show the difference that it makes like it's their own tires. And like this is the difference and the difference is dramatic. It is dramatic, same vehicle, same condition, same everything. Your all season will be okay. But then you get into the winter and you're like oh, I stopped way the heck sooner than I did with the all seasons, way better control. I didn't fish tail as much like it's guys. It's a dramatic difference if you can, if you live where you get winter and you can afford to get another set of tires. Get yourself a pair of winter tires. Sam Abuelsamid 1:37:08 My daughter had got a set of winter tires and extra set of wheels for Toyota 86 last year and going through the past winter on those she was shocked at how much better it was. It makes it a final seasons. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:37:21 they're they're the bestest. Okay, there's, there's a PSA on going and getting winter tires. Roberto Baldwin 1:37:26 Winter tires. Speeding is not a right. It's a privilege. Very good. Sam Abuelsamid 1:37:33 Not quite sure that last part. Roberto Baldwin 1:37:36 Is not a right. It's a privilege. Wait, no, we shouldn't be speeding, but you Sam Abuelsamid 1:37:42 should be safe. Please be responsible. Don't Don't be an idiot behind the wheel. Yeah, take Roberto Baldwin 1:37:47 a driving course. Trust me. Sam Abuelsamid 1:37:50 You are not Lewis Hamilton. You don't act like it. Nicole Wakelin 1:37:54 Yes. You know, it's funny. Roberto Baldwin 1:37:55 So when you do an article on Friday you are not Lewis Hamilton. Nicole Wakelin 1:38:01 Have you ever been there'll be like a track drive and they'll let you do laps. You do laps and laps and laps and laps. And after you've done a bunch of laps, you're like I'm so good at this track. I got this. I am. I am brilliant. At this track. I have it down. And then they have you do a hot lap with the racecar drivers. They're like Oh, I am Shi T I should not try. Roberto Baldwin 1:38:21 Oh yeah. Nicole Wakelin 1:38:22 You think you're good until you're with someone who is good to you like I am. Sam Abuelsamid 1:38:25 Yeah, if if you if you ever want to, you know, I know. I've seen lots of surveys over the years where we're drivers, you know, surveys of drivers where you know, 85% of them think they're above average. And obviously that that math does not quite pencil out the math if you if you ever want to prove to yourself that you are not above average, go somewhere go to a racetrack or somewhere where you can ride shotgun with a professional racecar driver Nicole Wakelin 1:38:53 lower they will prove just how much you have to learn. Unknown Speaker 1:38:55 Yes, Roberto Baldwin 1:38:57 I thought I was I think I'm a safe driver. But I thought I was a good driver until I became an automotive journalist. And I would be like in a sports car like dry programs were driving lots of cars up and down the hill that World Car of the Year thing especially I'd be in a sports car and I would have somebody behind like the first few years someone behind me like an SUV just writing my ask me like why are you going to Nicole Wakelin 1:39:20 write? Yeah, you're like I'm going really fast. What you were there for cars not paying me right? Roberto Baldwin 1:39:24 Yeah, I've gotten I've gotten much better but I'm definitely not the the best driver or the fastest driver as an automotive reporter. I think maybe I'm probably in the middle somewhere. Like I've done trips with like, let's say Tim Stevens, or you I see a roadshow. He's an amazing driver. And they're like, hey, it's just gonna be you and Tim on this on this this trip and I'm like, Oh, so it's gonna be this really great guy. And then me Sam Abuelsamid 1:39:49 know, Tim, Tim races is Subaru on a frozen lakes in upstate New York. Yeah, so Tim, he knows car control. Roberto Baldwin 1:39:57 Yeah, Tim knows car control way You're better than the majority of the humans on the planet. And so it's Yeah. So you think you're a great driver. And this is what happens a lot when you're driving when I'm driving around, and I'm in like catching up to like a car club and they all have Porsches, and I'm driving like a Civic. And I'm like, I'm just on their tail. I'm like, you guys. I know you love your Porsches. But I drive that like my entire job is driving. So please, please move Don't Don't feel bad because somebody is wandering past you because they're a better driver than you just don't. It's fine. Nicole Wakelin 1:40:33 Never let that pressure you into driving faster in every situation. Yeah, Jake was the guy on the highway that's on your bike. You know what if you really get out of the way and let them go and let him wrap themselves around a tree? If he's an idiot, don't you're gonna be Roberto Baldwin 1:40:45 Yeah, your whole life is gonna feel so much. You're gonna really so much stress in your life. If you just like sort of like just Nicole Wakelin 1:40:50 will go away, you'll just be you'll be centered, you'll find yourself just don't need to be the fastest person on the road. Do don't don't just relax, Sam Abuelsamid 1:40:58 be smooth, pay attention. You know, get don't wait till the last second to get on the brakes or to turn the wheel. You know? Do everything gradually. Roberto Baldwin 1:41:08 smooth and gradual. That's that's the trace. Unknown Speaker 1:41:11 Exactly. Drive like Jackie Stewart. Sam Abuelsamid 1:41:15 Yeah. All right. With that, let's call it we will talk to you next time. Bye bye