Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 This is episode 260 of wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights. And all by myself this week, well, sort of Robbie is often Monterrey hobnobbing with the fancy folks at Pebble Beach. And Nicole is on her way back from having emptied her nest and delivering her youngest daughter to school. So it's just me and a couple of few people that I have done interviews with in the last few days, as this week was the the Woodward Dream Cruise here in the Detroit area, and had a chance to sit down and talk with Tim can discuss the head of the Dodge brand. Mickey Bly the head of propulsion systems engineering at steel Atlantis, and Jim Owens, the marketing and brand manager for Mustang and Shelby at Ford. So enjoy these, these interviews, and we will talk to you later. First up is Tim can discuss the CEO of the Dodge brand. All right, hey, thanks for your time today, Tim, I really appreciate this. And I'm looking forward to seeing the charger Daytona in person tomorrow night, Tim Kuniskis 1:18 trying to get the lights out of the way. Sam Abuelsamid 1:21 So we want to go through some of the stuff that you're announcing this week, while most of the focus is gonna be on the charger Daytona SRT concept. But before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about the the stuff you announced last night as we're recording this, which is the end of production for the charger and challenger as they exist today. The end of 2023. And particularly, this, this thing you're doing with the allocations and dodge garage, and how how that's all going to work. So what what is the process going to be you're going to allocate all the vehicles to dealers all at one time, is there going to be an opportunity for customers to to order and specify their own vehicles, or they just have to pick from what what gets built? Tim Kuniskis 2:17 You know, it's, it's not a really a Dodge from its has always been an industry issue. And with COVID, and Chip shortages and things like that, it's become even more of an issue with availability of cars and things like that. And the allocation process is is always very confusing to customers, because I totally understand, you know, I'm an enthusiast as well. And I've had to buy products myself, where it gets confusing. If if you're a customer and you want to buy a car and you're willing to pay for the car, why can't I just have the car. It gets confusing in that, you know, our first customer is our franchise business partner, our dealers, and we have to sell to our dealers, our dealers ultimately in turn sell to the customer. So we have to have a methodology by which we allocate our cars to the dealers, we've been doing this forever, everybody does it. And when you have plenty of supply, it's a non issue. But when you get into a supply crunch, it always becomes a problem. And when you get into limited production cars and things like that, it's always a challenge. So what we did, or what we're doing for the final end of production is we don't want someone to say make up a car, I am looking for a challenger jailbreak suspect as such, and I really want to go buy this car and they were to go into a dealer and order the car. And that dealer didn't have the sales history to earn an allocation for that particular product. So that customer could end up waiting a long time and having that card never built. Now sometimes when there's many years left of the life cycle, eventually they'll get that car picked up and they'll get their car built. And it's a delay, but you know, they'll get the car. But when you're going to the cliff when you're going to the end of production, if they don't get their car. That's it, it's over. It's done. It's a real problem. So what we said was, okay, we've got to try and help these customers, we've got to be as transparent as possible. So let's not put out an allocation every month, let's put out the allocation of every single car that we can build until the end of production. Sure, we'll we'll hold back a little bit because there's going to be of course the inevitable chip shortage or something like that. And I don't want to get ahead of my headlights. But let's put out everything that we think we're going to be able to build for the last year, literally down to the trim, how many Artis you're going to be able to build how many scat packs how many Hellcats how many red eyes, how many jailbreaks everything by trim, and then break it down to the individual dealer and make it up. We have 2600 dealers in the country, let's just make up and see there's only five, that particular dealer over there, he's gonna get 50 that dealers are gonna get 100 that dealers are gonna get 25 that yet on and on and on. And then within that, the dealer who's getting 50 He's gonna get five of these, five of these 10 of these 12 of these, whatever, all the way down the list, and we're going to post that on our website that You'll know, I'm looking for a challenger superstar. I know that I can go to that dealer in my local market and he's been allocated to earn 12 of them, I go in and order the car from him. Let's say I don't go that next week, I'm going to update it again and at 12 isn't going to change to three. Oh, I better hurry up, there's only three left I gotta go in and order that card. The next week, it's gonna go to zero and they're gonna go okay, I can't go to that guy. I've got to go to the next guy who's the next guy on the list that I can go and that way they know when they do order their card they are assured that the ordering from the dealer that has allocation to get it built and they're going to ultimately get their car Sam Abuelsamid 5:38 okay and one clarification I think is understand what the jailbreak program part of that is you ordered vehicles can be specified with different combinations that aren't part of the haven't been part of the regular build combinations in the past and who's going to get to specify what that is going to be the dealer once they get their allocation they'll say okay I want it I want a Purple Purple challenger scat pack with with these green these other options or would that be the customer that would no matter what the dealership Tim Kuniskis 6:14 Great question everything that I've spoken about up to this point, those are all ordered, ordered and configured by the customer, whatever they want to order it whatever colors whatever options, SPECT by them ordered through the dealer all by them. Now, jailbreak is a unique example because jailbreak they can pretty much order all over the board, anything they want, but we allocate jailbreaks individually no different than say, I want a challenger I want a charger. I want a scat pack. I want a Hellcat. We allocate jailbreaks specifically. So if you were to go into a dealer to order a jailbreak, and that dealer didn't have allocation, that car would never get built. And that's why we want to communicate, this is where you go, this is how you get your car built. Where the confusion comes in, is all of these cars are SPECT by individual customer, where the confusion comes in, is we're going to have six end of life special editions. Those six end of life special editions, which we're going to roll out between now and SEMA. We have dates on every one of them. And and that date, we're going to send out a press release to say, here's what that version is, here's what it looks like, here's the specs, here's the features, all of those are going to be built by us. Those are not going to be ordered. Those are just kind of the cherry on the top. You know, think of it like a sneaker drop, hey 50 purple ones, and those 50 You're gonna go to the highest volume guys around the country. If you want one, here's where they're going. Sam Abuelsamid 7:38 Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Moving on from the the end of the current generation to what's coming next, let's start with the Hornet. This is a new product segment for dodge. And dodge has had an amazing Renaissance over the last decade. You know, with this, really focusing on muscle cars, you know, you've lost some of the previous nameplates that you had. But the nameplates that you've got have had a remarkable Renaissance this this decade. And where does where does the Hornet fit into this as part of this muscle car ethos for the Dodge brand? And how does it How does it differ from certain other vehicle within this the Lantis family that that it shares a lot with Tim Kuniskis 8:25 Yeah, the Hornet is going to be a real fun one for us because if you don't know anything about dodge, if you don't follow that you don't care about Dodge in your to ask that that type of a person Hey, who is the customer that's buying Dodge vehicles today, they will be probably way far off on who it is dodge actually has the youngest demographic in the entire industry. We have a very young customer buying our cars. And when you look inside the individual cars, charger, and specifically the mainstream variants of charger are driving our youngest customer base. So that told us that we have the next generation of people that are looking for stuff that's fun and interesting to drive trying to find things in segments that appeal to them. We looked at the compact SUV segment the compact SUV segment has no correlation to that you would never look at that segment and go oh well that's the next natural place dodge is gonna go no way that segment is driven by price value fuel economy, they are very pragmatic purchased vehicles, if you look at the customer responses are why they bought the cars and they literally have reams of data of why the people bought you don't get to stuff that feels like dodge, like power acceleration fun to drive vehicle in which you don't get to those things until like 20 3040 on the list of reasons to buy which is essentially might as well be zero right? But then you get that low. So all those buyers aren't looking for a Dodge. That would be what all the experts would say is the site makes no sense for you who we're saying is, wait a minute, we've got the youngest buyer, we have data that shows our youngest buyers are looking for things that are different than the mainstream offerings that they can find from anybody else. And that's why they're coming in buying pisar chargers from us, because it's different. It's unique. It's got a personality, it's got an attitude. And we said, Wait a minute, that segment is the fastest growing hottest segment in the industry, it's a million units today is projected to go to 1,000,005. It's going to grow 50% In the next five years. And it's all young people driving that growth on commoditize vehicles. Really, this is the perfect little segment for us to go in and rile it up. Because with that many cars, I just need a fraction of it. Just a fraction of that is good business for me. Sam Abuelsamid 10:45 That's that's actually really interesting that that dodges got such a young demographic compared to a lot of other brands. And I think that that, you know, from from there, let's let's jump into what's what's next, you know, what's the big new thing that you're announcing this week, which is the Challenger SRT, or the Dodge Charger Daytona SRT concept, and this shift to electrification. I hear from a lot of people that say, Oh, I don't want an electric charger or challenger. You know, I want a big brawny V eight, you know, that makes lots of noise, and listening to the presentation the other day on the vehicle and reading about it. It seems like you've really tried to capture what it is that people love about these cars. At the same time as you move into this new era of electric vehicles. And perhaps, you know, maybe the you know, the the fact that you've got such a young demographic might actually be really positive as you make this move to electric, because it seems like they're probably more likely to be interested in going electric what, tell tell us a bit more, you know, kind of the overview of the charger Daytona. Tim Kuniskis 12:09 Yeah, that younger demographic is much more open to the transition to electrification. And we look at the 13 million people that are really brand ambassadors, they're not followers of the brand, or brand ambassadors, because they're highly, highly engaged, some of them might not come along with us. And some of them will resist. No products like that finish. And this into them thinking, I don't know how this fits in our brand positioning. But when you drive them, you immediately go wait a minute, there's some real performance. Potential here. And you know, this, even the just the cars, even though they're not trying to be because you can't deny that instantaneous torque. So we said we, we've got to build a plan to transition, we can't just wake up one day and say, Hey, we've gone electric, come on along, this is great. Nobody's gonna do that, right. That's why we made this 10 year plan. And we said, we want to go and steps, we want to celebrate the end, because it's what got us to where we are, then we want to have a transition. And that transition. Honestly, it's morning, because I think Hornet is going to be a really good test. People are gonna listen to the story. And they're gonna say, wait a minute, there's two versions, there's a gas version, and there's a PHE V version, the gas version, it's fast, it's quick, it's got all wheel drive, it's got torque vectoring, I can get track back and get Brembos I'm gonna get that one. Then they're gonna go wait a minute, all the journalists are driving this PHE V, and they're saying this thing has almost 400 pound feet of torque. It's got a seat of the pants feel like a V and it can't back up. It's got to push to pass technology, that I can literally have 25 horsepower on demand to improve my zero 60 times. Whoa, wait a minute, there's something cool here. There's something to this electrification that's gonna get people comfortable with Wait a minute. The electric one is actually better than the gas one. Okay, step one, then we go to Daytona, people are gonna go, whoa, wait a minute. Now I've got a full battery electric car that my Halo my fastest my best of the best is this 800 volt Banshee system. And it's gonna give me all of the things that I'm used to, in most regards, going to give me that feeling of not linear acceleration, but actually shifting, it's going to give me that rumble, that verbal of the exhaust and the changes in the exhaust node. It's going to give me that huge acceleration factor. It's going to give me all those things away. It's electric. Oh, okay. I'm fine with that. Sam Abuelsamid 14:51 Yeah, and this you mentioned exhaust and this is this is probably the single most unique aspect of this, of this car and its powertrain that your device Helping you think of EVs you think of zero emissions? You know, I don't need an exhaust pipe. There's no no exhaust pipe. But you've got exhaust pipes. Tell us more about the frat Sonic exhaust system. What? What is that all about? How's that work? Tim Kuniskis 15:16 Yeah, when we first started talking about this big people thought I was actually crazy. And I said, you got to think about picture. Everybody's been there. Sure, a pipe organ, the first time you ever saw and heard a pipe organ, it immediately clicked in your brain. You heard the sound, you heard the deep tones. You heard the totally unique sound of that. And then you saw those big staggered pipes. And it just clicked in your brain and made sense. I said, if you look at a car today, look at a normally asked normal internal combustion car today in the exhaust know, a lot of times don't even think about what that sound is. It's like magic. Oh, it's a gas car. It makes sound? Well, it doesn't have to. I mean, we have active noise cancellation. We have sophisticated exhaust systems, we can make a gas car silent today. We just don't because no one's ever asked us to do it. So you put gas in a car that gas burns and moves a piston that custom moves air, that movement of air comes through a pipe, we tune the pipe and it makes a sound and everybody thinks it's magic. Well look at the sound is great. We all tune it we have very characteristic sounds. There's no difference with electrification, with electrification, I can move that air the same way. But if I move the air the same way, it's speaker. Everybody can do it. It's easy. I can put a speaker in the car and I can make some sound. Okay, so we don't want to do that. We said, let's look at how a gas car makes sound today. It produces the air and the frequency and the flow and the speed and the volume of that air based on a couple of things. Throttle Position, vehicle speed, whether I'm shifting, I'm not shifting the load of the end that the engines under all of those things change the dynamics of the movement of the air. Let's take all those inputs, they all still exist on an electric car, how much pedal Am I giving it? And my wide open throttle my going up a hill, how much is my load? Am I shifting? Am I not shifting my downshifting all of those same inputs, let's put those all into a system and then let's move that air not through a speaker that sit in the car let's move with that system that air through a set of pipes and chambers and an exhaust pipe. So it actually comes out the back of the car. So you get the spatial feeling of the sound is outside sound is back behind the car. And it makes all the difference in the world. 126 decibels out the back outside. All of a sudden now gives me that rumble back gives me that feeling back inside the car. Sam Abuelsamid 17:37 So is that? Is that what it's going to sound like? Is it gonna be like a deep throaty rumble? Like like something like you might hear from a Hellcat? Or is it gonna be something else entirely? What sort of sound can we expect to hear from this? Tim Kuniskis 17:52 It's a great question. And we worked on this for a long, long time because you can generate a sound any way you want. I mean so people are going down the super high tech you know Jetsons type sounds and some people are saying hey, I want to recreate the sound of VA some people say they want to call their cars you know turbocharged cars and things like that we're like no, let's, let's let's be honest with these people how we're doing this, and let's make a new sound that we think is forward looking high tech and fits with the name we call it a banshee. So it is a screaming almost jet engine electronic sound at wide open throttle. So you get this Banshee whale at wide open throttle. But when you come off of that Banshee, well, it settles into a deep bug, idling rumble. And the key to the whole thing is when you hear it, there's something very comforting about it. It's new, it's fresh, it's modern, it's different. But there's something that reminds you of something and what that is, is we built into the base track you'll never notice it. You'll only notice it now because I'm going to tell you what we built into the bass track that when the bass is hitting the cadence of that bass is literally the firing order of a heavy ba he'll never see it you'll never notice it but it will make you feel comfortable. It's almost like the old subliminal advertising. I don't know what it is, but I'm comfortable with it. I like it man when it's full throat and I hear that bad you screaming That's cool. Sam Abuelsamid 19:20 Yeah, it's funny when I first drove the reviewed the Tesla Roadster back in early 2008. When it first came out, I driven a Lotus Elise and I've driven lots of other cars. And you know that that Roadster was it was really quick and was really fun but that lack of sound that lack of that visceral response to feedback that you get was something that's always been kind of missing from EVs for me it's I love the way EVs feel when they when they when you drive them but that that absence of the sound that that visceral feedback does seem like it's something that's missing and and It's fascinating to hear what you what you're going to be doing with this. I can't wait to hear this thing in person. So Tim Kuniskis 20:07 that's also why we're putting the erupts system, you know, we patented the Europe system as well. And, you know, we had really a calm spirited debates internally, because, you know, we we actually added a multi speed transmission to the car, it doesn't make the car any faster. So you know, all the experts will tell you, well wait a minute, you're adding cost to the car, you're adding development costs, and you're adding piece costs to the car. And it's not making the car any faster. And you tell me out of every conversation, you're all about, you know, maximizing the performance, yet you're adding a feature that is adding investment and adding cost and is not any performance. As I know, we say performance is an attitude. And this is going to give us attitude, this is going to give us the driving field and the excitement that's missing in linear acceleration. linear acceleration is by far the most efficient, there's no question. But it also gets stale. Sam Abuelsamid 21:03 Yeah, it's, I think that's a that's a great way of describing you know, the performance is an attitude. And especially for a brand like dodge, because you could you can make the argument that a Tesla Model S plaid is a classic American muscle car in terms of its its core performance characteristics. It's really fast in a straight line. Yeah, the handling, maybe not quite so much braking, but it's really fast in a straight line. And obviously, you don't want dodge to be the same thing. And that's and that's one of the dangers with with the transition to EVs. Most EVs, you know electric motors all basically sound and feel the same, unlike internal combustion engines that have more distinct characters to them. And it sounds like you've really found a way to, to create some of that Dodge character to create a unique character for your brand. That would justify somebody saying, Yeah, I want a Dodge instead of, you know, a Ford or a Chevy or a Tesla. Tim Kuniskis 22:04 Whoa. So and you know, what, if you look at the industry transparent, transitioning to EVs, if we can make people accepting of Evie technology, and almost liquor, you can do it anything. Sam Abuelsamid 22:17 Okay. So, one last area, we've only got a few minutes left, that I wanted to dive into, in the presentation the other day, Duck Butt, for when you start launching some of these vehicles in 2024, you're looking at three kind of performance levels for from the factory. And then other stuff that you're going to offer through dodge direct connection, I think, six different performance levels, how's that going to work? Are we talking about software changes, or they're actually going to be hardware changes that are involved in this? What are you looking at there. Tim Kuniskis 22:55 So normally, you would require hardware changes, but we're planning for this in the development of the car right up front, which is going to help us avoid the majority of that. And it's also the reason that we launched direct connection when we launched it, because we've told everyone very clearly that we're only in the pilot phase of direct connection. Because we wanted to learn everything that we were going to screw up first with a small set of dealers, our power broker dealers are the only dealers that are allowed to sell direct connection. So we're learning as we go with those power broker dealers. We're understanding how our e commerce website works for selling these parts, and how all of the mechanics of that is coming together. Once we have that really dialed in, we will expand it to more power broker dealers. And at that point, it will be mostly ice. But at that same time, we'll be launching Hornet and within Hornet, the first direct connection stuff will be for our Jlh our goes like hell model that will help the transition. And then when we get to the Daytona, we should have it all sorted out by then that each of the three power levels have already built in your hardware. Now, I'm gonna have to probably give you some electronics as well, not just a software download, I'm probably gonna have to give you some electronics. But if you know anything about the stage kits that we're doing on the ice cars, and on the, on the Hornet, we give you a control box today, you have to buy our control box, you have to hook it up, you have to download it, you have to program it, you have to do all of that stuff yourself. We'll try to do that same thing in the next generation. And since we're planning for it now, it's going to allow us to open up modes, it won't be just power, we're going to be able to give you you know, slam modes for car shows, we're going to be able to give you donut modes, they're going to be able to give you all kinds of other stuff that we can give as well as long as we have that type of a control box to go along with it. Sam Abuelsamid 24:49 For I guess, as part of this range of powertrain or power options that you're going to have on these vehicles are features Like the multispeed transmission, is that going to be used across the board for dodge? And is that going to be something that's unique to dodge? Or is the erupt or something like it going to be on other? You know, some some of the others to Lance's brands as well? Well, the only Tim Kuniskis 25:15 the only car that we're talking about right now since you know, it's technically it's a concept car, the only one that we're talking about right now is the 800. Bowl, Banshee TBD, and exactly where we're going to deploy all that technology throughout the lineup, you know, we need certain things that differentiate the lineup. So like, I can't put everything that we talked about in the Banshee in every single car. So we got a little bit of time to still sort that out. Will other brands within the family within the company, take on some of that technology, maybe if it fits their brand positioning, you know, our CEO, Carlos diverse is very big on proper brand positioning and using the things that make sense for your brand, not just grabbing everything because it exists in the in the parchment of the company. It needs to make sense for what you're trying to do as a brand. So TBD and some if somebody else is going to want to use it as some of the things that clearly dodge and nobody would probably want him but not my call. That's the CEO Scott. Yeah. I didn't invest in a heated Sam Abuelsamid 26:18 Yeah. Well, for you know, having listened to you for a number of years now, you know, as you've been leading the Dodge brand, you know, I can I can really sense the enthusiasm you have for what this brand is supposed to be and what you know what you're trying to build it into. And it's it's fascinating to see you talk about, you know, this this transition to electrification, you know, through plug in hybrids and battery electrics, and it's good to see somebody leading a brand with such enthusiasm. Do you have any final thoughts? You want to share about kind of what you're doing with dodge where where the Dodge brand is going? Tim Kuniskis 26:52 Yeah, you know, a lot of our very traditionalists fans have said to me, we thought you would be the last one to transition to electrification, we thought you would be the holdout in the industry that would carry the ice flag forever. And what I say to all of them is, the industry has invested half a trillion dollars. There is no mulligan for half a trillion dollars this party is going to come whether anybody likes it or not, you can try and avoid it. Or you can look at it like any true racer, does. Any racer in any series takes a rulebook and figures out how to twist those rules in their favor and win the race. We looked at the rulebook, we looked at the party that was coming and we said, You know what, let's go to the party. And let's dance like dodge dances. And let's see what we can do with this. Sam Abuelsamid 27:41 It sounds like you've definitely got the right attitude to be leading this brand into the future. So good luck and congratulations on on the new products and this concept and thanks for your time. Thank you. Alright, bye. Yeah. Next up, I've got Mickey Bligh, the head of propulsion engineering at Stone lattice. All right, sitting here with Mickey Bligh, the VP of propulsion engineering at first Atlantis. And we just saw the global unveil of the Dodge Charger Daytona Banshee or Dodge Charger. SRT. Banshee. This is a concept that gives us a little preview of where the Dodge brand is going with E muscle cars, which we we first heard about even a little over a year ago, your Evie day. Give me your perspective on this car. You know, what, what were you trying to achieve? What? What's What was the goal in creating an Eevee? That is a Dodge muscle car. Micky Bly 28:51 Well, you know, Tim's very kind of for thinking he knows what the Dodge brand is and what the Loyalists the brotherhood of muscle wants in their vehicles. And when Jim got us together about a year and a half ago, and said, Listen, he knows he has to go into the Evie, Evie space. You know, the heavy homies that they've been great to the company have been great to the brand. But he really said, hey, if we go into this space, if we go into the space, we got to do it, right. We got to be something different. We can't just be what everybody else was getting. So as we set said, it's the Lantus evey day last year to refer to, you know, we're going to bring together electrification strategy that really leverages scale. So what does that mean from an architecture point of view? You know, we're we've announced that we're going to do these four architectures, right, that we're still a small, medium, large, and frame. So 10 said great, I need to participate in that because it gets a scale and the value but I need something different. I need to make sure that Dodge brand doesn't just become one of the other end performance Evie vehicles. So when He set us aside he said, you know, give me something different. Give me more power. Give me more excitement. Give me more sound. Give me more feeling in the vehicle. So he kind of set us aside. So you know, I want this what's now been released as Banshee to be something unique to him. So he's took us down that path. And he said some pretty formal expectations from it. So there's no doubt this will stick out from all the other brands that were producing. Maybe it's just going in a different way. It's a given different place. All Wheel Drive, even though you saw today the concept 800 volt system inside of it to EDMS on the vehicle, but very importantly, as a multi speed transmission, gearbox on it awesome. And all these things together is what he called the visceral feel the vehicles as he's just pushing us, and you know what sound you get to I want this and they give it you say I can do it. I didn't ask enough. So he asked for a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. So really, that's what it is, is how do we make this thing make sure the loyalists of dodge that he's built a brand, over the years, get something exciting, and that's what we're gonna deliver to it. Sam Abuelsamid 30:54 And you've certainly certainly seem to be on the right track with this because one of the things I hear a lot from listeners to the podcast and readers of this stuff I write that are fans of the current muscle cars, the Hellcats the hammies is I love the sound the field and that's always been one of the things about internal combustion engines for 130 years is you can you can design it, you can give the Engines, engines, different engines that distinct feel and characteristic and you drive them and a lot of times you never know what you're looking for. You can tell what it is you're driving without even looking at it. And with EVs up till now at least that hasn't been the case. You know, electric motors are all pretty much the same. Like they don't vibrate, you know, they don't really make much noise sound. And that that's the first real unique thing here is this is the first Eevee with an exhaust system. Yeah. And did you guys come up with this concept? Micky Bly 31:54 Well, it's funny because we started from what the brand's vision is and it feels like a Dodge sounds like a Dodge performance like a Dodge and and you know, Tim just unleashed us he said, Listen, come back with crazy ideas. What can we do differently? So there's some guys out there they were doing simple speakers. We know this and regulatory speaker sounds Yep, sure. I'm driving around in Tim was like that. That doesn't work for me. Right? I need something different. So they said I can make a little while on Zimmer soundtrack. Yeah, exactly. Well make it really loud version or record a Hemi. He's like no, no. Okay, so we got to make this real. So he set off the the chassis guys and the audio guys, which is another team within When slanza said, Listen, give me something different. And he had this vision in his head, he said, Imagine sitting in the most famous beautiful church you've ever been with a pipe organ system. You know, there's there's, there's a guy in the front guy or girl in the front of it playing in this simple little keyboard is like not doing much. But above them as these beautiful pipes. And this, this sound that resonates within the church walls, it vibrates it bounces all over, and you feel it in your throat you feel in your body. And that's what he said, the guy's offices make me the church pipe organ, how do you make something on a car that's like that when you don't have a combustion engine. And what the team has created is this, this resonating system that creates an air a velocity of air inside of it has a number of chambers inside of it, and how you feel it on the back of the car. And it's going to be an exciting inside the car, it's you feel it vibrates, it sounds cool. And they're tweaking what the final sound like you heard kind of a part of it today, it's gonna really be unique. There's a lot of buried noises inside of there that, you know, maybe has some Heritage's on these different level. Yeah, and maybe some firing orders going on inside of there to kind of get reminiscence of what the the Hemi has done, which has been a great engine for us. So that's how it really started. And we worked in concepts for last six months. My team's responsibility is really given the inputs, how do we give communicate to him? What's traditionally a throttle pedal connected to an engine connected to gas to combustion out the exhaust? How do I translate that into now pedal in the car power pedal in the car, that creates the electric power in a EDM electric drive module. And that gets torque in the end. So I had to connect the two of how do you make an icy combustion resonating air pulse through the system connected to a drive unit. So that's what my team is doing. Sam Abuelsamid 34:20 So that that right pedal is the equivalent of the keyboard for the organ player. Exactly. And, you know, having heard it now, the obviously, the thing you don't want to do is just have a recording of a Hemi or a Hellcat, because that would be inauthentic. And, you know, other manufacturers have tried some stuff. Ford's done some things with a Mustang Maki, which is okay. But it's not. It's not the scale. It's you know, it's distinct to that vehicle. But it you know, it's not nearly as visceral as what we just heard. And it's clearly not not the whole story that we've heard yet. Yeah. more to it when when we see that thing running down a drag strip, I'm sure it's going to be very, very different. So what the gearboxes two gearboxes, one each each axle. Other manufacturers have done that. portion and Audi have that on the Taconic e Tron GT. Roof Tesla tried to do it on the original roadster didn't succeed. What how did you overcome the challenges of getting the gearbox to last, you know, in that kind of high torque environment, because unlike with with an engine, you know, when you lift off on your shifting, you have a torque wall. So it leaves a little bit of a strain on those gears. As you're shifting. You don't have that with an electric drive train. So how did you handle that? Well, Micky Bly 35:53 it's been a challenge, I'll tell you that wasn't like just we woke up one day and figured it out. But as you will have a multi speed gearbox in there and others are doing there's a couple of very premium Europeans that have gone down this road. And that will be a little bit of a difference for dodge dodge bringing that into the more than mainstream performance muscle car field. I can tell you that we wanted to do as you said, as we bring this power on this torque on these these machines, which we're not announcing the power or the torque level yet that will come come out in the future is Tim Tim's request from the Dodge brand is why they do a multispecies. And don't look, it's not an advertisement. It's a logo. He wants to do a performance. So as you know very well is we need that low speed multiplier to get high torque. But we also want to be able to high speed and people on the highway. And by having the multi speed you can really take advantage of that torque multiplication like you do on a normal first or second gear. And then so we can apply that. So we've got a lot of tractive effort that we got to put to the ground. We got to make sure that tractive effort doesn't come back into the gearbox, as you said damages. So we're spending a lot of time and we've got some really sophisticated torque tools allows us to design these gearboxes, we make gearboxes every we mean millions of gearboxes, my team is experts in being able to design these gears. So it really, I don't want to make it sound simple. But it is really just basic mechanical engineering one on one that we've been able to do on this, it's a lot more difficult as you said, we don't have that wind up and wind down. We don't have slipping of a torque converter, we don't have a clutch that can slip a little bit. So we got to make sure we get it right because if the customers can do it, they will we know that Sam Abuelsamid 37:29 and how many years getting Micky Bly 37:31 multispeed at this time, they'll give you a future announcement. All Sam Abuelsamid 37:35 right. The rest of the powertrain the electric machines what anything you can tell us about that you know that you've done there that is unique to Atlantis or that are unique to the Banshee as opposed to maybe the rest of your life. Micky Bly 37:53 So you know most of the world and electrification the full BBs are in the Aoife nominal number for hon systems is Tim announced with the Banshee will be an iterable system. But we're not unique in Ada, there's a couple of doing in hon system, some doing, you know, 800 900 volt system. And it's a very simple instead of the mechanical F equals MA, it's getting into the vehicles, IR or the power equals VI. And so by raising the voltage up, we're able to deliver more power at the same current level. So that's really kind of the secret sauce of working on is how do we get more power out of the same battery that battery technology exists today? Well, we've made some big announcements partnering with LG and Samsung. But that's kind of between the multispeed the eight or volt system. And really spending a lot of time is driving us we think we've kind of tuned it in very well. We've got a few surprises still to be announced about we get the performance when you say the performance numbers will be will we be the fastest Evie on the road today? As Tim said, maybe not the fastest, but it's going to be a totally different driving experience. I mean, as you know, you've been in these cars, they're getting to the point now where it's almost beyond the normal drivers capability to drive this so we're going to be in that realm of the expert driver capability with the Banshee. And you know, will someone have five kilowatts, okay. The race of horsepower will become the race of kilowatts. But when you drive this vehicle and you see the performance of it, it's going to be remarkable. Sam Abuelsamid 39:22 Yeah, there's there's some hyper hyper cars out there like the Pininfarina Battista and Lotus via, you know, that are in that 2000 horsepower range 1500 kilowatts. I can Unknown Speaker 39:35 tell you we won't be there Sam Abuelsamid 39:38 will never be there. And you know, for a first street car, frankly, I don't think you should be. I'm, you know, you see cars like the Model S plaid out there. Zero to 60 in two seconds. At least the first second street. Yeah. On the street. Yeah. Nobody needs that kind of performance. Yeah. You're taking it to the track. Yeah, that's fine. The The drive units that you're developing for this are those shared with the other Stela. Electric. Like is that a common architecture with the other solar electric platforms. Micky Bly 40:10 So as we announced last July at the evey day, we've got the platforms of vehicles to sell a small, medium, large and spring this will be on the large platform. And then I also when I presented was the EDMS for that. So we talked about having three families of EDMS kind of the 100 kilowatt version, the 150 to 250 kilowatt version, and we said the 300 Plus kilowatt version, these will clearly be in that family. But we've been given the latitude to take that family and put a little more behind it. So it'll be it'll, it'll be an extension of what we presented last year. Sam Abuelsamid 40:43 Okay. But the the multispeed gearboxes, that's something that, at least for now is going to stay unique to dodge dodge as a first announced what we're using it for, okay. I mean, there are some other brands within the family that could possibly use. Right. All right. For it, before I let you go, let's talk a little bit about the Hornet and the powertrain in there. That is the first dodge electrified vehicle, plug in hybrid. Tell me more about that one. Micky Bly 41:13 Yeah, just to start with, and the announcement made in the Hornet is really bringing dodge into that hot hatch kind of environment. So we'll have the, I'll say the entry level point of that, which is a crazy performing entry level, which is a full ice version of that. And as was announced that hurricane for engine on that, which is our two liter DOHC engine that will be there, we're moving it up, the up version of that, at least up from what we've announced is available will be the PHE V, the plugin version. But as Tim said, we're not gonna really worry about calling the plugins, it's going to be a really high performance, electrified plug in vehicle. So we have the 1.3 liter engine in there turbo engine, which is performing in the European market. Today, we're bringing that over here, we're doing a little bit of unique calibration for it. And then the secret sauce is the CDM. On the back end, instead of using it purely for efficiency and region capturing, we wanted to make it as formance base as possible. And you know, the the PowerShot feature on there. So we're reserving a little bit of capacity in the battery. So that when the customers want to have a zero to 60 launch or highway pass or on ramp that pushes button unleashes significant amount of power 2025 horsepower of additional horsepower, it's kind of a fun little car. I've driven it around in Europe a couple of weeks ago, as we're doing the development. It's just fun, it is what God wants, you know, it's got the special suspension tuning, it's got the special tires on it, my team has to deliver is over 30 miles of electric range. If you plug in and charge it up fully, you get 30 miles of electric range, which is great for that size car. Most of the drivers in the US will drive 30 miles or less with COVID, maybe three miles or less in the last couple of years. So it's going to be a no excuse fun to drive accelerating or exhilarating type of performance. plug in hybrid. And I don't even know I don't think Tim's gonna the Dodge brand is good even to call it a plug in for say, obviously, it will be the technology. He wants to just be a really fun, fun little hot hatch. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 43:13 And you mentioned Powershot. And I forgot to ask you about that in the context of the charger. Jim's mentioned the power shot. What what's the strategy there is basically kind of an overboost mode draft drawing more power out of the battery for brief periods of time. Micky Bly 43:31 Yeah, so we'll do a little bit of reserve capacity in the power side of it. Make sure you know when you enter in the mode, it's kind of like launch Modi, as in the Durango today, making sure that temperatures are all on the right, make sure everything's after right. And then if it's good, and then let it go. And what we're going to try to do is make sure that this isn't a one, two, and you're done type of performance, which some of our competitors are doing, because they just don't have the sustainability of that kind of power delivery. So this will be repeatable power type of the field, no excuses, you know, street light, the street light or wherever you want to do on the drag strip, over and over. So it's going to be a fun, fun little feature we put in there. And Tim's already mentioned, that we'll launch that with with the Banshee system, it'll be produced with a couple of power levels, but then the Direct Connect, you're actually going to be upgrading the power level over the life of the vehicle. So it's kind of a little easter egg. The reveal today is we're going to be able to with some work to be announced is you may buy it at this power level. Six months later, you may say I want to, I want to have one more fun on this and you can actually bound by more power or more power. And we'll show you how that's going to be done later. Sam Abuelsamid 44:34 Okay. That's it's been really fascinating to watch the evolution of this company over the last year or so. For for a long time. It seemed to be kind of stuck in the past. You know, I love the Hellcat engine. It's amazing. Every time I drive something with a Hellcat in it. It's it's always been a hoot. But you know, it's you know, in terms of you know the world changing And you're clearly got a plan for how, how the each of the brands, particularly dodge is going to stay relevant and true to itself in that new context. Micky Bly 45:15 Yeah, it's fun place. I mean, I've been with a company now three and a half years and what I have seen in three and a half years, you know, I have a history with another automotive company. And when I grew up I was when I came into this engine business, I've been an engines for 30 years. And my first assignment was trying to make the LS seven at 300 horsepower out of small block V eight. And to see what we're doing over the Hemi today, we kind of ignored the guys up north of us when I was there. And what we're doing on the Hemi now is just remarkable. That gives you the 700 horsepower, 800 horsepower out of this this leg, legendary engine. But it's kind of getting to the end of his capability from regulation point of view from co2 point of view, what we want to do from an environmental point of view. But what's really nice about Atlantis, even with after the merger was and the leadership of this team is don't give up on what your brands mean. And Carlos has made it very clear that brands have every right to survive. And they gotta prove what they want to do. And dodge is the first of our big announcements. And actually, our second announcement here the crisis, crisis story, which was coming out in CES. And we're just going to build on that and it's fun. I I've had a lot of fun in my career. This is even more fun. All Sam Abuelsamid 46:30 right. Well, thanks, Mickey. Always great to talk to you. Yeah, thanks a lot. Finally, it's Jim Owens, the brand and marketing manager for Mustang and Shelby Ford, sitting here with Jim Owens, the marketing and brand manager for Mustang and Shelby Ford. And, Jim, you and I have known each other a long time. We've worked together more than a decade and worked together on the on the launch of the last the current generation Mustang. And when we were working on this stuff, you know, GT 350 and the SP 550. Mustang, back in 20 1314, early 14, did you imagine that now in mid 2022, that the best selling Mustang would actually be a crossover with batteries and electric motors and no internal combustion? Unknown Speaker 47:21 The long answer and short answer is no, I wouldn't have thought that it would outsell the Mustang and No, we wouldn't have thought of an electric version of it. But propulsion systems have always been, you know, being investigated. You know, Carol with his natural gas Cobra, and we've got video of him out there trying it out there in the parking lot. And we Gardena even back in the like if you think of the Indy 500 days when Carroll even developed some of the turbine engine vehicles that were there to race. So they've always been experimental in there, but pure electric and a Mustang in 2012. And we just done the boss 302 No, I probably wouldn't have thought of that. Sam Abuelsamid 48:01 So yeah, as a longtime enthusiast, a hot rod guy you love I know you love drag racing, and Motorsports and Shelby vehicles way back. What? How do you feel about a car like the maki GT today being the best selling Mustang, Unknown Speaker 48:22 so I'm glad it's part of the Mustang family. And there's the thinking about it when we were first talking about expanding the Mustang family brand. This car vehicle represents a lot of the same things. That Mustang represented in 1962 63. You know, when Lee Iacocca and the Ford Fairlane committee were working on the original Mustang, what that was was a clean sheet of paper new segment piece. That Mustang became so that it wasn't the same car that your mom and dad drove back in the 60s, right? Well, if you think of what Mustang Mach E is, in that electric vehicle space, this is kind of that fresh, clean sheet of paper, if you will, similarly to what Mustang was in the 60s, like you don't design, you know, electric vehicles with a big front grille. I mean, this one has the big front grille and the pony proud and center. And so this was designed as a Mustang that had an electric propulsion system. And so for that purpose, I'm glad it's part of the Mustang family. From the performance aspects of it, I mean, you know, the, this car like especially the GT performance back car, like we took it out at the Pittsburgh vintage Grand Prix, and gave charity hot laps in it. And we're running with a Corvette C four, and a BMW from the Racing School. The Excel ration the Magnum Hyde suspension, the Brembo brakes and they're on there, the suspension that was tuned at the Ford Performance Center down in Charlotte, on our, on our simulators there. Those are the things that are core to the DNA of Mustang, this thing is faster, the GT performance mechanischen, faster zero to 60, then my Shelby GT 500. And now as that technology and that battery technology evolves, you know, you can picture the future tweakers and tuners, you know, when I was growing up, and I'm a little older than you, but like, you know, we'd be adjusting our floats and jets and our carburetor and we'd be missing when they're taking off a distributor cap and rotor and adjusting that distributor tanning. You know, as tweakers and tuners have evolved, if you think now like the Focus RS people or even the Mustang people, plug their laptop in, and start going into the ECA and start messing with it to kind of get the calibrations that they want. Once you think into the future, how they're going to be doing this with the battery technology, they're gonna be doing the same thing, performance people and those that love performance stuff are going to find ways to take what is made from the factory and advance it and move it to their performance tastes. All those things helped make it a Mustang. That shape is like a Mustang, you wouldn't build an electric vehicle with that short hood than that dropping hood, you know, the back end and I'm pointing in here, you can't see on the podcast where I'm pointing, but the back there, that slope of the hood without where the painting is, is almost identical to the current MK one. The pony try bars right in the back a different interpretation of it. Sam Abuelsamid 51:40 But you've got the visual DNA there you look at it, you look at you look at that GT 500 across the way there and you look at this and you you can tell that there's there's a relationship Unknown Speaker 51:50 there is a common thread in that family and and yeah, as much as I love, right I still love the 60s are my favorite one is a 71 Mach one, right? I mean, I love that sloping hood. And a lot of them said those were the big fat boats and a lot of people don't like us. Each of the Mustang owners probably have their own individual taste, but there is a consistent thread in the DNA of that that makes this Mustang Maki, a welcome and embraced member of the family and now any good Mustang needs to have a Shelby derivative. And I don't know if you saw it SEMA Gary Patterson in the Mary Banda hot rodders unveiled a and b actually down here at Woodward are at nine mile down Ferndale, Shelby maki GT, and that Shelby maki GT has the deep draw hood in the frunk. So what they do is they utilize the front the cut out so that the air can come in and actually push on the downforce like they did the aerodynamics for it. They're working with the battery company to tweak it from a vehicle that you know is trying to maximize range while delivering performance to be an all out Shelby's think of like the blowers we used to put on the O sixes, right? Sam Abuelsamid 53:04 To more robust temperature management and management cooling to keep the temperature in the sweet spot. Yeah, maintain the performance. Unknown Speaker 53:11 And so those are the type of things so that are going to be tweakers and tutors will do but any good Mustang needs a Shelby and that Shelby version, it not only does it look like what a Shelby would be, and especially like the GT 40 COVID. Like they don't have goop deep road. It actually is functionally performing better. And that's going to continue to evolve. Like I'm a geek, I love the old stuff. I still favorite car to take out on the track. Mach one is really getting pretty close. Nowadays. That car is a lot of fun. You know it was that pasta or two that we did? Yeah, yes, I love those things. But Mustang as a brand to continue has to evolve. And this is a decent member of the family and it is a embraced member of the family. And it is one that with that GT performance package in and of itself with the stuff that that we tweaked in tune on it can sit next to a Mustang from a performance basis, at least in the straight line and zero to Sam Abuelsamid 54:13 61 of the things about Mustang going back to the very beginning, was that the tagline the car designed to be designed by you. It was all about customization was a personal personalization. And so far, you know from for performance like last year, you guys launched the illuminator crate motor package so that people could take parts from this car and put it on, you know, do resto mods on other vehicles using the powertrain from this. Are we going to start seeing some stuff that allows the people owners to customize their Maki's and turn it into something more Unknown Speaker 55:00 I don't believe there's anything on the market right yet. Right right now, at least from our perspective, from Ford's perspective, or Ford performance in the the Ford component sales aspect of it. There's obviously some accessories that the vehicle personalization team does, but not unlike the tweakers and tuners where you're talking about the schemas and the aftermarket folks will find what is out there and people who want to customize it. And when there is a market there, there will be a demand pull through that you're going to start getting those and if you see like Reverend Michigan, I know you're new to driving thru, they are starting to customize like this one was actually in Tulsa, we had a lady, her dad, she was 2627 mom of two. She had a Maki she'd lowered the front, change the hood, put these huge graphic stripes on it. And when we were doing the the quarter miles, she lined up against her dad, who was in a GT 500. And he blew the light. And she beat him basically, than they did the time in the islands. But anyways, like she's out there already customizing it. And as that demand, and as these get out into the hands of people who are enthusiast, that demand will pull that through for sure. So yeah, I'm assuming we're gonna see the same type of growth that you would see from the enthusiast who buy it because this part also is bought by non enthusiast as well. But the the enthusiast pool will start pulling that demand through. Sam Abuelsamid 56:36 Yeah, and I know, this week, you mentioned SEMA. They're opening a new SEMA Garage here in Detroit area this week. And I actually toured there a few months ago, while it was still under construction, and some of the stuff they're doing in there's test cells. Dinah a couple of dinos, cells and labs, where companies come in and develop stuff for software updates and things to modify EVs and other modern vehicles are is for working with any of those companies to, you know, to at least to assist them, or give them some guidance as to how they might go some of that sort of thing. Unknown Speaker 57:15 I do not know the relationship on that. I know historically, the Ford Performance Parts team or the Ford Racing parts team would work with the SEMA accompanies to develop like we used to give vehicles to SEMA when we participated in for them to tweak and tune it the way that they wanted to show it with their parts on there. I'm assuming as that aftermarket develops, we'll be getting into it, but I don't know if we're doing it right now. Sam Abuelsamid 57:41 Okay, let's shift gears a little bit, literally. And we're a few weeks away from the 2022 Detroit Auto Show, finally getting back. And one of the highlights of the show this year, is going to be seventh generation Mustang. Loose seen spy photos of it, and not surprisingly, the kind of the basic idea of Mustang, you know, the classic Mustangs is still there. But what's, what's the overall theme direction that you're going with the internal combustion? Unknown Speaker 58:23 You know, we're gonna learn a lot about that a little bit tonight. I think you're gonna learn a little bit about that tonight at 730. The, you know, one of the things in the little teasers that you saw was the six speed, you know, the manual transmission, there were rumors, but people posting on it, oh, that manual transmission is gone. And we wanted to lean into that a little bit, kind of tease it a little bit with that, with that shifter in there. You know, the the seventh generation Mustang will surprise people in the investment that we've put into that internal combustion engine. Like we're, you know, we're going to continue to evolve. And hopefully you'll see when we reveal the vehicle on and then hear a little bit about it tonight that it's going to be about those enthusiasts. And it's designed with those in mind. Sam Abuelsamid 59:26 For it was the first of the traditional brands and the legacy automakers to bring out something like this maki and Go Electric in in one of their core categories, or at least one of their core nameplates. Most of them Yeah. And a couple of days ago, we saw one of your local competitors here, come up with what they're where they're going next. And it's it's a very interesting approach that they're taking because they do and they recognize like you recognize that there are still that core group of enthusiast love the noise and the visceral experience of driving a car like that. Do you know, this car has some noise to it when you put it in unbridled mode, but it's not quite what was just doing? Yeah. Do you do you think? Is there still? Like? How long is there a place in the lineup for an internal combustion Mustang that makes traditional exhaust sounds and intake sounds? Unknown Speaker 1:00:37 Yeah. And I mean, seeing what that did, right? It was impressive, the way they did it, and how they announced their 23 in the last of it being their internal combustion engines. We were literally like you said, the first to market with our brands, like with our S series, and with our Mustang, to have that electric. And we know that there's also a desire and demand for that internal combustion engine. This allows us under the family to do those things and manage our you know, our co2 and carbon footprint, you know, that where we can still do those things that those customers demand? I don't think there's a horizon for it. But I can talk about I mean, like that, you never know where we're going with it. But we're really excited to be launching that sevens generation, where in that, you know, that next model year, we will have both electric and internal combustion engine Mustangs, and we invested to do this seventh generation for, and we believe that there's a marketplace for both. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:41 Obviously, you can't get into the details at this point of the seventh generation car. But we're was there anything in particular? That as far as what you're trying to achieve with the new car? Beyond just extending the the traditional? Is there any new direction? I'm Unknown Speaker 1:02:04 really excited for you to see it? September? Yeah, I'm really I really am. I mean, we can't talk about the specifics towards it. But, you know, I've been around a Gen four, Gen five, Gen six, and now Gen seven. And the, it's, there's a lot of cool things coming. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:25 Anything else you want to share about Mustang and kind of where the brand is going in the next 510 years? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 1:02:32 so the brand itself, like the, you know, the the sports car segment has been shrinking, all right, when we launched the Gen six, or Gen five, for God's sakes, you know, we were a couple 100,000 units a year of those first two years, the segment size was, you know, two and a half percent. Now, the sportswear segment runs at about one one and a half percent. You know, it's a little bit smaller, but the brand strength hasn't decreased. You know, the Mustangs are still the most shared social vehicle from regardless of age group, right? You know, the boomers like me, you know, we're eventually getting old. But what's nice to see is that they're, you know, the people who are on social media, who had generally and generally are a younger audience, are still participating in investing in that Mustang brand. And, you know, we have to find ways to continue to feed that, right. I mean, from when we were growing up the Matchbox cars, you know, all the way up and somebody found a 71 Mach one for me, that was really, really cool. But it was already opened up the box, but at least I have it up there. But you know, to the video games, like if you think like a Rocket League, I don't know if you've seen that or played that game, right, my girlfriend's son played it all the time. He's gone away to college, I'm sure he's gonna be playing it there. You know, integrating we did the Shelby GT 350, the 65 version of it in the game, we did the Maki 1400. Right, the Vaughn supercar as it incorporating those things into from the way that the younger generations interact is important to help keep that brand going. And it's nice to see that we're doing those type of things. So that brand, we need to continue to bring those people in, because boomers are starting to, you know, go away, I mean, that go away, but like, come out of that marketplace. But that brand is still strong amongst the younger ones. And we need to continue to do those things that support those enthusiasts, you know, from the person that guy or girl who has their little matchbox car who has their Mustang pony on the wall at home, how do we keep them involved in the brand In the future, and we're excited about it. Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:55 All right. Looking forward to see what we come up with further For the new car, it's gonna be interesting next few years to watch as, as this market evolves with traditional internal combustion and electric and everything in between Unknown Speaker 1:05:13 it is it's gonna be a lot of fun. And Carol, before he passed away, and we have him on video saying this actually, he wanted to be around to see how electrification would work. He was interested more in the, like, the instantaneous torque nature of it right, from a from a bracing and performance perspective. And I'm excited to see what's gonna be going on. It's, it's gonna be fun. It's keeps me Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:40 Yeah, well, I mean, you look at what what Tesla has done with with their stuff. And they've demonstrated that, you know, that instant torque and all wheel drive, combined with lots of power, you know, can make ridiculously fast accelerating vehicles. And we've seen it with with this one as well. So maybe blending something in there. For it's got some some hybrid powertrains, you could probably fit into a Mustang. Unknown Speaker 1:06:10 It's been hinted at in the pedal world is our oyster coming forward, and I can't wait to see what we do. Unknown Speaker 1:06:16 All right, Alex, great to talk to you. It's always Unknown Speaker 1:06:18 good, my friend. Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:20 And I've also got one question that came in this week from Gupta Ajay on Twitter. Yes, f150 PowerBoost, platinum or tundra hybrid 1794, the TRD Off Road package, both four by four, which one would probably better hold its value three to four years down the road? And I already replied to AJ on Twitter, but I want to answer it here as well. So, you know, obviously, you know, for new vehicles, it's hard to project exactly what their residual value is going to be, you know, three or four years down the road from now, because a lot of things can change. But if we take a look back at history, for the f150 and tundra, back before either of them had a hybrid option, you know, going back to 2018, you know, so four years, four years ago, the residual value of the f150 Platinum, and I looked us up on kbb.com is roughly about $32,000 or so 32 to $33,000. The same year, Tundra 1794. With similar mileage on it came out to about 34 to $35,000. So about a $2,000 difference. But I also went back and looked at what the original prices were on those two trucks. And I didn't go through and do exactly comparably equipped, but just the sticker price for the f150 Platinum versus the tundra 7094 was a similar to the $2,500 price difference. So and the tundra was a little bit more expensive. So each one of them last rough had roughly the same depreciation over the last four years from 2018 till now. So more than likely, if you're looking at new ones, the Hybrid Hybrid versus hybrid platinum versus tundra. You know, four years from now, they're probably going to have similar levels of depreciation. Not not a whole lot to choose from. So basically just pick whichever one you can get your hands on or whichever one you like better. Either way, you know it's a good truck. The Platinum f150 does have some features you can't get on the tundra. You know the tundras, you know some people think that they're they may be a little more reliable, you know, take your pick. Either one's going to be a good choice. And that's it for this week, and we'll be back with the whole team next week. Bye.