Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 264 wheel bearings we've got the Hyundai Santa Cruz the Ferrari Porsche saying pricing for the Honda 23 Honda CRV Tesla Autopilot class action lawsuit. No Hellcat for the Chrysler 300 vw ID aero Lincoln, Corsair and more. All that coming up next

this is episode 264 wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights.

Roberto Baldwin  0:35  
And I am Roberta Baldwin from let's say TechCrunch this week

Sam Abuelsamid  0:39  
and Nicole is somewhere I can't remember where

Roberto Baldwin  0:44  
she's she's not here. Somewhere out there. Yes. Traveling.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:51  
The FiBL Sauron from next next couple of weeks are going to be pretty hectic for travel. I know. I know, one of the places Nicole is going into Vietnam. And there's going to be in Bozeman next week, where I will also be so we'll be recording something from there. But beyond that, I can't remember where she is right at this moment. So anyway, safe travels. Nicole is on the planet. We can tell you that. Yes. Set? Well, she might be slightly above the planet. We're not quite sure she might be in the air still.

Roberto Baldwin  1:22  
Oh, that's true. She Yeah, she's near it. She's She's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25  
within the atmosphere of the planet is she's within our biosphere somewhere. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:30  
she's somewhere. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33  
All right. Since you didn't drive anything since we last recorded just three days ago. I'll talk about the Hyundai Santa Cruz 2.5 Turbo, all wheel drive limited or something like that. Limited all wheel drive actually is the way it is on the macaroni. So this is this is Hyundai's version of the modern truck. But as we have dubbed these, these compact trucks and this is is came out you know, almost exactly the same time as the Ford Maverick. It's very similar in size to a maverick. It the main differences. The the Santa Cruz is a little more expensive base price. It's not as fuel efficient. And it's it's definitely more stylish. It's more it's more upscale than the maverick THE MAVERICK Yeah. For you. When you when you sit in the maverick you look at the maverick nice, especially when you get inside. You can see where Ford said, Okay, we want this to be a very affordable vehicle. You know, we're gonna give you all the functionality that you need. But you know, it's not going to be fancy. It's not intended to be fancy. And, you know, it does what it does extremely well. The Santa Cruz on the other hand is derived from the Tucson crossover. It is essentially a Tucson with a bed on the back. The sheet metal on the sides is slightly different from the Tucson but you know, you can you can see the family connection there. When you look at the front end the front half of it, it is very much a Tucson with a bed. And there's nothing wrong with that, you know, it's a it's a really good vehicle. For some reason, Hyundai has opted not to include a hybrid powertrain in here at this time the way they did with the Tucson and from conversations I've had with Hyundai they said yeah, we you know, there was some issues with trying to package the battery for the hybrid. You know, I'm I'm guessing that you know, at some point during the lifecycle of this vehicle, we will see it with at least a hybrid and possibly a plug in hybrid powertrain. So that means that the bass Santa Cruz is not nearly as fuel efficient as the as the Maverick, the bass Maverick. And it's also more expensive. It's it's 2.5 liter, four cylinder, naturally aspirated in the base model. And two point a 2.5 turbo in the version that I had the upscale model. So that I think is about 250 horsepower, if I recall correctly. And it said it's roughly the same size as the maverick. So it's got similar capabilities. It'll, it'll carry five, five passengers for comfortably, but five in a pinch, you can put three across in the rear seat nice, but if you got three kids, you know, not a problem putting them in there. They'll fit fine as long as they're not all in car seats. And it's it does what it's meant to do which is you know, provide basic transportation with the extra utility pickup bed. And it really, you know, I think it provides unless you have to tow tow significant amounts. It provides all the all the pickup utility that the vast majority of people need. It is, you know, it's not going to it's not going to haul 2000 pounds. It's not going to, you know, toe 10 12,000 pounds, but that's okay. Because most people don't actually need that. While I have,

Roberto Baldwin  5:29  
it's the it's the it's the tiny Honda originally.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:33  
And frankly, it's not that tiny either. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's big enough. You know, it's not like if you if you're old enough to remember the Subaru brat from the 1970s this is right.

Roberto Baldwin  5:46  
I had a teacher that had a Subaru brat and I was so jealous of her. I was in fourth grade. So it doesn't really count like me like, oh, no, but I really wanted that car.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:53  
Well, you know, I mean, the Subaru brat was a lot smaller than this. And, you know, the the Baja that they did in the 2000s based on the Outback was also but it certainly had a smaller bed than this deer. So, you know, during, during my week with the with the Santa Cruz, we're in the process of building a new rain garden in our front yard. So that there's less grass to mow. And then the process of doing that. I went over to Lowe's loaded up the back end of this Santa Cruz with 2040 pound bags of topsoil. 800 pounds. Not a problem. You know, you could see the springs compressed a little bit. But you know, it's not like it was dragging its rear bumper down on the ground. And it had no problem at all with that. There was plenty of room in there. And I I probably could have put another 10 bags of topsoil in there. But yeah, that, you know, I figured that was that was gonna be enough.

Roberto Baldwin  6:58  
Does it have does it have like a tow button, like a drive mode, or drive mode because the maverick had it and I went and I picked up like 100 pounds of like rocks twice. And the first time I even bother? I didn't I didn't think about the button. I just drove out like yeah, this is fine. And the second I'm like, oh, yeah, the whole mode I pushed and I'm like, Oh, a little bit more torque, it's fine. It didn't even didn't even written it didn't matter.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:23  
Yeah, so I just pulled up the specs, the the turbo is 281 horsepower a little more than I thought, which is more than what you get with the two liter turbo option in the Maverick, which is 250 I think and 311 foot pounds of torque. So this, you know, 800 pounds of soil on the back end, not a problem at all, nothing It didn't even didn't even blink you know, with the what if you had the base engine, you know, it would probably feel a little more sluggish with 191 horsepower and a lot less torque only 181 foot pounds of torque but with with the Turbo it's fine. So, you know, when you get in it, if you sat in a in a current generation Tucson, you will feel immediately at home and this thing it is it is the exact same interior same seats same dashboard with the center stack that kind of flows down from the top of the dashboard the limited that I had had the larger 12 inch 11 or 12 inch touchscreen display. The the base models or the lower trim levels actually have a slightly smaller 10 inch display. And if you get that those you actually get some physical controls that surround it like physical volume, roller and some physical climate control buttons. Which I think if I was buying one, I might actually opt for that because the one thing that one of the complaints I've had with both the Tucson and now at the Santa Cruz is they when you get the larger screen everything is a touch sensitive control. There's no There's it's basically a flat surface below the touchscreen and so you've got to look at it to you know change the temperature or anything like that and it is a little annoying. So I might recommend actually going for one of the lower trim levels so that you don't have that issue but other than that you know the rest of it you know the limited this one had the leather seats in it it had nice soft touch surfaces if you get the lower trim levels you know like on the top of the dashboard it's gonna be it's gonna look the graining is looks similar but when you touch it, it it feels you can feel hard plastic instead of soft touch material. But you know, that's, that's not that big a deal. But you know the downside of the limited price tag. It gets a little pricey when you go all in all wheel drive and everything else This one jumps so quickly. It does. Its start the Santa Cruz starts at about little over $25,000. The one I had was priced out at $41,100. Including guests, the guests the destination charge.

Roberto Baldwin  10:16  
Oh, hold on. 1100 very close

Sam Abuelsamid  10:20  
to 1185 you probably wouldn't want on prices right?

Roberto Baldwin  10:25  
I'm getting really good at this. Yeah. By the way, I didn't look it up. I'm like, Oh, I gotta fit. This is like my new this is my favorite.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:31  
I can. I can I can see Robbie here on the Zoom screen. Yes, he's, he's closing his eyes thinking about it. I stop and ponder. Yeah. So, you know, again, the other negative of the Santa Cruz versus the, the Maverick is fuel economy. Even compared to the, the base, naturally aspirated engine, I think is rated about 26 miles per gallon combined. The Turbo is rated at 22 miles per gallon combined. So 19 City 27 highway, and my week of driving it. I had, I averaged about 20. So a little bit less. And that was with a mix of highway and city driving. So I got a little less a couple of miles per gallon less than what it's rated at. And, you know, for a small truck, you know, especially at $41,000, you know, and only 20 miles per gallon. Now, you got to think, Geez, you know, do I want to go with a smaller one, or go, you know, go up a size, you know, to something like originalline, you know, or a ranger or or a Colorado Canyon and starts to become become a little bit tougher choice. Which is why I think I suspect that Hyundai is probably going to find a way to do a hybrid version of this at some point during its model lifecycle, probably, you know, maybe for 24 model year. So do a mid cycle update, and add the hybrid option. Because with the hybrid Maverick, you get 40 miles per gallon. Easy. I mean, you don't even have to try some. Yep. So that that is that is the one downside, but with as part of the Limited trim level and everything, you get this nice hard tonneau cover. And the Stano folds up. So there's a handle on the top, you push it and you just shove the thing forward. And it it basically folds up like an accordion up at the front edge of the bed. And one of the cool things is got this strap that is clipped to the tonneau cover and then clip there's a clip on the side of the bed. So when you're loading stuff in there, and you or you and then you want to pull the tunnel back. To close it, you just grabbed strap and pull it back. So you don't have to try and reach all the way up to the front edge of the bed or walk around the side. You can just pull the strap, pull it back latches in place, and close the tailgate and you're good. And you have a nice secure storage area. So that was that's that's kind of a cool feature. Overall, you know, it drives really well it's, you know, 280 horsepower is more than quick enough. And you know, handling is quite good. So it's it's quite a pleasant vehicle to be in. Like I said, lots of utility, the pay, I think the total payload is about 1400 pounds. So you know, for four adults, and 800 pounds of topsoil and you're good to go. So that's the the 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz limited all wheel drive 41 grand out the door who

Roberto Baldwin  13:58  
I really liked, I finally got to drive it back in August and I really liked it. I think it's uh, you know, Hyundai makes you feel like you're getting more for your money. You know, of course, once you hit that limited once you have the limited spec, you're just like but if you know if you're looking for a small truck, there's there's really only two right now. There's this in the maverick if you're if you're if you want to be a little bit fancy, you want to have a little bit nicer experience. You go with the Hyundai. If you just want a down and dirty truck. You go Maverick.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:29  
Yeah. And, you know, I mean, the the Maverick is selling as fast as it can build them right now. The Santa Cruz is not selling quite as fast, but I think I think their supply constrained as well. Because the Santa Cruz comes is built in Korea. It's not it's not assembled here in the US right now. So I think, you know, supplies improve. They know those sales should go up as well.

Roberto Baldwin  14:52  
Yeah, it'll be Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it how it shakes out in a few years because now apparently dodge wants us to build a small rocking. Everyone's now wanting to do a small truck. You know Subaru. I think I've probably said this before, they're probably kicking themselves, right? Come on. Come on, we had the Baja and you guys didn't buy it. And now the Baja, like you can't even find those things because everyone's like, Oh, this is a good car. It's like the element they bought on the element or like these weird cars at a time. Yeah, people bought them. And they're like, Oh, this is cool, like, and then after, once they went away, they're like, oh, wait, these are really cool. Then every more and more people are just like, Oh, wow. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:30  
Speaking of pricing hunt. Recently, Nicole had a chance to drive the new 2023 Honda CRV, she quite liked it. But pricing has now been released on the CRV. And it's gone up quite a bit from 2022 model year. If on the off chance that you can find a 22 CRV you might want to consider snagging it up stacking it up. As long as there's not too much of a markup on it. Because the 23 model year, the two wheel drive E X starts at 30 32,003 35 with the including the destination charge, and goes up to just shy of $40,000 for the sport touring all wheel drive. So there, and that's for the hybrid. The hybrid is actually not much more expensive. It's only about $1,500 More than the new gas version. So you probably want to take a look at that for if you're looking for fuel economy. But now these things are getting pricey.

Roberto Baldwin  16:40  
It's a jump. Yeah, it's not like it's not a, you know, a small jump. It's a big jump like what $6,000 or something?

Sam Abuelsamid  16:48  
Yeah, I think yes. I think it's about five grand, but

Roberto Baldwin  16:52  
5000 It's not it's a lot of money. So yeah, if you're looking for CRV and you know, that's yes, it's a lot of money. That's also you know, you know, whenever you get into a Honda and you just close the door, it's like, when you're like, oh, that's what I'm that's what I'm buying a Honda for. But that's that's all I know. Yeah, no actually build quality.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:13  
You're right is almost $6,000 to 22 was 26. Eight to start.

Roberto Baldwin  17:20  
Yeah, that's that's a lot. Again, maybe it'll probably last 700 years. So you probably do, you're gonna get your money's worth. But also you have you can get a 20 If you can somehow find a 2022. And you don't care about whatever the 2023 You know, differences are which probably, I mean, I'm sure it's a great vehicle. CRVs just, you know, year over year just continues to get a little bit better. But the baseline for it is so great that you're just like and doesn't really. So yeah, yeah, go find one now.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:56  
All right. at a slightly higher price point, there was another new they don't want to call it an SUV or crossover. But there was another vehicle revealed this week, the Ferrari poro sang, or pure saying I'm not quite sure how it's supposed to be pronounced. This is Ferraris first regular production for door model in their history. They at various times, they have built a few small number of four door models as custom builds for various important customers very important clients. But this is their first four door model in their history in their lineup. And it's sort of SUV ish. It's taller. It's a hatchback. Yeah. To hatchback you know, it's this this replaces the GTC for Lusso slash F F in their lineup. And the the F F and the GTC for you know, we're hatchbacks you know, they're more in the vein of the old mid early 60s, bread van 250 GTO bread van models and this kind of takes that FF concept makes it a little taller a little sleeker looking. And yeah, it's it's a it's a very different take on doing the super high performance SUV from what Lamborghini did with the earth.

Roberto Baldwin  19:37  
Yeah, never getting it goes all in with insanity. It's sharp lines and whereas Ferrari is really going really smooth, very you know, traditional Lamborghini look or I'm sorry, Ferrari look, and you know, the only thing that matters is that giant badge on the on the side on the fenders.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:58  
The yellow shield with the Black Horse That's all that

Roberto Baldwin  20:01  
matters really to the people who are going to buy this to be to be honest, I think they're just they're, you know, the people who kind of wanted to odors but they're like, Oh, it's a little too ostentatious, but I still want, you know, an italian supercar, I'm gonna get the whatever, Pearl, croissant goo Sandgate, whatever the I'm gonna get the new Ferrari SUV. I watch a video or they introduce it. So I forgot how to say,

Sam Abuelsamid  20:25  
well, you know, the proportions of this thing are also very different from the tourists. You know, the tourists, it shares its basic architecture with the Cayenne and the Audi Q eight. And, you know, it's a four liter twin turbo V eight, whereas, you know, this is a V 12 Perhaps the last naturally aspirated non non electrified Ferrari V 12. You know, it's based on the the engine that was in the, the 812 TDF and, and the the F F two six and a half liter V 12 715 horsepower. You know, this is, you know, and the proportions of this when you look at it profile, especially, you know, it's got more of the, you can see more of the DNA from something like the A 12 And this has got a much longer hood than the Earth does, and the cab is pushed back. It looks like a looks like it's gonna be a proper four seater. It's got rear hinged rear doors, suicide doors, as they used to like to call them you know, so it's a very different beast from the from the tourists.

Roberto Baldwin  21:45  
Yeah, that engine is so far back in the front of the car, like you can you can actually look and see where it's where if you go to the site and go down the engine discover more you can see how far back it is to sort of help with you know, that that weight split it's, it's yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:05  
it's completely behind the rear axle. Yeah, it's

Roberto Baldwin  22:08  
completely behind the rear axle. You have all this from the front and you see this they you know, they put a lot of thought a lot of work into this and I you know, I actually like it I know there's people are split on it. I like it. I think that they're you know, they're going to sell more of these than they do of anything else I think it's going to be same thing to to orders people like order started same thing with the, with the makan and the Cayenne, you know, but they're gonna sell a lot of these. I think they're gonna be fine. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:38  
you know, it starts at $400,000 Yeah. So it's a little pricier than a 296. You know,

Roberto Baldwin  22:46  
if you if you have the family and you need a high need a family car, and I have Oh, my price range. I don't want us quite spend, you know, half a million. I want a little bit under that. We're taking the kids to soccer practice, or I'm assuming lacrosse. This seems like something like

Sam Abuelsamid  23:03  
lacrosse, field hockey.

Roberto Baldwin  23:05  
Yeah. Yeah, the rich people in the East Coast. You know, the sports where they only you know, they're essentially just, you know, made for the ivy, the ivy league sports like basketball. No, no, no, we're here to lacrosse is not suspect at all.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:25  
I mean, you know, this thing carries over an updated version of the four wheel drive system that they've had on the F F and the GTC for for a decade, which is kind of a unique setup. And because most four wheel drive systems, you have all the torque coming out the back of the engine. And then somewhere in the transmission, you've got some sort of torque split mechanism that sends some of the torque to the back to the rear axle, and then another drive shaft coming forward to drive the front axle. But this one is something very different. It's there for RM or for RMS system because it's also got four wheel steering. And so and this, you know, unlike most four wheel drive vehicles, this thing has its transmission at the rear axle, it's got a rear transaxle as opposed to putting the transmission right behind the engine part because the engine is so far back. So this is how they got a 4951 front to rear weight split. And then there's a separate mechanical power takeoff unit mounted on the front of the engine that drives the front axle instead of having a drive shaft going back to the rear transaxle and then another one coming all the way back to the front. They just add this power takeoff unit on the front of the engine. So the engine is literally is completely behind the rear rack or behind the front axle. So it truly is a front mid engine vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin  24:50  
It's injured if you look again, if you look at this thing like the bellhousing going back to that rear at that rear transmission is really so teeny tiny.

Unknown Speaker  24:57  
Yeah

Roberto Baldwin  25:00  
It's yeah, it's a Tinker Bell. Yeah. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  25:03  
I mean, there's not really anything in it. Yeah, just sort of because yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  25:07  
because the clutches need to be anything. It's on the back.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:11  
Yeah, it's an it's an eight speed dual clutch transmission, which is all mounted at the rear axle. So it's it's an interesting beast. Zero to 60 or zero to 60 to zero to 100 kilometers an hour and 3.3 seconds 200 kilometers an hour and 10.6 max speed of greater than 310 kilometers an hour so over 200 miles an hour. It's it's it's something

Roberto Baldwin  25:40  
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think it's it's I mean, it was someone told me if you if you can't afford to don't buy one. This is definitely people who can afford to Ferraris like well, you know, I got the I got the one for the family. This is the family for Yeah, this

Sam Abuelsamid  25:56  
is the one to take the kids to lacrosse and field hockey. And then you get the 296 GTB to commute to work. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  26:03  
this is my commuter. I didn't have a Honda Accord. It's, that's always the weird, like, if you have like a really rich neighborhood, like you see all these amazing cars, and then like a Honda Accord.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:16  
Well, you need something, you need something that you know is just gonna run every single time you get into it.

Roberto Baldwin  26:22  
Yeah, I was doing a video shoot with a with the NSX a few years ago, and this guy rode up on a bike that cost more than anything I own. And he's like, Oh, how do you like it? I'm like I you know, like, a lot of times you can get a supercar and then you can take it to the Acura dealer and get it serviced. He's like, Yeah, I have a Ferrari. And it's gonna take four months, or two or three or four months, I forget the to get the oil changed. And my friend has a Ferrari. And there's something wrong with it. And he has to send it back to Italy to get fixed and it's gonna be like, at some crazy, some crazy amount of time. And I was like, oh, okay, he's like, Yeah, this

Sam Abuelsamid  27:00  
like he's trying to get service on a Tesla. Yeah, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  27:05  
What's going on with your Ferrari? I gotta stick it on the boat. Send it back to Ferrari. So they can fix something?

Sam Abuelsamid  27:11  
Well, I mean, if you're serious about it, you're gonna get it packed up and put it on in the belly of the 747. Oh, that's true. You're going to airfreight it. You're not going to put it on a boat.

Roberto Baldwin  27:19  
Afraid it? But it was yeah, it was very much. Oh, this is how other people live certain types of type of situation where I'm like, Oh, this one seems like a really cool car. Maybe I'll get one of these, you know, as you just go out and buy an NSX. Yeah. As the as your Honda Accord.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:39  
Well, you know, the first time, or the last time I drove in NSX. I think I think it right up through the end. Now. It still has the same audio system in it, which is actually the very same infotainment system that's in our Honda Civic. It's the the touchscreen system doesn't have a volume knob. It's got touch touch controls for volume, though. Yeah, that was the display audio system that they launched on the 15th. On the fifth and the in the Civic.

Roberto Baldwin  28:07  
They fix that? Yeah, but not because I think everyone's like, no, they're like, Okay,

Sam Abuelsamid  28:12  
yeah, but the NSX still had that system in there.

Roberto Baldwin  28:15  
That touch the touch. Volume control is just a pain

Sam Abuelsamid  28:18  
now. All right,

Roberto Baldwin  28:22  
we're just ripping on the NSX for touch volume. Oh, come on.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:27  
I mean, the thing if you're gonna drive an NSX just turn that off. roll down the windows. Just listen to the power train.

Roberto Baldwin  28:33  
Just listen. Just have a nice time.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:34  
Yeah. All right. Speaking of relatively high performance vehicles, Chrysler on we didn't mention this during the last episode, but they the Tuesday night before the Auto Show, the Detroit Auto Show media day, they had their own little press event that that was a fairly late addition to the schedule. And they announced the Chrysler 300 C. So as with dodge, which we talked about last month, they're going to be ending production of the charger and challenger by the end of 2023. And the Hellcat engines are going away. Chrysler is also making the transition to electric vehicles. They haven't other than the airflow, which is a sort of crossover ish thing. They haven't given us any clues as to what else they're going to be offering except they did tell me earlier this year that they plan to have about four to six models, nameplates in their lineup, and presumably one of those will be a replacement for the 300 sedan. But for the final run of the 300 they've watched the current 300 They've launched the 300 C which is only going to be available like the last ones are going to be built in February of 2023. And interestingly, they did not put the Hellcat in this thing. It's the only one of the the LX vehicles the charger and challenger the other two that never got a Hellcat and apparently the reason why is there's not a whole cast of rounds or a 300 seat because they they brought back the Durango Hellcat this year. They've still got the RAM TRX and the charger and Challenger and they can't build enough Hellcats to offer them in the in the 300 C. So that's why the 300 seat has a 6.4 liter Hemi in it instead.

Roberto Baldwin  30:40  
i The fact that you can get a Durango Hellcat and not a 300 seat boggles my mind. It's just I like the Durango to me has always been like that the 300 is always I don't know it's just something about the design and the look and it's you know, I think I really like the way that 300 Looks and it's not you know it's not flashy it's just like this very nice like for what you're getting for the money and it just felt very classic Yeah, it felt like just like this very classy version of the you know the Challenger and charger and and you don't you're not getting the Hellcat in 300 Really? I guess it's fine. But the fact that that we can't do it because we have a bunch of Durango is coming. Which again, I've never cared about the Durango Durango has always been like me it's like a forgettable to me. It's always been like the forgettable vehicle in that lineup. Yeah, like a Hellcat. I'm like, Really,

Sam Abuelsamid  31:38  
but I feel adults. One of them Yeah, dodges the muscle car brand. And you know with with the there's they're no longer they no longer build the grand cherokee track Hawk since they introduced the new Grand Cherokee, so the track Hawk is gone. So they probably still got some demand for a Hellcat powered SUV. So let's build a few more Durango instead.

Roberto Baldwin  32:03  
Yeah, I guess Yeah. All right. Oh, then I was looking at the numbers of the Durango year by year. Yeah. It's not great. Yeah. Simply 5000 last year.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:21  
Yeah. Compared compared to the Grand Cherokee, which shares its platform, or at least the old Grand Cherokee and Durango shared the same platform. The the Jeep sold in far higher numbers. All right. Tesla, has been continuing to get lots of attention, not all of it positive for its autopilot and full self driving system. And this past week, a law firm in San Francisco filed a class action class action suit in the Northern District of California. Demanding that Tesla stopped selling enhanced autopilot and full self driving. Give back all the money to all the customers that paid for it over the last six years. And and also pay punitive damages. Because basically, essentially, they're calling it a scam. Which a hard time disagreeing with.

Roberto Baldwin  33:25  
It's hard when you're charging $15,000 for a thing that doesn't work. Yeah. And probably never will. It's gonna do its thing. Well, 15 Yeah. I mean, class actions usually end up you know, the law firm ends up with most of the money the person sends it does most of money than everyone else gets, like 50 bucks in the mail. And forgetting, like that piece of paper with like, you know, yeah, but at the same time, it's, you know, you're talking about 1000s and 1000s and $1,000, that people are paying Tesla for a feature that doesn't work like it's supposed to, and you're like, well, it's beta, like, that's not what I shouldn't people, but you know, people are paying for it. But I think, you know, when you, especially the first few years, when it felt like they were on the cusp there, you know, and at that time, everyone was on the cusp of self driving cars, you know, 2018 2017 We're like, Yeah, they're only like a year away or two, every automaker thought they were going to be, they were going to crack some of that. But now it's, it's going to a two, and the cost just keeps going up, which is, you know, counter to, you know, most pieces of technology where, you know, oh, you know, this cost this much now, it's going to be a little bit cheaper every year to make this you know, this sort of this technology work, but we're going to add more features to it is how you know why things keep getting more expensive, but the the cost of technology actually goes down. It's for Tesla, it's the thing that they were supposed to do. I don't know 100 years ago. It's It's still the same thing. It's still supposed to do the same thing. But the cost is just skyrocketed. And then the fact that someone is suing them, it should not be. I'm surprised took this long to be honest, I'm sure someone else is probably probably nothing ever came with it. Because it was a it was a bad, bad, bad lawsuit or bad filing button. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that's something Yeah, they're losing a lot of a lot of fans. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  35:26  
the argument that Elon Musk makes for continually increasing the price. And, and he actually said several years ago, that they were going to start gradually increasing the price as they add more capability and get closer to, you know, to finishing it. Because the argument being that, you'll be able to use your Tesla as a robo taxi, you know, so when you're not using the car, you can send it out on the Tesla network and have it give rides to people and start generating revenue from that. And so that would add value to the customers, and so that they should be paying more for this for this extra value that they're getting. Except that the reality is that with the technology they have, they're never going to get to the point where they can actually use this as a robo taxi, it's just not going to work.

Roberto Baldwin  36:14  
As to people who are in Robo taxis. Like last week, like the amount of work and sensor redundancy and sensor, you know, the amount of sensors that are in there, you know, and cruise, the I forget his name, the gentleman, the engineer over cruise the head of hardware, even he said, you know, it'd be nice if he's like, it'd be nice if we get to a point where we don't have to use as many sensors, maybe we don't have to use LIDAR, he's like, but we're not there yet. He's like, maybe we'll get there, maybe maybe that'll happen, just, you know, to reduce the prices of the other vehicles, but the amount of work that they have to do, and then they have, you know, a back end that takes care of all this, and, you know, all of that just wasn't really doing that. They're just trying to get it to do the one thing it's supposed to. Yeah. The infrastructure behind

Sam Abuelsamid  37:02  
it, it was Carl. And, yeah, you know, the, all the, you know, right now, Cruz has over 3000 employees. And, you know, a lot of those are working on the actual self driving product. But a lot of them are also building out all the other pieces that are necessary to make this a business, you know, to create the network at the back end platform. And the monitoring systems and, and everything else to support mechanisms for these vehicles, things like, here, they're designing robots to clean the vehicles when it comes back into the depot, you know, they've got robotic systems to charge it, and robotic systems to go in and vacuum and clean up the interior of the vehicle before it gets sent out on its on its next shift. So there's, you know, there's a lot of stuff that has to happen to actually make this a reality.

Roberto Baldwin  38:03  
Yeah, it's I don't know. I mean, it's so difficult for for all this stuff. To work in tandem. And I remember when Tesla was like, hey, there's some I was in. I was in Europe. And there's when when Tesla said, Hey, we have a couple charging stations in Europe that will support non Tesla's and I was like, great. And I had the Tesla app on my phone. And I had, it's nice to have a Tesla, back when I was getting review cars from Tesla at the Tesla account, and I loaded the app, and then made sure it updated and it just didn't work. And it hasn't worked for a while for me and that I just loaded it. And it seems like it's working now. So that's good. But the fact that I mean, hey, we're gonna do a thing. Cool. Let's load the app. So you can try these non Tesla charger. Nope, nevermind that they won't load. There's like, that's not a thing you can have for something that supposed to be a robo taxi.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:01  
Yeah. It's got to it's got to just work. Ah, all right. Another bit of Evie news. Volkswagen is expected to replace the Arteon in 2024. So the Arteon is their current four door hatchback, midsize hatchback premium model. I quite liked the Arteon when I when I drove it late last year, I think. And it's very stylish vehicle. But the current generation Arteon is front wheel drive, gas gas engine vehicle, I guess you can also get an all wheel drive, but it's going away in 2024. And it's going to be replaced by the ID arrow, which is an electric sedan, midsize sedan. And they showed it in China earlier this year. What do you think of the idea oh,

Roberto Baldwin  40:01  
You know what I think it looks nice you know it's we you know with this okay first of all the fact you know the artown cool looking great the the Jetta great entry level nice great sedan I don't know why they ever made Prasad I've been railing against beside for decades I don't see the point of it like I just want to really nice Jetta like just get a nice Jetta but now this thing looks cool. I think you know it'll be interesting to see how well it sells in the United States because it's sedan it's not a whatever, SUV crossover whatever you want to call them but yeah you know if we if we can convince people like you know the drag coefficient for SUVs has gotten really good too. So it's not like

Sam Abuelsamid  40:50  
Yeah, but they are even even with a low drag coefficient they are taller, which means they are frontal area. So that that does get them

Roberto Baldwin  40:58  
plus extra weight and you know, throw all that extra metal in their battery but no, I think you know, I like to think that people as we move towards EVs people are gonna start looking at wagons and sedans again.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:13  
I'd love to see him back in 2019 at the LA Shin, the division, the space.

Roberto Baldwin  41:19  
The space vision was dough.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:21  
That thing was gorgeous, though.

Roberto Baldwin  41:24  
Did you? Were you in the meeting with Scott where he was like, I think so after they announced that there was a briefing with CEO Scott Q is now the CEO of Scout, the upcoming Evie version of scouting international Scout off road things. He, yeah, he had this whole like, sort of thought about the future where at some point kids would be like, they're not gonna want SUVs because that's what their parents drive. And you don't want to be like your parent, you know, want to be lame and boring, like your parent. So he was like, I really think we are we're gonna go back to like wagons and sedans, because SUVs are like, what your parents drive. And it hasn't happened yet. And I don't know if it will happen unless there's as much, you know, rebellion against your parents anymore than there used to be. I mean, they're probably as I'm old. What do I know? But I would hope that part of that rebellion is we're getting wag I don't watch it.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:17  
I hope so. I hope Scott was right. But I hope so too. I think I'm hopeful but not optimistic.

Roberto Baldwin  42:24  
Yeah, yeah. It's talked about how it made way more sense to make an Eevee that's a wagon than an Eevee versus an SUV. And it was, you know, but it was it was a pretty fun, you know, it was a fun discussion where he's just like, Yeah, at some point, the people are gonna want something different. He says, you know, he's like, it's not like the SUV is gonna all go away. It's just that the cool kids are

Sam Abuelsamid  42:46  
gonna buy. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there will always be SUVs, just like you know, there will probably always be vans, minivans, and there'll be there'll be a niche of the market. Although, you know, with the ID buzz, yeah, I could see the instead of the wagon could be the reemergence of the minivan is the cool thing.

Roberto Baldwin  43:06  
I think, you know, I think the the that the Carnot the cardio Val. I think you know, the cool vans are cool again, come on, kids, get a van. You can take all your friends everywhere. They can make friends and get in the back of the hand. Think about the shenanigans you can get to we had a friend who had a big a big, Nov. Equiline just a big no. He had a big he just had a van. Just like a regular old van and a mini van a van. And we were hanging out in this van. There were no seats in the back there was like carpet there. We were just hanging out in the back of his van in my small town and it was the greatest thing ever. And then we drive around we just be rolling around in the back of the van like idiots because you know, are idiots and we're in high school. But not that van was awesome everywhere. We'd go go somewhere in our cars and then get out of the car and get into the van because like you know, 20 degrees outside. So you know, Vance,

Sam Abuelsamid  44:04  
alright. Until that time comes we still have crossovers, so And Lincoln is now at least in North America is exclusively a crossover brand. They have four crossovers. No more sedans left in the lineup. They still sell sedans in China. They've got a new Zephyr over there. That is pretty cool looking. But we've got just just just the crossovers here, starting with the Corsair as their entry level model, and for Mollier 23. goes on sale early, early in the year early in the new year. It's it's getting a mid cycle refresh. And it's getting a front end that looks more like the Zephyr that I just mentioned, which launched in China late last year early this year. And Zephyr is the replacement for the end kz in China. And it has a new grill style. Which bet you bet you are completely surprised by the fact that it's actually larger than the old grill. What? No, I know it's a shock. Nobody does that.

Roberto Baldwin  45:18  
Everyone settled down with the grills. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:23  
So yeah, the Corsair is getting a grill that looks much like the Zephyr. And according to Lincoln, this is going to be the new face going forward of at least their their internal combustion vehicles as long as they're still around. So presumably, this means that maybe next year, we'll see a refresh of the aviator that gets a similar style front end. I don't know if you know that the Nautilus is going away. And it's going to be replaced by an Eevee. And

Roberto Baldwin  45:55  
it was such a weird, it was a great car, but it was so expensive

Sam Abuelsamid  45:59  
for the novelists.

Roberto Baldwin  46:01  
Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  46:02  
yeah. Yeah, it was. But the the other major change for the Corsair well, actually not, there's not really any major changes for the Corsair. The, the drop the 2.3 liter turbo that was previously the optional engine in there. So now they just have the base two liter, and they have the plug in hybrid that they want finally launched last year. And they decided, well, with the plug in hybrid, we've got enough extra power from that, that and we don't sell that many of the 2.3. So we're going to drop the two three and just have the the two power trains and then they also made some changes in the interior that got the new larger 13 inch touchscreen that they put in the Nautilus last year and in the Navigator this year. And because they've got a larger screen there now they the previous Control Panel, that kind of the kind of cantilever it out from the center of the dash where they had the climate controls and volume knobs and everything that has actually shrunk down so it's not it doesn't stick out as far as it used to. And unfortunately, they took advantage of that larger screen and move climate controls to a row along the bottom of the touchscreen so climate controls are now virtual.

Roberto Baldwin  47:25  
Gosh, come on Lincoln. I feel like these vehicles are perfect for my inlaws have they had an MK x, then they had an MKZ Hybrid MKZ and then they're like oh, we need the MK they went back to the MK X and they're sad because it doesn't have a hybrid but I feel like these vehicles are perfect for for folks like that. And then they're like hey, by the way remove the climate controls

Sam Abuelsamid  47:54  
you can you can you can use multiple voice recognition systems to adjust the temperature you can use the system or you can use Amazon Alexa

Roberto Baldwin  48:04  
they have thick Northern Ireland accents.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:08  
Oh okay nevermind

Roberto Baldwin  48:11  
yeah this this is not Yeah, I'm just like Oh

Sam Abuelsamid  48:18  
yeah, okay. They'll have to go out to make do with the touch controls Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  48:23  
yeah. Oh, well. I don't I just put climate and sleep some buttons in the car even Johnny i we talked about last week. Yeah. Like you know what, stop taking buttons out like I know it saves money. I know it's easy to just like have software that's that's localized for all the regions are selling your vehicle as opposed to having buttons and may or may not have to be swapped out because they have words on them. But just you know, give us some buttons.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:51  
It works better buttons work,

Roberto Baldwin  48:53  
buttons work. There's a reason reason we had buttons for so long. There's there's tons of things you could put in the touchscreen that may completely make complete sense there but give us give us our climate controller immediate control buttons.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:08  
Absolutely. All right. We have one listener question to answer. And that is from and that Dan Vesna on Twitter says I shall shortly be and this is a good one for you especially Oh no, she'll shortly be offering my oh four diesel manual front wheel drive X type Jaguar for sale. Oh, why advice on how to present and market an older car it needs some work which unload to get done before sales during box and maybe a drive shaft and dog care. So I think I think you've got all that covered except Except for the diesel right

Roberto Baldwin  49:46  
separately. Did I have the all wheel drive the three liter all will be sixth version? First look on. If I were you I would look on like KBB like Kelley Blue Book. And just look at the value of the vehicle, look at the, it's because, yes, you're gonna want to clean it want to get rid of the dog hair, you're gonna get little vacuum cleaners for that you can also use packing tape packing tape is actually wrapped around your hand and just pat it on the ground and it pulls up dog here like a dream, it's gonna take a while. Yeah, it's not, it's not going to be an easy job. But that's one of the easier ways we found to get rid of an animal, here we have dogs and cats. So there's a care everywhere in our house. If you have one of those little vacuums that has the little, little spinning brushes on it, a small one, that will help a lot. And just give it a good nice cleaning. As for like doing a lot of like mechanical work, see what the value is, if the value is pretty low, you know, just kind of get it ready, because you're not going to, you know, if you put $1,000 in to get $250 More it you know, it's you're not going to you know, you make sure that the what you're putting in, you're gonna get out of it will help to, to, to sort of sell it, but clean car sells a lot better than a dirty car. That's if I go out to see I tried to explain this to a friend once who got very angry with me. When I told him I'm like, Well, if you're gonna sell the car, make sure it looks like you don't have a kid. Because child in there and he got super angry. And he's like, What do you mean? I'm like, well, people don't want a car full of Cheerios. Or a car full of ground of Cheerios. And so yeah, make sure you know, people don't want a car that looks like a dog lived for so many years. So did I get some for breeze drive around with the windows down for a while. But yeah, definitely look and see what the value is, I looked up the value of hours. And it was not a lot. It was like $1,500 at the time and might be higher.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:52  
Again, I just I just did a quick KBB valuation, a 2,004x type with a four cylinder engine 100,000 miles in good condition. The trading range is about 1800 to 2600. And let's see private party is about between 20 840 400. So, you know, depending on how much mileage you've got, it might be worth you know, at the at the very least, you know, maybe getting it professionally detailed.

Roberto Baldwin  52:29  
Yeah, like, you know, you can probably get a couple 100 bucks 200 250 bucks getting like really get it, get it in there, get it cleaned. It's you know, and I think that the US market is probably going to plateau or start dipping soon. So if you're gonna sell it, maybe sell it soon. Then again, I might be wrong, but I'm just looking at some of the numbers I've seen out there on vehicles and for sale, they seem to be sort of leveling out a little bit. But that could just be you know, it's fall and everyone's out or summer and everyone's out having fun right now. And then. But yeah, give it you know, give it a good cleaning, you know, check on the value of what it's going to cost, like any sort of mechanical issues that you think need to be fixed. And if you if again, if it's not worth it, then it's it's really not worth it. Just be upfront with the person who's gonna buy because you don't want an angry person coming to your house. It's a diesel. So it's, you know, it's going to be that's a bit of a unicorn. So you got that going for you.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:26  
And you know, I mean, this is based on the same platform that the the Ford contour slash Mondeo and mercury. Mystique, I think we're blocked on steek or mistake is a lot of people refer to it as exactly, that's about it. So, you know, those, you know, those are pretty common. You know, so, you know, the parts, you know, depending on what needs to be done, you know, stirring box half shafts might not be that might not be crazy expensive compared to what it would be for other Jaguars. So it might be worth at least getting an estimate on the work. If it's, I probably, you know, at $3,500 average private party sale value. I probably wouldn't I certainly wouldn't spend more than 1000 bucks on it.

Roberto Baldwin  54:18  
Yeah, definitely would not do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:21  
Yeah, if you know somebody, you know, who you know, likes to do mechanical work and, you know, we'll do it for you know, the cost of the parts and you know, a couple of cases of beer and don't give them the beer until after the work is done. Then, you know, you might be able to get that work done for under 1000 bucks and then you know, it probably have considerably more value at that point.

Roberto Baldwin  54:44  
Yeah, yeah, just you know, give it give it give it a shine, see what you can do mechanically. Again, we got ours for free. I was it was a gift because it was taken to the dealership to to they were gonna use it as a trade in and the dealer wouldn't give them more than In 1000 bucks for like, well, it's the value of the car is higher than $1,000. That's sort of the weird thing where you get to a point where the vehicle works. But the value, the value of the vehicle is really low. But like the intrinsic, the actual value to you as a person, right? Well, this car is worth more than this.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:17  
Yeah. Well, there's always a big gap between, you know, a trade in value versus what, you know what you, you might be able to sell it to somebody, you know, on Craigslist, or Facebook marketplace or something.

Roberto Baldwin  55:30  
Yeah, this is pre COVID. So they probably could have got 2000 Maybe for it. So it wasn't it. Yeah. There was, it was a different time. So they just gave it to us. Because they're like, well, we don't want to deal with it. And you know, we've gotten you know, and

Sam Abuelsamid  55:44  
car guy, you know how to fix stuff. Yeah, that helps as well.

Roberto Baldwin  55:47  
But it also helped that because the value of it so low, it cost like 2040 downloads, I think it's like 40 bucks for us to get like full coverage insurance. So if anyone like rams into less while we're doing so they're like, you know, right now we would get, you know, probably 2500 $3,000 for it like, Alright, I guess we just, I guess buy another car? I don't know what we do, actually. Because, yeah. Well, I

Sam Abuelsamid  56:13  
mean, do you got the corner? You got the BRC? Yeah, do you actually need another one?

Roberto Baldwin  56:17  
Well, we really, we use the the, we use the X type, my wife goes, the worst takes to Kona, because that's very harsh. And he's got to work she actually has to go to work. You know? Like it like a regular person like me, who just sits at home all day. When when you know when when she's gone? And then we'll take the dogs out. I can't put them in the back of the I mean, I can I have, they don't enjoy it. They're better off in the X type. Yeah, they're better off in the x, I've

Sam Abuelsamid  56:46  
started a little dog transport machine. It is

Roberto Baldwin  56:49  
a dog. It is really the dog car. And then sometimes we need to like, pull some stuff in. And again, you know, she's not around. So I just took some stuff I have to get at smogs this year, I thought I got it smog last year. But you know, time doesn't make any sense. So I'm like, oh, man, I have to reset the computer because it has a check engine light and the check engine light is essentially telling me the code is that we're throwing a check engine light because we can't check everything. Is that that we found anything wrong is that we can't figure out how to find anything.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:21  
You need to get one of those OBD two adapters for off of Amazon for about 15 bucks. And and get a free app. And, you know, just read all the codes and include them.

Roberto Baldwin  57:33  
Yeah, it won't. It'll clear everything. But this one, as soon as you turn it back, it'll clear it but all because the check engine light is that it can't check all the systems. Oh, okay. Well, it'll clear for like a minute. And then it comes back on because as soon as you turn the car on, it goes through the check everything. And then it gets to a point they get stuck and it can't so everyone's like, Oh, just, you know, you know, remove the, you know, the unplug the battery, you know, like your router and plug it back in. So I haven't done it. You know, I haven't done that yet. So I have to figure that out. But yeah, it's my dammit. And then soon as I got that, and they came in to me, I was like, I wish you just had another Eevee.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:17  
All right. Well, that's all we've got for this time. I do have an interview that I recorded last week. That is has been on the Patreon feed for Patreon supporters with Jeff Hemphill, who is the North American CTO for the Schaeffler group. And we had a really interesting conversation about some of the things that they're doing. And part of it was really interesting, we got into discussion of ride height adjustment systems and the impact that that can have on range for EVs and shufflers developed this, you know, there's a lot of vehicles out there now that have adjustable ride height, like the reviens, and so on, using air springs, but air spring systems are heavy and expensive. And shufflers come up with an electromechanical system that they can adjust the ride height, and it's way less costly to put on doesn't weigh that much doesn't doesn't really use any power. And can be said they can give you the equivalent like for an SUV. The equivalent additional range of having extra seven kilowatt hours of battery. Yeah, so we had a real interesting conversation should so check that out. And we'll be back next time. Bye. Bye. I'm here with Jeff Hemphill who is the North American CTO for Schaeffler group, and Sheffler probably not a name that most people outside of the auto industry would recognize. You guys are what The MC what's traditionally considered the greasy bits, the stuff that's underneath, make vehicles work. And it's morning during the first part of the symposium heard about some really interesting technologies. I know Schaeffler has been doing a lot of stuff for a long time around immobility. And one of the areas that a lot of people don't necessarily think about with electrification is efficiency, energy efficiency, because you think, nope, no emissions, you're not using gas. That's good. It's all good. But it's more complex than that, isn't it?

Jeff Hemphill  1:00:35  
Yeah, it absolutely is. There, an electric vehicle is very efficient compared to a combustion engine vehicle, but there's so much less energy on board the electric vehicle, that you have to really be careful what you do, almost literally, with every electron that comes out of the battery, it has to do something useful. So yeah, that's very important.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:58  
So you're shufflers tackling that from a number of different perspectives. One is from in terms of motor design. Let's, let's start off there, and then we'll get into some of the some of the other areas that people probably wouldn't think of as impacting efficiency that much. So what you've got showed a couple of interesting things this morning. One, particularly the direct slot cooling talked about that somewhere.

Jeff Hemphill  1:01:27  
Yeah, that's some kind of remarkable, really, after 200 years of electric motors being on the market in production, to be able to still be coming up with innovations like that. But yeah, the, the cooling of an electric motor is very critical, it actually pretty much determines the size of the motor. And most electric motors are cooled from the outside. So the the copper that's heating up in there, it has to kind of bleed that heat into the stator. And then you pick it up on the outside of the stator, what we've managed to do is create gaps around the copper windings in the stator. So we can actually inject oil right down the length of the whole copper wire, and pull the heat directly out of the motor. So that opens up a couple possibilities. The first thing is, it makes the power that it almost doubles the power density of the motor. So most electric motors in an electric car, you you probably have heard the that they have a peak power and a continuous power. And the continuous or the peak powers, you can do for say 30 seconds, usually. And you can only do that until the motor heats up to the point where he might damage the magnets. But with this concept is so effective at cooling that for that motor, the peak power and the continuous power are actually the same. So that's how you get almost a doubling of the of the power density of the motor. But then it also allows you to do things in combination with our thermal management system, you can actually use the motor as a heater. So if you, if you need heat, for example, to warm up the battery, you can actually operate the electric motor inefficiently on purpose, and pull that waste heat out with the oil. And then you bring that into our thermal management unit. And you can distribute it then to the batteries or the passenger compartment. And so you can even eliminate an electric heater from the system.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:33  
So in that case, with the with the benefit of being able to use that heat from the motor to control the temperature, the battery offset the maybe a little bit of inefficiency from using the motor a little bit harder than you would

Jeff Hemphill  1:03:49  
Yeah, because batteries. Somebody I was at a conference recently they said batteries are like humans, they don't, they don't like to work too hard. They don't like it too hot, they don't want to be too cold. They're pretty particular. So if the battery is cold, the efficiency of it is miserable. So the sooner you can warm it up, you win back a lot of a lot of

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:10  
efficiency. It also helps a lot if you want to do faster charging as well. Being able to precondition the battery to get it to that optimal temperature when you're on your way to a charger.

Jeff Hemphill  1:04:22  
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:23  
So going back to the rec slot cooling. I think one of the one of the things I generally try to do when you're designing a motor is get as high as fill ratio, the copper in the center as possible. Does having the gaps in between the windings. How does that impact it? How does that impact performance? You know, because you obviously you're gonna have a little bit lower fill ratio in that case,

Jeff Hemphill  1:04:51  
actually, it's very close to the same fill ratio because it turns out in electric motor normally the copper windings So of course, they have like a varnish insulation on them, but there's usually a paper or something around them as well. And basically, we've just substituted for that a kind of like a helix, if you will. So we still keep them separated, like they would have been

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:15  
physically separated. Yeah, yeah, that you love oil flow occurs,

Jeff Hemphill  1:05:20  
right? So it's actually very small gaps between the wires, but because there are so many wires in the stator, you can pass a great deal of oil through it. Okay, so it's quite close to the same fill factor.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:33  
Okay, so the motors made, most people are not necessarily that familiar with motors, but the motors would find in most EVs and hybrids today are we call radial flux motors. And but there's another kind of motor that you've also got here today, that's been getting some more attention lately. To me, axial flux motors, what's the, what's the advantage of an axial flux motor versus a radial flux?

Jeff Hemphill  1:06:02  
Axial flux offers a dramatically higher power density. So you can is roughly double of a good radio flux motor. And it's just due to the to the way that you can organize the magnetic fields, if you will. So they have a great power density advantage. But they do come with some downsides, because they tend to have fewer magnetic poles than a radial flux motor, they have a little bit more torque ripple. So therefore, we've had had to develop a software strategies that you'll hear about in a later speech to correct that torque ripple and make it more acceptable.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:50  
So with the with the direct slot cooling, you can get double the power density, is that doubling with the axial flux motor compared to a conventional radial flux or compared to it? So with the direct cycling, would you have comparable power density to Nashville plus?

Jeff Hemphill  1:07:10  
I have not not done that math. But I guess in principle, that would make sense.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:15  
Okay. The, you know, I think one of the interesting things that we've been seeing, you know, one of the manufacturers, it's been talking a lot about axial flux motors is Mercedes Benz, but they're highperformance AMG group. They're planning, I think, planning to use that kind of technology in there. When, I guess for both of these for the direct slot cooling and the actual flux motors, where is Sheffler in terms of Production Readiness when wanting to see that either those in production?

Jeff Hemphill  1:07:50  
The the slot cooling, I don't think we have a launch date yet. We're working on industrializing it basically figuring out how to produce that, but within the next couple of years would be possible. The axial flux, I think we expect to have one in production in 26. Okay, so coming down the pipeline here,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:16  
kind of moving down the channel a little bit. Talk, you talked about the need to manage the temperature of the batteries, among other things, and, and thermal management in an EVs is really important. And, of course, shuffler, one of the areas that you've got experience in with internal combustion engines is thermal management. And Are are you able to translate that expertise? Or are there new things that you're doing? New Directions that you're going with thermal management for, for electric vehicles versus internal combustion?

Jeff Hemphill  1:08:55  
Yeah, definitely. Building on what we learned from internal combustion. And as you said, when you get into electric vehicles, it's a more complicated problem. Because everything wants to be a different temperature, the battery, the passenger compartment, the power electronics, the motor, so you have a lot more branches in your system. So the, the basics of our, our thermal management module is, is basically a rotary valve that allows you to connect up to eight different passages to each other. And so that in itself helps right away just to be able to communicate with all those different temperature regimes, if you will, but then we can build on to that. So for example, we're developing in house, a co2 compressor. So if you use co2 as the refrigerant, and a heat pump for passenger compartment heating, we found a lot of games that can be made and overall efficiency there. So we're even adding on components to our basic thermal management.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:59  
Okay. Let's move into a kind of a different area that also has a surprising impact on energy efficiency. Because again, going back efficiency is important for Evie, because the battery has a limited amount of capacity, it's nowhere near the energy density of a gallon of liquid fuel. And so you want to utilize that capacity as best you can you want, you don't want to waste any of it. And so and because batteries are also the biggest heaviest component in an Eevee, if you can make that more efficient, you can reduce the cost of the vehicle, make it more affordable and more people. Chassis technology is an area that shufflers had a lot of experience in and get and it's an area that most people wouldn't necessarily think of as being important to an Eevee. But it turns out, it really is. One of the things that was talked about this morning was the the right height control system, the mechatronic radio control system. Tell us about that.

Jeff Hemphill  1:11:05  
Yeah, that's basically a application of our industrial ball screw technology to automotive. And yeah, basically make a concentric ball screw with an electric motor to actuate it and put that under the spring seat, probably in the front end the rear, although you can get some benefit just from the front. And for the Eevee that that really helps a lot because when you lower the vehicle, at highway speed, for example, you you limit the amount of air that goes under it, you you limit the amount of tire that's exposed. And you basically reduce the frontal area of the vehicle. So you can get, I don't know on the order of four or 5% of range extension at a steady speed through that and then push you get some other ancillary benefits. Like you can lower the vehicle to get in and out of it if it's an SUV, or you can raise the vehicle for off road use if it's an off road type capability vehicle. So you get some side benefits. But the big thing is if you lower the vehicle, you could you can either get more range, or you can take out battery cells, and you can save a lot of money by not purchasing battery cells.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:22  
Yeah, I think the example that was presented this morning, we talked about with lowering vehicle, the example vehicle that they used, dropping it by the drag coefficient by about or the the total drag by about 40 cows, which equated to the equivalent of adding seven kilowatt hours of energy to the to the battery. And you know, the the best battery prices we're seeing right now are somewhere around 100 and $100 a kilowatt hour. Most these days, it's actually probably closer to double that. Yeah, that's that's a lot of money. Yeah. When is this? Is this type of right height control system available today? Or when do you expect that to be in production?

Jeff Hemphill  1:13:08  
It is fully developed and tested. Actually, we started that quite a long time ago and didn't find the market terribly interested in it. But now with the growth of EVs. It's it's coming back. So it's, it's been ready for production for quite a while. I think it's maybe three years away from the winner will actually enter production.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:33  
What? How does the weight and the cost of this type of system that shufflers developed compare to the air spring systems that we see on quite a few especially higher end EVs today?

Jeff Hemphill  1:13:49  
Wait, to be honest, I'm not sure I know it is significantly cheaper than an air suspension system, but I don't know an exact number there. Okay, but definitely cheaper.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:02  
Alright. Another interesting area from the on the chassis perspective, is some of the things that we're talking about route steering. Again, the one of the things that is both good and bad about EVs is because the battery has got to fit in between the axles there. Most EVs tend to have longer wheelbase is which is good from a passenger volume perspective. You don't have the engine in there. It can it can spread those wheels out to the corners and open up that space inside a vehicle. It's the same overall size. flipside of that is longer turning radius, and less maneuverability. And how's Schaeffer attacking that problem?

Jeff Hemphill  1:14:51  
Yeah, that's where we again, turn to our industrial group who has a product called up Planetary roller gear. So it's a little bit similar to a ball screw. But instead of balls, we have actual planets rotating around the threaded rod. And that turns out to offer a really good efficiency advantage. So we repackage that into a rear steer actuator that can do up to, I think, 58 millimeters of travel. So you can actually turn the rear wheels, depending if you're parking or are driving at speed, maybe with the front wheels, or maybe against the front wheels. But you can do several meters of reduction of the turning circle for these longer wheelbase vehicles with that, so that's really gaining traction there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:43  
Yeah, I think that's, that's from a from a usability perspective, you know, that one's probably not going to have so much impact on efficiency. But from a usability perspective, it does. But there, there's also some efficiency advantages that you can gain from the front wheel steer by wire technology that you're also developing.

Jeff Hemphill  1:16:05  
Yeah, and they're on the front wheels, we do actually use a ball screw because of the much longer travel and the fact that it has to be, it can't be self locking, it has to return to center, if there would be some kind of a power failure. So yeah, it's a very, very efficient system

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:22  
is What's the timeframe for that to see production application?

Jeff Hemphill  1:16:28  
I believe that's also for front steer, I think that is also 26 for

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:35  
and what besides, you know, the flexibility you get out of that, what what are some of the other advantages of going to a steer by wire system, especially a front steer by wire system on on any vehicle, not just an Eevee,

Jeff Hemphill  1:16:50  
it can offer a lot of advantages, actually, as some, as computers get smarter and smarter, eventually, they're going to be able to make evasive maneuvers for the driver. But it could be very alarming to the driver if suddenly the steering wheel was moving around on them unexpectedly. So would allow you to do things like that, you can actually adjust the steering without letting the driver know. And then of course, as we get into autonomous vehicles that enables a car without a steering wheel. But in between there, we're exploring some concepts like joystick steering. So maybe you have an autonomous vehicle, but you want to have a manual mode, you can have a joystick to do that. Or even you can steer with, say a steering wheel or a yoke. But not actually by rotating it, but by applying torque to it. So and that's that we've built some demonstrator vehicles, it's really quite interesting to drive those cars. So it really allows you to reimagine the driver interface to steer in your car.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:56  
Yeah, I actually recently had an opportunity to briefly drive up prototype delivery van with a steer by wire system from from RE Israeli startup, and it was a fascinating experience. You have that disconnect between what the wheels doing and what the vehicles doing? Yeah. But I liked what you mentioned about, you know, when you're driving down the road, even if it's just something like Crown of the road or cross winds, the steer by wire system could be keeping the vehicle on the right track, it doesn't necessarily need to provide feedback to the wheel to the driver of what it's doing. But because as you said that that could create some distraction for the driver. So interesting. Another area of E mobility is fuel cell technology. And what what parts of fuel cell systems is Schaeffler doing and where do you see that fitting in in the marketplace? Because obviously, a lot of the emphasis is on around battery electric. But I think I think there there is a place for fuel cells. Where do you see fuel cells in the marketplace?

Jeff Hemphill  1:19:17  
Well, we certainly see on the mobility side, they would probably start off in the heavy duty sector. Just because of the the energy density in the fill time. You can get with hydrogen is much better than with batteries. The the battery pack to drive it over the road truck can be many tons and you need a megawatt power charger to charge it at a reasonable amount of time. So certainly we'd see an entry there, potentially also for light vehicles. It's really going to depend on how the hydrogen market develops. I think there's a there's a strong need to to use some kind of energy storage to stabilize the grid because when you go to wind and solar, that becomes a significant part of your grid, it's not very steady. So you need some way to produce excess electricity when the winds blowing hard, and have that available when the wind is not blowing. And the favorite right now, especially in Europe to do that is hydrogen. So you can run an electrolyzer off of a green grid and produce hydrogen and then use that either in a fuel cell to produce electricity, or conceivably even, you know, to fire a turbine to produce electricity in a plant. And you can do things with it, like we're exploring, converting our heat treat furnaces over to hydrogen. So as the grid gets greener, and hopefully the electricity gets cheaper, or continues to get cheaper as it as it has been, then could be that we get enough hydrogen production, that eventually it spreads beyond commercial vehicles and actually goes into light vehicles. Because again, you'll get that advantage of range and faster fill time, compared to spending 20 minutes at a battery charger you can fill up in five

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:16  
and what what aspects of the fuel cell system is Schaeffler involved in developing or producing

Jeff Hemphill  1:21:23  
initially, what got us involved is the bipolar plates. So a fuel cell or an electrolyzer actually, is a stack of hundreds or even 1000s of thin sheet metal plates. And we are our oldest products are in sheet metal stamping. So we're we're big experts in sheet metal stamping, so we knew we could form plates. Well, and we also understand fluid dynamics from our torque converter work in the past. So we can design the passages in the plate where the hydrogen passes through there. So that's our entry point, we actually have a joint venture now called Symbio, in France, and we're producing bipolar plates for them, and then they're putting it into a fuel cell stack. So that's where we'll start off. And then also plates for electrolyzers that create the hydrogen

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:19  
based electrolyzers. Basically the same thing as a fuel cell in the opposite direction.

Jeff Hemphill  1:22:23  
Exactly, yeah. But they do tend to be bigger. If you had a chance, you can see our display in there that a bipolar plate for for a fuel cell for a car is you know, a foot by a half a foot or something but the the ones for an electrolyzer are almost as big as a door. So it's a really big piece of sheet metal there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:44  
And doing I'm doing now with a level of precision you need for that type of devices. It's pretty complex.

Jeff Hemphill  1:22:49  
Yeah, it actually was a bigger stamping challenge than our stamping tool designers anticipated because it's by far the thinnest sheet metal we've ever seen. So you'd like to get these under a 10th of a millimeter of thickness. So it's really a foil. And you have to put a very precise form in that foil without tearing it. So that you get the passage of the of the hydrogen through there in an efficient way. And also that you get the contact with the exchange membranes, you don't want to have lazy radii, you want to have sharp corners. So to do that with literally with a foil, this is very challenging, but we have mastered it. So we've got some good stuff coming out there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:35  
And then one, one last area. One of the last presentations this morning, was around some of your engine technology. We've been producing a lot of components for engines for a long time. And taking some of those now and using them in new ways and talk a little bit about the smart overrun system.

Jeff Hemphill  1:23:56  
Yeah, that is specifically it's actually a combination of existing products for us electric cam phaser valve deactivation system and an accessory drive system. But you put those together in a new combination to meet the unique needs of hybrids. Because when you hybridize an engine, you're going to want to turn it off as often as you can. And that creates a host of issues. For example, the catalyst doesn't like to get cold. So whenever you turn the engine off, the catalyst is going to start to cool off, and then it really doesn't like have oxygen in it. So when you restart the engine, you're often going to get a blast of oxygen go through the catalyst. So you don't want any of those things to happen. And so with that system, we can for example, deactivate the exhaust valves and protect the catalyst and then we can gain some efficiency benefits. For example, controlling the valve timing allows you to reduce the drag torque of the engine so when the engine is not running. And if you don't have a disconnect clutch for the engine, that is all just kinetic energy that you can put in the battery that otherwise would have just been going into friction drag in the engine. So we get something around a 5% improvement over the base hybrid system in fuel economy, just by by simple little tricks like

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:22  
that. But now is that is that just with mild hybrids, like 48 volt mild hybrids, or is that also with strong hybrid system title the tablet system

Jeff Hemphill  1:25:32  
also works with with a stronger hybrid system. Depending on the size of the system, if you get into like a P two system where the disconnect clutch, then you're actually bringing the engine to rest. So you have a little bit less to worry about there in terms of protecting the catalyst and so on. But it still offers utility for really any kind of hybrid.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:53  
Okay. Well, Jeff, I really appreciate your time. Are there any last thoughts that you want to share that we haven't covered with? People should be picking them up? High, it's

Jeff Hemphill  1:26:04  
just a tremendously exciting time to be an engineer, I guess. I've been saying that for 35 years. But it's more true now than it has ever been a when I think about starting my career in manual clutch development. And now we're talking about solid state battery cells and electric motors and power electronics. And so it's just going to be a tremendous good time to see these new vehicles coming out with all this new technology should be a great time to be a consumer of cars as well as a designer of, of power trains.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:36  
I agree. I've been in the auto industry for over 30 years, myself as an engineer, writer and an analyst and it's definitely the most interesting time of my

Jeff Hemphill  1:26:46  
career. So yeah, all right. It's gonna be great.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:48  
Thank you very much. Thank you.