Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 All right. This is a very special episode 265 wheel bearings. I'm Sam Obul Samad from guidehouse insights. Nicole Wakelin 0:09 And I'm Nicole Wakelin from the FAST Women podcast, Jordan Golson 0:12 and I'm Jordan Golson from getting them to know what to say pick one pick Nicole Wakelin 0:17 anyone picking on Sam Abuelsamid 0:18 YouTube. Okay. All right. How do we get to channel Jordan Golson from YouTube? He's not with us today. The three of us are actually sitting together. I think this is the first time that we've done an episode with three people all recording simultaneously in the same spots. And we were actually in Bozeman, Montana today. We're here to drive the jeep. Grand wet or Jeep Wagoneer l tomorrow. But the two of you, Nicole and Jordan. Just got back from Vietnam. Yes. So before we get to why you were in Vietnam. First of all, have you been driving anything else recently? Nicole Wakelin 0:56 Oh, my gosh, that was not in my brain and I'm like, bizarrely jetlag. What else have I been driving? actually remember what else that can drive me? Over sport, Oh, no. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11 No, I don't think so. I don't think you Nicole Wakelin 1:12 guys I literally have a notepad and a pencil in front of me in a hotel room. And I've had four hours asleep. So this Sam Abuelsamid 1:18 last week, it was just Robbie and I recording when you were in Spain. I was in Spain. Or maybe maybe you were tracking to Indiana or something. You weren't you are available where you're at. Get your dough on if you're on your secret road trip. Yeah. All right. Emergency road trip. But you haven't talked about the Range Rover. So tell us about that. Okay. Nicole Wakelin 1:35 And again, I don't have anything in front of me. Like I'm not as prepared as I should be. So we drove the Range Rover Sport. And they have I can't no pause. I literally can't talk about this. I don't know enough about the range. I cannot think of a single thing about that right Sam Abuelsamid 1:50 now. Okay, that forget it. Well, I can you Unknown Speaker 1:53 know, one thing we could talk about? Is the range of the PF. Do they announce the range yet? Because that is that's the most interesting part of that whole thing to me. Nicole Wakelin 2:03 Let me see if I can 50 Sam Abuelsamid 2:03 Yes, it was what about 20? Nicole Wakelin 2:06 They did. It is an increase. Hold on. What and that's the embargo was lifted on that right? Yes. On the Range Rover stuff. Unknown Speaker 2:12 Yeah, I think the P have range if we're going to talk about anything Nicole Wakelin 2:15 is that if I had my laptop, I could. Sorry, I didn't making you edit. And Sam Abuelsamid 2:20 this is all staying. It's all good. Oh, great. Great. Great. They'll love it. Nicole Wakelin 2:24 Contents. So this is a real world. I have no idea. I don't have my laptop. I've had no sleep. So it is it is that was the big news that it does have an increased range. All electric range actually. nificantly Unknown Speaker 2:35 prior ones. 19. Yes. And this one's going to be around 50 Nicole Wakelin 2:40 I think it was 50 or so. Unknown Speaker 2:43 gen two, right. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 2:45 that's a big honkin, Unknown Speaker 2:47 38 kilowatt hour battery. It's got a huge battery. Nicole Wakelin 2:50 And it was actually it was it was very fun to drive. I mean, they had us driving, we had Euro spec versions of everything that we drove while we were over there. But you still get a pretty good feel for I mean, it's you get a good idea of what you're gonna get when you get in the US. I liked the sport, I find that this it was fun. I like that you still have Range Rover capability and range, rover, style and luxury. But you is a little bit smaller. Because also we're driving this in Spain, were their roads, I want to put it in air quotes are roughly the size of like our bike paths. So driving something that was a full size, like the actual Land Rover Range Rover, you suddenly feel like you're driving a tank, and it's, I wouldn't want to drive that in a city. I mean, if I was out of the country shirt. Cool. That's great. But I think the sport is a better choice for somebody who's in for something that was smaller, and it still has not all the luxury. I think there's some features that it doesn't have. But dang, it's close. Like it's different feel. Yeah, it it definitely is 40 year because the roads that we were driving it on, they had it was a pretty long drive route. And some of there were some highway, there was just some straight roads. And there were some twisties. And we actually ended up with the Range Rover S V, something on the twisty US Route. And I remember thinking, I really wish I'd had the sport for that. Because the sport was so much more fun to drive. It was it was much more nimble. That's the kind of car you wanted. And it's still a sports car, great big SUV. But I liked it. I thought it was fun. I was I was a fan. Unknown Speaker 4:18 So I think the really interesting thing about it is that the prior generation, the big boy Range Rover and the Range Rover Sport were separate vehicles, separate platforms separate everything. This time, they're the same. And hardware wise, they're basically identical. The suspension is the same, the steering is the same. The drive trains are the same, everything's the same. It's just software based settings that change the driver or the steering feel, the way the air suspension is set up all those things, and it feels like such a completely different car. Even though all that's really changed is the shape of the body and the interior and Sam Abuelsamid 4:55 even the shape and except for basically it just ordered. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 4:58 you'd like just get squished Unknown Speaker 5:00 Beddoe wheel, the wheelbase wheelbase is identical. Oh, is it? Yeah, it hasn't changed at all. It just looks it before it was shorter. Yes, it was a whole different platform that different motors everything. Yeah. So now they're the same. And I asked them, would it be possible to have a button that could change you from Range Rover spec to Range Rover Sport spec? Or are there any other hardware differences? And they said, technically, that would be possible. But you could just do it as an array and changing everything about how the car what Nicole Wakelin 5:28 I wanted was the Range Rover with the sports dynamics. Yes, that would have been my that would have been my sweet spot for me if I could have gotten the Range Rover with the sport dynamics. And like said, technically, I suppose they could spend send it to what it is Special Vehicle Operations and make that happen for the cost of a small chateau. But I unless you want to do that, I'm sure Sam Abuelsamid 5:50 Jamal Hamidi could could deal with that. I mean, he's still he still runs, but people operate Unknown Speaker 5:54 in a very polite way. They said, technically, that would be possible. But also we wouldn't do that. Yeah. But I suspect if you gave them enough money, I feel like if you could make Nicole Wakelin 6:05 here's a chocolate would you make that happen for me that I would. Sam Abuelsamid 6:08 That was one of the beauties of by being able to afford to buy a premium vehicle like that is if you if your make get friendly with your dealer and go up the chain, and you have enough money to spend. They're more than happy to take that money off your hands and give you exactly what you want. Nicole Wakelin 6:24 Yeah. And they had what were the two? What were the two there were two trends of the Range Rover that had one headlight this ebony black trim around the dials and the other one had this like white ceramic trend and it wasn't even like an off white, a slightly winter white. No was this brilliant white and it would it not only looked fantastic, but it felt like the ceramic on it felt so cool. And it was on Unknown Speaker 6:48 the keys to so that that's the autobiography of the SV Yeah, has a super all the buttons are ceramic. And there's two colors, you get them in black or white. And the thing is the black. It has the it's the same ceramic. But it looks just like the black plastic that you can get in the regular the white. Nicole Wakelin 7:05 It looks so cool ops, the way it looks like you spend a truckload of money to have them for some reason, put fancy little trims on your dials. And it's actually like a trim you can buy but it looked like something that somebody went and paid to have custom done just to make it look different. Because Unknown Speaker 7:20 it looks like that mug right there. It's like that he's Nicole Wakelin 7:22 pointing at a coffee mug in Unknown Speaker 7:25 a hotel, and it looks like that. Just very fancy. Sam Abuelsamid 7:27 Okay, so that was cool. Very nice. And what is the plug in hybrid? Or I guess what is the what's the plug in hybrid gonna be available in the US? Unknown Speaker 7:38 Early next year, okay, but it's a bit of a moving target. And they wouldn't commit to production numbers, they wouldn't commit to exactly when it was going to get here just that it's coming. Nicole Wakelin 7:47 Now kind of like every OEM at this point, if they haven't right now, this thing we haven't right now, late availability, if you don't have it right now, it's like later, later. Unknown Speaker 7:56 And a fully electric range rover, they say is coming for model year 24 Sam Abuelsamid 8:01 model, you're 24 So far, so that that implies end of 23 Unknown Speaker 8:05 Yeah. And they said that at the Range Rover launch back in April. And then they reconfirmed that timeline. Nicole Wakelin 8:11 So they're sticking to it which degree of confidence because they may only Unknown Speaker 8:15 sell one of them. But you know, just looks like the Hummer EV pickup there. Yeah, it's on sale. We sold 100 Sam Abuelsamid 8:24 I suspect they'll probably try and sell more than that. I think especially places like California and New York and I think Unknown Speaker 8:30 it will be the smash hit to Yeah, it will be good car. Sam Abuelsamid 8:34 All right. The thing that I was driving also had a plug in also plug in hybrid. It was the Jeep Grand Cherokee four by eight. Yeah. But it was the the base model the limited, which is about 60 grand. And so we I think we both talked about the the four by E back in the spring when we when we did the first drive in Austin. So this time, I had a chance to spend the week with it. And really like it yeah. Now like the Grand Cherokee anyway, I think for me, you know, the, the Grand Cherokee is a much more reasonable size than the wagoneer Nicole Wakelin 9:11 and wagoneer is so big, I love it, man. Sam Abuelsamid 9:14 It is really, really big. Yeah. And I've always liked the Grand Cherokee. You know, going back to the first generation one, it was all you know, for an SUV with the kind of off road capabilities that the grand cherokee has always had. It's almost also had surprisingly good driving dynamics on the road. And this one is no exception. Same, same thing. So the, the one the former he has a two liter turbo four cylinder engine with the 48 volt mild hybrid system and an electric motor. An electric motor, sandwiched in between the engine and the transmission in place of the torque converter gets about three 75 horsepower, it's the same powertrain that's in the Wrangler, which is what you have in your driveway, at restaurants, my little toy and I plugged it in every time I came home, so always had near enough to a full charge every time I left the house with it did multiple trips to Detroit. During that week, a couple times, I went to the auto show, we went to my wife and I went down to Belle Isle. A couple other things. So a lot of highway driving with it. Which is obviously not ideal either for an electric or hybrid because you're not you're not able to take advantage of the region. And yet over the week and wreck up 400 miles. I got 30 and a half miles per gallon. Nicole Wakelin 10:45 It's so small vehicle. No, it's not. That's pretty impressive fuel economy. Yeah, the Unknown Speaker 10:49 range, Sam Abuelsamid 10:50 the range, driving on the highway at 75. It would do it's rated at 25. It would do about 18. Unknown Speaker 11:00 And go all the way up to 75. On full electric Yeah, the engine never needed to turn on. Yes. Which is that's pretty good. Sam Abuelsamid 11:06 Yeah. So like, you can put it in electric mode drive on the highway, you know, for about 18 miles until the battery is depleted. And then it just goes into hybrid mode. I did ranch test on my usual loop, which is a mix of some highway some suburban, like 4555 mile an hour roadways and urban driving and got 26 miles before it was depleted. So slightly better than what the EPA rated ranges. So really impressive vehicle. So if you need something that is you know, in that mid size, upper mid size to row class, you know, and you want decent fuel economy, especially, you know, if you want something that you can take, you know, still got great towing capability. You can use it to tow boat or trailer, use it for a road trip, you know, got 25 to 27 miles of, of around town driving on electricity. And if you plug it in every night, which is what you should do, if you're gonna buy a plug in hybrid, go ahead and plug it in. Yeah, don't waste that don't drag around several 100 pounds of battery for not spring for the cost of Nicole Wakelin 12:15 having the charger installed. And because otherwise you're wasting your Sam Abuelsamid 12:19 money. Yeah, well with a plug in hybrid you can actually get by without you can just plug into a 120 It'll charge overnight, right? If you have a 240 volt charger. Nicole Wakelin 12:28 Yeah, like the 240. Because then if you run out like we run out, we do stuff in the morning. Yeah. And then I have only charged a couple of miles left on the battery, I come back, I plug it back in. But the timing on the afternoon, it's already charged, right? So I can so I can do like a whole day back and forth might do far more than the actual, just single charge range because it just recharges so quickly. If you're in and out of your house, you can just go all day, just get back up and go right back. I'm Unknown Speaker 12:51 a huge plug in hybrid fan, I think for basically everybody right now. If there were more of them available. It's almost always if you can charge the car to buy I had a Chevy Volt, the second generation on which had a 52 mile rated range, if I remember correctly. And in a year, we put fifth 17,000 miles on it and 15,000 were electric. Because the miles will daughters Yeah. And that's part of why I'm so excited about the Range Rover having that range because most people like why do people go over 20 miles or 25 80% Sam Abuelsamid 13:26 of drivers do less than 40 miles a day? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 13:31 so under 50 That's feels like the perfect sweet spot to me. Yeah, because then you can do it and then if you do need to, because range anxiety really is a thing and charging and public isn't really annoying still, that solves that problem and it's a great introduction to the Eevee lifestyle. The main downside is you can't find them I had a friend who was trying to buy the four by E Jeep Grand Cherokee and he couldn't find one anywhere. Sam Abuelsamid 13:54 Well, those are still in very limited availability. Yeah, they were late getting them to dealers. They're just really starting to get to dealers now Unknown Speaker 14:02 and I think it's like the wraps are prime. It's so in demand that it's just they laugh a lot faster than every Sam Abuelsamid 14:10 other car the Wrangler for buddies are accounting for 25% of wrangler sales now so you know they they are a really good option for a lot of people if you if you want to go electric but you're not whatever your circumstances are, you're not quite able to go fully battery electric. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 14:27 I feel like it's a great happy medium because it gives you a little taste the electric sort of life. You get used to plugging in a vehicle which is weird the first time you'd like get out you're gonna go plug this in, you get used to the whole idea that you get used to if you want to plug in while you're out and about the whole like okay, how do I find a charger and it's kind of a daunting thing if you've never done it you have no idea like when I gotta look for charters not like I'm just going to drive down the highway and see an Exxon station like you get used to it was still that security blanket of it doesn't matter. I can still go to that Exxon station and fuel up. So I think it's a great way to, to get into the Eevee life. So then the next time around you think, okay, you know what I'll go fully be. And it's also great ways if you want if you want a vehicle that you have to road trip in, because it's just generally speaking, not easy road trip, and especially if you got kids yeah, and I know you can do it, I know you can do it, I know you can do it, like I get it. And they have things that will tell you exactly where you stop and exactly how far to go. And it will map it all out for you. But it removes all the spontaneity from a road trip because you have to plan your stops. And if you don't know that, that stop is gonna have an open charger and that it works. You have to plan even more carefully. So it's not ideal if you do road trips yet it's just not if you want to have the eat the the part of things for when you're at home and you're in your comfort zone, and then not even pay attention to it. If you have to do the occasional long distance road trip. You can do that. It's it's the best of both worlds at this point. Unknown Speaker 15:47 Can I do one other rant for a moment? Absolutely. So that Chevy Volt Yes, fantastic car, the powertrain, the tech in it was incredible. came out, I think the second gen came out maybe 2016. The year I bought mine, I was convinced after driving that around for a year that Oh, GM is going to put plugins in every car they offer, because it's so good. Oh, imagine having a plug in Tahoe with a 50 mile range, or Silverado or an equinox or any other vehicle they sell. And they took that plug in hybrid technology and they put it in nothing nothing and killed the Sam Abuelsamid 16:26 volt. Yeah, there actually was a plan to do that, at one point somewhere in the mid 2010s. And then they decided that they had started getting experience with the batteries, and realized, you know what, these batteries are actually holding up better than we thought they would. And they decide, you know, we're not going to bother with the hybrids anymore. We're just going to go all electric. And it took them a while to get there. They're still just kind of slowly creeping in there. But that's the plan. Now they opted not to spend the money to do the plug in hybrids, Nicole Wakelin 17:02 give us a call. Sam Abuelsamid 17:04 No, I think I think he should have done some plug in hybrids, because like you said, you know, especially for stuff like the equinox and you know, a lot of the transfers, but a lot of those applications where it would have been pretty straightforward to especially as the batteries got smaller than what was in the volt originally. I think they could have done that for at least a few models and given some more options to people. And you know, they had had a really good power train there with that system. And it would have, I think it would have shown consumers that they were more serious about this earlier on. But they opted not to and Unknown Speaker 17:44 well and so now Jeep is getting into it and doing plugins. And so I wonder if the success there and what Toyota is seeing with the rav4 prime and people are sort of like oh, this is really great, especially when you get you know, because the first rounds of plugins, like the BMW and the Volvo are 50 Miles maybe. And like especially the early vulva ones, if you went over 40 miles an hour, the engine turned off. And that which it wasn't a great experience and it wasn't really an Eevee so you didn't have the torque the volt you put your foot down that thing would take off. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 18:14 because it had run most of its power was coming from the electric motor in it, they size the electric motor to basically make it like an like a pure Evie, and had the engine there that on occasion, you know, it might feed a little bit of torque from the engine through the through drive system, but most of the time it's just purely electric drive. Unknown Speaker 18:35 Yeah, it was a generator. Yeah. Which made it even more efficient. And that was fantastic. And so Nicole Wakelin 18:41 I only go back into place and I feel like winter. Like the order operation is gas vehicle hybrid plug in hybrid, Evie. And I feel like that's sort of the order for the average person hybrid or plug in hybrid in the middle and then Evie. So I feel like for an automaker to go back and go let's go back to plug in hybrid. It's like I feel like their Unknown Speaker 18:59 demand is gonna be there. Nicole Wakelin 19:00 I don't think they're all going all in with EVs whether the demand is there or not. Unknown Speaker 19:04 That's the thing is I don't I'm not convinced they're gonna be able to sell those Sam Abuelsamid 19:07 EVs. Yeah, I think I think the demand will be there if they can offer them at the right price, which is going to be the challenge because it's Nicole Wakelin 19:13 so expensive. Unknown Speaker 19:14 Speaking of right, Bryce, does that Jeep Grand Cherokee for BI e qualify for the new tax credit. Jeeps do? It Sam Abuelsamid 19:23 may it may qualify till the end of the year, for the $7,500 right now until December 31. After December 31, it may qualify we're not sure yet because the vehicle is assembled in North America. The battery is sourced in North America from LG. And what we don't know is what percentage of the components in the battery are North American source. Meaning Unknown Speaker 19:48 like, yeah, there's like it's up to the interpretation of yeah, whatever agency Yeah, well, Sam Abuelsamid 19:53 the IRS has to publish the rules for how they're going to do the accounting for that. And that's do by the end of the year. Nicole Wakelin 20:01 So literally bad for every person and every OEM, it's like it's your job to figure out how we're qualified. We'll go with God, my friends, because this Sam Abuelsamid 20:08 is one of the things. One of the things we've been trying to figure out. My company guide us yeah is you know, we've got a list of the cars that are qualified right now that might qualify 2023, Nicole Wakelin 20:21 and a note, and then the list of like, the ceiling. Sam Abuelsamid 20:25 And anything that's assembled outside of North America that automatically Unknown Speaker 20:27 so you'll have cars like the ID four, where some of them are assembled in actually they're all assembled on they're all Sam Abuelsamid 20:33 being assembled in Chattanooga now for now, because of Yes, right? Well, no, that was always the clap. Okay. So all all the I mean, there may still be some, probably not, but there may be a few in inventory, dealers, lots that were built in Germany, but basically 100% of the IT force for the North American market are built in Chattanooga. Now Nicole Wakelin 20:51 just think about that. What a mess. It is, like, imagine you come with your entire marketing scheme and your pricing and everything you do you figure everything out, you know what it's going to qualify for, for tax credit, have probably a rough idea based on your sales for how is physical weight? weights, change the rules? Change all the rules? Some guys going? No, because you work so hard to get all that plans that would work and now everything they planned out the window? Sam Abuelsamid 21:14 Yeah, well, so automakers are scrambling now. And they're made tolling ahead some of their plans for North American production like Hyundai. They're pulling ahead. They're the construction of their plant their new plant in Georgia. To do all that I know Nicole Wakelin 21:29 is if they're not struggling to shuffle enough after the pandemic to just just get a car built period, the end now I gotta shuffle, we gotta get a bill here. We gotta do this, this quickly. We lose this and then we'll lose sales because now we don't get the rebate. And Sam Abuelsamid 21:41 one of the stories that came up this week was for they've got a whole bunch of vehicles that are sitting in storage lots because they don't have global badges. Nicole Wakelin 21:52 I was I was I saw the headline, I couldn't get the story alone. I was on a plane that literally Sam Abuelsamid 21:57 expired a bit. Well, that's, that's for some of them. Not all, some of them are waiting on Nicole Wakelin 22:02 a local, like embroidery store or whatever. Can you make a bunch of temporary 3d printed 3d printed for labor and just my big new one, and so we need to SC 550,000, Ford's four batches. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Sam Abuelsamid 22:17 Yeah. All right. Let's move on. So, Vietnam, two of you just got back from Vietnam literally yesterday. Yes. Literally yesterday. So why were you in Vietnam, Nicole Wakelin 22:29 we were in Vietnam, to experience everything that is vinfast and Vingroup. And drive for a hot minute, roughly, the V f h, Sam Abuelsamid 22:40 don't exaggerate. It was Nicole Wakelin 22:42 at least eight minutes. Okay. It was eight minutes, eight minutes, VF eight. And truly people it was minutes that we drove these cars. But so it was a week long because of the time change because it takes a long time to get over there and you lose like half a day. So it was basically we left on a Sunday. And we came back on a Saturday, spent a solid four days, five days over there and saw a lot of Vietnam. A lot of what Vingroup is so vinfast is a good journey to correct me if I screw this up. vinfast is the car company. Vin group is the overall like umbrella thing. But Vingroup has been Pearl hotels and vinfast cars and there's a VIN bus and there was a VIN medic ambulance we saw and then there's been one of the buildings called viven Unknown Speaker 23:26 homes that you can think of it as it's sort of old school General Electric, yes, philosophy, Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate with lots of different companies that aren't necessarily affiliated with each other. Sam Abuelsamid 23:40 It's kind of like the South Korean cables. Unknown Speaker 23:42 Yes, but very much so. But instead of being multiple different companies that are affiliated, it's one company that owns everything with all this stuff. Nicole Wakelin 23:53 So we went to see the idea was to see the VF eight, which is an Eevee that's going to go on sale in America. And eventually, eventually we'll talk about that. Unknown Speaker 24:04 Yeah, and they wanted to show Vietnam and they wanted to show all of the things that Vingroup does. There's been wonder which is basically Vin Disneyland, and they have theme parks and all these things Park and slide. There's a waterpark. And so one of the things they showed us that was interesting was Vin homes. And it's basically Vietnam is a rural agrarian country right now. And they want to do in, say 10 or 15 years what China's done over the last 50 and turn themselves into a modern ish country with a middle class and manufacturing sector and engineering talent and all these things. And to do that you basically have to educate your public or your populace, give them a place to live in the cities rather than in the country and get them jobs. And so what China did as a government over the last several decades, Vingroup is what trying to do on their own, in a massive, massive isn't impressive, Nicole Wakelin 25:04 it is an impressive scale. So even though this was technically a program for, from my point of view to be able to drive a car from Jordan's point of view to be able to drive a car, there were and it was a huge number of people there were only think eight of us from the US. There was a group in Canada, there were people from Europe, and there are a whole slew of influencers who were instantly Instagram famous. And, and just it was it was a very eclectic mix of people. So we finally get to the cars and the cars were we truly had a very short time in the cars and it was a closed, it wasn't a closed course, like a like a track, it was a closed section of road on this little it sounds ridiculous. As I say this closed section road on the island that they pretty much had their one hotel convention center or whatever on like a resort island. And they'd love to cordon off this one section sort of drove straight out of there one building, took a little bit to the right, came back around a little bit left and it was done. You got to do that three times. And it couldn't have been truly honestly, I don't think if you just did the three laps back to back, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, maybe 15 minutes. Yeah, it'd been just what Unknown Speaker 26:11 I did for my video is I did three laps. And I think it ended up being about 50. So Nicole Wakelin 26:15 about 15 minutes behind the wheel, the car where you had, it literally drives to think like a T Drive straight out ticker, right pull U turn, pull U turn come back in, they had and it was and they had a minder with you who sat in the right seat. So you couldn't like you couldn't go by yourself and he was explaining some things to us you were going along and they're just sort of help you figure out what to get in the car. And okay, I have to like preface the whole thing by saying they've developed this car in 21 months, 21 months very quickly. If you think about the timeframe, it's taking a normal OEM to develop a car. It is years and years and years and years and years to get what we have on the roads today. 21 months. So what they've done in 21 months is incredible. Unknown Speaker 27:04 21 like, Nicole Wakelin 27:05 and if the right they're going if they if it could continue to develop at the rate they have, like six months, this could be an entirely different vehicle. But they're saying depending on who you listen to who you ask, or even when you ask them, there was a it was a little difficult getting some information at times that this could be in the US in October or November or December, would you have this. So it is today's I'm looking at my watch ticket September 25. That is not very far off. And looking at the things that like it's come in incredibly far away for how quickly they've done it, but it feels like it needs some work. Like I drove two different variants, which I didn't know, like, we just were given one and thought they were all the same. They were not. And so I had like this eco version that I drove the first time. And they had a spot where you could get it up to roughly 75 miles an hour. It's like 120 kilometers, which I think is about 75 Excuse me, I couldn't get it up to that high in the length stretch a row that we had, like, I just floored it. I'm standing on that pedal. I did three and I'm like I cannot get this to any faster. And so in the handling was a little off. So when I got back, I said, you know, they asked and I said I I have concerns, I have questions, and eventually tracked down the right guy who said no, no, no. And he was like, I don't I didn't get his title. They didn't give me his title. They just started describing as the engineer who built it all kind of thing. Like he was behind it all. So I want that on a business card. You know Sam Abuelsamid 28:37 that it was the Vietnamese version of Elon. Nicole Wakelin 28:38 He was a Vietnamese or no that we wanted it all right. Yeah, I guess he was a Vietnamese Elon. Hopefully he wasn't high when he was driving the car with me. But um, he he actually took me out. And he said, he said, Look, we're going to take car number one, and I was like, why car number one he's like, Well, it's not the same as the one you drove like. Okay, so you take car number one, which is uh, he says is right, because he knows that this one is right, we take out car number one, he drives it for half the lab to kind of explain things and show me things. And then I drove riffraff lab didn't feel entirely different than the first car drove. Still didn't feel like it had the what is it up to and this is their tentative specs up to 402 horsepower. It didn't drive like a forerunner to horsepower. The first one drove like 100 and something the second one like it's, but it still didn't feel it. This is a weird thing to me. So we were talking like why does it not feel like it has all the horsepower. When it gets to 80% battery, it begins to throttle back its performance in the interest of saving battery, whether you want it to or not it 80% So when I was driving both of these vehicles, one was like in the 50 ish range when I was driving it the first one, the other was like 72 or something. So I'm driving it and it's already throttled back. So as soon as you get to 80% You're losing that performance, which correct me if I'm wrong, is there any other vehicle that you know is isn't easy. Sam Abuelsamid 30:01 Most TVs will throttle back performance from getting old 10%. If you're that low, and they do that, you know, to extend the range as much as possible Nicole Wakelin 30:13 by any of us like it's and I get it down because it's like, if you're that low, and especially like, that's pretty low for an Eevee battery, right? You're thinking, does a person know they have to drive 100 Miles like that gets you that's sort of like a security thing. You don't want to drive like a bat out of hell, you've got to present your evey battery. But if I've got 79% of my battery left, I might be driving a little bit more aggressively. So I never actually drove this vehicle to experience the actual full horsepower that it had. Because there were none available that had 80% or higher of a battery charge. Did Sam Abuelsamid 30:45 they give you an indication of just how much they're throttling it back? Nicole Wakelin 30:48 No, he couldn't get he said though, from what he said it was the lower that the lower your battery goes. And I don't know if it was like literally stepped down stepped down fortunately to the right, and I don't know if it's like 5%, it throttles down a little bit more than another five he made, I made it sounded like a curve, you know that the lower you get, the more it's going to throw that back in the interest of preserving your range. But I feel like you have 80% battery, you got a pretty decent range there. Sam Abuelsamid 31:15 But it was not. It was that to preserve the range or the durability of the life, the lifespan of the battery. He Nicole Wakelin 31:20 said range. So the guy that I talked to, you know, mind you there were various people there, there is sometimes a language barrier, which I'll acknowledge it. So sometimes you're like, you're no one's trying to be difficult. We just don't entirely understand each other. His English was fantastic. So I felt like he clearly understood me. And I clearly understood him. So I felt like the information I got from him, I was the most confident that I didn't ask one question and get an up and answer to another by accident, you know. And he was fantastic. He did make me feel better about it. Because when I drive that first eco one, I thought you cannot tell me that this is what they're selling. And he's like, no, no, that's the Eco, the higher spec one is an entirely different drive experience, much nicer much better drive, but still doesn't feel quite like it's like, honestly, six more months, it just needs it needs so much in so many spaces. Now, if you've never driven an Eevee, if you don't have experienced driving an Eevee. If you've never even driven something with like a plug in hybrid, where you've experienced what, what a car feels like driving as an electric, what the acceleration fields like driving an electric, there's a good chance you might not notice a lot of this, like I'll be honest, this is something that I noticed. I don't want you to think that everyone, but I think if anybody if you had a Tesla, for example, and you got behind the wheel this because one of the people there did and I said Will you drive this, he drove one of my one of the labs with me. He's like, wow, this isn't the same. And the problem is the price is 57,000 is where it starts with the battery. That's the US. That's the US pricing. So I don't know what you're gonna pay us for. But it's 57,000 You are talking Tesla prices are way too high, it's too high. If you if you gave me if they finessed some of this stuff in you, it was cheaper than I might feel like it's a great deal. So it's not a terrible car, it's just feels undone to me, I can't think of another way to say it, it feels undone, it feels like it needs a little bit more. Even like the infotainment it's not quite as responsive as it should be. And it almost feels like they haven't like the graphics. They're not bad. They just don't look modern. Like something doesn't look like it's a lot of time was spent in it. And Sam Abuelsamid 33:25 so it feels like an early VW ad for kinda. Nicole Wakelin 33:28 Yeah, exactly. But it's not the price of ad nor is it the like the the it just doesn't feel like it's there yet. So I I'm like rooting for them. I don't want it to sound like I'm like yeah, I rooting for these guys to make a car that succeeds. I feel it needs a little more time. I feel like it needs a little more time, even the the fit and finish on it. And he did say that this this engineer, I'm just gonna say lead engineer, I might be making his own title. But this lead engineer, he had said, you know, the ones who were driving were a Vietnamese spec, they were pre production that the US spec would be different because our roads are different. And it's very common to have like Euro spec in the US spec of the same vehicle will drive very differently. Because their roads and our roads, what Europeans expect much differently. So the tune things for their audience. So he said it'll be tuned differently. So like I can forgive some of that, like very different experience, you're going to have Vietnam, but like the handling was just not as crisp as I wanted it to be and the steering wasn't, you know, the suspension was not what I wanted it to be for Carlos nearly $60,000. You know, and they said that I asked him what he benchmarked against he said he benchmarked against the Hyundai IONIQ five. And I asked him do you think it's there? Do you think he got it? This week paused and he said, Well, I think we're close. And I think that's but I think but I think that's how I would feel about that. That is when he said I think we're close. That's I think about the VFA they're close. They need to spend a little more time and I really wish they had said to me we were going to have it out in October. We're going to make Sam Abuelsamid 34:56 it eight so if you're going to compare this against a Hyundai, would you compare it What would you say is closer to five? Or to, let's say, a nice 93, Sonata? Nicole Wakelin 35:10 Can I see between the two somewhere? Like a 98. It's not horrible. It really isn't horrible. It just is not quite there for the price. And they have so much vested in this. I want you want to be like, can you guys just put back in the garage for a few more months and keep working on this? Because you could and so much in 21 months, give yourself another six working at this pace. And you can take care of a lot of this. But if you put it out there now, people who like own Tesla's and stuff who own EVs who've been driving EVs who've been driving around in $60,000 cars, they're not going to be thrilled Unknown Speaker 35:41 it needs to cost. I was telling them 20,000 Less, I'm gonna revise that to 25,000 Less. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 35:48 That would put it at about $30,000 Yeah, Unknown Speaker 35:51 3030 33 something around there, I think. I think you'd be getting an awful lot of car for your money, because it's a good size. But it's a new carmaker. There's a lot of things that need to be polished. But if you put it at that price, and you can get 250 ish mile range, we're not sure what it's going to work out to, because they're quoting estimated European spec ranges. So there's nothing based in reality there. But that's an interesting value proposition because that's like saying, okay, the early Hyundai cars that came to the US were bad, they were not good cars, but they were dirt cheap. And so you're like, how much will you sacrifice on things being super perfect and polished, if it's really cheap, and it's like, well, I can forgive a lot of things at a much lower price than I can at 57,000, which is starting what $13,000 More than the prime, I'll get away with it, you could Nicole Wakelin 36:53 like he's exactly what Jordan said, I could forgive a lot of this. If the price wasn't so high, this isn't a price to let you forgive that kind of stuff. This price, you don't expect that you expect a certain quality. And unless there has to the significant changes between now and the end. I know like I said, these are pre production, Vietnamese spec. But there has to be some pretty big leaps forward, I think people in the US to buy into a company that's brand new from a country that the US isn't super familiar with its products out of Vietnam, and to take a chance on it. That's a pretty big chance to take I you know, and I feel like they're standing behind it. And I feel like they're throwing a tons of money at this, like I have no doubt the finances and the will to do this is there the company really, really wants this to work. They're there, Sam Abuelsamid 37:41 they they've even committed to build that five and a half million dollar assembly, right. So Nicole Wakelin 37:45 they're committed to making this work. I just feel like it's it's not quite ready for primetime. And I'm hopeful that by the time this, whether it's October or November or December or maybe even later, when it arrives if they can fix some of these things. I think it's I think it's a good car, but I just don't think it's there yet. I think it needs some help. Unknown Speaker 38:04 I was gonna say there's there's two points about what you just brought up. One is that they have committed to building a plant in North Carolina, which they want to include cell production in that as well. And they are remarkably vertically integrated. For a carmaker I think outside of maybe Tesla. Nobody's trying to do as much as they are. And on one hand, that's a really big thing for them to do on the other. If they can pull it off, it's going to put them in a really good position to be able to make a lot of cars and not be stuck waiting on battery partners. Yeah, like pretty much every other OEM is except for Tesla. And so that's interesting. The other thing is that, as best we can tell the money is real video group makes a lot of money. They have a lot of money. The founder got started, I believe selling ramen noodles in Ukraine 25 years ago, sold that company, went back home to Vietnam and said I want to start a company and bring my country into the 21st century. And now as fin world and wanders and buses and all that everything and although we forgot there's there's been university because and they're focusing and they've partnered with Cornell and Hamming to design curriculums and they're focusing on it computer science AI, I think they have a new nursing program that they're doing and it's Nicole Wakelin 39:33 this beautiful, unbelievable campus that yeah, like the, like an Ivy League equivalent in an Asian University. Unknown Speaker 39:43 You said, what are the things you need to do to drag your country into your third world country into the 21st century? You'd make a list and basically they're doing all of them. So they're doing the right things. And unlike many other Evie startups like Faraday and It's basically all of the ones that aren't a major OEM, who run into fundraising problems, because it costs a lot of money to create a new Eevee. And you say, Oh, well, I've got $2 billion. Okay, well, that's a nice start, where are you going to get the other 10? I think Vingroup has the money to make this dream a reality. And they're going to try and raise lots of money on the on the private markets. And they'll probably be successful doing that, because that cash is there a basket, which that alone, I think they've got the runway to hopefully figure this out, and improve the car and get it to a place where it can go on sale. And the VF nine, which we've barely talked about is the larger one is a three row and might be I think the only three row fully V, other than the rivian, which isn't selling in any volume at all. And so if they could actually deliver that in the US next year, Nicole Wakelin 40:55 I feel like, honestly, I feel like that car when that comes out. So two things because that comes out to they give us a date on that. It's just next year, right? Unknown Speaker 41:01 I heard a date, December, okay. This year, this year, they said, Oh, we're gonna put VF eights and VF nines on the boat. And I'm like, Okay, no, you're not. Nicole Wakelin 41:09 So let's assume for a second, the VX, don't make stuff up. The VFA comes out first, it's out there for a little bit than the VF nine. And if they learn from however it is at the VFA is received here in the US, and whatever their feedback is, because they were listening to all of us, which was really nice. Asking us like, there were a lot of not automotive journalists there and a lot of journalists there. And they were asking us like, they're like they really wanted to know, so you genuinely felt like they wanted to know, including Unknown Speaker 41:32 the CEO of vinfast. Yeah, they at one point, she was in the car with one of our colleagues. And he was not he's very nice about their car, because she kind of asked him to, she asked him to, and they were trying to get her out of the car to not talk to him. And she slammed the door in her handlers face pretty much and said, No, I'm gonna listen to what they're saying. Nicole Wakelin 41:54 So but I feel like if they take what they learn from what people have said to them, that we're honest with them on this drives, because there's been for these that they've done. And then they take that that what they've done so far with the VFA, and continue to improve that. And then if the VF nine gets yet additional, and we didn't try that, mind you we just looked at it on the outside, and it looks great. Yeah, if they take Sam Abuelsamid 42:16 all the LA last year, yeah, Nicole Wakelin 42:17 they apply it to the VF nine, the VF nine could be really quite good. And it would be the one that here in the US where we like big cars and like cars, big huge things could do very, very well. Unknown Speaker 42:29 And I think they said the VF eight to VF nine split in Europe was 60%, VFA, and 40%. We have met for reservations. And in the US it was split 60% The larger one 40% 100% It makes sense. Nicole Wakelin 42:43 Possible is what's going to sell to me we're here to drive a Jeep Grand wagoneer L That's longer than like a Unknown Speaker 42:49 boat. And you know that if that was a fully V, people would be going bonkers for it. Sam Abuelsamid 42:55 But it's not so so it sounds like from our conversation earlier that like a lot of the issues may be software related. So yeah, this is a brand new vehicle coming out in 2022. So obviously, they can just, you know, push up OTA software updates on a weekly basis to fix. Nicole Wakelin 43:11 Yeah. Yeah, so one would think theoretically, yes, in theory, in theory, you could push out software updates will take care of very many of these things. You can't just yet when will you be able to one, one of those people said literally Sunday within a year or two. And he's on camera saying it a year or two. So we had that moment of Dignitas here, as well. Yep, we heard that. Right. So I'm hoping somehow that was a mistake. Because if the answer is really you're too, that's not good, then they can't fix anything in this things that are very easy, relatively easily fixable, you can't easily fix because you can't push it over the air update. Sam Abuelsamid 43:54 If they can't do OTA updates right now, at the very least, all the cars they sell up up to that point will have to come in to a service center or somewhere because they're not going to have franchise dealers right to be flashed locally first, before they can even support OTA updates, assuming that the hardware can support it correctly. Nicole Wakelin 44:14 I don't know that I might, if they didn't say like the hardware is not there. They were just like, we're not quite ready. So I'm not even sure if it's maybe literally just the hardware is in there. And it's just the software isn't quite there yet, you know, to do it, which is kind of what my sense was. That's what I'm hoping Oh, please, please, Lord, let that be what they're saying. Because you need actual hardware you got to put in there. That's another level of complication. So yeah, so you can't necessarily update everything over the air at this point. So it says it again, we just need one more time just like push that bump those dates and it's horrible to have to bump the date when you want a vehicle ready to certain time it's not right you nobody wants what's your first product, right? You want to say I we're delivering on X and that's what we're gonna deliver You don't want to say, oh, it's x plus seven months. But I really think delivered, you know, you see OEMs we've all seen them, even the big ones, Russia vehicle a little bit, and it gets your like, we can feel that it's been a little rush. Don't rush it, like give yourself some time Unknown Speaker 45:16 to kind of like lurk. I was just thinking that. Yeah, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 45:19 They kind of are great, great vehicle from a hardware perspective. Yeah. But the software when we drove it in June, was not ready. Right. But But I talked to him the following week, I ran into Dan Nicholson, who's the head of electronics and software at GM. And he told me that they already had to OTA updates queued up to go out before the vehicle for even delivered. Nicole Wakelin 45:43 See that kind of thing. Like if you have some time, and you can do an OTA update, you can fix that stuff. I feel like vinfast needs to do that. And I do think is you just you genuinely feel like there's a desire to do something really cool here and to do something, it'd be very good for the Vietnamese people in the economy and pulling the country forward, which is something how can you not like that? How can you not not root for that for the people, because it's, you know, big companies or big companies, but somewhere down the line of big companies, a whole bunch of people, and you're rooting for the people to actually have some success here. And I am I want it to be successful. And I think that they genuinely want to see it, work. Sam Abuelsamid 46:23 And ideally, you know, every country should be economically successful. want people to have a good standard of living exactly, you know, being employed and making products that people want to buy as Unknown Speaker 46:34 Apple is ramping up. investment and production in iPhones are gonna be built in Vietnam soon. They're making air pods. They're Sam Abuelsamid 46:41 currently pixel, six pros already built. Unknown Speaker 46:43 So plenty of things being built in Vietnam. And it's also worth noting that vinfast It's their first Evie, but it's not their first car. They've been selling cars. Now they are a new carmaker I think I've only been building cars, it's 2017 2016, something like that. But they've sold a number of models, including several in partnership with BMW that use the platform, I think of the x five, the five series, they made a car off that as well. And they were lots of love and cars everywhere. Yeah, so but they have said, and this is an interesting point they made they are the first internal combustion automaker to say we're stopping internal combustion production. We're doing all the basics in I think in the world. And I think that's probably Sam Abuelsamid 47:26 well, they're not the first to announce it. But they're the first to do Unknown Speaker 47:30 they have actually stopped production and all their ice vehicles are there. Which is interesting, because they're Nicole Wakelin 47:35 they've been doing ice vehicles, the the center console where you have like your drive, you know, have all your buttons for, it's actually out of one of their ice vehicles. So it like they didn't make anything different. Like they were little things in the wheel, well don't reinvent your wheel is shaped like a triangle, maybe make your wheel shaped like a circle, the wheel is still shaped like a triangle. So it's like little things, again, these little things. But I think the problem is when you collectively take all these little things, all these little things you're experiencing the day to day isn't going to be quite what you want it to be, and you're not going to create the raving fans that you want to create once you're in your car. And that's, Sam Abuelsamid 48:12 you know, in 2022 That's a tough place to be in. Because there are so many really good vehicles on the market. In 1987, when Hyundai came into the US market few years later on the Kia did yeah. Different Archaea were still a fair number of brands that were not great to, to put it mildly. And the competition has gotten much, much tougher right now granted, you know, Tesla has had their challenges to control finish on their vehicles. And they have you know, and they started from nothing, you know, in 15 years, they've gotten pretty far along. Yeah. They also have never delivered anything on time. Correct. So, you know, mean, if Tesla can be late for three or four years or more five years? Yeah, in the case of the semi truck. Yeah, then then fast, fast can can certainly afford to be six to 12 months late. Unknown Speaker 49:09 And I think I think Tesla showed Now granted, Tesla has Elon but it showed that people don't necessarily get as bothered by stuff that we as car journalists get bothered by when it comes to things like fitting finish, because I don't Nicole Wakelin 49:24 think I think a lot of the fit and finish I'm hoping like some of the things that I think I would genuinely be bothered by probably not the console thing except that there's nowhere to put your stuff like it'll like that I can't like toss my wallet anywhere. There literally is nowhere to put your stuff on this in our console, which drives me nuts in my like every car I've ever had and always has like don't have to be doing this job Unknown Speaker 49:41 or not storage except I think that like f150 Basically the only thing has enough storage Nicole Wakelin 49:45 you can never find spots to put your stuff but some of it is very glaring that I think if you're a $60,000 car buyer like like like the leather, leather quality doesn't feel right. It's like it's wrinkled. It's too it's like wrinkles, there's weird creases like it's not properly pulled into place. So you're gonna see that if you're buying a $60,000 car, you know, if you're one of us, like there's a weird bump in the seat, you know, the Sam Abuelsamid 50:05 six in the case of the 76. So I think Nicole Wakelin 50:07 there's some and there's very many things you won't notice. Like I said, if you haven't driven an Eevee, or you haven't driven a car that's at that price point, you definitely aren't going to see a lot of stuff. But if you're coming from that, and going into this, you are gonna feel a lot of this stuff. Unknown Speaker 50:20 Another thing, it's $57,000 Plus, you know, whatever it works out to be, you can get a C 40 recharge from Volvo, which is an incredibly ingrained it's a little bit smaller. So but it's Dunning Lee beautiful, the blue paint the whole that like if you said, which one do you want? I'll take that Volvo Sam Abuelsamid 50:38 all day, every day, because it delivers the 402 horsepower all the time. It's a little rocket ship. Yeah, yeah. And it's fantastic, Nicole Wakelin 50:44 right? That's See, this is the key, it's gonna be 20 grand less, if you make it cheaper. Suddenly, the person who can't afford the Volvo has an alternative. But if you can't afford the Volvo, that's the better call. Sam Abuelsamid 50:55 Yeah. You know, pretty much and you know, your Volvo dealer is going to take care of you. Yeah, well, and you know that there's a lot of vehicles, Unknown Speaker 51:01 so it needs to be the Dodge Journey of EVs. There you go. Like, yeah, that's cheap. It's not great. But it gets you from point A to point B, it's got a decent wage, and it's an entry level salaries. Yeah, that's what it should be. Sam Abuelsamid 51:16 And once once they figured out that, yeah, the radio needs to be on the top, not at the bottom of this understand. Nicole Wakelin 51:23 fixes, it's gonna be great. I honestly, if they can get through the VT VF nine launch, and they manage it enough in it, I'm thinking, I mean, like you said, the factory, you're, they're committed to the US market. I'm always feel like this is going to be like, well, maybe these don't do quite what they thought they were going to do. But then the, the 10 comes out in a year or whatever, like, whatever the next one, they take what they've learned from this one. And they they do something like what Hyundai and Kia did we were this really cheap? Nothing, you know, brand was behind now. They're really, really, really good. They've been fast. could do the same thing. Sam Abuelsamid 51:56 Now. All right, cool. So that's the vinfast VFA. one more topic I want to hit before we answer just a couple of listener questions. Okay. And that is Did you happen to see the very short Volvo EX90 presentation on Wednesday? No, Nicole Wakelin 52:13 I did not. Jordan Golson 52:14 I read a little bit about it. Sam Abuelsamid 52:16 Okay. I mean, the they had a live stream with Jim Rowan, their new CEO. It was only less than 15 minutes long. And it was focused on they didn't show the vehicle in its entirety yet. It's going to be unveiled on November 9. And this is the electric all electric replacement for the XC 90, okay. Which I love. Yeah. And it's, and it's going to share its platform with the Pole Star Three, which is going to be revealed sometime in October, I believe. So these are mid upper mid size, SUVs, crossovers, all electric and the focus of this livestream they did well, they streamed it on YouTube, but it was all pre recorded. So it wasn't really live. But the focus of it was on some of the safety stuff. And they reiterated they talked about the the sensor suite for the driving stuff. It's gonna have the Luminar LIDAR sensor on there, lots of cameras, lots of radars. And they'll give us more details on the capabilities it's going to, from the conversations I've had with Volvo and Zack and Luminar over the last several months. Sounds like it's going to be launching with a hands free driver driving Assist system like supercruise blue cruise, and then gradually increasing the capability over time as they as they reach enough confidence in the safety of it. Unknown Speaker 53:43 I think it should be the first vehicle with a lidar standard. Sam Abuelsamid 53:48 No, actually, there has LIDAR standard, okay. And then there's also the SATs S class and EQs have it I don't know if it's only a standard Yeah, it's an option as part of the dry pilot package. But what was the other thing that was really interesting, they talked about interior sensing. So they're gonna have a couple of IR cameras on the inside. And you know, we've had this for a while now from GM Ford and BMW and others using it to do driver monitoring, but they're going beyond just making sure that the driver is watching the road. They're also it's going to be running as I understand is going to be running all the time not just when you're using the hands free system and looking for visual distraction you know, if you're looking away from the road if you put down your phone or something and looking forward drowsiness and, and other factors that might impact your ability to drive safely. And then something else interesting that they brought up and this is something I've talked to some other people but they refer to it as it's gonna be cognitive distraction. So I'm sure there's been times when you've been on a lot On road trip, like when you were coming back from Indiana, when your your eyes are on the road, but you've been driving for several hours, and maybe your attention is not 100%. Yeah. On the task at hand or to zone out a little bit. Yeah. So they call it cognitive distraction. And I'm not sure exactly how they're recognizing this Nicole Wakelin 55:20 doesn't say how do you check that? I mean, if I'm not, if I'm literally distracted, it could see my eyes are looking elsewhere. How does it know your brain is looking elsewhere? Sam Abuelsamid 55:29 I'm not sure yet. But I think I think there's certain characteristics that could be looking for like combinations of like, if your hands are on the wheel, but they're not really following the road. Enough, you're too Yeah, and your head is too static. Your eyes are too static, like you're just looking off and go very clever driver monitoring. Yeah. So they're trying to get smarter with the driver monitoring. Okay, and really make it more effective. Yeah. So I'm really looking forward to trying this out. Because I think, you know, anybody who's honest, it's driven a for any length of time will admit that they have been in that situation for the highway hypnosis. Yeah. Nicole Wakelin 56:06 Yeah, you're just staring at the highway and you're driving with it? How did I just drive 50 miles, wherever I felt like when you know, you have 175 miles in a given road, you're not really seeing Unknown Speaker 56:16 what's sort of forget where you were just Nicole Wakelin 56:19 going because your brain is thinking about 80 Other things, and you're just driving down the highway. So you know. Sam Abuelsamid 56:25 So hopefully, that hopefully, this system can actually work. Because Nicole Wakelin 56:30 you're gonna notice, I feel like, How often have I done that? Or how often are you driving and you don't like you know, where you're going, you're paying attention, but your brain is happening. Unknown Speaker 56:37 A lot of the time you are paying attention. You just don't remember that you were Yeah. Because you're like, I don't need to remember the last five miles. Right. Right. And so your brain sort of discards it. And what you get is you forget what you've been doing the last five minutes, but if something had happened, you didn't you were there. So there was a difference me being distracted in an unsafe way. And one that is just like, wait, I zoned out for a daydream. Nicole Wakelin 57:00 I was scared of this tech, because I feel like we're getting into AI like Nicole and I sense that you are no longer really focused on the road like, Sam Abuelsamid 57:07 and what what they're going to do is if if they'll alert you if they think that you're perhaps not entirely with the program, and if you don't respond to the alerts, then it will slow the car down and bring it to a stop and, and if necessary, if it thinks you're incapacitated, Unknown Speaker 57:27 which is a lot better than the alternative of just careening into a guardrail. Yeah, exactly. Nicole Wakelin 57:31 Right. So is that we that yeah, if it just if it just nudges you and says, Hey, you paying attention like yep, car, I'm okay. Unknown Speaker 57:37 And there are three cars today that will, you know, if you if you do have a medical emergency or something like that, it'll keep you waiting. And Sam Abuelsamid 57:45 we'll do that. Yeah. If you don't respond to requests, it just turns back on the wheel. Yeah, something's Unknown Speaker 57:50 sort of gone wrong. Yeah. Mercedes? No. Does that as well? Yeah. So it'll, Sam Abuelsamid 57:53 it'll start slowing the car down at 40 miles an hour, it'll turn on the hazard lights. Yeah. And then when it comes to stop, if, you know, if you don't respond within about 20 or 30 seconds, you know, it'll come up that thing will come out and say, Are you okay? Do you need help? And if you don't respond, then OnStar will call for help. Unknown Speaker 58:09 Yeah, which I think is really smart. A lot of people do have medical emergencies. And I mean, Sam Abuelsamid 58:13 you could have the heart attack or stroke, or, you know, go into diabetic coma or, Unknown Speaker 58:18 and a lot of cars aren't good enough today to keep you within your lane, at the very least. And so, you know, I think you'd get onto and like things like you said about the occupant sensing. You know, they might be able to tell that, oh, you've slumped over. Yeah, you know, you got to get a camera watching the driver, and all of a sudden you're like leaning over passed out. Yeah. And they might realize immediately, oh, there's a significant problem. We need to stop the car right away. Right. You know, and I think anything that can advance like, that is fantastic. Sam Abuelsamid 58:45 Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's answer a couple of listener questions. First one came from car snob. I like that car snob. Well, I've spoken to a that will three A's. Like he's probably a soccer snob, like Boston or something or yell or might be a sob fan. Okay. Oh, stop, stop. Cheese. Unknown Speaker 59:08 That's a good one. Sam Abuelsamid 59:10 Anyway, how can EVs be economical long term like 20 years compared to an IC when you have either a $10,000 battery replacements or obsolete battery systems to deal with? As a DIY er I paid way less than $1,500 in routine service and 12 years my cars Nicole Wakelin 59:27 do you eliminate a lot of the service on an Eevee because you don't have all the Sam Abuelsamid 59:31 really the only thing you'll eliminate compared to modern cars is oil changes. Okay. Unknown Speaker 59:35 Changes transmission. So I guess reserves are sealed on a Sam Abuelsamid 59:38 new car. Yeah, most most new cars don't need transmission service for $100. And so really Unknown Speaker 59:42 what you're doing is you're getting rid of oil changes. Yeah. And you are paying for electricity rather than fuel right gasoline. Nicole Wakelin 59:50 I don't think that I mean, I'm sure either that either Evie batteries will continue to get better, but I don't know that I would call them like what did he say D was 20 years. Two Unknown Speaker 59:59 years. You're right. To make assumption that and he also said a $10,000 battery replacement, you're making a big assumption that you're going to need to spend $10,000. I don't think you will, you're getting better and better Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:09 the reality, with the exception of the early Nissan LEAFs, yeah, which have air cooled batteries. Most of most TVs, the batteries have held up long held held up better over time than they originally. So most of them, you know, after 10 years, you still got 85 90% of the original capacity, if not more, Unknown Speaker 1:00:31 and if you do have a problem on most of the new ones, you don't need to replace the entire pack to replace one module. Nicole Wakelin 1:00:38 Yeah. No longer like everything, it's just tiny little piece, which makes it much more Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:42 fun. Of course, that part is gonna go away as we've moved to structural battery packs, yeah, because you're gonna get rid of the modules. But that's a story for another day. And also, the reality is, you know, unlike our snap here, most people are not di wires, they don't change their own oil, right? If they're lucky if they take the car into a quick oil change place. Unknown Speaker 1:01:04 And after this year, you know, the that question becomes very different depending on what the price of gas is. If the average price of gas is $3 a gallon, oh, your turnaround is not that good. If your average price is $4 $5 $8, which after this year, I think you could easily see how gas in the US could get to be that expensive. Yeah, then your turn around, even with the price of electricity going up. That price doesn't vary as much as gasoline prices do. So it'll be predictable. And then you can get your buy back way faster, especially if you don't go and buy $100,000 rivian that you buy a $40,000 Hyundai ionic or a $32,000 VFA Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:45 or a $26,000 bolt Chevy Bolt, which is probably the Unknown Speaker 1:01:49 best bang for the buck in the entire car market right now. Nicole Wakelin 1:01:52 So there's a lot of options because they're so affordable because you don't have to buy a super expensive Eevee you can buy a relatively affordable Evie further making it long term, a really good financial proposition. So Unknown Speaker 1:02:03 for a commuter car, which I think is the perfect use case for any RV right now as a second car. You just the gas savings alone, you're gonna get there. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:13 Yeah. All right. The other question, and it'll get better Unknown Speaker 1:02:17 in five years. Yeah. Yes. So the question again, in five years, the answer is going to be even more in favor of the Eevee. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:23 The other question is, from what Rick sweet and I want to thank Rick for the separate note with the pronunciation guide, because he's sent us a few questions in the past I wasn't quite sure how to pronounce his name. So it's, like, have like FELV th w e a t t. Oh, yeah. I would need to like tweet. Yes, exactly. So So Rick asks if that is his Twitter username is tweeter. Unknown Speaker 1:02:50 All right? I'm here for that. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:53 So is there a car newer used that you wanted to buy that got away? As a broke college senior in 1996? I drove past a local VW dealer that had Harlequin golf sitting up front. Had I had the money at the time I would have been it would have been an Instant Buy. So what was your What was your one that got away a Nicole Wakelin 1:03:11 car that got away? I don't know if I had a car they got away. Unknown Speaker 1:03:15 I haven't answered this. Let's hear it. Nicole Wakelin 1:03:18 He looks sad, folks. He Unknown Speaker 1:03:19 looks like really it's conflicted. It's it's uh, what's even worse is that it's a car that I had, and then it got away. And the short version is that I had a Alfa Romeo four see spider four story had a two year lease on it. And when the lease was up, which is its own nightmare of a story for trying to return the lease of an Alfa Romeo for C. But I was getting divorced. And there was just no way to buy it out at the end of the lease, and I had to give it back. And that is, to this day, the most fun car I've ever driven of all the hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of cars that I've driven. It's so pure manual steering, the noise the top comes on just unbelievable. And in this beautiful tri coat red. So that was the one that literally got away. And so I have a dream that someday I'm going to do like Papa John and find that car and put the VIN into CarFax and go track it down and buy it back. And hopefully I put 7000 miles on that in two years, which for four c is an astonishing amount of mileage and had zero mechanical problems. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:39 Okay, I can think of my mother. If that counts is the car you had that you had to I think that's the one that got away and I don't think it's a cool car necessarily but I love this little car. So in the New Beetle first came out. It was just the New Beetle and then they came out with a turbo and it was new and the and I got a bright yellow A New Beetle turbo. And that's what it was called at the time. You know, they've changed the name. And I Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:05 think it had like the same the turbo and the same script that they had on Porsches, right? Yes. Nicole Wakelin 1:05:09 On the back. A little spoiler. Yes, I get the worst. I'll Fess up. I got the worst ticket in my life and that car looking to see. So the spoiler you couldn't, you couldn't it came up back. Okay, so I hit the speed on a road. And it was just slightly more than the speed limit, I will admit, however, I was looking to see it because the sun was going through the window just the right way. So I could see that the shadow of the car on the road Taurus I could, I was watching for the spoiler pop up. So I was not paying as much attention to my right foot. So I may have been going a little bit more than the required speed. And I'm not just a Scottish people a slight oversight. The police disagreed a little bit. So it was the worst ticket and forgotten. But it was the coolest and I can still vividly remember looking out the window to my husband, Ross look the spiders up and then turning around and going oh for flying by it realize how fast it was going. But I love that little car. It made me so happy. It was so much fun to drive. Everyone was loving it. It made people smile. Around GTI it was it was it was wonderful. But then I was I got up before I had kids, I did not give it up with child number one, I managed to wrangle child number one into the back of that car. And then I was pregnant with child number two in the day had to swap it was because I was too pregnant to get child number one into the car. I didn't have the space to get a child in. And I was like and I remember being in the dealership and getting a new car and I was like pregnant and sobbing like really? I was so sad. I felt so bad for the salesman. This poor guys were like, oh my god, worst day ever. So yeah, so that was my one that got away, I would have kept that car. I might still have had that if I didn't have kiddos and didn't have to worry about getting them into the car. I loved that thing. It was the most fun car ever. I missed. Is there Unknown Speaker 1:06:57 a new car going into that? I wonder? Was there anything that would fit that that would make? It just sort of takes like, it's so iconic? And people remember we talked about the little silly spoiler, and it's been 20 years. Is there any car that sort of is that car like is special like that? Yeah, I don't know. Is there Nicole Wakelin 1:07:14 anything that's that that unique and different? And has its own little personality to it? Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:19 Oh, no. No, Unknown Speaker 1:07:21 I really think of and Nicole Wakelin 1:07:23 I would love to have a listener if they have an equivalent to that. Do you have a car that's only 22 equivalent 2022 have a turbo beetle when it was new and it was like fun and cute and adorable. And just had so much personality that you just because back then we Unknown Speaker 1:07:37 had the the mini just come out around then and that had that sort of same fun and exciting. Maybe the better. I want to present you know, just sort of like cars that are interesting like that. I feel like we don't have that right Nicole Wakelin 1:07:49 now. I have a cute fun little car. We Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:51 still got the mini but you know it's grown bigger and Nicole Wakelin 1:07:54 it's not Yeah, it's not it's not. It was special back then. It's Unknown Speaker 1:07:56 not a special Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:57 right? It's been around for 20 years. Nicole Wakelin 1:07:59 Especially What's your special What is this? What is the car that everybody would see and make you smile someone's gonna Unknown Speaker 1:08:05 write in they're gonna say Tesla Roadster and it's gonna be like, okay, okay, that doesn't exist right now. No cars, but it can be cheap enough. What's affordable? Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:08:13 I wouldn't say even if it wasn't affordable, let's just say. I mean, like, even Unknown Speaker 1:08:17 in terms of fun cars, you know, like, what do you already six? Yeah, maybe the lobster and is now dead. Yeah. You know, but that's not that doesn't have the beetle. Nicole Wakelin 1:08:29 Yeah, I love that everybody Unknown Speaker 1:08:30 had the beetle. Like Nicole Wakelin 1:08:33 I was the first. That was the first turbo beetle that was sold in New Hampshire because I gave them my, whatever. 50 bucks and put my name on the list. Like they announced it on a Tuesday and like Wednesday morning, I was in there. And I waited and they just like the very first one that came in. I said, unless it's a color I hate. I'm going to take it and it was yellow. And I'm like, Yep, I will be there. Sam Abuelsamid 1:08:54 I got a two cars and it's actually interrelated. So when I graduated from college in 1990, all those many years ago, want to buy myself a new car. Okay, because I was driving an ad for GMCs 15 pickup truck. Yeah, through all through college. Yeah. And so I want to buy a new car and my shortlist was Mitsubishi Eclipse servo. Okay, which I knocked off the list early. And then the Miata, which was brand new at the time, you know, just first model year 1990. Yeah. And Mustang five liter LX, okay. And I ended up you know, going Miata Mustang. It's like, oh, it's gonna be my primary car and we're driving a year round. I don't know if I want to be driving them out in the wintertime. So I want the Mustang. Okay. But five liter LX Mustang. And it was like the the notchback. So it was the lightest Mustang you get the most powerful engine at the time. And it was a hoot to drive. I had that car for eight years. Loved it. And that was the one. Well, the Miata got away at first. And then eight years later the Mustang got away. Oh, because you know, small kids Yes. To get in cars. Kennedy asked to get them in the back. Yes. So, yeah, I eventually got my Miata got my 99 a Miata five naff years ago still have it. I will have it probably till ideally till the day I die, Unknown Speaker 1:10:23 I believe in it. Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:26 But hopefully till till till the bitter end I will have that car and hopefully I'll be able to drive it until until the very end and love that car. And you know, I regret not getting it but I'm I'm also glad I got the Mustang back then. Yeah, but what I regret is getting rid of the Mustang at the time when I did because I needed the money for a down payment on the new car. So I still wish I had that Mustang today. I'd love to still even though it's nowhere near as fast as contemporary Mustangs. Yeah, it was so much fun to drive. Because I've driven it in the stampede. I could have driven it in the stampede. Absolutely. Nicole Wakelin 1:11:06 And because it's not about it's not about that. No, it was fast then. And now it's not. It's like yeah, it was fast then. And it was all these things were just so darn fun. It can be slow now. Still just Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:17 it has no ABS Nicole Wakelin 1:11:18 and no traction control. None of the things you want a car to have. Didn't have. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:21 Yeah, yeah, had air conditioning and power windows. And that was about it. So I had Nicole Wakelin 1:11:27 a six disc CD changer in the trunk Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:29 of my vehicle. I also put one in the Mustang, did you? Because I had a Pioneer 60s. changer in my apartment. Yes. I'm going to go ahead and get the they have the one that goes in the trunk. I got one of those and put it in the trunk of the Mustang SIR for that. Nicole Wakelin 1:11:45 So when I wanted to change the CD out of the trunk, Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:48 you had six CDs and Unknown Speaker 1:11:51 music to listen to and your Beatle had flower face. Nicole Wakelin 1:11:57 I had a flower vase that I would have caved Yeah, I was that dork I change out the flowers. So like it couldn't have been like a silk flower. Unknown Speaker 1:12:05 You can't get seasonal dyes Nicole Wakelin 1:12:06 and cheese seconds because like the heat or the cold it's done. But you could put a season like a spring flower and it was a nursery yellow. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:13 Lots of beetles with the people put flowers to have a garden. Nicole Wakelin 1:12:19 Give it a real flower is not going to survive every Unknown Speaker 1:12:21 day. You put a new real flower in, and then you watch it die. And then Nicole Wakelin 1:12:26 you go to work. You have a nice little fresh fire you come out of work death Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:30 that you feel sometimes Nicole Wakelin 1:12:33 be accurate. You feel when you come out of the office sometimes thrown on the ground. Don't forget soft drinks gone. The store fresh every day. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:44 All right. Well, Jordan, thank you so much for joining. Thank you very much. This was great fun. Unknown Speaker 1:12:49 Thank you for having me. We'll have to do it again sometime on the next Grand wagoneer drive. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:54 Hopefully sooner than that finally Unknown Speaker 1:12:55 something else. Yeah. Great. Thanks for having me. All right. Bye, Unknown Speaker 1:12:58 everyone. Bye bye bye.