Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 Coming up on episode 266 wheel bearings who got the BMW i for II drive 40 and the M 50. As well as the Genesis gV 60, the Subaru BRC the new super Ford superduty for Honda's prologue as shown off the Hummer EV fails for a friend, and Volvo e x 90. All that and more coming up next. This is episode 266 of wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights. Nicole Wakelin 0:32 I am Nicole Wakelin from the Fast Women podcast. Roberto Baldwin 0:35 I am Roberta Baldwin from let's say TechCrunch Sam Abuelsamid 0:41 let's start with Nicole this time. Nicole Wakelin 0:44 Okay, I have two vehicles to talk about this a little Sam Abuelsamid 0:47 while because Robbie and I have basically the same vehicle the same Nicole Wakelin 0:51 vehicle so I'll add the variety to the show today. Should I start with super cool fancy Eevee or super fun tiny little sports car? Roberto Baldwin 1:03 Goes Evie first then sports car because then we have EVs. Nicole Wakelin 1:06 Okay. papers around. So what I have in my driveway this very moment is the 2023 Genesis gV 60 performance, which is Sam Abuelsamid 1:19 awesome. It's got the boost button. Nicole Wakelin 1:22 The fan button. Yeah, it's yeah, it has the boost button. So the first thing is you can't get this most of the country it is literally available in eight states. Arizona, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Nevada, Utah, Washington, was that eight. That's it. That's where it's available, you get eight states. So I can't even get this here. The closest I could get this to New Hampshire, I guess would be Connecticut. So I'm driving a unicorn. It doesn't exist in my state. But I genuinely love this. It is not a cheap car. The base trim the standard one is 59,290. The performance version that I have, which has more horsepower and a greater range has got 429 horsepower in tune. 35 miles of range is $68,290. It's not cheap. Let's do our beds. Destination. Gentlemen, how much Unknown Speaker 2:13 Oh, 1295. Roberto Baldwin 2:16 I love 100 Nicole Wakelin 2:18 Oh, you both fail. You both went over this time. Oh, Robbie, we're really close. It was 1095 that's on stage. So 1095 for destination. So it's but the thing is, this is first movie and you know EVs generally run more expensive than you know the gas versions of the cars that exist, although this is just an electric. And it's a luxury car. And it feels like one in every sense of the word like it looks. It's beautifully styled. It looks a little different has really aggressive looking wheels. They're very angular. And just when you see it all it's like these let me say the lightning bolts. I love how the wheels look on this thing. PPU Yeah, I love how this looks. So it has great styling. It looks really really good. Unbelievably comfortable car to ride in. I'm hobbyist six 3d And I had him sitting there I'm like, Are you comfy in it? Because he has all those you know those points where Robert you're tall your knees hit the console or hit the door or whatever. And suddenly, what's great for everybody else is not comfy for tall people. He loved this. I love this. It is so much fun to drive and little boost button. That's pretty cool. Little extra like boom, a little extra juice. And you just why oh, the thing is you don't need the boost button like it is so it has that Eevee acceleration. So you just you just go Yeah, forget Roberto Baldwin 3:42 it's there. That's what I like, oh, yeah, that's, that's the thing. Nicole Wakelin 3:45 Like I tried it because I'm like, oh, I should push this. And I'm like, I don't need that. One of the most fun parts of driving this though. My husband has been in an Eevee before and he drove a Tesla years ago. So he knows what it feels like to have an Eevee accelerate and what they're like, my daughter has never been an Eevee. She has been in plug in hybrids, but never just straight up electric vehicle. So when we went to get on the highway, I just absolutely mash the accelerator and her reaction was fantastic. It's like wow, she's like, Oh, I wanted these now. Like suddenly she's all in on evey lifestyle. Roberto Baldwin 4:19 That's how it happens. Yep. Nicole Wakelin 4:22 So I like this. I am sad that it is such limited availability. And I don't know when Genesis plans to expand it because like every Evie right now is stupid, limited availability. But because this is their top trim, it comes with all the fancy that you would expect, has all the safety features, you know, there's power front seats and their bolster. There's even heated rear seats, which you went out with friends last night. It's the first time in their lives. They ever saw that and they're like, why do you do that? And I'm like, Are you telling me you wouldn't want heated rear seats? He's like, No, I guess that yes, I would now I do. I didn't until I got in the car with you guys to go to dinner. Now we need to get a car with heated rear seats. You know? So it has all of the fancy, there's a 12.3 inch touchscreen display and it's sort of goes right into the instrument cluster. So it looks like one giant screen, but it's really to the kind of attached to it like are blended together. And this is neat. The have they call it these crystal sphere shifter. And it's this Sam Abuelsamid 5:21 thing that went when they first showed images of this thing back early this year. We were trying to figure it out. Because the images, some shots showed it one way some shots shuttered a different way. We couldn't figure out what how this thing worked. So have you seen it since I have Yeah, I saw that the mama spring rally. Nicole Wakelin 5:41 So what it is for everybody at home, he's like, what? So when you look on the center console, there is this? I don't know how big is it? It's maybe it's pretty big. Maybe like four inches? Yeah, I see. Four inches Roberto Baldwin 5:51 large diameter. It's larger than a cue ball. Sam Abuelsamid 5:53 Yeah. Size of a, like a base between a baseball and softball. Nicole Wakelin 5:57 Okay. Yeah, let's so between the baseball and softball and it sits there. And when you get in the car, it is literally just a crystal sphere. And if you mess up the ambient lighting, it glows whatever color you picked. Currently, mine is glowing pink, because that's my daughter picked. So it's just like glowing pink sphere on the center console. As soon as you turn the car on it, it rotates back like it's almost like as if it was things like a lid, it just goes flip and it flips, you're looking at the bottom side of your crystal sphere. And on the bottom side, it's the gearshift. So it has a dial with little little like indents for your finger. So you can select the gears. As soon as you put it back. Put it in park, it stays there. But as soon as you turn the engine off, it goes back to being your crystal sphere shifter. Sam Abuelsamid 6:38 Yeah, Jared from Genesis explained to me that the reason they did that is so that it's immediately clear to you when you get get in the car if it's if it's on or off. If if all you have is the sphere, can you know what's not turned on? Nicole Wakelin 6:52 Right, right. And actually, you know, so first you're thinking this is this is kind of why and then I thought about it. And that's why I didn't Tatius Yeah, like this is this weird. Like I need a little crystal orb that spins around on my console. And then when I realized that it was like the on off is what makes it flip from, you know, gearshift to fancy sphere like oh, that's actually really cool because you do have those moments when you're driving something an Eevee and have a plug in hybrid. You think Wait, I just saw it off when I when I get out of the car, right? So you can literally just glance inside crystal sphere. You're good gearshift? No, you didn't. So it's like a little over the top and a little crazy. It kind of works for this being luxury car and it does actually remind you like hey, do you first turn off the car? Roberto Baldwin 7:34 Turn off the car do this. Nicole Wakelin 7:35 So I like this like I genuinely will be sad when they take this away from me on Monday because I'm thoroughly enjoying driving this Sam Abuelsamid 7:45 and and the powertrain that's in this one is the same as what's in the Kia Evie six GT. So it'll be it'll be fast. And I'll be I'm looking forward to actually driving the Eevee six GT because I really liked the Eevee six. And, you know, with with this look that extra power in there. I think that's gonna be a lot of fun. Nicole Wakelin 8:08 Yeah, and it's a pretty big power Jim, just for I don't know, if I said the numbers in the standard range, the standard, gV 60. So it's 429 horsepower and the performance, it's 314 in the standard, so it's not a small jump, it's a big jump. You know, it's, I would get the performance. It's like a lot more money. But if I'm going to spend 50 $60,000 on a car, what's an extra eight grand? Sam Abuelsamid 8:34 So if you're going to spend 70 grand, would you take the GV 60 performance or model live performance? Nicole Wakelin 8:43 Oh, I just had just literally asked my husband this question. I literally asked him that we were driving home from our dinner tonight. I I will it's hard because I like this because I like how the interior looks like in the interior. This feels like a luxury card but the leathers the accents Roberto Baldwin 9:01 and a reminder that's where you live Nicole Wakelin 9:04 so you're so all of this like it feels like luxury. Not that the Tesla doesn't feel like luxury but it's very it's not fancy like it's this very I don't want to say it's Swedish because it's not Swedish. But you know how like Volvo's are always very nice minimalist, minimalist. Thank you there it doesn't feel premium No, no, it definitely doesn't feel this. This Genesis it feels like a premium vehicle in every way. The Tesla it doesn't feel like cheap and junky but it definitely doesn't feel as premium as the Genesis so if you want a real premium experience go with Genesis, if you want to just like go with a Tesla, but I think the Genesis holds more fuel. My husband said the reverse. And the reason he said that was because he just likes the aesthetic of the Tesla and he so he will go with the Tesla. Okay. Roberto Baldwin 9:54 I like having I like having a dash cluster though. Yes. And radar and ultrasonic Like sensors, yeah, just things. Those things Sam Abuelsamid 10:03 that you can't get on a Tesla anymore. Nicole Wakelin 10:04 Those things those like Rando whatever things so so that was my that's the car I have in the driveway right now and I love love, love, love love it I'm gonna cry when they take it away from cars I'm happy when they take away is the Genesis what's what's the range? The range is the standard is 240 miles the performance is 235. Okay, so I mean not this like outstanding crazy range, but again, 235 that's gonna get you through almost half and you drive more than 235 miles in a day. Probably not unless you're on a road trip. And then I don't think he should have taken an Eevee these days because charging is just too long. Last week. Roberto Baldwin 10:42 I did last week too. Nicole Wakelin 10:43 I know. But I have really bad luck the few times I've driven a long way I haven't been able to find chargers they are full, or they're broken. And i i cranky and like, fine. So I'm not cranky, I got cranky. Sam Abuelsamid 11:00 You don't want cranky, Nicole. Nicole Wakelin 11:01 No, you don't trust me. Those of you who went Sam Abuelsamid 11:05 out on a road trip anyway, on the road trip Nicole Wakelin 11:07 not anytime, but especially not on the road trip. So the other car that I had was the all new 2022 Subaru Brisbane VRC reverse errs, which is so different than the GV 60. Like, nothing is totally different customer is totally different everything. So this is a small, fun, sporty car that barely seats two people. My husband was not happy with his pretzel status when he tried to get into the seat of Roberto Baldwin 11:41 we didn't try to do more yoga, Nicole Wakelin 11:42 I guess. And we couldn't take you someplace because literally there I mean, there is technically seating in the back my daughter's like, no, Sam Abuelsamid 11:50 yeah, there, there are seatbelts. And then there's upholstery. There are not things that could actually be used as seats, Nicole Wakelin 11:57 right. So there's Make no mistake, this is this is a two person vehicle with a really large cargo area behind you for your person, your groceries, and whatever else you want to throw it back there. So completely different vehicle 2.4 liter four cylinder engine, 222 horsepower, 184 pound feet of torque. What I like about this is, you know, you're buying a performance car and there's sometimes there's this balance between like, we're gonna give you all this power, just gonna give you power, power, power, power power, but the handling and the suspension and the rest of the car doesn't live up to that. So you have this car with tons of performance. But it's not fun to drive because they get kind of unwieldy if you get the least bit aggressive with having some fun with that horsepower, not speeding, just like aggressive acceleration taking quarters is things the car should be able to do this handles really nicely. It's like it's a good balance between the performance and the handling and the precision that you want from something that sporty. It's beautiful inside it has like I love it when cars have this stuff like this one has. This is a limited and it has ultra suede with red stitching. And there's, you know, leather bolsters and there's the floor mats have red stitching on them too. And you've got aluminum pedal covers, so it has all the visual that you want to open the door and go yeah, my car's a sports car. Like it looks the part and it feels the part it was it was fun to drive. It is not the kind of car that you want to take on a road trip because I do think I think any sports car really, you drive it too far. Eventually the harshness of it can get to you because there's certain amount of harshness when you make a really good performance sporty car. Roberto Baldwin 13:35 I mean, it's not like you need your kidneys. Nicole Wakelin 13:37 Oh, I mean Sam Abuelsamid 13:41 dialysis machines for Nicole Wakelin 13:43 right for people who have sports cars and drive them too much, but it's a fun like it's just a fun car. And if you're driving, not hitting on road tripping and something like this, it was great. I really enjoyed it. It was it was a hoot to drive and considerably more affordable than our Genesis it is 30,004 95 Okay, go again, destination on this 109 95 Roberto Baldwin 14:06 I'm gonna say Oh, I'm gonna say 895 Nicole Wakelin 14:09 Robbie wins again. 960 Sam Abuelsamid 14:11 Oh, Nicole Wakelin 14:13 you're so close again. Alright, it's always it's always you're gonna let Roberto go first and bid under him. That's the trick. Sam Abuelsamid 14:21 And then I bid $1 And Roberto Baldwin 14:23 then you bid $1. Nicole Wakelin 14:26 So, so that so two very different vehicles, but I liked both of them for very different reasons. And the person who'd be buying these would be entirely different. I think it was neat. Just because you think there's so many vehicles on the market and having these two back to back. You see how there's such different people these are foreign, each one does what it's supposed to do perfectly for the people that it's made for. Roberto Baldwin 14:48 I think Wait, hold on, I think this is for the same person. That person is me because I own a BRC and I really liked the EU GMP platform. So the BRC I drive for fun. That's my fun we to drive a car, we have fun driving around drifting car and then I have a nice Eevee for the rest of the time we have to do things and Nicole Wakelin 15:09 so that so basically what they were doing is like Genesis and Subaru teamed up when they were sending me it's like a match set. She can convince everybody Sam Abuelsamid 15:20 Yeah, did you Did did you have the automatic of the manual? Roberto Baldwin 15:23 I have the manual. Oh, that was close. Nicole Wakelin 15:26 It was very fun. Yeah, no, it was very, very fun. That Roberto Baldwin 15:29 would have been that would have been so disappointing. The automatic Nicole Wakelin 15:35 so yeah, so I had the manual, which was super fun. I love I mean, it gets so few manual transmissions anymore. You know, going away it's just like goodbye. Sam Abuelsamid 15:44 When we have just EVs that's that's all we'll have. No more manuals. Probably. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 15:49 they'll be gone. Yeah, limited runs for all of these regardless of the car. You Sam Abuelsamid 15:54 get them while you can Roberto Baldwin 15:56 stock up when no one's buying them anyway. I know no one's like, do they people are like, Oh, we got to go get all the manuals now. They're not buying them. You're only getting them and you're only gonna get them enthusiast cars going forward that like this and the Miata Nicole Wakelin 16:11 enthusiast cars like enthusiast like increasingly this is don't know how to drive these things. You know, there's more and more people that like really enjoy cars. Like I don't drive manual you know. Sam Abuelsamid 16:23 They only know how to use paddles. Yeah, how Nicole Wakelin 16:26 do shifters which is totally different. Although I had someone tried to argue well I can drive the you know I drive with the paddle shifters is the same I'm like no, it's not Sam Abuelsamid 16:35 it's all about using three pedals with two feet Nicole Wakelin 16:38 exactly if you're if you don't have to have do the move the gear shift around with one hand and then move your feet around with the other you're not doing it now doesn't count Roberto Baldwin 16:46 you know what if you like paddle shifters over manage it's fine Nicole Wakelin 16:48 yeah, if that's what you'd like, no judgment. I Roberto Baldwin 16:51 don't care. Your car you Nicole Wakelin 16:54 like if you like man your car if you like paddle shifters if you like an automatic have added it's your car, it's your money, buy the thing that sparks joy. Roberto Baldwin 17:02 But don't but don't complain about how there are no automatics or make fun of people who don't who can't or don't complain about there are no more manuals and don't complain about people who who do. Who can drive a manual if you haven't taught someone how to drive a manual RB you don't own a manual. You don't get the you don't get to make fun of people who don't drive manuals if you don't have a manual. Nicole Wakelin 17:22 I've taught my several my my daughters can't. But my because they just wrote one is like No, the other one tried and we stole the Subaru 890,000 times and you know, she tried it in a parking lot of high school. But I've taught several of their friends who are like I gotta save money and gotta buy a car with a manual transmission or the car that was my handy down hammer down is gonna be mania. Can you teach me Mrs. Wakelin? I'm like, yes. Roberto Baldwin 17:46 Do you think it was easier because they weren't your kid because I think there's there's it's a bit more difficult. Art when the people are related, I think there's a there's less, there's people are less likely to listen to, like a family member or they would listen to like a stranger or someone that you want to know. Nicole Wakelin 18:02 I think I think that the kids that I taught that, that were friends of my kids were like in that though, like, I must learn this, like this is either the car I'm getting Okay, or the car that's being handed down to me. And I have to learn to drive this out of luck. Whereas with my rose, my older daughter is just like, No, thank you. And my younger daughter tried, but there was no sense of like, if I don't learn this I can't dry. So I think she she genuinely tried. I think she could have gotten it. But we'd have to like, own a manual have or drive it a lot for her to kind of you should Roberto Baldwin 18:32 have had. You shouldn't be like this is your car. And it's a manual. Nicole Wakelin 18:35 Exactly. Sam Abuelsamid 18:36 This really Yeah, the older kid. She learned to drive a manual. She didn't she didn't get a car with a manual transmission, but she knew how to drive a manual. And then when she got a job where she needed to drive cars with manuals. You know, she I gave her a refresher lesson. And then she was all good after that. And she's she's fine with it now. The younger one after one lesson. Nope. I'm done. No more. Yeah, totally fine. But to what you said, Robbie, I think, you know, especially with parents and kids, you know, I think especially, you know, when they're at that age, when they're learning to drive, I think they they are even more rebellious than usual. And Roberto Baldwin 19:16 it's so much going on in your brain. Sam Abuelsamid 19:19 It's a very, very stressful situation. Roberto Baldwin 19:22 It's hard, is really hard. Yeah, my my I taught my wife how to drive a manual in San Francisco and her dad had tried to teach her when she was a teenager. And it just, it just, it didn't work. And I taught her and because the car we had was a manual. And she's like, and so I taught her and you know, a few days we drove around like one part of the city where it's flat Earth flat, and she just learned and now she drives you know, she drove a manual up until we got to Kona. And so I think the difference is my parents didn't have to teach me I used to. I grew up riding motorcycles. So in my stupid idiot teenager brain, I thought it was just genius because I could get into a manual car and drive Bit like years later, like, oh, it's essentially, it's not exactly the same could use your hand instead of your foot. But it's like the same every, like everything's pretty much the same, the fundamentals are the same. So I was just like, shift. Yeah. You don't Yeah, it was it was like, you know, after a few after a few tries are like, Oh, I got this and like, look at me, I'm so good. Like, not really. Sam Abuelsamid 20:22 But the two the two things you should get somebody else to teach to you kids driving a manual and algebra. Nicole Wakelin 20:32 Algebra. Sam Abuelsamid 20:33 Oh, boy. If driving a manual was tough, the the tears that were shed with trying to do algebra. And the kids were even worse. Roberto Baldwin 20:47 Can you imagine? Sam Abuelsamid 20:49 Oh, all right. Kids. What have you been driving and Robbie? Roberto Baldwin 20:56 So I was driving the 2022 BMW i four m 50. This is the first electric M vehicle from BMW. It is their i Four. It's their four Series Sedan. And they just sort of shoved in electric power. Sam Abuelsamid 21:10 Four Series Gran Coupe. Roberto Baldwin 21:12 Yeah, yeah. It's the Grand Coupe. It has a hatchback. That's where that's, that's all it really matters. It has rear seats, which is actually excellent. So you can open the rear door and you can like look at the seats and like, oh, man, if I had a toddler, I could put them in there. But they're there they are nicer than the the rear seats in the BRC, which are impossible to get in get out everything about the big rear seats. I put my dog in there once scarred him for life. In the back of the BRC? Yeah, because for some reason, I had to take him somewhere. And that's the only car I had at the time. Whoa, cats are attacking me. Yeah, yeah, I four and 50. This, I drove this car once before in Germany, and I really liked it then. And I've driven it. I did like a 500 mile road trip Saturday and Sunday with it. And I've been driving it, you know, a week before, a few days before that, the week since. And every day, I like this car a little bit more. It's it's I think BMW did a great job, both with the powertrain, you know, they're using a different electric motor than everyone else. Well, other than Nissan, they're not using magnets in their motors, not using permanent magnets. They're using, you know, electric 10 Sam Abuelsamid 22:31 ton AC induction motor, Roberto Baldwin 22:33 so that, so they're using that, but it drives so well. And it handles really well. And they do such a great job of sort of mitigating that half that extra 150 ish pounds of weight differential between this and the four series with an all wheel drive. You know, it's 800 pounds heavier. So, you know, you're having to deal with all that. But yeah, it is, it does such a great job. And we were shooting video with it yesterday. And the roads around my house are very twisty and fun, but they're also not very well maintained. I mean, they're not Detroit roads, but they're very like bumpy. And, you know, whereas if you go over to Moran, they're also twisty, but they're nice and smooth. And so on some with some vehicles, you know, I drive on these roads and you can feel them just sort of skipping around and bouncing around and this thing is just planted so well on those roads compared to some other cars that I've driven like Aston Martin like a vantage it did better than the Vantage on these roads. And so ya know, it's I really really like it it's super, you know, zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds. It's it's pretty great. Yeah, and I just talked to some I wouldn't got some tacos because taco so I went got some tacos today and I got out of the car I plugged it into a charger while I was there and these two gentlemen came up and they were talking to me about it and and they're like oh this is an electric car and I'm like yeah they're I call it a no BMW made one of these is electric and yeah it's it's nice because a it's it's it's not an SUV b It's a proper M and you know it has 227 miles of range but in my test I got 238 which I was really impressed with I did you know I did my long distance drive and you know a charge fine i It turns out there's more 350 kilowatt chargers away from my house the near my house and yeah, he's pull every charge I tie more Mexican food and then back in the car is what I did. Yeah, it's and and it's nice. He's thrown in comfort mode or ECO PRO. And it's just a nice comfortable BMW. It's comfortable. It's got that BMW luxury and now it's it's it's nice, but it's not overly nice where you feel weird eaten inside of it. You know, some cars are so nice. You'd like oh, I don't want to eat in here. Like this is like it's nice, but I could eat a burger. It's fine. Yeah, the vehicle I had let's see the starting price is wrong on the on the memory Hold on. The starting price now is 67 300. So it's not cheap for the but you but with that you get 536 horsepower, which is nice. So you got that going for you. But the one I got with the total retail price at $2,820 Wow, so so not not cheap, you know, they threw in, they had the High Performance Package with the 20 inch wheels, and then the heated steering wheel pack in the parking assist package and then the drivers assistance with the traffic jam assistance where if you do go in under 40 miles an hour you can go hands free while you're on a highway. So that's kind of nice. You know when you're cruising around I don't know if that's you know if you if you do a lot of gridlock driving, I mean, that's it's fine, I guess. But I don't think it's worth the 1700 to be honest. Yeah. But ya know, I really really liked this vehicle. Oh, you guys can check. Pika. Oh, Sam by property has the destination charge? Nicole Wakelin 26:15 He's cheating. I'm gonna go with a 13 $81 $1 Roberto Baldwin 26:25 it's a $995 Oh, and you get it now comes all the way from Munich, Germany. comes all the way from the other part of the world. Sam Abuelsamid 26:35 And totally. Genesis came from Korea. Roberto Baldwin 26:39 That's true. The Genesis does come all the way from Korea. What do you what's going on? Whatever they were Ford. Sam Abuelsamid 26:44 Still antas is still the worst. Oh, there's the land. They're charging two grand for delivery? Roberto Baldwin 26:49 Yeah, yeah. So um, you know, it's a 400 volt architecture. It's not, you know, next generation new class. It's your, but they're they've they've maxed it out. So it charges at 200 kilowatts. So that's nice when you're doing long distance drives. Like Sam and I were with the vehicle and yeah, no, it's I don't know. You guys got any questions? Nicole Wakelin 27:12 No, I've never I never tried BMWs like they just, Roberto Baldwin 27:17 well, you can live vicariously through Sam. I Nicole Wakelin 27:18 know. You both have one. I'm like, dang it. I feel really cheated. You know, I Roberto Baldwin 27:22 hadn't driven Genesis in a lot of time until I drove that gV 60. And then I was like, these are the best cars ever made. Nicole Wakelin 27:29 I should theoretically it's the I forget you drive. 40 is up for North American Car of the Year. So I'm hoping that I guess you gotta get in. You gotta get in there. Well, they do. We do a drive in Detroit in a week and a half. And so hopefully they have it. They're gonna get some time to drive it. They're Sam Abuelsamid 27:46 probably you'll probably get to drive the same one that I was driving. Roberto Baldwin 27:51 That seems like a good segue. Sam, what were you driving? Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 27:55 I also had an eye for but I had the case, II drive 40, as Nicole mentioned, which is which only has one motor on the rear axle? No, no front loader on this one. So it is a meter 335 horsepower, which is still quite quite more than adequate. And 317 foot pounds of torque. The one I had had the M Sport package. And which is? Yeah, that is a few $1,000. Roberto Baldwin 28:30 Hey, you got an M car? No, you don't Sam Abuelsamid 28:33 know, it's sort of kind of sort of looks like an M, but not Not really. But it had the 19 inch wheels on there. And so the EPA range rating for the drive 40 with the 19 inch wheels, is 282 miles. And I had to go to Chicago last week to be on a panel at the mama Chicago drives electric event. And from my home to the hotel in Chicago was 265 miles. So I could have made it on a charge. And in fact, it turns out I actually could have made it you know, the 282 miles, that is the combined city highway range. So normally, for you know, highway driving, it's going to be somewhat lower than that. So 70 I think, probably actually probably would have been closer to about 262 65. So would have been right on the edge. But it turns out that the the energy efficiency I was getting was actually quite a bit better than what is the rated efficiency for this thing. The rate of efficiency and fuel economy.gov is 34 kilowatt hours per 100 miles, which works out to about 2.95 miles per kilowatt hour. And I was averaging driving at highway speeds or driving with the flow of traffic on an end For, which might have been at highway speed, you know, it was some speed that was getting about 3.3 miles per kilowatt hour. So I was doing significantly better than the rated Roberto Baldwin 30:13 2.9 When I did my mileage run, yeah. Which was like, Well, I mean, it's not super efficient, but it's also an M car. Right? Sam Abuelsamid 30:21 Well, and you know, you've got extra weight, because you got the front motor, and you had the 20 inch wheels, which are even larger. The, the standard wheels on the E drive 40 are eighteens, I had the optional nineteen's, you had 20s on yours. And so every time you go up the size and wheels, you got more rotational inertia, more rolling resistance. So it's going to, it's going to be an efficiency hit. So I was actually pleasantly surprised at how how well it was doing on efficiency. I did end up making a stop about halfway, just because I needed to take a pit stop anyway. So I did a 10 minute stop on the way there. I did about a 15 minute stop on the way back to grab some dinner and did a quick charge while I was eating my five guys burger and Kalamazoo and get get there and back no problem at all. And when I was in Chicago, I went to a 350 kilowatt Evie GO station that was not far from my hotel, it was cranking along at about 157 kilowatts didn't get that's about as high as it got for me. But, you know, in the time it took me to walk, I don't know, couple of blocks from where the charger was to grab a burrito, and then come back or eat the burrito and come back, it was charged from 10 to 92%. So it was it was all good. And like you I really enjoyed this car, I liked the size of this car. I'm not quite as tall as you are Robbie. So with, with the seat with the driver's seat set for my 511 frame, I was able to sit reasonably comfortably in the back seat behind behind where I was sitting, Roberto Baldwin 32:09 we got to remember I'm all legs to my torso, right like it's about five inches tall. I'm all arms and legs. And I'm Sam Abuelsamid 32:16 the opposite I have a long torso and my legs are not quite as long. So for me, the back seat worked great. There was no no problem at all. And I love the fact that it's a hatchback because, you know, on these sort of sedan shaped, coupe shaped sedan shaped cars, you know, where it's basically a fastback. If it has a trunk, like say something like the model three where it's got a trunk lid, what you end up with is a very small opening to get stuff in there. And it's kind of annoying if you want to put anything large in there. So with the hatchback you've got this whole big area that opens up you can fold the back seats down, you can put lots of big stuff in there when you need to and you know still have room for a couple of adults you know to want to ride in there when you need to. So I was really pleasantly surprised with this thing. The Lane Keeping Assist work worked very, very nicely. And when I got into Chicago traffic where things were going much slower I was below 40 miles an hour I was able to use the the hands free Driver Assist plus feature so there's like an iPhone there's if you look at the instrument cluster display, there's a little notch in there where the infrared camera is that that keeps an eye on you to make sure you're watching the road and when anytime you're below 40 miles an hour on the highway you can engage drive assist plus and then just go hands free and just kind of cruise along and and stop and go traffic on on i 94 or engine around Chicago or 294 around Chicago or any of the Chicago highways which what it typically is like it's not a whole lot different from being on the one on one or the 405 Roberto Baldwin 34:09 Yeah, you just sort of like you stare at traffic that's your that's your job going so slow to me I'm like okay, this seems less of an issue to me, but I'm just sort of staring at traffic I'm like well this is kind of nice. I'm stuck in traffic but then I'm like, but then I ended just putting my hands on the wheel anyone can like put them there just sit in my lap. Sam Abuelsamid 34:30 So the the Eye for eye for E drive 40 starts at 54th out or $55,400 as equipped with the M Sport Package, which was 2400 bucks and an assortment of other options. The bottom line including the $995 delivery charge, came to $69,720 you you could probably afford Go things like the M Sport package and even the driver's assist pro package which is $1,700 for for that hands free capability. And you could you could get a pretty nicely equipped AI for, you know for in the $60,000 range and be pretty happy with it. So I, I really enjoyed this car and I would highly recommend it as something if you're looking for a premium, you know, smaller to mid size sedan style car, an actual car car not not a crossover, not an SUV, but a car. Yes, I really liked the size of this car. It's it's just the perfect size for me. Roberto Baldwin 35:46 Oh yeah. And you know, I can fit my talking about the trunk and the fact that the hatchback is I could put my guitar I put my guitar back there. I put my guitar amp I was going up to a to a show and there's so many was one of the parts of like one leg of the trip I did over the weekend. And I was just like, in my two backpacks, and like he just kept crap just kept cramming things. Sam Abuelsamid 36:06 If you're not playing in a rush cover band, you could probably even fit a drum kit in there. Roberto Baldwin 36:10 Oh yeah. If your dad's gonna get on that rush cover band. That's, you're gonna need to and I forced one just for roto toms. Sam Abuelsamid 36:19 Well, I think for a rush cover band, you need like a full size high roof. Transit or something like that. Yes. For the drums. Yes. For the drums. The drum kit Roberto Baldwin 36:28 that's for the drums. Sam Abuelsamid 36:32 All right, so that is two by fours, the BRC and the Genesis gV 60. And Nicole has magically appeared back again. Nicole Wakelin 36:42 I don't have my laptop's like I'm taking a break. Be right back. Like what just happened? Roberto Baldwin 36:47 You're just you were stuck on like, you had a weird face. And it froze on your weird face. And I was like, oh, Nicole Wakelin 36:52 yeah, everything rebooted. I was like, what what's happening Sam Abuelsamid 36:58 all right now Well, since we last all gathered together, Ford has released their next generation Super Duty pickups, which is probably their probably their most profitable vehicle in terms of profit margin in their in their lineup. And this is everything from the 250 F 250. On up to the F 600 are 650 or 700 They're all based on this base this basic architecture. Yeah, I mean, it still looks like a big Ford pickup truck. Which I superduty which is which you would expect a lot more more drill but it does have some neat features in it. Well, first of all, you know, they you know the WHO WAS IT Picasso first said you know great artists are good artists borrow Great artists steal. So you know, for for did some stealing from Chevy and GMC for this one. One of the things one of the features they added in here, the little sidestep cut out in the side of the bed ahead of the rear wheels and the steps in the rear bumper, which GM has had for quite a few years now and on their big pickup trucks but there's some and of course you know, they they brought all brought in all the new stuff from the latest f150 like the the work the or not the worksurface the cookie table. Thank you yay Roberto Baldwin 38:31 Greta it's a burrito table. It depends on what part of the country you're in. Sam Abuelsamid 38:36 But But um, but on the on the on the super duties. You don't have to have the full down shifter because the super duties have a column shifter so so you can just flip the thing, the the tip of the cookie table or burrito table over anytime you want all the time. You don't have to wait till you're in park. You get the full recline seats and all that other good stuff all all the nice nice little features in there yet pro power on board. But there's some some other neat tech features. Like one of the things they have is for towing when you're towing a big trailer, you can get a set of cameras that go on the sides and the back of the trailer. So you can get your full 360 bird's eye view that you normally get from the cameras on the vehicle, but also include the trailer in it so when you're maneuvering a trailer, you can get that 360 bird's eye view even with a 30 foot trailer hanging off the back of your truck. That's gonna save Roberto Baldwin 39:35 some scrapes and like a superhero. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 39:40 Also, you know if you're using if you're moving around with the tailgate down, normally that the the rear Roberto Baldwin 39:48 backup camera that cool picture of the ground Sam Abuelsamid 39:52 but on the Super Duty, they added an extra camera and extra ultrasonic sensors in the top edge of the tailgate. So If you have the tailgate down, so like if you're maneuvering to hook up a fifth wheel trailer, now you have a backup camera that's still facing in the direction it should be instead of that view of the driver. That's clever. Yeah. So see what other neat features to that. Oh, 5g, 5g modem in here for the first time, all Nicole Wakelin 40:20 the G's, all the all the G's you can get, we want all the G's, Sam Abuelsamid 40:24 the the iforce that we talked about, they already have 5g, but this will be the first forward with 5g. And also, there's a new engine in here, a new gas engine, they've ditched the old 6.2 liter V eight and introduced a new 6.8 liter V eight, which is basically a slightly slightly downsized version of the 7.3 that they launched a couple of years ago. So this is a push rod. Naturally aspirated V eight 385 horsepower 430 Oh, sorry. Now 385 horsepower was the old 6.2. The 7.3 makes 430. So they they haven't given us power numbers for the 6.8 yet, but it'll probably be somewhere in between there. So probably somewhere around 380 to 400 horsepower. And what else? See, oh, because a lot of these trucks, especially the bigger ones, the 450s and 550s are, they sell a lot of times they'll Samanas chassis cabs, they get bought by utilities and things like that to do to make turn them into bucket trucks and Crane Trucks. And so one of the things that they've incorporated in here as part of their, their KVM program, the qualified vehicle modifier program is when they, when they put this extra equipment on the back of the truck, they can now actually go into the sink for system that's in here. And there's that can program buttons on the touchscreen interface to control things like the bucket or the crane. Oh, that's Nicole Wakelin 42:10 neat. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 42:11 So they don't have to wire up separate switches for all this stuff. They can do it right from the screen. So there's, there's a developer program for that. So that's that's pretty cool. That is neat. Yeah. So you know, it's designed for the people who use these things to work people who are really working. Nicole Wakelin 42:32 The same goes people who really need a truck this big. Roberto Baldwin 42:35 I saw an F 250 dually platinum and we were behind it and I told my wife Mike I truck $150,000 Watch. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 42:45 yeah. You never know how to expend some trucks are until you know something about trucks like you just see like, yeah, pickup truck. 20 bucks. You're like, no, no, that guy right Roberto Baldwin 42:55 there. The Platinum 250 and the dually and the dually. At some big by the third semester it Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 43:03 Yeah, I remember having a platinum F 450 dually. Like 1011 years ago. That was almost $100,000 Wow. They've only gotten more expensive since that. So that's the Ford superduty. Speaking of big heavy trucks, yes. Are our friends at TfL Toronto. Roberto Baldwin 43:26 Speaking of duty Sam Abuelsamid 43:32 Roman mica the proprietor of TfL truck and friend of ours. He had a little adventure this week with a Hummer EV that they just bought. He did not not a good adventure either. Unknown Speaker 43:46 No and Nicole Wakelin 43:46 adventure. I think he preferred not have given an opportunity. Sam Abuelsamid 43:50 Yeah, this this was not about going out in the in the wilderness and, you know, driving sideways with the crab mode. Nicole Wakelin 43:58 Go into his fancy little ranch situation that he's created with all of his trails and rafting ground. No, no, Sam Abuelsamid 44:05 this was this was on the street in a left turn lane. And the Hummer said, Nope, I'm good. I'm done. I'm not going anywhere else. Nicole Wakelin 44:12 Have a nice day. Goodbye, Roman. Roberto Baldwin 44:16 Adios. So having to the moon. Sam Abuelsamid 44:20 So we'll, we'll have a link in the show notes to the YouTube video. But basically, what happened was a fault indicator came up on the instrument cluster and he said there was some kind of steering fall, you should pull over and get the truck service now. And so he he stopped in a left turn, left turn lane. He was in traffic and figured okay, well I'll just turn it off and cycle the ignition so to speak, and then turn it back on and see if the lamp if this falls off and Nicole Wakelin 44:53 on again has long been great advice for all sorts of technology. Exactly. Roberto Baldwin 44:58 So they works, Sam Abuelsamid 45:00 except you know that that works great if it will actually turn back on again. Not what happened this time. And when we were talking about the Lucid Air a few weeks ago when I want to talk about how the the infotainment system locked up on me. And in that case, I was able to turn it off and turn it back on again. But that didn't actually fix it at first. And there was a kind of a sequence I had to go through. Well, Rahman ended up calling his son and looking at trying to look up because the owner has no physical owner's manual and the truck. It's all digital, and it seems Nicole Wakelin 45:41 like you have tech issues, it's like but the answer is in the tech that won't work, guys, Roberto Baldwin 45:46 like how to restart your truck. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 45:50 so you know, Tommy found a bunch of different things to try and they tried all those things and none of that work. And so they were going to try to disconnect the 12 volt battery, except the 12 volt battery is in the front. And to open the front, you have to press a button on the touchscreen Roberto Baldwin 46:11 but more physical buttons. Nicole Wakelin 46:13 So like this sounds kind of funny now but I'm imagining the time for almost an Roberto Baldwin 46:19 hour to be honest. This is this is content for Roman though. Sam Abuelsamid 46:23 Oh absolutely. Sure. Yeah. Almost 400,000 views on the video Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 46:28 I mean yes, it's it's irritating at the same time. He's like, Oh, this is going to do so well. Nicole Wakelin 46:32 Gold, man. Yeah, go. Sam Abuelsamid 46:35 But it turns out that there is actually a manual release for the front lid. You have to reach way up underneath the left hand side of the dashboard. Way up there. There's a little loop little wire loop that you grab and pull. How did they find this out? They found it online. It's doing it's doing a Google search. So up under the dashboard there they found found the loop give it a Yank got the hood open disconnected the battery, let it sit for a minute hooked it back up again. And then it started up but it still wouldn't the shifter was still locked. And then they they had the came up instructions came up on the on the instrument cluster what to do next and said Okay, open and then close the driver's side window. Okay, now open and close the passenger side window. Now the left rear window now the right rear window now hold that press the brake pedal for 20 seconds and actually had to do this twice before it would finally unlocked the transmission. Nicole Wakelin 47:38 The combination of foot right foot Sam Abuelsamid 47:41 because by that time a flatbed had arrived to tow them back to the dealer except that it was stuck in park so they couldn't even roll it Roberto Baldwin 47:50 just drink Nicole Wakelin 47:52 in this truck oh my god Roberto Baldwin 47:56 flatbed just flips over on top of it Nicole Wakelin 47:58 is it such a bizarro comment Roberto Baldwin 48:01 on so you don't accidentally do it like I got a McLaren once with the air brake was malfunctioning and to like if the air if I if the car through an air brake malfunction I had like stop the car open and close the door and it has those golf you know those Nicole Wakelin 48:16 those are the gullwing doors Roberto Baldwin 48:19 open the door close the door push a button turn a thing call my mom sing a song it's all in the olden days when you're when you're augment transmission with lock when it when it gets stuck. There's just a little slit and you just shoved the key or something in there screwdriver in there and yeah, now you gotta know you gotta do the Contra the you know the Contra extra lives code like God, the Konami code Konami code down left right select Start select Start. Aba ABA be started. Nicole Wakelin 48:56 Yeah, good Konami Code restart my car. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 48:59 So this is the downside of software defined vehicles when you put everything into software instead of having physical buttons and switches for for some of the basic stuff and manual and a paper manual Yes, this is how this is where you end up so they finally once they got the transmission unlocked, the truck would actually move on and so on so they were actually able to you know, they didn't actually have to put it on the flatbed they were able to drive it although once they got it going, they just put it in drive and then did not put it in park or neutral reverse again at that point you didn't want to risk it. Just get into keeping going till we get Roberto Baldwin 49:38 to the deal hard. Yeah, we've all driven a car like that though. But they weren't they weren't brand brand new. We've all had the hand me down have a hand me down have a hand me down where something goes wrong, like okay, just got to do this one thing. Don't Don't Don't do it. Nicole Wakelin 49:54 Okay, please go five more miles. Please go. Roberto Baldwin 49:57 There's a lot of praying. There's a lot I had a friend who had rigged it like the wire the the Excel is what he told me is that the accelerator cable in his bug had snapped from so in order to I don't know how he did it or why he did it. He had to get the accelerator and use his hand. He had rented like a rope to the cable. I was trying to get home and like we lived in, we lived in the mountains. So he had to go up the mountain to get home. It was like pulling on the accelerator to get it to go while driving with you know, like oh Nicole Wakelin 50:33 times yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 50:34 Alright, so if you if you're planning to get a Hummer, EV you might want to watch this video beforehand, so you know how to get it out of park when I sign Nicole Wakelin 50:43 up for a few quick tips. Sam Abuelsamid 50:47 All right. Continuing with the GM ultium platform, Evie theme, Honda released first images of its upcoming Prolog this week, and the prologue is the crossover, the electric crossover that's coming in 2024 that Honda designed the body for and GM is building based on it's the same Altium platform that's going to be under the probably the bullet is probably based on the same stuff as the blazer and the equinox and then in all likelihood it'll probably be built in Ramos alongside then Mexico alongside the blazer and Equinox. No know no specs on it yet other than we know that it is a little bit bigger than the CRV you know, so you know, kind of smaller than a pilot, you know, or passport bigger than a CRV and it's battery electric. One interesting thing about this, since it's not coming till 2024 One of the things that Honda has said is, you know, for the with the new crv that's just launching now, they're planning to have about 50% of the CRV as they build this time are going to be hybrids. And they're gonna offer a special, shorter term two year lease deal for CRV hybrid buyers that want to then be able to transition to the prologue when it comes out in two years. That's clever. Yeah. So. So if you're, if you're looking forward to a prologue, you can buy a you can lease a CRV hybrid right now for two years, and then trade it in on a prologue when it finally arrives. Roberto Baldwin 52:33 That's kind of a cool idea. It's it's kind of cool. It's like, Oh, that's pretty cool. You know, what's, what's interesting about the prologue is I think that it looks very much like the Honda II, not the ihana, which is a character from Street Fighter, the the front end like it resembles the Honda you can see sort of the same basic design features when I pointed and they talked about it, but the concept didn't look as much like the Honda II. And when I pointed that out to Honda during the briefing, they're like nah, so I feel like maybe Am I the only person who sees that who sees like it looks more like the Honda II than the than the concept did. Or am I drunk? Sam Abuelsamid 53:10 Even rendering that they released a few months ago? Yeah, yeah, the rendering. I mean, it does have this black plastic grille but you know, the Honda ease got round headlights? Really? Yeah, but it's Roberto Baldwin 53:21 but it still has that the front end without obviously without the right round headlights. Does sort of harken back to to that design language. Sam Abuelsamid 53:30 There's a little of that. Fine, fine. I'm just here Robbie. Roberto Baldwin 53:39 I actually liked the way this I think this is the best looking Honda. I like SUV that the best looking Honda SUV out there. But Sam Abuelsamid 53:46 yeah, I mean, it's got nice proportions to it. Yeah. It actually in profile. It kind of reminds me of the Volvo XC 60 Roberto Baldwin 53:54 It does look like a like a Volvo. Especially. So they showed us the white picture. Yeah, she's like, Hey, you like a Volvo Sam Abuelsamid 54:02 and the Honda badge on the tail on the tailgate I think is like the it's that's the same kind of script they have on the ear. Nicole Wakelin 54:09 Yeah, I noticed that. That looks kind of cool. I like Roberto Baldwin 54:12 Honda instead of the logo. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 54:15 It's kind of the kind of more horizontally along Yeah, letters out a little bit stretch. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 54:21 I'm very this this makes me feel really good about what Honda is going to do with our E architecture. Because clearly they've like, okay, you know what people want the Honda II we're not gonna give it to him in this country. But let's look you know what, let's let's let's let's be real about this. And I think they've they've, you know, in the last couple of like, last year or so they were like, Okay, this is what we're gonna do. And so I think they're Yeah, we'll see you know, the I know the long term plan is the hype. Honda is going to be a hybrid company essentially. And Acura is going to be their Evie it's going to be like, you know, the Evie company. And so Honda's Acura OBE before Honda is but At the front of looks at this, and I know it's on the LTM platform which, except for that Hummer seems like a good summer I think it's, I don't know I dig it. I think I'm as as a person who used to own a series of Honda's. I'm happy that Honda is doing this. And I'm glad that they work in with GM just to have something out before they have their E architecture. So at least people will look at Honda and be like, okay, cool. They think about the future. Nicole Wakelin 55:28 There's an option therefore we're thinking they're going to electrification just Roberto Baldwin 55:32 stuck. Yeah. And then that two year that two year lease thing? That's pretty dope. Sam Abuelsamid 55:36 Yeah. No, that's that. Yeah. That is a good idea. I think can tide people keep people in the Honda family for now? Until they have something to offer them? That's a full battery electric. Roberto Baldwin 55:46 Yeah, yeah, I think they're Pete Honda people are they're like Subaru people. They just continue to buy Honda's and after Honda after Honda. There's like people in my neighborhood. All they have is Honda's. They have no Honda's from like the 90s. They had like four Honda's and one of them a CR X is a 92. Car x all the way up to like they have a fit. They have an accord. Nicole Wakelin 56:10 The entire Honda history in there. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 56:13 they got they got all the hundreds. And I'm feeling like if they're going to go, Evie, they probably been waiting for this. Sam Abuelsamid 56:18 Yep. All right. Last one, the Volvo e x 90, which, since we recorded previously, is there's been analysis the name, and Volvo is in the process of slowly trickling up a bunch of details. And we'll probably see something every week or every few days between now and November 9, when they finally show us the full production version of the E x 90. So this is the the all electric replacement for the XC 90, you know, and we got the preview of the design direction last year with the recharge concept, you know, which looks more like a lifted wagon than the traditional SUV. But that's fine. But there's some some interesting tech in this one, especially the interior. But as they said, last year, I think, you know, they're gonna have standard LIDAR on here as part of the driver assistance suite. And they'll have hands free driving capability. But I think what's what's actually more interesting, what they told us so far is some of the interior stuff. Plus also, it's the x 90 is going to have bidirectional charging capability. So like the the F 150 Lightning, the VW ID buzz, and then an increasing number of other new EVs, you'll have the ability to, to run your house off the battery, and this Eevee if if you need to, but the interior stuff, they're gonna have the infrared driver monitor system, like you've got in GM and Ford and assorted other vehicles. And, but they're using, they're actually using two cameras, that one's looking straight at you the other ones at an angle looking at you. And they're doing more than just trying to detect if you're watching the road, you know, so they're, they're looking for what they call visual distraction, which is you looking away from the road looking down at your phone or looking at the screen or looking at somebody else in the car. But they're also looking to see if you might be drowsy if you might be impaired. Or if you actually have what they're calling cognitive distraction, which is you are looking at the road. But and I'm sure you know, I know I have everybody's probably been in the situation at some point, when you're doing a long drive. You're staring down the highway, and your your eyes are pointing at the road, but you're not really paying attention. Roberto Baldwin 58:59 Like you wake up 45 minutes later, and you're like, Wait, how did I do that last 45 minutes? Sam Abuelsamid 59:03 Exactly. Yes. And, you know, I'm trying to get an interview with with somebody from Volvo to learn more about this. So hopefully we will sometime between now and November 9 when they show off the effects 90 will have that get that interview included in the show. But you know, the the sounds like they're doing some clever stuff to try and detect, you know, these other situations where that might be safety issues when you're when you should be driving. And then the other thing that they're doing in E X 90 is they're gonna have a bunch of interior radar sensors. They've got these little tiny radar sensors or like five millimeter square radar chips. So that's, you know, but a little less than a quarter inch square. And they'll have up to seven of them in the E X 90 for the different seating positions in there that can detect up to one millimeter of movement. So know, if you leave a kid or a pet in the backseat of the car and detects the rising and falling in the chest to check the breathing. And you try and you get out, you try to lock the door, it won't lock the door, it won't let the door lock and it'll give you an alert, saying, hey, you know, check the backseat. Roberto Baldwin 1:00:19 Yeah, I would like to if automakers did more, I like to Tesla's dog mode, where the car just stays on and has the air conditioning on. And right Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:28 and what was talked about, that's something that they can engage automatically, you know, if you do walk away, and you leave somebody in the car, it can turn on the air conditioning automatically and keep the temperature under control in the cabin. So you know, obviously, you don't want to, especially with the kid, you don't want to leave the kid in the car like that. Roberto Baldwin 1:00:48 Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't say kid mode first. Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:53 Specifically calls it dog mode. Roberto Baldwin 1:00:55 Yeah, it's like, yeah, you leave your dog in the car, you have to run to the store real quick. But you have the air conditioning on and it says dog mode on the screen. Yeah. Because sometimes because like I'm like, I have to run to the store and like, oh, wait not to go all the way home because I'm not gonna leave my dog in the car. Because it's gonna get hot. And you'll be you know, there'll be uncomfortable and sad. Or they'll just be comfortable. And cool. But also probably sad because I'm in the store without them. Yeah. Nicole Wakelin 1:01:21 against the glass. Yeah, just like Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:25 you just gotta make sure you bring them back a treat. Roberto Baldwin 1:01:28 Yeah, I'm the treat to be honest. It's a cheat. I have returned. Oh, he's back. Okay, we're cool. Everything's cool now. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:36 All right. Let's answer some listener questions. The James McCandless, who last I checked, was writing for Newsweek. I think he works with with Eileen, Nicole Wakelin 1:01:47 I believe he's not anyway, he was he leaves it, but he's no longer with Newsweek and I'm not sure. Okay, right now, but yes, he worked with Eileen over at Newsweek for quite a while for about a year or so. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:56 All right. Well, anyway, James asks, Will any of y'all try to drive the micro Leno? Evie? In the future? Yes, or Yes. Roberto Baldwin 1:02:04 Yes. I just got to figure out Nicole Wakelin 1:02:06 where they were. Because we I was looking at the site and I'm Roberto Baldwin 1:02:09 like, what do you need to go to? I have to go to Europe, which, to be honest, I'm in Europe pretty often, to be fair. So normally driving other people's stuff. But here's the thing is if I stayed a few days, yeah, if I stayed like two days, and I reached out to the micro lino people, and I said, Hey, I, I'm gonna be here for two days. I need to drive your car. You know, I'll just get like a crappy hotel and sit in this. That's the joy. That's what we're going to figure out Nicole Wakelin 1:02:37 what you actually fit? I don't think you would. It has Roberto Baldwin 1:02:41 it says that space for two adults and three beer crates, which is a weird thing to say, Well, no. I mean, if it's in Germany, or someone's in Germany, yeah, that's true. Like, I've had to take my Nicole Wakelin 1:02:53 bubble cooker from Switzerland. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:56 So for those not familiar with the micro lino, this is a car whose design is inspired by the old 1950s BMW i set up, which was a little bubble car. You know, two seater. And the original, I said it was powered by a BMW boxer motorcycle engine in the back. And the unique thing about it is, it's one door, but the door is on the front, and it's hinged on the left hand side. So basically, the whole front surface of the car hinges, hinges out yet opens up. And then you step out the front of the car instead of out of the sides of the car. And this is basically a modern interpretation of that I set a design with a couple of pods on the side that looked like yeah, it looks like they could be Nicole Wakelin 1:03:45 you know, lasers, or or Sam Abuelsamid 1:03:47 thrusters, you know, from Star Wars. Nicole Wakelin 1:03:50 The missiles. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:03:52 Yeah. You know, it's a pretty cool looking little vehicle. It's electric, you know, nominally space for two, you know, whether that is, you know, to, you know, giant size adults or to, you know, modest size adults. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:10 It looks really tiny. Like, Roberto Baldwin 1:04:12 I don't think that Sam and I should get in the car. Like, I don't think that's a good idea. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:17 I think if the two of you got in it together, one of us one or Roberto Baldwin 1:04:21 n and Nicole got in the car. I think it'd be fine. But not, not not Sam. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:26 Is it supposed to seat just just to be in crates of beer so? Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:31 Well, the curb weight is just shy of 500 kilos, so about 1100 pounds. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:36 It's so tiny people superduty is gonna run over it. It's gonna be like boom, boom. What was that? I don't know. Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:43 Maximal maximum range of 230 kilometers. So that's about 130 130 miles. You know, now you know whether you could do 130 miles at its 55 mile an hour top speed? Probably not. Nicole Wakelin 1:04:58 Is this actually something you did? Hi right now. Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:02 I don't know. I mean, they've got a price listed 15,000 Swiss francs. Yeah. You know, I'm not sure how much that is in dollars, Nicole Wakelin 1:05:11 build it. So I'm lying in Italy, the zero Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:15 to 30 mile an hour acceleration in five seconds, which is actually not too bad. That's pretty reasonable for especially, I mean, this is going to be a city car, this is not something you're going to take on a long highway trip. You know, it's only a Roberto Baldwin 1:05:28 regular one or one to one to the dollar. So it's $15,000. Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:31 Okay, that's all it's only a six kilowatt hour battery, which is not much or you can get a 14 kilowatt hour battery. Charging time, so you're Nicole Wakelin 1:05:41 reserving it. Wait, you're I'm looking now I'm trying to find it for your deposit, you're steps away from securing securing a spot on the reservation list with a deposit of 500 euros. So you're just making a deposit at this point. So it is not available. And Sam Abuelsamid 1:05:57 it's I don't think they're actually in production right now. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 1:06:00 Store and events. Like last year, I would definitely like to try this out. No test drives. Desert stories like no other fantasy Dusseldorf. Nicole Wakelin 1:06:18 That's gonna be if you can find someplace where you can drive Roberto Baldwin 1:06:21 there. I'm trying to figure this out. Like I'm trying not to travel as much as I usually do. It's it's sort of working, but but it would work. Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:29 It would be worth it for this. Nicole Wakelin 1:06:30 Yeah. Someone's gonna micro Lena, Roberto Baldwin 1:06:33 the micro Lena. So hopefully soon. That's the answer. You know, I Nicole Wakelin 1:06:36 guess maker Lena, I Roberto Baldwin 1:06:37 currently know, maker lean, or any sort of was there? Was there something with BMW and the design? Or was that Nicole Wakelin 1:06:44 like for this? Yeah. I've never heard of this, like tonight's podcast, Roberto Baldwin 1:06:49 legality of it Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:50 wouldn't be. I wouldn't be surprised if BMW was, you know, did a cease and desist, you know, for design and design, patent infringement. Didn't BMW do something like this a few years ago? Maybe I I seem to recall, they did some some sort of like set a concept of, I don't know, like the last five years. Nicole Wakelin 1:07:12 Right. So possibly, they're never building this because BMW doesn't approve. But question. Sorry. All right. We're moving on from Robert has gotten down. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:31 Sorry. Chris Fernandez asks, Hi, gang. Still a great show. But I still miss yelling at Dan. Nicole is a fantastic ad. Roberto Baldwin 1:07:40 It's not Robbie. Robbie. So if you have anything to say, don't say anything at all. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it. Great, what about the other guy? Nicole's Great. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:56 started thinking about flying down to the LA Auto Show. But I noticed their website does not list Mercedes Benz, BMW or Audi. The VM VW is listed. Do you have any insight into this? Will you be at the show? Take care. So I know Audi has said that they're not doing auto shows anymore. They have not been at any of the auto shows for a couple of years now. BMW, I think is largely avoiding auto shows, you know, at least having a standard auto shows they usually do something roughly in conjunction with an auto show. Like in New York, they had a background briefing that I went to where we saw the new seven series on display there. But that was not at the show. And Mercedes has also been largely avoiding the shows as well. VW, I'm guessing will probably be there to show off the ID buzz. That's good. And maybe something else we'll see. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. Whether to go I'm registered for media days, but I will probably win. Or Yeah. Oh, yeah, World Car Nicole Wakelin 1:09:09 World Car is our World Car awards drive is just before it. So I'm gonna go out there for that anyway. So I'll just stay an extra two days in hit data show. That's my plan. Roberto Baldwin 1:09:19 I'm doing the World card drive. And then I'm coming home and then I'm flying to Germany. I'm flying away from me. Nicole Wakelin 1:09:26 Anyway, he's just not going to actually waiting. Roberto Baldwin 1:09:29 I just don't feel like there's a lot of I mean, for me, if you're a just a regular person, I'm gonna show they're great. You get to go you get a car that you probably wouldn't get to sit and you know, and that's what it is mostly. And no one's going to try to sell you the car. That's the nice thing. Like you can look at the cars and no one's gonna be like, hey, so how's it going? Like, ah, I just want to look at it. I'm just shopping. I'm just looking to like okay, well if you need anything, and then two minutes later, someone else Hey, how's it going? Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:55 Omit since you guys are both going to be there for rural car. Maybe I should just fly out so we can record a live show. First go record a Roberto Baldwin 1:10:01 live. I'll be there Sunday, and then I leave Sunday night. I'm real. I'm like in and out like, Sam Abuelsamid 1:10:08 okay. All right. Well, I don't know yet. I'll, I'll be seeing I'll see if if anybody wants to pay for me to go out there. But right now, maybe. All right, Seth Goldman asks, I'm noticing a disconnect between the things car manufacturers are doing with regard to marketing and the realities of current production availability. Yeah, struck me when I saw that there would be a limited edition heritage Bronco, I understand the logic behind this type of thing when you're trying to drive interest or excitement for a car. But right now, buyers would be happy to get their hands on just about any Bronco. Ford is struggling to produce. Why add the extra production planning burden on adding all these variants and the Bronco is just an example. We're seeing special editions and packages pop up all over the industry. And this is at a time when the any color you want as long as it's black concept would seem to make. Roberto Baldwin 1:11:04 He's not wrong. Yeah, he's not. He's not wrong. Every time I see a special edition, I'm like you haven't. There's people waiting for their car, like, Hey, you can get a maverick a U haul? Hold on, hold on. Nicole Wakelin 1:11:16 I just wonder if the like, Okay, we're gonna have this long cadence. We know we're gonna release for the next year and a half. And it's like, Okay, it's time to release that next special edition. Yeah, but we haven't finished. We have a cadence this is Roberto Baldwin 1:11:28 what it is. Yeah, that's what it is. Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:30 They plan this stuff years in advance. Nicole Wakelin 1:11:32 And they're just not rather than saying, forget it. We won't do it. They're like, well, we're gonna put it out and it's gonna take eight months to get one. Roberto Baldwin 1:11:39 Yeah, I think and I think people are just I think people have learned to just wait over the last few years are like, You know what, I really want this heritage edition. And I know I'm gonna have to wait. No, I'm gonna buy two and so one and buy three of Nicole Wakelin 1:11:54 everyone, everybody, everybody that's it doesn't even matter. The car like they're all everything is Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yep. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:04 Yeah, like, I do a segment every week on Leo Laporte, the tech guy radio show. And I had a listener in a chat room a couple of weeks ago, reach out to me, because he had ordered a maverick first edition, a year ago when Ford first announced the Maverick and they first showed it a year ago. And he got notification from Ford, that a couple you know, a week earlier, that truck was built. And it was, it was it had been shipped from the factory, and it would be ready for him for delivery at the dealer sometime between October 5 and October 11. So like, this week, next week, the following day, he got a call from the dealer. The dealer left him a voicemail saying, hey, you know, we're not going to be able to get your 22 model your truck. And because the color you ordered is one year only for the first edition, we're gonna have to get you 23. So you're gonna need to pick a different color. And this sounded fishy to me when I heard this. Yeah, oh, I got I got his information, I got him to send me a message with his information. And I passed it along to somebody at Ford, who then reached out to the regional sales manager in Maryland, where the dealer was, and the following day, this guy got a call from the dealer saying, oh, you know, it was all just a misunderstanding. You're trying to be here at 11. Because you know what happened? They got the job. And they're like, oh, I can sell it. We as soon as the dealer got notification that Trump has built and was on its way, they probably already agreed to sell it to somebody else for a big markup. Yeah. And so, you know, as soon as they had confirmation that was on its way from the factory, they called the guy and let them know that, you know, they had to cancel his order. And so fortunately, this guy's getting his truck should be getting it this week. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So Roberto Baldwin 1:14:01 then people wonder why no one likes and then dealers wonder why no one likes Nicole Wakelin 1:14:04 them. Right. They do stuff like that. And that generates so much lol. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:14:10 All right. Next up from Chris Pollard, and this is combination of commentary and correction on my part, says Hi, I just listened to Episode 264. This morning and I wanted to correct some wrong information on the Santa Cruz. I made a mistake, actually. I mean, he said they're made made in Korea, which is completely incorrect. There exclusively built in Hyundai's Alabama assembly plant for the US and Canada because this is the only market where they sell the Santa Cruz and I I should have known that. I don't know why I said they were built Korea Roberto Baldwin 1:14:43 because so much is built in Korea for well, Sam Abuelsamid 1:14:46 the well and the same but the Santa Cruz is based on the same platform as the Tucson which Tucson is built in Alabama. Oops. This is the main reason there's no hybrid. And this is where I think Chris is actually is actually incorrect a little bit. So the main reason there's no hybrid, all the Tucson hybrids are built in Korea. That's true that all the Tucson hybrids and plug in hybrids are built in Korea. But that's not the reason there's no hybrid. The I've talked to a product planner from Hyundai a couple months ago about this, I asked about this. And he said yeah, when when they were doing the configuration of the Santa Cruz, they didn't package protect for a battery. So that's why there's no hybrid version. So you know, at some point, maybe for a mid cycle refresh though, they'll potentially make some changes that will enable them to do a hybrid version, but right now they can't they can't build a hybrid version of it. And then Chris goes on. I don't recall hearing any mention of the different transmissions between the turbo and bass engines either base uses a torque converter eight speed the turbo gets an eight speed what dual clutch. So yeah, I was I was wrong on that as well. Totally agree about the capacitor controls on the limited though I'd rather have buttons and knobs, but the extra features are worth it. I don't know if I'd necessarily agree that the features are worth it. Oh, and yes, the Maverick is as expected outselling the Santa Cruz but they're both selling as fast as they can make them backordered like crazy and both are still seeing dealers adding five to $10,000 in markups, which is probably what that dealer in Maryland would have wanted. If he could have gotten away with it if not on time and intervened Roberto Baldwin 1:16:27 in a lot of Santa Cruz and Mavericks around Nicole Wakelin 1:16:30 like a lot of Mavericks I see so weird the love of Santa Cruz. I don't know if there's I live near Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:35 Mavericks in my neighborhood now. Are they really my next door neighbors got one neighbor around the corners. Got one. There's one a couple blocks down down one way and a couple blocks the other way. So Roberto Baldwin 1:16:46 I think they both hit a nerve with those caucus. trunking people are like, Oh, this is what I need. This is all I need. Yeah, I don't need all that other. Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:54 I don't. I don't need a Super Duty. A Maverick will do just fine. Yeah. Nicole Wakelin 1:17:00 I can take the trash to the dump at my Maverick who knew? Sam Abuelsamid 1:17:05 Yeah, I did that. I did that last year when I had a Maverick and I was trimming a tree. And I just loaded up all the branches in the back and took it to the township compost site and just dumped him out there. Roberto Baldwin 1:17:18 filled it with rocks. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:17:21 You can do that to towns of rocks. And you know, in the Santa Cruz I had 800 pounds of topsoil. So there you go. Roberto Baldwin 1:17:30 That's what happens to rocks after a while. Yes, eventually. Eventually, that's eventual rock. Sam Abuelsamid 1:17:37 If you let them erode your OS, yeah, a few million years it'll become topsoil. All right, last one. From Gupta Ajay. I've generally observed the vehicles in the Tucson escape CRV class. So that's the compact crossover or redesigned every four years. What does that mean for the redesign cycle for the Santa Cruz and the maverick? Roberto Baldwin 1:18:01 Hmm. I think I think the Mavericks the it's gonna be like a really slight redesign because that's what Ford has been doing and also like the way the maverick looks, set the Hyundai on the other hand. They're crazy when it comes to design. Who knows what Hyundai is gonna do? Yeah, I feel like you're gonna make the cyber truck they're gonna have the cyber truck out before the cyber guy like Nicole Wakelin 1:18:25 wouldn't be doing that legally did yeah. Magic Did you like T little thing like this headlight is now point two millimeters different. In my crew, the Hyundai is gonna like look at when we are built to space truck, this space truck but Sam Abuelsamid 1:18:42 but he is right about in general have high volume programs like like these are typically on a four, maybe five year product cycle for redesigns. And, you know, so, you know, but you're right, Robbie, you know, Hyundai tends to make radical changes from one generation to the next. So the next generation Tucson and what 2026 You know, will probably look completely different from the one we have today. Yeah, it'll probably be electric. You know, and maybe even you know, shaped like a doorstop. You know, Roberto Baldwin 1:19:19 like the coolest looking doorstop for some reason that's the weird thing. Like oh my gosh, look at that doorstop doorstep Sam Abuelsamid 1:19:27 THE MAVERICK will still look like a small pickup truck like Roberto Baldwin 1:19:30 yeah, tiny little tiny like like Nicole was saying tiny little three well we put point two millimeter adjustments. Sam Abuelsamid 1:19:37 We changed a little bit slightly recontour headlights. Nicole Wakelin 1:19:41 Yeah, that was the change inside the the weave of the fabric is point three millimeters smaller on the dashboard. Sam Abuelsamid 1:19:47 We molded it we might we molded a different texture onto those hard plastics in the interior. Nicole Wakelin 1:19:53 It was a tight checkerboard now it's a slightly more open checkerboard. I can't tell the difference but it's there. Trust me. Roberto Baldwin 1:19:59 It's there. yeah just look at look at the Mustang Sam Abuelsamid 1:20:02 yeah all right thank you everybody for the questions we appreciate it and we'll talk to you next time bye everyone