Sam Abuelsamid (00:01.171)
This is episode 410 of Wheel Bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

Nicole (00:07.051)
And I am Nicole Wakelin from AutoWeb.

Roberto Baldwin (00:10.158)
and I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:13.327)
And we'll see how this works out, see if there's actually a recording because we're using, trying something new this week, trying out Riverside for the first time. And we'll see if it works. Yeah.

Nicole (00:27.481)
Yeah, we'll see how this goes.

Roberto Baldwin (00:28.088)
Some one of my bands does a lot of shows in Riverside County. So that's it. That's all I got. That's all I got about Riverside. I know it seems fine. People seem nice.

Nicole (00:32.485)
That's I don't I don't think that's the same Robbie, but I could be wrong.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33.689)
there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:41.674)
Think I've been through I think I've been through Riverside once before maybe Yeah, uh-huh All right, let's let's carry on here Nicole what do you been driving?

Roberto Baldwin (00:41.976)
So we'll see.

Everything everyone's been through Riverside. No one hangs out in Riverside. I had a girlfriend from Riverside

Nicole (00:57.765)
Yes, I have been driving the 2025 Acura RDX SH AWD A-Spec Advanced. That's a lot of that's a lot of description for one car.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:11.237)
That is an increasingly common problem across the industry. Too much name.

Nicole (01:14.373)
Right? It's too much name and that's the official. So like if you think about so 2025 year model then SH all wheel drive A-spec is really like a package. So don't know why they do it that way. You know what I mean? Like it's not.

Roberto Baldwin (01:15.896)
too.

Roberto Baldwin (01:19.768)
Too much name.

Nicole (01:27.941)
Anyway, yeah, so I have like I actually have to flip both sides of the monorail need to read the entire name. It wraps around to the other side. Yeah, it's it's that much name. It's too much name. So for this year, it's like light refresh. It's not a major refresh this year. I guess the biggest thing is like the grill changed up a little bit and it looks it looks cool. This is not an inexpensive vehicle. Let's start right at the top. So the essay.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:32.405)
So the name wraps around the other side of the minority?

Sam Abuelsamid (01:54.675)
Is there such a thing anymore?

Nicole (01:56.033)
I know there's not, there's not really. maybe, so the base price on this is $44.7. The top trim, which is what I have, is $54.450. You guys wanna take a guess at destination?

Roberto Baldwin (01:58.243)
Maybe there will be, we'll see, with slight.

Roberto Baldwin (02:13.401)
1300.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:16.414)
I'm gonna say 14.

Nicole (02:18.756)
God, it's 1350. You both win. You both win here is smack in the middle. So 1350, not too crazy. So this one at the top line, mean, 54, 450, it's a lot of car, you, I mean, you, you get a lot of features for that. the basics, has a two liter turbo four cylinder with a 10 speed automatic, get 272 horsepower and 280 pound feet of torque. it's, it's

Roberto Baldwin (02:20.75)
We're both winners!

Sam Abuelsamid (02:21.419)
Alright.

Roberto Baldwin (02:24.982)
America.

Nicole (02:43.95)
plenty powerful, you know, it, drives really, it's, you're going to accelerate on the highway without issue. The only thing I found is there's drive modes and the drive modes. When you put this one in, like a sport drive mode, it, it isn't pretty in its loudness. It's obnoxious. Like it just sounds, it makes it sound like, know, when like your transmission isn't shifting right or something, or you, or you should have shifted and you haven't on a manual and it gets a little bit into that annoying, like it, it.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:10.133)
grinding.

Nicole (03:11.008)
Yeah, it gets into a little into the annoying. like, I don't like that. And I flipped it back down. this is two rows, very comfortable, plenty of room for everybody. has sort of very, very sporty front seat. So they, they hug a little. So if you don't like that hug, if you like a flatter seat back, you're probably going to find these hug a little too much, which

Roberto Baldwin (03:11.074)
Yeah.

Nicole (03:30.146)
I mean, it's something you can get used to, but if you have a very wide frame, especially if you're heavier person, you're going to find these are a little too snug, think. But it is, you know, there's a good amount of room in it. There's 29.5 cubic feet behind the second row, 46 if you fold down the second row. So it's got a good amount of cargo room. For infotainment, a 10.2 inch center display screen, which is cool. There's a 10.5 inch head up display. Also cool.

Roberto Baldwin (03:38.318)
you

Nicole (03:58.863)
What is not cool is something that is actually going away. They have this, they call it the true touch pad, which is the interface that you use to control it. It's not a touch screen and it is set back a little bit. Like the cars that do have screens that you can't touch, they tend to be set back so you don't impulsively reach out to touch them. If you reach out to touch this, it's too far reach, which is sort like your reminder, like this is not a touch screen. It's too far away.

The way it works, you know, it is like a little, I don't know, maybe like two inch by three inch little pad that's a little bit higher up. And it even has a nice little like like thing to rest your wrist on so that you can rest your hand there while you're trying to use the touch pad. Because without that, if you're just trying to touch it, every bump you go over, you're hitting the wrong thing. I find it it's going away. So.

I can complain about it all at once. They already know it's not a great idea getting rid of it, but I didn't like it. It was funny. I was up in the car with one of my daughter's friends who is almost 25. So a young and, and she sat down and wanted to connect her phone cause she likes to play her music. And she's like, what can I not touch this? What is this? This is weird. And I'm like, okay, if the 25 year olds don't like your tech, you have made a mistake. Like, and she even fed, she's like, this is just not, this touch pad is freaky. It's not intuitive. She didn't like it either.

So nixed by me and by a 25-year-old. So clearly, no one likes this.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:25.067)
Well, let me step in here. I'm the weirdo that actually kind of likes it.

Nicole (05:27.308)
You like it? Ugh, I hate it.

Roberto Baldwin (05:30.893)
I like it because it's the same... Sorry. I like it because I'm dying. So I use a Wacom tablet, a little pen, and wherever my pen is on the tablet, that's where my mouse pointer is on my screen. So... Yeah.

Nicole (05:33.868)
Yeah, really Robbie?

Sam Abuelsamid (05:35.071)
Robbie's dying here.

Nicole (05:40.376)
Okay.

Nicole (05:47.565)
Yes. I appreciate that. I like the absolute positioning that I do like that it does that, but I still find it like even especially like for me as a driver, it isn't a good spot to rest my hand there. Right. So I can rest my hand on that little pad.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:48.063)
Yeah, it's absolute positioning rather than relative.

Roberto Baldwin (06:01.819)
i have really long arms look i can reach you all the way in like let me just keep going to say the beginning of star wars i'm only at my elbow that's only my elbow i just keep going and going

Nicole (06:05.156)
hi Robbie, high five!

Sam Abuelsamid (06:06.197)
Yeah.

Nicole (06:10.893)
Hahaha!

going and going well, it's so mean it's the position of it is good. And I, know, it, it, it functions. I just don't think it's easy. It's just not as it, if the roads rough, it's a little bouncy. It's a little tricky. Like I think it takes your focus away a little bit. And I think if you were. Yeah. But the, from the passenger side, it's actually more difficult because the passenger is probably reaching across with their right hand to do something. And now they're not getting the benefit of using the little hand rest.

Roberto Baldwin (06:24.297)
Most people don't like it. That's where it's all at. Yeah. It's just me and the other weirdo Sam.

Nicole (06:42.116)
So they're really finding it bouncy. Do know what I mean? Because they don't have a little, because it's awkward. You can't rest your hand there unless you're going to try and do it as a lefty and nobody can do that unless they are a lefty. So if your passenger's lefties, perfect. If they're righties, not so much. Yeah. Righty, tighty, lefty, loosey. I still say that every time I have to turn a Fossum off outside. Every time I'm like, righty, tighty, lefty, loosey.

Roberto Baldwin (06:55.681)
They're tighties.

Roberto Baldwin (07:05.353)
If something's weird in the car, like I'm reaching under something and then through and then I get to the point, I'm like, wait, ready, ready, okay.

Nicole (07:12.546)
You write like you have to say it to your or if I'm changing a tire, I'm like, righty tight. Cause all of a sudden I'll be like turning the lug nuts and I'm like, crap, wait, righty, tidy. Like I forget in the middle, like I zone out in the process.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:24.725)
Yeah, I think the fundamental problem with that trackpad is I think almost everybody is used to using trackpads on laptops. all laptop trackpads work basically the same way where it's like a mouse, where it's relative position. If something is in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, you don't necessarily tap the upper left-hand corner of the trackpad. You drag your finger across the trackpad to

Nicole (07:34.883)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (07:49.571)
Right?

Sam Abuelsamid (07:54.431)
to get to that upper left hand corner. And depending on the size of the track pad and what you have your settings at, you might have, and how far you have to move, you might have to pick your finger up and drag a couple of times to get to where you want to be. This track pad, because it was specifically designed for use in a car, they made it absolute position. Like Robbie talked about, you know, with the, like a Wacom tablet, it's Wacom or Wacom, whatever. Yeah. Anyway, you know, if something's in the upper right hand corner,

Nicole (08:15.054)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (08:19.341)
Tickets, walk

Nicole (08:19.65)
I like whack Whack

Sam Abuelsamid (08:24.413)
of the screen, you put your finger down in the upper right hand corner and the cursor is right there. If it's in the upper left or bottom left, you put your finger wherever on the pad, wherever it is on the screen that you want to touch, you touch that part of the pad. And I think the problem is not so much that it's a bad design, but it's like 99.99 % of the population that doesn't use one of these tablets that's used to that kind of thing is used to a completely different way of touch pads working.

And so it is, as you said, is unintuitive if you are not used to it. And most people are not used to that.

Nicole (08:55.755)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (08:58.163)
It's like Sam, me, and a bunch of graphic designers and animators. Those are other people I know who use those, designers and animators.

Nicole (08:58.681)
Yeah.

That's it. So I'm not going to miss that.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:02.719)
Yeah.

Nicole (09:08.568)
So I won't miss it going away. Yeah, because I didn't I did not like it. Otherwise, I liked it. I mean, it's a nice enough car to drive. It was fun. It's mine has is urban gray with a red interior. You don't like the red interior. I. well, I like the red urban gray is not very exciting, but the red. Yeah, urban gray is like it's like a battleship gray.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:19.326)
Ugh.

No, I don't like urban grey. It's boring.

Roberto Baldwin (09:22.337)
No, urban gray?

Sam Abuelsamid (09:26.921)
Yeah, the reds great. But yeah, it's just really, boring. Acura loves that color for some reason.

Nicole (09:35.46)
It's not super exciting, but a lot of people, a lot of them, like all of a sudden that sort of that gray variations of it, depending on the OEM has become a thing. Like everyone has what that gray and it's, it's, not arguing, I'm saying it's having its moment. Hopefully the moment is almost gone. So you won't be bored by car colors anymore. So that's all I can hope for.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:47.371)
It's still boring.

Roberto Baldwin (09:55.319)
They Acura has a pretty nice red. It's not Mazda nice, but it's nice. They have a nice red. Yeah, that's pretty good. It's good red. It's just not Mazda good.

Nicole (09:59.973)
Nothing is Mazda nice. No red is as good as a Mazda red. So I like it overall and it's a good. So the A-Spec package just makes it a little fancier. You get like a sports steering wheel and 20 inch alloy wheels. There's a black headliner. So it's a little styling thing, which looks pretty cool. It looks nice. And you get a ton of features on this. Like it's a loaded, you know, it has a panoramic sunroof. has heated door mirrors. know, it's got all the

All the fancy things that you would want in a luxury car like they say, let's just go luxury. Do you really think of Acura's luxury or do you think of it just like what defines luxury?

Roberto Baldwin (10:40.248)
I think accurate needs is needs to be and I think they figured it out a few years ago because they were trying to just be luxury and they really need to be the Audi of Japan like with a with a like like performance big big big word performance little word luxury

Sam Abuelsamid (10:51.776)
Yeah.

Nicole (10:52.952)
Like, would you come because...

Nicole (10:57.954)
That's what I think. Like I started to say luxury and I'm like, it's not really though.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:01.259)
The tagline they've been using is precision performance.

Nicole (11:06.476)
So they're leaning into that. That's probably a good call because it's a very nice interior, but it doesn't it doesn't feel like a luxury interior. Although I do love the red. I got a red interior in my car. I love red interior. So so overall, I like it in terms of value. I mean, if you if you're going near the bottom of the lineup with the you know, it's 45, 54 gets you all the bells and whistles and everything you could want. I think it's a decent value. But I would not I would not get this now. I would hold off until they update that little.

Touchpad, true touch. What is it? True touch pad. Because I don't think it.

Roberto Baldwin (11:39.904)
They came to my house to pick me up, to drive me around, to demo that when it was new, before it was announced. They came and picked me up and I was like, ooh, this is awesome. Because it was...

Nicole (11:47.076)
They were really excited. I remember when it was new and it was like.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:48.287)
Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

Nicole (11:52.599)
It was a big deal and I remember trying to use it on the first drive and I, whatever car I was in, I'm like, I'm, I'm not, I don't think I like touch pads. I want a touch screen.

Roberto Baldwin (12:00.702)
It's my fault. I'm sorry everyone. Cause I was so excited about it because I, you know, again, the tablet, was like, this is amazing because most touch pads are, you know, you tacky, a drag and it's just annoying. And I'd become so used to that, you know, wherever my finger is, wherever my pen is, that's where the cursor is. And it makes so much sense in my brain. So I got in the car and I was like, boom, perfect. Zero notes. Little thing for my wrist to hold it. Cause I have, I even use a little

Nicole (12:04.344)
Dang it, Roberto, that's all your fault.

Nicole (12:11.798)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:24.683)
So.

Roberto Baldwin (12:29.846)
thing for my keyboard. I have a wrist rest. It's all gel. mean, everything was just like, just, they just broke into my house, looked at my workstation and said, let's just do that. Let's just build a car for Robbie. I don't have Acura money. Come on. I'm a writer.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:32.969)
Rob, Robbie was showing us his little wrist rest.

Nicole (12:35.032)
The wrist rest for the...

I have one too.

Nicole (12:43.758)
They made it just for you, but you didn't buy enough of them. So they're changing it.

Nicole (12:52.26)
but has Acura money. That's the thing. How much money, do you have Bentley money? Do you have Acura money or are you Toyota money? Which are you? You got Toyota, I think most of us have Toyota money, Ravi. Don't worry about it.

Roberto Baldwin (12:59.806)
Yeah, I got Toyota money.

Yeah, yeah. You get a Mary into Acura money.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:08.619)
Or or you buy used Acura

Roberto Baldwin (13:11.852)
Or who about you, Zachura? I like the Integra when they let me drive that thing around for a week. That was a fun little car.

Nicole (13:18.148)
The other Fintech or Swin, it was a fun little car. So those are my thoughts on the 2025 Acura RDX SH AWD A-Spec Advanced.

Roberto Baldwin (13:27.308)
I love that SH stands for super handling, just awesome. This is like, let's not, let's.

Nicole (13:31.266)
Which sounds like it's great because it sounds like a 12 year old did it. This is the super handling car. Okay. Super. That's it.

Roberto Baldwin (13:34.28)
Yeah. What kind of handling does it have? Well, it's super. Done.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:38.507)
Well, back in like 2007 or eight, when I first got to drive an original first generation RDX, at that point, I think it was like the second model that had the super handling all wheel drive, because they had it on the RL at that point and then on the RDX. And the first time I got to drive it was on a track at, there's a little club racing track north of Detroit.

And I'm completely blanking on the name right now But we you know, they had a you know, a whole an Acura brand day up there So they had all of the Acura models there and we spent the day there driving driving the various cars on the track and It was so much fun You know it the it does make a huge difference because it's the same it's basically the same torque vectoring system It's the same torque vectoring hardware that they use now also on

Nicole (14:10.38)
Hahaha

Sam Abuelsamid (14:36.075)
the pilot and the passport, where with a different set of software, different control strategy, they call it IVTM4. So this is what they use to emulate a locking differential on their off-road SUVs. And then on the Acuras, they use it to enhance the on-road handling. So it's pretty cool what they can do with just changing the software.

Roberto Baldwin (15:01.096)
It's no they they really you got it. They're it. They know what they're doing over there It's Honda and they love being like solving weird engineering problems

Sam Abuelsamid (15:11.785)
Yeah. All right. Robbie, did you drive anything this week?

Roberto Baldwin (15:17.052)
I did not. Sorry everybody. got it. Well, here's a fun thing which everyone might be excited about. I'll start driving more regular cars as well. Part of my job at SAE because it's of morphed slightly different, but to help out, I'm doing more regular cars. So you'll hear me talking about gas cars more often.

Nicole (15:20.05)
Aw man.

Nicole (15:25.09)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (15:42.596)
nifty.

Roberto Baldwin (15:42.828)
in the future, so. Which is fine. I love gas cars. I just also love breathing, so.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:51.915)
Gas breathing gas breathing. It's a hard decision.

Nicole (15:52.882)
Ugh, gosh, so demanding. Such a hard decision to make.

Roberto Baldwin (15:55.948)
I know, know. It's... Spreedage. Did I drive the Integra? I did. Okay, I'm trying to remember. Let me tell you how our lives are so weird that we're always so busy and like we do lots of cool, fun things, but we're so busy that we don't get time to really appreciate sometimes the cool, fun things. I drove the Acura Integra Laguna Sankara.

But I wasn't but I wasn't a hundred percent sure so I had to look it up in my phone I do this routinely I'm like have I ever been to this town or this city or this? Country or this place and then I'll look up the photos because I'll make sure to take at least one photo at an event and then I'll look it up and be like Yeah, there's an Integra at the track. Yeah, I did this. I okay I forgot

Sam Abuelsamid (16:22.027)
haha

Nicole (16:22.56)
wow!

Sam Abuelsamid (16:27.253)
Ha. Ha.

Nicole (16:39.556)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (16:46.796)
It is a weird life where you lose track of what you've done. You're like, wait, did I drive? I did drive there.

Roberto Baldwin (16:49.291)
And these are all like once in a lifetime type things. But you're so busy and you're so thinking about, I have to like make notes about this. I have to think about the tires spin. I have to think about the torque vectoring. How does that adjust? yeah, think about the brakes. Your brain is so engaged in all these little things that other people don't really think about when they're driving that you kind of forget about the entire experience.

Nicole (16:54.443)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:16.203)
Yeah, you know, the other day I was out walking one of the dogs and I was chatting with a neighbor. They asked, know, so what's your favorite car that you've driven lately? it's like, I was, my mind was completely blank. I, you know, I was just trying to remember because, because we drive so many, so many different things. I'm trying to remember what I've driven lately that I really enjoyed. So

Roberto Baldwin (17:19.156)
Ahem.

Nicole (17:40.997)
When I went through, when I came back from, we were in Montreal this week, last week, and when I came back, they do the like, what do you do? What do you hear? Why are you here? Blah, blah. What do you do for a living? I'm not a journalist. What does that mean? I write about cars. You're about cars. What's the best car to buy? And I'm like, shit. I'm like, well, how much money?

Roberto Baldwin (17:55.809)
man.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:58.187)
Heh.

Roberto Baldwin (17:59.796)
I just tell them whatever car I own.

Nicole (18:01.57)
Well, so what you know, how much money have I'm like, I don't know what you know, a car, any kind of car. I'm like, OK, then just buy a Toyota because it'll last forever. He's like, OK, you've passed my test in. He's like, that's the correct answer.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:02.443)
Ha

Sam Abuelsamid (18:11.071)
Ha ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (18:11.083)
Just RAV4, that's the easy answer is RAV4 to Honda CR-V. Both of them you can get as a hybrid, both of them. Yeah, CR-V, RAV4, those are the two. Whenever someone's very much like, I just want a car, I'm on RAV4 CR-V.

Nicole (18:17.816)
Right. I was just like Toyota to buy a Toyota or a Honda. And he happens to have a Toyota. So I was like, yes, I the right thing at border patrol.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:20.287)
or a Honda.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:27.093)
haha

so they let you back into the country.

Nicole (18:32.194)
Right. They did let me back into the country. Yes. No, no issues as it appears they did you as well, Sam. So that's a good thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:39.647)
Well, I mean, I do use a green screen, so you have no idea where I actually am.

Nicole (18:42.55)
You could be still, you could be just in a random park in Montreal.

Roberto Baldwin (18:43.957)
That's true. That's a pretty... But no video.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:47.275)
But no, they did let me back in. All right, well, I drove last week the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, the 2025 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Tributo Italiano all-wheel drive. Yeah, so yeah, for...

Nicole (18:49.354)
Excellent. This is good news.

Nicole (19:05.388)
That sounds very fancy.

Roberto Baldwin (19:08.883)
I had the Tonali tribute to Italianis and now we're just throwing the Italian stuff at us.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:14.709)
Well, you know, it is an Italian car and all Alfa Romeo's are built in Italy for the time being. You know, back actually back in the early 2010s when what was then Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was doing a deal with Mazda to have to get a version of the Miata, of the fourth generation Miata. The original plan that Sergio Marchionne had

was it was going to be a new Alfa Romeo Spider. It was not going to be a Fiat 124, it was gonna be an Alfa Spider. And unfortunately, along the way, they came to the realization that it would not make economic sense to build these cars in both Japan and in Italy. And Marchionne had decreed that, no, all Alfa Romeo's must be built in Italy. It can't be badged as an Alfa if it's not.

assembled in Italy. so they made the decision that, okay, we're going to call it a Fiat 124 instead, instead of an Alpha Spider. And so that is how we ended up with the the Fiatta instead of the, I don't know, the Alpha. But that's a tangent. So the Stelvio has been around for a few years now.

Roberto Baldwin (20:13.406)
Yeah!

Nicole (20:29.156)
The theater.

Roberto Baldwin (20:29.642)
The Fiatta.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:39.915)
The current Stelvio is reaching the end of its life cycle and probably in the next year or two it's supposed to get replaced by a new model based on the Stella Medium platform. So this is based on the same architecture as the wonderful Giulia. The Tributo Italiano is not the Quadrifoglio. And the Quadrifoglio looks like is no longer available.

Roberto Baldwin (20:58.506)
you

Sam Abuelsamid (21:09.693)
in North America, which is unfortunate. It looks like it, yeah. It's not.

Roberto Baldwin (21:10.954)
Aww.

Nicole (21:11.704)
Really, is it gone? Aww.

Roberto Baldwin (21:13.578)
Because people don't like fun.

Nicole (21:17.943)
Sam Abuelsamid (21:18.739)
Yeah, I know. mean, the quadrifolio, the Stelvio and the Julia quadrifolios were awesome. You know, they had that 2.9 liter twin turbo V6 with over 500 horsepower. You know, this has a mere two liter four cylinder turbo with 280 horsepower, which is not to say that it's a bad engine. It's actually a very good engine. But, you know, once you've driven a Stelvio quadrifolio and heard that sound of

of that twin turbo V6, you know, which was developed in collaboration with with the folks in Maranello. They they sell cars that have little horsies painted on the fenders. This is the quadro the quadrifolio was incredible. But this is not that. So this is a more somewhat more mundane version of the Stelvio, not to say that it's bad, but just in comparison is relatively mundane.

Um, you know, so it's got plenty of power. Um, although, know, having been driving more EVs lately, you know, it's every time I get back into something like this, that I used to think, Oh, wow, this awesome. And then I step on the accelerator and have to wait for something to happen. You know, it's.

Nicole (22:37.934)
Right?

Roberto Baldwin (22:38.812)
It's, yeah, it's, think the only, one of the only vehicles was the new 750 EP from McLaren, where it just goes when you step on the gas. I'm like, and then I got back and I told the engineers, it's like an EV. They're like, okay, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:52.811)
Good luck in EV in the best ways. It still has the sound of an internal combustion engine.

Nicole (22:53.284)
Good, we think.

Roberto Baldwin (23:04.553)
that car. I love that car.

Nicole (23:05.347)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:06.495)
But anyway, so it's a mid-sized SUV-ish crossover thing. So it's got very similar styling to the Julia, but it's basically a tall hatch version of it. And Nicole and I were having a discussion earlier this week about what's an SUV versus what's a car. based on the preliminary definition that I came up with, this would really qualify more as a car.

Nicole (23:26.178)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:36.245)
than an SUV, and that's fine. The interior is lovely, really nice materials. This feels more like a luxury car than the Acura. get wonderful leathers and metal finishes and various other things in the cabin. It still has the same infotainment system that it launched with back, what, 20...

Nicole (23:36.921)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:05.739)
1716 maybe when it first came out Which means it has a relatively modestly sized 8.8 inch screen which by today's standards is you know kind of made it feels a little feels a little tiny and more so because Because of the shape of the dashboard It it is a longer. It's wider, but not as tall screen so in terms of the actual

Nicole (24:18.5)
Tiny.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:34.459)
area of the screen, even though it's 8.8 inches, it feels smaller than it is, smaller than most screens, similar dimensions that are narrower but taller, more squarish in shape. The other thing that I noticed, and it's been a couple of years since I drove one of these, but this one...

They actually did update the software since it originally came out. And it does have Uconnect 5 in it, Uconnect 5 software. But it doesn't feel like they fully upgraded the compute hardware under it, because it did feel kind of slow and sluggish sometimes. And there's a touch screen, but there's also a central control knob. So you can control it either way. it just, compared to a lot of the other...

recent Stellantis products that I've driven with the same software. It felt a little sluggish in terms of its responses when I went to tap on something or do something with the controller. So, you know, it's probably good that this one is nearing the end of its life cycle. It does have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support. I did have some issues.

There are several USB ports in the car and in the center console, there's a storage bin under the center armrest and there's a USB-C and a USB-A port in there. Only the USB-A port supports phone projection. If you plug into the USB-C port, because this doesn't have wireless Android Auto or CarPlay, it's only wired.

And if you plug into the USB-C, it charges, but it will not, it doesn't do the data. And so you have to get a USB, grab a USB-A cable, which fortunately I always have lots of those sitting around the house. But, you know, when I was trying to get it working, I couldn't get it working at first. And so I had to go back and switch switch cables so I could plug into the other port. The seats are very, very supportive, even more so than the ones in the RDX.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:56.427)
So, you know, I fit, you know, and I am not exactly slim, but it was, you know, it was, if I'm driving aggressively through corners, I'm not sliding around on this seat at all. It's holding me in place. So I was comfortable in the seat, but anybody who's a little thicker than I am might feel a little pinched.

Roberto Baldwin (27:04.937)
.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:25.608)
in the seat.

Nicole (27:25.612)
What a polite description.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:29.483)
So, let's see. Yeah, the Stelvio's fun to drive. It's fairly quick. It's not as quick as some, or as most electric vehicles that are in the same kind of size, class, and segment. But it's definitely fun to drive. The Tributo Italiano version is available in three,

option, three color options, which given that this is, you know, Italian, makes sense that they would be red, white and green. I had the alpha Rosso, exterior paint, which is the red. It's a very bright red. the, it's also available in, in white, which is, call it Milano white, which is the boring color. and I think actually the best color on this one is the,

The Verde Fangio, which is an awesome green and looks really, really fantastic, but that's not the one I had. The Tributo Italiano also has standard 21 inch wheels, the five hole design, similar to what they had on the Quadrifoglio's. Most stuff is standard equipment on here. The red paint was a $695 option.

And then it was the customer preferred package that gives you some of the driver assist features and the anti theft system, Alpha Connect trial and the tire service kit. That's $700. The active active drive assist didn't really do much on this, you know, in terms of lane centering or anything like that. But, you know, the other stuff, the adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring.

intelligent speed assist all that stuff works fine and and of course you know since this is a modern alpha you will if you go looking around on the center console or on the dashboard for the start stop button you will not find it the start stop button is on the steering wheel in the lower left hand quadrant just as yep right right where you can press it with your left thumb so

Nicole (29:49.708)
as God intended.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:57.739)
If you get into an Alpha, just make sure it just looks right in front of you. It's right there. You can't miss it. Other than that, it's good. I liked it. It's a little pricey. The Stelvio starts at about $45,000. This one came to a grand total of $59,385. You want to guess at the destination charges? Remember, this is a Stellantis product.

Roberto Baldwin (30:26.377)
1800.

Nicole (30:29.828)
1695

Sam Abuelsamid (30:33.899)
Remember I said it's a Stellantis product. 1995.

Roberto Baldwin (30:37.905)
Yeah!

Nicole (30:38.253)
I almost went higher. was like, no. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:42.591)
You generally, if you're trying to guess the destination charge on a Stellantis product, going higher is not, is usually a good strategy. Yeah.

Nicole (30:49.122)
It's not a bad call.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:52.843)
All right, so that's the Stelvio Tributo Italiano. All right, let's move on to, well, let's go back to Nicole. Nicole, what happened to your car?

Nicole (30:59.331)
Nice.

Roberto Baldwin (31:06.178)
what'd you do next?

Nicole (31:06.752)
an interesting week guys. So okay so here's the fun fact and I went out to the car because I have a brand spanking new Jeep Wagoneer S with all of 2,000 miles not even quite 2,000 miles on it. It is very new and very not driven very much yet. So I went out to my car and I was get into my car and I'm like look wait this is very dark don't lights come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:13.801)
and remind us what your car is.

Nicole (31:36.677)
Can I open that door? Maybe I'm not remembering. And no, I am remembering just right. It is completely dead in my garage. No power whatsoever. It is fully charged. It just won't turn on. And I'm like, OK, this is great. So I called the dealership and the dealership, apparently you call the roadside assistance number and they deploy a random dude to come to your house and get your car. The first thing the dealer tells me, because this is one of those like, this can't be how this works.

He says, it's in your garage. And I said, yeah. He's like, well, you may need to push that out. Like, I'm sorry. It's like a 6,000 pound vehicle or something. You want me to just, you may just push it out. And he's again, like, why can't the tow truck? Well, they might not be willing to take it out of the garage. I'm like, what if I was like a 90 year old lady? You're going to tell her to push her car out of her garage. I was okay. Fine. So the guy arrives and the other thing the dealership says to me is you're I'm like, it's, have no power. How do we get it in neutral? I know there's a latch somewhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:12.724)
No.

Nicole (32:37.186)
to put your car into neutral. And he's like, yeah, I don't know where it is because your car is really new, but I got a tech who does. So when the, when your tow guy gets there, if he doesn't know, call us and we'll walk him through how to do it. Okay. Fair. So the token gets there. He's like, I've put total lot of EVs. Let me look. And he's like, look, and he's like, no, I've exhausted all the spots where I would think this was B he's like, I've been doing this eight years. I don't know where the heck cheap hit this. Right. So I called them back and they're like, we don't really know.

I'm like, you don't really is there anybody there? Do you have like, I don't know, like a special manual like you're you're actually Jeep. Can you tell me how to get your car in neutral? Nope, nobody can tell me. So then the driver's like, that's OK. I have these little things they wedge under the wheels. And it's like the reverse of like traction that like traction boards that you put under to get out of the sand. This you shove under the wheels and it's just like, let your car slide out of garage.

So he puts them under the wheels and puts a toaster up to it and drags it far enough out of the garage that he can get it up onto the lift. but then the other thing they had said before we did that was it's probably your 12 volt battery. And I thought, let's, let's hope, because I don't want it to be something more than the 12 volt battery, which still shouldn't be dead. And, he said, you, should jump that. And I said, little help here. Where would that be? Like, where do you guys tuck this in the car?

And he's first reaction was under the hood. I'm like, no, this is an EV. Remember? There's not, there's no end. It's I don't, are you sure? And he's like, no, wait, hold on a second. Puts me on hold tow truck driver's still laughing. Like we'll figure this out. Right. And he said it's in the left rear quarter panel. So just open the tailgate. And I was like, again, how? Because the tailgate is shut and the car has no power.

Roberto Baldwin (34:24.53)
Dun dun dun!

Nicole (34:30.018)
He said, we'll just use the key fob. I said, that doesn't work. The car has no power. won't open. He's like, well, did you try it? And like, and the tow truck driver's laughing like, my gosh, click, click, try to open it. No, doesn't open. I said, even the tow truck drivers try it. It's not me. It won't open. He's like, I'm like, so there has to be a release, right? And he's like, no, he's like, you probably should just drag it out of the garage and get it to us here. And I think the way they probably did it is they probably like, if you flip the rear seats down and like crawl into the back.

And then you can do the emergency release as if you had. But again, let's hope you can jump over the rear seats, even if you put them down and crawl into the back. Like I'm trying to think like an old lady or something doing. I'm like, this is, this is not ideal. So they get it to the garage. and my tow truck driver was awesome. Best tow truck driver ever. he was even as he was hooking little tow strap, he's like, there's some challenges here. He's like, I hate it when they do this. And he's showing me just tow truck driver point of view.

where they put plastic under a car and he's like, I need to tow, but I don't want to get the plastic, but I need to get here. It was kind of fun to watch. So anyway, they get it to the garage. They check it out and they say, yep, it's a 12 volt battery. We put a new one in. All the error codes just said 12 volt battery is not sufficient, but we want to put that in, keep it overnight, make sure nothing kicks out overnight and then we'll get it back to you. And I'm like, OK. And I said, so why like the 12 volt battery shouldn't have died?

Like I get that that was what was causing my car not to start. But why? They're like, mm. So we don't know. So I currently have a car that works. It runs just fine. It has a brand spanking new 12 volt battery in it. But we have no idea. And he's like, no, there's nothing coming up. There's no parasitic loss. There's nothing happening. We can't find anything. And I'm thinking, I think there was.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:01.577)
Heh.

Nicole (36:17.568)
I think something because it should not have happened. The correct answer is we can't find the parasitic gloss. I don't know what. I don't know what happened or some software thing screwed up or whatever. But yeah, so it works. There's no recall or, you know, notice of this happening with Wagon Air S's. But yeah, so it was a fun day for me on Thursday as I was going back and forth with that. Yeah, yeah.

So I still don't know. And I was looking and I don't know if you looked at the document, Sam, I'm still trying to find out. Did you find it? I'm trying to find the release to put the car in neutral if you can't turn the power on. And we found some like what is like 26 page official Mopar document about like how the fire department would disconnect your battery if your car was on fire or whatever. like, and nowhere in there. How to tow it. Put it in neutral. Fabulous. How? Nowhere could I find.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:47.574)
I did. No.

Nicole (37:10.252)
So I'm like ready to call you, dude, can you just share the secret? feel like I might need this in the future. Can you just tell me things? Take a little note in there or something.

Roberto Baldwin (37:15.367)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:17.779)
I think we'll have to send a note to one of our friends at Stellantis. Do you know Dale Jewett? He's probably the best guy. I can send him a note if you want. I'll send him a note tomorrow and ask him. And then we will let you all know next week if you have one of these.

Nicole (37:21.444)
Well, the four G yes, I can definitely ask them and somebody would tell me.

Nicole (37:30.604)
I think so. I look, probably have it. Send me his email if not.

Nicole (37:40.133)
because I couldn't find it and the tow truck driver couldn't find it. apparently exactly one guy, because I asked when I went to pick it up, I said, how did you get like, where is the neutral in it? He's like, Bernie knows, but Bernie's in a was on a phone call. So Bernie couldn't tell me. Bernie was very nice. No criticism of Bernie. He just happened to be on the phone. And so I still don't I still don't know. It's a it's a mystery. It's a mystery, people. So that was my fun time with a Jeep Wagoneer S this week that took up my Thursday.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:09.137)
And problems with the 12 volt batteries are not, unfortunately, not that uncommon on a bunch of EVs. Not all of them, but on some of them. And you might be wondering, why is there even a 12 volt battery in this car? Because most of the, like all the electronics and a lot of the accessory systems, things like your lights and your instrument cluster and you

Nicole (38:14.157)
Yeah.

Nicole (38:18.732)
Right? Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:38.475)
power seats and all that stuff. All that stuff is designed to run on 12 volts. So it's all low voltage system. And so what they do is, you you use a 12 volt battery, you put a 12 volt battery in the car in addition to the high voltage battery that actually makes it go. And there's a DC to DC converter somewhere that steps that down from four, six, 800 volts, whatever's in your, whatever's in your EV battery down to 12 volts to keep that one charged.

Nicole (38:45.337)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:08.447)
the way your alternator would, doing the same thing your alternator would do on a combustion engine. And some manufacturers have had some issues with this. Actually, surprising number of them have. Ford's got a recall going right now on the Mach-E for 12 volt battery issues. Hyundai Kia had an issue with it. In fact, that was why my car was sold back, was because the original owner was frustrated.

Nicole (39:14.488)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (39:21.657)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:37.481)
waiting for that to be fixed. Kia and Hyundai have since come up with an updated version of their integrated charge control unit that handles the charging of the 12-volt battery, among other things. And it shouldn't be a problem going forward. And I think a couple of years ago, we had a listener email that somebody with an IONIQ 5 that had written in they were having problems with the 12-volt battery. Have you had any issues with

Nicole (39:53.955)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:07.209)
Either the IONIQ 5 or with the Kona before, Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (40:11.537)
time the Kona, the battery dies that we the there was an extra little pad like a little carpet like a little rug in the trunk of the Kona that you would put down to protect it like just like a seat like a like a floor mat and it would slide sometimes and so once the trunk didn't close all the way and then we went out to start the car and it wouldn't start but I have like a little yeah I left it drained the battery

Nicole (40:34.595)
That.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:34.642)
cause left the interior light on and drained the battery.

Nicole (40:37.528)
That's user error though, isn't it? That would not be user.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:39.274)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (40:39.303)
yet all those for the user and i but i have like a little level box that take out and jump starts everything so it was easy peasy

Nicole (40:44.45)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:45.013)
Yeah. Yeah. And so, mean, if your, if your 12 volt battery dies in your EV, that's the, what happens is then the computers that manage everything can't start up and then start the rest of your car. Cause that's, that's how it works is, you know, the 12 volt doesn't have to crank an engine anymore, but it still has to power the computers. And so if it, if it goes dead, then you, you've got to, you know, everything else doesn't work.

Nicole (40:58.722)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (41:04.589)
Yep.

Nicole (41:10.67)
I had a giant paperweight in my garage for a little while there. So three, yeah. So yeah, so but now it's happy. Now it's all good. It's happy. And, you know, let's hope it continues to. If it happens again, then I'm going to really be concerned. I guess this could be a fluke, right? Just tell me it's a fluke. It's not going to happen again. But.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:13.577)
Yep, three tons of paperweight.

Nicole (41:31.03)
It does concern me because I don't because there was no there was no reason like it wasn't if they had said, this was a thing. This caused it. We're going to replace the battery and we fix this issue. I would have felt a lot better, actually.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:43.444)
At a curiosity, how long had it been since you drove it? How long was it sitting?

Nicole (41:48.42)
it had been sitting for.

Not that long, because I had just put it in the garage, maybe three days. It wasn't long. no.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:58.891)
Oh, okay. Yeah, because if it was a couple of weeks, you know, or more, you know, then that might be one thing. But yeah, if it's only a couple of days and then yeah, that shouldn't happen. So.

Nicole (42:05.102)
No.

Nicole (42:08.492)
Yeah, it was like maybe three days, maybe four. I can't remember exactly. Yeah, because we had driven it. I had driven it for some reason. So, yeah, so that was not it. wasn't that it wasn't it had been sitting for a while, you know, so because that then then that would have been sort of a reason, but still.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:27.083)
Okay. All right. So some other EV related news this week. It's the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend in England. And there's a bunch of stuff that was shown off for the first time, including the Hyundai IONIQ 6N was shown publicly for the first time at Goodwood. And so, you know,

Nicole (42:28.045)
Yep. So.

Roberto Baldwin (42:51.665)
Done.

Nicole (42:52.408)
Ta ta ta!

Sam Abuelsamid (42:55.655)
If you like the idea of the IONIQ 5N but you prefer a sedan to a hatchback, Hyundai's got you covered now because now there's a 6N.

Nicole (43:04.844)
I got you.

Roberto Baldwin (43:06.951)
Sam Abuelsamid (43:08.455)
Hahaha

Nicole (43:09.22)
Robbie's excited!

Sam Abuelsamid (43:11.147)
And I'm looking at the press release. It says the model embodies Hyundai and core principles corner rascal racetrack capability and everyday sports car That's that

Nicole (43:22.597)
Wait, corner rascal? Is that the same person who came up with super handling?

Sam Abuelsamid (43:27.563)
Could be could be yeah Yeah, I mean the 5n is a blast to drive so I'm sure that this will be equally fun 0 to 60

Roberto Baldwin (43:28.007)
Corner rascal.

Nicole (43:34.169)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (43:38.951)
I'm going to check my spam folder every single day going forward. So when I get that five in invite at Laguna Seca.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:43.403)
I'm just...

Sam Abuelsamid (43:48.639)
This time, even if I have like last for the five and drive at Laguna Seca, I had already committed to something else that week and so I had to decline. But this time I will definitely go. It doesn't, I don't care what I have to cancel. will, I will go.

Nicole (43:48.834)
You immediately respond.

Nicole (44:05.028)
Everybody else falls behind.

Roberto Baldwin (44:08.262)
still. I'm angry at myself. I haven't even called in the 5N. I could get one in. I'm just like, no. I demand... This is my own fault? I have to wallow in my own stupidity.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:22.303)
Yeah, so the 6N has a big wing hanging off the trunk lid. It's one of the colors it'll be available in is that Robin's Egg Blue that they have. That's kind of the signature color for Hyundai's N brand. 640 horsepower. Basically, you can't go wrong with this car. It's got the simulated shifting, all the sounds and everything.

Nicole (44:46.167)
It's going to be fun.

Nicole (44:50.244)
Does it have the end grin button? Then all is right with the world.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:52.139)
It has the end grin button, zero to 100 kilometers an hour, 62 miles an hour in 3.2 seconds. Yeah, it's quick. And then of course, you can just put it into the standard mode and just drive around serenely in a nice, quiet EV. But then when you feel like you want to get things, get your neighbors riled up, you can put it into end grin mode.

Nicole (45:17.38)
It's your neighbors riled up. like that description. Rile up the neighbors.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:21.801)
Yeah. All right. So that that should be does it say when it's coming here? I think it's going to be here by the end of the year. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes sometime in the second half of the year it should be available. Yeah. So that is the six ionic six and and then let's stick with E.V. for well let's stick with Goodwin. Let's get one more piece of news from Goodwood.

Nicole (45:31.3)
It's not that long, it's July.

We can make it that long. We can do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:51.939)
And that is Toyota's new GT sports car. We don't know. We don't actually know if it's going to be a Toyota or a Lexus. Back in 2022, Toyota showed off a concept at the Tokyo Auto Salon called the GR GT3 concept, which is this long hood sports car.

you know, kind of a next generation Lexus LFA. Again, we don't know. There's speculation that it might be called the Lexus LFR. So no, it's not going to have, we know it's not going to have the V10 from the LFA. It's probably going to be a V8. This is going to, part of the reason why Toyota is building this is to have a replacement for the RCF GT3 car that they run in

endurance racing, sports car racing. That car is getting old. The RC is going away in its current form and this is going to replace it. And Toyota had two prototypes at Goodwood, one prototype of the road car wrapped in a camo and then a prototype of the GT3 race car. And they ran both of those up the hill at Goodwood this weekend.

What do you think of this thing?

Roberto Baldwin (47:24.87)
I mean, it looks cool, I think.

Nicole (47:28.472)
You sound so questioning. I think it's cool. I'm not sure it's cool. Is that where you are?

Roberto Baldwin (47:31.147)
I mean, it's difficult to see the sort of contours and the sort of lines. That's the whole point of camouflage. you know, that's sort of it's... That's his jam. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. We'll see how, when it comes out and you can drive it and can you see out the front and watch under the hood.

Nicole (47:41.636)
I appreciate that. That's the whole point of camouflage. Thank you. I've been wondering all this time. I think it looks pretty good.

Nicole (47:57.945)
The camera does hide a lot, I think even with that little, even with a camera, it does look pretty slick.

Roberto Baldwin (48:00.197)
Yeah.

It'll probably be Alexis though.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:06.411)
most likely. Although, you know, it could be... it could replace the Supra. Supra's going away too, so... it could badge it as a Supra.

Nicole (48:07.436)
It has, it even has Lexus vibes.

Roberto Baldwin (48:07.962)
Yeah.

Nicole (48:15.716)
yeah, this is a, that's a good point. It could, it could be Supra.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:21.099)
but it is more likely to be a Lexus.

Roberto Baldwin (48:21.286)
Well, I have.

Yeah, we'll have a BMW engine in it and BMW shifter and BMW.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:27.691)
You know like Lexus has a pretty nice v8 they have an LC 500

Roberto Baldwin (48:35.462)
Yeah, that'd be fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:36.895)
Yeah, you could you could certainly use that and you know they and it's in the RCF now and other you know a couple of other models So, you know, they have they have a pretty pretty strong V8 that they could use So we'll see Hopefully hopefully in the next few months we'll have more details because this you know, the car the race car is supposed to launch You know for the 2026 season So at some point at some point between now and the end of the year, they will have to announce all those details

Nicole (48:50.446)
We'll see what happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:06.921)
Most likely we will hear the details at the Tokyo Motor Show or the Tokyo or the Japan Mobility Show in October. That would seem like the logical place to introduce this. And then it'll probably debut in the 24 hours of Daytona in January and then run at Le Mans next year.

Roberto Baldwin (49:19.397)
Yeah.

you

Nicole (49:28.068)
That would be cool. It'd be fun to see. L'amour.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:32.895)
all right. Mazda has a new CX five coming. they revealed it a couple of days ago and, it looks like a CX five. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (49:40.154)
Ta-da.

Nicole (49:46.284)
Shocker.

Roberto Baldwin (49:46.362)
good job sometimes you just gotta do what you're good at

Sam Abuelsamid (49:51.273)
Yeah, you know, it's it's very much an evolutionary design, which is nothing wrong with that. Right now, it's it's going to be available with two power trains, the same two point five liter Skyactiv G that Mazda uses in a bunch of their products today, including the CX five hundred and eighty seven horsepower and a six speed automatic. And then there will be a hybrid version coming next year with.

Unlike the CX-50, which uses a Toyota hybrid powertrain, the CX-5 is going to use a Mazda-designed hybrid system. They haven't revealed any details about it, other than it's coming next year. big, probably the, you it's a little bit bigger than the current CX-5. It's about four and half inches longer, I think, than the current CX-5. What do you think?

Yeah, it's four and a half inches. What do you think, Nicole?

Nicole (50:53.176)
I think it's, I'm pleased with it. I think it looks good. I'm happy.

Roberto Baldwin (50:57.285)
I love that the top image on their press page is a teeny tiny picture of the car up a driveway. I'm like what is happening? Why is this car so far away? It's like hey, we have a new CX-5. Where is it? It's up this long hallway next to a Lego house next to trees. Let's crop that down guys.

Nicole (51:04.82)
little itty bitty car. It's so tiny.

Nicole (51:15.672)
Like you feel like you want to crop that by like like we need to crop that down a lot. Yeah, let's crop that down so we can actually see the car. But it looks I think it looks good. It's red in the press photo that makes me happy. So crystal lead as yes, which I think is cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:27.869)
It is Sol Crystal Red.

But I think the thing that'll really make you happy, Nicole, is the interior.

Nicole (51:35.833)
Yes. Okay, can I read what it says? The all new CX-5 features a new available 15.6 inch integrated touchscreen display. The largest ever offered. Who cares if it's the largest ever offered? 15.6 inch integrated touchscreen. A touchscreen, just a touchscreen. Thank you Mazda. I cannot wait to drive this now. I am so excited. Like, get rid of that stupid rotary controller.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:38.73)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (51:45.733)
Wow

Roberto Baldwin (51:59.558)
Finally.

Roberto Baldwin (52:03.877)
Aww.

Nicole (52:04.002)
I know you like it, Sam. I know you like it, Robbie. You're both weirdos. I hate the darn thing. I am so excited. Mazda listen to me. You don't like it?

Roberto Baldwin (52:09.349)
I don't know if I like it. just like the fact that I just like how much you hate it. That's what I like. It's...

Sam Abuelsamid (52:13.984)
Ha

Nicole (52:14.817)
I hate it. I'll have to find something new to hate. Actually, I have my thing to hate. I hate vents that you have to move in an infotainment screen. That'll take its place.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:24.468)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (52:24.501)
I think about that all the time because, you know, it's... The Bay Area is a weird place. Like, it's 80, like at 2 o'clock, and then at 4 o'clock it's 50 degrees. But I was like, every time I move the vents, which is apparently all the time, because I think about it now, about the fact that people don't have it, I'm like, why, why, who, why? And I understand money, blah, blah, blah. It's all about money. But, yeah.

Nicole (52:34.372)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (52:43.886)
Right?

Nicole (52:51.244)
I mean, you think of what you initially think you like. I don't use them that much, but you do. You use them all the dang time.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:52.772)
But it's not.

Yeah, software controlled vents are not cheaper than manual vents because you have to have motors and wiring and stuff in there inside the dashboard and you've got to have software to control it. you know, software has bugs and does silly things sometimes and it's, it's functionally worse to use.

Roberto Baldwin (53:13.722)
Yeah.

It's worse. It's bad scene. Don't do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:19.839)
Yeah. If you're thinking about doing, as the folks from Polestar refer to them, digital vents, just don't. Just don't do it. It's not worth it. Yeah.

Nicole (53:20.888)
Yeah, that's bad. That a doo-doo.

Roberto Baldwin (53:27.845)
Stop. Stop and think about what you're doing. Really.

Nicole (53:32.726)
Nobody wants that. Nobody wants it. Nobody.

Roberto Baldwin (53:36.037)
Stop it. It's like everything has to have AI and now everything's broke. Stop. Just don't put the AI in your thing and let us just use the thing because it worked. Stop it.

Nicole (53:40.836)
Everything's broken.

Nicole (53:47.182)
Mm. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:48.627)
And fortunately on the CX-5, it has manual vents as they were intended to be.

Roberto Baldwin (53:54.263)
Yeah!

Nicole (53:56.163)
Yay, go Mazda, go Mazda. I'm very happy about this. I'm very happy.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:59.691)
One interesting detail change, mean, you the design language is very much evolutionary from the current generation and the CX-90, CX-70. But on the tailgate and on the steering wheel, they no longer have the Mazda wing logo. It now actually spells out the word Mazda on the airbag module and on the tailgate. I'm not sure.

Nicole (54:23.748)
Does it have the master? It still has it on the front though, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (54:29.043)
It has the badge on the front, but not on the steering wheel or on the tailgate, which is an unusual change. The other thing is the name. know, all of the recent utility vehicles that have come from Mazda have switched to a CX and something zero name like CX 30, CX 50, CX 70, CX 90. This is still CX 5. And I asked Mazda about this and they said, well,

The CX-5 has been our best selling vehicle for a decade, more than a decade. And it has so much brand recognition. And they sold, how much was it? Four and a half million. Yeah, four and a half million CX-5s globally, 1.6 million in the US. That name has so much recognition that they decided to keep it even though it's now inconsistent with all the rest of the crossovers and utilities.

Nicole (55:12.654)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:29.587)
in the Mazda lineup.

Roberto Baldwin (55:31.85)
You gotta keep the brand.

Nicole (55:32.42)
guess there's a certain amount of logic to that if that's everybody knows, you know? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (55:36.869)
It's just like Hemi.

You know what? Everyone knows this. Let's just do that again.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:44.171)
All right. And speaking of Hemi's, the Dodge Charger is strong likelihood that it will get a Hemi back again. You know, it's definitely getting the Hurricane six cylinder in the next couple of months. But now that they've brought the Hemi back to the to the RAM pickups, that seems like a good possibility that we will see one in the charger again before long.

and Dodge has gotten a couple of new trademarks for the Charger, including Outlaw. So they've got the Charger Outlaw potentially coming in the near future.

Nicole (56:28.48)
la

Roberto Baldwin (56:32.196)
Man, I mean it's on brand so go for it

Sam Abuelsamid (56:36.969)
Yeah, it's totally consistent.

Nicole (56:37.412)
It is definitely on brand. Yeah, I can go with that.

Roberto Baldwin (56:39.936)
Outlaw!

Roberto Baldwin (56:44.964)
It's very, it's very Divorced Dad, but sure.

Nicole (56:48.132)
It's very divorced. Divorced dad or midlife crisis too, right? I'm a 45 year old middle-aged man, but I'm an outlaw.

Roberto Baldwin (56:51.138)
Got some strong divorce dad energy. Yeah, it's good.

Roberto Baldwin (56:59.576)
Coming out now.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:02.288)
yeah, the,

Roberto Baldwin (57:03.576)
Who wants to go to Applebee's?

Nicole (57:06.022)
Sorry.

Roberto Baldwin (57:08.312)
I'm eating good in the neighborhood.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:11.275)
The auto block story says it could be tied to the high output Hurricane 6-cylinder, but I wouldn't be surprised if they reserve outlaw for the Hemi.

Nicole (57:24.741)
I'm still now picturing a guy driving up outlaw in a, and yes, also we'd need, I feel like he would need a cowboy hat then, Roberto, a cowboy hat and a bright orange, like.

Roberto Baldwin (57:26.136)
Every time I hear it now

Roberto Baldwin (57:34.452)
No, they just wear a backwards baseball cap. Backwards wrap around Oakley's backwards baseball cap. Applebee's. I'm eating good in the neighborhood. And when they stop, they put the car in park and then they rev the engine. Vroom! Vroom! And then they turn it off.

Nicole (57:39.241)
backwards basal cap in a go mango orange color. At Applebee's, eating good in the neighborhood,

Sam Abuelsamid (57:54.975)
Ooh, I wonder if they will combine the frat sonic exhaust with the six cylinder to make it sound more like a Hemi. So even if you don't get a Hemi, you still it can still sound like a Hemi. Yeah.

Nicole (58:04.994)
You can have an imitation Hemi.

Roberto Baldwin (58:07.202)
There. Give me light.

Nicole (58:10.084)
It can't be the same. can't make, well they couldn't make it the same. It just wouldn't help. You could come close. I guess you could. But that would be unfair for the people who really got that in me. I feel like if I had that, I want mine to sound like, mine's better, dang it. It's better than yours.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:12.843)
You can program it to sound whatever you want.

Roberto Baldwin (58:16.002)
Yeah, that's a thing, yeah.

Is it though?

Roberto Baldwin (58:24.61)
I mean they can make other engines pretty much sound almost exactly like a Hemi. Again, engine sounds are tuned. It's not like it's just some natural occurrence that happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:31.657)
Yeah. It's been, it's been a long time since we had natural engine sounds in any car. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (58:37.156)
Yeah, yeah, and anything. Everything's like, well, we need it. Oh, we need a little bit more bass. Can you, you know, can you adjust the tubing for the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? It's just like tuning a guitar. You just, you know, adjust this, turn this, you know, it's a lot of little mechanical things. Probably some electronic things that open and close some valves and then boom, you got a Hemi coming out. Hemi sound coming out of your 86 Honda Civic.

Nicole (58:37.612)
in anything I know.

Nicole (58:42.756)
Turn it up, turn it up, up, up, up.

Nicole (59:04.996)
Well, I kind of would want to see that. I like that idea.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:08.779)
Hey, it's been done.

All right. Nissan still having some issues as they have been for a while, unfortunately. Yeah, poor Nissan. So they were planning on building a couple of new EVs at their Canton, Mississippi plant that was originally scheduled to start late 2026 and then was pushed back into 2027. Now it looks like it won't be until 2028.

Nicole (59:20.984)
or Nissan.

Roberto Baldwin (59:25.444)
Ahem.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:42.643)
the end of 2028 or maybe even early 2029. And guess who is responsible for that?

Nicole (59:51.926)
Who? Tell us Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:54.485)
the current administration in Washington and the Congress that killed all of the EV tax credits and all the other incentives. Yeah. So.

Roberto Baldwin (59:57.138)
No.

Nicole (59:57.7)
Mmm.

Nicole (01:00:01.791)
EV tax credits went poof.

Roberto Baldwin (01:00:04.483)
What?

Nicole (01:00:06.02)
which I recently learned they did in Canada, too, by the way. Canada, Quebec apparently is like the Canada of I mean, is the California of Canada. Sorry, because they have the best incentives in the country. was like 12 grand. had five thousand from the province. Am I saying that right? I guess from the province and seven grand from the federal government. The federal government nicks theirs at the beginning of this year. Like they it's already gone. And now it's just four grand in Quebec.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:00:14.367)
California of Canada.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:00:24.309)
province.

Nicole (01:00:35.726)
So they too have had their EV incentives.

Roberto Baldwin (01:00:37.277)
I Colorado has better incentives than California. there it's, cause every, yeah, yeah. It's not, there's a lot of different, but it's not all EV. Like some of them are based on,

Nicole (01:00:40.696)
Do they really? I don't know. I always think of it as a California thing. What's California's doesn't California have a lot of different kinds though? Like I'm there a lot of like income based and.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:00:41.675)
Colorado's $5,000.

Roberto Baldwin (01:00:53.121)
Like, you know, you're updating, you know, if you get a charger put on your house, get it. You get it. There's a thing. If you get solar, if you get a battery pack, if you get, it's a lot of, they sort of spread it out over a bunch of things because I always see TFL like, Hey, we just got this, you know, this EV for $3 a month because of all Colorado's, because of all these.

Nicole (01:00:57.187)
Right.

Nicole (01:01:03.459)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (01:01:09.228)
Yeah, 372 and we have an EV. Yeah, didn't Tommy get some crazy fiat deal at one point, I think.

Roberto Baldwin (01:01:15.82)
Yeah, was like a...

Sam Abuelsamid (01:01:15.975)
Yeah, actually three of the folks from TFL got Fiat 500Es for basically nothing a month.

Roberto Baldwin (01:01:26.691)
So you're just paying for insurance.

Nicole (01:01:26.946)
That's insane. So you're just driving a free car as long as you're okay driving a Fiat 500E.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:01:28.095)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (01:01:32.867)
I like the Fiat 500e, except for the cup holder. The cup holder is absolutely atrocious. It's just absolutely atrocious. And you're looking at the center console and you're like, you could have just put it right there.

Nicole (01:01:34.584)
Which is a cute little... I was just gonna say that! High five from afar, Robbie! Yes, the cup holder. I hate that stupid thing. What a weird design.

Nicole (01:01:46.627)
And anyone who hasn't heard us rant about it, what it is, is it flips out from the like front of the center console where it hits, where it meets the floor. But you put your drink in, you're like, cool, cool, cool, weird spot, but it works. But then when you pick it up, it wants to close. Like it sort of comes up. or you're going to squeeze the top of your large big gulp drink too hard and you're going to pop the lid off. now you've got soda. So yeah, not a fan of the cup holder for those who don't know what we're talking about. That's what we're talking about.

Roberto Baldwin (01:02:00.406)
It grips it and then you're gonna break the cup holders, essentially what's gonna happen.

Roberto Baldwin (01:02:13.131)
cup absolutely atrocious cup holder from a fun little car that's about $7,000 too much

Nicole (01:02:19.5)
or Bulldogger. For however long it remains.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:02:24.447)
Yeah. Another problem that Nissan's having is in Japan where they were supposed to be launching production of the second generation leaf fairly soon. I guess technically third generation, maybe whatever the new leaf pretty soon. And evidently that is being delayed because they can't get rare earth.

metals out of they can't get enough rare earth metals out of China because China is restricting exports of those materials in retaliation against guess who? Yes, the United States for our tariffs on Chinese goods. So, you know, China is basically retaliating against everybody because of what our government is doing. So Nissan is having to delay some of the production.

Nicole (01:03:14.475)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:03:21.371)
of the new leaf because they can't get some of the parts that they need.

Nicole (01:03:25.976)
This is a really short story. it say in here scaling back plans for its new leaf revised, which is such a launch this year? It doesn't say how far does it? Is there something in here missing that says like? It doesn't give a time frame, OK, just scaling back the plan, OK?

Sam Abuelsamid (01:03:36.467)
It doesn't think it doesn't give any details, unfortunately. Yeah. So we hopefully we'll we'll know more soon, but right now we don't know anything. and then another Japanese built SUV, is going to be getting its global debut this coming week in New York. I'll be there. think you're going to be there too. Right, Nicole. you're not going. Okay.

Nicole (01:03:44.356)
Mm-hmm.

Got it. That's unfortunate.

Nicole (01:03:59.693)
No, I'm not going to that one. going to be in. I'm to be looking at something else in Detroit.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:04:06.138)
that's right. Yes. Well, you're coming to Detroit. I'm flying to New York. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (01:04:07.619)
EEEE

Nicole (01:04:10.414)
Let's just cause that makes sense. We should have flip-flopped. You could have just driven to one. could have just driven to one.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:04:15.435)
So anyway, yeah, so I will be in New York on Thursday for the global debut of the Subaru Uncharted. And Subaru released a teaser image that like that image of the the CX-5. Basically, you see just a tiny little bit of the car driving across a field. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (01:04:38.595)
But it's a teaser image. That's not like the, I mean, nice. Like.

Nicole (01:04:41.9)
Yeah. See, at least this is a teaser. It's intended to fool, like not reveal it. Whereas the Mazda is like, here's the whole vehicle. You're like, I can't see that.

Roberto Baldwin (01:04:50.069)
Okay, zoom and enhance, zoom and enhance.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:04:52.843)
Yeah. so Mazda has been, or it's Mazda, Subaru has been doing its EV development in partnership with Toyota, which owns a chunk of Subaru now. And the, from, from the image that they've released, it looks, this car looks vaguely familiar, like something we've seen recently from Toyota. Cause you know, back in April at the New York Auto Show, Subaru revealed the,

Nicole (01:04:53.475)
Right?

Sam Abuelsamid (01:05:22.429)
updated Soltera and then also the trail seeker, which is a wagon version of the Soltera. And then the following month, Toyota showed the updated BZ and the BZ Woodland, which is just a Toyota badge version of the trail seeker. And they also showed the new CHR, which is electric. And this looks very much like the CHR. So looks like Subaru is going to get a crossover coupe.

Roberto Baldwin (01:05:26.135)
Toyota, wait, nevermind.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:05:52.371)
electric thing.

Roberto Baldwin (01:05:54.541)
too.

Nicole (01:05:55.365)
crossover coupe electric thing. I want that to be the description on the top of my monroni. The Toyota crossover coupe electric thing.

Roberto Baldwin (01:05:59.959)
The Uncharted.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:06:03.451)
But if I recall correctly, think the CHR is like 335 horsepower. So pretty impressive performance. So should actually be kind of fun to drive. So yeah.

Nicole (01:06:15.746)
Yeah, it should be. I'm looking forward to this.

Roberto Baldwin (01:06:17.92)
How many dogs can I fit in it?

Sam Abuelsamid (01:06:20.395)
you could probably fit both of your dogs in there.

Roberto Baldwin (01:06:23.252)
Yeah. All right then. Seems like very superish.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:06:27.337)
Okay. Yeah, I'll be curious to talk to the Subaru folks on Thursday and find out, you know, how, if at all, their plans are changing, given the tariffs on imports of Japanese cars and the loss of tax credits and see what might happen with them.

Roberto Baldwin (01:06:51.522)
Get your cars and your Nintendo Switches now. Is all I have to say. Any car. Get all your cars as quickly as possible. Especially they come from Japan. Because...

Nicole (01:06:55.076)
Don't delay.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:06:55.232)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:07:06.975)
And then in The Verge, Andy Hawkins had a story titled, Great EV Pullback Has Begun. And basically it delves into some of the plans that some manufacturers have with the loss of incentives here in the US on EVs. some manufacturers have talked about what they're doing. has pushed back plans for a second EV.

that they were going to launch. No word on when that's going to happen. They're still planning to launch the first one, I think next year, if I'm not mistaken. But the second one is now sometime maybe in the future. Ford, we already know last year they canceled their three-row electric SUV. They've got stuff coming starting late next year from their Skunk Works project in California.

When I talked with Lisa Drake, and from what I've heard from other sources, they're going to be launching production of the midsize electric pickup around the end of next year. Those are going to use the batteries from the Marshall Battery Plant that I visited a couple weeks ago. They've made it pretty clear that that's moving ahead, regardless of what else is going on.

So, we'll see. Honda is launching some EVs built in Ohio, starting at the end of this year, starting with the Acura RSX and then adding the Honda Zero SUV and saloon next year. But they were also planning to do a three-row SUV. That was supposed to launch in 2027. That, according to Nikkei, has been canceled, or they've halted development.

Roberto Baldwin (01:09:03.938)
it.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:09:05.355)
and reduced their EV spending plans through the remainder of the decade. then Lamborghini is considering delaying its first EV, which was supposed to be based on the Lanzador concept from 2023. So that might not happen before the end of the decade. We already talked about Nissan and then Rivian. Yeah.

Nicole (01:09:30.852)
Actually, a note on that Nissan, in this story it actually says, according to an internal memo, the delay is 10 months.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:09:39.179)
okay

Roberto Baldwin (01:09:39.478)
wonder how many of these delays are like, well, we got three and a half years. Let's just hold off for three, know, let's just slow everything down for.

Nicole (01:09:49.073)
But it does make you wonder, at some point, the government can't fund it, right? At some point, you just have to have cars be cars. And if it's not enough, like at some point, I'm not saying today, dramatic with getting rid of the incentives, but at some point, they have to be building what people want and can afford to buy without the government having to prop them up, which is kind of what happens with those. That's what the incentives sort of do. So.

Roberto Baldwin (01:09:57.185)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:10:11.701)
Well, I think that's why Ford is pushing ahead with theirs because what they're doing is based on this lower cost EV architecture. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (01:10:12.278)
Yeah.

Nicole (01:10:23.01)
Which makes a lot of sense. That makes more sense to me than introducing really big three row EVs that are too expensive. They were expensive with incentives. Now they're really expensive, you know?

Sam Abuelsamid (01:10:30.835)
Yeah. And they're copying a lot of the stuff that the Chinese OEMs are doing to take cost out of these vehicles. that's why I think that that project is going to move forward. And they've already made it clear that the battery plant, the Marshall Battery Plant, is moving forward. And in fact, from the budget bill, the way that ended up playing out,

Nicole (01:10:45.464)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:11:00.479)
they're still going to get their incentives for manufacturing for that plant. So that is going to move forward. they're not losing everything that they put into that one. So we'll see what happens there. then Thursday, I was on a call with John Roth, who is the vice president of Cadillac. And he said some interesting things.

Nicole (01:11:12.548)
That's good. It'll be interesting to see.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:11:30.851)
First of all, he was very bullish still on EVs. He talked about the fact that through the first half of this year, EVs accounted for 27 % of Cadillac sales in the US, which is pretty good.

Roberto Baldwin (01:11:49.602)
That's pretty good. I think it's like if you haven't already, if you're not already at like, know, GM Cadillac or Hyundai levels, it's hard to like keep moving forward right now because you haven't, don't have the, you don't have everything all set. You don't have things, you know, you don't have all the tooling done. You don't have all the, know, so.

Nicole (01:11:50.678)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:11:59.53)
Yeah.

Nicole (01:11:59.768)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (01:12:09.311)
You know, some of these automakers are sort of giving up some, again, mind share to GM and to Hyundai, the Hyundai Motor Group, while this sort of plays out. Meanwhile, you can get like a IONIQ 9 for like $2.50 a month or something crazy on the lease. Because, you know, Hyundai loves a great lease program, a great lease deal. you know, when you're, you're, when you're, when you're foreign, you're like, we haven't even started. And starting on something big and expensive.

seems doesn't seem ideal.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:12:40.619)
Well, something else interesting that Roth said during that conference call was Cadillac really wants, is really targeting a lot of global growth. They want to move more aggressively back into Europe and other markets as well. And in order for Cadillac to be competitive outside of the U.S., they absolutely do need to have

a strong lineup of EVs. That's going to be something that they need. But in order for those to be cost effective at Cadillac's volumes, which are about 250,000 units a year, they need to have the economies of scale of the rest of GM. So if Cadillac is really serious about expanding their markets outside of the US and

Nicole (01:13:13.155)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:13:37.435)
having EVs to do that, then they're going to need the rest of GM to come along for the ride. So that kind of implies that the GM is remaining fairly committed. They have delayed some stuff and they've cut back on some things like they sold off their stake in one of the three joint venture battery plants that they had with LG, the one in Lansing, Michigan. sold that to LG. But they also

You know, they have two others with LG, another one with Samsung and they're, they say, they still say they still insist they're to be launching a new Chevy bolt, this fall with LFP batteries. And we still don't know where those batteries are coming from. they may be coming from one of those other three plants. we don't know. but it's, you know, it's going to be interesting to see. And I was talking with someone the other day,

And it sounds like GM might be shifting some of their plans for the Orion Michigan assembly plant. So, Orion was originally, that was where they built the bolt before. And they were going to retool that to build electric pickups and SUVs. They dropped that plan. And then a month or a few weeks ago, they announced a $4 billion plan to

invest in factories here in the US, including Orion. And at the time, they said that Orion was going to add production of full-size pickup trucks and SUVs. And it looked like the full-size pickup production was going to be shifting from Mexico to Orion, and then the SUVs were going to add more capacity to augment what they're building in Arlington, Texas. Well, apparently GM is...

rethinking the plan for Orion. Perhaps what they're going to do there is shift some of the EV production that they currently do in Ramos in Mexico to the Orion plant instead. So we'll probably hear more news on that this week. But that could be interesting to watch. I think GM is still, you know, they're still

Nicole (01:15:45.252)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:15:59.989)
putting a lot of effort into EVs, even though they are also bringing hybrids back into their lineup in the next couple of years and other stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (01:16:08.158)
You know what they should bring back the vault. My brother who owns a vault is still like, he's like he doesn't understand how somebody, a company that had like, know, technology that's now just being caught up by everyone else, like range, like EV range. I'm like, GM gonna GM, man.

Nicole (01:16:27.958)
It's very weird, isn't it? It is strange when you think about it. They were like so early and then it's like, no, wait, we're kicking that guy to the curb. Bye.

Roberto Baldwin (01:16:32.748)
no, what'd do?

Sam Abuelsamid (01:16:38.347)
so I think that, let's see, we covered, yeah, we covered everything on the rundown. so we did have one, listener email that came in that I have not put into the rundown. This one comes from, Andy in Melbourne, Australia. and, says, good day team. as someone who does not live in the U S it lives in Australia and is not in the motoring game, he's a veterinary surgeon.

Roberto Baldwin (01:16:50.824)
and my lies.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:17:07.523)
Can I ask a couple of random questions? What's a manroni?

Roberto Baldwin (01:17:07.744)
Ooh.

Nicole (01:17:07.843)
Wow.

Nicole (01:17:13.154)
my gosh. So the Monroni, every other human on the planet calls the sticker. Like when you, when you go to buy a car, the window sticker that you have in the car that says like every detail about what's on the car and the year, make and model and the cost of it and any extra cost. in the U S I don't know if it's different where he is, but in U S it has fuel. I mean ours is EPA, but it has fuel economy ratings and it has stuff about safety ratings. And I had stuff about like how much your car is built.

Roberto Baldwin (01:17:13.563)
Sam Abuelsamid (01:17:13.941)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:17:19.125)
the window sticker.

Nicole (01:17:41.005)
in the U.S. versus how much is Canadian versus how, you know, and where it's built in the U.S. So it's all the like nuts and bolts details about your car. And sometimes it will have stuff like horsepower on there. Sometimes it doesn't, but it's mostly just like, it's almost like, think of a list of all the things. This is standard on your car, inside, outside safety. These are the extra things that are on your car. This is what everything costs. So it breaks down every last thing that your car has and

than how much it costs. And, and it's on every U S car. It's the window sticker. Normally as journalists, we get that in what they call a monroney, which is just a piece of paper that has that. It's normally generally folded up and in the glove box, they have a bunch of copies and you can take one so that you have the details on your car. When you go to write the review or you go to talk about it on a podcast, mine, mine lately have been coming if they come laminated so that I have to make a copy of it. If I want to copy, they're just stuck in the top of the. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:18:39.211)
I get them through the fleet companies have websites and they just put a PDF on there so I could just download it on there. yeah, yes, the fleet company that is not, the fleet companies that are outside of New England. And in Andy's email, he spells Monrone, M-U-N-R-O-N-E-Y. So he's very close. It's actually M-O-N. The second part of his question was, who was Monrone?

Nicole (01:18:39.714)
So.

Nicole (01:18:47.998)
Your fleet company does.

Nicole (01:18:56.343)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:19:09.323)
And and I will I will yeah, I do and I looked it up again just to be sure But I will include a link to the Wikipedia page for the Monroni sticker the the Monroni sticker was the result of legislation that was passed in 1958 by Senator as sponsored by Senator Mike Monroni Democrat from Oklahoma and he that that law

Nicole (01:19:09.401)
I looked that up once. Do you remember, Sam?

Nicole (01:19:26.136)
There it is.

Roberto Baldwin (01:19:35.669)
Homa.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:19:38.251)
has been in effect ever since then, since 1958. And that is where you get the requirements for the things that have to be on what is now commonly, or what is not so commonly, what is known, at least in the industry, as the Minroni sticker. Most people just call it, as you said, Nicole, the window sticker. So things like all the pricing information, destination charges, you know.

Nicole (01:20:01.357)
Window sticker. Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:20:06.929)
since since it was originally conceived, you know, they added things like fuel economy numbers, the CO2 ratings for these things, estimated annual fuel costs. Also, some of the parts content, you know, where where was the vehicle assembled? You know, where's the where's the majority of the parts come from? So I'm looking at the Stelvio and Rony right now says for vehicles in this car line.

Nicole (01:20:23.961)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (01:20:25.024)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:20:35.979)
US Canadian parts content, 0%. Major sources of foreign parts content, Italy, 55%. France, 13%. And then final assembly in Casino Italy, country of origin for the engine, Italy, and then Germany for the transmission. And yeah.

Nicole (01:20:56.004)
FYI, my ACQUIRE is 60 % US and Canadian parts content. And it was made in East Liberty, Ohio.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:21:05.514)
And the engine was probably built in Anna, Ohio. So that Acura RDX probably has higher US content than a typical Ford F-150.

Nicole (01:21:09.695)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (01:21:17.26)
Mm-hmm. Yep, probably could.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:21:21.333)
Yeah. so that, that is the, the history of the, Manroney sticker. let me see, was there something else that Andy had in here? yeah. So yeah, is there a story there? Yes. We just told you the story. so, so that's, that's the, that's the Manroney sticker. So when you hear us talking about Manroney, it's just the window sticker that has all the assorted information on there. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening and we will be back.

Nicole (01:21:34.69)
We told you this story. Now you know.

Nicole (01:21:41.826)
Windows sticker.

Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:21:51.133)
next time. Bye.

Nicole (01:21:52.086)
Bye everyone.

Roberto Baldwin (01:21:53.409)
Bye.