Sam Abuelsamid (00:01) This is episode 429 of wheel bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from telemetry. Stephanie Brinley (00:07) Thank Roberto Baldwin (00:09) Hi, Roberto Baldwin from SAE Media SAE International, man, well both actually I'm from SAE Media and SAE International I probably should have, yeah I'm from all the SAEs Stephanie Brinley (00:11) Yeah. everything. And I'm Stephanie Brinley from S &P Global Mobility. Roberto Baldwin (00:25) And something else, just make up something now. Wiener Schnitzel. Sam Abuelsamid (00:25) and Stephanie Brinley (00:28) Yeah, right. Sam Abuelsamid (00:28) Ha ha ha. And Nicole, think, is still in Europe. mean, a couple days ago, she sent some photos. She texted some photos of Mercedes CLA EV partially camo'd somewhere in Germany. yeah. Oh yeah? Roberto Baldwin (00:46) Somewhere in Germany. You know, I'll be somewhere in Germany tomorrow. Yeah, and I'll probably be driving this car. I think that's all I can say. I don't know. They'll tell me when I get there. Sam Abuelsamid (00:59) Well, we discuss that at some future date. All right, well, Steph, since you're our guest today, why you tell us what you drove? Stephanie Brinley (01:09) I drove the Corolla Cross Hybrid this week. you know, when I was driving it, you know, from Michigan people, right, I drove up to Franklin with Thanksgiving. And I loved how small and compact and just easy to live with it is. I found, I was a little bit surprised that the mid-range power on the highway was better than I expected it to be. I mean, it's, you know, a little hybrid with a ton of power, so it's not a super. fast vehicle, but it handled pretty well and I was enjoying it. I was like, okay, this is kind of neat. It didn't feel like it was quite as noisy as a lot of Toyota hybrids tend to be. And then I'm like, let's double check the price on this thing. Yeah, I'm like, okay, maybe not. And then I'm still trying to figure out how upset I am with the price right now. It's, Sam Abuelsamid (01:54) Ha Roberto Baldwin (01:55) no. Stephanie Brinley (02:05) $35,999 before the $1,450 destination fee. So it's $37,449. Now just for kicks, I compared the non-hybrid XLE, which is similarly equipped to the one that I have, and it was $34,810 before the destination fee. So I'm about to do that. Sam Abuelsamid (02:29) And you, your, your hybrid was also an XLE. Stephanie Brinley (02:32) It was similar. It's XSE. It was XSE for the hybrid. So there's similar content, a little bit different. Couldn't quite get it to be exactly the same when you go from hybrid to gas. And so there's still a, I was looking to find the gap between the two and there's still a pretty good gap between the hybrid and the non-hybrid. And that's where the extra, ⁓ geez, that was more expensive than I thought. Sam Abuelsamid (02:37) Okay. Stephanie Brinley (03:02) came from, I think, is the gap between the hybrid and the non-hybrid. Overall, it's probably, if you think about an average car price of $48,000 or $49,000, it's still well below average. But it's still felt like a little bit of a surprise. I was thinking closer to $33,000, which is, before there's any options on this one, the base price is $33,000. Roberto Baldwin (03:23) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (03:29) But then you throw a couple of options onto it and the destination fee and all of sudden you're at 37.5. Roberto Baldwin (03:35) You're like, ooh. It's... Sam Abuelsamid (03:38) That's a lot of money for something that has a Corolla badge, but no GR badge. Stephanie Brinley (03:45) Yeah. But you look at the Corolla with the Corbadge on it and you're not at that price either. Let's look at that. Well, we talked about the ounces there. Yeah, but that's upwards of 40 base. So you're going to hit 47 before you're done pretty easily. So you can get a Corolla GR for, you know, $10,000 more than this one. Roberto Baldwin (03:45) Grr. Sam Abuelsamid (03:58) Yeah, the GR is upwards of 40 now. Yeah. yeah, easily. Yeah, you can. Roberto Baldwin (04:08) Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (04:18) It's not exactly. Roberto Baldwin (04:19) Well, it's funny, you know, when the prelude pricing came out, they sent it along with like, oh, based on inflation, it's actually less than like the 2002 prelude or whatever. And so when you look at like, you know, we can say, oh, well, based on the inflation, this car is actually cheaper than a, you know, a car, but that's based on inflation. Pay hasn't increased based on inflation. There's the big issue is that the amount of money we take home. Stephanie Brinley (04:27) Perfect. Roberto Baldwin (04:46) hasn't kept track with inflation for a very long time. it just keeps getting, everything keeps getting more and more expensive while we're getting less, Yeah, it's, there's a larger and larger gap every year. So when you say, it's only, well, according to inflation, this card was only like, you know, $18,000. I'm like, yeah, but I make less than I would have in the 90s. Sam Abuelsamid (04:52) It's a bigger and bigger percentage of our paycheck. Stephanie Brinley (05:09) Well, and I saw that Honda comparison and it was clever because they compared to the last year of the Prelude. So if you're randomly comparing to 2001, sure. But a lot has changed. I mean, know, a vehicle affordability is going to be a problem all year long. It's not going to get any better. Same with everything else. Sam Abuelsamid (05:33) Well, and I think they with the the RAV4 when they announced the RAV4 pricing a week or two ago, you know, I think that they did something similar. You know, they compared the price of the base RAV4 what? SE trim, I think is the base trim, you know, to and compared that to the cheapest 2025 RAV4 hybrid. And that trim was slightly cheaper by Stephanie Brinley (05:49) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (06:03) $100. But, you know, that doesn't take into account the fact that you can't get a gas only RAV4 anymore. And there was a cheaper RAV4 gas last year that is now gone. And if you and the same, you know, the same thing happened with the 4Runner. If you go past the that base trim to any of the other trims, they're all all the other trims are more expensive than the equivalent 2025 model. Stephanie Brinley (06:17) you it. . Sam Abuelsamid (06:31) And it was the same thing with the Forerunner and with the Tacoma. So they get a cheap baseline price for a version that almost nobody buys. And then everything else is more expensive. And in some cases, buy a lot. Roberto Baldwin (06:45) Yeah, it's just like the huge, huge leaps Stephanie Brinley (06:48) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (06:48) in the, in any trim below. You get like four wheels and like some vice grips for a steering wheel. yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (06:55) Hahaha. Stephanie Brinley (06:57) Yeah, well, pricing is still going to be pressured all year. And now that the tariffs have settled down to a degree, know all you can do is. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (07:06) We hope. Sam Abuelsamid (07:08) for the moment. Roberto Baldwin (07:10) Fingers crossed! Sam Abuelsamid (07:13) It's preoccupied with going to war with a country that hasn't done anything to us yet. Stephanie Brinley (07:19) Yeah, now the tariffs are almost settled. But that does mean that automakers can get a better grip on what their pricing needs to be for next year. you know, we do expect to see more impact and we'll see exactly what that translates into. you know, consumers, of course, are facing, you know, everything else is more expensive as well. And we do, I Sam Abuelsamid (07:20) Ha! Stephanie Brinley (07:48) didn't double check our forecast for 26, but we do expect 26 to be lower sales than 25. But the weird thing about all this pricing conversation that we have, we talk about pricing a lot, talk about affordability a lot. Somehow or another, consumers were resilient enough in 2025 that they're gonna buy almost as little bit more, a few more cars than they did in 2024. And in 2024, we kind of thought affordability might be a bit of a problem. We've been talking about this for years and consumers just keep buying cars. Roberto Baldwin (08:20) It is crazy what people are paying for cars and their loans and how much they're paying per month. And I'm like, that's insane. I feel like the cheapest person on my block. Sam Abuelsamid (08:27) Yeah, I mean, we've. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this on several occasions, where, what was it, 20 % of all car payments are now over $1,000 a month. And so many people now have seven and eight year car loans, which is just insane. Stephanie Brinley (08:32) Mm-hmm. yeah. Roberto Baldwin (08:53) much money. Like who, it doesn't help that I live in the Bay Area. So there's that. And we bought a house in the Bay Area. So that, like, you know, we already have the squeeze of that. ⁓ But even, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (09:07) But even here in Michigan, it's still very expensive. And I'm lucky we haven't had a car payment in... Roberto Baldwin (09:11) Yeah, that's still a lot of money. Sam Abuelsamid (09:18) seven years. Yeah, about seven years now since I last had a car payment. know, both both both of our cars are paid off. So, yeah, and that's part that's part of the reason why this year when we when we did decide to replace our old car, we bought a used car for the first time in a long time. Roberto Baldwin (09:21) that's nice. Nice. Stephanie Brinley (09:32) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (09:38) I've never Stephanie Brinley (09:39) Mine's paid off, but mine's old and that's one of the things I'm like, am I gonna buy a new car? It's true, I don't know. It's crazy, I might, could happen. But yeah, my Miata's been paid off for a while. And it is nice to go without a car payment. And historically, when I bought a car, I've gotten it paid off well before the loan term and only had car payments for couple of years. But I don't know if that's possible with the way that pricing is right now. Roberto Baldwin (09:50) Which. Yeah, that's. Sam Abuelsamid (10:07) Yeah, know, average transaction prices, you know, topped 50,000 in, was it September or October? Yeah. And yeah, you know, and it dipped back down again in October, slightly just below, but I'm, you know, my guess is that, you know, for at least the next year or two, you know, it's going to be hovering right around that $50,000 mark for, for a while now. Yeah, it's probably, it's not, you know, it's probably going to just bounce up and down just around that. Stephanie Brinley (10:14) And well, there were some other factors playing that. Roberto Baldwin (10:17) Yeah. Oof. I don't even know. Sam Abuelsamid (10:36) that mark but not really drop significantly. Stephanie Brinley (10:38) Yeah. So in that context, you know, $36,000 for Corolla Cross Hybrid is not as crazy as it sounds, it still feels like... Sam Abuelsamid (10:46) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (10:47) it We're like when you think about the economics that we like okay thirty six thousand. Okay, three year loan All right, how much down or anything in 10 %? Oh my god. It's a lot of money for a Corolla Stephanie Brinley (11:02) It's the interest rates now too. mean that's no Roberto Baldwin (11:04) that doesn't help either. Sam Abuelsamid (11:05) Yeah, that's a big part of what contributes to those thousand dollar a month payments is the interest rates on a lot of these loans because you end up ⁓ just paying an exorbitant amount. It's been nice lately looking at my mortgage statement and seeing that we're approaching the final years of our mortgage and so now the vast majority of my monthly mortgage payment is going to principal. Stephanie Brinley (11:10) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (11:35) and not to interest. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (11:35) that's nice. Stephanie Brinley (11:35) Yeah, yeah, Roberto Baldwin (11:38) We're Stephanie Brinley (11:38) I did that. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (11:38) only six years in, so. Stephanie Brinley (11:41) ⁓ I just bought a house and tried to ⁓ set things up. I should be paid off in a couple of years, but I did a big loan payment this summer. And so I saw that same thing, Sam. It was really nice. It's really nice to see that drop. If I could pay less interest, that's better. Sam Abuelsamid (11:54) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (11:59) Yeah, we pay every two weeks, so twice a year we're just paying directly to interest instead of once a month. Look at that, look at all the financial advice we're giving people. Save up all your money, just pay off your house and buy a used car. That's the Will Barons motto. Stephanie Brinley (12:01) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (12:07) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (12:07) Right? Sam Abuelsamid (12:12) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (12:13) Well, now be careful with buying, well, you know, Sam, you were able to buy your used car without a payment, but used car financing can be higher than new car financing. So you've got to be careful a little bit there too. Roberto Baldwin (12:21) That's true. Sam Abuelsamid (12:22) Yeah. Yeah, you do end up typically paying more in interest rates on used car loans because generally you're not going to get your ⁓ used car loan through the captive finance company, the automaker, you know, and they, usually give the best rates, you know, so if you have to go through your bank or credit union or heaven forbid through the dealer, you know, you're going to end up paying a lot more in interest rates. So. that that that's actually another major challenge with used cars. Roberto Baldwin (12:57) There's a NC Miata for $10,000 near me. So I'm just, you know. Stephanie Brinley (13:04) If I do decide to sell, there's one of my driveway. I don't know how I'm going to sell it for. Roberto Baldwin (13:07) There you go. There you go. Sam Abuelsamid (13:11) Robbie can fly here and drive it home. Roberto Baldwin (13:13) No, I only fit in the NDs. I don't fit in the other ones. Nope. Because of the way the cross member is for the retractable top, yeah. I drove my friend in his NA, he messed up his knee. We were at a Taekwondo tournament and he got kicked in the knee. And so I had to drive him to the hospital in the snow in his NA and I was driving like this. Sam Abuelsamid (13:17) You fit in the ND, but you don't fit in the NC? Stephanie Brinley (13:25) Well, that's how retractable it is, is that how? Roberto Baldwin (13:43) I my head all cocked like 45 degrees. It was horrible. I was like, man, this car sucks. Stephanie Brinley (13:46) ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (13:50) Well, and you're quite a bit taller than I am, Robbie. And the last time I drove an ND was at the Mama Spring Rally in 24 at Road America. And I went to take an ND out on the track. when you go on the track, you have to wear a helmet. And it was kind of a rainy day, so I had the top up, know, had the top closed. It was an RF, so was the hard top. Stephanie Brinley (13:54) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (13:55) I'm a monster. Stephanie Brinley (14:08) you you Roberto Baldwin (14:10) That's Sam Abuelsamid (14:17) had the top closed and with the helmet on, know, I was like that, you know, my head cocked over because I could not, I could not fit with a helmet on. Roberto Baldwin (14:22) That's me in the Lamborghini in the Huracan. I was at Willow Springs and my head was cocked at 45 degrees with trying to drive at Willow Springs in a Lamborghini. It Sam Abuelsamid (14:35) Oof. Roberto Baldwin (14:37) was just like, never be tall. Yeah, see, that's, everyone's like, you're tall, you can reach things. I'm like, yeah, but most like. Sam Abuelsamid (14:38) Not great. Stephanie Brinley (14:39) I don't mind being a little shorter than you guys. It's all good. Roberto Baldwin (14:46) fun sports car. Like my friend had an S2000, I wanted one so bad and I went to get in it and I'm like, well, this will never work. Sam Abuelsamid (14:56) That is the downside of small sports cars. Roberto Baldwin (14:56) This is never gonna be part of my life. So I have a BRZ. Yeah, so I have the BRZ. BRZ, the Miata for Tall People. Sam Abuelsamid (15:04) Yeah. Anything else on the Corolla Cross? Stephanie Brinley (15:04) . That was about it. mean, really comfortable. I'm comfortable for its segment and what and more pleasant to drive than I was sort of expecting. And knocked around a little bit. Again, I like things that are small like that. And in these abilities, ease of use in that space. A little quieter than I thought it was going to be. From the engine, the road noise and the tires was pretty high. Sam Abuelsamid (15:38) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (15:38) Radio up. To forget. Yeah, very typical of that. And again, the pricing was a little bit higher than I was sort of thinking. But as we've talked about, it's it's it makes a little bit more sense. I'm ⁓ still 42 MPG is pretty nice and and a good viable option for for the entry space. It just the entry space is not what it used to be. Sam Abuelsamid (15:41) That's typical Toyota four cylinder. All right, Robbie, tell us about your adventure this week. Roberto Baldwin (16:07) Listen. So I drove to Palm Springs and back, which is over 500 miles. And we took the dogs and we, you know, usually we drive the dogs around in the Onyx 5, but that's so much time in a car. So what we do when we go on long trips with the dogs, we will rent a minivan. And then I have to spend like an entire day at when we get back cleaning the minivan because you're not supposed to put dogs in your rental minivan. ⁓ That's it. you almost always get a Chrysler Pacifica. Sam Abuelsamid (16:31) Ha ha. Roberto Baldwin (16:41) I got a Sienna Hybrid once and I was so excited because I got a great gas mileage. ⁓ But not this time. I got the Chrysler Pacifica S, which is like, it felt fancy. There's like, you know, USB ports in the back for the second row, which didn't matter because all the seats were down because there's a big dog bed in the back for the dogs. ⁓ That's it. I have never had a car that dropped CarPlay more than this. Stephanie Brinley (16:52) He Roberto Baldwin (17:10) Just non-stop, they used to be driving and either wired and wireless. That's what I was like, oh, I'll just unplug it. Maybe there's something going, nope. USB-C, USB-A, had both by the way, which was nice, but still either it just kept dropping car play. So I'm not 100 % sure if it was the car or if it was my phone, but my phone has not dropped car play in my car at all the entire time I've been back because there was an update for the iPhone and God knows what they're doing over at Apple anymore. Sam Abuelsamid (17:10) ⁓ Is it wired or wireless? Stephanie Brinley (17:21) Okay. Okay. Roberto Baldwin (17:40) So that was kind of a pain in the butt. I got about 22 miles, 22 and a half miles per gallon driving down there. That's doing like 80, 85 again, speeding. Stephanie Brinley (17:51) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (17:52) The speed limit's 70. So of course I'm gonna go faster than that. Cause I'm a horrible person on the freeway. It was comfortable. It was, yeah, it was a comfortable, it was a comfortable vehicle. Stow and go still like, you know, double thumbs up for Stow and Go. Stephanie Brinley (18:07) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (18:09) for second and third row, tons of room for all the random stuff. just, know, stuff starts sliding because there's so much room. You don't have anything to like buy. So you have to very carefully put things in. The dogs enjoyed it. They like being able to stand up, walk around, come put their heads between the two drivers, ⁓ the two front seats because they are also driving as far as they're concerned. ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (18:34) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (18:36) That is the way it works with dogs and cars. Roberto Baldwin (18:38) Yeah, yeah. The transmission, man. Stephanie Brinley (18:41) . Roberto Baldwin (18:44) It is, yeah, it's not, it's, it's, everything happens about three seconds later. But again, it's a, it's a minivan. You're driving around town, transmissions like that in order to like redo, you know, get you some better fuel economy. I think for most of your driving, you're going to be fine. ⁓ but it is, yeah. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (18:45) That's the nine speed. Stephanie Brinley (18:53) Thank you. Roberto Baldwin (19:13) I didn't sit in the second or third row. I did clean those rows, which was nice. So ⁓ that car. Sam Abuelsamid (19:19) Well, at least you didn't have to actually clean those seats. Roberto Baldwin (19:21) No, I didn't have to clean the seats. So that was good. Overall, you know, if you're looking for a used minivan, this is probably about a 2023, 2024. It's only like, it only had like 60,000 miles, but those are 60,000 rental car miles. Those are some hard miles. Those are a guy throwing his German Shepherd and his tiny German Shepherd in the back of a car and blasting down Interstate 5. That said, yeah, give it Give it a look. If you want to go up a little bit, you're probably going to look at the Sienna or the Odyssey. But you can't beat Stow and Go, especially if Stephanie Brinley (20:00) Right. Roberto Baldwin (20:03) you haul a lot. When we moved, we had movers because we used to live on the fourth floor of a walk up in San Francisco. So after living there for over 10 years and just carrying things up, we're like, we're not carrying all this down because now we're old. We had movers move all the stuff, except, know, it always that extra stuff. And I didn't rent a minivan, didn't, I'm sorry, I didn't rent the SUV, I didn't rent a truck, I rented a minivan to get all that extra stuff into the, you know, to our new house. And that's the brilliance of a minivan. You have the little doors that slide open as you're walking up, that's the low load height. There's tons, there's so much room that you don't think about that you lose when you have an SUV. You're sitting lower, you feel, you know, it just. Stephanie Brinley (20:29) Okay. Okay. Roberto Baldwin (20:48) It's kind of a nicer driving experience on the freeway, just cruising. It's a better, you know, touring vehicle than an SUV. I cannot say enough nice things about minivans. And no matter how often I tell people, they're like, eww. And I'm just like, man. But then you see the people who have minivans. And you're like, they get it. They get it. I have a cousin who has kids and they had a minivan for years. was an, unfortunately someone's T-boned it. But I remember when I saw it, I'm like, you get it. Stephanie Brinley (21:07) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (21:09) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (21:17) This is, he's a Mercedes dealer. He works at a Mercedes Benz dealership. So he could have like gotten anything. Nope, got the Honda Odyssey. So yeah, Chrysler Pacifica S. The S stands for sure, why not? Pay the extra money. ⁓ You probably don't need that if you're hauling kids. ⁓ It's a little bit, it feels like it's a little bit geared towards, know, you're pick up some fancy people from the airport. Stephanie Brinley (21:26) Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (21:33) Ha ha. Stephanie Brinley (21:45) you Roberto Baldwin (21:46) Like get shorty. You know, everyone's... Sam Abuelsamid (21:50) Yeah, Stephanie Brinley (21:50) And. Sam Abuelsamid (21:51) yeah, the one thing to remember is if you if you go with the plug-in hybrid version of Pacifica you you lose the stolen go for the second row seats because the cavity where the seats go is is where the battery is so Yeah Stephanie Brinley (21:59) Thank Roberto Baldwin (22:00) You have to take them out. These are the best. And you can't take them out. When they first came out, I took them out. It doesn't take too long, but now you gotta store these seats somewhere. And if you're going on long trip, like let's say we had decided while we were in Palm Springs, we decided to take a bunch of people somewhere. If we had the hybrid, wouldn't have made, you know, sorry, three people could sit in the very back. ⁓ Also, what's really weird is sometimes, I don't know why, rental places will buy plug-in hybrids. There's absolutely no reason in the world to rent anyone a plug-in hybrid because they're going somewhere. Stephanie Brinley (22:35) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (22:35) typically and they don't have anywhere, you know, they're going to hotel, where are they gonna plug in? So I've had more than a few people who like will call me or text me, who rented a car and they're like, I got this hybrid and it's not even giving me any extra. I'm like, does it have a plug? They're like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, you got hosed. It doesn't make any sense why they're passing out plug-in hybrids for rental cars. It's like you either get a gas car or an electric car or a hybrid, don't get a plug-in hybrid when you rent a car. Unless you have somewhere to... Stephanie Brinley (22:55) . Roberto Baldwin (23:05) plugging in at your destination, chances are it's not, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (23:08) And if you're staying in an Airbnb or something like that, there is actually a reasonable chance that you might have somewhere to plug it in. And if you're going to rent it and then just drive around town, use it to get around town every day, that's actually not a bad solution. But for what you were doing, which is driving from the Bay Area to Palm Springs, yeah, it would make no sense. Roberto Baldwin (23:14) Sometimes, yeah. No, it makes no sense. Try to get the hybrid. You're going to be happier overall. Or, you know, yeah. Stephanie Brinley (23:39) So in the middle of all this conversation, passenger vans this year through September Roberto Baldwin (23:47) Did he go? Yeah! Stephanie Brinley (23:47) There are 327,000 registered, or take, January through September of 25, January through September of 24, was 268,000. So it's a weird segment that's picking up this year. Sam Abuelsamid (23:59) Wow, that's a pretty big increase. Roberto Baldwin (24:03) Yeah, we finally talked everybody into the awesome like every I think almost every automotive journalist is like, you know, vans are pretty rad. Maybe you should get a van or a wagon and people are like, boo, those are lame. Stephanie Brinley (24:06) Bye. Sam Abuelsamid (24:11) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (24:12) No! ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (24:16) Yeah, I mean, if you've got young to, you know, teenage-ish, you know, preteen kids, a minivan, sliding doors, low load height, you so it's easy to get, know, especially if you've got younger kids, you have to put them into booster seats and things like that. You know, the kids can climb into the vehicle themselves ⁓ and then you just lift them up into the booster and get them buckled in. It's so much easier than... doing the lift up into an SUV and trying to do the same. Roberto Baldwin (24:46) I tried to explain the scenario where they're holding the child, they're walking to the car, you can either try to open the car, you open the door, you're hit the car next to you, you're trying to squeeze in there, or you walk up, you hit the button, the door slides open. You have this giant opening to shove your child into the seat, and then just click. Stephanie Brinley (25:03) Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (25:05) And if your kids are old enough that when you do park the car and it's time to get out, and they're going to open the back doors themselves, you know they're not going to take that care not to ding the car next to them. So if you've got sliders, perfect. You're done. You're golden. Roberto Baldwin (25:13) because they're crazy children. Stephanie Brinley (25:15) Yeah. Hahaha! Roberto Baldwin (25:20) Boom. If you're a parent, do you like when you're parking, this is a question for parents with like young, kids who can open the door. Do you, when you're parking, if you see a car that's very expensive, do you go and find another parking spot or are you just like so tired all the time because you have children that you're just like, well, roll the dice buddy. Hey, don't hit that car clunk, whatever. Sam Abuelsamid (25:40) I don't I mean thinking back to when our kids were younger I don't think I specifically looked for ⁓ spaces away from more expensive cars, but just wider spaces. Yeah, because you know a lot of times there you know there's not a whole lot of room when you pull in and so finding a space that's got more room on the sides regardless of what's parked next to it ⁓ is definitely ⁓ definitely something we did. Roberto Baldwin (25:53) Mm-hmm. Okay I did the Bill Challenge. I didn't pee for a really long time. ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (26:15) Oh, Sam Abuelsamid (26:15) Ha ha ha ha. Stephanie Brinley (26:16) by the way, we were talking about we were talking about pricing and stuff as well. So see, I'm looking at numbers while we're talking here, too, because why not? And really, you know, it looks like from our data, about 49 percent were in the 40 to $47,000 price range, give or take. every and 15 percent in the 46 to 50. So 40 to 46, 499. Roberto Baldwin (26:22) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (26:42) And then 46,500 to 49,999 is another 15%. So it looks like most of these are really going in that 40 to $50,000 price range, which is not that bad in the context of what we were talking about. Roll across being at 37, including destination. This would not include destination. So 36, including destination, you can step up a little bit more if you really need to get a mini-med. Roberto Baldwin (26:58) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at a used price, it's like 22. Sam Abuelsamid (27:07) And it's becoming increasingly hard to find a reasonably equipped three-row SUV for under 50 grand. Roberto Baldwin (27:15) and you fit in the back of a minivan. Like most three row SUVs, I get in the back, I'm like, well, I did it. Stephanie Brinley (27:23) Can I go now? Roberto Baldwin (27:25) It's like when someone gives you food that you know is not going to be great and you're like, well, I'll taste it. That's the third row in most SUVs. You're like, well, I did the thing to say that I did it. I'm never going to do this again. Stephanie Brinley (27:42) Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (27:43) All right. ⁓ Well, I have a Mercedes Benz, a Mercedes AMG G63. Roberto Baldwin (27:54) So the exact same kind of car that we had. Sam Abuelsamid (27:58) And, you know, I mean, this, car, you know, this, vehicle is in principle, one of the most capable four wheel drive off road vehicles in the world. It's got three locking differentials, front, center and rear. It's got a solid rear axle, you know, so you get good articulation off road. It's got all the, all the good stuff that you want in an off road SUV. And it's got 22 inch wheels. Stephanie Brinley (28:00) Two rows. Sam Abuelsamid (28:27) Low profile tires. So this vehicle is never ever ever gonna go off road. Yeah, yeah, this is who? ⁓ Let's see the Base price is a hundred and eighty six thousand one hundred dollars ⁓ all in this one was two hundred and eleven thousand seven hundred dollars which You want you want to take a guess at the destination charge? Roberto Baldwin (28:29) Of course it does. Stephanie Brinley (28:37) How expensive is this one? So cool. Roberto Baldwin (28:58) 1200. 1200. Stephanie Brinley (28:58) we're at three grand now? Maybe. Sam Abuelsamid (29:01) Robbie almost nailed it, $1,150. Because, well, because the thing that we have come to realize here on Wheel Bearings is that the domestic automakers, they are hiding their price increases in destination charges, just cranking up the destination charges. The Germans, they don't care. Fine, if we're going to raise the price, we're just going to raise the sticker price. They're not going to screw around trying to hide it. It's just there. So, $1,150. Stephanie Brinley (29:02) it's closer to three. ⁓ really? Roberto Baldwin (29:03) Yeah, because... you Sam Abuelsamid (29:31) The more expensive imports like this, typically the destination charges, even if they're coming from Germany or somewhere else, are relatively modest compared to the $2,600 you'll pay now for a full-size pickup or SUV from Ford, GM, or Stellantis. So the AMG G63 has the... Stephanie Brinley (29:51) That makes sense. Sam Abuelsamid (30:00) AMG four liter twin turbo V8 with their 48 volt mild hybrid system on it. Five hundred and seventy seven horsepower, six hundred and twenty seven pound feet of side exit exhaust. So two exhaust pipes in front of each of the rear wheels. Yeah. So this thing sounds fantastic when you fire it up. And especially if you put it in sport plus mode, it really sounds good when you when you step on the gas and you rev it. You know, unlike You know, an EV, I this thing's, you know, authentic rumbling thing, you know, got almost 600 V8 horsepower under the hood. ⁓ you know, it's, it sounds like fun, but you know, it's, it's so weird, you know, looking down at the console, seeing these switches for the three locking differentials and, all the other stuff, you know, that they all the off road drive modes, you know, there's a whole page. can flip the infotainment system to the. Stephanie Brinley (30:30) . Sam Abuelsamid (30:58) to the, in fact, there's a dedicated button. ⁓ You don't even have to go searching through a menu. There's a button that takes you to the off-road interface. It shows you things like, you know, your roll and pitch angle, things like that. So you know how far you're tilted up, you know, because you're never, nobody's ever, ever gonna take this thing off-road unless they buy one that's like 25, 30 years old Stephanie Brinley (31:07) Okay. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (31:22) and they throw away those wheels and tires, put a lift kit on it and put on some proper off-road. All-terrain tires. Stephanie Brinley (31:29) You know people get snow tires for their cars. You could get off-road tires. You're running $11,000. You could. Sam Abuelsamid (31:32) And this one is on snow tires. They did put snows on it. Roberto Baldwin (31:40) Yeah, it's just... Sam Abuelsamid (31:40) You could, but the people that are gonna buy this thing, people living in Beverly Hills, driving to the Gucci store on Rodeo Drive, or, yeah, exactly, I'm not blaming the car. It is absolutely the fault of the people that are buying this vehicle, which is, like I said, has all these core capabilities that make it great for, you Roberto Baldwin (31:53) That's not the car's fault, that's the people's fault. Sam Abuelsamid (32:09) going to Moab or the Rubicon trail. But then they put these ridiculous wheels and tires on it that make it useless. Stephanie Brinley (32:20) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (32:20) Yeah, can, I looked, you can get 20 inch tires for it, or 20 inch wheels. ⁓ Okay, but they just gave you the 22s because that's what people are buying, because they don't enjoy freedom. Sam Abuelsamid (32:24) Yes, it does the the mg g63 does come standard with 20s ⁓ Yeah, because that's what people are gonna buy when they buy this thing Stephanie Brinley (32:38) I was in Japan at the Tokyo Motor Show a few weeks ago, wherever that was, and there were a ton of them. 8G glasses all over the place. was kind of odd. So downtown Tokyo, it was kind of a strange thing. I probably would also be one of those people that ever took it off road. But guilty pleasure car, check, check, check. I love her. Sam Abuelsamid (32:45) Mm-hmm. That's surprising how many there are in Tokyo. Roberto Baldwin (33:01) no, I, I love I, I got the person, the head of this vehicle to admit that the EV version is the best one. And so I had that I, drove the EV one and I kept taking it off road. was like, Sam Abuelsamid (33:14) But again, it comes standard with, it comes standard with these street tires, you know, that, that, know, you don't want to take those things on a trail where you're going to, you know, where the sharp rocks are going to cut up those tires very easily. Um, but you know, I mean, there, like, there's some, there's some really nice things about this. Uh, you know, the, seats, the front seats in this thing are great. The back seat is kind of tight. Um, but you know, Roberto Baldwin (33:28) I do what I want. Stephanie Brinley (33:33) Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (33:42) for given the proportions, you know, it's similar in size to, um, uh, you know, a four door Wrangler or Bronco. Um, and, uh, but the front seats, you know, you get these perform front, there's performance front seats, you know, heavy bolstering, you know, so when you're cornering hard, you know, it's also got the, thing that Mercedes does where, um, it's, it's got a dynamic mode for the seats. So when you're coring, you know, if you're turning to the right, you'll feel the left side bolster. Stephanie Brinley (33:46) So, you. Sam Abuelsamid (34:11) pushing you in, know, trying to keep you in place in front of the steering wheel. ⁓ So, you know, those are cool little features that the massage function in those seats works really nice. I this thing out for a drive for a couple of hours the other day before, before the snow started. And, you know, it was very, very pleasant to drive. ⁓ And the, you know, again, because of the shape of this thing, you know, it's, it's a very upright vehicle and Stephanie Brinley (34:17) Okay. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (34:40) It had, you know, it's there's a lot of similarity Stephanie Brinley (34:45) Okay. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (34:46) in the design to a a Jeep, to a Wrangler. You know, so the hood actually slopes down quite a bit. ⁓ It's got a very upright windshield, you know, almost flat windshield. And so you have actually very good visibility in front of you and to the corners, which if you were on a trail on an off road trail would be great because you can see where you're maneuvering even without having to resort to all the cameras and stuff. ⁓ But again, on the tires that come from the factory, the wheels and tires come from the factory. You know, you're going to get about 20 feet on the trail if you're lucky. And that's about it. You got about nine and a half inches of ground clearance on this thing, which actually is better than the Jeep recon we talked about last week, which is only 9.1 inches ⁓ and different versions of the. Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (35:23) Yeah. Okay. Roberto Baldwin (35:31) Yep. Take that Jeep recon. Take that Jeep recon. Sam Abuelsamid (35:39) And various iterations of the G-Wagon, depending on what configuration you get, some of them get up to 13 inches of ground clearance, which is actually really good. It's the MBUX infotainment system works quite well. The voice control is good. What else is on this thing? Oh, some of the options on there, it had some of the manufacturer trim elements. So you've got the, there's a grab handle on the passenger side of the dash. So when my wife was going to climb into this thing yesterday, she saw the grab handle and, you know, use that to pull herself up. Cause it's pretty tall. ⁓ And, you know, it had, you know, on the, ⁓ what was this one? think a walnut, think, walnut trim. Yeah. So open poor walnut trim. Stephanie Brinley (36:16) That. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (36:36) on the dashboard and on those grab handles and it had the manufacturer script, spelled the German way with a K and no E. ⁓ That's Mercedes ⁓ personalization package that they offer. ⁓ Sorry, no, it's oak. It's natural grain oak wood trim, which looks really nice in this thing. Nice, good size cup holders, it fit my wife's ⁓ big ass water bottle. Stephanie Brinley (36:46) Hmm. Roberto Baldwin (36:55) Ooooo Sam Abuelsamid (37:08) and, ⁓ so, yeah, I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's surprisingly nice to drive. It's very quick, with almost 600 horsepower. ⁓ it's just, it's this weird, it's got this weird split personality, you know, it's got all these capabilities that you can't actually use just because of the wheels and tires they put on. Stephanie Brinley (37:13) . Seriously, buy spare wheels and tires, put them in the garage. Change that when you want to go off-roading. Sam Abuelsamid (37:31) Yeah, or... Roberto Baldwin (37:31) Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I mean if you're paying like a minimum $155,000 for any of these trims, well for like if you get the cheap one, if you get the cheap one, you know, you probably can afford it's an extra set of wheels. I mean, you're not, I mean the people who are buying this car are not like I took the electric one. I kept taking it off into the dirt and on a little trail and stuff. And I was like, no one's ever, this is in California. This is like one of three of these. Sam Abuelsamid (37:39) 86 of yeah, okay Stephanie Brinley (37:51) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (38:04) that's doing this right now. ⁓ And California's the largest market for this vehicle because LA. ⁓ And those things, every time I see one, I cry a little. comes down my face. It's like when I see a lower WRX or STI. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Stop it. Stop it. It's the same thing with a G-Wagon. I see a G-Wagon, it's definitely never been off road. Little tear. Stephanie Brinley (38:04) it. Aww. Sam Abuelsamid (38:15) Ha ha. Stephanie Brinley (38:21) you Sam Abuelsamid (38:25) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (38:30) Hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (38:31) Yeah, and I'm fully aware that anybody who is going to spend almost $212,000 on a vehicle like this can certainly afford to buy an extra set of wheels and tires. And they can also afford to have somebody that takes care of the vehicles in their garage of multiple vehicles. And when they just press a button on their desk or somewhere in their incredibly smart home, You know, it will send a message to that person saying, Hey, I plan to go off-roading this afternoon, you know, put the, off-road tires on the, the AMG G 63. and you know, it will just, it'll just magically happen. They're not, you know, the, people that own this type of vehicle are not, you know, if they care at all about going off-roading, you know, they will, they will have someone that they employ to take care of this stuff for them when they want to go or, know, Stephanie Brinley (39:03) Yeah. . Thank you. Roberto Baldwin (39:23) They gotta die. Stephanie Brinley (39:25) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (39:26) They may actually just have two of them. They may have one with the summer performance tires and then a second one with off-road tires. Stephanie Brinley (39:37) There you go. Spare G class. That's spare tires. Roberto Baldwin (39:39) That's what we've been messing. The doubles, the one for... Sam Abuelsamid (39:42) But yeah, but the thing is, if you are gonna go off road with this thing, it's not just the tires, you do have to be careful with those exhaust tips because those exhaust pipes come out the side just in front of the rear wheels. depending on where the obstacles are, it would be very easy to crush those. And I'm sure that would not be an inexpensive repair to replace those exhaust tips. Stephanie Brinley (39:52) Yeah, I would think. Heard that. Roberto Baldwin (40:09) YOLO Sam Abuelsamid (40:15) Alright, ⁓ let's see. Let's move on to some other stuff. So, remember the Dodge Magnum? Stephanie Brinley (40:26) Doom. Roberto Baldwin (40:26) The Dodge Magnum is the coolest thing Dodge has done in 100 years. Sam Abuelsamid (40:31) Yeah, I missed the Magnum. It's a shame they didn't sell more of those. Because I thought that was a really cool looking vehicle. It was a really cool design for a wagon. You could get it with a Hemi. ⁓ it ⁓ had all of the same driving dynamics as a Challenger or Charger for good or ill. Stephanie Brinley (40:33) I missed the Magnum. Yes, it is. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (40:59) you know, which is actually surprisingly good, you know, given the size and weight of the car. But you know, it only lasted a few years because you know, Americans, you know, don't like to have the right kinds of vehicles. They don't they don't like to have good things. Roberto Baldwin (41:12) There were a lot of magnums in the Bay Area. Like it was, there were, yeah. I think maybe we bought all of them. I don't know what the deal is. Yeah, that's probably, probably. Cause they could probably throw their bikes in it or something. Stephanie Brinley (41:18) Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (41:19) Probably, well probably the Bay Area and Detroit were probably the only places that ever bought them. Stephanie Brinley (41:23) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (41:26) Yeah. Well, anyway. Stephanie Brinley (41:28) It was just cool. It was just such a cool looking current so unapologetically American and in your face. I loved it. Sam Abuelsamid (41:34) Yeah. So ⁓ somebody, somebody did a ⁓ render, you know, probably AI generated, but it might've been, ⁓ it might've been done with Photoshop, ⁓ taking the, ⁓ current Dodge charger. In fact, the one that they used as the base for this image was the charger Daytona. ⁓ And they, they put an extended roof line on it to turn it into a modern day Magnum and Stephanie Brinley (41:54) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (42:03) This and they also put, you know, as if the the charger Daytona is not wide enough. ⁓ They put the wide body wheel flares on there from the last generation charger challenger. ⁓ And this thing looks really good. I like it. Stephanie Brinley (42:14) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (42:18) Listen, I've posted on the internet dozens of times, bring back the magnum, you cowards. And so far they have not, but at least someone's thinking about it. No one's listening, no, they're definitely like, Dodge is definitely not listening to anything I've ever said. Stephanie Brinley (42:27) We're not listening to you. Sam Abuelsamid (42:34) You know, they saw the lesson of the Cadillac CTS V Wagon. Journalists said, yes, give us this cool looking wagon with a big supercharged V8 engine and a manual transmission. And then nobody bought Stephanie Brinley (42:43) Okay, maybe I liked that one better than the Magnemite data set. Roberto Baldwin (42:56) I mean... Stephanie Brinley (42:56) one person did and I tried to I almost bought that one I wanted to but I honestly I could never afford it but I wanted that car I wanted that car Sam Abuelsamid (42:59) did you? Yeah. it. Ray Wurtz, the only person I know who has one and he bought his used. Stephanie Brinley (43:13) Hi. But the one that I the one that I knew of was purple with the manual transmission. Sam Abuelsamid (43:13) So yeah, sadly this will probably. Roberto Baldwin (43:15) What we want is... Sam Abuelsamid (43:20) Ooh, I didn't, I don't remember the purple. Huh. I'll have to look that up later. Um, but I'm sure somebody will build one of these for SEMA one of these days, but, probably not an electric one. They'll probably build one with a, with a Hellcat in it. Stephanie Brinley (43:21) at dark purple. Uh-huh. Much better. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (43:42) Yeah. So, so do either of you have any subscriptions that you pay for in your car? Roberto Baldwin (43:51) My car? Stephanie Brinley (43:51) you. Sam Abuelsamid (43:52) Yeah, because you want to use your car to subscribe to stuff, right? Roberto Baldwin (43:54) Of course not! No, I don't. Stephanie Brinley (43:58) I do not. do. I know I even I'm even off some off serious right now. I was on serious, but I'm you know serious at the moment. Sam Abuelsamid (44:08) Well, the ⁓ state of New York or at least one state senator in New York is sponsoring a bill ⁓ that would sort of kind of ban subscriptions. ⁓ know, the quote here from the Jalopnik article, if the automaker is building a feature into a car for as long as cars have been invented, you've never had to pay a subscription to access those features. Stephanie Brinley (44:22) Sort of kind of. Sam Abuelsamid (44:35) When asked if he sees this as the next wave of corporate nickel and diming turning safety into a luxury, Skoflis didn't hesitate. There's no question. ⁓ So, you know, we've, you know, everybody has complained about, you know, BMW's experiments with, you know, charging the subscription for heated seats and heated steering wheels and things like that. And, you know, those went nowhere because the market said, yeah, no, we don't want this. We're not going to pay for this. But. Stephanie Brinley (44:59) Yeah. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (45:04) ⁓ Manufacturers continue to try to experiment with trying to find ways to extract money from their customers in perpetuity. ⁓ And some of those efforts are working better than others, like getting them to pay a subscription, ⁓ at least for connectivity, and then to use that as a way to charge a subscription for some of the more advanced driver assist features like supercruise. or Ford's Blue Cruise. And so the bill that is being sponsored in New York State targets subscription fees for accessing hardware that's already built into the car. But there are, of course, exceptions. The provisions of this section shall not apply to navigation system updates. So, yeah, okay, so you're still going have to pay for your nav updates. Infotainment features. satellite radio, in-vehicle Wi-Fi, telematic services, roadside assistance, and software-dependent driver assistance or other driver automation features, or vehicle-connected services. So basically, they won't be able to charge you for heated seats. Everything else, pretty much fair game. Stephanie Brinley (46:06) Which they aren't. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (46:14) Yeah, they weren't trying. Alright, well, sure. Stephanie Brinley (46:16) And you know, the trick is, you know, is finding enough for the consumer to find value. I mean, some of these things that are being charged for subscriptions, there are over the year updates. The things do change. We talk about Supercruise and BlueCruise, the maps change. The way that it interacts in the HUD changes or the driver information system changes for you over time. So if you've got something that gets better or does offer something different, a subscription makes sense. Sam Abuelsamid (46:50) Yeah, because there's a cost associated with developing and testing that and deploying it. And so, you know, somebody's got to pay for that. You know, they either build it into the price of the vehicle up front, but that's problematic because, again, it's that affordability issue. And also, you don't necessarily know how much you're going to spend on that. You know, the manufacturer doesn't necessarily know how much it's going to cost over the vehicle's lifetime. And, you know, so trying to figure out what is the right price point, whereas Stephanie Brinley (46:53) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (46:54) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (46:56) I'm. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (47:20) you know, a subscription actually does make a lot of sense for a lot of those things. Stephanie Brinley (47:25) Yeah, I mean, and so I would say in some respects, you know, proposing a bill that bans subscriptions to heated seats, which the market already killed by itself, but makes everything that makes sense to have a subscription free still available seems like a real waste of legislative time, doesn't it? Sam Abuelsamid (47:46) Yeah, but it gives them something to campaign on. They can go out next time there's an election saying, look, I got this bill through that bans subscriptions in your car, except for this stuff. Roberto Baldwin (47:50) Yeah, and there's always gonna be... Stephanie Brinley (47:55) I love you. Roberto Baldwin (47:59) And to be honest, at some point they're gonna try to slip something, the automakers are gonna try to slip something like those seats into cars. And they're gonna, yeah. And they're like, well, that's the only way you're gonna get it. They're gonna wait till there's bad, they're gonna wait till there's a lot of bad news and then slide it on out there. Stephanie Brinley (48:08) Well, they're going to keep. ⁓ I'll slide it out there and then people don't pay it. It keeps moving. think that there is because subscriptions are something that people can push back on just by not buying it. But I think that it'll find itself. But it is also true that automakers have been having the hardest time really trying to find that balance. There are more more subscription fees that are associated with these services and with the capabilities. And the take rates have not been high quite enough. And some of the targets of, you $25 billion of revenue in 2030 from subscription services feel really far away. They feel like it's not gonna happen in the same way. So it's been a complete struggle. And on the other side, you've got Hanson discussions about how we need to move through a software defined vehicle and we need to do this. Well, this is what happens. If you move to something that you're going to continually update by software, you're gonna have to pay for it. It's still a big balance. It's still a big balance in that. And I don't think for the most part, ⁓ the target isn't necessarily just to find a way to randomly get more money from you. It's still realizing you have to provide a value for that money. And again, the BMW heated seat example is one consumers clearly said, no, that's not acceptable. So Roberto Baldwin (49:29) Yep. I like how we got so angry and it wasn't even here. It was like in some like test market somewhere else. We absolutely all lost our minds. We're like, no. Stephanie Brinley (49:39) I thought- Sam Abuelsamid (49:44) Yeah. Well, they did try to briefly charge a subscription fee for CarPlay here in the U.S. They charged $80 a year to get access to CarPlay. Stephanie Brinley (49:46) Which is good, I mean. Roberto Baldwin (49:52) yeah, remember the carplay thing? ⁓ I remember every review I did of a BMW made fun of that and then it went away. Because it's ridiculous. Stephanie Brinley (49:57) Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Especially since their connectivity with their connection wasn't that good. It was one of them that I always dropped. Roberto Baldwin (50:06) Yeah, it's just, you know, like, it's a cable and it's hitting. Stephanie Brinley (50:10) ⁓ So, know, it's interesting to have a piece of legislation kind of looking at that, but ⁓ it's going to continue to evolve. Roberto Baldwin (50:14) Ahem. In a world that we live in now, this seems like the lowest hanging, boring, what? What are you doing? Come on, there's some other things. Get to work. Stephanie Brinley (50:28) Yeah, yeah. Isn't there something that matters? It can actually be useful. Roberto Baldwin (50:32) I know there's some stuff to make. There's some really important things you could do right now. Stephanie Brinley (50:38) And if it's just New York, doesn't matter anyway. I mean, it is one of the top five markets in the US, but still. Sam Abuelsamid (50:47) Well, okay, so if you don't want to pay subscriptions, ⁓ how about if we charge, how about if we run ads in your car for you and use that to pay for this stuff? Stephanie Brinley (50:55) Now that is even more annoying. Roberto Baldwin (50:56) what was going on? Whose head, whose brain was like, you know what I think. Stephanie Brinley (51:00) Is that that? Sam Abuelsamid (51:04) So, yeah, I mean, you know, for years there's been discussion about, you know, having, you know, part of why, you why automakers want the connectivity in the vehicles is so they can run ads in there. You know, that's also one of the reasons that people talked about, you know, why, why did Google, you know, get into the business of trying to build self-driving cars? You know, well, Google's revenue, you know, 80 % of Google, 85 % of Google's revenue comes from advertising. What can you do in a self-driving car when you're not driving? you can look at ads. We can put ads in front of you. Well, yeah. Roberto Baldwin (51:35) plus the data of where you're going, what you're doing, who you are. ⁓ this person loves barbecue. Looking out, serve them ads everywhere on their computer, their phone, their TV about barbecue. Sam Abuelsamid (51:46) Well, I haven't seen an ad in a Waymo yet. ⁓ But, but Stellantis on the other hand, has started experimenting with ads. This first popped up a few weeks ago. We didn't talk about it then. know, Stellantis said, no, sorry, that was a bug. That shouldn't have happened. Well, it's back again. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (51:49) yet. Stephanie Brinley (52:03) It's a bug. Roberto Baldwin (52:05) Well the first one was a bug, the second one you're like, now it's good, now you gotta do Sam Abuelsamid (52:09) Yeah. So apparently some, some Stellantis owners have been seeing, you know, pop up ads showing up on their infotainment screen, but they're not even interesting ads, you know, and they're certainly not ads that you should be reading while you're driving. Stephanie Brinley (52:21) Mm-mm. Roberto Baldwin (52:21) Like you have, you have this whole space, this giant, and there's just like, here's some text that you're gonna like click away from anyway. Like when you get in your car and it's like lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Yeah, whatever. I'm driving. Let me drive my car. This is the same thing. So it was like, A, it's a bad idea. B, ⁓ it was done. it was rolled. Yeah, the execution was back. C, the design was like, well, I don't know. Stephanie Brinley (52:30) Yeah. execution was better. Well, and this one that Jalopnik posted, right? This is just announced, $1,500 loyalty retail bonus cash. So the ad is to buy another car. Roberto Baldwin (52:59) Hey, do you own the car that you're driving? Sam Abuelsamid (53:01) Yeah. And, you know, if you're if you're driving around in a Stellantis product and an ad like this shows up saying, hey, buy another Stellantis product. Are you going to think to yourself, yeah, you know, I should go buy another Jeep or another Chrysler. You're going to think, no, why? If you're to put ads up in there for me, I'm going to go buy a Honda or a Toyota. Roberto Baldwin (53:19) What is... Literally anything that doesn't give me serve me as I don't understand that This is just indicative Stellantis to be honest. This is like their entire like marketing like I'm surprised they didn't write the word Hemi in here to be honest That's something and then just at the bottom Hemi and the fact you have to call a phone number to opt out Call this number to opt out You you've been opted in Stephanie Brinley (53:40) Right. Yes, so you're gonna write the phone number down. know, yeah, that's Sam Abuelsamid (53:47) Yeah. I mean, the least they could do is make that a clickable button. you don't have to, because as it is, it's just a piece of text on the screen. So you can't even just click on that number. You actually have to find a phone. Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (53:53) Yep. Well. ⁓ There's a smarter way to do this. So you're testing a bad idea and you're doing it with a really bad ad that has multiple problems for somebody driving. I feel like somebody is putting this out as a test who isn't necessarily keen on the idea. So if you're not keen on the idea, do it really badly. Sam Abuelsamid (54:29) Maybe trying to sabotage it. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (54:32) I feel they're just bad at their jobs, to be honest. This isn't like, oh, I'm gonna mess this up. you're just, they're just top to bottom. This was a bad idea. No one said no. There was like an intern in the media who was taking notes. You're like, this seems like a bad idea, but no one's gonna listen to that person. They go, oh no, no, everyone's like, this will be great. People will love this. They'll be able to buy another Jeep or Ram with $1,500 loyalty, which will almost pay for the destination fee. Stephanie Brinley (54:35) you Roberto Baldwin (55:02) And you have to call somebody to opt out. Yay! Stephanie Brinley (55:06) You know, see, apparently I keep getting told that I'm the only person in the world listening to Pandora still, but I do. And I don't have the subscription and ads pop up when I'm listening to Pandora all the time. I accept that. If I'm paying for connectivity on a vehicle and ads are popping up because I'm paying for connectivity on a vehicle, that's a little bit different because I've paid for something. I mean, Roberto Baldwin (55:22) ⁓ man. Sam Abuelsamid (55:28) It's like when Amazon started putting ads on Amazon Prime Video. then they, you know, this is a service we've had for years, you know, where, okay, you get to watch commercial-free shows and movies. And now all of a sudden, oh, we're gonna start running these ads and running a really high ad load on all these shows. know, really annoying ads, yes. And if, yeah, and if you don't like this, Stephanie Brinley (55:34) Right. Roberto Baldwin (55:50) The same four ads. That Adobe creator ad? Sam Abuelsamid (55:56) Well, you can just pay us an extra $3 a month on top of your prime subscription. It's like, no. Stephanie Brinley (56:03) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (56:04) Which, that's a weird thing is that when Hulu had to me, could subscribe to Hulu with ads and then Hulu without ads. And the same thing with Paramount Plus. And so I just paid the extra money for Paramount Plus, because I was trying to watch all the Star Trek's in order and I got tired of ads. But I knew what I was getting into. the Amazon thing, you're like, pay us three dollars more. like, no, no, bad Amazon. You like pop them on the nose with like a newspaper. You're like, you, no. Stephanie Brinley (56:12) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (56:31) you offered something and then you took it away and then you want $3. No, no. I'm happy to pay $5 or whatever more I paid to Paramount Plus or the $10 I pay more to Hulu when I upgraded that. But for some reason the idea is like, now we're just gonna put them in there and it's gonna be the same four ads over and over and over. Stephanie Brinley (56:49) Head over. Sam Abuelsamid (56:52) ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (56:52) So clearly the ad sales aren't even growing that well. Sam Abuelsamid (56:57) ⁓ No, actually, think like for the streaming services, the ones that have ads and this is part of the reason why they have like Netflix has continued to raise the price of their ad free subscriptions ⁓ because they are actually making more money even at a lower subscription fee. They're making more money from the ads than they, you more margin per per customer than they are from the ad free versions of it, which is why like the cheapest ad free Stephanie Brinley (57:09) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (57:24) Yeah, that makes sense. Sam Abuelsamid (57:27) Netflix subscription is now like, you know, 23 or $24 a month. Yeah, it's insane. Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (57:33) No wonder I don't have Netflix. Roberto Baldwin (57:37) But those ads, sales, mean, those are super, they have far more targeted data than you would sell on, say, TV, which is how we ended up with the issues within publishing. Websites don't have the hover time. You're not staying on that site as much as Google or Facebook. And so they get way better data from Facebook and Google. So the ads, what they're going to sell for inventory for publications. Stephanie Brinley (57:43) Later. Roberto Baldwin (58:05) is way low compared to those other things. And so now we can't afford journalists. Stephanie Brinley (58:12) crazy that. Speaking of ads too, on Pandora, I keep getting Nissan ads in my Pandora advertising thing. ⁓ I've been really, honestly, kind of impressed by the ads. They're so product focused. There's one about it's Nissan, Rolla, or Frontier, depending on which day it is, but still, which, you know, You don't know the engineer that did all the hot weather testing, or the engineer that closed the door 13,000 times to make sure that it's good. I'm thinking, no, wasn't an engineer, was a camera robot. But that's the point. But still, they talk about some of the testing that gets done, and then they're like, yeah, we do all this. Sam Abuelsamid (58:51) Ha ha. Roberto Baldwin (58:52) You're like, think I do know. You know who I am? This is some bad ad targeting. Sam Abuelsamid (58:56) That was that was that was an intern that did that. Stephanie Brinley (59:07) vehicle that you have is, you know, it can go off or everything. can do everything that you want. We've got a JV Power Award and blah, blah, blah. And there's one for, you know, Pathfinder Rock Creek Edition. It really talks about kind of where you want to go, where you want to take the car, but they draw through some really great product connections. And it's not about the monthly price. And it's not, it really, I was a little bit impressed by the way those ads are. like, if you're listening to this, you're not really paying that. We're in the middle of this all the time. If you're just a buyer, you're just thinking, maybe it's time to get a new car. I think it's an ad that actually tells you something about the car and gives you a reason. connects the Rock Creek ads, connects with the lifestyle, and they do it all verbally because you're listening to Pandora and you're not watching something. the ads have been pretty good. Roberto Baldwin (59:58) So you're saying that Stellantis needs to hire the ad agency that Nissan's using? Stephanie Brinley (1:00:04) Yeah, maybe. Or still, this is not a pop-up on my car. It's still not that good with the pop-ups, but. Roberto Baldwin (1:00:08) Yeah. So, yeah, hey, you like going off-road? Get a Jeep. I mean, it seems like they're just like, hey, own just one of some of these brands. Yeah, you get some extra money. Stephanie Brinley (1:00:15) Yeah. Yeah, kind of crazy, but we'll see. Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:26) All right. Well, let's stick with Stellantis for a minute. The Fiat 500. ⁓ When they launched the current generation of the 500, initially it was only available as an EV, even though the platform it's on is a multi-energy platform. you know, they can do ⁓ gas and hybrids and stuff on it, but they only launched an EV version. And here in the U.S., we still only get the EV. But in Europe, they have just launched a new version with a gas engine. It is a one liter three cylinder engine with 65 horsepower. let's see, it does 0 to 60 in 16 seconds. And Jason Torchinsky loves the idea at the Utopian. He thinks it's fast enough. And you know, Stephanie Brinley (1:01:06) it. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:24) Generally, I would agree that most modern cars have arguably gotten too fast. We don't need pickup trucks and SUVs that go from 0 to 60 in three seconds. But I don't know, do you think 16 seconds 0 to 60 is sufficient? Roberto Baldwin (1:01:41) What was the old Fiat Stephanie Brinley (1:01:42) That in the US. Roberto Baldwin (1:01:43) 500 specs? Because I'm looking that up. Stephanie Brinley (1:01:47) Nine or ten seconds like Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:49) Well, you know if you're talking like old-school like not modern versions of 500 Roberto Baldwin (1:01:52) No, no, no, not the modern, Stephanie Brinley (1:01:53) So. Roberto Baldwin (1:01:54) the old modern one. I'm talking about something that takes three days to get to. Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:59) I don't think it was quite that slow, at least not the versions here in the US. Because here they sold it with ⁓ a 1.3 or 1.4 liter turbo four cylinder. And it was probably in that 10 second range. Stephanie Brinley (1:02:02) I don't think it was. I think it was 10. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:16) Kind of. Because we had a 500, it was fine. Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:18) Yeah ⁓ Yeah, you know for an urban commuter vehicle, you know, it probably actually is enough. Yeah, because you're never going to be going 60 miles an hour. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:23) We leased the 500 and the- Stephanie Brinley (1:02:30) The reason is... And the reason I said not the U.S. is because the U.S. doesn't have any very many city markets that are really just urban city vehicles. We just don't have enough. Yes. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:43) Well, know, average speed in Manhattan is about eight miles an hour, so. Stephanie Brinley (1:02:48) Sure, it is, but I don't see a lot of Manhattanites deciding that they want to buy via 500. Yeah, it's logical there, but that's. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:57) My friends in the city just bought a Fiat 500. I used one. In San Francisco, not in Manhattan, sorry. We had a Fiat 500, we leased a Fiat 500 when ⁓ the WRX, when the motor exploded. Yeah, it was fine. Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:01) yeah? Well, he... I mean, Jason does give the example here of a 74 AMC Gremlin, which took 17.7 seconds. And I remember when I like back in like 2008 or nine, ⁓ I drove, ⁓ a smart, ⁓ European spec smart four to diesel. And I did a zero 60 run in that it took 19 seconds. ⁓ I mean, you know that, and I actually did. Stephanie Brinley (1:03:17) Yeah. Ooh! Roberto Baldwin (1:03:36) Woo! Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:41) tried driving that thing on the highway and it was terrifying. Stephanie Brinley (1:03:41) What? Roberto Baldwin (1:03:46) So what happens, it's like I'm getting up to speed is that this is an issue that I have with the Vespa. Because the Vespa will do 80 miles an hour, 12 small 12 inch tires. I'm a mad man according to motorcyclists. And so yes, it'll get up to that speed. can get up to, and it's also a motorcycle, but at a certain point, there are situations where you have to brake or you have to accelerate to get out of them. Stephanie Brinley (1:04:14) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:04:15) that reduces one of those options. Because if can't accelerate, if sometimes you have to accelerate out of a situation, and if you really can't, that's where, know, I'm not, well, it's gonna take this long. I mean, I get behind people in cars that are just never good. They take like a good 45 seconds to get to speed. Not because the car can't do it, that's just how they drive on the freeway. And I live next to a freeway. ⁓ So there's that, I think there's, yeah, I think it's around town, cool. I mean, even in LA, this would be fine, to be honest, because most of time you're not going that fast on the freeway because you're stuck in traffic. But if you're in the middle of like, you know, a very car-centric, highway-centric, like mid-size city, like let's say Bakersfield, then this is going to be a little bit tough to get up to speed and, you know. Stephanie Brinley (1:05:09) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:14) I'm sad, I wish the EV version had been, I don't know, $6,000 cheaper. I really liked that little car. I think it was great for around town. But it was just like, here's the car, oh cool, it's 30, Stephanie Brinley (1:05:21) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:25) you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I can get a proper, like, I'll make it, like, on one hand I'm like, oh, this is a fun little car, it's got a small little battery, you can charge it really quickly, it's fun to drive around. But on the other hand, like, the logic of like, well, this so much money. Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:39) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, 34, 35,000 for the 500 E was just, it was too much given, you know, what you got. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:46) Yeah, so. Stephanie Brinley (1:05:47) On the flip side of this conversation, think 16 seconds to 0 to 60 is too slow for the US, I think. That doesn't mean you can't find specific use cases here and there. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:01) no, this is like four places in the US it's fine. Like not so much. Stephanie Brinley (1:06:05) Yeah, and the rest of it, it's not really fun. But here, know, talking about EVs and the acceleration that they have right now, how many people in the US really understand how fast their EVs can go from 0 to 60? And how many accidents are we going to end up having from people who just don't quite realize how fast this car is? To your point, Sam, not everything needs to go to 60 miles an hour in three or four seconds. That's not necessary either. It's gonna be interesting and I'm like driving around 75 and I feel like it just gets to be 85 in an EV just you don't even notice. All of sudden you're like. And it's gonna be interesting kind of watching drivers figure out really how to work with that and see how many speeding tickets happen, see what we really do when we get more and more EVs on the road. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:42) Like you sneeze and you're like, I'm doing 90. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:02) Yeah, I we talked about this last week, I think, you guys weren't here, but new regulations in China that would mandate that, you know, the default mode, you know, whenever you start the vehicle, ⁓ the vehicle couldn't accelerate to 60 in less than five seconds. Yeah, you could have a performance mode where it would go faster than that. But by default, every time you start the car, it has to be limited to no more than five seconds, zero to 60. Stephanie Brinley (1:07:23) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:32) Which I think that's fair, I think that's reasonable. Even that is arguably too quick for a lot of people, especially in conditions like we have today here in Michigan. I think that's too fast for most people to handle safely. But ⁓ I agree, think here in the US, for most US driving conditions, there's exceptions like driving on the 405, driving in Manhattan, where... you're not really going anywhere. ⁓ But ⁓ other than that, know, 16, 17 seconds is probably a bit too slow for for most people. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:10) no, it's incredible. Stephanie Brinley (1:08:11) And it took me a couple of minutes to look this up while we were talking, but the Fiat 500, right, we're gonna get there. With the 1.4 liter was 10.5 seconds and the 20. I thought it was around 10. And the Abarth, yeah, the Abarth was seven seconds. So 10 seconds I think you might be able to work with. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:15) Gonna make it, gonna make it, gonna make it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:23) Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's, was perfectly reasonable. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:24) Okay, yeah see that That is a absolutely reasonable zero to sixty time Stephanie Brinley (1:08:36) You know, it still feels pretty slow, but I think you can work. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:37) Yeah. We drove it on the freeway all the time. No big deal. Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:39) Well, only feels slow because we've gotten used to cars that are so absurdly fast. It's actually a very reasonable acceleration rate for most driving. Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (1:08:46) Mm hmm. Yeah. It's just those on ramps that get to be short on ramps get to be uncomfortable when you've got 10 seconds. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:55) Hey, you can get a convertible. Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:55) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:56) Hold on, 17.3, I think I can live with that. Where are going? I'm gonna, it's like whenever you see someone driving a VW, like a Beetle, like an old Beetle around, you know, like a Super Beetle or before that, and you're like, okay, everyone expects that guy's, you know, or that gal, it's gonna be a while. They're gonna do 60, 45 minutes or so. But I don't, yeah, if you're stuck behind this car, you're, you know, and. Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:59) Ha ha. Roberto Baldwin (1:09:25) There are some big, there are some jerks in some big cars, I can tell you that. So, I think this is, it's fine for a very small portion of America and totally not fine for a very large portion of America. There we go, that's my take. I don't, Jason, I think, yeah. Stephanie Brinley (1:09:29) Mm-hmm. You're right. Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:42) Well, and Jason does live in Southern California now. So, you know, he knows what it's like to drive on the four or five. So that's probably why he thinks. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Jason's also into very weird cars. Roberto Baldwin (1:09:49) And Jason just likes to poke people, so there's that as well. Stephanie Brinley (1:09:50) Okay. It did say Nissan Power, didn't it? In the article. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:57) ⁓ no, did he have a pal? Yeah, I think he did have a pal and he had this weird little Chinese Evie, ⁓ called a candy. no, he didn't have to build it at home, but it was like, I think it was like, what? A thousand, maybe $2,000. Yeah. It's, not really street legal. ⁓ they actually sell, ⁓ though not that particular one that he has, but they Lowe's. Roberto Baldwin (1:10:04) ⁓ they built at home or something? Stephanie Brinley (1:10:11) I'm a woman. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:26) sells candy, electric, ⁓ off-road vehicles, utility vehicles for farms and stuff. They sell them there. Yeah, they're kind of like side-by-sides, but not as off-road capable as the Hondas or Kawasaki's. No. Roberto Baldwin (1:10:35) Like side by sides, kind of. I mean not as like, RAAAHHHH. No one's throwing up the horns in in a, pa- Stephanie Brinley (1:10:44) Good. Roberto Baldwin (1:10:47) like woooo. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:51) ⁓ All right. ⁓ So one of our. Roberto Baldwin (1:10:53) Wait, what if you have two friends in there? That goes down to like 25 seconds. Everybody put your foot out, we're gonna kick this puppy. Yeah, Jason's, Jason's not, yeah, he's not me. Let's just say. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:58) Yeah. But if they're Jason's size, it's not going to make much difference. He's not tall. Jason's great. love Jason. ⁓ So, you know, and another thing I'm sure that we all love is US car dealers, right? Roberto Baldwin (1:11:19) The best. Well, okay. So I know I talk a lot about used cars, but the car dealer that I go to, they're actually, especially the service center, service center, outstanding, wonderful, nice people. And the dealership, I, but I'm gonna caveat this is that when we walked in, my wife's like, he writes about cars. Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:37) Ha ha. Roberto Baldwin (1:11:38) He's been on Car and Driver. He's been on Auto, and then that, like, she just walks in like that. See that guy? You can't mess, don't mess with me. So I think that, I don't think that means that everyone else is having a great time like I am. Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:44) Don't fuck with it. Don't mess with him. Yeah. So one of our favorite topics over the last several years was, you know, especially when there was a shortage of supply of new vehicles available to buy, ⁓ was dealers taking that opportunity to use the law of supply and demand ⁓ to their advantage, to their financial advantage, particularly, you know, the lack of supply and high demand. ⁓ And ⁓ apparently some dealers are starting to do that now with the new Honda Prelude. Um, there's at least one dealer somewhere that, you know, I mean, the prelude is not inexpensive to begin with. Uh, it's $43,000, including delivery, 43 and change, including delivery. Um, and, um, this dealer is adding almost $20,000 to that. 62 almost just shy of $62,000. Roberto Baldwin (1:12:43) Done. And people are like, wow. Every time a dealer gets angry that someone wants, someone's like, well, why can't we just buy it directly from the automaker, like Tesla, Rivian, et cetera? And they're like, no, you can't do that. I'm like, hmm? Stephanie Brinley (1:13:04) Thank Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:05) because our state legislatures are owned and operated by the car dealers. Roberto Baldwin (1:13:09) Yeah, they got a pretty strong lobbying arm. ⁓ Start! Stephanie Brinley (1:13:14) Yeah, there's other things involved, but so you asked about that or we talked in the rundown that we were going to talk about this. was trying to find, we have ⁓ what we call a retail advertised index and so far we don't really see them out there. So I'm trying to figure out if this is how much of a one-off this is. mean, clearly there's photos of the window sticker and all of that, but are there enough to know that how many dealers are really gonna try and push this? I think $63,000 for a hundred, really, it is a little bit crazy. But we can't really do that. Roberto Baldwin (1:13:52) Well, it's like the $13,000 markup for the BRZ when it first came out. It's a $30,000 car and you're making it $43,000 and we saw that. My friend was at a Subaru dealership in the peninsula, in the Bay Area, and he's taking pictures and sending me that. I'm like, what are you doing? Stop. Stephanie Brinley (1:13:59) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:14:16) But someone's gonna Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:16) Yeah, Roberto Baldwin (1:14:16) pay Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:16) I mean... Roberto Baldwin (1:14:17) for it, that's the thing. They're gonna find one person who's gonna be like, I gotta have this car now. But I don't mind paying all this money. Stephanie Brinley (1:14:23) Thank you. This is what drives me crazy about affordability problems. We keep talking about affordability problems and then people spend $53,000 on a prelude. Roberto Baldwin (1:14:36) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:36) Yeah, to be fair, given the number of preludes that are expected to be sold, this is probably not going to have a huge impact on the average. But still, it sucks to see dealers taking advantage of people like this. Like this one particular window sticker that somebody posted here includes $1,995 for paint and fabric five-year protection. Stephanie Brinley (1:14:38) That's supposed to be 42. Yeah, that's, I thought we were over that. Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:06) Another 1995 for the protection package, is a set of wheel locks, splash guards, and a cargo tray. You can go to AutoZone and buy a set of wheel locks for 20 bucks. Roberto Baldwin (1:15:16) Go to WeatherTech and get a nice like real quality leather. Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:20) Yeah, for you know, a couple hundred dollars. ⁓ The Cardoq Connect, which who knows what that even is six year service plan $1700. The clear shield package protects door edges from dings and chips and protects door handles from scratches $795. Roberto Baldwin (1:15:42) The little plastic strips they put on the door. Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:45) ⁓ $199 for nitrogen filled tires. People, do not waste your money on nitrogen in your tires. ⁓ Well, it's a real thing if you are running a Formula One race car and the rolling diameter of your tire is crucial and you don't want it to change as the tire heats up. ⁓ For everybody else, don't waste money on nitrogen for your tires. Stephanie Brinley (1:15:46) What's that? Roberto Baldwin (1:15:49) ⁓ the nitrogen. It's not a real thing. So it's not a real thing. Or you wanna get high from your tires. Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:14) Because when you put air in your tires, 80 % of that is already nitrogen to begin with. The atmosphere that we breathe is 80 % nitrogen. Roberto Baldwin (1:16:22) Cause air. It's like I'm creating crazy pills. Stephanie Brinley (1:16:29) Did we just hear? Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:30) 400 bucks for all weather floor mats. Again, you could go buy a set of really nice weather tech floor mats for ⁓ about that same amount of money. And they will actually probably be really good ones as opposed to probably the garbage that this dealer is putting in. They're probably buying some for 20 bucks from the local car parts store. ⁓ 400 bucks for a bumper shield, protects rear bumper from scratches. Roberto Baldwin (1:16:43) yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:58) $395 for infotainment shield protects the infotainment screen from smudges and scratches. Again, you could go to Best Buy and buy a $5 screen protector and put it on if you must. Roberto Baldwin (1:17:04) What? You Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:12) And then, and then 10, and then, then a $10,000 just general added markup on top of all that. Stephanie Brinley (1:17:12) Yeah, you just clean it off. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:17:17) just I I saw a prelude on a car carrier ⁓ driving down the Palm Springs so that was the first time I've seen one in the wild Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:26) I saw a carrier with three of the new postal delivery vehicles the other day. Roberto Baldwin (1:17:29) Ooh, that's way cooler than the prelude. Sorry. I love the prelude, but I, yeah. I mean, the postal carriers are dope. we should have talked about the John drove one, like pre-production. John, it's on car and driver. There's too many people named John. I can't remember everyone's last name. Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:31) Yeah. John who? Stephanie Brinley (1:17:56) Yeah, that's a long list of silly add-ons. they've already done it, so it's hard to get out of it. I mean, it's really easy. You just don't buy it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:01) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:18:07) John Volcker. Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:10) Volker drove the postal vehicle? Roberto Baldwin (1:18:14) Yeah, I'm so jealous of him. Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:16) I will have to ⁓ contact my friends at Oshkosh and see if can get a drive in one of those. Roberto Baldwin (1:18:20) But gosh, I'm Stephanie Brinley (1:18:22) Hahaha Roberto Baldwin (1:18:23) sorry, I can't. I remember seeing that at some auto show. I don't remember because our brains are mushed because everything just gets slammed together. But yeah, John got to drive it and I'm just like, man. Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:36) So the folks at Edmunds have been doing some research on car prices as well, but this particular report is on used car prices. And they found that the average transaction price for three-year-old used vehicles reached $31,067 in Q3 of this year, which is up 5%. But what was interesting about this was the turn times, the time takes to sell Stephanie Brinley (1:18:45) Yeah. Thank Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:06) cars. for, let's see, yeah, the average overall was 41 days, which was up from 37 days in 2024 in the same quarter. But the average turnover rate for EVs, for used EVs, actually went down. It was only 34 days. And I think you know, as the tax incentives for EVs have gone away apart from some state incentives, ⁓ I think, you know, this is an area where a lot of people that are interested in buying an EV are increasingly going to start looking, you know, because one of the downsides of EVs is they have had very high depreciation, you know, which if you're depending Stephanie Brinley (1:19:35) it it. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:03) You know, if you're selling, that's a downside. If you're buying, it's an upside. That's why we bought a used EV6 because ⁓ you can get it for half the original price ⁓ on a two-year-old car with 13,000 miles on it. ⁓ But ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:20:07) It's radical if you're buying. Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:22) this is an interesting trend. It's going to be interesting to watch over the next year or so ⁓ how this evolves, whether we continue to see ⁓ faster sales of used EVs and of course the prices on those used EVs as the turnover increases and the demand for the used ones goes up, we'll probably start to see those prices creeping up. ⁓ But ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (1:20:46) Thanks. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:48) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:51) I think there's still a really good deal right Stephanie Brinley (1:20:51) Right. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:55) Yeah, we're seeing more of the less, you know, for years it was a lot of compliance vehicles that were in the used market. But now you're seeing like the dedicated EVs and people were like, well, I can't afford a new EV even with the, the tax credit or whatever, Stephanie Brinley (1:21:06) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (1:21:08) but I can't afford a used EV, especially when they're like stupid cheap because Tesla keeps fluctuating the price. And there's a bunch of other reasons why, you know, EVs are less expensive. ⁓ It's a pretty great, I mean, you can just look at Sam's ⁓ buying his EV6 for like a nickel. When we turn in our Ionic 5, when we turn in our Ionic 5, I'm like, well, the payoff on the Ionic 5 is higher for, because we have a lease, then we could just buy a used one. It's like $10,000 less expensive than what the payoff is on this Ionic 5. So we'll just do that. And maybe we can get a color besides white. Stephanie Brinley (1:21:25) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:28) It was actually a dime, but you Stephanie Brinley (1:21:43) ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:47) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (1:21:49) And that higher payoff kept your lease price lower. I think that there's a couple of things I think that it does fully support. While EV sales have been struggling a little bit, there is interest. And the more people that are exposed to them, the more curiosity there is, the more ⁓ understanding of it is and the more experience keeps coming up so we're still in that direction. ⁓ EVs are expensive because they're expensive to build, expensive to produce, because all the parts in them are expensive, at least the battery, because the battery is really expensive. they're not, I mean we still have automakers losing money on them. They're not overpriced from that manufacturing perspective, but they're more than what consumers are willing to pay. But I think the increase in the interest in used EVs does reflect that if you think get it to a price that consumers see value in, they're gonna try it more rapidly than they are right now. The question is how do you do that? How quickly can we get better costs down? Sam, this has been a first thing that we've talking about for years and it has gotten better, but it's not better enough. Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:58) Yeah, and there's going to be a lot more progress on that in the next two, three years as we start to get domestic production of LFP batteries ramping up. ⁓ Also, bringing LMR batteries, the manganese-rich cells to market, ⁓ that's going to help. That's going to be a significant help in allowing manufacturers to build these vehicles profitably at a significantly lower price point. ⁓ You know, but, ⁓ you know, there's, even right now, you know, there's still some great deals out there on used EVs. know, like I'm, I just pulled up auto trader. ⁓ you know, there, here's a used 2023 EV six 15,000 miles on it. ⁓ 19,500 dollars. I think this one might be the, the base model with the shorter range though. ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (1:23:45) ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:23:49) What? was a 230 250 Stephanie's gonna buy that car you guys said send her the link she's like hold on Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:58) Yeah. But, you know, there's one, there's one pretty much like the, there's one, Stephanie Brinley (1:24:00) Ooh. out of time. Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:07) there was, there's one pretty much like the one that we just bought, you know, an all wheel drive. You know, we, paid 27 for it with 13 and a half thousand miles on it. This one's got 15,000 miles. It's $29,000. You know, there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of them here. for between 20 and $30,000 for one to two year old EV6. And IONIQ 5s are similarly priced. Stephanie Brinley (1:24:26) Yeah. I just... Roberto Baldwin (1:24:36) Cause have a two year, cause Hyundai does two year, the Hyundai Motor Group does two year leases. Like our group car is a two year lease. The previous was three years. So, you you're getting these two year old cars for like almost half with a huge discount, 40 something percent off. And it's still an 800 volt vehicle. It's still, you know, that means the charge is quicker. Even if it has lower range than something that's new, you're going to probably charge quicker than most of the new cars. Stephanie Brinley (1:24:48) Interesting. Yeah. ⁓ Interesting, I pulled up Carvana because we're doing this right and and they're I've just scrolling through quickly We've got one two, three four EVs Neiros and EV sixes with price drops Roberto Baldwin (1:25:16) What are we all doing today? Stephanie Brinley (1:25:16) So a 2022 Kia EV6 Lite was $22,990. Now it's 22,590. Another one with 93,000 miles was 18,990 and now it's 18,590. So it's kind of interesting in this conversation to see that there's much of price drops on these. Right now it's not. Roberto Baldwin (1:25:25) Bye. By the end of this episode, we're all gonna buy new cars. What'd you guys do? We all bought new EVs, or used EVs. Why? Because they were so stupid cheap. Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:45) Yeah. And, you know, the thing is, you know, the thing to keep in mind, you know, if you're buying, you know, even two or even a three year old, uh, EV like this, you know, these things have 10 year, a hundred thousand mile warranties on the batteries. Yeah. And, one of the key, one of the people, one of the reasons people give for not wanting to buy used EV is not knowing what the battery condition is. Well, if you've got seven, eight years of warranty on the battery, Stephanie Brinley (1:26:00) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:15) What are you worried about? Just go for it. ⁓ And Hyundai and Kia have five years and I think 60,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty on these things. So in our case, we bought a two year old car, had three years and over 40,000 miles of bumper to bumper warranty, eight years and 80,000 miles of battery warranty on it. And we're loving it, it's doing great. So I think. Stephanie Brinley (1:26:16) Yeah. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:43) Now, if you have any interest in an EV, in buying an EV, and you looked at the prices of new ones, there's certainly more affordable new ones coming to market now, the new Nissan Leaf, the new Bolt coming first of the year, and there's gonna be other stuff. And even some of the others have had price drops, like the IONIQ 5, it's down to, starts at 35,000 now. But these used ones are some. Stephanie Brinley (1:26:47) Okay. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:26:58) Ooooo Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:12) still some screaming deals on them. And I'm not surprised that, you know, in a lot of cases, I don't know about what's going on at Carvana, but certainly a lot of other dealers, they're turning them around a lot faster. Stephanie Brinley (1:27:23) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:24) I can get an IONIQ 5 for 35 or 25. That's an SE, let's see. But here's an SE that's green. Oh, here's the SEL. That's what we have right now. And it's black. That's 25, which is $10,000 less than the payoff from when we turn in our vehicle. So he's just like, so what are you gonna do? I'm like, well, what do you got on the lot that's used that's $10,000 cheaper than what you're trying to sell me this car for? Stephanie Brinley (1:27:33) Mmm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:40) Ha ha! Stephanie Brinley (1:27:50) Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:52) As long we're talking about Kia EVs, the EV5 Weekender. Last year, Kia at SEMA showed the PV5, which is their van, their electric van, in Weekender form, which was an off-road, lifted off-road, kind of overlanding version of it. And at the Guangzhou Motor Show in China, Kia showed off a concept version of the EV5, which is their mid-sized electric crossover. It's about the same size as a Sportage ⁓ or Hyundai Tucson or RAV4. And ⁓ it's an off-road version, ⁓ kind of like a more than what you get with something like the IONIQ 5 XRT. This thing is lifted, it's on big all-terrain tires, it's got all kinds of gear. This thing, Looks pretty cool for, you know, for an off road crossover. Stephanie Brinley (1:28:52) Thank you. Roberto Baldwin (1:28:57) I just said I really want it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:57) But no plans to sell the EV5 in North America, unfortunately. It's Asia only right now. It's kind of like a scaled down version of the EV9. Stephanie Brinley (1:29:01) in the arms of our prayer. Roberto Baldwin (1:29:04) Boo, I guess I just moved to Asia. I'm still waiting Stephanie Brinley (1:29:06) Boom. Roberto Baldwin (1:29:11) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (1:29:11) feel like it's in Canada. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:15) There you go. Roberto Baldwin (1:29:15) feel like it's Canada. We're all moving to Canada. Stephanie Brinley (1:29:20) Yeah, that is kind of double checking. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:21) Do they sell the EV5 in Canada? And it's got recovery hooks on it too. So, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's a real off-roader. Stephanie Brinley (1:29:33) Yeah, great. Yes. Yes. Can't even five is going to be sold in Canada in 2026. This is is going to the Toronto show last year. I was there. saw it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:41) ⁓ excellent. So, you know. ⁓ okay. So just go, just go, just drive, drive, you know, go over the bridge to Windsor and buy one there and bring it back. Stephanie Brinley (1:29:55) As soon as they get over the whole homologation stuff. I still think you have to, maybe you can. How hard is it to import a Canadian spec car to the US? Roberto Baldwin (1:30:02) you Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:04) Yeah, ⁓ ⁓ Canadian spec is usually pretty much the same as us spec, ⁓ but not always. mean, most stuff sold in Canada is built to the same spec other than having the speedometer set in kilometers per hour instead of miles per hour. ⁓ but sometimes they sell stuff there that does not meet a us spec. So. Stephanie Brinley (1:30:14) Yeah, not always. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:30:31) There's a, we looked up, my brother and I were looking up, yeah, you could just move to Canada. My brother and I looked up cards, like bringing cards over from Mexico. And when you bring the car over, you essentially have to be the owner of the car and you have to have an address in Mexico in order to bring it into the United States, which isn't that, I mean, it's not difficult for me and my brother because we have family in Mexico, have homes and so, but I mean, we could just buy a house in Mexico so we can get a Jimny. Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:33) You could just move to Canada, which is not the worst idea in the world. Stephanie Brinley (1:30:35) Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:00) There you go Roberto Baldwin (1:31:00) ⁓ And then you're like, you know, you just have to make sure that your local police department doesn't give a, you and give it care. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:08) The only problem is right now, if you did that and brought it over, you'd be driving it around on Mexican plates, right? And so that would potentially make you a target for certain federal agencies. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:17) Yes. Yes. Yeah, so but they can just they can pull me over and I can be like, oh shoot. It's a white guy Like well, what about this Roberto? I'm like, what about it? What do you want for me? I guess I'll I know it's bald one. Come on. I'm a habsi Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:29) You Stephanie Brinley (1:31:29) Ha ha ha ha Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:33) Last name is Baldwin. That doesn't sound Mexican, does it? Stephanie Brinley (1:31:36) Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:40) ⁓ Let's see, what else? ⁓ Euro NCAP. So Euro NCAP is the new car assessment program in Europe. It's kind of similar to the NCAP program here where they do ⁓ safety evaluations of new cars and give it a rating out of five stars. And ⁓ like most of these programs, the IHS is top safety pick and NCAP and others, from time to time they... ⁓ raise the standards for what it takes to get a five-star rating. once everybody starts getting four or five stars, they make it tougher ⁓ to earn those top ratings because they want to keep moving safety forward. So for 2026, they're updating the ⁓ Euro NCAP standards. ⁓ And there's ⁓ several things that they're changing. ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (1:32:11) Mm-hmm. you Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:38) Among those is that, let's see, to get top scores, ⁓ they will have to have driver monitor systems that track eye and head movements of the drivers and use that information to adjust the sensitivity of driver assist functions. ⁓ So, you know, if you are paying less attention and you want to make it more sensitive so it can respond faster if you're starting to get into trouble. ⁓ But let's Stephanie Brinley (1:32:42) you Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:05) see what else there. ⁓ They are also ⁓ changing the scoring ⁓ to evaluate the accuracy of speed limit recognition functions. ⁓ So ⁓ these are cameras that are looking at speed limit signs and adjusting. In Europe, they're required to now to have ⁓ automatically Stephanie Brinley (1:33:17) That was okay. Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:29) adjusting cruise control that adjusts the speed limit, the local speed limit. ⁓ They're also evaluating the real world performance of some of the crash prevention technologies like automatic emergency braking and lane keep assist. Because, you know, if you've ever used those systems, you know, they can be a little ⁓ flaky ⁓ and Stephanie Brinley (1:33:49) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:53) oftentimes be more annoying than helpful. And so they want to make sure that these systems actually work so that drivers will trust them and leave them turned on instead of turning them off. And then ⁓ What else? ⁓ Post-crash safety. ⁓ Electric door handles must now remain functional after an accident and EVs must correctly manage the isolation of their batteries to mitigate any fire risk. So, you know, if a crash is detected, you know, it's got to isolate the battery so it's not sending power to the rest of the vehicle. But things like the door handles must remain fully functional ⁓ to get top safety marks. ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (1:34:07) So the. In. Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:35) And then there's also, let's see, there's also something about physical controls. ⁓ yeah, here we go. They will evaluate the placement, clarity, and ease of use of essential controls, and a new scoring system will emphasize the importance of physical buttons for commonly used functions in response to consumer feedback that suggests they can reduce distraction. ⁓ Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:34:58) Yay, Rivian. Rivian's Stephanie Brinley (1:34:58) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:35:00) gonna be so angry. Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:01) I know. RJ is not going to be happy about that one. Stephanie Brinley (1:35:02) Well. Roberto Baldwin (1:35:06) have to pay money? Ugh. Stephanie Brinley (1:35:07) There's an interesting one in here too. Automated Urge Emergency Response functions will now need to be able to tell the responders how many occupants are in the car. Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:17) yeah, yeah, that's a good one. So if you get into a crash, there needs to be sensors in there that let ambulances know how many people they're gonna have to deal with. I think that's a good thing to have because ⁓ if they have that, there's, let's say you've got five passengers in the vehicle, maybe you have to send out two ambulances or three ambulances instead of just one to make sure you can take care of everybody. Roberto Baldwin (1:35:20) Cool. Stephanie Brinley (1:35:42) Thank Yep, yeah, that makes sense. The speed limit recognition is really not very consistent, at least in my experience here. They're very difficult. Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:02) Yeah, I remember one time a few years ago when we were doing a first drive for the Lincoln Corsair and there, you know, was driving along and you know, the speed limit was 55 or speed limit was, was 65. And then it passed a sign where it was dropping down to 55 and all of a sudden the cruise control switched ⁓ from the speed I had set at to 85. It had misread. the sign as 85 instead of 55 and adjusted the speed upwards by 20 miles an hour instead of downwards. Yeah, it had the Robbie mode. Roberto Baldwin (1:36:39) Woo, party. Stephanie Brinley (1:36:40) That was that, yeah. And I remember talking with Lincoln at the time and talking and Ford on a different vehicle that was having a similar issue and and they're interested. It's like you could just turn the system off if you don't like the way it works. And like yeah, but you expected somebody to pay for it. In with. Make it work. Roberto Baldwin (1:36:47) straight a party. Maybe make it work. How about just make it work correctly? Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:05) Yeah, if you're gonna put a feature in the car, make sure it works. Especially something that can impact safety. Roberto Baldwin (1:37:10) You can just turn the thing that doesn't work off. Stephanie Brinley (1:37:10) And it seems to be, Roberto Baldwin (1:37:13) Well, why did you release something that doesn't work? Stephanie Brinley (1:37:13) you know, some sort of calibration between what it reads and the navigation energy of being able to tell, with GPS being able to tell exactly where you're at. Mercedes had, there was a consistent issue on 696, just going a certain part, it picks up. four lanes on 696 and it would pick up the 40 mile an hour sign for the service drive. So I've got cruise control, yeah, I got cruise control at 75 and all of the sudden it is heartbreaking in the middle of the freeway. The first time it freaked me out. The second time I'm like, okay, I know what's happening, start cruising really quickly. But I'm like, that was dangerous. And I'm sure they've improved it a bit since then. I remember calling and saying, Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:44) that's adjacent to the highway. Roberto Baldwin (1:37:46) you Stephanie Brinley (1:38:06) what's going on here and they're like this kind of known issue. But it was weird, I'm in the three lanes away from where I'd even read the sign at. I mean Volvo's, you know, oftentimes I would come out of a street that's 25 miles an hour and turn left and the new street is 35 miles an hour, but there's three quarters of a mile till it's new sign. mean I... Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:31) Right. Stephanie Brinley (1:38:32) cruise control on at that point, but for that three quarters of a mile or a mile, it was telling me that I was going too fast for the candidate that I was speeding and I wasn't. Those science systems aren't quite ready to be fully reliable yet, I don't think. Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:50) Yeah, definitely. All right. A couple of charging related stories. ⁓ Despite the fact that our federal government has tried to kill all the funding, all the federal funding for the Navy program for the which is five billion dollars from the twenty twenty one infrastructure act that was supposed to help fund deployment of ⁓ charging stations, DC fast charging stations across the country. ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (1:39:11) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:19) The courts have said, nope, ⁓ you cannot block that funding. You have to keep spending it. So ⁓ last week, the Georgia DOT, ⁓ which is a state that is run by the same party, ⁓ they awarded $24 million for 26 new EV charging stations across the state of Georgia. Stephanie Brinley (1:39:42) Mm-hmm. You know, they're also getting a plant in a little while. Maybe. Roberto Baldwin (1:39:43) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:45) ⁓ Yeah, multiple plants. Roberto Baldwin (1:39:48) Yeah, that's it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:50) ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (1:39:52) So there's there's there and Georgia was one of the states that had that had a pretty decent state level incentive for awhile. And of course, as they pulled it out, sales in the EV sales in that state dropped like a stump. But so the point being, Georgia has been a little bit more aggressive on this than some states already. Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:12) Yeah, so they're putting these stations in a bunch of different locations around the state ⁓ with ⁓ quite a few different vendors that are operating these stations. So there's, know, pilot travel centers, ⁓ Silver Common Energy, Power Up America, ⁓ what else? ⁓ Loves Travel Stops, EnviroSparks, there's a bunch of different ones. So they're spreading the money around and, you all this is good, you know, it helps. Stephanie Brinley (1:40:35) Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:42) get more infrastructure, more high-speed charging infrastructure. part of the program is requirements for ⁓ reliability ⁓ and uptime if they want to get the money. So hopefully that part is being enforced so that when they put these chargers in there, they don't just get put in and then abandoned. ⁓ Hopefully they will actually make the effort to keep them running properly over time. Roberto Baldwin (1:41:05) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (1:41:12) Yeah, that was one of the good things about the program to begin with was that it set aside a bunch of sort of consistent requirements that had to happen in order to get your federal funding, which was stopped short of making it mandated that charging stations, hand had plug and play, and we have the uptime and all that. But by putting it as a requirement to get funding, it certainly drives incentive to build them that way, is to make sure that they're viable. Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:44) And then, know, robo taxis, all the robo taxis that are out on the road today, particularly the real ones, you know, that actually drive ⁓ unsupervised. ⁓ They're all electric vehicles right now, ⁓ including Waymo's ⁓ Jaguar I-Paces and Zekers and soon their Hyundai ⁓ IONIQ 5s. ⁓ And ⁓ in Santa Monica, ⁓ Waymo has two Lots where they bring their vehicles for cleaning and service and charging Well the city of Santa Monica ⁓ recently ⁓ issued a new regulation that effectively bans Waymo from ⁓ overnight charging at those two lots that they own ⁓ For their for the robo taxis, which is not very helpful. It was a six to nothing vote ⁓ Stephanie Brinley (1:42:40) Cool. Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:43) And they have to cease overnight operations at those two facilities because they got a lot of complaints from the neighbors ⁓ that the vehicles were making too much noise. And these are EVs, but yeah, they had backup beepers ⁓ and the chargers themselves from the transformers. There's a hum from that. And so people were just the... Stephanie Brinley (1:42:54) Noise. Roberto Baldwin (1:42:57) Beep, beep, beep, beep all night. Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:10) the locals were complaining too much and so now they are no longer allowed to ⁓ operate from those two facilities between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. which is not helpful if you're trying to run electric robotaxis. Roberto Baldwin (1:43:21) Listen, if it, I mean, it's not helpful, but if you live next to a place that before didn't do that and that, like if you move next to the airport, I don't want to hear you complaining. If you move next to a club, I don't want to hear you complaining. But if you live next to like just a place and then suddenly all night, beep, beep, beep, brrrr. That's, yeah, that's, and that's to be honest, that's how Silicon Valley works, is they don't take into account anything. Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:30) Yeah. Stephanie Brinley (1:43:31) Great. Ever. Roberto Baldwin (1:43:49) about the community when they deployed. They don't think about the unintended consequences of their actions, which has been a problem with them for 15, 20 years at this point. ⁓ So yeah, that was, I mean, there's a lot of space. Also Santa Monica is so expensive. How do they, where are they paying for it? Stephanie Brinley (1:44:10) They own the lot, so that's interesting too. doesn't say, the story doesn't say how many chargers are in each lot. Roberto Baldwin (1:44:12) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:13) Well, I'm I mean Yeah, this article says they own the lots I'm guessing they are probably actually leasing I doubt they actually own the properties ⁓ But yeah, that's yeah, so they're gonna they're gonna have to find somewhere else to to do their charging that is Not gonna be annoying to neighbors Which might be difficult in a place like Santa Monica, you know Stephanie Brinley (1:44:21) Listen. Yeah. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:44:25) So. there. Stephanie Brinley (1:44:35) Hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:44:39) Well, Stephanie Brinley (1:44:39) bit. Roberto Baldwin (1:44:39) mean, Santa Monica, yes, but there's a lot of areas around that area, you know, there's a lot of industrial zones that they could be, especially when they're close to the airport. You just, get a place close to the airport and then no one cares because guess what? You're close to the airport. Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:55) But the thing is, while they're trying to close Santa Monica Airport, you would have to, I guess the next closest airport would be LAX. The thing is, if you have to go long distances like that, ⁓ from Santa Monica to LAX, drive to LAX to recharge or to get the vehicle cleaned and things like that, that's a challenge for the economics of running a service like this. Stephanie Brinley (1:44:57) . Roberto Baldwin (1:45:01) Yeah, but they go to LAX. It's not that far. Yeah, there's... Stephanie Brinley (1:45:04) That's. Roberto Baldwin (1:45:21) It's 11 miles from Santa Monica to LAX. Yeah, only feels, I mean, if you're already on the west side, I used to be a runner for a studio. If you're already on the west side, it's fine moving around, especially at night. It's getting from the east side to the west side where it's a problem. Santa Monica is a giant cluster no matter what. But if you're in Santa Monica and you go to the airport, never, you know, Stephanie Brinley (1:45:25) Yeah, but that could be. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:25) Okay, it only feels like it's 100 miles. Roberto Baldwin (1:45:47) cruising over to the 10 to the 405. We're just taking surface streets and it takes like 30 minutes. It's not the end of the world if they have to move to the industrial zone. Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:59) All right, well, with that, ⁓ think let's call it a show ⁓ and we'll be back next week. Stephanie Brinley (1:46:08) Thanks for bringing me back this week. Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:09) Yeah, thanks for joining us, Steph. Appreciate it. And talk to everybody next time. Bye. Roberto Baldwin (1:46:15) Bye. Stephanie Brinley (1:46:16) Bye.