Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
This is episode 425 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry

Nicole Wakelin (00:09)
And I am Nicole Wakelin. Let's go to car talk this week.

Roberto Baldwin (00:12)
and I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:16)
And you, ⁓ this time, usually we're only in two different time zones, Eastern and Pacific time in the US. This time we're in three different time zones as we record this. I'm in Japan Central time, or Japan Standard Time, which means that it is 6 a.m. Japan time on ⁓ Sunday, November 2nd. And I'm about, yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (00:21)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (00:25)
Someone's bragging is what's happening. That's what's happening right now.

Now you know my pain.

Nicole Wakelin (00:39)
minutes. Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:43)
And I'm about eight hours away from heading back to Haneda Airport to head back to Detroit. But been here in Japan all week. Huh? Yeah. Yeah, it is. So hence, it's a free day. So hence, I'm sitting here at 6 o'clock in the morning recording a podcast with you guys.

Roberto Baldwin (00:48)
Oh, yeah, a free day. Is it a free day? All right. Free day is the best day.

Nicole Wakelin (01:01)
Doing a podcast.

Roberto Baldwin (01:02)
Well, we should

be very quick because being in Tokyo, roaming around is far more important than chatting with us.

Nicole Wakelin (01:10)
Exactly,

you need to get back out there and explore some while you're there Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:14)
Yeah, all right, so let's let's get started Nicole. What do you been driving?

Nicole Wakelin (01:17)
OK, yes.

So I had to have two vehicles, so I'm like paying playing catch up. What? I know I'm going to be quick. I'm going to be quick. So I have that I had the I have the 25 Subaru Forester Wilderness like last week. So this is, know, the Subaru's been doing a whole bunch of the wilderness trim is there sort of more rugged trim, which is kind of funny because Subaru to begin with, they're not they're

Roberto Baldwin (01:22)
you're already messing it up, Nicole!

Sam Abuelsamid (01:28)
Take your time. I got lots of time.

Nicole Wakelin (01:46)
pretty rugged to begin with, you know, they're the kind of cars people just buy them and...

Sam Abuelsamid (01:48)
It's more rugged.

Nicole Wakelin (01:50)
It's more rugged. It's got more rugged than the average Subaru. And it looks cool. It has like I forgot what the color is called. I'm going to call it orange because that's the color of off-roading. But I they call it bronze. It's like, I didn't look up the exact way they phrased it. Someone at Subaru is going to get mad at me. So it has those accents on it to let you know that it's something special. And it was funny as I was driving to the airport in it, I passed like myself the exact same car, the exact same color, the exact same everything. I was like, hey, neighbor. So it's kind of fun.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:04)
I'll look it up.

Nicole Wakelin (02:20)
I like this. mean, I like supers. think supers do a good job of being exactly what they say they're going to be without anything extra. They're not overly fancy. They're not overly done. They're just these nice, comfy, rugged, durable cars. You can put your dog inside. They can run around in their muddy paw prints. They're perfectly fine.

You don't have to worry about it. Like it's a kind of really, I'll just take this one. It's not going to cause any problems. So I had it has a 2.5 liter four cylinder engine in it. 180 horsepower, 170 pound feet of torque. It's not especially robust when it comes to acceleration, but it has more than enough to get out of its own way. I enjoyed driving it. We had some actually terrible windy, rainy weather that I was driving in on the highway, which is sort of a weird test of a vehicle because you think

snow is rough weather, but everybody kind of slows down in the snow. No one slows down in the rain, or at least they don't hear it. It's like they forget about it. It's not LA, where the world comes to a screeching halt. So people just like fly along, and it can be a little disconcerting sometimes, because there's lot of puddles, like there are all these puddles on the highway that are like, you know, just begging for you to hydroplane, but it handled really, really well. was impressed with how it did, because I was driving to the airport first thing in the morning on the day that it was pouring rain. ⁓

It's got great cargo room, 29.6 cubic feet behind the second row, 69.1 ⁓ when you fold that down. So it's a great vehicle if you have, you want that extra room and you want all that space. They have, for the infotainment, it has an 11.6 inch,

screen on it with Subaru's Starlink multimedia system. I'm not a huge fan of their infotainment. I mean, it works. They all work, right? Let's leave. None of them don't work. I just don't find this one as intuitive and something about the screen that looks a little bit.

I don't know the layout maybe or something about it always feels like it's a little old, even though that's a good side screen, which should make it feel more new. Somehow it feels a little bit dated to me, although it works just fine. So overall, I liked I like this vehicle and it has ⁓ nine point two inches of ground clearance. So, you know, again, you can take it a little more off road than you would with other vehicles. And what I like that for that, like for me, the reason I want a vehicle with extra ground clearance is

literally about snow. And it's not like there's 9.2 inches of snow generally on the ground, like driving. But if you're in a neighborhood when they plow, as they're plowing their little pattern, there's a moment where there's a berm of snow at certain side streets that you have to get through or over or an

Sam Abuelsamid (05:01)
or at end of

Roberto Baldwin (05:01)
He's gonna...

Sam Abuelsamid (05:02)
your driveway.

Nicole Wakelin (05:02)
or at the end of your driveway and you have,

Roberto Baldwin (05:03)
Yeah. He's gonna plow through it.

Nicole Wakelin (05:05)
right? And it's the thing is no matter how good your sedan is or any kind of low vehicle, it's just begging for you to get stuck in that. And having something with a little more ground clearance gives you just a little bit better of a chance. You're going to blast through that snow berm. And with winter, like it's cold here right now. I can feel winter is coming. And to think about having a car that I know is not as liable to get me stuck.

is a big deal. I think it's why Supervisors are so popular in New England. And again, it's not like I know that it's supposed to be an off road thing and a capability thing. I always look at it. My first thought is how well will that get through the snowbank at the end of my driveway? You know, so I so I like this. think it's a good I think it's a good vehicle. It is the wilderness is let's see what sorry wilderness is thirty six eight one five.

I want to guess on destination according to what I have when I look this up and who knows if it's right now.

Roberto Baldwin (06:02)
1600.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:05)
$13.95

Nicole Wakelin (06:08)
Sam wins it's 1420 is what I got when I was looking things up I don't even care if it's right anymore because I feel like it changes and I can look on the OEM site It's vaguely $1,400 so ⁓ it's not crazy like yeehaw cuz we do hear the next vehicle I drove and how expensive that one is All right, yeah Bingo ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (06:12)
Ooh.

Roberto Baldwin (06:23)
It's not crazy. Well, it's not an American car. So that's that's where

Sam Abuelsamid (06:24)
haha

Roberto Baldwin (06:30)
we're all of this is going.

Nicole Wakelin (06:32)
So yeah, so that's the Subaru Forester Wilderness, which I really like. I've driven it before and I just think, I think their wilderness is neat. I think they look good. They add a little bit more pizzazz to the Subaru vehicles with the extra accents and ground clearance. They have like all-terrain tires and stuff. So it's a nice upgrade for a vehicle that is already great for driving in crummy conditions to begin with. So that was one vehicle I have.

The second one, unsurprisingly, has a much higher destination charge because not only is it an American car, it's a truck. So down down down. So I had the well, my my monorony is wrong. So I had what I had was the twenty twenty six Ram fifteen hundred in the big horn trim with the new five point seven liter Hemi V8.

Roberto Baldwin (07:04)
Dun dun dun.

Nicole Wakelin (07:23)
⁓ My Moroni says that I have a warlock. That's not what I have. I went out there and double-checked. I'm like, it literally says Big Horn on the dashboard. This is not correct. In a moment of confusion, I was like, I swear it's a Big Horn on the dashboard. I go out and I look. I'm like, yep, shut the door. So this one, since we're talking about the differences in pricing. ⁓

This comes in at a price of, and I was putting together so there could be extras on mine, but $55,620. Do you want to guess what the destination is on this puppy?

Roberto Baldwin (07:54)
23.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:56)
Well, we've talked about this at far too much length repeatedly over the last several months. ⁓ So I know that if you get one right now, I'm guessing that your Monrone probably says $2095, I think. But I know that right now if you go to a RAM dealer, it will cost you $2595.

Nicole Wakelin (08:20)
You

Roberto Baldwin (08:21)
Oof.

Nicole Wakelin (08:21)
are

correct. And my Monrooney, didn't even look at it because I don't, this is not the vehicle I'm driving. So now it's just a Monrooney for a different truck. $2,600.

Roberto Baldwin (08:28)
$2,600.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:31)
⁓ All

the full-size trucks and SUVs are now $2,600. They've gone up multiple times in the last six months. And the funny thing is, we've been talking about this delivery charge stuff for ages. now all of a sudden in the last few weeks, everybody else is starting to catch on. I just saw there was an article I think in Automotive News this week about...

Nicole Wakelin (08:36)
That's a lot, right?

Roberto Baldwin (08:37)
That's another

car.

Nicole Wakelin (08:40)
Yeah, so.

Roberto Baldwin (08:41)
That's a

Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (08:57)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:58)
rising delivery charges, was something else. There was a couple of other websites that had articles about this. And of course, none of them cite us for exposing the scandal of ridiculous delivery charges.

Nicole Wakelin (09:07)
⁓ The scandal of the destination

Roberto Baldwin (09:07)
Well, we're

Nicole Wakelin (09:12)
charge that's just insane.

Roberto Baldwin (09:13)
trendsetters. The people in the know, they know to listen to this podcast. They know what they're doing. Well, for a long time, ⁓ the New York Times wouldn't ⁓ cite any tech sites. It would just say,

Sam Abuelsamid (09:15)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (09:17)
Right, exactly. We have all the details.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:27)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (09:28)
a tech blog, it didn't matter if it was Wired or Gizmodo, they weren't blogs, there was no link to it, so they would take the news that someone else broke and then say, according to a tech blog, and then write the article.

Nicole Wakelin (09:30)
Really?

That's obnoxious.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:41)
And well, I think the Times still has a policy of not linking out, if I'm not mistaken. I don't think that they link out to other sites, ever. I know.

Nicole Wakelin (09:49)
They should at least say who it came from. Like this came from

Roberto Baldwin (09:50)
⁓

Nicole Wakelin (09:52)
blah, blah, blah. Not like random site. We're giving no credit for giving us our news story. Anyhow, so I have the I have the Ram 1500 bighorn, which is a crew cab four by four and it has a short bed on it. First, Robbie's making little like horn things on his head. So first thing is this thing sounds amazing. This thing sounds fantastic. It sounds so good.

Roberto Baldwin (09:53)
Well, you know. Yeah, no. The times, though.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:00)
Huh.

That's the only reason this

version exists, because of how it sounds.

Nicole Wakelin (10:19)
And you know what?

That enough? That's it. This is what you need to know. Pressing the start button is the best part of your day. OK, that's it. That's my whole review. It's but no, it's it's all right. But it might be. But this is really fun. So it has the five point seven liter V8 engine, which has. Oh, my God, I just forgot. Three hundred ninety five horsepower and four hundred and ten pound feet of torque.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:28)
And that's all downhill from there. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (10:28)
That's review. It's all there.

Nicole Wakelin (10:45)
⁓ I was trying to figure out exactly what my had, I don't know. that's what it's coming up, guess, is the.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:49)
I think that's,

I know the 395 is right, I think the 410 is right too.

Nicole Wakelin (10:53)
Yeah, the

410, here we go. eight speed automatic transmission. is the exhaust note is just amazing. Everything about this is amazing. The exhaust, the engine, the sound of this. like, OK, so.

I parked it behind Russell's car the one day by accident. So when he got up before me and had to leave early, he had to move it. And I was sound asleep. And I remember that I had put the truck behind his car because all I hear was a roar in the driveway at like 530 in the morning. I'm like, that sounds glorious. Like it just sounds so good. It is really fun to drive. It's just.

You know what? This is why you have a Hemi. I know it has that and it has that little badge on the side. What is the symbol of protest? Hemi Fender badge is cute. That's what they call it. The Tim Caniscus, the Caniscus badge, it is. Yes. And they call it the symbol of protest. And it looks like a little engine with like a little little little like.

Roberto Baldwin (11:42)
The symbol of protest?

Sam Abuelsamid (11:43)
It is the official Tim Koniska's badge.

Roberto Baldwin (11:47)
⁓ my god.

Against what?

Sam Abuelsamid (11:56)
against being

relegated to mere six-cylinder engines with more power, more torque, and better fuel efficiency.

Nicole Wakelin (12:02)
No, stop

with your logic, Sam. It's this is amazing. I, you know, I want to say this is really dumb and this is stupid and you shouldn't do it. And why did they do it? And there's no reason to whatsoever. And then you turn it on and you hear it and you feel it and you drive it. You're like, this is why this is why this is not a logic based purchase. This is totally an emotional purchase.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:06)
Ha ha.

⁓ definitely not.

Nicole Wakelin (12:25)
And I would, if I was buying a truck, I'm like, yup, the emotions would get me. I'd be buying this one because it was just fun to drive. I also like that as a Sherpa, because again, I drove it into the city again and the Sherpa made it a little easier to maneuver in a parking garage because that long bed can be tough if you end up with, you know, guy with long bed parked behind you and you're suddenly trying to back up and you're like, I have three feet. Like it's just like an 89 point turn to get out of the parking space. So I like how it handled. It looks great inside. I still think that.

fans interiors are fantastic. I think they consistently do a good job on them. I think they look good. I think they're comfortable. ⁓ They look more premium. I've always loved their interiors and I think they're great. This has like that giant infotainment screen. It is, as I flip my paper around, 12 inch, 12 inch infotainment screen. It's, I mean, it looks great. There's, the thing with it is, is this is pricey. It has a crazy destination and the fuel economy,

from what I have looked up is not great. ⁓ It is 16, 16 highway. No, sorry. 16 city, 20 highway, 18 combined. But the way it sounds, people forget about the fuel economy.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:31)
You

Roberto Baldwin (13:44)
Well, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:44)
Well,

last week or earlier this week, TFL truck posted a video, our buddy Andre picked up a new, because they wanted to test a relatively more affordable full size pickup truck. And so Andre went to Detroit and he got a Ram 1500, a new Ram 1500 Express, I think, with

Nicole Wakelin (14:03)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:13)
the hurricane engine, the standard output hurricane, three liter hurricane. And he road tripped that back from Detroit back to Colorado where they're based. And then did the fuel economy measurements. A few weeks ago, they had a 2026 Ram 1500 Hemi, which they also did their fuel economy testing on.

Nicole Wakelin (14:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:43)
They got like 18.1 or something like that with the Hemi. With ⁓ the Hurricane, which has again more power, more torque and cost less. He got 25 miles per gallon.

Nicole Wakelin (14:54)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (14:57)
You

Nicole Wakelin (14:58)
Yeah.

Yeah. Again, did I mention this not being?

Sam Abuelsamid (15:01)
So it is objectively in

Roberto Baldwin (15:02)
⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (15:03)
every way a better engine and yet, and more affordable, and yet, it doesn't have that sound of a Hemi.

Nicole Wakelin (15:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It doesn't sound I told you this is not like there's not the logic will leave you. And here's what I see happening. logical person goes into the dealership is like, I don't want that. I mean, because that's all these reasons not to. And he goes, drive it. And he pushes the button and he goes sold. That's literally that's all it takes. It just it sounds so darn good. And it is really fun to drive at a couple of truck. People ask me about it like, hey, because you know what they notice? They notice the little symbol of protest, the caniscus badge on there, the Tim badge.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:40)
The Tim badge?

Nicole Wakelin (15:42)
on there. ⁓ So you know people are excited about it. think you know I'm not anti either engine as I'm saying how fun this is. If this is what you want, get it. Like I've always been a yes a car has to fit your needs, a truck has to fit your needs, an SUV has to fit your needs, but if it fits your needs and you like one that makes no logical sense for a variety of reasons but it's in your budget makes you happy.

Knock yourself out. Buy the vehicle that makes you happy. And if this makes you happy, then buy it. I really can't say a reason like the logic part, but in terms of driving it, the experience it lives up to the experience that you would expect it to have. Our little symbol of protest, caniscus badge truck should drive and look and sound exactly like this one does.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:29)
Okay, well, I have one waiting for me at Detroit Metro Airport when I arrive back in 27-ish hours, I think. ⁓ So, ⁓ we'll see. Yeah, you know. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (16:30)
That's it. There's my summary of that one.

do you? Nice. my goodness.

It'll wake you up when you get to the airport all jet lagged and

you'll be awake. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (16:51)
Yeah,

part of the reason it sounds like that, ⁓ previously, before they ⁓ discontinued the Hemi, they had a GT exhaust option that you could get with the Hemi. ⁓ When they brought back the Hemi, they decided to make that standard, to really emphasize, you know, the only reason that people wanted this was because of the way it sounds.

Nicole Wakelin (17:03)
Mm-hmm.

as they should.

Mm-hmm.

It sounds great. You guys, it sounds great. It sounds great. I love it. I love this truck. This is fun. I loved it.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:22)
Hey, Rabia, I think she likes it.

You gonna take one

Roberto Baldwin (17:25)
What do you love?

Sam Abuelsamid (17:28)
and trade for your Wagoneer S?

Nicole Wakelin (17:29)
Oh my God. So a listener actually emailed me, I should mention that we just said asking about the Wagoneer S and that they never heard a resolution to it. And I haven't talked about it a lot. But I'll give you a quick update because so the resolution is there's still no resolution. It's been in the dealership now. This is this particular stint. It is about to start week five.

that it has been sitting there. And so there will be a resolution to this, guys. I'm not ignoring it or not trying to tell you what's going on. I'm just waiting until there is something to say about what's going on. So that's my update. Deep sigh. I love how that thing looks. I'm sad.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:14)
well.

Nicole Wakelin (18:14)
Womp Womp. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:15)
Wop Wop.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:21)
Robbie, leave it driving.

Roberto Baldwin (18:22)
Yo So

I went out to the desert To the dunes The Mahave Desert outside of Las Vegas outside of Santa Bernardino, you know, the California desert It's in California. Even though they flew us to Las Vegas. It's a two-hour drive into California to drive these Anyway I went out there

Sam Abuelsamid (18:29)
Witch Desert.

D-

Roberto Baldwin (18:52)
to drive a car, it's the Dumont Dunes is what it's called. And it's an OHV area, you can take your off-roader, most people are there with their side-by-sides and maybe some motorcycles or some quads. And when I got there, people were there, it's middle of week, but you know, these dunes are huge, it's beautiful, it's wonderful. And like, what am I gonna ride, you you probably think, what am I gonna drive there? What am I gonna drive out in the middle of the Dumont, the Dumont Dunes? Well, I drove the, ⁓

the 2027 Mercedes-Benz GLC.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:26)
Well, that seems like an obvious choice to drive in the Dumat Dunes.

Nicole Wakelin (19:27)
Exactly like you'd expect.

Roberto Baldwin (19:28)
The electric,

Nicole Wakelin (19:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (19:29)
the electric GLC, the GLC 400 4matic with EQ technology. It's got an EQ so you can get your levels correct in your music. That's not what it is.

Nicole Wakelin (19:39)
Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (19:40)
Well, you definitely

want to make sure you have your car equalized, especially if you're going to go out in the dunes.

Roberto Baldwin (19:43)
You got to have an equal life, especially

if you're going to have to go up into the dunes. So yeah, it was, um, it was very interesting because I expected them, you know, Oh, we're going to drive on some like pretty, you know, chill rolling hills. Now they had us going up on like the sides of things. So the really difficult parts, they had, uh, drivers doing that because they didn't want us rolling the cars, I'm assuming. Um, and so I was looking at the, the, the pitch.

Nicole Wakelin (20:07)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (20:12)
And it was like 25%, which doesn't seem like a lot until you're in a car. It's a lot. Yeah. You're looking at the side where everyone, everyone lean into the mountain, everyone lean into the mountain. Uh, and it did fine. And then they gave us the keys and we did some, some, little less, uh, extreme, but still, uh, in the dunes. And I, it was, it was very impressive, uh, you know, and this is, you know, a part of, you know,

Nicole Wakelin (20:16)
That's a lot actually. Yeah. ⁓ You're leaning on one side. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:17)
Yeah, and then you're looking out the side window and looking straight down.

Roberto Baldwin (20:40)
EV power trains, know, it's an all wheel drive vehicle. You know, each wheel is controlled ⁓ based on like, you know, millisecond decisions like, this wheel's spinning, this wheel's spinning, no, this wheel's spinning, this one's spinning, this one's spinning, this one. And so when you talk about torque vectoring, lot of sort of gas, not sort of gas, a lot of gas powered vehicles, when they do torque vectoring, what they do is they apply the brake. And so there is a very ⁓ hilarious video.

of a Bronco in the dunes ⁓ on car and driver, I believe, where you can see the rear brake is just red hot. It's just, yeah, from far away. it's, you know, kids constantly complying the brakes and now you don't have brakes. So I'm assuming they got some pretty nasty brake fade on that. ⁓ With the V with the GLC, you don't have that. And what was interesting is, you know, our doubts about dumb, this, you know,

Nicole Wakelin (21:20)
wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:28)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (21:40)
sort of giant hill that we're going up and down on. And these folks show up and they're side by sides in their quads and the guy's like, what is happening? They were just flabbergasted because when I got there, there was a GM SUV that had decided to get close to the dunes and then it immediately got stuck and Mercedes had to go and tow them out.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:52)
Yeah

With a GLC

Nicole Wakelin (22:06)
That's awesome.

Roberto Baldwin (22:08)
with the GLC. Yeah, yeah, no, was ⁓ incredibly impressive of what we could do with this vehicle. Typically, my first drive, or really any first drive is I'm gonna get into this vehicle and we're gonna, you know, here's the route, we drive along the route, we have a driver partner with us, halfway through the route we swap, we drive some more, we talk about all the things we hate in the world, we drive, we drive, we drive, we get back.

You're making notes, you're like, okay, well, they drove like this and handles like this, blah, blah. This was completely out of left field of, I'm still writing this ⁓ because it is not a typical drive, first drive program. It is completely bonkers and weird and really, really fun. ⁓ yeah, let me tell you just the regular old bits about the important bits about the...

The electric version is actually a little bit longer than the gas version. So you get a little bit more space. They don't have a price yet. It has a 94, where is that number? 94 kilowatt hour usable battery pack and has 483 horsepower, 596 pound feet of torque. It now.

Nicole Wakelin (23:14)
Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (23:31)
This is on, I'm sorry, on Mercedes new electrical architecture, which means no more 400 volt, no more 400 volt Mercedes Benz, 800 volt, like a proper EV. It charges it up to 330 kilowatts. So, huzzah. So that's nice. AC charging up to 94 kilowatts. So it feels like Mercedes, everyone's come out 400 and you know,

Nicole Wakelin (23:45)
Ha

Ha

Roberto Baldwin (24:02)
Kia and Hyundai came out with 800. And so it sort of made the luxury brands, Mercedes, BMW, look sort of old. It felt like they were already given, the laggards, yes. They were falling behind already when the Koreans were like, oh, here, here you go. Here's an 800 kilowatt hour vehicle. So going 800, I'm sorry, 800 volt vehicle. So going 800 volt is extremely, it's a little late.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:13)
Laggards.

Roberto Baldwin (24:30)
If you're a luxury brand, think they were sort of waiting and hoping while, you know, I don't think they expected a Nanky to just be like, boom, 800, forget the. So I'm very happy. It looks nicer than the other EQs. know, the EQs, you know, that looked a little bulbous. Didn't have a rear seat that these had, you know, nice seating. It's comfortable. Again, I drove it on dunes. So there's really, I don't have a lot of frame of reference.

Nicole Wakelin (24:41)
you

That's hard.

Roberto Baldwin (24:59)
What's it like driving on the road? I can tell you what it's like when you put it in sand mode and go and do, you know, and drift it around corners again and again. And what you don't think about when you're on dudes is as you're drifting, you're putting, you know, huge giant whoop-de-do's in the road. then when you, then you have to drive over those to do so. like, doh, doh, doh, doh, doh, doh. It was fine. ⁓ The, they're estimated zero to 60 time right now for this vehicle is 4.4 seconds, which is fine, I guess it's.

Nicole Wakelin (25:02)
Who

Roberto Baldwin (25:28)
probably more than needs to be. ⁓ And what else do we need to know? I think that's kind of it, to be honest. Yeah, it's comfortable. It's got the new, wait, MBOS, sorry, the new Mercedes-Benz OS, which seems nice. Mercedes has been working on their next generation of EV. It looks like they've delivered on what they're working on. Again.

I was driving it on dunes. We had like about 20 to 30 minutes of actual drive time with these vehicles, but on dunes. So I did get it. I did get stuck for a second because I was talking to them and I wasn't thinking about ⁓ my momentum. And they're like, do I momentum? I'm like, no. And then it kind of stopped. then I was able to get it out because yeah, cause that's, that's, I don't know. I've been doing a lot of off road driving when I was a kid.

Nicole Wakelin (26:00)
Ha ha ha!

Mm-mm.

Roberto Baldwin (26:27)
but, ⁓ yeah, no, I'm, ⁓ I'm a big fan of it on do. We don't have a, yeah. Yeah. And, it doesn't, it doesn't arrive into dealerships until late 2026. So we're like a year out from this vehicle and they're like, Hey, we're going to lower, you know, also when you're driving on sand and stuff, you got to lower the, ⁓ the air pressure in your vehicle. So yeah, they definitely lowered air pressure in the tires for the.

Nicole Wakelin (26:34)
So for those of you who are just driving on dunes, go for it.

Roberto Baldwin (26:55)
for they didn't go you know because anyway we were just like yes we were running Yekater Street tires they were just like

Sam Abuelsamid (26:58)
So were you running on regular street tires or was it all-terrain tires?

Nicole Wakelin (27:02)
my gosh.

you

Roberto Baldwin (27:09)
No, they were just rare. I was like, look at them like, these are just the regular tires that come with this car. Cool.

Yeah, no, was, ⁓ everything about it was like, shouldn't work at all. Like not at all, nothing.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:27)
So this is not a four motor vehicle, right? That's two motors. So they can't use the electric motors to do the torque vectoring, which means they must be using the brakes to do the torque vectoring. So why wouldn't this have the same issue of cooking the brakes if you do...

Roberto Baldwin (27:31)
Nope, two motors, one in the front, one in the back.

It's only there where it's using the brake.

They told me they wasn't using the

brakes.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:52)
Okay, do they have like clutches in the differential to do the torque vectoring? Yeah, okay. All right.

Nicole Wakelin (27:54)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (27:56)
I'm assuming it was very, yeah. Yeah, was, ⁓

yeah, they're like, we're not using brakes for torque vectoring. I'm like, wow. They're like, yeah. And then I told them the story about the, it's got a two speed transmission, which is ⁓ interesting. You know, like the, the Taycan, if you remember Taycan had this two speed transmission. ⁓ So yeah, so I think they're, I think this vehicle is overshadowed by the Noya class at IAA.

But driving it, I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah, you know what you're doing over here. yeah, it'll be, it'll be a lot, I'll have a more rounded idea of this vehicle once I'm able to drive it on the road. But if you live anywhere with like inclement weather or you live on the, know, Arrakis ⁓ and you have to like.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:50)
Haha.

Nicole Wakelin (28:50)
Rackus. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (28:51)
Yeah. Listen,

Sam Abuelsamid (28:52)
Haha.

Roberto Baldwin (28:52)
I have made sure that I have not made any dune references in my article. I am, am, it's no like sand worms, Iraq is, you know, no, I'm not. That's what the podcast is for.

Nicole Wakelin (28:58)
Why? You should make a Dune reference in the article. Yeah, I feel, you know what? I think you should.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:06)
No, hey,

Robbie's trying to be creative. He doesn't want to do the obvious thing.

Roberto Baldwin (29:10)
Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin (29:10)
The obvious in time. Well, what about Tatooine? Could you work that in there?

Roberto Baldwin (29:10)
it's obvious thing is lazy. Tatooine.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:13)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (29:15)
That's less obvious. It's not called Dune Desert Planet.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:16)
Now, if you've been watching Star Wars, that's-

Roberto Baldwin (29:18)
No.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:19)
Tatooine is also lazy. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (29:22)
It's very lazy.

Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (29:24)
Man.

Roberto Baldwin (29:24)
You got to really, yeah. Sorry. Bomp, bomp. That's what the podcast is for. So I can make Arrakis jokes.

Nicole Wakelin (29:27)
He fine, fine, whatever. That's what podcast is for.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:33)
Okay, so

in Tokyo this week, they also had both the iX3 on display and Mercedes had the new GLC on display. And I think there's one very important element that you're overlooking that you have not mentioned about the Mercedes versus the iX3.

Roberto Baldwin (29:53)
Dun, dun, dun. All right. yeah, I can just move the vents.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:55)
Vance. Vance.

You can't do that on an iX3.

Nicole Wakelin (30:02)
Ha ha!

Roberto Baldwin (30:04)
Just regular old vents. Well, guess Mercedes wins!

Sam Abuelsamid (30:04)
The iX3 has digital vents, so the Mercedes wins

Nicole Wakelin (30:08)
Ugh.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:09)
by default.

Roberto Baldwin (30:11)
Mercedes-Benz, I can drive around the Mad Max wastelands and I can adjust the AC so it's right in the face.

Nicole Wakelin (30:21)
It's funny how much the digital vents literally like that. It drives me bonkers enough when I'm in a car. It is literally a deal breaker for me. you. People say that I'm like you don't touch the vents that much and I think, am I the weirdo? I move mine constantly depending on how the sun is hitting my face like the sun in your face. I want the vent in my face. Suddenly the sun goes behind a cloud. I don't want the AC vent in my face and.

Roberto Baldwin (30:29)
I'm touching the vents constantly in my car. Like non-stop.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:37)
No, you are not.

Roberto Baldwin (30:47)
I

am more aware of how often I use the vents because of the digital event situation.

Nicole Wakelin (30:53)
Cause you go to reach for it you're like crud. Yeah. See.

Roberto Baldwin (30:55)
Uhhhh,

I'm just angry.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:56)
So what you're saying is this was really a plot by designers to make us appreciate what we had because we were getting complacent about Vents. And so now we appreciate Vents again.

Roberto Baldwin (31:06)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah. Mm hmm. Now I appreciate events. It's like on Arrakis when all the water went away and now you have to appreciate with the suit. Yeah. There you go. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. I haven't read that book in long time. Oh, the movies are out. I forgot. I'm like, haven't read that book in long time. Oh yeah, the movies.

Nicole Wakelin (31:11)
We appreciate fence.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:18)
Appreciate the water. Bringing it full circle.

Nicole Wakelin (31:18)
Two, well done, Robbie. Well done, Robbie. Bringing that back again, golf club for you. There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:32)
I never did manage to read that book. I tried multiple times and I don't think I ever got past about page 20. I I found it unreadable.

Roberto Baldwin (31:40)
⁓ I've only read the first one.

Nicole Wakelin (31:40)
I read the first one.

Roberto Baldwin (31:43)
⁓ I liked it. I really enjoyed it.

Nicole Wakelin (31:44)
I just read the first one, but it took me a lot

of tries. Like I started it and didn't finish and started different. I'm like, no, dang it. I should read this entire thing. And I did. I I'm not a great story, but I'm not a fan of his writing style. I know he's like a big deal, but.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:59)
That's the issue.

It's his writing style that I could not deal with.

Roberto Baldwin (32:02)
⁓

what do you want to worry about anymore he's dead so

Nicole Wakelin (32:04)
Yeah. Well, that's

Sam Abuelsamid (32:06)
Yeah, well,

Nicole Wakelin (32:07)
a thought. Okay. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (32:07)
yeah, but ⁓ his son kept writing additional books after he died though, right? yeah. Yeah, I mean...

Roberto Baldwin (32:13)
I had never had anything past Dune. My mom had all

Nicole Wakelin (32:13)
did he really? Just the one dune? Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (32:17)
of them. My mom had all

the Duneses. I guess until the sun started writing. I don't know what happened after that. But yeah, she had them all. Got to Dune them all. Doing it and doing it and doing it well.

Nicole Wakelin (32:27)
There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:33)
Uhhh... Alright.

Roberto Baldwin (32:35)
⁓ In

the comments tell me which dude you like the David Lynch or the new one

Nicole Wakelin (32:43)
It's become a Dune discussion. what was it we were talking about? Did you, did you talk about it without me? No, no, no. My brain just went to a different thing. The guy who we were talking about him going to the like how long Bill, did you finish that conversation last week or whatever week without me?

Sam Abuelsamid (32:45)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (32:48)
It was a car, it a GLC!

Bill?

we did,

Bill's Bill. Bill is just, it just uses logic to do this. Whereas I'm just like, I'm gonna go on a trip. better drink like all the liquids I can find in my house and then stop at 7-Eleven.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:00)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (33:03)
Okay.

I love that he sent us, I

just have to say, I know you guys are talking about, love that he sent us like a lengthy email, like addressing the situation. So it was my turn to say, good job, Bill. I appreciate that. So, okay, sorry. Side side note there.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:13)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (33:15)
The bill challenge. Yeah, I still believe in the bill

challenge where we make someone we make people drink a 32 ounce drink and then dry and then see how long they can drive.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:24)
A

highly caffeinated 32 ounce drink.

Roberto Baldwin (33:27)
Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin (33:27)
Like either

Roberto Baldwin (33:27)
okay.

Nicole Wakelin (33:28)
like an espresso, has to be coffee you're drinking or Mountain Dew would work.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:32)
or just a 32 ounce Mountain Dew, or if you can

Roberto Baldwin (33:34)
There you go. Or

Sam Abuelsamid (33:35)
still find some Jolt Cola or something. Do they still make Jolt Cola?

Roberto Baldwin (33:35)
serve. Jolt. No, I think they took it off. No, I think it's okay, but I think it's Oof. That's too much.

Nicole Wakelin (33:37)
Jolt Cola, my God. I don't think they do. think it's illegal. Do they still make jolts? I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:42)
Or maybe 32 ounces of Red Bull.

Nicole Wakelin (33:46)
my gosh, we're

going to everyone's going to have a heart attack. I don't want to do that. We're going to kill all our listeners.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:48)
That brain's gonna explode. No, please,

Roberto Baldwin (33:53)
I think.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:55)
not drink 32 ounces of Red Bull. Just joking.

Roberto Baldwin (33:57)
No, that's an excessive amount of...

As someone who drinks Red Bull every day, don't do that. That's an excessive amount of Red Bull.

Nicole Wakelin (34:03)
They do still make Jolt Cola. It's been relaunched as a modern energy drink. It became available this year. It became available this year. I, Jolt Cola, yeah. I mean, you know, just saying if you want your Jolt Cola, it's out there apparently.

Roberto Baldwin (34:09)
⁓ Well, I mean, yeah, finally, maybe they'll bring back for loco to other at it

Sam Abuelsamid (34:10)
It was the original energy drink.

Roberto Baldwin (34:20)
You're ready to party. Four Locos here for you. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (34:25)
Alright, anything else on your

Roberto Baldwin (34:26)
Good times everybody. Good times.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:27)
25 minutes with the GLC?

Roberto Baldwin (34:29)
It was comfortable. ⁓ The new steering wheel is nice. It's got a selfie and a video camera. I didn't try that out because I was too busy cruising in circles. Woo! Sports car playing Apple Auto.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:43)
It... It...

It... Any idea how much it's gonna cost?

Roberto Baldwin (34:48)
Nope, it's a T-B-A. So who knows?

Nicole Wakelin (34:52)
It's a TBA. TBA!

Sam Abuelsamid (34:52)
All right

Roberto Baldwin (34:55)
EBA

TBA When's it gonna happen? TBA ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (34:59)
Alright.

I had the 2026 Kia Sportage X Pro Prestige all-wheel drive. you know, Sportage got a mid-cycle refresh this year, which, as is the trend these days, had to make it look a little more truck-like. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (35:02)
Quick, Sam, move on, he's singing.

Roberto Baldwin (35:13)
Yeah, that's too many words.

as with the style at the times i wore a- ⁓ wore a-

Nicole Wakelin (35:29)
Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (35:32)
⁓ an onion on my belt as with the style at the time

Sam Abuelsamid (35:37)
So, you know, they had to make it look a little more truck-like than before, know, so more upright, bigger, more upright grill, you a little more squared off in the front because, you know, you have to, you know, be able to go up against, you know, drivers of Super Duties and Silverado HDs and Ram HDs, you know, in your Sportage. Yeah, it's, yeah, the refresh is fine. I actually thought it was better before.

But you know, it is what it is. It's a matter of style. ⁓ It's fine. This is, you know, it's... Let's just say it's not my favorite. It's not my favorite key right now.

Roberto Baldwin (36:06)
⁓

Clearly it's not.

Nicole Wakelin (36:18)
Wow, clearly it's not.

Roberto Baldwin (36:20)
He's like, it's like, it's like someone's going to take it to a nice, someone's

going to take it to a, to, to a nice steak house. And instead they took it to Sizzler. That's what it feels like right now. It's like, it's fine. It was steak.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:33)
Yeah. So this

is in the same size class. The upper compact crossover class is the highest volume segment in the US market now and has been for the last several years. So we always hear about ⁓ full-size trucks being the

biggest selling nameplates, the F series being the biggest selling nameplates. And that's true up to a point in that they are, those individual models sell in huge numbers, but there's only four entries in that segment. ⁓ In the compact crossover segment, there's about 300.

different vehicles that you can choose from, just in the US alone, or at least it seems that way. And the top seller talked about last week, the Toyota RAV4 sold 475,000 units last year, which is more than the F-150. So Kia's entry in this segment is the Sportage goes up against the RAV4, the Honda CR-V, ⁓ the Nissan Rogue, and many others.

It's a good vehicle. The last several generations of the Sportage have all been ⁓ good options to ⁓ go ⁓ with. Last year, think, or the year before, they added the X-Pro trim level. So again, as is the style, Kia had to add an off-road-y variant.

You know, so this is their answer to the likes of what is it, the RAV4, Woodland, ⁓ or the Forrester, what the hell was the one, the Forrester Wilderness that you just drove. Yeah, yeah, and you know, as is the case with pretty much all of these, with the exception of the Forrester Wilderness.

Nicole Wakelin (38:21)
Mm-hmm required

that I just had. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (38:38)
What the hell is it?

Sam Abuelsamid (38:50)
It's really more about the visuals than it is about real world actual off-road functionality. So you get some off-roady looking tires. It's got some all-terrain tires, ⁓ but it doesn't really have ⁓ any of what you would actually want in a true off-roader. ⁓ Things like ground clearance or skid plates, things like that.

you know, to give you true off-road capabilities. So, you know, in this case here, let's see, how much was the ground clearance? think the ground clearance on this one is 8.3 inches, which is actually not bad. It's better than a lot of them. It's right in the ballpark with, you know, RAV4 and CRV. Clearly, no, not up to snuff against the Forester. You know, but...

This is, you know, the X-Pro is for people who want to look like they kind of might someday go off road without ever actually going off road.

⁓ So you're gonna have an inch less ground clearance in those ⁓ hardcore ⁓ winter weather conditions when you've got nine, 10 inches of snow or you've had six inches of snow and you have cleared your driveway and then two hours later the plows come through your neighborhood and they create a 12 inch berm at the end of your driveway. And this is a berm.

Nicole Wakelin (40:19)
Hehehehehe

Sam Abuelsamid (40:23)
made up of not just the dry powdery snow that you cleared with your shovel or your snowblower, but because it's a snowplow that plowed it there, now it's hard packed, compressed, icy, slushy ⁓ berm that now you've got to go out there with, ⁓ typical snowblower's not going to be able to cut through that. You've got to go out there with a hardcore shovel, maybe a pickaxe, break it up.

and shovel it out of the way so you can get out of your driveway. And with 8.3 inches of ground clearance, you're probably not even going to be able to just plow right through it. Because if you try to do that, that hard packed icy snow berm is just going to shatter the plastic front fascia. Because you don't have metal on the front there. ⁓ Having said all that.

You know, it's a good vehicle. You know, this is the kind of vehicle the majority of Americans are driving today You know, so it's a it's a nice roomy five passenger vehicle with a decent amount of cargo space ⁓ it is It comes with ⁓ a 2.5 liter four-cylinder naturally aspirated engine an eight-speed automatic transmission ⁓ Which is you know got an adequate amount of power

It's 187 horsepower, 178 pound feet of torque, which is fine. It's exactly as much as most people ever really need. But after I hop out of our family Kia EV6 with dual motors and 320 horsepower and jump into this, all of sudden it feels kind of slow because it doesn't have that.

Roberto Baldwin (42:10)
I mean, that's every gas, that's most

Nicole Wakelin (42:11)
Hahaha! ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (42:12)
gas

cars after you jump out of an UV to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:13)
Yes, no,

that is absolutely true. Once you go from an EV to an internal combustion vehicle, like, oh man, where did all that responsiveness go? But if you're driving this on a daily basis, you're gonna be fine. You're not gonna have any complaints about this. It's rated at 23 miles per gallon city, 26 highway, 24 combined. I got about 25.

Nicole Wakelin (42:24)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:43)
during my time driving it. let's see, ⁓ the only options I had, the base price of the X-Pro Prestige is 39,590. Mine ⁓ had the wolf gray paint with the black roof, ⁓ the cargo mats, the carpet floor mats, and a cargo cover. ⁓ And the grand total came to $40,660.

⁓ guesses on the inland freight and handling as Kia labels it on their Monroney.

Roberto Baldwin (43:19)
100.

Nicole Wakelin (43:19)
Inland

free 1200 I'll go 13.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:26)
Nicole gets it. It's $13.95.

Roberto Baldwin (43:29)
Man, I'm losing all over the place today.

Nicole Wakelin (43:29)
⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (43:31)
Yeah. So.

Roberto Baldwin (43:33)
I need the clarity

of just waking up. That's the problem. We're recording right now. It's like two in the afternoon for me. So I'm like awake. Yeah, I'm off Guelter.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:36)
haha

Nicole Wakelin (43:39)
Right. You're completely off kilter.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:41)
⁓

Yeah, besides the exterior design changes, the other thing they changed with the mid-cycle refresh is they went to ⁓ the same kind of dual 12.3-inch panoramic display that Kia has on a lot of their vehicles now. ⁓ So it looks like one big sheet of black glass when it's off that's sitting on top of your dashboard when you fire it up.

You've got two 12.3 inch displays in there. ⁓ It does have an updated version of the ⁓ Kia Hyundai ⁓ infotainment system. So the interface has been updated a little bit. ⁓ It's still pretty easy to use. It works well. It's responsive enough. It didn't have any issues with ⁓ connectivity or no crashing, no lagging. It just works. It's pretty simple.

It's got wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. There's a wireless charging pad at the front of the console. So it's got all the stuff that you expect, all the amenities you expect in a modern vehicle. And it works. It works well. It's a good vehicle. You've got a lot of options in this segment. And most of them work largely the same. For the most part, there's not

huge differences ⁓ among these in terms of performance. ⁓ And it basically comes down to which one do you like the looks of the best? And if you like the looks of the Sportage or Sportage, if you want to be fancy, then this is one to put on your shopping list. If you want something that looks a little less, you know, a little less...

Nicole Wakelin (45:15)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (45:20)
Portage! ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (45:32)
angular, chiseled than the new RAV4, this is one that you might want to consider. ⁓ Or if you want a little bit different look, there's the Hyundai Tucson, which is basically the same vehicle with a different look, but same powertrain. And I think you can also get this with... ⁓

with a hybrid, you can get the, I don't know if you can get the X-Pro as a hybrid, but you can get the Sportage with a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid option as well. all right. Yeah. So that is the 2026 Kia Sportage X-Pro Prestige all-wheel drive.

Nicole Wakelin (46:02)
I like that spurtage.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:14)
Alright, let's talk about what happened this week. Let's see. ⁓ We already mentioned the... ⁓

destination charges and that everyone else is noticing this automotive news. I'll have a link in the show notes if you want to check it out. They wrote about what we've been talking about for ages. No, that's true. You know what? I'm not going to link to them because they didn't link to us. They didn't reference the fact that we've been talking about this for ages. So take that automotive news.

Roberto Baldwin (46:33)
Wait, they didn't link to us. We're not the l-

Yeah! Take that! No, take that! Yeah, this is gonna

cripple them!

gonna cripple their business. You're done now. No.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:50)
Automotive news is done. Nope. Nope. Nobody's ever gonna read automotive news again

All right ⁓ so Back somewhere in the past in the when Tesla

added the full self-driving mode on top of their ⁓ enhanced autopilot variations on their cars. At one point, they've got different modes that you can choose from in terms of the aggressiveness of the system. And Elon being Elon had to include a Mad Max mode in there. ⁓ And it went away for a while, but it came back recently. ⁓ In a recent software update, they added the Mad Max mode back in there, which makes the

Nicole Wakelin (47:25)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (47:34)
makes the FSD drive more aggressively, including doing things like ignoring speed limits, ⁓ which to be honest, I'm not sure that even without Mad Max mode that it ever did a great job of following speed limits anyway. But yeah, it does a bunch of things. And so the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has decided to investigate the Mad Max mode on Tesla FSD. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (47:49)
Ha

Mmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:04)
Yeah, you know, if you have a Tesla, you know, fine. ⁓ You know, if you're going to use FSD, ⁓ you know, remember, despite the name, not really fully self-driving or it's certainly not unsupervised. You have to keep your eyes on the road. Be ready to take control ⁓ because yes, you are very much in charge. ⁓ You know, please, you know.

Roberto Baldwin (48:25)
You're still in charge. Period.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:33)
Follow the rules of the road, be safe out there. Because we know that Tesla's robotaxi is running the same software. Not so much. ⁓ They already reported three crashes to NHTSA in Austin from just their very small fleet of vehicles. ⁓ And they have ⁓ safety observers in there with a kill switch that are supposed to be ready to take control or to shut off the system at any moment.

Nicole Wakelin (48:48)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:02)
⁓ And ⁓ we have no idea how many times they have disengaged ⁓ FSD since they launched their supposed robo taxi service back in June. So be careful out there if you're in a Tesla. And if you're not in a Tesla but you see one near you, ⁓ keep your eyes open, make sure it doesn't swerve into you. Especially if you're driving a police vehicle, make sure it doesn't run into you. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (49:14)
Mm-hmm.

You

Roberto Baldwin (49:29)
They love

just they're like magnets to Tesla those Emergency vehicles. I don't know what to do. I've had a few Tesla's sort of like riding the lane Like riding the edge of the lane recently. Yeah, I'm like, what is this person doing? I don't know if it's the person driving I wasn't really I didn't want to die. So I didn't like let me look over here and do you mean let me investigate while I'm driving But yeah, I've had a couple Tesla's like right. I'm like what is happening? What's this? Why is this person driving like this?

Sam Abuelsamid (49:33)
⁓ no.

Like on the edge of the lane?

Nicole Wakelin (49:49)
I'm gonna die.

Roberto Baldwin (49:59)
⁓ maybe? ⁓ That's anecdotal evidence everyone. That doesn't make it. That's not real. That's just me driving around wondering what's wrong with people. What's your problem?

Nicole Wakelin (50:05)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:13)
Alright, let's talk about the Japan Mobility Show. ⁓ Unlike auto shows in America, what?

Roberto Baldwin (50:18)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, did

you go to Japan, ⁓ nobility show, Nicole? I didn't go. Who went? ⁓ Sam.

Nicole Wakelin (50:23)
No, I did not. I didn't go. Who went?

Who's there? Is someone there now?

Sam Abuelsamid (50:28)
I was... I

was here. I went.

Roberto Baldwin (50:30)
Lucky.

I'm so jel- Lucky. Alright, please carry on. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (50:32)
Sam, it's Sam. I know he is lucky.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:36)
It lots of good Japanese food this week.

Yeah. And, you know, so this is the show formerly known as the Tokyo Motor Show. You know, takes place every other year, odd numbered years. So I was here in 2023, back here again this year.

Thanks to Honda. They brought a whole bunch of us over here for the show and then to go to ⁓ meet with their CEO, Mibesan, a couple days ago. And then also to go to Tachigi to drive some stuff that I'm not allowed to talk about yet. We'll talk about that next week. ⁓ But there was, know, again, unlike most North American shows, there was participation.

from all the major Japanese automakers here, as well as booths from Mercedes-Benz, from BMW, from BYD, they were here. ⁓ There was trucks and there was buses and motorcycles, lots of motorcycles. ⁓ One thing that was interesting to see, hydrogen powered motorcycles. Kawasaki had this one.

Nicole Wakelin (51:44)
Hydrogen,

a hydrogen, okay, go ahead. Sorry, hydrogen motorcycle, that's freaky.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:50)
Yeah,

Kawasaki had this wild looking ⁓ hydrogen motorcycle, know, internal combustion ⁓ engine. So it's not a fuel cell, but running on hydrogen Suzuki, Yamaha also had a hydrogen motorcycle. So yeah, that was pretty interesting, lots of concept vehicles here. ⁓ And let's start with Honda. We've seen the Honda Zero Series as well as the Acura RSX.

that are coming. ⁓ those are Honda's, know, Honda has been selling some EVs built by GM for the last year and a half, two years. ⁓ And one of those, Actors ZDX has already been discontinued because Honda has been developing their own new EV platform. We saw the prototypes of those at CES last January, the Honda Zero SUV and the Honda Zero Saloon.

⁓ And those cars were here, those vehicles were on display here in Tokyo. But they showed another one called the Honda Zero Alpha. ⁓ And this one looks very much like the Honda Zero SUV that we're gonna get in the US next year. ⁓ But it's a completely different car. It's still an EV, ⁓ but it's not destined for the US market.

It is ⁓ targeted at Japan and India. In fact, it's going to be produced in India in 2027. even though it looks a lot like the Honda Zero SUV, it's a little bit smaller, not a lot smaller. It's kind of like the Zero SUV is about the size of a CR-V and the Zero Alpha is closer to the size of an HR-V, at least the US market HR-V. ⁓

maybe a little bit bigger than the HRV. ⁓ But ⁓ a lot of the most interesting technologies that are gonna be in the North American EVs, things like their new zonal electrical architecture, their ASIMO OS software platform, that's not gonna be on this car because they're targeting, again, targeting the Indian market.

⁓ So they're cost reducing it, gonna have different batteries. They're still finalizing some stuff with the batteries. So we don't really have any specifications on this. We don't have a lot of detail, ⁓ but we did learn, it's gonna have more ground clearance, different suspension setup to deal with Indian roads compared to the one for North America. ⁓ hopefully what they do is they take some of the things that they learned

from doing this one and bring some more affordable EVs to North America because the Zero SUV and the Zero saloon probably gonna be a little more high end. I think the Zero SUV is probably gonna cost similar to the Prologue. So in the 50 to $60,000 range, what do you think of the Zero Alpha?

Roberto Baldwin (55:05)
Listen, I think we, I still think we need less expensive EVs on the road period in the United States. ⁓ I know why, you're company and you're like, I would like to bring an, you know, especially if we're not an American company, you're like, I would like to bring an inexpensive EV to the U.S. ⁓ It's kind of a bad time. ⁓ Inexpensive vehicles have a slimmer profit margin than say a luxury vehicle. So you're not going to make much money. You know, you're to have to sell a lot of these.

Nicole Wakelin (55:13)
Thank

Roberto Baldwin (55:34)
Like, but now we've added tariffs on there. And you know, the tariffs are going to change from week to week, you know, depending on whatever the hell's on television, whatever. ⁓ So as a, as a, as an auto, yeah, yeah. As, as an automaker, like I, I get it when, you know, Kia is like, we're not bringing that EV over here. You know, the EV over here. You know, I get it when, know, you're, you're like, well, why would I bring the zero alpha over over the United States?

Nicole Wakelin (55:44)
Hahaha

Sam Abuelsamid (55:46)
or on Truth Social.

Roberto Baldwin (56:04)
when again, you know, these high volume but inexpensive vehicles don't have the profit margin electric vehicle do. And if you're like, well, they're doing everything to get like at least half the country not to want to buy an EV for whatever. I'm still not 100 % sure of the reason. ⁓ And then we're going to throw just like crazy terror of chaos and everything. As a company, you're like, well, why would I do this? Here's a bunch of here's here's another here's some more CRBs.

I a guess, there you go.

Nicole Wakelin (56:36)
You're right. It's given the complications of bringing a car over here and what they have over here and what sells over here. It's really cool and I'd love to see some of these things, but you can understand why it doesn't make sense.

Roberto Baldwin (56:50)
Yeah, again, just move to Japan. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (56:52)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (56:54)
Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (56:58)
Yeah. I certainly wouldn't advocate for Honda to bring the Zero Alpha from India to the US. Or even to bring that particular, or even to build that vehicle in the US, because it looks so much like the Zero SUV. And it's not that much smaller. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (57:07)
It's about homologation issues around that.

Nicole Wakelin (57:15)
Excuse me.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:24)
If you put this into a Honda showroom next to the Zero SUV, people are going to look in and say, okay, why is this one $15,000 or $20,000 less than this one? Explain to me why I should buy the expensive one versus this one. And that's not what I advocated for when I spoke to Honda people this week. But rather, take...

Nicole Wakelin (57:38)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:50)
what you're doing in terms of cost reduction and do a different vehicle, build it in the US with some of the lower cost systems and have a more affordable EV based on the same technologies you're putting into the Zero Alpha. But just give it a different look, whether it's a car or...

Roberto Baldwin (58:11)
Not every

EV needs to have like mid to luxury bells and whistles in it. That's the thing that we're...

Nicole Wakelin (58:20)
think it's weird

what they did with that. You're right, Robbie. Like the way they went that way with a lot of EVs. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (58:23)
Like I don't, I buy a Honda Civic, you know, I buy a Honda Fit. I'm not expecting all these crazy

features in there. I shouldn't expect all those crazy features in there. If there's an inexpensive EV, I should expect like how I get in. It's got like, you know, 12 inch screen or, you know, tiny screen that I can, you know, maybe the navigation works. Maybe it doesn't. I just plug my phone into it. That's it. I drive around. I do the thing. It doesn't have, you know, I don't have lane keeping assist and I have to wear, you know,

Nicole Wakelin (58:43)
Maybe, maybe not.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:45)
You

Roberto Baldwin (58:51)
Maybe I have adaptive cruise control, but that's about it. Like, don't need, that's like, just keep cramming this. This is the thing when, you know, when the slate CEO is like, they just keep throwing things, all this technology and then making you pay for it when you don't use the technology. Like she is very much on point about that. Like they're just, here's a bunch of technology. So now this car costs $10,000 more than it would if it didn't have all this stuff in it.

Why? Why am I paying all this money for all this stuff? I don't need the stuff. I don't use the stuff. People don't use the stuff. They don't want the stuff. Give us less stuff is what I Less stuff so I can save money so I can buy more tacos.

Nicole Wakelin (59:20)
you

Sam Abuelsamid (59:26)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (59:30)
Less stuff, please. Reduce the amount of Mm-hmm. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (59:33)
You're

sounding positively un-American there, Robbie. Yeah, I mean, being American is all about having more stuff, not less stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (59:37)
I know, we don't need all the stuff.

But you can have more stuff that's just not the car stuff. You can go out and buy stuff with the money you save from not getting the stuff in the car. So you're getting more things, yeah. So you get the car and then a bunch of stuff and then all the stuff inside.

Nicole Wakelin (59:44)
More stuff.

No, but you want the car stuff and the other stuff. You want both stuff. Robbie, all the stuff. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:53)
You should have all the stuff.

We are, I believe, supposed to have all the stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:01)
That's true. We're the best. We're the best at having all the stuff. though, yeah, where else? Anyway, that's my, yeah, that's the problem. That's my rant. It's like, don't need all, and again, this is why I'm so drawn to the slate, because it doesn't have any of stuff. All the stuff's gone. You just want an EV. It's essentially just a body, a motor, a battery, some wheels, and a steering wheel. Go away, take it, here.

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:01)
All of it, all the stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:09)
even when we can't afford it.

Yeah

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:30)
Here, you wanna take parts off it? Yeah, whatever. You wanna buy some parts put on? Yeah, yeah, just here, here. You wanna scream? You got a phone. Stop whining, get out of here. Go to the store, pick up some mulch.

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:42)
Go to the store, pick up some mulch.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:46)
some topsoil, know, if you don't need mulch yet, you need some topsoil, get a few bags of topsoil, know, get a vegetable garden going. Yeah. All right. So, you know, the other thing that Honda highlighted is the Super One, which is another car that we are not ever going to see in the U.S., at least not for 25 years until, you know, once they're 25 years old. You know, so I'll be, what, 85?

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:48)
Topsoil.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:16)
You know when when we can import this thing, but you know, think it might just be perfect You know when I'm 85 But well, you know, I'll talk more about the super one next week The let's see Toyota Toyota had the entire South Hall of Tokyo Big Sight, which is the convention center where they do the the show and they had four Booths within within this, you know for four different brands

They had ⁓ and they basically the first hour of the media day was Toyota Group ⁓ with four press conferences in a row starting with Toyota and then going to Daihatsu which used to be able to get in the US but not anymore and then Lexus and finally Century. So let's start with Toyota. The big thing from Toyota was this new Corolla concept. ⁓

Have you looked at this thing?

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:18)
I woke up, started working, looked on the old internet, saw the new Corolla, and I was like, shoot, I've gotta buy a new Corolla now, I guess.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:30)
It's... it is slick. It's an interesting design.

Nicole Wakelin (1:02:30)
It does look good, right? It's kinda cool looking.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:34)
I was like, why?

Nicole Wakelin (1:02:36)
But it's a concept. How

close is it going to look? See, every time they do a concept, I want to know how close is the concept to reality? Is it like not at all? Or is it like, guys, we're just going to make a few tweaks.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:39)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:47)
It's hard

to tell. Toyota, sometimes they do stuff that translates to production and sometimes they don't, which we'll talk more about in a minute. I think the general shape of this and the design direction that we see in this Corolla, it's a compact four-door sedan. I think that this is the

the general design direction. think it's gonna be, the production version's gonna be toned down a fair bit, but I think that this is the overall direction that they're taking with it. So it's pretty sleek, got a very low hood in the front. ⁓ I think one of the interesting details to me is the belt line, which really sweeps down in the front. So the front doors, ⁓ the front edge of the belt line is down quite low.

Nicole Wakelin (1:03:21)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:45)
which is actually great for visibility. It really helps when you're looking up to the corners. I think we'll see a lot of this in the next generation Corolla, which is probably, we'll probably see this production version sometime later next year, I'm guessing, for 2027. What we probably won't see,

is the interior of this car. ⁓ Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:04:17)
The interior is wild.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:19)
The lint here is always like

a thing that's never gonna happen. It's always like, here's a seat that like, you know, three people are comfortable in and there's nothing else in here. And the steering wheel is made out of corn or something.

Nicole Wakelin (1:04:21)
I know, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:23)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:04:24)
Mm-hmm.

The studio's made of corn. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:32)
So,

one of the key elements of the interior is this center pedestal. So instead of a traditional console, you've got this pedestal that's got a platform that's angled down towards the back. And the the shift selector, the transmission selector, instead of a knob or like a rocker or something like that, or a lever, is a clear plastic thing.

that looks, it is shaped just like the car itself. So it's like when you grab it to put it in drive, you're grabbing a miniature version of the car that you're sitting in.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:04)
It's really fun. It glows woo woo woo woo.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:04)
And it glows.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:11)
Which, I mean, our dream come true, it's Hot Wheels that works.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:12)
So you're like a child playing with Hot Wheels. I support

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:14)
Yes, yeah exactly. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:18)
Hot Wheels-shaped gear selectors.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:25)
I like this. think it's silly, but it's fun.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:25)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:28)
The problem is that a child is going to get in the car and shove it in reverse.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:28)
Yeah, I

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:32)
Kids gonna be like, Hot Wheels! There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:33)
It's

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:33)
Well, they'll probably be able

to shove it in neutral. Probably not in reverse, but you'll be driving all of sudden, wait, what's going on?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:40)
It's exactly the kind of thing you want to do in a concept. it's exactly what, you know, that will never make it to production, but I wish it would. It would be fun. you know, Toyota didn't talk at all about what might power this thing, except to say, you know, uh, well, they didn't talk about, you know, what's powering this particular concept, which, you know, means it probably is not powered by anything. Uh, it probably, you know, cause we certainly didn't see it drive onto the stage or anything. It was just.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:51)
That would be nice, but.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:10)
there and they pulled the silk off of it. ⁓ But what they did, say when I talked to folks from Toyota, that the Corolla is going to follow Toyota's multi-pathway approach ⁓ with different powertrain options, which means that most likely ⁓ they'll do what they've done with RAV4. It'll be a standard hybrid, maybe a plug-in hybrid option, and there will be an electric option as well.

Nicole Wakelin (1:06:39)
It looks really good. It really does look good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:40)
Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:41)
Pretty cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:41)
yeah, I hope they preserve a lot of this for ⁓ the production model, at least the exterior.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:49)
The...

Nicole Wakelin (1:06:49)
I would love

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:50)
Alright.

Nicole Wakelin (1:06:50)
to see the interior

stay, you know it's not gonna. I would love that. Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:52)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:53)
Yeah, no,

definitely not. ⁓ move over to Lexus. So recently Lexus announced an LS final edition. ⁓ So the current generation LS, was, the LS was the, back when they launched Lexus in 1989, the first car they launched was the LS 400, the sedan.

Yeah, which at the time, you know, that one looked a lot like a Mercedes Benz S-Class of the era. You know, and the LS has evolved over time, but it's always been a four-door sedan. Well, going forward, that will no longer be the case, it appears. So they had two different concepts, both badged as LS. One was ⁓ called the LS coupe and

The other one was just Lexus LS Concept, which was this wild luxury van.

Nicole Wakelin (1:07:56)
What even is this?

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:58)
These look like vans from the movie Dune.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:02)
Yeah

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:03)
Both of these look perfect. Look at them. These are from Dune.

Nicole Wakelin (1:08:09)
So that's our theme, Dune, Arachnidus, or planet.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:10)
That's our team, Dune. Arrakis. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:17)
⁓ So, we've talked a bit about these luxury vans. We talked about Faraday X. Remember earlier this year they announced their luxury van. These kinds of vans are actually quite popular in Asia, particularly here in Japan, in Korea, and especially in China. So here in Japan, Toyota has the Alphard.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:17)
Sorry everyone.

Nicole Wakelin (1:08:26)
Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:46)
And then they have the Lexus LM. know, so, you know, these are, ⁓ you know, often used, you know, as chauffeur driven vehicles, you know, so they're very luxurious inside, very roomy. ⁓ and, this is kind of taking that idea to the next level. ⁓ but it has six wheels. It's got two very large wheels in the front and then

Nicole Wakelin (1:09:12)
I didn't

even catch the wheels. was like, look so busy. I literally was so taken by the design. I missed the fact that it has six wheels. That's how weird it is. ⁓ my God.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:18)
you didn't see the little tiny, the double tiny.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:19)
Hehe.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:25)
You need all that traction for the sand.

Look in there, if you look at the, they don't have any tread. Just like a sand buggy.

Nicole Wakelin (1:09:35)
is this?

This is Bizarroland.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:36)
Well, think these renders

here don't really show the tread, the physical model that was on the stage did have some tread.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:40)
Yeah, because sand.

Nicole Wakelin (1:09:44)
What did you think of the physical

model that was on the stage?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:47)
Well, first, as I was looking at this thing, I'm walking around and looking at it from different angles. ⁓ I would not call this a pretty or beautiful vehicle. The outgoing LS sedan, I think, is a very attractive car. I think it's a ⁓ really good-looking large sedan. I would not say that about this thing. ⁓ It's very angular. ⁓ But as I looking at the wheels, I realized

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:10)
Hehehehe

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:17)
why they did that. And I talked to one of the designers and got confirmation that so the reason why it's got the four wheels in the back is the four wheels, this is not like ⁓ some of those six by six Mercedes G wagons ⁓ you see out there where you've got six, the same size wheels.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:35)
Ugh.

We get press releases about those stupid

cars all the time. Like, here's the new six by six, m-m-m-m-

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:42)
Yeah, so

Yeah, so these four rear wheels are rather small, at least compared to the ones in the front. And then I realized why. When you have a van, ⁓ if you look in the back of a van, if you put the seats down or move the seats around, you'll see that the wheel wells intrude into that volume. You've got this big, spacious volume in there, and then the wheel wells stick into that.

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:48)
Delete. Delete.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:16)
Well, by using four smaller wheels, they don't really stick into the volume anymore. So you maximize the interior space, which is the whole point of this thing. ⁓ We have no idea what this thing might be powered by. It might be electric, it might be hybrid, who knows. But those four smaller wheels in the back are entirely intended to just minimize the intrusion into the passenger volume. And because this is,

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:24)
Yeah, that's smart.

Nicole Wakelin (1:11:25)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:45)
This is a vehicle that is for the owners. It's more a vehicle to be driven in than a vehicle to drive. ⁓ And so you want to really optimize that interior volume, provide as much room for those people riding in the back as you possibly can. So it's something. ⁓ And then there is the ⁓ cross from that.

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:13)
⁓ There was the Lexus LS coupe concept, ⁓ which ⁓ is something else entirely different. This is four door, tall riding coupe. It's kind of, imagine the Toyota Crown, but taken to a new level.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:37)
It looks like it's ready for sand. I'm just saying, that's all I'm saying.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:37)
⁓ Yeah, could be.

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:40)
Mm-hmm. You're not wrong.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:44)
You know, if a Mercedes GLC can do it, maybe a Lexus LS Coupe.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:47)
So can the LX's LSCoop

concept can do it?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:51)
Yeah?

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:51)
it does

with those big beefy wheels and the tires and the and the clearance looks high. Yeah. There's a lot of clearance on that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:53)
Big beefy wheels. Hide ride height. Yeah tons of clearance.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:58)
Yeah, yep.

might not want this particular set of wheels and tires, because they're pretty low profile. You might want a smaller set of wheels and tires with more sidewall, so that when you air them down, you can actually get some traction. Yeah, that's typical concept thing. Designers like to put suicide doors on there. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:06)
Yeah, I do.

You're not riding on the rims. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (1:13:14)
There's still something there.

I like the suicide doors. Those are cool.

Yeah, because they can open it all up and you can

see the whole thing.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:28)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:28)
Yeah,

but what do you think of the overall look?

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:34)
I think it looks cool. I don't know who's gonna buy it. It looks very rough and ready. It's like, looks, you know, like, it looks like it should be a Subaru concept is what it looks like.

Nicole Wakelin (1:13:34)
I think it looks kinda cool. I like this one. Yeah.

Okay, somehow this room-

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:48)
It should be like an STI side of con.

Nicole Wakelin (1:13:49)
It's odd

because it wants to be sleek, like that little is so slow. then it's like, grr, like you can't decide. Like it's it's like the mullet of cars. It's like part, but it's like party on the top business party on the bottom. Yeah, like it's business in the front top. Like it's all sleek. And then it's like, yeah, look at this. It's a car mullet.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:53)
but also that looks like, ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:53)
Mhm.

Heh. Heh heh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:02)
business London

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:11)
Well,

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:11)
turn off.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:12)
the impression I got from talking to people at Lexus is that this is probably, something like this is probably the direction we're going to see them go with their next generation flagship vehicle. I don't know that we'll see anything like the van, but I think we will see something roughly like this in the next couple of years from Lexus.

Nicole Wakelin (1:14:18)
Ahem.

I do like it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:29)
Nah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:14:34)
Okay, what about

this little teeny thing that you skipped by? What is this? It's just called the Lexus LS micro concept. You want to talk about Dune? This looks like the thing that like they just have that one big guy come out of that's his own little cavern, his own little portable thing like the like, did you see this, Robbie? It's like like the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:38)
This is

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:50)
Your own little car, yes. It looks

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:52)
Yeah, alright.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:53)
like a little credit card that you sit in.

Nicole Wakelin (1:14:56)
It's really tiny!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:59)
It's a single seater mobility pod, but very luxurious. Yeah, this is very much the Emperor's pod. As long as the Emperor is not too broad-shouldered or, you would, know, Henry VIII would probably not be real happy in this thing because it is rather slim. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it is...

Nicole Wakelin (1:15:02)
Like this is the Emperor's Pod.

He just gets driven around in this.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:11)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:15:16)
Ha!

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:17)
Yeah, we had... Didn't you have doubt?

Nicole Wakelin (1:15:21)
I don't know. It does look like a throne in there, the way this is set up. It is like literally a throne.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:25)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:28)
It is very much like a throne. ⁓ the way it opens up is pretty wild. when you look at it, when it's closed from the front, if you look at it from the side, it's a rectangle. And there's square fairings around the front wheels. ⁓ And ⁓ if you're looking at it from the left side of the vehicle, the upper left

Nicole Wakelin (1:15:30)
I kind of want this one. I want a car that makes me feel like I'm a queen.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:58)
corner is basically like a black triangle, a glass triangle that kind of cuts across this rectangle. And that whole triangle slides upwards, up and back. And the front glass surface flips up. And then the lower portion of the body work flips down. So you have a ramp. And you have one seat in there. there's, you know, it's

Beautiful inside. You know, got these wood, you know, lots of wood lining in there and leather and everything And the seat will slide forwards and then you just gently step up out of the seat and step down that ramp ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (1:16:36)
This is so ridiculous.

I love this thing. There's not a practical thing about the square wheels. That'll do great in the winter. Imagine that in a snowbank. You thunk, you mean like just done. But I love how this is so ridiculous that I love it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:40)
you

No.

Look at him now.

Yeah, it is absurd. mean, it is. Yeah, back in the day, you know, when it when this was the Tokyo Motor Show, you know, Japanese automakers would make some of the wildest concepts. And this is the kind of thing that you would see, you know, in the 1990s or early 2000s Tokyo Motor Show, just something totally off the wall. And yeah, it's it's cool. They're never going to build it. ⁓ I don't think, but it's.

Nicole Wakelin (1:17:12)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:22)
It's interesting.

Nicole Wakelin (1:17:22)
You'll never get it, but yeah, I just think that's wild.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:28)
Yeah. All right. And then after they were done with Lexus, you know, it took a few minute pause and they had the, Century press conference. And this is the one where chairman Akio Toyoda finally came out and he spoke and he talked about the history of the Toyota Century.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:38)
Ahem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:51)
You know the the backstory, you know when it was the original century was created, you know by his ⁓ Father his grandfather. I can't remember now ⁓ and you know, they're hit they're they're you know, the head of engineering and design You know and century has always been you know, Toyota's flagship, you know, just it's only ever been sold in Japan, you know big v12 engine you know and

It's kind of a serious luxury car. ⁓ And more recently, they've expanded the Century from ⁓ just the ⁓ sedan. They've added an SUV, a Century SUV. And the one that they had on display there was painted in matte black. And it looked very much like a Rolls-Royce Cullinan or Bentley Bentayga. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (1:18:45)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:48)
what they showed the concept that the century concept that they showed. Well, what they announced is that century is being split off into its own ⁓ sub brand. So now you're to have Toyota and Lexus and above Lexus is going to be century. And century is going to expand beyond the Japanese market, ⁓ starting primarily targeting Asia, whether we ever see it in North America or even Europe.

is undecided at this point, but it's, ⁓ you know, the concept that they showed, and I don't even have a link to it here, why don't I have a link to it?

Nicole Wakelin (1:19:27)
It's a good looking.

No, it's I just Googled and found a link and it's actually looks. We get. Yeah, we got this, Sam. ⁓ It looks really cool. That color. It makes me think of the ⁓ who's doing magma. Is that Genesis with their magma line? Somehow the color makes me think of that. It's this very orangey red. It's really cool looking. Ember. OK. Ember. It's really cool looking.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:30)
We got Google on our computers, thank God.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Genesis, yeah.

They call it Ember. It's Ember, yes. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:49)
That's an actual

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:53)
So yeah, so it's this two door, actually no, four door, because they're all sliding doors. ⁓ Big, high-riding luxury coupe. The overall profile of this thing is kind Rolls Royce, ⁓ kind of the kind of Don or Spectre.

Nicole Wakelin (1:20:08)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:13)
Kind of profile but taller, know hot sit, you know, it's like the Lexus like the LS coupe, know It's it's look looks like it's ready to go off-road So, you know, this is the kind of thing that you know, maybe you sell to extremely wealthy people in the Middle East You know to go off in the dunes and in the Middle East ⁓ and You know, it's a three seater so there's one front seat and then you know, that's kind of separated

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:32)
Doom.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:40)
from the two back seats and then the, you know, and this one, you know, because it's Japan, it's right-hand drive, the left rear seat, you know, can also slide forward and then tilt outwards to make it easier to get in and out of the car. you know, the doors on either side split, it comes out from the body, splits and slides forward and back. So sliding doors, it's...

It's a pretty wild looking concept and the paint, it's amazing on this thing. It really stands out. ⁓ And the ⁓ logo for Century is a phoenix ⁓ because part of the original idea with Century, when they created the original Toyota Century in the...

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:15)
Yeah, it's really good looking. Yeah, it is very cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:34)
post-war era, know, was kind of the phoenix rising from the ashes of post-war Japan. ⁓ And so, you know, we will probably see something like this produced and sold again in a couple of years.

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:52)
I mean, interesting. It doesn't seem like something that makes sense to bring here, but who knows? Maybe they will. But it does look cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:00)
Well, mean, Century has never

sold in huge numbers anyway. And they're targeting Mercedes-Benz, or more, Maybach, and Bentley, and Rolls-Royce with this thing. So they're not looking to sell tens of thousands of these. This is more in the hundreds to low thousands ⁓ at most globally.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:04)
Right.

Very many. Yeah, yeah, it's really low volume vehicle. Yeah.

Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:26)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:27)
Well, okay, sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:32)
All right, well Robbie you you mentioned Subaru ⁓ Yeah, and so let's go to let's move to Subaru Subaru had two concepts on display the performance B concept and the performance or performance be STI and the performance e STI and ⁓ You know, they discontinued the ⁓ Impreza WRX STI a couple years ago

But it looks like it's coming back in the performance E or the performance B. should say Yeah, so and and to bring them back to hatchback. So you got a WRX hatchback with a giant wing and big, you know turbocharged engine in there and ⁓ Big flared fenders. I mean it is and it's it's also got a manual transmission

Nicole Wakelin (1:23:17)
Yeah

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:18)
Go scoop.

Nicole Wakelin (1:23:24)
Woohoo! That looks fun.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:26)
⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:26)
As it

should.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:28)
yeah so

Nicole Wakelin (1:23:29)
It looks very

fun. These actually all have a bunch of fun concepts in here. Look at that wilderness concept even. The wilderness, like all these, the Outback Wilderness, I need to specify. There's a Forest to Wilderness prototype and an Outback Wilderness prototype. at the Outback Wilderness prototype. That looks slick.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:40)
The Forrester Wilderness? Prototype? ⁓ yeah.

Yeah, they've got that one all rigged up with some saddlebags on the side and a roof rack and bike rack on the back. I'm sure that I'm pretty sure they'll build. And the performance BSTI, ⁓ you know, they're not saying anything specifically, but I think the fact that they've built this and showed it, yeah, they're bringing that back.

Nicole Wakelin (1:23:52)
Yeah, that looks cool. That's very cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:14)
Subaru, hardcore Subaru fan, performance fans have been clamoring for this car and I'm pretty sure it'll be back probably next year. ⁓ What do you think of the performance E-STI?

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:19)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:24:19)
Yeah.

They'll be very excited. It's probably going to do really well.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:22)
Fingers crossed.

It looks like a ⁓ BRZ or GR86 or whatever you want to call it.

Nicole Wakelin (1:24:35)
it does a little bit. You're right. The Burrs 86.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:38)
It's

like a burrs the burrs 86 a little bit

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:41)
Well,

but this is a lot bigger. ⁓ It's actually a little bigger than the WRX. It's a big five-door hatchback. ⁓ And the one they had on the show floor, I'll have ⁓ links to some photos in the show notes. But this one was finished, it's in the same Subaru.

Classic performance blue, you know, they had on their rally cars for years and years and you know was always kind of the color of WRX and STI, but it was in a matte version of that and This thing looks stunning. Yeah, I was talking to ⁓ One of the Subaru people this is not built on the Soltera platform. This is this is an Eve. It's just electric ⁓ And it's a completely in-house Subaru developed platform ⁓

So this is, know, they're not, you know, they're not committing to anything, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them build something like this ⁓ in a few years time. And it looked fantastic. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:46)
I mean, I hope so. I

it looks cool. I mean, Subaru doesn't, I mean, they have money from, I mean, mostly they work with Toyota, ⁓ but they're not like, you know, a huge company, but they do really well in this country. you know, they have, the market that loves Subarus, loves Subaru. That's the thing with Subaru people, Subaru people love their Subarus. Like I'm on my second Subaru and I'm like, wow, it'd be cool if we had another cool Subaru coming out.

Nicole Wakelin (1:26:05)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole Wakelin (1:26:15)
Yeah, right.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:16)
Yeah,

well, there's definitely cool Subarus. mean, that performance BSTi, mean, that one I think is definitely coming. And I think the E will be coming at some point as well. All right, and then Mazda. Mazda had a couple of concepts as well. ⁓ the two Mazda concepts were ⁓ real interesting.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, it'll be fun.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:44)
⁓ One was a little B segment car, so kind of a Mazda 2 sized car. ⁓ And that one, it, that one basically had no kind of infotainment interface on it. ⁓ It's all voice controlled. ⁓ I don't know if we'll see something like that, using an AI chatbot for,

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:10)
It's not coming here.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:14)
Yeah, well, it's not coming anyway, but I do think that the Vision X Compact, which is that one, I think that one will probably be built for overseas markets where they appreciate small cars. And it's got the Kodo design language, ⁓ but it's good. I like the design.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:27)
yeah.

⁓ This car looks cool.

Nicole Wakelin (1:27:32)
Mm,

it does look good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:42)
⁓ You know, not as crazy about the interior. And then there was the Vision X concept, which is a whole different beast. ⁓ This is a five-door coupe. It's five meters long. So this car is about the size of a Genesis G80. And when you see this thing, when you look at the lines, you know, like the shape of the side glass and everything, you look at it in profile.

Nicole Wakelin (1:28:01)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:11)
It looks like they took a current Mazda 3 hatchback and stretched this thing out by about two feet and squished it down a little bit and made it wider ⁓ and longer hood. It looks fantastic when you see it. ⁓ it has, because it's Mazda, it's got a rotary engine in it. It's a turbocharged two rotor Wankel rotary plug-in hybrid.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:39)
huh, sure.

Yeah, we're gonna get that rotary engine any day now.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:43)
100 miles of electric range 500 miles total Yeah They you know they say you know it's designed to run on biofuel derived from microalgae And it has a mobile carbon capture system on it so in the exhaust system the exhaust goes through this thing and

Nicole Wakelin (1:28:44)
Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:12)
that is filled with something called zeolite that absorbs the CO2 from the exhaust gas flowing over it. And then there's a pair of electric compressors that then take that CO2 and put it into a storage tank in the car. And the way the system is intended to work is that storage tank is removable. So it's kind of like when you get a propane tank exchange in reverse. normally you would take your empty propane tank

Nicole Wakelin (1:29:39)
Ha

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:42)
You know to wherever you know where they've got the blue rhino or you know, whatever brand and you exchange it for for a full one And you you pay way too much for the propane because they only give you 15 pounds of propane Whereas if you just take it to someplace that just sells both propane and take your empty tank there They you pay like half as much and get more propane whole other story but the

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:45)
Yeah, yeah, swap it out.

propane.

Yeah.

We're

dropping propane knowledge on y'all folks. This is like King of the Hill.

Nicole Wakelin (1:30:11)
I know, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:11)
Yeah,

yeah, been watching too much King of the Hill. ⁓ Anyway, ⁓ the idea here is that ⁓ when you stop at the fuel station, you slide this tank out, ⁓ the full tank, and you change it with an empty tank and put that in there to collect your CO2 until the next time you fill up. ⁓ And then those tanks...

Nicole Wakelin (1:30:15)
Ha ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:38)
can then be taken off somewhere and the CO2 used for industrial applications or perhaps taken to a facility where they're growing microalgae to make biofuel and used to feed the algae or put into a large scale carbon capture system. It's an interesting idea. I was talking to Head of Strategy from Mazda about this and I asked, so how much of the CO2 from the exhaust stream is captured?

We're targeting about 20%. So it's about a 20 % reduction in direct CO2 emissions.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:13)
They're targeting.

Let's just talk about how carbon capture is essentially a scam anyway. So why are we putting it on a car? Look up, just do some research about carbon capture, folks. It's not, it is a, yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:31:16)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:21)
You

Yeah.

Yeah,

well, you the other thing is, you know, to do this, you you

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:31)
Just make it a hybrid. How about that? How about get rid of 40 %

Nicole Wakelin (1:31:34)
Hahaha

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:35)
of the CO2 and make it a hybrid? Just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:38)
you would

have to, well it's already a plug-in hybrid, so you've already done that, and you're running it on biofuel, algae biofuel. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:42)
Alright.

Well, whatever the hell that means. Hold on, gotta

pull up to the ocean, get some algae biofuels.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:53)
⁓ In order to do this, you would have to have an ⁓ infrastructure set up. So all the fueling stations would have to have this set up for exchanging the CO2 tanks, to store the CO2 tanks and give you empty ones. ⁓ And really to make it commercially viable, every automaker would have to do this. If it's just Mazda, nobody's going to do it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:17)
Yeah,

it's a concept car. Making fun of the ridiculousness of a concept car is, yeah, I don't know why I'm getting so angry about carbon capture. The fact that people are like, hey, how about carbon capture? No. ⁓ But yeah, it looks cool. It looks almost like a wagon, which it's got a really long hood, I guess, for capturing carbon, I guess.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:22)
Yeah, it's a concept.

What do you think of the design of the car?

Nicole Wakelin (1:32:38)
It looks good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:42)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:32:47)
Hahaha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:48)
This

is where we put all our carbons that we've captured like, like, like Ghostbusters. We got to catch all the carbons. ⁓ yeah. I mean, automakers always, we, know, with these, you know, this, you know, the wheels are made out of, you know, reclaimed, I don't know, chicken bones. the, the motor runs on, you know, unicorn farts and all, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:48)
Yeah

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:13)
Concept cars always have some crazy ideas, which is cool, because you're like, we're kind of thinking about something in the future. But especially when it comes to like powertrain stuff, it's typically a little like, yeah, it's just like, know, designers had some fun. And the engineers will talk again, like, we can, you know what, I read a thing about a thing. Let's just make it, let's just say it does that. Like it doesn't have to do any of these things, because it doesn't, it's a model. It's, you know, once I was on auto show, like really late and they were moving the mini.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:35)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:43)
the first, the mini electric, the first one, and they had a remote control, like it was a giant remote control car. They were like, and only went like three miles an hour at tops and they were trying to get it off the stage. So yeah, they're not, none of these are real cars, but they look cool. ⁓ It's frankly, I still liked the little, the little tiny compact, but you know, America, America. I think a lot about the amount of kids who are riding ⁓ e-bikes now.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

We can't have nice things.

Nicole Wakelin (1:34:07)
can't have nice things.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:12)
Like, are they gonna grow up and be like, why would I buy anything that runs on gas? Like, they're already used to plugging in their stuff at night, and they're already used to the instant torque of all that. Like, and now they're buying like little electric motorcycles everywhere. I wonder what happens with them when they get old enough to like buy a car. Do they just like, eh, I'm getting a gas car. Or do they like, well, why would I get this when I can get something that has instant torque? Just a thought.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:37)
Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for Tokyo. ⁓ Next week, I'll talk about the stuff I drove at Honda's Tachigi Proving Grounds. Before I left for Japan, ⁓ I did go over to ⁓ Ryan O'Gorman's house last Friday. ⁓ Ryan O'Gorman is ⁓ director... ⁓ I can't remember exactly what his title is. He's at Ford.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:48)
Woo!

Ford home energy?

Yeah, Ford home energy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:06)
Yeah,

yeah. And so ⁓ we ⁓ got a demo of Ford Home Power Management. So you remember when the Lightning came out, they had this pretty slick home backup power system that ⁓ I guess a few hundred people have purchased. So it allows you to connect your Lightning to your car or to your house. And when the power goes out,

It'll automatically switch over and power your whole house off of the battery in your lightning. ⁓ Well, you know, that's that was, you know, that's kind of an insurance policy. And, you know, when you're for when your power goes out and you might use it, you know, couple of times a year, you might never end up using it. So, you know, Ford's been looking at, OK, how can we make this system?

more useful to customers and actually kind of make it pay for itself. And so they came up with ⁓ Home Power Management, which uses the exact same hardware. It's just a software update to it ⁓ that what was designed to do is look at ⁓ if you're on time of use rates with your local utility ⁓ during the times when you're on peak ⁓ rates, peak power rates.

⁓ What it'll do is if your vehicle's plugged in, it will automatically start powering your house off the vehicle ⁓ up to whatever maximum power the vehicle can output. If you have demand that goes beyond that, it can still take power from the grid, but it's blending it. Then when you go to off-peak rates, then it recharges the battery back up again.

And people really overestimate how much electricity they actually use in their house compared to how much electricity your vehicle uses. ⁓ So it typically doesn't actually take that much power, that much energy from your vehicle battery. ⁓ And it's a pretty slick system. And especially if you live somewhere where you have very expensive electricity, like California.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:22)
Like my

house.

Nicole Wakelin (1:37:23)
Hahaha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:25)
My house is like five by

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:25)
This could potentially...

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:27)
five and I just pay like a thousand dollars a month or something. No, I don't pay that much and it's bigger.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:29)
So

this could actually potentially save you quite a bit of money. ⁓ The challenge of course with systems like this has always been what they call the interconnect to the grid, to make this work with the grid. In order to have a system like this where your house is still connected to the grid but you're mostly taking power from the vehicle.

You have to demonstrate to the utility that you got clean power coming out of the vehicle and that frequency matched with the frequency of the power from the grid because, you know, alternating current. And there's a bunch of other requirements. And then, you know, the next step beyond this is, you know, actual, you know, feeding power back into the grid, you know, if there's too much demand on the grid.

And so right now they're testing this here, testing this in Michigan. They've got 15 Ford employees that live in different places and different kinds of houses, different setups, and they're testing it with DTE Energy. They've also been testing it in Baltimore with Baltimore Gas and Electric. And they started that test in 2024 and ran that for about six months in 2024.

Again, same thing with primarily just blending. And now this year in Baltimore, the utility liked the system so much that they're actually testing, feeding power back into the grid and having the consumers get credit or get paid for the power they're feeding into the grid, basically turning their vehicle into a virtual power plant. ⁓ And possibly sometime in...

2026. You know, start to see, you as they as they get approval from various utilities, start to see some general availability rollout of this. ⁓ It's a pretty cool system. ⁓ And ⁓ I spent about 40 minutes sitting in Ryan's truck parked in his driveway with the truck plugged into his charger and powering his entire house, you know, pulling about

about two kilowatts roughly from the truck to power his whole house. you know, two kilowatts, you know, for something like an F-150 Lightning is nothing. You know, if you're driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour in an F-150, it's gonna be pulling probably about 15 or 20 kilowatts just to move the truck. So, you know, it's barely a dent and, you know, from the...

testing that they've done. ⁓ They found that this has no real impact on the lifespan of the battery, the durability of the battery. So we've got a recording of the conversation I had with Ryan, which I will tack on at the end here, give it a listen, some interesting stuff in there. ⁓ And I think that's it for this week. ⁓ Anything else?

Nicole Wakelin (1:40:40)
That is it.

No, I think we're done.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:45)
Alright, well thanks everybody. We will talk to you all next time. Bye.

Nicole Wakelin (1:40:49)
Bye!

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:49)
Bye.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:53)
and you can start wherever you like.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:40:56)
⁓ Well, I think I can start kind of from the beginning a bit. we, when we launched the F-150, ⁓ we introduced intelligent backup power and now it's called home backup power. And basically, ⁓ you know, we have the charger and we're obviously putting energy into the vehicle with AC power. And then we drew customer research and things. learned there's an opportunity here and the opportunity is to take the same resource that customers already own sits in their driveway.

and is at rest 22 hours a day, right? And give them access to the power they already own. So we took the DC pins. So if you look at our charge plug, we have DC and AC in the same couple are fully populated. Take the DC pins out and you can pull them through the charger. And then there's an inverter on the back of the house there, the gray box sticking out. And in the top, we take the 400 volt energy you get off the vehicle, convert that to 240 usage for the house. So we have a DC DC converter that then

is converted to the AC and we put the AC into your main panel. And then we have what's called, so this is our four charge station pro. It's already a charger. And then we have what's called the home integration system and the home integration system can

Speaker 4 (1:42:06)
of

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:07)
get the transfer switch and the Martin.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:42:09)
Yeah,

so you have the inverter transfer switch and the dark star battery which basically power There's a battery that does that and so yeah, it'll read the powers out and then it communicates there's a series of Communications between the units and then once it's confirmed the power is out the energy is ready The trucks ready we dispatch the power into the house and it back feeds the panel which is now isolated from the grid

Speaker 4 (1:42:12)
bars out so have to communicate.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:32)
So I know when, the system first came out and I saw some stories, you know, a couple of people that had the system. Um, what's her name now? I can't remember now. She was in Oregon. Um, she's got a YouTube channel. There were some reports that when, the power, you know, power stopped, um, it took quite a while for it to actually start. you know, it was a little flaky sometimes.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:42:59)
Yeah, there's about 45 seconds to a minute and then there are various interferences and things. It was a new product, nascent to market at the time. So obviously we had some growing pains, but we've worked the majority of those out. But yeah, it's not quite as, like some people want it to switch on immediately. And it takes, it can take a minute. It'll try a few times if it's struggling to get started, but yeah, it will, you know, it's generally about a minute, minute and a half.

So when you have, once it identifies the power's out, because you have to remember the, you have to disconnect from the grid first, confirm the disconnection, then you have to communicate with the truck. So if your truck's gone to sleep or anything like that, it's not like a- You wake it up. Yeah, you gotta wake it up and it's not like a generator you just flip it on because you wanna do it responsibly and you can't just export power without knowing where it's showing, right? So there's a communication between the charge station, the inverter and the vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:50)
And is that going through the communications pins on the CCS connector to wake up the trough?

Ryan O'Gorman (1:43:56)
Yeah, so we wake up the truck that way we actually communicate wirelessly with the charge station So there's a wireless communication between that to do the operation, but we can wake up the truck by kind of pulsing the the ⁓ the the communication program So that's how that generally works and then what we're what we're introducing now is home power management so same system the difference is ⁓ you don't have to isolate from the grid now, so

Obviously in order to do that you have to have like to to to do home backup power We had a filing in Michigan that we cooperated with the major utilities in Michigan and that allows us to Do home backup power without an interconnection. It sounds like you're you familiar with interconnection or So think of interconnection is if I want to put an addition on my house I have to get a permit to Russia I'm following all the rules. Yeah, right. And then my grade is right and my foundation set properly. So an interconnection means that

Speaker 4 (1:44:44)
little

Maria Buczkowski (1:44:44)
But

okay.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:44:55)
The utility company recognizes your technology, responsibly interacts with their power. Meaning our power is frequency matched, it's quality, it's not disruptive, things like that. in order to do that, now that you're interacting with the grid, you need to match the power that the grid's providing. Because it's coming into your house and you're meeting it. If something goes wrong, there's a problem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:17)
them would be true if you just did solar install.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:45:20)
Your

home. And storage, anything like that that interacts with the grid while the grid's alive. Yes, have to get an interconnection. So with an interconnection, you have to basically work with the utility company to make sure they're comfortable with the way your technology works from from transitions to power levels to activation and possible. And obviously, Ford wants to do that. So we've been working with utilities across the country to introduce home power management. And in doing so, we've achieved interconnection with with several utilities. And what that now means is

when we want to run grid tide like we're doing right now. So like right now if I pull up my DTE app you can see DTE is seeing from my house it'll be about 100, 200. So they're seeing about 200 watts.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:04)
flowing from the truck through the house back into the...

Ryan O'Gorman (1:46:07)
So

that's what the grids providing my house. I'm actually using 2.2 kilowatt. Okay, so it's only seen

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:13)
So

like land, so ⁓ total your house is using about 2.5 kilowatts, 2.4 of which is coming from this truck right now.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:46:22)
That's right. Okay. So it's basically coming from the truck. You can see this bounces around a little bit. The energy in my house is probably fluctuating. Yeah. Yeah. You're going cycle. think so. This is like a buffer because we don't, if this buffer weren't here, when it were to drop, we'd be sending energy back to the grid exporting. We're not allowed to export. And that's part of the responsibility of the interconnection. We have to validate that our process is going to work in this way where we're powering.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:29)
refrigerator side.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:46:47)
We're prioritizing the house power from the truck. Okay. And then we're managing any fluctuations from- you're able to-

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:52)
Blend

in the power from the truck battery up to the point of

Speaker 4 (1:46:59)
to the level of what an offer.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:01)
Okay,

but you can't send it out ⁓ from the house back to the grid.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:47:06)
Yeah, be interconnected, there's two types of, there's definitely millions of types of interconnection, but our interconnection is zero export. Now we are in Baltimore right now doing the next phase. So in Baltimore, with Baltimore Gas and Electric, had three customers last year who were the pilot introduction of home power management. So we gave them home power management from, I think it was June through September, four months, and they ran for four months with Baltimore, and it was just three customers and they did this. They were powering their house, zero export.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:35)
So you validate that ⁓

Ryan O'Gorman (1:47:37)
Everything

worked good. We're kind of demonstrating how cool this is. And then this year they were so, so excited with how successful it was. Like, and then we've been slowly rolling out to other markets since then with home power management, but, ⁓ now they're doing export. we have the same three customers, same systems, did some software update and now they can export. So this summer they went June to September and they powered their house for the two plus kilowatts that they needed.

And then the rest went back to the grid. they're putting seven to eight kilowatts back into the grid. Oh, okay. And so the way the, kind of benefits of that work is when I do this, the general way it's set up is it runs off of a time of. So my timing schedule is actually 11 to seven. We slipped my schedule so we could do this before 11, but so my schedule is 11 to seven. So what would typically happen is overnight. Once it gets past 7 P.M. My truck would start charging and once it would charge.

Speaker 4 (1:48:16)
You schedule your time.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:48:33)
Yeah, once it would charge, then the next day at 11 PM, if it's plugged in, it would start discharging the house, take my house to the grid. Okay. And so what I'm doing is I'm saving eight cents from here to here. So every kilowatt that I'm using charging and then discharging in the house, I say, now we're Michigan, not quite as dramatic of a market as say Texas or Arizona or California. They might have rates that are 30, 40, 50, as much as 70 cents. Right.

Speaker 4 (1:48:38)
of

date sense.

Delta.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:49:01)
So can imagine if I live in Southern California and it's a super peak, they call it, a super peak period, I might be charging really low cost, 20 cents, and I might be paying 70 cents for peak. Now I'm not paying 70 cents, I'm paying 20 cents anytime my truck's there. So that's one advantage. And then with this V to G thing we're doing with export in Baltimore, you're figuratively selling that energy back to the grid. So they're gonna pay you an incentive or pay you a unit of energy fee and

Speaker 4 (1:49:09)
Bye.

you get that benefit.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:31)
So is that utility in Baltimore? they actually doing that now? Have you figured out the, financing model for that to, provide some, some form of revenue, whether it's a credit on your bill or whatever it might be, for those customers.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:49:47)
Yeah, those customers are given a benefit for an incentive and they're capped at a thousand dollars. Okay, so they I think last year they there's one customer made over that and so they put a cap but You know worse that industry still navigating the value of it. Mm-hmm significant value because they otherwise have to turn on like a peaker plant right, right and then the thing that is is additional to that that's harder to kind of

Calculate and I'm not sure you know, it's not our job to do that So we don't necessarily understand it, but you've got a transformer back over here and then you've got a substation I can go put a commercial sized battery in for a utility at the plant to buffer peak and load and things like that It doesn't handle the distribution part So if I've got everybody cranking the air conditioner and this transformers blown three times since we've lived here in 13 years If I had three neighbors like my two neighbors like myself doing this

that's no problem anymore because not only taking the load off the transformer, if I could export, I'm powering those three houses to or four houses, right? So now the train.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:42)
the load out.

distribution network I forget the exact terminology for but that that local circuit here in your neighborhood you can be you would be feeding the potentially be feeding the power back to that ⁓

Ryan O'Gorman (1:51:03)
work from

the grid through the transformers lower. Okay. Yeah. And you could, you could backfeed and, know, if everybody had, you could backfeed all the way to main grid. So that's up to the utility company, how that's managed. The nice part is now that you have these resources kind of at the distributed level, you can, you can have this like my house just disappeared from the grid right now. Right? Like they don't see my house. They may be like, where'd, where'd that house go? They didn't having power work done in their house, but you know, this is, this is quite a bit of power. And so it's, it's interesting that

you know, the way these demand response programs, if you're familiar, the way they worked in the past was it might change your degrees in your house with your thermostat three degrees, right? That's like moving the needle like this. makes. I, we found ourselves now that this is an opportunity, not me, but my wife will actually on the hot days we had, she'll actually crank the air up knowing we're running off the truck and not. So I don't know if our like net savings on our bill is quite there, but the.

Speaker 4 (1:51:44)
the house disappear.

guilty about it.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:52:01)
Logic of it is definitely still

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:03)
But even if

you're not necessarily in a situation like you just described, if you're not necessarily saving any significant money yourself, you are taking that load off the grid. You're able to take advantage of that air conditioning on those hot, this summer was particularly hot. had long stretches. We did, Heating humidity. So you're taking that load off the grid. that's a little bit less probability that ⁓ you're going to have an outage for everybody.

Speaker 4 (1:52:21)
to it.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:52:32)
Exactly. I think, I think there's the independence of it. Like I'm running off my energy, right? I bought this energy and I'm using it. Which is kind of cool. The other cool part is yes, I'm power. And I'm shifting. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. mean, you, have the opera. That's a great analogy. And then the other thing that I like is I don't think of it as the grid as much as my neighbors. So like we've had events where they're like, Hey, we need you to reduce energy. It doesn't happen as much here, but in Texas where my parents are actually here right now from Houston.

Speaker 4 (1:52:38)
to use it with.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:42)
I'm shifting your energy. Like we did with VCRs and...

Ryan O'Gorman (1:53:01)
They'll actually tell them to turn on their natural gas generators because the grid's so tight. Well now you would be running your house and you can look across street your neighbor and say You're good. You can run your air conditioner because I'm not my air conditioners not online My house isn't online. My trucks not using the grid right now. You're good, right? so it's almost like yeah, helps the grid but I think of it as this feel-good moment and you know, I did have a conversation with the neighbor once and

I had that conversation. was like, well, my house is off the grid right now. So you walk, you know, it's like, can run your conditioner because our transformer is no longer in the below because of opportunity. I think as this scales to market, ⁓ it's going to be really.

Speaker 4 (1:53:37)
this operation.

Interesting

to the impacts.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:44)
And you're describing some of the southern states where you have periods of very high peak rates, super peak electricity rates. Now you start to see the economics of this because obviously the system is not inexpensive, both for the hardware and the cost of installation and especially, think, probably for your house because you've got a detached garage, was probably quite a bit more.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:54:07)
did the trenching myself.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:10)
So, now when you start to add up that for a scenario like that where you've got those very high rates, now you start to see the actual payback. It's not just the convenience of when you have a power outage, you've still got power, but now you can actually get a real financial payback on that investment you've made in the system.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:54:33)
It's a bit like an insurance policy paying you right because you buy the backup system for your insurance right now so that your Fridge freezer doesn't go your pipes don't freeze whatever and that's that's at a cost competitive level with a full house System, right? So you kind of break even there on the backup? But yeah now your truck can be sitting in the driveway working for you and either saving you money making you money You know being reliance for the grid all those types of things. So yes, it's imagine if your insurance company

paid you money because you've had something work a certain way. It's pretty cool. It's neat on the savings level because you don't do anything. That's the weird part about it. You plug in just like you always do. You drive like you always do. And when your vehicle's home, and I've had the question where, well, what if the vehicle's not home? it's like, what causes peak?

when everybody gets home. know, it's like the peak period matches your behavior for the most part. can dinner or do what the dishes. Kids come in, turn the computers on, TV's, you know, everything's happening. Your air conditioner goes up because everybody's coming home. So yeah, you're kind of timed really like nicely with that. So with that perspective, you don't change anything. Like this just is natural fit for the usage of the product. But it's also cool that you drive your truck maybe two hours a day at the most. Like me, it's an hour and a half.

Speaker 4 (1:55:34)
home.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:55:51)
And then the rest of time you didn't do anything with it previously. Now it's working for me for hours and evening. Right. And that's why I'm on the 11 and seven. Cause anytime I'm home, cause I'll still work from home once a week. And sometimes I'll leave the truck home. Like we had a few hot days. It took my wife's car and it's like, you know, there's, there's a bunch of different kinds of trade-offs here that are really interesting. One thing that we're going to learn, which is the great part about being on the front edge of this for Ford is how customers behave. Like how do they change their behavior? What do they do differently? What do they like about it? What is, what are, you know, and so like what we're seeing with

you know, the, gentleman's name is he's been public in Baltimore. His name is Brian. Brian changed some of his behavior. Like he, he got home at, he wanted his truck always run in that peak period to keep his house lower costs. And he, he really gained the system and exercise. And it was like, wow, this is cool. And then we had one of the other three customers who just lived normally. He didn't change his life before and after and had savings as well. So it's really interesting to see the, ⁓ adoption of this mentally. Cause some people just,

They don't even think about energy, right? Because you only have one energy company to pull from. Now you have an option. Now that they have that option, they want to like take advantage.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:57)
You've got a multi-modal energy system. do? So, you know, one of the concerns, you know, with any type of bi-directional VG, VDH type of system, you know, for a long time, has been the effect on the vehicle battery, because now you're potentially cycling the battery a lot more than you would be just riding. So the number of charge cycles, the charge and discharge cycles you're going through have, yeah, I assume, you know, Ford has looked at some of that.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:57:00)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:27)
Um, and you know, you've, you've, you've done testing to see, you know, how much real impact it actually is there on the battery? How much does it potentially reduce the lifespan of the battery or, or does it have any, know, uh, maybe depending on how you're cycling and how you're managing it, you know, what, what maximum, uh, state of charge and discharge, uh, you're using, you know, maybe actually healthier for the battery.

Ryan O'Gorman (1:57:52)
Great questions. what I'll start with is I think the first is the comprehension of ⁓ how much this is using. Like a lot of people will think, I can't do that because I need to use my car every day.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:04)
Yeah, think that

people overestimate ⁓

Ryan O'Gorman (1:58:07)
Estimate

so on a normal day that like during a peak period or whatever you're gonna probably use six miles per hour Like per hour of using your truck at six miles. So this morning just for this demo I took a screenshot and I was at 261 miles at seven o'clock. is when my kids get up coffee toaster oven microwave You know, my daughter was actually doing some finishing up on her homework and computer. They had the TV on So this was seven o'clock and I did screenshot at eight o'clock 259. Uh-huh. So in one hour

with and you have that morning peak when this all happens. So one hour we had a space heater going one hour we use two miles. Okay. So when you put that in context of driving down the road and things like that. So that's the first kind of thing is the awareness of does it, does it actually use the battery? Does it actually? Yes, it does. But it's probably not the expectation people would think. They might think, I'm to use like half my battery every day. No, it's about six miles on a normal regular usage day. I use two on a, you know, non air condition dairy, whatever. So

So you figure if it's about six, your peak period is usually four or five hours. So you're talking 20 to 30 miles in a day, right? Now we have a team within Ford that's working on managing that, managing the battery optimization and battery health and things like that. The big tell from Ford is we're not changing the warranty if you do this. Okay. So we're giving you the same standard warranty and we're giving you the ability to do this every day. So the expectation will be.

you know, through everything we know that we are containing the warranty. Don't worry. We've got your back. We're not going to put any burden or.

Speaker 4 (1:59:38)
the of.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:59:39)
you're

using is 365 days a year, doing, know, like say here, you know, you've three to seven with DTEs, you know, rates. Um, and if you're running off your vehicle for those four hours every day, 365 days a

Ryan O'Gorman (1:59:52)
Your

battery warranty is the same. You get to the end of battery warranty and we got your back. Okay. Don't worry about it. So yeah, we anticipate that. And again, you did ask the question about benefits. Those are the types of things that our team's looking at. We do do optimization. So we're making sure that what we're doing is in the most responsible and most beneficial to the consumer. But yeah, I mean, I had my last F-150 for three years and I didn't have any issues and we didn't do home power management yet, but I was obviously doing

Speaker 4 (2:00:10)
possible.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:00:22)
simulations of backup power all the time because I was part of a working group that worked on that so now doing this though like I said, know, it's it's I think this is the part that's kind of insightful for me is the amount of energy you're actually using is not the anticipation of be I'm on the 11 to 7 just because it's you know, a much longer period of time I've got eight hours a day and so I can't

Speaker 4 (2:00:36)
might think it could.

it much more frequently.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:00:47)
I'm trying to live the customer experience.

Speaker 4 (2:00:50)
and see what's happening.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:52)
So

with the, home energy management, ⁓ you can, would you, would how would that work? you set the schedule in the foyer? That's the time when if the car's plugged in, it's going to start drawing power from, the vehicle, ⁓ to power your house.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:01:10)
Yeah, so you would go into Ford's app and you have your vehicle location. have energy. We also have an energy app that shows you probably log me out because it does an auto log out. ⁓ But we also have an energy app. So this will show you the.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:01:15)
Is that an afford pass app or it an upward app?

Ryan O'Gorman (2:01:29)
the what's happening with your vehicle as well. And it gives you a view of your schedule. Like I said, my schedule is special today because I'm 11 to seven. had to pull it ahead. But that's how we would do it for DT too, is if DT has an event and they want it to occur, we'd send the information down to the vehicle. So you can see my vehicle's running basically all day, kind of just turned it on the whole time. But it's powering the house right now and it will go from six to nine through. So you would put your schedule in.

Speaker 4 (2:01:53)
59 p.m. is my time period.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:01:57)
We have a flow or an experience where you can select your utility and your plan or you can just put the hours in whatever is easiest for you. We can also make an estimate, Like if you live in Michigan, you have no idea, 99 % chance you're on the base plan, right? So we would just apply that. So those types of experiences are what we're doing. And then yes, we just would map to that TOU, that rate plan that you're on. And then what we're doing with DT in a pilot,

is working to receive signals. have 15 Ford employees that are trying this right now, kind of first of its kind. We've done the home power management where you just follow the schedule. Now we're going to do DT is going to say, Hey, tomorrow at two to four, or, you know, right now we need you to do something different. We will be able to dispatch those 15 vehicles in that way. So yeah, there's the, the either schedule kind of set schedule and the schedule changes three years throughout the year. You've got holidays, you've got weekends.

you know, you get seasonal variation. So the system does all that for the customer. You don't have to think, well.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:59)
It comes straight from the utility to your account that sets automatically adjusted schedule.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:03:04)
We

know what the plans are. We know what plan you're on. If you don't know, we do the default and then yeah, we just manage to those plans and we know what the plan does over time. Then we pay attention to the utilities and if they change the plan, we're going to adapt that for you as well. Just kind of no brainer, easy to do. And then the other part of it is if you sign up for ⁓ the kind of program with which 15 of us are trialing right now.

Speaker 4 (2:03:17)
So it's all about.

the utility.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:03:30)
They'll send something to Ford saying hey, this is what we want over the next period and Ford will adapt your schedule and download it to the truck and then you'll you'll see your schedule saying the way I was looking at mine here You don't see right now, but there'd be blue typically where it's gonna charge So you see the you'd see the schedule so you know what's gonna happen and you can always override it you want to charge or you don't want to Transfer whatever you can always do an override. Okay, so

Speaker 4 (2:03:43)
sections.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:54)
And then presumably if you need to go somewhere during the time when it's powering the house. ⁓

Speaker 4 (2:04:01)
I like

it.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:04:02)
Come back, log back in and we'll start up again. Okay. The one.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:06)
So that's the advantage of having the blended system where you've got power coming from all four.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:04:12)
Starts taken from the grid and then it takes from the truck when the trucks here and you can see I have my range reserves set to 10 miles Which is really low. I think that's the lowest we have And that's just because I know I know better I'm not worried that this is gonna be a problem But some people may set it like 200 miles and say you came home and you're 200 miles Not going to use the detritus you want that 200 So we do have controls for the customer there in full control the whole time, but they don't have to think about it the only thing they think about it is if they're ever at a point where

Speaker 4 (2:04:29)
It's not going to

Ryan O'Gorman (2:04:41)
They are at risk and I have come home less than 10 miles to there. ⁓ but not, not in a situation where it would be powering or not charging. it's, I, when I get back from dropping a kid to college or something. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (2:04:42)
DBFORCE

Usually, no.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:55)
So in terms of availability of this now, is this generally available to DTE customers at this point or is it still?

Ryan O'Gorman (2:05:03)
So

we're working with DTE right now to make it available. We've brought it to nine states, ⁓ typically with a single or a couple utilities. We're in Baltimore, we're in Vermont.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:05:16)
export program in Baltimore that's still a pilot.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:05:19)
That's just the three customers. It's similar to what we're doing with, so there's policy thresholds, right? So to do isolated backup power is not a big deal. And we had, I think I mentioned it, but we've got a filing that we had success with. We worked with the utility companies in Michigan to say there's no interconnection required across Michigan to do backup power because there's no interaction. So as long as we're proving we're isolated from the grid before we start a process.

Speaker 4 (2:05:20)
and

it.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:05:47)
We don't need to connect. we got that. Now with Homepower Management, we're doing the same things. have backup power across the country. Now we're doing Homepower Management, we're doing the same kind of process we did with backup power. We're slowly leaning into the market and saying, we can do this. there's more policy required because you have to interconnect. So now that we're interconnecting, we're going through that process. Right now it's one by one. We're also.

Speaker 4 (2:06:07)
utilities.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:06:08)
It's

gotta be a one by one basis.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:06:12)
I'm going to be working the same way we did with backup power and the success we had in Michigan. Whereas if you can get a public utility commission or state level approval, then all the utilities have agreed to do it the same way. So that's, you know, this is new and it's a relatively nascent market to expect a state to just say, Hey, we're going to do this. You know, it's, it's not realistic. So yeah, we're being responsible and we're bringing it to market and working with key partners in the industry that are influencers. And so once, as we do that,

To export that takes even more policy because now you're actually putting energy back into the grid. you have to, the quality of energy and all that's already been proven. So that's not the problem. Now the challenge is when do you do it and under what conditions can you do it? And cause taking your house offline, that's not super disruptive to the grid. It's actually helpful, right? Putting energy back into the grid. If you did that when they were at a low period and already overcapacitized, like at night and you started putting power back into the grid, they don't need it. Right.

Right, that was our.

Speaker 4 (2:07:09)
or you

Sam Abuelsamid (2:07:10)
the same to Emma earlier, you know, think, you know, one of the situations that's a concern is if there actually is, you know, if there's been a storm, the power line down, crews working, you you don't, you don't want the power flowing back into the grid while there's, into the lines, while there's crews working somewhere to put lines back up.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:07:27)
And that's

one of the key aspects to interconnection is does our system shut off when there's an outage in which it does. actually what it'll it'll you can do backup power, but it will be isolated. Are we sure we're isolating or sure we like if the grid goes down or we sure we shut.

Speaker 4 (2:07:39)
that point. ⁓

down

first, like we stopped buying flowers so you don't have that problem.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:07:46)
So that's part of interconnection. that's why you can detect that through the same backup system that there's no, there's nothing coming from the down. Flip the transfer question.

Speaker 4 (2:07:55)
yeah, so we got a

Ryan O'Gorman (2:07:57)
So when the grid goes dark, because we can't flip the transfer switch immediately, so when the grid goes dark, we shut down immediately. OK. And then we go through.

Speaker 4 (2:08:04)
Is

it? Back up with a disconnect from the grid. Yeah. Come back if you're.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:05)
the door the power

Ryan O'Gorman (2:08:08)
And then when the power is still

in a power management mode, we do the same in reverse. would make sure the power is back on the grid and it's stable. Once it meets that requirement, we would shut the truck down. We transition back, pull energy from the grid, make sure everything's good, system one monitor the grid power, create quality power off the truck and read.

Speaker 4 (2:08:26)
established a connection and bummer back on Home Park.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:29)
And this all works with the same hardware. So if somebody bought a lightning back in 2022 and it first came out and bought one of these systems and installed it in her house, that's the same, the same heart, the hardware is unchanged.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:08:42)
Ryan in Baltimore has done backup power, was an original buyer with his 2022. Yep. He's one of the original kind of adopters. he's, he did backup power. He did home power management last summer. He did vehicle to grid export this summer and he has not had to have an electrician out to his house. It's all been software updates by Ford that we do remotely to the devices and update the software and enable it. And then we're off and running.

Maria Buczkowski (2:08:47)
2020 lightning.

Speaker 4 (2:09:02)
us.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:09:12)
Right. mean, that's, you know, now, you know, said now the both convenience and the, the economics of these kinds of systems are really starting to make, make some sense for people. know, it, you know, I said, it's, it's not, it's not an inexpensive system to put in, but, you know, you start to see some genuine benefits from.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:09:34)
Yeah, I mean, if you bought it for backup power, this is all surprise and delight. It's crossing the top.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:09:38)
Yeah. mean, the backup power, you you might only use a couple of times a year or, you know, maybe not, not ever while you own the, the, vehicle. But now all of a sudden you've got something that, know, every day provides a real bounty.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:09:53)
Sitting

in your truck, sitting in your driveway and doing something for you. I like to give it as working for you. And the big tell was when we were still working from home, ⁓ I played with the concept of this by we would simulate outages. So I would for a week shut my power down in the morning at like 11 o'clock. I also had my main and I'd run off and then I'd flip it back on at like seven o'clock and.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:10:14)
go flip your mains.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:10:19)
I was working from home every day and it was exciting. It was like, wow, this is what it's really gonna do. This is how it's gonna act and behave. And without me having to go to the basement and flip main and keep my fingers crossed, everything.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:10:31)
the tight takes care of everything for

Ryan O'Gorman (2:10:33)
And the nice part is there's no like transit like when the system comes on and comes off. There's no flicker in the house. There's like backup power. is a transit here. Like they can put it in the grid and it just fluctuates.

Speaker 4 (2:10:41)
Sure, but it's it's it starts taking power from the Trump starts taking power from the

You can see it fluctuates up and down as things come on I don't know what they're doing inside, but numbers changed a bit while I've been sitting here, so

Ryan O'Gorman (2:10:52)
You'll see that fluctuation go and it's kind of...

Sam Abuelsamid (2:10:55)
It's

been I'm looking at your cluster there. It's been sitting at 91 % You know for the last half hour that we've been sitting here. It's powering your house.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:11:02)
I mean this is actually a pretty substantial pull right now, so I have a feeling there's a space heater on somewhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:11:07)
Yeah, I mean, I remember a couple of years ago, we have a power outage after a storm and I'd been running stuff off a gas generator I have, it's a portable gas generator and I posted something and Emma reached out to me and offered to send over a lightning. I said, well, you know, I've got a generator, but then it occurred to me, oh, but wait, some of my neighbors don't have power. So if you send the lighting over, I can loan my generator.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:11:32)
There you go.

Maria Buczkowski (2:11:33)
That's

as you're writing this story.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:11:35)
And then, know, coming back, you know, the funny thing was when the truck was delivered, I switched all the, all my extension cords over, plugged everything into the truck to get the power. Cause obviously I didn't have the home power, the home backup system, but just powering up the pro power on board. And when I looked at the draw, you know, running a couple of two refrigerators and some fans and, you know, lights and the sorted other things in the house. And I looked at the draw.

Yeah, it was only those barely pulling like maybe one and a half kilowatts. ⁓ You know, so, you know, I think especially in an emergency situation, you can actually get by with a lot less power than than you realize.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:12:18)
I

think that I think that's the thing is people don't anticipate the amount of energy they use like somebody will say yeah Well, I turn the hairdryer on or the vacuum and a coffee maker But that only runs for a short period of time, right? Even your air conditioner. So I guess 15 minutes

Speaker 4 (2:12:30)
equals.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:12:32)
Well, even something like I said, the refrigerators. Take when when you're sitting there, the doors are closed. Modern refrigerators don't actually draw that much power.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:12:41)
You know, just when the compressor runs and it's just a diff, they're not opening the door and staring at it, trying to figure out what to eat. The compressor doesn't usually run that much. I mean, I like, I like, I'm kind of in bit of an energy nerds. I've been doing this stuff, but, ⁓ you know, can see when, when the kids ran it, I didn't see the energy being used. So, but yeah, you have this variable use of energy in the house. And I think that's what people only think of the peak when the air conditioner is running.

Speaker 4 (2:12:56)
Dishwasher. It's like you didn't run the dishwasher.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:13:07)
And it's actually you have to think about the average. And so when you think about the amount of consumption you're using, the power, a couple kilowatts, to drive down the road, we do two miles per kilowatt hour, right? Roughly for the truck, it's 2.1. So you figure two.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:22)
It was a lot more power to actually move this vehicle exactly into power.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:13:26)
Exactly. like just idling through the parking lot. I use less of my house and idling through the parking lot So from that perspective you can go 300 miles. So yeah, you have plenty of energy for your house It's it's really it's hard to comprehend I think and once people experience it, I think they're like wait what?

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:41)
Yeah, I think the U.S. average household electricity use is about 20, 29 kilowatt hours a day.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:13:48)
I

use 30 as a round number, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:50)
So, you know, if you've got 100 kilowatt hours, you know, even if you make no changes to your usage in the house, you're still looking at at least three days.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:14:01)
Yeah, no, I had an outage here during COVID and ran off the truck for four days. Yeah. And I still had 150. And it wasn't it wasn't even full when I started. And I was telling my wife, was like, maybe we should turn some stuff off. And, know, and she's like, kept looking at the truck and I was like, wow, so you can get up. We've we've done a 10 day test. You can run up to 10 days. So I, you know, most. You know,

Speaker 4 (2:14:07)
was like 50 miles or something.

Most of your long-term outages are

in four days by easy amount.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:14:26)
So I think that's four is about the longest we've had. Of the 2003 black.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:14:29)
Yeah, pour is about the longest. It's usually about...

Yeah, I remember that one. that was... We weren't there yet. I was still in a different place in life then, but working on gas engines back then... Yeah, no, so it's quite exciting. And I think the way we've intentionally gone through this, where we started with kind of charge management and smart charging, we introduced backup power. We're now doing home power management. Now we're experimenting with the vehicle grid export, right?

The path forward is taking is really intentional and it's been a really good cadence. And we've had really good experiences with the electric industry and the utilities and things like that. ⁓ it's really kind of fun to be at this leading edge, to be part of this change. then knowing the opportunity ⁓ has always been kind of driving for us. But now that we have customers using it, it's even more exciting because you're seeing how they use it and you're seeing behaviors that you

you wouldn't necessarily anticipate you could think about, but the gaming they do and things like that. It's just, it's really fun to, to kind of be a fly in the wall on this and just continue to improve it every day that we, that we have the opportunity.

Speaker 4 (2:15:38)
do

that.

Maria Buczkowski (2:15:38)
And so Ryan's part of our DTE pilot of 15 Ford employees. It's starting with 15 Ford employees that have the integration system, the pro charger at a Lightning. So for this home power management, so hopefully once we trial with the 15, there will be more progression to wider.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:16:00)
It's a bit of proof by evidence, And so that's where BG &E turned around in a year and that was exciting. Like we'd never expected them to say, hey, you want to do export? And it was like, well, we just did like, you know, home power management last year. And they're like, yeah, this is great. And I think they are a bit surprised at ⁓ how fluid it worked, right? I mean, I think because it's so new, people don't have, it's a bit like for the customer, they don't understand that you're not using as much power as you might think.

And so for the utility companies, don't think they realize how seamless this can be and how beneficial it actually has the opportunity. They know from calculations, but it's just exciting to see a company like BG come back out. And it's exciting to see working with DT with 15 of our employees. So things like that. then the various places we're pursuing interconnection in the utilities really moving forward with us. If you're skeptical like I could have been, this is really exciting to see the advantages that this is.

Speaker 4 (2:16:35)
officially.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:17:00)
moving forward on customers that have the opportunity.

Maria Buczkowski (2:17:02)
It's

also like 15 doesn't sound very many, but if you think about those drifting customers having really quite different use cases, different homes, different setups, you know, learning so much about the makeup of how people use their energy rather than it be like, you know, it's not like 15 generic houses on the same learning.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:17:22)
What?

Yeah, when I've talked about, you know, systems like this and written about them, you know, you know, talk about, okay, here's the here's the price of the hardware you got to buy. But, you know, you what your your actual cost is going to vary widely depending on your Yeah, what what your house configuration is, you know, if you, you know, if you're putting it in your garage and your power like, you know, my house, you know, my power panel is on the wall that separates the house from the garage, you know, so

In my case, it would be a very easy installation. Um, you know, I've got a 200 amp panel. Everything's right there. Nope. No brainer, you know, probably be, I don't know, two, $3,000 for installation. Um, but you know, in a situation like this, I mean, I'm sure you remember, you know, when Motor Trend, when the lightning first came out, you know, one of their writers was going to have this installed in his house. He lived in an older 1950s house with a hundred amp panel and a detached garage and

gonna have to upgrade the panel, gonna have to stretch and all this other stuff. you know, the headline was, I think something like $18,000. So yeah.

Maria Buczkowski (2:18:31)
Yeah, yeah, it's like it's gonna be horses. Yeah, that's why the 15 is so interesting every you know, they're all different levels of the company and

Ryan O'Gorman (2:18:40)
And it doesn't usually resonate, but my house was built in 1845. I have this Michigan stone basement. So when we went to install this, was really, yeah, don't worry about that It was really exciting for me because to have an 1845 house, I've done some history on the house and to know that they didn't have cars, didn't have plumbing, they didn't even have electricity when the house was built. And now my house is being powered by a 2020, you know,

It's kind of just crazy for me to imagine that, you know, imagine the guy who built this house when this was all farm field and, you know, he would have no clue that one day there'd be a, you know, there'd be a garage for one, but there'd be a truck sitting here powering the house when they had candles. So to your point, we've installed in modern new homes where, like you said, ideal service comes in here, main panels right here, garage right here, right? 800 bucks. They all just fits.

And then you my house, we had to trench, you had to figure out how to wire into, I have like four sub panels, right? Cause every time they did an addition, they added new wiring. So it's, it's been really exciting to see the variations of the different homes and the way those work. So that to me has been like super, super cool because we're also learning even just on basic things like installation. What are some of the pitfalls? What are the challenges customers are facing? How can we help them overcome those and iterating as we go? So same with the product, you know, we're

We're in home power management. We've been doing this for about a year now and we're learning and you continue to learn the more houses you go into. So that's one of the cool advantages Ford has is we are going into the, I call it the wild, right? We're in the wild right now. We're going into homes where we don't have control over the house. We don't control the way they use the vehicle or the way their house runs and operates. And we're seeing and learning how that, how to adapt and how to make this product perfect.

Speaker 4 (2:20:25)
How do I

Sam Abuelsamid (2:20:27)
So when do you think might see general availability for DTE customers? Is that something that could happen in 2026?

Ryan O'Gorman (2:20:35)
I can't put timing on it. think as we move forward, ⁓ you know, you get through the interconnection when interconnection is agreed to and they're comfortable with the way it operates and functions. And we're in that process. We're all interconnected. Once they've seen the operation, seen how it interacts with the grid, is it disrupted, not disrupted, then the doors can open. I think this pilot that we're doing with them is more of the signal processing from DTE. So I think they'll be really interested in that. again,

As we have these 15 customers do it in this very dynamic environment, where every house is unique across kind of the trade area. ⁓ you know, it's, it's kind of up to them. We don't control that, but we do negotiate and work with them to make sure that all their questions are answered and they're comfortable with it. And we see, you know, you can see where Baltimore is, right? They were like, what are we doing? You know, and all of a sudden we did V to H and now we're exporting. Like that was kind of unexpected, right? I mean, it's, it was a really fast pace for an electricity company and

Here we are. So it's a matter of the policy piece. You're have state policy, you the utilities policy and how fast are they willing to go. And so you have say Green Mountain Power in Vermont, right? We have a person running in Vermont and it wasn't really a challenge. They're a very progressive utility company. They saw the benefits of it. They did the quick technical. So we have those experiences with utility companies. We're gonna continue as forward to move.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:21:58)
And Ford had been at this a long time. I remember back in 2007 when Ford built that initial fleet of like 20 plug-in hybrid escapes, prototype plug-in hybrid escapes and give them out to different utilities to start doing some V to G testing. So I've at this for what, 18 years now? And we're working with a variety of utilities on this stuff. it's good to see that we're finally starting to get to a point where.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:22:17)
Not me, company's been...

Sam Abuelsamid (2:22:28)
this is becoming a reality for potentially for.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:22:31)
Real

in market and having it in market is the exciting part like, know, the first handful of houses we put back up power and it was kind of like, you know, but you, you, had confidence in the technology and everything. And then when it went in and it worked, it was, it was awesome. It was, uh, it was, there are a lot of special moments there and, know, I'll retire one day and think back to those very fondly. And I look forward to, as this continues to progress, people think of it as normal. So I think, I think the weird part for me is you'd kind of forget about it. Like.

You start, especially me monitoring it and stuff, and I'll still work with the engineers and stuff to make sure it's working properly and we'll do evaluations that they want to want to do. But you know, it's interesting that you, you like watch it and all this cool and you're on the, you sit out here when it comes on and you know, but then you forget about it. You just plug in and it's like, you come out and it's like, it's green. yeah. I'm powering the house. Cause there's nothing to really instigate. Like you don't have to do anything.

You it's not like other things where you have to like flip a switch or plug something in or try to manage it just kind of happens magically. it's, that part, I So building on top of the kind of insurance policy, to your point, there's a lot of unique value there, but then that you don't have to do anything. You know, like you said, you have a generator.

Speaker 4 (2:23:33)
is cool.

backup.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:23:45)
Eliminating the friction for users is a key component of this.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:23:50)
Yeah. And I mean, we're going to continue to make it better and better just as we do with most of our. It's a fun space for me. I've, I just probably the longest, ⁓ longest in my career path role I've been in. So that's been really fun for me to cause it's, it's, it's never ending. It's cool.

Speaker 4 (2:23:55)
So it's.

All right. Change the world. Well, thank you. Yeah. Absolutely.

Ryan O'Gorman (2:24:13)
change the world