Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
And this is episode 428 of wheel bearings. am Sam Abuelsamid from telemetry.

Chad Kirchner (00:10)
And I am not.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:12)
Who are you? ⁓

Chad Kirchner (00:12)
⁓ hello, my name is

Chad Kirchner ⁓ hopefully friend of the pod. And I'm back to talk about, yeah, I suppose I didn't go so badly. It didn't go so bad last time. So yeah. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (00:20)
Well, since you're back again for, you know, what about the third or fourth time now?

Well, we did have a few

complaints, but you know.

Chad Kirchner (00:30)
Yeah, I mean, probably from the other hosts that have this week, actually. There is that.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33)
Well, there's there is that

Speaking of which

Craig Cole (00:40)
Yes, and I'm Craig Cole back by unpopular demand. I was just on here last week. So Here we are again

Sam Abuelsamid (00:46)
Yeah. Well, both, both Nicole

Chad Kirchner (00:47)
⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (00:48)
and Robbie

are on the road this weekend. Rob Nicole or Robbie and her and his wife are somewhere on vacation. I think Nicole and Russ are doing the same thing somewhere. ⁓ so, ⁓ decided, ⁓ a big, big good time to, ⁓ have a little EV pulse reunion.

Chad Kirchner (01:02)
Vacation, what's that?

Craig Cole (01:08)
Yeah, right?

Chad Kirchner (01:08)
Aww,

poor one out for EV Falls. It is, it is. Jason Su still puts stuff up there on the regular. Yeah, it's a long story that we don't need to talk about on air, but yeah, no, it's good to see Craig. saw him a little earlier this year on the Everybody and Their Mother Rev 4 program, which...

Sam Abuelsamid (01:10)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (01:11)
It's still out there in the ether.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:14)
Yeah, that's it.

Craig Cole (01:16)
Ha

Sam Abuelsamid (01:17)
⁓ really?

Okay.

Craig Cole (01:26)
Mm-hmm. At RAV4.

Yes, that was a big program.

Chad Kirchner (01:33)
which I liked the RAV4 a lot, and I am genuinely surprised, Sam, that your ⁓ NAC2i- er, I guess I say former NAC2i colleagues ⁓ didn't select it as the finalist.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:48)
Yeah, I guess, you know, there was, there was, there was, there were, was a lot of ⁓ utilities ⁓ on the list this year as there has been in previous years. ⁓ And so, you know, the, the three finalists in each of the categories for the North American car truck and utility of the year were announced at the LA auto show this week and for utility vehicles, they, picked.

Chad Kirchner (01:51)
Not to bring the negative side of up, but I mean, I am surprised it wasn't selected.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:18)
the Hyundai Palisade, the Lucid Gravity, and the Nissan Leaf. And I think each in its own way, arguably, frankly, I would not classify the Leaf as a utility vehicle. It's a car. Aside from kind of

Chad Kirchner (02:33)
I wouldn't either, but it is.

Craig Cole (02:39)
But nothing matters anymore,

guys. Automakers call whatever they want, whatever they want.

Chad Kirchner (02:43)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:43)
Well, exactly, which is why, you know, I had, you know, pushed for the idea that, you know, the, the NACTOID jury should also classify things how they saw fit rather than how the manufacturer saw fit. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (02:56)
Well, I think

at a real high level before we talk about that, because you have the Lucid Gravity or just had it. So I'm really curious about that. But I think at a real kind of 30,000 foot level, does there need to be a car, truck, and utility of the year? Because the truck category, it's always hard to fill that from my understanding. But this year, was like a trim. And one was just an engine option, not even a trim.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:02)
I do, yeah, it's in my driveway right now.

Yeah, two of the three

are not, I would not have even considered them ⁓ qualified to be on the list. Yeah, so in the trucks, you had the Ford Maverick Lobo, which is just a trim level of the Maverick. You have the Ram 1500 Hemi, which is literally just an engine option.

Craig Cole (03:35)
You talking about the RAM 1500 Hemi? Yeah.

Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (03:47)
Which that's...

And the badge, the symbol of protest badge. There's the tin badge.

Craig Cole (03:49)
A badge. boy, the tackiest badge you've ever seen.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:52)
Yeah, the Tim badge.

And then, you know, the RAM 2500, which, you know, is significantly updated for 2025. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, was the other one. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (04:04)
Right, and there was the F-150 Lobo which was just a sticker package, so the Maverick

Lobo at least had some other stuff to it. The F-150 is wheels and stickers. And then the mid-cycle of the Rivian R1C was on the long list. Yeah. It's the quad motor, the updated.

Craig Cole (04:10)
and some hardware.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:15)
Yeah.

⁓ was that, ⁓ I can't remember. Was that, I think that that was, that was from

last year. No, actually, I think it was the quad motor was cause the, the, the R one T mid cycle came out in 2024. So the quad motor was on the long list. You know, again, just, it's just an, well, yeah, it's just another powertrain option, you know, so it's not an all new vehicle. So, you know, I think, I think they really need to take a look at, you know, what

Chad Kirchner (04:35)
Okay.

So basically another trim, kind of.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:50)
is going to qualify and I think they need to ⁓ rethink some of these things. What goes into what category, what actually qualifies for ⁓ trucks and for the others as well.

Chad Kirchner (05:05)
I

would have replaced the Lucid with the RAV4. Not that the Lucid's not any good, I don't know, driven it yet.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:15)
Yeah, I

think the RAV4 is definitely an improvement. We talked about it ⁓ back a month or two ago after we drove it. ⁓ It's certainly in terms of its position in the market, it's way more significant than the Gravity. ⁓ It was last year and so far this year the number one selling single nameplate in the United States market. ⁓ It sells more than the F-150. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (05:22)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (05:31)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:45)
It's, you know, there, there are some things about the, the RAV that, ⁓ you know, there was some questionable decisions. You know, think the interior quality is not great. ⁓ yeah. Or, or, you know, or the GR sport, you know, same thing with the GR sport.

Craig Cole (05:54)
The interior was a letdown.

Chad Kirchner (05:56)
Especially unlimited

like when you're spending that money with that kind of badge

⁓ Don't get me started on that.

Craig Cole (06:05)
Toyota is very good at efficiency

and reliability, course, and taking care of customers. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:09)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's there's absolutely nothing wrong with it,

but it's, you know, anyway. ⁓ And then, you know, just to

Craig Cole (06:17)
But the one area they

fall short in is hiding where they take cost out of things. They're not very good at that.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:21)
Yes,

especially in this one, it was very obvious where they took cost out. There's a lot about the interior that even on the GR Sport and the Limited feels kind of cheap, which that disappointed me. The driving experience was definitely better, ⁓ especially in the plug-in hybrid, but the plug-in hybrid's not gonna be available till next spring. And so it'll...

Craig Cole (06:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (06:43)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:50)
based on the way they've been doing this, it'll probably be on the list for next year. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (06:54)
The

core models, the Rev4 core models, I know you already talked about this, but I like the core models, the updates there a lot. The two non-core models, the Woodland and the GR Sport, are still confusing to me after I've driven them. I understand what they're trying to do, but...

I didn't, I wasn't feeling it. Even in the GR Sport, like you had, I mean you were both there at that program at some point, like you had to really ⁓ risk potentially going to jail to really kind of feel the difference in the suspension tuning. it was, nobody's gonna drive a RAV4 like that. So I don't, I like the body kit on it. I like the color.

Craig Cole (07:37)
I mean, nobody's taking the woodland

off road either. Automakers just love to slice and dice and introduce special trim levels that are low cost for them, but they broaden the line up. know, it's just.

Chad Kirchner (07:41)
No, but they don't even have as much as

Well, as much as I've personally criticized Rock Creek, the Nissan Rock Creek stuff, they at least try to put underbody protection under there. Yeah, it's cheap plastic. It's cheap plastic. It's not gonna hold up. It's not gonna hold up under anything. But I believe an effort was at least made where BZ Woodland, or not BZ Woodland, I'm sorry, Rev4, but Woodland just has some rigid fog lights. Like that's...

Sam Abuelsamid (08:00)
Yeah, I don't think that counts. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (08:17)
That's the difference. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (08:17)
Yeah. Well,

it does have the mold. You know, the lower part of the bumper cover is molded to vaguely look like a skid plate.

Craig Cole (08:27)
Go ahead and use it like one then.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:28)
Ha ha ha.

Chad Kirchner (08:30)
Now I mean I just it those seem to make a little bit less sense to me Especially when in the same showroom you have a rave or not a rave. I'm sorry a forerunner ⁓ Which If you're kind of do what what woodland is gonna do you're probably just gonna be happier with the forerunner And the new forerunner is really good. I know probably scenes obviously, but just I see a lot of confusion until you're at a showroom, which is why I liked the

Craig Cole (08:33)
Happy.

Chad Kirchner (08:58)
off track, I'm sorry. But why I liked the Soltera, the first gen Soltera a lot more than I liked the Beezley Forex. They were the same car, but I felt like, not that either one was particularly good EV, but like I felt like the Soltera made much more sense in a Subaru showroom where there isn't a bunch of electrification and plug-in and crossover kind of stuff, where in Toyota you walk in there and you're like, well here's the

Sam Abuelsamid (09:05)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (09:25)
mediocre EV, but here's a plugin RAV4, and here's a plugin Toyota Apreas, and here's like just all of these other kind of better in that case better sort of options so I don't I don't know

Craig Cole (09:26)
you

Sam Abuelsamid (09:41)
Yeah,

⁓ the new BZ and Soltera are way better. I they are, I think, fully competitive vehicles in their segments now. And they're priced more aggressively than they were when they launched. ⁓ Toyota announced the pricing for the 2026 RAV4s this week for the hybrids, not for the plug-in hybrids. And it ranges from

Chad Kirchner (09:48)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:10)
⁓ 31.9 for the base LE, which is a few hundred dollars less than it was last year, ⁓ up to the limited at 43,300, which is more than it was last year. So most of the trim levels are a little more expensive than they were last year. ⁓ The base model ⁓ is slightly cheaper, but not many people are gonna buy that one anyway. I mean, that's relative. Exactly.

Craig Cole (10:36)
what they can at least advertise and say, look, lower price than ever.

New Rev.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:40)
Right, and that's why they do that.

Chad Kirchner (10:40)
Well, and

everyone's, and every single one's a hybrid now. So...

Sam Abuelsamid (10:45)
Yeah. So,

you know, the cheapest, the cheapest RAV4 you can get now is more expensive than it was last year, because you can't, you can't get a non-hybrid RAV4 anymore. ⁓ But it is slightly cheaper than the cheapest RAV4 hybrid was for 2025.

Chad Kirchner (11:04)
Yeah, that's a fun trick like the grand Wagoneer like, oh, well, we got rid of the Wagoneer. So the grand Wagoneer starts 20 grand less. But if you would have just priced the old Wagoneer, it's $5,000 more. Woo marketing love me some marketing.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

We, you we won't, we won't get pricing on the plugins until probably sometime in the early spring, late winter, early spring. But Mike.

Chad Kirchner (11:31)
differential on the old ones

is what like five grand four or five grand

Sam Abuelsamid (11:34)
Yeah,

the old ones, let's see, the Plugin Hybrid SE 2025 was $44,815 and then $48,685 for the XSE. So my guess is that we will probably see those start, it'll probably start somewhere in that $46, $47,000 range and that GR Sport will probably cost somewhere

between 53 and 55, which is a lot for that vehicle. Yeah.

Craig Cole (12:08)
It's the correct answer, Chad. Shaking your head no.

Chad Kirchner (12:10)
I

don't know if we share a video, but I'm sure you're just shaking my head. No, that's not.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:15)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (12:16)
No, no.

But hey, it's less than the average transaction price, so that's good, I guess, right? Maybe? I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:20)
That is true. And the new plug-in

hybrid RAV does get 50 miles on a charge. ⁓ It ⁓ can basically serve as an EV for almost everybody almost all the time, assuming you have somewhere to plug it in. Again, I will repeat our long-running message. If you do not have somewhere to plug in your vehicle on a daily basis,

Craig Cole (12:38)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:50)
Don't buy a plug-in hybrid. Just get a regular hybrid. Or an EV. Well, yeah, don't buy an EV. ⁓

Craig Cole (12:52)
or an EV.

Chad Kirchner (12:55)
Well, yeah, or any of it, Yeah, if it needs

Craig Cole (12:58)
Don't be

the bolt driver at the EA station 350 kilowatt. We don't want that don't do that folks another long-running joke

Chad Kirchner (12:58)
a plug.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:00)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (13:03)
Yeah, but like, don't do that. Yeah, I mean, that's,

that's always everybody. This is a rant that Craig has heard more times than I'm sure he cares to admit. But like, you have to qualify a plugin hybrid buyer as a dealer, you have to qualify in the exact same way you do as a bev driver. So like this idea that that that this p have is the, the sort of like

Sam Abuelsamid (13:18)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (13:28)
You know, leading the way. It's this crossover kind of device that will get people into a full electric world. I think it's BS. And every time...

Sam Abuelsamid (13:43)
Well, I wouldn't go

that far. I think it is a good bridge technology for a lot of consumers. But again, with that stipulation, it only makes sense if you have somewhere to plug it in on a daily basis. And if you can, if you can plug it in every night, ⁓ or you have workplace charging and you can plug it in every day, then ⁓ you can basically use it as a BEV. ⁓ But if you are not going to plug it in consistently,

Craig Cole (14:01)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:11)
then you're just dragging around four or 500 pounds of dead weight, you know, and you're going to get worse fuel economy than you would with the regular hybrid. ⁓ Not by a lot, but you know, a couple of miles per gallon.

Craig Cole (14:14)
Mm-hmm

Which is exactly what my barber

does. He has a Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe and he didn't know you could plug it in. He didn't know! I mean...

Chad Kirchner (14:25)
Yep. Well, you probably,

Sam Abuelsamid (14:26)
and never plugs it in.

Chad Kirchner (14:29)
I see a lot of, still see writing glows pulling into like EA stations, Cherni is the supercharger or the fast charger for it's like, did somebody not tell you this? But, ⁓ but on the other hand, though, I think EREV makes a bit more sense. And I think the difference is just like with the RAV4. So like on that RAV4 program, at least on the wave I was on, ⁓

Craig Cole (14:31)
Yep.

Yeah

It doesn't work, folks.

Chad Kirchner (14:53)
they let us drive the GR Sport first thing in the morning and they only wanted us to drive it on electricity only. I don't know why they only wanted us to it on electricity because we actually got

Sam Abuelsamid (15:00)
Well, they want no

that what it was they wanted everybody to have an opportunity to drive it on electricity only. You could still drive it later in the day after the battery was depleted.

Craig Cole (15:06)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (15:06)
Yeah, right,

right, and I did. But on electricity only, that car does not perform as well as in electricity and gas combined, ⁓ which most P-Haves don't. Most P-Haves are going to, if it's not using the gas engine to help, you're going to get okay performance, but you're not going to get bad performance. ⁓ And in an e-rev, since it's always an electric vehicle,

you get the full Bev performance ⁓ sort of all the time. And I think that like, especially in larger applications like Grand Wagoneer, pickup trucks, like that, I think that makes a lot of sense. But I think because you get

150 miles of range out of an e-rev like that's one of those kind of you That's kind of one of those platforms that if you live with it every day You really really start to realize how little you use the gas engine 50 miles a day even to the European 70 miles a day Yes, most people 95 % of the people are gonna fall kind of under that but you're still using Psychologically, you're still using a lot of electricity

of electricity capacity when you go out. If you have an eREV that you get 150 miles on, you're really going to then see, man, I never used this gas engine. And I think that really becomes a bridge kind of technology. like with Scout or with

You know, if Stellantis ever ships the truck with it. Like I think you go by a scout with the harvester EREV in it. The first time around, you realize you, gosh, I never needed that gas engine. And then when you go around to rebuy, the next time around, you're like, no, give me the full buff.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:57)
Unless you're doing a lot of long distance towing, in which case you'll probably stick with the eRev. ⁓ All right, well, you know, that tangent ⁓ completed. I'm to talk a little bit about what I'm driving this week. Neither of you had anything to drive this week, but ⁓ I have the Lucid Gravity Grand Touring. You know, drove the Gravity back in the spring out in California and was really impressed with it. You know, it's a

Chad Kirchner (17:00)
sure.

Craig Cole (17:01)
Hmm.

Chad Kirchner (17:07)
Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:27)
For a luxury three-row electric SUV, it's probably my favorite of what's available out there. Probably the closest direct competitor to it would be something like the Mercedes EQS SUV. ⁓ And I frankly like this vehicle a lot better than the Mercedes. ⁓ The Grand Touring is the trim that they launched with. That's the high-end trim.

So that means it's got dual motors, it's got 828 horsepower. ⁓ It's a pretty good size three row. A lot of people looked at its profile and said, this is really more of a minivan than an SUV. ⁓ You could make that argument. It's lower than most, it's certainly lower than off-road SUVs. This is not something meant to compete.

Craig Cole (18:01)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:24)
you know, directly against the capabilities of something like a Rivian ⁓ R1S. ⁓ It's, you know, if anything, it's more wagon. You know, probably the closest ⁓ thing to compare it to in terms of its form factor is the Ford Flex ⁓ or, you know, even the latest iteration of the Kia Carnival. You know, that's kind of the shape that it has. So it's not as tall.

Craig Cole (18:26)
Ahem.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

Sam Abuelsamid (18:54)
doesn't have that much ground clearance, although you can, with the air suspension, can get it up to nine inches of ground clearance. ⁓ So it's not meant as an off-roader, although you can take it on some light trails ⁓ if you ⁓ raise the ride height up. The interior, they made a bunch of changes. You can see the evolution from the air to this. ⁓

You know, so you still have, you know, big upper screen. ⁓ Although now the, the upper screen is just one continuous display rather than three segments like it was in the air. ⁓ It's got a squared off ⁓ steering wheel, you know, so it's more yoke like. Yeah. Squirkel. Yeah. Well, exactly. It's, was just going to get at, know, you flatten the top so you can actually see the.

Craig Cole (19:32)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (19:40)
Squirkle.

Craig Cole (19:42)
Everybody has to have that these days apparently. But I guess to see the instrumentation, because it's high up on the dashboard, you need it.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:51)
the instrument cluster in front of you. And then instead of the retracting ⁓ pilot screen, as they call it, in the air that can pull back up into the dashboard, this one has a fixed ⁓ lower center display. ⁓ you can have different information on the two screens. So you can, for example, have your maps on the upper screen, you can have your media player down on the...

on the lower screen or vice versa, can flip things, switch things around. You can also, ⁓ rather than, you can also have up to three widgets ⁓ in the right hand portion of the screen, the infotainment part of the screen. ⁓ So you can have one little window that shows you your map view and media player next to it and ⁓ something else in the third one. ⁓ So, you know, I think overall it's a pretty good layout and it's fairly easy to use.

⁓ interface. One of my complaints with it is navigating around a lot of the stuff. There's a couple of ⁓ touch pads, haptic controls on the steering wheel spokes, ⁓ which were kind of finicky to use. Sometimes it worked. It's a combination of touch and also clickable.

Craig Cole (21:04)
boy, wonderful.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:17)
So, you for those old enough to remember the Blackberry Storm It's kind of like that so it's a you know, it's a four-way Rocker on each of these switches on on the two sides of the steering wheel And then you can also swipe across those so for example on the right hand one You can swipe up or down and go between the full full infotainment display like

Craig Cole (21:18)
Hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:46)
just the maps or just the media player ⁓ or ⁓ the widgets and forget what the third option is there. ⁓ On the left hand side you've got your controls for your cruise control ⁓ and things like that which ⁓ when I was out driving the other day doing a longer drive I found that very finicky. I don't know if it's a software issue or a hardware issue with ⁓ the switch itself.

Sometimes if I wanted to adjust the cruise control speed, would respond. Other times it wouldn't. ⁓ So that was not great. ⁓

Craig Cole (22:24)
Well, they've had issues with the air software too, I've heard. Doesn't work very well.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:28)
Yeah, yeah, there have been issues,

you know, and, uh, you know, it's gotten better over the years. was certainly a lot worse when they first started, but it's still not a hundred percent. Um, lucid does have, uh, a lot of the stuff is in the touchscreen, but they do have most of the key controls like, uh, temperature control and fan speed and volume control with physical controls across the bottom of the, uh, the pilot screen, the lower screen.

Craig Cole (22:37)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:55)
So there's rockers for fan speed and temperature. You can also adjust those by voice if you want. And then there's a roller for volume, which works fine, works quite nicely. So they've got that. And also it's got manual vents, which is always a good thing. You no, you don't have to go into the touch interface to adjust where the air is blowing. That's, you know, that to me is always a non-starter.

Craig Cole (23:13)
thank God.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:25)
Overall, I generally enjoyed driving this vehicle, even though, you know, I, I have, I don't have a need for such a large vehicle. you know, it's not, it's large, but it's not as large as say an escalate IQ, not by any stretch of the imagination. but, ⁓ there, found driving and I hadn't recalled noticing this when I drove it, on the launch drive in the spring.

But ⁓ especially if you put it in the most aggressive ⁓ regen mode, it can be a little rough, like right when you're starting to move or coming to a full stop. It's not quite as, the control of the motors is not quite as refined as I would have hoped. ⁓ It's not bad, but it could use some tweaking on the calibration of that.

Chad Kirchner (24:19)
That's something you're gonna net like that's something you really do notice and like when it's not right It feels it feels not finished or it feels cheap to me. So like if I if I just spent Whatever the monroney or veer vehicle is that would be a real turnoff to me knowing like It just it has to be smooth, especially when somebody like Nissan on a $30,000 leaf can get that right even though they did take away one pedal, but that's That's a different discussion, but

Craig Cole (24:36)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:48)
Yeah. So, you know, overall, I, you know, I generally, it's a, it's a beautiful interior on this thing. ⁓ it's got the full glass roof, ⁓ which again, you know, can be a little problematic sometimes, depending on where the sun is. cause sometimes it can be hard to block the sun. You know, it's got, the, got sun visors up there, but it can be a little challenging sometimes.

Craig Cole (24:54)
Mm-hmm.

That's... This

is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. And then what does it cost to replace that damn thing when you inevitably get a stone chip? Why? Why? ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (25:21)
Yeah, it's, it's going to be many,

Chad Kirchner (25:22)
Or when you get a,

Sam Abuelsamid (25:23)
many thousands of dollars.

Chad Kirchner (25:24)
or when you get a hail ball the size of a basketball. ⁓

Craig Cole (25:26)
Yes, I just

or some kids are throwing stones off the overpass not that there's anything wrong with that but

Sam Abuelsamid (25:34)
That has never happened in Michigan, has it?

Chad Kirchner (25:34)
Actually, that there is, yes.

Craig Cole (25:36)
It probably has. It's terrible. yeah, like what if it, what if something hits it? Like what are you going to do? It's the same with like the MBUX hyper screen. You know somebody's going to crack that thing one day and what the hell is that going to cost to replace? I can't even just sell the car to scrap it at that point, right? It's just, it's totaled.

Chad Kirchner (25:39)
you

Sam Abuelsamid (25:53)
that can happen. ⁓

one thing this car did not have yet, the gravity does not yet have, is the hands-free driving assist that is now on the air. So ⁓ it's got hands-on lane centering and adaptive cruise control. Again, something I noticed yesterday while going for a drive for a couple of hours ⁓ is there were

Craig Cole (26:06)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:21)
on three different occasions, the adaptive cruise control would just say adaptive cruise control not available. No indication why. It wasn't a case of the sun blinding the cameras or anything like that because it was facing the wrong direction. So I'm not sure what was going on there. So again, needs some work on the software. But the seats are very comfortable.

⁓ This one had massaging seats in it in the front row. It's got second row heated seats. The front seats are also heated and ventilated. most of the stuff that you would expect in a luxury vehicle, one thing that's kind of unique to the Gravity ⁓ that nobody else really has is for the frunk, they have an optional pad that goes in there that you can flip out.

Craig Cole (26:56)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:18)
⁓ And basically use it as a bench so you can open up the front and you can have two people can sit there You know, so if you're watching the sunset or something, you know, pull up pull up to the beach You know sit there watch the sunset and then fold the pad back into the the front close the lid and get back in the car and drive home ⁓ There's there's plenty of cargo space in here you can get it with two or three rows ⁓ The one I was driving ⁓ has three rows in it. ⁓ It is very quick

It'll do sub three seconds, 0 to 60 with 828 horsepower. What else was on this one? There's also an optional performance package that mine did not have. the dynamic handling package.

Chad Kirchner (27:52)
better.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:14)
⁓ Different airbag system. So there's the standard airbag system just has single chamber airbags, which is what was on the car I'm driving the dynamic handling package gives you triple rate airbags three different spring rates. It's a three chamber system ⁓ That gives you a little little more control over the the wheel motions and body motions ⁓ and it can lift it from between as low as five inches up to

⁓ Nine inches. ⁓ It also has rear wheel steering ⁓ and painted brake calipers. no, sorry. Mine did have that package on there. ⁓ I didn't do much ⁓ aggressive driving on windy roads this week, but when drove it in the spring, we did get a chance to drive it on some fairly fun roads near Santa Barbara. ⁓

Craig Cole (29:09)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:11)
You know, for a vehicle this size, it handles really well. It's really nice to drive. ⁓ See, there's also the Surreal Sound System Pro, ⁓ which is a 22 speaker sound system. ⁓ I know. mean, you can. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. ⁓ And this one also had the optional.

Craig Cole (29:26)
You need 35 speakers at least like the Escalade right? mean 22 that's for the pores Sam

Chad Kirchner (29:32)
If you have enough lots, though, then you're okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:38)
22, 23 inch ⁓ wheel and tire package. So the standard setup, you get 20 inch front wheels, 21 inch rears, ⁓ and then the first option is 21 fronts, 22 rears, and this one had 22 fronts and 23 inch rears, which are very big wheels and tires. ⁓ Really not necessary. The wheels look really nice. They're great looking wheels, but you know, you don't need that, and it does eat significantly into your range. So.

Craig Cole (29:53)
No. Just no.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:08)
If you get the base setup, the 20 and 21 inch wheels, it's rated at 437 miles of range. With the 22s and 23s, it's 386 miles. And actually there is, let's see, yeah, 386. There's also a package that drops it down to just 378 miles.

Craig Cole (30:20)
Mm.

How are you supposed to rotate those tires when they're staggered? you just... So you have to dismount them then every time?

Chad Kirchner (30:39)
You're not supposed to. You don't.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:40)
You don't. You don't.

Well, the tires are different sizes.

Chad Kirchner (30:45)
You can...

Craig Cole (30:47)
That's true, yes, duh.

But you're not flopping side to side, you don't do that with radials, so you just, you're just done then. Okay, another reason not to do that. ⁓ of course they are! Go and put like whatever Nexon tires on your $100,000 Lucid.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:51)
No. No.

Chad Kirchner (30:56)
Yeah. But Michelin's happy. Michelin's happy.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:03)
⁓ yeah.

Chad Kirchner (31:07)
I believe

Michelin is their tire provider, I believe.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:11)
So this one's rated at 386 miles. ⁓ Yeah, no, it's very good. Although, as has typically been the case, Lucids tend to be on the more efficient side of the EV spectrum. But ⁓ they, like Tesla, they also usually fall short of their official EPA ratings. ⁓ So in this case, ⁓ I was averaging

Chad Kirchner (31:14)
Which is still pretty good.

Craig Cole (31:15)
Fantastic

still.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:37)
2.7 miles per kilowatt hour over the week, which with 123 kilowatt hour battery works out to only 332 miles, which is closer, it's about what I was seeing. ⁓ It does charge very fast. It's a 920 kilowatt or 920 volt electrical system on this thing. ⁓ And other tests have seen it ⁓ charge at almost 400 kilowatts.

Craig Cole (31:45)
Hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:04)
⁓ On the right chart if you have the right charger ⁓ I took it over to my local supercharger yesterday Because this thing does have a native ⁓ J3 400 charging port or Nax port. So I took it over to the supercharger station ⁓ the the gravity does have ⁓ Plug-in charge built in so I just pulled out the cord out of the charging dispenser plugged into the car and within about 15 seconds it was charging and ⁓

Chad Kirchner (32:08)
Good luck.

Craig Cole (32:32)
Nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:33)
plugged it in it was at 26 % state of charge and it quickly climbed up to about 228 kilowatts of charging and it stayed there for quite a while. Even when I unplugged it at 80 % charge it was still going 110 kilowatts.

Craig Cole (32:50)
Sam

was causing a local brownout in Ypsilanti Ann Arbor area, so you can blame him, ⁓

Chad Kirchner (32:51)
again.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:53)
No, that was the Escalate IQ that was doing that.

Chad Kirchner (32:54)
Yeah, well.

Well,

killed those. I killed one of the charging stations in Nipsel Annie, the electrify America ones. I kept throttling, thermal throttling those with the hummer. So no, the... ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (33:11)
yeah. Well, when I pulled in, when I

pulled into the supercharger yesterday, which is just down the road from that EA station, ⁓ there was an ID buzz, an escalate IQ and a mocky rally all charging there.

Craig Cole (33:24)
Hmm.

Wow. Diversity of vehicles. How about that?

Chad Kirchner (33:27)
⁓

Well, the nice thing about version 3 superchargers, even though they peak at 250kW, is that's 250kW to each pole set-o, so you don't have to worry about splitting or sharing with the person next to you. So Sam might cause a brownout with that particular, yeah, he might cause a brownout with that particular charging pedestal, but...

Craig Cole (33:44)
Hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:47)
Yeah, because there were Model 3s on either side of me while I was charging.

Craig Cole (33:54)
You

Chad Kirchner (33:55)
He won't ruin anyone else's day. right. So is the so is the lucid air like their dream pie in the sky 30,000 foot vehicle and the gravity brings it back down to earth? Is that why it's an air and a gravity?

Craig Cole (33:58)
unless they have sensitive electronics at home that need the full 110 volts.

No, Chad.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:12)
It's kind of in

between because the next model is coming out next year, the midsize. That's actually supposed to be called the Earth, the Lucid Earth.

Craig Cole (34:17)
you

Chad Kirchner (34:17)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Cole (34:20)
⁓ Are they going to have maybe an?

Chad Kirchner (34:21)
⁓ god, I hate that I stumbled

Sam Abuelsamid (34:23)
So

Chad Kirchner (34:23)
onto their ideas.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:23)
this one's gently floating down and then, yeah.

Craig Cole (34:26)
They need to name them after clouds like Cirrus

and Stratus.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:30)
⁓ I think that's been done somewhere.

Chad Kirchner (34:31)
⁓ nope.

Craig Cole (34:33)
damn.

Chad Kirchner (34:33)
Yes, it has. ⁓ The one criticism that I'll have, and Sam, you said the same thing regarding software, ⁓ I like the idea of physical buttons, but I've been in some cars and the Lucid Air was one of them, where even like there was still a software layer between the physical buttons. So like, Craig, that last Air that I drove when we were at the mama thing, like, the driver's side window wouldn't go down.

Craig Cole (34:52)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (34:58)
And don't think that it was a, I don't think it was an error, like it wasn't a button switch error. I think it was a computer error. And the Blazer EV, when I first drove that before they had their stop sale and the recall, ⁓ there were physical buttons for climate control and stuff, but they froze. They didn't work. ⁓ Because there was, again, a software layer in between. in theory, I like the idea of a, in the, yeah.

Craig Cole (35:08)
He he. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's nice.

The CAN bus wasn't working. It's the

CANT bus.

Chad Kirchner (35:26)
It's the camp bus. Yeah, in theory,

I like the idea of a software-defined vehicle. I do. But in practice, I think that ⁓ there still needs to be some work. And I do think that Lucent's are extremely efficient. Their battery motor combinations are really next level in engineering. They just need somebody to buy them, I think, is what I would do.

Craig Cole (35:47)
They have slotty money though, don't

they? They have unlimited funds.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:49)
Yeah, but

you know, they don't have infinite patience.

Craig Cole (35:53)
Mmm.

Chad Kirchner (35:53)
Yeah,

yeah. And I think the Germans, the Germans, mean the new stuff from Mercedes-Benz is pretty good. The new, the new A-Class, or however you pronounce it, the new class ⁓ BMW stuff's really good. And does Audi even exist anymore? I don't know. But I like what Lucid's doing at some level. I think they're, I think the luxury is there. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (35:55)
Even

class.

Chad Kirchner (36:20)
I like that they're doing some stuff very clever and I think their engineering is really solid. ⁓ They just have some bugs that really need to quash and I feel like if they were bought out by somebody they could really get there.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:37)
I mean, you know, some years ago before Apple gave up on trying to get into the car business, you know, I, I had made the suggestion on multiple occasions that, you know, instead of trying to develop their own, they should just buy Lucid because, know, if there's any car company that is closest to kind of Apple's way of thinking, you know, it would be Lucid. You know, and the thing that, the thing that Lucid has always needed, you know, is, you know, more operational expertise.

Craig Cole (36:59)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:07)
⁓ you know, in dealing with supply chains and manufacturing and those sorts of things. That's the stuff that Apple is great at. And yeah.

Craig Cole (37:09)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (37:11)
And Tim Apple is excellent at that. Yeah, specifically Tim Apple. mean, because

Craig Cole (37:16)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (37:17)
Steve Jobs brought him in to as the CEO, as the operations manager, because it was like, and that's when iPhone went from, hey, here's a fun little project to global domination. And while the Intel era for Apple computers, in hindsight, not particularly great. ⁓

the helm to Apple, know, that moved to silicon and the integration and how well everything now is optimized and works well. No, I don't think Apple should buy, I don't think Apple should make cars, but I could see how Lucid would be a good fit if they wanted to get into that business.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:50)
Not now.

Yeah. But they've, they've given up on that. So, which is probably for the best. Yeah. You know, for, for a company that likes, you know, operating on 40 % profit margins, getting into the car business was always an insane proposition. One, one other detail with the, with the gravity that I've also experienced with the air is the door handles. you know, so the, door handles pop out, you know, they, when they're

Craig Cole (38:01)
Good for them, they shouldn't have been thinking about it anyway. It's just ridiculous.

Chad Kirchner (38:02)
I wouldn't want the liability,

man. ⁓

Craig Cole (38:12)
Mm-hmm.

Ahem.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:26)
normally they sit flush with the rest of the door. And as you approach, they're supposed to pop out. And a lot of the time, probably maybe a third to a half of the time, when I walk up to the car with the key fob in my pocket, and I have a key fob and there's also an NFC card, which doesn't seem to work at all, ⁓ the doors did not pop out unless I would actually take it out of my pocket. So that was, you

Craig Cole (38:54)
You've got those

Faraday cage pants on again, Sam. Copper lined trousers. huh. They're so comfortable and breathable, I know.

Chad Kirchner (38:57)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:57)
I know, you know,

I know they told me not to use those when I'm driving, you know, I just can't help myself. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (39:05)
Well,

and you're trying to protect your insides from radiation and stuff.

Craig Cole (39:09)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:10)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. ⁓ So that

was a little finicky. mean, they always opened up once I pulled the fob out of my pocket, but having it in my pocket and not opening just was kind of annoying.

Chad Kirchner (39:25)
Well,

Craig Cole (39:25)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (39:25)
hopefully the Chinese are going to fix the problem for all of us by banning stupid door handles and hopefully that catches on. So... Yeah.

Craig Cole (39:31)
Hmm. Yeah, that would be very nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:32)
Yeah, that would be nice. So,

you know, the Monroney that I got ⁓ is not actually the one for the car I was driving because it lacks ⁓ some of the things that were on this car. ⁓ The car I had was finished in Aurora Green Metallic, which is a lovely color. know, Lucid unfortunately doesn't have any really bold colors, especially on the Gravity, but the Aurora Green is a good color.

Craig Cole (39:59)
They're taking the S-Class approach. You can get four shades

of gray.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:02)
Yeah.

And all, yeah, all, all together, it, came to a grand total of $117,750.

Chad Kirchner (40:05)
The German Rainbow.

Craig Cole (40:06)
Yeah.

No. No.

Chad Kirchner (40:15)
which

is 35 grand less 40 grand less than an escalator iq

Sam Abuelsamid (40:22)
⁓ Yeah,

it's about 40 grand less than an Escalade.

Chad Kirchner (40:25)
⁓ It's less than the EQS, the CV, which I don't care for at all. ⁓ It's a butt ton of money, but it's also... not?

Sam Abuelsamid (40:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, when you look at it in the

context of the segment, it's expensive, but it's not insanely expensive. I would probably take this over a Volvo EX90, which is similarly priced. The starting price for the Grand Touring is $94,900, so $95,000. And while they just announced this week at the Ali Auto Show,

Chad Kirchner (40:58)
Right.

Craig Cole (41:00)
Didn't they lower it recently though?

Sam Abuelsamid (41:05)
They announced the gravity touring trim. So that's a lower trim Not not quite as grand ⁓ but ⁓ Still still very nice and that one starts at 79.9 ⁓ That one does have a slightly smaller battery

Craig Cole (41:08)
That's what it is. Not as grand, but...

Chad Kirchner (41:14)
You can still tour, but just not grand.

Craig Cole (41:21)
a steal! Get two!

Sam Abuelsamid (41:25)
Yeah, so it's been decontented a bit. The batteries, they took a few modules out of the battery. So that brings it down to I think 89 kilowatt hours. Yeah, 89 kilowatt hours from the 123 for the grand touring. And that still gets you over 300 miles of range for the touring trim.

And it charges very fast. It'll add 200 miles on an appropriate charger. It'll add 200 miles of range in about 15 minutes. Zero to 60 for the grand touring is about 3.4 seconds. It's four seconds for the touring, which is still more than fast enough. Nobody needs that kind of speed.

Craig Cole (41:56)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (42:16)
So that cheaper model puts you in within five grand of like an IONIQ 9 and an EV9 at the higher end specs. I don't know. I'd have to, mean, I'd have to drive one, but that's, I mean, all these cars are stupid expensive and I can't believe that I'm saying that any of these are a good deal, but I love the IONIQ 9 and...

Sam Abuelsamid (42:22)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (42:41)
But their software at least works, but like I feel like if I could get into a lucid experience for not that much more money

Sam Abuelsamid (42:49)
Yeah, I mean, I would, if I, if I was buying, you if I was looking at a top of the line, Ionic nine versus the touring, the grand, you know, the gravity touring, I, I think I would have to very seriously consider the gravity. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (42:51)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (43:06)
Mm-hmm. The problem

is Hyundai will be around in five years and will grant will lucid be Will you will they war honor your warranty if they're out of business like like? Yeah

Chad Kirchner (43:10)
Also true.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:11)
That is true. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (43:14)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:17)
And therein lies the problem with software-defined

vehicles. ⁓ Things become very iffy down the road if the creator of your software-defined vehicle ⁓ finds themselves ⁓ undefined. yeah, yeah.

Craig Cole (43:33)
You

Chad Kirchner (43:34)
Yeah, like a Henrik Fisker, for example.

Craig Cole (43:38)
I

mean, you could say that theoretically, Maybe. As an example. To Sandrick Fisker.

Chad Kirchner (43:41)
You could, in theory, possibly. As an example, mean, I mean, Craig, you weren't

there. Sam, did you go to that GM thing a couple weeks, a month ago, whatever, in New York? Yeah, that's right, you were there. Yeah, my brain doesn't work anymore. I'm getting old. ⁓ But I mean, fiskes are everywhere. Like, I mean, I knew I'd see them everywhere, but it was still wild, like walking out of the hotel or the venue at any random time.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:53)
Yeah, yeah, I was there in New York. Yeah.

Well, the

company that bought all the unsold inventory basically put them into ⁓ taxi and ride hailing fleets in New York. And so there's a bunch of them running around.

Chad Kirchner (44:10)
and just see one.

Craig Cole (44:13)
Hmm.

Mm.

Chad Kirchner (44:19)
There's

a really good half as interesting video, so it's like six minutes long, and half as interesting as you would shoot your channel right around the same time that that event happened. ⁓ That does a fantastic job at sort of explaining why all those cars are in New York and how they're fixing them. ⁓

Craig Cole (44:38)
Hmm.

Chad Kirchner (44:40)
And don't necessarily want to say I learned anything really new, but it was really fun to see it presented that way. I'll send you a link for the shoutouts because I think it's really worth sharing. But yeah, software defines... Yes, just like I hate all new and improved.

Craig Cole (44:53)
I hate that term so much. It's such a buzzword salad.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:56)
I mean, you know, there's some

nice potential capabilities with a software-defined vehicle. You can upgrade the capabilities of the vehicle over its lifespan, but the problem is you have to support that software and you have to support the underlying hardware that makes it work. you know, there's certain things that shouldn't be software-defined. Like, for example,

Craig Cole (45:08)
Mm-hmm. You can charge for heated seats. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:24)
which direction your vents are facing. That should be hardware defined, not software defined.

Chad Kirchner (45:26)
Bye.

Craig Cole (45:27)
wrecked.

Chad Kirchner (45:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Cole (45:30)
Correct. And your door

handles, which is probably just fine to have a mechanical latch. You know, I'm okay with that.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:35)
Yes, absolutely.

Those should absolutely be. What?

Chad Kirchner (45:37)
What Sam when

you were talking about the buttons on the steering wheel, ⁓ it made me think of a really stupid idea, which would be, ⁓ do you remember the old IBM, not Lenovo, not before Lenovo bottom, but the old IBM ThinkBads that had the little red nubby in the middle on the keyboard that I did too. Like put that on steering wheels.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:42)
Yeah.

Yep, I like that. I had those for work for a number of years.

Craig Cole (45:53)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (45:59)
Yeah, put that on a steering wheel. If you're going to do some weird sort of swipey dials, touch sensitive whatever, just put a little red nub right in the middle and let me use that. But it worked! But unlike Remote Touch, it worked!

Craig Cole (46:07)
Just like the Lexus remote touch system, right? Where you had a ⁓ track pad

Sam Abuelsamid (46:10)
think point or a track track point bring bring

bring back the IBM track point

Craig Cole (46:14)
and then later the touch pad.

Chad Kirchner (46:17)
Yes, make IBM great again? I think it probably is. They're still chucking around.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:20)
I think I think it's too late for that but

⁓ yeah.

So, you know, again, like the air, you know, there's a lot to like about the gravity. ⁓ but there's just, you know, there's little details that are not quite finished. one, one other detail that I noticed the other day when I was, all it was trying to do is just reposition the car in my driveway. ⁓ and I realized that, ⁓ one of the software defined capabilities is, is

Craig Cole (46:54)
There's a subscription for reverse?

Is that what you're gonna tell me?

Sam Abuelsamid (46:56)
No, no, it's well, it's just

the transmission selector. ⁓ It will not go into drive or reverse unless your seatbelt is latched. You know, so I mean, I when I'm driving, I always wear a seatbelt as everyone should. you but, you know, sometimes if I'm just moving the car a few feet to reposition it in my driveway, you know, I will just hop in, you know, just to reposition it. And I realized, why won't this go into drive?

Craig Cole (47:10)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (47:11)
as you should.

Craig Cole (47:13)
It's safer

to be thrown clear, Sam. Everybody knows that.

Chad Kirchner (47:24)
.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:26)
⁓ latch the seatbelt and all of sudden it worked.

Chad Kirchner (47:27)
I joke, I've joked about this.

I've joked about this with some automakers, but I'm actually pretty serious. Like, there should be an auto journalist like setting that like below like three miles an hour or two or three miles an hour. That kind of stuff doesn't activate. ⁓ You know, you don't necessarily get the seatbelt warning chime. ⁓ The automatic headlights are off.

⁓ the mirrors stay out instead of closing it's like a car wash mode but just for us like the mirrors stay out the doors the the doors don't automatically lock like but if everything's software defined it's just like it's like one yeah and then you just give no yeah that gives you a ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (47:59)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (48:00)
oddly specific demographic.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:07)
You could do that. Just have it behind a special code. So you tap in a code on the screen and then it gives you a journalist mode. So you can take your photos with the

lights on, the door handles retracted, the mirrors out. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (48:21)
Yeah.

Because gosh, I hate getting them and Stellantis vehicles are pretty common for this. I'll get one and the last person had the the initial cluster brightness clicked all the way up to the permanent daytime mode. Yeah, and then I'll climb in at night and then I can't see for an hour because it just seared my retinas out. Um, you know, or

Craig Cole (48:34)
Yep, the blinding.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:42)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (48:44)
That's a feature they had

on their older models too with the wheel for adjusting the brightness of the cluster. For whatever reason there was that one extra setting that would just... I don't know what the logic was, but...

Chad Kirchner (48:52)
There was. Well, so on the GM, so in the GM

car I used to own, that last click would also turn on the dome light. So you would turn the brightness all the way up and then, dome light. Which was also, I don't know, weird. Nostalgia.

Craig Cole (48:58)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

from the company that put the cruise controls

on the turn signal stock along with the high beams and everything. I'm surprised they didn't put it on the gear selector as well. And what other features can they... Fan speed, maybe they can sneak that on there too.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:10)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (49:14)
Remember when you remember

when you could adjust fan speed and climate control on the steering wheel Like when there were separate buttons for that GM did that in the 90s 90s early 2000s like you had radio controls and you had climate controls That's the app honey I did that well you didn't have to have an airbag

Sam Abuelsamid (49:28)
Well, yeah, that was in the time when they had like 30 buttons on the steering wheel, though. Pontiac did that.

Craig Cole (49:33)
Yeah. Driving excitement. Let me get my reading glasses.

Which button is it now? And it's the scene from Tommy Boy where he smashes the car on the desk.

Chad Kirchner (49:41)
you

says the guy who had a Windows phone when we were talking about old Blackberries earlier. But speaking, I'm going to segue us into Continuous Atlantis, maybe. Yeah, let's do that. Let's talk about that. So I saw this, we've seen this car for two or three years now, I think.

Craig Cole (49:50)
Mm-hmm. That's right here. I had several.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:59)
Okay, yeah, let's talk about the Jeep Recon.

Yeah, I mean, I mean,

they first showed they first released photos of the wagon your ass and the recon back in 2022. I want to say I think it was it was late 22 in the fall of 22. And then the first time I saw it in person was like March or so of 2024. They were doing. Yeah, they did a.

Chad Kirchner (50:31)
Antonio Filosa was put in charge of cheap.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:34)
Roundtable with Antonio Filosa in Auburn Hills and they had the Wagoneer S and the Recon there and then you know I've been seeing them around here on the roads for you know, at least the last six nine months Testing but you know now they are finally releasing it, you know, they finally gave us You know specs and pricing and everything

Craig Cole (50:36)
Mm.

Chad Kirchner (50:40)
They did.

all the time.

Is it the all-electric Jeep you were hoping for?

Sam Abuelsamid (51:02)
It is the all-electric Jeep.

Craig Cole (51:05)
It certainly is one. If you need a Jeep with

battery power, the Recon can do that for you.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:09)
You know, so, you

know, jeep, you know, over the last four or five years has at the Easter Jeep Safari, they did three different iterations of a battery electric Wrangler. ⁓ they called the Magneto, you know, that continued to evolve over, the years. ⁓ and this, you know, this sort of fits in the same segment as the Wrangler, but, know, it doesn't have the Wrangler kind of styling to it.

Craig Cole (51:22)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (51:22)
Magneto.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:38)
⁓ It's more, if anything, it's more like an electric Bronco. ⁓ It does have removable doors. It's got the Sky one-touch folding fabric roof panel. ⁓ You can take out the rear quarter windows and the rear hatch glass. ⁓ So you can have that open air look. And actually the way they do the doors is pretty clever. Because on the Wrangler, they've got a little

Craig Cole (52:03)
tools, right?

Chad Kirchner (52:04)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:08)
tool set in the center console, some Allen wrenches that you've got to use to take the doors off. Now, just open the doors past 90 degrees and lift them right off the hinge. And then don't forget to unplug the harness.

Chad Kirchner (52:13)
Not anymore.

Yep. Same.

Yeah, same with Wrangler as well. 26 Wranglers all have the Tula stores.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:24)
Oh, do they do that on the Wrangler too? Okay. Yeah. Um, you

Craig Cole (52:26)
such innovation.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:29)
know, they still mount the mirrors, the side mirrors on the doors though. So when you take off the doors,

Craig Cole (52:30)
Yeah.

Bronco was very smart.

They had the frameless doors and they left the mirrors attached to the body. So it's very easy to store the doors.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:37)
Yeah. And that's.

Chad Kirchner (52:37)
Yeah. But if...

it is, but it's also if you're driving down a really narrow trail, you may not want the mirrors on at all. So then... Yeah, but you'll still probably scratch them up.

Craig Cole (52:48)
Well, they'll fold still. They'll get you narrower.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:54)
But if the trail's that narrow, there's a good chance you're gonna pinstripe the paint anyway, so.

Craig Cole (52:57)
Mm-hmm

Chad Kirchner (52:58)
That's a cheap thing, Sam. You just wouldn't

understand.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:01)
⁓ So this

thing is built on the Stella Large platform, which is the same platform as the Wagoneer S and the Dodge Charger Daytona. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (53:09)
Unibody!

Craig Cole (53:11)
boy, good luck.

Nicole had some thoughts on that, I'm sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:15)
yeah.

Chad Kirchner (53:16)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (53:17)
and it's got the same hundred point five kilowatt hour battery pack. but because it has the aerodynamic profile of, know, basically a big block of wood, and, ⁓ a very large block of wood, and it sits higher than those other vehicles. the range is not great. ⁓ 650 horsepower from the dual motors for, you know, at least for the,

initial versions they're launching. yeah, zero to 60 in 3.6 seconds for what is nominally an off-roader. Again, not really necessary. And it goes about the Moab, the Moab trim, which is new trim they're launching, that's the off-road version, 230 miles on a charge for $65,000.

Chad Kirchner (53:46)
which is unnecessary.

Craig Cole (53:56)
Mm-hmm.

And no,

this is dead on arrival, I'm afraid. I mean, if they didn't learn, it must be a case of sunk cost fallacy. They were probably so far along with the development of this vehicle, right, that they have to bring it out at this point, even though who's gonna buy it for that price with that range? Like, who is this for?

Chad Kirchner (54:11)
No.

The

mistakes started probably before even Felossa came to Jeep.

Craig Cole (54:35)
certainly.

Chad Kirchner (54:36)
But when Felosta got into the Jeep, I liked what Felosta has to say. I think he's a smart guy. And I think him running overall everything long term is probably a good play. ⁓ But what happened was Felosta came in and he had a lot of stuff he needed to fix. And there were things that just got higher priority. So like Recon had to have been done for almost a year because as Sam had said, I've been seeing them, not like at my house, but yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:02)
Well, it was supposed to launch last fall,

but there was a lot of software and quality issues that they were addressing with Wagoneer S, which was supposed to come out first and then the charger.

Chad Kirchner (55:06)
⁓

which Charger

had as well, you know. ⁓ But then suddenly it got pushed, it must have gotten pushed to the side because suddenly it's like, no, we gotta get Cherokee out the door. no, we gotta get Grand Cherokee out the door. well, we gotta get this new Wagonier out the door. So then it just became getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. And every time I'd ask about it, they'd be like, yeah, we just had to get more important stuff out the door. Well now it's too late. Now it's too late. This should be a mid-cycle refresh of this product at this point and not.

Craig Cole (55:35)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (55:42)
the launch and I don't know who it's for I did an interview with ⁓ ABC News last week and we ultimately ended up on you should buy a ref or you should buy a forerunner because it's like well if you want this why would you get all this crappy range when you could get a Wrangler or you could get a Bronco but then

You know, get kind of the trade-offs with the Bronco and the Wrangler with roof and NVH and stuff like that. Because this car has a luxury kind of focused interior. It's nice inside. So if you want an off-roady, and if you want an off... Yeah. So if you want something off-roady that's nice inside, 4Runner's really good.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:15)
Yeah, very nice. And it's a little roomier than the Wrangler four door. ⁓

Craig Cole (56:20)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:26)
But

the problem is it's only got 9.1 inches of ground clearance, ⁓ which is, yeah, when you put it in its highest mode, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (56:32)
Yeah. And you said that Lucid that you were just in had nine. You know,

Craig Cole (56:35)
You

Chad Kirchner (56:37)
that luxury minivan has as much ground clearance as this.

Craig Cole (56:40)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:41)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (56:42)
But this is trail rated, I'm sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:42)
know, Wrangler Rubicon is about 13 inches of ground clearance. It is trail rated, you know, which at least, you know, nominally, you know, is supposed, you know, for Jeep is supposed to mean that it's capable of doing the Rubicon trail. And we'll see if it can actually do that or not, because nine inches of ground clearance is not a lot.

Chad Kirchner (56:57)
It's supposed to mean something.

Craig Cole (56:59)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (57:02)
Right.

Craig Cole (57:02)
Well, they would put that on like the Patriot

too, wouldn't they? Like it was trail rated and maybe the Compass. Yeah, the Renegade. There you go. So I mean, I mean, maybe they'll do a Camry Woodland edition.

Chad Kirchner (57:06)
Well Renegade had it. The Renegade had a trail rated version. You could probably trail rate the Camry at this point. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (57:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

⁓

Chad Kirchner (57:16)
I ask about the Karemer TRD. No, I want a Karemer Woodland.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:17)
Don't say that too loud.

Craig Cole (57:19)
Ha ha ha ha.

Chad Kirchner (57:21)
Do it, Akio. Do it. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (57:24)
The thing

with this Recon, the Recon Moab is riding on 33 inch wheels and tires. And you could get an extra inch of ground clearance if you could put it on 35s. But you look at it, it doesn't look like you could fit 35s in there. And when people asked Jeep about that, whether 35s would fit, they would not answer the question. They said, we're leaving that to the aftermarket.

Craig Cole (57:39)
Mm. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (57:39)
But they won't say that.

No, this is ⁓

Craig Cole (57:50)
probably a no.

Chad Kirchner (57:52)
for your audience to understand. I'm sure they do already, but like when you talk about like a proper off-roading Jeep.

almost always somebody in the audience in the background will ask will it take 37s will it do 40s can you do 35s 37s 40s ⁓ when they announced the jl wrangler first thing they said was like look it'll do 37s no problem or gladiator especially the 37s no problem you'd need a lift for 40s ⁓ that has been sort of this mindset on those dedicated off-roaders they test this stuff they'd like it they know the aftermarket is going to want it these questions are going to need to be answered and this is the first time

something that's supposedly as off-road capable in my time doing this job where they would not answer that question. And that, I mean that tells me nearly everything I need to know. Probably without rubbing. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:39)
So my guess is that 35s will not fit on this thing, not without rubbing

in the wheel wells. And it's got independent suspension all around. It doesn't even have a solid rear axle. So that's gonna be a problem for off-roading as well. Oh yeah, that's absolutely true, but this is not a Wrangler.

Chad Kirchner (58:46)
So then.

Craig Cole (58:54)
That's perfect for 99 % of the people that use it.

Chad Kirchner (58:57)
sure,

sure, but why would you?

But then who's it for?

Sam Abuelsamid (59:06)
I don't know. does have an electronic locking rear diff.

Craig Cole (59:08)
And are they going to make money on it even?

Chad Kirchner (59:10)
I don't even

care if they make money, I just want to know who it's for. Because if it's for an off-roader, somebody that goes camping or something on the weekends, but wants kind of a nicer luxury kind of experience, what's wrong with a Grand Cherokee? Especially because they're still going to do the Trailhawk Triumphs. Like those will get you to most campsites anywhere. And if you want something serious, you're going to buy a Wrangler.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:13)
Yeah, the

Craig Cole (59:34)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:36)
Yeah, I mean this does have an electronic locking rear differential. ⁓ And ⁓ they changed the final drive ratio from 11 to 1 on the Wagoner S to 15 to 1. So it doesn't have a proper low range like you would get in a Wrangler, but it does have a significantly lower final drive ratio. And that's part of why the range is so short too, because...

Chad Kirchner (59:37)
It does.

Yeah,

and off-roading a full bev is a fun experience because you're not dealing with a torque converter, you're not dealing with any of those sorts of kind of powertrain losses between your foot, the application of your foot and what that tire does on that rock. So like, but you can get that experience with the Wrangler 4XE.

Craig Cole (1:00:13)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:23)
So yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how many of these they can actually sell. I think the number is gonna be pretty modest. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:00:26)
Yep.

Chad Kirchner (1:00:27)
I don't know, it's...

Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:00:36)
Especially the price, the range, yeah. 60 plus grand. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:00:39)
mean they could pull a charger and

throw an ice engine in there. Style Large can do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:44)
Well,

in principle, yes. When you look at this thing in profile though, if anything, it's going to have to be a transverse engine in the front because the hood is not as long as it is on a Wrangler, for example. ⁓ So you're definitely not going to fit a 392 in this thing. But what you could potentially do is the new ⁓

Craig Cole (1:00:58)
Hmm.

And that Hurricane straight six ain't gonna fit north south. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:13)
You know, put, you know, put a four cylinder engine in there and do an EREV. You could, you could do an EREV with a four cylinder. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (1:01:17)
new turbo four oh yeah you could do that too yeah that

Craig Cole (1:01:23)
Or what they could

Chad Kirchner (1:01:23)
could be interesting

Craig Cole (1:01:23)
do, they could fit the straight six if they just put in one of those dog houses that they used to have on the conversion vans so that half of the cylinders can just be right in the center console. Then you could fit the straight six maybe. And have an easy time servicing the spark plugs. You could do it from the driver's seat.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:34)
There you go

Chad Kirchner (1:01:35)
You

I mean they put a pretty

ugly hood on the Charter to get that straight sex to fit. you know, who knows.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:48)
And know, at SEMA

they showed a charger, a drag race charger with a Hemi in there. the Hemi. Yeah. So, anything is possible if you want it bad enough.

Craig Cole (1:01:55)
Mm.

Chad Kirchner (1:01:57)
where there's a red necklace away.

I don't, yeah, I just, I just...

Yeah, and you have money. ⁓ but yeah, I just might at the end of the day like I liked it when I saw it the first time Sam I was with you and we saw it in person, there in Auburn Hills Again, I thought it was cool. ⁓ but that was before we knew the grand Cherokee refresh was coming That's before we kind of knew Exactly how rank how Wagoneer was gonna You know, you know come, you know sort things out Like it is kind of a nicer Bronco Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:31)
and also before we knew how problematic the Wegener S was

Craig Cole (1:02:34)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:34)
going to be.

Chad Kirchner (1:02:35)
Yeah,

well, and the charger has had similar problems. the software-defined part of their electric vehicles has not been delivering what it needs to. ⁓ Software can be hard. Yeah, turns out.

Craig Cole (1:02:40)
Yeah.

Software's hard.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:48)
Not even close.

Craig Cole (1:02:54)
Yeah, that's the moral of story,

folks. Just keep those air vents mechanical and the door latches as well, and you'll be miles ahead of a lot of automakers.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:04)
All right, something else that made its North American debut at the LA Auto Show this week was the Hyundai IONIQ 6N. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (1:03:15)
Love it!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:19)
So this is basically the 5N in a four-door body ⁓ with a few more tweaks to it. 641 horsepower, simulated shifting, all kinds of ⁓ simulated engine noises. They've upgraded the simulated sound system ⁓ from a two-channel setup to a six-channel. ⁓ So supposedly it sounds even better when you're driving it. ⁓ Yeah, exactly.

Craig Cole (1:03:23)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:03:45)
All the speakers for your fake engine noise.

Craig Cole (1:03:47)
Wow, it needs

a Fratsonic chambered exhaust system.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:51)
Yeah, so people on the outside can hear it.

Craig Cole (1:03:53)
Exactly. And all of the muscle car enthusiasts can cry some more.

Chad Kirchner (1:03:54)
Yeah. Yeah. I.

I like the Onyc 5, I like how the Onyc 6 drives better, has longer wheelbase, things like that. I adore the Onyc 5 and my favorite EV, period, so far. And the idea that it could just be better? Sign me up, I'm hooked. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.

Craig Cole (1:04:17)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:17)
Yeah, I mean, when

I first saw the 5N in LA a couple of years ago, you know, and they were announcing it, you know, I thought, oh man, this sounds like such a gimmick. And then I drove it and realized what a hoot it was to drive.

Chad Kirchner (1:04:27)
Yeah. Yes.

Craig Cole (1:04:31)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:04:32)
I remember I drove it to the launch at Laguna Seca. It was the road around the track down towards the hotel. I drove casually down the hill. I turned around and came back up the hill and I put it in the end with the full...

shift thing and I missed the first shift missed that first one two shift and I hit this this fake rev limiter and it threw me forward and I just started cackling like a maniacal person like it was so intellectually I know what they're doing but the how they refined all of the artificialness to feel real is incredible because they're not just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:53)
and you hit the fake rev limiter.

Chad Kirchner (1:05:17)
cutting power. It's not just like a power cut, they're adjusting the dampers and they're doing all of these little things and they're adjusting the power delivery of the electric motor so it feels more natural and feels more linear and it's fake but it's like Star Trek Holodeck fake. It's not, it's, I...

I'm still shocked that they're able to do it. It is. It is. You wouldn't... I would be willing to bet money. You put earplugs, especially if you put earplugs in somebody so they can't hear the fake engine noise, which I can tell is fake, but it doesn't sound super fake. But if you put earplugs in them, they wouldn't know that that's not a real transmission. They just wouldn't.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:37)
It's very convincing.

Craig Cole (1:05:39)
Mm-hmm

No, they did a

very convincing job of simulating an 8-speed dual-clutch automatic, definitely.

Chad Kirchner (1:05:59)
And all the foibles,

all the foibles of one too. Like they made it. I hate the...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:06)
It behaves like an Elantra N, but with almost three times the power.

Craig Cole (1:06:08)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:06:08)
Yeah, they made the car better by making

it. They made the car better by making it worse. And God bless them.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:14)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:06:14)
Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:16)
You know, it and the beauty of it is you can turn it on and off so you can drive around normally. And then, you know, when you're on a twisting country road or you do an attract day, you just flip it into end mode and it all comes to life. It's amazing.

Craig Cole (1:06:16)
641 horsepower too.

Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:06:33)
And unlike Mercedes-Benz, who's now doing it, or will be doing it in their new AMGGT replacement, I wrote in the prototype earlier this year, ⁓ which also is really good, but they only allow that fake shifting and stuff in Sport +, or in S+. ⁓ With the Ionic 5, and presumably with the 6, you can do the fake shifting in normal mode.

So it actually, it'll still power deliver the same way. It'll feel like you're just driving a normal car, a normal gas powered car. So you can still have that experience if you want it without having to be in full on balls out, you know, and, load, which I think, which I think is clever.

Craig Cole (1:07:04)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:16)
You know what?

Craig Cole (1:07:16)
It's what the one thing I didn't

care I drove the N the IONIQ 5N a couple years back the one thing that I didn't care for was that sort of a BMW element to the vehicle and that there are so many settings you get into the menu for like the chassis and the braking feel whatever like just Who needs this? Why? Simplify don't make it more complicated But I guess if you want to get in there and tinker around great, but I don't see a lot of people using that necessarily

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, but they won't, but.

Chad Kirchner (1:07:45)
No, there needs to be like three settings.

There needs to be like three settings. Everything in full attack mode. Everything in comfort, quiet, efficient mode. And then the journalist mode, which is everything in the suspension and everything in the soft comfortable mode, but the exhaust super loud. Those are the three settings that you need.

Craig Cole (1:07:51)
Mm-hmm

Mm-hmm. There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:07)
You

know, one thing, one of the things that disappointed me about the Charger Daytona was, you know, it's got paddles on the steering wheel and they could have done this and they still could. They could do an OTA software update to enable this same kind of thing, but they, for whatever reason, they chose not to. And that would make so much sense in a car like that, you know, to...

Craig Cole (1:08:07)
That's all you need.

Chad Kirchner (1:08:18)
They could have, yeah.

Yes.

It's because they've

never driven an Anec 5N. I'm convinced nobody in Auburn Hills has driven one because the big problem with the charger is if you're going down the highway at 65 miles an hour and you're going at the speed limit.

Craig Cole (1:08:34)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:42)
It's a fantastic cruiser.

Chad Kirchner (1:08:43)
Yeah, it is, but it feels like the red, like, if you have the franzonic turned on, it feels like you're at like five or 6,000 RPM and it sounds like, like it sounds like it. And then, and then if you have regen set to anything other than the lowest setting, it gives you a little too much engine braking. what if you have air quotes engine braking. So it feels like you need to shift the car.

Craig Cole (1:08:52)
constantly droning.

Chad Kirchner (1:09:04)
It feels like it's missing a gear and that's super duper annoying unless you turn the fratzonic and stuff off and then that's just a normal EV because you're right it's an excellent cruiser but it needs that and know, Caniscus pre-Trump promised us

you the Banshee is going to have this multi-speed gearbox and we're going to be able to deliver on all of this in a mix of a way between yeah, in a mix of a way between Porsche does it and the way that like Hyundai does it. And then of course that's dead. So I hate that we're using this whole, I hate that I'm using this whole podcast that crap on Stellantis, but their EV offerings have just, very, they're first generation and we're already in.

Craig Cole (1:09:27)
Yeah, whatever happened to that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:50)
There was so much potential there

and they squandered it.

Chad Kirchner (1:09:52)
Yeah, and we're already in second

and third. Yeah, like an all electric charger should be bonkers. And in a lot of ways it was, ⁓ you know, an all electric powertrain makes a car feel more luxurious like whack in your ass. Yeah, that should be, you know, should be the way to deliver there. And it's just it plagued with software issues. ⁓ Yeah, and then you and then you drive into something you calling it something fun and like the ionic and you're just like

It's night and day. It's like an ode to... The Onyc 5N is like an ode to auto enthusiasts. If this whole future is electric, this is like the automakers olive branch to the enthusiast. They'll like, look, we didn't forget about you. And I look forward to driving the 6. I'm sure it's a hoot. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:10:23)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:47)
So

the other thing that Hyundai unveiled, which is actually a global debut, was a concept car or concept vehicle called the Crater, which, you know, when you look at this thing, ⁓ you know, it doesn't have a grill. They didn't talk anything about, you know, a powertrain. ⁓ But I could imagine this thing using EGMP hardware and doing what Jeep wanted to do with the Recon.

Chad Kirchner (1:10:56)
Bye!

Craig Cole (1:10:58)
What a name.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:16)
but doing it right.

Chad Kirchner (1:11:18)
Yup.

Craig Cole (1:11:20)
It looks like it has portal axles too, because there's like in the renders at least there's no suspension under there. I don't see anything in the middle of the body there. Yeah, anything goes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:30)
It could, it might, you never know. I it's a concept, so who knows.

Chad Kirchner (1:11:35)
Yeah, that could do whatever.

But they've taken this whole, like Hyundai has gone full pixel and like have really embraced it. Like I thought they were going to kind of embrace it, but they have really embraced it. And they've carried a lot of that over to production vehicles. And I think the interior of this thing is, I don't know if it's good wild to me, but it is wild.

with the pixelated displays and this idea of like, especially the drive mode selector and things like that, it's very retro future, it's the 80s. But like, the 80s we were promised. The future we were promised in the 80s. And I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I kinda dig it. And the crater concept, the Ionic 3, which was the concept 3 that they showed, or...

Craig Cole (1:12:14)
Hehehe.

Chad Kirchner (1:12:31)
earlier this year also had a moon vibe to it so they're really leaning into now the outer space of their concepts I don't know why it's just a trend that I'm kind of noticing but yeah you take that is like and they seem to be pretty serious about

Craig Cole (1:12:41)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:46)
Hyundai's been

gradually easing into the off-road thing with their XRT trims. And on the Palisade, they've got the XRT Pro now, which is surprisingly capable for the type of vehicle it is. And I would not be the least bit surprised if they build a production version of this. Obviously not with the suicide doors, ⁓ but...

Chad Kirchner (1:12:52)
Yeah, yeah, which are reasonably solid.

Craig Cole (1:12:52)
Mm-hmm

Chad Kirchner (1:12:58)
.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:15)
I can see them taking on Jeep.

What was that Craig?

Craig Cole (1:13:20)
They should, because it would be so cool to have something different and still functional.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:23)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:13:25)
Well,

our friend ⁓ Mr. Jared Rosenhold over at Carbuzz, his headline on this is like, XRT and N can work together. And I know that some of the N people worked on this concept. And so if you want...

Craig Cole (1:13:31)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:13:42)
⁓ real kind of like I mean not necessarily a Raptor competitor, like you know something to really go after like hardcore for runner bros or The Bronco kind of stuff like I think there's room for competition from the Koreans in that segment Because if they come in the way that they have in the other segments They take this they take this crap seriously Yeah Yeah

Craig Cole (1:13:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:03)
Ford and Jeep will be in big trouble if Hyundai brings this up.

Craig Cole (1:14:06)
Yeah.

yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:14:10)
And I'm not Korean-pilled here, I don't sound like it with my love of the Onyc 5N, but there are... Domestic automakers have really been kind resting on their laurels on those sorts of products. We've got a 10-year product cycle on Wrangler, which looks like it's probably going to be about the case now, so next year we'll probably start seeing some concepts. ⁓

for whatever it is the JM or whatever they're gonna end up calling it. ⁓ know, Broncos, I mean, it's closing in sales wise on Wrangler, both of those products are really expensive. I mean, part of the Wrangler's problem is just how much a dang thing costs. So if you could get something, yeah, it's like if you could get something like, it won't look like this concept, I understand that, but like if you could get something.

Craig Cole (1:14:50)
full-size trucks they're absolutely insane

Chad Kirchner (1:15:02)
Rav4, 4runner-ish, 4runner's kind of big now, but like, you know, a Santa Fe kind of sized or whatever that's really kind of like a like Bronco sport but more Bronco-y. ⁓ I think they're, I agree, I think they'd be in trouble.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:21)
Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see them build something like this. All right. So the ⁓ see what we got next. let's go with Honda Prelude pricing. You know, I got to drive the Prelude a few weeks ago in Japan ⁓ and some others drove it here. Yes. And they've now officially announced the pricing for the U.S.

Craig Cole (1:15:41)
Prelude, not Quelude.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:51)
$43,195 delivered, which is not cheap, but it kind of falls midway between a Civic hybrid sport touring and a Type R. And it's got elements of both. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was figuring. The Type R is up to about 47 now.

Craig Cole (1:16:03)
Mm-hmm. That's about what I would have expected for a car like this, you know, 44 grand.

Chad Kirchner (1:16:10)
But also think it's like three grand too expensive.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:16)
Yeah, I it would I would prefer it to be cheaper. But, you know, it does have all the type R suspension and brakes. It's got the S plus shifting stuff. You know, it's it's actually surprising amount of fun to drive. Yeah. And what one of the things that, you know, that as soon as they announced that they were putting the type R suspension and brakes on there, I figured, ⁓ man, at some point they've got to build a prelude type R.

Chad Kirchner (1:16:21)
.

Craig Cole (1:16:32)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:45)
would just drop the turbo two liter in there. ⁓ And Honda has been avoiding that question. They prefer not to talk about that question. ⁓ Yeah. But, know, ⁓ we might as well ⁓ address a listener comment that actually came in our discord this week, ⁓ which ⁓ is an interesting thing here.

Craig Cole (1:16:45)
huh.

Yeah.

Just like 35s on the recon.

Chad Kirchner (1:17:07)
Yeah, I saw that, which...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:13)
Jeff D in the discord said, whenever I think of Acura Integra, I always think of the OG three door Integra from the mid to late eighties, as opposed to the five door that we have today. ⁓ And says, he almost, I almost bought one, got an Isuzu impulse turbo instead. It would be really cool if Acura made a three door Integra based on the Prelude. And that actually would be really interesting. know, take, take the pre, you know, cause the Prelude is a shorter wheelbase.

than the Civic. Basically, reskin that and you've already got all the good suspension brake bits from the Integra Type S and just put the Integra Type S powertrain in there, which is the Civic Type R, and then sell that for 48, 49 grand. So make that a three door Integra.

Craig Cole (1:17:59)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:11)
What do think about that approach?

Chad Kirchner (1:18:12)
Here's...

here's... here's... a lot. So, I like this idea, and I would almost argue that this is how the car should have come. It shouldn't have been a prelude.

⁓ I also will admit that I think the Prelude is a car designed exactly to my sensibilities, which means it's probably not for a lot of people. I appreciate that they built the Prelude because they can, and not because it makes sense on a balance sheet. So like, I've always liked when Honda has done that. I had an S2000. That made no sense at all financially. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:18:24)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:18:46)
still one of the best cars I've ever driven. I like that part of it. The Prelude was always the two-door Accord and now it's the two-door Civic. I get cars have gotten bigger so maybe that makes kind of more sense there but Prelude's a really weird sell.

Craig Cole (1:18:55)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:19:07)
Because you're right, is three grand, four grand away from a Type R, if you can find a Type R sticker, which you can't. Though I did see a $65,000 prelude over the weekend, because with the dealer markup and everything. excuse me. So I'm not sure like, no, a prelude. Yeah, it's lost on the internet, but yeah, was 10 grand and markup.

Craig Cole (1:19:12)
Mm-hmm

You mean type R, 65,000? Oh, you already saw it at the dealer. Got it. Okay. Gotcha. Already.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:32)
that's

that's nuts i mean i like to play a little lot i would not pay that kind of money for

Craig Cole (1:19:35)
not ten grand.

Chad Kirchner (1:19:36)
$400 for a screen protector for the infotainment screen. to fill the tires with nitrogen. Yeah, it was total ripoff city. But I think that you maybe wouldn't have gotten the Integra Type S if the Integra would have the Prelude. But I think the Integra, or think the Prelude is trying to be a premium product.

Craig Cole (1:19:40)
Get lost. No.

Chad Kirchner (1:20:01)
I think it'd fit better with an Acura badge. I I know that doesn't have power adjustable seats and stuff like that, but add those, add a couple of grand to the price if you need to, slap an Acura badge on it, and I think you're... I think that makes a little bit more sense than it does with a Honda badge, if that makes any sense.

Craig Cole (1:20:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:19)
Yeah, an Integra

Type S is $53,400. if you could do an Acura Prelude Type S for under 50 grand, think that would sell a lot better, I think, than a Prelude.

Craig Cole (1:20:23)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:20:24)
Yeah.

US only, by the way. Or North America only.

Craig Cole (1:20:37)
Mm.

I can't believe the Type S is 55 grand for the Integra. That's just insane. But it's good, so...

Chad Kirchner (1:20:52)
Well, had to put some different, they put

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:54)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:20:54)
some differentiation, but I mean that puts you in like, that puts you in two, three, five, I money. Yeah, like it gets it. Sure. Yeah. And same with whatever, with whatever, you know, the Mercedes or whatever offering, but, you know, and they drive well for front wheel drive cars, things like that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:05)
probably a lot more reliable than a BMW.

Craig Cole (1:21:12)
Hmm.

But 55 grand and that's just the starting price, right? Well, I mean, that's with delivery, of course, which you should include because you have to pay that anyway, but.

Chad Kirchner (1:21:25)
Yeah, but there's really not a lot of options. Yeah.

But like there's a paint color. I think the only real cost on a... is the paint color on the Integra.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:36)
Yeah, everything else is pretty much standard on there.

Craig Cole (1:21:39)
Well, that's good.

Chad Kirchner (1:21:40)
But a two-door

coupe, mean, to your Discord comment, nobody buys those. I would. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:49)
And Honda doesn't

expect to sell a whole lot of them. But because it's sharing so many parts with the Civic and other Honda vehicles, other vehicles that are on that same platform, there's a lot of common componentry on there. So the actual cost to produce this, there's not a lot of unique stuff to this. They can do it. that's why it's $43,000 for the

for the prelude, you know, because there is some cost, but it's not, you know, it's not like they're developing a completely unique platform.

Craig Cole (1:22:26)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:22:26)
Right,

well, so I don't think that they would offer a two-door and a four-door Integra that are as different as what I think they would be if they did it with this stuff. But my question for you, Sam, since you've driven it, is ⁓ is it a more expensive, fancier, more fun to drive Civic hybrid, or is it a detuned, more fuel-efficient Civic Type R? Like, what's the prelude?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:53)
Yes.

Craig Cole (1:22:55)
Ha ha.

Chad Kirchner (1:22:55)
It's

both of those. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:56)
Yes, because

it has the driving dynamics of a Civic Type R because it's got that suspension. can go on into a corner, can trail break it and bring that back end around really nicely and balance it perfectly. ⁓ And at the same time, you've got that Civic Hybrid powertrain in there, which is really, really good. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:23:21)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:23)
As we talked about with the IONIQ 5N, the IONIQ 6N, you've got that fake shifting, the simulated shifting, and the engine sounds and everything. And as with the Hyundai, it feels very authentic. And a big part of the reason why they're able to do that is because of the way the Honda hybrid system works, which is in a lot of ways quite different from the Toyota hybrid system, because it is

actually predominantly electric drive. It's more series hybrid than parallel hybrid most of the time. so because the engine is mostly decoupled from driving the vehicle under the vast majority of driving conditions, even when you're driving quickly on a track, because you've got 181 horsepower from the primary electric motor out of 200 total.

Craig Cole (1:23:56)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It's a good amount. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:23)
⁓ the, yeah.

You know, so you, so you're getting most of the electric drive. So that gives them the freedom to actually manage the engine revs and make it feel like, ⁓ you know, like, you know, or, you know, actually have it cycling up and down as you're shifting and also do the, the torque management of the electric motor. You know, so you get that little, you know, slight drop in, in propulsion as it's doing the shifts. So it has that same very authentic feel that the

that the Hyundai's have. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (1:24:54)
So to

Craig Cole (1:24:54)
but it

Chad Kirchner (1:24:54)
be... So to...

Craig Cole (1:24:54)
does not feel like the old Insight, because with the old Insight, like the engine would just be... Just revving randomly no matter what your foot was doing. Okay, good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:58)
No.

No, it's not. There's nothing like that.

Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:05)
So, but to also be clear, it's the computers choosing to raise engine revs sort of independent of efficiency for the purpose of simulating the...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:19)
Yes. Yeah, when you put it in S Plus mode,

yeah, it's managing the engine based on things like your speed, your lateral acceleration, your yaw rate. using all of those ⁓ inertial motion sensor signals to replicate what the engine would be doing if you were driving just a pure internal combustion vehicle ⁓ and shifting it manually.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:49)
it's way more sophisticated than let's say a CV tiggy with fake shifts in it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:53)
Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Craig Cole (1:25:57)
Nice.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:58)
Yeah, I want to drive it. I'm looking forward to it. think, like I said, I think it might be a car designed for me in a lot of ways. yeah, I also, you know, I don't know. When the price came out, there's a lot of people that said this product was going to be DOA. And it's not, no, it's not the Recon. But.

Craig Cole (1:26:18)
It's not the recon. Maybe I shouldn't say that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:22)
No, think this

would be a lot more appealing than the Recon. And yeah, it's not inexpensive, but again, when you look at it in the context of what else is out there, you compare it to the Civic Hybrid and the Type R, it's right in between those. So you've got kind of the best of both worlds and a different design, that two door form factor.

Craig Cole (1:26:27)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:51)
You know, it's kind of in a unique place and there's nothing else quite like it in the market. You know, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:26:57)
because I think it doesn't make sense. Like,

I think it makes sense for like what they're trying to do, but I don't think it makes sense to a bean counter. And

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:02)
Yeah. ⁓

Well, no, don't think Honda would do it if it didn't make financial sense for them. I think they understand the kinds of volumes that you're going to get with this, which is probably no more than 10 or 15,000 units a year in the US, ⁓ maybe, yeah, after the first year, it'll probably drop off a bit.

Chad Kirchner (1:27:23)
Right. I bet it's slower than that. I bet after the first year it's 5 to 10.

Craig Cole (1:27:31)
But if they made

it a prelude SUV, then they could sell 50,000 of them a year.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:36)
yeah, absolutely.

Chad Kirchner (1:27:38)
or Prelude SI and put the Civic Type R engine in there or something. I don't know. There's, there's, think there's ways to go with it, but I do feel like this was a car that they could build because they can. And I'm sure that they-

Craig Cole (1:27:50)
Wait, it's pronounced S-I?

I've been saying it as C. I thought it was a Spanish market model. I've been saying it wrong this whole time? What?

Chad Kirchner (1:27:53)
C. C. C, Craig. C. It said, it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:55)
Ha ha.

Chad Kirchner (1:28:01)
Dang it anyhow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:03)
All right, let's carry on. ⁓ The Porsche Cayenne Electric. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:28:03)
see.

I appreciate

your courtesy laughter, by the way, for that terrible joke.

Chad Kirchner (1:28:12)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:14)
The the the cayenne electric is now officially out Yeah, you know $111,000 113 kilowatt hour battery 1139 horsepower in the turbo Yeah for 400 kilowatt charging 10 to 80 percent in less than 16 minutes if you can find a charger that

Chad Kirchner (1:28:19)
That's here. Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:28:32)
with the launch mode, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:40)
actually works that fast. Iona's got 400 kilowatt chargers.

Chad Kirchner (1:28:46)
They do, they do, and they're pretty reliable from what I've used. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:28:50)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:52)
And if you're too

lazy to plug in when you pull into your garage, they also offer a wireless charging system for it.

Chad Kirchner (1:28:58)
They do, which this is the first mainstream application in North America, I believe. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:02)
Yeah, BMW did a

pilot, they sold a limited number of five series plug-in hybrids some years back. then ⁓ Genesis, when they launched the GV60 in Korea, it was available, and I don't know if it still is, but it was available at the time with a wireless charging system. This is an 11 kilowatt system.

Chad Kirchner (1:29:09)
There was...

Yep. Yep.

It was. Yeah, because, ⁓

Craig Cole (1:29:21)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:29:23)
yeah, because our friends at my friends at telemetry made a connection to waitress city for the old EV pulse days. Disclosure disclosure alert. I know people at telemetry. Wait, I know Sam disclosure full disclosure. I know Sam outside of this podcast. ⁓ I think

Craig Cole (1:29:31)
Mm-hmm. Why, Tristadee? I think this... this... So does Sam, oddly enough. I think his paycheck is signed to one of his paychecks. His sign went to one

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:39)
yeah.

Craig Cole (1:29:45)
What do you guys think of the

styling of this thing though? I think it's pretty sharp on the outside myself Yeah

Chad Kirchner (1:29:50)
It's fine. Yeah. The interiors. I really want

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:51)
Yeah, still looks like a cayenne.

Chad Kirchner (1:29:54)
to try that interior folded screen thing. I think it's probably going to be silly. I think it's probably going to be silly, but I still want to try it to see if it is silly.

Craig Cole (1:30:01)
The thing here,

I don't think automakers realize, they're so eager to go all in on screens everywhere, but I don't think they realize how dated and tacky that's gonna look in like 10 years. Like, why does this Porsche need so many displays? Like, you don't need that. Nobody's asking for a climate control display. Like, literally nobody. I don't even think passengers need a display, honestly, because they've got...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:14)
Five years.

Chad Kirchner (1:30:29)
But feel like I'm in JJ Abrams' Star Trek universe, though, I'm in something with all the curved displays and stuff. Not the original series, which had all of the tactile buttons and discs and stuff like that, but the JJ Abrams reboot with lens flare and like that's kind of the vibe that I get. I think Portia's bigger problem is they're having a real hard time selling EVs. At least in North America. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:30:30)
this.

Okay.

boy.

Yeah. The macan is not

selling as well, ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:56)
⁓ Yeah, well actually the Mekan, about one third of Mekan sales now are EVs.

Chad Kirchner (1:30:56)
and they're very good EVs.

It's good.

Craig Cole (1:31:03)
Okay,

even in the US? Okay, well good for them then. That's not a bad...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:05)
Yeah, that's what last time I talked to Calvin

Chad Kirchner (1:31:07)
I know Tycon's been floundering.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:09)
Kim

a few weeks ago, that's what he said. Yeah, it's about one third EVs now. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (1:31:13)
Hi Cal.

Craig Cole (1:31:14)
Ha

Chad Kirchner (1:31:17)
I want to drive

your Porsches again, thanks.

Craig Cole (1:31:19)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:19)
The

base Cayenne electric makes do with a mere 402 horsepower. That turbo bumps it up to 1139 with launch control.

Chad Kirchner (1:31:26)
⁓ mirth.

Craig Cole (1:31:27)
You're faster walking.

Chad Kirchner (1:31:32)
something like, Cal once told me it's something like 99 % of Porsche buyers have the ability to, a garage or a workplace for charging. So charging shouldn't be, yeah, so the whole qualifications that we talked about earlier for plug-in hybrids and stuff like that, like those are typically solved here. So I mean...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:41)
yeah. Yeah. mean, you know, they're, more affluent customers.

Craig Cole (1:31:46)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Could you imagine like a

911 turbo s customer living in their car there between jobs or something? It just doesn't happen

Chad Kirchner (1:32:03)
No, um, but I think that like I Think it makes sense. I don't understand why More really rich people don't buy EVs Because like they're still better Like unless you're buying like a collectible or a fun car weekend car kind of thing like your thing to take your kids back and forth to private school give me a car and electric to do that like

Craig Cole (1:32:26)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:32:27)
It'll be excellent. I it'll probably be excellent or good, you know. I would say give me an Audi, but I don't, can't think there's a single Audi I like right now. But, yeah, I, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:40)
Well,

mean the Q6 e-tron is built on the same PPE architecture. ⁓ So, you know, if you like this one, know, the Q6 is going to be pretty similar.

⁓ Interesting thing about the wireless charging system, the transmitter pad that goes on the floor, everything for that is actually contained within that pad. So all you have coming off of that is a cord that you plug in. Everything else, there's no wall box required for it. It's all contained within that pad.

Craig Cole (1:32:55)
Yeah, but it looks nice. I'm sure it drives well.

wow.

Chad Kirchner (1:33:14)
That's cool. Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:33:17)
So you just find your

Chad Kirchner (1:33:18)
That's.

Craig Cole (1:33:19)
1450 outlet, plug it in, or does it get hardwired? I don't know, I would imagine it plugs in. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:23)
I think you can hardwire it too.

Chad Kirchner (1:33:27)
That's, mean, I don't want to say that's like a game changer because it's on a car here and not that many people are going to buy it. But I like the idea of wireless charging. I mean, even before I had a real good demo of it, then, you know, Craig, we did a lot of stuff with the electricity and like a lot of it made sense to me.

Craig Cole (1:33:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:48)
Yeah,

I think one of the big challenges with the wireless charging still has been the cost. I did a research project with a company probably six or seven years ago now ⁓ that was working on a wireless charging system. We did some costing analysis for them. ⁓ at that time, even in volume, it was still going to cost.

somewhere around three to $4,000 for all the components, the bill of materials and the assembly cost. this, I believe that for the system for the Cayenne, I think it's like an $8,000 option, which is kind of nuts. if you're spending the kind of money that the Cayenne's gonna cost, you can afford that.

Craig Cole (1:34:19)
Oof. Oof.

No, I'll plug in. Thanks.

Chad Kirchner (1:34:40)
Yeah, then it doesn't that doesn't matter. Yeah,

it's either get that or get leather wrapped sun visors like

Craig Cole (1:34:48)
Right?

It's the same price. Get red painted little chicklets on the air vents. Oh, that's $4,000 or whatever. Insanity.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:50)
Why choose?

Chad Kirchner (1:34:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:55)
Yeah, that's

if there's if there's one thing that Porsche has learned over the years, it's how to separate customers from their money. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:35:02)
They're very good at it.

Chad Kirchner (1:35:02)
They indeed, they're

very good, very good at that, yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:07)
What color did you want us to match for that piece of leather on the ⁓ shift knob? We can absolutely do that,

Craig Cole (1:35:12)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:35:12)
I match any color

you want. We can absolutely do that. Here's $35,000.

Craig Cole (1:35:14)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:16)
We can tan that, hide whatever color you

want.

Chad Kirchner (1:35:20)
I kinda like the bespoke stuff though, like when Rolls Royce does weird stuff, though their gamer thing this past week was kinda weird, but that's not on the rundown. I think the one thing that Porsche understands that I don't think a lot of automakers do is they'll take your money, they want your money, and it's like, well, why wouldn't you know...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:42)
Well, BMW and Mercedes

understand that pretty well as well.

Chad Kirchner (1:35:45)
There's

yeah, but like there's been times where you're just like, oh, why don't you offer this feature? Why is this feature only locked to this? Why are you making it so hard for me to give you money? Don't put barriers up between giving me your money. I know there's some manufacturing kind of thing, stuff like that, but like it should not be difficult for me to give you more money if I want to do that. And some automakers find ways to put barriers up that just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:09)
Well, mean, one of the things with

Rolls Royce, you mentioned them, they have that, ⁓ I forget what it's officially called, but they've got the fiber optic system in the headliner that shows the night sky. So you got all the stars. And one of the things that they will do for customers, if they ask, is they will find the ⁓ sky map of any day in history, like the day you were born, the day you were married.

Chad Kirchner (1:36:21)
Yeah.

and anywhere, any day,

anywhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:39)
Yeah, from

any location. And they will, they will arrange those little points of light to match the sky on on any day and location.

Chad Kirchner (1:36:49)
When you when you proposed to your wife and you pointed out that particular star in the sky when you were laying outside you can have that recreated in your Rolls Royce and look is it silly? Yes. Is it cool? Yes. Does it take money out? Does it take does it cost money? Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:02)
If you have a half a million dollars to spend on a Rolls Royce, who

cares if it's silly?

Chad Kirchner (1:37:08)
Why why not? I I they they just have a this are a group of people that just sit around and make stuff up and charge for it. I think it's cool. I think it's clever. ⁓ but like there was a time, you know, we talked about Volkswagen just a little briefly with the whole Audi Porsche thing. Like he used to be able to get a Golf R in like 20 different colors. Yeah, he had to pay three grand for it they had to pull it from the line and go send it over to a different like one of the Porsche lines to finish the paint. But like

Do stuff like that. Feeling all nostalgic.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:39)
All right,

Genesis, let's talk Genesis. ⁓ Well, let's start with the Magma GT. Sorry, no, ⁓ actually, let's start with the GV60 Magma.

Chad Kirchner (1:37:43)
Genesis. ⁓ so are we talking like the device from

so you don't want to start like in the beginning, God created heaven and earth Genesis. No, no Phil Collins. No wrath of con Genesis. Give me Genesis. ⁓ the magma GT concepts. yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:56)
No, the Genesis is part of Hyundai Motor Group.

No, not today. ⁓ So the GV60 Magma. Magma

is Genesis's new, Genesis, the performance brand for Genesis. ⁓ So their race, their new ⁓ endurance race, their sports car race team is Genesis Magma Racing. They're launching ⁓ Magma versions of their production models, starting with the GV60 Magma, which was also in LA.

Chad Kirchner (1:38:12)
Yes, magma.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:31)
⁓ This is basically an IONIQ 5N in Genesis clothing and bright orange paint. ⁓ So, same 641 horsepower and all the other goodies, ⁓ but with Genesis styling and orange paint.

Chad Kirchner (1:38:39)
Yep, sign me up.

I do expect it to be a little bit more tame than the 5N in terms of like that kind of raw edged kind of thing because I feel like a Genesis buyer.

It's probably a little too quote unquote mature for the Ionic Five N's hooligan-ness. That's sort of what I've been told from people who still work there. Not to give away any, because I also knew somebody who used to work there, as we all talked about earlier. But I think it's going to be maybe a little bit more adult than that, but I still think it's going to be silly. And it's orange. It's freaking orange. It's a fantastic house.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:03)
We'll see.

Craig Cole (1:39:24)
A fantastic orange too.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:25)
Very orange.

Chad Kirchner (1:39:28)
it's beautiful. And...

Craig Cole (1:39:29)
It reminds me of molten

rock, only if it's below the surface. Perhaps, yes. I was going to say lava, but then no, I think it's more of a magma.

Chad Kirchner (1:39:33)
⁓ so magma is what you're saying. Perhaps.

Mike um I think it's a cool name for a reason for a performance brand I think it's you know we saw a GV 60 magma concept a year so ago looks like this stayed

Craig Cole (1:39:46)
Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:56)
They've done a couple of magma

concepts. They did a G80 magma as well. ⁓ And I'm sure that over the next couple of years we'll be seeing magma variants of probably most of the Genesis lineup. As they start the race program next year, they're out testing right now with the GMR 001 and that's gonna start competing in March ⁓ at the... ⁓

Chad Kirchner (1:40:01)
They did.

Craig Cole (1:40:01)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:40:10)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:40:22)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:25)
the first World Injury Championship race of 2026. ⁓

Chad Kirchner (1:40:29)
Yep. It actually,

the orange actually reminds me a lot of the orange that was on the AMG GTXX concept. ⁓ Yeah. But speaking of, but speaking of like that, like I, the first time in my career, I was able to go to Alphonse Bach earlier this year and ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:38)
Yeah, yeah, it does.

Craig Cole (1:40:38)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:40:51)
Like that place is just like it's so focused around about the racing aspect of Mercedes-Benz as well as the high-performance streetcar kind of stuff and like like it's just it's such a thing and if Genesis can tap into like that thing they're just gonna I mean I don't say they're gonna print money but they're gonna

Craig Cole (1:41:08)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:41:12)
They're going to open up themselves to customers that they haven't had before, and they're going to be able to increase margins. And they're going to just be able to... I think they can really compete with the best from BMW ⁓ and from Mercedes-AMG. If they want to. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:27)
I mean, they've got the resources to do it and I think they've got the will to do it. ⁓

you know, I mean, yeah. So, ⁓ you know, shifting over to France, to Castellet, the Paul Ricard racetrack, which is where the Genesis Magnum racing team is based. they had, I guess they had an event over there this week, ⁓ where they showed off the, ⁓

Craig Cole (1:41:33)
and they have or had Albert Biermann.

Chad Kirchner (1:41:37)
We're done.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:55)
Genesis Magma GT concept, a mid-engine sports car, V8 powered, ⁓ also very orange. What do you think of this one?

Chad Kirchner (1:42:05)
supposedly VA-powered.

Craig Cole (1:42:07)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:42:10)
cool. Yeah, I mean... ⁓

Craig Cole (1:42:10)
It looks fantastic. It's almost like a C8 Corvette in

a way, but much smoother and more rounded. And there's the two line motif.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:18)
cleaner.

Chad Kirchner (1:42:19)
It does kind of in some

ways it does remind me again of that AMG GTXX concept, but I think that's good. think wind tunnels dictate a lot of stuff, but yeah, same. Yeah, same. I don't know, it looks exotic. It looks sporty. It looks fun. looks like... I don't know if I was initially a big fan of this idea of Genesis looking at the Germans.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:27)
I think it's better than the AMG. It's a better looking car.

Craig Cole (1:42:36)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:42:45)
and saying that's what I want to do. I think they have an opportunity to carve out an entirely different part of the segment. ⁓ I still think that they could if they wanted to, but if they're going to embrace the Germans, they're doing it the right way.

Craig Cole (1:43:02)
When they initially announced the Magma products, it was I think at the New York Auto Show a couple years back, they were not calling Magma a sub-brand. Do you guys know if that has changed? Because I asked them specifically and they're like, no, no, these are more special line of vehicles or something to that effect. But they're like, OK, that's like a sub-brand, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:19)
Yeah, I don't I don't think it is

I mean, you know, it's all, you know, six and one half dozen of the other. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't really matter. You know, if you call it a sub brand or not, you know, it's a, in a way, you know, if they're going to have separate models like this, ⁓ GT, you know, it does make it sort of a sub brand of Genesis, you know, which in and of itself is already, you know, started off as a sub brand of Hyundai. Yeah. So, you know, who knows?

Craig Cole (1:43:26)
Semantics.

Chad Kirchner (1:43:28)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:43:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:53)
I think I would be surprised if they don't build a car like this in the next few years. ⁓ Especially, like I said, now that they're going into the hypercar class in WEC ⁓ with that race car, I think that they probably also want to compete in the GT3 class. And this would be a perfect product for them to base a GT3 race car on.

Craig Cole (1:44:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and and Hyundai the Hyundai Motor Group is so aggressive anyway They have no fear of tackling new segments, right? So for them to push into this Hypercar or whatever you want to call it luxury space. I would not be surprised at all for them to do that

Chad Kirchner (1:44:28)
No.

Well, have the I mean they have the money and resources to do it because they're so vertically integrated everywhere else. I mean

a Hyundai car comes off the line and Busan is immediately loaded onto a boat that has Hyundai written on the side of it. it's. Yeah, I mean it's that power that's that's real power. Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:44:46)
Mm-hmm made at a Hyundai shipyard from Hyundai steel

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:49)
Yep. On Hyundai, Hyundai group is into literally everything.

Craig Cole (1:44:55)
It's the entire South

Korean country. Basically.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:59)
Uh, so

that wasn't the only vehicle that Genesis showed off in France. Uh, they showed something called the gene G 90 wing back. Uh, so that, yeah. So the G 90 for those who have forgotten is current Hyundai's current flagship, big luxury sedan. And this is a wagon, um, that

Craig Cole (1:45:10)
Anything, they'll do anything but call it a wagon, right?

Chad Kirchner (1:45:10)
I'm gonna...

Yeah.

A good big look, Jerusalem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:28)
is based on that platform. But you know, the styling has evolved. ⁓ I love this. I love this car.

Chad Kirchner (1:45:37)
I'm gonna say something controversial. I think it's ugly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:38)
Yeah?

You're wrong.

Craig Cole (1:45:41)
The back end has a lot going on.

Chad Kirchner (1:45:42)
I'm fine

with that. Yeah, it looks like somebody said, design the back end and they just didn't stop.

Craig Cole (1:45:50)
Yep. There's a weirdness to the roofline, too. I don't know.

Chad Kirchner (1:45:54)
But I'm wrong, I mean I know

I'm wrong, like I'm fine with being wrong. so, no so am I, I totally, I... I'm tired of concepts, let's say I'm, especially from like Genesis, like they do some production stuff but man they love doing, they love doing concepts and this isn't one of those Genesis X whatever things so it's probably more likely to make production but like...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:56)
Yeah. But I mean, I'm a wagon person, so I love this.

Craig Cole (1:46:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:46:25)
Just say you're gonna build a darn car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:28)
I think they are going to build this one. It will probably never be sold in North America ⁓ because it's a wagon and we can't have nice things. ⁓ But I think that this will be sold in Europe and in Asia. I would love to have it here, but we'd probably never get it. ⁓ Instead, we'll get something like the Grand Equator that they showed in New York.

Craig Cole (1:46:37)
We can't have nice things, exactly.

Mm-hmm. It's like, we mentioned it.

Chad Kirchner (1:46:58)
Yeah. Which.

Craig Cole (1:47:00)
It's like the, we talked

about the Ford Flex earlier. I wish Ford would bring that back. Make a lower roof version on the rear drive, whatever it is, CD6 architecture, like the Explorer or Aviator. Push the roof down a little bit, get rid of some of the off-road capability. Add some more style like you had with the original Flex. It'd be a fantastic product.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:04)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:47:04)
Yeah, like that's.

I have a friend that has two flexes in his garage, one for him and one for his wife. They're all in on. Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:47:22)
They're all in on the flex. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:23)
There's several of them in my neighborhood still.

Craig Cole (1:47:27)
And they haven't made that thing in years.

Chad Kirchner (1:47:29)
no and they look like they're pretty beat now too but yeah i i i like the wagon concept i think that if we're going to start talking more about fuel efficiency especially like ev efficiency and things like that i think wagons kind of become much more of a viable kind of product offering you know but we can't for some

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:29)
That's been five years, I think, since they ended production.

Chad Kirchner (1:47:55)
There's no appetite in the United States for a lot of things. think some of it is because the American customers just different. ⁓ think there's some that's determined so much by automakers and what kind of profit margin they want. I think Ford only wants to build F series trucks. think that's all they care about. ⁓

Craig Cole (1:48:10)
Mm-hmm.

I mean, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:48:20)
I think this car would be a big ask in the US because you're asking somebody to buy a Genesis, which is already a big ask, and then you're offering a body style that only kind of enthusiasts are really going to want, and how many Genesis enthusiasts are there?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:38)
Not that many.

Chad Kirchner (1:48:39)
I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:42)
All right.

Craig Cole (1:48:42)
I

think people forget about wagons and it's very generational. People hated minivans because they grew up in a minivan. I think the next generation of kids is probably going to have a, I say kids, but drivers are going to have a distaste for SUVs perhaps because that's what their family had and what they grew up in, right? So maybe there's an opportunity for a wagon resurgence in the U.S.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:59)
I hope so.

Chad Kirchner (1:49:01)
Yeah, and honestly, and

honestly, I hope so too, because like, as much as I am pro, like, talking about automotive in the industry and things like that, bigger heavy vehicles just kill more people, they kill more pedestrians, they, you know. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:17)
You can't see out of them.

Chad Kirchner (1:49:19)
You can't see, you can't see out of them at all. It's just this problem that we keep having. I think as especially as cities start to focus more on, okay, how do we protect bicycles and cyclists and pedestrians and things like that? think SUVs start to really kind of fall out of favor. ⁓ I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:49:19)
This is true.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:44)
We'll see.

All right, one last item for today. You remember Bollinger motors?

Chad Kirchner (1:49:55)
Hehehehe, they're still around.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:57)
⁓

Sort of. They got bought a couple of years back by a company called Mullen. Sort of. ⁓ They largely abandoned the ⁓ electric pickup truck and SUV that they showed. I'm pretty sure that there were only ever the two examples that they built.

Craig Cole (1:49:59)
Sort of.

Chad Kirchner (1:50:06)
Yes, they're still around.

Craig Cole (1:50:06)
yeah.

Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:25)
one pickup, one SUV. I'm pretty sure there were, there was never a second of either one of those ever built. And, you it was kind of, it was kind of a, you know, a unique design, you know, very boxy. It had a full pass through from the bed all the way through the cab, you know, into the front trunk for, for long items, you know. And, you know, a lot of people got really excited by this thing, but they never raised the money to be able to build it.

Craig Cole (1:50:27)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:55)
but they had also developed a medium duty, electric medium duty truck chassis, which is what Mullen was trying to get to production. Well, apparently, according to the Detroit Free Press, ⁓ the company has stopped paying its bills ⁓ and employees are saying that they haven't been paid in weeks ⁓ and... ⁓

Craig Cole (1:51:01)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:51:03)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:51:16)
Hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:21)
The COO sent an email to employees in late October explaining that they were unable to make payroll. So that's almost a month ago now. A follow-up message a week later indicated the problem had still not been resolved, meaning employees have now gone unpaid for more than six weeks. And they've also stopped paying their suppliers and vendors and stuff. ⁓ So my guess is that Mullen is, or ⁓ Bollinger is probably gonna be.

Chad Kirchner (1:51:30)
I wouldn't be an employee anymore.

Craig Cole (1:51:38)
problem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:50)
finally done for good before long. No.

Craig Cole (1:51:52)
Is anyone surprised? I mean...

Chad Kirchner (1:51:55)
No,

so before the Mullen acquisition, I was doing a lot of work with Truck Trend, and ⁓ all of our friends, I'm assuming all of our friends, ⁓ Ms. Valentine was representing Bullinger. I won't say her last name on here, but she was repping Bullinger with her agency. ⁓ So she put me in front of Mr. Bullinger several times for interviews, and

He never really had a lot of great answers to certain questions. I think the vehicle, the truck and the SUV, I think they were interesting in a we're going to the moon retro sci-fi kind of way. ⁓

But they also really kind of lacked sort of any sort of design cohesiveness, things like that. They were really leaning kind of on maybe an old school, or not an old school Land Rover Cruiser, but like an old school ⁓ Defender, like a Ranger Land Rover Defender kind of vibe, ⁓ which is now kind of filled a bit by Ineos, though I've heard they've been having a little problems too, But like, just, it was just like, who's this four where it wasn't

Craig Cole (1:52:51)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (1:53:09)
set by anything else. who, you know, that wasn't the questions were being answered by other automakers already in that kind of EV space. The pivot, the moment pivot to commercial, I think makes a lot of sense, because I think electrification in commercial makes a lot of sense. Even if some of the people have pulled back from it. I've just seen so much good stuff. And I've talked to enough people that a lot of the apprehension of switching to EVs in commercial trucking and things like that is less

about will this save us money or will this save us on maintenance, the apprehension is still that, EVs are woke kind of thing. if you get over that, if you get kind of over that hurdle, I think there's a lot of things that make sense. And looking at the Drive article that you shared in the rundown, that kind of broke down the Mullen truck, like, you know, it was using Dana for axles, which I think is a good idea. O &E, which I think is still a great concept of a company, even though they

fired their CEO and brought their CEO back and like yeah yeah but like it was but like I liked what they're doing and they've been having trouble and it's just so if mainstream automakers can't figure it out

Craig Cole (1:54:13)
Is that like a concept of a plan? It's a concept of a company?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:16)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:54:34)
What hope do you kind of have as a startup? I know it's a very defeatist kind of way to bring into it, but.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:37)
And this does not bode

Craig Cole (1:54:39)
But. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:40)
well for Slate either. I think Slate's gonna have they have Bezos money, but I think they also have the wrong form factor for their vehicle.

Craig Cole (1:54:42)
No, well they have Bezos money though.

Chad Kirchner (1:54:42)
No!

Well, song based, that's my view.

Craig Cole (1:54:51)
Mm. Mm.

Chad Kirchner (1:54:52)
Yeah, like I think there's, again, like the prelude, like I think for the right customer, I just don't think there's a lot of right customers. And in the case of like a prelude, sure, Honda doesn't need to make a bunch of cars because they make...

series and things like that. ⁓ I was just explaining to one of our GM friends recently, Sam, on that trip to New York, I think slate, like if GM would introduce a slate kind of vehicle, I think that could do reasonably well for them because they don't need to bet the entire company on one product. Bollinger had to bet his entire company on this one or two products that

aren't necessarily built for a large audience. And the slate customers also, the total addressable market of a slate customer is pretty small. I don't know how you make a car company work off of that. A brand or a sub-brand? Sure. Whole company?

Craig Cole (1:55:33)
Here's ⁓

Maybe they never intended to succeed. Perhaps it was just a cash grab and this sounds super cynical. Perhaps it was just a cash grab when, you know, government subsidies were being offered. It's a way to get money. I don't know. I'm not saying they did that specifically. For any, like, startup niche EV maker, I think.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:01)
for Slate or for Bollinger or for both.

Chad Kirchner (1:56:09)
Well, I even have like, much more optimistic about Scout, but I still have questions. mean, one of our, one of our colleagues has said like, she's like, well, what, happens after, what else can they offer? They can offer a truck and an SUV and they can offer in larger sizes and smaller sizes. And like, that's kind of it. Like, is that enough to sustain? Cause you can't have a Scout Sedan, you know, ⁓ not that Sedans are popular or not, but like, what's the...

What's the bigger play?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:38)
Outback sized,

know, an Outback style wagon.

Chad Kirchner (1:56:42)
Yeah, mean, maybe you can do that. And again, I Scout's in a much better place. I do. I genuinely do.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:47)
Yeah, Scout

is part of the VW group. ⁓ there's already some, well, I mean, they're 100 % owned by Volkswagen AG. So they're part of the group.

Chad Kirchner (1:56:53)
Sort of.

But they're

not Volkswagen AG, though. They are an independent entity. They just happen to have gotten all of their money from Volkswagen.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:01)
No, but they are right. Yeah, and it's owned

by Volkswagen AG. So it's a separate business unit.

Chad Kirchner (1:57:11)
But it's not on their site though.

But it's not on their website as a known by. I'm splitting hairs. I'm sorry, I'm splitting hairs. For practical purposes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:16)
It well, yeah, I mean, it's it's all you know,

they are owned by Volkswagen AG, just like ⁓ Electrify America is owned by Volkswagen AG. It's a separate business unit. But you know, so it's technically a separate business entity. It's a separate company. But 100 % of the shares are owned by Volkswagen. So, you know, it is technically part of the company. ⁓ And so, you know, in that case, you know, they are going to be using components from

other Volkswagen Group ⁓ units, ⁓ like the range extender engines are going to come from the Volkswagen Group. ⁓ Their ⁓ EE architecture is going to come from the Volkswagen Rivian Joint Venture and the software platform is coming from there. ⁓ And, you know, there were some recent reports that Audi is looking to build an SUV of their own based on the Scout platform. So, you know, I think that they're more part of the group than they aren't.

Craig Cole (1:58:07)
Mm-hmm

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:15)
And so that helps them. for a long time, I've actually been skeptical of the prospects for Scout because as you said, you've done the pickup and the SUV, then where do you go from there? And how many of those are they really going to sell? Especially given what we now know about the market for electric.

Chad Kirchner (1:58:15)
Yeah, yeah, I think that like, because I was there, it does.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:44)
large pickup trucks, which is a lot smaller than people thought it was. So I think they're going to have a tough time. A couple of years ago, I was on Auto Line After Hours with John McElroy, and think it was asked what I thought about prospects for Scout. And at that time, I gave it a 50-50 chance of ever getting to production.

Craig Cole (1:58:45)
Mm-hmm.

huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:59:07)
And I'm not sure that it's much better than that now.

Chad Kirchner (1:59:10)
I I would probably give it a closer to 60 or 70 I think. Maybe because I'm just being a little optimistic. ⁓ But I think most of their volume will be in... they need to get the SUV right. ⁓ I mean they need to get both right, but I think the SUV is definitely something they need to get right. ⁓

We we still don't know what the range extended engines were going to be it's probably going to be some version of that e 80 80 80 80 81 but something like 90 there was a number that came out that said we're ordered as the e-rev of the pre-orders so like that's both a good and a bad sign i mean it's a good sign because they know how many engines they need but it's like a bad sign for like the long-term kind of plans of like scout

Sam Abuelsamid (1:59:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, I've heard 85%, but yeah, it's the vast majority of them.

Craig Cole (1:59:48)
Mm-hmm.

Makes sense.

Chad Kirchner (2:00:01)
But I like that scouts thumbing their nose to Volkswagen dealers because dealers can be problematic sometimes. They might not be the best partners, just in case you have any dealers listening. Sometimes you guys aren't the best partners to automakers. Sometimes you are. Or to customers. Sometimes y'all are. But there's bad apples out there.

Craig Cole (2:00:08)
you

You mean a $10,000 markup on a Type R, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:15)
or to customers.

Chad Kirchner (2:00:26)
I can kind of see why Scout's like, ehh, EVs, dealers tend to not like EVs, so let's figure this out in a separate sort of way. like, Sam, if you're 50 % on Scout, you've got to be like what, 30 % on Slate?

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:44)
Yeah, about that.

Yeah, you know, think I like the idea of what Slate wants to do. And I would be much more positive on them if they had chosen a different form factor. If they had done a four door crew cab pickup, then I would have been much more positive on their prospects. But with a two door, I just don't see it selling beyond, except for fleets, you know, like there's a lot of fleets that they'd buy Ford Mavericks because they're cheap.

Chad Kirchner (2:00:55)
Yes, same.

Yeah.

Craig Cole (2:01:15)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:01:16)
simple, good delivery vehicles and stuff like that. I do not see, and I think that's the same customer for the slate, ⁓ for some local deliveries, things like that, delivering auto parts. other than that, don't see most, there's a very small niche of consumers that want a vehicle like that, but it's a small, small niche.

Chad Kirchner (2:01:31)
Yeah, we're going to find out.

We are going to find out that if a car company had an idea based entirely on the internet comment section, can that be successful? ⁓

And I don't know, because you go into the comments section I covered, I mean before Craig and I worked a lot on EVs, like I spent a lot of time talking about trucks, and the comments were non-stop, I want something basic, give me a two-door basic, whatever, like just that's what I want, the trucks are too expensive, this is solving...

Craig Cole (2:02:11)
You can go buy a regular cab

truck now and nobody does.

Chad Kirchner (2:02:16)
Yeah, well, I think

there's some self-fulfilling prophecy there with what dealer stock and what manufacturers send to dealers. yeah, but I think that ⁓ Slate's gonna be, they're using somebody else's money, thank goodness, to answer this question.

Craig Cole (2:02:21)
Sure, but if you wanted one, you can get one. You'll just have to order it, probably.

Chad Kirchner (2:02:36)
This is an internet design truck. Like this is bare bones basic cheap, intentionally cheap, will probably feel cheap. ⁓ I think people want less expensive vehicles, but I don't think many of them want to feel like they're poor. Like I don't think you want to be reminded that you're poor when you drive your car. Not there's nothing wrong with being poor, I'm poor. But like there's, there's what, and I think that the stuff that I've seen from the slate so far has been

Craig Cole (2:02:50)
you

Chad Kirchner (2:03:05)
cheap for the sake of being like really cheap like creaking doors and fit and finish and stuff like that and they're gonna have to get that even if the car is cheap they're gonna have to get stuff like that right and i know we're still a ways away yet from potentially seeing a production car but

The total addressable market, tiny. Because I think a four door would have potentially more sense. think that, you know, I think there's choices they've made. But if it's sub $30,000 as an EV without incentives, I mean, and it's so good and the leaf is really good.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:46)
but you can get a Nissan Leaf.

And the Leaf's got 300 miles

Craig Cole (2:03:50)
Very good.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:53)
of range

and it is a really good vehicle.

Chad Kirchner (2:03:56)
Yeah, I mean people are getting out of the 260 mile version they're getting 300 miles out of that so like the 30 grand one that's Will probably be closer to 320 330 on range like And it seats five and has a hatch, you know, I Don't know I'm with you Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:16)
It makes a lot more sense. All

Craig Cole (2:04:17)
Good luck to Slate.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:20)
right. Well, thank you gentlemen for joining me today and filling in. ⁓ Always good to talk to you guys and we'll talk to everybody next time. Bye.

Craig Cole (2:04:24)
Thank you.

Chad Kirchner (2:04:32)
Bye!

Craig Cole (2:04:33)
See ya.