Sam Abuelsamid (00:00)
is Episode 435 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

Nicole (00:06)
I am Nicole Wakelin from Top Speed.

Roberto Baldwin (00:09)
I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:13)
And ⁓ this last week Glen Robbie and I recorded, I was already in Vegas getting prepared for CES. ⁓ now Nicole is back with us and there's a bunch of stuff from CES to talk about and a bunch of other stuff too. There's lots happened this week.

Nicole (00:22)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

There is.

It was a week full of stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (00:36)
Craziness.

Craaaziness.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37)
Yes, yes, lots of craziness.

But let's start with what we've been driving. Nicole? Yeah.

Nicole (00:43)
Do I get to go first? Okay, I

have been driving the 2026 Subaru Outback Premium in Sapphire Blue Pearl. It's very pretty, actually. I decided blue cars are my favorite color. I like red cars, but red is red. The Sapphire's all these pretty blues.

Roberto Baldwin (00:51)
Ooh, suffer.

Like that song from the

90s about blue cars.

Nicole (01:01)
What? ⁓ is there some, I don't even remember it.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:03)
Remember that song.

Roberto Baldwin (01:04)
Tell

me all your thoughts on God, because I really like Demeter. That song, yeah. I think the car, I think the song is called Blue Cars. Yeah.

Nicole (01:06)
⁓ now I know what you're talking about. Yes, I do. Blue cars. Well, this

is not that song, but it is a blue car. ⁓ So the Outback was completely redesigned seventh generation of this. So they've done all sorts of great stuff to make it newer, faster, stronger. ⁓ It's much boxier. This is very boxy, rugged, like it was curvier. It's.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:28)
It's different.

Nicole (01:31)
Tell us what you really think, Sam. So they've changed how it looks. ⁓ You know, it's funny because the styling, I feel like the SUV sort of swing one direction and then the other. go very like, we must not look like an SUV. We want to fake you out. I want you to think I'm a coupe. I'm just rounded and curvy and sexy and like, no, I'm an SUV. I'm boxy. And this one went the boxy direction. ⁓ So the MSRP on this, it starts. don't have a monroney. I know you're Thirty four nine.

and destination what I have you guys want to take a guess I got three different numbers so I'm going with one of them

Roberto Baldwin (02:07)
Ooh, ooh, 1300.

Pick whatever number I picked.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:12)
I'm gonna go with

$14.95.

Nicole (02:14)
Okay, I had 1450 so Sam wins. also found another spot that said 1595 but that seemed like a weird number so we're going with 1450. Sam wins no matter what. Sam wins. Nicole's always wrong. Sam always, I'll call this problems. Sam always wins. That's how it works.

Roberto Baldwin (02:18)
Uhhh...

Yeah, that sounds... Either way, Sam wins.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:29)
No, I

think Robbie some someday will go back through and do some stats, but I think Robbie actually wins more often than anybody

Roberto Baldwin (02:37)
gosh, I don't want

Nicole (02:37)
Is Robbie

Roberto Baldwin (02:38)
to... I hope it's not me. It has to go back and do all the specs.

Nicole (02:38)
the winner more often? Maybe we'll have to see. So ⁓ it's two row cross, was five rows, five person, two row cross over five rows. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (02:43)
haha

Roberto Baldwin (02:48)
five rows.

Nicole (02:51)
Mine has right now, is, it's January in New Hampshire, so it has the super rugged plastic floor mats designed to keep the salt from eating your car. And it's funny, the regular ones are in the back, like they swapped them out. like, there's the pretty ones. They're like in the cargo area Glen I lifted it up. But those get destroyed in a heartbeat if you live anywhere where there's salt. So this is kind of like the perfect condition. This is like why you buy a Subaru if you live in New England is the month of January. That's pretty much it. Because it'll get you through whatever you have.

Roberto Baldwin (03:00)
Nice.

Nicole (03:21)
drove it in. We had a little bit of an ice storm and I was driving around in that because I had to and then it was encased in ice in my driveway to the point that I had to like bang on the door like bang bang bang bang like release door like yeah bang bang bang around the seam of the door. It's like please be free please be free. So ⁓ it was great and even my driver was covered with ice because of Glen I came home and ice is like the trickiest of things. Snow is one thing but Glen it's icy and the control you have Glen it's icy and your tires

makes

such a big difference, but it was really good driving around in really horrific conditions. Didn't have any problems getting over the little snow banks. I see a little mass at the end of the driveway. So as far as winter weather driving, which I don't always get to test a vehicle in, I did test this one and it was fabulous. There's a 2.5 liter four cylinder under the hood. It's 180 horsepower, 178 pound feet of torque. There's a CVT. You know this is a CVT like you really know this is a CVT. It is a bit

Sam Abuelsamid (04:19)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (04:21)
on the loud side. ⁓ It's like almost disturbingly so. I was a little disappointed in how loud it was because you don't have to really...

between the sound of the engine and the sound CVT, just constantly sounds like it's working really, really hard. Now, I think it's one of those things that if you're not someone who is criticizing and critiquing cars like the three of us do, you might just say, ⁓ engine, whatever. But it is kind of loud. It's not exactly the quietest driving experience. But it gets you up to speed. I mean, it's strong enough. It wasn't a problem driving it. You got going. It was good. So in terms of that, I enjoyed it. And there's now a 12.1 inch

infotainment touchscreen. There's a 12.3 inch digital instrument cluster. So it looks, you know, it has an updated look. It looks modern inside. Felt like the touchscreen was nice and responsive, which is good. The only thing I could not get, it it fought with me the whole time. So I don't know if this was just, I even took the case off of my phone. So I could not get the Qi little charging pad to work.

And it's and at first, sometimes my case does that just because of my case. So I popped it off. I put it in there. It still won't work. It is as centered as one can possibly get it on that little charging pad. It wouldn't work. then Glen I finally got it, like it would be like off on off on off on. But it's also it's just smooth, smooth plastic. So even if you do get it in the right spot, the first time it has an opportunity to move a quarter of inch out of place, it's like, you stopped. I'm sliding out of place. So that

was like my biggest complaint. Gosh dang it, make it so that your phone doesn't slide around on the charging pad. Like give it some kind of little bumpers or give it some kind of click into place or something to keep it from just shooting around inside that center cubby area.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:11)
Nissan's

got you covered on the starting on some of their 2026 models. They got they got the first G2 with the magnets in there.

Nicole (06:14)
I know.

I love this idea. Make everything just stay. Because then you know too, then you're not doing that. Like you're like, is it on? Is it on? No, is it on? Like you ever do that? You're kind of just keep sliding a little bit, slide a little bit, slide a little bit until you think, wait, there you go. And you realize that it's, but then as soon as it, you go around the corner, this one's really bad for letting your phone slide. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (06:20)
I don't know, it's magnets.

Yeah.

We have wireless charging in the Hyundai and

we never use it. And it's below, it's on the bottom, we should use it a lot. You can get to it and it's in a spot where it shouldn't slide, there's a little lip for it. Everything should work as it should and it does Glen you plug in a burst. I always forget it's there.

Nicole (06:41)
I use it all the time. ⁓

Yeah.

I love

Sam Abuelsamid (06:54)
Well,

Nicole (06:55)
having wireless charging.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:56)
on the EV6, it's right on the center console. you just drop your, just drop, it's.

Nicole (07:00)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (07:00)
⁓ that's how I lost my phone. That's how I...

Nicole (07:02)
You lost it?

Roberto Baldwin (07:03)
Well, I left it in the car at an EV6 GT drive, because we were doing, you know, were drifting, and it shut off. And I got back to the hotel and I had to call them and be like, I think I left my phone in the car and I had find my iPhone on. And they're like, okay. And then they went to the taco place before they brought me the iPhone. I was really tempted. They like text them again and be like, hey, could you bring me some tacos?

Sam Abuelsamid (07:07)
⁓

Nicole (07:10)
Uhhh... god.

jeez.

Yeah,

while you're out, I could take a taco before you come back. I've been stressed about my phone. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (07:28)
If you guys could bring me some tacos. I wasn't really stra- I

Sam Abuelsamid (07:30)
Well, then.

Roberto Baldwin (07:31)
mean can get mostly everything I needed on my computer, like all my text messages, emails, everything. The phone's locked.

Nicole (07:34)
Right, still. That is the worst panic though.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:36)
The

big problem we have both in the EV6 and I've had in a lot of other cars is after a couple of minutes it comes up and says, your phone's getting too hot. And it's not clear why that. And then ⁓ on a bunch of other cars, like the one that's in my driveway right now, you get the message that you can't charge, ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (07:47)
Too hot. Yeah, it'll stop charging

It's-

Sam Abuelsamid (08:05)
You can't have metallic objects in between the phone and the I mean, phone is a metallic object.

Nicole (08:07)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (08:12)
But

you can't wrap it in aluminum foil. So yeah, we just, I don't know, we plug it in.

Nicole (08:13)
There is going to be metal.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:20)
Yeah,

Nicole (08:21)
I never plug my in. Yeah, I like the wireless. So

Sam Abuelsamid (08:21)
that's what I did. I put a cable in the car for my wife and she just plugs it in most of the time.

Nicole (08:25)
I try to use it in press cars and some of them work. Well, some of them don't this didn't. But overall, mean, I I do like the Subaru. It is the the car that you get Glen you want durable rugged. And I was even looking at, know, like I said, there was ice. So there is durable rugged, durable, durable, durable. I spoke to not in gerbil gerbil rugged. It's gerbil. It's rugged.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:37)
Wait, durable, rugged? durable. Okay, I'm sorry. I miss her.

Roberto Baldwin (08:41)
Now she said gerbil rugged like gerbil rugged

Sam Abuelsamid (08:46)
Because I know root gerbals don't seem

like the most rugged animals to me ⁓

Nicole (08:51)
Well, you know, they're pretty cute. Did you ever have a gerbil? I mean, they're pretty sneaky little things. Anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (08:51)
They dry Kia soles.

Nicole (08:55)
⁓

I did like driving it and you know, for the for the case study of like I live in New England, I want a car that has plenty of room that can handle the mud and the muck and also the salt. There is a lot of salt on this car. Like the blue is not really blue. It's kind of a hazy white at the moment. But that's like the worst for your car. But it also means the conditions have been terrible and it's fine. Even getting in and out of the car, like I'm looking at getting on the, you know, the really rugged floor mats that I was talking about. But it's it's not so delicate that every time I get in, I think, oh gosh, what am I breaking?

Roberto Baldwin (09:11)
⁓

Nicole (09:27)
I

actually am not worrying about it. Like not like I'm trying to ruin the Subaru, but there are some cars you get in in this time of year and you think, ⁓ man.

My shoes are destroying this thing. You don't worry about it as much, which is kind of nice. It's sort of nice that you feel like you don't have to panic that you've destroyed your car because there's salt on the roads or chemicals or whatever the heck they're putting on it, wherever you live, because it's harsh on things. But it does have that rugged, durable feel to it so that you don't think that you're going to ruin your car. And I feel like that's kind of why you buy Subaru. You want it to hold up and you want to be able to handle things like

Sam Abuelsamid (09:56)
Yeah

Nicole (10:04)
snow and winter. Yes. No. No. That's it.

Roberto Baldwin (10:04)
You just want a rugged car that's comfortable, that doesn't have a lot of frills, and has a lot of buttons in it. That's it. And you have

a dog. That's it. That's why you buy a

Nicole (10:15)
Or kids, because a dog or kids equal levels of mess, the kids probably more. But yeah, dog or kids, this is the car. Yeah, but kids are destructive little buggers.

Roberto Baldwin (10:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:21)
Kids don't usually have claws though.

Nicole (10:28)
They are. Kids do things unexpected. Dogs scratch stuff and chew on things. Kids, you're like, how did this, what happened? How, how did this fall apart? What did you do? So yeah. So overall, mean, I like it. I think it's nice improvements. I know styling, can tell Sam, you're like, but I like how it looks. I think it looks okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:45)
Hey, know, mean,

as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I'm not beholding any beauty here, but you know, that doesn't mean it's not a good vehicle.

Nicole (10:53)
I don't know that I'm beholding beauty. Beauty's going a little far. I'm beholding attractiveness.

Roberto Baldwin (10:57)
It's fine. I feel like it's It's too

it's too SUV and the outback was always like a wagon. That's my biggest that's my biggest sort of like hmm But but also like that's what people buy if you're Subaru you make like, you know seven cars Yeah

Nicole (11:04)
Yeah, it looks and feels like an SUV. Yeah, it's lost its Wagonee vibe. Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:04)
Yeah, what-

But yeah, well, and they have the trail seeker coming now. mean, you

Nicole (11:16)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:17)
for

people who prefer the look of the old Outback, you know, frankly, of all the Outbacks before this one. Yeah, you know, the trail seeker, you know, that's that's the car for you. So I'm curious, you know, you know, obviously, you you used CarPlay most of the time, but did you mess around with the

Nicole (11:25)
Every Outback Pryor.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:39)
the new infotainment system? Because this one is the first Subaru, I think, with a new infotainment system in there, a new Subaru infotainment system, unlike the Soltera, which has a Toyota, a skinned Toyota system. This has Subaru's new system in there. Did you play with that at all?

Nicole (11:56)
I I played around with it a little bit. didn't deep dive into it. But I did think that the system more than...

old Subaru systems was more responsive. Like I feel like it's the layout. thought it was better. It's an improvement. It's not a dramatic improvement to me, but I thought the old system was kind of it felt old. Let's put it that way. It just felt old and how it was laid out and how it looked. Just even the design of the icons and stuff on the screen like the it had an old style look to the graphics. Almost this one now looks modern. This one looks a little better. Looks a little current. I didn't have any issues with it. I thought it was

more intuitive than the old one. So yeah, definitely better than what the prior Subaru systems were.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:41)
Yeah, because last week I talked to.

Roberto Baldwin (12:41)
Sam and I described,

yeah, described the old system as an old iPad.

Nicole (12:47)
Yes,

that's it was it just like everything worked on the old one. You're just like, this feels like it needs to be newer. It just. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:55)
Yeah, I mean, last week Glen you weren't here, I talked about

the ⁓ WRX TS that I had, which great car. I really liked that car except for the infotainment system, which was slow and clunky and took a while to boot up. yeah, was basically like using a gen one iPad in 2025.

Nicole (12:59)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and this

one, it's lost that feel. Like, it's not like this is some giant step forward in infotainment systems, but it's an improvement over what Subaru was doing before. If you had an old Subaru with the older system and you now get the new Subaru, you're like, oh, they fixed this. So yeah, I think it's better.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:30)
And,

and I believe in your neighboring state of Vermont, Subaru's are the only cars that you're legally allowed to register for use on the road, right?

Roberto Baldwin (13:36)
Yeah, there's like a law.

Nicole (13:36)
Correct,

correct. They won't let you register anything but a Subaru. I think even in New Hampshire, there's a limited amount of time you can live here before you're required to register at least one.

Roberto Baldwin (13:45)
It just shows up at your, it just shows up in your driveway.

Nicole (13:48)
One day you're fancy. It's your time in the Subaru. ⁓ Here it is. You can stay now. Yeah, so that's the Subaru Outback.

Roberto Baldwin (13:48)
You're like, what did this come from? You get a bill, you're just like, okay. I guess this is, this is how I live. Okay, fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:48)
Here's your Subaru.

Nicole (14:00)
So I liked it overall. Nice improvements. I think they did a good job, I think, other than like you're saying, less wagging, more ⁓ SUV. But if you're OK with that, I think this is a good vehicle and they did some good improvements to it. There we go.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:14)
Okay, cool.

Roberto Baldwin (14:15)
Woo!

Sam Abuelsamid (14:17)
Well, did you drive anything Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (14:20)
I did not. um, what was I doing? I don't know, working, I guess. Did I drive anything? You talk, I'll look.

Nicole (14:25)
Okay, two wins.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:27)
Yeah.

Nicole (14:29)
Utah comic.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:31)
Well, I had ⁓ I had two different ⁓ compact crossovers that I spent time with that. One is larger and less expensive ⁓ and definitely, I think, less fun to drive. And the other one is arguably less attractive, ⁓ but but more fun to drive. Actually, won't.

Nicole (14:53)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (14:56)
Even the other one is not terribly attractive. So I had the twenty twenty six Honda HRV all wheel drive Excel, ⁓ which is the the highest trim level of the Herve. And unlike Subaru, you know, where they call their base model premium on all their vehicles, which is kind of odd. ⁓ Yeah. Honda Honda doesn't do stuff like that. They just have random letters and and stuff. So you get.

Roberto Baldwin (15:02)
Herv!

Nicole (15:04)
curve.

Confusing.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:25)
The EXL is the highest trim level of the Herve, the HRV. ⁓ And so this is the second generation of HRV in North America. ⁓ The first generation was based on the Honda Fit platform. And the rest of the world got an updated HRV that's based on the latest generation of the Fit or Jazz, depending on where you live. But because we don't get that vehicle here in North America anymore.

Roberto Baldwin (15:49)
Ciao.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:54)
They gave us a new HRV that is a little bit bigger and it's now based on the Civic platform. ⁓ And, you know, the styling is not it's not bad. It's just kind of meh. It's kind of boring, kind of a blob. You know, so it's not it's not exciting. It's not it's absolutely an offensive.

Roberto Baldwin (16:14)
You could

rob a bank and they wouldn't be able to find you. If you got a white one of these, they're like, where'd they go? Where'd they go? I don't know. It's like getting in a Corolla.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:18)
Exactly. Yeah, this this is like the ultimate camouflage car It's sitting right there. No, what

Nicole (16:19)
the

Sam Abuelsamid (16:25)
I don't see anything. Yeah, it's right there at the curb. I wear I don't see it you know At least at least this one unlike the ADX which is you know, basically the same car But you know more more premium ⁓ This one thankfully did not come in urban gray ⁓ it

Roberto Baldwin (16:28)
I will never catch these thieves, criminal masterminds.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:47)
This one was finished in a silver, which is slightly less boring. ⁓ But, ⁓ you know, it's a fine car to drive. It's fortunate. It has less power than the Acura ADX, but it also weighs about 300 pounds less. So, you know, that's a plus. That was one of my complaints with the ADX.

Nicole (16:51)
Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:12)
The powertrain was okay, but it was too heavy. It was about 3,600 pounds. The HR-V is about 3,300. And ⁓ really, with the first generation HR-V, my biggest complaint with the car was the powertrain. That one had a 1.8 liter four cylinder with a CVT. This time around, it still has a CVT, but it's got the base two liter naturally aspirated four cylinder that's in the, that you can also get in the Civic.

which is I think about 149 horsepower, if I recall correctly, or sorry, 158 horsepower. So, you know, it's definitely more, you know, significantly more powerful than the first gen or the previous generation HRV. But, you know, it's not gonna get your blood boiling. It's not exciting. But, you know, it's also, it's not a slug. So.

The one I had was, so it was the all wheel drive EXL. ⁓ When you get inside, ⁓ if you've been in a current generation Civic, the environment will feel very familiar. ⁓ Honda's gone to this more ⁓ horizontal theme like a lot of car companies do. It makes it look wider and larger than it is. Across the center of the dash, spanning all the way across.

⁓ is this hexagonal mesh ⁓ type of grill and the vents are behind that and the vents are manually controlled as they should be in any proper car. ⁓ The ⁓ seats are typical Honda comfortable. They're not, this one, the EXL has ⁓ some power seats for the driver but it doesn't have a huge number of adjustments, basically four aft.

Nicole (18:47)
Woohoo!

Sam Abuelsamid (19:06)
height and ⁓ the seat back ⁓ angle ⁓ But that's fine, you know for somehow Honda just makes them work work really well ⁓ They're fairly supportive ⁓ the the HRV ⁓ Like the Civic has a conventional shifter. It doesn't have the push button Style that you find on a lot of Honda's and Acura's these days ⁓ It's got three knobs ⁓ under the center vents

for your temperature controls and fan speed. ⁓ There's another knob on the side of the nine inch touch screen that sits on top of the dash for volume. ⁓ It's just all very functional ⁓ and works well. The one that I had had the gray, because it's an EXL, has leather interior. It has gray perforated leather. You can also get it in black, ⁓ which looks a little more.

The gray, the gray looks a little brighter, you looks makes it look a little feel a little more open and airy. But, you know, I'm not sure I'd actually want to have the gray, especially if I had to home my dogs around or kids, because it's you know, it's a it's a very light gray. And so it's you know, it's much more likely to pick up colors that it didn't originally have. Let's put it that way. Yes. Magic, magic colors.

Roberto Baldwin (20:26)
you

Magic colors.

Nicole (20:32)
you

Sam Abuelsamid (20:33)
You know the driving dynamics are fine it handles and rides reasonably well, you know as you would expect of anything with the Civic platform ⁓ He said it you can definitely feel the difference in the weight between this and an 80x the 80x Even though Acura is supposed to be the performance brand of Honda That particular car just because it's heavy just doesn't feel that lively this one

you know, not as lively as a Civic, but definitely, I think, better than the ADX to drive, even though it has a little less power. ⁓ And overall, you know, it's as a as an urban, know, as a relatively compact urban commuter crossover. You know, I think it works really well. I think, you know, one of the things that, you know, this one obviously misses being based on the Civic rather than on the FIT platform. ⁓ The old the old one had

⁓ The Honda Magic seats that you could either flip them down so you have a big flat load floor or you can flip the rear seat cushions up ⁓ Which you know if you have a tall object to put in there like a bicycle for example ⁓ You can fit some really tall stuff in there because it's got a relatively flat floor and those seats fold up and you get get them out of room ⁓ The HRVs wheelbase is a little bit shorter than a Civic. So you actually get a little bit less legroom

in the HRV than you do in a Civic, but you get more headroom, because it's taller. So you're trading off, on the proportions of the people you're gonna carry around. If you've got younger children with long torsos, the HRV may be a better choice. ⁓ Otherwise, ⁓ if they got long legs, the Civic might be a better choice for you. ⁓ All in, let's see, the one that I had, let's get to,

is strange. Oddly enough, this one did not have a Maroney, which is fairly unusual for for here. But I think it's because this one had just come into the the local press fleet and they didn't have it all scanned and put in the system yet. So ⁓ total MSRP on this one with for the Excel, basically no other options on it. know, Honda tends to package stuff. So there's not a lot of individual options with Hondas. ⁓

Basically, you picked your trim level and it's got a certain set of stuff. There are a bunch of user dealer installed accessories that you can get, but all in this one came to $33,300, which is not bad. Like I said, it's not an exciting car to look at, but it works. It's functional, gets the job done. It's got a decent amount of cargo room, decent amount of space.

⁓ You want to take a guess at the destination fee?

Roberto Baldwin (23:32)
Errrr

Nicole (23:36)
I was gonna say that. I'm gonna go, dang it, Robbie. I'm gonna go lower. I'm gonna go, no, I'm gonna go higher. I'm gonna go 1350. That's not it. I win? Take that, Robbie. Stealing my number.

Roberto Baldwin (23:38)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:40)
higher or lower.

You win. It's actually 1450.

Roberto Baldwin (23:52)
Ta-da-da!

Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:57)
⁓ The one other issue I had with the HRV was the fuel economy was not great. ⁓ No hybrid available in HRV. It was fairly cold the week that I was driving it, and it averaged about 23 miles per gallon, 23, 24 miles per gallon, which for a relatively smaller car, ⁓ it's not that impressive. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (23:58)
dealing.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:26)
It'd be nice to see Honda offer their hybrid system in the HRV, since this is based on a civic platform. Should be fairly straightforward to do. But they do not currently offer the hybrid in the HRV. If they did, that would absolutely be the one I would recommend, because it would have more power and substantially better fuel economy. But if you want a Honda hybrid crossover, you're going to have to step up a size class to the CRV instead of the

Herb. ⁓ So that's that's the 2026 HRV all wheel drive EXCEL. The other vehicle that I drove is also a compact crossover. But this was the Lexus UX 300 H F Sport handling. So this is the smallest Lexus currently sold in North America. I think they actually do have a smaller model that they sell in Japan. I can't remember the

Roberto Baldwin (24:58)
Earth.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:25)
the name of it, but they have an even smaller crossover that they sell there that I think is based on the Yaris, if I'm not mistaken. And this one has the two liter four cylinder hybrid powertrain from the Prius and it's 196 combined horsepower. It is the same

hybrid system you find in a lot of Toyotas and Lexi. But because this is a Lexus, it's got a little more sound deadening material. And so even though the behavior is largely the same as what you get in a Prius or a Camry or a Corolla or a RAV4, in terms of Glen you go to accelerate, it revs the engine up, it doesn't sound quite as obtrusive. The engine is still, it's not the...

Not the most refined engine in the world, but it works. And ⁓ it's just a little ⁓ less noisy in the passenger compartment because I think they add some extra insulation to keep that noise out. ⁓ The UX ⁓ comes with front wheel drive. It's not all wheel drive. ⁓ It's got dual zone climate control, manual folding rear seats. There's a tonneau cover.

The color on this one is the copper crest color, which is sort of a ⁓ cross between a cop copper color and sort of a rose gold. So it's a little more a little more pinkish than you would typically find in most shades of copper. You know, it's an attractive color. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the design, the shape of the car, but the size. like the size.

It's actually a little smaller than the HRV and Glen you walk up to it, you know, the the roofline is surprisingly low It you know, it feels more like a car. It's actually if it's a few inches taller than a Corolla or a Civic But not as tall as an HRV Certainly not as tall as an RX or most other larger crossovers. So it feels more like a slightly tall compact hatchback which by me, you know

terms of the form factor, I'm actually good with that. like that. ⁓ know, so you're not unlike ⁓ some, you know, a lot of traditional passenger cars, you know, especially as you're getting older, ⁓ you know, may not want to drop down into the car as much. You know, I think, you know, this one's got a ⁓ reasonable height, you know, it's easy to get in and out of. You don't have to climb up into it. You don't have to drop down into it. It's kind of like that sweet spot right in the middle there. ⁓

And the backseat is a little tighter. Like I said, it's smaller than the HRV. So you can certainly go out to dinner with another couple, with a pair of adults or your adult children. ⁓ But you probably don't want to take a long road trip with two adults in the backseat. It's definitely a little more snug back there. ⁓ Fuel economy, of course, as a Toyota slash Lexus

hybrid system that is not on a body on frame truck or SUV. The fuel economy is excellent. It's rated at 45 city, 41 highway, 43 combined. got, I think, I'm trying remember now, think I got 44-ish on my fuel economy loop. Again, that was in cold weather. So if you're driving it in warmer weather, it'd probably do even better.

This one had a power moon roof, 18 inch sport alloy wheels, came out all season tires. ⁓ It's got the same infotainment system that we've had on Toyotas and Hondas for a few years now, which is, ⁓ it's fine. ⁓ The performance of it is good. As I've said before, my only real complaint with it is just the not being able to display two things on the screen at once, like,

your maps and your media player. ⁓ So you have to toggle back and forth to, if you want to pause what you're playing while you're listening to nav, things like that. And that's something that's gonna be addressed as models get updated, starting with the new RAV4, that's the first one that's got their next generation infotainment and they take care of that problem in there. ⁓ Overall, ⁓ it's a nice premium small crossover. ⁓ So if that's something you're looking for,

It's not a bad deal. This one had a few options on there, the heads up display for 900 bucks. The premium paint, that copper crust paint was $595. Mud guards, a few other things. Grand total came to $48,795, which is, seems a...

bit pricey for ⁓ a small hatchback, ⁓ but ⁓ Glen you compare it against other premium offerings in this size class, if you take an Acura 80X and load it up with, if you get the A-Spec with the technology package and all that, you're getting close to this price point as well. ⁓

think this was actually more fun to drive than an ADX. ⁓ So this, ⁓ you know, it's an interesting choice if you like the design. You know, I think it's got a lot of good functionality. ⁓ And you want to take guesses at the destination charge?

Nicole (31:29)
1495.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:33)
Robbie gets it, ⁓ it was actually $11.50. So, relatively modest. Yeah, even though this car's coming from Japan. It's built in Japan, so.

Nicole (31:34)
D'ahhh!

Wow. Okay, totally the wrong way.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:47)
⁓ All right, so that's the garage. ⁓ Let's talk about some other stuff that happened this week. So Nicole and I were both in Las Vegas. I'm not sure how long you were there for, Nicole. Okay. Yeah, I got there on Saturday. I had some stuff starting on Sunday and I came home on Thursday afternoon. ⁓

Nicole (31:47)
Okay.

Most of the week I was there for a good while.

Yeah,

I got there Sunday and came home Thursday night. yeah. Yeah. We.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:16)
Okay, so pretty similar. ⁓ But we didn't run into each other, although I did run into

some other folks that I know, just randomly.

Nicole (32:24)
Yep, yep. It's a busy place. You see people or you completely miss them and you have no idea how.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:26)
Yeah.

So ⁓

what did you see?

Nicole (32:33)
I saw a lot of stuff. was, it's kind of funny because it from like, was a point in time where the, all the automakers were suddenly appearing there and now they're not like, it's sort of gone backwards. Like we're all going to be here. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:44)
Yes, they're there just not with booths not with giant booths and displays and

announcements

Nicole (32:50)
They're there

sometimes as a part of something else. Like they've got technology from XYZ company. XYZ company decides to have their car sitting in a booth to highlight their technology. it's Hyundai did, but did you go to, did you, was going say, did you go to Hyundai's presentation? ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (33:00)
Hyundai had a huge booth. They just didn't have any cars in it.

⁓

No, because I went to the Nvidia keynote instead.

Nicole (33:10)
Okay, the hundred presentation was really cool, but had nothing to do with your cars. Like all robots all the time and the robots, the little.

Dancing robots, as Robbie said, the dancing dog robots, which was like, this is really cool, but it was a little like thrown. like, I can't write a dancing dog robots are not necessarily automotive. mean, they use them in their manufacturing and then they had their new humanoid robot. It's all with Boston dynamics, all with Boston dynamics. And then we did a, a Q and a with them afterwards with a whole panel of some of the folks from Hyundai and some of the folks from Boston dynamics. And, and it was really interesting, but it was all about how their robots

robots are gonna be coming in. wasn't car related, but it was really cool because it got Boston Dynamics guy said, these will be in your house someday, but first they have to work ⁓ in a manufacturing environment, right? And they look very human, we're all kind of like, but Skynet, he shows this diagram where they all go together around.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:57)
It's not gonna be in my house.

I know. They don't look that, I mean, other than having two legs, two arms and a head that don't really look

human.

Nicole (34:10)
I know what freaks me out is because they have these really movable ball joints. They can like they can pick up a box and instead of turning their feet, they just swivel their hips the other way. I'm like, it feels wrong. anyway, so that was Hyundai's thing. So Hyundai's Hyundai's thing wasn't actually cars. BMW did have cars. They had a car. They have the IX3 and they have it outside in this like silver lot. It's the loop at the silver lot outside the convention center, which is apparently where they always have their stuff. But

Sam Abuelsamid (34:13)
Heh. Heh.

Nicole (34:40)
thing that was kind of interesting to me, I mean, the car is the car, cool, there's lots of neat stuff. No, it's just like the car out there and they had five or six of them, they had people, they had really good coffee, they gave you a little macaron, it was cool. ⁓ But you could chat with different people and I chatted with Nick.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:44)
But had the car but they had no pavilion like they've had in years past.

Nicole (35:00)
Gerstner who's a project manager for the IX3 in the US and He it was interesting hearing about the car because this is the first am I gonna say it right? No, you're class. Am I saying it right? I think No, you're class So it's a big deal. It's it's this whole new thing and they you know, really they've it's a second gen IX3 and they've Reimagined it and they say it's gonna be available summer of this year summer 26 You know, it's faster charging they've

Sam Abuelsamid (35:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nicole (35:30)
design

the interior. had to have this like pillar to pillar screen in the front. it like I guess you'd say like I don't want to call it an infotainment. I mean instrument cluster because it's kind of got everything in it. But then there's also like a head up display in some of them. So it looks really cool. It's beautiful and it was cool. But the interesting thing Glen I was chatting with them, I said, OK, cool, cool, cool. But you're interested in this whole new platform for your EVs. But people are not as hot to trot on EVs in the US as they were a couple of years.

ago and they still have the x3 which is the gas version and they made this really like really concerted effort to say yes.

Gas is going nowhere. We are not kicking gas to the curb. There's two different vehicles, two different people, and we shall have them both. So it was kind of weird to see like what they have at the show is I X 3, I X 3, I X 3. But don't forget, we do gas vehicles. So it wasn't like a back pedal, but it's interesting to see an OEM who's clearly gone all in with that angle to then try and say like, but also guys don't think of us as just an EV. We're not going all EV. We're going to honor the gas engines. And they talked about, I talked to

a couple different people there that all said the same thing. Like you drive the EV and it's very nice and they love it and it's fabulous. But there is something different about being in a gas vehicle and that's also fabulous. Like it's a trade off. It was interesting to hear them say, it's not this one is better and this one is worse. It's just these are two very different things.

You think he, well, yeah, I'm not saying, but I mean, they're saying in terms, they're trying to say like in terms of like EVs period or combustion engine period that there's, there's very different like experiences driving each of those. So yeah, it was, but it was funny to see all these IX threes, which look.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:04)
Yes.

Nicole (37:22)
fabulous and looks like they've done some great things and you know, I hopefully will get to drive one sometime soon and we'll experience what it's like because this was really just seeing them and looking at them and talking to product people. But it was nice that they said, you know.

We're going, we have these EVs, we're really good at doing EVs. They've been doing them for a long time. It's not new technology for them. Doing an EV is not a new space for BMW, but hey, don't forget, we're not getting rid of the gas engines, which I don't know that that was so much the statement years ago. You know, they sort of changed, or not even if they've changed their point of view, they're refocusing what they're saying.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:02)
Well,

what's interesting, I think, about BMW is they have arguably done the best job of any of the German automakers at building EVs, but they have also been, or they were the least aggressive in terms of their prognostications on Glen they would transition away from internal combustion. And this is why that they focused on

Nicole (38:13)
Yes.

Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:31)
most of their platforms were flexible platforms that could do combustion, do hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or full battery electric. you know, I, you know, admittedly I was somewhat critical of that approach in the past, ⁓ mostly because I thought it didn't necessarily ⁓ optimize to gain all of the benefits of an EV.

Nicole (38:39)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:09)
Yeah, because they were really, really good. They were way better than I anticipated. Now, the i4, the i7, ⁓ you lose some packaging efficiency. It still has the drive shaft tunnel down the middle in the back seat rather than the flat floor like you would have if it was a ⁓ pure EV. everything else about it is so good.

Nicole (39:12)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:35)
You know, I'm anxious to drive the, I X three and the other NOAA class models, ⁓ to S to see, know, and they've done a lot of interesting stuff with that, you know, because they did such a good job with the powertrain, especially on their, on all their EVs. It's very efficient. ⁓ that I'm, I'm looking forward to driving it. The only thing I'm not looking forward to ⁓ that I X three fence.

Nicole (39:52)
Yeah.

no, are the vents in the, are they in the way? I can't even get the words out. I don't have real vent controls, do I? I didn't check that. ⁓ for the love of God. Why?

Sam Abuelsamid (40:06)
Yeah.

Nicole (40:16)
This makes me sad. This makes me sad. ⁓ I miss that. But I'm still excited to drive it. I still am, even though, know, dang it. That's like a deal breaker territory for me.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:39)
The ID Polo.

Nicole (41:02)
Mmm.

Like oops are bad.

Yeah. We've made you angry.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:59)
It

doesn't save cost. You know, it's more expensive. It's more complicated than than mechanical vents. And it just doesn't work as good.

Ha!

Nicole (42:19)
Right?

So, well, other than that, exciting that they're coming out with this. And I did ask them too about like, you know, next generation of it. Are you nervous about how, how well it's, you know, do you have it figured out? It's going to be one of those like new generation, new car, whatever. And all of a sudden you have all sorts of issues. You're like, no, we're a hundred percent confident. We got this. Like, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:39)
What do you think about the new design language?

Nicole (42:42)
I like how it looks. I like it. think it's overall. I like it better than I don't feel like the grill is so much to giant teeth in the front because I think it looked like beaver. I didn't like how they looked and I think it looks better. I did not. I did not like that giant beaver teeth era for BMW. They did.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:53)
Yeah.

Nicole (43:09)
Like they did not, they're like maybe it's like they thought maybe if we leaned into it hard enough that, okay, everyone's going to like it. They're like, Hey guys, they still don't like it. Maybe we should change this up. They did. They did still sell them.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:22)
I can just walk up to it from behind and it'll be okay.

Nicole (43:24)
You just walked up to the side

or from the back. Don't ever back into a parking space. Pull into your parking spaces. You only have to look at the rear and the side. Yeah. So that was one of the... I thought BMW was interesting because it wasn't so much the vehicle itself, but just how they were addressing things. thought it was...

interesting and like they also said at one point like you know we think we did it right like other people who went all in with EVs were like you know we did not say that it was the end of combustion engines and we think we did it right.

Right, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

my gosh.

Yes it is.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:44)
Well, I

had dinner on Tuesday night with some of the members of the tech leadership team at Ford, including Doug Field, who's head of Model E and chief product officer for EV and digital. And Alan Clark was also there. I can't remember his exact title, but he's in charge of the whole Skunk Works program, doing the universal electric vehicle platform. And talked with them quite a bit on

during that dinner. And ⁓ it's, it's gonna, I'm gonna be very interested to learn more. And you know, they're promising to start telling us more about this, this platform, this vehicle over the coming months, you know, before it's scheduled to go into production around the end of the year. And, you know, they, one, one interesting detail that came out of the conversations I had with Alan Clark, you know, I asked him, so,

have you guys figured out how to keep the 12 volt battery charged? And there's no 12 volt battery. It's gonna be an all 48 volt system like the Cybertruck.

Nicole (45:56)
Yeah.

Settle down. Settle down.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:22)
Yeah. Well, you

know, I also, I also asked Alan, like, you know, you know, about software development and what percentage of the software team, you know, the software engineers and his team came from legacy Ford versus coming from outside. And he said, it's about 85, 90 % came from outside. Very few from, from inside. And, ⁓ I asked Doug field.

You know, one of the problems Glen manufacturers have done stuff like this in the past, like Glen GM did Saturn in the 90s, and even Ford doing team Edison, like six years ago, is that, you know, they did all kinds of cool, innovative things, and they completely failed in being able to integrate that back into the main organization. And, you know, I asked Doug, you know, how, you know, are you going to be able to do that this time? He said,

Basically said, you know, for the time being, we are keeping them completely separate. They're not even trying to integrate that back. ⁓ know, essentially most of the interaction between the UEV program and the rest of Ford right now is just at the manufacturing level, you know, working with them to actually get it built. But everything else, all the product development, it's completely

It's like two separate companies. Yeah.

Nicole (47:53)
Ha

Sam Abuelsamid (47:53)
I mean...

Nicole (48:01)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:06)
It's, you know, it's good in the short term because it will hopefully let them get this thing out successfully, assuming they can execute. mean, that's that's always the problem is actually executing on the plan. But, you know, three, four, five years from now, as they're working on next generation stuff, we know what what happens, you know, are you just going to let the are you just going to keep them separate and let the legacy forward wither and die and let the UV or UV.

team kind of become Ford? I don't know. ⁓ Or do you have like these two separate organizations running in parallel for the foreseeable future? It's not real clear how that's going to work.

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. You know, I had some, had some conversations this week, ⁓ with another company that she'll remain unnamed, ⁓ you know, about what's going on at GM, you know, ⁓ and, know, a few months ago, they hired Sterling Anderson as chief product officer and there's a lot of discussion going on around the industry, you know, but potential that he could be the next CEO of GM.

replay, you know, Glen Mary Barra decides to step down and retire. And, you know, from what I'm hearing, you know, I don't know this for certain, but what I'm hearing is that basically he's saying what doing the approach that you said, Robbie, it's like, this is the way it's going to be. This is what we're doing. This is a strategy. He's gone in and he's just he's making decisions and moving forward with that. And, you know, that it sounds like that's.

You know, the stuff that we heard from GM in October, November in New York at the GM Forward event Glen they announced that they're going to do a level three hands-off, eyes-off system and this new electrical architecture. Sounds like a lot of those decisions were made like just in the few months leading up to that. Like he joined GM in May and this was in October and in that interval, they evaluated a lot of stuff. He made a bunch of decisions and that's the direction.

they're taking the whole company. Rather than doing this separate parallel program, said, is the direction the company's going. And it's led to some interesting decisions ⁓ that you can't necessarily get into right now, but we'll talk about them more at a future time Glen I'm sure I'm allowed to talk about them. ⁓

Nicole (51:27)
Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:32)
Yeah, but

Nicole (51:34)
You do those, those moments you start to open your mouth. You're like, and nevermind.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:39)
But, you know, mean,

it's like very different approaches that GM and Ford are taking. And then there's Stellantis. you know, coming up this week is the Detroit Auto Show. And Nicole and I are going to have a chance to sit down with Tim Koniscus and chat with him. And if anybody's got any questions, I put it out in the Discord. But if anybody listening has any questions that you wanted to ask Tim about what Stellantis is doing.

send them to us, you know, either in the discord or, you know, feedback at wheelbarrings.media. ⁓ Let us know what you would like to hear from Tim. ⁓ But yeah, well, you know, one of

Nicole (52:20)
And if it's

inappropriate, we might have to rethink that. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (52:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicole (52:27)
You know, somebody had

I was I was chatting with somebody about somebody else who was not interviewing Tim and saying I was talking to him and he very politely asked a question and I said, I don't know, I might ask it this very not polite way. He's like, that might get a more of an answer. OK, with Tim, that might be the way to go.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:41)
Yeah, mean, yeah, I mean,

for, know, whatever else you may think of Tim Kineskis, you know, he, you know, he's very blunt. You know, he says what he thinks. He's, you know, he is one of those one of those executives that, you know, whatever he thinks, that's what he's gonna say, which I'm sure drives, ⁓ you know, Kayleen Connolly and Sean Morgan and the rest of the

Nicole (52:53)
Yes. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:09)
communications team at Stellantis, kind of crazy, but you know, it is what it is.

Nicole (53:34)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (53:37)
It's a tough job being in product area and communications for a big company like that.

I did that, yeah.

Nicole (53:52)
They're going to the dark side.

Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:09)
hahahaha

Nicole (54:25)
Sadly.

Yeah, look and see what it says and pick some clothes, dude.

It is normally the dude. Yeah. mean, let's be real. Well, it's like, I don't know how to dress for this guy. It's like, do I need a jacket? I don't know. Do you? How old are you?

Sam Abuelsamid (54:37)
Usually.

Nicole (54:52)
When it's 47.

Jack it up. Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:59)
Maybe

even bring an umbrella in your bag, you know.

Nicole (55:09)
You

Hahaha!

Jeez.

You fought with people on What did you fight about?

Oh, I gotcha.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:38)
There's just things that they don't necessarily want spoken of.

Nicole (55:41)
Gotcha.

Yep, yep, yep.

I I've ever had, have I ever had an argument? I maybe had one or two.

Ha ha. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (56:04)
But, but, but, but are you like that jerk at, uh, at SFO the other day, I saw a video this morning that was complaining about, you know, during pre-boarding a family with two little kids was ahead of him and he, was, he was, he was like some United global services, you know, which is their equivalent of Delta 360. Um, yeah. So I want to go in front of them. like the, the, fortunately the gate agent treated them the right way.

Nicole (56:26)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:34)
just said, didn't really say anything to him, just ignored him and just kept dealing with the family that was trying to board. Yeah, that's like, yeah, don't be that kind of jerk. Yeah.

Nicole (56:41)
God.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:52)
Yeah, none of none of us really are.

Yeah.

Nicole (56:58)
Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (56:59)
⁓ Anyway, getting back to getting back to cars. So, yeah, as mentioned earlier, you know, there's there's a lot less of like the huge automaker presence at CES than there was five, 10 years ago. You know, in the in early 2010s, automakers all flooded the CES. They abandoned auto shows, went to CES to try and change their image to be thought of as tech companies. And it didn't work. ⁓

Nicole (57:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:28)
And so most of them realized, wait, we're spending just as much money for a booth at CES as we do in an auto show. We're not getting any more return on our investment. And so they stopped. Most of them have stopped, largely stopped doing that. They still get some like Hyundai, ⁓ you know, has a big presence there, but it was all about robots this year, not even about cars. ⁓ But you still, you know, there's still people from every automaker at CES. A lot of them are wandering around. And I ran into some of them, you know, that are just.

Nicole (57:57)
Just wandering aimlessly without a booth of their own.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:58)
Well, no, mean, they're there. They're

there, they're there not to present their own stuff, but to see what else is there, looking for interesting new technology, looking for potential new suppliers. ⁓ And ⁓ so they're there, you know, as attendees, not as exhibitors. ⁓ But also, you you get occasionally some of them show up on the stage, like, you know, the aforementioned Doug Field. ⁓

Nicole (58:19)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:27)
was on a panel on ⁓ Wednesday afternoon, I think. Unfortunately, I had a schedule conflict and couldn't make it to that. But during that, you know, they announced ⁓ that ⁓ this universal EV platform, ⁓ it's going to be they're going to have an AI chatbot agent in there. So so is everybody else. Big deal. ⁓ Yeah. But they also announced that they're going to have a new

in-house developed ADAS and automated driving platform, including level two plus, so that's hands off, eyes on. So basically a next generation of Blue Cruise that is gonna be debuting on this $30,000 electric truck that's coming in at the end of the year. And then they're gonna have hands off, eyes off, a level three system coming in 2028. And 2028 is like the year Glen everybody is planning to launch.

level three systems. So Ford's doing their own, ⁓ which will be interesting. mean, that's being led by the team from Latitude AI, which is another business unit of Ford that is staffed mainly by, it's led by Sammy Omari, who used to be head of development at Motional, another AV company. And most of the engineers there came from Argo AI, the AV company that Ford was funding and shut down in 2022.

They've been working on an in-house level three system. So that's gonna be coming to this platform. My guess is that ⁓ you will not get any of that stuff for that base $30,000 price point. You're probably gonna be paying somewhere in the mid to upper 40s if you want all of that stuff on your new Ford EV. ⁓ But they're doing it. And then we had a Q &A session with Mark Winterhoff, who is still the interim CEO.

now almost a year later at Lucid. ⁓ And ⁓ he announced to us that ⁓ Lucid is going to be adopting ⁓ some new software from Nvidia that Jensen Wong, the CEO of Nvidia, announced on Monday during his keynote. a significant part of the keynote, Jensen talked about automated driving ⁓ and talked about their

Hyperion Drive software stack, which is kind of their reference platform that they have that includes all the hardware and all the software. then automakers can take whatever pieces of that that they want to use. You some of them use the the compute part of it. Some of them use some of the sensors. Some of them use all or part of the software stack. The CLA, the Mercedes CLA that you talked about, Robbie, that's the first production model to use the entire ⁓

Hyperion Drive software stack. ⁓ And it's coming to a bunch of other vehicles as well. If and Glen JLR ever introduces any new vehicles, they're going to use the Hyperion Drive stack. But part of that

That's what I've heard.

Yeah, so the Nvidia software stack starts with an operating system or Halos operating system at the bottom. And then above that, there's actually two completely separate automated driving models. ⁓ There is the classic, what they're referring to as their classical AV stack, ⁓ which is a more traditional rules-based type of system. And then ⁓ above that, there is what they're now calling Alpa-Mio.

which is they're saying it's a end-to-end ⁓ AI-based driving ⁓ model. So basically it takes the sensor signals in, outputs the commands to the actuators, and then everything else in between is a complete ⁓ AV stack. And in between, there is what they call their safety and policy evaluator. So there's this layer of software that is constantly looking at what the Alpa-Mio part of it

is doing and if it comes to the determination that the command that it's issuing might cause or contribute to a crash being worse, ⁓ then it reverts to the classical stack which is running in parallel all the time. So it can switch back and forth between the two. And ⁓ Glen I talked with Ali Kani, who's the head of automotive at Nvidia the other day, ⁓ he said that right now,

about 97 % of the time ⁓ Glen you're driving with this system, it's just whatever Alpa-Myo is telling it to do. And so about 3 % of the time it's having to revert to the traditional approach. ⁓ And ⁓ so that's kind of interesting. I'm looking forward to actually getting a chance to try this out. But Glen we talked with Lucid, they said that yeah, they're gonna adopt the Alpa-Myo model.

The other thing that Jensen Wong announced is that Alpa-Mio is going to, they're open sourcing it. It's available to anybody to use. ⁓ And so Lucid is going to add that to their software stack. So they've got their own ADAS system that they've developed in-house, but they're adding Alpa-Mio to it ⁓ on the gravity and the air ⁓ this year, like in the next few months, they'll be adding that. And by the end of the year, they expect to have, you know, what's

commonly referred to as L2++ capability. So that's the kind of thing that Mercedes is doing, where you can go hands-free ⁓ in highway driving, city driving, suburban driving. It recognizes all the traffic signals. You still have to supervise, but it's basically doing everything, which is kind of what ⁓ the Tesla FSD does, ⁓ except that it's also, unlike FSD, it still has that safety layer underneath.

And then the gravity and the air currently use the Nvidia Orin chips, which is their previous generation of driving processors. ⁓ For the new midsize model that they're going to be revealing later this year and goes into production in early 27, that one is going to go with dual Thor chips. So those are about four times as powerful as the Orin chips. And Glen they have that with Alpa-Myo, they plan to have

level three capability in 2028 and then level four, like true self-driving in 2029. So we'll see if they can actually achieve that. But, you know, it's like 2028 seems to be the year Glen you be able to take your eyes off the road for a lot of companies.

Nicole (1:06:21)
We'll see if that happens. I don't trust that.

These claims are nothing, yeah, just guys in a couple more years, one more year from now, two more years from now. Yeah, for realsies, we're not kidding, we really, really mean it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:40)
Jason Fenske.

Maybe, hopefully. ⁓ Yeah, I also spent a bunch of time ⁓ at an event this week talking with Jean-Philippe Gaultier, who's the ⁓ new head of product development at Lucid. And I had talked to him ⁓ in an episode earlier this year, had included an interview I did with him about the electronic architecture on the gravity after Glen we did the gravity drive program last spring. ⁓

We spent quite a bit of time talking at this event. And one of the things he was, uh, they told me it was that, uh, earlier this year, he went to their Arizona factory and spent several days there actually working on the assembly line. Um, you know, because, you they've had a lot of, uh, issues with just trying to get cars built. Um, and, know, as they're going through and, and.

finalizing design stuff for the new midsize model. think it's going to be called earth, lucid earth. that one, you know, he's also had a lot of the other engineers go and actually spend time in the factory seeing how stuff actually has to go together. And it's led to a lot of changes in the design in order to make it actually buildable. ⁓ so they can, you know, start to get quality improved and get costs down, ⁓ and just

make it something that they can actually get out in significant volume. And we talked about a bunch of other things as well, but it's interesting that they're actually spending a lot more time now trying to learn about what are the problems that customers are having and what are the problems that people on the assembly line are having with their cars. so hopefully that will lead to the earth and updates in ⁓ the gravity and air.

making those vehicles a lot better.

All right, let's see what else. ⁓ Afila. Did you go to the Afila booth, Nicole?

Nicole (1:09:26)
I did swing by Afila because I wanted to check it out and they now have their new Afila prototype which is an SUV. it what is it? Well I guess that tells you a lot right there. like would you. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:36)
I mean, Glen we saw, I was at the press conference on Monday afternoon for that one.

And Glen it rolled out, we looked at each other and said, basically a Toyota Crown. Well, that, looks, the design is very similar to the Afila One. ⁓ It's a very similar shape. It's actually larger than the Afila One.

Nicole (1:09:52)
ouch. You're not wrong. You're not wrong.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:06)
but it's jacked up, so it sits higher. So it's kind of like in a Fila 1 with a lift kit. ⁓ But it's sort of ⁓ a crossover coupe type of thing. So sort of sedan-like, but not quite. ⁓ Hence the crown reference, because it's sort of sedan-ish, but sits higher than a typical sedan. ⁓

Nicole (1:10:10)
It's jacked up.

Ha ha ha ha!

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:35)
Yeah. So this is the, they call it the prototype 2026 and this is going to be their second model or at least that's, that's the plan.

Nicole (1:10:43)
Do we really have a first model yet? feel like, could we get a model we can go zoom zoom and drive in yet? Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:45)
Well, they've got pre-production once.

They've been building them on the assembly line in Ohio, slowly. Yeah. And it's supposed to actually start deliveries late this year, because it was supposed to be delivering now.

Nicole (1:10:54)
Okay, okay, steps in the right direction. I don't know.

I feel about a feel it.

Yeah, I know. Well, and now we're looking at the end of the year, is it end of the year, right? So we're a year late. So is this like the level four driving? We'll see Glen it actually shows up.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

haha

Nicole (1:11:16)
I don't know. kind of making like making fun of it. really but I hope they all work like I hope they all succeed. I never want to see any company fail because it's you know it's a lot of work they put into these and in the end it's always there's technology there's all this stuff but it's people. Well somewhere there's people somewhere there's people who are working on this but Glen I saw this they debuted it last year at CES. Was that Glen it debuted? That's Glen I first saw it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:40)
Well, I they

first showed the original concept in 2020 at CES. Yeah. And then it was before they did the deal with Honda. It was just a Sony Vision S01 or something like that.

Nicole (1:11:46)
my gosh, did they really? Okay, I think of it last year. ⁓

Okay,

that's right. my goodness.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Grr argh, information's wrong. ⁓

God.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:42)
Yeah. Well, I did a demo with them last year and then I did another one with them this week. And we did a walk around and we sat inside. And last year, the software was, ⁓ shall we say, far from complete. ⁓ This year it was was it was a lot better. It was a lot closer. ⁓ And, you they talked about the ⁓ PlayStation remote ⁓ remote play capability.

Nicole (1:12:43)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:11)
⁓ So if you get the the upper trim level of the Afila one, it'll have a couple of screens in the back. You can bring your PlayStation controller. You can stream games from your PlayStation five at home right to the screen in the car. ⁓ Unfortunately, you you won't be able to do that to the screens in the front, which would be really cool Glen you're sitting and charging. You know, if you could use your use your steering wheel as the controller to play Gran Turismo while you're sitting there waiting to charge.

but you won't be able to do that. It's only gonna be remote streaming in the rear seats. And we had a roundtable session with the president of Sony Honda Mobility America. And basically, one of the things that came out of that, he was surprisingly frank, but one of the things that came out of it was that they're expecting a Fila to just be a niche premium brand.

They're not trying to make this a high volume brand, which, you know, not sure.

Nicole (1:14:14)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:20)
Isha.

Nicole (1:14:22)
And why are we doing this?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:25)
Yeah, well, I this is why they've got Honda

building it for them. all, you know, most of the mechanical stuff is coming from Honda. So the motors, the suspension, the batteries, that's all coming from the Honda Zero Series. But then all the design and all of the user experience stuff, that's all Sony. And Honda is also working with them on the driver assist stuff and the automated driving stuff. So that's going to be a Sony Honda collaboration on that.

but all of the interior stuff is all ⁓ Sony. So that's, know, get the widescreen and.

Nicole (1:15:11)
It's just weird, it's like what?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:48)
⁓ Yeah, so it's... We'll see if this thing's any good or not. It's gonna be a while, but...

Nicole (1:15:57)
It's going to be a while, so that makes me have my doubts. Anytime things get pushed too far in the future, especially from new ventures, I guess, I'm like, oh, guys, I know all this is hard. I know.

Right? It's that you wait too long and what made... Well, and also there's a certain... Yes, there's a certain excitement and hype about something anytime it's new. And if you get that going and then you like see you in two years, like, wait, what? You just lose... It's like Glen you watch a show, Glen you do the whole show and you love the show and like, OK, next season's coming in two years, two years come down the line, you're like, what was that show again that I loved? Right? Like, it's too long.

That's what I did. I power, I did the same thing. I powered through stranger things. Well, I powered through and watched the end, it was like. Yes, that's what I wanted to see. So so apparently, I feel it is stranger things. That's what I feel like it's in danger of happening. I feel is in danger of becoming stranger things. But they never had the good eye. But this is the case. It's truly the case for a lot of cars.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:43)
We stopped watching after season 2.

Nicole (1:17:11)
slash car companies, even ones that I'm like really excited about. And think of a lot of potentials. You wait too long to show the goods and or deliver the goods. You show them and then wait too long to deliver. And then it becomes it becomes a problem.

Yes, one or the other. Wait, don't don't do the yeah, because otherwise you lose interest. And I feel like that's going to happen with the feeling. I feel like it's more and more things come out from other automakers and the vagaries of public perception, blah, blah, blah. And what you like one week versus the next. I feel like it's danger territory for those guys. Danger, danger.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:52)
All right, so do either of you two ever use the automatic parking features in the cars that you test?

Nicole (1:17:53)
Yeah.

Never.

because they're too slow.

They're so slow. if you try and parallel park in any of that, half of the city that you're currently in will be honking at you by the time you're done, because they've all tried to drive by you as you slowly parallel park on Main Street. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:08)
Yes.

Well, Aptiv may have a solution for you. They have a new, they have, yeah, because right now for all those auto parking systems, they use ultrasonic sensors, which are extremely low in resolution. They don't know what anything is. You know, they kind of know where it is in physical space, but they have very limited information. And so they're kind of doing a lot of guesswork, which is that's why they're going so slow to minimize the potential of anything going wrong.

Nicole (1:18:27)
Mmm, really?

Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:53)
So

they have a new sensor called the pulse sensor. And it's actually an acronym for something that I don't even remember. And it doesn't matter. But what what what it is, what it is is a little sensor similar in size to the ⁓ to the ultrasonic sensors, you know, those little buttons you see on your bumpers of your cars. But it's actually.

Nicole (1:19:00)
You

Wait,

I got it. It's the Parking Urban Localization and Surround Enhancement Sensor.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:22)
Okay. Anyway,

It's a,

it's a cam. It's a combination of ⁓ a little wide angle, ultra wide angle camera, ⁓ and a radar sensor in one little module. and you can, because it's got the camera, it can tell what is around you and do the classification and the radar sensor gives you much more precise accuracy on exactly how far away you are from the other car or from the curb.

because ultrasonic sensors can't see the curb. They don't know where the curb is. So one of the things, if you're using these auto parking systems, they often leave quite a bit of a gap to the curb because they don't want to curb your wheels. So this thing, because it can see where the curb is and it's got radar in there as well, they say it can park much faster than the ultrasonic sensors. We'll see. But, you

They also say that it's the whole sensor cluster is similar in price to the ultrasonic sensors, but the system cost will be lower because you don't need as many of these sensors. Some cars now have as many as 12 of these ultrasonic sensors, which means you got to have wiring to all 12 of these things. ⁓ And because of the wide angle nature, the information you get from the pulse sensor, you only need like three or four of them ⁓ in order to.

to get a surround view of the car and you can park much, much faster than before. So it'll be interesting to see Glen, you know, Glen that car start coming out with this.

Nicole (1:21:04)
So Glen they

say much, much faster, I'm cool with that, but much, much faster compared to what it was is kind of still really slow. Like, is it going to be like a normal human, right? Is it going to be normal human speed? Like, I want to know if they're going to park just as quickly as a competent person would park.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:21)
We don't know yet.

Nicole (1:21:23)
Okay, that's what I want to hear.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:50)
Maybe.

Nicole (1:21:51)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:53)
possible.

Yeah, mean, you know, it's it'll still sense out to about 20, 25 meters. So, you know, just maneuvering around urban spaces, you know, it should be a lot better for that as well.

All right. Let's see what else. ⁓ we don't need to talk about that. ⁓ Let's talk. The Kodiak and Bosch partnership. ⁓ Let's talk about Zooks. So Zooks is another robo taxi company. were, they started in 2014 and ⁓ right from the beginning, their plan was to develop an automated driving system.

Nicole (1:22:29)
Wow, okay. I don't know what just got axed. You have to put a little dot next to it. Okay. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:52)
and to develop a purpose-built robotaxi, not to modify Jaguar I-Paces or Hyundai IONIQ 5s, but to have a purpose-built robotaxi. And ⁓ they finally have those in service now in Las Vegas. They also have some that are testing in San Francisco. ⁓ And so if you are in Las Vegas, depending where you are, you can...

You can download the Zoox app and depending on where you are, you can summon a ride with one of their little Zoox pods. ⁓ and it's, it's kind of a cool vehicle. ⁓ you know, it's, it's a four seater with what they call carriage seating. So everybody's facing the center of the car. ⁓ and it's got sliding doors. it's completely symmetrical. There's no front or back to the thing. ⁓ Glen, depending on which direction it's going, the, ⁓ the lights.

on the end of the car that would be considered the back are red and the lights on the other end of the car are white. And Glen it goes back in the opposite direction, they just switch colors. ⁓ So, you it's got two motors, ⁓ two complete sets of braking and steering systems that are ⁓ independent. So you got full redundancy. So if something goes wrong at one end of the car, you still have steering and braking and propulsion capability from the other end of the car. ⁓ It's a pretty cool vehicle.

Um, and I decided, you know, while I was in Vegas that, know, I should probably go take a ride in one of these things. Cause my job, um, right now, if you're in Vegas, they are not actually charging for rides. Um, so yeah, free rides, which, know, Glen you consider what it costs to take an Uber or a Lyft and, a taxi in Las Vegas, that's a, that's a good deal. Um, and Sunday afternoon, um, after, uh,

Nicole (1:24:31)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:46)
some other stuff I had to do. decided to go over to Mandalay Bay and figured, okay, I'm going to, cause they showed in the app, they show the map of where the service area, which covers like most of the area around the strip and, and, uh, you know, from basically from Mandalay Bay up to like the stratosphere area. Um, but what they don't tell you at first is that, yeah, we can't actually stop at all of these places yet. Um,

Nicole (1:25:13)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:13)
Right

now there's only seven places they could go. So I went to Mandalay Bay, not realizing, and I pulled up the app, figured, okay, so I'm gonna ride, ⁓ and said, ⁓ sorry, you can't get picked up here, you gotta go over to the Luxor. And the Luxor is next door to the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. But, and the Luxor, if you've seen pictures of Las Vegas, it's the one that's shaped like a pyramid, like an Egyptian pyramid. ⁓

Nicole (1:25:36)
You ⁓

The giant pyramid, yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:43)
And last year, they had one side of it all wrapped like a giant Dorito. They had sponsorship from Dorito. The Dorito sponsorship, I guess, has ended. So that's that's gone. But, you know, walking next door somewhere in Las Vegas, if you've not been to Las Vegas, Las Vegas, not a walkable city.

Nicole (1:26:02)
Like next door sounds easy, but.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:10)
Yeah

Nicole (1:26:11)
Yeah, just because you can

see it doesn't mean you can walk there in the same day.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:14)
Yeah, well,

and on Thursday or Wednesday, I had two meetings ⁓ at one in Fountain Blu and the other one in the West Hall of the Convention Center. And, you know, again, literally right next door, you know, Glen you are outside standing outside the Fountain Blu, you know, it's about 40 feet to the wall of the Convention Center. But to get from where I was in the Fountain Blu to where I had to go in the Convention Center was a good

20, 25 minute walk.

Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. You know how on your Riviera mirror it says objects in mirror are closer than they appear? Las Vegas is the opposite of that. Objects that you can see are farther than they appear because of the scale. These giant, enormous hotels. Everything looks closer than it really is. And you can never walk a straight line from one point to another in Las Vegas without meandering around. So ⁓ anyway, ⁓

I walked, you know, took those about like 15, 18 minute walk over to where, where the pickup point was at the Luxor. Uh, and so as I'm going over there, once I got in range of where, um, uh, where, where, where the zoos pickup was at the valley pickup, um, I opened up the app, requested a ride and at first it said like 45 minutes for a ride and

Nicole (1:27:49)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:49)
As I got closer, that time got longer. By the time I got actually got there, it was like 54 minutes. It turns out the reason why I'm unknowingly I made the mistake of ⁓ of ⁓ doing this right at the time that the football game, the Las Vegas Raiders football game was getting out. So it was just tons and tons of people. ⁓ So I sat around waiting for nearly an hour, but finally ended up getting

Nicole (1:28:10)
⁓ geez.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:19)
⁓ getting a ride and a bunch of these things came through picking up other people and turns out there's about 40 of these things operating in Las Vegas right now. And so I rode from Deluxe or up to ⁓ Resorts World, which is the northernmost drop off spot. And ⁓ it was pretty uneventful ride. It was smooth and quiet. And it's nice. You get inside, you sit down and put on your seatbelt. You guys have been in Rolls Royce Phantom that's got the

the star thing in the ceiling. They've got little fiber optic things and lights up the, looks like the night sky. They had that in the roof of the ZUX, ⁓ the ZUX RoboTaxis, which is kind of cool. ⁓ Yeah. And it's got, for each of the four seating positions, there's a wireless charging pad so you can put your phone down and charge it and then forget it Glen you get out of the ZUX. ⁓ And cup holders for everybody, seat belts. ⁓ And it was a smooth ride. It was good.

Nicole (1:28:50)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It's all fancy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:17)
except for the long wait.

Nicole (1:29:19)
I talking to a driver and I think, I don't know if there's an Uber or whatever and asking about the zoos. He said, you know, we haven't had any issues with them. I haven't seen any problems. I'm driving around all the time and never heard any issues about them not working right. So he was pleased with them. Right? Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:35)
But they only have 40 cars in Las Vegas. Yeah.

Nicole (1:29:59)
Yeah, so limited.

hahahaha

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:08)
Well, you know, mean, half of fatal crashes in the United States are on rural roads. You know what doesn't operate on any rural roads anywhere in the country? Autonomous vehicles, not even one.

Nicole (1:30:10)
Kshm. ⁓

autonomous vehicles, yeah.

Yeah, hold on a second.

the world.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:00)
All right, let's see what else. ⁓ Volvo EX60. ⁓ Volvo's doing a ⁓ full reveal of the EX60, which is their next EV. It's their midsize crossover in a couple of weeks. But they released a teaser and some data this week. it ⁓ looks pretty promising. What do you think of, ⁓ let's see, what is it?

810 kilometers, so about 500 miles of 200 miles of range from charging in 10 minutes on a 400 kilowatt charger. 800 volt electrical system.

Nicole (1:31:43)
It sounds good. 500 miles of range sounds fabulous. So does getting 200 miles in 10 minutes. So they do.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:07)
Yeah, literally every automaker.

Nicole (1:32:08)
⁓

Bye everybody!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:31)
Yeah, so it'll like four, probably 400 ish.

Nicole (1:32:37)
That's a lot. That takes you through so much.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:54)
Alright, so Nicole you got rid of one Jeep you still have one in your driveway

Nicole (1:32:57)
Yes, I did.

Well, in the not in the driveway, because, know, there's other issues where you're not supposed to park in the garages and buildings and stuff. But go ahead. Sure. We'll go with that. It's it's the Wranglers just parked in the driveway so that if it catches fire and bursts into flames, it doesn't take the house with it. Apparently, that's what I've been told. I'm supposed to park it in the driveway for now. It's perfect in January, New Hampshire, by the way. Mm

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:07)
So where do you park the Wrangler?

Yeah, yeah, perfect. ⁓

Well, ⁓ this week Stellantis officially confirmed that they are discontinuing all of their Jeep and Chrysler plug-in hybrid models in North America.

Nicole (1:33:35)
Shock, disbelief,

no way.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:38)
So the Pacifica

plug-in hybrid, the Wrangler, ⁓ the ⁓ Grand Cherokee, they're all done.

Nicole (1:33:45)
Was the Pacifica having all the same problems that the Jeep was having? Honestly, I hadn't looked. So they had recall issues too. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:49)
They had quite a few recalls on the battery fires

on those. Yeah. There were, there were multiple occasions where they, ⁓ they, they told customers not to park them in the garage, not to charge them. ⁓ In fact, ⁓ Robbie, do know Devender hardware from Engadget? Yeah. He, yeah, he, he had, he had a Pacifica plugin hybrid for a while and

Nicole (1:34:04)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:19)
they eventually got rid of it because he got so fed up with not actually being able to use the plugin part of it and having to park it outdoors all the time. And they subsequently replaced it with an XC90 plugin hybrid. And he's also got a leaf that he uses for just around town commuting.

Nicole (1:34:35)
I mean,

it is super frustrating. I know more than a few people have ditched plug-in hybrid Jeeps that they've kept for a certain amount of time, a brief less time than they intended. And then they got rid of them because, you know, the number of times it's don't plug in your car and charge it, don't park it in the garage ⁓ or it just flat out says, no, I'm not working in EV mode. Take it in to figure out why ⁓ it's it was frustrating. I think that, you know, I get why they did it given the track record their vehicles have had, but I think

that like, well, I don't even talk about my wagon, the RS, just the problems they've had with the P haps. You know what I mean? And but it does make you a little bit wary. Like, okay, so you're coming out with a recon. That's another EV and you've got the Cherokee hybrid and it's not a plug in. But have you guys figured this out? Have you figured it out? Why? Why should I trust you? That's what I want to ask Tim Kniscus. Why should I trust you?

Why should I trust you? Why should I trust you that you got this? Why should I trust you, Tim? That's gonna be my question. Even with just a hybrid because we've, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:31)
That's a good question.

Nicole (1:35:49)
If you can't plug in your, like, like you've bought a plugin hybrid. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:50)
Kinda pointless.

Nicole (1:36:05)
Like honestly, you the thing is like, it's such a reputation killer. mean, it just, you want to be like, just don't build them right now. Just say, you know what? You know what? We're not on board with this. We can't build these right now. We're figuring it out. We're going to take a little time. We'll see you soon. Like don't do it. Don't.

That, and that's a problem. Like the trusting is huge that if you can't, and I don't know the number of people that I've spoken to in terms of listeners that have messaged us after my experiences and just reading things and they, they have a trust issue. There's getting to be a trust issue.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:11)
Well, apparently if you want to trust your car, there are some good choices out there. You had something published this week, Nicole, but ⁓ commuter cars that have a high likelihood of hitting 250,000 miles.

Nicole (1:37:20)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:29)
Wasn't that wasn't that yours?

Nicole (1:37:31)
I don't, and literally my screen went out so I can't even look. Where was, was it?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:34)
Oh, oh, you know what? Never mind. That was it

was on it was on top speed, but it was Peter because it came up Glen I searched for your name to see what you had written this week. But apparently. No. Oh, maybe, I don't know, maybe maybe it's maybe it's one of your photos. Now looks like these are all press photos. I don't know why Google popped that one up with your name. didn't I should have looked closer. All right. Well, anyway.

Nicole (1:37:44)
Is it an image from me? I wonder if it's no. ⁓ okay. I'm like, I'm like, what? I don't think I wrote that. I'm like, I don't think I wrote that. I don't think I wrote that. Google gave me a little extra. My tech issues have

continued. I can't see the screen, so I can't even look anything up. My computer's frozen, but I'm afraid to touch anything.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:03)
Okay.

Alright.

Nicole (1:38:10)
okay, okay. Cool, cool,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:14)
Anyway,

he's got a list of the two hundred fifty commuter cars that are most likely to get to two hundred and fifty thousand miles and Shockingly four of them are basically the same car Yes, they are

Nicole (1:38:23)
Okay.

What are they? Are they Toyotas?

See, even without my screen, I know what it says.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:40)
mouse is going nuts here. Yeah. Okay.

Nicole (1:38:42)
Toyotas and Hondas.

Gosh, it's Toyota's and Honda's. Surprising no one. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:48)
Yeah, so Lexus ES Hybrid,

7.5 % chance of hitting 250,000 miles. The Honda Accord, 8.8 % chance of hitting 250,000 miles. The Toyota Camry, 9 % chance of hitting 250. Also the Camry Hybrid, which was at 10.2%. And the Toyota Avalon,

Nicole (1:38:56)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:18)
which is no longer available. It's out of production now, but ⁓ that one is 9.7 % chance of hitting 250,000 miles. And of course, the Avalon and the ES are both based on the same platform as the Camry. ⁓ four that are basically the same car.

Nicole (1:39:19)
Can't get it. Yeah.

So surprising no one, if

so surprising no one, if you want a car that lasts forever by a Toyota or a Honda. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:39)
Yes. Or a Honda Accord. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's see where...

Nicole (1:40:00)
Where could you get that information, I wonder? Anyway, go ahead.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:02)
Yeah, I'm

not sure where you got the numbers, but at least anecdotally it seems correct.

Nicole (1:40:09)
It tracks with what we would all accept. Yes. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:18)
Yeah. All right. And then, ⁓ one more here. Tensor. Did you, we didn't talk about tensor, you? Yeah.

Nicole (1:40:18)
There we go with our lived experience. ⁓

So I

didn't and I went, so Glen we were talking about the autonomous stuff, I spoke to the folks at Tensor. I spoke to their, well I gotta look at my paper because it was green. Amy, Luca, who's the chief marketing officer. She was really cool to talk to, walked me around the car, showed it to me, but what kind of makes it neat is Tensor, they say it's gonna be on sale in the US by the end of the year. Coming, being a,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:50)
Just like the Ophelia.

Nicole (1:40:52)
huh. And this is a level for autonomous vehicle that you can own instead of being like a robot taxi that you're going to zoeks or whoever and you're just calling it for your taxi ride. It's going to be your very own. Like you can buy it and you can own it. ⁓ And the idea being that you can.

drive Glen you want to drive, because there is a steering wheel that kind of niftily, so Glen it's a steering wheel, it's a steering wheel, and then it pops into the dashboard and sort of the second screen, which is the infotainment screen, goes whoop and covers the steering wheel Glen you're not driving. So it slides back and forth. ⁓ And it's...

It was built as a very tech for car. It says, think, 100 sensors and all, you know, so there's a lot of redundancies in a good way so that you theoretically doesn't matter if it's raining, snowing, sleeting, whatever. Everything's going to be fine. It's going to be able to see everything and do everything. And so good that you could actually rent out like you could have your tensor join up with Uber or something and just give people drives so it could make money for you Glen you're not using it. That's what they're built.

this as. It looks pretty cool. ⁓ They don't have pricing on the app. saying she said this is a luxury vehicle. So that should tell you. So it's going to be, I would imagine a six-figure car. I'm thinking Lucid Territory is what my, would guess. But it was neat because it was, it really was something that they build as

like designed to be a level four vehicle right from the get go. This this is where it's going to be. This is their whole objective and something that you can choose to drive, choose not to drive. You can get out of it and say, go park yourself. You can call it, you know, so you don't have to go out and walk in the rain and the snow. ⁓ The idea of this is so very cool. But like we're talking about a lot of things, whether it will come to fruition, that's the big question. But it was amazing to see it end of the year.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:49)
So,

so tensor for a little background on the company, ⁓ tensor was formerly known as auto acts. And this was a Chinese company that was developing robo taxis ⁓ that were not intended for sale to regular consumers. ⁓ And they, you know, they were running some robo taxi services in a couple of Chinese cities, you piloting some robo taxi services.

Nicole (1:42:53)
Bold. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:19)
So, you know, they definitely have the technology. They know how to do this. You know, and previously their their robot taxi fleet in China was using the aforementioned Pacifica plug-in hybrids because along with a lot of other AV companies that were using those because Chrysler for a time offered an AV ready version of the Pacifica. You know, after they did their original deal with with Waymo to supply them with Pacificas.

Nicole (1:43:24)
Mm-hmm.

Ha ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:50)
⁓ They created basically an off-the-shelf AV ready version of the Pacifica that was pre-wired for all the compute and all the sensors and everything and was fairly made it as close as possible to plug and play for a company like AutoX ⁓ or Aurora or numerous others to buy these, plug their computers and their sensors into it and get up and running relatively quickly, you know, without having to tear apart the entire vehicle.

this is not that this is the same automated driving system, but it's a completely different vehicle. But Glen you look at it, you know, it has the same kind of sensor array that you would find on a Waymo or a zoeks or something else. You know, so it's not a pretty vehicle. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Nicole (1:44:43)
hat got a little hat on

it got a little hat it's different but i think it's gonna be expensive like she didn't say it's gonna be expensive just like it's a luxury you know vehicle so it's not gonna be cheap it's it's kind of in a way like what you're talking about with the feel it it's gonna be for a it's a very small number of people who probably gonna be able to afford it and who are gonna want to go all in with this you know sort of so i don't see

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:47)
And as you say, I'm sure it's going to be expensive.

Nicole (1:45:08)
It's not like they're making a mass market vehicle that can sell like a Camry or something. It's going to be a really small niche that's going to want to buy this. But I did find it interesting the amount of

like just how redundant they made the systems like they sort of alleviate the fear of what if a sensor is blocked? What if this like, no, there's so many there's like system upon system upon system to make sure it sees where it's going and also which is good, which is good, right, which is a good thing. And the idea that they, you know, they're they're they're calling it a robot taxi. And but they're saying it's a robot taxi you buy instead of a robot taxi. You hail. It's a robot taxi that you buy. Now you you own a robot taxi that you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:35)
Yeah, which is the way it should be.

Nicole (1:45:52)
can send out and do it, you know, to do things like an Uber or any other robot taxi would do. And you can use it on your own and just relax in the back or you can choose to drive it if you want to drive it. It's it's an interesting idea. I would love to see if they can hit, you know, on sale by the end of the year. mean, I think they could probably hit on sale. There was no delivery time given. So even if it's on sale at the end of the year, we don't know is is delivery January of twenty seven or is delivery, you know, twenty twenty nine.

no idea. That's always a kicker, right? It's like, Glen are you actually going to have this thing in people's hands? And it'll be an interesting vehicle to see how far they get and how quickly they actually get it on a road in the United States.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:39)
Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see how many of these they can sell. Cause I, think the number is going to be ⁓ somewhat small.

Nicole (1:46:44)
Mm-hmm.

I think it's going to be small. you know who else was there?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:57)
Yeah, it's not clear who they're, who they're going to work with to build these things.

Nicole (1:47:01)
Yeah.

Right.

Right and we'll pull it off for you. Who knows that could be where it goes. Also same didn't we take a ride in a faraday last year wasn't I with you didn't we do that so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:26)
Yes, around very

slowly around a small parking lot in the Faraday van.

Nicole (1:47:30)
So

I thought of you, the Faraday van, I saw it. had a whole big activation inside the Renaissance Hotel, which I was. Is that what it was? I just saw it. It was like, I like what honestly walked into use the bathroom people and I was like, hey, Faraday's here like that's all in the lobby. I had no idea they were there. I'm like, they're still kicking. They're still they're still kicking.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:38)
Yeah, they had an investor day program there. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I guess this year they announced they're going to do humanoid robots this year. So, you know, shocker.

Nicole (1:48:00)
⁓ Because are

you even really in technology if you're not trying to make a humanoid robot at this point? Absolutely not.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:07)
Absolutely not. mean, I don't know. don't

know what all the other car makers are doing if they're not doing robots Is Tesla and Hyundai, know, that's basically it

Nicole (1:48:13)
If you're not doing robots, what is wrong with you? That's

yeah, Honda had one they got rid of. What was his name? Asamo Asamo's dead, isn't it?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:19)
Asimo.

yeah, about 10 years ago. Yeah.

Nicole (1:48:25)
I know, but

Asimo died. Asimo was first to market and he's dead already.

Yeah, the name lives on, the cute little bot doesn't.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

poof, standing's hard, you know, it's hard. We all have our bad days and we just fall over.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:52)
That's why these robots

should be on wheels, not on two legs.

Nicole (1:49:00)
But the dogs are creepy. The early dog, mean the yellow dogs, the robot dogs, the ones that Hyundai uses in their plant. Spot, cute name, creepy dog.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:02)
haha

spot. Yeah.

Yup.

Nicole (1:49:16)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:33)
Huh.

Nicole (1:49:35)
When

I watched he grabbed a door handle at the CES thing and he walks at the door handle, a little head, head, neck, arm, whatever goes higher. And then very slowly those claws go up and open. like, I don't know. Because I'm going to wake up and it's going to like squash my brain in the middle of the night Glen they take over.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:47)
Yeah.

⁓ yeah. Heavy Metal, I think it was titled.

Nicole (1:49:59)
I have not, I've not watched that, but

yeah. Okay. So, geez, maybe I shouldn't. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:11)
All right, ⁓ we have some more listener suggestions for Nicole's shopping journey, car shopping journey. ⁓ So Eddie ⁓ suggested, this was a very short one, I know she liked the Honda Passport, why not just get one?

Nicole (1:50:17)
cool, what are they since I can't read anything right now?

Yes, I do. Because

it's not as fancy as I want it to be inside. ⁓ want a little bit more fancy. It's lovely. If I was looking for like a mat, like ⁓ that level of car, I would be considering the passport because I do love it. I like it very much. ⁓ But I don't think that's not the vibe I want in my car this time.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:46)
You're at the point in

life where you want to treat yourself.

Nicole (1:50:49)
Correct, good sir. That's exactly it. I'm at the point in life where I would like to treat myself.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:54)
All right, well, ⁓ then I think Sean W's got you covered. ⁓ Hello, Wheelbarrings Crew. I think Nicole should get an EQS sedan, Mercedes EQS. Not just any EQS sedan, but this one. And he's got a link, and I don't know if ⁓ it's to ⁓ a dealer ⁓ called North Coast Mitsubishi in Cleveland. it's still available. ⁓ So it's in West Cleveland. ⁓ And said,

Nicole (1:50:58)
Okay, what's Sean say?

Hmm, okay.

⁓

Well, Glen I can reboot everything on my laptop, I'll look. OK. look at that.

Okay, I'd have to go to Cleveland.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:23)
And and

so why so I can stop thinking about it I test drove it and enjoyed it range is great comfort is great The rear wheel steering is unreal why a hundred and twenty two thousand dollar car doesn't have a heated steering wheel makes no sense But compromises have to be made the hatch is great. My cyclocross bike fit inside super easily ⁓ Why would I not want this? $80,000 plus off EQS because it's just a smidge less quite quiet than my current least Cadillac Lyric

Nicole (1:51:30)
Ha ha ha ha!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:53)
She could also consider an off-lease lyric all-wheel drive more power than anyone needs comfort and quiet and And sorry Sean, but you know quiet is spelled Q UI ET not TE You did made that same typo twice here. I know

Nicole (1:52:07)
you

Look at you being the

grammar police. Sean, it's okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:14)
Alright.

So anyway, all wheel drive, more power than anyone needs, comfort and quiet, a company committed to EVs, don't get the poverty spec 2024 only, ⁓ only tech line, and she gets super cruise. So if you get anything but the tech line, you get super cruise. ⁓

Nicole (1:52:34)
Everybody

has said to get it. Actually, I've had a lot of people say lyric. You're not alone in that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:38)
Yeah. Rear

seat room and cargo space are massive for her husband and daughter's boyfriend. ⁓ Or if she, you all can help convince me, I'm not crazy for liking the Lyric more than an EQS sedan. That would be great. Bonus for the Lyric, the Ohio titles call it a station wagon. Same is true for our Kia EV6 here in Michigan. The title says station wagon, not SUV. So this particular EQS that is for sale is ⁓

Nicole (1:52:59)
Well,

huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:06)
$39,699.

Nicole (1:53:09)
Mmm. Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:12)
and it only has 20,691 miles on it.

Nicole (1:53:14)
And Glen I'm hearing,

but I feel like the the part I took out of that was it has no heated steering wheel. That it's a deal breaker because I guess the Subaru I'm in, unless I missed it, also doesn't have a seated steering wheel was very displeased with this. I was looking everywhere. I couldn't find the but heated steering wheel, heated seats. Remember, I want the fancy. If your fancy doesn't include a heated steering wheel for that original price, what the heck?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:20)
Yeah. Is that a deal breaker in New Hampshire and winter?

so yeah Lyric has a heated steering wheel and you get super cruise

Nicole (1:53:44)
I think Lyric has both, right? Heated steering wheel, heated seats. See, Lyric would be a better

option. And the Super Cruise, I do like Super Cruise. I like the Super Cruise. I don't know. I hadn't even thought really of Cadillac, but everyone keeps saying Lyric. That has come up more than once.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:02)
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's a similar size to what you had. ⁓ Probably better rear seat room than the swag in here. And and you know, it will actually work.

Nicole (1:54:07)
Yeah.

Probably.

That's the biggest part. That's the biggest part.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:22)
As long as you can live with going in the touchscreen to open the glove box, know, it does have.

Nicole (1:54:26)
I don't know how

often you go in the glove box though. See glove box touch screen I can handle. It's the vents that I touch all the time that I can't handle. That would make me cranky, but let the glove box, like Glen do you need to go in there? When you need your registration for something because you got pulled over or because you're at the getting maintenance on your car. That's it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:32)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓ and see, there was also, ⁓ in the discord, ⁓ I didn't put it in the rundown here yet, but there was also from Staniel and I can't remember if we talked about this one or not. might've, ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. Okay. We did talk about this one. Yeah. And he had also brought up the lyric as a suggestion. And that was a couple of weeks ago.

Nicole (1:54:56)
Wait, I remember the name.

Okay. Yeah, see, lyric has come up.

Yep. Lyric keeps coming up. That should be on my list to go give it a spin. I should give a lyric a spin. I've driven it. I should just give it a fresh spin.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:14)
Yeah. And

yeah. And for now, you know, you can still get CarPlay on there.

Nicole (1:55:22)
that's right. If I get it now, then it's going. Yes, you want to get it before Carply goes away. Mm-hmm. I appreciate the suggestions, guys.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:28)
Yeah. Or, you know, like, like they suggested, you

know, somebody suggested, you know, get an off-lease Lyric. You know, you can, you know, you can get amazing deals on, on lightly used EVs like we did. ⁓ So that's, that's definitely one to consider, I think. So Sean, I'm sorry, but we're, know, well, can, can we, can we explain, can we give Sean a justification for not buying the CQS?

Nicole (1:55:35)
Yeah.

I think I would agree.

It doesn't have a heated steering wheel, Sean.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:57)
Okay.

Well, no, I mean, we don't know what Sean's family situation is Yeah, yeah Yeah, I mean he can he likes the hatchback and he can get his bike in there. So You know, but the heated steering wheel, you know, if that's if that's a deal breaker for you Sean, you know

Nicole (1:56:02)
⁓ No, Frisham, but the heated steering wheel. That's the reason. That's how you that's how you.

You live in Cleveland. You live in Cleveland.

It gets cold. Heated steering wheel, my friend. That's what you want to focus on. That will keep you from buying it. Mm The freeze you have to death. It's that time of year.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:23)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you get those, those lake effects, snows off of Lake Erie. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so don't, don't get the EQS, Sean, unless you really feel like you need an EQS then, then, you know, go for it. Yeah. And you know, it's less than 40 grand for a car that costs 122 new.

Nicole (1:56:35)
Yep, don't get it.

Then go ahead and get what speaks to you.

I know, it's cheap.

Geez, that is cheap though.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:47)
Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for this week. I do have an interview that will be added on here at the end. So keep listening for my conversation with Glenn DeVos, who is the CEO of Microvision. ⁓ I first met Glenn years ago Glen he was CTO at Aptiv ⁓ and he left Aptiv a couple of years back ⁓ and he's now CEO of Microvision, which is a LIDAR company. Well, it was

It was other stuff. It was mostly an R &D company for most of its nearly 30 year history. But in the last couple of years, it's really gotten into LIDAR and trying to commercialize it. And they've got a new LIDAR sensor that is like 200 bucks. And speaking of LIDAR, I had a conversation this week with David Lee, who's the CEO of HSI, a Chinese LIDAR company. ⁓ Last year in China, three million cars sold with LIDAR.

a million of which had HSI lidar sensors. ⁓ And they are currently building a factory in Thailand, which will be coming online later this year to supply lidar sensors to the rest of the world.

Nicole (1:57:44)
3 million. Wow. Yeah.

Wow, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:58)
Yeah,

so ⁓ no China tariffs on those. ⁓ So we may see Hisai lidars coming to vehicles outside of China ⁓ in the not too distant future. But stay tuned for the conversation with Glenn ⁓ and we will talk to you next time. Bye.

Nicole (1:58:12)
There you go.

Bye

everyone.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:22)
All right, Glen it's good to see you again. ⁓ I think it was almost 10 years ago that I first met you Glen you were CTO of Delphi. ⁓ one of the things Glen we first met, it was Glen we were learning about what Delphi was doing in the area of automated driving. And over the years is that transformed from Delphi to active. ⁓ But now you've got a totally new role. You are since the last few months, you've been CEO of a company called micro vision. So tell us

What is microvish? Because most people probably have never heard of it.

Glen de Vos (1:58:56)
Yeah, that's a great question. First of all, Sam, great to talk to you again. Like you said, we've been at CES many times and other shows and it's always a pleasure. I joined Microvision in April as CTO and then took over as CEO here in beginning of October. And Microvision is an interesting company. It's been around, it's spun out from University of Washington back 30 years ago. And so it's been a public company for 30 years.

And historically, it's been focused on laser projection systems. That's been its history. How to manage and develop laser projection systems, working with lasers, working with MEMS. So as part of the projection and guidance system. And about five years ago, I realized they have technology that would be interesting for auto. So if you think about five years, a lot of interest for lidar for auto. And then about three years ago, Microvision acquired

Ibeo, which was actually one of the first companies I worked with at Delphi for the automated cars we drove here at CES in 2015. So they acquired Ibeo about three years ago and that really brought them short range LiDAR capabilities as well. So long range scanning with MEMS, that was a micro vision IP and then short range coming from FlashLiDAR coming from Ibeo. And so what I'm doing now as CEO is really taking that

core technology and then driving applications in three markets. The first is auto. That's the big market for lidar and I'm convinced and I know we can lower the cost of lidar to where it's not only affordable for level three, but ultimately affordable for level two ADAS systems. The other markets are industrial. And what's exciting there isn't just industrial automation, which is really picking up, but industrial ADAS. So equipping

forklifts, tuggers, and other industrial vehicles that are manual operated today with no safety, with no ADAS systems, being able to equip them with ADAS systems, prevent accidents, and really other issues with manual driven vehicles. The third market that we're in now is security and defense. And so that's looking at using LiDAR on drones to do real-time mapping, navigation in denied areas, and then also...

Extending the perception system of ground-based autonomous vehicles. putting a lighter and a drone that moves ahead of the vehicle 50 100 or half a kilometer and Is able to basically extend the perception system for those off-road autonomous vehicles ⁓ That's what we're doing 26 will be a really important year for us as we start now getting commercial traction on the technologies and Excited to be talking to you more about how the success along the way. Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (2:01:45)
So I first became aware of microvision probably about five years ago around that time. They started looking at the automotive space, you know, and I had never heard of the company before as most people hadn't. And, um, you know, they, they started showing a mems light, our sensor, you know, so this is the light, our sensor that's using a, a solid state, little tiny micro mechanical mirror system to be, to steer a light laser beam. And there's a bunch of companies that are doing that kind of technology and it didn't seem to be anything.

particularly unique about what Microvision was doing at the time with that. But, you know, then Glen you acquired Ibeo, know, Ibeo is also an interesting company that I've been talking to you for many years and, you know, they had a very interesting, completely solid state flashlight, our system. So describe what the difference is with what is now known as the Microvision Muldio S sensor versus that

mems type of lidar and yeah and you know the one that most people were probably most familiar with the kind of the spinning

Glen de Vos (2:02:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Movia S, which is, as you said, a flash LIDAR system, and that's what really enables it to be solid state, is it's a Vixel, which is a edging-mitting laser that illuminates the, the area, and then a receiver chip, a SPAD receiver chip that then receives the images. what's, you know, that technology is very much used for shorter range, so 30 to 50 meters.

If you think about it, it's a fixed resolution. know, so it's kind of like a camera. It's fixed in terms of the resolution. So the way you expand this field of view is through the lens. So depending on what lens you put on, you could do 60 degree field of view. You could do 180, which is what we were showing. And so the lens is the lens determines the field of view, but obviously influences the resolution. Well, now that we have VIXELs and spads that have

Sufficient resolution to be able to see with adequate detail 30 50 meters out We can now make you know take a solid state lighter and really make something useful for automotive that gives you a near field detection That's just amazing ⁓ Wow, how is that different than kind of the spinning lighter or the electromechanical? ⁓ Spinning lighter let me talk automotive first spinning lighter that you see today usually has a mirror or

some type of a rotating spinning reflector that takes a much smaller number of beams and scans over a limited field of view. So you may only do 60 or 120 degrees horizontally and maybe 30 degrees vertically. So it's a narrower field of view. It's far fewer lasers because you're just you're scanning as opposed to it could be a one it could be four but it's a lot fewer.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:43)
is just one thing.

Glen de Vos (2:04:48)
and you're using electromechanical scanning to be able to cover the area of interest. ⁓ But those tend to be used for longer range. So you don't have the wide field of view, but you have range. And that's what you see today, by and large, in automotive applications. Some scanning mechanism now. What was interesting with Maven, which is Microvision's product for long range, today is it uses a MEMS for scanning.

So doesn't use a spinning mirror or a mirror on a ⁓ stepper motor. ⁓ It uses actually a MEMS microelectronics mirror that does the scanning. That in combination with the photo optics and what we call field expansion optics gives the lidar the range of motion. And the advantage to that is, know, MEMS are very compact. So it's a much more compact technology.

You know, you can drive them at, know, frequency, you know, 20 hertz frequency is not an issue. And it really means you have, you don't have a motor or moving parts. You have a MEMS, which is a very mature technology that actually does the scanning mechanism. And that's, and that again can do 200 meters, know, 200 meters for long range detection. Spinning light are, which has been

Ultimately, which was, know, if you think back in the day, the big velodyne, we call the KFC bucket. That's where, you know, that's the origin of spinning lidar. And that is I take a row of emitters, you know, and I spin and I, you know, detect as I'm spinning. And that gives you, it can give you very good long range coverage as well as 360 coverage. That's the big advantage. get 360 coverage. I'm not limited in terms of my field of view.

And then you've seen that technology get smaller and smaller, you know, with what Velodyne had done and Ouster and Tsai and the others, they're making more compact, adding more beams. The issue with spinning lidar is one, it's a complex spinning mechanism. So from a cost standpoint, it's expensive. The second issue is obscuration. You only have one sensor. So I got to put the sensor and the vehicle itself or other things will obscure what the sensor can see.

And so for near field detection, you can't see around things. so and then so you end up with more than one, which means more costs. And that's really been, you know, kind of but that's been the state of the art, if you will, for industrial as well as for kind of the robot taxi market. So we're excited about is being able to offer more of a satellite sensor architecture, lower cost, smaller, lower power sensors.

that you can put around the entire vehicle to give you a very good mapping of ⁓ the vehicle and doing so at a lower cost.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:07:53)
Yeah, so the the movie OS is this the flashlight are And you know, we took a ride in one of your development vehicles. It's got Korea these on there It gives you a full 360 degree view around the vehicle within about 25 or so meters. What about the knee was so So what do you see? You know, what are they the kinds of you know in automotive? You know, what are the kinds of applications where that's gonna be useful?

Glen de Vos (2:08:21)
Yeah. So really it's around ⁓ urban driving. So if you think about autonomous or level three systems today, those are primarily highway driving and where you're looking down the highway, you're you're really focused on long range. ⁓ So Glen we talk about movie ass, it's more around near field detection. So it's more for urban driving. So you're driving in an area that has a lot of pedestrians and bicyclists and cyclists and

you bollards and all sorts of, you you name it, all sorts of things right around the vehicle, other cars. And you know, this is a sensor that really shows and can detect in that environment. So it's not focused on highway driving, it's focused more on urban driving. The other thing is, and you saw in the vehicle, can see right down what we call the drip line of the vehicle. So it's perfect for things like parking functions.

where you can see the curb, you can see if somebody's there, you can see debris or trash or bottles. It's all visible right along the drip line of the vehicle. So for parking or near field detection, it's perfect. And so as level three moves from simply being a highway specific function to being more urban, this is where you'll need this type of sensor.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:09:43)
Yeah, and you've talked about the tri-light RR architectors. using ⁓ two of those short-range sensors in the front corners and then providing your near field all the way around the vehicle coverage and then a long-range sensor up by the top of the windshield to give you that higher speed.

Glen de Vos (2:10:03)
That's right.

Yeah, today what you see is usually one sensor in the car and that's mainly for highway pilot for highway ⁓ highway functions and What we expect is level three will take on urban driving as well and And all things in between and that's where you'll need that You'll need that much wider field of view near field detection to do that And then along with that just for ADAS systems the concern around vulnerable road users I mentioned

says we need better near field detection on the perception system. Radar's getting better, camera's continuing to better, but LiDAR is really excellent at doing that, and so we think it can be helpful.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:10:48)
And in the past decade, the increase that we've seen in traffic fatalities has been almost entirely due to vulnerable road users. Pedestrians, cyclists, the people inside the vehicle, they're as safe as they've ever been, probably safer, but it's the people on the outside that aren't in cars.

Glen de Vos (2:11:05)
It's interesting because you're seeing some of that data coming on now about automated driving and ADAS systems. There have been enough millions of miles driven where they can see it's having a very good impact on traffic fatalities for vehicles, for automotive fatalities. VRUs and pedestrians on the other hand, those fatalities are going down. And in some respects, distracted driving is even more of a issue.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:11:32)
Distracted

driving and more people driving big SUVs and trucks where you have less visibility on what's around you Yeah, you know that's that's a that's a problem. This is some something where this type of sensor could really help How much does this cost?

Glen de Vos (2:11:44)
Yeah.

So for automotive, we're expecting launch timing at 29, calendar year 29. And that's at 200. And that's what we believe is, you know, that gets you into a level three system. mean, a level three system can afford that. We know that to get down to level two ADAS systems, you really got to be more around 100. And so we have to get to there. That's really where our next generation is targeted.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:11:53)
Okay, $200 percent.

Okay, and the current Mubia and Maven sensors ⁓ is not the end of the line for Microvision. You just closed the acquisition of another company that's going to help you with another next generation sensor that's even higher.

Glen de Vos (2:12:29)
Yeah, yeah, we closed on the acquisition of Scantonelle Scantonelle photonics in Ulm, Germany. And that team has been working on 15, 15, 15, 50 nanometer FMCW or frequency modulated continuous wave technology. So ultra long sensing. So 300 meters. 1550 has some really nice advantages relative to weather and weather performance.

You know, you think about our near field detection. It's not as susceptible to that. You get a lot of points. It's it's you know, whether it's not going to be a big issue. Long range weather. There's a lot of weather between you and the object. Now rain 1550 is a great technology for them. So ultra long range and the chip scale packaging that they're able to do of the photonics integrated circuit. So being able to put the lasers, the detectors, the optical amplifiers all onto a single

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:08)
snow and rain tonight.

Glen de Vos (2:13:26)
pick as we say a photo ⁓ photonics integrated circuit is a real game changer we think and so we'll come out with our first a samples of that product early next year and from there on you know then it's all about bringing it to market.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:43)
You

see as a potential timeline for that type of sensor to hit the mark.

Glen de Vos (2:13:46)
With a samples probably more in the 30 31 time frame. Yeah, real is five years. Yeah. So from where we are today now Maybe sooner than that for defense or some of the other applications But Glen you think about vehicle development times, you know a sample plus four years to you know, SOP not uncommon. Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (2:14:07)
All right, well, Glenn, it's great to see you again and great to find out more about what Microvision is doing because they said it's a company that came to my attention several years back. Wasn't clear what their intentions were because they didn't have any real presence in automotive or anything else for that matter. And it's nice to see something concrete happening with the company.

Glen de Vos (2:14:29)
No, we're really excited and Sam, great to talk to you guys as always. Thank you, Glenn. Thank you.