Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
This is Episode 439 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

Nicole Wakelin (00:07)
And I'm Nicole Wakelin from Test Miles and many other places.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:11)
And Robbie

this weekend ⁓ is taking a weekend off with his wife and dogs hanging out at a cabin somewhere in Sonoma ⁓ and enjoying what is at least definitely much warmer weather than we either you or I are experiencing right now.

Nicole Wakelin (00:28)
It is

so cold. So we had like the, you know, the warning, don't go outside, dear God, people, you're all going to die. Cold warning. Cause there was a wind chill combined with the fact that when I left the house at six 30, it was two, two degrees. And when I opened the garage doors and the wind hit me, my gosh, I'm dying. It was so cold this morning.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:50)
When I went to walk the dogs about 830, it ⁓ was about five and it's up to about 17 now.

Nicole Wakelin (00:57)
Let's see, I think we're

supposed to get decently. See, this is all.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:00)
It did get up to

33 on yesterday, so yesterday or Friday.

Nicole Wakelin (01:03)
So you know it's winter

when you're when, it's it's 12 right here now. I mean, downright balmy, right? Geez. It's the thing in when it in New England or in, you know, Michigan, when it's super, super cold and you've been dealing with single digits or low teens and all of a sudden it's 30, you're like, wow, it's like it's only 30. It's still cold, but check it back on.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:07)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, I I, I wear when I walk the dogs, I wear multiple layers because like where we live on to the to the west of our house is a golf course. So it's, you know, pretty wide open and we often get winds blowing across the golf course. So it gets fairly windy. So I wear multiple layers when it's this cold, because otherwise, you know, it just the wind just slices through and then once I get around the block on the other side of the block, as blocked by the houses,

Nicole Wakelin (01:49)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:53)
then it's not quite so bad.

Nicole Wakelin (01:56)
Yeah, it's just freezing in general because it's, it's just, it's two and it's windy. Doesn't matter where you stand when it's two and it's windy or freezing.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

But my dog goes with their thick double coats. They don't mind the cold. They're fine with the cold. It's ⁓ the only thing, I mean, when it gets below zero, then they might get, say, okay, I've had enough of this nonsense. But ⁓ the main thing that bothers them is just making sure they avoid the salt when they get salt on their paws. But it's been so cold that they've plowed the roads in the neighborhood, but they've only a couple of times put down any salt in recent weeks.

Nicole Wakelin (02:07)
They don't care.

Yeah.

everything

looks white, like the pavement is white. And when you have a lot of cars in the highway right now, it's this little cloud of salt. It would just really gross. You think about how hard that is on your car, right? Because it's not just like salt shaker salt. It's this like special salt that they put on the highways and it's, and I, every time I see the cloud, I'm like, my God, it's just like, I feel like it's just little like monsters eating away at your car. Like, look at the cloud. It's like I'm driving into like,

Sam Abuelsamid (02:38)
Yeah, from the salt.

Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (03:02)
An ox's fume that is like just going to degrade the metal as I go through.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:06)
Well, the other

thing you got to remember too, you know, mean, you know, the, there's less daylight now. So you're going to be relying on your headlights more because there's more chance you're to be driving in the dark. And when there's salt on the road, that salt is also going to end up on your headlights. And so, you know, before you go out, you know, if you live somewhere where it's cold like this, you know, just take, you know, have a rag in the garage or wherever, you know, or next to where you have your keys, you know, and just go out when you go out.

Nicole Wakelin (03:15)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:36)
wipe off your headlights, you know, because you're going to have a crust of salt on your headlights, wipe that off, you know, so you get some light, at least for a little while until

Nicole Wakelin (03:38)
Yeah, it makes a big difference.

Yeah. It's,

that weather where it's, you don't realize how compromised your vision is between the salt in the air and the short daylight and the garbage that is on your headlights. You know, take a, take an extra second so you can see where you're going. I have had now two weeks in a row vehicles that have had problems. ⁓ it's so called the windshield washer fluid is not squirting out of the washers. It was now it's not. And I had that all week last week, had it happen today and I was

I cried because there was some salt stuck, like dried on the way. I'm like, can't see it. I'm grabbing a handful of powdery snow from the snow bank before I drove away. I threw it at my car windshield and another handful threw it at my car windshield. And then I use my wipers. I'm like, well, that's got a hold all the way to Boston today. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (04:31)
Yeah.

Um, what was it? think last week, um, I think was, I think it was, think when I had the, um, the Mazda CX 70, which I'll talk about in a little bit, um, you know, I hadn't put the, um, I have a cover and this is another thing. If you park, park your car outside and it's kind of weather, it's not a bad idea. You can get these covers that drape over your windshield and can put your wipers up. Well, that's the thing on a lot of

newer cars because for aerodynamic reasons, the trailing edge of the hood kind of comes up over the wiper blades. And so you can't lift your wiper arms up in the air anymore like you used to, or you still can on a lot of cars, but you can't on many newer cars. But even if you can't lift your wiper blades up, you can get these covers. pretty cheap and it hooks onto your mirrors and your side doors. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (05:11)
Mm-hmm.

Not all of them, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:28)
just to keep the snow and ice off the windshield. And then when it's time to go, if it's snowed overnight, just take that off, give it a shake, throw it in the back of the car, and your windshield is nice and clear. And you're also less likely to get that salt or snow and ice build up on your wiper blades, or rather on your washer nozzles. ⁓ So that'll help as well.

Nicole Wakelin (05:49)
Yeah.

I currently have on the side, the driver's side of my window because there was so much muck yesterday when I was driving and I was driving at night and I was using the washer fluid like crazy because it was so I got up this morning and it's blue. Like the bit of ice is now light blue. it's match. like, well, I was using a lot of fluid. literally looks like you put blue ice up there. It's like a little scene from Breaking Bad. What is that? That is stuck to the side of my windshield.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:07)
Yeah.

Uhhh, so, what have you been driving?

Nicole Wakelin (06:22)
I have been driving. ⁓ It's kind of cool that I was driving this. had the Palisade last week and this week I have the IONIQ 9, which I think is kind of neat because I sort of went from the second gen Palisade, right? Wasn't the second gen on the Palisade and it's their gas vehicle to the first gen of their three row electric vehicle. ⁓ I like the IONIQ 9. It's, you know, the styling of it is sort of a love it or hate it thing. It's very bulbous from the back. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (06:35)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (06:51)
And it's very flat in the front has these massive lights ⁓ right now. It's it's funny. You don't realize how much just in general, this isn't a Hyundai thing. The excuse me, safety systems and all of the things that it sees the road and does all that. Nothing works right now because there's so much snow on the car and salt on the car like you were talking about. This isn't specific to this vehicle. Anything runs into this. This is not a Hyundai like, you know,

take, this is a car take, right? I went to back up and my backup camera just was brown, like I couldn't see it. So I'm like throwing my arm over the rear seats, looking, backing up. My daughter's like, go mom. I'm like, I did this for years before we had a camera.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:20)
Yeah, things like camera cameras will get covered up by ice and salt or snow.

Well, even

the radar sensor on the front, well, ⁓ I've had it get crusted up as you're driving. It may be clear when you leave, but as you're driving, the slush and stuff from the other vehicles builds up on there you'll get this crust of ice and crud.

Nicole Wakelin (07:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah? Yes!

Yeah, it just doesn't,

it doesn't take much. It's, it's, know, you get the dirt, you get the muck, it takes out those sensors, it covers them up. You could be at a gas station and clean them all off. And then five miles down the road, you get all the warnings again. And the good thing is it does give you the warnings. So you get the warning saying, Hey, some of your systems are disabled because the sensors blocked. it was all the sensors. I think this Hyundai warns me for every single sensor. We were laughing this morning. It was like, this isn't working. That isn't working yet. And again, not a Hyundai. It's just.

Technology in general does not like this kind of weather on cars. It really, really doesn't like it. ⁓ But really nice to drive. I actually had it, it's been a crummy week. We've had probably in the last week, probably half a foot of snow altogether, a couple of decent little storms. The roads have never really cleared up, kind of like it was for the Palisade the week before. So it's slushy and messy. Now what's interesting is I put it in, they have...

Terrain button there's drive modes that are just regular drive modes and terrain if you're like in mud or snow and I put it into snow mode because snow and Noticeably better traction everything gets everything gets better because it automatically flips back to the regular mode whether you have Eco Sport and I think it's normal they have for settings if you have whatever you have it set to in there every time you turn the car off and on It goes back to that so I was getting it out of the car in the snow and then I'd start to pull out I'm like why

Why is this having trouble? Wait a minute. Click that terrain snow mode. Now we're good. So it actually truly did make a difference because I noticed it every time that it turned itself off when I get out of the car. So it was fine driving, you know, even in that. I always feel like the sketchiest thing is not when you're driving in the middle of a really big storm, because we all try and avoid that, right? When there's a foot and a half snow actively falling, it's right after the storm or when you're trying to drive out of a driveway or from like a parking lot into traffic.

and there's just a little bit of slush and snow still left on the road. And if you're not careful, you think you have plenty of time to pull in front of the car and you don't, because your wheels spin a little bit, you lose traction a little bit. And suddenly you're doing that like, ⁓ because you're cutting it much closer than you intended to. This did a really good job of avoiding that. It really was good at pulling out. was, it was, I could see people getting stuck. I could see people like having that moment of, of panic, as it took them an extra two seconds to get out.

I didn't have that happen when I put it in snow mode. This thing was fabulous. So I really did enjoy driving it and I am driving the all wheel drive performance calligraphy. So this is pretty much the top trim. There's a calligraphy. I think there's one other special trim calligraphy design or something above this, but this is the, this is basically a top trim. It is all told $77,540.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:26)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (10:35)
Do you want to take a guess on destination on this?

Sam Abuelsamid (10:41)
I'm say 1495.

Nicole Wakelin (10:44)
Okay. It, says, gosh, and my thing is blurred. It looks like it says 1200. Wait, gotta do math. Four or five, six, seven. Yeah. 74, 75, 76, It looks like maybe it's 1800. Either way it's more than what you thought, but you went cause Robbie's not here. So, this has everything. The cheapest version of this that you can get is about 59,000. The most expensive is

76.5. So there's a pretty good spread that cheapest one though. The least expensive is rural drive. Once you get out of that S you're in all wheel drive all the way up and it takes a jump to 62.7. So not an inexpensive car, but this is a three row. This is an EV. Um, it has, you know, plenty of power. It's got 303 horsepower in some of the trims. Um, it's got 422 in what I am driving right now.

So it is more than capable of getting out of its own way. Plenty powerful, you know, that quiet EV thing, the instant acceleration you get from an EV. ⁓ Charging times, they say like 10 to 80 % is about 24 minute, a 350 kilowatt charger. 10 to 80 % in about 40 minutes if you're using a supercharger because it has the Nax built in, the Tesla charging port is built in.

I have an adapter, so I didn't charge it at a Tesla. just use a little adapter, charge it at the house super easy. It does say, and I keep wanting, might be able to turn this off, but when you plug it in, it's like, it takes a second and it's like, vehicle is now charging. And every single time it said that it freaked me out. It's a little bit like voice of God. You're halfway in the house and you're like, okay, thanks. It is very loud. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:20)
I think there is a setting to turn that off.

Yeah, yeah, it's quite loud because we have the same thing on our EV6. They have it

on all the Hyundai, Kia, Genesis vehicles and I'm pretty sure there's a setting where you can turn that off.

Nicole Wakelin (12:35)
What?

I'm sure

you can turn it off. just didn't play with it, but I guess it is good too, because then if you somehow haven't, maybe you didn't really plug it in and click all the way or something, you know what I mean? You would notice that it didn't say that and think, wait a minute, am I really charging my car? ⁓ Three rows, it has six or seven seats, depending on the setup that you have. Plenty roomy, we have these lovely little captain's chairs and ours, my daughter loved them, she said it was nice and roomy. ⁓ Plenty of cargo room, it has a great big infotainment screen, there's like,

a 12.3 inch infotainment screen and a 12.3 inch digital instrument cluster, but they're in that one display. So it has that illusion of being one giant screen, which I think is such a nice clean look. I like it when they do that. Just so you don't have like two separate blocks. It's like one nice thing across the dashboard. So I like it overall. I mean, it was really comfortable, has heated seats, heated seats, heated steering wheel. They've got second row heating controls. You've got heat for them. Like it's got all of the things that you could possibly want. It also has that

Same that ergo motion driver seat that kicks in when you've been driving for so much time. I love that. I've just said like now two weeks in a row, I've had a vehicle with that. I'm like, dang, I thought this was silly, but now I find that I love this. Like it's just so nice. You don't realize, I think sometimes you've been sitting and your body gets tired of sitting and then that happens. Like, that was a nice little like massage. Thank you. Thank you, car. Yeah. Kind of just like, that's nice. And I didn't have to, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid (13:36)
Yeah.

Just kind of get your spine moving around a little bit.

Nicole Wakelin (14:01)
go schedule a point for massage. Cars just like, feel like you need this and does that, which is kind of cool. So I liked it. We were talking about, because this is something interesting, it's freezing cold, right? It was literally two when I left the house this morning, because I took people to the airport and it was five when I got back. So I was watching the miles per kilowatt hour. Am I saying that right? And it was about 1.7. And I was asking Sam, because he is an engineering man,

Sam Abuelsamid (14:23)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (14:30)
It's freezing cold weather. It used almost half the battery going back and forth to Boston. ⁓ But is that 1.7? Do you think that's good in the conditions that we're having right now?

Sam Abuelsamid (14:41)
Under the current conditions, I think for a big vehicle like the IONIQ 9, think that's, and especially with the calligraphy, which has the bigger wheels and tires and everything, so there's more rolling resistance, that's not an unreasonable number to expect. So I'm just pulling it up here. see, so the official rating, EPA rating for the IONIQ 9 all-wheel drive,

performance, which has the same tires that are on the calligraphy, ⁓ is 40 kilowatt hours per 100 miles. So that's about two and a half miles per kilowatt hour. ⁓ That's the official EPA rating. think in real world driving, you can actually do a little better than that. You can get closer to three, ⁓ which is fairly typical for a large three-row vehicle like this. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (15:21)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:40)
It's cold, you're have the heater on. You've got more rolling resistance with the slush and everything on the road. ⁓ The air temperature, actually the air is more dense. It does make a difference. Not a huge difference, but it has an impact. So all these things add up. even if you're driving a gas car, you are going to notice that your fuel economy is significantly worse when it's that cold.

Nicole Wakelin (15:44)
Blasting. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's really important. Say that

again. Even with a gas car. Right?

Sam Abuelsamid (16:12)
Yeah, any any vehicle, your fuel

economy is going to be probably, you know, in these same conditions, your fuel economy is probably going to be about 25 to 30 % worse than normal. ⁓ And that's just, you know, that's physics. There's there's no way around that.

Nicole Wakelin (16:26)
So it's not

exclusive to the EVs. I think when we notice it and when it gets talked about so much on EVs is I'm going to bet that most people don't know exactly the miles, like how big their gas tank is and how many miles they necessarily get per tank of gas. You don't worry about it the same way. People get nervous in EVs. So you look and you suddenly say, well, you see it saying instead of having 200 miles of range, you have 150, you panic. You don't see it so vividly in a gas vehicle.

And I don't think you notice it, but the same thing happens. Same thing happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:59)
Right, and people are still so used to, ⁓ your fuel gauge gets low, pop into a gas station, fill it up, you're on your way again. And if you're driving an EV, if you're charging at home, if you just plug it in every night, you're gonna start the day with full battery anyway. It's not gonna be an issue. You are gonna use more fuel, or more energy, regardless of whether it's a liquid fuel or electrons, you're gonna use more. ⁓ As an example, we were talking just

Nicole Wakelin (17:09)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:28)
before the show started, or before we started recording, ⁓ we've got a Kia EV6, which is same basic architecture as the IONIQ 9. ⁓ Same type of motors and same battery architecture, just a little bit smaller. And when the weather was warm in the fall, ⁓ we were, my wife who mainly drives it, was getting about 3.7 miles per kilowatt hour with it. ⁓ Right now,

Nicole Wakelin (17:30)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:56)
You know, she likes to have the car nice and warm and toasty when she gets in the car. She doesn't like to get into a cold car. And, you know, in the past, you when we had our Civic, you know, it had a remote start, but, you know, she'd have to open the garage door, you know, reach out, hit the button to open the outside garage door and then remote start the car to warm it up. And then it's sitting there burning gas for 10 minutes, you know, until it gets warmed up with the ⁓ with the EV6.

Nicole Wakelin (18:02)
Me neither.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:24)
Now she doesn't even open the garage door because it's electric. You know, just hit the button remote. You know, she has the temperature set where she wants it, you know, hit the remote start. And after a few minutes, it's nice and toasty warm. But, you know, it's and you know, when she goes to the gym or whatever every day, you know, she does that when it's when it's cold like this. And so, you know, she's been averaging, you know, because sometimes the car might be sitting there for 10 minutes warming up.

⁓ And when it calculates that energy consumption, it's doing it based on the total amount of energy it used since you started, regardless of the number of miles. And she's not driving a huge number of miles. So right now, she's averaging about 2.1, 2.2, because she's using the heater. ⁓ she only plugs it in once or twice a week anyway. So a lot of the times when she's doing that,

Nicole Wakelin (19:14)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:23)
because she knows she's got plenty of battery available. so she just starts it, remote starts it, and it's using up the energy from the battery. It doesn't matter.

Nicole Wakelin (19:26)
Right.

Yeah, it really doesn't. It's so it's, it's, you know, it was still good. It's freezing cold. I still got back and forth to Boston had just over half the battery left in this. ⁓ I plugged it in when I go out later today. It's, it's, it's about an hour each, not quite an hour each way, six in the morning on a Sunday when it's freezing cold on Superbowl Sunday and everyone's getting ready for their party. No one was on the road. So zip, zip, maybe like 45 minutes each way. So, yeah. So I mean, it was perfectly fine. So it.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:45)
Yeah. That's what roughly about an hour or so to the airport from your house. Yeah.

So I want

to have the driving, you with the heat on, you used half the battery, you know, and, if it was, ⁓ you know, if it was warmer weather, you know, you would be using a lot less than that. And, you even, even if you were taking a road trip, you know, in this kind of weather, you know, you got three hours of driving range. And for most people, three hours, you know, it's about the time when you need to get out, stretch your legs, drain your bladder.

Nicole Wakelin (20:07)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:32)
and maybe grab a cup of coffee. You can stop at a charging station, plug in. In this thing, the IONIQ 9, you can be charged up in 24 minutes or so. ⁓ And that's enough time to, like I said, hit the restroom, grab a cup of coffee, stretch your legs, and then be back on the road again.

Nicole Wakelin (20:51)
Exactly. So it's, it's, was very easy to live with for the week, you know, and it was interesting to have, just had the Palisade and having this, the differences between the two, the similarities, they look different, but it still feels like a Hyundai, both of them. But it's, basically what's changing is what's underneath between the gas and the, and the EV and they drive differently. It was sort of just a perfect comparison. It's like not, one isn't really better.

It's just, do you want that EV driving experience or do you want that gas driving experience? So two very different experiences. And I don't know that one is better. It's just different. It's like, do you want an SUV or do you want a sports car? Well, it's not that one is better than the other. One suits your life better. ⁓ Okay, fine. But you know what I mean? So it was, so it was, was, it was great driving this. ⁓ it was.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:35)
Well, a sports car is absolutely better. mean, you're wrong there. Sorry, but...

Yeah.

Unless of course you have to

haul a bunch of people and then,

Nicole Wakelin (21:47)
then the sports car is not going to work. But and this is also great too, because I had my daughter was home. So there were three of us and one of her friends was with us quite a bit. So there were three or four of us and it was a nice, comfortable, easy car to put people in and driving around and had their luggage on the way to the airport this morning. So yeah, so I enjoyed driving it even though it was an EV in freezing cold weather. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:09)
And best part is it started every time you got in it,

Nicole Wakelin (22:13)
Every single time I got in, just push a little, although that's weird. Okay. Can I call that out? So the start button on this poor Russ got in, had to move it out of the way when he was snow blowing the driveway and he comes in the house. Who designs a start button like this? This is stupid. It's, it's on the stock, the gear shift and the start button are on the same thing. So when you look at the stock that the gear shift is maybe three inches down from the edge, there's a rectangular square button.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:16)
Yes.

How the heck do you start this thing?

Nicole Wakelin (22:41)
And you push that button and that starts the car. And if you don't exactly, if you don't know it's there, you sit down, especially depending on how you sat down, how you have everything adjusted and you're like, you're like, where, where is it? That's what Rust did. He's like, who does that? And I'm like, Hyundai, small. Yeah. And Kia.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:44)
kind of hidden behind the steering wheel.

And Kia. Kia started

it with the EV9. They were the first ones, or yeah, the EV9 was the first one to use that arrangement. And then Hyundai copied it on the IONIQ9, and I think it's on something else too.

Nicole Wakelin (23:02)
Yeah, that's right.

And it's a little

odd. I mean, it's not like a problem, but it's an odd placement. And it is one of those things that you really have to kind of look. Like even when I know where it is and I'm still tipping my head a little bit, like where is it? I don't want to just play around and hit the car out of gear or whatever. So yeah, so that was the one thing I really wasn't keen on that.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:29)
Yeah, going back to the price for a moment, you mentioned the price was about $77,000-ish for this one, which is a fully loaded one. For comparison, Volvo EX90, which I think is really a pretty comparable vehicle. It's similar in size, similar in range. Actually, probably even a little bit, I think it's got less third row room than the IONIQ 9 does. Similar performance.

Nicole Wakelin (23:36)
Yeah, everything.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:59)
It starts at $81,290. So, yes, the IONIQ 9 is not inexpensive, especially in the calligraphy trim, but you can also get lower trims that are in the low 60s that are quite nicely equipped for that price point. even fully loaded, you're still several thousand dollars less than the entry point for an EX90.

Nicole Wakelin (24:01)
Yeah. So there you go. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it's, you know, when you're looking at the price, like there's an element like, my gosh, that seems so much, but it's not in the grand scheme. And I think that's part of the thing to remember, you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:37)
Yeah. And you know, there are more three row electric SUVs coming to market. And that's all I'm going to say about that for the moment.

Nicole Wakelin (24:49)
There are more coming.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:52)
There's

more competition coming to this segment.

Nicole Wakelin (24:55)
Yes, there is

more competition. It'll be interesting to see how things ⁓ how things roll over the coming months and years.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:01)
Yeah.

All right. ⁓ Well, I had a car that started off as a three row ⁓ gas or plug-in hybrid, actually mild hybrid or plug-in hybrid ⁓ SUV. ⁓ And then Mazda decided to make a version of it that simply discarded the third row and rebranded it from the CX-90 to the CX-70.

Nicole Wakelin (25:22)
Poof.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:28)
Literally, the only difference between a CX 70 and a CX 90 is there is no third row in the CX 70. They just they got rid of those parts. That's it. Nothing. I mean, all the sheet metal is exactly the same. Everything else about these vehicles, the CX 70 and the CX 90, exactly the same. ⁓ Same powertrains, same same everything from the driver's seat. You literally cannot tell which one of these you're driving. ⁓ But when you open the tailgate,

Nicole Wakelin (25:34)
Mm-hmm.

to get rid of those parts. Pull them out.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:58)
you can definitely tell because there's a huge cargo area in the back of the CX-70. Now, granted, if you had bought a CX-90, you could get the exact same cargo space by simply folding down the third row. And then you still have that third row available in case you ever need it. But if you absolutely know that you're never, ever, ever going to want to carry more than five people in the car, then you can get a CX-70. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (26:11)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:26)
So I had the CX-70 Premium Plus, ⁓ which ⁓ has the standard powertrain, which is a 3.3 liter turbocharged inline six cylinder engine, which is an absolutely lovely engine. I am a huge fan of inline six cylinder engines, always have been, because they're so smooth. ⁓ I love the Hurricane six cylinder and Stellantis products.

Love this thing, love BMW and Line 6s. This particular one is what they call the eSkyactiv G. So, Skyactiv G is their Skyactiv engine family with gas as the fuel. eSkyactiv means that this one is a mild hybrid. So, it's got a 48 volt mild hybrid system on it. So, there's a belted starter generator and a 48 volt battery. When you come to a stop,

or under certain conditions even when you're driving, it could be coasting. ⁓ It can turn the engine off. ⁓ For the auto stop start, because it's a 48 volt system, it can keep the engine off longer, because a lot of times with 12 volt systems with auto stop start, once the battery level starts to get down to a certain voltage, they have to restart the engine, even if your foot is still on the brake pedal.

And that's when you feel it the most. The restart is when your foot is still on the accelerator pedal, because you kind of got a load on everything and then you might feel a shutter. In this case, the 48 volt motor restarts it very quickly, with a lot of power, and it can keep the engine off typically throughout an entire traffic light cycle. So from the time you stop until the light turns green again, it can keep the engine off.

because it's got enough power in that 48 volt battery to power all the other systems in the car without running out of juice. So the Premium Plus rides on 21 inch alloy wheels. The one that I had was finished in melting copper metallic, which we had a few days of, it was very nice and sunny out and against the snow. This color looks fantastic. Personally, I think I would still go with

⁓ soul crystal red. But Mazda's got it when it comes to colors. Yeah, I mean, yes, they have some boring colors, they have some whites and blacks and stuff. But when they but but for for the colors, when they do colors, they do them so well. And the melting copper just looks fantastic, especially in the sunlight.

Nicole Wakelin (29:00)
you have to have at least a couple boring colors.

Mm-hmm.

Would you get melting copper or would you get the red?

Mmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:15)
I don't I think you know, maybe for something like the cx-70 I might go for the the melting copper Yeah, you know if I was getting a cx-30 or cx-5 I'd probably go with soul crystal red Absolutely, you know for a miata absolutely soul crystal red. Yeah But you know either either way there mean they're both great colors, you know, won't you won't be disappointed You won't you won't be bored looking at it

Nicole Wakelin (29:22)
Yeah?

Okay.

Required, yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:43)
⁓ And ⁓ you know, so this one the premium plus you get things like Heads-up display ⁓ there's ⁓ eight-way power driver seat lumbar support ⁓ Memory for the driver seat heated front seats leather steering wheel ⁓ This one does still it's got two twelve point three inch displays ⁓

It still has the central control knob, which I know you hate Nicole. ⁓ You know, I'm okay with it. But that's going away on new models, starting with the new CX-5. The new CX-5 just goes straight up touchscreen. ⁓ It's got Alexa built in. This one's got Mazda's infotainment system that they've had for a little more than a decade now, ⁓ which you may or may not like it. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (30:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:40)
If you use CarPlay or Android Auto, ⁓ the screen actually does have touch capability. And so when you're using Android Auto or CarPlay, ⁓ you can touch the screen and control it instead of using the central controller. Although ⁓ in the very cold weather, the screen in the car I driving was acting a little finicky. It didn't always respond correctly. ⁓ But ⁓

It's got all the usual array of driver assist features that you expect, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, all that sort of stuff. ⁓ Vehicle exit warning so that ⁓ if the corner radar, if there's somebody in the back seat, the corner radar detects a car coming up in the lane to your left, ⁓ somebody might be getting out, you'll get an alert before... ⁓

for opening the door, so if you don't open the door in somebody's path. ⁓ The mild hybrid system was pretty transparent, ⁓ didn't really cause any issues, never felt, the start and stop was pretty seamless, don't really notice it at all. ⁓ The CX-70 with this engine has got 5,000 pound towing capacity. ⁓ It's got their ⁓

sport. It's got their drive modes with sport, off-road and towing. ⁓ This is not a car to be taking off-road. ⁓ It's running on all-season tires. It's fine on a gravel road or something like that. This is not going to handle any trails of any notable difficulty. So there's an off-road mode, but you're probably not ever going to actually use it on this thing.

Nicole Wakelin (32:13)
Hahaha!

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:33)
⁓ I genuinely enjoyed driving this. As typical of Mazda, it's ⁓ even for a larger crossover vehicle SUV, ⁓ it's got quite good driving dynamics ⁓ to the extent that I could explore them ⁓ in these kinds of winter weather conditions. But I have driven it before in dry weather and it's really nice to drive. ⁓ Good balance of ride quality and handling. ⁓

and responsiveness, plenty of performance. The 280 horsepower for a 3.3 liter doesn't sound like a lot, especially when you compare it to the Hurricane. The Hurricane is 420 or 550 horsepower, depending on which variant you get from three liters. But you are not going to be disappointed with the performance of a CX-70 or CX-90. And basically, everything I'm saying here applies equally to the CX-90, because as I said,

Nicole Wakelin (33:12)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:33)
third row seat is literally the only difference. The grand total on this one came to $51,945. Guess at the delivery charge.

Nicole Wakelin (33:35)
Yeah.

gonna go 14.95.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:48)
You are very very close you're off by ⁓ Thirty-five dollars fifteen hundred and thirty which is kind of kind of an odd number. I mean Yeah, not sure where they came up with that one, but whatever ⁓ Yeah, not not a lot of options on this one and said, you know, it's the premium pluses is the highest trim level so, you know all weather floor mats cargo organizer and

Nicole Wakelin (33:54)
Wow. Okay, that's pretty good. 1530, that is a weird number.

Whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:16)
for 150 and $100 each and then $5.95 for the melting copper paint. ⁓ And then everything else is included standard on the Premium Plus. ⁓ It's rated at 24 city, 28 highway, 25 combined. Again, in this cold weather conditions, I averaged about 23, which is actually pretty good, better than I was expecting. it's, you know, this is a, if you're looking, know, and like,

You know all recent Mazdas, you know, it's got a very surprisingly premium feeling interior to it the materials the colors You know the fit and finish is really outstanding ⁓ and I think You know when you you know for fifty thousand dollars or you know fifty two thousand dollars in this case, you know including destination ⁓ When you look at some of the other products that are out there at that price point

you know, in a similar type of vehicle. This feels way more premium than most of the competitors. ⁓ To get something comparable from a lot of other competitors, you are going to pay many thousands more. know, like if you compare this to say ⁓ a Toyota Highlander, you know, this feels way more upmarket than that vehicle. Or, ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (35:23)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:46)
I you know, even trying to remember how much how much was the the Palisade calligraphy? mean, that was close to 60 grand, right?

Nicole Wakelin (35:54)
I think that was close to 60. Let me see. I'll look at it. Yeah, it's the thing is Hyundai. It's interesting to compare the two because Hyundai puts a lot in a vehicle, but it doesn't have the. I don't think they get the premium feel as well done as Mazda. Like. It's sort of like every Mazda feels nice. Every Mazda looks a little bit upscale. Every Mazda has a pretty if you step down really low in Hyundai's trim lineup, you start to feel that they're not as premium.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (36:23)
Mazda does a fantastic job of making their cars just look like,

Sam Abuelsamid (36:27)
Yeah,

I even if you get the base models, like our daughter, she has a CX-30, you know, which I think she got not the base S trim, but like one level up, but even in the base, you know, CX-30, it feels like a much, sitting inside it, feels like a much more expensive car than it is. And it starts under $30,000. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (36:30)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Which is kind of amazing. And that's

something that I'm driving the, what is it? CX-5. They're doing a first drive of this week. And I can't wait to see it because it has the new screen. Woohoo. But also I just like, I love their cars. I always am excited when I get to drive them because they do such a nice job. Like I genuinely like Mazda. The thing that held me back was that infotainment setup that I really didn't like. That would have made me stabby during the day. But the fact that they're changing that.

That makes most is far more appealing to me, and I already like them a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:24)
Yeah, I'll be talking to ⁓ interviewing Tom Donnelly, who's the head of Mazda North America on Tuesday afternoon ⁓ after I land elsewhere in California for a different program. ⁓ I will be having a chat with him. We'll have that conversation with him on the show next week.

Nicole Wakelin (37:31)
Mm-hmm.

Cool, excellent.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:45)
So that is the 2026 Mazda CX70 3.3 Turbo Premium Plus. Yeah. All right, let's move on. ⁓ So let's go back to Hyundai for a minute. ⁓ I think it was the Brussels Motor Show this week. ⁓ Hyundai unveiled a new model there.

Nicole Wakelin (37:52)
Oof, that's a mouthful.

Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:11)
that we are not going to see here in North America anytime in the foreseeable future likely. ⁓ Although you never know because Hyundai has this partnership that they did with GM for some vehicles, which I think includes like vans. ⁓ And Hyundai has this really interesting van called the Staria, which ⁓ you've been to Korea. I'm sure you've seen lots of these things on the road in Korea.

Nicole Wakelin (38:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they're

everywhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:41)
Yeah, it's a really uniquely designed van, which I think I think actually looks really cool. I think it's a cool looking van.

Nicole Wakelin (38:46)
That's a way to put it. It's a cool looking

van if you're van person. If you don't like vans, you're like, whoa, what's this?

Sam Abuelsamid (38:55)
Yeah.

Actually, sorry, it was in Stuttgart that they showed it, not at Brussels, in Stuttgart. So they unveiled the Staria camper concept in Stuttgart. And this is a new, they're doing an electric version of the Staria. So up until now it's had just internal combustion powertrain, but they've launched an electric version of the Staria and they created a camper version of it. It's right now it's a concept. But my guess is that

Nicole Wakelin (39:00)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:24)
Hyundai usually builds these sorts of things. ⁓ It was at the Caravan Motor and Touristic Trade Fair in Stuttgart, ⁓ that's CMT. ⁓ the Starry is a pretty good sized vehicle. ⁓ It's a big, fairly, I would say like a mid-size. ⁓ It's not as big as something like say a Transit van.

Nicole Wakelin (39:33)
Ooh.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:52)
but it's bigger than the older compacts like the Transit Connect and some of those types of vehicles. So it's more of a mid-size, but it's three row. I guess it's probably similar in size to an ID Buzz.

Nicole Wakelin (40:04)
Yeah, I would think it looks like it and it has it has sort of ID buzz vibes in a certain way, not the cute, fun retro thing, but just in styling the shape of it looks a little ID buzz ish. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (40:14)
Yeah, I it's got the camper pop top like you would find

on older VW bus campers. And I'm trying to remember, think, let's see. Let's see, it's got export power that can put out 2.6 kilowatts of electricity, 2.6 kilowatt hours of electricity per day. Let's see, I'm trying to remember the range. It's got the same EGMP architecture.

Nicole Wakelin (40:19)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:44)
as the rest of the Hyundai Kia Genesis EVs. So it's an 800 volt architecture. ⁓ It'll charge from 10 to 80 % in 20 minutes. ⁓ The standard version is 218 horsepower, which is adequate. I've driven the EV9 with that same powertrain, but it's front wheel drive rather than ⁓ rear wheel drive. But again, for a van, that's fine.

Nicole Wakelin (41:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:14)
And oh, they've got an estimated WLTP range of 400 kilometers, which is about 280-ish, 290 miles. EPA is probably gonna be, real world is probably gonna be around 260 or so. And that's probably adequate. It's better than what you get out of the ID buzz. this, you

This is something that Volkswagen hasn't built yet with the ID buzz. They haven't built a camper version of it. And, you know, there's a lot of people who've been, you know, waiting for VW to build a camper version of the, ⁓ of the ID buzz and Hyundai has done it with the starry with the electric starry.

Nicole Wakelin (41:45)
Right.

And this looks fabulous. I'm clicking through the pictures of how the interior morphs to give you basically a huge area that's a nice flat bed inside. You've got a little kitchen inside. It has that pop top so you have all that light. ⁓ It's really a cool design. A little table thing that pops out, slides out in the back. There's a thing for a shower. You can have it have a shower.

It's really cool. I like this. I think it's neat. If you didn't want, it's a great idea. I would love to see it end up here. I would love to see it just be made. Forget here. I'd love to just see them make it, but it's always, you know, you never know with the concept. Is this just an experiment to see people, what people think? And if people like it, will they come back and say, yeah, we're going to build it guys. Will they like it and say, okay, you guys love this, but we can't build this. Like you never quite know what they're going to do. I hope they build it. looks, it looks cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:51)
I think they probably will. ⁓ at the very least, ⁓ well, it depends. It depends on what comes out of this partnership with GM. ⁓ Because they've talked about working on vans together. So I could definitely see GM possibly offering a version of the Staria branded as a Chevy. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (42:53)
You think they will? And have it here? And have it in the US?

Okay.

Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:20)
do the camper here. ⁓ I think what might happen is they might end up working with a third party upfitter, which to be fair is what Volkswagen always did. mean, they worked with Carmen ⁓ to build the bus, the micro bus campers. ⁓ So I think you could see Hyundai partnering with somebody to, they would ship them the vans and then have them upfitted with all of the gear, put the

Nicole Wakelin (43:32)
Great.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:50)
pop top on there and various other things on there. So I hope that they build something like this. It'd be cool to have an option for something like this, especially in North America.

Nicole Wakelin (44:01)
Yeah, it would really be great. think it would be cool. Fingers crossed, because I want to see this one happen.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:06)
Okay. ⁓ We have previously talked about China and their ban on hidden door handles. ⁓ And this past week they made it official. ⁓ They ⁓ published some regulations. ⁓ Where is that tab here? ⁓ So ⁓ the page that I've got linked is in Chinese, but if you use Google Translate, it gives you a pretty good translation of it. And there's some...

I haven't been able to find the full regulation ⁓ anywhere yet. ⁓ I was trying to get a hold of it somewhere. But there are some interesting details in terms of how they're doing this. let's see, some of the things that they mention in the regulation. So the system has to be designed to ensure that in the event of an irreversible restraint service

There's a restraint device deployment. So that would be like an airbag or a power battery thermal event while the locking device is in a locked state. So the locking device being the door handle, the non-collision side door can be opened without the aid of tools via the outside door handle. So, you know, if you, you know, if you get hit on the passenger side, the driver side doors have to be able to be opened or vice versa without using any special tools.

And then in addition, each door handle, except for the tailgate has to, there's, ⁓ there has to be equipped with an interior door handle with a mechanical release function. no electromagnetic, electro, ⁓ electromechanical switches on the door handle. There has to be a, know, some sort of mechanical release function there and it has to be in proximity and readily visible to the vehicle occupants. So you're not searching around. And we've talked about this before.

Nicole Wakelin (46:05)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:05)
Like

on the Tesla or the Rivian R1s, there's a panel on the rear seats. On the front seats, they have the mechanical latch, like literally two inches from the button, which is just ridiculous. ⁓ Why bother with the button? ⁓ And then in the back, there's actually a panel that you have to pop off. So it's not even visible. There's a panel on the door that the rear seat passenger would have to pop off and then pull on a cable to get the door open if the door loses power.

⁓ so that has to be, ⁓ readily visible, not hidden. then one thing that's not, excuse me, one thing that's not clear from, from the information I have been able to find, they, they give some dimensions, you know, so there's some minimum dimensions for the door handle that the somebody from the outside of the vehicle has, you know, they have to, so you can't make it too small. It has to be minimum, certain minimum size that you grab to open the door.

without any tools. it's 60 millimeters by 20 millimeters by 25 millimeters. So about two and a half by about three quarters by an inch ⁓ dimensions. you know, reasonable size door handles so can grab it with your hand. ⁓ The one thing that is not clear, you know, they want to get rid of, you know, the electrically actuated door handles that have to

Nicole Wakelin (47:33)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:34)
pop that you need power for them to pop out. Right. ⁓ But like, for example, on our EV6, you know, it's got the door handles are flush. If you get the top trim levels, like a GT or GT line, and the same is true on the IONIQ 5, it's got the same door handles. ⁓ GM's got this on the Cadillacs, you know, so it's a, it's a pivoting door handle. So normally it sits flush with the door panel around it and it's

Nicole Wakelin (47:37)
the pop out thing, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:04)
pivoted at one end. ⁓ And on the lower and mid trim levels of the Hyundai's and Kia's, ⁓ it's not electrically actuated. It's a mechanical handle. On the top trim levels, when you walk up to it with the key in your pocket, the handles will automatically pop out, but you can also do it manually. You just push on the one side where the hinge is and the other side pops out and you grab the handle. It's a little finicky.

Nicole Wakelin (48:18)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:31)
It's more so than, just a traditional door handle, but you can get it open fully mechanically. It's not clear from what I've been able to find if that type of handle would actually be allowed. The Tesla Model 3 and Model Y also have the same type of door handle where you push it in on one side and the handle pops out. And again, not clear if that's allowed. I was talking to, who was I talking to? think Dana Hall from Bloomberg.

Nicole Wakelin (48:43)
okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:01)
the other day about this. was doing a story on this and she asked, know, it's like any, any chance of, you know, U S regulators following this lead and doing this. said, in the current environment, the current political environment, almost zero chance of, having similar regulations here. However, you know, they sell 27 million vehicles a year in China and 16 million.

in the US last year or so. China is by far the biggest market in the world. And anybody that wants to sell cars in China is going to have to design their door handles to meet those Chinese regulations. And the other thing is, this goes into effect January 1st, 2027 for any new vehicles. so anything that's already in market, they've got a couple of years leeway before they have to redesign. But anything new launching from January 1st next year has to

Nicole Wakelin (49:42)
Yeah.

Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:58)
comply with these regulations. basically, because China's doing this, the rest of the world is going to have to follow suit. ⁓ Automakers are going to follow suit because they're not going to design two completely different door handle systems for China and everybody else.

Nicole Wakelin (50:14)
No, it

makes no sense. So they're going to design to the biggest market out there, which would be China. yeah, so we're going to see whether we mandated or not, we're going to see some of this. We're going to get better door handles. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:24)
we're going to get better door handles.

⁓ I'll be curious to see what Rivian does with the R2 and the R3, how they change those.

Nicole Wakelin (50:37)
I know it seems like a, you know, it's funny because it's, 27 that it takes effect, which is a year away, but that's not really that far. Right. That's, that's not like, you're like, Oh, that's a long time. That's funny time. Not, not when you have things that's actually very short amount of time in some ways. be fair, you're right. China's quicker. Yeah. They have really short product cycles, but still that's a lot. It's, it's a big change. It seems like door handles should be so easy, but they're not.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:45)
Less than 11 months.

Although in China, mean, you they have short product cycles in China.

Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's part of the safety system. This is a lot of work you have to do to validate it, you know, you know, because, because door handles get used a lot, you know, so it's got to serve the, the mechanism has to be able to survive a lot of usage cycles.

Nicole Wakelin (51:09)
Yep.

Yeah, exactly. So I think it's a good thing. I find that I find the pop out door handles and electronic door handles to be finicky at times. I actually hate the pop out. I hate the pop out door handles in the winter. Hate them. All of them.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:32)
at best.

Yeah, well, mean, you and I have both experienced ice storms, where your car gets encased in ⁓ eighth or a quarter inch or more of ice. And at least with traditional door handles, you can grab that and pull it and crack the ice open and ⁓ get the door open. ⁓ With some of these, with the flush handles, fortunately, our car is parked in the garage when it's not in use.

Nicole Wakelin (51:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yup.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:07)
Unless an ice storm happens while we're out and about somewhere, ⁓ it's not going to be as much of a problem. ⁓ yeah, even with a mechanical one, if it's flush, you can still have problems.

Nicole Wakelin (52:19)
Yeah. And I also don't like them in the sounds like the salacing, the ones that are at an angle when they pop out, you know, that you're just grabbing like they don't pop out flush. Yeah. Well, that they drive me crazy because if they're wet, even in the summer, you go to grab them and your hand slips off and it's sometimes just like you catch it's just I don't.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:26)
Yeah, that's what the Kia's and Hyundai's have. That's what our car has.

Yes.

Yeah, no, they're too finicky.

Nicole Wakelin (52:41)
Yeah, they're a little

bit finicky for something that you have to use all the time.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:46)
Yep. ⁓

All right. ⁓ So next up Jaguar. ⁓ The we've we saw last year the concept version of the type zero zero Jaguars new electric GT four door GT car. ⁓ And now AutoCar got invited to ⁓ northern Sweden to drive a prototype of this thing. I don't know if you had a chance to.

to watch the video or look through this. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (53:16)
I did not have

a chance to watch the video, but I did have a chance to look through and I've seen a couple of different people talking about ⁓ driving this. It was a small crew that they brought out there and ⁓ yeah, it's interesting because the feedback is everyone was afraid it wouldn't feel like a Jaguar, but apparently it does.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:38)
Yeah, the way they describe it, know, the, I think the, subhead here was, let's see rides like an XJ drifts like an F type. Yeah. So the XJ was their old big sedan. You know, and one of the things about the XJ was, know, it was always renowned for having fantastic ride quality and decent handling. And so this, you know, they say it rides like an XJ and there's a video where you see them drifting around on the frozen lake in this thing.

Nicole Wakelin (53:50)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:08)
the at least the the launch edition is going to have three motors ⁓ and a thousand horsepower. ⁓ And depending on the mode and the driving conditions, you know, it's going to have different ⁓ power bias. ⁓ So it's a three hundred and fifty horsepower motor on the front and two motors on the rear axle combining to nine hundred and fifty. So you get a total at any given time total of about a thousand horsepower, which

is. Yes, that's a lot. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (54:38)
Which is absurd, like in a good way, but also absurd. It's

a lot of horsepower. you know, Mercedes Jaguar has said that like with their new reinvented Jaguar, it was not going to be the sort of mass market luxury that it was before. You know, the things that it wasn't the easy sort of more attainable luxury that they were going to go super, super, super high end exclusive. And when you look at numbers like that and you see the car, you're like, yeah, this is going to fit that.

It's not going to be, it's not going to be affordable at all. It'll be worth it because it'll be a thousand horsepower, but it's not going to be something. It's not going to be Lexus prices or.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:09)
Yeah, it's it's

Yeah, I mean, this launch edition will probably

be in the neighborhood of 200 grand. they. Yeah, they say that in rain, ice or snow, it'll vary between 50 to 75 % rear bias for the power in comfort mode, it'll be 54 to 80%. And then in dynamic mode, it'll be 65 to 98 % rear bias. So you could, you're basically going to get.

Nicole Wakelin (55:17)
Right, exactly. This is a real, it's going to be really pricey.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:41)
almost a thousand horsepower at the rear wheels ⁓ with this thing in dynamic mode. But it'll vary based on the conditions. they wanted it to feel more like a rear wheel drive car, ⁓ but still have the benefits of all wheel drive for better traction, better launch, a little more controllability. ⁓ It looks like it's gonna be pretty impressive.

Nicole Wakelin (55:44)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:10)
It's a 120 kilowatt hour battery, ⁓ range of about 400 miles ⁓ on the EPA cycle, 430 miles on WLTP. ⁓ I'm looking forward to hopefully get to drive this thing sometime in the next year or two.

Nicole Wakelin (56:29)
Yeah,

it looks really amazing. I mean, it really does. think everyone was very skeptical about what Jaguar was doing. The original ad campaign that came out when they were announcing the new Jaguar was somewhat less than well received. So to see them coming through like, okay, here's an example of what we're actually building. Here it is. Put it, get inside, take it out, drive it. It's like, okay, well, wait.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:46)
Yeah. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (56:57)
So I think we're going to all have to rethink a little bit now that we've kind of seen the actual product happening.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:04)
Yeah, and when you look at, mean, the car they were driving was still wrapped in camo, but you can see that it's still, it has, it's basically the design we saw on the concept. Same proportions of the concept. There'll be some details that are different, but overall it looks like that concept. ⁓ And they should be doing the full reveal late summer. All right. Yep. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (57:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yeah, I would agree. You can see a lot of the concept in it. Yeah.

So coming soon.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:34)
So, you know, other automakers have had challenges when it comes to EVs, particularly our friends at Stellantis, as you are well aware, Nicole.

Nicole Wakelin (57:46)
Mm-hmm, yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:50)
Anyway, Stellantis this week made a couple of announcements. They are doing a reset of their business. We already know they canceled some programs, delayed other programs. For North America, they put priority on putting a Hemi or a Hellcat in almost everything that they can.

Once they do that, then they'll start launching other stuff. and, uh, one of the things in this announcement, you know, they talk about, you know, we've kind of known about for a while is, you know, under the, uh, prior leadership of, uh, Carlos Tavares, you know, the planning, the product planning and everything was much more centralized in Europe. You know, basically, you know, Tavares and his team decided what was going to be built. Um, and now.

they are giving more autonomy back to the various regions where they operate. Hence, what we're seeing right now here in North America ⁓ under ⁓ Tim Koniscus, ⁓ where they're using the knowledge that they have in the various regions where they operate of their customers, what their customers want and need, or at least what they seem to want, not necessarily what they need.

to try and get products that are going to be more appealing to their customers. And as a result of this reset, they are taking charges of 22.2 billion euros or about $26 billion.

Nicole Wakelin (59:32)
Oof.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:36)
Oof.

Nicole Wakelin (59:37)
That is a lot. You know, and it's,

I think they're all struggling every company. you know, Ford took a big, cute, big write off. It's not a, it's not a 19 and a half billion, which also billions would be. ⁓ it's a lot of money and I think they're all kind of struggling with that. And it comes down to a significant shift and in some ways a reality check about what they can and can't do with EVs and what consumers are interested and willing to buy right now. Not in

Sam Abuelsamid (59:50)
Yeah, Ford was 19 and a half billion.

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:13)
five years or 10 years or 15 years, regulatory changes, got all sorts of changes, you know, with just the winds of the United States at the moment and how things change. So I feel bad. It's sad because you're like, man, that's tons of money and companies that are struggling more with it, I think like Stellantis, I would feel like they're struggling more overall and their quality perceptions. It's like, goodness, guys, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:39)
Yeah, well, this

is, mean, they actually provided a breakdown of this 22 billion euros ⁓ of where some of this money, some of these charges are for. ⁓ So 14.7 billion was for realigning product plans with customer preferences and new emissions regulations in the US. So, you know, that's reducing EVs, know, bringing back HEMIs and Hellcats. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:58)
There you go.

bulk of it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:08)
That's a big chunk of that. And ⁓ then 2.1 billion was related to resizing of the EV supply chain, ⁓ including ⁓ total of approximately 700 million euros in cash payments expected to be paid over the next four years. this is about ⁓ when automakers do deals with their suppliers, ⁓ they get pricing based on expected volumes.

Nicole Wakelin (1:01:17)
So again, EVs, you know, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:39)
And if they don't meet those volumes, they will often end up going back and renegotiating those deals. So the more you sell, the better piece price you get from your suppliers. And this happened back in 2009 or 10 with Toyota when they launched the previous generation Tundra. It did not sell as well as expected. They had done their parts pricing with their suppliers.

based on expected volumes of 250,000 units a year. They were selling closer to about 100,000 at the time. And so they went back and repriced everything, and it ended up costing Toyota quite a bit of money. ⁓ So in this case, with their EV suppliers, a couple of billion euros for that. And then one of the interesting items here, $4.1 billion due to a change in estimate for concrat...

Nicole Wakelin (1:02:38)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:38)
A change in estimate for contractual

warranty provision resulting from the reassessment of the estimation process, taking into account recent increases in cost inflation and deterioration in quality as a result of operational choices, which did not deliver the expected quality performance now being reversed by the new management team. basically, had, again, as part of the accounting process, they have to estimate, okay, how much are we going to be spending over the life of this product on warranty costs?

And they realize their warranty costs are substantially more than what they estimated, and they're adding another 4 billion euros to account for that. ⁓ And a lot of that is here in North America. Not all of it, probably, there's some in Europe, but most of that is here in North America.

Nicole Wakelin (1:03:26)
Yeah.

When you think about how things went with, well, like they just stopped doing all the ⁓ plug-in hybrids and the number of recalls and warranty things that had to be done on that, know, Hubby has, I've lost track and he loves it. Like Russ would not change it for the world. He loves having that car, but we have, I mean, the battery has been fully replaced in it. The hybrid battery has been completely yanked out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:41)
Do know how many times your Wrangler has been recalled?

Nicole Wakelin (1:03:58)
and put back in various components have been yanked out and replaced. mean, thousands of dollars in warranty covered, all covered, like they're all warranty stuff, but it's sort of a never ending thing. And you think you multiply that by the number of those vehicles that they sold, you know, there's a lot of warranty and recall costs that have been, that they have eaten on this. And that's just the ones I, what I know from having my own vehicle. And you know, of course the, the poor swineer had its

whole share of issues as well. it's just been, there's been a lot of costs there, you know, and you, and it's interesting, you know, I think about the, that warranty thing and it's like these, there's so many people that behind building these cars, there's so many engineers, there's so much smarts, there's so much experience and yet still they've had such a hard time. They've had such a hard time of late.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:47)
Yeah. Another part of this, you know, a separate announcement that came out at the same time is that ⁓ Stellantis has a couple of joint ventures in North America for battery production. ⁓ One was with LG. They had a joint venture factory in Windsor, Ontario to produce batteries for ⁓ future Stellantis EVs. That one's called Nextar Energy. And then they also have a separate joint venture with Samsung in Kokomo, Indiana. ⁓

They, ⁓ as GM and Honda and ⁓ Ford have recently done with their joint ventures, they are ⁓ winding those down. ⁓ have sold their stake, ⁓ Stellantis has sold their stake in Nextar Energy to LG Energy Solution. ⁓ And ⁓ I heard somewhere, I haven't seen confirmation of this, but I heard somewhere that basically

⁓ They're handing it over to LG for like $100 and they invested several billion in building this factory. Yeah. Again, I haven't seen confirmation of that, but that's the number I saw published somewhere.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:57)
Wow, really?

Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:09)
But LG is going to convert at least some of the capacity at that plant in Windsor ⁓ to producing, can you guess?

Nicole Wakelin (1:06:09)
Yeah.

What? God.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:21)
Energy storage system batteries

for data centers. Yeah, that's what they did at their expansion. They did in Holland, Michigan. They converted that from EV batteries to energy storage. That's what Ford's doing in Kentucky. ⁓ And GM's doing some of their capacity down in ⁓ Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Nicole Wakelin (1:06:26)
Of course.

Yeah.

So by the way, I'm Googling your $100 thing. Cause I'm like, that sounds absolutely insane. It's not. So the Detroit news. Yeah, actually has it in there. Stellantis on Friday sold his 49 % stake in a Canadian battery plant for a hundred bucks. A hundred dollars.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:53)
That's where I saw it,

Yeah. I think Summer Ballantine

wrote that story, think. And she's a good reporter. So I don't think she would have published that if she hadn't gotten confirmation.

Nicole Wakelin (1:07:08)
Yes. Right. So,

yeah, so literally $100 there. 49 % stake, 100 bucks. Yeah, I'll sell that for a dollar.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:14)
I'm surprised they didn't just do it $1, just nominal.

I guess $100

Canadian is about $1 US.

Nicole Wakelin (1:07:22)
So yeah, for a hundred dollars. Wow. I mean, that's just like fire sale. Let's get rid of it. I guess, I guess you're sitting on to get rid of it. Take the loss, get rid of it and move on, you know, which write it off, be done with it. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:34)
Yeah, write it off and yeah.

So yeah, that's going to be another source of ⁓ energy storage batteries for the coming years. When I spoke to LG last year when I visited their plant in Holland, Michigan, they said, yeah, we expect huge demand for energy storage batteries going forward both for

Nicole Wakelin (1:08:01)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:02)
for data centers, also for grid stabilization, support, renewables, things like that. ⁓ All right. So how do you feel about hatchbacks?

Nicole Wakelin (1:08:05)
Yeah.

hatchbacks. I think they're versatile little things. I'm I'm I am pro hatchback. What about you, Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:20)
I am a huge fan of hatchbacks, hatchbacks and wagons, ⁓ especially on smaller cars. Because, know, and when you look at modern compact sedans, know, Civic, Elantra, ⁓ Corolla, all these, know, maybe less so the Corolla, but most of these have shifted over the last 10, 15 years to designs that have a fastback profile. And so what you end up with

Nicole Wakelin (1:08:48)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:50)
is, you know, usually, you know, a reasonably sized trunk volume, but a very small opening to get stuff into that trunk.

Nicole Wakelin (1:08:57)
Yes,

so you can't fit big things in because the opening is teeny tiny.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:01)
Yes. so, Jalopnik, ⁓ they did one of their things where they put up a question for readers ⁓ and posted some of the responses of which cars would be better if they had a hatchback or liftback according to their readers. ⁓ First on the list was the Miata. I don't know that the Miata definitely needs a hatchback. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (1:09:25)
I mean, the Miata

is so cute the way it is. Don't mess with it. I don't know that I feel that. I feel like the Miata is that one I disagree with because I just think the cute little fun little tiny impractical but stupidly fun car to drive. Just leave it alone. It's fine just like it is.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:28)
Yeah.

Yeah. But most normal

sedans, absolutely. know, Camry, Accord, Civic, you know, I you look at the current generation Civic, you know, get the sedan and the hatchback and the hatchback is actually a couple inches shorter, but you know, they look very, very similar in profile. And, you know, with the hatchback, you get 24 and a half cubic foot of storage space behind the rear seats. Whereas in the, ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (1:09:41)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:06)
sedan, it's about half that. It's about 13 cubic feet.

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:09)
Right? Yeah. I

feel like any sedan could be, you could change it and make it a lift back or hatchback and it would be greatly improved.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:15)
Yeah. ⁓

and then, ⁓ the lucid air. Now this is one, ⁓ I don't entirely agree with, because, because, you know, the, the air, the, the trunk lid on the air, it's this sort of clamshell design that wraps around the sides.

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:23)
Why not?

Yeah,

it's a little different. This isn't just a trunk that just opens from the top. It kind of opens from the side too. It's like...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:35)
Yeah, so.

Yeah, so the whole trunk

lid wraps around the side of the car. ⁓ So it's like, it's like some, ⁓ some crossovers, like the Audi Q5 has always been like that. And there's some others. And so when you open it, you know, you've basically got full access to the trunk volume.

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:51)
Yeah, yeah, yep.

Right.

It has a huge, like the opening is exceptionally large for a trunk. So it's very easy. It's as it is, it's very easy to store larger items than you might think in the back of that car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:12)
Although if you did make it a hatch, you know, and had the rear glass tied to that trunk lid and have it open at the top, you know, and then you have a folding seat, you know, you would actually have a really huge volume in there. So, yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:11:24)
It would be gigantic.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:27)
Ford Mustang, yeah, absolutely. Mustang, for the type of car it is, Mustang has a pretty reasonably sized trunk volume, but again, very small opening. ⁓ The Honda Civic Si. The Si is the one trim level of the Civic that you can't get as a hatchback. The ⁓ Type R is hatchback only. All the other variants.

Nicole Wakelin (1:11:29)
of shore.

Right. Yeah, very tiny.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:54)
are hatch or sedan, but the SI is sedan only. ⁓ And then the Tesla Model 3, again, same kind of things as what I said about the air. It's actually got a reasonably sized opening there. The picture that they include in the story has the trunk open. ⁓ And it's actually a decently sized opening.

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:16)
It is a pretty decent size. I mean, it would, guess, yeah, it would be better if it was a lift back or, but it's, it's not prohibitively small. That's, that's the thing with trunks. can be, even if they're a big amount of space, it's all about how large the opening that trunk opening is. And suddenly you're trying to wedge things in because that space, the opening is just too small and you just try to shove a lot of luggage in and it's hard.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:38)
and the Cadillac CT4, same thing, same story there. ⁓ And then, the ⁓ Audi RS3. And they actually have a photo of an RS3 hatchback, which is only sold in Europe. It's not available in North America. They only sell it as a sedan. So they have a hatchback. They just don't offer it.

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That'd be awesome. They've done it.

Yes, that's not adding one. It's just like, bring it here, please. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:04)
Yeah. And the Genesis G80 Subaru

WRX. ⁓ yeah, same, same story with all those. They all, I'll be better with hatches.

Nicole Wakelin (1:13:13)
I think

most cars, if you could find a way to do a hatchback, there's some good, there's some out there that are really good the way they are, but I wouldn't complain about making more cars into a hatchback to make that trunk more versatile.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:24)
Yep. All right, next up. So this is one that I was hoping to talk to Robbie about, but he's not here. Yeah, we can. It's about 3D printed pistons for Formula One engines. Yeah, OK. We'll hold that one for Robbie. OK. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:13:36)
Do you want to hold it for Robbie?

Let's hold it for Robbie then when he's here. We'll hold. That's next week. Forget Sam

mentioned it, everybody.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:52)
Jim Farley, for some reason, still posts on that site owned by that guy that is a Nazi. But he posted something earlier this week with some teaser images of the new upcoming $30,000 electric pickup truck. And you don't really get an idea of what the thing is going to look like yet.

Nicole Wakelin (1:13:59)
X.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:20)
but there's some interesting shots in here of some of the work that's being done, ⁓ including using large unicastings for the first time, which I've talked about before, but this is the first time that we actually see one coming out of the ⁓ quench bath after it comes out of the mold. ⁓ So you see this huge aluminum diecast part that is a big part of the structure of this vehicle.

Nicole Wakelin (1:14:41)
Yeah.

That is huge.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:50)
⁓ And then you also see somebody else working on buffing the front end of one of the prototypes of this truck So looks like this thing's gonna have a very smooth front end and See and then a couple of images Are an image showing the work they're doing in the wind tunnel and the the aero efficiency of this truck

Nicole Wakelin (1:14:59)
Making it all shiny.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:19)
⁓

And then ⁓ one that is labeled as the, let's see, the best part is no part, but the second best part is one that serves multiple functions. And it's hard to tell exactly what this part is, but you see a couple of guys with big smiles on their faces looking at it. So presumably, yeah, absolutely. Although in the background, ⁓ you can see ⁓ a little bit of what is presumably the

Nicole Wakelin (1:15:33)
Yeah, I can't tell.

It must be exciting if you're an engineer.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:49)
the front casting, part of this truck, the front wheel well and casting. And if this is the truck, it looks like that's the windshield there between their heads. ⁓ So it's really sloped back quite a bit. So it's gonna be a very interesting truck to see. And they've been promised we'll be seeing more of this ⁓ in the not too distant future, in the next few months.

Nicole Wakelin (1:15:53)
⁓ yeah, you're right. I'm to go with front. Yeah. Yes.

huh. It does kinda.

Yeah, it does look like a windshield, right.

They've also Ford, while we're still on Ford, has made some additional promises. ⁓ Five new cars under 40 K by 2030. That's four years. Just anybody who's counting four years, including a midsize electric truck. And it says they will. Yes. And it says the five new models will be across our lineup of cars, trucks, SUVs, vans, and it will be multi energy, which means no one powertrain.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:31)
Yeah.

which is supposed to start at 30.

Yeah, so gas and hybrids and plug-in hybrids, presumably. Well, we know there's going to be at least range extenders coming to the F-150, but that's probably not going to be under 40 grand. But one thing that's interesting in this story here, through these measures and those upcoming inexpensive products, communicated to dealers, and this week they had the National Automobile Dealers Association

Nicole Wakelin (1:16:58)
Mm-hmm.

No, I wouldn't think.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:18)
conference in Las Vegas, and all the automakers have meetings with their dealers during that event, during the NADA. Ford communicated to dealers that it intends to retain 70 % of Edge and Escape customers and keep them from shopping elsewhere. So the Edge already went out of production more than a year ago. The Escape ended production in December, although they built up a bunch of inventory that'll keep them going for a few more months.

Nicole Wakelin (1:17:37)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:48)
I don't, I have a hard time seeing how they're going to retain 70 % of those customers.

Nicole Wakelin (1:17:54)
I don't, it just feels like, I mean, I guess depending on what they introduce, but the cars are gone. You know what I mean? Like, so if you're one of those customers and you're looking for a new car anytime soon, you're not going with a Ford. You know what I mean? Like you'd have to, don't know. We'll see what happens. I mean, they could retain a good number of it. I'm sure a lot of Ford loyalists will wait and see what's on the horizon, but, um, it does potentially the delay and those are gone.

the supply is gone in a couple of months of what's left and then what, you know, if they don't have them ready to roll.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:28)
Well, mean, some

of those escape customers will buy Bronco Sports, but the problem is that they don't have enough capacity because they build the Bronco Sport and the Maverick both in their Homo CEO Mexico plant. And, you know, they're building as many as they can now. One of the things that limits their ability to sell Mavericks and Bronco Sports is, you know, they only have that one plant building them.

Nicole Wakelin (1:18:33)
Possibly, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:57)
unless they're going to add production of one or both of those vehicles ⁓ somewhere else, it's going to be tough to retain escape customers with Bronco Sports or Mavericks. ⁓ Some edge customers might step up to an Explorer, ⁓ but I think actually what we're probably going to see that we haven't heard yet from this is when I visited Ford's Marshall, Michigan,

Nicole Wakelin (1:19:09)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:27)
battery plant last June. They told us that they're working on as many as eight different vehicles from this Universal EV platform. So the $30,000 pickup is just the first one, but there's a bunch of other body styles going to be built on that same architecture. So perhaps what we will see beyond 2027, so the truck is supposed to launch

you know, go on sale early next year, ⁓ maybe that's going to be followed up by a new compact crossover built on that same architecture. So that would, you know, if they do that and can sell it, you know, in that, you know, low to mid $30,000 price range, you know, that could keep some of those escape customers. But I think a lot of, a lot more than 30 % of those edge and escape customers are probably going to go buy

a RAV4 or CRV or Tucson or, you know, one of the other competitors.

Nicole Wakelin (1:20:29)
I think you're right. think a lot of people could go to other because there are very competitive options out there. So I think there's a good chance. mean, it's a nice goal. Doesn't say they're definitely going to hit it. It just says we think we can keep 70. We'll see how that rolls out for them. Good luck.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:44)
⁓ And then Apple ⁓ saying that they're looking at allowing customers to use ⁓ third party ⁓ chat bots, AI chat bots with Apple CarPlay.

Nicole Wakelin (1:20:59)
that's kind of cool actually and it's not confirmed. I don't but I think it's kind of a neat idea. think it's a I think I haven't I've never thought about using them in my car so but I think that's neat.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:01)
Do you use chatbots?

I mean, well, do you use Siri with CarPlay?

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:15)
I use

Siri, but I mean, I use Siri, but I just use Siri all the time. It's not like I shouldn't say I don't mess with other ones. I'm all about Siri. So.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:23)
If they gave you the option of using chat GPT or well, mean, Siri, next generation Siri is going to be used based on Google's Gemini. ⁓ So you'll have that, but if you could use chat GPT or cloud or something else, you consider trying those out at least?

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:35)
Right.

I mean, I would definitely try them out. think especially if you're using those, like if you're using chat GPT for other things, depending how much it can connect with the other knowledge it has about what you've been doing, you know, that sort of seamless from your desk to your phone, to your car situation, that'd be cool. What about you?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:04)
Okay. Well, we'll,

⁓

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:09)
No?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:10)
I'm more skeptical of these chat bots. I still, when I play around with them sometimes and they often come up with nonsense responses that sound very plausible but are not actually accurate or helpful. Well, yeah, yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:21)
Correct. Yeah. But sometimes Siri does too. Sometimes Siri gets a little confused.

Like I feel like it's, don't know that they're better or worse. I don't know. I don't think I've used them enough to say that, occasionally Siri's, ask Siri a really reasonable question and then you get back like, I'm sorry. I was asking for a bakery and you told me what the temperature of the sun is. How did I get that? You know, sometimes it gets really confused. So.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:45)
Yeah, so

did all the others, so none of them are that great.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:50)
Yeah, yeah.

I think you just got to pick your poison on that front.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:55)
Yep. All right. And then the last item is one that you put in here. So you want to talk about that?

Nicole Wakelin (1:23:00)
Yeah,

wanted to add this. So, ⁓ NACTOI, North American Car Truck Utility of the Year, one of their things was that ⁓ we wanted to have a scholarship as part of our sort of mission. We don't make money. And so when we have money, we decided we should have a scholarship. So we worked with the SAE, the Society of Automotive Engineers, ⁓ Robbie's turf, to come up with a scholarship for automotive journalism, design and engineering innovation.

The scholarship application period is for the month of February, so it closes on the 28th. And you can go to SAE, we'll put the link in the show notes, and they can show you what the requirements are. But it's gonna be, to help undergraduates and graduate students who are pursuing these careers actually have a little bit of extra money to pursue something in automotive, and it's specifically automotive focus. There's gonna be two scholarships each year, one for automotive journalism.

and one for automotive design and engineering. we'll also support the job that Sam and I do, which is the automotive journalism and the job that Sam did, which was automotive engineering. So I think that's cool. And so it's open to like spread the word. If you know a student, if you're in education and you know somebody, go check it out, share the news, get it out there, because we want to give away some money to a worthy student. How's that? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:23)
Sounds good.

It's always good to help out people that are trying to get educated to do the career that they want to do.

Nicole Wakelin (1:24:30)
Exactly.

Yeah, any help you can get. So you know, if you're looking for a scholarship, you know some kids who are pursuing this, ⁓ check it out. You can find it at SAE. If you go there, they have a section with all the various scholarships that SAE offers and NACTOYS is on there. Or you can check out the notes Sam will have up there. He'll put a link in there so that everybody can click and find the link and please apply and share it. And good luck. I hope we get to give some scholarships to some worthy people.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:01)
Excellent. And one last item. ⁓ Any progress on ⁓ your car shopping hunt? you currently on pause, you know, waiting for...

Nicole Wakelin (1:25:11)
I haven't yet. I'm currently, I'm in a

holding pattern as I'm trying to decide. I'm going back and forth. ⁓ So I haven't yet. And who wants to test drive a new car in New England right now, right? ⁓ But it's, it's, it's in a holding pattern. I have some thoughts. I'm going back and forth on some things, ⁓ ruled some things out, still question marks about other things. So no, no news yet, Sam, no news yet. I will.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:22)
Yeah. ⁓

All right, well keep us posted.

All right, everybody, we will talk to you next time. Bye.

Nicole Wakelin (1:25:45)
Bye.