Sam Abuelsamid (00:02) This is episode 440 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry. Nicole (00:08) I am Nicole Wakelin from Test Miles and Top Speed. Roberto Baldwin (00:12) and I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE's Automotive Engineering Podcast, extraordinaire. I haven't added that officially to the name, extraordinaire. We're SAE International, so you gotta like, you know, gotta class it up. Can't just be like, ooh, ooh, no, extraordinaire. Sam Abuelsamid (00:18) Not just extraordinary, but extraordinary. It's really special. Nicole (00:18) ⁓ It's from there, which makes it little bit more high class. Sam Abuelsamid (00:28) Of course. So, so what have you been driving this week, Nicole? At least, at least what, what have you been driving that you can talk about yet? Yeah. Nicole (00:40) that I can talk about. can't talk about some of it yet, but I can talk about this. had the Ford F-250. Wait, let me just read the whole thing. 2025, gosh, this is blurry. 25 Ford F-250, four by four, crew crab, platinum. ⁓ Yeah, it's like, it's four lines of description to tell me what the vehicle that I'm driving this week is. So basically, it's a big ass truck. I feel like that's what I've been driving this week. It's weird when we get super duty trucks like this, we get heavy duty trucks because they're use specific things. Like you don't just buy this because you want a truck to haul your stuff from the Home Depot or you want to go camping with your family. Well, yeah, but like the average Joe, the average guy, not so much, right? I feel like this is the kind of thing you're truly... Sam Abuelsamid (01:28) Well, it depends what stuff you're hauling from Home Depot. Nicole (01:37) doing this if you are doing work, like you, you, don't know, you own a ranch, you own a plumbing company, you're an electrician. You got a lot of stuff you need to bring around. Roberto Baldwin (01:46) my uncle has an F-250 and he has a ranch. Nicole (01:49) See? Case Sam Abuelsamid (01:49) Ha. Nicole (01:50) in point. Like, it's a very specific use case. So like, I get this and I'm thinking like... Right? Like, I can drive around and I can see how it drives, but I don't get to use this the way Ford... I'm not the person Ford builds this for and I don't have ready access to the things that would be for that person. Like, you know, if you put me in a sports car, I can drive on the highway and drive fast and have fun. Sam Abuelsamid (01:51) Ha. Roberto Baldwin (01:52) I just remembered. Yes. He's hauling horses and cattle with it. Nicole (02:15) What am I going to do? Like, I'm sorry, sir, can I borrow your horse trailer for a minute? Like, it's really weird. It's hard to, it's sort of hard to test these. So, um, it is, it is a great big, uh, huge gigantic truck. And this has the, wait, let me get the, my notes back up here. This has the 6.7 liter high output power stroke V8 turbo diesel, which is 500 horsepower in 1200 pound feet of torque. So it is made to do heavy work. 1200 pound feet of torque. ⁓ This is the kind of thing you want if you have heavy-duty towing you're doing it can tow up to the max tow rating with a goose-neck fifth wheel high blah blah blah is 40,000 pounds 40,000 pounds so this is this is a work truck. This is a work truck Sam Abuelsamid (03:03) And I think even with, even from the bumper hitch, it'll tow, you can tow like 20,000. Nicole (03:08) Yeah, exactly. this is a really, this is a truck for getting stuff done. So I don't get to tow and do that kind of stuff because I don't have a ranch or someone I can just say, let's go tow your horses around or something. So ⁓ I don't get to test that. Roberto Baldwin (03:22) In hindsight they should have sent it to me now that I think about it. Just call up my uncle. No, my uncle! Nicole (03:25) Yeah, do you have horses? Oh, your uncle, your uncle. I'm like, how far away is your uncle? How far away is your uncle? Oh, so they should. So for give this to Robbie so he can go to his uncle's place, hook up into horse trailer and tow some horses around just for kick. What? Roberto Baldwin (03:31) He's only like 45 minutes, huh? He's like 45 minutes away. He's not, yeah. And he... Sam Abuelsamid (03:44) Well, you know what you could have done is take the snow blower and blow all the snow into the bed of this truck. Cause that's probably going to be at least, you know, a thousand, maybe 1500 pounds of snow. Nicole (03:49) Yeah Roberto Baldwin (03:50) down. Nicole (03:55) It would be more than that. have so much snow right now. It's ridiculous the amount of snow we had. In fact, Russ was trying to clear the snow from the driveway and I pulled this in. He's like, I can't even go around this. Can you put it in the road for a minute? I'm like, yes, I can. It is huge. But I mean, so that use case, I can't speak to it because I didn't get to do it. I mean, I've driven Ford programs where they let you do those things and it does do really well, but not something I get to test. Roberto Baldwin (03:55) and then throw some mulch on top of that. and pick up some rocks. RAAAAR MAD! Nicole (04:24) So I'm basically just driving it day to day. This is the platinum. So the inside is very fancy. It has all the things you could want. It has super cushy seeds. It makes you feel like you're coddled, which I always find this like sort of... I don't know if they lay flat, but they do recline pretty good. ⁓ didn't tell you. these supposed to... It's a supervisor, right? The guy on the job... Sam Abuelsamid (04:36) So have to lay flat seats in the front. Roberto Baldwin (04:43) This is the supervisor's car. This is not the work- Because you're gonna get in Sam Abuelsamid (04:45) Yeah. Or the ranch owner. Roberto Baldwin (04:48) and get it filthy if you- But alright. But this fancy- Nicole (04:50) Yeah, the guy on the job site who's just the guy on the job site, he's not driving this. It's his boss or the person who owns the company. Roberto Baldwin (04:57) Or the boss is telling everyone to hook it up and he's not getting out of the car. He's not getting dirty. He's me. Nicole (05:01) He's not gonna add a car, right? So, to give it to that point, why it's not just the guy on the crew, the price of this vehicle all told, so this trim starts at $78,965. I had a chunk of options on this puppy, including the engine, so that 6.7 liter high output engine, that is $13,495 that adds to the price. So right there, you've added a huge amount. And then there's Roberto Baldwin (05:28) ⁓ Nicole (05:31) all the bits and pieces, the random stuff that they've added on. Total cost on this car, $109,545. Sam Abuelsamid (05:40) That is an expensive truck. Nicole (05:42) It's an expensive truck. Roberto Baldwin (05:43) My dad's house that he owns right now when he bought it was less than that. Nicole (05:47) Exactly, right? So what you guys want to take a guess on destination? Roberto Baldwin (05:52) 18. Sam Abuelsamid (05:52) Well, depends on when this Monroney was printed. you went and bought one today, know it would be $2,595. Oh, okay. Nicole (05:57) Exactly. Roberto Baldwin (05:58) yeah. my gosh. Nicole (06:03) Well then my moonroaming must have been printed relatively recently, because that's what I have as well, 25.95. So, yeah. So like, so this is an expensive proposition and I don't talk about expensive, but it is attractive for people who truly like work on have a ranch like your uncle does. Roberto Baldwin (06:08) ⁓ I wasn't close at all. Sam Abuelsamid (06:19) You'd be surprised how many people drive those things around as a daily driver. Roberto Baldwin (06:22) Yeah, Nicole (06:23) I'm like a super duty? I can see you giving an F-150! Roberto Baldwin (06:23) yeah, it's... Yeah, I've seen people with Super Duties that are just like pristine and they clearly have never been or done anything that that Super Duty is built for. And it's like, okay. Well, it's like when people buy a Lamborghini in LA and they drive the Lamborghini, I guess the job is for a Lamborghini to just show up at the club. And so it's an Instagram car is what it is. And they don't ever have a chance or ever actually, know, maybe in the middle of the night on the 405, they go like 90. Nicole (06:43) Right? Roberto Baldwin (06:52) But they don't ever do the Lamborghini things. It's to show off. That's the same thing with people who have a, F250, the Super Duty that they drive as their daily, it's a show off car. It's not a, it doesn't do the thing that it's supposed to do. Nicole (06:57) Bye! See, I would drive, if I wanted to show off for a truck, I wouldn't buy the Super Duty just because of its size. Like it's just physically very, very big. I would buy an F150 Platinum with all the things on it that has all the belt and it looks gorgeous, but you can park it. Like, okay, so there's lot of snow on the ground right now in New Hampshire. Can I just tell you, trying to navigate, Roberto Baldwin (07:14) Well, you know, dudes. Nicole (07:30) like where it was two lanes and now it's more like one and like three quarters, one and a half. Like, oh my gosh, I feel like I am so close to everything. There are spot and like trying to get into parking spaces and things. is, you come around. It took me 10 tries to get into a parking space yesterday. I was pulling in and it was like, because it was a tight spot. It was like, yeah, it was like, oh my God, how many? And Russ is laughing at me and I was kind of like, stop. Roberto Baldwin (07:50) Like Austin Powers when he's going back and forth in the hallway. Nicole (07:56) It is a big vehicle. This is a narrow spot and there's cars on both sides of it. So it is a bear to park that thing. And I know it would be way easier if you drove this all the time because you start to get a sense of how big the vehicle is and the clearance and all that. So any car you drive a lot is easier to park than, right. Or if you have lived in the middle of nowhere and you're just pulling into a big lot where there's not every parking space except the one you want is taken and you can give yourself a little room. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (08:12) suburbs and yeah more room You just take up five. Nicole (08:24) I should have just pulled up on the snow bag. And then I would have been fine. Sam Abuelsamid (08:29) But here in Michigan, for example, a lot of people have campers or they have a boat or they're towing their snowmobiles up north and people are going up north on the weekends. so they are towing stuff here. And if you're going up to the northern part of the Upper Peninsula, yeah, you're talking 250 miles. yeah, mean, a lot of people, there's two... Roberto Baldwin (08:49) You got a fifth wheel. Sam Abuelsamid (08:58) people, there's at least two people in my neighborhood that have fifth wheel campers, camper trailers that they tow. ⁓ And so there's, you know, they do get, you know, proper, you know, proper type of use. But I think in Texas, for example, in Texas, I think it's just the law that you must have at least one full size pickup truck in, you know, in your, in your garage or in your driveway. Yeah. Well, actually I think it has to be in your garage because I think everybody in Texas lives in a subdivision with an HOA. Nicole (09:17) Correct. Roberto Baldwin (09:19) You're not allowed to have a home. Nicole (09:22) Yeah, we thought... Sam Abuelsamid (09:27) which they all prohibit you parking a truck in your driveway. So you have to have a massive garage so you can fit your full-size truck in there. HOAs are just evil. Roberto Baldwin (09:30) What? HOAs. Don't get me started. Nicole (09:35) Well, Roberto Baldwin (09:37) Don't get me started on HOAs. Nicole (09:37) when you're saying, Sam, about where you live, have there are people in our neighborhood that have F-250s and have, you know, super duty trucks. it is people who are towing because we have the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Everyone camps up there during the summer months. You have people bringing their trailers up there, bringing, you know, all the going camping, doing all their stuff. So there's people who really truly do use it like you see it. And I get it for the people who use it. I don't get this one from people who don't actually need all that towing capacity. Like get yourself an F-150, you'll actually be able to go into a parking space. I don't know. I know. And I don't just like it. I mean, it's great. mean, like flooring it on the highway. Like I'm king. Move it away. Like it goes and it is so big. Roberto Baldwin (10:06) ⁓ big truck nicole come on room room big truck Sam Abuelsamid (10:19) Yeah, you'd be surprised how fast those things are when they're unloaded. Nicole (10:23) It is really fast. It is incredibly fast. you know, even so the thing is with things when they're unloaded, when you have big trucks like this, they can also be really bouncy. Like it can be miserable sometimes to drive something like this with no anything, just humans on board. This is pretty good because we have pretty curvy roads around here right now. Like everything is the, you know, it's February in New England. There's potholes and just it's a mess and it handles things pretty well. Roberto Baldwin (10:23) Yeah, kiss it. Yeah. Nicole (10:47) It wasn't super bouncy, even when I was driving back and forth to Logan. It was, you know, you hit stuff and it did okay. It wasn't like... Sam Abuelsamid (10:54) Were you actually able to get into the parking garage at Logan? Nicole (10:57) I did not get into that. I picked up ruts. Let's be clear. I don't think you could get a super duty. There's a part where you can pull in immediately and before you get to the part where you're gonna take the roof off your vehicle, you take a really sharp right and there's parking for larger size vehicles and that's where I see all the heavy duty trucks in there. But there's no, I'm not even doing that. If you think I'm gonna drive it into a parking garage. You're insane. There's no way I'll do it. I don't care if there's parking. I'm not doing it. No, I dropped off Russ. I dropped him off, which means I just pull up to the curb and I pull right back out. But I'll tell you what, there's a tunnel. You go in through the Callahan tunnel and out through the Sumner tunnel and there's tunnels. And suddenly that tunnel that feels really, really great on a normal day. I was like, Oh my Lord. Oh, it's like you're hunching cause you're like, I'm, I'm going to hit the wall. Roberto Baldwin (11:32) Get out. Yeah, when I had... Were you ducking down? Right. Nicole (11:52) I'm going to hit the wall and I'm looking at cars and really there's a tractor trailer like great big tractor trailer in front of me and I can see that he has space like I'm bigger than that in my head I'm bigger than that I'm going to hit the wall it just feels so big but ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (12:05) Anytime, so the parking garage I use for the airport when I fly at SFO, like there's room for trucks and SUVs, but anytime I have a large truck or SUV, I'm driving through it, I'm ducking down, I slow down for the beams, and I'm just like, I know I'm okay. And then I look up and then I'm like, am enough? And I'm like, well, it's like a foot. Nicole (12:24) Have either of you ever hit a beam and not like hit it, it, but like been like, think I'll make it and you feel it tap the beam and have to back up? Roberto Baldwin (12:32) No, gosh, that would be terrifying. Sam Abuelsamid (12:34) Usually the parking garages at the entrance, they will have the thing hanging there. Yeah. Yes, I have pulled in and touched one of those and realized, ah, shit, gotta back up. But that was with a transit van. Roberto Baldwin (12:36) They got their little like hanging bollards or whatever they are. Nicole (12:39) Right, like, hit the little thing, not the garage, but the little... Roberto Baldwin (12:52) yeah, that makes sense. Nicole (12:52) was in a full size SUV that was like just gigantic and I went to pull into parking garage. It's not especially large and a friend was waiting for me to go to pull in and I hear it. You I'm thinking, God, this could be close. And I hear it just tap and I'm like, crap. So I back up and she's like, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you pulling to the garage? I'm like, because the car won't fit. Like we need another spot. This is not the location. Roberto Baldwin (13:14) Too big, too big. Sam Abuelsamid (13:15) Yeah, I was helping my daughter move. And so I had borrowed a high roof transit van from Ford and trying to pull into the parking garage in her apartment building. like, got there, could feel it tap and say, ⁓ nope, back up. I have to haul this stuff through the garage, unload it and haul it through the garage instead of pulling up right by the ⁓ door. Roberto Baldwin (13:34) I like those transit vans. ⁓ no. You could get Nicole (13:37) Yeah. See, I just had her. Roberto Baldwin (13:42) a, you could get ⁓ a, if you go to Harbor Freight, they have those furniture dollies. They're like 15 bucks just for the future. So you could just put them on the floor and slide it through the drive. okay. Just for everyone listening. Sam Abuelsamid (13:50) Yeah. Well, I mean, we did have a furniture dolly, but still, you know, having to go up up a couple of floors, you know, up, up the ramps, you know, to get in. Roberto Baldwin (13:58) If you ever need a furniture dolly, they're super cheap at Harbor Freight. Nicole (14:02) I have a furniture dolly that's probably older than I am that somebody delivered a refrigerator to my parents' house like 1978 and left this really heavy duty dolly. They never came and picked it up. My parents kept saying like, guys, you left this. So then it went from my mom to me. So we had like this. It's now a general, it's like, it's what we're handing down. And because it was built in this, made in the seventies, it's been out with all the. Sam Abuelsamid (14:02) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (14:15) Nice. it's like a generational, it's like... ⁓ Are you giving it to your daughters? is that the wedding present? Sam Abuelsamid (14:27) Who's going to get it? Rose or Kit? Nicole (14:30) Yeah, exactly. I'm going to put a big bow on it and give it to Rose. Like here, honey, the dolly is now yours. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (14:35) When you guys buy your house, you're all set. There Roberto Baldwin (14:38) Yeah, the first one to buy a house gets the furniture dolly. That's the rule now. We're making rules for your family. Sorry, Nicole. Sam Abuelsamid (14:38) you go, you get... Nicole (14:41) It is, it is, it weighs about a thousand pounds. Yeah, it's super heavy, but man, it'll carry anything, so. Sam Abuelsamid (14:49) Yeah, my guess is that Harbor Freight furniture dolly will probably last like one moving job. But if... Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (14:55) It's pretty sturdy. mean, it's just four by, it's just two by fours and like casters. That's it. It's like the easiest thing. They, they, they seem fine. And you can, I like, had a, I had a transforming dolly, like a hand truck that transformed into a floor dolly and like casters died. And I just replaced those with some casters and boom, ready to go. But yeah, yeah. 15 bucks. Sam Abuelsamid (15:00) No, it's the casters. Those are the ones that's what usually gives out though. Nicole (15:03) Snap. Yeah. Good to go. Sam Abuelsamid (15:20) Yeah, what do you got to lose? Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (15:21) I use them all the time for ridiculous things because they're like stupid cheap and they're easy to store you just throw them in a corner. Sam Abuelsamid (15:27) Yeah. Awesome. Anything else on the F-250? Roberto Baldwin (15:32) Can you ca- Nicole (15:32) No, that's all I have to say about the F-250. Sam Abuelsamid (15:35) Well, mean, the one other reason why you might want to select the F250 over an F150 is of course that diesel engine, because you can't get a diesel in the F150. Nicole (15:44) That's true, but you don't really need the diesel unless you're gonna tow 40 pounds. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (15:48) A house. Sam Abuelsamid (15:49) But you you don't really need a full size pickup truck unless you're to do that too. So, but people buy them anyway. So if you, if you're going to, if you are going to buy such a vehicle, you might as well do it right and get the diesel. Nicole (15:54) Yes. Roberto Baldwin (15:54) Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Nicole (16:02) Okay, fine. Everybody just go buy yourself $100,000 F250 because it's cool. Roberto Baldwin (16:03) If you're 350 with a Duramax. Just always get the big, giant, biggest motor so you can haul something you'll never haul. Sam Abuelsamid (16:16) Yes, exactly. Roberto Baldwin (16:18) let me tell you one quick story. I worked at a place once where someone wrote ⁓ like 10 cars to, ⁓ for, shoot, what's the loading? Fifth wheels and three of the cars were SUVs. Yeah. Cause they just looked at the numbers. The person didn't know what they were talking about. so they were, they were, they were young and trying to write something and, and they just, they were just looking at the towing capacity. They didn't realize that ⁓ what a fifth wheel was. Nicole (16:28) Yeah. my gosh. Sam Abuelsamid (16:48) Oops. Nicole (16:49) Oopsie daisy! Roberto Baldwin (16:51) Yeah, good times. Sam Abuelsamid (16:52) All right, Robbie, you finally had something in your driveway this week that wasn't yours. Roberto Baldwin (16:57) I know, and then it doesn't even matter, to be honest. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (16:59) ⁓ come on. This is a very important vehicle in this brand's lineup. Roberto Baldwin (17:02) So, ⁓ it is, so I had the 2026 Corolla Cross Hybrid, which is a, it's a Corolla that's been raised off the ground. It's less fun than a regular Corolla, but it is what the people want. That's it, that's what the people, people want crossovers, and Toyota's like, sure. And you know what? No issues. Sam Abuelsamid (17:22) for some inexplicable reason. Roberto Baldwin (17:29) gets good gas, what's it, 42 MPG? I got like 36, 38. I was like, oh, and it's like just cruising down the highway, I drive down to Monterey for a thing with it. No problems. The steering's really light, so it feels like it's sort of sporty. It's not, but it kind of feels like it for a little bit. I think for a, I need a second car, or this is the car I give my kid, or this is like the college car. Sam Abuelsamid (17:49) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (17:57) or you're getting older and you realize you don't have to haul kids around anymore and you just need a nice, inexpensive, efficient little crossover that's easy to get in and out, ⁓ Corolla Cross. That is really the selling point. It's good enough. It's a Toyota. It's gonna last 100 miles. When you ever you stick your foot down on an accelerator, it reminds you that it has a motor. Because it's a Toyota hybrid. Sam Abuelsamid (18:18) You mean a hundred thousand miles? yes, because it's a Toyota hybrid. Roberto Baldwin (18:28) You're like, yeah. It's like the saddest sound in the world, but you know what, who cares? it's, hold on, 42 combined miles per gallon. If I was driving around the city, which I didn't, I did a lot of freeway driving with this, I could have got up to 46 according to the EPA. So if it's just, you need a commuter car, need whatever. Corolla Cross. Am I underselling the Corolla Cross? No, this is exactly what it Nicole (18:37) Aww. Roberto Baldwin (18:58) Let's see, what's their starting price? It is a basic CompPract crossover. Oh no, I lost the starting price. Where is it at? Sam Abuelsamid (19:00) Basic Compact Crossover For the XSE, it starts at $33,430. Roberto Baldwin (19:12) Yeah, so that's the fancy one that, not only did I get it, so did Sam. Sam Abuelsamid (19:17) Yeah, I had the exact same one, same color and cavalry blue. Roberto Baldwin (19:19) We have to- Nicole (19:21) What if we both had the palisade the same week? You and me, Sam, right? Sam Abuelsamid (19:24) Yeah, yeah. Roberto Baldwin (19:26) Yeah, they gave us the exact same car, like, let's see, okay, this is the sort of fancy one. It has a wireless car play. I'm sure it has wireless Android Auto, has a wireless charger. you know, it's got all the little, little fancy bits and pieces. You don't need those to be honest. Maybe wireless char, I know most people like wireless charging. ⁓ It's, again, it's Corolla Cross. What are you doing? You just want a nice cheap car. It's like, starts in the mid-20s. ⁓ 26, I think. That's the information I'm... Sam Abuelsamid (19:59) For the base gas version, it starts at $25,000 for the L trim. The hybrid S starts at $29,395 and the XSE is $33,430. So that's the most expensive variant. Roberto Baldwin (20:03) Alright, alright. There you go. So you can get that. So like 30,000 you can get a hybrid it'll get really good gas mileage You probably don't need all you just all you want to do is plug in your your phone so you can see where you're going It does have mapping the the infotainment system is fine It's nothing it works well like when you switch different whenever I would switch to different modes like from from from media to navigation It was always like a little it took a little it was like hey Sam Abuelsamid (20:34) It works well. My biggest complaint. Roberto Baldwin (20:46) Just hold on, man, you're driving a Corolla Cross, chill. And so it took a moment, but it wasn't like horrible. It's like when the Land Rovers, the Jaguars, when you push it, it has it sort of fade in and fade out. And you're never sure if that's a feature or a bug. Is it a latency thing or is it just they're using like, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (20:48) Yeah. Yeah. Nicole (21:01) Ha ha ha! Sam Abuelsamid (21:05) I think it's a bit of both because I think in that case it was they were using the animations to try to hide the latency. Roberto Baldwin (21:11) Yeah, so Toyota's like, no, you got a Corolla Cross, Just, it's gonna take, and it's not like, my God, this takes forever. It's not like the Hummer. It's not like the ID.4 where you push something and you're like, what is happening? It's just like a very subtle, like, hold on. Just hold on, man, hold on. We're driving a Corolla Cross, what are you doing? Settle down. Why isn't your phone plugged in? What's happening here? Sam Abuelsamid (21:26) Just just a little bit of lag. My other main issue with that infotainment system, because the interface on it is actually pretty good, ⁓ except for the fact that the version that's in here, ⁓ even on a 14 inch screen, it only shows, or maybe the 12 inch screen in here, I can't remember. But you can only show one thing on the screen at a time. So you can't have a multi-pane view where you have your map. and your media player controls side by side. yeah. So you have to toggle back and forth. On the new generation system that's launching on the ⁓ new RAV4, that one has, you can configure different stuff on the screen at the same time. ⁓ But the other complaint I have about this system that I really noticed on the Corolla Cross that I don't, Roberto Baldwin (22:03) you get one or the other. Nicole (22:06) Either or. Roberto Baldwin (22:08) Which is... little widgets. Sam Abuelsamid (22:29) Paul having noticed previously on some of the other Toyotas I've driven recently, but on this one, the boot up time for the whole system from when you hit the start button until it's actually at a screen where you can do something is like 20, 30 seconds. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (22:45) It takes a little like it's gonna come up. It's like, hey, hey, we're starting. It's like an old TV, turn it on. It's all, and then you hit that. And then you have to hit accept. You have to hit accept and you're like, ⁓ you gotta do the lawyer thing. Lawyer said, we gotta put this, you know, like, all right, that happens. If you just plug in your phone or you just have your phone, it'll just start playing the music before things start happening for the screens. You know what? Good enough, let's go. Sam Abuelsamid (22:49) Yeah, Wait, waiting, waiting for the electron beam gun to... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. except you know, if you if you actually need directions to get somewhere, you know, then you got to wait for the map to come up. So that's a little bit but yeah, I mean, Roberto Baldwin (23:14) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, give it a, give give it a scooch, wait a little bit. I like how it has a little speaker in the trunk, you know, for the kids. It's got the little, the little JBL, like a little subwoofer. I don't know, music sounded fine. It didn't sound any, like it was, you know, any bassier than I would anticipate. Sam Abuelsamid (23:34) Yeah, and this year for 26, they did a mild mid-cycle refresh, so it's got a different grill, different front fascia on it. Looks pretty good, it's decent looking little vehicle. ⁓ All-wheel drive hybrid, ⁓ which is handy in the wintertime. ⁓ There's no drive shaft going to the rear axle, there's just an electric motor, a rear electric motor, ⁓ and ⁓ 196 horsepower. One difference from the Corolla, it's the same basic hybrid system, but the Corolla sedan has a 1.8 liter engine ⁓ and a little bit less power from the electric motor. This one's got the two liter, a little bit more electric power, but it still has the same basic sound character of all Toyota hybrids. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (24:22) Yeah. Yeah. When you're driving. So it's, you know what? It's fine. It's quick enough to get around. That light steering is going to make everyone feel like they're, they're, having some fun. I love that they wrote on here, ⁓ under mechanical and performance sport, tune suspension. I don't know what sport maybe tennis. don't know. ⁓ polo maybe, ⁓ chess is a sport, right? Sam Abuelsamid (24:42) Polo. Yeah. Well, actually, you know what? Given given the nature of this car, who the target market is, it's going to be pickleball. Roberto Baldwin (24:54) Pickleball. It's got the pickleball suspension. Nicole (24:55) you Roberto Baldwin (24:56) The kids and the olds loved the pickleball. Yeah, no, I drove it around. Yeah, this is fine. Fine. That's the Corolla Cross. Fine. Sam Abuelsamid (24:59) You Yeah, it's a perfectly acceptable commuter car. It's going to run forever. Yeah, it's got, yeah. Roberto Baldwin (25:10) It's comfortable. I drove like two and a half hours to Monterey each way. Didn't feel like, gosh, my back, nothing. Nice and comfy. I wouldn't try to sit in the back if I were me, behind me. But if you and your friends are shorter than me, you can all enjoy. Plenty of cargo room. ⁓ that's pretty good. Plenty of cargo room. And what else? Sam Abuelsamid (25:26) After under under six foot, you're fine. Mm-hmm. It was, it was still very cold here when I had it. And, you know, I did my fuel economy loop and only got about 34 miles per gallon with it. But, you know, that's, yeah, it's cold and you know, snow, snow on the ground, you know, all that nonsense. uh, but yeah, reasonable. Yeah. You know, it's going to, you know, survive some potholes. Roberto Baldwin (25:44) cold. 18 inch wheels so you have nice some sidewall. Yeah. You want something reasonable. You want something relatively inexpensive. You want something that's going to get pretty good gas mileage. You want something that's easier for you to get in and out of as you get older. Or you're young and you think you need an SUV for some weird reason. Corolla Cross. Bam. Sam Abuelsamid (25:59) Yeah. It it's a Corolla. That's all it's all you need to know. Roberto Baldwin (26:16) It's a Corolla. That's the whole thing. It's a Toyota. It's gonna last till the end of time. If you're going through college, it's gonna last you all through college, and it's gonna be your second car when you get your fantasy job. ⁓ If you're like one year older than me, it's gonna last until retirement. Sam Abuelsamid (26:19) Yeah. Since the first Corolla appeared in the late 60s, Toyota has sold more Corolla branded vehicles than any other nameplate in history. There's almost 60 million Corollas have been sold. I would say that most of the ones prior to 1980, mechanically they could have still been on the road, they Nicole (26:49) Wow. Roberto Baldwin (26:49) All of them still on the road. A lot of them, a surprising amount. Sam Abuelsamid (27:00) they've long since turned into iron oxide. So the old ones just rust. You you you look at them funny and they rust. But ⁓ you know, anything since the mid 80s is probably there's a good chance it's still on Roberto Baldwin (27:02) Yeah, they're just, it's just frames rolling down the road. Nicole (27:03) What the? Roberto Baldwin (27:14) Yeah, still see lot of just Corollas everywhere. Because they were never really like a, it was just like a commuter car. It was always like, oh, this is a good car. It was never really something like a Honda Civic or a Nissan Sentra in the 80s and 90s where people were fixing them up and doing things to them that would eventually lead to some of them not quite making it because of some of the work people did or racing them. No one's racing a Corolla. I mean, now you get a GR Corolla, which by the way is the funnest car on the road. Nicole (27:43) the funnest. Roberto Baldwin (27:44) But the, yeah, anyway, curly cross. It's good. Sam Abuelsamid (27:51) ⁓ so Roberto Baldwin (27:52) I was like driving around, I'm like, this is completely fine. If I needed a second car and I didn't, if I wasn't who I am and demanded fun from everything I drive, this would be fine. Sam Abuelsamid (28:05) So mine had some options on it. It had the convenience package with the tilt and slide moon roof and power lift gate for 1,250 bucks. And of course you had the JBL audio, so was nine speakers, 800 bucks. The crossbars on the roof, door cell protectors, connected services, trial. Roberto Baldwin (28:15) That's what I had. I didn't get, I don't think I had crossbars. There we go, that's the difference between our cars. Sam Abuelsamid (28:33) So mine came to a grand total of $37,524. Nicole, you want to guess at the destination charge? Roberto Baldwin (28:38) ⁓ I Nicole (28:42) 1495. Sam Abuelsamid (28:44) Ooh, you're pretty close. 1450. Roberto Baldwin (28:44) Oh wow, was, yeah. Mine was 37339. I didn't have the, I had a two-tone exterior color and some carpeted floor mats, I don't know. I didn't have a crossbar, so I got hosed on that. Boo. Nicole (28:47) Why? Sam Abuelsamid (28:59) Yeah, I had the crossbars, those are 330 bucks. So if you're gonna load anything on the roof, those are handy to have. If you're gonna put a ski rack up there, something like that. Roberto Baldwin (29:08) Yeah, get crossbars. I know it's winter time in the North NorCal. Everyone's skiing or snowboarding right now. Nicole (29:15) We're supposed to get more. Everyone is skiing here because it's Mass Vacation Week. The kids have no school. So I was like driving less and I'm like, why is everybody going north? Why is traffic so congested? the? ⁓ when we're going skiing. Sam Abuelsamid (29:29) Midwinter break week. Nicole (29:31) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (29:33) All right. ⁓ Anything else on the Corolla Cross? Roberto Baldwin (29:42) When I would lock it, I think it thought there was something in the back seat, so it'd be like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. It was like doing a little, no, there was nothing in there. I don't know what it was. And I couldn't figure out how to turn off the lane keep assist for like ever, which is a pain in my butt. Sam Abuelsamid (29:47) Did you leave Nico in there or something or. All right, let's move on. First up, there was a story that I had in the rundown last week, but I figured, Robbie, you might wanna, maybe interested in talking about this one, so we left it. It was about 3D printed pistons. this year, it's a bunch of new rules for Formula One. They changed up the engine rules, they changed up the chassis rules. One of the things they changed with the engines, it's still a 1.6 liter turbocharged V6. Roberto Baldwin (30:12) Robbie's got thoughts. Nicole (30:12) yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (30:30) Hybrid but it's got a lot more electrical power now, but they they reduced the power They tried to reduce the power of the engines by reducing the maximum compression ratio from 18 to 1 to 16 to 1 But it seems like at least a couple of teams may have found a way around that to Basically get more than 16 to 1 compression ratio because the problem with compression ratio So for those who don't know, you know when a piston goes up and down in the cylinder The compression ratio is the difference between the volume of the cylinder when the piston is at the bottom of the cylinder and when it's at the top. And the more you compress it, it heats up the air more, you it can generate more power, more torque. Yeah, Robbie, Robbie and Nicole. Nicole (31:17) You ever see Robbie was making fun of her? was like, I can see how that works too. Roberto Baldwin (31:18) We're doing visual gags on the audio podcast. Sorry. Sam Abuelsamid (31:22) ⁓ So anyway, ⁓ the thing with the compression ratio is it's really hard to measure when the car is actually on the track, warmed up, driving fast. It's typically measured when the car is static. So you take a spark plug out, you stick a little thing in there, measures the volume, and as you turn the crankshaft, it measures how much it compresses. Well, the thing about metal parts, or most parts as they heat up, they have this tendency to expand. And so it turns out that the designers at at Mercedes Benz and at Ford Red Bull powertrains got a little creative. They figured out a way to use modern technology to make these engines have maybe a little more compression ratio than they're technically supposed to have ⁓ using 3D printed pistons. ⁓ So, you know, one of the things with 3D printing and Robbie, you know this because you have a 3D printer and you print all kinds of stuff. Roberto Baldwin (32:32) I print like all the time. It's a problem. Sam Abuelsamid (32:37) Yeah, one of the advantages that Ford was able to bring to Red Bull in ⁓ their partnership for the new power units for Formula One for this year is their ⁓ expertise with 3D printing metal parts. Most of what we think of 3D printing is plastic stuff, but they can 3D print metal. And you can create these really complex structures with 3D printing. And depending on the nature of the structure, you can control how the part will expand as it heats up. And so they've created some structures that basically expand the top of the piston upwards a little bit so you get a little more compression ratio when the engine warms up. Roberto Baldwin (33:31) So when you 3D print something, you have the exterior, the outside of it, but the inside is called infill. And so you can adjust how thick the infill, what the structure of the infill is. And if they adjust the structure of the infill towards the top of the piston, it allows it to, like you're saying, it allows it to expand a little bit and get higher, that's where they're, I guess, cheating, but not cheating. I feel like every other team thinks they're cheating. How's that? Sam Abuelsamid (33:55) I mean, it's, yeah, it's, it's, ⁓ it's violating the spirit of the rules. But, you know, I mean, the, the letter of the rules, you know, the rules say, this is how we're going to, know, this is what it should be. This is how we're going to test it. And, you know, if you talk to any engineer working in motor sports, you know, the thing that they will tell you is when, know, when you start designing something, you have to read the rule book twice. The first time, Nicole (34:02) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (34:02) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (34:25) You read it through to see, what does it say? What does it, what does it say in here? The second time you read it through and say, what does it not say? And you have to find the things that they, that they're not saying and say, aha, that's where I can get creative. Roberto Baldwin (34:35) Yeah. I feel like Honda, especially Honda with their engineering, Honda's a very conservative company, so could see them very much trying to, they got in trouble at one point for something. So they're like, ooh, with racing, not just in whatever. ⁓ But I feel like Honda could do this. Ferrari, Audi, yes. ⁓ So if they, I'm looking at this, they wrote a letter to, to FIA if the letter is just like, well, know, that I can see Honda like, okay, you asked for it, buddy. Sam Abuelsamid (35:19) Yeah, back in ⁓ the early 90s ⁓ when they actually started in the late 80s, ⁓ when they initially banned ⁓ in race refueling, and they said, okay, here's the maximum amount of fuel you're allowed to have in your cars. And I think Honda was the first to do this. First, they started refrigerating the fuel to chill it down before they put it in the car. So because what they do is they actually measure, they were measuring the volume of the fuel tank. Well, they figure, okay, well, if we chill the fuel, it's gonna get more dense. So there's actually more fuel in that same volume. And so they chill the fuel and then fill the fuel tank. And then as it warms up, you just get more, you know, more extra fuel, extra carbon. And then eventually at one point, they started getting more creative with the actual fuel. And you know, this is something that everybody does now. Cause now one of the other things they changed this year is they're using 100 % sustainable fuels. So it's not petroleum based. ⁓ And so they've got all kinds of crazy formulas and chemical formulas for these fuels. But what Honda did in the early nineties is they were actually running their engines on toluene, like pure toluene, which is a really nasty chemical. And so the crew filling the, fueling the cars had to wear hazmat suits. ⁓ Nicole (36:37) Wow. Sam Abuelsamid (36:46) But they did that because it was combustible and it had more energy in it than traditional gasoline. So yeah. Roberto Baldwin (36:51) Honda was, I don't know a lot about racing, but I know that Honda was killing it. Absolutely killing it for a few years. Like they were just unstoppable. And everyone's like, Hey, how do I close the rules? Sam Abuelsamid (36:57) Yeah. Well, mean, the last four, you know, prior to last year, like from 2021 to 2024, the Red Bull, you know, Max Verstappen won the F1 Drivers Championship four years in a row, you know, using a Honda engine. So yeah, I mean, they know what they're doing. So these guys will always figure out some creative ways to get around the restrictions. Roberto Baldwin (37:31) But yeah, it's really interesting that they're using 3D printing. again, you were saying a lot of people think when you think 3D printing, people still think, it's just plastic. Porsche and some other automakers have been using metal for stuff. no one's really using it outside of a few little weird little parts for production vehicles. ⁓ But for custom builds and to help build things, this is one of the... Sam Abuelsamid (37:58) Yeah. Well, for prototyping. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (37:59) The parts to put the parts in and prototyping. so it's really, it's really, we did a 3D printing, an additive printing podcast. You should listen to it. But one of the guys is like, everyone thinks, you they talk to these automakers and they're like, well, how can I, what can I do and put this in my car? And they're like, hold on, how can this help you build the car? How can you very quickly say, hey, how do we do this? And you're like, we can just really quickly. 3D print something and then within 24 hours, 48 hours, we can have the problem solved of how we manufacture this part, how we fit this part in the car, how we do this thing. So it's really ⁓ interesting. for racing, mean, obviously this is such a short run, so it's not like, you're not gonna get 3D printed pistons in your car anytime soon as one. Sam Abuelsamid (38:48) Yeah, because the thing with 3D printing is you can build stuff that you can't build by any other process, but the cycle time, the time to build a part ⁓ is, it's a lot longer than traditional manufacturing methods for high volume stuff. Yeah, I mean, for... Roberto Baldwin (38:58) very very long. because you can't press it, you can't cast it, it's just. And with these things, these are probably taking a couple days to print each for the amount of power. Exactly. Sam Abuelsamid (39:10) Yeah, you're not building hundreds of thousands of these things or millions of them like you would for production programs. Roberto Baldwin (39:17) Yeah, so, yeah. Anyway, good on them, guess, for doing 3D printing and showing people what is potentially, ⁓ what you can do with it when you're cheating in racing, which is pretty much all racing, to be honest. All racing is figuring out how to cheat without actually cheating. Sam Abuelsamid (39:33) Yeah. ⁓ all right. So, ⁓ do you guys know what creep torque is? Roberto Baldwin (39:41) Whoa. Nicole (39:41) do not, I have no idea what creep torque is. Enlighten me. Sam Abuelsamid (39:44) Okay, so in an internal combustion car ⁓ with an automatic transmission, when you take your foot off the brake pedal, you know, the car will start to creep forward a little bit. There's some creep torque. You know, that's just the way, the nature of how a torque converter automatic transmission works. So you've experienced that, right? So ⁓ with an EV, by default, an EV would not necessarily do that, but Nicole (40:04) Sorry. Sam Abuelsamid (40:12) ⁓ Most manufacturers on their EVs, there's usually, a lot of them have strong regenerative braking, but they often give drivers the option. And you had this on the Swagoneer, ⁓ where you could go to low regen and you could enable creep torque. So it behaved like a traditional automatic transmission, at least if your 12 volt battery wasn't dead. ⁓ Nicole (40:28) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (40:42) Well, apparently, VinFast got a little aggressive with the creep torque on the VF8. Yeah, Kyle Connor, when they did that like $2.49 a month lease deal on the VF8 a couple years ago, he picked one up. so they've been testing it again recently. And they found that the creep torque was a little bit too aggressive. Roberto Baldwin (40:52) it just takes off? Nicole (40:55) Yikes. Sam Abuelsamid (41:12) And there's a video here in the show notes. You can see they have this thing. Roberto Baldwin (41:15) Well, hold on. I wanna stop you really quick. The video in the show notes is of Corgis. The link you gave us is of Corgis. Which is the most on-brand thing you've ever sent us. Cause I was looking for it. I'm like, where's this video? And I kept clicking on it and I'm like, there's some video Corgis. we're gonna talk about Corgis later. Sam Abuelsamid (41:22) ⁓ wrong video. Nicole (41:24) Who is why? Sam Abuelsamid (41:27) yeah. Sorry. This is from the. Nicole (41:28) Wait a minute. I don't... Yes! Is the Pembroke Welsh Corgis breed judging for 2026? I'm watching it now. I mean, this is cool, but I don't think this is what you meant to give us, Yeah, I'm gonna watch the Corgis while you explain. Sam Abuelsamid (41:41) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (41:43) This is... To be honest, let's watch this while we talk about creep torque. Sam Abuelsamid (41:50) Okay, well anyway, happened was they took the VF8 and they put it on a grassy hill, a snowy grassy hill, and they just took their foot off the brake pedal. I mean typically with an automatic transmission, in a situation like this, it should probably just sit there, if not even roll back a little bit. It shouldn't start climbing up. Roberto Baldwin (41:52) I'm Nicole (42:00) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (42:20) This thing started climbing up, got to like 11 miles an hour without touching the accelerator pedal. Roberto Baldwin (42:23) Wow. Nicole (42:23) my god! Roberto Baldwin (42:25) That's a, it's got, well, so here's the fun, ⁓ the flip side of that was when I had the, when we did the, remember we did the drive program for that vehicle. ⁓ Mine didn't have creep torque at all. It had zero, it had no stop and it just would roll back. If I lifted, like before I could put my foot on the brake, it would just roll backwards. I was like, I'm gonna die. Nicole (42:27) That's not right. and then do that. I just remember that that's the only time I've driven that I've well and truly made myself carsick driving a car. Roberto Baldwin (42:55) Yeah. Yeah. It was like 80 % done. And then they told us at the event that the better ones were being delivered in San Francisco, which I'm like, so you made me fly from San Francisco to San Diego to drive a car to tell me that a better version of the car is being delivered like down the street from my house. Because like near my house is where they store all the cars with all these Subarus and whatnot, like over by the Bay. ⁓ and then the car is, every car has something different that was wrong with it. Nicole (43:24) Yeah, it was like everyone broke, but no two broke in the same way. I don't remember getting to the, the, it was like the coffee stop where we'd only swap drivers or whatever, but it was like the coffee stop and like there were cars just there. like, where are the people? Like, oh, their car broke. What happened? Well, theirs won't go. Theirs has no, you know, data here. Theirs, this one has this. And I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna keep, I'm not gonna turn mine off. I'm good on the coffee. I'm just gonna keep going. So I get back where I need to be. Roberto Baldwin (43:27) Yeah, yeah. And all this... Yeah, it was very... And yet, all after all this, if the VF3 comes to the United States, I'm gonna buy that stupid little electric Jimny. It's essentially just electric Jimny. You can tell me all the bad things. Again, it's like the Wrangler. You can tell me all the bad things that a Wrangler is, and I still want a Wrangler. It's like old dudes and Harley's. Sam Abuelsamid (44:13) All right. Well, I put the Nicole (44:16) Hahaha Sam Abuelsamid (44:16) right link in there. I put the right link in there now. So. Roberto Baldwin (44:18) I don't care about the right link. want to watch. I'm watching dogs. I was like scrolling through it while you're like, I'm like, look at all the puppies. Sam Abuelsamid (44:21) Yeah. Yeah, I was watching the ⁓ group ⁓ breed judging for the Pembroke Welsh Corgis because we have two of those. Nicole (44:33) their butts really. It's the corgi butts. I'm watching them get them all perfectly lined up and I have multiple corgi butts in my view right now. Corgi butts are just they have the cutest little butts. Roberto Baldwin (44:34) I I a second of love. Aww. Sam Abuelsamid (44:43) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (44:43) They got little purple background. So you got to put this in the show notes at least cause we're talking about it. Nicole (44:47) You need to put a link to this so people too can just enjoy a moment of Zen and watch some little corgis. Roberto Baldwin (44:50) with yeah, just some nice little dogs. And they're like, okay, now you gotta walk. There's a woman, and the little dog's running. He's like, hey, I'm a little, he's like, ⁓ he saw a little treat or something on the ground. He's like, what's that? ⁓ he's got a little happy face, one little ears down. Aw. Nicole (45:00) They're so cute! Well, there's the ones that he's examining. I always wonder when they examine the dogs, it feels like they squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and I'm just gonna say they squeeze some personal parts. So I'm like, how could the dog just sit there and be happy when they're squeezing all the bits? I would not be happy if I was a dog, but yet, Corgi seems totally fine. What? Roberto Baldwin (45:18) You don't, don't, don't kink shame the dog, Nicole. Don't kink shame the dogs. Anyway, corgis. There's... These little butts shaking back and forth. And then also Ky- And also Kyle did something, I guess. Nicole (45:30) They're really cute. Seriously, I would be the most off topic mistake Sam Abuelsamid (45:32) They're great dogs except for. Nicole (45:36) I've ever made in the show and Nicole and Roberto will not stop talking about dogs. It's your fault, Sam. Sam Abuelsamid (45:39) ⁓ I Roberto Baldwin (45:41) Alright, I'm watching the thing where the car- Sam Abuelsamid (45:42) love corgis. I got two of them. They're great dogs except for when they're being jerks Roberto Baldwin (45:47) I mean, that's all dogs. Nicole (45:48) They're great except when they're not. Sam Abuelsamid (45:52) All right, let's move on. ⁓ So this week Ferrari announced the name of their upcoming electric car, which is going to be a four-seater GT. It's called Luce, and they showed off some of the interior stuff. ⁓ And apparently they worked with Johnny Ive and his buddy Mark Newsom to design this. What do you think? Do you have a chance to look at this yet? Nicole (45:54) Hehehe Roberto Baldwin (46:20) I've already said it, ⁓ this is just Johnny Ive chasing that iPhone 4 high that he had, because it was like the best looking iPhone. It's fine. It just looks like an iPhone 4. I don't know. I'm okay, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (46:26) Yeah. Well, except that, you know, where the iPhone four and, all other iPhones ⁓ were, ⁓ they were, ⁓ Touch screens, touch screens, touch screen here. It's got physical controls. Roberto Baldwin (46:46) phones? yeah. I mean, I'm giving them hot props for that, to be honest. Nicole (46:57) Yes, I'll props for physical controls. But I like a touch screen, as long as it's not the rotary dial controller and the Moz dial give no props for that. Sam Abuelsamid (47:07) So yeah, there's toggle switches and buttons and rotary dials and all kinds of stuff on here. Nicole (47:14) I mean it looks really, it looks cool, looks sleekly updated. Like there's all this stuff in there but it doesn't, it's not like an overwhelming, like they did a really nice sleek look to it despite the amount of stuff they have included in this. Sam Abuelsamid (47:28) One thing that was interesting in the instrument cluster, ⁓ you've got three dials on there and they're OLED displays, but there's like a glass lens in front of them, which gives them more, almost look mechanical. And when you watch the video and you see it panning across, you can see how it gets kind of distorted when you're looking at it from the side because there's an optical lens in front of the OLED display. And then, Nicole (47:54) no. Sam Abuelsamid (47:58) on the center display area in the upper right corner, there's a dial there, which normally is a clock. And it's got physical hands on it. But depending on what mode you're in, what drive mode you're in, it can switch from a physical clock to a stopwatch, a chronometer. And as you switch modes, depending on which mode it's in and what it's displaying, the hands will actually spin around and get into the right position for whatever, you you know, for stopwatch, you know, they'll start off with both facing the top. It's kind of an interesting design. Roberto Baldwin (48:36) Listen, Johnny Ive is my favorite Dieter Rams tribute designer. Sam Abuelsamid (48:40) Ha ha ha! Nicole (48:41) Hahaha! Roberto Baldwin (48:44) ⁓ Design nerd humor. Dieter Rams, all the stuff for brawn. All the cool brawn stuff that Apple sort of has, especially the iPhone 4 sort of ⁓ used as ⁓ a, what do call it? Word, inspiration, thank you. Line ⁓ as an inspiration. Yeah, it's all showed up in here. Which I'm, again, totally fine with because Dieter Rams knew what he was doing when. Sam Abuelsamid (48:50) Yeah. Inspiration. Ha Nicole (49:06) Hahaha! Roberto Baldwin (49:13) came to design. I don't know anything else about Dieter Rams. If it turns out he's some horrible person, you don't have to tell me. I'll find out later in life and be disappointed. Sam Abuelsamid (49:24) All right. ⁓ Toyota. ⁓ I was out in Ojai, California this week for a few days with Toyota and we got to drive a couple of cars, which talk about next time. ⁓ But ⁓ they showed, they did the global reveal of the 2027 Highlander. The current gen Highlanders been around for a while. Roberto Baldwin (49:45) Nicole? It feels like they just made this for Nicole. They're like, we heard about the... We heard about the Wagoneer. Nicole (49:55) We heard about the bike universe, so we're giving you a Highland or EV instead. I don't think I know. Sam Abuelsamid (49:59) Yeah, and it's electric this time. It's exclusively electric. Nicole (50:03) Yeah. I mean, does it feel weird that you're going exclusively EV where everybody else is like, dear god, EVs? Like, not me. I mean, like, like, like everyone's pulling back. Like everybody is pulling back. Roberto Baldwin (50:13) ⁓ Well, not everyone. mean, Hyundai's still going forward and they're making money. I think at some point you look at the market and you say, who's doing it wrong? And you see like, ⁓ yeah, these people are doing it wrong, these people are doing it wrong, these people are doing it right. And everyone is saying, how come you're not doing as well as these people? So I think it's a lot of, well, we can do that. I think that's what it comes down to. Nicole (50:20) Honey, but like, for- Sam Abuelsamid (50:42) Yeah, and you know, from the, you know, from what I experienced last summer when I first drove the 2026 BZ ⁓ without the Forex, I mean, you know, they took, they listened. When we whined and complained about the original BZ Forex, they fixed basically everything about that, you know, in the span of two years and made it a much, much better vehicle. And Nicole (50:50) Yeah. Yeah Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (51:09) you know, a lot of the hardware, most of the hardware from that vehicle, from that update has gone straight into this new Highlander. ⁓ And so I think this could actually do reasonably well. A lot's going to depend on how they price it and what I'm, I mean, they haven't announced pricing, but from what I'm hearing, it could be fairly aggressive, like, you know, cheaper than the IONIQ 9 or the Kia EV9. Yeah. What do you think about the design, first of all? Roberto Baldwin (51:33) my gosh, really? Ooh, that's... It's the Prius design that we've all kind of like, this is cool that they've slapped on everything else. Yeah, I'm fine with it. It does kind of look like a minivan. Nicole (51:47) think the design is fine. Yeah, I think it actually, I mean, it's got like that EV, yeah, I don't think it's anything surprising. I don't think it's especially out there. I think it's sort of typical of what a three row EV sort of looks like most of them, you know? It follows a sort of traditional lines and stays in line with Toyota's whole Prius thing. Like it's the Toyota five version, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (52:09) Yeah, you get the hammerhead headlights as they call it, but it's a boxier design than the last gen Highlander. And size-wise, it's like four-ish inches longer than the old Highlander, but about four inches shorter than the Grand Highlander. So it's roomier inside, and it's actually really nice inside. Like, we complained a lot about some Toyotas in recent years. Nicole (52:26) Okay. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (52:37) that a lot of hard plastics, feel kind of cheap. This does not feel that way. It looks and feels. Yeah, yeah, no, we sat in, I shot a video that should be coming out early in the week ⁓ on greencars.com, a walk around video with Tim Rippinger, who's the marketing manager for Highlander. And so we sat inside, ⁓ it's really nice inside. ⁓ It's a much more premium feeling vehicle. ⁓ Nicole (52:43) Did you get to see the inside like I know you didn't drive it but you have to play Roberto Baldwin (52:55) Cool. Nicole (53:06) looks beautiful, that one interior shot you have that just shows the dashboard and has the scene. It looks really good, but you don't know from images. So if you're seconding that it actually is as good as that picture looks, that's fantastic. Sam Abuelsamid (53:19) Yeah, and you know the door handles on the outside are flush, but they're not retracting door handles. So there's like a pocket in there and you just stick your hand in there as a switch just on the inside and so it pops open. ⁓ know, so it's a nice balance there. ⁓ I think it's really well executed. know, with the, it'll be front wheel drive as the base. There's two trim levels, ⁓ the standard front wheel drive. Nicole (53:27) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (53:28) Yeah. Nicole (53:29) Nice. Sam Abuelsamid (53:47) And then all-wheel drive with the same motors that are on the BZ so 221 horsepower 338 horsepower With the all-wheel drive they say it'll do zero to sixty to about six seconds Which is you know better than the current the current the outgoing Highlander hybrid 320 miles of range So I think this could this could be a really interesting player in this segment and and the thing is, you know Roberto Baldwin (54:13) I mean, this is a large vehicle doing over 3.3 to 3.7 miles per kilowatt hour. That's pretty impressive. Sam Abuelsamid (54:21) Yeah, Toyota, with this Highlander, it's going to be electric only, but they also have the Grand Highlander. And the thing that's happened since the Grand Highlander launched a couple of years ago is it actually took most of the sales of the current generation Highlander. Because as recently as like 2022, I think, the current gen Highlander sold almost 280,000 units. Nicole (54:21) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (54:49) Last year was down to 65,000, but that's because Grand Highlander sold like almost 150,000. So total combined between them, you know, it hasn't really changed much, but everybody shifted to the bigger Grand Highlander. So this, you know, will give an electric option that's close closer in size to that Grand Highlander size. And then, you know, there will probably be a Lexus version of this shown sometime later this year. Nicole (54:51) Wow. Roberto Baldwin (54:55) Yeah, also it's pretty old. Sam Abuelsamid (55:17) Goes on goes on sale production starts in the fall First ones should start hitting dealers before the end of the year, but really, you know early early in the New Year's Is when they really start to tend to start selling these? aggressively ⁓ And I think it could do okay Roberto Baldwin (55:36) There's definitely ⁓ a hunger from people from the Honda and Toyota camp. They want an EV, but they do not want to give up their Hondas and their Toyotas. think the prologue outselling the Blazer ⁓ was a good example. It's the same car, essentially. ⁓ Underneath, mean, the Honda put all their bits on top of it. people, they're like, well, I don't trust Hyundai because they remember something that happened 30 years ago. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (55:52) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (56:04) And you don't know what Ford's doing. And if you're a Honda Toyota person, you're definitely not going to buy a GM vehicle, even though if you bought a prologue, you bought a GM vehicle. So I think that those, especially Toyota people, Toyota people are Toyota people who are Toyota people who are Toyota people. And they are diehards. And I see them like, well, I'm not going to get something until Toyota has something good. And I think with the BZ 4X, when it first came out, they just sort of sidelined that car. It felt like they were like, don't want to do this. I mean, I'll do it, I don't really, I'm not happy about it. And whenever you go to the auto show, it was always off in a corner somewhere. Whereas like Subaru, Zach, same car, had it front and center. ⁓ And then of course they fixed all the issues with the BZ4X. And I think they were just like, you know, if we're going to do it, let's do it right. Which again, for the entry level, it's like 3.7 miles per kilowatt hour for a three row SUV. Nicole (56:42) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (56:45) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (57:02) It's front wheel drive, you're not getting all wheel drive, but that's really good. And for the top end, it's 3.3 miles per kilowatt hour, which is still really good for a three row SUV. when you think about those numbers, about like, think them as multiples of 10. So if it's 3.7, just think of it as 37 miles per gallon for this vehicle. If you think of it as 33 miles per gallon, like an equivalent of a gas car. So yeah, no, I'm... I'm happy that Toyota is taking it seriously and they're putting their Toyota magic on there. And I think Honda is doing the same thing with their ⁓ Zero Series that's coming up. yeah, I mean, again, for years I kept saying, Hyundai's doing what we thought Toyota and Honda would be doing by now. And now Toyota and Honda are catching up. Sam Abuelsamid (57:55) And this Highlander is gonna be built in the US. It's built in Georgetown, Kentucky, where they build the current Highlander and the Grand Highlander. ⁓ And the batteries are built here. It'll be interesting to watch. ⁓ We should be getting first drive of this in the fall before it goes on sale. And I'm really interested in this one. Roberto Baldwin (58:18) It won't be, but Akio won't be excited until he gets a solid state and a GR Corolla. That's the only time he's gonna... Sam Abuelsamid (58:24) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (58:26) They'll be like, yeah, it's something we gotta do. And then the next week it'd be like, I don't even know why we have electricity. Nicole (58:31) Hahaha! Sam Abuelsamid (58:33) All right. Let's stick with three row SUVs for a moment, crossovers. And Volkswagen brought some folks to Montreal to sample the new 2027 Atlas and in the snow and ice near Montreal. And Case from TFL got to go there. What do you think of, I mean, you know, shape, you know, pretty much standard three row SUV. And it doesn't, it, thing's wrapped in this very colorful camouflage, but you know, it looks, looks to me like it's still an Atlas. Roberto Baldwin (59:15) Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's... It's veered far from the atlas. Sam Abuelsamid (59:18) ⁓ huh. Nicole (59:21) It's still very atlasy. It's not one of those things you're going to look at and go, wow, that is dramatically different. It's like, OK, a little change here and there, but you know. Sam Abuelsamid (59:22) Yeah. ⁓ No electric in this one ⁓ and not even a hybrid yet. It's still the same or it's an updated version of the two liter turbo that's in the current gen Atlas, which I should, you know, when I drove it during in December during operation Frodo, I was very impressed with it. It was really good. Roberto Baldwin (59:47) Yeah, I think it's. Nicole (59:48) Yeah, looks like car. I just can't imagine it's gonna change overly much. I actually weirdly love the camouflage thing. This color, like, can we buy it like that? Then it looks fabulous. Yeah, and normally camouflages, and people can see it's normally black and white pattern they use to cover it up. And this is like a kaleidoscope of color. It looks like it should be in Miami or something. It's all these bright colors, but it's in snow. Roberto Baldwin (59:54) I want that... Yeah, we should be able to... We can't... Because we can't get the Harlequin package anymore. Remember the different colors? Sam Abuelsamid (59:54) They should offer that as an option. Roberto Baldwin (1:00:13) It's ready to party. Yeah, it's a good color, especially for so shoots. Sometimes they'll have us go out and like, hey, we're gonna drive this car in the snow and then it's gray. And you're like, come on guys. All right, white. What were you thinking? We have to shoot video, our photos are this. Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:21) or white, you know. All right. During back in 2021, Congress passed a bill called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that included several billion dollars to fund deployment of DC fast charging across the United States. And when when the Department of Energy put together the rules for qualification for that money, there was a Buy America provision which said that 55 percent of all the parts and material content in these chargers that got money through the NEVI programs, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, or NEVI, had to be sourced in the United States. you know, it took a while before, you know, everybody got their supply chains lined up to build all this stuff domestically. And so that's, you know, that was part of the reason why it took quite a, you know, it took a couple of years before we actually started seeing any NEVI-funded chargers being deployed. Well, last year, ⁓ after the current administration took power in Washington, ⁓ the guy in charge signed an executive order, just arbitrarily saying, yeah, we're freezing this funding. We're not going to give out any more of this $5 billion that Congress appropriated. ⁓ Well, the way the Constitution is written, you know, is not allowed to do that. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:01:46) can't really do that. Congress already said the money's here. The money's for this thing. can't just come in and... Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:50) The executive branch is responsible for spending the money that Congress appropriates. ⁓ several judges actually ruled that, no, you can't do that. That's against the rules. ⁓ So what they did was they changed the qualification rules to get NEVI funding. And they announced this week that instead of 55 % American content, it had to be 100 % American content, which effectively means that not another penny of this money is going to get spent. Nicole (1:02:17) Thank Roberto Baldwin (1:02:21) because I don't think there's anything you can buy in this country that's 100 % American content. Nicole (1:02:21) Mm-hmm. Right? I know. Is anything really 100 %? Some company clothes, but some component is not for the US. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:29) ⁓ Maybe some agricultural products. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:31) I can't. Maybe I don't even Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:37) You know, corn, wheat, soybeans. Yeah, no, not the hardware. Yeah, the food you can you can get that domestically. You can you can use domestic rainwater and, you know, domestic soil and domestic seeds. But that's that that is that is about it, really. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:39) like, like actual, yeah, like actual food. Okay. Okay. I was like, I don't know. All right. So like corn. Nicole (1:02:41) Like actual stuff you eat. Domestic rainwater. No Chinese rainwater allowed. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:53) Alright, that's... I'm literally looking at my desk at this the the mess that is my desk and I cannot think of anything that's on here that That would not have something from another country even like even a tiniest little bit. I mean even little adapters probably Nicole (1:03:12) mug that was made, handmade in Vermont. Roberto Baldwin (1:03:17) ⁓ was it locally? But the glaze and the glaze. Nicole (1:03:19) So maybe my little mug is... I would have... imagine Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:19) Yeah, but but was it made from American clay? Nicole (1:03:23) because I can't read the little imprint but it was in a pottery shop. So I think... I'm pretty sure this is... maybe? This is all I got. All I got is my little mug with little moves. Roberto Baldwin (1:03:30) Maybe, potentially. That's all I got. A mug that might, yeah. I got, you know what? I found a fox tail on my desk, you know, because of dogs. So this is the one thing on my desk is 100 % sourced in the United States from my backyard from earlier this year. Anything else I think is a little suspect. Nicole (1:03:40) Hahaha that is entirely American made. Yeah Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:55) All right. So the good part is that most of the deployment of DC fast chargers over the last couple of years has been done without NEVI funding anyway. And last year, 2025 was the biggest year yet for DC charging deployment. There was more than 3,300 new DC fast charging stations deployed in the US last year with almost 17,000 chargers. So that's... That process is continuing and I think, I don't know that it's actually going to have, that this rule change is gonna have that huge of an impact. Roberto Baldwin (1:04:34) I yeah. Tesla's not gonna be happy about this, I can tell you that. Hmm, well, what are you gonna do? Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:39) Well, too bad. Nicole (1:04:39) 11. Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:44) ⁓ And then ⁓ we've talked we talked the last couple of weeks or talked recently about China having new rules that banned retracting door handles and electro electronic door handles on cars Well, they've got a couple more new rules coming out ⁓ They are banning steering wheel yokes or steering yokes ⁓ And they're also cracking down on Nicole (1:04:57) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:04:58) Good. Nicole (1:05:07) wow! Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:12) what controls can be put into touchscreen interfaces. So on the steering yokes, they're not actually explicitly banning yokes, but the way the rules are written, part of it is that for testing, ⁓ when they do the crash testing, they test at various locations around the steering wheel to see how much force it takes to break it, things like that. And... ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:05:16) ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:42) because if you can't do the test, you can't pass the test. And because the steering wheel yoke, their steering yoke doesn't have the top part of the steering wheel, they can't test at those locations because there's nothing there. And so that will effectively ban those. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:05:50) ⁓ Dun dun dun. All steering wheel yokes need to be sourced 100 % in China. Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:04) Haha ⁓ So they're gonna ban those and then on the screens, essential controls, things like turn signals, ⁓ your transmission, your gear selection, ⁓ and a few other things now must have physical controls. So things like what Tesla has done with putting the gear selection on the screen, can't do that anymore. You gotta have some sort of physical control. And wipers as well, wipers is another one. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:24) Yay. Nicole (1:06:32) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:36) Yeah, that was a hold. Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:36) So all good things, I think. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:39) Yeah, I want to be able to tick, tick, tick, Nicole (1:06:39) Yeah, no, I think there's a place for getting things. The tech got ahead of itself and this puts like no hold up. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:47) I got yelled at for like 45 minutes by Tesla about my, I hadn't even written the article yet, but talking about wipers, because before, like the wipers were automatic. Like you had to go into the touch screens and like, they're like, well, you know, I'm like, they're like, well, you don't, you just don't know what you're talking. I'm like, I drive cars, that's my job to know about cars. And this is unsafe because like, well, when it rains, I'm like, it did rain while I had the car and it didn't turn the wipers on. in the amount of time that I wanted him to. Like I couldn't see and the wipers hadn't come on. Like, yeah, but you know, the car is for the future. I'm like, can't, I know, I can't review a car. Exactly. I have to drive and review what I have now. Anyway, I've been yelled at a lot by Tesla. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:26) But I have to drive it now, not in the future. Nicole (1:07:29) All right. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:37) we all. Roberto Baldwin (1:07:38) But the PR people really liked me because I'd always say that it wasn't really a self-driving car and blah, blah. Essentially, I would just say things that were true. And the PR people enjoyed that because it was less, you know, FUD that they had to deal with where people were like, it's self-driving. And they're like, no, it's not. We can't, please stop saying that. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:59) Please stop marketing it as such. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:01) Yeah, I know the PR and the marketing team were not on the same. We're not the same team, which is, you know, sad. Nicole (1:08:01) Yeah, seriously. Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:10) so it looks like china's going to be doing all the the automotive regulation going forward at least all the good automotive regulation Roberto Baldwin (1:08:10) Whatever. Well, and then when you think about it, because automakers, the S-Class ⁓ unveil, before the unveil, months before I went to Germany and I was talking, we were talking to Ola, CEO of ⁓ Mercedes-Benz, and I asked point blank, what's the deal with the passenger side ⁓ display? Because I, no one, I've never been able to get anyone excited about that display. I get people in the car, like, hey, look at that. And they're like, that's kind of cool. And then they pick up their phones after a few minutes. And he was very frank. He's like, for Asia, Asia loves these displays. China especially really loves these displays. So, you know, they're building a global car. So when you're an automaker, you want to build a global car. don't want to make it, you know, don't want, especially now as you're looking at like, well, yeah, especially in your biggest markets. So we're getting, you know, what China has dictated essentially, ⁓ which, you know, the world's been getting what America has dictated for years. So, you know, it's fine. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:03) but it's your biggest market. Roberto Baldwin (1:09:17) So anyway, so we have a passenger display in the S-Class because in China, passenger displays are big deal. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:27) All right, ⁓ well that's all we've got on the list for this week. I did not go to San Diego to drive the new Mazda CX-5. yeah, so that's still under embargo. But because I had no driving impressions of it, I did have a chance to talk with Tom Donnelly, who's the CEO of Mazda North American Operations. ⁓ And we talked about the brand and kind of what's going on. ⁓ so I put this one up. Nicole (1:09:37) I did, but I can't talk about it yet. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:56) on the, patrons several days ago. Now the rest of you can listen to this. So have a listen to my conversation with Tom Donnelly about the future of Mazda. ⁓ And we will see you next time when Nicole can tell us about the CX-5, what it was like to drive. ⁓ And I'll be able to tell you about what the Toyotas I drove this week were like. And you can also tell us about what the... Nicole (1:10:15) Yes, I can share about it, yes. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:25) nearly identical Subaru versions were like. I suspect ⁓ that Subaru will have a much more interesting off-road course for you to evaluate the Trail Seeker on. Nicole (1:10:27) Hahaha! ⁓ I would think and it's supposed to rain so it should get more interesting. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:38) Well, we got, we got a bunch of rain Roberto Baldwin (1:10:38) too. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:40) like the night before we drove, it rained an inch and a half and about two hours in Ojai where I was. yeah. So we couldn't actually even do the off road the next day. We had to wait a day before we could go off road. ⁓ Nicole (1:10:47) So it a mess. feel like Subaru's gonna find a way to get us off road come heck or high water, so I feel like we'll do it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:58) yeah, I'm sure Jamie and John will have come up with a really interesting off-road course to really evaluate this thing. Yeah. But that's all for next week. In the meantime, have a fun week and I'm going to go get some sun. Bye. Nicole (1:11:04) Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I'm gonna wear my boots so I can get muddy. Okay, bye. Roberto Baldwin (1:11:16) Bye.