Sam Abuelsamid (00:00)
This is episode 442 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

Roberto Baldwin (00:07)
And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE and SAE Automotive Engineering Podcast.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:12)
Excellent. And Nicole will be joining us in progress. She promises she said, go ahead and start without her. She's apparently tied up with a work issue. So, uh, yeah, come on. It's six, it's, it's after 6 30 PM Eastern time on a Friday night. Who's doing work. Oh, okay. Well, whatever. Um, so anyway, um,

Roberto Baldwin (00:20)
Boo, work, come on.

Well, I mean, it's only 3.30 for me, so.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37)
while we're waiting for Nicole, I had a couple of different vehicles that drove this week. ⁓ I had a Volvo XC90 B6 that I picked up from the airport when we returned from Mexico last week. so, you know, this is pretty much like every other XC90, you know, not, not dramatically different from the XC90s have been driving on and off for better part of a decade now. ⁓ You know, it got a,

Got a mid cycle refresh, ⁓ what, about a year and a half or so ago. So it got, got an updated, grill, ⁓ and refreshed version of the headlights. And then in the interior, they put in a bigger display and because they didn't really change the dashboard as a whole. ⁓ previously the display was embedded in the dashboard. Now it sticks out and just sits out just in front of the dashboard so they could fit it. ⁓ and it's got the latest version of.

Volvo's Android based infotainment system, which is good. It works, boots up reasonably fast. All the stuff works on there. can download apps on it. ⁓ And it still has support for CarPlay and Android Auto. The B6 version of the XC90 is kind of the middle of the range for the XC90 lineup. So the base model is the B5. ⁓ So all the XC90s are all wheel drive now. So there's the base.

B5 is a two liter turbocharged four cylinder 48 volt mild hybrid. At the top of the line, there's the, plugin hybrid, which has a turbocharged version of that engine and a 18.8 or so kilowatt hour battery pack down the center tunnel and an electric motor, like 140ish horsepower electric motor on the rear axle to make it a plugin hybrid. And then the B6 is in the middle.

So it has the turbocharged version of the engine, but it does not have any of the hybrid stuff. And it's all wheel drive. It's rated at 295 horsepower, 310 foot pounds of torque. It'll do zero to 60 in about six and a half seconds. So it's reasonably quick, quick enough. And it does all the things that XC90s have done for a long, long time. And it does it just fine.

It's a handsome vehicle. It's not particularly outlandish in any way. ⁓ It's very Swedish, yes. Very restrained, refined. It looks good, but there's nothing about it that is likely to be too offensive to anybody either. ⁓ It's a three-row crossover, but the third row is on the tight side. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (03:11)
Very Swedish.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:32)
You can put a couple of younger kids or a couple of Jill Simonello's back there. ⁓ But probably not any Robbie's in the back seat, in the third row seat. And then there's some cargo space behind the third row. You can fit a few ⁓ roller bags in the back there. Certainly put a week's worth of groceries back there without having to fold down the third row seat. ⁓ The B6.

⁓ Now also has the ⁓ crystal shift knob that they previously was restricted to the plug-in hybrid. So it adds a little touch of style to the interior. Something slightly different that you won't find in pretty much any other car. ⁓ And it's just really, it's a really pleasant place to be. The one I had, ⁓ had the ⁓ wool seats.

in there, which are very nice. ⁓ It's and they're very comfortable. They're very supportive. ⁓ It's, it's just a, it's just a great place to spend time. You know, if you, if you got a family to haul around and you want something premium that looks good, feels good, has decent ride quality, ⁓ gets decent, you know, not

tremendous fuel economy, but decent fuel economy. It's rated at 23 miles per gallon combined. This is a really good choice. It's not cheap. They've gotten more expensive over the years. The B6 starts at $62,445. The one that I had, let me find the tab here with the Monrone, the one that I had was a loaded one, which was the Ultra.

And so it had all the stuff it had, you know, the Volvo pilot assist system and the 22 inch wheels, which you don't really need that. The air suspension system, the, the Bowers and Wilkins premium sound system, which is $3,200 sounds really good. Is it $3,000 worth of good? I don't know. But.

Roberto Baldwin (05:53)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (05:55)
You know, it's a it's a really beautiful place to spend time. And the total suggested retail price on the Monrooney came to eighty thousand four hundred and forty five dollars. Yeah. They are very expensive.

Roberto Baldwin (06:11)
I don't know if

anyone's told our audience yet, but they're not cheap.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:16)
You know, hey

everybody, if you haven't heard yet, new cars have gotten really, really expensive. It's kind of ridiculous. ⁓ So you want to take a guess at the destination charge?

Roberto Baldwin (06:23)
Crazy.

Ooh, 18.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:32)
No, it's only $12.95. It's a bargain. you know, they just put it right in the sticker price. They don't try to hide it.

Roberto Baldwin (06:34)
⁓ that's a well, you know what?

I

was like, here you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:46)
⁓ So the other vehicle I had was the 2026 Kia K4 hatchback with GT line turbo trim. And when I first drove the K4 back in late 2024, I was really impressed with it. I liked the way it drove. ⁓ Pretty much liked everything about it except for the kind of the design of the back end of it. I wasn't crazy about the the rear three quarter view. It's a little unusual.

Roberto Baldwin (07:11)
It's a little weird.

It's like a bunch of stuff kind of, it feels like a kind of a couple things thrown together and they're like, ta-da! And you're like, are you guys okay? Are you okay over there? What's going on?

Sam Abuelsamid (07:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, has the rear end styling team talked to the front end styling team recently? ⁓ But ⁓ apparently, ⁓ when it came time to do the hatchback version, they had they had proper communications or they just had the people that did the front three quarters of the car just finish it off at the back. And I think they did a fantastic job. I really like the K4 hatchback. And all that I just said also applies to the EV4.

which unfortunately we're no longer in line to get. We were supposed to get that. That was the compact electric sedan. Yeah. And even before they ⁓ shelved their plans to bring the EV4 to the U.S. market, for some reason they were only gonna bring the sedan version. They were not gonna bring the hatchback, which is sold overseas. ⁓ And I think it should have been the other way around. I think they should have brought the hatchback instead of the sedan.

Roberto Baldwin (07:56)
Yeah.

Womp Womp.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:22)
As it is, we're not getting either one now. ⁓ but so the, the, ⁓ the, the K four hatchback, I think is a really good looking little car. ⁓ actually not that little, it's, you know, it's a decent size. You know, this, this is their competitor to like civic and Corolla, ⁓ and various other things. And the, the hatchback, you know, is kind of like a little mini station wagon.

Roberto Baldwin (08:48)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:49)
You know, so it's got you know long roof so it's not like the the Civic hatchback which is almost the same profile as The sedan, you know, so it's a fastback profile. This has kind of a longer roof a more vertical rear end and It looks really sharp and you know, Drove it around the ⁓ the GT line turbo has a 1.6 liter ⁓ Four-cylinder turbocharged engine. Hello, Nicole

Nicole (09:19)
Hello. Sorry, first work and then my computer was mad at me and wouldn't cooperate, but I am here now. Sorry guys.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:25)
So

which work was it? Was it Nick harassing you? ⁓ man, just tell Nick you got more important things to do on a Friday night.

Nicole (09:29)
It was Nick harassing me. In fact, it was Nick. It was... I know. I

gotta tell Nick that I just can't be doing job stuff. I have podcasting to do for crying out loud. Yeah. He is. Thank you.

Roberto Baldwin (09:42)
Come on!

Sam Abuelsamid (09:42)
I know he's such a taskmaster. All right. Well, welcome. I was just, uh,

I was just starting to talk about the, the Kia K four hatchback that I drove. Um, and, uh, like I said, I really liked the way this car looks and I also really liked the way it drives. So, you know, with the, with the, the hatchback or with the, GT line with the turbo four cylinder, it's about 190 horsepower. Um, and it's,

Nicole (09:52)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:11)
It's ⁓ an eight-speed automatic transmission. So it's not, you know, this is not a competitor for like a Civic SI. ⁓ It's not a hot hatch. ⁓ It's quick enough. You know, it'll do 0-60 in like mid-six second range, which is good. ⁓ It's fairly responsive, you know, not as responsive, you know, as say a similarly sized EV might be, but it's responsive enough. Because it's got the eight-speed automatic instead of a CVT, ⁓

feels a lot more pleasant to drive than say the base, ⁓ the standard engine, which is a two liter naturally aspirated four cylinder with a CVT. ⁓ The GT line turbo I think is much more fun. ⁓ It's surprisingly roomy. So ⁓ I set the driver's seat for my position. I'm about 5'10", 5'11", and then climbed in the back seat. I had several inches of gap

you know, from my knees to the, to the back of the front seats, I had, you know, decent headroom, gap, you know, to headroom. The only issue is kind of, especially in the back doors, the roof, the roof line kind of curls over a little bit. ⁓ you know, for the, for the door opening. but then once you get inside, you know, it's, it's carved out, you have, you have plenty of headroom when you're in the car. I just had to duck my head when I'm climbing into the backseat. but once, once I'm there at.

You know, it was fine. You know, I could easily stay back there for an extended period of time. I would not be uncomfortable. And even even with the headroom, it's got the seating position in the back is not like a real low seat. You know, you're sitting fairly up, you know, so it's not knees up in the air, which is also helpful. So it's very comfortable to sit in. ⁓ Front seats are good. A lot of the the bits on the dashboard ⁓ look

very familiar from other recent Kias like the EV9. ⁓ So you've got a mix of some mechanical switches ⁓ on the dashboard for temperature and assorted other things. And then also ⁓ some of the other volume knob and things like that. ⁓ doesn't have the multimodal panel that you have on a bunch of the recent Kias.

that switches between climate control and media control and navigation, ⁓ which my wife is the one thing that my wife still finds a little annoying about our EV6 and they have that on a bunch of other keys. The K4 does not have that. So that's definitely a benefit. ⁓ As a ⁓ general ⁓ commuter car, if you don't need something to go off road and let's be honest,

Most people don't need to go off road. If you just want a car to get to work, get to school, whatever, do the things you gotta do. ⁓ Something like the K4 size is actually a really fantastic choice. As I said, there's mechanical switches for temperature, fan speed. There's the volume roller in the middle of the dash there, just below the touchscreen like they have on the EV9. ⁓ Buttons for home to pick.

the home screen, map, search, media modes, things like that. ⁓ And then there's ⁓ a drive mode button, which is kind of unusually placed ⁓ in the lower, like in the middle of the lower spoke on the steering wheel. And the steering wheel on this one is one of those like we find on a lot of cars now where it's sort of a slightly squared off wheel. So it's not square, but the top and bottom have been flattened.

And if you actually go through and measure everything, you'll find that what they've done is it's not so much that it's been flattened. A better way to think about it would be if they heated it up so it softened and then pulled from the top and bottom corners ⁓ out a little bit. So basically creating a larger aperture so you can see the instrument cluster. So it's...

It's less obstructing of the gauges that are directly in front of you. So it opens up that little window to the gauges. ⁓ On the downside though, is that like the EV9, it's basically got the same panel, the same display panel that's in the EV9. So you got a 12.3 inch gauge display in front of you. There's a 12.3 inch touchscreen off to the right in the center. And then in between those is another panel.

Nicole (14:48)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:59)
for some of the climate control stuff where you can select if you want it to blow on your feet or on your face or both or the defoggers. And that falls right in your, the steering wheel is right, right in the middle of the site, your sight line for that part of the panel there, which I thought was strange on the EV9. It's strange on some of the other cars that they're doing it on. But other than that, you know, ergonomically, the rest of this car is really good. ⁓ The one that I had,

⁓ has, let's see, what do they call it? The exterior is what they call interstellar gray. It's basically a dark gray. ⁓ The interior is labeled as black, ⁓ I think, let's see, ⁓ is this, ⁓ so yeah, okay, so this is part, I had the GT Line red interior color package. ⁓ So it's not all red. ⁓ What you have is on the steering wheel, the center airbag module is red.

And then the inner portion of the top part of the steering wheel is red. ⁓ and then there's red accents and the door cards and, the seating area. most of the seat is black, but then red, ⁓ on the, the, the surfaces that you actually sit on, ⁓ which is, it looks pretty cool. It's, a, it's a, it's a cool look. I like it. ⁓ in the back seat, there's also, ⁓ vents for the backseat passengers and a pair of USB-C charging ports. There's a,

Qi wireless charging port in the front of the center console, a couple of big cup holders with the thing that Kia has been doing for a few years now where ⁓ the cup holder can adapt to ⁓ the size of what you're carrying. So if you've got a giant water bottle like my wife likes to have, ⁓ there's a portion of the cup holder that basically rotates around into the side portion of the console.

So you get a nice big opening for those big giant water bottles. But if you've got a narrower bottle or a cup or something like that, you just press a button and that thing flips around. And so it'll retain your smaller items as well. So it's rated at 28 miles per gallon combined. I got about 27 on my mileage loop that I did the other day. And all in,

see the GT line starts at 28,790. The one that I had grand total came to 32,770. Guesses on the destination charge?

Roberto Baldwin (17:37)
11.

Nicole (17:38)
1095.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:45)
Beach by five bucks. It's $11.95.

Roberto Baldwin (17:47)
⁓ Hey!

Nicole (17:48)
⁓ man.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:53)
Very close, very close. So yeah, I like the K4. I mean, I've liked the K4 since I first drove it. And the K4 hatchback is just, you know, it kind of perfects the formula of the original K4 sedan, because it looks better, has more cargo space in the back. ⁓ And it's just, it's a good car to drive.

Nicole (18:14)
I liked it. I drove a tune. thought it was good.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:18)
All right, what have you been driving, Nicole?

Nicole (18:21)
have been driving, living the minivan life. I have the Toyota Sienna Platinum, which is the fanciest of the versions of the Sienna. It's a hybrid. It's only available as a hybrid. It's a 2.5 liter four cylinder. It has 245 horsepower. It's fine. It gets good fuel economy. It's estimated at 35 city, 36 highway.

It's not a plugin, this is just a straight up hybrid. ⁓ you know, I've never been a big mini fan fan, but they do have their place in the world. ⁓ The things I thought about that I noticed, I, but you know what, they're just.

Roberto Baldwin (18:59)
which is everywhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:01)
I mean

if you got a band or you got kids, they're perfect.

Nicole (19:06)
Absolutely. Or if you have dogs,

like I know people who do show dogs and they love it because you can fit these huge amount of stuff in like the dog crates that are giant can slide in there and stuff. There you go. Transporting rescue dogs. But I do find, you know, I always find, well, but here's the funny thing. So if I drive like an F 250, some great big like truck, right? And the trucks big like, you know, more cumbersome.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:13)
or if you're transporting rescue dogs across the great Wild West.

Roberto Baldwin (19:20)
You have friends who want to go somewhere.

You don't want to lift things too high?

Nicole (19:33)
Somehow it feels less bulky to me than a minivan. Minivans just have this like cumbersome kind of ho-to-ho-to-ho thing. I don't know. I am not a minivan fan. It's me. It's not the minivan. It's me. It's no, I just, I just don't need it. And like the very, they all have the very long, like the dashboard that really goes like, you know, it's very, I mean, the windshield is very, long. Like you can't reach.

Roberto Baldwin (19:38)
Really?

I feel like that's... That sounds like a, that sounds like a mind thing.

Nicole (19:58)
where the dashboard meets the windshield. Cause it's so far. It's just feels like I'm driving something huge. I don't know why. ⁓ but despite the fact that I don't like minivans as a whole, this is a good mini van. I like what it's comfortable. It's very quiet. It has tons of storage. do like this. So the store, have so many cup holders. It's amazing. I forget that they just love cup holders and minivans. There's two up in the front and then there's two more up in the front. There's spaces to put your, you know,

Water bottle, your wife would be happy. can put your water bottle on the side of that. ⁓ there's a huge space under the center console, not like that you lift up for storage, but just a flat storage space that you could easily put like an entire tote bag underneath there. But it's great. Cause truly when you, especially if you're using this and you've got kids, which you probably do, ⁓ you always have stuff in your hands. You're always getting in the car with stuff. You've got something. You've got a paper teacher handed you, you've got something.

You've got, you know, someone's shirt that they took off for no reason. You've got your keys. You've got your wallet. You've got random snacks, the rock they handed you. Cause now you have to treasure this. What do you do? You can throw everything in there. I love this little space that they have there. It's a, it's nice and easy to access and does have a little lip to the edge. So if you put stuff that's small in there, it's not going to go like careening out under your foot the first time you take a corner. so I, utility wise, mini dance are fabulous. Like they really do.

They do everything that you want it to do for a family. can get the second row. has, you can get captain's chairs. So you've got seating for six math, one, two, three, four, five, six, six, seven, seven up to seven. So if you get the bench, get seven, ⁓ ridiculous amount of cargo room. Yes. You can sit in that's a thing. SUVs third rows are hard to get to.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:33)
Up to seven, if you get the second real bench.

Roberto Baldwin (21:40)
But like real seating, like real, like you can actually sit in the third row type seating, not like a SUV third row. You're like, okay, well, let me stick my knees in

my chest.

Nicole (21:51)
Yes,

they're hard to get to. Your knees are in your chest. The, the, the getting to them, like around the rears, the second row seats is always a little cumbersome. You can get to these easy. can walk right between the captain's chairs. Practically kids can practically walk like standing up just because of how the car is situated. ⁓ you know, it has a nice low, low floor so you can easily lift stuff up into it. I've utility wise these things, just, they knock it out of the park.

⁓ it also has a 12.3 inch infotainment touchscreen. You've got wireless Apple car playing Android auto. ⁓ there's I think seven USB ports, so they're all over the place. So it doesn't matter where you're sitting, you're going to be able to charge your stuff. ⁓ and it is a comfortable and quiet ride. And I don't think you can underestimate how important that is when you have kids, because there is nothing worse than getting

a kid to finally nap in a car only to have some loud noise outside your car, wake them up or random bump in the road, wake them up. When you want your kids to sleep and you're in the car, you want your kids to sleep and this lets your kids stay asleep.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:04)
Are you saying that it might

not be a great idea to transport your small children in a RAM TRX?

Nicole (23:10)
Probably not. I mean, you could, but I don't think it would go well for you. Don't think it would go well for you. Like there's, cause I remember when my kids were little and there would be like some random pavement that would vibrate through the, you know, the wheels, you get that road noise and suddenly the baby that you've been waiting to fall asleep on your road trip is like, you just want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork. Like it's just, it's terrible. So I, so I appreciate that this is comfortable. It's quiet. has storage.

It has all little things that you need for just family life. And it's, it looks good. It actually is a nice interior. It doesn't look down market. It's, and you know, you making a mini van, it's the thing with some SUVs. There's SUVs that you can get that are very fancy, right? That have seating for your whole family. ⁓ but there is always the risk that you have a family and they get the weirdest things. Kids, I don't know. They find sticky stuff everywhere they go and you don't even know what the sticky stuff is.

Like, what is this stuff? Like, I don't know where did it come from? Don't know that either, but yet it's in the car.

Roberto Baldwin (24:10)
Have you like, that's the thing

is you're traveling through life as an adult and you're like, my hands are rarely sticky. But as a child, everything is like, no matter where you are, you put them in a, you put them in a, a sanitized concrete room with nothing in it. You put them in there for five seconds. They turn around, hands are sticky.

Nicole (24:16)
Right? Somehow. Everything. Right? Well, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:20)
unless I'm eating ribs.

Nicole (24:31)
Right. And what is it? You don't know. Can you find it? Yeah. It just, they ooze stickiness. So yeah. So it's, it's nice to have an interior on a vehicle that is, that looks nice, that feels nice. And that is, doesn't feel like something that you're afraid to have your kids in. Like they're going to make a mess of your car. They're going to be hard on it, but this car is going to survive it. It's not one of those that you're going to have it. And after two weeks, you're going to look and say,

Sam Abuelsamid (24:31)
Yeah. I think they, I think they just ooze it out of their skin.

Roberto Baldwin (24:33)
They don't know. It just oozes,

it comes out of their skin.

Nicole (24:57)
I made a terrible mistake. My beautiful interior is stained at a mess and sticky and gross forever. It's easy to clean this. So I, in fact, I got it. It was right after the one snowstorm we had that dumped about two feet of snow down where my car comes from. So the guys drove it up here. And when he opened it to clean it, there was like, was trying to get it all tidy. Some of the salt slash sand slash water snow.

dripped along the side of the door. And when that dries, creates not sticky, but this horrible crusty mass. They can actually ruin leather on a car, cause it's got salt in it. And I went inside and got a wet paper towel and it wipes right off. And you have no idea that it's there. That's the kind of durability you want in a car that you can put that caustic drippy water that comes on your, gets on your car during the winter. And it just is like, problem.

Roberto Baldwin (25:43)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:51)
Did the Sienna you have ⁓ have the built in vacuum cleaner in the back?

Nicole (25:57)
I did not check for the built-in vacuum cleaner. didn't open the back because if you open the back, Sam, there's so much stuff, dirt, sand, salt, wet, everything. If I open the back, I'm going to wear it. I'm sorry. I wasn't willing to do that. I didn't need to. was unwilling.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:11)
Fair enough. I know

they do they do offer a built in vacuum. Like it tucks into the left rear corner in the cargo area. And

Nicole (26:15)
Yes.

I have

seen that before and it's fabulous, it's great.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:22)
It's

great, great for soaking up all those Cheerios and assorted other detritus that the little ones leave around.

Nicole (26:29)
One of the times that I had this, ⁓ a different time where I had the Sienna, it was fall and I got things at the farmer's market. It didn't realize quite how gross the bottoms of everything I got was until I took it out and I looked at the back and I'm like, no, and I used a little vacuum, cleaned it all up. It was perfect.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:46)
⁓ So apparently the Sienna has 18 cup holders. So in that means in the the six seat configuration that you had with the captain's chairs, you got three cup holders for every person in the

Nicole (26:50)
18.

Roberto Baldwin (26:58)
Yeah, I like having lots of drinks. I will typically have at least two drinks on my desk. I'll have a water and something else. And then occasionally I end up with three drinks and I will drink them all. Like I won't like finish one and start the other. I'll drink them all like at the same time.

Nicole (26:58)
I love this. I love this.

Well, and that's the thing when you're driving too, you have the drink you start with, right? And you have like, for me, that would be a diet Coke and you have the diet Coke and you drink almost all the diet Coke, but there's a little bit left and then you go in someplace and then you realize your diet Coke, there's a little bit left in the car has a little, it's no longer drinkable, but you got a new diet Coke, but then you bring it in. Where do you put that old little bit? If there's not a trash can next to you can now relocate it to a less convenient cup holder, leave it there until you're near trash can and you can take everything out.

Roberto Baldwin (27:38)
See? Genius.

Nicole (27:42)
because you don't want the cup just rolling around the floor because if you leave it anywhere on the floor, you're gonna step on it or your kids are gonna step on it, thus increasing the sticky we mentioned earlier. So it needs to remain in the cup holder even if you dump out that little bit of soda or whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:54)
So, Nicole, on a typical road trip, by

the time you get to your destination, how many cups of Diet Coke residue do you typically have in your car by the time you get there?

Nicole (28:05)
Well, if there's normally two diet cokes in my cart at any given time, two is normally my minimum. I normally have the one that I just got that is fresh and cold and frosty, preferably from McDonald's, because they have the best diet coke or second class diet coke would be a can. I like cans of diet coke. So there'd be like a can shoved in the door and the diet. they're the worst. The plastic bottles are, you taste the plastic. Mm hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (28:24)
Yeah, it can't be a bottle. The plastic bottle is gross. First of all, you can taste the plastic and also

single use plastic is the worst thing on the planet. So now you can buy giant, like aluminum cans of Diet Coke? Yeah.

Nicole (28:34)
You know what?

Those are the best. Like when you walk

into like the gas station, you've just gassed up and you go and you're like, I hope they have a diet Coke. Not only do they have one in a can, it's the giant one. Yes. I've complained about the little cans sometimes on the dry programs. They have the coolers at lunch and they have like the half size cans. every time the big ones, every time I was in like, what is no, I'm like, what is this? No, it's wrong. It's bull. I'm like, no, this is

Roberto Baldwin (28:43)
And they'll have like the little can but they have the giant can yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (28:48)
On

the.

Roberto Baldwin (28:55)
All the little baby ones. I like the little baby ones. It's just enough. It's like a little snack. I'm already drinking too much Diet Coke. So I'm gonna bring it down a little bit.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:57)
Yeah.

Nicole (29:07)
I can't say that word, can I, in the show? This is bull poo. This is bullshit. You don't get tiny little cans of Diet Coke. You give me a full-sized Diet Coke. I want a full-sized Diet Coke or don't even bother. So, yeah. my God, how are we even friends?

Sam Abuelsamid (29:09)
you can.

I've always hated Diet Coke. On the rare occasions when I actually drink a Coke,

I prefer to drink Mexican Coke from a bottle. Full sugar, no corn syrup, none of this corn syrup stuff. If I'm gonna go there, I might as well do it properly.

Nicole (29:27)
Bleh.

Roberto Baldwin (29:34)
I- it's-

Nicole (29:39)
The is the Diet Coke. The Diet Coke is the best of the Cokes. I love all of it. All whatever secret herbs and spices, chemicals that are in there that are gonna kill me five years early, I'm okay with it. It's okay. I enjoyed every mouthful of that cancer-y Diet Coke. I loved it.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:41)
No, no

Roberto Baldwin (29:49)
I'm going to get cancer. I'm so excited. I saw a

graphic online and it called Diet Coke, time to get another ⁓ fridge cigarette. Yes.

Nicole (30:03)
Fridge cigarette. It's a

Sam Abuelsamid (30:04)
Yeah

Nicole (30:04)
fridge cigarette. Yes.

I am addicted to fridge cigarettes. I love them. I love the Diet Coke. I will not give it up. I will be, that's the one I, that's not going to be my vice forever. I don't care what they can't tell me. I can't have, but I will die by my Diet Coke. There we go. Sorry. We were talking about the Sienna, which can hold lots of Diet Cokes. At least 18. I should go get 18 cans of Diet Coke and take a picture.

Roberto Baldwin (30:08)
Rich cigarette, diet coke. Pass me it, there we go.

We can get.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:21)
Okay, fair enough. Apparently at least 18 simultaneously. Plus one in your hand.

Roberto Baldwin (30:24)
Alright, copy image.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:31)
So 19. Because you can have one in your hand and 18 in the cup holders.

Nicole (30:33)
19 because you can all you can have one in your hand. Mm hmm.

Yeah, exactly. This is perfect. See.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:39)
Ha ha

ha.

Roberto Baldwin (30:40)
All these fridge cigarettes on Etsy are for women. I'm like, come on.

Dude, there's one way down at the bottom.

Nicole (30:46)
more women.

You're looking at Etsy stuff for Diet Coke. I have someone who sends, I have people who send me just, we communicate solely in Diet Coke memes, like members of the automotive media and some of the PR people.

Roberto Baldwin (30:51)
Pass me a fridge thing.

Do you remember the ad in a couple years ago where the guy, the taxi driver from ⁓ the Deadpool movies, he was in a Diet Coke ad and the Diet Coke ad was essentially like, hey, F you, I'm going to have a Diet Coke. It was very like, he's walking down the street. He's like, hey, you want a Diet Coke? Just have a Diet Coke. It was very much.

Nicole (31:09)
Yeah.

I do not remember that.

Roberto Baldwin (31:23)
Like a reaction to somebody, somewhere, had talked to the Diet Coke marketing team and they were like, you know, people are giving people crap about Diet Coke. You're like, you know what? Tell them all that go to hell.

Nicole (31:26)
Cause people judge you.

You better just tell them all to f off.

Now I need a diet coke, dang it. I'm going to pause after this. You're going to see me disappear. I'm going to mute. I'm going to get a diet coke.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:39)
Ugh.

I

mean, I can attest, I have seen Nicole at drive programs, know, right after breakfast, first thing before we go anywhere else, where's the diet coke? Got to get a diet coke before we go for a drive.

Nicole (31:49)
Always have one. I do.

And if they don't have a diet coke, I probably have dragged you. I know I've dragged other people to the nearest McDonald's on the drive route to go get one.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:01)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (32:02)
Wow, I won't do that.

I was just like, well, I guess this is what I gotta get. If they offer you Diet Pepsi at a restaurant, will you take it?

Nicole (32:10)
I do, but I take it and it hurts my heart a little bit. Sometimes I'll just give up and be like, no, I don't want it. Just give me water. I have to be, it has to be the right thing because I don't like diet Pepsi.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:21)
That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say. I can stand behind that. I am not a Pepsi person either.

Nicole (32:26)
Okay.

Ha ha!

Sam Abuelsamid (32:31)
Alright, so how much did this thing cost?

Roberto Baldwin (32:35)
I don't know.

Nicole (32:35)
Shoot, ⁓

I just, wait, I just accidentally closed this stupid thing. Wait a minute, let me open the stupid thing. Hold on a second, let's see. ⁓ Shoot, I totally, you know what? It's been a, I need the Diet Coke now, not five minutes ago. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (32:37)
57,000 Diet Cokes.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:40)
Ha ha.

Nicole (32:58)
I can't tell you. It's a secret because my document won't open back up. It is. So the price on the platinum, the MSRP is $57,810. So it's not cheap.

Roberto Baldwin (33:15)
It's if you really love your children. You can buy one, there's one for 40, it starts at 40 and a half. But if you really love your children, you get the platinum. If you kind of love them, you're like, you know what, they're around. They're just these roommates that I have.

Nicole (33:18)
or yourself because the front seats are super comfy. Yes. You can, yeah, so it's.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:27)
Ha ha.

Nicole (33:27)
Exactly. So you guys want to...

Yeah, you'll get the LE.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:33)
I just got to

get them from one place to another in relative safety, not spend too much money on gas.

Nicole (33:36)
I just gotta get into preschool, whatever.

Roberto Baldwin (33:36)
I just...

Nicole (33:39)
I don't wanna get carried away. So yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (33:41)
I have to take them

to their random sport band drama club event. They got to go to their D and D like game or they have to go to their football game or they have to go to, I don't know, whatever. I don't have any children. I don't know what people do with children.

Nicole (33:45)
of the week. Sport, band, practice, dance, whatever.

Like, are

Sam Abuelsamid (33:56)
Ha.

Nicole (33:57)
we, what are we taking each now? So you guys want to guess the destination?

Roberto Baldwin (34:00)
13

Sam Abuelsamid (34:02)
14.

Nicole (34:03)
Sam gets it 14.95.

You were so close.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:14)
All right. ⁓

Nicole (34:15)
Yeah

Roberto Baldwin (34:17)
That's everything I like to think about the day. I just bought 35 diet cokes yesterday at Costco. So I got to break into the, will they come in a big giant thing of 35 at Costco? I know why. Maybe it's 36. I don't know. They're just a big pallet of diet cokes. And I'm like, Oh, I guess I better buy a pallet of diet cokes and plunk.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:23)
35.

really? Okay.

I mean, you know, they used to

come in like six packs and 12 packs. Yeah, so I would have thought it would be some multiple of six.

Roberto Baldwin (34:39)
That's Costco. You can't,

it's Costco. So you have to get a bunch of them. But I also buy like the, the, the vegetable drinks.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:43)
Yeah.

Nicole (34:47)
Wait, wait.

Roberto Baldwin (34:49)
Oh, you have caffeine free? What's the point? Oh. I had the Coke machine in our practice space last night. I had band practice and it works 20 % of the time and 75 % of the time when it does work, it gives me multiples of what I've paid for. So I got four Diet Cokes last night during band practice for the price of one. It was a Diet Coke miracle.

Nicole (34:51)
Because it's because it's late here. It's later here. It's late. You know, I always drink so just wait. Hold on

Sam Abuelsamid (35:10)
Ha!

Nicole (35:11)
Wow, see that's a,

that would be a reason to celebrate.

Roberto Baldwin (35:15)
Yeah,

so I'll all carry them back to the practice space. I'm like, look everybody and everyone's like, what's wrong with you?

Nicole (35:21)
You're like, I got all these free day cokes.

Roberto Baldwin (35:23)
Sorry, sorry,

we should get a, we should call Coke, say we can sponsor this.

Nicole (35:27)
That's who should sponsor Diet Coke. When I get unlimited, I would just do it for unlimited lifetime Diet Coke. would be a bad deal for them because it costs more than whatever they pay us, I'm sure. I don't care.

Roberto Baldwin (35:32)
You

kidneys are all rotted, wizened.

All right, there's some news, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (35:42)
All right.

Yeah. So ⁓ the other day Honda put out a press release because the EPA put out their annual automotive trends report. The EPA has been publishing this for decades. And to be honest I'm kind of surprised that they're allowed to continue publishing it under the current regime. But they still they still put it out ⁓ and it's got all kinds of interesting data in there including

Nicole (35:44)
Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (36:11)
the corporate average fuel economy numbers for every automaker. so among full line automakers that sell both combustion and electric vehicles. So overall, the company that had the highest average fuel economy was Tesla. But of course, they only sell EVs. And so their average was 117.1 miles per gallon equivalent.

Nicole (36:34)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:39)
Um, but among all the other car makers that sell both combustion and electric vehicles, um, Honda came out on top, um, last year, uh, or for, for model year 2024, um, which is the last full year of data. There's, there's still waiting on preliminary data for 2025. Um, they averaged 31 miles per gallon across all the vehicles they sold.

Nicole (37:07)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:08)
Yeah, so that's that's pretty good. That's pretty impressive. ⁓

Nicole (37:10)
So it was funny,

they were number one, but let's give props to number two. Hyundai came in 29.8. They're very close.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:17)
Yep,

and Kia right behind them at 29.2 Toyota at 29.0. Actually Toyota Nissan and BMW BMW all got 29.0 miles per gallon You know who did not do so well

Nicole (37:27)
Wow.

Who tell us to

Sam Abuelsamid (37:37)
Ford, GM and Stellantis. Stellantis has been at the bottom of this list since like 2011.

Nicole (37:47)
Mm-hmm. And it's like, it's a big difference. It's not like, we went from 31 for Honda to just a little bit lower. Stellantis' number is 22.8.

Roberto Baldwin (37:48)
Well, it's all they sell is chargers.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:48)
Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah. So the overall average for the industry was 27.2. And then Mercedes-Benz was at 26.1. And then it drops down to Ford at 23.4, GM at 22.9, and Stellantis at 22.8.

Nicole (38:02)
Hmm.

Okay, America.

Roberto Baldwin (38:17)
GM just

bare, Stellantis must be like, ⁓ if we had only sold like something else. One more, something.

Nicole (38:23)
One more Daytona. I don't

Sam Abuelsamid (38:24)
What?

Well, to be fair,

Nicole (38:28)
know.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:28)
Stellantis has improved from 21.2 to 22.8 because they sold a bunch of plug-in hybrids and a few BEVs. So that, you know, that boosted their numbers. Hey, it's all based on the numbers that are on the Minroni. That's what counts. Yeah. So, you know, as long as it gets through the certification testing without catching on fire,

Nicole (38:33)
Okay.

So that's good. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (38:36)
Alright, there you

go. I mean you can't plug them in but you got them.

Nicole (38:41)
Exactly! Technically! ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (38:56)
It's good to go.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:57)
accounts

What happens once once what happens once it's in customer hands not their problem anymore Yeah So it's a little embarrassing. Yeah, I mean credit Ford GM and Stellantis, know between them They sell a lot of full-size trucks a lot of full-size SUVs Which nobody else does? Yeah

Nicole (38:58)
That's a low bar, Sam.

Roberto Baldwin (39:04)
Who knows? That's not TPA's problem.

Yeah, it's a lot of.

Nicole (39:19)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (39:22)
and bigans vehicles

they saw a lot of gas guzzling giant machines

Sam Abuelsamid (39:27)
Yeah. And nobody else in the industry sells those. But still, that's a pretty sad number.

Roberto Baldwin (39:37)
It's pretty, yeah, you're like 22 point. Just thinking like, wait, what year is this? When you look at it, you're like, man, what's happening?

Nicole (39:40)
It's a little sad. I know, gosh. I mean, I guess they

Sam Abuelsamid (39:42)
You

Nicole (39:46)
would get props for being better, but it is kind of, it is kind of scary space there that the automakers in the US are so low.

Roberto Baldwin (39:49)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:54)
Yeah, like I said, know, Stellantis has been, let's see, Stellantis has been at the bottom of this list ⁓ every year since 2015.

Roberto Baldwin (40:06)
Oof.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:08)
⁓ And then even before that, they had multiple years when they were at the bottom of the list. But yeah, apparently Detroit doesn't really care about fuel economy. ⁓ So let's move on. ⁓ There'll be a link in the show notes to get the trends report. You can download it. ⁓

Nicole (40:08)
That's me so frustrated I smacked the microphone, sorry.

Roberto Baldwin (40:25)
Womp Womp.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:35)
least until somebody in Washington figures out that it exists and wipes it from the internet.

Roberto Baldwin (40:39)
They'll just

flip it so like, be like, America! We're using all the oil. They're like, wait, what? No, that's, we don't, it's a finite, you know that's not a, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:43)
Yeah.

Alright, ⁓ apparently Range Rover is planning to ⁓ launch their first EV sometime in coming months and it will apparently be an electric version of the Velar, the next generation Velar. ⁓ And AutoCar, the British publication, has some spy photos of this. So the current Velar is a fairly conventional, you know...

Roberto Baldwin (40:52)
Womp Womp.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:18)
crossoverish SUV kind of thing and you know kind of know wagon shaped but it looks like this new electric velar is ditching that and going for a fastback shape going going electric SUV coupe

Roberto Baldwin (41:32)
Which, alright.

All right. Okay. mean, I mean, yeah, it's all right. No one's excited. The velar is just like, everyone up when it comes to the bar, it was like, yeah, that's there. That's the thing.

Nicole (41:37)
different.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:40)
Yeah, it's alright. Yeah. ⁓

Nicole (41:42)
I mean, that's kind of the thing that everybody's doing though, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (41:46)
Yeah.

Nicole (41:51)
That's a car!

Sam Abuelsamid (41:52)
yeah, they still make that. It's a product in our lineup.

Roberto Baldwin (41:53)
yeah, yeah,

we still have the Velar. I would say make a, you know, the, the, the Defender, but you know, Mercedes didn't sell a lot of electric G wagons, even though it is in fact the best G wagon. And I got Mercedes to admit that it is. And it's, it's fantastic by the way, the electric G wagon. I had it for a week and I got to write it up. But, ⁓ yeah, I guess people, you know, I mean, when you're rich, you're like, I want to be the brr brr brr.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:21)
Well, you know the-

Roberto Baldwin (42:21)
I mean, these are

the most those cars are Instagram cars. So you want to like the most Instagram video, whatever, but you can do the spins. You can spin in the G wagon. Anyway, sorry. Anyway, anyway, Defender. Yeah. If you're on level ground, it's still like, is it helpful? I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:34)
As long as you're on level ground.

Nicole (42:36)
Little G-Wagon tangent, that's fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:41)
So the,

but it's fun. mean, if you, you got enough money to afford a G wagon, you know, you want to have a little fun with it.

Roberto Baldwin (42:45)
It is fun.

I asked Roger

Ferret, Frederick, Frederick, the tennis guy. Yes. So I talked to him about his electric jig wagon and I asked him if he'd a G-turn yet and he said no. And I was like, Roger.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:51)
Federer, the tennis player?

You gotta take it out onto the center court at Wimbledon. Do it on the grass. I'm sure they won't mind.

Roberto Baldwin (43:04)
Yeah, just go for it. Come on, Roger, you can do it. I believe in you.

You're very nice, man. Very nice. Very kind. Anyway.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:13)
⁓ So the you know, the current generation velar is basically Range Rover's version of the Jaguar F-Pace. It's on the same platform as the F-Pace ⁓ So it'll be interesting to see if you know assuming the Jaguar ever actually launches another vehicle into production You know if we see you know an electric version of the our version of this electric velar as a Jaguar in the next 10-15 years

Roberto Baldwin (43:21)
Mm.

The I-PACE was a good car outside of the weird issues that they had with it. Like driving, I was like, this is a good EV. And they were so early to it too. I think they made a really big leap for most anyone else. The car was actually good. It was fun to drive. They took us to a track in Portugal to drive it on a track. Then they took us off-roading in it and we forded through water and up a hill. And besides the usual Jaguar electrical stuff that they had.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:47)
Yeah.

Nicole (44:00)
wow.

Roberto Baldwin (44:10)
It was a good car. I mean, it's the car that Waymo uses. I mean, it's British. Well, then they should have been fine. Oh well.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:11)
is British. Although it built in Austria,

Yeah.

I mean, it worked. Yeah. Like you said, it works fine for Waymo.

Roberto Baldwin (44:20)
Yeah, works fine for a white male. It's a good car. I like the car. It's know, it's Jaguar.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:26)
⁓ Yep, it's Jaguar. ⁓ So Toyota, ⁓ do you guys remember the Celica?

Roberto Baldwin (44:36)
Yeah, I said there was a Celica in the parking lot the other day and I took a picture and sent it to some friends. It was like really clean. I think I still have it on my phone.

Nicole (44:36)
Yes, I was just talking to someone about that today.

Someone sent me a picture

of a 1977 Toyota Celica that was actually a Star Wars edition created by a company called Delphi Auto Design. And it was part of the space fantasy sweepstakes.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:01)
A Star Wars edition Salika? Wow.

Nicole (45:03)
Yes,

it's a Star Wars. was, yeah, a 1977 Toyota Celica GT Star Wars edition. And it was for 20th Century Fox's Space Fantasy sweepstakes to promote a new hope, a custom hand painted airbrushed graphic on the hood. It actually is incredibly cool. This is the Celica I want. I wonder who wanted it and whatever happened to it. Cause it's really cool. You can Google it see it. It's really cool. Like

Sam Abuelsamid (45:32)
that up. Star Wars Edition.

Nicole (45:32)
I want that one.

Roberto Baldwin (45:35)
I'm not even gonna send

you guys the silica that I saw after this. After that story I'm like,

Nicole (45:39)
⁓ Star Wars, Celica, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (45:42)
wow, this is cool.

Nicole (45:43)
Yeah, right.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:45)
It's got, ⁓ got Chewbacca on the hood.

Nicole (45:47)
Yeah, it's no, it has the, it has the, the like picture from the, no, wait, that's not real. The, the one on the car and driver thing you're looking at. That's not it. Look for the one that has Darth Vader, Darth Vader, R2 and C3PO standing by the real car. And it's like the cover of a new hope, the posters.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:56)
Yeah. ⁓

Ha ha ha.

⁓ here we go.

Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (46:07)
⁓

okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:08)
was the movie poster. Yeah, so it's got Luke standing in the middle with his lightsaber up over his head.

Nicole (46:10)
the movie poster and then it looks like there's some stuff along the sides. Yeah. With this lightsaber in case. Yeah. I'm

Roberto Baldwin (46:12)
Okay.

Nicole (46:17)
actually mimicking Luke. This is what this was in case you guys are wondering, this was the poster with dirt. I was holding my hand like there's a lightsaber. They're probably both looking at me like, what is Nicole doing? Yeah. So yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (46:24)
He's holding a lightsaber and then there's the big...

Sam Abuelsamid (46:27)
And

there's a photo here of ⁓ Darth Vader C-3PO looking under the hood and R2-D2 with this Star Wars edition Celica. It's like...

Nicole (46:34)
Yeah!

Right? And it looks like there's that like where you'd have

like racing stripes. It almost looks like, and it's hard to see cause there's exactly one photo of this, that there is a stripe along the side that has, it looks like X-wings and tie fighters duking it out. Like they're fighting along the side of the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:58)
Very cool. Well, anyway, ⁓ there's been there's been speculation recently that Toyota is bringing back to Celica. It's been the name plate has been out of production for like since the late 90s, I think was when they discontinued last or maybe early 2000s. And so ⁓ they're they're supposedly bringing it back. ⁓ And yesterday, ⁓ as we record this.

Nicole (46:59)
I want this one. Sorry, Robbie. Yeah, go ahead. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (47:26)
Toyota ⁓ on ⁓ some apparent social media site that I've never heard of called X, ⁓ they posted ⁓ a couple of photos and also some video clips of their next generation World Rally Championship car undergoing testing. It's wrapped in camo. And apparently, there's speculation that this is the new Celica.

Nicole (47:56)
It'd kind of cool if they bring it back, but do think it's just a rally car? Just a rally car.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:58)
Yeah.

Well, mean, there's got to be in order to run it in World Rally Championship, there has to be a production car. It's got to be based on a real product.

Nicole (48:05)
I guess that's true. There has to be a car car, right?

Roberto Baldwin (48:06)
Yeah.

Nicole (48:10)
Is this this one that's wrapped in camera? I looking at the right picture? It's like red and black and white. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (48:15)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:15)
Yeah. Yeah. The overhead views.

Uh, so kind of a fastback coupe. Um, kind of, you know, when I first saw it, I thought, Oh, you know, it looks kind of like a CHR, but with big bulging fenders. But, but then when you look at it, you know, the proportions are a little different from a CHR.

Nicole (48:33)
massive wing on the back. Whee!

Sam Abuelsamid (48:34)
Yeah.

So yeah, so that should be, we may see that, you know, in the next 12 months or so. ⁓ cause I think, ⁓ 20, 27, ⁓ 20, 27 season. Is when these, these next generation cars, new set of regulations for world rally championship go into effect. ⁓ so this car will be running next year. ⁓ so probably by the end of the year, we should see the.

production car that this is based on.

⁓ all right. ⁓ so the Nissan Pathfinder, ⁓ has been one of Nissan's better selling vehicles in North America. it's got, you know, it's kind of changed a lot over its history. started off as a body on frame SUV, based on the pickup truck to compact pickup truck, eventually evolved into a unibody crossover. ⁓ and now, there's reports.

that from for model year 2029. like possibly as early as 2028. The Pathfinder will be split into two separate vehicles with the same name, both called Pathfinder. One will one will be an updated version of the current generation Pathfinder. The other will become a three row body on frame SUV based on the new Xterra that's coming. What do you what do you think about that?

Roberto Baldwin (50:02)
Cool.

I mean, the Pathfinder, when it came out, was, you know, it was like, my God, like off-roading. was like this rugged machine that everyone wanted. And then it just sort of morphed into like, you know, essentially, mean, SUVs are mostly minivans to be honest, especially big ones. They're just minivans for, yeah, they're just, yeah. And so, you know, and then the Xterra took the place of the Pathfinder and then it went away because Nissan, you know, had like $4.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:23)
They're less practical minivans.

Nicole (50:24)
Less practical, yes.

Roberto Baldwin (50:35)
So they get like, well, we can't have two.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:36)
Ha ha. ⁓

Nicole (50:37)
Must pick.

Roberto Baldwin (50:39)
So

yeah, it'll be interesting to like, you know, this idea of splitting up the pathfinder to sell the more calm.

Nicole (50:50)
I'm sorry.

Roberto Baldwin (50:52)
one

the the sell the one to like the regular folks and then the the the off-road e-pathfinder to the folks who will also drive it to the exact same place as the squishy version but but they'll up they'll up fit it like like there's no tomorrow we're gonna put a snorkel on this they're like all right ⁓

Nicole (51:03)
It's the squishy version.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:09)
Yeah.

So apparently, you know, it wouldn't be the first time that they've had two distinctly different pathfinders. Cause when, when the original Armada was introduced back in the mid 2000s, based on the first generation Titan, it was originally ⁓ like for the first model year or two, it was actually called the Pathfinder Armada. And then they dropped Pathfinder from the name and just called it Armada from that point forward. ⁓ But you know, this, this will be a little different. You know, the

Roberto Baldwin (51:35)
⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (51:39)
Cause that was, you that was a substantially bigger vehicle, um, than, the regular pathfinder. So it'd be, be interesting to see what they do with us, you know, to kind of take the pathfinder back to its roots as a body on frame off-roader.

Roberto Baldwin (51:43)
totally.

Nicole (51:49)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (51:56)
Yeah, by the second generation, the styling was already like, meh. The first day I was like, ⁓ this is rad. And it was like, it was that, and that was like when they were like, it was based on like the hard body trucks. And there's there's a documentary called Hands on Hard Body. Everyone go watch it. ⁓ But yeah, but that was based on the, before they changed the name from Datsun to Nissan in the U.S., the truck was called the Nissan.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:00)
Yeah. Yeah, the first gen Pathfinder was cool looking.

Mm-hmm.

Ha

Roberto Baldwin (52:27)
So was very weird because I remember the little theme song and everything, but it was the Nissan truck sold by Datsun. That was their way of sort of easing people into the Nissan name. yeah, anyway, little Nissan tribute. Maybe they could change the name back to Datsun. That'd be fun.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:46)
Yeah, call it the Nissan Datsun. The Datsun truck by Nissan.

Roberto Baldwin (52:49)
Dhanisa Dotson.

Nicole (52:49)
Denise

Sandotson.

Roberto Baldwin (52:53)
The Datsun truck, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:55)
All right, let's move on. ⁓ So ⁓ the week after Toyota had their drive program for the ⁓ Bezee Woodland and the CHR ⁓ in Ojai, California, Subaru had their own drive program a little bit further south of there ⁓ with two basically identical cars ⁓ with different names and different headlights ⁓ called the Uncharted and the Trail Seeker.

And ⁓ so those reviews are out. ⁓ Basically, they're exactly the same as the Toyotas. They drive the same because they are the same vehicles. But there are a couple of distinctions. ⁓ First of all, the CHR is only being offered in a dual motor all wheel drive version with 338 horsepower. And Subaru is actually offering a single motor ⁓ front wheel drive version of the Uncharted, which you can't get from

⁓ from Toyota. ⁓ Yeah, because

Roberto Baldwin (53:56)
Which is weird for Subaru by the way. Everything is

all wheel drive except for the BRZ.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:02)
Yeah, and now the Uncharted. But the all-wheel drive Uncharted will have a little more range. It'll have 308 miles of range. And it'll have a lower starting price than the CHR, starting at $34,995 plus destination charge.

Roberto Baldwin (54:04)
And now that you're...

Sam Abuelsamid (54:25)
So it'll be Subaru's least expensive EV. And then for the Trail Seeker, which is basically an electric outback, that one is also cheaper than its Toyota equivalent. The Trail Seeker starts at just over $40,000. So it's about $5,000 cheaper.

Roberto Baldwin (54:26)
Dun dun dun.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:55)
than the cheapest version of the Bezee Woodland.

Roberto Baldwin (54:59)
Which is weird, but like, you know what? That $5,000 you can buy so many dogs for your Subaru. So many, you can do so many dog things.

Nicole (54:59)
of these.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:01)
Yeah.

Nicole (55:05)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:05)
I know. Or you can buy a couple of dogs.

You can get a couple of dogs and a lot of dog toys.

Roberto Baldwin (55:11)
Yeah, I get those little things so the dogs don't scratch the the interior they go no yeah the little car protectors and the little like You got the yeah, you can put all that stuff to Yeah Yeah, you can I super get the Subaru and the dogs that come with it

Nicole (55:11)
That too, that's another option. I was thinking the car protectors, that's actually what I was thinking. To put on your doors, to put on the seat, yeah. They give them little things so they can't scratch everything up, yeah. That's what you do with the extra money you save.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

you know, I haven't seen specifically what equipment is on the base version of the trail seeker compared to the BZ Woodland. But, you know, it does have the same all wheel drive 375 horsepower set up as the Toyota. So the important parts are identical. You know, from I've seen photos, I've seen some photos from some of the reviews.

The Trail Seeker did not have the all weather floor mats in it, so maybe the base version doesn't come with the all weather floor mats. I you can buy a really nice set of all weather floor mats for a couple hundred bucks.

Roberto Baldwin (56:01)
I mean, you can go to WeatherTech.

If you go to WeatherTech, anytime you buy anything from WeatherTech, I mean, WeatherTech's really the only thing keeping magazines going. If you open any automotive magazine, like half the pages are WeatherTech ads. So go buy some WeatherTech stuff, I guess.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:11)
Yeah

⁓ But yeah, so if you're interested in an electric, slightly off-roady wagon, ⁓ probably get the Trail Seeker. Better value than the Toyota.

All right. ⁓ So ⁓ apparently this year, union workers at Stellantis will not be getting a profit sharing check ⁓ for the first time since the company merged, since FCA and PSA merged to become Stellantis. No profit sharing checks at Stellantis because Stellantis lost like 26 %

Roberto Baldwin (56:48)
Aww, that's a bummer.

Nicole (56:59)
Bum bum.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:04)
billion dollars last year so no.

Nicole (57:05)
there weren't profits to share.

Roberto Baldwin (57:06)
Just come here

all those Stellantis workers right home and a guy just comes in just starts picking things up It looks expensive. He's like you got any rings you got any like hey the profit sharing goes way buddy both ways But my grandmother gave me that ring yeah, that's probably good well see you next year

Nicole (57:15)
Yeah. Profit sharing goes backwards. You each owe us five grand.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:18)
Heh. Heh. Yeah.

Yes, Stellantis reported a net loss of 22.3 billion euros ⁓ due to 25.4 billion euros of unusual charges. I love how they describe that. Full year unusual charges.

Nicole (57:39)
Unusual charges,

that's the that's the miscellaneous you put on your own tax return

Roberto Baldwin (57:43)
That's what it's like when

Sam Abuelsamid (57:43)
That's.

Roberto Baldwin (57:44)
you look at your bank statement you're like what the hell is this and you do and you become You become Colombo trying to figure out like okay the date like what was I doing on that date? Then you realize it's like some stupid thing that you bought like or something you pay for all the time You're like, oh, oh, it's just the name is weird. That's a

Nicole (57:47)
And it's just like codes and letters.

Okay. My husband,

Russell always does kickstarters for games that have the weirdest names. And then he forgets about it. Cause kickstarters, you do it today and you pay for it in whenever the heck the thing is. So all of a sudden it's like, right. And it's like, and it'll be the weirdest names cause it's some like pirate game and it's like ARG media. I'm like, what, what is this? Like, don't even like Russ, did you buy something? He's like, Oh yeah, it's a Kickstarter I bought like eight years ago. That's my, that's my, my digging through trying to figure out what random charges are on our accounts.

Roberto Baldwin (58:04)
Aww.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:10)
And then three, four years later, something shows up in the mail.

Roberto Baldwin (58:28)
I got

a $209 like credit from Ticketmaster the other day. And I was like, what the hell is this? This is from tickets that I sold in September. They didn't pay me until a few days ago. The show's already happened. The show happened in September. I probably sold them in August, to be honest. So I sold them in August. The show happened in September. I just got my $200. So yeah, I should charge them like a convenience fee for that.

Nicole (58:34)
Why?

A little bit slow.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:57)
Yeah,

there you go. That should work both ways, definitely.

Roberto Baldwin (59:00)
Yeah.

Anyway, poor... Yeah, that sucks for the Stellantis employees though.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:04)
Yeah, you know, mean, at least, you know, Ford and GM, even with their their losses, I think they're still getting profit sharing checks. ⁓ But yeah, that that does suck. So ⁓ speaking of of paying weird fees, ⁓ a woman in Florida figures this would happen in Florida. It's been getting fees from her local town ⁓ for parking.

Roberto Baldwin (59:12)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:34)
cars in her driveway. So, I this is a common thing if, ⁓ if you live in a neighborhood with an, with an HOA, homeowners association, but this is not an HOA. This is in Lantana, Florida. Apparently ⁓ it's, you're not allowed in Lantana, Florida. You are not allowed to park cars on your lawn at all. ⁓ And so, you know, they have

Roberto Baldwin (59:41)
⁓ hate your way

Nicole (59:43)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (59:46)
Wait, what?

Alright.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:02)
four cars in the household, her and her kids, ⁓ they each have a car and they ⁓ need them to get to work and to school and everything. She owns the home, she's not a renter. ⁓ And the diagram they show here from the Institute for Justice, which was trying to defend her, ⁓ shows the four cars parked side by side in the driveway.

Two wheels of one car are slightly on the grass, which apparently in Lantana is illegal. And it's a $250 a day fine for parking your car with wheels on the grass, which is just insane. And so, yeah. ⁓ so she has now racked up fines of $165,000.

Nicole (1:00:36)
God.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:42)
A day.

Nicole (1:00:43)
Wow.

UGH

⁓ that's awful.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:00)
while they've been fighting this. And, you know, cause her, her, her house is the corner lot of a four way intersection. So, you know, it's not practical to park on this park, one of the cars on the street. Uh, this is, this is insane.

Nicole (1:01:01)
my god.

Wow. Talk about

petty. That is so petty. There's like, that's just ridiculous.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:18)
This is HOA level insanity.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:22)
Yeah, you know, it's yeah, this is is nuts. And, you know, they took it all the way to the Florida Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Nicole (1:01:24)
Wow, this poor woman.

Why? Because they technically broke the law or not broke the law broke the rules. So.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:36)
Eeeew.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:40)
Yeah, I mean, the Institute for Justice representing Mrs. Martinez said in court ⁓ that they were trying to get the egregious fines reduced under Florida's excessive fines clause. Florida Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case. ⁓ The senior attorney, Ari Bargel, told CBS News, six-figure fines for parking on your own property are shocking. The court's refusal to hear Sandy's case is a disservice to all Floridians. And I agree, this is ridiculous.

If you, if you live somewhere that charges fees like that, it's time to get involved in politics and start running these people that make these laws, running them out of town. This is, this is insane. $165,000 in fines for parking on your own property. Yeah.

Nicole (1:02:23)
That's, she's never gonna be able to pay that. Yeah, that's ridiculous.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:31)
All right, continuing along, a new research study ⁓ from ⁓ University of California, Santa Cruz ⁓ found some interesting results that, ⁓ yeah, they did this simulation. They were simulating ⁓ autonomous vehicles and they found in the simulations that if you put someone in the scenario ⁓ holding up a sign,

⁓ You could fool the autonomous vehicle driving logic to ignore the rules. So they simulated this ⁓ at a crosswalk, had a crosswalk in this scene where you're supposed to stop. And they put someone in the scene holding up a sign that said, And when they did this, the car, the system just

drove right through, drove right through the crosswalk without even stopping. ⁓

Nicole (1:03:34)
Wow.

So what they thought it was, did it think it was like a, what am I trying to say? Like a, like a, like a road sign.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:43)
Yeah, yeah, so it's you know, it's reading as if it's a road sign, you know, so you know that they call this ⁓ Command hijacking against embodied AI. So basically, you know when you're using you know a camera centric system like this, know, it's it's trying to it's trying to read the text of signs and You know, it has it doesn't the least the system that they were testing, know I mean, this is certainly something that can be overcome

Nicole (1:03:54)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:13)
If you're aware of it, you can put things into the software that ⁓ should be able to get around this. ⁓ Certainly a human would know that, hey, this is not legit. And in fact, the attack didn't succeed every time. They had to do it certain ways. Like when they did it with black text on a green sign, it was unsuccessful and the car did stop.

Nicole (1:04:29)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:43)
process it. But when they put white text on a green sign, which is actually what you typically find on like highway signs.

Nicole (1:04:48)
what you've yeah,

that's a highway sign then those colors. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:52)
Yeah.

It, you know, it, it, it assumed that it was legit and it just carried on right through the, right through the crosswalk. So, you know, there's, there's still a lot of things, you know, this is one of the reasons why we can't rely entirely on end to end AI systems for this type of thing. ⁓ you know, I think, I can't remember if I talked here on the show about, ⁓

what Nvidia announced at CES in June, they announced their new end-to-end AI driving model called Apple Myo. But what they do in their system is they have an end-to-end AI model, but they also have what they call a safety and policy evaluator that basically has rules in it. And if the AI model tries to do something that violates those rules, then they have basically a complete secondary automated driving system that is more rules-based.

And it switches over to using that. So in a situation like this, I would think that hopefully what it would do is, you know, the, safety evaluator would say, no, that's, that's wrong. You know, use the output from the classical model instead of from the AI model.

Nicole (1:06:03)
Right. Somehow. Well, yeah, you know what? They didn't somehow figure out to say, somebody's trying to mess with things, make sure you default to this. You don't get faked out basically.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:14)
Yeah. Well, this is the issue with literally any system is that no system is hacker proof. Nothing. Everything can be compromised. Everything can be hacked. Everything could be, which, you know, when you, it's just somebody said, Hey, what if we just held up a green sign with white letters?

Nicole (1:06:21)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:30)
It's

kind of like social engineering for AI.

Nicole (1:06:34)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. So it's the idea that every time some military grade, that's not a real thing. Whenever someone says military grade security, that's not real. That's not no one had. That's not a thing that's ever that's that's real. Whatever. If you get pitched anything that says military grade security, turn around and walk away. Yeah. So.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:45)
Yeah, just...

Yeah.

Nicole (1:06:55)
Run, I don't think walk is the right thing. Run, run away, run away very quickly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:58)
Just

hit report spam, block, block sender.

Nicole (1:07:01)
Hahaha!

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:03)
Yeah.

So, yeah, so it's, you know, the idea that these systems can be confused, hacked, taken over. I mean, this is going to be, the more these systems are going to be used, the more that people are going to figure out how to get around them. And if you follow InfoSec in any real way, there is some really interesting ways people have gotten around systems over the years. I mean, the idea that you could read what's on a hard drive via sound.

It's something that some Israeli security researchers have been doing, did this like 10 years ago. So you could, you could figure out just because they could hear the hard drive moving. If you could hear the hard drive, you could recreate what the hard drive's writing. She was like, what?

Nicole (1:07:35)
Crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean...

Nicole (1:07:44)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:47)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:07:47)
my gosh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:49)
One of the interesting things that I heard recently was about wifi, using wifi to detect the presence of someone in a room, you know, or something, someone or something moving around in a room because, know, as basically bags that are, you know, 70 % water, humans interfere with radio signals. Our human, bodies interfere with radio signals and

So by looking at the Wi-Fi signals and seeing how the signals fluctuate, as somebody moves around a room, can see what you can figure out what they're doing.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:27)
There's nothing more terrifying than becoming a InfoSec reporter because the first three months you're like, kind of know what's going on. And then around month four, you're like, oh dear, oh my God, wait, what? Oh no. And then by month six, you're like, yeah, nothing's real. These people can do anything. And you meet these people and they're just 99 % of them.

Nicole (1:08:35)
Hahaha

The world is just an illusion.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:54)
security researchers, hackers, whatever. They're just really nice people who just think in a different way from how the average person thinks. And the way they, and it's great because it kind of teaches you to start thinking in that way. So it's a wonderful experience, but it's also one of those things where at the end of the day, we're like, yeah, nothing's, nothing's secure. Like nothing I do. Yeah. So you become paranoid like me.

Nicole (1:09:17)
They all turn into Robbie. That's what happens.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:19)
They all turn into

Robbie, which is not great, to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:24)
Yeah, you definitely don't want to ⁓ get too deep into security. It will make you feel very sad.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:33)
It can paralyze you if you're not careful. When I was a security reporter, ⁓ people, I don't know why. ⁓ I think there's some sort of like, hey, I hacked this journalist who's a security journalist. And so people would try to hack me. They tried to break into my accounts. Like I had people at like Defcon, which is the big hacker conference every year, try to trick me into things. And I'm like, come on, man. And one of them was like like he was like a reporter, like air quotes.

at like one of the at a site and he was trying to trick me and I'm like, dude, come on. I know better. He's like, all right. He's like, no, no, no, they're doing this. I'm like, no, they're not, man. I'm like, you're trying to trick me. Come on. Come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:20)
All right, let's carry on. a ⁓ recent rumor I've been seeing this past week is that Ford wants to build a Lincoln SUV based on the Bronco ⁓ because, you know, they want to have their own G-Wagon, a Lincoln G-Wagon.

And so on the utopian, Brian Silvestro wrote a piece, said, Forth rumored Bronco based Lincoln sounds like it might be the Lincoln Blackwood all over again, ⁓ which the Blackwood was not great.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:43)
But the-

⁓ the black wood.

It was just like, what if we put some pinstripes on a truck? Boom luxury. was the black.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:06)
Well, well, pin, pinstripes,

you know, so it, the cab was, you know, was basically a standard F-150 crew cab, except it only had four seats inside, no bench in the, in the back seat. And it had the front clip from a first gen Lincoln Navigator. And then it had this tiny little bed on the back that had a hard flip up tonneau cover and side hinged doors for the tailgate. And it was lined with,

with aluminum or stainless, might have been stainless steel, it was carpeted, and it was shallow. ⁓ It was just, it was stupid.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:39)
some sort of metal.

Because they didn't want you to see the hump for the rear tires, the rear wheels. instead of giving you that space, they just squeezed it all in. So it's like a teeny tiny little bed that you don't want to put anything in because it has carpet for some reason.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:55)
Yeah.

It was basically a big trunk. mean it was actually a very large very nice very large trunk

Nicole (1:12:10)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:11)
Ended.

But it didn't have the tonneau cover, so it wasn't like you could get into the truck as, like you couldn't put people back there to hang out unless you sat at the very end. It was just weird. It was a weird, weird thing, and I think four people may have bought it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:26)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:12:28)
Odd choice.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:31)
So ⁓ I had Gemini do a rendering. There's a link in the chat, Nicole, if you haven't looked at it yet, of a Bronco with ⁓ basically the front end styling from a Nautilus and the wheels from a Nautilus black label.

Nicole (1:12:53)
Let's see it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:54)
⁓ Go in the or you can click on the drive link that's right next to the utopian link and it's in cell D 15.

Nicole (1:13:03)
Oh, I got it. I see it.

I see it. Thank you. It's kind of cool.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:11)
Kinda cool. Like, no one should sell it. No one should buy this. Ridiculous.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:12)
You

Nicole (1:13:15)
somebody

would and it's kind of the ridiculous of this is ridiculous but also kind of amazing. I swear those wheels are almost the wheels they have on the exact lincolns don't they?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:27)
Yeah, well, that's what I told it to do. I uploaded a picture of a Nautilus black label and said, and you know, put these wheels on it. And because originally it had, ⁓ it had made ⁓ the wheel arch extensions black. And it's like, you know, if you're to do a Lincoln, it's not going to have black wheel arch extensions. They're going to be body color like on a G wagon. And you know, it kind of, kind of has a G wagon vibe to it.

Nicole (1:13:33)
Mm-hmm.

No body color. Definitely.

You know what? It has a vibe. Like, I don't hate it. I don't hate it, Sam. I don't hate it. If they built it...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:03)
They might sell at least three or four of them

Nicole (1:14:04)
Like that?

Three or four, I mean maybe five even, you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:10)
I mean, they

did sell like 3,400 Blackwoods. So, you know, it could probably sell at least as well as the Blackwood.

Nicole (1:14:17)
There you go. There you go.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:18)
Yeah, I mean it's not the

worst thing that they've done but I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:21)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:14:21)
It's not the worst thing

they've done.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:25)
The current crop of Lincolns are very just me. I'm just sad because there was this thing. They had this such a great run for like five years, like everything they were pulling out like this is amazing. And then they're like, hey, let's hold my beer.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:28)
As you know, as long as it.

Nicole (1:14:38)
was strange, right? Like all of sudden.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:38)
Well, they started doing this nonsense with the touchscreen controlled vents. And as long as they don't put that in the Bronco, you know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:42)
Thus the giant screens.

Nicole (1:14:43)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:45)
Literally, if they

just grab a regular Bronco and just slap the Lincoln logo, like didn't change anything else, just slap a Lincoln logo and make the inside a little bit prettier, I'd be like, ⁓ that's fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:55)
No.

⁓ all right. ⁓ speaking of premium off roaders, ⁓ Rivian has launched a new department called the Rivian adventure department or what we like to call rad.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:11)
That's good. That's a good, that's

Nicole (1:15:12)
⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:12)
a

good name. I'm going to give someone a high five at Rivian. If they ever, if I ever talk to them, I should.

Nicole (1:15:12)
okay guys.

It literally says that

or what we, love it. I thought you were just being sarcastic Sam with your description, but it literally, that's literally what it says or what we like to call rad. It literally says that right on the site. I missed that initially.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:23)
No, no, no, that is literally what it says on this page.

Yep.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:31)
High five. Listen, Toyota has TRD, is turd, which is.

Nicole (1:15:39)
Yeah, so Rad is definitely better.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:40)
He's like, hey, you want a TRD truck? You're

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:40)
So this is, you know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:42)
like, yeah. Can you scrape those letters off the side?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:47)
So basically the point of rad is to ⁓ as they say should we push this further the answer is always yes So, you know, this is kind of going to be there, you know, they're AMG their division their TRD Pro So, you know the high-end versions of Rivians

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:02)
Yeah.

the off-roady

Nicole (1:16:08)
Okay. I mean, that's kind

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:09)
Yeah,

Nicole (1:16:11)
of cool. I think it's neat.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:11)
I do. Yeah, I do like the color scheme. You know, there's a there's an R1S here, you know, with the green and yellow and red and white. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:16)
yeah.

Nicole (1:16:18)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:20)
Yeah, that's pretty dope.

Nicole (1:16:21)
It's actually really

cool looking. Yeah. Yeah, those look. I bet a lot of people would.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:23)
I I would, if that was offered, I would buy that. And if

that was offered and now we're Rivian rich, am not a Rivian. Again, I think I've said this before. It's the Patagonia of EVs.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:33)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:16:34)
It's the Patagonia.

That's an apt description.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:39)
But you know, you might be able to afford a used Rivian.

Nicole (1:16:42)
There you go. Maybe. Maybe that's the way to go.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:44)
Yeah, maybe I should look, maybe

I should look like an R1T. That might be nice. But I just get angry about the vents though.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:47)
How much do used derivians go for? ⁓ Look up used R1T on autotrader or somewhere.

That's true. Yeah. So, yeah.

Nicole (1:16:57)
Carvana has

a used R1T from $35,990. have 44 in stock.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:01)
they're the same one.

35? That's pretty good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:02)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:17:05)
There we go.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:06)
I wish they'd had... I wonder if I could like hack the... just put a stick in the vents. I mean, that shouldn't be too hard. I could 3D print new vents and just unplug the stupid thing and just put a little thing in it. What do do? I'm hacking the Rivians so that they have vents because for the love of... No. No, I didn't know. I like the Rivians.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:10)
Ha ha.

Yeah, you can figure out a way to make it work.

haha

Nicole (1:17:28)
Yeah, do it. Let's see you do it. Let's see you hack revients to make

their vents work the way you want them to work.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:31)
Hmph.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:33)
That

should be my next career thing where I just buy cars and hack them to make them less Contr- less annoying. You're like, you know what? I'm gonna take this door and I'm gonna hack in and I'm gonna put a regular door handle on it That's my job. I'll sell kits to people. I'm like, here you go. Now you're a Rivian doesn't- you have to wait for a door to pop out. You can just open it like a regular car. It's just I don't understand why we're trying to fix things that aren't Settle down.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:39)
Less annoying.

Nicole (1:17:57)
like a regular old car.

just to make your life challenging.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:02)
So, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:07)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:07)
They just

want to annoy us. mean, they know we're out here, that we hate stuff like that, and they just want us to be annoyed.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:15)
It's just like every time they update like any, like I complain a lot about Adobe products and I use a lot of Adobe products because they never fix anything. We just add new features that no one wants. And I was like, could you please just fix this one error? And the latest Photoshop breaks, save for web, something that's worked for decades. And they're like, it just doesn't work now. And so the other way to save doesn't have nearly as many options for fine tuning your images for the web. And I'm just like, what are you doing?

Nicole (1:18:15)
when it works.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:22)
You

Heh. Heh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:45)
Your only job is to like make images and then save the images for either print or web. That's it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:51)
And you know, 99, probably

Nicole (1:18:51)
all you need to do.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:52)
99.9 % of the images generated in Photoshop are going on the web. They're not going in print.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:57)
Exactly,

exactly. Yeah, I don't know what they're I don't know. But anyway, that's that's that's card makers are doing that too. They're like, what are you doing? We just want a door handle. I just want to grab things. I don't need it to pop out. I don't need a sliding magic opening charger port. Gas ports don't do that. I just click it or I pull it open. Just do that with the EV port. I don't need more complications.

Nicole (1:19:08)
Just for the door handle, just for the knob. Don't wanna have...

...Flighting Magic.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:25)
Don't add more motors when you don't need to.

Nicole (1:19:27)
Hahaha!

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:28)
Exactly. Don't make things that could break.

It's clever for the sake of clever. That's, that's keep it simple. Stupid. I'm just, that's how many Johnny Appleseed going from car maker to car maker. Hey everybody. How about like, what are we going to think about? No, no one wants that. I know you're all excited about it. I know like some tech bro is really excited about it, but the rest of us don't want that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:29)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:19:32)
What's the thing? Kiss. Keep it simple, stupid.

Stop right there.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:53)
Alright, so you know, You see you should have gone with the with the caffeine free diet coke like Nicole did

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:54)
Sorry.

middle of the day I'm all hopped up on caffeine sorry I'm used to these are usually morning things for me

Nicole (1:20:03)
Caffeine free

diet coke, see? There you go, cheers. A giant one. There's not very much left in this since we sat down.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:03)
Yeah, I just had a little baby diet coke earlier today.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:12)
So you know how I like to complain about Toyota's four cylinder engines not sounding very good? Yeah, well compared to some engines, they actually sound great. either of you two ever driven anything with GM's old quad four, four cylinder engine that launched in the late 1980s?

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:18)
yeah, they're very loud.

Nicole (1:20:29)
I don't think I have,

no.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:31)
I think I did.

Nicole (1:20:34)
Maybe? Probably

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:34)
So,

Nicole (1:20:35)
not.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:36)
I I remember reading about this thing before it came out. You know, it's like everybody was all excited. yeah. GM's going to do a new twin cam four valve per cylinder, four cylinder engine for their, for their smaller cars. You know, finally going to have something to compete with the best European engines and Japanese engines. And then they introduced the quad four and it was not good. In fact,

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:50)
Japanese. Yeah.

Nicole (1:21:01)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:03)
It was pretty damn awful.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:05)
Aww, GM. And they put it in everything!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:07)
⁓

yeah, it was originally developed for Oldsmobile to use. ⁓ Olds did a couple of really cool concepts called the Aerotech. It was basically this ⁓ really aerodynamic ⁓ kind of a race car and they put high performance turbocharged quad four in there and they used it to set all kinds of records.

AJ Floyd used it to set a closed course land speed record with it, you know, went like 260 some miles an hour around the Texas World Speedway. It set all kinds of records with this thing. But when they actually put it in production cars, it was a really, really unpleasant experience. was a 2.3 liter four cylinder. When it when they first launched it, it had no balance shafts, so it was kind of shaky.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:01)
just

so just jumbled around in the engine bay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:04)
Yeah. ⁓ you know, they, you know, they, put it, they, used, you know, instead of a timing belt, they use timing chains to a timing chain to drive the camshafts, which is actually good for durability. Cause know, timing belts typically last about 50, 60, 70,000 miles and you got to replace them. And if you don't.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:08)
put a milkshake in there, like I'll be back.

Yeah, but you're adding

rigidity to that. You don't have any, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:25)
Yeah,

but the reason why most companies just having belts under to drive their camshafts is they're a lot quieter. And so, you it was was noisy. ⁓ It was harsh. ⁓ It was and it took, you know, like seven or eight years before they finally fixed most of the problems with it. ⁓ I when my first job out of college, ⁓ I was working for for Delco Moraine, you know, part.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:33)
Yeah.

⁓ that's a

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:53)
GM's parts division, working on ABS systems. And it was a project that I wasn't working on, but I got a chance to drive the prototype one time. Do you remember the dust buster minivans, the Pontiac Transport? Well, they were going to sell a version of the Pontiac Transport in Europe as an Opel. ⁓ But in North America,

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:09)
⁓ yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:21)
They only sold those minivans with a 2.8 liter V6 and ⁓ an automatic transmission. And for Europe, they wanted a four cylinder engine and a manual transmission. So ⁓ they put the Quad Four into this minivan and it had a five speed manual and I got a chance to drive it at the Mesa Proving Grounds one time. boy, that was something.

Nicole (1:23:48)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:51)
Just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:52)
That was not a-

Nicole (1:23:52)
That's something you want to

repeat. You don't want to do it like that again. No. No, no. Thank you.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:55)
⁓ No, no thank you. ⁓

So anyway, the Utopian's got a good article about the, let's see, what's the title of it here? Three decades ago Pontiac managed to offer ⁓ more noise vibration and harshness per liter than any other sports sedan. And it's about the...

Nicole (1:24:18)
Isn't that

something you hope that your company can claim someday?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:22)
Yeah,

so there's a bit of history of the X cars and how that evolved into what eventually became the Pontiac Grand Am and the development of the Quad Four. So it's a fun story to read if you're interested in some of this historical stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:39)
Yeah, by the the quad, by the time the quad for it, put me in Jen, like every young person did not want a Pontiac. Like they had the Fiero and that's it. That's the only thing that Pontiac made that anyone cared about. know they didn't ruin it. Well, it kept fire catching fire. So.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:45)
Yeah.

And they never did put the Quad Four in the Fiero, which is what they should have done.

Well, there's that, All ⁓

Nicole (1:24:57)
details. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:00)
right. We have, we got a question this week came in from Tom B from Patreon. ⁓ And so Tom asks, as I listened to Nicole's interview with Mazda In-vehicle Technology Project Manager, Matthew Valbueno, ⁓ is there any talk in the industry about being able to upgrade the infotainment computer?

As Matthew said, the average age of a vehicle is 12 years and average consumers keep their smartphone for less than three years. Wouldn't it make sense to upgrade the infotainment computer after five to 10 years that would have faster processors and support new cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth standards? What about security upgrades? Since new cars can get updates on their infotainment system over the air, will the manufacturers keep sending out security updates for 15 or more years? I know I wouldn't want a 10-year-old phone or tablet running my car infotainment system.

⁓ did Matthew didn't say anything about that, did he?

Nicole (1:25:56)
No, that he didn't talk about. He didn't say that. I mean, what do think the realistically, Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:59)
Yeah.

⁓ slim to none. You know, mean, one of the few instances where this has happened was with Tesla, ⁓ on the early model S's and some of the model X's, ⁓ they did, ⁓ upgrade. They did offer an upgrade for the, ⁓ the multimedia computer units, the infotainment computer. but that's more because they were failing then because they actually wanted to upgrade it and they

Nicole (1:26:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:33)
They didn't want to keep putting in the old parts. So they had upgraded it, but they were having a lot of warranty claims with the original ones. And so they did replace a lot of those and they did offer even for ones that hadn't failed, they offered an upgrade to customers for, I want to say it was like a thousand bucks or something, $1,500. It was not cheap. Yeah, I think that the chances of this happening are very slim.

⁓ and they're likely to get slimmer as we move to vehicles with centralized compute architectures. You know, right now, you know, most cars, you know, they have a separate box that drives the infotainment system. got a box that drives the powertrain and another one drives other body controls and your driver assistance systems. And so it's one thing to replace just that, but you know, they're moving to system architectures where everything is going to be in one box.

And ⁓ that's going to be a real expensive box to upgrade. So.

Nicole (1:27:38)
Yeah,

and it's a big difference between sending you a download, downloading stuff, whoosh, through the air, as opposed to bringing your car in and physically putting something in your car that has to now work in your car and be connected in your car and not make any mistakes about and not have any issues with and yeah, make sure that the new thing works with the 10 year old, everything else. That seems like that would be a big ask.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:03)
Yeah. So, I mean, realistically, you know, for stuff like that, you're probably going to get, ⁓ you know, software updates for at best maybe five to seven years. ⁓ you know, and then, you know, after that it's basically going to be static, which, know, is kind of what you get with an iPhone. Yeah.

Nicole (1:28:25)
say your phone

does the same thing. There's a point where it gets old enough that they say, okay, guess what? We don't support it anymore. You're going to have apps that start, stop working because the apps are designed for newer generations of stuff and they aren't making it backward compatible with older iPhones. So it happens with an iPhone at a certain point too, you know, just a little easier to buy a new iPhone than it is to buy a new car. But

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:51)
Yeah, that's true. Although, you even now, you know, we're, you know, we're used to driving older cars that have older systems in there. Um, you know, at some point, you know, in the life of a car, it'll just become static.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:53)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:29:08)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:08)
Yeah, I mean my 2014 ⁓ BRZ doesn't, I mean the infotainment thing. ⁓ I can plug a phone in and it'll play the music. It doesn't have CarPlay or anything, but I can like pick like forward and backward. I can go forward, I can go backward. could just, but that's pretty much it. So I just plug my phone in and use that. But it also has a CD player so I can listen to CDs. It does have a map, a mapping software, but it doesn't really do anything. And it's based on an SD card.

Nicole (1:29:19)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:22)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:29:23)
Hahaha!

as CD player would.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:38)
So if I take the SD card out, yeah. So it just has.

Nicole (1:29:38)
Oh God, everything.

Oh, I remember having a navigation system I messed up at a program once because the SD card wasn't right. Like take that out and put that in and they did and then it wouldn't read anything. And they're like, well, everything we need is on that navigation that you can access. I'm like, so other plans.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:54)
You got one printed out on a piece of paper?

Nicole (1:29:58)
Mm-hmm. Exactly. Can you print something for me?

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:01)
Thanks.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:02)
⁓ All right, well, that's all we've got for this week. Thanks everybody for listening and we'll be back next time. Bye.

Nicole (1:30:10)
Bye everyone.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:11)
Bye.