Nicole (00:00)
Hee hee!

Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
This is episode 438 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

Nicole (00:06)
And I'm Nicole Wakeland from Test Miles.

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

Sam Abuelsamid (00:13)
And Nicole, what you been driving?

Nicole (00:14)
Mm-hmm.

Well, it's a car that I think you might actually be a little familiar with, Sam. I'm driving the Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24)
All wheel drive or rear or front wheel drive? ⁓ what color?

Nicole (00:25)
All will drive.

Creamy white? Look, I don't like that name. I don't like it. It's creamy white. mean, it's actually it's dirt colored. It's dirt and salt colored right now, but go ahead.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33)
The names they come up with for colors these days out of time, but Yeah Yeah, well actually

I also had the same thing this week, but I had the classy blue

Nicole (00:48)
See, that's way better than Creamy White. I don't

Roberto Baldwin (00:50)
I was

Nicole (00:50)
like

Roberto Baldwin (00:50)
in Germany so I didn't drive a nothing.

Nicole (00:50)
that name. It's like the word slacks. I don't like slacks. That word, slacks, slacks. Like, you wear pants, you don't wear slacks. I don't like the word slacks. Trousers, trousers just makes you sound like you're an 1850s dandy or something, but pants, just pants, people.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:52)
Ha!

Roberto Baldwin (00:56)
Slacks? Slacks?

slacks? Well, trousers.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:03)
How about trousers?

Roberto Baldwin (01:11)
Cause in

Sam Abuelsamid (01:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (01:12)
the UK pants is underwear. Yeah. Alright. I'm just excited about you going to UK.

Nicole (01:14)
is it? Okay, well, you know what? I'm just calling it pants. I'm not in the UK. I'm American. I'm going with pants. I'm also not

Sam Abuelsamid (01:18)
Yeah.

Nicole (01:21)
saying aluminium either. So there you go.

Roberto Baldwin (01:23)
Aluminium.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:24)
There's

actually a funny podcast. It's retired now, but there's probably about three dozen episodes altogether that was done. It was on the incomparable network. It was called Pants in the Boot. Glenn Fleischman hosted it. And he'd have like four or five other people on each episode. he'd have people from both sides of the Atlantic.

Nicole (01:39)
That's cute.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:53)
some Americans, some Canadians, some, actually also some from the other side of the Pacific, some from Australia or New Zealand, and then from the UK. ⁓ And they would spend each episode talking about a few words that had, they were the same word, but had very different meanings depending on where you lived. Hence the name, Pants in the Boot.

Nicole (02:15)
Yes. There's it's surprising.

Yeah. It's a surprising how many words you think are totally normal and you say them somewhere else. Like, they look at you like, ⁓ sorry, what? Like, ⁓ wait.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:25)
Well, there's

the old joke about ⁓ America and the UK, know, ⁓ two countries ⁓ separated by a common language.

Nicole (02:37)
Exactly. That is accurate.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:42)
⁓ anyway would you would

you think of the palisade

Nicole (02:46)
I mean, I liked it overall. had the gas one. There's a hybrid Palisade tube, but I had the gas engine. ⁓ I thought it was good. like the, you know, the exterior design. I go back and forth on that it's a little bit too much, but it looks kind of cool, especially the lights look really cool at night. I did like driving it. We had horrific weather. I think when I last spoke, we were getting the weather and now we've had it. got, ⁓

I'll tell we got a little over two feet of snow in New Hampshire. So to say it was snowing for days is not an understatement. They couldn't keep up with it. So the roads are absolutely, they still have snow stuck to them. That's how snowy and cold it was. Normally you can see blacktop by now. You can't really in a lot of areas. So I took it out and I drove it in the mass. We went ⁓ to our favorite diner. It was us and the snowplow guys. And I went out there and

It was really good in the snow. mean, if there's a test of snow, this is probably this snowier conditions. You aren't going to have it much worse than that. mean, most people were staying off the road, but I live in New England. I needed some breakfast and I was tired of being in the house. So it's like, let's go to the diner. Red Arrow Diner. Yes. And we go to this place called the Red Arrow Diner. it's iconic. There was one in Manchester, New Hampshire that all the politicians come visit during the election cycle. It's really cool. Anyway, so we went there.

Roberto Baldwin (03:56)
Breakfast is the best meal.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:58)
Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole (04:09)
It was really nice in the snow. handled really well. was even like, there was quite a bit of that where you've got a couple of inches of just thick, slushy mess on the road and it's deep and it's getting, it's getting other cars stuck. People's wheels are spinning. You know, it's that moment where someone goes to slow down and you're like, are you really like, you wait to see if they're really stopping at the light or they start to pull out and you're like, I'm to give you a little extra space because you're two seconds to pull out might take you a minute because your wheels are going.

And it didn't have any trouble. It really did really well. So I was truly impressed with how it handled ⁓ in the snow. It was really good. And it's comfortable. It's nice and quiet. What do they call it? They call it the, I decided I love this. Wait, what's the thing they call, I can't find it now, the ergo motion for the driver's seat that all of sudden you're driving. Yeah!

Sam Abuelsamid (04:57)
Yes. After, after about 30 minutes, it'll start doing

Roberto Baldwin (04:57)
Everybody's doing a brand new dance now

Sam Abuelsamid (05:01)
a, doing some massage patterns.

Roberto Baldwin (05:02)
Come on baby, do the ergo motion

Nicole (05:03)
I love that. So I loved

it. So I had to, was driving along. Yeah. Thanks for a little interlude there, Robbie. I little background. I love the Ergo motion seats. So it felt kind of like when they tell you about it and it think of like, you've sort of like turned on your massaging seats, right? And it should, but it's just in a specific spot. It's sort of like your lower back and it kind of just presses out sort of stretches out your back a little bit. And I thought, I don't know how useful this really is. Like as you're driving in a drive program or whatever.

Roberto Baldwin (05:09)
I just like the little background music to the show.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:12)
Music bad.

Roberto Baldwin (05:13)
I

Nicole (05:32)
It was really nice. Like I'm driving along. It's I'm like, didn't realize I was stiff at all until like, Oh, that ergomotions seat feels good. It really does help stretch you out a little bit and make you feel a little less stiff. think, especially if you were driving for hours and hours to have that thing just kick on and be like, let me give you a little massage. Keep y'all limber. It, that's a really cool feature. was poo pooing in initially cause I thought it was silly. I no longer think it's silly.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:59)
Well, I had to do a couple of runs over to the Auburn Hills, Rochester Hills area, which normally is ⁓ during non rush hour times when the roads are clear, roughly about an hour drive from where I live. And this week, you know, because of actually on Tuesday when I went, it started snowing again while I was on the way and it was during morning rush hour. So, you know, you get more traffic.

Nicole (06:05)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:28)
and snow and everything else. And so the drive was closer to about an hour and a half long. And yeah, that Ergo Motion seat, you know, was definitely, it's like going along about half hour into the drive and ⁓ there goes the seat. It's starting to move my back around a little bit. And yeah, it was really good. It's a nice touch. mean, ⁓ it's not as aggressive as some of the massage seats.

Nicole (06:34)
Mm-hmm.

Right?

Sam Abuelsamid (06:57)
⁓ that have used over the years but it was it was definitely in a nut helpful was helpful

Nicole (07:04)
Yeah, I think it's, it's because it's not something you're picking or something you to remember to turn off or on. That's what's kind of nice about it. Cause even when you have massaging seats in a car, which, know, always give you, you know, 10 different settings in your back, your lower back, your upper back, a waterfall, whatever this, you have to think about it to turn it on, which I know isn't a big deal, but you just don't think about those things. Sometimes when you're driving, this is just, it automatically does it. It's been a half an hour. You could probably use a little. Yes. If yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:29)
Yeah, you can turn it off if you don't like it in the settings. And

⁓ there are a couple of different patterns it goes through. So it doesn't give you the same pattern every time. I don't know if it's randomized or not, because I wasn't paying that close attention. But I noticed during an hour and a half drive, it came on twice. And it goes for about 10 minutes or so. ⁓ And each time it came on, it was a different pattern.

Nicole (07:45)
Ha

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:56)
And I only have you know on the seats in the in the Palisade There's only about I think two or three different patterns that it can do for the massage seat anyway But it's nice to have that just come on and just kind of move your back around a little bit You know, because usually when you're driving for an extended period of time you end up shifting around in your seat You know as as things as that everything settles, you know, and as you get older things tend to settle more so

Nicole (08:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, a little bit more.

Roberto Baldwin (08:24)
I don't know what you mean.

Nicole (08:26)
Sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:27)
You will, you will soon enough.

⁓ So yeah, no, I enjoyed that. I liked that a lot.

Nicole (08:37)
Yeah, so I truly thought I'm like, is actually a pretty cool feature. I like this feature. So I enjoy driving it. It was great in the winter weather. It's relatively quiet because it's kind of boxy shape, but it has really good sound deadening and insulation in it. So you don't hear a lot of the noise from the snow and the muck and just the wind going by. You know, as you're driving high speeds on the highway, has that, like there's a hybrid, but I drove the 3.5 liter V6, which is

It's fine. Has an eight speed automatic. It shifts nicely. was a, it's a nice, smooth, pleasant drive, plenty roomy for you to get in and out of it. You know, there's a third row if you want to go back there, but like every third row, you don't want to live back there for very long because it's tight. Um, but no more. So not in an exceptional way, you know, but you can sit back there. Uh, so overall I like it in the interior. mean, the calligraphy, I think this is the top trim, right? It doesn't get fancier than calligraphy. it? Or is it

Sam Abuelsamid (09:32)
⁓ It's the fanciest

trim. I'm not sure if it's necessarily the most expensive. I'm not sure if the XRT Pro, but it's definitely the most luxury oriented.

Nicole (09:37)
But I think it's, might be more. in terms of just, yeah,

luxury and features, this is the top of the lineup. So ⁓ pricing on this, ⁓ my monroni has no pricing on it. Hold on a second. Sam, does your monroni have pricing on it? Mine says TBD.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:54)
mind us. It does $57,800

all in. You guys want to guess at the destination charge?

Nicole (10:03)
yeah,

because I don't have that either. No, I don't have it. I just looked and it's not on my sheet. I have an actual Monrooney with no prices. Finally, I have one and it has no prices. I'm going to go 14.95.

Roberto Baldwin (10:04)
Well isn't it really fair? okay, because you don't have it. I was like, well this doesn't seem fair at all.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:09)
Ha!

Nicole nailed it. 1495.

Roberto Baldwin (10:21)
⁓

Nicole (10:23)
I really don't, mean, you guys can be my evidence. I really, I really don't look. Wait, wait, I can't get it on the camera. Wait, see, there's no numbers. There's no numbers. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (10:25)
Yeah, yeah, sure.

Roberto Baldwin (10:30)
⁓ I couldn't see that. I wasn't looking,

Sam Abuelsamid (10:30)
Yeah, nice.

Roberto Baldwin (10:36)
but I couldn't see that.

Nicole (10:38)
So.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:39)
So the calligraphy is the most expensive. the MSRP on the calligraphy is $54,560 and for the XRT Pro it's $49,870. So, and you get a lot in the calligraphy. There's the standard 35 V6, it's gonna be 287 horsepower. It's got things like second row.

Nicole (10:41)
It is the priciest, okay.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:07)
The second row seats are heated and ventilated, I believe. And also the third row seats are also heated, not ventilated, but they are heated. And they're power folding and sliding. So there's buttons in the cargo area in the back, so you can drop those down and also drop down the second row seats. So if you're loading, if you need to load some big stuff and you don't have to go keep walking around to drop all the seats, you can do it all from the back. ⁓ It's got the digital rear view mirror, the heads up display.

⁓ ambient lighting. The 21 inch alloy wheels look really sharp ⁓ on this thing. They're, they're, they're, it's a really nice looking wheel design on the calligraphy. ⁓ And they said the one that I had ⁓ was the classy blue, which is a darker blue color. It looks, yeah, looks, looked really good in the snow until it got all covered with salt. But ⁓

Nicole (11:43)
Mm.

Ooh.

Roberto Baldwin (11:58)
Classic.

Nicole (12:05)
Yeah, mine is it's,

Roberto Baldwin (12:06)
Aww.

Nicole (12:06)
it looks horrific. it, it, they can clean this car two feet away from my driveway, pulling it into the driveway. It would look ridiculous. It's really not great.

Roberto Baldwin (12:09)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (12:15)
Yeah, no, you know, it's

that time. You know, this time of year, everything, you know, kind of looks terrible like that. ⁓ But I like the design of the 26 Palisade. ⁓ I like it better than the previous generation, the first generation. Yeah, like you said, yeah, you know, the lights, especially in the front, are definitely bolder than they were before.

Nicole (12:20)
There's nothing you can do about it. It's just the season. Yeah.

Do you?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:44)
⁓ But

Nicole (12:45)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:45)
you know, I like it. It's an interesting look and the shape of the rest of it, you know, it's a little bit, it's a little bit cleaner design. You still have the creases over the wheel arches, but you know, the rest of it, especially the greenhouse area, I think is really nicely executed. It's got kind of a Range Rover-ish look to it. ⁓ Yeah, so it looks a little more premium than before, but there's, you know, there's also the

Nicole (13:07)
It does, definitely.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:14)
the XRT Pro, ⁓ which that's the more off-road-y version. So that's got 18-inch wheels, all-terrain tires. Instead of the chrome trim on the D-pillars, ⁓ it's all blacked out. And it looks a little more aggressive. ⁓ I think all of them are really well done. I think it's a good design. ⁓

Nicole (13:42)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:43)
And the interior is really nice on these things too. It feels very premium, looks very premium.

Nicole (13:48)
Yeah, I think it did a good job. I mean, it got the car of the year for NACTOYS. you know, people, think it did well. It did a good job with it. And I like it. I think it's a good car.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:59)
Did you use the ⁓ UVC filter in the center console? You didn't decontaminate your phone? No, I did not.

Nicole (14:02)
I did not. I did not. Did you try it out?

I am so contaminated

right now. have no idea. Yeah. I mean, if you, I always think the same thing. If you have kids and kids tend to little kids, they tend to they're gross and they're gross and they tend to get stuff everywhere. So if you have little kids, God, they are. And if they, so if they touch your phone, if they drop things, even their toys are like a pacifier or anything like.

Roberto Baldwin (14:10)
Gross. Gross. Gross, both of you, gross.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:12)
I did not bother.

Roberto Baldwin (14:21)
Be gross.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:26)
Little kids are walking germ bombs.

Roberto Baldwin (14:33)
Uh-uh.

Nicole (14:36)
Everything's always gross. So if I had little kids, if I had littles, I would definitely use that.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:41)
I had lunch the other day with Kaylee Hall, who's Detroit Auto's reporter for Reuters, Thompson Reuters. And she's got a seven-month-old who's in daycare now. we were talking a little bit about youngins. I said, it's all right. Those germs, that'll only last another 18 years or so.

Nicole (15:06)
Right, only 18

years or so for those germs, then you'll be just fine. You'll be totally fine. Right, everything will be fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:10)
then you kick them out of the house and yeah.

So yeah, so I like the Palisade. I like the new Palisade and I'm looking forward to trying out the Nutella ride in March, I think. Yeah.

Nicole (15:26)
Yeah, I'm looking, I think it

is March. It's, ⁓ I like how the Nutelluride looks. I think I like the style of the Nutelluride more than Palisade, but we'll see how they drive and how they, you know, how it works out in practice.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:42)
Yeah, and hopefully one of these days I can I drove the the Palisade hybrid at the drive program in November fish time frame, I think. And I'm looking looking forward to spending more time with that one is, you know, with this one, the ⁓ fuel economy, you know, it's actually this one actually has slightly less power than the first generation Palisade did. I think it was like.

Nicole (15:53)
Yeah, that seems right.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:10)
290-ish, it's now 287. ⁓ But the ⁓ hybrid has more power. And the gas Palisade is rated at 18 city, 24 highway, 20 combined. Most of my driving was on the highway. I was getting about 21 to 22, roughly. ⁓ Which is not bad for a vehicle this size. And the third row is.

big enough to accommodate adults. it's, you know, I think, I think I'll be curious to see what I can get out of the hybrid when I get one of those in the driveway. Yeah. All right. ⁓ Let's move on then to some of the other stuff. So you've also driven some other stuff recently, Nicole. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole (16:40)
Mm-hmm.

eventually.

I've driven a lot of stuff recently now, I think I can talk about most of it.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:05)
⁓ well it's at least been published ⁓ so most of it anyway ⁓ so so what's let's start with the the key a k four hatchback

Nicole (17:07)
Yes, in other people have broken in embargoes.

The K4 hatchback. So I actually really like this little car. because it has that hatchback styling and versatility, like it's really truly a little hatchback. It almost has kind of, dare I say it, like wagon vibes to it. Just a little bit, just a little. It's like a tiny wagon and it's more tiny wagon than some of them. I like, and this isn't all new, ⁓ has like a turbocharged engine you can get, which is the version that we drove. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (17:30)
Hatchbacks are just tiny wagons, that's all. Yeah.

Nicole (17:43)
exterior looks really cool. mean, it has, it has sharp styling to it. I actually like the K four hatchback better than the K four sedan. Have you guys compared the two? So this, right. So the sedan you're like, well, in fact, it was funny. I was behind a K four sedan on the, on the road yesterday at night. And I was like, what is that? Cause you don't know if we always see them without their lights on during drive programs. Right. I was like, that is the weirdest. I'm like, Oh,

Roberto Baldwin (17:52)
yeah. No, that's the p- huge step.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:52)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's no

question the hatchback is better.

Roberto Baldwin (18:08)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (18:11)
Hey, four, okay, like I did when I passed it. But I like the hatchback. I think the hatchback looks really good. It has a turbo, which is really fun. So the base engine is a two-liter four-cylinder that has 147 horsepower. The 1.6-liter turbo brings it up to 190. That's still not this huge number, but in addition, you get an eight-speed automatic versus the CVT that you have in the base engine, and it's...

Sam Abuelsamid (18:12)
You

Roberto Baldwin (18:12)
K4

Nicole (18:38)
It gives you strong performance. gives you strong passing power. It is not a hot hatch. Like if you're looking for a hot hatch, that's not this aggressive car. This is a nice, versatile hatchback that is peppy and fun to drive, but is not, it doesn't have the harshness. think sometimes it comes along with a vehicle being a hot hatch. Inside it's very comfortable. It's nice. It does that thing that Kia does where, you know, it's not overly

expensive, but it still has a lot packed in there for what you're getting. Like it's always a surprise. there's, there's, um, depending on the trim, you get a 12.3 inch instrument cluster along with the 12.3 inch infotainment screen. It's all in one big display. So it has that, that illusion of being one giant display, which gives it a very sort of fancy tech forward look to it. Uh, there's three different trends. starts at 24, nine 90. Um, and it tops out at 28, eight 90.

So even if you're going for the GT line turbo with the turbocharged engine and sport tuned suspension and all the fun stuff that you get for buying the top trim of a car, you're still coming in at under $30,000, which I think is not a bad price for this because you're getting the fun of driving it with a turbo engine. You're getting a comfortable, well-equipped interior. You have the versatility for cargo, but it's not so big that you can't drive it in the city.

So I really liked the K4 hatch. Like I said, in every way, I like this better than the sedan. If you had me pick one, I'd pick this one in a heartbeat.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:12)
Yeah, the shape, the proportions of it just work so much better. The rear end, know, the same, the sedan and the hatchback are identical back up to the C pillar, know, back to the back of the rear doors. And then there's just something, there's some weird lines and weird intersections of lines on the K4 sedan. And the same is also true on the EV4.

Nicole (20:28)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:41)
sedan which we were supposed to get but now aren't because of because of tariffs. But ⁓ yeah they both have some some weird intersecting lines and that both the hatchbacks versions of both of those cars I just think work a lot better. It's almost like they they did the hatchback first and they said yeah we Americans don't want hatchbacks so we better do a sedan version too.

Nicole (20:42)
Mm-hmm.

No we're not.

Roberto Baldwin (20:46)
stuff.

Nicole (20:48)
stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (20:58)
Yeah.

Nicole (21:06)
Right?

Roberto Baldwin (21:06)
⁓

well, you people have been hassling me for years. Like I just want a nice hatchback. I kept showing them the Golf and then they just didn't buy it. So maybe they'll look at this and be like, all right, cool, a hatchback.

Nicole (21:18)
Hahaha! ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (21:20)
Yeah,

when we had our Civic, ⁓ they had a sedan version and the hatchback version, and we bought the hatchback because ⁓ we liked the design of it, but also loved the utility. Because one of the problems with sedans in smaller cars, basically all modern sedans have kind of a fastback profile to them. You no longer have that three box shape, the traditional sedan shape.

Roberto Baldwin (21:29)
That's

Sam Abuelsamid (21:48)
And so what that inevitably means is that the trunk opening is really small. And so even though you might have a decent sized trunk and you fold the back seats down, can put big, you know, reasonably big stuff in there. Actually getting big stuff in is the problem. can't, the opening isn't big enough to get anything big into it. Whereas a hatchback, you know, you've got this nice big opening in the back. You can load stuff in there. It's, it's just so much more practical.

Nicole (22:04)
Right.

Yeah, so I was a fan. like this. I hope it does well for them.

Roberto Baldwin (22:16)
Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:19)
Yeah, cool. All right. ⁓ And then you also spent some time with Honda.

Nicole (22:25)
I I spent some time with Honda driving the Pilot and the Prelude. The Prelude that I couldn't say anything about and the Pilot, which I also couldn't say anything about last week. So now I can talk about them. So the Pilot, I like the new, first let's talk about Pilot. Pilots, I mean they've improved it. It's not an all new, it's refreshed. So it's not like they ripped it apart and put it back together. But they did make some big changes. There's a larger 12.3 inch touch screen in there. They get new 20 inch wheels and the top trims and the front gets revised. So it has like this big,

bold grill that's a little bit more than the old version. So it looks good. ⁓ and I, you know, I think that the tendency now is to make SUVs. goes back and forth. You're either trying to make them not look like one, or you're really trying to make them look like one. They're trying to make this look like an SUV. the silence in it, like the quiet of this is fantastic. And when you're driving, you don't hear a lot of noise. You don't hear a lot of road noise, wind noise. Even when you have vehicles,

Like if you're on the road and a tractor trailer drives by you, it's hard not to hear that. Like it's the kind of thing in a lot of cars. If you're asleep and you're in the passenger side and that, you know, you're passing a tractor trailer, you hear it what wakes you up. Cause it is loud. This is incredibly quiet, which I do not think you can underestimate when you have a car the kids are going to be in because when your kids just doze off and then something loud happens outside the window and your silence is broken. You cringe as a parent. So this is quiet enough.

and comfortable enough that the kids, they fall asleep, will probably stay asleep, which is really nice. ⁓ It has a three liter V6 that has 285 horsepower. That's plenty strong enough to get it up to speed. It's not especially noisy. Like if you really slam your foot in the gas, we had some ⁓ construction where there were big trucks. So they were occasionally pulling over to let us go by on a road that was only two lanes.

So you have that like, I must get by now, you know, that sense of urgency or you're stuck behind the construction truck again. A, it did it without a problem and B, it wasn't overly noisy. Again, the sound is such a big deal on this. ⁓ I truly enjoy driving as the interior looks beautiful, you know, especially in the top trims. I feel like Honda's upping their game a little bit because I sort of used to think of Honda as being a little bland sometimes, incised bland. Is that a nice way to say it? ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (24:50)
plain. Understated.

Nicole (24:51)
Plane, plane works as well.

that's the one. Understated, Hondas were a little understated. They're not flashy, but like the one I drove, had this sort of like white, creamy white interior. And it was not, it wasn't just white seats. Like they had some texture, they had some, there was some contrast stitching on it. They showed like that quilted thing at the top of it. And there's like a darker pinstripe along the sides to give it a little pop of color. They truly looked good.

The second, this is three rows. So the second row, you can get plenty of room for three adults. Third row, it's gonna be on the tighter side, but they do have that button that lets you access it and it slides. So it tips the seat, but the seat also slides forward. So it's nice on that is not only does the seat slide forward so that it can make it easier to step into the back, you can leave it positioned a little more forward so your third row passengers aren't squished. But if you don't, or depending, what do you wanna do? You have a lot of cargo.

move the second row forward a little bit. You don't have cargo, you have taller people sitting in the second row, you can slide the seats back a little. So it lets you play with that little bit of leg room slash cargo room. So you can make it even more versatile for whatever it is that your family is doing. think it's good. It starts at 42,000. That's for the sport with front wheel drive. So that's the cheapest you can get into it. Goes up.

At the very top of the range, a touring model with all wheel drive is $51,000. That's still not, you know, again, this is a three row big SUV with all the family room, all the cargo room. It's a competitor to the Palisade. I think the Palisade calligraphy has a fancier vibe inside, weirdly, even though you don't think of Hyundai as being a more upscale brand than Honda, I guess. But they do a little bit more.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:26)
And this is a competitor of the Palisade.

Nicole (26:42)
I don't know. Their designs get a little funkier in a good way in a Hyundai, in a Palisade. The Pilot plays it a little bit more safe, but it still looks really good. I think it almost is more a traditional styling for an SUV inside. If you want something that's a little out there, a little different, your friends are going to go like, Whoa, the Palisade does that a little bit better. But these are both great vehicles. Now the thing that you, even though that's not what we drove, Sam, you can get a hybrid Palisade in the Pilot, gas engine.

That's it. Now that doesn't mean there won't be a hybrid someday. Right. But right now there isn't one. It's still a couple of yards because this was a refresh. This wasn't an all new. So it's not like you have to wait that long, but you'd have to wait, wait for the next gen. So if you wanted a pilot right now, you're going to have to get a gas engine. If you want a hybrid, you can't get yourself a pilot. Go, go look at a Palisade. ⁓ so very different styling, similar attributes. think the Honda pilot is

Sam Abuelsamid (27:16)
Next Generation.

that's still a couple of years off.

Nicole (27:40)
more traditional in a lot of ways than the Palisade.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:45)
Yeah, no, I would agree with that. ⁓ the, the powertrain, how do you feel the powertrain compared to the Palisade? Do you have a preference or?

Nicole (27:57)
You

know what? Actually it was funny. And I don't know if it was because like, I have to preface this with saying we literally had air temperatures in New England that were like negative 10, negative 12, negative 15, not with a windshield, just straight up negative temps. And every car is a little bit not happy with you when the weather is that cold. So I felt like, especially when it was, I could feel this, I could feel the trans, I could feel things more of the engine, the shift, I could feel the transmission. I could feel things. It felt a little harsher.

in the Palisade that it did in the pilot, but I was driving the pilot in this beautiful, nice, relatively warm weather compared to what I was driving the Palisade in. So yeah, so in terms of though, like, like straight up acceleration, they both accelerate really strongly. One's not, but I just felt like the Honda was a little bit smoother, but I think the Palisade was, I truly think it was not loving the cold weather. What car would.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:53)
Yeah, yeah, I when it's you know, when it's sub zero temperatures, you know, nothing. Nothing's really happy.

Roberto Baldwin (28:54)
Yeah.

Nicole (28:58)
Right. And and

I'll see that like that happens in any. mean, practically any vehicle I've ever driven, if it gets cold enough here, it'll impacts the drive because I could have driven it maybe on a launch program, which is rarely someplace cold. It's normally someplace warm and toasty and it'll be fine. And then I get here and you sort of it just doesn't it doesn't like cars don't like cold weather. Doesn't matter whether electric or not. They really don't like it.

Roberto Baldwin (29:22)
Yeah, they're

not fans.

Nicole (29:24)
I remember having my, my a million years ago, my manual transmission Jetta. got cold enough once that I couldn't, I was like trying to shift and like, couldn't shift the gear show. was like, I had two hands. I'm like, I need, yeah. And I was like, I need to go to work. Please work for me. Please.

Roberto Baldwin (29:34)
⁓ yeah. The viscosity is, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:43)
Well, last

week it was cold enough here that the garage door would not fully close. It opened up and then when we went to close it, it wouldn't go all the way down because there's force sensor on the garage door opener. Because it's meant for safety. So if there's something blocking the garage door, if there's too much force, then it backs up and won't close.

Roberto Baldwin (29:59)
⁓

Nicole (30:01)
⁓ yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:11)
reached up and pushed on it, I could get it to close. So I actually had to go out and adjust the force sensor on the garage door opener to give it a little bit more effort so that it would actually close and open fully ⁓ when it was sub-zero.

Nicole (30:23)
that's kind of funny.

Wow. Yeah. See, so cold weather. I hate to get anything for that, but like in my experience these two weeks, yeah, that was the difference. was because it was, but it's because of the cold. When I drove this before, I did not have that sense at all. So.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:31)
Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Cool. Well, what about the prelude? You, you got to spend a little more time with the prelude. I mean, you, drove it last fall. ⁓ and as, as did I in Japan.

Nicole (30:55)
Yeah. So I drove it.

Yes. ⁓ so I had the chance to drive the prelude and I, so here's the thing people are, it's very weird to me how people are either loving or hating this car for the same exact reason. It's not a pure sports car. doesn't do what it was supposed to do. It's not fast enough. It's not sporty enough. This doesn't live up to the prelude was never this.

And I think I said this last week, it was never this like monster sports car. It never was. It just, that's not what the prelude was. I actually really like this car. Right. And they made it very clear in the presentation, like they talked about that because I think they're very aware of the criticism. And they're like, if you want that, go get a type R. That's not what this is. This is intended to be more of a tour, like to be a little bit less harsh than a pure performance car, to be a little bit, have some of the fun.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:29)
There was never a Type R Prelude.

Nicole (31:51)
but to not be quite as over the top. So it's a little bit more, I don't know, it's a little bit more everyday usable, honestly. It still has a Civic Type R suspension bits in it, so it handles beautifully. The thing that they added in for their, yeah, and for the brakes, I mean for the brakes, they have a hybrid system and it has this new stuff, this S plus shift technology. So there isn't a transmission to shift in this, but dang, it makes you think that there is.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:05)
and bricks.

Nicole (32:21)
You can hear it. You can feel it. The upshifts, the downshifts when you put it in, I want to say it's just called sport mode, but I may have go, but it's basically their sport mode. It gets even more aggressive and the downshifts you think you're hearing it like rev matching. Like it's, it's really cool. It's really well done. I

Sam Abuelsamid (32:37)
Well, actually, that's the thing. You

actually are hearing the engine because the way the Honda hybrid system works, the engine's decoupled. So you're actually hearing the engine revving up and down the way you would when you're rev matching.

Nicole (32:41)
Right.

Right. And it's, it's, but like, despite there not being a transmission to make it, it's just, it is a really well done vehicle and I thoroughly enjoy this. And also it's kind of neat. So the, I thought this was kind of fun. The bolstering it's higher on the driver's side than it is on the passenger side. Cause it's assuming that you're going to have a little more fun when you're driving the car on your own. So the bolstering actually differs on the two seats. That's just wild to me. I don't know that I've seen that in another car. So I really,

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought this was a fun car. I had a good time driving it. I didn't really have any complaints. I remember the old prelude. I remember driving the old last generation or maybe I think prelude is what I drove, but it was

Am I still here or did I lose you?

Sam Abuelsamid (33:38)
Yeah, your video froze, but you can still hear your audio. So just keep talking.

Nicole (33:42)
Okay.

All right. I'm having troubles. My computer, if I log out, I'll be back. I think it was like, enjoy driving it and I felt like that compared to what I remember of the old prelude, it's this is the old prelude, but for this era, it's, it does, you know, I think it's a good, it legacy wise, I think it's a great car. I like it. I think it's a little on the pricier side. That's probably its biggest drawback.

but I really truly enjoyed driving it. Did you like driving the Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid (34:15)
I enjoyed it a lot and you know, yes, it's not cheap, but it's also, you know, it's kind of, it splits the difference between price wise between a type R and the Civic sport touring hybrid, which, you know, so the, I think the sport touring hybrids about 36, 36, 37, you know, this is 42,000 and the type R is 47.

You know, so it's in between those. And considering you're getting a lot of the Type R hardware apart from the engine, you're getting the suspension, the brakes, you're getting a different body style. ⁓ So you're getting some of the best bits of the Type R apart from the engine and the six speed gearbox. You're getting all the other good stuff. And you're getting the Honda hybrid system, which right now I think is probably the best mainstream hybrid system out there.

I've been writing some comparisons recently of different hybrids and the Honda system, I much prefer it to the Toyota hybrid system. So I think it's much more pleasant to drive. ⁓ It's certainly more sporty feeling because you've got a lot more electric power in there. You ⁓ got 181 horsepower from the electric drive motor. most of the, it's more like, in many ways, it's more like driving an EV.

but you've got the engine there and you're actually hearing the engine revving and ⁓ hearing the engine sounds. So it's more fun to drive. ⁓ like you said, the Prelude was never a hardcore sports car. This is what a Prelude always has been.

Roberto Baldwin (36:06)
It was never like a hardcore sports car. was never, it never went up against, you know, like a WRX or, you know, a Type R or a Golf 32, R32 or Golf R or, know, it never went up against any of those vehicles. It was definitely always sort of a...

Sam Abuelsamid (36:18)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even, through the nineties,

you know, when they had the Acura Integra type R they, you know, there was never, you it was, there was never really direct competition between the Integra and the Prelude. The Prelude was always, you know, something a little bit different. And I, you know, I think it works.

Nicole (36:32)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (36:36)
Yeah.

Nicole (36:36)
Right?

Roberto Baldwin (36:38)
Yeah.

Nicole (36:38)
Yeah, I think it works. Some people are like really truly hating on it, which makes me sad.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:43)
And just you know, just fold

that backseat down never touch it again Don't bother trying to put anybody back there because they're not gonna be happy Just just leave the backseat folded and you got a nice big cargo area, you know Sure, you know you and your you and your partner, know Take weekend getaways you can throw all your stuff in the in the back there And just have some fun

Roberto Baldwin (36:44)
You

Nicole (36:49)
my God, 100%. Yep.

Roberto Baldwin (36:51)
You

Nicole (36:55)
Hahaha.

Exactly. Yeah, so I liked it. Thumbs up.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:09)
Awesome. All right. ⁓ Robbie, were you went to Germany.

Roberto Baldwin (37:13)
Yo!

I did go to Germany. I just got back yesterday. I'm very tired. I saw something I'm not allowed to talk about for a long time. And then I saw... I went to the end of... It is! It is. There's always like one thing you can talk about like right away that you've seen before. And then there's something you can't talk about for months and months. That's how... Which is great because it gives me multiple... There's multiple reasons for me to go to...

Sam Abuelsamid (37:19)
What did you see in Germany?

Isn't that usually the way this when you go to a Mercedes thing?

Roberto Baldwin (37:41)
another country versus like, come all the way over here and see one thing. And I'm like, that's a long way to go. ⁓ I think I've talked about how these trips are not ⁓ as glamorous as you think. I was in Germany for less than 36 hours, I think this time because my flight was delayed. Anywho, I saw the unveiling of the new S-Class. this is sort of, this is the Mercedes-Benz. When Mercedes-Benz talks about being

Nicole (37:53)
Mm-mm. Nope.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:54)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (38:11)
you know, a luxury automaker, it's talking about the S-Class. The S-Class is the vehicle for the CEO, the vehicle for the, you know, the C-suite executive who is like, hey, look what I got. It's either the one you drive or the one you're driven in. Either way, it's the S-Class. They have updated the design a bit. It looks more traditional than the previous version, you know, especially up in the front.

Nicole (38:26)
Ha

Roberto Baldwin (38:40)
You can now get a hood ornament in certain regions, but the hood ornament lights up. Ooh, yeah. They told us that they've worked so hard to get that hood ornament to work because there's all these, so in some regions you just can't have the hood ornament. Sorry, you're not gonna get it. But in others you can have it, but you can't see it. You're not supposed to be able to see it from the driver's position. There's a lot of passenger.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:48)
No.

Nicole (39:04)
Why can't we have it everywhere? What's the reason?

Sam Abuelsamid (39:09)
pedestrian protection.

Roberto Baldwin (39:09)
⁓

predestined? Yeah, just stabbing people in the gut with your, ⁓

Nicole (39:10)
stupid pedestrians. Okay. That's so annoying. Just stand in the way of the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:16)
See, here in America, it's

like if you're walking, that's your problem.

Roberto Baldwin (39:21)
Yeah, America is very much like, hey, that's what you get. ⁓ It's still, you know, so beyond the fancy light up an ornament, this vehicle is, you know, it's software defined vehicle. They're using MBOS, which we've seen on the CLA. ⁓ So what it does is it allows, it gives Mercedes the ability to control more of the systems in the vehicle with fewer ⁓ chaos.

with less chaos, how's that? Fewer chaos. ⁓ But let's say, you've obviously seen in the past, ⁓ suddenly a supplier can't get you a part. So now you got a new supplier. So now you got to work with the supplier in that software and the suppliers work with you in your software. So now you got to essentially create a Rosetta stone in order for those things to work. That's sort of gone now with software defined vehicles. That's sort of the big deal is the ability to quickly swap out, ⁓ to cut development time.

Nicole (39:51)
Fewer chaos. Fewer chaos.

Roberto Baldwin (40:18)
to make the vehicle more efficient ⁓ and to reduce the amount of wiring that's in cars, just make them lighter. For the average person, it means that you're gonna get over the air updates to your car. Yay. So your car doesn't, it isn't a static thing anymore. You can, you know, you buy a car in the 90s, that's the car forever.

Nicole (40:31)
You

Sam Abuelsamid (40:38)
Yeah. A few years ago, I was

Nicole (40:38)
What's what you had.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:41)
working on a research project for a client. ⁓ And they, they, among other things, they made wiring harnesses and they were telling me about how the wiring harness for the S class, and this was probably about 2018, 2019, the wiring harness for the S class was so big and bulky that each, each one for a single car was shipped in its own separate container. ⁓ And

Nicole (41:07)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:09)
before they could install it into the vehicle, they would take it out of the shipping container and it would go through an oven, a heating oven, to warm it up because the wiring harness is made of copper wire and plastic insulation, to warm it up, to make it pliable enough so that they could actually maneuver it into the body of the vehicle. And it took like nine people to get the wiring harness into the car.

Roberto Baldwin (41:21)
it's like...

Yeah.

Nicole (41:33)
my gosh.

Roberto Baldwin (41:36)
So yeah,

Nicole (41:36)
Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (41:37)
so software-defined vehicles, sort of stop most of that. So building the car is less of a pain in the ass. ⁓ So yeah, so as the MBOS, has the super screen, not the hyper screen. So it a super screen, so everything is landscape, but there's, in the CLA, everything looks very flush. Everything looks, you know, the screen, they just to each other. With the S-

Nicole (41:40)
Ha!

Sam Abuelsamid (41:44)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (42:03)
There's like these big black gaps, which feels just weird for the the top tier vehicle I think that's my big knock on this vehicle right now is the super screen because it doesn't feel as premium as What is already out there and other Mercedes vehicles? ⁓ It's still running MBUX. I believe it's the yes. It is the fourth generation of MBUX. I like MBUX I like the zero layer. I think I've talked about that before essentially They're just like here's the map and then widgets for the things that you use the most

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. It seems like a no-brainer and yet other people can't seem to figure it out. It is like the sort of infotainment system that I don't revert, after I've tested it, revert directly back to ⁓ car play when I'm driving. So, yeah. So everyone else out there, I guess, just steal from Mercedes? I don't know.

Nicole (42:59)
steal from Mercedes.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:59)
Well, I you know, mean, the

rest of the industry has been doing that for about 140 years now.

Roberto Baldwin (43:04)
That's true. also the day that the event was held was the 140th year. It's the anniversary of the, of Carl Benz like doing the patent for the first automobile. So 140 years of cars. They had a big picture of the, the, the, the patent form, which I shot video of, which when my S-Class video goes up, hopefully this week, I will have something that you can look at it.

Nicole (43:05)
Seriously.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:11)
anniversary.

Nicole (43:27)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (43:34)
I don't know why I thought like, ooh, paperwork. I got some sweets. So look beyond the lookout for sweet sweet video of paperwork. That's it. ⁓ They are bringing like everyone else, AI assistants into the vehicle. They're gonna have like, I know, they're gonna have Bing and then like ⁓ Gemini. I know Bing. And chat GPT4. ⁓ The idea is that you'll ask

Nicole (43:37)
Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (43:52)
oooo ⁓

yay, bang, really?

Nicole (44:01)
my God.

Roberto Baldwin (44:04)
Mercedes a question, or ⁓ Mercedes assisted a question and it'll ask like all of these systems and then the best answer like Mercedes will determine like, okay, these two suck. This was the best one and it'll serve you up that one. Sure, why not? I guess, I don't know. I some of the things are here. Okay. ⁓ Let's see what else. la la la, we talked about that.

Oh, their driver's assistants, they're gonna have the Drive Assist Pro, you know, seen on the CLA. I went on that drive, I have a video somewhere about me in that car of that drive. I didn't drive, I just sat in the passenger seat, because it's relatively new, it's supposed to be at the of the year for CLA. They will also, and that's a level two system, they'll call it level two plus, it's all level two, hands on, eyes on.

They have the level three system that'll be coming to the vehicle towards the end of sometime this year, which is hands off, eyes off. We already have that in the current, ⁓ the S-Class, I'm assuming it's gonna be better. ⁓ And that's only available in California, Nevada, so.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:18)
It's got, it's got,

well, yeah, but they also recently announced that they were discontinuing that. ⁓ The current drive pilots, level three drive pilot system. ⁓ So, you hopefully this next generation will be much more capable than that.

Roberto Baldwin (45:25)
Yeah, I think that... ⁓

I think, yeah, I think they're gonna, I would rather they err on the side of safety and be like, you know what, this isn't good enough, then just push forward. That's my biggest thing. Like, well, just keep going if it's not working right. Well, just keep going. No. Please make it better. Mercedes is talking about launching a robo taxi partnership. They're gonna be working with Nvidia, with the Hyperion. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (45:43)
yeah.

Nicole (45:43)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:52)
make make it better first

Nicole (45:55)
Hold and make it work. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (46:06)
that NVIDIA's drive Hyperion architecture and then their drive AV software level four. ⁓ And they're going to work with Lumo and Uber. The first vehicles with the first robo taxis will be in Abu Dhabi ⁓ later this year. So if you happen to be in Abu Dhabi and you need a robo taxi, probably in December or November, you can have a Mercedes pick you up. That's level four. That means the car drives itself.

Nicole (46:30)
There you go.

Roberto Baldwin (46:34)
but it still has steering wheel and all the other stuff in case you need to get away from someone. You just jump in the front, take over and run off.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:42)
So for

those first applications, is that just going to be running the NVIDIA Hyperion Drive Stack? So the whole software and hardware stack?

Roberto Baldwin (46:48)
Yes, that's what... Yeah,

at the event, suddenly, like, the CEO just appeared in a video, like, on this giant wall. I was like, ah, all right. Yeah, Jensen showed up. He's wearing a nice jacket. He's wearing, like, same jacket he's been wearing for last 25 years.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:58)
Jensen Jensen Wong.

He actually changes those around. They're not, it's not always the same. No, cause if you, if you watch the style changes, it's always like some sort of black leather jacket, but there's been multiple different variations of it. Like the one he, the one he wore at CES this year for his keynote was like the shiny crocodile thing. And it was quite different from the ones I've seen before.

Roberto Baldwin (47:11)
It's not exactly.

Yeah

He's

⁓ Yeah, it's it adjusts with time.

He's like the Fonz of Silicon. So yeah, so, you know, of course everyone's been having, know, everyone has Tesla, Zooks, but the problem with the robotaxis is that there are always problems with robotaxis. So we'll see how Mercedes goes. You know, they're really about, ⁓ they talk about redundancies and the sensors and the braking and the power.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:31)
Yeah.

Nicole (47:31)
He's the fun.

Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (47:53)
and the Accelerate, everything has redundancy. So we'll see how that works out. In US, we're only gonna get the 4MATIC S-Class. You got three motors. You have ⁓ the mild hybrid, three liter inline six. You have a plug-in hybrid, three liter inline six. And then for the person who's just like, woo, party, you get the S58. It's got a four liter twin turbo mild hybrid V8. And it'll do 530 horsepower.

553 pound feet of torque. They did some updates to the engine so it could get more powerful. ⁓ One of the fun things that ⁓ I got to ride in the back of one months and months and months ago, ⁓ I think who has, Audi, where you're driving and the camera sees the road and the camera sees the pothole so it primes the suspension in order to absorb the impact of the pothole to the occupants.

what Mercedes is doing is it's using ⁓ essentially vehicle to vehicle or vehicle to cloud and then it just shares it. So if one Mercedes S-Class drives over this pothole, it notes the exact location of that pothole and it tells all the other Mercedes S-Classes that there is a pothole there. So now every vehicle that drives down that road ⁓ will prime itself for that pothole. Woo. Yeah.

Nicole (49:17)
I like that idea, so you don't

nail a pothole. That's kind of cool, actually.

Roberto Baldwin (49:20)
And then I asked him a ton of questions. like, well, how often, you know, when does it change? Like, what is it? I go to someone, if they fill the pothole, how long does it take to update it? Like, yeah, ⁓ I got really nerdy. I don't remember them.

Nicole (49:30)
Yeah, long before your car veers around a filled pothole.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:37)
run around here. That's not so much of a problem. You don't have to worry about them filling potholes.

Roberto Baldwin (49:40)
Yeah, they're

like, nah, it'll be fine. Like the previous Mercedes S-Class and AQS, has rear steering, which is great for these large vehicles. Once you drive a large sedan or a large vehicle with rear steering, you wonder why someone who puts out a large vehicle or a large sedan, a large SUV or a large sedan, why they don't have rear steering. ⁓ So yeah, obviously I haven't driven it yet. ⁓ It is, ⁓ yeah, so yeah, that's the...

Nicole (49:41)
Right? Yeah, exactly. It's never going to be an issue in New England either.

Roberto Baldwin (50:10)
the S class, ⁓ I think they're sort of trying to have both ways, make it look more traditional while adding a bunch more of their technology.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:20)
It does look like it has

a significantly larger grill than before.

Roberto Baldwin (50:23)
It does.

It's a more, it's a less, less curt or has the angles been reduced and it looks very like, yes. And so it does look a little bit more of a traditional versus I think the trying to, I think the, the, the, the sting of the EQS still is there. I think the, ⁓ and any of the S-class, you know, previous dervishes are the current version S-class. It doesn't look like the EQS, it doesn't look like a little pill. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (50:30)
More vertical.

Nicole (50:43)
This stinkin'

Roberto Baldwin (50:50)
but it is very swoopy and bulbous ⁓ a little bit more. This sort of backtracks on that. to be honest, whether or not we like it, I think the average Mercedes S-Class ⁓ owner is probably gonna like it more because I think they do like it sort of like traditional like this. am not, I'm in very nice suit. I'm not flashy.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:13)
the rich potentates

Nicole (51:14)
in

a very nice suit.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:14)
who ride around in the backseat of an S class, will enjoy this. They will appreciate it.

Roberto Baldwin (51:16)
will be very they

will enjoy this they will appreciate it. Yeah, so yeah, that's the new S class. ⁓ It's ⁓ everyone get excited if you're rich.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:29)
Well, I guess I don't need to get inside excited.

Roberto Baldwin (51:34)
Sam Smith sang at the event, which I didn't know. He looks a little bit like a pirate, but he has a very good voice. Yeah, I know. Well, Mercedes loves having music at its events. The first Mercedes event was in Frankfurt, and they put on a musical, a literal musical about the vehicles they were showing off. I was like, what is happening? And I was with Tim Stevens, and Tim Stevens just bummed me. like, don't worry, it's like this all the time.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:41)
okay.

Nicole (51:42)
that's cool. I mean, you have to have somebody fancy, I guess, right? ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (52:01)
But back when you know when the Detroit Auto Show was still a thing that you know automakers actually participated in Mercedes always used to do an event the night before on you know on the Saturday night before the show And you know they would always have some some singer some some musical performer ⁓ At their event you know they would they would have the unveiling of some new new vehicle, and then they would ⁓ have you know have somebody come out and

form. So that's yeah, that's that's a long, long standing Mercedes tradition.

Nicole (52:36)
Do you remember the one they did in, I think it was in Detroit, the auto show once, they had Arnold Schwarzenegger there. Do you remember Arnold? He was there once at one of their reveals they did for, they did a thing with a G-Wagon. They came running out of all the different directions and Arnold got out of one. Yes, that one. It's like an old, it was an old ⁓ theater that has been converted in sort of an event space. So a lot of it's like raw,

Sam Abuelsamid (52:47)
I don't remember that one. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. When they launched the previous John G Wagon. Yeah, I do remember that. That was in I forget the name of the building.

Roberto Baldwin (52:49)
Really?

Sam Abuelsamid (53:03)
Yeah.

Nicole (53:05)
brick edges and stuff, it's a really cool space.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:07)
Yeah,

okay, yeah, now I remember that.

Nicole (53:10)
How

Roberto Baldwin (53:10)
They, so

they had, I don't know. So I think, you know, Sam Smith, I think works really well for the S-Class owner. And for the G-Wagon, they had Travis Scott ⁓ for that event in LA. And I think that works really well for ⁓ that vehicle as well. I mean, that's essentially an Instagram vehicle at this point.

Nicole (53:11)
could you forget Arnold?

Sam Abuelsamid (53:30)
Yeah, true.

Nicole (53:30)
Yeah,

basically.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:33)
All right. Well, since you brought up software defined vehicles, Robbie, ⁓ let's talk about the pioneer of software defined vehicles, the Tesla Model S. ⁓ Tesla had their Q4 earnings call earlier this week, and we're not going to get too much into the, we're not going to get into the financials, except to say that, you know, as expected, their profits were down substantially, you know, and

Roberto Baldwin (53:37)
Siddiff, Siddiffs.

Dun dun dun.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:03)
their revenues were down. The only thing that went up, I think, was their revenues on ⁓ energy storage systems because of all the data centers that they're selling batteries for to support these things. But everything else was down. ⁓ as part of, during the earnings call, ⁓ Elon Musk announced that they are winding down production of the Tesla Model S and Model X. ⁓ The Model S was Tesla's first

volume production vehicle. They built the Roadster for about three years, built about 2,100 of the original Roadsters and then stopped ⁓ while they tooled up the former NUMI factory to build the Model S and started building that in fall of 2012. ⁓ And that's been their longest running product and it's going away at the end of this quarter. ⁓

So divide the other you to ever drive the model S.

Nicole (55:03)
I have,

Roberto Baldwin (55:03)
I've driven a lot.

I've driven a plethora of Model S's outside of the very current, you know, the current versions because Tesla does... Well, it's not that Tesla doesn't like me. Elon doesn't like me.

Nicole (55:06)
Ooh, a plethora, wow.

Elon has a personal beef with you.

Roberto Baldwin (55:21)
He's, he's, ⁓ I, there's a, I, there's, ⁓ it's, I don't, it's a long story. It's, there's a bunch of long stories about, yeah. Anyway, ⁓ yeah, Model S.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:21)
He's got beefs with a lot of people.

Everybody in this

business has stories about Elon.

Roberto Baldwin (55:34)
Yeah, there's a lot of, let's just say there's a lot of phone calls with people being, people yelling at me while they're simultaneously being yelled at by Elon Musk. That's what I can, I think I could say that. Nah, it doesn't matter. I said it.

Nicole (55:38)
Hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:47)
Yeah,

doesn't those people probably aren't a Tesla anymore anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (55:51)
yeah, most of them have left, ⁓ but yeah, he's gotten very upset with me on more than a few occasions. Whatever. My job isn't to make people happy. My job is to tell the truth.

Nicole (55:51)
Right, if it was more than a day ago, who knows?

Sam Abuelsamid (56:04)
mean, if

Elon hasn't been mad at you at some point, you aren't doing your job in this business.

Roberto Baldwin (56:12)
That's the other weird thing, like you can say things about a car with most other automakers and they're like, alright. The PR people are like, well you're doing your job, I'm gonna do my job and you know, maybe we'll find a happy medium or whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:21)
Yeah. You know, if you if you got something

Nicole (56:22)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:25)
factually wrong, you know, they'll let you know about it. But you know, if you just don't like something and, you know, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (56:30)
Yeah, I just don't like this thing. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (56:35)
Well, anyway, the Model S was the first car that could really classify as a software-defined vehicle. In fact, think within less than a month after they started customer deliveries, they did their first ever over-the-air software update with that, because there were some issue with the batteries. And so they pushed out an OTA update, and they've been doing updates on Model S's and every other Tesla ever since then.

⁓ you know, it was the first one to adopt an electronic architecture that was fully updatable, you know, because the, to that point, you know, every other vehicle, the, way the electronic architecture was set up, know, automakers would buy a feature from a supplier, like say electronic stability control or power steering system. And that came, you know, that feature came with a set of sensors, some actuators and an electronic control unit.

with some embedded software and the supplier controlled that software. it was not, while in many cases it could be updated, ⁓ the software could be updated. It had to be done with a diagnostic tool plugged into the vehicle. had to have physical access to the vehicle. The vehicles weren't architected to allow for software updates to be done over the air. Tesla was the first to do that. ⁓ And the Model S,

you know, was a pioneer in many ways.

Roberto Baldwin (58:06)
Oh yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, I like the Model S. I think, I mean, it has a dash cluster, which is cool. The ability to, to, to do software updates. mean, the, you know, when I've talked to it, when I've been at Tesla talking to engineers there, it is really, I think a lot of people are like, well, Elon came up to the site. Not really. It's so much like the, the, engineers, team there, especially with the Model S, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid (58:15)
Yeah.

Nicole (58:17)
Heh.

Roberto Baldwin (58:35)
I don't know what's happened the last couple of years because no one's allowed to talk to Tesla anymore. But previously, that was such, like people would just come up with a really good idea. Like the route planning with charging along the way, that just, some random engineer was like, hey, what if we did this? And it was like, that's a good idea. And then they just built it and then pushed it out. Ta-da.

Nicole (58:53)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:55)
Yeah.

mean, you know, there's, there's a lot of stuff that Tesla has pushed out that is pretty trivial. Um, you know, but, but, yeah, but, you know, and, know, like the holiday light shows and things like that, but you know what the customers like it. It doesn't hurt anybody. You know, yeah, it's, it's doesn't, you know, it's not, it doesn't add to the functionality of the vehicle in most cases, but you know, it's fun and it makes you feel like, you know, you've got something that is

Roberto Baldwin (59:03)
farts and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:24)
continuously evolving, you whereas you buy any other car and what rolled out of the factory is generally what's going to be there or, or less, you know, degraded form of that for the next 10, 15, 20 years until that car goes to the scrap yard. And, you know, these

Roberto Baldwin (59:42)
Yeah,

my 2014 BRZ is never gonna get a better infotainment system. Infotainment system, which, yeah, that horrible infotainment system in that car is never going to get better.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:47)
No, not unless you rip out the stock one and put in an aftermarket system.

Yeah, but you know what? That car is so much fun to drive. Who cares?

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:01)
Yeah,

I don't really care. I can plug my phone into it and I can listen to CDs. It's the perfect car. It's the perfect head unit.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:10)
You got any thoughts on the Model S, Nicole?

Nicole (1:00:13)
I mean, I think it had its time, and I think Elon has always been, he's never been about just being a car company. He's long talked about how he has aspirations for our bond, so as he integrates things like SpaceX and the Grok, the AI thing, I always think he's changing stuff around for whatever grand plan he has in his head. So it doesn't shock me in the least. It doesn't, so.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:38)
Yeah,

I mean, they haven't fundamentally changed the Model S since 2012. Yeah. They've done some tweaks, know, they've given it more power, a little more battery, more range. You know, they updated the interior a little bit, but it's still fundamentally the same car. And it's funny, was, you know, was looking at, I was watching a video earlier this morning. Yeah, somebody had a 2016,

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:44)
Yeah, it's pretty much the same car. It just faster. Okay.

Nicole (1:00:52)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:08)
16 or 17 model S had 260,000 miles on it. It's still going pretty strong. Actually just ran into the first problem with the battery ⁓ where ⁓ it had a bad cell somewhere. So there's a cell imbalance. So it worked great until it got down to about 20 % state of charge and then started dropping off rapidly. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:30)
⁓ yeah, because

Tesla gives you the entire battery. There's no gross versus usable. They give you the entire battery to use. So when something goes wrong, it can't redirect to, you know, it can't stop using that cell. It just keeps going.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:35)
Yeah.

Yeah. But most Teslas, the guys at TFL last year, I think, they bought a used Model S, I a 2013 or 14 Model S, had about 100,000 miles on it. It still had over 90 % of its original capacity in the battery. Yeah, so these things, the batteries at least hold up pretty well. Maybe not some of the other parts, some of the other parts.

Nicole (1:02:03)
Mm, that's not bad.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:14)
you know they've had issues with drive motors and suspensions that fail

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:17)
Damn.

Tesla suspension is so, it got worse with the Model S and the Model Y. They just fall apart. They're just horrible, horrible glass suspension system.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:31)
Yeah. But, ⁓ you know, sales of the model S and the X, you know, and the, you know, the, X, you know, I never cared for that one. I never drove an X, but I've ridden in them several times over the years. You know, that those ridiculous doors, it was just dumb, but

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:47)
It was a

last minute ad by Elon. The engineers were very upset about it. I wanted to do this and then they had nothing but problems with it. And when I reviewed it, they gave me the wrong car, so they gave me pre-production and the door, it wouldn't close all the way and at one point it hit my cameraman on the head, even though it's not supposed to do that. It just came down and whacked him on the head. was, yeah, it was a huge misstep to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:52)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, friend of the show, Leo Laporte, you know, he had a Model X, you he bought one when it first came out. Uh, that was his first EV and, his wife, Lisa would, you know, not long afterwards, you know, she, you know, he, he had to start, um, you know, yelling out whenever he was closing the doors just to alert her because she got bonked on the head multiple times by those things.

And, you know, they also had a bunch of other issues with it. And she hated driving that thing. She, after a while, she just would not drive it at all. But, ⁓ yeah, you know, those, those vehicles, you know, were important in the evolution of the modern vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:48)
Yeah. Yeah, I don't blame her.

Yeah,

Nicole (1:04:02)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:02)
I

think the S, especially because the S was allowed to be built and designed and engineered by people who knew what they're doing, to be honest. That's what it really comes down to. And then the X, know, people started sort of, yes, whatever Elon says, and then by the three and the Y, was very much like, well... And then everyone in their right mind would say, hey, let's build this...

Nicole (1:04:08)
Mm-hmm.

Things go a little, yeah, changed over the years.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:24)
And then Elon lost interest and started doing other stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:27)
Yeah, and then there's all the other stuff outside of the engineering of the vehicles. But yeah, the S was like sort of the last like truly like this is built by people who know what they're doing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:37)
Yeah, so the space where the S and the X assembly lines were in the Fremont factory ⁓ is now going to be revamped to build Optimus robots because we all want those, right?

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:51)
So now I know where to go to stop the robot uprising. I'm like...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:55)
Ha

Nicole (1:04:55)
But

be fair, Hyundai is building robots too. They're going to be building the Boston Dynamics robots.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:56)
ha ha

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:58)
Yeah, but

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:59)
⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:00)
they've been building those robots for... Boston Dymac's been doing this for generations and decades. And to be honest, the Humanoid one, I'm like, sure, whatever. But they have... I feel like that's just like, I guess if Tesla will do it, we'll do it because stocks. A lot of these, think Humanoid robot is like ⁓ some self-driving, it's just a stock play. Just say you're doing it and you'll get your stock market, your stock price will go up.

Nicole (1:05:04)
Yes, yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:16)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:05:26)
It'll be interesting. Yeah. I think that'll

be interesting to see if that goes anywhere, you know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:30)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:31)
so.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:32)
I I

just, I could just think when I see my dogs knocking one over, like just constantly. Can it survive walking Bowie the German Shepherd?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:40)
The problem

is if they knock it over and it falls on them, that's the problem. They're very heavy. don't want one of those things falling on ⁓ Nico especially. She's the smaller one, right? Yeah. All right. Well, one more thing related to Tesla. ⁓ Some ⁓ new data came out this week about crashes with their Austin Robo taxi fleet.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:45)
⁓ yeah.

Nicole (1:05:46)
They are heavy.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:53)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:09)
And keep in mind, there's only about 20 of these vehicles. ⁓ And this is data from the NHTSA Standing General Order. So, you know, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires any manufacturer doing level two or above vehicles to report any crash that happens while the system is active. And so there were between July and November of 2025.

uh... tesla reported nine crashes involving its robot taxi fleet there's only twenty of these vehicles on the nine crashes uh... and uh... with the uh... uh... you know that the mileage uh... generally uh... for police reported crashes there's there's about one crash every five hundred thousand miles of this is all crashes not just fatal crashes uh... for these uh...

worked out to, what is it, think about 25,000 miles between crashes or less than that.

Nicole (1:07:12)
for the Tesla one,

what is it for all, for all robotaxis?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:16)
⁓ We don't know. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:19)
This is the problem

is that they don't have to report detailed information. This is one of the huge, huge issues with robotactives. They're beta testing these vehicles on our roads, but they're not report and NHTSA isn't forcing them to report more detailed information about them. And also whenever they come out and like, ⁓ our cars, we don't have crashes for a million miles. I'm like, well, compared to regular drivers, well, regular drivers drive.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:23)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:07:30)
Mm.

Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:43)
around the world and these vehicles are driving in very specific geo-fenced areas under very specific conditions. So it's like saying, know, it's like, well, if I sit in a white room that doesn't have anything in it, that person in that room will have fewer accidents than a person who just travels out into the universe of everything else that's going on in the world.

Nicole (1:07:47)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:03)
Plus, we're also comparing, yeah, so the number works out to, ⁓ Tesla said there was 500,000 miles on the fleet as of November 2025. So that's one crash about every 55,000 miles. So it's nine times worse than human drivers. ⁓ And that's ⁓ not great. And to what you were saying, Robbie, about the environment that they drive in. ⁓

all of these robo taxis are geofenced and they're generally only operating in urban areas and generally at lower speeds. But when you look at the general population of crashes, like half of all fatal crashes happen on rural roads. ⁓ So it's in a completely different region, different area, different environment than where robo taxis are operating. And so it's

You know, it's not real, you know, we, and we don't have enough granular data, crash data to really do a direct comparison. But from what we've seen so far, they're not necessarily any safer than human drivers yet. ⁓ and in fact, there was an incident, last week in Santa Monica with a Waymo where a Waymo robot taxi struck, ⁓ a little girl. ⁓ you know, according to, to Waymo,

⁓ She walked out from behind a parked SUV and the Waymo was going about 17 miles an hour at the time. ⁓ Detected her when she stepped out, know, but the problem with sensors just as with our eyes were limited to line of sight. You know, if there's somebody walking out from behind a parked vehicle and you can't see them, you know, until they step out, that's when you can react. You know, and the, the robot taxi slammed on the brakes.

struck her at about six miles an hour. So I guess, you know, some minor injuries, but nothing, nothing major, but still struck, struck a child. ⁓ and you know, we don't have enough data from all these companies to really make a good judgment as to how safe they really are, which is why, you know, we need some sort of independent, testing methodology and, and independent evaluation of these vehicles. You know, when, you or I want to get a driver's license,

We have to go down to the DMV, we have to take a written test, we have to take an eye test to prove that we could see and recognize what different traffic signs are, and we have to take a driving test. And none of that is true for any of these automated vehicles. There is no independent evaluation of these vehicles.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:42)
It's essentially telling me you just call the DMV and be like, nah, I'm good. And they're like, all right, cool, here's your license.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:48)
Yeah,

pretty much.

Nicole (1:10:50)
I can do this. Sure. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:52)
I got this.

I got this. You just send them a little email and then your license comes in the mail in two weeks. I got this.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:01)
So Yeah, so, know if you see if you happen to be in Austin you see a Tesla robotaxi, know, be careful around it Yeah, see let's try and try and avoid it

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:13)
That's one of the really weird issues with self-driving vehicles is that the line of sight, the eye contact that you make with a driver, ⁓ whether you're walking or driving or whatever, that's actually quite important. Yeah, you understand, like, I understand what this, I mostly understand what this person is going to do, and typically, you should just do the thing you're supposed to do. If it's your turn at the stop sign to go, go. Don't let other people.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:24)
Yeah, the nonverbal communications that we have.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:39)
Go, just do the thing you're supposed to do. And people can, you know, people wave each other, but with, self-driving vehicles, there, there's, there, there isn't that. And right now there's, you know, we're talking, you know, we're putting lights on them. That's a show that it's in self-driving mode, but it's still, there is no like that, that, that weird interaction, that nonverbal interaction that we have that, but that, um, isn't, isn't there. it's, yeah. Also, it doesn't flip you off. So, I mean, how would you know if it's angry?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:41)
Yeah.

Ha

Nicole (1:12:04)
How can you even tell?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:07)
I mean, these things, you know, a lot of them do have screens on the outside. I you could throw up a throw, you know, an emoji, you know, a middle finger emoji. There you go. All right. Let's see. Rolls Royce. They're working on a next generation colonel, which is not an SUV. It's a call it a tall car. I think is their official terminology for it. Anyway, they're working on a next generation colonel and it's going to be electric.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:10)
Yeah, I could put a little... Middle finger. A little bit. Ha ha, I told you.

Nicole (1:12:12)
Right?

car.

Woo!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:41)
What do you think?

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:41)
I mean it makes sense for to be honest I think for for a lecture for ⁓ I think EVs work really well for luxury vehicles The end especially ones where the person sit in the back. They don't care if it sounds like a V8 They don't want to hear a hemi. They didn't hear mom. They want to sit there and just be quiet

Nicole (1:12:42)
⁓

Yeah?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:59)
Yeah. Well, even, even

in a, even in a V12 Rolls-Royce, it's quiet. That's the, that's the whole point of a Rolls-Royce. That's why they give them names like Spectre and Shadow and, you know, uh, and, and Ghost, know, because it's supposed to be quiet.

Nicole (1:13:08)
It's a thing. It's really quiet. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:20)
Yeah,

Nicole (1:13:20)
I mean, I guess that's great.

you think that, I mean, I, I don't, the reason I like, it's cool to give it an EV, turn it into EV and make it even quieter. do how much, does anyone care about like making every car an EV right now? Like.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:36)
Obviously not, but. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:38)
I mean,

I think most cars could and should be EVs, to be honest. I don't think most people, if they understood, like, you're gonna save some money, and you can get up every morning, your car will be charged, and you can do this, ⁓ but I think some cars should be. I think a WRX is a gas car with a manual transmission. That's what that car should be. It deserves to be that. Most cars don't deserve that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:02)
Yeah,

and especially for most Rolls Royces, know, Phantoms, Cullinans, it's usually, it's more often than not, it's not the owner driving the vehicle. They're vehicles that are bought to be driven in, not to drive. And they're usually not used for long distance road trips, you know, they're used to pick up important people from the private terminal at the airport and deliver them to, you know, to

high-end condo in Manhattan or to a fancy hotel or something like that. ⁓ electrification is perfect for those vehicles.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:42)
some sort of fancy thing that we've never seen.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:43)
Yeah. For a ghost black badge,

fine, know, keep, you know, keep the big V eight in there or V 12. But, ⁓ you know, for a lot of them, they're actually better off being electric.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:57)
And also if they're driving into the city, like, you get the taxes that they have in Europe, and this is very European vehicle. To be honest, you're just gonna sit in the back of the Cullinan and be very fancy. The end. And this is gonna make it fancier, because it's smoother, there's no more vibration. And these automakers, with the S-Class, for the Cullinan, for the 7 Series, they do so many things to separate the motor, the ⁓ sub.

subframe of the motor from the frame of the vehicle so you don't feel anything. They're doing all these things to make it quieter, to make it, to reduce vibration. They're doing all these things where they're like, if we just put an EV in it, we could sort of not do most of that.

Nicole (1:15:31)
Hahaha!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:43)
All right, let's move on. So, Ineos, the Ineos Grenadier. ⁓ What do you guys think about, you've both driven the Grenadier, right?

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:55)
We both

Nicole (1:15:55)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:56)
love the Ingridadere, even with its weird driving. We're the weirdos.

Nicole (1:15:59)
Yes. We're

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:00)
Okay.

Nicole (1:16:00)
the weirdos

who think like, I love this. I, there are a million things wrong with this. The infotainment thing is weird. You can't see it well. And the steering is kind of like, takes some time to get adjusted to. And it's not especially smooth and it's a little, I love it. I love it. There's no rationale. I love it. There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:20)
Okay,

fair enough. Well, they're making some updates to the Grenadier for model year 2026. And, you know, they had a drive out in California and David Tracy from the, Utopian got to drive it. And according to him, the steering still isn't good, but it's a little better. They put in a variable ratio steering box, made some changes to the,

Nicole (1:16:43)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:49)
to the power steering software. And it's still not good, ⁓ but it's less bad. ⁓ Also, ⁓ one thing I'm not sure I can get used to is the new emergency lane keeping system. ⁓ it doesn't have electric power steering. There's no mechanism by which to nudge the steering wheel to keep the vehicle in its lane.

Nicole (1:16:56)
It's less bad. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:16)
So for regulatory reasons, Ineos is using a lane keeping system that clamps one of the rear brakes in order to create a moment that tries to turn the vehicle. According to David, it's terrible.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:28)
Can you turn it off?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:29)
⁓ probably not.

Nicole (1:17:34)
I'm scanning through to see if we can.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:36)
Back in, I want to say it was like 2008 or so, 2008 or nine, when Infiniti launched one of the first lane keeping, lane departure prevention systems on what was then the EX-30, later got rebadged as the QX-50. They used a brake based system like that, because it had hydraulic power steering.

they, you know, if you were veering off to the left a little bit, it would give a little bit of brake torque on the right front wheel or vice versa to try to keep it in the lane. And it was not great. mean, it was, yeah, it was not a good system. And, you know, because they've got the same type of steering system on the Grenadier, that's what they've, ⁓ that's the approach they're taking on this thing as well.

And David did not like it.

Nicole (1:18:38)
Well, I'll need to drive it to see how wonky that is. I, you know, we'll see if that's enough to make me hate it. I don't know. I just like it and I like how it looks. There's something glorious. There's something gloriously impractical and unnecessary about how this is designed, but I love the look of it. I love all the switches.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:41)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:41)
Yeah, we'll see how it is.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:49)
Yeah, I it looks great, but.

I mean, I'm sure that Grenadier would have been

fantastic for you this past week in New Hampshire.

Nicole (1:19:01)
It would have been unbelievable. I could have scaled all the snow banks, problem. And I-

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:03)
Some I think some

of the issues with the steering is like getting angry because your McLaren doesn't go off-road

Nicole (1:19:11)
Mm-hmm. Like.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:13)
Oh

my, why doesn't my McLaren have a, you know, an approach angle? Yeah. Why is my approach angle in my McLaren? I'm like, that's a very specific vehicle for a very specific task. Everything else you do in the McLaren is not fun. Or a Lamborghini. I've been stuck in traffic in multiple Lamborghini Huracans. It is the worst.

Nicole (1:19:15)
Why can I not rock crawl in this? I'm so disappointed. Yeah.

Right? I feel like this is, is not what you're supposed to do. Yeah.

It's awful. Now I, and I like how it looks and I like that. I like that the company, when you talk to people that work at Ineos, like about their drives that they do, like they, they have an actual real genuine community of people and their story is just bonkers. Cool. I love them. I love Ineos. It's one of my favorite.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:41)
Yeah, they're great. They're very enthusiastic.

Nicole (1:19:54)
favorite companies and cars out there for no reason. would I recommend you buy one? Absolutely not. But I love that car. it's,

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:01)
You

buy one understanding what it is, just like you would with a super car, just like you would with, yeah, this is what it is. This is, it is not, it is.

Nicole (1:20:05)
Yes, that's it Robbie. Right? Don't, don't buy it and expect it

to handle like a nice tame SUV. It is not a Highlander. It is not. But if you want a Highlander, go get that. That's not what this is. In some ways, this is so much cooler and so much better, even though in some ways it's way worse. I love it. I love that car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:15)
It is not a Toyota Highlander. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:27)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:29)
Hopefully you can turn

off that steering. I mean, lane keep assist is a bit, I turn, I test it, it works, I turn it off. After I've done the thing, because I am a person who uses the entire lane when I drive, I don't go over the line. If you're driving on a back road or whatever and you can't stay in your lane, you're doing it wrong. Stop it. Drive better. Slow down. Do not drive beyond your capabilities and that capability means staying in your lane.

Nicole (1:20:34)
It always stinks.

Yeah, ugh.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:47)
yeah.

Nicole (1:20:49)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:50)
Slow down.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:57)
But the problem with these systems is that as you hug the inside, the system's like, no, you're getting close to the inside. Let me move you over a little bit. Like, no, no, no.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:09)
⁓ All right. Well, you know, speaking of going off road, ⁓ Genesis unveiled a new concept this week in, I think in, yeah, in the United Arab Emirates. ⁓ They call it the ⁓ X, the off road X Scorpio concept. ⁓ This thing looks kind of like something that should be running in the Dakar rally. ⁓ I don't know if they're ever going to build anything quite like this.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:15)
Woo!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:39)
⁓ But apparently it's got a high performance V8 engine with 1100 horsepower. Yeah, only 1100 horsepower. ⁓ it's riding on 40 inch off-road tires. ⁓ What do you think of this thing?

Nicole (1:21:45)
Only?

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:57)
That thing's rad.

Nicole (1:21:57)
I mean, it looks,

it looks totally right. looks like something out of a Mad Max movie, just cleaner. I mean, it's really cool. I, know, the funny thing is though, I can't figure out. I love Genesis. Like they're on my possible buy list right now, but I can't figure out, like, are you a performance car company with your magmas? Are you an off road company with your Scorpio? Are you just an affordable? Like, what are you? Like, I don't think I like, what are you right now?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:19)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:22)
I feel like

the Hyundai Motor Group, they're like one of the profitable automakers right now, they're just like, let's do some weird stuff. Let's just do some crazy weird stuff. then like, so people will talk about us. Let's just keep staying the, know, Genesis really needs people to know that Genesis is a thing. So maybe this is, of course, I don't think, yeah, like you said, I don't understand how this works with the brand at all.

Nicole (1:22:30)
Do whatever we feel like. Let's...

It does.

That's

where I'm confused. can't like, I can't figure out the brand strategy of like, we're trying to get people to understand our premium yet affordable upscale vibe and they're great cars. love Genesis's Genesis's vehicles. Genesis. I love their vehicles, but nobody ever knows what I'm driving when I'm in one, like without fail. Someone's like, what the heck is that? Nobody knows what they are. Nobody. So I would focus more on like, let's people have know what we are than trying to build a ⁓ vehicle for the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:58)
a sigh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:59)
Genocide

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:14)
Well, I think that's part of why they're getting into motorsports. So they're going to be competing in the World Endurance Championship this year. They showed us their new GMR 001 race car last year at the New York Auto Show. And ⁓ it's been testing. It's going to start the first race of the season in March ⁓ at the eight hours of Qatar. ⁓ And it's going to go to Le Mans this year, the 24-hour Le Mans.

I would not be surprised, know, mean, cause Hyundai, you know, Hyundai has been involved in motor sports as a brand for a while now. So they've been involved in rallying. They've got a touring car version of the Elantra and before that, the, ⁓ what was the little, the weird little coupe, ⁓ Blanking on it now. Veloster. Yes, the Veloster. ⁓ so they've had TCR versions of those cars and, and for world rally championship and

Nicole (1:24:04)
Blaster

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:13)
Yeah. So I think, you know, it's like Genesis, they're using the Genesis brand to go a little more extreme. And, you know, so they're taking, you know, the, the, the GMR 001 to Le Mans. I would not be surprised if we see them build, have a version of this concept to run next year in the Dakar Rally and, you know, to run in those kinds of desert rally races. And

Yeah, I think I'm guessing and you know, they don't give any details on the engine other than you know, 1100 horsepower V8. But my guess is it's based on the same V8 that's in that Le Mans car, which is based on the World Rally Championship engine. And so I would I wouldn't be surprised to see them compete with this thing and maybe build a limited run, you know, for, you know, for for some customers of these things, you know, for for

you know, for regular use. Yeah. You know, I don't think you want to use this on the road, but you know, as, as a hardcore off roader, especially, you know, and I'm not surprised that they unveiled this in the middle East. Um, you know, that's, that's kind of the market where, uh, you know, people would, you know, there's customers, high end customers that would want something like this.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:15)
You know.

Yeah, it's not gonna be cheap if they build it. It's gonna be bonkers.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:37)
No.

Yeah, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars at least.

Nicole (1:25:43)
Yeah, it's gonna be crazy.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:43)
You know,

it's going to be more than a grenadier, I can tell you that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:47)
yeah. Little bit. ⁓ all right. let's see. let's stick with Hyundai for a second. ⁓ the Santa Cruz, ⁓ the Santa Cruz, everybody got really excited when they saw first saw the concept way back in 2018 or 19 and then they built it. And then the Ford Maverick came out at the same time, cheaper, much more fuel efficient with a hybrid.

Nicole (1:25:50)
You

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:59)
Aww.

Nicole (1:26:02)
Sadness.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:16)
And everybody bought the Maverick and very few people bought the Santa Cruz. And so now they're not doing a next generation version of the Santa Cruz. It's gonna end probably at the end of this year or next year sometime.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:31)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:26:31)
We

just thought it was a cute, fun little car, it just, or truck, it just never really, trucklet, a trucklet. I guess it just never really.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:35)
Chocolate.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:39)
It's I mean the Senate that the Maverick came out at 20 the Santa Cruz came out at like 30 something and so you're like, well Hmm. I mean if you driven I driven the Santa Cruz I like this that it drives really nice that drives so much nicer than the Maverick But also does it drive well at the time $15,000 nicer?

Nicole (1:26:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:59)
Well, I really

feel like the mistake that Hyundai made with that vehicle was not putting the hybrid drivetrain in it as an option because, you know, this thing's based on a Tucson and you can get the Tucson as a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid and they never put it, even when they did the refresh, they did not put the hybrid system in there. And I think if they had done that ⁓ and offered it, you know, at a price, you know, closer to the price of the Maverick, I think it could have, I think it could have been a lot more successful.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:07)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:27:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Did they like it? They enjoy it?

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:29)
One of my neighbors bought one. got it.

So they do a Turo. So they have a lot of vehicles and they put them on Turo for people to use. I think they got the Santa. So because they buy so many cars, they got a really good deal on a used Santa Cruz. like it had like zero miles or something goofy. It's it is now their car. I think they like it so much. They don't even like it. even put it on.

Nicole (1:27:36)
⁓ yeah.

Really? See? It's like a little car,

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:57)
They're like, drives so

Nicole (1:27:57)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:58)
nice. It's like, it's there's so many things you can do with it. It's just, yeah, everything about like everything about it is like, this is great. And then you look at the price and then you look at the price in the Maverick, you're like, you know, that can be a little bit less comfortable in my car. I think is what it comes down to. Yeah. I drove it in the mountains when I drove it and I was like, wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:14)
Yeah. I mean, it's, still,

it's still a practical vehicle. mean, I've used it, you know, I've put like 12 bags of mulch in there or top, actually 12 bags of top soil in there and, you know, handled it with no problem at all. And I've used it to pull a few bales of, of straw. No problem at all. It was great.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:31)
It's just a tiny Ridgeline is what it has a little secret trunk and yeah, I think yeah, we'll see. We'll see how it, ⁓ what happens. But yeah, I was, you know, I saw them when they first came out, people bought them and then it just sort of, it tapered off really quickly, especially once the Maverick hit the market. Everyone's like, well, this is cheaper. This is a hybrid. This is, you know, so many things that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:55)
I can get

40 miles per gallon in the Maverick and 24 in the Santa Cruz.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's a hard sell. Would you like to more money and then pay more money for the of the life of the car? But it's going to be, it's going to feel nice when you're driving.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:04)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:29:04)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:07)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:29:09)
Like

forever.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:15)
All right, let's move on to another truck that we won't be getting, which is the the Cherry R08. It's Cherry is a Chinese automaker ⁓ and they have launched this, you know, it's kind of a mid-size kind of a Ridgeline sized pickup truck or, you know, Ranger Tacoma. And it's electric. ⁓ It's available either as a rear wheel drive or dual motor all wheel drive.

150 kilowatts about 200 horsepower for the rear drive and about closer to 400 for the for the all wheel drive version. They're claiming 510 kilometers, about 300 miles on the Chinese late duty test cycle, which is going to be about 250 to 240 or so on EPA. And it's

starts at $18,300.

Nicole (1:30:15)
So cheap. But not here. So doesn't matter where it starts at, because we ain't getting it. So yeah, not here.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:17)
You're like, what? Okay. But not here. Yeah, it doesn't matter, West. Yeah, we're not doing this.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:26)
shame. Shame we don't get something like this.

Nicole (1:30:27)
It'd be interesting if they did

come here, what they were actual pricing would be, even if you forgetting the tariffs and all the crazy, like if say things were.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:33)
it would that would pro

yeah i mean apart from tariffs you know it would probably be yeah it's gonna be probably mid mid to upper twenties like twenty five to thirty thousand dollars

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:36)
It would be more.

Nicole (1:30:41)
That's what I would think. we're

not, so even if everything was perfect for having this come here with no problems, we're still looking at it. You we're not getting an $18,000 pickup truck.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:43)
Yeah.

Cause you you

gotta homologate these vehicles for US regulations.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:50)
Yeah, but you know what? Yeah.

Nicole (1:30:52)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

So there's things that have to happen no matter what that make them more expensive here. So.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:57)
Yeah,

but you know, at $30,000, same price as a Maverick or Santa Cruz.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:58)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:31:03)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:03)
Exactly,

Yep, that's where, yeah, that's where the, because I remember, I read an article a while ago about people like, there's a, you know, $12,000, you know, the Seagull, and I'm like, okay, hold on. It's not going to, if they brought it to the US, you know, again, outside of tariffs and whatever, it's not going to be that much because there's a lot of work that has to go into and a lot of changes that have to happen in order for that vehicle to be, ⁓ for regulatory reasons, ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:16)
haha

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

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:31)
allowed to drive on US roads. So that doesn't mean they're not, it's not gonna be cheap. It's just not gonna be as cheap as you think.

Nicole (1:31:38)
Exactly. Yeah, it'll still be cheap. Just not as cheap as you'd think or you'd like.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:43)
All right, so Mary Barra, the CEO and chair of ⁓ General Motors, ⁓ did a town hall, an all-employee town hall earlier this week, and the Wall Street Journal reported on it. And ⁓ in this town hall, she said, I can't explain why the decision was made in Canada, Barra said during the all-hands meeting. It becomes a very slippery slope. And she was referring to why Canada is doing a deal with the Chinese.

to allow inexpensive Chinese EVs into the Canadian market at very low tariff rates. ⁓ Mary, let me explain this to you. They're not happy. Canadians are not happy that you pulled out production of a bunch of Silverados from Oshawa and you shut down the Cammy plant where you're building bright drop vans. And, you know, they're not happy with a lot of other policies of the US industry. And so they're saying, well,

You know, if the US, if the American automakers aren't going to help us out here, we're going to go somewhere else. And that's why they're doing this. You know, they can get cheap Chinese EVs. It's as simple as that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:52)
Yeah. You can get Chinese EVJs,

they're gonna build them in Canada, which means people get jobs. like, hmm. Like it's not that hard to sort of understand.

Nicole (1:32:59)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:04)
Yeah, I mean, I think it was

kind of a disingenuous comment.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:07)
Yeah, it's a slippery, yeah, this is, yeah. And for the stocks, I think we both talked about, speaking with Mary, Mary's very media trained. She knows exactly what to say, and she knows anything she can say is going to move the stock price, this is gonna move, know, which is, or anger the administration, or not anger the administration, or anger another company, or anger, whatever. So she, yeah, there's not.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:08)
She knows exactly why the decision was made. She just doesn't want to say it for political reasons.

yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:35)
Yeah, this makes exact sense, This is exactly what I would expect her to say. But yeah, the reality is that if you're going to pull out of manufacturing in a country and then another automaker's like, hey, we'll do manufacturing and give you cheaper EVs, you can't pretend like you don't know why.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:53)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:33:54)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:56)
Just say it. It's because of tariffs, it's because of all the other policies of the current administration. That's why they're doing it. It's as simple as that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:05)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:07)
All right, so GM also had their earnings this past week and during that earnings call they announced that they are now up to 40 % of customers that have Super Cruise under vehicles. When you buy a GM vehicle with Super Cruise you get three years of usage that's pricing that's bundled into the price of the car.

And so you get to use super cruise for three years and then after that you have to pay for an on-star subscription to To continue using it, you know, so you get the map updates and everything and the other the air updates Last year last January was the first time that they announced any actual numbers of how many people were were Continuing to subscribe after that trial three-year trial ended and the number was about 20 % of customers That has now doubled. It's now 40 % of people with

Nicole (1:35:03)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:04)
Supercruise on their vehicles are paying to continue using it after after it goes down and it's still trending upwards so Yeah ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:12)
Wow. Yeah. What are you all doing with

Nicole (1:35:12)
That's a big difference, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:16)
your hands? Because I was...

Nicole (1:35:19)
That's thing, like you sit there, do you just cross your arms? Do you put your hands? But if you just put your hands like, like if you just put your hands on your thighs, like who sits like that? You just know, you'd put your hands on a table or something or, or I just lean back. I don't know what to do either. Yeah. It's like, what do I do?

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:20)
I'm still just like I just felt I put him back on the wheel. I feel weird

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:20)
I just put him on my lap.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:28)
I'm go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:29)
no.

Huh. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:34)
I just put

him, I put him on the wheel. I just, don't, I can put him in my lap and I go, this feels weird. It feels like I'm waiting outside a principal's office because I've done something wrong. And I just put him back on the wheel.

Nicole (1:35:39)
Hehehehe

Right? Like you're in big trouble.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:47)
⁓ And Ford also announced some data from for Blue Cruise ⁓ last year in 2025 ⁓ Ford drivers ⁓ using Blue Cruise ⁓ logged 264 million miles in ⁓ in ⁓ a hands-free mode, which is ⁓ it's quite a bit. It's growing. Yeah, and

Nicole (1:36:09)
That's a lot of miles, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:11)
usage

rose by 88%. But that's not users, it's usage. There.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:14)
Yeah. And, you know,

Yeah, the number of miles driven. ⁓ given that, know, Blue Cruise is still not as good as Super Cruise, but it's gotten a lot better in the last year. ⁓ Yeah, the

Nicole (1:36:28)
Yeah, they've made steady improvements. was a time I really genuinely was not

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:30)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:36:32)
keen on it, but they have definitely improved it over time.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:32)
Like, no.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:34)
Yeah, version

1.5 especially, which came out in like June or July, that was a huge step forward for them.

Nicole (1:36:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:42)
And when you turn on Blue Cruise, you can sing the Blue's Clues

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:46)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:36:46)
blues

clues blues clues

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:49)
All right. Let's see. We talked about that. Talked about that. Oh, one last one. Back in 2021, when Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, one of the things that was in there was that they mandated that NHTSA had to develop a standard that required something to prevent people from driving drunk.

So it had to detect impairment and prevent the vehicle from moving if the driver was impaired. now that was supposed to be, they were supposed to have the regulation done by 2025 and it's supposed to go into effect in 2027. Well, NHTSA still hasn't done anything. Shocking, I know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:41)
What?

Nicole (1:37:41)
Ha

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:45)
Not Nitsa!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:46)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:37:47)
This is an are you sure you're reading this story right Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:50)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:50)
Nitsa

not doing anything is like me not doing anything with my x-type. It's just the same thing. Like I'm gonna do something with that x-type and then nothing happens. That's Nitsa. I am Nitsa with that goddamn Jaguar.

Nicole (1:37:52)
Ugh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:56)
Ha!

Yeah.

Nicole (1:38:04)
Hahaha! ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:06)
Well, ⁓ now some members of Congress are trying to kill that mandate. Because there was a vote earlier this week, part of the votes on funding bills for the US government, and ⁓ this one failed. ⁓ There were 57 House Republicans that voted with most of the Democrats to keep the mandate.

But some of the Republicans that are trying to repeal it before it even goes into effect are claiming that, you know, they're saying they're afraid that it's going, having this technology in vehicles is going to allow the government to disable people's vehicles and, you know, remotely disable vehicles. ⁓ You know, that argument makes no sense because the fact is,

Pretty much all modern vehicles are connected and you know what we can already do even without having an alcohol monitor in the vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:13)
Is it disabled vehicles vehicles? Cause we did a cause you know, wire did that with on star.

Nicole (1:39:15)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:20)
Yeah, back in like 2011 and well and on star introduced a feature in 2009 or 2008 actually that you if you report you can report your vehicle stolen and They can reach out and shut your vehicle down if somebody's driving or you know steals your vehicle is driving around in it ⁓ They can they can remotely shut it down. So this is this is technology has been cars for almost two decades

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:22)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:39:22)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:43)
Yeah, that's it.

Nicole (1:39:46)
It's not new. It's just not new. So calm your panic.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:46)
Yeah, it's just already there. ⁓ I

don't know if you're just not paying attention or if you just want to be disingenuous about what this is. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:57)
I think it's

the latter.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:00)
So anyway, keep on drinking and driving. Please don't drink and drive. man. It's just, there's Uber now, there's taxis, you could get a bus. ⁓ You can get a Waymo that'll take you somewhere really slowly, hopefully. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to get home. Even in...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:03)
Yeah. No, don't do not do not.

Oh, actually, you

know what? You can now take a Waymo to get from San Francisco to the airport. You can get to SFO with a Waymo now.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:26)
⁓

I got a flight tomorrow. Yeah, but I don't take that. I take Bart into the city and then I have to hope the way most available. That's thing is there's a finite amount of them. There's probably only a finite within that, within that herd of way. There's probably only so many that actually go to the airport. So I'm going to get to the airport three hours after my flight because it's like.

Nicole (1:40:29)
That's cool. Give it a try, Robbie. See what happens.

Yeah.

Eventually you'll get there. You'll be there in plenty of time.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:52)
just leave this afternoon you know but but then you'll be there by tomorrow

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:56)
If

I had an afternoon flight, I'd be like, I'll totally try this, but I have a 7 a.m. flight. So I'm just like, I really need to make this flight. I have another flight in, no, no, no, I'm driving for my next couple trips, so.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:11)
All right. So we got some emails. So first up, Sean Weidherst wrote in, ⁓ said, greetings, wheel bearings. Today I learned about the Honda Moto Campo, not the Moto Compacto, but the Moto Campo. And he sent us a photo of a Hot Wheels version of the Moto Campo. He said, I had no idea it existed. I didn't realize the Moto Compacto was a new version of an old product. Would Robbie buy a Moto Campo?

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:39)
It comes with that like, what, the Honda City? No. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:41)
Yeah, it was the Honda City back in

the late 80s, early 90s.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:44)
Yeah,

so you could get this like tiny little K car and then it had like a little scooter in the back and I would totally get one if I could. ⁓ it's there because of the compacto because people have realized that they can get cars from other countries delivered to the United States. Those are very, very, very extensive. So ⁓ but if you have one, I will take it. But I included a little. ⁓

Nicole (1:42:04)
Mwah Mwah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:05)
Ha!

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:09)
video, if you want to drop it into show notes of me riding a moto compacto inside ⁓ a conference room in Las Vegas. I was like, do you want to just ride it like through the halls? I'm like, are we going to get in trouble? He's like, yeah, we're going to get in trouble.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:11)
I will do that.

Nicole (1:42:14)
Ha ha ha ha ha

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:18)
Okay.

Nicole (1:42:18)
nice. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:24)
Yeah

Nicole (1:42:26)
Sure we are, but go for it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:28)
All right, next up from Ed Rick. I said, when I was listening to the bit about the restored ⁓ red 90s Toyota truck, and I still have not gone over to that dealer. I need to do that this week. I literally looked over and saw a red one. This one, like the others I see from around this era, are used by landscapers. They must be very durable, at least in Northern California, to survive all this long. Is there anything particularly unique about the engineering to have these on the road for so long? ⁓

Nicole (1:42:39)
that's right.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:55)
They're dope. have a hardcore,

Nicole (1:42:57)
They're

dope. The engineering's, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:58)
like, they have a bulletproof V6 and a lot, some are manual. There's one up the street from my house, a blue one, but it's an automatic. Cause I'm always like, maybe it's on sale. So I kept like looking at it, hoping it would go on sale, like a 90s, and it has that extra long bed. So it doesn't have the five foot bed, has a longer bed and it has that teeny tiny little extra gap. So my uncle had one for his radiator shop and I live in North...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:58)
It's a Toyota.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:23)
California and he has radio shops in Northern California. And I drove it in the 90s and I fell in love with that vehicle like immediately. I was coming up from my cousin's quinceanera and he's like, can you drive, can you pick some stuff up and drop some stuff off? And here's the keys to the truck. And I was just like, oh my God, I love this thing so much. And I was so happy. Every time they're like, someone needs to go, I'm like, oh, I'll do it, I'll do it. So they are bulletproof, it's a Toyota. They are fun to drive. They are exactly what they should be.

And if you can get one, even if it looks like someone shot it up, it'll probably still be fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:59)
Well, it looks like this one's still available. It's at a dealer about 20 minutes away from me. I gotta go take a look at it. The reason why we brought this up last week, Robbie, while you weren't here is because they're asking $70,000 for this truck for a 1991 Toyota pickup.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:10)
Sorry.

Nicole (1:44:14)
Yeah, that

was it. And we all did this like, wait, what now? Like, what are we missing? What are we missing? Uh-huh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:19)
You can, okay, you can probably get one for like 10 or 15,

like an art, one in bad shape for like seven and then do all the things to make it, to make it as good as whatever this try. haven't even seen it. Maybe spend $10,000 at the absolute most. Mostly, most of that is probably on body work and paint.

Nicole (1:44:41)
Yeah. Or you could buy this one for, what was it? $70,000 or whatever it is. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:41)
Everything, know, straight a rock.

Let's get

it reupholstered, get some new seats.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:48)
I'm dropping the link in the rundown Robbie. can take a look at it.

Nicole (1:44:52)
You can

see what this actually is.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:52)
Amy,

all right, Amy, look at this.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:54)
Yeah,

it's I mean, it looks it looks like it's in fantastic shape. But and it's only got 71,000 miles on it.

Nicole (1:44:59)
It does. To be fair, it looks fabulous.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:00)
⁓ there's

two of these ⁓ up the street from my house, the raised ones. ⁓ And ⁓ they are not, and I think one of them's a manual. It is not $70,000. I bet I could walk over to that person's house right now with $8,000 and buy their four by four SR5. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, you could buy just one that's sitting around.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:08)
And this one's a manual too.

Nicole (1:45:19)
You'll like, I'll take it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:27)
or driving around for probably less than 10 and then spend, again, 20, again, most of that is gonna be on body work and reupholstering the seats and stuff like that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:35)
Yeah.

All right, finally from Lawrence in Southern California. I just saw BYD compact SUV in Menefee on the freeway and was wondering how this vehicle was purchased and what is to stop them from selling direct to consumers. I also saw Vinfast, are they still viable? Thanks to the podcast. So I replied by email to Lawrence earlier this week, but.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:00)
I'm sorry but the

vid fasts so they're still viable. Nicole, mmm.

Nicole (1:46:03)
I was like, mm, yeah, I did make a face, sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:03)
They were never viable.

⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:10)
They

are still sold and I see them all the time in Northern California. All the time in Northern California. The VF... Eight, nine? Yeah. And again, if the VF3 comes to the United States, I'm gonna probably buy one of those stupid cars. It'll fall apart.

Nicole (1:46:12)
They are!

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:12)
Yeah,

they sold about 20. They sold about 2200 last year.

Nicole (1:46:17)
So, I mean...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:21)
8 8

Nicole (1:46:22)
We have eight.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:27)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:46:29)
It'll be so cheap though.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:31)
I know, I know it's gonna fall apart. It's gonna be like, it's be an EV cheap version of a Jimny. That's all it is.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:37)
Yeah.

But on the BYD, ⁓ so this one, you know, we don't know what kind of license plate was on it. You know, there's a couple of possibilities. One is it's somebody from Mexico, because they sell a bunch of BYDs in Mexico. Somebody from Mexico just happened to drive into California, is driving it around and will eventually go back. ⁓ The other possibility, which is also ⁓ probably a stronger possibility in Southern California, ⁓ is that

this is actually owned by an automaker ⁓ or perhaps a supplier because ⁓ what they often do is they will buy vehicles that are available in other markets, bring them in, ⁓ put a manufacturer plate on it. And they're, they're allowed to bring in vehicles, you know, so for, for regular people, ⁓ you got two options. You know, if the vehicle is over 25 years old, you can bring it in and you don't have to modify it to meet regulations. ⁓

Nicole (1:47:10)
Mm-mm. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:10)
⁓ yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:35)
But for a newer vehicle like this, to register it, you would have to get it federalized. You'd have to make all kinds of modifications. You'd be spending tens of thousands of dollars and it would not be worthwhile on a vehicle like this. But for the manufacturers, they can bring them in on what's known as a temporary import bond, which is usually for one or two years. ⁓ And so they bring them in, they benchmark them, they drive them, they do all kinds of testing with them.

⁓ And oftentimes, you after they're done doing the testing with them, then they'll take it into the lab, take it in the garage and do it, tear down on it and rip it all apart. You know, take it all down to pieces. ⁓ And, you know, at the end of the TIB, the temporary import bond, they can, they either have to ship it back out of the country or crush it. And in most cases they end up getting crushed because they're usually not, it's not usually not worth the cost of shipping them back. So it just goes to the crusher.

Nicole (1:48:30)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:35)
⁓ And that's probably what you saw here. Is it probably, you know, Honda or Toyota or Nissan or somebody, you or one of the US automakers, you know, that brought it in and they were testing it and, you know, they'll probably do a tear down on it eventually and, or just send it to the crusher when they're done with it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:48:57)
We see a lot of cars up here, either in Northern California or from Mexico. People drive over, they're visiting family, know, mean, California, Mexico, it's, you I have family in Mexico. I have family that goes back and forth between Mexico and America all the time. My brother and I have tried to figure out how to, he wants a Jimny so bad, because you can get it, but the rule is that when you have the vehicle, have to have a, it has to be registered to a house.

Nicole (1:49:02)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:03)
Yeah.

it yeah

Nicole (1:49:15)
Hahaha!

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:21)
in Mexico, the owner has to have a house in Mexico, so when you come over, they can sort of pull you inside and be like, well, why are you driving this car? Like, oh, well, it's registered to this house in Mexico, blah, blah, blah. Fortunately for my brother and I, we could both become Mexican citizens, thanks to our mom. So we could do it, and we do have family in Mexico, but it's a big pain in the butt. And then it's like the neighborhood cop just decides they don't like you.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:44)
Yeah. And these days, that might not be such a great thing to do right now.

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:50)
Yeah, with a Mexican car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:53)
So anyway, ⁓ that's it for this week. ⁓ Nicole, you did record an interview with Lance Wolfer, who's head of sales for Honda America. ⁓ And I will attach that on the end here. ⁓ But let's say goodbye. Bye.

Nicole (1:50:08)
Okay.

Bye!

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:12)
Bye bye.

Nicole Wakelin (1:50:16)
Okay, so here we go. First just say your name and title so everyone knows who you are.

Lance Woelfer (1:50:21)
I'm Lance Wolfer, I'm the Vice President of Automobile Sales at Honda American Honda.

Nicole Wakelin (1:50:27)
American

Honda. So we have a couple things we're driving. We're driving the Pilot and we're driving the Prelude at this event. How important is Pilot to Honda?

Lance Woelfer (1:50:35)
I think Pilots really integral to our lineup. It's been a leading three row SUV in sales for the last number of years. But really it's helped to add to our rugged lineup and certainly with the enhancements that we've

you you've had a chance to drive and see with the 26 model year really even further enhance its rugged, you appearance. But also we've had some new tech like a larger screen. And I think Pilot really is a great outlet for our customers who have a growing family and gives them a vehicle that...

price point that really can go from CRV to pilot and then from there wherever it's next is appropriate for them. But it's been a great vehicle for us and I'll tell you it's been a great family vehicle for me and my wife and two kids. you drive one? Well right now I'm actually in an ADX on the Acura side but probably most often our family car has been that pilot so I've driven it a lot so has my wife.

Nicole Wakelin (1:51:35)
So passport, you're talking about CRV you mentioned. Pilot, but passport, how does passport fit into the mix?

Lance Woelfer (1:51:42)
Well, I'll give you an example because it's now the car that's my family car that my wife drives because I've got two boys, but we've got a huge dog.

And we end up doing a lot of outdoor activities. And that vehicle has really enhanced, I think, again, talking about the ruggedness of our vehicles, but gives a lot of cargo capacity in that back, especially for somebody like me with a dog, but also a lot of capability with the vehicle. And it's got just, its appearance, I think, is pretty exciting. It's fun to drive. It just takes it to the next level. And the Trail Sport, which is what, 80 % of our passport sales.

Nicole Wakelin (1:52:20)
80 %

Lance Woelfer (1:52:22)
And there's two trims that are trail sport trims, but it's really helped to show what Honda can do with the trail sport that cascades throughout the lineup.

CRV and Ridgeline to just further enhance the capability of our vehicles. I think it's exciting. It's one of my favorite rides that we've had as a family, but really fits our needs now. And I got to tell you, if you've got a dog, there's plenty of room. We've got a Lehan Burger, if you know what that is. They're big. Ours is 120 pounds. It's a girl, Sasha. She's lovely. And she loves it too.

Nicole Wakelin (1:52:57)
So, obviously there's the third row in the pilot that makes it significantly different than the passport. if you're not, you could have gotten a three row. You went with the passport even though you having it. What's the difference between the customer, the person who's picking those two?

Lance Woelfer (1:53:14)
Well, I think it's really lifestyle. Are you in a situation where when we used to transport Narts and Star kids sometimes, other people's families? Or, you know, when we lived in Portland, we had just more family around, so we were often needing more than five seats. And I think that's one of the big differences, where you've got the opportunity for an Odyssey, which is great vehicle as well, or a Pilot to fit your lifestyle. But we find that consumers in that...

three row SUV really need that third row doesn't really mean every day, maybe once a week, once a month. And I think it just fits, you know, their lifestyle needs. So the difference in overall usability, maybe when you put the row down is ⁓ in a lot of cases similar, but the passport is also a little bit shorter too. So an overall ⁓ capacity that pilot that extra space makes a difference for some folks as well.

Nicole Wakelin (1:54:11)
So

I just spent the whole day driving the Pilot tonight and I do prelude tomorrow. So I drove it all day today. One of the things to notice, the interior is really, like it's nice. Not that it was nicer, but it's much more upscale. It's that it felt nicer to me, which I liked. I appreciated that. Is that something that's a priority for the Honda customer Jeep? that, or because you're talking about how rugged, like the passport is, which is not the same person who wants fancy trans and suede surfaces.

Lance Woelfer (1:54:39)
Well, I think at that level, when you're talking about the pilot and the passport, at that price point, think the consumer really has some high expectations for fit and finish and the quality in the car. So all the touch points for the consumer, particularly the driver.

are very important. think it really matters. We focus on that in every vehicle in our lineup. If you look throughout all the touch points of the vehicle, we pay a lot of attention to them. But the Passport, I think when you sit in it and you look at that TrailSport trim with the stitching is really classy. But

I think you kind of find that in all the auto vehicles. I'm driving an Acura right now in ADX, you and I were talking about today. And it's got that Orchid interior with the blue addition to those light seats. And it just really enhances, I think, the overall look of the vehicle. So we pay a lot of attention to that, absolutely, because it matters to the consumer.

Nicole Wakelin (1:55:34)
And if you had to pick a favorite feature in the new pilot, can't say all of them. What is the thing that you think is the most striking thing that you're like, wow, we nailed it?

Lance Woelfer (1:55:44)
Well I think the larger touchscreen is the biggest difference that you know makes it easier for me as I'm driving the vehicle. It certainly usable and fit a lot of people's needs but that bigger touchscreen I think is the biggest enhancement in my mind and something consumers have been asking for.

Nicole Wakelin (1:56:01)
Have

people been saying screens are too small?

Lance Woelfer (1:56:03)
Well,

no, I think what they've said is, you know, the size of the screen is important to us and what you have in some of those trims, the larger screen, can you cascade that throughout more of the trims. So it's not necessarily that they're saying it's smaller, but when you show them the larger screen, it's a nice add for them. So it's really provided, I think, additional value.

Nicole Wakelin (1:56:25)
So a vehicle that I only drove for about five minutes as an act away test drive is the Prelude. So I haven't had a chance to really drive it I got a taste of it. I learned how to drive a manual transmission on a Prelude back in the early 90s. This is the last Prelude experience I had. Bringing that back, is there a lot of customer excitement that you guys are seeing and dealer excitement for this?

Lance Woelfer (1:56:51)
Yeah, I think that it brings back a really ⁓ important nameplate for us when you think about the fact that we had Civic, Accord, and Prelude as our first three models and now they're back in the lineup. And there's a lot of folks that are really passionate about their experience with the Prelude. I started with Honda in 1997 and we had just launched or we're about to. I think it came out as a 97.

So I remember my boss had one as a demo. Yeah. And he wanted me to gas it up before he took a trip. And I lived in Portland, Oregon at the time. And I disappeared for like three hours driving that vehicle. So it was so much fun. And it was the vehicle that you wanted in high school as a kid. So it's an aspirational vehicle back in my childhood. And I think it becomes one today. But all those consumers who have a connection to it, I think are excited to see it back.

Nicole Wakelin (1:57:45)
So I remember driving it and being stressed out because I was learning how to drive a manual, but also that it was super fun, but it wasn't like this crazy overpowered monster sports car. That's not my memory of it. And it's not that now either. Some people are griping about that. want that. What do you think? you think it lives up to the legacy of the original Prelude? Do you think people will be pleased overall once they get to drive it?

Lance Woelfer (1:58:10)
I

actually, yes, I think they will because it's really got great drivability. It's got S plus shift. But if you're looking for that high performance Honda, know, back to prelude was our best performance vehicle in its era. Today we've got the Type R, which really showcases what we can do from a performance standpoint in that size of vehicle. And the prelude really enhances our ability to show our best hybrid tech and

debut something like S plus shift. So you've had a little bit of time to drive it. So have I. I got to drive it in Japan, actually on a test track, which was a lot of fun and drive it around town for several hours, but I haven't had a chance to really take one home like you're kind of wanting.

So I think it's got great drivability. think consumers will be real excited about it. And I think they just need to remember that we've got the Type R for that higher performance level. We've got the Prelude to debut some of that new technology and showcase. It's really our halo hybrid vehicle is how I look at.

Nicole Wakelin (1:59:10)
So it's a totally different person and a different goal for Honda. You want performance, you want to go crazy, go Type R. That's not what this vehicle is. It's not intended to be that. And what, now I'm going to ask the same question, your absolute favorite feature about the Praline. You can't say scream because you already said that.

Lance Woelfer (1:59:19)
That's correct.

I

think on that it's the S plus shift. Yeah. And the sounds that the vehicle makes as you're driving it, it really does remind me of while it's not a stick shift, it reminds me of driving that as a kid. I had an 81 Accord as my first car and it's just a lot of good memories and it does have just a little bit of reminds me of that and my friends who had a, were lucky enough to have a Prelude. I didn't, but I sure would have loved to have one.

Nicole Wakelin (1:59:56)
pop-up headlights. ⁓

Lance Woelfer (1:59:59)
yeah, that was super cool. I got the NSX in the day. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (2:00:03)
stuff

man. want that back. know there's really reasons why they don't do them. want it back. When we see one up and one down in cars.

Lance Woelfer (2:00:05)
Yeah, you're talking my era.

Yeah, you're bringing,

this is my era. I think I graduated high school the same year as the kids from Stranger Things. Okay. And all this stuff was absolutely cool back then. I do miss that.

Nicole Wakelin (2:00:22)
That was

fun stuff. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. your time. This is perfect. Thank you.

Lance Woelfer (2:00:26)
Thank you.