Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
This is episode four hundred and fifty five of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

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

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

Sam Abuelsamid (00:13)
And ⁓ let's see. ⁓ did anybody travel this week?

Roberto Baldwin (00:18)
I don't think so.

Nicole (00:19)
I did. I f and I didn't put it on the

show notes, which was stupid. I should have put it on there. I went to ⁓ actually it was one of the coolest things I ever get to do. I went to the IAHS, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and I saw them crash test a Mazda CX five, which was really cool. So that's what I did. So that's where I was this week. Kablamo, boom.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35)
Ooh, well let's come back let's come back to that later.

Roberto Baldwin (00:41)
Kablamo.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:41)
All right.

Roberto Baldwin (00:44)
Kablamo.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:44)
It's it's loud when that happens. All right. Well, ⁓ Nicole, what did you drive to that event?

Nicole (00:46)
Mm.

No, it was in Virginia. I flew to it.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54)
okay. Well,

what what what did you drive while you were at home?

Nicole (00:59)
While I was at home, I drove the 2026 Subaru Outback Wilderness, ⁓ which has been a fun little car to have this week. So this is the seventh gen. So it's all new, it's all redesigned. They have new interior stuff, new upgrades, like the 12.1 inch touchscreen and a 12.3 inch instrument cluster. ⁓ there's more cargo room. The wilderness trim is like

It's ⁓ on the higher end. It's 44995 as far as lineup goes, but that gives you makes it a little bit more wilderness, it's supposed to a little bit more wilderness-y, off-roady than the rest of the Subaru lineup. It's a little bit, but you know, it's still not like you're gonna go do the Rubicon. It's just a little bit more rugged for you. there's a 2.4 liter turbo four cylinder in there. You 260 horsepower into a 77-pound Vita torque, a CVT with the worst auto start stop that I have encountered in ages.

Like when it would start and stop, it it most of them now have gotten better, right? So you sometimes you notice them if you happen to put your foot on the gas right at the moment where it's starting to turn off, you still will get that little almost kind of jolt. This one was not good. Russ thought I was doing something. He's like, Why did you hit the gas that way? I'm like, I didn't do anything. The car just turned back on and the whole car went like it was it was bizarre how rough the auto start stop was. It was disconcerting.

⁓ so that was not great. Otherwise, it was fine to drive. You know, it's got plenty of power, it's relatively well-mannered. I mean, this is a Subaru, it isn't all about like performance driving and great handling. It's about getting you through the muck, holding stuff in the back of the car, being durable, handling day-to-day life with messiness. and this will do that. You've got room for five, you've got 34.6 cubic feet of room behind the rear seats and 80.5 when you fold them down. So that is an incredible amount of room when you think about it. This isn't a huge vehicle.

So if you need to carry stuff like you're doing the weekend projects, ⁓ this is this is a great vehicle for that. Although right now we got down to almost freezing last night. Can I just complain for a second? It was 34 degrees this morning. I woke up, I'm like, why am I so cold and rust? Because the house is set to air conditioning and it's not there, the heat won't kick on. I'm like, well, do something about that. You're the husband. Make the heat kick on. And he did. ⁓ it was so cold here right now. I don't know what's happening. Tomorrow's June 1st and it feels like March.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:01)
Yeah.

Nicole (03:20)
⁓ but it's great for like projects, anything you want to put in there. But even that 34 cubic feet behind the rear seats, it what Subaru really does a great job of giving you a versatile vehicle. So it's plenty of room for adults to sit in the back, but plenty of room for stuff even with those adults. So if you want to put you've got kids and you got all their their stuff that you want to put in there, or your family going away for a weekend, ⁓ there's plenty of room to put everything you need in there if you're camping, that kind of stuff. And I do really love that Subaru interiors.

Do not make you cringe when they're muddy or messy or things are gross. Because it was pouring rain yesterday and freezing cold and I walk through some muddy streets and mucky streets in Boston and I got back in and there's these nice all-weather floor mats and the water's coming in the car when I open the door because it's dumping rain. I close the door and it's just like you don't even know that it rains. You don't even know I was in there with muddy boots. Like everything just looks fine. If you're because if you've I'm sure you guys have all experienced this sometimes when the even you've been out in the wilderness, but I'm bumped.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:15)
It's it's like when you've been out in the wilderness.

Roberto Baldwin (04:19)
ta-da!

Nicole (04:19)
But when

you have, you know, when it rains or it snows and the water gets on the door panel and then you look at it hours later and you see little dots, like it's sort of almost like you have to rub it a little bit to hide where the water has sort of left a little bit of a mark on the door panel where the this doesn't do that. And it was pouring, it was absolutely dumping when I opened the door. I'm like, my God, get me in. It broke my umbrella. It was aquaphobic. It broke the the rain broke my cute little Irish umbrella, but it did not.

in any way harm the Subaru outback w wilderness. So there you go. My poor umbrella though turned inside out and it's done. ⁓ so I like it. ⁓ the infotainment system is good. You know, it's got that 12.1 inch screen which is new so it's bigger. It looks more modern. I really like how it looks. The old setup felt just clunky. It worked, but it felt clunky. I feel like this is not clunky. It's nice. I feel I think it's nice they did it. And there's a 12.3 inch digital instrument cluster which again gives it that a little bit more tech forward

Kind of vibe. The only thing I here's a little quirky thing. So ⁓ the charging pad for the wireless for chi is right and like sort of under the screen in front of where your cup holders are, all the way forward. And it's a little pod and it's just big enough for my iPhone. What do I have? 17, my iPhone. And like I could toss the car key next to it. There's not a good spot to put your stuff though. If you want to put your wallet in there, like there's no spot to put your wallet or your keys, or if you have other random stuff.

in your pocket. So I felt like the the stuff where to throw things was awkward somehow. We also had something we had to return to Home Depot. We bought the wrong garage door opener fob and we had to bring that back and we're like, where do we put this as we're driving around? So there's not a good spot to put little things, I felt like I mean you can open this in our console and shove some stuff in there, but I wanted this better spot to just toss my stuff when I walked in the car.

So overall, I liked it. again, you know, 260 horsepower. It's a decent sized vehicle. It's not super responsive, but it's also not slow. It was fine navigating through Boston traffic, weaving in and out of people as you do in Boston to get where you need to get to. ⁓ had plenty of power to do that. But it's not about sportiness. It's not about that. It's about the versatility and the utility of having a super. And of course, you've got that all wheel drive. So when the

weather is crummy like it was yesterday or the snow comes back, which it feels like it could today, you're gonna be all set. So overall I liked it. And you guys wanna take a guess at destination, what I have, we'll see what it is by the time this publishes.

Roberto Baldwin (06:50)
in like three hours. ⁓ 1100.

Nicole (06:52)
Right.

Same.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:56)
I'm gonna say fourteen.

Nicole (06:58)
Ooh, Sam, you were really close. Fourteen fifty.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:01)
okay. So, ⁓ quite you know, how do you feel about the design of this new outback?

Nicole (07:08)
So this is one of those things that i I think loyal Subaru fans just raise their fist and said, No, why did you do this to my Outback?

Roberto Baldwin (07:15)
Yeah,

but I'm gonna tell you, Subaru people don't care about the way a car looks.

Nicole (07:19)
Well,

I think some of them I've heard like well

Sam Abuelsamid (07:20)
Yeah. I mean if

you look back at I I mean, beyond the the last generation or two of Subarus, I mean, Subarus were traditionally, shall we say, unconventional looking.

Nicole (07:27)
Yes.

Unconventional looking. Well, so the thing about this is it looks more SUV-ish and less wagon-ish than it did once upon a time. There are people who are all about their wagon. They loved that their Subaru was kind of a wagon. and some of those Subaru people, because I live in Subaru Land in New England, it is the official, unofficial car of New England. And ⁓ some people are a little upset that it doesn't look like it used to. Nobody hates how it looks, they're all fine.

They're just like, man, where'd my wagon go? That's kind of the the vibe. Right. Now it's an SUV. Yeah, right. So this, so they're a little sad that their Outback wilderness wagon, not really a wagon, is now definitely an Outback Wilderness SUV. But nobody hates on it. They're just like, I miss having the wagon because I was different. I was unique. I had a wagon. Nobody has a wagon. I had a wagon. So ⁓ yeah, but I I mean I'm fine with it. I think it looks good. I like the design. So I'm fine with them de wagoning it.

Roberto Baldwin (08:03)
Yeah, it's just an SUV now.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:06)
That's called the Trail Seeker now.

Roberto Baldwin (08:24)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:32)
There's there's at least two of them in my neighborhood now, the new ones. And I I see them ⁓ fairly regularly when I'm out walking the dogs. And I don't know, this this this look it just looks a little cluttered and busy. I I mean it it looks it looks very classic Subaru in you know, in that that unconventional way. You know, I I wouldn't call it ⁓ a pretty design or an attractive design.

Nicole (08:35)
Mm.

You don't like it? You're you're anti new.

Ha ha ha

No, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, I don't think like you said though, no one's really looking for a Subaru like, I want a really beautiful car, I'm gonna buy myself a Subaru. I don't think most people do.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:03)
But you know, it's certainly functional.

What one of one of my neighbors

that has has this gorgeous husky, ⁓ he's got an older outback, you know, probably about fifteen years old or so, so you know, a couple of generations back. And he was asking me about this new one and he really likes it. So I I think I think you're right, Robbie. I think, you know, Subaru well, no, actually you said Subaru people were saying, you know, what'd you do to my Subaru or to my Outback? But he's an Outback owner and he likes it. So, you know, who knows?

Nicole (09:18)
Mm-mm.

Roberto Baldwin (09:42)
Subaru people love their Subaru. They just, you know, I have a Subaru. It's my second Subaru. I mean, I have the BRZ, so it's the least Subaru Subaru, but.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:48)
As long as it's still

It at

at least at least it you know, it functions like a Subaru. It it does what you expect a Subaru outback to do.

Nicole (09:59)
Mm-hmm. That's true. It it f and that's the most important thing to a Subaru person. It's gotta it's gotta be Subaru in its its performance. And if it does that, then they're happy, you know?

Sam Abuelsamid (10:11)
Will will

it withstand the dogs, you know, without falling apart?

Nicole (10:14)
Exactly. It will it withstand the dogs and I think it will. So yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:14)
That's all that matters.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:20)
Okay. All right. So it's the twenty twenty six Outback Wilderness.

Roberto Baldwin (10:20)
to. ⁓

Nicole (10:25)
Outback wilderness with its little bronzy trim.

Roberto Baldwin (10:26)
When we drove

it that thing it handles way better than it should Because you have the adaptive they have the adaptive it is it is I was very Impressed on how well it handled we drove it around the mountains or not really mountains the foothills the California when we did the drive program

Nicole (10:31)
It does. It does hinder I mean it yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:31)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, mean when you look at it, you know, it looks like it should feel really clunky to drive, like it should be wobbling all over the place. You know, it doesn't it doesn't look like anything that would have any kind of decent driving dynamics. But well, apparently it does.

Nicole (10:52)
Mm-hmm.

No, it's f it handles

nicely. It w it was great. And we have ⁓ through all of our crummy roads and everything we had, it handles it handles nicely.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:08)
All right. Robbie, you had something this week for a change.

Roberto Baldwin (11:12)
I did. ⁓

come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:15)
Ha ha ha

Nicole (11:15)
Robbie had a car? What? ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (11:19)
I

know, I know. I had the 2026 Mercedes-Benz EQS 400 4Matic SUV. So the EQS SUV. Because the EQS, then there's the EQS SUV. That's how, that's it, that's the difference.

Nicole (11:26)
Wow.

Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:33)
It's not it's not even

remotely ⁓ confusing.

Roberto Baldwin (11:37)
Yeah, it's very, it's an odd, sure, why not? So it has 355 horsepower, 590 pound feet of torque. I just realized that I haven't done the math on how well the drive, how odd it's range yet. I did the 100 mile run yesterday. But it is like driving, it's like you're in a cocoon when you're driving this vehicle. Like you're just in there, you're safe.

Nicole (11:37)
Not at all.

Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (12:05)
Everything's very smooth. is it is erasing the ills of the world from your driving experience. That's what it feels like driving this vehicle. ⁓

Nicole (12:11)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:17)
That's that's gotta be pretty isolating because we got some ills.

Roberto Baldwin (12:21)
Yeah, so yeah, it's comfortable to drive. It has the rear wheel steering at 10 degrees. And so, you know, I went to the stores a couple of times, had to buy a bunch of animal food and people food and other reasons to go to stores. I can't remember what they were. And, know, that 10 degree rear axle steering is really cool. It's great. Just right into the parking spot that you, you know, you wouldn't be able to in.

Similarly sized car without that you'd be like, ⁓ hold on now You gotta do that little thing in the parking lot where it's slightly embarrassing where you couldn't get like perfectly within the lines You're a little bit too close to one You're like, so you got a backup go for it back up and go forward and I always feel sort of like, you know I do this for a living and I've screwed this up. I don't know how so Yeah, yeah, so no I ⁓ I Think it's for people who want something like this. It's big and squishy and comfortable

⁓ It's got the ⁓ it's got the hyper screen not the super screen. It's in the new, you know s-class I think the hyper screen is better than the super screen you get more real estate It's MBUX which you know, think you know I'm a fan of MBUX because it's just a big map and then little widgets of things you need That's it. That's all people want They just want where am I going?

Okay, I gotta push on things. I don't wanna have to swipe, you know, let me swipe left and right. No, the little widgets figure out like how you drive, what you use, and they appear as you're driving. The end, ta-da. It's the, I don't know why it seems so difficult for everyone to figure that out, but there you go. Now, the new EQS, the sedan, those will be, and all the new Mercedes Benz, ⁓

CLA, GLC, those are on 800 volt architectures. This is still ⁓ on the 400 volt architecture. So it charges at 200 kilowatts, which for 400 volts, that's good, good, fine, whatever. ⁓ It's AC charging, charging at home or charging at ⁓ a slow charger, an AC charger at 9.6 kilowatts. It has the adjustable regen on the paddles and the extreme regen is just extreme as all hell.

Normal regen is fine though. It handles really well for how big it is. All-wheel steering probably helps. ⁓ But it still feels just like you're kind of doing something that someone else... It almost feels like video game-esque. again, you're sort of detached and you could feel like a little dynamic. It handles really well. We have all the mountain roads up here.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (15:05)
But it's, you know, but it's, it handles well, but you still feel very, I mean, it's very much built for the person who's like, I just want to be comfortable in all driving situations. Every single one of them. So, and you know, bumps and stuff, it handles those really well. ⁓ Yeah, it's comfortable. All the seats are really comfy. Has massage seats, vented seats. It's, yeah, it's a big.

giant heavy Mercedes. The battery is I believe 116 kilowatts. Let me double check that. No, it was 118. It has 312 miles of range. If you know, I can do the math really quick. Hold on. I got to look at my notebook. You're not going to do math.

Nicole (15:49)
Gosh, I'm not doing math. Feel free. I'm not mathing. It's a Sunday

morning. I'm not mathing.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:54)
Three hundred and twelve miles

of range, hundred and sixteen kilowatt hours. That's about ⁓ two point nine ish miles per kilowatt hour.

Roberto Baldwin (16:07)
Yeah, two points. I got like about 2.7 miles per kilowatt hour. Yeah, yeah, I still got, but I got better range than there. got 318 miles of range on my versus the 312, which HPA says. So it's pretty spot on for range. It's, know, the, the new vehicles are more efficient. You're going to, you know, the GLC, I think it's, it's still that bulbous EQS design though.

Nicole (16:07)
My goodness. Dun dun dun dun dun.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:11)
Okay. A little off. I was a little a little optimistic there.

Roberto Baldwin (16:35)
So that's, you you got to figure that out. ⁓ I've talked to multiple people at Mercedes and the idea was, you know, ⁓ there's an article on Wired coming out, an interview with Ola, ⁓ eventually, ⁓ hopefully this week. But one of the key takeaways was that, you know, their idea was, well, we want to make something for people who, you the first adopters. That was the idea for this. This, you know, we thought that we

that people wanted something that looked different, ⁓ that looked like ⁓ an EV. And post that, they're like, people just want a car that looks like a car that's also an EV. The end. And so now you get the CLA, which is a great little EV, the GLC, which I've only driven on sand. But it worked really well on a sand dune. ⁓

Nicole (17:20)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (17:33)
Yeah, I think we as an automaker that continues to push forward with EVs, ⁓ they're taking what they've learned and they're applying it versus just throwing their hands up and giving up ⁓ like some automakers.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:47)
Maybe that's Ferrari's

excuse for the luce.

Nicole (17:49)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:50)
Maybe, I don't hate the Luce. I just think it's, I think like I said last week, it's a really rad Honda EV. Yeah, so the suggested retail price for this vehicle is $90,000, $89,950. The one I got, $105,330. And that includes this thing, the exclusive trim, 3000, okay, I don't know what that was.

Nicole (17:53)
I I

It's a rat honda. It's a red honda.

Roberto Baldwin (18:19)
What? But the rear axle steering was, hold on, it's hard to, things aren't lining up. I think it was $1,300. Which to be honest, I mean, if you're already spending that much, you might as well just get the rear axle steering. Yeah, 1,300 bucks. You guys want.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:21)
Hay

Nicole (18:21)
You confused.

No, are you having troubles?

Sam Abuelsamid (18:41)
Yeah, I mean that that should probably

just be standard on that.

Nicole (18:44)
You would think

Roberto Baldwin (18:44)
Well, they do

have, they have rear axle steering. It's like 4.5 degrees. That's the standard. But if you really want to go for it to 10 degrees, you just want to like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. So yeah, so you get 4.5 degrees of rear axle steering. So you get that for free. Well, free, because you know, you're paying a lot of money for a car. But if you really want to like, you know what, I want to park in every parking space. I want to be able to do circles like a smart car, but in a giant SUV. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (18:48)
okay.

⁓ okay. So it's sort of an enhanced steering rear axle steering.

huh.

Nicole (19:06)
Free car.

Roberto Baldwin (19:13)
You're gonna have to shell out 1,300 bucks. ⁓ you wanna, let's say, destination delivery, what are you guys thinking?

Nicole (19:21)
I'm gonna go twenty six ninety five.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:25)
I'm gonna go

Roberto Baldwin (19:28)
Well, it is Mercedes. are already, ⁓ you know, it already costs a lot of money. So they don't have to add like all this crazy stuff. So it was $12.50.

Nicole (19:37)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (19:38)
Yeah, it's a bargain. So $12.50. that's, know, again, you're already paying a lot of money. So like, yeah, we don't need it. We don't need a pad destination and delivery.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:47)
They're

Mercedes customers expect to be, you know, paying too much money for their cars already. So, you know, you don't need to hide the price increases.

Roberto Baldwin (19:52)
Yeah, they don't need to pad it.

Nicole (19:54)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (19:55)
Yeah, like some automakers hide it. Some, you know, they put it in there, but they're very upfront about it. And, you know, and Mercedes is like, yeah, we don't, doesn't, shouldn't cost that much to ship a car. We're going to charge you for absolutely everything else. Like the white paint, it's manufacturer switches, they're, you it's almost, yeah. 1750, it's white paint.

Nicole (20:13)
Their fanciness. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:13)
There's special stuff.

Nicole (20:20)
Look at it. It's I love it, Robbie. You're like, it's white paint. It's just white paint.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:21)
How white is it?

Roberto Baldwin (20:23)
It's

like, I don't like getting up. It's moonlight white metallic. It's white. I don't know. It's like whenever you get a white car, it's always a little more difficult because you try to take photos. You know, you can't do anything in the middle of the day because it just blasts. It's just a giant. It's just a giant spotlight. Yeah, you can't.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:25)
Is it is it like an Arctic white or a Wimbledon white?

Yeah.

Nicole (20:33)
Wait. Just wait.

Wa like completely blasted out, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:46)
And and and how metallic

can a white paint even be?

Roberto Baldwin (20:50)
I mean, I could probably be pretty metallic. Just make it, it's a disco ball if you really want to go for it. Yeah. So, but you know, overall, you're still getting that real fancy, comfortable Mercedes ⁓ feeling. It does feel heavy. 118 kilowatt hour battery pack will do that. ⁓ But it handles really well, even though you sort of feel sort of disconnected from everything that's happening, because that's kind of its job.

Nicole (21:19)
That's what it's supposed to do.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:20)
Did did

Roberto Baldwin (21:20)
It's done.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:21)
you try climbing into the third row?

Roberto Baldwin (21:24)
gosh, no, I don't, there's no point in that. Unless it's a van, who cares? Like why even have it?

Sam Abuelsamid (21:28)
Ha ha.

Nicole (21:28)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:32)
Yeah. Well I I know the you the

Roberto Baldwin (21:33)
I don't think this

one has a third row. think this one just has the two rows.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:37)
⁓ well th it might be optional. But I know when I had an EQS a couple of years ago when when my wife and I were on vacation in California, ⁓ had an EQS SUV and it had the third row in there. And you know, it's it's kind of like the third row of the Highlander. You know, it's there but not really all that useful.

Roberto Baldwin (21:41)
Yeah, I don't think it has it, because it's dumb.

Nicole (21:59)
It's there.

Roberto Baldwin (22:00)
You just think

like what's the yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't know why I would want to use that. It's just ⁓ you know, I think it's a selling point. It's. It's like for. I think there's there's there's a there's a lot of people who get adaptive cruise control and then never use adaptive cruise control. But you just never use it. They never turn it on. They never figure out how it works. They just.

And at least that's kind of at least that's helpful like the third row is that but like I don't know I guess it's a you know what it is. It's a spacer in your trunk Like you need something like, you know, you don't want things rolling around So you put up the third row so like the thing will like have something that you can shove up against that's the third row Because you can't like I guess you could put a baby seat back there But then you got to reach all the way back there the fight with throwing a baby in there

Nicole (22:40)
Space are in your

Sam Abuelsamid (22:56)
Yeah,

I mean put y you you w you don't want to put baby seats in the in the third row because, you know, inevitably while you're driving somewhere, you have to you know w you or your partner, you know, may have to reach back to deal with something with the kid and Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (23:09)
Just leave the baby in the car. Leave the car on.

Baby doesn't want to go anywhere. Baby likes the car. There's vibration. It's got its toys. It doesn't need you. It's got the car. Just leave the baby in the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:24)
Well and you know, I I haven't you know, it's been a long time since

Roberto Baldwin (23:26)
This is from somebody

who gets freaked out if he has leave his dogs in the car for more than five minutes. But if it's a baby, like, let's leave the baby.

Nicole (23:31)
Just leave the baby. Leave the child whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:34)
It's been a long time since we had babies. ⁓ so you know I you know, we didn't have E Vs back in those days, but ⁓ you know, I think, you know, kinda the the noise and vibration of a ⁓ of an internal combustion vehicle, you know, generally helped put babies to sleep anyway.

Nicole (23:52)
It does. We used to do that when the kids were young. We'd take on when Rose would be a whiny, cranky child, we would put her in the car. We had a little route. Yeah, you have a little drive route, you do the route. When the time you by the time you get done she has fallen asleep, you can carry her inside.

Roberto Baldwin (23:54)
that's that.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:00)
Stra strap her in the car.

Roberto Baldwin (24:07)
Oh, now they're just fall asleep because it's so comfortable. They go, oh, wow, this is better than the house. Why do we even live in a giant crap shack? How's it for chumps? All right, anyway, that's the 2026 EQS 400 4Matic SUV.

Nicole (24:10)
Now they just fall asleep because it's comfy. Like, I like this car zonk. This is okay. Why have a house? Why?

Sam Abuelsamid (24:15)
Ha ha.

Nicole (24:30)
There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:30)
Okay. ⁓

well I had I was supposed to have had ⁓ a Mitsubishi Outlander last week, but ⁓ when it got returned back to ⁓ yeah, I had to go in the shop for something. So I'll have that in a few weeks. So instead they got me a Kia E V nine, ⁓ G T line. And ⁓ yeah, basically the the E V nine you know, for twenty twenty six, the only thing

Roberto Baldwin (24:39)
Did it break down?

Nicole (24:51)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:58)
essentially that has changed except maybe a color a couple of color combinations. The the only thing that has functionally changed from the twenty twenty five model or the twenty twenty four model is the charge port, which is now a an X J thirty four hundred charge port, ⁓ rather than a C C S port. So I think pretty much all of the Hyundai Motor Group vehicles, ⁓ I'm not sure about the G V seventy E V, but everything else

pretty much that there's that they're selling now has a Knaxx port on it. and so that's that's good. ⁓ well it it's it's good until you go and try and plug in your home J seventeen seventy two charger and realize, ⁓ they put a C C S adapter in here, but they didn't put a NAX adapter in here. So had to go on Amazon and order one, ⁓ so I could charge the car at home.

Roberto Baldwin (25:49)
Wait, what?

Are you sure it wasn't

somewhere else like Nicole where it was like hidden under a chair or something?

Sam Abuelsamid (25:57)
I

I looked I looked under the seats. I did look under the seats. ⁓ looked looked everywhere, looked in all the nooks and crannies, could not find it. You know, found the CCS one ⁓ but could not find a na or J seventeen seventy two adapter. ⁓ but it's okay 'cause, you know, it I probably, you know, worthwhile to have one around anyway. So yeah, soon sooner sooner or later I'm gonna need it anyway. ⁓ so ⁓ although

Nicole (25:59)
Did you look under the seats?

I know, that's what I figured when I bought it, I'm like I should probably have one of these.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:26)
⁓ maybe maybe not for long 'cause I'm getting another charger sent to me f to evaluate, which will have a Knaxx port on it. So then then I'll need a a NAX to C C or NAX to seventeen seventy two adapter. Anyway, ⁓ the ⁓ the E V nine ⁓ three row electric crossover. ⁓ I've been a fan of this thing since it came out. I I like the design. you know, it's ⁓ it's kind of a

Nicole (26:37)
Other way around.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:54)
Yeah, it d it it was the first of you know, a n new design language for Kia. ⁓ you know, a little more angular, you know, some some crisp, sharply folded lines on the on the body. ⁓ it's it's kind of it's a unique design. It looks pretty distinctly different from a Hyundai Ionic nine, which shares most of its underpinnings. and ⁓ yeah, overall, you know, I'm a I'm a fan of this car. If you happen to get one

with rear wheel drive, ⁓ you get actually a surprisingly decent like three and a half cubic foot frunk. ⁓ if you get the all wheel drive version because it's now got a motor in the front axle, that shrinks by about half to about one point eight cubic feet, which is ⁓ you know, it's enough to p store your, you know, charging cables and, you know, some other knick knacks in there. you're probably not gonna fit you could fit a probably a, you know, laptop bag, but not

Roberto Baldwin (27:48)
You can put

a personal pan pizza in your...

Sam Abuelsamid (27:52)
yeah, you could probably actually s take a a a couple of personal pan pizzas.

Nicole (27:53)
⁓ Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (27:54)
personal pan a medium

like you got a little Caesar's get two two larges throw them in there pizza pizza alright some crazy bread

Sam Abuelsamid (28:02)
Yeah, that might fit. ⁓ you wouldn't you wouldn't be able

to get the big giant ones that they have at this local place here, Benito's pizzas that are like I don't know, thirty six inches or something's insane. ⁓ but yeah. So you can you can fit some smaller stuff in the in the front. ⁓ the you know, the thir the third row, I did I did climb into the third row. it is usable by, you know, a five foot ten adult. and

This one, the one that I had the GT line had the second row captain's chairs, with the ⁓ with the ottomans that can come up. So it's got it's got the ottomans on the front seats. ⁓ obviously you can't deploy the one on the driver's seat while you're driving. ⁓ you certainly shouldn't anyway. I don't th I don't think you actually yeah, if you if you try to activate it or, you know, move it while the car is in drive, it will not move, which is which is good. I I mean the ottoman won't move, not not the car.

Roberto Baldwin (28:32)
Thank

Sam Abuelsamid (29:00)
the ⁓ the only you know kind of annoyance that we've that we rediscovered with this thing is you know it's got the the standard dual 12.3 inch ⁓ displays under a sh single sheet of glass. and then there's also the smaller, so I think it's about a five inch display in the middle for some of the climate control stuff. So you got the instrument cluster in front of you, infotainment on the right, and then the small

⁓ control ⁓ panel touch panel to control some of the you know wit which if you want air blowing up or at your feet or wherever, you know, some so some of the climate control stuff in there. It's u as usual. It's still blocked by the win by the steering wheel. So if you I I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they did that one. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (29:49)
It's so weird. I remember we were in Korea and we were drawing the dry program. Like why?

Sam Abuelsamid (29:54)
Yeah. And and

Nicole (29:54)
Why do we do this? Why do

we do this?

Sam Abuelsamid (29:56)
they've put that into a couple of other vehicles since then. Like the K four has that. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (29:59)
They'd already like, they're very committed to hiding it. Unfortunately, the

like temperature control is in the like the center dash. So the thing you actually use a lot is there, but like all everything else is weird spot that you can have to like move your head to look around your stereo.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:07)
Yeah. So y you have

Yeah, you get so you got physical toggles on the on this on the center stack for temperature you know, the dual zone temperature controls, the fan speed, and then there's the the little roller for the volume control. But just above that, there are some some touch controls ⁓ that are backlit, you know, from from behind the whatever type of trim you have on, you know, depending on which trim ⁓ level you've got in the vehicle, you know, that get you know, are shortcuts to

Nicole (30:16)
Totally ideal.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:43)
maps and settings and you know a couple of other things. And then you've got the touch screen above that. And the thing is, you know, most of the time most people when they're using a touch screen, you know, they may use, you know, like their pinky or something to brace their hand so it's not moving around while you're driving. And those touch controls are right where your fingers would usually fall if you're bracing your hand on on there. And so when my wife and I were going out somewhere last week

⁓ you know, she went she was going to just hit pause on something we were listening to to comment on it. And she kept ⁓ hitting the settings button and sending it from the Android auto screen to settings, which, you know, c kind of annoying. Yeah. Bad bad place to put those. But ⁓ other than that, you know, the GT line, it's you know, there there's two battery sizes you can get in the E V nine. There's the

Nicole (31:28)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (31:30)
Da, da.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:42)
The smaller one in the base, ⁓ light all-wheel drive trim, which is ⁓ I think about 67 or 76 kilowatt hours, 76.1 kilowatt hours. And then there's the big battery, which is the one you should get if you're getting one of these things, 99.8 kilowatt hours. on the ⁓ and you get ⁓ all wheel when you get all-wheel drive ⁓ which is standard on the GT line, you get ⁓ 379 horsepower, 516 pound feet of torque.

Which is ⁓ more than enough. You will you will not be wanting for performance in this thing. ⁓ with the the GT line 'cause a little bit heavier, bigger wheels, ⁓ it's rated at two hundred and eighty miles ⁓ per charge ⁓ driving range. I actually, you know, ⁓ I did you know, in the driving I did with it, I was actually averaging about three miles per kilowatt hour.

which actually works out to closer to about three hundred miles. ⁓ and on a couple of drives, ⁓ you know, some some local drives, you know, when I had to go to Lowe's to get some more lumber to finally finish my deck, ⁓ I averaged three point one, three point two miles per kilowatt hour. ⁓ this thing is very spacious. so with the second and third row seats folded down and the front passenger seats slid forward, you can fit a stack of

Roberto Baldwin (32:45)
Nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:09)
two by ten by eight foot deck boards in there. They w they will fit inside with the tailgate closed. ⁓ I I have I yes, I I did it. I had six of those boards in there and it it all fit with everything closed. So it is a very useful, very utilitarian vehicle. and you know you'll get you know generally somewhere between two hundred and eighty and three hundred miles depending on how you drive. I mean if you're really using all that performance.

Nicole (33:12)
Okay. Proof. You have the proof.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:37)
You probab you might get less than that. but overall, you know, it's more than enough for pretty much everybody's daily needs. And these things charge fast. ⁓ you know, the the the the E V nine and the Ionic nine, they'll charge about two hundred and fifteen, two hundred and twenty kilowatts. So slightly slower than what you get with the with the smaller ones like the Ionic five and the E V six, but still very, you know, very quick and

⁓ as with all the Hyundai group vehicles, they ⁓ they've got good thermal management on the battery, so they will they'll maintain a high rate of charge, ⁓ all the way, you know, high high power charging, you know, pretty much all the way to about seventy percent state of charge. So, you know, I have I have charged an E V nine in the past, you know, even at seventy percent I was still getting like a hundred and thirty, hundred and forty kilowatts. ⁓ so that's you know

That that makes it a a really good road trip vehicle. which will be useful next week when we're doing Operation Frodo. Yeah. So 'cause we will have an E V nine as part of our fleet. Robbie, your lights just went out.

Nicole (34:42)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (34:47)
I

Nicole (34:48)
⁓ Robbie? Did we lose Robbie altogether? ⁓ maybe it's just your camera? 'Cause you're frozen. You you look like

Roberto Baldwin (34:49)
Oh, wait, what? Huh. No, I'm still here. I don't know. Oh, now I'm back. I don't know. I don't know what that was.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:52)
Or maybe it's just your video. No.

okay.

Nicole (34:57)
you were in the dark. I don't know what happened there. Whoosh!

Sam Abuelsamid (34:59)
Yeah, it looked like you're li you know, like a motion sensor light turned off or something.

Roberto Baldwin (35:02)
I don't know.

They upgraded, they updated Riverside. I feel like it's broken now.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:08)
⁓ yeah. So

Nicole (35:08)
Having riverside issues.

Roberto Baldwin (35:11)
Every time anyone

upgrades anything anymore, it's always broken for like about six months. So like, Hey, we updated, we added AI and now it's broken. I'm like, thanks. That's, that's, that's exactly what I wanted. I wanted the one, the one thing this tool is supposed to do. It can't do anymore because you added a feature that I didn't ask.

Nicole (35:14)
It's always broken. Mm-hmm. You're like, don't please, no.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:30)
So the the E V nines E V nines start at fifty five thousand dollars for the light rear wheel drive, that's with the standard range battery. long range battery, which is that's that should be your starting point, is fifty eight thousand ⁓ for the light trim ⁓ in rear wheel drive. The the GT line that I had starts at seventy one thousand nine hundred. ⁓

All in the one I had in the driveway came to seventy six thousand six hundred and seventy dollars. Not inexpensive, but I mean you can get some pretty good deals on these things. if you shop around, there's you know, dealers are offering some pretty good rebates and incentives on these things. So you can get it for probably you know, at least five to six thousand dollars less than that. ⁓ and you know, it's really nicely equipped for that price point. You want to guess at the destination charge?

Roberto Baldwin (36:29)
1600.

Nicole (36:31)
Mm, fourteen hundred.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:33)
Nicole gets it by like five dollars. 'Cause it was fourteen ninety five. ⁓ and the E V nines are built in West Point, Georgia, so

Roberto Baldwin (36:36)
⁓ good job.

Nicole (36:37)
I'll take the win. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Roberto Baldwin (36:39)
Yay.

Georgia

Sam Abuelsamid (36:46)
⁓

Nicole (36:46)
Georgia, sweet.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:47)
so that is the twenty twenty six Kia EV9 GT line. All right, let's carry on. ⁓ so ⁓ GM ⁓ opened a new advanced design studio ⁓ in Pasadena, California this past week. They had a studio previously, which I ⁓ can't remember exactly was it in Irvine? I don't know, some where?

Nicole (36:51)
Okay.

Carry on. Next.

Roberto Baldwin (37:11)
Long Beach maybe? Everything's

Nicole (37:13)
I

don't remember.

Roberto Baldwin (37:13)
in Long Beach.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:14)
yeah, some somewhere in the Southern California area. They've they've had an advanced design studio there for a long time. But they they opened a new studio this past week. and I guess you know, they had they had some people out there and they showed off two concepts ⁓ for a GMC they call the GMC Hummer X. ⁓ a a pickup truck version and a ⁓ an SUV version. So kinda like what they have right now with the Hummer E. V. but

Roberto Baldwin (37:17)
Yeah, doesn't matter. Somewhere around there.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:44)
⁓ these are a little bit smaller, but they're still very large vehicles.

Nicole (37:47)
I th th are

Roberto Baldwin (37:48)
a scooch.

Nicole (37:48)
they I was

trying to find measurements on here. I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, but then I'd have to compare it. Is it actually that much smaller? It looks smaller.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's about seven inches shorter. ⁓ the the probably the more important thing is not so much the length, but the width. It is like seven inches narrower than the current

Nicole (37:58)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (38:07)
Maybe I did see

this vehicle like a hundred years ago

Nicole (38:11)
I mean that'll be the cause I like the Hummer, but that was that was the only vehicle that I got through in a drive-thru on the drive program and I was dry and I was and then there was a wall as I came around through the drive-thru and I had a moment of panic, like, God, I thought I'd have some overhang room over the curb and I don't. Please, Lord Almighty, don't let me take out the wall. And I think I had like like a bit of a piece of paper between the bumper of the old one and the wall as I came around that corner to get my coffee. So I'm glad it's a little smaller. It was a little big, it's a little large.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:39)
Yeah, the well

the the the the current production hummer is eighty six point seven inches wide. ⁓ which is why it has to have the amber lights on the on the top of the windshield, because anything over eighty five inches you you have to have those amber lights ⁓ on the on the top of the windshield. ⁓ and this thing is almost just shy of eighty seven. So the the Hummer X is only is a mere eighty inches wide.

Roberto Baldwin (38:40)
Bing.

Nicole (38:45)
Peace.

I love it.

Roberto Baldwin (39:05)
380 inches.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:06)
Yeah. Which is

Nicole (39:06)
Only eighty inches, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:08)
which is still about five inches wider than a a Ford Bronco Raptor, which is already a very wide vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin (39:18)
I don't... I... Okay, fine. I mean, yes, it's smaller, but like...

Could it be smaller?

Nicole (39:28)
Smaller er, more smaller.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:28)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (39:31)
At some point you run into issues, especially when you're like, ⁓ the photos are of this thing outdoors in the desert. Sometimes trails are pretty narrow. And if you have a super wide car.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:43)
Yeah.

Nicole (39:46)
It doesn't work out so well.

Roberto Baldwin (39:48)
You can't really.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:48)
This is why going

off roading with something like say a you know, a Raptor, f a br an F one fifty Raptor or a T R X is generally not i i it's fine on the in the desert, but you it's not a vehicle you wanna take on a trail because it's hard to maneuver.

Nicole (40:04)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (40:04)
Yeah, it's always like desert

dirt roads, like roads to the houses of people who don't recognize the US government, like those types of roads. Like, I am like these are the people. Yeah, when you stop them, they're like, I'm a sovereign citizen, you know, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's the roads to those to the homes of. You know, fine, that's.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:13)
Yeah. Who who consider themselves sovereign citizens.

Nicole (40:14)
Who don't recognize the US government.

I was just trying to think of the word sovereign citizen. That's the word I was trying to come up with.

So people who refuse

to recognize US government exists.

Roberto Baldwin (40:34)
Yeah, I don't

recognize the laws of this government. am a, you know, I am an island of a human. In my world, the national anthem is written by Maroon 5 or something. don't know.

Nicole (40:37)
The laws of the land mean nothing.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:44)
⁓ and

The ⁓ the the Hummer X also has ⁓ a lot of screen in it.

Roberto Baldwin (40:56)
Yeah, don't like this at all. What is happening? This looks like the lair of a super villain, you know, like...

Nicole (40:59)
I do not like this.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:01)
There's like see one, two, three, four,

five, six, seven seven different windows on this full width screen all the way across the dashboard.

Roberto Baldwin (41:11)
It's like you're watching like if you're a security guard or a supervillain. Either way you're watching, you know, feeds from everyone's like toilet in their apartment.

Nicole (41:18)
I think a super villain, I think it I think you're I I definitely think it's super

villain because you would need that many screens and you would drive something like a Hummer because you could run over your enemies. So I feel like like yeah, definitely super villain.

Roberto Baldwin (41:29)
Yep.

until they drive down like a narrow alley and they're like, foiled again.

Nicole (41:37)
And then you're stuck. Why does it look like that? It total it's just it is seven equ a stackable displays.

Roberto Baldwin (41:41)
It's very instead of

Sam Abuelsamid (41:42)
I don't.

Roberto Baldwin (41:46)
one long screen, it's just a bunch of little screens. I don't like.

Nicole (41:50)
You know, I've been watching

the show Homeland and it does give off CIA vibes, not gonna lie. Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (41:56)
Yeah, like these

are like, yeah, especially these over that they're like, okay, this is where we're going to bomb a wedding. This is where we're going to like, yeah.

Nicole (42:00)
Right. The the the far right is telling us where our team is. Then you have a map that's

close up, then you have a map of the full area.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:07)
And you got

your your you got your live views from the drones or from the satellites?

Nicole (42:10)
Right, you got your live

Roberto Baldwin (42:10)
Yeah.

Nicole (42:11)
drone view in there. You've got one that's just calm chat chatter and heat sensors so you can see where your team is. Yeah. Mm mm. Nope. This is too much. This is too much.

Roberto Baldwin (42:17)
It's, and there's no buttons. It's like, yeah,

they designed this before they realized people hate the fact that vehicles don't have buttons. So I went to the design studio in Detroit. Sure. I think it was Detroit. and they showed me like a little tiny little sliver of something. And I guess it was this. I thought it was smaller or maybe they have a smaller version in a design studio somewhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:39)
I mean hope I mean hopefully they

have something smaller in the works as well.

Roberto Baldwin (42:44)
Yeah, just give us a toad to coma sized something You still call it a hammer. There's no one's gonna hurt. I could hurt anybody's feelings

Sam Abuelsamid (42:49)
Yeah. Well I mean I I've I've you know I've I've said before you know, bac

back in two thousand nine they had ⁓ a concept called the Hummer H X. Yeah, so this was you know, when you know the fur you know, the the original iteration of Hummer before Hummer went away, you know, before they went before GM went through bankruptcy. Actually it was probably like two thousand eight actually. you know, they had the Hummer H X concept, which was a Wrangler sized vehicle. And

That's you know, I think that's the vehicle that, you know, when GM, you know, launched their E Vs, that's what they should have built was an electric version of that. That would have been a lot cooler. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (43:26)
Yeah, that would have been

Nicole (43:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (43:30)
rad. 2008 was a bad time to launch anything. The financial crisis and like, we're going to build a Hummer. ⁓ no. ⁓ cause remember the H3? I remember they had the ad for the H3 where they were talking about how it was smaller. Like they had a short dude who was like, I don't remember. It was sort of a weird ad, but it was smaller than the H2 and definitely smaller than, you know, the original Hummer, which was the size of a... ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (43:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. No, we're just gonna kill Hummer instead.

Roberto Baldwin (43:54)
just you know, a one bedroom apartment.

Nicole (43:57)
One bedroom, two. Bedroom and a half.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:58)
Let's see.

Roberto Baldwin (44:00)
Maybe two, yeah. Well, it was

one bedroom, but it had a walk-in closet.

Nicole (44:05)
Ha ha there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:07)
And the closet was bigger than the bedroom.

Nicole (44:09)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (44:10)
Yeah,

keep all your hats.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:13)
So

so let's see, I'm I'm looking at the the specs for the Hummer H three, the two thousand nine Hummer H three. ⁓ it was one hundred and eighty seven point five inches long. And this one is one eighty eight. So so yeah, it's actually pretty pretty close to the same size as the H three. So I guess it is actually quite a bit smaller.

Roberto Baldwin (44:26)
188 it's a scooch bigger Come on it's like

Nicole (44:29)
Wow. my gosh.

Roberto Baldwin (44:36)
Maybe this is the maybe the Hummer is the you know, whenever they make the Hummer smaller. It's like doom is coming It's it's it's it's like a prophet. It's the prophecy has been Yeah, everything's gonna collapse whatever Hummer decides maybe there maybe we shouldn't humber make a bigger car. Maybe we should ask that

Sam Abuelsamid (44:45)
The Everything's gonna collapse.

Nicole (44:46)
June is coming.

Roberto Baldwin (44:56)
Like, hey, we don't want things collapsing.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:58)
So a another interesting thing that they didn't get into a lot of detail on here. Yeah, the this new design studio, they've got ⁓ capability to do all kinds of you know, do basically do all the fabrication and the design work and everything. So, you know, they've got they can do clay models and build, you know, fiberglass models and everything else. but ⁓ something they mentioned in the press release here is about what they call flex fab. So flexible manufacturing technology.

that they say enables fast, small batch on demand production, similar to 3D printing, but for metal. No specialized stamping tools, multiple designs with the same machines. they don't really get into any detail about what exactly that is or how they're doing that.

Roberto Baldwin (45:44)
Is it

additive printing? Is it additive manufacturing? It's like 3D but with metal. I'm like, well, you know we can 3D print metal now, right? I'm very confused by it's like 3D printing, but metal. I'm like, just say it's additive manufacturing. Are you just 3D printing metal? So is it additive or not?

Sam Abuelsamid (45:52)
Yeah.

Nicole (45:54)
But metal.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:58)
It I mean it says similar to three D printing.

I d I have no idea.

Nicole (46:05)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (46:07)
That's so... that's such a weird... It's like 3D printing, but metal. Like, what's that even mean? It's like a hamburger, but metal. What?

Sam Abuelsamid (46:12)
Yeah.

Nicole (46:16)
That means it's

Sam Abuelsamid (46:20)
A accord

according to the specs, fifty seven percent of the Hummer X concepts is made with the flex fab process.

Roberto Baldwin (46:29)
Okay.

Nicole (46:32)
Robbie's still like, I don't get it.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:32)
Whatever.

Roberto Baldwin (46:34)
It's made possible by flexible manufacturing. Similar to 3D printing, but for metal.

Nicole (46:42)
Stop, you're gonna hurt your you're gonna hurt your head, Robbie.

Roberto Baldwin (46:42)
Multiple designs from the same machines. It's gotta just

Sam Abuelsamid (46:43)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (46:44)
be,

it's gotta be additive manufacturing. Cause if it's multiple designs, yeah. They just don't want to say 3D printing. I think that maybe they feel like 3D printing is hobbyist type. You know, like, well, we don't want to think it's people like Robbie who is making like, yeah. Which is, especially on the same machine that Robbie prints a bunch of Daft Punk helmets for reasons that are.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:46)
Of some sort, yeah.

We we can't print something as tough as a Hummer.

Nicole (47:06)
It's far more complicated than that.

Roberto Baldwin (47:07)
It's far more complicated

than Robbie and his, you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:10)
Do

do you make your Daft Punk helmets out of metal though?

Roberto Baldwin (47:13)
I mean no but then I paint them and they look metal. So they cr- yeah. It's like 3D printing. But Daft Punk how much?

Sam Abuelsamid (47:17)
Okay. Well that's good enough.

⁓

Nicole (47:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:27)
⁓

Roberto Baldwin (47:28)
but metal. Maybe it's like 3D printing, but it only works if you're listening to heavy metal. Like if you're not listening to Metallica, it just doesn't work.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:33)
⁓ okay. Well could be.

⁓ so, you know, no production plans right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if something like this, you know, if if they assuming they continue with Hummer into the future beyond the current generation, I wouldn't be surprised if a next gen Hummer is at least sized more like this and you know, probably has some of this design to it.

Roberto Baldwin (48:03)
Yeah.

Nicole (48:03)
It lo

yeah, it'd be a nice change. It's I think it'll be better. I don't know if they'll bu build it, but I think it'd be better.

Roberto Baldwin (48:08)
I see hummer, I mean again, I live in Northern California, we're just silly with EVs, but I see hummers around that people have purchased. there you are.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:16)
Yeah, well there's one in my neighborhood. Around the corner somebody's

got one. They they used to have a a Tesla Model Y and they got rid of that and got a Hummer.

Roberto Baldwin (48:25)
Wow, that's a bold jump.

Nicole (48:26)
From a model Y to wow,

Sam Abuelsamid (48:27)
Yeah.

Nicole (48:28)
that

is a jump. Geez Louise.

Roberto Baldwin (48:31)
of room. Bring all your friends.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:35)
Actually you could probably fit more of your friends in the Model Y than in the Hummer. The Hummer is large but not very space efficient.

Roberto Baldwin (48:39)
Yeah, but you

There's so much room for just air. And you can take the top off. It's the only convertible EV you can buy right now.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:46)
Yeah.

⁓ only one you can buy in North America.

Roberto Baldwin (48:54)
Well, that's North America and it's only place that counts. Because if I can't yeah, if I can't buy the Honda N cool thing, so if in my brain I have to pretend it doesn't exist.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:59)
There is the MG Cyber Stir.

Okay. So speaking of electric trucks, ⁓ Slate announced sort of announced something this week. ⁓ that they announced that they're going to announce the pricing for the Slate truck on June twenty fourth and officially start taking orders at that time.

Nicole (49:09)
Not again.

Roberto Baldwin (49:24)
to 24.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:29)
So ⁓

Nicole (49:29)
What do you think the pricing's

Roberto Baldwin (49:29)
You

good?

Nicole (49:30)
gonna be? They gonna do what they said they're gonna do? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (49:32)
It's in the mid-20s. Anywhere from

23 to 2750.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:41)
What w what price would it what would the price have to be for you to ⁓ take your 'cause you have a you have you put a reservation out for one, right, Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (49:50)
So I

put the $50 one down. So that is a refundable, I can get my 50 bucks anytime. On the 24th, you can, hold on, let find, I have an email from them. It's a $300 non-refundable deposit, which I understand. They're like, okay, you're saying you want us to build this car. No take backs. The $300 is a no take backs. Because I've already given them $50.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:53)
Yeah.

I think it's a three hundred dollar deposit.

Nicole (50:14)
No take backs. No take back.

Roberto Baldwin (50:20)
I can get it, it's 250 for me additional. So you can put in, oh here we go, I found it. Get more info. So yeah, it's $300 for a deposit. What that does is that puts you in the queue to order your vehicle. Then you have 30 days to lock in your delivery window. And then,

And then later you can personalize it and buy it and whatnot. that, you know, they're saying they're going to production in late this year. So you might get one in December, probably January, February. If you haven't put the 50, the people who put the $50 deposit down, they get first dibs essentially. And I put my $50 deposit down like at the event, like within minutes. I was like, this is ridiculous. And I'm buying this because it feels like the Robbie car.

Nicole (51:03)
Probably next year, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:18)
Yeah. I mean y you've got you've got a three D printer, you can you can print all the stuff you need to add to this.

Nicole (51:19)
It feels like the Robbie car.

Roberto Baldwin (51:19)
It's like, you want to do some weird stuff? Yeah.

Yeah. Everything is just like, hey, do you like tinkering with things? Do you want a car that just like, you can take the, you want to take the doors off? Sure. You want to take the rear, the rear, the rear wall out and just have it open air? Go for it. You want to put some, you want to put a roll cage in there? Knock yourself out. It is the, it is the like,

Nicole (51:43)
Knock yourself out, buddy.

Roberto Baldwin (51:48)
goofy nerd modular vehicle. yeah, so yeah, it's 300 bucks, it's non-refundable and it'll account towards the purchase of your slate. I think the battery, sorry, the ranges are like 180 and 240. I had to double check that. I'm just pulling those. All right, 150 and.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:09)
I think they said one fifty originally, but I don't that may have changed. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (52:13)
150

don't yeah, whatever I said was probably a lie. So 150 and like 240 I think of the rate the battery ranges Well, like we'll know more on on June 24th. I will be at slate on June 24th For this thingy, so I'll have some more information that'll be on ours technica So keep an eye there and are follow me on blue sky ⁓ And I'll be like, you know Posting about it. I'll be posting through it ⁓

Yeah, this is sort of, know, and again, you know, part of me is very excited about this vehicle. And the other reporter part is like, well, this all crash and burn because building a car and building a car company is pretty much impossible. They seem to have found like sort of this weird, ⁓ and I know people are like, well, no one wants a two-door vehicle, which, okay, that's fine. You can say that, but that's more, but again, like normie, like a lot of people.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:06)
More for Robbie.

Nicole (53:06)
Mm-hmm.

More furrow.

Roberto Baldwin (53:11)
like people my wife works with, people in bands, normies really are excited about this truck. Does that translate into buying the truck? I don't know. ⁓ But if they have the excitement that maybe the ID Buzz had, except they're actually delivering it in a timely fashion. ID Buzz, if they had delivered that vehicle two, three years earlier, then you would have been like, ⁓ I think they would have a lot better. By the time they deliver it with old technology.

We can re-litigate the ID buzz and everything that went wrong with that. ⁓ But yeah, it's, you know, I think if they hit 27, I think that's gonna be a big deal for them.

Nicole (53:48)
When when I saw ⁓ I sa

When they showed it last year, I think it was in Newport, Rhode Island I was at or something, and they had them there for people to see. They did this sort of like tour thing, you know, to promote it. And they had it at various places where like the public could see and go ooh and all. And the number of fans that turned out for that was pretty cool. Like people that were just, I ordered one, I wanna see it. I'm excited. There was some genuine excitement. So when you're talking about things translating into orders, there definitely is excitement about this, even though it's a two-door and

Yeah, people don't want to but so I'll I think a lot's gonna hinge on that price though. But it there's some they were like fanboys, man. They were so excited to see this to see this vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin (54:33)
It is, so one of the things is I can't buy this and have the BRZ. I live in the Bay Area, I buy in a, you know, I bought a house, my bills are very high. So I can't have both. So this is something I have to like figure out in the next like 25 days. So I'd have to get rid of the burrs if I wanted the slate. I know, I know, I don't, I, I

Nicole (54:51)
my god, would you have to get rid of your burrs?

I don't know how I feel about this. I don't know how I feel. do you want the burrs,

the slate more than the birds?

Roberto Baldwin (55:03)
That's a thought I have to figure out in the next 25ish days or so. So yeah, yeah, that's the, it's a Sophie's choice.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:11)
Mean you could certainly fit a bunch of band

stuff in the back of this.

Nicole (55:14)
Sophie's choice.

Roberto Baldwin (55:15)
I can put my, so my guitar

fits, my guitar amp fits in the trunk of the BRZ. ⁓ well my, I don't know if my new guitar amp fits in it, but in the, and I can stick the guitars in like the passenger.

fit all my band stuff for me in the BRZ, like drums and stuff. can put like percussion, I can put that in the backseat and stuff. I can get stuff in and the back seats do go down in the BRZ. But at the same time, like, I like the, you know, I like a man transmission, I like this car, but this other car is just wacky and weird and I can do all this weird wacky stuff with it. And so it's, it's a, again, Sophie's choice. Do I want to continue to have?

you know, a manual transmission that's just fun no matter what, or do I want a car that I'm just gonna tinker with constantly?

Sam Abuelsamid (56:07)
So what what is the price threshold, you know, what what's the maximum that you know, base price that you would pay for this?

Nicole (56:12)
Yeah, where would you say, Robbie? Like

nope, no doubt about it, I'm keeping the burrs. Forget it. I'm out.

Roberto Baldwin (56:16)
If they're like 29.95, I'm like, no. I think it's probably going to be like 27. That's my guess. I'm in. I will look at see what sort of weird incentives I can get from California. I'm sure there's like a thousand dollars I can get. What's California? Might be based on income, incentives, EVs, unfortunately, I mean, well, fortunately we're doing fine.

Nicole (56:19)
Really? That's your you're

You do. And for twenty seven you're in. You're like, I will get it at twenty seven.

Okay.

Gotta be something.

Roberto Baldwin (56:47)
⁓ Not because of me, because of my wife.

Nicole (56:50)
Like he c

he clarifies, this is all my wife's doing, just so everybody knows. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (56:53)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:53)
Hey, I mean you're a journalist, I mean obviously it's gotta be your wife.

Roberto Baldwin (56:58)
⁓

Pj and e pre-owned no, I'm I'll have to look at some stuff

Sam Abuelsamid (57:05)
So

I'm I'm I'm scrolling through the the the various combinations, you know, they show on the on the Slate website. ⁓ you know, they've got two different caps that you can put on the back to make it into an SUV. One is a slant back, you know, that looks, you know, kind of like a a two door Rivian R three. ⁓ and then there's a you know, more like a wagon version, you know, it's just the roof just goes straight back to the rear end and then straight down.

And this looks like a little you know, especially with the the shape of the front end, this looks like a mini Ford flex. And I find that very appealing.

Roberto Baldwin (57:40)
Yeah,

Nicole (57:42)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (57:42)
I missed the four flex was a great car That's the first that's the first ⁓ That's probably the first time I started I did anything with a with a with a ⁓ review car And it's also the first and only review car I've ever gotten a ticket in It was a long time ago see I like the open-air kit Yeah, we're just open if you scroll down if you scroll over

Sam Abuelsamid (57:44)
Yeah.

Nicole (57:45)
Never liked this the creasing on the sides of it.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:58)
huh.

Nicole (58:00)
That's funny.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:08)
Just take out the the

rear bulkhead.

Roberto Baldwin (58:10)
Yeah, you don't need any of that stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:12)
You gonna put rear seats in?

Roberto Baldwin (58:14)
Maybe, we'll see. So there's a hole where the seats go because you have to put the seats into something. So I'm curious, like, can I just open it up and use that as storage? Like, what kind of weird, again, what kind, I like the idea of just have.

Nicole (58:24)
What kind of things that they

didn't think of could you possibly do? That's what you're trying to figure out.

Roberto Baldwin (58:28)
Yeah,

yeah, and that's, you know, and that's sort of the fun thing about it. Like I can get wraps and stuff later. I'm like, I'll probably just use it, keep it gray for a while ⁓ because I have to like, I'll probably just have the regular truck and then you can upgrade and buy stuff later on. it to it. That's the other cool thing is like, I don't have to go in and get all the things that I think I want. And then later on and be like, ⁓ I should, I just got the truck. I can just get the truck.

and then do wacky things with the truck. And then later on, we're like, you know what? Maybe we should put some seats in the back and make people jump into the back of it. Like it's a 90s hip hop video ⁓ where everyone had a Wrangler and they would just leap into the back seat. ⁓ Yeah, see, I feel like they, I really feel like they're like, ha ha, we got you. Like they came to my house, they feel like they watched me for like a few weeks. They're like, yeah, we should build a car for this idiot.

Nicole (59:21)
This guy he needs a car, let's make him one.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:22)
You y you you need you need to build the first slight dually.

Roberto Baldwin (59:26)
I know I probably

do it with the the was it the J.C. Whitney catalog.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:33)
Yeah.

Nicole (59:34)
J C Whitney, my goodness.

Roberto Baldwin (59:36)
Whoops, I don't know what I just did.

Cancel. Accidentally hit the email into here. I don't know how that happened. So, yeah, so June 24th. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but they're going to give me a ride along in the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:44)
All right. Let's

Roberto Baldwin (59:54)
but I'll be able to tell you like, hey, this is what it feels like to sit in the car, which it's not as good as driving, obviously, but you can feel, you can get a good idea of like how, you know, a pretty good idea how this thing, I mean, I got to ride along in the AMG GT ⁓ and I'm still waiting for my video. It seems to have been lost, unfortunately. ⁓ The in-car stuff, I know, I know, I know, right? That's kind of a bummer, yeah.

Nicole (1:00:15)
⁓ really?

Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:21)
I got video from like the backseat, which is completely worthless. But so I'll have a ride along again, that'll be on ours and you can look at it and they'll probably just like tweet about not tweet, but skeet skeet about it from blue sky. And you can look, I guess I'll also be on Instagram. It's S T R N G W I S look at me up on both of those. And that's, that's my sort of default go to name.

Nicole (1:00:25)
Yeah, that's not helpful.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:48)
Alright, ⁓ so I went out to ⁓ Las Vegas for a couple of days this week. ⁓ it was Ford Pro invited me out there, they were doing their annual Ford Pro fleet preview. so this was mostly for, you know, fleet owners, fleet managers, ⁓ upfitters, you know, all all the people that that are customers of Ford Pro, which is their commercial vehicle business unit. ⁓ and you know, there's not not a whole lot, you know, to

To really mention here about that specifically. Although they did say that ⁓ the new thirty thousand dollar electric truck, the the Universal EV, is going to be available through Ford Pro starting next year. So and they're they're gonna be supporting that, you know, and and working with upfitters to get equipment. And you know, when I walked around the Upfitter Pavilion at this event, there were several Mavericks up out there, you know, equipped with

Nicole (1:01:28)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:47)
all kinds of ⁓ stuff to to mount in the bed for the ⁓ you know for professionals to use, you know, different racks and caps and different stuff to put on there. so, you know, the the maverick is actually quite popular ⁓ among the professional community. ⁓ and it

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:06)
There's like three

on my block that have like stickers on them for their business.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:11)
Yeah, well I mean there there's a there's a roofing company not far from here. You know, when I drive by there you know, they have like eight or nine of them in their in their lot there, you know, the the various ⁓ staff use those, you know, to go out and do estimates and you know, managers use them and things like that. And I've seen them for like auto parts stores. so they're they're quite commonly used ⁓ as commercial vehicles.

Nicole (1:02:19)
wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:35)
and I think that's that's also gonna be an important market for the slate as well as those those commercial vehicles where they don't necessarily need that second row of seats. You know, they can just use the use the bed. ⁓ but one of the ⁓ one one of the things they also mentioned about the Maverick is that they are increasing ⁓ capacity for Maverick hybrids. they're raising it to

currently, you know, about fifty five, fifty six percent of all Mavericks sold are hybrids. They're raising that to eighty percent by the fall and by ninety to ninety percent ⁓ availability by the end of the year. So they will have enough capacity to support ninety percent hybrid sales in the Maverick by the end of twenty twenty six. Yeah. ⁓ also while I was in Las Vegas, I decided they you know a

Nicole (1:03:16)
⁓

That's cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:30)
Bunch of them bunch of people from Ford were going out to see no doubt at the sphere. ⁓ they invited me to go. I said, No thanks. ⁓ and instead I went and ⁓ pulled up the Zux app on my phone and took another ride in a Zux Robotaxi. So I I I did this in January during CES.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:39)
Like I'm good.

Nicole (1:03:39)
Gone?

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:47)
⁓ you could have could have listened to

Nicole (1:03:48)
⁓ okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:51)
Don't Speak instead. Don't speak. know what you think. Think, think, think, think, think, think, think. See, we're helping you, Sam. You couldn't make it. You didn't want to go, but we're going to make you.

Nicole (1:03:52)
Don't speak. I know what you're saying. Please stop explaining. Don't tell because it hurts. Mm-hmm. So we're here for you. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:53)
huh.

⁓

Okay. ⁓

so I w I took a ride in ⁓ in the Zooks and so when I did it in January, yeah, there was there's a couple of issues that I had. one ⁓ was that there were very limited number of places you could actually go with the Zooks in January. There was like literally seven places that you could get picked up and dropped off with the Zooks Robo Taxi. You know, with the the Luxor Hotel at the south end of the strip and the resorts world at the north end of the strip and then a handful of places in between.

⁓ now there's ⁓ almost twenty different locations. So you can go to many of the major hotels now. So you can go to the Fountain Blue where we were staying, from with the Zooks, the Resorts World, you can get to the Wynn and the Encore, ⁓ you can get all the way down to Mandalay Bay and a bunch of other locations along the strip. ⁓ they still have relatively few vehicles, ⁓ of their their robo taxis. So the weights tend to be pretty long. you know

when I went in January, I waited almost an hour for a ride. ⁓ this time it only took about thirty minutes, but what they do now in the app, if if there's too much of a backlog, it'll just you know, instead of, you know, giving you some bogus estimate of how long it's going to the wait is going to be and then continually updating that to a longer and longer period of time. They they just they just say, Sorry, you know, we've got too many ride requests right now, try again later.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:12)
hour.

You

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:31)
So, you know, it's like okay, fine, I if I need to get somewhere I'm just gonna, you know, grab an Uber Lyft or a taxi.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:36)
I

appreciate that they're like, yeah, we're not gonna be able to do this. I'm like, okay, cool. Instead of standing around for 30 minutes like a chump. Yeah, just tell me.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:40)
Yeah. Yeah, just just let people know.

Nicole (1:05:43)
I think we'd all rather have that rather than be sitting there. It's like, just tell me, if I need to sort

out my things here and do this differently, just tell me I'm not gonna be mad. I am gonna be mad if it turns out my five minutes is fifty. So please don't do that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:54)
Yeah.

⁓ and then one other ⁓ issue that I had ⁓ in January was, you know, on these vehicles, you know, these these things they all look the same. They're all the same color. ⁓ and on the the corners they have a little they have a number on there. And in the app, you know, when when your ride is confirmed, it'll tell you, okay, this is the number of your vehicle. Well the thing is when you're standing around there at the pickup area, you know, the rideshare pickup area of a hotel.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:22)
⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:23)
You see all these Zooks vehicles

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:23)
it's all teeny tiny.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:24)
coming in and so you know, you gotta go l walk up and look at each one to see which one is yours.

Nicole (1:06:29)
It's a pain in the butt.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:30)
You

gotta put the big numbers like a race cars. See this is, come on Zooks.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:33)
Yeah. Well ⁓ so and you know, and I I I mentioned

all this stuff. Yeah, I talked to Zooks after I took my ride in January. I mentioned all these things. And so what they actually did ⁓ was now they've put LED light strips in the the front and back windows and on the the inside of the the car. And in the app, you know, it lets you pick you know, you can pick a theme for what color you want. So it it basically it's it's lit up with a color. So you can s you know, in my case it was orange.

Nicole (1:06:39)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:02)
So when the car pulled up, you know, that had the orange lights on it, that w I knew that was my ride and you know, so I got up and walked over to it. So that that w that was nice. Well

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:09)
Unless you're color blind, it's great.

Nicole (1:07:13)
Finding a way to make it a challenge, aren't you, Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:14)
Well, it just seems like

it just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:16)
Well

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:17)
seems like just slap a number like a big Like a race car number on the sides of the car in the front of the car Yeah, well I name is always like kind of weird because you have privacy issues But if you just slapped a big like 12 inch by 12 inch sticker with a circle that said number 7 And they had in the front the sides the back That's it. Yeah, you don't have to make it complicated guys

Nicole (1:07:19)
A number that because that's too easy and just basic.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:19)
Yeah. No, I mean that would that would be better or yeah, or put a little panel with the person's name on it, whatever it is, yeah. ⁓

That's true.

Yeah.

⁓ but it's at least it's better than it was. and then ⁓ other things that they added, ⁓ they've they've now they added what they call Zookscast capability. It's basically just it's Bluetooth. So, you know, they always ha they have at each of the four seats, you know, they have a touch screen. you know, and it lets you, you know, pick what style of music you wanted to listen to. and ⁓ no I did not.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:47)
Yes.

Did you pick no doubt?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:12)
but you can tap the Zookscast button on your phone and basically it pairs your phone to the the vehicle over Bluetooth and then whatever you're listening to on your phone, you can just play it through the speakers in the car. so yeah, and it's very quick and easy, work works well. ⁓ the the ride was smoother ⁓ than before. It was it was pretty good last time, but it had some it was a little the the braking control at low speeds when it was like especially when it was maneuvering around the parking area or the garage was a little bit rough.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:22)
Alright.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:41)
⁓ and a little herky jerky at low speeds, yeah. ⁓ on on the road it was fine. ⁓ and so they they clearly did some work on that and it's definitely much smoother now. ⁓ so if you're in Vegas ⁓ and you feel like trying one of these out, you can just download the Zooks app. ⁓ just go in your and yeah in your app store on whatever device you're using, download the Zux app, sign up. The rides right now are free in Las Vegas.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:42)
Herky jerky? ⁓

Nicole (1:08:43)
Rookie jerky, that's an awesome word.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:10)
they're not charging for them. so you can get around to a bunch of different places ⁓ free of charge. 'Cause you know, using Ride Hail or a taxi in Vegas can be pretty expensive. ⁓ it's obviously not gonna stay free forever. That's true, you can do that. ⁓ but that's got even more limited places you can go.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:22)
Yeah. You can take the monorail. Monorail.

It's still more than the Tesla tunnel.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:32)
That's true. And it's it's a lot smoother than the Tesla tunnel. Yeah, it's it's also a lot smoother than the Tesla tunnel. The Tesla I don't know how they managed to make the roadway in the Tesla Tunnel so bumpy. it's very bumpy.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:35)
It just takes you across this.

Nicole (1:09:44)
Is it bumpy? I

don't know that I thought it was bumpy. I mean I believe you. I maybe I was just

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:49)
I mean,

it's just driving cars in a hole. They're hole cars. And then they, the way they have it when they come up, they have to stop and wait for each other. And I'm like, hmm, it seems like someone could have figured out how to not have you have to stop. I'm like, you know what would have worked better? Light rail. That's interesting.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:51)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:09:52)
Yeah, technically. Yeah, just drive and cars.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:05)
Yeah.

Yes, it certainly would.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:09)
Like

right down the middle of the strip, like it's just a light rail. And then like, it's like a party rail, like a party bus, but it's light rail and everyone gets in. There's a little cup holders for your giant yard of margarita. Come on, Las Vegas. Cause every time you walk you're in Las Vegas, like, I can walk to that, that casino. It's not that miles away. It's other than you think you're going to die.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:20)
Yeah, that would be perfect.

Nicole (1:10:22)
Okay, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:28)
Yeah. No.

And

well and it it it's it's you know, whatever distance it is, and you can multiply that by like three or four from the actual like, you know, as the bird flies distance because Vegas is one of the least walkable cities in the world. So you end up meandering around trying to get from one place to another. So it's it's it's really terrible to try and get anywhere on foot in Las Vegas. ⁓ but

Nicole (1:10:33)
You're gonna die. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:51)
Yeah, it's...

They're not allowed

to just pick you up along the street in taxis either. You have to go to a hotel. Which I did that once, I pulled a taxi, he's like, I'm not allowed to do this. I'm like, but I'm already in the car.

Nicole (1:11:00)
No, it's always a pain in the neck. It's it's so difficult.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole (1:11:07)
Yeah, I'm

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:07)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:11:07)
here already. Can we just go with it?

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:09)
He's like,

okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:11)
Yeah, we did that once this was it this year or last year, you know, taxi pulled up and ⁓ it's a yeah, same thing. We're not not really supposed to do that, but he did it anyway, which wasn't good. Thank you. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ and they're they're doing early rider testing in San Francisco right now. They've also got vehicles running in Austin and Seattle and a couple of other cities.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:22)
Aw. Thank you Taxi Person who did the things for us.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:35)
so they plan to launch in a f in several more cities this year. ⁓ the other company that is currently running driverless robotaxis in multiple cities, I think they're actually they've been in like ten cities now, operating in ten cities across the US. And they're testing in at least another dozen ⁓ in the US plus ⁓ London, England and Tokyo, Japan, is Waymo. ⁓

And ⁓ Waymo's been having some challenges of late. ⁓ apparently, you know, following some major storms in the south, ⁓ in the last couple of months. they've had issues with Waymo robo taxis just driving r right into flooded waters. ⁓ in in Austin and

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:19)
Woo!

Nicole (1:12:21)
That even happened? I feel like that

should be like really at the top of the list for things to make. Don't drive into danger. Item number one.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:27)
Listen, you're

only programming your car for the peninsula in Northern California and you're not really thinking about anywhere else in the world, it's pretty easy to just let your car drive into the water. It's always the edge, they're like, well, the edge cases, I'm like, you should only be concerned about the edge cases to be honest.

Nicole (1:12:41)
Ha ha

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:42)
Well, I mean, you know, Waymo is testing

Yeah.

Nicole (1:12:50)
Right? 'Cause that's the one where where it's gonna go horribly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:50)
The the the non edge cases yeah, the non edge cases are the easy things. Focus on the edge cases. ⁓ but you know, apparently you know, I guess it's you know, it's very difficult to actually detect how deep the water is when you're driving along. You know, the the sensors can detect that yes there's water, but you don't know if it's a puddle or you know, or a foot and a half of water. Well no, i i I mean

Nicole (1:12:58)
Right.

Okay, okay, but basically

⁓ it can't even tell if it's a puddle?

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:18)
It just knows it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:19)
It it doesn't know it has no idea how deep the water is.

Nicole (1:13:22)
Well, that seems fix that. I feel like that should be easier. How why is it so hard? Sam, engineering man, why is that so hard?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:31)
⁓ the sensors can't see through the w I mean they can they can't they can't tell where the road is under the water.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:38)
So that doesn't, so.

Nicole (1:13:39)
Couldn't you see like the

ripple of the water or something and be like, That is a large body of water?

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:42)
Well, as

a human, if you've driven over this road, you have the context of like, I know how, I have a good idea of how deep this water is. I understand like, context wise, like this is probably pretty deep or it's not really that deep because you've driven this road before or you can look around at the scenery.

Nicole (1:13:48)
okay.

And you drive

in and you go like, Hey, debris floating by me. This is bigger than a puddle. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:03)
Exactly. For robots, robots don't have context. They have rules, but the context of a lived life is not available within a robot. Yeah.

Nicole (1:14:09)
So

Stupid robots. So how would you

overcome that? Like what'd be the solution to avoid that?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:16)
I I think

I think one of the things probab yeah. That makes these things a lot less useful. ⁓ but I think, you know, one of the things is, you know, they have they have H D maps in these things. Yeah. And you know, they should have topographical information as part of that map. So you should be able to tell where low spots are in the water. So, you know, with with the radar and the lidar, you know, that's gonna reflect off the top surface of the water.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:18)
Don't drive through water.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:46)
And if you know if your map tells you that okay, this road, you know, the the the lowest part of this section of road is, you know, at let's say six hundred feet above sea level, but I'm seeing this ⁓ you know, the water is at six hundred and five feet above sea level, then it's like, ⁓ there's probably five feet of water there. I don't want to go into that. Yeah, there there's there's ways to do it and they're you know, they're working on this, but

Nicole (1:15:01)
Mm, okay.

There's something wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:15)
this is these are the kinds of things that you know, like detecting school buses. They've had you know, Waymo's had problems with this too. You know, ⁓ Tesla's had problems with it, but Waymo has been also struggling with this in recent months with driving past school buses or going through fast through construction zones. ⁓ you know, these some some of these that they're you know, these reports that we're seeing in the last couple of months really seem like they should be solved problems. They should be no brainers. And yet

Nicole (1:15:34)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:45)
they're they're still struggling with it after all these years. You know, they've been they've been doing this since two thousand nine.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:51)
It's really, really, it's really hard for a robot to figure all this out. you know, these cars still just get like stuck on one road. You know, there's always a video of like 15 Waymos or Cruze or Zookses where they just all went to one road and they're all congregating and they're all like plotting to take over the universe and then people shoot video them. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:01)
Mm. Yeah, well that's the other one in in Atlanta.

Nicole (1:16:05)
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I got stuck there. Having a little party.

Poor little cars.

⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:15)
Or you see them

just circling around a cul-de-sac or a roundabout somewhere in Atlanta for you know, hours for no reason.

Nicole (1:16:24)
That's not good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:25)
Yeah. ⁓ on the plus side for Waymo though, ⁓ they they did announce that they're finally ⁓ ready to launch ⁓ the the OHI, which is their Zekeer built robo taxi. this is their little their little minivan. ⁓ you know it's it's smaller it's it's smaller than like a Ford Transit Connect. ⁓ it's a pretty cool looking little vehicle. ⁓ but you know they've they've finished their testing and validation with that vehicle.

And they're starting to do ⁓ first rider trips with that in San Francisco and they will be rolling that out to other markets over the next few months. So I know there's there's a bunch of these testing here in Detroit. ⁓ they're driving around downtown Detroit. ⁓ and they've had they've got in Denver and in Austin and and a bunch of other cities. So they'll be rolling those out. ⁓ but yeah, the Waymo's Waymo's been having some challenges.

Nicole (1:17:23)
Or Wimo.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:24)
⁓ not really.

Nicole (1:17:28)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:29)
All this is very hard. You're still, you know, beta testing on public roads, which makes me.

Nicole (1:17:36)
Makes you a little bit nervous.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:38)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:38)
Yeah,

also why didn't they just put the front seat, know, the way they have these, so it's looking backwards so you can talk to your friends. Because one person in the front seat, I know, why don't they have this one front seat like turned around so you can talk to your friends? I mean, you don't need to be looking forward. You're not driving the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:46)
That's that's what they do in the Zooks.

Nicole (1:17:53)
Can have a little chat. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:57)
Well for for n for now at least, the

⁓ the Zooks or the the Waymo Ohi still has ⁓ you know still has driver controls in it. So that, you know, if they need to, you know, somebody can jump in and manually drive it.

So that's that's probably why. At some at some point they eventually will make it carriage seating like the like the Zooks, but not yet. ⁓ all right. ⁓ Mitsubishi ⁓ has said that they're working with Nissan to bring a pickup truck back to the US market. It's gonna gonna be based on the next generation of the the Frontier.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:38)
Alright.

Nicole (1:18:39)
Yay.

Are we excited about this?

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:43)
I don't remember it much.

Nicole (1:18:43)
So it's gonna be a Mitsubishi

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:43)
No. Yeah. They're they're also bringing back the the Pajero as an SUV, ⁓ probably sharing the same platform so it'll be a Mitsubishi badged version of the new Xtera, Nissan Xtera.

Nicole (1:18:45)
pickup truck, a new Mitsubishi, okay.

Okay. I mean, I I think that's cool. I I don't I just don't know how many people like ⁓ nothing against Mitsubishi, but that's it. Who's clamoring for Mitsubishi stuff right now?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:08)
Care?

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:08)
Are people

clamoring for a Mitsubishi pickup? That's the, that's, there we go.

We talked about like Subaru people, truck people are like, I drive Toyota's, I drive Chevy's, I drive Ford's. And this is even more so in like, you know, in small towns. I don't think people realize just how divisive like the Chevy versus Ford thing is. It is a big, big deal.

Nicole (1:19:29)
I drive a Mitsubishi.

That there's real wars fought there.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:39)
But

I mean, you know, Mitsubishi Mitsubishi still sells pickup trucks in other parts of the world. They they make pickup trucks and sell them in other parts of the world. But they haven't sold them here for probably twenty plus years. Yeah, it's been a while. ⁓ I guess yeah, I mean, they were they were never really that popular here, so I'm wondering, you know, will anybody even care?

Nicole (1:19:45)
Mm-hmm.

Has it been that long? Wow. Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:52)
Yeah, it's been a while.

I just, don't know.

Nicole (1:20:05)
That's just it. I'm like who's gonna be excited about this?

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:07)
I mean, it

would make more sense for Mazda to bring a truck back than it was for Mitsubishi. Cause those little, you know, those B Mazda trucks, they sold really well in the nineties and people remember them.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:23)
Maybe

maybe ⁓ maybe when Toyota finally launches their compact truck, you know, maybe they'll have a Mazda branded version of it. Yeah.

Nicole (1:20:31)
Maybe that's the moment.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:32)
The

Mitsubishi Mighty Max, that was the 90s truck that Mitsubishi sold. I guess it was the Mighty Max, yeah. Mighty Max.

Nicole (1:20:39)
Mighty Max, is that really what it was called? Mighty Max. I'm not gonna lie,

I like that. Mighty Max.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:46)
⁓

the the Honda Ridgeline is gonna be taking a break, apparently. ⁓ the apparently Honda is l pausing production for about eighteen months. ⁓ 'cause the ridgeline is really only sold in North America. It's it's only ever been built here. It's based on the same platform as the Odyssey and the pilot and the passport. ⁓ and I guess they're gonna pause production for a year and a half until twenty twenty eight when they can launch an updated one with their new

their new hybrid system for larger vehicles.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:20)
I will, I think the Rivian is literally just a Ridgeline. The Rivian, the R1T is just what the Ridgeline should have been. I remember when we got a Ridgeline and my wife got into it. She's like, is this electric? I'm like, I'm all no. She's like, pfft, de lame. Because it felt like it should be electric, electric truck. It just feels like, yeah, this could be electric. Yeah, this makes sense. But you know, I think with Honda's.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:26)
⁓

Ha ha ha

Nicole (1:21:39)
Done. Done.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:45)
Well, you know, I mean if

Honda hadn't killed their E V program, maybe they could have.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:49)
I know,

I know. you know, 18 months to make this thing a hybrid seems like a long time, but all right.

Nicole (1:21:58)
Does but

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:00)
The original answer, are we gonna lose the little trunk in the bed if it's a hybrid? That's an important question.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:01)
⁓ for twenty twenty

Nicole (1:22:06)
Awww I bet we

do. That was so cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:09)
I don't no I actually I don't think they will. I don't think they would put the battery back there for safety reasons. I think they'll put the battery probably under the seat or something. But that would mean potentially losing the magic seat in the in the ridge line. But but they'll probably put it up further up front. ⁓ so the the Ford Bronco

Nicole (1:22:15)
You don't think?

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:18)
Alright. Okay.

I don't know. Something's gotta die.

Alrighty.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:34)
for twenty twenty six is is getting decontented. the Bronco Sport, I should say. The little Bronco, the baby Bronco. Yeah, it's it's getting decontented for twenty twenty six. ⁓ they and they're they're lowering the price on all but the base trim level, which is actually strangely enough going up. but most of the other trims are going down. But they're getting rid of stuff like ⁓ you know right now

Nicole (1:22:40)
The Bit V Bronca.

Boo.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:02)
They have the twelve point three inch infotainment screen standard on most of the trims. That's going back to the older eight inch screen. ⁓ they're getting rid of the availability of a wireless charging pad for your phone, ⁓ the few other things that are going away. ⁓ you know, if you want the larger or sorry, not the in infotainment, but the instrument cluster display, which is currently twelve point three inch, that's going to a smaller eight inch display.

But yeah, they're getting rid of the the the wireless charging pad. there's a few other things that they're that they're ditching ⁓ you know, or making standalone options. So the base trim, the the big bend, is going up in price by eight hundred and fifty dollars for twenty twenty six. ⁓ the ⁓ heritage goes down by six hundred, outer banks goes down by thirteen fifty, and the Badlands goes down by twenty eight fifty.

Nicole (1:24:00)
But you get less stuff.

I don't know that that's such a deal, Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:07)
think they're they're trying to they're trying to deal with the affordability problem.

Nicole (1:24:11)
Yeah, which is a challenge. So they have yeah, that's the only th i if they still wanna have a margin on it, they have to do something and they're so let's bring it down, but we gotta take stuff out of there to make it work. I get it. It's just sad panda, you know. It's a solid strategy. Blah blah blah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:28)
So there are there are a bunch of politicians, ⁓ and you know domestic automakers that really don't want Chinese companies. Yeah. They they really don't want Chinese cars in the US market. And so there's there's a bill in the House of Representatives right now, ⁓ you know, Bernie Moreno, who

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:29)
Blah, blah.

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

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:38)
You could just stop right there. They're just a bunch of politicians.

Nicole (1:24:41)
Ha ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:57)
is Senator from Ohio. ⁓ he he's actually trying to just outright out and out ban any Chinese built vehicles from the US. ⁓ and before Moreno got elected to the Senate a couple of years ago, ⁓ guess what he did? Guess what his line of work was?

Car dealer.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:18)
Card

lobbyist? a car dealer.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:21)
Yeah, even bet even better than a lobbyist. He was a dealer. So he's trying to ban Yeah. So he's still he's trying to ban Chinese cars altogether, but in the house there's something called the ⁓ the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of twenty twenty six, ⁓ which would prohibit automakers that have any direct or indirect equity interest by a foreign adversary government, such as China, from importing, selling or manufacturing vehicles for sale in the US. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:25)
So he's still a car dealer.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:52)
Yeah, Volvo ⁓ is Chinese owned. ⁓ they you know, they are technically publicly traded, but Geely owns like eighty plus percent of their shares. and ⁓ but Geely is not not technically, at least that we know of, ⁓ owned at all by the Chinese government. However, BAIC, Bri Beijing Automotive Industries Corporation, ⁓ is owned by the Chinese government.

and BAIC owns about ten percent of Mercedes Benz. ⁓ if if this bill if this bill goes through ⁓ unchanged, ⁓ Mercedes could be barred from doing business in the United States.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:27)
Dun dun dun.

Nicole (1:26:29)
Da da da.

Which sounds crazy. Do you think that could actually happen?

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:41)
That's ⁓ it's,

who knows?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:45)
⁓

right now I I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised.

Nicole (1:26:47)
It doesn't feel like it. I I would

gosh, that would be crazy. I feel like they'll figure something out and that won't actually happen.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:56)
I hope so, but you never know. So if you're if you're in the market for a Mercedes, you might want to get one sooner rather than later.

Nicole (1:27:04)
Speak now

or forever hold your peace. Is that where we're getting to now?

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:06)
It feels like

they're just, mean, Alabama is going to lose its mind if they do this. Because, you know, all the Mercedes SUVs are built in Tuscaloosa. You know, they just had a big, you know, event there with, with other, you know, with politicians that showed up for whatever reason. I still don't understand why politicians need to show up. I know. And they don't, they're not.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:27)
Politicians always show up everywhere. That's just the way it is. You go to a factory,

Nicole (1:27:29)
Ha ha ha. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:31)
politicians are going to be there.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:33)
for reasons that don't make any sense, because they had nothing to do with whatever's going on at this point, because all this stuff happened like decades ago before they decided they wanted to run for whatever they run for. So yeah, so I don't know, man. That's ⁓ a tough sell when you have, Alabama, and you're like, ⁓ hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. You're talking about thousands upon thousands of people just absolutely losing their jobs.

Nicole (1:27:56)
Hold on one second.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:56)
The

well Mer Mercedes Mercedes has

Yeah. Well they have they have two assembly plants in Alabama that employ more than ten thousand people.

Nicole (1:28:09)
A lot people.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:09)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:09)
And

they would have to shut down. Unless unless BAIC sells their stake in in ⁓ in Mercedes. ⁓ or, you know, this bill is changed. To be fair, right now this is only in the House of Representatives. There is no Senate equivalent of this particular bill. So, you know, it might you know, might not go anywhere. ⁓ but ⁓ yeah, yeah, ⁓

BAIC owns like nine point eight nine percent of of Mercedes shares, and nine point six or nine point seven percent of Mercedes shares are owned by an investment firm ⁓ owned by Lee Shu Fu, who is the ⁓ the CEO of Gili. ⁓ or he's founder and chairman of Gili. ⁓ and so you know between them, you know, the Chinese own about 20% of Mercedes Group.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:06)
money Mercedes

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:06)
So yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:10)
Buy the thing that makes money.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:10)
⁓

yeah. The and then of course, you know, there's Volvo that I mentioned. Volvo is primarily owned by Geely, which is not, you know, government owned. But ⁓ you know, because they you know, they they do a lot of collaborative engineering work with other Geely group brands, ⁓ there was concern because back ⁓ in twenty twenty four, prior to the last election under the Biden administration,

they issued ⁓ some new regulations ⁓ called ⁓ securing securing the information and communications technology and services supply chain for connected vehicles. ⁓ basically what that said is that ⁓ you know for security reasons, vehicles sold in the US could not use any software ⁓ or connected vehicle hardware sourced from China. ⁓ so they ⁓ you know

I remember talking to ⁓ somebody from Audi ⁓ back, you know, when this first came up and he said, Yeah, th they by twenty twenty nine all this stuff has to be out of all vehicles sold in the US. ⁓ and ⁓ he was saying, you know, they're they're having a hell of time, you know, going going down through their entire supply chain and trying to source where every bit of code and every component comes from, ⁓ to make sure that, you know, there's nothing

nothing coming from China related to connectivity or safety systems. And so ⁓ Volvo is the ⁓ the first automaker to submit requests for you know compliance ⁓ authorization or you know authorization under this rule you know showing you know saying that yeah we're we don't have anything China sourced that fits under this rule. ⁓ and they

Yeah, they got ⁓ they got their authorization this past week, ⁓ to so they can continue to build and sell cars in the US. ⁓ they currently don't build that many of them, but they're and well, but I mean it also it also applies to the vehicles that they import from Europe. ⁓ so so they're the first ones to get authorization to do that.

Nicole (1:31:20)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:21)
they can.

Nicole (1:31:33)
Very cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:35)
So for now, Volvo is safe.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:35)
I mean, I have stories

from friends who have gone to China and they clearly know that they're being watched while they're there because they come over for the United States. ⁓ know, any, you know, whatever device you have, it's only as safe, it's only as secure as the least secure part or piece of code. That's, I mean, that's just InfoSec 101. ⁓ That said, if we had some really quality privacy laws in this country, this would be less of an issue, but you know.

Nicole (1:31:42)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:06)
We can't do that because ad networks. We don't want to upset the ad networks. Can't make Facebook angry.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:13)
Well, I I I regularly get calls from reporters to comment on, you know, some of this security stuff with China because you know, people like Moreno and and others, you know, are saying, you know, we can't allow the Chinese in here because it would be a security threat. because, you know, that you'd have Chinese cars driving around here with cameras that could be sending data back to the U back to China. ⁓ and it's like excuse me, but pretty much a hundred percent of new cars sold in the United States right now have cameras on them.

And have connected data connectivity. If the Chinese wanted to do this, if if they if they wanted to spy on us using cars, which would be an extremely inefficient way of spying on the United States, by the way. But if they wanted to do that, they could just go and buy some Fords or GMs or Toyotas or Hondas and you know ha you know tap into the those cameras and get that data and send it back. They don't need to sell cars here to do that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:11)
Also, they can just buy the data. can literally just like, know, GM got in trouble for selling data that wasn't ⁓ clearly, know, FTC and California both said, like, you didn't really tell people that you were selling data like this in a way, you know. And, but yeah, you can just buy, you know, we gotta watch out for China. I'm like, China can just buy the data just like everyone else does. It's...

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:14)
Yes, true.

Nicole (1:33:15)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:36)
Go to any

any of a dozen data brokers and they'll they'll gladly sell you all the data you want.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:42)
Yeah, we're just like, can't let China get this data. I'm like, well, then we should have some privacy loss. Nah, let's not do that. Let's not fix the problem. Let's just, let's do some performative legislation that'll fix this, even though it doesn't, I again, they could just, like China, you can't sell anything with these things. Cool. So China just buys the data. Let's say a Volvo is going around, it has, they could just buy the data from a data broker. Whomp, whomp.

Legally, legally, they can legally just buy the data. Good times.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:16)
⁓ so Ford

Ford ended production of the Escape and the the Lincoln Corsair back in December at their Louisville assembly plant so they could retool the factory to build their new universal electric vehicles. So Ford, you know, the the only vehicle Ford has in like the compact crossover class now is the Bronco Sport. ⁓ but ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ but the Escape name

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:37)
which is just a better escape. It's the same platform.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:44)
maybe coming back, know, Ford Ford has said they're planning to build other vehicles off that same platform in addition to the thirty thousand dollar electric truck. ⁓ and you know when we toured the their E V development center, you know, we saw some some clay models, you know, under silks, you know, one of which looked, you know, very much like an escape sized and shaped vehicle. ⁓ and so ⁓ Ford authorities reporting that you know by twenty twenty nine ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:06)
Ahem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:13)
the escape name could be back on an E V crossover ⁓ based on this platform, which I think you know that would be pretty good for Ford. you know, if they can sell that, you know, for low thirty thousand dollars, thirty thousand doll thirty thousand dollars price point, ⁓ you know, I think that that could be ⁓ pretty competitive vehicle for them.

Nicole (1:35:35)
Definitely.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:36)
to bonkers amount of cars.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:38)
Yeah. So, Nicole, tell us about your visit to Virginia.

Nicole (1:35:42)
Yes.

So I went to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety this week, the IIHS, with the folks at Mazda. And they let us go and see a ⁓ moderate overlap front crash test for the Mazda CX5. And we get up on this, you you literally go and you you walk we walk the facility, we got to walk the long, so they call it a runway, but it's this long giant hallway where they rush the car down to its ultimate demise.

we go down there and we see him all loaded up with sensors. We come back, we stand on this gantry that the car literally comes down the runway right underneath you, Cablamo, goes into ⁓ the the barrier. And they took us to see this. This is like a real testing. It's only one part of the testing. We don't know what the results are. And Mazda was very careful to say, you know, don't speculate, we don't know. Like you y you look at it, we don't know anything. I don't know the first thing about what a good crash test versus a bad crash test really looks like.

But what was neat to see it, and you know what, it was the amount of of figuring stuff out and the data and the engineering that goes into this is insane. Like we all know that vehicles are designed to be as safe as they safe as they can be. But when you see them do this and you see what they do and you see why they do it, it's really pretty impressive. So ⁓ you know, we won't know how the CX5 actually did, I think they said five or six weeks. It'll be sometime this summer.

Because there's also more than one crash test. They crash a bunch of Mazda CX5s to get all their results. This was just one result to give us an example of it. And there were some kind of neat things that I just didn't know. So you know when you see all those videos, they're always like perfectly lit videos. They have these special lights that hang over the area where you do the crash test. They put out 75,000 watts.

When you turn them on. So literally the crash test count countdown begins. The lights are not on yet. And they turn it on sort of right before the end. So that when the car comes in, it's lit up at the right moment. Then it just stays lit for, you know, a sm it's one minute that it's lit up for. That's it. And they turn them off. And they are so intense that standing on that gantry, you suddenly feel like someone has lit a fire right in front of your face. You can feel the heat from this, which was crazy. ⁓ and it was

Incredible to see it because the the sound of it and the feel of it and seeing it crashed and it was weirdly like you won't a little overwhelming because you go down there, you see it, you hear it, you see what happened. They let us go down there once the guys check to make sure everything's okay for us to walk down there. They throw like kitty litter, what it looks like, if for any of the fluids, because they don't have gas in it anymore, but they put other fluids in it to mimic gas so they can see how that would leak out of the vehicle.

⁓ and they make sure everything's safe. They get rid of the big bits and pieces of stuff, and then you can go down there and take pictures. And you're literally looking at this, and you the thing is you can see right inside, you see the crash disc dummies, and they paint them all. They paint them in very specific ways so that they can see what part of their face or arm or feet or whatever connected with which part of the vehicle. And you see them in there and you see the little face print of paint on the airbags and

Youth and you they're they're askew, they're still in their seats, but they're all kind of askew. And there's a moment where you think, my gosh, they're just gonna make sure that when that's a person, like that's what happens to a person if they're in that vehicle and they hit something like that. And it was only a test at forty miles an hour. It wasn't like some eighty-five mile an hour crash because they're they're trying to test where they're gonna get the most data and the most ability to get.

Automakers to see results that they can take action on. So, you know, this is the insurance to institute for highway safety. So all these insurance companies ensure it's great for them because if they make your vehicle safer, there's fewer payouts that an insurance company has to do. So it makes sense. But it also really does make things safer. And if they make the if they said, Okay, we're gonna crash this car at a hundred miles an hour, well, that makes it really there's a point where it's you're making it so safe, but you also just turn that vehicle into a tank.

So there's this engineering safety conversation that has to happen with everything. And it was just really kind of impressive to see it. Like when you really and you see all the technology they have in the trunk and all the sensors and everything they're pulling. They also did a tour of the facility and they had, I think everyone's probably seen this video. It was a 1959, I forget what it was. A 1959 vehicle, I think it's a Chevy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:10)
A a Chevy.

Yeah.

Nicole (1:40:12)
versus

a 2000, I believe 2009 Chevy, and they crash test them. And they have them in the lobby of the building. So you walk into the building and these two vehicles are literally on display there. And when you think about what what crash tests have done, you look at how that looks that old 1959 vehicle. And it wasn't a survivable thing for the person in the front seat. The the the seat has moved the steering wheel everything is there's metal poking in

There's no space left for your feet. So you have horrible foot injuries. You look at the modern one and the door is off so you can see inside, but you feel like you could just sit right down there and be okay. And it's such a dramatic difference. And that's partly because of what the IHS does. And they had another one where they showed it was kind of by fluke that it happened to be Mazda, but they have because they have these permanent displays set up once you get further into the facility. They had a

CX5 that they put through one of the first side impacts when they first did that test where they ram a barrier at the side of the vehicles, if you were T-boned, basically. They had a Ford and they had this Mazda. And the thing is, they work with the automakers throughout the process. They're not trying to stump them. They're not trying to fool them. They want to make cars safer. So sometimes what's coming, like they know a little bit what's coming down the line. They might not have every single detail about what the crash test is going to be.

But they'll have an idea, they're looking at this, they're looking at that. This is what we're gonna be testing on upcoming generations of your car. And so they had talked to automakers and Mazda knew the side impact test was coming. So they started to take action to try to make their vehicle safer. Like even not knowing all the details of how this test is gonna be, let's do it. And this is, you know, years ago. So they have the Mazda they tested because it was coming out and it was gonna be new. And you can see that the B pillar squishes a little bit, like there's a little.

But it basically keeps the passenger compartment in one piece. It it's you don't look at it and think, well, that's gonna be a bad accident. But then they had a Ford, and like they said, it wasn't that the Ford was built terribly. This is something all the automakers were doing at the time. And they hadn't, you know, it was probably just about to be redone. And and when you look at it, the B pillar hasn't just squished inward. The entire frame has come off the chassis. You see like the bottom, and it's like all the colored metal has squished inside to the car.

And it's now one with the passenger compartment. And you see these very dramatic differences between this is what we've encouraged automakers to do by showing them areas where people are getting hurt significantly and frequently versus what they were doing before. And it's not a matter, like they said, if they have bad cars and we're trying to make them have good cars. It's you can always make things safer. So if we can figure out ways to look at the things that cause the most number of injuries and

Find a way to make those injuries less frequent and target the highest injury kinds of accidents. You can keep people from having debilitating injuries for their whole life and keep people from getting killed in cars. So it was a pretty amazing thing to see. It was one of the it was something that's always been on my bucket list. Like, I really want to see them crash test a car. I've never been so excited for a drive program. I was so like, you want me to drive Ferrari? No, no, no, no. I want to see them crash test a car. I was so excited to see this.

And it was really impressive and seeing all of their displays and seeing how much cars have changed, even modern cars. Like it didn't take that nineteen fifty-nine Chevy to prove this makes a difference. You're looking at modern cars and seeing we weren't doing something here, now we are. And they keep talking about how they, you know, they they're constantly changing it to make it a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. ⁓ and it's all about keeping people safe. So it was impressive. It was one of the coolest things that I've gotten to see in this job ever.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:04)
Cool. Did IH, are they the ones that did the Toyota Corolla test a few years ago where they showed like an early 2000s and then a modern Toyota Corolla?

Nicole (1:44:05)
Yeah.

feel like they did they've done a couple where they've done yeah, they've done a they've done s

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:16)
Could be.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:17)
Yeah, where you just like suddenly

you're like, ⁓ yeah, I'm it's know, 2000 scroll and then you see the difference you're like, wow, that's a that's a huge jump just in like, you know, coupled

Nicole (1:44:21)
Fine. Well, yeah, like this Exactly. Well, like the side impact test,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:23)
Yeah.

Nicole (1:44:27)
it's not like this was a test they conducted. You know, this is these are modern vehicles. And you we, you know, things that you would think, like it's an older car, I still have it, I'm driving around in it. But that's that's what your older car does. I think that the the good thing, bad thing, that coming away from it, you think, man, if I'm driving a car that's older, you're giving up a lot of safety. Like I'm not knocking on older cars, but there's something to be said for.

So when I up got rid of my charger when I first went to upgrade it, part of it was I kept looking at things and I'm thinking, I don't have any of this safety stuff. And that did pretty well in crash tests. But you think about they keep engineering things each iteration, each all new version of whatever your vehicle is. They take things like what the IAHS has come up with in crash tests and like Jennifer Morrison, their safety person for Mazda, I forgot her exact title. But she was saying, you know, we I said, How's it feel when you don't get greens?

Because there's like a colored boxes. Green is good, then there's yellow, and there's red. Red is bad. And she said, We get reds when things are new. And you get reds. And she said, We don't want to see a red. She's like, you kind of feel that like, ⁓ we got a red. She said, and it initially you're you're hurt and you're upset and you're like, gosh darn it, why we get a red. But she said, then you look at it and you go, That's an opportunity. That's an opportunity to make it a green. There are things out there right now that have reds in different categories. And you know, behind the scenes, every automaker has engineers going, crud.

How do we get that to a green? And it's a challenge, but it's a good challenge because nobody wants to put people in unsafe cars. Nobody wants to have horrible injuries in their cars. So the stuff that they do really helps our vehicles be safer. And it is a tool for automakers, even when they don't do well, and even when it challenges them. Like some of this overlap stuff is really hard for them because it takes the instead of the force going the whole front of the vehicle, it goes into half the vehicle or even a smaller portion of the vehicle.

You gotta take a lot of force and put it in a really narrow area and protect. I guess the big thing in those impacts is the lower extremity injuries because it gets squished. And there's things where like the tires used to kind of go right into the passenger compartment. They showed a Ford Explorer and a grand wagoneer or Wagoneer. And you can literally see in the crashed example how one did really well and one didn't. The wagoneer did great. And you can see where the shock is, you know, the absorber that would be with a tire. There's no longer tire. And it's like slightly opposkewed. It's not perfect.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:41)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (1:46:46)
And you look at the Ford Explorer and the thing is pointing at the passenger compartment. So you know if the wheel was on the end of that, that wheel is good. Things like that. Like how do you make that one little thing not do what it does when you hit it? Okay, let's make a little engineering change so it pushes a different direction and doesn't smash into people. So it was really fascinating to watch all this and to hear how even a bad test is a good test because it gives them a way to learn.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:12)
Yeah, I I I've witnessed a few crash tests over the years. ⁓ most recently ⁓ went to Honda's R and D Center in Ohio, ⁓ probably about five or six years ago, and we saw them do the small offset rigid barrier test with a Civic. And you know, that is one of the most severe tests because it's a twenty five percent overlap. So it's the kind of crash

Nicole (1:47:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:36)
It's one of the actually one of the more common crashes that you can have on the road, multi vehicle crash, because ⁓ you know, it's the kind of thing that, you know, if a w a car starts drifting over the center line of the road, you know, you're you're not gonna get typically a full straight head on crash. It's it's gonna be, you know, partial overlap. And that's a real that w you know, when they launched when they first started doing that about ten, twelve years ago, pretty much everybody failed.

Nicole (1:47:52)
Right.

Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:04)
that test. And, you know, as everybody started re engineering their vehicles to perform better in that test, you know, now when they did when Honda did that that test with the Civic, you know, this is a you know, forty mile an hour crash with a twenty five percent overlap into a rigid barrier. And y we walked out and the the door, the driver's side door could still open and close. Yeah, which is amazing.

Nicole (1:48:27)
That's they talked about that. They said

like when you see like you see these car crashes, like the the goal is that your car might look like it's done, but that you open your door and you get out. And they were even talking about, even say you're in an accident where for some reason you can't get out, right? Like you just physically are unable to, you've been hurt. Even getting somebody asked them, well, how hard is it to get people up? They said these t all of this even makes it easier for first responders. Cause instead of them having to work to pry open

metal that will no longer open, break A pillars, break B pillars, do what they have to do. Very often first responders can just walk up and open the door. So it makes it easier for right. You just walk up, open the door and take the person out. So you don't have to suddenly like, I can't help you. Give me a minute. It's just like, no walk up, open the door. So even if you're still injured and need help, help gets to you faster, which is something I hadn't really even thought of. So it's it but it's incredible.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:04)
Yeah, you don't have to use the jaws of life.

And that that can make a huge

difference, you know, if there's any injury.

Nicole (1:49:23)
Huge

difference. If you're trapped in your car and they can't get to you, like which also when you think about as a first responder, if you're just thinking like I'm stuck and I can't help this guy because I can't get to him, what a horrible thing. If they can get you out and get to you, they can immediately treat you, they can help you, they can stabilize you, they can get you whatever kind of medical care you need immediately rather than waiting minutes, which matter if you're in a car accident. That that really matters. So it was a really it was an interesting thing to see. And I I just think the

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:48)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (1:49:53)
I wish everybody could have a chance to see what one of these crash tests is like, honestly. And I know that's not realistic and that's not how it works. But to see it like when that when it crashed, Sam, you've seen it, you feel it in your chest, like the boom. I it made it reminded me on a smaller scale. Many, many years ago, I saw the space shuttle take off, and it was the first time I ever heard a sonic boom. And you feel it just like whoosh right up through your body. And when this these this car hit the barrier.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:06)
yeah.

Nicole (1:50:19)
You get that same sense of like bam, like you feel it in your soul. And it it does have that, you think God, this is so important because those are just dummies with pain on their faces. But what if that was people like hitting like that? That is, you know, hopefully none of us get to know what a crash is like in the real life, but it happens. And to think that what they're doing in this building, this beautiful pastoral landscape in Virginia, inside these really violent crash tests are happening to keep.

All of us safe, it's it's cool. I think safety is I it it it made me it impressed me the efforts that they're going to and how important it is to truly look at that crash test data and that it's a great tool, a fantastic tool for you buying a car, but also for automakers to say, guys, we can do better. We can do better. We can just keep improving, we can do better.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:09)
Yeah, I I added ⁓ putting a link to the crash test that IAHS did with a nineteen fifty nine Chevy Belair versus a two thousand nine Malibu. ⁓ yeah.

Nicole (1:51:17)
God, you guys have got. It is, it is just

unbelievable. And when you watch it, they had it playing too. Like you see in the modern car, you crash an airbag, and everything's relatively happy. And you see the other one, like they showed one. This is the other one they were talking about. They had one of the things with the side impact thing that they they realized, and they have the vehicle there, side impact where it did poorly, and then a great big SUV. SUVs have really changed the story.

Because they thought initially that the that the dummy's head went out the window. And and they're like, no, the it intruded so far that it intrudes to the point that when it hits, it bends your neck and your head neck taps, your head tapped the hood. And there's a dent in the hood of this SUV from the head of the dummy going and hitting it. And when you think about that, like, can you imagine and now they're like, Well, we gotta stop this. We gotta find a way to stop this. And they find a way to like address something. And they said, you know.

Even what they do today as cars change, like SUVs becoming all the rage, that posed whole new challenges because when an SUV hits an SUV, it's one thing. When an SUV hits a car, entirely different deal. So it's it's an ever evolving thing. There's never a point where they can say, We got it. They never have got it. They're always able to improve things and and react better and make it safer. It's just really cool stuff. Like go safety engineers. It was amazing. It was really amazing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:46)
Awesome. All right. ⁓ we've got some listener questions. ⁓ let's start off with Ken. ⁓ I listen to your podcast every week and look forward to hearing learning the latest. Last week Nicole touched on the challenge of charging at a Tesla charging station with its very short cable. Robbie has talked about traveling distances down the coast of California as Ionic 5. How does he plug in at these stations? Are you aware of any approved extension cable that can be used for these situations? It only needs to be about three feet.

Nicole (1:53:02)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:16)
So Robbie, go.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:18)
So when I was doing my traveling, ⁓ I was with my Nax, ⁓ not my Nax, I'm sorry, my CCS 2024 IONIQ 5. So I didn't stop at any Tesla charging stations when I did. I stopped at Electrify America stations. So I didn't have any, yeah, I was getting free charging. So like all these trips down south, up and down the coast, up and down the state, ⁓ they were free ⁓ because I had free charging. That goes away like.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:34)
Well, 'cause you were getting free charging, so.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:47)
I don't know, we turned the car back in on Friday, so it's gone now. So the salad days of free charging I think are over, to be honest. So.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:56)
Yeah, most most

Nicole (1:53:56)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:58)
automakers are are getting away from that now.

Nicole (1:54:00)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:00)
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so I, ⁓ you know, I'm sorry I was using ⁓ CCS charger. I, well, we, you know, we do have the NACs, you know, the 2026 NACs enabled, ⁓ or NACs outfitted ⁓ IONIQ 5. So, you know, I guess I'll give you all a heads up when ⁓ we do some ⁓ traveling with it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:22)
⁓ so I I actually did see ⁓ a video it's I think I think it was last week, ⁓ from ⁓ Tom Malogny who does the state of charge YouTube channel. ⁓ and he tests a lot of chargers and ⁓ charging equipment adapters and things like that. And he actually just did ⁓ a test. He's actually done three separate tests now with a supercharger extension cable from a company called Handshell. and

Basically, yeah, and and you know, looking around, there there's a few other channels, you know, that have also tested this same extension cable. ⁓ I think right now, Ken, I would probably recommend not getting an extension cable. ⁓ the Tom had some quite a few issues with this with this unit from Handshow. Previously he had tested prototype cables that they sent him, and those had some issues with

not not cutting off the power flow when you press the button to disconnect it. So ⁓ you could conceivably ⁓ unplug it while the power's still flowing and you know then get a pretty substantial arc, ⁓ electrical arc, which would be bad. They they fixed that, handshell fixed that so that as yeah, so so as soon as soon as you s go to press the button, it immediately cuts off the power flow. So that's good. But

Nicole (1:55:35)
Cheese.

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:40)
They fixed the, you might get shocked and died part.

Nicole (1:55:43)
Good God.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:50)
⁓ he tested it. ⁓ he tested the cable with both his Rivian R1T and his F one fifty Lightning ⁓ at at a supercharger station and tried you know a couple of different chargers. In each case, the ⁓ the charger it would stop charging after about seven or eight minutes. ⁓ and it would not continue. And you know, he he sent back, you know, he contacted the manufacturer ⁓ he's sending sending that cable back.

they're gonna send him another one, you know, take a look at it, send him another one. Tom was speculating that perhaps it was getting too hot. ⁓ and you know, that it was generating too much heat and then the charger was was disconnecting, or was just it was shutting off the power flow. Yeah. ⁓ so right now there there is not an extension cable that I would recommend. you might want to wait a little bit longer ⁓ before you try purchasing one. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:56:29)
mean, that makes sense.

so doesn't light a fire.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:49)
Yeah, I'm sure at some point somebody will come out with with a good one. But right now they they don't seem to exist.

Roberto Baldwin (1:56:56)
you. Whomp Whomp.

Nicole (1:56:59)
⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:00)
here's another one targeted at Robbie from Martin. this message is for Robbie since you own one. My name is Martin and I live in Salinas, California. I'm interested in possibly purchasing a used ⁓ used Ionic five. and according to consumer reports it tested very well but was not recommended because of reliability issues. Have you had any problems with yours? thank you for any information you can give me. Enjoy listening to the show.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:26)
We didn't have any, last few weeks we had the car, ⁓ the regen started making a weird noise. It was louder than it should be. ⁓ But I took it to the dealer, the dealer didn't have a spot for it to get looked at in the service center. I talked to the person at the dealership, like, hey, it didn't have time to fix it before the car had to be turned in for the lease. So I talked to the guy and he's like, yeah, that's just a warranty issue. He's like, whatever.

And so we gave the car back. Other than that, we didn't have any issues. know that, you know, consumer ports, based their reliability issues on the lifetime of an automaker. So it's not just IONIQ 5. mean, Hyundai's had some engine issues over the years. ⁓ And so as Hyundai has gotten better, they still have long-term, you know, if you look at the long-term, you see reliability issues. So on one hand, you're like, well, is it really?

about this car or is it about the long-term of this automaker? So you kind of have to like look at that. I mean, I like the car enough to buy a new one. That's, you know, and we were going to buy a used one. It's just the new one, the pricing and everything seemed to work out for us pricing wise. So, you know, whenever, you know, if you're concerned about reliability, I mean, I can understand that again, you know, Hyundai has had that long-term issue with their gas engines. This is, you know,

And so, but yeah, I mean, we, other than that sound, which didn't change the way the car drove at all. Yeah, was no issues. ⁓ You know, but you know, within the EVs, it's usually less issues with the sort of the actual powertrain and more of all the other bits because they add all these extra, you know, whiz bang features. Those are sort of the things that end up like going a little, you know, haywire. I do know someone who also has an Ionic 5. ⁓

some rats got into the insulation and it chewed through some wires. yeah, that's not an EV problem. That's a rat problem. Yeah, so you can get like a peppermint spray that you can spray your car with and around your house. And so now your car smells like a peppermint patty. So you got that going for us. Yeah, so yeah, I think I understand why Consumer Reports has that reliability issue.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:59:29)
But that's not an EV unique problem. That's that that happened on my nineteen ninety Miyada at mice.

Nicole (1:59:29)
Cosh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:59:55)
It is a long-term sort of Hyundai issue. My personal issue, I didn't have any problems. I do know people who had the 12 volt battery problem, especially at the beginning where Hyundai wasn't quite sure what was going on, so people felt like they were getting scammed. That's been sort of, I don't know if resolved is the thing. I think they've changed things and they're more likely to help you figure out the issue because it's become a far bigger issue than...

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:04)
Yeah. That's it.

Roberto Baldwin (2:00:23)
they originally anticipated. But other EVs have had that issue as well. yeah, somehow charging a 12-volt battery is really tough.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:29)
I think I think certain jeeps

have had that problem.

Roberto Baldwin (2:00:33)
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so I liked the car. Again, I liked it enough that we bought a new one. We were gonna buy a used one. And I, you know, it's, I like, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:45)
think the the the main issue ⁓ with all the E G P cars so the Ionic five and six and the nine, the Kia E V six and E V nine, for in terms of reliability, the the biggest issue is the integrated charge control unit. ⁓ which is what you know, it handles charging the the high voltage battery but also the twelve volt battery. ⁓ and that you know they were having that's the one that Robbie was talking about that they had had some issues

you know, it would fail. There was a fuse in there that would blow and then it would not be able to charge the twelve volt battery. ⁓ they have made changes to the design of that. ⁓ again, it's covered under warranty. ⁓ and you know, Hyundai's got a recall on it. So, you know, if you if you have an issue, ⁓ you know, they will they will fix it free of charge. And they've also extended the warranty on that component, ⁓ to ten years, a hundred and eighty thousand miles. ⁓

You know, initially when they first did the recall, they did not have enough of the parts and so s a lot of customers were waiting quite a long time to get theirs fixed. ⁓ we actually had the ICCU fail on our E V six in December or November. ⁓ it was fixed in a day and a half. They just had to they just had to get the order the part from the warehouse. ⁓ and like day and a half after we took it in, we had it back. ⁓ and you know, again, fixed there was no cost, no charge to fix it.

So, you know, I think that that's probably the only major issue that you're likely to encounter with this whole family of vehicles. and you know, other than that, you know, we love the car. We love the E V six.

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:29)
Yeah, I had a friend who I told him about the Onyx 5. They bought it and they had this issue and they were one of the first people to have it. So it ended up being sort of like a gauntlet of like trying to figure out what was going on. And it sort of turned them off from Hyundai, ⁓ which I understand, you know, like I get it. You're the first person that has this issue. That's sort of like I'm the first person to buy a car. is that's when I went to sort of jump back to the slate like I

Nicole (2:02:50)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:59)
put my $50 deposit in at the event within minutes. So does that mean I, do I really want the first slate spilt? Or do I want to wait like 5,000 slates in 10,000 slates in? Like, do I want like one of the first ones?

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:05)
Ha ha ha.

Nicole (2:03:06)
Ha ha ha ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:12)
Do

Nicole (2:03:12)
How many slates

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:13)
do

Nicole (2:03:13)
would you need to wait in to feel comfortable? Like pick a number. I you would have to have X slates. How many?

Roberto Baldwin (2:03:15)
I don't know. I don't know.

So they got to, what, 100,000 that night or something goofy. If my slate comes in, I'm more than happy to wait until April as opposed to getting one in December. Yeah, I kind of like, do I want the December slate? Do I want to be the guinea pig? But also then I get to be, you know, content. That's the other thing, you know.

Nicole (2:03:31)
You don't you don't want a December slate.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:31)
You get to keep driving the burrs for a while.

kinda it's

it's kinda it's kind of also kinda like being the first person to buy an electric jeep wagon your S.

Nicole (2:03:46)
Shush you

Roberto Baldwin (2:03:46)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, when you're the first.

Nicole (2:03:48)
risks were taken.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:50)
Hey, no, I mean and that's yeah, that's always

the challenge when you when you buy something that is brand new. ⁓ yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:03:57)
I mean the Ford

BZ, BZ4X, the tire issue, ⁓ the BRZ GR86, ⁓ the issue with ⁓ the oil pan, the gasket, they're using like a, instead of using like a gasket, was like a, some sort of like goo, and it was coming apart and getting sucked up into the engines and destroying engines.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:02)
Two yeah.

Nicole (2:04:03)
So you're right.

my gosh.

Roberto Baldwin (2:04:25)
Like the Toyota Tacoma ish, know, the Tacoma, is it for, or not, was Tacoma or the Tundra? The Tacoma, the Tacoma, you know, it's not just EVs. It's all like the very first of any car. Whoops.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:34)
Yeah. Well yeah, well th yeah, the the tundra, you know, they're

they've they've recalled something like two hundred and fifty thousand of the current generation tundra now to replace the the turbocharged V six engines because of foreign material in there.

Nicole (2:04:39)
Oopsie daisy.

Roberto Baldwin (2:04:48)
Yeah, it's,

so right now, mean, let's go back to Martin. Maybe don't buy year one of the car, get a 2025, get a 2024, if you wanna use one.

Nicole (2:05:01)
had someone say

in the OEM say to me years ago, never buy the first, never buy a new car the first model year. And she I know, I know. I you're talking the woman who bought a wagon year S in the first months it was out. I hear ya.

Roberto Baldwin (2:05:07)
I know, but I really want this light.

So, yeah, yeah, I think, know, now, you know, we have.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:05:18)
But we we take these

risks so you don't have to.

Nicole (2:05:21)
Exactly. Exactly. It's all for you, dear listeners.

Roberto Baldwin (2:05:21)
Yeah, we jump right in, feet first.

We're like, here we go.

Nicole (2:05:29)
Let's see what happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:05:29)
Alright. Finally finally we got

Mark. ⁓ thanks for sharing my tongue in cheek email about refueling my car about a month ago. Like I said, you do you if it makes you happy and you're not hurting anyone. I was wondering last night how many people in general and how you three in particular cruise for fun. I remember back in the day, I'm sixty-four now, collecting gas money from friends and going for a cruise with no predetermined destination. I still do that now, cruising to basically get lost for a couple of hours.

Then turning on my GPS to get home, choosing the no expressway option, so I'm taking more back roads on my return home. I've mentioned before my cruiser now is a 2013 Mercedes SL63 AMG, as I've always loved convertibles with the sun on my face and the wind in my remaining hair. I know that part. ⁓ I I know Sam enjoys his Miata, which is a super fun car to drive. I drove one myself and the driving experience was exhilarating. As you've said on the podcast, it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow.

Not that the Miyada is a slow car. Actually it is kinda slow, but yeah. But that wasn't what I was implying. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:31)
It's kind of slow, but it's fine. It's not it's not Del Sol slow, which

I had a Del Sol for years. And I still was like, I'm fine with this.

Nicole (2:06:39)
God, I knew somebody who had one of those. Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:06:39)
So I'm I'm curious how

Sam enjoys his Miata and what cars Nicole and Robbie drive for pleasure. Thanks for the informative and entertaining podcast.

Nicole (2:06:48)
⁓ go, you go first.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:49)
I, my BRZ,

I drive my BRZ and that's the, you know, that's, when I, so I'm from a small town, which I probably mentioned too many times and the town had a lot of windy roads and a lot of off-road, you know, lot of dirt roads. And so it was a great town to sort of learn how to drive. And that was, what I did for, to get out the house was I just went driving. And so now, you know, you know, if I get.

I'm just sitting around and I love the, you I do this too where you go somewhere and you turn off the, you set your, for me it's Google Maps or Apple Maps and I tell it, okay, I want to go home, but not on the freeway. And so then I find all these weird roads and sometimes I'm like, well, which way is this? Well, you know, I've never been on this road. And so I will, yeah, I will drive around with my BRZ. I'll do it with the Ionic 5 too as well.

I, I, I, and again, I'm gonna go back to the slate. I can take the doors off. Which you can do it, to be honest, you could do that on any car. Nothing's stopping you from not taking the doors off. You can just take the doors off. Every time like the Wrangler and Bronco people are like, you can take the doors off. I'm like, I could take the doors off of, you know, a Cavalier if I wanted. Chrysler LeBaron, just take the doors off. There's nothing stopping me. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (2:07:52)
Yeah. I've taken doors off many different tent cars over the years.

Nicole (2:07:53)
I just take the doors off. You see what

happens.

Everybody could. Nothing's stopping the rest of us. Take those doors right off. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:05)
Slightly more complicated than a Wrangler, but

Roberto Baldwin (2:08:11)
But yeah, ⁓ and I do miss having a convertible. I really want an EV convertible, but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon and I don't want a Hummer.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:21)
Well when when when you when you take the bulkhead out of your out of your slate, you know, you'll be partially open air.

Roberto Baldwin (2:08:28)
Yeah, and I take the doors off. That's one of the things. I take the doors off. They're just like, yeah, do whatever. We don't care. Knock yourself out. So I take the pole kit. I take the doors off. I get like a little system for my dogs so they're not sliding around, little leashes for them so they can hang out. And the little one will want to sit in the passenger seat. And the big one likes to hang out in the back. And I just drive around.

Nicole (2:08:31)
Slightly open air.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:36)
What about you, Nicole?

Nicole (2:08:52)
I think for me, for I I it's not one car. I I mean, 'cause we'll take Russell's car out and we'll, you know, when it's nice and doors off, windows off and windows off, you know, top down, all that kind of stuff. I just like never because I don't want bugs in my teeth. like that's a thing. ⁓ but I when I just want to go out and for drive, I actually it doesn't matter what car I have, especially if it's nice, I roll the windows down and I always open the sunroofs in my

Sam Abuelsamid (2:09:05)
Did you ever put the windshield down?

Huh.

Nicole (2:09:20)
Hair gets all messed up and I just let the wind blow everywhere. But I drive and I have this thing because I where I live, I like I know the area really well. I've lived here forever. But I'll go out and I'll like take a left and I'll drive for a bit. And then at some point I just randomly turn at an intersection in a way that I don't normally go. And then I turn again and then I turn. I keep turning in a direction that I've never been. And I find myself in the middle of nowhere in, you know, southern New Hampshire, which has some pretty rural roads, and it's always beautiful.

There's always farms and maple sugar shacks and random like places that I've never been in, towns that I've that I've lived, you know, and explored my whole life. So I I'm I'm a big rant drive to a certain spot, then even get off the highway and then just start randomly turning. Do I know where this road goes? Yes. Do I know where the other direction goes? Never been that way. Let's find out. And I just meander. I'm a big meander. In fact, when the girls are home, we'll go out and we'll chat and I just have them pick a direction at every intersection. Left or right, left or right, left or right.

And they decide which way we go and we'll find all sorts of interesting stuff. So that's my just kind of chilling out and enjoying and and doing my drive thing. That's exactly what I do.

Roberto Baldwin (2:10:26)
And sometimes when I'm doing this, sort of I'll find a spot. I'm like, I can come here and take photos or I can come here and shoot video. ⁓ So it's kind of work related, but really I'm just like cruising around, looking around.

Nicole (2:10:32)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:10:39)
Yeah, same same thing for me. You know, I just hop in the Miata or, you know, if I've got something interesting that I'm driving that week, yeah, I might take that out and just go out and head out somewhere out of town and just drive around for a couple of hours, you know. Just hit some random roads. ⁓ and you know, try to avoid dirt roads with the Miata, but other than that, ⁓ you know, just driving around ⁓ you know, turn you know, just have some music playing and and just enjoy the enjoy the weather and

Yeah, sometimes I'll take one of the dogs with me. ⁓ you know, the our current our current two aren't as fond of going for drives as our previous dogs were. ⁓ Rosie, our our first Corgi, she loved going for drives in the Miata. 'cause she was just tall enough that she c you know, she could sit up on the passenger seat and look out through the windshield. And ⁓ yeah, the the others we've had since then are a little bit smaller than her, so

but they you know, they still like going for drives and ⁓ yeah, just you know, just drive nowhere in particular for a couple of hours.

Roberto Baldwin (2:11:43)
Yeah. It's really, mean, when you have to drive cars for a living, like I had the Aston Martin Vantage, I was like, well, I just, well, I looked at the map around the area and there's parts, there's, was trying to go to this one road. I couldn't remember exactly where it was. And so I was like, well, this looks close enough. And I just dropped a pin and then went to a completely different road. It wasn't the same place, but I was like, well, I've never been here before. And there's like crazy, you know, bridges that I got to drive over and people are fishing and yeah, there's a lot. Yeah.

Nicole (2:12:02)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:12:11)
I think when people think Northern California, San Francisco, they think it's like just, just, just city, city, city, city. There's actually a ton of green space up here. We're all about hiking and stuff. So yeah, it's our, yeah. Like you can't, you go five minutes from anywhere and you can be in the middle of the woods if you want.

Nicole (2:12:27)
There you

go.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:12:28)
Yeah, I same thing here, yeah, you drive, you know, fifteen minutes, you know, like basically if you go you know, I live just to the east of Ann Arbor and you know, if you head north and northwest from you know, from Ann Arbor, it's full of forested areas and trees and lakes and rural roads. You know, to the south is more farmland, but to the to the north, you know, l lakes everywhere and you know, I mean the the roads aren't necessarily great but

⁓ yeah, it's just it's just a beautiful area. So I enjoy doing that.

Nicole (2:13:04)
There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:05)
All right, well, thanks everybody and we will talk to you next time. Bye.

Nicole (2:13:10)
Bye

everyone.

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:12)
Bye.