Sam Abuelsamid (00:00)
this is episode four hundred and fifty eight of wheel bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

Nicole Wakelin (00:06)
And I'm Nicole Wakelin

Roberto Baldwin (00:07)
And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:12)
Good to have you back, Nicole.

Nicole Wakelin (00:14)
Thank you. Life has been crazy. It's been very crazy. Crazy life happening, man.

Roberto Baldwin (00:14)
Yeah, Nicole's back.

Plus we're

Sam Abuelsamid (00:20)
Do you have any good cookies

or anything to talk about? Do you have any good cookies or anything?

Nicole Wakelin (00:22)
What's that?

Roberto Baldwin (00:23)
Any exciting cookie news?

Nicole Wakelin (00:25)
No, I don't even think I had sighting cookies. It it's just Yeah. Not even that. I did have really good yummy s'mores while was in the Hamptons. Does that count? I had really yummy s'mores.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29)
Mm-hmm.

yeah, no,

Roberto Baldwin (00:34)
think I've

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35)
that counts. Yeah, any kind of sweets.

Roberto Baldwin (00:35)
had I think I've had s'mores like once in my life.

Nicole Wakelin (00:38)
S'mores only once in your life? Really? I feel like I have them a lot. Like, I don't know, every time we have a fire pit, we make them. And the hotel we were at, you there were they had fire pits and they would just have the supplies. And would you like s'mores, ladies? Yes, yes, we would. Please give me chocolate marshmallows and and graham crackers. I will happily sit here and have s'mores. I had yummy s'mores.

Roberto Baldwin (00:40)
Yeah. Yeah. Like when I was I don't I've

Sam Abuelsamid (01:03)
well yesterday morning I went to ⁓ local Cars and Coffee here at Zingerman's Roadhouse. They they do it once a month at in Ann Arbor. And there was some quite quite eclectic collection of cars there. There was somebody that had ⁓ a Suzuki gymney, a really slick Suzuki gymney. ⁓ there was ⁓ while we were standing there I was chatting with ⁓ with Craig, ⁓ my my boss and friend.

Nicole Wakelin (01:09)
I love Zingerman's.

Вау.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:31)
⁓ and as we were standing there, ⁓ a Porsche nine eleven GT three R S pulled in and right behind it, a Mustang GTD. First one I've seen in the wild. Yeah. ⁓ and what else? somebody somebody brought out this ⁓ Opal G T. You remember the Opal G T from the nineteen seventies? ⁓ yeah, so they had this Opal G T that was in this fabulous shade of blue. And when he popped the hood on it,

Nicole Wakelin (01:41)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (01:41)
⁓

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Nicole Wakelin (01:53)
jeez. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:01)
⁓ it replaced the the original Opal engine in it with a Ford Eco Boost crate engine. So it had had some sort of Ford turbocharged four cylinder engine in there. ⁓ so it was some some pretty cool stuff there yesterday.

Nicole Wakelin (02:07)
wow.

Roberto Baldwin (02:15)
Did they update the brakes?

Sam Abuelsamid (02:18)
⁓ probably not. No. No, actually I I think he probably did. let's see. yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's got it's got some newer brakes on there. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (02:21)
That's I've it it's it's always like I always I it it uses

Okay then. All right. 'Cause occasionally

I'll see like like there's a there was a guy there's a guy with like a lowered like seventies Dotson pickup that put a a Honda K series engine in there and didn't and still has the the the original drum brakes. I'm like, You're gonna die.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:36)
Mm-hmm.

Ha ha.

Nicole Wakelin (02:44)
You're gonna die. You're gonna die.

Roberto Baldwin (02:46)
You're gonna die, buddy.

You're not gonna make it. He's like, It's all yeah. Me and th this other guy, we were both like talking to him in the the hardware store park you know, the parking lot, which as you do. And I was like, You're gonna die. Update those brakes, guys. If you're gonna put a big engine in your old car just, you know, put some brakes in there. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:01)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (03:06)
Don't kill yourself, please.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:09)
All right. well, what what have you been all been driving?

Nicole Wakelin (03:14)
Well, this week I have the 2026 Chevy Silverado EV Trailboss, ⁓ which is the first time they've had a trail boss in the Silverado EV, which is sort of the off-road focus trim, although I I still can't see taking this off-road. But this I think this might be the first time I've had the Silverado EV, maybe kinda. I don't remember driving this before. So if I did, it's been

Sam Abuelsamid (03:42)
Feel like you might

have had the Sierra.

Nicole Wakelin (03:44)
Yeah, like I I don't think I've had this Ilverado before. And the thing that struck me is they I forget what they like the little buttressy things that come from the cab to the bed. Every single person who saw this was like, that's a weird looking Honda ridgeline. Like everybody. Everybody. Or an avalanche. Ridgeline. Apparently, here ridgeline was the like, is that a ridgeline? Like he was just said, you he said to me, He's You got a ridgeline. I'm looking out of the window. I'm like,

Sam Abuelsamid (03:57)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (03:58)
Heyo

or a or or an avalanche or a

Sam Abuelsamid (04:02)
Yes.

First general line.

Nicole Wakelin (04:11)
Chevy doesn't make a ridge line. I'm pretty sure that's not what that is. Like, ⁓ but even my brother-in-law said it. A couple different people said everybody thinks it looks like and it's it literally is just from that little triangle. Is it I wouldn't know what do you call that little buttress? Okay, that little buttress that go in the back of the between the cab and the bed. ⁓ it makes it look, it really does look like I to me it's the Chevy ridge line, but whatever. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (04:24)
Yeah, it's a it's a but buttress. Yeah.

Well, if I

mean if if the if the top edge of the the side walls was sloped down a little bit from that, then yeah, I w I would say it it's ridgeline. but because it's that part is kinda hor the bet the edge of the bed is horizontal, then you know, it's definitely avalanche. 'Cause the avalanche avalanche did di did do it first.

Nicole Wakelin (04:43)
Yeah.

This is true. ⁓ Avalian should

That's tr Avalanche did it first? Okay. I see in my brain, when did that come out? God, see, I totally associate that with the ridgeline. Maybe that was the first time I saw it.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:58)
Yeah. Av Avalanche came out in like ninety nine, I wanna say.

Roberto Baldwin (04:58)
Yeah. Yeah. The Avalanche did it first.

Yeah, the late late nineties, early two thousands. And then the Ridgeline came out.

I think it's

because we the original end's the latest with it.

Nicole Wakelin (05:12)
Maybe. 'Cause I I just completely associate that with Ridge Line. I believe you, Sam. You know what you're talking about, but in my in my mind it's a ridgeline thing. Two thousand one. Okay. so

Sam Abuelsamid (05:19)
Two thousand one.

Roberto Baldwin (05:22)
The avalanche

had a pass through. That was nice. Yeah, the mid game. Yep. There you go. So it's just an avalanche. Essentially they just built an avalanche.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:24)
Yeah, they had the mid gate, which they carried over to the Silver Auto EV.

Nicole Wakelin (05:24)
Mm. ⁓

There you go. ⁓ so either way.

They built an avalanche. So whatever you want to call it. I had one of those. ⁓ so the Trow Boss, it gets some off-road goodies. It's a a two-inch lift. ⁓ there so it's so it's higher ground clearance than the base Silverado EV. You like 18-inch wheels, there's all train tires, there's red tow hooks, special badging. ⁓ it looks

Sam Abuelsamid (05:32)
Yeah. An electric avalanche.

Well, the red toe hooks

automatically mean it's capable of going literally anywhere.

Nicole Wakelin (05:58)
Any absolutely anywhere. Red toe hooks, go anywhere. Easily, easily, without it, without a hesitation. ⁓ yes, because that's what red means when you put red accents in a car, toe hooks or anything, but especially red means ready to climb off-road anywhere. so there's an extended range and then there's a max range. The extended range starts at 70, the max range starts at 86.6. ⁓ I had the extended range, which is about they say it's 410.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:00)
I mean you could climb Mount Everest with that thing.

Roberto Baldwin (06:02)
Yep, right at the top.

Red means ready. Ready for everything.

Nicole Wakelin (06:27)
miles of range and every time I charged it up, it was somewhere in the 408, 409, 412, 408, somewhere. So it was always close to that 410 that it was saying. So it was pretty close. I never even remotely used all that range. And we even drove up into the White Mountains with it, which I have to say I drove so I did a drive up yesterday for an event that I had. And I drove an hour and 45 minutes on the highway and some side roads to an event that was very brief.

brief and then an hour and forty five minutes back. And it was highway driving and it was very, very windy, like terribly windy here. And it's the kind of thing like driving a truck on a highway. You're gonna notice like the wind noise. You're gonna notice that sense of the wind kind of grabbing you when you have nothing in the bed. Handled beautifully. It was actually really nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:12)
Well, I mean it

it it does have a a respectable amount of road hugging weight.

Nicole Wakelin (07:17)
It does. That that way, and you know,

and I get that. I'm like, well, okay. So here's the reason why you'd want any ⁓ an EV truck because suddenly when the bed is empty and it's windy and you're going 70 because it's 70 miles an hour in there. So we're going about 70, that thing just stays planted. So it's actually really nice to drive, very comfy. What did my daughter's fiance say? She's you could fit a whole nother truck inside this thing. This is huge. He's sitting in the backseat. He's like, this is giant.

Roberto Baldwin (07:19)
It's got a low center gravity.

Nicole Wakelin (07:45)
'cause he gets crammed in the backseat of cars whenever we're together, whatever my press car is, and he's over six feet. He's like, I love this. He's just spreading out 'cause he's finally not squished.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:53)
Well, well, if you if you put down the mid

gate, you practically could park a Ford Maverick in the back.

Nicole Wakelin (07:58)
Seriously, right? So so it is rather large. But I, you know, I d I found this easier to maneuver than a lot of trucks. I don't know. I just didn't have as much trouble. I think it's your line of sight and just the way it's done. I enjoyed driving this. ⁓ kind of forgot I was driving an EV, which is sort of nice. I I I you know, yeah. You you forget that you're it doesn't feel like you're driving an EV. You just feel like you're driving a really nice, well mannered truck, which I loved. I thought that was great. ⁓ what I

Roberto Baldwin (07:59)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:16)
Steering.

Nicole Wakelin (08:28)
Don't love is it's not cheap. So, you know, is seventy thousand dollars? That's a lot. That's a lot of money. I mean, I know it's a really nice truck and it's the trail boss and it's the off road y one and and it like whoop seventy grand is a lot for a truck. the interior it what

Sam Abuelsamid (08:41)
Yeah, but gas gas

trucks are getting ridiculously expensive too.

Nicole Wakelin (08:45)
Not not

that gas trucks are cheaper, just in general, period the end trucks are expensive. How's that? ⁓ and I and you know, the interior of this, I thought it was in terms of the the quality of the materials and the comfort, very comfortable, super comfortable for that drive. But the quality of the materials is nice. The quality of the materials isn't seventy thousand dollars. It was just nice. It wasn't cheap, it wasn't bad, but I would I wanted more like wow when I opened up the door.

Than what I got when I opened up the door. And I feel like if you're paying

Sam Abuelsamid (09:18)
Again, again, to be

fair, you open up the the door on a seventy thousand dollar gas silverado, still kinda meh.

Nicole Wakelin (09:25)
yeah, no, this isn't an Eevee slight. This is a Silverado. This is a Chevy Silverado comment. And I guess I should say if you felt that way about the gas one, guess what? You're gonna feel that way about the EV too. so I felt like the EV was very similar. Like it it didn't, but for me, that's a Chevy problem. I think per like perpetually I'm not super impressed with their interiors. I don't think they're horrible. I just I I never feel like they're as nice as they should be. The price point of whatever vehicle I'm in, I tend to think.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:28)
This this is a Chevy Silverado issue.

Roberto Baldwin (09:32)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (09:54)
Mm, guys, could we could we do it just a little bit more here to make it feel a little more in line with the price? And I know that the price of a vehicle is a lot more than just what's in the inside. It's how it handles and the exterior, in this case, the off-road, and there's the EV, you know, the the the electric, you know, part of everything. I know all that, but it should also look like you're paying what you think. You look at that sticker on a car and you should say, hmm, 70 grand. Sure. Yep. Okay, that feels right.

And when you look at this one, you go 70 grand. Mmm. Mmm. Maybe. I don't think a car should do that. I think it should look, it should match and looks what that sticker says. Whatever that image is in your head and Chevy just never quite hits it for me. Doesn't matter if it's this or or a far less expensive Chevy. But in all in all, I truly enjoyed ⁓ driving this. I thought it was comfortable. It was easy, ⁓ super easy to charge.

⁓ no issues charging it which is nice. ⁓ I had some it's funny I had I think I mentioned this. I had troubles charging the F-150 where it makes like I want to say like ⁓ I don't quite know what's happening because we never figured out but my it would just stop charging in the middle and when I plug it in at home it would just stop charging and I get like a little there's a little light that blinks when there's a fault in my charging thing and something goes wrong like every now and then the power fluctuates and I'm charging an EV and it'll do that. like you unplug it, plug it back in.

It's good to go. ⁓ I can't the F-150 does something weird to my little my little EV charger at home. This doesn't. So it can still my little my little grizzly charger that is, I don't know what, now four years old or something, still is perfectly happy to charge up Eolie Chevy Silverado EV, which I appreciated. ⁓ and it's, you know, it's nice and comfy and roomy inside. There's tons of room for all your stuff. ⁓ I overall I really liked it. And it was funny because I'm I am not a huge fan of

Big trucks, and this is a pretty big truck, and EV trucks. I'm sort of like, okay, fine, whatever. But this one I I I like this one. I kinda liked it. Right down to its cute little buttresses. I liked it.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:03)
so are we gonna guess on the destination charge?

Nicole Wakelin (12:07)
do I have destination here? Let's see. ⁓ wait. 'Cause I'm

Sam Abuelsamid (12:09)
And and if we

are, are we gonna guess at what's on your Monroni or what it what the destination charge is if you order one today?

Nicole Wakelin (12:18)
What Monroni? ⁓ hold on a second. Let me see. I can look at I can I can look it up. Let me let me pretend I'm I'm gonna build it. I'm building it. And I'm gonna go to the final, the summary, so I can see what it says. You guys can't be looking. And okay. Go ahead. What do you think it is? Right this minute.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:20)
⁓ okay.

Roberto Baldwin (12:21)
Yeah.

Twenty two.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:39)
⁓

Roberto Baldwin (12:41)
Twenty two.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:41)
well what's what'd you say? ⁓ well the last time I checked a couple of weeks ago, ⁓ the destination charges on all the full size trucks had gone up again to twenty eight ninety five.

Roberto Baldwin (12:44)
Twenty two hundred.

Nicole Wakelin (12:50)
See if it changed.

⁓ it's saying twenty five ninety five right now online if you build the trail boss. This very instant. I mean, by the time somebody listening to this podcast checks, it could have changed again. But maybe they haven't changed the EV. This yeah, 'cause the EV's coming up is twenty five. So well, I mean.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:00)
⁓ okay.

Well may maybe they had not changed the E V yet. Ma maybe they only changed the the gas trucks.

Roberto Baldwin (13:18)
Think I think Sam wins by like eighty five dollars.

Nicole Wakelin (13:21)
I th yeah, does he? yeah. You were what did you say, twenty two?

Sam Abuelsamid (13:24)
I said twenty eight.

Roberto Baldwin (13:25)
I said twenty

two.

Nicole Wakelin (13:27)
Or twenty-five ninety five six. Yeah, I think he just he just beat your Robbie. It was really close. Like cagey. I never remember them either. So it's like I could drive this and next week I would not remember what this pricing was. Other than that, I almost said when I looked at it, wow. I don't know if you saw me. I w I went, ⁓ go ahead, make a guess. I'm like twenty five hundred dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (13:33)
That's fine. I don't remember things, so I'm always just shooting off from the hip.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:37)
So

Yeah, yeah.

So ⁓ one thing you didn't mention was the infotainment. you know, and of course this being a GM E V means it doesn't have any CarPlay or Android Auto.

Nicole Wakelin (13:55)
Yes.

It was funny because I I I didn't think I would care and then I cared because I couldn't connect anything and it was a long drive and I wanted to and it just it was I did not like not having it. That bugs me, not having Apple CarPlay.

Roberto Baldwin (14:18)
Done done.

Nicole Wakelin (14:20)
It makes me cranky. So I've and I forgot about that. It's funny you said I totally forgot that. And that was something I didn't like, but ⁓ now changed my whole mind. No, but I and I it was and it I I forgot initially. Here's the thing I forgot I was in an EV for a hot minute, and I'm trying to connect and I'm like, what the f is going on? And I'm getting mad, right? Like, why is this not an option? And the rose is doing my daughter, ⁓ mom, you're just doing this wrong and then she can't do it. I'm like, it's I'm like, wait a minute.

Roberto Baldwin (14:26)
Yeah, no.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:27)
Well.

Roberto Baldwin (14:38)
⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (14:47)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Wakelin (14:49)
We're in an EV. Wah wah. Yeah, so

Roberto Baldwin (14:49)
An EV they made a woof they made a decision.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:50)
Yeah. How how how

many how many engineers does it take to not be able to connect your iPhone to a a Chevy E V.

Nicole Wakelin (15:00)
Right. Right. So yeah. Yeah. So that is that is somewhat disappointing. ⁓ but yeah, I can hear your dog's disappointed too, Robbie. Was that your dog who did it like ⁓ he's also disappointed in this? ⁓ he wants to be able to listen to things and he can't, yeah. So ⁓ yeah, big Audible fan. So anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (15:02)
Waapwa.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's also disappointed in that. 'Cause he wants to be able to listen to us to to audible.

Big Audible fan.

Nicole Wakelin (15:27)
Yeah, so that was the one thing I didn't like. But I overall I did I do like it. I do miss Apple CarPlay though. I want that in my car. When I don't have it, I miss it.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:36)
So I guess that means you won't be ordering a Rivian R two either.

Nicole Wakelin (15:40)
does it not have AppleCart? What is the Review and R2s de Leo? Same deal.

Roberto Baldwin (15:43)
It's the same thing. They've

Sam Abuelsamid (15:43)
They they they follow the Tesla

Roberto Baldwin (15:45)
never had it.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:45)
pattern. Yeah, they do their they do they they roll their own completely.

Roberto Baldwin (15:53)
Also no buttons. Or if they were up to them there'd be zero buttons in the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (15:58)
I don't I'm I'm not a fan of no buttons. Also, okay, here you wanna hear my weird air vent thing and it could have just been mine. When you just the vents are normal vents, you can touch them like a normal human and slide around. But when you slide them, you know how normally you slide an air vent and it's you slide it, you can like slide it left, right, and then you can move little louvers up and down. When you move louvers up and down, it just moves the louvers up and down and it kind of just sort of stops wherever you want. But somehow it wants to click into a spot when you go left and right. So if I'm just trying to move it a little bit, it like

Roberto Baldwin (16:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:07)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Wakelin (16:28)
I'm like, no, I wanted the little bit no, and it it has this little click point. So you can't just slide and adjust because as soon as you release it from the click point, it jumps a little bit further. And I'm like, you know, I've had enough of you. I was fighting a little bit with that. I don't know if it was and it did it on, and I thought first I thought it was just the one on the left hand side of the steering wheel. I is this a weirdness? But then I tried the one to the right and it did the same thing. So it felt like uniform, not like one was broken, you know? So

Roberto Baldwin (16:32)
⁓

Why?

Sam Abuelsamid (16:40)
I had not noticed that before.

Roberto Baldwin (16:41)
Why?

Sam Abuelsamid (16:56)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Wakelin (16:58)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (16:58)
I is

it's just a sh free flowing just let it you don't need to put harnesses, you don't have to program anything. Just

Nicole Wakelin (17:01)
Just free flowing, no clicking into place. Just just let me yeah, it was it was it was free form, yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:02)
Yeah. That's that's ex that that's the way it should be. Just po

Put it

wherever you want.

Nicole Wakelin (17:13)
It was free form up and down. It was not quite free form left and right. It like clicks into a spot and clicks into a spot. I don't want to click. So there you go. That was my struggle.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:28)
All right. Anything else on the Silverado?

Nicole Wakelin (17:30)
No, that's it.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:33)
Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (17:35)
I drove a car. I drove 2026 Sporta Kia Sportage. the P Hev X-line Prestige All-Wheel Drive. That's so many words. So many words. It's a like a what is it? 1.6 liter turbocharged four-cylinder plug-in hybrid. It's got a six-speed automatic transmission. It's all-wheel drive with terrain modes and whatnot. and yeah, I I I enjoyed the

Nicole Wakelin (17:39)
Ooh.

That is a lot.

Roberto Baldwin (18:04)
The k the key hold on, what's the name again? The Kia Sportage P Hev X Line Prestige Worldwide Plus Plus All Wheel Drive. ⁓ Yeah, no, it's it's it's a nice, it's comfortable. It has physical vents, which I use a lot. The more I I don't realize how much I use vents until I started we started doing this podcast. And I'm just constantly moving the vent. I'm like, it's hot.

Nicole Wakelin (18:07)
Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (18:34)
So I move the vents so they hit me and I'm like, Okay, now my fingers are frozen because the vents shooting my fingers. So I move so it's more you know, so it hits the rest of the c the cabin and cools it down. ⁓ yeah, it's got vents that you can move. Woo! It's got car play. It's

Sam Abuelsamid (18:47)
I've I've I've been told

Nicole Wakelin (18:47)
Woohoo!

Sam Abuelsamid (18:48)
I've been told by some of the best engineers and designers in the business that nobody ever adjusts their vents.

Nicole Wakelin (18:54)
Ever.

Roberto Baldwin (18:54)
Yeah,

those those people are liars. I don't know if the best is the word you should have used before you've ⁓ that should have been a dis I don't think that's a descriptor. There you go. I don't think that's a really that's a great descriptor. That's when you hear. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (18:57)
Ha ha.

Nicole Wakelin (18:58)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:04)
Self proclaimed best.

Roberto Baldwin (19:14)
I'll carry on. Anywho, ⁓ yeah, no, it's it's it's comfortable inside. It's comfortable it's got ⁓ it's got this one has it has all the bells and whistles because again it's the X line prestige all wheel drive. ⁓ I did a a a range run sort of. ⁓ so they're the it's EPA 33 miles, EV only. I was just blasting down the freeway at 70 miles an hour because you know I had things to do, so I'm like, well, I'm not gonna be, I'm just going for it.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:15)
All right. Carry carry on.

Roberto Baldwin (19:44)
And I got 28 miles. There you go. So if you're speeding along, if you're lucky enough that you can do 70 miles an hour from from home to work every day, ⁓ you're gonna get about 28 miles of EV range. if you're like a regular person, you're probably gonna get the 33. We're stuck in traffic. You got you you got ⁓ side roads, surface streets, all those things. I didn't, I just went for it. they says that it gets ⁓ what's it 83 MPGE?

Nicole Wakelin (20:00)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (20:14)
Again, MPGE is dumb. So really it's got 36 MPG. so yeah, it's fine. ⁓ charging it, it's got a you know, it's got J1772, easy peasy, charges at night. ⁓ no problems. ⁓ 12.3 inch touchscreen, more than enough. ⁓ like I said, wireless car play in Android Auto so I could listen to ⁓ my Audible books and or my music or whatever.

and I can reply to people texting me 'cause people are constantly texting me once I'm in the car. Like as soon as I get in the car. As soon as I'm in the car, people are texting me and I'm just, you know, I respond as much as I can. But sometimes like blah blah blah, send a photo. I'm like and it like if with like I IOS will like try to describe the photo and like, it's this and this and this I'm like, that doesn't help me.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:48)
Yeah, they never do it when you're we never do it when you're at home.

Roberto Baldwin (21:11)
at all. I have no It's like it's a cow next to a refrigerator. I'm like what? That's what what? So yeah, then and then those people are just like, well now you're not getting any text, you know, spoken text from me for the rest of this trip until I figure out until I pull over and figure out what's going on. ⁓ that's it. Yeah, it's a Kia so it feels nicer than its price point. ⁓ inside ⁓ I it's it's it's it's very roomy. I was I today I went to the hardware store

And to the swap meet because I needed a router table, and I was like, I wonder if I get a cheap router table to swap meet. And I got to the second to the last line of vendors, and there was a tiny little router table, exactly the size I want, nice and small. The guy wanted 40. I talked him down to 35. It's got a craftsman router attached to it. It's old, but it still works. He's like he was like, go over.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:04)
So it's it's back when

craftsman tools were were really good. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (22:07)
That meant something.

Roberto Baldwin (22:07)
Yes. Yeah, back

when craftsman meant something. So ⁓ so yeah, so that fit in there. And then I went then because I got that, I needed you know, I needed some two by th I needed a two by three, which is what I need to r you know, put a channel in, and so I went to the to the lows. I got a big old two by three, put the seats down, totally fit in there. ⁓ along with some along with some soil for a giant cactus that I have to plant after we're finished ⁓ doing the podcast. That's

Nicole Wakelin (22:33)
You're planting

a giant wait, what? I was distracted by the thunderstorm that is raging outside. I'm like, wait, Robbie's planting a giant cactus.

Roberto Baldwin (22:35)
I'm planting a giant cactus after the podcast today. It's the weekend.

My weekends

there's like so what did I do yesterday? so I'm in the I had to fix my three D printer because it got all jacked up. ⁓ and so I had to order parts. So those come in later today, so I have to do that. My weekends are action packed, filled with random errands. both for band stuff, for the house, and for just I don't I guess I do other things in my life. I can't remember what those are. Anyway, the P head the sportage the sportage or the sportage

works pretty well for this all this. Again, this is the ri very expensive version. it's ⁓ the manufacturer suggested retail price is forty seven thousand one hundred and ninety dollars, which I mean sure. you know, again it's the sportage it's the X line prestige all the drive. You know, when you just keep adding words and letters to the end

Sam Abuelsamid (23:38)
Yeah, I mean,

Roberto Baldwin (23:39)
Yeah, things get

more expensive. The more letters and words you add to the end of the name

Sam Abuelsamid (23:44)
mean that that's that's stuff they have to s that's stuff they have to glue on the outside of the the vehicle. And and they probably have to license a font from somewhere for that, for the badge. Yeah

Roberto Baldwin (23:45)
The more suffixes you add

Yeah.

Every

additional suffix is like a five grand at least. anyway, total price overall. ⁓ I had a bunch of stuff. ⁓ $49,000. So it's a fifty thousand dollar SUV. ⁓ which you're like, okay, it's a P heav. You get 33 miles. I mean, I wish it got more for its size. I wish it, you we're hitting 40. And you know, most people are hitting 40 at this point. This is 33, so it's a little like but it's you know, it's doesn't have that that.

That crazy, you know, that loud Toyota thing that Toyota has. ⁓ you know, if that's if you're concern if that's your big concern, ⁓ that it's too loud. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (24:32)
It it is it

is a more refined driving experience than a Toyota.

Roberto Baldwin (24:35)
It is very much

a more refined driving experience than than the Toyota's. ⁓ but you are gonna get more miles out of a Toyota. and you guys wanna guess the ⁓ the the delivery charge?

Nicole Wakelin (24:48)
fourteen ninety five.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:50)
Ooh, I was gonna say that. I'll go ⁓ twelve ninety five.

Roberto Baldwin (24:51)
⁓

It's fourteen forty-five. Yeah. Yeah. Which still feels like a lot of money. ⁓ but still less than the thing that we just Yeah, it's like half as much as a Silverado. ⁓ yeah, no, I really enjoyed this vehicle. whenever I get one of the the Hunt Days or Kiyas that's you know just sort of a these sort of yeah, everyone has like five SUVs in their lineup.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:57)
huh.

Nicole Wakelin (24:57)
Wow, it's off by fifty bucks. Forty? Yeah, fifty bucks.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:04)
Until you realize it's half as much as a Silverado.

Roberto Baldwin (25:24)
And to me they're almost always end up being sort of interchangeable. They're all like like six inches bigger than the one before it. And it becomes just sort of like, What which one is that one? Which one is that one? And it's it feels like this this this boring game of like let's just make a little bigger. Let's just make a little bigger. And let's just make them all look the same with every other one. I think he is you know, they're they're using that the design from, you know, that design element that we saw on the like the E V nine. ⁓ it's moved over to like the gas vehicles. So it does look

different. It does have a its own bit of a style, but if you look at it from the side, it's every other like medium sized SUV on the market with ⁓ plenty of cargo space. You can put a lot of stuff in the b I went Costco with it. ⁓ you sit in the back seat. ⁓ yeah, it's you know, if you have a family and everyone's teenagers, this is probably like, you know, we got two kids, they're teenagers, they play football, soccer, baseball, mathletes, ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (26:02)
So

Roberto Baldwin (26:23)
Whatever they do. F F A stuff, which i involves a lot of stuff, I can tell you as a kid who was an F F A

Sam Abuelsamid (26:32)
Speak speaking of all these things looking the same, ⁓ yeah, some you know, a house in our neighborhood was sold recently and some new family moved in there and I've noticed I haven't I haven't had a chance to meet them or talk to them yet, but I've noticed they have two Honda C R Vs, two identical Honda C R Vs. In the same color even. The only difference between is one of them has one of those little hitch mounted racks that you know, fold down rack to to put like stuff

Roberto Baldwin (26:49)
Wow.

for bikes?

Sam Abuelsamid (27:00)
Well, this one's I mean you could you could probably strap bikes on there, but it it's to put like gear on there. and ⁓ yeah, so I've seen ⁓ come and go. and then today when I was walking one of the dogs, I I noticed they had somebody else over there that was visiting and there was a sportage sitting in the driveway. And as I was walking up I realized what? Do they have a third C R V now? As I got closer I realized that yeah, it's that's actually a sportage.

Roberto Baldwin (27:07)
okay.

From the side like every SUV

Nicole Wakelin (27:26)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (27:29)
From the side, ev almost every SUV looks like every other SUV. From the you're like they're just a little bit bigger, a little bit smaller. That's that's that's what it comes down to.

Nicole Wakelin (27:39)
I was in a

lot looking for a car today and I was trying to figure out which was which. I literally had to go look at the sticker for their SUVs or look at the back because I'm like, which one is which? Like they're like nesting dolls. Just like which one of these? Like I can't quite think I'm missing what which one? Yeah, because they weren't grouped by this. I'm like, you guys are messing me up. Just put all the same one together so I can look and see what's there. Yeah. But they all look the same. Nesting dolls.

Roberto Baldwin (27:51)
Yeah, it's blip, blip, blip, blip.

Yeah, it's it's it's

it's a whole Yeah. Yeah. That's why people are like, Well, I can't you know, people I know people got am angry at the AMG G T. like, Yeah, but it doesn't look like other vehicles. Why why do you why does everyone hate something that looks different but doesn't look atrocious? But, you know. It's gotta look to s you know, yeah. America. No whimsy in America.

Nicole Wakelin (28:26)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:29)
All right. ⁓ well speaking of ⁓ you know looking the same, ⁓ I also had a sportage. I had the Sportage hybrid SX Prestige all wheel drive. So I had the the one without with without the plug, ⁓ and that is not ⁓ sort of vaguely pretending to be an off rotor. and ⁓ so

Nicole Wakelin (28:41)
Ooh.

Roberto Baldwin (28:41)
Ooh. Sexy procedure.

yeah, this is I guess apparently you know it's vague. I'm like, I don't know. I wouldn't take it. I didn't think about even taking it off road. Most of these sort of off roaders like

Sam Abuelsamid (28:57)
Yeah. It it's it's

it's it's like a C R V trail sport, you know. It Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (29:02)
Yeah, you're like, Mm, sure. You could

take a corrol off again, you could take a corolla off road. No one's stopping you.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:08)
Yeah. yes. so I I had ⁓ I had the the Sportage hybrid. so same basic powertrain, that's in the plug in hybrid, but a little bit less electrical power. and ⁓ it's got the one point six liter turbo, four cylinder, six speed automatic, ⁓ all wheel drive. And it is rated it's EPA rated at

Nicole Wakelin (29:09)
If you're if you're ambitious, you can do it.

Roberto Baldwin (29:11)
Pick it to yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:37)
Thirty five city, thirty-six highway, thirty-five combined. ⁓ and I actually took it ⁓ I drove it to Detroit for lunch. ⁓ George Kennedy and James Hope from Kia were actually in town this past week. and they were they were doing some meetings and so they invited a bunch of us. He is. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (29:55)
James is a delightful person.

Nicole Wakelin (29:57)
I love James. He's just lovely. We like you, James. You're all right. You're all right.

Roberto Baldwin (30:00)
If he's listening, we like you, James. You're a good guy. You're all right. You're all right in our book.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:06)
Yeah,

I mean you know, th he's always willing to step up and loan us vehicles fr for Operation Frodo and make donations. So yeah, it's a good person. Likes dogs. ⁓ anyway, he I drove the the sportage to to Detroit and back. ⁓ and then also, you know, drove it around town a bit. and ⁓ on going to Detroit and back, I was surprised it actually got like thirty nine miles per gallon. So it was significantly better than the

than the label fuel economy number. And that was on predominantly highway driving. so it did really well. ⁓ you know, the you said, you know, it's got the the big slab of glass with two twelve point three inch displays, wireless Android auto and CarPlay. it's all it's all good. You know, works nice. It's it's comfortable. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (30:58)
It I

you what I forgot to mention it does have the thing where it switches back and forth between the the audio and the controls and the thing. And I just stopped I j it's so annoying. That's the most annoying thing in that car. And I just stopped using it. 'Cause I like, you know what? I'm just gonna use the volume control and the steering wheel. I'm just I'm d I'm done. I'm done.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:02)
Yes. Yeah, it's got that little panel.

Nicole Wakelin (31:09)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:13)
Yeah, that's we

our our E V six has the same thing. And so we just leave it on climate mode and just use the steering wheel control for the for volume. And then adjust the temperatures with the with the panel. 'cause yeah, it it is it is ridiculous and hopefully the last of the cars that have that have been introduced now. I th I don't an anything introduced in the last year and a half or so does not have that. And so hopefully we will not see any more new cars.

Roberto Baldwin (31:20)
Yeah, just

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:43)
having that panel. And I've talked to Hyundai about it. They know that it's dumb and you know, it's it's going away. ⁓ so the the SX Prestige, you know, gets you stuff like LED fog lights, power folding mirrors, roof rails. ⁓ it's got the it's got a heads up display, it's got the blind spot view monitor, so when you put on the turn signal it shows the view from the camera on one side or the other in the instrument cluster.

Nicole Wakelin (31:47)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:12)
so you can glance over, glance over your shoulder and then, you know, also get the the full blind spot view right in the cluster, which is is handy. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (32:22)
It's so much better than the ones that show up in the the center console. Those are com those are almost worthless. I it's like

Sam Abuelsamid (32:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

I mean we that that's what we had on our old Civic. And on the Civic it only had the camera on the passenger side. It didn't even have one on the driver's side, which was again, dumb. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ but So

Roberto Baldwin (32:37)
Weird. I remember that, yeah. Exactly. Huh. Like we could get

Nicole Wakelin (32:43)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (32:45)
two cameras and like nah.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:48)
⁓ yeah. It's also got the the remote smart parking assist, which I've always thought was kind of a strange little feature to have. Yeah. On the key fob you can press the button and you know, if you're if your car is in a very tight parking space in a in a parking lot, you know, and you don't want to try and open the door and ding somebody else's door or try and squeeze through there, you can just stand there and press the button and the car will drive itself straight out of the parking space or

back itself into a narrow parking space. ⁓ you know, which is it's fine. you know, not I've never actually used it in the real world except for you know, as a just to just to demonstrate it.

Roberto Baldwin (33:28)
Except the Kia event.

We're like, hey look, you're like,

Sam Abuelsamid (33:32)
Yeah. And I I mean ⁓ again, our E V six has it. I showed my wife how it works. That then we've never used it again. and let's see. It it's got heated rear outboard seats, so the in the in the second row the outboard seats are also heated. You got the ventilated front seats, so lots of lots of nice features on here. ⁓ you know, very fuel efficient, very nice to drive. you know, it's it's roomy, fits fits adults in the back seat.

Nicole Wakelin (33:32)
⁓ Like that's cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:03)
⁓ the ⁓ grand total on the one that I had, forty one thousand nine hundred and eighty five dollars. ⁓ have you already forgotten how much you guessed on the destination charge? Well we we Well we we we're we're actually going to be going with the value that's on my Monroni, not on whatever or know, Monroni you have.

Roberto Baldwin (34:15)
Fourteen forty five.

Nicole Wakelin (34:17)
Fourteen! I'm not even lying. I actually wrote down what I guessed, and I'm like, what did I say? Because I take notes as we're talking.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:32)
⁓ do you do you want to stick with your fourteen forty five guess? Okay. It you're actually closer. It was thirteen ninety five.

Nicole Wakelin (34:32)
ninety five. I'm just throwing something.

Roberto Baldwin (34:37)
Yeah, I don't have any b better guess than that.

⁓ so it's fifty dollars more if for the extra battery and the charge port for that. Yeah. Alright. Makes sense.

Nicole Wakelin (34:43)
was how are you guys how is this possible? ⁓ my god. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (34:46)
No

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, that adds weight, you know, so that's gonna increase the shipping cost. So you know, that's fair. ⁓

I I also had ⁓ a Polestar Four. and ⁓ again, I s I still really like driving the Polestar Four. I like the way it looks, but there are so many little details that ⁓ annoy the heck out of me. ⁓ and one of them, ⁓ the the key fob.

⁓ that was that came with the car I was driving was dead. I don't know if it was a dead battery or the fob was dead, whatever. The key fob was not working. So it had it had the key it comes with a key fob and you get an NFC card. ⁓ and so because the key fob was dead, I had to use the NFC tap the NFC card on the B pillar to unlock the doors. Fair enough. But the problem is once you do that, ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (35:22)
What?

Sam Abuelsamid (35:46)
you still have to have the fob or something to open the tailgate. So if you want to put something in the back, if the fob is dead, the tailgate will not open from the outside. You press the button, nothing happens. Even if you have already unlocked the doors. So you could tap the NFC ⁓ card on the B pillar, open the door, hit the unlock button on the door, and it still will not unlock the the tailgate. And the only way to get the tailgate open

Roberto Baldwin (35:57)
⁓

Nicole Wakelin (35:59)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:15)
is to get inside, start the car, tap a couple times on the screen, and pop the tailgate open.

Nicole Wakelin (36:24)
Course.

Roberto Baldwin (36:25)
And and then people make fun of me for liking the slate.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:28)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (36:28)
This is why the slate exists, people.

Roberto Baldwin (36:32)
Like, who wants a car

that doesn't have any like, you know a a ⁓ a screen? I'm like, as the tech guy who's been covering all these screens, I kinda like the idea. I have a car with a lot of screens and all these things you gotta push to make things happen. I would like a you know, and I have one that doesn't do that and now I wanna pick up. So can you can you charge the the key fob in the car somewhere, like on a chi charger, or is that not?

Nicole Wakelin (36:46)
⁓ my gosh.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:55)
Not

⁓ not that I'm aware of. So I I let the I let the guys at drive shop know, you know, you gotta check out this key fob, you know, 'cause it's not working. And and all that so that's the other thing. Because the key fob was dead, that means that I had to put the ⁓ the NFC card down on where the wireless phone charger is for it to recognize that in order for the car to start. So you can't you know, if the fob is dead you can't just

Roberto Baldwin (36:58)
Whoops.

just

Sam Abuelsamid (37:25)
you know, get in the car and drive. Yeah. Right. So you wanna make sure you ha if you if you have a Polestar Four, make sure you keep the NFC card on you and keep your key fob on you, just in case. So and then, you know, it still has the the stupid software controlled vents, which I have ranted and raved about too many times and I posted another little video about it last week. So I'm not gonna talk about that anymore.

Roberto Baldwin (37:25)
Get in the car because it doesn't recognize that you have a key in the car. Yeah, I guess that that makes sense, but also

Nicole Wakelin (37:46)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:55)
Except to say that it's still a dumb, dumb idea. Yes.

Nicole Wakelin (37:56)
talk about this more. I won't talk about it. It's still stupid.

Roberto Baldwin (37:58)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (37:59)
⁓

Roberto Baldwin (37:59)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:01)
⁓ so the so the Polestar four grand total seventy one thousand six hundred dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (38:10)
It's a pole star, so you know, you're paying the you know, it's like me Mercedes BMW. It's a it's a you it's a luxury vehicle from Sweden.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:11)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a premium car.

Get guesses on destination?

Nicole Wakelin (38:21)
What

are you torturing your animals today, Robert? What is what is happening, Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (38:23)
So okay, so two animals

wanted out. The small dog and Ziggy the insane cat. They wanted out. When I open the door, Roy the older cat came in. But Bowie stayed in. The so I have the German Shepherd and the old bossy cat. And the bossy cat keeps r yelling at Ro at Bowie the dog for no reason.

Nicole Wakelin (38:46)
Okay, 'cause your cat sounds like you literally have her tails shut in the door. Like what are you doing at this point?

Roberto Baldwin (38:50)
No, it's just he's just yelling

at the dog. That's literally it. Like he runs up to the dog like the dog tries to go somewhere and the cat runs in front like he's hurting him and yells at him like no you don't get to go there. This is my spot. Cause he's old and bossy. I'm gonna let he wants out. I'm gonna let the cat out.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:54)
I I'm familiar with that problem because

Nicole Wakelin (39:06)
My goodness.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:06)
I I'm I'm familiar with that issue

because Patty, our our one of our dogs, is gets very much like that. ⁓ and he like when he when there's something that triggers him that gets him all excited, he will turn around and start barking at at at Morty saying, Come on, come on, we gotta go. He's he's putting he's putting peanut butter in the Kongs. We gotta freak out. We gotta have a meltdown. Or in the morning when we get up, you know, it's time time to go, you know, it's like

Nicole Wakelin (39:08)
Okay, let the poor cat out.

Quick, quick, move, move, move.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:35)
You know, Morty just gets up kinda leisurely and strolls along towards the door and Patty is just all gung ho and starts barking at him and says, Come on, come on, we gotta rush to the door before he gets there. Be ready to get out as soon as he opens the door. It's like Come on, Patty, just just chill out.

Roberto Baldwin (39:53)
Go!

What's what's great is that the dog that's being bullied by the cat is the German Shepherd, with the big scary bark and like you know, he would kill people if they hurt me or my wife. ⁓ but like the cat is in clearly in charge of the house.

Big protective German Shepherd. But at the with a cat, he knows the cats. He's just like, I what am I supposed to do with this? I can't like do anything. And cats are chaos machines. You can't fight a cat. You'll never win. They're they they don't they they they don't care about anything. There's no rules to cat fighting. Everyone loses except for the cat.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:22)
I know.

Nicole Wakelin (40:23)
Chaos machines.

Everyone loses

cat's like, I'm good, what's your problem?

Roberto Baldwin (40:36)
Just like little squirmy knives. That's it. It's just a it's it's just a flurry of knives. You've seen the cats chasing bears away from people's houses. Yeah, every every animal's like, you know what? We're good.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:36)
⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I don't want to mess with a cat.

Nicole Wakelin (40:50)
Hehehe

Sam Abuelsamid (40:53)
⁓ all right, let's let's move on. ⁓ so

Roberto Baldwin (40:57)
Sorry for sidetracking everything into cats and dogs.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:00)
All right. Cat

cat like you said, cats are chaos machines.

Nicole Wakelin (41:04)
Look at a c creating chaos right now.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:06)
Yep. And he's not even on the show.

Nicole Wakelin (41:09)
Ha ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (41:12)
⁓ all right. For twenty twenty seven Porsche is doing some some more updates to the Tycon. and ⁓ first of all, they have discontinued the cross tourismo and sport tourismo variants from the US market. So, you know, because because we won't buy nice things, they won't sell to us.

Nicole Wakelin (41:27)
Wah wah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:28)
Boo Boo Cause we don't

'cause we don't love a wagon. America hates wagons. Those the best. The best. Every time I drove one I was like, This is my favorite car. Just my favorite car. People have asked Well, what's your favorite car? I'm well, Tycon Cross Rhizmu or anything, really.

fine, whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:53)
So no more ⁓

no more tacon wagons for America. ⁓ but for twenty twenty seven we do get fake shifting and more enhanced noises.

Nicole Wakelin (41:57)
Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (42:03)
Sure.

Nicole Wakelin (42:04)
Enhanced noises.

Yeah, would you like enhanced noises with your car? Sure. I'll take enhanced noises.

Roberto Baldwin (42:10)
I got enhanced noises already in my office with the animals, so I'm good.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:10)
Bas basically.

B yeah, they they they basically

Nicole Wakelin (42:14)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:15)
went and ⁓ and and benchmarked a hun Hyundai Ionic five N and said, ⁓ we gotta do that And so now they offer that on the on the Tycon. So, you know, it's got the whole shifting with the the little torque dip when it does the shifts, you know, simulated eight speed automatic. ⁓ you know, and you can shift it with the paddles and everything. So yeah, you

Roberto Baldwin (42:36)
You know what? If that

brings you joy, I was in the AMG GT, they drove me up and down that bridge that they did the event on. ⁓ unfortunately that footage disappeared. We we don't know what happened to it. but I got other footage that I'll be putting up later. But they had the shifting and it was actually kinda cool. And I was like, that's cool. I don't know if I'd use it all the time. Probably not. But, you know, for

Sam Abuelsamid (42:57)
Yeah, well it's like the five

N. It's not something you you want all the time. But when you wanna go out and have some fun, you get on a country road, it's a it's it's a blast. Or you take it to a track day, it's fun.

Roberto Baldwin (43:01)
But you know.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's fun. No one's gonna it's not hurting anybody.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:10)
Have have you driven the five N,

Nicole?

Nicole Wakelin (43:13)
I believe I have. I can't remember. I'm being honest. I can't remember. How's that? I don't think I have.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:19)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (43:20)
I haven't driven it. I my my

Sam Abuelsamid (43:22)
It's it

Roberto Baldwin (43:23)
my my my my joker origin story is that I was invited to the ⁓ the five in drive program at Laguna Seca and it went into my spam folder and I didn't know and I didn't go to the event and I haven't driven the five in since kind of because of that because I'm still like heartbroken. Spam folder. Don't email me at my.mac account.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:23)
it it

So was I. ⁓ Well I

Nicole Wakelin (43:47)
People.

Roberto Baldwin (43:48)
Automakers,

email me at my Gmail account or my work account. Stop emailing me at my Mac account because everything is spam according to Apple.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:58)
Yeah, I was invited to that one too, but I already had a prior speaking engagement that that week and could just could not make it. So

Roberto Baldwin (44:08)
That's even worse.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:09)
Yeah. But I did get to drive it at Road America during the Mama Spring Rally. So yeah. I've yeah, I've driven it driven it on the track, you know, and on a really good track. So not

Roberto Baldwin (44:14)
⁓ there you go. Yeah. I haven't even caught I

Haven't even

called it in. Haven't done 'cause I'm just like.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:27)
Well, I mean maybe maybe you can get ⁓ the six an now.

Roberto Baldwin (44:32)
Maybe.

Nicole Wakelin (44:32)
There you

go.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:33)
'Cause that's the only Ionic six that they're selling here for this year. and they they took a six N to the Nurberg ring, ⁓ and it recorded a faster lap time than the vaunted Lexus L F A.

Roberto Baldwin (44:48)
Dun dun dun.

Nicole Wakelin (44:49)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:51)
Yeah, the the L F A, you know, back when it still you know, when it was still new and fresh, ⁓ it they it went ⁓ what, seven minutes thirty eight seconds around the the Nordschlifer. And ⁓ the ⁓ the five N did ⁓ seven thirty five and change. So

Roberto Baldwin (45:11)
Six N.

Yeah. Six and

six and is a great car. It is a great car that is very odd styling that people do not like, and you shouldn't sit in the backseat if you're tall because you're hit you'll hit your head. That's it. It's yeah. It drove better than the than the ⁓ Ionic like it came out after the INC five. They didn't have to make it better. They could have just just copied and pasted like the dri you know, the whole driving dynamics into it, but they did.

Nicole Wakelin (45:25)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:43)
So yeah, so

Roberto Baldwin (45:44)
ooh ooh,

one thing I wanna I wanna every once in a while I have auto journalists that'll be like, you know, all EVs drive the same, they all feel the same, which is wrong. ⁓ so ⁓ we you know, we we turned in our f our Ionic five, twenty twenty four. We got a twenty twenty six, my wife drove it, came home, she's like, this one drives better. She could tell the difference. My wife is not an automotive journalist. If my wife can tell the difference and you as an automotive journalist cannot, you're doing it wrong.

Nicole Wakelin (46:07)
Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:12)
Yes. I totally agree.

Roberto Baldwin (46:13)
right. I'm

I'm sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:16)
problem. ⁓ so ⁓ let's see. ⁓ the the Jeep recon. Who's excited about the Jeep Recon?

Roberto Baldwin (46:17)
Shout out to my wife.

I mean I was a little excited. I mean I really just want a Wrangler that's an E V. What is it the what'd they call it? The Magneto or something? What was that the Yeah, the the the the Magneto? They could have did a tie in with Marvel. and I I guess maybe not having the evil guy who kills people, but still. The recon I was just like, alright.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:35)
Yeah. The concept they did.

Nicole Wakelin (46:36)
Magneto, yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:47)
Well you you want you get you get the early

Magneto before he went bad. The young Magneto.

Nicole Wakelin (46:51)
Pre ba yeah, it just depends

Roberto Baldwin (46:51)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (46:52)
which which one you're getting. Yeah, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (46:54)
Which yeah, which

Sam Abuelsamid (46:54)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (46:54)
version of Magneto we're getting? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:56)
When he was still a good guy. Before before he got cynical and disenchanted with the world.

Nicole Wakelin (46:57)
He wasn't

still a good guy.

Roberto Baldwin (47:01)
But the human race.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:02)
Yes. Or with the non mutant human race. ⁓ well yeah, the

Nicole Wakelin (47:03)
Wow, this podcast got very deep all of a sudden.

Roberto Baldwin (47:07)
Yeah. Well there was it human human superior?

What was that the Homo superior? Was that the Come on, whatchaman use bigger comic book nerd?

Sam Abuelsamid (47:14)
Yeah, I think so.

Nicole Wakelin (47:17)
⁓ I ⁓ I'm not that big of a comic book nerd.

Roberto Baldwin (47:18)
⁓ I feel like Nicole

Sam Abuelsamid (47:19)
I I I think I think that was the line,

yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (47:21)
I think. I'm not you keep talking, I'm gonna look it up.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:23)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (47:24)
Ha ha ha

Sam Abuelsamid (47:24)
All right. ⁓ well anyway, the the recon, ⁓ which may finally actually possibly be launching sometime soon, ⁓ officially has an official EPA rating now. Up until now, Jeep has been saying, yeah, it's gonna get about two hundred and thirty miles of range. Which was really quite disappointing for a vehicle with a hundred kilowatt hour battery pack. It's pretty that's a pretty mediocre range number. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (47:50)
It's

Sam Abuelsamid (47:50)
Well, now that they have finished the

official EPA certification, that was that would have actually been better 'cause the actual certain certified number, two hundred and twenty two miles of range.

Nicole Wakelin (48:04)
Guys.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:05)
For sixty seven thousand dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (48:08)
For a hundred kilowatt hour battery pack. That's the thing. If it was like, okay, it's 200 and you know 22 miles of range, but it only has like a 60 kilowatt hour battery pack because you know, blah, blah, blah, packaging. I'm like, all right, fine, whatever. You know, most people aren't driving that far. But when you're like, here's 100 kilowatts, and you're getting, and you're not gonna get anywhere close. And you're just like, ooh, ooh, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:35)
Yeah. So

and and just for for reference, yeah, the the Rivian R two has now started shipping to customers. They've they started d customer deliveries like a week and a half or so ago. ⁓ that one, ⁓ with the the version with the twenty one inch wheels, ⁓ gets three hundred and thirty miles of range. Or if you go with the twenty inch all terrain tires, you get three hundred and seven miles of range. And that's you know

Nicole Wakelin (48:46)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:05)
similar size battery in that thing. So but of course the Rivian doesn't have buttons and doesn't have car play. And you know.

Nicole Wakelin (49:14)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (49:14)
That's true. And you can't take the I

mean you can't you can take the doors off any car if you try hard enough. and so you know, they they keep showing a lot of pictures of the recon off and then it has like a top where you can you know, like a s like a like a giant ⁓ like not c not quite I guess convertible. I don't know what you want to call it. what's that called? When it

Sam Abuelsamid (49:36)
I think they call it Skyview or something like that. Yeah, the retractable fabric roof. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (49:38)
Skyview, yeah. It's just that Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (49:40)
Sky one touch. Sky one touch? Isn't it one touch? Sky one touch? Sky one

Roberto Baldwin (49:45)
There

Nicole Wakelin (49:45)
touch. There we go. Hey!

Roberto Baldwin (49:45)
we go. So I just ⁓ it's just hard that range and that with the battery pack at that size and the price is just like a really hard sell for that you're just like ooh ooh

Sam Abuelsamid (50:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, I I can't imagine that's gonna

Nicole Wakelin (50:08)
How do you think it's gonna do?

What do you think people are gonna do? What do you think the Jeep the Jeep Wrangler fans who want an EV that's bigger and not quite a Wrangler will do?

Sam Abuelsamid (50:18)
They're not gonna buy this thing. I don't think they're gonna sell very many of these.

Roberto Baldwin (50:18)
if they'll buy this. I think they'll just buy a Wrangler. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (50:21)
I don't think so either.

They put a lot into this thing too.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:25)
I

yeah, I I I I have this sneaking suspicion that this thing's gonna sell even worse than the Charger Daytona.

Roberto Baldwin (50:34)
I saw a charger detona today while I was driving to the ⁓ to the swap meet.

Nicole Wakelin (50:38)
I was gonna,

ooh, I saw one.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:39)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (50:40)
Charger Daytona

today. Looks cool. It's a cool looking car. I still haven't driven it. I'm sure it's everyone by all ⁓ you know it's it seems like a nice car. People seem to like it. You know, a couple people are like boo. I'm like, I mean it's a it's a muscle car. Muscle cars make sense for EVs because you just want to go fast in a straight line. That's muscle car. But it also it doesn't go. It has that weird, you know, other thing, and then you it doesn't go. It has that other fratsonic.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:44)
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a great looking car.

Nicole Wakelin (51:04)
What does it not sound like? It doesn't go Okay, just double checking.

Roberto Baldwin (51:11)
Fratsonic, which sounds like a really bad ska band from the late nineties. We're the Fratsonics. Bip bimp bimp bimp bimp.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:15)
Ha.

⁓ Electrify America opened up a new charging station this week. in Santa Barbara. It's got twenty three hundred and fifty kilowatt stalls and and it and it still doesn't have NAX connectors on it.

Roberto Baldwin (51:30)
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Nicole Wakelin (51:33)
Woohoo!

Roberto Baldwin (51:35)
Well they'll add ⁓ later, which is sure, why not? It's a weird Yeah, it's a weird flex. They're like, look at this. By the way, we'll add some NAS collectors later this summer. We'll convert some of the C C S connectors to NAX. So then when you pull up, you're like, Well, do I want to use my adapter or not? And fortunately, like every car comes with an adapter, so it's not the end of the world. ⁓ but yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:37)
Yeah. But ⁓ you got a brand new one, why haven't you put on there? Come on.

Nicole Wakelin (51:38)
Eventually.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:01)
But they they did include a a one point nine megawatt ⁓ battery ⁓ energy storage system. so there's a big giant battery. So it's not just sucking all you know, if you got twenty cars they're charging, it's not just sucking it all down off the grid simultaneously. It's got a battery to buffer it.

Roberto Baldwin (52:17)
Which is genius.

The only the only issue I have is it doesn't have like some sort of ⁓ like cover. Like over the place. It's like there should be a canopy with like with like just giant EV solar panel like just solar panels over it. I don't understand.

Nicole Wakelin (52:25)
Mm. That's kind of weird.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:25)
Yeah, there's no canopies or anything.

Yeah. Yeah, the whole the whole the

whole lot should just be covered by solar panels. Yeah. 'Cause you know, you're in Santa Barbara, probably gonna get some sun.

Nicole Wakelin (52:37)
Right? Just to to make some juice and to keep everybody from having that

Roberto Baldwin (52:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (52:44)
looks like you would be really, really hot. Like I don't know, it feels melty.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:46)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (52:47)
Yeah. Well Santa Barbara's not too hot, but still. It just seems weird. There's no there's like some ch

there's some trees, which is nice, but I feel like they could have put some c Yeah, but it and and they have like a pergola, like in a corner where people can hang out. But it's not totally covered still. ⁓

Nicole Wakelin (52:53)
Al there's some trees along the edges.

No, it's still

like kind of like a yeah, it's a capergola. It's got holes. It's got holes.

Roberto Baldwin (53:05)
Yeah, it's got holes. ⁓ so

that's so close. It's so close, EA. But you know what? Twenty twenty chargers.

Nicole Wakelin (53:09)
Actually this is this

is actually really cool and and like n like well done. I'm happy to see they're doing it.

Roberto Baldwin (53:15)
Yeah.

The the the the charging situation in in San Francisco, they're sort of whatever they're calling it charger. it's got like twenty things in it. It's great. You pull up, you pull in, there's always, you know, there's usually a space, there's someone there to say, Hey, you pull here, this person's leaving there. It's nice. You gotta put a you can't have like f two chargers station two stations at a at a location anymore. You gotta come on. Also sell tacos. That's that's that's all I want. I want a lot of star charging

Sam Abuelsamid (53:17)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (53:43)
Really,

if anybody's trying to lure Robbie, you don't need a van with candy, you just need a van with tacos. That's it.

Roberto Baldwin (53:44)
And I want tacos.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:48)
Just bring it just bring a taco truck and it's all good.

Roberto Baldwin (53:49)
Really, if you sh if someone came up in front of my house and

they started playing like lachona on the music and I was like, what's going on out there? And then then also I smell carnitas, I was like, Well, guess I'm kidnapped

Sam Abuelsamid (53:58)
Huh.

Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (54:06)
Guess I'm out now. See you later, everybody.

Roberto Baldwin (54:10)
I'm all texting

my wife, I'm being kidnapped, but I have cognito, so I don't know what to tell ya. Sorry, sweetie, love ya. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (54:14)
Yeah, what happened? They were like I knew they'd come from one day.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:21)
⁓ all right. ⁓ let's go back to Chevy. ⁓ so the the Chevy Bolt, the the new Chevy Bolt is out now. They're delivering them to customers. ⁓ and the guys from Out of Spec did you know, they they always get everything and do a whole bunch of different kinds of tests on there. One of the tests they do is, you know, they fully charge the car and they drive it until it's completely dead. ⁓ you know, and they have they have a portable charger that, you know, they can tow behind a truck.

you know, so they just they run the car until it just outright out and out dies. And one of the things they're looking for is to see like how much total range can you possibly get out of this car. And how much of a buffer does it have? 'Cause, you know, with with your gas car, you know, there's when the the gas gauge is reading empty, there's usually still a little bit left there. You can still drive a little bit further. Yeah. ⁓ and the same is true for most E Vs. You know, you get to get down to zero percent.

Nicole Wakelin (54:55)
Done.

Little bit. There's some fumes in there. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:20)
There's usually still ten or fifteen miles that you can go to get to a charger. With the bolt, they found that when it got to one percent state of charge, boom, it was done. It rolled to a stop. ⁓ so if you have a bolt, ⁓ you know, keep yeah, keep keep keep it, you know, a few above a few percent, you know, and leave leave yourself a few percent to get to a charging station.

Nicole Wakelin (55:36)
Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (55:40)
Go down to one percent.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:49)
Because once you get down to one, ⁓ you got nothing left.

Roberto Baldwin (55:55)
Yeah. I drove a ⁓ Model S and it was at zero and we were I was doing a test with Tesla. They were like following me around with this car. ⁓ on the radio, like, just keep going, just keep going. It was at zero percent and it just kept going. I'm like, I don't really feel like s can we just go back? I don't want to f I don't feel like being in the middle okay, now we gotta go get a flatbed, now we gotta do this. Now well someone'll stay here and you can get and I'm like, it's that's it's it's like the extra f six, seven, ten miles that I'm gonna get out of this I think it was at twelve miles past zero.

Nicole Wakelin (55:56)
That's not great.

Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (56:24)
And they just kept going. I'm like, The extra it's fine. We're good. It's you're that's I I it's gonna be in the article. Settle down. They were very much like, Let's keep going I'm like, I d no, why?

Sam Abuelsamid (56:31)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (56:34)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:36)
⁓ all right. ⁓ also Chevrolet ⁓ this past week ⁓ announced the the twenty twenty seven Silverado fifteen hundred. So this is the combustion version of their full size truck. and ⁓ you know it's got new sheet metal, still looks like a Silverado. ⁓ but ⁓ big the big news, ⁓ new engines. ⁓ so

Yeah, a few couple months ago when they introduced the twenty twenty seven Corvette Grand Sports, they announced new engines, new sixth generation small blocks for that. for the the Corvette. It's got a six point seven liter V eight for the Silverado. previously the previous generation and actually I think for like the last twenty plus years it's had a five point three liter V eight and a six point two liter V eight.

And now the new engines are five point seven and six point six liters. So you got more V eight.

Roberto Baldwin (57:40)
More V8. I'm sure it'll be fine with the price of gas. I mean they didn't plan the It's not like they planned these vehicles two weeks ago. Yeah. They're just like, Well, truck people, they'll still buy ⁓ I've seen people I went when gas was like seven dollars a gallon at some weird point, I I forget what it was about. I've just

Nicole Wakelin (57:40)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:45)
Yeah.

Right.

Nicole Wakelin (57:52)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (58:06)
Dudes with big trucks with giant wheels just flying down the highway at eighty miles an hour. I'm like, Do know how much gas costs? Like, what are you doing? Who are you impressing with your like I spent seven hundred dollars in gas this week? I'm like, slow, slow down. Get this just go to just do seventy. Take it easy, save a little bunny.

Nicole Wakelin (58:12)
Are you crazy?

Take it easy, buddy.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:27)
⁓ but ⁓ too you know, earlier, Nicole, you were talking about the interior on the ⁓ the Silverado E V being just kinda meh. ⁓ well ⁓ they did make a big point, yeah, during the briefing call that they are really upgrading the interiors on the new Silverados. ⁓ trying to try Yep.

Nicole Wakelin (58:36)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (58:47)
All because of you, Nicole.

Nicole Wakelin (58:49)
I'm glad. Thanks, Shavi. I appreciate you listening. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's all me. I'm taking all the credit.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:51)
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So

I mean certainly, you know, from the photos they've released, nobody's actually seen these in person yet. So it's hard to tell ⁓ you know, how good it actually is. From the photos, looks pretty nice. Yeah, looks looks looks looks looks like a an an upgrade. Yeah, they got a sixteen point four inch center screen, which, by the way, still has Apple CarPlay, Android Auto. and ⁓ and

Roberto Baldwin (59:08)
Yeah, it looks nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:21)
If you are so inclined, you can also get a passenger screen.

Nicole Wakelin (59:27)
decided I'm I'm sorta anti passenger screen. Not anti passenger screen, just nobody you they don't it never gets used. Yes. Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (59:27)
It's is it optional?

Why? I okay, so I asked I asked CEO of service at Mercedes like months and months ago when I got a preview

of the S class, like why for the passenger screen spring spring screen? Why for the passenger screen? And he's very flatly he's like Asia. He's like the Asian market is yeah, the Chinese want They're very tech forward market, they're far more accepting of technology than the US market, and that's why we're doing it. Asia.

Nicole Wakelin (59:44)
Screen. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (59:49)
Yeah, the Chinese want

But

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:01)
It never said like,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:01)
yin

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:01)
because Americans really want nope, just like flat out Asia. But d but then like everyone's d keeps doing it. And so like because everyone else is doing it, now you gotta do it. Because Stalantis was doing it, now Chevy has to do it, which makes I I don't know if that's the people in China. The Chinese exactly is it's bigger than an entire village.

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:04)
But I feel like no one you never use them.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:15)
You know who doesn't buy Silverados and Ram fifteen hundreds? The Chinese.

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:20)
All the time.

They're big on those.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:25)
Yeah. Huh.

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:25)
Ha ha

ha

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:29)
Yeah, I don't I because we have phones. It's just like, Okay, look at this. I've I have tried to talk people into like, Hey, look at that. I wanna try it and they're like, all right, why?

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:33)
Yeah, I don't I don't get it. I'm not I'm not like like I don't think it's a bad

thing. Like I mean we shouldn't have them. It's just I don't think anybody uses them. Any car I've ever had one in, doesn't matter who my passengers, they don't care. They're like, this is neat, and then they pull out their phone. You know? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:49)
Yeah, it's it's it's this is kinda cool. Back

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:52)
The

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:53)
to

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:53)
the

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:53)
their phone. It's like the VR of cars. Like everyone's like, this is cool and you're like, Okay, can I get this off my face? It's hot and it's warm and I really I can just play a game on my phone.

Nicole Wakelin (1:00:58)
Like that would be cool. Thanks.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:00)
Well, I mean

at least the passenger screens aren't hot and heavy on your head. It's it's just it's just there, you know.

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

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:04)
That's true, it's not a hot a hot face computer. Hey,

Nicole Wakelin (1:01:07)
That hot

and heavy on your head. Can you imagine that? It's just screened on your head.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:08)
hey, hey, you like pimples?

Hey you like pimples? You like you know hot and

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:15)
I I I actually

have ridden around in a car with a VR helmet on there. ⁓ back a few years ago at CES Audi was doing demos with ⁓ an autonomous concept car that they had ⁓ up on the the roof of the parking garage at the ARI. And they they had us wear ⁓ VR goggles while we were riding around in this thing. But what they had done is the ⁓ the the view in the VR goggles

Nicole Wakelin (1:01:20)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:33)
yeah, I remember that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:44)
was tied to the motion of the vehicle. So as the vehicle went straight, yeah, it looked like you were going straight at whatever you were seeing as the car turned, you you know, you would see it turn. So they tied it to the motion to try to minimize the effects of motion sickness because, you know, if you had one kind of motion coming from the car and something different that your eyes were seeing, you know, you're probably gonna have a lot of people throwing up in your concept car. and

Nicole Wakelin (1:02:08)
You think

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:09)
Yeah. Early VR

was the the problem with early VR was latency. So if you moved like there was a slight delay and the boom, people are just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:13)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:02:19)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:19)
Yeah. But I mean the car was moving very slowly too.

Nicole Wakelin (1:02:21)
It's funny how good your how

good your brain is at that. Like your brain is so good at going, This is not right. It's not matching the reality of where you're moving. Something is wrong. Quick, throw up. That'll fix it all.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:27)
Wait this isn't right.

Quick, empty the stomach.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:32)
Yeah. Well yeah, well I mean that you

know, they they they say they say that that's actually ⁓ you know, an evolutionary thing, you know, from back when we were hunter gatherers and we didn't necessarily know what we were eating. You know, and as soon as you know, the brain evolved, you know, as soon as there was a disconnect between what your senses were detecting ⁓ and what you were feeling, ⁓ or ⁓ you know, it it would say, you probably ate something poisonous, we gotta throw this up.

Nicole Wakelin (1:03:02)
Immediately make you throw up.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:02)
Let's get this outta here. There

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:03)
Yeah. Which, you know, makes sense.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:05)
we go. VR, VR, it's poisonous. That's a w

Nicole Wakelin (1:03:07)
VR is like poison

food. Bad VR is like poison food. ⁓ Mushroom that those red berries, just like VR. That's bad. ⁓

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:08)
Yeah. It's a mushroom you should not have eaten.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:11)
Bad VR is poison food. I So

So for the Daft Punk stuff, I wear like a wearable monitor. It's like a VR headset, really. But it's it's just a monitor so I can see my computer because I can't see the computer behind the LEDs when I'm DJing. And I have to wear it for one it's the the set list is one hour and twenty minutes. And I can tell you about 40 minutes in, I'm like, I god, I really wish this was over. Like halfway through, and I'm just like

Nicole Wakelin (1:03:32)
Ha ha ha

Can't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:37)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:03:41)
but

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:42)
I'm like

I'm I'm sort of adjusting it and then it starts getting warmer and warmer and start the headset and I'm like, I gotta put a fan in here, I gotta do this and this yeah, it's it's you're just like yeah, and then you take it off and you're like your face is all slimy and weird.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:58)
So one of the interesting details they talked about with the the Silver Auto, if you if you look at the photos, you will notice there's no shark fin on the roof of any of these trucks. Because what they've done is at the back edge of the cab, there's like a almost like a little there's like a ridge, there's like a spoiler like thing along the back edge of the cab. And so in that ridge, in that bar, they have integrated the antennas in there along with the rear cameras.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:18)
I see.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:27)
⁓ and the the l you know, if you if you if the vehicle if the truck happens to be equipped with bed lights and things like that, those are in that bar. ⁓ so you know, they've made it look a little bit sleeker.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:40)
that's cool. All right.

Nicole Wakelin (1:04:40)
That's kinda nifty. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:44)
⁓ one one thing ⁓ that we did ask them about ⁓ was if they have any plans for any sort of hybrid ⁓ or any sort of power export solution 'cause, you know, Ford has, you know, pro power on board with all their hybrids and yeah and even with their non hybrid trucks you can get a two kilowatt pro power on board and it's like mm, they kinda dodged that question. They they did not really answer that question, you know.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:00)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:11)
I and really it kinda the response kind of seemed like yeah, no, we're we're not doing that. We no plan no plans for that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's but yeah, if you got a truck, you know, having a couple of kilowatts that you can output, you know, is is really nice. So

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:18)
Not gonna happen.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:19)
⁓

I like the pro power thing a lot.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:22)
It is pretty cool.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:28)
I did a video at Ingadget where we took the truck out to the middle of the field and we played Mario Kart on the big screen TV.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:36)
Perfect.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:36)
I mean,

cool.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:39)
As you do, you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:40)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:05:40)
I'm I'm cool with that, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:43)
⁓ all right. And then one one more thing ⁓ GM related, ⁓ which is that I d I'm doing another show now with Craig Cole for greencars dot com where we're interviewing some some people and ⁓ we interviewed Kurt Kelty, who is the ⁓ VP of in charge of batteries and sustainability at GM and you

I'm sure you saw Kurt probably at ⁓ GM Empower event. one of the things that you know, we we did we actually recorded the interview a few days before that event, because of schedules, but it didn't come out until this past week. And one of the things I asked Kurt about was ⁓ solid state batteries. you know, 'cause GM, you know, is previously announced, you know, they're working with a bunch of different companies on solid state batteries. And, you know, everybody keeps making big pronouncements about, yeah, we're gonna

gonna launch solid state batteries and said, So what's what's the status of solid state batteries? And ⁓ basically his response was, you know, I've been doing this for more than twenty years and heard a lot of stuff about solid state batteries and how they're just around the corner. And ⁓ basically the we we came down to ⁓ so solid state batteries are like hydrogen fuel cells. They're they're they're the you know, they're five years away for the next twenty five years.

⁓ and yeah. He did not yeah. Probably, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:12)
Hey, that's what I've been saying. I feel like Kirk g I think he stole my deal. I'm gonna send him

I'm

Nicole Wakelin (1:07:17)
Ha

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:17)
gonna send him a cease and desist.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:19)
But you know, as as somebody who's been in the battery business a long time, you know, he does not seem to have much confidence that solid state batteries are any really any closer to volume production than they were five or ten years ago.

Nicole Wakelin (1:07:21)
You're done.

Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:36)
Lot of people are working on I don't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:37)
Yeah. Yeah, he said they're they're testing at least

they're testing solid state batteries from at least half a dozen different companies in their labs. And it's like, yeah, well, we'll see, maybe, but not there yet.

Nicole Wakelin (1:07:48)
Not yet.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:48)
There's there's there's yeah, there's so many things

that there's the there's the the dendrite issue, which is because it's the solid state, it's not lit so it what happens is as it's the ions are going back and forth, it creates little spikes and those spikes cause search circuits, which means it kills the life cyc the lifetime of the battery. So instead of having like thousands and pho thousands upon thousands of charge cycles, it has a couple hundred and then pfft instead. Also also because of solid like the size, like the the mass gets gets bigger and smaller and bigger and smaller. It's just like a lot of

Like little weird little things you have to like figure out to fix and every once in a while I know people are still angry ⁓ about Donut Lab Donut Labs like, Hey, we're doing this thing and I'm like, Okay, well until you you know, I wrote the article, I talked to the CEO, I talked to the tech team, I talked to the people who are working on it. I'm like, All right, I sure if you guys think you've f you've solved it, all right. I I wrote and of course everyone's angry, but most of the thing angry is like you know, it's it's as well there's no way they could do it. I'm like, Well, we don't know and they're only and again

They're only making three hundred motorcycles. That's the with this. So it's not like it's mass production on like a like a niche motorcycle scale. So I'm you know, will they still have like till the end of the year, I guess. I don't know. ⁓ I think they have a couple out, but who knows? It's it's everything about solid state is so weird and it's it's really tough. And occasionally someone will write something about solid state and not mention the technical issues that are actually there. And I'm like, why did you write this article? What are you doing?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:15)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:17)
Like someone's like, this is a they're like I think someone wrote an article was like, Donut Lab is a scam. I'm like, Alright, cool. So I read the article. Nothing about the technical issues, just a lot of like somebody on YouTube complaining that Donut Lab is a scam. Like, okay, maybe it's a scam, but at least give me some show me that you know what you're talking about.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:36)
Yeah. Well, ⁓ there w there was ⁓ there was a solid state battery company here in Ann Arbor that was started by a U of professor back in twenty ten, eleven time frame. Yeah, called Sacty three. And they you know, they got acquired by Dyson when Dyson was still planning to build an electric SUV. And yeah, they yeah, they they worked on it for another three or four years and finally Dyson gave up and said, Yeah, y you know you can

Nicole Wakelin (1:09:36)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:56)
⁓ yeah, a car. Forgot all about that.

Nicole Wakelin (1:09:58)
right, I

remember that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:06)
And Marie Sastry, you can have your patents back. We see no value in this. We're we're not gonna do this.

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:10)
We're done.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:11)
The the the profit margins

on vehicles are so slim compared to like a really expensive but really good vacuum cleaner. Like I have a Dyson I have a I have a Dyson like animal vacuum cleaner that we've replaced 'cause my wife's like, we gotta get a new one. It still works, the old one, it's in my garage. I still use it like all the time. And that thing's like fifteen years old or something. It just keeps going.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:19)
Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:19)
Turns out very different products.

Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:42)
can't get that with a car. That's so hard to make. Cars are so hard to make. I don't know why anyone wants to do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:42)
⁓

I don't who who who the hell who the hell wants to get into the car business? It's insane. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:48)
That's a silly idea.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:49)
So dumb. It's a bus it's a bad idea. It's anytime

Nicole Wakelin (1:10:51)
Madness.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:54)
someone's I'm gonna start a car company, you should check them. You should have them checked. Have them

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:56)
We I mean it took it took Apple

ten years to realize what a ridiculous business this is.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:01)
Yeah, they get such you know, their their their volumes on iPhones and their subscription models, like they make a ton of money and they're like, Okay, now we're gonna make this like thing where we have to like start either work with somebody to build our vehicle, or we have to like, you know, spin up a factory and we gotta do all these things in order to make a teeny tiny little profit margin. Or we just keep making phones and charging people for iTunes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:23)
Yeah. ⁓ and then ⁓ Rivian, you know, speaking of ⁓ somewhat scamish behavior, back when they first launched the R one T and R one S, you know, they said, Yeah, these cars are eventually gonna get, you know, self driving, hands off hands free self you know, hands free assisted driving capabilities is w actually what they what they talked about. So like a supercruise style system. You know, I don't think they ever actually said that it would be fully autonomous, you know, the way

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:52)
Like a level three.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:52)
Tesla

has said. But they did promise hands-free capability with the first generation R ones. ⁓ that never happened. And now they you know the they have acknowledged that those vehicles will will never be able to have hands free capability. They just don't have the the compute power for it and it wouldn't be practical to try and upgrade them. ⁓ and so there's a class action lawsuit. So if if if you've got

If you've got one of those first generation R ones, ⁓ yeah, you you might be coming into some money at some point. 'Cause ⁓ a judge yeah j a judge a judge has said that lawsuit can go forward.

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:26)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:29)
Seventeen dollars. Whew.

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:32)
Seventeen dollars, you're being ambitious, Robbie.

Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:41)
Murphy, I mean if you're selling first of all, if you're buying a car because someone tells you it's gonna be hand it's gonna be level three, which is eyes off, hands off autonomous driving. in the future. I mean, first of all, it's it's they shouldn't be saying that if they can't deliver. But also, that's so hard. That is so hard. And it's l unlikely your car's gonna do that.

Nicole Wakelin (1:12:54)
Future, future, future, future.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:02)
Al also just

Yeah. Just in general, any product, whether it's a phone or a car or anything else, you buy it for what it can do right now. Don't ever buy anything based on what somebody promises you it's going to be able to do at some point in the future with a software update. If you're not happy with the with the Yeah. If you're not happy with the functions that it has today, don't buy it.

Nicole Wakelin (1:13:26)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:26)
I got yelled at by Tesla for that.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:35)
You

know, if you if you're if you're looking for the f the stuff they're promising you at some point in the future you know, whether it's a computer or a camera or whatever it might be, wait until it actually does that to buy it. Yeah, if if that's if that's what you want. Yeah. Buy it for what it can do today, not what it might what they promised it might do in the future.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:50)
Yeah, don't yeah.

Yeah. I've been doing this for a very, very, very long time. And before I was a car reporter, I was a tech reporter, and I was a I was a security reporter. And I will tell you that a lot of stuff is like, we're gonna have all this great stuff that happens and then the stuff never happens, and then you're like like ⁓ so so here's a fun thing. FaceTime originally at the original launch was supposed to be cross-platform. It's supposed to be available on Android and other things, and that was like a it'll be cross-platform. Steve Jobs got up, told everybody that

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:21)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:28)
N never happened.

So yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:35)
⁓ all right. And then finally, ⁓ Carvana. ⁓ have either of you two either either bought or sold cars through Carvana?

Nicole Wakelin (1:14:43)
N

never. Never never.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:44)
No.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:47)
⁓ so, you know, they're i it it's an interesting company. Yeah, trying to apply e commerce to car buying, to use car buying up until now. And you know, and also having giant car vending machines at their stores. ⁓ and you know, you can go online, you know, if you're trying to sell a car, you can go on Carvana, put in your VIN number, get an offer for that car, and if you accept the offer they'll roll up with a flatbed and hand you a check and take away your car.

⁓ and they make it really easy. ⁓ they almost went belly up during the ⁓ during the pandemic, ⁓ or you know, the the later pandemic era when cars were in short supply and they started overpaying for all the used cars and you know, paying paying way too much money. ⁓ but ⁓ but they have they have recovered. they're doing okay now. And they've now decided to start getting into the new car business.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:33)
⁓ yeah, I remember that. They were

Nicole Wakelin (1:15:36)
Mm-hmm. I remember that too, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:46)
⁓ so they they have bought a bunch of Stellantis dealers in the past year. And they're they're applying their same model, their same sales model, ⁓ with ⁓ new Stellantis vehicles. So Jeeps, Rams, Chryslers, and Dodges, ⁓ where you can you know, the those dealers now, you know, they're still franchise dealers, so they're independent from from Stellantis. ⁓ but you know, if you want to

you know, you can go into those into those dealerships and you can test drive a car, you can walk around, check it out, get all the information. ⁓ and once you decide you want to do it, you just go on their website and they they're using the same Carvana platform that they use for used car sales for these new cars and you can buy it directly through there and they will even deliver the cars for you if you want to your home.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:40)
So a few weeks wait, is it a few weeks? I don't know how time works. June 3rd. So yes, that was a few weeks ago. So Carvana, there's a TechCrunch article from Sean O'Kane, super nice guy, really great reporter. that they were Carvana's granted the option to invest in slate auto. So they might start looking into like, you know, they might say, Hey, we can sell Slantis vehicles. Yeah, we can sell, you know, hey, you want a slate? We already have, you know, if you just want a blank slate, the the bare bones one, they could probably like, yeah, we have one. We can just drive it to your house. Of course, that'll be

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:49)
Mm-hmm.

so they could be a dealer for slate.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:12)
probably if you know, a while because they have well they have a hundred and eighty thousand fifty dollar refundable, you know, reservations. What's you know, how many of those people become actual car buyers, the three hundred and I guess it's three hundred dollars like non refundable, like that yeah, we'll see. It'll be interesting to see how that number ⁓ goes from one hundred and eighty thousand to what it comes to comes out as. 'Cause they get half of that. They get ninety thousand people who order the car. And I mean

That's a long time before you're gonna be able to get a carvana slate.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:44)
Yeah. ⁓ but you know, the the other upside of that is, you know, those those stores that Carvana owns, ⁓ whether it's, you know, some of the Stellantis new car dealerships or, you know, their used car locations, you know, they have service departments. Th they could preventually they could potentially be providing service for those slate vehicles too.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:08)
Yeah, that's yeah. and it's it for the earlier from ⁓ hours ago when the t podcast started, ⁓ Homo superior. That's what the mutants are ⁓ their technical thing in the Marvel universe. Homo superior.

Nicole Wakelin (1:18:19)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:20)
huh.

So we

so we are we are we are Homo sapiens, ⁓ and they are homo superiors.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:26)
Yes. Mutants are

homo superior. There we go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:31)
Okay. Alrighty. ⁓ we have one question this week, ⁓ from Eric. Says, I'm wondering why the Rev concept, ⁓ soon he's referring to E Rev, hasn't taken off in the truck market in the US. The BYD Shark seems to be a solution to having a truck that is electric but can still travel five hundred miles on the combined electric motor and gas engine. This'll allow you to tow without the long stops to charge. ⁓ Yeah, well, I mean it w it might take off if anybody actually had

launched one yet. ⁓ which we're still waiting on Stellantis. Ford has promised a next generation lightning that's going to be an E Rev. ⁓ Scout is ⁓ planning an E Rev. You know they're going to launch with an E Rev version of the the Scout Traveler and the Scout Terra. so you know they should be arriving. And and Stellantis, you know, as of what, a month ago saying yep, we're still going to be launching the the

Grand Wagoneer E Rev and the Ram fifteen hundred E Rev, you know, this year.

Nicole Wakelin (1:19:31)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:35)
So we'll see.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:36)
Yeah.

That's the it that's yeah, it's just there's there's it's I mean the the US market is unless your Toyota is very you know, Ford GM. Stallant is heavy. So one of those big three has to do it and

Nicole Wakelin (1:19:37)
Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:49)
Yeah. Well Fort Ford's

saying they're gonna do it. GM is noncommittal on it. ⁓ Yeah. And and Stellantis, you know, has been showing for a couple of years now, but you know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:56)
Well, they don't even have a hybrid, so

They've been talking about it. Yeah. I

I talked it up in a in a in an artic in a video I made about like what P Hav you know, how P HEVs hurt work. And yeah. But and that video went up like two, three years ago. I'm like, it sounds really cool. You could drive a hundred and forty miles or whatever the you know their their they said the E V range was and then you can drive, you know, if you're towing something, you just now you got gas.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:28)
Yeah. Yeah, you know Stellantis was, you know, pretty much ready to launch the ⁓ the E Rev version of the RAM two years ago, almost two years ago. ⁓ you know, and then you know, then they fired ⁓ Carlos Tavares and brought back Tim Caniscus and you know, Tim decreed, ⁓ we have to put V eight's in everything. So, you know, that has kind of shuffled the schedules around, you know, 'cause they don't want to launch too many things simultaneously.

So every time they think of something new to put a V eight into, you know, then they have to push back the the E Rev launch. ⁓ to to launch the other ones first. ⁓ they they say they're gonna launch ⁓ you know, in the next few months. We'll see.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:13)
Yeah. Well well time will tell.

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:14)
Time will tell.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:18)
⁓ all right. I think that's it for this week. Thank you everybody for listening. ⁓ thanks for tuning in. I mean there's been at least I think six people watching ⁓ watching the live stream on YouTube. Yeah, or actually we had we had eight Yeah. We had eight actually had eight views on the live stream. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:22)
Yay.

I keep forgetting we have the live stream. They're watching we're watching me fight with my cats. They're watching me

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:32)
I forget we have that too. Hi.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:40)
⁓ be sure to like and subscribe everybody. Put some put put some

likes, I guess, on Apple Podcasts. That's the best one. That's what I've

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:48)
Okay, Robbie, put him

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:48)
Or YouTube

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:49)
somewhere. Find a place. Give us likes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:49)
somewhere. Yeah. Where where wherever it is that you watch and or listen, ⁓ you know, like you know, give you know, give us a rating. Yeah. And I mean the actually the the number the number of subscribers to the wheel bearings YouTube channel is continuing to grow. ⁓ we got more people watching. ⁓ so you know, apparently apparently people did want to see us on camera. I d I ha can't understand why, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:57)
Tell a friend. They're looking for a car? We talk about cars.

Nicole Wakelin (1:21:58)
Tell her friend.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:06)
Yay.

I don't know why.

I'm all sweaty. It's like really hot today in my house. It's more cats. If you would like more cats, please ⁓ t comment in the ⁓ thing.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:15)
They don't they just wanna see the cat. They really it's all about your cat. They wanna see the cat and the puppy.

Little cat, little puppy, that's what they're looking for.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:25)
Yeah. Like like and subscribe

and we will we will try and get you more cat action. We'll get you more of Roy harassing ⁓ Bowie.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:30)
Ha ha ha

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:30)
More sexy more of Roy

just yelling and then Ziggy like if I don't let Ziggy out of my room he'll tear up the he'll literally just start tearing up the carpet. He just starts pulling it up. Like like right I need out and I need out right now or I'm gonna try to burrow my way under the door.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:41)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:42)
Lord.

goodness. It's very aggressive.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:50)
⁓

all right. Thanks everybody and we'll talk to you next time. Bye.

Nicole Wakelin (1:22:54)
We'll talk to you next

week. Bye everyone.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:55)
Bye.