Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
This is episode four hundred and sixty six of Wheel Bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

Roberto Baldwin (00:08)
I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.

Perry Stern (00:12)
And I'm Perry Stern doing a lot of freelance work for a bunch of different publications.

Roberto Baldwin (00:15)
Woo Perry gets around.

Perry Stern (00:19)
I do.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:19)
Well, Perry,

I think I think you had thank thanks for joining us but this week again, by the way.

Perry Stern (00:24)
certainly.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25)
I you you have a very interesting comparison, I think, 'cause you had two

Perry Stern (00:31)
I've

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32)
two kind of diametrically opposed vehicles, both both with four wheels, both with a steering wheel. And and yeah. So so tell us what you

Perry Stern (00:36)
They had four wheels. They they were both electrified. so

Sam Abuelsamid (00:41)
had.

Perry Stern (00:41)
so let's start with the the one I'm driving right now, which is the Chevrolet Bolt. so you know, Chevrolet Hob

Sam Abuelsamid (00:48)
A very bright orange bolt, by the way.

Perry Stern (00:50)
Hab Habin Euro Orange actually is I believe what they call it. But it's you know, this is a car that Chevrolet cancelled and then they brought it back and it does have some, you know, changes underneath, but for the most part it looks the same.

drives the same, but in my eyes that's a good thing. I like the bolt. It's it's inexpensive. I mean the one I drove, this is the top of the line, fully loaded it including Supercruise in this little car, for thirty eight nine. I think it starts a little below thirty if you get the base model. no dual motor options, it's all just front wheel drive.

So not a ton of power, but it's you know, it drives like an electric car. It's quick off the line, it's quiet, it's it's comfortable. the seats are a little stiff, but you know, not a big deal. But I love the interior because there's so much storage. There's little shelves everywhere, there's cubbies everywhere, the cup holders are adjustable. There's just lots of little things that make this car something that would be easy to drive every day. it's got, I think I just finished charging it up. It's about two hundred and sixty-five miles of range it's showing right now.

according to the EPA it should be 262. So I'm right on the money with the range. but it's fun to drive. But if you want something, you know, perhaps a little less electrical, more more gas,

Sam Abuelsamid (02:18)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (02:19)
I drove a couple weeks ago a Lamborghini Revilto. and that one

Is slightly different. It does have electric motor. It's a plug in hybrid, believe it or not. but it's also has a V twelve engine that makes up for the power that the three electric motors can't supply. So all told when you bring all the power together,

Roberto Baldwin (02:42)
You know, as you do.

Perry Stern (02:44)
yeah, exactly. I mean I think the three electric motors actually put out more power than the bolt does total. But the total h output is a thousand and one horsepower.

zero to sixties, you know, two two point something, two point two, two point three seconds, something ridiculous. but it will go five miles on electric only power.

Roberto Baldwin (03:08)
Ooh.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:08)
Ooh.

Perry Stern (03:09)
I know exactly. It actually has a CCS charge point in s in port in the tr in the frunk. You actually have to open the hood to plug it in and it has a special latch so you can secure the hood while it's still open with a cable sticking out of it.

so you can get your five miles of range. And according to their press materials and you know, I've my experience as well, the whole point of it is so you can leave your neighborhood before the V twelve starts up and wakes everybody up.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:40)
So can

you can get you can get completely out of Dexter before

Roberto Baldwin (03:42)
It's the Good Neighbor Edition.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:43)
you wake up the entire town.

Perry Stern (03:44)
Exactly.

Exactly. You know, I drove through Chelsea, Michigan in full silent mode and 'cause you know, only had you know, I had four miles of range at that point. and it also regenerates the electricity the charge in about ten minutes of driving the car. So you always have about five miles of range available to you. I did make the mistake of trying to keep it in EV range all the way to the freeway, and so I got to the freeway and

put my foot down and it started the V twelve and it just sat there and with a warning V twelve warming up. and so

basically I I couldn't get it over sixty miles an hour until the engine warmed up, which was a little embarrassing in a Lamborghini, but but the the sticker price on this one is slightly higher than the bolt. seven

Roberto Baldwin (04:37)
A scooch?

Perry Stern (04:37)
hundred seven hundred and forty eight thousand dollars for

For this plug in hybrid that will go five miles on electric only. when it's not running on electric, I think I averaged about twelve miles per gallon. so not exactly the most fuel efficient car, but that's also not why you buy this car.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:57)
Hey, it's

better than a RAM TRX.

Perry Stern (05:00)
This is true. This is true. And it's faster than a Ram T R X and it's four wheel drive, just like a Ram T Rx.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:06)
So they're basically the same.

Roberto Baldwin (05:06)
Boom.

Perry Stern (05:07)
Practically, practically.

Roberto Baldwin (05:08)
Same car.

Perry Stern (05:09)
I have to say though that the seats are incredibly comfortable. It's they squeak a little bit, I noticed. you know you start looking for these things when you're spending seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a car. But the you can actually see out the back window, which is more than some supercars. the engine is completely exposed. I thought maybe it was missing like a plastic cover, but it's not. It's just the V twelve is just out there.

you know, af when you park, if you wanna burn your fingers, you can just touch it right there. 'cause it gets really hot. In fact, while you're driving, you can see the heat waves coming up off of it, through the back window. so it's a it's a fun experience. You know, obviously they're not gonna sell a whole bunch of these and you know, if someone buys one of these, it's probably not their daily driver. but it looks the part, it's fast, it handles impressively well.

It'd be fun to take one out on a track. but but yeah, so you can get around just as easily in a Lamborghini as you can in a Chevy bolt. in fact you could get around in what, twenty Chevrolet bolts for about the price of the Lamborghini? Something like that. You'd never have to charge them.

Roberto Baldwin (06:20)
A fleet of bolts.

Perry Stern (06:21)
It would j it would just be you know, you'd always have one that's charged.

Roberto Baldwin (06:25)
Yeah, you'd be ready to go ready to rock.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:26)
Just p ha park one

every five miles and then just yep keep keep hopping from one car into the next.

Perry Stern (06:28)
Exactly. So so yeah,

so it's been an interesting mix of cars. you know, both will get you around. One just does it a little quicker, the other one does it a little better.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:42)
You know, to to be fair, you know, the bolt has a hundred and fifty kilowatts, which is two hundred horsepower. Which you know, not that long ago two hundred horsepower, you know, in a compact hatchback, I mean that was hot hatch territory. Yeah, I mean you know, a G

Perry Stern (06:58)
True. And

Sam Abuelsamid (07:00)
you know, twenty years ago a GTI couldn't do that. So

Perry Stern (07:04)
And that

and the equivalent of a Chevy bolt twenty years ago would have been an econom box with, you know, an engine that makes a lot of noise that doesn't take you anywhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:13)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (07:14)
where this one, you know, you put your foot down, it moves. It it'll spin the tires if you're if you want it to.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:20)
Yeah, er ear early in my engineering career I had the opportunity to drive a a Geo Metro from like nineteen ninety, ninety one, which had a it was a th like a one liter three cylinder engine with like sixty five horsepower and a three speed automatic transmission. you know, and and that thing was just like

Perry Stern (07:42)
Ooh.

Roberto Baldwin (07:43)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:44)
that was a little buzz bomb, you know. Yeah.

Perry Stern (07:49)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:51)
Well, except except each each one of those intervals was much, much longer because, you know, it took it

Roberto Baldwin (07:51)
Then violate U

Sam Abuelsamid (07:56)
took it took you a while to get to the red line, you know, where it would shift.

So have

having having had that Geo Metro, you know, which was b sold sold by Chevrolet what, thirty five years ago, or having having driven

Perry Stern (08:13)
Something like that.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:14)
that thing thirty five years ago, I would take the bolt over that any day, you know, and or for for that matter, you know, pretty much any economy car from ten, fifteen years ago.

Perry Stern (08:27)
absolutely. I mean it not only is it way more efficient and r cheaper to run, it's way more enjoyable to drive. It's it's quick, it handles decently for a car of that, and it's got tons of room inside. you know, for a tiny you know, for a compact car. And I you know, my opinion, but I think it looks good, especially in Habanero Orange.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:47)
Yeah. Yeah, I sa I saw it yesterday.

Roberto Baldwin (08:47)
I I like the bolt a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:49)
We were we were at a party yesterday. I saw that thing parked behind behind the car I was driving. And it was much more interesting to look at.

Roberto Baldwin (08:59)
The yeah. No, the Bolt's a great little car. I met my friend had a metro. It but he had the the the manual transmission, which was the way to go with that car. But like the

Sam Abuelsamid (09:07)
Yeah. Absolutely.

Roberto Baldwin (09:08)
engines would like, you know but the engine was like two hundred bucks like in the night like so when the engine would die he would j and his

Sam Abuelsamid (09:14)
Ha ha.

Perry Stern (09:15)
Just

Roberto Baldwin (09:16)
dad my f it was my my friend's dad's like commuter car. He would just eat you know he worked at at Borax and he was a mechanic.

And so whenever we would do engine swaps or anything, we would go to my friend's house because his dad had everything. Like pneumatic tools, like the whole shebang. I

Sam Abuelsamid (09:30)
And a hoist and everything.

Roberto Baldwin (09:32)
I bought a hoist and left it there for him. Because a hoist is like a hundred bucks in the 90s.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:34)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (09:36)
It was like nothing. But yeah, no, we dried that thing all over the place. Little 12-inch tires.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:42)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (09:43)
And but yeah, no, that it was a it was a i then we had that, we had my 90 Honda Civic, and then we had my friend's

sixty seven no, sixty eight Mustang. That he had like, you know, him and his dad had fixed it up and had a big tire on the back and everything. But it you it was a Mustang, so it was about as reliable as a Mustang. So we never drove at every

Sam Abuelsamid (10:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:08)
anywhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:10)
But yeah, I mean that w that would be kind of embarrassing though, you know, being in the Revuelto and you know, you get on the on ramp and you floor it and boom.

Perry Stern (10:20)
And nothing happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:21)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:21)
And then

the Chevy Bolt passes you, you're like, no. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

Perry Stern (10:23)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Although although when it when everything when everything

was in operation, the car just screamed. I mean it was I I decided to accelerate from the top of the entrance ramp and it was well into triple digits before I even got to the freeway. it's

Roberto Baldwin (10:40)
That's yeah, that's that's the thing

with the you're like, no, what's happening? How'd this happen?

Perry Stern (10:45)
Yeah.

That's not what I meant to do. I never expected that to happen in a Lamborghini.

Roberto Baldwin (10:51)
What? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:53)
Yeah, when I when I drove the Hurrican Storado a couple of years ago, you know, that same thing, you know, I mean that one d was not a hybrid or you know, plug in hybrid. but still when you start it up, you know, it you know, it would let you know that hey, you know, it's gotta warm up a little bit before you get full performance. and then

Perry Stern (11:14)
Yeah, it's it's a precision machine.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:16)
Yeah. And then, you know, but once once it's warmed up, boy.

Roberto Baldwin (11:21)
It let you know it was a Lamborghini. That's what I I

Perry Stern (11:24)
I mean this

Sam Abuelsamid (11:23)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (11:24)
think the last three generations at least of Lamborghinis have been so Lamborghini that you're like, you know what? This is exactly what you should be doing as a company. And so everyone you get into, you're like,

Perry Stern (11:33)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Roberto Baldwin (11:34)
Yeah, yeah. I think I don't think that's true for Ferrari for the last couple

Sam Abuelsamid (11:38)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (11:39)
for the last few generations.

Perry Stern (11:38)
No. But

the I mean this one also, I mean the fact that they you know they've already decided they're not building an electric car, but this is as this was their first electrified production model. And you know, yes, if you just had the V twelve putting out eight hundred plus horsepower, don't think many people would whine and complain. but it's kinda nice, you know, to go into four digits for a horsepower. But it does have I mean, I just have to say it had about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of options on it.

again, you could buy a whole bunch of bolts. But the paint itself, which was very pretty, it was blue sepsepius, parentheses light blue. that's what it says on the sticker.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:18)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (12:22)
$13,100 for the paint.

Roberto Baldwin (12:24)
Yeah, that's a

Sam Abuelsamid (12:24)
Oof.

Perry Stern (12:26)
and then when you add the carbon fiber, shiny carbon fiber lower exterior package and upper exterior package, each of those is over twenty thousand dollars.

So basically just the extra

Roberto Baldwin (12:37)
Of the VW group

of the VW group I feel like Lamborghini knows what it is more than like you know than than the rest of the group.

Perry Stern (12:44)
They have definitely

not diverted from what their you know what their roles. It's just

Roberto Baldwin (12:49)
We have a goal. This is what we do.

Perry Stern (12:51)
it's just you know, it looks extreme, it is extreme, it's but I have to say it's it's certainly more comfortable than previous Lamborghinis that I've been in. I mean it's easy to get in and out of, you can see, you know, yeah, it has, you know, half an inch of ground clearance or so, maybe more. it does have a button on steering wheel to raise it

Roberto Baldwin (13:09)
Yeah. They learned from the Urus, I bet.

Perry Stern (13:12)
up though. Yeah. So it's

Yeah, I don't think I could afford to make that my daily driver, but 'cause I'd have to I'd have

Roberto Baldwin (13:18)
I was in a hurricane drive program.

They had us pull over into a parking lot and I scraped the front of the car. Because the parking lot they had us in. And like the PR person's like, when he saw it, I'm like, I want you to put it. Why you what are you doing? Why did you put us in this?

Perry Stern (13:34)
You gotta push the button on the dash that raises the nose up.

Roberto Baldwin (13:37)
Yeah, I was like, God, god. Like you pulled right into like everyone,

Sam Abuelsamid (13:41)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (13:42)
pull in here, pull in here, and then there was just a big old pothole. I'm like, no!

Sam Abuelsamid (13:46)
Ca can you imagine if Lamborghini still built

Roberto Baldwin (13:48)
This is

Sam Abuelsamid (13:49)
tractors, what they would look like today? Do they? I don't think so.

Roberto Baldwin (13:51)
They still build don't they? Yeah, I

Perry Stern (13:53)
I think

Roberto Baldwin (13:53)
think so. Cl Jeremy Clarkson bought one

Perry Stern (13:53)
they do it. Yeah, didn't Clarkson bought a he bought a Lamborghini

tractor just because he had to buy a Lamborghini at his farm. Yeah. I

Roberto Baldwin (14:00)
And then it was a lot of problems.

Perry Stern (14:05)
don't know. but

Sam Abuelsamid (14:07)
what do you know?

They do still make tractors. I thought they got out of the tractor business.

Roberto Baldwin (14:08)
Yeah, yeah, they still may.

Perry Stern (14:11)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (14:11)
That's probably their pr their bread and butter. We got

Sam Abuelsamid (14:13)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (14:13)
And I don't I don't think

there's much relation to, you know, Revoltos or Hurricans.

Roberto Baldwin (14:17)
It's like Volvo and Trucks, like they're not even the same company anymore.

Perry Stern (14:20)
No, it

Sam Abuelsamid (14:20)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (14:20)
has a brand name, it has a name on it, that's about it.

Roberto Baldwin (14:22)
Yeah, they're

Sam Abuelsamid (14:22)
Lamborgh

Lamborghini Tritori.

Roberto Baldwin (14:26)
The Volvo trucks and the Volvo car people are like friends, but like not yeah. They're not brothers. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:31)
Well, I mean they you they're they're in the same town. You know, they're they

Perry Stern (14:31)
Wonder how much a

Sam Abuelsamid (14:34)
they're next to each other in Gothenburg. But yeah, definitely, you know, different companies. Well actually they're

Roberto Baldwin (14:40)
If you go to Gotham Briggs

they'll they'll they'll they'll like, Hey, you wanna drive the tr the the the the the truck? They let me drive the electric box truck while when I was there for a Volvo event and that was really fun.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:49)
They're

they're they're they're actually closer now than they used to be because you know, Ford bought Volvo cars back in like nineteen eighty nine, then sold it to Geely in twenty ten. And Volvo Group, which makes the trucks and buses and other stuff, was you know, became a separate company when Ford bought Volvo cars. But then a few years ago Geely actually started buying s a stake in Volvo Group.

So they actually own the majority of Volvo Group now as well. So they're they're still technically separate operations, but they're both owned they both have the same owners now.

Roberto Baldwin (15:27)
that's cool. Yeah, whenever people are like, my god, there's a Tesla has a big, you know, semi electric I'm like, man, Daimler and Volvo have

Perry Stern (15:34)
Everybody's got one of those.

Roberto Baldwin (15:35)
electric semi I don't know what you're talking you guys need to s like take two seconds, do a go well maybe not Google, do a duck duck go search. 'Cause Google search just give you fifteen ads and fourteen like AI things.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:48)
And and all of them are gonna be wrong.

Roberto Baldwin (15:50)
And all of are gonna be wrong. I still cannot believe this how how bad those things are.

Perry Stern (15:56)
But I saw it on the internet, it's gotta be true.

Roberto Baldwin (15:59)
It's well everyone this is my my favorite thing about all the summaries and everything is like you know, Google summaries you know, the summaries are really bad at the thing I know a lot about, but they seem

Sam Abuelsamid (16:08)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (16:08)
to be great for the things I don't know anything about. I'm like, Well you see the

Perry Stern (16:13)
Yeah, maybe yeah,

maybe not.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:20)
All right. Robbie, what have you been driving?

Roberto Baldwin (16:24)
Okay, so I want to preface this whole thing was I grew up with my mom was a big muscle car person. So she had a charger. And and she had a javelin. And she liked this was like the cars that she she enjoyed and she liked to work on and she liked to drive. That said, I d I think there's like a part of me that's just like no

Perry Stern (16:44)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (16:45)
These vehicles. Like I love a really wonderful like seventies muscle car. but after that, I'm like after after the seven, just like feel like whatever. and so I'm I'm I'm I'm prefacing everything with that. I drove the 2026 Dodge Charger, the six pack, which weirdly on the hood, there's a little like plasticky plastically plastically plasticky like

It says six pack on it, like right in the middle of the hood, like well actually towards the front of the hood. But it is oriented so that the person in the car can see it. But guess what? There's it's absolutely impossible for you to see that while you're in the car. So it's like when Apple put the logo on their power books, and when you opened it, it was upside down. So when you're looking at the car from the front as just a person, six pack is spelled upside down.

The only place you can see the word six pack is outside the car. You can't see it while you're in the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:49)
Because it

it's too horizontal. Yeah, it's it's at a slight angle.

Roberto Baldwin (17:52)
Well, there's like a little there's a little hump in the hood and then yeah, it's it's horizontal. So there's a little hump in the hood. So you can't even see the element. You can't see like the little and like I like sat and I put my head all the way up to the very top of the windshield to like maybe if I was like really tall, I could see it. No, you can't you just can't you can't see it. And so that's sort of like the whole that's how I feel like this whole car is. it has an inline six, one of the you know, inline six one the best engines ever.

all-wheel drive, cool. so it has four hundred and twenty horsepower. it it's it's a three-liter twin turbo six pack. so it has four hundred and twenty horsepower, four hundred and sixty-eight pound feet of torque. it'll do zero to sixty in four point six seconds, I assume. I think, I guess. It didn't feel like that.

Perry Stern (18:43)
Well they have the performance

pages. You can actually test that out yourself.

Roberto Baldwin (18:46)
Yeah, I know, but where? Like I it's public roads. Where am I gonna do this? There's like people around. There's like we're

Perry Stern (18:54)
my.

Roberto Baldwin (18:54)
like the the place where I end up doing a lot of like, you know, sort of just going for it is uphill. Like it's it's like a lot of people don't drive on it. I'm not gonna do a downhill. So I do a lot of sort of like okay, I slow down and then I just punch it and then I f go up this hill. And some cars kill it. I remember the the f the

It wasn't the sapphire, it was the one right below it for the lucid air. I I I d I I like what I I like yelled an obscenity when it took off because it was just

Perry Stern (19:25)
Huh.

Roberto Baldwin (19:25)
like wow. The six pack just seemed like I guess. And I think a lot of it it doesn't I don't think it comes down to the actual motor in the engine. I think a lot of it comes down to the transmission on this vehicle. The transmission is just it does not feel like it's up to the task.

To be to be honest. it's also a very heavy car. It's it's definitely not a sports car. It is a muscle car, which means it goes makes a lot of noise and it goes fast ish in a straight line. That's what it does. I put my foot on the accelerator while I'm passing people on the freeway. I put my foot on the accelerator in the middle of nowhere, blah blah blah while I'm going up a hill. But it just It doesn't I it's just I it it

It feels like it doesn't have a soul. There we go. That's what it comes down to. It feels very just sort of like Well, we did the thing we say we're gonna do. And there's

Perry Stern (20:27)
Is it because

the cars like the old Charger Hellcat felt like they were, you know they definitely had a soul?

Roberto Baldwin (20:35)
Yeah, you felt like you're like, okay. Like I didn't you know, I didn't it it's to me, whenever it my my issue with the Dodge lineup is that the Mustang exists. And you can get a nice loud blah blah blah Mustang that actually handles. Like you don't feel like you're in this giant it it just feels like I'm in this oversized box driving around with a loud with a loud speaker that goes straight and it it'll go in a straight line, which

They sell a lot of these vehicles. People like them. I'm just like, what that's what but that's just I'm I'm on the freeway and I'm going fast. Woo. Cool? I don't know. It

Sam Abuelsamid (21:15)
Well, they don't actually sell that many of them, which is part of the problem for Dodge.

Perry Stern (21:18)
Well, there's that.

Roberto Baldwin (21:21)
So I feel like it just doesn't yeah. I think the the old one, I'm like, alright, you you would get in it, you're like, okay, this is not a car for me. Which most cars really, to be honest, aren't really, you know, I don't like

A big SUV, I'm like, what am I gonna do with this? I'm a big van person. I think I've talked about I love wagons. I love small, you know, nimble sports car. They don't need to have a lot of power. I I'm not I'm fine with I I'd rather have fun than just sound loud and impress other people. That's my the whole thing. this is more like, hey everybody, look what I got. By the way, the design, I really love the design of this car. I love the way it looks. I know it looks like it's a space car.

It's I I think I I enjoy the way it looks. I'm like, this car looks cool. It sounds cool. But then when I'm driving it, I'm just like Okay. It's I feel like the Honda Accord has more soul than the six pack. Which is which is just like yeah,

Perry Stern (22:18)
Wow. That's a statement right there.

Roberto Baldwin (22:21)
yeah, right? I'm just like, okay. And you know, I've I've driven, you know, Scat Pack, Hellcat.

Blah blah blah. These are all the weird names. They have a thing called attitude adjustment, which all it does all it does is it changes the colors inside the car. Like the little ambient lights. So I made it purple. I'm like, I don't know. Attitude adjust Okay, fine. It just like it just feels like I'm like of all the the instead of like I I I really feel like if they just tightened up that transmission, tightened up the the the shifts

And you know, in and without the paddle shifters, you're just like, come on, let's go. Come on. Come on. And then with the paddle shifters, you're like, Everything feels a little bit herky jerky than it's herky jerky than it should feel. and you're just like, This is killing me. It's killing me. Because I want to like say, Okay, this is a proper muscle carve. Bah bah bah it says bah I'm like

That's it. The seats are really comfortable.

Perry Stern (23:31)
Ha.

Roberto Baldwin (23:31)
It is a very comfortable like inside it feels like you're you're in a cocoon. Which again, sort of like to me it feels like it's it feels like it's it's it's hugging you a little bit too much. It feels like almost you're inside bubble wrap 'cause it's just so big and s yeah, and yeah. I just I you know, and and I it's it's got all the elements, you know, that should make it like not the fastest car, which, you know

I understand. That's that's totally fine. but I feel like the the the lack of evolution when it comes to chassis control and the transmission just shoot this car right in the foot. Which is so sad because th again you want a muscle car. You don't need let's say you don't need a big VA, you can't afford a V eight. You just want a nice, you know, end line six, which is typically a bulletproof motor. You want something that's gonna last as long as possible.

And then you get this and it's like cool and it looks cool. You're like nice and you sit there, you're like, this is comfortable and then you're right, you're like,

Sam Abuelsamid (24:38)
I mean it it

it is i it is a big car. Yeah. It's it's

Roberto Baldwin (24:42)
It's so

Sam Abuelsamid (24:43)
a it's a couple of inches wider than the wide body version of the old charger and it's like six or eight inches longer and and it's heavy. You know, I just pulled up the specs.

Perry Stern (24:53)
It's very heavy, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:54)
The the R T that you had, the s the the standard output hurricane is forty seven hundred and forty one pounds. And you

Roberto Baldwin (25:02)
It's so it's

Sam Abuelsamid (25:03)
know, almost forty nine hundred for the Scat Pack. And

way over five thousand for the EV. Yeah. So this is a big honking car. But it is very roomy. And

Roberto Baldwin (25:13)
It it

is very roomy inside, but I th I would I would gladly trade roomy for a little bit more for more fun. Like I so one of the things when you live in the Bay Area is when you go over the Golden Gate Bridge. I did a big loop yesterday with the car driving it around the Bay Area. And if you live in the area you drive in the right lane on the Golden Gate Bridge next to the wall, next to the little the little partition. And the lanes are really small on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Because no one else is gonna be in that lane if they're from out of town because they're terrified of hitting the wall. And I was in that lane and I was just barely. I just like at one point a truck like kind of started veering to my lane. I had to slow down. I was like, geez, I'm gonna tie in this car. Cause it's so wide up because you'll be driving. You'll you know, you could check your rear view mirror to make sure that you're inside a lane. And I was just barely inside the lane, but I was also just barely, you know, within inches of the wall, and I'm just like

This thing is so big. It's so big. And it's so and I got the four four door version. I think, you know, I I like the design, but I think the coupe is, you know, a a better looking car. it's you know

Perry Stern (26:23)
the same

length though, aren't they? They I mean if they made a big point of that, that they're they're in fact seat seat seating space

Sam Abuelsamid (26:25)
Yeah. They're they're exact the exact same profile. The the sh the roof sheet metal

Perry Stern (26:30)
is even the same, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:31)
yeah, the roof sheet metal is exactly the same. It's only the

Roberto Baldwin (26:33)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:34)
the body side stamping that is different for between the two door and the four door. So you get the the two doors got the B pillars further back by several inches, so you got longer doors so you can get in and out of the back seat.

Roberto Baldwin (26:45)
A giant

door.

Perry Stern (26:47)
It is interesting that the I just looked up the the Charger SRT Hellcat Wide Body weighed about forty six hundred pounds.

Roberto Baldwin (26:55)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:56)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (26:56)
But it had s yeah, it's it's it's

Perry Stern (26:58)
But it had

seven hundred and seventy seven horsepower too. Or something like that.

Roberto Baldwin (27:01)
And it all it almost feels like you need that much horsepower to to to to pull

that much vehicle around. You know, it's got twin turbos, which you know but of course, you know, you have turbo lag, and so what happens is that you have this big engine, you have these twin turbos, but when you go to take off, it's just like, hold on. I got it I gotta hold on. I gotta grab all my stuff and pull there we go. Here we go. Here we yeah, the first time I just thought, okay, I'm gonna put the hammer down. I was just like, man

Sam Abuelsamid (27:32)
It I I have I actually have a charger

Perry Stern (27:34)
That's a shame.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:35)
scheduled a few weeks from now. and it's the Scat Packs, it's the five hundred and fifty horsepower version. but so so far I've only driven the E V and the the thing the thing I came away from driving that car, you know, is that it's a it would be a great long distance cruiser. Yeah, if you're doing a cross country drive it'd be

Roberto Baldwin (27:55)
Exactly. When I was sitting there, I'm like, this would be a

Sam Abuelsamid (27:58)
great for that.

Roberto Baldwin (27:59)
They got an eco mode, but you have to you can't like ac access eco mode with the drive modes in the on the steering wheel. You have to go into the screen. But there's an eco mode. I'm just like, you know, this would be a great like I need to drive to LA. Just throw it in eco mode and just cruise down the freeway. It's a it's a really nice like GT, like a cruiser. It's and which is like, okay

Sam Abuelsamid (28:21)
A big old classic

American sedan.

Roberto Baldwin (28:24)
Yeah, it's it's it for as a American sedan cruiser, like I just need to get somewhere. And I you know, I wanna be comfortable and it's comfortable inside and the infotainment system works and it you know, wireless car play, wireless Android auto, you know, you got USB charge ports. It's yeah, it's like this is so it's it's it's nice, it's comfortable inside. It's like a there's a lot of like really cool things I like about the car, but it's not the car that you're promised, in my opinion.

Perry Stern (28:50)
It's not what it's

not what they're billing it to be. No.

Roberto Baldwin (28:52)
Exactly. I think and I think

if you if you if you if you want a nice for you know it starts at like fifty thousand dollars. If you want a nice like I'd need a cruiser, like Sam said, to just like go on a nice long drive, this thing's dope. You're just like well, I want to sit in a car, I don't want to be I don't want I don't I don't need an SUV. I have some money. Occasionally I like to like scare my sc scare children and other drivers

Sam Abuelsamid (29:15)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (29:16)
on the road with a loud noise.

You know, I'm n I don't care about, you know, sort of like I'm not hitting the twisties, which this is definitely not a twisties vehicle. And they never were, I mean, to be honest. But I think it's

Sam Abuelsamid (29:24)
No. Well I mean that's

the thing with muscle cars. Muscle cars were always about going fast in a straight line. Yeah. And

Roberto Baldwin (29:31)
Yeah, you know I think

Perry Stern (29:31)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:32)
occasionally maybe slowing down slightly. 'cause they they tr classic muscle cars always had terrible brakes.

Roberto Baldwin (29:35)
Yeah. And you know, I think the brakes could

Yeah, it it it they i they're not terrible, but they're not what did I have? I had the which this car is double the price, so it's not really fair, but I had the the five the five touring and and that thing was just it that ev it ticked every box for exactly what that car needs to be. It's just like, this is BMW had a mission and they they completed the mission. Well played, BMW.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:03)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (30:05)
I think Dodge had a mission.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:05)
Dodge Dodge kind

of didn't quite make it.

Roberto Baldwin (30:09)
Yeah, yeah. And that's you know, again, if you want a nice sort of like smoothed out, like muscle car that that, you know, again, like, you know, I don't want a Honda cord. I don't want a Camry. I want, you know, I want a sedan. But I want something with a little you know, it looks cool again. It's comfortable. Yeah, you want it if you want a dodge diplomat,

Perry Stern (30:27)
you want to dodge diplomat.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:30)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (30:32)
but it makes a lot of noise, this is the car to get. I I I really think that

Sam Abuelsamid (30:35)
And looks a lot cooler than a diplomat. I mean

Perry Stern (30:35)
And great.

Roberto Baldwin (30:37)
I really think

Perry Stern (30:38)
True.

Roberto Baldwin (30:38)
that

Like just a fixing the tra I think the transmission issue would totally change the the character of this car in a way that that that I think would would be hoov would would be nice, would be but behoove its character. but yeah, yeah, I was just like, All right, all right, well I'm in this car, you know, and I've been you know, like I said, I've been the other the other vehicles and there's like the other trim levels over the years and like, all right, this is not a car for me. Again, most cars are not for me.

But you know, you're able to say, Okay, this this delivers what it's supposed to be. And, you know, those cars do deliver. You're just like, Okay, here we go. It's let's do this. And this what's weird is if you put it in sport mode, it'll turn traction control off, which I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. But it leaves lane keep assist on.

Perry Stern (31:28)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (31:29)
Which I was like, alright, let's put it in smart

Sam Abuelsamid (31:29)
Why?

Roberto Baldwin (31:30)
mode and it tells you traction control turning off and it has a little you know, the little picture of the car with the little squiggly lines underneath it to say, You're gonna die if you don't know what you're doing. But so I'm driving and then it like lane keep assist kept like nudging me back and I'm like w well, shouldn't that override this other thing if I'm putting in an Like I want the traction control off, but you know what? I still want lane keep assist. That's this seems weird. So I had to go in, I had a manual turn it off and

in the in the screen and then yeah you could do your sort of ape, you know, driving through the hills. You know, and long on long sweepers it does f fine. If I it does exactly what you expect. I just really think that transmission needs to be updated, shaken, adjusted, something. Something just just

Sam Abuelsamid (32:18)
It's funny because

you know, it's that's the the Z F eight speed that they've been using in Chrysler, F C A, Stillantis vehicles for years. So I I don't it it's I mean it's generally worked really well. I'm surprised that it it's so bad in this

Roberto Baldwin (32:34)
It

Sam Abuelsamid (32:34)
one.

Roberto Baldwin (32:35)
it works well, but it isn't tuned for this vehicle. How's that sound? It's not that

Sam Abuelsamid (32:40)
okay.

Roberto Baldwin (32:41)
the the transmission it the transmission setup is just feels off.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:45)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (32:46)
It feels it feels like it's for like a you know it's it's you know the Durango or something.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:51)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (32:52)
Like a regular Durango. It it feels like it's just like it doesn't have any character. It feels like they just I you know what, just throw it in there. We're running out of time.

We did all the other things. We made it loud, okay? We made it loud. And it's comfy. We made it loud, comfy, and it looks cool. Well should we should we tune it nah?

So yeah, so yeah, the the the six pack Dodge Charger RT. If you want a more a calmer Dodge Charger, if you if you know occasionally you wanna go fast, but really you just wanna kinda cruise around town. This is you know, f you know, you got fifty thousand bucks. You don't need to scare the bejesus out of your passengers. That's this is the car to get.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:38)
Yeah.

this well speaking of the the charger, like a month or so ago I went to tour of the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills. they were celebrating their thirtieth anniversary there. Yeah, thir yeah, thirtieth. and as we were going through the building, we I noticed on a a hoist in one part of the building

There was a black charger sitting on the hoist sit up in the air on black steely wheels. And I thought, yeah, they're bringing back a Charger Police car 'cause they haven't had one for a few years. and it

Perry Stern (34:23)
interesting.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:24)
this week, at the police fleet expo in Daytona, they actually Dodge showed off the Charger Police car. and it Yeah. Well it you know, and it it addresses the

Roberto Baldwin (34:34)
There's so much room. Why why not? It's just like huge. It

Perry Stern (34:38)
Your prisoners will be

Roberto Baldwin (34:40)
It's literally

Perry Stern (34:39)
so happy.

Roberto Baldwin (34:41)
as big as a whale and it's about to set sail. That's what the car

Sam Abuelsamid (34:43)
Yeah. Right.

And well and it addresses the biggest complaint that police had about the old charger 'cause that you know, they liked the performance of the old charger and the back seat was roomy enough even in that one, you know, for for people that they were arresting. but the big complaint they had, you know, they always have to carry so much gear in these modern police cars. The charger had a fairly small trunk opening. And

you know, so they actually they you know, this is why a lot of the

police agencies have shifted to SUVs, you know, especially since the the Crown Victoria went away. you know, the Crown Victoria had a huge trunk opening. The charger always had a fairly small trunk opening, so it was hard to get stuff in and out all the time. And of course the new charger is a hatchback. So you got this massive opening in the back. So it's easy. Yeah.

Perry Stern (35:33)
Ton of space back there.

Roberto Baldwin (35:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. They they left all the floor mats in the back. Like rubber floor mats. I like, all right. But yeah, that's got a you know it's got a huge trunk. Again,

Sam Abuelsamid (35:43)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (35:44)
like Sam said, this is a great GT. This is a y you want a cruise? I'm going to Vegas from LA. You can throw all your stuff. You and your three of your friends, you're all gonna be comfy. You got you know, it's got an alpine it's really cool because when turn it on, it says alpine which you know, if you're a nineties kid, that's like a big deal. You're like ooh.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:02)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (36:05)
It's really yeah, it's really Gen X coded.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:06)
Back when Alpine meant something in car audio.

Roberto Baldwin (36:08)
Yeah, it's very Gen X coded to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:11)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (36:13)
So yeah. You know, you want a big, comfy vehicle that's not an SUV. And when you sit in it, I thought it feels like it should be lower, so every time I sat in it, I like, gosh. The the seat is higher than I every time I get into this vehicle. It feels a little bit higher. Which again, Gen X coded because you know, our our our our our muscles and our bones are falling apart as we get older.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:34)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (36:35)
So it's good it's easier it's way easier to get into this than it isn't my BRZ. Every time someone has to get my BRZ who's my age or older, like, Whoa, we're so low And like, Yeah, man, that's an

Sam Abuelsamid (36:46)
I know, I feel I feel the same thing when

Perry Stern (36:46)
I did actually I

Sam Abuelsamid (36:47)
I get in the Miata.

Roberto Baldwin (36:48)
Yeah. Whoa

Perry Stern (36:49)
w

when I drove this I would just remind him remembering looking at the pictures, when I drove the six pack I drove in the snow. In fact I picked it up at the airport after a snowstorm, or during a snowstorm actually. So I was going down I ninety four at fifty miles an hour through all the other cars. But it the grip was good. I mean, even with all season tires it did great.

And it has the you know, the little party trick that when you're in a big parking lot in the snow you can put it in rear wheel drive. and and go have fun. So you do

Roberto Baldwin (37:23)
Yeah, yeah.

Perry Stern (37:23)
you do have a selectable rear wheel drive, which is something somewhat unusual, but muscle car ish I suppose. I'm not

Roberto Baldwin (37:30)
I mean that's

that's the thing, is that it there's there's little elements that are cool, but you don't get to use those all the time. Like I'm I'm gonna throw in a rear wheel drive

Perry Stern (37:36)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (37:37)
and then I'm gonna drive this thing to the thing and are like, it has all these perf

Perry Stern (37:39)
But that's the case with a lot of

Roberto Baldwin (37:41)
like all the performance things like, I can time this, I can do that, and I can do this, and which which is, you know, that's that's on brand. But also you're like, Okay, I did it you know, you if you look at the average one, I think most of unless the person is like under twenty five there's like one entry for everything.

Yeah. I think yeah, I get. It's it's it is a it just I got I just want the t I just want the transmission to be tuned a little bit better, just to give it a little bit more something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's my thing. Yeah, I I unfortunately I don't have any snow in my house. Or I would have put it in snow mode.

Perry Stern (38:18)
Not the not this time of year.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:18)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (38:20)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (38:22)
Or not any time of year for you.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:24)
all right. well I had I've had this week the the Subaru Outback. specifically the Outback Touring X T which I think is like the the highest trim level of the Outback. So, you know, when

Perry Stern (38:42)
believe so.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:43)
we saw the the Outback was it this year? No, or last year, the New York Auto Show.

Perry Stern (38:50)
I think it was this no, last year 'cause this year was

Sam Abuelsamid (38:51)
The is that

Perry Stern (38:53)
the EVs.

Roberto Baldwin (38:54)
Yeah, 'cause this year they I've already driven the wilderness

Sam Abuelsamid (38:55)
yeah. That's right.

Roberto Baldwin (38:58)
out back, so I had to be last year.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:00)
Yeah. So, you know, the the new Outback looks quite quite a lot different from the previous generation Outback. I mean if you are a fan of the design of the old Outback and you want a new Subaru, the Trailseeker's probably the car for you. but the you know, the new Outback is actually it's almost exactly the same size as the old Outback. It's like within a you know, it's less than an inch longer. It's got the same wheelbase, it's about an inch and a half.

Taller. but the way that they have changed the design actually makes it look substantially larger than the old outback. And I I real I finally realized what it was the other day. It's actually when you look at it in profile, you the it's so much more boxy looking. And especially around

Roberto Baldwin (39:51)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:51)
the front, you know, it looks like it has so much overhang in the front because of the the boxy shape.

you know, even though it's the same length th the overhang is the same as the old one. And you know, I was looking up the sp comparing the specs of the twenty six to the the twenty five model, and you know, it's got the same approach and departure angles and the same breakover angle. Everything's the same, but it's just that shape makes it look so much bulkier than before.

Perry Stern (40:23)
It's like they squared off all the edges.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:25)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (40:25)
Yeah,

there's like chop chop.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:29)
and so, you know, and then you know, there's just other elements. It looks very designed. There's somebody spent a little bit

Perry Stern (40:37)
That's okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:39)
too much time, let's add something here. let's add something over here. It you know, it's it's maybe it's a little over designed. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (40:47)
There's a lot. It's a yeah, it's a

lot. It's it feel yeah, it feels like you're like, wait, what what do we do with these French curves? Throw them away.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:53)
Yeah.

We have T squares. Just use the T squares.

Roberto Baldwin (40:56)
got T squares.

Perry Stern (40:56)
Yes.

Let's use these things.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:59)
Yes. but a apart from the design, the rest of it is actually really nice. I actually I really like I like driving it. you know, it's got a new infotainment system in there, you know, all new software that is far better than you know, than what has been in Subaru's of prior years.

It's it's roomy inside, you know, it's surprisingly roomy inside, especially in the you know, the back seat. you know, it feels like a it on the inside it feels like a bigger car than it is. and you know, so if you know, if you've got, you know, some teenage kids to haul around or, you know, earl you know, early teens kids, you know, that haven't got their driver's license yet, you st you need to haul them around and you've got stuff or you've got you know, a couple of Bernie's mountain dogs to haul around, you know.

they will be very comfortable in the in the back seat of the the new outback. like I said, the one that I had, you know, it has the nice brown leather interior, which looks looks really good, feels really good. Actually I don't think it's leather. I think it's actually something synthetic. I can't remember exactly what they call it.

Perry Stern (42:14)
Something text or something.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:16)
yeah.

But it I mean it feels like leather. It looks really nice. Yeah, it looks it l for especially compared to, you know, what you tr typically think of in a Subaru. you know, it feels much more premium. you know, Subaru's, you know, generally had okay interiors, but you know, it it'd been hard plastics and yeah, and that's fine. Yeah, it was good the yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (42:38)
It was always good enough. Everyone's like, I I you know what, I'm gonna go I'm going

like to pick up compens. I'm gonna you have my Labrador in here. I'm gonna like do I need fancy? No, I don't need anything fancy. I just need a car with knobs and all wheel drive so I can drive through snow or up my neighbor's, you know, dirt road to say hi.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:59)
Yeah, you got eight point seven inches of ground clearance in this thing. this one has the the turbo, so you can get it with a two point four liter naturally aspirated boxer, which is 180 horsepower, 260 horsepower from the turbocharged version, which is what what this one has. you know, and it like I said, it feels more premium than any Subaru I've I've ever been used to before. and but it still has proper rotary knobs for temperature control.

It's got physical controls for the fan speed. It's got manual vents. It's got a volume knob. Got all the stuff that you want in any car, no matter what the price.

Perry Stern (43:37)
And actually I just looked, it is real Napa leather in there.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:40)
okay.

Perry Stern (43:41)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:42)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (43:43)
It's

I drove one of these

Perry Stern (43:44)
None of that fake stuff for you.

Roberto Baldwin (43:46)
for

Sam Abuelsamid (43:46)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (43:47)
ten ten eleven hours in one day. And about three of those hours were off road. And it was just it was great. It was just like we had

Perry Stern (43:56)
it

Roberto Baldwin (43:56)
to drive somewhere to the middle of nowhere, then we had to do this crazy dirt road with like ruts and rocks and everything. And it performed like, you know, as as advertised. I yeah, we were just me my brother and I were like, we're just we're taking the Subaru. There's so much room which could have

We originally we were gonna car camp and then we decided not to. but I could have slept in the back of the car, no problem. Yeah, I was very it it was a it was a it was a really nice, like sort of like long day in a car car.

Perry Stern (44:26)
I mean, I think that the handling is so much better than the old one and the ride is so much better than the old one. I mean, not that the

Roberto Baldwin (44:30)
yeah. Yeah.

Perry Stern (44:32)
last one was bad, but this one is impressively better.

Roberto Baldwin (44:36)
They they really brought it, especially with especially on the the wilderness edition, that the handling, like the road, you're like, wow, this corner so well here's like What is cappeding? What car am I in? Yeah.

Perry Stern (44:45)
Yeah, it it doesn't feel it doesn't feel tall, yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:50)
one one thing I did really like about the exterior of this outback was the emerald green paint. very very nice shade of green.

Perry Stern (44:58)
It does look good in that, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:01)
Yeah. So

Roberto Baldwin (45:01)
yeah. I just had

a white one who was pretty I was like, okay, thanks.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:09)
so something else that was new on this one. This is the first Subaru with a hands-free driver assist system. so you know, that means that yeah, it it's also the first Subaru, I think, that has radar on it 'cause you know, for years Subarus had their eyesight system, which is a stereos stereoscopic camera system. So up by the mirrors, you know, you've got two cameras both facing forwards that are about a foot apart.

and it's used that for range finding. And that that can actually be a a pretty accurate way of you know if you if you've got that kind of stereo camera set up. It it's actually pretty accurate, at least you know, within the scope of you know what cameras can can see. like you know, can't really see through fog. Sometimes, you know, the sun is shining directly in them, they get a little confused. but this one has the the two stereo cameras, plus it's got another forward facing camera.

And it's got a front radar sensor. so it's it's do it can do hands f hands free driving assist. I tried it, you know, so I picked it up at the airport on Wednesday night when I got back from Seattle. and you know it it works okay. you know, compared to you know, other systems, like compared to GM Supercrews, not as good. you know

it there's lots of times when it just says, please put your hands back on the wheel. I I don't know what to do here. which is which

Perry Stern (46:41)
I I'm lost.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:43)
is fine. you know. But it is it is not a system that I would want to rely on necessarily for a a longer trip. you know, it it frequently asked me to put hands back on the wheel with sharper turns on the highway, you know, it almost every time, you know, it was

It's kinda like driving an early Ford Blue Cruise system, where you know it's just not reliable enough. and so I you know, I would recommend not necessarily using it if you get one of these. you know, just just use the other eight ass features and it's it's gonna be fine. use the adaptive cruise control, you can you can do that without using the hands free system. there is one one interesting aspect of the the hands free system though.

There's a series of LEDs on top of the dash that reflect up off the windshield. and you know, they're blue, green, and and red. So there's a row of I think about seven LEDs. And so when you are driving down the road, you know, when it's in hands-on mode, you will see you know if you in the instrument cluster you'll see the the the logo, you know, the little icon of the steering wheel and hands on the steering wheel.

and it's green and you will see two green LEDs come up, you know, indicating that it's recognizing the lane markings on both sides of you. when when it goes to hands free mode, what you will see is those will go blue. So it's kind of you know kind of similar idea to what GM has done with their light bar on the steering wheel. So it's up, you know, it's in your line of sight all the time. So you see

the see them go from green to blue when it's hands free. And you know, if there's nobody in the lane ahead of you, you know, you'll just see the two blue, you know, indicating okay, I've I've I've located the lane markings on either side of the car. And if there's a car in your lane ahead of you that's within range, then you will see a green LED in the middle, you know, that is your indicator that okay, lane centering and and there's a car that I'm tracking.

And so, you know, it gives you some some nice visual indicators as you're driving down the road without having to look down at the instrument cluster and you know, helps helps avoid mode confusion about which which mode it's in. so that that worked really well. So I like that. and you know, we'll see, you know, keep tracking this in the future, you know, when I drive future Subarus to see if the system gets better. Hopefully it will. you know, but right now it's it's not it's not really robust enough.

The the Outback turbo rated at twenty four miles per gallon combined, twenty-one city, twenty-nine highway. I've been averaging about about twenty-five so far, in my driving. which is is decent,

Perry Stern (49:42)
Not.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:43)
you know, for you know, this is for the the turbocharged version, two hundred sixty horsepower. You know, it's got plenty of performance. it's it's like I said, yeah, it's a it's a good sized car. It's

Perry Stern (49:52)
It's not a small car. I mean it's it's got a lot of space.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:55)
very nice to drive.

you know, and as long as the looks don't put you off too much, you know, it's it's definitely worthwhile. I mean, I know there's already at least two of these in my neighborhood of these these this current generation outback. I've been seeing them over the last several months. and I I suspect I'll be seeing more in the future ca you know, to pot eventually as people replace their older outbacks, you know, probably migrating to one of these. Because Subaru Subaru owners tend to do that. They tend to be very loyal to them.

Roberto Baldwin (50:27)
Subaru people are Subaru people. We

Perry Stern (50:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (50:30)
I'm on my second Subaru and I'm just like, yeah, I just need a car.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:33)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (50:34)
I mean mine's a BRZ, so it's like, you know, it's sort of this weird car weird csubaru. But it's still a Subaru.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:37)
But you know, it it it do it does what you expect

yeah, it does exactly what you expect a Subaru to do.

Roberto Baldwin (50:43)
Big old knobs for the climate controls. The world's worst

Perry Stern (50:46)
Yeah, I mean I had four

Roberto Baldwin (50:47)
infotainment system. It's from two thousand fourteen. It's old. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:49)
Well now now it's got a decent infotainment system. You know,

Perry Stern (50:49)
Well it's it's although that's gotten better, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:53)
still got the knobs. you know, it's it's very roomy. and compared to the the Jeep Cherokee I was driving last week and the Rivian R one T the week before, these seats are also very comfortable. The Cherokee and the R one T both had very lumpy seats. This very comfortable seats.

Roberto Baldwin (51:13)
I don't it's it's not I don't know. I don't know what's going on with the people in the seats. Like what are we like that charger had really comfy seats. I'm like, yeah. But it also had electric door instead of mechanical doors. I'd like, come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:26)
I don't.

Roberto Baldwin (51:27)
That that thing really bothered me. The electric doors, cause like

Perry Stern (51:29)
I noticed that.

Roberto Baldwin (51:30)
this is a this is it's a charger. What are we doing? What are we doing here? It should have like a big clah. This should like s they should be marketing this like y y they do with the

with the with a G Wagon where you gotta slam the door. K

Perry Stern (51:44)
I'm just gonna say G Wagon w feels like you're closing a vault.

Roberto Baldwin (51:47)
Plow. Yeah, that's like they should like ra manly door open click. No, it's like T kink and the whole thing pops open. I'm like, ugh

Sam Abuelsamid (51:56)
No, all all all the door

handles on the outback are nice and mechanical. Yeah, so you got nice

Roberto Baldwin (52:00)
Nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:01)
you know, reach in, grab it, pull it out, you know it actually comes out from the door a little bit as the as you as it unlatches. You know, nice mechanical latches on the inside. It's it's it's very good. I I like this car a lot. The only thing I'm not thrilled about, the price tag, you know, for this one. Yeah, this

Roberto Baldwin (52:16)
it's not cheap.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:18)
is a loaded one. forty nine thousand eight hundred and forty bucks.

Perry Stern (52:24)
So that's about as expensive I guess I mean if you don't go wilderness, I guess or maybe this is ha ch actually more expensive than a wilderness. because the this I mean I think y the was it the X T touring, is that what you said it was? Or 'cause

Sam Abuelsamid (52:36)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (52:37)
I think that's the top of the line.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:39)
I believe so. So let's see, there's the premium, the limited, the touring. the wilderness. The wilderness starts at forty five. The limited XT is forty four, three sixty five, and the touring XT is forty forty eight.

so yeah, this is the this is the top of the line. But you know the

Roberto Baldwin (52:57)
Just get the wilderness. You don't need the It's like it's got

the driver assistance stuff, which is like nah to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:04)
Well the

Roberto Baldwin (53:05)
Adaptive cruise control, that's all you really need.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:07)
Yeah.

I mean the the base premium model still gets you the the the the same Subaru all wheel drive system. You get the iSight driver assist technology. it's thirty five thousand dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (53:19)
Yeah. For a lot of car.

Perry Stern (53:20)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:21)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (53:22)
And they all they all come standard with all wheel drive, they always have, so

Sam Abuelsamid (53:25)
Yeah. The

the only Subaru the only Subarus that don't have all wheel drive are the B R Z and the base uncharted, which is front wheel drive. But you know, even

Roberto Baldwin (53:32)
yeah, Frat World Rare.

Perry Stern (53:34)
Which is wild

that the Territor version is standard four wheel drive, but that's a whole different story.

Roberto Baldwin (53:38)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:38)
Yeah. Even

even that base premium

Roberto Baldwin (53:41)
But it has real

door handles for an EV. Like

Sam Abuelsamid (53:44)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (53:44)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:44)
just regular, like, hey, you know what? Here's some just some regular door handles. Don't even worry about it, yo.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:50)
Eve even that base thirty five thousand dollar outback, you know, has the same twelve point one inch screen with the same infotainment system that's on this fifty thousand dollar one. and you know, you get the the My Subaru connected services. you get the same eight point seven inches of ground clearance, you know, power power rear lift gate. So, you know

Perry Stern (54:17)
It's pretty well equipped for a base model, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:22)
You know, the ventilated seats are nice, you know, but I can live without

Roberto Baldwin (54:29)
I mean my my WRX, like the best thing was the after a long day snowboarding was the heated seats. also

Perry Stern (54:36)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (54:36)
the all wheel drive and the fact that I could just blast by everyone on the road in in the snow. in the base.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:41)
I don't I don't know if you get heated seats in the base model.

let's see. no, you do. The base model has the all weather

Roberto Baldwin (54:49)
Boom, done. Who cares?

Sam Abuelsamid (54:50)
package with heated front seats, heated exterior mirrors and a and a windshield wiper de icer.

Roberto Baldwin (54:57)
Boom, done. You live in the northwest or northeast. Or even the northwest, you live in Tahoe boom, here's your car. You're done. Yeah, yeah. Anything anything above like a certain

Perry Stern (55:04)
I mean northwest you have to it's almost a law you have to own a Subaru anyway. when I lived back there we had

we we went through three of them, I think four of them over the ti over time when I was living there. The only reason I don't have one now is I have a camper to tow. or

Roberto Baldwin (55:17)
Yeah, there you go.

Perry Stern (55:18)
a bigger camper to tow. I used to tow

Sam Abuelsamid (55:20)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (55:20)
a camper with a Subaru ascent. but now it has to be an F one fifty, but

Roberto Baldwin (55:25)
yes,

yes it.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:27)
So just just get the base thirty five thousand dollar outback premium, splurge three hundred and ninety five bucks for the emerald green paint, 'cause you can get that even on the base model. And then, you know, take your pick of black or gray StarTex interior and you're good. You got you got everything you need in an Outback.

Roberto Baldwin (55:42)
Yeah. Spend the rest of your money on on

everything else you need on roof racks and bike racks. That's all you And the little thing in

Perry Stern (55:49)
Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (55:49)
the back so your your your interior doesn't get totally destroyed by your dog. The little hammock.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (55:54)
Yeah, that's all you need. Yeah,

Perry Stern (55:55)
I like that little hammock thing, that's a cool feature.

Roberto Baldwin (55:57)
we have we have one in the INAC five. That's what we that's what that's the dog car. And then you take it out and it's just filthy, but the seats are nice and clean still. Well cleanish. I mean it's still there's still dogs.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:07)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (56:08)
They're cleaner. How's that?

Sam Abuelsamid (56:10)
Yeah, I mean your your door panels are still gonna be all covered with slobber, you know, dried slobber, but and your windows, but

Roberto Baldwin (56:14)
yeah, no but the w yeah,

they're just like cleaning it.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:19)
Yeah. That's life that's life with a dog.

Roberto Baldwin (56:21)
Yeah, that's life with

Perry Stern (56:22)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (56:22)
the dog.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:24)
all right. let's carry on. So Perry, you and I were in Seattle this week. we we had a slight overlap there because we were on different waves. and we were there with Mitsubishi. they were doing a drive program for the mildly very mildly refreshed Outlander and the new Eclipse Sportback. so let's let's talk Outlander first.

So were were you able to visually detect the differences in the exterior design between the twenty

Perry Stern (57:00)
No.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:00)
twenty five and the twenty twenty six?

Perry Stern (57:02)
No, I mean I haven't put them side by side, but you know, the fact that you'd have to put them side by side to figure it out, that's you know I don't think that was a huge priority for them apparently.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:13)
Yeah, it it it's the the changes were very, very subtle. Like in the in the upper grille area between the headlights. you know, there's different texturing there, like where the where the the the the three star diamond logo is. you know, apparently it's different texturing there and there's some other very subtle changes. Basically, if you like the twenty twenty five Outlander, you will be fine with the twenty twenty six Outlander. Yeah.

Perry Stern (57:40)
Exactly. Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:43)
So you know they had the updated plug in hybrid and the new mild hybrid version. did you get to drive both of

Perry Stern (57:53)
I did. obviously I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (57:54)
What what do you think?

Perry Stern (57:55)
I did I did like the plug in hybrid better. not surprising. I mean it's the more expensive one and the more powerful one. I was surprised at how easy it was to drive the plugin hybrid on EV only, you know, on the freeway round town. the only time I noticed, you know, 'cause you can put it in pure EV mode where it will not start the engine no matter what you do. And pulling out into traffic,

That's when I noticed that, okay, I need the full power, to get you know, to get through traffic quickly. And interestingly enough I asked what the power is in just E V only and they will not say. They do know what it is, but they won't say what it is.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:37)
No, they w they

they told us it's it's two hundred and forty seven horsepower.

Perry Stern (58:40)
No, they you can add up the power of the motors, but that's not how much po I mean, 'cause it doesn't quite work that way. They they were very specific

Sam Abuelsamid (58:46)
No but

Perry Stern (58:47)
that they would not say what the EV power if you're just driving in E V mode, how much horsepower you have. So maybe you heard something different. but

Roberto Baldwin (58:59)
It's very weird

when car companies do that. They're like, we're not gonna well we're not really talking about that now. I'm like, you know, that's people wanna

Perry Stern (59:04)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (59:05)
drive a car. It's like how big is the oven? Can I put a cake in it? We're like, Yeah, we're not talking about that right now.

Perry Stern (59:07)
I was curious because it felt Yeah, you're

just gonna have to find out for yourself. No, I f I found it was you know

Roberto Baldwin (59:14)
Figure it out on your own.

Perry Stern (59:15)
there were some times when it felt a little underpowered in just E V mode only, but you know, you push the button, you're out of E V mode and with the full power on it's it's plenty quick. It's got I mean it's got plenty of power and it's still reasonably efficient and it recharges the battery a a bit as you're driving in sport mode or whatever mode puts the engine in.

So I thought it was it was nice to drive, it was comfortable, you know good seats. didn't have electronic latches on the doors, they had normal handles, so

Roberto Baldwin (59:47)
Yay. I'm so

happy everyone's figured out you're like, you know, the point two five miles of range we're getting from these weird doors handles. Yeah, that's not really worth it. People don't like these. Plus, you know, regulatory it's gonna all I think after China's like, Yeah, we're not doing this, you know. I think we you know, most automakers are like, forget it, let's just get rid of it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:07)
Not worth it.

Perry Stern (1:00:07)
They look high

tech though. They look high tech.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:09)
Yeah, I guess.

Perry Stern (1:00:12)
but but yeah, otherwise I en I enjoyed driving it. I th I was pleasantly surprised.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:17)
Yeah, I was I was actually surprised, like you know, how how well how comfortable it was to drive. Like the ride quality was really good.

Perry Stern (1:00:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:25)
yeah, on on some of the roads, you know, there were a little bit rougher surfaces. Yeah, it was it was very smooth, really good body control. you know, and you know, I mean this this is a pretty good size, you know, upper compact, mid size crossover. Yeah, this is built on the same platform as the current Nissan Rogue.

so it's the exact same wheelbase, it's like an inch longer or something, I think, overall. but it's the same same wheelbase, same track width. So it's the same platform, but the powertrain is completely different from what you get in a rogue. and what what was interesting, yeah, I mean the their hybrid system, their plug in hybrid system, is kind of a a different architecture. It's more in a lot of ways it behaves more like like an E Rev. Yeah, 'cause it's basic when it's in hybrid mode or or electric mode.

It's it's essentially operating as a series hybrid. So the electric motors you

Perry Stern (1:01:20)
Most of the time.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:21)
yeah. you get well and even even in the E V mode, except for like, you know, at the highest power levels, the highest power demand.

Perry Stern (1:01:31)
Right, right.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:31)
It's it's operating as a series hybrid. So the you know, so the engine is driving the generator on the front axle that is charging the battery.

The or you know, I mean if you've got charge in the battery, if you've charged up the battery, then it's not even doing that most of the time. and the the p the Mitsubishi comes with standard dual motor, all wheel drive. So you got electric drive on the rear axle, electric drive on the front axle. you know, I found that even in just pure E V mode, you know, it generally had plenty of performance. It was not not an issue at all. and then you know

I mean I guess, you know, if you're coming out of a Revolution and stepping into this it might feel a little sluggish. but but overall, you know, it was fine in electric mode. Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:02:21)
And I would agree with that. If it for the most part it was.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:23)
Yeah. And you know, then when the you know, when the engine does come on, you know, there's there's a clutch mechanism similar to what you get in a Honda hybrid where at higher speeds, or you know, or if you need maximum power, the clutch engages and it'll drive the the front wheels with the engine in addition to the electric motor.

the interestingly, the you know the the the range went up from was it thirty-eight, thirty-seven or thirty-eight miles last year to forty-five miles on on a charge. and the power level went up significantly. So, you know, total output now between the engine and the electric motors is two hundred and ninety-seven horsepower, which is up by about fifty horsepower compared to what it was. But none of that stuff actually changed. The only thing that actually changed.

is the battery. They they replaced the battery. So, you know, and I was talking with with the Kevin Sittner who's the head of EV powertrain engineering for Mitsubishi North America and Travis Waddles head of product strategy and you know they explained you know that the the bat literally the battery's the only thing that changed. It's they went

from a battery that had previously that had been designed primarily for EV applications. you know and essentially they I think that sounds like they took the the cells from the Nissan Aria and put it in a slightly smaller capacity battery pack, twenty twenty two or is twenty w it was twenty kilowatt hours last year. It's now twenty two point seven kilowatt hours. replaced those with new

Prismatic cells with a slightly different chemistry that's less capacity focused and more a little bit more power focused, but they still got more capacity. So they got 13% more capacity, so it's 22.7 kilowatt hours now, and they got 60% more power output from the battery, which means that the the motors can actually be used to their full their full capability now, which they they were being underpowered before. They didn't weren't weren't getting enough electricity.

or enough voltage to to give them their f their full output. So the motors haven't changed, but you've got significantly more power out of this thing now. And so that was pretty cool to to hear about. and and then they you know everything else is exactly the same hardware as it was in twenty twenty five.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:55)
So so how do you what's what what is the port on this thing?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:00)
So the charging port?

Perry Stern (1:05:02)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:03)
So there there's actually there's there's there's two

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:02)
Yes. I'm very I'm I'm looking at the specs and it's just like, Hey, you

can use a D C fast charger and then it says Chatamone like, Whoa, what's going on here?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:10)
There there's there's a seven J seventeen seventy two port for AC charging.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:14)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:16)
and then there's a Chatamo port for DC fast charging. And that's that's the you know, with the new battery, previous last year it could it could do twenty two kilowatts over Chatamo. This year it does it'll do up to fifty kilowatts on Chatamo, so it'll do a full charge in about thirty minutes. And I I asked Travis and and

and Kevin about this. And basically it comes down to they they don't sell enough of these for them for them to been able to justify the expense of reengineering the charging to go from Chattamo to NAX or CCS port on there. Bec and most

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:59)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:00)
of them are sold in Japan. So I I looked

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:03)
Okay. We're

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:03)
up the numbers on mark lines afterwards

They sold about twenty two thousand Outlander plug in hybrids last year, of six thousand of which were sold in the US, and almost all the rest are sold in Japan. So with

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:18)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:19)
that relatively small volume, they figured it's not really worth re engineering that for a different port for relatively small production volume. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:28)
Not relatively small. Very small.

Perry Stern (1:06:31)
I

shouldn't say, yeah, yeah. That makes

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:33)
That's it's very weird that

they even sell it for such with su i in the US with the numbers being so low, but I guess they're like, Well, we gotta have some sort of something in US and maybe Yeah. What

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:42)
Something hybrid. So

Perry Stern (1:06:44)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:45)
you know it it's actually, you know, quite nice.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:47)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:48)
Yeah, they and also the the hybrid fuel economy did go up by one mile per gallon. It was twenty seven, it's now twenty eight, or maybe it was twenty six, it's now twenty seven. yeah, twenty six and twenty seven. But it went up by one mile per gallon, which is not much. So it's still not the most efficient in hybrid mode when the battery's depleted. especially when you compare it to like a

Tucson plugin hybrid or Rav4 plug-in hybrid. The new RAV4 plug-in gets 40 miles per gallon in hybrid mode. The Tucson gets 37, 38 miles per gallon. So, you know, but you know, with forty-five miles of electric range, if you you know, if you plug it in every night, most people are gonna be able to just use it on electricity without any problem.

Perry Stern (1:07:32)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:36)
so what did what did you think of the the mild hybrid?

Perry Stern (1:07:43)
it was fine. you know, it's it's

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:45)
Mm.

Perry Stern (1:07:46)
it's I mean it it feels a little underpowered. It's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:50)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:07:51)
it's one of those cars that, you know, with the plug in hybrid it stands out, it's got a you know, unique powertrain and all that. This one you know, why would you buy this instead of say any other hybrid? I don't know. It didn't it it

There wasn't anything really that stood out about it for me.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:13)
Yeah, they s they switched to the the same one point five liter turbocharged four cylinder that's in the Eclipse Cross. and but added a forty eight volt belted starter generator system to it. which you know should give it modestly more fuel efficiency compared to well certainly more than it had with the the natural gas braided two point four last year.

So that yeah, that part is definitely better. let's see the and you can get the

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:48)
So so who is buying

Mitsubishi's? That's my my other big question.

Perry Stern (1:08:53)
Well, not a lot of people.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:58)
Well they you know, they did talk in the presentation about you know they've still got a relatively limited dealer network and they're working

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:05)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:05)
on expanding that. and you know, also they're also expanding their lineup. They're bringing they said they're bringing a new either a newly designed or heavily refreshed model every year now through twenty thirty. And you know, they've got a new Pajero coming and a new Montero. You know, so you more off road oriented SUVs coming in the next couple of years.

and you know, I I think the Pajero is gonna be based on the on the

Perry Stern (1:09:39)
Extera.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:39)
the new Nissan Xtera.

Perry Stern (1:09:42)
That would make sense.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:43)
and then and then the Montero is a different platform. And they also have a a pickup, they're bringing back a pickup truck that is based on the Nissan Frontier.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:55)
Alright. They're just the yeah.

Perry Stern (1:09:55)
But I think you're right, th they do have

a limited sales network which is obviously I mean, that could that kills them. But that's part part of their plan is to

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:03)
Yeah, like if you go to a auto show,

Perry Stern (1:10:05)
upgrade them.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:06)
if there's a Nissan booth at the auto show, it's always way off in a corner somewhere. Like you're just like

Perry Stern (1:10:11)
Mr. BC mean.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:12)
like Mitsubishi I'm sorry, yeah, Mitsubishi. It's always off in a corner. It's really like one car maybe. Maybe someone's there, maybe someone's not. You're just like I I mean they sell a lot of you know, if you look at if you go to the airport, there's a lot of Mitsubishi's driving around the airport. It's not like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:27)
Yeah. A lot of rentals.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:30)
it's yeah, it's not like they're there's there's you know, they they

It's not like as a company as a whole aren't in the US, it's just as a like private vehicle sold to the regular person. They're not like they gotta bring back the eclipse is all I'm saying. But like a regular eclipse, not the saying that they're I know, I know,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:46)
A a proper eclipse. Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:10:46)
they have several cars named Eclipse, but

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:49)
I know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:49)
Well, the you know, the the the mild hybrid outlander starts at thirty thousand dollars. The the other downside of the plug in hybrid, it's a little pricey. you know, starts at forty three two forty five, goes up, you know, the SEL is forty nine, and then there's the new black edition, which

swaps out all of the the shiny bits on the outside and the inside for black stuff. And that one is fifty three thousand six ninety five.

Perry Stern (1:11:21)
It's pretty in red. I mean it does look good,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:11:25)
but

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:25)
But it's it's

like a few grand more than a RAV4 and the Tucson. Like starting price. Which is like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:29)
Yeah. That's exactly. That which makes it harder to grow your sales.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:34)
Yeah, like like when you're if you

Perry Stern (1:11:35)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:35)
if if I'm on the if I'm a s if I'm cross shopping, I'm looking at P heaves, I'm like, well the RAV4, that's you know the RAV4. The Tucson again.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:43)
But the Outlander's the only one that offers a third row.

Perry Stern (1:11:46)
I was gonna say it it kinda has a third row. I mean there is a th it has a third row. No. It's it is limited

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:48)
It kind well, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:49)
It has a third row. It has a third row. It's not very useful, but it's there.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:54)
So got that. Alright.

Perry Stern (1:11:56)
space.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:57)
Yeah. I guess I mean it's good for I mean, but to be honest, most third rows on like on on on vehicles this side are essentially just to keep your your groceries from sliding around so much. It's it's it's just a really big spacer, so you could like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:09)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:10)
I could pack more things so they don't slide around. They would lift up that third row or throw a toddler way back there. Which again wouldn't make sense because

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:16)
Well and

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:17)
you gotta put the seat back there. Now that's a whole who's you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:20)
Yeah. Well that's

exactly what you know, when I asked Travis, I had a conversation recorded tr conversation with Kevin and Travis. That was what Travis explained is how he uses the third row is for his three year old. when he's gotta also bring along his mother in law, and and the older child. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:37)
And yeah, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:38)
I'm gonna drop in that conversation here, and we will be right back.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:44)
Alright, I'm here with Travis Wattles who runs product planning for Mitsubishi Motors North America and Kevin Sittner who is in charge of powertrain engineering. Ele electric powertrain engineering for Mitsubishi Motors North America. So we're here got a couple of different three vi three different vehicles available for us to drive. We got the new Eclipse Sport Back, which is your first E V since the IMAVE. you've got the new refreshed Outlander with

Mild hybrid system and updated Highlander plug outlander plugin hybrid. Name's too close together. Anyway, so start with the the plug-in hybrid, because that's the one that I think is really in a lot of ways the most noteworthy here. the Outlander, the the previous generation, third generation Outlander plug-in hybrid was first plug in hybrid SUV on the market globally, twenty thirteen, came to North America in twenty eighteen.

You introduced the new one here a few years back, now significant updates. So let's start off with what are the most important changes for this the twenty twenty it's twenty seven twenty seventh model year, right? Twenty sixth model year. What what are the most important changes to the outlander plug in hybrid for going from twenty five to twenty six?

Kevin Sittner (1:14:06)
So obviously I will start with the powertrain which is the biggest update. So we have a new battery, completely new battery, completely bat new battery cells, new thermal management. So power trains up for it, we have more power, we can now drive longer in E V. We went from thirty eight miles to now forty five miles of full EV range. we still have a full range on the hybrid power of four hundred and twenty miles, so that's unchanged. but more passing power, more power in E V mode.

And pedal driving and then on the vehicle side. On the vehicle side

Travis Wattles (1:14:38)
We've

got updated interior for the SEL premium trim. So we've changed the color from what used to be black and saddle tan to the brick brown interior for semi analine leather. and then the mid trim also adopts a two tone light gray option because we had it previously on our upper trim, our SEL trim, and we brought it down 'cause it was just so popular that we thought it would be good to bring into the mid trim as well, give more options to our customers. and then upper trim gains

ventilated seats. we've got full LED interior and exterior lights, which is extremely nice. and then on top of that we've got digital rearview mirror and home link added in. Plus of course Yamaha being added in as a standard eight speaker system and an optional twelve speaker system. which is really really impressive and you honestly just have to be there in the car to experience it to really get the sense of how good it is.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:34)
So is that is the eight speaker Yamaha, is that standard across the board on plug in hybrids or on all the outlanders?

Travis Wattles (1:15:39)
On all the outlets.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:40)
Okay. so on the propulsion side, you know, you get a boost in range, in electric range. you got significantly more power, but the only thing that actually changed though is in the battery pack, right? That's

Kevin Sittner (1:15:56)
Correct. So the battery pack is the actual thing that changed, that's the actual hardware component that changed. so pack is entirely new, but with the new pack and the new cells it just allows us to pull more power from the battery pack when we drive an E V mode, so it just feels much stronger, even though the main change is the new pack.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:14)
Yeah, and and you were talking earlier about the the the chemistry of the packs and the and the types of cells that you're using now. You've gone from prism from pouch cells to prismatic cells, but also the the nature of you know the ri previously you had cells that were designed for EV applications close to a plug-in hybrid.

Kevin Sittner (1:16:33)
Previously

we used basically a cell that was mainly designed for EV applications, so they had a high capacity to give us good electric range, but they were somewhat power limited. Now we have a completely new cell that's engineered specifically for PHE V that has both high capacity to give us that long range and also have the power that we want from a PH E V to propel the vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:55)
Yeah, so with the with the old pack you you didn't actually have enough electrical power from the battery to extract everything that the motors correct. 'Cause you got it's it's standard all wheel drive, standard dual motor. Correct.

Kevin Sittner (1:17:05)
So we always all wheel drive, always driving with two electric motors, one on the front, one on the back. so when the customer drives they always have all wheel drive, in E V mode or if they're driving a hybrid motor.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:17)
and so now you've got eighty five kilowatts from the f of electrical power from the front axle, a hundred from the rear, so a hundred and eighty five, so roughly about two forty ish horsepower. so you know I noticed driving it around that it's it you know y it's very easy to drive it in E V mode and have more than enough performance that y you don't have to engage the

The engine, which on a lot of plug in hybrids, you know, you're you're gonna be performance limited in your

Kevin Sittner (1:17:48)
I think that makes our car really special that I think you can drive it in E V mood all the time and you have all the performance you do need for regular driving, even kinda spirited driving with the amount of power we have available from the E motors. I think that really sets us apart from some of the competition that if you ask for performance the engine will come on and you will hear it, it will come on, you'll have a slight delay and then the car starts moving.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:11)
Okay. So one of the one of the things that's yeah that's noteworthy, your your architecture for your plug in hybrid system is a little bit different from what you f what you find most plug in hybrids. You know, certainly different from what Hyundai and Kia do, definitely different from what Toyota and Ford have done, and bit different from from Honda's. can you describe kind of that that overall architecture and how

how it works, you know, how how how the different modes work.

Kevin Sittner (1:18:43)
Absolutely.

So we we have our system is very distinct. It's an E V first system where we really focus on the E V driving. we have a transaxle in the front that houses both the drive motor that in E V mode drives the vehicle together with the motor in the rear. There's no mechanical connection between the front and the rear, so the vehicle's all wheel drive by virtue of two motors, one the front and the back. in that transaxle system is also the generator that we can

That is coupled to the engine. So when the battery is depleted, we can run the engine, we have the generator, generate electricity. Additionally to that, at higher speeds we have a parallel mode where the engine can drive

through that transaction system on the front wheels directly. And we still use the rear ear motor for assist to have all wheel drive. And even when the engine is coupled directly to the output mechanically, we can still assist with the e motor for additional power, we can still generate electricity to assist with the rear motor. overall pretty complex system, but for the customers it drives very E V like all the time. And

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:05)
You know, now that you've got forty five miles of electric range and plenty of electrical power for driving around, for the vast majority of people that would buy this, they you know, they're gonna be able to you know, if they plug it in every night when they come home, they're gonna be driving able to drive it like in like an E V. and then when they need to take longer trips, you know, then you you w eventually get into a hybrid mode. Which is kind of the one downside of this vehicle compared to some of the other

plug in hybrid SUVs that are out there. the hybrid, you know, the the the hybrid fuel efficiency is definitely better than what it was for twenty five. Still not quite as good as what you would get from some of your

Kevin Sittner (1:20:46)
Yes, there's some some competitors set up better. that's certainly true. We we obviously, you know, our car is EV first. We are focused on customer experience, how does the dri vehicle drive day to day. As you said earlier, most customers will do the vast majority of their driving in EV mode. Because they will drive it every day to work, to school, wherever, in EV mode, church overnight, drive in EV mode again and then on longer trips then they will use the gas engine a few times a year

if that happens, if they go on longer trips. but yeah. some choices. Obviously our vehicle has a third row, which the competitors don't.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:25)
Which I want to come back to in a minute.

Kevin Sittner (1:21:27)
Yeah.

Travis Wattles (1:21:29)
I think the the one point to add to that is as you mentioned earlier, most commutes are within twenty, thirty miles for most customers. And the part that we choose to focus on is the E V first drive, which really brings up the quality of the drive that most commuters are going to be using the car for. So the best part of the vehicle is the one that will be the most used for our product versus what the competition does. And sure

we might not have the highest of the hybrid MPGs. But at the same time, for the average commuter, they won't be seeing that unless they take a longer trip. So that's the one point where, you know, you get a better day-to-day experience and out of that the trade-off is the MPG isn't the top of the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:18)
So one one other distinct feature of this vehicle that none of the other plug in hybrids have is you have D C fast charging. it's still with a a Chatamo charge port. Last vehicle in the US market with Chatamo. But but it's it's it's a lot faster now than it was on you know the twenty five and pre prior models, right? G fifty kilowatts now?

Travis Wattles (1:22:45)
Correct. It was thirty eight minutes brought down twenty nine minutes with for the twenty six model year.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:49)
Okay. So yeah, it it's better, you know, and when you're doing a road trip, you know, you're gonna be stopping every few hours anyway to take a bathroom break, get a snack, you know, if you get if you're taking the kids somewhere, you know, they're gonna wanna get out and stretch their legs and and you know, decompress a little bit. so you know, if you can stick around for half an hour, charge up, get another forty five miles of electric driving and then back into the the gas again. It's still you're still b better off overall.

Travis Wattles (1:23:18)
I can guarantee I have kids, you will spend thirty minutes at a gas station trying to get yourself coffee and getting them to the bathroom. But it's not an issue for kids.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:26)
So you we mentioned that this is the only vehicle in the segment with a third row. Mm-hmm. there might be a reason for why most of your competitors in the segment don't offer a third row. It's not exactly the most spacious third row.

Travis Wattles (1:23:42)
occasional use third row. So d I liken it too the fact that I can put a booster seat in the back and my three year old daughter, four year old daughter, can actually be put in that booster seat to be able to ride around, you know, if I need to for a short trip. If I have somebody else that's sitting in the back, for example, my mother in law is visiting, my infant can sit next to her in the rear, she can sit in the rear and then I can put my three year old

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:07)
Okay. So there there are there are legitimate use cases, even though

Travis Wattles (1:24:11)
Fourteen.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:11)
when you look at it it it is definitely a compact scene.

Kevin Sittner (1:24:16)
gonna go on vacation but for I think occasional use going home from a restaurant and transporting some people short distance birthday party or whatever. There's definitely a use case for it. And that

Travis Wattles (1:24:27)
If you're going to give a friend a ride home, they're not going to complain that they got home.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:31)
And you know, when you're when you don't need it, yeah, it folds back into that bin in the back there you've got flat load floor, you know, when you fold down the second row seats, so you haven't really lost that much. So let's talk a little bit about the the mild hybrid, which is new to the Outlander lineup for twenty six. you know, what what have you done with that powertrain?

Kevin Sittner (1:24:55)
So completely new powertrain, so completely new engine, nothing carries over from the previous model. So it's now a one point five liter turbocharged Mitsubishi engineered engine. and we have the forty eight volt mild hybrid belt starter generator that gives us some extra functions, right? We can regenerate when we when the vehicle slows down or brakes, and we can assist the vehicle in acceleration. We can do start stop when to turn the engine off to save fuel on the on the light if the customer wants.

and give the vehicle just just more performance and better fuel economy with the new engine.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:29)
So the the gas the previous gas only setup was a two point four liter naturally aspirated four cylinder. That's correct. so compared to that, how does the performance of the mild hybrid system compare and how does the fuel economy compare to that two point four?

Kevin Sittner (1:25:45)
So fuel economy is better. Do we have the numbers? I don't remember the numbers.

Travis Wattles (1:25:54)
For

Kevin Sittner (1:25:57)
so fuel economy is better. We also have significantly more torque with the turbo and the mild hybrid assist. So especially around town or whatever you will feel that it's just a more spirited feel off the line because you have that low end torque that you didn't have with the previous engine.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:13)
And it's a it's a dual injected engine with both port and direct injection. So having the the turbocharging and the and the the direct injection combination gives you that real strong low end.

Kevin Sittner (1:26:23)
Gives you that low end torque with the turbo and the direct injection, helps with efficiency and also to make the power. We also have the port fuel injection for when we're at low load. Also helps keep the intake valves clean, which can be a challenge with just the in direct injected engines. Yeah. So certainly the best of both worlds.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:42)
Okay. And both of these powertrains, they're available for sale now? Or the

Kevin Sittner (1:26:50)
That is that is correct.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:51)
the mild hybrid is is is out now.

Kevin Sittner (1:26:53)
Moth

hub is right right now. I think the Ph is also at dealerships right now. Correct.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:58)
All right. And what's the price range for the PHEV?

Jeremy Barnes (1:27:09)
So starts at starts at forty three two four five starting app price on the plugin hybrid.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:18)
And you know, for a a crossover this size that is basically like driving an EV, that's you know, compared to you know other EVs, you know, electric crossovers in that size segment, that's a that's a very competitive price and you have the advantage of the flexibility of the plug in hybrid.

Jeremy Barnes (1:27:37)
twenty nine nine nine five for for the mild hybrid starting at two wheel two wheel drive, four wheel drive.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:43)
In twenty twenty six that's a very competitive price point.

Travis Wattles (1:27:46)
Yeah.

Jeremy Barnes (1:27:47)
Re SUV is technically under thirty thousand in our lineup.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:51)
All right. Well thank you, gentlemen.

Kevin Sittner (1:27:53)
Thank you.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:56)
And that was Kevin Sittner and Travis Wattles from Mitsubishi, North America. and so Travis, yeah, he explained, you know, when he's you know, when when his mother in law is visiting, you know, they've got two kids, you know, put one, you know, the older one in the one seat in the second row, mother in law goes in the other one and then he can strap in the the three year old into the booster seat in the third row and she fits fine there.

Perry Stern (1:28:26)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:29)
All right. did you did you spend any time in the Eclipse support back?

Perry Stern (1:28:33)
I actually did spent considerable time in them. I managed to snag it a couple of times. And you know, I like the leaf, so I like this one too. Because

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:40)
Mm-hmm.

Perry Stern (1:28:42)
as they even pointed out, aside from styling and a few other things, it is the same car. they they're not trying to hide that at all, which I think is admirable. you know, it's it is there is no dual motor option. It's it is one powertrain and

You know, it's like a typical EV, it's quick off the line and it's smooth, but once you get above forty, fifty miles an hour, there's not a lot of power there. so it's you know but it's perfectly adequate for most, you know, ninety percent of your driving needs. I like the style better than the leaf, but that's just me. everyone's gonna have a different opinion on it. But probably the one of the biggest things that they called out that's a big difference is it's got a better warranty than the leaf.

we don't know pricing yet because they haven't announced it and they're only gonna have one trim, which is pretty well loaded, with one package that gets you the monoc the what is it, the chromic autochromic, what do they call it? The sunroof

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:44)
Electrochromic.

Perry Stern (1:29:45)
that electrochromic. that you can change the from opaque to clear from push up a button, which is kind of cool. I did get while I was out driving it, had someone come up and say, Wow, that looks really cool. What is that? So, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:59)
Cool.

Perry Stern (1:30:00)
Stranger

on the s Stranger on the Street thought it looked cool for what it's worth. So, you know, pull of one. But I think, you know, it's it's clearly a far cry from the iMeave, which is the last electric car that they ser that they offered. not that that's a big bar, but it's you know, I think it'll do as as well as other compact EVs out there.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:24)
Yeah, you know, the the one trim level they're gonna do is actually kind of a blend of the mid level Leaf S V and the platinum. so you know, it's got stuff from the platinum like that electrochromic roof, and a few other bits and pieces. but it also it's only with the eighteen inch wheels that are on the S V, which is actually good. You know, you don't really need the nineteens.

and you get much better range with the eighteens. so you know the the the Leaf S V is rated at two hundred and eighty eight miles of range. So that's probably what the what the eclipse is gonna be, is the same two hundred eighty eight. and you know then fairly well equipped. did they? Okay, they didn't during our session. Okay.

Perry Stern (1:31:08)
I think actually they called it out of two eighty two, I think. Yeah. It's in the s it's in the slide. But

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:18)
so yeah I mean two hundred eighty two is is fine. Yeah, you got two charging ports, you've got

a J sevente seventy two on the driver's side front fender and an axe port for DC charging on the passenger side front fender so you can nose into supercharger stations and still reach the cable with those tiny little cables that Tesla uses. yeah it's and I I agree with you. I yeah, I like the the way they reshaped the front end of this compared to the leaf. I think it yeah looks good. So it's a good little car. And I'm guessing it'll

Perry Stern (1:31:48)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's it's got

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:52)
Probably be somewhere in the thirty six, thirty seven thousand dollar range based on the equipment.

Perry Stern (1:31:56)
Yeah, I think that's

but that's gonna be the the biggest differentiator is what is it gonna cost? but it's you know it also has the g the Google based infotainment system, which the base model leaps I think don't. so that's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:11)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:32:11)
a it's a nice feature also. but and I did, you know, just based on the range that was showing when I was driving it, did some extrapolating and came out to about two eighty six

I don't know, full charge. It I think it was showing two forty with eighty four percent in use or remaining. So it's you know, it seems to be about where it should be. and so yeah, I I I did enjoy it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:44)
Cool. Well, speaking of relatively affordable EVs, Kia has revealed the pricing for the E V three, which is finally gonna be launching. You know, it was it was supposed to launch originally planned to launch earlier this year. they had to make some adjustments. they moved they added production of it in Mexico, rather than bring it in from South Korea as was the original plan, because of tariffs.

And so the this is a a compact crossover. you know, I think this is this is effectively going to replace the electric version of the Nero in the lineup 'cause they they've you know, for twenty twenty seven the Nero has been focused down to just the hybrid model. They dropped the plug in hybrid and the and the E V versions. And this is going to be the the lower cost Kia E V. and

Did did have you sat have you driven this one yet, Perry? Did you get a chance

Perry Stern (1:33:45)
No, I have not.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:45)
to drive it yet? did you sit in it at at the auto shell?

Perry Stern (1:33:51)
no, I don't think I even had a chance to that. It was one of those cars that was so popular that there was constantly filming going on. So no, I I haven't had a chance to experience it really

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:59)
It's

Perry Stern (1:33:59)
at all.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:00)
it it's actually surprisingly roomy in the back seat. yeah, it's it's it yeah, both front and back seats got a lot of room in this thing for you know a relatively small footprint car. it's gonna be offered with two different battery sizes. There's a base fifty eight point three kilowatt hour battery, and then a larger eighty one point four kilowatt hour battery. the the the light trim with the smaller battery.

gonna start at thirty one thousand three eighty five including the fourteen hundred and ninety five dollar destination charge. and that will give two hundred

Perry Stern (1:34:36)
Certainly reasonable.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:37)
and twenty one miles of range.

Perry Stern (1:34:40)
Two twenty one?

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:40)
So just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:41)
And then

yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:43)
so I wanna clear some stuff up about Kia and Hyundai and how they announce their charging rates because they don't.

Like you really

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:51)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:51)
gotta bug them to get the actual number. But in their in their press releases and everything, and it says on a three hundred fifty kilowatt charger, it'll charge this fast. And so what happens is there's a couple, including the person who wrote this article on Jalopnik, who will say that it'll DC fast charge up to three hundred and fifty kilowatts. It will not fast charge up

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:09)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:09)
to three hundred fifty kilowatts. It does not do that. And there are a couple journalists out there who like they're like, it charges at 350 kilowatts when it comes to Ionic 5, EV six, blah blah blah. They don't

Charge that quickly. you really have to bother them and and hassle them to get the actual number. especially from Kia, you shouldn't have to do that at all. That's not a thing you should have to do. and so yeah, so if if it it be you know, if you're if you're reading something and it says that a E V a Kia or a Hyundai charges at three hundred kilowatts, the person again, it's almost like they're tricking people.

with this with with the language, because they say on a 350 kilowatt charger it'll charge at this it'll charge at this quickly. And so the person who's writing it will like, it'll charge up to 350 kilowatts. Nope. It does not charge up that quickly. So A A

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:00)
Yeah. N no. So

Perry Stern (1:36:00)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:03)
it's it feels disingenuous for them to do that. It's I mean it's technically correct the way they write it, but also they should just tell us what the charge rates are on these vehicles.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:12)
And yeah, they have not revealed what the charging rate is for this. But what we do know is that you know, unlike the you know, the E V six, E V nine, Ionic five, Ionic six, Ionic nine, those have an eight hundred volt version of the EGMP architecture. This car is a four hundred volt version of that platform, which means that it's probably gonna char and especially based on the numbers, I think they said twenty to eighty percent.

in like twenty-nine minutes or maybe it was ten to eighty percent in about twenty-nine minutes. This is probably gonna charge at a peak of about a hundred and fifty kilowatts. and you know given the way they you know Kia Hyundai and Kia manage their batteries, it'll probably sustain that 150 kilowatts, you know, at least up through, you know, sixty, seventy percent state of charge. Unlike many cheaper cars that

Yeah, they'll peak at a hundred and fifty and then after about twenty five or thirty percent they start ramping down. This'll probably maintain that hundred and fifty for for a good long time, but it's probably not gonna be much over one fifty. Even the eight hundred volt ones, like like you mentioned, you know, those like our E V six, the you know, it'll charge at about two hundred and forty kilowatts peak.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:31)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:32)
you know, on a three fifty kilowatt charger, which is still very fast.

Perry Stern (1:37:33)
Which is still not bad.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:34)
It's no that

it's a f it's a

Perry Stern (1:37:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:36)
it's a quick number. I just I mean I'm looking right now at Kia's the spec sheet for this and it says DC fast charge with three hundred fifty kilowatts EVS E. Which is you know the it is technically correct the way they're saying it. It'll charge with if you plugged it into a three hundred and fifty kilowatt, it'll charge from, you know, what's their eight eight to ten to eighty percent or I don't know what their number is. twenty-nine minutes or thirty-one minutes. That said

It does not charge a three hundred fifty kilo. It's with a yeah. It it it

Perry Stern (1:38:07)
Does that imply

that if it's a hundred and fifty kilowatt charger it won't charge at that speed?

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:11)
Well it says with a one with a fifty kilowatt ch what so the DC fast

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:14)
Yeah, that's the other one.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:15)
charge with a fifty kilowatt charger, which most of those have been like phased out, it'll

Perry Stern (1:38:19)
I shouldn't say, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:20)
charge at like fifty five to eighty minutes depending on the battery size. And DC fast charging with a 350 kilowatt, which is becomes essentially the the the industry standard for for charging stations, it'll charge at twenty-nine minutes to thirty-one minutes. Again, it does not charge at three hundred and fifty kilowatts.

It is just saying if you plugged it into a 350 kilowatt charger, this is how fast it will charge. Without telling you the actual charge

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:43)
Yeah. And if you if you if you plug it into a

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:46)
rate.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:46)
yeah, if you plug it into a one fifty kilowatt charger, it'll probably do pretty much the same thing.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:51)
Yeah, yeah. It does tell you the it the AC charging which is eleven kilowatts.

Perry Stern (1:38:53)
Well, that's what I was wondering, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:55)
Or up to a yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:55)
Yeah, which is actually quite good.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:57)
Yeah. That's a good I mean that's a good number, especially, you know, for home and like I don't think my I think mine tops out of like nine something, my home charging station, just because how many amps I I was willing to pay for.

Perry Stern (1:39:06)
Mine actually the the bolt

I was just the bolt I was just charging was charging at eleven. So it'll

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:13)
D is your charger hardwired or a plug plug into a NEMA fourteen fifty?

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:16)
Mine's a plug.

Mine's a plug, but it's

Perry Stern (1:39:18)
Mine's hardwired.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:19)
I I got a sixty yeah, I have a sixty amp.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:23)
I didn't hear yours, Perry. Is it yours hardwired? Okay, that's why. So so when you

Perry Stern (1:39:25)
Mine's hardwired in, yeah, with a sixty amp circuit breaker. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:28)
when you hardwire a charger, you know, on a fifty amp circuit, it'll use the full fifty amps, so you can get the eleven kilowatts. if if you're plugged into a a NEMA out NEMA fourteen fifty outlet on a fifty amp circuit, it's limited to ten percent less or twenty percent less. So it'll only do forty kil or forty amps.

and that's nine point six kilowatts. And that's that's what mine does as well.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:54)
So yeah, there you go. Remember when you put these things in, you want twenty percent more than what the output of your your charger is. Nerds.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:00)
So I I don't think we I don't think I actually got

around to saying with that larger eighty one kilowatt hour battery, it'll do three hundred and twenty one miles of range. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:08)
Bam.

That's a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:12)
And that's they charge an extra five thousand dollars for the larger

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:16)
Oof.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:16)
battery. So, you know, depending on what your needs are, you know, if you think you're gonna need to take longer road trips, you know, it might be worth paying that extra five grand to get the larger battery.

Perry Stern (1:40:27)
It's still s

it's still relatively affordable for an E V with that kind of range. I mean, all things being equal.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like I said, you know,

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:32)
That's true.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:33)
this isn't you know, it's fairly small on the outside, but it's very roomy on the inside. There's plenty of space inside this car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:41)
For all your activities.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:46)
okay, let's see. so GM announced that they are also winding down their their battery joint venture that they were doing with Samsung. this was gonna have be a plant in near Kokomo, Indiana. and I heard from from somebody at GM the other day, after I made a comment to the Detroit Free Press about this first story they were doing and clarified

that the the factory itself, the the building is done, but they've not installed any equipment. yeah, so he was commenting on you know, saying, you know, GM you know was w by by walking away from this now, they're gonna avoid having to spend the money on the equipment. Samsung is gonna continue with finishing up the you know, installing the equipment in the factory and they will unsurprisingly be building batteries for energy storage systems at this plant for at least for the time being.

Until the EV market recovers.

So, yeah, I assume that both of you, on a fairly regular basis, or or at least you Perry, probably get those emails from Mansori showing their their latest thing.

Perry Stern (1:42:06)
Yes.

Man Manstury and Brabus and all of the the tuning companies that make crazy cars. Yeah, that's a crazy car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:13)
The this this this is the latest

from Mansori. They they did a four GT. It's like who buys these things? Who buys cars from Mansori?

Perry Stern (1:42:22)
That was my that was the question

I was about to I mean, look at the URIs behind it with the white wheels. I mean that just I'm sorry,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:27)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:42:27)
that's just that's I mean I guess if you want to stand out more than you already stand out with one of these cars and you've got money to spend slash waste. yeah, I guess you get one of these. They've been around forever, so I guess they're doing

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:41)
I've yeah, I mean I've seen some of the others yeah.

Perry Stern (1:42:44)
okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:45)
Some somebody's buying this stuff. I don't know why.

Perry Stern (1:42:48)
Yeah. I don't know, it seem

seems like a Middle East type thing, but that's maybe just a guess.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:53)
Yeah.

Could be.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:56)
Yeah, I get

those the the the Mansori, the the company that puts extra wheels on everything. I forget. I'm just like

Perry Stern (1:43:04)
Ha ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:06)
Sure, these are just cars you're gonna see at like at at yeah, like at at

Perry Stern (1:43:10)
At auto shows, that's yeah, or

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:12)
at auto shows or you know, Geneva was great for these because Geneva like it was like

Perry Stern (1:43:15)
Exactly. They had a whole section that was based on that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:16)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:18)
just like one off supercars. And all of them like none

Perry Stern (1:43:21)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:21)
of them felt

Like when you have a one-off supercar, I'm just like, who cares? I just don't care. I don't care. I am more excited if someone told me I just drove a lot of, I'd be like, versus like a man. Like if the weirder the like underpowered, like weird car you drive, the more excited I get. If any of my friends are like, hey, I just drove the new blah blah blah supercar, I'm like,

'Cause this like this car t cost twelve million dollars to build. I'm like, yeah, if you have unlimited money you can build anything, I guess. But if you have to milk make a cheap, weird car, man, I'm all there for that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:04)
so speaking of one off and weird cars, Monterey Car Week was this week. Pebble

Perry Stern (1:44:12)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:13)
Beach is going on today as we record the Concours and they've had events going on the last several days. none of us were there this time. I've still never been to Monterey Car Week. So if somebody wants to

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:25)
Really?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:25)
invite me, yeah. If somebody wants to invite

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:28)
I've it's

Perry Stern (1:44:28)
And I've been

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:29)
me next year, I'll I'll show up.

Perry Stern (1:44:31)
I've been about twenty five, twenty six times and it's quite different from what it was twenty five years ago. very crowded,

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:37)
Yeah. I don't

Perry Stern (1:44:38)
very busy.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:39)
Yeah, I don't go to the concourse anymore. I think the last five years I just stopped going. 'Cause it's the same like cars over and over again. I was like, nah. Yeah, but it's like

Perry Stern (1:44:47)
They're still cool cars. I mean there's I mean they're yes, they're

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:51)
t it's like 90% the same cars and I just like I gotta go all you know, I gotta stay an extra day. I've already seen all these cars. they're gonna have a Myers Manx in the in the sand trap. wow, that's something they've never done before.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:05)
Ha

ha.

Perry Stern (1:45:08)
it's it's good you're not cynical about these things.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:08)
They always put one in the sand trap.

And so I stopped I so I

went to everything else. I would go to the quail, I do all the other stuff, but I just kinda stopped going. I think the last time unless a friend of mine wants to go and I'll like cause they always give me like two tickets if I am going, then I would go. But it was also like really weird getting tickets because they insisted as a as a as a journalist that I have a one million dollar insurance like thing.

Perry Stern (1:45:37)
They have some weird yeah. Well they there was a coup

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:38)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:38)
In case you accidentally

rub up against a car

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:40)
In case yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:41)
and scratch the paint.

Perry Stern (1:45:42)
Well,

there was a couple of years ago that I forget what it was, there were a couple, you know, one of a kind type vehicles and a journalist dropped his camera on one and

and caused several hundred thousand dollars worth of damage just by doing so I think that's probably why. But anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:59)
It feels like that but it

feels like they should have insurance for the event where that happens, but instead it was like put on you and so then I would every year I'd have to get like get a hold you know, wherever I worked, get a hold of somebody, like, Yeah, we have a million dollar insurance something liability on you in case you you know, whatever and send them the paperwork. It was always a pain in the ass. It was always a pain in the ass and then I'd go and I'd walk around and I'm like, this is new and so I'd see like four and five new cars and then they're like, Yeah, I remember this car.

Yeah, I remember and then I just kinda get irritated at the fact that like most of the people sitting next to these very expensive cars don't do anything with the cars. They just buy them. They have a whole team and a whole garage that works on the car and then the car gets shipped out and then they show up in their private plane and then they sit next to the car wearing linen and like a hat and be like, Hey, look at my car I'm like, You didn't this is It's like me showing up at

Perry Stern (1:46:50)
Yeah no I th I think it

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:51)
a dealership and sitting next to a car and be like, Hey, look at my car

Perry Stern (1:46:54)
See, I think I think that's changed over the years 'cause when I used to go it was it you know, the stories were fantastic. I mean you talk to somebody and you know it was their great great great grandfather's car that they found in a barn somewhere and hadn't driven since, you know, the thirties and they found it and restart. I mean, there's there's cool stories that go along with them. My I think one of my favorites was seeing a nineteen thirty two roles that was they call preservation class, which means it's not been restored or anything.

it still had the grass up in the wheel wells from the last time it drove across the field into the barn that they found it in. I mean so stuff like that I think is fascinating, but but yes, it it just gets overwhelming.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:29)
It's cool. But it's Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:32)
It's like like cars are like art, like people just buy them as investments. And you're

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:36)
just like, no. I

Perry Stern (1:47:36)
A lot of people do that, yeah, no question.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:38)
mean it's like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:38)
I mean one

one one exception to that, you know, is Jim Gluckenhouse. You know, who, you know, all the cars that he buys, he drives them. you know, like he he has the only street legal nineteen sixty seven four G T forty. Yeah, and since you know, in the years that he's owned that thing, he's put like forty thousand miles on that car. Yeah. And yeah, all

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:59)
Good. That's what cars that's what you're supposed to do with cars.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:03)
yeah, even even you know, the crazy concept cars, you know, he has restored

So that they can be driven. And you know, so he he actually drives this stuff. and one of the the things that you know that was shown this week that sadly will probably not be driven by most of the people who buy them is the McLaren MCL six G T. So back in nineteen sixty seven, sixty eight, something like that, Bruce McLaren built

first McLaren road car. It was the the M6 GT, which was basically the M6 Can Am car with a roof on it. And you know recently McLaren restored, I think there was only one built. And McLaren restored that one and then they built this which they're calling the MCX MCL six GT, which is inspired by the original M6 GT. but they're actually going to be

Building a run of these starting in 2028. I don't think they've said how many they're planning to produce. but yeah,

Perry Stern (1:49:16)
Probably all sold already though.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:17)
probably by now. but I the the thing Yeah. Well the yeah the the th the

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:18)
yeah. But it does say we I should register my interest. Maybe I'll get rich between now and then.

Perry Stern (1:49:23)
absolutely. You never know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:27)
thing that caught my attention in the press release, the second bullet point on the press release, yeah, says first bullet point I introduced it in twenty twenty six Moderate Car Week.

Subbrates purity in design and driver connection. And it is I I like the design. It's you know, it's a very you know, it's a clean, you know, fairly straightforward design. but the second bullet point, authentic manual transmission. A first for McLaren

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:48)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:49)
since the legendary F one in nineteen ninety two.

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:51)
Look at that. Look at the look at the the workmanship. Look at the linkage on there. That's amazing.

Perry Stern (1:49:54)
It's it is pretty. It's very pretty.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:55)
Yeah. And I mean

this is this is clearly a jab at Ferrari for their simulated manual that they introduced on the twelve cylindry a few weeks ago. Yeah. Authentic

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:05)
This is this is a

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:07)
manual transmission. The real thing. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:09)
The real

Perry Stern (1:50:09)
Not just pretend.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:12)
s is it's a beautiful

Perry Stern (1:50:13)
Three petals.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:14)
I this this car is beautiful. this is one of those like whenever if this is one of the the s the supercars somewhere like I I drove the McLaren MCL six GT, that's when I would be like, my

Perry Stern (1:50:27)
Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:28)
I would be very jealous of anyone who drives this.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:33)
another thing that was unveiled in Monterey this week is the Cadillac V one concept. So this this is basically, you know, their V series R Le Mont Hypercar, you know, the the G T P car. This is this is their current generation prototype race car. they put a nicer interior in it than what you find in the race car. And they're calling it a concept right now.

But I would be shocked if within the next few weeks, months, they don't announce that they are going to build ten, maybe fifteen of these things, as track cars. So this is never gonna be a road car. It's not intended as a road car. But it's you know, build them as track cars to sell to very wealthy individuals. much like f yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (1:51:26)
Yeah. We like the race.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:28)
much like Ferrari does with

you they've got they've done this with the four ninety nine P prototype. Aston Martin has a program with the Valkyrie, and and others are doing this, you know, where they're because they're not actually racing in the series, they're able to get around some of the restrictions and the rules. Like, you know, as a as a hypercar, you know, this this thing is limited to six hundred and seventy horsepower.

Cadillac's saying, you know, this will do 830 horsepower. So it's the same powertrain, the 5.5 liter V8 with the hybrid system. Cadillac says 830 horsepower. Ferrari, you the Ferrari 499 P you know is somewhere around there, somewhere around 800 horsepower. same with the Valkyrie. so you know, and what what the other manufacturers do is they sell these to very rich individuals, and then you know, they you know, they hang on to them.

And they bring them they bring all the technicians and the mechanics and everybody to the tracks, bring the cars to the track, and they set up track days and they you know, they prep the cars, you know, take care of all the all the software and everything. And then the rich guys just get in and go drive for a couple of hours and then get out and they fly home on their private jets. and I'm I guessing that Cadillac's gonna do

Perry Stern (1:52:48)
So you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:49)
the same thing with this one.

Perry Stern (1:52:51)
so you get to buy the car, you just don't get to have the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:53)
Yeah, well you you can you can possess the car.

Perry Stern (1:52:56)
I mean you get to you could take it home, I suppose.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:58)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean you can take it, you know, if you wanna just you know, have it and collect it and put it in your in your gr in your special garage, you can do that.

Perry Stern (1:53:07)
Or drive it on your

private track in your backyard 'cause, you know, that's a thing I suppose. No.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:10)
Yeah, you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:10)
Yeah, well the the problem the problem is these

cars are so complicated that you really need the factory technicians to just to get them to run.

Perry Stern (1:53:16)
Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:19)
so you know it's

Perry Stern (1:53:19)
this I don't

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:20)
I

mean you get the

Perry Stern (1:53:20)
know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:21)
you get the experience of driving the car without all the have to do all the upkeep and all the like where do I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:25)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:25)
put it? How do I park it? How do I keep people from from spilling their drink on it when I show it to them? You just like, hey, you wanna see my car? I'm gonna be driving at Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:30)
Or, you know, some somebody dropping their camera on it, you know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:33)
I'm gonna be driving at a

Perry Stern (1:53:34)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:35)
ex you know so and so track. So come on out in your private jet. Or you know what, everyone hop on my jet, we'll make a we'll make a weekend out of it. And then they go out and they watch you drive. fine, I guess. i yeah I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:53:46)
And and typically these programs

when they sell these kind of cars, you're talking like you know, somewhere between five and ten million dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:54)
So more

Perry Stern (1:53:54)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:55)
than so if we pull our money, we can buy one of the lug nuts. Yeah. We pull

Perry Stern (1:53:58)
Then we'll have twenty b twenty bucks. Yeah, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:01)
our twenty dollars each, maybe they'll give us a logo.

Perry Stern (1:54:04)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:07)
We can touch it. We can like at the c and only because we're journalists. Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:54:09)
No, that that's gonna cost you a lot more to touch it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:12)
Let's see. Also shown at Monterey this week, the Acura Nexera concept.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:20)
Next era get it? Next era get it? Huh? Huh? Huh?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:22)
This is this yeah. The this

Perry Stern (1:54:25)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:26)
this is apparently the styling direction for new Acura's.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:30)
Okay, so I I heard from from from some people who saw it in person. It looks better in person than it does in the photos. So some cars

Perry Stern (1:54:38)
That's good.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:40)
just don't translate for some reason in photos. So apparently this looks better in in person.

Perry Stern (1:54:46)
It's kinda hard to see the proportions in the pictures, so you're probably right.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:48)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:54:49)
Yeah. I mean it it the the rear the rear view looks okay. It's the front that looks kinda weird. Yeah, it's kind of the shovel nose.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:56)
It looks like a car from like

from like irobot or

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:00)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:01)
or

Perry Stern (1:55:03)
This may have been what they're going for.

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:04)
Yeah. It's a future it's a it's a Blade Runner

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:06)
But they

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:07)
car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:07)
the

Perry Stern (1:55:08)
I

do kinda like the seam down the middle of the rear. It almost seems like it should have a split window to go with it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:11)
Down the back.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:14)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:14)
'Cause it has a seam almost in the front.

Perry Stern (1:55:17)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:18)
Let's see. Okay seam in the back. It ca it it yeah, it's like a visual seam in the front too.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:25)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:55:26)
Yeah, it's kinda hard to tell from that angle, but yeah.

I'm sure there'll be a bunch more pictures soon.

Roberto Baldwin (1:55:34)
Anyway.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:55:35)
the the lighting here, the the RDX concept that they showed recently or or prototype that they showed recently has the same type of you know, this split sort of Y lighting signature for its taillights. Not for the headlights, but for the tail lights, it's got those kind of lights. So I think we'll we'll definitely be seeing some elements of this car coming on future Acura models.

Perry Stern (1:55:59)
Yeah. 'Cause when I see that I s think RDX.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:03)
Yeah.

Yeah. Very minimalist interior.

Roberto Baldwin (1:56:10)
Which will never come to market.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:11)
Yeah.

all right, let's see, what else? of course this week was also the Woodward Dream Cruise 'cause those always happen at the same time, Monterey and and Woodward. And so Ford used that opportunity to unveil yet another Mustang variant. And why isn't it here? so basically it's the Dark Horse S C.

So they they unveiled they announced the dark horse earlier this year. and that one you know is the the latest supercharged Mustang seven hundred and ninety-five horsepower, and now they just have a convertible version of it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:00)
I mean, I'm a big fan of convertibles, so thumbs up. Yeah, it looks

Perry Stern (1:57:05)
Yeah, why not?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:05)
And and the purple paint on this one is is nice. I like the purple paint.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:08)
cool. It looks very long in this the way because the design of it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:13)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:13)
Yeah, it look it's not it it's not that long. You know, it's still a Mustang, but for some reason the without the top

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:20)
It's nowhere near as big as a charger.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:22)
Yeah, yeah.

Perry Stern (1:57:22)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:23)
It's it's very long. It's

God, these these press releases are not press releases. I I just can't w

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:31)
No. Ford Ford doesn't do

traditional press releases anymore. They they they they're

Perry Stern (1:57:35)
No.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:36)
doing their own stories.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:38)
No one I don't care. I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:40)
just

Perry Stern (1:57:40)
No, it's it

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:41)
Just give us the details.

Perry Stern (1:57:41)
don't get me started on that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:42)
Give us the relevant details and leave out the

Perry Stern (1:57:44)
Specs.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:44)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:45)
let us come up with our own narrative.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:47)
I drew I worked at Ford since the nineteen seven. I'm I kinda don't care. I'm sorry. I make if I'm interviewing you and I wanna get some some color on why you, you know, do the things you do, that's awesome. But I don't care most of the time. I I just need to know the about the car. Don't make it so hard for me to find out about the car. It's like when I whenever I do, you know, videos for for the cars, you know, I'm standing in front of the car. It's me. But like really like I am to introduce and then

to point at and then have B roll of the car. And they'll always be like, do you want photos of you in front of the car? I'm like, no. Because no one cares

Perry Stern (1:58:23)
No. Exactly. Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (1:58:25)
about me. I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:27)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:58:27)
am I am just telling you about the car. Like me in front like who cares? Like I don't you don't need a photo of me in front of the car. The the internet doesn't need that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:33)
I'm just a hand model to point out

these these little details on the car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:58:37)
Yeah, I'm here to say and point. That's my I talk and point. That's what I do.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:39)
Yeah. Look at the look at

Perry Stern (1:58:41)
I I am the facilitator.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:42)
this headlight, you know. Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:58:44)
Yes, I I

it's it's you know, everyone you know, I'll

I'll you know, I'll add a little like some time you know, like I s when I talked about the fact that my mom was really into to to muscle cars, cool. All right, so I have like a little bit of a history just just to tell you why I'm that's one of the reasons probably why I'm not into muscle cars. It's the it's the rebellion against my mom. That's there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:59:05)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:59:06)
But I did you know, I can't go on for twenty minutes and I also don't work at Dodge. If I work for a Dodge and I you know, my mom really liked cars.

And then for like three paragraphs about me, I'm like, No, no. Please just tell me about the car. For the love of Pete. Throw some bullet points with some specs. Some information.

Perry Stern (1:59:26)
But concept.

Roberto Baldwin (1:59:27)
Yeah. I don't care.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:59:31)
yeah, here we go. Here's thought I had uploaded this. There there it is in in purple. In all its glory.

Roberto Baldwin (1:59:38)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (1:59:39)
Nice.

Roberto Baldwin (1:59:40)
It's got that murder horse on it, so that horse looks like it would murder you. If you look at if it is a dark

Perry Stern (1:59:45)
Yeah. Well it is the dark horse, so you know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:59:48)
horse. If you look at the photos, that horse will d that'll come after you. In your sleep probably.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:59:57)
all right. and then sticking with Ford for a minute, they released a little bit more information this week about the Fathom. so the the Louisville assembly plant where they used to build Escape and Corsair, is currently in the process of being retooled. They they ripped out everything, you know, gutted it back to the walls, apparently hauled away something like twenty five thousand tons of scrap, and

Roberto Baldwin (2:00:23)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:24)
putting in all this new equipment in there.

and they're saying they're now saying that they'll be ready to start production of prototypes there early in twenty twenty seven. So last year,

Perry Stern (2:00:39)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:00:39)
like June of twenty twenty five, when I was talking to Lisa Drake, who at the time was head of E V industrialization for Ford. she's now moved over to run Ford Energy, their their battery business.

She sa she said at the time that you know, production regular production should be starting by late twenty twenty six with the car going on sale, you know, early part of twenty seven. So now it looks like you know, if they're not gonna be doing pilot builds at Louisville of the Fathom until early twenty twenty seven, we're the production models aren't gonna be hitting the streets until probably sometime in the third quarter, third or fourth quarter.

so probably no sooner than September, I would guess, of next year.

Roberto Baldwin (2:01:30)
That's a long time. I mean sure. I mean that's a forward way. I how long do we have to hear about the Bronco before we actually got the Bronco?

Sam Abuelsamid (2:01:38)
Yeah. So we're still we're still likely at least a year away from seeing Fathoms delivered to customers.

Roberto Baldwin (2:01:47)
It's cool, I like I th the the the top art where it's just like here's a car and a sack

Sam Abuelsamid (2:01:53)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (2:01:53)
I know.

Imag imagine if you will.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:01:57)
They

they brought they brought one

Roberto Baldwin (2:01:59)
There's a truck in there, we promise.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:00)
they brought one partially built body to Louisville from you know, so they they've they've been building these they've they've built over a hundred of these at their what's called the new product development center in Dearborn. that's where they build all their integration prototypes, where Ford builds all their integration prototypes. So all the stuff that we see running around with camouflage on it, they're all built in this one facility in Dearborn.

so they probably brought over one partially built fathom and just put it on the conveyor here in Louisville so they could take a picture of it.

Perry Stern (2:02:33)
Course they could be anything. It doesn't have to be a phantom.

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:34)
Yeah, I could. Yeah. I mean

it kinda looks.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:36)
That's true, but

I mean based on what what you can see under the the cover there, you know, the shape,

Perry Stern (2:02:41)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:42)
this this is definitely the fathom.

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:44)
It's at least the

Perry Stern (2:02:44)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:44)
mid and probably the the back end. I don't think they have the front end on there, based on the s shape.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:48)
Yeah, so it's it's the front structure.

and the you know, the cab. you know, so the you know, it probably doesn't have the battery installed in there. It's probably

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:59)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:59)
got the back end of it on there, but it hasn't got the front bodywork on.

Roberto Baldwin (2:03:04)
It looks like yeah. It's fun and I I don't know, I just this tickles me. I like this. I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:08)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (2:03:09)
Hey, we brought it in, we stuck a sack over it, we took a picture. There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:03:15)
and then GM and EVGO had an event this week in in Warren, Michigan, across the street from the GM Tech Center, to open their new flagship charging station. So GM and EVGO have been partnering for several years now, installing charging charging infrastructure. and you know they've got they've got one partnership with with pilot where they're installing chargers at pilot.

travel centers across the US. They've done about three hundred of those now. We used a bunch of them during Operation Frodo. and then they've also got a separate program with EVGo where they're installing chargers at places like grocery stores. Yeah, places where people go and they hang around for twenty, thirty minutes 'cause they're buying their weekly groceries. And

Perry Stern (2:04:02)
What a concept.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:03)
so they've been putting in these DC fast chargers there. And the the newest one is at Meyer store.

across the street from the tech center, where they've got about half a dozen D C fast chargers. They're planning to put in and it and it has a canopy over it. So you can pull in, you can get some shade

Roberto Baldwin (2:04:24)
Canopies the best.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:26)
and other stuff.

Perry Stern (2:04:28)
What I

can I mean it's it's it's good that they're finally doing something like that.

Roberto Baldwin (2:04:30)
Did they put charging on they

put solar on the canopy? 'Cause it feels like a missed opportunity if they didn't.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:35)
doesn't look like this one does.

Roberto Baldwin (2:04:37)
gosh, come on guys.

Perry Stern (2:04:37)
That would that would be smart.

Roberto Baldwin (2:04:39)
Come on. But you're at a store. I mean most of the DC fast charging near my house now is at a store or in a you know. There's one like EA station that's next to an IHOP. I'm not gonna eat at IHOP, I'm sorry. I'm not I'm not gonna give myself a diabetic coma for IHOP.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:04:58)
Waffle House has been installing chargers too.

Roberto Baldwin (2:05:00)
Yeah. Yeah, but th there's a and I I I I I think I talked about this before. Not all chargers need to be three fifty. there's a Denny's in my hometown where the charger is like sixty five kilowatts or something goofy like that. It's an E V no, it's a charge point, which is perfect because you can plug in your car and you have just enough time to like sit down, eat some food. It's not like a D C fast charger, it's a D C fast enough so you can eat your meal at D at Denny's charger.

Perry Stern (2:05:26)
Right. It's a it's

a moderate charger.

Roberto Baldwin (2:05:29)
Yeah, it's a moderate charger. And I think that I feel like if I you know, if there's more of those, that'd be great. But yeah. Most of them at now are next to a store. There's one at the Sprouts, there's one at the Lucky, there's one at the Safeway, there's one at the other Safeway. There's one at the

Sam Abuelsamid (2:05:46)
So so GM and EVGo have put in forty of these flagship charging stalls so far across the country. they're gonna have over a hundred by the end of the year. and they're the these flagship stations they say will average up to twenty stalls per site.

Perry Stern (2:06:03)
Wow.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:03)
Good.

Perry Stern (2:06:05)
Well it certainly will help.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:06:04)
And they're putting in both CCS

and NACs.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:09)
Good.

Perry Stern (2:06:10)
That'll be good.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:11)
Yeah. It's it's like, you know, when you see Tesla put in a station, they're like, here's twenty chargers and then I see EA put a station, here's four. You're like, guys. And there's a big line. It's not like the

Perry Stern (2:06:18)
Yeah. Yeah, two of them work.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:20)
stations wouldn't be used if you had more than four. You have people waiting in line. So now what's happening is like

Sam Abuelsamid (2:06:25)
Well, especially

at sites like you know, like a grocery store. Yeah, where you know there's lots of people going there.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:29)
Yeah. I just want to pull up boop boop.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:06:32)
yeah, so far they've they've GM and E V Go have done twenty four hundred charging stalls across thirty two states.

and yeah, so and with pilot they've got another thirteen hundred stalls at three hundred locations.

Roberto Baldwin (2:06:49)
Yeah, charging.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:06:50)
and then last

item on the list for this week is the Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport. 'Cause we saw we saw the regular Atlas at the New York Auto Show and now you have the one with the slanted rear roof and no third row.

Same thing. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:07:11)
Sure.

Perry Stern (2:07:13)
No?

Roberto Baldwin (2:07:14)
It li I think it looks prettier than the regular Atlas to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:07:17)
Yeah, no, and the same same was true for the current generation.

Perry Stern (2:07:18)
And that's kinda how it was before too. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:07:20)
Yeah.

Yeah. It looks pretty in it.

Perry Stern (2:07:22)
And I do like

the idea of a large SUV that's only two row, 'cause then you end up with good cargo sp I mean you get it with the third row too, but you don't have the extra weight of the third row and most

Roberto Baldwin (2:07:31)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (2:07:31)
people don't use it anyway, so it's a you know kind of Honda Honda not pilot, passport ish. So Yay.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:07:36)
Passport. Yeah. Perry,

did you want to talk about the auctions at Monterey?

Perry Stern (2:07:46)
I can yeah, I can give a quick I've gotten some updates of how th 'cause the f all the auctions are now complete. there's still some

Sam Abuelsamid (2:07:55)
More evidence that there's

there are people with way too much money.

Perry Stern (2:07:59)
Yeah, so last year total sales through Saturday were four hundred and thirty-two million dollars of vehicles. This year well wait just wait,

Roberto Baldwin (2:08:08)
Can you imagine? Can you imagine?

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:11)
Hm.

Perry Stern (2:08:12)
there's more. this year seven hundred and forty seven point nine million dollars worth of vehicles sold. average sale price eight hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars. The top the top ten

The tenth one was eleven five. and that was an eighty

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:32)
What was that one?

Perry Stern (2:08:33)
f that was an eighty-five Ferrari two hundred eighty eight GTO coupe. which is a pretty car.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:36)
Ooh. Yeah.

Perry Stern (2:08:39)
But the interesting thing is it's a interesting mix of new and used cars or used older cars. I don't I just can't think of it as used car. The

Sam Abuelsamid (2:08:47)
Vintage.

Perry Stern (2:08:48)
the top the top seller was the nineteen sixty four Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe that for a short time was actually Carol Shelby's personal driver.

actually it wasn't such a short time. He actually owned it, I guess, from seventy five to ninety eight. anyway, it sold for forty two point nine million dollars. It was the top selling vehicle of the

Roberto Baldwin (2:09:08)
my god.

Perry Stern (2:09:09)
so forty two point nine million dollars. I mean it's it's a gorgeous car, but still.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:09:15)
Well,

and only six of those were made.

Perry Stern (2:09:18)
Yeah, I mean it's it's it

Roberto Baldwin (2:09:19)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (2:09:19)
will probably go up in value more. The one that was kind of surprising to me was the next one down, which is a twenty twenty six Ferrari Luce, Tailor made sedan so custom for auction, it was for charity, forty million dollars. Someone paid forty million dollars for that thing. which is just I don't know, unbelievable.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:09:41)
Prob my guess is probably part

of the deal was if you were willing to spend forty million dollars on this car, you will be on the l you will be allowed on that special list that is allowed to buy whatever stuff Ferrari ever puts

Roberto Baldwin (2:09:55)
Ferrari.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:09:56)
out in the future.

Roberto Baldwin (2:09:57)
Yeah, Ferrari's the HOA

Perry Stern (2:09:57)
You know, honestly.

Roberto Baldwin (2:09:58)
of Ferrari's the HOA of automakers because

Sam Abuelsamid (2:10:00)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:10:02)
you got all these rules, you can't just buy a Ferrari and the Ferrari you buy you can't do things to it. It's really weird.

Perry Stern (2:10:05)
I know, but if you're

sp if you're spending forty million dollars on a car, chances are you're on that list already. Just a just a hunch. But then it it you know so the

Roberto Baldwin (2:10:14)
That's true. Like anything you want. Anything you want. What do you want? It's yours.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:10:15)
Probably.

Perry Stern (2:10:19)
other so rounding out the other ten, so ninety-six McLaren F one coupe went for thirty-four six. a sixty-three Corvette Grand Sport, eighteen point seven million dollars.

And then a 63 Ferrari 250 Spider 187, a 23 Ferrari Daytona SP3 Coupe 17, 96 F50 for 14.5, another 95 95 F 50 for 12.1, and a Ferrari Enzo for 12.1. so a lot of Ferraris, in fact, of the ten, eight of them are Ferraris, or seven of them are Ferraris. which is kind of surprising. But anyway.

stupid amounts of money spent and new cars or used cars, old cars, vintage cars, at this year's Pebble Beach auctions.

Roberto Baldwin (2:11:14)
So while

while we're all like, you know, dealing with high gas prices and increased prices for literally everything. The rich, they're doing fine. Like the rest of us are like,

Perry Stern (2:11:22)
They are doing just fine.

Roberto Baldwin (2:11:24)
Ooh, okay, well I'm not gonna do this this month anymore.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:11:26)
They they could probably

afford to pay slightly more in taxes than they do.

Roberto Baldwin (2:11:29)
Yeah,

they're doing okay. They're doing fine.

Perry Stern (2:11:30)
Yeah, I mean I mean the

think about the fact that someone just spent on a single Shelby Cobra more than probably all three of us will make in our lives combined. Even

Sam Abuelsamid (2:11:42)
And then some.

Perry Stern (2:11:44)
I mean and they just

bought a and they used that money to buy a car.

Roberto Baldwin (2:11:48)
And I'm gonna

Sam Abuelsamid (2:11:50)
a car that they will almost

certainly never ever drive.

Perry Stern (2:11:51)
A car that I will not drive.

Roberto Baldwin (2:11:53)
They'll never

Perry Stern (2:11:53)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (2:11:53)
drive it. I bought a c I bought a racy car for never dri to never drive.

Perry Stern (2:11:56)
Even though it's probably

you know, just well it'd probably scare you to death if you drove it anyway, but that's a whole different thing.

Roberto Baldwin (2:12:00)
Yeah, it's a death machine, to be honest.

Perry Stern (2:12:03)
Yeah. But you know, if you're gonna die, may as well die in a forty three million dollar car, I suppose. Yeah. I mean t talk about making news.

Roberto Baldwin (2:12:06)
Yeah, that's I mean, what a way to go. How did I die? Well, he got an accident

and a forty three million dollar Shelby Corbett.

Perry Stern (2:12:14)
Ooh. So yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (2:12:18)
You get buried

with it. Like you just in the car still and they just d like in if you ever seen the Righteous Righteous Gemstone.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:12:25)
Yeah.

Perry Stern (2:12:28)
they said that this

this actually so there was a you know big pandemic fueled purchasing frenzy in twenty two where they sp you know stupid amounts of money were spent. This exceeded that even. this is I think the most yeah, it's an all time record. They've never sold this much stuff. And so there's I think it's four auctions or four or five auctions that go on during Pebble Beach Week. so yeah, craziness.

Roberto Baldwin (2:12:53)
I will say that when you look at the dash cluster of the Luce, I really like this Dash cluster a lot. It's just it's just here

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:00)
Is there any other aspect of the car that you like at all?

Perry Stern (2:13:01)
Well, it's

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:03)
It's I mean it's like I've said before, it's a really awesome Honda EV.

Perry Stern (2:13:09)
Wow. So someone

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:09)
It's an amazing Honda Eevee.

Perry Stern (2:13:11)
spent forty million dollars on a really awesome Honda EV. Damn.

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:13)
Yeah, it I I don't know if I mean

I don't know and people are gonna hate it because it's it's expensive, it's a Ferrari, it's not, you know, what the people expected. I don't know. I haven't driven it. I don't hate the design. I think it looks fine. If if it again, if it were

Perry Stern (2:13:28)
I think it

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:29)
a Honda, people would be losing their minds. Like, my god, this is the greatest Honda EV that's ever been made

Perry Stern (2:13:31)
Well, that's the thing. I think it

looks I think it looks fine. It just doesn't look like a Ferrari.

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:37)
It

doesn't look like a Ferrari. Yeah, that's the there's the r there's the rub. Well, to be yeah, to be a yeah, to be

Perry Stern (2:13:39)
Course Ferraris lately haven't really looked like Ferraris either, but that's I mean

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:44)
fair, none of have looked like Ferraris. But there you go.

Perry Stern (2:13:47)
No. I mean

take a look you look at the F fifty, you look at the old testorosis and things like that and it just you know but but now I'm just pretending to be old, so or not pretending. No.

Roberto Baldwin (2:13:56)
There you go. I'm just pret you're pretending. Like, haha,

Sam Abuelsamid (2:13:59)
Huh.

Roberto Baldwin (2:14:01)
I'm a twenty-year-old influencer.

Perry Stern (2:14:03)
Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (2:14:03)
I tricked you all. You're like,

Perry Stern (2:14:06)
Yeah. This is my clever disguise.

Roberto Baldwin (2:14:09)
Whew, forty million.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:14:10)
All right. Well,

Perry, thank you for joining us this week.

Perry Stern (2:14:14)
Certainly it's always entertaining.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:14:16)
Yeah. And we'll talk to you all next time. Bye.

Roberto Baldwin (2:14:21)
Bye.

Perry Stern (2:14:21)
Bye.