Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
This is episode four hundred and sixty eight of wheel bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.

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

Sam Abuelsamid (00:10)
And it's just us for today. So, Robbie, w what what have you

Roberto Baldwin (00:15)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:15)
been driving?

Roberto Baldwin (00:19)
I've been driving the Hummer EV three X. Or is it three times? Times

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (00:25)
three? XXY three? I don't know. It's the three X. It's got three motors. Why not? It's got all the motors.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34)
It's got all the motors. All the motors and all the battery.

Roberto Baldwin (00:37)
It's got all the motors. It's got all the batteries. It's a it's a powerful vehicle made more powerful for reasons that are un it's the

It's too powerful to begin with. It's too fast. Here we go. Haplet's let's just say that. It's it's already too quick of a vehicle and now we're like, hey, you know what? Three motors.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:56)
So do you have the SUV or the pickup?

Roberto Baldwin (00:58)
I had the SUV. They don't hand out I I haven't had the pickup since the like the drive program. I think they just don't hand it out anymore. I don't think anyone cares enough about that vehicle. I think it's it's it was so d so a funny thing about the the difference between the SUV and the truck, and then this is from the from the launch program, the drive program. Years ago, they could have done some updates. I think they did updates to the chassis when they made the SUV. But the truck, also fast, was also like

sitting on it it was like a weeble wobble. You're just driving around. For people who don't know, weeble wobbles were like a thing from the s seventies and maybe early eighties. They're called weeble wobbles, they don't fall down. They're little like oblong people, they have a weight in them and you hit and they just like move back and forth. But they don't fall over. That was it. They just kinda like

don't fall down.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:46)
Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down, was the tagline.

Roberto Baldwin (01:49)
Yeah. So, I don't know what toys are today. It's something else. anyway, so

But it just felt like very like every time you stop it every time you stopped, every time you took off, like the car was there was too much movement. It was just like Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:08)
I mean yet you had you know, over

nine thousand pounds of vehicle sitting on thirty five inch tires, off road tires, with airsprings, you know, like the the max ground clearance on that thing was like sixteen inches. You know, so you've got you've

Roberto Baldwin (02:22)
Yeah, so you're pretty high up there.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:24)
got a three thousand pound battery sixteen inches up off the ground.

Roberto Baldwin (02:29)
So yeah, so every so when I drove that vehicle, most of that drive was off-road, by the way. When so we were like, cool, you can do off-roading with it. But we were on the freeway, I'm like, whoa, whoa. So I end up getting the SUV, I don't know how long later, doing a drive with that. it doesn't it's there's less of that. So good job, GM people at chassis control. that doesn't mean that's gone. It's still there because again, as as Sam has pointed out, it's a lot of weight.

Pretty high up in the air. Yes, it's it's a low center of gravity for that vehicle. But the center of gravity is still pretty high up there. so yeah, so I have I got the SUV version. it's it's very large. as you expect. It's a Hummer. What are you gonna do? That's it is exactly what it's supposed to be. That's that's the thing about the Hummer is that it's not, you know, kind of a Hummer. It's not like sort of a Hummer. It's the Hummer with an electric

with with with an electric powertrain. So let's just that's what it is. It's the Hummer. It's always been a little sure, why not? Of a vehicle. To me personally. Every time I see like an H2, I'm almost like, why not? Yeah. Cool. You bought that thing. what's interesting though is

Sam Abuelsamid (03:44)
You don't see those around very often anymore.

Roberto Baldwin (03:46)
yeah they they didn't last. They weren't very good cars to be honest. They they they you know I think yeah they were they weren't great. but they the electric ones

They actually have so my wife was pointing out she's like, Why is the windows why is everything so flat and sort of stunted? She's like and and you know, talking about the the belt and if everything above the belt line, the the greenhouse. And I looked at I saw an a you know, I see H twos around and I saw one while I was driving the Hummer E. V and it's actually bigger. It's actually taller than the H two was. So I like, Well, this is better to be honest So, good job on that. Cool.

It's got a cool huge f frunk, which for the life of me still cannot figure out how to close without using the button. The the the key. There's supposed to be a button somewhere. I know there's one in the

Sam Abuelsamid (04:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (04:37)
escalate. I couldn't find it when I had to escalate I'd key Why are you hiding the button, GM? What are you doing?

Sam Abuelsamid (04:41)
it

I think it's at least on the escalate it's actually like under the bumper. It yeah, it's

Roberto Baldwin (04:46)
Yeah, some were just crazy weird.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:48)
a weird weird location for it.

Roberto Baldwin (04:50)
So it's probably under a bumper. I'll go check later today. I was looking for it. I'm like, I'm gonna give this thing a chance. Lots of room in the bumper, lots of cargo space, tons of room for people to sit in the vehicle. The problem is is I don't the vehicle is is sized in a way that I am too tall for it. So they ha it has you know steps so you can get into the vehicle, which is fine, you know, my wife uses the steps. they're they're t I'm too tall for the steps, but not quite but they also stick out, so they make getting in very awkward.

So if I use the steps, it's like

Sam Abuelsamid (05:20)
It's it's a very

large vehicle that is very poorly packaged.

Roberto Baldwin (05:24)
Yes, it's a large vehicle for a shorter person.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:27)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (05:27)
And then when you get in, the seats have like Hummer like emblazoned across a piece of plastic or metal. I was like tapping on it trying to figure it out. and it's rick r it's it's supposed to be like somewhere like y like shoulder level, but for me it's like in the middle of my back. So it's it ends up being like uncomfortable and I'm just like I don't I can I take this off? Can I what what can I do with this thing? 'Cause the entire time I have this like

little piece sort of like just sort of rubbing into into into my back and apparently right now AMG is being sued by somebody because they have the A and G logo on someone had the AMG logo on their vehicle and it was in California and it got so hot they got in their car with like a tank top or whatever and it burned them and gave like a s like a like a like a

Sam Abuelsamid (06:14)
Yeah. It basically got branded.

Roberto Baldwin (06:17)
they got bramped shh which to be honest most AMG people would most ANG customers would it would would be happy about.

but this one not not so much apparently. so maybe stop putting metal things in the middle of seats is my my my because it it does 'cause you have to take into account that people are different sizes and different size people get in your vehicle and like, this looks cool. I don't know, man. Just embroider it, do something else. So don't don't stick anything metal or plastic in the middle of the seat. So there's there's that. I it is it quick?

Yeah. Do I want to be quick in that thing? No.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:55)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (06:56)
And that's the w the the the that's the the weird thing about this. I would be happy if this was just it had like the power capacity of like a Jeep Wrangler. Like just quick enough. Like a regular Jeep Wrangler. Not the crazy ones that have

Sam Abuelsamid (07:09)
Not the three ninety two.

Roberto Baldwin (07:10)
Yeah, not the three ninety two. I'd be like, okay, it's just this but instead you have this like insane amount of power with their what do they call it? Watch the Freedom. Is that what it was?

Sam Abuelsamid (07:19)
Yeah. WTF

mode.

Roberto Baldwin (07:22)
WTF mode, watch the freedom. sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:28)
See

now, if if Stellantis had been able to get their EVs to market before GM, I am a hundred and twenty percent positive that Tim Caniscus would have would have had that tagline for their

Roberto Baldwin (07:43)
The

Sam Abuelsamid (07:43)
for their EVs.

Roberto Baldwin (07:44)
They have something cl no wait, that's still GM, isn't it?

Sam Abuelsamid (07:48)
yeah, like Chevrolet uses wow wide open watts. and

Roberto Baldwin (07:53)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:55)
and I'm sure that like I said, if GM had not already grabbed it, Caniscus would have would have used it for Stellantis EVs.

Roberto Baldwin (08:01)
'Cause

they're 'cause they're using it for th their their their ridiculous ad campaign where

Sam Abuelsamid (08:05)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (08:06)
it's like STFU about V It's so dumb. It's it

Sam Abuelsamid (08:12)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (08:12)
is literally the it's the worst ad campaign I've seen in a long time. And it's very much like one person like, Hey, let's be cool and like a dad who just bought a leather jacket sort of

it's pretty bad. Anyway, back to the Hummer EV. lots of room. I was able to shove some stuff in the back of it. Cool. It's very tall, so if you're not a tall, you know, it'll it will lower when you stop. So that's great. You can put things in it. but again, if you're not if you're not a tall person, that's a it's quite a you know, it's a lot of work to get it into vehicle. this past week I saw someone at the park with a raised truck.

struggling to get his family's bikes out of the back of the bed of his truck because his truck was so high. And if he's like, you didn't really think it through, do you dude? The kids are like, Daddy, hurry up and he's like, hold on. So

Sam Abuelsamid (09:06)
And and and my

guess is that truck has never actually gone off road and probably never

Roberto Baldwin (09:11)
I mean there's a it's a

Sam Abuelsamid (09:12)
will.

Roberto Baldwin (09:13)
it's a dirt ro it's a dirt parking lot. So So you got that. So there you go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so so

Sam Abuelsamid (09:16)
Well, yeah, but I mean like beyond like a gravel road or or an unpaved parking lot, it it'll

never actually truly go off road.

Roberto Baldwin (09:25)
So you can shove things in it, you know, if you're tall. I like the fact that you can take the tops off. It's the only convertible EV in the United States, I think. I

Sam Abuelsamid (09:33)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (09:34)
can't think of yeah. So that's awesome. I like that. I like that a lot. I just wish it was smaller. I wish it was, you know, the size of a Bronco or the size of a but it that's not the Hummer. That's the problem, is that what I want and what the Hummer is are two completely opposite things.

And the Hummer is is it's braggadocious, it's ridiculous, it's huge. Everything that the Hummer's supposed to be, that's what this vehicle is for the most part. and I'm just like okay, sure, sure. I I it had it does have one pedal driving, but those are the two regenerative driving, and one is normal and the other one is ex like extreme or extra normal. Both of them, like I took me a few days to get used to because they're s they're so

The car dives so much if you do if you lift. Like in s I was like, my gosh. And I like afraid people are gonna run into me, which wouldn't hurt me because they just run into the tires, but it dives so hard, so you really have to be careful. So it took me a couple of days just to get used to that, which isn't how like, you know, regenerative braking's supposed to work. Like, find a happy, like, you know, lead up to that. I didn't I tr I I had it on the extreme and it was that no.

I took that I turned that off quick fast. But you have to, you know, when you're when you're when you're doing regenerative braking, you know, you learn it's it's like learning the friction point for for a clutch, like in your vehicle. You you figure out where as you're lifting up the regenerative braking will will begin. With this, yes, you you can learn it, but the problem is that there's something happens and you lift too quickly, like something's happening on the road or whatever, you're just like

Everyone in the car is like pushed forward, you're pushed forward, the car dives, people behind you are like, What the hell's going on? So yeah, not a not a fan of that. I did do a range run. The problem is the GM's you know, KG on giving, you know how many k the y what the battery capacity is, what it's like over three hundred miles of range, three hundred and something.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:40)
So bef before before we

started recording, I we we were talking about this and you hadn't mentioned that it was the SUV the you know I I was thinking it was the pickup. So the the SUV actually has a shorter wheelbase than the pickup. and so it's it can only get the what they call the the twenty module battery pack, which is about a hundred and seventy kilowatt hours.

The the the longer wheelbase pickup truck, you can get you know, a bat a larger battery pack with twenty four modules in it, that's somewhere around two hundred ish kilowatt hours. so that you know, so so you're about a hundred and seventy kilowatt hours is what you get with the with the SUV.

Roberto Baldwin (12:29)
With the SUV. there's no the because a car weighs so much, they don't have to do EPA anything. You're not gonna find a fuel economy dot gov or anything like that. So, and the the numbers that I got from the vehicle are like very wildly, like the percentage versus the miles per kilowatt hour while I was driving it during my range run. Those were like just in conflict with one another. So at that point I'm just like, I don't I don't even know.

So I guess it's doing okay. It was just they're in such conflict with one another. It's like almost yeah, it's I'm just like I don't So quarter hundred twenty two what? Okay. Fine

Sam Abuelsamid (13:16)
So I

mean co compared to most E Vs on the road, this thing gets terrible energy efficiency.

Yeah, our our

Roberto Baldwin (13:26)
It told

Sam Abuelsamid (13:27)
E V six gets about four miles per kilowatt hour. And

Roberto Baldwin (13:30)
Yeah. So it told

me one point nine miles per kilowatt hour during my my one hundred mile. This is where I drive fifty miles on the freeway, seventy miles an hour, set the the the the cruise control or adaptive cruise control at seventy miles an hour, and then I drive another fifty miles and then this is like through suburban streets, back roads, et cetera, back. Essentially I just do a big loop back to my home. if a American cars will typically like forward

It's almost always dead on, like every single time. Whenever I do a I I do a Ford, boom. if it's a German car or Korean car, they usually underreport, especially the Germans, the Germans will underreport a lot because they're still a little, you know, you know, diesel gate sort of like, So like the Porsche Tycon when I remember when the numbers came out for that and I just done the drive program, I was like, Well, that's not right. And they just yeah. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (14:22)
Yeah, 'cause I think it was originally like two twenty five or two thirty.

Roberto Baldwin (14:25)
it was something crazy. I was like, of course you might just

My driving like an idiot, it was two forty, but sure. yeah, so it's this you know, it's it's you're gonna get a lot of mile. It's a big battery. You shouldn't, you know, fine. You're gonna get a lot of miles out of it. It's very heavy. it has you know, crab mode. It's got King Crab mode, which I've not been able to try yet. if I have a chance to do that today, I will I will

tell you about it. It's you know, I think the video they showed is in the snow. where am I where I'm where I'm where I could find a big enough spot where I could do this with like sort of you know an a flat off road area to do this. I'll I'll see if I can find that. that said it's you know it's I didn't we we went to go see a concert last night. I didn't take that because it's just

Sam Abuelsamid (15:22)
Nowhere to park it.

Roberto Baldwin (15:23)
Yeah, where where am I gonna park like every time I got into it, I'm like, Well where am I gonna park this? I think it's it is the polar opposite of the like, you know, the smart. Remember the smart and people were like, man, on the freeway, those things are da da da da I'm like, Why are you driving on the freeway? It's for driving around town. It's for cruising around like an urban area, it's not for road trips, it's not for the middle of nowhere. The Hummer EV is for the middle of nowhere.

It's not for driving around, you know, like San Francisco, New York.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:53)
And it it's actually not very good

for driving on the freeway either because it's so wide. It's it's hard to keep it in the lane.

Roberto Baldwin (15:57)
It's it it it moves

it is hard to keep it in the lane. I know a lot of people give the Oneos Grenadier they they give it a lot of guff because of the the steering mechanism. This it's the same thing with this because it's

Sam Abuelsamid (16:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (16:10)
because this is it there's so much mass and there's it that it's kind you know, you're like, Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, here we go, here we go. It takes a you know, it's it takes a little bit to and you know maybe if you like in Florida, apparently all the roads are

straight lines. I I live in Northern California. All the roads are windy for reasons. We got hills and mountains and r lakes and the bay and the ocean and blah blah blah. We got a lot of stuff going on. So you gotta go around all that stuff. so that's where this comes becomes really weird. when I did drive it in the dry program, it was the worst storm in like years. Trees were falling over, rivers were overrun we were were were escaping their banks

roads were just flooded and you know what was great? This vehicle that day.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:03)
Well, except

when you took it off road, 'cause I I wasn't on that program, I I sent somebody else on that 'cause I had a a schedule conflict. But I know when they the off road course they had set up, you know, but I was told, you know, one of the things they had was this big berm that you had to climb over. Well the problem is this thing is so heavy that as soon as they tried to drive it up the berm, it just sank into the mud.

Roberto Baldwin (17:27)
yeah, no, we weren't allowed to drive the off road program when I by the time I got there, the off road program was like, Nope, sorry. Because the because the mud was so bad and the thing is so heavy, you just sank it just kept sinking. They just kept in having to drag it out with other vehicles. On the road though, at one point a road I'd been on the day before with the Aria program, I drove the Nissan Aria like the day was now completely flooded. It was about a foot, eighteen inches

And someone was coming towards me and I was going towards them and they started drifting into my lane. So I had to move over, so they went into me and they pushed me off the road. And so now the right hand side of the vehicle is at a you know, now it's about in, you know, two and a half feet of of of water. So it's like thunk. So now I'm like sideways and I'm like, here we go. And I locked the I locked the differential. I put I locked both differentials, like you're supposed to put it in low.

Went forward, then I yanked the wheel, blah blah and I just kept going. It worked, you know. It did the thing it's supposed to do. which, you know, it was, you know, great at that. Driving around town though, it just feels like it's it ends up kind of being a chore. So which I I'm you know, I'm not a fan of that. If I lived in, you know, my small town, you know, I'd probably be s be taking it off road. but it is it's it's so much. And you know, they call it what they call it a super truck.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:55)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:56)
And I don't I don't know, man. This thing it's so much. And then at least, you know, the Cybertruck exists. So it wasn't the most embarrassing vehicle

Sam Abuelsamid (19:08)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (19:08)
on the road.

The the you know

the the the it does have supercruise, and it worked fine. It didn't you know, I think it has an older version of Supercruise.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:19)
Well the super I found Supercruise

to actually be really useful on this vehicle again because it's so wide it's hard to keep in the lane. Supercruise

Roberto Baldwin (19:26)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:27)
actually does a great job of keeping it in the lane.

Roberto Baldwin (19:30)
Yeah, Supercruise did did really well for for what it was doing, for for the fact that it was using this. and it you know, it's it w GM's like, we're gonna do this crazy thing. I see them around. People are buying them. I just don't th I mean it's not a big seller. You know, it's not the bolt. I see bolts like every ten feet in the Bay Area. I see these once, you know, every few days. So

Sam Abuelsamid (19:55)
Well there

there's one down the block from me here. somebody that used to have a Tesla Model Y. They got rid of it last summer and got a Hummer E V pickup.

Roberto Baldwin (20:04)
That Sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:08)
Huh.

Hey, at least Elon didn't

build it, right?

Roberto Baldwin (20:13)
yeah, at least you know, so you got that. So, you know, I I think it's for the people who want it, it's there. And it does it's exactly what you want. It's what what do you think it is? Yep, it's that. It it's it's too quick for for for the amount of mass. if you're an owner, you're probably gonna do that watts to f you know, I'm sorry. Yeah, watts to freedom a couple times. First time it probably scared the hell out of you. You're supposed to do it like in the middle of nowhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:41)
Yeah. Show it off to a couple of friends and then never use it again.

Roberto Baldwin (20:42)
so definitely do not Yeah.

It's got a big you know, it's got a big frunk. It's got you could take the top off, which I'm like there's so many things about the vehicle that I really like that's offset by the fact that it's so big Like a

Sam Abuelsamid (20:56)
Yeah. And y I mean you

can store the roof panels in the frunk, but if you do that, then it basically consumes the entire frunk.

Roberto Baldwin (21:04)
Yeah, so w which is fine because it's better than like, you know, if you're out somewhere and you're like, I wanna take the roof panels off, you have somewhere to put it. They have little bags

Sam Abuelsamid (21:12)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (21:13)
you can put in and so that's you know, I'm I'm I'm totally fine with that. and then you're like, it's gonna rain, I can take out versus, you know, you take them off and then you're in the middle of nowhere and you're like, I wish I could put the top back on my car, but it's in my garage. Yeah, man. So you got that. You mean you have you do have the space in the back for for for all your stuff.

It's just it's it's the goo you know, the fact it doesn't have car play just annoys the hell out of me. Just absolutely annoy 'cause it's just like I'm trying to get things to work and it's not working and I'm just like, what is happening? What's going on? It's like there's so many there's so many things about this vehicle that work for this vehicle, but at the same time are just poking me in the side with a sharp stick. Like, hey, by the way, this ow. and this owl and this

Like the center console, you can put like two things of ramen in there. Lots of room. You got lots of room inside. It's like nice cubby. You got a cubby underneath. There's a lot of like little storage areas to put things in. But then also it's like whenever you park in a parking space, unless you're absolutely in the center of the parking space, you're you're in someone else's way to be you know. the all wheel steering, amazing. It makes the vehicle feel so small. When in fact it is not small.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (22:30)
But you know, I had to go get, you know, I have to go to the, you know, in the parking lots like regular people. And it's just like, ooh, this is so nice. That all-wheel steering system on this vehicle, absolutely. Just you know, chef's kiss, amazing. but you kind of have to have that. Like if you didn't, you'd just be driving over curbs all the time. Which would be fine because a car doesn't care if you drive over a curb. Drive all over over all the curbs. And that's yeah. So that that's the and I think that's the the takeaway from the Hummer EV3X.

Drive over all the curbs. No one yeah, what are you gonna do? It's not you can't s

Sam Abuelsamid (23:01)
Yeah. You you're not even gonna notice.

Roberto Baldwin (23:03)
you're not even gonna notice. and I I know the power rear gate, it opens out instead of up because the tire that I I I kinda hate it. I it's it's it reminds me of like old you know, old station wagons, the ones that, you know, they had the little handle and they opened out. The problem is that it it opens out and s yeah, it swings out like a like a like a door as opposed to

Sam Abuelsamid (23:23)
You mean swing sideways or yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (23:27)
up like a hatchback.

And it's just because the vehicle's so big, it swings out so much that people driving through the parking lot, whoa they see this thing just

Sam Abuelsamid (23:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (23:37)
whoa So yeah, there's it's again three quarter size. You give me a three quarter size Hummer.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:45)
Well, you know,

bac back, you know, when this thing first came out, yeah, I said what GM should have done was they should have built an electric version of this. This was the two thousand eight Hummer HX concept. So this this was a concept they built. It was intended to be a challenger to the Jeep Wrangler. And you know, this would have been this would have been the ideal vehicle 'cause, you know, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, when they were working on the Hummer.

You know, that was about the time that, you know, the whole off road SUV thing was really starting to take off. You had the Bronco coming in twenty twenty one. You know, Jeep, you know, was selling all the Wranglers they could build at at that point still. and this an electric version of this vehicle would have made so much more sense, you know, 'cause they would have been

Roberto Baldwin (24:34)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:35)
first to market with a a you know, a more reasonable off road. 'Cause the the thing is, you know, the the the Hummer we have is

you know, except for like running across a desert or something or, you know, pulling yourself pulling a couple of wheels out of the river, you know, is kinda useless because it's so big. You can't you can't take it down most trails and it's so heavy. You know, something like

Roberto Baldwin (24:59)
Yeah, you had to be careful.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:00)
this would have made so much more sense.

Roberto Baldwin (25:03)
They so I went to the GM design whatever thing like years ago and that's where they showed us the little pickup, the little like, beach inspired pickup. I wrote about it for ours. it it reminded me a bit of the Nissan Gobi from the nineties.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:17)
Uh-huh.

Roberto Baldwin (25:18)
but they also like teased like a little corner of a vehicle that had the front end of a Hummer that was smaller. It was like a pickup.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:25)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (25:25)
And it's like, and then we're also working on this. And they lifted up like, you know, three inches and showed it to us and then dropped it.

And I was like, cool. Like a three quarter or a half size Hummer, that's the car that I think people, you know, you know Hummer people want the Hummer. That's you you want the big but I think regular people want all the capabilities, but they don't they want to be able to park their car. That's the at the end of the day, they want all the capabilities, but they want to be able to like park it in parking lots or you know, not have to be like six hundred feet above the ground in order to do things.

Because you really don't need to be six hundred feet off the ground to go to Target. so yeah, so you know, it's it's again it for me it's like everything about so many things about the Hummer

Sam Abuelsamid (26:13)
Huh.

Roberto Baldwin (26:14)
that just bug me when at the end of the day, like the idea of this vehicle is like very intriguing. the the the idea that it's like, it's a convertible, you can take the tops off, like, you could you know, it's off roadie, it has got room, it's got plastic mats, it's got a big frunk, like

Cool, but does it need to be this wide? Does it need to be it's so long that when I parked it in my parking lot to plug it in? Like like it's like the the 'cause the the plug is at the back. I just pulled it straight in. It's like it's almost the plug is now the cable is almost off the ground. It's like I'd have its maximum with the plug in there. I'm like, my gosh, this thing is so long. So anyway, yeah.

So Hummer EV, it cost the standard price for this thing one hundred five thousand three hundred dollars. So it's a lot of money. That's

Sam Abuelsamid (27:02)
That's that's for the three X?

Roberto Baldwin (27:05)
for the three X, yeah. it had ten thousand dollars, ten thousand two hundred seventy dollars in options, including a ten thousand dollar extreme off road package. it's got the rocker protectors, you know, the steps that kinda got in my way.

full underbody skid plate, underbody cameras. it kept thinking I was parking, except when I was parking. You know the cameras, you're like, I'm gonna park, and then the cameras will kinda pop on because it realizes you're you know there's a lot of stationary vehicles you're pulling into something at a low speed. It kept like turning that on at like stoplights. And I was like, alright. But then when I was pulling to the parking lot, it never came off.

So when I actually needed it, I would have to like flip through, find the camera button in the the screen. And so I'd make sure I that I was like, you know, nice and centered in the in the parking spaces, because I didn't want to be a jerk like, you know, encroaching on other people's spaces. so yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'll just tell you the destination. Twenty six two thousand six hundred and ninety five dollars.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:15)
Oof.

Roberto Baldwin (28:16)
It's yeah, so the the grand total for the vehicle I was driving was one hundred eighteen thousand two hundred sixty five dollars. It's not a cheap vehicle. it's very powerful. It's not the eleven thousand foot pound feet of torque that that GM said that's that's a ridiculous like that's just fuzzy fun math.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:34)
Yeah, I mean

Yeah. Made up numbers.

Roberto Baldwin (28:38)
Yeah. but you know, it does it it is capable. I have driven it in in pretty weird in environments where it was able to to to get out of, you know, get out of things. It is I get but it's also very heavy, so mud, it's gonna sink like a like a ver like a like a like a p like a slab of lead. It'll just sink into your into it. it's it still has that that that pretty interesting four hundred volt system.

But it's 800, you know, the way it charges will charge at eight like eight hundred volt, which is, you know, pretty cool 'cause that's, you know, at the end of the day, people kinda care about that.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:13)
Yeah. Well it's a it's a

two it's a two layer battery, so it splits the four hundred to eight hundred volts, four hundred volts to each layer of the battery. So it's basically like charging two batteries in parallel at the same time.

Roberto Baldwin (29:23)
Yeah, so it's it charges quickly. So that I think that's that's cool. I do think that they've they've done s relatively quickly. Yeah, it's still a big battery.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:27)
Well, it charges relatively quick relatively quickly because it's it's still a lot of battery to charge.

Roberto Baldwin (29:34)
Yeah. so at the you know it it it's it's it's you know, the Hummer the Hummer E V, it's a lot. That's that's all that's that's

Sam Abuelsamid (29:42)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (29:43)
the entire review of this vehicle. It's a lot. Do you want all of it? Cool. Do you want do you want a you know, T tops essentially? Yeah, cool. Because it has it.

It's gonna l you know, you wanna drive around with the top off? Have a party. That's cool. That's you know, I would love, you know, more vehicles where I can take the top off that are EVs. But instead we have a very big I'm gonna drive to my uncle's today to do some work on his truck and he's gonna be like, What the hell is this?

Sam Abuelsamid (30:07)
Uh-huh.

Roberto Baldwin (30:10)
I'm very excited to show up with it. Are you gonna take it to to your uncle's house to work on the the truck? I'm like, hell yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (30:17)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (30:21)
Anyway. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:21)
All right.

Well, I had something that is a little less too much, or a little less a lot. I had the twenty twenty seven Tel Kia Telluride X Pro S X Prestige all wheel drive. So it's a lot of name, but you know, very very nice vehicle. this is the second generation Telluride that launched early was it this year? Yeah, earlier this year. Last spring.

Roberto Baldwin (30:49)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:50)
And so this is this is the the more off roady version. So it's not you know, it's not as full blown off road as you know as like you know, like a Jeep or, you know, even the the Hummer. but it's you know, it's pretty decent. You know, when when we did the drive program we had a chance to do, you know, a bit of an off road course with it. And it did it did decently well. it's on all terrain tires.

Roberto Baldwin (31:15)
It was that real narrow

car it was that narrow, like course. There was a lot of stuff going on. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:19)
Yeah, it was that like this shelf road, kind of thing, you know, and it was

just barely wider than the vehicle itself. So you had to be real careful on there, but but it did it did well.

Roberto Baldwin (31:27)
They're like, Okay,

take our new cars out. Don't scratch them against the rocks and the trees that are i encroaching on your trail. Yeah, and try

Sam Abuelsamid (31:33)
Yeah. And try not to fall off.

Roberto Baldwin (31:35)
there's also yeah, try not to fall off the cliff. Enjoy.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:38)
Yeah.

so this one is finished in terrain brown matte. so it's kind of a sand color. and it it looks good. I li I like this color on here. And you know, you can get this in a in a glossy finish or the matte finish like the one I had. overall, you know, I I like I generally like the look of the telluride, although I'm still not you know, like the these little things on the top of the wheel arches. I think it

Roberto Baldwin (32:09)
Little eyebrow thingies.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:11)
Yeah, you know, they're they're like clips, you know, kind of. You know,

Roberto Baldwin (32:16)
It's

Sam Abuelsamid (32:16)
and

Roberto Baldwin (32:17)
you know how clowns they'll put that little like line above their eyes, like straight

Sam Abuelsamid (32:21)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (32:22)
up and down? It's like that.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:23)
Yeah. And you know, it's kinda it's kinda meant you know, the the designers, you know, at the at the pr at the drive program they said, you know, it's kinda meant to to tie it together because you know, you've got this crease line that goes along the belt line, you know, that curves down above the wheels and goes back up, you know, and goes horizontal plus under the side windows, and curves down towards the the rear wheel arches as well. And so you get this

looks like a clip meant to hold the top of the wheel arch and this line this crease line together. like a like a big binder clip. It's it's a little weird. But aside from that, the rest of it I I like the design. You know, it's got, you know, kind of

Roberto Baldwin (33:03)
Yeah, I like the

Sam Abuelsamid (33:04)
a Range Rover look to it. you know and the the the the new the new lights, you know, the the kind of twin vertical slim lights, you know, both on the front and on the back. Yeah, I think it's a it's a cool look.

So you know, I like the the design of this thing. you know, if you get the X Pro, you get, you know, bright red recovery hooks on the front and rear bumpers, you know, so that when you know if you get it stuck, you know, you're fine.

Roberto Baldwin (33:34)
Can't have someone

with a humber help you pull pull you with this bit one billion pounds of pound of torque.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:39)
Yeah, exactly. and then you know, it's a it's a good you know, it's a proper size three row SUV. You know, d you know, I can fit comfortably in the third row, you know, and still have, you know, the second row in a position where it's also usable. you know, the second row seats if you get the captain's chairs like the one like the X Pro, you know, if you have a child seat in the in the second row, clamped into the you know

locked into the second row. Though it's kind of like on the the Nissan Pathfinder and and Infinity QX sixty and a bunch of other vehicles where it the whole thing tilts up from the front, you know, so you can get access to the third row without having to take out the the child seat, which is is handy. and then in the in the cargo area, one of the things I've noticed on Hyundai's recently, on several different Hyundai recently, is they have

a little space in the you know also under the cargo floor there's some extra storage space under there. And there's a place where if you've got the rear cargo cover, you can take the cargo cover off. And usually in the past, you know, if you take that cargo cover off, if you've got some big stuff you need to load inside, you gotta leave it in your garage. You know, it's kind of like with the T tops and then you forget about it. And there's been more than one occasion over the years where I have taken the cargo cover off because I've

had to put something in the back of a press vehicle and then it went back, you know, they picked it up and I forgot to put the thing back in. It was sitting in my garage and so I'd have to put it in the the next vehicle the the following week to send it back. Now they've got this little space to store it in there, which is very handy. so the f the the tellurides, you know so the Palisade and the Telluride, the Hyundai Palisade and the Kia Telluride share a basic architecture. and

you know, so they're on the same platform, but when the the Palisade came out last year, they launched it with a naturally aspirated V6 or and then later in the year they brought up the hybrid version. By the time they brought up the Telluride earlier this year, they did the Telluride with just the hybrid and the two point five liter four-cylinder turbo that you know, so the hybrid uses the two point five liter four-cylinder turbo. so you can get it just

as that engine or as a hybrid. And I think for twenty twenty seven model year, the Palisade is dropping the V six and it's getting the four cylinder turbo instead. And you know, it's it's a nice engine, powerful. you know, it's relatively quiet. I mean, you know, when when you get into it, you know, you'll hear it, but it's not it's not as annoying a sound as some other four cylinder turbos from a certain Japanese company. and

so you know it's it's pleasant enough to drive. The X Pro, again, because it's a little bit lifted, it's on all terrain tires, fuel economy's not quite as good as the the base versions. certainly no nowhere near as good as the the hybrid. The hybrid will get about thirty-four miles per gallon. This one is rated at nineteen city, seven or sorry, seventeen city, twenty-two highway, nineteen combined. when I went and did my

My test loop. I got actually about twenty-one and a half combined. so a little better than than what it's rated at. so you know it did did decent. You know, for for vehicles of this size, that's a you know, that's a decent number. It's not not a spectacular number, but it's a decent number. The X Pro only comes with the non-hybrid powertrain, so that's two hundred and seventy-four horsepower, three hundred and eleven foot pounds of torque.

eight speed automatic. So you can't get the hybrid in the X Pro. at least not for now. and so if you want that off road y look, you're gonna have to forego hybrid propulsion. if you want better fuel economy, you know, you don't really need I mean nobody's really gonna take this thing off road. And f for for

Roberto Baldwin (37:49)
We did, and we were the only ones that ever do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:52)
yeah exactly. And you know for the kind of

you know, off pavement stuff that people are actually gonna use a vehicle of this type for, which is, you know, gravel roads, maybe a a you know, a two track trail to a cabin, the standard version's gonna be just fine. You don't need you

Roberto Baldwin (38:06)
Yeah, you're fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:07)
don't need the X Pro. You know, it's you're showing you're showing it off, but you you don't really need that stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (38:14)
I

feel like unless you live in Hawaii or Alaska. Like those

Sam Abuelsamid (38:16)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (38:17)
are the two like you'd like, maybe you get the more, you know, off road y version. Because there's things that happen in Hawaii and Alaska that like require additional

Sam Abuelsamid (38:23)
Yeah, but those are kind of unique environments.

Roberto Baldwin (38:26)
Yeah, those are very unique UV It's why Toyotas do so well in Hawaii. Like big

Sam Abuelsamid (38:29)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (38:30)
raised Toyota trucks. Because you kinda like I've driven on some I've gone down some some roads in like a rental car and people are like,

Sam Abuelsamid (38:36)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (38:37)
What the hell is this guy doing? Because it's very much like, this car should not be here and I just keep

Sam Abuelsamid (38:42)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (38:42)
going.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:44)
yeah, I mean, many years ago, you know, my wife and I were in on Kauai on vacation and we were going out to this to Pole Holly Beach, which is on the west end of of Kauai. And at at least at the time, it's been a few years since we've been there at the time, the only way to get there was this road that you know, an unpaved road that went through an old sugar cane field. which I think they're now growing coffee there, but you know, it's through a sugar cane field.

And the first time we had been there when we first got married, you know, it w it wasn't too bad. By the time we went back some years later, boy, that Mustang convertible should not have been on that road.

Roberto Baldwin (39:26)
You got the official the Mustang convertible and the Jeep are the two

Sam Abuelsamid (39:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (39:30)
way like if you're in Hawaii and you're driving either of those cars, everyone knows you're a tourist.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:34)
Exactly. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (39:35)
Everyone knows the Mustang Convertible and the Jeep. Those are the two vehicles are like, yeah. They're not from

Sam Abuelsamid (39:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (39:40)
here.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:43)
'Cause no none of the none of the locals drive those vehicles. Yeah, they it it the the Tacoma Tacoma's and forerunners. I mean the the Tacoma

Roberto Baldwin (39:46)
Yeah, they all drive too it's four runners and Tacoma's. Yeah, that's the if they have those in the fleet

Sam Abuelsamid (39:54)
the Tacoma's been like the best selling vehicle in the state of Hawaii for like twenty five years.

Roberto Baldwin (39:59)
Yeah, no. When you when you if if you've ever been to Hawaii you'll you'll you'll yeah, you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:04)
Yeah.

so you know, lots of cup holders, lots of USB C ports. Nice thing about these, in the front, front row, there's three USB C ports, and it supports hundred watt charging. So, you know, if you're passenger or you know, if you got a laptop that you want to charge up, you can plug it in there, and it'll charge right up, no problem at all. so you've got nice nice powerful charging in there.

It's you know, it's it's a and it's a nice vehicle to drive. You know, it's it's comfortable. the seats you know, the front seats are comfortable, they're fairly supportive, they got decent lateral support. it's it's it's just a really good vehicle. I like it a lot. you know.

Roberto Baldwin (40:47)
I I really

feel like it's and even I know this people aren't gonna cross shop this, but the Range Rover, like why buy a Range Rover and you can get this? If you want like pretty much nearly Range Rover quality, you can just get this.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:59)
Mm-hmm. ar

arguably probably better quality. Yes. Yes, near near range over levels of luxury.

Roberto Baldwin (41:04)
Shhh. I mean well well luxury. How about luxury? Not not quality. Let's not talk about you know luxury,

yeah, yeah. I mean the people who buy Range Rover are gonna buy a Range Rover. They you know they're they they you know they love their Range Rovers, which you know, more power to you. I'm I just take the Defender. They shouldn't even sell anything else at JLR. Just sell the Defender forever. But that's me

Sam Abuelsamid (41:27)
So grant grand total on this one came to fifty nine thousand five hundred and eighty bucks. Yeah. And this is you know, this is pretty well loaded. Yeah, it had heads up display and the big sunroof and and everything else. yeah, you had all the all the good stuff in here. destination charge fifteen hundred and forty five bucks. yeah, lot lot cheaper to get than the than the Hummer. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:52)
You can buy two tellurides for

the cost of one Hummer EV three

Sam Abuelsamid (41:55)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:56)
X. And again the three you don't need three motors.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:00)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Th I guess y there there is one argument I could make for getting the the X Pro, which is that you know, it rides on eighteen inch alloy wheels instead of the nineteens or twenties that you get on the the of the other models. and so, you know, depending on you know if you live in Michigan, where we have potholes that will eat your tires, you know, that that extra bit of sidewall.

will definitely help. So if you if you need some extra s you know, pothole protection, then you know, maybe go for the X Pro. You know, hopefully hopefully Ka Kia will add a hybrid to the X Pro next year. but it's you know, other than that, you know it's it's a good vehicle. I like it a lot.

Roberto Baldwin (42:48)
They Kia and and Hyundai, they really want people to know that they have hybrids because I

Sam Abuelsamid (42:53)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (42:53)
think according to their research, the people don't know that Hyundai and Kia make hybrid vehicles. Like

Sam Abuelsamid (43:00)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (43:00)
it just they and so they're like really pushing like, hey, we have a hybrid. We have hybrids in our vehicles in our lineup, you should try those. Because when people think hybrids, they're thinking Toyota and now, you know, Honda. And like anything outside of like especially Toyota.

Anything outside those two, everyone's like, really? You got a hybrid too? It's the you know, it's like the it's like the E V effect. Like people you know, Tesla's the Kleenex of E Vs. It's the Ziploc bag, the Hoover of E Vs just because

Sam Abuelsamid (43:27)
Well, you know,

and they're you know, Honda Ikea are now number three in hybrid sales in North America behind Toyota and Honda.

Roberto Baldwin (43:36)
There you go. So it's working. I know they were they were pushing so hard whenever we I forget which drive program we were on. We were driving some hybrid and they were like, you know, we people don't we we would love if you told people we have hybrids. And we're like, Yeah, that's I mean that's the whole point of driving a hybrid is to tell people we're driving a hybrid. That's kind of the we're not gonna like hide it from what kind of engine is it? What kind of setup is it?

Sam Abuelsamid (44:01)
Well we'll talk more about that in a minute. But what what when

Roberto Baldwin (44:03)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:05)
w when when I went out to to photograph the the telluride when it first got delivered the other day, when I was coming back, I was driving past

Roberto Baldwin (44:14)
hey.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:14)
the Hyundai Tech Center, which is about five, ten minutes away from me here, and there was a G V ninety coming out. Yeah, yeah, it looks good.

Roberto Baldwin (44:21)
That's a pretty car. And you

can you can get your junk removed according to this this sign behind the G V ninety.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:26)
Yeah. Somebody

you can have somebody come to your come to your house and remove your junk in a G V ninety, so

Roberto Baldwin (44:32)
Yeah. Which seems probably not ideal, but yeah, I mean you gotta do what you gotta do.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:36)
Well I mean as long as you put a tarp in the back there.

Roberto Baldwin (44:38)
Yeah, throw it again, I use the tarp all the time whenever 'cause I don't wanna scratch. But also tarps are great because they're smooth and they're slick and you can slide things in and out. It's so much

Sam Abuelsamid (44:46)
Mm-hmm. Easy yeah, easy to get stuff in and out.

Roberto Baldwin (44:49)
yeah. So even your regular home cars, go to Harbor Freight or some other cheap place, buy yourself a tarp. If you had to move a bunch of stuff, throw the tarp down and then when you're putting things in

It slides so much easier, especially when you're

Sam Abuelsamid (45:01)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (45:02)
by yourself and you gotta carry a bunch of like heavy long thing. Long things are the worst because you're you're pushing it in and it gets stuck where the seam is or

Sam Abuelsamid (45:09)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (45:10)
like it on the it's always hitting things and the tarp sort of like smooths all that out. So tarps for the win.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:15)
Yeah. Like d you know

like trying trying to fit a cow panel into the back of a Ford Explorer, you know, tarp makes it so much easier.

Roberto Baldwin (45:22)
Yeah, yeah. 'Cause that thing's gonna get stuck on caught on everything.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

speaking of of Hyundai and Kia and hybrids, Hyundai had their investor day in Seoul a few days ago. And Jose Munoz made a bunch of announcements. they I mean I think we I think we actually talked last week about the Genesis G V eighty hybrid. Yeah, we did. but they they talked

Munio's talked a a whole bunch about Hyundai's plans between now and twenty thirty. and globally through twenty thirty, Hyundai is planning to launch one hundred new or completely new or refreshed models into their lineup between Hyundai and Genesis. and among those will be their first two E Revs.

Coming out in the first half of twenty twenty seven. one's gonna be for Genesis, one is gonna be for Hyundai. they they first announced that they were gonna do E Revs back in twenty twenty four. So E Rev for for those who've forgotten, is basically an electric vehicle that's got an engine driving a generator as a range extender. so you you know, it's it the only th electric motors drive the wheels. you typically get a smaller battery 'cause you got to have some place to put it.

fuel tank and other stuff. and the first Hyundai E Rev is gonna be Santa Fe coming in sometime in the first half of next year. And sometime early in the year is going to be a Genesis E Rev. We don't know what the Genesis model is going to be. you know the G V eighty would seem like a a good choice, except they are also doing a hybrid version of that. So I don't know if they're gonna do a hybrid and an E Rev.

But mi might be a G V ninety?

Roberto Baldwin (47:24)
I think I know everyone's going into E Revs. Like we don't really have anything on the market. I think it everyone's a little like you can't go like, we're going all in on E Rev outside of Scouts like, you know, pre order numbers. I think everyone's pretty smart about tiptoeing into this because I don't I think what hap 'cause E Revs are like supercharged P heves to be honest. They're just like

Sam Abuelsamid (47:46)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (47:46)
you know, it's for for the for the owner it's just a better P Hav. You're gonna get more range from plugging in your your your

your vehicle that also runs on gas at night. So I think it's smart to like sort of like, okay, let's make one and then see what happens. Because I think, you know, when P Hebs came out, I remember all these pundits were like, P HEVs are gonna, you know, they're gonna outsell bevs because this is what people really want. And then the sales just never materialize the way people thought they would. So we'll see w how E revs go.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:14)
Yeah, I mean plu plug in hybrid sales have been stuck, you know, roughly around one point eight to two percent for years and have never really gone up. They've they yeah, even even when E V even when BEVs were going up, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (48:24)
It is literally just the the four by E. The

four by E was the only like good selling. And that mostly was that this is the one we got on the spot on on thing, unless

Sam Abuelsamid (48:32)
Well and

Roberto Baldwin (48:33)
you want a MOAB or something.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:35)
and well and the you know, the Rab Four, you know, the Ra the Toyota Rab Four did decent I

Roberto Baldwin (48:40)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:40)
mean, you know, within the limits of, you know, how many 'cause the RAV four P heavs were brought in from Japan while most of the rest were built here. and you know, so they limited the number that they were importing. But you know, it it w did decently well. you know, the Pacific Chrysler Pacifica P Hav did well.

but yeah, again, same same argument as the Jeep P Haves. Yeah, they were pushing those. And

Roberto Baldwin (49:06)
Yeah. So

well, you know, I think there are I think it's smart with the Santa Fe. I think it's feel it feels like a nice boxy off rotor type type vehicle. Those are the people who really, you know, like I you what, I wanna be able to tow things, but I also, you know, when I'm driving around town I wanna be able to to to, you know, go E V as much as possible. and really these these vehicles actually kinda push you to to to plug it in versus the P Hev

Or you can just sort of ignore it and just drive around with a heavy battery all day without the benefits of using that battery. So I think the E Revs are are a bit smarter and are like, Hey, no, you really should be plugging this in because you just got you just got a little tiny little like little

Sam Abuelsamid (49:46)
Yeah, 'cause in

usually an e Rev, you know, you get somewhere, depending on the size of the vehicle, anywhere from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty miles of electric range. and, you know, my guess is the the Santa Fe is going to be on the lower end of that, probably a hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty, just based on the size of the vehicle. and then, you know, and they said it's gonna be over six hundred miles total range. and then we we have like I said we have no details on which genesis it's gonna be.

I mean it's possible it could be the G V ninety. You know, that maybe they'll do an E Rev version of the G V ninety 'cause right right now all they've announced is the Bev.

Roberto Baldwin (50:23)
They seemed very d

during their presentation they seemed very much like no, this we they built up architecture for that and that's what it's gonna be. Yeah, they felt very

Sam Abuelsamid (50:30)
Okay. So

Roberto Baldwin (50:32)
but I mean they could also be a misdirect. I mean car

Sam Abuelsamid (50:34)
Yeah, you never know.

Roberto Baldwin (50:36)
makers tell us things and then they're like, ha ha I'm like, all right, let me

Sam Abuelsamid (50:38)
I mean, you know, once upon

a time Steve Jobs said, you know, we're never gonna do an iPod that plays video. Who wants to watch video on an iPod? And six months later there was an iPod video.

Roberto Baldwin (50:44)
yeah. Who wants to watch video.

Who wants to watch on this tiny little screen? I remember David Lynch got really angry. He was like, What is this?

Sam Abuelsamid (50:54)
Ha

Roberto Baldwin (50:57)
I miss you, David Lynch.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:00)
so yeah, Munio said, you know, by twenty thirty, they want electrified vehicles to they're targeting sixty percent of their global sales mix to be electrified. So that is hybrid, plug in hybrid, e Rev, and battery electric. and I think last year I was looking it up last year in North America hybrids made up or hybrids and plug-in hybrids, well electrified vehicles, sorry. So hybrids, plug-in hybrids.

and Bev's made up twenty three percent of Hyundai sales in twenty twenty five.

Roberto Baldwin (51:34)
That's really good.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:36)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (51:37)
Because that's I mean, that's what the you know, everyone was kinda talking about, like, well this is what it's gonna be, you know, at this point and how many So Hyundai is sort of keeping track with what we we all thought was gonna happen.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:48)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (51:50)
but they're very, very aggressive with their with their leasing programs, to be honest. and their and their sort of the

their incentives. They're they're very aggressive with the EVs with those incentive and lease and pr I mean, again, I leased two Hyundai's and then I bought one. And all three

Sam Abuelsamid (52:05)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (52:06)
of had like very aggressive leasing and and you know and cash back programs. So also they're you know, eight hundred volt leased you know yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:14)
Yeah, they charge great. Yeah.

Yeah, except for the the the problems with the charge control unit, everything you know, they've generally been really reliable.

Roberto Baldwin (52:24)
Yeah.

The thing they still don't are like, what's wrong? I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:28)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (52:30)
House is broken? I search me. Try this.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:34)
yeah.

let's see what else. yeah, they they talked about their you know, they've been working on some of their own in house battery designs. and so the E Rev is actually gonna be using a new battery design that they developed internally. and that they they've said let's see, it's gonna charge it's gonna cost half as much and charge forty percent faster than their current batteries.

Which is pretty

Roberto Baldwin (53:06)
mean that's

Sam Abuelsamid (53:07)
impressive.

Roberto Baldwin (53:08)
yeah. I mean they they have the the fact that they're selling so many vehicles means they have so much more data

Sam Abuelsamid (53:14)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (53:14)
about how their you know their their E Vs and their P heavs and their you know are are working out in the world.

And because they're selling so much, that means the thing of economies of scale. You know, they and then they can like, you know what? And also Hyundai, again, Hyundai is like not just a car company in Korea. It's like everything in Korea. So they have a ton, a ton of money where they can be

Sam Abuelsamid (53:35)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:35)
like, you know what, let's just do this thing. Let's just try this. Let's do they do a

Sam Abuelsamid (53:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:40)
lot of so I I run a magazine called battery

and electrification technology magazine for SAE. It's a poly it's polybagged with their automotive engineering magazine, like four times a year. It's a quarterly magazine. And so I look at a like there's a lot of I put a lot of research that like colleges and universities around the world are doing. I put like you know I find things they you know they're they are funding research for for solid state batteries you know you know the dendrite issue

Sam Abuelsamid (54:09)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (54:09)
so they're doing a lot of a lot of research

into into battery technology because you know they you know let's not stand still let's just keep moving forward it's the same i you know when i talk to mercedes it's the same thing like yes it's not as big as we thought it was gonna be but that doesn't mean we stop

Sam Abuelsamid (54:27)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (54:27)
that you know we we we keep moving forward and i think it's you know i think gm's you know doing the same thing like they you know just because it's not as big as it was we're not gonna stop making EVs and so you know you see you know pretty nice lineup from from GM as well so you have these three companies that are just like

Let's just go for it And then Toyota just coming in out of nowhere and like Hey, our first T V not so great But then we're like, Hey, let's let's let's be let's be real about this. Let's make it better And then in like

Sam Abuelsamid (54:49)
Let's make it better.

Roberto Baldwin (54:52)
you look at the efficiency numbers like Well Toyota's not messing around.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:55)
Yeah. Well, you know, and you know, the thing about Hyundai, you know, Hyundai as a as a company, you know, y people think of, you know, companies like Tesla being vertically integrated. They got nothing on Hyundai. I mean, Hyundai

Roberto Baldwin (55:10)
It's

Sam Abuelsamid (55:10)
makes literally everything. Yeah. They they build the the roll on roll off ships that transport vehicles around the world. They they build, you know, all all I mean, all kinds of ships that they that they build. They

They make buildings. They're in mining. They do robots. You know, they own Boston Dynamics. you know, they they make all the materials, you know, they've they make steel. They have their own steel mills.

Roberto Baldwin (55:34)
Steel. Yeah. They're

they're gonna have steel at the meta plant, they're gonna have L G is their partner for the batteries, but they're also gonna have steel. Like the steel

Sam Abuelsamid (55:42)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (55:42)
will be at the meta plant.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:43)
Well that yeah, actually the steel mill is being built in Louisiana, I think. But

Roberto Baldwin (55:48)
They're

gonna Yeah. It comes well it comes in and then they they yeah, they're they're able to bring it yeah, they're doing all so many

Sam Abuelsamid (55:53)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (55:54)
yeah. They're just like we can do it all because we're Hyundai. And they're doing it all because they're Hyundai.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:56)
Yeah. So yeah.

So yeah, I mean it's it's it's a fascinating company. And they you know, they are they're on track right now, you know, looking at their sales pace so far this year, through July, and looking at Volkswagen Group's sales pace. There's a very good chance that by the end of this year, Hyundai will be the number two global automaker, Hyundai Motor Group. So Hyundai,

Roberto Baldwin (56:24)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:24)
Kia and Genesis combined.

will be number two behind Toyota. Right now they're number

Roberto Baldwin (56:29)
That's

Sam Abuelsamid (56:29)
three and they're catching up very quickly to Volkswagen.

Roberto Baldwin (56:32)
And that's you know, and that's a sign for Hunt A Tony's doing good, but B Tell is not doing so great. It's

it's

Sam Abuelsamid (56:38)
Well Toyota

Toyota's sales are actually doing okay. It's Volkswagen. It's yeah. Yeah. Toyota's still selling over ten million a year.

Roberto Baldwin (56:41)
not to you. Volkswagen, I'm sorry. Volkswagen sell Toad is fine. I'm not really no one should be concerned. Yeah, yeah,

I'm sorry. Like yeah, so yeah, so the Hyundai's doing good, Volkswagen not s not, you know, not doing so great. Which is, you know, unfortunate because I think there was a there was a time when like you're like, ooh, like Hyundai like to Volkswagens are very exciting vehicles and I feel like they've sort of lost that in the last couple of years. And hopefully, you know, they can bring it around, figure it out, make

Sam Abuelsamid (57:06)
Yeah. And

Roberto Baldwin (57:08)
a GTI that's

I I actually it was the R. The GTI was better than the R for the Gulf. and I think one of the craziest things that's happened to me in the last like ten years is people are always like, I wish we had more hatchbacks in the United States. I'm like, the Gulf is right there. Just like no one knows

Sam Abuelsamid (57:25)
Yeah. Got the golf, you

got the Honda Civic, y yeah, there there's hatchbacks.

Roberto Baldwin (57:29)
But the the golf

yeah, but the golf is is the, you know, stereotypical it is the

Sam Abuelsamid (57:33)
It's the definitive hatchback, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (57:36)
hatchback. And like for some people just didn't know that it exists. Like the average person just sort of forgot about the golf. And I don't think Volkswagen was doing itself any favors in in sort of ignoring it, you know, when there there is an audience for that vehicle. It's like the Maverick. Like people didn't you know, people kept would come up to me for years. I'm like, I just want a small truck.

And the Tacoma's too b everything's just too big. I just want a small truck. And then the Maverick came out and everyone's like, Weeee I think it was the you know, the Gulf was there. People want the golf they they want that vehicle, you know, that type. They just didn't they just, you know, they you go to it like, hey, you want an Atlas, you want a Tiguan, you want a you know It was yeah. So we'll see. Hopefully Volkswagen can can can pull it off. I don't you know, it's Yeah. Bring

Sam Abuelsamid (58:22)
so

Roberto Baldwin (58:23)
back the rabbit.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:24)
yeah. late late last year, Ford stopped producing the Escape and the Lincoln Corsair at their Louisville Assembly plant. And that plant is currently in the process of being retooled to build the Fathom and a bunch of other lower cost EVs. and so, you know, Lincoln

You the the Corsair accounted for almost a quarter of Lincoln's sales. and you know, suddenly losing that that was a bit of a hit to to Lincoln.

Roberto Baldwin (59:00)
That's such a weird decision.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:02)
I I know. Well

Roberto Baldwin (59:04)
Hey, this is doing pretty good.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:07)
Yeah. yeah, and same I mean, yeah, even though you know the escape was not selling anywhere near as well as, you know, the C R V or the RAV four or even the Chevy Equinox, it was still selling a hundred and fifty, hundred and sixty thousand units a year. but anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (59:24)
Yeah. It was just it

was just a known quantity. People are like, I'm just gonna get an escape. I remember the drive program for the last generation escape I got out of the car. They're like, What'd you I'm like, who cares? What I think. You're gonna sell

Sam Abuelsamid (59:33)
Yeah, it's fine.

Roberto Baldwin (59:34)
you're gonna sell a billion of these because people are just gonna get the escape. The Broncos Sport is the better escape, to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:39)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (59:40)
The Maverick, also built on the same platform, is the better escape. Of the three vehicles in that platform, it's the least good.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:49)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (59:49)
But it was fine. It was like it wasn't like the escape was horrible. It's just like, yeah, escape, yeah, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:54)
Well, they they did not stop building these the Corsair in China though. so they yeah, they still build the Corsair in China. So the Corsair is coming back to the Lincoln lineup for model year twenty twenty seven, launching early in in the new year. and they're gonna bring them in from China. but yeah, that's that's only gonna be temporary because last week, right before they made this announcement that the Corsair was coming back, and interestingly in the Corsair press release

They did not mention the fact that it's coming from China. there was a bunch of reports, you know, that that figured it out. It's like, okay, well, they're not building them in Louisville. They're not apparently not building them anywhere else in North America. So where's it com the only other place they make it is in China. So it is in fact coming from China. But last week, Lincoln made an announcement that by twenty thirty they will stop importing any vehicles from China. They're they're you know, all their all the link by twenty thirty all Lincolns are gonna be built in the US.

Because they also import the Nautilus, the mid-size Nautilus from China. so now they're gonna have the Nautilus and the Corsair both coming from China. so the Corsair is getting a mild visual refresh for the 27 model year, new grille, new lights, and they're changing up the powertrain setup. So the the Corsairs that were built in Louisville, you had the option of either the two-liter Eco Boost, turbo four cylinder.

or the hybrid, a plug in hybrid with the is basically the same same as the plug in hybrid setup on the escape, but they added a rear moat rear E axle so you had all wheel drive. The escape plug in hybrid was only available as front wheel drive. The Corsair was all wheel drive with a with an E axle. Both of those are gone. And so for the twenty twenty seven models it's going to be

the two liter turbo hybrid system. It's this it's this basically the same powertrain that's in the Nautilus, but with twenty more horsepower. So goes from three eighty five to two hundred and five horsepower. Or three eighty five two eighty five to three hundred and five, yeah, horsepower. and that you know that's that vehicle, you know, in that form, that's gonna be the only powertrain. And that'll probably be brought in for about two years.

because by twenty probably by the end of twenty twenty eight they will be building an electric replacement for the Corsair off the Ford Universal Electric Vehicle Platform in Louisville.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:37)
All right. Whew. I I always preferred the Corsair of the Nautilus. The Nautilus always felt like it didn't know where it needed to be to me. I think

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:45)
the Corsair is it's I think it's it's I like the fact that it just has a regular interior. They haven't gone like, let's have

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:50)
Manual vents.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:51)
yeah, manual events. It's just a nice little, you know, and like I guess entry level for for a Lincoln luxury vehicle. they're comfortable. Typically Lincolns are really comfortable vehicles. yeah, no, I think, you know.

I don't know how build bringing in her from China's gonna you know, that's I who knows. You got two more years before you figure out

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:13)
Well the yeah, I mean the pri the price

is gonna go up by about seven grand from the last EcoBoost Corsair. So it'll be close to the same price as the plug in hybrid was. But it'll have more

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:25)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:27)
power than the plug in hybrid. and since most people probably weren't plugging in those plug in hybrids anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:36)
Yeah. Yeah. Plug in your p hez, man. Just gets gets it's it's cheaper than gas. I don't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:38)
Probably probably Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:44)
I just I just don't boop. Plug in. Bloop. You don't even have to you don't even have to put a charging station in. You don't need to like buy a level two charger or whatever. You could just plug it in from like a regular like one ten outlet. Yeah, one twenty.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:55)
Yeah. F from a one twenty volt outlet y yeah, yeah, you'll

y you'll yeah, it'll you know, pretty much fully charge overnight.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:05)
Yeah. And in the morning like, Yay, I saved money.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:09)
Yeah. You get thirty ish miles of electric range. Yeah, be able to do most of your driving without using any gas. But anyway, it'll

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:16)
All your errands.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:18)
yeah. It'll it'll just be an all wheel drive regular hybrid starting early in the new year. Rivian is starting to ship out a new software update for the R ones, for the R one S and R one T. they're calling it Rivian OS two point it's

Basically you're basically you're gonna be getting the same software that is in that is already in the R two. so the the R one and the R two have the same size screens in them. you know, one of the big changes for the R two software was and the R one they always had a strip across the top of the the display that had, you know, shortcuts to, you know, things like settings and alarms and, you know, notifications and things like that.

on the R two they moved all that to a vertical strip on the left hand side of the screen. And so the R two sorry, the R one is getting that same layout now. So yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:21)
Which is better 'cause it's closer. We don't have to reach

all the way across to hit that thing on the very right hand side.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:27)
Yeah,

so it's gonna look more like this now. so there's still some stuff that's on the far right hand side of the screen, but stuff that you don't use is often the stuff that you might want to hit while you're driving is closer to you now. so that's that's gonna be a benefit. And you know, it's also getting other updates. like they're they're adding Waze as one of the features that you can download in there. So if you wanna use if you prefer to use Waze over

Google Maps, 'cause right now the the R two and and the R one are they're it's using Rivian's navigation, their their routing system, but with Google Maps and now they're gonna have Waze in there as well as an option.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:15)
So you get those ways alerts like, Hey, there's a cop up ahead.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:21)
all right, let's see. so Honda, they're running pretty much close to capacity. They have eight factories in North America right now, eight assembly plants in North America. And they're all you know, they're running pretty close to the capacity. and they were they were planning on building another US factory. but now they're they've apparently you know, they've been saying that, yeah, we're gonna wait, we're not gonna do a new factory until

we see how things play out w on the trade side, the trade war side, with US C A. 'Cause you know, like most automakers, you know, Honda's got a a whole production and supply chain that's set up based on, you know, stuff being built in in Mexico and the US and Canada, and you know, with what's going on now, especially between the US and Canada.

and US C A and and just trade in general, Honda's just gonna sit back and say, Yeah, we're not gonna spend any more money in the US until we see how things settle down.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:30)
Yeah, it's I don't the the auto industry has get you know, every few months just get kicked in the nuts by the administration. Every few months you're like, yeah, we're gonna do I've gotta, you know, tariffs of a billion dollars on, you know, fifty percent on this and but now we're gonna do this and then and that that is a horrible that is a horrible environment for busin especially global businesses that, you know

whether or not they're they're they're building cars here, they're building cars in Mexico, they're building cars in Canada, or they're just sourcing parts from, you know, the these three you know, these three companies for for vehicles built in whatever three company. It's like you're looking you know that no. Like why would you why why? Why would you even move forward if you don't know what's gonna happen 'cause so incredibly volatile. Like like the auto industry likes nice and steady information.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:25)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:25)
This is not like volatility because everything's

like five years out. It's like, well what I'm not gonna start this now because I don't know what's gonna happen in five years. So I s why even bother? We're doing fine. It's Honda, we're doing fine. You know, they're hitting you know, they're they're we're fine. We'll just make the cards we make and we'll wait and see what happens in, you know, two and a half years when, you know, there's another administration in there, maybe they'll get their heads out of their asses.

'Cause it's a it

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:56)
Hopefully. We can only hope.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:58)
hurts so many it thing this is these are jobs. These are US jobs that are now gone. These are you know, these are manufacturing jobs, these are people, you know, these are you know the the infrastructure around these, you know, you know, the meta plant, you know, they have you know the meta plant, the amount of people work there, but also all these suppliers built up around there because there's the meta the Hyundai Meta Plant. It's the same thing, you Honda has their factory in Ohio, you

Things built up around it because there's a factory there.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:26)
Yeah, I there's hun there's

hundreds of supplier plants in central Ohio that are feeding into Marysville and East Liberty. Yeah, and then you know, they're plant in Indiana and you know, then plants in Canada and Mexico.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:39)
Yeah,

and so you you you have and then of course all those people are now living in this town, which means it's good for, you know, local restaurants, local businesses, you know, real estate, like all the things that you want from a thriving community are there because one of these big factories appears. And when the factory is no longer going to appear, that means all these other, you know, companies just well, I'm not gonna you know, Honda's not there, so we're just gonna hold we're also gonna hold off. And so the local businesses that could have benefited from

from you know, this influx of humans, this influx of of of money, this influx of taxes for, you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:13)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:14)
know, better roads, better schools, etcetera, better, you know, better parks, all that goes away because someone had a temper tantrum.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:26)
so for twenty twenty seven, the Ford Maverick is getting both more expensive and less expensive. so Ford is jug doing some juggling with the the product mix on the on the Maverick for this year. so the base Maverick XL is now going to be hybrid only. so if you want if you want, you know, the ba this

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:53)
Like like before.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:55)
yeah.

The simp the simplest maverick, steel wheels and everything, hybrid only. No more two liter EcoBoost in the XL. the good news is the price is apparently staying the same for the Maverick XL hybrid at twenty eight thousand one hundred and forty five dollars. The bad news is the previous cheapest maverick, which was the two liter Eco Boost XL at twenty seven thousand one forty five, one thousand dollars less, is now gone.

So the the cheapest Maverick is now a thousand bucks more expensive. On the other hand, they are also you know changing, you know, which which trim levels get the the the EcoBoost engine. and a bunch of those are getting significantly less expensive than they were before. so the let's see, the Lobo will now have a starting price of

thirty two thousand one hundred and fifty five dollars which is thirty eight hundred bucks less than in twenty twenty six so that's good so you know if you want an EcoBoost Maverick they're they're going to be significantly cheaper but they there's going to be fewer trim levels on which you can get the EcoBoost. so the XL no longer has EcoBoost. let's see the the XLT you can get the Eco Boost

But that now starts at thirty seven thirty thousand seven forty five. and that includes all wheel drive. So that's three and a half grand th thirty five hundred dollars more, thirty-six hundred dollars more than the base eco boost XL was this year. So it's it's kind of a mixed bag. but the you know, I think apparently according to CarsDirect dot com, they're trying to reduce the overlap with the Ranger because they had too many

really expensive mavericks that were, you know, costing as much or more than than the entry level rangers.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:02)
It feels like the top the sort of, you know, special version, the tremor and the logo, they probably just weren't selling very well. I think. I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:10)
Yeah, I think so.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:11)
think I think the a I think the maverage peop maverage. The the maverick people were like, No man, I just I just want a cheap truck. I don't want a cheap special truck. So they're bringing those prices down. Which is cool if you want a cheap special truck.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:23)
Yeah. Yeah, the Maverick tremor is now thirty four hundred and ninety dollars cheaper than before. and so that's that's that's good news. And you know, they they're also increasing the availability of the hybrids. They're you know, they're gonna have more hybrid powertrains available. I think they're now you know, they've been selling roughly about fifty five percent hybrid in the Maverick, and that's going up to about eighty percent this fall.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:52)
Alright. I mean still

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:53)
Or at least eighty percent availability.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:56)
so, you know, it's never gonna go back down to your twenty thousand dollar maverith. Sorry. You never you you know, you still got the forty percent price increase since

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:05)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:06)
the last what year is this? Twenty twenty six, so six years? Four

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:09)
Yeah, tw four four years. 'Cause it came out in twenty two.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:12)
man. The whole time was that was a weird time. But yeah, that's so much extra anyway. Anywho, there you go. Well I th you know when the well then I guess those are two different vehicles.

To be honest, the the fathom is a diff completely different. That's I think when people say, Well, the slate and the maverick, I'm like, those are not the same car. It's the same thing

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:31)
with the tremor. The tremor and the maverick are like, those aren't the same.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:34)
No. There's some Tremor yeah, the Fathom and the and the Maverick, you know, roughly the same size, same form factor, but you know, a lot of differences there. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:43)
Yeah. Anyway. Maverick's

a fun card. A lot of cool little things you can do with it. It's very it's very well it's very well thought out. I really like the Maverick.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:51)
And you'll probably be able

to do similar things with the Fathom as well.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:54)
I would hope so.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:55)
No. so did you did you place a pre order for the the Dreamy? The Dreamy car?

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:03)
The Dreamy.

I did not face a an order for the the Dreamy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:07)
Yeah, this this rocket powered E V thing that

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:10)
the rocket powered Eevee. No, I don't really need rockets to get around.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:16)
You you don't you don't want an electric sports car that goes zero to sixty in zero point nine seconds?

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:22)
That doesn't s no, I think I'm okay. Well

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:25)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:26)
Nah I'm good. I mean the the the pet

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:28)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:29)
food store is only like a half mile away and there's like stoplights on the way so it's not really gonna help me get to the place. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:35)
Well, I mean, since they are solid

rocket boosters, that's gonna mean you know, I mean they're one time use only. So, you know, you don't even have to f you know, fire up the electric motors, just you know, launch you know, trigger the rockets and phew be right there.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:49)
Such a weird, like, hey, I got a crazy idea. And then someone's like, yeah, let's do it. It's this is this is this reminds me of the time I was pitched a a motorcycle helmet, like an a augmented reality motorcycle helmet, where you know, on the you know the on the on the visor you could see information, which is great because it means you don't to look down while you're riding, you know. And mostly you just want to see like, hey, I go left or I go right, and like how fast am I going. the problem is they showed me this this whole, you know, sent a video and

And to in order to control things for the, you know, the controls for the for the for the helmet were on the right hand side. So it kept showing the person riding a motorcycle, lifting their right hand, like touching things or swiping next to it. And I just emailed them back. I'm well, please hire someone who rides motorcycles. And I just said to Because your right hand, that is your accelerator and your brake.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:44)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:45)
And you can move your left hand. Your left hand, you know, it's it's your clutch.

and you can you know, you see, you know, I I will ride sometimes, you know, I'll take my left hand off 'cause my you know just to, you know, for a little bit of comfort and I just put it back on because I'm not shifting gears, you know, in the middle of nowhere, you know, just cruising, you know, at a at a steady pace. But I don't take my even when I put the the cruise control on, you know, if you have a more cycle with cruise control, I don't really take my right hand off for any real length of time. And I definitely don't do that when I'm riding around the city or on the freeway.

In a in a city. It's ridiculous. That's what this is. It's like,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:22)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:23)
hey, maybe talk to people who drive cars.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean Dre Dreamy's a com a Chinese company that was makes, you know, robot vacuums. and they they had an event in San Francisco this spring that they actually invited me to, but it was while I was in Japan and so I didn't go. And you know, they showed this Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:43)
I got invited to this too. I also didn't go because like no.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:48)
Well, you know, I I was gonna be in Japan anyway, so I I declined.

Yeah, but they sent me this stuff under embargo and when I when I opened up the email and looked at this the renderings of this car, it's like, yeah, I'm I'm glad I didn't bu waste my time going to this. Yeah. This

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:03)
That's a long I mean,

for me at least it's like a twenty, thirty minute drive. For you hey, you wanna fly across country?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:09)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:09)
Go to the pacifying arts and get shown some vaporware? No I'm good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:13)
Yeah.

So the the Nebula Next Zero One Jet Edition is is not gonna happen. They they've canceled cancelled their plans.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:21)
no I

can't believe that. How how could

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:25)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:25)
how is this possible?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:26)
That's I know it's shocking. but

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:30)
Ugh

Well, that's a that's a that's a shame. At least they got the vacuums. Which there you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:33)
Yeah. Yeah. You can still buy a dreamy vacuum. But at least well,

for now. because I know FCC, you know, was saying that or is it F C C or I don't know, some some some department within the Trump regime, you know, is saying, you know, they're gonna ban Chinese all Chinese made robots, includ you know, which includes robot vacuums. and I believe that right now they're

are no non Chinese made robot vacuums. 'cause I think even the who's

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:06)
i robot.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:06)
is was was the original one i robot

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:10)
i robot, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:11)
yeah. I think I think those are made in in Chi Roombas, yeah. That's what I was trying to think of. It's Roombas. I think

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:16)
Roombas. yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:18)
those are I think those are made in China now too.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:22)
Again, y d you wouldn't have this problem if we had some proper, you know, data protection laws in this country. Because it's not like again, if if Roomba or let's say LG or whoever makes a makes a a robot vacuum and it has data and you know it maps your house and you know, it knows what time it starts and what time it leaves and you know, it potentially has information about when you're home and when you're not home.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:43)
Knows that there's people walking around the room.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:45)
Yeah, it has that information.

Like i if you're China you can just buy that from a data broker. At

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:51)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:52)
the end of the day, you don't have to sell the robots here. You can just buy it because we don't have any proper privacy laws in this country.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:57)
Well, you know, it's funny coup a couple of years ago I was at you know,

CTA, the Consumer Technology Association, they're the ones who put on CES. Every December they have a a luncheon in Detroit. Gary Shapiro comes out and, you know, they have a bunch of media and analysts and some PR people there for this this luncheon where they give a little preview of, you know, what's gonna be shown in the mobility area for at CES. And a couple of years ago at this luncheon, Gary Shapiro was complaining, you know, about and this is you know

probably twenty twenty four or twenty three, twenty three. you know, when the FTC at the time, you know, was still trying to do some antitrust enforcement. 'cause they don't do that anymore, unless unless it's somebody that has annoyed the man in charge. you know, he was complaining that, you know, the FTC had blocked Amazon from acquiring iRobot, the company that you know, that invented these things and you know, makes the Roomba.

and you know, iRobot was, you know, they were running out of money, they were you know, they were verge of going bankrupt. Amazon wanted to buy them. FTC said, Nope, you can't, you're not allowed to buy them. and yeah the you know, Gary Shapiro was saying, you know, we we need we need to have some more common sense in antitrust enforcement. It's like, dude, the reason why iRobot is

you know, is in danger of going out of business and they're you know they're losing all their market share to all these Chinese companies is because Amazon allowed all of these n companies making knockoff Roombas onto their platform, selling them at half the price of a Roomba. You know, and if Amazon, you know, actually did something about all the knockoff products on their platform, Roomba would be fine. It wouldn't need to be acquired.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:53)
Yeah, no, it's it's yeah. I th you know, the the amount of any smart thing that comes out of Gary Shapiro's mouth is about point zero one percent. I don't yeah. It's it's years of

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:04)
It's yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:05)
years of of Gary Shapiro just being problematic.

Just like, god, this guy again. Every time like he opens his mouth, I'm like, and yeah, CES is a great way for him to sell a book every year. Because every year, like, hey, by the way, Gary Shapiro has a new book, and you're like, gosh. Like no. I don't know if anyone buys them. Someone must buy them.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:34)
I don't think so. I well I think it was that might have been that year or you know, w a year before after he brought a stack of those books to the luncheon and and they gave away to everybody.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:48)
Yeah. Just because

someone gives you something doesn't mean you have to take it. That's my my

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:52)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:52)
big thing. Like so so ethically, as a reporter, like I'm not supposed to take any gifts over like fifty dollars or forty dollars or something goofy like that. and you know, I've you know, I've I've had that f since the beginning of time. Automotive journalism was a different beast, especially in the nineties and two thousands and the eighties.

But I think they've sort of caught up with everyone else because so many people sort of came in from like outside of automotive journalism into automotive journalism and they kept trying to give us stuff and we kept saying no. Like someone tried to give me a record player. Like they kept

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:29)
trying to give us Bluetooth like speakers for like years and I would just leave them because I'm like I can't take this. I can take your notebook, I can take your pen because these are like three dollars. But I can't you know, I can't ethically take these things.

And so yeah, so it's so it's it's always nice and like, hey, here's the thing. I'm like, I can't take that. One year BM at CES BMW give us the press release on a Kindle. And I was like, come on. I'm like, Do you have it like on a just something else? Like, no, it's only on here

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:00)
Do you have a a thumb drive?

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:01)
on here. So I my poor EIC at the time. This is when I worked at In Gadget, poor Dana. So I walked in, I read it, and I handed it to her and I'm you know, it met CES, so I'm very busy and I'm like, hey

BMW gave me this. I'm just gonna give it to you and then walk away. She's like, What? What? No, no. And I'm like, ha ha and I ran off into the darkness that is C E S. so fortunately they don't they don't really do that anymore. They don't, you know. You'll get a book, you know, about cars, which I'm like, okay. We get a lot of water bottles and and a c an occasional battery pack. You're like, okay,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:29)
Well, we mostly get like water bottles and Yeah, things like that. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:36)
cool. I can charge things. And you get, you know, I get S D cards because my video footage is on there and USBs, but

Yeah, whenever they're like, Hey, do you wanna Yeah. I'm so happy that's sort of gone away because it's just like no, please stop. Please. I I just remember the those and ha

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:53)
And hats. Lots of hats.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:55)
yeah, we get a lot of hats, which I give to children. I bring home, I give my wife and she gives them to her friends who have kids.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:02)
Well, I I bring bring the you know, the water bottles home and then you know, anybody that comes over to visit, you know, they they have to take one when they leave the house.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:09)
I did that for a while and now everyone's like, I don't want any more of your water bottles And then Laura was taken him to the hospital. My wife was

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:12)
Yeah. Yeah. Well yeah, now yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:16)
taken to the hospital and everyone at the hospital now has a water bottle. She's like, Stop

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:24)
all right. so Toyota is apparently gonna be bringing back the Selica. so you know, for those of you that are are too young to remember the the Selica was a a coop, a sports coop. you know, it was kind of a competitor to the the Honda Prelude. you know, Toyota built from the mid sport yeah, sportish coupe.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:43)
Sportish coop, a sportish coop, like the prelude. Not really a sports car. Sportish sportish coop.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:48)
Yeah.

Yeah. That they built from the mid seventies until the early two thousands. and now apparently, you know, for for twenty twenty seven the World Rally Championship regulations are changing. And so, you know, there's been some spy photos that popped up of Toyota's new WRC twenty twenty seven car out testing. and so Autocar has done a rendering of what they think

this new Selica is gonna look like based on the images of the the rally car that's out running out there 'cause I think the rally car is gonna be branded as a as a new Selica. And there's been rumors for a long time of of the Selica returning. you know, so this is kind of you know, a step down performance wise, I think, from the G R eighty six. You know, the G R eighty six is gonna be rear wheel drive. I think this is probably gonna continue to be front wheel drive like the last several generations of Selica were.

what do you think about this?

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:50)
I mean I'm you know, I like these little cars. I think, you know, you have a nice car, it's sporty enough. That's that's that's the the thing. I think there's you know, it's it's it's it's it's funner to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. and so that's you know, when you have a car like this you're like, yeah, that's this is cool. But I think this also means that Nissan has to bring back the pulsar. Remember the pulsar?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:13)
absolutely. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:15)
And the pulsar should be an E V.

I mean it's in the name. I love the Pulsar.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:17)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:18)
I almost bought one, but then there was some weirdness with the title. And I was like, But yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:24)
Yeah, bring

back bring back the pulsar. And then, you know, and then Mitsubishi should do a proper eclipse. Yeah. So if Nissan's gonna do the pulsar, you know, there should be a Mitsubishi version of it, you know, that is a true eclipse. Not you know, not a rebranded leaf, you know, or

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:36)
Yeah. Whatever the not that weird thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:40)
whatever that little crossover is.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:44)
So far.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:47)
all right. And then Lotus is you know, apparently planning to launch a new esprit in twenty twenty eight. They've talked about this previously. and Autocar also has has a story on that. You know, they they've said that the you know, their new supercar, you know, their sp new esprit is gonna be powered by a a V eight hybrid powertrain. But apparently they're also planning to offer a V six. so essentially probably using the

the Evora the Evora? Yeah, the Evora powertrain, in or no, the Amira. in in the this new espree, which should actually be probably be pretty cool.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:31)
Yeah. I'm I mean, I still think all lotuses should weigh like three ounces. But as is the the way of lotus, but you know, you gotta do what you gotta do to stay in business.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:45)
let's see. And then Aptera is still still out there, still claiming they're gonna l

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:51)
Plugging along.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:53)
still gonna launch launch their launch their vehicle. yeah, I I mean I interviewed Marquez McCamin, who was head of marketing for Aptera back in like two thousand eight. I think he's now CEO of Karma Automotive. So I guess he's got a thing for do you know.

Doomed car companies.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:16)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:16)
But, you know, Aptera is, you know, been you know, they went bankrupt. They were liquidated in the early twenty tens. And then a few years later somebody revived them and they've been they've been chugging along, you know, trying to inch closer and closer to production of this little teardrop teardrop shaped two seat, three wheeler, electric, you know, and then covered with solar cells on the upper surfaces, with photovoltaic cells.

and you know, they had Tuve Rhineland come out and do some independent testing of the charging the solar charging capability. and it got some pretty good results from that. you know, it was like four point seven kilowatts. you know, when they they they tried it, you know, they did it did the testing over several days, you know, different orientations relative to the sun.

And you know, on the the last test they did, you know, they had it parked towards the sun, you know, for eight hours, with the the the rear hatch open, you know, so that it was also facing the sun 'cause the rear hatch you know, this is this is the problem with putting solar panels on a car. Yeah, is cars, you know, have all the surfaces are pointing in different directions and solar panels really work best when the sun is kind of, you know, perpendicular to the the panel.

And so, you know, the area that has the most solar panels solar cells on it is on the back, not on the front. and so they parked it, you know, fa facing towards the sun, but with the ha the rear hatch open and got like four point seven kilowatts out of it. which they claim, you know, with the efficiency of this vehicle would be enough for forty seven miles of driving. you know, on

Yeah,

'cause th they they're claiming ten miles per kilowatt hour. or sorry, yeah, generated four point seven kilowatt hours. Not four point seven kilowatts, but generated four point seven kilowatt hours over a day of sitting in the sun. which is not a lot. But I mean

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:25)
This is I

you know, in the mid two thousands, there was a lot of like little weird EVs. There's one that was like as wide as one person. There's l and you know, this is that was the golden age of just weird EVs where people could buy and drive around. Or not really. That never they all sort of disappeared. Aptera feels like the one that just keeps on plugging along. It's a it's an auto it's what does it call it? What do they call it? motocar? Auto cycle, that's the word. So technically it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:50)
Autocle. I mean it's technic yeah, it's t it's technically

classed as a motorcycle.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:56)
So it doesn't have to like deal with like crash, you know, it's not it they don't have to do crashworthiness tests or anything like that because it's a motorcycle. So remember that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:07)
and yeah, I I mean sure. And then I don't I just don't know how they're still around. It's like Fair Day with their vehicle. They're just they just keep plugging along and I'm just like, how is this this has to be some sort of like

business shenanigans. Like I I mean I I I could probably, you know, if I spent like ten minutes I could look up and see who where they're getting their funding from and how they're still going and what sort of runway. Runway's the amount of money they have left before they, you know, they're out. it's sure. Okay. Cool. I mean I yeah, go f I mean, yeah, but it's it's a

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:45)
I mean, you know, I mean i even if they

even if they manage to produce it, I mean how many of these things are actually you know, how many people are actually gonna wanna drive this thing?

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:55)
Yeah. Yeah, 'cause it's it's probably gonna be pricey because, you know, they're small business. I mean, you have this you know, it's the issue with Slate. Slate could if Slate were a larger automaker, they could add more things to their vehicle for the same price point. But they're not. They're they're you know, they're brand new. So when you're brand new, you know, you don't get the economies of scale, you don't get the the sweet deals on supplies that everyone else gets who have been around forever. So these folks are gonna have an even harder time. It's kind of a difficult car to get in and out of.

At the end of the day, you could just get that that fiat the top topolino?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:31)
Tapolino, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:32)
Yeah, you could just get the fiat topolino if you just wanted to like cruise around. It's also an EV. You could just buy an EV and some solar panels and be done with it. That's the that's the other thing, is that

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:42)
solar panels are getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. You could just power your EV from solar panels. I have a friend who has

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:48)
You don't need to put the solar

panels on the car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:51)
Yeah, I have a friend who has a house with solar panels. He's an electrical engineer though, so it's you know But every time the the amount of energy that the solar panels are producing exceeds what his house is utilizing, it automatically sends all the extra energy to charge his EV. So it's just like, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:08)
Perfect. That's that's the way to do it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:10)
So he's just getting free, you know, from the sun electricity every yeah. So it's it's you know, you could just do that.

I don't know. It's it's it's it's hard to see like more than two thousand.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:19)
And I mean, you know, and th this would be fine if you live in Southern California

or Arizona, you know, or

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:25)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:25)
you know, Nevada, but you know, if you live, you know, anywhere north, like Michigan, you know, six months out of the year, you're not gonna get much out of it. And you know, I just looked it up. You know, their target price for this thing is forty thousand dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:41)
So d yeah, that's even you could get so many so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:43)
Yeah. For for for f for for

for forty thousand dollars, you can buy an Ionic five with an extended range battery. Yeah. Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:52)
You could buy a Chevy bolt and some solar panels and have the s the same experience,

except you could take your friends with you and it's easier to get in and out of the vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:01)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:06)
Yeah,

poor power too. If they have an audience they're cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:08)
Yeah.

BY D or B BMW has now sold two million EVs since they since they started selling the original I three. and another one and a half million plug in hybrids. Which is yeah, it amounts to almost a quarter of the vehicles they've sold over the last fifteen years.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:32)
I mean they're they're quietly sort of like an E V powerhouse and the the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:37)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:38)
the the engineering they do for these vehicles is really impressive. again that when it especially when it comes to the motors without having, you know, those those what do you call it? rare earth magnets. Like everyone's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:52)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:53)
like, if you build a motor without rare earth magnets, what happens is that you lose efficiency and you lose power and BMW's like, Hold my stein and then they did it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:03)
Yeah, I mean they're they're remarkably efficient, their their their system. it's really, really good. And a friend of mine just bought a used I four fifty and he's loving it. He he he he Yeah. He he he

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:15)
It's such a nice vehicle, that I four. It's so nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:20)
traded in his his golf R, his seven year old golf R on an I four fifty and he is loving that car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:30)
Well, they you know, that gulf hour is probably shaking his poor kidneys to death.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:34)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:35)
And he gets in the high four he's like, wow, this is what luxury's like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:39)
Yeah, exactly. so the you know chart you know, in in China, you know, they have everything better when it comes to E Vs, including charging.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:53)
Well,

it comes to batteries. I'll say batteries. How's that? And charging. I don't know if

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:56)
Yeah. Bat certainly batteries and

and their charging capabilities.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:00)
When I look at the interior of some of these E Vs I'm like, Mm I don't know I'm Chevy Bolt.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:05)
Yeah.

But some of them are really, really nice though. A lot of them are really nice. Yeah, but the the low end ones, yeah, they're definitely

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:09)
Yeah, but it's still but it but then it's like all

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:12)
cheap. I mean you get what you pay for, but so Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:15)
Yeah. But it's it's a lot of screens and I'm just like,

come on guys. Buttons.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:20)
So

we we've we've talked previously about BYD and their flash charging that they're doing now, which is like megawatt charging. and you know one

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:28)
Yeah, it's crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:29)
of the one of the concerns with you know charging so aggressively on a battery is that it's you know it's gonna wear out the battery prematurely and the it's gonna degrade. So BYD took a Yang Wang U seven, so Yang Wang is their like high end brand, and the U seven sedan.

They took it to a test track in Nanning, China, and they ran it steadily at 149 miles an hour for nine consecutive days, day and night. they put on eighteen thousand six hundred miles over that time period. They flash charged it three hundred and fifty times at six hundred and forty kilowatts each charge. and

Afterwards they tested the battery and it still had ninety eight point seven percent of its original capacity remaining.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:27)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:28)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:29)
The it's crazy 'cause the degradation thing, we all thought it was gonna be worse. Even the automaker saw it was gonna be worse than it actually is. You know,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:36)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:36)
'cause we all kinda looked at the the air cooled leaf batteries and we're like, Ooh, this is and everyone like yeah, our phone, you know, my phone is like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:41)
Or you know, or our phones or laptops that you know, you're you're lucky to get two years out of a battery.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:45)
I get a year and it's like, you gotta charge us again twice a day And, you know, the

It's not as bad as people thought people that was concerned, including the automakers, but this is bonkers. Because that's so much power. You you are you are abusing that battery going A that fast 'cause and B that quickly when it comes to to to charging. And it's just like, yeah, nine ninety eight, you know, points which is something

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:12)
And they

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:12)
no one's gonna do.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:13)
yeah, and they yeah, the apparently the av the ambient temperature was an average of ninety seven degrees Fahrenheit while they were doing this testing. So it was hot. Yeah, and

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:21)
Oof. Yeah, that's not

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:25)
cranking on that battery, three eighteen thousand miles, three hundred and fifty chargers, charges, and they still had almost ninety nine percent of the original capacity.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:34)
Wow. Yeah. No, I think it's this is the kind of the cool part, well, now that the prices have gone up in the last few months is like to use E Vs. People are like, but the battery. I'm like, Yeah, the batteries are fine. You can get for a pretty screaming deal, but now those prices are yeah have been creeping up the last few weeks because oil prices, blah blah blah. I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:50)
There. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:52)
think everyone figured out that like, the batteries are fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:55)
Yeah.

Well

you know, I I've I've looked recently just to see, you know, like we have we bought the used Kia E V six and you know now, you know, I paid twenty seven thousand for it last November, for the for the one we have right now, with thirteen and a half thousand miles on it. And same one now is about thirty one, thirty two.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:20)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:21)
So it's gone up by about four to five thousand dollars compared to where it was. But that's still

You know, for you know, I mean it's still a practically new car and

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:26)
Still a really good deal, yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:30)
that's that's still a really good price.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:32)
Yeah. But yeah. That was you had a you had time, we told ya all It's not too late.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:36)
Yeah. It's not it's not too late. I mean you can still get you know still

get really good deals on used EVs.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:42)
And then again, Hyundai you I I don't know, their incentives, you know, but when we bought ours a few months ago, the incentive was bonkers. Just insane incentives on like, hey, here's money on the hood essentially, incentives. Because there's no you know and if you live in California, the you know, there's if you haven't bought an UB before, you can get like thirty five hundred dollars off for a new one and gosh, I don't remember, is it fifteen or seventeen for a used one, so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:07)
Un

unl unless you're buying a Tesla. 'cause 'cause the way the way that California set up this new program is, you know, they had a certain amount of money and they distributed, you know, equal number of vehicles to all the manufacturers that were selling EVs that were eligible. and apparently Tesla ran out of their incentives in like five days. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:32)
yeah, well that makes sense.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:33)
so if if you're looking for an E V,

and you live in California, and you want you wanted you were hoping to get that thirty five hundred bucks, don't bother looking at a Tesla, look at one of the other options.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:45)
And then the the automaker also has to like make a deal with California, so not every automaker is on the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:50)
Yeah, 'cause they're it's

it's half and half. So of the thirty five hundred dollars, half is coming from the automaker, half is coming from the state. That that's why they you know, why they distributed it that way.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:01)
Yeah, let's see. August, Ford, Rivian, Chevy, Kia, September, Toyota, Honda, Subaru. Well, I don't know why Honda's on there anymore. and then November.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:10)
They still have some prologues in stock.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:11)
Yeah. And then November will be Mitsubishi and then Nissan and Volvo are still figuring it out. Which I mean, sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:21)
and then our our friend Tommy Micah I was just watching this earlier this morning. they published a new video. So Tommy and the TFL crew recently purchased a replica Ben's patent motor wagon. So this is you know generally considered to be the first internal combustion automobile. you know, it came out in eighteen eighty-six.

and

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:48)
Well mass pr

like sort of produce mass produce automobile. 'Cause there'll be a lot of people

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:52)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:53)
who yell at you about saying the first automobile because like somebody in a garage somewhere built one, blah blah blah. So whenever

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:00)
you say world's first, people get all which I understand, you know, but first like the first like hey, we're gonna make these and sell these to people automobile.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:08)
Right. and so you know, the back in the what I think sometime in the eighties, yeah, as they were reaching the centennial of that. you know, Mercedes had a bunch of about a hundred replicas built of the original Patton motor wagon 'cause very few of them had survived. and so the T F L team bought one of these recently and they've been doing some videos with it.

Yeah, and this thing only has three quarters of a horsepower. it's you know it's quite entertaining, you know, to see what it takes just to get this thing started. and you know, it's got a top speed of about ten miles an hour. and so Tommy and Case decided to try to take this thing through a McDonald's drive thru. needless to say, if you if you happen to own a a Ben's Patton Motorwagon,

Don't bother trying to take it through a McDonalds drive thru because they will not serve you. apparently they have a rule about you know, only cars, or trucks, you know, in the drive thru know what they consider motorcycles, or you know, motor motorized cycles. 'Cause they you know, Tommy tried to order something at the drive thru at McDonalds from the the motor wagon and the the woman on the the the the speaker said nope

Sorry, you gotta you gotta park it and come inside and order. we can't can't serve you. said d but it's a car. So no, I I'm looking at you on the camera. It's not a car. And he didn't want to argue about it, so yeah. Tommy's one of the sweetest people.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:47)
'Cause he's my Tommy. Tommy's a nice he's not gonna be like Yeah, he's he's nice. But I like the

idea that I've driven one of these and it's it's really fun but also like it's essentially like ten speed tires. Like they're so tiny.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:00)
Yeah. If you're if you're watching

the video, here's Tommy and Case in the Patton motor wagon sitting in the drive thru line at McDonald's.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:07)
There's

it's it's it's yeah, I have a video somewhere I need to put up of of me driving this around in Germany. And it's so f you gotta like turn the jig 'cause it's got one cylinder.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:23)
Yeah.

Well and and you you have to grab the flywheel to to start it. So you gotta pull it like three times to prime it to get get gas in there. And then you'd line it up where you know, at the you know, on the compression stroke, and then you give it a good yank and hope that it doesn't take off, you know, all your fingers at you know, if it catches.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:49)
The dri Right, it is like going l very slow, but it feels like you're going so fast because you realize like it doesn't have it's like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:58)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:59)
the reason they put like they only have one wheel up front is because differential. 'Cause the inside wheel and the outside wheel, they're like, We couldn't they I guess they couldn't figure that out, so now you got a one three wheel

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:08)
They hadn't figured out Ackerman angles yet.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:10)
Yeah. But so it yeah. T T I still feel like they should have given him something. 'Cause he's sitting it's not a

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:17)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:18)
I guess it's 'cause it's three. Like so did they do this

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:20)
It's a three wheeler.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:22)
I wonder if it's the same thing for like the what do you call it? That three wheel thing, motorcycle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:29)
the like the Can spider or

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:32)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. The Can Am and then the other one. I wonder

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:35)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:35)
if those aren't allowed to go through the drive thru in this town. In Colorado. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:39)
No. Yeah, this was

this was somewhere around Boulder.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:44)
Yeah.

I still th it's funny. 'Cause it's a better video because they got and said no.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:49)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:51)
I mean everyone can c can argue like I can't believe McDonald's. I'm like, okay, first of all the McDonald's drive through person looking through the thing. They have you know, they don't want to get in trouble for this. You know, they have liability issues and

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:00)
Yeah. They're just following their policy.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:03)
you know, there's a policy and it all comes down to liability. Like, you know, if you're on a bicycle or a motorcycle or whatever, you know, it's it's a whole different other, you know.

ball of wax and it's not you know, it is not the employee's job to be the the arbitrator like the like what is what is a car and what isn't? You just look at it like, no, that's not a car, man. You're sitting you're riding a you're riding a tricycle. What do you do?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:30)
and then finally, Nevada recently issued permits for eight thousand robotaxis to be deployed in Clark County, which is where Las Vegas is over the next twelve months. and of these, five thousand of the permits went to Tesla, a thousand to Waymo, a thousand to Uber, and I don't know who got the other thousand. and Uber is gonna be operating the

Excuse

me, Motional and Zeux Robo Taxis, in in Las Vegas. so they're you know, they're you're gonna start seeing more of these. Tesla has said that they don't expect to use all five thousand permits. You know, they they're you know, they've said, you know, at most maybe ha half of those, so about twenty five hundred with their cyber cabs. we'll s we'll see how many of those actually end up getting deployed in Las Vegas. but I

Wouldn't be surprised if Waymo uses up all their thousand and and also Uber with Motional and Zooks also uses up their their thousand permits. So by this time next year, there should be several thousand robotaxis roaming around Las Vegas. And I I was looking it up. There are currently about thirty two hundred there's perm there's thirty two hundred permitted taxis, like traditional yellow cabs, although not actually yellow for the most part in Las Vegas, but

you know, traditional taxis. and then there's an estimated between seven and eight thousand ride hail vehicles in Las Vegas. So should see, you know, several thousand robo taxis by this time next year in Vegas.

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:10)
Las Vegas is an odd sp because I think the the the folks who do the the transportation authority, I've been in their sort of main spot, you know their their big control room, their their their their brain. And it's really impressive like what you know what they do because of the amount of vehicles that come into Vegas at any moment and and how those, you know, how the system works up works. It you know, but they also have like weird like rock roads, like they have

you know rocks embedded in the asphalt. And so when it rains in the winter it just becomes a slippery mess. So I don't know what why that's a thing. it probably didn't help that I had a vehicle of summer tires and like, you know, f six hundred horsepower at the time. But it's f like why did did they ask for did they did they say, okay, did Waymo say we just want a thousand? Or did everyone say, I want as many as you can give us and they just gave Tesla five thousand I don't yeah. I wonder how

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:04)
Yeah,

I I suspect that's probably the way it went. You know, is they they requested some number and you know, Tesla always, you know, kind of overestimating what they can actually do. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:15)
No.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:19)
so you know the

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:19)
But you you can't

you can't just pick up a like a taxi like off the side of the road in Las Vegas.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:25)
Yeah, you have to go to to a taxi stand. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:27)
A pl yeah, you have to go to a place. You can't just

like be s like 'cause I was walking down the road once, it was at CES, which is in Vegas, and I was like hailing a taxi and he p and and the guy pulled over and he's like, You can't do that. I'm like, What do you mean? He's like, I'm gonna pick you up, but this is this it's illegal, you can't do this. So

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:44)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:44)
thank you taxi driver for picking me up, but also

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:48)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:50)
Also you can't lane split in Vegas, but can drive you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet. I'm just like, Well that doesn't make any sense at all.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:57)
Very little makes sense in Las Vegas.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:59)
Yeah, V Vegas is a it's a it's an interesting place.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:03)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:51:03)
Yeah. And whenever like ten years ago when everyone was giving us rides and their you know, their autonomous test vehicles, it was always in Las Vegas. Because

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:13)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:51:13)
Nav Nevada's just like, Yeah, yeah, whatever. Knock yourself out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:16)
Well

they they they they like Las Vegas you know because first of all it's flat. and you know the weather's mostly pretty good. I mean it only rains in Las Vegas, you know, two or three days a year. You know, so they y yeah, usually at least one of those is

Roberto Baldwin (1:51:29)
During C E S

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:32)
during CES, when everybody's trying to get around. but you know, only get a couple of days of rain. I mean Las Vegas if you've never been to Las Vegas, Las Vegas has no storm sewers. So

on those couple times a year when it does rain, everything gets like crazy flooded. You have these flash floods and it's just it's you can't get around. It's it's insane. but you know for you know for the most part it's kind of an ideal scenario. Plus because of the traffic, ever nobody's going very fast. and you know most yeah most of the people, especially around the strip area

Yeah, it's mostly tourist people visiting and more often than not they don't have a don't have a car there unless they happen to have like driven from from, you know, a neighboring state from Arizona or from California

Roberto Baldwin (1:52:26)
Out of town.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:28)
or wherever. Yeah, but a you know, a lot of the people that are there, you know, are just taking taxis or Ubers or Lifts and so, you know, it's a good environment for a robo taxi service.

Roberto Baldwin (1:52:39)
Yeah. It's They also have the monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:43)
Yeah, I mean the monorail's actually pretty good, pretty good way to get around.

Roberto Baldwin (1:52:47)
If I have to go from one place to the other and it has the monorail, I always just take the monorail and then I sing the monorail song. It's great.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:55)
All right. Well that's it for this week. Thanks everybody for listening and we will talk to you next time. Bye.

Roberto Baldwin (1:53:02)
Bye.