Sam Abuelsamid (00:01)
This is episode four hundred and sixty four 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 we still don't have our third yet for this week. Hopefully next week we will have a th

Roberto Baldwin (00:15)
Mystery.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:16)
we'll have a a third host joining us. but in the meantime, what'd you drive this week, Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (00:24)
Well for the dudes episode

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (00:28)
I drove the twenty twenty five, even though it is the it is now twenty twenty six, the twenty twenty five BMW five touring. just

Sam Abuelsamid (00:38)
so just a regular family car, station wagon.

Roberto Baldwin (00:40)
it is a station wagon. It is for, you know, taking the family around town, doing grocery shopping, you know, hitting up the the the

the the hardware store, you know, all the usual going on long trips. Yeah, heading to WALL-E

Sam Abuelsamid (00:55)
Go you know, stuff a cup a bale or two of straw in the back of it. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (00:59)
World. and it also is equipped with a a V8 engine and it's a plug-in hybrid and it is an for magnificent

Yeah, so yeah, so I I I I think what's funny is when I became an automotive journalist, someone asked me what kind of car I like and I responded, I'm like, Well, you know, I I like I like, you know, fast wagons and they're like, Well of course you are, you're a car journalist and I didn't realize that was a thing, which meant

Sam Abuelsamid (01:34)
Hay

Roberto Baldwin (01:36)
that I had always been a car journalist.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:39)
You were you were always a car journalist at heart. You were meant to be one.

Roberto Baldwin (01:41)
Yes, I was always a car

I was meant to be an automotive journalist. The the five Torin, if you're not aware, is a station wagon that is very, very, very fast. It has wait for it an ungodly amount of

horsepower 717 horsepower 738 pound feet of torque that is from a the it's a a v a two you know obviously two motors an electric motor and a v eight not a v6 a v eight in in the fi

Sam Abuelsamid (02:17)
With how many turbos?

Roberto Baldwin (02:19)
with twin twin turbos

It's like the Mary Kate and Ashley of Turbos. twin turbos coming together. and then

twinsqual turbochargers. anyway, it is it is very fast, it is very fun, and is very utilitarian. I could you know I did a little bit of shopping with it while I had it because of course I did. I cruised around town. I did, you know, and it it does it is a plug-in hybrid, which for a plug-in hybrid this is bonger's machine but it is a plug-in hybrid it has twenty-five miles of of range

I unfortunately did not have a chance to do my my my 20 my range run because I was too busy having fun. So let's just say yes every time I went out

Yes, it has electric late range. Yes, you can plug it in at home. yes, if you live thirteen miles from from from from work or twelve point five miles from work, you can get there and back maybe without the engine firing up. but you're probably going to make the engine fire up because you are driving an five. that's it. yeah, it it is it is very tight, it is very low, is very planted to the road, even though it is a very

very

chunky vehicle. It is a pretty you know it's got a V8, so that's it's a wagon heavy, a V8 heavy, an extra motor, the the electric motor, heavy, and a how many kilowatts? 14.8 kilowatt hour battery pack. So now it it's so more heavy.

And all that weight means it is yes, it is a a a chunky vehicle, but it is, you know, over seven hundred horsepower, over seven hundred pound feet of torque. It definitely can get out of its way and out of everyone else's way. And that low end hybrid system does really you know, for the low end the hybrid system really does kinda help get you up and and going while you know, internal combustion engines they still gotta like sort of spin up and get ready and turbo, you know, there's turbo lag. And so making this a plug in hybrid actually

really smart to be honest. because you're getting that additional little bit of performance. Plus and again, you you got twenty five miles of just electric range. You could just cruise around town with the motor off, just nice and quiet and just having a nice time. except for the stance of the vehicle, it's very low. It is very it is planted. Other than that, I think the average person is just like, this this guy went out and bought a

BMW station wagon. Isn't he a thoughtful and considerate and very smart man who who who really cares about being able to deliver soccer goods to a field or picking up, you know, hundreds of five dollar chickens from Costco. How very considerate of him and society. But instead, a very fast car.

it is a it is a very fun vehicle to drive. It's a very fun vehicle to have. I wore my my station wagon t-shirt today in honor of the M5 Touring. and yeah, I I I very much enjoyed this vehicle. the only thing that could make it better is if it was a manual transmission.

I mean, what are you gonna do about that? No one's gonna give you a manual transmission. It's got paddle shifters, but it's never gonna be the same as a manual transmission.

Yeah, the manuals are all all gone, which is sad face.

Boop. yeah. So you got fake man. You know. So yeah, so you're not gonna, you know, if you still want a manual, you gotta get you know, one of the $30-ish thousand dollar enthusiast cars out there. you're not gonna get that in anything that has a lot of power. That's it. Everything about this car, really fun. but also the price. not so much fun. Starting price $121,500.

It is not. It is you're paying for a lot of money for you know, i the V eight and the everything about this vehicle. I will say that the the brakes on this thing are fantastic. I love great brakes and the brakes on this car are just like chef's kiss amazing. is it a hundred and twenty one thousand five hundred dollars amazing? I guess, sure. I don't have that kind of money, so it's just at some point you

kind of have to like everything doesn't matter anymore. It's all in a world of fantasy where you can afford a vehicle like this and you're someone like me. it has a it doesn't help that it had a carbon ceramic brakes which were an eight thousand five hundred dollar option. Yeah I know.

Dare to dream. Dare to dream.

Hundred and hundred and tw well, that's you know, before all the things. There's also a twenty six hundred dollar gas guzzler tax on this vehicle. Even though it is a plug-in hybrid and it has twenty five you know, it has fifty-four MPGE, you know, that weird made up thing. but regular gasoline only, thirteen miles per gallon.

Which again makes sense. It's a twin turbo V eight. I mean, where do you what are you gonna do? It's you know, it's it's a high performance twin turbo V eight.

No, it is it is a it is a chunky chunky vehicle. You know what? Let me find out how much it weighs. Doot do do curb weight brakes, brakes, steering.

Maybe they don't have it. Anyway, does 0 to 60 in an estimated 3.5 seconds, which is something that, you know, I can't really, you know where am I gonna test that at my house? Okay, here we go. So the curb weight, preliminary estimate. This is from the press release back in twenty twenty four when they first announced this vehicle, five thousand five hundred and thirty pounds. Which is

No, it's not the w I mean it's not a the Hummer, but it's yeah, it's it's it's it's not a light vehicle. again, a V8, a battery pack, you know, a long wheelbase, a long car. that all said, if you are rich and you're looking for a performance car, why wouldn't you buy this?

It's you know, I I need it's bright red. It is a it is it is one of those cars that the the people who know who know know it. So because so I didn't take so I take a lot of my cars to band practice. and then there are some cars I just don't. I take my own car, because the people that know know what this car is. And I feel like people that know this it's like the type R it's just a way.

Yeah, but it's it's it's it's like the type R situation when I had the civic type R and the wheels got stolen off of it. Eve and and I had taken you're gone again.

That's very weird.

it's like the type R situation where when I had the Civic Type R, I would park it in garages, I wouldn't leave it on the street, and the time I did leave it on the street, someone stole the wheels. So yeah, so it's it's one of those vehicles where the people know no, and some of those people are young dudes who are just like, dude, let's yeah. Who you can't trust young dudes is what I'm trying to tell you.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:32)
No, no, definitely not.

Roberto Baldwin (10:34)
You can't trust the young dude. it has a track mode for which is fun for a station wagon. when you have he has the two buttons on the steering wheel. M1

Sam Abuelsamid (10:43)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (10:43)
is regular sort of like the sport mode. M2, it's like gives you all the warnings and makes you press it again. It's like, hey, we're gonna try to turn off stability control. We're gonna turn this off. We're gonna turn that off. We're gonna turn all these things off. So if you don't know what you're doing, you're gonna wreck your car.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:57)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:59)
yeah. That said, it is a

Yeah, no, it is a very fun car to drive. It is a fun car to to to it is utilitarian. I think it is a an an important car out in the world because it shows the world if this thing is selling well. I'm not really sure. I forgot to look it up. if this thing is selling well, you know, maybe we'll get more. I mean Volvo says they're bringing wagons back. Well fingers crossed that people start realizing that wagons are pretty dope.

That all said with everything I guess it's weird to have you guess the destination charity, but I'll make you do it anyway.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:34)
twelve ninety five.

Roberto Baldwin (11:36)
eleven seventy five which for a car that

Sam Abuelsamid (11:37)
Ooh, not bad.

Roberto Baldwin (11:39)
costs you know almost as much as a you know a house in some parts of the world the total cost of the vehicle I was driving was one hundred forty five thousand seven hundred and seventy five dollars which is

Sam Abuelsamid (11:52)
And that was that was including

the you said eight thousand dollars for the carbon ceramic brakes?

Roberto Baldwin (11:57)
8500 for the carbon ceramic brakes and then it has a 2500 driver's package. driver's package, which sure. I just had some more stuff. I will say that the seats are a little there is a spot in the seat that is a little too hard for my back. It's in a weird spot. Maybe the seat has been worn out from people using it. I don't know. not a fan of the these particular seats just because there's some

weird spot that just stabs me in the back. And I feel like this is gonna be more and more of an issue as I get older. Where things that I would that would that I would be fine with before, I'm like, this is kinda I don't know about this. What if I have to drive, you know, five hundred miles in this. I d I I you know at the end of the day when people are like, I'm concerned about range, I'm concerned about I'm

Fine, whatever, you can be concerned about range. I'm more concerned about how where the seats how I feel after an hour and a half to you know, two hours in a seat. Am I gonna be like getting out the car all twisted like a pretzel or am I gonna get out of the car and be able to like walk up and buy some beef jerky and you know, either refuel or, you know, recharge and then get on my way. that's my big my big issue with with any sort of range.

stuff. So yeah, that was the BMW M5 Taurian. It's fantastic. But also very expensive. Fantastically expensive.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:26)
Hello. All right. So I have moved up to my actual office.

Instead of my virtual office.

Roberto Baldwin (13:34)
Where are you usually?

Sam Abuelsamid (13:36)
Down in the basement where I have a green screen and a picture of my office.

Roberto Baldwin (13:43)
Clearly, this is just my filth. There's my jackets live. There's my tape decks. There's some tapes. There's a Devo hat. There's a Pirelli hat from an F1 race. There's a Walkman. And there's a what do you call it? Pinata. Plus one of the first Daft Punk helmets, which has since collapsed because we used to make them out of paper mache.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:07)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (14:09)
top of it. there's a cat health ha head on top of that. Which if ever you need me to be in a cat wear a cat head during a podcast, I'm I'm I'm good to go. Or a monster

Sam Abuelsamid (14:20)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (14:20)
head or a or one of the fifty other Daft Punk helmets I have lying around in my

Sam Abuelsamid (14:25)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (14:26)
garage. Which are taking a too much space to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:31)
You got too many Daft Punk helmets. all right.

Alright, I'm just getting the Monroni open for the car that I had. All right. Let's continue. I'm back.

Roberto Baldwin (14:48)
Welcome back.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:49)
All right. So anything else on the five touring?

Roberto Baldwin (14:54)
no, it's fun. It's a wagon. It's too much money for for me. But if you're rich and you you want kind of a sleeper, go for it.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:06)
Right. well, I also had a car, a vehicle that was too much money and is too fast to make any kind of sense whatsoever. I had the Rivian R one T quad Max. so you know, this this is the the the original Rivian, the R one T, but it's the latest version of it. you know

So this is the second generation R1T that they refreshed a couple of years ago. and this time, you know, it it you can get it with two motors, three motors, or four motors. So I had one that has four motors, which means that it has 1025 horsepower, which is just it's bonkers.

Roberto Baldwin (16:01)
Like why? It's a truck. It's a truck. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:03)
Exactly. My sentiments exact. Yeah. It is. It

it's yeah, a slightly larger than mid-size pickup truck. and the R one T quad starts at one hundred and fifteen thousand nine hundred and ninety dollars.

And had two this one had two options on it, the storm blue paint for three thousand dollars, and the slate sky and walnut wood interior, which is actually really quite lovely. yeah, so you get it's you know kind of gray leather covering the seats, and there's this walnut veneer trim inside, you know, unlike unlike Tesla's, you know, like they they used to refer to the

Tesla Model S and the Model X is luxury cars. But that was based purely on their price, you know, relative to actual luxury cars like Mercedes-Benz or BMW. They were never actually very luxurious. The the R1s are actually surprisingly premium feeling on the inside. you know, and it's overall it's quite an quite a nice interior, at least to look at, and to and to feel.

But I have some issues with it. First, you know, there's the obvious one, you know, which I'm not gonna beat that dead horse any to death today, which is, you know, the software defined vents. Dumb idea. Stop doing it, please. End of story. But I because I know they're not going to stop. You know, they've they've made it pretty clear they have no intention of stopping.

Roberto Baldwin (17:44)
I mean, everyone says they're not gonna do something, but if it's hurting sales, I mean right now it's

Sam Abuelsamid (17:49)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:49)
not, to be honest. I mean there's still very much a the Patagonia of of EVs, the Patagonia of cars and the people who are gonna buy the are gonna buy it and they're gonna b just ignore the fact that they have to do stuff in there. But at some point when you hit like a mass adoption when regular people are like, What's going on? That's when they're like, You know what, let's just put some little

Sam Abuelsamid (18:13)
My my other main complaint about the interior of the R one is the seats. The seats are actually not very comfortable. They're they're just they're not kind of lumpy feeling. And I just could not get a comfortable position in them at all. and yeah, the other day went out to dinner with my wife and she was sitting in there and said, She really didn't didn't really didn't like the seats either. so yeah.

Not not good seats. fortunately the the R two has completely different seats. you know, they were these seats were designed by a supplier. the R two has seats that were designed and built in house by Rivian. you know, in the short time I had with the R two, they they seemed better, but we'll find out, you know, hopefully soon when I get one for for a week long review. But the seats the seats in the R one just just not very good.

but the main reason I asked to get into this R1 was because I've been hoping to try out Rivian's Universal Hands-Free Driving, which is the latest edition of their their ADAS system. they announced this back in December when they had their AI and autonomy day out in Palo Alto. And when you know what they're doing, you know, they they've

When they had when they first launched the R one, they had hands on lane centering assist, worked on highways, sorta, kinda. but in starting what they announced in December and what they started rolling out earlier this year was what they're calling universal hands free, which is basically you it will allow hands free capability on any road in North America.

that has lane markings. And as it turns out, even some roads that don't have lane markings. so it's not a full you know the the the industry has come to call some of these systems you know you got level two, which is what SAE defines, which just means that it controls steering and speed together as part of one system. And level two is kind of a broad spectrum of stuff. So it goes everything from, you know,

hands-on, eyes on systems like Nissan Pro Pilot Assist, the version one, up to what much of the industry is calling level two plus plus, which is hands-on hands off, eyes

Roberto Baldwin (20:56)
Hands off.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:57)
on. So hand so, you know, full lane hands off lane centering, but you still have to watch the road. But it recognizes traffic signals and basically gives you point to point

You can put in a destination navigation and the vehicle will drive under your supervision to that destination. And that's what Tesla's FSD is more or less. and the the new system on the Mercedes CLA that's powered by NVIDIA. That's those are level two plus plus systems. This is and then level two plus is the hands off eyes on systems that are limited to certain rows but it doesn't recognize

traffic signals, so it won't stop for stop signs or red lights, things like that. Won't make turns. that's what GM Supercruise, Ford's Blue Cruise. and then this is kind of a step beyond that where it still doesn't recognize the traffic signals, but it works on three and a half million miles of roads in North America. So basically any road in North America, you can you can use it.

Whether that's a good or a bad thing, not entirely convinced it's a good thing.

Roberto Baldwin (22:09)
You can

use it. Doesn't mean it's good.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:12)
Yeah.

I mean, for for for what it is purported to be, it actually works pretty well. you know, it works like works better works a lot better than the system that Stellantis has on the Ram pickups and on the Grand Cherokee, which still doesn't do a great job of actually keeping the vehicle centered in the lane. You know, when you're going around corners, it you know, it kind of drifts towards the outside of the corner. Not ideal. This actually does a pretty good job of control in the lane.

and for things like you know, when you're going down a highway, you know, you come up to a place where, okay, this lane is ending, need to move over. It will in fact move over into the next lane, although it doesn't do it until like you get to the end of the lane. So if you're in some traffic, you better move over on your own because what it's doing is it's following the lane marker, you know, that for the on the outside of the lane that is disappearing.

And when that lane disappears, it'll it'll keep the distance to that away from that lane marking and just merge over into the adjacent lane. so I was trying I was actually out trying this out earlier this morning, a section of road out out here on I-94. fortunately there was not traffic where it was doing that. but it it you know it will you know it will merge over, which other some other most other systems still won't do. you know, it'll

Most other systems will tell you put your hands back on the wheel and merge over, you know, if they if they do anything at all. So there's that. it has lane change on demand. So if you tap the turn signal, it will check. and and Rivian is using I think eleven eleven or twelve cameras on here, high resolution cameras. Most of them are eight megapixel cameras. They've got five radars.

including an imaging radar on the front and then four corner radars. So it's got a lot more sensing than a Tesla does, but it's still you know, you know, it's not it's not something, you know, when they get to going the the next generation system that's coming on the R two end of this year, early next year, is adding LIDAR to it. And that's the system that they hope to eventually grow to being level three and or level four capable. so

This system, you know, it will do lane change on demand when you put on the turn signal. and it it's actually fairly conservative. so it does a pretty good job of making sure that there's a real gap there, you know, and it looks you know, if there's a car coming up in the adjacent lane at a fairly decent closing rate, it will wait before it tries to step over. so it was pr it was good at that stuff. you know, I think they they took a nice a fairly safe

conservative approach to that. so that's that's good. overall, you know, the system performs reasonably well. Going through my neighborhood here, I live in a residential neighborhood where there are no lane markings, although like going down the middle of the road, the side street, you can there is, you know, where there's a seam in the asphalt that's been sealed. It will recognize that seam as a lane marking and it will stay to one side.

And it'll it'll follow that. So even you know, at twenty, twenty five miles an hour through the neighborhood, it will go hands free. I do not recommend doing that. you know, because you know, there's people around. You should not be doing that. You know, should probably not be using this really anywhere in cities, but that's you know, that's a whole other story.

Roberto Baldwin (25:57)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:00)
but you know, for for

For most of what it's designed to do, you know, I think it does a a pretty good job. It didn't try to do anything dumb. you know, it was good at recognizing cut-ins, you know. So if somebody was merging into your lane, you know, it would back off a little bit. it was good at doing speed adjustments on tighter corners, to you know, to be able to get around the corner safely. So there's a couple of spots around here where

Until relatively recently, Blue Cruise would always just give up and say, put your hands back on the wheel. you know, it handled those those situations just fine. yeah, they the latest version of Rivian's software, they are actually they do their own software stack, but they're using Google Maps. but they they haven't you know, they're not doing anything like like what GM does now with Supercruise.

where you know if you're using the navigation, you know, you know, supercruise will, you know, if they're if you have an exit coming up, supercruise will automatically move you over into the appropriate lane for your exit as you're approaching it. So as you're, you know, a mile, three quarters of a mile from your exit, it'll try and make sure you're in the correct lane. so you don't have to jump over three lanes. this doesn't attempt to do that at all. So it doesn't attempt to do any kind of automatic lane changing.

on its own without you initiating it. that's something that Rivian has said should be coming later this year, towards the end of the year, that and you know, the the full level two plus plus where it recognizes the traffic signals. What it does do, even though it doesn't respond to the traffic signals, it does pop up on the instrument cluster and saying, Hey, there's a traffic signal, pay attention. you know, so just to give you a little alert, you know, that there's, you know,

you may need to hit the brakes. you know, so there, you know, it's for what it is, it's it's a pretty good system. you know, so I think that I think Rivian's done a pretty decent job with it, but I'm I'm still dubious about these systems in general.

Roberto Baldwin (28:16)
It's

it yeah, it's it's almost like a hey look a we can do sort sort of situation with these systems is where we're at with these. some

Sam Abuelsamid (28:23)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (28:23)
are obviously better than others. It's very much like, hey, look this thing we can do. But at the end of the day, you're still in charge. So if I'm still in charge,

Sam Abuelsamid (28:31)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (28:31)
like I should just keep my hands on the wheel. Because if

Sam Abuelsamid (28:34)
Ab absolutely. Absolutely.

Roberto Baldwin (28:36)
like the the c if the robot gets confused, like it's not the robot's fault.

a according to

Sam Abuelsamid (28:41)
It's your fault.

Roberto Baldwin (28:42)
it's my fault. So if the robot gets confused and runs into another car, runs into a median, you know, runs into an emergency vehicle, I can say, well the robot got confused and that doesn't mean anything 'cause it's it's ultimately ultimately it is my responsibility of what the vehicle is doing. And if it's my responsibility, yeah, I'm just gonna probably keep my hands on the wheel.

I mean it's it's a hey this is great, the cars are smarter, they can do these things, but they're not smart enough. It's like, you know, it it's it's it's like hey your toddler could like you know, climb something that seems dangerous, but you're standing right behind the toddler, like with your hands hovering over them the whole time. Like, look what it's doing 'cause if the toddler falls, you are the person who is watching the toddler.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:29)
Yeah.

let's see what else. so as I said, the the one that I had was a quad max, so it's got the big battery, it's about a hundred and thirty-five, hundred and forty kilowatt hour battery pack. the quad is available with three different wheel and tire combinations. there's two twenty-two inch wheel combinations, one with high performance tires, and one

with ultra high performance tires and then there is a 20 inch wheel with all terrain tires. So basically you can get a 22 inch with summer performance tires, a 22 22 inch with more all season type tires, and then 20 inch with all terrains. The one that I had was had the all-terrains, which means that it has the lowest range of the three

of the three quad variants. So the all on the all season tires, it's rated at 374 miles of range on a charge. The high performance tires version is rated at three hundred and thirty eight miles and the all terrains are rated at three hundred and twenty five miles of range.

In the week of driving this thing, I used about 50% when I got to 50% of the battery capacity, I had gone 151 miles. So roughly 300-ish miles is what you can expect with with the quad with the all terrain tires. I did not do any off-road stuff with this. I did not try the tank turn feature. I couldn't find a a suitable spot to do that.

and you know again it's one of those goofy gimmicks. The other thing is with the with the all depending on which set of tires you have on there, the the traction control will also limit the acceleration capability. So if you get the high performance summer tires, it will and you put it in sport mode, it will do roughly two and a half seconds, zero to sixty. when

I went out and tried this. What yeah, plugged in and took my race box out there. I got about three point seven seconds, zero to sixty. Which is just again, for a pickup truck, it's just it's ridiculous. Nobody needs to go that fast in a truck. on the plus side, compared to like this Chevy Silverado EV, and the Hummer, which, you know, I don't know if you've tried doing, you know.

Full on acceleration runs with either of those. But they have some nasty vehicle dynamics. They tend to wander all over the place. You get a lot of torque steer from it. And it's it it's kind of wandering around the road as it's going down the road when you do full on acceleration. The Rivian, straight, smooth and straight. No problem at all. So much

Roberto Baldwin (32:47)
That's good.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:48)
better, much better driving dynamics when you're accelerating.

and then

Roberto Baldwin (32:55)
That's better, but also

it's a big vehicle, doesn't he be going that fast? There's a lot of mass. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:59)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

yes. so my recommendation is if you want to buy an R one T, you know, and I you know f nothing wrong with that. you know, it's a good good vehicle overall. Just buy the base dual motor. It's like six hundred horsepower anyway. It's more than enough. You don't need a quad. just get the dual motor.

And you'll get more range. you know, it's still a very, very quick vehicle, even with even with that. so there's there's no reason to buy this one. Yeah. So the the dual motor, the R1T dual is rated at zero to sixteen three point four seconds. You know, which is as fast as the quad with all terrain tires.

Roberto Baldwin (33:50)
Still

Yeah, which is still I mean where are you gonna do that? And why, to be honest. You're gonna impress you so here's here's how these things have always worked. You get the car, you go find somewhere in the middle of nowhere, hopefully, and you do the little like takeoff and you're like, my gosh. Then you get a couple friends in there, you do it again. my gosh. And then and then

Sam Abuelsamid (34:10)
Yeah. Demo it a few times and then you never do it again.

Roberto Baldwin (34:12)
you never do it again.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:14)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (34:14)
And now you just you you you paid all this money for all for nothing. For for for three for it you've paid like thousands upon thousands of dollars to go to Disneyland once. Save the money, go to Disneyland a couple times.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:24)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean

you're you're paying an extra thirty five thousand dollars to demo that of a handful of times. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (34:34)
Which is an

a an entirely other vehicle. You can just buy an like a a bolt, an Ionic five, a slate, a maverick, there's a lot of cars you can buy for thirty five thousand dollars.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:49)
so the the R one T qua you know, what was the other thing about this?

Yeah, I mean overall, you know, it's not a bad truck. the the other issue I had with it is just the you know, the R ones have an airspring suspension system. the R twos switch to a steel coil suspension system. I have never been terribly impressed with the ride quality on the R ones. after they did the refresh, it got slightly better, but it's still not very comfortable.

You know, it's not it doesn't have much compliance. And for what is purportedly, you know, supposed to be an off road capable vehicle, you know, when you're going off road, you actually want the wheels to move around, you know, to go over the rocks and stuff.

Roberto Baldwin (35:40)
Yeah. Articulate.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:42)
Yes. and it yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (35:44)
I'm doing articulate hands right now for those in the audio podcast.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:49)
So you know, the with the airspring suspension.

Yeah, it can lift it up to 15 inches of ground clearance, but it doesn't, you know, when you do that, you pretty much lose all your articulation. And even when you're at you know lower ride height, you know, at nine or 10 inches, it still is pretty stiff riding compared to a lot of other trucks. So this the the ride quality, not great in this thing. but you know, it's got lots of you know, lots of cool storage. you got the gear tunnel.

which is a a neat feature. it will fit a a rolled up stand-up inflatable paddle board. so that will fit in the gear tunnel. they also offer the newer version of the camp kitchen now. I forget exactly what they call it now. you know they had when they first launched it, they had this camp kitchen that basically took up the entire gear tunnel and slid out and you had a couple of electric induction burners

and a sink and storage for all your utensils and pots and pans. Now they have a smaller one. They they drop that. That was five thousand dollars. They dropped that. They have a smaller one that just has the two induction burners and a a prep surface for your for your food and and some drawers for your utensils and stuff. that's that

Roberto Baldwin (37:07)
And it's less

Sam Abuelsamid (37:08)
that's a mere fourteen hundred dollars now.

Roberto Baldwin (37:10)
That's yeah, that's a lot less. Five that five thousand dollar camping kitchen. They showed it to us like at some event. I was like, cool. That's a lot of money when you could just get a I don't know, one of a thousand tiny little like

Sam Abuelsamid (37:23)
You can you can you can buy

a a nice, you know, induction hot plate from Amazon for a hundred bucks. Yeah. So you get a couple of those and

Roberto Baldwin (37:32)
Yeah. Which is like the same thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:34)
yeah, and and get a box and and some you know something that you know you can use as a a prep surface for your food, you know, for probably, you know, two hundred bucks.

And there there is a built-in air compressor in the back. So there's a there's a nipple you can and it comes there's got hose there so you can air down your tires or air them up, you know, when you're going off-road or you know, inflate your stuff. that's all included in there. There is an actual spare tire in the back, so there's there's like a a trunk area under the bed, and there's a a real spare tire in there, which is very unusual in an EV. and got a good size frunk in the front.

the only complaint I have about the frunk is because the the whole front surface of the truck is fixed in place. It's not like the the F-150 or the Silver Auto where the the grill, the traditional grill area would go up, was attached to the hood and would go up and you'd so you'd have a reasonable liftover hood, le liftover height. you know, you've got to lift stuff over the the front edge of the truck to get it into the frunk. You know, when it's down in its lowest ride height, it's not an unreasonable height.

But it's you know still something to consider.

Roberto Baldwin (38:49)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:50)
so, you know, overall if you w if you w if you want an R R one T, you know, the one that I had came to a grand total of a hundred and twenty three thousand eight hundred and eighty five dollars.

You want to guess on the destination?

Roberto Baldwin (39:06)
twenty five hundred?

Sam Abuelsamid (39:07)
1895.

Roberto Baldwin (39:08)
Eighteen ninety that's not too bad.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:10)
Yeah, it's reasonable compared to other trucks. but I would suggest, like I say, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (39:13)
Yeah, that's not too bad. Which is a lot. It's still a lot, but still not too bad.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:17)
Yeah, if you you know, if you want an R one T, just get the dual. you can get, depending

Roberto Baldwin (39:25)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:25)
on which version you get, between five hundred and thirty three and six hundred and sixty five horsepower, more than enough. More than enough. And it's only it starts at eighty thousand dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (39:36)
Yeah, it's less. So much less.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:38)
Yeah, it's not cheap,

but it's a lot a lot more affordable and it's very nearly as fast. So no. Three three and a half seconds,

Roberto Baldwin (39:45)
Yeah. You're not gonna notice the you probably notice but yeah, it's fine. It's fine, really.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:51)
zero to sixty. I mean, this one that you know the quad because it was on the all terrain tires, it was only three point seven seconds zero to sixty. And so, you know, depending on which tires you get, it's gonna the dual's gonna be, you know, just as quick, if not slightly quicker.

Yeah, you're you're not gonna notice the difference. Plus, you're you're if you're not using, you know, a thousand horsepower all the time, you're not gonna be shredding your tires so much. And, you know, replacing

Roberto Baldwin (40:18)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:19)
tires gets very expensive.

Roberto Baldwin (40:21)
Which is again, what w it's it's just all these like super insane, especially with on the EVs, because a lot of them are on like very, very heavy machines, which is without you know, and and the stopping power. At some point you're dealing with physics and these these things are h they're off the ground and yeah, they have a lower center of gravity 'cause of the battery, but they're still they're just it's just a lot of weight. A lot of mass flying down the road.

in what essentially should be mass or speed for a vehicle that's much lower to the ground, has better suspension, has better handling, has a better chassis, has better brakes, like those ceramic brakes on the five, those are amazing. yeah, you're not getting ceramic brakes on this

Sam Abuelsamid (41:05)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (41:05)
weirdly faster than an five station packet truck.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:12)
all right. Let's carry on here. so you went to New York on Monday, right?

Roberto Baldwin (41:19)
I did. I went and I saw the the the biggest Audi. The the big boy the the the new 2027 Audi Q9. This is their three row

SUV they finally jumped into that market. It's a it's probably something they should have gotten into years ago to be honest. this those giant three row SUVs, people tend to like They can't they keep buying them. They they like they they want all that space, whether they're picking people up from the airport or you have a family and you have, you know, a lot of children or a lot of friends or whatever. so yeah, so this is the largest this is the largest.

just Audi and so I went and looked at it and it is yeah it is very big it is very it's available they have the the Q9 which is just the old regular one and then they have the SQ9 so we have another vehicle we're like so you want you want a big three-row vehicle how about we make it fast and sporty which is

I mean that's kind of Audi's jam, to be honest, is to make things sporty. the Q9 has a two point nine liter twin turbo B6. it has what is you with 429 horsepower, 440 pound feet of torque. The SQ9 will have a four-liter V eight with five hundred ninety-one horsepower, five hundred and ninety pound feet of torque. they're both cruising on the same eight-speed transmission. the Q9 will do four point nine seconds, zero to sixty.

SQ9 3.8. Sure. I mean, I I don't know who's who wants to be in that vehicle when it's going that quickly. But yeah, that's the and so yeah, so we the the

Sam Abuelsamid (43:11)
You don't wanna give your kids in the third row a thrill ride?

Roberto Baldwin (43:15)
Yeah, I I did get into the third row of this vehicle. the the project manager's like, hey, you want to get into the third row? I'm like, fine. And I got in and across town, I it, you know, my knees are just

You know, if the person in front of me moves their seat up, the second row moves their seat up, then yes you you you can as a tall person sit back there for short jounts. It's two seats back there. you can go around town, you can, you know, lay hey, we're we're all going to dinner. Let's just take one car. That's the situation I always see those these that third row when it comes to adults. Hey, we're all going somewhere. Why don't we just take one vehicle so we only have to park one vehicle and we all stay together and we don't lose somebody because the

They

don't know how map and navigations work. that's it. There's a lot of things about this that it's it's you know, it has the mag safe charging, which was really cool. I stuck my phone on it, it stuck to it, which you know I didn't get to drive it, no one got to drive the car, they just unveiled it. but it looked it felt as though it there's just enough adhesion through the power of magnets, that I think if you're unless you're just driving like an absolute maniac, your your your phone's not gonna go anywhere. So very big.

Big fan of that. there's like a little rail system in the cargo area on the sides where you can move these rails forward and backwards, and these little hooks flip out so you can stick your bags on there, so your bags aren't like you know, you put your bag then, you go around a corner, and then all your cat food or your dog food goes spilling everywhere, which is what happens all the time.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:45)
that's that's

nice. That that's handy to have.

Roberto Baldwin (44:48)
All those little cans that I have to buy every like week and a half. It's as soon as I go around any

Sam Abuelsamid (44:53)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (44:54)
corner, everywhere in the back of the vehicle. but I will say one of the the the sadder things that I found out is that it has the controls for the vents are in the screen.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:10)
Ugh Owdy, come on.

Roberto Baldwin (45:12)
It was just like

everything about it is like, all right, this you know, I'm you know, I'm digging this for what it is. I think part of part of this job is there are vehicles that I wouldn't personally d buy. There's a lot of vehicles I wouldn't personally buy, but I have to look at the market and the people who would buy this type of vehicle. And I think Addy's you know, I think they've hit a lot of really smart spots with this. There's a lot of very clever bits, that are

That I think people will enjoy. It has the automatic opening and closing doors. It is the first Audi that will have hands-free. It'll have a hands-free system, like BMW, Mercedes, Rivian, on and on and on. This sort of hands-three level two plus system. So, yes, it will have that.

And yeah, it's got the you know, it's got the it's got a passenger screen, which again I asked them, what's the passenger screen? Americans don't want it. They're like, Yeah, it's mostly for Asia, which that's whatever every automaker's telling me the same thing when it comes to the passenger screen. But there is a passenger screen, you know, if you get tired of looking at your phone where all your friends live, you can look at the passenger screen. So cool, I guess.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:18)
Yeah, you

know, if you're doing a long road trip and you don't wanna sit there holding your phone in front of you and you wanna watch a watch a movie or something, I guess you know, you could do that.

Roberto Baldwin (46:28)
Yeah, you don't want to hold your phone or your iPad or whatever. You can sit back, watch a movie.

Stick your yeah, stick your iPods on. that's and it also has the digital matrix LED lights. This is a first Audi that'll actually have the lights after NITSA finally and the DOT finally said, sure, bring fancy lights to America. And so these are the lights that will they will essentially they're called light tunnel or it'll mask out oncoming so you can drive around with your high beams on without blinding anyone because the system with its 26,000 lights, I should have looked at my notes,

lot of little micro LEDs it will it will mask out individual vehicles so the sensor will see a vehicle either in front of you you're you're behind someone or oncoming vehicles and it will mask them out so those people will still see you in the light but they won't get blasted with your high beams so oncoming traffic not getting blinded the person in front of you not being blinded but you get to see the whole world with your lights

Sam Abuelsamid (47:30)
I know, I

I I didn't I haven't I didn't get a chance to drive this R one at night and 'cause it's you know it's still light out pretty late. but the the last R one S I drove actually had that. It was the R one's the first vehicle to have those in the US or to at least to enable those. Audi's actually had these on their cars before, but they just haven't been enabled in software.

Roberto Baldwin (47:53)
2011?

They they so they so they had the hardware on cars, and for years you're like, as soon as NHTSA and the DOT say it's cool, we can just turn it on. Well, it turns out there's there's enough differences between the EU regulation and US regulation that they couldn't just turn it on, unfortunately. And part of that is that the light tunnels, the sort of the masking, has to be wider in the United States than it can be in Europe. So they

Sam Abuelsamid (48:17)
So you gotta leave more

of a gap around the other car?

Roberto Baldwin (48:19)
So you have to

have more of a gap. So they they did a they had like a plastic pig or something. They had a plastic thing that they stuck next to the car when they were sort of looking at it. And with the European regul regulations, they could see, you know, the light would hit that that object that's next to the car without hitting the car. With the US regulations, it won't hit that object that's next to the to the vehicle. It's you know, it's on one hand I'm like, okay, that's sure, why not? I mean if if it's one if it's a little extra

less glare, that's fine because for the most part you're still going to be able to see everything. Which is sort of the benefit of these lights. I'm I'm very happy that I think it's twenty twenty two that the they finally, you know

figured out that people these are better lights than what we

Sam Abuelsamid (49:09)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (49:10)
what we have now. I think a lot of us have driven around in the United States at night and been blinded by, let's say, large pickup trucks 'cause we have a lower V you know, our vehicle is lower and so the lights are just sp shining right in your eyes and you're just like, great, this is this is wonderful. And they're not they don't have their high beams on. They just that's just their lights. So this is yeah, this is a very to me that's sort of

The most exciting part about this vehicle, and that you know, this will you know go through the entire Audi lineup as things get refreshed, we they those vehicles will start getting these lights, or at least the option for these lights. I'm very excited to see them on you know the Audis, but also you know other vehicles because there are too many people again with you know a a F-150, a Silverado, Ram 50, these, you know, if you drive anything that's not a giant SUV, you're always just like, great, cool, cool.

Cool, cool, cool. Now I'm just blind for fifteen miles while someone's behind me.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:11)
The the the

down the downside of these lights, you know, I mean they're they're great for lighting the road, but of course the downside is they're if anything happens, they're insanely expensive to replace.

Roberto Baldwin (50:25)
Yeah, that makes sense. So that's there you so you got that going for you. So don't run into anything with your lights. I mean you have more light, you can see more, so you should not be running into things. And again, hands free, keep your eye keep I don't keep your eye on the road. You're responsible because if you hit something you break those lights, you're gonna have a pretty pretty expensive deal. I mean you have insurance probably, but still.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:49)
I saw that the the lights can also project the turn signals down onto the road surface.

Roberto Baldwin (50:55)
Yes! That is an also cool thing that they showed up. I I actually think this is kinda cool because it'll project it onto the onto the surface, both in the front and the back, so from the front of the vehicle and the rear of the vehicle, it projects like the light the the flashers onto the road surface. So the sort of scenario they showed is let's say you're behind a big box truck.

Or you're coming up to a big box truck, you can't see the vehicle in front of the big box truck. Well, that vehicle puts their blinkers on, you wouldn't be able to know what the intention of that driver was. Because you can't see them because they're in front of a big box truck that maybe they're maybe that big box truck is, you know, riding the left.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:31)
So is it projected out to the sides?

Roberto Baldwin (51:34)
It projects it out to the sides.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:36)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (51:36)
So projected

so you're driving up and all of a sudden you see on the road, someone's moving over into this lane. Now, whether or not, you know, they have the right-of-way, that's a whole other issue. But you know the intention of the driver that is in front of this this vehicle. I think it's it's actually helpful for for I think it it can be helpful like you know, blinkers, we all know look for blinkers, but any additional like way of sharing the intention of what the driver's doing, especially when you're a pedestrian or a bicyclist, is cool in my book. I don't think it's a

I don't think it's it's going to create like confusion because very much little chevrons that are just pointing in the direction the car is going to go. of course, you know, you know, the unintended consequences of new technology. We'll see how how this works out in the real world. But for now, I think they're I think it you know, they showed this to me, gosh, years ago at the LA Auto Show. I had to be like at two in the morning or something ridiculous.

Or something. I had to get up at two and I had to like to do something at four AM in order for them to show me how this system worked. and yeah, for the you know, I think it's it's it's it's clever, but I think it's it's also a a an additional little bit of of information and potentially safety information that, you know, when you're driving you see they're like, this person's moving over. and you know, if you're if you

end up sort of with tunnel vision, this is something that might break you out of that. Especially in California where you know we're allowing the lane split. knowing the intention of the cars in front of you is is is very important.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:08)
yeah, I can see that that would be very beneficial.

Roberto Baldwin (53:10)
Yeah. Yeah. Knowing the intention that you're like, there's a car, you know, there's a vehicle that's gonna get into this lane. Let me slow down and let them get, you know, move over.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:17)
Now now we

just have to teach Americans how to actually use a turn signal.

Roberto Baldwin (53:22)
Yeah, so that's the the yeah, the unintended consequences that people don't use turn signals in a in this country. Use your c turn signal. State your intention and then do the thing you're you're you're supposed to do. That's the other like when I if I'm riding a water cycle, like when people are doing things that I'm not that they're not supposed to do because it's it's ter yeah, it's always terrifying because you don't then you don't know what that person is doing. And part of riding a motorcycle is being very defensive and s you end up learning very like this the small little things that people do while they're driving.

So you know what kind of driver they are. It's almost like a sixth sense. You can talk to other motorcyclists who who ride a lot, especially in urban areas, or they sort of pick up on cues of how a person is driving like, this person is gonna pull out in front of me, and then they do. And it's because you're just sort of like learning how people drive and their their little things that they do. and when you do something weird because you're there's a motorcycle, it'd be don't do that.

Do

Sam Abuelsamid (54:17)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (54:17)
what's expected of you at all times.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:23)
cool. all right. Anything else on the Q nine?

Roberto Baldwin (54:30)
it starts at like ninety thousand dollars and then like a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. So it's not cheap. None of the it's it

Sam Abuelsamid (54:36)
I mean that's it's not cheap, but you know, I mean it when you

compare it against, you know, like a BMW X seven or a Mercedes GLS, you know, it's in the same ballpark.

Roberto Baldwin (54:46)
Yeah, it's for for what it is, it's that's the price you s you should expect to pay.

Yeah, no, I I think the the sort of clever bits on it, besides the the vents, I really like 'cause I know they're going to sort of permeate the the rest of the lineup at some point. So those things I I'm very excited about. Again, th I think the most exciting part of this vehicle was is the lights. I mean I'm we you know, for SAE, we know writing it for a magazine, so it's not live yet, but you know, my my main thing is the talking about the lights in my article. So it's just like, hey, these are cool because we d

didn't have them before and now we do. because for years I I I know it it doesn't matter about the the every automotive journalist has written a sort of a screed against the the issue with with lights like this. And finally we have something, you know, with yeah like with Audi and and and I'm s and with Rivian where they have these types of lights out in the world. So thumbs up to to to the automakers who are who are doing this and doing the work to make it a reality.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:52)
Awesome. All right. well, let's carry on then. also this week, Mercedes-Benz took the wraps off their next generation GLA, which is their compact crossover. so I think this is on the same platform, same architecture as the new CLA and the C class. and so it means it's got, you know, the new Mercedes it's it's available as an EV or as a hybrid.

And so yeah, it's got the same same EV architecture as the CLA, which should be very good. you know, all all signs are that that's that's an excellent system. so the let's see, the base version is a forty eight volt mild hybrid. and let's see, where's the numbers? yeah, I can't see them.

and then there's there's an electric version. here we go. Here high tech electrified hybrid version. gets thirty horsepower, electric boost, from from the mild hybrid system, one point three kilowatt hour battery. and then

Where's

here we go. the electric one will offer up to six hundred and fifty seven kilometers of WLTP range, so that's about four hundred miles. So it should be well over three hundred miles EPA range with this thing, which is pretty impressive, I think. 800 volt charging and I think I think the CLA will charge over 300 kilowatts.

If I'm not mistaken.

Roberto Baldwin (57:46)
Yeah, this one will do three E twenty. So yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (57:48)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (57:50)
I I've driven the CLA hybrid and the C LA EV. The EV is just better.

just better. I just you know when if you as a person who drives and and likes to drive and doesn't like things that stutter and like just wants instant like gratification the C L A is better I'm assuming the GLA would be the same. you know I I drove early version of the the C L A hybrid so we'll we'll you know we'll see how that if if they've tweaked that hybrid system because I feel like there was a there was some low end stuttering it felt like it felt like

turbo lag essentially for a hybrid system which I was I'm not a fan of to be honest with especially for the amount of money and what this vehicle is and the fact that it has a hybrid system means that it shouldn't have that

Sam Abuelsamid (58:38)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (58:39)
and so yeah but then you get in the CLA electric vehicle and it's just like boom just cool just wonderful yeah so it'll I'm I'm you know it's gonna be the same thing with the GLA the same setup and everything so just taller for America and everybody else

Sam Abuelsamid (58:56)
And looks like it's got, you know, basically the same kind of interior layout with the the available big hyperscreen, you know, big splash all the way across the dashboard. basically three displays in there for the instrument cluster, the infotainment, and then stuff for the passenger. but still has the the nice round vents that you can just reach out there and grab, which is that's one of the things I've liked about Mercedes for a long time. So hopefully they

Hopefully they keep those around.

Roberto Baldwin (59:27)
They will keep I have a review for the MyBach I just finished. That's I can talk about now. yeah, still has vents. You're like, you can do it with with the screen, but also you can do it with your hand, so why would

Sam Abuelsamid (59:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (59:41)
you do it with the screen, to be honest? and then that that that that five touring, like you don't actually touch the vents. There's like little controllers below it. Little

Sam Abuelsamid (59:51)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (59:52)
that you that you move around. They're little hardware controllers that move the vents around. And yeah. And just like, there's boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And again, I move the vents so much when I'm driving. I get in the car and it's hot and I just like blast it. And then my hands are cold so now I have to move the vents away because now I want the ambient era to be cool, not just me. yeah. And if I have to do that with a screen I'm just angry.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:17)
I

know that feeling. I understand that feeling. all right. so I ran across an interesting story this week. apparently Shaquille O'Neal, who is he's somewhat tall. He's a little bit taller than you are. I think he's like seven foot one, seven foot two.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:37)
Just a scooch taller.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:39)
and you know as as someone that is that tall, he

you know, often has difficulty getting in in and out of cars. And so when he decided to get a lucid air a couple of years ago, he had to have one custom built for him. He he bought the air and sent it to this shop, and had it converted into a two-door coop. so they they cut out the B pillars, moved them back, crafted longer doors for it. and now that same car has been spotted on

I think on Copart. it was in a crash and it's the front end is kind of messed up. but just thought you know might be worth sharing just a picture of what what this lucid air coupe looked like. And actually they did a looks like they did a pretty nice job on it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:35)
It looks really cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:36)
I mean I like

it. I mean it's it's you know, it's like a almost like a se alongs you know, those seventies sedans where they have the the coupes. Like and it's just like this really big door. It's like w what you need when you're seven foot one. And it's actually spent all that money, he bought a new car,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:51)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:53)
he had it customized, and then either he or somebody he knows or you know what maybe someone took it. Anyway, someone ran it into something at great speed. I mean the radiators all

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:06)
yeah, and the thing only has like twenty eight hundred mile or yeah, twenty eight hundred and ninety eight miles on it. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:12)
that's a bummer.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:14)
Yeah. well.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:17)
And the battery's

critically low.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:20)
Yeah.

something else about Mercedes this week. Ola Kalenius, the the CEO of Mercedes, was speaking. And apparently, you know, there there's a bill that is going through Congress right now, that was introduced by Bernie Moreno, senator from Ohio, and Alyssa Slotkin, Senator from Michigan, neither of whom I'm a fan of. that

Yeah, basically w the intention is to prevent any Chinese controlled manufacturers from doing business in the US, Chinese controlled automakers from doing business in the US. And in this bill, yeah, it says any company that has that's over f fifteen percent owned by a Chinese entity, would be barred from doing business in the US, which

poses problems for a number of manufacturers like Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz, because Mercedes, 20% of Mercedes shares are owned by BAIC, Beijing Automotive Industries Company, and and also Lee Shufu, the founder and CEO of Gili. they between them they they each own about 10% of Mercedes, which would mean that as the bill is written right now,

Mercedes, which has invested a lot of money in manufacturing in the US, builds most of its SUVs here, and you know, sells a lot of cars here, would not be able to do business here.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:01)
Employs a lot of people.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:03)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:04)
Like they've been in Alabama for so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:07)
Yeah. Ba since like

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:08)
And you know, throw in

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:09)
more than thirty almost thirty years, I think.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:11)
Yeah, they're gonna invest four billion dollars through twenty thirty for more to boost SUV production in Aba Alabama.

I mean it's just it's just if you've I I went to the I've been to the facility and it's huge and there's a lot of jobs there. And you know, those jobs aren't just Mercedes jobs. It's everything that grows up around that that facility. So you have Mercedes, then you have any sort of suppliers that have decided, you know, it's best to be close to Mercedes because they're right there, if we should be right there. So we have that. And then all the businesses that grow up outside of that, you're like, well there's more people live in this area, so now we're building our homes, now we're gonna you know, now we have

more stores, now we have more shops, you know, we've raised the amount of money that people make in this area by, you know, X amount. And so now we can sell more expensive goods. There's all this is like this giant like effect. And then to say, well

If you you know, and and to be honest, like it like picking on the auto mo automakers is so weird because so many things have Chinese investors, like you know and and we're getting our phones from China and our computers come from China and this comes from China and that and it's been like that for decades and it's just very this very weird like wait, we have to worry about security. Well, we wouldn't have to worry again, we wouldn't have to worry about security if we had proper privacy laws in this country.

I mean it China doesn't have to do anything. They can just buy it from a data broker like everyone else does. They don't have to like put in like secret back doors into your you know, your Volvo or your your your BYD. They just go buy all that information from a data broker. Anything they wanna know?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:50)
Yeah. so you know, hopefully this bill will not pass. because i I mean it would be terrible. 'Cause yeah, as you said, you know, basically every every direct auto industry job supports about seven other jobs in the surrounding economy. Yeah, between suppliers, you know, and all the other businesses in the region that, you know, benefit from the the the people being employed at the auto factories. So

Yeah,

this this would be a terrible thing, you know, if this caught forced BMW or Mer Mercedes or Volvo, you know, or other companies that, you know, happen to have some Chinese investors, you know, to pull out. let's see. let's let's talk about automated vehicles for a bit. Zooks, which is a company that was started about a decade ago.

Actually, little more than a decade ago, I think about 2015 or 14. and was acquired by Amazon in 2020. you know, I've I've talked about Zooks before, I've ridden in their robo taxis. They're the they're the first company to launch a purpose-built robo taxi in the U.S. and it's it's an interesting-looking vehicle. you know, it was designed specifically as a robo taxi. so it is completely symmetrical, it has no front or back.

you know, it it has everything is the same at both ends of the vehicle. So there's a motor and suspension and brakes and steering system that's in a module at each end of the vehicle. So it's got full redundancy there. It's got carriage seating inside. it's got the same sensors at either end. And basically, depending on which direction it's moving, the lights just switch colors. So if it's moving in one, you know, whichever direction it's moving.

The lights on that end of the vehicle go white, the lights on the other end of the vehicle go red. and so you know, it can turn around very or you know, it can switch directions very easily. It's small enough to maneuver around urban areas. And when when Zeux first announced this this vehicle back in 2022, they claimed at the time that they were gonna self certify it. and you know, the

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, their Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, has some, you know, they have a whole bunch of different regulations that cover all kinds of aspects of vehicles, including, you know, requirement to have a steering wheel and pedals and mirrors, things like that. Things that are not relevant to a purpose built automated vehicle like this. And so NHSA has,

A process in place. They call it a Part 555 exemption, where manufacturers can apply for a waiver that allows them to deploy up to 2,500 vehicles annually for two years that do not meet those FM VSS requirements. previously, General Motors had applied for those exemptions on two different occasions.

The first time they had a version of the Chevy bolt that Cruz was using that they built without any pedals or wheels or mirrors. and that, you know, before that example before that waiver application got approved, they canceled that and switched over to the Cruise Origin, which was a purpose-built robo taxi. so they applied for a waiver for that one. and then stuff happened with Cruz with one of their vehicles running over a pedestrian, dragging her along the street.

crews got shut down before Nitza got around to granting that waiver. so you know, neither neither of those ever got granted. So far, the only company that's gotten one of these waivers was Neuro, who got one for their R two delivery vehicle. well Neuro ended up deciding, yeah, we don't think the deliver the last mile delivery business is gonna be a good business for automated driving because you know.

You have the problem of somebody's got to be there at the end of the trip to get the stuff out of the vehicle. And you know, the art the their delivery vehicles were not designed to carry people at all. They were just designed to carry like groceries and stuff. And so even though they got a waiver, they never ended up building any significant number of those. They had a few dozen that they were using for development purposes. Zooks, when they announced their robotaxi, they said, Yeah, you know, we're self-certifying. We you know, we're

We're in compliance with all of the relevant regulations. And they basically just said, these other regulations don't apply to our vehicle. So we're just not going to bother. Yeah, apply we don't we don't think we need to apply for a waiver because the the rules aren't relevant to us. NHTA started an investigation into that. eventually Zooks decided, yeah, we're gonna go ahead and apply for a waiver. So this past week, they were granted a waiver.

And the the press release that was put out by NHTA and then reported on by all kinds of media outlets said that you know that NHTA was was giving Zooks was approving Zooks to run commercial robo taxi operations with their vehicle now and carry paying passengers. Well actually that's not entirely true. NHTSA has no NTSA, yes, NHTSA could approve the vehicle for use, but

They, you know, they have no authority over whether the vehicle is what the vehicle is used for, you know, whether it's used for carrying pass paying passengers or not. That's up to the states to grant permits for, you know, basically taxis and ride hailing, that sort of thing. So, like in California, Zooks now has to go to the California Public Utilities Commission and says, Okay, we've got a a NHTSA approved vehicle. We've been testing our service. We want to run a commercial robo taxi service.

And then CPUC has to say, okay, you know, they have to look at the data and say, okay, we're gonna give you a permit. And that's what they did with Waymo. They did that with Cruz previously. and they'll probably do that with Zooks. you know, and actually Las Vegas, where which is the first place they launched these things, will probably be the first place where they start charging for rides. that's expected to start next month. previously, when I've been in Vegas and I've used Zooks, the the rides have been free. There's no charge for the rides.

So now they're gonna start charging for rides. So yeah, I think you know it it's I think it's good that you know that they got the waiver so they can get 5,000 of these vehicles out on the roads over the next couple of years. and NHTSA also said that they're gonna streamline the process for the waiver application to try and speed it up because you know, up until now it's been taking like two, three years to get approvals. And the other big thing that that NHTSA announced.

Is

that for the first time they're actually going to start a process to develop performance standards for automated vehicles, which is something they should have done like a decade ago. Yeah. and and and they're gonna

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:13)
Ten ten years ago? Yeah. Now they're just like, I just yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:20)
be working with SAE on that. Yeah. so

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:22)
Hey So yeah. I know that place.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:28)
yeah. so so NETSA is gonna work with SAE to develop

performance standards be interesting to see what they come up with. you know, as far as what kind of what kind of standards they develop. but it's you know it's about time, you know, but I mean that that's still a process that that takes a long time. You know, yeah. Yeah, I mean at

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:52)
It takes a while for a standard to get to get finalized.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:55)
at best, you know, it'll probably be at least a year before they have, you know, a notice of proposed rulemaking.

And then you know once that gets finalized, you know, it's generally a three-year phase-in period. So we're probably not actually going to have any rules for these vehicles until at least 2030. But hey, at least it's a start.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:18)
We fast tracked thirty four hundred.

the Knaxx standard. And even that is just it's still, you know, it's still it's everything every standard is essentially like a living, breathing thing. It's still, you know, things are being adjusted, things are being added, things are being and so there's a and and the way standards work is it's not just like S C E employees. It's like industry individuals. And typically there's there's people who are from, you know, the the research world, the education world, then there's people who are from the the the actual like the business, you know, from from from Zooks, from GM, from Mercedes, from whoever.

And they all work together and there's usually someone who's in charge of all. There's one person at the top of all that who kind of who juggles that, who who herds all the cats to make this this work. And so it's it's a it's a it's it's not a like this is the rule. It's like okay, it's all worked together to come up with now this part of the rule, now this part of the rule, now this part of the rule. And then you'll have like the standard will come out, and then there'll be variations of the standard, like 3400 point two, point one, you know, where they're like, now we

Now it does this, but also it does this and also it does this. So yeah, it's it's not a like, hey, let's just come up with a standard and let's just call let's bang it out on a weekend in a in a you know, a holiday inn in Detroit. It's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:33)
Yeah, well and you know,

I mean this this is, you know, more complicated than a standard because you know, it's actually an a regulatory process. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:40)
Yeah, so you have SAE plus

the government. So both of these and and you know, SE, you know, f the way the standards work and like I said with with J thirty four hundred with NAX, that moved, you know, relatively quickly for what it was. The US government took ten years just to think of doing this. So I feel like what's gonna happen is SAE is gonna be moving and then they gotta like talk to Nitsa and then Nitsa's like, Well, I don't know. I don't know

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:04)
Well like with the with the matrix head

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:05)
Based on Nitsa's

past past past based on experience, historical experience dealing with Nitsa as a journalist, I feel like it's gonna be it's yeah, like you said, twenty thirty before this thing is is

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:17)
Yeah, I mean

th those adaptive headlights, I mean they they talked about that regulation for a decade or more.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:23)
Yeah, twenty fifteen was when they did the tests where they said, we can't have those. But they tested them within like a warehouse. Like I remember having to read how the how they did the tests. And one of the things is like, well, it within the warehouse, the way the lights worked, it like a one motorcyclist was had a glare. And I was just like, But sh you're not that's not a pr

Why aren't you outside? Why aren't you like testing this within, you know, of you know, and there's you know, there's there's City, there's a place in Contra Costa County in California. There's places where you can do these tests out in the world at night with actual vehicles and actual, you know, humans testing stuff versus like, let's put it all inside of a big room and see what happens. I'm like, that's unfortunately that's not how the real works. It's like whenever automakers like or or or companies like, well, we've done one billion miles of training in a simulator.

I'm like, well that's good for you. I don't know what to tell you about that. I'm like, cool, I guess. But that's not the real world. That's not how the real world works. But yeah, but we threw a bunch of scenarios. I'm like, no matter how many scenarios you come up with, it's never going to be enough.

to to to to to comply with what's happening within the real world. Because every time there's a there's a police officer or there's a a emergency vehicle and all these vehicles get confused, clearly all those simulations did nothing to help that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:45)
Well, I mean, and that's the thing, you know, most the simulations generally are testing the the performance of the systems, the perception systems, the path planning, things like that. you know, and then there's all these other things that happen in the real world. And like you said, you know, emergency responders. you know, a couple of week a few weeks ago, NHTSA put out a call to all the companies developing automated driving systems, you know, to say, Hey, you know, we you we want you to put together what you've got. We want to start talking about this. And I I get the

The impression I get is that that is actually going to be part of these regulations is standardizing how these how these vehicles interact with emergency responders, with police, firefighters, paramedics, you know, so that there is a standard procedure. You know, if the vehicle is, you know, coming up on an emergency situation and you know a firefighter or or police officer needs to redirect the vehicle, tell it to go somewhere else.

There needs to be a standard a standard procedure for a lot of these things. Yeah, and these are things that are not, you know, that that they're not they shouldn't be proprietary to any one company. yeah, there there's no there's

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:57)
Yeah, that's that's the other yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:59)
no competitive advantage to that. That's that's a safety thing. That should be the same for everybody.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:04)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:05)
yeah, the the details of how, you know, the things underneath work, yeah, that's you know, that that can be proprietary to individual companies. But beyond that.

there's you know, the that that stuff needs to be standardized. and I think

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:20)
Yeah. I do enjoy

that the that the the image, the inline image within the article of the of the Zeux press release is a Zeux that apparently is running a red light.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:31)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:32)
Like it's I'm assuming it's probably gonna turn right, but its wheels haven't been turned. And if you look at the picture, there is a green light for the opposing traffic, or traffic that would be running perpendicular to this vehicle. And it's been green for a while because the little hand is ups and it's counting down to five from five.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:49)
Well, it may have just made a left

turn. This may have been the the later stages of a you know, making a le left turn from a two way street onto a one way street.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:59)
Maybe. Alright. It just seems like that's not a y you could have picked a better another picture. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:04)
Yeah, true.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:05)
it does look like it was making a left turn 'cause the lights are white. So I probably take a left turn onto a one-way road. Hopefully.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:09)
Yeah. Yeah, 'cause it and yeah, in this

image it's moving to the right of this image. and so it probably just made a left

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:15)
Yeah. Because you can see yeah, the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:18)
turn there. Hopefully.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:20)
Hopefully. Fingers crossed. It's just like don't don't don't put images that are sort of wait, what's happening here? That shouldn't be a thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:33)
all right. let's move on. So remember when Honda and Nissan briefly were were planning to merge?

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:41)
yeah, I remember that. Exciting.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:42)
And then Honda

said, no, we don't think so. We don't think that's a we don't we don't need Nissan. We you know, we're we're in good shape. We don't need to be put bringing in a a company that's struggling. and then all of a sudden Honda started struggling and and now they they started talking again. And apparently they're they're now they're they're having discussions about how they can collaborate, you know, short of a full merger. And one of the things that they're

apparently planning is to develop a next generation software platform for vehicles. and apparently from from the various stories I've seen, it sounds like they're planning to do this based on Nissan's software platform that they've been working on rather than Honda's because Honda for their Zero Series vehicles, their their EVs,

They had developed a whole new software platform for those. They had a new zonal architect electrical architecture and they were gonna have this Osimo software platform that was eventually gonna make its way across the Honda lineup. Sounds like that's not what they're doing with Honda or with Nissan now.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:59)
We'll see. I mean, it's w is it's based on is it according to people or is it just a

According to sources,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:07)
there we go, you gotta get all the way down to the bottom. Inform sources. So who knows to be honest with Honda and Nissan and everything that's going on between those two companies and what's going on with each of those companies right now. but if it's it's one of those things where Osimo just wasn't working out, that could be like one of the other reasons why they decide just to kill the whole their whole EV platform and just be like, you know what? Let's just stamp, let's just let's just take a beat.

and do what we do and figure this out later.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:38)
I wonder if this would potentially also lead Honda to end up using the same new ADAS platform that Nissan's been working on with Wave, and using Wave

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:50)
maybe.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:50)
software in future Honda vehicles.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:54)
It'll be interesting to see how the software stack how that how that all plays out. Like who's who's who controls the bottom of the stack? Who controls like that system and then everything like jump that gets thrown on top of it and whether or not, you know, will it be using, you know, like you said, like Nissan with waves or would would Honda have its own system on top of that software stack? Yeah, it's the software's really, really hard. You can just ask again, ask Volkswagen, ask Volvo. Software is you know, if General

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:18)
Yeah. General Motors, Ford.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:22)
Motors, Ford, like every yeah, ever

almost everyone who's who's come out here with their who's who has come out with their software defined vehicle, outside of like Mercedes,

it's has has had issues. and I think Mercedes was really smart like setting you know, setting up a shop in Silicon Valley, you know, decades ago in order to make sure that they can get the talent that they need in order to to to do this this software stuff. So yeah, it's really hard. And if the two companies have to work together to make it happen, it's better than one company going on a loan and then coming out with something that everyone makes fun of for a a year. And then after a year it's just al

tarnish their brand. Like Volkswagen will always be you know, whenever I talk about software issues, what do I talk about? Volkswagen. Because it was just so bad when it came out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:15)
Yeah. let's see. going back to China, Jim Farley, they had Ford had a an employee town hall this week. And Farley apparently and other other Ford executives also talked about that they do expect Chinese automakers to come into the US market within the next five to ten years. despite, you know, the the pushback from

From

Congress, they they fully expect to be competing with Chinese automakers in in the neck within the next decade in the US and in their home market, which would be it'd be interesting to see how that works out. I think it's gonna be really tough for the domestic manufacturers to compete.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:06)
Yeah, I think what's how this is gonna have to work is that China's gonna have to build vehicles in this country. That's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:12)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:12)
gonna be the the the main way that they're gonna be able to come into this country, which means they're gonna have to deal with y first of all, they're gonna have to deal with our homologation. They have to you know, they have to pay our, you know

You have to give people jobs and pay them a real wage. You have to deal with homologation. It's like when the you know, the the the the dolphin or the seagull in China it's like a nickel, but then when you put it in in Mexico, it's like twenty three thousand it's like ten thousand dollars more than what it is in China. That's because you have to like build that vehicle in this country and do these things.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:41)
Yeah, like a BYDC gall

is is like twenty one thousand dollars in Mexico versus ten grand in China.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:48)
Yeah. So whenever someone's like, you can get a Chinese car for five thousand I'm like, No, you can't. You can't do that. That's not how this

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:54)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:56)
works. You have to like take into account the the fact that it's built China. It's you know, there's you know th whatever they're and of course in China, like everyone does like thirty miles an hour if they're lucky. Because if sp if you're in a big city, you're not going very fast. whereas in the United States we got big giant interstates and back roads and all these things. So yeah, it's it's it's it's

It's gonna be interesting and I th I I was looking at a thread of of like English dur you know, UK journalists talking about Chinese cars. Because there's there are people who are like, well every Chinese car is just better than an American car. And for these UK journalists are like, not really. It's just that they're really cheap. They're inexpensive. You're not you're like you can eat buy this one car for thirty or you can buy this one for twenty-two. It's not as good as the thirty thousand dollar car. It's not like it's twenty-two thousand and it's better than a thirty thousand dollars car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:46)
But they're not terrible either.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:48)
Yeah, they're not terrible. They're good enough.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:49)
They're good enough.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:50)
They're gonna do the th you you can get around, you can do your thing, and when you don't have a lot of money because of inflation, because of weird terrace, because of whatever you know, the straight a horror move, whatever you're doing, you you know, you're gonna get something that's good enough. Because a car for a lot of people is just a utility. It is a hammer that gets you from your house to your work and your house to the store and your house to dropping off your kids. It's you know, a lot of people that they don't care that, you know

That there's a wagon with you know a V8 in it. I care. They don't. The average person

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:22)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:25)
just needs to get where they're going.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:29)
so yeah, it's gonna be interesting times in this industry in the coming years. and then

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:36)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:37)
let's see. also from from China, BYD. they were at the Japan Mobility Show in October when I was over there, and one of the vehicles they had on their stand was a K car called the Rocco. and it is it's now on sale in Japan.

for thirteen thousand dollars. you know, and it looks it looks you

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:02)
Dun dun dun.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:03)
know like most K cars, you know, it's big, tall, narrow box. but you know, amazing packaging. and they've got two two versions of it, the two hundred and the three hundred. the the base two hundred is a twenty two point four kilowatt hour battery and a range of a hundred and thirty miles thirteen thousand dollars I think

You know, if if Americans could buy a car like this for thirteen thousand dollars, they probably would.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:38)
I think yeah. And then you can sing the Rocco's modern life. I know it's not spelled the same, but

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:43)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:46)
But it's like the Sakura, the the the Nissan K car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:49)
It's a fantastic little car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:51)
I love that. I drove it in Yokohama while I was in Japan last and it was it was fan it it was just wonderful because I was like, there's enough space in here for all the things I need to do, but it's also a tiny car and it's an EV, it only has 111 miles of range. This has more

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:07)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:07)
And for the same

for like this it's like two thousand dollars more than this vehicle. But the let's see, the the three hundred premium, the one that costs fifteen thousand, is as same as the secure has a hundred and ninety-nine miles of range, so it has more range than the Nissan. so yeah, I think people yeah, there's gonna be a lot of cross shopping and people being like, Well, do I want more range or do I want my Nissan?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:32)
Yeah, it's gonna be gonna be interesting to see how this does in the Japanese market. So this this would be the first non Japanese K car. up up till now, only Japanese manufacturers have bothered to make K cars because they're they they essentially only sell in Japan. Yeah, they're created

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:50)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:51)
because of the very specific rules in Japan. You know, they've they've got you know if you if you buy anything larger than a K car in Japan.

Before you can get a license plate for it, you have to prove that you have somewhere to park it. And in a lot of Japanese cities, that's a problem.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:12)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:14)
and you know, so but if you buy a K car, you're exempt from that from that regulation, because it's so small you can park it virtually anywhere. You know, it's

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:23)
Yeah, they're like

they're just tiny and people just go to put in these tiny little you know, these little spots in front of their their apartment buildings or their houses or whatever. They're they're yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:31)
Yeah, it's you

know the K cars are only fourteen hundred and seventy five millimeters wide, it's about meter and a half, so it's about four and a half feet wide. you know, which is very narrow. and you know, they're about seven seven feet long, seven and a half feet long. And the you know, the funniest thing ever, you know, was seeing Bank Talverson, who is six foot eight, sitting in a K car in a Sakura, Nissan Sakura.

And then, you know, having the seat, the driver's seat set for his height, and then climbing into the back and still having a ton of space behind himself, you know, at six foot eight.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:11)
The the packaging is just because it's just like here's a box. That's that's all I care. You want a box? Here's a box. Here's a tiny box, but there's a lot of space because it's they're essentially squared. So you're not losing space because it's a coupe, or you're not losing space because they No, here's your box. go drive and do the things you need to do. You need to fill it full of whatever. Hay, ramen, whatever you need to fill it full of. You can do it

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:37)
because you just you're driving a box.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:41)
And you know the you know th this one, the the Rocco, the BY D Rocco, has sliding rear doors, which you know basically makes it a tiny minivan. You know, so perfect if you got young kids.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:55)
Yeah, no, that the the this when I whenever I look at the K trucks, I'm really looking at the K vans. Because it 'cause I'm like I could put the dogs in the back, I can grab stuff, I can fill it full of stuff, and then I can just drive around at like, you know, twenty five miles an hour, not on the freeway, because they are definitely not freeway like I c I took the Sakura on the freeway. It's an electric vehicle, so it was fine. But like, you know, they have essentially what six hundred C C six eighty? There's a there's a there's a rule, like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:22)
Yeah, for for gas once

they're limited to six hundred and sixty C C's and sixty six horsepower. And

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:26)
Yeah. Yeah. So you're like, I'm gonna get on

the freeway. Maybe not.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:33)
Well, I mean the speed limits on the freeways there are I think a hundred and ten kilometers an hour. It's sick no it's

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:39)
So like seven sixty five.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:41)
like sixty six miles an hour, sixty seven miles an hour.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:44)
Yeah, so it's yeah. You're fine. You're fine. Yeah. They yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:51)
all right. And then Walmart. There's been couple of stories this week about Walmart, and how they are growing their E V charging network. And I talked a little bit about this when we talked about Operation Frodo 'cause there there was a a Walmart across the freeway from the hotel we were staying at in Omaha. And Nick and I took a couple of the cars over there to charge the morning before we left. and you know.

Walmart

currently, as of right now, they have s sixty one locations now with with EV charg with their own EV charging network. So Walmart got into EV charging back in twenty eighteen, nineteen when Electrify America was getting started. EA did a deal with Walmart and put a lot of their their stations at Walmarts and Walmart parking lots. But now Walmart, you know, has decided to expand, you know, on its own.

And Walmart has 5,000 stores in North America. and you know, a lot of people go, you know, shop at Walmart, obviously. and so, you know, they are rapidly building out, you know, they opened their first ones just over a year ago, and they're they're building them pretty rapidly. and you know, that that will really help availability of of public charging, especially public DC charging.

And one of the things they're doing is all of their chargers have both CCS and J3400 connectors on them. so you don't have to mess with adapters, you can just pull right up and plug in whichever cable you need. They're 400 kilowatt chargers, they're fast. when I was charging the Hyundai Ionic 9 and Ikea EV9 at Walmart, you know, they were cranking along at over 240 kilowatts. and they're

Most of their chargers are the same. They're using two two brands of chargers. One of them is the Alpatronic chargers, which are the same ones that are being used by Ayana. And actually there's a new charging station that just opened up here in Ann Arbor recently that I I just learned about, which is a BP Pulse station, which has 20 Alpatronic 400 kilowatt chargers there. And I was charging the the Rivian there earlier.

And they've got I think s I think fourteen or sixteen of the chargers have NAX cables on them and the rest have CCS. So yeah, these are these are really fast. They the only problem I had with the BP pulse charger was when I tried to use the app, I could not get it to start the charging session, but then I just tapped my phone on the card reader and boom, started right away.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:44)
There is a Walmart with there's a Walmart EV charging station twenty point four miles from my house. Of course there are like dozens of they are opening a second Tesla charging location within a quarter mile of the other Tesla charging location they they that's like two blocks from my house. So there's one two blocks from my house and one about five or six blocks from my house that

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:05)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:06)
they're opening up. Cause I kept driving by because they you know they they fenced off the area, the PG<unk>E was there doing stuff like, they're putting a new charging station in.

I wonder what it's gonna be. And then the other day I was driving by and they're they had the Tesla little, you know, Tesla machines. I'm like, well, it's another Tesla station.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:26)
and then Florida, lovely Florida, which got two hundred million dollars from the federal Navy program to put in DC fast chargers, decided, yeah, you know, we're gonna spend that on infrastructure for E V Tall air taxis instead.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:47)
That's such a that doesn't make any sense. Unless somebody in the government's like cousin works for an EVT.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:55)
Probably.

Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:59)
Can we have

the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:01)
You know, I mean E V talls are interesting. and you know, they will, you know, they will probably replace traditional helicopters in most of the civilian applications for those. you know, like in New York, you know, running over to JFK, you know, in an EV tall instead of a traditional helicopter. But I I you know, these are these are never going to be a mainstream mode of transportation for most people. Because they're they're

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:30)
Yeah, like who how half

how many times have you taken a helicopter to the airport? That hasn't been part of like an automaker saying, Hey, we're gonna make you take a helicopter to something? Zero times.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:40)
Zero. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:42)
Except for my friend who owns a helicopter and flew me around like LA. He didn't take me anywhere. He just gave me a cool tour. Like the average person, like, how many times are you gonna get on a helicopter I need to go to get on a helicopter in order to get downtown?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:56)
Yeah, like last year Genesis flew us from JFK into Midtown by helicopter for the New York Auto Show. And then like back in two thousand eight or something, Acura was doing a program for the TL out of New York. They had to stay in a hotel in Midtown and took us by helicopter. we flew around Manhattan and then up to Danbury, Connecticut to drive the car up there and then flew back by helicopter back to

back to midtown, you know, at the end of the day, and back to the hot and you know, drove back to the hotel. But I mean, you know, the problem with these is you know, there's always going to be an inherent limit to places where these things can land because they are large. They are much larger than cars.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:48)
Yeah, they're pretty big. And also like yeah, it's not a thing that the regular person can benefit. No, like a regular person doesn't benefit from an Evitol. I think Evitols are cool. They let me drive fly like one of the, you know, Joby let me fly their what do you call it? Their simulator.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:04)
Simulator.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:05)
Cool. That's awesome. Like I talked to them about like who uses it and how they get their license. Again, cool. You know, you have multiple, you know, redundancies versus a helicopter just has one thing. You know, these have multiple things. Cool. But at the

End of the day, people need to get places and that's what this money's for, especially in like rural areas where there might be a big gap in charging. Like if you're between, you know, one big city and another big city in the middle of nowhere, hey, maybe we should use this money to put charging infrastructure in, versus you know, supplementing rich people getting to the airport or getting downtown. I think rich people are doing okay. I think they're alright. I don't think they need our help.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:47)
No, definitely not. and then the last one I want to talk about is actually another thing that NHTSA's doing. Apparently they are they are starting to work on regulations for door handles.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:00)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:01)
Following following what the Chinese did earlier this year where they they they mandated mechanical door handles. looks like NHTSA's gonna do roughly the same thing.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:12)
Yay. Like I shouldn't no one should have a instruction I shouldn't have to tell someone how to open a door. Ever. That should never be a thing I should ever have to explain to anyone getting in my car. Or getting out of my car, especially.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:24)
Well, the again, the other night when I went out to dinner with my wife,

you know, getting out of the ribbon, she How do you open the door in this thing?

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:30)
Exactly. That's not a thing we should have to like explain to people. Mechanical doors,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:34)
Yeah. It should be

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:35)
they've been working for decades. Let's let's settle down. Settle down. You're making things too expensive and too weird and and again, what do you call tech for the sake of tech. Just open the door. Mechanical. Click. Open ta da

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:58)
all right. Well that's all we've got for this week. so thanks everybody for listening and we will be back next time, hopefully with a third person joining us.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:08)
Woo

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:11)
All right. Bye everyone.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:12)
Bye.