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

Roberto Baldwin (00:08)
I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE International. I forgot where I work for a second.

Craig Cole (00:14)
And I guess I'm I'm playing critical.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:15)
As long as they don't forget, that's

the important thing. Sorry, Greg.

Roberto Baldwin (00:17)
Yeah, they

Craig Cole (00:19)
as long as the checks clear. and I'm Craig Cole with I guess we'll say greencars dot com right now.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26)
Right. well Craig, thanks for joining us this week. and let's you know, as as the guest, let's start with you. what what have you been driving?

Craig Cole (00:37)
I don't have any fleet vehicles this week. I am getting or or right now this week I am I will be getting a Subaru Trailseeker coming in, so I'm excited to experience that. But the most recent product that I've driven, you were there with me, Sam, the Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid. We were both out in the Seattle area for that a week or so ago. And surprisingly competent SUV for a brand that

really

isn't on a lot of drivers radar right now.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:05)
Huh.

Craig Cole (01:06)
I don't think most folks know that Mitsubishi is still a going concern in the US. And but but that does not denigrate the the Outlander. It's a surprisingly good pr plug in hybrid. They've really improved the drivetrain for the twenty twenty six model year. You're getting a a larger battery pack, significantly more horsepower and all electric range and they made a few other tweaks here and there. But really I was pretty impressed overall.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:34)
What you know, did did you spend I mean well, I think we we drove together at least part of the day. you know, what what was it about it that impressed you the most?

Craig Cole (01:46)
I think the the ride and handling are very good. Surprisingly good. It's it's the ride filters out bumps very nicely, but it doesn't flop around in turns. And I think the drivetrain, aside from some weird whirring noises it makes at very low speeds, which is not something I've noticed in other hybrids or plugins, very smooth and responsive powertrain. so those are probably the two best elements of the vehicle. Other than that, it's basically a Nissan Rogue that

You may or may not like the styling of as much because they're they are a shared architecture, a shared vehicle essentially, that Mitsubishi sort of

Roberto Baldwin (02:22)
Mm.

Craig Cole (02:23)
tweaks with its own design language. but yeah, ride and handling are good. The interior is very nice, that might be a step up over the rogue as well. They've got some nice like quilting on the seats and door panels. But yeah, like if you're shopping for an SUV, you want fuel economy, and you're willing to consider a plug-in, and you're willing to plug it in.

Don't buy a plug in if you ain't gonna plug it in, folks. but if you're

Roberto Baldwin (02:47)
Well, if you buy a Stellantis

Sam Abuelsamid (02:47)
That's the

Roberto Baldwin (02:48)
plug in you're not allowed to plug it in.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:52)
Well, no, you're you're only allowed to plug it in for a couple of weeks when you first get it. And then and then you'll get a recall notice telling you n to to park it

Roberto Baldwin (02:56)
Then you're not allowed. Then you get an email. Yeah, don't don't pluck.

Craig Cole (03:00)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:00)
outside, do not park it your garage and and don't plug

Craig Cole (03:03)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:03)
it in don't ever plug it in. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (03:05)
Don't plug it in.

Craig Cole (03:06)
That's

a good thing you paid extra for the battery. But but yeah, if you're considering a plug in hybrid SUV, you know, of that sort of compactish class, I don't know how what what you consider it these days. Is it midsize? I don't think so. Is it compact? Not quite. Somewhere in between.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:20)
It it's it's

the same size as most of what what others consider compact. So, you know, rogue, C R V, Rav

Craig Cole (03:27)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:28)
four. but

Roberto Baldwin (03:29)
None of our compact to be honest, but okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:31)
yeah. I mean if you if you look at a C R V from ten, fifteen years ago or RAV four from ten or fifteen years ago, it's considerably larger. But then so so is everything else. But

Craig Cole (03:41)
Mm-hmm. But

yeah, but if you're looking for one of those vehicles, I absolutely go and test drive the Outlander P Hev. I ye I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. That'll be my recommendation.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:52)
I I noticed in the

in the video I I don't think I saw you actually try to climb into that third row seat.

Craig Cole (03:59)
Well you see Sam, I am an adult male and I also have legs. So there's no room in that third row even for children.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:07)
Ha ha.

Craig Cole (04:08)
So I'm not gonna risk you know, r requiring medical assistance upon extracting myself by climbing back there.

Roberto Baldwin (04:17)
As we get older,

the third road test becomes more dangerous for us.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:22)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (04:22)
Yes,

it does. Yes. But like

Roberto Baldwin (04:24)
Like in my twenties or thirties,

third row test, nah, no problem. Now, no. No.

Craig Cole (04:28)
Ha ha

Sam Abuelsamid (04:29)
Yeah, when you get into your fifties and and above, you know, the the flexibility required to get into a lot of those third rows it starts to evaporate.

Craig Cole (04:38)
Yeah. But literally almost useless third row. If you have a very small child a very small child that doesn't have legs, maybe it's a viable place to put them. But really it's for emergencies only. If you're an adult puppies maybe. Yes, for

Roberto Baldwin (04:51)
Puppies. It's for puppies. Put your puppies back there.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:54)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (04:55)
your next Frodo adventure.

Roberto Baldwin (04:56)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:58)
yeah, I I I was talking to Travis Whittles, who's the head of product planning for Mitsubishi at the event, and you know, I asked him about the third row and you know, he said, you know, he's got a three year old that is in a in a booster seat and sometimes, you know, when their mother in law when his mother in law is visiting and they wanna go somewhere, you know, he's got two kids and so he can put the the booster seat back in the third row

and put her in there, the put the three year old in there and then his mother in law can sit in the second row in front of the in front of the the the three year old.

Craig Cole (05:37)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:37)
but that's that's probably about the upper limit of what you can do with that third row.

Craig Cole (05:42)
We we were both looking at it like Hmm I mean I guess technically it is it is it is a seat and it is behind the second row. So they're they're checking the

boxes, but Yes, yes. Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:53)
And and there's seat belts, you know, there's two seat belts and and headrests and everything, you know.

So it's you know, it's got it's got all the regulatory it meets all the regulatory requirements. Because there's nothing there's nothing in the federal motor vehicle safety standards that says anything about how much, if any, foot room is required. And, you know, there is

Craig Cole (06:13)
just sit cross legged maybe on the cushion and you'll be fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:17)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (06:17)
I'm sure that's safe.

But Sam, you're

driving something much more interesting, I think, this week. Certainly more adventurously designed.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:24)
Yeah, well we'll go Yeah.

Well let let's let's hear from Robbie first. What what'd you what'd you have this week, Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (06:31)
So I had the Subaru Outback Wilderness. This is the Outbackier Outback. so I drove the yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (06:41)
The most outback of outbacks?

Roberto Baldwin (06:43)
I drove this a bit back when they when they launched the vehicle. And like the entire drive was pretty much out off-road. With some, you know, road you know, we drove up to the mountain to get to it and I was really impressed at how well it drives. I was r both on road and off.

The you know the the the dampers, you know, in X mode, you they're for off roading, they're they really well, but they work really well when you're cornering in a vehicle that shouldn't corner as well as it does. That's the weird thing about the the super outback wilderness. is that it handles really well. It has nine point five inches of ground clearance, so it's a taller or a a higher sitting outback. it's about what is it, eight point seven for the regular outback. So this is

Sam Abuelsamid (07:30)
I think so, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (07:31)
So this is more. yeah, so almost you know, well, yeah, almost a f an extra whole a whole extra inch. It's got a 2.4 liter boxer engine, 260 horsepower, 270 seven pound feet of torque. it's got the CVT, but it gets out of its own way. I stomp on the accelerator, it goes really fast, it it it moves quicker than you would think with that with a vehicle of this size.

Craig Cole (07:56)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (07:57)
you know, when you're when you're hopping on the freeway and whatnot.

Tons and tons and tons of room. I know this because I had to cram it full of stuff this weekend for a big show we had that involved DJing and drums and multiple like guitar amps and I shoved so much like boxes of like we had a shimmer wall we we had stickers.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:18)
Ha ha.

Craig Cole (08:20)
what?

Roberto Baldwin (08:21)
A shimmer wall. It's like a wall and it has like giant sequence, like they're about an inch by an inch. And so they're all

Craig Cole (08:27)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (08:27)
silver and when the wind hits them, they shimmer. Shimmer.

Craig Cole (08:33)
Okay. Does it now? No I'm kidding.

Roberto Baldwin (08:31)
So it looks cool. Shimmerwall. There you go. Shimmerwall. I

didn't know what it was. I I had seen them, but I didn't know what it was called until I was yeah. Anyway.

Craig Cole (08:40)
Now I have to go look the look that up.

Roberto Baldwin (08:42)
look up Shimmerwall, everyone. So it's yeah, tons of room for all that stuff, plus me and the passenger, as we went to the club. because it's not really you know, it's it's hot sits higher than the regular outback. It's not so high that it's difficult to get things in and out.

And some of the stuff we had to put in the back of that, including my stupid guitar amp that weighs so damn much. I need to sell all these guitar amps to get a nice light one.

Craig Cole (09:09)
Or just go acoustic.

Roberto Baldwin (09:10)
Just well, it doesn't really work. I have an acoustic. It doesn't really yeah, it's not gonna work for this show. That that all said, it's I really like this vehicle. I didn't do any off roading this week. I did all that on the drive program and it yeah, it worked really well. Like just droving around, driving around town, going to the store, you know, doing a lot of errands, of course filling it and you know, filling it with all that gear, it still didn't feel, you know, like it was

you know, like the extra weight was keeping it from from continuing to be a, you know, plucky little SUV around town. You know, sometimes you gotta get out and look at it, which is, you know, that's that's that's sort

Craig Cole (09:51)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (09:51)
of it's a Keely's heel for this vehicle. I think s you you know, other people are like, hm. So that's an outback? I'm like, Yeah, they're like,

Sam Abuelsamid (09:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:00)
All right. I'm like, hey, but I you know, w in this is with other out you know, other Subaru owners. I'm like, yeah, but no one buys a Subaru 'cause they're pretty. They're like, Yeah, yeah, mine's not pretty

So yeah, no, it's it's it is a it's a rugged even though the whole lineup is, you know, essentially I guess rugged. I again like most Subarus, I I see this is probably gonna do more off roading than literally any raised Jeep or F one fifty or or Raptor.

Craig Cole (10:29)
Literally, yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:30)
Probably. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:32)
and so yeah, no, it's you know, I I I drove the regular Outback. I did some off roading in that.

And it was fine. I you know, this is gonna be the same thing. Same X mode, same hill descent that you don't have to turn on, thank God. Just go down a hill. I don't need to like hold on, let me find how to turn on hill descent mode. So I'm not slamming on the brakes and sliding down the hill. I yeah, it's like

Craig Cole (10:54)
That's part of the fun though. Come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:55)
Well, you

know, j just as as a point of reference, that nine and a half inches of ground clearance, that's a half inch more than a Jeep recon. Yeah. So

Roberto Baldwin (11:03)
Bam. That's

that's G Wagon level. I think G Wagon's nine point seven.

Craig Cole (11:11)
Those dampers are they magnetoreological or are they just like a what are they, the the the control valve type? I would

Sam Abuelsamid (11:17)
Subaru, come on.

Roberto Baldwin (11:17)
The

They they are they are Professor X, they're not Magneto. Come on. Sorry. Hold on, they got a whole thing I don't know, I can't find it. It's they give me the whole where is it?

Upgrade suspension. Electronic control in the front suspension detect adapting forces Skyhook.

Craig Cole (11:41)
Probably not even gonna say.

Roberto Baldwin (11:43)
Yeah, it does it off ride the metabolic wait

Electronically controlled damp.

Craig Cole (11:50)
There you go.

Good enough, they work well.

Roberto Baldwin (11:51)
There you go. They use electri

Sam Abuelsamid (11:52)
Just ac active dampers

Roberto Baldwin (11:53)
They look yeah, they're active

Sam Abuelsamid (11:54)
that are changing the valving.

Roberto Baldwin (11:55)
dampers. They're they they work well. I will say though, it's still, you know, it's still a Subaru. they're not exactly the most and efficient vehicles on the road. so the EPA, the the Monroni says twenty one city, twenty seven highway, twenty three combined. I just went out and looked at it. Twenty one is what I got. driving on the freeway.

driving around. I did a lot of I got stuck in a lot of traffic.

Craig Cole (12:21)
Yeah, that permanent all wheel drive doesn't help.

Roberto Baldwin (12:24)
Yeah, pretty much all will drive. It's it doesn't help. I got stuck in a lot of traffic. I'm dragging things around, you know, to and from my band's my band's practice space and to and c to the club. overall, you know, originally I was supposed to get a tell you ride. And I was like, I'm gonna be able to put all this stuff in here and there and they had to switch it to the Outback. I was like, man, this stuff's not gonna fit in there. No, no problem. It all fit in there.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:49)
It's it's surprisingly roomy in there. I like when

Roberto Baldwin (12:52)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:52)
I had one the other week, I I was shocked, you know, you put the fold the back seats down, there there's there's an amazing amount of space in the back there. So that

Roberto Baldwin (13:00)
There's a

Sam Abuelsamid (13:01)
that that boxy shape that doesn't look terribly pretty, very utilitarian.

Roberto Baldwin (13:07)
If your the c back of your SUV or whatever is a box, you're gonna have a lot more cargo space. That's all all there is to it. And here's a little little tip for people who move things. So I I will put a tarp down in the back of these vehicles because I don't wanna scratch up. You know, a lot of stuff I have is, you know, there there's metal, there's there's stuff, there's guitars, there's you know, things I've built that I'm shoving in the back of these. So I put that s you know, I put a tarp down so I don't scratch up the cars. But also what's nice is when you put a tarp down, everything slides so much easier in and out of your vehicle.

versus like the carpet or if it's got a rubberized, you know, space. So if you you can go to Harbor Freight, get a tarp for like five bucks. They'll probably just

Craig Cole (13:46)
Yep.

Roberto Baldwin (13:47)
give you one. They don't care. They're Harbor Freight. throw it in the back of your cart and

Craig Cole (13:49)
Yes. Literally.

Roberto Baldwin (13:51)
and then look especially if you have long like I had a like a five foot long like DJ booth and like my amps and all this stuff. And a shimmer wall

Craig Cole (13:58)
Shimmer wall Shimmer Wall.

Roberto Baldwin (14:00)
well the shimmer wall just comes parts and like one by one.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:02)
The shimmer wall's kind

of got its own slide ability to it.

Roberto Baldwin (14:04)
Yeah,

so it it just sli everything just slides in. So that's my my sort of if you need to load stuff into your vehicle, throw throw a tarp down. and it'll just slide in a lot easier than if you didn't have a tarp. There you go. Especially when you you know, you have seats that go down and there's all the little

Craig Cole (14:22)
Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (14:22)
creases and things that you're shoving and you get stuck and you gotta get up and the f you know, open the side the back door and lift it up a little and pull it and then push it the rest yeah. Yeah, get yourself a

A a tarp. Again, harbour freight, like a nickel.

Craig Cole (14:38)
If that.

Roberto Baldwin (14:39)
If that. yeah, what how much was this thing? so this it's forty five thousand bucks. So it's not a cheap car. And then they added, you know, all the the options, which was a multimedia, you know, twenty-one point one or I'm sorry, not twenty-one, that was twelve point one inch multimedia, I guess it's larger. Sunroof, who cares? Napa leather trimmed upholstery with cart yeah, I got dogs. I'm not gonna get stuff like that.

ventilated front seats, which is nice. You know, it

Craig Cole (15:12)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (15:12)
it's got in the eighties. That's kinda hot for us here in the Bay Area. a twelve way twelve way driver's seat, eight way and then heated mirrors, which are signals, so that's kinda nice too. But

Sam Abuelsamid (15:24)
Heated mirrors

are definitely nice like in the wintertime. Yeah. If you

Roberto Baldwin (15:27)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:28)
if you get snow or and ice, you know, having some something that can melt that stuff off of your mirrors, that's that's a nice

Roberto Baldwin (15:34)
That's nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:35)
feature to have.

Roberto Baldwin (15:35)
Yeah. So the heated mirrors is is is is pretty nice. no no, I really I really like this vehicle. I mean the thing with Subarus is there's like we're just gonna make a good car and then maybe put a few little flourishes on it and then just push it out the door. And you're gonna get the car

Craig Cole (15:51)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (15:52)
and you're like, you know what? It's not fancy, but it does all the things it's supposed to. The end. That's all peop and to be honest, Subaru people that's all they want. Can I put a dog in it? Yeah. Can I go like

Craig Cole (16:02)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:02)
Can I can

I half a dozen dogs in it? Sure.

Roberto Baldwin (16:04)
Yeah, c

can I fill it with dogs and can I go up a really weird dirt road? Yep. Yeah, you can do all those things. Enjoy.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:11)
No.

yeah, when you know, looking at you know what Subaru's been doing the last couple of years, adding more adding hybrids to more of their models, I would be surprised if, you know, by next year there isn't an outback hybrid. which would definitely help the fuel economy. Yeah, that would get

Roberto Baldwin (16:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Cole (16:32)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:34)
it up into the at least you know, for the outback probably at least into the low thirties.

Roberto Baldwin (16:39)
Yeah, that and you know peop especially now with gasping so much I mean my WRX if I was lucky I got twelve.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:46)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (16:47)
I was like, I'm on the freeway, I'm getting twelve. I remember being so excited.

Craig Cole (16:46)
Huh. Jeez.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:49)
Well Yeah,

but you know, you gotta shift it out of second gear once in a while.

Roberto Baldwin (16:54)
Well, yeah. I'm

I'm I was ready. I was always ready to overtake someone. Well the second gear on the WRX is actually the

Craig Cole (16:58)
My ninety year old Ford does better than that.

Roberto Baldwin (17:01)
the second gear on the WRX is a very s it's a very shallow gear. It's for it's third gear. That's what throws

Sam Abuelsamid (17:07)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (17:08)
everyone off is that second gear on the W R X. They're like what? I'm like, you gotta shift out of it quickly. It's for like boom boom. Yeah, it's it's a whole

Sam Abuelsamid (17:15)
One, two, three, and you're on your way.

Roberto Baldwin (17:17)
Yeah. It's a yeah.

Craig Cole (17:17)
Like a waltz one tooth.

Roberto Baldwin (17:19)
It's for it's for rally driving. It's like V Yeah.

You can't just hang

out in second gear in a WRX.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:27)
Awesome.

Roberto Baldwin (17:28)
That's my second piece of advice for the day. Get

Sam Abuelsamid (17:30)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (17:31)
a tarp. You can't hang out in second gear in a WRX.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:34)
Ha.

Craig Cole (17:35)
Will there be more unsolicited advice in the show

Roberto Baldwin (17:37)
yeah, they're all

Craig Cole (17:38)
or is that the limit just to

Sam Abuelsamid (17:39)
The whole

show is unsolicited advice, Crow.

Roberto Baldwin (17:41)
Yeah, the whole show is just Robbie telling

Craig Cole (17:41)
Okay, sorry.

Roberto Baldwin (17:43)
people how to live and then everyone just tuning me out.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:47)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (17:47)
What was that? I'm sorry.

Roberto Baldwin (17:49)
Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:53)
all right. Well, I had a vehicle that in many ways is very similar to one you had a few weeks ago, Robbie. it has a twin turbo, four point four liter V eight. It's a plug in hybrid. but unlike the the five that you had, I had one that has a slightly larger battery in it.

so a little more electric range. I had the BMW XM label. why why they call it the XM label? 'Cause when they launched it there was the XM and then there was the XM label, which I think had a few other things on it, and now there's just the label. It's like that's kind of a weird nomenclature for it. But anyway, I'm just gonna call it the XM. and in the fifty plus year history of BMW's Division,

There have only ever been two models that were exclusive to that were not shared, you know, were not based on another conventional BMW model. And in a lot of ways, the XM is still kind of based on other BMWs, but it has unique, totally unique bodywork. So they had the M1 back in

Craig Cole (19:03)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:03)
1978, you know, mid-engine soup sports car. and then now they have the XM. And

One of the one of the interesting design details on the original one, on the rear corners, you know, at the end of the the the buttresses and at the back, you know, you had the little BMW badge at each rear corner of the of the one. And so they kind of echo that a little bit with the XM. And they have the BMW badge etched into the glass of the tailgate at the top corners. So at the

Roberto Baldwin (19:39)
Which is kinda

cool, to be honest. I would like more just weird

Sam Abuelsamid (19:41)
Yeah, it's a it's a nice little touch.

Roberto Baldwin (19:42)
little etching like I guess I could just go somewhere and have them do it for me. Like just like poop, I got

Craig Cole (19:47)
huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:47)
Yeah. But

Roberto Baldwin (19:48)
the Hyundai logo etched on the back of my five windshield guard.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:55)
so the the XM has like I said has the same twin turbo five point five liter or four four point four liter V eight as the five. five hundred and seventy seven horsepower, five hundred and fifty three foot pounds of torque, lots and lots of torque. and it makes makes some nice sounds. another kind of

interesting design detail of the XM. The the XM not a not what I would call a pretty vehicle. It's a very angry looking vehicle. But

Craig Cole (20:28)
Very diplomatic description.

Roberto Baldwin (20:27)
It's an angry vehicle. Like it's it's like if

you owe it money, you you need to take out another loan, you need to like mortgage

Sam Abuelsamid (20:35)
Yeah, you don't want to mess with the XM.

Roberto Baldwin (20:37)
your house, sell your kidneys, because the XM's

Sam Abuelsamid (20:39)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (20:40)
gonna it's gonna break an ank break a knee kneecap

Sam Abuelsamid (20:42)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (20:43)
if you don't pay it back.

Craig Cole (20:44)
Who poisoned

the water in Munich? That's what I want to know.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:48)
Ha ha.

Craig Cole (20:50)
Over the last like twenty years, who poisoned the water? What's going

Sam Abuelsamid (20:53)
I don't know.

Craig Cole (20:54)
on there?

Roberto Baldwin (20:55)
Well, I will say the kidney

Sam Abuelsamid (20:55)
But

Roberto Baldwin (20:56)
when this came out, the kidneys on everything were really, really big, and this one was actually mid size compared to everything else that

Sam Abuelsamid (21:01)
Yeah, it was more somewhat more modest kidneys.

Roberto Baldwin (21:04)
Yeah, it's so it's a very angular I mean it's it's it's essentially going after the the same person who would buy an Uris. A Lamborghini Uris. They're like, Hey, do you want a Lamborghini Uris but with a BMW? And it and and a wacky like rave or club roof inside your vehicle. Like the ceiling's like a little party.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:23)
Yeah. Well

Yeah, and that's the thing. You you get you get into it and you look up at the roof and it you know, it looks like it's you know, like it's the shade for a sunroof, but it's not actually a sunroof, you know. It it's it's fixed in place. There's no there's no sunroof there. But

Craig Cole (21:40)
wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:41)
you know, it's got this faceted finish to it, texture to it. And then, you know, the

Craig Cole (21:44)
Ugh Ugh No

Sam Abuelsamid (21:48)
the the ambient lighting along the edges. It's kind of

Roberto Baldwin (21:52)
You don't

Sam Abuelsamid (21:52)
Peculiar.

Roberto Baldwin (21:52)
it's very

it's very Nintendo sixty four polygons. It's like, my god,

Craig Cole (21:58)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:57)
Yeah. Very large polygons.

Roberto Baldwin (22:00)
I love Goldeneye. This is awesome.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:02)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (22:03)
This is this is very cool. It's it I I like weirdness in cars like this that doesn't you know, I like weirdness of like, this looks weird versus weirdness, you can't open the door unless you like push a special like you know, button somewhere. Like this weird is fine because you're like, it's just a weird thing.

you know, design flourish versus like, we don't have turn signals. What?

Sam Abuelsamid (22:26)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (22:29)
That's Audi these days. They've poisoned the water in Ingolstadt as well with their turn signal design.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:32)
Yeah. And a an another another

detail of cars is they all have quad exhaust pipes. But on the XM they're they're stacked vertically for some reason. Not sure why. But you know. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (22:46)
It's a tall car, that's why.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:48)
It's a it's a little different. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (22:51)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:52)
It's it's it's fine. Yeah. The

Roberto Baldwin (22:53)
That's the XM.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:55)
the yeah, the the overall design, you know, like I said, it's kind of an angry looking car. That that black

stripe along the belt line is kind of unusual because it's not it's not painted on there. It's a piece of black trim that goes along the sheet metal. Again, kind of kinda peculiar. and you know, like the other high end, you know, like the seven series and the X seven, it's got the LED light strip around the kidneys. So at night you

Craig Cole (23:25)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:26)
see you see the kidneys at night along with the the lights. so that's

Kind of a a little different detail. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (23:34)
So when you owe it money it can see you coming. Or you can see it coming. You're like, no, run.

Craig Cole (23:34)
Set.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:39)
And

Craig Cole (23:39)
What are

those little tabs they put on the car's side view mirrors where it almost reattaches to the base of the A pillar? Like what okay. Okay, 'cause you need that on the

Sam Abuelsamid (23:45)
That's to to c to control the airflow. It's for aerodynamics. And and also to look cooler.

Craig Cole (23:51)
street, that's right.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:52)
Yeah, absolutely. You know it yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (23:52)
Yeah. It's little handles, so if you have like a skateboard and you see one

you can just grab that little handle and ride along.

Craig Cole (23:58)
that's perfect.

Roberto Baldwin (23:59)
Don't do that. I don't know The fact I have to tell people not to do that makes me sad.

Don't don't don't listen.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:04)
Yeah. So,

you know, again, as I said, this is a plug in hybrid. so it's got like a twenty five ish kilowatt hour battery pack. In the in the five it's only fifteen kilowatt hours. So the the XM is EPA rated at thirty miles of electric range. and like other BMWs, you know, it's got a mode button so you can put it in hybrid mode or, you know, just charge sustaining mode or in electric mode.

So I the other day, you know, I put it in electric mode and went out and did my usual test loop and I actually got it to go thirty four miles without turn without starting the engine, you know. So thirty four a little over thirty four miles before the engine fired up. And even though this thing weighs six thousand pounds, you know, so again, heavy vehicle, much like the five, although you the five's a mere fifty five hundred ish pounds.

Roberto Baldwin (25:02)
Nothing.

It's a chunky

Sam Abuelsamid (25:05)
But

Roberto Baldwin (25:05)
boy.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:06)
yeah, very chunky.

Craig Cole (25:07)
Everything

is getting heavy everything is heavy these days though. Like lightweighting, everybody forgot about that. Lightweight, what? Huh? Carbon

Roberto Baldwin (25:12)
Like pff Just put bigger engine in it.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:13)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (25:15)
fiber? Hmm? No.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:16)
The the

Roberto Baldwin (25:17)
Throw a turbo.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:18)
well the you know, the c the carbon fiber's on the dashboard, you know, where it does the most good. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Cole (25:22)
Saves a yes, it does the most good, exactly. Structural trim.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:27)
so you know, hundred and ninety four horsepower electric motor. and I had no problem, you know, in electric mode, even with, you know, hundred and ninety four horsepower and a three ton car, easily, you know, at red you know, when the lights turned green, I was easily, you know, out accelerating everybody without even really trying.

you know, 'cause you've got you've also got, you know, it's two two hundred and seven

Roberto Baldwin (25:51)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:51)
foot pounds of torque, but you know, it's from zero RPM, so it's fine. so you can you can actually drive this, you know, if you plug it in, again, it's a plug in hybrid. so you know, you should plug it

Craig Cole (26:02)
Plug it in.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:03)
in. you know, and if you plug it in, you know, you'll be able to do most of your daily driving without using any gas, which is good because when the battery is depleted and you get into

into the hybrid mode. again, I it outperformed the EPA rating. It's it's only rated at 14 miles per gallon combined.

Ha.

Craig Cole (26:29)
I was expecting 20, but 14. man. But it's a plug-in.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:30)
Yeah. Yeah, four fourteen combined. but but yeah, it's you know, it's a f it's a five hundred

Roberto Baldwin (26:34)
It's got a V8 in it.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:38)
and seventy seven horsepower V eight.

Roberto Baldwin (26:40)
Yeah. Yeah, it's not made for sipping gas. It's made for big gulps

Sam Abuelsamid (26:42)
but you know, I

Roberto Baldwin (26:44)
of gas.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:45)
yeah, I mean I got I actually got almost eighteen miles per gallon with it.

Roberto Baldwin (26:49)
Wow. That's very on brand for

Craig Cole (26:49)
Okay. You did considerably better.

Roberto Baldwin (26:52)
for the Germans though, because they're

Sam Abuelsamid (26:53)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (26:54)
all they they're all gun shy from from Dieselgate. Like everything they underreport.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (26:59)
It's like, no, no, no. We're not getting into that again.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:04)
So, you know, if you plug it in and you know, even you know even if you you know, go past what the electric motor can can provide on its own and you get into hybrid mode, you're still gonna get decent you know, you're still gonna get decent fuel economy with this thing, you know, between the combination of you know, the the twenty five kilowatt hours of battery and the and the the the engine, you know, combined all that stuff.

It's it's gonna do okay. you know, on a longer road trip, yeah, it's you know, it's gonna be well under twenty miles per gallon, you know, if you're doing a long road trip with it. But then again, if you can afford this car, meh it's not yeah,

Craig Cole (27:48)
Fuel's not an issue.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:50)
you know, this is

Roberto Baldwin (27:51)
I drove

this from Air from Arizona to to San Francisco. I got a drive away of this vehicle. And it

Sam Abuelsamid (28:00)
yeah?

Roberto Baldwin (28:00)
was a yeah, it was actually it was a really you know, it was a comfortable, you know, kinda G

Sam Abuelsamid (28:05)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (28:06)
T cr like cruiser and whenever I needed to like do anything it's a wom It was ready to to

party.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:12)
Yeah, I mean

when you know, when you put it in in one or two mode, you know, it it will go. I you know, I did a couple of tests, got zero to sixty in three point s three point eight seconds roughly.

Craig Cole (28:28)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:29)
you know, it's again, I was not using launch control or anything. and BMW claims three point six seconds. you know, so it's it's a quick vehicle. Again, three tons.

Three tons of car here, but lots of space. the backseat is extremely roomy. lots of cargo space out in the back behind the backseat. so yeah, this would be aside from the fuel efficiency, this would be a you know, a decent vehicle for a long road trip. You know, like you know, perhaps if you were driving

Craig Cole (29:02)
And

Sam Abuelsamid (29:03)
across the country with some beagles.

Craig Cole (29:06)
And

Roberto Baldwin (29:06)
Yeah, no.

Craig Cole (29:06)
you get segment leading diamond faceting. Let's not forget Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:10)
Yes,

that that is true.

Roberto Baldwin (29:10)
Damn

it. I took so I picked I had to get up early, dri fly to Arizona, and then I had planned to sort of just drive all the way home. But I was gonna visit my in laws in Palm Springs. And I did not do that. I because I was just tired because I had to get like four in the morning to catch my plane. So between Arizona, Phoenix, and where the where I

and Palm Springs. I pulled over and took a little nap in the back of the car. And it was very comfortable. 'Cause

Craig Cole (29:40)
Why not?

Roberto Baldwin (29:41)
they had the little pillows, you know, the little luxury pillows they give. They're

Sam Abuelsamid (29:43)
yeah, those pillows are really nice.

Roberto Baldwin (29:45)
very comfy. So I I pulled over at like some s stop that told me not to go wandering around because there are a ton of scorpions out in the out in the out in the world ready to ready to get me. And yeah, I I pulled over and had a nice little rest. It was it was nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:02)
Yeah, I mean the c the seat

Craig Cole (30:03)
Did you get threatened by

the police for sleeping at the rest area or no?

Roberto Baldwin (30:07)
I I I love that. I love how like you go to the rest area so you don't drive, you know, dangerously and then the police come up are like, No, you can't do that I'm like, What are what are you talking about? That's the whole point of a rest area.

Craig Cole (30:16)
No sleeping in your car. Like

what? What why why is this place here? What?

Roberto Baldwin (30:20)
Would you rather

Sam Abuelsamid (30:20)
What

Roberto Baldwin (30:21)
me

just drive? Yes, we'd rather you drive and put your and everyone else's life in danger. Driving st

Craig Cole (30:26)
Welcome to Endstage Capitalism.

Roberto Baldwin (30:28)
Yeah, w driving driving while tired is just as bad as driving while drunk. And and

Craig Cole (30:33)
Yes, yes. yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:33)
Yeah, yeah. Easily.

Roberto Baldwin (30:35)
but yeah, yeah, you can't do that. I'm like, what? I I have been I d I have been told to pull the leave places like at the beach. We would drive really early to go to the beach and we get there at like five AM sunside up, so we go to sleep in the car and then the cops would be off.

You're sleeping illegally. I'm like, we're just waiting for the sun come up so we can surf. You gotta go somewhere else for that.

So we just went to the other side

Craig Cole (30:58)
Why?

Roberto Baldwin (30:59)
of the beach. We just went to another parking lot down the street and fell asleep at at a different beach. He showed us.

Craig Cole (31:07)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:08)
So the the only option installed on

Is the $2,500 drivers package. I'm not sure what's included in that. Yeah. It's got got more mmm.

Roberto Baldwin (31:21)
Mm. Everything tastes better with the it's the mm drivers.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:28)
and then so the grand total on this one came to one hundred and sixty three thousand two hundred and seventy five dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (31:36)
So

Craig Cole (31:37)
Is are we

at the point where luxury automakers are raising their prices so high that they're they're angling for an ever smaller group of customers and then everything's just going to implode? Because a hundred and sixty three thousand dollars, that's at

least to

Sam Abuelsamid (31:50)
Well

Craig Cole (31:51)
me, rather a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:53)
It yes. but you you have to look at it this way. The wealthy are getting wealthier by the day, and so

Craig Cole (32:00)
This is true.

Roberto Baldwin (32:00)
That's true.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:01)
they can afford to buy more cars. So even though they are a very small portion of the population, they have enough money that they can buy all the cars that they want. So, you know, by offering vehicles

Roberto Baldwin (32:10)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:11)
like this, you know, all that does is encourage them to get bigger garages.

Craig Cole (32:17)
What if they get bored and they want to like buy up all of the single family homes in a community? Like they may not be buying cars then.

Roberto Baldwin (32:25)
they could do that too.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:26)
Well then well then they

can use the garages, all the garages in those single family homes to store all their cars.

Roberto Baldwin (32:27)
No, they can do both. I know.

Craig Cole (32:29)
That's true. That's

yes. I hadn't thought of that.

Roberto Baldwin (32:31)
Where are they gonna keep their cars,

Craig? Come on, you're not even thinking.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:34)
Yeah.

all right, so yeah, so this was the the 2026 BMW XM label. and it did it did better than I expected on range and fuel economy. the charge port is a J1772 port on the left front fender. and it's got big honkin tires and they're summer performance tires, so you definitely

will want to swap these out for some winter tires. You have have your have your guy,

Craig Cole (33:09)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:09)
you know, take it out, you know, take it to the garage and and swap the tires at the first hint of cold. but other than that, it's it's pretty nice. You know, it's it's angry looking, but it's nice.

Roberto Baldwin (33:23)
trying to find what my photos of when I had it. So maybe I can see what what my what my gas mileage was, but I it's it's neat because nothing works correctly anymore in the in the tech world. It's very

Sam Abuelsamid (33:38)
And and unlike

Craig Cole (33:38)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (33:39)
it's it's weirdly difficult for me just to find a photo from a certain month and a certain year now. Yeah.

Craig Cole (33:43)
Of course. You have to re log in again and then there's gonna be a there's

send a message to your backup email account, right? And then

Sam Abuelsamid (33:51)
And one

Craig Cole (33:52)
once you log in you can't find it 'cause you don't remember what folder it's in and search is useless.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:56)
And un unlike all of the recently launched BMW models, the XM still has manual vents. You know, all the new Neue Class stuff has software controlled vents, not in the

Roberto Baldwin (34:05)
Yeah. Boo.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:08)
XM. So buy the XM instead of the Neue Class cars. At least, you know, while it's still available because it hasn't sold all that well. So, you know, BMW might discontinue it soon.

So that's the XM. So let let us

Roberto Baldwin (34:25)
Alright, I paid a hundred and three dollars for gas.

That's what I've found so far. I haven't found a picture that typically I take a pic

Craig Cole (34:33)
He couldn't find the photo, but

he was able to search Google Sheets and his business

Roberto Baldwin (34:36)
What the where's the

Craig Cole (34:37)
expenses.

Roberto Baldwin (34:39)
Yeah, exactly I like why I need to expense this.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:43)
all right. let's let's talk about some of the stuff that happened in the past week. there was out of spec put up a new video where Kyle Connor was doing a little rant about a a bad trend that he has seen recently.

Roberto Baldwin (35:02)
A little, it's eleven

minutes. Doesn't seem like a little rant at all.

Craig Cole (35:05)
That's

Sam Abuelsamid (35:05)
Well,

for him eleven minutes is a short. You know, he often does like two hour videos, so and

Craig Cole (35:05)
a little rant for him. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (35:08)
a like a little rant's like forty f wow. I

don't apparently I don't listen to out of spec very often.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:15)
Yeah. but his his complaint is about EVs that have adopted Knaxx ports but still have J seventeen seventy two ports for AC charging. So they're only using the NAX for DC charging. and

Craig Cole (35:29)
Mm-hmm. Like the Nissan leaf comes to mind.

Roberto Baldwin (35:32)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:32)
yeah, the Leaf was the first one to do that. you know, what Nissan explained

Craig Cole (35:36)
But at least it's not a Chadmo port.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:38)
yeah, it's true. What what Nissan explained last year was, you know, the decision to go to Knaxx on that car was a late

Decision and they didn't have time to re engineer all the AC charging stuff. They on because for for AC charging, you've got to have an onboard charger that converts the the AC to DC for the battery. and so they left the J1772 port on the left front fender, added the NAX port for DC charging on the right front. I guess the the early Mercedes CLAs, they've I guess they've switched it now, but the

The early builds of the CLA also did this. They had a NAX and and an AC port for for J1772 AC port. And now the Porsche Kayan is doing this as well. So the new Kayan EV has a DC only NAX port. and one of the things that Kyle explained in there is I guess there's a a module that's required with the NAX port to

do AC chart to do the conversion for AC charging. And there's

Craig Cole (36:46)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:47)
been a shortage of these. There's a supply chain shortage of these modules.

Craig Cole (36:49)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:51)
And so some manufacturers not being able to get enough of them, they've decided to just do the the two port solution. which hopefully that won't last very long. Hopefully, you know they'll get away from that.

Craig Cole (37:03)
Yeah. It's such

a band aid solution. You need

Roberto Baldwin (37:06)
Like Hyundai has It's

like they they just don't have

Sam Abuelsamid (37:09)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (37:09)
in Germany.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:10)
Well, Hyundai probably makes their own. Hyundai Mobus probably makes them. Yeah, 'cause

Roberto Baldwin (37:14)
yeah, that's true.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:15)
they've they've got MOBIS that makes all kinds of parts. So they're probably doing their own.

Craig Cole (37:18)
Mm-hmm. But it's

such a band-aid solution to have the two ports, like

Sam Abuelsamid (37:24)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (37:24)
all this extra complexity for nothing. And then they put under two separate charging doors on the Porsche here and and the leaf as well. I I would try to figure out a way of sticking them in the same spot so you don't have to remember which side is which. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:36)
Well that's what Mercedes did. Mercedes

actually had both of them side by side in the same port. the Mer the C L A

Craig Cole (37:41)
Yeah. That that makes the sense. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (37:41)
Left right left right left right left right here every time you pull up your

Sam Abuelsamid (37:45)
I th I think was on the left rear corner.

And and the Kayen the Kayen has the the Knaxx

Roberto Baldwin (37:50)
Ooh, do we have any pictures Do we have any pictures of the Kai and

Sam Abuelsamid (37:53)
port on the on the left rear and the AC port on the right rear.

Craig Cole (37:58)
And I prefer my ports on the front. At least the front fender, po

Roberto Baldwin (38:02)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (38:03)
the grill is preferable, in my opinion, but y'all do you.

Roberto Baldwin (38:10)
Trying look at dash dash photos

Sam Abuelsamid (38:10)
Yeah. Well I mean you know

Roberto Baldwin (38:12)
of the cayenne. Can you see the that that's not what I want? Does it tell you one's on one side and the others on the other side? You know, the

Sam Abuelsamid (38:20)
I don't know.

Roberto Baldwin (38:21)
little the little arrow. You know, if so if you get in your car,

Craig Cole (38:23)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (38:23)
if it's a gas car, there's a little SAE standard. So when you get your car, there's a little arrow that tells you

Sam Abuelsamid (38:25)
Yeah. Well even even on EVs it tells

Roberto Baldwin (38:28)
what side. Well, not all EVs. Because there's not a standard.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:31)
Our EV six has that.

Roberto Baldwin (38:33)
Your EV6 has it, but like some EVs don't have it. I forget what EV I the the su I think the Subaru didn't have

Craig Cole (38:40)
Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (38:40)
it doesn't have the little arrow 'cause I was like figuring out like it might have been the anyway, I was trying like wait, how do I pull into my driveway in order to charge this? 'Cause I have to s you know, swap cars and I like, wait, I get out

Craig Cole (38:52)
Hashim.

Roberto Baldwin (38:52)
and look So not all EVs

Sam Abuelsamid (38:54)
Ha.

Roberto Baldwin (38:56)
have the little arrows, but like on the cayenne, does it have an arrow that says A C and an arrow that says D C?

Sam Abuelsamid (39:04)
I do not know.

Craig Cole (39:05)
That's a good question.

Roberto Baldwin (39:06)
And would the average person know the difference? They just know fast and

Craig Cole (39:09)
They

would not. They take their Chevy bolts

Roberto Baldwin (39:11)
Eee.

Craig Cole (39:12)
to to the three hundred and fifty kilowatt charger. Like they don't know.

Roberto Baldwin (39:15)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:16)
Well,

at least at least the new bolts, you know, have hundred and fifty kilowatt charging, so

Craig Cole (39:20)
Yes.

Not like

Roberto Baldwin (39:21)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (39:21)
fifty five for the old version, which is just like no. If you don't have AC charging

Roberto Baldwin (39:26)
I I wrote a whole thing about that.

Craig Cole (39:28)
at home like you're doing it wrong.

Roberto Baldwin (39:30)
Yeah, I wrote a whole thing about that. How why it's important to know the charge rate of your vehicle. And but, you know, more and more charging stations only have three fifty, so it's fine at this point. But at the time

Sam Abuelsamid (39:43)
Yeah, I mean it's it's fine if if they're all three fifties. you know, but like when this Electrify America station near me here first opened up, they had six chargers and only two of them were three fifties and the others were all one hundred fifties. And you you probab you you used that one on numerous occasions, haven't you, Craig?

Craig Cole (40:03)
Yeah, back when we were at E V Pulse doing a bunch of charging tests, yeah. Yeah, that was the

Sam Abuelsamid (40:05)
Yeah. Yeah. That

Craig Cole (40:08)
only one that ha in the region basically that had three I shouldn't say region, but it was reliable enough and had three hundred and fifty kilowatts so we could really max out whatever we were testing and

Sam Abuelsamid (40:20)
Well, since since then, the chargers at that station have been replaced twice. And

Craig Cole (40:26)
nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:26)
and so they're now all all three fifties. yeah.

Craig Cole (40:30)
cool that's good.

Yeah. Well a lot of folks are in the area, I imagine like Carn Driver does testing out that

Sam Abuelsamid (40:35)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Cole (40:36)
way and and d various supplier companies and OEMs are out there testing vehicles, so

Sam Abuelsamid (40:38)
There and there's there's actually quite a

quite a lot of people around here with E Vs now. So

Craig Cole (40:44)
Hmm. Nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:47)
so let's see. China, as usual, is ahead of us on on regulations. they've got they've got some good regulations. We talked earlier this year about them announcing new rules for door handles that go into effect January first. so you know, no more no more hidden door handles on new vehicles launching after January first of twenty twenty seven.

Roberto Baldwin (41:14)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:15)
and

Now they have done a recall for a l several million vehicles that are already out on the road because the the mechanical backup latches on the interior of the car are too hard to find.

Craig Cole (41:33)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:34)
back year or so, year and a half ago when it was a a crash with a Xiaomi SU seven that killed three young women.

because they couldn't get out of the vehicle. Xiaomi made a change. They they painted the the mechanical backup latch red so you can easily see it. And now there's a recall for a whole bunch of other vehicles that to for require them to change the mechanical latches so they're easier to find. they're not they're not hidden. and

This is going to affect three million Teslas that are on the road in China. they're gonna have to recall, plus many hundreds of thousands or million or more other vehicles as well.

Craig Cole (42:29)
Yeah, I don't understand

Roberto Baldwin (42:29)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (42:30)
the advantage of these E latches. They're I get it, they're kinda cool, but you're building two separate door handles then. You have the whole E latch assembly, and then you need the redundant safety system that is the mechanical latch. So why? I have to do this. Why?

Sam Abuelsamid (42:45)
I I've I've had this discussion with Rivian

Roberto Baldwin (42:47)
It's clip.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:48)
a couple of times now and still have not gotten a a good answer from them.

Roberto Baldwin (42:53)
It's clever

for the sake of clever. Look what this then do. Ooh, you're like, no. I shouldn't no one should ever have to

Craig Cole (42:57)
Yeah, yeah. Woohoo features.

Roberto Baldwin (42:59)
explain how a door handle works in a car. That's never should you I shouldn't whenever a passenger gets into a car,

Craig Cole (43:02)
Thank you thank you, thank you.

Roberto Baldwin (43:05)
I shouldn't have to explain how to get in the car and how to get out of the car. That's not a conversation we should be having.

Craig Cole (43:11)
Right? Exactly. And Sam as I

Roberto Baldwin (43:12)
It's like a it would it would be like trying to explain like

Sam Abuelsamid (43:13)
Should be a no brainer.

Roberto Baldwin (43:16)
we have a different weird seat belt set up in this car. Like what? Like Yes, if you want to plug

Craig Cole (43:20)
Yes. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (43:21)
in your seatbelt, there's a little button you have to push and it electronically the seat belt comes out and then you plug it in and then it goes back into an area where you can't get to it.

Craig Cole (43:32)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (43:33)
That's essentially what they're

Sam Abuelsamid (43:33)
Well yesterday

Roberto Baldwin (43:34)
building with these cars.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:35)
yes yesterday we went out in the XM and th there there was one slight complaint that my wife had that the the seatbelt latch was down too low and she was having a hard time actually getting

the thing in there. It wasn't it wasn't sticking up far enough. so what's wrong, Morty? He was sitting under my table and

Roberto Baldwin (43:54)
no. You heard about the seatbelt latch situation.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:57)
he just just jumped up. yeah, so

Hopefully, you know, hopefully we'll start to see stuff like this happening here. I'm not holding my breath. but at least because the Chinese are requiring it, other you know, manufacturers are having to make changes to their designs that they sell globally. So at least we'll hopefully start seeing some of these cars changing in the next couple of years. all right, let's see. okay. Last week, Genesis had an event in California

Craig Cole (44:29)
yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:30)
that I don't think any of us were invited to.

unfortunately.

Roberto Baldwin (44:32)
I went to it, it was near my house.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:34)
Did were you there? okay. Well tell us about the G V ninety.

Roberto Baldwin (44:36)
Yeah, was there. I b I've been file

I was filing I've been filing magazine pages for the last couple of days, so I hadn't had a chance to to push and also I didn't get to go to the actual unveiling 'cause I had band practice. But I went

Sam Abuelsamid (44:49)
Hell.

Roberto Baldwin (44:51)
to the tech day, like the next day. So I you know. so yeah, so the G V ninety,

it's their big, you know, sort of cullin and competitor, I suppose, is is what you wanna call it.

It's got the swivel door the swivel seats you can turn around that I'm pretty sure aren't legal

Craig Cole (45:07)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (45:08)
in the United States anyway, but they're really fun. You can turn it and and it has the I guess they're called the coach doors. people of my age and older probably call them suicide doors. and because if you if you if you try to you know put them in your car afterwards you want to kill yourself. But

Craig Cole (45:26)
Ha ha

Sam Abuelsamid (45:26)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (45:27)
what's interesting is it doesn't have a B pillar. So they're suic they're they're coach doors without a B pillar.

And what they've done is they've reinforced the they call it an arch. So they've reinforced this area around it. Plus they've essentially put put the B pillar into the rear door. So that,

Craig Cole (45:45)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (45:47)
you know, it's still, you know, if you hit it, it's you'll still get all the protection. You know, you know, Genesis says you'll still get all the protection.

Craig Cole (45:53)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (45:54)
You know, we haven't I haven't seen them smash one into anything yet. they do well they did sh they did have they did have some like data.

Craig Cole (45:57)
Well their vehicles are very safe. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (46:00)
They're like, you know, the ingress of

Smashing it was actually lower than other vehicles. So they they've done some some very clever engineering in order to in order to to sort of recreate a bill a B pillar within the door. And they're like these really honking huge latches for the doors when they close. But you can open the front or the back door independent of one another. So like if you

had a

Craig Cole (46:23)
'Cause the

the door kinda slides back before it hinges out, right? It does a Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (46:25)
Yeah, it's got it's

Sam Abuelsamid (46:25)
Yeah, it's kinda kinda like a minivan sliding door. Goes back a little

Roberto Baldwin (46:28)
It's vr

Sam Abuelsamid (46:29)
bit and then swings up.

Roberto Baldwin (46:29)
I'm trying to find

something in my on my desk it's that's as large as the part it's it's probably about th this big for the

Sam Abuelsamid (46:38)
The hinge?

Roberto Baldwin (46:39)
for the hinge and it's

Craig Cole (46:40)
The hinge, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (46:41)
it sort of slides and then it moves and it's cast iron like the actual the mediest part

Craig Cole (46:47)
wow.

Roberto Baldwin (46:47)
of it and then the rest of it is aluminum. So it's like when you wat when you watch it you're like this is it's it's actually a pretty cool the way they've done it.

And they've done a lot of work on it. And later on in a with Luke, I f forget how to say his last name.

Craig Cole (47:02)
Donker Volkka.

Roberto Baldwin (47:04)
exactly, you both said it differently. so at a he the someone asked Mike, will we see this you know coach doors and other cars? Like, no, it's so hard. And essentially it was just like it was so hard.

Craig Cole (47:13)
No. Yeah. But

Roberto Baldwin (47:16)
And everything else is gonna be smaller than this because this is a big vehicle. It's so hard to do that that it's not really worth the money to do it. Like this is a big Halo car.

The idea to sell it to, you know, very fancy people. And it's very comfortable inside. The seats are really nice. It it is Genesis like really punching up like re like

Craig Cole (47:35)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (47:36)
a lot. And you know, when you get into Genesis, you're like, wow, this is a really nice car. You know, this this, you know, and most people don't know Genesis is a thing, to be honest. Yeah, it's like Mitsubishi. So Genesis has been they they just keep everyone sells I if I were building cars

Craig Cole (47:43)
Yeah, it's like Mitsubishi. Luxury Mitsubishi.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:43)
Yeah. Except Genesis, I think, sells more cars than Mitsubishi does in the US.

Craig Cole (47:50)
Probably in the US, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (47:52)
in my backyard, I'd probably be building more cars in Mitsubishi.

Craig Cole (47:54)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (47:56)
so it's it's very impressive. the back end it this is I thought it looked like a sixties like a bus. It has that little like very almost art deco look. I think

Craig Cole (48:07)
Like a bus. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (48:09)
somebody told me it looks like the back of a an the so you you have to see the rear end by itself. Someone said it looks like the back of a of a of a

of a Brit of a London tag taxi.

Craig Cole (48:26)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:26)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (48:27)
and then the only and I think the only thing people kind of were like, is the fact that it has a rear windshield wiper, but there's nowhere for it to hide. So it just sort of

Craig Cole (48:37)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (48:38)
sticks out. That's sort of the big thing. But the

Sam Abuelsamid (48:40)
Yeah, 'cause there's no spoiler

on the tailgate or anything.

Roberto Baldwin (48:43)
Yeah, there's no spoiler or anything. It just sort of sticks out. the front end has those that that long light bar, those two light bars that do and they

Craig Cole (48:52)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (48:52)
look it looks like a string of diamonds. It's actually really yeah, that that little V. It looks

Craig Cole (48:57)
There you yeah, yeah yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (48:59)
like a string of diamonds, especially in in real life. overall, I mean this is the regular one. This is the one with the just the regular doors, not the

the the crazy coach doors.

Craig Cole (49:06)
Yeah. Well

that's a point that's a question I had for bo well both of you. I love the the the rear hinged coach doors because it's different, it really makes a statement, it it helps this vehicle stand out, but you've now gotta do two different body side aperture stampings to do that, right? Like that's probably the single biggest piece of metal on the car is the the side piece. 'Cause that's where your doors hang, your fenders mount, the crash structure is integral.

How much money are they spending to have two completely different doors on this what I would assume is a low volume vehicle?

Sam Abuelsamid (49:38)
Well, it's it's possible

it it's possible that you know you could do the same aperture and you know engineer it in a way that,

Roberto Baldwin (49:48)
Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (49:48)
you know, then you 'cause the B pillar is going to be welded in there anyway.

Craig Cole (49:52)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:52)
So the the the external part of it, you could have that as the as a common stamping between the two. And then, you know, on the on most of them you weld in the B pillar, on the others you put in the the hooks for the coach doors.

Craig Cole (50:08)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:08)
So there

there's there's the there's the rear view of the of the G V ninety. And you can yeah. Because there you have no spoiler

Craig Cole (50:15)
Wiper just hanging out, chillin' there.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:18)
and yeah, there's nowhere to hide it. So that's

Roberto Baldwin (50:20)
I'm

gonna send you a picture in the chat, Sam, to s to share with the peeps of the this fish what I can't send you a chat. There it goes. Can I send you a picture? I took a

Sam Abuelsamid (50:34)
I should be able

to.

Let's see. Yeah.

Craig Cole (50:39)
Like you were saying, technology getting harder to use.

Roberto Baldwin (50:40)
Nope.

it's not letting me send the photo. I'll text it to you real quick, Sam. So I took

Sam Abuelsamid (50:46)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (50:46)
a picture of the of the giant hinge. And it is I took

Craig Cole (50:51)
Hm.

Roberto Baldwin (50:51)
a couple pictures. This is probably the best one.

Craig Cole (50:53)
And it's cast iron. Literally cast iron, you said.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:56)
Yeah, that's w that that surprised me. I didn't I didn't see that mentioned anywhere.

Roberto Baldwin (51:01)
here's Tommy and I sitting in it.

Craig Cole (51:01)
I mean it needs to be strong.

Roberto Baldwin (51:04)
Here's Tommy, Micah, and I from T F L sitting in it across from one another. He's doing his job and I'm

Craig Cole (51:09)
you're having a

Roberto Baldwin (51:10)
just sitting there.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:15)
let's see.

Craig Cole (51:17)
He's Roman Micah's son, he's always

Sam Abuelsamid (51:18)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (51:19)
on the job. They're workaholics.

Roberto Baldwin (51:21)
They are. It's just delightful people though. Just absolutely

Craig Cole (51:25)
The

so

Sam Abuelsamid (51:25)
There.

Craig Cole (51:26)
the G V ninety has some other very interesting features. It's it's a head up display only for the instrument cluster, right? 'Cause you look at photos of it

Roberto Baldwin (51:33)
Yeah, there's no insur like there

Sam Abuelsamid (51:33)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (51:34)
there's no regular instant cluster. It's hep display only. Which

Craig Cole (51:36)
Yeah, but it's head up only. No.

Roberto Baldwin (51:39)
makes you wonder, like, well, you know, 'cause most hep, you know, they're like, it'll work with your, you know, polarized sunglasses. I wear polarized sunglasses.

Craig Cole (51:46)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (51:46)
I have very sensitive eyes 'cause I'm a fancy man.

Craig Cole (51:49)
Me too.

Roberto Baldwin (51:51)
and so when I'm driving, I I

Craig Cole (51:52)
Not because I'm fancy.

Roberto Baldwin (51:53)
I wear sunglasses and so I have to I'll turn my head to see if the thing's on.

Craig Cole (51:59)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (52:00)
So it'll be interesting. Like some of them are pretty

They've set it up so you can still sort of s mostly see it. but a couple are just like it is okay, fine. But the the inside of the vehicle is very comfortable. The third row, like, you know, you're you're fighting with so many

Craig Cole (52:16)
Nice use of colour.

Roberto Baldwin (52:17)
so many different yeah, the colors are really, really pretty.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:17)
Well yeah, I mean th there's

there's a number of peculiar things about the inside. Like you've got this big giant screen that actually

Craig Cole (52:26)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:28)
rises up out of the dashboard.

Craig Cole (52:30)
huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:30)
So like

Roberto Baldwin (52:31)
But it goes down when you're driving.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:33)
Yeah. And

Craig Cole (52:33)
Very nice. Okay, I

was gonna say 'cause I saw this photo, I'm like, that looks a bit distracting. That's a lot of sweet

Sam Abuelsamid (52:38)
Yeah. That's a lot of screen. But that's only when you're parked.

Craig Cole (52:42)
Gotcha. That makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:44)
And and then there's the shift lever, which is when when the vehicle is off, it

Craig Cole (52:50)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:51)
it stands up vertically from the steering column. And then I guess when you put your foot on the brake pedal, it rotates around clockwise into the the typical position you have down to about the close to three o'clock position. And then you can

Craig Cole (53:03)
Hi.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:04)
shift into park and reverse and and and drive.

Craig Cole (53:09)
That's crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:10)
I I don't know why.

Craig Cole (53:12)
That's insane. Cool but insane. Also the

Sam Abuelsamid (53:15)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (53:17)
Robbie they I read it has wood veneer

Sam Abuelsamid (53:20)
There

Craig Cole (53:20)
floors. there's the there's the hinge. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:22)
Yeah. That's yeah, that's a serious hinge.

Roberto Baldwin (53:23)
Yeah, that's not they're not messing around. You can see you

Craig Cole (53:25)
No, that is

Roberto Baldwin (53:26)
can see how it slides. You if you look at the back, so it's it

Craig Cole (53:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:29)
slides

Sam Abuelsamid (53:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:30)
so when the door opens it sort of pops out, slides and then opens. And then when it closes it it closes and then slides back into into place. So it

Sam Abuelsamid (53:39)
Yeah, 'cause like

the the BMW I three, the the the original I three, and also, you know, some pickup trucks that had like rear hinged and also the Mazda RX eight. They had rear hinged kind of half doors for the back.

Craig Cole (53:54)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:55)
And for for those for all those, you can't open them without opening the front doors. You have to open the front doors before you

Craig Cole (54:01)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:01)
can open the rear doors. So this allows you to open the rear doors without opening the fronts.

Craig Cole (54:07)
Same with the Mazda what was it? The the the E V. Well the C the E V, the That one. That was so bad they got rid of it. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:09)
The RX eight. yeah, the MX thirty. Yeah.

Here's there's Robbie and Tommy and Tommy, Tommy Micah.

Roberto Baldwin (54:21)
So I'm six

Craig Cole (54:22)
Uh-huh.

Roberto Baldwin (54:22)
I'm six three and Tommy I I'm assuming is shorter than me. But

Sam Abuelsamid (54:26)
He's about six foot, I think.

Roberto Baldwin (54:27)
yeah, so but this is what it's like if you're tall and you're sitting across from each other having like a nice having a nice like,

Craig Cole (54:31)
It's very intimate.

Roberto Baldwin (54:34)
you know, picnic.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:36)
But you can only rotate the seats when the car's parked. So you can't do it

Roberto Baldwin (54:38)
Yeah, you can't

do this, yeah. You can yeah, you it's It's like woo

Craig Cole (54:40)
no, I'm not interested. I want

to be able to have a conference when I'm driving.

Also w har did I read it correctly? There's wood veneer floors and they have the Korean heating system they find in traditional homes, the omdol. Yeah, so

Roberto Baldwin (54:53)
Yeah. Radiated heating.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:54)
Radiant heating.

Craig Cole (54:56)
radiant floor heating.

Roberto Baldwin (54:57)
That right there is worth the price of admission. Whatever it happens to be.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:01)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (55:01)
Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:02)
radiant heating is so awesome.

Roberto Baldwin (55:04)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:05)
That that's one of the things that I missed the most about from the time I spent in Sweden, in northern Sweden back in the nineties, during winter testing. the places place we stayed always had radiant heated floors. And you know, a lot of people up there had that. And it was

Craig Cole (55:19)
Uh-huh. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:22)
so nice to be able to walk around on this nice warm floors.

Craig Cole (55:26)
And probably quite an efficient way of doing it too.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:29)
Yeah.

so yeah, so the G V ninety's got I think what is it, 124 kilowatt hour battery pack, 123, 124.

Roberto Baldwin (55:41)
Yeah, it's like one yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:42)
and it's it's gonna be about three hundred-ish miles of range.

Craig Cole (55:49)
Good. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:50)
yeah, 123 and a half kilowatt hours. There we go. it's got it's dual motor with electronic limited slip differentials at both axles.

air suspension, new power control, the O L E D cinematic display. yeah. Yeah. Did they give you any hints as to

Craig Cole (56:10)
The usual suspects. Not a lot of cars have

Roberto Baldwin (56:13)
They use

Sam Abuelsamid (56:14)
how much this thing's gonna cost?

Roberto Baldwin (56:16)
They did not. But I pushed them because they're like at a hundred and fifty three hundred fifty kilowatt hour charger, it'll charge it, you know, in this fast at this fast. So I asked them like what is the charge rate? What is the kilowatts? And they told me three fifty. I'm like, three and I double checked them all. That's the charge rate of the vehicle. And then I did some math with the ten to eighty percent at a hundred and twenty three or one hundred and twenty three ki point five kilowatts. They say twenty two minutes. At that size I'm like, Yeah, that the math checks out.

Craig Cole (56:44)
They're usually not gonna lie to you, the Hyundai Motor

Roberto Baldwin (56:46)
Yeah, so

Craig Cole (56:47)
Group.

Roberto Baldwin (56:47)
yeah, they're not good but you have to like really push them for Ki especially Kia and Genesis. I think Hyundai's gotten like the memo 'cause I remember the first time we like a bunch of us asked, Well, what's the charge rate? And the they were all like, What do you mean? Why do you care? And we're like, No, that's that's

Craig Cole (57:00)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (57:00)
an important piece of information and they afterwards, like one of the PR people came up to me like, Is that a number people care about? I'm like, Yes. It's a big number people care about. Especially people who are a bunch of

Craig Cole (57:07)
Yeah. I mean functionally

they shouldn't because all that matters is the time. How long am I gonna have to sit here? But you need to know also need to know what charger you can use and should use in order to get that time, so that's why. Yeah. It wouldn't matter, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:19)
Yeah, that's that's why you need to know. I mean if if all the chargers were four hundred kilowatts, it wouldn't matter. You dn

Roberto Baldwin (57:19)
Exactly. That's why you need to know.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:25)
you wouldn't care.

Roberto Baldwin (57:27)
Yeah. No, it's a megawatts. It's efficiency.

Craig Cole (57:28)
Megawatt chargers. That's what we need.

Roberto Baldwin (57:33)
I did some math while I was there. The efficiency is two point five miles per kilowatt hour. it's got a roof airbag.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:38)
It Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (57:40)
They're like really and they just kept rolling this thing in order to test it like in different ways.

Craig Cole (57:45)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (57:46)
Cause they're like the

Sam Abuelsamid (57:47)
Well, if you don't

have a B pillar, you have you have to put the airbag somewhere.

Roberto Baldwin (57:51)
Well they were saying that a lot of people because of glass roofs, they get thrown from the vehicle or all this glass starts raining down on you because you

Sam Abuelsamid (57:58)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (57:59)
got a because you got a glass roof. So this airbag, it starts from the back and there's like wires along the sides and it the as it just deploys back to front and covers the whole top of the vehicle. So if you roll over, you're not gonna get tossed out and if you if you get, you know

Craig Cole (58:13)
But it's safer

to be thrown clear in a wreck, we all know that.

Roberto Baldwin (58:16)
I know.

Yeah. Everyone's dad in the eighties was

Craig Cole (58:20)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (58:22)
I'd rather be thrown clear. I'm like, what are you talking about? Thrown clear of once.

Craig Cole (58:24)
That's what I so I have

a I may have mentioned this on a previous episode. I have a nineteen thirty-six Ford V eight, and I like to macably joke that the only safety feature it has is safety glass, so that you can have an open casket funeral, because you won't be torn

Roberto Baldwin (58:37)
that's nice.

Craig Cole (58:38)
to ribbons by shards of glass. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (58:40)
You'll look nice though.

Craig Cole (58:43)
Less work for the morticians.

Roberto Baldwin (58:45)
Yeah. So yeah, so that was what else have we got here? no, it was it you know it's a very pretty car. I like the way it looked, even with the the the weird back end that's that I it that I actually liked. I thought it just because it's different from everything else. very art deco, I think, especially with the with the diamond. Again, it looks like a little sparkle a string of sparkly diamonds versus like just that long LED strip that you see on everything else. This has some character to it, some texture which I enjoy.

Yeah, and again th I think they they're like, We built this, we did it once, don't ask us to ever do it again.

Craig Cole (59:19)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:22)
did they

Craig Cole (59:22)
I I

also appreciate the clean the clean looks. Like Audi,

Roberto Baldwin (59:25)
It's very

Craig Cole (59:26)
BMW have lost their minds as far as I'm concerned.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:28)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (59:29)
This is very elegant.

Roberto Baldwin (59:31)
Yes. Yes. It's very it's very

Sam Abuelsamid (59:32)
Did did they give you

any kind of demo of the new Plios infotainment system?

Roberto Baldwin (59:37)
Nah, it was kind of they you know, it's a it's a pre production car at an event and we're all spinning spinning

Sam Abuelsamid (59:43)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (59:43)
the thing around. We're trying to spin the seats, we're trying to get the third row to thing to go up. And like they had to come and keep resetting it, so it wasn't really like, Ooh, let me try this out. Not really. So yeah, we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll have to see more.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:55)
Well Ple Pl Pleos is gonna be

coming on all the new Hyundai's, Kias and Genesis models going forward, so

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:04)
They have their

own in house AI, which is like everyone else is using Chat GPT and and Hyundai's like, nah, we got our own. We don't need that.

Like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:10)
Yeah, we're good.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:11)
reminder, the Hyundai owns like half of Korea.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:14)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:15)
Like if you

Craig Cole (1:00:15)
Literally.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:16)
if you live anywhere near a port, go out to the port. Like half the stuff out there has Hyundai written on it. They they are on the freeway, big trucks. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:22)
Yeah, or you know, I mean as you as you're driving down the road, yeah, look

look at the trailers being towed by by tractor trailers. And the better than even chance that it's gonna say Hyundai on the trailer. You know, they make the trailers, they make ships, they make buildings, they they have mines, they do everything.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:42)
It's like Honda but like bigger. Like everything like Honda's

Craig Cole (1:00:43)
Literally. Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:45)
Yeah, much, much, much bigger.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:47)
like Honda has a lot of things that they make, but they're all sort of like regular human size. Honda is like we make these cars and then giant things.

Craig Cole (1:00:54)
Is it w is it called a cha ball? Something like big multi

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:58)
I I'm not sure how it's

pronounced, Chayball or Kyball, K ball. but yeah, it's a it's a

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:03)
it's got a teeny tiny frunk.

Craig Cole (1:01:03)
Cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:07)
So it's like

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:06)
Frank is like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:07)
every other Hyundai Motor Group E V then.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:10)
Yeah, the frunk is not. You could

Craig Cole (1:01:10)
What about

the the architecture? It it's a n is it a new one? 'Cause it was not E G P, it was like E G. Yeah, something like that. EMP.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:15)
Yeah. No, it it's E it's like EMP or something. Hold on, let me look at my notes. It's got it's it's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:18)
Yeah yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:21)
it's the first it's the first EMO? No, it must be EMP. it's I must have misplaced. So it's got a it's a new

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:29)
Yeah, EMP.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:30)
yeah, it's EMP. EMO, that's not right. It's yeah, it's a new platform. This is the first vehicle on this platform. It's specifically for Genesis. This is likely why it charges at three hundred fifty kilowatts versus a lot of everything else in the

in the E G P the the the GMP, which is a funny less f you know, weird thing. that is like two hundred fifty it like kinda sort of tops

Craig Cole (1:01:53)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:53)
out. It's gonna be built in in Korea at the Usan plant. it's very unlikely this will ever be built at the mega the the the meta plant 'cause there's it's just small run.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:04)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:04)
You don't

Craig Cole (1:02:04)
Yeah, there's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:05)
So are are

Craig Cole (1:02:05)
very low volume.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:06)
they are they are they gonna use this updated platform just for Genesis or is it gonna filter through to the rest of to the other two brands as well?

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:18)
I think it's probably gonna what they'll probably do is they'll use it for Genesis and then like everything they learn off this will just end up in either they'll just drop it into the other platform so they can say, we have two you know, like Audian Volkswagen.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:31)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:32)
but they'll actually migrate it down. or maybe they'll just move everything to that platform, but I feel like they're gonna wanna I feel like they kinda wanna keep it separate, but put all the put all the bits that they they can that they can forward.

to put into, you know, Hyundai's and and Kias.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:49)
So is there like a button on the dash that you can press that will fry all of the electronic devices around around around you?

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:57)
For the EMP? I hope so.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:58)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:02:59)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:01)
It's like haha, no one's taking it's like

Craig Cole (1:03:03)
Yes, it is a small

thermonuclear explosion s just above the vehicle that will zap everything.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:06)
Yeah. Poof poof. Poof.

That's what it makes that sound, you know. That's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:12)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:13)
the official movie sound of like some sort of sonic wave that breaks everything. Boom.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:20)
all right. Any anything else on the G V ninety?

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:23)
Mm.

Looking, looking, looking, three sixty, one twenty three. Nah, I can't take her.

Craig Cole (1:03:28)
kudos to them

for being adventurous and doing something that's I'd say classically

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:31)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:03:32)
beautiful and has a unique door configuration. Like that's so refreshing.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:36)
That's the thing is it

it's very it's not like we did this crazy thing and now it looks like it's, you know, an angry car in a in an alley that's gonna, you know, shank you for your lunch money. It's like we did this amazing thing and here's this beautiful car that looks like it's it's wearing an elegant dress. You know, it's it's very yeah. They they talked a little bit about Marilyn Monroe. I'm not sure what all that was about. I just sort of tuned that part out because it seems like a very weird thing. that was like

Okay. I feel like the last people who really were excited about Marilyn Monroe were was Gen X and everyone after that doesn't care.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:14)
Probably. all right. So during that tech day did they also talk about the G V eighty hybrid?

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:23)
no, it was

all E V E V it

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:24)
Okay. Alright.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:26)
was all G V ninety all the time.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:28)
Okay. Well, Genesis is also launching a G V eighty hybrid, which should be arriving like in the next few weeks. and

Craig Cole (1:04:37)
It's good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:38)
it's it's using the next generation Hyundai hybrid system, which launched on the the Telluride and the Palisade. so it looks just like you know, like all the other G V V eighties, which is fine. Nothing wrong with that. but they

Craig Cole (1:04:54)
No. It's a great vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:55)
yeah, the

Yeah, because the G V eighty is based on a longitudinal engine drivetrain, so it's a rear wheel drive, all wheel drive configuration, whereas the Telluride and the Palisade are transverse engines.

Craig Cole (1:05:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:09)
it's it's the same architecture as the those vehicles, but obviously repackaged into a rear wheel drive transmission. So the the original Hyundai hybrid system was kind of a an oddball.

Craig Cole (1:05:26)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:26)
where

it's got a motor in the transition in the transmission. there's a clutch between the engine and the the motor and then there's a belted starter generator that does that handles the starting and stopping of the engine and a little bit of regen from that.

Craig Cole (1:05:43)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:44)
and then the and it also provides the the power for the the vehicle, the twelve volt power for the vehicle. now they've they gotten rid of the the

the P0, the the belted starter generator, added a second motor that's attached to the back end of the crankshaft of the engine and the clutch sits between the two motors.

Craig Cole (1:06:05)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:05)
So the P1 motor that's attached to the engine does the engine stop start power generation. It can operate when the clutch is open, it can operate as

Craig Cole (1:06:16)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:17)
essentially a series hybrid. When the clutch

Craig Cole (1:06:19)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:20)
closes, the engine and both motors can propel the vehicle

and it's a it's a more efficient system and and it's also tighter packaging at least on the on the transverse version of it. So they're putting this into the G V eighty with a two point five liter four cylinder turbo, just like they have in the Palisade and the Telluride. Three hundred and forty seven horsepower, which slots it in between the this just the base two point five turbo, which is three hundred horsepower in the G V eighty.

And the 375 horsepower twin turbo V6. and so this this should be a I think this should be a nice combination.

Craig Cole (1:06:58)
It's

so w I the question I have is this is this is like Honda's two motor hybrid system, which is also very similar to what we tested in the Outlander P Hev. those systems have two electric motors and no transmission. So there's the one electric motor that starts the gasoline engine and it does it operates as a generator. And then there's the other electric motor that can power the vehicle and then at certain speeds typically

I

sounds like around fifty-five miles per hour for the Mitsubishi. there's a one-way, I guess it's just a sprag clutch. I don't think it's like an actual lockup clutch. that allows the engine to then directly drive the wheels at higher speeds where the combustion engine is more efficient. but this is including a step ratio transmission. It sounds like it's a very similar series parallel hybrid system with a gearbox. So what's the what's the purpose of the transmission?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:51)
Yeah, so you got

yeah, six speed automatic transmission. basic you know, fairly conventional six speed automatic. and the other thing is the the motors, the motor power in here is not as proportionally is not as high as what you get in the Honda hybrid system. So the Honda hybrid, you know is two hundred horsepower total, hundred and eighty hundred and eighty one horsepower of that comes from the electric motor. So it actually does most of the driving in series mode.

And then can you know when it at higher speeds it will engage the clutch and also send some engine torque to the wheels.

Craig Cole (1:08:29)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:29)
most of the time it's basically operating as a series hybrid. This is gonna be less of the series hybrid type of operation and more of a parallel. So you know if if there's if there's a continuum from pure parallel to pure series, like the e power, like the an Nissan

Craig Cole (1:08:47)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:47)
e power, and then you know, something in between.

The Honda is closer to E power, this would be closer to just a straight up parallel

Craig Cole (1:08:56)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:56)
hike.

Craig Cole (1:08:58)
Mhm. Because with the Toyota hybrid system, the standard one, they have a bunch of different variations. Or the version that Ford uses in its, you know, front drive based vehicles. It's the same system basically. There's there's also technically no transmission, but there also is the the power split device, they call it, the planetary gear set, which functions as a transmission. So Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:16)
Which is a planetary gear set. It's it's a yeah, it's it's a variable transmission.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:20)
It's kind of it's a gear set. I'm like, doesn't that just a

word f it's got

multiple ge wait, hold on.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:24)
Yeah. Well that

that's why they I mean th Hon Honda du or Toyota does call it an E C V T. and so does Ford. Yeah. So

Craig Cole (1:09:32)
Mm-hmm. So does Ford. I mean, it it's it's an

absolutely brilliant design when you when

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:38)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Cole (1:09:39)
you understand how it works. It's so clever how

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:41)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:09:42)
they figured that out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:44)
Yeah, 'cause you know, for for a you know, for a planetary gear set, you know, you've got three elements of the those the gear set. You've got the ring gear,

Craig Cole (1:09:51)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:51)
which it has teeth on the inside, you've got a sun gear in the middle, which has teeth on the outside,

Craig Cole (1:09:55)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:56)
and then you've got a carrier with planet gears that's in between those. And in order for a planetary gear set to function, you know, you have to drive one of those three elements and one of them has to be grounded, has to be locked to ground. So one has to be held still. And

Craig Cole (1:10:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:13)
So depending on which which ones you you hold, which ones you ground and which one you're driving, you'll get you can get up to thr three different gear ratios, one of which would be a reverse gear.

Craig Cole (1:10:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:26)
and with the way the way yeah, and normally in most automatic transmissions, you're it's just using a clutch to physically lock one of those elements to the the transmission casing. With

the E C V T system on the Honda or the Toyota and the Ford hybrids, they're actually using the secondary motor as a variable ground. So b depending on how much power they send to it, yeah.

Craig Cole (1:10:53)
'Cause that's spinning the annulus, right? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:56)
But depending on how much power they how much electricity they send to it, it will it will allow the whatever element is being controlled to s to sp either not spin or spin at different rates to get

variable gearing, which is a it's

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:13)
Mm mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:14)
a really strange design to think about, but but it works.

Craig Cole (1:11:17)
It's yeah, but it works. It's super

super clever. The engine the combustion engine, if I recall, is spinning the planet carrier. Then then there's that motor

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:27)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:11:27)
generator one or one of the motor generators is spinning the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:30)
The motor generator two.

Craig Cole (1:11:31)
annulus of the the the outer, the carrier

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:34)
Yeah, the ring gear.

Craig Cole (1:11:35)
gear basically. Yeah. So that's how you ver the faster you spin that motor, the faster the carrier spin the the ring gear spins, the f the changes the ratio then. And reverse is handled purely electrically because there's no way to do

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:46)
Yes.

Craig Cole (1:11:46)
that.

Backwards, because you'd have to start the engine backwards then.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:49)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:11:50)
So any reverse is handled with the electric motor. But then there's no how does it handle shutting the motor off? Because the motor generator two is still connected to the planetary gear set, is it? Or is that just driving through the differential?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:05)
I think that there's actually a

Craig Cole (1:12:07)
I don't remember.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:07)
a clutch in there that decouples it. so it decouples the entire

Craig Cole (1:12:10)
Okay. I can't remember.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:12)
assembly from you know, so so you can go to electric mode.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:17)
This is why whenever I talk to automakers, I'm like, Do you have an animation of your whatever crazy new thing y you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:22)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:22)
have so I can show people? And they're like, What? And sometimes an engineer will

Craig Cole (1:12:25)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:25)
be like, Yeah, yeah, come here, come here, come here, come here. And they'll tell me some weird long URL that's like no one else has

Craig Cole (1:12:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:32)
access to. They're like, Yeah, we have it on our special, like da da da da and then I'll find it and I'll p put in a video. Yeah, it's on an F T V. It's yeah, it's

Craig Cole (1:12:36)
Yeah. FTP site.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:38)
Yeah, I mean it's it's it's often hard enough just getting a basic diagram like this one. I mean, yeah, this this is

Craig Cole (1:12:43)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:44)
most of the time they won't even show you this, which is unfortunate.

Craig Cole (1:12:47)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, so like Mercedes the Mercedes engineers,

Craig Cole (1:12:49)
Cause how it works is the most interesting part.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:51)
they love showing me the super dark web that they keep all their stuff

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:54)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Cole (1:12:55)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:56)
on. I'm like, I just need a video or an animation of this thing in motion. They're like, they get all very ex

Craig Cole (1:13:03)
Yes Roberto,

c can you do a can you do file sharing with FTP site please? Or we can do

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:09)
I'm like yes, yes I can.

Craig Cole (1:13:12)
BitTorrent, I can send you this link where you can find the diagrams.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:16)
Yeah. No, it's it they they yeah. They're very excited to share it. 'Cause if I asked the ev

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:21)
actually

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:22)
other people they'd they'd be like, What? What no, we don't have that and then I just go to the engineers and they're like, Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:27)
I'm

I'm gonna include a link in the show notes to engineering explained did a great video. He had he has a a a mock-up of an ECVT system,

Craig Cole (1:13:41)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:42)
the Planetary Gear E C V T system and he walks through Jason Fensky walks through how the whole thing works and goes through all the different modes. And so I will include a a a link in the show notes for that.

And if you're if you're at all interested in in understanding how a Toyota hybrid or Ford hybrid system works, watch watch this video. It's it's really fascinating. all right, let's carry on. so let's see. Hyundai also had some other news this week, which strangely enough, has not been posted on any of their media sites anywhere globally.

Craig Cole (1:14:20)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:21)
But they've gave give the information to a whole bunch of outlets.

and it's the twenty twenty seven Hyundai Tucson, which is a a full redesign. and it's it's a couple inches longer, about I guess no, it's yeah, it's a couple inches longer than before. and it's a it's a totally different look from the current generation. but one thing that I noticed when I looked at it the first time is that this is it it takes it picks up

an important design element from the boulder concept that we saw at the New York Auto Show. The fenders

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:59)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:59)
are just like the boulder concept. So big kind of boxy fenders.

Craig Cole (1:15:04)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:05)
The rest of it doesn't look like the boulder, you know, 'cause it doesn't have that boxy look, you know, like the, you know, Bronco Wrangler kind of look of the rest of the the boulder concept. But it does have the same fenders from that. so that's probably a look we're gonna be seeing on some other

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:23)
Mm mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:23)
Hyundai

trucks and SUVs over the next couple of years.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:28)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:15:28)
Very

angular, very boxy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:30)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Cole (1:15:31)
Very

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:31)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:15:32)
not gonna age well, in my opinion, but

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:36)
we'll see.

Craig Cole (1:15:37)
interior's lovely

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:37)
I do I

Craig Cole (1:15:38)
though.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:39)
I like the interior. I especially I like small dash clusters. Because if you give someone if you you give the somebody a like a twelve point six inch dash cluster, they're gonna fill it with so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:50)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:51)
much stuff. This is just a nice little string of information

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:57)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:58)
across the top. It's almost where, you know, a heads up display would be. Like you don't have it's just hey, how fast are you going? Hey, what's the speed limit?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:05)
It's it's

it's it's kinda

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:07)
Hey, how much range do you got?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:08)
it's it's almost like the the the Neu class kinda setup, you know, which is actually a heads up display, but it it doesn't span the entire width of the dash or the entire base of the windshield. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:16)
Yeah, it's just like here you go. And you can see that there's a lot of buttons on there. There's probably

should be more in the car, but you know, whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:25)
But yeah, got a

Craig Cole (1:16:25)
Yeah, this is a giant screen too.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:27)
Yeah, it's a like I think a fifteen and a half inch center screen. but you know, at least it does have a row of buttons across the bottom, physical buttons and

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:35)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:36)
and manual vents. Manual vents always a good thing.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:39)
Who

Craig Cole (1:16:41)
That's Sam's biggest thing, manual Vince.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:45)
Yep. Not not buying any car with software controlled vents.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:49)
No. Why?

Craig Cole (1:16:50)
Sam, I don't know

if you saw I sent the rundown for the Green Cars podcast. We'll we'll be recording in a couple of

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:54)
I saw it. I haven't haven't read through it yet.

Craig Cole (1:16:56)
days. I put it i in sort of the the pleasantries section at the beginning of the show, I put in a little line. What's grinding your gears these days, Sam? Just as something different, so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:04)
Ha ha.

Craig Cole (1:17:05)
maybe you can talk about digital air vents over there.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:08)
Yeah. Def

definitely.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:12)
Worst.

Craig Cole (1:17:13)
That's a that's a terrible side. Have I offended Robbie or

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:16)
They're just the worst. They just don't make any sense. They j like why? Why?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:21)
I

know, it's it's adding more complexity that doesn't need to be there.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:23)
And it

and because it's become a conversation that we have again and again, I realize I I am now very conscious of how often I'm adjusting the vents in cars while I'm like I get in the car, I want to be cold, so I turn all the vents towards me. Now my hands

Craig Cole (1:17:37)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:37)
are freezing once we've gotten going. So now I want a more ambient code as opposed as opposed to, you know, freeze so I'm like moving the vents pretty often. And then they're like,

Craig Cole (1:17:46)
I want

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:46)
Hold on, let me go in here and push this. Let me push some buttons.

Craig Cole (1:17:49)
Yeah, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:49)
N No, 'cause I'm taking my eyes off the road so it's a safety issue.

And then I don't I

Craig Cole (1:17:56)
What if we had an analog version of digital air vents where it was all mechanical done through like a Bowden cable system and you had a little joystick and you could have all in one spot? And does it? there go. I want the

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:09)
So the my box has both. It's it's it's you can do it by hand, but you can also do it in the so that's sort so yeah. See

Craig Cole (1:18:16)
most complicated and heavy system. I want Bowden cables. Yeah. Yes, yes. Like organ stops too, just in case.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:18)
Like a like a series of pulleys that I have to pull from the roof. Like

Craig Cole (1:18:25)
Add some extra complexity.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:26)
Yeah like steam comes out.

Craig Cole (1:18:28)
Yeah yeah. They have incorporated a boiler just for the steam effect.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:33)
Psh.

Craig Cole (1:18:37)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:39)
all right. Let's let's move on.

Craig Cole (1:18:41)
Sam's like, I'm done with these guys, this is too stupid.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:45)
No, I totally agree with it, but I think, you know, listeners might be getting tired of this rant. so Cadillac.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:49)
I don't think that's true.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:53)
you know, Cadillac's had the X T five here for like a decade now, almost a decade. and they they also make the X T five in China, but they have just launched an updated version of the X T five in China that is a plug in hybrid. And so the

Yeah, the X T five is like the the third in a line of mid sized crossovers that Cadillac's been building that started with the SRX. You know, so they had they had two generations of the SRX. And then they changed their you know, back when Johann Deneischin was running Cadillac, they decided, we have to change the naming convention for all our vehicles. And

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:33)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:34)
so they went to C T's for the sedans and XTs for the for the SUVs. And yeah.

Craig Cole (1:19:40)
Which annoys me more than digital air

vents, just alphanumeric names. But I digress, sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:45)
But back back

in back in twenty ten, twenty eleven, the engineers at GM were actively developing a plug in hybrid version of the of the SRX, the second generation SRX. and what it was that you know, they actually in like in two thousand two thousand eight, Saturn was supposed to launch a plug in hybrid version of the Saturn view. That was one of the last things I worked on when I was still an engineer at TRW.

and so they were working on a plug in hybrid version of the Saturn View. When we had the financial meltdown, Saturn whole whole Saturn brand was canceled. They took all the stuff from the Vue plug-in hybrid, dropped it into the SRX. Well actually first they they created a rebadged version that was gonna be a Buick and they announced that in the summer of two thousand nine and then like three weeks later they cancelled that and said, No, we're not gonna do after all.

and then they put it into

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:43)
Sonic.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:44)
the into the SRX.

Craig Cole (1:20:46)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:48)
and so they were working on this and it was supposed to launch as a twenty twelve model. or twenty twenty eleven twenty thirteen

Craig Cole (1:20:55)
They missed that target a little bit.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:56)
model, sorry, in twenty twelve as a twenty thirteen model. and when Dan Ackerson became CEO of of GM, he took a look at all the product plans and said, Nope, nope, okay, you can do that, nope. and

Two of the programs he canceled were the cross volt, a a crossover version of the the Chevy Volt, using the same volt powertrain, and the SRX plug in hybrid. So it it never got produced. But now there's finally an X T five plug in hybrid, but only in China. We can't have it. Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:21:34)
The spiritual successor.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:36)
So

I just looked up China sa car sales in China. Guess what's down twenty percent? Twenty-one percent P HAVS B

Craig Cole (1:21:47)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:47)
Battery electric vehicles are up six percent. I'm just like like everything with a gas engine is down, but twenty one percent going into the that's from July of twenty twenty six versus year over year from July twenty twenty five. So bring it a p HAVE

into China right now. Oops.

Craig Cole (1:22:08)
I mean, do you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:07)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:22:09)
expect GM to do anything else? Like Ready,

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:14)
That's

Craig Cole (1:22:14)
fire, aim.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:17)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:17)
but this is this is supposed to have like ninety seven miles of electric driving range. yeah. It's a yeah. It's a thirty five kilowatt hour

Craig Cole (1:22:22)
Nice. Very nice. That's a good number. I mean that's that's common in China as we'd learned a while ago, Sam.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:23)
That's pretty good.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:28)
battery pack. it's got five C charging, so you know, that means that it can it can charge at five times the rate that the battery discharges power.

Craig Cole (1:22:41)
Yeah,

describe what that means, 'cause when I first saw that I was like, huh? Wha w C charging? It's Calum or something, right?

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:49)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Cole (1:22:50)
Am I saying that right? It's some metric engineering term, right? What does it what does it mean?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:52)
cool Coulomb, I think. Basically what it means

is you know, if you have

Craig Cole (1:23:00)
I

tried to research it and I couldn't figure it out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:02)
If if you if you have a hundred kilowatt hour battery pack and it takes one hour to charge that and

Craig Cole (1:23:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:09)
you can discharge and the discharge rate of that is one hour, that is one C. So

Craig Cole (1:23:16)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:17)
if you have that hundred kilowatt hour battery pack that you can discharge in one hour, maximum discharge is in one hour, five C means that it can that it can charge at five times the rate that it can discharge.

So yeah, or actually twelve minutes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:34)
Twelve minutes.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:36)
So five C is very fast. And it's

Craig Cole (1:23:38)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:39)
it's actually pretty common in China now.

Craig Cole (1:23:41)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:41)
you know, the the most we have here is about two and a half to three C. So stuff

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:47)
Well

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:47)
like the the Hyundai's and Kiyas, they're about two point six, two point seven C.

Craig Cole (1:23:52)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:53)
stuff like the lucids are about three C.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:54)
We're halfway there, guys.

Craig Cole (1:23:57)
number well we're trying yes

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:59)
No, not even we're not even really doing that.

Craig Cole (1:24:02)
so so what is the point of that why is that a significant relationship then wouldn't customers just care about how long they have to plug in why does it matter the ratio of charge versus discharge what makes that significant

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:14)
so you know, that that gives you an indication of you know, the charging rate versus the performance, the maximum performance, the maximum

power you can get out of the battery.

Craig Cole (1:24:25)
Gotcha, gotcha. So a more performance oriented vehicle will have a higher C than something more everyday?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:30)
not necessarily.

You know, if it you can have a high power ch discharge rate and if it's slow charging it could have it'd be a low C. So

Craig Cole (1:24:41)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:42)
it's it's kind of I mean there's a reason why they don't usually use that here 'cause it it's kinda convoluted to understand. It's b

Craig Cole (1:24:49)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:50)
back to what you're saying earlier. People just wanna know how long is it gonna take to charge? So

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:54)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:54)
for this thing, you know, it would

potentially be charging, you know, thirty five kilowatt hour battery. Probably gonna charge, you know, in about on a D C fast charger, yeah, about about five to seven minutes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:08)
Maths.

Craig Cole (1:25:11)
Were you good at maths? Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:12)
Me? I

wasn't even good at school. They kicked me out. I have art deg I I have art degrees.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:16)
Ha ha

Craig Cole (1:25:18)
okay. I was not good at math. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:21)
I don't know what I even d what I'm even doing here, to be honest.

Craig Cole (1:25:23)
Yeah, same,

basically.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:26)
one one other thing, I don't know if you noticed on the picture of this car, there's a little thingy on top of the windshield. It's got a LIDAR.

Craig Cole (1:25:34)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:34)
The lidar? Nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:37)
so this is this is the first there's they're saying it's the first luxury SUV with Momenta's R seven eight ass system. which doesn't mean it's the first vehicle to have that, but Momenta is a a Chinese company that makes eight ass and automated driving systems.

so it's this is gonna be a you know, what they call level two plus plus. So it'll be able to do hands free driving you know on highways, city streets, you know, everywhere. it's got LIDAR, radar and cameras. and it says yeah, the the Momenta data covers more than fifteen billion kilometers of roads.

from their

Craig Cole (1:26:25)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:26)
their for their world model, for their AI model.

Craig Cole (1:26:29)
So you can drive it anywhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:31)
Pretty much.

Craig Cole (1:26:33)
And is that that's full hands free? Level two plus plus, you said? That's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:36)
it should be, yeah. Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:26:38)
a lot of pluses.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:39)
Yeah. They're not saying if it's gonna be level The Momenta says, you know, their R seven system can support up to level four, which should be, you know, fully automated. but their GM hasn't really given much detail on exactly what functionality is gonna be on the CT on the XT five.

But you

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:01)
You'll see.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:02)
know, there is supposed to be a refresh of the X T five for North America in twenty for twenty twenty eight, I think. so we'll probably get the updated styling that's on this one. But we probably I don't know if we'll get any of the good stuff like the plug in hybrid or the

Yeah. No.

Craig Cole (1:27:17)
We can't have nice things, no.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:18)
Canada

things in America. Because freedom.

Craig Cole (1:27:20)
That's not allowed.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:22)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:27:23)
Basically.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:26)
let's see. so recently in my neighborhood there was a a rash of thefts from cars. some couple of guys apparently were going around, you know, going from driveway to driveway, looking for cars that were unlocked. And it seems like they also had a little device that you that can be used for a relay attack 'cause one of my neighbors had a couple of cars parked in their driveway that were locked, but

the these guys got into them and apparently you know probably used one of these relay devices because the way your wireless key systems work is your car has a know is transmitting a signal it has a longer range for for the transmission and it's a handshake signal for your key fob. Your key fob only has a very short range. So the intent

is that when it sees when it sees the signal from the car, it can communicate back and say, hey, yep, we can we can unlock the car, but only when it's within range of the key fob. And so

Craig Cole (1:28:33)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:33)
the way these relay attacks work is if somebody's got a device that you can build for under a hundred bucks. You can stand by somebody by, you know, the side of a building and if the keys are near the near the s near the door, for example, you can pick up the signal from the keys

relay it back

Craig Cole (1:28:51)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:52)
to the car, unlock the car, and in some cases even start the car. And so a bunch of cars got yeah.

Craig Cole (1:28:56)
Hmm. That sounds bad.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:58)
It's just it's a it's a signal booster is what it is.

It's it boosts the signal of your vehicle so that your your car thinks that the key is next to it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:05)
Yeah, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:07)
And so they're just like blip blip. I'm open. Yay.

Craig Cole (1:29:09)
I mean, if you wanted

to get into the car, just break a window, right? I'm old school.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:14)
Well

then you have an alarm and you have all this

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:15)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:15)
other stuff that's gonna go off. Yeah. And then your car,

Craig Cole (1:29:16)
But everybody ignores them.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:20)
you're driving around the car with a broken with a broken thing, and you can't steal the car. If you just wanna steal stuff, I mean you break into the car, I want the backpack, I want the change in the thing,

Craig Cole (1:29:22)
So these are very kind thieves. These are kind thieves. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:28)
I want you know, someone left a laptop, whatever. But if you wanna take the car and you wanna be s super sneaky, you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:35)
Which

which they did to one of these two cars that were in the driveway because their their daughter had left the valet key in her car, in her Subaru Forester. and so they as they were rifling through the car looking for anything of value, they found the key sitting there. It's like, okay. Click, boom. We're out of

Craig Cole (1:29:54)
Why not?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:56)
here.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:57)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:57)
but there is a way to overcome this problem of these relay attacks.

Craig Cole (1:30:02)
Yeah,

right here. Metal keys.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:06)
Jingle bells.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:07)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:30:07)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:08)
or you know, you can just wrap your key fob in some aluminum foil or get a get a Faraday bag. so t tell us about your thoughts on Faraday bags.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:14)
So I'm gonna okay, so before I was a car journalist. Before I was a

an automotive journalist, I was an InfoSec journalist, which means I dealt with hackers and and security researchers and and the whatnot. And I have gotten a couple Faraday bags over the years and all of them not that great. Don't really work.

Craig Cole (1:30:36)
Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:37)
I've also gotten what else? There's a lot of st those RF like those wallets that are supposed to protect your yeah, those don't really work either.

and I learned this because I went and I talked to someone who actually builds those for the government. Now that was a couple years ago. if you want to get one of these, it's super important that you make sure that you're looking at the reviews because I would say most Faraday bags that are sold are BS. They they're not gonna do the thing that you think they're supposed to do. Like it's it's it's a it's snake oil. But if you look at the reviews and it looks like it's a review that's not someone who reviews spams like a million.

you know, a million other accounts and everything's great because they're trying to, you know, the what do you call it? A like a bot farm that just reviews a thousand things on Amazon. Get it, try it out. If one of works, go for it. You should be fine. But just be careful when you're buying Faraday bags because again, most of are are junk. And whenever you see anything that says military grade, that's be a nothing,

Craig Cole (1:31:37)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:37)
Definitely stay away from that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:39)
nothing in the world is mil that's not a thing.

Like one of the things is like, it's military

Craig Cole (1:31:43)
But the

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:44)
grade like security. I'm like, That's not a thing.

Craig Cole (1:31:46)
But it's

military grade aluminum in the F series. People buy a lot of those.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:49)
Yeah, exactly. Military grade Military Grade

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:50)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:52)
doesn't mean anything. Military grade is is is is a nothing word. It's a it's a it's it's a weasel word, it doesn't mean anything. Wha he can get mad at me, I don't care. I don't work for Ford.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:58)
Don't say that to Mike Levine. He'll get very angry at you.

Craig Cole (1:32:00)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:06)
It's not my job. Like military grade something, you're like, Well what do you mean aluminum what? A military grade aluminum tin cup? A military grade al aluminum like Where? Where how are you basing this?

there are actual like numbers and things that you can there are actual like structural integrity like data points that you can share with people that aren't BS like the word military grade. but also it's the same thing with Faraday bags. anything it's anything that ever tells you it's unhackable, that's a lie. Nothing is unhackable. That is that is pure BS. everything has has has some sort of vulnerability. but yeah, so if you're looking at Faraday bags.

Be wary of anything that says military grade. They it might actually work even though it says military grade, but that word d you know, that that hyphenated

Craig Cole (1:32:56)
Meaningless.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:57)
word is meaningless.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:59)
Or, you know, you could just take a piece of aluminum foil and wrap your key fob in that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:04)
I put your keys in the back of your house. At one point I remember BMW for a very brief second told me that the X five key, if you put it down on its side, if it was sitting stationary, it was no longer accepting the ping from the vehicle. I don't know if they ever implemented this. This was like the X5 launch like two generations ago because relay attacks had become like a thing at the p at that point. They're like, no, attackers are breaking into cars. And so I don't know if they ever implemented it on the vehicle.

I don't know if it they went forward.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:33)
Well and BMW

was one of the first brands to be susceptible to to be found susceptible to that. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:39)
So they might have, yeah.

But they also might have like, maybe we should shouldn't tell people because then it shows that we were susceptible or you know. So it's yeah, it's yeah, relay attacks because and they also they can clone your key is what happens. So

Craig Cole (1:33:53)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:54)
they don't even need your key to to drive the car like they do with other if they have a you know, a better device, in addition to boosting it, when the key does the software s the software handshake, it sends all this information and the relay device will clone your key.

And so now you have a key fob for your that that vehicle's key and you just drive away. So yeah, keep your keys further

Craig Cole (1:34:14)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:16)
away from your front door or just buy a car that doesn't have you know, like Craig. Buy a car with keys that you can make at Ace Hardware.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:23)
Ha ha

Craig Cole (1:34:24)
Well,

irony

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:24)
ha.

Craig Cole (1:34:25)
of ironies, they're cloning the digital fobs. They failed to clone these. So I'm restoring a fifty-one Ford and I I'm going through everything. New No.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:34)
You shouldn't be showing us those on you should blur out his keys.

Craig Cole (1:34:38)
The here, I'll just hold them over here. There.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:40)
There we go.

Craig Cole (1:34:41)
The thing is I'm going through all all everything. New electrical system, everything, new ignition. I bought a new ignition assembly and it came with whatever

weird key design it had. So I I bought some original style. These are reproduction keys from the shoebox Ford distributor, great company. They sent them to me. I took these to get cut at a local locksmith so they match the ignition. And the keys being a knockoff are des the guy cut them and they don't actually work because the the offset is wrong or something. So they'll slide in but you still can't turn them. So they stamped these incorrectly.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:15)
he can't turn it. So yeah, those slides.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:16)
Well, y you know, the

the the beauty of an older car like that is you don't even really need the keys. You know, you can just reach underneath and grab the wires and touch a couple of wires together

Craig Cole (1:35:24)
Yeah, you can exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:26)
and you're good.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:26)
Yeah, but you

you fry the points

Craig Cole (1:35:27)
Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:27)
when you do that. Like people don't think about that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:29)
Yeah, that's true.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:32)
I know this because I lost the k I lost

Craig Cole (1:35:32)
So you can't duplicate keys.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:34)
the keys to my Dotson my Dotson two thousand once and so we had to hot wire it and my dad's like, Well now you gotta go get some points 'cause you just fried

Craig Cole (1:35:41)
How is it frying the points? It's just completing the circuit. It doesn't make sense.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:44)
I know, but it's like

it because you're fry 'cause you you're doing it longer, I guess. So instead of like the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:47)
Going to be getting a surge, more of a surge than it's anticipating.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:50)
it's like it's going right up yeah. I don't know. It's a surge.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:54)
Or or, you know, you

Craig Cole (1:35:54)
There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:55)
could just do like my neighbor, you know, they've got in addition to the the Ford Maverick hybrid, the XL hybrid, they have two C Maxes. And one of them, you know, on that night, apparently somebody did go into that car. It was it was left unlocked, but it didn't matter because there was nothing in it. And even if they had

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:18)
It's a C Max.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:19)
even if they had wanted to steal it, they might have gotten about five feet.

'cause I was trying to help out the other day. you know, trying to read fault codes. I took my adapter out there and was gonna read trying to read the fault codes on it. And it would not stay running long enough to it would connect

to the adapter would connect to the phone, but it would not connect to the EC it couldn't connect to the ECU because the engine kept dying after like five, ten seconds.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:47)
that's I have the same rat at

Craig Cole (1:36:46)
Yeah, there's definitely something wrong. That's bad.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:48)
yeah. you

ev even without I mean, just from the sound that the hybrid drive unit and that thing was making, yeah, it's it's done.

Craig Cole (1:36:56)
Yeah the the

the

the thief

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:57)
Yeah.

Craig Cole (1:36:57)
is gonna break in and try to steal stuff and feel so bad for the cars in such a sorry state. They're gonna leave a twenty on the seat and Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah I'm sorry. This is I thought this was a better neighborhood.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:03)
They're gonna lift the motor, they're gonna lift the hood and start working on it. They're like, this is embarrassing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:03)
Yeah.

well that mean that that car

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:14)
Disappointed.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:14)
does have a lot of miles on it, so it's like a hundred and eighty thousand miles or something.

Craig Cole (1:37:16)
Yeah. Okay.

Let's get up.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:21)
all right. speaking of protecting stuff, you know, the sun gives off a lot of ultraviolet radiation. That can cause problems, causes sunburns, can cause skid cancer. you know, and so you want to protect your stuff. Yeah, protect yourself from UV radiation, and you want to protect the stuff that you've paid for. And, you know, since

Since we are, you know, us as taxpayers are the ones that are paying for flock cameras, we want to provide proper protection for the flock cameras that are out there. for the, you know, the licensed plate reader cameras. And so somebody has come up with a great device or a a model, a three D printed model, for a flock sock that you can get

Craig Cole (1:38:07)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:08)
and just stick it over your local flock camera and it will protect it from ultraviolet rays.

So no more exposure to ultraviolet rays for your for your neighborhood flock cameras.

Craig Cole (1:38:16)
That's perfect. Because those cameras are expensive.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:20)
They're very expensive.

Craig Cole (1:38:20)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:21)
And we're paying for so do I really want that money wasted? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:23)
Yeah. So so we should protect them. You know. Don't

Craig Cole (1:38:23)
Yeah. We're paying for our own mass surveillance.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:27)
you know not not advocating, you know, that you should go out and, you know, cut down, you know, the poles with the flock cameras on them. That would be wrong. That would absolutely be wrong. You know, you shouldn't be doing, you know, any other kind of damage. I mean, we are you're being protective

Craig Cole (1:38:41)
Filling them with spray foam.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:43)
by adding a flock sock to the camera.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:45)
You shouldn't spray

Craig Cole (1:38:45)
Correct.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:45)
paint You shouldn't shoot with paintballs. You shouldn't sp like you shouldn't shine like high high don't use a phany

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:50)
expanding foam. Don't use expanding foam on them.

Craig Cole (1:38:52)
Yeah, yep.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:53)
phone. You shouldn't use like high powered lasers on 'cause it'll destroy the you know the the the

Craig Cole (1:38:57)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:58)
sensors in Like there's a lot of things that you you you know, these are expensive machines.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:02)
apparently that's

that's only true for blue lasers. Apparently they I was on Twit last night and Father Robert was saying that the flock cameras do have re cut filters for red and green lasers. So red and green

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:15)
Red and green? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:16)
lasers will not damage flock cameras, but blue lasers will, so do not shoot a flock camera with a blue laser, please. 'Cause again, you've paid for this. You don't

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:23)
Yeah, they're super it's it's remem

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:25)
want it to be damaged.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:26)
Remember when they put blue

Craig Cole (1:39:26)
You w you were on with the

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:28)
lights on every piece of tech? And it was the most annoying

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:31)
thing on the planet. Everyone's like that is so bright. Blue is so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:34)
I know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:34)
incredibly bright, you don't think about it. But like ten, fifteen years ago, every piece of tech had a blue light on it, and every piece of tech had got a piece of tape over that blue l that blue LED. So yeah. Anyway.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:48)
and then finally

Craig Cole (1:39:48)
You were on with the digital friar,

what does he call himself? The virtual Pedro or Fri father

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:55)
the digital Jesuit.

Craig Cole (1:39:57)
Dig that's it, yes, sorry. Not the virtual friar.

Digital Jesuit.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:01)
The virtual friar sounds cool.

That's a cool name.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:05)
yeah. and then

Craig Cole (1:40:06)
Ma your next band could be called that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:09)
the the next generation Mini Cooper, apparently might be the first one that doesn't have front wheel drive. you know, I mean one of the the things when Alec Asignosis initially designed the the Mini back in what nineteen fifty nine, sixty. you know, he did a transverse mounted engine, you know, tiny you know

Craig Cole (1:40:32)
Front drive.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:33)
Tiny little car, vr amazing packaging job on it. And every mini since then has had a transverse mounted engine in the front or an electric mo electric motor in the front. you know and front wheel drive and in some cases all wheel drive. But apparently the next gen mini might switch to rear rear drive because they are apparently gonna use

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:56)
snap.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:57)
the Neu-Class hardware on there.

Craig Cole (1:40:59)
Hm.

I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:00)
And that neue

class architecture is not set up for front wheel drive.

Craig Cole (1:41:05)
Yeah, that I mean that's a fascinating change, but with e electric

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:06)
I mean the proper drive is rear wheel drive.

Craig Cole (1:41:08)
motors with electric motors it's so easy it doesn't matter and I don't think any mini customer cares. They they're actually getting an upgrade, I would say. So Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:16)
No. Yeah, absolutely. You might

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:18)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:20)
actually get it like a real frunk in there.

Craig Cole (1:41:23)
Yes, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:24)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:27)
all right, one last thing. or actually two two two more things. apparently there was a study done. who let's see who did this study? there's a study done on fatal crashes between twenty seven and twenty twenty two, twenty seventeen and twenty twenty two, and they found a fifteen percent increase in traffic fatalities on the day of

major album releases from artists like Taylor Swift because

Craig Cole (1:42:00)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:01)
people were listening to it over and over again and getting distracted. So if you are if you are you know if there's if there's a new big new album coming out, you might want to just stay home for a couple of days. Yeah just stay home, listen to

Craig Cole (1:42:16)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:17)
it at home. Don't go out on the roads, you know, because somebody might run

Craig Cole (1:42:21)
huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:21)
into you while they're being distracted by this music.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:24)
Well that the they what they're saying is that, you know, people are using their phones to like select this music or they're you know, they're now or they're they're spending too much time in the info's tamate screen trying to select the music. You're like, I want to listen to this song, so you have to click, click, click, click, tap, tap, slip s swipe, whatever to get to,

Craig Cole (1:42:38)
Mm-hmm. Crash.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:40)
you know, this song and then you crash. I it's it is worse than it used to be. but I will say that putting a s going through a C D case in the nineties, not great.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:49)
That that's true, yeah.

Craig Cole (1:42:50)
Yeah.

Just as distracting.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:52)
So what I like

I would memorize where things were, like how many pages stuff like a saw like a CD was in, and then pull it out and then put it in the in the thing. Because I didn't like the fact that I was looking away from the road because I was such a nerd about driving and being a good driver. so that you can't I can't do that anymore. But also we only like a hundred CDs if you were lucky. Now you got the whole world. And then sometimes

Craig Cole (1:43:14)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:15)
you're like, you know what I want to listen to?

Craig Cole (1:43:19)
Thousand songs in your pocket.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:21)
I got a thousand songs in my pocket.

Craig Cole (1:43:23)
And I followed

your link, Sam, and now I'm getting ads for Mirafast Soft Chew Laxatives. So FYI.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:29)
Woo!

Craig Cole (1:43:30)
I have no idea why that's popping up.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:33)
I don't know. I have a pie hole running here, so I don't see any of that stuff. all right, last one is Jalopnik did another one of their listicles where they get readers to submit stuff. And this one was the top ten George Barris custom built cars that every gearhead should know. and you know, for those the younger among you, George Barris was this guy who built

all kinds of shall we say interesting custom cars from the fifties through about the nineteen eighties. he's he's no longer with us. but during during the fifties and sixties in particular, that was kind of his heyday. and it's funny, going through this list, four of the ten cars on this list were actually used in nineteen sixties sitcoms.

or or TV shows. the nineteen sixty two Beverly Hillbillies truck, that was a George Barris creation. the the Munsters

Craig Cole (1:44:41)
Hmm. Huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:43)
coach, also a George Barris creation. the Dragula drag car was also

Craig Cole (1:44:50)
Monsters.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:51)
used in the Munsters. he di he built that. And of course the classic nineteen sixty six Batmobile.

Craig Cole (1:44:59)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:01)
Fans of Rob Zombie would re would recognize the Dracula.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:04)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:05)
I can't sing it 'cause I'm I'm sick, so I can't make that I can't sound like Rob Zombie today. Sorry everybody. Maybe next week.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:13)
yeah, I mean the

Craig Cole (1:45:13)
And the Hirohata Mercury.

Iconic car, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:18)
The the Batmobile is

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:18)
Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:19)
one that probably everyone would recognize.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:21)
Yeah, the Batmobile.

Craig Cole (1:45:21)
I think so.

Well.

The Mercury they switched it

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:27)
So

Craig Cole (1:45:27)
out a Cadillac V eight. I don't know how I feel about that, dropping the flathead. As a side valve enthusiast. Not sure how I feel about that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:39)
is that the the first one, the fifty two Hirahotta

Craig Cole (1:45:41)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:42)
Merck?

Craig Cole (1:45:43)
Yeah. They replaced the original two hundred and fifty five cubic inch mercury engine with a three hundred thirty one Cadillac. This overhead valve fat is gonna end soon. It's just they're overrated.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:55)
Yeah.

It can't last forever.

Craig Cole (1:45:57)
It can't last forever.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:57)
Can last forever.

Craig Cole (1:45:58)
We're going back to tech flathead technology.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:03)
all right. Well, Craig, thank you so much for joining us again today.

Craig Cole (1:46:08)
My pleasure Sam, this is a lot of fun.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:08)
Sorry about your keys, Craig.

Craig Cole (1:46:11)
it's okay. I I I just went with the one that they had at the tee shop, the locksmith, and it doesn't say Ford and have the little crest on it, but it works. So these are going in the trash. I don't know why I still have on my desk.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:21)
Alright. okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:21)
Well, that's good.

Craig Cole (1:46:23)
But no, this was a lot of fun.

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:25)
Just a

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:25)
Does the

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:25)
reminder.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:26)
does does the car run yet?

Craig Cole (1:46:29)
no, I've got it's been a very busy summer. I need to finish painting the hood and the doors and then the body can go on the frame, I can like wet sand it and have it polished, and then it starts coming together. So it's tantalizingly close to to having big progress. All the grunt work is done.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:46)
How

how how long has this project been in progress?

Craig Cole (1:46:51)
about five years. So it takes a while. But

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:55)
So it's a true project car.

Craig Cole (1:46:57)
yeah, it's a total body off the frame everything. I I I rebuilt the rear end, I rebuilt the transmission, added an overdrive to it. steering box got fully rebuilt, the frame I sent out, I cleaned that, got it powder coated, sandblasted and powder coated. lots of patches on the body and doors and hood. but yeah, it's a long term.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:21)
Are are you spri are you spraying it yourself, or are you painting it yourself or do you send it to a place? Do you have like a room? Or you just have a box?

Craig Cole (1:47:21)
project. In the garage. I'm doing it myself. just in the garage

and I bought a har I bought a tent at Menards that I can sort of use as a spray booth. It works surprisingly well. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:36)
Does it

have the little air filter that pulls it out so you don't die in there? Or you just ha you're just wearing

Craig Cole (1:47:41)
I I leave the

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:42)
the stuff?

Craig Cole (1:47:43)
I leave the ends open and run some fans and it

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:46)
Okay.

Craig Cole (1:47:46)
y there's there was not as much dust in the paint as you would expect. It turned out turned out remarkably clean. Despite I 'cause I'm not looking for a I'm not looking for a George Barris level paint job. I want something that's not gonna flake off in giant chunks and it's gonna look good. I want a car I can

Roberto Baldwin (1:48:02)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Cole (1:48:02)
drive on Route sixty six across the country, have it be reliable enough.

To do that but not like worry about a stone chip or something. I don't care. So that's kinda what I'm going for. But I also I want it to be comfortable.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:14)
So you're not planning to enter it in Pebble Beach.

Craig Cole (1:48:17)
no, no, no, no, no. No, absolutely not. I'm much too pragmatic for that. But

Roberto Baldwin (1:48:22)
Not

You're also not that rich, to be honest, Craig. I mean we all we all do the same job. We're not yeah, we're not rolling in it.

Craig Cole (1:48:26)
Th I mean yes, that too.

Well Sam might be. He he's an engineer by trade, so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:34)
n no.

Not even close. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you next time. Bye.

Roberto Baldwin (1:48:44)
Bye.

Craig Cole (1:48:45)
Bye. Am I supposed to say goodbye?