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

Roberto Baldwin (00:06)
And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International. But really the SAE Media Group? I don't know why I don't say that. I'm really working for the SA Media Group. It's part of SAE.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:15)
Which of course is a subset of SAE International.

Roberto Baldwin (00:18)
See originally I worked just for SAE International and I did a little few things for the media group. Now I work almost exclusively for the media group. And I occasionally do things for SAE International, but it's all under one giant umbrella.

It's like saying I work at at at at Disney in the park, but I work in Main Street. I'm like, I still work at Disneyland.

I don't know why I had it.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:41)
Well, you have

a side gig at Disneyland too?

Roberto Baldwin (00:44)
Wouldn't that be nice? Not really. I don't rem I remember meeting people on the internet in the nineties who worked at Disneyland and they seemed to really like their jobs. But that was the nineties, so who knows? Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:56)
Yeah, it's it's different today. We're in late stage capitalism, I'm I'm sure it I'm sure it probably sucks now.

Roberto Baldwin (01:01)
Well they they charge so much. And so I hope that because

Sam Abuelsamid (01:03)
I know. It's it's crazy.

Roberto Baldwin (01:05)
they charge so much they pay their employees well.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:08)
I wouldn't count on that.

Roberto Baldwin (01:10)
I don't know. Everything costs too much money.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:12)
Yeah, definitely.

Roberto Baldwin (01:14)
I I I wanna I wanna warn everyone. I I'm getting a e bike delivered today, so so at some point I got

Sam Abuelsamid (01:21)
on a Sunday?

Roberto Baldwin (01:22)
yeah, I r I didn't know that was gonna happen. FedEx is gonna drop it off. So at some point I'll have to I might have to run. So if I run off in the video, that's where I'm at for for for folks who are watching on the video stream. I'm not just like, you know what, I'm done and then just get up and run off.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:38)
What what brand of e bike?

Roberto Baldwin (01:40)
So I got the electric. It's electric, just electric without the E at the beginning.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:47)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (01:48)
so both their bikes and their their batteries are UL certified, which is, you know, a big deal. I've I reviewed e bikes like years ago and I was impressed at how how nice they were. they they we ended up getting the folding ones, just f mostly for storage. They're they're we got the light one and then we Yes, we bought so we bought

Sam Abuelsamid (02:04)
The the one the the you and your wife on. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (02:08)
two. My wife's hers showed up already.

so hers weighs like even though they fold, they're still pretty hefty.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:14)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (02:15)
But we wanna be able to like if we wanna go somewhere, be able to fold and shove in the back of the of the the Hyundai, the Ionic five. we do plan on getting a bike rack for the back, but if we're just moving one bike to go do something on the other side of town, like let's put the bike rack on No, we don't want to do all that. We just wanna like fold it and cram it in there and it's pretty yeah, it's pretty simple. Hers only weighs like forty, mine weighs like sixty eight pounds or something goofy.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:39)
Yeah,

I I I got an e bike a couple of years ago that a company sent me to review, and they're they're now out of business. and the the bike is still sitting in my garage. I think it weighs like seventy five pounds.

Roberto Baldwin (02:53)
They're they're they are not light. You can get like Trek makes a really so during my so you know, wheel bearings, there's wheels, there's bearings on bikes. So

Sam Abuelsamid (03:01)
Yeah, absolutely.

Roberto Baldwin (03:03)
so years ago I did some stuff for USA Today and Wall Street Journal. I did some e-bike roundups. And one of them I got from Trek, you know, Trek is a long time, you know, bicycle manufacturer, and it didn't have a throttle or anything, it was just, you know, pedal assist. And it was really light and it was just it was just such a really nice bike that it was also an e-bike.

So there are there are lighter ones out there, especially for

Sam Abuelsamid (03:25)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (03:26)
people who you know, I I'm you know, I'm a cyclist and I only want like a little bit of power sometimes. and so for those people there are bikes who just, you know, you want something light, but you do want that extra, you know, that extra propulsion. it's like adding the it's like a my it's like a like a hybrid versus a p hev. It's a hybrid for your body. You know, you you you know, you have the energy in your body to go do the thing, but sometimes you want a little extra oomph, a little something something.

to get you over the hill or or or you know, making so instead of riding fifty miles that day you ride seventy miles that day. and then the e bikes with like the throttles and everything, those are more like like P Haves where you're just like Yeah, I can go crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:04)
Yeah,

that's what that's what this one is, the the one that I've got out here. it's it yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (04:08)
Got a little throttle. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:09)
it's more like a plug in hybrid. so yeah, th yeah, it's like I think it'll go like s you know s seventy five miles if you're pedaling. And it's got a top speed of twenty miles. Well, has a nominal top speed of twenty miles an hour. There's a way to to switch it so so it'll go up to

Roberto Baldwin (04:29)
there's yeah, so that's

Sam Abuelsamid (04:31)
twenty eight.

Roberto Baldwin (04:32)
I had that bike, yeah. So there's there's three levels of of speed. There's like level

Sam Abuelsamid (04:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (04:36)
one, there's level two, which is like t eighteen, twenty miles an hour, and then there's level three, which is twenty eight miles an hour, which is essentially like a fifty C scooter. And so

Sam Abuelsamid (04:45)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (04:45)
in and some in some places people are like, we need to regulate those like like motorcycles and I'm completely on board with that to be honest, because that's how fast my

Honda Spree went in the nineties that I used to ride around town. And I had to get a license and I had to do all this stuff for that for that scooter. These things are essentially the same thing. They just look they're just not as bulky. They just look like little tiny motorcycles. And you see a lot of kids riding them. And you know, to be honest, I rode, you know, motorcycles and ATCs and st and scooters and whatever as a kid, and so I'm Yeah, that's fine, but you know, every once in a I'll see most of them have helmets. Most of them are seem to be, you know, but you always it's like everything.

You know, you give some you give a you give someone power, they're gonna go crazy. So but yeah, I yeah, those those level those ones that go really quickly, I think that there's when places are like, Hey, we gotta regulate these like you know, they shouldn't be in the bike lane, like, Yeah, 'cause that's essentially like a motorcycle, but th they're in this weird gray area and I understand where where peop people are like, Well we should regulate these like we do scooters and motorcycles, you know, low power motorcycles. I'm like, Yeah, that makes sense.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:47)
Yep. All right. well did you did you drive anything with four wheels this week?

Roberto Baldwin (05:53)
I did I d so I drove the Hyundai hybrid. I I'm sorry, not the Hyundai, not even close. The Kia well, it was kinda close. The the Kia Telluride.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:00)
Well, it is I mean it's part of the larger Hyundai Motor Group.

Roberto Baldwin (06:03)
Yeah, I wrote I drove the Kia Telluride hybrid. I used it to go pick up my wife's bike and I used it to go to band practice and you know, carry my big you know, if you look in the background, my big keyboard. but I had I haven't driven it enough to really talk about it. I can say, you know, it's

It drives nice, it's not loud, you know, doesn't have the Toyota, you know, hybrid system that's really loud. but I haven't I don't feel like I've had enough time behind the wheel. That's today and tomorrow's, you know, job is to drive it. So I'll talk more about it next week along with another vehicle. And maybe my e bike, who knows?

Sam Abuelsamid (06:39)
All right, we'll t we'll talk about those next week. So I I have still still have in the driveway the twenty twenty six Dodge Charger Scat Pack, six pack, all the packs, got all the packs on this one. and so you know this I think this is closer to the charger that that you know longtime you know Dodge muscle car fans really wanted.

as opposed to the electric version. It's not quite as quick as the electric version, but it's it's plenty fast. so, you know, this this is you know, the at the time that they finally publicly revealed the charger a couple of years back, they said, Yeah, you know, we're gonna launch with the E V. that's gonna be the fastest charger we've ever made. It's gonna be faster than the Hellcat. And it it is. but then, you know, they said we're also

gonna do an internal combustion version, which they launched last year. and that's gonna be powered by the Hurricane Six Cylinder, inline six cylinder. So it's a three-liter inline six. You can get the base version with 420 horsepower. The Scat Pack gets the high output version, 550 horsepower, lots of torque. and it is generally quicker. So it's certainly quicker than any of the

non-Hellcat chargers and challengers in the past ever were because well it's got more power than the you know even the six point four liter v eights that they had in those at at various times. and it also has all wheel drive. so this you know I I went out the other day you know found a area where there was nobody around

Did a couple of zero to sixty runs and it without using the launch control, it'll do about four point three, four point four seconds, zero to sixty, which is which is quite quick. You can with the launch control you can go a little bit faster. you know, and the like I said, the advantage with all wheel drive is that you can put that power down and actually turn that into acceleration rather than just simply spinning your tires and you know, burning a bunch of rubber.

So you know, the charger, good looking car. You know, I don't think anybody's had any real complaints with the design of the car, with the exterior design of the

Roberto Baldwin (09:13)
I do I do like the way it looks, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:17)
car. with the with the combustion engine in there, there is a large dome shape in the hood. so your forward visibility is actually decreased quite noticeably if you get the internal combustion version as opposed to the EV.

'cause the the E V tends to sl just kinda slope down more. and so you you do lose some some forward visibility with this one. the the one I've got is the two door and it's finished in destroyer gray exterior paint. Which is it's it's it's

Roberto Baldwin (09:58)
That's destroy like destroy like destroyer gray

sounds like a post apocalyptic like It's just gray. It's just gray.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:04)
Yeah, I mean it's it's so utterly dodge. Yeah, it's it's

gray. you know. And it's it's kind of a boring gray, to be honest. not it it's

Roberto Baldwin (10:14)
Is that even that? It's it's

it's the most grey of the greys.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:17)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:18)
It's gray with an A for in America.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:20)
I

mean, you know, if you're if you're trying to drive quickly and trying not to be noticeable to the constabulary, okay, maybe that's a f that's a good choice.

Roberto Baldwin (10:28)
You just blend into the background.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:30)
Yeah. But you know, I if I was going to buy one I would I would want a more interesting color. yeah, they've they've got a number of good colors. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (10:36)
They got like they got that really nice blue. They got like a like that orange. There's like a there's red. There's all these great

colors and then they're like, hey, let's outfit one in gray and send it out.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:47)
Yeah.

So, you know, one of the complaints people have about the the hurricane, you know, I mean no nobody really complains about the performance. but it doesn't sound like a V eight. That's that you know, and that's why, you know, s Ram brought back the Hemi and the Ram fifteen hundred, because you know, gotta have you know, gotta have that V eight rumble. And the hurricane just doesn't make that kind of V eight rumble. It makes some interesting

synthetic sounds on the inside of the car. which

Roberto Baldwin (11:21)
Or fine, whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:22)
supposedly there's a way to turn it off. I haven't been able to figure it out yet 'cause it's really more annoying than anything else. I'd I'd rather just have those sounds off. the the the one I'm driving has the the red leather seats, the red leather trim on the inside. So you got some contrast leather stitching

you know, bright very bright red leather seats. The the interior, you know, looks fine. The the pistol grip shifter, you know, very old school looking. but also kinda weird to use, you know, trying to trying to f

Roberto Baldwin (12:02)
It is very weird to use, said

Sam Abuelsamid (12:04)
trying to find the right position, you know, if you're trying to back up, trying to get it in reverse. damn, I got it a little too far, I got it in neutral.

Roberto Baldwin (12:13)
I put

in that th I put that car in neutral more than any other vehicle. And not on purpose. Like by acting like this is

Sam Abuelsamid (12:19)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (12:20)
not I mean, they're like, Hey, look at us, it's pistol grip, it's cool, like no, it's that's you know, pistol y y this isn't a pistol, it's a car. Come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:27)
Yeah.

yeah, the the back seat is surprisingly roomy. Yeah, adults can fit back there, sit comfortably back there. and because this is a hatchback, you've got lots of access to a pretty good size cargo area and the back seats fold down. So, you know, you could actually you could probably camp back there if you wanted to. Yeah, so it's it's it's it's a very very usable vehicle. I still think

You know, I mean it's it's quick. you can you know, there's there's the various modes where, you know, there's a drift mode, where you can you know, basically put it into rear wheel drive and send all the power to the the rear wheels. You know, you can get the get the rear wheels spun up and you know, generate lots of smoke and and you know, set your tires essentially on fire. but I haven't messed around with with any of that.

Yeah. It's also a very wide car, which you know, it handles reasonably well, but it's it's hard to drive on, you know, narrower country roads, just because it's so wide. You know, it's a couple inches wider than the old wide body chargers and challengers were. so it's this is a big car. And you know, as I said before

Roberto Baldwin (13:49)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:49)
when I drove the Daytona, the E V, it's you know, it's a great long distance cruiser.

you know, just put it in in the auto mode. and you know, if you were taking a long dist you know, taking a long distance road trip, you know, it'd be a great great for that. mm hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (14:07)
It's very comfortable for just like,

hey, I gotta drive three hundred miles. I but

Sam Abuelsamid (14:11)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (14:13)
the yeah, I had the RT version, I didn't have the scat pack and I was just like, this isn't it just feels like a really nice it but it's yeah, it's not like it's not fun at all on back roads. It's just not it's just like

Sam Abuelsamid (14:22)
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's too it's too big.

Roberto Baldwin (14:25)
it's just like it's unwieldy, it's very heavy, it's just like okay, fast in a straight line, I get it. Fine. Cool

Sam Abuelsamid (14:32)
Yeah.

so the the one that I have, let's see, it came to a grand total of sixty nine thousand six hundred and fifty five dollars. Which

Roberto Baldwin (14:50)
That's a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:51)
is a lot of money.

Roberto Baldwin (14:52)
It's a lot of money to pay to get your car in neutral all the time.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:55)
Yeah. Yeah. But this has, you know, among the options there's the eighteen hundred dollar alpine eighteen speaker high performance audio system with a subwoofer subwoofer. you know, it's okay. one thing I did notice driving this thing, there was some kind of like little rattle. There's something loose in the right front corner of the cabin

that, you know, you're driving along. You can hear this little rattle somewhere. not sure what it is.

I had the the carbon and suede package for the interior, which is twenty one hundred dollars, and then the demonic red seats for another five hundred bucks.

Roberto Baldwin (15:36)
Demonic red seeds.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:38)
the the twenty inch twenty twenty inch by eleven inch wheel and tire package. So twenty inch alloy wheels, eleven inch wide tires, three five thirty five Z R twenty all season tires on this one. so not

Not the the summer tires, which you can also get. That's twelve hundred bucks for the tire wheel and tire package. And then fourteen hundred dollars for the full glass roof. I would probably take a pass on several of those options, especially

Roberto Baldwin (16:08)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:09)
the the glass roof, because unlike some other cars with glass roofs, there is no sunshade and yeah it's tinted. It's tinted fairly heavily, but there's no sunshade and it doesn't have the kind of the electrochromic roof type of capability, so you can darken it.

so yeah, it kind of you know, makes it less pleasant, especially when the the sun is pounding down on ya. so yes, I mean seventy seventy grand. it it's actually been sub surprisingly more fuel efficient than I anti than I anticipated. it's it's rated at sixteen city, twenty three highway and nineteen combined. It's actually been averaging about twenty three miles per gallon. which is

Really good. Yeah, it's a lot lot better than I was expecting. And considering

Roberto Baldwin (16:55)
That's pretty good. For a car like this. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:59)
how inefficient the the electric version is, it's not bad. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:05)
Yeah. It's I

mean this thing is so heavy. The scat pack is six thousand pounds. The the R

Sam Abuelsamid (17:12)
Yeah. It's a big car.

Roberto Baldwin (17:15)
T the R T is like ten pounds lighter. And the but the tone is an a an you know, an additional like thousand pounds out on top of that. So it's such a it's a very so like with the RT, when I had the RT it just didn't feel like a charger to me. It just felt it just didn't have

I feel like this gap pack probably does feel more like a ch you know, like a charger, like it's put what it's supposed to feel like. But at the end of the day, i it's it's I I I d I mean all the videos of it are are are doing burnouts and whatnot. It's really like, hey, I need to drive down Interstate five. It's gonna be just sit back and relax in this comfortable vehicle. my and my interior, like there was a separ you know, the center console, there was a gap. There was like a visible gap between

That was already and the car only had like fifteen hundred miles. So yeah, so I was just like, you can actually see the gap in this picture. It was a little bit more. So you see how the on the so the right side of the center console, you see Yeah, and the passenger, that little Yeah, so it was a little

Sam Abuelsamid (18:10)
What which which which part of it? The on the passenger side? That gap between those two pieces there? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:19)
bit wider and you can see the little connecting portions of it. Which I'm just like, Well, this is a modern car. What's happening here? It just feels

Sam Abuelsamid (18:27)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:29)
and with all that weight

That means, you know, that's all that mass and, you know, it's gonna be if there's already

Sam Abuelsamid (18:35)
Everything.

Roberto Baldwin (18:35)
that when you get it, then it's gonna get it's just gonna get a little bit wider over time. And so Yeah, I I you know, I I I grew up with chargers and challengers and AMC javelins. My mom had a javelin

Sam Abuelsamid (18:48)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:49)
as well. yeah, my mom was a big

Sam Abuelsamid (18:51)
And they were you know,

they were generally relatively inexpensive for their time. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:54)
Yeah, they were just big, dumb, you know,

f cars that went g in a straight line. That that's that's what my mom loved.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:59)
And this is big and dumb, but expensive.

Roberto Baldwin (19:01)
My mom loved she loved muscle cars, so that's what she she owned. And my dad had like a he had a s he had a station wag he had two green station wagons. I don't

Sam Abuelsamid (19:12)
Nice.

Roberto Baldwin (19:14)
remember what the first one was. The first one he got from his dad. His second one was like a late seventies Dodge Aspen and it was all green on the inside and

on the outside so it was just green and

Sam Abuelsamid (19:26)
Ha.

Roberto Baldwin (19:27)
it was it had a V six and it was just like getting it to seventy like a whew that took a while. But

Sam Abuelsamid (19:34)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (19:35)
and I remember driving at school and I was embarrassed of it because it's this big green station wagon. And then by the time I was like a

Sam Abuelsamid (19:40)
Well, I mean any

anything anything with a slant six is going to have leisurely acceleration.

Roberto Baldwin (19:45)
Yeah.

And so but I remember being embarrassed by driving so I would park it behind the trees next to the Ag Barn. And then

Sam Abuelsamid (19:52)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (19:52)
by the time I was a senior, I was like, Look at this thing 'cause then like everyone could get in, we could just drive around.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:57)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (19:58)
By the time I got over it, you know, trying to be cool, because I've I've never been cool and it took me a little while to realize that wasn't gonna happen.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:07)
Ha.

Roberto Baldwin (20:07)
So then I was like, I just this thing's awesome. And then I remember when he sold it, I was really sad. I was like, but I you know, I had a car. I d I never drove his car.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:17)
yeah, ba base price on this thing for the for the scat pack is fifty five thousand dollars. and

Roberto Baldwin (20:22)
Whew. That's

a that's a that's a loan and a half, let me tell ya.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:26)
Mm-hmm. It's it's a lot more than I've ever paid for a car.

Roberto Baldwin (20:31)
Yeah, that's I mean it's more than I paid for my electric car. By like almost fifteen thousand dollars. Whew. Whew.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:38)
So so that

is the that's the twenty twenty six Char Dodge Charger Scat Pack Plus actually. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (20:45)
the plus. so

it's sixty thousand.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:50)
So yeah, that's

Roberto Baldwin (20:50)
Anyway, yeah,

if you're looking I feel like if you're if you want a dodge charger and you have the money, you just use and you want that that actual f you gotta get the scat pack.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:59)
Or, you know, wait a few months for the super B.

Roberto Baldwin (21:03)
Or the super B, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:04)
'cause that that's gonna get you up to six hundred horsepower. And have some

Roberto Baldwin (21:07)
Yeah, I feel the art

Sam Abuelsamid (21:08)
have some wilder paint jobs.

Roberto Baldwin (21:10)
If you want a really pretty comfortable car, then the regular RT R T plus is fine. Yeah, if you're not It's qu it's quick.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:12)
Mm. Yeah. And it's it's still it's still more than quick enough for almost anybody's needs.

Roberto Baldwin (21:19)
It's you know, it's quick in a way that a six thousand pound vehicle being, you know, dragged

Sam Abuelsamid (21:23)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (21:24)
along the road by a V six is quick.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:26)
And and one one thing I did notice that I I don't I don't recall noticing as much before when I've driven hurricane powered vehicles, is I I did notice some turbo lag with this one. because you know, because the

Roberto Baldwin (21:40)
yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:41)
high output hurricane has larger turbos on it. So it's got a little more turbo lag than the RT. So the R T actually, you know, has a little bit more instant response. This one, you know, if you're standing still, if you just take your move your foot from the

break to the accelerator and stomp on it, you will feel initially, you know, it feels like what's you know, what's going on? What am I waiting for? And then, you know, then it lurches off the line. whereas the

Roberto Baldwin (22:07)
Yeah. That's why

Sam Abuelsamid (22:09)
the RT's got a little more instant response, you know, but then it it it peaks out sooner.

Roberto Baldwin (22:15)
Yeah, that's why you need you know random transmission with a turbo. You can cheat that. I would cheat it all the time in my WRX. You just like you just learn how to drive the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Or I mean, you know, they Yeah. The the Scat Pack does have line lock.

So, you know, you you engage that and it locks just the front brakes. So it applies the front brakes and leaves the rears. So I mean if you you know, if you really have, you know, money to burn on on tires and you you you want to buy lots of tires, you can use the line lock, you know, to lock the front wheels and just spin the rears.

and then, you know, let it go and you know, you don't even have to hit the brake pedal. You know, just just sit there, and it'll sit there, you know, with the front wheels locked. And you know, if you're if you're gonna be doing you know, taking it to the drag strip and stuff like that, you know, that can be useful. But otherwise it's one of those things, again, like a lot of a lot of this stuff where you show it off once or twice to some friends, you know, and then you never use it again.

Roberto Baldwin (23:12)
And you realize, yeah. At the track, like, you know, that then you know when you see the cars like spinning the wheels, that's there's a real reason for that. Like they're warming up the

Sam Abuelsamid (23:17)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (23:19)
tires, they're also laying down some some rubber onto the track, which gives you a little extra traction. yeah, there's there's a reason. They're not just like, Hey, look at me like you would in real life.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:26)
But but you know, if you if you if you buy

a scat pack with all season tires, what are you doing? Why why are

Roberto Baldwin (23:33)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:33)
you why are you wasting your tires with that? If you buy the summer

Roberto Baldwin (23:36)
Yeah, that's a it's

Sam Abuelsamid (23:37)
tires and you're actually, you know, gonna drag race, fine.

Roberto Baldwin (23:40)
my god, that's so

much. It just I I you know, 'cause you know the the BRZ is essentially like a drift machine if you've you know,

Sam Abuelsamid (23:46)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (23:47)
it it if you just like tap the accelerator a little bit more. And every every time I get a little sideways, I'm like, that's gust that's gonna cost me entires later on.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:57)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (23:57)
That's just so cheap when it comes to that. I was like, I

Sam Abuelsamid (23:59)
And

Roberto Baldwin (24:00)
should go practice drifting. And I was like, Nah.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:05)
And and ti

you know, tires are getting expensive. Yeah, just like any anything

Roberto Baldwin (24:09)
They are. That's the other thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:10)
with oil in it, getting expensive. Yeah. So

Roberto Baldwin (24:13)
Yeah. Yeah. It's

it's whenever the the automakers are like, Hey, come out to this thing, we're gonna attract, we're gonna drift, I'm like, Yeah, I can practice because I'm I don't wanna practice on my car because I don't wanna pay for tires.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:23)
Yeah.

all right. let's carry on then. let's see. So first up, Honda, you know, they launched a new redesigned passport last year. and I think, you know, everybody everybody was pretty pleased with it. You know, it was generally very good response to the new passport. It was a big improvement over the old one. you know, the the the what do they call it? The I V T

all wheel drive system works really well you know essentially acting like a virtual locking differential on the rear axle. yeah it does you know the the trail the trailsport version of the passport surprisingly good off road you know we when we tried it in Puerto Rico we had a they had a pretty reasonably tough course and that was with only eight point four or eight point three inches of ground clearance. so for

2027, they have done some updates to the Trailsport version. They have reworked the suspension, given it an extra one point three eight inches of ground clearance. So it's now nine point six five inches of ground clearance. Which,

Roberto Baldwin (25:39)
That's a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:41)
by the way, is more ground clearance. It's about it's about almost half

Roberto Baldwin (25:44)
That's

Sam Abuelsamid (25:45)
an inch more ground clearance than you get in a Jeep recon.

Roberto Baldwin (25:48)
I think a G Wagon is like nine point five. Let me suck.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:51)
Yeah.

So, you know, that that extra, you know, one point four inches of ground clearance, that that's that is noticeable. you know, when you're when you're going off road. you know, they made they made a bunch of other changes to it. So, you know, they they've they've updated a whole bunch of things in the with the suspension. so now you know you've got approach angles and and departure angles and breakover angles have been increased by two to three degrees.

And you know again that helps a lot when you're actually you know gonna take it off-road. the let's see what else they got in here. yeah, they they thoroughly reworked the suspension to make sure the geometry is right. So all all the parts are actually different than they were before. It's not just taller springs. and so they also made some minor styling updates, mainly the headlights look a little different now. so let's see.

Roberto Baldwin (26:52)
Yeah, it's the G Wagon's nine point five. Like that's look at me remembering something. I'm really proud of myself right now.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:58)
Yeah, so they they updated the headlights, you know, made made a few other tweaks to it. so it's it's actually g you know, it's got some got some some more serious off road chops now. so you know, it's still not, you know, Wrangler Rubicon territory, but it's it it's again,

Roberto Baldwin (27:18)
What is

Sam Abuelsamid (27:19)
it is it is probably all the off roader that most people actually need and then some.

Roberto Baldwin (27:24)
Yeah, it's it's more

than it's more than most people need to be honest. no, this is you know, we went where'd we we went on when we went on vacation we end up having to go up like a dirt road and like there's some stuff and then we we went somewhere else and there was a dirt road. We were driving I was driving a Chrysler Pacifica. So

Sam Abuelsamid (27:45)
If a Pacifica can handle it, anything can.

all right. And then next up, the Audi A2 Etron. We talked a little bit about the A2 a few weeks back when they released some numbers on the efficiency of this thing. but now they have fully completely revealed the A2 Etron. it is you know fully exposed now. no no camo on it. got a similar shape.

To the original A2 back from the early 2000s. It is bigger. it's electric now. and they're claiming energy consumption of 12.8 kilowatt hours per hundred kilometers, which I forget what that equated to in miles

Roberto Baldwin (28:33)
my god.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:34)
per kilowatt hour. but needless to say, it's it's it's a lot.

Roberto Baldwin (28:37)
it's too early for math.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:40)
it's it's it's really good. and they also released images of the interior.

so yeah, got big screens as usual. Does have manual vents, which is all which is very good. yeah, it looks like a a pretty nice interior for what is going to be their entry level model. you know, so yeah, it's not it's not as luxurious as you would find in some other

Roberto Baldwin (29:04)
that's nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:05)
Audis, but you know, it's I would say you know, I would argue that this is probably a step up from something like the Volvo EX thirty.

Roberto Baldwin (29:13)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:13)
you know, it's definitely got more to it than the EX thirty does.

So I think yeah, this this could be really nice. Un unfortunately, you know, we'll probably never see it in America.

Roberto Baldwin (29:21)
I don't know how I feel about the buttons being on that the center console and that little that little tray. I like the interior

Sam Abuelsamid (29:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (29:29)
design. I like the I like that little tray. I like that the that the the center console is a big open area for putting like, you know that's where I put food. Like typically like that area is perfect for for for placing like ramen or or like

Sam Abuelsamid (29:43)
Yeah. Well and it also looks like it's

got a couple of magnetic wireless chargers there.

Roberto Baldwin (29:48)
Yeah, which th they have that they had that on the Q9, which they're really cool because they're they're raised and there's vents underneath

Sam Abuelsamid (29:54)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (29:56)
It's really so you put it on there, p you just h a it holds your it holds your phone because it's magnetic. But the yeah, and it's so like there's a little

Sam Abuelsamid (30:00)
But there's room for airflow to cool to keep the phone from overheating.

Roberto Baldwin (30:03)
vent so your c your your phone doesn't overheat and you don't get that thing. Like, hey, your phone stopped charging at thirty percent because too

Sam Abuelsamid (30:09)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (30:09)
hot. Which kinda like all right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know how I feel about those buttons being in that spot. I guess

If y you know, you gotta you reach down.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:18)
Yeah, I think we'd have to actually sit

in it and see see what the you know, how far the reach is. I mean it might it might

Roberto Baldwin (30:23)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:24)
be closer than actually reaching out to the dashboard 'cause the dashboard, you know, looks like it's set back a little bit. Although you

Roberto Baldwin (30:29)
It's pretty far out. Yeah. It might be fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:33)
still have to reach up there for the for the touch screen anyway, so

Roberto Baldwin (30:36)
Yeah, let's see. It's not yeah, and the volume's on on the passenger side. Which

Sam Abuelsamid (30:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (30:41)
fine I guess because you probably have a volume on the steering wheel.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:44)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (30:45)
but yeah, I like you know, I like a little I like a small car. Big guy in a small car, that's me.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:54)
how do you feel about the Volvo X C forty?

Roberto Baldwin (31:00)
I mean cool I guess. I d I mean I I mean I I see here's the thing. Volvo for years was just killing it. They came you know, th they they they got purchased by Gili. Julie was just like, Yeah, go do the thing that you do and then for for a very long time they're doing very well.

And then their, you know, CEO left and then they got a new CEO and then they just weren't doing so well. And a lot of it had to do with s with software. You know, they had this this vehicle was coming to market for like, you know, a pretty good price, for a Volvo and it was an E V and people were very I knew people who who put in pre orders for that thing. They put down money.

because they're like, my god, it's a Volvo, it's a pretty good price, it's an E V, it's gonna be great and then it just sort of like didn't show up.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:51)
Yeah.

that that you're talking about the E X thirty. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (31:54)
Yeah, and so

yeah, so cool I guess. You know, I think it I I I I I like Volvos for the most part. I haven't driven one in a while though. I will say that I have not been in an a Volvo in wow, like two years at this point. So it's been a while.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:16)
Yeah, so you know, I've I've I think I had an X C ninety plug in hybrid I don't know, four or five months ago. or earlier earlier this year. and you know, I still like it. It's still really nice. and I I always like the X C forty. you know, so it's getting a refresh for the twenty twenty eight model year. So basically there's not gonna be a twenty twenty seven model X C forty. So they're right now they're extending the

the twenty twenty six model year and then sometime early in the new year they will launch the the twenty twenty-eight XC forty and also the EX forty and the EX forty or the E C forty which is the the fastback version of this. the the EX forty and EC forty are the electric ones that used to be called XC forty recharge

Those are actually being discontinued from the US market. Yeah. To to your point about

Roberto Baldwin (33:15)
Those the X E forty

recharge was rad. I did a review

Sam Abuelsamid (33:19)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (33:20)
for that for Wired. And it was so fast. For for reasons that make Because it was a it was the pole star, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:23)
I know. Well and it's just it's the same underpinnings as the Polestar two.

Roberto Baldwin (33:28)
Yeah. But it was so fast and it was such a fun little E V. Like

Sam Abuelsamid (33:32)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (33:32)
that's that's why I'm just like, alright, well, they gotta gas one. Because the X E forty was so great. So I think I I think I'm just sort of like, Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:41)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (33:42)
Because of because they had a great

you know, little EV that I guess, you know, it just didn't sell very well.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:50)
Yeah, you know, and the the the problem with the you know that that Volvo had was they you know, Hawkins Samuelson who's now he was the previous CEO, he's back as CEO after James Rowan was pushed out. and you know, he's there for another year or two, I think. You know, they're they're looking for a new full time long per Yeah. I mean, you know, Sa

Roberto Baldwin (34:12)
Every time I try to leave they pull me back.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:17)
Samuelson I think is seventy two or something, you know, he had

retired. and you know, under under his first tenure, you know, they made the decision that they were gonna transition to all electric. And obviously that didn't entirely work out. You know, and so they

Roberto Baldwin (34:32)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:33)
had st basically stopped development on all their combustion vehicles. And so, you know, most of these have kind of been around for a while. They you know, they've done a they've done refreshes on, you know, the ninety series, the sixty series and now the forty series, over the last year or so.

Yeah, but you know, as far as all new combustion vehicles, you know, it's who knows when that's gonna happen. I I think it's still a good vehicle, you know. They've they've done some minor, you know, front end updates, you know, so the the grill is a little bit more like what they've done on the X C sixty, X C ninety,

Roberto Baldwin (35:08)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:09)
updated version of the Thor's hammer headlights or the you know, the running lights. you know, that's a little bit simplified from what it was before.

And then the interior, the main thing they've changed in the interior is they they went to the same larger eleven point two inch screen. It had a nine inch touch screen, went to an eleven point two inch screen like the the larger cars have. so basically sharing a bunch of the hardware there. and then they're also doing some some safety updates to it as well. let's see. they've got

door opening alert to help protect cyclists and other users by warning occupants. So using the the blind spot monitor radars to detect if there's a vehicle or a cyclist coming up in the lane if you're you know if you're pull over at the curb, you know, before you open the door provides you an alert if there's somebody coming along before you open the door. the pilot assist now has lane change assist. Again, don't know that that's actually that useful.

If you've got it's a ha pilot assist is a hands on system. Do you really need lane change assist with that?

Roberto Baldwin (36:22)
I feel

like everything post everything after essentially light centering and dri adaptive cruise control is just like hey we're getting ready for the transition to level three. That's it. That's it's just like sort of showing off, hey, this is what we're doing. We have the technology, we're moving forward, this is a good I feel like like making it making a lot of stuff, make sure a lot of stuff is hands on is still like a kind of a good way to test it 'cause you're like, okay, so

You can get some data and stuff like that. That's what I feel like at some point it was just like, hey, we're kind of showing off this stuff. I mean, I think the hand I mean blue crews, super crews, all the hands-free systems are all like, Hey, look, we're moving forward to towards late, you know. Which and a lot bunch of probably moved to level four versus level three. Because level three creates a whole opens up a whole other Pandora's box of like, hey, how when do you tell people to take over? When don't you? But yeah, to me it's always like, Hey, look what our technology can do. We're working on it.

Huh I end up t I I test it all. It is my job. I think some of them are very impressive, but like as me, as even though I'm the technology guy, in in in in the automotive world, I turn all that stuff off once I've once I've tested it. 'Cause I'm like, all right, I know how to drive. I keep both hands on the wheel all the time anyway. I'm just like

And then I like again I've talked about before. What do I do with my hands with hands free? What do I do with them? Put them in my lap?

Sam Abuelsamid (37:51)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (37:51)
Put on my head.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:53)
And and until until you go eyes off and you don't actually have to watch the road and you can do other stuff, there's really you know, hands hands free systems, you know, are limited real utility.

Roberto Baldwin (38:04)
Yeah,

it's it hands-free systems are good if you can eat and watch the road at the same time. Like I got a burrito, I need to eat, I'm drinking a soda. Like they give you that little extra like you still gotta pay attention and you still gotta be able to throw your burrito down and grab the the wheel. But that's that's what I that's what they're good for, is what I found. Long road trips I'm all

Sam Abuelsamid (38:21)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (38:23)
L turn on supercruise. Alright, the big green lights on, cool. Which I I I still like the big green light that GM gives you.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:27)
Yeah. Yeah, it's still the best

interface.

Roberto Baldwin (38:31)
It's the best. I I ask other people when they show me, I'm like, What are you showing? Like you have a bit like thing on they're like, we have this other thing. I'm like, it's not as good as the big green light. I know you might think it's garish, but it works.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:42)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (38:44)
yeah, big green light and I'm like, I eat my taco real quick. I still keep my hand on the wheel. 'Cause I'm a I don't trust robots.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:53)
Nor nor should anyone. Should never never

Roberto Baldwin (38:55)
Yeah, I shouldn't trust the robots.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:56)
never trust robots.

Roberto Baldwin (38:57)
Yeah, it's not their job to be good at their job. But it's their job

Sam Abuelsamid (38:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (39:00)
just to do what they're told.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:03)
all right. Range Rover. they have launched this actually came out last week. I think we missed it last week though. they've announced the electric Range Rover. so it's basically the same luxury SUV that you know they've had for a while. It doesn't really look any different to any significant degree from the Range Rovers, the current generation of Range

Rovers that have been around for a while.

okay. so anyway, we're talking about Range Rover.

Roberto Baldwin (39:34)
Range Rover.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:35)
got an electric version of the Range Rover now. It's got two 260 kilowatt motors, which is about 349 horsepower each. So you're looking at roughly 700 horsepower of electric propulsion, and they're claiming 372 miles of range.

Roberto Baldwin (39:56)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:58)
and but that's WLTP. So that should be somewhere in the ballpark excuse me, of about three hundred miles. which is pretty good considering that this is a very large vehicle. And very

Roberto Baldwin (40:10)
Yeah, that's

Sam Abuelsamid (40:11)
and un undoubtedly quite heavy. 118.5 kilowatt hour battery. is says it's a double stacked battery, with eight hundred volt technology and split charging. So this is similar to what GM does on their big

trucks and and SUVs you know where there you know there it's actually a four hundred volt architecture in the vehicle but the charging system will accept up to eight accept eight

Roberto Baldwin (40:43)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:43)
hundred volts and so it splits the eight hundred volts to four hundred volts to each layer of the battery. so it charges as though it's an eight hundred it it charges like an eight as if it was eight hundred volts but

it's basically chart treating it as two separate batteries, charging at four hundred volts each. and claiming ten to eighty percent charge in twenty two minutes. yeah, a hundred and thirty seven miles in ten minutes.

Roberto Baldwin (41:05)
That's pretty good. For especially for

what's their did they did they give a charge number? I I'm getting really i bored by this. I gotta do math.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:14)
they they do not. We could probably yeah,

work it backwards. but

Roberto Baldwin (41:22)
So

it's sixty percent of one hundred and eighteen point five.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:25)
It's probably somewhere in the two hundred and fifty ish volt or two hundred and fifty ish kilowatt peak. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:30)
Yeah, that's pretty good. No,

I mean I think all the specs on this are really nice. I d I don't think it needs to be that powerful. To be honest. I don't think it needs to have seven hundred horsepower.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:41)
No no

E V. I mean no v no vehicles really you know, especially for something like a you know, a Range Rover.

Roberto Baldwin (41:46)
Yeah.

And plus but but I but I do think it's smart that it's just the Range Rover and it's electric. Like the

Sam Abuelsamid (41:52)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:52)
I four is just the four series and an electric. And I think for for those people who want who who are looking at this, they're like, Yeah, I d I don't want a weird looking Range Rover. I want a Range Rover. And it gets like, you know, some some some sort of rough math, you know, with the WLT. It'll get like two point mile two point five miles per kilowatt hour, which is like, you know, about twenty five miles per gallon.

for for this vehicle. which is pretty good for a large Range Rover, to be honest. I mean it's probably a little bit better, maybe a little less. We'll figure out once the EPA gets a hold of it. But I think, you know

Sam Abuelsamid (42:28)
Yeah, it it do it does say here that you know, even though it's two two hundred and sixty kilowatt motors, which nominally are about seven hundred horsepower, they're they're actually limiting it to five hundred and fifty PS, which is about five hundred and forty-five horsepower. so, you know, I guess what they're doing, you know, they they've got you know, three hundred and fifty horsepower available at each wheel and then they can you know, they can balance, you know, they can

shift the the torque

split between the front and rear axles

Roberto Baldwin (42:57)
Back and forth.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:58)
depending on what you need for for traction. So you could have

Roberto Baldwin (43:01)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:01)
one going three hundred and fifty horsepower and the other one two hundred horsepower, you know, for that three fifty or that five fifty total, you know, or vice versa, depending on on what kind of surface you're on. they also said it can wade through up to nine hundred millimeters of water, so that's a that's almost three feet of

of fording depth, you know, 'cause it's a Range Rover.

It's supposed to be able to go off road.

Roberto Baldwin (43:24)
The Range Rover. Yep, that's the

weird we we the Range Rover's like the G Wagger, like, look at all the awesome things you can do with it and no one does anything. Except for my cousin, weirdly. He he he he takes his Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:35)
Well, it's it's usually like the third or fourth owner of a Range Rover or a Land Rover.

You know, after after it's been fully depreciated and it's not worth anything anymore, but it's actually still useful. Then

Roberto Baldwin (43:44)
It's like ten thousand dollars. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:46)
yeah. Then then they buy it and you know, they put all terrain tires on, you know, they take off the nice fancy all season tires, you know, and the twenty probably twenty two inch wheels or twenty four inch wheels on this thing. And yeah, and yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (43:56)
Sell sell those wheels to somebody and then buy some nice Steely's and y yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:02)
some some steelies or you know, even some, you know, cheap

you know, seventeen or eighteen inch alloy wheels with some big tall all terrain tires. Yeah. And

Roberto Baldwin (44:10)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:10)
then, you know, take advantage of what what the suspension and and the electronics can do, you know, but you can't actually l leverage with the with the stock wheels and tires that come from the factory.

Roberto Baldwin (44:23)
Yeah, yeah. It's you know, it's the fancy, you know, whatever the high the high street it's the high street vehicle. That's what the British people say.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:32)
Yeah, it's available to order now from one hundred and fifty four thousand pounds in the UK.

Roberto Baldwin (44:39)
So you know, so third owner, you know, forty thousand bucks.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (44:44)
Get yourself a nice or defender. I think TFL got a third like third owner defender. That's the

Sam Abuelsamid (44:49)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (44:50)
that's the goal is getting that third because you know they fixed got everything, you know, you check the service records and like, they got everything fixed, cool. Now I got a defender, which is a rad truck or an SUV.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:59)
Yeah. Well they they

well they they did that with a one hundred series land cruiser earlier this year that they bought which,

Roberto Baldwin (45:05)
Ooh.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:06)
you know, had like a hundred and eighty, two hundred thousand miles on it.

Roberto Baldwin (45:11)
Yeah, it's just broken

in. The the the motor's just broken in at that point.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:14)
Yeah, except what what they learned fairly quickly

after they got it though was the Hundred Series Land Cruisers had a somewhat weak front differential. And

the f the first time they went to do some off road filming with it,

Roberto Baldwin (45:28)
Snap.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:29)
going over some some rocks and Tommy snapped the differential.

fortunately one one of their viewers had some hundred series Land Rover parts and sent them an a d a replacement differential, but it cost them

Like almost two grand to get it installed. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (45:48)
That's oof. That's a bummer.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:51)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (45:52)
That's two grand. I feel like don't they know how to I I now I'm gonna ask Tom. I have so many questions for Tommy or Roman. I'm like, why didn't you just do it yourself? Like my s

Sam Abuelsamid (46:01)
Have have

you seen Tommy working on that old Jeep C J two of his?

Roberto Baldwin (46:05)
I have not I

Sam Abuelsamid (46:07)
yeah. wat watch that and you'll realize I mean, when it comes to actually working on stuff, you know, Tommy and Roman are kind of like the the old top gear guys were.

Roberto Baldwin (46:20)
so they're they're they're they're not he's not they're not yeah. They're they're jar they're Jer they're Jeremy and when it comes to working on cars. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:24)
They're the the Yes. Yeah, very much so. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (46:29)
I wanna go out I'll go out there and help I'm so like my uncle's two thousand To Tundra

The starter died and it's the V8 and because the V8 that it takes up more space in the engine base, so instead of sticking the starter down by like the bell housing, it was inside, it's inside the between the cylinders underneath the intake manifold. So you have to take the intake manifold off, and then you you know, you s and then there's the starter inside, which is kind of clever because you're like, it's now it's in here, it's it's it's a little bit more protective, it's you know, it's it's like 30 extra, 40 extra minutes of work to get to it.

And so I was all excited about working on it this weekend. And I got all ready to go and then my aunt called and said, we had we my unc he someone came over and helped him fix it and I was like, 'cause I had like 'cause my schedule is very hectic. So I couldn't go over right away and I think they're like, Hey, we need our truck so but I was very sad. I have the all the tools are still in the back of the BRZ to go over and fix

Sam Abuelsamid (47:26)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (47:27)
I gotta so I gotta take my tool my little travel tool chest out.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:29)
So if there's anybody in the Bay

Area that needs their car fixed, Robbie's all set, you know, just you know, ping ping us.

Roberto Baldwin (47:35)
I'm such a nerd.

I helped a friend he had a they had a sixty gosh. I don't remember. Anyway, it was a beetle and it was a convertible that their his his father had left them and they just kinda didn't have anywhere to put it and it hadn't run in twelve years. And I was like, Yeah, I'll come over and we like, you know, we drained the gas, we put new you know, we could put new lines in, we put new spark plugs, we put new I think we put a new distributor cap on. I don't well maybe

Anyway, we did a l all the things and then, you know, I got the I I was all excited to 'cause you know, you don't Starter Fluid, you don't get to use that much anymore. I was all excited to use starter fluid.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:09)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (48:13)
and we got it s got it running and then he sold it and

Sam Abuelsamid (48:15)
I mostly use the

starter fluid on the occasions when I have to take out the generator.

Roberto Baldwin (48:19)
Yeah, she's like

you're like ha ha ha ha ha But yeah, no, I I I'm if you got an old car that's just been sitting and you're like, man, I really need to get this started. if you find me, I will I will figure out a way to come over and help you. I don't it's I'm I'm I'm a big goofball when it comes to stuff like that. It's I'm super my my friend's like, my god, thank you so much. I'm like, No, no, thank you.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:43)
So so while we're talking Range Rover, let's let's switch over to what looks like it's roughly gonna be like a Chinese Range Rover, which is the latest from Xiaomi. the the Sky Nomad N ninety. so this is Xiaomi's you know, Xiaomi's gotten a lot of attention in the last three or four years. Yeah, this is a company that started off in the early twenty tens making smartphones. And they made phones do you?

Roberto Baldwin (49:09)
I think I have a Xiaomi ph smartphone somewhere in my office.

Yeah. Like they they gave it to me at an event for a review and then they you know and and a lot of these co c when I was doing like phone reviews, is like they don't want back and I try to send them back and usually you you get like a I try to get like I would try to get a FedEx return thing. I'm like, You gotta send a return label because I don't want this stuff in my house. Because you think you want all this tech and then you become a tech reporter and it's just like clottering up your house

Sam Abuelsamid (49:37)
And you realize, what

what am I gonna do with all this stuff?

Roberto Baldwin (49:40)
Now

I'm sin ch I'm in charge of recycling for you is what it comes down to. And so this one.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:42)
Yeah. Well that's that's when you know,

when you have a a a neighborhood yard sale and you just put a table out front and just put all the stuff

Roberto Baldwin (49:50)
Yeah, and you gave it to the money to

Sam Abuelsamid (49:51)
out there and put a free sign and say, Here you go. Have at

Roberto Baldwin (49:54)
take this weird

Sam Abuelsamid (49:55)
it.

Roberto Baldwin (49:55)
Chinese phone that may or may not be ch you know, watching you.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (50:00)
It was the first phone I had, I think, that it would record phone calls and it wouldn't tell the person.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:05)
No.

Oops. well anyway, I mean Xiaomi's gotten a lot of attention in the last couple of years. Jim Farley has talked a lot about he spent like I don't know three or four months driving around in a Xiaomi SU seven, driving around Detroit in this thing. You know, loved the thing. You know, it apparently inspired a lot of what they did on the the UEV program. Xiaomi's newest model, their third model, is the Sky Nomad N ninety. It's a big full size three row SUV.

it's an E Rev. so the this SU seven excuse me, the SU seven and the YU7 were both full bevs. This is an E Rev. So it's got a one and a half liter turbocharged four-cylinder range extender. they claim total of up to over fifteen hundred horsepower from this thing and like a thousand miles of driving range with the E Rev.

including like three hundred miles of electric plus another seven hundred miles with the range extender. But what's cool is they're doing a version called the N ninety Max Explorer with a pop up roof as a

Roberto Baldwin (51:18)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:18)
camper.

Roberto Baldwin (51:20)
I mean, yeah, why not?

Sam Abuelsamid (51:23)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (51:24)
Go camping. Look how happy those people look. They've a got a little fire going.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:27)
Absolutely. Sitting by the lake. this the

the seat the seats all fold down so you can basically have like a bed in the back.

Roberto Baldwin (51:36)
Take a little nap.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:37)
Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Roberto Baldwin (51:43)
a

nice and where you going? I'm going camping. Where? And my

Sam Abuelsamid (51:46)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (51:46)
sh my giant SUV. look at I'm looking at the picture of the frame.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:54)
Yeah, it's it looks like a pretty impressive vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin (51:58)
Got the little swoop swap around seats or swivel. yeah, here's the picture of the bed. There you go. Maximum length of twenty three hundred millimeters. I gotta look that up. Hold on to me. Wolfram Alpha.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:11)
two two point three mi meters, it's about seven feet, seven and a half feet.

Roberto Baldwin (52:15)
Seven point

five feet. You're good a good job.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:18)
Hey, I am bilingual when it comes to units 'cause I I grew up in Canada, so you know, I l I learnt

I learned, you know, the crazy units and metric units. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (52:27)
And metric units, yeah. Yeah,

th I because SAE because it's all engineers I write four mostly, I have to put in all the the metric numbers and I still like sometimes I'm like, I okay, I know how much this is But then once it gets really big I'm like I I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:46)
so so that's the the Xiaomi N ninety, which we probably won't get here, but you

Roberto Baldwin (52:53)
yeah, we went

Sam Abuelsamid (52:54)
never know. because apparently our president has decided that he would welcome Chinese automakers coming to build cars in in the US. and he's got a meeting coming up in a couple of weeks with Xi Jinping, the president of China.

in in Washington DC and a lot of speculation is that they are going to announce a deal to allow Chinese automakers to set up shop in the US. they're not gonna allow to be imported, but they're gonna allow them to set up shop, which is interesting. you know, I mean it'd be great, you know, to have more manufacturing here. but it's also in direct opposition to what Congress seems to be pushing for right now.

Senators Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan and Bernie Moreno from Ohio are sponsoring a bill in the Senate right now called the Connected Vehicle Security Act of twenty twenty six, which got unanimously passed out of Commerce Committee recently, and is going to the full Senate. and basically what it you know, most of what it does is codify into law a lot of the stuff that was in the

connected vehicle security regulations that were announced under the Biden administration back in twenty twenty four, which by you know start f starting from twenty twenty seven and you know phasing start phasing in from twenty twenty seven through twenty twenty nine would ban the use of any connected vehicle technologies from China or software or ADAS features from China. and you know that

But the this bill that is currently in the Senate actually goes beyond that because it also includes a ban on import, use and resale of either any Chinese vehicles within the United States, Chinese made vehicles, or vehicles from any company that is more than twenty percent or more than sorry, more than fifteen percent owned by Chinese entities.

Roberto Baldwin (55:10)
owned by this

is the one that's that's that's a big issue for Mercedes.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:15)
Yes, because Mercedes Benz is about ten percent of Mercedes Benz shares are owned by BAIC, the Beijing Automotive Industries Corporation. And another ten percent is owned by Li Shu Fu, the founder of Gili. and so potentially the I mean I've read I was reading through the bill, as it is right now a few days ago. This would basically ban Mercedes Benz. It would also ban Volvo. and

Potentially other brands from the United States market. Even though Mercedes

Roberto Baldwin (55:49)
This is

Sam Abuelsamid (55:50)
Benz and Volvo both make vehicles here.

Roberto Baldwin (55:53)
I that's that see that's this all of this is is it's just it's just grandstanding as far as I'm concerned. It was grandstanding in the Biden administration, it's grandstanding now, because it doesn't get to the root of the problem, which is we do not have proper pri data privacy laws in this country. You have proper data privacy laws in this country for everything, and then this isn't an issue. The end.

But we're not gonna do that because meta gets you know, Meta has a huge lobbying. Like, you know, X you know, huge lobbying. All these people who who who are, you know you it the TikTok is in you know, the TikTok issue, I mean that was all essentially paid for by Meta. It was all paid for by Zuckerberg. Like, here is a competitor, hey, it's from China, so it's bad. Which may or may not be true, whatever.

But they can still just buy this data from data brokers. The fact that we don't have, you know, real data privacy in this country makes it so they can come up with these things like, well, China's gonna send stuff over here that's gonna it's going to it's gonna spy on us and it's it's national security, blah blah blah blah blah. All the stuff that, you know, we've heard for forever. but if you have proper proper data privacy laws, then hey, anyone who's doing that, whether it's China or Facebook

Or Ford or GM, who, you know, obviously got in trouble recently for or a few years ago for not disclosing how much they were going how much they were they were harvesting from their drivers. then it's you know, it's it levels the playing field but it also solves a lot of these problems. But it's you know, it's always again, it's always the blaming of the other. They're like, well, we can't let them in here. I'm like well, fine I gu

Sam Abuelsamid (57:42)
So

Roberto Baldwin (57:42)
I

don't know. I I I got a lot of issues with with these sort of bills when they the the big pro it's like putting a band aid on a the gunshot wound.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:51)
Well, you know, and and we've talked about this before as well, you know, one of the arguments for banning Chinese vehicles, you know, and this you know, this would e even include, you know, Canadians or Mexicans that buy a Chinese vehicle from even driving it across the border if they're coming to visit. and

Roberto Baldwin (58:08)
Which is weird.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:09)
yeah, you know, and you know, the argument that you know, some politicians make is that well, they could be spying on us with these vehicles. And I've I've said this before. This is

Th this this is absurd. You know. If they if they wanted to you know, if the Chinese you know, I mean the the Chinese are obviously already spying on us, just as we are spying on them and everybody else, this is what countries do. Yeah. So but if if they if they wanted to use cars

Roberto Baldwin (58:30)
Yes. Yes. Everyone is spying on everyone. That's that's yeah, let's let's let's pretend let's live in the real world.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:38)
to capture data and spy on people, they could just go buy some GM or Ford or Stellantis vehicles that are already festooned with a bunch of cameras or Teslas.

and just tap into those camera feeds and record everything as they drive around. But it's it's probably the the least efficient way to do any spying that you know that you could pob possibly come up with. So it's

Roberto Baldwin (59:04)
It's

Sam Abuelsamid (59:04)
it's just it's a it's it's an absurd argument.

Roberto Baldwin (59:08)
The the the so okay, so the idea that anything is unhackable is ridiculous. Everything can be hacked. Everything can

Sam Abuelsamid (59:15)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (59:15)
be you know, the GM hack that happened years ago where you could sort of control the vehicles, you could find out where the vehicles are. you know, that sort of woke up the automotive industry into like, we have to take care of this too. We can't like, you know, sit on our laurels. GM just got called out 'cause that's they were the easiest one, you know, that's the exploit that everyone found.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:35)
And Jeep too.

Roberto Baldwin (59:36)
And Jeep. Yeah, so there's there's exploits within vehicles that are there. That you know, they they're called, you know, you don't want to burn an O day or a Zero Day. So if there's an exploit, no one's gonna tell you about it if they figure it out. They're just going to use the exploit and it doesn't have to be and the last thing it would do, like, well should we should we sh should we send a

Sam Abuelsamid (59:59)
Un unless unless

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:00)
Chinese car into into a naval base or should we use the exploit that we found

On an American made car that is, you know, on the base. And I'm not let's say of F-150. Let's say there's an exploit on the F-150.

F one fifties are everywhere, which means there's F one fifties on naval bases, on Army bases, on Air Force bases, on By the government.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:21)
Mm-hmm. Including those that are owned by the US military.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:25)
So they they use the exploit, they get all the information. They never had to send a Xiaomi vehicle or a BYD or anything into the it's it is such you're you know, there there's a really funny I think it was was last week tonight sort of video at the end where about Apple and th and the thing and

the whole like sort of fake commercial was we're just we're just doing everything we can to just keep one step ahead of everyone. We're losing our minds

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:53)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:54)
that's everyone's doing. You're always just like you're always just trying to be one step ahead. Like whenever you th whenever there's an exploit that is found, it isn't because these people are just sort of sitting under laurels for the most part. Because th you know, this is bad press when there's an exploit and especially when there's a a z a a zero day that goes that goes wild.

But yeah, it's it they're just like, gosh, that's why the security researchers are so important because they find these exploits and they tell the companies. They're like, hey, there's a saying here, I fix it. And they tell them to fix it. And then once it's fixed, then they go to the world and they're this exploit was out in the world. And they do that because A, it shows that they're doing the work, and B that the company's like listening to them. But C, if you're another company that has something similar, you can look at the exploit like, gosh, do we have something similar within our s our system?

So all of this is going on and meanwhile, instead of ha again, privacy stuff, instead of like having like real ri l legislation that protects US citizens and y literally everyone in the US

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:56)
And and give gives

you a path to potentially, you know, get some you know to impose some consequences on these companies, you know, to allow you to sue them, you know, or get get some recourse, you know, when something does go bad, which it undoubtedly eventually will.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:14)
Yeah. But then but instead we're going after companies that no one could do anything about it anyway.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:19)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:20)
In other countries we're just like, no. And then we're gonna just, you know, with this cut like Mercedes, they're all their SUVs are are built here. That's that's so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:29)
Mm-hmm. Same with BMW.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:31)
Yeah. They're yeah, they're building so many vehicles here. That means they employ so many vehicles. it's it's I don't I just I just I feel like they

Yeah, I don't know. I don't it's just y you you could go I you know, you can say they're in in in bang they're not going to it's like it's like finance reform. Like no one's ever gonna do anything about like one guy was like, Hey, maybe we should have finance report and and the both sides of the air are like, No It's the same thing with data privacy. Like, hey, maybe like one person could like, Hey, wait we should have data privacy and both sides of the air like, No, do you see how much money that they're paying like I have to get re elected? Do you see how much money the lobbyists are paying us to

Get reelected? Come on. We're not gonna do that. Instead, we're gonna go after companies that have that never give us money that are in other countries. Take that, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:27)
Well what's you know, what what what's what's gonna be interesting here is if Congress does pass this bill, you know, I mean there seems to be a lot of bipartisan support for this. you know, I mean the the committee passed it through unanimously. You know, both Democrats and Republicans all voted for it. So there's a it seems like there's a strong chance that this this would this will pass if it comes to a full vote.

you know, and it's directly in opposition to what Trump is saying he wants to do. Or at least this

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:00)
Yeah, it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:01)
week anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:02)
yeah, it's it's it's it's again listen, if if if a a Chinese company wants to come to America, put in a factory, give people jobs to build Chinese cars that use especially their battery technology. The cars are like meh, it's the battery technology that we really want, to be honest. We

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:20)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:20)
We want their battery technology. and I'm like, Okay, if you're gonna give people jobs,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:26)
Well, and we already have that. I mean Ford Ford's already got that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:29)
yeah, C A T L.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:31)
yeah, if if they want to do that and they want to employ Americans and I'm like, Okay, cool, you know, Japan did yeah, even Trump's like Japan did it, Korea's done it. Fine. But this this whole like, hey, these ca the these are automatically these are bad. I'm just like I make

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:52)
Big sigh.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:51)
It's it's it's ev

it is big side because these peop you know, everyone on both sides of the aisle are are are voting just the you know, it it is grandstanding. Look, we're protecting Americans from from from spying. No you're not because again you could just buy the data from somebody else. We're already being spied on

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:10)
Yeah. We're already being spied on in so many other ways.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:14)
by all the companies anyway, and the data brokers will sell the data and China could just buy the data.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:21)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:21)
They

don't even have to do anything. They're just paying somebody else who's already doing it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:26)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:26)
But you know, you know, we you know, instead of solving real problems, we got this. Cool. Good job, everybody. Congress.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:37)
There's a there's a company out there called Arbey Robotics. an Israeli company that I've been I've been talking to they're talking to these guys for for a number of years now. They've been working on a high definition imaging radar. and they this week they announced they they finally got their first production contract. So this is a a pretty high definition radar chip that they've developed, which does like two thousand forty eight by two thousand forty eight

pixels, essentially. So it's not it's not at the same level as LIDAR sensors, but a typical eight ass radar sensor that you probably have on your car, you know, is generally like four by three or two by six pixels you know in resolution. So twelve to sixteen pixels.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:28)
So the so this is better.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:31)
So the this is yes, this is much better.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:34)
Well the the whole thing with ADAS and and all this the system is that the sensors are working in conjunction. You need redundancy because LIDAR

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:41)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:41)
could get you know, LIDAR gets messed up in certain cir circumstances, radar gets messed up in other circumstances, you know, v you know, cameras are get messed up in other circumstances. So the better every sense you know increasing the ability of each sensor increases the ability for the vehicle to see the road.

In in in weird and and and wacky situations.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:07)
And you know, radar has a lot of advantages over cameras and lidar in that, you know, it can see through fog and rain and snow. you know, and when you've got, you know, a you know, a high definition radar like that, like this, you know, it's not basically just seeing things in one plane, but it's it's seeing things, you know, vertically as well. so you you know, you can distinguish, you know

bridges and trees, you know, from the roadway and from other vehicles. so

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:41)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:41)
there there's a lot of advantages to this type of radar. and sorry, it's twenty three hundred virtual channels, even more than I was saying. rather than rather than sixteen. yeah, I know. I I I under underspoke

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:55)
How dare you? Twenty three hundred.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:00)
what so they they're partnering with a a Chinese

contract electronics manufacturer called Hirain Technologies. and they have a a production contract with a Chinese automaker which they have not identified but it will be to supply their radar for multiple across multiple brands for level three automated driving systems. So that's hands off and eyes off. production starting in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty seven. So about a year from now. with pr

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:32)
Cool. I mean we won't

get it, but still pretty cool. Maybe.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:35)
Yeah. Well, you know, if you

know, if if they you know, if they do a deal and allow the Chinese to build cars here, you know, and you

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:43)
Maybe we will get it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:44)
know, now now that you know, now that they've got their first production contract, you know, I think you know, we'll probably start to see some other automakers sign on with Arbay and and use their technology. 'cause it's a very interesting

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:56)
I think I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:57)
technology.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:58)
yeah, I think a good example of how radar works better than like you said, LIDAR and and and cameras is the the Tesla crash with the giant with the tractor trailer. 'Cause

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:10)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:10)
the sun it was a bright day, the tractor trailer was white, so the Tesla was confused because it it everything looked the same. It was all the same tone.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:17)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:18)
It saw everything and LIDAR might you might end up with the same situation if there was like something in the background where it's all the same tone where it's shooting

The laser. Whereas radar, radar doesn't care. Radar's all pew pew pew.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:29)
Yeah. And if

if you're if you're watching the video, here's here's a an image you know from some of our Bay's testing. It shows you know how because it's you know, this high definition radar, you know, can detect things in the vertical plane as well as the horizontal plane, you know, picking out a pedestrian walking out from between two parked vehicles, and you know, highlighting highlighting that because it can see the h the height difference and the depth difference, you know, between

What's in front of and behind this pedestrian?

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:01)
Yeah. It it's it's it's in pr you know, it again it's it's the sensor fusion, you know y all this

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:06)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:06)
stuff goes into the vehicle, the vehicle has to decode it and whatever, but if you give the vehicle like better information, the more data you're giving the vehicle the better the more information it has. I mean sensor fusion now has to deal with like, you know, a a denser packet of data from the from these radar. But, you know, you can set it up in a way that it's it's like, that's like you said, that's a person because they're taller, there's this, there's that, there's

in in a way where if you know, if that person was wearing a white shirt, there's a bunch of white cars, you know, maybe they're shiny, I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:36)
Yeah.

Ca camera might not be able to distinguish that. And you know, this is the problem when you only use one type of sensor, especially if it's a two D sensor like a camera, you end up, you know, having to do a lot of inference. And another word for inference is guessing. Yeah, so you're Yeah. So you're you're you're you're guessing

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:51)
Yeah, it's just g it's like dead reckoning. Well, here we go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:56)
as to okay, is this thing actually closer to me or further away? and you know, unless you're using stereo a stereoscopic camera system, you know, you

you only each camera only shows you something in in a single plane. So you can't you can't if they're not if the cameras aren't looking at the same thing, then you can't use geometry to distinguish that. If you if you're doing stereoscopic cameras like what Subaru does with their eyesight

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:21)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:22)
system, then you know you can you can do that actually pretty accurately. but you know with when you combine the two D image, you know, and being you know taking taking the the

machine vision and you know using that to distinguish the different things in the image and combining that with 3D perception from cameras and or from radar and lidar, you know, now the system doesn't have to guess. You know, it it can it can know that there is something there. And based on what it's seeing, you know, then you can infer and the way things are moving, you can infer, okay, that is a pedestrian. That is a person walking out between those cars. And so

The more the more information you give it, the better. Because

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:06)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:07)
we all know now what happens when AI systems guess. And it's not good.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:11)
Yeah,

it's not good. It's and then you know, I don't I don't want you know, when I'm driving I don't want the driver guess when I'm sitting in the passenger seat, I don't want them the driver to guess how far something is. I'd like them to know. yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:26)
all right. let's see, Arbe Stallantis. So Stellantis has a factory, it's had has long had a factory, you know, back going back to pre-Dimler Chrysler days, has a factory in Brampton, Ontario, which is just just west of Toronto. and most recently that factory was producing the the old

previous generation Dodge Charger and Challenger and Chrysler 300. back in the day it also you know, once upon a time they also produced Jeep Wranglers there. but that plant stopped production at the end of 2023 when they stopped building the old Charger and Challenger. and it was scheduled when they did when Stellantis negotiated their most recent contract with Unifor, which is the Canadian Auto Workers Union,

one of the things in that contract was they said, okay, we're gonna we're putting we're putting a new product in here. So, you know, we've stopped we're stopping production of the Challenger and Charger and 300, but we're gonna put a new product in here. and that product was supposed to be the new generation, the third generation compass. and so they you know they started doing the retooling of that factory in twenty twenty four. and then at the end of twenty twenty four some new guy got elected

as president and started imposing a bunch of tariffs on products from everywhere, including Canada. And Stellantis decided, okay, so the compass is gonna supposed to be, you know, the affordable entry level vehicle from Jeep. if we throw a twenty five percent tariff on there, that's not gonna be good for our profitability. And so they

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:09)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:10)
they stopped the retooling work. They paused it and ultimately cancelled that.

And decided, okay, we are not gonna build the compass there. Eventually they decided we're gonna you know, they announced we're gonna build the compass, the new compass in Belvidere, Ohio instead. Belvidere, sorry, Belvidere, Illinois, not Ohio. and so that's gonna happen starting later in twenty twenty seven. but Brampton has been sitting there empty and they've been trying to figure out what to do with it. And Stellantis proposed to build

knockdown kits of Leap Motors EVs from China there.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:51)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:52)
and you know part of the the deal, you know, for the retooling, like everybody else, you know, when you do a major investment in a factory, you end up getting a bunch of taxpayer dollars from various government various levels of governments to help support that. They'd gotten a bunch of money from the province of Ontario. province of Ontario said, no, that's not going to be acceptable. And the union said that's not going to be acceptable because

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:14)
Yeah.

We gave you money essentially

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:16)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:16)
to do this and now you're you've you've stopped and you're not going to do this.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:19)
Right,

because you know, if they'd been building the compass they would have been employing about three thousand people there. If building these knockdown kits they would have been looking at a few hundred people, putting together

these knockdown kits, which you know, they said, No, no, that's that's not good enough. So Snellantis started looking for other options. They've now they now a couple of days ago announced a memorandum of understanding to sell the factory to a Canadian

defense manufacturer who wants to build utility vehicles for the Canadian Armed Forces there. and what's the Rochelle is the name of the company.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:03)
Rochelle, Rochelle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:04)
yeah. these Rochelle does not actually have a contract yet, has not actually won a contract yet from the Canadian Armed Forces to build these vehicles or anything

else.

and the number of vehicles they would be building would be a small fraction of what what you know what the it would have potentially been producing as a Stellantis factory. and at best would have employed a few hundred people. Yeah. And this is a three million square foot factory. and so the union and the Ontario government are both pushing back against Stellantis that yeah, no, you know, if Rochelle wants to

to build a factory, there's a lot better facilities for them to use than this one. Yeah. We we want somebody who's actually going to build large volumes of vehicles here. Yeah, pretty

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:55)
It's like a Lordstown situation almost.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:58)
much. I

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:00)
At least

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:01)
think the most that Lorestown built, you know, was a few hundred electric tractors for Monarch.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:07)
Yeah, which Monarchs now. I did a whole thing on Monarch and like a few months later they're like, yeah, we're out of we're almost out of business. I'm like, man I just did a big p profile about you Sometimes, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:21)
So it's unclear what's gonna happen to this factory. My my guess is I I still predict that this will end up getting sold to a Chinese automaker.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:32)
Yeah, yeah. I mean at least that everyone wanna get jobs. Yeah, 'cause it's this whole Wishell thing, yeah. Especially when they got all the money already. Like we gave you money to do the thing and they're like, Yeah, we're not gonna do the thing. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We gave you money. Do the thing. You gotta make this right because again, we gave you money. Like to do the thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:00)
let's see, Audi, well Volkswagen in general. You know, Volkswagen's still trying to figure out how to fix their problems in North America. and you know, one of the things that Volkswagen doesn't have in North America is any body on frame vehicles, trucks and larger SUVs. so you know, reports are that now they are looking at building body on frame vehicles

in in North America for the North American market. overseas, Volkswagen does sell a mid sized pickup truck called the Amarok. the current generation Amarok is basically a rebodied Ford Ranger 'cause they have a partnership with Ford. I'm pretty sure that their deal with Ford prohibits them from selling any any of those in the United States or

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:54)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:55)
or North America.

'cause they don't want Ford wouldn't want them competing with the Ranger here.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:02)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:03)
but you know there's been some speculation recently, you know, that they could use a version of the the Scout platform that's been adapted for full internal combustion, maybe. or s at least use the Scout factory, which would probably make a lot of sense.

yeah, since they're building this giant factory and it's probably not gonna sell enough scouts to utilize it fully.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:33)
Yeah, this is the problem is is this if they do if they are going to do this, we're not gonna see this for like four or five years 'cause Volkswagen is just very slow with everything right now. Because they just I d I you know, they're they're trying to be extra careful. They wanna you know, they don't wanna lose more money than they're already losing. Which I c I kinda understand, but it's I feel like that there's I don't run a I mean, I can't run a car company. I can you know

I'm barely an adult to be honest. But it's But when you look at like what Volkswagen is, you're like, okay, but you gotta you gotta deliver, man. Because if startups are out are are are beating you to market, that's that means startups are beating you to market. And you know, those pe every conquest, if especially if it's a good vehicle, is, you know, probably a long term conquest that you've lost to. So yeah.

I don't know, it's it's and trucks are such a an interesting sort of market because the people who like I only drive Toyotas, I only drive Ford, you know, the Ford the Ford Chevy fight, you know, that that rivalry has been going on for decades.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:43)
And even even Toyota, you know, has struggled

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:46)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:47)
to get sales of the tundra up. I mean, they're still, you know, nowhere near the sales of the Detroit trucks, but you know, they're they're up to I think nearly a hundred and fifty thousand a year now. But it's taken them, you know, twenty more you know, twenty five years to get to that pace.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:05)
Yeah, it's it's it's such a very it's like this is what I buy. It's very tribal. Like truck truck it's bit large, especially full size truck buyers are are very tribal. the Tacoma is sort of owns that that sort of midsize truck market. you know, the Rangers there, it's been around for a while you know, forever. The Colorado, those have been around forever. it it'll be

I can see where they see the market. It's just it's it's such a it's such a tribal you know, it's it's like trying to go and go up go and get Subaru. Subaru people are Subaru people. It's the same thing with trucks. It's like truck people are truck people. you know, even as a child and you know, if you if you had a Chevy truck, like you always made fun of Fords, you know, found on the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:47)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:48)
road dead or you know, that's and that yeah, that's just how it yeah. It's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:53)
Or fix or repair daily.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:54)
fix or repair daily, that was the other thing, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:57)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:57)
Yeah, so it's you know, it's it's I don't know if this is the right maybe, we'll see. I mean, if they if it comes at a good price point and the the thing is is that like Generation X is like the smallest generation, but it's also the most difficult to market to because Generation X typically doesn't have like a like heart like strong brand loyalty and so maybe they can get them, but that's not

I'm I'm Generation X. I'm like, don't sell stuff to us. There's there's there's so few of us and we don't care. It's like you gotta get the millennials. You gotta get there's more of them. There, you know, if you can

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:39)
And they're gonna be around longer, you know. If you can if you can capture those

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:41)
Yeah, we're already

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:42)
if you can capture them as buyers now, you know, and and retain

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:45)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:46)
them, they're gonna be around for another twenty, thirty, forty years or well at least at least until

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:49)
Yeah, we're on our way out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:51)
the you know, the entire global clo climate and ecosystem collapses, you know. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:54)
Yeah, get get the Gen Z kids. Get those kids.

Like get them excited about Toyota about Volkswagen trucks and you'll be fine for a good, you know, couple decades. Don't don't don't don't don't talk to us. 'Cause we're we're worthless. We're just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:08)
like n don't try to market to us. We're you know, we're we're already in our fifties and sixties. That's we don't yeah. We we we're invisible in the market. Which to me which to to be honest, again, Generation X yeah, that's fine. Yeah, we're just being w we're

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:19)
It actually just feels pretty good. I d you know, I don't

really wanna be marketed to.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:23)
We're still we're st

we're still angry about the c you know, the taking every it taking everything that we loved and and and making it into marketing. Like Jen like skateboarding, everything we became marketing, we're like, man We're the last we're

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:36)
Well actually

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:37)
the last generation that got angry about selling out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:40)
Actually the

yesterday I saw something little tykes. you know, the the little tykes cars and stuff. You know, all the

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:49)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:49)
all these p you know, plastic toys that that they have that you know, are in nice bright bold primary colors, well, they apparently are caving in to

Parents, you know, they're looking for a modern aesthetic, you know, and they don't want primary colors messing with the aesthetic of their their home. and so they they have they are remodeling, re redesigning their their toys in that same kind of white and off white and beige color, you know. yeah, it's

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:30)
I always

the weird yeah, I don't understand the fine. I don't know. There's like a whole there's a whole bunch of think pieces about like the sort of the millennial like greyish tone and I'm not a millennial. They've been picked on for so long. I don't feel like we should be picking on them. Like ev everything was everything that went wrong was their fault and I'm just like stop it Stop Leave them alone. Leave them alone.

Like we were all supposed to be slackers as as Gen X. It's like leave us alone.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:00)
Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, ev even the the millennials, you know, that you know, everybody's saying, you know, they're they're all, you know, the depressed and have anxiety. Well, I can certain I can absolutely sympathize with why, you know, I mean, look at the world around them and see how it's collapsing. See how,

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:16)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:17)
you know, freedom and democracy and the climate and everything else is just falling apart and

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:22)
They were the gen

they they're the generation that was brought up in school shootings. Like we we all miss that. There's like one school Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:25)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean you know, my my kid my kids

were in grade school when nine eleven happened. And, you know, they they lived through Columbine and all this other nonsense. and it's it's crazy. you know, and

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:39)
No it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:40)
I can I can understand why young people today increasingly don't want to have kids, you know. I mean mine

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:46)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:48)
both of my kids have no intention of having kids of their own. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:52)
Sorry

kids, we we we didn't we didn't do it. We didn't we didn't make things better for

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:55)
Yeah, we we screwed it up for ya.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:57)
we screwed it up for you. I apologize.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:59)
on a on a brighter note.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:01)
Now I'm all sad.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:05)
horsepower

train, which is a company that started off within start it started off within the Geely group where all the various brands within the Geely group, so Volvo and Geely and Polestar and various others that were doing well not so much Polestar, but some various other parts of Geely Group that were doing internal combustion powertrains, decided okay, we're

gradually moving away from this, it doesn't make sense to have these different parts of the company all developing their own powertrain technologies. So we're gonna blend all that together, just put it into one unit that will s design and supply those powertrains for any of the brands within the group that want or need to use them. and then once they did that, then they partnered up with the Renault Nissan and Mitsubishi Alliance and brought them into it. And

re rebranded it as horsepower train. So horsepower train makes engines, transmissions, hybrid systems, so anything that in that still includes an internal combustion engine. And so, you know, they're they're doing stuff for, you know, the various brands now. Those are that's all products of horsepower train. and so now they're trying to expand out beyond those those automotive groups to saying, look, we we can supply this stuff for anybody that wants it or needs it.

And so they just set up an office in Detroit. they announced this last week. and they're gonna have a few dozen people working there to start with. they're they're hiring. So if you're engineer or business development, you know in in the Detroit area looking for a gig, check out Horsepower Train. they might have some options for you. and yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:54)
It's a clever name. I'm surprised no one

else is like, Hey, we should call our company horse. Powertrain. Get it? Huh? Huh?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:01)
Horse? It also alludes to co to to heroin, but that's a whole other that's another that's another like Gen X thing where you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:10)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:11)
Terry.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:13)
and finally, Kindred. Kindred Motorworks. we've we talked before about Kindred and their VW microbus resto mod and E V microbus, twenty three twenty one window or twenty three window microbus.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:28)
Lot of windows.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:29)
yeah, a lot of lot of windows. well they they also do resto mods based on they do electric

nine eleven's so they take old air cool nine eleven's make them electric but they also do first generation Ford Broncos and they do both a a gas resto mod and an EV resto mod and I was at an event a couple days ago here in Detroit for for work and doing some stuff with Lithia Motors. Lithia is like the largest automotive dealer group in the country. They own something like three hundred and thirty, three hundred and forty

stores across the country with most of the different brands. here in Detroit, you know, they they own the the Suburban Collection, which is a whole bunch of different brands. And anyway, they had their their high end store in Troy had a Bronco a Kindred Bronco, E V Bronco, on display, which was really cool looking. it was this

Great shade of green with a white top.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:39)
Ooh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:40)
and it it's not it looks fantastic, not inexpensive.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:48)
No, these are very, very expensive. These are not cheap.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:50)
Yeah, they start at

like two seventy five. This particular one was about three hundred thousand dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:59)
Yeah, these I mean there's a lot of work. These are small companies. A kindred is actually in the Bay Area. I've gone to their factory, I've talked to them. that's very interesting 'cause they hire they know they're they're in Mare Island, which is part of, you know, Vallejo, and so they hire pe local people from Vallejo to work at their factory. Like they have certain they have stations within the factory and when you work at a station there's essentially like how to do your job.

And they breaks it down. So so, you know, these people are getting skills, everyone's getting but you know, these you know, if you look at their if you go to the website, you'll see like an old donor vehicle and it's an absolute mess. And they have to take that and they lovingly make it beautiful and you know, they have to add this E V powertrain and all the work they do, you know, it's it's you know, it's it's it's not mass, you know, they don't have a giant factory floor. They mean they have a factory floor, but it's not like you know, it's not a factory line. They're

They're going through and they're making these vehicles one at a time and, you know, essentially hand building them. And so when you're doing that, when you're, you know, fortifying the original frame, when you're taking the the body and you're cleaning it up and you're getting you know, all of that costs a lot of money. And at the end of the day you get this very, very expensive vehicle, but it's but it it you know, there's a reason why it's expensive. It's yeah, it is it's it's it's almost

It's nearly a like a bespoke sort of situation where they're just like, We're every vehicle's gonna be a little bit different 'cause every donor vehicle's a little bit different. And so, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:29)
Yeah, so, you know, if you've if you've got some some money to spend, you know, there and you're you know, you're looking for a Bronco, an electric Bronco, Suburban suburban what I think it's in the might be in the Bentley store. It's in it's in one of the suburban collection dealers. If you call any of the suburban collection dealers in in Troy, they can tell you where to find it.

It's they've got it in stock. and they also have a gas one which is a mere two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. yeah, so yeah. but the the electric

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:05)
A deal.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:08)
one, you know, they say it's about three about two hundred miles of range, four hundred and two horsepower. and it looks fantastic. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:16)
Are they using the Ford Coyote? Yeah, they're still using the Ford Coyote E

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:19)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:32:19)
V8. So yeah, they were using this in other vehicles as well. They have a lot of different

vehicles. So you can go to Kindred Motors dot com, check out. I it was I just thought it was it's really impressive that people are really nice. I like the idea of like hiring locals and and and giving them jobs, like doing this like very specific thing and, you know, they're learning skills that they wouldn't normally w learn. And, you know, some of those skills can translate to like, I can get a job at Lucid, I can get a job at Tesla, I can get a job at Ford, I can get a job at, you know, somewhere else later on. 'Cause I have I've I've built up this this knowledge of how to do this thing so

Yeah. They get a lot of Broncos on their site right now. There we go. EV buses.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:01)
Yeah. th those are probably those are probably

some of the easiest ones to to find as far as donor vehicles.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:09)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:11)
all right, we've got a couple of listener questions. first from Marcelino says says I appreciate the show, very excited about the slate truck and have made my reservation. I'm expecting to take delivery around April twenty twenty seven. However, this will be my very first EV. I live in a small rural town and occasionally have to travel to neighboring towns, fifty to one hundred and fifty miles away. I was okay with only using it for in town commutes, but now that the expected range has increased to two hundred and five miles.

I'm starting to think that maybe I can use it for some of my longer trips. Is 205 miles city or highway? Do you think it can realistically reach some of those longer distances? I would be I would all I would be able to plug in while in those other towns for at least an hour before returning home. Also, unless I missed it, I haven't heard Robbie say anything about whether he made his reservation after all. Any update? Thanks again.

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:02)
not made my reservation because I can't with a clear conscience reserve a car that I haven't driven. That's it. That's the only reason right now. I'm very much like it's it's I was like really close to and I was going to and I was going to and I was going to and then was like I c like part of I it's so hard for me to spend money as a person. Like so there's a keyboard in this case.

It's w it took like six months of me to talk myself into using this keyboard that's in this case. To buying this keyboard. Because I had to like research it and didn't do this. And I'm like, do I really have the money? Should I really spend it on this? Should I really do that? It's I I I I my brother's the same way. We think it's a

a byproduct of growing up really poor where like every every financial decision has like a huge impact on your life. It doesn't really that much anymore as a ch as an adult, but it's still like part of my lizard brain. So I can't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:53)
It's kinda like,

you know, our our our our grandparents that might have grown up during the Depression, you know, they they

Roberto Baldwin (1:34:58)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:59)
still save everything.

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:00)
Yeah, they're still saving all the stuff 'cause it's just like it's it's it's part of your genetics. So that's why I have not. I I there's there there's supposed to be drive programs by the end of the year. I'm sure I'll drive it and then I'll immediately make a I'll probably just immediately make it. But I cannot like it's just it's like a little barrier. I just keep hitting it. And I know there's you know, I c I could probably reach out and drive a pre-production version, but that's pre-production. I wanna drive the production vehicle. I wanna tell everyone about it.

and say this is what this vehicle is and then give them my additional two hundred fifty fifty dollars. So I pushed up like I could have gotten it like in j I think it was like January or February if I had just done it right away. But now so now I'm pr you know, I'm probably gonna be pushed to, you know, late twenty twenty seven, which is fine. I have a car. It's not you know, I'm not in a rush. but yeah that's that's why I haven't I haven't

made my reservation. I'm I still, you know, when I think about the vehicle, I still get very excited. I still like the idea about it. as for your your your if you can charge in the other town you should be okay. That's usually the two out of five is kind of like a combined like highway and city driving. So one fifty might be pushing it if it's like, you know, you you're cruising at 70 miles an hour the whole time. Especially if it's hot, so you have air conditioning on.

Or if it's cold, you have the heater on. So yeah. Hm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:28)
Yeah, that you know, one one fifty is probably gonna be pretty close. You depends, you know, you dn you don't say where where you live, you know, I mean if you're in a hilly area, you know, if you gotta do a lot of

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:40)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:40)
climbing, you know, that's that's gonna hurt. you know, or high winds. but you know, certainly yeah, a hundred miles should be fine. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:52)
Yeah, it's no problem if it's a hundred miles.

It should be able to like totally even with all those other things. As long as you you know, if you have charging in the other town, especially just some D C fast charging. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:59)
Especially if it's if it's DC charging, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:02)
It's I mean the thing doesn't charge very quickly. It's it's a pretty slow charging vehicle. Yeah. but you know

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:05)
it's one fifty, right? Yeah. And it's but it's not

it's not a huge battery, so

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:11)
Yeah, it's not a big battery. So it you know, you you go in, you do your you know, you drop it, you go in and do you know, hopefully it's next to somewhere where you can do your shopping or, you know, have a meal or or whatever and and you know, you come back out and it's ready to rock.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:25)
Yeah, yeah. And it sounds like, you know, he's got stuff that needs to be done, you know, whatever destination he's going to anyway. So it you know, shouldn't be shouldn't be too much of a problem. should should work out okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:39)
Once I get a regular V w a a production one I could drive a hundred and miles and see what happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:45)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:45)
I'm like I'm doing this for Marcelino? Yeah, I'm doing this for

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:50)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:50)
Marcelino.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:54)
all right, next up from Robert Pena, longtime listener to the podcast and frequent emailer. This topic has been brought up regarding the locations of DC fast chargers being tucked away in corners or back of banks, forcing EV owners to rely solely on apps and navigation to locate them. this location in Anaheim, California, opened a Tesla char supercharger.

And when VW became active for accessing them, I picked up my adapter. sitting there charging, I looked up and saw the billboard advertise EVGO, taking me by surprise. And then recalling how many times on the wheel bearings podcast or la about the lack of signage and poor location, especially unsafe for those who need charging early or late in the day. and he Robert sent us a couple of photos of it's it's an electronic billboard at the Anaheim

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:47)
okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:48)
Town Square.

and first you know, first showed one with Tesla Supercharger and then with E Vigo.

There we go. EV go fast charging available here.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:05)
cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:05)
Yeah. so so that's that's cool. that's that's the sort of thing, you know, but you need it both, you know, out at the road, you know, where where people are gonna see it, but then, you know, hopefully also some kind of signage, you know, where the where the chargers themselves are physically located. because, you know, with modern vehicles being so large, you know, they're typically at least as large, if not larger, or taller.

than the chargers themselves. And so, you know, if these things are hidden off in a corner somewhere, you still might be driving around a little bit trying to actually find them. but and then Robert continues, sadly before I finished up my session, a person, in quotes, pulls up in their Burgundy Pathfinder with dark tint. At first I assumed the driver was going to back into a parking spot. Instead they parked. so I'm I'm assuming Robert means that they parked in front of the charger.

didn't see

the driver exit. This location is right next to a bank. they just they left just before I did. Fortunately it was a very busy on a Saturday morning with temperature and ninety-seven degrees. Generally I rarely see it full with waiting EVs, but it is a busy parking lot with lots of stores, restaurants, and the like. Being a jerk for the sake of j of a jerk. Yeah. So basically

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:21)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:22)
somebody, you know, iced, you know, the charger. Yeah. If you if you're not driving a plug-in vehicle

You know, or even if you're driving an EV, if you're not intending to actually plug it in and charge, don't park in front of the chargers.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:36)
I've seen a couple where people will pull their E V at the charging station and then they'll just get out and walk away. I'm like, What are you doing? What are you doing?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:41)
Yeah. Yeah, I've I've seen that too in in Cal especially in California.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:45)
Yeah, like, come on. Don't be a jerk.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:47)
Yeah. your podcast and your back and forth conversation continue to save my sanity on my daily commute. boy. If we're if we're the one saving your sanity, he must be in rough shape, Robert.

Roberto Baldwin (1:40:58)
no.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:00)
Please please keep it up. But yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:02)
I'm I'm seeing more I think Iona like being

so like their marketing is so good because I just keep thinking being told, Hey, it's cheaper than everyone else. I'm like, well maybe I should drive to the Iona charger. I don't need to drive to the Iona Charger. But like the idea and I think, you know, when you're driving down the interstate or the freeway and you see the big sign that tells you how much gas cost, like I I wanna see those for EVs.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:25)
Well, I mean

here, you know, d just the other day, you know, I was looking at the gas stations and here in Michigan, southeast Michigan, regular is now four thirty nine a gallon. which I know obviously, you know, to to you in California, you know, is that's basically free. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:44)
That's for that's free gas for us.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:46)
and diesel, you know, I'm I'm so glad we we no longer own a diesel Jetta. you know, diesel is now six twenty nine a gallon here.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:55)
Okay, I'm gonna look at the the closest. There's a 76 station near my house. I'm gonna click on it. Okay, regular is 590 a gallon. Diesel is 790. This this is the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:05)
Oof. That's that's too much.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:08)
one near my house. So it might you know there's it's it's here the Chevron station like up the block. unable 640 a gallon for regular diesel 890. Wow. It's even more like if you drive further.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:19)
Wow. That's that's nuts.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:22)
It's a yeah

Let's see I can find one more. There's another one over here. What what am I looking at? Why is this not popping up? there it is. There's a shell station. Regular six twenty. And diesel is eight fifty. Ugh. I I drove my my gas car yesterday and I felt like a Rockefeller. I was like, woo, cause I was

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:48)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:49)
Because I had the Hyundai the Hyundai hybrid, but if I was gonna go work on this I I had band practice in the morning and then I was gonna work on this tundra in the afternoon. So I didn't want to get the the the telly ride dirty. But I'm like, you know, my BRZ I've had it forever. I can throw, you know, something down. Like all my stuff's in it. So I was like, okay, I'm just gonna drive my BRZ. And then as I was driving it, I f you know, I'm like, whoa, this is how the other half lives. Cause

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:11)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:12)
I'm s so used to driving like a hybrid or an EV and then I drive my little my little gas car and I'm like, whew

man, this is gonna hurt.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:21)
Yeah.

I mean fortunately the only time, you know, I have to get gas is if I'm driving, you know, a press car that's not electric or you know, f when I take my take my Miata out but you the Miyata's fairly fuel efficient and you know, it only has a ten gallon gas tank anyway, so yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:36)
Yeah, you can't really. Yeah.

But yeah, yeah, I think that the you know the I'm seeing more and more charging stations there being where I live, there's there's two Tesla charging stations within like a half mile of each other right now. Like on the same road.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:49)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:50)
Like within like three blocks. It's like a quarter of a mile. It's ridiculous.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:52)
Well and you know I

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:54)
There's like there's a stop, there's a there's a there's an off ramp and another off ramp a quarter of a mile later, and both of them have their own Tesla charging locations. Which is just

That's just the neighborhood I live in. There's a lot of charging. There's lot of people out here in the suburbs who apparently bought E Vs. but I would like to see this like, you know, signs and I would like the signs to say how much it costs because Tesla charge stations are premium. They're way more expensive than everyone else. So if you go another exit, there's two other

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:20)
And it you it's a it's a pain to have

to go into the app to figure out how much it costs. You know, at least

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:24)
Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:25)
at least with the other chargers they have displays on them, it'll show you what the what the charging rate is. And we you we talked about this last week with that guy that ended up getting billed four hundred dollars. but

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:32)
At charge point. At charge p yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:37)
but you know, the the you know, it's it's good, you know, it'd be good to have, you know, signs, you know, larger signs, you know, that show you what the what the cost is for charging.

but yeah, I mean right now from from where I am within a mile and a half I now have four four four different DC fast charger setups. there's an Electrify America, there's a Tesla supercharger station, there's a couple of charge point chargers behind a gas station

over the other direction. And then the Ford dealer near me here recently just put in a couple of hundred and twenty kilowatt chargers as well. so I can I could go over there and use those as if I if I needed to. So got lots of options. But yeah, Iona, you know, some of the automakers that are stakeholders in Iona, I think GM announced that they're I think doing I think giving like a ten percent discount on charging to

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:37)
Yeah, I got the I got the same thing

from Hyundai. If I if I charge it, Iona thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:40)
Yeah. And and then Hyundai

also I think was it Hyundai was like what, twenty percent off if you use the

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:46)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:47)
the the Hyundai app in the car?

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:49)
Yeah, if you use the the parking the I'm sorry, the plug and charge and then you you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:52)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:53)
go there, yeah, it's you get like a and it's already like it's almost it's off peak prices.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:58)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:59)
Which is still pretty high for, you know, the rest of the world, but it's like if I'm paying off peak thirty five cents and or thirty seven cents or whatever and they're they're charging thirty six or thirty seven cents per kilowatt hour, I'm like, well

That's just like charging at home, except it's D C fast charging. So if I'm going on if I have to go east, there's Iona to the east. If I have to go west, there's I there's they're they're none of are near my house, but they're all along routes if I need to go somewhere. So I'm like, All right, well, I haven't used it yet because I still just charge at home, but if I go on a road trip, they're getting they're getting my money before anyone else. Just again, because the least expensive. It's just

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:35)
Yeah.

We still don't have any Iona stations here in Michigan. I think the we talked a few weeks ago, like the first one is probably gonna be going up in it's over in like the Oak Park area north of Detroit, in the in the coming months. but that there's there's no other ones in Michigan yet. There's there's a bunch in Ohio, there's some in Indiana and Illinois, but nothing here yet, so

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:59)
I I think I realized I set up the plug in charge like two months ago and we have not taken the car to a plug so I haven't even tested to see if it works. I really should go test it so if my wife goes on a trip she got like, you can just plug in and it'll be fine. 'Cause if I tell her that now, I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:14)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:16)
I'm guessing, I'm hoping. Fingers crossed.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:20)
all right. Well, thanks everybody for listening and we will talk to you next time. Bye.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:26)
Bye.

Bye.