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

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

Sam Abuelsamid (00:11)
And how's your week been, Robbie?

Roberto Baldwin (00:14)
I had a show What else? I think I went somewhere. I can't remember.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22)
Huh.

Roberto Baldwin (00:27)
wait I can tell you if I went somewhere. Hold on. Let's look at my calendar. That is an absolute train wreck. I went to Texas. Why'd I go to Texas? that was last week's. Never mind. Where'd I go this week? I went to Utah. That's where I went.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:45)
what was in Utah? Can you or can you

Roberto Baldwin (00:46)
I went to Utah

to do a video about SAE's you know the wireless charging. there's a there's a there's a not a company, an organization, I guess a company. Aspire and they do testing for wireless charging along roadways for like large trucks.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:06)
so like dynamic charging.

Roberto Baldwin (01:07)
Yep. So yeah, that was pretty cool. I get to ride around in a truck and take a lot of video and talk to a lot of smart people and

Learn all about electromagnetic fields, which, you know, I kinda knew about before, but so anyway, so there'll be a video for that and an article probably next week. This week I'm very, very busy.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:26)
So once we have all this wireless

charging, it's gonna kill us all, right?

Roberto Baldwin (01:30)
No, not really. Unfortunately not. I'm like unfortunately not.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:32)
Yeah. okay.

Roberto Baldwin (01:36)
Like if it feels like the wireless charging, like once it's it sees something in the field it just turns off.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:43)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (01:43)
So like if a squir like if your car is parked and like a squirrel runs under, it's not gonna like fry the squirrel. It'll just turn off.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:50)
Yeah,

they're all all these systems like the white tricity system, all the all the modern wireless charging vehicle charging systems are designed to detect if anything moves in between the transmitter pad and the receiver on the vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin (02:02)
Yeah. Like if there's a an a bolt or something it'll it'll yeah. Because what happens it'll it'll heat up. But on the dynamic

Sam Abuelsamid (02:08)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (02:09)
ones, because they're moving, like there could be a bolt there, it doesn't matter. 'Cause it's just gonna be a boop boop.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:15)
So so how much

power can you actually get from these dynamic ones?

Roberto Baldwin (02:19)
a pretty a pretty high amount. I have to go and double check my my notes. but like it's essentially like DC fast charging speeds. So it's it's pretty crazy. So, you know, and you do know if you're doing it like in for for for for trucks, either long haul or short haul or just within like, you know, docks or you know, you know, there's there's you know those especially those vehicles are going over the same spot over

And over I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (02:48)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (02:49)
most a of those vehicles are just doing the exact same route, you know, all day, every day, three hundred and sixty five days a year. And if they're doing that, if you just said, hey, you know, along this part of the route, you could charge your vehicle, that means those trucks are always moving. That's you know, for fleet companies, for for folks who do the you know, deliveries, for folks who do all those folks, it's that's money.

'Cause then you don't you know, you you still have to c stop for diesel or gas or whatever you have in your

Sam Abuelsamid (03:20)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (03:21)
truck. And if you'd never had to stop then you're s you know, the only time it'd stop is when someone has to urinate. Or switch shifts.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:33)
Okay. All right. Well, what have you been driving?

Roberto Baldwin (03:37)
So this week I I have been driving the twenty twenty seven BMW three competition.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:44)
Ooh.

Roberto Baldwin (03:44)
It's it's fantastic. Okay, so I'm just gonna tell you the one problem with the competition.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:50)
Let me guess. The seats.

Roberto Baldwin (03:53)
Nah, I'm fine with the seats. I mean, other people hate them, by the way. They get in the car and they're like, what is it has the carbon seats with a little

Sam Abuelsamid (03:55)
Do you do you do it have the the the carbon seats with the little crotch support?

Roberto Baldwin (04:00)
the little weird crotch support so your legs don't shake back and forth. I'm fine with them. I fit in the seats, but other humans at l 90% of other humans do not like them. not not the seats. the competition, you can't it comes with an eight speed automatic transmission. You can't get the six speed manual. You get on

the regular M3 and

But not the competition. Which seems pretty anti competitive to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:29)
Ha.

Roberto Baldwin (04:30)
It's their eight speed manual steptronic, I guess is what they call it. Or steptronic. It has paddle shifters.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:37)
Yeah. So is is that it's a dual clutch, right?

Roberto Baldwin (04:41)
Yeah, so yeah, I mean sure, it's great, it's fine, whatever. but it's not a man of transmission. It's you know, the three the competition has more power than the from the outside, except for the you know, competition, it looks pretty much the same. the regular three has four hundred and seventy three horsepower, the competition has five hundred three horsepower, so more. and then the three has four hundred six pound feet of torque.

the competition for seventy nine pound feet of torque. So that's where they really that's where you really they really get you is that extra like seventy what is it seventy three foot pounds of torque. So you just stomp on the gas and it's a blop and it just takes off. So it's no it's a it is a fun vehicle. It's a four door. There's room in the back for like people and guitars. the trunk is large enough to to fit a a large guitar amp and a bunch of other random guitar stuff.

in back there and and a and a backpack full of, you know, random band gear. So if you have an three or three competition and you're in a band and you're not the drummer or the bass player, you should be fine. I mean, to be honest, if if you're the bass player you could probably get it you could probably fit a bass amp back there, as long as it's

Sam Abuelsamid (05:55)
So

Roberto Baldwin (05:56)
like huge.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:56)
if if you if you were in a band and you know it wasn't like some really huge, incredibly popular band, what are the odds that you could actually aff and you're and you weren't an automotive journalist, what are the odds that you could actually afford this car?

Roberto Baldwin (06:10)
So I know people so a lot of people I know who are in bands, they all have like just regular, you know, jobs. I know a lot of journalists that are in bands. I know some salespeople that are in bands. I also know some people who are like work at big tech companies who are in bands. So they could probably afford They're like, Well, they're

Sam Abuelsamid (06:29)
They could definitely afford it.

Roberto Baldwin (06:30)
like, Well, I'm gonna go and they get in their Mercedes and they drive away from band practice. I'm like, where the hell did that come from?

Sam Abuelsamid (06:36)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (06:37)
Most of the folks in my band's

I'm trying to think about yeah, no one in my band I think can afford can't afford an three. We're all just regular, you know, Schmoes and and freelancers and journalists and and you know, I think one of us works at a tech company, but not like they work in it's a lot of editorial people. A lot of writers. A lot of writers

Sam Abuelsamid (07:01)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (07:02)
and videographers and whatnot. So I know a librarian works in my band is in one of my bands.

So yeah, not a lot about librarians. Anyway, it's Nline 6. Best motor you can get. Of course, BMW makes essentially the best Nline 6. It is fantastic. It's a lot of fun. The only thing I don't I I I really hate Alcatara what's that? Alcatara? Alc

Sam Abuelsamid (07:26)
Alcantara.

Roberto Baldwin (07:27)
Alcantara. I hate the feel of Alcantara steering wheels. And everyone on my feelings, and everyone's like, this is nice. I'm like, no, it's not. I just

Sam Abuelsamid (07:34)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (07:35)
I can't I don't like it. I just and and it's yeah, they have that steering wheel.

not good it's not I don't like it. It's weird. I don't like the texture. I d yeah. So so there's that. If you're a weirdo with with textures like me, you might not like that, but other than that, you can get over it. I mean if s I had this car I would just get over it.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:54)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (07:55)
And eventually all my slimy hand oils would probably mess it. We you would probably take care of all that. it's the it's got all wheel drive so it's just it just grabs the road like there's no tomorrow.

it is fast, it is swift, it is quick, it is nimble. it's funny because you think the M3, every time I look at it I'm like, it's a five. Nope, it's a three.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:18)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (08:21)
I do prefer the five, the five wagon, just

Sam Abuelsamid (08:24)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (08:25)
because it's a wagon. but this thing was supposed to what's the zero to sixty and I believe it's three point four seconds. Let me double check. zero three point eight seconds. Well what's this thing down here? It says three point four.

There's two different numbers. Hold on.

three with X drive. okay, never mind. Yeah, three with X drive. let me make sure my numbers are the same. Yeah. Yeah, X drive is three point four seconds. So it's really, really quick for a gas engine.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:55)
Yeah, well in in other

parts of the world they I mean they do make a three series compet you know, an three competi or three competition

Roberto Baldwin (09:02)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:03)
touring. but they just don't sell it here because, you know, Americans don't like having nice things.

Roberto Baldwin (09:10)
Yeah. Yeah, that's and that's sort of the p the problem is that, you know, we can't we're we're getting one. They got the five. I know,

Sam Abuelsamid (09:17)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (09:17)
I think that I mean, to be honest, that was the smart move. The l the slightly bigger one. If you're gonna do it, do it. But you're not gonna bring both of That's just not gonna help, you know. so

Sam Abuelsamid (09:29)
Right. There's there's not not

gonna be enough sales to justify it.

Roberto Baldwin (09:34)
So yeah, it's got the twin turbo monoscroll turbochargers, so that helps a lot with just taking off. and it it's just it's a it's a hoot to drive. It still has that BMW sort of dash cluster, which is always like it's like like the little parallelogram or

Sam Abuelsamid (09:52)
Yeah. Sort of was it he hexagonal.

Roberto Baldwin (09:55)
hexagonal thing, which I'm just I'm like, what do we do instead? Why are we still doing this? fine, whatever.

a lot of this the controls are on the screen now. you still have a volume control, but like your your your touch controls are f all your climate controls are are essentially touch controls now. There are a lot of controls down by the in the center console, which is nice. So you you know so the power the I'm sorry, turn it on and off. You have the M1 and M2 modes up in the steering wheel, which is great. you can turn off, you know, it has the thing for the exhaust right there in the

dash c not to try not to dash cluster, the center console. So you don't want to wake up your neighbors every time you turn it on. Cause you turn it on some If you get up early for work, it's nice to be able to turn that off and not be that guy or that gal. they got a really cool is like blue with yellow trim interior, which

Sam Abuelsamid (10:51)
I don't think I've seen that one.

Roberto Baldwin (10:51)
yeah, no, it's it was a really cool interior let me see what it's called. I I really I really like that interior 'cause it's it's

It's different than what we're used to getting. let's see, do they have the color?

Okay we go. Yas marina blue black full marino leather I don't it it was twenty five hundred bucks, I can tell you that.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:21)
Okay. Yeah, Ya Yas Marina.

That Yas Marina is in Abu Dhabi. It's a place in Abu Dhabi

where they ha it's also where where they have their racetrack where they do their their F one race there and done a bunch of other races.

Roberto Baldwin (11:36)
Cool. So there you go. So it's got that. Anyway, it's really pr it's pretty. I like it. I like the interior. I like a an interior that's a little weird. It's a little different. It's not just like here's black or here's grey or here's white. Maybe you'll get red. yeah, no, overall, yeah, it's it's it's I mean, I don't know why it's it's not a s no one should be surprised that I really like this car. it's

Sam Abuelsamid (12:00)
What what color was the exterior on yours?

Roberto Baldwin (12:03)
this or orange

Or a noco pearl metallic, it's like a green blue. It's a very odd it's like a like a dark, dark, darkish green. It's darker than our than our our Hyundai.

It's very weird. It's cool looking, but it's yeah, it's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (12:29)
ma you is was it a twenty six model? 'Cause maybe they they might have dropped that colour for twenty seven and the

Roberto Baldwin (12:31)
No, it's says

twenty seven in the everything says twenty se let me double check them around. Hold on. Nope, twenty seven. Let's see. Let's see. Exterior Orin

Sam Abuelsamid (12:41)
okay. It's the only green I see here is the Isle of Man green.

Roberto Baldwin (12:45)
Orin Noco Orin Noco Pearl Metallic. It's like maybe some bluish? It's like I guess it's more blue than green. But it's very

Yeah, it's a weird color.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:59)
Yeah, I don't I don't

see that color. But the I was looking at the the interior and that that Yasmarina blue is pretty cool. It's it's kind of it's almost like a teal color, is it? I mean it's yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (13:11)
Yeah, it's a very light blue. It's really cool. I I really dug

it. so whoever outfitted

Sam Abuelsamid (13:17)
I like that.

Roberto Baldwin (13:18)
the car, good job. 'cause sometimes they're like, here's your great car. We're like, thanks. you're like, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:25)
Gray inside, gray outside, grey everywhere, and black wheels.

Roberto Baldwin (13:29)
Thanks everybody. it does have seating for five, but I mean be

Sam Abuelsamid (13:34)
Well, it has it has five seat belts.

Roberto Baldwin (13:37)
Yeah. So it's really seating for four. That's you know, that's that's what you

That's that's what you're gonna do. again,

Sam Abuelsamid (13:43)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (13:44)
the back seats are actually comfortable. My wife sat back there 'cause she hated the front seat so much. she's like, I don't like this seat. So she sat there

Sam Abuelsamid (13:50)
I I had the same problem

the last time I had I can't remember if it was an three or an four competition with those seats. My wife did not like those seats.

Roberto Baldwin (13:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the carbon package it's fourteen thousand three hundred dollars. That's how you get the Alcantara steering wheel. You also get like dual spoke bicolour you know, you get the wheels. I just I I would just not get the wheels if it meant I didn't have to get that stupid steering wheel.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:20)
Huh.

Roberto Baldwin (14:23)
let's see, as a parking assistance failed was eight hundred bucks. yeah, adapted, blah blah blah, what else?

Everything else is included. So the car when it you know suggested retail price is 88,600 bucks for the competition. So it's not cheap. It's not no, it's it's definitely not banned car like material. and then after all the bits they put on there, you know, forty five hundred bucks for the exterior paint, twenty five hundred for the interior, fourteen thousand for this for the wheels and the gross steering wheel, eight hundred bucks for the parking assistance.

Eleven hundred bucks for the executive package, which is galvanic controls and adaptive full LED lights. Sure. a heated steering wheel was two hundred fifty bucks. Which no, wait. Shadowline Lights, that's two fifty, sorry. Heated steering wheels included. Anyway, grand total. one he doesn't show the huh. 112,100 dollars. Where's the

Sam Abuelsamid (15:26)
That's that's a fair chunk of change.

Roberto Baldwin (15:28)
It is. But th you know what? This Monrena doesn't have the the delivery charge. That's very odd. Hmm. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. At this point. It's

Sam Abuelsamid (15:40)
Yeah. The the

Roberto Baldwin (15:42)
probably like fifteen hundred bucks or twelve hundred bucks or something goofy like that.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:44)
Yeah. Well I think

I think I think the big thing in the the carbon package is you get the carbon ceramic brakes. that's probably the you know, that's probably twelve thousand of that fourteen thousand dollars. and

Roberto Baldwin (15:56)
Yeah, that's probably what the Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:59)
you know, I mean carbon ceramic brakes are great, but if if you're

Roberto Baldwin (16:03)
They're annoying.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:04)
if you're gonna be just driving it on the street and you're not gonna be taking it for to track days, you don't really need them. So

Roberto Baldwin (16:13)
They're

pretty great. If you're if you drive aggressively on the track or whatever all the time, they're outstanding. Everywhere else

Sam Abuelsamid (16:16)
Yeah. absolutely. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (16:19)
in the world they're just herky jerky as all hell if you don't know how to if until you get used to them. You're just like, duh.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:25)
Yeah. I mean what

once once you figure out, you know, you figure out, you know, how to how to press the pedal just right. You can you can be pretty smooth with them. But but yeah, y

Roberto Baldwin (16:33)
Yeah. They

Sam Abuelsamid (16:35)
you're right. You know it's it's it's like when you you know w w when you get into an E V for the first time with really aggressive regen, you know, and you take your foot

Roberto Baldwin (16:45)
like Silverado.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:46)
off the accelerator pedal and and it jerks you down. It's kinda like that. But then

Roberto Baldwin (16:50)
Yeah, it's it's

it's pretty yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:53)
With a little bit

of practice you can you can be smooth with But again

Roberto Baldwin (16:56)
But they also they

also squeak. These ones didn't. But eventually

Sam Abuelsamid (16:59)
Yeah, it's true. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:01)
they'll squeak and it's really annoying. And

Sam Abuelsamid (17:03)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:04)
people are like, Why? I'm like, 'cause you got the carbon ceramic breaks, it's sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:09)
That's what they do.

Roberto Baldwin (17:10)
That's what they do. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:14)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:14)
But you can stop like there's no tomorrow. Freak when they're not And over again. Yeah, another

Sam Abuelsamid (17:17)
Yeah. And do it over and over and over again. So like I said, if

you're gonna if you're gonna go to a track day and you're gonna run, you know, twenty laps at a time, those carbon ceramic brakes are gonna be great. You're not gonna have any fade, you know, after twenty hot hard laps, like you would with with steel brakes. But if if you're not planning to do that, if you're just gonna use it as a daily driver, yeah, you could probably pass on the whole package.

Roberto Baldwin (17:45)
Yeah, you probably don't need You're you're you're you're fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:46)
Yeah. Unless you want to have

something you can point to for your friends and say, See these cool carbon breaks?

Roberto Baldwin (17:53)
be like what? What do you mean? Huh? Yeah, this looks like brakes. They only count really,

Sam Abuelsamid (17:57)
They just look like regular brakes. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:00)
yeah, like you said in that like when you if you're doing track days where you you know you're concerned about brake fade. And even then, like it you

Sam Abuelsamid (18:07)
But but the nice thing is

Roberto Baldwin (18:08)
know, you're probably only if you're going out to a track, you'll probably get three laps. Like

Sam Abuelsamid (18:12)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:13)
you'll do a cool down lap. You're probably fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:16)
And you know the the other nice thing about the carbon ceramic brakes is if it rains and you know, rains overnight and you go out the next morning, your brake rotors are not gonna look rusty.

Roberto Baldwin (18:27)
That's true. You don't have to you don't have to grind him off

Sam Abuelsamid (18:30)
So y Yeah, you

don't you don't have to hit the brakes a couple of times to clean off that surface rust.

Roberto Baldwin (18:35)
I like when it makes a little cr when it's cleaning off the rust. I like that noise.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:38)
Yeah.

speaking of which, I actually just found out the other day that on the the Hyundai EVs, Hyundai Kia and Genesis EVs, they actually have a brake cleaning mode, which periodically you can engage that. so if you're if you're using mostly regen and you're not actually using the the brakes very much, you can engage hit the brake cleaning mode.

And then and I forget exactly how you do it, I'll have to look it up again. I'll I'll find the link and it was from from Reddit. and it'll turn off the basically turn off the regen for like the next ten or twelve stops. and just use the friction brakes for a while and then then it'll go back it'll revert back to using your regen.

Roberto Baldwin (19:30)
cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:31)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (19:33)
Pressing and hold the auto hold button for over three seconds. Huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:37)
that's yeah, that's it. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (19:39)
All right. I mean I think we hit the brakes enough. I guess. Yeah. But I mean it's nice if you you know, you're driving through town a lot, you got it on the most aggressive braking, the one pedal braking. yeah, then you don't but

Cool. Anyway, that BMW M3 competition. It's fantastic. It's exactly what it's supposed to be. I'm sad the competition doesn't have a manual transmission. What are you gonna do? Apparently, people who want more power and have more money don't know how to drive manuals. Because they're not buying them. There's a reason

Sam Abuelsamid (20:16)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (20:16)
for these manual transmissions not showing up in certain vehicles certain trims or certain vehicles. It's because people don't buy them. That's it. That's

Sam Abuelsamid (20:23)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (20:23)
the only reason.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:26)
and it's the only it's the only reason there there's a lot of things that we can't get is because manufacturers look at you know, they offer stuff and then they look at okay, how many of these are how much is it gonna cost us to certify this, how many of these are we actually gonna sell? And if it if they can't make their money back, it there's not much point and they you know, they just don't do they don't do it.

Roberto Baldwin (20:49)
Yeah.

And there but the manufacturers do kind of put their thumbs on the scale when it comes to their marketing budgets. Like if you look

Sam Abuelsamid (20:55)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (20:56)
see any like GM ad, it's ninety percent trucks.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:00)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (21:01)
Ninety percent of Ford ads are trucks. Like there's just there's very you know, the I don't there as far as I could tell there were no n Chevy Bolt ads after the Chevy Bolt came out that weren't lawfully mandated.

by the government for Volkswagen to make. Because Volkswagen had a had to make an ad about EVs.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:23)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (21:25)
And in the ad they didn't have an EV in the United States, so they had a Chevy Bolt in it and it was like debadged. But that's the only Chevy Bolt ad I saw for like years. So anyway, so yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:33)
No. I didn't know I didn't hear about that.

Roberto Baldwin (21:37)
Yeah, if you look at the the the government the government mandated it maybe it might have just been California, but I know, you know, for 'cause of dieselgate they had to do a an E V ad to see how cool

Sam Abuelsamid (21:46)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (21:47)
E Vs are.

They didn't have an E V in the United States, so they had to use something and they're like, well we'll use the Chevy bolt.

So that was the only Chevy Bolt had. So there's yeah, there's also, you know, like, well, people don't buy small cars, which true, yes, people don't buy spark cars, but also a lot of people don't know small cars exist because marketing the

Sam Abuelsamid (22:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (22:07)
marketing budget is not gonna go and tell you to buy a Chevy Spark. It's gonna tell you to buy a Silverado.

Well, they can make money on Spark. They just won't make as much. There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:19)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (22:19)
That's that's the rub. It's like big trucks are just, you know, the trim the the the amount of cash you can make. The profit margins are much higher. So 'cause it's a you know, it's body on frame and then we just gussy it up with some pretty insights. Here's a twenty year old engine. Enjoy.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:40)
all right. Well, I have been driving the twenty twenty six Toyota B Z X L E plus front wheel drive. and it's actually I think it might actually be the first time I've seen this variation of the B Z. I last last year I was in Dallas for an event at or in Plano, Texas at an event at Toyota headquarters and I got a chance to drive the updated twenty twenty six B Z.

And I've driven the the BZ Woodland and the and the CHR. but you know, they always usually at the at these drives, they usually only have the higher trim level. And so for the B Z now, since they you know they dropped the four X, they only have two trims now. They have XLE and they have limited. And they they've only ever had the limiteds with the twenty inch wheels and the big battery.

at any of the programs. They've never I've never actually seen an XLE before one showed up in my driveway last week, which was actually pretty nice. so the the XLE it the the the base trim you can get it with one of two different battery sizes. There's a fifty seven point four something kilowatt hour battery which is the base one and that's got that offers two hundred and thirty six miles of range and it's thirty four thousand nine hundred and eighty bucks.

or if you get the XLE plus, then it has the same 77.4 kilowatt hour or 74.7 kilowatt hour battery that's in the the limited. and that's that's really the one you want to get is the the XLE plus with with the bigger battery. and so that adds an extra three thousand dollars. And if you're gonna buy one of these, that three thousand dollars is absolutely worth it.

spending. it's with with the with front wheel the front wheel drive XLE with the eighteen inch wheels and the the big battery is rated at three hundred and fourteen miles of range and you know for thirty eight thousand dollars it's it's great. It it is a really good option for a lot of people. So you know if you're interested in something roughly you know the size of a RAV4

that is technically called a crossover, but it's really a big hatchback. But, you know, whatever. I'm not gonna argue about that today. it's it's actually really nice. You know, this is a really nice combination. It's it's nicely equipped. It's got dual wireless charging pads in the console. It's got a big 14-inch center touchscreen display. when they redid it last year they

changed the whole they redesigned the entire dashboard and went from a kind of a weird dashboard setup to something a little more conventional, but it still has the same seven inch instrument cluster display. But now instead of being down that sort of weird tunnel behind the steering wheel and being mounted kind of low so that basically whatever whatever height you are, wherever you put the steering wheel where it's comfortable, it's gonna cut off half of that display. I don't know what they were thinking when they designed that, but that's gone. The the

the the instrument cluster display now sits a couple of inches higher up. So it's basically right yeah, it's like having a heads up display. Yeah, it's right near your line of sight so you don't really have to look down for that. you know the Toyota infotainment system is fine. You know, it works well. The only complaint I have about it is it does does take a little while to boot up when you first start the car. yeah, it takes you know

Usually I'm out of the driveway and heading down the street before it fully comes up with everything. but other than that it's it's fine. the the system works okay. there's lots of room in this car. The seats are quite comfortable. I went out and did my my usual test loop for efficiency and actually, you know, both that and all the other driving I've done over the past week, it's averaging four point two miles per kilowatt hour.

Roberto Baldwin (27:02)
that's good. That's really good.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:03)
Which is yeah, it's really good.

you know, especially for a car this size. You know, if you get if you get the limited with the twenty inch wheels, that drops it down a bit. you know, it'll drop it down to about three point seven, three point six, which is still still pretty good. but you know, four point two for a car this size is is really nice. And, you know, it's it's got it's two hundred and twenty one, two hundred and twenty two horsepower.

it's front wheel drive, yeah, so it's not you know, it's not gonna outrun any G R Corollas, but it's it's got more than enough torque to to spin the tires if you step on it real hard. yeah. If you if you're gonna be flooring it all the time, which you shouldn't be doing anyway, yeah, you might wanna go for the all wheel drive version. but other than that, it's it's you know

It it's it's overall a really nice combination. It's got plenty of performance, you know, for a daily driver. and because it's an E V, you know, you've got that instant responsiveness. it's you know, got lots of room in the back. I went to get a couple of bales of straw the other day for the backyard. you know, put a tarp in there, put two bales of straw, no problem at all with the back seat folded down. yeah, and it looks better as well.

Yeah, went as part of the refresh last year. they changed the the the the front fascia, they redesigned the front fascia. So it's got the same sort of you know, they call hammerhead daytime running lamps that they have on like the Prius and the Camry and a bunch of other Toyotas now. And depending on which color combination you get, the the wheel arches, which on the original all of had black wheel arches.

on some of the color combinations, including the wind chill pearl, which is white, or the midnight black, or the heavy metal, which is grey, those wheel archers are now body color. if

Roberto Baldwin (29:11)
Yay.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:12)
you if you get the the supersonic red or the blue, the wheel archers are still black. you know, I I would go you know, on

Roberto Baldwin (29:22)
Nobody knows why.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:23)
the on the on the blue, the you know, because

There you know, it doesn't show up it's it's not quite as glaring as it is on the supersonic red. on the on the red, the black wheel arches are very glaring. There's a you know, very you know, a lot of contrast there. so I would probably I would probably take a pass on the red on this car. But on the others, you know, it's they're all they're body color and so it just looks a lot cleaner. The design looks a lot cleaner. One other detail, because I hadn't actually seen one of these, the XLE trim before, that I hadn't noticed, is when I was looking at it from behind

If you know, on the limiteds, you know, if you look at the limited, it's got, you know, these little things that stick off the back of the roof. You know, it's almost kind of like little mini spoilers off the back of the roof.

Roberto Baldwin (30:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:08)
and on the the XLE it doesn't have those. It's just got like a a smooth

little thing there at the top of the tailgate. so it's a cleaner cleaner design, you know.

Roberto Baldwin (30:19)
That

that the the the limited it looks like you're like a puppy and it's running really fast. And his little ears are flopped back.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:24)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (30:27)
It's like a little fheo I'm a puppy. And on

Sam Abuelsamid (30:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (30:31)
this one doesn't have it.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:32)
Yeah. So, you know, it's it's a you know, it the design looks a lot better now with the the body color arches, you know, it's clean. The eighteen inch wheels are plenty big enough and you know, especially if your roads are less than ideal, you know, you're better off with the eighteens anyway, 'cause you've got more more sidewall that's gonna protect you know, that's gonna you know, be less likely to blow out a tire on a pothole.

so it's you know, it's definitely it's definitely a really nice car. so all in yeah, on the one that I've got here, that's going back tomorrow morning. let's see, where's that tab? grand total came to forty thousand six hundred and thirty three dollars, including fourteen hundred and fifty dollar destination charge. the the only options on this one again were the the plus package which gets you the larger battery.

get 475 bucks for the gray paint and the this one's got wheel locks three hundred and forty bucks for the carpeted floor mats mud guards you don't really need for 165 bucks and and the door sill protectors you can probably take a pass on those two you know this one's got the cloth seats in it which are very comfortable I think they're probably gonna be very durable like I said you get

two wireless charging pads there so both you and whoever your front passenger is can both charge your phones at the same time. and you know as as as with any other modern Toyota, it's got the whole Toyota Safety Sense package. So you got adaptive cruise control and blind spot monitoring and all the other all the other goodies on there. lane keeping assist, you name it. It's all it's all included in here in the in the base price. so that is the

the the twenty twenty six B Z four B Z Toyota B Z. like I said, you know, four point two miles per kilowatt hour. I worked it out with the seventy four point seven kilowatt hour battery. it and it would actually come out to about almost three hundred and twenty miles of range. And it's rated at three fourteen. So you know it it should it should do fine. and even in winter. and it's got

a J thirty four hundred charging port on there which is on the right front fender so if you're happen to be want to charge it at a supercharger you can you can nose in to a supercharger port and the short little cables will actually reach. I have I have tried it it does work. You can reach the kit you can reach the charge port. and it'll charge at 150 kilowatts now. And

Charging, you know, one of the things that one of the big things that they changed when they redid the car last year was the charging got a lot faster. it's still not super fast, you know, hundred and fifty kilowatts. It'll charge from ten to eighty percent in about thirty minutes, which is about

Roberto Baldwin (33:35)
Yeah, yeah, that's

Sam Abuelsamid (33:37)
half of what it used to take when it first came out. It was closer to an hour.

Roberto Baldwin (33:40)
Which is

which is a better, but one fifty we're like

Sam Abuelsamid (33:47)
But, you know, if you're charging at home most of the time, you're not gonna mind. It's not gonna matter. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (33:51)
Yeah, that's the thing. If you don't really go anywhere it's yeah.

If you're

Sam Abuelsamid (33:57)
So so yeah, I mean Toyota Toyota did a really good job updating this vehicle. And you know, it I can understand why, you know, sales of this car have more than doubled this year. So Toyota's E V sales are more than double what they were a year ago.

Roberto Baldwin (34:14)
Well all their EVs are better than they were here.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:16)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (34:17)
And not like a little bit better, like really better. Yeah, like

Sam Abuelsamid (34:19)
They're a lot better. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (34:21)
like very, very, very, very good E yeah. Like they're like we're not gonna do anything, we're not gonna do anything. They we did something, look how efficient they are. At you know, outside of the charging speeds, like everything you're like, these are so much better. These are, you know, proper competition for you know, offerings from Hyundai, etcetera.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:40)
Yeah. all right. Let's let's carry on. So, Volvo has is getting a new CEO again, I think as of Thursday if I'm cr if I'm not mistaken.

Roberto Baldwin (34:55)
October what is that Thursday? I don't even know. I have a big th I have a big thing due

Sam Abuelsamid (34:59)
yeah. Yeah, Thursday. So

Roberto Baldwin (35:01)
on Thursday, so I should really know what day that is. Yep, Thursday. Or I'll do on the thir on the first, so

Sam Abuelsamid (35:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

so you know, last year or what, I guess about a year and a half ago now, their they brought back their previous CEO, Hawkins Samuelson, after they got rid of Jim Rowan, as who'd been their CEO for the last few years. Hawkins Samuelson had retired. they brought in Jim Rowan as CEO. That didn't work out so well.

so they got rid of him, brought back Hawkins Samuelson, especially as an interim CEO while they did a s search for a new CEO. so they got Klaus Zellmer, who was previously the CEO of Skoda, which is one of the sixty two brands under the Volkswagen Group. and

Roberto Baldwin (35:54)
So many brands.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:55)
yeah. so he will be leading you you know.

The he you know, he's he's been the CEO of a car company of a of a car brand before, something that mister Rowan wasn't because I think Rowan came from Dyson, if I recall correctly. He was like from consumer electronics.

Roberto Baldwin (36:12)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:14)
and so at least they got somebody who's familiar with the auto industry. and he's taking over effective on Thursday.

Roberto Baldwin (36:23)
There you go. Well, we'll see.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:24)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (36:26)
They need some good leadership at Volvo. That's

Sam Abuelsamid (36:29)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (36:29)
pretty much I mean it it's Klaus was in there like, Hey everything's going great then your bro came out everything's not going great and it's like,

Sam Abuelsamid (36:38)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (36:39)
god, bring Klaus back.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:41)
all right. so the Ford Fathom, still about a year away, but we're starting to see some more hints about what's coming, possibly.

Roberto Baldwin (36:52)
Maybe.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:53)
and I found a a video popped up in my YouTube feed the other day I was watching, about some Ford pat some new Ford patents that might be clues about the the Fathom, one of which was particularly interesting.

which is that it might have a split frunk opening. So we know the Fathom's gonna have a frunk. but and you know from this drawing from the patent, you know, this definitely looks like, you know, it's got the shape of the Fathom prototypes that we've seen. and it's it's got a split frunk. So it's kind of like the the split tailgates that you see on a bunch of SUVs now.

where the bottom half folds down and then the top half folds up. only this in this case, you know, it's basically kind of the front fascia folds down and then the the hood pops up. so you get you know, you have a little seating area for front gating. the and if you go through the rest of the patent, you know, they show how you can prop up a flat screen T V in there, you know, again for for tailgate parties and things like that. so

Interesting idea. What do you think?

Roberto Baldwin (38:12)
I mean it's it's interest yeah, you I mean what it what it brings is is a little seating area or a extra little bench to do things to add things on when you're you're parked. it's I mean typically, you know, with a typical front like let's say on any other any of the other trucks like so you have the hood which you know and then the front fascia the the middle of it p comes up in one giant like monster with a giant tooth.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:39)
Yeah, like on the F one hundred fifty Lightning.

Roberto Baldwin (38:41)
Yeah, it comes up. With this, like the hood opens like a traditional hood and then the front fascia would just fold down. So is it better? I if it gives you more space to do more things, cool. and so yeah, we'll see we'll see how how well it works. Is it gonna be on the Ford Fathom? Maybe. I mean it's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (38:59)
Probably. I think so.

Roberto Baldwin (39:01)
the the patent was like September twenty second of this year, so six days ago. companies patent a lot of things that never come to fruition. That's the

That's the thing with patents is like I was when I was a tech reporter it was like, we gotta cover this patent and then after a while we all realize these are just dumb. What are we doing? 'Cause a lot of it was just ridiculous. It didn't like i we just need to patent this because we have an idea in case we want to use it later on.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:27)
Right.

Or or if you you know, you y you want to protect yourself, you know, 'cause you know, it's possible that somebody else might come up with the same idea, a competitor might come

Roberto Baldwin (39:36)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:36)
up with the same idea and you wanna have that as a defensive patent. or or

Roberto Baldwin (39:40)
Yeah. So

Sam Abuelsamid (39:42)
you know, if there's something you did that, you know, somebody else might have patented before you, you know, and they sue you for patent infringement, you know, then you know, then the lawyers get together in a room and they each have their stack of patents and whoever has the

the the higher stack of patents, you know, they get some they get some money paid to their company.

Roberto Baldwin (40:01)
Yeah.

It's a yeah, it's a it's a it's an interesting it's an interesting patent. It I think it's it's cool if they're if they if they do it. you know, there's the potential where you can just open the very front of it so it folds down like a like a tailgate, but the but the the hood of the vehicle stays down so you can just like slide things in there. You don't have to open the whole shebang. So that's kinda cool. so yeah, it opens up a a bunch of possibilities. again, whether or not it happens is still, you know.

Patents are yeah. We'll see though. And whenever when are they gonna show us? Next year sometime. End of this year.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:38)
I think they're actually gonna show

it very early in twenty twenty seven.

Roberto Baldwin (40:42)
okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:42)
my guess is they will probably reveal it in full either at CES or the Detroit Auto Show. 'Cause they've

Roberto Baldwin (40:51)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:52)
they've said they're gonna start taking pre orders early in twenty twenty seven.

Roberto Baldwin (40:56)
Probably C yes, maybe. Or maybe they might do their own thing. I mean it's

Sam Abuelsamid (41:01)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:01)
it cost a lot of money to to do did the Detroit show is insanely expensive, or at least it was. That's I know I talked to automakers who are like, Yeah, why would we do that show? It's

Sam Abuelsamid (41:10)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:10)
it's the most expensive show. And it it's a truck show. And this you know, this automaker was not a truck, you know, didn't build trucks in the United States. And so, yeah, I mean it is a truck show, maybe maybe Detroit.

maybe C E S or maybe the you know, they'll just have their own little event outs you know, either around those or outside of those.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:28)
Well, yeah,

I mean if if they if it's associated with the Detroit Auto Show, it will probably be an event that they host off site, not at not at Huntington

Roberto Baldwin (41:38)
The two days before or a day before.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:40)
Place, yeah. You know, or the night before, you know, at some off site location, you know, and whatever you know, the the twenty or thirty media

that show up for the auto show this year will

Roberto Baldwin (41:51)
You know what? 'Cause people love

being outside in the middle of winter in Detroit.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:54)
Yeah. Yeah, well it it probably won't be outside.

you know, it'll my my guess is, you know, they'll probably do it at the train station.

Roberto Baldwin (42:04)
It's also s probably still be cold. yeah. So there you go. So that yeah, I think it's it's it's interesting. I th you know, if if it if they do it, that'd be cool. but it is yeah, we always have to whenever whenever I see a patent I'm always like, Well, maybe

Sam Abuelsamid (42:26)
all right. The our our friends at TFL put up a new video the other day. they've been testing the Toyota Ravfor, a couple of actually a couple of different variants of the RAV4. They have a RAV4 Woodland and they have the the GR Sport RAV4, which is a plug in hybrid. and as they often do, they took it out to this remote airstrip.

not far from where they are in Colorado and did some drag racing with it. And unsurprisingly, the the plug in hybrid RAV4 easily outran the the regular hybrid. You know, it's got almost a hundred horsepower more. And even though it weighs about four hundred pounds more than the than the hybrid, you know, it easily outran it. and then you know, what these guys do, you know, typically when they're when they're doing these, you know, they'll have the two

main vehicles that they want to race against each other. And then they'll bring out something else, you know, to to run against the winner. and right now, Roman has they recently bought a Jeep Wrangler Willie's three ninety two. So they got a V eight powered Wrangler.

And and

Roberto Baldwin (43:45)
Tan tan tan.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:46)
they raced this against the plug in hybrid RAV4. And keep in mind that these you know, they're at, you know, a mile above sea level. Which one of them do you think won? The V eight Wrangler or the RAV4 plug in hybrid?

Roberto Baldwin (44:02)
Are you asking me? Because I I haven't had a chance to to watch it, but probably the round four? The V8 Wrangler,

Sam Abuelsamid (44:11)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (44:11)
it's still a Wrangler because it's like, you know, you as soon as you push the the gas, like all those springs are like, whoa, they're all gonna compress. So it's just like

Sam Abuelsamid (44:20)
Yeah. The the

the wran the Wrangler's quicker off the line, but then the the Rab Four once it gets going, you know, it just p pulls away from it easily. It was

Roberto Baldwin (44:30)
Phew. Yeah, that's why

when people are like, I can get this ranger with all this power. Why? What are you doing? I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (44:35)
Yeah. I know. It sounds really good.

Roberto Baldwin (44:41)
sure, why not? But it's just so much more money just for ones for a sound. And it can't even beat a RAV4 and a drag race. It's it's a it's a it's a big brick. It's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (44:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. It's a seventy five thousand dollar Wrangler that gets fourteen miles per gallon if you're lucky.

Roberto Baldwin (45:03)
Yeah, yeah. It's Yeah, I don't yeah. It's it's it's so yeah. Anyway, but I mean, yeah, if I guess if you want it I mean just get a regular Wrangler with the Wrangler with a soft top. That's it. That's all you need. What you doing? What you doing? You just wanna g get a Bronco. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:20)
Yeah, I agree. Or or get a Bronco. Yeah.

all right. So Volkswagen put out a release this morning actually. so they they stopped building the ID four in Chattanooga last year. so they could dedicate all their production capacity there to the new Atlas. and or actually I guess it was l earlier this year that they stopped building the ID four.

anyway, they they they stopped producing it in the US. and now they are replacing the sort of repl they're doing a heavy refresh on the ID four and dropping the ID four name and they're doing what they did with the ID cross and the ID polo, dropping the numbers, and so the ID four is now becoming the ID Tiguan. and getting a

A new front fascia. They're gonna be fully revealing this in a couple of weeks. but yeah, it's got, you know, a little more blocky looking front end than before. If you when you look at it in profile, you know, it's basically exactly the same body. Yeah, it's the same body shell. It's still built on the same MEB platform. and they haven't shown any photos of the interior yet, but it's supposed to get an all new interior that

like the ID polo. Okay, go away. Like the ID polo, it's gonna go back to having buttons instead of touch controls for everything. And

Roberto Baldwin (46:57)
Those those weird yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:00)
I think I think sounds like they might might have like four hole window switch buttons on the driver's armrest.

Roberto Baldwin (47:11)
insanity.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:12)
I know. It's crazy, isn't it?

Roberto Baldwin (47:14)
I t this is just the sort of the the ID Tigu. I mean they could just call it the Tiguan E V to be honest. But I know they have the branding, blah blah blah. But I mean this is people just want a car. That's an E that's an E V. I know that like Hyundai's doing really well having like, you know, different you know different models. Some are E Vs, some you know but

At the end of the day, I think a lot of brands just be you know what, especially for Volkswagen. Just make the Tig one. There we go. Done. You want a Tig one, it's an E V? Cool. We got that. You want an Atlas, it's an E V? Cool. You want a polo? You want a golf? Sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:03)
That

well yeah, I mean I think the I D three is probably gonna become the ID golf,

Roberto Baldwin (48:07)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:08)
as they do the refresh on that and yeah, so it's it's you know, basically just going down that path for all of these. So

Roberto Baldwin (48:15)
Yeah. It's

fine. And and it's not like the Europe is buying up E V is like there's no tomorrow, so it makes a lot of sense for this to be launched in Europe.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:27)
all right, and let's see. last week we mentioned the the power numbers that they finally released for the twenty twenty seven GM full size trucks. with the starting with the four cylinder getting up to three hundred and fifty horsepower now. but now they've released the pricing. and these you know as as expected, they are not not inexpensive.

Starting at forty one thousand three ninety five for the two wheel drive, four cylinder for the work truck, standard cab, standard bed.

Roberto Baldwin (49:05)
Which is the which

has essentially the best weight to power ratio of like the entire lineup. Which is essentially just the truck you should be getting.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean if if you're gonna get that you might wanna get the four cylinder 'cause otherwise you're gonna be shredding a lot of tires with all the torque from that four cylinder.

Roberto Baldwin (49:22)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The force on there have so much power and you're like when you look at the numbers like, wait, why are they even making these other b

Sam Abuelsamid (49:31)
Well,

for this for the same reason that RAM is putting Hemis into the into the Ram fifteen hundred, because

Roberto Baldwin (49:35)
I know. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:37)
the the Hurricane six cylinder makes more power, is more efficient than the and makes more torque than the V eight, but people want the V eight. So GM's

Roberto Baldwin (49:46)
Want the V eight.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:48)
doing the same thing.

Roberto Baldwin (49:49)
Here's your giant V eight. Here's a big old diesel.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:51)
Yeah.

yeah. the seven Z seventy one Silverado is fifty five fifty four thousand two ninety five for the double cab four wheel drive. and it just keeps going up from there. Seventy five thousand seventy four four ninety five for the high country. and then the the four wheel drive high country with the six point six liter V eight.

And the crew cab shortbed eighty thousand three ninety five.

Roberto Baldwin (50:26)
That's a lot. That's a lot of money for You could get the other one for forty.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:34)
And the the Z R two bison,

the off road, you know, the the heavy duty off road one, ninety thousand five hundred and twenty with the six point six liter.

Or you can get it with the the the three liter diesel for only eighty eight thousand. But then but then you're gonna

Roberto Baldwin (50:53)
There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:56)
end up paying way more than the gas one just for the cost of diesel.

Roberto Baldwin (50:59)
Yeah,

'cause Giesel's crazy. Who knows when it'll go down?

Sam Abuelsamid (51:04)
yeah. let's see. Also from GM, at the same time they announced the pricing on the light duty trucks, they also announced a new diesel for their heavy duty pickups for the the HDs. They they're going they're now adding in a new eight point three liter Duramax diesel. So the cr the the current diesel is a six point six liter V eight.

They're adding an eight point three liter V eight.

Roberto Baldwin (51:36)
It's just bad timing. I mean, it's not like the diesel was like they just thought of it last week. They've been working on this for a while. And

Sam Abuelsamid (51:44)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (51:46)
they're like, alright, we got the diesel ready. How much is diesel call? no.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:53)
But this this new eight three, five hundred and fifty five horsepower, twelve hundred and thirty foot pounds of torque.

Roberto Baldwin (52:00)
It's pff I mean if you need that much torque, it's there. You get what is it, eight point three? Eight point three liters of displacement. It's displacing like an entire

Sam Abuelsamid (52:10)
Yeah. Well the the they explain

the reason the reason why they're they went, you know, so much larger is basically, you know, the engine is bas is essentially gonna be way under stressed now. And so it's actually gonna be it's actually gonna have cleaner emissions than the six point six liter.

Roberto Baldwin (52:30)
all right.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:31)
And it and it might actually be more fuel efficient. They don't have fuel efficiency numbers for it, but it it could it could end up being more fuel efficient despite having so much more power, just because it's it's

Roberto Baldwin (52:42)
And more displacement.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:43)
it's just gonna be it's gonna be very relaxed driving down the road. You can

Roberto Baldwin (52:48)
All right.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:49)
you can tow twenty thousand pounds with conventional towing and thirty eight thousand pounds with a gooseneck.

Roberto Baldwin (52:58)
You know, as you do.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:01)
And interestingly, they're also putting electric power steering on the H D trucks for twenty twenty seven,

Roberto Baldwin (53:08)
Cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:09)
which is a first it's the first first heavy duty pickup with electric power steering.

Roberto Baldwin (53:15)
I like it says precision you can feel, but the the thing with electric power strings you can't feel anything

Sam Abuelsamid (53:21)
Well, I think it

I think it's probably more relative to the old recirculating ball steering, which you could definitely feel the absolute absence of precision.

Roberto Baldwin (53:32)
Yeah. Precision you can feel. Sure. It's a it's just a weird phrasing for for if you know how electric power steering works.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:43)
Is it gonna be easy? Yes. Is it it yeah. You y and when you treat you don't have to hear that noise, you know, after five years.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:49)
Yeah.

and also from GM, they they

Roberto Baldwin (53:56)
So many things.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:58)
are they've they've made some batteries from one hundred percent recycled critical minerals. So

Roberto Baldwin (54:04)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:05)
they they partnered up with a company called Serba Solutions, which does battery recycling and they they recycled they they got eighty

end of life batteries from GM that they recycled. And they got what was it? twelve metric tons of critical minerals that they recovered from these batteries. and using

Roberto Baldwin (54:34)
A lot.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:35)
the using the current processes, they're they're able to get ninety-five percent of the nickel, cobalt and manganese and eighty percent of the lithium from the old batteries. And so they they use that

To make a hundred and twenty new batteries.

Roberto Baldwin (54:51)
Wow, so that's more, everyone. I was looking for the li

Sam Abuelsamid (54:52)
Yeah. Well, I'm I'm guessing

Roberto Baldwin (54:55)
the larger number and I was like, what the the smaller number? But they did

Sam Abuelsamid (54:58)
Yeah. they they

Roberto Baldwin (55:00)
it wasn't just from these batteries.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:02)
No, well the the the new batteries used for the materials that they recovered exclusively used recycled material. So there's there's no

Roberto Baldwin (55:10)
Okay, cool. So it's still more.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:11)
virgin there's no virgin nickel, cobalt, manganese, or lithium. Right. Well nothing

Roberto Baldwin (55:14)
Nothing came out of the earth for these batteries. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:18)
nothing came out of the earth fresh for these batteries. It came out, you know, for the original batteries. So

Roberto Baldwin (55:21)
Yeah. Later on, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:24)
my my guess is the eighty batteries that they recycled were probably truck batteries. You know, the dual later two hundred and

two hundred plus kilowatt hour truck batteries.

Roberto Baldwin (55:34)
bunch of smashed up hummers.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:39)
Or or, you know, these were probably ones you know, from their test and development fleet and from the battery the battery testing lab.

Roberto Baldwin (55:47)
yeah.

They had a bunch of Bright Cove batteries probably lying around.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:50)
Yeah. So so they you know, all these you know were end of you know, GM was done with them. yeah, and yeah, we talked previously about GM working with redwood materials to use end of life bolt batteries or or yeah, end of vehicle life bolt batteries that they rebuilt into energy storage systems that they're putting at some of their factories. and with these they just went straight to recycling. And they you know, and one of the things I've heard from

from companies previously that are that are in this in the recycling business is that oftentimes the the black mass that they recover from the batteries, it's actually better, it gives you better performance in new batteries than the virgin materials because you've refined it again.

So you've taken out even more of the impurities from it. So

Roberto Baldwin (56:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:40)
so it's in better condition. So you get better, more consistent performance from the batteries made from recycled materials than you do from the virgin materials. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (56:48)
That's cool. This is one

of the things like I always people are like, well, you know, they you have to take all these things out of the earth. I'm like, first of all, you have to take it out once. Like oil, we gotta pull that out every time I go every time I need to drive the BRZ around, someone somewhere pulls some oil out of the ground. And then they take that oil and they ship it somewhere, and then it gets refined, and then it gets shipped again, and then it gets dumped in a hole, and then I drive up and I yank it out of the hole, paying like six bucks a gallon. The EVs

Like for the Hyundai, someone somewhere, probably somewhere bad to be honest, pulled it out pulled all these minerals out of the ground, shoved it in the battery, and brought it to my house. And I have it set up like in some areas you can actually set up where your charging or home charging turns on only when it's majority renewable energy sources. So we have that turned on where it's like, if it's mostly it's you it's like there's a percentage, I forget what it is. Anyway, it makes me feel good. It's you know, it's it's less stuff that has to get burned.

in order to keep my little my little electric vehicle going. But at the end of the life for my Hyundai, especially at this point, because it's a brand new car, let's say ten, twelve years, whatever, fifteen whatever, whenever it dies, they'll be able to take all those bits out and then put in another Hyundai or into a Ford or a GM or maybe even a Honda. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:09)
Well, actually,

you know, because you know, ten, fifteen years from now, when that vehicle has mostly reached the end of its life, that battery will probably still have more than enough capacity to be used in a second life application like an energy storage system. You know, if it's still

Roberto Baldwin (58:22)
Yeah, an ESS.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:23)
got eighty percent of its capacity or I mean usually, you know, after ten years, hundred thousand miles, you know, batteries still have most batteries still have ninety plus percent of their original capacity.

you know, so you can, you know, even if it's down to seventy percent, you can still use that in an energy storage system and then after multiple years doing that, then it gets recycled.

Roberto Baldwin (58:50)
Twenty five years from now, someone's gonna get a B an EV that has materials that are in my vehicle right now.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:59)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (59:00)
They'll get a new EV that'll have the materials that are in my vehicle right now. After it's done

Sam Abuelsamid (59:03)
Probably, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (59:04)
all of its things.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:06)
Yeah. yeah, they for for the yeah, for for

Roberto Baldwin (59:08)
The circle of life. I wish I had a battery to hold up.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:12)
the for the redwood materials thing for the energy storage batteries, they used ten thousand of the batteries that they took out of Chevy Bolts when they did the bolt recall. So whatever the you know, s a lot of those batteries were remanufactured, you know, they tested them all, took out modules that had defective cells.

and then put put new modules in there and then put those back into vehicles and then the other ones that were too far gone that that couldn't be repaired or that you know tested fine or tet that didn't you know that that they couldn't they couldn't remanufacture, those went to went went to the energy storage. and so those are

Those are the ones that they are using as battery backup for the factories.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:05)
Crazy. Yeah. So anyway, anytime someone tells you like, you be but you know, you had to take these things out of there, I'm like, Yeah, but the it's not it's n it's apples and oranges the way the materials that are pulled because you know, I I got every time I drive the BRZ, someone somewhere has to drill a hole or is pulling oil out of the ground. It's not like it's it's you know and it's not like, you know, like in a you know, twenty years when the BRZ dies that I could like take oil to oil

Use it. All the carbon emissions that I've created, capture them all and then squeeze them down to more gasoline.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:44)
yeah, and you know, and with batteries made from virgin materials, you know, typically an EV has a higher footprint at the moment it leaves the factory. so it takes more energy to make the battery from virgin materials. But then within two years of use because you're you know, even even with you know with the with the typical US electricity mix, you are net positive. So you're using you've got less carbon footprint.

And that just keeps getting better and better over the life of the vehicle.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:16)
I did a carbon footprint article, maybe for Rs Technica. There was a lot of math. I get

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:21)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:21)
all excited about math. I th yeah, well this is a really long article. Anyway, it's I think it's it's E Vs versus buying an old beater, which is better for the environment. That's because some people like, Well if I'll just keep my old car, it's better for the environment and that math if you yeah, that math doesn't check out after a few years. It's the same thing.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:42)
all right. And then let's let's carry on with batteries for a minute. I think last year sometime I think we talked about this, there was in China somebody demonstrated a battery ejection system. So if if your battery does start to burn, you know, they they built an ejection system that would shoot the battery out of the car. And for some reason they did this with the battery going out sideways, which

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:10)
Well

they can't going out any direction's a bad idea. But yeah, I see

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:13)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:14)
the other day when some I remembered this and I think, wait, did it come out the driver's side? For some reason I thought it came out the driver's side, so now the driver couldn't get out of the car. So if you're driving the car and no fire and I guess the ejector shoots out the battery, now you're walking in the fire. But no, it goes out the passenger side. So now your passenger has to walk into fire. As opposed to escaping from fire, you're walking towards fire.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:34)
Or or you know, if if

if if you're at the side of the road and you know, if your car has

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:39)
Just drink.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:40)
caught fire, you know, and it shoots this thing out and shoots it into some other car, you know, shooting a two thousand pound battery into some other car, you know, that's not good either.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:47)
It's some Hey Hey and now it's your problem, buddy. Boop

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:52)
Well, Dodge also got a patent for for a battery ejection system, but there's a little different. there's basically

It just it's just designed to just drop the battery, out of the chassis. Now

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:09)
Wait, is it shoot it or is it just drop it?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:11)
it it just drops it. Now what happens after you drop the battery is not entirely clear. Yeah, you know not sure, you know, it's like okay, if you drop the battery you still want to move the car away from the battery.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:32)
I don't know if it's better or wor like what's the

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:37)
okay, here it is. so the the twelve volt battery is still connected to the drive system and it's used to move the car a short but safe distance away from the burning battery.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:46)
So you're definitely like making this someone else's problem again.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:50)
Yeah. But at least you're not shooting it out into another lane. I mean it's basically just behind you.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:54)
You just shoot

so if someone's behind you and your car catches on fire, they're in trouble, not you.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:58)
Right.

I mean hopefully what has happened, you know, in in this instance is you know, you've you know, you've gotten an alert or you've you've noticed the smoke or you've noticed the flames, and so you pulled over to the side of the road and you hit the eject button and it drops the battery down and then the twelve volt battery rolls you forward about ten feet, you know, so you're clear of the battery.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:26)
I don't I mean or just get out of the car Like I don't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:31)
Yeah, just

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:32)
I don't 'cause I at this point like it's it's still a fire. Like are you saving your car? That's it that's the only thing like, well, at least my car is okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:41)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:42)
No, it's not because it's already like something and there's like what happens at the bat you know, with thermal runaway what happens is the batteries that'll expand. That's like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:50)
Well, and this this was the problem with the the side ejecting one, because it was it was in a slot,

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:54)
Yeah, 'cause it would just get stuck, right? Or

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:56)
yeah, and it once the battery starts to swell, you're you're not gonna be able to shoot it out.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:01)
I guess it's I don't know. It I I it's just now you have two fires. I feel like if if you're already shooting it out, it's probably already a fire in your car. Now you've spread the fire.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:05)
Well, the thing is, I mean think th think of you know, think of this in a Charger Daytona.

You know, the the battery is probably about six inches thick. Yeah, you got about five inches of ground clearance. Once you've dropped a fifteen hundred pound battery, all of a sudden it's gonna spring up a little bit. 'Cause now you've dropped fifteen hundred pounds from the weight of the vehicle, so your springs are gonna actually lift the car up a little bit.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:29)
It's so but it's just so much over engineering for just get out of the car. Where's the fire at? It's not there.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:35)
Just get out and let the car burn.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:36)
It's over here. by the way, another car drove over it because they didn't expect a battery to drop out like James Bonds in front

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:43)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:43)
of them. It's some 007 shenanigans. Click. There, take my fiery battery. Person other person on the freeway.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:56)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:59)
Mm.

What if it shoots like does it is it automatically shoot it out? Does it

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:04)
It's not entirely clear. If if I don't know if it automatically ejects or Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:08)
I mean it just drops it. It the the

it doesn't shoot it out. It just drops it. Okay. That's better.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:12)
Yeah. It just releases it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:15)
Okay. That's that's that's better than shooting it. I think they saw

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:19)
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:19)
the shooting then they're they saw all the comments are like that's a bad idea, and then they changed this patent.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:24)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:25)
Like, well just just make it so it falls. Just falls out. And then maybe the car will move forward or they have to put the fire out underneath order. Either way your car's doomed, to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:37)
Yeah. all right. and then BYD, you know, we've talked about the Seagull before, their little ten thousand ish dollar EV that they sell in China. And they've got a second generation model coming out. And it's it's getting some upgrades. it's slightly larger than before, so it's gonna be a little bit roomier. but big thing is it's gonna have BYD's flash charging on it.

which means that you will be able to charge this up from ten to seventy percent in five minutes.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:22)
People are like, I mean first of all like when I look at the inside the Chinese cars, it's always nothing but touch screens, which I'm just like ugh. And fine. It's the batteries. Every time like, the Chinese cars are better. No, it's the batteries. That's all there is to it. This bat like five that's faster than that's that's that's gassing up your car. You're done. That's it. It's over.

You don't ha I mean you have to find the charging s infrastructure for this, but that's you it's China.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:53)
Well, I mean, BYD is building the charging infrastructure for this. They've they've already installed a couple of thousand flash chargers in China. so these are that's their one point four, one point five megawatt chargers. and on on the Seagull, you know, it's actually not gonna charge at one point five megawatts. It's sound looks like it's probably gonna charge probably around seven or eight hundred kilowatts. A mere a mere

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:20)
Only

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:21)
seven or eight hundred kilowatts. 'Cause

With the thirty nine kilowatt with

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:23)
Pesha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:25)
the thirty nine kilowatt hour battery, that that's the one they say will charge to seventy percent in five minutes. So yeah, and ninety per s ninety seven percent charge in nine minutes. And that'll give you a CLTC range of a hundred and ninety nine miles for the for the base battery, two hundred and sixty miles with the with the big battery. So more realistic, that's probably like a hundred and fifty and two hundred miles, roughly.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:52)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:53)
In real world.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:54)
I think that in Europe I think that's probably I think because they have it in Europe, that's probably like a fifteen thousand dollar car or something. yeah, they sell Mexic there was

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:00)
But well they saw these in Mexico too. I saw a bunch of them in Mexico.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:05)
the the MotorTran folks, they

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:07)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:07)
went down a day that was that was a good video. You should look it up on Motor Tran where they won't go to Mexico and you drive the cars. but yeah, no, it's it's

Man. And and when you think about the companies that are just sort of like, Well, we're not gonna do this or like they're kinda hemming and haun on there. We gotta you gotta catch up. 'Cause it's not like China again, it's not like you know when I started SAE I started talking with the person who worked at C A T L for years. He's like they're five, ten years ahead of us. He's like and they're not going to slow down and let us catch up. That's all there is. Like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:43)
No, not at all.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:44)
they're not going to slow down. And everyone here is like, I don't know.

It's yeah, it's it's oof. It's you know, if they start making in the United States, you know, they start doing manufacturing here. I mean everyone has to and I mean it's gonna be more expensive because they have to build them here, so you have to you know it's still like even if if you can get

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:06)
But still, if they you know, if they if they can

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:09)
a if you can get a BYD, let they're gonna call it the dolphin surf, not the seagull, 'cause in America seagulls are gross. They're just rats.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:15)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:16)
flying rats. But they get the dolphin surf, which is a pretty cool name, to be honest.

dolphin surf. if they're bringing it to the United States and let's say they sell for twenty thousand dollars. For homologation and everything.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:29)
Yeah, yeah, I mean if you get an EV

if you get an EV that'll charge to seventy percent in five minutes, go two hundred miles on a charge, you know, and cost you twenty grand. People will buy that all over the place.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:44)
Yeah.

If they make a truck, Slate's doomed.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:47)
Yeah. Well they they already make a truck. They have the shark.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:50)
yeah, and that's a cool name too.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:52)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:53)
Man, they are BYD shark. The shark's weird looking. Let me double check. Let me see it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:56)
It is. They I think

that yeah, they would probably have to do some redesigning for the US market, but still.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:02)
It's a little it it's fine.

It just it's just you know what? They're just following the Raptor with big giant

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:07)
BYD in the front. yeah, I don't I I just we I know people are putting the work in, but you you you you can't just keep hoping that you know, tariffs and whatnot because at some point they're gonna want to build a factory here in the United States. I remember when the seventies and the early eighties people were like, don't buy Japanese cars.

Then Honda you know then Honda's been building cars in Ohio for a hundred years at this point now. And forty two Yeah. So yeah, they

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:38)
Forty two years. Nineteen eighty four they rolled out the first accord. And

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:43)
they like they Honda just like okay fine, we'll just build in Ohio. How you like them, apples? And yeah, I think, you know, everyone else is building stuff here. It's not gonna be long for China to decide, you know, someone's gonna say I mean, even the administration's like, Well, if they wanna build here, that's cool.

I mean that's jobs for people. If you

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:03)
can if if if you have a job, if you're gonna hire five thousand people to make a BYD, you know, shark or a dolphin or some other aquatic creature vehicle and it's gonna have more range and it's going to charge at like some insane speed then it's bad yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:25)
It

you know, I mean ultimately, you know, who cares where the profits go? Yeah, it doesn't matter. As long as they're employing people. Yeah, it's not like they're sharing the profits with us anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:37)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:40)
all right. And then Ford I guess Jim Farley did an interview with Australian media and you know somebody asked if the if the V eight was gonna live on in the Mustang. and he didn't actually answer the question. but what he did say was that manual transmissions

are going to survive. But he didn't actually say anything about the V eight.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:14)
Alright. Well, I mean it the Mustang

is a it's it's it's like the BRZ, the the the Miata, you know, this is a this is an enthusiast vehicle. It's got like this really long, you know, history. it's the only car that Ford sells in the United States. They're never gonna stop building the Mustang. And if you ever stop

giving people the option of a manual, people all lose their minds. 'Cause it makes sense, you know, you pulled the manual of a camera, you pull the manual of the civic, you're like, Okay, fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:44)
And you

know, it's about about thirty percent of Mustangs are built with manual transmissions. So it's a it's an unusually high take rate for for any car. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:50)
Which is a pretty good Yeah, that's a g that's a really good take rate. What's the

b I think the BRZ's like seventy percent or something crazy? But that's all enthusiasts. That like no one's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:00)
I've never seen a BRZ with a automatic do you even make one?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:04)
they they did for the first gen. I think that I'm pretty sure

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:07)
B R Z on the back.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:08)
they make one now. 'Cause my daughter my daughter is eighty six, yeah, which is the same car the Toyota version of the same car. she actually had one with an automatic.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:18)
all right. Let me see. Being easy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:21)
but

you know, what what is likely to happen 'cause yeah, the other thing is, you know, the Mustang, since the S five fifty debuted in twenty fourteen, it's been exported globally and it's sold in like a hundred countries now.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:36)
It was doing really well in China for a while. I don't know about it now, but it was

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:39)
Yeah. Not not as well. But they s they still

sell there. and you know, what will probably happen is they'll probably discontinue the V eight in a lot of countries in the future, you know, probably by the end of the decade. although, you know, there is speculation that they are gonna do a hybrid Mustang. and unknown which engine they'll do with that. I know that at one point,

Prior to the Mach E, prior to the decision to move forward with the Mach E, they they had a V8 hybrid Mustang in development. And Tom Barnes, who was the the vehicle engineering manager for Mustang at the time, this was probably about twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Yeah, he said you know, he told me, man, this thing is amazing. He said it was the the best Mustang they've ever built. my guess is

you know, when they do a new hybrid Mustang, it probably won't be with the V eight. it'll probably be with, you know, with the Eco Boost four or maybe a V six. but you know, I think the the V eight will probably live on in North America for as long as they're making V eights for the for the trucks, they'll probably keep building V eight Mustangs.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:00)
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean you might as well offer it. So the BRZ you can get to at automatic transmission. The take rate for the manual is ninety percent.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:09)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:10)
It is the opposite of the rest of like the industry. I don't know. I I've just like I the Miata's probably pretty high as well. Probably

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:16)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:16)
like sixty. Let's see. MX five meh

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:19)
Yeah. Pro I would guess at least that much, I'll have to ask.

all right. And then last thing for this week, last week I went to the Bosch Proving Grounds in Flat Rock, Michigan, for a morning last week. And they showed us some of the latest stuff that they're working on there. gave us some interesting demos. one of them was they were showing off their

E axle system for trucks. so they they had a Ram 1500 that had a a hurricane six cylinder driving the front wheels and then they had an electric motor on the rear axle and then they and it was a plug in hybrid, you know, so for just for development purposes, they had a big battery sitting in the bed of the truck, and then a re

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:13)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:15)
a cooling system for the battery sitting on top of it, so a big

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:17)
Is that just a giant fan?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:19)
there's a fan and there's a radiator under the fan.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:21)
But that's a giant fan, that black Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:23)
That's a giant fan to cool the battery.

So this thing had like seven hundred and seventy horsepower. And

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:30)
That's awesome.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:31)
yeah. And it was ridiculously quick.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:35)
It's a it's a yeah, it's a merger truck.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:37)
Yeah. but some of the other stuff they showed us, they showed us their new brake by wire system, which is a full full brake by wire. They they had it installed in a Nissan Ultima. and so they had the the the brake pedal is basically just connected to a a sensor to measure the pedal travel. and then that goes to their to the computer. The

brake actuator, the main brake actuator is on the right hand side of the under the hood. I was gonna say in the engine compartment, in the motor compartment in the front. and then they have the standard traction control actuator on the left hand side where where it normally is. And so you know this is designed to prov under normal conditions, you know, provide all the braking effort from the just this brake-by-wire actuator. but

because they keep the the regular stability control actuator in there as well, that's also capable of generating brake force by itself. So that provides the redundancy. So if your if your brake by wire actuator dies on you, if something goes wrong with it, you can still get full braking. So they we did they did a couple of stops with the f the full system active and then with just the sist the stability control unit active as a backup. And that one was a lot

Yeah, the control wasn't as smooth, it was a lot rougher, but it you know, it worked great. Yeah, it stopped fine.

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:08)
Mm-hmm. But but you stopped. So if

for those listening, Sam is showing the under the hood and you can see all the bits for the braking, but then there's little levers. There's little toggles so you can turn things on and off.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:22)
Yeah, so I can switch stuff

on and off.

and then one yeah and they showed us a bunch of other stuff, but one that was particularly interesting to me was their wet road detection system. which what they did they had a a Jeep Grand Grand Cherokee and it's it's a software only change to this vehicle. And what they found from from doing some research was the ultrasonic sensors, which are normally used for parking assist.

Yeah, so these are you know typically only used you know below about you know eight or ten miles an hour as you're moving around trying to park the car, you know, to let you know when you're getting too close to something. And then once you get above ten miles an hour, they're they're usually deactivated. But it's an ultrasonic sensor, so it's picking up sound. It's it's just a a sound sensor, it's an audio sensor. kind of like a kind of like a microphone. and what they found was that

Depending on on wet roads, they could actually detect from the changing sound signature of the tires rolling on the water. They could detect the you know, whether you were running on dry pavement or running on water, and also detect how deep the water was. So they had a screen in the car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:43)
based on the frequency.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:45)
Yeah. So you know, so you get a different sound signature as the water depth gets gets deeper, you it the sound changes.

And so you could see we could see on the screen, you know, as we were going along this wetted track you know braking pad, tile pad, that you know, and it was at the water was at different depths at one me one millimeter, two millimeters, and four millimeters. And it was going to different levels, you know, showing us approximately how deep the water was. So you can detect hydroplaning with this and you know, give you some hydroplaning protection.

or you know, just give you an indication of how deep the water is and then it can that can be used to alert the driver but also to you know to adjust the thresholds for ABS and traction control and stability control. and it's all it is is software. There's no there's no hardware changes to the car at all.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:39)
Cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:40)
and it can add that in. So you know

As soon as some automaker decides to add that in, I mean that that would be pretty cool to to have in there, you know, to be able to use those ultrasonic sensors when you're above about twenty five miles an hour, it can detect the you know, that that change in the sound. now, you know, they've got to do more work on it, you know, to refine it. They've they've tested it with about twenty different ti combinations of tires and road surfaces.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:09)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:10)
and you know, basically doing some machine learning stuff.

but they you know, so they've gotta do testing with more types of tires and and more road surfaces before they can go to production. But it was a pretty interesting idea.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:24)
That's cool. I mean it it you don't have to add stuff. That's the for the Yeah. You don't have to

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:28)
Yeah, that's the best that's the best kind of addition. You can ch

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:32)
you don't have to add anything.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:33)
yeah.

and th they also had a a steer by wire system that they were demoing in a lucid air. And so this one was interesting because it it was not just steer by wire like what you have like on the Tesla Cybertruck, you know, where there's no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels. they also incorporated

basically, you know, stay on the road protection. And so we were going along along this roadway on the test track and the driver was clearly steering towards the grass and the car would as it was approaching the edge of the pavement, it was pulling it and pulling back. So it was ignoring the driver's input and just keep the car on the road.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:27)
Huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:28)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:30)
That's kinda cool. I mean I don't know in real world 'cause maybe you need to go under the grass, but still. It's still cool that the the technology, like the proof of concept is awesome. There we go. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:40)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:42)
Unlike dropping a battery and just make it as someone else's problem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:44)
Ha ha

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:48)
Not my problem. Figure it out.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:51)
all right.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:52)
Hope there was no grass or fireworks

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:54)
I think

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:55)
sitting behind my car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:57)
that's all we've got for this week. we'll talk to you all next time. Bye.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:02)
Bye.