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

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

jill ciminillo (00:10)
And I am Jill Ciminillo of many places.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:14)
And Jill,

Roberto Baldwin (00:14)
Many places, said

Sam Abuelsamid (00:15)
well welcome officially to the show. We're glad glad to have you joining

Roberto Baldwin (00:19)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:20)
us.

jill ciminillo (00:21)
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah I

Roberto Baldwin (00:22)
It's weird

being second.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24)
Huh.

Roberto Baldwin (00:26)
I was third for a long time. I just I got I got promoted.

jill ciminillo (00:28)
I you yeah, well I was like

Abul Simon Baldwin Simonello A B C

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34)
Yeah. there we go. Perfect. So it's not

Roberto Baldwin (00:35)
look at that.

jill ciminillo (00:37)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:38)
really it's not really about seniority, it's about alphabetical order.

Roberto Baldwin (00:40)
Always be carring. Always be carring.

jill ciminillo (00:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:45)
so Jill for for for those

Roberto Baldwin (00:46)
Always buy convertibles. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:48)
for those in the audience who are not familiar with you, why don't you share a little bit of background on on Jill Simonello before we get started.

jill ciminillo (00:57)
all right, a little bit of background on Jill Simonello. I started out at Pioneer Press put newspapers in the suburbs of Chicago pretty much right out of college. And I was the automotive editor there, moved to the Chicago Sun-Times as the automotive editor, and then helped the Chicago Tribune start their new blogging platform and had an automotive blog there as the first automotive blog.

for the Chicago Tribune. Then I moved to the Sinclair broadcast group as the automotive editor and eventually decided that it was time to move out on my own. And so I currently freelance for car gurus, automotive news, and I've been working on building my own my own portfolio of things. So TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. And my my YouTube channel is Cardizure.

I also co host another podcast, the Car Stuff Podcast with Tom Appell, and do some writing for Consumer Guide Automotive as well. So yeah, like I said, I am of many places.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:05)
Excellent. and and of course you are also known to many of us as the girl in the trunk.

jill ciminillo (02:14)
well, so I funny story. I do I feel like I need to give a little bit of background because this is the this is this is something that started in two thousand seven. and I was looking at the trunk of a Corvette and I was like, dang that's big. And I'm like, I feel like I could lay down in there and like spread out and like I could car camp in this car. And I somebody happened to overhear me say that and they were like, you know what? I I wanna I wanna actually see you in the back. And

The very first video car review I did was of the Car Corvette Z06 and there was video of me and the trunk, you know, kind of like sprawled out like this because it was so huge. and so then it it it kind of transformed into a thing. Fair. Fair. I should say I'm I'm five feet tall. It was huge

for me. and

Roberto Baldwin (02:55)
Well, huge is relative to be honest. Like like like Yeah. So so like

Sam Abuelsamid (03:02)
Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (03:04)
Jill and I, if we were talking to each other at an event, like both of us our necks are hurting by the end of the event. By the end of talking.

jill ciminillo (03:09)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Well I I you know, and I have friends who it like it became this thing because I have friends who like, my gosh, I can figure out how many cubic feet of cargo space you are, which is one point five cubic feet of cargo space. and we a unit of Jill

Roberto Baldwin (03:24)
Unit of gel.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:25)
Hmm.

jill ciminillo (03:26)
and so it just it it just turned into something kind of funny, you know, and and and a lot of the car reviews that I do, I actually will test in the trunk the the tab.

Like the the emergency

Roberto Baldwin (03:38)
Released.

jill ciminillo (03:39)
tab to make sure that it actually works. so far have not found anything that does not work. So thumbs up on that.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:46)
Excellent.

jill ciminillo (03:47)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:48)
well just for for reference, you you are not the only person I know of who has used their own body to test the cargo volume of a vehicle. back in two thousand eight, when he was still running a site called pickup trucks dot com, Mike Levine, who is now

jill ciminillo (04:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:08)
just recently moved to Europe to become the new head of communications for Ford of Europe, was at the

the event that Chrysler used to hold at their proving grounds in Chelsea, Michigan, the what's new event. They used to do this

jill ciminillo (04:21)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:22)
every year in June. And they had just launched the the Ram fifteen hundred with the RAM box option. And I was there with Chris Schunk, who was one of our video guys for Autoblog. And we actually shot a video and I got some photos of

jill ciminillo (04:39)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:40)
of Mr. Levine. We asked we asked Mike to see it and see if he could fit into a Rambox.

And Mike is quite a bit taller than than you are, but he is extremely thin. And

jill ciminillo (04:51)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:51)
he basically I mean, if if we had pushed, we probably could have got the Rambox closed with Mike in there.

jill ciminillo (04:59)
That's that's

contortionist level.

Roberto Baldwin (05:01)
One

Sam Abuelsamid (05:02)
that

Roberto Baldwin (05:02)
unit of mic.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:03)
that the

jill ciminillo (05:04)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:04)
the video was online for for quite a few years, and a couple of years ago, it disappeared from the internet.

Roberto Baldwin (05:15)
because it was autoblog?

Sam Abuelsamid (05:17)
well actually it was before Autoblog transformed, before it got sold and tr I I

Roberto Baldwin (05:21)
But where was

it whose site was whose YouTube channel was it on?

Sam Abuelsamid (05:25)
It

it was not actually on YouTube, which is the problem. yeah, it it was it

Roberto Baldwin (05:27)
it was just on some other random Bright Cove.

jill ciminillo (05:29)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:31)
was some other sir it was some other service that Autoblog was using at the time. yeah, I

Roberto Baldwin (05:34)
Probably Bright Cove. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:36)
can't remember what it was. and actually it was for a while it was on YouTube as well. There was a copy of it on YouTube.

Roberto Baldwin (05:44)
It's on World Star.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:45)
but my my guess is that Mike got tired of having that referenced and probably made a call and

Ask them to remove it.

Roberto Baldwin (05:56)
I mean if you don't want a video of you being in the Rambox, don't get in the RAM box.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:01)
Well,

at the at the

time, to be fair, he was a journalist

jill ciminillo (06:04)
Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:05)
and when it at the time when it disappeared, he was head of North American product

Roberto Baldwin (06:05)
You know what, I'm a journalist, you don't see me getting in the RAM box.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:09)
communications for Ford. So

jill ciminillo (06:11)
Yeah.

Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (06:12)
Listen.

Fri Ford knew what they were getting into. He knew what he was getting into when he got into the RAM box. We all know that

Sam Abuelsamid (06:15)
No Exactly.

jill ciminillo (06:19)
Fair. It's fair.

Roberto Baldwin (06:20)
there's there's potential that, you know, a lot of not a lot. A few journalists end up going into PR. So there's always like that potential. So whenever

Sam Abuelsamid (06:28)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (06:28)
you do something, you're always like, what if I ever want a PR job? Mm. I mean it hasn't stopped me from doing crazy things. I haven't gotten to the RAM box because I literally I could get my leg.

jill ciminillo (06:41)
I've I've gotten in a RAM

Sam Abuelsamid (06:41)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (06:42)
box. I have I have

Roberto Baldwin (06:42)
There we go.

jill ciminillo (06:43)
done that.

Roberto Baldwin (06:44)
It's one w I mean it's a unit of Mike, which is larger than a unit of Jill, so that would make

jill ciminillo (06:49)
I

Roberto Baldwin (06:49)
sense.

jill ciminillo (06:50)
well, I don't know, he's skinnier than I am.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:52)
Yeah,

he he I mean Mike is r if you've ever seen Mike, he is really thin. He's tall, but he's very thin.

jill ciminillo (06:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (06:56)
But how tall is he?

Sam Abuelsamid (07:00)
he's about six one. I mean he's not as tall as you.

Roberto Baldwin (07:02)
so that's still yeah,

but that's a whole that's a like a whole other you know, thirteen inches of of mass. And he's probably at least a foot wide, so that's another cubic foot.

jill ciminillo (07:08)
That's fair.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:08)
Yeah, but if you take if you take his cross section,

you know, his cross section is really small.

Roberto Baldwin (07:15)
Yeah, but it's still at least one cubic foot of cross section. Unless he's

Sam Abuelsamid (07:17)
Ha ha ha

jill ciminillo (07:18)
And he would totally appreciate us talking.

Roberto Baldwin (07:20)
a snake. I mean he's in France now. He's not listening to this. He's only listening to French.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:24)
That's true.

Roberto Baldwin (07:25)
He's he's learning French right now.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:27)
Yeah. Or German.

jill ciminillo (07:27)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (07:28)
Or Ger I thought he was with I thought it was France.

jill ciminillo (07:31)
Germany.

Roberto Baldwin (07:32)
Germany? so he's going to Germany? Instead of France? I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (07:31)
they're based in Cologne. Yeah. I believe that I believe he's g

ba being based in Cologne now, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (07:39)
I mean Germany has good red too.

Sam Abuelsamid (07:44)
all right. Well speaking of Ford, what what have you been driving this week, Jill?

jill ciminillo (07:50)
I have actually been driving the Ford Ranger. And I, you know, I I live in Chicago, so city space, and have done quite a bit like just around like my neighborhood. And, you know, I really like a mid-sized truck because I feel like it is really well sized for, you know, being able to do truck things, but then also fitting in city spaces. And, you know, you I I feel like we've talked about this before when I've been a guest on the show, but I like to play a game called Will It Fit in my garage.

And I I'm not gonna give it away because I just filmed the video today. but the the the Ford Ranger will be subject to the will it fit in my garage game and I now have a new garage. So previously just like a very narrow like garage and an alley, but now we've added some obstacles because in addition to the narrow garage, I have a 22 degree angle ramp that I have to back up to be able to get into my space.

And it is

you know, I'm in an ap it it is. It is up and I kind of veer to the the

Roberto Baldwin (08:49)
So is it up? So you shoot up and then you gotta like

jill ciminillo (08:55)
the side and you know, there's ten people that park in that garage 'cause I'm I'm in an apartment building. And so it's like maneuvering around trash cans in the alley and then I have a neighbor who parks out to me n next to me and she has a Toy a Toyota Highlander, so it's kind of like a big thing that I have to

Roberto Baldwin (09:12)
Ooh, that's a big car.

jill ciminillo (09:14)
maneuver around. There's posts. It's it's

It's drama. It is it is drama in three minutes.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:21)
Well we'll we'll

Roberto Baldwin (09:21)
Like a lot of

seventy point turns trying to get

jill ciminillo (09:24)
Well maybe, maybe, we'll see. but but you will find out. You would stay tuned.

Roberto Baldwin (09:26)
We'll find out. Stay tuned.

Sam Abuelsamid (09:27)
We'll we'll have we'll we'll definitely have to add the link

to that in the show notes when that's published. 'cause that's definitely something

jill ciminillo (09:33)
Yeah. but so

Sam Abuelsamid (09:35)
I wanna see.

jill ciminillo (09:36)
yeah, I mean, all around though, it's a it's it's it's a great truck. you know, I I've I've started a new series I called short takes, because I am about five feet tall. And so talking about whether or not the vehicle is good for a shorter driver. And I would say the Ford Ranger is one of those vehicles, you know, probably one of the best mid-size tracks for shorter drivers. And you know, I had the XLT trim, it has running boards, it has, you know, a really spacious cabin.

and it's such that I don't feel like I have to sit right on top of the steering wheel. And I have plenty of leg room, the seats are really adjustable, the seats are comfortable, and you know, they've just like the the cameras on I I have the tech package on the truck that I'm driving, so the cameras are really helpful, especially when maneuvering in tight spaces and the belt line isn't too high. So I I I think this it was it was a very comfortable truck. And again, I think probably one of the better mid-sized trucks out there.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:33)
Which which engine, the four cylinder or V six?

jill ciminillo (10:36)
V six, which by the way was so super smooth. And, you know, I living in the city, you know, you have to go from stopped to fast really fast to be able to merge with traffic or, you know, and doing passing maneuvers and, you know, driving around on the Kedany in Chicago. I just it was it was really surprisingly smooth. I I I don't know. I I guess it's been a while since I've driven a vehicle with this engine, but it just I thought it did really well, especially with a vehicle of this size.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:06)
yeah, I mean I I I like the Ranger myself, you know. and you know, even though, you know, the the Toyota Tacoma is is the best selling midsize truck by a wide

jill ciminillo (11:15)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:16)
margin, the the Ranger, you know, I I personally think is a lot more usable in a lot of ways.

jill ciminillo (11:22)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:23)
You know, the the back seat in particular, you know, I mean it's not huge, especially if you compare it to something like an F one fifty crew cab, but

jill ciminillo (11:31)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:32)
it's it's a lot more it's a lot roomier. The cabin, both the front and the back, is a lot roomier in the Ranger than it is in the Tacoma. And it's not like it's a notably bigger truck. It's you know, it's about the same size overall, but it's it's definitely better packaged.

jill ciminillo (11:48)
Yeah and

Roberto Baldwin (11:48)
I remember

in the nineties the Ranger like was just you just couldn't sit in it if you were tall. It was just so we I like why how is this so like I I I could never get comfortable. Now I'm like, this is a nice truck. I mean I I I had the the Sierra E V, the AT four, the you know, super heavy giant truck the other day. And it's just too much for

for

jill ciminillo (12:10)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (12:10)
for it's just too much. And like, you know, a mid size and a small truck, that's that's my jam. But yeah, that that

It's just too much. So yeah. And I like the Ranger. I like the way it looks. I there was a port part, you know, pre generation before I was just like, Ew But

jill ciminillo (12:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (12:30)
now, I think it's it's it's a good truck, Charlie Brown.

jill ciminillo (12:35)
Yeah, I mean I think the Tacoma is probably the best looking mid sized truck. You know, and

Roberto Baldwin (12:39)
yeah.

jill ciminillo (12:40)
and the interior is really well done. But, you know, in in terms of how the the ranger drives, to me, I again as a petite driver, it just does really well and and it feels really nimble.

Roberto Baldwin (12:54)
So there you go, tall and short people love the to the Ford Ranger. Look at that. Building bridges.

Sam Abuelsamid (12:59)
And and how much how much was the Ranger?

jill ciminillo (13:03)
let's see. I I I brought up the sticker sheet so I could tell you. So the base price for this is about forty thousand dollars. So it's thirty nine thousand three hundred and seventy-five. but it added a lot of options. It added a lot of options. So it was like eight thousand dollars worth of options, which you know, the engine, yeah, the advanced towing and tech package, it the weather mat the all weather floor mats,

running boards. So the running boards were an option. the the bed step or the sidestep to get be able to see in the box bed liner. So at any rate, lots of options. So the ass tested price was about forty eight thousand dollars yeah

Roberto Baldwin (13:48)
And I you

Sam Abuelsamid (13:48)
It's a pre

Roberto Baldwin (13:49)
know what? If you're looking at a truck and there's a four cylinder and then like V six, V eight, drive the four cylinder. I guarantee you you probably there's not gonna be you're probably gonna be happy fine with that to be honest.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:02)
Well, especially

in I think in the case of something like the Ranger, you know, that four s that two point three liter turbo, you know, is has almost as much power, not quite as much torque, but almost as much power as the V six. It's like three hundred and fifteen horsepower I think or three hundred and twenty horsepower in the Ranger.

Roberto Baldwin (14:19)
I'd

I'd I'd look it up but of course forage PR site is complete trash. I'm trying to find the specs and it's just like when you

jill ciminillo (14:23)
Yeah. it I think it's two two hundred and seventy no.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:23)
Well, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (14:28)
put when you click on specs, it tells me what's it say? Oops, you've hit a dead end.

jill ciminillo (14:34)
Yeah, no they they they've messed that website

up to no no tomorrow. it's I but I think it's two hundred and seventy horsepower in the two point three

Sam Abuelsamid (14:40)
is it that I thought it was more than that, okay.

jill ciminillo (14:43)
and then three hundred and fifteen in the V six.

Sam Abuelsamid (14:48)
Okay. Well it's still it's still plenty of power.

Roberto Baldwin (14:51)
Yeah. Again for most, you know. Just you know, what are you gonna do with it if you really need the torque 'cause you're gonna be doing a lot of like heavy towing, then I'm like, Okay, yeah, you get the V six, you need the displacement, but if you're just doing like regular truck stuff, I gotta haul things.

Yeah, you're you're fine with the with the four sooner.

jill ciminillo (15:08)
Or if you're an aggressive

driver and you live in a city, maybe you want the V six. I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:13)
Could be.

Roberto Baldwin (15:14)
I mean everyone's an aggressive side driver in the city. Someone's a h g you know, Geo Metro, they'll that three cylinder.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:19)
Ha ha.

jill ciminillo (15:20)
That's fair. Those hamsters work in overtime.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:25)
all right. Any anything else on the Ranger?

jill ciminillo (15:28)
no, I mean there really wasn't much that I didn't like about it. the even even the wireless charger worked. Anybody who follows me knows that I complain a lot about wireless phone chargers. because they always overheat

Roberto Baldwin (15:39)
Do they don't work?

jill ciminillo (15:40)
Yeah, they they don't work. They overheat my phone and they usually like decharge my phone. So like I will start out with twenty two percent battery and I get home and it's like five percent battery.

Roberto Baldwin (15:50)
I mean it's

charging just like barely. Like most of the

jill ciminillo (15:53)
Triple charge.

Roberto Baldwin (15:53)
time I'm just plu I p I just plug it plug in my phone. Like I'm like, alright, it works but

jill ciminillo (15:57)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (15:58)
They're

they're they're usually they're usually better as phone warmers than chargers.

jill ciminillo (16:02)
Phone holders, right?

Roberto Baldwin (16:02)
Yeah. Like

if it's cold and you need something to warm your hands at a stoplight, like you put your phone on the charger and you get the stoplight and you put it you put it between your hands, like a like a like a hot pack. You're like, yeah, that's the stuff. Like a hot water bottle. You can put it in your back, you're on your tummy.

jill ciminillo (16:13)
Yeah. But th this this actually works. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (16:18)
Yeah, I mean there there are so many cars that I've been in, you know, where I put the phone down on the charging pad and within five minutes it's telling me, you know, for better performance, rem please remove your phone from the char from the wireless charger. It's like w why why are you bothering with this then if if you're not gonna if you're not gonna do it right and actually have

Roberto Baldwin (16:37)
I I

Sam Abuelsamid (16:38)
it, you know, ventilated and, you know, cooled so that it

Roberto Baldwin (16:41)
The v yeah, the ventilation. I don't understand why. I have the trail seeker, I'll talk about it next week right now. But it's charging but I got I I I got on the up you know, off the plane and I had like five percent and I like, That's not enough

For a wireless charger. That's just not enough. It's not gonna work. Because it's gonna overheat. And then of course because it overheats, they the you know this the you know your phone doesn't want to explode, so it's like, hey, we're gonna stop charging, which is like, but I'm still using CarPlay. I still wanna rock out to my jams and see what the traffic is like and whether or not I need to take a a shortcut or detour in order to get home in a in a reasonable hour. So yeah, I mean the what was it, the Audi Q9. It has the raised

and it's like an actual magnet and you stick it on there, it stays,

jill ciminillo (17:29)
the mag space, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:30)
and then they have a vent. They're like all the things people complain about, we've done it. Like I I haven't driven the car yet, so I don't know how well it works. It might just no not like charge bear.

jill ciminillo (17:38)
The some of the new Nissan

vehicles have that and the new Volkswagen Atlas has it.

Sam Abuelsamid (17:44)
Yeah. I think we're in the next year or so we'll start seeing a lot more of those as vehicles get refreshed. I think I think most manufacturers will probably start to incorporate the Chi Two or Mag Safe chargers in there. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (17:56)
Yeah. 'Cause then your stuff doesn't go sliding off. Again I lost

my phone on a E V six G T because we were drifting and it shot off.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (18:07)
And I realized that my drive partner didn't want to do the drifting part. And so they were just waiting for me for an hour and a half, which I didn't know and I felt really bad. So I ran over and I got in the car with them. We drove back to the hotel and then I realized I lost my phone. So then I had to like call somebody with my like my computer and I had to like use find my iPhone and then I watched my phone go to like the taco place and I was really close because then I had the the guy who was bringing me my phone. He's like, I'll bring it to and you I'm gonna go get dinner. I'm like, Yeah, yeah, it's just not a rush because I am an idiot.

I really wanted to text him like, dude, would you get me two tacos? I will give you double what you pay for the tacos for the two tacos. But I didn't 'cause I felt bad and you know, and then ask him favors. Hey, can you bring me a taco? Hey, can you stop at the store and get me like some Gatorade?

Sam Abuelsamid (18:55)
all right.

Roberto Baldwin (18:56)
Anyway, mag safe.

What is all that?

Sam Abuelsamid (19:01)
Okay.

well I had the actually still have the the new twenty twenty six Mazda CX five. which when you look at it, if you've looked if you've seen the previous generation CX five, it looks very much like the previous generation CX five. there you know, when you start looking at the details like the headlights and things like that, you start to see the the differences. But the basic shape is the same as the old CX five. It is

jill ciminillo (19:29)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:29)
about six inches longer.

than the old CX five?

Roberto Baldwin (19:31)
It got Botox.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:33)
Yeah. you know, and the the like the curvature, you know, Mazda, you know, for the last decade or more, you know, has had this design language they call Kodo design. You know, and so when you when you look at it, especially in certain colors, you know, you see, you know, these curves, you know, it's it's meant to look, you know, kind of like a

pebble that's been sitting in a creek for years, you know, with the water flowing over it, it's all nice and smooth. you know, no stay away from sharp edges, things like that. unfortunately you can't really see any of that on this one because the one that I had have is finished in the aero gray metallic paint,

jill ciminillo (20:16)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:17)
which is

like one of the most boring colors. It's it's it's pretty much as boring as Acura as urban grey.

you know, which it's just incredibly dull.

Roberto Baldwin (20:29)
Urban Grey.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:31)
And so, you know, the the the cur

Roberto Baldwin (20:32)
Every Mazda should show up with the red.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:35)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah,

jill ciminillo (20:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:38)
either either either the soul crystal red or the darker burgundy red that they have on the CX seventy, C X ninety, that's that's also acceptable. but the the the grey come on. Grey that's yeah, that's that's

jill ciminillo (20:50)
Yeah. I had white. I had the white test car, so

Sam Abuelsamid (20:54)
just as bad.

so they they launched the new CX five a few months ago. and you know after a fairly long run for the previous generation, it ran close to a decade. and yeah it's a it's a little bit bigger, which makes it you know a little more competitive in terms of interior space now with the rest of the segment. 'Cause you know, they the old one had been around for a while and other everybody else has grown a little bit bigger, a little roomier. So this one

Definitely a lot roomier, especially in the back seat now than it was before. it still has the same right now it's only available with one powertrain, which is the carryover two point five liter gas engine, with a six speed automatic. So it's the same, same sky active G engine that that Mazda's had for quite a number of years. 187 horsepower, 186 foot pounds of torque, which is okay.

you know, but because this this version has gotten a little bigger, a little heavier, it's yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (21:56)
I know it's the same engine but a bigger car.

jill ciminillo (21:58)
Okay. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:59)
it's you know, it's it's a little less lively than it was before.

jill ciminillo (22:02)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:04)
there is a hybrid version coming. It's not out yet, so we haven't driven that one yet. it's a no it's a new Mazda designed hybrid system. We'll see how well that works. and there used to be a two point five liter turbo, which was really great in in the in the old CX five.

That's

not available anymore because they're bringing out the the hybrid. it's fine. the interiors where things really changed on this CX five. you know, the this one is the first one to completely change direction. You know, for for years Nicole always complained about the rotary controller on the central

jill ciminillo (22:44)
Ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:45)
con and center console of Mazdas. She did not like that. you know, she preferred a touch screen.

and you know, I don't know how you feel about those rotary controllers, Joe. you know.

jill ciminillo (22:57)
You know what? I'm a big fan of having both things. Like, why can't you

Sam Abuelsamid (23:00)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (23:01)
have the rotary controller for the people who don't want fingerprints on their screen and the touch screen for people who actually just want to do the swipe? I think you should have both.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:09)
Yeah. well, they they got rid of the rotary controller. and they also got rid of pretty much all the other physical controls in the center stack. And they they went to the extreme of basically making it all touch. You know, they they kinda went, you know, the the Mazda or the the Tesla approach,

jill ciminillo (23:29)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:30)
you know. There's basically the only buttons you have left in the center besides the start stop button, the hazard lights and the defoggers.

Everything else is built into the screen.

Roberto Baldwin (23:42)
Are they didn't

they not get the memo that everyone else has gotten that that people do don't don't they don't like that?

Sam Abuelsamid (23:49)
U apparently not.

Roberto Baldwin (23:51)
Like everyone's walking it back except for Mazda

jill ciminillo (23:53)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (23:54)
apparently and Ribby.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:54)
Yeah. And they just

went all in on that. there's still some there's still some some physical controls on the steering wheel, which is good, because you know, you don't you don't have a volume knob anymore, but at least you've got volume rockers on the

jill ciminillo (24:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:08)
on the steering wheel. so that you know, that works out okay.

this one has a driver monitor system in it but it doesn't have hands-free driving it's got hands-on level two system so it'll keep you centered in the lane it'll it'll also it's also got lane change assist so when you tap the turn signal it you'll feel the the steering wheel starting to turn and and you know it'll move you into the adjacent lane whichever direction you tap the steering the turn signal stock.

for a hands on system, I don't know that that's really all that useful or valuable. You know, if my hands are on the wheel, I can

Roberto Baldwin (24:50)
It is a

jill ciminillo (24:50)
Hm. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (24:53)
I can move the wheel myself. I don't need to have the car do it.

Roberto Baldwin (24:57)
Again, I think when we get anything past regular level two, it's just like, Hey, we're showing off so you know that we're looking towards the future for level four

Sam Abuelsamid (25:06)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (25:07)
in ten, fifteen years. Maybe.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:09)
So

you know, I mean the the interior, you know, aside from the the controls, the rest of the interior is like, you know, like other Mazdas in recent years, you know, really nice, very nice materials. I like the choice of colors, the tan leather in there is looks really nice. It's all really well put together. So, you know, it's they the you know, it still has that premium feel. I just wish it had more physical controls.

Roberto Baldwin (25:37)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:38)
Yeah, which is

Roberto Baldwin (25:39)
It's funny 'cause they took

the rotary control out and then now, you know and of course the rotary engine, that's gone. They're j anything that rotates, they're like, no.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:46)
apparently, yeah.

Next thing you know they'll take out the crankshaft, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (25:49)
Yep, they're like,

no. Wheels?

jill ciminillo (25:50)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (25:51)
Come on.

jill ciminillo (25:52)
Nothing round.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:55)
and the the new infotainment system in here is an Android and Android automotive system. So it's got Google built in. but I couldn't actually use it and evaluate it because Mazda

jill ciminillo (26:05)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:06)
didn't have the connectivity turned on in the press car. so so

jill ciminillo (26:10)
Nope, same.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:11)
so when when you tap on you know on the map, you just get an empty box and an arrow that shows, here's yep, here's your car, here's where your car is.

But nothing there's no roads or anything on the Yeah. Exactly, yes.

Roberto Baldwin (26:21)
You're you're like in the nothing, like in the never ending story, you're just like plopped in the middle of nothing.

Why I mean that's one of the main things people really kind of care about now is, you know, the the the infotainment system. Mostly they can

Sam Abuelsamid (26:35)
You wanna you wanna try out the entertainment?

Roberto Baldwin (26:37)
tear they they care that you can plug in your phone. So I guess there you go. It plugs in your phone.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:40)
Yeah. Well, and unfortunately it it

does have support for wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, so you know, I'm able to use that. So that that wasn't a problem. but yeah, it's you know, it's just one of those you know, I mean for considering what they spend on their press fleets, the the cost of having the the connectivity turned on so the infotainment actually works, seems, you know, kind of trivial. But

Again, this is also a signal of what happens, you know, w with with pretty much all new cars now having connectivity built in and increasingly they are relying on the connectivity to power a lot of the infotainment features, this is what's gonna happen if you after your trial period ends for the connectivity and everybody includes, you know, anywhere from one to three years of of connectivity. Once that expires and you have to start paying for it, if you opt not to pay for it.

you will have to use your phone because none of the built in

Roberto Baldwin (27:42)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (27:42)
stuff is actually gonna work.

Roberto Baldwin (27:44)
Yeah, it's a it's I mean it's one of the reasons why the GM thing where like you can't we don't have CarPlay or Android Autumn. Like first of all your stuff's not as good as either of those. if you want to show the world that you're better than those, you need to make something that's better. And also, guess what? Now you get to pay for another phone bill. Yay. Another subscription, what everyone's really excited about.

jill ciminillo (28:04)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:04)
Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin (28:05)
And they'll say, Well, but you get it for three years and I'm like, Well, I mean if I only own a car for three years, that's cool I guess, but at some point

You know, it's it's you know, I feel like I'm being nickel and dimed just to own a car and win yeah. Womp

Sam Abuelsamid (28:19)
Well,

Roberto Baldwin (28:20)
womp.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:20)
in in in a few minutes we'll we'll be talking about another new vehicle that's actually a competitor to this one. and that's one of the the potential issues with that one as well. We'll get to that in a couple of minutes. So you know the the driving dynamics of this one, it definitely doesn't didn't feel as sporty as what I've ha had with CX fives in the past. It's still good, the steering feels good.

The

ride quality's really good, it's very comfortable. you know, it but yeah, again, a little bigger, a little heavier, just not quite as doesn't have that zoom zoom flair you expect of a Mazda. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (28:59)
It's just a zoo. At

jill ciminillo (29:00)
Yeah. It's a

Roberto Baldwin (29:01)
the little at the end

jill ciminillo (29:02)
zoom.

Roberto Baldwin (29:02)
of the first one. It's more zoo than Zoom.

jill ciminillo (29:07)
Well, it you know, I feel like I said that if you've never driven a Mazda before, you will love this vehicle. You know, the screen is great, the interior is, I mean, a little bit plain, but fine. And you know, the seats are a little bit more comfortable than we've had in Mazdas in recent years. And, you know, it it it drives well enough. You know, the engine is good enough. And but if you have like a current generation CX5 and you love that rotary dial.

Or, you know, if you have that turbocharged engine, you will not like this vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:40)
Yeah, you you will come away a little disappointed. Now, you know, some of that might change once the hybrid version comes out 'cause that's gonna be more powerful than this one.

jill ciminillo (29:49)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:50)
but we'll have to wait until sometime in the new year, to get our hands on that one. so the the one that

Roberto Baldwin (29:56)
And you ha you have to have

a hybrid in this segment. If you don't have a hybrid at this point. It's bad times.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:00)
yeah, absolutely. If if you don't, you're gonna

you're gonna be missing out on a lot of potential customers. Yes, we're talking to you, Jam.

I mean they are basically the only ones left that have no hybrids.

jill ciminillo (30:16)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:16)
you know. Well Ford actually Ford doesn't have a hybrid in this class either now that they got rid of the escape, so

jill ciminillo (30:23)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:24)
well.

Roberto Baldwin (30:24)
Even Stellantis has a hybrid, come on. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid (30:27)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (30:28)
some h yeah, yeah, the Cherokee, yeah. I drove that car. There you go. Works fine. I know it's a class above,

Sam Abuelsamid (30:30)
Yeah, and the Cherokee. Although Cherokee's really a class above this size wise now.

jill ciminillo (30:31)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (30:35)
but at least they have a hybrid.

Sam Abuelsamid (30:37)
Yeah,

and you know, when the new compass does eventually arrive, at some point in the indeterminate future, it will have a hybrid as well. So so the the CX five I had was the premium plus, which is the top trim level. sticker price thirty eight nine ninety. the only options on this one were for some reason they charge an extra five hundred and ninety five dollars for this incredibly boring paint.

jill ciminillo (31:06)
Huh.

Roberto Baldwin (31:08)
What

what's the what's the base paint? Is it just

jill ciminillo (31:11)
Probably

Sam Abuelsamid (31:11)
Probably yeah, probably the white. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (31:12)
white. Probably what I had. The

white and the black

Roberto Baldwin (31:14)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (31:15)
are usually free and everything else is an upcharge.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:18)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (31:18)
Man. I can't imagine paying

for gray paint.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:22)
So since since we're back to three now, shall we take do the the delivery charge guess?

Roberto Baldwin (31:30)
Yes. Now we can

Sam Abuelsamid (31:32)
Yeah.

Go ahead. How much do you

Roberto Baldwin (31:36)
sixteen.

jill ciminillo (31:40)
Yeah, I'll say like fifteen ninety five, 'cause they like to do that weird stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:48)
well you you you you beat Robbie by five bucks, it's actually fourteen ninety five. So so relatively modest by today's standards for delivery charges.

Roberto Baldwin (31:53)
Ooh Kajamas

Sam Abuelsamid (31:59)
So grand total of forty one thousand and eighty dollars, including the the paint and the and the delivery charge. so yeah, I mean the the CX five is very nice, but just compared to the old one, a little bit meh.

jill ciminillo (32:17)
Little bit less.

Roberto Baldwin (32:17)
I mean ever

making cars

Sam Abuelsamid (32:18)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (32:18)
is expensive.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:20)
Yes.

well as we're talking about compact crossovers, let's let's jump right to the twenty twenty seven Hyundai Tucson. All three of us were in New York this week for the global

Roberto Baldwin (32:35)
Yay.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:36)
unveiling of the of the twenty twenty seven Tucson. and what what did you th what did you both think of it?

Roberto Baldwin (32:45)
I like the the styling. what did I say? It's the was it the Broncos sport concept from the year you know, twenty thirty four or something like that. I don't I made a joke.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:56)
huh.

jill ciminillo (32:55)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (32:57)
I told Tim Stevens though it was a joke. He heard it. Someone call him, he'll tell you. He'll

Sam Abuelsamid (32:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (33:01)
remind you what it was. but no, I I think, you know, the Hyundai Motor Group they're they're they get a little aggressive with their styling. sometimes it hits, sometimes it misses. I l I actually like this type. Even the weird little tail lights.

I sat inside. I am a big fan of tiny dash clusters. So that one little thin dash cluster. Because really I just how fast am I going? What's my ADAS information? And maybe an arrow that I gotta go left or right. I don't need a whole map. I don't need all this other stuff. I don't need the the the trailseeker has that same problem that the Toyotas have, 'cause, you know, it's the same car. Is that everything's crammed in a right hand corner. It's like a thousand little icons all on. I d I no. Let's stop. Let's stop with that.

so I yeah, I like a nice small dash cluster, so I dig it. yeah. They sell a bunch of so we'll see if they'll continue to sell with this new design.

jill ciminillo (33:56)
Yeah, I I think the design is great. I I think it's it's different and Hyundai has been doing a lot of different lately. And you know, I like the angles. I you know, I I like the lighting signatures. I also would like to point out that the taillights, the blinker used to be on the lower bumper of of the of the rear and it annoyed me to no end, especially when people cut me off in Chicago

Roberto Baldwin (34:22)
like the Chevy Bolt?

jill ciminillo (34:24)
traffic.

Roberto Baldwin (34:25)
I hate that.

jill ciminillo (34:25)
you know, I

I could not see that they were had their blinker on because it was too low. And but they had those tail lights that you referenced that I I think are very Cadillac vertical esque. you know, they've moved the the blinker, at least for the American market, into the tail light. So I like that. I didn't get to spend any time really sitting in the driver's seat and and you know, playing with things and touching things, but the new infotainment system, operating system, ple Pleios, Pleos.

Pleo, Pleios, tomato tomato

Roberto Baldwin (34:54)
Playoffs? Playoffs.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:54)
Playos. According to Eric Wood, it's playos.

jill ciminillo (34:58)
Pleos.

Roberto Baldwin (34:58)
Cleos.

jill ciminillo (34:59)
you know, I think that looks really interesting. I will say that the I I you know, I and and when I posted about this on my social stuff, somebody actually posted photos in my comments because, you know, i it was a question I didn't even think to ask because we haven't driven it yet. But do they still have the blind view monitor? And they do, but it has moved into the center stack, so it's no longer

you know, the right left in the behind the wheel cluster, it's now, you know, in in the center sack. So

Roberto Baldwin (35:26)
that's not worth it's it's what's the point? Just

jill ciminillo (35:29)
I I don't know. I mean, time will tell on how that you know, Hyundai made a big deal about it being very intuitive and very user friendly. And I mean, obviously we didn't get to drive and test it, but you know, I'm certainly gonna be very curious about how that all operates, especially while you're driving and, you know, the the tile setup and y I I think it's interesting and, you know, I mean you can't really

get a good gauge of it until you're behind the wheel for a period of time. But I think the interior looks good. The exterior looks good. I love the XRT Pro version. You know, that that to me, like I'm I do off-road rally racing. And I that to me looks really cool. And I am I can't wait to to take that off road. You know, they've added some new like trail cam features and

Although I I don't think they call it the trail cam because I think that's somebody else's words. But they, you know, have some new off road y features and some smart technology that will help in off road situations. And so I'm looking forward to that.

Roberto Baldwin (36:31)
They showed a video which is clearly an animation th where it jumped and I was like, guys, don't

Sam Abuelsamid (36:37)
huh.

Roberto Baldwin (36:37)
do that. Also, none of us have mentioned that it's bold. Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid (36:42)
Apparently, according to Hyundai, it is the boldest Tucson ever.

jill ciminillo (36:47)
Boldest.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:48)
boldest,

Roberto Baldwin (36:48)
Boldest.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:48)
yes. as as we were pulling up, you know, they they took us to the the venue. you know, we were staying in Manhattan and they put us on a ferry and took us around the south end of Manhattan up to Long Island City and the the the venue, you know, they had it graffitied or probably wrapped more likely. you know, it's a big

big blue letters, the boldest Tucson. and that's that I guess that's their their tagline for this thing.

jill ciminillo (37:18)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:18)
but you know I think I I do I do like the design. I agree with both of you. I like the design, you know, and there's there's elements you can see in this you know that we saw previewed in the the boulder concept at the New York show this year. You know, especially in the shape of the fenders. that that fender shape, you know, is

of you know it's the same kind of shape that we saw on the boulder, not nearly as extreme as on that vehicle, but

jill ciminillo (37:45)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:45)
you know, same similar kind of shape to it. and you know they they've you know when they brought out the current Santa Fe a couple of years ago, you know, they kinda went a little overboard with the lighting with incorporating the H, the Hyundai H into the lights like literally everywhere on that thing. this time they they took a little more

discrete approach to it. with, you know, having the two thin vertical bars for the head li for the the s the driving lamps and then the slim horizontal light bar, you know, kind of making the H. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then you the

Roberto Baldwin (38:21)
It's the Cylon from the eighties light bar. That's what I if you look see the

gray one. If you have a picture of the gray one that they had there, it looks like a

Cylon.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:29)
yeah. I I I have pictures of it but I don't I haven't loaded it up in here right now.

Roberto Baldwin (38:35)
No, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:36)
but you know it it you know and then you know basically the same thing echoed at the rear, you know, with the the tail lights and you've got a red horizontal bar. so it it it you know, it I think it's it's a much more discreet version of the same thing. So you get the H but it's not not quite as overbearing.

as it was on the Santa Fe. the I did get a chance to play with the the Plios Connect system, which is their new infotainment system. and I shot some video going through it but when I watched it back some other guys that were in the car and they were talking and basically you can't hear it 'cause I w I wanted to try out the and no it was not it was not the two of you. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (39:18)
Was it Tim and I? 'Cause we were doing there. Or was it after we left? Cause we were we jumped in the car as we had a chance to

jill ciminillo (39:20)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (39:24)
start talking to it, and then I think I saw you jump in the back.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:25)
Yeah, no, I I

because I was I think I was sitting in the back seat when you guys were doing that. And then I went in the in the XRT Pro and was

doing it in that one. but the I wanted to try out the the Glio AI, which is their new AI digital assistant. So they you know, it's an L L based digital assistant, voice assistant. and it actually worked, you know, like watching you and Tim go through it and then when I tried it myself

It actually seems to seem to work pretty well. you know, just talking to it naturally, you don't have to remember any particular syntax. you know, looking for a pizza and then ask you know, trying to and narrow down the the selection and or you know, whatever whatever you you try to asking it, it works works pretty well. But the thing to keep in mind is it's all cloud based. So if you happen to be somewhere where you don't have any connectivity, like

let's say western Marin County or most of Sonoma County. you might be out of luck. or you know if you you know if you've opted not to pay for that extra connectivity package on your car,

jill ciminillo (40:40)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:40)
you're gonna be out of luck. yeah.

jill ciminillo (40:42)
You've been cut off.

Roberto Baldwin (40:42)
Yeah. That's pretty

much all these AI things that are like, it'll and and also what's funny is that this is just reminiscent of MBUX from like five, eight years ago. I don't know, a long time. I don't know how time works, but like you I remember them doing the exactly like being able to ask the same sort of questions. I know that's a very expensive vehicle and it takes a while for this stuff to sort of and this is you know, it's the neast it's the Hyundai Tucson. So you're getting that sort of that ability

But yeah, it's again it all comes down to Okay, but you gotta pay for it after three years or f however long Hyundai. I own a Hyundai, I don't even know how long the

jill ciminillo (41:16)
Yeah, they haven't Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:18)
the connectivity is for.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:22)
but you know, I mean w as long as you've got connectivity, you know, it seemed to work pretty well. excuse me. And then, you know, on the screen, you know, I I shot this one while while I was sitting in the back seat with with you and Tim.

Roberto Baldwin (41:36)
As you can tell there's p there's tacarillas on there because of course

Sam Abuelsamid (41:39)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (41:39)
we were asked looking for burrit yeah, Tim asked for

Sam Abuelsamid (41:41)
Looking for taco.

Roberto Baldwin (41:42)
the best burrito in in New York, which is kind of a loaded question.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:46)
Is is there a is there a good burrito in New York?

Roberto Baldwin (41:49)
I'm sure there is. I don't you know, I don't live in New York, but

Sam Abuelsamid (41:52)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (41:52)
I don't go to New York and be like, Ooh, I'm gonna get a burrito. I go to New York and I'm like, Ooh, I'm gonna eat all the pizza I can shove in my body without, you know,

jill ciminillo (41:58)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:58)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (42:00)
falling into a diabetic coma.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:03)
but un unlike Mazda, Hyundai has kept some physical controls in here. So you got a volume knob, you got a tuning knob, you got rockers for your temperature, up and down for temperature, for fan speed, a bun and you still have manual vents too. Manual vents always

Roberto Baldwin (42:21)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:22)
a good thing.

jill ciminillo (42:23)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:23)
so this I mean at first glance, you know, spending a couple of minutes with it, the Plios Connect looks pretty good. it's a nice big screen.

The you know, the voice assistant seems to work reasonably well. You know, we'll have to wait until sometime early in twenty twenty seven to actually try all this out when it comes to market here. you know, it's the car itself is a little bit bigger than before. it's a couple inches longer, it's about two and a half inches longer. so it's not hugely larger. still got the the one point six liter turbo.

They they haven't they haven't given exactly what specs are gonna be on the US market cars or the North American market cars. So the the specs that they gave us, you know, have four different powertrain options. They've got the the the two-liter naturally aspirated four cylinder they have now, the one point six liter turbo, and then the hybrid and plug-in hybrid. And the hybrid and plug-in hybrid are new. it's an it's their next generation hybrid system.

So it's basically the same hybrid system that debuted on the the Palisade and the Telluride earlier this year. so instead of a belted starter generator, they moved the the the motor the first motor generator unit to the back end of the engine, to the end of the crankshaft. so it's it's smoother, more powerful than before, and more efficient. so they're saying up to forty two miles per gallon for the front wheel drive hybrid.

Forty miles per gallon for the four wheel drive with the seventeen inch wheels. thirty eight for the four wheel drive with the larger wheels, forty miles per gallon for the for the front wheel drive with the larger wheels. So pretty good fuel economy. and then I think for they haven't said what the range is gonna be. or did they? They it it does have a bigger battery. I think that I think they said about forty two miles of range.

so

it's a seventeen point one kilowatt hour battery in the plug in. so it should be around forty one forty two, which is good. not quite as good as the the re the latest RAV4 plug in which does like

Roberto Baldwin (44:39)
Or the last

generation Chevy Bolt from fifty thousand years ago?

Sam Abuelsamid (44:43)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (44:45)
And that's Volt with a V.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:46)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (44:46)
Vault with the V.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:48)
but overall, you know, it looks looks really promising and like so we should be driving it sometime early in twenty twenty seven, hopefully.

jill ciminillo (44:56)
Yeah. And I think I heard that the American market is only supposed to get the gas and the hybrid, that the PHEV, at least initially, isn't coming here.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:05)
Okay.

jill ciminillo (45:07)
So

Sam Abuelsamid (45:08)
All right, well

Roberto Baldwin (45:09)
Whop womp, but you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:09)
we'll see. I mean the PHEV

doesn't sell in huge numbers anyway.

Roberto Baldwin (45:13)
Yeah, P Haves are weird because it everyone was like, P Havs are gonna take over and then you look at the numbers, you're like, no one buys these things. Like

jill ciminillo (45:20)
They should, but they do not.

Roberto Baldwin (45:22)
they look at the the Bev numbers are way higher than the P Hav numbers. And I remember somebody was like, be P Havs are the they're the future. No one's gonna buy EVs anymore and then like six I'm like, if you I mean I don't think so, but sure. And then I looked at numbers like six months later, I'm like, I guess they didn't?

Sam Abuelsamid (45:37)
I mean plug in hybrids have never really gotten much over two percent market share in in the US. and right now they're closer to about one point five, one point six percent. So, you know, it's like a quarter of the sales of BEVs.

Roberto Baldwin (45:53)
Yeah, it's

Sam Abuelsamid (45:55)
so the yeah, the hybrid is gonna be like two hundred and thirty three horsepower. and the the one point six turbo looks like it's gonna be a hundred and eighty four horsepower.

So it should should it should do fine. I think I think this thing will sell pretty well.

Roberto Baldwin (46:14)
yeah, so they're gonna they're gonna sell a lot of

Sam Abuelsamid (46:16)
At this week's global debut of the twenty twenty seven Hyundai Tucson in New York, I had a chance to chat for a few minutes with Eric Wood, who is the head of product experience at Forty Two Dot, which is a software division within Hyundai, about the new Playos Connect infotainment system that is having its North American debut on the Tucson. it's already available in Korea on the new grandeur and it's also coming on a number of other upcoming models. didn't get a

Too long to talk, but I got some interesting tidbits about the new system. So have a listen.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:48)
well a few questions for you about is it Playos? Is that the current pronunciation? Okay. So first of all, the the E architecture this is built in. I s I noticed on one of your slides it looked kinda like a zonal architecture. Does the is the Tucson based on a zonal architecture?

Eric Wood (47:06)
They're gonna have to refer you back so we are working on zonal architecture. I am not sure if the Tucson is in that code.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:14)
Okay. So looking more specifically at the Playos software stack. Yep. built on Android automotive, but you're not using the Google automotive services on there. So for your marketplace, curious everyone back, yeah. Are have you at least incorporated Play services or you mentioned your your S D K that you have. Is that basically taking the place of Play services? That's right. So that's It's

Services.

Okay. Because I know, you know, part of what's in place play services is some of the functions and APIs that used to be part of the the core Android stack. and I know

Eric Wood (47:59)
Don't quote me on that, but I think that's th those will still work. Okay. What we did is we took a strategy of layering stuff on top rather than replacing. Okay. We wanted like maximum compatibility. Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:09)
Okay. So for you know for developers that already have an Android app that is used on other Android automotive systems, that's right. They can they just submit that to the Hyundai marketplace and get it evaluated and then approved for for distribution.

Okay, so they they wouldn't have to necessarily make any changes or change API calls to call

Eric Wood (48:43)
So you still have to recompile because it's a different app store. But I don't think you have to change any software, but yeah, I'm not a developer. But but that is the strategy.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:52)
Okay. So what what other capabilities are available with the the Playos S DK?

Eric Wood (48:58)
You have to look at

Sam Abuelsamid (49:02)
what I do know

Legal if

So from a a user experience perspective, kind of what was the what was your overall strategy in designing the the user experience for Playos and you know what what what if anything, you know what were you trying to do differently from existing Hyundai systems? Yeah, the system that you see right now is basically our first try out making a completely you know Android based system. I think we learned a lot

can do it. the user can have multiple different layouts that they can choose from.

Or was it up to three different windows that they can

got manual events in there too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well thank you so much, Eric.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:14)
all right. the Lexus T Z.

jill ciminillo (53:18)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:19)
the yeah, n no. Tis

Roberto Baldwin (53:19)
Lexus Texas? No, it's a Lexus.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:23)
the Te the Texas is already here. so this is the the three row electric crossover from Lexus. So it's based on the same platform as the new Highlander and the Subaru Getaway. but it looks like the T Z is not being delayed 'cause the the Highlander and the Getaway are gonna be produced in Kentucky.

The T Z is coming from Japan. and I was talking to somebody earlier this week. apparently they're having some supply issues with at least some supplier for the Highlander and Getaway. And so those have been those that launch, which was supposed to happen before the end of this year, it's been pushed out into early part of twenty twenty seven. The T Z is still supp at least according to Lexus, is still supposed to launch before the end of the year and they've got pricing now.

and the base price on the T Z looks pretty good. let's see where find the right tab here. It's it's starting at sixty f sixty four sixty four and change. let me find it here. sixty four thousand fifty dollars for the base Lexus T Z four fifty E. So the T Z all the T Z come standard.

with dual motor all wheel drive. The but the base model, the premium trim, gets a smaller battery. It's only a 77 kilowatt hour battery, which should be somewhere around 230, 240 miles of range. so that's why it's 64,000. The premium touring with the bigger 96 kilowatt hour battery, 72,000, and then the luxury trim is going to be 80,000 five fifty. and those prices are all including the

thirteen fifteen fifteen fifty destination charge for those. so the the T Z should hopefully get a chance to drive that sometime in the next next two or three months if they're still gonna launch it. Sometime before the end of the year if they're gonna launch it before before the end of the year.

all right, let's see back here. EVGO announced

jill ciminillo (55:46)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:46)
this week that they are working on new chargers, seven hundred and fifty kilowatt chargers that they're plan to start deploying in twenty twenty seven.

Roberto Baldwin (55:56)
Cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:57)
and so that would be the most most powerful chargers for at least for light duty vehicles, in North America.

They're you know, they are starting to roll out some megawatt chargers for for heavy trucks. but those,

jill ciminillo (56:12)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:13)
you know, those use a different connector, a different cable. but the right now the the most we've got, I think anywhere for light duty vehicles is four hundred kilowatts.

Roberto Baldwin (56:24)
Six hundred from charge point. Yep. Yeah, it's

Sam Abuelsamid (56:26)
Do they have the six hundred deployed now? okay.

Roberto Baldwin (56:29)
the what's it called? Express solo. I had to write about it.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:33)
okay.

Well the

Roberto Baldwin (56:38)
That's how I know things. I'm like, I better do this. I better do

my job.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:44)
The new the new EVGo chargers you know will put out seven hundred fifty kilowatts in total and they'll like most chargers they'll have two cables on them and it'll have dynamic power sharing between the cables. And since there isn't anything sold here that gets that charges at over four hundred kilowatts anyway, you should be able to get basically full unless you plug in two like BMW IX3s ex

exactly the same time, you basically be able to get full charging on both of them, with this with

Roberto Baldwin (57:18)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:19)
these chargers. And they're gonna be putting NAX cables on them too, which is good.

So yeah, Ev

Roberto Baldwin (57:29)
Red.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:29)
Evigo we we had good luck with the Evigo chargers during the Operation Frodo trip in June. So they've

Roberto Baldwin (57:35)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:36)
got they've gotten a lot better with their reliability.

Roberto Baldwin (57:38)
Yeah, one by the Denny's in Wyoming.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:40)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (57:41)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:44)
all right. Chevy Bolt. Have either of you had a chance to drive the twenty twenty seven Bolt?

jill ciminillo (57:50)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (57:50)
No,

I don't even know if they have it. I man, I have so many thoughts about G how GM's treated this car. Just and I think

jill ciminillo (57:57)
Ha ha

Roberto Baldwin (57:58)
I've I've I've complained so many times about how they've treated this very good car, and so I'll just be quiet.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:08)
I I I have seen one parked at the airport in in the Press Fleet area, but I have not been able to get scheduled into one to drive it yet. Yeah. So when they when they revamped the vol the bolt, you know, brought it back this year. Yes. Thank you. When they re yeah.

jill ciminillo (58:24)
Well with a B.

Roberto Baldwin (58:28)
What would it be?

Sam Abuelsamid (58:29)
When they when they revamped it this year, you know, when they when they discontinued it in twenty twenty three, the old bolts

were built with a previous generation of motor and battery technology that GM had. And it was considerably more expensive to manufacture. And even though they were selling them at a starting price of twenty eight thousand dollars, you know, the twenty twenty three was the last full year. That was their best sales year ever for the bolt, with like s around sixty five thousand units that year. and then they discontinued it because they were losing many thousands of dollars on every one of those bolts that they sold.

But then when people complained, they said, Okay, we're gonna bring the bolt back, but we're gonna re engineer it with our latest hardware from the the Altium platform. So new motors, new batteries, new LFP batteries, and faster charging, which were that was the big complaint about the old bolt. Well, between the time they announced that in late twenty twenty three and the time that the bolt actually arrived three years or two two years two a little more than two years later.

A whole bunch of stuff changed.

jill ciminillo (59:37)
huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:39)
let's see. The IRA tax credits went away. you know, some guy was reelected. The IRA tax credits went away. tariffs arrived, and the bolt was using the using is currently using C A T L batteries from China, which means that those batteries are getting hit with right now about a thirty eight percent tariff.

on those batteries. so that hurts that that basically eliminates all the cost advantages that they had from going going from an N C battery to an L F battery. and then because the tax credits went away, they you know all all you know all the E V sales slowed down. but at the same time the demand for energy storage exploded.

because of all the data centers that they're building. and GM also last year announced that they've developed this new battery chemistry, lithium manganese rich, which is about the same cost as the lithium iron phosphate, but has almost the same energy density as the nickel batteries that they had before. and so they decided we're gonna ditch LFP, we're gonna focus on LMR going forwards.

and so they had at when they originally announced the bolt b coming back this year, the plan was they were going to temporarily import LFP batteries from China while

jill ciminillo (1:01:14)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:14)
they retooled their Spring Hill, Tennessee battery plant with with LG to make LFP batteries for EVs. Well, when they decided no we're gonna do LMR instead, they canceled that plan to build LFP batteries for cars in Tennessee.

And they instead decided to build L F P batteries for energy storage systems, which is what they're doing now. and so because they're not gonna have batteries for these cars and the batteries are going to be more expensive and they don't have any tax credits on they've decided to cut short the production run for the bolt to only about eighteen months and apparently only about thirty five thousand units.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:05)
I mean I still have I'm still angry at GM for how they treated this vehicle, but that's a whole long story because they've they've they had the best selling vehicle that didn't have a Tesla badge on it. And instead of like, we're making a new one like they're like, we're gonna get rid of it and then the press release we're gonna use the place to build a hundred thousand dollar silver autos. I'm like And then this the new one comes out and they're like, but we're only making a few They're like

jill ciminillo (1:02:28)
Then what was the point?

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:29)
Yeah, it's

it's a very yeah, it's it's such a it's it's I feel bad for the engineers

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:33)
Well that's the other thing. It

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:35)
who worked really hard on this vehicle and they're just like, come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:38)
Well that that's the other tariff related thing I forgot to mention. Because of the tariffs, they decided they needed to move production of the Chevy Equinox and GMC terrain from Mexico to the US. And so they're gonna use the same plant where they're building the bolt now in in Kansas, Fairfax, Kansas, is gonna switch from making the bolt to making the the equinox and terrain. And the next generation Buick Envision is also gonna be produced at Fairfax instead of being built in China like it is now.

So a a whole bunch of stuff piled up on top of each other to basically doom the doom the bolt.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:16)
Good little car. In

jill ciminillo (1:03:17)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:18)
the hands of someone else, I think it would have been fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:19)
But but GM's next

gen EVs are gonna use those LMR batteries and they're gonna build in Spring Hill. So they're retooling that plant now.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:31)
Hopefully they'll continue to make And especially if they're selling well they won't kill it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:37)
Yeah,

we'll see. So far, this year their their EV sales have really been in the toilet.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:45)
Well

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:46)
Toyota Toyota's E V sales have more than doubled. GMs have tanked completely.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:50)
Yeah.

Hyundai's still killing it. It's just yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:56)
so this past week NHTA finalized the gutting of corporate average fuel economy standards. so going back to like twenty sixteen standards or something like that. okay. Yeah, close enough.

jill ciminillo (1:04:09)
I think it was twenty twenty two. So not quite that far, but close enough.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:15)
but there there was one interesting detail that was in the in the new regulation, what they changed. So up until now, ever since

nineteen seventies when they first started corporate average fuel economy, they they've split the numbers so they calculate numbers for passenger cars and trucks separately. and the the way that they define light trucks is if it's a pickup truck or a van, obviously a light truck, but somehow a lot of car based crossovers

jill ciminillo (1:04:54)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:54)
which

have cropped up in the last thirty years have gotten classified as light trucks and end up in the in the average with light trucks, which helps improve the average, you know, when you've got big heavy trucks that don't get very good fuel economy, that having those lumped in, having those smaller vehicles lumped in with them improved the average for the light trucks. so you ended up with cars like the Chrysler PT Cruiser being classed as a light truck.

Even though it was obviously not a truck. Well that's that is true.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:26)
I mean it was barely a car to be honest.

jill ciminillo (1:05:28)
Ha

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:30)
Don't don't let my neighbor Lori hear you say that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:32)
I listen, the people who love the PT Cruiser absolutely love it. I was so excited the first time I was gonna get to drive one and then I was angry within like ten minutes. No car has made me so angry so quickly.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:44)
My my next door neighbor is on her second PT cruiser. Her her original

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:46)
Yeah, people love I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:49)
one died about five years ago and she bought it found another used one and bought it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:52)
Yeah.

More power. If you love that car, I'm good for you. But that just it made me so angry so quickly. It was crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:00)
Well, they've they've thrown out that whole passenger car light truck classification now. And they came up with something they call light duty weight factor.

jill ciminillo (1:06:10)
Ha ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:12)
so right now because of the the passenger car light truck thing, about seventy percent of the vehicles on the road are classified as light trucks and thirty percent cars. Under this new approach, that's basically gonna flip to about seventy percent cars and thirty percent trucks. Because to qualify as a truck, the light duty weight factor is basically the sum of the payload and the towing capacity for the vehicle. And

To classify as a truck, that has to exceed 8,500 pounds. Very few of the

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:46)
For the payload or the towing?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:48)
the combined payload and towing has to be more than 8,500 pounds.

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:50)
okay. Alright, sorry. Alright.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:53)
So if you've got a vehicle that can tow 7,500 pounds and has a thousand pound payload, you're good. If it tows 6,000 pounds and has a thousand pound payload, that can't be a that won't be a light truck.

and most of the crossovers, except for like the l the largest utility SUVs, don't come close to that eighty five hundred pound threshold. So most of them are gonna go back to being classified as light trucks. So that could make for some interesting calculations for automakers in the next few years as they try to figure out how to ev even even with the reduced standards, they're

jill ciminillo (1:07:32)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:32)
suddenly gonna have a lot more vehicles that are classified as cars now than before.

And a lot of those vehicles, if they don't have hybrids in them,

jill ciminillo (1:07:42)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:42)
don't get that great fuel economy.

jill ciminillo (1:07:45)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:45)
Even the

ones with hybrids were like, you got three extra miles per gallon 'cause you put a hybrid in. Cool

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:51)
Well, you know, I mean, you look at something like the the Tucson, you know, with the hybrid, you know, forty ish miles per gallon, with you know, with the gas engine, it's in the mid twenties. and also that's the X five that I've got in the driveway. That thing when I it's rated at twenty six combined, I think. or and and I only got twenty four on my mileage loop with that one. So not not great.

so be

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:23)
I it'll be fun

to like track the how how much a vehicle a large SUV now tows and 'cause they're gonna have to figure something out to like 'cause they wanna hit that threshold. So we'll we'll it'll be fun to see how, you know,

jill ciminillo (1:08:36)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:37)
mid to large SUVs that may have previously been light trucks are now cars and they have to make back into light trucks by like, well now it tows twenty thousand yeah. Now it'll tow a house. Yeah. And you're

jill ciminillo (1:08:47)
Fifty thousand pounds now. Yeah, you could tow a house for

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:48)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:52)
Lincoln.

Navigator.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:54)
Well, I a navigator's got I think it's got like eight thousand pound towing capacity anyway and something like fifteen hundred pounds payload. So yeah. The the big the big body on frame SUVs will be fine. But yeah,

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:08)
Yeah, 'cause those are basically trucks anyway, so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:10)
it any of the the crossovers, you know, anything, you know, like a a Honda pilot or a Palisade, or telluride, you know, or an explorer even, you know, they're

They're not gonna do s you know, they're typically no more than five thousand pounds towing. in some cases as low as like thirty five hundred. and so they're probably not gonna qualify as trucks.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:35)
Dun.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:37)
Yeah,

that's the way goes.

jill ciminillo (1:09:40)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:42)
all right, and then Jeep when they when they launched the new Cherokee last year or when they unveiled the new Cherokee, they did not include a trail hawk version. but when I know when we talked to them at the at the background or at the at the unveiling of it, they they did kind of hint that yes, a trailhawk is coming.

and now it's it's official. There there is a new Cherokee Trailhawk on the way. but interestingly, still only with the hybrid powertrain. I would have thought when they launched the Trailhawk that they might launch an additional powertrain, but but apparently

jill ciminillo (1:10:22)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:22)
not.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:23)
I mean they don't have a lot of money, so I s I

jill ciminillo (1:10:26)
Ha ha

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:27)
Ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:29)
mean that's a b I I don't wanna p I'm not picking on Jeep or on Stellantis, I don't need to. but you know, it's even you have limited you like you have to work with what you got. And if you're Jeep you gotta have a trail hawk. It's gotta be trail rated or whatever you wanna, you know. I mean no one's gonna do anything, you know. Three people will will will trail, you know, hit the trails with this thing. But you gotta have it.

jill ciminillo (1:10:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:53)
What

what do you think of the trail the new trailhawk, Jill?

jill ciminillo (1:10:58)
You know, I I again as somebody who does you know some off roading, I I like I like the idea of it, but the proof is gonna be in the pudding. you know, how does it actually handle? And you know, what do you like I w I'm looking at the press release and I'm like, okay, so the I mean, forty four thousand dollars, including a nineteen ninety five destination charge. so

Around forty six thousand dollars. I mean that that's a that's a little bit of a chunk of change for a a a Cherokee. I I like how it looks. You know, I like the it looks like it has some chunkier overfenders. so I I TBD, but you know, I like the idea of it. I like the idea of it. And you know what?

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:45)
I think it's like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:44)
Huh.

jill ciminillo (1:11:46)
I will say when I drove the regular Cherokee, that hybrid powertrain is actually really good.

I mean the transition between hybrid and gas is a little bit clunky, but I actually got really good fuel economy while I was driving it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:01)
I I I like that everyone's Jeep Cherokee experience driving the vehicle is like better than I anticipated. It's not perfect. It's not Toyota, it's not a Honda,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:07)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:12:07)
Yes. Yes, it's not perfect, but

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:10)
but it's better than I expected. That's literally that across the board.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:13)
That that

just shows how low the bar has gotten for Stellantis products in recent years.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:17)
Yeah. Yeah. They're like, hey.

You know, if you're a Jeep person, you're gonna buy a Jeep anyway. You might as well Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:23)
It didn't blow up. It didn't it didn't brick itself.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:26)
I didn't get a check engine light. Well it's fun is if you tap the gas

jill ciminillo (1:12:30)
it didn't break itself. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:32)
if you tap the accelerator, it'll gurgle and the car will get all weirded out. Yeah, I've just a thing. 'Cause

jill ciminillo (1:12:37)
Did I have any experience?

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:39)
sometimes I'll just tap the accelerator on cars to see what happens and some of them are like, okay. But others are like, god, what's happening? Especially hybrids. We get really

jill ciminillo (1:12:45)
Whoa Are we going? We're

not going? What?

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:47)
Yeah,

they're just they're they're they're they're It's like on your mark get set smoke a cigarette. Remember that when you're a little kid? Like I'm doing that to the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:57)
Yeah, so so the the Trailhawk, they gave it a one inch lift, so it's nine inches of ground clearance now, which is is definitely better than before.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:05)
that's nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:06)
you know, different bumpers, so it's got better approach and departure angles. and they they say twenty four inches of water fording depth. so you know, it can it can, you know, actually go kind of off road now.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:20)
they

should put a snorkel on it.

jill ciminillo (1:13:24)
I'm like, that's nearly half of me.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:26)
Right. It's one half a unit of jail.

jill ciminillo (1:13:30)
Nearly it's like up to my waist.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:34)
let's see. yeah, and you know, their active drive two four by four system with lock mode. exactly what that means in the context of a hybrid, not quite sure yet, but should it it'll definitely be better than the Cherokees that are out there right now.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:53)
I like the red bezel for the for the mode selectors on the center console. It's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:58)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:59)
like BAM, we're going off road.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:03)
all right. let's see. Hyundai. Hyundai has said that the Hyundai's R and D boss made some comments about solid state cells and and you were there when he made these comments, Robbie.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:17)
I was there. I was in this

I was in this meeting with this with Tim. It was Tim and I and some other people. Tim from Inside EVs, not another Tim. but yeah, we we talked to them about solid state 'cause you have to ask. And I made the joke. I'm like, is it it's always five years away? It's been five years away for the last twenty years and they're like, Yeah, it has.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:40)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:41)
And at the end of like sort of answering the question, he's like, So it's kind of five years away. But

I have to look up a lot of research for my job, for the battery magazine that I run, which is super nerdy. and Honda pays for a lot of research into solid state batteries in Korea. So I ca that's why I sort of push them on my you're paying for research for this. And so they're like, Yeah, we you know, we're we're working on it. You know, they they they wanna own it. They won't don't wanna license it, you if Honda or Samsung or LG or Toyota or whoever you know, cracks the cracks this nut.

you know, Hyundai wants to own their technology. People don't want to license battery technology anymore because it's just like why are we doing? So so yeah, I understand while they're doing that. so yeah, no, it's it's it's interesting 'cause I think a question I think I also asked them, is there a point? Are we you know, and and you know, because batteries are charging so much quicker than they used to, especially if you look at what's going on in China,

And you know, and you know, I know what the point is and I wanted to make sure that they were they 'cause I've heard a couple of people who like, you know, what's the point? You know, lithium ions. They're like the point is that you get a smaller battery because of the you know, it's it's a denser battery, you have denser power, so you're getting, you know, there's less weight in in the vehicle, but you're still getting, you know, fast charging, you're you know, you're getting everything you're getting all the benefits of a of a large battery that's like sixty ish percent of the size. which is great for, you know, like sports cars.

you know, at the end of day, like, you know, a a a Miata or S two thousand or some other convertible that I would like to drive that's an EV. but I can't because all we have is the Hummer. but

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:27)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:28)
yeah. So yeah, they you know, they like everyone else, they you know, everyone's in a race to sort of you know fight off the dendrites which, you know, sort of destroy the long term use of the batteries. You know, they don't chart, you know, their life cycle is cut short.

That's the problem with solid state. Everyone's trying to solve it. Everyone's doing weird different things and trying to solve it. so yeah, but you know, getting it out and then getting it to scale is going to be really tough and a lot of people are paying a lot of money f on R R and D for it. So, you know, like everyone else, Hyundai wants to be first, but they understand that it's tough and they didn't sort of sugarcoat it like, we'll have it next year. It's like, Well

jill ciminillo (1:17:09)
Five

years.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:10)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:11)
Five years

five years away.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:14)
Yeah. Well I mean a f a few months ago did an interview with Kurt Kelty, who's the head of batteries and E Vs at GM and you know he basically said the same thing, you know. He's been he's been in the battery industry for, you know, more than twenty years and yeah, it's always been five years away and you know, it's

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:34)
It's always been five years away.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:36)
you know, they're you know, GM is is focusing

in the near term, you know, on those LMR batteries and on sodium ion for energy storage. and you know, they're they're working, you know, they're testing, you know, they're doing stuff with solid state, but it's just not not ready for production yet. but I guess at the automotive news congress this week, Christian Mounier, who's the chairman of Nissan Americas, was talk was also talking about hybrids and he

made the comment that by twenty thirty, by the end of this decade, he wants Nissan's lineup, at least in North America, to be pretty much, you know, have hybrids as the the primary powertrain for their vehicles that they sell here. so, you know, it it it should be the the default. you know, much like what Toyota's doing, you know, where they're they've made a lot of their models, you know, standard hybrid. And so

Yeah, Nissan, you know, has just they're in the process of launching the the new Rogue with their ePower hybrid on there. and apparently they're also working on a new rear drive hybrid architecture for that's supposed to launch on the new Xterra in twenty

twenty

jill ciminillo (1:18:54)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:54)
eight with a V six.

Roberto Baldwin (1:18:58)
I mean you ha if you're not doing hybrids, I mean you're just throwing away money. You're you're be leaving money on the table because people yeah, everyone expects a hybrid at this point. At least the option for it if yeah. If they're still going gas, you know, they they want you know, they want forty miles per gallon. That's a that's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:17)
Yeah. I mean

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:18)
a lot of gat miles per gallon versus the twenty.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:21)
mean

To Toyota's sales are over I think they're now this year, so far this year they're about fifty five percent hybrid. hybrid or plug in hybrid. and you know, that's gonna keep growing as they continue ramping up production of the the new RAV fours and as new stuff comes out, you know, that will probably be standard hybrid. it's you're gonna see more and more of that. And Honda is going, you know, all in on hybrids. GM

Doesn't seem to have any any plans at all to do any hybrids other than the the Corvette. But that you know, they're focused on EVs.

jill ciminillo (1:19:58)
Well, and also look at like the GM lineup. I mean, they are very SUV and truck heavy. And a lot of times the people, especially the the truck guys, you know, coming from coming coming coming

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:08)
the truck people, you know they just want V eights.

jill ciminillo (1:20:11)
from a formerly of a a pickup truck publication, you know, the truck guys want V8s and they don't want

You know, the the auto stop start and they don't want hybrids and they don't want a turbo. They do not want turbocharged engines. So I mean, you know, and and you can charge a premium for it, as you saw when Ram brought the Hemi back. You know, the I think that the Hurricane engine is brilliant. It's smooth, it's fast, it's efficient, it you know, faster than a hemi.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:40)
It's the better engine.

jill ciminillo (1:20:42)
But they charge more for the hemi and people are paying for it. So I mean, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:48)
You could literally

just they could just rename they could put hurricanes in cars and then put the Hemi logo on it and people wouldn't re notice to be honest. It's I don't it's you know, there's Hemi It's it's marketing. It's like, you know I gotta have my Hemi.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:05)
Yep. Yeah, I mean you know, you get more power and torque from the hurricane, better fuel efficiency, but you pay more for the Hemi.

jill ciminillo (1:21:13)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:14)
Yeah, but the hemi makes a noise.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:16)
It does. That that is

jill ciminillo (1:21:16)
Room, room.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:17)
literally the only benefit to that engine. It does make a wonderful sound.

jill ciminillo (1:21:20)
I mean it sounds pretty.

Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:23)
I'm sure it's cheaper for them to produce and so yeah. And they're not going to t I mean, you could tune a car to almost sound like anything to be honest. If you really try. You c ask ask Mercedes about their V eights with the Miller Sist with the Miller cycle. How they tune those. in order to sound, you know, throatier. you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:41)
Well, when

when I was at this SRT

event

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:44)
Then again,

Stallantis. The Lantis doesn't have GM Mercedes money. I don't know what I'm doing. Talking about.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:47)
That's true. Well, I was at this

SRT event in in August, just before the Woodward Dream Cruise where they they showed us, you know, this prototype Grand Cherokee that they had with a forty eight volt e booster on it. you know, it's a e superchar you know, it's an electric supercharger. and it was in a Grand Cherokee with a six cylinder hurricane engine in there.

so it was making about six hundred and thirty, six hundred and forty horsepower, I think. and they don't currently sell the Grand Cherokee with the hurricane six cylinder. But they they had one they had a Grand Cherokee with a six cylinder hurricane. And when they started this thing up, it did not sound like any six cylinder hurricane I have heard up to this date. I mean it was they they know how to make it loud if they want to. They just for whatever reason have not done it yet.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:42)
It's like the you know, it's every you know, the the the sounds that are coming out of the cars are tuned. These are not like weird natural sounds. Or someone's they have a person or they not person. They have a team of people making

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:52)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:53)
sure these vehicles sound the way they do. What, you know, truck people or truck people. Hammy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:03)
all right, let's see. the the new BMW three series. what's in there? yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:08)
I saw one on the street in a camouflage before it came out. But it didn't matter 'cause it's just the I three

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:14)
Well now now that now they're launching the the whole lineup, the gas versions as well. so you got the the I threes that we saw a while ago, but now and and for the US market, the I three fifty X drive.

gonna have four hundred sixty three horsepower all wheel drive and a four hundred and sixty eight mile range, four hundred kilowatt fast charging, ability to add two hundred and eight miles in ten minutes, if you can find a find a charger.

jill ciminillo (1:23:47)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:48)
You gotta find that the the E V go or that charge point charger. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:23:51)
Ego seven hundred kilowatt or seven fifty, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:54)
Yeah.

Or find an IANA station or a Walmart charging station. They also have four hundred kilowatt chargers.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:02)
well never mind then.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:03)
And also there's another there's another charging company that's actually based here in Detroit that I've learned about relatively recently called Ready that also has four hundred kilowatt chargers. I've got to go check those check out some of those chargers. but

they also announced the new three fifty X drive this week, which is six cylinder gas engine, four hundred and thirty seven horsepower, zero to sixty in three point nine seconds, and it will have a rear wheel drive drift moment feature.

jill ciminillo (1:24:43)
Ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:45)
Drift moment.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:46)
Yeah.

I don't know how long a moment is in BMW's terminology, but

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:50)
Yeah,

that's a that's a moment.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:57)
yeah, so and let's see, I think they will have I think they'll they're also gonna have four cylinder versions of this thing as well. The interior is you know basically the same as what we already saw on the i3 and the iX3. So it's this new Noya class interior, which not sure I like it. Yeah, so the it's you've got this head up display across the entire base of the windshield.

And then this parallelogram touch screen in the center, which you know, that's fine. but it's got software controlled vents. it

jill ciminillo (1:25:35)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:35)
does have a MagSafe charger in there. You can see that in the center console. and then this kind of funky looking steering wheel.

jill ciminillo (1:25:46)
That is a little bit weird.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:47)
I don't

when did circles become s and we Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:25:53)
Obsolete.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:56)
I got in

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:55)
Well, you know, I

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:56)
my BRZ the other day and I looked through the little sir hole, you know, at the top of and I could see my entire dash cluster. It's just a circle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:06)
Yeah, but your dash

cluster consists of speedometer attack, and fuel level. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:11)
Yeah, but it takes up a ton of space. Yeah, even

though it's only like four things. There's like nothing. But there's a lot of space. Like if that was a digital dash cluster, they could cram a ton of stuff in there if they really wanted to. But I was just like, hey, I can see my da I can see what's going on, and I have a circle. Because sometimes people are like, well, they have to make it the weird size so you can see the dash cluster. I'm like, no, they don't. They gotta make the dash cluster the right size so you can see it through the circle.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:36)
Well, yeah, when they're doing stuff like this one and, you know, on the Tucson where you've got that long skinny instrument cluster display ab

jill ciminillo (1:26:44)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:45)
above the steering wheel, that's why they're flattening out the top so it doesn't intrude on that. So you don't have the kind of problem we had we have on the Prius and you had on the original B Z four X where the steering wheel cuts off half of the display.

jill ciminillo (1:26:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:00)
Yeah, but that's that's a problem looking for a solu that's a solution looking for a problem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:03)
Ha ha ha.

jill ciminillo (1:27:03)
Well, it was supposed to have

a yoke instead of an actual steering wheel and so that created a whole bunch of other issues.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:10)
Yeah. It's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:11)
Yeah, well.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:12)
it's a it's I I you know, fine people want weird steering wheels.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:17)
I'll

I'll I'll take I'll take the c sort of oval shaped steering wheel over a yoke any day.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:23)
Ugh, yoke is weird. I don't like it. Like let's do some handover. no. Let's do some shuffle steering. Nope.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:28)
Ha ha.

jill ciminillo (1:27:29)
Actually

in in the but it this so I drove the what was it the RZ with the yoke. They had a sample version with the yoke and there is no like you literally turn the wheel like this much and it like does a full turn. Like there is no like you know Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:44)
Right. Well it's it's a steer by wire, so

jill ciminillo (1:27:47)
So it's just like little maneuvers to do big things.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:52)
Yeah. Th this this isn't steered by wire yet, but we'll we'll see.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:57)
It's like a crosshair with that top section.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:00)
Yeah, the it's the

those vertical bars in the steering wheel is what's kinda weird.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:04)
Like get rid of the top one I don't know. Designers are gonna design.

jill ciminillo (1:28:09)
Yeah, they are.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:11)
Sometimes too much though.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:14)
It's just like ooh, this car's cool. man. Fine. It's one of those

jill ciminillo (1:28:19)
But it but it

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:20)
I feel like it's one of those fine.

jill ciminillo (1:28:23)
Well but I do have to say I like how they've gone from like the little kidney girl to the big kidney girl back to the baby kidney girl again.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:32)
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the baby kidney grill.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:34)
Yeah. No,

jill ciminillo (1:28:35)
It's like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:35)
the the the the design I lo I liked I really like the exterior of this new three

jill ciminillo (1:28:40)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:41)
series. I think I think they've done that well. It's got

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:44)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:44)
nice proportions to it.

yeah, and the pricing, yeah, start so the three thirty, the four cylinder, rear wheel drive three thirty starts at forty nine nine, and then plus thirteen fifty destination charge. the all wheel drive three thirty starts at fifty one nine, the three fifty is sixty five nine, and the I three fifty is sixty one five.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:12)
Well, that's I mean, that's about where I expect it to be.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:15)
Yeah.

And then there's the there's also gonna be the electric three coming as well with something like over a thousand horsepower I think, which is just

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:25)
I

just drove the gas three right now and it was like at the end of the day I it was over a hundred thousand dollars.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:30)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:33)
Woo wee. I mean it was really fun. I enjoyed it a lot.

I really liked that car. But also whoo wee

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:41)
All

right. finally, this week Ford announced that they're getting back into rallying. they're gonna have a full factory effort in the World Rally Championship in 2028. next year for 2027. There's new rules starting for rallying, for the starting in 2027, new technical regulations. And so they're using a modified version of a

current generation car for twenty seven and then an all new car coming in twenty twenty eight. But what was interesting, I thought, about this announcement, you know, the the headline is returning to the stage, how rallying is our road car future. And Ford doesn't really build very many road cars anymore. Like they've they've discontinued the focus.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:27)
We got a Mustang.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:28)
They discontinued yeah, the Mustang is basically it. Yeah, they discontinued the Fiesta and the Focus.

know, they still have the Mondeo in China. I think they still do focuses in China, but that's it. but they dropped them in Europe, they dropped them in North America. and what got my attention about this was earlier this year, back in May, I visited Ford's E V development center in Long Beach. And did you go on that did you go to that Jill?

jill ciminillo (1:30:59)
I did not.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:59)
Okay. so when they took us through

In the design studio, you know, they had in addition, you know, they had several different vehicles that they're working on that are based on their new Universal E V platform, that were covered up, had silks on them. but you could there were clearly, you know, different form factors

jill ciminillo (1:31:20)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:20)
in addition to the pickup truck, the fathom pickup. you know, and there was, you know, one that was obviously a two row crossover, there was a three row crossover, and there was one that was very much car shaped.

And sitting next to that car shaped one was a a first generation Ford Escort, a Mark One Escort. which, you know, those were never sold in North America, they were sold in Europe. but they those escorts that were built from like sixty eight to about seventy five, they were they they used those in rallying and they were very successful in rallying with that Mark One escort. And so, you know, kind of got me thinking that maybe

you know, what they might be doing you know, since they're going back into rallying, is bringing back the escort name for a car based on the Universal EV platform. 'Cause the the new the new rally regulations don't require the car to the rally car to be based on the powertrain or platform of a road car. It's based on a it's a tube frame chassis. and the f the companies are allowed to use either

It's just a straight up internal combustion, a hybrid, or they can use a full E V if they want. I don't think Ford's gonna do an E V rally car, but I could see them doing a new escort shaped like the product like the like a road an electric road car escort. which could be kinda interesting.

jill ciminillo (1:32:53)
Well, I will say a couple of years ago that Ford did put the E V version of the Mustang Maquis,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:59)
Mm-hmm.

jill ciminillo (1:32:59)
the rally, in the Rebel rally. So, I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:02)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:33:03)
they did put an E V in a in a rally.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:07)
Okay.

jill ciminillo (1:33:07)
Not necessarily a rally race, but they they did they did enter it, so

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:10)
Yeah, but still, you

know, long distance off road race. Okay.

jill ciminillo (1:33:13)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:14)
I I I didn't realize I forgot I didn't realize they had run a a Maki rally in the Rebel.

jill ciminillo (1:33:20)
Yeah, I wanna say it was I think it was the year I was running the RAM RHO, so that would have been twenty four. Yes. So

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:32)
Okay. all right. well, finally we have one question this week from John. and he says, I haven't listened to this week's episode yet. this just came in the other day. yet. So you may have already discussed this, but I'm curious about your take on the Jeep Recon. the lease for this vehicle is in the upper stratosphere and the e fuel economy looks awful. just don't really know who this car is going to appeal to. I know you guys talked about this a while back, but I

I

just can't figure out what Stellantis is doing. this is and then and then he copied in the AI overview from Google when he when he asked about it. and have did you go on the the drive that they did for the recon? Okay. well I y I guess you'll I guess you'll get to drive

jill ciminillo (1:34:22)
I did not. So I haven't I haven't seen it yet.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:27)
it later this month, for the Nactoy drive.

jill ciminillo (1:34:31)
In in theory.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:33)
yeah.

Well, I reached out to Amy Del Camp the other day to ask, you know, when they're gonna get it in the fleet. yeah, to see if I could at least just get it for a day or so. and she said they're planning to have them there at the at the drive, so but yeah, I mean Jill, you haven't talked here about about the recon yet. I mean, what do you think?

Huh.

jill ciminillo (1:35:03)
idea of the recon. I'm going back to the whole Cherokee Trailhawk thing. I like the idea of it. but the range isn't great. And the idea of not having

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:13)
That's putting it mildly.

jill ciminillo (1:35:14)
good range for a an EV that you're going to take in the middle of nowhere where there is no charger is a little bit concerning. I would also say it's built on I I believe if I'm remembering correctly it's built on the same platform as the Wagoneer S.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:33)
Uh-huh.

jill ciminillo (1:35:34)
And we both know somebody who had a Wagoneer S or we the three of us know somebody we we know

Roberto Baldwin (1:35:39)
the the audience kn the audience knows.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:42)
yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:35:42)
somebody who had a Wagoneer S and that did not end well. So I I and it's funny because on my morning walk, every morning, I in Chicago, I walk down the street and there is a Wagoneer S parked in a driveway and wheels turned exactly the same way for the last six months, and I'm like

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:03)
no.

jill ciminillo (1:36:03)
Has that even moved? I don't know, but it's not parked in the garage. It's parked outside on the driveway. And and it's really funny because every time I walk past it, I take a picture of it and I like send it to Nicole and I'm like, thinking of you.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:18)
that's mean. That's mean.

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:20)
shit.

jill ciminillo (1:36:22)
But but you know, I mean it's just I I I I like the idea of it. I haven't I I've only seen it in auto shows and it's been roped off. I haven't been able to sit in it, touch it, do anything. so I I I don't know. I just I I don't know why you if you were gonna do an off road EV, why you would only give it that range. Yeah. That's what I'm gonna say.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:47)
Yeah, well I mean it it's not like it has an especially small battery pack. It's a ninety four kilowatt hour battery pack. and when car and driver got their hands on one, yeah, it's it was rated at at two hundred and twenty two miles of range, which is really bad for a vehicle with a ninety four kilowatt hour battery pack. they did their seventy five or s yeah, is it seventy or seventy five mile an hour highway range test.

Which is kind of the worst case condition for an EV anyway.

jill ciminillo (1:37:21)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:21)
They only got a hundred and sixty miles on it. Yeah, seventy five miles an hour. They went a hundred and sixty miles. Which is really mediocre.

If you're not watching the video

jill ciminillo (1:37:35)
When I had the Ford F one fifty, which was rated

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:39)
right now, y you should be.

jill ciminillo (1:37:42)
What when I had the Ford F one fifty, th w which had like what three hundred and twenty miles of range, the lightning,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:49)
Mm-hmm.

jill ciminillo (1:37:49)
drove to Indianapolis. so my my mom lives down in Indianapolis. I drive down there frequently, so I do range tests and I only got like 160 miles out of it. So that

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:00)
wow.

jill ciminillo (1:38:01)
was worse than that.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:02)
Okay.

Yeah. Now I you know, I mean when they first on you know when they first showed us images of the recon back in like twenty twenty one or twenty two, yeah, and it it looked really cool. Yeah. I mean it's a I think it's a good looking vehicle. Looks you know, it looks good for yeah, it's a

jill ciminillo (1:38:21)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:22)
good looking Jeep. Looks like a Jeep. You know, what you want a Jeep you know, it's got it's got all the features you expect of a Jeep. you know, with the the removable doors and

removable windows, removable you know, opening roof, you know, so you get the open air driving if you want.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:37)
I mean you can take the doors off any car if you try hard enough.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:40)
you know, but as an E V it just doesn't work. Yeah, because it's tall, you know, and you know, it's shaped roughly like a box. You know, it's not very not very aerodynamic. and it's just you know it it just doesn't work very well as an E V.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:03)
Here's my hot take on the recon. if you had the exact same specs and it was a Wrangler, just a Wrangler, they didn't change anything else, they just shoved an E V into it, I would be fine with it. Because it's a Wrangler. It would look exact it's just exactly they don't try to make it fancy, they don't try to make it the E V. It's just Wrangler E V powertrain. You're like, alright. 'Cause you look at that thing you're like, yeah, there's no r you it's like the G Wagon. When I look at that I'm like, that's a box. That's yeah, okay.

But it's the G Wagon. You're like, cool, and you can do a little spinny thing. And I really like the G Wagon, even though it has, you know, it's not it's like the least efficient EV that that Mercedes makes. this just you know, hey, you want a crossover that's really bad when it comes to range. That's the that's what you're getting here. It's and and you're like, but you could take it off road. No one's taking this thing off road. I'm

Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:54)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:39:54)
sorry. You know what people take Wranglers off road occasionally, maybe.

But you're like, well, this is a Wrangler. So you gotta take into account all the the you know you know, they could they could have it so it has like, you know, some of the the wind noise that you get, that's gonna be there. You won't get the engine noise, but you could just like cr you know, leave a few more cracks so you get more wind noise when you're driving the Wrangler EV. I t yeah. Wrangler E V. It should just made the Wrangler E V. And then everyone would be like, Hey, it's the Wrangler. What do you want? You're only gonna get two hundred and something miles of range. Be happy. It's a Wrangler.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:30)
Well, you know, the Jeep has said that they are gonna do an internal combustion version of the recon. So, they're they're gonna put a gas engine in this thing, at some point. and my guess is it'll probably be sometime before the end of twenty twenty seven. 'cause so they'll want they'll wanna do that sooner rather than later. But you know, the the Rivian R two, you know, is roughly the same size as the Recon. actually has a smaller battery and it's rated at

depending on which tires you get, you know, in the three hundred and twenty to three hundred and thirty mile range, depending on the the wheels and tires you select. so, you know, it's a hundred miles more estimated range than the Jeep. I you know, I just I don't understand how Jeep has or how Stellantis has managed to make their EVs so incredibly inefficient.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:23)
And they are two starch twenty thousand dollars less.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:25)
Yeah. Well

yeah, that that's that's the that's the other thing. The the recon starts at sixty seven thousand dollars.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:30)
Twenty not like fifteen hundred, not

five twenty thousand dollars less. Most of a slate less. Well, I mean that's everyone except for

Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:36)
Although you cannot actually buy a forty five thousand dollar R two yet. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:42)
apparently slate. Like the like the Ford the Ford Phantom, you're not gonna get that thirty five thousand dollar version for like two or three years. Fathom, not phantom. Sorry.

jill ciminillo (1:41:53)
couldn't fathom why you would want to call it the Phantom. Sorry, I

Roberto Baldwin (1:41:56)
I know the phantoms.

jill ciminillo (1:41:57)
I like I fathom? Fathom. I don't know. I'm having Yeah. It's a fathom. It's a fathom. It's six feet under?

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:00)
It's six feet down. It's six feet under. That's what a fathom is. That's a bad name for a car.

Six feet under. Mmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:13)
All right. well I think that's enough for this evening.

jill ciminillo (1:42:17)
Ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:18)
Thank you, Jill, for joining us and Robbie, and we'll s we'll all talk to you next week. Bye.