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

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

jill ciminillo (00:11)
And I am Jill Ciminillo from many places. I still haven't come up with a better title yet. I will I will think about it this week, I swear.

Roberto Baldwin (00:18)
Just a super freelancer.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:18)
In

i including including yeah, including up in the air.

jill ciminillo (00:20)
Super super

Yeah, super Uber freelancer who flew in a Honda jet this week. Yes.

Roberto Baldwin (00:25)
Super. Lucky

Lucky.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30)
All right. Well j j well let's start with you, Jill, 'cause you got lots of stuff that you did this week.

jill ciminillo (00:35)
Yeah, yeah, no. so I I mean I can't I can't talk about the thing that I went to go see the Honda Passport Trail Sport. I can't talk about that yet. so next week. But while we were there driving the new 2027 Honda Passport Trailsport, they gave us the opportunity to check out the Honda Jet, which was really super cool. And I mean I I and I'm not a plane geek, but there are

this is a very interesting thing on so many different levels because it's small, it's compact, you know, it only seats four passengers.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:09)
Honda.

jill ciminillo (01:10)
It's like a Honda. It's like it's like the civic of private jets. And but it has like really cool technology and you know, I think the latest and greatest version of the Honda jet has the ability to land itself on autopilot. So if like the pilot gets incapacitated the the plane can still land. it

I mean, it was just it was it was a very interesting experience. And we like flew around the Ashboro, North Carolina area for like forty-five minutes. And the pilot was amazing, super smooth landing, better than I'd get in most commercial flights. Cause I was expecting it to like go boom, you know, because it was so small. But it was just like it was it was like butter. It was great. but this jet is the they're on the Elite Two.

And it is, I think they said seven point seven million dollars. And ninety percent of the people who own this jet also are pilots and fly their own jet. So that it's not like they're getting this jet and they are hiring somebody to fly it for They are buying it because they want to fly it.

Roberto Baldwin (02:18)
It's like Porsche owners versus like my bok owners.

jill ciminillo (02:21)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:21)
Yeah.

They they

jill ciminillo (02:23)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (02:23)
Porsche owners drive their own cars, myBach owners have some pay somebody to drive for them.

jill ciminillo (02:28)
Yes. but but really interesting and they the other thing that they said that I thought was really interesting is they have a certified pre-owned program or

Roberto Baldwin (02:37)
Ooh.

jill ciminillo (02:38)
like older

Sam Abuelsamid (02:39)
we can all pitch in and get one for wheel bearings.

jill ciminillo (02:41)
yeah, for for three million dollars. So I know it's half off. But

Roberto Baldwin (02:41)
the Will Bains jet. Talf off That's only a million million each.

jill ciminillo (02:48)
but they buy back planes if somebody is like looking to upgrade or if for some reason they need to get rid of their plane. I think they said they've done between like twenty and forty so far.

And then they retrofit it with like the most up-to-date technology that they can and resell. So I'm just like, that's that's a cool option. But it was it was a really interesting experience. We got to tour the factory. they wouldn't let us take pictures of most of the stuff. and but it was it was it was fascinating. And it's just cool that th something like this exists from somebody who makes cars. The company is 20 years old and

I I don't know, they're getting ready to work on their their next gen version of the plane that can fly from New York to LA.

Sam Abuelsamid (03:34)
Yeah, bac back in I think it was twenty nineteen when Honda was doing the drive program for the last generation Insight in Minneapolis. we also had a chance with the origin with the first generation Honda jet. so like the Elite I think has more range than the first one, plus the autoland system and some other upgrades. so but we got a chance to go for about a thirty minute ride.

in the original Honda Jet from Minneapolis. And it it is a really cool plane. Very smooth. You wouldn't expect

jill ciminillo (04:04)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (04:05)
such a small plane to be so smooth. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (04:07)
Mm mm. You

you you wouldn't. And I I mean it I you know, th the bath it even it has a bathroom. It's got a bougie little bathroom with like a cool sink and I I don't know, geeking out over this wrong things probably, but it was just it was a really neat experience and I was very thankful that I had the opportunity. And, you know, going through the the plant where they do the final assembly was also pretty cool as well. So

Sam Abuelsamid (04:32)
Nice, nice.

jill ciminillo (04:33)
Yeah. A

little a little a behind the scenes peek. I did post some photos from my flight. It's on my Instagram channel, at Jill Simonello. but the other interesting opportunity I had, and we haven't even gotten to the car that I was driving last week, but the other interesting opportunity I had was Slate was in Chicago. They've actually opened their first retail store, period, in Chicago. And they had a grand opening last Wednesday, which too busy on a Honda Jet to to be there, but

I know, I'm a bragg, sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:03)
Huh.

jill ciminillo (05:05)
but they did have give me the opportunity to drive it yesterday morning, with a quick little tour around the city. And I would I have to say, I mean, okay, so we're looking at a truck that's about twenty-six thousand dollars, including destination, two hundred and five miles of range. you know, it's not gonna be your powerhouse vehicle. You've got crank windows, you've got manual adjusting mirrors, so you have to use your finger to adjust your side mirrors.

Sam Abuelsamid (05:32)
But it

it will fit in your garage.

jill ciminillo (05:35)
it would very easily fit in my garage. but it it is very simple, no infotainment system. They have a phone mount. So you mount your phone and you can use your phone for maps, navigation, you know, voice to text, all the things you would do with a screen. It's just, you know, phone sized. And they have like a little screen behind the wheel that has a the your backup camera in it when you put the vehicle in reverse. And you you're

speed and stuff like that. But other than that, like it is distraction free, completely, completely bare bones. And we were in pre-production models. So definitely some rough edges on the inside, but driving the vehicle felt really good. It that did not feel pre-production. you know, I thought that they had the noise and vibration harshness kind of nailed it, nailed down. the one funny thing is is we were at the end of the drive and we're like

going next to the train tracks, the Metro train tracks. And for whatever reason, the train decided to like toot its little horn right as we were driving past. And we both were like, waha, 'cause I thought somebody was like about like a semi was about to crash into us or something.

Sam Abuelsamid (06:43)
Ha ha ha.

jill ciminillo (06:45)
But but no, I mean it was it was a really interesting experience. And I I the options for customizability are

really interesting from like the wraps that you can put on it to the you can customize the interior panels to match the exterior wrap. You can you know buy different seat covers and they're designed to just zip on and off. You can customize the plates that go over your blinkers or your your brake lights and your headlights so that there's like patterns. And I I d I mean okay

All this customization is gonna cost you. So base price is twenty-six. And I did ask the question, I was like, okay, if somebody does go a little bit crazy with some of these customizations, what are we looking at? And he was like, Well, you know, we have seen, you know, things go up over, you know, 30, $36,000. And I was like, okay, still, still in the affordable range, but you know, just just interesting. And and the wraps cost five hundred dollars. So it comes as literally a blank split, steel, and then you buy a wrap.

So $500 for that. You can do it yourself. It's pre-cut so that you can do it and it's supposed to be really easy. Supposed to be really easy. but you could famous

Sam Abuelsamid (07:59)
Famous last words.

jill ciminillo (08:01)
last words, bubbles everywhere, but you can also pay like five hundred dollars to have it installed. So a thousand dollars. But I I don't know. It just it's it's kind of like I I I don't know if you guys are old enough to know remember or if you even were a reader as a kid, but the old choose your own adventure books.

Where you're like

Roberto Baldwin (08:19)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (08:20)
get to page three and you're like, do I wanna go down the scary hallway or do I wanna head down the lighted hallway? I'm gonna choose the scary dark hallway. But yeah. So it it just I I thought it was really it's it's an interesting, interesting idea and I really can't wait to see what they do with it. And I'll be incredibly curious how it stacks up next to the Ford Fathom that is going to be coming out next year.

Sam Abuelsamid (08:48)
So you you haven't been on with us to talk about the slate previously. W I'm I'm curious w your thoughts about the the two door pickup form factor as opposed to doing a four door.

jill ciminillo (09:00)
So okay, so I come at this from a Chicago perspective and I think in a place like Chicago, which is maybe why they opened their first door in Chicago, I think it has the potential to do really well because a lot of people who have like work trucks, they're looking for something small and compact that they can load things into the back of and you know

Park in the city and drive around and get into small spaces. I had a Toyota tundra, like I was telling you, I had the Toyota Tundra a couple weeks ago and I had a doctor's appointment and I took my car because I was like, there is no way in heck that Toyota Tundra is fitting in the garage, you know, at 680 North Lakeshore for my doctor's appointment. And and so I just didn't even try. You know, I didn't even try to fit it in my own garage. But something like this is, I think.

right sized for a city environment, especially as a work truck. Now as a consumer vehicle, I don't know. I think it could be a great first car for somebody, because then you're not gonna pile in a whole bunch of kids in the back seat to distract you. I think that it could also be a really interesting vehicle for a commuter car, 200 miles of range to and from work. I think that is is interesting. You know, if you want to take a road trip in it, you're gonna have to put your luggage in the

bed which is open to the best of my knowledge. It does it has a seven cubic foot trunk, so you could potentially put the luggage in there.

Roberto Baldwin (10:21)
Well then no it has a giant frunk. It's absol it's it's yeah, you could put

two you could put two carry ons in there, no problem. It's pr it's a lot bigger. Yeah, you could probably put that I was probably put three jills. Three three units of jill.

jill ciminillo (10:31)
You you could probably put three of me in there. They three gills. They wouldn't let me sit in it.

Sam Abuelsamid (10:37)
Ha ha.

jill ciminillo (10:38)
I tried. I did try to see if they would let me sit in, but they did not. so I but

Sam Abuelsamid (10:41)
No we'll get to that eventually.

jill ciminillo (10:44)
we'll get to that eventually. pre-production. I I didn't want to push push the envelope too much. But I so I think in a city environment, I think as an urban commuter, I think as a you know, work truck, I think it has some really interesting potential.

Where I'm a little bit curious is when if if you do the conversion kit, so they have two conversion kits you can do from a square back SUV to a fastback SUV, and that'll take the price up to about 31 or like $32,000, respectively, depending on which one you choose. And that's still two doors. So it's like a coop SUV. And and that I am curious about because I think

You know, two door s f SUVs typically don't do very well in the United States, but the two door truck I think has an interesting potential.

Sam Abuelsamid (11:42)
Okay. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (11:42)
I love the slate,

jill ciminillo (11:42)
So

Roberto Baldwin (11:43)
Jill. I'm just gonna say it. I am waiting.

jill ciminillo (11:44)
Okay. Okay, I'm like so

Roberto Baldwin (11:46)
I am so so so my like the whole thing with the slate, everything. It's like they built a car specifically for me. Like I don't

jill ciminillo (11:52)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (11:53)
need screens, I don't need all this stuff. I just want I just need so I can throw the dogs in the back. I can get the cover on it if I want. I wanna do the open air thing where I just throw the the the what do you call it? The roll cage on the back and then be done with it. Take the you know

Sam Abuelsamid (12:08)
Does that one have

like a a flexible cover you can put on it?

Roberto Baldwin (12:12)
no, it's supposed to come with like a whole system, but it doesn't have a like but here's the thing. So they'll probably have something. And then there's already third parties that are already building things for the slate, even though it's not out. I I asked Slate about SEMA. I'm like, so are you gonna be at SEMA? And it it seems like they aren't going to, but they but they anticipate that there's going to be a lot of stuff at SEMA for them. and there's already lowering kits, there's always all these things, and and I think the people who like the slate really, really like the slate.

I think it's like the Mazda Miata. Like people are like about the Miata who weren't people who like understood the Mazda Miyada. I think it's the same thing with the slate. at the end of the day though, is that it it's it's not enough to have a comp it's a it's a great launch vehicle, but I think, you know, their second vehicle has to be something that's little bit more, you know, for everyone. But I you know, the the the the sort of weirdos like myself who are really excited about the vehicle. and then of course the fleet sales are gonna be 'cause for fleets

Like y y it's just that the you know, the the the employee and maybe a partner, they don't need all those extra doors. They don't there's a we the

Sam Abuelsamid (13:17)
Yeah. Fleets and

fleets and weirdos is the key market right now.

Roberto Baldwin (13:21)
Fleets

and weirdos. Fleets

jill ciminillo (13:22)
Here does.

Roberto Baldwin (13:23)
and weirdos. And I'm a I'm I'm par I'm the weirdo. No, it's it's I'm like, I could stick my I could stick everything from the band. Everything I need for the house. Everything I need for weird art projects. Everything I mean the dogs. I can do all this stuff.

jill ciminillo (13:35)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (13:36)
I don't have to I d I don't need screens. I have

jill ciminillo (13:38)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (13:38)
screens in our we have Ionic Five. We have screens. I mean I the BRZ that I'm driving right now, it's two doors. It's fine. Occasionally someone from band like more than one person from band practical near ride. But it's like

Once every six months. So once every six months someone's gonna be like, hey can I I'm like nah, sorry man.

Sam Abuelsamid (13:57)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (13:58)
Unless I get the whole kit.

jill ciminillo (13:58)
I don't know.

Roberto Baldwin (13:59)
I'm like, but I don't I don't want the whole kit. I'm gonna get a s I'm gonna get a C D player from Crutchfield and shove it in there. It's it's I think there's a there's a a desire for a sort of DIY modular vehicle. Something that you really can't do to vehicles anymore. The stereos are like embedded, everything's embedded it behind a screen.

Everything's behind a

jill ciminillo (14:21)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (14:21)
screen. You want to do this? No, you can't do that. What about no, you can't do that. What the only things you can do or is you know the Broncos like, we have twelve volt outlets everywhere. Like, cool, I can add more stuff. And you know, it's but that's what you know, you can do that with this. Plus the whole 3D, you know, community is very excited about this vehicle 'cause they're gonna be putting out files. And if you are when I talk to them about their slate store where they sell everything, if you are a vendor, if you build something

To sell for the slate, you can talk to Slate and be in their store. Like it's almost like a like an Etsy situation. So you could sell your wares through the Slate store. I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of like it, you know it it doesn't compete with what they're doing or I don't know what I don't know what the stipulations will be. I'm sure there'll be a lot of of rules, particularly around safety that, you know, people have to adhere to. But no, I think it's

You know, and I know people who are just like, I d I don't like this. This doesn't make any sense at all. I'm like, Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to you. And that's at the end of the day, like I'm not a I'm a basic man and I just want a basic car. And that's what this late is. I think a lot of people just want an EV that doesn't have all these things. They just I just want a car. What do you want?

jill ciminillo (15:34)
Yep. Yep.

Roberto Baldwin (15:36)
No, no, no. Would you want it? No. Do you want electric doors? No. Do you want no. I just want a car. I just want to go from here to here

jill ciminillo (15:42)
I just want to get Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (15:44)
and I have some utility and that's it.

jill ciminillo (15:46)
Mm-hmm. I you know, and the interesting thing is, is it we'll charge on a 110 jack at home and it'll take thirty-three hours, which is way better than the three days it took me to charge the last EV that I had because

Sam Abuelsamid (16:01)
Ha ha.

jill ciminillo (16:01)
I didn't want to go to a public charger. so thirty-three hours, a little bit more than, you know, a day. but

If you do level two, so two hundred and forty volt, that is I think five hours. And then it's like twenty eight minutes to go from twenty to eighty percent on fast charge and it's an axe charger. So I I mean, I don't know. I'm intrigued and I you know, I feel like they're a little bit of an underdog, but I'm rooting for I'm rooting for him.

Roberto Baldwin (16:27)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that you know, I think there's and you know, the the Fathom, you can have more than one type of vehicle. I mean, that's how competition works. But also when the Fathom comes out, it's not gonna come out with the thirty thousand dollar version. It's gonna come out with the high top, you know. Twenty twenty seven we're gonna get the you know, the forty one thousand dollar and they're like, Yeah, in six months, nine months to a year you can get the thirty thousand dollar one. 'Cause that's how automakers work. They wanna sell the you know, the top end one and then they work their way down the trim levels. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (16:55)
Make money first.

Roberto Baldwin (16:57)
And you know, and Ford has th the thing is one of the things that that I pointed out to somebody at the the the slate event was that automakers can make this car. They could build the slate with with the things that people are angry about. It doesn't have, you know, it doesn't have a display or it doesn't have, you know, electric windows. An automaker could build this vehicle with all the things that you say that this thing is missing.

Because they have the economies of scale, they already have the supply network. They could do this. They just haven't. And they don't want to. And that's

jill ciminillo (17:30)
Yeah. Yep.

Roberto Baldwin (17:32)
that's what it comes down to at the end the day. They don't want to build the car. And a startup had to do it. And so if the startup pushes everyone else to sort of make the same sort of vehicle, then at the end of the day the winners are, you know, the consumers who who want something like that.

jill ciminillo (17:49)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I feel like the last time I had a a vehicle with crank windows, it was I I mean, maybe it was between two thousand fourteen and twenty twenty. but it was a Nissan Frontier and it was like the base, base, base version of the truck. And I think whoever put that in the fleet, in the media fleet, got in trouble.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:14)
Ha ha.

jill ciminillo (18:17)
but I mean I I thought it was an interesting thing to see and to drive because they just don't make trucks that basic anymore.

Roberto Baldwin (18:25)
Yeah. I mean trucks are essentially especially full size, they're just luxury vehicles with a bed.

jill ciminillo (18:30)
Yeah. Yep.

Roberto Baldwin (18:32)
They're for fancy

Sam Abuelsamid (18:32)
I mean the

Roberto Baldwin (18:33)
they're for fancy people who's to who who I wanna be f I'm fancy but also I'm rugged. But I'm also fancy. I'm a fancy

jill ciminillo (18:40)
But I'm also

Sam Abuelsamid (18:40)
The

Roberto Baldwin (18:40)
rugged man.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:42)
the the the last vehicle I owned with manual crank windows was a nineteen eighty four GMC S fifteen, which was also a two door pickup truck, with with two seats and came from the factory with no radio and

jill ciminillo (18:54)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (18:55)
no air conditioning and manual manual windows and manual mirrors and actually it didn't even have a mirror on the passenger side. It only had a driver's side mirror. so that's how basic it was and I'd

I drove that truck all through college and had that until about nineteen ninety two. So

jill ciminillo (19:14)
Hm.

Roberto Baldwin (19:15)
They had debates within Slate about making AC standard. They're like, Well, maybe we don't put A C, maybe we make it cheaper and then finally they they erred on the side of A C. That's that's one thing I'm like, you know what, climate change, let's

Sam Abuelsamid (19:28)
I I think I think in twenty

twenty six that would

jill ciminillo (19:30)
Getting more.

Sam Abuelsamid (19:31)
be a s probably be a step too far is to not have AC.

Roberto Baldwin (19:33)
Yeah, that's a step too far. Like

the the arm, you know, no, I gotta roll up an window. I don't I whatever. I I I came back from I came back from the event. I walked into band practice and everyone's like, So what was it like? I'm like, Well, they don't have the power windows anymore. It's only available with the hand crank windows. And everyone in band practice is like so they're like, Yeah, that's not that's is that that's a bad so They're like, Mm.

jill ciminillo (20:03)
Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:03)
Awesome. All right.

Well what else did you drive?

jill ciminillo (20:08)
So then the actual vehicle that I is in my garage right now is the Mazda CX90 PHEV. And you know it's it's an interesting vehicle because I love the idea of a PHEV, but they didn't give me a cord to charge it.

Sam Abuelsamid (20:28)
There's no cord in it? That's dumb.

jill ciminillo (20:29)
No! So

so I haven't been able to test the PHEVness of it because I have no cord. and I like reached out to the fleet manager and I was like, is this supposed to have a cord? And he was like, No, it's not on the Monroni. And I was like, interesting. So I I that that was an interesting choice on the part of Mazda. but I will say that it forced me to test the actual combined fuel economy of the vehicle.

And the EPA says it should get twenty-six miles per gallon and I've been getting twenty-six point two to twenty-six point four miles per gallon. So that's right.

Sam Abuelsamid (21:10)
That's not bad for a three row SUV.

jill ciminillo (21:12)
No, and I I've been doing a nice mix of driving in the city and you know, drove from Chicago out to the northwest northwestern suburbs last night. So, you know, I put both an even mix of highway and

City miles on it. So I feel like that that was pretty accurate. but I I just thought that was an interesting choice that there was no cord. So but it's it it's the premium plus trim. So, you know, one of the better equipped trims. It has the nice dash with the stitching, and it's really attractive. does not have really any options on it.

Like looking at the Monroni right now and I think the only option is the paint. Yeah. So it has the sole red metallic crystal red beautiful paint.

Sam Abuelsamid (22:06)
The excellent paint.

jill ciminillo (22:07)
The excellent, the only paint you want to get if you own a Mazda because it is so eye-catching. so it has that paint on it. So that as such the price of the vehicle is about sixty thousand dollars. but it it just as a vehicle I think it drives really well.

It does have the sportiness and I just I'm I'm just really grumpy that I didn't get to test the PHE V Ness of it, but you can feel it switching back and forth between hybrid and the gas engine. So it's not as smooth as you would see in maybe a Toyota vehicle or a Honda vehicle that has a hybrid system. but it it I thought it was pretty peppy, pretty fast, pretty smooth when you're accelerating. And the

Only real complaint I have is that I don't know what Mazda has done lately, but the seats are so uncomfortable. I feel

I feel like I'm sitting on cardboard, so I don't I don't know what they've done, and that didn't all that that didn't used to be the case. So I don't I don't know what's happening there. but you know, it it does have that sporty vibe. Like I feel w we talked about the CX fifty was it last week? And I feel like the CX fifty lost come of some of its zoom zoom.

It only has the z yeah, yes, CX five. It only has the z

Sam Abuelsamid (23:21)
The C X five, you mean? Yeah, yeah, 'cause that yeah, I had that one.

jill ciminillo (23:26)
but this this still has the zoom zoom to it and which is really nice for a three row SUV. so I I like it. I'm a huge Mazda fan. but I wish the seats were more comfortable and I wish I had a cord.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:40)
Yeah,

and un unfortunately, you know, or well Mazda, you know, doesn't include D C fast charging capability with the C X ninety, so you can't even take it to to a a charger. You'd have to take it to a level two charger somewhere to plug it in to

jill ciminillo (23:55)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (23:56)
to try it out.

jill ciminillo (23:58)
Yeah, and I don't I don't know how much charge you would get. I so it's really funny because I I'm a huge PHE V fan. I am team PHE V over E V because of my situation where I'm driving back and forth to Indianapolis. And I

I I but I can't really support it in a city environment, especially if you're living in an apartment building and don't have a place to plug in to charge because the point of spending extra money on a PHEV is to be able to charge it so you're not spending the money on gas. And it I have a friend who has a Tucson PHEV, and they don't have a garage. They park it on the street and they go to Target a lot.

Apparently. And they do their grocery shopping at Target. They, you know, buy whatever they need from Target, but every time they go to Target, they plug in and charge there. And so I don't I don't know how much they are staying in the EV mode of for it. But I I'm just like I I told him I'm like, you should get the hybrid, not the PH E V. He didn't listen to me. But they love it. They love it.

Sam Abuelsamid (25:08)
Yeah.

All right. yeah, you know, I think for I think for for for some people PHEVs make a lot of sense. you know, and for others, you know, I think, you know, especially somebody in in your situation, you know, a just a regular hybrid is the best solution. Especially until, you know, we start getting a lot more curbside charging getting installed in cities.

Yeah, and there's you know there's there's some of those efforts happening. There's a lot more of it in Europe, obviously. but yeah, we're s we're starting to see some here in the States, you know. there's there's a few different companies that are that are doing it now. There's a company a a Brooklyn based company that's working out of new lab here in Detroit called It's Electric. there's Volt Post, there's others, you know, that are doing these curbside charging solutions. and

you know, when we start to get those more widespread, especially in you know, in neighborhoods, you know, I either for people that that live in apartments or f in neighborhoods. you know, I think, you know, Chicago's, you know, one of those older cities where you've got urban neighborhoods where people even if they live in a single family home, they don't necessarily have a driveway and a garage where they can plug

jill ciminillo (26:24)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (26:24)
in. You know, they park curbside. Ann Arbor, a lot of places in Ann Arbor are like that. and so for for those people having

You know, just just a post, you know, and you bring your own cord, and just plug it in, you know, when you when you when you park the car, you know, charge it overnight and you know, take the unplug the cord and throw it the back in the morning and and be on your way. You know, then, you know, E Vs become a lot more practical for for those kinds of people.

jill ciminillo (26:53)
So I do have to say my one concern with something like that situation is you have a lot of unkind people out there. And I could see if I'm just parking on the street and I'm plugging in to a post, I could see somebody cutting the cord, I could see somebody

Roberto Baldwin (27:11)
When it's plugged

in to the car, there's power, you're gonna die. It's when it's not plugged in. So so this is why we should have bring your own Well, it locks.

jill ciminillo (27:17)
See them unplugging it because if you're plugging it into the post,

but it locks in your car, but it does it lock in the post. Okay, okay, because I'm

Sam Abuelsamid (27:23)
It locks in the post too.

Roberto Baldwin (27:23)
It locks on the post as well. So in Europe they

have a lot of bring your own cable and it locks on both both things. That's why bring your own cable makes way more sense than just having cables strewn about sidewalks everywhere. So you

jill ciminillo (27:35)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (27:35)
you you pull up, you p you plug it into the thing, you plug it into the to the post, you plug it into your car, both of them lock. There's electricity going through it. No one's going to cut through that because they don't want to die.

jill ciminillo (27:46)
But they probably don't know that they're gonna die and I could see them trying, but but no, I mean

Sam Abuelsamid (27:50)
Well, you know, if they try, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (27:50)
I think if I think the average p if a cimesis

yeah, it's it's it's gonna be like the one person's gonna do it and everyone else will be like nope

Sam Abuelsamid (27:57)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (27:58)
So it's like when it's when

jill ciminillo (27:58)
Yeah. I was gonna okay.

Roberto Baldwin (27:59)
they're just hanging, then it's just like criminals are like, Well I can just take it 'cause it's not there's no power coming through, it's just hanging. So I understand

jill ciminillo (28:05)
Right.

Roberto Baldwin (28:05)
that. and so yeah, the bring your own. I've I've done it a couple of times in Europe and it's great. And you pump bump bump, easy peasy lemon squeezy you wander off to whatever European thing you're doing. Probably eating bread. That's what I'm doing.

jill ciminillo (28:19)
Yeah, okay.

Roberto Baldwin (28:19)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (28:20)
Well then I feel a little bit better, but I'm like I would just be concerned about vandals, I'd be concerned about somebody stealing the cord, but if it locks on both sides, that makes me feel better.

Roberto Baldwin (28:28)
Yeah, it locks.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:31)
All right. Anything else on the CX ninety?

jill ciminillo (28:34)
I mean not unless you guys wanna guess the the destination fee.

Roberto Baldwin (28:40)
Ooh, sixteen hundred.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:45)
let's see, I'm gonna go with fourteen fifty.

jill ciminillo (28:49)
okay, my mask kinda suck. but it so it's fifteen thirty, so I think Roboto gets it. 'Cause you

Roberto Baldwin (28:55)
Yep, I'm

only $70 off.

Sam Abuelsamid (28:56)
Yep, by ten bucks. You won you won by ten dollars.

jill ciminillo (28:58)
Ha ha ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (29:00)
It doesn't matter how much I won by, I just won.

jill ciminillo (29:02)
Yvonne.

Roberto Baldwin (29:05)
There's no like I got the gold medal because of tenth of a second. It's just like, Hey, I got a gold medal. I'm not telling everybody

Sam Abuelsamid (29:10)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (29:11)
why. Or how. Or who I tripped. All it matters is

Sam Abuelsamid (29:17)
Well, I also had a three row SUV, that is electrified. I had the the Hyundai Palisade hybrid calligraphy all wheel drive. so you know, this is the the fancy schmancy version of the the the latest generation of Palisade, the second generation Palisade. And in the picture here it looks more like grey or black. It's actually like a really dark red. you can actually

jill ciminillo (29:45)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:46)
see it more

From let's see, from this angle here.

Roberto Baldwin (29:51)
You said this angle just popped up on a picture of my face. And I was like, Well that's not that's me.

jill ciminillo (29:51)
Mm-hmm. Kind of like a cherry.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:52)
Here we go. Yeah. Now here you can see the

the red

jill ciminillo (29:57)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (29:57)
in the paint. So it's like a a really dark burgundy red. and I I like the yeah, I like the overall design of this thing. I really like driving it. the the hybrid, you know it's Hyundai's next generation hybrid system, so it's both more powerful and more efficient than their previous stuff. it's got two motors. one is attached to the back end of the engine.

The other one is on the the input side of the transmission. There's a clutch in between. And depending on which version of the Palisade you get, you can for the front wheel drive, you can get up to 34 miles per gallon combined for the for the hybrid. the calligraphy all-wheel drive with the big wheels and everything, it's officially rated by EPA at 29 city.

30 highway, 29 combined. in my driving with it, my did my my usual driving loop with it, and I got thirty-one in combined city

Roberto Baldwin (31:02)
wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (31:02)
highway, you know, suburban, rural driving. Got thirty-one miles per gallon with it. so you know, did really well. It's it's a very smooth system. you know, it's it's it's a very quiet vehicle, lovely to drive, you know, for you know, for a big big honkin SUV.

it's got lots of room inside. the third row is quite usable. you can you can fit adults I can I can fit in any of the three rows, you know, so I can position the second row seat. You know, I'm five eleven. I can get in the front posit and and then get in the second row and then fit comfortably in the third row with enough headroom, enough knee room. My knees aren't up in my chest when I'm sitting in the third row seat, and it's still it's still got a decent amount of cargo space.

in the back. the you know the controls got a nice mix of physical controls and the the touch stuff so most of the the you've got knobs for the temperature for the dual zone climate control

jill ciminillo (32:06)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (32:07)
and then some touch stuff for fan speeds and things like that but then there's also a bunch of other t physical controls on there for audio and selecting modes you got the

Two twelve point three inch displays across the dashboard, the typical Hyundai type of setup there, which which works quite well. They're very nice screens. so it's very pleasant, you know, pleasant place to spend time. in the center console, there are three USB-C ports up front. including you can get a hundred watts of power out of two of these three.

ports. So one's a data port, the other two are charging ports only. But you can get up to a hundred watts of power out of it. So if you if your passenger needs to charge a laptop or you need to you know plug in your laptop while you're driving, you can plug it in, get it fully charged pretty quickly off of that. there's also a wireless charging pad for your phone. and it you know it's

jill ciminillo (33:09)
I'm giving the Webless

Charger a thumbs down, but go ahead. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:12)
Yeah, well

Roberto Baldwin (33:13)
Just

in general or the the Hyundai one? Just in the Hyundai one? Okay. Okay. In gener

jill ciminillo (33:16)
On day one. And in

Sam Abuelsamid (33:17)
Yeah, the the the Hun the Hyundai ones tend to be

more wireless phone heaters than than chargers.

Roberto Baldwin (33:24)
Like when

it's cold out you put your phone on there and it's like a hot pack. You put your hands on there. Ooh, they're so warm.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (33:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:30)
Although I I have been driving a another vehicle that I'll talk about another week, that has MagSafe charging pad on there, those are great. The the

jill ciminillo (33:40)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (33:41)
reason why phones tend to heat up on the in the car chargers is because you know when you're doing wireless charging, if the the transmitter and the receiver in the phone are not perfectly aligned, then it starts to crank up the

the the power and that's what makes it very hot. If you've got a a magnetic charger on there, everything's perfectly aligned. It actually charges and doesn't heat up your phone. It's amazing.

Roberto Baldwin (34:08)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (34:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:09)
And I think I think within the next couple of years we'll see most companies switching over to those. You're already seeing a bunch of twenty twenty seven models that have that.

jill ciminillo (34:17)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (34:18)
I I think it's probably not long before Hyundai Motor Group makes that switch as well.

So, let's see, what else? you got you know, this one, you know, the kalic because it's the calligraphy, it's got all the stuff on there, three zone climate control, lots of USB charging ports, the Wi Fi hotspot, it's got digital key, which I couldn't actually test 'cause I don't have an account for it. but yeah. It that that yeah, you know, that that stuff

Roberto Baldwin (34:48)
Is it the key with your phone? Yeah, I don't I don't I don't why?

Sam Abuelsamid (34:52)
unl unless unless

Unless it's set up for ultra wide band, yeah, unless it's using ultra wide band, those are always kinda flaky anyway. Just keep the f key fob with you.

Roberto Baldwin (35:01)
Why? Why?

Why for somewhere I'm like no I gotta go I wanna go somewhere. I have to give you know and it's the person is I go to a to someone else needs to drive the car. I guess here's my phone. I'll see you later.

jill ciminillo (35:15)
You can send you can send the digital key and you can give people access to it for like twenty-four hours. A lot of them

Sam Abuelsamid (35:18)
Yeah. W with most of them. Not yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (35:20)
So I'm not So yeah, but so

so then I'm getting it given the digital key to a to a r a random p kid at the the at the restaurant to the valet.

Sam Abuelsamid (35:29)
To a valet. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (35:31)
It's just it's like just just buy just bring the key. Like are keys that bad? Like what has happened? Or key were keys a problem where people were like, this key is so heavy, it's just weighing me down. I gotta I gotta limp I gotta lip because of my leg

jill ciminillo (35:44)
fr I forget like

I forget my head if it's not attached and I never forget my phone. I never forget my phone.

Roberto Baldwin (35:50)
But when you get out to the car you'll you'll know when you don't have your key.

jill ciminillo (35:54)
I mean fair, fair, but I never forget my phone. Rarely forget my phone, I should say.

Roberto Baldwin (35:59)
I

I will leave my phone in cars sometimes and I'll be in the house for like hours. I'm like and tell you like what did I do with my phone? it's in the car and I was

jill ciminillo (36:07)
I know. Like that I have an Apple watch and s and so I'm always like

ping, ping, where's my phone? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:15)
so th the the hybrid system in the Palisade is the most powerful powertrain in the Palisade right now. Three hundred and twenty nine horsepower combined, three hundred and thirty-nine foot pounds of torque. got plenty of performance. That's not an issue at all. altogether this one came to a grand total of sixty thousand six hundred and twenty five dollars. you wanna guess the destination charge?

Roberto Baldwin (36:41)
thirteen hundred.

jill ciminillo (36:45)
I'll go with fourteen hundred.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:47)
Jill wins it, 1600. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (36:49)
Ooh.

Roberto Baldwin (36:49)
man, that was really off.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:53)
so yeah, this one, the colors c

Roberto Baldwin (36:54)
Big car. I don't know why I thought it was so cheap.

Sam Abuelsamid (36:57)
the colors called Galaxy Maroon.

jill ciminillo (36:59)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:00)
so you know, I think given how nice the interior is in this one, it gets considerably better fuel economy than the CX90. yeah, I think I would probably go with this over the C X ninety plug in hybrid.

jill ciminillo (37:15)
And and that's interesting 'cause I mean they are essentially the same price.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:19)
Yeah. Yeah. yeah, and and you've got more the third row in this is a lot more usable than the third row in the CX ninety. The CX ninety third row is kind of tight by comparison. This is this is quite a bit larger vehicle.

jill ciminillo (37:36)
Yeah, I'm like I am not a good gauge of third row space. They all fit me.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:40)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (37:41)
Except for Yeah. Except for the Outlander.

Roberto Baldwin (37:41)
Jell, what do you think? Did you fit in the third row? Like what do you

jill ciminillo (37:46)
the the the that fake third row. I can't fit that. No.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:47)
No yeah, but no no no human fits in the third row of the Outlander.

jill ciminillo (37:50)
No, if I can't fit it it's not it's not real.

Sam Abuelsamid (37:53)
Well, the

the the only way you can conceivably get in the third row of the Outlander is to slide the second row seats all the way forward so they have no legroom.

Roberto Baldwin (38:01)
Someone has to.

jill ciminillo (38:01)
Yeah, well I've

done the whole like you know, where I like bend myself like a pretzel and I'll be like, you know, doing the whole cross legged thing and like

Sam Abuelsamid (38:09)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (38:11)
I can fit that way.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:13)
Yeah. all right. So that is the the twenty six Hyundai Palisade Hybrid Calligraphy all wheel drive. And we will actually be using a Palisade Hybrid for Operation Frodo this year. We will have one as part of our dog fleet.

Roberto Baldwin (38:28)
well now that you've said that I'm totally gonna do that.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:32)
the other car that I was driving is the Subaru Trailseeker, just like Robbie had. except I had the limited trim.

which means that comes with the twenty inch wheels instead of the eighteen inch wheels. so frankly did

Roberto Baldwin (38:48)
No, I had the limited one. No

wait, no, I had the wait.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:54)
sorry, no, I had the touring trim.

Roberto Baldwin (38:56)
Okay, no, I had the limited, you had the touring. There we go. Phew, you you y you confused me.

Sam Abuelsamid (38:58)
Okay. So the

yeah, the the tour the t I think actually I think both the limited and the touring are on twenty inch wheels. The base premium trim is on eighteen inch wheels. And I

Roberto Baldwin (39:10)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (39:11)
think I would probably recommend just getting the base model. 'cause you still get stuff like heated seats and, you know, same infotainment system and a lot of you know, most of the good stuff, all the eight ass stuff is still in there. yeah, you do get some other stuff. You get a

you know an upgraded audio system with the with the the touring trim but you you know even the base trim you still get the the roof racks that's still there it's the same battery same motors so three hundred and seventy five horsepower zero to sixty is about four and a half seconds it's a seventy four point seven kilowatt hour battery pack. I averaged about three point eight miles per kilowatt hour during my testing.

which is you know, considering, you know, this was running on the twenty inch wheels, you know, that works out to about almost two hundred and ninety miles of range in this thing. and it's officially rated at two seventy four for the touring. and the limited is rated at like two eighty two, I think, or two eighty four, two eighty one. so you could probably get over three hundred with the the the limited with the eighteen inch wheels.

so you know this this is I think probably my favorite Subaru of all time. it yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (40:35)
It's very good. It's the

outback EV that were like people who who have Subaru's, you you you Subaru people are actually really outdoorsy people. And the idea of of having like a proper electric Subaru appeals to a lot of them. It was like when the BRZX came out and then the no B Z four X. That's what not the B R Z the B Z four X. The

jill ciminillo (40:56)
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (40:56)
B Z Forex, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (40:58)
B R Z X is some made up thing I just made up. And the Sol the the the what was the Subaru? Soltera?

So when they both came out, Toyota at the LA show just had the B Z forks just off in a corner. If you went to the Subaru booth though, and the Subaru

Sam Abuelsamid (41:15)
It was right there.

Roberto Baldwin (41:16)
S yeah, it was right there like front and center, and Subaru essentially builds an Ewok village. So it was like right there in the f on on on the main stage and then next to it was another one that was kitted with all the Subaru things, you know, for for for overlanding and all this stuff. And so it's it's very much on br it was

It's this the the it was the same car, but the way the two companies treated the vehicle was very yeah. And and for Subaru people, again, the the the idea of having a a proper EV, I think, appeals to a lot of them. They probably were like, I've been waiting for a Subaru EV Ta da Here you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (41:54)
And yeah,

it's it's got eight and a half inches of ground clearance, which is a an inch and a half more than a Ford Mustang Mach E Rally. You know, the Mach E Rally's

jill ciminillo (42:02)
Mm, mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (42:04)
only got six inches of clearance. And even the the Ionic five XRT is only seven inches. So this is eight and a half inches of ground clearance. So it's actually surprisingly usable off-road. I didn't take this one off-road, but I've I've taken the the Soltera, you know, on you know some some pretty good

you know, pretty good off road course that they did for us last year, last summer at the drive program they did in Colorado. and even on, you know, the all season tires that it's on, it wasn't even on all terrain tires. It was surprisingly good. You know, so, you know, you can do a lot of stuff with this thing. And like I said, you know, three hundred and seventy five horsepower. you know, one of the interesting things about the way this and the the Toyota Bodland, which is

you know, Toyota's version of this vehicle, the way they're set up. The the motors, you know, they're two hundred and twenty horsepower motors. So it could theoretically do four hundred and forty horsepower. They limit it to three seventy five because that's what the battery can output. and the way it's set up is it's actually set up to bias it towards rear wheel drive. and but then you know it shifts the torque balance depending on what you need, didn't yeah depending on where the grip is. So

It actually drives surprisingly well. yeah. And then, you know, the interior is actually s you know, quite nice. you know, especially compared to some of the Subarus I've driven in the past. you know, the

Roberto Baldwin (43:33)
No one gets

no one buys a Subaru because it has a s a beautiful interior. They buy because it's just it's util utilitarian. That's what they that's what they buy.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:40)
Right. But but it's

it's still, you know, you know, surprisingly nice materials. You know, the soft text

Roberto Baldwin (43:45)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (43:47)
materials they have, a lot of soft touch surfaces. it's it's actually a much nicer material than the Rav Four. yeah, much nicer interior than the Rav Four. again, dual wireless charging pads or wireless charging warmers. you know,

Roberto Baldwin (44:02)
Yeah, th

those those charging pads, there's nothing to keep your phone, so it just slides.

Sam Abuelsamid (44:06)
Yeah.

and then, you know, this year, you know, they they changed up the interior so that the little seven inch instrument cluster display used to be s mounted down lower and it was down this tunnel and so now it sits up higher. and then they also flatten the top of the steering wheel in the soup, at on the Subaru. They but even on the Toyotas they have a round steering wheel. It still doesn't block it now like it used to, in the in the previous ones. So

Very functional interior, lots of room inside, for people, for cargo. it's it's a great vehicle. and let's see, grand total on the trailseeker touring that I had was forty eight thousand seven hundred dollars, guesses.

Roberto Baldwin (44:58)
Fifteen hundred.

jill ciminillo (45:00)
I'm gonna say sixteen hundred.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:02)
This time it's Robbie, it was fourteen fifty.

and the the only options

Roberto Baldwin (45:07)
I'm a winner Yeah yeah yeah

Sam Abuelsamid (45:10)
on this one were three hundred and ninety five bucks for the daybreak blue pearl, and then three hundred bucks for the this one actually had leather. It wasn't the the

Roberto Baldwin (45:19)
yeah, the Torian leather.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:20)
yeah. but you know the the the base model, the premium, you know, is a mix of cloth and their soft text, their their faux leather, which is still quite nice. The

touring the premium starts at forty grand, gets a little more range, you've got more sidewall so it's gonna be more resilient to potholes and stuff. just get that one. Just get the just get the premium. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (45:49)
Get that one. Just get

it. Just do that.

Roberto Baldwin (45:51)
So that's kinda nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (45:57)
That's true. It does have that.

Okay.

jill ciminillo (46:13)
I'd say electric cars heat up pretty quickly, I think.

Roberto Baldwin (46:15)
They

I I every time I get into a gas car after being driving my car around and I turn the air conditioning of the heater on, I'm like, man, this is taking so long.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:23)
Ha ha.

Roberto Baldwin (46:23)
I'm just like so I'm so irritated. I'm like, why is this taking so long?

Sam Abuelsamid (46:30)
yeah, I went out for a drive this afternoon in the Miata 'cause it was such a beautiful day out. It was only about fifty degrees out when I left. So, yeah, it was still a little bit chilly, you know, with the wind, 'cause, you know, top down. you know, I did turn on the heater for a few minutes at first to you know, to warm things up and then, you know, that that took a a little while to heat up, but then that was fine.

Roberto Baldwin (46:50)
That's fine.

Sam Abuelsamid (46:51)
Yeah. all right, so that is the the twenty twenty six Subaru Trailseeker. go get one.

got a knax charging port. My my one one one one of my neighbors

Roberto Baldwin (47:03)
Sam the Sam's seal of approval. Shh, just go get one. You want an EV? Do you

want to go off road? Just go get a trailseeker. Just I don't wanna hear any more I don't wanna I don't talk back. Just do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:11)
One of one of my neighbors is really into

is really into outdoor stuff. He drives an outback, drives an older outback. He's got like

Roberto Baldwin (47:18)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:18)
two hundred and twenty thousand miles on it. Last summer he drove it to Alaska for like three months with his dog. and

Roberto Baldwin (47:25)
Awww.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:26)
and then dri back again and and he was you know, he was asking about this one, you know. you know, he's potentially interested in it. What he's probably gonna do is he's gonna drive his outback until it dies. And then I told him, Your best bet.

Drive the outback till it dies and then buy used trailseeker.

Roberto Baldwin (47:44)
Yeah, yeah,

jill ciminillo (47:44)
Hm.

Roberto Baldwin (47:45)
that'll be yeah.

jill ciminillo (47:46)
He's not gonna be able to drive it to Alaska though.

Roberto Baldwin (47:49)
You can drive it to Alaska. no, no, that quickly. Yeah, it's still it their their their charging

jill ciminillo (47:50)
I mean at least not quickly.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:51)
I not yeah, not quickly. It'd be a it'd be a more leisurely pace. But yeah, he's

Roberto Baldwin (47:56)
rate on these are is like one fifty. So it's still not it's not an eight hundred volt system.

Sam Abuelsamid (47:59)
Yeah, I mean it'll do it'll go ten to eighty

percent in in thirty minutes. Which is yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (48:03)
It's long enough for his dog to poop.

jill ciminillo (48:04)
Yeah. But but

finding finding the chargers, also like I hear Canada isn't so great on the charging situation, so

Sam Abuelsamid (48:13)
it depends where you are. Depends depends where you are.

Roberto Baldwin (48:13)
I'm the looka. Alright, I'm gonna you guys

jill ciminillo (48:14)
Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (48:16)
keep talking, I'm gonna use a better route planner. See if we can get a Subaru route tell secrets.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:19)
Okay.

jill ciminillo (48:20)
Uh-huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:22)
all right. So let's let's carry on. the Acura announced this week that they are gonna be launching three new models in twenty twenty eight. or start from starting from twenty twenty eight. including an adventure ready SUV. which I guess means that they're gonna have an Acura branded version of the passport.

jill ciminillo (48:48)
Yep, I I believe that sounds right.

Sam Abuelsamid (48:54)
and and also a new RDX, although the RDX is not coming until until twenty twenty eight as well, which is I'm surprised that it's gonna take that long.

jill ciminillo (49:03)
Yeah, it was supposed to come out this year and they I for whatever reason, pushed it a year and I believe it is hybrid only.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:16)
Is is it gonna be hybrid only? Okay.

jill ciminillo (49:16)
For twenty twenty eight. I think so.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:18)
Yeah. And I know it's it's gonna use their next generation hybrid system, which I had a chance to drive last fall, in Japan, when I went to the Japan Mobility Show with Honda. they let us drive a a prototype vehicle, really a development mule that had that system in there. and it's it's gonna be paired with with a V six. so you have a

jill ciminillo (49:38)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (49:38)
V six hybrid. and then they're also doing a new eight passenger SUV.

which would be bigger than the the current MDX. and so, you know, three new three new utility vehicles for for Acura. So including an off rotor. So we'll see how that goes.

jill ciminillo (50:00)
So my question

is, do you think the off-roader and then the eight passenger SUV will essentially be the same thing? But

Sam Abuelsamid (50:08)
No. 'Cause they said there's three three new models. So th they they talk about the off rotor separately from the the SUV. So the off rotor I'm I'm guessing is basically going to be a rebodied passport. You know, so a little fancier pas passport.

jill ciminillo (50:24)
And then the probably the eight passenger will be the pilot.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:30)
Yeah, I would I would guess it's based on the pilot, on the next generation pilot.

jill ciminillo (50:34)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (50:37)
and then Portia this week showed off their a new concept called the Mission S. and let's see, let's find it here. Here it is. what do you think of this car?

Roberto Baldwin (50:55)
Looking at it. It looks cool.

jill ciminillo (50:56)
I I think it looks pretty cool.

Roberto Baldwin (50:57)
I don't know anything they won't tell us anything about the engine.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:00)
Yeah, no I mean it it appears to be I think it's gonna be a combustion engine vehicle. But this this is gonna be a new flagship

Roberto Baldwin (51:07)
yeah, it's very primary. Mid engine.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:09)
above the above the nine eleven.

Roberto Baldwin (51:14)
Yeah, that's cool. I can see people with lots of money buying it.

Sam Abuelsamid (51:15)
Yeah. And there's th there's design elements from a bunch of different

cars over the years, including the the nine fifty nine and the shape of the the rear wing there, a little bit of the nineteen eighties era nine elevens there and the the the long skinny tail lights. it does have exhaust pipes, so you know, presumably some sort of combustion engine.

yeah. the and yeah, the interior of this thing looks like it could be a manual. and it's also got no screens. There's like real gauges.

Roberto Baldwin (51:58)
So nice.

jill ciminillo (52:00)
Yeah,

no, I don't even see like an infotainment screen in there.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:03)
No.

Roberto Baldwin (52:03)
You know why? 'Cause you don't need it.

jill ciminillo (52:05)
No, you really don't.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:05)
Yeah, if you're driving a car like this,

the car is all the infar entertainment that you need.

Roberto Baldwin (52:10)
So I have a so for the BRZ I have like a little phone holder. And so the phone holder's been in this corner to the left

jill ciminillo (52:17)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (52:18)
of the the steering wheel for like years. And finally it just fell and it just the suction cup stopped working and I just have not replaced it for months. I just get my phone and I plug it in for music and then I just put it on the passenger seat and then I just go where I gotta go. So far so good.

jill ciminillo (52:35)
Yeah. Well we have a magnet, an R car that attaches to the dash and just put the phone on the magnet.

Sam Abuelsamid (52:44)
That that's that's what I do in my Miata. I have a little trash bag that's velcroed on the passenger side of the center console. And so I just drop the phone in there when I get in the car and Bluetooth to the to the radio and that's it. That's all I need.

all right. Then there was another sports car that was shown this week. which is

Roberto Baldwin (53:12)
Car I

I think we need

jill ciminillo (53:14)
Sword.

Roberto Baldwin (53:14)
quote words around the word car c you know, qu scare scare

jill ciminillo (53:17)
And and

Sam Abuelsamid (53:18)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:18)
quotes around the word car.

jill ciminillo (53:20)
as well as sport.

Roberto Baldwin (53:22)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:23)
Well I mean it's really fast.

jill ciminillo (53:25)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (53:25)
Alleged

allegedly. I mean it's an E V. My E V's really fast. It's not a sports car.

Sam Abuelsamid (53:27)
So So

so Tesla showed off a new roadster. you know, this so you know, nine years ago they when they first announced the semi, they showed off they unveiled what was supposed to be the second generation roadster and said it would be

Roberto Baldwin (53:47)
I was at that

event. I was there when they t it came out of the back of a truck. I took some pictures. It drove out. It went off. It did like a speed run by everybody. Like fifty thousand dollars and it'll be out in like three weeks or whatever, Elon said at the time. and then that was again nine years ago and I like, Man, that's so long ago.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:06)
Yeah, well, I think it was a fifty thousand dollar deposit and then it was two fifty two hundred fifty thousand dollars total.

Roberto Baldwin (54:13)
There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:14)
And some a a bunch of people apparently paid in full. I

Roberto Baldwin (54:23)
I don't think this Elon guy's on the up

Sam Abuelsamid (54:27)
Yeah.

So

Roberto Baldwin (54:36)
and up.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:38)
So ever since then, you know, Elon's been teasing the idea that they would put rocket thrusters in the the roadster. You know, you get rocket thrusters from SpaceX and add those to the roadster. And they r when they announced the roadster nine years ago, they said it was gonna have six hundred miles of range and all this other nonsense. So basically they they scrapped all that,

Roberto Baldwin (54:56)
yeah, the six hundred miles. Forgot all about it.

Sam Abuelsamid (54:59)
they showed off a new design for the roadster, which is it's okay. It's not bad looking. But

Roberto Baldwin (55:04)
Yeah, sure. Well you know. It's a s it looks

like a super it looks like a hypercar. Cool, fine. There's a thousand of them that look like this. Go go go on.

Sam Abuelsamid (55:08)
Yeah. but yeah.

but this time they actually had you know these cold what the cold gas thrusters that they installed in this thing. And so th the idea is there's supposed to be four variants of it. From a there's a base model, an upper trim level, and then what they call the roadster thrust, which is gonna have four thrusters at the back.

Which is supposed to make it go from zero to sixty in point eight seconds, which is just stupid.

Roberto Baldwin (55:42)
It's it's no one li I you know, I was talking to I think the CTO at Lamborghini about this and he's like he's like at some point like zero to sixty speeds don't matter because it's just uncomfortable. People just don't like it when you hit a s when you hurt a certain level, people are

Sam Abuelsamid (55:55)
Yeah. Once you get below about three seconds.

Roberto Baldwin (55:59)
people pe they do not enjoy it and then you have and and he didn't say this, but there is a potential for people to pass out.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:05)
Mm-hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (56:06)
Which is not a thing I'd like on the public roads is that my car is so fast that it's some passed out. And also, what are you doing? Where are you gonna do this? I can't go to

jill ciminillo (56:15)
I mean merging on the highway

in Chicago, that's where you're gonna do it.

Roberto Baldwin (56:18)
Yeah, you need a zero sixteen. Bam! I'm on. Bam! Where you go? I'm getting on the free BAM!

Sam Abuelsamid (56:24)
But you can only do it once. There's only

Roberto Baldwin (56:27)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:27)
there's only enough gas in the tanks, you know, and it's just filled with nitrogen. There's only enough gas in there to get one burst, and then that's it. And then it apparently

Roberto Baldwin (56:35)
So where do you get where do you get more nitrogen?

jill ciminillo (56:36)
Ever?

Sam Abuelsamid (56:37)
it takes six hours to refill it.

Roberto Baldwin (56:39)
Does it refill like from the air or is it so you to go somewhere? Do you gotta call a guy?

Sam Abuelsamid (56:43)
No, you y

you can you I guess you can refill it from standard nitrogen tanks that you can get from like a gas supply place.

Roberto Baldwin (56:51)
So like poppers.

Sam Abuelsamid (56:53)
Yeah.

But you know, it's it's got it's got compressors on the vehicle, so it's got a because it compresses the gas to ten thousand PSI and put it in this tank. So it's using

Roberto Baldwin (57:03)
That's a lot of

Sam Abuelsamid (57:04)
onboard compressors to do it. That's why it takes six hours to fill it. So you get

six hours to get a two second shot of of thrust from this thing. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (57:14)
Yeah. It's so much work for something

that you're probably not gonna enjoy.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:21)
but that's not even the best part.

jill ciminillo (57:22)
Pretty drink.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:23)
Then then there's the rocket version, which adds six more thrusters, including four on the bottom.

Yeah, and they they show this thing going up around a half loop and then flipping over and then hovering itself back down.

Roberto Baldwin (57:39)
You know, like NASA did in the sixties.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:42)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (57:44)
like to have seen like the testing for that and like and who

Roberto Baldwin (57:48)
Yeah, there had to be so many just

jill ciminillo (57:50)
volunteered to to be the driver.

Roberto Baldwin (57:53)
it's all robotic. It's all it's it's it's a it's a it's a remote control car. There's no humans inside.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:53)
Well yeah, we we we don't Yeah.

jill ciminillo (57:55)
Okay. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (57:58)
Th there w there was there w there was almost certainly no one they didn't show anybody getting out of this thing after the the demo. So there was almost certainly no one in there.

Roberto Baldwin (58:05)
They said that it like they didn't

they didn't put anyone in there 'cause they didn't want to kill anybody. Which is, you know, that's a th glowing review from the from the CEO.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:12)
That's that's the most ethical thing Tesla's ever done.

Roberto Baldwin (58:14)
Yeah, w we don't want to kill somebody in our in our flippy car. it was I mean the whole event was just it was a monster truck rally. It's

Sam Abuelsamid (58:22)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (58:23)
like, look at this truck. You can do a backflip in a monster truck. Okay, cool. But you can't buy the monster truck. It's not a thing that people buy. That's what this is. It's not a thing people are gonna be able to buy

Because for if you look even if you w when it flipped over you're like, these are all these these are essentially show cars. They're they're empty. There's nothing in that but a bunch of tanks in order for it to flip over. There's you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (58:46)
Just just

enough battery to make it do the demo. Yeah. And then yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (58:49)
Yeah. It's got a five

kilowatt battery, kilowatt hour battery. And then the other you there's different cars. So they didn't use the same car for each thing. And then, you know, then one car probably had like, you know, a hundred kilowatt Yeah, one hundred kil

Sam Abuelsamid (58:59)
Yeah, because because it's it's a one shot deal. Once once you do

it once you do one jump, that's it. You then you gotta go refill the tanks.

Roberto Baldwin (59:07)
So it's it's you know, it again it was a it it was it was a monster truck show for it's a stock bump. They most of these Tesla things are just like, Hey, are you gonna get this car? No. No, come on.

Sam Abuelsamid (59:19)
But it's coming

in twenty twenty eight, he said.

jill ciminillo (59:22)
Okay, so we we are we placing bets? I feel like we need

Roberto Baldwin (59:22)
A ba yeah. god, I'm not gonna say

Sam Abuelsamid (59:25)
Ha ha ha.

jill ciminillo (59:27)
to have like the the wheel bearings version of Cal She.

Roberto Baldwin (59:29)
When would when will this happen?

I think there will be a very boring you know, it'll still look the same.

No, I don't even know that. I don't even think that's true. I was saying like twenty thirty. Like I said the first time we see any of these that anyone's gonna

jill ciminillo (59:46)
Yeah, I'm like twenty twenty thirty, twenty thirty two. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (59:50)
get any of these delivered in any form, it might not even be this by then. It might be some other the soonest I'm thinking is twenty thirty.

jill ciminillo (59:59)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:00)
If if if somebody with fifty thousand dollar deposit is lucky. It's just so much it I

jill ciminillo (1:00:08)
Yeah. I no.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:09)
I don't They're like,

but it suctions I'm like, Yeah, but we've seen cars suction the things.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:15)
Yeah, I mean Jim Hall did it with the Chaparral two J in in nineteen seventy, a Can Am car with fans

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:21)
Yeah. It's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:22)
and and skirts and suctioned it to

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:24)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:24)
the road. And then Gordon Murray did it with a Brabham F one car in nineteen seventy eight. And and he did it with the T fifty, you know, several years ago.

Roberto Baldwin (1:00:34)
Yeah, this is not it's not like I don't I just it's it's it's the reason I so the when I became a car journalist was because I was a in gadget, I was a an InfoSec journalist, and I was seeing the way tech covered automobiles. And I'm a big car nerd from from from from a child. And I was like everyone was just writing whatever Tesla was doing as like the first time this has ever happened. And I'm like, Well that's not true.

This is not the first time it's ever happened. They're standing on the shoulders of every other automaker who's been doing this for X amount of time. You know, the Bosch their driver s you know, their driver assistance system was essentially just the Bosch system turned to eleven. and so I asked my boss, I'm like, Hey, when we cover automobiles, we only cover Tesla and other automakers are doing these things or have done these things, and I would like to do this. I would like to write about properly like automobiles versus, you know,

You know, tech journalists, if you're a tech journalist and you usually cover phones and someone tells you this is the greatest thing ever, you're like, cool, yeah, it must be the greatest thing ever. And I'm just sitting there like, Nah, man. That's not the first time. and so my my my my my editor who became the EIC of gadget, she just replied, Okay. Thanks, Dana. So Dana's the reason I'm here.

jill ciminillo (1:01:53)
Huh?

Roberto Baldwin (1:01:54)
yeah, Dana just said, Okay

so yeah, so yeah, we we you know, this it did a kick flip, I think that was like a thing. And but then they kept saying it's a flying car. well it's a flying car in the same way that me jumping over a box I'm flying. It's it's it's a jumping

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:09)
It's it's a hopscotch car.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:10)
car. Yeah, it's a hopping car. Which again, you know.

So so by definition doesn't a roaster have to be a convertible? yeah, that's a whole yeah, that's a whole other thing I'd I mean angry about yet.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:23)
Well the the the roof panels

are removable. It's like a teetop.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:28)
okay. so it's like a like a Del Sol.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:31)
Kinda. Yeah. Not not exactly a teetop, 'cause the

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:33)
it's a teetop like a like a prelude? No not a prelude, pulsar?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:37)
yeah, so it the the door the windows are fully framed, but so it's got like butterfly doors, like the cyber cab.

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:45)
huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:46)
but then the the horizontal part comes off. You can take the horizontal horizontal part

Roberto Baldwin (1:02:50)
Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:51)
off. So there's a bar down the middle and then you got the glass panel the glass horizontal panels that are attached to the doors. Those can come off. So you've got

Basically like two sunroofs, sort of.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:05)
Like Smoky and the Bandit?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:07)
Kinda, yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:09)
You can be the new Burt Reynolds.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:14)
Now, there's

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:13)
Get a big mustache, cowboy hat.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:17)
an idea. We need a remake of Smokey and the Bandit using a Tesla Roadster with the thrusters on it. And when the cops try to pull in front try to block

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:24)
You could do this flipping. It well I mean it's

jill ciminillo (1:03:25)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:26)
him, he just jumps over the cops. He doesn't he doesn't have to have a ramp or anything to jump over the cops.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:29)
But then everyone's everyone's gonna be But

but that's just that's just Night Rider. And they s remember they had the turbo button and it made the car jump. Yeah. We already found that in the 80s.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:38)
okay, yeah, never mind. So another Night Rider n another night rider reboot.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:43)
There you go, you could do a night rider reef.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:48)
all right.

Roberto Baldwin (1:03:49)
I don't

I s I j yeah, I th th the it's like everyone's like, Look at this I'm like I mean, cool. I mean someone spent a lot of time I you have SpaceX tech you know, technicians there, but it's it's like when I watched the eighty four the opening ceremony for the nineteen eighty four Olympics in LA and the man f showed up with the jet pack.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:08)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:09)
He didn't say he was gonna be able to spy the jet pack and they'd been around for a while, but for me I like

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:13)
Well,

it was in a James Bond movie in the nineteen sixties.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:17)
Yeah, it wasn't yeah. It's it's

jill ciminillo (1:04:19)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:20)
Was it was it Doctor No or Thunderball, I think he Sean Connery used one of those?

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:20)
Listen Probably Yeah. Like you could only fly

it for like w like ten, thirty like a certain amount of seconds, and if you didn't land in time

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:31)
bad things were gonna happen. You were still gonna land, it just wasn't gonna be as as comfortable.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:33)
Same thing. Same ye Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:04:36)
Wasn't gonna be as pretty.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:38)
Yeah, I mean it's the same thing. You'll you got with with the the rocket version, because it's got two tanks and it's got six hundred liters of gas, I think you got about ten seconds.

Roberto Baldwin (1:04:48)
Oof. Yeah. It's and if you get this to people, there there's just gonna be a lot of dead people.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:54)
Yeah. Well I I guess Elon did acknowledge the other day that the this version is gonna be sold by invitation only.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:02)
Like who d how did you To who?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:07)
He'll find some suckers in Silicon Valley with way too much money. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:09)
Someone's gonna people are gonna die. It's

not gonna be first of all it's not gonna be a thing that you could be able to buy. And somehow they do make it a thing. People people are just gonna die. I mean they even said we wouldn't put people in this car because they would die. And they're like, but I'll sell it to you. Invitation only. So I'm gonna invite you to die in my car. Here's an invitation to death.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:34)
Speaking of which, it's time it's time for time for a regular

Roberto Baldwin (1:05:36)
Speaking of invitation to death.

jill ciminillo (1:05:37)
Speaking which is

Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:40)
reminder that if you have a cast Tesla with the FSD package, you cannot sleep when you're behind the wheel. You cannot climb in the back seat. You must stay awake and alert and pay attention and be ready to take over at any moment. Because while FSD does work really well most of the time,

Every once in a while it will do something really, really bad. And if you're not paying attention, people will at the very least get seriously injured and potentially die. And people have died from these things. the most recent happened just a couple of days ago in California. some some guy

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:19)
Hey, it's down the street from my house.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:21)
was going down the road in his Tesla in FSD, said he was sleeping.

And the car slammed right into a stationary police car that was attending to another crash and injured two police officers pretty severely, sent them to the hospital. So fortunately nobody died this time. But,

Roberto Baldwin (1:06:40)
Dad.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:41)
you know, it's again, this is not this is not an unsupervised system. You must pay attention always and be ready to take over at any moment, especially at night. Because even Elon, I guess in some

tweet you know some post on Twitter or X or whatever the hell it's called this week, you know, acknowledged that, you know, the r one of the the reason why the Robo Taxis don't work at night, we've got to make it better at being able to see, you know, a dark gray cat, you know, against gray pavement at night. because cameras can't really see that. But you know what can see that? Radar and LIDAR. Yep.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:22)
Radar and LIDAR? What?

jill ciminillo (1:07:22)
Radar, radar, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:27)
so

jill ciminillo (1:07:26)
I know crazy. Crazy talk.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:28)
Yeah. but you know, Teslas slamming into stationary emergency vehicles. Still not an uncommon occurrence. So, you know, be

jill ciminillo (1:07:36)
Kind of a problem.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:37)
be careful out there. Pay attention when you are driving, you know, when your Tesla when you're letting your Tesla drive itself.

Roberto Baldwin (1:07:44)
'Cause it's not driving itself. And this is a like when when Tesla had PR, like the PR team really liked me because every time I do a video or whatever, I would state in the vehicle, this is not a self driving car. It is not it is not drive by itself. You have to pay attention, blah blah blah. I give all the you know, sort of like, hey, these cars don't drive themselves, which I don't really do much anymore, especially with you know, I I just tell you like you have to pay attention. That's the thing. It's not it's not a new technology anymore. We have hands free systems, blah blah blah. Pay attention. Everyone should know you have to pay attention. I would get so many emails.

and ch and and and Twitter replies and and DMs like, you don't know what you're talking about. Tesla's a self-driving car. And I'm like, man, the people who work at Tesla told me it's not. I just like, I'm like, whatever, man. I can't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:28)
Until until Tesla says that when you're using FSD, we will take we will accept full liability for anything that happens.

jill ciminillo (1:08:35)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:37)
You are responsible. It is not self

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:39)
Yeah, you're

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:39)
driving until they take responsibility for it.

jill ciminillo (1:08:42)
Yep. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:42)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:43)
And the same is true, this is not exclusive to Tesla. This is true for every automaker. Yeah. You must pay attention.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:48)
Blue crews, super cruise, whatever you wanna

jill ciminillo (1:08:51)
Pro Pilot Assist two point one, not as sexy of a name, but yep.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:51)
you you Yep. Pro

Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:55)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:08:55)
Pilot says two part one. What what? Like And again, what do you do with your hands? What do I do with my hand?

jill ciminillo (1:09:03)
I set him in my lap.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:04)
Check in my lap all weird. I just put back on the steering wheel and I'm like, alright, this feels comfortable. Or

jill ciminillo (1:09:08)
Yeah, let me set him on my lap.

hand talker too, so in case you didn't notice. So I can like talk to people and, you know.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:14)
well yeah, I mean when you're on yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:13)
So you can talk to people. There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:17)
When you're when you're I mean when I'm talking to people, I am

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:18)
Pew pew finger guns.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:20)
my hands are always moving, so

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:22)
There we go. That's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:23)
so I I think I don't know if it was last week or the week before, we did mention that you could buy cheap Tesla model threes in Canada for the equivalent of about twenty nine and a half thousand US dollars. I think it was forty one thousand Canadian dollars. those are sold out.

can't get them anymore because

Roberto Baldwin (1:09:42)
What?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:43)
there's a there's a there's quotas there's a forty nine thousand unit quota

on how many Chinese EVs are allowed in at the the low at the six percent tariff rate. and Tesla used up its share of that 'cause they're they're

doling them out to various manufacturers. so you if you haven't if you didn't already order one, you will not be able to order one again until at that price point at least.

until next March. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:13)
So next March you gotta sit there if you want a Tesla, a cheap Tesla.

jill ciminillo (1:10:16)
Put put it on your calendar.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:18)
Or aren't they getting the E V the Ionic three up there? or you can just get an Ionic three. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:22)
yeah. And they also they also already have the Kia E V four as well.

Roberto Baldwin (1:10:27)
you can just get an E V four. Or you can just get a you can just get a car that has a dash cluster.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:31)
Yeah.

all right. So let's see. tire rack. a couple of years ago we had TJ Campbell from Tire Rack on the show. Yeah, he's great. they

jill ciminillo (1:10:42)
He is so good.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:45)
they just posted a new video this week. they did some you know, they they are constantly testing tires. they did a bunch of testing with three new winter tires. the

Bridgestone, Blizzak Ice Peaks, the let's see what was the other one? there was the Continental Viking something. Contact eight, yep.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:10)
Contact eight. Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:13)
and then there was a Michelin Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:17)
X Ice Snow Plus. These are all okay

so so Viking is a cool name that they d why do you have to put contact? You speak Viking. Done. X Ice Snow Plus. Too long. Too long of name. This is why Blizzak works so great.

jill ciminillo (1:11:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, I I tested the Nexon tires recently and they w I I still can't get the name right. There it's like four season I I can't but it's like this really long name, two. You know, and then it's got the two at the end.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:50)
Ha ha.

jill ciminillo (1:11:51)
Like

Roberto Baldwin (1:11:51)
Like it's

fine if you have like two. Like if you have a version number, I'm I'm cool with that. It's like Blizzak five. You're like, Ooh, like it's a movie franchise.

jill ciminillo (1:11:57)
It's

N to Blue, that's what it is. I'm like it took me a second, but it's like the

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:01)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:12:02)
all all four season a like blue to N blue to two. I'm like it it yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:10)
The Michelin polar bears. Like, yeah, I've totally gave me some polar bears. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:12:13)
Polarbridge, bluezax, like Wild Peak, easy.

Just leave it there.

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:19)
The Yeti.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:21)
So

so the tire rack crew did a bunch of testing with these three sets of tires, three different brands of tires. and all of them it's funny, they they they compared the they they compared the test performance results against all season tires. They didn't s specify which all season tires, but you know, probably yeah, just yeah. Any any of them. There

Roberto Baldwin (1:12:41)
Tire just all season tire.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:45)
was there was a huge gap between on the winter on the snow and ice.

jill ciminillo (1:12:49)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:50)
and

and even in rain between the all season tire and all three of these winter tires. The you know among the the winter tires, the Bridgestones did the best overall, followed by the Michelins and then the Continentals. but even if you went for the Continentals, you would still be so far ahead of where you'd be with all season tires. if you you know if you live somewhere where you get real winter weather, where you get a bunch of snow and ice and you have to deal with for

several months at a time. It is absolutely a great investment to buy winter tires. and

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:25)
Yeah. I I

love the s the stopping distance on ice from twelve miles an hour to zero. The Blizzaks did it in like thirty five, thirty six seconds. The the Michelins did it in thirty-four and a half. The Conties did it like forty one feet. but the all seasons, sixty feet. So even the worst

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:44)
Yeah. It it makes a huge difference.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:47)
even the worst like and worst is you know, it's not the worst. They're just not as good as the other two. They're still good tires. Even there's there's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:53)
They're the least good the least really

good.

Roberto Baldwin (1:13:55)
The least really good. It was still twenty foot difference between all seasons. There's like that's like two and a half cars just

jill ciminillo (1:14:00)
Yeah, and you just can't

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:02)
sliding. Where am I going? I don't know. You c

jill ciminillo (1:14:07)
Yeah. Well, you know, and

I mean the thing about winter tires, people are always like, but it's so expensive. And it's like, okay, but here's the thing. If you change your tires and you like you buy two sets at once, yes, that's really expensive. But like if you're rotating your tires out, you know, and maybe you only have one set of tires for four years if you're going with all seasons, and you can keep your winter tires and your summer tires for eight years, nine years, because

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:34)
'Cause you're only using

for less than half the year.

jill ciminillo (1:14:36)
Yeah, exactly. And and you can you know, they keep longer and just the the safety element. I ke I'm a nerd. I actually have tire samples in my freezer. Yeah, I do. And and Yeah, and they're stuck to a board.

Roberto Baldwin (1:14:46)
Ooh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:48)
Like little cuts up cut up bits of tire? Or like or do you have a huge freezer with

jill ciminillo (1:14:52)
No, no, no, no. Just cut cut up samples, but they're stuck to a board and I pull them out when I'm trying to make the case. Somebody should get winter tires because the winter tires are just like they're flopped over, they're supple, like even frozen, they're like

you know, y sticky. But then you go to the like the summer like as you go on down, it's like, you know, from this to this to this to you know, you know, the the ones

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:13)
A rock.

jill ciminillo (1:15:14)
that the rock that you snap if you like try it. And but it's just it's fascinating to me. You know, and I think Canada and maybe even the UP in Michigan require winter tires.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:25)
There are there are some some areas

where you're required to use winter tires.

jill ciminillo (1:15:29)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:29)
like some parts of Quebec, like in

jill ciminillo (1:15:32)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:32)
northern Quebec, you actually have to you're I think you're actually required to use studded tires.

jill ciminillo (1:15:38)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:15:38)
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:39)
but win winter tires are an absolute minimum.

jill ciminillo (1:15:41)
Yeah. Yeah. So but I I mean I if people so the argument I make to people about the cost is okay, yes, bigger upfront cost, but you know, in the long run you're really s probably spending less and it's safer.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:54)
And

yeah, the the safety, you know, is the the big thing. you know, you will be s you will feel so much more comfortable with the winter tires in snow and ice. I mean i you know, instead of you know that nerve wracking feeling you have trying to control your car on ice.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:12)
Trying to stop

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:14)
Yeah. Or, you know, when when you know, if there's a little bit of a sh you know, a little bit of a grade to the to the road

You know, and you're you're just trying to get moving and you feel the car sliding sideways off the road, just trying to get moving, you know. And then with the winter tires, you know, it just go. No problem. So the the link to this is in the show notes. definitely you know, I think it's the the video's only about it's less than ten it's eight and a half minutes. so it's definitely worth a watch, you know, to see what's what's cool in in new winter tires.

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:50)
It's I think

we've all done the ice driving thing at least once each, right? Yeah, the difference

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:56)
Yeah. And

Roberto Baldwin (1:16:57)
is crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:59)
Yeah, and you know, I mean I I was an engineer for many years working on ABS and traction control systems, you know, spending long winter long months in the winter in places like northern Sweden and northern Minnesota and northern Michigan. so I've got got lots of experience driving around on snow and ice with you know, all season tires and with winter tires. And studded tires. Studded tires are amazing, but you know, can't can't use those in many places.

jill ciminillo (1:17:25)
Well

no. And people say, but I have four wheel drive or all wheel drive. I don't I don't need winter

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:30)
Nope, don't matter.

jill ciminillo (1:17:31)
tires and I'm like, No, no. Trust me, the tires make

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:33)
Ha ha that's not how that works.

jill ciminillo (1:17:35)
so much more difference. Like they they yeah, they make the the most difference. Doesn't matter.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:42)
Back in the nineties, when I first met my wife, she had a a Mercury Sable, which was front wheel drive sedan on all season tires, and I had a five liter Mustang. And in the wintertime I had winter tires on that one. And no

Roberto Baldwin (1:17:57)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:58)
you know, I had no ABS, no traction control on that thing. And that thing was so much easier to drive in the winter than her front wheel drive mercury sable.

all right. so there's been here in my you know, we were talking about charging earlier. Here in my neighborhood in my my area, there's been a surge of new DC chargers being installed recently. there are now it counted today earlier today, within two miles of my house there are now seven different places with DC chargers, seven different locations with DC chargers within two miles of my house. with a total of I think twenty six or twenty eight chargers.

and I went out yesterday with the the Toyota RAV4 plug in hybrid just to try out some of the new ones. and so got got to check out some stuff at the at the local Ford dealer near me here. they put in a couple of hundred and twenty kilowatt chargers there. and so if you're if you're in the Ypsilanti area and you need a DC charge, Gene Buntman Ford, they've got the best prices.

they're not necessarily the fastest chargers, but you know, for a lot of cars that only have 150 kilowatt charging anyway. The 120s they've got there, great, 35 cents a kilowatt hour, highly recommend. the Stellantis dealer even put in a DC charger. They put a hundred and eighty kilowatt charger in there. and that one worked well as well. and then there's a w another one over at Ipsilon or Washtenaw County Children's Services. they've got a charger over there. That was the slowest one at eighty kilowatts.

But you know, it's still better than nothing. and all of them worked fine to to charge the the Rav4 at at a screaming twenty kilowatts because it's just

Roberto Baldwin (1:19:48)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:48)
a plug in hybrid. but but they worked. And they all have card readers on them, so you don't have to have an account set up or anything. Just, you know, tap your phone or tap your card on there and you know, plug in and it'll start charging and you're all good.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:03)
Alright, so I want to give an update on driving to Alaska. So if you go to Juneau, like you can get all the way to Dawson's Creek, which is funny. no way from Mount Dawson Creek. It's not Dawson's Creek. and then above that, good luck with charging. But if you cut across, if you just go east instead of trying to keep continuing to go north and go to Prince Rupert, then you can just take the ferry to Juno. So you can make it to Alaska.

with just with an E V I s essentially because there's a ch there's supercharger network along the ro about along the main road. So the Alaskan what what is it called? The Alaskan Highway? The

Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:43)
The Alcane Highway.

Roberto Baldwin (1:20:44)
They have a name. I don't know. so yeah, so it's it there's a there's a highway and you can get up to a certain point and then you're gonna have to c go left. 'Cause if you keep going north I think what is that? Is that the Arctic Circle? No. yeah, if you keep going north then you're going to you're gonna have some problems.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:04)
Well, the the guys from TFL back in twenty two, twenty two or twenty three, they bought a an F one hundred fifty Lightning and

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:15)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:16)
they they actually drove it from Colorado to California to get a camper top put on it, and then drove it all the way to Prudhoe Bay.

They went all the way to the north coast of Alaska. Even though there was no you know, not really any public charging stations out there, they found places to charge. So it

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:39)
So you can do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:40)
it is possible to go all the way as far north you know, as far as the Arctic So the Arctic Arctic Ocean.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:46)
There's a

jill ciminillo (1:21:46)
Just not

gonna be pleasant.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:48)
Yeah. I

mean it took took a while, but they got there.

jill ciminillo (1:21:52)
They got there.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:52)
So yeah.

Yeah. So the Tesla number is like two twenty. I think

Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:53)
What Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:21:55)
the the furthest north charging station I think I see on here is a Tesla charging station in Fairbanks. What's this? Wait, wait, what's this? there's another charging station. What's this? eight point yeah, anything that's under that's not decent it's just this is an AC charger. I don't count those. I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:13)
Yeah they

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:13)
mean if if you want to stay overnight, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:16)
Yeah, they've they found like in in one town I I'll find the the link to the the video playlist for that. But in one town, they found a welding shop and plugged into one of their two forty volt outlets and charged that way. So, you know, it's it's definitely it's doable. It's you know right it's you know, not not the ideal thing to do right now, but it can be done.

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:40)
Yeah. But you can get the Juno from Detroit with just regular old Tesla superchargers, essentially. There you go.

jill ciminillo (1:22:49)
Okay. Good to know. Now you know. Like the PSA, now

Roberto Baldwin (1:22:51)
Now we know no one's have to battle.

jill ciminillo (1:22:53)
you know. Stars shadowing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:03)
so this week was the Paris Motor Show. last week we talked about the the new Citron Duchou. but

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:13)
Shadow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:14)
there was a Stellantis in particular, Stellantis and a whole bunch of Chinese automakers were very busy at the Paris Motor Show this week. Stillantis had a whole bunch of stuff. including one of my personal favorites, which was the the Peugeot E.

T sixteen, which is strictly a concept right now, but you know it's kind of a modern take on the the nineteen eighties two hundred five turbo sixteen Group B rally car. But it's electric. and I I thought this was kind of cool.

Roberto Baldwin (1:23:52)
That's an angry little hot hatch. I love it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:54)
Yes.

jill ciminillo (1:23:54)
Uh-huh.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:57)
and then let's see what else. No, there was also the Peugeot also had the Vision R C Z. So a few

jill ciminillo (1:24:05)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:05)
years back they had a little coupe called the R C Z and and now they've got a a newer concept. you know, same kind of overall form factor but also electric now.

And and then the Opal STX concept. Opal also being owned by Stellantis these days. This this one I I like. Yes, it's a little wagon.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:29)
I like the weird Fiat multiplay. Is that what it is? Yeah, the Fiat multiplay. It's like it's a C It's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:33)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:24:36)
a truck. It's a SUV. It's a weird it's a thing you're never gonna get.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:41)
Yeah.

Well back was it in the early two thousands they had this little sort of crossoverish vanish thing called the multipla. And so this is kind of a modern take on that, but the the back end moves. So the back quarter of the roof moves. So it can slide all the way back to make it kind of a crossover vanish thing, or slide forward and make it into a little pickup truck.

jill ciminillo (1:25:08)
Hmm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:09)
There you go.

jill ciminillo (1:25:10)
Kind of like the GMC Envoy.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:25:13)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:15)
yeah, the on I forget what what was the what they call that variant. I don't know. They had a version of the Envoy that yeah, that opened up like that. and then let's see, where's the Alpha? Let me find the Alpha Romeo. and then there was this the Alpha Romeo Quer Querirosa? I don't know how you s pronounce it, but it's hot looking.

the interior was kinda interesting. So the

jill ciminillo (1:25:47)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:48)
the the gauge, the center the gauge cluster in front of the driver, it can be just a single gauge with a bunch of information in there or it can split and open up into two separate gauges. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:07)
that's pretty that's kinda cool.

jill ciminillo (1:26:08)
that that

that is that is very cool. And no infotainment screen that really

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:11)
What is it all like it's like a

felt? Is it like felt on the inside or

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:15)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:16)
Velvet? What is going on?

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:18)
No, I think

jill ciminillo (1:26:18)
It's a textured material.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:20)
No, I think the the two displays are stacked so they're they're staggered so one slides underneath the other one when the whole then the enclosure comes together.

jill ciminillo (1:26:30)
Mm.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:33)
Suede. Is the interior made of suede? That's the word I was looking for. It feels like it's suede. Doesn't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:39)
could be.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:39)
it seem like it has like a little suede texture to it? And you just rubbing it. You can't get it wet.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:41)
Yeah, some sort of some sort of fabric.

jill ciminillo (1:26:44)
Mm, maybe.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:46)
Neoprene.

jill ciminillo (1:26:49)
I mean the seats look suede.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:51)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:26:51)
They're

very sweaty seats.

jill ciminillo (1:26:52)
Sweetie. Sweeted.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:56)
and let's see what else we got here. the the Alpine A three ten vision.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:07)
Cheese.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:09)
Also also electric.

jill ciminillo (1:27:14)
I'm seeing a lot of triangle wheels going on. I'm sensing a theme.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:14)
And Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:18)
People love

triangles.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:22)
Yeah, interesting.

And then the Denza Z spider.

This is Denza is premium brand from BYD.

jill ciminillo (1:27:35)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:35)
So this is Chinese.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:39)
220 212 W wait two hundred and twelve miles EPA guessing. That's pretty nice. I just want

Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:44)
Yeah. Fift fift fifteen hundred and seventy nine horsepower

for the Denzel Z.

Roberto Baldwin (1:27:50)
I I just I mean

I like this probably end up with the slate if I once we do the drive program and if I really like it, like I drive the actual vehicle. 'cause I can't buy a vehicle without driving it, I'm sorry. 'Cause every p everyone was a lot of

jill ciminillo (1:28:02)
No, same.

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:04)
people are asking like, you know, you know, 'cause I had the fifty dollar deposit, did you translate that into an actual, you know, pre order? And I just cannot I j my my brain will not allow me to buy something that I have not driven, the proper version of it. but also if someone just came out with a small, like little convertible. I might just get driving.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:27)
and then one

Roberto Baldwin (1:28:27)
There's a chance other people.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:29)
one more from Paris is the the Renault eSpace. So back in the eighties, around the same time that Chrysler introduced their minivans, Renault introduced one in Europe called the Espace.

jill ciminillo (1:28:42)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:43)
which and and so this is you know kind of a play on that similar shape to the original espace, although the original one did not have quite such large wheels, but it did have a similar kind of profile to it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:00)
the super thin sidewall on that this makes me cringe. It's a show car, it doesn't matter. None of this is

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:03)
Yeah. yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:06)
none of this is real. It's like a car flipping doing a you know, a kick flip over a semi. None of this is

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:11)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:29:11)
real.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:14)
so if you ha if you happen to live in Toronto, get ready to start seeing Waymo's driving around town. Waymo announced this week that they're gonna start testing in Toronto. They're targeting a commercial launch of robotaxi services there in 2028. Waymo has been testing here in Detroit since late last year. and they just started doing driverless testing in Detroit, in like the downtown, midtown, and Corktown area.

And currently they're doing driverless testing with employees riding in the back. but they they hope they're targeting launching here with commercial services in the next few months. So have to go try those out in in Detroit soon, see how they do there. Yeah, that's

jill ciminillo (1:30:02)
Especially in the winter with snow.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:05)
that's gonna be interesting. 'Cause that's the one that's one thing

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:05)
Yeah, that's the fun

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:08)
I haven't I've I've ridden in a lot of automated vehicles over the last

Eighteen years, since my first ride.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:14)
They're all in Las Vegas

and San Francisco.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:17)
well aus also Austin.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:19)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:19)
and had several different rides in Austin with a couple of different companies, and in Europe but never never in wintertime. So looking forward to

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:30)
See.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:31)
that.

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:31)
I saw the the Ionic Five Waymo testing the other day when I was driving to

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:36)
yeah?

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:36)
the city. What was I in the city for? I don't know, doesn't matter. I was in San Francisco for my band had a show, that's why. I'm like, why was I in the city? One

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:43)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:30:43)
Yeah, where is in the city?

Roberto Baldwin (1:30:45)
of my bands had a show and then I was driving around. I'm like, hey, there's a Ionic Five Waymo and so I s creeped up next to it, I'm like, there's a person in the driver's seat.

jill ciminillo (1:30:54)
Ha ha.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:56)
so you were also in Detroit this week, Robbie. we didn't get a chance to catch up, but what you were at the battery show. Any anything exciting

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:02)
yeah, I was.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:05)
there?

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:09)
yeah. I was at the the the battery show. Batter battery in in in it up. so they have a big battery show every year in Detroit. It is very a lot of people are there. I remember one year they had the battery show at the same time as like the Detroit Auto Show, and the difference between the battery show and the auto show was just stark. Like there's so many more people at the battery show.

jill ciminillo (1:31:32)
No?

Roberto Baldwin (1:31:33)
It's just like I went to the to the auto show, I'm like, this is just kinda depressing. I went back to the battery show. So the battery show is really a lot of like the people who actually manufacturing, you know, graphite, you know, anodes. I mean, there's people there who who this is how we mi you know, mixing your materials and here's some vents that you need and here's you know, here's a system in order to to to to check your you know, your electro your electro you know, your your electrodes and your your anodes and it is

It's very picks and shovels type of a show. You know, a lot of you know, the people who are making sure that the batteries are, you know, are being are being made. And so it was yeah, it was really interesting. It's it's it's interesting to see how batteries have evolved and how the show has evolved. there were far more it was a bigger show than before. they told us there were more people there. I don't know, I didn't I haven't had a chance to look at the final numbers. but I guess last year they had sixteen thousand, this year there's more.

I don't know how that makes it you know, I don't know. Six I I made the joke on the automotive engineering, the SAE podcast, it was sixteen thousand and four. but it you know, there's a lot of smart people there. You I I sat in talking, you know, into a bunch of talks talking about, you know, mitigating fires, you know, energy storage systems and you know, it's a lot more than just EVs. EVs are still the sort of the main, you know, business.

But energy storage systems have become far more prevalent within the business. and then you you know, the well one of the things that was happening was there was a defense a defense event going on at pr probably in Washington DC. That's what they all happened.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:11)
Yeah, it was in DC.

Roberto Baldwin (1:33:13)
and batteries and drones have become a big, big deal because and so is you know, so a lot of battery people, a lot of battery manufacturers were at that event because that's

Big money. I sat in with a researcher who was talking about solid state and she was saying she's like and makes she's like where solid state's probably gonna go first is drones because a the the the batteries don't need to recharge more, you know, a thousand times like they do in a car. They can recharge like four or five because sometimes these are essentially kamikaze drones. They just p blow up. also, the government is more than happy to spend more money on these batteries because you know they're they are smaller than you know, your lithium ion so you get

You're gonna have be able to have a greater payload and you know. War, great. but at the end of the day, you know, that's how these you know, that's helicopters are because of war. It's like all these things that we we get because of warfare, which is sad, but that also mm I don't know. I'm always torn about war. My dad I grew up like with you know, I you know, my my dad worked for the military, so so yeah, so it's it's you know, the the it's it's a lot of

i i they've a lot of what do you call it? just more businesses for them. But you know, the main business is still automakers. someone AJ, when are legacy auto makers just going to throw in? I mean there's legacy automakers who are making money, so those ones are gonna be fine. I don't think they're gonna stop because especially when you look at, you know, Europe and Asia where, you know, E Vs are start are out selling

Electrode vehicles are outselling gas just gas powered vehicles and that's not going to go backwards. So I don't if you're a legacy automaker and you're going to throw in, you're giving up like, you know, a big market, which is the rest of the earth. the rest of the world. the US will just be slower. but you know, we're still selling a lot of EVs. but yeah, so the battery show that it was it's really an interesting

it's great to sort of talk to the researchers who are there. It's great to talk to the manufacturers and seeing how well you know what they're seeing within the industry. I think you know, especially now batteries the manufacturers or the people who are who are, you know, giving the parts to or doing the technology for the manufacturers, they are seeing, you know, the OMs are a bit more like, Okay, before we just wanted an E V. Now we want this part or this technology at this price because we need to make money on this and only, you know, be

at some point, you know, this is a business. I mean Hyundai will tell us that they're making money on their vehicles. Cool, but that doesn't mean that Ford is making money on their vehicles because they don't you know economies of scale. Hyundai makes a lot of E Vs. Ford makes one one and a half now. so yeah, so it's it's you know, we'll s we'll s it's it's an interesting place to go if you if you cover batteries in general. I have a battery magazine that I run. It's just batteries and it's a lot of researchers and and

a lot of people who are building things and so to me it was super interesting. to the average person, maybe less so, but y you

jill ciminillo (1:36:20)
Ha ha

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:21)
know, it's it's like it's like going to the oil, like, I'm gonna go see you to learn about this different viscosities and how synthetic oils are being made.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:28)
And for for the for the for the engineers and the purchasing people that are, you know, buying this stuff, you know, I mean it it's

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:34)
Yeah, it's yeah, it's a huge

Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:36)
that's you know, it's the pla that's where they get to meet up with all of the vendors that are, you know, providing this the stuff that they need. Yeah, I mean the the the the engineers, the research guys working in the labs, you know, figuring out okay what what chemistry should I be using? You know, what how do I design this thing? Yeah, once they figure out what to do, then then you gotta build it.

And that's where all these other companies come into play. so

Roberto Baldwin (1:36:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:01)
you know, shows like that, you know, they're they're not they're not interesting to most people, but they you

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:05)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:06)
know, there's there's a lot of there's a lot of interesting stuff going on there. And you know, the whatever you may think about you know the build out of AI data centers, it's actually worked out okay for battery manufacturers, including automakers, that invested

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:21)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:22)
tens of billions of dollars in these battery factories over the last five years.

And then the E V sales, you know, didn't didn't come up to to use those batteries. So

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:31)
They weren't as big as they anticipated. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:33)
so now they've they've pivoted a lot of those plants to building batteries for energy storage because all these data centers need huge banks of batteries so they have reliable power.

Roberto Baldwin (1:37:44)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:45)
and and also to you know to to shave off the power peaks and things like that. so you know, LG has transformed several of their plants, GM

is making energy storage batteries in Tennessee now. Ford's battery plant in Kentucky, that was building batteries for the lightning. You know, that I was talking to somebody who's working, you know, who's a project manager for that the construction of that plant, who worked on getting ever getting it built in the first place. Now they have basically completely gutted half the plant where they where they do the

the actual assembly of the cells. So the the side of the plant where they do the coating of the electrodes, that's being they're doing some minor updates to that. But the other side, because they're going from pouch cells to prismatic cells, they've basically ripped out all the equipment there and they're starting over again. And they're gonna next year they're gonna start building prismatic cells for energy storage. And eventually at some point, it will probably also start making E V batteries again as well.

Roberto Baldwin (1:38:51)
Yeah. I mean it's just you know, the automakers like I have a whole, you know, manifesto about, you know, who you know, how people were you know deploying these EVs and how they were looking at the marketing correctly, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot we've if you listen to any of the podcasts, you can hear me whining and complaining about this for for for the last couple of years. but the reality is like, yeah, these you know, we

Energy storage systems, we need us to balance the grid, energy storage system, the AI. If the AI bubble bursts, guess what? Now that town has an energy storage system that they can use for something else. So like it's it's horrible. Yeah. So yeah, no, it's it's you know, we we you know, you hear stories of AI storage s AI data plants running diesel generators, and just just

This you know, if you could get rid of the diesel generators, that's gonna be a huge win for literally everyone, but mostly the communities that these places are are near. So yeah, the battery show, super nerdy. I was really I got really exc I went and talked to Avery Dennison, the people who make the labels, they do a lot of stuff for like fire mitigation stuff. But I was like, I got I get really excited talking to Bosch and then they're like, Who are you? And I'm like, I'm a journalist. So like, okay. Like, who is this weirdo who's coming up to me all excited about battery

automation and welding. I'm like, sorry you guys doing blah blah blah it's like my God. Like who is this weirdo? 'cause yeah, 'cause again like like Sam was saying, most of it is people just sort of talking to each other, you know, purchasing managers, people who are trying to build batteries. They're they're there to figure out like, you know, the fine vendors. And then there's weirdos like Sam and I wandering wandering the halls asking people questions. Tell me your story.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:29)
Yeah, I was there for a while on Wednesday and I I I had a conversation with some folks from a company called Voltaic. that they do software tools for design and development of batteries. and you know, they they've been developing stuff using AI models, reasoning models, and generative AI to do the analysis of different battery chemistries, you know, so they can narrow it down, you know, narrow down, you know, from

thousands or hundreds of thousands of potential recipes for batteries, you know, down to a manageable number that they can then go through and test and evaluate. And so they've got tools to do all that stuff. And it was another company I was talking to that makes that I'm blanking on the name of the company now, but they make a material that goes into the into the cathode material that especially that that helps

improve the longevity of the cathodes. and especially for you know and acknowledge that yeah they're working with some of the companies working on LMR batteries, so l the manganese rich cells, that Ford and and GM at least have acknowledged they're doing, you know, to make those things last longer. you know, so they're they'll be, you know, much cheaper than the nickel rich batteries that we're using today with nearly

pretty much the same performance, but you know the problem with those has been just the the durability, the long term durability, and they've they've figured out materials to help make that last longer. So a lot of interesting stuff going on there. All right.

Roberto Baldwin (1:42:11)
Yeah. Batteries.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:13)
yeah. So let's go back to plug-in hybrids for a minute. just a couple more stories left. there was there's a an organization in Europe called Transport and Environment that is pushing

for policymakers to incentivize EV plug in hybrids with smaller fuel tanks. They want the fuel tanks capped at fifteen liters, which is about four gallons of fuel. Because they say if if plug in hybrids don't have such large tanks, they can't drive as far on on the gas engine and then then you know, and people will be incentivized to charge them. And they want plug in hybrids to have at least

Hundred and twenty four miles of range, about two hundred kilometers of range.

I mean, this is basically what kind of what BMW did with the I three Rex here, because of the regulations

Roberto Baldwin (1:43:07)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:07)
in California to get it classified as an EV, because the I three Rex was the range extended version of the Rex, to get it to qualify as an EV, California made them limit how far it could actually drive with the engine running, and the performance that it could get. So it only had like a one point nine gallon tank.

which you know wouldn't go very far and you know it the the range extender was only like I don't know fifty horsepower, fifty or sixty horsepower, something like that. and so it wouldn't yeah, it didn't have you know, it could only go like fifty five miles an hour with the range extender, and not you know, only go about seventy or eighty miles or something like that. what do you think of this idea?

jill ciminillo (1:43:56)
I'm like, no I'm de no. No,

Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:57)
Hm.

jill ciminillo (1:43:59)
no, no. That's not gonna get me to Indianapolis.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:01)
It's

jill ciminillo (1:44:02)
That would be a no for me.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:04)
Well, you don't it's you have to live in Europe, so I guess it wouldn't get you to Paris? I don't know. The Indian Indianapolis is the Paris of America, so So, Yeah, I it's the Paris, Texas of

jill ciminillo (1:44:12)
Well it is, it is, it is. It is. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:15)
It's the Paris, Texas of Indiana.

Roberto Baldwin (1:44:18)
Indiana. yeah. I it's it's it's it's sort of like, you know

The thing with the P heaves is that you're dragging two powertrains around and it's also a bit more complex. I understand why p you know, I th I I think P heavs for for a lot of people who are, you know, concerned about E V range, you know, they they want that that that

that safety net of being able to just use gas and I understand that and it makes, you know, a lot of sense for a lot of people. this is just I don't know, it's just weird. Like you can only put four gallons in. I'm like, then what's the at the thing is like what's the point at that point? 'Cause now you're you're crippling the vehicle into people just not buying it.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:57)
It it's basically an EV

with a with an emergency reserve, is what it becomes at that point.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:01)
Yeah, but the E V part

is only like, you know, forty miles. That's the

jill ciminillo (1:45:03)
Is not that great. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:05)
that's the problem, is that you're you're you're you're crippling the vehicle so that no one buys it. I mean, they don't sell that well to begin with, to be to be honest. P Haves don't

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:12)
Right. They're only about they're less

they're like one and a half percent of the market.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:16)
Yeah, P heavs don't do it. People for a little while I remember people like, e P heves are gonna be the the future and people aren't gonna buy bevs, they're gonna buy P heves instead, and that just never happened. It's just people more people buy bevs than they do P heves.

jill ciminillo (1:45:28)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:29)
so you already have like a pretty, you know, small market for these vehicles and then to like make it so like, by the way, it can only go like thirty miles after you after you use up your forty miles. So here's your seventy mile car.

jill ciminillo (1:45:41)
Yeah, no.

Roberto Baldwin (1:45:41)
Here's your here is your your your two thous your you know, your two thousand like ten like e-golf

Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:49)
No, I th I think I think the better solution rather than, you know, force some arbitrary limits like this on this, is actually to you know to have manufacturers work with their retailers, you know, and train them to you know, to actually help guide customers to the right solution for their needs. You know, and make sure that customers understand rather than you know

rather than incentivize them to sell any one of these, you know, work with the customer, figure out, okay, what what do you actually need? Do you have some place to plug it in? If you don't have someplace to plug it in, you know that I mean that should be the first cus the first thing the re the salesperson asks, do you have some place to plug it in every day? If you don't, then say, okay, don't even don't even consider this vehicle if you're if you don't have some place

Roberto Baldwin (1:46:39)
Let's get the hybrid.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:40)
to plug it in. And then you know, if you do

You know, then how are you planning to use it? You know, do you drive, you know, less than about fifty miles a day? Okay, then if you you know, if you're gonna do this, you should plug it in daily, and then it's gonna be a great solution for you because then you know when you gotta do longer trips, it'll be there for you. You can just keep driving. but you know, if not, you know, then just say just buy a regular hybrid if you can't plug it in. Or if you don't wanna plu if you don't intend to plug it in. Because I mean plugging plugging if you have some place to plug it in.

Plugging in is like the easiest thing in the world. It's way easier than going to the gas station. But if you you know but if you can't for whatever reason, then just don't sell it to those people that aren't going to use it.

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:29)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:33)
all right, one last story. the Hyundai Santa Fe is is due for a refresh and it's apparently gonna be getting one in conjunction with the arrival of its E Rev powertrain next year, next spring. and what what do you think of the design of the current Santa Fe?

Roberto Baldwin (1:47:56)
I mean it's just a blocky off you know. It's it's it's I I'm fine with it. Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:48:03)
Like it. I

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:04)
What what you think about the lighting though? Like like the H lighting everywhere?

jill ciminillo (1:48:05)
mean the the back end looks a little the lighting doesn't bother me.

Yeah, it doesn't bother me. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:48:09)
It's fine. Much

yeah, whatever. it it's it's it's

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:12)
Well it looks looks

Roberto Baldwin (1:48:14)
smart for y for for for bus you know, it's like the what is the Rivian. It has you have lighting that people are going to notice.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:21)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:48:22)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:23)
Well, from from these spy photos that Jalopnik posted, it looks like they're going kind of the same direction that they did with the the new Tucson.

jill ciminillo (1:48:33)
Mm.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:48:34)
Kinda dialing it back a little bit with the H's, you know, with two long vertical elements. There's probably a horizontal bar underneath the the camo there. And then similarly at the back, to

two vertical taillights and there's probably a horizontal lamp across the tailgate there. And it looks like they also kind of squared off the bottom section of that tailgate. Because if you look at the the the the pal the Santa Fe today, it kind of slope almost slopes inward a little bit in the bottom half of the tailgate. And I've had I

jill ciminillo (1:49:11)
Yeah. Well it looks a little bit bulbous at the back.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:14)
Yeah, when you know when I had one, yeah, a couple few people commented on that that they didn't they weren't crazy about the back end. So

Looks like they kinda made it maybe a little more squared off, a little more traditional looking at the back end.

Roberto Baldwin (1:49:27)
We'll see.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:28)
Yeah. all right, we also had two emails. first from Mark L. as a fellow Chicagoan, welcome to you, Jill. I've been listening to the WB podcast for several years and you're in great company. How about a semi technical question for the group? With more and more vehicles adopting rear wheel steering, is it possible for two cars sitting close to each other to bump rear ends when turning in opposite directions?

jill ciminillo (1:50:00)
I I so like so like if they were

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:00)
Okay, saying close to bump we're turning an opposite door.

jill ciminillo (1:50:04)
like next to each other at like a light and then went like that? I wouldn't think so.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:08)
I yeah, I guess that

would that would that would be my interpretation of the question. Or like in a parking lot, you know, or

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:12)
Not like

it's so the back end so the idea is the back end swings out more than a tech than a regular car.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:20)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:21)
Nah, not really. I mean I guess if I mean if two cars are next to each other, like and they're so close to each other, even when you turn, you're still gonna have some sort of swing b based on how far the you know the rear tire is from the back of the vehicle. Yep, I don't think it's gonna I don't know if it's gonna

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:35)
And the the

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:36)
be better or worse to be with the re I'm I'm trying to think with my my

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:38)
I think it's actually

probably gonna be better because the rears only steer when the fronts are also turned.

Roberto Baldwin (1:50:43)
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:50:44)
So, you know, if the two cars are beside each other, you know, if you're at low speed, you're probably gonna have out of phase steering. So basically the the the rears are gonna turn the opposite direction from the fronts and essentially it's gonna make the car turn tighter. So they're gonna they're basically gonna pull away from each other faster.

jill ciminillo (1:51:01)
Yeah. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin (1:51:02)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:51:03)
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:51:05)
Yeah, that's that's our that's our guess. We're pretty sure it'll be fine.

jill ciminillo (1:51:07)
That makes sense in my head.

Roberto Baldwin (1:51:09)
We're pretty sure it'll be fine. It'll probably be better.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:12)
Yeah. and then from Dave in California, said Sam, I've been listening to your views back to your appearances on Leo Laporte shows and like your style review. The only thing that does irk me a bit is how you your disdain for Elon Musk seems to color your objectivity for a large US company. I'm no fan of Musk either, but I do recognize he's one of just seventy thousand people at Tesla and I do admire they are at least

partially manufacturing autos in the US. My next car will probably be electric and possibly a Model 3, mostly because of the availability of the supercharger network. For that reason, I do like to get objective information about the cars and charging networks. I like the Ionic series, but the slow repairs of the ICCU issue soured me on the brand. My current and recent past cars include the BMW 320i, Toyota Venza hybrid, Honda Civic SI with a six speed manual, Acura RDX,

and a Kawasaki six fifty R motorcycle. so we tend not to talk a huge amount here about Tesla, in part because you know they don't generally have a whole lot of new product.

Roberto Baldwin (1:52:24)
It's the same car with a facelift,

jill ciminillo (1:52:24)
And they don't give us cars.

Roberto Baldwin (1:52:26)
yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:27)
Yeah.

jill ciminillo (1:52:27)
Yeah. We don't get test

cars, so like it's hard to talk about if you don't drive

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:32)
Yeah. I mean, you know, we c we can talk about, you know, riding in them as Ubers, you know, riding in the back as Ubers.

Roberto Baldwin (1:52:32)
Yeah. But they're not they're they're very long in the tooth. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:52:40)
and and none of us own a Tesla. but, you know, to comment that Mark or Dave has about you know Musk being just one of seventy thousand people, that's true, he is one of seventy thousand people, but he has a disproportionate influence. and he benefits disproportionately from

the success of of Tesla and his his other ventures because he owns some personally owns so much of the stock. you know I mean we have talked about you know and I've certainly talked in at many times about you know my respect for some of the things that Tesla has accomplished you know in terms of you know software-defined vehicles their build out of the charging networks

you know, just in general kind of legitimizing the idea of EVs as a as a mainstream product. but you know, I because I find Elon Musk so utterly detestable, I just cannot bring myself to to recommend any of their products, any or any of the products from any of his companies really, to people. because I just I I can't I don't wanna see him personally benefit.

You know, I d you know, somebody who, you know, is such a misogynist and racist and transphobe, you know, as the parent of someone who's trans, you know, I I cannot bring myself to recommend any of his products. you know, that's my personal view. you know, and I f I feel bad, you know, I've got a lot of respect for some a lot of the people I've met over the years that worked at Tesla. but and you know, I I would hate to see the company

fail. You know, it's it's a lot of job potential jobs to lose. But that you know, that's that's my personal view and that that's that's why I tend to to avoid to a large degree talking too much about Tesla because I you know I don't wanna seem that way.

Roberto Baldwin (1:54:42)
So as a Tesla reporter, that was sort of my job. and the the main the biggest hurdle to Tesla is Elon Musk. And he's always been the biggest hurdle to Tesla, to be honest. Like everything that's happened that's gone wrong at Tesla is because Elon Musk wanted it to happen. Everything that's sort of good about Tesla is because and I've gone and talked to engineers at Tesla who are like, yeah, this guy came up with this idea, and this guy came up with this idea, and the idea that Elon Musk came up with all these great ideas for these vehicles is false.

It's absolutely false. The people at Tesla would tell you so. And a very, like, very subdued, like, shh, don't tell Elon, but this guy's actually the person who came up with this idea. And this is the the gal who actually came up with this idea. that said, even if you if let's say apples to apples EVs, Tesla's just, you know, five, six years ago, it was, you know, they were they were working in a vacuum. The model three, when I did my review of the model for f three, I found a lot of problems with it. They were not happy with my review.

It's because I found a lot of safety issues with with the vehicle and how they they had laid it out. And the the and at this point, they are no longer there there is there are plenty of EVs on the market and many of them are better than what Tesla is offering. That's that's that's the reality. Tesla is the kleenex of EVs. They sell a lot of EVs because when people think EV, they think Tesla. The reality is is there's a lot of like really good EVs on the market that are

Just better. They charge quicker. They have better technology. You know, outside of the fact, you know, they they're just they charge quicker at you than than the Teslas. You know, and and I know the supercharger network, everyone moved over to Knaxx. Nax is now part of you know, it is you know, J thirty four hundred. It's an SAE standard.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:56:23)
Ever every pretty much every EV can use the supercharger net.

Roberto Baldwin (1:56:26)
Yeah, so any every E V can now use the supercharger network. The supercharger network, while it's vast, is that

The best network to be honest at this point. It is it's everywhere, so that gives it, you know, it's great for that. But Iona will charge your your vehicle faster. EEA will charge your vehicle faster. Like EV Go. It's just they have a ton of them. So if you're doing long distance trips, I remember for years, like, listen, if you're a person who does a lot of like really long distance trips, you're gonna have to get a Tesla. Now, it's yeah, you you can still do the long distance trip and use other charging networks, but in a pinch.

You can use the Tesla network as well. And so it's i you know, if if we pretend that Elon Musk doesn't exist, Tesla's vehicles are long in the tooth. They're not really you know, the suspension is kind of trash, to be honest. The the sa the the you know, there's no dash cluster because they're saving money. It's not it's not some sort of d fancy design thing. They

jill ciminillo (1:57:18)
It's cool.

Roberto Baldwin (1:57:19)
but yeah, it's it's cool, but you know, th there's there's there's there's research that says that, you know, you should have a dash cluster versus having to look over to the right.

with your eyes. It's it's there's there's, you know, there's there's research about that. so whether or not I like Elon Musk or I don't, I do not like Elon Musk for for a variety of reasons. the vehicle is just I wouldn't even if he didn't exist, I wouldn't say, hey, this is the best EV to buy. And I'm sad I'm sad that you're you know, you're concerned about the ICCU issue at with Hyundai, which is a completely valid issue.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:57:54)
And as far as the repairs on those, it's no longer a slow thing. When when when the one when the ICCU and R E V six failed, it was fixed in twenty less than twenty four hours.

Roberto Baldwin (1:58:05)
Yeah, so it's it's it is an issue that they've had. I mean, every automaker has issues. I mean, the first the B Z four X had wheels that would fall off. Yeah. Like you know, the the the first generation Bolt had battery fire.

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:16)
Which was shocking for a Toyota.

Roberto Baldwin (1:58:18)
Yeah, which is crazy for a Toyota. But you know, it's you know, if you wanna buy a Tesla, fine, that's that's you know, that's what you wanna buy. But there are better E Vs. It's just again, Tesla is Tesla. It is the Kleenex, it is the the the

the the the Hoover of you know, it's whatever the big name is of a thing that you like, it is that of EVs. And so it's very easy to see. And like, well, all these people bought a Tesla, so I'll buy a Tesla. And I understand that that inclination 'cause like, well these, you know, they can charge, they can do this, they can do all go everywhere. I will say that the Tesla charging network is also the most expensive charging network in my opinion

Sam Abuelsamid (1:58:56)
yeah.

Roberto Baldwin (1:58:56)
in my experience. So

But you can charge again if you get a Tesla, you can charge it at other charging networks. Just like you can charge other vehicles on Tesla networks. You know, there's there's interoperability now that wasn't there before. So for years, whether or not you know, I kept telling people for years, I'm like, you know, Tesla is like 90s GM quality, build quality. If we just wait eighteen months, it'll get better. But it just never really got better. so I would tell people, I'm like, well just wait a little while and the quality will get better, and it kind of just didn't.

Because it didn't have to, because people will just buy it because it is the big EV company. And to be honest, I would love if an adult took over Tesla. Cause to that's it. I I I've said for you, I would like an adult to run the company. Elon's rarely there. He'll come in, he'll make he'll he'll say, this is a thing we're doing, and everyone's like, I guess we're doing this now, which is you know how you end up with the you know, the the Falcon doors, which

That wasn't a thing until the last minute and Elon just showed up and he just kind of screwed up the Model X essentially. Like the the deployment, you know, those those doors always had problems and it just, you know, outside of the people who wanted something to look cool, it could have been a a higher selling vehicle. You know, the model three should have come out eighteen months beforehand, but he was convinced that he was gonna build the the the dreadnought, the machine that builds the machine. And then, you know, even though everyone was like that's not a thing you can do, he just kept pushing it. Again, it's

so yeah, so I yeah, so Dave, you know if you want to buy a Tesla, cool. I'm gonna tell you drive other EVs. They all they almost all will charge on the Tesla supercharging network, so don't worry about that. Just try them all. If you if the model three is the one that you like the most, cool. If the Ionic five, if the the Trail Seeker, if the if the the mock E, if the you know the the well maybe not the the the

the Jeep Cherokee. But if the you know, if if those are the the vehicles Yeah, I'm I'm always just like, you know, it's very easy to see Tesla as the EV maker, but the reality is there are a lot of automakers who are out there making really, really good EVs. There's no it's no longer this weird, well, this is the only company, which, you know, for years it kind of was the only company that was doing a good job and now it's not. And you know, you have so many options. And so again it's

It did but it yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:01:26)
And you know, for Model Year 2027, pretty much almost all of the new EVs sold in in North America as model year twenty twenty seven cars are going to have NAX ports built into them as native. Stellantis is has said all you know, however many EVs they build for Model Year twenty seven, they will have NAX ports on GM has said all their twenty sevens. the Ford has not said

if they're gonna switch over the Mach E yet for but the Fathom will definitely have it. you know and pretty much everything else ha is is switching over for model year twenty seven. So even even even

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:09)
Yeah, so you're gonna you're gonna get an X on everything.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:11)
Toyota and Subaru sell cars now with built in native NAX ports.

jill ciminillo (2:02:14)
Yep.

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:18)
So

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:17)
Yep. Yeah.

And like the the the the the the jump from the first to the second generation Toyota EVs is bonkers to be honest. The first ones were just like, I guess you're making EVs and now you're like, these are amazing. So

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:30)
Well, you know, that

that trail seeker, yeah, it charges from ten to eighty percent in about thirty minutes. You know what else takes thirty minutes to charge from ten to eighty percent? A model three. So it's it's as fast as a model three now.

Roberto Baldwin (2:02:41)
Yeah, the the charging curve is

really weird and the fact that they haven't gone to eight hundred volt yet on these

Sam Abuelsamid (2:02:48)
So you know, i the you know, the the the Toyotas and Subarus, not the fastest. You know, that's still the Hyundai's and Kias and Genesis, but it's it's as fast as a Tesla to charge now.

Then then go for it.

Yeah. And on that note, thank you everyone. Thank you, Jill. Thank you, Robbie. We'll talk to you all next time. Bye.