Sam Abuelsamid 0:00 Coming up on episode 416 wheel bearings. We got the Toyota Forerunner, TRD PRO, Acura, Adx, Honda passport, trail, sport elite. More on EV tax credits ending at the end of the month. INEOS is cutting prices. Volvo's XC 70 has 120 miles of plug in hybrid. Range, GM is cutting production of EVs in Detroit. Rams now shipping Hemi Ram 1500s we've got an off roading Chrysler Pacifica concept. AMG sets a bunch of EV records. Lucids make doing some updates for 2026 and Robbie visits slate, all that more coming up next. We Sam Abuelsamid 0:46 this is episode 416, of wheel bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid and from telemetry, Nicole Wakelin 0:52 and I'm Nicole Wakelin from top speed, Roberto Baldwin 0:54 And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International. And also Ars Technica this week. Well, there'll be a nice technical thing going up this. Okay, Sam Abuelsamid 1:04 so, Nicole, what you been driving? Nicole Wakelin 1:06 Well, last week I had the was it the Honda Acura? Nope, that's Honda Unknown Speaker 1:14 Acura message you get when you look Sam Abuelsamid 1:16 both cars are basically Hondas. The Honda Acura, yeah, the 2025 Nicole Wakelin 1:21 accurate Adx. All Wheel Drive, a spec advance again. These long titles. So this is, this is an all new car, I guess I should say, or SUV this year. It's nameplate, new nameplate. There we go. Thank you. Robbie is the one who just woke up and I'm the one who has no words. So it's a new nameplate. It's you know, this is, this is, I feel like this is just the continued expansion of every OEM to have an SUV for every conceivable like, size, right? Like every Roberto Baldwin 1:53 three inches, there has to be a brand new SUV, right? It's like, Wait, there Nicole Wakelin 1:56 we can make one, one inch smaller wedge. It right in there. So it's just another SUV, which sounds like I'm discounting it, but it's a good SUV. I like it. I did enjoy driving this. I thought it was a great vehicle. It's starts at 42,000 but mine was a bit pricier than that. Mine was sorry I closed the wrong page, 45,950 so it's a little bit more. Do you guys want to take a guess at the destination handling charge on this puppy. 1395 1400 Sam wins. 1350 you were Roberto Baldwin 2:31 really Oh, well, we talked about it last week, so I think Sam just remembers Nicole Wakelin 2:36 that's cheating, Sam Sam Abuelsamid 2:38 last week. Wait, who I did. I did, but I honestly don't remember. I just most, most Hondas and Acuras are in that range. Unknown Speaker 2:49 Yeah, Speaker 1 2:50 I wouldn't remember last week, I would remember the Sam Abuelsamid 2:53 car by the time the show is over. I didn't find it all that memorable. Anyway. Nicole Wakelin 2:58 I thought it was fine. I liked it. It felt like Sam Abuelsamid 3:01 fine. That is the key word. It's fine. Okay, tell us. Tell us what you love about the ADX. Nicole Wakelin 3:07 What I love about the ADX? I liked a lot. I like the ADX. It feels very It feels like an accurate it, you know, it's, it's, there's nothing really to complain about, but I don't know that there's anything to specifically cheer about. It has a 1.5 liter engine, 190 horsepower. That's not very much. That's kind of modest, a CVT. There's paddle shifters. Why do they do that? No one's using paddle shifters on this like no one. It just makes you think Sam Abuelsamid 3:35 actuarial is Honda's performance brand paddles. Mine did yours Nicole Wakelin 3:40 do that? Mine didn't go up. I didn't even play with them, because I'm not gonna this is, you're not buying this if you're looking for a sports car. Anyway, definitely not. It's like, so why? Paddle shifters, right? So it's, it is not, I don't want to say it's under power, but it's just just enough. It is the just right car. It is the, it's the, it's the one that Goldilocks would be like, this is okay Unknown Speaker 4:06 for a Honda I think Nicole Wakelin 4:07 it's, yeah, it's, so it's, I guess that's, that would be the challenge for 40, what did I just say? $45,950 I feel like it's a lot. Like, that's a lot for this vehicle. It hasn't, you know, it's got leather seats, and, you know, it's, it has the a spec package which gives cool styling stuff, so you get it adds ventilators front seat. You had Sport Pedals which look pretty cool. You get in ambient lighting. You get some LED fog lights. You get it. But it's just as it's for, that just looks. And there's the advanced package, which is part of it too. On this one, you get a 15 speaker banging all this and audio. Cool, you get a heated sport steering wheel. Cool, you add some stuff to Unknown Speaker 4:51 it like Nicole Wakelin 4:55 it's I thought everything about this vehicle was good, but I didn't think it was great. It wasn't something that I thought, Okay, I'm so impressed with this, I have to share the news of the ADX with everybody. I thought it's, it's gonna, it's gonna check the box for some people who are looking for a relatively affordable, accurate, 45 950, for an accurate for an SUV, yeah, that's fine. That has just enough power, just enough, like, just don't Sam Abuelsamid 5:22 know about that. You didn't Nicole Wakelin 5:23 think it had enough. It wasn't here last week. So what did you think? Do you think it was way underpowered? Or, just like, I Sam Abuelsamid 5:28 think, I think it's definitely on the underpowered side for what is supposed to be a performance brand, you know, like, you know, I clocked it nine and a half seconds, zero to 60, and it doesn't, it doesn't feel quick, it feels slow, Nicole Wakelin 5:44 it feels well. Do you like you're calling Acura performance brand? Do you really think of it accurate calls themselves a performance brand, but do you think of them as a performance brand? Do you think of them as like a Honda's luxury brand, or do you think of them as Honda's performance brand? You they're Unknown Speaker 5:59 Honda's they're Honda's Audi. They're Honda's Audi, Sam Abuelsamid 6:02 yeah. I mean, they are more luxurious than a Honda, but I would not put them in the same luxury class as, let's say, Lexus, yeah. I mean, traditionally, Acuras have been, you know, if you have a spectrum of performance to luxury, Lexus has veered more towards the luxury side of that spectrum. Actor has geared there's veered a little more to the performance side of that spectrum. True. And as I said, as a brand that explicitly promotes themselves as a performance brand, you know, the Integra, the TLX, you know, the RDX, you know, these are, these are models that, to me, feel much more sporting. You know, they're not sports cars, but they they feel much more performance oriented, even even though, you know, they also have nice, premium interiors. And in the case of the the ADX is like the the one model in the lineup that, to me, just really misses the boat of what Acura themselves claim the brand to be. You know, the the styling is a little more bland than any of the other Acuras. And, you know, the thing I talked about last week was, you know, the the power train, this thing is, actually, it's a good power train. You know, we had basically the same engine and transmission in our civic for eight years, and my wife loved it. But that civic weighed 700 pounds less, yeah, and even, even, even now, even now, well, it's not that it's that big. It's just too heavy. Yeah, they've added some ballast in there somewhere, because an Integra, an Integra is basically the same size and weighs 550 pounds less. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 7:57 the engine, and I was, I would agree, this is a great little engine, like the it's a turbocharged, little four cylinder, 190 horsepower, the CVT. It's all that is all really, actually quite good. It's just not quite good for this vehicle. It's not enough for this vehicle. If you put it into a civic, suddenly you've got a great you've got a great combination. This is just, it's too heavy, and it doesn't it's not, it's not enough power for this vehicle. So I didn't find it horrifically underpowered. I definitely didn't find it sporty. But I think sometimes, you know, and like you're saying, Acura bills itself is the performance brand. I still think a lot of people, some people think of it that way. I think a lot of people think of it as more like the luxury, luxury ish luxury light brand of Honda, you know, like there's Honda, Acura, Toyota, Lexus, Hyundai, Genesis. They're all very different in those, those top brands. But I think people just say, well, it's their fancy brand, it's their is everything's a little bit nicer in that regard. I think it looks nicer than the average Honda. It's a little bit more luxurious than the average Honda. So I think it's good. But I think if you're looking for the performance part of this, I don't think it's for the average person, they're going to think it's terrible. I think if you're looking for the performance, you're going to be disappointed. If that's like your focus, and that's what you think you're getting in this Acura, you're going to be sad. If you just want a nice little SUV that has a decent amount of power and looks good and has an accurate badge on the front, then you're not going to be disappointed. Sam Abuelsamid 9:20 And the thing is, for $45,000 you can get a base RDX, yes, that has all wheel drive. Has super handling, all wheel drive. So it's got the torque vectoring system in there, and a two liter turbo with 272 horsepower, you know? And, yeah, it doesn't have all of the the features that you get in the in the A Spec ADX at that price point. But you know, even, even the the a spec RDX, you know, is $50,000 50,300 bucks. And you know, if you're going to spend 45 Can you manage it? Spend a few 1000 more, maybe, probably, yeah. But even, even if you go, just go for the base RDX, you know, for the same amount of money, and yes, you give up a few features, but it's a lot more enjoyable vehicle to drive. Nicole Wakelin 10:14 So did you do the launch program for the ADX? I did not. So which is what I hate. That's what I hate about missing a launch. It's not so much driving the car. I know we'll get it in my driveway. It in my driveway, but you miss what they think they built. Like, what, what was their Do you remember what they said? Like, we built this because Sam Abuelsamid 10:29 they, they called it the gateway to the Acura brand. Okay, Nicole Wakelin 10:35 okay. So if you look at it as the gateway, like, I can't really get, like, the first little baby step into something. Sam Abuelsamid 10:44 I mean to me, the the entry point I would prefer to take, you know, if I was going to buy, if I'm if I'm interested in an accurate is the integral, you know, which has the same starting price. Nicole Wakelin 10:54 But maybe you need more card than, maybe you need more room than an Integra. I like the Integra better, too. But maybe you need more car than Sam Abuelsamid 11:01 that, but if you actually look at the numbers, the ADX has a shorter wheelbase. It does not actually have any more interior volume than an Integra. The only thing it has over an Integra is you sit up a little bit higher. You sit a couple inches higher. Yeah, and if, if that is an issue for you that you really want that higher seating point. But, you know, the thing is, this, this is, this is, this is a crop. This is not like a real SUV. This is very much, it's a car crossover. Nicole Wakelin 11:31 Yeah, they're calling it a premium compact SUV. It's, it's kind of a compact crossover. It's, it's not, it's not big and roomy. It's not it. It has very sloped. The the back is very sloped. So it in the back, you're losing both cargo room, and you're using some some headroom, like it feels smaller when you're sitting. Yeah, Robbie's doing the hunch thing. Yeah, that's what he would be doing in the back, which you wouldn't do in the area. Sam Abuelsamid 11:59 You know? I mean, if, what, if what you want is a more performance oriented Acura that has similar amount of interior space, get the Integra. If what you want is a, you know, an accurate, you know, an Acura SUV, get the RDX, yeah, you know, unless you're going to go for a base level Adx, which, again, Nicole Wakelin 12:24 kind of well, and that's the thing I'm like, I pulled up the just the consumer site because I was curious with so if you're just a consumer and you're shopping, you're right that Integra starts at 33 the ADX starts at 35 but the RDX starts at 44 seven. So if you're just looking at base prices, the ADX is considered, let's like, almost 10. That's basically 10, Sam Abuelsamid 12:44 but that, but that $35,000 ADX is also front wheel drive, right? So it's a couple 1000 more for all wheel drive, Nicole Wakelin 12:53 exactly. But if you're like, really, like, as a consumer, just looking like, Oh my God, wait, I can get that one for 35 so you're gonna go right to that. If your budget is tight, and you're kind of stretching, but to get yourself into, Sam Abuelsamid 13:03 you know, you I think you know, if that, if that's an issue, then you should, I, I would strongly recommend people actually look at the Integra over this. Yeah, because, because you're going to have a lot more fun driving an Integra than you are. Because even, you know, even that front wheel drive. ADX is still about 250, 300 pounds heavier than the Integra. So it's, it's not going to have as much performance. You're not getting any extra interior room. Yeah, it's, it's like, it's kind of the worst of all worlds to me, Nicole Wakelin 13:37 wow. So you loved the ADX. I can see that's the top of your shopping list. Sam Abuelsamid 13:43 I will, I will grant the handling is, you know, it's, it's, it's good, you know, in typical Honda fashion, that it's good, good driving dynamics. But you know, again, that ultimately, you, you're limiting it because of that added weight that you're hauling around too. Nicole Wakelin 13:58 Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I would agree with everything. You know, it's it was a fine, it was fine. It was just fine. But there's better options out there. There's nothing really wrong with even within the Acura lineup, even with an accurate you can get a better Acura than this, if you want to. Roberto Baldwin 14:13 It's like this Chevy Malibu, like, it's fine, but there's so many other things in the world that are so much better never. Sam Abuelsamid 14:19 Like, on the other hand, you will never find an ADX as a daily rental, as a Unknown Speaker 14:22 car, it's fine, it's Nicole Wakelin 14:26 somehow I never liked the Malibu, like, I don't like Roberto Baldwin 14:29 it. I generally hate the Malibu, but, but if you just look at it as a car, like, it's fine, but I also I absolutely hate Nicole Wakelin 14:36 it. When I say fine about the ADX, I'm like, it's fine. When I say fine about the Malibu. I literally mean that meme with the dumpster fire. Unknown Speaker 14:45 I just would not go down Roberto Baldwin 14:46 with the Malibu. I did not like it. Oh, I don't like it either. But as a vehicle, it's just like, oh, they built a car that'll be you can rent. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 14:55 it is the official like, you can genuinely tolerate the Malibu. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin 14:59 They sent me the Malibu to test out the teen narc setting that they had on their Nicole Wakelin 15:05 dark setting. And isn't it called Teen Driver, technically Roberto Baldwin 15:12 a snitch. They call it the teen snitch. And I had the car. I'm like, I hate this car so much and all, I didn't write about the car. I just wrote about the feature, because I knew if I write about the car, I would have been it would just be, like, a tirade of anger. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 15:25 I didn't, I don't know why I didn't like that car, but I just something about it. Yeah, there's not even there Roberto Baldwin 15:31 was, like, Dane Cook of cars. There's just something about it. Like, you kind of just don't want to be, like, I don't want to be around this. I don't wanna be associated with it. I don't know what it is, just something, huh? Fair. That's all fair. I hope Dane Cook doesn't listen to this. I don't know Dane Cook. He might be a nice person who knows. Probably not. I doubt it. It's probably weird somewhere. Nicole Wakelin 15:53 So there's my thoughts on the ADX. We love it. People go buy one. That was not my favorite. Yeah, yeah, or not, by an Integra, Unknown Speaker 16:02 yes, by an Integra. Sam Abuelsamid 16:04 And you know what? Intermission, yes, exactly. You can get a six speed manual on the Integra right. Unknown Speaker 16:08 You'll get extra pedal. Nicole Wakelin 16:10 So you guys. So I had, I had a, was in an Uber, and the kid had a, he was very young, and I'm like, Oh, this is a car guy. He had a bright orange Civic. What is the Civic sporty S, S i, s, s i, s i, with a manual transmission. It was the, it was the, it was such a pretty guy, and he drove him, like, ooh. Like, you don't really find these super fun sporty cars. You get picked and I was like, oh, nice car guy. We started talking, and he's talking about this, talk about that. And he's like, wait, you actually, he's like, I talked to my girlfriend. She doesn't know anything about this. How do you know so much about cars? He's like, somebody finally appreciated my car. It was so grateful. I don't think anybody appreciated how cool this car was. And I was like, it is a cool car. Yeah, I like this card, a really nice car. See, unlike the Malibu, which sort of thing, like, Oh, look at your sporty little Civic. I love this thing. So, so I had another car last week, not last week. Last week. I had the ADX this week, still sitting in my driveway, which my neighbor really wishes that we had for Halloween, because the color of this is Sunset orange. It looks like a giant pumpkin. Is the Honda passport TS elite. Sam Abuelsamid 17:18 So it's, yeah, not a transport, no, it's, Nicole Wakelin 17:22 well, see, here's the funny. Transport is the Ts. TS, Sam Abuelsamid 17:26 yes, got recovery hooks on it? Yes, Nicole Wakelin 17:28 it is a bright orange recovery hooks that match the bright orange car. Yeah, right. Sam Abuelsamid 17:32 Maybe they just didn't have a room enough room on the they Nicole Wakelin 17:34 couldn't fit it on the Monroe in 2026, Ts. They just did Ts. Abbreviation, the Ts. It's cooler that way. So I I really like the new Honda passport, like I genuinely like this car. When we did the drive for it, I really liked it, and we took it off road, did some off roadie stuff in Puerto Rico, and it really could go off roading. Now, it's not like Rubicon Trail worthy off roading, but 99% of us don't do that. But if you're just the kind of light off roading that you typically do, as someone who is just an average consumer, you're going to drive down a dirt trail here and there. You might have a dirt road. You might Park some for some event, out in a field. If you want to do some, you know, you have a trail that you want to go to that's not super technical, you can do it. But we did done some steep ascents and downhill the other way on sort of slippery stuff. Because it did. It was very wet. It was that, like, very slick mud. I know mud is always slippery, but some mud is, like, really slippery. It was the kind of stuff, like, if you stepped out in the wrong spot, you'd have been on your butt. Like, it was really slippery that certain. And it was great. So I was really impressed with it. I genuinely like this car. So the trail sport, oh God, they didn't put a price on this one. I have the other. Monroney put a price. So I'm gonna I thought I had it right in front Speaker 1 18:51 of me. $40 $40 Wait, more than 40, less than a Nicole Wakelin 18:54 million. There we go. I was trying to find them like I had it. So first, what do you think destination is? There it Unknown Speaker 19:01 is 1390 1350 50, Nicole Wakelin 19:04 you're wrong. 1450, Sam got it. It's just Sam's week. He gets all the he gets it. So the trail sport, there's a trail sport and a trail sport elite. You get extra goodies on the elite. So the trail sports, 48, 450, the elite is 52 450, so it's not an excuse. Would you get? Okay, for 48 450, it's slightly more than the ADX. Which one would you guys get? Have you driven both of these? Unknown Speaker 19:29 Oh gosh, I totally get the passport over. Sam Abuelsamid 19:30 Yeah, absolutely right, man, for that, for the $3,000 price difference, yeah, I would absolutely take the Passport Nicole Wakelin 19:37 right for and it's and the way it's equipped, even like it's a different fancy like, the Acura is designed to be a little bit more refined. The trail sport is, like, Yeah, I'm rugged, I'm Burly. I'm gonna take you in the dirt. It still looks better. I'd still rather buy this. Like, I love the Honda passport is, like, one of my favorite Speaker 2 19:53 cars this year. I love this one. I'm rugged, I'm brilliant. We'll take you into bed. I want to go in the dirt. Nicole Wakelin 19:59 Um. So I thought this. So this one, just in terms of difference of stuff, it has a 3.5 liter v6 with 285 horsepower, horsepower difference, 190 in the ex, 285 in this holy be Jesus. That's a huge difference, right? So this is far more responsive. It has a 10 speed automatic, which also adds to it's nice driving to it's just the way, you know, liveliness. Yes, it's a peppy little thing. I not so little. It is pretty big. There's torque everywhere. I'm sorry, torque everywhere. My neighbor was looking at it, and she was like, it's fun to see what people say about a car that people know, like, people know the passport, right? And she's like, this, that looks really good. Do they change that? That looks really Burly. I'm like, what is the off road ish one that they have? I like that thing. I want you to have it, like, school. She was like, coming over and checking it out. I wasn't at an appointment, and somebody looks out the window and they know what I do. That orange thing has to be yours. Yeah, the orange thing is mine. But then they're all the window going orange thing looks pretty good. Like everyone uniformly thought that this is a good look, like the very angular styling. So this car, it looks fantastic. I love how it looks. I think it has more than enough power. It drives beautifully. It's despite its rough and ready off road capabilities, it is still a relatively smooth car to drive. It doesn't feel like, like off road, true off road vehicles, even soon as they just have off road trims, you get very bouncy on the highway. It's very rough, it's very loud, all these things, nope. It was still well mannered on the highway. I took it on some twisty, turny back roads near my house. Handles well on those you don't it doesn't feel sloppy. It feels very controlled. So I actually really, I really enjoyed driving this, and I get an extra day with it because Monday is a holiday, and I'm not sad about that. Yeah. I'm like, there's like, we're gonna come pick up your car till Tuesday. I'm like, that's fine. That's fine. I will, I will keep the Honda passport TS elite for an extra day. And it gets like, inside there's leather trim. They have a 12 speaker, Bose audio system. It has a 12.3 inch touchscreen. It has all the things that you want. And it's like, not outrageously expensive. It's, I feel like this is a good price. And if you don't want the extra bells and whistles, 48, 450, just get the regular transport. Use a couple of the little extra sort of Sam Abuelsamid 22:21 comfort stuff. If you don't go with you get the orange stripes on the seats. Nicole Wakelin 22:25 Yes, it does have, it has orange. Does it have orange stripes on the seats? Waiting for remember, I know there's orange on the seats. Now, remember, I can't remember if it's just like contrast, or if it was actually stripes. I think it's just contrast. Sam Abuelsamid 22:37 There was the, there was like the, the one that I photographed when we were in Puerto Rico had the orange contrast stitching, and then it also had the trail sport logo stitched on the headrest in orange, and then orange stripes on the seat cushion and the seat back. Nicole Wakelin 22:54 It does have trail sport logos on the seats. I don't know why. I'm not remembering the orange stripe Sam Abuelsamid 22:59 that, but yeah, okay. But pictures of a couple of different ones, they both have the orange stripe there. So Nicole Wakelin 23:07 I love the orange. I think this I like, I'm a fan of this one. Both colors are good. They're Yeah, bold colors are good. We had a conversation about that yesterday. We went up to the sea coast, and we kept seeing Mustangs. Everyone had a Mustang. A lot of them are convertibles. I don't know if it's because everybody's desperately holding on to the last days of summer and it's a holiday weekend. So there were lots of rentals, exactly, but they were really like, we were in the one parking lot, and there was a bright yellow one, a bright green one, and a bright blue and I'm like, I love the Skittles colors for for cars, and I feel like it especially works on a Mustang. But then we looked at everything else in the parking lot, like aside from these Mustangs that were glowing in the dark in the parking lot by the lobster shack, black, gray, white, everything was really muted. Yeah. So I like the I genuinely like the passport. I was impressed the first time I drove it in Puerto Rico, I was impressed driving it again. I just think it's just, it's a very solid vehicle, and it has lots of personality, lots of style, even if you're not going for the trail sport, even if you're not going for the what did I just call it? I want to call it pumpkin, sunset, Orange. It's it's just a good looking car, pumpkin. I'm going to call it pumpkin even if you don't get the pumpkin passport, I like that. They should just call it pumpkin. Pumpkin passport. It's still a good looking vehicle. It's fun to drive. It's affordably priced. It has tons of room in it. It's got good capability. I mean, like, giant thumbs up for this one. This one I like, I like this one. Sam Abuelsamid 24:42 Yeah, no, I like the passport too. I think, you know, it's a, it's a huge improvement over the last gen. And, you know, it does have, does have surprisingly good ride quality and everything. I had one for the weekend in June, when, you know. To join Honda at the Detroit Grand Prix. And when they do that, you know, they always send Hondas and actors out to everybody that they're that they're hosting at the race. And so they sent me one for for a couple of for the for the weekend to drive. And it was, it was good fun. So I can't Nicole Wakelin 25:15 remember it. I'm looking because I didn't actually look to see if this one had it. But I know that it is available. And I don't see it listed on the Monroney because I didn't take this thing apart. But they also have a table in the back some of these. I think it Sam Abuelsamid 25:28 depends. Yeah, it's an option, yeah? Speaker 1 25:30 Like the old CRV, yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 25:33 the element or, yeah, no, you're right, yeah. Nicole Wakelin 25:38 The one they had in the CRV was, like, the ricketiest of, like, card tables, like, think old school card table. It was, it was great, like, I loved it, but it was very thin. Legs on the table and a very thin table surface. The new one, they beefed it up, and it's the legs screw into the bottom. They have a little storage spot in the back where you can, like, lay them in there, and it holds the legs and the table fits in. It's much, like, sturdier, like, I feel like, now they're like, we're not messing around. This table is a table. So this, mine doesn't have it, I don't think, but I love that. When they had that, it again, and they did the first drive on that, I got to see that. And that was one of the things I really liked about this, although I don't know why. They just didn't put one on the CRV, put the put the weedy little table back on the CRV, and give us the burly table on the passport. Sam Abuelsamid 26:24 I'm sure. Maybe they saw one through the accessories program. They Nicole Wakelin 26:28 might, I'm sure. But it was, it was part of the, if I'm remembering, right on the CRV, it was literally the load floor, wasn't it like, I think so, yeah, I see you would take that out. It's been a few years, but I thought it was a low floor that you had to take Sam Abuelsamid 26:41 out. There's somebody in my neighborhood that still has a first gen CRV. Really have to ask him if he's got the table, Nicole Wakelin 26:46 if he has the table, you should. And then if you get the passport, you need to do a table to table comparison, like if yours has it, and show the difference how this one is far sturdier than the old one in the CRV was. So, yeah, passport. Big fan. Sam Abuelsamid 26:59 All right, well, I had a similarly sized vehicle to the passport that is also off road oriented, that has slightly, slightly more capability than the than the passport not it can go places a passport can't and that is the 2025, Toyota Forerunner TRD PRO. And unfortunately, unlike the the Tacoma TRD PRO, this one does not have the isodynamic seats. So, you know, the seats are not like a foot thick the seat back. You don't have those dampers built into the back of the seat. And so, you know, the TRD PRO forerunners come standard with the hybrid drivetrain that you get, and a bunch of the Tacomas and in the Land Cruiser and the Forerunner now. So it's the 2.4 liter turbo with the Toyota hybrid, their rear wheel drive hybrid system that goes in the it's the same same system, basically, that's in the tundra and Sequoia as well, which is really a system that is tuned more for performance than for fuel economy. So you're not really this is, this is not a this is not a forerunner that's going to get you 50 miles per gallon. In fact, most of the time it's not a forerunner that's going to get you 20 miles per gallon. It is the on the Monroe, the official EPA rating is 23 miles per gallon. City, 20 or 23 miles per gallon combined, 23 city, 24 highway. In the times that I've had the opportunity to drive any, you know, any of these three vehicles, the forerunner, the Tacoma or the Land Cruiser with this powertrain in there, I have never managed to get 20 miles per gallon. In this one, I got 17 and a half, which is not great, you know, for a mid sized SUV, mid sized two row SUV, you know. But you know, this thing sits fairly high. It's on 33 inch all terrain tires. Oh, well, let me finish with the the power train in in this form, in the Forerunner 326, horsepower, 465 foot pounds of torque. So performance, not an issue eight speed automatic transmission. Again, performance not really an issue with this, you know, it is that, nominally, you say on the label, gets a couple of miles per gallon better than the turbo the same engine without the hybrid system. But in reality, in most normal driving, it doesn't really do any better and but. It, like I said, it's got, it's got decent performance. It's, you know, with the the TRD Pro package on there, you get TRD tuned Fox shocks, Fox dampers, extra ride height, some it's got some custom machined control arms in the front. You know, it's designed to have more wheel travel so, you know, as with the Tacoma, they've got two high end off road versions, you know, there's the trail Hunter, which has the same powertrain, but is tuned a little differently. That's the one that is designed to be the equivalent of, you know, a Wrangler Rubicon, you know, for, you know, the hardcore off road rock crawling. It's got all the locking differentials and the tires and the dampers and everything, and lots of skid plates for offering for rock crawling. This one, the TRD pros are designed more as the equivalent of a Ford Raptor, so more for high speed desert running. In either case, they both do well off road. When we did the first driver, I didn't do any off roading while I had it this time. But when we when we did the the first drive out in California earlier this year, you know, we had a chance to do some rock crawling with a trail Hunter, do some some faster off roading on dirt trails with the TRG Pro. Both very, very capable. What else you got electronic locking, rear differential, crawl control, downhill set control, all that, all the stuff that you expect, also stabilizer bar disconnect for the front stabilizer bar so you get a little more wheel articulation. So if you're going over, you know, if you've got some, you know, bigger moguls that you're trying to get over and you want to keep trying to keep the wheels more in contact. The stabilizer bar disconnect helps, helps keep, helps those wheels move around independently, a little bit more than they normally would, 18 inch TRD PRO wheels, the heritage grille, it's got the LED light bar integrated into the grill, so I could not get that to actually turn on. I have to figure out there's some some combination, I think, with headlights and that LED light bar that you have to have for the light bar to actually come on. So I didn't actually get it to come on, but you get front skid plates and and additional skid plates underneath the some of the other components underneath the truck, underneath this SUV, there, one of the things that they retained on the Forerunner this year is the slide down rear window. So if you want to carry your surfboard or anything else hanging out the back or your paddle board. If you got a rigid paddle board, you can put down the rear window, or you just want a little extra airflow, you put that down, stick that stuff out the rear window. It's got the 14 inch Toyota multimedia system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Nice big screen. Still have knobs for two, knobs for temperature controls for the front for the driver and front passenger, volume knob for the for the for the audio and it, you know, it still has the same issue with the infotainment they've had for you know, since they launched this current generation, where it generally works really well. The graphics are good. It's it's responsive, but you can't display two things on the screen at the same time. You can have your media player, or you can have your maps, or you can have your settings, but you can't, you can't have media player and maps at the same time, which is a little bit annoying, but if you if you want, you know, if you use your smartphone projection, then you can have all that stuff on screen simultaneously. What else? This one also had the optional onboard air compressor, an airb Roof Rack for $1,700 the air compressor, by the way, $1,475 Unknown Speaker 34:26 Wow. You can buy an air compressor like 20 Sam Abuelsamid 34:29 bucks. Yeah, I know you can. You can buy a decent air compressor for 100 bucks. So, you know, if you don't necessarily need one that's built into the truck, maybe just, you know, go to Lowe's, you know, or somewhere, buy one. I Roberto Baldwin 34:43 did a whole like roundup of air compressors, either on the Wall Street Journal or USA Today. So just go look that up. Go look at my nickname. There we go. One of those places air compressors. There you go. There's a there's a bunch of them. Yeah. Uh, Sam Abuelsamid 34:58 what else? Uh. Let's see this one had the digital key system, 275 bucks. Well, a bunch of bunch of options on here with, you know, one of the advantages, you know, even if you're not driving off road, if you live somewhere like Michigan, where the roads are generally crap, you know, having at least something with smaller wheels, higher, taller sidewall tires, more likely to survive the potholes. So that's always a good thing. All in total, price the probably the biggest downside of the current generation of Tacomas and forerunners. They're expensive if you get anything but the base model, the base like SR or SR five, which are pretty close to the same price as the previous generation, all the other trims got substantially more expensive, including this forerunner, TRD PRO grand total, $73,523 Unknown Speaker 36:02 Wow. That's a lot steep. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 36:05 you know. So that's what? 25 you know, about 25 grand more than that passport. And if you're not actually going to be taking it on serious off road adventures, you know, if you're, you know, if you just need something to, you know, take you down the trail to a cabin or something like that. Maybe consider that passport trail sport. It's pretty good at that. Stuff, exactly, nonetheless, stuff without any real issues, you know, if you plan to, you know, run across the Mojave Desert, you know, or, you know, do the you know, do the Ba 1000 okay, you know, get the charity Pro, but 73,500 bucks. So that's a lot of money. You want to guess at the destination charges, 1800 1695, Nicole's closer. 1450, Nicole Wakelin 36:56 okay, I lost. I was gonna say lower, but I was like, it felt like it should be more, because the car was more, but, Sam Abuelsamid 37:01 yeah, well, the base price of the of the forerunner, TRD PRO, is $66,900 that's a lot of money. Well, I mean, you know, that's an expensive air compressor. $1,700 roof rack. It's a lot of money for a roof rack. But, you know, if, if that's what you want, you know, go for it. All right, let's, let's move on to some other stuff. Let's see. So we've talked about the EV tax credits ending as of today, you have, well, let's see, but yeah, basically you've got 30 days left, nominally, to buy a new EV or used EV. If it's at least two years old you and you're buying it from a dealer, you can get a $4,000 tax credit on a used EV and new new you can still get up to $7,500 for the next 30 days. So September 30 is when it nominally ends. But this week, we found out that the IRS has said that, just as they did the the last time around, when they changed from the previous tax credit scheme to the IRA tax credits. There was a bunch of cars that lost eligibility for the tax credits when they switched over to the IRA. But they said, you know, by this deadline, if you have a purchase contract in place and you've paid at least a non refundable deposit, even if you take delivery of the car after the deadline, you can still claim the tax credit, and the same is true this time. So if you're not actually able to take delivery by September 30, but you have a signed purchase agreement, and you've paid a non refundable deposit towards that, then you can still get the car. You can still take delivery after September 30, Nicole Wakelin 39:06 so you could take deliverance. I'm reading this, and if you had a car that isn't due to come out until next August or something, made one payment and you signed a contract, would you be okay or just put a deposit down that was non refundable. I like, I wonder how long it'll help. Sam Abuelsamid 39:24 Like, yeah, I don't, I don't think, I don't think they're, you know, I don't think it well, it might have to look at the actual IRA or IRS language. I think it's probably only for stuff that is available now, that's on sale now, but, you know, maybe it's in transit, you know, from the factory, or something like that, so you couldn't do it Nicole Wakelin 39:45 with a slate. That's what I'm thinking. I literally was thinking slate, that's so funny. Sam Abuelsamid 39:49 Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think it applies to anything that is not currently on sale. I think it's because, well, because that one, you know, the slate, for example, i. Um, you know, because it's it has to be something that is on the approved list. Because, you know that right now, you know, it's got to be assembled in North America, and it's got to have a certain percentage of the battery content that is domestically sourced and the, you know, and so until the vehicle actually goes on sale. The IRS won't even consider putting it on the list. The slate is not on the list of approved vehicles. So the list of approved vehicles is on you can find it on fuel economy.gov so yeah. So anything like, like the slate, or, you know, the upcoming Ford electric, compact electric pickup, things like that, those will not you can't get those because they are not on the list. Unknown Speaker 40:44 Womp, womp, Nicole Wakelin 40:46 so it's just stuff that's out now. But still, though, that gives people October, November, December, another three months that their vehicle could be in transit, or whatever, four months or like, if it's out now, you just played that one payment. Even if you're not getting it for a little bit, Unknown Speaker 41:00 you're okay. Do you think that's Nicole Wakelin 41:03 gonna change for anybody? I think everybody was kind of, no. I mean, Cannot I Sam Abuelsamid 41:07 think, I think probably, you know, what we'll probably see is a rush of Tesla, as they've done in the past, you know, taking payments from customers. You know, on September 29 September 30, you know, and then delivering those vehicles sometime in October or November, you know. So people that are ordering a new Tesla or something like that, they, you know, that's, that's probably what we'll see, you know, maybe a few others. But it's not gonna, not gonna have a huge impact. But I think, you know, there are already signs that in August, a lot of the EV sales are up significantly, as people are rushing to get something before the tax credits go away. So we'll probably see a good third quarter for EV sales in the US, and then a pretty notable drop off in q4 before things maybe start to pick up again a little bit in 2026 Roberto Baldwin 42:04 Yeah, because everyone bought it in Q sorry, because record was gonna know, yeah, yeah. This seems more like, more like, it'll help those who do direct sales, Tesla Ravi and etc, versus, like, going down to your local dealership and are like, yeah, they're they barely want to sell you an EV anyway, so Nicole Wakelin 42:24 unless they have one sitting on the lot they're desperately trying to get rid of, I will Roberto Baldwin 42:28 say that my dealership was actually, they were actually quite nice to me and actually quite helpful. So, Sam Abuelsamid 42:36 dealer we bought our EV six from was great, too. I mean, yeah, yeah. So, Roberto Baldwin 42:40 but when we walk in, my wife usually will be like, oh, yeah, he's, he drives cars for a living. That's his job. And that really changes every I'm pretty sure that changes everything very quickly that, you know, I have the advantage versus the average person. So let's just, I'm not going to pretend like, Oh, I'm just like a regular guy, because my wife like it, puts it into that really quickly. Sam Abuelsamid 43:02 Uh, speaking of non electric vehicles INEOS, they have cut their prices on the grenadier and the quartermaster because, you know, slow sales soccer, yeah, so the the grenadier SUV now starts at just $72,600 down by 7900 bucks, and the quartermaster is down to $86,000 which is $8,500 less before quartermaster is the pickup. So you ready to trade in the Wagoner s for for a quarter master or for a grenadier? Nicole Wakelin 43:43 No, thank you. Actually, I really like the grenadier. I think it's fun, but it's just not, Roberto Baldwin 43:48 it's not an around town. Well, it's around town if you're not going really quickly, yeah? Like, I Nicole Wakelin 43:53 wouldn't want a road trip in a grenadier. Like, if I was just like, that would be not fun. But I do really like it. Yeah, exactly. Robbie's bouncing around in his seat. I think it's cool. I think it's very expensive. I think it's a use case. Speaker 1 44:14 What's that that's an expensive that's true, Unknown Speaker 44:17 true. This is true. Sam Abuelsamid 44:19 But a G wagon. When you go around a corner and, you know, release the steering wheel, the G wagon will self center, yeah, you don't have to crank the wheel back again to get going on a straight line. Nicole Wakelin 44:29 Oh, I forgot about that, that that's Roberto Baldwin 44:33 about that they're like, we tell people that's, this is what this is. Nicole Wakelin 44:37 I forgotten that they had said that was part of the experience, yeah, I mean, I do like it's an experience already. Roberto Baldwin 44:44 I like it for what it is. I really like it. I like it. Wish that there was a proper, like, dash cluster with, like, not just, you know, check engine lights, but the speed, just speed. There at least, at least Sam Abuelsamid 44:59 a decent display. Display in the center stack. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 45:03 it's a terrible display. It's not a very good display. Oh, it's a terrible display. But just put the speed in the middle. I don't know why that's I just know you don't even need a center display if you have so many buttons and there's all these things. Like, you don't need all those things. They're Nicole Wakelin 45:21 a lot, like, I'm looking at the picture they have on this of the interior. It's like, wow, there's a lot on that interior. Roberto Baldwin 45:26 It's like you're driving. It's like you're flying a jet. In the 60s, look Nicole Wakelin 45:30 like a cock. It has a cockpit vibe, which is good Unknown Speaker 45:32 on the top there's Nicole Wakelin 45:35 because there's a lot of Roberto Baldwin 45:36 a checkpoint. You have a checklist, like, you're on a plane. Nicole Wakelin 45:39 Exactly. I want to do that when I turn on the car. Yeah, exactly, Speaker 1 45:45 dude, click, click, click, yeah. File to Nicole Wakelin 45:49 survive. But it's one of the many smaller, less car companies that I worry about being. Roberto Baldwin 45:55 They got a big pile of cash behind them. It's really until the rich people who own it get bored. That's it. Nicole Wakelin 46:03 They get bored. Goodbye INEOS. Goodbye INEOS. You could get bored. If you have enough money to start a car company, you could then be like, I want to start a, I don't know, a private jet company, a boat company. Yeah, tequila, everyone started, seems to start a liquor company, tequila, their own special whiskey. Speaker 1 46:24 I don't know, a clothing line they already have. Do they have clothing? No, they have a part of a partnership. Well, they're a petroleum so they probably have some sort of Nicole Wakelin 46:32 clothing. Yeah, they're giant corporations, so they probably have all that stuff already. Sam Abuelsamid 46:36 And you know, INEOS also owns one, a 1/3 stake in the Mercedes Formula One team. So they've got all the, they've got all the Mercedes f1 merch, yeah, so they could get, they're gaining from that. Unknown Speaker 46:50 They're doing Nicole Wakelin 46:52 fine. Yeah, they're doing fine. I hope they stick with, I like, I like the folks Unknown Speaker 46:55 all of these at a loss, and still be Sam Abuelsamid 46:57 like, at this point, I'm pretty sure they are selling all of them at a loss, because, right? You know, even with this, you know, this price drop, you know the quartermaster, or the the the SUV the Grenadiers, has a 27.5% tariff rate on it right now. And then the quartermaster, because it's a pickup truck, also has the chicken tax on top of that, so you got another 25% so it's got a 52.5% tariff on the quartermaster, Roberto Baldwin 47:30 which people are just going to get to grenadier anyway. Again, I've driven them both wonderful off road if you know what you're doing, good enough on the road. Sam Abuelsamid 47:46 You know. I think, you know. I think most of these are probably being driven around town, you know, by the same kind of customers that would buy a G wagon. It's an Instagram car, yeah? But you know, want something, you know, you know, it's like, all my all my neighbors, have G wagons. I want something a little bit different. Yeah, just, just slightly different. And so they, they get the quarter. Nicole Wakelin 48:08 It's not a run of the mill G wagon. Like everybody has Roberto Baldwin 48:10 I talked to them about it. I'm like, this is either an Instagram car or it's somebody who lives in like Alaska and is off the grid and has a lot of angry ramblings about the government. Sam Abuelsamid 48:22 I Good. All right. Next up we got the Volvo XC 70, which is slightly smaller than an XC 90, larger than an XC 60. Hence the 70. Nicole Wakelin 48:39 They get the nesting dolls of SUVs, every size you can get, Sam Abuelsamid 48:43 mid size, two row. This one was developed in China with the folks with the team, you know, the Geely team, and it's targeted primarily at the Chinese market. And it is Volvo's first long range plug in hybrid. They're referring to it as a plug in hybrid. I have been, I've reached out to Volvo to try and get some clarity on exactly what the powertrain is in this thing, because none of the stuff that they've released so far says any has any detail about the powertrain. You know, is this, you know, the same kind of plug in hybrid architecture as the the other Volvos, where you've got the an engine, internal combustion engine transmission, driving the front wheels, electric motor on the rear axle, driving the rear wheels. Or is this more of an extended range EV, where the engine only drives a generator? We don't know, but it's based on a new, scalable model, modular architecture, which is being shared with other Geely brands. And in China, it is rated has an electric driving range of 200 kilometers under the cLTC driving cycle. So that's about 120 miles. Miles, and that's the long range, that's a lot, and that's, well, that's the China light duty test cycle, which is, shall we say, optimistic, yeah. So that 120 miles, real world is probably more like 70 to 80 miles, Nicole Wakelin 50:20 which is still, yeah, significant for a plugin, yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 50:23 yeah. I mean, that's, that's double, you know, that would be more double what you would get with an XC 60 or XC 90 plug in hybrid. You know, those will do about 3435 miles on a charge. But, you know, I'm still trying to find out from Volvo, you know, exactly what this powertrain architecture is, because if it is more of an E rev, then that would make it a lot easier to do the, you know, that full range driving electrically alone, because, you know, within with an XC nine, with the current XC 90, XC 60, you kind of got to be fairly light on the throttle if You want to keep it in electric mode. So no, right now, there's no indication that they're going to bring this to the North American market, although they probably, it sounds like they are going to offer it in Europe, but it's launching in China. And, you know, it's, it's the styling, you know, is pretty much, pretty similar to, you know, the other current generation Volvos. You know, it looks like a slightly smaller ex 90. Looks like a Volvo, Yep, looks like a modern Nicole Wakelin 51:30 Volvo. It's it. I mean, it looks good. It's an attractive looking car, and it's neat idea. But he said, we're not going to get it. It looks like it's China for now, with with plans for Europe at a later stage. I don't know what that means, but eventually Europe, yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 51:47 so let's see what else? What's next? Oh, back to EVs. GM has apparently cut production at its Detroit Hamtramck assembly plant, which they refer to as factory zero. This is the factory in Detroit where they build the Hummers, Hummer EVs and the Silverado and Sierra EVs and the Cadillac Escalade IQ. They have apparently cut one of the two shifts, at least for now, most likely they, you know, they have built enough vehicles to get them through whatever increase in demand that they have right now. You know, until the end of September and they, they probably realize that there's probably going to be a reduction in demand from October 1. So they're, you know, they're cutting production for a while, and then they'll probably wait and see what happens, before they call back those workers and resume, resume that production. And it's Nicole Wakelin 52:54 going to be really interesting to see how this rolls with the the EV tax credit going away. I feel like a lot of people who are super interested in EVs have already said, Okay, we pulled the trigger now, or we don't at all. So they've I feel like a lot of those people have already committed. And I just wonder how much I'm really curious, how much sales are going to drop off, like, what's going to be like, if we're really going to see things fall off a cliff, or if that's not really enough for most people to keep them from buying EVs. I don't know it's going to be interesting. Roberto Baldwin 53:25 Tesla kept selling cars after they lost access to the EV credits years ago. So I think there's for for a certain SEC section of the people, they're still gonna continue to buy EVs, the Silverado. EV had a huge problem. I had a huge marketing problem. First of all, they, they put out a press release that we're getting rid of the bolt and we're going to build a Silverado. We're like, what are you doing? That's, that's, that's, that's not comparable. That's tone deaf. The Hummer EV was never going to be a huge seller. No, so. And I think, you know, we're, they're not talking about the blazer here. They're not talking about the Lyric, and I'll talk about the equinox, I think more and more people like, if when I had the Silverado, Ev, I had people come up to me that you buy that I'm like, Oh no, I'm, you know, I'm automotive blah, blah, blah, the thing you always tell everybody and like, you know, talks to $100,000 dealer. I'm just a drug dealer. But they're like, you know, it starts at $100,000 which isn't true, but was true for a little while, and that that's what people Nicole Wakelin 54:24 think when they see those that's stuck in everyone's head, and they haven't everyone's Roberto Baldwin 54:27 head, is that it's this vehicle starts $100,000 and it really, you know, they're like, oh, it's not selling as low as it, it, it, uh, it should. I'm like, Yeah, that's kind of your fault. It Nicole Wakelin 54:37 kind of blew it and market a vehicle, wrong? And, shocker, it won't sell. Roberto Baldwin 54:42 Yeah, so it's that's, that's stuck in everyone's head. So I think there's a, you know, they I think GM sort of blew it. And also, again, big trucks, the that market is Unknown Speaker 54:52 vroom. Vroom truck Roberto Baldwin 54:55 outside, I say, a lot of Silverado EVs in fleets like Caltrans has, like. The government fleets up here and in California, I see them in fleets, which, okay, cool. You're, you're selling those in fleets. I still think the f1 50 is a better vehicle, just because you can take everything from a regular f1 50 and throw it on the lightning and just keep doing your job, keep doing your thing. Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, it's, it's, these are very, I think we're, again, we need to move away from just keep throwing giant, expensive, over $100,000 EVs into the market, and then wondering why people aren't buying Nicole Wakelin 55:29 them, why people don't buy them? Because people don't not everyone can afford or wants or needs a $100,000 car. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 55:36 although, you know, we, you know, a couple weeks ago, we were out at the lake, and when the DNR Rangers, Michigan Department of Natural Resources Rangers, did their periodic circulation through the lot, there they were driving a Silverado EV work truck. And now when they launched, you had the work truck, the Silverado work truck for like, mid 50s price range, and then the the rst, which was like $94,000 now there are a bunch of other options available with different size batteries and different option packages. So you can get, you know, the LT, standard range version starting at 63 grand. The extended range is 7071, and, you know, the max range is still 91,000 and you know, and they've got the trail boss now as well. So there are, you know, it's by no means cheap or affordable, but there are less expensive variants that are available retail now. So, yeah, I think a Roberto Baldwin 56:43 lot of done a good job like marketing that, though people still think it's $100,000 truck whenever I drive around. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 56:52 all right, let's move on. So non electric trucks, you know, you got the Ram 1500 the they this week, they this week, they started shipping the 2026, Ram, 1500 Hemis again, so they're on their way to dealerships. So you know, if you insist on paying more for less power and and worse, fuel economy, rams got you covered. You can go, you can go to your local RAM dealer and and pick up a Ram 1500 with a 5.7 liter Hemi in it. Because, boy, it sounds much better. Nicole Wakelin 57:30 Well, it's you can you can say it's silly, and it is silly, but they sold it like, what did it? What's the number here? They announced, since they announced it in June, they've had 10,000 orders in the first 24 hours. It's Unknown Speaker 57:44 just the branding. Man, Nicole Wakelin 57:47 great branding. It might not be the technically, it's silly, but 10,000 orders in 24 hours says it's a smart move. Like Sam Abuelsamid 57:58 I'll be very curious to look at what the numbers look like at the end of the year for, you know, for the different variants. See how that, see how that breaks down. Yeah, Roberto Baldwin 58:09 I looked at the YouTube comments for Tim's whatever, something about the trucks or whatever. And him, he one of his you who America like flag waving, things that he says, and like all of the all the comments were like, Yeah, bring back the Henry. I'm like, people, people, wait, Nicole Wakelin 58:29 you know, stop everyone, hold on a second. We're on the thing. Okay, Unknown Speaker 58:34 it's great, Brandon, if that's Sam Abuelsamid 58:36 what keeps you, pays the bills, keeps your Roberto Baldwin 58:40 car company alive again. 1500 was the nicest riding trucks out there Sam Abuelsamid 58:45 outside. Oh yeah, no, has been for a long time. Oh yeah, Roberto Baldwin 58:49 outside, the lightning's probably right up there with it, just because it's an EV. But no, it drives really nice, and everyone's Yeah, faster. So if you want to hear me, a little less flour, but it dries real nice. Unknown Speaker 59:03 Boom. Go ahead and go, Yep, all right. Sam Abuelsamid 59:08 Stellantis also went to the overland Expo Mountain West in Colorado last week, and they brought a new concept vehicle with them, which is probably not what most people expected to see. There they have. They brought, they brought the new Pacifica Grizzly Peak concept. It's a, it's an off road, sort of off road version of the, you know, I mean, they've got to do off roadie versions of everything else now. So why not? Why not a minivan? So I Roberto Baldwin 59:43 support this 1,000% by the way, more than like, mostly SUVs. Like this makes more sense. I want to camp inside. I want a funny little bear badge. Sam Abuelsamid 59:54 I mean this, this would absolutely be better for camping, you know. And you know what? Better than an SUV. It would be a much better choice for that. So they lifted the suspension. They took a limited all wheel drive, lifted the front suspension by 2.75 inches, two and a half inches in the rear, put on 31 inch Goodrich ko two all terrain tires. It's got this fancy roof storage rack, some auxiliary LED lighting the retractable awning, Roof Mounted retractable awning fog lamp pods, a protective wrap on the lower part of the body, and splash guards and a bunch of stuff on the interior as well. Nicole Wakelin 1:00:42 I have exactly one gripe with their choice of this car. Yes, we have given our off road minivan, which is in the dirt with children, presumably, a very light gray interior seats, the seats, they call them, cement gray. They almost look white. That's what I want with my kids Unknown Speaker 1:01:04 in the dirt, in the dirt, yeah, that's the bad thing. Nicole Wakelin 1:01:07 Everything is cool. I was like, What? What are you guys doing? Like, it's such a cool concept, but that threw me. Even Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:13 without kids, if it was just adults, you're still gonna get dirty. Wait, Nicole Wakelin 1:01:17 yeah, the floor is at least black, like, but the seats Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:21 are, Nicole Wakelin 1:01:22 again, cement gray. They're white. They are Speaker 1 1:01:25 so close. You almost had it. He almost Nicole Wakelin 1:01:28 had it, guys. But I do like the badge. Did you see the little bear badge? Little grizzly cons? Oh my gosh. Orange seat belts. I know the orange seat belts are cool. That also gets like a gold star. Orange seat belts color. Seat belts are cool. Unknown Speaker 1:01:41 They should this car should be a different color. Sam Abuelsamid 1:01:44 Yes, it should be pumpkin orange. Unknown Speaker 1:01:49 This should be pumpkin Nicole Wakelin 1:01:50 orange. What did they do? They say, what the exterior color? What they're it's just gray. Is gray? It's probably like slate is it also cement? Let's see something toast. Wait, it's called arctose, a, r, k, T, O, S, matte finish paint with foreshadow accents, Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:08 because, because the thing you really want when you're going off road is matte finish paint. Unknown Speaker 1:02:14 How do you get a wash? Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:17 Okay, well, so keep in mind, this is a concept. It's not a real thing. It's meant to get people's attention at this, at this, at this show, you know where she had been, if you want. I'll include a video from from TfL, where they do a walk around at Overland Expo. You know, some of the crazy rigs that they have there's bonkers. You know, it's the kind of stuff that my neighbor has been building, you know, which is he bought last year, bought an f5 50 chassis cab and put a big bet on it, and liquid spring suspension and and he's got a big camper that goes on the back, yeah. I mean, some, there's some just insane rigs that show up at Overland Expo. And, you know, it's also all the companies that make all this gear for upfitting your vehicles. So, you know, this is purely a concept for now, but Nicole Wakelin 1:03:09 it is, like, actually, it's super cool. Like, the idea of this is very, very Sam Abuelsamid 1:03:13 cool. Yeah, a little bit, you know, I mean, if they're going to keep the Chrysler brand alive for a while, and you know, all they have is minivans to sell one car, you know, you might as well do something like this. That's gonna at least, you know, if you can sell it, you know, get some better margins on it, you know, and get a few more people into minivans. And Nicole Wakelin 1:03:35 when you think about how the off road thing, like, once upon a time, it was all like performance versions of sports cars. Is what was the iteration that everyone now it's all the off road version of SUVs. Like, well, let's give an offer version of a minivan and see what Sam Abuelsamid 1:03:48 happens. Oh, I know it should be Tuscadero pink, like they had on the Wrangler. Unknown Speaker 1:03:53 Oh, yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:03:55 imagine rolling up to carpool in that thing. Unknown Speaker 1:03:58 Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:01 that would rock. That would be amazing. Roberto Baldwin 1:04:05 Concept color scheme, all right? Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:10 Well, back to orange. Mercedes. Mercedes took their AMG GT xx concept to the Nardo test track in southern Italy recently. So this is kind of a next generation of the AMG, GT four door. And there's, there's a production version of this coming next year. I think, yeah, I think so. And they took it to they took it to Nardo and set a bunch of records with this thing, 25 different long distance records they ran for eight days and or seven days and 13 hours. They ran for and. Uh, set 25 distance records. And this is an EV. It's equipped with three axial flux motors, which is a different, different design of electric motor that produces more power and torque. And the the AMG is probably going to be one of the first production vehicles to use the use this type of motor over 13 140 horsepower, and this thing, over the course of little over seven and a half days, they, let's see, they ran a grand total of 40, 40,000 kilometers. So about 24,000 miles. Yeah, basically just, you know, stopping to charge and swap drivers periodically, in 124 hour period, where was, what was the distance here for, for that? Nicole Wakelin 1:06:00 Oh, this is a huge team of drivers, too, yeah, 1-234-567-8910, Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:06 well, they were running, running. I mean, Nardo is 15, yeah. Nardo is this giant circular track. It's about six miles across, and bit or six miles around, I should say. And you know, they companies use it for maximum speed testing. And you know, so they were running, you know, just flat out, you know. And it's a high bank to track. They ran 55 almost 50 478, kilometers. So, over, over, almost 4000 miles in a 24 hour in a single 24 hour period. Unknown Speaker 1:06:48 That's crazy. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:52 so yeah, they were, they were cranking up the miles on this. Nicole Wakelin 1:06:56 This is an impressive little feat that they did here. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:00 Yeah, yeah. Very, very fast charging. On there they were. Chart they were, they were charging at 850 kilowatts. Wow, Wowza, yeah. Just five minutes. It can recharge enough energy for a range of around 400 kilometers. So that's about about 250 miles. Roberto Baldwin 1:07:18 So they just enough time for someone to get out, get in. Yeah, go. Pretty much that's just gas. Five minutes is gas, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:28 All right, let's see. Lucid is apparently doing some updates for 2028 or 2028 2026 they're launching a rear wheel drive version of the gravity. And, you know, hopefully gravity's will actually start getting to customers soon. There hasn't been many of those yet. Gotta build them. Yeah, I'm out there. Well, apparently there's a bunch of them built that they haven't delivered yet. Roberto Baldwin 1:07:55 Something's missing. Yeah, only as fast as your slowest supply. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid 1:08:02 Yeah. And they're also doing some updates to the to the air for 2026 they've upgraded the battery. So the the standard range battery now is 92 kilowatt hour pack. I think it was about 8484 88 before it pops the they've got newer, higher density cells in there, 431 miles of range with the rear wheel drive. So that's 2025 more than before. So many miles and yeah, and we've mentioned before that they now have compatibility with superchargers, although you probably want to avoid charging an error at a supercharger. It's fine with the gravity, because they changed the way the charging system works on that from the air, but the gravity, or the air, it's it's got to do a funky thing with actually taking the DC from the supercharger and then converting that to AC and charging over the AC circuitry. And it only charges at about 40 kilowatts if you're charging it from a supercharger, so not really worth it if you Unknown Speaker 1:09:11 can avoid it. Not what you want to do. Yeah, they'll, Roberto Baldwin 1:09:13 probably, they'll fix that. It's, it'll, they'll have to be an update at some point for that, obviously. But you know, they're doing the same thing with the gravity that the Hyundai is doing, where they're using the the motor to do the the So, so it actually charges quicker, but still not as quick as just going to DC fast charging. And literally everyone else who, who hasn't decided if 500 kilowatts is how much you know what we want our our charging setup to be Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:09:43 and then Toyota announced that they were partnering up with Hyundai on some robotics work. So Hyundai owns Boston robotics, which is the company behind the the Atlas. This humanoid robot that's been dancing around for more than a decade doing all kinds of parkour and, yeah, and also the spot the the, as you said, the scary robot dog that that Hyundai is actually using to do quality control in their meta plant in Savannah, Nicole Wakelin 1:10:22 that spot looks smaller. Wasn't there really big version of the Boston Dynamics dog at one point that was like, no big thought there was a bigger one. Roberto Baldwin 1:10:32 It is so, so I've seen the dog working at the plant in Singapore. And so it walks up to something, and it looks up to double check it, and then it opens, like its mouth to look at it that's so terrified. It's like it's the opening of the mouth, or it's not a mouth, obviously, but the opening of something that on the end of its let's its head to take a picture that makes it just a little bit more creepy. Unknown Speaker 1:11:02 It's a little creepy. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:06 yeah. So they've got the latest version of Atlas, the humanoid robot, or bipedal robot. Let's call it that, because it's not, it's not really bipedal. This is not, Nicole Wakelin 1:11:18 like, very engineering of you, bipedal, Sam Abuelsamid 1:11:20 two legged stand up robot. And they're, you know, they're working with the team from Toyota Research Institute, and tri has developed some new AI models, something they call a large behavior model. And so Boston robotics is going to incorporate the AI stuff that tri has been working on into the control strategy for the robots, so that should make them even, even scarier. Unknown Speaker 1:11:54 Yay, fine. Oh, by the way, Nicole Wakelin 1:11:56 I'm not wrong. What I'm thinking of is it's Boston Dynamics has something called the big dog. Oh, that's the scary one. That's when I was thinking, That's horrifying. It was made to, like, I don't know, like, an off road, Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:08 isn't Nicole Wakelin 1:12:10 it? I think so. And like, Roberto Baldwin 1:12:12 video of, like, it's like, someone from Boston, dynamics, kicking the dog to show that it can't, like, get knocked over really hard. I'm like, Oh, you're Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:20 the full Yeah, big dog is Nicole Wakelin 1:12:22 coming for you, buddy. Big Dog is scary. Yeah? Big Dogs. When I was thinking of him, like, that terrifies me. Even Google, I swear there was a big one, yeah, big Unknown Speaker 1:12:31 dog, yeah, blacks. Like, Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:33 big dogs, about the size of a donkey, Nicole Wakelin 1:12:36 yeah. Big Dog is big and he's scary. He's not like, spot. Spot is cute, except when he opens his mouth and looks like he's gonna bite your. Gonna bite your head up. But Big Dog is just scary, just sitting there. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:48 All right, Robbie, you. You paid a visit to our friends at Slate. Roberto Baldwin 1:12:53 I disliked that. I went. I got on a plane, I got on another plane, and then I went to Warsaw, Indiana, a small town in northern ish, Indiana. And then I went to the Warsaw plant, which used to be a printing plant. So this plant, it was, was our Donnelly and Sons printing in Warsaw, Indiana. They used to print the JC Penney catalogs, the sealers catalog, my favorite, the Radio Shack catalog, Sears catalog. I hope they did the Sears Christmas catalogs. Can my grandmother would send us that, and we could pick something every pages, yeah, and so. But we were weirdly, weird kids. So, because we, yeah, anyway. So we, we, we trekked on out to there, and I talked to Chris barman, and I talked to the CEO, or not, sorry, the North American president of SK on, which I kept referring to as SK one, even though I know it's SK on, to apologize. I'm like, I would say one, and then I'm sorry it's on, but it's, it's, it's just one step closer to what you know, Slate says they're going to do, you know, in a year from now, they're gonna start production at this facility right now. There's really nothing in there. It's just a big empty facility. They start to put everything in there. They put the lines in. You got to do tooling. They have one year to pull all this off if they're going to start production in q4 of 2026 and it's a, you know, it's a 1.4 million square foot facility, which is actually too small for an average car. It's just not enough room. But they're not doing stamping. They don't have a paint shop. They don't have, you know, there's, you know, instead of, they talked about how, you know, the average pickup has five to 6000 parts. This vehicle only has 600 parts. And so, you know, when you when you really break that down, like, oh, it's going to be cheaper because less parts, but it's that six having fewer parts has pays off in dividends for everything. That means you you have fewer suppliers. You have to deal. Do you have. Fewer invoices. You have fewer, you know, inventory. You have small, you know, all these things. Just keep making the vehicle cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. I did ask about the Ford. I asked the CEO, Chris barman, about the upcoming Ford. And I can hear, I can read it exactly what she said. Claire, we've been working to solve the problem, the affordability problem, but in a very different way, and in a different approach. We think that we're bringing what we're bringing to offer to the market is different from what Ford is doing. And we think they're going to be a lot of people out there love the fact they can get to a blank slate, and over time, they can accessorize it to become what they want it to be, which is sort of the big, sort of selling point when I talk to regular people about this vehicle, it's very I find it very interesting. People either A, have no idea what I'm talking about when I mentioned slate, or B, they're extremely excited. And these are just regular people. This is the the automotive press. They're like, Oh my god, this is, you know, they, they. People are hungry for an inexpensive EV that doesn't have all the other things that, be honest, I don't think most people are really using and so, yeah, nobody uses the radio. That's it. Well, here's the thing is, you, if you have a whole, you know, generation of people who did aftermarket installs for years, I mean, I that was one of my deals, was I would put in car stereos, and I had a big car stereo in my Honda Civic. I could 3d print a DIN holder, and then put it in there, and boom, now I have my car stereo. It's very much a DIY car. They're very upfront about that. They talked about how, you know, working with the local, state and government in order to get the place up and running. It was interesting that they had a congressperson House representative who voted for the big, big, beautiful bill, but who was a champion of slate like, well, that's okay, fine. I Sam Abuelsamid 1:16:54 mean that that that is, that is pretty much standard operating procedure when, whenever you go to the launch of any factory, you know, car factory, or anything else you know. I I've seen this for nearly 20 years now. You know, every, every local, state and federal politician that is in any way related to it. I mean, particularly the ones that voted against the funding that that made this happen in the first place they, you know, they will still show up and take credit for it, being there in their district, because they want to be there, you know, for, you know, for the people that that are voting to say, hey, look, we brought jobs to our district, you know, but you voted against the funding that made This possible, yeah, but we brought jobs to our district. They're all a bunch of hypocrites, yeah. Roberto Baldwin 1:17:45 So it's a slate says they're gonna have up to 2000 over 2000 new jobs for the area, which is great the facilities near train, you know, train lines. It was a, you know, it was a hub where people were, you know, they had to send out stuff, those those magazines, those, those catalogs, out to all over the country. So it does make sense, they're not too far from Michigan and Detroit. Yeah. No, it was, it was, you know, again, any automotive startup, you always have to be like, Well, we'll see. And that's where I am with with slate, to be honest, that's where I am right now with Ford in their, their their their tiny trucks. So the tiny truck things I'm like, well, let's, let's see they did, still no pricing. I know people are always asking me, Well, how much is it going to cost? How much does it cost for a wrap? How much is this? They just put up a thing and said, mid 20s. 2627 is, you know, a mid 20. And so next year we've seen the vehicle and the wraps, I believe are going to be like I heard this is, this is not, you know, probably not going to be. This is an official but probably about 500 bucks Sam Abuelsamid 1:18:58 for a wrap. Yeah, like, that's what they set it to launch, Roberto Baldwin 1:19:01 yeah? So it's not, it's that's really cheap compared to your average wrap. And then they just send it to you and like you read video, and you can wrap your own car, yeah? So, yeah, it'll be, you know, again, I still think it's a very interesting vehicle. It really scratches an itch that I have about having a very inexpensive EV that I can do whatever I want to. I can 3d print stuff for it. I don't have to, you know, it's, it's when you're for if the Ford, uh, electric church shows up, what it shows up as, that's what it is forever, you know, you can do software updates. You can do, you know, add some accessories on, but that's what it is. The slate shows up to your house. You're like, Okay, I got a truck, you know what? I need an SUV. No, I want an open air where I just had the roll cage in the back and seats. So I want, you know, I want to go to the beach and have my friends jump in the back like we're, I don't know, in an 80s surf rom com, I don't know, uh, teen movie, um, yeah, you can just sort of, and it's all. You don't have to do it. Like when you get the car. You can just add things as you have more money, as you you find that your life is. Changed. It's still just a two door vehicle. I think that's one of the things that I think some people are going to be a little like, ooh. But to be honest, we all drove a lot of two doored vehicles up until, like the 2000s when everyone's like, you know what? Every car should have four doors. It should be easy to get in and out of the car. You should have to put the seat forward. So, yeah, no, um, let's see. Now, that's probably about it. Yeah, you know, they got a we got a year. We'll see what happens. It's going to be an interesting year. You know, when I heard about the IRS thing, I thought, well, maybe this will help slate. The thing is, is that now everyone's on the same playing field. But before, you know, everyone had a, you know, if you had a certain if you were under a certain price point, if you made, you know, certain amount of money, you can get the tax credit. Now that's gone. People who are, you know, maybe under, maybe on their second EV, they're just going to buy that EV. Still, they bought the EV, they're probably just going to buy another one. There are people who are still, like, I still want an EV, but I want something inexpensive. So I think slate, the leaf, the bolt, and potentially this Ford, if Ford can keep the price down and not raise it 36% like it did with the Maverick, or is it 38% whatever the second model year? Yeah, the second model year. So if you, if you do want that for you should get it like right away, because it's going to go up. The price is going to and who knows. I mean, Slate might, you know, they never will talk about tariffs because A, no one wants to. A, they don't want to talk about politics, but B, they just don't want to get in the rate, you know, in the crosshairs of this administration, because it's, it's a vindictive administration. If you say, Well, you know, tariffs are making our things go up. Suddenly you have, you know, problems, so many problems, which is unfortunate. That's not how the government should work. You should be able to say, Yeah, they did this, and now it's going to cost us a lot of money. And the government should be like, well, sucks to be you, as opposed to, you know what, I'm going to make a point of going after you. Sam Abuelsamid 1:21:55 So with the, you know, they're not going to have a stamping shop in the factory. No stamp. Are they going to do the welding? So they're going to get the stampings from a supplier and weld that up in the factory? Are they gonna have a body shop in there? Or, Roberto Baldwin 1:22:09 I'm assuming they didn't. We didn't get that far with that. We didn't get that much information, unfortunately. Or I didn't get it. I had to leave early. I didn't, yeah, because I had to go see the Pixies. Unknown Speaker 1:22:22 I You gotta Roberto Baldwin 1:22:24 have your priorities. I did my interviews with the president of SK on and the CEO of slate, and I stayed there, and I was there for the presentation, and I saw the outside of the factory, and then I was said, Okay, so what's inside the factory? Is it just a big empty space? And they're like, Well, yeah, I'm like, Okay, I should go then, because I have a two o'clock flight. It's now 1230 they're like, Yeah, you can, you can, you'll be fine. You can go. So, yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:22:50 yeah. I mean, at this stage, I mean, that's, it's like, you know, one week when I visited the Ford Marshall battery plant, you know, it is mostly, and at the time, it was still mostly an empty building, apart from all the air handling equipment and utilities were in there. But none of the production equipment was installed yet. That's actually now being installed. But, yeah, I think over the next several, over the next, you know, probably six to six to nine months, you know, they'll start, they'll get that equipment installed. You know, if they want to start production, you know, q4 next year, they're gonna, they're really, they're gonna have to have that stuff installed by at least early summer of next year to go through pilot production and, you know, get everything debugged and everything. Yeah, I really think this is, Roberto Baldwin 1:23:36 like, they probably started doing stuff as soon as we all left. Yeah, can you can have, you can have people in there while you're doing that? No, you know, to in order, because you would have to stop what you're doing, you know, create a path where people aren't going to electrocute themselves, or, you know, get smashed by something, make everyone wear hard hat, do all the high vis, the whole shebang. It's the and the value of that is like, Oh, look at Speaker 1 1:23:59 stuff. Yeah, it's kind of, it's cool to do factory tours, but it's also Sam Abuelsamid 1:24:07 it's more cool when the factory is actually finished. Yeah, Nicole Wakelin 1:24:12 yeah. Space, Roberto Baldwin 1:24:13 yeah, big, empty spaces. Cool. We know you have the space good for you. I know they worked really hard trying to find a space. I asked is because the CEO, she's from Indiana, so I'm like, does it have it's like, no, no, I didn't have any, any, any, you know, it just happened. This has happened to be the place. What's cool is that JC Sam Abuelsamid 1:24:33 Penney's not printing catalogs anymore. You know that space was, yeah, yeah, it Roberto Baldwin 1:24:36 was. The space was available. So the room that we were in the sort of gathering room, they want to make that a customer service sort of center. But they were also talking about you could take delivery of your slate from that from the factory. If you do that, will they waive the delivery charge? I asked they have not gotten there. Like, we gotta check on that, because they do, like, if it's 1500 bucks, you're like, Well, if I get the higher battery one, I could fly out to any. Indiana, take it, you know, for a couple 100 bucks, and then drive my slate across country to do realize I didn't bring a Bluetooth, like speaker, and then, like, just sing to myself like that. Sam Abuelsamid 1:25:14 If you, if you have flown from from SFO out to Warsaw, Indiana, chances are you've got some earbuds. I can't imagine you got on an airplane without earbuds. Roberto Baldwin 1:25:23 I forget, you know what? I forgot my earbuds getting on the plane because I refused to buy them, and then my wife bought me some, but I forgot them. So I forget them a lot because they, they're, they're relatively new thing, mostly. And also, you can't use Bluetooth to, like, make music because the latency. That's why I do a lot of Yeah. So if I'm on a plane, I'm either writing or I'm trying to, like, work on music stuff. And yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:25:47 all right, let's wrap up with a couple of listener emails. Well, first off, before we do that, Nicole, are there any Wagoner s updates? Is there anything we should know about? Nicole Wakelin 1:25:59 No, I've been driving it for a couple of weeks now, since I last got it back, and I've had no problems. I took it on a road trip yesterday, up to Portsmouth. I took it a road trip like, a week or so before that. I started it and stopped it many times, Sam Abuelsamid 1:26:11 and it restarted every time. And it Nicole Wakelin 1:26:13 restarted every time, actually, after, like, this is our thing. I really love this car. Just it needs to go like, it needs to function. He needs to do the going part. So far, so good so and in fact, it was, was with my brother in law and his wife and a friend of theirs, and we all piled in and went on a road trip yesterday, and he was asking about the car. I was telling he's like, Wait, are you telling me you're taking us all the way up to the to the sea coast in a car? You're not confident. We'll start like, maybe, maybe, John, Sam Abuelsamid 1:26:41 let's see I'm taking you all the way there, whether we get back is another question entirely. Nicole Wakelin 1:26:45 I definitely am taking you there, whether we returned together in one vehicle. But it was fine, and it was actually really nice to drive. It was, it was a nice road trip, and it was really, I really enjoyed it. I am, I am very torn about this car. I know the reliability here has been garbage, but I really enjoy driving it, and I'm trying to think, if I got a different car, what I would get. And the thing is, nothing else is is singing to me the way this was so for the moment, for the moment, I'm still in the wagoneer ass, and it is still little. It's functioning just perfectly. All speakers working and everything too. Oh, the random speaker that stopped working started working. So everything, the speakers work, the I still have to have, the I have an appointment or scheduled to get the body damage fixed from when they towed it and they screwed it up. Because apparently it's incredibly hard to get parts for this car. They just don't have a lot of parts. So I don't know. I feel like I'm going to be you can't really tell unless you know the parts are missing on the bottom, because it really evenly ripped the black plastic trim off in one fell swoop. So, uh, unless you know it's missing, you don't know it's missing. So yeah, so I have some that to fix, but otherwise, uh, the wagon ear s is doing just fine right now, and I'm enjoying it. Hopefully I say the same thing next week. We'll see. Unknown Speaker 1:28:04 I think this is wood. I'm gonna knock on it for you. Yeah? Nicole Wakelin 1:28:07 Thank you. I have a wood desk too. Yeah? Everybody listening, knock on wood for me, please. Unknown Speaker 1:28:12 Everyone's dog is freaking out now. Sam Abuelsamid 1:28:17 Okay, emails. Andy in New Jersey. What do you think about the longevity of Android automotive in new cars? I picked up my first EV two years ago, and one of the contenders was the polestar two. One of the main reasons I didn't pick this car was because of Android automotive and the worry that Google would get bored of it and discontinue it, like they're famous for doing Google, Google discontinuing products. I don't think that's ever happened. Google Roberto Baldwin 1:28:44 like, Okay, first of all, Google will say yes to everything. And then once they're like, a bunch of people are using they're like, Yeah, we don't want to Nicole Wakelin 1:28:51 do that. No more. We're Sam Abuelsamid 1:28:53 all still using Google Reader, right? Wave, Roberto Baldwin 1:28:59 whatever, team, whatever the messaging is called. Now they've changed the name like 15 times. Well, okay, I have Sam Abuelsamid 1:29:05 Google meet and Google Chat on my phone, and sure which Roberto Baldwin 1:29:09 one to use are you? Google music was the best music player when it came out. Google music because you could play, you could stream music, plus you could, like, you could, you could have your own music in there. So you can have, like, playlists with streams songs plus your own songs. It was really easy to use. It didn't, it wasn't to have all these stupid whiz bang features that makes it impossible to to manage. It was amazing. And they killed it for YouTube music and YouTube Music crap. It was the best rip Google music. So I Yeah, so I get it. Andy, I get it, Sam Abuelsamid 1:29:44 yeah. Anyway, continuing on, and he says it's looking more and more, looking like more and more cars are going with Android automotive. Though, are they getting enough tracking info from it to keep it going? I'm an almost exclusive. Of the Apple ecosystem. And if it wasn't for YouTube, I wouldn't even have a Google account. Keep up the great work. Roberto Baldwin 1:30:09 Should we think so? I get, I mean, they have see, here's the thing is, like, all those other things, it was just Google. They didn't have partnerships, they didn't have contracts. They didn't have like, you know, like, there has to be some sort of in order for people, in order for automakers to use it, they have to have something from Google that says they're going to support this for 1015, whatever. I don't know what the contracts say, but I hope that they said that you have to support these vehicles for at least 15 years, and Sam Abuelsamid 1:30:35 automakers are paying Google to use Google automotive services. So you know, Maps and Google Assistant and the Play Store that you know for for the automakers that are using Google services, they they are paying Google a fee to do that. That's why, for example, there are some cars like the Nissan Kicks, where the base version of the kicks does not have Android automotive system. It's got the same hardware underneath, but it's using Nissan's own in house infotainment system. Stop my phone, Google Gemini just woke up on my phone and a question. Anyway, you know, so because, because of the price point of the base kicks, Nissan opted not to include Android automotive and Google services on that version of it if you get the other trim levels. So that's on the SR, I think, or no, the the s and the SV and SR trims have the Google services because they're those are little more expensive, and Nissan has factored in the cost of that to to the price point. And the same is true for other automakers that are using the Google services. So Google is getting some revenue for this, at least for companies that are using Google services like Polestar. So hopefully that'll be enough to, you know, to keep them in the game. And as you said, you know, hopefully their contracts with the automakers, you know, the automakers are saying, if we're going to use this, you have to continue supporting this for at least the next 15 years or whatever. Roberto Baldwin 1:32:21 Yeah, so think, all right, yeah, again. Or you can just get the slate like me and I have to worry about it. No modem. They can't track you. Can't track you. Andy, in the I got a lot of thoughts about no modem. I'm very excited about that. Sam Abuelsamid 1:32:39 All right. And then we also got a follow up email from John W, who we talked about, answered his question last week about adapters, charging adapters. He He despite Nicole's horror stories, Nicole, I don't know if you listened to this, but he went ahead and and leased a wagoneer s as well, and using the free to move app for charging was was less than magical, but the follow up here says, thanks again for pointing me in the right direction with the adapter, it was a big help, and I really appreciate you being such a valuable resource. So you know, we I recommended a couple of nacks to CCS adapters, and says I did run into one snag. I was hopeful you could clarify when I try to locate a near nearby Tesla superchargers through the app. That's the Tesla app. None of the stations close to my house, like Wawa or other local spots, and John lives somewhere in the general vicinity of Philadelphia, are showing up as available. The only ones appearing are 10 to 20 miles out. And I was looking at the supercharger map, and for some reason, there's a whole bunch of superchargers across the Delaware River in New Jersey, but not so many on the Pennsylvania side of the river. Not sure why that is, but anyway, and also in the app, the Jeep Avenger, which isn't even sold here in the US, is the only Jeep listed. Do you use the free to move app? Nicole, I Nicole Wakelin 1:34:17 haven't used it. Honestly, I have not used the free to move app. So I I have no experience, so I can't say anything. Sam Abuelsamid 1:34:24 Yeah, so they've apparently, Jeep or stellantis has not, apparently updated the app to include the Avenger or I don't know if the I haven't looked at it. I don't know if the the charger is listed in there either. And when I tried entering a generic vehicle in the profile with 300 miles of range, I still couldn't get the local stations to populate. Am I limited in my ability to use the superchargers with this car, even though I have the adapter? Or is there a tip or trick I might be missing on the setup side? So I think what's happening here is that most of the Chargers. That are, that are in his in John's vicinity, that are not showing up in the app are probably older version two superchargers, because those do not support charging non Tesla vehicles that Tesla has decided, you know, we're not going to update the software in those vehicles to support non Tesla vehicles. They're only the version three and version four dispensers are compatible with non teslas. So that, that would be my speculation about what's happening, why they're not showing up. Because in in the Tesla app, if you select you know that you're charging another EV, it'll only show you the chargers that are actually compatible with charging a non Tesla vehicle. Robbie, you got any other thoughts on this one? Roberto Baldwin 1:35:48 Yeah, it's, it's, their name might just be older chargers. So they're, yeah, they're, they're, they're not the number three or the Yeah, so that's probably the issue. And this is, I'm assuming he also looked in the Tesla app. Money says he used that, yeah, so that that would give us, you know, the most up to date information for that. I'm clicking around Philadelphia right now with chargers, and I'm seeing a lot of, Sam Abuelsamid 1:36:23 tell me what, there's a whole cluster of them across the Delaware River in New Jersey, but, but not so many on the on the Pennsylvania side. Roberto Baldwin 1:36:33 Yeah, it might. Yeah. They might. You know, some of them are getting, I would hope you know, Tesla makes money when people plug into their charging stations. So I think, you know, these really are just going to replace the box and have to replace the back end, the big, giant, the cabinets, cabinets. Yeah, it was a another word, Speaker 2 1:36:53 but I couldn't remember it. He's making this big motion. Roberto Baldwin 1:36:56 I had my hands all open, like, really wide. But yeah, so, yeah, that's, I mean, that's, that's unfortunate. I mean, it's, it's sort of the crux of being like, an early, you know, getting those chargers out as quickly as possible was that, you know, they had different versions, and they worked for the Teslas, and now that they're trying to work with other ones, and they're, they're probably not going to work. They're probably, I don't know what the other charging situation is around your area. EB, go, let's try America. Typically, those are cheaper than the Tesla chargers, yeah, to be honest, they're usually Tesla charges non premium for non Tesla drivers, yeah, it's like 10 cents more, sometimes per kilowatt hour, which is, you know, you're putting up, you know, 50 kilowatt hours, that's, you know, five bucks more for your per your vehicle. I think that's how math works. And so, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's a bit of a premium. It's probably going to charge a little bit slower than those other charging stations. But because there's so many of them at those stations, typically, especially with the new ones, like, Yeah, this one is, like, six plugs. I'm like, oh, that's like, EA level, you know? But you go to some Tesla stations, like, 40, yeah, 40 chargers, which is sort of the that's, that's Sam Abuelsamid 1:38:14 the one in California. Now, there's like 120 dispensers, Roberto Baldwin 1:38:18 yeah, they're, like, spread out over two different, like, pieces of property and stuff. Yeah, we the only time I've had issues driving up and down the state and ionic five just using EA, because it's free, free driving for Robbie was over on Christmas, like, the day after Christmas, we were driving back. We had to wait like, an hour to charge. And then I leaned over and I told my wife, they're like, you know, if we had the the adapter, we could just go to that Chester. It wasn't this, you know, and she's like, What the fuck? So that's when it really pays off to be able to access that that network is the ability to when it's really busy, you could probably find, you could probably still find a charging station at the Tesla, the Tesla location versus EA, which is, you know, when we put 10, like, Oh, guys, come on, Sam Abuelsamid 1:39:01 yeah. Like, where I am here, you know, I'm just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the supercharger station that's actually closest to me here is relatively new. It was just put in in late 2023 and that one actually even has magic docks, but that one works fine with adapters or with the magic dock on everything I've tried every every EV I've tried from every a bunch of different brands, works fine. But the the one that's on the other side of Ann Arbor was actually the very first supercharger station in Michigan, and so it's, it's like, 10 years old, and it's an old version two charger, and that one does not work with non Tesla vehicles. Even with an adapter. Roberto Baldwin 1:39:45 I've tried, I've taken the mach E, I did the same thing. I'm like, I'm just gonna try and see what happens. And it's like, no, we told you it wouldn't work. I'm like, You're not the boss of me. And it didn't work. Sam Abuelsamid 1:39:57 Yeah, I mean, I tried. Well. And when they first, when they first launched the Supercharger access on Ford's last year, you know, they sent, sent over a Mach E for a couple of days with the Tesla adapter, which is what they were shipping at the time. And, you know, so I use, using the official Tesla adapter on the mach e that wouldn't even talk to now, didn't, didn't, didn't think there was anything there. Roberto Baldwin 1:40:20 It's like, I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, oh, wow, sorry about that, John, but it does sound like those, those might be older Tesla stations. That's your there's nothing you can do. Yep, we tried, we tried to, we tried yelling, we tried shaking, crying, pleading. Nothing Sam Abuelsamid 1:40:40 worked. Yeah. All right. All right. While, while we were having that discussion here, Nicole was messing around with the freedom move app on her phone. Nicole tell us what you what you just Nicole Wakelin 1:40:53 said, Okay, this, this app is not great. So first of all, it has, I have two wagoneer S's on here. One of them is mine with the correct Vin, and I know it's mine with the correct things. I've given my Vin that many times to people over the phone. Now she's telling that I know that Unknown Speaker 1:41:08 memorized her Vin. Everyone knows the Sam Abuelsamid 1:41:11 17 digit Nicole Wakelin 1:41:12 number. And I'm like, I'm looking at the end the digits. I'm like, yep, that's mine. But then there's another one that's a wagon ears with nothing. It's under a sheet, like it's about to be revealed that's listed as my main car, and I switched it, and it's like, Are you sure I'm like, Yes, I do, in fact, want to switch it to my actual vehicle. And then I'm trying to find locations where there's charging. And I it got me into Boston, and it's showing me Boston Logan Airport, which I I know fairly well. And when I click on that, it shows me there is one thing available, one one charging station, and it is available. And there has to be, like, 30 or 40 at the airport. I mean, there could be nothing available, but there's more than one there. There's, it's like a whole wall, level six, section, aa, there's a whole bunch of them. I know where they are. This what is happening with this app. I too. I too, John. I had to look ahead to double check John. I too. Am confused. I need to play with this again this week and see if I can figure it out, but literally, while we're talking. But I'll just download this and see what it does for me. Like what is happening. So this app is a little confusing, Unknown Speaker 1:42:23 just as wonky. Nicole Wakelin 1:42:26 Get my $600 credit is on there. I figured out how to do that. Have that all loaded up. Sam Abuelsamid 1:42:31 Now you just gotta figure out how to actually use Speaker 1 1:42:33 it. No chargers so you never use that credit. It looks Nicole Wakelin 1:42:37 like I can use it at any charge point, location, is what it's telling me. So I guess I'm just gonna go charge a charge point chargers when I'm on the go. That's Sam Abuelsamid 1:42:46 my new plan. If you can find one that charges over 50 kilowatts, Nicole Wakelin 1:42:49 if I can, yeah, I'll have to play with it. I will play with this now over this week, just to see what happens. All right, Sam Abuelsamid 1:42:57 thank you. Well, thanks everybody for listening, and we'll talk to you all next time bye, bye.