Sam Abuelsamid (00:00) This is episode 417 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry. Nicole (00:05) And I am Nicole Wakelin from Let's Go With Car Talk this week. Roberto Baldwin (00:09) and I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE International. Sam Abuelsamid (00:12) and Nicole, what have you been driving. Nicole (00:13) Yes, I have been driving a tiny petite little thing this week. I have the Ford F-150 Tremor, which is a big truck. It's really big. It's a really fun story about this, like to start off. So I've got this big truck and you would want me to haul mulch or go to the dump. Did in fact go to the dump. cleaned out my garage with it. So I got rid of some dumb stuff, so go me. But I also had some stuff I wanted to donate. When I say stuff I wanted to donate, it's an armful of like puzzles and toys and stuff. So I put them in the back seat of the giant Ford F-150 Tremor and I went to Savers. I don't even know if they have those near you guys, but it's like a Goodwill type place. But I show up and the guys are all kind of chilling. Cause they help you unload stuff from your vehicle and they see me pull up in this F 150 and they're all sitting there. Like the entire crew gets up. I'm like, no, it's just like they're standing by the back of the truck. When I get out, like, you guys can all go back to sitting down. The truck is confusing you. You fit this in a civic. I like open the back door guys. Like, Oh, I thought we had some work ahead of us takes the stuff out walks away. So I'm like, sorry, misled the entire crew into thinking I was donating half my house. No, just tiny little arm. Roberto Baldwin (01:04) They're like, oh no, what is this? Nicole (01:25) and a great big giant vehicle but I did make a dump run so I didn't buy mulch but I made a dump run so there was something. I used it for trucky stuff. Going down a dump run bringing stuff that won't fit a normal car that was too big I feel like I used it appropriately. Sam Abuelsamid (01:30) Well, that's good. At least you used it for something. Nicole (01:42) So F-150 tremors, so it is one of the 952,000 variations of the ⁓ Ford F-150 that you can buy. are how many trims? According to what I'm seeing, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight different trim levels for the F-150. And then you've got how many? One, two, three, four, five different engines. Roberto Baldwin (01:54) 73. Nicole (02:09) There is somewhere they've written out with the possible number of combinations you can get on F-150 is and it's ridiculous. Like there are ridiculous number of ways that you can outfit this goofy thing. So the tremor in sort of, I'm going to say it sits in the middle ish ⁓ where it's not like a heavy duty off road like a Raptor bus a little off roadie. It looks kind of cool. They made some updates this year. They put, they call it active orange. because again orange is the color of off-roading and red is the color of going fast. So it has orange accents on it that do actually look fantastic. It has a standard 12-inch ⁓ infotainment screen. It has the pro-axis tailgate and power tailgate so it's like you can open the tailgate again like the configurations 18 different ways. ⁓ The one that I had, can get more than one engine with this but I had the 35V6 EcoBoost in this. which is with a 10-speed automatic it's 400 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque so it's a pretty robust engine. It's kind of fun to drive it's just fun to drive a truck onto a highway because it's not like you want to go on a road trip in a truck because it's a truck they're not like the most comfy, they're little bouncy, especially when the bed is empty by nature. That's just how trucks are. But when you're trying to get on the highway and everyone in front of you is going slow and you mash the gas in this. And it's not like I'm trying to be angry and aggressive. I'm not trying to be a jerk and like, oh, you're in my way. But you sound that way. As soon as you mess the gas, it just like takes off and it sounds like you're angry. like, well, now I am. You go greening onto the highway. I did. So I really enjoy driving this. I took it into Boston. ⁓ over bouncy Boston roads. It handles nicely. It was good in stop and go traffic. And you know what, here's a weird thing. The Sumner Tunnel, you have to go back and forth through to get to Logan Airport. And tunnels always feel narrow. You know in your head that somewhere an engineer like you, Sam, has measured this and has said, the vehicles that we permit to go in these two lanes in this narrow tunnel will fit in these two lanes in this narrow tunnel. But some part of your brain, you're in a Civic, you're fine. You're in an F-150 and you're like, Dear God, I'm gonna lose a side mirror. It feels so big. I was driving through the tunnel. Sam Abuelsamid (04:29) I mean, there's a difference between having, you know, a foot and a half of or two feet of clearance on either side of your mirrors, you know, and having three inches on either side. It fits, but just barely. Nicole (04:34) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (04:39) It fits. Nicole (04:40) So for one second, I sort of cast my eyes to the side. like, don't even look at that wall. Just like going straight ahead. And a tractor trailer passes me in the left hand lane, like, cause I'm slowing down to take a right as you come out of this tunnel. And he's coming really fast. It's like, this is where I die. There's nowhere near enough room in this tunnel for both of us at once. It was so tight, but it's fine. It turns out the engineer who measured the tunnel measured correctly and I didn't die, but it does feel big. when you're in the city. In fact, I went back into the city yesterday. I'm like, I'm not taking the truck. I have to park this time. I'm not doing it. I just, I can't do it. I don't need that kind of headache in my life. But it was exactly. Sam Abuelsamid (05:21) This is why Ford makes Mavericks, you know, for people who live in the city. Nicole (05:23) I would have needed a Maverick. It is not friendly in a city. mean, like I said, it fit, but I would not have wanted to have to wedge it into the parking space that I wedged my car into on Saturday afternoon. So but I did enjoy driving it. I mean, it's a nice as trucks go. It also it has it's comfortable. It's powerful. It it looks like the Burley truck that it is. And I feel like it does a nice happy medium. Like sometimes you get into trucks down like the screens or everything is too huge. Everything. is like oversized, like an ogre is driving this and we need big things so big, meaty people can handle it. Not everybody who's driving an F-150 is like, is this huge person. So it felt right sized for a full sized truck. It had steps you could get in, which I definitely needed because I tried to get in one like, can I get in this if I don't step on the steps? The answer to that is awkwardly. I tried to just step up. I was like, oh, Lord, that's a step that you could just do that. Yeah. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (06:20) I can do it. I can do it. Hold on. Hold Nicole (06:22) Right. Roberto Baldwin (06:23) on. Nicole (06:23) And then I'm like, well, what about stepping down? Same thing. You're like, whoa, that's a long way down. So those side steps are pretty essential on a truck, especially if you're I don't want to say sure what's the word that my mom would say. She's like, I guess she what's that vertically challenged if you're vertically challenged. Thank you. That's exactly what I was looking for. If you're. Sam Abuelsamid (06:35) vertically challenged vertically challenged If you're not Robbie, let's put it that way. Nicole (06:43) If you're not Robbie, Robbie is not vertically challenged. Robbie probably just be like, what's wrong with you? Jump on in. It's like some five foot person is like, can't. It's too tall. So I overall I like it. It's it's not and it's not cheap. ⁓ But you're getting it. So the price range on this, the the XL, which is the bass trim on the F-150 starts at thirty six nine six five. Roberto Baldwin (06:49) Hop on in. Nicole (07:09) The Raptor, which is the top, is 80,000, one five five. The tremors like this is kind of the middle sixty four nine one five. It's it's not an inexpensive truck. And that's if you just get the truck like you don't. Roberto Baldwin (07:22) And that's a lot of money to have stickers put on the back of your truck. Because those are stickers. I've seen them peeled off. Yes, I've seen the tremors stickers peeling off of trucks. Yes, yeah. Nicole (07:27) Correct. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money for active orange. Sam Abuelsamid (07:28) Well, to be fair, for- Nicole (07:33) No, I'd be so mad. No. Really? Sam Abuelsamid (07:38) To be fair, the tremor does get some other stuff too. It's not just stickers. It's got a little bit of a lift. It's got some skid plates. Yeah, true. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (07:41) Yeah. I know, but if you're paying that much money and it's a sticker and it comes off, come on. Nicole (07:42) It does, it's not. I'd be mad, yeah. I'd be mad if the sticker came off. That would make me cranky. Make me cranky. I'd be like, gosh dang it, I want the stickers to stay on there. You know, it has a good tow rating. You can tow like 1,800 pounds if you have the V8. You know, it's, or the payload, sorry, the payload's 1,800. The towing is 10,600 pounds. You could tow a small house. You know, it's, it's, Roberto Baldwin (07:54) It was like peeling off, I'm like... You can a house. You you could tow another tremor. Nicole (08:19) You could tow another tremor. You could tow another tremor if you wanted to. And you get things like this, like Sam was saying. You get things on this. You have ⁓ some skid plates on there. You get all-terrain tires. So it has off-road capability without being the bazonkers off-road capability that you would find in a Raptor. The Raptor's super fun. We've all driven Raptors, right? You've driven the F-150 Raptor. I'm assuming everybody on the planet has driven it. Have you not driven it, Robbie? You must. OK. But like. Sam Abuelsamid (08:20) Definitely. Roberto Baldwin (08:42) Yeah, I've driven it. Not that, yeah, I don't Sam Abuelsamid (08:44) not the current generation. Roberto Baldwin (08:46) think I've driven the current one because you drive the first one, you're like, all right, I got it. I haven't asked for it. Nicole (08:48) Okay, but. Like in general, Raptor, right? You're like, I wanna go drive and have fun and be stupid in the dirt. Fine, get yourself a Raptor. It's super fun, but it is expensive. It is an $80,000 truck and you're not gonna, I mean, unless you're, I don't know, you're just retired and all you do is drive off in the dirt all the time, you're not gonna do that. Most of the time you're gonna be driving around. unreal paved roads where the Raptor is not the ideal vehicle to have because it's too bouncy. I like that this is the halfway point. It has all the niceness and all the sort of like this is comfortable. I drove a city. It's not so big that I felt like I truly felt like I was going to die. Like it's still that fit through the tunnels. It's still usable vehicle. But if you want to go off road because you plan to do that occasionally on the weekends, whatever you can without having the real downsides of having something like a Raptor, which is just not great on road and it's not in a city like I don't think I would even try to drive that into Boston. Roberto Baldwin (09:45) I lived in San Francisco when they gave me the Raptor. Nicole (09:49) And you lived, you survived, you still live. How traumatized were you? Roberto Baldwin (09:51) I made it. Yeah. I mean, it's you just get used to let me feel even the city used to having like very small lanes. But also like I tried to pull into that we had a parking garage when I worked at a gadget in the ground and I went to pull in and the guy who runs the parking garage turned and look, he came out and looked and he just shook his head and told me to like, wouldn't foot. It wouldn't fit in the garage. I had to go park it like down the street. It was a whole thing. And everywhere, every time I had to park it, I was like, uh, Nicole (10:01) Right. He's like, no, dude. Right. See, that's the challenge. Like that's the tough part in a city. It's really the parking. Driving can be sketchy because things are narrow and stuff. But you go to park and you look at every parking garage and you're kind of like, huh, I is it going to fit? I think it'll fit. And then you have those pipes. It's always like you get through the little yellow. You know, the thing that says max height in a garage. And then as soon you get through, you're like, yeah, this is totally fine. But then there's random pipes and that's what the max height is. That's where that yellow. And you're like, that looks really low now. Roberto Baldwin (10:29) This isn't gonna fit. Yeah That's. Sam Abuelsamid (10:45) Yeah, the yellow pipe, it'll move if you're close. Those other pipes, they're not going anywhere. Nicole (10:49) ⁓ They're not gonna move, right? So I always look at those I'm like, god, is this where I've misjudged? One of these is a quarter inch too low. That's it, it's all over. Roberto Baldwin (10:57) Well, and then cars have like, they have variable ⁓ suspension, some of these, like, you know, you'll have like a Land Rover or whatever. And you know, it has very old suspension. You're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. And cause this like the parking garage I use for, for all my trips. Like I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on. What, was it on? Was it on the lowest? Was it on the highest? Is it going to adjust while I'm driving? Like, like, and because I come back from a trip. Yeah. I come back. Yeah. Nicole (11:03) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Right. Is it going to raise in the garage? Right. Is it going to raise in the garage and now I'm going to be stuck in the garage because I can't get back out. Roberto Baldwin (11:26) Like when I come back from the trip, I'm like, Oh no. I saw I'm just driving really slow through the parking garage. Like every one of them like, Oh, going to break it. Nicole (11:33) You're waiting. You're like, you're like, Nope, I went under that. No sounds, no sounds, no sounds. I looked up, I have the glass, like a panoramic roof open and I looked up and like, my God, it's right there. Like this, this is where I destroy a press car. What happened? Well, there was this low roof all the way across the top of the vehicle, right through the glass. That's the fear. And it's never happened, but it... Roberto Baldwin (11:36) And then you open it, if they have like glass roof or if they have you like looking. My dad's too close. It's... Nicole (11:58) The sense of that happening would make me not want to drive in a city with a big, vehicle like that. Sam Abuelsamid (12:03) Years ago I worked in an office in downtown Ann Arbor and we had some parking spaces. the street. And one time Ford sent me an F 450 dually. ⁓ The height wise it would have it would have fit but the dual the dually rear axle that was not going so I just did not even drive that one to the office at all. This too is just too wide. Roberto Baldwin (12:14) Jeez. Nicole (12:15) Did it fit? Hehehehe Yeah, you can't. There's like there's some vehicles that are that are just not made for the city. The F-150 Raptor is one of those vehicles. F-150 Tremor. That could do it. You you risk it. Sam Abuelsamid (12:38) Barely. Roberto Baldwin (12:39) Well, just to give a ⁓ sort of expectation of where I grew up, everyone in school that I knew wanted a Dooley. Sam Abuelsamid (12:49) Ha! Nicole (12:50) So you grew up in the middle of nowhere. Sam Abuelsamid (12:52) Yeah, but you lived in farm Roberto Baldwin (12:52) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (12:53) country and you know, people you know, actually, ⁓ yeah. Roberto Baldwin (12:54) No, it was mountain country, but it was mostly for horses. And it wasn't. Nicole (12:57) We have a lot of duallys or did more so here once per time because there's just a lot of farms. So we're always towing a trailer with something or equipment. have tons of farms. Roberto Baldwin (13:02) Yeah. There was a Ford Ranger Dually out for a while. I know because someone in my town had it. Ford Ranger Dually. Someone in my town had a Ford Ranger Dually. Nicole (13:10) That was a real thing? I didn't even know that was a thing. When Sam Abuelsamid (13:16) not from the factory. Ford never built one. Nicole (13:16) was there Ford Ranger Dually? Wait, I'm Googling. I'm doing the same. 20. And that I can't find a real I built one danger Ranger. Roberto Baldwin (13:18) as a forward ranger we're all looking up the forward ranger dually Ford Ranger Dually. Sam Abuelsamid (13:30) I mean, I'm sure I'm sure somebody Yeah, I mean, I found a few pictures here of ones that people built. But Ford never actually produced those from the factory. Nicole (13:34) it ever built. It says, according to the AI overview, when I Googled, it says it was never officially built, but J companies like JC Whitney sold kits to convert a standard Ranger into a dually. Sam Abuelsamid (13:48) Well, what could go wrong with the JC Whitney dual rear axle? Roberto Baldwin (13:51) yeah, that's it, we're good. Nicole (13:52) Absolutely nothing that sounds like a perfect idea. Let's give it a go. Sam Abuelsamid (13:55) I mean, you know, that probably only cost what 20, 30 bucks? Roberto Baldwin (13:59) Yeah, I'm sure it's fine. Yeah, someone in town they had a forward Ranger dueling everyone in town was like, where did you what and then everyone just sort of made J.C. Whitney Sam Abuelsamid (14:05) J.C. Whitney. Nicole (14:05) He made that himself. I don't know if he had that J.C. Whitney version, but it appears he did that himself. Sam Abuelsamid (14:10) And there's when I, when when I did the search for Ford Ranger dually, ⁓ the second image, the second image here, ⁓ shows it's ⁓ a screenshot from a YouTube video. Come in swapping my dually Ford Ranger. So it's this, this is a red dually Ford Ranger that's a rolling coal at the same time. Nicole (14:18) It's a great search. my gosh. Roberto Baldwin (14:31) ⁓ Nicole (14:36) I mean, when you I mean, everyone, I recommend you just Google this right now and just spend a few minutes looking at the images that come up when you do Ford Ranger Julie. It's fantastic. I don't know how many of these people like had a kid and how many of these people just said, I can do this. This is ridiculous in the best way possible. It's ridiculous. These images. Roberto Baldwin (14:47) Yeah, it's... Sam Abuelsamid (14:59) Yeah, just take an axle from an F450 and bolt it to the back end of the Ranger. Roberto Baldwin (15:06) I think you just stuck something onto the tires. I don't think it was that. I think you're giving them away. Yeah, the J.C. Whitney kit. Nicole (15:11) Just... Sam Abuelsamid (15:13) ⁓ the JC Whitney kit, that's probably what it was. It probably just different, different Nicole (15:16) Actually, it's not even bolted on. They just had some like glue dots on one side of the rubber and they stuck it to the other side. Sam Abuelsamid (15:17) wheels. Roberto Baldwin (15:21) Yeah, they just glued a... Yeah, I remember that person with the Ford Ranger Julie. Everyone's like, what the? Why? Nicole (15:26) That's cool. That would be neat. You know if they actually you could do that, I bet there'd be a fair number of people that would do that for kicks. You know they would. People want to buy the slate because they want to mess around with colors and all the random you can do with the slate. You mean tell me if they offered a slate duly. Somebody do that image. Somebody AI that and send it to me. Sam Abuelsamid (15:41) how about a slate dually? Roberto Baldwin (15:48) this forward ranger dually, slate dually. Nicole (15:52) Somebody has to be able to AI a slate dually. Roberto Baldwin (15:53) Who had that dually? I can't remember. Nicole (15:57) Now you're going to track it down. Robbie, you have a mission. You got to track down the dude that had this and see if somewhere he has an old faded picture. Roberto Baldwin (16:04) I think they were just out of high school. It was one of those guys that was like 19 but still kind of hung around the high school. You know those guys. Yeah, those guys. Yeah, yeah. They're like 20 years old and they show up at the high school like during lunch and they're like, what are you doing, Yeah. Nicole (16:11) I do know those guys. Some of them are still hanging around the high school. It's not quite right. my God, I remember those people. Yeah, did you ever, I don't think I went back to high school ever after. I think I did a couple of reunions, but they weren't even at the high school. Roberto Baldwin (16:27) Oh gosh, just as soon I got out of there, never went back. I, you know, no, it's right. That's, that's not true. I went back for like my, was in a punk band and the bass player went, was still in high school and I was like 21. So he was like 18. And so they had a battle of the bands. So I went back to my high school to play in the auditorium slash gymnasium in a punk band. Yeah. So I was, yeah. Nicole (16:52) slash band room slash whatever it was for the moment. I mean, I guess that's okay. That was a battle of the bands. It's not the same thing as just showing up and being like, hey, I thought I'd stop by. How's it going? I'm glad to hear this, Robbie. ⁓ It's good news. Roberto Baldwin (16:58) Yeah. No, I never did that. I had literally anything better to do. Nicole (17:11) Anything, anything but going back to high school. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (17:15) So I tried Gemini and I asked it to create an image of a slate with a dually rear axle. And it just gave me a picture of a Rivian R1T. So I said, try again. Nicole (17:19) Did you? Roberto Baldwin (17:25) Yeah, that's about right. That sounds about right for Jim and I. Nicole (17:25) Well, there's AI for you. Where did I just hear an engine go by? Whose house was that? Or was that literally one of our laptops? That was the sound of the slate slash Rivian slash Dooley. That's, should call this show the slate Rivian, Dooley. Everyone's going to be like, what? They're, what is this? What is this collab that's happening? Roberto Baldwin (17:31) That was my house. That was my house, sorry. I know that's the Slay Riff, he had a VA in it. Ahem. Slate Rivian Dually. I'm making a dually for Holland. Yeah, it was so weird. Anyway, sorry. ⁓ Nicole (17:52) So anyway, now that we're talking about Slate, Rivian, Dually's, no, that was the F-150. mean, it's a good truck. It does the trucky things you want. If you're looking for the off-road light version of the F-150 that's more affordable, more manageable in cities, just in it's the one to do. It's the one. Sam, you're still trying to make pictures. can see Sam's eyes. And he's like, that's not what I want. Sam Abuelsamid (18:11) Now it's. Now it gave me, it created an image of a Silverado EV with two rear axles. So it's a six by six. Nicole (18:25) you Roberto Baldwin (18:26) Right now, you've increased everyone in your area's electric bill by one kilowatt hour, one cent per kilowatt hour, and you've used more water than you will use in a month, but to create a six by six. It's horrible thing. Sam Abuelsamid (18:30) Hi. Nicole (18:31) ⁓ It's all say I'm trying to create this. But we have these great things that we've made now on AI. Someone's Sam Abuelsamid (18:33) Yeah. Nicole (18:42) got to make one. One of you guys has to make one. I never do AI imaging. I've never played with it. I know you can do it. I've just never played with it. I know people who love playing around with it. I don't use Photoshop either. I hate the, I hate managing pictures stuff. Drives me crazy. Not my thing. Not my jam. But that's it. F-150 done. Roberto Baldwin (18:47) You could just use Photoshop. your jam. BAM! F-150, Ford Ranger Dually. Sam Abuelsamid (19:02) How much did it cost? Nicole (19:04) ⁓ I did say how much it cost, didn't I? said I did. It was. Wait, let me bring it back up. Hold on. have it was the base on the tremor is sixty four nine one five mine. Sam Abuelsamid (19:05) Did you? I don't. Roberto Baldwin (19:06) yeah i was like some sixty something thousand sixty five sixty four nine Nicole (19:15) Mine had a, I almost said a word that I shouldn't. Mine had rather a lot of options on it. Holy cow. Yes, actually it had an F ton, nicely done. ⁓ Here's a new guess. How much do you think the options were on this vehicle? Roberto Baldwin (19:22) What you gonna say? F ton of options? An F series ton of options? Hey-o! Sam Abuelsamid (19:27) haha Roberto Baldwin (19:35) the one they gave you? like 12,000. Sam Abuelsamid (19:37) 15,000. Nicole (19:38) Almost nailed it Sam. $15,430 worth of options. Which included, yeah, all this tremor stuff and equipment. Then there was the moon roof and the rear center step and a bed liner and the ton tonneau tonneau cover. How do you say it? it tonneau? I never tonneau cover. ⁓ But you know, OK, so let's see if you can go two for two. So you guess the amount of the options. What was the destination on this? Roberto Baldwin (19:41) That's that's from me. ⁓ So now it's an $80,000. Sam Abuelsamid (19:56) channel. Roberto Baldwin (19:57) I always get it wrong too, Nicole. 18. Sam Abuelsamid (20:07) believe it's now $21.95. Roberto Baldwin (20:09) Oh my god. I said 18, but now I feel like I didn't go high enough. Nicole (20:10) Robbie? Uh, 21.95. It was 1995. You're right. Roberto Baldwin (20:18) That's me. Sam Abuelsamid (20:18) It was 1995, Ford raised the price. We talked about this last week or week before. They raised the price on them. Okay. Nicole (20:20) Have they raised it? Yeah. Well, my particular one, I have, and just I'd to point out, I have a real actual monroney. Like it's the official. Sam Abuelsamid (20:30) Yeah, well, when when your particular truck, okay, so I should, so we should we should make a rule is not what is the current delivery charge, but what is the delivery charge on at the time that this particular vehicle is delivered? Nicole (20:37) Yes, what was it? Roberto Baldwin (20:40) The moon re... Nicole (20:41) Yes, Roberto Baldwin (20:42) Okay. Nicole (20:42) when this was built and put into the media fleet, was 1995. Yeah, $15,000 of options. Roberto Baldwin (20:46) 1995 and I have 1800 so that was 1921 95. It's 2000. I think I won. I don't you know who lost consumers. We all lose really. Nicole (20:56) I think you won. I'm not doing that kind of math on a Sunday. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid (20:59) Yeah. Nicole (21:00) that's the important thing. Who lost? Consumers. Sam Abuelsamid (21:02) Yeah, you were you were up by 1995 and I was off by 2000. So you won by five bucks. Roberto Baldwin (21:05) Yeah, five bucks. Nicole (21:07) Okay, so you're each one for one. You won on the option, Sam, and you won on the destination, But we're Roberto Baldwin (21:07) I was like, wait, I win? Everyone's... But we're all losers, remember. Nicole (21:13) all losers because we're paying almost two grand for destination on a truck that came from not very far away to New Hampshire. So yeah. Roberto Baldwin (21:22) What is happening? Why is there lightning under just those two? Sam Abuelsamid (21:25) Well, just imagine if I had bought that truck, the plant that built that truck is like 20 miles away from me. Nicole (21:28) It would have come 10 feet. ⁓ I mean, my gosh, you just sent a picture. You need to put this up. You need to include this in the little images that you do for the show and see if anyone goes, what the heck? You can put like a little asterisk AI image. ⁓ dang it. Roberto Baldwin (21:36) A 6 by 6. Sam Abuelsamid (21:38) Yeah. I was. ⁓ I will put it in the show notes. already created the show art, but I'll put it in the show notes. What? Okay. So I tried chat GPT says create an image of a slate electric pickup with a dual rear wheel, dual rear wheel axle. And what it did was create something that looks kind of like a slate pickup, but it's a crew cab, which is actually what slate should be doing anyway. Roberto Baldwin (21:52) Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff for a show of art. Oh no. Nicole (21:54) Yeah, why? Okay. Roberto Baldwin (22:07) ⁓ Nicole (22:09) Is that what you sent me? Is that what this AI images? This one on my phone? OK. Silverado. It's like this leak is like it's all like every bit of angle to any metal on it has been wiped out. It's all very curvy. It looks like the vision of the future we had in 1980, like everything's rounded in this. I mean, it's funky, you know? Roberto Baldwin (22:11) No, that's the Silverado with the 6x6. Sam Abuelsamid (22:12) That was the prompt. But it's actually a Silverado with dual axles. Roberto Baldwin (22:18) I don't know. Sam Abuelsamid (22:33) It's like, AIs just have no concept of what a dually rear axle is. Nicole (22:40) It doesn't know what a Dooley is. Roberto Baldwin (22:41) They haven't trained it on that. Sam Abuelsamid (22:42) I'm trained to run everything else. Nicole (22:42) And it trained on everything else we did. And what did it put in the background? Roberto Baldwin (22:45) There's not enough, you know what, there's not enough books about duallys. I guess I'll get on that. Nicole (22:49) It puts some futuristic building in the background like a bunker. Like it. It looks like something out of the Avengers. You definitely have to share this picture with everyone because this might be the best image. Sam Abuelsamid (22:54) I don't know what that is. Roberto Baldwin (22:55) No. Sam Abuelsamid (23:00) I'll put these both in the show notes. if you're listening to this, you know, take a look at the show notes. and, these will be in the show notes. that. Nicole (23:08) You'll get to see these and see if you can come up with a better one. I'd love to next week have. Yeah, it maybe doesn't know what a slate is. Does it not understand what slate is? Because these are way too big. Roberto Baldwin (23:10) The slate is huge. This is like a full size slate. It's not even like a small, this is just a truck. Sam Abuelsamid (23:17) Yeah. I apparently not. Roberto Baldwin (23:18) Yeah. This is just a Silverado with a slate like, like fascia between the headlights. That's it. It's the... Sam Abuelsamid (23:22) Yeah. Nicole (23:27) Okay, somebody do better than what Sam has done, although this is entirely music and I'm glad you did this. Roberto Baldwin (23:30) Someone just open up Photoshop, throw a slate in there, and make it a dually. It'll be literally much easier than trying to do what we're trying to do. Sam Abuelsamid (23:35) Yeah. Nicole (23:35) Make it a dually. Make it happen, people. Sam Abuelsamid (23:40) And then, then, and then add a 20,000 pound trailer behind it with a fifth wheel. Nicole (23:41) you ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (23:46) Yep. All right. Slate auto. All right. You guys keep doing the podcast. I'm going to put my graphic designer, my graphic design thing to work with. Nicole (23:47) I love this. I feel like we should be designing vehicles. All right. That's enough crazy with Ford. You're going to do some, you're going to come up with some. Okay. So why don't we move to the cars car? Because your stuff was love, especially the first one, Sam totally competitive set. Right. No difference whatsoever. Sam Abuelsamid (23:53) Hehe. Yeah. I mean, I had basically the same thing. ⁓ I, had, I had the, the Lexus LC 500 convertible, ⁓ which is a lovely car. is this, this is what a grand touring car should be. You know, this is, this is the definition of it. You know, it is not the fastest car, but it's a very quick car. ⁓ it is lovely to look at. ⁓ and it's something that you can take on a long drive. Nicole (24:14) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (24:37) you will, you know, compared to say, ⁓ you know, getting into a McLaren or ⁓ some. Okay, I just changed the prompt slightly in chat GPT and finally finished generating the image. I changed it from a dual rear wheel axle to just a dually axle. And it generated the exact same image. So I give up for now. Nicole (24:53) He's still stuck on the truck. Mm-hmm. So it made no changes. You tried. Sam Abuelsamid (25:05) ⁓ Anyway, know compared to you know, say taking a Lamborghini ⁓ or a McLaren or a Ferrari for a long road trip, know, the ⁓ the Lexus LC is something that you can get in with with your your favorite companion ⁓ and Just have a lovely comfortable fast drive The one I had had the bespoke package on it which basically means you got a couple of paint options. And this one was silver with a red top, which is a really nice contrast. What else did it have on there? The engine is a five liter V8 engine with 471 horsepower, 10 speed automatic transmission. It's rear wheel drive. You know, I've driven the LC before. ⁓ and actually a couple of years ago at the mama rally, mama spring rally, I actually had a chance to drive an LC 500 convertible on the track at road America. And, you know, you would not think, you know, a big Lexus luxury convertible would be something that's well suited to the track. And it's not, it's not designed as a track car, but it's, it actually works really well on the track. It's very well balanced. It's fast. And, ⁓ with the active sport exhaust that's on this one. When you get into it, when it gets to about three and a half, 4,000 RPM, it opens up the active valves and it sounds really good. It's not the kind of rumble you get from a Chevy small block and a Corvette or like a Mustang, but it sounds really, really good. ⁓ It's really a pleasure to drive. ⁓ Fortunately, we had really nice weather when I had it here. So I had the top down most of the time. ⁓ My wife and I went out, we went for a drive ⁓ to go to this farm stand to get some, some native plants for the garden. ⁓ Had the top down. Fantastic. ⁓ The, some inexplicable reason, this is one of those cars where the manufacturer insists that it should be, that it should have four ⁓ sets of seat belts and seats in the back, even though, you know, I'm about 5'10", 5'10 1⁄2", you so I'm not that tall. ⁓ And with the seat in my driving position, there's about an inch and a half between the back of the driver's seat and the seat cushion in the rear seat. Roberto Baldwin (27:36) No one fits back there. Sam Abuelsamid (27:58) Yeah, if you are fans of King of the Hill, ⁓ Hank's dad, cotton, somebody like cotton is about the only one that could fit in the seat in this backseat. Yeah, there's like literally zero leg room back there. So it's like, come on, Lexus, why, why are you, why are you wasting the effort? Just make it a really nicely upholstered ⁓ package shelf, which would actually be really useful because, you know, the other Roberto Baldwin (28:02) Darn diggity. Cotton! Mmm. Sam Abuelsamid (28:28) downside of the LC 500. And even to a slightly lesser degree the LC coupe is the trunk is really small, it's very shallow. So the trunk is so shallow that you cannot actually put a standard carry on bag in there. You could put like a garment bag or you know, a couple of, you know, half packed duffel bags back there. You know, I was able to put some Roberto Baldwin (28:41) Junk in it. Sam Abuelsamid (28:55) put some small seedlings back there. But that's about it. That's about all you're gonna get in the in the truck. Yeah, quite a few seeds, you can get a lot of seeds back there. Roberto Baldwin (28:59) I bought a pack of seeds and some teeny tiny little... I can get so many seeds in the back of my... Sam Abuelsamid (29:08) But you can use that seat back. The rear seat is perfect for a couple of carry-on bags or couple of duffel bags. that's literally the only thing the rear seat is good for. The rest, don't even bother. Nicole (29:23) You could put the dogs back there. Sam Abuelsamid (29:25) Yeah, but you wouldn't want to put your dogs, you know, in the LC. Yeah. Yeah, they'd be tearing up the nice leather. So yeah, you don't want to do that. You could. yeah, my corgis would fit back there. ⁓ They wouldn't, they probably wouldn't be real happy though, because you know, the belt line, the belt line is fairly high and you'd be sitting down. Basically, they're not going to see anything. It's going to be like being in a kind of like being in a bathtub. Nicole (29:27) In the LC 500, it's too pretty. ⁓ But you could. Would they fit? Would your corgis I love that you've evaluated the happiness of your dogs in the back, not just will they fit, but is this a suitable vehicle? Will dogs be pleased? The humans will like it. The LC 500 riding up front, but the dogs are going to be like, this is substandard. Where's my Subaru? Is that? Sam Abuelsamid (30:07) Yeah, precisely. That is precisely the way you got to look. mean, you know, if you're going to have dogs in your family, you have to consider their feelings to you know, dogs have feelings they they have emotions. Exactly. Roberto Baldwin (30:16) Yep. Nicole (30:16) So, and that's why they have Subarus. I still think the fact that Subaru makes things that actually are designed for their cars, like dog covers to protect like the side doors and things so that when they put their paws up on the door, they don't scratch the interior door panels. I'm like, that is a company who knows its target market. Sam Abuelsamid (30:33) Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. And you know, this is why I would not put the dogs in a car like the LC. You know, the LC is a fantastic Grand Touring convertible. You know, I would I would drive a cross country in this thing easily. No, no problem. Nicole (30:42) in the LC. What color would you pick? Because it has some beautiful colors. Sam Abuelsamid (30:53) ⁓ you know, the the color that I had was the iridium, which is the silver. That's what it's silver. Yeah, it's I mean, it's probably it's probably not the color I would choose. ⁓ Let's see. ⁓ Let me find. ⁓ Nicole (30:59) Which is like the white. it? no, wait. yeah, it is silver. OK. Yeah. What would you pick? Okay, I think I like this ultrasonic blue mic. Sam Abuelsamid (31:19) yeah, yeah, I've seen that color. Yes, that's a very good color. ⁓ Nicole (31:20) Right? That's pretty. Ultrasonic blue mic, I think that would be it. Or I don't know if I was trying to go a little less in your face, I might pick that nori green pearl with like a saddle colored interior. It has a very English vibe to it, I like that. Sam Abuelsamid (31:37) let's see. mean, the, red, the, the infrared is really good. ⁓ I've had that one before. yeah. The nori green Pearl is very good too. And the ultrasonic blue. I would, yeah, I would probably go with, ⁓ with any of those three really, but my first choice would probably be the ultrasonic blue. ⁓ and then, and then the red and the green. Nicole (31:46) I love that they call black caviar. That's very Lexus of you. It's a neat color, right? same. Yep, I get red and green would be my second. I don't know which one I go with one of each. How much is this car again? You like it's like enough that two is not a big deal. Just buy two. Right. Get one to get the colors you want. can't decide just by one in every color that you like, you know, depending on your mood, you drive a different really fancy car and save the subi for your dogs. I've solved the problem. Sam Abuelsamid (32:13) enough. Yeah, mean, you have exactly, That there we go. Yeah. Perfect. You've solved it. Um, yeah, the, uh, the, the big change for 2025, uh, was to the interior. Uh, actually I'm not sure if they did that for 25 or 24. Uh, but you know, the, LC was one of the last Lexus's Lexi that still had the, old track pad, uh, infotainment controller. Yeah, it was, it was not good. Nicole (32:35) World peace is next. Roberto Baldwin (32:49) Lexi-sai? Nicole (32:54) Ugh. Ugh. Sam Abuelsamid (32:58) ⁓ so that's gone. That, that is officially in the, in the history books. so they, they redid the interior. ⁓ so you've got a new dashboard now, or at least a heavily revamped dashboard, that now has a large touchscreen in the center, ⁓ with the latest, ⁓ Toyota Alexis, multimedia system. ⁓ which works really well, same as all the other vehicles it's in. It's a good system. ⁓ As I've said before, my only major complaint with it is that when you're using the standard Toyota software, you can't display two panes side by side on the screen at the same time, have your map display and your media controller display at the same time. ⁓ Other than that, ⁓ you know, if you're using CarPlay or Android Auto, then you can have a multi-plane display. So it's not a big deal. ⁓ The volume control, you know, there is a nice big rotary knob on the center control on the center console, which is that's your volume knob. Nice big volume knob. Very easy to get to. Give it a nice twist. You get nice precise control of your volume. ⁓ But it's funny on the ⁓ the passenger side of the console. There's like this little mini wall that goes up from that sweeps up from the console to the dashboard. And then it has a hole in there. So you basically have a grip. My wife asked me, why is this here? And said, give you someplace to hang on to when you're going through the curves. I don't know. It's not real clear why it exists. I'm not, you know, it's possible that that's a, you know, that that's a structural element that they put in there to give it a little more. rigidity for the convertible. When you first get in the car and you sit down, it's like you look around and you can't see where it's okay. How do I put the top down in this thing? towards the back end of the console, just in front of the cup holder, there's a flap. you lift that up and underneath there are two switches one is for the top to put the top up and down. All right, Robbie. Robbie has succeeded in creating a duly slate. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (35:28) The truck isn't very long. I would have had to extend the bed a little bit for it to work perfectly, but yeah, see? at that. I didn't have to... Sam Abuelsamid (35:31) I'm Nicole (35:33) ⁓ you know what? That's okay. That was actually you know what? That's the one that truly does look like the most what you would think it would look like. It's really a slave. Roberto Baldwin (35:42) Yeah, that's right, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (35:42) Yeah. Uh, anyway, the two switches there, what one is one is to put the top up and down. It's a fabric top, but, it's, but it's powered. Um, and so there's a big panel behind the top that, uh, lifts up the top folds down underneath there and then it comes down. So you have a nice smooth cover over the top. Uh, so, you know, it doesn't look, uh, it doesn't look cheap, uh, like my Miata. Um, and then next to it is a switch. When you put the, when you put the top down, it drops all four windows. Roberto Baldwin (35:45) Ten minutes in Photoshop. Sam Abuelsamid (36:14) ⁓ And when you put the top back up, there's only two window switches on ⁓ the driver's door panel for the two main windows on the driver and passenger doors. There's no switches there for the rear windows, the little quarter windows in the top. But the switch next to the top control just raises or lowers all four windows at once. So that's handy to have there. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy driving this car. ⁓ It's, you know, it handles really well, but it's also got a comfortable ride. ⁓ It is a true grand tour. And let's see the bottom line price on this one was one hundred and seventeen thousand and fifty five dollars. ⁓ Nicole (37:08) my god, you'd definitely buy two. Sam Abuelsamid (37:10) Yeah, but well, mean, you know, compared to buying say a Mercedes SL, you know, a Mercedes SL or, ⁓ you know, a, ⁓ a BMW eight convertible, you know, it's, it's a relatively modest price. ⁓ so you want to guess at the, ⁓ the, ⁓ delivery charge. Roberto Baldwin (37:11) You can get so many slate dualies. Nicole (37:25) modest. Roberto Baldwin (37:29) 1600. Nicole (37:30) I'm going to go 1895. Sam Abuelsamid (37:32) Robbie gets it. was 1350. Yeah. Remember with a lot of these ⁓ import ⁓ luxury cars, they just, they don't bother trying to hide the price increases in the destination charge. They just put it right on the, and the MSRP and you know, so the, destination charges are more somewhat more reasonable. Nicole (37:35) ⁓ I went way too high. Roberto Baldwin (37:43) They just charge you more. Nicole (37:56) a little bit easier to manage. Sam Abuelsamid (37:58) Yeah. All right. The other car that I had, which I had for less than 24 hours, and the only reason I had it was because ⁓ I had to take some photos of it. ⁓ Somebody else had written a review of it for a site that my company does some work for, but the photos were not satisfactory. And so I reached out to Hans at Navs and said, hey, Can we get this car for, you know, for a few hours or just for a day so it can redo the photos for the, for the review. And so they sent it over, they brought it over on Monday afternoon to get back Tuesday morning to deliver it to somebody else. was the 2026 Cadillac Lyric V. So this is the first electric V series car from Cadillac. And, you know, it has all the things that we've Nicole (38:43) Ooh. Sam Abuelsamid (38:53) liked or not about the Lyric in the past with more power, more tire, more brakes. And you know, it is, it is what you would expect a V-Series Cadillac to be, a V-Series Lyric. So it's, it's the high performance, higher performance version. It does zero to 60 in 3.3 seconds. It has about 615 horsepower. So basically The Lyric V has the more powerful motors that they also use in the Vistic, which is the three row that's based on the Lyric. And this one was the first Lyric that I've had that has some of the other software updates. ⁓ So the same stuff that we had when we drove the Vistic in the spring ⁓ with Super Cruise, where it will now ⁓ follow Some interchanges ⁓ when you're in super cruise mode while staying hands free ⁓ on Google Maps. ⁓ It shows you when you're on a super cruise capable road ⁓ using navigation, it'll show you with a white line down the middle of the blue route line that Google Maps shows you that lets you know that it's a hands free capable road. And some of the other updates that they've done to super cruise, continuing to increase the number Roberto Baldwin (40:07) Noooo Sam Abuelsamid (40:19) roads where it's usable. Still, same caveat, we've always talked about with hands-free systems, about whether it's even actually good idea, but it has that. when you turn that off and you get somewhere where you have a little bit of room ⁓ and you press the V button on the steering wheel ⁓ and unleash all of the available power, boy is this thing quick. Roberto Baldwin (40:48) hour. Nicole (40:48) I Sam Abuelsamid (40:48) It Nicole (40:49) bet. Sam Abuelsamid (40:49) is it's it's a it's a quick machine. ⁓ Quick enough that, you know, it is arguably too fast. ⁓ Nicole (40:59) Wait a minute, why do you say it's too fast? Roberto Baldwin (41:01) Bye. Sam Abuelsamid (41:01) I think for most people, for the vast majority of people, they do not need 3.3 seconds or a 60 acceleration. think anything under five seconds is, now, I like to drive fast. I am not opposed to performance. But ⁓ I think arguably most people do not, do not, Nicole (41:10) You don't think? You don't think? Roberto Baldwin (41:10) Yep. ⁓ Nicole (41:22) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (41:28) necessarily have the skills to handle, ⁓ this much performance. ⁓ and realistically, you know, mean, this thing, pushes you back in your seat. I mean, you get that instant acceleration that you get from an EV and then it just keeps on going. and, it's just, it's just not necessary. Roberto Baldwin (41:52) Yep. Nicole (41:52) And it's not necessary. also, is that it's the thing where I mean, no one's giving this car to their kid, but there is the danger if you haven't driven things that are fast and you suddenly drive something that is fast and it's thrilling and it's exciting and you don't know how to control something that fast. Like, take it easy, folks. If you buy something really fast and you haven't driven that before. Ease into the fun of it. Roberto Baldwin (42:15) They're even people who buy something fast and then they've driven it for like years, they still don't quite, they're driving, most of the time you're just driving on a freeway. And you're already doing 60, 70 miles an hour and they're like, look at this and you speed up and your tires are already warm and blah, blah, blah, blah. All the bits that they think, that makes the, and of course the car is keeping you from dying. Nicole (42:26) Mm-hmm. Right. Roberto Baldwin (42:43) to be honest, the car, like you don't, like you didn't have traction control, if you didn't have lane keep assist, like you'd probably be dead. So you get this car, you're driving around, you're going quickly, and the problem is that for years and years, you know, the failure, the line, the event horizon for failure when things go wrong was like in 30, 40 miles an hour. Now it's around 90. Nicole (42:51) Hahaha! Roberto Baldwin (43:09) So now the event horizon, the failure point where the car just can't keep up with your stupidity is at a speed that is incredibly dangerous. And so that's how you end up with people, yeah. Nicole (43:09) Mm-hmm. You ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (43:21) And when things go wrong at 30 miles an hour, the consequences are significantly less than when they go wrong at 80 or 90 miles an hour. kinetic energy goes up with the square of your speed. So if you go from 30 to 60 miles an hour, you now have four times as much kinetic energy. so that's a lot of bad stuff that can happen. Roberto Baldwin (43:31) Yep. Nicole (43:31) Absolutely. Roberto Baldwin (43:36) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (43:48) at those speeds when things let go. A standard Lyric will do 0 to 60 in about four and a half seconds, which is more than fast enough. That's plenty quick enough for... Roberto Baldwin (43:48) Yeah. Nicole (44:01) You know, it's an interesting thing where you look at all of these, numbers for cars. It's this many seconds, that many seconds. And your brain wants to say, well, 3.3 seconds versus. Five seconds, one is fast and one is slow. No, they're both really fast. you know, that that's it's just because you're seeing those numbers jump. You don't realize how quick that actually is when you're behind the wheel of a car. Like, can you tell a difference? Sure, if you drive those cars all the time, but in the average day to day, are you noticing the two seconds? Absolutely not. You know, but you have a lot more control and things are accelerating. Not quite so much like they're on fire. Roberto Baldwin (44:15) They're both very fast. Sam Abuelsamid (44:15) Yes. Yeah. When, when you're, when you're driving down a two lane country road and you know, you're behind somebody that's going 45 in a 55 mile an hour zone and decide you want to get around them. When you pull out and you step on the, on the accelerator pedal and something like this, you will be going 80 miles an hour before you realize it, especially because of the fact that it's an EV and it's so smooth and so quiet that, you know, Roberto Baldwin (44:59) Yeah. Nicole (45:00) Exactly. Sam Abuelsamid (45:06) that speed creeps up on you very quickly. ⁓ Nicole (45:09) And that's where the danger of it is, because even if you drive cars that are very, and I like this car, I'm not knocking fast cars, but that is kind of where the danger is, because your impulse is and has been that you need to get around somebody quickly, you mash the gas to do it, right? Like I got to mash that pedal so I can get around this guy in the time that I have, because he's a slowpoke and he's driving me nuts. And even if you're doing it in a legal spot and all these things, you're following all the rules. When you mash the pedal in a car that's just an average car, it's one thing. When you mash it on an EV or you mash it on something with this kind of power, It can get away from you you're not paying attention. Your instinct is to mash it. So it is something that takes a little bit like you got to think a little bit. I think just a little bit. Sam Abuelsamid (45:49) Yeah. But other than that, you know, I do like this car. like it. I've liked the Lyric since the beginning. You know, it still has, you know, they've still not taken away CarPlay and Android Auto from the infotainment system, which is kind of surprising to me. ⁓ But Roberto Baldwin (46:06) It's not surprising they read my article Nicole (46:10) Ha! Sam Abuelsamid (46:10) Okay. The ⁓ and the Lyric V also adds the augmented reality heads up display that debuted on the Vistic. ⁓ So it's a multi plane heads up display. So when you're when you're using that, you if you're using navigation, you know, you'll see your driver information hovering, it looks like it's hovering, you know, roughly about where the end of the hood is. And then your navigation information, you know, where it's telling you where to turn will appear to be down further down the road. And it looks like you'll have the arrow hovering over the place where you're supposed to turn. And as you get closer and closer, it gets bigger. And it looks like it's getting closer to you as you're approaching it. And those are, it's actually a really useful feature. Although I had the hardest time remembering where to get into the settings to adjust the height of it. Cause when I... first got into it, was up too high. The near part was up too high and it looked like it was getting cut off because of where ⁓ my height versus the previous driver that had set it up. And I had a hard time finding the settings for that, but once I found it, then it was great. ⁓ Lyric V's really good mid-size luxury ⁓ electric SUV. It's a really good midsize luxury SUV, regardless of what the powertrain is. And everything works really well on it. The V Series starts at $80,090. The Premium, which is what I had, which adds the Nappa leather package and panoramic power sunroof, bumps that up to $85,290, which is what was on the sticker for the one that I was driving. ⁓ Sorry, the total was 85,615 because it also had the radiant red tint coat and the red painted brake calipers because that gives you just that little bit extra speed or something. So guesses at the destination charge. Roberto Baldwin (48:23) Or something. Nicole (48:24) Or something. Roberto Baldwin (48:27) 1600. Nicole (48:28) 1795, which I know is not going to be right. Sam Abuelsamid (48:31) Robbie goes three for three today, 13.95. Nicole (48:34) 13, I'm just going way too high. I was scarred by the number on the F-150. Roberto Baldwin (48:34) that's pretty good. Sam Abuelsamid (48:36) Yeah, I'm surprised it wasn't higher. Roberto Baldwin (48:38) Yeah, that is kind of low. was like, after I said 1600, was like, that's not enough. Sam Abuelsamid (48:41) Yeah, especially for in GM. The Lyric V is rated at 285 miles of range. I didn't have enough time with it to do any kind of range testing. ⁓ the standard Lyric generally gets pretty close to what it's rated at. So I suspect that this one will be able to achieve that as well. Nicole (49:04) There you go. Sam Abuelsamid (49:05) All right, let us move on to the Honda Prelude. Roberto Baldwin (49:10) HALOOND! Nicole (49:10) Yes. Sam Abuelsamid (49:11) So this week Honda Nicole (49:12) It's back. Sam Abuelsamid (49:13) released a bunch more images and some more details on the new Prelude. And what do you think? Nicole (49:23) I like how it looks. I want pop-up headlights, I'm sorry, but I like how it looks. And I think, sorry, I ruined it for you because you had pop-up headlights once upon a time. Roberto Baldwin (49:28) yeah, now I just want to up headlights. That was fine until Nicole said something. I'm a big fan Sam Abuelsamid (49:37) ⁓ two Roberto Baldwin (49:38) of the Sam Abuelsamid (49:38) generations of it. Roberto Baldwin (49:38) Honda, of the Honda BRZ. Sam Abuelsamid (49:41) Yeah. The second and third generations of it had pop-up headlights. The first and the fourth and fifth generations did, they had fixed headlights. Nicole (49:41) You I like the pop-up. I learned how to drive a manual transmission on a Honda Prelude that had pop-up headlights. The reason I know this is because I was just so panicked about driving a manual transmission that every time I went to hit the turn signal, I would accidentally hit the wrong thing and I'd turn the headlights off. It's like, bing, bing, bing, bing. I have this memory, it's like, ah! It's like panicking. I couldn't get my hand-eye coordination going in this vehicle. But that's how I learned to drive a manual transmission. And my friends, is her husband's Honda Prelude. Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (50:20) So, you know, the Prelude, you know, they haven't released full specifications of it yet, you know, dimensions and everything, weights, but, you know, it has the 200 horsepower, 232 pound foot, two liter hybrid powertrain from the Civic Hybrid that's also in the CRV and the Accord. But it has, interestingly, it has the front suspension and brakes. and adapters from the Civic Type R. ⁓ So, you know, right now it's going to launch with 200 horsepower, but who knows? Maybe at some point, maybe, yeah, mean, maybe at some point we'll see a prelude Type R. Nicole (51:00) That makes you feel like there's more in the works, right? Like we don't know that. Roberto Baldwin (51:01) I'm Nicole (51:06) We're speculating. That'd be kind of cool. I like the prelude. I mean, I always thought it was an E-car when it originally came out. I'm glad that every prelude is not what, right? Except the ones with the pop-up headlights were slightly better because of the pop-up headlights. Roberto Baldwin (51:06) Maybe? Sam Abuelsamid (51:09) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (51:14) Every prelude is a good prelude. Let's hope they don't mess it up. Sam Abuelsamid (51:16) Ha Roberto Baldwin (51:23) I am always on the search for a first generation prelude. Nicole (51:27) There you go. I like the preload. think it's right. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (51:29) I love that. I love that body style. It's just like a really tiny car. It's yeah, the first generation peri-lude. Sam Abuelsamid (51:32) My local Honda dealer here, Jermaine Honda in Ann Arbor, has a first gen Prelude sitting in the showroom. I'm not sure if it's for sale, but there is one sitting in the showroom. Roberto Baldwin (51:42) Yeah, it's... Nicole (51:42) Did you hear the sigh? Robbie's like, ⁓ it's out there. It's out there. Roberto Baldwin (51:45) Yeah. There's a couple of them out there that are convertibles. They, the factory, they, they delivered into a couple Honda dealerships. They were convertible preludes, but they were like post, they had Honda hired someone essentially to make them into a convertible. And I, and I saw one for sale and I was just like, ⁓ my gosh, I had zero monies at the time. I mean, it's not like I have money now to be honest. I had less monies then. Like now I could be like, okay, I could swing this. But yeah. Nicole (52:17) I'm just excited that they're finally showing this as like, here's what we're gonna build. it's almost two years, right? Since they... Okay, so it's been about... Sam Abuelsamid (52:23) It's been almost exactly two years as we first saw it at the Japan Mobility Show in October of 2023. Nicole (52:30) So, okay, so we're right at the two year mark and sometimes you get like when it debuted, I'm like, my gosh, it's gorgeous. This looks like this would be really cool. It looked production ready, like it didn't, it wasn't too crazy, but you kind of thought like, well. It's been two years. Is it really happening or did they just tease us or change their mind? But now they're saying production is happening and sales by the end of this year. It's September. The end of this year is like a month away. We're in the burr months. We're there. So any minute now. Sam Abuelsamid (53:00) Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, this, this is based on a Civic chassis. So, you know, we, we know this, the Civic hybrid drives really well and all it is, you know, is slightly shorter and shorter wheelbase. You know, like I said, they didn't, haven't released the dimensions yet, but comparing the, you if you look at the profile images of this car versus the last generation Civic coupe, you know, Nicole (53:11) Yes. Mm-hmm. Very Sam Abuelsamid (53:27) It looks very close. You know, so, you know, Nicole (53:28) close. Sam Abuelsamid (53:30) it's probably about five, six inches shorter than a civic sedan or hatchback. Nicole (53:35) It makes sense that it's based on the Civic 2 because it was once upon a time the Accord, but the Accord was smaller back in the day. So it made more sense. If you were to base this on the Accord now, it would be just weird. It wouldn't. It would be gigantic. Yeah, it would just be way too big. I think it looks great. I think the dimensions look good. I'm excited about this. Even how the trunk opens. Look at the back of that car. Roberto Baldwin (53:45) gigantic. Sam Abuelsamid (53:58) Well, it's a hatchback now. Nicole (54:00) or hatchback, should say how the hatchback opens. Look at that. That looks that it's that's a freaky looking. It looks really funky from the back, like when the with the hatchback actually open. But it looks awesome. Like this car has some style. I'm excited. Sam Abuelsamid (54:01) Yeah. Which is, which is better. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (54:14) Do it, do it, do it. Nicole (54:16) I am excited for this car. want it to, but then I get, you know, it's always a little scary when you get too excited about something based on partial information and pictures, because then you fill in the blanks with what you want it to be, which doesn't mean that Honda's like in my head. It might not live up to those expectations. I think it will though. I hope it will. Sam Abuelsamid (54:41) ⁓ one other feature that they've added to this compared to the Civic is it's their first application of, ⁓ the S plus shift system, ⁓ which, simulates manual shifting and rev matching, ⁓ and provide some, some enhanced audio inside the cabin. Roberto Baldwin (54:51) ⁓ yeah. Nicole (55:02) Grrr. Roberto Baldwin (55:04) Grrrr, grrr. Nicole (55:06) That's the scariest part. What is that grr gonna sound like? Because sometimes you get enhanced on and you're like, okay, sounds like an engine. Other times you're like, that's true. So maybe it's gonna be good. It makes me nervous because some of them, not a Honda thing, some of them are not great. And you're like, can you turn off the sound of the dead squirrel that you think sounds like a cool engine? Can we make that stop? Like sometimes it just. Sam Abuelsamid (55:07) Yeah. Well, you know, in the in Ionic 5N, it's really good. Nicole (55:28) It's it's just not ideal. So I'm hoping that this one I have I have high hopes and based on how it looks and what they've said so far about what it's going to have like you're talking about the possibility that we could who knows we have fancy breaks. Maybe we can get a break package that's you know maybe there's something cooler coming down the line. I think this has really great potential. I think this is a segment that people still want. There's just not super fun options pricing will be a giant question mark like. Sam Abuelsamid (55:57) I'm, guessing that I'm guessing the price, the base price is probably going to be somewhere in the 36 to $38,000 range. Um, based on, you know, the, the civic, um, hybrid sport touring and hatchback, uh, starts at 33, five and the civic type R is 46. So somewhere in the middle there, you know, 36, 37, 38, um, you know, Nicole (55:57) Do you think it's gonna? Okay. in the middle. And it has to be in the 30s. can't see them starting in the 40s. So that you're right. It has to be somewhere just above that civics sport touring. So if that's 335, yeah, 3638 feels about right. Sam Abuelsamid (56:27) No. Cause it, does, you know, the, the, the, the type R suspension and brakes that adds some cost, uh, compared to the civic, uh, or compared to the regular civic hybrid. Um, so, you know, uh, a few, you know, a few thousand dollars extra to cover that. So in that 37, 38 range is probably where we'll see it. But now imagine this with the 310 horsepower turbo and six speed manual from the type R. Nicole (56:39) Yes. Right. Makes sense. Yeah. Oh, that'd be so cool. Don't tease Sam. That's mean. Now I'm getting my hopes up. We don't know what this is going to be. We don't know it's going to cost. We don't know that. I just I'm I'm really excited about driving this. I just love the look of it. I just love the old prelude so much. And I know it's an entirely different like that was a while ago. Hopefully it's not just like that because cars have come along. You know what I mean? But I want it to hold the spirit. Roberto Baldwin (57:01) Bam. Bam. Bam. Nicole (57:24) The spirit of the old prelude with modern trappings is what I'm hoping for. And it looks like from what they said so far, because we're still a little late on details, from what they said so far, it looks like it's going to do that. So like, come on, Honda, do this for me. Do it, do it, do it. Roberto Baldwin (57:38) Do it, do it. Sam Abuelsamid (57:40) Well, we'll find out more next month. ⁓ I'm going to the Tokyo Motor Show, the Japan Mobility Show. ⁓ And I believe we are going to get a chance to try this out while we're there. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (57:46) Lucky! Nicole (57:49) So you'll find out. Nice. Roberto Baldwin (57:54) Lucky. Nicole (57:55) I can't wait to. Are they going to embargo it forever? Are you not going to able to say anything for 12 years? Like. So maybe it'll be no embargo. Maybe you'll be able to say something right off. That would be cool. Although I feel like, you know, as your colleague, when we go off the air, you could tell me what you think about it, even if you officially can't Damn ⁓ it. Sam Abuelsamid (58:00) Well, I mean, it's supposed to go on sale, you know, by the end of the year. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (58:15) He signed paperwork. Don't get him in trouble. Sam Abuelsamid (58:21) All right, let's move on. ⁓ So ⁓ a guy in Minnesota got ticketed this week ⁓ or recently ⁓ for having too loud an exhaust on his charger Daytona EV. Nicole (58:24) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (58:35) Well, there you go. Wasn't it like a hundred billion decibels or some stuff? Nicole (58:36) too loud an exhaust. A public nuisance. Sam Abuelsamid (58:41) Well, yeah, apparently, he's claiming that he didn't even he wasn't even in sport mode didn't didn't have the exhaust on because you can turn it off you can drive basically you can drive in stealth mode. Nicole (58:53) Wait, they actually, as I was reading this, was assuming he had done some weird thing to it to give it quote an exhaust. He didn't. There was no weird thing. I thought there would be some weird modification to this to make it, no, it's just the actual stock vehicle. Sam Abuelsamid (59:01) No. Nicole (59:11) Wow! Can he fight that? Technically it's not an exhaust. It's technically not an exhaust. Sam Abuelsamid (59:12) Yeah. Well, it is. mean, you know, mean, the, exhaust, you know, it's based on how loud it is. Um, you know, and, uh, it's, know, if it's too loud, it's too loud. You know, it doesn't matter if it's simulated noise or actual exhaust noise. You know, and this does have that frat sonic exhaust that, you know, Stellantis claims, you know, is as loud as the, Hellcat was. Nicole (59:22) I guess. Strict noise ordinance at the group. Roberto Baldwin (59:43) 126 decibels. That's... that's... irresponsible, to be honest. Sam Abuelsamid (59:50) Yeah. Nicole (59:51) My exhaust is way too loud and disturbing the peace. I love this. I tried telling him it's an EV and doesn't have an exhaust and he stated he's not going to argue with me. He doesn't have an exhaust. Wow. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (59:54) Yeah, he. Nicole (1:00:07) and he was driving in a group of OK, so the the confusion, the concern, the whatever. He wasn't just like cruising along all on his own. looks like he was with a group of of I lost it now in the story with a group of other folks like enthusiasts, like a group all driving that had, you know, fancy cars and loud mufflers and all that. And somebody ⁓ peeled away from a red light and was really loud. And the league car was loud. And so he got pulled over. like as part of the pack. almost kind of sounds like he wasn't quick enough off the line. He was eight cars deep. So. Roberto Baldwin (1:00:43) but also the car will do 126 decibels, which is about 40 decibels past you destroying your hearing. Nicole (1:00:46) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:00:51) It's irresponsible. I'm gonna keep saying that 126 decibels on anything coming ⁓ from any sort of company that people will stand near or be near is irresponsible. Nicole (1:01:00) So what's like average decibels? What do you know? I'm looking at car exhaust in 2020. Roberto Baldwin (1:01:07) Anything over 70 is like really bad for your ears. Anything over 80 can cause potential long-term hearing loss. Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:16) And, you know, in, in most racing series now, you know, race cars are limited by the rules to, I think in like in the FIA WEC, the World Insurance Championship, I think they're limited to a hundred decibels. Nicole (1:01:31) And this is more than that. Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:31) So, and that's Roberto Baldwin (1:01:32) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:33) for, that's for a race car. Now, again, you know, this guy claims that, you know, he did not have the frat Sonic exhaust on, you know, but the fact that the officer was not even willing to, the officer was not even willing to discuss it. So didn't care that it was an EV. ⁓ you know, yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:01:35) Ahem. I mean you go share my claim, you don't want a ticket. Nicole (1:01:52) It was too loud. So I just looked to see because I was curious and I was doing some Googling. says the average production cars in 2025 based on what it could find are from 49 to 60 and it consists at 55 miles an hour. So if you're mashing it, could change. So and what did you say this car is? What's the decibels on the? Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:12) it in track mode, it'll do up to 126 decibels. Nicole (1:02:15) So that's more than double what the average speed is. Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:18) Well, but it's worse than that because the decibel scale is logarithmic. So it's, it, goes, it going up by, by 10 decibels is actually a hundred times louder. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:22) So get st- It's like, yeah. Nicole (1:02:34) OK, I get what you're saying. Yeah. Wow. Wow, that is loud. just then I thought how it seems loud getting a comparison. And this has a breakdown where it's showing, you know, mainstream vehicles versus luxury vehicles versus. my gosh. The the high end on the average is 60. This is more than double that. That's loud. Much like the speed. We are approaching unnecessary territory here. We've approached in crash. Roberto Baldwin (1:02:55) Yeah. It's... Nicole (1:03:02) cover the line, dove into unnecessary noise. Roberto Baldwin (1:03:07) Again, irresponsible. As someone who has to deal with like loud noise all the time, like on stage or in band practice and like, Nicole (1:03:14) Well, we heard the car that just came by. So whatever came by you earlier that like, totally, it sounded like it was like your windows opening you with a mic out there and you're like, no, that wasn't my house. Roberto Baldwin (1:03:22) Just down the, yeah, just. Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:23) You know, and, you know, I'm, walking my dogs in the neighborhood every day. And, you know, when cars drive by, you know, most modern cars are very, very quiet. You know, anything under 50 decibels, you know, you almost don't hear it until it's right next to you. Nicole (1:03:28) Yeah. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:44) So, you know, this is it's certain the car is certainly capable of being very loud. ⁓ But it's, you know, the said the driver claimed that it was not at the time. So, you know, if you are driving something like this, you know, be be aware, you know, if you're driving in town, you driving around other people, don't you know, don't do this. Don't don't put it in track mode. Because, you know, the reality is, you know, Nicole (1:04:09) Unnecessary. Roberto Baldwin (1:04:10) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:14) Most law enforcement officers probably don't know or care about the distinction. Nicole (1:04:21) ⁓ I mean, even if it's going to be even if it's going to be, yeah, like it's technically not an exhaust. It's like you're still noisy. You're still breaking the noise ordinance, you know. Roberto Baldwin (1:04:21) They're gonna give you the ticket regardless. Whether you have exhaust or... Yeah, it's it's yeah, that's that's now you're splitting. It's like when you know, well, my car stereo was on wasn't my exhaust. You're still making the noise, man. You're still making it. It is very much. It is very much. It's it's it's the dude riding down the street and is Harley and revving his engine. Someone once asked me, do they have to rev their engines? I'm like, well, yeah, nice. It's like the mid 80s. Do they have to read their engines? They don't need to rev their engines. They just do. Nicole (1:04:39) Exactly. It's still too loud. Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:42) Doesn't matter how the noise was generated. It's still noise. Nicole (1:04:46) Exactly. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:00) because look at me. And that is, yeah. They're like, ⁓ wait, do they have to? keep the, no, no, they don't. No, they have to depress the clutch, twist the right hand. Blum, blap, blap, blap, blap, blap. Nicole (1:05:02) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha ha! So quiet it down and slow down people. Now we're all 80 by the end of this podcast. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:19) All right. Yeah. All right. ⁓ The IA mobility show is officially starting tomorrow as we're recording this. So Monday in Munich, Germany. ⁓ Unfortunately, none of us are there this time. ⁓ I was hoping to be there, but Nicole (1:05:39) Mm-mm. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:40) I'm going to Nissan. Nicole (1:05:41) That's what I will be this week. I will be at Nissan as well. Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:42) Yeah, that's I'm Roberto Baldwin (1:05:42) Hey, we're all going to Nissan. Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:44) I'll be there tomorrow. I'm flying out tomorrow. All right. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:46) Yes, I'm back! Same. Nicole (1:05:47) I'll see you guys at dinner. We'll overlap. Bye Fly It Tuesday. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:50) Alright. Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:52) ⁓ So anyway, ⁓ we've seen a bunch of the cars that are going to be unveiled there and, unlike most auto shows here in the U S now, there are actually new products and concepts and stuff that are being shown ⁓ at the I A show and, and there will be a bunch of stuff at the Tokyo show next month as well. ⁓ So first up is Audi. ⁓ They revealed the concept C. ⁓ which is ⁓ kind of a next generation TT. They discontinued the old TT a couple of years back. ⁓ And this is a new electric sports car from Audi. ⁓ What do you think of the design? Nicole (1:06:37) Are these all concept drawings? Are any of these actual pictures? They look very concepty of this car. Like they look, they look very sketchy, not like sketches. Sorry, I'm not being clear. This is all. Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:42) of No, this is this is actually what the car looks like. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:50) Yeah. Darn it, I just downloaded all the images instead of just looked at them. Nicole (1:06:54) I don't know when that happens. Enjoy your 85 images of the Audi concept. Parts of it I like, parts of it I do not. The grill is really kind of weird. It's very it's very narrow, pointy, long. It's it looks like the vertical infotainment. It's like the vertical infotainment screens you have on some cars and they just stuck it on the front. I'm I'm OK with how this looks. I I don't love it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:10) like a long vertical rectangle. Yeah. Nicole (1:07:21) I don't love it. I don't love it, guys. Do love it? You like it. OK, well, if it comes with like caltrops, you can send out the back of it and an ejection seat and all the other things, and I'd be down with it. Roberto Baldwin (1:07:24) I like it. It reminds me of Batman the animated series. So there you go. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:27) Ha Roberto Baldwin (1:07:32) Yeah, yeah, all the things. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:35) I like most of it. I'm not totally enamored with the front, but this is apparently the look that the new design look that Audi is going with for their next generation of vehicles. ⁓ It's kind of reminiscent of the 1930s Grand Prix cars, Audi Grand Prix cars, or Auto Union Grand Prix cars, which had this sort of vertical, almost rectangular ⁓ grill. Nicole (1:07:39) Yeah, that's where I'm. Okay. Roberto Baldwin (1:07:58) art. It's an art deco look. Nicole (1:08:02) Yeah, I'm not keen on the front of it. like how it looks from every other angle. just I think the grill is throwing me a little bit. The inside looks nice. I mean, the interior is nice. That very nice, clean, simplified interior that everyone's going for. Funkiest door handles. At least I think that's a door handle. It like points down. That is a funky looking door handle inside. actually really like that interior. The interior looks very cool, future different. And that's a lot of the times the spot they. Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:19) Yeah. No physical controls in that inside though. It's all. Nicole (1:08:31) No, they can't. So we're going to have we're going to have infotainment screen AC vents, Sam. Is that what you're trying to tell me? You think? Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:38) That's what it looks like. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:40) It's a concept. Well, we can talk them into it. I'll make some calls. Nicole (1:08:44) ⁓ make a collar to see what you can do, Robbie, because that's going to be my deal breaker. But I do like how I think the interior actually is really looks fabulous. And I like all of it. I just that grill in the front. I don't know if it's going to look different when I see it in person, but here I'm not keen on the grill. I even like how the design of the front of the car goes, like the angle it takes to the grill. I just don't want it so long and skinny, the grill itself. That's it. Change that. Then you have me. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:13) So apparently, you know, this car, the production version of this car ⁓ is sharing its platform with the new Porsche 718 EV. So that's the Boxster replacement. They're both gonna be electric. ⁓ And this should be arriving around 2027. Nicole (1:09:34) So we've got at least two years before we see this. At least two. So we'll have to see how close it stays to this in two years. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:46) And I guess a big part of the focus that talked about was speeding up the development time. They're trying to get to the same kind of product development times that they have in China, which is about two and a half years from the traditional, you know, four to five years to do a new product. Nicole (1:10:03) Well, that'd be good. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:04) All right. Nicole (1:10:04) Okay, we'll see. We'll see what they come up with, right? Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:07) Yep. ⁓ So next ⁓ is BMW, ⁓ which has shown off the first production model from their new NOAA class EV platform, which is the new iX3. And it's basically the car that they first showed as the, the, was it the ⁓ Vision, Vision NOAA class SUV or vision. No, I class X, I think a couple of years ago in 2023. Um, you know, they had, had two concepts. They had the vision, no class, which was a sedan, which is going to be the new three electric three series. And they had the SUV, which is this vehicle, the IX three. Um, and, know, this looks like a huge step forward in EVs for BMW. Um, that's, know, Nicole (1:10:39) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:03) The current BMW electric platform is already really good. Their motors are very efficient. ⁓ They get good power, good performance, ⁓ decent range, ⁓ and this one takes it to the next level. So they've got new motors on here. It's an 800 volt architecture. The battery is using larger, they've switched from prismatic can cells to 46 millimeter cylindrical cells. I think on the IX3, they're 46 120s, so they're pretty long, but larger. So they're longer than the 4680 cells that Tesla uses, but the same diameter. ⁓ with the 800 volt architecture, they're claiming it can do 400 kilowatt charging, ⁓ which is... ⁓ obviously not nearly as fast as some of the Chinese are climbing with their megawatt systems, but it'll go from 10 to 80 percent charge in 21 minutes. It will add what, think 250 miles, 220 in 10 minutes. And the first version, the eDrive 50, Roberto Baldwin (1:12:15) 2.30. Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:26) According to BMW is should get about 400 miles of range on a charge based on the EPA cycle. So that's not a WLTP number. That's EPA. So that's what it should be getting here in the U S when it launches here, ⁓ towards the middle of next year. Yeah. Nicole (1:12:32) Mm. Which is really good. Roberto Baldwin (1:12:45) Yeah, that's what's what I really like about BMW because you know, the first, you know, their their last generation, I guess, current generation of EVs, they, know, they weren't using permanent magnets. And everyone's like, oh, you can't do that because the car won't be as efficient. The car won't have as much performance. And then BMW is like, yeah, we'll figure it out. And they continue with the, you know, using the electrically excited synchronous motors, which don't have, you know, rare earth permanent magnets in them. So, you know, they don't have to worry about that, you know, that sort of that supply chain that, you know, it comes from China and China owns it and they control it. so everyone else is sort of like beholden to what, you know, China or somewhere else is doing in BMW is like, no, no, we can still figure this out. We can still make a very ⁓ efficient and performance oriented car without permanent magnets, which is good. Thumbs up to their engineers for doing that. Nicole (1:13:18) Mm-hmm. Yes, German engineering for the win. Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:43) It's the the ix 350 x drive the launch version It's kind of dual motors 463 horsepower and it's supposed to start at around sixty thousand dollars Again, this is for the u.s. So You know, that's that's actually pretty impressive Yeah Roberto Baldwin (1:14:02) That is really good. I Nicole (1:14:02) Yeah, it Roberto Baldwin (1:14:03) mean, it's still a BMW. Yeah. Nicole (1:14:03) is good. Right? It's a BMW, so you're not expecting it to be a cheap car to begin with, you know? It's a performance luxury brand. You're expecting to pay a premium. for it, and I mean, the technology in this, what they've done with the batteries, the battery, everything in there looks and sounds like a great deal. The car itself looks fantastic. They've changed up the grill. I like what they've done with it. It's, you know, the styling, I think, is better than what they've done with vehicles lately. I like this much better. ⁓ I like the smaller grill. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:14:34) You just like the smaller grill. They finally listened. Nicole (1:14:38) I do the old, they listen, like I appreciate it, but it's still very different. Like I've been reading online people's reaction to this and it is quite hot or cold on how the grill looks. Like some people like that. Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:53) I think it's a lot better. Nicole (1:14:55) I think it's better, but other people think that ⁓ it's too narrow because there was the sort of like, what's the word for this girl, kidney girl? Is that what they call it? And it's very ⁓ vertical right now and times it's been more horizontal, the two kidneys. And this is very vertical kidneys. Roberto Baldwin (1:15:05) Kidney Grill here. Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:05) Yeah, the twin kidney. Well, the, the sedan, the, I three is, going to get a more horizontal layout. So they're going, they're going with this to distinguish between the SUVs and the cars. Nicole (1:15:18) Mm-hmm. So. And I think it looks great. think it's a good, but even I just think it's a nice, I think they've done a good job. I think it looks good. I think it stays true to the brand and, it's it. It moves it away, excuse me, from something that a lot of people really didn't like. It wasn't just me who thought the old girls were just a little bit too much giant beaver teeth looking at you. ⁓ So I think that they've I think it's good. think they did a good job where they like, nope, that's still a signature part of our design story. But it's it's in a new interpretation and it looks considerably better. And considering the car is so different, all the all what's underneath there, all the technology, everything underneath is different, too. It's a nice way to to bring that in with a new look to that kidney girl. Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:03) And just ⁓ for comparison sake, the ⁓ current 2026 X3 M50 X-Drive ⁓ cost $72,000. This is supposed to start at 60. Yeah, so it'll be cheaper than the gas one and probably have similar or better performance. Roberto Baldwin (1:16:15) Dun dun dun. This is less. Nicole (1:16:18) Right? ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:16:28) totally. Off the line especially, it's gonna be quicker. Nicole (1:16:28) Mm-hmm. So are we going to talk about the other tech, the other part, the other story you have about the BMW that goes along with this? Because I think this is kind of cool. Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:36) Yeah. So, you know, for, for several months now, BMW has been teasing out various information about the technology, ⁓ and the NOAA class. And, you know, they've talked about the fact that it's going to have a zonal electronic architecture, ⁓ which means that, you know, they're going from having a hundred plus distributed electronic control units around the vehicle to a consolidated system. And this, this, this one is going to have four centralized compute units. one of which controls all the ADAS driver assistance, automated driving features. And this is one that they first announced a partnership with BMW, or BMW announced a partnership with Qualcomm back in 2022, I think, 21 or 22, to work together to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride chips. and work together on the software. So they're doing, they're doing all the driver assist and automated driving stuff in-house between BMW and Qualcomm. ⁓ And they call the whole system Snapdragon ride pilot. ⁓ And, you know, when they first announced it, they said that, we're going to put it on BMW vehicles first, but we're going to offer it, we're going to make it available to any OEM that wants to use it. So they will sell it to. to other manufacturers if they want to use it. ⁓ And this one ⁓ is going to have ⁓ hands-free driving capability, ⁓ which has been somewhat limited on BMW models up to this point. ⁓ It's a whole new system. I'll be interested to try it out see how good it is. ⁓ Qualcomm had before their partnership with BMW, they had been working with, ⁓ originally it was with ⁓ what was the, there was a joint venture company between Volvo and auto leave a supplier, Zenuity. ⁓ and then auto leave pulled out of that and they, split it up and be, or Volvo took part of it in house, ⁓ for their own, ⁓ software work that they were doing. The other part came part of Vianneer, which had been spun off. It was the electronics business that was spun off from auto leave. Nicole (1:18:38) No. Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:59) ⁓ And then when veneer went up for sale Qualcomm bought it to take the ⁓ the software component that they'd been working on with them, which is called a river. So this is the the ⁓ the vision perception component of the driver assist software ⁓ And then they sold off the rest of the electronics business to I think most of it went to magna ⁓ So the arrival software they they brought that to BMW and They built on that to build the full driver assist software stack for that launches on the IX three and it'll be coming to other BMW models over the next couple of years as they launch. ⁓ So it's a, it's a whole new software system. I had a chance to try it out a couple of years ago, an early version of this on one of Qualcomm's test vehicles. It worked pretty well. You know, but that was before, you know, they had the stuff that they were doing with BMW. And that system was just using the cameras. It wasn't using the radar yet. So the system that they're going to production with is multi-camera, multi-radar solution. Kind of like what you find with Super Cruise and Blue Cruise and other systems. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:14) Still don't know what to do with my hands. Nicole (1:20:16) I think it's, I, you still, I know it's funny, you look at the picture of the woman in the image and she just, it's like she has her hands perfectly placed, like one on each thigh. because like sit, try and sit that way for one second at your desk right now. That is in no way natural. Like, can you sit like that? If you just put your hands, but no, like you. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:26) on her, our side. This is how I sit now. This is how you sit when you're just sitting in like the waiting room of the doctor's office and they don't have any magazines and they've taken your phone. Nicole (1:20:41) You have to, but you can't even cross. doesn't even like that. Like put one hand on each thigh and just just sit. Does that feel even remotely like a normal way to set? No, it feels weird. You want to put your hands on an armrest or something. It's like, what do I do with these? Just hold them like this. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:56) and just hold them up like this. Just hold them up in front of you. Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:00) Speaking of which, what do you think of the interior of the IX3? It's got this ⁓ pillar to pillar heads up display system at the base of the windshield and then a big screen in the middle. Nicole (1:21:16) I actually, it's funny, I was noticing the screen because it's very angular. It's canted at an angle. Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:21) Mm-hmm. It's like a parallelogram Roberto Baldwin (1:21:22) It's a trapezoid or a parallelogram. Nicole (1:21:24) Yeah, what is it parallelogram with even with a choppy little corner like it's very it's it's the most designed screen I think I've seen where it's not just like it fits the design. They've put little angles on it to make it fit to just like there's no reason to do those little choppy angles. There's no reason to do that angle other than just like we thought this would look good in the car. So I think it's kind of neat. Screens are normally so. Roberto Baldwin (1:21:33) Is it a trapezoid? I guess not. Nicole (1:21:49) boring. There's just these, you know, slabs in the front. I think it's kind of cool that they gave it a little bit of a design. I, know, the across the dashboard, that part of it, it makes me think of the stuff they're doing in ⁓ Lincoln, the the Lincolns that have that giant. Although this looks thinner. Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:02) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:22:04) The Lincoln is like the whole thing is the screen. This is tinier, which is like, okay, I appreciate it as tiny, also what's going on the right-hand side. don't care. That's a lot of X. That's some wasted screen space is all I'm saying. Nicole (1:22:07) It's the whole thing. they don't, yeah, this, it's. Right? Like it's, looks much, it looks much thinner to me and it could be just, you know, the perception in the image. It looks very slim. Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:22) I've had a couple of different demos over the last couple of years from different suppliers showing this type of screen. ⁓ Both Morelli and Harman are building this type of display and I'm not sure which one BMW is using. I think they might be using the Harman system, but they're both pretty similar in the way they work. ⁓ So it's actually like heads up display technology. Nicole (1:22:29) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:22:42) problem. Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:51) but because it's at the base of the windshield, know, and the base of, it's the base of the windshield kind of below the edge of the hood. So you're not actually losing any visible area. the, top of the dashboard is lowered down a little bit. So, ⁓ it's not taking away from any of your windshield visibility. ⁓ you know, but, it's a heads up display technology within this strip that's about three, three and a half inches tall. Nicole (1:23:10) Right. Because some of them, like, I don't know, it feels much bigger than like something like the Lincoln. It's much wider. That's a pretty wide piece. Like. Right. This is noticeably narrower, which makes it honestly look like it fits a little bit better to me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is everything. Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:20) and Yeah, it's yeah, it's a pretty the the Lincoln and Ford system is much taller than this one. Roberto Baldwin (1:23:33) This is more of a dash cluster is what they're going for versus the Lincoln system, is like, this is the, this is your infotainment system. And then way down when you have to look way down to see that second, that second to display, whereas this one, the, the, main display is where you can, you don't have to look down. And then they have this instead of heads up display. Nicole (1:23:44) Yeah. There's no really low screen on this. Like there's a sort of a normal spot screen for the infotainment. It's where you would expect the infotainment screen to be just to the right of the steering wheel. Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:52) Yeah. And it's actually very close to the steering wheel. It's like right next to the steering wheel. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is behind it's in a separate plane behind. So you're not gonna you're not gonna wrap your knuckles as you're turning the steering wheel. Nicole (1:24:03) It looks close. Does it go behind it a little or is it like it it looks like it's being okay. So. Smack. ⁓ No, but I like how this looks. I think this is kind of neat. This whole thing with I like how they've done that. I really like how BMW is doing all this. Like I like where they're going. I like the technology they're incorporating here with Qualcomm, where it's making the the automated driving in the, you know, level two, you know, self driving, not driving driver assist, whatever the heck you want to call it. Hands free driver assist. Thank you. I'm like, we use the right term. The hands free driver assist. I definitely think this is it. Like I was saying about the car, it's moving. Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:33) Hans Free Driver Assist. Nicole (1:24:43) everything forward. The design is moving forward. The tech is moving forward in fact, in how it looks inside. The tech is moving forward with things like the Qualcomm chips that are making this, the Snapdragon chip that makes it better to do for these hands-free self-driving things. It's, this is pretty neat. It's, an, this is an interesting vehicle that just moves everything forward a little bit. All the things. Normally you see a vehicle and it moves one thing forward. Like the design is dramatic and everything else gets a little touch. Or the tech is dramatic, everything else gets a little touch. This is a lot, a lot at once. It'll be interesting at some point. Hopefully I get to drive one and see how it is. So I think it's gonna be cool. Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:21) What? do think of the steering wheel design? Nicole (1:25:24) The steering weight, let me go back to the image. Steering wheel design, steering wheel design. I mean, it's a little, it's different. It's kind of like the squirkle thing. like slightly, it's like a, it's gonna force you to, cause there's no way you could put your hands up on that wheel. would be weird. Roberto Baldwin (1:25:28) to It really makes you do nine and three. That's its job. Here's the problem with 9 and 3 for me, because I have big hands. So when I do 9 and 3, I start hitting all those little controllers with my hand, like my palm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:42) because it for, Nicole (1:25:50) Robbie, don't I'm I have the same I have I'm like five, six women sized hands and I do the same thing. I tend to hit things. Roberto Baldwin (1:25:57) Things are beeping and. Nicole (1:25:59) Especially if there's a touch pad on those at all. is it? Is Mercedes have touch pads? I hit them all the time and it's accidentally I'm doing things like why? Why is the radio station changing? Why is the volume going up? What did I touch? It's because I hit those little pads, especially when you turn the wheel, because your fingers shift a little bit. So it is hard. And I'd imagine more so because your hands are bigger. You're more likely to do that. And I do that. It drives me crazy. Roberto Baldwin (1:26:02) yeah. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:24) Well, the other thing that's different about this wheel, you know, a lot of times, you know, you'll find steering wheels that have spokes at nine and three and six, you know, so down, down, down from the bottom. But this one also has one that's going up at the top at the 12 o'clock position. Nicole (1:26:39) It looks freaky. It looks kind of weird. It's odd, but it doesn't... Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:42) It's a little odd. Nicole (1:26:45) It doesn't bother me as weird as it is. It doesn't bother me in the context like when you just look at the whole thing, look at the screen, the steering wheel by itself. You're like, well, that's different. But if you look at it in the context of the entire interior of the vehicle and how the entire vehicle is designed and sort of the changes that they've made, I think it's an interesting it's an interesting spot to put some detail into it because it's not even just a flat piece. Like it's got sort of these cutouts on either side of that little piece. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:11) It's like fancy scaffolding. Nicole (1:27:14) like fancy scaffolding, so it becomes a design element. Like exactly what I saying about the screen, all the little cuts, the angle of the screen, the little cuts in the steering wheel, the angles in the steering, it creates a design element out of something that could be really dull and boring. It just needs to be there. They make it design and make it the interior, the whole thing look a little bit more cohesive. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:36) Do you notice what's missing from this dashboard? Nicole (1:27:39) events. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:41) Yeah, no, no manual vent controls. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:41) Fat control. Nicole (1:27:45) You keep pointing this out and like just making me sad, Sam. Stop. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:46) Well, you know what? We need to make the automakers sad that they're doing this. That's why I keep doing it. Nicole (1:27:53) I don't think apparently they think it's a good idea. Stupid automakers. It's terrible. Every time I reach out and I grab, I grab a vent in a car that is a physical vent. I'm very conscious of it now. I think I do adjust the stupid vents all the time. I really do. Constantly. It's something I just move a little bit. I'm too cold. I want to or too hot. Whatever I want. I want a vent that I can physically touch. Dang it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:56) Well, it's not, it's a bad idea and we need to keep reminding them and keep reminding them and do it every time. Roberto Baldwin (1:28:09) constantly. Well, just now, now I'm sad none of us are going to IAA so we can sit there and corner someone and be like, why don't put this into production without the vent controls? Nicole (1:28:21) I feel like it's a small thing to ask for. Why do you not have physical vens? gosh, I do not like that feature when they do that. And only the Kia folks were like, this is dumb. Off the record, the guy that said it to me. Yes, but I mean, I've only ever asked one purse, one OEM directly that didn't do it. Like, why didn't you? Stupid. Okay. Roberto Baldwin (1:28:37) Yeah, they're like no. Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:38) Oh, Kia and Hyundai and I mean, there's others. I mean, even at Ford. Roberto Baldwin (1:28:48) Why would we? This is dumb. Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:51) ⁓ All right, let's move on to Porsche. Porsche, a couple of things that they're showing. They've got the new 911 Turbo S, which is, you know, as if it needed to be faster. It's even faster now. Yeah. They added the hybrid system from the 911 GTS to the Turbo. And so now it has 701 horsepower. Roberto Baldwin (1:28:57) Porsche It's faster. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:20) The fastest production 9 11 yet. Roberto Baldwin (1:29:20) So it's... and I'll still get stuck behind them on like a mountain road while driving a sedan because the people who can afford them don't know how to drive the car. There you go. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:30) Yeah. Zero to 60 in 2.4 seconds. ⁓ Yeah. I mean, it's again, crazy fast. 61 horsepower more than the previous Turbo S thanks to the hybrid system. Yeah. ⁓ It's capable of going really, really fast. And most of the time it will be wasted. Roberto Baldwin (1:29:55) yeah, it's gonna cost, let's see, the coupe is 270,000 and the cabriolet is 284,000. Dollars, dollars people. That's like a house. You can buy a house or you can buy the new 911 Turbo S and then drive it very slow and then I end up behind you in something boring and you won't let me go around you because you've spent so much money on this car, there's no way in hell you're gonna let Robbie buy you. in like the Nissan kicks. Nicole (1:30:26) Your Kona? You created quite a backstory there. Roberto Baldwin (1:30:31) No, it's, yeah. But, you know, if you're rich and you know how to drive, this is a great car. Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:38) The, uh, the other thing that Porsche is showing is, uh, the, upcoming Cayenne EV, um, right now, you know, they're not fully revealing it. Well, I mean, they've fully revealed it except it's wrapped in camo. Uh, so it's sorta kinda hidden, but disco camo, but it's yeah. I mean, they used a similar type of camo a few years ago. Uh, when they first showed the, um, VW ID seven. Nicole (1:30:38) Right? Roberto Baldwin (1:30:52) It's disco camo. It's it's a lot more 80s actually. It's more 80s camo. Nicole (1:30:55) Disco Camo? Ooh, it is very- Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:07) at CES. They had it wrapped in a similar kind of camo then. Nicole (1:31:10) Okay, this looks like Tron. All I can see is Tron looking at those colors. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:31:12) There we go. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:12) Yeah, it does. It's a black base with turquoise and purple Roberto Baldwin (1:31:15) Doodoodoo! Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:18) and pink. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:19) When you drive a little light comes out behind and a car goes over it, it explodes. Nicole (1:31:23) wouldn't that be cool, right? Sorry. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:27) ⁓ But the thing that ⁓ is really kind of unique ⁓ is they are going to offer the Cayenne EV with an optional ⁓ inductive charging system. So you don't actually have to plug it in. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:40) You know what standard that is? SAE Standard J2954, yo. Nicole (1:31:45) Well done, well done. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:46) Yeah. Which means that if there were any other vehicles out there with a compatible thing, they would be able to use the same charging pads. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:54) There so the standard is, ⁓ so I know mal, mal? I went to Germany, which what's funny is I went to Germany to ⁓ try out the test. I have a whole video, I'll send it, we can put it in show notes. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:10) did you did you actually see this the Porsche system? Roberto Baldwin (1:32:12) Oh yeah, I've driven it. So the part of the standard that I went and saw was how to get it to drive and land on top of the vehicle. Yeah, that'd be the right spot. But yeah, it charges at 11 kilowatts. Now, I believe Porsche, how tall is Porsche's? I think it's like two to six inches or something. Four to six inches? Nicole (1:32:23) to be in the right spot so that you've lined up properly. Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:36) 4 to 6 inches. Roberto Baldwin (1:32:39) the actual standard or the one we will go up to 11 inches. it's still, yeah, and what's interesting is it'll do it through ice, it'll do it through leaves, it'll tell you if there's something metal. So it won't do it through metal, so it'll actually tell you when there's metal there. It's actually quite impressive. And what it does, what it allows for is if you embed these in ⁓ parking lots, Nicole (1:32:44) So you could do something with wow, okay. Roberto Baldwin (1:33:04) ⁓ You don't have to have the wire, the cable, the whole thing for AC charging, which is kind of nice. ⁓ So you can increase AC charging out in the wild, so you know, at the mall, when you're not like, you know, on a trip, you could just park your car and go inside and do whatever. Nicole (1:33:21) Does it, so how, how ⁓ did they say or did you learn Robbie, how much does something on the ground in between you and that plate that impact, like if there's snow, little bit of snow, little bit of water, like do things just have to be a lot of dirt? Like how, how finicky is it? That's what I'm thinking. Roberto Baldwin (1:33:40) It's, they, they, we, they were, they bought leaves. They bought, it really comes down to like metal. Like it'll, it'll go through a lot of stuff. Nicole (1:33:48) So it's really just metal. it'll go, cause I'm thinking about how dirty the bottom of your car gets like in the winter and stuff, or just dirt and mud and leaves get stuck to it and all the stuff that can blow over something like that. If it's sitting in a parking lot, it will. That's cool. Roberto Baldwin (1:33:52) Yeah. Yeah. It'll work through all that. It's really, yeah, it's really quite impressive the way it does it. I get... Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:02) The only things you don't want in there are metal or anything that's alive. Roberto Baldwin (1:34:05) alive yeah nothing alive it also like if there's a squirrel they also it also tells you if there's a squirrel it won't it'll melt them probably Nicole (1:34:07) What happens if a squirrel ran? Wait, wait, wait, what if a score? But what if it's like you're charging and a squirrel runs under your car, goner? It'll shut off like it's like it'll immediately shut off. You're not gonna have like a dead squirrel. It would immediately shut off. So no metal that would suddenly make things go sideways and you're not killing small animals. Roberto Baldwin (1:34:15) It turns off. It turns off. It'll shut off. Yeah. Same thing if someone throws a bolt in there and it'll shut off. Yeah. Yeah, like Kat, you know, Kat's a little go in our cars to stay warm and yeah, so. Nicole (1:34:32) Yeah, well, I'll search, but they'll just Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:32) Can you put an exception in there for mice? Roberto Baldwin (1:34:35) ⁓ now it's still a little still shut off sorry you're you wanna kill the lab it yeah Nicole (1:34:39) You want to kill the mice? No, but that's kind of like thinking like little chipmunks Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:41) I just don't want them getting up in the wiring and eating the wiring. Nicole (1:34:44) or squirrels that run under cars just sitting in, you know, sitting there. They just run around everywhere. They're wild animals. OK, I had a moment of panic. I'm like, wait, are we killing small creatures? Roberto Baldwin (1:34:52) What about all the animals? No, we're not killing so... Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:54) Did, did, did Porsche say anything about who's producing this system? Roberto Baldwin (1:34:59) So here's the thing, as I went to Germany to MAHLE, M-A-H-L-E, MAHLE, so they showed me their setup, the test vehicles, I parked the little test vehicles over the car, made a whole big video about it, and then while I was in Germany, I contacted Porsche and said, hey, I would love to talk to the head of powertrain for the Taycan, and they gave me access to the... Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:07) ⁓ Molly? Roberto Baldwin (1:35:26) to the person, very nice guy. And so I have a video of that, but I didn't realize like, and I didn't realize that Porsche was working on wireless charging at the time. Cause they probably, they wouldn't have told me to be honest. So it was just, just happenstance that I was in Germany to do this thing about wireless charging. Then I didn't, because I was in, I was in Germany, I went and I got a Porsche and I drove it around and I talked to their head of powertrain. And so yeah, no, so this is, I think it's. It'll, you know, like everything is going to take a little while to get it out. ⁓ remember BMW had their box, their little system that came out. Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:01) Yeah, they were using a system from White-tricity that they piloted for a while and Genesis was using the same system that they offered in Korea for a while on the GV60. Roberto Baldwin (1:36:13) So yeah, no, it's really cool that this ⁓ standard is, because now you have a standard, that means everyone can do this. Everyone can start adding this to their vehicles. And again, think for AC, for home charging, it's great, but I think for charging at places where you're parked for a long time, movie theaters, the mall or whatever, even going to the grocery store, if I could go to the grocery store and just pull into a spot that had EV charging, and I didn't have to do anything. And it gave me like, you five miles, 10 miles or whatever while I was in there buying, you know, taco supplies. That'd be great. Cause then every time you're going to do an errand, you're you're charging up your vehicle. I, it's, you know, I'm a big proponent of more and more AC charging. I'm not a proponent of wires just sitting in the street. I think it's, we either have to do wireless or bring your own cable like they have in a lot of European countries. Nicole (1:36:43) Right? Just like a little boost. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:37:10) Yeah, I did a video about that too while I was there. Man, I did a lot of stuff in Germany that time. Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:14) Yeah, make sure you put that, put that link to the video in the, in the rundown. Uh, and I'll put it in the show notes. Um, so, um, yeah, it looks like, uh, it looks like this might be the, Mali system. Um, one thing that's, uh, interesting about this one, uh, is, know, they're, referring to it as a one box system. So most of the previous systems I've seen, you know, there's, there's a wall box that you have to install and then. Nicole (1:37:15) Make good use of the trip. Roberto Baldwin (1:37:20) Yeah, I'll put that in there. Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:43) you got a cable that comes down and runs through a conduit across the floor to the the transmitter pad that's on the floor. And this one has everything self contained within that transmitter pad. ⁓ All you have is one cable that you just basically plug it in. And then everything else is within this box. So makes should make installation a lot easier. Roberto Baldwin (1:37:58) You plug it in. Yeah, that's in the video also. have, do I have any photos? No. In the video, they also show like the inside of what the box looks like inside and the whole team is there. they were very, this, you know, I, you know, I travel a lot for, for these videos and sometimes I'll go all the way to another country and I'll get there and they'll give me like five minutes with the car. And I'm like, you, you, you put me on a plane and brought me all the way here and you're giving me five minutes. can't drive. I can't do anything. The Mali people, outstanding. Nicole (1:38:28) Right? Roberto Baldwin (1:38:33) They had the whole day set aside. They had multiple cars. bought, again, they bought leaves, they bought ice, they bought all these things to show how it worked. Nicole (1:38:41) I appreciate it. Cause that literally was my question. It's like, wait, what about all this other stuff? They, were ready for a person like me to be like, prove it. Roberto Baldwin (1:38:46) They had a whole, they had a spot where it was shaded so the light wouldn't change all through the day. like, we have this spot. It was great. It was amazing. Also, have a really, the food in their cafeteria was very good. Nicole (1:38:52) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:00) Well, did they have tacos? Schnitzel tacos? Nicole (1:39:00) Hahaha, side note! Roberto Baldwin (1:39:04) They did not have tacos. They did not have, unfortunately no tacos, but they did have delicious German food, which I'm a big fan of. ⁓ So yeah, I'm happy to see that this is coming out on a production vehicle and you'll be able to do this and then hopefully more more automakers will start adding this to their vehicles. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:22) be curious to see how much they charge for it. Because that's been one of the challenges with wireless power transfer systems up until now is that they add $3,000 $5,000 to the cost of the vehicle. For the foreseeable future, you still have to have wired charging as well. At some future date, when wireless is ubiquitous and you can get rid of the Roberto Baldwin (1:39:37) They're not cheap. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:49) the connector, that would be great. But you know, you're, you're adding potentially a significant amount of cost. And of course, you know, Porsche is putting this on the Cayenne, so it's not going to be a cheap car anyway. Roberto Baldwin (1:40:01) Yeah, you're already paying monies. Yeah, no, it'll be interesting. And obviously this vehicle still has an AC charging point. So you'll still have that. Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:05) if you can afford it. Yep. All right. ⁓ Volkswagen. ⁓ Last up at IAA. ⁓ We already talked about Audi, but the Volkswagen brand is changing its naming strategy for its EVs because you know, ID 2, ID 3, ID 4, ID 5, 6, 7, etc, etc. Those just make so much sense, right? They're so memorable. Nicole (1:40:32) 4.85. Roberto Baldwin (1:40:39) Huh? Nicole (1:40:39) What did ID even stand for? Roberto Baldwin (1:40:42) I don't know. It's I don't know. I forget. I'm sure there's a reason. There's a f- Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:43) Who knows? Nicole (1:40:45) Hmm. I'm going to Google that. That now that we're talking about naming them. wait, the designation ID stands for advanced technologies and electric mobility. That's not those words are not that. It literally is in their release. It says the designation ideas you would expect it to make sense stands for advanced technologies and electric mobility. That's not the I or the D. Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:00) Ha ha ha. It's an alphanumeric naming scheme. It's not supposed to make sense. Roberto Baldwin (1:41:12) Yeah. Nicole (1:41:13) Ugh. Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:15) It's like, you know, being Mercedes in their EQ. yeah, ⁓ just no. Roberto Baldwin (1:41:19) I think that Nicole (1:41:19) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:41:19) actually means something though, isn't it? Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:22) I don't know that I've ever heard anybody from VW articulate what ID, if it stands for anything. the Mercedes, ⁓ it's electric something, but whatever. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:41:27) no, mean Mercedes. Yeah. Nicole (1:41:33) okay, so I found a Volkswagen dealership and it says it stands for Intelligent Design. Roberto Baldwin (1:41:38) Alright, fine. Nicole (1:41:40) Some random dealership. that's I got. That's all I got. Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:41) Who knows? Well, anyway, Roberto Baldwin (1:41:41) That's good enough. Good enough enough. Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:44) at the the 2023 Munich show, VW showed a concept called the ID2 All, which was a small hatchback, you smaller than a golf, although still larger than like probably a third or fourth generation golf. Yeah, but smaller in a current generation golf. And they said at the time that they were going to produce that car. and they've unveiled the production version of it, but they're ditching the numbers in the ID naming. So for the electric versions of their cars, it's just gonna be ID and then whatever name. So in this case, because this is a car about the size of VW Polo, it's the ID Polo. And when there's a new electric Golf, I think next year, it's gonna be ID Golf. Roberto Baldwin (1:42:30) See, that makes sense, at least. Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:37) ⁓ So they're just going to tack on ID to whatever name they're already using for the car. Yeah. And it's a shame that we will probably never see the ID polo. Nicole (1:42:42) to show that it's an electric vehicle. Okay. Roberto Baldwin (1:42:50) no, we will not, we will not get a polo. Nicole (1:42:51) I was gonna say, these are all things that we're not gonna see. I'm like, look at this crazy little ID polo in its little funky wrap. Roberto Baldwin (1:42:57) We don't get the regular Polo, so we're definitely not getting the ID Polo. It's really cool if you're in Europe and you see a Polo, you're like, look at this cool little car. You think they got a little Polo R? It's amazing. Yeah. Nicole (1:43:00) We're definitely not getting this one. Definitely not. Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:08) ⁓ Yeah, or the Polo GTI. Nicole (1:43:12) I want the polo. Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:13) And there is going to be a GTI version of the ID Polo. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:43:16) Of course there is. Nicole (1:43:17) Boy, that's a lot of letters. IDPOLOGTI, what? Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:23) ⁓ So VW has created an updated version of their MEB electric architecture ⁓ That you know, they've taken cost out of it. They've updated it. It's lower cost to manufacture now ⁓ And this is the basis for the ID polo as well as another new model that they are showing as a concept in Munich called the ID cross concept which is a slightly taller crossover ish version of the ID polo. And the ID cross is actually pretty cool looking. Roberto Baldwin (1:43:57) It does look pretty cool. It's like a nice little crossover. It's a thing that people in America would want. Nicole (1:43:59) It does look pretty good. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:00) Yeah. ⁓ the, the, the size of it, ⁓ is actually it's about three inches longer than, ⁓ the Hyundai or the Hyundai venue. So, yeah, it's not, it's not that big, ⁓ but also not, not crazy small. So, you know, it could conceivably, ⁓ sell here in the U S. Nicole (1:44:05) But we can't have it. Roberto Baldwin (1:44:15) Alright, so it's not that big. Maybe. We'll see. It's Volkswagen. Who knows what they can afford to do. Nicole (1:44:28) It could. Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:33) Yeah, they're all going to have a 223 horsepower front motor to start with. And then other versions like the GTIs and so on will have a little more power. ⁓ And then ⁓ there's also, they're also showing a cupra version of this on the same MEB Nicole (1:44:51) Okay. Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:01) they call it the ⁓ MEB light or MEB entry platform is what they call it. ⁓ And this one's called the Raval. So a little, little hot hatch. And I wonder if I wonder if Cupra had given any consideration to this being part of their, their US lineup, which has now been pushed back indefinitely. Roberto Baldwin (1:45:28) Yeah, maybe. Who knows? Again, Volkswagen doesn't have... Volkswagen needs to sort of reshuffle and figure things out as a company. And so they're going to be a little bit more, I think, conservative with what they bring to the US, because they don't want to bring it over here unless they think it's going to do really, really well. And I think the sort of delay with the ID buzz and some of the sort of, I don't know. Nicole (1:45:30) Mm. Roberto Baldwin (1:45:57) The ID buzz itself, I think, sort of is not helping them, to be honest. Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:03) And that, you know, the tariffs just make it even more complicated if it's not being built here. Roberto Baldwin (1:46:07) Yeah. If you're a company and you can say that, you know what, we can sell a lot of these in China. We sell a lot of these in Europe for the next three or three and a half years. And then just sort of like keep, you know, what we know we'll sell in the United States, selling in the United States. You're probably going to do that, especially for Volkswagen. Like you're not going to take a lot of chances, which I don't, I mean, to be, I mean, I don't blame Volkswagen for not taking chances. think they've, they spent like the last couple of decades just giving us really boring vehicles, unfortunately. And now that they're like, we really got to do something about it. Now it's like the worst time to like try to do something about it. And you're like, ⁓ I guess. Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:46) Yeah. It's a shame. I'd love to see more cars like this on the road here. I know. Roberto Baldwin (1:46:52) Yeah. Yeah. Nicole (1:46:52) You won't. Roberto Baldwin (1:46:53) They called it a no. ⁓ Nicole (1:46:55) You won't, Sam. Bringing you back down to earth. No. Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:57) But, know, like the, yeah, the, the ID polo is supposed to start at close to 20,000 euros. Yeah. Which is what about $22,000 right now. Roberto Baldwin (1:47:05) Man. Yeah, yeah. Nicole (1:47:09) Be a lot more when it got here though. Like a lot more, so. Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:12) Well, yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:47:12) everything. It'd be $70,000 after Sheriff's and... Nicole (1:47:18) $70,000 pull out. Sell like hotcakes guys, sell like hotcakes. Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:20) Yeah, I know. I know. It's depressing. Nicole (1:47:25) sigh. Roberto Baldwin (1:47:27) But we got the Dooley Slate that we built, so... We got the Dooley Slate, so everyone, thumbs up. Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:27) All right. Nicole (1:47:29) You guys, we got that. Yeah Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:36) All right, well, that's it for this week. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:47:38) Thank ⁓ Nicole (1:47:39) I'm still like, I'm not getting the cars. won fine. I'm cutting the show. That's it. Bye everyone. Roberto Baldwin (1:47:42) We're The hell with all of this. Bye! Sam Abuelsamid (1:47:44) We'll talk to you all next time. Bye.