Chinese EVs North of the Border

[SPEAKER_12]: This is episode, what episode is it? [SPEAKER_12]: 436, 436, 436 of wheel bearings, I am Sam of Bull Salmon from Telemetry. [SPEAKER_08]: And I am Nicole Weakland from Top Speed. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International and the SAE Automotive Podcast. [SPEAKER_03]: Give it a listen. [SPEAKER_08]: Is it really you? [SPEAKER_08]: Are you there? [SPEAKER_08]: Do we have you? [SPEAKER_08]: Your audience here? [SPEAKER_08]: We're going to have you the whole time.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think so. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm also recording locally. [SPEAKER_03]: So if even if things go horribly wrong within the system we use, I still have my audio that I can send a Sam when things go horribly wrong. [SPEAKER_03]: Also, it's probably my fault because I have about [SPEAKER_03]: 15 to 20 chrome windows not just tabs within those tabs.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's like billions of little tabs that also windows open Because I'm one of those people who like I can't I will have tabs open for articles I've written like two weeks ago because I have so many tabs open and I haven't gone through and like oh wait This is I don't need any of this information anymore. [SPEAKER_03]: This article is done.

[SPEAKER_08]: You're you're just like me I have tabs that have been open for months and months and there are verse everything all the tabs are closed [SPEAKER_08]: Unless I need it. [SPEAKER_08]: It's not fair. [SPEAKER_08]: I throw away as soon as I don't. [SPEAKER_08]: I have the cleanest tidy as little dust off in everything. [SPEAKER_12]: See, not, not a bit of physical desk is also very clean and tidy. [SPEAKER_08]: You don't know me? [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, it is.

[SPEAKER_08]: It's very, very tight. [SPEAKER_08]: When Russ uses it, I get all distructs. [SPEAKER_08]: I'm like, I'm sorry, you moved my note peda half an inch to the right. [SPEAKER_08]: Dude, put it back where you found it. [SPEAKER_03]: The mine is chaos. [SPEAKER_03]: There's like note, but there's all, but tons and tons of note books with articles I'm working on. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a keyboard. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a MIDI keyboard.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's an audio recorder, like a high-end audio recorder. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a there's a card from my wife that she made for me. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a little there's an owl There's a there's a foretrack tape recorder like cassette tape. [SPEAKER_03]: I haven't used this thing in like 20 something years it's sitting my desk It's just it's just now. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, not that clutter on my desk.

[SPEAKER_08]: I have my no pros [SPEAKER_08]: I have exactly one piece of clutter. [SPEAKER_08]: I have that doesn't belong on my desk. [SPEAKER_08]: I have an Oswald stuffed animal that my daughter gave me. [SPEAKER_08]: And he's referring to me, I love the Lucky Rabbit. [SPEAKER_08]: That's it. [SPEAKER_03]: Let's say, Jen, four iPod. [SPEAKER_03]: I got a 40 gigabot. [SPEAKER_03]: 40 gigabot. [SPEAKER_08]: What are you going to do with that? [SPEAKER_08]: Do you ever use that?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I have the charger for and everything and I'll plug it in. [SPEAKER_03]: I'll listen to it because you listen to music without a thousand, like it's like a time machine. [SPEAKER_03]: But when I was listening to when this iPod was was out, okay. [SPEAKER_03]: I got my have a couple of iPods in a drawer in my office as well. [SPEAKER_03]: I got my 7-11 watch. [SPEAKER_08]: Where the heck did you get a 7 level look? [SPEAKER_08]: Did you actually buy that at 7-11?

[SPEAKER_08]: Where did you get it? [SPEAKER_03]: You had to order it. [SPEAKER_03]: 7-11 has a whole like, because they realize that people love 7-11, especially in Asia. [SPEAKER_03]: So they created a whole line of 7-11 stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: They have watches and clothes. [SPEAKER_03]: It's actually really cool stuff. [SPEAKER_12]: It's really cool. [SPEAKER_12]: But for those since those of you, you can't see the video, the 7-11 watch, the only two numbers on the watch are 7 and 11.

[SPEAKER_08]: Well, the other ones are really, really faint, but I can't even see him in the picture. [SPEAKER_08]: I believe you. [SPEAKER_03]: And it glows, and when it glows, you see the seven in the background. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know why. [SPEAKER_03]: This is a visual gag for an audio podcast. [SPEAKER_03]: I apologize, everyone.

[SPEAKER_12]: Alright, well, and I want to sincerely apologize for last week's show when Robby's audio for [SPEAKER_12]: reasons that are remain unknown, Riverside just stopped recording his audio. [SPEAKER_12]: It was transmitting it to us. [SPEAKER_12]: We could hear him in the entire time as we were having a conversation, and you guys could tell from the emails I got. [SPEAKER_12]: That, you know, trying to pick up what we were talking about because it was the toll on the iceberg.

[SPEAKER_12]: Responding to Robbie. [SPEAKER_03]: But again, again, I'm 100% sure it was my fault. [SPEAKER_03]: And right now, Riverside's only uploaded one percent. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what's going on. [SPEAKER_03]: I've updated Chrome. [SPEAKER_08]: But we have recordings now, so for Versailles tales us, we have backups for all of us now. [SPEAKER_08]: It's never gonna happen again, and seems like everybody can't wait for our last words. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, right.

[SPEAKER_08]: It seems that's where it's. [SPEAKER_08]: Hopefully, never gonna happen again. [SPEAKER_12]: Uh, all right, uh, the call would be driven. [SPEAKER_08]: I am driving and it's the perfect week to have a vehicle like this. [SPEAKER_08]: I have the LAMRver Defender Octa, which feels like I feel like I think of Doc Ock every time I see this. [SPEAKER_08]: I feel like it should be his car. [SPEAKER_08]: I'm like, he call it Octa, it belongs to Doc Ock.

[SPEAKER_08]: Um, so this is, it's crazy, stupid, powerful, more powerful than a 4.4 liter twin turbo V8, 626 horsepower. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a very powerful. [SPEAKER_08]: Well, but I mean, it's a big. [SPEAKER_08]: It's more paradigm you need in this thing. [SPEAKER_08]: 500. [SPEAKER_12]: Well, we have to get to some of the stuff we have later in this, right now. [SPEAKER_08]: I know. [SPEAKER_08]: So it's got some oomph. [SPEAKER_08]: So the octet is also really expensive.

[SPEAKER_08]: Let's start right off there. [SPEAKER_08]: Price is 158 300. [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, I felt that in my gut. [SPEAKER_08]: I know you felt that, right? [SPEAKER_08]: Like, bam. [SPEAKER_08]: Or what do you guys think the destination is?

[SPEAKER_12]: $1,200, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1 [SPEAKER_08]: like a thousand more. [SPEAKER_08]: Nobody's spending money at that level cares about next $1,000 this year. [SPEAKER_08]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_08]: So this is great big fancy expensive SUV. [SPEAKER_08]: We have had snow. [SPEAKER_08]: We've had so much snow here. [SPEAKER_08]: The snow keeps coming and then keeps saying it's going to be a dusting of snow. [SPEAKER_08]: And last night our dusting of snow was enough that my husband was snow blowing this morning. [SPEAKER_08]: There's probably three inches of snow and the rain that we're getting today is going to be half the foot.

[SPEAKER_08]: So I have the perfect vehicle to have when the roads are absolute garbage, which is what they are. [SPEAKER_08]: They're just covered in ice and snow in a mess. [SPEAKER_08]: You use your little drive mode thing. [SPEAKER_08]: You pick the one that has a snowflake on it. [SPEAKER_08]: It [SPEAKER_08]: Um, it's got plenty of power. [SPEAKER_08]: It's really comfortable. [SPEAKER_08]: It's a high step in.

[SPEAKER_08]: So the downside is if you just step up like if you have someone old like kids, you have a parent or somebody who has mobility issues, it's a little tough to step up into. [SPEAKER_08]: Once you're in it though.

[SPEAKER_08]: It's gorgeous, it's beautiful, it's super comfy, it has that cool mix of being a luxury car with all these leather trims and everything and beautiful styling, but also being rugged, it doesn't look like I always think I love Mercedes, but they look very delicate to me inside, like I'd be afraid to have a kid inside of a Mercedes, because everything is so pretty and fancy and delicate, this is not a delicate car, it's like, oh, I did a garg, a garg.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the color on this, what is it called? [SPEAKER_08]: Petra copper. [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, God, the color so cool. [SPEAKER_08]: It just looks so neat from the outside. [SPEAKER_08]: It's a metallic, but it somehow is sort of a matte kind of a, it like, it's really cool. [SPEAKER_08]: I love how this car looks. [SPEAKER_08]: You get wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, you get a charging pad, you get USB-C charging ports, [SPEAKER_08]: You can tow up to 8,200 pounds in there.

[SPEAKER_08]: It's got great cargo room. [SPEAKER_08]: There's 34 cubic feet behind the second row. [SPEAKER_08]: And 78.8, if you slip the second row down. [SPEAKER_08]: I love driving this. [SPEAKER_08]: It was super fun. [SPEAKER_08]: And it's very easy and very intuitive. [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, indeed, it is really cool.

[SPEAKER_08]: So on the steering wheel, the little paddle shifters, the little up and down, they're sort of like clear plastic with a plastic and a minus on them at night, they glow. [SPEAKER_08]: So those little plus and the minus glow. [SPEAKER_08]: So like, the first time I sat down, I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. [SPEAKER_08]: It's just completely unnecessary, but it's nice to little touch again. [SPEAKER_08]: You spend $158,300 in a car.

[SPEAKER_08]: You want it to look kind of nifty, and that makes it look kind of nifty. [SPEAKER_08]: I really enjoyed driving this. [SPEAKER_08]: I was happy that I got to drive it in the snow because it proved so... [SPEAKER_08]: stable and handled so well because the upside to having a heavy big grippy heavy SUV is it it gets through stuff but the downside is when it gets icy it's also it's a lot of weight so if you have a lot of momentum you're going to go and go.

[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, exactly, so if it doesn't handle the roads well, it's in some ways worse than driving something smaller. [SPEAKER_08]: But this actually was great. [SPEAKER_08]: It had no problem handling this snow. [SPEAKER_08]: It was stayed very composed. [SPEAKER_08]: Didn't get stuck in it. [SPEAKER_08]: We'll see how I do in the next six inches of snow. [SPEAKER_08]: It looks like snow out there. [SPEAKER_08]: look scary. [SPEAKER_08]: So I thoroughly enjoyed driving this.

[SPEAKER_08]: I've always been sort of a Land Rover fan. [SPEAKER_08]: I love this vehicle. [SPEAKER_08]: If I had 158,300 dollars, I don't. [SPEAKER_08]: But if I had 158,300 dollars, this would be on my list. [SPEAKER_08]: Even though, you know, Land Rover doesn't have the most fan tabulous reputation for not needing to be in the shop. [SPEAKER_08]: But, you know, we all know that doesn't matter. [SPEAKER_12]: But they don't typically leave you [SPEAKER_08]: they do not.

[SPEAKER_12]: So, you know, there's something more expensive to pay. [SPEAKER_08]: It's right. [SPEAKER_08]: It's going to be like, this is $5,000 to fix this thing. [SPEAKER_08]: But so I really do like it. [SPEAKER_08]: And I, you know, this is the biggest burliest of, like, the defenders. [SPEAKER_08]: I think if you go down the line in the Defender 110, you can start at 63-5. [SPEAKER_08]: So I think that's sort of important to note. [SPEAKER_08]: Like, the octas, the fanciest.

[SPEAKER_08]: It's very fancy. [SPEAKER_08]: It's very upscale. [SPEAKER_08]: It's all, it's got all the stuff. [SPEAKER_08]: If you want that, it makes a heck of an impression as you're driving. [SPEAKER_08]: But if you want a defender, you can get it all the way down to 63-5. [SPEAKER_08]: So there's some room in there, depending on what you want. [SPEAKER_08]: So it's not like you can't afford a defender because they're all over six figures.

[SPEAKER_08]: You can get one for under six figures. [SPEAKER_08]: You don't get some of the bling that you get on this, but you're still going to get a fabulous car.

[SPEAKER_08]: You can still say, [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, so overall we really liked it and I'm super psyched that I got this during a snowy week because I normally get things like this and it's like, oh, it's the January thought you don't eat it the next week I get, you know, a compact hatchback and we get a noor Easter so I'm glad the timing worked out this time to actually give it a go

[SPEAKER_12]: Well, the Defender X that I had in December when I was out on the West Coast, you know, that one, you know, that was 96,000, which still is not true, but you know, that was with the supercharged V6 and that was, that was also, you know, really nice. [SPEAKER_12]: I liked that one a lot.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: And I think even if you go with one of the, you know, like the Defender S, you know, or even, you know, the X dynamic SE, you know, which is 75, that's, you know, for a premium, really off-road capable SUV, you know. [SPEAKER_12]: So thank, you know, Wrangler Bronco. [SPEAKER_12]: but with a lot more luxury than you get in those.

[SPEAKER_12]: And if you put the right tires on it, you can basically do pretty much anything you can do with those vehicles. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, so I mean, I've long been a fan of the defender. [SPEAKER_08]: This makes me more of a fan and wish me, makes me wish I had $158,300. [SPEAKER_08]: It's been the one because it's super fun. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, but it's a versatile car. [SPEAKER_08]: It's, you know, I think it's something worth looking at.

[SPEAKER_08]: I wouldn't, you know, I just think it's important to think to realize that you have a range on this, you know, it's it's definitely a vehicle that you've got cheap ones and you got option to put the expensive ones. [SPEAKER_08]: So don't just like I can't afford one of those. [SPEAKER_08]: We have I mean, you need to have some kind of budget. [SPEAKER_08]: It's 63, but maybe not as out of reach as you think of it.

[SPEAKER_12]: Well, actually, I think probably the one I, I might go for if I was buying a defender would be the trophy addition. [SPEAKER_07]: That's a low yellow. [SPEAKER_07]: How much is the trophy? [SPEAKER_12]: That's 87.4.

[SPEAKER_12]: 87 and okay so so almost half of what the octa costs right you could buy two of those yeah you know but if you you know if you remember the the Land Rover trophy thing that they did back in the 1980s and 90s you know those you know they had this yellow you know they were all painted in this yellow finish and they did these annual adventures you know they got you know serious off-road people [SPEAKER_12]: and went to all kinds of crazy places for the Land Rover trophy.

[SPEAKER_12]: And so, you know, they've now got the trophy edition, you know, which is basically that concept.

[SPEAKER_12]: You know, in those days, they were doing it not with defenders, but with, uh, [SPEAKER_12]: the first generation discoveries and so actually I think originally with even with Range Rovers the first years were with Range Rovers before they got you know crazy luxury and then went to discoveries and they have the Defender Trophy edition which is inspired by those Land Rover Trophy vehicles from the the 80s and 90s. [SPEAKER_08]: Yep. [SPEAKER_08]: So there we go.

[SPEAKER_12]: Cool. [SPEAKER_12]: Well, it's a definitely. [SPEAKER_12]: It sounds like a good time to have, uh, have a land rover this week. [SPEAKER_08]: Yes. [SPEAKER_08]: It's the perfect, it's a perfect week. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: I saw in, in my newsfeed this morning for, I don't know why it brought up a weather story about Boston, but you know, I guess they're expecting like nine inches in Boston today.

[SPEAKER_08]: I'm a little nervous because when they say it's like this one they said it was a dusting. [SPEAKER_08]: We probably are about three inches. [SPEAKER_08]: It's now. [SPEAKER_08]: This other thing like, well, it's not going to be anything. [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, you guys, it's probably going to be an inch to, oh, you know what? [SPEAKER_08]: You might get for, oh, word half of foot.

[SPEAKER_08]: So I feel like every time I walk away and I look again, the forecast goes up, which either means we're going to get nothing or we're going to get absolutely clobbered. [SPEAKER_08]: So I don't know, we'll see what it is tomorrow. [SPEAKER_12]: Well, this week, you know, on Wednesday, you were here in Detroit, Nicole, or the Detroit Auto Show, and there wasn't really any snow in the forecast for that day.

[SPEAKER_12]: And by the time we left Huntington Place, there was several inches of snow on the ground and it came in, you know, it was overcast, but it wasn't, it wasn't looking like it was going to be a snowstorm. [SPEAKER_08]: It was, uh, I was actually flying back after that added a trade back to L.A. to drive the Kia K4 hatchback and my flight got a change flight.

[SPEAKER_08]: So I still get out the same name because my original flight coming in was diverted to Columbus, Ohio, which is chilling in Columbus and like that's that's concerning. [SPEAKER_08]: So I switched to another flight. [SPEAKER_08]: My original flight. [SPEAKER_08]: They quote, delayed it to the following morning at 9 a.m. That's what it took off.

[SPEAKER_08]: That's that's when it got from Columbus to Detroit when it got I guess from finally got from Columbus to Detroit and then took everybody who remained on that flight for people to LA the next morning. [SPEAKER_08]: So it's very glad that I that I decided to change flights otherwise I would have missed the the key drive altogether.

[SPEAKER_12]: Well, the vehicle that I had that I drove to the auto show and to some several other events this past week was the Porsche Macon electric 4S. [SPEAKER_12]: So, the first time I've had a Porsche in my driveway in many, many years and I really enjoyed it. [SPEAKER_12]: So, the MacCon is Porsche's entry level SUV, this fits in down below the cayenne, and it's relatively compact. [SPEAKER_12]: That's too small, but more on the compact size.

[SPEAKER_12]: As is the typical of Porsche, [SPEAKER_12]: including five different electric variants from the base McConnell electric that starts at $80,300. [SPEAKER_12]: the Macon 4 and that's a rear wheel drive version. [SPEAKER_12]: Then they've got the Macon 4 electric and the 4S, the GTS and the turbo. [SPEAKER_12]: And those go from 355 horsepower with that rear drive single motor version up to 630 horsepower with the turbo. [SPEAKER_12]: The 4S is in the middle of the range.

[SPEAKER_12]: So with the overboost power with launch control, [SPEAKER_12]: you have about 509 horsepower, which for a vehicle to size is more than a horsepower.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do, it'll do,

[SPEAKER_12]: and 604 foot-pounds of torque when you use the overboost. [SPEAKER_12]: So that's a lot. [SPEAKER_12]: It's a very quick vehicle. [SPEAKER_12]: I like the size, you know, it's, like I say, it's fairly compact, but it will still hold four adults reasonably comfortably.

[SPEAKER_12]: The back seat isn't huge, but, you know, I could sit behind myself, you know, [SPEAKER_12]: 510, 511, and I can sit behind myself, it's got about 19 cubic feet of cargo space in the back, which again, not the hugest for a vehicle of this type, but it also has even with the dual motor all-wheel drive version.

[SPEAKER_12]: It still has a two and a half foot, two and a half cubic foot, funk as well, that is you can use the butt, you don't have to go inside the vehicle like you do, [SPEAKER_12]: on, say, a Mustang Machie to pop the front, you can do it from the key flop, and it's powered lid on there, and so that's big enough to hold, you know, a couple of decent sized duffel bags, a couple of backpacks.

[SPEAKER_12]: You can put your charging cables in there and assorted other stuff, you know, a couple of bags of groceries We'll fit in there So it's, you know, you get some decent sized storage up front and one of the events that I went to They had valley parking there and so instead of leaving my backpack inside the vehicle I just, you know, I put it in the front So it was out of sight and out of mind

[SPEAKER_12]: The one that I had was finished in the Frozen Blue Metallic, which is kind of a pale, a little bit lighter than a typical robin's egg, blue, but you know, kind of a more pale blue color, which when it was clean, which was not for very long, it was for like the first day or two that I had it. [SPEAKER_12]: And as soon as it arrived, I took it out and got it photographed before the weather turned nasty.

[SPEAKER_12]: and we were in one of our brief warm spells that we've had this month here in Michigan when when I got it and so the you know when I photographed it there was no snow on the ground and then within a couple of days we started getting some snow and then on Wednesday for the auto show [SPEAKER_12]: And so the Macan, you know, is equipped with the usual array of driver assist features.

[SPEAKER_12]: And as always, driving from Detroit back to Ipsilani, within about 10 miles or so, I got the alert coming up on the cluster screen assist features unavailable. [SPEAKER_12]: Please clean your sensors. [SPEAKER_12]: It wasn't the camera behind the windshield that was the problem.

[SPEAKER_12]: It was all the stuff in the front and when I got home and got out, there was this like caked probably almost half-inch thick layer of ice across the radar sensor and the other sensors in the front and the front fascia and the covering headlamps and everything. [SPEAKER_12]: So fortunately it was still daylight hours when I was driving it because otherwise I would have had [SPEAKER_12]: from the from the lights. [SPEAKER_08]: I'm no big deals, okay.

[SPEAKER_12]: Fortunately, they did deliver the car on a set of no tires. [SPEAKER_12]: It was on Perrelli, Scorpion, Winter 2 tires. [SPEAKER_12]: They have several of it. [SPEAKER_12]: When you go to configure a Macan, they have wheels and wheel and tire combinations ranging from [SPEAKER_12]: including 20, 21 and 22 inches in diameter, this Macan had 21s on it, so the mid-size and you can actually when you order the car. [SPEAKER_12]: You can order it with a winter wheel and tire package.

[SPEAKER_12]: So you can actually get the same wheels. [SPEAKER_12]: So you can get two sets of the same wheels. [SPEAKER_12]: And if you are someone that switches out tires a couple of times a year, it's handy to have an extra set of wheels. [SPEAKER_12]: So the winter wheel and tire package were to go here. [SPEAKER_12]: Let's see. [SPEAKER_12]: It's the 21-inch set with the same wheels, these are the 21-inch Macon design wheels.

[SPEAKER_12]: So set of four wheels and four winter tires, $7,022. [SPEAKER_12]: Woo!

[SPEAKER_12]: yeah that's Porsche money though exactly yes you will when you buy a Porsche you will you will pay as funny you know for this is one of the rare instances where I did not get them in Roni with the car but going through and going through the configurator and building it up you know so they've got lots of colors available [SPEAKER_12]: on this, you know, so there's the basic white and black that you can get for free, and then everything else costs extra.

[SPEAKER_12]: The frozen blue metallic is $1,300. [SPEAKER_12]: They've got the legends colors, which includes the Oak Green Metallic Neo, which looks fabulous for $2,600. [SPEAKER_12]: And then they have paint to sample. [SPEAKER_12]: So you can bring a sample of literally anything to your dealer, [SPEAKER_12]: And they will match the color and paint the car to that exact same color. [SPEAKER_12]: That is a 13,870 dollar option.

[SPEAKER_06]: Wow. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you have to make the paint. [SPEAKER_03]: And the paint's only going to be used once and blah, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: You're talking, you know, maybe three or four gallons of paint. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, when you go to lows and you take a color sample, you know, they'll do the color matching. [SPEAKER_12]: It's, you know, they don't charge you anything extra to do the color match, but $14,000.

[SPEAKER_12]: But, you know, again, it's not so much because they have to make the paint, but because they have, you know, it's, they're basically going to be hand painting this thing. [SPEAKER_12]: They're going to hand paint the body shell rather than going through the regular paint process at the factory.

[SPEAKER_12]: see what other crazy option prices we got here oh yeah you can also get your wheels painted in various colors there's there's front fascia accessories so you can you can get there's an off-road design package for the front fascia and keep in mind this is not an off-road vehicle this is very much a street SUV

[SPEAKER_12]: but you can get an off-road, you know, the exclusive manufacturer off-road design package, which gives you a lower bumper area that's kind of, it looks kind of like a skid plate, but it's very much not a skid plate. [SPEAKER_12]: So do that take this off-road. [SPEAKER_08]: Do not confuse. [SPEAKER_08]: That's 1600 bucks. [SPEAKER_08]: Do not kick and fused about it. [SPEAKER_12]: There's the Sport Design Feship package, which is $4,300, and it goes on and on.

[SPEAKER_12]: If there's one thing that Porsche has become absolute experts in, it's figuring out how to separate customers from their money. [SPEAKER_12]: As much money as you are willing to spend, Porsche will happily sell you something to take that money from your bank account. [SPEAKER_12]: Let's see what else. [SPEAKER_12]: So the Macon is built on the new PPE platform, which is the performance platform electric. [SPEAKER_12]: So this is after they did the Tycon.

[SPEAKER_12]: That was a platform called J1, which was used for the Tycon and for the Audi E-Tron GT. [SPEAKER_12]: and then Audi and Porsche collaborated on a next-generation platform, which they used for this for the MacCon. [SPEAKER_12]: It's going on the new Cayenne. [SPEAKER_12]: It's being used by Audi for the Q6 E-Tron, the new A6, a bunch of others, and it's a multi-energy platform. [SPEAKER_12]: But the electric version of it, it's an 800 volt architecture.

[SPEAKER_12]: It has the capability of charging close to 300 kilowatts. [SPEAKER_12]: When I did take it to the Electrify America station, I was, and when I stopped there on my way back from driving back from Detroit, when you, there's no, in the setting, there's nowhere to manually enable battery preconditioning. [SPEAKER_12]: Like as you do, look for example on our EV6, you can go into the settings and you can turn on pre-conditioning manually.

[SPEAKER_12]: There's nowhere to do that manually, but it does it automatically, so if you use the built-in navigation and you select a DC fast charger as your destination, it will automatically do the preconditioning based on how far away you are from the thing. [SPEAKER_12]: And in the cluster, it actually shows you the battery temperature. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I just have a little thing to put in with the battery, and let's take a little coil.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: It just shows you a battery icon and shows you the battery temperature. [SPEAKER_12]: So by the time I got to the charging station, it was around, even though it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit, 15 or 20 degrees Fahrenheit, the battery was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. [SPEAKER_12]: which is you know getting into its optimal range.

[SPEAKER_12]: I plugged in at about 15% state of charge and it jumped up and started charging at about 250,255 kilowatts, which is pretty good.

[SPEAKER_12]: especially at that temperature and charged it up to about 50 percent and then had to run over to discount tire to pick up the new tire for my wife's car because the day before she picked up something and got a puncture and of course instead of being right in the middle of the tread where they could just plug in it for $5.00 sidewalk it was it was it was it was on the

[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't think I've had one puncture in a tire that was repairable in the last like eight punctures. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just like always brought right inside to all my son of him. [SPEAKER_12]: But the cargo area of the Macon is big enough to hold the 19 inch wheel and tire combination from a key EV6. [SPEAKER_12]: So again, nice good size cargo area.

[SPEAKER_12]: And you know, before we start getting the snow, I took it out on Saturday morning last week, took it out for a nice long drive out near your picnic, you know, on some nice curving roads. [SPEAKER_12]: And even on the winter tires, it was a lot of fun to drive. [SPEAKER_12]: This was great. [SPEAKER_12]: And the one I had had the variable, it's got air spring, I think it's air spring suspension.

[SPEAKER_12]: But it's a variable height suspension system, so highway speeds drops down a little bit when you put it in. [SPEAKER_12]: It has an off-road mode, but like I said, this is not an off-road vehicle. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, this off-road basically means that it's an unpaid dirt road. [SPEAKER_12]: It's about the limits of what this can do. [SPEAKER_12]: But when you put it in off-road mode, it lifts up a couple inches. [SPEAKER_12]: And it was fantastic.

[SPEAKER_12]: I really enjoyed driving this car. [SPEAKER_12]: Again, the temperatures during most of the time I had it were quite cold, so I was using the heat, using heated seats, using the heat, using the window defrostors and everything. [SPEAKER_12]: There is no standard rear wiper on the Macon. [SPEAKER_12]: It is available as an option.

[SPEAKER_12]: but also kind of come out to be honest i'm not sure i don't i didn't see it in here it's probably here somewhere but it's you know it's a Porsche so it's not going to be cheap oh here we go rear wipe or trim in high gluttonos the trim see where's the wipe or itself [SPEAKER_12]: Oh, rear wiper. [SPEAKER_12]: Oh, it's only $390. [SPEAKER_12]: Oh, it's shocking. [SPEAKER_03]: OK. [SPEAKER_03]: So it seems less.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: So if you live somewhere that gets winter weather, I would strongly recommend that you spring for the 400 bucks for the rear wiper. [SPEAKER_12]: Because otherwise, you know, when you get, you know, a lot of snow coming down. [SPEAKER_12]: The airflow across the rear window, not going to cut it.

[SPEAKER_12]: It's not going to keep that window clearer, the defrocer, it'll heat it and you'll have stripes of ice that'll be sagging across your rear window, but you're still going to have obscured visibility. [SPEAKER_12]: So definitely get the rear wiper. [SPEAKER_12]: So all in as configured, so I'm going to give you two prices, as configured without the winter wheel and tire package, $103,540.

[SPEAKER_12]: And with the same wheel and winter wheel and tire package, so if you order this extra, it jumps to 110,562 dollars. [SPEAKER_12]: We said base price to the McConnell electric is just over 80,000. [SPEAKER_12]: So, you're looking at an extra almost 30,000 dollars. [SPEAKER_12]: for the one that I had and see where oh delivery take guests at delivery charges $900 12.95 [SPEAKER_12]: Nicole gets it, but she was not close, $2,350. [SPEAKER_08]: Oh my gosh, we were way to heck off.

[SPEAKER_08]: OK. Yeah. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_08]: Wow. [SPEAKER_12]: That is a lot of it. [SPEAKER_12]: The 4S starts at $89,000, $1,290 worth of options, plus another $7,000 for the winter wheel and tire package, and $2,354, the delivery processing and handling fee. [SPEAKER_03]: That's so much money. [SPEAKER_12]: It is, but you know, hey, it's a Porsche.

[SPEAKER_03]: Here's the thing, when you get in a Porsche and you drive it for like a block, you realize, oh, that's where all the money went. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it really does. [SPEAKER_03]: Totally solid. [SPEAKER_03]: It always feels like, oh, yeah, okay, I understand. [SPEAKER_08]: It's definitely not a car that you get in these things like, I don't get it. [SPEAKER_08]: Why is this so much money? [SPEAKER_08]: You're like, oh, this is why this is so much money.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I mean, beautiful materials, you know, really solidly put together. [SPEAKER_12]: it's got manual vents so you don't have to go into the touchscreen to adjust the vents where they are flowing. [SPEAKER_12]: He did front rear seats. [SPEAKER_12]: The only slight downside really on the center console where it's got some some touch controls for a few things. [SPEAKER_12]: The [SPEAKER_12]: there's like it's like one panel.

[SPEAKER_12]: If you're old enough to remember the blackberry storm smartphone, blackberry's first attempt at a touch screen phone. [SPEAKER_12]: They wanted to give it the clickingest of a keyboard, so the panel actually pivots a little bit. [SPEAKER_12]: So when you press the touch buttons it clicks and you can feel it, don't feel that whole panel, pivot a little bit. [SPEAKER_12]: which is a little off-putting, but it's not a big deal.

[SPEAKER_12]: And the other thing that's not so much a functional problem, but a little odd is just the position of the shift selector for the transmission. [SPEAKER_12]: So it's on the dashboard to the right of the instrument cluster. [SPEAKER_12]: And it's kind of hidden behind the steering wheel.

[SPEAKER_12]: and so there's just a little lever there that's instead of being a stock on the steering column it's actually mounted on the dashboard so you push it down for drive up for reverse and then there's a button for park and it took me a couple of days to get you to remember to get used to that's where it was and once I got used to that it was fine.

[SPEAKER_12]: There's all different drive modes or sports, sport plus, the comfort mode, which is what I ended up leaving it in most of the time once the weather got worse, but I did use on my Saturday morning drive, I did use the sport plus mode, which gives you some more little more noise and stuff like that, but overall, really nice car to drive.

[SPEAKER_12]: So, and that is the Porsche Macon 4S electric, or electric 4S, or whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever order of operations they want you to use. [SPEAKER_03]: So Macon 4S has electric motors, that's what it is. [SPEAKER_03]: You know what you're getting when you get, when you leave, yeah.

[SPEAKER_12]: All right, so let's start off with some stuff, some news that came out ahead of the auto show, Ford, you know, as has become their tradition, does not show their stuff off at the auto show itself, they do separate events before the show. [SPEAKER_12]: And so, excuse me, Monday morning in Dearborn at their new product development center in World Headquarters. [SPEAKER_12]: First time I've been into building, looks really nice.

[SPEAKER_12]: They showed us a couple of new models that are coming out, starting with the Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC, so this is effectively a replacement for the old Shelby GT500.

[SPEAKER_12]: So, you know, for this current generation for the S-650 Mustangs, Ford has ended their licensing relationship with Shelby American, so there are no longer paying a Shelby for every one of these cars that they sell, paying them a license fee, and you know, that's why they brought out the [SPEAKER_12]: the previous above the GT model, and now they have the Dark Horse SE, which is as the supercharged 5.2 liter V8, Ford was very, Ford basically wouldn't give us any specs on this car.

[SPEAKER_12]: other than here's the displacement you know here they told us some of the features it has but no specific details on performance but for reference the previous generation GT500 that ended production but two years ago now that one had 760 horsepower from its 5.2 liter supercharged V8. [SPEAKER_12]: The current Mustang GTD, which costs $400,000, has 815 horsepower. [SPEAKER_12]: So this one likely going to be somewhere in between those two, probably closer to 800.

[SPEAKER_12]: But somewhere in that range, because it's almost put this way. [SPEAKER_12]: If I was a GTD buyer, I would be really, really angry at Ford if this had more than [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you're buying the GTD, I don't know what you're doing with your money to be honest. [SPEAKER_08]: You're having fun with it. [SPEAKER_08]: You're just loving in love life. [SPEAKER_12]: If you got $400,000 to spend on a Mustang, whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: If it's like you bought a burger and then you like, oh, I would like bacon on that burger and the burger itself costs 10 bucks. [SPEAKER_03]: But the bacon costs $400. [SPEAKER_03]: That's what the GTD is to me fair. [SPEAKER_12]: The GTD is barely a muster. [SPEAKER_08]: So the GTD is shaped like a muster. [SPEAKER_08]: It's $4 billion. [SPEAKER_08]: It's $400 billion. [SPEAKER_08]: $400 billion.

[SPEAKER_12]: Okay. [SPEAKER_12]: The [SPEAKER_12]: They have, you know, there's the base Dark Horse SE, which, again, we have no pricing information. [SPEAKER_12]: This is going to go on sale, you know, start taking orders in the spring, start deliveries in the summer, but the current Dark Horse, the naturally aspirated five-liter Dark Horse, a 500 horsepower.

[SPEAKER_12]: That starts at about $60,000, $65,000, I think, goes up to, if you load it up with all of the options, you can get it up to about $90,000. [SPEAKER_12]: So this Dark Horse SE probably going to start somewhere in that $90,000 range. [SPEAKER_12]: And then you can get the Dark Horse SE track pack.

[SPEAKER_12]: which throws away the rear seat gives you carbon fiber wheels with Michelin pilot sport cup four tires and Brembo carbon ceramic brakes forged control arms for the suspension [SPEAKER_12]: With the track pack, they say they took out about 120 pounds of unsprung mass from the car and 150 pounds total.

[SPEAKER_12]: So between the four corners with the carbon wheels, carbon brakes, forged control arms, they took off roughly about 30 pounds from each corner of the car, which will help with handling and ride and acceleration, and then they also threw out the rear seat and some other stuff. [SPEAKER_12]: And then it's got a big carbon fiber wing on the back, the front fascia of all the SCs, like the last GT500, a lot more open area for breathing so you can cool that engine down.

[SPEAKER_12]: There's a big carbon fiber vent in the hood of the car. [SPEAKER_12]: The SC is about an inch wider. [SPEAKER_12]: So it's got unique fenders, different from other moustangs, because it's got wider track. [SPEAKER_12]: If you get the track pack, the trunk lid is also different, it has a little duct tail spoiler on it, and then there's a carbon fiber wing that stands above that. [SPEAKER_12]: And the reason why they put the duct tail on there.

[SPEAKER_12]: is they found that during their their wind tunnel testing they got a lot more downforce with that in there while while they were able to keep the the carbon fiber wing at a reasonable angle so it didn't completely obscure your view to the rear and they say at 180 miles an hour [SPEAKER_12]: So, you know, this is going to be a quick car, and then there's also going to be a limited edition version of the SC that has painted stripes on the hood and the deck lid.

[SPEAKER_12]: So, not vinyl, but actually painted, so that means they're going to take it off the main paint line, mask it, they spray those stripes, and then put it back in and do the clear coat. [SPEAKER_12]: And on the last GT500, you had the option of either vinyl stripes or painted stripes, the painted stripes, it's a $10,000 option. [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, so most likely I'm guessing that the limited edition Dark Horse S.C. is probably going to be somewhere around 130 grand with all that stuff on there. [SPEAKER_12]: So it'll it'll be a fast Mustang, but. [SPEAKER_03]: It'll be expensive, Mustang. [SPEAKER_03]: But you know, people are having problems paying for food, but we have a really expensive cars coming out. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not really excited about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the horse looks very, it looks more like a horse of the apocalypse. [SPEAKER_03]: It looks more like it's bringing pestilence or plague. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it does not look like a fun horse. [SPEAKER_03]: It is not, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it is the dark horse. [SPEAKER_03]: I guess, yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: One interesting detail on the Dark Horse Badging, on the rear.

[SPEAKER_12]: They have some color options, some accent color options, including one that has that's teal. [SPEAKER_12]: So you get teal painted brake calipers and seat belts and accents ditching on the seats on the Ricardo seats. [SPEAKER_12]: And then on the perimeter of the dark horse badge and the eyes, it's painted and teal. [SPEAKER_12]: And then there's also a red package and a couple of others.

[SPEAKER_12]: So they actually did some cool stuff with the colors on the S.E. [SPEAKER_12]: that won't be available on other Mustangs. [SPEAKER_12]: And I had a, had a chest chat with Sarah Watson, who is the colored materials design manager for the Mustang, and so I'm going to drop that in here and she explains, you know, some of the color choices. [SPEAKER_12]: So I'll have that right now.

[SPEAKER_12]: I mean, I have become, I'm a big fan of bold colors on cars, you know, I think the world has gotten way too far towards monochromatic cars. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I don't, I don't want any more black, white, or silver, or gray. [SPEAKER_12]: I want interesting colors. [SPEAKER_12]: And I love seeing, you know, especially, you know, adding accents like the teal. [SPEAKER_12]: So, tell me, what is the, you know, kind of, what was the driving force behind adopting the teal?

[SPEAKER_12]: What, what, what brought that up? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so actually we had a lot of research and inspiration from our liveries on the track. [SPEAKER_01]: So your GT3s, the way our driver's racer cars and bull colors, you see the TLX have actually all the time. [SPEAKER_01]: And as we have our standards like with the reds, we put those two together and it came out this way. [SPEAKER_01]: So the TL tonic was like to be the loud aspect, and then the race was to be tried to truth.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, because oftentimes on our race team, you know, the cars might have the same library, but you'll have different accents on this car so you can distinguish them quickly on the track. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when I was looking at pictures, the teal just stood out. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It stood out. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you dig deeper.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then like I mentioned earlier, first-gen Mustang had the, um, I can't remember the name of it, but had a teal on there on the boss 429. [SPEAKER_01]: And so we took that and then used the inspiration there, put it on the seat belt, [SPEAKER_12]: And I know it's on the Dark Horse badge on the back as well. [SPEAKER_01]: To signal that is the track car. [SPEAKER_12]: Right. [SPEAKER_12]: And now on the limited edition one, it's red instead of the... [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was like you had the best of both worlds. [SPEAKER_01]: You talked to a variety of customers. [SPEAKER_01]: One who loved the standards of the traditional. [SPEAKER_01]: But then we even got like a little bit louder and bolder on the whiskey. [SPEAKER_01]: But then with the track, we introduced like that nice Jan look. [SPEAKER_01]: And this is what we're going to be building on, but even with even more.

[SPEAKER_12]: So you're going to see more of that throughout the Mustang line up like that. [SPEAKER_01]: People want to be loud and bold. [SPEAKER_01]: They want to be on a college edding and, you know, this was one of those packages that delivered on that. [SPEAKER_12]: So for the, for the limited edition, are the painted stripes standard on the limited edition? [SPEAKER_12]: Yes. [SPEAKER_12]: And what color combinations are you going to have on the limited edition?

[SPEAKER_01]: You get the black obviously red stripes, red stripes, red stripes, red stripes and then Oxford light. [SPEAKER_01]: color is only again to kind of have that symbolism of the checker flag on the racetrack so we did it in white and in black. [SPEAKER_01]: On the white you get also a standard black paint of roofs. [SPEAKER_01]: I see you can't see that on the shadow black chart but that's been standard as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you have that whole 40 motif on the exterior that falls to the interior. [SPEAKER_12]: And so on the Oxford White, it's still the same red and gray paint is right there, okay, yeah, and then what what other color combinations you got this blue, what is there a name for this blue. [SPEAKER_01]: This is our gun blue. [SPEAKER_01]: Our gun blue is the unique exterior color to dark, to dark horse Fc.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Our other colors will have the race red black white. [SPEAKER_01]: There's also Adriatic seal that we pulled from Adriatic blue green. [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry that we pulled from the FX. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's going to be on here. [SPEAKER_01]: We have orange fury, dark matter gray. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a total of mine colors. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: That we pulled from, again, our effects, our special cars, and then our base Mustang.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, significantly coming from fresh. [SPEAKER_12]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Great. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: It was nice to meet you.

[SPEAKER_12]: Okay, and Rebat, and I also spoke with Ari Droneveld, who is the Chief Program Engineer for the Dark Horse S.C. at Ford Racing, and I talked to Ari a couple of years ago when they launched the Raptor, the Bronco Raptor, because he was the Chief Engineer on Bronco Raptor, and then after he finished that, he went over to work on Dark Horse S.C. And so we'll drop that in here now. [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: It's often very ground-velled.

[SPEAKER_12]: The Chief Platform Engineer of the Program Engineer. [SPEAKER_12]: Chief Program Engineer for all of Ford Racing or for the ZDR course variants of Mustang. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, the specifically I'm the Chief Program Engineer on the DR course SC. [SPEAKER_12]: Okay. [SPEAKER_12]: So the SC is the latest edition of the Mustang Lank.

[SPEAKER_12]: Kind of completes the type of lineup we've had in Mustang for [SPEAKER_12]: probably since the late 90s, you know, going from a base to GT and having something in the middle-learn and then since at least the mid-2000s we've had a supercharged one in there. [SPEAKER_12]: And then of course now you've got the GTD, we have to top it a lot. [SPEAKER_12]: So, tell us about how you see this dark horse SC fitting into that line up.

[SPEAKER_12]: And why, I guess, why the move away from the Shelby brand. [SPEAKER_12]: Sure, you had on the, that's why 50. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so let me address your first question. [SPEAKER_09]: The between a base dark horse and the GTD, there's quite a bit of white space from a performance standpoint.

[SPEAKER_09]: And each of that is an opportunity to really address the success that dark horse has been having on the base program and how it's attracting [SPEAKER_09]: more diverse younger customers and it's really resonating with them. [SPEAKER_09]: So this is placed right in that white space and obviously we push the team and the team pushes themselves quite frankly to deliver as much as we could out of this car in that white space. [SPEAKER_09]: So that's that's your first question.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, so, you know, shifted on the last couple of generations away from the Shelby branding to the Dark Horse, Dark Horse R, Dark Horse SC, and does that kind of change? [SPEAKER_12]: Does that, does that contribute, do you think, to some of that change in the customer base for this car, for this line-up of course?

[SPEAKER_09]: Um, your, your question is about whether or not, [SPEAKER_12]: Having a new branding, this dark course brand has that helped with maybe changing the perception a little bit of these higher performance Mustangs and bringing in a new type of buyer. [SPEAKER_12]: I do think that's the case, yes.

[SPEAKER_12]: Okay. [SPEAKER_12]: So with the SC, what were your main targets in terms of, you know, evolving, you know, [SPEAKER_12]: moving to a new generation compared to what you had GT500 a few years ago, what were you trying to achieve and prove on this generation? [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so I think it's really about as we become forward racing.

[SPEAKER_09]: You could see the the lineage as we had on the screen showing that you've got the race car variants of a dark horse and then we have the production car side of dark horse. [SPEAKER_09]: technology between the two and there's that crossover between the two products. [SPEAKER_09]: So love Shelby, but that was not didn't make sense in that crossover between what we're doing on the race car side and the production car side and that transfer of technology.

[SPEAKER_12]: So what were some of the things you've done on this car on the Dark Horse S.C. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we're tapping into all our motorsports experience. [SPEAKER_09]: We went through some of the exterior styling changes that were made and how the design of the exterior was really formed by the function we needed. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, because you got to put a bit more downforce now, right?

[SPEAKER_09]: Then yeah, we've got a lot of downforce on here. [SPEAKER_09]: So whether it was GT3 and learning that we could take the lower grill further down and increase the open area, which we did and compared to a base star course at 60% larger, we also opened up the outboard coolers. [SPEAKER_09]: That's 100% larger than a base star course. [SPEAKER_09]: those were some learnings from track time.

[SPEAKER_09]: We've also learned from an efficiency standpoint that some of the tricks that our NASCAR teams were using to modify and optimize the exterior surface of the race cars. [SPEAKER_09]: They were using 3D printed tiles.

[SPEAKER_09]: and being able to go into the wind tunnel and quickly shop or swap out those print printing out sections of the that's right front quarter front section of the car really and yeah a pillar for where they were able to print that out and we thought that is a fantastic trick so you can go through a lot more iteration of the session yeah you start off with like computational fluid dynamics and that gets you to a point that's a good starting point but ultimately you have to go into a wind tunnel that dial it in and make sure you're there

[SPEAKER_09]: And that trick allowed us to say, OK, we're going to change. [SPEAKER_09]: We're going to try this. [SPEAKER_09]: We're going to try this. [SPEAKER_09]: Try this all in one session in the wind tunnel and provide that feedback to design to say, This is what works best for us. [SPEAKER_09]: and then have the conversation about what the trade-off is for the function. [SPEAKER_09]: So obviously, very focused on the function on this way.

[SPEAKER_12]: And recently, years forward, his built new rolling road wind tunnels, old-scale wind tunnels, you've got some really interesting driver in the loop, simulation capability.

[SPEAKER_12]: I assume all of that has been utilized in creating this, and that gives you closer [SPEAKER_09]: all the simulation tools that we can so and as we tap into the motor sports side is we're now one one family of Ford racing we're able to bring that to bear in the the fact that the way we're structured for example like if I choose the power train chief engineer like my counterpart from a functional standpoint.

[SPEAKER_09]: He's managing both the race cars as well as the production cars. [SPEAKER_09]: So there's nothing lost between having the organizations not working so closely together. [SPEAKER_09]: So we have access to all those tools and we're finding just like that NASCAR example, some tricks that we hadn't thought to do previously. [SPEAKER_12]: Are there things that you were learned from the GTD program that were also brought into this?

[SPEAKER_12]: I mean, obviously we saw some visual elements in the cabin. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so we would take this out testing with some of the race cars as well as GTD would be on the track at some on some occasions with us as well. [SPEAKER_09]: So as we're learning, for example, actually our duck tail spoiler, for example. [SPEAKER_09]: We were out on the track, we realized that, hey, this is really contributing to increased downforce. [SPEAKER_09]: It's effective.

[SPEAKER_09]: I said it's more than 10% increased downforce as a result. [SPEAKER_12]: And that translated into another different rear deck than you have on the standard, oh, we lost angers. [SPEAKER_12]: Correct. [SPEAKER_09]: Is that on the regular dot course or is that unique to the, as it is unique to the FSC? [SPEAKER_09]: And it's actually unique to the SC track pack. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so we found that that was very effective in GTD.

[SPEAKER_09]: Ultimately, took that same concept and put it on their vehicles. [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, so it's worth both of it. [SPEAKER_09]: Yes. [SPEAKER_09]: So, and that's the intent. [SPEAKER_09]: It's that sharing between, hey, if there's something that we can learn from a production car side and translate that over to race, fantastic. [SPEAKER_09]: It's a two-way street. [SPEAKER_12]: And one of the things you talked about was weight reductions, particularly unsprung weight reductions.

[SPEAKER_12]: You talked a little bit about what's been done there. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so on the track tack version of SCs, like specifically in the corners, we've made carbon ceramic brakes available right from GTD. [SPEAKER_09]: So between that, the Michelin cup to our tires and the carbon fiber wheels. [SPEAKER_09]: were removing quite a bit of unsprung and rotational mass from the vehicle.

[SPEAKER_09]: So from a total vehicle perspective, we're removing 120 pounds of rotational unsprung mass, which is huge. [SPEAKER_09]: Translates in the ride, control, precision. [SPEAKER_09]: And the track pack also doesn't have a receipt. [SPEAKER_12]: There's no receipt. [SPEAKER_09]: Right. [SPEAKER_12]: Well, it has more of like a shelf. [SPEAKER_12]: Yes. [SPEAKER_12]: Okay. [SPEAKER_12]: Any other highlights of the S.C. that listeners, the podcast, should be thinking about?

[SPEAKER_09]: Sure. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_09]: I like the feature of the variable traction control. [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_09]: So that's a lift from GTD, obviously calibrated separately for our vehicle. [SPEAKER_09]: Sure. [SPEAKER_09]: Because that's true. [SPEAKER_09]: In the past, you've been able to say, all right, I'm going to go on or off.

[SPEAKER_09]: Right, but when you have a card this capable and you want to push it or if the environment is just a little maybe a little bit Difficult to drive on maybe a little slippery or then what depends what track different traces of different surfaces Some more grips on the long yeah exactly so you can go through a multitude of settings to control the The traction control that you want so it's not just the environment, but it's also the customer's capability and that's just within track mode, right?

[SPEAKER_09]: That's correct. [SPEAKER_09]: Okay [SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, you can control that from the steering wheel I guess. [SPEAKER_09]: I know it'd be through the center stack button and then I've got bring up a pop up and you can select We see you probably don't want to be messing around with that. [SPEAKER_09]: Well, I should go on corner corner. [SPEAKER_11]: Craig, I thought, uh, is the changing levels of the VCC differing on this versus GTD?

[SPEAKER_09]: Uh, the, [SPEAKER_09]: the pop-up comes up from the center stack right and then you could talk you could toggle through the steering wheel selections yeah that's how you'd have to it center stack and then it pop-up and okay so probably not quite as advanced as what you've got a GTT but then again you know it's very it's very similar I mean in terms of the interface I think it's probably the same yeah okay [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Well, thanks.

[SPEAKER_12]: Thanks. [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: You better talk to you. [SPEAKER_12]: Good to talk to you. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_12]: And I just realized we did talk before in Chicago when the I think it was when they ever got a raptor raptor raptor raptor. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, we spoke there. [SPEAKER_12]: So. [SPEAKER_12]: All right, we're back. [SPEAKER_12]: And so that's the Dark Horse SC.

[SPEAKER_12]: These probably second most expensive Mustang ever. [SPEAKER_12]: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha

[SPEAKER_12]: So RTR is Von Gitton Jr's company, and they last fall they introduced a Mustang RTR that his crew helped develop, and now they have a Bronco RTR.

[SPEAKER_12]: There's actually been a Bronco RTR available for a while now, but the way they did those was those were purchased [SPEAKER_12]: by RTR pre-title from Ford so they got shipped from Ford's factory to RTR's facilities where they got a bunch of upgrades including different wheels and tires and suspension upgrades and a sort of another stuff and you can still buy that one and that one's called the RTR spec. [SPEAKER_12]: addition.

[SPEAKER_12]: But now they're actually going to also do these in the factory here in Michigan where they build Broncos. [SPEAKER_12]: And it's slightly different spec version that you get from RTR. [SPEAKER_12]: You can customize it more. [SPEAKER_12]: So there'd be a little bit less customization available with this one. [SPEAKER_12]: But it's [SPEAKER_12]: It's got the graphics, the 35-inch wheels and tires, the lime green, bead lock rings on the wheels.

[SPEAKER_12]: That's kind of... [SPEAKER_12]: RTR's signature color, and a bunch of other stuff. [SPEAKER_12]: These are all powered by the 2.3-liter 4-cylinder EcoBoost, and it has the anti-lag system that for developed for this, which basically means that when you are off-roading, and anti-lag only comes into play when you're driving off-road.

[SPEAKER_12]: What it does is when you take your foot off the accelerator it actually keeps the throttle open slightly so it allows air to keep flowing through just cuts off fuel to the cylinders allows air to keep flowing through so it keeps the turbo spinning so as soon as you get back on the accelerator it's generating boost more almost immediately instead of waiting so you don't have that lag. [SPEAKER_08]: That's cool. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_08]: Does it say how much this isn't here?

[SPEAKER_08]: I'm scrolling. [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know if you're pricing on this yet, right? [SPEAKER_12]: They did talk about pricing and give me a second and I will share. [SPEAKER_08]: Okay [SPEAKER_08]: I'm looking through the release and I don't see it. [SPEAKER_08]: It looks awesome. [SPEAKER_08]: I think it's funny that Ford's going with all these like neon things like the blue one, the Mustang.

[SPEAKER_08]: We were just looking at in the green here and then they do the same thing on the the Maverick Lobo has like lime accents and it and stuff. [SPEAKER_08]: We're like channeling our inner 80s child with some of these colors. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it looks cool. [SPEAKER_08]: But it is very 80s. [SPEAKER_08]: Everything new is old again. [SPEAKER_08]: Everything old is new again. [SPEAKER_08]: Is that the same? [SPEAKER_08]: Pretty much.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: So the RTR spec that RTR themselves build runs close to $100,000 and this is going to be significantly less than that. [SPEAKER_12]: It's going to be cheaper than the Bronco Raptor, which they actually recently reduced the price on the Bronco Raptor.

[SPEAKER_12]: uh... and it now starts at about uh... only about ninety thousand i think uh... yeah they didn't they didn't tell us the specific price for the rtr uh... but i think it's gonna be somewhere around seventy [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I mean, it's a lot that that would be really cool for that. [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, people will be excited about that. [SPEAKER_08]: The hard core offroof.

[SPEAKER_08]: The thing is I think what's fun about these is you know that someone's going to buy it who's like, yeah, I do this on the weekends. [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, he's every single feature they've got in this. [SPEAKER_08]: And then you know, the other 99% is like, nah, we're going to use any of this. [SPEAKER_08]: But look how cool my thing looks like, like, most people don't use it all. [SPEAKER_08]: And if, you know what, you don't have to.

[SPEAKER_08]: If you like how something looks, but I want to, like, [SPEAKER_08]: I think it's neat that there's going to be somebody out there who's going to do that when we're going to get pictures on the internet of them blasting through the desert that one guy. [SPEAKER_12]: So the the the Bronco Raptor is now now starts at 79.995 plus destination. [SPEAKER_12]: So about 81 or 82.000. [SPEAKER_12]: So I think this is going to the RTR is going to start just under 70 I think.

[SPEAKER_08]: That's cool. [SPEAKER_08]: That'll be fun. [SPEAKER_08]: People will love it. [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: So let's get back to stupidly fast cars. [SPEAKER_12]: The Chevy Corvette ZR1X. [SPEAKER_12]: It's, you know, it's a little bit quicker than that Defender Octa. [SPEAKER_12]: You were driving. [SPEAKER_12]: It has 1,250 horsepower. [SPEAKER_08]: It's like they more horsepower to it. [SPEAKER_08]: Just a scoosh.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, it's a thousand, I think a thousand, it's 64 horsepower from the Twin Turbo 5.5 liter V8. [SPEAKER_12]: And then it's also got a couple hundred horsepower from the electric motor driving the front wheels. [SPEAKER_12]: So it's all wheel drive. [SPEAKER_12]: So last fall, a couple of months ago, the Corvette engineering team took a ZR1X production spec, the ZR1X, to the US-131 raceway, it's a drag strip here in Michigan, to do some performance testing.

[SPEAKER_12]: This thing is insanely fast. [SPEAKER_12]: Uh, zero to six or sorry quarter mile time, they're, they're, they're, they're, by, by the end of the day, they did two days of testing by the, by the end of the second day, they were down to a quarter mile time of eight point six seven five seconds. [SPEAKER_08]: That's insane. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: And the trap speed was, I think, 159, you know, 159, one six miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_08]: That's it, and they do have the zero to 60 on there. [SPEAKER_08]: It's 1.68 seconds. [SPEAKER_12]: Yes. [SPEAKER_08]: Not even two seconds, 1.68 seconds, zero to 60. [SPEAKER_08]: That's madness. [SPEAKER_08]: It's wonderful madness, but it's absolutely madness. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh yeah, no one needs that on the roof. [SPEAKER_03]: But maybe remember, this is on a prep track. [SPEAKER_12]: Like, you know, this is a real drag strip.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, and this is with the rollout and everything. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, so I mean, this is totally optimal conditions. [SPEAKER_12]: But yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, even, you know, just on regular pavement, you know, this car, you know, because because it's all wheel drive and you've got, you know, a couple hundred horsepower driving the front wheels. [SPEAKER_12]: So you're going to get even as the turbos are spooling up and everything.

[SPEAKER_12]: You're going to get instant response from the front, you know, and by, you know, by the time you've used that up, the engine's going to be kicking in and you're just going to be flying down the. [SPEAKER_12]: the quarter mile. [SPEAKER_12]: You're probably still going to easily on regular pavement. [SPEAKER_12]: You'll probably be able to get, you know, 10 second quarter mile times, which is ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.

[SPEAKER_12]: Now, that is, that's one of the fastest quarter miles ever recorded for a road legal production car. [SPEAKER_12]: In fact, I think it might be the fastest that's been published for stock, internal combustion vehicle. [SPEAKER_12]: They show a table on the press release page. [SPEAKER_12]: There's only two cars that went faster than that. [SPEAKER_12]: and they're both EVs. [SPEAKER_12]: The rematch and the vera are and the pinning for in a betista.

[SPEAKER_12]: The rematch went 7.9 seconds at 186 miles an hour and the betista went 8.55 seconds at 155 miles an hour. [SPEAKER_12]: So, you know, and those are cars that cost a couple of million dollars. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you can't think of it before these are price wise. [SPEAKER_03]: The only thing that's like close is is and it's they're almost they're pretty yeah they're so close.

[SPEAKER_12]: You wouldn't know the difference if you were sitting in the stands ever you would never like it be a photo finishes the lucid air sapphire, which is an EV yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: So this is half the price of a Mustang GTD, and it is way, way faster. [SPEAKER_12]: And it has a trunk that you can fit a paddleboard into. [SPEAKER_12]: There you go. [SPEAKER_12]: Which you can't do on a Mustang GTD. [SPEAKER_12]: The GTD has no trunk. [SPEAKER_08]: So that's a major detraction.

[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's a major detraction. [SPEAKER_12]: You can't take your paddleboard with you in the GTD. [SPEAKER_12]: You can't take the CR1X. [SPEAKER_08]: Because that's totally what I'd use my zero and next for is to, you know, like, uh, definitely it's kind of a lake adventure some car. [SPEAKER_08]: Forget a Subaru. [SPEAKER_08]: Let's get this. [SPEAKER_12]: It's all wheel drive, you know, it's a little more difficult. [SPEAKER_03]: It's essentially just a Subaru.

[SPEAKER_03]: If it's all wheel drive, it's a Subaru. [SPEAKER_03]: Basically, take your dogs to the vet, you know, take your dogs to the lake. [SPEAKER_03]: I took Bowie, he's the drummer shepherd in the BRZ to the vet and he didn't want to sit in the back because those seats are horrible. [SPEAKER_03]: And so he sat in the front, but he's just a little bit too big so he kept trying to put his paws like on both his paws on the seat and he looked really weird, so he put his paws on the ground.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so when we came out of the vet he got in a car and I was texting my wife and some guy I was walking by and he's just sitting there in this front seat and guy I was just like looking at.

[SPEAKER_12]: So, you know, Nicole, you know, you could, you could still get a zero one X. [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I could, that, I mean, you know, $29,700 is only slightly higher than what I had in my, just I don't have to stretch it just, the, the tiniest of bits just, and just, you know, I mean, and of course, you know, you want to get some winter tires for it. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: You've got all wheel drive. [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, some winter tires. [SPEAKER_08]: It's unfortunate.

[SPEAKER_08]: I don't have that to drive tomorrow when we get half a foot of snow because that's going to be better than the defender I have sitting here. [SPEAKER_08]: Folcho. [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: There's some blizz acts on there. [SPEAKER_08]: Right, and it will be totally fine. [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: Let's see.

[SPEAKER_12]: Honda did a business update this week, and one of the things that they announced is that they are ending production of the current generation RD AccurRDX. [SPEAKER_12]: And because they've got the new RSX coming this year, which for at least temporarily is going to take the RDX's place, you know, it's a similar size vehicle, but it's electric and it's going to kind of take the place of the RDX in the lineup for for now.

[SPEAKER_12]: But they do have a new RDX coming at some future date that they did not specify. [SPEAKER_12]: But the next gen RDX will be a hybrid, and it's going to be the hybrid system that we got to try out when we were in Japan in October. [SPEAKER_12]: So it's their new platform, which I talked about back in early November after I came back from Japan, which [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, is an interesting new platform for their larger utilities and trucks and vans and so on.

[SPEAKER_12]: But has some has a little bit of flex built into it to allow for the claim better road grip. [SPEAKER_12]: Certainly seem to work on the prototype that we drove and it's a a new version of their hybrid system that has two sets of final drive years. [SPEAKER_12]: So that at higher speeds, they can pick from the two different ratios and that will have a broader range of where they can run the engine at higher speeds to get better overall energy efficiency.

[SPEAKER_12]: So that's coming probably we'll probably see it sometime in 2027 as a 2028 model. [SPEAKER_12]: Cool. [SPEAKER_08]: That's a good thing. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: And then Honda also announced that they've got they've developed a new lightweight camper and camper trailer called the base station. [SPEAKER_08]: Okay, I think this looks cool. [SPEAKER_08]: I love how it's looks. [SPEAKER_08]: I won't win. [SPEAKER_08]: I won't win.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can still win with Motocompactos and have a game. [SPEAKER_08]: Look at who it is. [SPEAKER_08]: Like it's a little, it's just, it's just, the cutest looking thing. [SPEAKER_08]: And then the way it opens up, where it gets, you can stand it. [SPEAKER_08]: It has a huge, heavy. [SPEAKER_12]: Get a pop top. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, look at the top. [SPEAKER_12]: VW van. [SPEAKER_08]: And it has like a lift gate, like the door opening isn't just a door.

[SPEAKER_08]: It's this huge lift gate. [SPEAKER_08]: So be super easy to get in and out of, you don't have to be slamming a door all the time. [SPEAKER_08]: I love it. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how this looks. [SPEAKER_03]: If you're camping and it's like raining, you can get under there. [SPEAKER_03]: You can be under that lift gate and like take off your muddy shoes or whatever. [SPEAKER_03]: And then get into the vehicle without getting rained on, which is nice.

[SPEAKER_08]: I kind of think this is cool. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, and you know that they kept the and the same only weighs 1,500 pounds. [SPEAKER_08]: So you see a CRV could tow this, which is incredible. [SPEAKER_08]: It doesn't have to like, you don't have to have like a great big three row or a truck or something. [SPEAKER_08]: The CRV!

[SPEAKER_12]: And, you know, the, the photo, the images, they released, you know, have it behind the the new zero SUV, um, and with the, you know, with the top down, uh, you know, it's just barely taller than the zero SUV. [SPEAKER_12]: Uh, so, you know, you're not, you know, you're not going to have nearly as much aerodynamic drag as you would with a larger trailer. [SPEAKER_12]: Um, so you could, it's going to have a lot less impact on the range of an EV.

[SPEAKER_12]: But yeah, I mean, the ability to tow this thing with something like a CRV or RDX would be really cool. [SPEAKER_08]: And then like something like this, this is cool. [SPEAKER_12]: The interior is deliberately kept kind of wide open. [SPEAKER_12]: There's sort of a bed that normally can be a bench, but it can fold down as well to be a bed for two. [SPEAKER_12]: And then you can, you've got it set up so you can add a second bunk up in the pop top area.

[SPEAKER_12]: So it can, it can sleep up to four people. [SPEAKER_12]: It's got a nice low loading floor. [SPEAKER_12]: It's modular so you can put all kinds of different things into it. [SPEAKER_12]: It's, and it's a slick design. [SPEAKER_12]: I like the design of it. [SPEAKER_08]: It really, it has this very futuristic. [SPEAKER_08]: Curvy cool design. [SPEAKER_08]: I think it looks great. [SPEAKER_08]: I really do think it looks good. [SPEAKER_08]: So it doesn't look like a typical camper.

[SPEAKER_08]: It makes me think of what was it lost in space with their little, their little vehicle they had. [SPEAKER_08]: I think it was a space. [SPEAKER_08]: That's what it makes me think.

[SPEAKER_12]: So there's no word on pricing on this yet, or even when it's gonna come out, my guess is probably not, certainly not before next year, 2027 at the earliest, but, [SPEAKER_12]: It'll be curious to see how they price it because there are some other small lightweight trailers, some of which are pretty expensive, like some friends of ours, how one from a company called happier camper that is kind of similarly sized to this, actually probably smaller than this.

[SPEAKER_12]: And I think it was like $55,000. [SPEAKER_08]: They're very expensive. [SPEAKER_12]: They're not cheap by, yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_08]: And I know I feel like that would make sense if you're making a small little camper and you wanted to be something that you know people are going to be able to all around with the CRV it's it should not be something that's outrageously expensive you know that's not the price point of the CRV owner.

[SPEAKER_12]: Well our our friends with their happier camper they tell it with an Odyssey on the Odyssey. [SPEAKER_08]: Okay. [SPEAKER_08]: There you go. [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: Let's talk to the Lantess. [SPEAKER_12]: So website's working. [SPEAKER_04]: Is it working again? [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: So first up for Stilantis, after they paused importation of the Tenali for a while last year, it's back again, the Alfa Romeo Tenali.

[SPEAKER_12]: But it's no longer available with the plugin hybrid system, so that's another one that they drop the plugin hybrid from. [SPEAKER_12]: just the 2-liter turbo 4-cylinder, you know, it got a refresh this year, a styling refresh, so new front end. [SPEAKER_12]: But the, the, the Tanali's sibling, the Dodge Hornet is dead. [SPEAKER_12]: It is no more. [SPEAKER_03]: Womp, womp. [SPEAKER_12]: You can probably still get one for quite a while.

[SPEAKER_12]: I think there's still quite a few of them sitting on dealer lots, because it, it was not a great seller. [SPEAKER_08]: No, it wasn't, unfortunately, it was an interesting idea, but it was not the target market for ye oldie dodge owners. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Didn't quite fit the dodge muscle aesthetic. [SPEAKER_08]: No, brotherhood of muscle thing did not. [SPEAKER_08]: It did not quite fit that.

[SPEAKER_12]: Not big enough to squeeze a hemie into, so it's out of there. [SPEAKER_12]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_08]: um we did what what did you think I mean it's always fun interviewing Tim because I feel like you could just put your microphone in front of him and say so how's it going and not ask a single other question if you didn't feel like it and you'd have a straight half hour tip just riffing on everything I thought it was interesting talking to him he's he's probably one of the most [SPEAKER_08]: blunt executives. [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know how many times did you have to beat him?

[SPEAKER_12]: Don't we had to have actually when I went back and looked at it, uh, they're, they're, they were, they were none. [SPEAKER_12]: I guess warned it was to map bombs in there. [SPEAKER_08]: I have to listen to it again. [SPEAKER_08]: I would listen to it again because I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything in there. [SPEAKER_03]: If he had the F bomb energy, that's what's. [SPEAKER_08]: He always has F bomb energy, which is not a bad thing.

[SPEAKER_08]: And it was, it was interesting talk to him and hearing what he thinks the strategy is for the, the different brands in the US for Jeep, for Chrysler, for Dodge, for Ram, sorry. [SPEAKER_08]: I suddenly forgot what brands were talking about. [SPEAKER_08]: I thought it was an interesting conversation.

[SPEAKER_08]: And I think he's, you know, he did a very good job of being confident that they have the right strategy [SPEAKER_08]: more that what was he he has a kind of talk and he retox about the number of trucks he has and the number of vehicles that are in Chrysler's lineup. [SPEAKER_08]: So Chrysler is the Pacifica. [SPEAKER_04]: Yes. [SPEAKER_08]: That's Chrysler.

[SPEAKER_08]: And he's like, well arguably, we really don't have, you know, the trucks, you know, I'm like, well, no, you have a lot of different kinds of trucks truly, they're not. [SPEAKER_08]: It's not like they have 18 flavors of the Pacifica. [SPEAKER_08]: They go like one, you know. [SPEAKER_08]: So he has some [SPEAKER_08]: He's going hard on, they have the right mix, they've done the right things, they've done the right stuff with praising.

[SPEAKER_08]: So I thought it was interesting, when did you think Sam? [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, you know, because still not to sell all four brands in the same showrooms. [SPEAKER_12]: It's not like with GM for example, you've got Chevrolet dealerships and GMC dealerships and Buick dealerships and Cadillac dealerships. [SPEAKER_12]: where you can have a little bit of overlap because they're in different stores or not in the same physical location.

[SPEAKER_12]: Still, you've got all four brands in one location. [SPEAKER_12]: And so, you know, one of the things you talked about was not necessarily having to have [SPEAKER_12]: every body style, every type of vehicle in each brand, you know, because you don't necessarily want, you know, the same crossover as a Chrysler and as a Dodge, you know, or a Jeep, you know, there needs to be some distinction between them.

[SPEAKER_12]: So it sounds like you'd be still, at least for the time being committed to all four brands. [SPEAKER_12]: We'll see, you know, how that evolves, [SPEAKER_12]: But, you know, the other thing that they're focused on right now is ramping up the hammy production, especially in the trucks. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, I think you talked about last year they built, they got 30,000 ram 1500 hammies built, about 10,000 of them delivered to customers this year they're targeting 100,000.

[SPEAKER_12]: And, you know, between the five seven hammy and the health cat in the TRX, you know, that's their priority for RAM for the moment. [SPEAKER_12]: And so, you know, between the conversation with Tim and talking to some other folks, you know, the RAM rev the E-Rav version. [SPEAKER_12]: is not going to be coming till sometime the second half of the year after they launch the TRX. [SPEAKER_12]: And then there's also the the the wagon here. [SPEAKER_12]: The grand wagon here.

[SPEAKER_12]: Erev. [SPEAKER_12]: That's that's going to be coming. [SPEAKER_12]: That's also going to be sometime the second half of the year. [SPEAKER_12]: Basically, they're trying not to launch too many things simultaneously. [SPEAKER_12]: They're staggering things so that they can, you know, and he's talked about this before, you know, they want to focus on the quality and getting, getting these things built right, you know, instead of trying to do too many things at once.

[SPEAKER_12]: So, interesting conversation, and of course, you know, we only had, ultimately, about 17 minutes with Tim. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, he had 20 minute time slots, because everybody wanted to talk to Tim, because he was one of the only, he and Antonio Foloso were the only executives.

[SPEAKER_12]: available at the show and, you know, and Tim is unlike most executives, you know, is having a conversation with somebody from GM, you know, who would ask, you know, would you help to have more conversations with Mary Bara, said to be honest with you, no, not really, you know, because I was at a fire side chat with her on Monday afternoon that she did with [SPEAKER_12]: And, you know, there's about 40 minutes conversation and really didn't get much new out of it.

[SPEAKER_12]: You know, and the thing I told, you know, the GMPR persons, you know, got a lot of respect for Mary. [SPEAKER_12]: But, you know, she has been at this awhile. [SPEAKER_12]: She's very well trained, media trained. [SPEAKER_12]: She is very much on message all the time. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, you are almost never going to get surprises from talking to Marybara in public. [SPEAKER_08]: And I think, you know, there's a point to a point that's good, right?

[SPEAKER_08]: Because you don't want your executive team going off the handle and saying crazy things. [SPEAKER_08]: And they need to still be professional. [SPEAKER_08]: But it also can make for really boring interviews.

[SPEAKER_08]: When you get it, like there's a line between, [SPEAKER_08]: Making sure I'm toeing the party light and I'm not saying anything completely untoward or it's going to make people angry and still being more human and having a little fun with things and being a little bit more and Mary's so on message. [SPEAKER_08]: She really is and she's great but it's the message it's exactly it's so in a box that it's hard to have a really unique or interesting conversation with her sometimes.

[SPEAKER_12]: Well, let's start with a big question. [SPEAKER_12]: Tim, what's your vision for Stalantis in North America? [SPEAKER_00]: Besides, how many's in Hellcasts? [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so that's probably a question you should be asking Antonio. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Is this CEO of North America? [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: I work on the brands. [SPEAKER_00]: I could tell you what my vision is for the brands. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll look what we're doing on the brands.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you want to see from the brands? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, your question was very high level, very like, what are you going to do to change the company? [SPEAKER_00]: Not my favorite, too. [SPEAKER_00]: Go talk to him. [SPEAKER_00]: But on the brands, I think we're doing some some fun stuff, most of which we honestly haven't materialized in the marketplace yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I look back at last year, [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the stuff that I said we were going to do and announced we were going to do looks like unfulfilled promises. [SPEAKER_00]: I call it last year kind of the dog gear. [SPEAKER_00]: It was almost like seven years in one because we did so much shit, but it doesn't look like most of that as materialists. [SPEAKER_00]: We launched four new jeeps in four months. [SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think in the 33 years of adunance, I don't think we've ever done that kind of a Keynes have launched four new products in four months. [SPEAKER_00]: They're literally just arriving at dealerships right now So even though we talked about it for six freaking months, just now starting to get to him. [SPEAKER_00]: He's a great example We lost him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He I don't even know how the headline of 10,000 orders in one day We came this like huge thing and we key [SPEAKER_00]: You saw a half of me, it tracks 10,000. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a crazy number, I mean, it's a great number, but it's not like you can game games. [SPEAKER_00]: It took out a line of its own. [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is we launched heavy never super excited. [SPEAKER_00]: Me too. [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to bring back that choice for the customer. [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is we shut down the heavy line. [SPEAKER_00]: Even when we announced that we brought it back, we had to bring the hammyline back up to speed. [SPEAKER_00]: We had to depriorize the production line. [SPEAKER_00]: We had to depriorize the T6 to bring the hammy back up and all these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is the reason I'm telling you that story is we, in that whole time period, which took 50,000 orders, we only built 30,000. [SPEAKER_00]: And by the time they got to dealerships, we only sold 10,000. [SPEAKER_00]: So Ram sales were up. [SPEAKER_00]: last year retail to customers, 50,000 units increase, up 17%. [SPEAKER_00]: Only 10,000 more hengies. [SPEAKER_00]: Now you only tell you that, not to say, hey, we could have done better.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tell you that to say, we only built 30,000 last year. [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to build over 100,000 this year, 3x, what we did last year. [SPEAKER_00]: So all that worked that we did is just started to come to fruition. [SPEAKER_00]: We made all this noise with NASCAR. [SPEAKER_00]: We have a new racer. [SPEAKER_00]: We're kind of rich and they don't him for the first time. [SPEAKER_00]: So we haven't been there yet We've talked about the TV show the TV show hasn't launched it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about three each at three each It has a wash shit To your ex. [SPEAKER_00]: We lost your ex. [SPEAKER_00]: You're not gonna be able to buy it to a server. [SPEAKER_00]: So what I'm saying is last year We built the foundation It's on the work [SPEAKER_00]: Just starting to see it coming out. [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that we're doing, your question specifically, what are you going to do on the brands, is we're trying to widen the scope of the brands.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you see the announcement will be the 13 billion, 13 billion highs back perfectly to your question, because it helps us expand the scope of our brands. [SPEAKER_00]: Within the 13 billion, we're going to increase the capacity of Cherokee and Compass. [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that we've been constrained out is production capacity. [SPEAKER_00]: The reason that we didn't sell a lot of units to [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have the fast Sterling Heights was really strangled.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hemie was not helping T6 had to come down while we were ramping up here. [SPEAKER_00]: So we didn't have the production. [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to get fixed. [SPEAKER_00]: We're bringing M.T.4 to Cocoa mode. [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to give us more engine availability.

[SPEAKER_00]: Within the 13 billion reannos, so we're going into Toledo to build the mid-sized truck, which could desperately need a mid-sized truck, because we used to have the most successful mid-sized truck of all time. [SPEAKER_00]: 2000 and 19 when you were killing it with ran. [SPEAKER_00]: But we didn't have a decoder in 19. [SPEAKER_00]: We had the DS classic truck. [SPEAKER_00]: The DS classic truck sold $40,000, which is the price of a mid-sized truck, but with a full-sized truck.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was an absolute game change. [SPEAKER_00]: I need to get back to that with the decoder. [SPEAKER_00]: And then we're going to bring in. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's going to be another big enabler for us is a ram full size utility vehicle in Warren. [SPEAKER_00]: We were the only ones in the industry trying to go into that very lucrative segment with only one offering. [SPEAKER_00]: And we were trying to spread a gap of $50,000 with one brand.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one's ever lagging in here. [SPEAKER_00]: It was too big of a gap for a while. [SPEAKER_00]: No one's ever done that successfully crossed $50,000 with, okay, we call it a wagging in your grandmother. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's be honest. [SPEAKER_00]: It was the same car, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So you don't have enough woods and letters and sunrushs. [SPEAKER_00]: Just the file value walk of $50,000.

[SPEAKER_00]: So now we're going to do it like everybody else, you know, GM's got three a Chevy a GMC in the Cadillac Horge got forward and Lincoln. [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to come with a ram version and our Jeep version and then your next question is going to be oh So rans going to be the cheap one and jeep's going to be expensive one.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's going to be two different customers One of the value of our company is we have one show room with four different brands with four different positions And we can appeal to different customers within those positions [SPEAKER_00]: It's no different than what we did, and now it sounds like that's corporate bullshit. [SPEAKER_00]: But just look back at history, we did the success really with the most of cars, flies, that shouldn't say it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We did this immensely with Brampton. [SPEAKER_00]: You had a charger four door and you had a three hundred four door. [SPEAKER_00]: They were the same crop. [SPEAKER_00]: They appealed to two completely different customers. [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't cheap when expensive. [SPEAKER_00]: It was two different customers. [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't crash up and they successfully existed in the market in the same shore. [SPEAKER_00]: We can do that in the very lucrative UV market as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a couple of the things that we're doing to expand the scope of the brands which I think is going to be our group potential because right now we're competing in 55% of the industry when you look at all of our sales [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's going to take you to get to that 70 high. [SPEAKER_00]: The 75 is going to be within the next two years. [SPEAKER_06]: You're in that quick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: How much will the Dakota, the new trot, the saw, a sleigh, and it's in your numbers for real? [SPEAKER_00]: It will be very important to us because if you look at the light that you truck, light to your truck is about a million and a half units. [SPEAKER_00]: And it is the battleground in the industry. [SPEAKER_00]: Not only is it, you know, the most lucrative and all the domestics have to live and die in that segment.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's 1.5 million years. [SPEAKER_00]: is, you know, everybody talks about affordability and cost of vehicles and everything. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, a mid-sized track today is the same size as a bull size track with a 15 year city. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the shooter carrying around hasn't got, you know, significantly larger. [SPEAKER_00]: So, the mid-sized truck can appeal to a lot of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: The industry by the time we bring the decoded in the market will be a half a million units. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, we'll grow to 700,000 units from there. [SPEAKER_00]: So, it'll be half the size of what we consider in the battleground today. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, you know, to come a long last year with 278,000 units. [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing, isn't it? [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So, now I put that one in a little bit of a different space than I could.

[SPEAKER_00]: The domestic mid-sized trucks? [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm. [SPEAKER_05]: Why? [SPEAKER_00]: Uh... [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's it's been their longer. [SPEAKER_00]: It's got kind of a cold following. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just a little bit of a different these. [SPEAKER_06]: Do you think you're Dakota to have the same cult fall? [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do we're going to do a very unique positioning of Dakota.

[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, it's going to be a real credible, a lot of capability vehicle. [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be body on framed, which it needs to be to transition to leg duty [SPEAKER_00]: tell you more about it, but I think I think our positioning of it is pretty cool. [SPEAKER_00]: The people that have seen it were... [SPEAKER_00]: pretty shop. [SPEAKER_00]: They're like, oh, that's just like, it's up right. [SPEAKER_12]: Technically, you had a midsize truck with gladiator.

[SPEAKER_12]: This gladiator stick around with the code. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously not sad to hear it. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the first say I'm very done. [SPEAKER_00]: It's in the segment, a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, in hindsight, should we a poll gladiator or Wrangler? [SPEAKER_00]: Probably way, frankly, we did with soul 250,000.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you had gladiator Wrangler together, and nobody would be sending out a press release yesterday on the RTR, which is a sticker [SPEAKER_00]: If you couldn't my one that has a bet on it, we kicked their ass, but whatever, it is what it is. [SPEAKER_00]: The reality is, though, does that compete with Colorado Canyon in Tacoma? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not really grasshop with it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's more of a wrangler.

[SPEAKER_00]: It has all the functionality of a mid-sized truck. [SPEAKER_00]: It can cross-shop through the mid-sized truck. [SPEAKER_00]: It absolutely can, but it's different. [SPEAKER_00]: It's, you know, with the solid axle in the pronger, it tracks more of a wrangler buyer when it doesn't mid-sized truck buyer. [SPEAKER_00]: And it will not stop my way. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, that's what we keep it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think it's going to be like a restaurant and it's feeling like the 300 charted. [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be too completely dry. [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to execute it completely different. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you mentioned Chrysler. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: What's going on with Chrysler? [SPEAKER_12]: What's the future of that brand? [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've heard a lot of different things over the last several years.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's been since like 2011 or something like that that I was working. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was 2011 actually. [SPEAKER_00]: I was working at Chrysler.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that question has been the exact same question [SPEAKER_00]: Ever since the days when Chrysler had Feetzy cruiser and C-bring and you know, had like the bigger of lineup that questions come up over and over and over to what's going to happen across the way you go Chrysler, they're going to shut that Chrysler DVD Chrysler.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is if I looked at each of these brands and tried to treat them as a showroom yeah, you can make that keep how you can make that case out right because if you're going to like you to truck and having to trip a truck okay [SPEAKER_00]: One vehicle. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I had pro master in it. [SPEAKER_00]: I got one vehicle in a commercial vehicle, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So you can make the same case the reason you don't make the case is because you go, oh wait in it You're so 550,000, well, oh, so I'm not gonna ask you that of course that makes sense But price so you go on this old 125,000 close You need that friend. [SPEAKER_00]: You need that brand because you're in a showroom that's a house of brands I have pulled it from brands in the same short.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to have a pickup person first I don't need to think of truck per person [SPEAKER_00]: That could expand, Crusher? [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the reason I could expand Crusher is each of these grants has a very unique position. [SPEAKER_00]: There are a large number of people in the street. [SPEAKER_00]: 17 million units in the street, and we saw, you know, 1.8 million of the North America branch. [SPEAKER_00]: that 1.8 billion by the way was was global.

[SPEAKER_00]: So 1.4 in North America. [SPEAKER_00]: So 1.4 out of the 14,7 million, 17 million unit total in North America. [SPEAKER_00]: It's still quite small. [SPEAKER_00]: But within that population that we don't get, there is a deep population of people that don't need to go off road. [SPEAKER_00]: Whether they go off road or just think that they will someday maybe have to keep building a guard out.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a huge honor of people that could care less about doing a burnout and want a muscle car. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was huge, probably, to people that I don't know how to tell a boat, I don't care. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to put anything in the bed of my truck. [SPEAKER_00]: I know. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't need that. [SPEAKER_00]: They need transportation. [SPEAKER_00]: They need cool, reliable, transportation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And within our house of brands, [SPEAKER_00]: This brand is never gonna be for that customer. [SPEAKER_00]: This brand, if we do it right, this brand is never gonna be for that customer of this brand There, and so what do I do? [SPEAKER_00]: Do I ignore them? [SPEAKER_00]: No, so can I girl? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure I can do a car suit But is it my number one priory state? [SPEAKER_00]: No So when we get there, right? [SPEAKER_06]: What is your number one?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, no one priory is where the money is, brand, brand and cheap. [SPEAKER_00]: This is my volume This is my money. [SPEAKER_00]: This is my fun and this is gonna be something that we have capability to grow in the future. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely [SPEAKER_12]: So, you know, we put it up called to our listeners or what they would want to hear from you. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: And one of the questions was about the affordability.

[SPEAKER_12]: And somebody also had, you know, back when the other guy was still in charge, he talked about bringing the new $25,000 Jeep on a new ramp hit or Bradleygate to the lineup. [SPEAKER_00]: Is that still part of the plan?

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you can have this conversation with every industry, you know, ever since Pro-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co-Co [SPEAKER_00]: the challenges are is is the entire industry.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you're seeing it right now. [SPEAKER_00]: The industry is taking huge rate off. [SPEAKER_00]: So they can huge rate off. [SPEAKER_00]: Because everybody is deprioritizing a landification, but yet, we're going to invest it to have a trillion dollars in this. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm really thinking these two dreadouts. [SPEAKER_00]: So at the same time, we're taking huge rate off. [SPEAKER_00]: So you're going to see everybody announce, oh, we're going to cut prices 10,000.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's impossible. [SPEAKER_00]: It can't. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't take billions of billions of billions of dollars to write off. [SPEAKER_00]: So they go, oh, by the way, I'm going to cut the price. [SPEAKER_00]: But what you can do, and you see us doing it, [SPEAKER_00]: So we did a flank called the Jeep reset. [SPEAKER_00]: What we did is we didn't say, hey, we're going to cut the price of these, we said we're going to make Jeep more cheap.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to give you more value. [SPEAKER_00]: If you look across the Jeep lineup, we just added about $4,000 of customer value to all of our Jeep con average. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's a similar thing to add or decoding the price because we took features that people want it and we lower the price, 35 inch reels are now $3,000 instead of $5500. [SPEAKER_00]: Is that a $2,500 price cut? [SPEAKER_00]: No. [SPEAKER_00]: But everybody wanted it in any way, so kind of is the price cut.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I can give you more value without cutting the price and give you more G. [SPEAKER_00]: at the same time. [SPEAKER_00]: So that is adding value. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that is something we need to do a better job in the industry. [SPEAKER_00]: We did it on TRX. [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody talks about it at TRX because you go, oh, it's hanging $9,000. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a freaking ton of money. [SPEAKER_00]: But a lot cheaper than a rapper are.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's $15,000 cheaper than a rapper in its $25,000 cheaper than the outgoing model. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's done the new platforms, so it adds more technology and more features. [SPEAKER_00]: So now you get more value, more features in a lower price. [SPEAKER_00]: But okay, it's still 100 brands, so it's not like it's in a portability issue, but the more that we can do that, the better. [SPEAKER_00]: Look at the notch. [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody says, oh my god, that's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, is it? [SPEAKER_00]: 120 horsepower all-wheel drive. [SPEAKER_00]: Now with the new hatchback design, I've got more functionality. [SPEAKER_00]: I've got 120 horsepower standard, and I've got all-wheel drive. [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm $49.95. [SPEAKER_00]: Go back in time and look at what you got at that performance of what the price is. [SPEAKER_00]: It's less expensive than it was previously faster than it was previously at the first sack.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, the fact, the oil driving that car gives you the capability of having it all other everywhere than the Midwest. [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have to be a toy. [SPEAKER_00]: You can drive it as an everyday car. [SPEAKER_00]: So I got that. [SPEAKER_00]: I also have performance. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, a 550 horsepower T-sickeler drive will be the [SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm giving it, I'm giving more and more belly.

[SPEAKER_05]: So, Nick has spoken to me and told me I have one more question. [SPEAKER_05]: So, I want to ask questions. [SPEAKER_05]: So, we were talking about the, you know, the electrification strategies come to you changing for every automatic route. [SPEAKER_05]: There goes, got rid of the G has. [SPEAKER_05]: And that you're introducing a new vehicle with a recon in G. Do you think that's what people want? [SPEAKER_00]: The G?

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Like, is that the, the pull off the doors and go off road? [SPEAKER_00]: The question is, [SPEAKER_00]: the definition of people, which is very vague, a percentage of people that the use case works, electrification is amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: You guys have driven tons of luxury cars. [SPEAKER_00]: So, she's the only one. [SPEAKER_00]: You have a perspective that the average customer does not have.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those customers that are opposed to electrification never driven a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: But, in a lot of cases, they don't need you, because they know that it doesn't fit their use case. [SPEAKER_00]: They know that [SPEAKER_00]: They live in an apartment. [SPEAKER_00]: They don't have access to a church at night or they know where they live.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no infrastructure for charity or they know, by bringing it's too expensive or they know, I need to show my book and I've read the stats and it won't tell my book and read the pool, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not all the six promise. [SPEAKER_00]: The industry wanted to go to 50, 60 plus percent electrification adoption. [SPEAKER_00]: customer pull for electrification is probably more in the sub 10 percent range.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, will that 10 percent grow as we get better? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But the cost of better is going to come down. [SPEAKER_00]: The weights got to come down. [SPEAKER_00]: The overall price is going to come down. [SPEAKER_00]: The infrastructure is going to come up. [SPEAKER_00]: The question is, when's that going to happen? [SPEAKER_00]: We were trying to make it happen in one year.

[SPEAKER_00]: is that going to happen in two years three years five years ten years high I don't know but eventually it will happen and we will get to that fifty sixty percent I just don't know if it's going to be three years or ten years and that way it's not going to be twenty thirty that's for sure that's why you see everybody breaking down these huge investments because they they have they have warehouses full of batteries and they're like I'm not going to be able to use those in actually four months not going to happen but we will get there

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm I fully believe that we will get one last quick one. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't we gonna bring back. [SPEAKER_00]: Is he gonna bring back a rampage? [SPEAKER_00]: It's a good car. [SPEAKER_00]: Looks good try it's good. [SPEAKER_00]: I like it. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_12]: Thank you gentlemen [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Well, you know, as I said, we weren't the only ones to talk to Tim. [SPEAKER_12]: There's also a list of brittle from motor trend, also sat down with him.

[SPEAKER_12]: And I've got to have a link in the shown us to her story. [SPEAKER_12]: One of the things that she talked about, talked to him about was putting a hemmy in the new charger. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, and of course the chargers, you know, the elbows in electric [SPEAKER_12]: basically Tim told her that probably not going to get the 5'7 in the charger because, you know, first of all, compared, you know, you got 550 horsepower with the hurricane.

[SPEAKER_12]: The hemies only 395 horsepower. [SPEAKER_12]: and the chargers standard all-wheel drive. [SPEAKER_12]: So it makes it hard to package that engine in there with the all-wheel drive system in the front. [SPEAKER_12]: And it's just not really worth it. [SPEAKER_12]: If they're going to do anything with a V8 in there, it's probably going to be a Hellcat. [SPEAKER_12]: rather than the standard hemmy. [SPEAKER_12]: And even that, he remained somewhat non-committal on.

[SPEAKER_12]: So I love that link in the show notes as well. [SPEAKER_12]: But, you know, as far as our conversation goes, yeah, I mean, you know, covered fair amount of stuff in in 17 minutes, but [SPEAKER_12]: He did confirm, you know, Dakota built in Toledo, which was previously announced, but he also confirmed that the gladiators not going away. [SPEAKER_12]: There is going to be an ex-generation gladiator that is built on the same platform in Toledo.

[SPEAKER_12]: But that, you know, the customer base for the Ram Dakota and the Jeep gladiator, even though they're similar size and nominally both mid-size pickup trucks. [SPEAKER_12]: totally different customer base. [SPEAKER_12]: And so, you know, the gladiator is going to be, you know, very different vehicle from the Dakota. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, to be it. [SPEAKER_08]: So it makes sense to have both vehicles because small trucks but entirely different small trucks.

[SPEAKER_08]: So it makes sense. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Um, all right. [SPEAKER_12]: So that is everything I think we have for Stonlantis. [SPEAKER_12]: Um, so there was also some big news the other day, um, from, uh, actually from from Beijing. [SPEAKER_12]: Mark Carney, the, uh, relatively still relatively new Prime Minister of Canada, um, went to Beijing this week, uh, to talk to, uh, the Chinese leaders Xi Jinping.

[SPEAKER_12]: and came back with a signed trade deal that will see tariffs on Canadian products going into China substantially reduced so they get to sell their canola oil and all kinds of other products at almost no tariff in China. [SPEAKER_12]: And in return, Canada is dropping the tariffs on Chinese built EVs from 100% to just 6% for at least 49,000 units a year. [SPEAKER_12]: And so lower cost, Chinese EVs are going to start turning up in Canada in the not too distant future probably.

[SPEAKER_12]: And then, and then it was a follow up story, you know, again, not not really a surprise to those of us, you know, follow the industry, but Canada wants to have Chinese companies building their EVs in Canada.

[SPEAKER_12]: And I think it's only a matter of time, probably within the next 6 to 12 months that we hear the first announcements of probably BYD, but maybe GLE or somebody else building a factory or taking over a factory in Canada, because there's some stuff that is available. [SPEAKER_12]: And that's going to be built in Illinois now, and so, you know, there's a factory there that's not likely to be used any time in the foreseeable future.

[SPEAKER_12]: The GM Cammy plant in your in your soul that was building the bright drop electric fans. [SPEAKER_12]: That's not being used. [SPEAKER_12]: I think it, you know, I think it's only a matter of time before there's a deal for somebody. [SPEAKER_12]: Some Chinese company to build EVs in Canada. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's the first big flit hold for China here and that's in North America and that's it's a big deal.

[SPEAKER_08]: I don't think I wouldn't be surprised either to hear an announcement about a factory falling very quickly after. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, ladies, Canadians, you know, Canadian automakers, you know, the people working those factories are like, oh, okay, well, we can't do that now because he's, you know, the US companies pulled out. [SPEAKER_03]: And so they're like, oh, well, China's like, yeah, we'll build some cars there. [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right. [SPEAKER_03]: Cool. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: If you guys want to buy him, we'll build him. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Met Mexico doesn't have any Chinese factories yet. [SPEAKER_12]: Chinese assembly plants yet. [SPEAKER_12]: But 20% of Chinese sales are 20% of vehicle sales in Mexico last year and 25 were from Chinese brands. [SPEAKER_12]: So, they've already got a significant chunk of the, of the Mexican market.

[SPEAKER_12]: And so, you know, this is a, I wrote a, a blog post on the telemetry blog the other day. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, this could be an existential threat for the Detroit Auto industry. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: If they continue to just, you know, to keep building stuff like big V8 pickups and SUVs, they are going to be increasingly irrelevant everywhere outside of the United States borders.

[SPEAKER_12]: And between that and the antagonism that's being built up against the United States because of certain policies here, you know, people in other countries don't want to buy US products [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_12]: And so that's going to make it really tough, you know, if the UF, you know, if Ford, GM, Stellantis, don't continue to invest and develop, you know, competitive, you know, competitive products, including electrified vehicles, but all, you know, also, you know, smaller, more affordable vehicles. [SPEAKER_12]: You know, they've got it. [SPEAKER_12]: They've got to have stuff that is competitive in the rest of the world.

[SPEAKER_12]: And if they don't, they're going to be stuck with just the U.S. market and nothing else. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, it's a big market, but also maybe Greenland. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, maybe Greenland.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a big market, but also it's, you know, they have, they have, you know, facilities, and they have cars, and they have people who work on all these other countries, and if you, if you don't keep up, if you continue to sort of like, well, let's just keep throwing him, he's in everything. [SPEAKER_03]: That does not look well in the rest, you know, that's not going to help you in other countries. [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bob, Bob. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: So he sat trampled. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob.

[SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_12]: Bob. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I'm doing some work with Nick and with Test Miles, and this was actually the first story I wrote. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, woohoo! [SPEAKER_08]: So it's, it basically is talking about the prices of new cars and the impacts of what's made it priceier.

[SPEAKER_08]: Is it your imagination that you're walking into the dealership and you think, man, these all seem more expensive and it's not like there was this independent analysis by this company and they found it.

[SPEAKER_08]: between tariffs and all these different things that are happening at average price of new vehicles up about 13.5% which is about $6,400 price bump, you know, that it's 6400 dollars that shows up in your monthly payment and does make your new car a little bit more expensive, you know, it's not just the EV tax credit, you know, that that was part of it for EVs, but it's sort of an impact to both

[SPEAKER_08]: the use cars and the new cars everything is just it is a little bit more expensive and because use car new car prices are so high [SPEAKER_08]: use cars are a bit more desirable. [SPEAKER_08]: So even those tend to be skewing a little bit higher because people can get a more of a premium for those and they could have said two or three years ago. [SPEAKER_08]: So it was about the impact of the things that are making use in new cars more expensive to not your imagination about $6400.

[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, real reals. [SPEAKER_12]: It looks like, you know, this was primarily [SPEAKER_08]: Right, so it affects imports more than it does exactly. [SPEAKER_08]: If you're a U.S. manufacturer, so that's why it's an average, because it's looking at, you know, overall what it's, you know, some in poor cars are way more than 6400 or less more expensive. [SPEAKER_08]: So that sort of comes out to on average, is 64.

[SPEAKER_08]: Okay. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I mean, that's a big chunk of change, you know, in just one year. [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's not right. [SPEAKER_08]: It hasn't been like a slow creep like we're saying, oh, you know, since, you know, 20, 20, 10, since 2015. [SPEAKER_12]: It's on top of the slow creep we've had already. [SPEAKER_08]: Right, it's like, since last year, like that's a very short amount of time for a $6,400 price increase.

[SPEAKER_08]: That's not a small number. [SPEAKER_08]: That's a significant number, especially if you're looking for more budget friendly vehicles. [SPEAKER_08]: So that that increases is, [SPEAKER_08]: you are going to see it. [SPEAKER_08]: It's not your imagination and there's, you know, it's the terrorist. [SPEAKER_08]: It's the lack of incentives. [SPEAKER_08]: It's a lot of things that are impacting it, but it is genuinely, that's how much more it is going to cost.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_12]: All right. [SPEAKER_12]: Well, thanks all for listening and hopefully we'll hear all three of our voices all the way to the end this time.