Colors In The Driveway

[SPEAKER_00]: This is episode four hundred and eleven of wheel bearings. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Sam a bull Sam it from telemetry. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm the co-weekland from top speed. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International and what's been going on with you guys this week. [SPEAKER_00]: Anything interesting? [SPEAKER_03]: I think I'm exciting. [SPEAKER_00]: My band had a show, yeah? [SPEAKER_00]: Which band? [SPEAKER_00]: Which band? [SPEAKER_00]: Which band?

[SPEAKER_00]: We did it in like the seventy-two bands. [SPEAKER_00]: That's true. [SPEAKER_01]: It was an LCD sound system night. [SPEAKER_01]: We played with the Daphpunk DJ. [SPEAKER_01]: And when we got to the club, they were putting up a big wall, like a big video wall for the Daphpunk. [SPEAKER_01]: And we've done this show before with this DJ. [SPEAKER_01]: And typically, they put the wall about three quarters of the way back.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they put a table behind it for the DJ and then we just set up around it. [SPEAKER_01]: It's fine. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a pretty big stage. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not that big. [SPEAKER_01]: When we got there, the stage was right at the edge of the stage. [SPEAKER_01]: The video was right at the edge of the stage. [SPEAKER_01]: So we had to set up behind it. [SPEAKER_01]: And the stage has p-call the look through.

[SPEAKER_01]: That way you're like, it looked like you're in a booth. [SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't see the guitars, they're the drummer or the percussionist. [SPEAKER_03]: Sounds a little crazy. [SPEAKER_01]: It was very weird. [SPEAKER_01]: It was a weird night, but it was fine. [SPEAKER_01]: People had fun. [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, well, let us begin Nicole. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, sir. [SPEAKER_00]: I've been driving. [SPEAKER_03]: I have been driving.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to read the whole title again. [SPEAKER_03]: The twenty twenty five Mitsubishi Outlander SEL two point five SAWC.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's what it literally says when I'm ready, which is basically the second to the top trim of the Mitsubishi Outlander with the two, which is, I don't know why they put two point five, because there is a hybrid, but like unless you're getting the hybrid, this is the engine you have, so it's kind of, I felt like just say Pia, but on the other one or something. [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, so that is what I am driving this week. [SPEAKER_03]: I got to drive quite a bit too.

[SPEAKER_03]: The first thing I noticed, you know, I hadn't, [SPEAKER_03]: I got the car and then I immediately had to take off for the airport so I hadn't really had a chance to look at it yet so I hadn't played around with it. [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't realize it was three rows. [SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was just two because it looks so short and then I opened the trunk or the tailgate to put my bag in the back. [SPEAKER_00]: to be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: It should not be a three-row view.

[SPEAKER_03]: It should not have a third. [SPEAKER_03]: It should not. [SPEAKER_03]: So I have, and I think you guys have probably seen it. [SPEAKER_03]: I have a roller bag carry on that's not even a full rectangle. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a square people. [SPEAKER_03]: It's smaller than normal. [SPEAKER_03]: I can shove it under the seat in front of me. [SPEAKER_03]: It is that small. [SPEAKER_03]: When I went to put it in the car initially, it was hitting the tailgate, standing up on its edge.

[SPEAKER_03]: The tailgate was coming down and hitting the top of the suitcase, as small as it was. [SPEAKER_03]: So I had to fold the seats down to lay it flat to make sure that it would actually fit. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like ten cubic feet of space. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it was back there. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not alive. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that might be exaggerating a little bit. [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: tiny and that's what's behind the rear seats, but the third row, but when you look at the actual third row, which seats two people, I did not call back there because I feel like the contortionists in sitting back there. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Robbie would just be curled up like a giant pretzel. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't, I don't, I don't know, shrimp. [SPEAKER_03]: He'd be like, you just feel like curled in a little ball. [SPEAKER_01]: So ready for some sort of cocktail sauce dipping.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_03]: We just throw some back there. [SPEAKER_03]: So it is a three row SUV. [SPEAKER_03]: Just barely. [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like if you're putting him a one in that last row. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you can make three rows only on like five if you want. [SPEAKER_03]: If you're really ambitious. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it has three rows. [SPEAKER_00]: But the third row should should not ever be used. [SPEAKER_00]: It should just you should just fold it down.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: Leave it there. [SPEAKER_00]: You never touch it again. [SPEAKER_03]: absolutely and if you do choose to put humans back there before you do this it should be you should be apologizing profusely or it must it has to be like okay it's a zombie apocalypse either squish your cells in that third row or die then it's worth squishing in the third row otherwise [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no way. [SPEAKER_03]: So very, very tiny third row.

[SPEAKER_03]: That said, the second row is comfy. [SPEAKER_03]: The first row is comfy. [SPEAKER_03]: Those are nice and roomy. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not like the whole thing is sort of like compact size. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just that they wedge that third row in there. [SPEAKER_03]: A pricing on this one. [SPEAKER_03]: Now, this is there's one, two, three, four, five, six trims. [SPEAKER_03]: If I, because they do broke it out, front will drive in all will drives.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there's really [SPEAKER_03]: four trims so the it's the ESC the SCL that I drove and the platinum some one step from the very top of the lineup this one was forty three thirty forty four thousand six hundred and seventy five dollars um it had a couple little additions but nothing much what do you think the destination was uh twelve hundred dollars fourteen ninety five [SPEAKER_03]: Well, on the money, Sam. [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_03]: So kind of a high destination fee.

[SPEAKER_03]: When you look at that pricing, though, you know, a forty five thousand dollars is an outrageous for an SUV, nor is it outrageous for a three or a SUV, but, you know, like, let's, let's, let's step back from that statement a little. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: It is not substantially more expensive than the competition, which is not to say that it's not outrageous. [SPEAKER_00]: It just means that the entire market is outrageous.

[SPEAKER_03]: that's that's I guess fair to say it's everything is crazy right now but I don't feel like this one is [SPEAKER_03]: more crazy in the rest of them. [SPEAKER_03]: And because it is the, almost the top trim, you get a lot of features like there's heated and ventilated seats and there's quilted leather, it looks very nice. [SPEAKER_03]: There was a moment in time where Missy Beach is like really bad.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like there was a couple of them that just looked awful and you drive it and you vaguely felt like parts were gonna kind of fall off. [SPEAKER_03]: Cause the noise vibrate, the MVH noise vibration and harshness was so bad. [SPEAKER_03]: Cause like I actually, [SPEAKER_03]: It was one of the few cars I ever. [SPEAKER_03]: It was early on and I can't remember which Mitsubishi was. [SPEAKER_03]: I thought I'm not driving this. [SPEAKER_03]: Down we can't some road trip.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, we're taking our own car because I can't drive this. [SPEAKER_03]: This is just no, I don't trust this. [SPEAKER_03]: And it was brand new. [SPEAKER_03]: Not the case now. [SPEAKER_03]: This is a sturdy car. [SPEAKER_03]: It feels nice inside. [SPEAKER_03]: It's relatively quiet. [SPEAKER_03]: It's in it for an engine. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a two point five liter four cylinder. [SPEAKER_03]: A hundred and eighty one horsepower, a hundred and eighty one pound Vita torque.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, it especially powerful. [SPEAKER_03]: And it has a CVT. [SPEAKER_03]: You sometimes, if you mash that gas pedal, you know there's a CVT. [SPEAKER_03]: You can sort of hear a little bit of that wine to it. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's not [SPEAKER_03]: the best handling car or SUV out there. [SPEAKER_03]: When she'd get up to speed, it's just fine on the highway. [SPEAKER_03]: That was very comfortable.

[SPEAKER_03]: I had to make a couple trips back and forth into Boston this thing and it was a very comfortable SUV. [SPEAKER_03]: Toe rating is not super high. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like two thousand pounds. [SPEAKER_03]: The thing with this is for this, you know, it does what it's supposed to do. [SPEAKER_03]: It has room for seven. [SPEAKER_03]: It has three rows. [SPEAKER_03]: It has the actual features. [SPEAKER_03]: I know, air quotes. [SPEAKER_01]: It has seven seat belts.

[SPEAKER_01]: It has seven seat belts. [SPEAKER_01]: It has room for one, two, five, and then one person laying down in the back. [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: But still, I mean, it's fine, but I just don't feel like [SPEAKER_03]: you know with how small that third row is with how little cargo room there is behind it the sort of like okay fine but nothing special acceleration and handling I don't I wouldn't not recommend it but I feel like you can do better like I hate to knock a car and it's not that it's a bad car it's not that it's a bad vehicle it's just against some really

[SPEAKER_03]: series competition, like this is a crowded segment. [SPEAKER_03]: There are SUVs and crossovers galore, so in the segment where there are so many options. [SPEAKER_03]: Would this be the option you would pick Sam? [SPEAKER_00]: Not in this form. [SPEAKER_00]: This vehicle shares its platform with the current generation Nissan Rogue. [SPEAKER_00]: So it is effectively the same vehicle as the Rogue. [SPEAKER_03]: And the Rogue is just two rows.

[SPEAKER_03]: They don't do a third row. [SPEAKER_00]: And actually back in the mid-twentines Nissan did offer the Rogue with three rows. [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember having one to review back around twenty fourteen or fifteen. [SPEAKER_00]: And looking at this thing, it's like, why did they even bother with this? [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was a complete waste of space and adds, adds cost, adds complexity, adds weight, and serves no useful purpose.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think they got to they even have it. [SPEAKER_03]: It was a really short lived thing. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think the naming changes like there was the rogue. [SPEAKER_03]: Then there was the rogue Excel. [SPEAKER_03]: And then they were like, they did some naming stuff in there that just to make it super confusing when they had the third row. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that their row is not a long. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they dropped it after about three years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it didn't last long because I'm sure. [SPEAKER_03]: Most people are looking inside and saying, that is not a three row. [SPEAKER_00]: And this current generation one, they didn't bother to add off for the third row in the row, at least in North America. [SPEAKER_00]: They may offer it, I think, overseas, where it's called the X-Trail. [SPEAKER_00]: I think you can get it with the third row option, which, again, I think is not useful.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the design of the outlander versus the row, [SPEAKER_00]: I actually kind of like this better in the road. [SPEAKER_03]: I do like the styling of it. [SPEAKER_03]: Like everything, the inside of it. [SPEAKER_03]: Like it's almost kind of the shame. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like I just get rid of the third row and stop pretending. [SPEAKER_03]: Just make it a choreo as you see. [SPEAKER_03]: And it's more solid in that guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that would reduce the weight and probably make that one hundred and eighty one horsepower a little bit more robust when you lose the mechanisms for that third row of seats. [SPEAKER_03]: Seats are heavy. [SPEAKER_03]: But the interior. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it has a very premium interior. [SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, there's the, you know, he didn't ventilate seeds. [SPEAKER_03]: And you've got, you know, dual zone automatic climate control.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it has a nice big gap. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's like a twelve point three inch infotainment. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, twelve point three inch infotainment screen. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a standard eight speaker audio system Yamaha on most of the on some of the trims. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a twelve speaker on the on the ones that the one I was driving. [SPEAKER_03]: You get plenty of charging ports. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it has, it has a lot of great features like feature-wise.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a very feature-rich vehicle for the price. [SPEAKER_03]: I think on features on style, on design, on comfort, it does a great job for the price. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just that the third row is not really usable and the power, it's underpowered for how heavy it is, I guess. [SPEAKER_03]: If it got rid of those two things and getting rid of that third row, it fixed one thing and helped fix the other. [SPEAKER_01]: You just need to fill it down forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to be honest, most third rows are completely worthless. [SPEAKER_03]: But this one, like you know, like Robby, there's extra worthless. [SPEAKER_03]: There's some that you can get into the, you, I'm sure, can get into the third row and you're not thinking, this is where I'd like to spend eight hours, but you can get back there. [SPEAKER_03]: Can you have you've a crawled into the third row of the outlander or attempted to?

[SPEAKER_01]: I typically look, and I'm like, now, I just don't even bother, because, well, again, most third rows are sort of worthless. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just sort of like, you look at it, you're like, no, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, if I had to, it's like the second row of the BRZ. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the seats back there are completely worthless. [SPEAKER_01]: There are no use to any human ever.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess you might be able to get two very tiny people, like one of the pastor's seats, like scooshed already forwarded, and one of the backseat. [SPEAKER_01]: And when I say tiny people, I mean toddlers. [SPEAKER_01]: You and two toddlers could ride around in the nursing. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying, I'm like, I occasionally will look up like conversion kits. [SPEAKER_01]: Just to remove that, just to make it into to remove the seats and make it into what he called storage.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because why? [SPEAKER_01]: Why are they there? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I would fold the seats in this outlander and never, never unfold them because there'd be no reason to. [SPEAKER_03]: And then like that would even want you to do that, there's that I'm just part of the cargo specs. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's ten point nine behind the third row, thirty point two behind the second and sixty four point three behind the first.

[SPEAKER_03]: So [SPEAKER_00]: That's the thirty cubic feet is very competitive and probably slightly better than most of the other crossovers in this segment. [SPEAKER_00]: Most of them are in that twenty six to twenty eight cubic feet. [SPEAKER_03]: It's weird. [SPEAKER_03]: It's an odd duck for me. [SPEAKER_03]: So that's why I have a hard time with it. [SPEAKER_03]: I just, I feel like it could do, it could do more than it does. [SPEAKER_03]: Could do better.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, the one I actually prefer is the plugin hybrid. [SPEAKER_00]: The outlander of plugin hybrid. [SPEAKER_00]: That has a lot more performance. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the current generation one will go [SPEAKER_00]: Something like thirty miles on a charge. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's much better than the first generation. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I like the P. Have much better than the gas engine. [SPEAKER_03]: It's been a while, but I remember liking it as a P. Have.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the day just get the P. Have. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Just to be people. [SPEAKER_00]: The funny thing about the plug-in outlander is it actually has DC fast charging quote-unquote, but it has a chatomoport. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's got a J- seventeen seventy two port for ac charging at home. [SPEAKER_00]: And then it has a Chattamo port. [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's one of only two vehicles. [SPEAKER_00]: Ever sold in the US market with a Chattamo port.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other one being the Sun Leaf. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the thought. [SPEAKER_00]: And but the thing is the Chattamo port only charges at twenty kilowatts. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's just pretty quick to be honest for a P.H. [SPEAKER_01]: But you also got to find the one Shadowmote port at every E.A. [SPEAKER_01]: or EV ghost. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's always being used by somebody else because they're part charging their regular EV.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's a plug-in hybrid. [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, if you're doing a road trip, do you really need to stop, you know, for how far to charge up the battery? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just like you didn't see how, what you did. [SPEAKER_00]: Just don't get decent mileage. [SPEAKER_03]: The base trim. [SPEAKER_03]: This is a pretty significant, I think, is price jump though, the base jump. [SPEAKER_00]: How much was the one you drove?

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm looking just base trim to base trim, that this one, the ES, with front-wheel drive, for front-wheel drive is twenty-nine-six. [SPEAKER_03]: So, but if you go with the base trim of the P have forty thousand forty-four hundred forty-five, [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but all of the plug-in are all will drive. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, the SEL, that's playing in hybrid. [SPEAKER_03]: The ESL will drive is thirty one thousand. [SPEAKER_03]: And so that's the on the with the gas engine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so about about nine thousand dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so the SEL plug-in is forty six four forty six four forty six thousand four hundred. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and how much was the one you just drove?

[SPEAKER_00]: The mine was forty four thousand six hundred had about five grain of extra equipment on there so it's the MSRP on this would be thirty eight thousand in change without destination so yeah it's about it's about nine thousand extra yeah but you know if if you have some place to plug it in you get better performance you yeah if you can plug it in daily [SPEAKER_00]: then you can pretty much do all your daily driving without ever using any gas or using almost no gas.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you need to take a road trip, you can still just keep on driving as a hybrid. [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you can get rid of the added cost, I would go in your looking at the outlander. [SPEAKER_03]: I would go with the P. Have for sure. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, if you get one before, well, no, actually, never mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say, if you get one before the end of September, but it's, it doesn't actually qualify because it's not built in the US. [SPEAKER_00]: It's built in Japan. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so it doesn't matter. [SPEAKER_00]: Never mind. [SPEAKER_03]: Everyone. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: So that's the needs to be she outlander. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: Did you have anything, Robbie? [SPEAKER_01]: No, I got to call some stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: I got to, well, I have to figure out how we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're adjusting a little bit how we cover things on automotive engineering, which is part of the part of SE that I wear. [SPEAKER_01]: You should go to SE automotive engineering. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look it up, read all the fun nerdy content. [SPEAKER_01]: So I want to figure out how we're going to cover cars on Matt before I start getting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I get cars for the podcast, obviously, it's up, but there's just, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I got a lot of balls in the air, but I'm saying. [SPEAKER_01]: You gotta give it the beans. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: All the other old-timey things that I'm gonna say. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I had a very colorful weekend, my driveway. [SPEAKER_00]: I actually do some scheduling things between two different fleet companies, ended up with two cars at the same time again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just good. [SPEAKER_00]: It was just good. [SPEAKER_00]: It was just good. [SPEAKER_01]: It was your house and pick up one. [SPEAKER_00]: There we go. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll just drive it back to California and bring it back when you're done. [SPEAKER_00]: So, it was, it was a very colorful week. [SPEAKER_00]: As you know, I often complain that there are far too many monochromatic cars on the road, too many grays and silvers and whites and blacks.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I got a Volvo EX-Thirty in Moss Yellow. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh gosh, that's bright. [SPEAKER_00]: And a deep gladiator willies in orange, which is a very, very orange car, or a truck. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't just be called orange. [SPEAKER_03]: Is it really great? [SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm trying to remember. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go to it. [SPEAKER_00]: What do they call this orange? [SPEAKER_00]: It's juice exterior paint. [SPEAKER_03]: Juice, okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's spelled like J-O-O-S-E. [SPEAKER_03]: Of course it's about differently than normal because it's like this that's about like for yeah So which you like better color-wise the the moss yellow the Volvo or the juice of the Jeep I like them both I would probably go with the yellow you would yeah, I like I like the yellow yeah, and and to be fair I prefer driving the X-thirty [SPEAKER_00]: So let me start with the Jeep.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Gladiator is basically a longer wheel-based Wrangler with a pickup bed attached to the back. [SPEAKER_00]: And the wheelies is based on the sport. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like one of the lower trim levels, so it is nominally more affordable. [SPEAKER_00]: One of the complaints about the Gladiator ever since it came out, what five, six years ago now, has been that it's kind of expensive.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's still kind of expensive, although they have lowered the price a little bit in the past year, but it's still pretty expensive. [SPEAKER_00]: So the one that I had was the willys trim, and that means it gets, it's sort of, you know, it's not, it's got some off-road oriented stuff on there. [SPEAKER_00]: All Wranglers and Gladiators are pretty off-road capable even base models. [SPEAKER_00]: Although, as you go up the line up, they get more capable.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this one has a locking rear diff. [SPEAKER_00]: It has some firestone destination mud terrain tires, not just all terrain tires, but mud terrain tires. [SPEAKER_00]: There are thirty-two inch diameter, so it gives it a little more ground clearance. [SPEAKER_00]: It's got a couple of skid plates underneath there to protect the fuel tank, the transfer case. [SPEAKER_00]: And then when you climb inside, it's basically identical to being in a Wrangler.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you've been in a Wrangler and a Fortore Wrangler, it's essentially the same experience. [SPEAKER_00]: the the willies has a retractable soft top so there's two clamps at the windshield header you unclamp you release those and then basically you have to stand up it's not like being in a meata where you just unclamp it from the windshield header and flip it back over your shoulder [SPEAKER_00]: because this is a two row four-seat vehicle.

[SPEAKER_00]: That roof is pretty long so you actually have to get up and flip it back. [SPEAKER_00]: It actually takes a little bit of effort to fold it all the way back. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot easier than if you have a hard top or even if you have a soft top, four-door Wrangler.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know those can be kind of fiddly to take all the pieces off if you want to do open open air driving so this is fairly straightforward and it's pretty easy again you know to close it up you know if it starts raining on you you'll want to pull up you'll have to pull over and get up and reach back to pull it up but it's it's pretty it's easy to hook back up again

[SPEAKER_00]: But the rest of the experience is very much like driving a Wrangler, which means that the ride quality is not great. [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of noisy, it's kind of cramped, you know, it's narrow, you know, compared to a Bronco, the Wrangler has a and Gladiator, have a narrower body, if you're not watching a video. [SPEAKER_00]: Robby's kind of waving back and forth, tossing his head the way you would. [SPEAKER_01]: This is me with the Wrangler.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, up until the current generation, I've told everyone do not buy a Wrangler. [SPEAKER_01]: Also me, I would love to have a Wrangler without a top. [SPEAKER_01]: I know they're up until the current generation. [SPEAKER_01]: They're pretty bad. [SPEAKER_01]: But I would still be like, I still in my heart because my uncle had one and I was a little kid and the doors are off and it's like all the things. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't need any of the electronics.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need anything. [SPEAKER_01]: But I would still love a Wrangler. [SPEAKER_01]: I've had friends who the brakes just like failed on the Wrangler and they drove off into a field. [SPEAKER_01]: They weren't even off the road. [SPEAKER_01]: And they were on the road. [SPEAKER_01]: I have a cousin who had a Wrangler. [SPEAKER_01]: His children were terrified of driving it. [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, and yet, and still, again, up until the preferred generation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not great. [SPEAKER_01]: Not great at all. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would still be like, oh, that fifteen-year-old Wrangler? [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like Harley, I wouldn't buy a Harley Davidson, but I think I know people who ride motorcycles and would love a Harley Davidson knowing that it's a Harley Davidson, but they're just like, I can't help myself. [SPEAKER_00]: The current generation is substantially improved. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, the previous generation.

[SPEAKER_00]: So much better. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so it's still has solid axles front and rear, which is great if you're off-roading, but you know, ninety-five percent of Jeep owners never go off-road. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I would say I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say five percent, you know, take them off-road, which is probably about four and a half percent more than most other off-roaders.

[SPEAKER_00]: The only engine available in the Gladiator is the three-point six-liter Panestaur, which is a good engine, but this is a fairly heavy vehicle. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not exactly great performance. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a plug-in hybrid that's supposed to be coming for twenty twenty-six. [SPEAKER_00]: We'll see if that actually arrives. [SPEAKER_00]: But in the cab, it's compared to any other mid-sized pickup truck. [SPEAKER_00]: It does feel tight in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Compared to a ranger, or a Colorado, or even a Tacoma, which is one of the smaller ones. [SPEAKER_00]: It feels snug in there. [SPEAKER_00]: The body is narrow, because you've got those wide fenders, and then relatively narrow body on these things. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a great user experience. [SPEAKER_00]: But the old black. [SPEAKER_01]: And yet people buy him every time I drive what about this is awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: Get jostled around. [SPEAKER_01]: So cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: I win noise. [SPEAKER_01]: I got to yell at my passenger. [SPEAKER_01]: Aren't you having a best time? [SPEAKER_00]: The the the the the gladiator I had had the optional nine hundred ninety five dollar tri-fold tonneau cover on it. [SPEAKER_00]: I was doing a bunch of trimming. [SPEAKER_00]: We've got this massive bush on the side up. [SPEAKER_00]: actually it's more like a cluster of multiple bushes with the head of lilac in the middle of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then a whole bunch of other stuff that over the years just sprung up around it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I've been cutting down all of the other stuff except for the lilac. [SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to, you know, if I, if I want to put this out for curbside collection, I have to cut it all up and bundle it up or bag it up, you know, for the weekly curbside yard waste pickup.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or I can just load it up into a vehicle and take it out to the township compost site and just dump it out Which is what I did with a couple of loads of this stuff last week But you know the bed compared to the bed of any other mid-sized pickup truck and that's what this is the mid-sized you know, so it's in the same class with Ranger and Colorado and and Tacoma and Frontier [SPEAKER_00]: The bed is kind of small. [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of short. [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of shallow.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it kind of limits how much stuff you can load in the back there. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not all that useful as a truck. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not all that great to drive, you know, no more. [SPEAKER_00]: So then, you know, that's no better or no worse than a Wrangler. [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, if you open up the top and drive with the top open, take the doors off. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a unique experience that you're not going to get with any other vehicle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly not with any other pickup truck. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no other pickup truck on the market that you can fold the top down, take the doors off and theoretically even fold down the windshield. [SPEAKER_00]: You can still fold down the windshield on these things. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're not sure why you would want to do that. [SPEAKER_03]: Can you enjoy your face for the bugs? [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can enjoy bugs.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the protein of the future people, but get ready now. [SPEAKER_00]: Back when the current generation JL Wranglers first came out, first time I had one to review, I actually went to the effort of taking off the doors, at least the front doors, just to see what the experience was like driving around, driving around town with the doors off in these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, first of all, the thing you have to remember is the mirrors are unlike a Bronco, where the mirrors are actually mounted on the fenders. [SPEAKER_00]: on the Wrangler and the Gladiator, the mirrors are mounted on the doors. [SPEAKER_00]: So when you take off the doors, you have no outside mirrors. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you can go to, you know, to Mopar and lots of other places and there's aftermarket mirror kits you can buy that mount on the fenders.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're going to drive one of these things around with the doors off, you should probably do that. [SPEAKER_00]: But mirrors are not the other thing because of the way this thing is shaped when you drive what the doors off the wind turbulence coming around that flat windshield is Unlike anything I've ever experienced in any other vehicle so even with the windshield if you take the doors off [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's just the air blowing around you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like being in a wind tunnel. [SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy. [SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever seen one of those Japanese game shows where you get people in this like air tube, you know, and there's cash, you know, they turn on the fan, there's cash floating around. [SPEAKER_00]: You have like sixty seconds to grab as much cash as you can. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what it's like sitting in one of these things with the doors off. [SPEAKER_00]: at thirty miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a unique experience. [SPEAKER_00]: The one that I was driving had optional rock rails and some other stuff as well. [SPEAKER_00]: So if you are going to take it off road, you know, it's got some protection there. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's [SPEAKER_00]: It is, it's a Jeep, you know, for all that is good and bad, you know, if you, if you like jeeps and you want one with a bed, jeeps got you covered with the gladiator.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see, let me find the tab with the monrony here. [SPEAKER_00]: Total cost. [SPEAKER_00]: The Gladiator starts at thirty eight thousand one hundred dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: The Willie starts at about forty six thousand dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: The one that I drove was fifty five thousand three hundred and twenty dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is not even a high end. [SPEAKER_00]: This is not a Rubicon.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can easily get these things up, you know, closing in on seventy grand. [SPEAKER_03]: I was looking, as you're talking, their arcs into their so many trims. [SPEAKER_03]: They're nine different trims of this listed on Jeep's website with the sports starting at thirty-eight and a Mojavex at sixty-one thousand. [SPEAKER_03]: Talk about a range of trims. [SPEAKER_03]: This thing gets crazy expensive. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So, guess is on the destination charge?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's the last of so nineteen. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to go [SPEAKER_00]: Rob, he's got it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's nineteen ninety five. [SPEAKER_03]: Wow. [SPEAKER_02]: That's insane. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this one had, it had the seveny one hundred dollar customer preferred package, twenty four W, which gets you the locking rear differential, sun visors with illuminated vanity mirrors, which apparently are not, that's standard on these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: The wheelies suspension, the seventeen inch wheels, a whole bunch of other stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and you even get the wheelies hood decal. [SPEAKER_00]: That's part of that package for seveny one hundred dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: So and the convenience group for twenty twenty one hundred just goes on and on. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of stuff it makes it very expensive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: The other color for car that I had was the Volvo EX thirty twin motor performance ultra. [SPEAKER_00]: So this is the small Volvo. [SPEAKER_00]: It's electric as the EX name implies. [SPEAKER_00]: And when they first announced this thing a couple of years back and it was briefly on the list of finalists for the North American car truck, the utility of the year, until they delayed the launch because of tariffs on Chinese built EVs and other stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: They it was originally supposed to start at thirty seven thousand dollars for the rear wheel drive model. [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't you cannot get these for thirty seven thousand dollars in the United States anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: It's considerably more expensive. [SPEAKER_00]: The the twin motor performance ultra that I drove came to forty eight thousand three hundred and ninety five dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: The you know and this is a this is a compact card.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a compact hatchback. [SPEAKER_00]: I actually really like the size. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the size is really good. [SPEAKER_00]: The back seat is not huge, but I can sit behind myself in the back seat and have decent headroom. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a little tied on the knees, but I don't have to straddle the front seat to fit in there. [SPEAKER_00]: I can get in behind myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: the twin motor has four hundred and twenty two horsepower four hundred pounds feet of torque which means this is a seriously quick car it'll do zero to sixty and about three point seven seconds which you know considering it has performance ultra in the name that's you know that's good the but you know then things start to go downhill [SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me finish with the stuff I like. [SPEAKER_00]: I like the materials that they've used inside.

[SPEAKER_00]: They did a lot of interesting stuff to try to make this car more sustainable, keep the cost down. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's some interesting materials that they use on the dashboard. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of recycled fibers and things like that. [SPEAKER_00]: The seats are the wool seats, you know, partially recycled wool seats that Volvo has on some of their other cars, which I really like that fabric. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it looks really good, feels good, it's comfortable.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, then as you look around, you see they've really minimized. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very minimalist design. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's no instrument cluster in front of the driver. [SPEAKER_00]: The doors are kind of scalloped out, you know, and there's basically, you have an armrest and a hand release, you know, door handle. [SPEAKER_00]: That's it. [SPEAKER_00]: That's all it's on the doors.

[SPEAKER_00]: every there there's uh on the center console you have window switches you have two windows switches despite the fact that there are four windows so you have another toggle to go between front and rear windows bad idea stop doing that nonsense [SPEAKER_00]: There's lots of storage space underneath in the console. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a very nice, like down at the bottom of the center stack.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a very nice spot where you can put your phone in there and charge it wirelessly and it holds your phone in place, which is good. [SPEAKER_00]: That works really well. [SPEAKER_00]: But there's no other physical controls except on this during wheel. [SPEAKER_00]: You've got some some touch controls there. [SPEAKER_00]: Everything else is in the the eleven inch center touchscreen or sorry twelve inch twelve inch center touchscreen.

[SPEAKER_00]: That, well, there are manual vents. [SPEAKER_00]: It does have manual vents. [SPEAKER_00]: So there is that. [SPEAKER_00]: But if you want to change temperature or change fan speeds or go between manual and automatic climate control, you got to do all that in the thing. [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to see where your speed is, you got to look over at the center touchscreen.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to do literally anything else with this vehicle, you're looking at the center touchscreen. [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the features that this car has, it has an infrared driver monitor camera on the top of the steering column. [SPEAKER_00]: even though this car does not have a hands-free driving system. [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, it's looking, it wants to make sure that you're paying attention. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, paying attention to the road.

[SPEAKER_00]: The result of that is that unless you go in and turn that off, which you can do in the settings, [SPEAKER_00]: you very frequently get alerts on the center touchscreen to hey focus on the road please focus on the road because every time you want to do something you have to look away from the road over towards that center touchscreen to do it and then it's constantly reminds you stop looking at me look at the road [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that's kind of annoying.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like that so much. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I first got a chance to drive it, you know, I spent like, forty-five minutes with the car just driving around Los Angeles and didn't really delve into that stuff very much. [SPEAKER_00]: I was just kind of getting into the basics, the driving dynamics, and didn't spend time doing any of the usual stuff that you do with a car that you drive on a daily basis.

[SPEAKER_00]: over the course of a week, that stuff got a lot more annoying. [SPEAKER_00]: One thing I did notice, I was coming back from an event, and I yawned. [SPEAKER_00]: And the thing said, oh, hey, seems like you might be tired. [SPEAKER_00]: And you might want to stop and take a rest. [SPEAKER_00]: So it will actually detect the driver yawning. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just looking for where your eyes are. [SPEAKER_00]: It's also looking at other stuff, other characteristics about you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I tried it a couple more times, just just simulating a yawning. [SPEAKER_00]: And every time it gave me that alert, that, you know, hey, you might be tired. [SPEAKER_00]: It might be time to take a rest. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that's good. [SPEAKER_00]: That's a good thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Because driving while you're drowsy, [SPEAKER_00]: Not, not safe, you know, it's as bad as driving while you're impaired.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I think [SPEAKER_00]: The Volvo may have gone a little bit too far with the cost cutting on this thing, even though this is not an inexpensive car. [SPEAKER_00]: As Volvo goes, it's relatively inexpensive, but it's got more annoying the more time I spent with it, having to deal with all these things in the center screen. [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, the driving experience other than that was really good. [SPEAKER_00]: I like the ride quality and handles really well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like the fact that it's small. [SPEAKER_00]: It's great to drive around the city, you know, because it is so small. [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to park.

[SPEAKER_00]: and got really good energy efficiency you know they're again during the week I was driving it you know still the continuing heat wave around here temperatures you know ninety or so with about nine hundred percent humidity so I was driving with the air conditioning on [SPEAKER_00]: And with the, you know, I did a lot of highway driving, even a highway driving with the AC on, you know, in high temps, high humidity.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was still getting like three point five, three point six miles per kilowatt hour. [SPEAKER_00]: which is really good. [SPEAKER_00]: Part of that, you can attribute to the fact that, hey, you know, this is a small car with a relative, we small frontal area. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, but the the cargo space has is bigger than what you get behind the third row of a Mitsubishi outlander. [SPEAKER_00]: I actually could fit my backpack and my rollerboard in the behind the rear seat.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I could have put four roller bags back there. [SPEAKER_00]: It's big enough for that. [SPEAKER_00]: And a couple of backpacks. [SPEAKER_00]: So lots of cargo space, you know, fun to drive, but be aware that there's a lot of stuff that you have to control through the touchscreen, which is [SPEAKER_00]: I don't I didn't like that, but you can adjust the vats without without using the fetch screen. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want to guess at the destination charge? [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, twelve hundred. [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't see fourteen ninety five. [SPEAKER_00]: Robby gets it. [SPEAKER_00]: It was twelve ninety five. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: The official EPA rated range for those things, two hundred fifty-three miles with a sixty-six kilowatt-hour battery pack.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, because of a lot of the highway driving that I was doing, high temperatures, air conditioning on, it was probably closer to about two thirty-five or so, was what I would have gotten if I had run it all the way down. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, again, in those conditions, I think that's really good. [SPEAKER_00]: No complaints about it. [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move on. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a bunch of stuff from this week. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's start off with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember to lower sound endurance? [SPEAKER_00]: Which was also a NAC toy finalist? [SPEAKER_03]: It was. [SPEAKER_03]: Did you ever drive it Sam? [SPEAKER_00]: I never, I never did get a chance to drive it. [SPEAKER_03]: How? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even, you know what? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I'm not on that toy, so I'm not even gonna bring it. [SPEAKER_01]: You know what it is? [SPEAKER_03]: I'll tell you exactly how that happened.

[SPEAKER_03]: The reason is, because we haven't really have, we, what's the reason? [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's on the truth. [SPEAKER_03]: No, it's weak. [SPEAKER_03]: Everyone's doing truth. [SPEAKER_03]: The number of trucks, it's because of the number of trucks there were. [SPEAKER_03]: If there's not a lot of trucks. [SPEAKER_00]: There was only three candidates. [SPEAKER_03]: All the trucks will get in. [SPEAKER_03]: So it was just a year where it lucked out.

[SPEAKER_03]: Had there been more trucks there? [SPEAKER_00]: So it's there. [SPEAKER_01]: It got a, it was okay. [SPEAKER_00]: It was a participation award. [SPEAKER_01]: Like if there's a rate, if there's like a hundred meter dash on a high school, but only three people show up, like someone's going to get, everybody gets in, everybody gets in battle. [SPEAKER_01]: Correct. [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody gets in battle. [SPEAKER_01]: They got the bronze because it showed up.

[SPEAKER_01]: That hard to figure out what happened. [SPEAKER_01]: The third person in that, and that foot race doesn't even have to race. [SPEAKER_01]: They just walk. [SPEAKER_01]: And they stop. [SPEAKER_01]: They had sandwiched. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they moonwalked over the finish line.

[SPEAKER_00]: I actually had an appointment to to go over to Lord's Town offices here in Farmington Hills and drive it and take a drive along with their CEO at the time and the day before a couple days before they're calling their PR person. [SPEAKER_00]: call me up and say, yeah, unfortunately we're going to have to cancel. [SPEAKER_00]: We'll get your rescheduled. [SPEAKER_00]: And before that opportunity got rescheduled, Laura Stanley's bankrupt and out of business.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they did manage apparently to build about thirty one of these things before they went belly up and for some inexplicable reason somebody bought one on bring a trailer [SPEAKER_03]: I have no idea why. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it's already owning a piece of of history if isn't like like the wrapper of a garbage pills like kids Pack was owning a piece of history. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not the actual garbage pill card.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the wrapper of the garbage pill kids [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, this was not a great vehicle by all accounts. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's somebody will, it'll be an interesting piece of somebody's collection. [SPEAKER_00]: So we have any attention from it. [SPEAKER_03]: None of us wait. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm trying to read down here. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's not say their name because they might have friends. [SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm just wondering if you don't want to get a list.

[SPEAKER_03]: Who said like I bought this because I collect weird crap like. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, clearly it was that that was the case. [SPEAKER_01]: I would hope so. [SPEAKER_01]: I hope when someone's like, you know what, this was going to be the best when we all knew it was not going to be the best that it was just another boondoggle from the person who ran a workhorse. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it does have sixteen hundred miles on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So [SPEAKER_01]: They did, they just, is this the one they just kept driving around? [SPEAKER_00]: Probably probably. [SPEAKER_01]: For a couple years when you went to CES, like, lords town, even though it was barely a company would drive around in an endurance, wherever it thought that there would be journalists. [SPEAKER_01]: And you'd see it, you're like, oh, I'm gonna make a picture of this, and then after a while you're like, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm not.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to do it. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to do it. [SPEAKER_01]: I got to look. [SPEAKER_01]: There's a large town truck again. [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move on. [SPEAKER_00]: Subaru had an event in New York on Thursday night. [SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't Sam. [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't know. [SPEAKER_00]: Mother Nature prevented me from getting there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was supposed to be there I spent what six seven hours at Detroit Metro Airport trying to get there more time in the airport than it should have taken you to fly there and back [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because it's a little under a two hour flight. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the flight finally got canceled. [SPEAKER_00]: And when they finally canceled the flight, Delta automatically rebuked me onto another flight the next day.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were there are flights in the morning from Detroit to New York. [SPEAKER_00]: But those were all sold out. [SPEAKER_00]: There was no seats available any of the morning flights. [SPEAKER_00]: The only, the first earliest flight that could get me on was at twelve thirty, which was a connecting flight through Columbus, Ohio. [SPEAKER_00]: And I called the Delta Diamond Reservation Alliance, you can't get me on an earlier flight, it's nothing available.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, then forget it, just cancel. [SPEAKER_00]: Because if it's on time, this flight would get me into New York, into LaGuardia, about four thirty. [SPEAKER_00]: The event is at six thirty. [SPEAKER_00]: And odds are I would miss it. [SPEAKER_00]: As it turns out, you know, even though they canceled me, they, um, I kept getting the notifications, the flight notifications from from Delta.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was following the progress, the flight from Columbus to LaGuardia ended up getting delayed, um, almost two hours anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: See, never remember. [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't, it didn't land at LaGuardia till about six thirty, which is the time I was supposed to be in Manhattan.

[SPEAKER_01]: You never shoot it out of the plane as it was going you might have made it maybe and you pulled the shoot like at the very last second But you know, I just parachute it into your seat [SPEAKER_00]: I am one of those people that doesn't believe that it's the wise idea to ever jump out of a functional aircraft. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that that's just a dumb thing to do. [SPEAKER_00]: But so anyway, they showed off the Subaru Uncharted which we hinted at last week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Subaru was nice enough to send out the release and the images beforehand. [SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't get any live images of it, but we got to look at it. [SPEAKER_00]: And technically, I had seen this thing in person in May at Toyota event in Plano, because this is effectively a clone of the Toyota CHR, which is fine. [SPEAKER_00]: It liked the Saltera and the Trail Seeker.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's exactly identical to the Toyota equivalent, the BZ and the BZ woodland and now the CHR except for the lights. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so you get the new Subaru's new signature six element headlights and you know, different tell lights on the Subaru versions, but otherwise it's exactly the same as the CHR, which means it has [SPEAKER_01]: which is weird, but sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Which would actually probably make it, I think the only current Subaru that is available without all wheel drive. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the BRZ. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the BRZ, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It's the only front wheel drive front wheel drive. [SPEAKER_01]: I think the last front wheel drive Subaru was like the nineties, the eighties. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, hundreds, something like that. [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a while.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the, the CHR, we don't know how much it's going to cost. [SPEAKER_00]: We know it's supposed to arrive sometime in the first part of the twenty twenty six. [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be built in Japan, which is part of why we don't know how much it's going to cost, because who knows what the tariff rates will be. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no. [SPEAKER_00]: Next year. [SPEAKER_00]: Aren't you going to borrow or be honest? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: The old wheel drive version is supposed to get about two hundred and ninety miles of range. [SPEAKER_00]: The front wheel drive one should do a little over three hundred. [SPEAKER_00]: So three hundred thirty and horsepower, ninety miles of range. [SPEAKER_00]: Not too shabby. [SPEAKER_00]: Two hundred ninety miles of range. [SPEAKER_00]: Not too shabby at all. [SPEAKER_00]: Still four hundred volts.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means one fifty charging, which is a bummer, but, you know, what are you going to do? [SPEAKER_00]: But it's a lot better than when they first launched the Sultara and the BZ. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: That was embarrassing for, for a company that's known for, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: For both of those companies to be honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: It does have a Nax charging port, which is on the right front fender and the passenger side front fender, which means that you should be able to reach the nice and short Tesla supercharger cables without taking up an extra parking space. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a pretty decent looking vehicle. [SPEAKER_03]: It looks pretty good. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, what else? [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, as long as we're talking Subaru, another short one.

[SPEAKER_00]: You remember the child's seeker? [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: When we saw that at the New York Auto Show in April.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know it's like they showed us the trail seeker which looked like what we would expect a new outback to look like and then they showed us the new outback which was something else entirely well and and Europe they're not they're not going to use the trail seeker name they're actually calling that what we know is the trail seeker the e outback [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I just give everything names. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's stop at the. [SPEAKER_02]: Stop at me. [SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to use anymore. [SPEAKER_01]: Just call it. [SPEAKER_01]: You just call the thing, the e-tron thing. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's where we've we've moved past it. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just like, what is this? [SPEAKER_01]: This is the name of a car. [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to have. [SPEAKER_01]: Don't like, hey, it's the electric blah, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_01]: Just call it whatever it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess he out by doesn't make sense to the out by looks completely different so now you're up to one car that doesn't even look like the gas works Yeah [SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's move on GM when they discontinued the bolt back in twenty twenty three they promised us a new bolt coming by the end of twenty twenty five and they told us that it would have LFP batteries lithium iron phosphate batteries

[SPEAKER_00]: which are significantly less expensive than the nickel-rich batteries that they use on all their other EVs. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they confirmed again this week that that car is still on track to launch this late this year and it will have LFP batteries. [SPEAKER_00]: But they will, those LFP batteries will be from a supplier that they have not yet named.

[SPEAKER_00]: But GM also announced that they're going to produce their own LFP cells with LG at the Spring Hill on to themselves, LLC factory. [SPEAKER_00]: in Tennessee. [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to take until twenty twenty seven before they're ready to produce those because they've got to convert over some of the production equipment to running LFP instead of nickel rich cells.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they will be producing their own LFP cells in Spring Hill and presumably at some point after that production starts, those will go into bolts and they'll certainly go into other vehicles from GM as well. [SPEAKER_03]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: They haven't given us much more detail other than that other than where it's going to be produced in one. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, so you remember Nuro did you guys ever seen the Nuro delivery vehicles the autonomous delivery members?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a Silicon Valley startup who's started by some ex-Wemo guys. [SPEAKER_00]: And they were doing this little no passenger delivery vehicle. [SPEAKER_00]: Had two compartments in it. [SPEAKER_00]: It was autonomous to do last mile deliveries to deliver groceries and meals from restaurants and things like that. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, last fall, Nero announced that they were giving up on developing that vehicle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they were just going to focus on developing their software for production and offering it to other companies. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they announced to deal this week with Uber and Lucid. [SPEAKER_00]: And Uber is going to invest three hundred million dollars into Lucid into Lucid and Neuro. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're going to build Robotaxies, premium Robotaxies with the Neuro driver system based on the Lucid gravity. [SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[SPEAKER_03]: That'd be kind of cool. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a big station wagon anyway. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And I told us that I said, though, you know what, I don't think Lucid, like Lucid marketing doesn't care. [SPEAKER_01]: I think everyone else at Lucid is like, yeah, that's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like you're sure cool. [SPEAKER_03]: We're going with it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want to tell where people buy them. [SPEAKER_00]: They just want people to buy them. [SPEAKER_00]: They'll care what you call it. [SPEAKER_00]: Just buy them. [SPEAKER_00]: Please. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a great car. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it is. [SPEAKER_00]: We've all driven. [SPEAKER_01]: Did you drive it in the call? [SPEAKER_03]: The, um, Lucy. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to make, you know, say things. [SPEAKER_03]: No, I did. [SPEAKER_01]: like we've all driven in and they're like, I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: I drove it. [SPEAKER_03]: No, I drove it. [SPEAKER_01]: I drove it. [SPEAKER_01]: Wait, where are we on the same drive program? [SPEAKER_03]: I was a Sam. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: But we, where we all together? [SPEAKER_01]: I think you were a different way. [SPEAKER_01]: I was a different way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I was just, with other, okay, now I remember. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, Nicole had to, to leave early to fly. [SPEAKER_00]: That was when he went to the Cooper thing, right? [SPEAKER_03]: I think I went right to a Cooper thing, yes. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just remembered. [SPEAKER_00]: You had to fly. [SPEAKER_00]: You had to fly because you came from Boston to Santa Barbara and then went from Santa Barbara to Miami and then back to San Diego for the navigator.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just stepped back and forth across across the country and remember that I was timed so tight getting out of Jeep. [SPEAKER_03]: They literally made me a little pizza shoved it in a box and handed to me a cookie gun on the airport. [SPEAKER_03]: And I said they're eating a little pizza in the back of the guy. [SPEAKER_03]: It's really good. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so jealous of the little pizza. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the lunch stop they had this portable wood-fired pizza thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, how was the car? [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, the pizza was amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: I've been in three Michelin star restaurants in Germany, and other Michelin star restaurants around the world, and those pizzas were probably better than the any percent of it. [SPEAKER_01]: It was really good pizza. [SPEAKER_01]: It was for one year Porsche had his go up north, and the restaurant didn't even serve Mexican food.

[SPEAKER_01]: They just like had one at like, hey, can we get mechas tacos and picelli, and it was the best. [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't even what that restaurant may. [SPEAKER_01]: There's like, uh, people won't talk. [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't facility. [SPEAKER_03]: I had tacos this afternoon. [SPEAKER_03]: We found a new taco plate place. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: And we didn't know. [SPEAKER_03]: And some news asked about the best tacos we went there. [SPEAKER_03]: And it was amazing.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was like when they were the best tacos in town. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everything's gone off the rails. [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, everybody. [SPEAKER_03]: Sorry tacos. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you're if you're an epsilon. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's a there's a taco truck that parks on Washington Avenue in front of the O'Reilly's auto parts in the parking lot there. [SPEAKER_00]: Really good tacos there and burritos. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and you can get any new wichill way.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now every person listening the show is having tacos for dinner tonight. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a significant other's might not know, but they're about to come home and go, we're having tacos. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to have to. [SPEAKER_01]: I had tacos last night after our show. [SPEAKER_01]: They had a taco truck there. [SPEAKER_01]: It was the best because they opened the midnight. [SPEAKER_00]: I love the chorizo tacos. [SPEAKER_00]: They do it this taco truck over.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a day. [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry. [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway. [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry. [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry. [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry. [SPEAKER_00]: The range of our electric was supposed to debut later this year. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's shockingly it's been pushed back until twenty twenty six. [SPEAKER_03]: It's so surprised.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we don't know exactly when in twenty twenty six, but it's it's been delayed and according to AutoCar that may also affect the new Jaguar electric models. [SPEAKER_02]: Also shocked. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: Those companies don't have, they don't, they don't do huge, huge numbers, they're, you know, it's day a lot. [SPEAKER_01]: They're not doing great. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you have to push in the back, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want electric defender, a ninety. [SPEAKER_01]: So essentially defender, no one buys and I want someone to be electric. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, okay. [SPEAKER_03]: Sounds like a solid strategy. [SPEAKER_01]: So if they're going to, I mean, if they're going to push it back, you know, as we just build that as well. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure someone could talk to you about that. [SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like a good strategy. [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, Volkswagen, you know, one of the concerns a lot of people have about EVs is the battery life. [SPEAKER_00]: How long, how long is the battery going to last? [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm going to buy this thing and have to replace the battery after two years. [SPEAKER_00]: And the answer to that basically is no. [SPEAKER_00]: They recently did some testing, ADAC did some testing in Germany. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the roadside assistance company.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of like AAA in Germany. [SPEAKER_00]: And they did some testing on a VW ID III that had a hundred thousand miles on it. [SPEAKER_00]: And they found that after a hundred thousand miles, the seventy-seven kilowatt-hour battery pack, still had ninety-one percent of its original capacity.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you're, unless you're buying an old leaf, an air-cooled battery and you sound leaf, basically you don't really have to worry too much about the battery dying, you know, within the typical lifespan of the car. [SPEAKER_00]: It's generally going to last.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think people don't realize that like as you own your car your gas car like it's mileage like it's miles per gallon actually deteriorates over time like you know unless you keep it pristine which absolutely no one can that's like impossible unless you you know work at the four dealership and you're working on it every week over time the mileage the your your your your your your your miles per gallon actually goes down [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, parts start to fall off and all kinds of bad stuff happens. [SPEAKER_01]: And then stuff falls off. [SPEAKER_00]: But oh no. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And most manufacturers, you know, give you a hundred thousand mile warranty on the battery. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if your capacity drops below seventy percent within a hundred thousand miles, you know, they'll replace the battery.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this was still at ninety one percent after a hundred thousand miles. [SPEAKER_00]: And similar tests in the past found similar results that you might lose maybe one or two percent capacity per year. [SPEAKER_00]: And usually you have at least eighty-five to ninety percent capacity after a hundred thousand miles. [SPEAKER_00]: So don't use that as an excuse not to buy an EV. [SPEAKER_00]: There's lots of reasons why you might not want to buy an EV.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not one of them. [SPEAKER_00]: I guess there's no charging infrastructure unless it's a leaf with an air-cooled battery, in which case? [SPEAKER_00]: That's a whole other story. [SPEAKER_00]: So last week Nicole, you and I went to Montreal. [SPEAKER_00]: We did. [SPEAKER_00]: And that was also a heavily delayed flight for me. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like twelve hours like getting into Montreal. [SPEAKER_03]: Yours were the worst.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was about five hours, four or five. [SPEAKER_03]: You barely made it. [SPEAKER_00]: So why did we go to Montreal? [SPEAKER_03]: We went to Montreal to drive a new car that isn't really out yet here, but it's coming, the Polestar IV SUV, which we can't give any drive impressions about, but we can talk about aside from drive impressions. [SPEAKER_03]: That was the rule. [SPEAKER_03]: So you can say anything you want except for whether or not you like the way it drives.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you wrote an article for top speed about things you love and hate about the full star. [SPEAKER_03]: I did write an article. [SPEAKER_03]: So like there's good things and bad things about every car and there were things that I really liked about this. [SPEAKER_03]: Like one of the things we discovered was that it has this head up display that normally it's white, you know, and it has a snow ready head up display. [SPEAKER_03]: It's changes to yellow and snow mode.

[SPEAKER_03]: so that you can see it against a really bright white background. [SPEAKER_03]: I thought that, hey, that's cool. [SPEAKER_03]: It has this huge panoramic roof that has the electrochromic film. [SPEAKER_03]: It was going to say it wrong. [SPEAKER_03]: So you can change it from slightly, slightly, shatter, like sort of tinted almost slightly. [SPEAKER_03]: So the sun is too bright, but you still have light in or just full on sunlight. [SPEAKER_03]: Also really cool.

[SPEAKER_03]: It does not have a rear window, which I thought was going to be horrible, but no.

[SPEAKER_03]: lack of real windows okay and the dynamic camera mirror so they have this camera mirror which a lot of places have but this one when you hit your turn signals it ever social slightly tips of you left when you put your left turn signal on and right when you put your right turn signal on and they have this really beautiful like textured interior it's not all these neat textures on it all these cool ways that they made fabric in a poultry it's really cool but there's one thing I hate it Sam I hated that possibly be

[SPEAKER_03]: They put the vent controls in the infotainment screen. [SPEAKER_03]: Again, why must they do this? [SPEAKER_03]: Why, why, why, why, why? [SPEAKER_03]: Like, why? [SPEAKER_03]: It's like a deal breaker territory for me. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't like that. [SPEAKER_03]: I just give me a actual thing vent control that's physical that I can grab. [SPEAKER_00]: Before we actually went out and drove it, we had a presentation.

[SPEAKER_00]: They did a virtual presentation with some of their subject matter experts from Polestar in Gothenburg. [SPEAKER_00]: So they were live streamed in to the room. [SPEAKER_00]: And we got to do a Q&A. [SPEAKER_00]: And I asked the question during the Q&A why they did this. [SPEAKER_00]: And they spent about three or four minutes talking, trying to justify this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think that they, you know, people like to have things in there, and it's better, and it's easy and clean, and it's nice, and we didn't, and you'll love it. [SPEAKER_03]: No, I won't. [SPEAKER_03]: Can I tell you the funniest part about that? [SPEAKER_03]: So that was the last week. [SPEAKER_03]: This previous week, I was in Detroit to check out some new key of vehicles. [SPEAKER_03]: We didn't drive, and there was no embargo on any information that we saw.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was the EV four and the K-four. [SPEAKER_03]: And in the EV four, you've got physical vent controls. [SPEAKER_03]: And they specifically mentioned during the presentation. [SPEAKER_03]: We didn't put them in the infotainment screen because they need to be easy and accessible. [SPEAKER_03]: So their whole thing was, and I asked them about it. [SPEAKER_03]: I said, why didn't you? [SPEAKER_03]: I asked their product planning guy. [SPEAKER_03]: Why did you not?

[SPEAKER_03]: When other companies are [SPEAKER_03]: Why did you think it wasn't a good idea to put it in for a team? [SPEAKER_03]: And he's like, well, honestly, he said, especially, you know, for people who were the very early adopters, they're fine with futs and around with random weirdness in a car. [SPEAKER_03]: They like new technology, they like new stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're a little willing to [SPEAKER_03]: deal with stuff for the privilege of having the latest and greatest, but people buying EVs and I don't want that. [SPEAKER_03]: They want it to be just like their car. [SPEAKER_03]: Just like my regular car with all the things is easy to use as they ever were. [SPEAKER_03]: And he said that includes the vents. [SPEAKER_03]: He said, so we just left the vents controls physical because that is the easiest way to control them.

[SPEAKER_03]: You don't have to think about it. [SPEAKER_03]: You don't have to look for it. [SPEAKER_03]: They're right there. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, how's that? [SPEAKER_03]: Go kea. [SPEAKER_03]: But they did not do that at Paul Star and they give us this line of [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of nonsense. [SPEAKER_03]: It was nonsense. [SPEAKER_03]: It was just so funny that I got that at Polestar. [SPEAKER_03]: And then it key is going, no, we're not doing that. [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anything else you want to say about Polestar for? [SPEAKER_03]: Because you know, without talking about the driving pressure. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's really cool looking car. [SPEAKER_03]: The interiors need and the rear window looks really neat that you don't have one and it's just metal. [SPEAKER_03]: And I thought it would look really weird close up, but you don't even [SPEAKER_03]: Even inside, you don't even see it when you're just looking inside the door.

[SPEAKER_03]: You don't really notice it's not there, which is some kind of freaky design thing they did with how they made the panoramic glass come far enough back and how they positioned things. [SPEAKER_03]: So it actually doesn't make the card dark and feel like a cave, like you kind of expect. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, you know, the Volvo C-Forty, you know, which is the Koopish version of the XC-Forty, that one has a rear window, but it also has a sloping rear back like the Polestar IV.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so from the driver seat, when you look in the mirror, you know, between the headrests, you know, in the back seat, and, you know, there's really sloping rear glass. [SPEAKER_00]: You basically have like a little slot that you see through anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's pretty much useless as a you know as for in terms of visibility. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'm fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just get rid of the glass entirely and you know then you have you know an enclosed storage area for cargo area that nobody can see into to steal your stuff from and just use the digital mirror. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, and they put the digital mirror. [SPEAKER_03]: It's neat. [SPEAKER_03]: The cameras for it are very high up, like they're not low. [SPEAKER_03]: Like sometimes cameras are lower. [SPEAKER_03]: They're sort of like on the tailgate or like the lift gate on an SUV.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's easy for them to get dirty and gross, especially I'd imagine during winter or whatever. [SPEAKER_03]: This one is up in the top. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like where you're really antenna is for your radio. [SPEAKER_03]: It's right up there. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's high enough that it's kind of out of the way that we were driving on a sunny day and who knows.

[SPEAKER_03]: It feels like it would be much better for winter weather to not get mucky, so you'll still be able to see it not have to worry about it getting really dirty. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go back to Volvo. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're also owned by Geely as his pull star. [SPEAKER_00]: And Volvo's been having some challenges of weight. [SPEAKER_00]: The EX-NID. [SPEAKER_00]: Not selling in huge numbers yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, some of the other cars, you know, their sales have been down. [SPEAKER_00]: So they're making some adjustments because of the tariffs, you know, right now the only car they produce, the only car they saw was produced in the U.S. [SPEAKER_00]: is the E.X. [SPEAKER_00]: ninety, which you know is pretty small volume still. [SPEAKER_00]: the rest of their vehicles come from either Europe or China.

[SPEAKER_00]: And because of the tariffs right now, they have decided to pair back their U.S. [SPEAKER_00]: line up. [SPEAKER_00]: And they are discontinuing sales of the, the S-N-D, I think, are the, which one is it? [SPEAKER_00]: I remember now. [SPEAKER_03]: A-S-S-D, X-U-C-R-R-D stop production. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: And the S-N-D is stopped. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because those are that we're getting from China from from their factory in China.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so those are being dropped from the US lineup. [SPEAKER_00]: And then they are also adjusting some of their production strategy. [SPEAKER_00]: Their factory in Charleston, South Carolina, outside of Charleston. [SPEAKER_00]: was currently producing the Polestar III and the EX-NID. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's also scheduled to add the EX-sixty next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now they announced this week that they're also going to add production of the EX-sixty because they're keeping that around longer. [SPEAKER_00]: All of the gas powered models were gradually supposed to go away over the next few years as they were planning to go all electric. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not quite happening, at least not on the same schedule.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they're keeping the XC sixty around and they're going to start building nose and South Carolina next year for the US market. [SPEAKER_00]: And then they also, yeah, last year they did a refresh of the XC ninety. [SPEAKER_00]: And they are, they were not planning to do a third generation XC-NID, but that plan has changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so now they are going to do a new XC-NID, which is going to be based on the XC-Seventy that we talked about a few weeks back, which is an extended range plug in hybrid. [SPEAKER_00]: which has about I think it's about seventy or eighty miles of electric range and so that's going to be coming sometime later this decade. [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of shuffling.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think we all knew that that was going to be really hard for Volvo to do what they needed to do when the tariffs and started. [SPEAKER_03]: I think everyone knew it's it's hard for all the OEMs, but especially for Volvo. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's unfortunate. [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's making this exceptionally tough for them to stay competitive in this market.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then back in January when we were at CES, you and Nicole and Rebecca Limland and I went to a little off-site briefing with the folks from Faraday Future. [SPEAKER_03]: We did. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we got to look at their plans for Faraday X, their new lower costs sub-brand. [SPEAKER_01]: Um, there's no higher cost anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's the F. F. Ninety one, which, you know, at the time, they told us, you know, when I asked, how many of those have you actually delivered? [SPEAKER_00]: It's about thirteen or fourteen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even know for sure how many now apparently they're saying like sixteen or seventeen oh wow when I when I went to their their their HQ in Fullerton Hawthorne that is a matter LA they had twelve mules so I really think those yeah probably counting those [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, they, uh, well, anyway, they show, you know, they show this what they're planning next, you know, for, for Faraday X. Um, and the first was this, uh, Chinese-designed van, a luxury van. [SPEAKER_00]: And they told us that their goal was to take on the Cadillac escalate in the delivery market. [SPEAKER_00]: They think that there's a mark, they think there's going to be demand for vehicle like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because these kinds of vans, these luxury vans are very popular in China and other parts of Asia. [SPEAKER_00]: They're pretty big in Korea and in Japan. [SPEAKER_01]: If you get a fancy car like to drive you around in Japan or Korea, it's going to be a fan. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's amazing because they're like, [SPEAKER_01]: They're like lazy boy recliners in there. [SPEAKER_01]: They're awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we sat in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we got to go for a short ride around the parking lot outside the building where they were doing the briefing for us. [SPEAKER_00]: The car was all camoed. [SPEAKER_00]: But we got to try out these fancy seats. [SPEAKER_00]: The other day they had this event in Los Angeles to officially unveil what they are now, what they have now badge is the Faraday X Super One. [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think? [SPEAKER_03]: What is this green thing? [SPEAKER_03]: This is what?

[SPEAKER_03]: I think I'm more perplexed than I actually when I saw it. [SPEAKER_03]: I still have confusion. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this will have confusion. [SPEAKER_00]: The ones that we saw in January did not have the screen. [SPEAKER_00]: So the place where you would normally find a grill on the front face of the car is a giant LCD display. [SPEAKER_00]: And it can put all kinds of messages on there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the problems with this is that I remember like several years ago when GM back in twenty twenty when GM did.

[SPEAKER_00]: their EV day and they showed us you know all these EVs are planning to build and I asked the question you know because I got in the Cadillacs you know they have you know all this lighting on the front they had the the Cadillac logo you know backlit and everything was in white on a front [SPEAKER_00]: And asked, you know, why not have some color in the Cadillac logo. [SPEAKER_00]: He said, well, legally you're not allowed to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're only a part from the turn signals. [SPEAKER_00]: You're only allowed to have white lighting on the front. [SPEAKER_00]: And this display that they put on the super one definitely shows a lot more color. [SPEAKER_00]: So not quite sure how they're going to get around that. [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they don't have to make the car. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing this fair day.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've been around for, I don't know, seven, eight hundred years at this point. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to actually sell anything. [SPEAKER_01]: They just gotta keep moving the money around. [SPEAKER_01]: That's true. [SPEAKER_01]: It's good to keep moving the money. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like lords town with like a with with deeper pockets. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they keep managing to find somebody to throw money at their projects. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why anyone would actually give them any money after all the success that they've had so far. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I remember being at that first event at CES in twenty seventeen when they showed the FF ninety one for the first time. [SPEAKER_00]: Were you there at that one, Robbie? [SPEAKER_01]: That was the one in the giant tent outside. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I had a big I did a big old interview with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I did a big old piece on that on that event. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I mean, this was the two hour long press conference that they did, which included about a minute and a half of video of just moving dirt around on the side of what was supposed to be their factory in North Las Vegas, which obviously never came to pass. [SPEAKER_00]: But we got to see a couple of minutes of just moving dirt around.

[SPEAKER_01]: pretty exciting yeah you know lots lots of hyperbly and in fair day announcements they take off from inside the the the tent they had like a little like a drag race yeah they had a drag race with the F.F. [SPEAKER_00]: ninety one in a Ferrari I think [SPEAKER_01]: Like once they went out of the room though, we don't know what happened. [SPEAKER_01]: Like it wasn't we didn't see the whole thing. [SPEAKER_01]: He's just like a win.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it might have gone out the door and then just fell apart and like it turned to dust like at the end of like an Avengers movie. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there was the one that they pulled out at one point that was on display after the press conference was over. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you remember, it was up right up against the back wall. [SPEAKER_00]: And it turns out the reason why it was pressed right up against the back wall is because the left rear corner was not done.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was missing parts. [SPEAKER_00]: And so they they parked it right up against the wall so people couldn't really see it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, but there's funny reading stuff that's terrible reading some of the some of the materials from this event on Thursday. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see in the invitation to this is from Jolopnic and the invitation to the FX Super ones reveal, which I attended on Thursday night.

[SPEAKER_00]: The company described that as the world's first AI powered luxury MPV and a true disruptor in the electric era. [SPEAKER_00]: and said the event would also feature the Super E-A-I-F-A-C-E front AI communication ecosystem and the new F-F-E-A-I-Six-by-Four architecture which are core to fair-day futures new tech and product direction. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it was the old-tech and old-parotic direction. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was also like it was just generated out of chat, GPT or something. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they do use AI. [SPEAKER_01]: It's the EAI six by four architecture PR marketing word salad producer, two thousand. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean any time you talk to people from and this has always been the case when you talk to people from Faraday future. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's always been a lot of nonsense.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the in the in the video the Instagram video that was Posted that's that's embedded in this it's a lot next story.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's in the show notes They show when they actually went to pull the silk off these two things and one of them I guess they had Driven over the silk and so it was stuck under the tire and it couldn't get the silk off the car Oh [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, actually on Monday, I was at our Tuesday, I was an event here in Detroit and Stephanie Brindley and she was actually supposed to go to this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was supposed to fly out on Wednesday, I haven't talked to her since I don't know if she actually got out there or not. [SPEAKER_00]: But she was supposed to be at this. [SPEAKER_00]: She said, you know, they really want you to come out here, you know, to see this. [SPEAKER_00]: And I guess out of a couple hundred people that were at this event, there was only a small handful of actual media and analysts.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, then a whole bunch of influencers and investors. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that makes sense. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's all there. [SPEAKER_01]: Everything is like, I think my, my article about CES is all at fair day. [SPEAKER_01]: It was trying to impress investors. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that was my headline. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, at fair day, like, is impressing investors or some goofiness? [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so many years ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Man, I was so long ago. [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote to that in a, uh, Mahindra electric scooter. [SPEAKER_01]: I had, they went to ride around all through CES. [SPEAKER_01]: It was the best. [SPEAKER_01]: That was the best thing and they don't make them. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't sell the scooters anymore here in the United States, but I love that thing. [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote that thing all over. [SPEAKER_01]: I was living the dream. [SPEAKER_00]: Sweet.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Last story for this week. [SPEAKER_00]: Ford has an electric Bronco, but you can't have it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's only for China. [SPEAKER_00]: I was not able to find anything about this on the Ford China Media Site, which doesn't appear to have been updated since sometime in early twenty twenty four. [SPEAKER_00]: They haven't applied the new from the road media site strategy to the Chinese Media Site at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there was several articles this week, including this one in the atopion. [SPEAKER_00]: So this, you know, it's got a lot of, this is a completely different vehicle from either the Bronco or Bronco Sport that they saw here in North America. [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, it has some of the Bronco styling cues on it, which actually doesn't look bad. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're going to offer this as an EV and as an extended range EV as an E-REF.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it'll have an engine generator to keep the battery charged up. [SPEAKER_03]: It looks good. [SPEAKER_03]: I like how it looks. [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't matter because they're never going to get it, but it looks actually looks really good. [SPEAKER_03]: I like the colors. [SPEAKER_03]: These actual production colors. [SPEAKER_03]: I like that sort of burgundyish one. [SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty slick looking. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I approve.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like it too. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's built as part of Ford's joint venture with Djangling. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's based on one of Djangling's platforms. [SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't share anything with the Broncos that we get here. [SPEAKER_00]: So it just says Broncos. [SPEAKER_01]: And then they're like, well, we got extra. [SPEAKER_01]: We got some Broncos, poor stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: We got some Broncos stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: You know what, we have some random panels there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the E-REV version is supposed to have a hundred and thirty-five miles of electric range, which is probably on the China light duty test cycle, which means it's probably closer to about seventy-five or eighty miles. [SPEAKER_00]: But still, you know, seventy-five, eighty miles of electric range, and then a one-and-a-half, one-point-five liter turbo for the range extender. [SPEAKER_00]: So that would be pretty slick. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I got to go to China now. [SPEAKER_00]: Yep. [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's answer a couple of listener questions. [SPEAKER_00]: First up, let's do Roxy. [SPEAKER_00]: Roxy had a question specifically for you, Robbie. [SPEAKER_00]: What are your thoughts about buying a used Kona EV as a second around town car? [SPEAKER_00]: Are there any model years that you would recommend over others? [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, let me think what you did we have.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a twenty twenty-one twenty-two there was a there was a mid-cycle refresh then made the vehicle it was the last [SPEAKER_01]: the last refresh of the current of the last generation. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the one we had. [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it was just a better car than the car before. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's, that's, you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, yeah, if you're going to get that, especially if for around the car around town, literally, I think any of the Coney EVs would be fine to be honest. [SPEAKER_01]: Because if you're not, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: It's, I think the charging rate was seventy six on the one we had. [SPEAKER_01]: It might have been sixty something before that. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're just gonna plug it in at home and you need to cruise around town.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's pretty much what we did with that vehicle for three years is we just drove it around town. [SPEAKER_01]: The only time we took it to the charging station. [SPEAKER_01]: My wife took it once because she was going visit her friend who lived a couple hundred miles away. [SPEAKER_01]: And then I used it once when I went to Monterey car week. [SPEAKER_01]: in it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then other than that, the only time we used the charge, it was A to show my wife how to use the charge in station and B to use up all the free charging that we had been given that we hadn't used. [SPEAKER_01]: So the last like couple of months of having a car, I give taking it to EA station. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, there's all this free electricity. [SPEAKER_01]: You've got to use all the free electricity.

[SPEAKER_01]: So other than that, we just plugged it in and I have got up and had like, you know, two hundred fifty something miles of range. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was good. [SPEAKER_01]: Great little car. [SPEAKER_01]: Lots of room. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, you're going to spin those front wheels a lot though, if you're not careful.

[SPEAKER_00]: yeah that's that's that's got a decent amount of power it's like yeah to a hundred fifty kilowatts so two hundred one horsepower uh... you know came out uh... i think it launched in the u.s. [SPEAKER_00]: in twenty nineteen uh... and then uh... and twenty one i think was when they did the refresh [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it like refreshed on a Wednesday and we bought it on a Friday Like we didn't know what's gonna do a refresh.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were just gonna get it and then the refresh they announced it and they were already in dealerships [SPEAKER_01]: Nice. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so in just right. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I guess we're just buying this refresh version. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we're got a redress. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I drove the Kona EV a couple different times and I always liked it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was a fun little car and I I still like the looks of the first generation Kona better than the current one. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's smaller. [SPEAKER_00]: The the back seats tighter, but you know, based on, you know, rocks you just want to use it as a second round town car. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that sounds like a plant. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, probably, probably if you get any of them, you're probably going to be fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can put a German Shepherd and a tiny German Shepherd in the back seat and it'll be fine. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, all you need it's literally all you know for our cars like what can I put I can I put a guitar amp and a guitar back there? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, can I put a Germany shepherd in the bike? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so when you didn't know good enough carry on All right The other question we got this week was from Anthony says love the podcast I'm Look forward to every episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a two-time Genesis GV-sixty owner [SPEAKER_00]: Given that the GV-Sixity has been around that long, it seems a little odd. [SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, I bus probably, they have two power leases with them. [SPEAKER_00]: So that bought an advanced trim during pandemic and really liked it, but soon for the Ionix-Six design, trending that trading the Genesis after a year for the newer and longer range Ionix-Six.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, I missed the delightfully charming luxury of the GV-Sixity, not to mention the much more comfortable and smooth ride. [SPEAKER_00]: I never valued suspension until I experienced the difference on a daily commute. [SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate Nicole's great review of the GV-Six Dionys and other podcasts. [SPEAKER_00]: I bought a used performance trim and stare at it almost as much as I smile inside it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The question is, where are the emergency door releases on all four doors? [SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully it's in the same place as Sam's new EV-Six. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't find the location, or even a mention of it in New York's manual. [SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, that's a good question. [SPEAKER_03]: Actually, this whole time you guys have been talking about the, did you find it? [SPEAKER_03]: I can't find it guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking everywhere and I cannot find, I'm Googling like crazy and I can't find it. [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't see this question earlier. [SPEAKER_03]: I would have searched it earlier, but I can find no mention of the int, there has to be one, right? [SPEAKER_03]: It's a mechanical door lock. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, electronic door lock, right? [SPEAKER_03]: On the GV-sixty. [SPEAKER_03]: I can't find it. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if one of you guys can. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see.

[SPEAKER_00]: I found the genus of GV- sixty emergency rescue manual. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh. [SPEAKER_00]: This is for first responders. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I found the first responders when where it tells me how to like disconnect the things. [SPEAKER_03]: But I can. [SPEAKER_00]: If for globalization for jacking it up. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled direct hazards. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled direct hazards. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled.

[SPEAKER_00]: Disabled. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled. [SPEAKER_00]: Disabled. [SPEAKER_00]: See, how to open the door manually. [SPEAKER_00]: When airbags are deployed, the door handles pop out automatically, but the door handles may not pop out under certain conditions. [SPEAKER_00]: See, push the front side inwards, rear side of the, okay, that's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [UNKNOWN]: That's fine. [UNKNOWN]: That's fine. [UNKNOWN]: That's fine. [UNKNOWN]: That's fine. [UNKNOWN]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_03]: That's [SPEAKER_01]: This is why we just need doors. [SPEAKER_01]: I had a hole. [SPEAKER_01]: I picked up the guitars for my band at Bart to go to the show yesterday. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, they're on the five doors pop out when you unlock them. [SPEAKER_01]: They're all that's cool. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, no, it's not. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, we just mechanical doors.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what we're doing with all these ridiculous electric doors. [SPEAKER_01]: Just let's just have some mechanical doors. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think some of them have like a little latch. [SPEAKER_03]: See, there's sometimes like underneath it, or it can be right. [SPEAKER_03]: I can't find it. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to keep looking at the Genesis owners forum where somebody asked this exact question.

[SPEAKER_00]: The passenger doors are mechanical just pull the release handle. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay. [SPEAKER_01]: So they're actually make them mechanical from the inside, but they're electronic from the outside. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, were they just mechanical from the inside? [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it looks like. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that was really concerned. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, like what's happening?

[SPEAKER_03]: I essentially probably have those same doors integrated door handle. [SPEAKER_03]: No, no, look at the map. [SPEAKER_01]: Sam and I are living on baro talk. [SPEAKER_01]: We're fine. [SPEAKER_01]: We're fine. [SPEAKER_01]: We'll be fine. [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be okay. [SPEAKER_01]: There might be chemicals. [SPEAKER_03]: This looks like just a mechanical handle, which means that's all you need. [SPEAKER_03]: If you don't have power, that's all it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it is just, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't look good. [SPEAKER_03]: It was electronic. [SPEAKER_03]: One of electronic ones is just like a little button. [SPEAKER_03]: Those have a release. [SPEAKER_03]: If we're not wrong and remembering, I'd refer to a lot of cars, turn them up, exactly what the inside looks like. [SPEAKER_03]: But even looking at this, it's just a physical release. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just pulled it up and it looks like it's just a mechanical.

[SPEAKER_01]: Latch so all right, so the electric part is just where it plops it out, but if you really get your net you can pull those open as well [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and because like our EV six doesn't have the power door handles. [SPEAKER_00]: So you push in the front edge and back end pops up and pull it up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're outside, you know, we're trying to figure out, like my wife has been used to driving the Honda Civic, which had [SPEAKER_00]: automatically unlocking when you walk up to it with the key fob in your pocket or purse and automatically locked when you walk away from it and it wasn't doing either of those things and we found out that you unlock it and if you have the key fob on you if you press the back edge

[SPEAKER_00]: of the door handle in a little bit and you'll hear it click and unlock the doors and then you pull it out and you can open the door so you don't have to take the key file out and press the button so you just push the back edge of the door handle and then for automatic locking when you walk away

[SPEAKER_00]: It turns out that for some reason Hyundai and Kia don't have that but I found and I'll put a link to this I found a good there's a guy online He does a YouTube channel called Ionic guy and he had figured this out a couple of years ago when he when he got his Ionic five [SPEAKER_00]: figured out how to get it to automatically lock when you walk away.

[SPEAKER_00]: Basically you tap into one of the can bus lines in the car and he designed a little circuit board that when it's connected to the can bus lines when it detects you walking away from the car with the key fob. [SPEAKER_00]: After a few seconds it will automatically lock the doors. [SPEAKER_00]: And the original version and the version of these still sells for some of the EGMP models.

[SPEAKER_00]: It comes with a couple of T taps and you actually have to tap it and you go under the front passenger seat and tap into one of the can bus lines to hook it up.

[SPEAKER_00]: on the EV six if it has the trailer wiring package built in which ours does then there's a connector in the rear cargo area on the left-hand side there's a little access panel you pop that out there's a connector sitting there and you can connect onto that so you design need actually three-D prints a connector because you can't actually buy that the matching connector for it [SPEAKER_00]: So he three-D prints a connector and makes it puts the terminals in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He got a circuit board, he's got a three-D printed case for it. [SPEAKER_00]: He just plugged that in and taped the little module inside this compartment, but the panel back on, blocks when you walk away from the car. [SPEAKER_00]: It's perfect. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so uh getting out of the car if you lose power in gv sixty, no problem. [SPEAKER_00]: Just pull the door handle. [SPEAKER_00]: Just as it should be.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're all good. [SPEAKER_01]: We're all good. [SPEAKER_01]: We're all good. [SPEAKER_00]: All three of us are in the lead. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I can't throw him in. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like where is this? [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks everybody for listening and we will talk to you next time. [SPEAKER_00]: Bye.