One Trick Pony

[SPEAKER_00]: this is wheel bearings episode four hundred and thirty four i am samobu al samad from telemetry and i'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International sam's at sea yes i'm at home i'm winning life [SPEAKER_04]: that is absolutely the truth. [SPEAKER_04]: I just, I just got into Vegas about an hour and a half ago. [SPEAKER_04]: The show, the press day doesn't actually start till it's now Saturday afternoon. [SPEAKER_04]: The press days don't start till tomorrow or until Monday morning.

[SPEAKER_04]: By the time this is posted, it will be Sunday afternoon.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we've got, you know, part of this program here where we're going to have a bunch of [SPEAKER_04]: So we get three briefings tomorrow on Sunday before the show even get started and it's funny on the on the flight from Detroit today It's like half almost half of the first class section was people coming here including Gary Shapiro who was sitting right across the aisle next to Jamie butters I'm not going to abstain from saying anything about Gary Shapiro [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, Gary is the president of the Consumer Technology Association, which is the organization that puts on CES. [SPEAKER_04]: And we will leave the conversation there. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: You can guess. [SPEAKER_04]: All right. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, unfortunately Nicole pinged me about an hour or so ago to let me know that she unfortunately will not be able to join us today because she had to take one of her daughters to urgent care.

[SPEAKER_04]: She's going to be okay. [SPEAKER_04]: Everything's fine, but she's she's held up for a little while, so she won't be able to join us today. [SPEAKER_04]: So, it's just me and you Robbie. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I know you didn't drive anything this week or ride anything this week, but recently you talked about something else that you rode. [SPEAKER_04]: I did. [SPEAKER_00]: I did. [SPEAKER_04]: I want to share some additional information with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here's some fun and really exciting news. [SPEAKER_00]: So remember when I talked about that Verge motorcycle, the T.S. [SPEAKER_00]: pro. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the one where the motor is part of the rear wheel. [SPEAKER_00]: They call it like a doughnut motor. [SPEAKER_00]: So there is no chain, there's no kids because the motor is, the wheel is the motor, the motor is the wheel. [SPEAKER_00]: Cool, fun, fun, fun bike to ride.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they have some news that they're unveiling at CES this year. [SPEAKER_00]: And the news is that the second generation, the second version of the spike, that one that they're going to be selling in the United States, [SPEAKER_00]: will ship with a solid state battery, which makes it essentially like the first production vehicle really that is at, you know, they're going to mass produce. [SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to make a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to go into 150 to first year. [SPEAKER_00]: But in 2026, according to the Vergemore cycles and their partner Donut Lab, they will be able to purchase a solid state battery, powered electric vehicle, which is huge news. [SPEAKER_00]: It is sort of, and I really hate this term, the Holy Grail of something. [SPEAKER_00]: Just, it's annoying, it's cliche, and it's, this is sort of the Holy Grail. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that chick vehicles for those who don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Salt, say batteries, the electrolytes, it's salt, it's not a liquid. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's the idea is that it allows for a more dense energy. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's more. [SPEAKER_00]: So you can get essentially the same amount of energy to say a hundred kilowatts. [SPEAKER_00]: pack that's like 60% the size, 40% the size, 50% the size. [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, you know, probably about half the size of that pack.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have a, let's say, a vehicle and the battery cost weighs 2,000 pounds for the say 300 miles, it can now be 1,000 pounds for, you know, 300 miles. [SPEAKER_00]: But also because you've lost all that weight, you're now you're getting extra miles because you've lost a thousand pounds. [SPEAKER_04]: So you get more miles per kilowatt hour because you're not living as much mass.

[SPEAKER_00]: And because the the the pack is less likely there's there's very little thermal runaway like you would with lithium ion so they're less prone to fire. [SPEAKER_00]: which means you don't have to protect them quite as much. [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to build this giant, I mean, you start to put some protection around it, because you don't want to get destroyed. [SPEAKER_00]: But you don't have to build essentially build a tank around it, so you're also losing weight.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that respect the whole and the charge quicker, the charge of much quicker than your regular battery packs. [SPEAKER_00]: And potentially, if you can fix the problem, which is the biggest problem with him is dendrites. [SPEAKER_00]: So what happens is that as everything's going back and forth through the electrolyte, you start getting little spikes, and those little spikes are called dendrites. [SPEAKER_00]: And they start creating shorts within your battery.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the biggest problem that's been with solid state batteries is that they, they, they're, their, their cycle life is pretty short. [SPEAKER_00]: because yes, they charge quicker, yes, they're more energy-density, less they're less prone to fire, but if the battery can only be charged like a thousand times, that's not ideal for a mass market.

[SPEAKER_00]: Donut lab, which is the partner with Hiverch says they are the way they are building their solid state batteries, they will not have dent rights, so they will not have the issues that everyone else is trying to solve when it comes to a solid state battery. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's huge, huge news. [SPEAKER_00]: I get they are making 300 50 this they are not, you know, they're not Honda. [SPEAKER_00]: They're not Toyota.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are, you know, two companies that are actively working on solid state battery. [SPEAKER_00]: They are not Nissan. [SPEAKER_00]: They're not having to make, you know, 30, 400,000 a million units a year with these batteries.

[SPEAKER_00]: at even 350 if you say you know we can we can do this the batteries have a five-year warranty they're saying that the the issue with the the life cycle is they will you know they're going to last way longer than lithium ion batteries it's a lot of really exciting stuff that they're they're they're sharing

[SPEAKER_00]: With everything that comes out when it comes to solid state battery, you kind of have to like, okay, wait and see, but they told me that they are already building the batteries. [SPEAKER_00]: They've been building them for months. [SPEAKER_00]: They've put them on bikes. [SPEAKER_00]: They've been running the bikes around for months. [SPEAKER_00]: They've been testing them in super, essentially in freezers and testing them essentially at 100 centigrade, which is like, why?

[SPEAKER_00]: But today I have, 100 centigrade is the boiling point for for us Americans with the deal of fair and height, which I have no idea what fair and height boiling point is, a lot, it's two hundred and twelve. [SPEAKER_00]: Two hundred and twelve fair and height. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's really, two hundred and twelve. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I did know that. [SPEAKER_00]: I was only guessed to it in twelve, but I didn't want, I was like, I'll sound stupid.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they're they're they're bike that they have now that I've ridden it has a lithium ion battery They can essentially have that brat battery and still get the same range which is about 217 miles is what's what they offer with the bike they have now. [SPEAKER_00]: So you can get the same bike with the same amount of range that weighs less [SPEAKER_00]: because the battery is like 60% of what the lithium ion battery. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, that donut motor in the back, that's smaller.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's about, that's the way 60% less. [SPEAKER_00]: So the tire is now as quiet as wide in the rear, which is nice for a bunch of reasons. [SPEAKER_00]: A wide tire is great for stability, but it's also, you're having to kind of file a little bit more for nimbleness. [SPEAKER_00]: The capacity of that battery is 20, about 20 kilowatt hours. [SPEAKER_00]: And it'll charge at the, they're new, the solid state at a hundred kilowatts for a motorcycle. [SPEAKER_00]: It'll have nacks.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it'll go from 20 to 60%. [SPEAKER_00]: They say, I'm sorry, 20 to 80% and 10 minutes is, that's essentially putting more gas in your, your motorcycle. [SPEAKER_00]: If you get the long range version, which they just put two solid state batteries, it'll be about 33 kilowatts, and then that one will DC fast charge it up to 200 kilowatts. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is a motorcycle.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not some, you know, this is not a car and it'll do 20 to 80% again in about 10 minutes. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, both of these have a five year warranty on their battery, so they are definitely making sure that these batteries last a long time. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really, really impressive.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited to ride these bikes once they come out, they will start building them again the first quarter of 20, 26, which is now, yeah, no, I have a whole interview over on SAE, we'll put that in the show notes with the CEO of Verge Morse cycles and with the Tech Team over at Donut Lab, originally they were like one company and then they sort of split off. [SPEAKER_00]: I've talked a little bit about coming up with what they've done to create this battery.

[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously they don't share too much because it is a proprietary bit of information. [SPEAKER_00]: It is a big deal for them. [SPEAKER_00]: And they also talk about looking beyond a two-wheel vehicle. [SPEAKER_00]: They look [SPEAKER_00]: You know, what else can these batteries, you know, energy storage, your phone, like everything uses a battery now.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you can make that battery, if you can have that battery with more capacity and some all our footprints that charge as quicker, you know, it's not just the idea that, you know, you can get a car that does all this. [SPEAKER_00]: You could, you know, your phone could last, you know, twice as long, your, your earbuds could last. [SPEAKER_00]: Twice as long. [SPEAKER_00]: home chart, you know, your home battery can hold twice as much capacity.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a, yeah, it's, it's a huge deal. [SPEAKER_00]: It is from a relatively small, you know, a small company. [SPEAKER_00]: They have been making more cycles selling them in Europe. [SPEAKER_00]: The more cycles they'll be selling in 2026 will be essentially for Europe and California. [SPEAKER_00]: So if you live in one of those places, you can order one. [SPEAKER_00]: They said there's still some spots.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have over 600, you know, I think there's, they have reasons for selling them only into regions. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, most places, when you remember when, when EV's first came out, most of them were only sold in California. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the sort of the same reasoning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, it was it was a pretty after I they they they shared the information with me after that ride I was like well well well sold down slow down when is this by coming out expecting them to tell me by the end of the by the end of the decade, which is essentially you know Honda's talking about by the end of the decade to you that I think is also talking about by the end of the decade. [SPEAKER_00]: I've oh gosh, I forget what Nissan I should look it up.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think Nissan's around the same time Nissan's been talking about like 2028 or so. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so the end of the decade. [SPEAKER_00]: I think everyone's like the end of the decade, which seems plausible and makes sense. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and then this small company, and it comes out and says, oh, yeah, we're doing it. [SPEAKER_00]: We're doing it in a few months in July. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so that's the big news for me out of CES.

[SPEAKER_04]: yeah i mean this is great you know one of the challenges one of the big challenges there's a lot of companies have been developing uh... solid state batteries and uh... you know there's been you know a lot of companies have gotten you know good samples of the batteries the the problem that everybody has had uh... is scaling manufacturing

[SPEAKER_04]: you know, and I think, you know, the fact that verge is only planning to make a few hundred of these, you know, kind of maybe a test to that, you know, companies like Quanam Skate, Ben Solid Power and SES and all the traditional battery makers, you know, have, they've been able to make small numbers of these things, but it's, it's scaling the manufacturing to high volume where it's been a challenge for everybody, and it'll be interesting to see if

[SPEAKER_04]: If these guys, if Donut Labs and Verge can actually get the volumes up and produce these in like, you know, enough for thousands or tens of thousands of motorcycles a year. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think, and they're open just to offering up batteries to other companies.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is a, for a company like them, if they can do this at 350, you know, they're making 600, you know, 700 packs essentially, plus they're talking about, you know, they're partnering with other companies already for the technology Donut Lab is, [SPEAKER_00]: If they can get, let's say they get 1,000, 2,000 batteries out this year, that gives them, you know, a little bit of a, a leg up on a lot of these sort of other companies outside, you know, the automakers.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, because then they have real world tests, people going out and using it versus like oh, we built one Mercedes that we're driving around and testing this all state battery, which is great, you know, that's how you learn things, that's how you figure things out.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when you're, you know, we got 350 of these vehicles going around and we also are building them for other companies and for other types of vehicles and we're able to get the data from all these vehicles while we're building this, this, this, this battery packs. [SPEAKER_00]: It's, yeah, it's exciting times because it does, I think, on one hand, it's good for this company individually. [SPEAKER_00]: That's great, good for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think overall, it's really good for the industry, because it pushes everybody. [SPEAKER_00]: If everyone's like, well, we're just gonna say end of the decade, and now this one small company's like, hey, we're making vehicles. [SPEAKER_00]: That makes you like, oh gosh. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, now competition is happening because now someone's out.

[SPEAKER_00]: When somebody has something, then everyone's gonna try to emulate it, try to at least catch up to them to beat them, to be better than them, and at the end of the day, that's really good for EV adoption. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think, you know, a lot of people are like, [SPEAKER_00]: It takes an hour to charge an EV, I'm like, well, not, I mean, most modern EVs know. [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, if people are like, well, you can get a more cycle.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, more electric more cycles, essentially the ones on the market are really sort of weekend or their commuter bikes. [SPEAKER_00]: because you can go somewhere you come back. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a daily writer, it's a commuter bike. [SPEAKER_00]: It is not the more cycle that, it's not the Harley-Davidson writer. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not the person who once a month rides 300 miles with their friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or they say they're gonna ride 200 miles, they realize how 300 miles is a long way, and they ride 200 miles, but they don't wanna worry about, you know, charging. [SPEAKER_00]: They want to write out to whatever restaurant they're going to meet at. [SPEAKER_00]: They want to hang out with their friends. [SPEAKER_00]: They want to go boom, boom, and then they want to write back. [SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to like, oh, hey, let's stop.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, my morsicle only has 150 miles of range on the highway. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not, that doesn't, you know, that's not the excitement of the more cycle lifestyle. [SPEAKER_00]: That sort of, that almost that weekend warrior lifestyle, you know, you want to be able to just ride your motorcycle all day without stopping to get gas. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you do stop to get gas, it only takes five to ten minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: This, this gives you that option to join your Harley riding friends. [SPEAKER_00]: on their trip. [SPEAKER_00]: So this is going to charge it 100 kilowatts and what's the size of the battery? [SPEAKER_00]: Let's capacity the battery. [SPEAKER_00]: So they have a standard range and a long range. [SPEAKER_00]: The standard range will charge it 100 kilowatts and it's 20 to 80 percent and 10 minutes. [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to 20 kilowatt hour battery.

[SPEAKER_00]: The long range version has a 33.3 kilowatt hour. [SPEAKER_00]: Battery it'll charge it up to 200 kilowatts and the same, you know, 20 to 80 percent and 10 minutes charge time Yeah, I mean that's you know 10 minutes. [SPEAKER_00]: That's that's good enough That's that's I got to get off the bike. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go inside. [SPEAKER_00]: I got to pee I got to get some beef jerky. [SPEAKER_00]: I go out to the bike time's up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah Awesome [SPEAKER_00]: after it's after 80% obviously it's probably 15 the 20 after you know if you want to charge to 100 [SPEAKER_00]: which, you know, it's that slower obviously than putting gas in your in your bike, you know, 20% 10 minutes is is and to get was the long range. [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, see you. [SPEAKER_00]: 200 miles on the highway. [SPEAKER_00]: It's 370 in the city for the for the long range and it, you know, 200 miles is four hours.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's fine. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I would think after, you know, 200 miles on a bike, you're, you're ready for a little bit of a break stretch your legs a little anyways. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right in 10 or 15 minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: if you ride you know that sort of vibration at your hand like if you haven't written a while there's a vibration of the handlebars and your hands feel really weird because you're getting used to if you haven't written a while you don't really get that on electric bike you get a little bit because of the road and but you don't get that that constant vibration that makes your hands feel a little odd

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's I think enough stuff like that is one of the reasons why people sort of like okay well I'm going to take a little break from writing this is why there's so many stops on these sort of monthly you know once a month rides because these people are not writing every day they don't write you know I when I live in the city I wrote every day because that's how I got to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I got around the city and so I just did you get that sort of vibration just kind of goes away You stop thinking about it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just part of how you ride. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just part of you know what your life But when you you know you ride once a month because you know you don't there's no need for you to ride a morse like on your work or for whatever reason Yeah, that boom, you know that vibration it feels

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a weird feeling when you're right electric bikes, and I've done a couple of electric bike rides in the last year and a half long days on ride programs, and it's just, it's just not there because you don't have that vibration the whole time. [SPEAKER_00]: So you actually less, [SPEAKER_00]: fatigued right in electric box. [SPEAKER_00]: You can actually ride long.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I don't I don't ride a motorcycle, but you know, I know, you know, from mowing my lawn, you know, I guess, but it's kind of like the handles of the lawnmower. [SPEAKER_04]: So I know, I know the feeling you're talking about that tingling sensation you get in your hands from from the vibrations of the mower. [SPEAKER_00]: There. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's that tingling [SPEAKER_00]: mode, a lawn, set, oh gosh, 30 years, maybe it's like you live in California. [SPEAKER_00]: I think, yeah, so we live in apartments for most of my life. [SPEAKER_00]: And now that I live in a house, when we bought the house, it came with fake grass. [SPEAKER_00]: So we never have to do that. [SPEAKER_00]: I have a weed wacker. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a electric and that's that's pretty much for weeds.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, all of my outdoor gear, my lawnmower, my weedwacker, the chainsaw, hedge trim, all that stuff is battery powered anyway. [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, I've been a homeowner for, you know, going on 32 years now. [SPEAKER_04]: And I have yet to ever, you have to ever water my lawn. [SPEAKER_04]: I've never, never once watered my lawn. [SPEAKER_04]: Wow. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, California, you have to water your lawn. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, all right.

[SPEAKER_04]: Cool. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, and that's exciting. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, first first solid state batteries coming to EVs here in the U.S. this this year. [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, this year on first first first quarter of 2020 and I bet you half of those 350 bikes get bought up by automakers and battery companies looking to test these things and tear down those batteries and figure out [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they're good.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be, they have over, I think, over 600 reservations, but they're, again, they're only sounding like in California and parts of Europe. [SPEAKER_00]: So they still have reservations available. [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're looking to buy one of these, they're over 20,000. [SPEAKER_00]: They're not cheap. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the Verge TS Pro. [SPEAKER_00]: I think as soon as the news drops, it's $20,000 is nothing to an automaker.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's going to be a couple of them. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Excellent. [SPEAKER_04]: All right. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I drove the Subaru WRX TS with a six-speed manual transmission. [SPEAKER_04]: And oh boy, was that fun? [SPEAKER_04]: I really like that car. [SPEAKER_00]: It is, I was like, I think myself, I talked to Tim Stephens, who has a big pile of like WRX's and STI's and sounds. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and we, so we talked about, because I used to on a WRX. [SPEAKER_00]: The T.S. [SPEAKER_00]: is kind of like, hey, it's kind of chill. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like the regular person's version. [SPEAKER_00]: It's still fantastic. [SPEAKER_00]: Like I think we both thought it was going to be like a little like they're going to like, you know, shave off the edges and make it like, you know, sort of, me, nope, just a fantastic vehicle.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know, they, [SPEAKER_04]: Subaru dropped the STI versions of the TTRX, at least here in North America a couple of years ago, although there's strong rumors that it's going to be coming back, you know, and they did show the two concepts at the Japan mobility show, including one that is based on the WRX, you know, based on the WRX hatchback.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so, you know, there's a, seems like there's a strong probability that, you know, a WRX STI hatchback will be back sooner rather than later, but, you know, what we have right now is the WRX T-S with the T-S standing butt for tuned by STI. [SPEAKER_04]: So it's not quite a full-blown STI, but it's, it's close.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, it's a superchar, turbocharged 2.4 cylinder, 2.4 liter, 4 cylinder box or engine, you know, just what you've had in WRX's forever, 171 horsepower and this one, 158 foot pounds of torque from 2000 to 5200 rpm.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that's one of the things about this in [SPEAKER_04]: The, you know, it's been years since I drove an STI, but I, you know, some years ago I drove a regular WRX at an STI back to back on consecutive weeks and I actually preferred driving the regular WRX to the STI, you know, for as a daily driver, you know, for driving on the street.

[SPEAKER_04]: Because the SCI had a lot more turbo lag, you know, it was a lot's differ, you know, this one, you know, is I think a really nice middle ground between the standard WRX and, you know, what we had as an STI. [SPEAKER_04]: And it's got plenty of low end torque, so it's really responsive, it's a lot easier to drive as a daily driver. [SPEAKER_04]: It comes with a 6-speed manual, no CVT in it. [SPEAKER_04]: It's got electronic control dampers, adaptive dampers, developed by STI.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's got Brembo brakes all around six piston front calipers and dual piston rears. [SPEAKER_04]: The one that I had was finished in the Galaxy Purple Pearl, which is this really dark purple color that in the sunshine, it looks fantastic. [SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, it wasn't a lot of sunshine that week that I had it, it was mostly overcast and snowing and raining and kind of miserable.

[SPEAKER_04]: you know, early winter weather, but when the sun was shining, it looked really fantastic in that galaxy pearl, it was really deep purple color, and then you get the gold colored calipers coming through the gray wheels, and in the interior it had recarro performance seats,

[SPEAKER_04]: and those these bright blue accents on the seats and on the dashboard and the door panels that you know contrasting against the black and predominantly black and gray interior, they really added a nice splash of color to the interior and made it a little more fun. [SPEAKER_04]: the seats are fantastic. [SPEAKER_04]: Not a lot of adjustments on the seats, but you don't really need a lot of adjustments as long as you fit the seats. [SPEAKER_04]: Fortunately, I do fit those seats.

[SPEAKER_04]: I took this thing out on a day when the weather was cold, but it was relatively nice out. [SPEAKER_04]: The sun was shining a bit. [SPEAKER_04]: The roads were dry and it came on.

[SPEAKER_04]: Fortunately, they put it on [SPEAKER_04]: uh... so that was that was all because you know temperatures were you know right around freezing uh... which you don't want to be driving summer tires on on uh... on those kind of those kind of conditions uh... so the winter tires still give it decent grip

[SPEAKER_04]: And it was just, it was such a ball to drive, you know, on some nice curving back country roads outside of Manarber, you know, you said that, you know, with the adaptive dampers on here, it was just, it was really nicely tuned, so it's, it's something that, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

[SPEAKER_04]: It feels really sporty, but it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not punishing ride quality, it's, you know, it's actually really comfortable to drive, you know, and this is something that you can easily use as a daily driver and it's quick, you know, the gear box was was really nice to shift, you know, it had,

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, had the, you know, the usual array of assistance features that you find on modern Subaru's like the eyesight system with the dual cameras, the stereoscopic camera system for, you know, adaptive cruise control. [SPEAKER_04]: So if you need to take a road trip, you know, it makes it makes it a little easier with the adaptive cruise control. [SPEAKER_04]: But, uh, [SPEAKER_04]: There's really only one complaint I had about the car and that was the infotainment system.

[SPEAKER_04]: you know, it's got support for wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, but, um, you know, this is the old, um, Subaru system that they've had for quite a while. [SPEAKER_04]: They call it Starlink, uh, and it's just, it's slow, uh, you know, the interfaces is okay, but it's slow. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just an iPad. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like someone gave you a third. [SPEAKER_04]: It's like a first generation iPad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, somebody gave you an iPad from my two generations ago and then you stuck it in your car. [SPEAKER_00]: That's essentially what it's like having this infotainment system. [SPEAKER_00]: When I drove this car, I sort of forgot about the infotainment system because that was how we still much fun driving. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's like, oh, this is kind of slow. [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, all right, well, it doesn't have that all the power went to the motor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_01]: You know what, we did all the other stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: You can put your eye, you know what, you can connect your iPhone, leave us alone. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, you know, it took a couple of minutes, you know, just for, you know, Android Auto to pop up on the, to finally pop up on the screen, you know, just to get some music or something.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, just, just to get that far, you know, I would, I'd already been driving for a while before it even came up on the screen. [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, if you don't need the navigation, if you don't need the music, just turn it off, turn off the audio, just listen to the sound of that boxer, because it's such a unique sound, and it just sounds so good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I used to work at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, at [SPEAKER_00]: Give me your car keys.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take your car. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll you know car. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought I'd do that and you could pay for it when I bring it back. [SPEAKER_00]: It was great because I never had to worry about you know You know getting you know getting my old change because they would just do it while I was working They would just watch my car while I was working They like to call my car the sewing machine Get the kindness sound like a sewing machine like oh, you're sewing machine.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know my career. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're like all right [SPEAKER_04]: It's a unique sound, I mean the only thing that sounds remotely close to that is like a Porsche Boxer Engine. [SPEAKER_04]: The Subaru even has its own unique sound to it distinct from a Porsche. [SPEAKER_04]: And it's a fun sound.

[SPEAKER_04]: And this thing is quick, this thing is seriously quick, you know, the 271 horsepower, you know, it's not that it's, you know, it's a fairly compact car, which means, you know, the back seat's not huge, you know, I could, I could fit back there behind myself, but, you know, it's, it's probably, you know, it's probably not something, something you'd want to have, you know, Robbie sit in the back seat of unless he was maybe sitting behind Julesim and Ella, you know, who's probably in for the living back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like Jill and I are going around solving crimes, traveling the world in our WRX, you know and currently you know the WRX is only available as a four door sedan. [SPEAKER_04]: You can't get it as a hatchback unfortunately. [SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully that's something that will will change, but you know we'll see, but even as a sedan, you know, it's, this is a great little car to drive. [SPEAKER_00]: It's, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see

[SPEAKER_00]: so that the roads can be a little rough. [SPEAKER_00]: And all those other cars get tossed around like there's nothing because they're so like you're going on a corner and they're just like it's rough So you're essentially tossing the super car around the WRX this this one and I drove the other one a couple of the the one right before this so the TS and then the previous generation and both of them just eight that were eight Those right up like there was nothing just absolute.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just That's a nice thing about the way the suspension is set up, you know, it does you know [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's got, there's kind of that Subaru rally heritage in there, you know, where, you know, they, you know, rally, you know, driving it on, unpaid gravel roads, you know, bumps and stuff. [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, it's got to have some suspension compliance to it, and so it just, you know, it works really well.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, on roads like we have here in Michigan or, you know, around where you live, Robbie. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it, this whole, the whole system works really well. [SPEAKER_04]: It's a good combination. [SPEAKER_00]: and most people don't know what this car is. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the best part. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a sleeper.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't look like anything, you know, crazy, you know, it looks, it looks fairly conventional, you know, like just a basic compact sedan, you know, it's got nice nice looking wheels on it, but other not, you know, it looks fairly conventional, and see the them and Rooney, they gave me didn't have a price on it, so let me get the very pricing here.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, the base WRX which strangely enough is premium trim, that's the base WRX is a little over $37,000. [SPEAKER_04]: The TS that I had, you know, if you're going to get the TS, you know, spring for the 395 bucks for the Galaxy Purple. [SPEAKER_04]: and then let's see, this one came to a grand total of 49,270 dollars, which is not inexpensive, but, you know, if you're considering something like a VW golf r or let's see what, you know, some other bar.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, a civic type R or an integrity type S, you know, that's not, you know, or, or, you know, a G.R. [SPEAKER_04]: Corolla, you know, it's not quite as, you know, it's more, it's more subtle in the way it looks, you know, if you want something that's not going to jump out and grab too much attention from, you know, from the, from the law enforcement that you might be driving past it slightly more than the speed limit.

[SPEAKER_04]: you know this this might be a better choice plus you know a golf r you can't get it with a manual transmission anymore it's automatic only or DSG only and you know this six-speed manual transmission 49 grand you want to take a guess at the destination charge

[SPEAKER_00]: I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I [SPEAKER_00]: This is the one, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: This is towards the winner of all of those cars.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the GR Corolla is a little bit more fun, but it's also like, we'll rattle your teeth out. [SPEAKER_00]: And it is a, it is a, for the term Gazoo, this is the most expensive. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be of those vehicles, everything else is a little bit tamer, especially the type that the Gulf are, which is unfortunately, I think they're really shaved off a lot of this sort of like danger of that vehicle, and now you can't even give it to Manor Transmission.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think of all those, this is the one that it's the less [SPEAKER_00]: The one that doesn't really stick out, but the overall, this is the best way. [SPEAKER_00]: That second, that short gearing of second is so amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: Because you're just like, for a second, you're in the third really quickly. [SPEAKER_00]: Because of that rally, you know, inspired.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people don't, they have problems with this vehicle with the mind transmission, because they can't figure it out, give, give it like a week. [SPEAKER_00]: like after like a week, some people will take a month, but once you figure out the, the, the, the gear in of this vehicle, oh, you bet it, you're in love. [SPEAKER_00]: You're in love with this vehicle for the rest of your life.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: And you know, if you like driving a manual, you know, you'll spend a fair bit of time actually shifting it and it just works really well. [SPEAKER_04]: Once you figure that. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Fantastic. [SPEAKER_04]: No, I definitely like this car. [SPEAKER_04]: I have a lot of fun with it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that, and all right, somebody's going to tell us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Someone's going to tell us that they raised the prices on all these vehicles. [SPEAKER_00]: The WRX, the this and the BRZ, and I know they did super is a small company. [SPEAKER_00]: But they raised the price without like raising up the the destination. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, like I said, by today's standards, you know, it's not like it's wildly overpriced relative to the competition.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: It's and what you're getting really competitive. [SPEAKER_00]: The engineering you're getting in this vehicle is it's not a high, you know, it's a high high volume vehicle, so they've got to, you know, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Good times. [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_04]: Let's move on.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we didn't, I didn't give particularly high marks earlier this year, or actually it's last year now, when Ram brought the hammy back to the 1500, you know, after, after driving it, you know, I thought it sounded great, but you know, if I was actually buying one, [SPEAKER_04]: better, you know, more powerful faster, better payload, better toning, and gets better fuel economy.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and, you know, when they, when Tim Caniscus came back, uh, after his, uh, brief retirement, after, uh, um, Carlos Devarez left Stalantis, um, you know, the first thing he did was bring to him me back to the ramp. [SPEAKER_04]: And as soon as that was confirmed, everybody knew it was just a matter of time before the [SPEAKER_04]: because if there's one thing that Tim likes to do, let's put a hammer here at Hellcat and everything.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so the Ram TRX is back for Modler year 2027. [SPEAKER_04]: It's coming back this summer. [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, I mean, it looks pretty much the same as it did before, and the same is the RHO. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so the sheet metal is all carryover.

[SPEAKER_04]: They did make some improvements, you know, so it's got the updated, [SPEAKER_04]: uh... the updated uh... electrical architecture uh... from you know when they refresh the ramp 1500 last year and so that means it's got you know updated infotainment and other features like it's got uh... level two you know hands-off and and uh... hands-off uh... assisted driving capabilities although you know why you would want that on on this vehicle i'm not quite sure

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, but the, you know, the big thing is they, um, they got more power out of it, you know, because, you know, if you're going to bring it back, you know, why bring it back with less power than your, your primary competitor, which is the Ford Raptor R. So they bumped it up from 700 and two horsepower to 777 worst power. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and this is what they want. [SPEAKER_00]: Can any of the people afford it? [SPEAKER_00]: No, but to give up what I want.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, it starts now when the TRX first came out, you know, it started about $72,000. [SPEAKER_04]: Now it's going to be $120,000, including the $2,595 destination charge. [SPEAKER_01]: But it has an SRT badge now. [SPEAKER_04]: They brought back, they're bringing back SRT to this to lengthus. [SPEAKER_00]: So, okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Does that think is, does that have the angry kitty cat on it? [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, it does.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there you go. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just gonna 3D print one of those, put it on my honor, five. [SPEAKER_00]: Done. [SPEAKER_00]: There you go. [SPEAKER_00]: Look at that, I got a hell cat in my honor, five. [SPEAKER_00]: Go, but a hell cat in my BRZ, you got to put a hell cat on my Vespa, 250.

[SPEAKER_00]: Boom. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I'm sure that this is gonna help, you know, Ram's bottom line, you know, they'll sell some of these, you know, it'll help their profit margins for a while. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I don't know, you know, I don't know how many people can actually afford these things, but, you know, it's back. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, but, you know, when, what, you know, [SPEAKER_04]: They've got, they seem like they have one strategy for what to do.

[SPEAKER_04]: Just put a hammy here or a Hellcat and everything. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, we're going to come up with something original. [SPEAKER_00]: Which, again, it's what the people want. [SPEAKER_00]: The thing is that they just need to start naming everything hammy. [SPEAKER_00]: Just be done. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, make a make an affordable car, make an afford, make bring back the Dodge rampage, put it like a four liter turbo car.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not four liter a four cylinder turbo charged, engine it, call it a hammy, be done. [SPEAKER_00]: The hammy for the hammy for each. [SPEAKER_00]: There's only four letters and hammy, each letter gets its own cylinder. [SPEAKER_04]: But, but that's not all, that's not all from Ram this week. [SPEAKER_04]: They also watched a new, an updated power wagon that you can now get with the Cummins turbo diesel before you could only get it with the 6.4 liter hammy.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now you can get it with the Cummins turbo diesel. [SPEAKER_04]: And so it's basically, it's basically a, you know, a Ram rebel HD. [SPEAKER_04]: with triple lockers, um, you know, but a little bit cheaper than a rebel. [SPEAKER_00]: You could pull a house off its foundation with a story. [SPEAKER_00]: Pretty much, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I was turned on this one thousand seventy five pound feet of torque. [SPEAKER_01]: You got all the torque. [SPEAKER_00]: You get all the torques.

[SPEAKER_00]: pull a house. [SPEAKER_00]: If you buy one of these, guess what? [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's calling you to pull that tree stump out of your yard because you can pull it. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, payload is about, let's see with the six and a half foot bed as about 3600 pounds. [SPEAKER_04]: It's got some significant payload capabilities. [SPEAKER_04]: which is, to be fair, that is significantly better than a TRX, the light, these light duty off road trucks.

[SPEAKER_04]: Typically, they lose a lot of payload capacity because you're adding all this extra weight for the skid plates and the big giant tires and everything else. [SPEAKER_04]: And I think the TRX payload capacity is only about 1,400 pounds, which is less than my neighbors for some of their hybrid maverick. [SPEAKER_04]: Um, but uh, you know, so at least, you know, with the, uh, with the power wagon, you still get lots of payload capacity and lots of towing capacity.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think this thing will tow, but, uh, 19,000 pounds, um, so yeah, you pretty much could pull most houses off their foundations. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And it only starts at 88,000, well, 88 and a half thousand dollars. [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, that's, you know, that's 15 grand less than a TRX. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm, you know, our, our, our cars, Lisa's ending in, in Jan, not January, June.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're like, oh, I guess we'll just get another, maybe we'll just find an Ionic five that's, you know, essentially the same car on the lot for like 25. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, man, that's gonna be a lot of money every month for a car payment. [SPEAKER_00]: And then $88,000 pops out. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_00]: You think, oh, that's, that's kind of cheap. [SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty cheap, that's nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: How I don't understand how people can afford I think I think a priorities are different for other for folks Plus again, I live a Bay Area so my cost of living for a lot of your other expenses are a lot more I bought a house in the Bay Area that's really where it comes down is that I bought a house in the Bay Area So might my expenses go to you know big chunk of my stuff goes to my home and then I have a lot of animals so, you know, they got it eat Yeah, yeah, but

[SPEAKER_00]: woof, 88,000 dollars, 90,000 dollars, probably after everything. [SPEAKER_00]: You probably 95, what's the, oh 88,000, including destination. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, bravo. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a bargain. [SPEAKER_00]: Bravo, Stalantis, for St. for doing that. [SPEAKER_00]: There you go. [SPEAKER_00]: So 90,000 bucks. [SPEAKER_00]: There you go. [SPEAKER_00]: Bravo. [SPEAKER_00]: You know what, I'm not gonna complain about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because they, because Stalantis did the right thing and said including destiny. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm very easily swayed. [SPEAKER_04]: OK, so let's swing to the opposite end of the spectrum from a power wagon. [SPEAKER_04]: Do you ever watch the rich rebuilds YouTube channel? [SPEAKER_00]: I, oh, I like once or twice, like a long time ago, I, yeah, I watched some of his videos. [SPEAKER_04]: He's pretty good.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so Rich, Rich Benalada lives in Massachusetts and kind of his stick is finding really cheap cars that, you know, profit, you know, that most others would just send to the [SPEAKER_04]: You know, almost nothing that wasn't running and he managed to get it running, you know, fiscal ocean managed to get it running again. [SPEAKER_04]: This is one that popped up in my YouTube feed the other day. [SPEAKER_04]: It's actually from a buddy year ago, but I thought it was kind of fun.

[SPEAKER_04]: He got an opportunity. [SPEAKER_04]: to get a Honda beat that wasn't running, you know, so basically the way he described it at the beginning of the video was, you know, I was offered this Honda beat for the low-low price of just get it off my lot. [SPEAKER_04]: So he got the beat, brought it back to his shop, and he had an arcamoto. [SPEAKER_04]: You've ridden the arcamoto, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I have ridden the arcamoto. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a fun little vehicle.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't [SPEAKER_00]: I know they had some problems, I know they were kind of like hit or miss for a couple of years trying to get everything going. [SPEAKER_00]: But it made a lot of sense for like small towns, small dense towns, like college towns and made like it was sounded awesome. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, Rich decided to merge the Honda beat and the Arcamoto.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, since the beat had an engine that wasn't working, he pulled the power train out of it, pulled the fuel tank out of it, pulled a bunch of other stuff out of it, and then took an Arcamoto apart.

[SPEAKER_04]: The Arcamoto has got dual motors, and [SPEAKER_04]: driving the two front wheels so the Archimodo for those who don't remember is it's a trich a tandem seat trich it's electric and he pulled the motors and the batteries and the electronics out of it and he put them into the Honda beat and he got it running [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and then, you know, took it out and was, uh, you know, the third video in the series, uh, I'll put the links to the videos, uh, in the show notes.

[SPEAKER_04]: The third video in the series did what they called it, the Honda Beat Off. [SPEAKER_04]: which, you know what, what drove it against a standard gas powered beat. [SPEAKER_04]: So the beat for those not familiar with it, is this tiny little mid-engine roadster that Honda sold in Japan many years ago, it's a K-car. [SPEAKER_04]: So that means it's got a 660cc three cylinder engine with all of 63 horsepower and a five-speed manual transmission.

[SPEAKER_04]: My friend, my gostons got one.

[SPEAKER_04]: I've driven it, it's fantastic, I love it, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's

[SPEAKER_04]: But it's not, you know, it's not real fast, you know, it was never, never particularly quick. [SPEAKER_04]: And I'll let you watch the video to see how the electric beat, the Arcamoto powered beat does against the original gas powered beat. [SPEAKER_04]: But it's this fun, it's a fun, fun project. [SPEAKER_00]: It's, I, I, I love everything about this. [SPEAKER_00]: This is like everything this is everything I wanted to do with my old my, uh, uh, dots in 2000 Roadster.

[SPEAKER_00]: I essentially just wanted to buy the Roadster back. [SPEAKER_00]: This is my first car from a friend of mine who, who has it who won't sell to me. [SPEAKER_00]: I won't say his name, but he knows who he is. [SPEAKER_00]: And every, like, once a year, once every other year, I like did I want to, can I buy it? [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, no, I don't, I don't, I don't really want to sell it. [SPEAKER_00]: I think his kid is going to do something with it, which I'm like, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, fine, but they haven't done anything with it and it makes me sad because I we were going to do a whole video series about making it an EV at one point and of course we never got it so but yeah now this I that the Honda beat is is is is a wonderful little K car and I would love to have one that has a little you know that's built that's powered by the arcamoto you know what would be cool around 10

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, now Honda, you know, instead of like the the beat was built in like the late or early 2000s, I think late no late 90s late 90s and they currently have a model that's sort of a successor called the S60 and what would be cool is if they took the electric power train from the the super one that I drove in Japan in October. [SPEAKER_04]: other little electric cake, you know hot catch cake car. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, put put that into the into the S 60. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that would be.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's just that's that's someone with a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: See, this is why if like, if I were rich, there's a couple of things I would do. [SPEAKER_00]: first I would buy like it's a big-plot land and just be the guy who has a lot of like rescue animals Like because it's let's like my my life and that's kind of our deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: We rescue a lot of And it's like all our animals were essentially like well like one of our castes they have a paw Because of the people were like well, we don't know if things are going to take them like we'll take him we'll take him. [SPEAKER_00]: He's missing a paw.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll take him [SPEAKER_00]: And so all that would make my wife so happy if we bought a big ranch and we just rescued a bunch of animals So there'd be that and then there'd be just the most ridiculous car bill And that would be horrible to put them in YouTube. [SPEAKER_00]: I would have to hire somebody I would give somebody a job to just shoot video of me doing doing bad bad breed like builds and swaps [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, like some of the basics for Rich does.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would do it. [SPEAKER_00]: Rich is, I would just, I would just be Rich's best friend. [SPEAKER_00]: I would call him every day. [SPEAKER_00]: Rich, have you decided to do this yet? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna do this, okay? [SPEAKER_00]: So there would be signs. [SPEAKER_00]: Like I wouldn't tell people I was rich, but there would be signs. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Why is it a $57 now? [SPEAKER_01]: And why is he, is he trying to have a monarchy with a viper engine?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd even sure a model T. It couldn't hold the weight. [SPEAKER_00]: It was the weight. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I'd be able to imagine. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But you could, I think every old car, if it was you like, super like, oh, it's got to be original. [SPEAKER_00]: Just throw it EV, an electric motor in it. [SPEAKER_00]: I saw an I. [SPEAKER_00]: yesterday, in fact, that the side had been swit, like both wheels were destroyed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The car was a total loss, but the battery area looked fine. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I was driving with my wife or going to lunch and drive like, we should follow that car and steal the battery and the motors out of it. [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, what are you talking about? [SPEAKER_04]: Just put him in the garage until I figured out somewhere, something didn't follow me. [SPEAKER_00]: You know what? [SPEAKER_00]: We could make the Jaguar a real car. [SPEAKER_04]: There you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just like, oh, every time I'm like about to do it, something happens. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, oh, yep. [SPEAKER_04]: I have plenty of those projects around the house. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, mine just happens to be a giant x-tip sitting in my driveway, taking it up space. [SPEAKER_04]: OK. [SPEAKER_04]: So we have talked previously about electromechanical door latches and cars.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we've been critical of a bunch of automakers, including Rivian for these things. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, an article popped up the other day. [SPEAKER_04]: where Rivian owners are because the mechanical backup latches are so hard to find on these things, especially on the R1s, particularly on the rear doors. [SPEAKER_04]: So on the rear doors, they're actually hidden. [SPEAKER_04]: There's a panel by the door handle.

[SPEAKER_04]: that you have to pop out, so you need like a screwdriver or something to, you know, so if you're stuck in the car in the door, the mechanical electronic latch won't work, you have to pop off this little panel and then reach in and pull on this cable to release the door handle. [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, if something happens, you know, you get into a crash and the doors won't open and your kids are in the back, how are they supposed to do that?

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, or if you got a friend in the back that is not familiar with this guy, how are they supposed to know that or, you know, even the owner, how's anybody supposed to know that's how you do it. [SPEAKER_04]: And so some rivian owners have apparently started taking to their own DIY emergency door releases on the back doors of the R1S and the R1T.

[SPEAKER_04]: And you can see the photo in here, you can see the rope, they basically took off some of the parts, attached this rope to the wire loop that you're supposed to pull after you pull off this panel. [SPEAKER_04]: It looks so ridiculous, but it's it's ridiculous. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a little bit because they're using this. [SPEAKER_00]: They're using a pair of pair of paracord. [SPEAKER_00]: At least it looks like on brand, but it does look ridiculous. [SPEAKER_00]: It's true.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it does it's true. [SPEAKER_04]: It does fit, you know, with the adventure's theme of a Rivian. [SPEAKER_04]: Nonetheless, yeah, it's like, you know, if owners have to do this, then the manufacturer is doing it wrong. [SPEAKER_04]: Rivian, take note. [SPEAKER_04]: fix this. [SPEAKER_04]: Stop doing this. [SPEAKER_00]: Just make a mechanical door. [SPEAKER_00]: They work, they've worked for decades.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

[SPEAKER_00]: We're clever for the sake of clever, stop it. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: All right, the Tokyo Auto Salon is coming up in a couple of weeks. [SPEAKER_04]: And this is a very different kind of show from the Japan Mobility Show. [SPEAKER_04]: This is more like Japan's version of SEMA, where you have all kinds of custom stuff. [SPEAKER_04]: on display. [SPEAKER_04]: And a fan of this article, there is a school in Japan, forget the name of it here.

[SPEAKER_04]: But oh, it's the neon automotive college and a group of students there have been working on a project for the Tokyo Auto Salon. [SPEAKER_04]: to take a Dahatsu Copen, which is a K-Car, it's a little K-Car Roadster, and they're transforming it into a Supra. [SPEAKER_04]: So putting, miniaturized Supra bodywork on a Dahatsu Copen, which just looks so cool. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, this is awesome.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's kind of like a like a little hotwheels prediction of a super Hot we have to strive Yeah, you get everything and I'm like the actual super it's it's a convertible too [SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, and with the no car, have I gotten into where I get into an immediately like this car should be in a kind of vertical. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's because, you know, it's the Z4, it's the convertible. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just, you could feel it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can feel that its soul is out of the convertible. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: uh... alright uh... gelapnik had uh... one of their listicles that they do all the time uh... and uh... this one is uh... nine trucks that had super cool bed features [SPEAKER_04]: You know, this is one of the things, you know, the competition and the pickup truck market has led manufacturers to, you know, to get a little more creative.

[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, figure out what kinds of interesting utilitarian features. [SPEAKER_04]: Some of these are better than others. [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, some of these are are really good. [SPEAKER_04]: So this is on the sides of the bed, you've got these storage boxes and you can put tools and all kinds of other stuff in there, including even a guy named Mike Levine will fit in the RAM box. [SPEAKER_04]: If you know, if you know, you know, let's see.

[SPEAKER_04]: But some of the other things that they've got on here, the Utila track that they had on the original 2004 Nissan Titan, which was this track system with cleats that you could move around so you can tie stuff down. [SPEAKER_04]: retain stuff. [SPEAKER_04]: The dual action tailgate on the Honda Ridgeline that opens like a regular tailgate or open sideways. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, they did that long before anybody else started getting these crazy tailgates.

[SPEAKER_04]: The the avalanche midgate back in 2002. [SPEAKER_04]: the the multi-protele gate the GMC launched in 2019 what else oh and of course the in-bad trunk in the ridge line you know the ridge line you know even though it's never been a huge seller you hando got really creative with that truck the ridge line is so great [SPEAKER_00]: I love the rich. [SPEAKER_00]: I so much and when my wife got into one, she's like, oh, is this electric?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, she's like, no, she really liked it because it was like, it's a good size. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really comfortable. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a, it's a Honda Odyssey. [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually, yeah, and it's comfortable. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm like, look, it's got a tailgate. [SPEAKER_00]: You look, it's got a, it's got a, a trunk underneath the bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, oh, everything about the rich is awesome, except that people are like, oh, we're just not enough one for 50. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a real truck because [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, it's a unibody, it's not body unfraying, but no, the ridge lines, though, well, you don't need to do. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why it's, that's why I always say the R1T is essentially just a ridge line.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, if you, if you could get that I actually were talking about and get like an old first generation ridge line. [SPEAKER_04]: There you go, bet you that you could make that fit. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we might lose the tilt, the trunk though for the batteries.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, the money I would do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the money I would just blow through with my bill, my million dollar lottery ticket that I don't have that I never played a lottery. [SPEAKER_04]: And of course, one of the, one of the the best on here of course is Ford Pro Power on board, you know, if if you're going to have some electrification either hybrid or battery electric on a truck, you might as well put a bunch of plugs in there. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, the pro power is great.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go somewhere and do some work. [SPEAKER_00]: When we did a wedding, and we had the F-150 lightning, the band, and they were doing power, they were turning power out during the around that time that weekend. [SPEAKER_00]: They were talking about having to cut power in places in the order of California. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I got the F-150 lightning. [SPEAKER_00]: I could save this wedding if things go sideways. [SPEAKER_00]: I was already to go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I brought some extra like a stench and corks. [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't happen. [SPEAKER_04]: Deadch and corks and power strips and stench and corks are trash. [SPEAKER_00]: That's all you need. [SPEAKER_04]: But you were ready. [SPEAKER_04]: You're ready. [SPEAKER_04]: That's that's the way it always works. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, when you're ready, then everything goes fine. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's when you're not ready that everything goes sideways.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's why I'm always ready. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: All right. [SPEAKER_04]: So another thing that popped up was an article about an old Ford concept. [SPEAKER_04]: And interestingly, this one was on autoblog. [SPEAKER_04]: And they did not link to an article that I wrote for autoblog back in July of 2007. [SPEAKER_04]: So this is all about the Ford Interceptor concept. [SPEAKER_04]: So the 2007 Detroit Auto Show Ford unveiled three concept vehicles.

[SPEAKER_04]: They had this van called the Airstream, which had or purportedly had their high-series drive, you know, the fuel cell, plug-in hybrid system in it. [SPEAKER_04]: They had [SPEAKER_04]: the Lincoln MKR, which was this Ford or Lincoln coupe concept that introduced a design language that they subsequently brought to all of their production models for a few years.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then the Interceptor, which was this big classic American sedan, it was built on a stretched Mustang platform. [SPEAKER_04]: I will put a link to the original article that I wrote back in 2007 because usually when automakers build these concept cars more often than not they're not even drivable. [SPEAKER_04]: But even if they are driveable, they rarely ever let outsiders actually drive them.

[SPEAKER_04]: But for some strange reason, and July of 2007, Ford had an event at their Dearborn Proving Grounds where they brought out these three concepts plus some other stuff that they were working on. [SPEAKER_04]: And they let us actually spend the day driving these things around the Proving Grounds.

[SPEAKER_04]: and so get to drive this this interceptor and so I've got the you know the article that I wrote for Autoblog in 2007 all about this and you know this thing like I said it had it was built on a stretched Mustang chassis and that's one ninety seven Mustang chassis and it had a five-liter

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and it was a great engine and it had a big four barrel carburetor on it and this particular day when they had this effect was like ridiculously hot and humid it was like 90 plus degrees and about 90% humidity [SPEAKER_04]: And because this was a concept, it didn't really have proper cooling and everything. [SPEAKER_04]: It didn't have good, they hadn't sorted out all the air flow through the engine compartment. [SPEAKER_04]: So this thing kept vapor locking.

[SPEAKER_04]: So you drive like two thirds, three quarters of a lap, and then it would grind to a halt because it would the carburetor would vapor lock. [SPEAKER_04]: And then it would have to sit for 10 or 15 minutes under the tent with the hood up while they let it cool off. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're blown, blown fans, I'm like, oh my god, my dad is my dad at a 260, don't 240, 260 z that would vapor lock constantly.

[SPEAKER_00]: You just be up, I start choking because it couldn't get any power, it couldn't get any gas, it could vapor lock. [SPEAKER_04]: This was a cool, cool-looking car, but, you know, they obviously never built it. [SPEAKER_04]: Instead, we got the 2010 Ford Taurus, you know, which was not quite the same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one talks about the four to twenty ten tort four toys and now we know why this is a cool I think I don't know this it's fine because the front of it is very reminiscent the flex It's got the full sort of the the flex front and I think it's it's cool I don't think I think you'd have to adjust it a little bit Yeah, in order to sell it obviously, but this is a cool car and I think it would have been

[SPEAKER_00]: It would have be hoves forward to make it just make you know what just pull this out Throw any of you Engine get some of those F-50 lightning motors you got sitting around throw them in the interceptor and watch people lose their minds Yeah, that would be fun [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, let's see back to the rundown here. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, so I mentioned Fiskar earlier, which rebuilds, you know, he had rebuilt a Fiskar ocean. [SPEAKER_04]: He also did a Fiskar karma.

[SPEAKER_04]: He found a Fiskar karma and got that thing running again. [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, [SPEAKER_04]: Fiskar automotive, which was the original company that Henry Fiskar started back in 2008 or 2009, and built the Fiskar Karma. [SPEAKER_04]: And it went into production briefly. [SPEAKER_04]: They built, I think, about 2,100 of them before the company went bankrupt.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, you actually got more [SPEAKER_04]: after like when when fiscal automotive went bankrupt, they during the banks of bankruptcy process, the assets of the company were bought by a Chinese company called Wang Shang, and they launched karma automotive, so they rebranded as karma automotive, and they basically continued to build these things in very small volumes ever since.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's probably, I think maybe five or six hundred of these things that have been built over the last 12 or 13 years, you know, over time they updated it. [SPEAKER_04]: Originally, you know, so the karma was an e-raft. [SPEAKER_04]: It was an extended range EV, you know, true e-raft with the engine was not. [SPEAKER_04]: connected to the wheels at all.

[SPEAKER_04]: It just drove a generator and had a battery pack, you know, had about 40-ish miles of range originally, and then the engine would start up and run the generator to keep the thing going. [SPEAKER_04]: And over time, they replaced the original GM-4 cylinder engine that was in there. [SPEAKER_04]: with a BMW 1.5 liter 3 cylinder turbo that had more power. [SPEAKER_04]: They replaced the generator, they replaced the batteries, they replaced the motors.

[SPEAKER_04]: They did some tweaking to the design. [SPEAKER_04]: But they're still basically building the same car. [SPEAKER_04]: And even now, they re-branded it as the karma Rivera for a number of years. [SPEAKER_04]: And they recently discontinued the Rivera and launched a new, where they call it now.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, just a guy a Sarah guy a Sarah how do you say that I don't know but I mean when you look at this you know, as soon as you see it Yeah, they've you know, they've refreshed the styling they changed the front and rear facies. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they changed the front fenders a little but it's clearly it's it's still the original karma Yeah, it's just a pretty car.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean this is the car we had to design you know 17 years ago [SPEAKER_00]: it's still a really pretty car it's still yeah i still like the way it looks i would die by one oh god no but i love the looks yeah well i you know i actually had a chance to drive um the uh

[SPEAKER_04]: the Ravaro Ravaro, probably about six or seven years ago, they brought one up to the management briefing seminars in Trevor City and their PR guy at the time, who's actually here with us now, he used to be a GM, he's guy named [SPEAKER_04]: Why am I blanking on his name now? [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, anyway, he's here, he's here, let's see, yes, now, and he ran into him and said, hey, I'm working with Carmen now, you know, we've got a referral here, do you want to try it out?

[SPEAKER_04]: I said, sure, why not? [SPEAKER_04]: And took it out for a drive for about 45 minutes and it was actually quite fun. [SPEAKER_00]: And it looks, yeah, I think it's just no one knows it's even a car still. [SPEAKER_00]: I've talked, I talked to Karma at Monterey car week, like five years ago, probably. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, yeah, you know, we got the car at the time. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, it's cool. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm still beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still this, but like, no one knows. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like, I want those there a thing is a secret. [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a cool indie band. [SPEAKER_00]: That everyone's like, oh, wow. [SPEAKER_00]: This is really cool. [SPEAKER_00]: No one knows the indie band. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the band that it's like one of the bands when I talk to friends. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, have you heard the new blood?

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_04]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha [SPEAKER_04]: email got a notification from the video newsroom.

[SPEAKER_04]: They unveiled the interior of the new ID Polo, which we've talked about before. [SPEAKER_04]: So this is their new smaller EV. [SPEAKER_04]: It's supposed to be priced under 25,000 euros.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a shame that this thing is not going to be sold in North America, [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so the big thing is the interior, you know, we wanted one of the big complaints about all the current ID cars, the ID 3, ID 4, the ID buzz is all the touch controls, you know, especially, you know, they've got touch controls for the volume and the temperature and everything at the bottom of the center touch screen, it's just annoying to use.

[SPEAKER_04]: And the ID Polo, the W says they've heard the complaints about touch controls, going back to physical controls.

[SPEAKER_04]: So you got to get a bunch of physical, there's a whole row of physical buttons, there's a rotary volume knob on the center console, so you don't have, if you just want to adjust the volume, you don't have to reach all the way up and reach out for the screen, you just reach down, give it a twist, it's got manual vents, just as it should be, it's got physical buttons on the steering wheel, not touch, you know, haptic buttons on the steering wheel,

[SPEAKER_04]: for Windows 4's not too in a weird like switch front the back for window levers yeah i mean it's they they've they've heard all the things that everybody hated about all their current generation EVs and looks like they've fixed almost all of them and and you know i think this is their [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a challenge.

[SPEAKER_04]: The 10-inch digital display for the instrument cluster and one of the options on there is basically a replica of the old first generation golf instruments. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, kind of like Ford did on the Machi. [SPEAKER_04]: Not on the market, but on the regular Mustangs, where you have the option to get the Fox Body gauges on the digital instrument cluster, you know, VW's doing this on the ID Polo as well.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think this could, I would love to be able to try one of these out. [SPEAKER_00]: Put all these controls in the ID Buzz, make it a heart of vault, put some weird, put some [SPEAKER_00]: lower their price, give you what you give everyone a real cheap option so they can upbuild it and Volkswagen's back. [SPEAKER_00]: They're back, baby. [SPEAKER_00]: After, it's, I don't know, a very long time of just sort of not making it, anyone care. [SPEAKER_00]: This is, this is beautiful.

[SPEAKER_04]: All right. [SPEAKER_04]: We got some listener emails and messages. [SPEAKER_04]: So some of these we're going to address a couple of these we are going to save because they concern Nicole's next car. [SPEAKER_04]: So we're going to save those for Nicole. [SPEAKER_04]: But there are a couple that we're going to hit. [SPEAKER_04]: The first one is from Mr. Burns. [SPEAKER_04]: This was on the Discord. [SPEAKER_04]: And says, so here's a topic for the next episode.

[SPEAKER_04]: Or maybe it should have been for Sunday's episode. [SPEAKER_04]: What was the weirdest thing you had to fix on your vehicle in 2025? [SPEAKER_04]: Either diagnosed or diagnosed and fully, [SPEAKER_04]: either diagnosed or diagnosed and fully repaired. [SPEAKER_04]: Example in the call had to have her gone EV Jeep after it was dragged over and through an airport parking garage gate system.

[SPEAKER_04]: And Mr. Burr. [SPEAKER_04]: His example was I'm waiting until 2026 to replace $700 worth of rear seat seat belts. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so for me, I haven't, I've been fortunate with my cars, but I think early year I went to put my seatbelt in and a spring shot out, boom, like a cartoon out of the seatbelt in my BRZ. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like three in the morning, I had a 6 a.m. flight, and I'm like okay. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm leaving my house to go to the airport.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't take the other car because my life needs it for work. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just like, so I'm fiddling with it to get it to work. [SPEAKER_00]: And I finally get it in. [SPEAKER_00]: But in order, it doesn't have the spring anymore to get it out. [SPEAKER_00]: So when I get to the place, it takes a little while to get it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that was sort of the weirdest fix, and I just, it was like 70 bucks, I went to the Subaru dealership, ordered it, I was still able to like sort of like, I could get it in, it would hold, but it tickled a little while to get it out. [SPEAKER_00]: So if I was an accident, there was a fire would have died. [SPEAKER_00]: But that's the weirdest thing I've had to fix this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: But all I remember is that [SPEAKER_00]: Slaps bring the shoots up and I was like, what the yeah, that's the only I think that's the only thing that's that's broken on any of my cars this year Except for like, you know flat tires and stuff like that, but but it was also very weird with the the seat belt thing Because that had never happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've had cars for over 15 years that the seat belts are fine after all that Sort of a weird thing to to break on a car [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I had, on the Miata, the fuel gauge hadn't been working for a couple of years, actually. [SPEAKER_04]: And so I was just using the triple-dometer to keep track.

[SPEAKER_04]: Every time I filled it up with gas, I would reset the triple-dometer, and yeah, I only drive it for fun, so I thought every 150 miles or so I would stop and put gas in it, reset it. [SPEAKER_04]: So, I finally decided, you know, I'm just going to figure out how to fix this thing. [SPEAKER_04]: And part of the reason why I had left it is I figured I could have to take it somewhere, you know, drop the gas tank to do it.

[SPEAKER_04]: And when I actually researched, you know, replacing the center unit, turns out that it was actually a lot easier than I thought. [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, on the, on the gas tank is behind the seats between the seats and the trunk. [SPEAKER_04]: And so there's a carpeted panel when you put this top down, you know, there's a shelf behind the seats there. [SPEAKER_04]: And all I had to do was actually just pull up the carpet that was on top of this.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's an access panel, you know, five, five sixth screws, take this access panel off, and then right on the top of the gas tank, [SPEAKER_04]: was you could the the thing to access the fuel pump and the center unit was right there. [SPEAKER_04]: So you know, another five or six screws lift this thing out, take off the center unit, put another one on, put it back in.

[SPEAKER_04]: except when when I pulled off the the main access panel I found a bunch of stuff sitting on top of the gas tank which like so does I thought I knew oh shit it's a mouse nest that was nice and you know so you know they had they had chewed through one of the wires for the fuel gauge center unit [SPEAKER_04]: And as it turns out, even after I resorted that, I still had to replace the center unit.

[SPEAKER_04]: So the center unit had died anyway, but they had also chewed through one of the wires. [SPEAKER_04]: So I had a little bit of soldering to do. [SPEAKER_04]: But before I got to the soldering, I had to clean out all of the stuff, all the detritus that the mice had brought up to make their little nest. [SPEAKER_04]: Are you going to get that on the device? [SPEAKER_04]: The parcel shelf. [SPEAKER_00]: Or Bobbi please.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, so I get my shop back out and I'm reaching route and around in there, vacuuming up all the stuff and then all of a sudden You know that sounds you get you know when something plugs the end of your your vacuum and so I pull it out and it's like there's a mouse There on the back you're wriggling around and it's like shit. [SPEAKER_04]: So turn it off take it up Shake it out on the ground up You know to get it out

[SPEAKER_04]: uh... but you know finished clean that off replace the center unit you know it was about a fifteen minute job uh... and you know i found a i got a replacement center unit on on ebay uh... for about a hundred bucks i think uh... fixed that up so yeah so that was that was an easy fix and then then the other the only other issue that we had to fix this year was when we bought our replacement EV six after the first one got total

[SPEAKER_04]: Before I bought it, you know, I took, I put the VIN number, you know, gone on the NITSA Web Recall website and you can put in a VIN number to see if there's any open recalls on the vehicle. [SPEAKER_04]: I put in the VIN number and, you know, to check for recalls because, you know, these EV sixes, like all the other Hyundai and Kia EVs, had the issue with the integrated charge control unit. [SPEAKER_04]: And it wasn't, it would fail and not charge the 12 volt battery.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so I put the van in to know, you know, no unrepaired recalls. [SPEAKER_04]: Now, it turns up that no unrepaired recalls doesn't necessarily mean that I've found out after the fact that it doesn't necessarily mean that the ICCU has actually been replaced. [SPEAKER_04]: It just means it's been inspected. [SPEAKER_04]: And so, you know, they expected it, it was fine, it hadn't failed, so they didn't do anything with it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, about a month and a half after we got the car. [SPEAKER_04]: I was on a trip, I was coming home the next day. [SPEAKER_04]: My wife, Texans, has just got an electric system fault on the car. [SPEAKER_04]: And it went into turtle mode. [SPEAKER_04]: She was only like two blocks from the house so she was able to get it home. [SPEAKER_04]: But the ICCU had failed. [SPEAKER_04]: And so she got at home, got it in the garage, and I got home the next day.

[SPEAKER_04]: I plugged in the scanner yet, the 12-volt battery was low, it wasn't charging, it was the ICCU fault, and so I had to have it towed to the dealer. [SPEAKER_04]: It was fixed under warranty, that didn't cost me anything.

[SPEAKER_04]: And the dealer was great, they actually, and this was like right before Christmas, and they were thinking that, you know, they weren't sure if they were going to be able to get the part in before Christmas and get it replaced, which case it would have been like till December 29th.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it would have been in the shop for a week and a half, as it turns out, the part got shipped out like the next day, they got it fixed in two days and back on the road and haven't had a problem since. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've always had such great not so much with like the dealers like as sales people But like the service centers like when we had our many we take it to the many service center because it was less expensive to take it at the Jiffy loop I don't change my own oil.

[SPEAKER_00]: I stop doing that in the 90s like I'll switch anything else in the car But changing the oils just that's no. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not gonna do that [SPEAKER_00]: And our dealer service center for the, for the, for the, for the Hyundai, they're fantastic. [SPEAKER_00]: Just great wonderful people and I, and every time I hear the dealers like, oh, well, we're not going to make money at EVs, that, that, that, that, that they'll make lean into your service centers.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where all the cool people work. [SPEAKER_00]: All the hell nice people work in the service center and the parts department. [SPEAKER_00]: They're like, hey, what's your need? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, I need this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you see all the cool stuff for your car from that, like, you know, like, you know, the Ford branded or the Hyundai branded or the Toyota branded or Subaru branded, like little chotch keys you can buy, you're like, oh, maybe I'll get a, you know, tea chain or whatever. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's the same as like, you know, the money they get from selling a car, but I really think it should take lean in, lean into the nice people you have in your dealerships.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, especially, you know, when it's, you know, if it's something that's under warranty anyway, you're absolutely thinking money to that. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's not for you, but, you know, it's a money. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I mean, it's free, it's free to the customer, you know, they get paid by the manufacturer for doing warranty work. [SPEAKER_04]: So, absolutely, you know, take advantage of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And also, the idea that you can just get to the fuel pump, [SPEAKER_00]: through a panel on top is just another yes vote for what's the the answer is always meata yeah that's I mean that's just yeah that's just good design for serviceability. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: My friends sent me an MG, like on Facebook Marketplace other days, and she was like, oh, should I get this? [SPEAKER_00]: And I just replied, no, period.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's an MG because it's an MG. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, it's like, oh, I'm like, you should get a Miata, get the ND, you should get in the ND's probably the best for, for, for non-car people. [SPEAKER_00]: Could, it's, I mean, I fit in it. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm happy in her boyfriend's a little tall. [SPEAKER_00]: Or, or, yeah, the answer was, the answer was Miata.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm, you know, unless you're someone who likes to spend a lot of time working on your cars. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, if you have the time and the wherewithal to work on your cars, then, you know, then absolutely get an MG or, you know, some other, you know, yeah, some other British cars. [SPEAKER_00]: If you like, if you have a lot of like a meters in your home, like the little electric meters, like the test stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Like I have meters and volt meters and yeah, volt meters. [SPEAKER_00]: If you have those in your home, if you're that type of person, yeah, go ahead, get a good at British car. [SPEAKER_00]: Or as my cousin once said, I'm going to get a sub and I turned to him and said, no you're not. [SPEAKER_04]: And you're not, because you have multi meters and you don't have a solder, then get a British car.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're, if you're an architect, get a sub, an architect knows how to work that car. [SPEAKER_04]: Get a sub. [SPEAKER_04]: Keith is kind of weird, and last one's from Colin and Minnesota. [SPEAKER_04]: So last week we talked about some of the parts from cheap cars that show up on super cars. [SPEAKER_04]: Colin in Minnesota wrote a, I said, I'm a total sucker for, did you know this car used X part from Y car trivia?

[SPEAKER_04]: One of my favorites is that the F1, the McLaren F1, used the front marker lenses from the Lotus M100 Elon, a Peter Stevens kept that a secret from Gordon Murray, and Peter Stevens designed the M100 Elon, and he also designed the F1. [SPEAKER_04]: I'll be kept at a seat from Gordon Murray because he hated the front wheel drive M100. [SPEAKER_04]: Probably a pockreful, but who knows, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, if that was a true story, but you never know.

[SPEAKER_04]: And listening to a podcast while putting a new water pump on my 79 alpha spider here and snowy Minnesota, you guys are even more entertaining when working with brake cleaner. [SPEAKER_04]: We're not, you know, we try to be entertaining, but we, you know, I don't want to recommend working with break cleaner unless you absolutely have to. [SPEAKER_04]: But I can definitely see how, you know, you might get a few more laughs out of us if, if you were inhaling some of that stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's funny when you're doing breaks. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, these guys are hilarious. [SPEAKER_04]: Alright, well thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you next week and hopefully Nicole will be back and hopefully Rose is okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Bye. [SPEAKER_01]: Bye.