Adios To A Pioneer

it. This is episode 438 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam Abuel

Samad from Telemetry. And I'm Nicole Wakeland from Test

Miles. And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International. And

Nicole, sleep and driving. Well, it's a car that I think you

might actually be a little familiar with Sam. I'm driving

the Hyundai Palisade calligraphy. All wheel drive or

all wheel drive. What color? Creamy white. Look, I like

that name. I like it. The names they come up with for

colors these days. I mean, it's actually it's dirt

colored. It's dirt and salt colored right now, but go

ahead. I also had the same thing this week, but I had the

classy blue. See, that's way better than creamy white. I

was in Germany, so I didn't drive nothing. It's like the

word slacks. I don't like slacks. That word slacks. Slacks.

Slacks. Like you don't you wear pants. You don't wear

slacks. Slacks. I don't like the word slacks. Trousers. How

about trousers? Trousers just makes you sound like you're an

1850s dandy or something, but pants. Just pants. Because in

the UK pants is underwear. Oh, is it? Okay. Well, you know

what? I'm just calling it pants. I'm not in the UK. I'm

American. I'm going with. I'm just excited about you. I'm also

not saying aluminum either. So there's actually a funny

podcast. It's retired now, but there's probably about three

dozen episodes altogether that was done. It was on the

incomparable network. It was called pants in the boot.

Flynn Fleishman hosted it. And he'd he'd have like four or

five other people on there on each episode. And they, you

know, he'd have people from both sides of the Atlantic, some

Americans, some Canadians, some actually also some from the

other side of the Pacific, some, you know, some from down up

from Australia or New Zealand, and then, you know, from the UK.

And the they would spend each episode talking about a few

words that had this they were the same word, but had very

different meanings depending on where you lived.

Yes.

That's the name pants in the boot.

Yeah, it's a surprising how many words you think are totally

normal and you say them somewhere else. Like, I'm sorry,

what? Like, oh, wait.

Well, there's there's there's the old joke about about America and

the UK. You know, two, two countries separated by a common

language.

Exactly. That is accurate.

Anyway, what do you what do you think of the Palisade?

I like the Palisade. I mean, I liked overall, I had the gas

one, there's a hybrid Palisade tube, but I had the the gas

engine. I thought it was good. I like the, you know, the exterior

design, I go back and forth on that it's a little bit too much.

But it looks kind of cool, especially the lights look

really cool at night. I did like driving it. We had horrific

weather. I think when I last spoke, we were getting the

weather and now we've had it. We got all told we got a little

over two feet of snow in New Hampshire. So to say it was

snowing for days is not an understatement. They couldn't

keep up with it. So the roads are absolutely, they still have

snow stuck to them. That's how snowy and cold it was. Normally,

you can see blacktop by now, you can't really in a lot of

areas. So I took it out and I drove it in the mess. We went

to our favorite diner. It was us and the snow plow guys and went

out there and it was really good in the snow. I mean, if there's

a test or snow, this is probably the snowier conditions.

You're not going to have it much worse than that. I mean, most

people were staying off the road, but living in England, I

needed some breakfast and I was tired of being in the house. So

it's like, let's go to the diner. Breakfast is the best meal.

Yes, absolutely. And we go to this place called the Red Arrow

Diner and it's iconic. There was one in Manchester, New

Hampshire that all the politicians come visit during the

election cycle. It's really cool. Anyway, so we went there. It

was really nice in the snow. It handled really well. There was

even like, there was quite a bit of that where you've got a

couple of inches of just thick slushy mess on the road and it's

deep and it's getting other cars stuck. People's wheels are

spinning. It's that moment where someone goes to slow down and

you're like, are you really? You wait to see if they're really

stopping at the light or they start to pull out and you're

like, I'm going to give you a little extra space because your

two seconds to pull out might take you a minute because your

wheels are going and it didn't have any trouble. It really did

really well. So I was truly impressed with how it handled

in the snow. It was really good. And it's comfortable. It's nice

and quiet. What do they call it? They call it the, I decided I

love this. Wait, what's the thing they call, I can't find it

now, the ergo motion for the driver's seat that all of a

sudden you're driving. After about 30 minutes, it'll start

doing some massage patterns. I loved it. So I had to, I was

driving along. Yeah, thanks for the little interlude there,

Robbie. I just like a little background music to the show.

A little background. I love the ergo motion seats. So it felt

kind of like when they tell you about it and think of like you

sort of like turned on your massaging seats, right? And it's

just, but it's just in a specific spot. It's sort of like

your lower back and it kind of just presses out, sort of

stretches out your back a little bit. And I thought, I don't

know how useful this really is, like as you're driving in a drive

program or whatever. It was really nice. Like I'm driving

along. It's, I'm like, didn't realize I was stiff at all until

like, oh, that ergo motion seat feels good. It really does

help stretch you out a little bit and make you feel a little

less stiff, I think, especially if you were driving for hours

and hours to have that thing just kick on and be like, let me

give you a little massage, keep y'all limber. It that's a really

cool feature. I was poo pooing in initially because I thought it

was silly. I no longer think it's silly.

Well, I had to do a couple of runs over to the Auburn Hills,

Rochester Hills area, which normally is during non rush hour

times when the roads are clear, roughly about an hour drive

from where I live. And this this week, you know, because of

actually on Tuesday when I went, it started snowing again while

I was on the way. And it was during morning rush hour. So you

know, you get more traffic and snow and everything else. And so

the drive was closer to about an hour and a half long. And yeah,

that ergo motion seat, you know, was definitely what it's like

going along about a half hour into the drive. And oh, there goes

the seat. It's it's, you know, starting to move my back around

a little bit. And yeah, it was really good. It was it's a nice

touch. I mean, it's not, you know, it's not it's not as

aggressive as some of the massage seats that I've used over

the years. But you know, it was it was definitely helpful. It

was helpful.

Yeah, I think and it's it's because it's not something you're

picking or something you have to remember to turn off run.

That's what's kind of nice about it. Because even when you have

massaging seats in a car, which, you know, always give you, you

know, 10 different settings in your back, your lower back, your

upper back, a waterfall, whatever. This you have to think

about it to turn it on, which I know isn't a big deal, but you

just don't think about those things sometimes when you're

driving. This is just it automatically does it. It's been

a half an hour. You could probably you can you can turn it

off if you don't like it in the settings. Yeah. And there are a

couple of different patterns that goes through. So it doesn't

give you the same pattern every time it's I don't know if it's

randomized or not because I wasn't paying that close

attention. But I noticed, you know, like, you know, during an

hour and a half drive, it came on twice, you know, and it goes

for about 10 minutes or so. Yeah. And, you know, each time it

came on, it was a different pattern. And I only have you

know, on the seats in the in the Palisade, there's only about, I

think, two or three different patterns that it can do for the

massage seat anyway. But it's nice to have that just come on

and just kind of move your background a little bit, you

know, because usually when you're driving for an extended

period of time, you end up shifting around in your seat,

you know, as as things, everything settles, you know,

and you get older, things tend to settle more. Little bit more.

So I don't know what you mean. You will soon enough.

So yeah, no, I enjoyed that. I like that a lot.

Yeah. So I truly thought I'm like, this is this is actually

pretty cool feature. I like this feature. So so I enjoyed

driving it. It was great in the winter weather. It's relatively

quiet because it's kind of boxy shape, but it has really good

sound deadening and insulation in it. So you don't hear a lot of

the noise from the snow and the muck and just the wind going

by, you know, as you're driving high speeds on the highway, it

has that, like there's a hybrid, but I drove the 3.5 liter V6,

which is is fine, has an 8 speed automatic, it shifts nicely,

it was a it's a nice smooth, pleasant drive, plenty roomy

for you to get in and out of it. You know, there's a third row,

if you want to go back there, but like every third row, you

don't want to live back there for very long because it's tight.

But no more so, not in an exceptional way, you know, but

you can sit back there. So overall, I like it in the

interior. I mean, the calligraphy, I think this is the top

trim, right? It doesn't get fancier, does it?

It's the fanciest trim. I'm not sure if it's necessarily the

most expensive. I'm not sure. But I think the XRT Pro

Oh, might be more so in terms of just it's definitely the most

luxury oriented. Yeah, luxury in features. This is the top of

the lineup. So pricing on this. Oh, my Monroni has no pricing

on it. Hold on a second. Does your Monroni have pricing on it?

It does. Mine says TBD. $57,800 all in. You guys want to

guess at the destination charts? Oh, okay, because you don't

have it. No, I don't have it. This doesn't seem fair at all.

I have an actual Monroni with no prices. Finally, I have one

and it has no prices. I'm gonna go $14.95. 1200. Nicole

nailed it. $14.95. I really don't. I mean, you guys can be my

evidence. Yeah, I really don't look. Wait, wait, I can't give

it on the camera. Wait, see, there's no numbers. There's no

numbers. I couldn't see that. I wasn't looking, but I couldn't

see that. So. So the calligraphy is the most expensive.

It is the priciest. MSRP on the calligraphy is $54,560. And for

the XRT Pro, it's $49,870. So, and I mean, you get you get a

lot in the calligraphy. You know, the there's, you know, the

standard 35 V6, 287, excuse me, 287 horsepower. It's got things

like second row, second row seats are heated and ventilated, I

believe. And also the third row seats are also heated, not

ventilated, but they are heated. And they're power folding and

sliding. So there's buttons in the cargo area in the back so you

can drop those down and also drop down the second row seats. So

if you're loading, if you need to load some big stuff and you

don't have to go keep walking around to drop all the seats, you

do it all from the back. It's got the digital review mirror, the

heads up display, ambient lighting. The 21 inch alloy

wheels look really sharp. On this thing, they're they're they're

that's a really nice looking wheel design on the calligraphy.

And I said the one that I had was the classy blue, which is a

darker blue color. Yeah, looks looks looked really good in the

snow. Until it got all covered with salt. But yeah,

mine is it looks horrific. Like it, it, they can clean this car

two feet away from my driveway pulling it into the driveway.

It would look ridiculous. It's really not great.

No, I mean, you know, it's it's that time, you know, this time

of year, everything, you know, there's nothing you can do about

it. It's just the season. Yeah.

But I, I like the design of the 26 Palisade. I like it better

than the the previous generation, the first generation.

Yeah, like you said, yeah, you know, the the the the lights,

especially in the front are definitely bolder than they were

before. But, you know, I like it. It's a it's an interesting

look. And the shape of the rest of it, you know, it's a little

bit, it's a little bit cleaner design. You still have the

creases over the wheel arches. But, you know, the rest of it,

especially the greenhouse area, I think is really nicely

executed. It's got kind of a Range Rover-ish look to it.

It does. Definitely. Yeah, so it looks a little more premium

than before. But there's, you know, there's also the the XRT

Pro, which, you know, that's the more off-roading version. So

that's, you know, got 18 inch wheels, all terrain tires, you

know, instead of some the chrome trim on the D pillars, you

know, it's it's all blacked out. But it's, you know, and it

looks, it looks a little more aggressive. So I think, you know,

I think they're all all of them, I think are really well done.

I think it's a good design. And the interior is really nice on

these things, too. It feels very premium. Looks very premium.

Yeah. Yeah, I think they did a good job. I mean, it got the car

of the year for Nactoids. So, you know, people, I think it, you

know, it did well. They did a good job with it. And I like it. I

think it's a good car.

Did you use the the UVC filter in the Sun console?

I did not. I did not. Did you try it out?

Did you decontaminate your your phone?

I am so contaminated right now. You have no idea. Yeah.

Right. I did not bother. Gross, but to you, gross.

I mean, if you I always think the same thing, if you have kids

and kids tend to little kids, they tend to they're gross, they're

gross, and they tend to get stuff everywhere. So if you have

little kids, little kids are walking germ boss. Oh, God, they

are. And if they so if they touch your phone, if they drop

things, even their toys are like a pacifier or anything like

everything's always gross. So if I had little kids, if I had

littles, I would definitely use that.

I had lunch the other day with Kaylee Hall, who's the Otto's

reporter, Detroit Otto's reporter for Reuters, Thompson Reuters.

And she just she's got a seven month old, who's in daycare now.

And we were talking a little bit about about young ins and I

said, ah, sorry, you know, those those germ not only last

another 18 years or so. Right. Only 18 years or so for those

germs, and you'll be you'll be just fine. You'll be

kicking out of the house and right. Everything will be fine.

Yeah. So yeah, so I like the Palisade. I like the new Palisade.

I'm looking forward to trying out the the Nutella ride in March,

I think. Yeah, I'm looking I think it is March. It's yeah. I

like how the Nutella ride looks. Yeah, I think I like the style

of the Nutella ride more than Palisade, but we'll see how they

drive and how they, you know, how it works out in practice.

Yeah. And hopefully one of these days, I drove the the Palisade

hybrid at the drive program in November-ish timeframe, I think.

Yeah, that's right. I'm looking looking forward to spending

more time with that one is, you know, with this one, the fuel

economy, you know, it's actually this one actually has

slightly less power than the first generation Palisade did. I

think it was like 290 ish is now 287. But the the hybrid has

more power. And the the gas Palisade is rated at 18 city 24

highway 20 combined. I, you know, most of my driving was on the

highway. I was getting about 21 to 22 roughly, which is not bad

for a vehicle the size. You know, and the third row is big

enough to accommodate adults. So it's, you know, I think but I

think I'll be curious to see what I can get out of the hybrid

when I get one of those in the driveway.

Eventually.

Yeah. All right. Let's move on then to some of the other stuff.

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So you've also driven some other stuff recently, Nicole.

I've driven a lot of stuff recently. Now I think I can talk

about most of it.

Well, I mean, it's at least been published.

And other people have broken in embargoes.

So let's let's start with the the Kia K4 hatchback.

The K4 hatchback. So I actually really like this little car.

So we because it has that hatchback styling and versatility,

like it's really truly a little hatchback. It almost it

dare I say it like wagon vibes to it just just a little bit.

Hatchbacks are just tiny wagons.

It's like a tiny wagon and it's more tiny wagon than some of

them. So I like and this isn't all new. It's has like a turbo

charge engine you can get, which is the version that we drove.

The exterior looks really cool. I mean, it has it has sharp

styling to it. I actually like the K4 hatchback better than the

K4 sedan. Have you guys compared it to?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's no question the hatchback is

better, right? So the sedan, you're like, well, in fact, it

was funny. I was behind a K4 sedan on the on the road

yesterday at night. And I was like, what is that? Because you

know, we always see them without their lights on during drive

programs, right? I was like, that is the weirdest. I'm like,

oh, K4. Okay, when I passed it. So but I like the hatchback. I

think the hatchback looks really good. It has a turbo, which is

really fun. So the base engine is a two liter four cylinder that

has 147 horsepower. The 1.6 liter turbo brings it up to 190.

That's still not this huge number. But in addition, you get an

eight speed automatic versus CVT that you have in the base

engine. And it's it gives you strong performance. It gives you

strong passing power. It is not a hot hatch. Like if you're

looking for a hot hatch, that's not this aggressive car. This is

a nice versatile hatchback that is peppy and fun to drive, but

it is not. It doesn't have the harshness. I think sometimes it

comes along with a vehicle being a hot hatch. Inside, it's very

comfortable. It's nice. It does that thing that Kia does where

you know, it's not overly expensive. But it still has a

lot packed in there for what you're getting. Like it's always

a surprise. Like there's there's depending on the trim, you get

a 12.3 inch instrument cluster along with a 12.3 inch infotainment

screen. It's all in one big display. So it has that that

illusion of being one giant display, which gives it a very

sort of fancy tech forward look to it. There's three different

trims. It starts at 24 990. And it tops out at 28 890. So even

if you're going for the GT line turbo with the turbocharged

engine and sport tuned suspension and all the fun

stuff that you get for buying the top trim of a car, you're still

coming in at under $30,000, which I think is not a bad price

for this because you're getting the fun of driving it with a

turbo engine, you're getting a comfortable, well equipped

interior, you have the versatility for cargo, but

it's not so big that you can't drive it in the city. So I

really like the K4 hatch. I like I said, in every way, I like

this better than the sedan. If you had me pick one, I'd pick

this one in a heartbeat.

Yeah, the the the shape, the proportions of it just work so

much better. The the rear end, you know, the the they're the

same, the sedan and the hatchback are identical back up to the

C pillar, you know, back to the back, the back of the rear

doors. And then there's just something there's some weird

lines and weird intersections of lines on the K4 sedan. And the

same is also true on the EV4 sedan, which we were supposed to

get, but now aren't because of now we're not because of tariff

stuff. But yeah, they both have some some weird intersecting

lines. And both the hatchbacks versions of both of those cars,

I just think work a lot better. And it's almost like they they

did the hatchback first. And they said, Oh, yeah, we Americans

don't want hatchbacks. So we better do a sedan version too.

Right. Well, you know, people have been hassling me for

years, like I just want a nice hatchback. I kept showing them

the golf and then they just didn't buy it. So maybe they'll

look at this and be like, All right, cool, a hatchback.

Yeah, well, I mean, when we had we had our Civic, you know, they

had a sedan version and the hatchback version. And we bought

the hatchback because we like the design of it, but also like love

the utility. Because one of the problems with with sedans, you

know, in smaller cars, you know, all basically all modern

sedans have kind of a fastback profile to them that you no

longer have that three box shape, the traditional sedan shape.

And so what that inevitably means is that the trunk opening is

really small. And so even though you might have a decent sized

trunk, and you fold the back seats down, you can put big, you

know, reasonably big stuff in there. Actually getting big

stuff in is the problem. You can't the opening isn't big

enough to get anything big into it. Whereas a hatchback, you

know, you've got this nice big opening in the back, you can load

stuff in there. It's so much more practical.

Yeah. So I was a fan. I like this. I hope it does well for

them.

Yeah. Cool. All right. And then you also spent some time with

Honda.

I did. I spent some time with Honda driving the pilot and the

prelude, the prelude that I couldn't say anything about and

the pilot, which I also couldn't say anything about last week. So

now I can talk about them. So the pilot, I like the new first

let's talk about pilot pilots. I mean, they've improved it. It's

not an all new it's refreshed. So it's not like they ripped it

apart and put it back together. But they did make some big

changes. There's a larger 12.3 inch touchscreen in there, they

get new 20 inch wheels and the top trims and the front gets

revised. So it has like this big, bold grill that's a little bit

more than the old version. So it looks good. And I you know, I

think the tendency now is to make SUVs, it goes back and

forth, you're either trying to make them not look like one or

you're really trying to make them look like one. They're trying

to make this look like an SUV. The silence in it, like the quiet

of this is fantastic. And when you're driving, you don't hear a

lot of noise. You don't hear a lot of road noise, wind noise,

even when you have vehicles, like if you're on the road and

tractor trailer drives by you, it's hard not to hear that like

it's the kind of thing in a lot of cars if you're asleep, and

you're in the passenger side and that, you know, you're passing

a tractor trailer, you hear it and what wakes you up because it

is loud. This is incredibly quiet, which I do not think you

can underestimate when you have a car the kids are going to be

in, because when your kids just doze off, and then something

loud happens outside the window and your silence is broken, you

cringe as a parent. So this is quiet enough and comfortable

enough that the kids once they fall asleep, will probably stay

asleep, which is really nice. It has a three liter V6 that has

285 horsepower. That's plenty strong enough to get it up to

speed. It's not especially noisy, like if you really slam your

foot in the gas, we had some construction where there were big

trucks, so they were occasionally pulling over to let us go

by on a road that was only two lanes. So you have that like, I

must get by now, you know, that sense of urgency or you're

stuck behind the construction truck again. A did it without a

problem be it wasn't overly noisy. Again, the sound is such a

big deal on this. I truly enjoy driving as the interior looks

beautiful, you know, the especially in the top trims

say, I feel like Honda is upping their game a little bit

because I sort of used to think of Honda as being a little

bland sometimes in size bland. Is that a nice way to say it?

Plain.

Plain or

Oh, that's the one.

Understated. Honda's were a little understated. They're not

flashy, but like the one I drove it had this sort of like white

creamy white interior. And it was not, it wasn't just white

seats, like they had some texture, they had some, there was

some contrast stitching on it, they showed like that quilted

thing at the top of it. And there's like a darker pin

stripe along the sides to give it a little pop of color. They

truly looked good. The second this, you know, this is three

rows. So the second row, you can get plenty of room for three

adults. Third row, it's going to be on the tighter side, but

they do have that button that lets you access it and it's

slide. So it tips the seat, but the seat also slides forward. So

it's nice on that is not only does the seat slide forward so

that it can make it easier to step into the back, you can

leave it position a little more forward so your third row

passengers aren't squished. But if you don't, you know, or

depending what you want to do, you have a lot of cargo, move

the second row forward a little bit, you don't have cargo or

you have taller people sitting in the second row, you can slide

the seats back a little so it lets you play with that little

bit of leg room slash cargo room. So you can make it even more

versatile for whatever it is that your family is doing. I

think, you know, it's I think it's good. It starts at 42,000.

That's for the sport with front wheel drive. So that's the

cheapest you can get into it goes up at the very top of the

range, a touring model with all wheel drive is 51,000. That's

still not, you know, again, this is a three row big SUV with

all the family room. It's a competitor to the Palisade. It's

a competitor to the Palisade. I think the Palisade calligraphy

has a fancier vibe inside weirdly, even though you don't

think of Hyundai as being a more upscale brand than Honda, I

guess, but they do a little bit more, I don't know, they their

designs get a little funkier in a good way in a Hyundai in the

Palisade. The pilot plays it a little bit more safe, but it

still looks really good. I think it almost is more traditional

styling for an SUV inside. If you want something that's a little

out there a little different, your friends are going to go like,

whoa, the Palisade does that a little bit better. But these are

both great vehicles. Now the thing that you even though that's

not what we drove, Sam, you can get a hybrid Palisade in the

pilot gas engine. That's it. Now that doesn't mean there won't

be a hybrid someday. Next generation. Right. But right now,

there is still a couple of years off. It's still a couple of

years, because this was a refresh. This wasn't an all

news. So it's not like you have to wait that long, but you'd

have to wait for the next gen. So if you wanted a pilot right

now, you're going to have to get a gas engine. If you want a

hybrid, you can't get yourself a pilot. Go look at a Palisade.

So very different styling, similar attributes. I think

the Honda pilot is more traditional in a lot of ways

than the Palisade.

Yeah, no, I would agree with that. The the the powertrain, how

do you feel the powertrain compared to the Palisade? Do

you have a preference?

You know what? Actually, it was funny. And I don't know if it

was because like, I have to preface this with saying we

literally had air temperatures in New England that were like

negative 10, negative 12, negative 15, not with a windshield

just straight up negative temps. And every car is a little bit

not happy with you when the weather is that cold. So I felt

like especially when it was, I could feel this, I could feel

the trans I could feel things more of the engine that shift I

could feel the transmission I could feel things felt a little

harsher in the Palisade that it did in the pilot, but I was

driving the pilot in this beautiful, nice, relatively

warm weather compared to what I was driving the Palisade in. So

yeah, so in terms of though, like, like straight up

acceleration, they both accelerate really strongly once

now, but I just felt like the Honda was a little bit smoother,

but I think the Palisade was and I truly think it was not

loving the cold weather. What car would?

No. Yeah, I mean, when it's, you know, when it's sub zero

temperatures, you know, nothing, nothing's really happy.

And I'll see that like that happens in any I mean, practically

any vehicle I've ever driven, if it gets cold enough here, it'll

impacts the drive because I could have driven it maybe on a

launch program, which is rarely someplace cold. It's normally

someplace warm and toasty. And it'll be fine. And then I get

here and you sort of it just doesn't it doesn't like cars

don't like cold weather. It doesn't matter whether they're

electric or not. They really don't like it. Yeah, they're not

fans. I remember having my my a million years ago, my manual

transmission, Jetta, it got cold enough once that I couldn't I

was like trying to shift and like I couldn't shift gears. I was

like, I had two hands. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, I need to go

to work. Please work for me. Please. Well, last week, it was

cold enough here that the garage door would not fully close.

You know, it opened up and then when we went to close it, it

wouldn't go all the way down because there's a torque. There's

a force sensor on the garage door opener. Oh, and you know,

because it's it's meant for safety. So if there's something

blocking the garage door, then it you know, if it's if there's

too much force, then it backs up and won't close. And I kept you

know, if I if I reached up and pushed on it, I could get it to

close. So I actually had to go out and adjust the the force

sensor on the garage door opener to give it a little bit more

effort. So that would actually close and open fully in the you

know, when it was sub zero. Wow. Yeah, so cold weather. I

hate to get anything for that. But like in my experiences two

weeks. Yeah, that was the difference. It was because it

was but it's because of the cold when I drove this before I

did not have that sense at all. So yeah.

Alright, cool. Well, what about the prelude? You you got to

spend a little more time with the prelude. I mean, you drove it

last fall. Yeah. So I drove it as did I in Japan. Yes. So I had

the chance to drive the prelude and I so here's the thing

people are it's very weird to me how people are either loving

or hating this car for the same exact reason. It's not a pure

sports car. It didn't do what it was supposed to do. It's not

fast enough. It's not sporty enough. This doesn't live up

to the the prelude was never this. And I think I said this

last week it was never this like monster sports car. It it

never was it just that's not what the prelude was. There was

never a type R prelude like this car. Right. And they made it

very clear in the presentation like they talked about that

because I think they're very aware of the criticism. And

they're like, if you want that, go get a type R. That's not

what this is. This is intended to be more of a tour like to be a

little bit less harsh than a pure performance car to be a

little bit have some of the fun but to not be quite as over

the top. So it's a little bit more, I don't know, it's a

little bit more everyday usable. Honestly, it still has a

civic type R suspension bits in it. So it handles beautifully.

And breaks added in for their yeah. And for the brakes they I

mean for the brakes for they have a hybrid system and it has

this new stuff this s plus shift technology. So there isn't a

transmission to shift in this but dang, it makes you think that

there is you can hear it. You can feel it the upshifts the

downshifts when you put it in I want to say it's just called

sport mode but I may have go but it's basically their sport

mode. It gets even more aggressive and the downshifts

you think you're hearing it like rev matching like it's it's

really cool. It's really well you actually think you actually

are hearing the engine because the way the Honda hybrid system

works the engines decoupled. So you're actually hearing the

engine revving up and down the way you would when you're rev

matching. Right. And it's and it's but like despite they're not

being a transmission to make it it's just it is a really well

done vehicle and I thoroughly enjoy this and also it's kind of

neat. So the I thought this was kind of fun the bull string.

It's higher on the driver side than it is on the passenger side

because it's assuming that you're gonna have a little more fun

when you're driving the car on your own. So the bull string

actually differs on the two seats just wild to me. I don't

know that I've seen that in another car. So I really I

thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought this is a fun car. I had a

good time driving it. I didn't really have any complaints. I

remember the old prelude. I remember driving the old last

generation or maybe I think prelude is what I drove but it

was oh am I still here or did I lose you?

Yeah, your video froze but you're I can still hear your

audio so just keep talking. Okay. All right. I'm having

troubles my computer if I log out I'll be back. I think it

was like I enjoy driving it and I felt like that compared to

what I remember of the old prelude it's this is the the old

prelude but for this era it's it does you know I think it's a

good it legacy wise I think it's a great car. I like it I

think it's a little on the pricier side that's probably

its biggest drawback but I really truly enjoyed driving it

did you like driving the same I did I enjoyed it a lot and you

know yes it's not cheap but it's also you know it's kind of

it splits the difference between price wise between a type R

and the Civic Sport Touring Hybrid which you know so the I

think the sport touring hybrids about 36 ish 36 37 you know

this is 42,000 and the type R is 47 you know so it's in it's

in between those you know and you know considering you're

getting a lot of the type R hardware apart from the engine

you're getting the suspension the brakes you're getting a

different body style you know so you're getting some of the

the best bits of the type R apart from the engine and the

six-speed gearbox you're getting all the other good stuff and

you're getting the the Honda hybrid system which right now I

think is probably the best mainstream hybrid system out

there you know I've been writing some comparisons recently of

different hybrids and the Honda system I I much prefer it to

the Toyota hybrid system so I think it's it's it's a I think

it's it's much more pleasant to drive it's certainly more

sporty feeling you know because you've got a lot more

electric power in there you got 181 horsepower from the the

electric drive motor so most of the you know it's more like in

many ways it's more like driving an EV but you've got the the

engine there and you're you're actually hearing the engine

revving and and you know hearing the engine sounds so it's

just it's more fun to drive so you know like like you said you

know the the prelude was never a hardcore sports car this this

is what a prelude always has been it was never like a hardcore

sports car it was never yeah it never went up against you know

like a WRX or you know a Type R or a Golf 32 R32 or Golf R or

you know it never went up against any of those vehicles it was

even even through the 90s you know when they had the Acura

Integra Type R they you know there was never you know it was

there was never really direct competition between the Integra

and the prelude the prelude was always you know something a

little bit different and I you know I think it works yeah I

think it works some people are like really truly hating on it

which makes me sad just fold that backseat down never touch it

again don't bother trying to put anybody back there because

they're not gonna be happy yeah just just leave the backseat

folded and you got a nice big cargo area and you know you and

your you and your partner you know take weekend getaways you

can throw all your stuff in the in the back there and just have

some fun. Exactly. Yeah, so I liked it thumbs up. Awesome.

Alright, Robbie, you know you went to Germany. I did go to

Germany. I just got back yesterday. What did you see in

Germany? I saw well I saw something I'm not gonna talk

about for a long time. And then I saw this when you go to

him or say it is it is there's always like one thing you can

talk about like right away that you've that you've seen

before and then there's something you can't talk about

for months and months. That's that's how which is great

because it gives me multiple there's multiple reasons for me

to go to another country versus like hey come all the way over

here and see one thing and I'm like that's a long way to go. I

think I've talked about how these trips are not as glamorous

as you think I was in Germany. No for less than 36 hours I

think this time because my flight was delayed. Anywho, I

saw the the unveiling of the the new S class. So this is sort

of this is the Mercedes Benz. When Mercedes Benz talks about

being you know a luxury automaker it's talking about the S

class. The S class is the the vehicle for the CEO the vehicle

for the you know the C-suite executive who is like hey look

what I got and it's either the one you drive or the one you're

driven in either way. It's it's the S class. They have they have

updated the the design a bit. It looks more traditional than

than the previous version you know especially up in the

front. You can now get a hood ornament in certain regions but

the hood ornament lights up.

Oh yeah they they told us that they've worked so hard to get

that hood ornament to work because there's all these so in

some regions you just can't have the hood ornament. Sorry you're

not going to get it but in others you can have it but you

can't see it. You're not supposed to be able to see it. Why can't we have it

everywhere? What's the reason? There's a lot of passenger pedestrian

protection. Oh stupid pedestrians. Yeah just stabbing

people in the gut. That's so annoying. Just stand away the car.

You're in America you know it's like if you're walking you know

that's your problem. Yeah America is very much like hey that's

what you get. It's this is a it's still you you know so

beyond the the the fancy light up hood ornament this vehicle is you

know it's software defined vehicle they're using the MBOS

which we've seen on the the CLA. So what it does is it allows it

gives Mercedes the ability to to to control more of the systems

in the vehicle with fewer uh chaos with less chaos. How's

that? Fewer chaos. Fewer chaos. Fewer chaos. But let's say you

know you you have at least seen in in the past uh suddenly a

supplier can't get you apart so now you got new new supplier so

now you gotta work with the supplier in that software and

the supplier's worth it you and your software so now you gotta

essentially create a Rosetta stone in order for those things to

work. That's sort of gone now uh with with uh software defined

vehicle. That's sort of the big deal is the ability to to to

quickly swap out uh to to cut development time to make the

vehicle more efficient um and to to reduce the amount of

wiring that's in cars that makes them lighter um for the

average person it means that you're gonna get over the year

updates to your car. Yay uh so your car doesn't it isn't a

static thing anymore. You can you know you buy a car in the

nineties that's the car forever. That's what you had. A few

years ago I was working on a research project for a client

um and they they among other things they made wiring

harnesses and they were telling me about how the wiring

harness for the s class and this was probably about 2018 2019

the wiring harness for the s class was so big and bulky that

each each one for a single car was shipped in its own

separate container. Um and before they could install it into

the vehicle they would take it out of the out of the shipping

container and it would go through an oven a heating oven to

warm it up because you know the wiring harness made of

copper wire and plastic insulation to warm it up to make

it pliable enough so that they could actually maneuver it

into the body of the vehicle and it took like nine people

to get the wiring harness into the car. So so yeah so so

software defined vehicles they sort of stop most of that so

so building the car is a lesson but pain in the ass.

Uh uh so yeah so so as the MBOS it has the super screen not the

hyper screen so the super screen so everything is

landscape but there's in the CLA everything looks very

flush everything looks you know the the the screen like the

they just let you each other with the class there's like

these big black gaps which feels just weird for the the top

tier vehicle I think that's my big knock on this vehicle

right now is the super screen because it doesn't feel as

premium as what is already out there in other Mercedes vehicles.

Um it's still running uh MBUX I believe it's the yes it is the

fourth generation of MBUX I like MBUX I like the zero layer I

think I've talked about that before essentially they're

just like here's the map and then widgets for the things that

you use the most easy peasy lemon squeezy it's it it seems

like it seems like a no brainer and yet other people can't

seem to figure it out um it is what it is like the like sort

of infotainment system that I don't revert you know after I've

tested it revert directly back to uh carplay when I'm driving

so uh yep so everyone else out there I guess just steal from

Mercedes I don't know the rest of the industry has been doing

that for about 140 years now that's true oh also the the day

that the event was held uh was the 140th year anniversary anniversary of

the of Carl uh Ben's like doing the patent for the first

automobile so 140 years of uh cars they had a big picture of the

the uh the the the patent form yes which I shot video of which

when my s-class video goes up hopefully this week um I will

have uh something that you can look at it I don't know why I

thought like oh paperwork sorry I got some sweets so

look be on the lookout for sweet sweet video of paperwork

uh that's it um they they are bringing like everyone else uh

AI assistants into the vehicle they're gonna have like I know

it's they they're gonna have Bing and then like oh yeah Gemini

really and chat GPT GPT for um the idea is that you'll ask uh

Mercedes a question they're Mercedes uh the Mercedes

assistant a question and it'll ask like all of these systems

and then the best answer like Mercedes will determine like okay these these two

suck this was the best one and it'll it'll serve you up that one

I'm sure might not I guess I don't know I guess some of the

things are yours like uh okay um

um let's see what else la la la we talked about that

uh oh ambience oh so their their assistants their driver's

assistants they have they're gonna have the the the drive assist pro like you

know seen on the cl a um I went on that drive I have a video

somewhere about me in that car uh of that drive uh I didn't drive I just sat in

the passenger seat because it's still um relatively new it's supposed to be at the

year first to the la um they will also uh and that's a level two system they'll

call it level two plus it's all level two hands on eyes on uh they have the

level three system that'll be coming to the vehicle uh towards the end of the

sometime this year uh which is hands off eyes off uh we already have that in the

current uh the s-class I'm assuming it's going to be

better um and that's only available in California

Nevada so it's it's good well yeah but they they also

recently announced that they were discontinuing that

uh yeah I think the current the current uh drive pilots in the level three drive

pilot system uh so you know hopefully this this next

generation will be much much more capable than that one

I think yeah I I think they're they're gonna there I would rather they air on

the side of safety and be like you know oh yeah this isn't good enough

then just push forward that's my that's that's my biggest thing like well just

keep just keep going if it's not working right we'll just keep going

no make make it better first please make it better

they are Mercedes is talking about uh doing uh launching a robo taxi partnership

um they're going to be working with Nvidia with the Hyperion uh uh the

Nvidia's drive Hyperion architecture um and then their their drive AV software

level four um and they're going to work with Lumo

the first vehicles with the first robo taxis will be in Abu Dhabi later this year

so if you happen to be in Abu Dhabi and you need a robo taxi

probably in December or November you can you can have a Mercedes pick you up

that's level four that means the car drives itself but it still has steering

wheel and and and and all the other stuff in case you

know you need to get away from someone you jump in the front take over and run

so for those those first applications is that just going to be running the

Nvidia Hyperion drive stack yes so the whole software and hardware

stack yeah at the event suddenly like the ceo just appeared in a video like on

this giant wall i was like uh jenison jenison jenison showed up uh is wearing

a nice jacket he's wearing like the same jacket he's been wearing for the last

25 years um he actually changes those around

you're not it's not always the same no because if you watch

the the style changes it's always like some sort of black leather jacket

yeah there's been multiple different variations of it

like the one he the one he wore at ces this year for his keynote

was like this shiny crocodile thing uh yeah it's from the ones i've seen before

he's like the fawns of uh yeah of silicon uh so yeah so you know um of course

everyone's been have you know everyone has tesla zooks uh but the problem

with the robotexies is that they're always problems with robotexies uh so

we'll see how uh mercedes goes you know they're really about uh

they talk about redundancies and and and the and the sensors and the braking

and the power and the accelerate everything has redundancy so

we'll see how that uh works out um in us we're only going to get the

formatic s-class uh you got three uh motors you have the um

the mild hybrid three liter inline six uh you have a plug-in hybrid uh

three liter inline six and then for uh for the for the person who's just like

whoo party you get the s58 uh it's got a four liter twin turbo mild hybrid v8

and it'll do you know 530 horsepower 553 pound feet of torque

um they'd made some they did some updates to the to the engine so it could

get more powerful uh one of the fun things that uh

i got to ride in the back of one months and months and months ago

but i think i think uh who has uh outie where you're driving and the camera

sees the road and the camera sees the pothole so it primes the the suspension

in order to absorb the impact of the pothole to the to the occupants

where mercedes is doing is this using uh like essentially vehicle to vehicle or

vehicle vehicle to cloud and then it just shares it so

if one mercedes s-class drives over this pothole

it notes the exact location of that pothole and it tells all the other

mercedes s-classes that there is a pothole there so now

every vehicle that drives down that road uh will prime itself for that pothole

whoo i like that idea so nail a pothole that's kind of cool actually

and then i asked him a ton of questions i'm like well how often you know when

does it change like what is it

i go someone if they fill the pothole how long does it get taken to

update it years around i fill pothole yeah uh

i got really nerdy i don't i don't remember around around here that's not

so much of a problem you don't have to worry about them filling potholes

they're like nine yeah exactly it's never going to be an issue in new england

either uh like the previous mercedes s-class in the

aq s it has rear steering which is great for these large vehicles

once you drive a large sedan or a large vehicle with rear steering

you wonder why someone who puts out a large vehicle or a large sedan

a large suv or a large sedan why they don't have rear steering

um so yeah um i obviously i haven't driven it yet uh

it is uh yeah so yeah that's the the s-class

um i think they're they're sort of trying to have uh you know

both ways make it look more traditional while adding a bunch more of their

it does look like it has a significantly larger grille than before it does it's a

more it's a less less current or uh has the angles been reduced

and it looks very like more vertical yes and so it does look a little bit more

of a traditional versus uh i think they're trying to i think the the the

the sting of the eq s still is there i think the um and the s-class you know

previous dervishes are the current version s-class doesn't look like the eq

it doesn't look like a little pill uh but it does it is very you know swoopy

and and bulbous uh a little bit more this this sort of uh backtracks on that

and i to be honest i whether or not we like it i think the the average

mercedes s-class uh owner is probably gonna like it more because i think it

they do like it sort of like traditional like this i am not you know i'm in a

very nice suit i'm not rich to ride around in the

backseat of an s-class they will they will enjoy this they will appreciate it

they will enjoy this they will appreciate it uh yeah so yeah that's the

the new s-class um it's uh everyone get excited if you're rich

well i guess i don't need to get excited uh sam smith saying at the event

which i didn't i would i didn't know he looks a little bit like a pirate but he

is a very good voice oh okay oh that's cool i mean you have to

have somebody fancy i guess well mercedes loves having music

at its events just after the first mercedes event i was in it was in

frankford and they put on a musical a literal musical about the vehicles they

were showing off i was like what is happening and i was with tim stevens and

tim stevens just like bummed he was like don't worry it's like this all the time

back back when um you know when the detroit auto show was still a thing that

you know automakers actually participated in uh mercedes always used to do an

event the night before on you know on the saturday night before the show um

and uh you know they would always have some some singer some some musical

performer uh at their event you know they would they would have the unveiling

of some new new vehicle and then they would um have you know have somebody

come out and perform uh so that's yeah that's that's a long time long

standing mercedes tradition do you remember the one they didn't they did

i think it was in detroit that the auto show once they had onald schlitzenegger

there do you remember onald he was there once at one of the

reveals they did for the thing with the g-wagon

oh yes yes they came running out of all the different directions and

you know when they launched the previous john g-wagon yeah i do remember that

that was in i forget the name of the building it's like an old it was an

old um theater that has been converted in sort of an event space so a lot of

it's like raw brick edges and stuff it's a really cool space yeah okay yeah i

now i remember that they they so they how did you forget onald's

i don't know so i think you know sam smith i think works really well for the

s-class uh owner and for the g-wagon they had travis scott

um for that event in la and i think that works really well for that

uh that a um that vehicle as well i mean that's essentially an instagram

vehicle at this point yeah true yeah basically um all right well

since you brought up software defined vehicles robbie sedif sedims let's

let's let's let's talk about uh the the pioneer of software defined vehicles

the tesla model s um tesla had their q4 earnings call earlier this week

and we're not going to get too much into the we're not going to get into the

financials except to say that you know as expected their profits were

down substantially um you know and their revenues were down and the only thing

the only thing that went up i think was their revenues on uh energy storage

systems because of all the data centers that they're

selling batteries for to support these things but everything else was down

um but um as part of you know during the the earnings call um

elon musk announced that they are winding down production of the tesla model

s and model x um you know the model s was tesla's first volume production

vehicle you know they built the roadster for about three years um built about

2100 of the original roadsters um and then stopped um while they

tooled up the former new me factory to build the model s and started

building that in fall of 2012 um and that's been their longest running

product and it's going away uh at the end of this quarter

um so did either of you two ever drive the model s

i've driven a lot i've driven a plethora of model s's

at outside of the outside of the very current you know the current versions

because tesla does well it's not that tesla doesn't like me

elon doesn't like me

elon me elon has a personal beef with you he's he's he's got beats with a lot of people

i there's uh it's a long story it's there's a bunch of long stories about

yeah anyway uh everybody in this business has stories about elon

yeah there's a lot of there's just a lot of phone calls with

people being people yelling at me while they're simultaneously being yelled at

by elon musk that's that's that's what i can

i think i could say that that doesn't matter i said it doesn't matter those

people probably aren't a tesla anymore anyway right if it was more yeah most of

yeah most of them are are are have left um but yeah he's he's he's he's uh

he's gotten very upset with me on more than a few occasions

whatever yeah i mean my job isn't to make people happy

if i don't tell the truth if elon hasn't been mad at you at some point

you aren't you're doing your job in this business that's the other weird thing

like you can say things about a car with them but most other automakers and

they're like all right the PR people are like well you're doing your job i'm

going to do my job and you know we're maybe we'll find a medium or if you got

something factually wrong you know they'll let you know about it but you know

yeah if you just don't like something and yeah i just don't like this thing uh

yeah well anyway the the you know the model the model s you know was the first

you know first car that could really classify as a software defined vehicle in

fact i think within less than a month after they started customer deliveries

they did their their first ever over-the-air software update with that

because there were some issue with the batteries and so they pushed out an

OTA update and they've been doing updates on model s's and every other tesla

ever since then you know it was the first one to adopt an electronic

architecture that was fully updateable you know because the up up to that point

you know every other vehicle the the way the electronic architecture was set up

you know automakers would buy a feature from a supplier

like say electronic stability control or power steering system

and that came you know that feature came with a set of sensors some actuators

and an electronic control unit with some embedded software

and the the the supplier controlled that software and it was not

well in many cases it could be updated uh it could the software could be updated

it had to be done with a diagnostic tool plugged into the vehicle you had to

have physical access to the vehicle the vehicles weren't architected to allow

for software updates to be done over the air and the tesla was the first to do

that and you know the model s you know was a pioneer in in many ways

oh yeah it's it's it's i like the model s yeah i think i mean it has a dash cluster

which would be cool the ability to to do software updates i mean the you know

when i've talked to when i've been at tesla talking to engineers there

it is really i think a lot of people like well elon came up to the site not really

it's so much like the the engineers the team there especially with the model s you know

i don't know what's happened the last couple years because no one's allowed to talk to tesla

anymore but previously like that was such like people would just come up with a really good idea

like the route planning with charging along the way that just some random engineers like hey what

if we did this and it was like oh that's a good idea and then they just built it and then pushed it

out yeah tada i mean you know there's there's a lot of stuff that tesla has pushed out that is

pretty trivial um you know farts and stuff and yeah but you know and you know like the holiday

light shows and things like that but you know what the customers like it it doesn't hurt anybody

you know yeah it's it's doesn't you know it's not it doesn't add to the functionality of the

vehicle in most cases but you know it's fun and it makes you feel like you know you've got something

that is continuously evolving you know whereas you you buy any other car and what rolled out of

the factory is generally what's going to be there or or less you know that's a graded form of that

for the next 10 15 20 years until that car goes to the scrap yard and my 2014 BRZ is never going

to get a better infotainment system the stock one and put in an aftermarket system yeah that that

that horrible infotainment system in that car is never going to get better yeah but you know what

that car is so much fun to drive who cares yeah i don't really care i can plug my phone into it

and i can listen to cds it's the perfect car it's the perfect head unit

uh you got any thoughts on the Model S Nicole i mean i think you know it had it had its time and

i think elon has always been you know it's he's never been about just being a car company you

know he's long talked about how he has aspirations far beyond that so as he integrates things like

space x and you know the grok the ai thing i always think he's changing stuff around for

whatever grand plan he has in his head so it doesn't shock me in the least you know it doesn't

so yeah i mean they haven't fundamentally changed the Model S since 2012 yeah it's pretty much the

same car they just yeah it goes faster done some tweaks you know they give it more power a little

more battery more range uh you know they updated the interior a little bit but it's still fundamentally

the same car right and and it's funny i was um you know i was i was looking at i was watching

a video earlier this morning yeah somebody had um 2016 or 17 Model S had 260,000 miles on it

and you know still going pretty strong you know actually just ran into the first problem

with the battery um where um you know it had a bad cell somewhere so there's a selling balance so

it worked great until it got down to about 20% state of charge and then then started dropping off

rapidly because because tesla gives you the entire battery there's no gross versus usable they give

you the entire battery to use so when something goes wrong there's it it can't like redirect to

you know it can't stop using that cell it just keeps going yeah um but you know most most teslas

you know the the guys at tfl last year i think they bought a used um Model S uh you got 2013

or 14 Model S had about 100,000 miles on it it still had over 90% of its original capacity

in the battery um it's not bad yeah so you know these things that you know i mean the batteries at

hold up pretty well maybe not some of the other parts some of the other part you know they've

had issues with drive motors and suspensions that you know that fail teslas suspension is so it got

worse with the Model S and the Model Y they just fall apart they just that's why they're just horrible

horrible glass suspension system yeah but um you know sales of the Model S and the X you know and

i never drove an X but i've ridden in them several times over the years you know that those

ridiculous doors it was just dumb it was a last minute ad by Elon uh the engineers were very upset

about it i wanted to do this and there's and then they had nothing but problems with it and when i

reviewed it uh they gave me the wrong car so they gave me pre-production and the door like it

wouldn't close all the way and at one point it hit my cameraman on the head even though it's not

supposed to do that it like just came down and whacked him on the head it was yeah it was it it

was a huge uh misstep to be honest yeah well friend of the show leo leport you know he had a Model X

you know he bought one when it first came out uh that was his first EV and um his wife lisa would

you know not long afterwards you know she you know she he he had to start um you know yelling

out whenever he was closing the doors just to alert her because she got bonked on the head

multiple times by those things and um you know she they also had a bunch of other issues with it you

know and she hated driving that thing she after a while she just would not drive it at all yeah

but uh but uh yeah you know those those vehicles you know were important in the evolution of the

the modern vehicle yeah i think the s especially because the s was allowed to be built and designed

and engineered by people who knew what they're doing to be honest yeah that's that's what it

really comes down to and then the x you know people started sort of yes whatever Elon says

and then by the the the three in the y it was very much like things well yeah changed over

and then in their right mind would would say hey let's build this truck and then Elon lost

interest and started doing other stuff yeah and then there was all the other stuff outside of the

engineering of the vehicles so that uh yeah the s was like sort of the last like truly like this is

built by people who know what they're doing yeah so the the the space where the s and the x assembly

lines were in the Fremont factory um is now going to be revamped uh to build Optimus robots because

we all want those right so now i know where to go to stop the robot uprising to be fair

Hyundai is building robots too they're going to be building the Boston Dynamics robots but they've

been building those robots for Boston Dynamics been doing this for generations and decades and

to be honest the humanoid one i'm like sure whatever but they you know they have like i feel

like that's just like i guess if Tesla will do it we'll do it because stocks yeah a lot of these

i think humanoid robot is like us uh you know some self-driving it's just a stock play just

say you're doing it and you'll get your stock market it'll be interesting yeah i think it'll

be interesting to see if that goes anywhere you know i don't think so i just i could just think

might see my dogs knocking one over like just constantly can it survive walking bowie that's

the problem is if it if they knock it over and it falls on them that's the problem they're very

heavy oh you don't want you don't want one of those things falling on uh on nico especially

she's the smaller one right yeah yeah yeah um all right well one one more thing um related to uh

to tesla um some um new data came out this week um about crashes with their Austin Robo taxi fleet

and keep in mind there's only about 20 of these vehicles um and this this is data from the uh

nitsa standing general order so you know the national highway traffic safety administration

requires any manufacturer doing level two or above vehicles to report any crash that happens

while the while the system is active and so there were between july and november of 2025 uh tesla

reported nine crashes involving its robo taxi fleet remember there's only 20 of these vehicles on

the road nine crashes um and um with the uh um you know the the mileage um generally for police

reported crashes there's there's about one crash every 500 000 miles of driving and this is all

crashes not just fatal crashes um for these um it worked out to uh was i think about 25 000 miles

between crashes for the tesla one specific what is it for all for all robo taxis um we don't know

this is the problem is that they don't have to report like detailed information this is this is

one of the huge huge issues with robo taxis that they're they're beta testing these vehicles on

our roads but they're not report and nitsa isn't forcing them to report more detailed information

about them and also whenever they come out and like like oh our cars well you know we don't have

crashes for a million miles i'm like well compared to regular drivers well regular drivers drive

around the world and these vehicles are driving in very specific geofenced areas under very specific

conditions so it's like saying you know it's like well if i sit in a white room that doesn't have

anything in it that person in that room will have fewer accidents than a person who just

travels out in the into the universe of everything else that's going on in the world

plus you know we're also uh comparing yeah so the the number works out to um

tesla said there was 500 000 miles on the fleet as of november 2025 um so that's one crash about

every 55 000 miles so it's nine times worse than human drivers um and that's um that's not great

and you know to to what you were saying robbie about you know the environment that they drive in

you know all of these robo taxes are geofenced and they're generally only operating in urban areas

and generally at lower speeds but when you look at the general population of crashes

like half of all fatal crashes happen on rural roads um so it's in a completely different

operation region different area different environment than where robo taxis are operating

and so it's you know it's not really you know we and we don't have enough granular data

crash data to really do a direct comparison but from what we've seen so far

they're not necessarily any safer than human drivers yet um and in fact there was an incident

last week in Santa Monica with a wemo where a wemo robo taxi struck a little girl um you know

according to to wemo um she walked out from behind a parked suv and the wemo was going

about 17 miles an hour at the time um it detected her when she stepped out you know but the problem

with sensors just as with our eyes were limited to line of sight you know if there's somebody

walking out from behind a parked vehicle and you can't see them you know you until they step out

that's when you can react um you know and the the robo taxi slammed on the brakes

struck her at about six miles an hour so i guess you know some minor injuries but nothing nothing

major but still struck struck a child um and you know we don't have enough data from all these

companies to really make a good judgment as to how safe they really are which is why you know we

need some sort of independent uh testing methodology and and independent evaluation of

these vehicles you know when if you or i want to get a driver's license we have to go down to the

dmv we have to take a written test we have to take an eye test uh to prove that we could see and

recognize what different traffic signs are and we have to take a driving test and none of that is

true for any of these automated vehicles there's there is no independent evaluation of these vehicles

it's essentially telling me if you just call to dv the dmv and be like no i'm good and they're

like all right cool here's your license yeah pretty much i can do this sure okay i got this

i got this you just send him a little email and then your license coming comes in the mail in two

weeks yeah i got this so um yeah so you know if you see if you happen to be in austin you see a

taxi you know be careful around it yeah see try and try and avoid it that's and that's one of the

really weird issues with with self-driving vehicles is that there you know the line of

sight the eye contact that you make with the driver um out whether you're walking or driving or whatever

that's actually quite important that's yeah the non-verbal communications that we have yeah you

understand like oh i understand what this i i mostly understand what this person is going to do

and typically you know you should just do the thing you're supposed to do if it's your turn at

stop time to go go don't like let other people go just do the thing you're supposed to do

and people can you know people wave each other but with with self-driving vehicles there there's

there isn't that and right now there's you know we're talking you know we're putting lights on them

that show that it's in self-driving but still there is no like that weird interaction that

non-verbal interaction that we have but that isn't there so it's yeah also it doesn't flip you off so

i mean how would you know if it's angry right how can you even tell yeah i mean these things you

know a lot of them do have screens on the outside when you could throw a little you know a middle

finger yeah a middle finger emoji haha i told you there you go um all right um let's see rolls

Royce um they're working on a next generation cullinan um which is not an SUV it's a what do they

call it a tall car i think tall car their official terminology for it anyway they're working on a

next generation cullinan and it's going to be electric oh what do you think i mean it makes sense

for to be honest i think for for elect so for uh i think EVs work really well for luxury vehicles

the end especially ones where the person sitting in the back they don't care if it sounds like a v8

they don't want to hear a hemi didn't hear them they want to sit there and just be quiet

even in you know even in a v12 rolls Royce it's quiet that's the that's the whole point of rolls

Royce that's why they give them names like specter and shadow and you know uh and and ghost

you know because it's supposed to be quiet yeah i mean i guess that's great you think that i mean

i i don't the reason i like it's cool to give it an EV turn into EV and make it even quieter but

do how does anyone care about like making every car an EV right now like obviously not but i mean

i think most cars should could be could and should be EVs to be honest i don't think most people

if they understood like oh you're gonna save some money and you you can get up every morning your

car will be charged and you can do this and um but you know i think some cars should be i think

a WRX is a gas car with a man transmission that's what that car should be it deserves to be that

most cars don't deserve that you know and and especially for most rolls Royce's you know phantoms

colonans you know it's usually it's more often than not it's not the owner driving the vehicle

they're they're vehicles that are bought to be driven in not to drive and they're usually not

used for long distance road trips you know that you know they're used to pick up important people

from you know from the private terminal at the airport and deliver them to you know to a high

end condo in in manhattan or to a fancy hotel or something like that so you know electrification

is perfect for those vehicles yeah some sort of fancy thing that we've never seen for a ghost black

badge fine you know keep you know keep the the big v8 in there or v12 but um you know for a lot of

them they're actually better off being electric and also if they're driving into the city you're

like oh you get that the taxes or that they have in in europe and you know this is a very european

vehicle and that's to be honest you just you're just going to sit in the back of the colonan

and be very fancy yeah the end and this is going to make it fancier because it's smoother there's

no more vibration and these automakers you know with the s-class for the colonan for the you know

the seven series they do so many things that to separate the motor that the the sub subframe of

the motor from the frame of the vehicle so you don't feel anything they're doing all these things

to make it quieter to make it to reduce vibration they're doing all these things what they're like

oh if we just put an EV in and we could sort of not do most of that all right let's move on so

inios the inios grenadier um

what what do you guys think about you've both driven the grenadier right we both love the

in a grenadier even with its weird driving we're the weirdos yes we're the weirdos you think like i

love this i i there are a million things wrong with this the infotainment thing is weird you

can't see it well and the steering is kind of like takes some time to get adjusted to and it's

not especially smooth and it's a little i love it i love it there's no rationale i love it there you

they're making some updates to the grenadier for model year 2026 and you know they had a

drive out in california and david tracy from the the utopian got to drive it and according to him

the steering still isn't good but it's a little better they put in a variable ratio steering box

made some changes to the to the power steering software and it's still not good

but it's less bad it's less bad okay also said one one thing i'm not sure i can get used to

is the new emergency lane keeping system because the because it doesn't have electric power steering

there's no mechanism by which to nudge the steering wheel to keep the vehicle in its lane

so for regulatory reasons any else is using a lane keeping system that clamps one of the

rear brakes in order to create a moment uh that turns that tries to turn the vehicle according

to david it's terrible can you turn it off um probably not i'm scanning through to see if you

can yeah back back in i want to say it was like 2008 or so 2008 or nine um when infinity launched

one of the um first lane keeping lane departure prevention systems on what was then the ex 30

later got rebadged as the qx 50 um they they used a brake based system like that that because it had

it had hydraulic power steering and so they you know if you were veering off to to the left a

little bit it would give a little bit of brake torque on the right front wheel or vice versa

to try to keep it in the lane and it was not great i mean it was yeah it was not a good system

and you know because they've got the same type of steering system on the the grenadier

that's what they've uh that's the approach they're taking on this thing as well

and uh david did not like it well i'll need to drive it to see how wonky that is yeah you

know we'll see if that's enough to make me hate it i don't know i just like it and i like how it

looks there's something it looks great there's something gloriously impractical and unnecessary

about how this is designed but i love look at it i love i'm sure grenadier would have been

fantastic for you this past weekend in new hampshire it would have been unbelievable i could

have scaled all the snow banks no problem i think some of the the the issue with the steering is

like getting angry because your mclaren doesn't go off the road oh my why doesn't my mclaren have

an approach angle yeah why is my approach angle and my mclaren i'm like that's a very specific

vehicle for a very specific task everything else you do in the mclaren is not fun or lamborghini

i've been stuck in traffic in multiple lamborghini hurricanes it is the worst it's awful now i and

i like how it looks and i like that i like that the company when you talk to people that work at

inios like about their great the very enthusiastic like they have an actual real genuine community

of people and their story is just bonkers cool i love them i love inios it's one of my favorite

it's one of my favorite companies and cars out there for no reasonable what i recommend you

buy one absolutely not but i love that car like it's it's buy one understanding what it is yes

just like you would with a supercar just like you would with yeah this is what it is this is don't

buy it and expect it to handle like a nice tame it is not for you at a highlander it is not a

highlander it is not but if you want a highlander go get that that's not what this is in some ways

this is so much cooler and so much better even when some ways this way worse i love it okay hopefully

you can turn off that that the steering i mean lane keep assist is a bit i i i i test it it works i

turn it off yeah after after i've done the thing because i am a person who uses the entire lane

when i drive i don't go over the line if you're driving on a back road or whatever and you can't

sell your lane you're doing it wrong stop it learn drive better slow down slow down do not

drive beyond your your your capabilities and that capability means staying in your lane but the

problem with these systems is that as you hug the inside the systems like oh no you're getting close

the inside let me move you over a little bit like no no no all right well um you know speaking of

going off-road um genesis unveiled a new concept this week in i think in yeah in the united arab

emirates um they call it the uh x the off-road x scorpio concept um this thing looks kind of like

something that should be running in the dakar rally um i don't know if they're ever going to

build anything quite like this uh but apparently it's got a high performance v8 engine with 1,100

horsepower only yeah only 1,100 horsepower um and uh for it's riding on 40 inch off-road tires

what what do you think of this thing i mean that looks it looks totally right looks like

something out of a mad max movie just cleaner i mean it's really cool um you know the funny thing

is though i can't figure out i love genesis like they're on my possible by list right now

but i can't figure out like are you a performance car company with your magmas are you an off-road

company with your scorpio are you just an affordable like what are you like i don't think i like what are

you right now i feel like the honey motor group because they're they're they're like one of the

profitable automakers right now they're just like let's do some weird stuff do whatever we feel like

let's just do some crazy weird stuff and like you know so people will talk about us let's just keep

stay in the you know genesis really needs people to to to know that genesis is a thing so maybe this

is of course i don't think yeah like you said i don't understand how this works with the brand

at all that's why i'm confused i can't like i can't figure out the brand strategy of like we're

trying to get people to understand our premium yet affordable upscale vibe and they're great cars

i love genesis is genesis is vehicles genesis i love their vehicles but nobody ever knows what

i'm driving when i'm in one like without fails someone's like what the heck is that nobody knows

what they are nobody so i would focus more on like lets people have know what we are than

trying to build a vehicle for the car well i think you know that's part of why they're getting into

motorsports you know so they're they're going to be competing in the world endurance championship

this year you know they showed us the their new gmr 001 race car last year at the new york auto

shell and you know it's been testing it's going to start you know the first race of the the season

in march at the eight hours of katar um and you know it's going to go to lamar this year the 24

hour lamar and i would not be surprised you know i mean because hunday you know hunday has been

involved in motorsports as a brand for a while now so they've been involved in rallying they've

got a touring car version of the elantra and before that the um what was the little the weird

little coop um blaster the laster yes the veloster um so they had tcr versions of those cars and and

for world rally championship and yeah so i think you know it's like genesis they're using the genesis

brand to go a little more extreme and you know so they're taking you know the the the gmr 01 to

lamar um i would not be surprised if we see them build you have a version of this concept to run

next year in the dakar rally and you know to run in those kinds of desert rally races um

and you know i think i'm guessing and you know they don't give any details on the engine other

than you know 1100 horsepower v8 but my guess is it's based on the same v8 that's in that lamar car

which is based on the world rally championship engine um and so i wouldn't be surprised to see

them compete with this thing and maybe build a limited run you know for you know for for some

customers of these things you know for for you know for regular use yeah you know i don't think you

want to use this on the road but you know as as a hardcore off-roader especially you know and

i'm not surprised that they unveiled this in the middle east um you know that's that's kind of the

market where uh you know people you know there's customers high-end customers that would want

something like this yeah it's not going to be cheap if they build it no it's going to be bonkers

yeah multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars at least yeah yeah it's gonna be crazy it's going

to be more than a grenadier i can tell you that uh yeah a little bit um all right uh let's see

oh uh let's stick with Hyundai for a second um the Santa Cruz um the Santa Cruz everybody got

really excited when they saw first saw the concept way back in 2018 or 19 and then they built it and

then the Ford Maverick came out at the same time cheaper much more fuel efficient with a hybrid

and everybody bought the Maverick and very few people bought the Santa Cruz and so now

they're not doing a next generation version of the Santa Cruz so it's it's gonna end probably at

the end of this year or next year sometime yeah which is sad it was a cute fun little car but it

i it just or truck it just never really chocolate a chocolate i guess it just never really it's i mean

the senate the the maverick came out at 20 yeah the Santa Cruz came out at like 30 something and so

you're like oh well hmm i mean if you driven i driven the Santa Cruz i like this that it drives

really nice that drives so much nicer than the maverick but also does it drive well at the time

$15,000 nicer than i really feel like the mistake that Hyundai made with that vehicle was not putting

the hybrid drivetrain in it as an option yeah because you know this thing's based on a Tucson

and you can get the Tucson as a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid and they never put it even when they did

the refresh they did not put the hybrid system in there and i think if they had done that um and

offered it you know at a price you know closer to the the price of the maverick i think it could

have i think it could have been a lot more successful yeah one of my neighbors bought one did they

like it they enjoy it so uh they do uh churro so they have a lot of vehicles and they put them on

churro to for people to use and i think they got the Santa Cruz so because they buy so many cars

they got a really good deal on a used Santa Cruz it was like it had like zero miles or something

goofy um it's they it is now their car i think they like it so much they don't even like they don't

even put it on churro they're like it drives so nice it's like it's there's so many things you

can do with it it's just yeah everything about like everything about it is like oh this is great

and then you look at the price and then you look at the price in the maverick you're like you know

i can be a little bit less comfortable in my car i think is what it comes down to yeah i drove it

in the mountains when i drove it it was like wow it's still a practical vehicle i mean i've used

it you know i put like 12 bags of mulch in there or top actually 12 bags of topsoil in there and

you know handled it with no problem at all and i've used it to pull a few bales of straw no problem

at all it was great it's just a tiny ridgeline is what it it has a little secret trunk and yeah

i think yeah we'll see we'll see how it uh what happens but uh yeah i was you know i i i i saw them

when they first came out people bought them and then it just sort of it tapered off really quickly

especially once the maverick hit the market everyone's like well this is cheaper this is a

hybrid this is you know so many things i can get 40 miles per gallon in the maverick and

you know 24 and the the two and the Santa Cruz yeah that's a that's a hard sell would you like

to pay more money and then pay more money for the rest of the life of the car like forever but it's

gonna be it's gonna feel nice we're driving um all right let's move on to another truck um that

we won't be getting um which is the the cherry r08 um cherry is a chinese automaker um and they have

launched this you know it's kind of a mid-sized kind of a ridgeline size pickup truck or you know

ranger to coma um and um it's electric um it's available uh either is a rear wheel drive or

dual motor all-wheel drive 150 kilowatts about 200 horsepower for the rear drive and about uh

closer to 400 for the um for the all-wheel drive version um they're claiming 510 kilometers about

300 miles on the chinese light duty test cycle which is going to be about 250 240 or so um on epa

and uh it's starts at $18,300 so cheap but not here so it doesn't matter what it starts at

not here yeah that doesn't matter was yeah yeah so yeah not here

yeah it's a shame shame we don't get something like this it'd be interesting if they did come here

what they would actual pricing would be even if you forgetting the tariffs and all the crazy like

it would say things were yeah i mean apart from there would be more it would probably be yeah it's

gonna be probably mid mid to upper 20s like 25 to 30 thousand dollars so we're not so even if everything

was perfect for having this come here with no problems we're still looking at it you know we're

not getting an 18 000 pickup truck you gotta you know what these vehicles for us yeah exactly

exactly so there's things that have to happen no matter what that make them more expensive here

so yeah but you know at 30 000 dollars the same price as a maverick or santa cruz

mm-hmm yeah yep that's then that's where yeah that's where it's because i remember i read an

article a while ago about people like i there's a you know 12 000 dollar you know the seagull

and i'm like okay hold on it's not going to if they brought it to the us

we're you know again outside of terrace and whatever it's not going to be that much because

there's a lot of work that has to go into and a lot of changes that have to happen in order for

that vehicle to be uh for regulatory reasons uh uh allowed to drive on us roads so that doesn't

mean they're not it's not going to be cheap it's just not going to be as cheap as you think

exactly yeah it'll still be cheap just not as cheap as you think or you'd like

all right so mary barra the ceo and chair of general motors did a town hall an all employee

town hall earlier this week the wall street journal reported on it and um in the uh in this

town hall she said i can't explain why the decision was made in canada barra said during the all

hands meeting it becomes a very slippery slope and she was referring to why canada is doing a deal

with the chinese to allow inexpensive chinese evs into the canadian market at very low tariff rates

mary let me explain this to you they're not happy canadians are not happy that you pulled out

production of a bunch of silver autos from oshawa and you shut down the the cami plant where you're

building bright drop vans and um you know they're they're not happy with a lot of other policies

of the us industry and so they're saying well you know if if if the us if the american automakers

aren't going to help us out here um we're going to go somewhere else and that's why they're doing

this you know they can get cheap chinese evs they're going to build them into canada which

means people get jobs i'm like yep like it's not it's not it's not that hard to sort of understand

yeah i mean i think it was kind of a disingenuous comment on her part yeah she knows exactly why

the decision was made yeah she just doesn't want to say it for political reasons yeah and for the

stocks i think we both talked about talking speaking with mary mary's very uh media trained

oh he knows exactly what to say and she knows anything she can say is going to move the stock

price this is going to move you know which is or anger the administration or not anger the

administration or anger another company or anger whatever so she yeah there's not yeah this makes

exact sense as you this is exactly what i would expect her to say um but yeah the reality is is

that if you're going to pull out of manufacturing in a country and then another automaker's like hey

we'll do manufacturing and give you cheaper evs you can't get mad at you can't pretend like you

don't know why yeah yeah just just say it this this is you know it's because of tariffs it's

because of all the other policies of the the current administration that's why they're doing it

it's as simple as that yeah yeah um all right um so gm also had their earnings um this past week um

and uh during that earnings call uh they announced that they are now up to 40 of customers that have

a gm vehicle with supercruise you get three years of usage that's the the pricing is bundled it's

bundled into the price of the car um and so you get to use supercruise for three years and then

after that you have to pay for an on-star subscription to um to continue using it you know so you get

the map updates and everything and the other the air updates um last year uh last january was the

first time that they announced any actual numbers of how many people were were continuing to subscribe

after that trial three-year trial ended and the number was what 20 percent of customers

that has now doubled it's now 40 percent of people with supercruise on their vehicles are paying

to continue using it after uh after it goes down and it's still trending upwards

wow it's a big difference yeah yeah what are you all doing with your hands because i was

like

that's the thing like you said like you just crossed your arms just put them on my lap

but if i put them back on the wheel i feel like you just put your hands on your thighs like who

sits like that you just don't put your hands on the table or something or just lean back i don't

know what to do either yeah it's like what i do i just put them i put them on the wheel i just i don't

i like i could put them in my lap and i go this feels weird it feels like i'm waiting outside a

principal's office because i've done something wrong right like your big trouble

and ford also announced some data from for blue cruise last year in 2025

Ford drivers using blue cruise logged 264 million miles in in a hands-free mode which is

it's quite a bit it's growing that's a lot of miles yeah yeah usage rose by 88 percent yeah and

you know users just usage very yeah the number of miles driven yeah and given that you know blue

cruise is still not as good as super cruise but it it's gotten a lot better in the last year

they've made steady improvements there's a time i really genuinely was not keen on it but they have

definitely improved it version 1.5 especially which came out in like june or july that but that

was a huge step forward for them yeah and then when you turn on blue cruise you can sing the

blues clues song yeah all right let's see we talked about that talked about that

oh one one last one back in 2021 when congress passed the bipartisan infrastructure act

one of the things that was in there was that they mandated that nitsa had to develop a

standard that required something to prevent people from driving drunk

um you know so it had to detect impairment and prevent the vehicle from moving if the driver

was impaired um and um now you know that was supposed to be they were supposed to have the

regulation done by 2025 and it's supposed to go into effect in 2027 um well nitsa still hasn't

this story right nitsa nitsa not doing anything is like me not doing anything with my with my

x-type it's just the same thing like i'm gonna do something with that x-type and then nothing

happens that's nitsa yeah i am nitsa with that goddamn jaguar well um now some uh some members

of congress are trying to kill that mandate um they because the you know there was a vote earlier

this week um you know the part of the votes the various votes on funding bills uh for the US government

and um this one uh failed uh there were 57 house republicans that voted with most of the democrats

to keep the mandate but some of the republicans that are trying to repeal it uh before it even

goes into effect um are claiming that you know they're they're saying they're they're they're

afraid that it's going having this technology and vehicles is going to allow the government to

disable people's vehicles and um you know remotely disable vehicles um you know the

that argument makes no sense because the fact is pretty much all modern vehicles are connected

and you know what we can already do even without having uh an alcohol monitor in the vehicle

is it disabled people's vehicles yeah because we did a because you know wire did that with on star

yeah back in like 2011 and well and on star introduced a feature in 2009 or 2008 actually

that you know if you report you can report your vehicle stolen and they can reach out and shut

your vehicle down if somebody's driving or you know steals your vehicle and is driving around in it

they can they can remotely shut it down so this is this is technology has been in cars for almost

two decades it's not new it's just not new it's just already there so call me a panic are you not

i i don't know if you're just not paying attention or if you just want to be disingenuous about what

this is uh i think it's the latter yeah so anyway keep on drinking and driving yeah please don't

drink and drive don't do not do not it's just there you can there's uber now there's taxis you

get a bus uh you can get a waymo that'll take you somewhere really slowly hopefully

yeah there's a lot of ways to get home oh actually you know what you can now take

you can now take a waymo to get from san francisco to the airport

oh get to sfo with a waymo now it's i got a flight tomorrow that's cool give it a try robby see what

yeah but i i don't have to take that i take bart into the city and then i have to hope the waymo's

available yeah that's the thing is that there's there's a finite amount of them there's probably

only a finite within that within that herd of waymos there's probably only so many that actually go

to the airport so i'm going to get to the airport three hours after my flight because it's like

eventually you'll get there leave this afternoon you know by then you'll be there by tomorrow you'll

be there in plenty of time if i if i had an afternoon flight i'd be i'd be like i'll i'll

yeah i'll totally try this but i have a seven a.m flight so i'm just like i really need to make

this flight i have another flight in no no no i'm driving for the my next couple uh trips so

all right um so um we got some emails um so first up sean weijerst uh wrote in um said uh

greetings wheel bearings today i learned about the honda moto compo not the moto compacto but the

moto compo uh and he sent us a photo of a hotwheels version of the moto compo uh said i had no idea

it existed i didn't realize the moto compacto was a new version of an old product would robby

buy a moto compo it comes with that like what the honda city yeah it was the honda city back in the

late eighties early nineties yeah so you could get this like tiny little k car and then it had

like a little scooter in the back and i would totally get one if um i could uh but it's there

because of the compacto because people have realized that they can get cars from other

countries uh delivered to the united states uh those are very very very extensive so uh

but if you have one i will take it but i i i included a little uh video if you want to

drop it in the show now i'll do that of me riding a moto compacto inside a a conference room in

los vegas okay nice okay then honda was like do you want to just ride it like through the halls

i'm like are we gonna get in trouble he's like oh yeah we're gonna get trouble sure we are but go

for it uh all right next up from ed rick uh i said i when i was listening to the bit about the

restored uh red nineties toyota truck and i still have not gone over to that dealer i should i need

to do that this week oh that's right i literally looked over and saw a red one this one like the

others i see from around this era uh are used by landscapers they must be very durable at least

in northern california to survive all this long is there anything particularly unique about the

engineering to have these on the road for so long they're dope they have a they have a hardcore like

they have a bulletproof v6 and a lot somewhere in manual there's one up the street from my house

a blue one but it's it's an automatic because i'm always like oh maybe it's on sale so i kept like

looking at it hoping it would go on sale like a nineties like and it has that extra long bed

so it doesn't have the five foot bed it has a longer bed and it has a teeny tiny little extra

cap so my uncle had one for his radiator shop and i live in northern california and he's

radio shops in northern california and i drove it in the nineties and i fell in love with that vehicle

like immediately we were i was coming up from my cousin's uh quinceanera and uh he's like hey can

you drive can you pick some stuff up and drop some stuff off and here's the keys to the to the to the

truck and i was like oh my god i love this thing so much and i was so happy every time they're like

someone needs to go i'm like oh i'll do it i'll do it so they are bulletproof

it's a Toyota they they they are fun to drive they are exactly what they should be

and if you can get one uh even if it looks like someone shot it up it'll probably still be fine

well it looks like this one's still available uh it's at a dealer about uh 20 minutes away from

me i gotta go take a look at it um the reason why we brought this up last week robby while you

were in here uh because they're they're asking $70,000 for this truck for a 1991 Toyota pickup

that was it and we all did this like wait what now like what you can okay what are we missing

what are we missing you can probably get one for like 10 or 15 yeah like in our our one in

bad shape for like seven and then do all the things to make it to make it as good as whatever

this try i haven't even seen it maybe spend ten thousand dollars at the absolute most mostly

most of that is probably on body work and paint

everything you know or you go buy this one for what was it $70,000 or whatever it is

just get it reupholstered get some new seats here i'm dropping the link in the rundown robby you

can you can take a look at it you can see what this actually is all right look at this it's

i mean it looks it looks like it's in fantastic shape but and it's only got 71,000 miles on it

there's there's there's two of these on my up the street from my house they're the raised ones

and uh this one's a manual too and i think one of them is a manual it is not $70,000 i

bet i could walk over to that person's house right now with $8,000 and buy their f4 4x4

SR5 yeah i so yeah you i mean you could buy just one that's sitting around

or driving around for for probably less than 10 and then spend again 20 and i get most of that

is going to be on body work yeah and reupholstering the seats and stuff like that all right finally

from laurence in southern california i just saw byd compact suv in menafee on the freeway and was

wondering how this vehicle was purchased and what is to stop them from selling direct to consumers

i also saw vin fast are they still viable thanks to the podcast so i replied by email to laurence

earlier this week i'm sorry but the vin fast are they still viable nicole

yeah i did make a face sorry they were never viable they are they're still sold and i see them

all the time and i see them all the all the time in northern california all the time in

northern california they're the vf 8 9 8 yeah vf 8 and again if the vf 3 comes to the united

states i'm going to probably buy one of those stupid cars it'll fall apart it'll be so cheap

though i know i know it's going to fall apart it's going to be like it's going to it's going

to be an e v v cheap version of a jimney that's what that's that's all this but on the byd

so this one you know we don't know you know what kind of license plate was on it you know there's

a couple of possibilities one is it's somebody from mexico because they sell a bunch of b y d's

in mexico somebody from mexico just happened to drive into california is driving it around and

we'll eventually go back the other possibility which is also you know probably a stronger

possibility you know in southern california is that this is actually owned by an automaker

or perhaps a supplier because what they often do is they will buy vehicles that are available

in other markets bring them in put a manufacturer plate on it and they're they're allowed to bring

in vehicles you know so for for regular people you got two options you know if the vehicle is over

25 years old you can bring it in and you don't have to modify it to meet regulations but for a

you would have to get it federalized you'd have to make all kinds of modifications you'd be spending

tens of thousands of dollars and it would not be worthwhile on a vehicle like this but for the

manufacturers you know they can bring them in on what's known as a temporary import bond which is

usually for one or two years um and you know so they they bring them in they benchmark them they

drive them they do all kinds of testing with them um and oftentimes you know after they're done doing

the the testing with them then they'll take it into the lab take it in the garage and do a tear

down on it and rip it all apart you know take it all down to pieces um and you know at the end of the

tib the temporary import bond they can they either have to ship it back out of the country uh or crush

it and in most cases they end up getting crushed because they're usually not it's not usually not

worth the cost of shipping them back so it just goes to the crusher um and that's probably what you

saw here is it probably you know Honda or you know Toyota or Nissan or somebody you know or one of

the US automakers um you know that brought it in and they were testing it and um you know they'll

probably do a tear down on it eventually and or or just send it to the crusher when they're done with

it we see we see a lot of cars up here either northern California from Mexico people drive over

they're visiting family you know California Mexico it's you know I have I have family in Mexico I

have family that goes back and forth between Mexico and America all the time my brother and I have

tried to figure out how to he wants a Jimny so bad because you can get it but the the rule is that

when you have the vehicle you have to have a uh it has to be registered to a house in Mexico the

owner has to have a house in Mexico so if you when you come over they can like sort of pull you a

sign like well why are you driving this car like oh well it's registered to this house in Mexico blah

blah blah fortunately for my brother and I we could both become Mexican citizens but thanks to

my thanks to our mom uh so we could do it and we do have family in Mexico but it's a big pain in

the butt and then it's like the neighborhood cop just decides they don't like you yeah and and these

days you know that that might not be such a great thing to do right now yeah I don't yeah with a

Mexican car um so anyway um that's it for this week um Nicole you did record an interview with

Lance Wolfer who's head of sales for Honda America uh and I will attach that on the end here okay um

but uh let's say goodbye bye bye bye nice to meet you okay so here we go first just say your name

and title so everyone knows who you are I'm Lance Wolfer I'm the vice president of automobile sales

at Honda American Honda American Honda so we have a couple things we're driving we're driving a

pilot and we're driving the Pride Lude yes this event um how important is pilot to Honda well I

think pilots really integral to our lineup it's been a leading three row SUV and sales for the last

number of years but really it's helped to add to our rugged lineup and certainly with the enhancements

that we've uh you know you've had a chance to drive and see with the 26 model year

really even further enhance its rugged you know appearance but also we've had some new tech like

a larger screen and I think pilot Lude is a great outlet for our customers who have a growing family

and gives them a vehicle that uh at the right price point that really can go from crv to

pilot and then from there wherever its next is appropriate for them but it's been a great vehicle

for us and I'll tell you it's been a great family vehicle for me and my wife and two kids

oh you drive one yeah well right now I'm actually in an 80x on the accuracy but probably most often

our family car has been the pilot so I've driven it a lot so is my wife so passport your tech

mentioned crv you mentioned yeah um pilot but passport has passport fit into the mix well I'll

give you an example because it's now the car that's my family car that my wife's driving because

I've got two boys we've got a huge dog and we end up doing you know a lot of outdoor activities

and that vehicle has really enhanced I think again I'm talking about the ruggedness of our vehicles

but gives a lot of cargo capacity in that back especially if there's somebody like me with a dog

but also a lot of capability with the vehicle and it's got just its appearance I think is pretty

exciting it's fun to drive it just takes it to the next level and the trail sport which is what 80%

of our passport sales 80% yeah I didn't know that and there's two trims the trail sport trims

but it's really helped to show what Honda can do in a you know with the trail sport that cascades

throughout the lineup with the pilot and crv and ridge line to just further enhance the capability

of our vehicles so I think it's exciting it's one of my favorite rides that we've had as a family

but really fits our needs now and I got to tell you if you've got a dog there's plenty of room

we've got a leon burger if you know what that is they're big oh ours is 120 pounds it's the girl

Sasha she's lovely and she loves it too yeah yeah so for like you know obviously there's the third row

in the pilot that makes it significantly different yeah on the passport but if you're not like you

could have gotten a three-row sure you want with the passport even though they're heavy why like

what's the difference between the customer the person who's picking those two well I think it's

really lifestyle are you in a situation where when we used to transport in our just our kids

sometimes other people's families or you know when we lived in Portland we had just more family around

so we were often meeting more than five seats and I think that's one of the big differences where

you've got the opportunity for an odyssey which is a great vehicle as well or a pilot to fit your

lifestyle but we find that consumers in that three-row SUV really need that third row doesn't

really mean every day maybe once a week once a month and I think it just fits you know their

lifestyle needs so the difference in overall usability maybe when you put the the row down

is in a lot of cases similar but the passport's also a little bit shorter too so an overall

capacity that pilot that extra space makes a difference for some folks as well

so I just spent the whole day driving past the pilot today I do praying tomorrow so I drove it

all day today one of the things you notice the interior is really like it's nice not like it

was nice but it's much more upscale it's that I felt nicer to me which I liked I appreciated that

is that something that's a priority for the Honda customer dupe is that or because you're

talking about how rugged like your passport is which is not the same person who wants

fancy transinsuaded surfaces well I think at that you know level when you're talking about the pilot

and the passport at that at that price point I think the consumer really has some high expectations

for fit and finish and the quality in the car so all the touch points for the consumer particularly

the driver are very important I think it really matters and we focus on that in every vehicle

in our lineup if you look throughout all the touch points of the vehicle we pay a lot of

attention to them but the passport I think when you sit in it and you look at that

trail sport trim with the stitching is really classy but I think you kind of find that all

the Honda vehicles like I'm driving an Acura right now an ADX you and I were talking about

and it's got that horcuit interior with the blue you know addition to those light seats

and it just really enhances I think the overall look of the vehicle so we pay a lot of attention

to that absolutely because it matters to the consumer and if you had to pick a favorite feature

in the new pilot you can't say all of them because like what is the thing that you think

is the most striking thing that you're like wow we nailed this well I think the larger touch

screen is the biggest difference that you know makes it easier for me as I'm driving the vehicle

it was certainly usable and fit a lot of people's needs so that bigger tux drain I think is the

biggest enhancement my my and something consumers have been asking for have people been saying

its screens are too small well no I think what they've said is you know the size of the screen

would you know is important to us and what you have in some of those trims the larger screen

can you cascade that throughout more of the trims so it's not necessarily that they're

saying it's smaller but you know when you show them the larger screens it's a nice ad for them

so it's really provided I think additional value in the vehicle so a vehicle that I only drove

for about five minutes at the noctua test drive sure the prelude so I'm gonna chance to really

drive okay yeah I got a taste of it right um I learned how to drive manual transmission on a

prelude back in the early 90s oh really so that was the last prelude experience I had

bringing that back is there a lot of customer excitement that you guys are seeing and dealer

excitement for this yeah yeah I think that you know it brings back a really important

nameplate for us when you think about the fact that we had civic accord and preludes our first

three models and now they're back in the lineup and there's a lot of folks that are really passionate

about their experience with the prelude I started with Honda 1997 okay and we had just launched

or we're about to I think it came out as a 97 so I remember my boss had won as a demo yeah and

he wanted me to gas it up before he took a trip and I lived in Portland Oregon at the time and I

disappeared for like three hours driving that line so it was so much fun and it was the vehicle

that you wanted in high school as a kid so it's an aspirational vehicle back at my childhood

and I think it becomes one today but all those consumers who have a connection to it I think

are excited to see it back so I remember driving it and being stressed out because I was learning

how to drive a manual but also that it was super fun but it wasn't like this crazy overpowered

monster sports car that's not my memory of it right and it's not that now either some people

are griping about that they want that what do you think do you think do you think it lives up to

the legacy of the original prelude do you think people would be pleased overall once they get to

drive it I actually yes I think they will because it's really got great drivability it's got s plus

shift but if you're looking for that high performance Honda you know back the prelude was

our best performance vehicle in its era today we've got the type R which really showcases what we

can do from a performance standpoint in that size of vehicle and the prelude really enhances our

ability to show our best hybrid tech and debut something like s plus shift so you've had a

little bit of time to drive it so have I I got to drive it in Japan actually on a test track which

was a lot of fun and drive it around town for several hours but I haven't had a chance to

really take one home like you're kind of wanting to have that opportunity so I think it's got great

drivability I think consumers will be really excited about it and I think they just need to

you know remember that we've got the type R for that higher performance level we've got the prelude

to debut some of that new technology and showcase it's really our halo hybrid vehicle is how I

look at so it's a totally different person in a different goal for Honda you want performance you

want to go crazy go type R that's not what this vehicle is it's not intended to be that

that's correct yeah and what now I'm gonna ask the same question your absolute favorite feature

about prelude you can't say screen because you already said no I think on that it's the s plus

shift yeah and the you know sounds that the vehicle makes as you're driving it it really

does remind me of while it's not a stick shift it reminds me of driving that as a kid I had an

81 Accord that's my first car and you know it's just a lot of good memories and it does have just

a little bit of reminds me of that and my friends who had a poor lucky enough to have the prelude

I didn't but I sure would have loved to have one back then I love they'll top up headlights I know

we don't yeah oh yeah that was super cool I got the NSX in the day that's the whole stuff man

and yeah like I don't know why yeah you're talking my era I want that back I know there's a million

reasons why they don't do them I want to back let me see one up and one down in cars and make

yeah you're bringing this is my era I think I graduated high school the same year as the kids

from stranger things okay and all this stuff was absolutely cool back then I do miss that

that was that sweat stuff well thank you very much thank you your time and this is perfect thank you

thank you that looks way

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