The Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy is a fancy version of the Palisade SUV. It's designed to be comfortable and has a lot of nice features, making it great for families.
A 3.5 liter V6 is a type of car engine that has six cylinders and is 3.5 liters in size. It's designed to give a good mix of power and fuel efficiency, which is why many cars use it.
An 8 speed automatic is a type of car transmission that automatically changes gears for you. Having eight speeds helps the car run more smoothly and can save on gas.
The third row is an extra row of seats in some cars, usually SUVs or minivans. It allows you to carry more people, which is great for families or trips with friends.
A Monroney is a sticker found on new cars that shows the price and details about the vehicle. It helps buyers understand what they're paying for and what features the car has.
A heads-up display is a feature in some cars that shows information like speed and directions right on the windshield. This way, you don't have to take your eyes off the road to check these details.
Ambient lighting is soft lighting inside the car that makes it look nicer and helps you see better at night. It's not too bright and creates a cozy feel.
21 inch alloy wheels are big, lightweight wheels that can make a car look sporty and help it handle better. However, they might make the ride a bit bumpier.
Off-roading means driving on rough surfaces like dirt or rocks instead of smooth roads. Cars made for off-roading are built to handle these tough conditions better than regular cars.
The Kia K4 is a small car with a hatchback design, which means it has a rear door that swings upward to provide access to the trunk. It's designed to be practical and easy to drive in the city.
A turbocharged engine is a type of engine that uses a device called a turbocharger to make the engine more powerful. It helps the engine burn fuel more efficiently, which can make the car faster without using a lot more gas.
A CVT is a type of car transmission that can change gears smoothly without the usual steps you feel in regular automatic transmissions. This helps the car accelerate more smoothly.
A trim is a version of a car that comes with different features and options. For example, one trim might have more tech or better materials than another.
An infotainment screen is a screen in the car that shows information and entertainment options. It helps you listen to music, find directions, and control other features using touch.
A turbo engine uses a device called a turbocharger to make the engine more powerful without making it bigger. It helps the car go faster and use fuel more efficiently.
The Volkswagen Golf is a small car that is popular for its good design and performance. It comes in different styles, including a hatchback, which is a type of car with a rear door that swings upwards.
The Honda Civic is a well-known small car that many people like because it's reliable and fuel-efficient. It comes in different styles, such as a sedan and a hatchback, so buyers can choose what they like best.
The Honda Pilot is a type of SUV that is great for families because it has a lot of space inside for people and cargo. It's designed to be comfortable and has many tech features.
The Honda Prelude is a two-door sports car that was known for being fun to drive. It has a unique look and was made for several years until it was discontinued.
A V6 engine has six cylinders arranged in a V shape, which helps it run smoothly and gives it good power. It's a popular choice for many cars because it balances performance and fuel efficiency well.
The Honda Civic Type R is a special version of the Civic designed for performance. It has better handling and a more powerful engine, making it fun to drive.
The Nissan Skyline is a famous sports car that many people love for its speed and cool design. It's especially known for a special version called the GT-R, which is popular in racing and car shows.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is a very fancy car that is known for being super comfortable and packed with the latest technology. People often talk about it because it sets the standard for luxury cars.
The Tesla Model S is a high-end electric car that can go really far on a single charge and is known for being very fast. It's talked about a lot because it shows how cool electric cars can be.
The Tesla Model X is a big electric SUV that has unique doors that open up like wings. It's talked about a lot because it's packed with technology and is very safe to drive.
The Subaru BRZ is a small sports car that is really fun to drive because it's light and handles well. People like to talk about it because it's designed for driving enjoyment.
The Rolls-Royce Cullinan is a super fancy SUV that is very luxurious and can also handle rough roads. People talk about it because it's one of the most expensive and high-quality cars you can buy.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom is a top-of-the-line luxury car that is known for being extremely comfortable and beautifully made. It's often mentioned as one of the most luxurious cars in the world.
The Infiniti QX50 is a fancy small SUV that has a stylish look and lots of high-tech features. People like to talk about it because it's comfortable and performs well.
Car
Lamborghini Huracán
The Lamborghini Huracán is a very fast and stylish sports car. It's known for its loud engine and eye-catching looks, but it can be uncomfortable in traffic.
The Hyundai Veloster is a small car that looks sporty and has a cool design with three doors. It's popular because it's fun to drive and not too expensive.
The Hyundai Santa Cruz is a small pickup truck that has the comfort of an SUV but also has a truck bed for carrying things. It's popular because it's different and useful for many types of drivers.
The Ford Maverick is a small pickup truck that is cheaper and gets better gas mileage than many other trucks. It's popular because it's practical for everyday use and easy to drive around town.
The Jaguar X-Type is a small luxury car that has a stylish British design. It's talked about because some people love it, but others have had issues with how reliable it is.
The Suzuki Jimny is a small SUV that is really good at going off-road and handling rough terrain. It's loved by many people because it's tough and has a fun, unique style.
The Honda CR-V is a popular small SUV that is great for families because it has a lot of space and is very dependable. People like to talk about it because it's a good choice for everyday driving.
The Honda Passport is a midsize SUV that has a lot of room inside and is good for both city driving and off-road adventures. It's popular because it works well for families and outdoor activities.
The Honda Odyssey is a minivan that is perfect for families because it has lots of space and comfortable seats. People often talk about it because it's great for road trips and everyday use.
The Honda Accord is a well-known car that many people trust because it's reliable and comfortable to drive. It's often recommended for families and everyday use.
The Acura NSX is a fast sports car that is both fancy and powerful. It's special because it uses a mix of gas and electric power to go really fast and handle well on the road.
LIVE
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.
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
About this episode
The hosts dive into their experiences with the Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy, discussing its performance in snowy conditions and unique features like the ergo motion seats that provide a massage while driving. They share personal anecdotes about driving in harsh weather, the comfort of the vehicle, and its spaciousness for passengers. The conversation also touches on the Palisade's design, pricing, and luxury features, making it a comprehensive review of this family SUV.
This week both Sam and Nicole had the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy although in different colors.
Nicole has had several first drives to report on including the Kia K4 hatchback, refreshed Honda Pilot and Honda Prelude. Congress voted not to kill the mandate for a drunk driving disable system while Tesla has decided to kill the Model S and Model X and Hyundai is ditching the Santa Cruz. Rolls Royce is working on an electric Cullinan and Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a next-generation S-Class. Ineos tweaked the steering on the Grenadier and Genesis has a high-performance off-road concept the X Skorpio.
Chery is launching an electric mid-size pickup in China for just $18,300 and Mary Barra isn't sure why Canada is going to let people buy cheap Chinese EVs. Use of hands-free Super Cruise and BlueCruise is growing and people are willing to pay for it while Tesla robotaxis are crashing more often than human drivers. Finally we answer some listener e-mails and Nicole talks with Honda sales chief Lance Woelfer.