Ep21 Ed Loh

Welcome back to car Stories with some k and Amelia Hartford.

So hypothetical. Okay, so you're married, sure, okay, the future

all right? And I love your husband? Right, I hope?

So?

Okay, I hope so too. Do you know the store

Ross and Marshall's. Yeah, okay, so pair of Nike socks

and Marshalls you could get like three for sometimes two ninety nine, okay. At the Nike store they're like fourteen

ninety nine, yeah, ten nineteen ninety nine. If you're gonna

go buy a pair of Nike socks, would you go to Ross Marshall's or would you go to the Nike store? Thoughts?

I think that's a two part answer.

Oh interesting, I obviously.

In this scenario, Ross sounds like the better deal. But

the bigger question is what is your time worth? Are

you already purchasing a pair of Jordan Wants or a sneaker at the Nike store and does your time cost more for you to then drive to Ross to save five dollars or does it make sense to buy the difference and just buy the socks while you're there.

You're not at the store, not at the.

Store, just need socks and nothing else go to Ross, right, yeah, her marshals.

Or no, no matter if you win the lottery or.

Not, I feel like you just you can also shop for other stuff. It depends what you want to do.

Yeah wait, wait, you're not answering their question, so you wouldn't.

No, I said I'd go to it. Ross makes more

sense financially. But if I wanted to go buy some Nikes,

I might go shop at a Nike store and then if I'm already there, then maybe I'll just buy the socks there versus then making a second trip.

You know. So this Ross test, right, was something I

worked with this like super super famous like superstar actor once right, I man named names and they announced that his family was going to come visit set, and his mother had a bag from Ross and had stuff that she had bought from Ross, even with all the money that this family has, the value system from the mother and of course, like there's a time for luxury items, right, But then the fact that she did not care that

she went to Ross and bought these items and handed it to this guy right with no like there was no shame, there's no embarrassment, there's no pretense. It really

really impressed me, and I was like, I think that is a great value system to have. I mean, look,

I'm not against like bad things or expensive things or.

Truthfully part of buy socks. I'm probably gonna buy the

money Amazon.

And nowadays, yeah, you don't even need to go to Ross anymore. And you know that's the place that meet.

Me and my wife used to go on dates. We

used to go to Ikea.

I love Ikea and then walk around and get lost.

And then go eat in the cafeteria meatballs. Yeah yeah,

because it was like so cheap. It was like under

like ten bucks you could eat the two people that would be a date. And then we would go to

a Marshals in way deep in North Hollywood that was like the they called it. The managers there called it

the Flagship Marshals of the Valley.

There is a place deep in North Hollywood and I forgot the name of it where I used to buy my shoes and it'd be like ten to twenty dollars a pair of shoes. And it was this giant like

I could find out on a map. I couldn't tell

you the name of it because I don't even if it had a name, but it was this giant warehouse.

But then there'd be like one hundred different little stores inside of it. But it wasn't even like stores. They'd

be like like tents almost, and they would just kind of lay the shoes or whatever, and everyone had their own little section kind of walk through these rows of like different shoes lined.

Out like a swat meat.

Swat meat. Yeah, oh yeah, it was a swap meat,

but it was of new stuff.

Yeah. My college roommate had parents sold nikes that had

swept meat.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that was the thing back in the day.

That's where I got my shoes for a while, the same thing.

Right.

They weren't shut No.

I mean I don't know, I thought there were. I

wasn't buying like name brand. I just needed protection for

my feet.

Yeah.

Well, anyway, thanks for answering that, yes question. I think

you'd make a good wife.

Thank you.

Let's move on to our next guest. We have our

friend Ed Low, editor in chief of Motor Trend. That's right,

fascinating human being, the great history just I think there's this like wisdom that he has.

And he's always been very passionate about education, whether it's teaching at high school or even just helping teach on the internet the history and love for cars.

What a great ambassador and we just learned a lot about his history and also the future of the car industry.

So we get to sit down and listen to a progressive thinker talk about the future.

Yeah. So, without further ado Ed low Ed.

Even though he is a car afficionado, editor, car guru, evy, forward thinking gentleman, he's actually a huge green thumb, right.

I mean you compared to a lot of other people like you are into gardening.

I like to like a little bit. My wife's more

into it. I like to cook what we grow and

what do you grow?

What do you grow?

We got like peppers, we grow like I like. I

like to saw a picture of that. I like peppers.

No like serranos. I'm a big Serrano pepper guy. I

don't know. We got tomatoes, little little tomatoes and strawberries.

I've been wanting to do like a strawberry garden, like a little area, but I travel so much that I'm worried I'm going to kill this plant.

What about just citrus I have? I have three hundred

and sixty nine trees. Wait what, but this house is

because I have a full orchard. We have so much citrus, avocados.

I have avocuta, but.

Avocados are hard.

Yeah, this for the past two years, nothing but the year so three years ago, it was like everywhere avocados are like gold.

You know how much you can get for avocados, Like that's huckum avocados or I don't know, it's good cause I grew up actually on avocado. I grew up. I

grew up outside of a little town about sixteen miles north here Camerio, and we had avocado. We had a

we had a small avocado orchard, and I had to pick avocados from my parents. Really, they actually all that

whole area, this is Venture County, they've they've all shifted all of the from avocados. For a while, it was

oranges and lemons and then went to avocados. Now everybody's

taken all of their trees down and they put these big greenhouse type setups and they're growing all sorts of high value, more expensive crops and also weed. But it's

mostly they've moved away from avocados, maybe because it's it's so hard. I think all of our avocados come from Mexico.

Now Scott Bryan Scatto, he has an avocado he does farm.

So I grew up with like a greenhouse like attached to our backyard. My mother was like the neighborhood, you know,

like rescuer, right, So she would she had this greenhouse, and then people's plants that you buy at the grocery store would start dying and they would just give it to her. And then like twice a week, I would

have to like put all the water and the the and the and the food and then it would all come back to life.

Right.

So I feel like I have this connection to plants.

Right.

So the avocado tree was like no avocados every year.

So then I went down. I just started talking to

the tree. Really, I was like, hey, avocado tree, come on, man,

give us some avocados.

I love. Didn't work.

It worked that year. Then I stopped and no more avocados.

And so this particular tree, you have to go down.

It's like it's like a dog. It's like a living creature.

You have to go. You have to like kind of

talk to it. You have to clean the area right,

and then it's fruitful. And then I haven't been.

Doing that, but it's a thing for plants to like play like Beethoven and Mozart, right, has never been study.

We used to do that at the greenhouse.

Yeah, I just wrote an article about apparently plants can actually they've proven they can communicate with each other. There's

some weird like they release something in the air and the other plant. There's a weird science experiment that demonstrated this.

But yeah, I feel like everything that's living, you know, could stand with some more love and attention. So that's

probably all you were doing.

And then we had a conversation years ago. Was it

you that suggested for me to put like a fish head into the ground. The Yeah, well that's I had

this conversation with.

Yes, it is. This is I mean, this is I

learned this like I was thinking third grade and this is like I grew up in an era where Thanksgiving was a thing that they taught in school about how the Indians and the call and the you know, the colonizers all got together. We know that was true, but

back then, apparently the Indian way of planting corn was you would dig a hole drop of corn seat and then drop a little fish covered up and the thing would there's your fertilizer. Yeah, I don't know, but these

days you can just buy like a bag of fertile.

But I don't want to use fertilizer. That I'm very proud.

I have no fertilizer in.

My compost, no composting thing. Oh you should compost. Why

this is why I think you're saying, I'm I'm a green thumb. I'm not really a green thumb. I just

like to I was composting. We moved, We recently moved,

but at the old house, I had this giant, like forty gallon drum composter and we would just dump coffee grounds, vegetable peels, apple cores, and if you and you put newspaper, you put the dry stuff and the white paper in there.

My neighbor actually was a science teacher. He's like, hey,

I'm gonna put some earthworms in there. I just get

a little thing at earthworms, and literally the next six months later, the entire compost spin. It was probably forty

gallons of huge earthworms. And it was awesome. It was

so rad We could just dump stuff in and it would just all be composted, be eaten up by the earthworms and they the waste The liquid waste that's created is called it's basically called liquid gold. You can bottle

up and sell it. That's really that is amazing, and

it's all organic, it's all super clean. That was hilarious

because I did that for a long time. And then

two years ago we had a really hot summer and it killed all my all my porter worms. Oh no,

I couldn't. I wasn't there. I couldn't cool them down.

It just rays more.

Oh sad, I'm worried about rats though.

No, it won't happen. No, no, if you do it correctly.

And this is what beauty of compt I can't we're talking about this. But composting is if you have a

big piece of property, you don't need this drum system you can buy is for people who live in a city.

You just dig a big hole, you dump the scraps out, and then you cover them. The rats they can't smell it,

they're too lazy to dig in there. Just turn it over.

It creates heat, it keeps itself warm during the winter.

And you have this amazing fertilizer, just giant pile of fertilizer, and you do one over here and after that gets all full. You need to let it go for a

couple of weeks. You start another one over here, and

then you just kind of altern it.

It's great, I have a perfect area for that.

Yeah. Yeah, you could pack it up, put your face

on it, say songs, organic compost. Yeah, I would like

to cut it that. I'll help you.

I could do that.

Let's do it.

No, because dead plant starts to really stress me out, like I feel like bad things are going to happen, right, like even and birds, like I'm very superstitious on plants and birds.

Right.

So so anyway, we had a prune tree, gigantic prune tree.

It was like every year was like, they give me all of these great prunes and I would make jam out of it, right, And I told the dude. I

was like, dude, you got to cut those branches because it's going to topple over and he's drunk all the time.

And then the winds came and then it toppled the whole This was like a massive tree. And I got

so depressed I almost sold the house. I was like,

we have some it's a sign from nature telling me to leave, right. And then by next door neighbor he

has like great great gardeners, And I talked to the guys, this this soil like, you know, unhealthy, and he's like, no, it's just because it's too top heavy. It's like we

can plant something else and you'll girl right away. So

we put in a lemon tree and started. It's like

it's so healthy, right. But then I'm also the birds

like in my like one of the back doors and then in the main front door. They're these birds that

create nests. Other people would show these birds away, right,

but I'm superstitious, like I'll feed them because it's a sign of like good luck. But there's bird ship all

over the fucking but I don't mind cleaning it.

But they're probably snacking on the fruit on the trees too.

Yeah for sure. Yeah, maybe we should start talking about

some car stuff whatever, a nice change of pace. Yeah,

but that's how you kind of keep balanced with your life, right.

It's like I think people forget that editor from Motor Tread.

Does its own composing. I probably get more inquiries about

the cooking that I do because I like to cook a lot, and I post that mostly on social like I'm like the worst. If you want to fall somebody

me for car stuff. You're going to be disappointed because

I'm gonna I'm likely going to talk about how much I love minivans or something I'm not going to show you, you know, like my co host on our podcast, Johnny's always showing you the latest Porsche he's driving. I'm like, yeah,

I might do that at a car show if I'm there next to one. But I'm more apt to show

you what my kid is doing with his toys or what I'm cooking that evening.

Do you make bread?

I that's a whole thing. I was on the bread

train probably more before anybody, anybody in the social or automotive sphere. And I'll even call out again Johnny Lee Reman,

my co host, like, oh, I make great bread. He

does make pretty good bread. I will say I was

way before. And I can tell you how because there

was an article written in the New York Times about it.

So I believe me, I'm not the only one. The

entire other the world has known about Sullivan Street Bakery in New York. Jim Lahy's No Need Bread recipe. This

article came out like two thousand and six, and it is the best recipe for the amateur. I want to

get into making bread at home. It's literally three scoops

of flour, a cup and a half or a little bit more water, a quarter teaspoon of yeast and like a little bit of salt. You mix it up. You

leave it on the countertop for twenty four hours and it's this huge mass of bubbling bread dough. Bunch it down,

fold it up, put it into a preheated oven with a crockpot or a cast iron pot, Dutch oven, whatever, and you'll have the most amazing boulet like this little ball, this big like soccer ball sized bread with huge holes in it, and it is awesome to eat. And that

do is awesome for pizza.

So are you the cook at home? You're the one, yes,

cooking all the meals yetty much?

Yeah? Pretty much?

What's ed Low's specialty?

The go to dish lately? The one I like right

now is this sky Kenji Alt Lopez. He's done a

series called Serious Eats. So serious eats dot com has

really awesome recipes. And the one that I cook a lot,

probably my wife is so sick of it is chicken chili verde. Chicken chili verte. So you need an insta pot,

you dump the chicken thighs in it, you dump an onion, you dump two different kinds of chili however spicy you want big gold tablespoon of cumin and just water chicken broth.

Put it off for forty five minutes and you have this awesome shredded chicken chicken chili Verdi trust me, huge fan.

So it's cool that you have hobbies outside of the car world. Yeah, you garden, you make bread. You are really,

what it sounds like, great at cooking, and you have these hobbies, sustainable hobbies outside of automotive. Do you feel

like cars is all work for you? Do you still

get some personal enjoyment out of it.

No, I get a lot of enjoyment out of this thing I do. I tell people all the time, like

I've never worked a day in my life, right, Like I get to do this thing around cars. I love cars.

I think the big difference probably in the last few years, especially since having a kid, and just I'm a voracious consumer of social media. I'm all up in everybody's business

on the Instagrams, and so I'm seeing what everybody else is doing, and I don't necessarily want to do that or to have the Motor Trend team do that either, right, So, and I'm probably giving away way too much, but I a lot of the a lot of the other a lot of our competitors or other people out there like, oh, it's all about, you know, save the manuals or all of these the death of the internal combustion engine, and oh this you know, And I get it. You guys

want to celebrate, like be very passionate about that's awesome, But there's this whole other world that's coming. And it's

not just EVS. I've been talking everybody at Motor Trend's

ear off about SDV SO software defined vehicles and the future of automotive and how huge this shift is. And

I know a lot of people just I don't want to hear it. I don't talk to EV's. I'm like,

it's bigger than EV's.

Can you talk a little more about a soft an SDV.

Yes, totally, So how long do you have as long as you need? It all started, it really did start

with Tesla. Tesla created the first software defined vehicle, and

that vehicle was the Model S. Came out fall of

twenty twelve as a twenty thirteen model and a software defined vehicle has a number of key characteristics. It's probably

an ev Okay, so it's going to change from internal combustion to having an electric power plant. Now it doesn't

have to, which we get into. But it also had

its entire electrical system, the entire electrical architecture, all the computers, the little every the black box, anything you want to talk about, the wiring. Everything designed from the ground up

to talk to each other. Okay, it's very different how

cars have been produced. Cars have evolved have iterated to

where hey, you know, the engine, the powertrain, the transmission, this whole thing came together and these guys all talk to each other. But then over the lights over here,

it's a separate system. The brakes are separate. The steering.

We'll get into steering steer by wire, but that's on its own sort of hardware loop. Nothing talks to each other.

Tezla designed from the ground up, the entire car, all the sensors, all the systems talked to We talked to each other, and then it allows you to do all this fun stuff that you've heard about. Right, So over

the air updates OTA that's a big deal. That's a

key definer of a software or five vehicle. So you know,

when the model that's first came out, it had really cool features, had this app. You know, you could find

a charger, you could go charge your car. They kept

iterating on that. They added fun stuff you guys have seen,

like the light shows the tuzzls can do. You know

the Miata Model X, the doors will open.

Yeah, the cyber truck's doing a show now when you pick it up.

Exactly cyber trucks got a show. You know. Tesla famously

pushed out fart mode, so the car will there's a difference in any anywhere you sit, you can make a different fart, noise, hilarious stuff right like no other car manufacturer has that capability. There are very smart people spending

millions and millions billions of dollars trying to get to this level, and they're failing, like Ota, which is again this foundation of a software five vehicle. The ability to

update your car like you update a phone still not in widespread use across the industry. That could be for

a little while.

When you're talking about over the air updates, you're also talking about the fact that you can do an over the air, updated performance package. It's not necessarily just upgrades

in terms of software. But your point is that performance wise,

they can add horsepower, they can take away, they can do performance exactly.

And that's actually again, and I hate to this. This

is going to sound a lot like I'm all on Tesla, And there's no mistaking that they started this thing. Everybody

is watching them. We can talk about it. China is

coming up in a big way in this space, and they're actually the existential threat for all of the legacy car manufacturers globally, including all the four GM all anybody in Europe. They're all sort of watching out what China

is doing. But yeah, to your point, Ota, it's a analogy.

It's been used a lot. Think of the car as

a smartphone on wheels. When the iPhone came out two

thousand and six, right, everybody lost their mind. They're like,

oh my god, where's the keyboard? Like it's just a

glass screen. This is either amazing or terrible. And it

was a big sort of paradigm shift from a physical standpoint.

But the actual biggest thing about the mobile phone, about what Apple did with the iPhone was the app store.

iPhone comes out a few months later, app store comes out.

A few months after that, they open it up, and then all these apps from third party developers come in.

And the thing I tell everybody is there will be changes to the car that are coming that you can't even imagine, just as there was with the iPhone. You

remember when you when you first got your you took your first Uber. I took my first Uber in like

New York City. Think about how crazy it is. Blew

up the taxi business, blew up all of the ride you know, it created a whole entire industry of ride sharing.

That level of disruption is coming to cars. And yeah,

I'm a little worked up. Can kind of motion. I'm

a little worked up about it. This is where to

bring it all the way back. I own. I own

a couple of eighties era cars. I love that stuff

I've got. I've shown I showed my Porsche lift gool like.

I get it. But there's so much more going on

in the future space if you can get your head around it and get out of your own way about what's coming for automotive, Because it's like the asteroid for the dinosaurs. It's gonna when this thing lands, when this

when this ship cares you, well, it's it doesn't scare me because luckily for me. Like here's the other thing

I tell people EV SDV and tchunk combustion, end of the day, we're motor trend. They're always going to be cars.

I want to turn seventy five this year. We've been

giving car the Year since year one. So car of

the Year is our biggest, most famous word. Everybody knows it.

We don't call it EV of the Year. We're not

going to call it software to find vocal year and of the day. It's just a car. It's just a truck,

no matter what power is it, no matter if it drives itself, still a car. So that's how that's that's

how I see the world.

Do you feel like that's going to change? Like car

communities and totally car culture totally Like how how does Amelia do a YouTube video about modifying a fully EVA software updated car.

It's a great question, and I think the people who are thoughtful about EV's and what's coming and still hate on them, they go right to that point, which is, well, I don't want a car to drive me number one, So I don't want autonomous, which I get and then there's this whole other issue of right to repair. You know,

you go back to why are manufacturers so interested in going to EV's right. What's the reason. It's not that

they can charge a lot more money for them, because actually that's a huge problem for the manufacturers. The issue is,

end of the day, when you scale these companies and you and you're trying to sell cars across not just a country, but continents, different markets. It's way cheaper to

run an EV. Evs a battery, it's a motor, some wiring,

some software code. You know what you don't need. You

don't need an emissions testing lab. You don't need to

federalize a power plant for California separate from the rest of the country or for Europe. You can just sell

one electric motor and a battery combination around the world.

It doesn't emit anything. There are like ten times fewer

parts in an EV than there are in an internal combustion equivalent.

Just to interject real quick and doing me wrong, and like, I'm pro EV, I have no problem again some I'm excited for the future of them. But I asked this

question because I don't know. I have heard though that

it is worse in the environment to make the batteries and then dispose of them. Is that true?

So that's a very complicated question. This will be a

topic to be debated in the comment section wherever this appears, all science on all platforms the sciences. It depends a

who you ask and how big you want to take this question. First of all, there are there's a lot

of incentives going on to develop all the industries that surround electrification. Okay, so for instance, you've mentioned battery recycling.

What happens at the end of the life in the batteries.

There are a ton of uses. So when the battery,

let's say, falls out of spec and it's ah, you know, it's only got like eighty percent of life, let that battery has a lot of other uses. That battery could

be used industrially. You can put it into a house

or business. It can be a storage battery. There are

minerals and materials in the battery themselves that can be recycled.

So one of the longtime executives at Tesla, this guy JB. Straubel,

he left Tesla. He was their CTO for many many years,

and he started a new company called Redwood materials, and they are looking into recycling these batteries at scale. How

do we buy them all back? A lot of the

major carcum Toyota tries to buy all their PREUS batteries back because you can fundamentally reuse these items. Now, there

are lots of people on both sides who will do the calculations and show you that if you do it this way, it's cleaner, and it's cleaner by this much, or the other guy says no, but you know you're not factory, that you got to ship this material from here, or this one's got to go from herere My take on it is overall, I love internal combustion. We have

been living in the golden age of horsepower. We have

never had cars that are internal combustion, cars that are more powerful, more efficient, cleaner. We want that same level

of investment and evolution to take place with the entire process behind even hydrogen vehicles, but electric vehicles. I'd rather

be on the cutting edge of this. I'm happy that

we're doing it. It is a solution. Maybe it's not

the best solution, but at least we're working towards the greater solution versus like I just want to do the same thing we've been doing for the last you know, seventy five years, and that's cool, not really, you know.

I thought ev cars were going to be the end of car culture or enthusiasts. And I got the opportunity

to drive the day Ionic five n and then I got to write in their rift version of it too.

At first, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth that well, this was the coolest car that I've ever driven in and you forget that you're in an electric car. And it converted me like right away,

and it was like I couldn't believe like a Hyundai actually did it. So I was like, well, you can

modify this car, like you could be an enthusiast and customize it.

And I would say, I would say customize, not modify, and because break sure, sure, I don't know that they're gonna I don't know if they're selling that well.

Code for software updates. But I think to your point,

some car culture is car culture. I don't just because

the power plant changes. I don't think that's gonna you know,

I'd like to believe it doesn't change anyone's love for cars and having them be more than just a to B.

You can personalize them and have a community around that.

So let me just because I don't want to be unfairly painted like this. Oh it is just like this

EV guy's always going to talk about EV Like, I totally get it. The existential threat for the community of

car enthusiasts as it currently stands is that evs present a level of potential sort of commodification, right, Like, what do we know now about EV's About Tesla's like the fastest cars out there? It used to be a Tesla

mode less plaid right now it's this thing called the lucid Air. Lucid Air Sapphire is the quickest and the

most efficient vehicle. The rimats is I think it is

the quickest and possibly has the topsy record. Anyways, when

you talk to people about well, yeah, but you know they're quiet, they're fast. You drive around La, everyone's in

a Model Y. They all look the same, They're all

painted white or black or silver. Like that is the

fear when all EV's are quiet and all EV's are fast, Like, who's going to care about trying to go faster? Right that?

And I get that, I totally understand, right, And this is where the manufacturers are really be tested, because then it comes down to how much is your brand actually worth?

How much is that story when Ferrari they said they weren't.

They're probably going to have to when they make a full EV. How are they going to set themselves apart? Right?

Is it just going to be the styling, because that's that's something that far has always had, like great style, very sexy. Right, But if there's a car there there's

a tuzzle that's quicker or almost as fast and it's a quarter of the price, how much do you really care?

I think that's where people are like, this is why I don't want these EV's coming.

As far as we know, in fifteen years, cars are flying, so it's supposed to happen. You're drifting. It's going to

be the new thing.

It's not going to happen in the US first, but it's definitely going to come in China. We talked. We

just talked to a guy who said, yeah, end of this year. Xpang. Is this one of these Chinese companies

that as they launched it at CS they showed this flying car.

I saw it at CS.

Yeah, the one that had to fold out. It looks

like it. It basically looks like a DGI Mavig. There's

that one. The other one, which was more mind blowing

to me because it looks six was a six wheel version of it. Okay, it had the it looks like a

cool van, but the entire back section pops out and it's a little personal helicopter for two. Yeah, and I

didn't see that. And that one is apparently going to

be flying somewhere, probably in China by the end of this year. They're already starting to take orders the car.

The six wheel car is a hybrid, the helicopter is electric, and the car chassis acts as the charging station. I mean,

it's literally like what you can do with the drone.

So you pull up someplace, the back door open, the things lads out.

You need a rotary license to fly that, which is expensive, and it's gonna.

You just need to be rich. Yeah, you just go,

just go do anything. The question is when is anything

that's gonna happen in the US. And that's where I've

been challenging everybody to talk to. I'm like, come on,

there are like twenty million things that have to happen before any of us are going to be able to like what are we gonna do, Like we're gonna like just up stopped in traffic on the one on one and then take off Like no, like you can't, you just can't do that.

So I at first ten people can do that. After

that it's like nope.

Yes, So I mean look from a brand motor Tain has been covering flying cars literally for seventy five years, every like two years, car a flying car on the car sign. When does that happening? And it's like I've

always said it's going to happen after the mid engine Corvette, and you know, so here we are, so it's gonna happen pretty soon.

You have such a forward thinking, like perspective on life.

Even I was reading this like article on you and the interview gave like you're one of the few people in my generation that is like pro social media. Where

does that perspective come from? Like how why are you

so forward thinking opposed to other old parts that are just like stuck in their ways.

It's very kind. I hope that it's still true. I

have been with more Trend for a long time. So

I started at the company. I started the industry in

two thousand and two, thousand and one at the little tiny these these import magazines in Orange County. But I

joined the company that's now motor Trend in two thousand and six, and officially at Motorshow in two thousand and seven.

And I was there, I saw we used to be on Wilshire Boulevard and it was a Peterson Publishing building and we shared offices with the guys at Superstreet. So

this is a great story because you guys, you guys are enormous on Instagram. The editor in chief of super

Shit at the time, Johnny Wong, is a good good friend of mine. He said, yo, yo, yo, you got

to check out this thing called Instagram. And I was

using Hipstomatic, this camera app. I was like, you know,

filters and cool. I like to take pictures. It's like,

show me Instagram. I was all right, cool, and I

was like I couldn't figure it out. I'm like, what

is I don't know? Like, so you take a picture

you posted like who cares?

Like?

I was just in the camera and the photography and the filter aspect. I did not understand the network, the

social networks out of it. So I slept on it.

I was like, cool, not for me. I came back

to it six months later because I heard something about like, oh dude, supershates a taken off. So then I put

motor Trend. I finally set up motor Trend on Instagram,

and two years later Superstreet hit like a million followers and then two million, and Motor tred had like one hundred and like eighty thousand. And that was the difference

in me sleeping on it and waiting six months. Wow,

So what it ed learned? It's like, Okay, any new

social media platform that comes up, I'm all over it.

So do you, as an individual think about the legacy you want to leave behind? Because you have this incredible

I'd say motor Trend is a platform itself. But do

you as a person you're very forward thinking, You're working with a brand that is very forward thinking. Do you

have a legacy of stuff you want to leave behind for the next generation? Are you thinking about that?

Not really to be a starter y? Yeah?

No, I mean it's very flattering for you for you to say that. I mean, I I do think of

myself as more of a steward of this seventy five year old brand. I was editor. I was named editor

in chief in twenty eleven, we don't have that title anymore, but I've been with the brand in a leadership position basically since then, so it does really feel like a part of me. And again turning seventy five this year

and then thinking about, like, man, I've been with this brand for like fifteen years, and it sounds hokey, but like I wanted to be successful for the next seventy five years, we've already we've gotten this point. It'd be

great to if somebody if my you know, my three year old son is you know, eighty, and he's like, what ver you used to work on that thing? You know,

back when he was still alive and I was heads in a jar and I could ask him about what.

It's like because oh god, yeah, and they've still.

We uploaded his consciousness to to to sky in it and we can ask him what it was like to drive cars and when you put gas in them.

And you draw them yourself, Like how weird is that?

And you almost went into snowboarding right like you're you you went deep? Yeah, hey, I gotta do my research,

my guests.

I did. I I was pretty into snowboarding in college.

Do you still snowboard.

I got some shoulder stuff, so I not as much lately.

I'm trying to figure out this year whether we get the kid on the We're gonna get him on the snow, but I were gonna put him on ski. I learned

skiing first and then I transitioned. Snowboarding came up when

I was in high school, so I did that. But yeah,

I done this program called Teach for America. That's my

first job out of school, high school in Pasadena. And

coming out of that job, I applied for a program at Burton. They were doing a program called Chill, and

I was teaching inner city youth how to snowboard.

That's cools chill, yeah.

Exactly, and Teach for America has that had a similar mission.

It was all about, you know, going to underserved schools and teaching so like you'd be perfect. This is year

one of the program. I remember I was talking to

my dad about it, and I remember he seems I was like, should I go do this job with this publishing company or should you go be like the snowboard shot And he's like, you went to college to be a snowboarding structor. So I was like so and ultimately

ended up being the right decision, although that that chill program went on for years.

That statement from your dad actually made me laugh because I read that he said they're both bad. I clear options,

but this one as a publisher is better than snowboarning.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's funny. I mean, my dad means

while he still I don't think he understands what I have done. Uh, he didn't for a long time. He's like,

my kid's like a photographer or cars or something.

I read your dad had an eighty one R seven, the eighty one that would be the FB. Yes, yeah,

that was ay man. I remember seeing that car as

a kid. My neighbor had one. He would take me

for rides. I was like, yeah, you had to be

a super cool dude and a real like out of the box thinker to have that type of car in Georgia.

I mean, and your dad had dadda.

You called him a super cool dude.

But your mother, your mother even cooler because I read that she had a Mini Vana Toyota party.

That's right, that's right, right, the father of this figure out. Yeah,

so well, my dad's a My dad was a cardiologist and he was the first cardiologist in our town, little town, Camerillo.

My parents moved there in the seventies. Actually I was

born in Saint Louis. So my dad wooed my mom

and said, come to America, right, and he brought her over there. I mean, they've been in Hong Kong, but

they moved her over here. And Hessa and she's like

this same, this is way too cold. We get out here,

so I want palm trees. Moved to California. Yeah, my

dad's successful. He bought this RX seven and this is

a great story because he bought it and everybody's first ARC seven in town. I was like, that's awesome. And

I remember this is back in the day when I got a brother, older brother, younger sister. Is a two

C car and like, I'm sitting on the package shelf in the back and my sister's in the foot well, my brother's in the stuff in the seat. We're driving around.

And he said, though inside of a year, that car developed a crack in the dash. And he's like, man

like Japanese cars man, still not there yet. So he

sold it. And he told me he sold it freshing

more than he bought it. The fast forward though, and

this this park kills me because I think it was someone around his midlife crisis era. He was like, I

need to buy a cool, cool sports car. We were

a Honda and a Toya family, and so we had good connections to the handa guy the Handa de ships. Heymen,

and this new car coming in it's called it Acura and Essex and checked this thing out, you know ninety one.

I was like, oh man, my.

Dad goes there and he looks at it. He's like, wow,

this seems really cool. I mean I think we had

gone in testro of like the prelude too. I was like,

this thing is awesome. There's one with the digital digital

cluster right, and he sat that he looked at He's like, this thing reminds me of that R seven I had, Like you know what, that thing got a crack in the dash instead of year, I think they got figured out.

He went instead and bought eighty seven nine to eleven, like a nine thirty turbow. Second owner Litt Miles, I

was so mashed. I was like, get out of this.

You know. They got this German car with the bround

headlights looks like a BW like like nine thirties. Back

in THO was like mid nineties. There weren't that cool.

It was like yeah, everybody, I mean it was cool, but they weren't like there looked cool. Yeah right now right.

And I still think about that because actually it probably saved me because I would have like snucked that car out or convinced my dad I should have it, and I would like slammed it and wrapped around a tree or something like that.

You know, when I was on your show and I brought up the the CNN I'd love for this year, Johnny had such a like reaction to it. Huh, simple

man child that Johnny. He did not like that answer

that I love the CNA, which but the rest of the minivan owners in the world used that clip.

Actually did I tell you?

I didn't tell you this. I didn't get the overage.

So I was I was at this thing events and then this little Asian woman walks up to me and she's like, hey, I just want to say thank you on behalf of Toyota, and I was like what. She goes, yeah,

I work in the Sienna department. And so there's this

clip of you on The Inevitable Show, like going around Toyota for like bragging, right because you know we get no love. We're in at the cool department and it's

like Han loves the Sienna. It's like we just want

to say thank you. I was like, you're welcome.

People think it's a joke, but you got to respect the mission of the minivan, which is to deliver, Yes, sir, maximum value, maximum cargo and passengers carrier capacity. And I'm

talking of efficiency. You know, all of this in a

package that is reasonably fun to drive, safe, has all the bells and whistles, passes the NITSA and safety test when you have that. And I do love a Sienna

because it's got like the most amazing fuel economy. That's

a big problem a lot of these things. You put

all that package together and your your your mileage goes to hell. This thing does really really well. There is

six miles a gown all day long. Couple holds exactly

so you know, I can't wait and then I'll just bring it all the way home. One of these guys

they got they gotta make the ev I'm just waiting for the Evy minivan, Like that's it. It's got to

be full electric, like where is it?

Oh for sure doors.

Can we just talk about how much time in your life you have saved with dual sliding doors?

Oh yeah, and it's like motion.

Yeah, you hit the butt, your hands a full, you come up to it. It opens. If you're listening at

home and you are in a position where you can get your phone out, go to Instagram. Just hit up

the account van culture with a K, y z A N k U L t U r E Van Culture.

It's like sickest rides, thickest big wheel, air bags, air bags, dumped, tucking.

It's amazing. So I dan culture, Baby.

I'm all about it with a K and I'm I just I've got to play this whole simmy for Johnny.

He'll be vomiting on the floor.

I never thought I would fall in love with the minivan. Really,

I like my whole life. I'm like, I would see

people driving a minivan or guys driving the man and I go castration, like what's up with you, dude? And

then I was hanging out with a high school baseball coach who drove an early model Sienna and this guy, you know, was a super well respected man. I knew

that he had money too, write, but he's just so understated.

And he drove a Sienna and had an early Tacoma right, and I asked him. I was like, hey, coach, what's

up with this minivan? It's like and he's like, hey,

I can carry the team. It's like it's understated. It's

like reseal it. I could sell it for probably fifteen

grand now, right, They last forever. It's like, Wow, as

I get older, you know, it's like I'd start looking at those attributes, like is something that I really respect.

So when I had my nephew live with me, it was the excuse to get a minivan. And then I

got the dog and I was like, hey, I got a family man, I need to get a mini van.

And this is really hard to get.

If you're listening. A Meal is not buying any of it.

No, I know, I trust me. I know he is

so so.

He's trying to get to get.

I get the appeal to them of mattress in the back.

It's like a home on wheels. You know, you have.

Explain this.

All you got to say is if you come arrive at a point in your life when you need to carry that many people and park in a reasonably sized parking spot or he doesn't. I know, I know, but

it's a pure love for the mini van. It's they're comfortable. Again.

I can't speak enough about the dual sliding doors. Like

I just love that song. Yeah, like I would buy

if you started out.

I just don't think. I don't think you're looking for

like true like happiness in your life currently you like to be uncomfortable, right.

Why are the smiles per gallon? Again?

But Santa has eighteen cup holders though Porsche ninet eleven is like two.

Yeah, if you're starting on, you know you're you're actually onto something, which is thank you vehicles like minivans, any of the American vehicles. What I love about this country

is that we are so demanding and of the things we want, and a lot of the rest of the world goes. Man, you guys are what like that's crazy.

For the longest time, German car manufacturers like, we're not going to put a cup We're not put a cup holder in a Porsche. If you're gonna drive this car,

you're gonna drive it. Don't be a big drinking stuff.

That's why even when they did, they were terrible. These

couples like pop out of the dash and they can't hold anything. They made it so I can hold a

red Bull because they like to drink red Bull in Europe in the skinny can, but everything else will like fall out.

The Lamborghini has an eight thousand dollars cup holder upgrade, right.

Right, that's like that's the total fust, right Like America, We're like I need big gulp, Yeah, we want. I

want to put this giant thing in here. I want

to put my purse on this big bag underneath it like we do. We'll put like eighteen USB ports everywhere

like customers always.

Right, that's America. I have two questions for you, okay. One,

you're a teacher for two years science teacher, high school, right, public school? What did you learn from your time as

a teacher that has helped you throughout life or in your other careers. I don't think teachers get enough credit,

first of all, in America, especially public school teachers. You know,

they are the foundation of America, this country. I mean,

what was the takeaway for you? So good question.

So just to some context, I did it pro I went to USC So I went to school locally here in La and I was a science major. And in school,

one of my jobs was I was an SAT tutor, so I was pretty good at teaching kids. So I

ended up teaching Capacady Nosad High Passador in a high school home with the Bulldogs Red and White Grade school.

I was a volleyball coach. I was the Asian American Club.

We started in Asian American Club. I did help through

the yearbook. I was taking pictures and the takeaway was

it was the hardest job I've ever had. Again, California

public schools I think are better. Back of the day,

it's pretty rough. The start of the year at fifty

five students in a class fifty five maybe seats for forty five to fifty, so kids were sharing seats. The

textbook we were teaching from was as old as the kids, so the kids were born eighty one, the textbook was publishing eighty one. They were showing pictures of a computers,

like room sized computers. One day you have a computer

that you can use, And I was like, these kids like, what is this right? And so under resourced and you

you know, in this high school. So it was fifty

five kids every fifty five minutes, they'd switch over and I'm twenty two years old and I was teaching. Three

of my classes were juniors and seniors. So I'm teaching

kids who are four years younger than me and I look like them, and I was getting stuck, like high school.

The security They're like, where's your past. I'm like, yo,

I got I put a tie on. I took my

shirt in like I'm just going to get a bite.

Man.

The teacher's cafeteria. So hardest job I've ever had. Everything

else after that was a piece of cake. So I

think I learned work ethic. I learned how to speak

in front of a lot of people and wing it like a lot. So that's where I get the gift

of gab. And a couple guys are in the industry.

They're they're like, oh, man, mister Lowe, you were at remember I was a PHS. I'm like, yeah, it's like, dude.

One dude works at like Toyota Connected. He works for

their new their software to fine vehicle division. He was

like as a student in my in one of the clubs, was an advisorund.

So yeah, so this question, it's a deeper question. I

read that you know your your mother passed away when you were young, pretty young, right after.

Senior year of college, so it's twenty two.

Yeah, how did you deal with that?

The weirdest thing I did was immediately afterwards, I immediately got interested in I had some stamps lying around and I just organized them all in a in a stamp album.

I spent like two weeks just I sit down and just organize these stamps and they're from all over Hong Kong and stuff. And I still have that stampout. But

I don't know why I did it. But that's that

was sort of the most direct thing I can tell you.

The rest of it. I mean, I thought a lot

about it over time. I thought, first of all, death

is obviously it's a it's a fact of life. It's

going to happen. I have some friends that have either

just gone through that with a parent or about to, and the only thing I can tell them that I've told them to in council is don't rush any part of the of the process, especially after it happens. So,

you know, for me, I think we all kind of went back to what we were doing. And we were

so young at the time, you know, we were my sister was in college, I was just graduating. My brother

was like two years out. And I mean I remember

for me, it happened about two months before I graduated from college. So I told all my professors on the hey, uh,

there's a sudden illness my mom. I was really sick,

so I'm gonna have to be bail from classes. And

then she passed. And then a couple of weekscater I

went back and I took my finals, and I remember one of the counselors was like, you know, you don't have to do this. You can come back in a year,

you can come back in two years, take as much time as you know. I'm like, it's cool. I just

took it. And then I went and started this teacher

training program, and then I was teaching high school like four months later. And I look back at that time

and I'm like, man, like, didn't have to rush. Any

of that could have take gap years or a thing could have taken a year off. Everybody would have been

okay with it. You tell any program like yo, man,

parent died, I would like to take some time, they'd be like, cool, man, just let us know like that, these mechanisms are in place everywhere. So that's what I

tell people, I'm like, if this is happening, is these are major life events. Don't don't diminish it, just accept it,

deal with it, and when you're ready, move on, do your things.

Great advice, Thanks Ed. I appreciate we're driving all the

way from That's right, no traffic for you, guys.

He'll take the four or five to the one on one for us any day, exactly

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