Episode 117: Pepsi Energy Fields, Mr. President
Tired: The Car Podcast For People Who Understand That Cars Are Bad
Episode 117: Pepsi Energy Fields, Mr. President
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58:59
Car
Ferrari Luce
“Ferrari Luce” sounds like a Ferrari model name, but it isn’t described in detail here. Without more information from the podcast, it’s unclear whether it’s a current production car, a concept, or something not fully released yet. If you want to know more, you’d need the specific details like the year and what type of car it is.
Car
electric Ferrari
They’re talking about a Ferrari that runs on electricity instead of gas. They also point out it’s a four-door version, which is unusual for Ferrari.
Term
four-door coupe profile
They’re describing the car’s shape as “coupe-like,” even though it has four doors. That usually means it has a sporty roofline, but you can still get in the back seats.
Car
Ferrari 355
The Ferrari 355 is a well-known Ferrari from the 1990s. It’s a sports car with a recognizable Ferrari look. The speaker is saying the other car’s rear end reminds them of the Ferrari 355’s shape.
Car
Jaguar Ipace
The Jaguar I-Pace is an all-electric SUV. People compare other EVs to it because the battery layout lets designers shape the car differently, which affects how it looks.
Term
EV packaging 101
“EV packaging 101” is a shorthand for the basic way electric cars are laid out. Since there’s no gas engine in the usual place, the battery and drivetrain can be arranged differently, which changes the car’s shape and space.
Car
Ferrari Testarossa
The Ferrari Testarossa is a classic Ferrari from the late 1980s/early 1990s. It has a very distinctive look, and the point here is that people didn’t love it at first, but it ended up becoming a famous, iconic design.
Car
Cadillac Optiq
The Cadillac OPTIQ is an electric SUV/crossover. The hosts are basically saying it looks nicer than the other EV they’re talking about.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Mustang Mach-E is Ford’s electric SUV. The hosts mention it because they think it looks better than the EV they’re roasting.
Car
Nissan Leaf
The Nissan Leaf is a well-known early electric car. The host is comparing the new EV’s looks to the original Leaf, saying it’s about as bad (or worse).
Term
rear hinged at the back
If a door is hinged at the back, it swings open from the rear instead of the front. That’s a different door style than most cars, and it affects how the opening looks and how the door moves.
Term
rear suicide doors
“Suicide doors” are doors that open by swinging from the back edge of the door. They can look really cool and open wide, but they need extra engineering so they’re safe and solid.
Term
pillarless construction
A pillarless design means there aren’t fixed vertical posts in the middle of the car’s cabin. That lets the doors open wider and makes the roof look more open, but the car has to be reinforced in other places so it’s still strong and safe.
Term
pop-up headlights
Pop-up headlights are headlights that slide out from the car’s body when you turn them on, then tuck away again. It’s partly for looks and partly to help the car cut through the air more smoothly.
Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a classic American muscle car. The host is saying the way the hood and front shape are drawn on this Ferrari reminds them of how the Charger looks.
Term
stainless steel
Stainless steel is a metal that resists rust. If a car uses it in certain parts, those parts are less likely to corrode over time.
Term
Limited edition of 1,000 pieces
A limited edition means only a fixed number of cars will be built. Here, the claim is that just 1,000 were made, which can make it more collectible.
Term
electric car
An electric car runs on electricity stored in a battery instead of gasoline. It usually feels different because it can deliver power right away.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is an electric pickup truck made by Tesla. Instead of using gasoline, it runs on batteries. It’s famous for its unusual, boxy look, which is why people talk about it a lot.
Car
X9 Xpong
“X9” here is mentioned alongside other Chinese electric-vehicle brands. The podcast context points to legal or dispute-related news, not to the car’s driving features. To explain the vehicle itself, we’d need to know which company makes the X9 and whether it’s a specific model or just a name used in the discussion.
LIVE
There's that, and then, what was the thing with the,
wasn't there a shirt?
Oh, IndyCar shirt that was one race?
One Nation, one race.
One Nation, one race.
Really good job, IndyCar, great stuff.
Good recovery of running a really good Indy 500s.
Everyone forgot about that, nice and quick.
You know, I have to say, my long time association
with the Penske folks got some buddies there,
and I was a huge Will Power fan when he was there,
and I was a huge Simon Pagano fan when he was there.
I love Scott McLaughlin.
When I saw Malukas pull into the lead at the last,
I was like, no, no, not a Penske.
Listen, Joseph Crash, little Dave had the worst day of his life.
I was like, that's totally okay.
I've got one guy who's New Zealander,
who this is Penske is the way he had to do it.
I'm gonna let him go on this one,
but the rest of you two gotta go.
That's fine.
Malukas, did you guys see his post-race interview?
I just saw him crying and putting his head
directly on a lady's chest for about 20 times
at the end of the day.
You're gonna cry.
He looked so distraught, so devastated,
and when they came to him and put the microphone
in his face, and I mean, it was either like,
he either had this scripted ahead of time
and just delivered it fucking flawlessly,
or it was just this really genuine thing,
but he started out just really just saying like,
I don't know what else I could have done.
I don't, I drove every lap.
I thought I was gonna crash on every lap.
I could not have, and we had the best car,
we had the best team, we had everything,
and he just, he sounded so-
Penske perfect, baby.
Like, well, but also, but just beside himself
with just grief at having come so close
and having fucking, having snatched it with that ending,
the most just like, holy fuck way.
But, and as he's saying this, and in his,
I mean, he's basically like, barely holding back the tears
as he's saying this, and it's kind of like,
and it's not like self-pitying,
it's just like, it's just like this real plaintive,
just kind of like, I don't know what it would take.
I don't know what else I could even do to win this race.
And the thing is, as he's saying this,
and as he's like, you hear the crowd,
because this is going over the PA,
and people are just like, they're getting up for it.
It's like, they're getting pumped,
because it's just like, yeah, dude, no.
And then he just does, it's almost like he's buoyed
by their support, and he just kind of rallies,
and he's just like, but I just know, man,
I mean, we gave it 150% this time.
I just know that we're just gonna come back here
and give it 160, and I don't care what it takes.
We're just, we're never gonna give up with it.
It was actually like, I mean, just in the space of that,
I was kind of like, dude, you know, get over yourself.
You know, it's not that big a deal.
Obviously it's a big deal, but it's kind of like,
dude, you're gonna, you know.
Nobody wants to hear the runner up speech dog.
Right, right, right.
But his speech was actually pretty stirring,
and pretty, like, he won me over, I gotta say.
Yes, old Dave, he's all right.
No, every time I saw the camera cut back to him
in between the Rose and Quist, the tree celebration,
it was just like a woman just like holding,
a woman in a low-cut dress just holding his head there.
And I kept thinking about, there's a Wickers Spigot record
that came out in, I think, 2010 called Motor Boat, The Woe.
And I really couldn't stop thinking about,
that's like, they summoned this new existence 16 years early.
That's what that is, that's what that is.
That's what that Joel knew.
Joel saw it coming.
That's exactly what that, yeah.
He's gonna motorboat the woe.
He's gonna motorboat that woe.
He's gonna motorboat the woe.
Oh, that's very funny, man.
Little Dave, I know you lost by a less than a nose.
You're gonna motorboat that woe.
Get back in there, you'll be okay.
You have a race car for a living.
Speaking of racing stuff, though,
we should at least acknowledge the passing of Kyle Busch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is pretty shocking.
If you're sick, go to the hospital, for God's sake.
Just go to the doctor, something.
Go to the ER, go to the urgent care,
and if they tell you you have to go to the ER in three days,
if you're not better, you have to go to the ER.
I am telling you, you have to go.
It really reminds me of that one time,
that I got, actually, I got a blood infection
at the Daytona 500.
But, Maddie, as our resident NASCAR person,
what did Kyle Busch,
what do you mean to you?
Like, how did you see him in the,
in the pantheon of NASCAR kind of immortals?
Well, besides being like, winningest guy of all time,
et cetera, many such accolades,
like, clearly just a guy who like, understood what everyone
is like, like one of the big things I had noticed is like,
obviously, I'm a Shane Vankeisbergen guy.
I go looking around and I'm like,
who's the first guy I see who's talking about like,
listen, this guy, I know exactly what he's doing.
I'm not gonna do that.
None of these guys are gonna do that.
Like, it's hard and we don't know how to,
we would take us forever to figure it out
and he's just better at it than all of us.
And that's great, that's fine.
Like, for a guy who's got a reputation as being like,
Mr. Rowdy competitive, like combative or whatever,
like just a fair-minded guy who has just had a good technical
grasp of what is going on in NASCAR
and why bringing new people in is interesting.
And I don't know, I haven't heard that talked about as much,
mostly just like, you know, it's always a time like this,
like all the other guys in the paddock run out
and they're like, I have a nice story about Kyle Bush.
But it's like, yeah.
But I saw Bubba Wallace crying on the pre-show yesterday
and that was when I was like,
I will not be watching the cook
because it's kind of like, I can't do it, man.
I can't do the whole marathon.
I had a bail, but like, you know,
like any guy who sticks by Bubba Wallace
is a good guy in my book, frankly.
Yeah, I mean, the funny thing,
I mean, just kind of like the suddenness of his death
and just people's just kind of, you know, upset at that.
I feel like the thing that I feel like got lost
in just the reaction,
and you know, and I mean, yeah, obviously it's not,
well, the thing is he,
what I knew of him was just like, he was a heel, you know?
Yeah, bushes, no choreos.
He was like one of the great heels of this sport, you know?
And he relished that role, you know?
And it's like, I mean, the one time,
I mean, when I went to the,
when I went to the Coca-Cola 600 in 2018, so eight years ago,
and that was a race that he won.
I didn't stay to the end because I was tired
and that's a really fucking long race.
And I had been there all fucking day,
but I was there for like the driver intros and stuff,
and he got his ass booed like people fucking hated him,
and they loved to hate him.
And he, I think he kind of ate it up, you know?
And I feel like, I mean, just from, you know,
and I don't follow NASCAR that closely,
but just from some of the stuff that was,
I mean, I got the general sense that since then,
and I remember, because I used to have like back and forth
with my buddy Rob, because he was a fan of his and,
and, but I get the general sense that since then,
like in that era, you know,
when he really was kind of playing into that,
that kind of heel role that, you know, as often happens,
you know, like as these guys get older and more established,
and maybe, and you know, they're not like,
I mean, they're still competitive,
but they're not, you know, like winning every week,
or, you know, racking up wins,
like in quite the same way, or quite as dominant,
or whatever, but, you know,
but they get kind of more mature and,
but also, you know, come to be just more respected,
you know, and it seemed like he really had kind of earned
the respect of pretty much everybody in the paddock,
whether they, you know, were fans or not.
Well, it's kind of like a P-Weber situation,
where like you go from being like the ultimate heel
of professional bowling, where like all anyone knows of you
is your like wacky clip of being like,
who do you think you are, I am.
By the time you're at like PBA 50 age,
you're just kind of like a sweet old grandpa,
and like everybody comes to you,
and you're like, you're kind of like just a nice guy,
and everyone's like, I am.
Wait, so was that guy not a sweet old grandpa
when he said, who do you think you are, I am?
It was, I was still back in the heel age, I know.
Yeah, and the other day, I was laughing so hard.
Please don't call.
But it was just like, that guy's like older than me.
PDW is so cool.
It's so funny about it.
Please do not call Kyle Busch two years younger than me,
a sweet old grandpa on the podcast.
Listen, you only got six years on me, it's getting scary.
But like the idea of like, as you hit what is in your sport,
the age of like elder statesmen, which hit like racing,
like you got, you got, the guys like Scott Dixon,
like I've got like a big, like if you're 35,
you're a fucking.
Shane Van Gisburg, everyone's like, oh man,
he's, he's, he's, he's just chopped.
But like, you know, you can say, like at Ben Keating,
you can say an endurance racing for quite a long time.
But I like the, the, the idea of like,
as you reach the age where in your sport,
you are sort of in the, in the, the afternoon phase of life,
I think it's normal to kind of go from being the heel
to being like, listen, I have been around a long time.
I should probably be helping some guys out.
Even Dale Jr. was like, you know, we sat down
and we talked about truck strategy and stuff
and like how to run our teams.
We're going to do, and you know, like after all of their,
you know, drama about from back in the day and.
Team owner puts you in a different political situation too,
where you're like, you kind of have to be nice
to a whole bunch of people.
Yeah, make a lot of friends.
They didn't have to before.
KBM had to work it out a little more than KSB.
Yeah.
But you know, it's just, it's like 41 is too young
for people to be, be going.
That's young.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Thank you for correcting that.
Oh wait, no, listen, it is.
It is actually quite young.
It's very young.
That's super young.
You're just fucking dead.
That's crazy.
Go to the doctor.
Tired pot of rule, what are we going?
Like this is like rule three.
Rule one is don't do it yourself.
Rule three is don't let an illness do it to you.
Go to the doctor.
Go to the doctor.
Go get checked out.
What else happened?
Oh, did you see the new Ferrari came out?
I did see.
The Luce, is that what it's called?
Yeah.
I did see it.
Just before we were coming on here,
I was just kind of making a last scroll
to look at, see, collect things to talk about
that have to do with cars,
now that we're 40 minutes in or whatever.
Yeah, what do you guys think?
I think it sucks shit.
And I think,
I think,
like,
Johnny, what I said on Blue Sky,
I think Maddie saw it,
but it's Johnny I've never designed a car before,
because it's Johnny I've designed it.
But it looks very bad.
And there's very little to say about it.
I think like,
I saw somebody speculating that it could be
a deliberate act of sabotage
to make sure that they don't have to do EVs anymore.
Yeah.
The producer's kind of such a, yeah, okay.
Just kind of, just blow up your own spot.
Yeah.
What do you guys think?
The thing is,
when they showed the interior stuff,
I know a lot of people hated it.
I thought it was all right.
I didn't love every part of it,
but I was just like, all right, I get this.
And I appreciated the kind of combination
of new stuff and kind of links to heritage stuff.
I thought it was like,
slickly executed or whatever.
It did, obviously.
I mean, I feel like your big complaint,
Rory, was just kind of trapped in that Apple 2007 thing.
It's pathetic, yeah.
Yeah.
But I didn't have any huge,
like I remained open-minded about it.
Now that we've seen the outside of the car
and what this is,
sure people have done this,
this is an electric Ferrari.
It's a four-door Ferrari.
It's kind of like a sleek four-door coupe profile,
although it is kind of tall.
It's very generous.
Yeah, I'm just kind of trying to be broadly
just objectively descriptive.
But yeah, man,
it's that thing about the box that it came in.
Like the side profile is pretty inoffensive.
I mean, like the words you can say about it's pretty bland
and interesting.
The front and rear,
I think just look fucking horrendous.
It's so ill-proportioned.
The back, the way,
I mean, it literally looks like the rear end
of like a Ferrari like 335 or 355,
whatever that was from the 90s.
Like with a giant fucking box around it,
like with a wrapper.
You know, it's like, it just looks bad, man.
And it's so ungainly and just ill-resolved and just,
oh, it's, yeah, it's so,
and the front end,
it's just like, I've never designed a car.
I mean, man.
I've never designed a car,
but if somebody asked me to design a car,
I'd say, I don't know how to do that.
I can't do it.
The thing is, like when I was like fucking like 13,
that's all I fucking did.
When I wasn't reading car magazines,
I was fucking sitting at my desk drawing cars.
Like I had my whole,
I think it was like Hughes design.
I had a logo and everything.
And I just, I had fucking like reams,
reams of fucking designs of like,
of every conceivable,
you know, like type of car.
And they were all just, you know,
I mean, they were pretty derivative.
But it's like, I got some good ones in there, man.
And some things that like 10 years later,
I would see a car, it'd be like,
oh, that looks like a fucking thing that I drew
like 10 years ago.
You knew.
And that wasn't like derivative.
Like that was, that was, but anyway.
So like 40 years ago, I could design a car.
And I'm pretty sure I could design one now.
And it would be a damn sight fucking better looking.
You know what this reminds me of more than anything though,
is just the Jaguar I-Pace, remember the I-Pace?
Yeah, no, it does.
Yeah, no, you're exactly right.
It looks like a fucking, an I-Pace except worse.
Yeah, it's just a worse I-Pace.
Which is funny, cause I think it's like,
some of that stuff is just like
EV packaging 101 stuff, where it's like,
well, you know, you're trying to fucking better.
I think Victoria pointed out that they,
they completely blacked out the lower like two feet
of the car to try to hide how tall it is.
Oh yeah, no, that's just, that's pretty common.
I mean, that's just one of the tricks of the trade now.
But it's so schlocky for fucking Ferrari.
But I think very funny, very, I think,
like I, you know, I was pretty hard on the interior stuff,
but I think like I did not assume
that it would look the same on the outside, I guess,
or like have the same problems on the outside.
I was like, oh, it'll look like a Ferrari on the outside.
You know, like.
The noises that they were making about it,
it sounded kind of encouraging.
And the thing is, we are all on record as say,
I mean, the thing is like with Ferrari design right now,
it's in a kind of controversial moment, you know?
It's in one of those kind of BMW, you know,
Bangalara, BMW or moments where it's like,
they're doing some polarizing stuff design-wise,
kind of across the lineup.
But I think it's good.
I think it's forward-looking and I think we've all been
on record as saying that like.
I like every other car that they make,
except the two people you're saying or whatever.
Yeah, props to them for like.
It's a Ferrari.
It should be somewhat avant-garde,
like it should be.
Right, no, exactly.
And yeah, and just doing this real kind of super functional,
but also just like, no, we're not rehashing our old bullshit.
Like we're like doing this fairly radical thing that,
you know, that we're confident.
Just as like, you know, I think we talked about before,
you know, when the 80s, Testerosa came out,
that everybody loves now.
That was not, you know, that was not a home run at the time.
It was like, people looked at a scant at that.
They're just like, I don't know about this, you know?
This is not traditionally beautiful in Ferrari.
And it's like, oh, that car has fucking aged incredibly well.
I mean, it's fucking iconic now, you know?
And that's the thing.
You don't fucking create an iconic design
by fucking like rehashing some bullshit, you know?
It's like, you have to fucking stamp something new.
And, but this, on the other hand,
is fucking dog shit.
And it really like makes use of every like schlocky,
like design trick to like try to fix the bad proportions
and like, oh, the roof is blacked out.
Oh, the bottom is blacked out, you know what I mean?
Like, it's like the, it's really a pathetic effort.
I think like, yeah, I mean, whatever.
Like, are you gonna damage the Ferrari brand?
I think like, yeah, I think you are like,
not unrecovered, like whatever.
That's it.
No, I mean, yeah, I think it's,
it'll just be like a weird kind of left field.
I mean, you know, they had the fucking Mondial
in the 80s, in the early 80s here.
It's just kind of, and we kind of fucked that one up.
It's like whatever, man.
That was our weird one.
Can I'll be gold?
Right, and they've had a few misses over the years.
And yeah, I don't know, man.
But the thing is like, there's nothing inevitable.
There's nothing like about the EV architecture
that enforces bad proportions.
I mean, there are fucking a shit ton.
I mean, and you know, the worst thing you can say
about a lot of the Chinese stuff is that,
is that it is, you know, somewhat either derivative
or just, but not all of it.
I mean, actually like, there is kind of like a,
an emerging style.
That I'm growing to recognize is just like,
oh, that's kind of like, it's like when I see
like new Hyundai's and Kia stuff now,
like I see them, it's like, oh,
they're doing a kind of Chinese thing.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, it's like, but yeah, no.
I mean, the fucking like, there's a ton
of great looking Chinese EVs, you know?
Like just pure, and everybody else too.
You know?
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong with like the,
the Navara or like the, or what's the, sorry.
The fucking guy, the weird scammy guy from Eastern Europe.
The guy who owns Bugatti now.
Oh, the, Remak?
Remak, Remats, yeah.
Was it pronounced Remats?
I believe so.
That's obviously like a sports car,
but I think that the EV crossover thing,
you do end up getting kind of like this goofy.
Yeah, but I mean, even a fucking, fuck man,
a Cadillac OPTIQ looks better than that thing.
A Cadillac OPTIQ looks a lot better than this thing.
I mean, it's like, come on.
I will say, I'm looking at it now.
I do like that.
The fucking Mustang Mach E looks better than that thing.
I think this, by like a thousand miles.
I think this may be the worst looking EV of all time.
This is like a first generation Nissan Leaf level of.
It's worse than that, yeah.
I mean, it's,
I do like this little character line
that kind of rides around it
and stretches onto the hood though, I will say.
That's kind of a novel thing.
That's the thing, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you can see it in the pictures of the yellow one
better than the blue one outside, but.
That's kind of fun.
Yeah, I mean, but.
It's a horrendous looking car.
And it does, it's like.
Oh, and I do like that it's,
is it actually pillarless?
It's not pillarless.
No, it's.
It's just like rear suicide doors opening.
I'm just looking at, like, there's this one overhead shot
where it shows the doors opening, you know.
Front hinged at the front, rear hinged at the back.
Which would be cool if you were doing like a
launch of Opia thing or what's the fucking mix?
Yeah.
Who does that?
The Zika.
Yeah.
Where it's like, the point of like having those doors open
is that, you know, you have this pillarless construction,
like that would be fucking cool.
Yeah.
But this, I don't think this is.
You know, Alex was mentioning this last night
or this afternoon and he's like, would you like it
if it wasn't a Ferrari, which is an interesting question.
Like if this was a Fiat,
would my head be in a different place?
That is a good question.
I think if it wasn't a Ferrari,
and if I didn't know Johnny, I was involved,
I would probably lean more toward,
oh, this is weird and kind of bad.
And therefore I have to like, not like it,
but like think about it differently.
Yeah, I would give it a little more leeway,
but that front and rear end, and especially the rear end,
the rear end is just.
I mean, the thing that Ferrari has been doing
with these new cars is like that kind of,
that black blade across, like going across the width
of the car, which is like a reference
to the original Daytona, which had the headlights
before they went to the pop-up headlights,
had the headlights behind these perspex thing covers,
and like this kind of black blade that went across,
which was very avant-garde at the time.
And I don't have a problem with that,
but the thing is with it here, the way it's used,
and it kind of, like it looks like it's,
it's just the proportions are just not right.
And like here they're doing the thing
that like that the Dodge Charger has where it's,
it's like that's like the top of the hood there
is kind of like a floating element,
and that's like an air intake underneath that goes up,
and which could work, but just like the way that the,
I don't know, just like the proportions of that opening,
just, they just don't look good.
It's not good.
Yeah, you know, this really does call into question
the entire Johnny Ive thing.
So many Johnny, there's so many fun Johnny Ive,
when your name is Ive.
Just.
Well, the thing that we never talked about
is that the name of his company,
that's him and that Mark Neusen guy,
is Love From.
Love From, yeah.
Where it's like a, what do you call it?
When it's like two words jammed together
with the kind of the capital letter in the middle.
There's like a, I fucking hate that shit.
And Love From, that's your comp,
that's your design firm name, Love From.
It's really fucking bad.
That's fucking terrible.
I don't, I think I'm now looking at the other stuff
that the Love From guys have done,
and I don't think that Johnny Ive
is a good industrial designer, is what I will say.
Do you think?
Was he a one hit wonder with the iPhone?
With the original iPhone?
Fuck the iPhone.
There's never been a more hateful fucking device
on the planet.
Like, probably as an object more responsible
for bad shit happening in the world
than any other item ever designed.
Maybe the gun would be worse.
Like, maybe, maybe the gun would be worse
in the iPhone, arguably.
And are you talking about like,
are you using iPhone as a kind of,
to represent like, all smartphones?
Or are you speaking about the-
It was the ERR iPhone, or it's the ERR smartphone.
There would be no current smartphones.
Well, there probably would be.
Somebody else probably would have figured it out.
I think we should pick on the iPhone
because the iPhone also picks on everybody else
and creates a lot of awkward social dynamics.
People who wanna have a phone,
they can actually do stuff too.
Yeah, I, let's see.
iPhone bad, iPhone bad.
At least with the gun, you can go out
and shoot an animal to feed your family.
You can't feed your family with iPhone.
Right, or you can defend yourself.
What do you do?
Throw it at the deer?
Throw your phone at the deer?
Throw your phone at the deer so hard, you know?
It's not gonna help you.
No, I think that he's bad
and I think that he's a malevolent actor
in World History and he should be punished.
And I think that the other thing too
is like whatever success.
He should be punished.
I blame him for them getting rid of headphone jacks.
Whatever good stuff he's done
or interesting looking stuff
is just ripping off the fucking Dita Roms
or whatever, the brown guy.
You know what I'm talking about?
The brown guy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, fuck this guy.
I think that he should at the very least
never be allowed to interact with an automobile
in any way, shape, or form, meaning ride in, drive.
Dude, I'm at the Love From website, lovefrom.com.
And it's just like, it's the most fucking annoying.
There's just this endless,
it doesn't do anything.
And like this endless like kind of like animation
when, you know, just on the landing page
and then you click on it and it just has like this list.
Oh, we're a creative collective.
There's a bear walking on the screen now.
I clicked again.
Musicians, sound design.
Maybe I'll go, maybe I'll go work for Johnny on it.
This is so stupid.
And that's it, that's the entire,
like is there more to this website?
I don't think it.
If you keep clicking, I'm clicking on the I
and I'm making this bear fall over.
No, but that's all it does.
Useless.
This sucks.
All right, whatever.
Fuck you.
Fuck off, Johnny.
Yeah, this sucks.
This sucks.
Let's move on.
Peter hit it, Johnny.
I was so much he logged off.
Fuck this.
I'm out.
I hate Jomini.
I have so much I'm logging out.
It's Jomini.
Jomini.
What a shit.
Oh, they're working on the open AI thing too.
That's right.
Same Altman and Johnny.
I can think of one way of Johnny.
I've should interact with a car.
Maybe.
There you go.
Beep.
Johnny, I haven't.
Johnny, I haven't.
Johnny, I've not.
No.
More like Johnny.
More like, no, hang on.
We were saying Peter hated Johnny.
I have so much he logged off.
It's something like I was clicking out of there
and then it just took your tab.
Dug it.
It didn't take, I mean, I was clicking out of that tab
but then you guys just went silent
and then I was all by myself
and you guys were just frozen
and I was like, what's going on?
There's the other new product that they have
is a Love From Balmuda Sailing Lantern
from the Japanese company, Balmuda.
$4,800 for a lantern the size of a coffee cup.
Wow, it must be really cool.
Must be a really good lantern.
Precisely engineered, beautifully crafted light
inspired by classic maritime design.
It's not good.
It's not, none of this is good.
I like that.
Let's see.
The performance result of meticulous design
and engineering available in polished
stainless steel with gold lens guard
and component details.
Easy to maintain, this is simple in repair
and to recycle at the end of a lifetime of use.
Limited edition of 1,000 pieces.
Yeah, that's not good.
Not good, Johnny.
I'm gonna write something really nasty about this guy
and I'm gonna publish it on my website.
That's a Jen's website form.
Yeah.
I'm curious here.
I think this is the worst looking electric car
currently on the market, I will say that.
That's the thing is they've gotten pretty good at,
I mean, there's nothing, I mean,
other than the fucking Cybertruck.
Yeah, okay, it's Cybertruck, fuck.
All right, you got me on that one.
True.
I think this is a Cybertruck level fuck up though.
As far as the way this has been executed.
But the thing is, with the Cybertruck,
that was, that's, I mean, that's a troll.
Yeah.
You know, like the Cybertruck is trolling you.
If you don't, if you are mad about the Cybertruck,
you have been trolled.
You have been successfully trolled.
You must be in peace.
The, the, this is not that.
I don't think it's intended as that.
No, this was a,
in which case it is actually worse.
It is not very good.
It is, yeah, I really, I'm gonna write something.
I mean, there's gotta be, like, think of,
think of, like, imagine if you actually went
to like design school, like how mad you would be.
Oh yeah.
That this fucking joker.
That this clown ass motherfucker.
Yeah.
Like bullshited his way into, into this, this, you know.
This art.
Fucking roll.
And, and, and is, and is good enough,
just kind of like bullshit.
I mean, that's the whole thing with,
with fucking designers now.
You know, it's, it's all about just being able to just speak
that, that kind of marketing ease, you know.
Yeah.
I mean, it's the, it's the, they, they said when they did
this, they submitted like a multi volume history
of Ferrari design.
Yeah.
It's like fuck off.
And this, this shit all started.
Remember the, the fucking design brief for the Pepsi logo
thing?
Yes.
You and me talked about this at length once.
In the living room.
And then we did not talk about this on pod.
I feel like I saw, I saw that referenced in like recently
in relation to something maybe completely unrelated.
What the fuck was it?
It's a great reference.
So this was this fucking guy.
This was like, this was it early.
No, you know what it is.
The guy who fucking, who designed the new, I mean,
you're talking about like the, the, the curving Pepsi logo,
but like the, the kind of 3D ish one, like they revised
a few years ago.
That guy has been hired by the US government to create
an entire new set of branding for the United States of America.
I'm not making this up.
I'm not making this up as part of our,
as part of our, our 250 year celebration,
which I have other stuff to say about, by the way.
But yeah, no, I, I wish I were making that up.
I'm not.
That guy is now in charge.
I don't know if, like how, I mean,
it's, it sounds like, I mean, the thing that I read about it,
it, I mean, it could.
Oh my God.
He's the first chief brand architect of the United States.
Yes.
Zoomed office, May 4th, 226.
Maddy's head is exploding.
The thing is, I mean, we know in the context of,
of where and, and with whom this is,
I mean, in the context of the United States in 2026,
we know that this is just like-
Of course it's Pepsi's schizophrenia diagram guy.
Of course it is.
Of course it is.
Of course it is.
Of course it is.
But the idea of having like a national brand identity
is neither bad nor unprecedented.
I mean, the classic example of this is,
is, is, is kind of like the British thing in,
in like the, I don't know, 20s, 30s, whatever,
when, when they kind of rolled out their whole,
like, like, you know, new standards for,
for all, all signs, you know, would, would conform.
You like all communication stuff would,
would conform to this, this, you know,
this kind of style guide or, you know, kind of branded thing.
But just like for, for the sake of, of clarity and,
and, you know, ease of communications or whatever.
It's also, but also, I mean, that is where the, the classic,
I mean, the, the, the typeface that we associate with,
with the UK, Gil Sons,
that's where that originated.
That guy, Eric Gill,
who's a famous type designer who created that is also,
it makes perfect sense that, that he would create
the quintessentially British typeface
because he is himself quintessentially British
because he's a noted pedophile.
I'm, I'm still, still getting here.
I can't believe Pepsi Time Cube guy is working
as the brand guy for the United.
That's of course he, I'm of course.
It's going to be awesome.
It's going to be, it's going to be great.
An early, like Rory radicalizing moment for me.
Peter Arnell, this man.
Who, who very famously lost like 300 pounds
by eating only oranges for a two minute long period of time,
would, oranges, carry a basket of oranges everywhere
he went and stained his hands permanently
while he was doing this orange, you couldn't wash it off.
Oh my God.
But he submitted this pitch for the redesign
of the Pepsi logo that was like,
it was like, it was kind of like a,
almost like an early meme.
Like cause it got passed around
and people were just so baffled, but like it was like.
It's Pepsi Time Cube.
It's Pepsi Time Cube.
It was, it was like how.
It's Pepsi Time Cube.
Yeah, but it was like,
oh God, it's in the National Archive.
Oh no, it's in the Internet Archive, okay, sorry.
But it's, it is like how.
National Archive, Internet Archive.
That's the same thing.
It must be all the other.
Oh thank God, the entire, oh thank God, the whole thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh my God.
So, this is like breaking the code for innovation
from convention to innovation.
The origins of creative endeavors.
And it's like.
Page 19 is my favorite.
You gotta go to page 19.
Here's, here's the Mona Lisa.
So this is 2008.
Yeah, here's the yin-yang sign.
Here's the David.
Oh wow.
God, I love page 20, page 25, a classic.
The thing that always got me was that there's a page
in here where it's like.
So this guy was, had not been hired by Pepsi to do this.
He just kind of was an independent actor
doing this on his own?
I think he had been engaged in this.
And he pitched it to them?
Okay.
And they did it.
I.
Without saying too much,
I have seen a lot of these types of documents over the years.
And.
If there's, like if it ever happens with me,
like if I ever do lose it and like I do something horrible,
it will be because I have seen 12
many of these documents.
But it's like there's a thing with this where it's like.
And it's like, I don't know if it's dispensative disbelief
that you have to do.
Or if it's like, it's like the thing where everyone's
looking around and you're like, this is stupid, right?
It's like, this is stupid.
You don't even get like.
Okay, okay, buddy.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
But if no one says this is stupid,
you just give this guy millions of dollars
to do the Pepsi logo.
But like,
but it is stupid.
And it like,
yeah, I can't, yeah, I don't want to get into
a recent experience I had with one of these documents, but.
But um, they just, they really get to me.
I mean, it really like, they are viscerally upsetting.
Yeah, yeah.
But the R&L thing, when I heard about that,
I was like, man, this is kind of great.
Like he did just rob these people.
Like he did just steal a bunch of PepsiCo's money.
Oh, now he's gonna be stealing money from me.
You're from our money.
From me.
Yeah, not my money.
Yep.
Not any my money in the last year or two.
Yeah, I didn't owe the federal government
any money the last year
because I didn't make any money last year.
Pretty much.
Good stuff.
Pepsi Time Cube really is insane.
It really is like if someone looked at Time Cube
and was like, now hang on.
Now I think we ought to take a step back
and wonder if maybe Jean Rae had some like good ideas.
Then you have to be the one guy who's sitting there like,
we can't do that.
We can't, we can't do that.
We can't do that.
He was right about the educated stupid, I think.
The, yeah, it's the little tiny,
the little window of like all of this activity.
All the, I think we, I don't know if we talked about this
on the pod or if we talked about it in chat,
but it's like the window of like smart enough
to present as a professional and as a smart person
who reads the Atlantic dumb enough to never question
any of the, any of the-
Anything that they read in the Atlantic.
Yeah, yeah.
Thomas Shatterton Williams, perfect audience member.
Exactly.
It's, and it is, it is a fascinating,
like I said, it just seems like such a narrow,
in my experience, such a narrow window
or such a small needle to thread,
where it's like, how do you keep reproducing
these people who are like,
like midway, it isn't the right word.
Credulous.
Yeah, like hyper educated and also extremely credulous.
And just like,
incurious about like-
Incurious is a good word.
Never, never fucking taken a second to think twice
about anything in their lives.
Just like fucking fascinating, man.
In it like, and I think like-
I mean, that's just, that's the American professional
managing real class.
Like in a nutshell, you just described it, you know?
To be clear, those people are much smarter
than the people who make most of this stuff though.
That's this pitch document stuff.
They're making the same documents for McKinsey.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Well, the fun thing about the Atlantic reader
is that they're like, they want the approval
that they believe they will get ambiently
for being sufficiently progressive,
but they also think that everyone to the left of them
is like a horrible bully with pronouns
who is like really harshing their vibe.
And they need an intellectual justification that says,
you're allowed to retreat to reactionary centrism
on A, B, and C, and it's intellectually correct
and no one can get mad at you and your friends
are still allowed to like you
and think you're cool and progressive.
It's just like, this is your intellectual justification
that lets you get away with it.
And they're all like, I would love that.
I would love to believe that hook line and sink
and repeat it to everyone I know all the time.
Women's sports, swimming, swimming, swimming,
swimming, college swimming, absolutely.
My number one interest, women's sports.
College swimming, which everyone has always paid
so much attention to ever, always.
Which everyone is aware exists.
Here's about all the time talks about it,
has always talked about it my whole life,
women's college swimming, who won?
Who won fifth place?
Vastu Sastra, Hindu tradition of numerical harmony
and spatial organizer, as spatial organizer.
The 600 BC Musica Mandana Pythagoras
creates spatial hierarchies from musical scales.
300 BC, the golden ratio.
To a 278 BC, Feng Shui.
70 BC, the Vitruvian principle.
Bro, is it getting Vitruvian?
1452, the art of building.
1455, Vitruvian Renaissance,
rediscovery of the Vitruvian principles
and their publication.
Wow. 1637, legeometry.
This guy is gonna knock the U.S. brand identity
out of the fucking park, man.
Do you kinda wanna see what happens?
I'm stoked for this.
I think it's gonna be interesting.
I mean, it's gotta already be happening, right?
We deserve this, idiot.
I think he was just kind of hired.
I think that's like a new,
or at least I was reading about it.
I love the magnetic field diagram, I gotta tell ya.
Page 19 is my favorite thing in the world.
Discuss nuts.
Let's go.
All right, we should wrap up.
We should.
Got a couple hours here.
Yeah.
Okay, can I just hit one more story?
Yeah, it's a funny one.
I think you guys are like,
I'm gonna put a link in the chat here.
I would love that.
This was just something that I saw on car news, China.
Ooh.
My beloved website.
BYDTopsChinaEVLawsuitLeaderboard
with 1.02 million U.S. dollars in blogger claims.
Wait, Peter, were you watching the Google Meet just now?
Your balloons went off.
No, what?
You got the balloons.
Yes.
What?
Cause you did your two.
You did your peace sign in front of the thing.
It did your two.
It didn't do it that time.
That's so funny.
That's funny.
Yeah, no, I missed it because I was looking at.
I gave the watch to you like a wrap first.
Carry on.
Lawsuit.
It says Chinese Automotive Social Media,
which I wish I were in the
Chinese Automotive Social Media circle, you know.
Has recently circulated informal lawsuit leaderboards
tracking legal claims filed by automakers
against bloggers and self-media accounts
accused of spreading false or defamatory
EV related information.
Car News China verified the leaderboard
using public court filings, company statements
and legal notices.
Among the brands discussed online,
BYD ranked highest by disclosed claim value.
According to court filings and public announcements,
BYD has primarily sued seven blogger accounts
with cumulative claims,
totaling 6.9 million yuan,
which is one, just over $1 million US.
Other major Chinese EV brands,
including HEMA, H-I-M-A, NIO and X-Pong
have also pursued lawsuits against content creators,
though publicly disclosed conversation figures were lower.
So what this is about is,
they're going after these bloggers
who are like publishing stories or videos
that I guess there's some things
about BYD's blade battery.
There's some controversy about that.
But BYD is, these companies are basically
just being like, no fuck you, that's wrong
and we're gonna sue your fucking ass.
You know who else they threaten to sue?
Who?
Link's in the chat.
What's great about this is,
it says one of the highest profile cases
involved the blogger account of Longji Jiangdanche,
operated by a repair shop content creator,
surname Liu.
The account published videos discussing BYD's
blade battery and hybrid systems
before becoming involved in multiple lawsuits
filed by BYD, Ito and X-Pong.
On May 16th, the blogger published a public apology video
after a second instance court ruling involving BYD.
The judgment ordered compensation of 2 million Yuan,
which is almost 300,000 US dollars,
and stated that several disputed claims constituted
commercial defamation and unfair competition.
I mean, there's some kind of innuendo
that these guys are being kind of underwritten
in their criticisms by competing companies,
whether or not that's true, I don't know.
But I don't know, as a non-free speech absolutist,
this is just very amusing to me
because it's basically just like...
Yeah, we're gonna sue your ass
and you're going to have to apologize.
That's so funny, China's so cool.
I think it's good, yeah, I agree.
Like, even as a guy who is potentially a victim of this,
I'm 100% behind it.
Because it's too easy for people to fucking make up bullshit.
It's true, and it gets bonk on and you're making up bullshit.
Yeah, I mean, it's just, I don't know, man.
And I feel like another China W,
like another example of China understanding the landscape,
the way, like the landscape has shifted in a way
that we still cannot fully process
because we're still stuck seeing it with our old world eyes, right?
But like, you cannot trust media.
You cannot trust things that you read.
You cannot trust videos that you watch.
Even from institutions, you can't trust them.
No, exactly.
We should volunteer to be the cops for American media
that we think is providing false information
and we can take a, and we can probably get like a commission.
We could probably get a commission from the government
or from these companies, from the companies
for bringing it to their attention.
Be like, we'll kind of be like,
trying to think of a complimentary way to say narc.
But like, you know, like we will be,
we're both working as,
we're both policing on behalf of Chinese industry,
but we're also working as consultants to US media companies
to help them not fall a foul of,
not fall into the common pitfalls of unfairly criticizing
and spreading lies and misinformation
about excellent Chinese products.
Yeah, that's true.
I think that's good.
I think that's heroic.
Yeah, we need to take on free speech.
I've had it.
I've had it.
We gotta get in there.
You know what?
You know what's even better than free speech
is the freedom of speech is freedom
of not having to hear bullshit.
That's right.
And I, for one, I'm going to Iowa and I'll wait
until we show up in the doorstep of the Atlantic
because, oh baby.
We're not doing free speech anymore, let's be honest.
Like, that's not a thing anymore.
No, exactly.
Yes, thank you.
All right, I think this is good.
Maybe this is the new tired pod format
is we're just calling out articles
that we don't like or that are untrue.
I would love that.
Yeah.
Media criticism.
New segment, Chinese media bounty.
Struggle session.
US automotive media struggle session.
Very good, it's time for some criticism.
We can have journalist on and make them self criticize.
Yeah, I would love that.
Force them to apologize.
Your apology on tired pod will suffice
for your Chinese government apology.
Stay tired, everybody.
Stay tired.
Stay tired.
Bye.
Bye.
Peace.
About this episode
Race talk kicks off with Indy 500 reactions and a distraught post-race interview where the driver insists, “I drove every lap.” The hosts then pivot through NASCAR chatter—Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace, and a Coca-Cola 600 crowd booing—before going deep on polarizing EV and Ferrari styling. They roast proportions, compare EV looks to the I-Pace and even a first-gen Leaf, and debate whether EV architecture forces “bad proportions.” The episode later turns to China’s BYD-related lawsuit “leaderboards” and court rulings.
Original notes
We chat about the Indy 500, say a few words about Kyle Busch, get Vitruvian on a long look at the Ferrari Luce, and once again offer our services to the Chinese government.
To follow along with our Pepsi design document chat: https://archive.org/details/pepsi-arnell-021109/page/n5/mode/2up
Peter's got new music out: https://peterpeterhughes.bandcamp.com/album/dissociation-loops
And of course, sign up for an Alloy membership here: https://alloymag.com/sign-up/
Referenced music: https://wckrspgt.bandcamp.com/album/motorboat-the-woe
That recording of Elgar is public domain :) Shout outs to public domain.
And your producer pal Matty has nothing to plug & is just glad you're here!
Tired: The Car Podcast For People Who Understand That Cars Are Bad
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