Fun Not Hardcore

Here we go. This is episode 426 of Wheel Bearings. I am Sam of Wool Salmon of Telemetry, from Telemetry,

something like that. Telemetry? Telemetry? Telemetry? I am Nicole Wakeland with Top Speed,

of Top Speed, at Top Speed. And I am Roberto Baldwin of Everywhere.

And SAE International, which is international, which is everywhere.

That is true. Yeah. Well, SAE is also involved in aerospace engineering. Medical stuff. Yeah.

So, you know, there's rocket scientists that are part of SAE, and, you know, they write,

you know, rocket papers and satellite stuff. So we have a plethora of actual magazines at SAE.

They go out to members and to folks who just want magazines. And one of them printed on paper and

they're like, I write articles that end up in printed magazines. They get shipped out to,

I don't know, a bunch of people. One of the magazines is Medical Briefs. Medical Design Briefs. It is

for people in the medical field. Somehow, I'm not sure how. I'm on the list for that. I get that one

too. Yeah. So I get the medical design briefs. I don't. I, okay. And I try to get it to my wife,

who works in the medical field. She's like, I don't want to read that. She's like, I'm at home.

So yeah. So there we have automotive engineering and off highway and plain tech briefs, but we also

have medical stuff. There you go. A little bit of everything. We got our thumbs in every pie.

Speaking of pies, have you had any lately in Nicole? No, I haven't. I did have some cake this

week though, because it was Russ's birthday about a tiramisu cake. That's pretty tasty at Whole Foods.

It was really yummy. It was good cake. I wanted to give their cakes a try. How do you recommend

Whole Foods tiramisu cake, people? It's yummy. So wait, tiramisu? Normally it's just, it's, it's,

it's like, I don't know, like, it's tiramisu. Yeah. So imagine it's layers of it. So it's

bigger and they use cake and you still do the coffee flavor with the cream and the,

the like, coke really heavy. There's still the ladyfingers in there somewhere.

I think there were some ladyfingers around, like in one layer, but there's like the really dark

cocoa, you know, they sprinkle on top, like that layer of cocoa and the, and the, yeah,

and it's like soaked with the coffee thing. So it's like, it's tiramisu cake in cake form.

It's yummy. Everything's cake form now.

Mm-hmm. Well, what have you been driving, Nicole?

I have been driving the Ford Mustang Mach-E rally, which is really fun. So I haven't driven a Mach-E

in a while. I just haven't. And so this one comes in my driveway and it is velocity blue

metallic. So it's really, really bright. And instead of the, I think it's standard with these

sort of white wheels, there's like a black wheel and they're very like aerodynamic. So they look

like plates. They're just flat and saucer shaped. Like there's not a lot of texture to them. And it

says rally on the side and it has like this black hood graphic and it has like, yeah, like a crazy

real spoiler. This thing looks ridiculous sitting in the driveway. It's really cool. I'm like, all

that looks, at first I'm like, this looks totally overdone. And then I stared at it. I'm like, I

kind of love this. It looks really good. And it has the puddle lights that look like the little

Mustang, the little Mustang logo. And that's cool. The galloping pony. That's going to say

prancing pony. I'm like, that's not right. That's like wrong company. That's a whole other company.

It's like, that's not the right company. Hey, I'm dancing. Yeah, this one isn't dancing. This one

was like, I am fat. Dressage. Dressage, dancing horses. Dressage, but they don't only dance on

their back legs. They dance in all four. Like, well, those are, yeah, those are weak, weak ass

lame. These are the Ferrari Z fancy Italian. The fancy one. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's the, the,

the robust, like they're dancing horses. Yeah, they're doing the thriller dance back and forth.

That's what it's in the middle of the thriller dance. You know, we put the pause on. That's pause.

It's hooves, hooves, hooves. It's hooves goes up, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Oh my

mind was not, mine was the, the galloping Mustang look with all just arg or arg.

Yeah. This is super fun to drive. I really enjoyed this. And it's,

it has, you know, the, the, the people that argue about, because this is the EV,

if in case someone doesn't know the Mustang monkey is an EV, the rally is the fancy tricked out,

like I'm going to go rally in the dirt in this version of it. I don't think I would do that,

probably. I mean, you can and people did because when they launched this, and we're seeing people

going out in the dirt and driving this and having their good old time, but can I just

share with you? So the highway suddenly came to a stop, not that far from our house. And it's like

four lanes. And then there's a, this grass, like median, and then there's the turn lanes. And if I

caught that the traffic was backing up because there was some kind of issue right at my exit,

I could have just taken that exit. It's one of those that will let you go straight through,

come out the other side and keep going. And I could just buzz right by and I was like,

Oh, I can't do it. And then I was like, Oh, if I just drove over this little median,

and that's like, wait, how big is the current? Well, this is the rally version. I'm like,

I don't think so. But literally, I'm watching like, I was watching like,

there's not a lot of curves in the wild. Pick up tucks and Wranglers and Broncos are all like,

yeah, now it's important to keep in mind when you have the Maki rally that despite the fact

that this thing has been styled to look kind of like a 1980s, early 90s rally car with those,

those fancy white wheels and the big spoiler on the back. It still only has 5.9 inches of

ground clearance. Exactly. I was like, for all that it can do, it can do it in the dirt. And I

was looking at the curve, which was really want to scrape that battery pack. Yeah, it was not

then I'm like, how big is that curve? I'm like, too big. I did not do it. I did not go forward.

If there are issues with your car, I did not hop the little grassy median to go through traffic

in the breakdown or in the exit lane. But so it's it's to the point it's rally, but like,

if you're going to drive in the dirt and have fun with it, but you don't want to drive over anything

other than dirt in it, like larger pebbles, a small curb, don't do that because it really just

doesn't have the clearance for it. Otherwise, though, this is incredibly fun. It looks fabulous.

It's very fun to drive. It has lots of power. It has 480 horsepower, 700 pound feet of torque.

You know, it goes it's not a very big vehicle. So it's really fun. It has the extended range

battery, which is the only way that you can get this one, which is 265 miles of range.

When I fully charged it sitting in my driveway here, and it's been chilly, it's not quite giving

me 265 it keeps charging fully charged and saying it's like around 258, 259. So it's not giving me

but it's cold. It adjusts the the estimate for your ambient temperature. Yeah, and it's also how

you drive. If you're driving like that, I mean, if you're consistently driving over highway medians

and stuff like that. Yeah, if you always put it in sport mode or rally mode, it's gonna yeah.

But then you like someone else gets in and they adjust it like if I when I'm driving back from

LA because you're driving against a headwind, I'm doing 85 because I just want to get home. So I'm

flying. The first few days when I get back, Ionic 5 tells me that like the maximum range is like

200 and like 35 maximum range one mile. Because I was driving it like a bat out of hell.

Because I just want to get home. It's just yeah. Well, I was not I was not I was driving it

responsibly. I want and but so it's coming in slightly less but it has gotten cold like it was

in the 20s here last night. So I think the temperature dropped and I think I think it's

yeah, I think that the cold is starting to make things things know that it's cold. So

I like every plant in my yard is completely dead now. Battery doesn't get the same range.

That's how you know you're like, oh, your battery is not going to get the right range. Look at the

plants, you're in trouble. You're guarding your your battery. Oh, but it's very fun. I mean, it's

this is it's a fun little car. There's seating for five. I think it has three after I was trying

to think three in the back. But that tells you how how tight the back looks. I was like, wait,

is this a two or three in the backseat? Like it's not a very big backseat. There's not a lot of

clearance for your legs for your knees. Your three children is for your three children. Yeah,

like really like young children not like they're in their 30s and you're not 30 year olds like

little kiddos. But it is super fun to drive. I love the big screen that they have. It's very easy

to drive it the power you know you have that exactly what you expect from an EV you press

the accelerator the thing moves and it handles beautifully it really does have fantastic handling

that's where you kind of feel the sporty like you're not going to go over rocks and stuff with this

you're not probably none of you are going to actually go rally driving in this but it does

give you that extra little bit of handling like it handles a little bit better if you feel the

sportiness in it. It is if you enjoy driving it's a very engaging drive. You know some EVs

they're all fast they all accelerate really fast they're all they that impressive torque but

they don't all handle in an engaging way like I sometimes I can find EVs sort of flat they're

so mellow and because there's no engine because there's no rumble because there's nothing this

was still pretty engaging so I thoroughly enjoyed driving this I thought it was really fun pricing

is not cheap but it's not crazy I put it together online so it's 63,170

yeah so not cheap but what do you want anyone to take a guess? Less than a wagon or s yeah less

than a wagon or s unless you're taking advantage now I think you can get a wagon or s for like 35

cents but what do you think the the destination is on the on the Mustang Machi rally? When I said 18

I think I said 18 you said 18? You cheated didn't you? Do you have a Ford? I just remember from the

last time I'm like does he have a Ford this week and he knows? No I do not it's like he's cheating

oh Sam wins but I feel like he's cheating Robbie I'm giving it to you anyway I get to say who wins

on my my guess Robbie has the the memory of a nat so he wins that's you could have another Ford car

he could have the same car next week I'd be like I don't know $1400 I'll forget

so the Mustang Machi rally it's really fun you know if you want that sporty kind of flair

I feel like this is a lot about style not just like looking pretty but like it's got the sport

seats and it's this cool like white plastic kind of thing in the back of the sport seats

it's like really striking it just looks good like it's the kind of car people look at it

not because it's a Mustang not because it's an EV because it just looks like a fun little sporty

car and it is fun to drive I enjoyed it it was a fun little car to drive thumbs up I think it's a

little on the pricey side but you're paying for that extra sportiness that extra handling that extra

performance the suspension all of it is a little bit sportier I guess if I was going to looking

for that I mean I would buy this if I was buying an EV and looking for something fun and sporty

this definitely fits the bill and the color is this velocity blue metallic is fabulous I love

the color I think I like blue cars that's my thing at the moment so yeah so that's the Ford

Mustang Machi rally have you given the XRT the ionic five yes I have so which one would you would

you get the Machi rally or would you get the the I'm being practical I'm practically or just for fun

of driving for fun of driving fun of driving I think I like the Mustang it was my if I'm being

practical I feel like the XRT is more practical I just think space wise and stuff there's a little

the room right like if you want if if you're and if you're actually going to take it on a trail

like not you know obviously not rock crawling right you know like to you know out your cabin

or something the XRT is a much better choice because it's got yes you know a lot quite a bit

more ground clearance it's got just about seven inches of ground clearance not not a lot more

enough more it has it I think that the XRT is a more practical versatile choice if you want to

have a little fun with it you want to go off road with it but you need something can actually

comfortably see people in the back and hold a bunch of cargo the Mustang like the actual like the

must the gas Mustang is just like I want pretty car goes fast that's kind of what it is it's fun

it looks great it makes you feel good driving it but practically speaking it's not the most

practical vehicle in the world so there you go and and the the XRT charges a lot faster too

yes yeah there's that to do about 150 kilowatts with the Mach-E so yeah there's reasons why you

would there's reasons it's the thing you know oh this car's better that car's better well it

depends what you want you know what what's your goal they're both great cars but what's your goal

so what's what you what you want yeah a reminder that rally is not off-roading it's not the same

no it is off-road it's like it's dirt road racing it can be offered in the dirt yeah it's

it's not always but if it's off road it's driving fast just in dirt it's driving fast on on roads that

often like some rally road like some of those roads like you don't have to have a rally car to do it

you're not necessarily paved right they're just dirt but they're still roads mostly right look up

rally racing you'll see the craziest stuff you've ever seen and they're insane it is the most insane

especially look up group b rally yeah is that the craziest look at you know watch some of those clips

like you know this is from the mid 1980s and you know in those days for some insane reason you

know rally organizers you know they they didn't put up any barriers along you know along the rally

stages and you you can see film of people standing literally right next to the dirt like inches away

right there yeah from these 650 horsepower four-wheel drive group b rally machines yeah they're

flying by 150 miles an hour on a dirt road it's bonkers and they also have people do that in

rally driving where the crowd is very very close to these crazy corners and the cars just you see

them doing the sideways sort of jump on purpose over like they come around a corner they catch some

air they come back down and i'm like oh god and they're like so close is they slide around that

corner to humans and the humans are just like yeah sure we're good i'm like dude move back

but yeah it's very fun so you could do that in your Mustang but you probably it's not but you

probably don't want to go on like rugged stuff just go really fast on the dirt all right there we go

did you know you can support wheel bearings directly head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings media

and you can become a patron today your contributions will help fund the platforms and tools we use

to bring the podcast to you and exclusives and improvements are already on the way thanks to

your generosity so if you want to be part of an automotive podcast like no other head to patreon.com

slash wheel bearings media we've updated the wheel bearings merch store and now there's a whole bunch

of new choices new colors new styles of t-shirts sweatshirts hoodies hats mugs travel mugs

stickers aprons tote bags you name it you can get your wheel bearings merch at shop.wheelbearing.media

go check it out that's shop.wheelbearing.media well i have the the same vehicle that you had

last week nicole i have the ram 1500 hemi what do you think what do you think what do you think

i mean it does it does indeed sound great when you hit the start button it told you

and it's been averaging about 16 and a half miles per gallon sounds right so

it is a thirsty beast yes but it sounds good it does sound good it does sound good

not inexpensive uh the one i have is uh is a longhorn um where did which tab

longhorn big horn isn't it big horn big horn big horn long horn long horn big horn big horn yes

like long horn because i was in i was in austin the other day uh oh yeah and long horns and they're

oh yeah really long horns like huge huge horns scary the first time you see those yeah well

when we pulled into the lunch stop we were driving the uh the hunday palisade hybrid

and we got to the lunch stop there was about half a dozen cows standing there right by the gate

including one really horns that probably spanned about four and a half five feet across

did you stare them down you're like i'm gonna take you out in this palisade dude i would not

want to mess with that guy me neither that's that's some serious horn action uh uh yeah a cow a bull

it will mess you up having been you know having to deal with steers was already enough when i was

working on the school farm like a bull like yeah you can't have that you can't have that here you

can't have that here it was like this well they're like no no not going to do that yeah you're not

gonna have bulls in the school well anyway um this is a big horn a ram 1500 big horn crew cab

four by four and so this is kind of you know a middle trim level of the ram 1500 it's got cloth

seats it doesn't have the front bench so it's got a console and a 12 inch um center touchscreen

and has the rotary shifter instead of a column shift if you get i think tradesmen with the with

the bench seat um it starts at $52,430 this one had a number of options on there including that

5.7 liter v8 hemi uh with e-torque um is $2,895 that's a lot um you know so that's the tim badge on

it does have the tim badge yeah a very prominent tim badge on there and you know the tim badge

looks pretty cool uh you know i will i will give tim that you know he's got a cool looking badge

that they designed for him um and this one also has the the ram boxes uh and the multifunction tail

gate that opens up in a couple of different ways uh although i haven't been able to figure out how

to actually get it to open sideways i can't find the latch for that and i can't be bothered looking

in the owner's manual uh because i don't need it it's not your truck you need to figure it out

yeah i'm i'm not telling anything or hauling anything particularly long in the bed that i

want to hang out one just one side of the tailgate so you know 395 horsepower 410 foot pounds of torque

which is less than the standard output uh hurricane and it sucks down a lot more gas than a hurricane

you know like i said this thing is it's rated at um 16 city 20 highway 18 combined uh i've been doing

mostly highway driving with it and averaging 16 and a half miles per gallon and i'm not driving

this thing at 85 miles an hour so uh you know it's you know and in my past experience with

hemi rams is that they they almost never match the uh the rated fuel economy uh they they typically

underachieve on that so be prepared you know if you must have the sound of a hemi and more

power to you if you if you feel that you know i mean they did make the you know when they brought

back the hemi this year they made the gt exhaust standard with that um and uh so that uh you know

that's gonna cost you uh both up front when you buy it and every time you stop at a gas pump

it's gonna cost you uh because it's like i said it's a thirsty engine there's a reason why they

discontinued it in the first place um but you know other than that you know it's a good truck uh

it's still you know of the uh of the light duty full-size pickup trucks it still has the best

driving dynamics it's got you know good ride quality it's got it's the only one with a

coil spring rear end uh it's uh you know handles reasonably well it's got the nicest interior of

any of the full-size trucks uh by you know by a pretty wide margin um and it's a pretty nice

truck to drive the rams are it is you know if you if you want a truck as a daily a full-size

truck as a daily driver it's kind of hard to beat the ram 1500 yeah yeah it's it's really good

i mean except for for for miles yeah well yeah except except for that whole fuel economy driving

yeah man and which which reminds me you know it wasn't that long ago that i had the ram 2500

which averaged 17 and a half miles per gallon so a full mile per gallon better for the heavy duty

versus this one of course that was the Cummins diesel you know but still it's uh you know it's

it's gonna cost you if you want the hemi so grand total on this one came to 64970

dollars and we've talked about it before but can you remember the destination charge for this

like 2300 or 2400 two thousand something what's your official guess nickel oh can we just say

um i mean 295 2595 at least not in last week and i can't remember i was off by two thousand

dollars and i still wanted it's still like a ridiculous amount of money yeah expensive 600

bucks for destination ridiculous on these things i you know somewhat to the credit

stilantis was the last of the uh the detroit automakers to raise the destination chargers on

their full-size trucks uh to 2595 you know ford went first and then gm and then stilantis

and now it's just toyota that's still charging a mere 2095 dollars for the time here nothing

it's a bargain they have 500 bucks on destination charge so you know it's it's a good truck

and you know it does it does all the truck stuff uh and you know ram is the only one that has the

ram boxes which are a pretty cool feature if you need someplace to to store stuff uh you have to

store small you know some tools or other supplies and things like that uh you know so you've got

these two boxes on either side of the bed uh that have a decent amount of space in there um

so it's good good for that uh so yeah i mean anything you need to do with a full-size truck

this can do including towing a whole bunch uh and hauling a bunch of stuff so here you go

i think i think that's all that all we need really need to say about the the 2026 ram 1500

bighorn crew cab four by four yeah with hemi with hemi with tim badge and the tim badge

did you drive in robby i didn't drive nothing i was i should have gone to that thing that

she went to but i didn't go because i had stuff to do um and then yeah i didn't drive a thing like

that yeah there's reasons yeah none of them are good that's fine reasons or reasons i'll be gone

next week so you can't yell at me then okay so uh actually while we're you know while we're still

talking about um full-size pickup trucks and 40 v's um there was a report that came out on

thursday from the wall street journal uh that ford uh is considering cancelling the f-150

lightning i mean you this is forceful i don't think i'm surprised that it's i don't think i'm

surprised so so there's a bunch of things here here here are a couple thoughts a big you know

full-size truck people still on vroom vroom truck that's the that's as we can see with that that is

person to me yeah that is the person who wants to buy a truck um ford went kuku with the pricing

it was 40 it was 50 it was 60 it was 50 it was 55 it was 40 it was they went all tesla on it

they don't have tesla numbers to be able to do that i don't know why they did that every time

they would drop the price they would announce like oh it's record sales of the f-150 lightning

and then they'd raise it like ten thousand dollars something goofy and then of course the sales

would crash because inconsistency doesn't you know yeah so i think it's a really good truck

i think it's a good ev i don't i still understand why we have trucks where i can't see out the

front of them even though i'm tall um that uh but at the same kind i think it was very much a

decision based on well we sell a ton of f-series so electric one will probably sell a ton

and they sort of shot themselves in the foot by like messing up any sort of fleet sales by like

moving this moving the prices all over the place because if you're a fleet manager you're like oh

i'm gonna invest in these trucks wait now it's ten thousand dollars more well now i'm not no now

it's this now now i'm seeing a lot of silveradoes and fleets which is which to me is kind of bonkers

because the f-150 and lightning the regular f-150 of the same truck you can shove all the same

all of it all the outfit equipment that fleets put on their trucks they can take it right off

of a gas f-150 drop it into a lightning it's it's the same it's the same truck there's like

there's there's no difference i think that that should have worked great for them but i think

there's sort of decision around pricing and and the and again you know i'll keep saying people who

want trucks want broom broom truck they do well i was looking at the numbers um this is based on

the wall street journal article where it was saying that they and it said they thought they

were going to sell 150 000 of these lightnings 33 000 was last year's number and it also has

an interesting number in here that says that you know everyone's wondering what was going to happen

when the ev credit went away this says total ev sales dropped 24 in october it makes it a hard

hard business decision to keep doing it right now you know that said that like everyone sales

went up and then they cratered right after right oh there's that crater yeah yeah so that's september

at october i keep seeing articles out there about like oh ev sales have dropped i'm like well you're

taking to account no one's taken to account the fact that ev sales right like they went up crazy

so it's like they went above normal and then drop below normal so the people who would have bought

evs do like the next couple months it's still it makes it hard when you're looking when like you're

you've you've only sold 33 000 of them last year this is a long term issue with it with the f150

i'm talking about that yeah but now you're seeing that because of the ev tax credit going away sales

that had spiked but maybe didn't spike as much as they needed them to spike to make it worthwhile

have now fallen off a cliff temporarily it'll come back to a certain point at some point

but you don't know how much they'll come back right yeah but i think that i think a lot of these

sort of like well ev sales have cratered i mean it's a disingenuous those are disingenuous articles

as far as i'm concerned because if you come out and say in february like hey you know in let's say

before they were announced that the ev uh credit was going away ev sales were at this percentage

and then like let's say february march if those numbers don't come up or they're not steady or

whatever then you're like okay we can see where there's an actual correlation between what happened

but when you go from the month where ev sales are like marketing because people are trying to get

evs before the the credit goes away to the next month be like oh they cratered evs are doomed i'm

just like no i agree that's just ladies journalism it just shows you but i mean that i think that

still shows it yeah it doesn't indicate which way the market's going it just indicates the timing

of ev purchases this calendar year basically but it does make you wonder like how much how you know

what where is it going to recover to it's not like it was only a tiny dip you know what i mean it was

still a pretty big dip and it makes me wonder how much like okay what's it going to do in another

three months is it going to take three months to get back on course to whatever

probably three three to six months maybe by january we'll know it's january february we'll

actually know where they're going to sit i don't know because you have people who like i was going

to buy an ev in like six months and now they're like oh gosh i have to rush and buy an ev so you're

you're talking about people who like we're making decisions to purchase things earlier than they

anticipated just because they want you know seventy five hundred dollars is nothing to sneeze

no it's a lot of money yeah so it yeah so it's it's a sort of a a skewed number and again back

to the f150 it's that's that's an anomaly i mean that isn't really a part of the problem with the

f150 the f150 problem has been a long-term problem with how it's been absolutely marketed sold

and just the you know the decision to go with a large pickup which again i think the f150 lightning

is probably the best truck for 80 percent of f150 buyers um it's it's better it's better than a gas

f150 in pretty much every way except towing long distances yes that is the only flaw that kills it

yeah and the towing thing in a lot of people you're buying a truck because you need to be able to

tow with it and if you're doing that it's like an electric truck is not the solution it's just

not it's not but that i i think the towing the the amount of people actually tow with their

truck is relatively small to be honest everyone wants to pretend like they're going to do that big

thing like i need a you know i need an ev with 600 miles of range okay buddy you're gonna unless

your bill like the rest of the human race is probably not doing that on a on a regular basis

but yeah i say i i regardless you know everyone who buys a truck buys a truck because they think

they're going to do these these you know huge home improvements or they're going to go to the you

know they're going to do all these things i had a cousin who bought a truck to go to Tahoe

he's like oh now we can go to Tahoe i'm like i'm not going in your pickup to Tahoe i have a

wrx we're going to take my car he's like what about my pick i'm like there's no weight in the

back it's a rubble drive it's a death machine and you know you could put 1500 pounds of mulch in

the back of a maverick yep just don't the maverick is that's that's the thing is the maverick's

a great little truck i think it would have made more sense to make that an an an ev version than

definitely more than the f-150 light and that's that's basically what they're doing with their

next generation evs is it's going to be a maverick sized truck but you know Ford Ford made several

fundamental mistakes with the lightning program you know and when they when they first started

planning it they they they expected about 25 000 annual sales by the time that they

officially launched it they had bumped that to 50 000 if they had stayed there they probably

would have been okay but then within a couple of months after they announced it publicly

and uh you know the response the initial response to especially with that $40 000 starting price that

they had for the for the lightning pro they bumped it up again to 80 000 units of capacity

and then a few months after that they said oh okay we're going to double the capacity again to 150 000

units a year and they spent a ton of money expanding the facility where they're assembling

the lightning and then they never got past 33 000 units out of 150 000 units capacity

and when you have underutilized capacity that is hugely hugely expensive so that was one problem

to what you said about pricing Robbie you know within a few months after they launched the

the lightning you know you had the invasion of Ukraine nickel prices skyrocketed lithium prices

skyrocketed battery costs went up and so they had to jack the prices up and they've never gotten

back down to where they uh back to where they started and then the other thing that Ford didn't do

and probably in part because they had spent so much money on increasing the production capacity

is that they they haven't really done anything to improve the truck over the last three years

you know when they when they designed it you know in order to get it to market quickly they used a

lot of off-the-shelf components that they already have for the gas F-150 so we're not they were fine

they work but they're not optimized for an EV and so you didn't get as much efficiency as you could

have you certainly didn't get the cost reductions that you should have and if they had put some

investment into improving and updating those components to take cost out of the the manufacturing

of the truck they could have made a better business case for it but because they didn't do any of that

now you're at a vastly underutilized plant and you know slow sales and and so it's probably

going to get canceled and you know for Ford's business that's probably the right thing to do

right now but that's just the way it is yeah setting up for so much capacity just like what

because I think they were looking at Tesla which Tesla is the good still right now Tesla still

the Kleenex of EVs when people think EVs they think Tesla doesn't matter you know

and then they're like well you know their market share is only 40% now

said could you imagine anyone having mark shift for anything in the automotive world it's 40%

yeah so I think they were looking at Tesla like oh well we could do and then of course three years

ago it was 80% yeah it was never going to stay 80 forever it was never going to stay 80 forever

yeah but you know there's and Tesla knew this was coming and and they didn't I don't know what to

tell them that's just but you know it's you know 40% 30% even if they keep up to 20% it's still a

pretty good you know market share for for for a company but I think they saw that and they saw

the Cybertruck we can you know they're going to sell you know a million of those

would not you know not really you know paying attention to the fact that Tesla says a lot of

things and says they're going to do a lot of things and many of them never come to pass and

those that do come to pass come to pass very late so it's I think there was there was this huge

excitement especially when people when automakers looked at Tesla's stock numbers and I think a lot

of you know you end up with a lot of startups you end up with a lot of companies saying oh we're

going to you know we're going to do exactly what Tesla does I'm like well you need to make something

that's better than those vehicles and you need to make it for the correct market and if you don't do

that then you know you're you're you're sort of throwing a lot of money away and you know like

Sam said you know if if they'd said well we're going to make 50,000 of these a year I'm like all

right and we're going to like try to keep you know work on making sure the price comes back down

but you know Ford is you know especially in the last five years that Toria is for just like oh it

starts at this and then it goes up to you know 27,000 28,000 now for the Maverick which is this

huge jump and so when you look at that company you're like well if I'm again if I'm a fleet

manager do I want to invest in this company for these vehicles outside of just the regular F-150

yeah F-150 is just solid they know they shouldn't mess with it and they don't it is a it is the

reason Ford continues to excel it is a reason Ford is still in business it is a cash printing

machine the f-series that's that's what it what that's what it is and if again if you're a fleet

manager and you're looking at these these f-series trucks are you going to go with the one where the

price goes all over the place are you just going to go with the one that you already know and if

you know it doesn't matter how much someone tells you that the operating cost will be lower over

you know so many years and you'll be able to you know um when you're looking at an initial

outlay you're like well I don't know what they're doing and they keep you know we're making them

we're not making them we're making I mean that's especially I mean now if you're a fleet manager

like oh they might stop it I had no way in hell you would buy an F-150 lightning so all right let's

move on um let's talk about the Honda Prelude Nicole you have a chance to try it out I did I

had a chance to try it out at the um they it's up for North American Car Truck Utility of the

Year it's a car obviously but it's up so they had it for us in when we did our drive and we

got to take it for a spin and I liked it a lot I liked it a lot it was fun um it's it's very

preludey I have a soft spot in my heart for the Prelude because I learned to drive a manual transmission

on a friend's prelude uh what's generation it still had pop-up headlights so second or third

because I was having every prelude generation is a good prelude that's I I was panicking about

trying to do the footwork and and then the turn signal wasn't working I kept accidentally hitting

the lights and I was like boop boop in the bump yes that was my vision as I was my memory of

of learning how to drive so I genuinely I thought it was good um I think they've done some neat stuff

with this I think that it's you know the hybrid things freaking some people out and is it really

going to be true to prelude funness I think it is I think it's this fun sporty little car and I

enjoyed driving it Sam are you going to totally disagree did you like it no I thought it was

great you know and and the thing you know when when I hear people complain you know about you

the hybrid intruding on prelude funness the thing you gotta remember if you actually go

back and look at all the the five generations of prelude the prelude was never a hardcore sports

car correct you know this is actually the most powerful prelude they've ever built

so it's always like this like like sort of like fun car it was like it was like it was like cute and

it was fun and it was sporty it looked cool like it had a cool styling to it was kind of a fun

car to just own you're like oh you got a prelude that's cute it was never like this super

high-powered monster performance thing it's never a z yeah it was never a z yeah I mean and

somehow people are like oh you know it's got a hybrid in there and I'm like but so what yeah if

you if you if you look at the 80s and 90s and Japanese sporty cars you know you had the rx7s

and the z's and the supros and then prelude was never in that class ever it was always you know

kind of a step down in terms of performance it was more of a competitor for the likes of the

Celica and you know and the Mitsubishi Eclipse you know in the 90s that's that's where the prelude

played and this one is is perfect for that and you know this this this is actually a really really

good car you know it's based on civic bones you know you got the civic hybrid powertrain which

is a really good powertrain especially in that size of car you know the 200 200 horsepower it's

plenty quick enough you know it'll do zero to 60 in about somewhere between six and six and a half

seconds uh and uh the you know the uh the s plus mode did you play with the s plus mode

did you i play with things a little bit yes so you know the the s plus mode when you when you

press the s plus button on the console what it does is it it's it's it's a lot like the um

Hyundai anac 5n you know so you get some sound enhancement and you get simulated manual shifting

and and down shifting and which it does a pretty good job yeah it works really well like is that

it doesn't always sometimes you're like well that's just ridiculous and this we're like oh my gosh

like it tricks your brain you you would you were you believe it you buy in and and a key part of

the reason why they're able to do that and and also why the just the in the standard mode and you

know the civic hybrid why the civic hybrid is so much fun is the way that honda does their hybrid

system is a little bit different from what you get in a toyota you know toyota's system uh has a

lot less electrical power like in a Prius it's only the the main uh motor that drives the vehicle

it's only 111 horsepower in the in the honda system it's 181 horsepower motor so really the way this

thing works is it's more like a series hybrid in fact probably the closest analog to the way this

works is actually the chevy volt the way the chevy volt worked it it works in largely the same way

so it most of the time you're actually driving on electricity and uh you know the only difference

from the volt is the volt had a big battery so you plug it in and the engine wouldn't have to run

most of the time this one you know the engine's going to be running but uh you're it's still the

electric motor that's driving the wheels the engine is most of the time is not even connected to the

wheels only at higher speeds which is basically the same as the way the volt works so it's really

most of the time works like a series hybrid and because of that you know in most of your driving

the engine is not coupled to the wheels so you can make the engine do whatever you want

and make it rev up and rev down and and you get the blips and the torque interruptions just like

when you're shifting yeah and so it really does feel authentically like it's shifting and it sounds

good too that was the thing it wasn't just the feel of it they nailed it and that it's it's not

just one part of it it's like nope you got the sound you got the feel every which creates that

experience you need all those things to come together the right way and the right balance

or it feels wrong it feels off this if someone didn't tell you that it really wasn't needing all those

things to actually drive you think no it's doing what it has to do no no no doesn't have to do any

of this just enjoy it yeah the the other key part of this car is that it's got the suspension and

brakes from the Civic Type R which means that it's got even better handling you know the Civic

the base Civic handles really well this is even better and you know I get I get to drive it on

the track at the Honda's to Chigi Proving Grounds last week when I was in Japan yeah and you know

the the Type R you know when you drive that and you trail trail the brakes going into a corner

you can get the back end to come around a little bit you know basically eliminate any

understeer that you had you know you can really nicely balance it very easily between the the

accelerator and the brake pedal you can have it perfectly balanced and do exactly what you want

at any moment in time and this one does the same thing you know Honda says they're not going to

build a prelude Type R I I'm not sure I believe them but the thing is somebody is going to do it

because you can buy a Type R crate engine from Honda from from HRC and you know because the

whole front structure is straight out of straight out of a Civic you know it's got all the same

mounting points and everything you can take you can get a Type R engine and a six-speed manual

transmission and put it into this car shockingly easily and I'm sure that I'm sure that by next

year at SEMA there will be a Type R powered prelude on the show floor so yeah I mean Honda's

have been notoriously easy to swap engines in and out of like that was like a whole like and the

engines are it's it's it's also really easy to work on a Honda like every Honda I've ever worked on

has been like the easiest you know brand I've ever worked on so that's why you know enthusiasts love

Honda because you just like I'm gonna take this engine out and put a K engine in I'm gonna take

this out I'll put this in it's just so like me and my friends would do it like over the course of like

a weekend ripping engine out putting new one in and this is me and my friends so we're just goofing

off most of the time so you know since the since the preludes already got the Type R brakes and

suspension all you gotta do is drop that engine in there you probably want to swap out the springs

you know to adjust for differences in weight but but that's about it that's about all you really

need to do and I this this could be you know a seriously fun sports car it's fun like it is yeah

even even as it is it's great as is this thing is a hoot yeah yeah the price you know it's not

inexpensive it's it's let's see if they I don't think they've officially announced pricing yet

but they you know at current exchange rates based on the Japanese price the Japanese price in Japan

to US dollars comes out to $41,800 it's not cheap yeah but I mean that falls right in between

a civic sport touring hybrid hatchback and the the Type R so it's right in right in the middle

between those two so it's you know it based on that it's not unreasonably priced considering you

know what where the rest of the lineup is and it's not cheap but it I think you know if you're

looking for something that is a lot of fun to drive you know there's not a lot of two doors left out

there uh you know you could you can have a lot of fun with this car and you know it's not crazy

expensive but it's not cheap yeah but it's it's and it's a hatchback it's an arrange where you go

okay this is a little bit more this little pricey but super duper fun like you're just going to

enjoy it so much and with the hatchback you just fold the back seats down you got a big cargo area

it's it's practical too filled with candy yeah absolutely with candy trunk retreat

every time we talk about the prelude while you guys are talking I spend time looking for

a first-generation prelude for sale you start looking every single time and it never it never

works out when we sold our Civic back to the dealer we bought it from this summer when we bought the

EV6 we went into the showroom they had a first-gen prelude sitting there in the showroom it wasn't

for sale but they had one sitting there so I think one of the you were sorely tempted to just

drive away with it they'd never find you yeah um all right uh since Nicole I think you have about

15 minutes left before you've got to jump yeah so let's let's jump to pole star four okay um you

and I drove this thing way back in July I know I had to pull up the story I'm like I did drive this

what did I think of this again I drove something the other day that I can't two things that I can't

talk about until March that's the worst because you you have to take notes on that stuff or

something it comes around you're like I have to write it during my flight to pull in next week

because so I just don't forget even even though they told us in July that the embargo would probably

be sometime in September or October they didn't even have a date yet yeah since we knew it was

going to be that far out I just went ahead and wrote the actually two different reviews right

away to get it while it was still fresh I did the same thing I wrote it ages ago I thought

if I don't write this now I'm gonna forget I'm gonna forget what I think about this there's too

many cars to just you just can't so what did you think of it I thought it was good I liked it I

didn't love it I thought it was good that one of the the things everyone was weirding out about

was the fact that it doesn't have a rear window there's no rear window which is a little bit weird

because you expect it to be there and if you intuitively look over your shoulder

is missing but it has a really good camera rear view mirror so you still you could actually

a better view technically than you would with the the actual rear window have you looked out the rear

window of a Volvo c40 or a lot of other cars that have a fastback roof line you can't see me

anyway um and then someone and then the other thing it was a wall it's going to be dark because

there's no window but they have the this very the glass roof the panoramic I guess it'll be

panoramic roof goes really far back so sitting in the car unless you look to see that there's no

rear window you don't know it's missing like you really don't notice it's loss when you're inside

the car what did you think Sam I agree you know I think I think the lack of a rear window is a

complete non-issue yeah that's I don't even care um you know because you know I know some people

have an issue with using the digital camera mirrors um you know that's never been a problem for me

I you know and so I don't care about the absence of the window because like I said and so many cars

today you've got this little slit you know because it's so it's so steeply raked you know that you

have just tiny little slot to see through anyway and so you really can't see much of anything

exactly so you know I'd just as soon use the the digital mirror and be done with it

my problem with the car you know and I love the way it looks what was it Sam I can't guess what you

might not like about this car I mean I really like the way it looks I generally really like the way

it drove uh you know the the ride handling was good the driving dynamics were good everything's in

the damn touchscreen yep including our favorite thing the air vents we you know gosh dang it guys

when we when we when we did the drive you know they had a remote q and a with some of the the

pole star folks um back in um in sweden and you know I I raised my hand and asked the question

why are you doing this and guys it was kind of like that it wasn't even like a could you

explain for me the decision I'm putting that she's like why'd you do that he was very aggressive it

was kind of brilliant and needless to say as usual we did not get a satisfactory answer no it was

sort of this like well you know it's seamless and it's this and it's that and the technology and

future and none of that none of that lots lots of buzzwords mean nothing yeah lots of buzzwords

that mean nothing I and you know what I still have not yet met anybody unless they are working

for an OEM who has just done this that says oh my gosh isn't it the best don't you love it

let a single journalist who said it's good not a single person who has experienced it in a car

has said it's good everybody hates it so why are they doing this stop here we go there's my review

stop

yeah you know it's it's not it's not an inexpensive car but you know it other other aside from that

it is very pleasant to drive one feature I really did like that you know was it it was a subtle thing

but I think was very thoughtful is the heads up display yes the heads up display has a snow mode

so you know if you have spent any time driving in Sweden in the winter time

you know that there is lots of snow especially if you're in the north and you know most heads

up displays you know most of the the information that is displayed is in white and if you've got

white information against a white background from all the snow because what what they do and what

they do in Sweden in northern Sweden because there's so much snow is they don't they don't

salt the roads you know they just they plow them and you'll you know so if you're driving along these

roads in the north you'll have these three four-foot high snow banks and the road is just covered with

hard packed snow and you know so it's it's all white and if your HUD is all in white

makes it not very useful and so the snow mode on the Polestar 4 switches it from white text

to yellow text which is like such like you said such a tiny thing but it does like even if you

live someplace where it snows in the US and they like we pave down the plow down to the pavement

there is that moment where everything is just white you know first thing in the morning things

haven't completely melted you haven't gotten any black top showing through it's very white and it's

hard to see to be able to have that little head up display and it's not like it's bright glaring

yellow it's like it's soft yellow but it's just enough to give you some contrast against a white

background that's really I think that's just a brilliant little thoughtful touch that they did

I like that a lot yeah um and then um the let's see the the price uh let me get down to where the

price was here I wrote a lot of words about this thing I know like we have to look back

because it's been so long um I have single motor go ahead yeah start the single motor starting at

$57,800 including the $1,400 destination charge and then the dual motor is $64,300

that's a pretty big difference yeah yeah given given what we've said about all this

would you you know is this something that you would consider okay I hate the vent thing so I

automatically cross off cars that have vents in the screen that's a me thing some people might not

hate it as much as I hate it if I remove that significant obstacle to my buying decision I would

consider it absolutely but you have to make sure you're okay with that I know we keep harping on

that Sam but it's not a trivial issue it's it's not a small deal like you if you're looking at the

car that has that go drive it around go drive it around and see what you think when you have to

reach over there you have to change it and the sun suddenly in your face and you want the AC to

blow in your face and now you have to go to the screen to get the AC on your face and you can't

you know um I that would be that's a deal breaker for me in any car it's not even a Volvo thing I

just don't like that but aside from that I think it's a good car like I really genuinely liked it

I liked it a lot so it's sort of a shame that that's a that feature is not great would you Sam would

you buy it I I have to say no and why wouldn't you buy it primarily because of all the touchscreen

controls I don't I don't like the HMI in this car um you know because I I really genuinely

liked driving this car you know it's quick it handled well I really like the design you know I

like I like the way it looks you know I think it's a good size um you know this this is the

the size of car that I would like to have and frankly it is the size of car that we do have

in our garage right um so you know it's but that HMI is just it's a non-starter for me

I I would not even consider no matter how good everything else is I will not consider a car

that has that kind of HMI how about you Robbie I can't talk about Volvo or a Polestar we gotta

edit that out now oh okay sorry I yeah there's reasons there's there's there's work related

stuff sorry never mind don't comment be quiet over there I'm not allowed to talk about Volvo

or Polestar okay okay so but so that means me and Sam get our Sam we 100% say no because of that

screen like for on every other way it's a great little EV I liked it it was just that is that

is just not a not a good idea oh and by the way this is one of those vehicles where despite the

fact that they Polestar classifies this as a crossover or SUV it's not it's a car yeah yeah it's

like yeah it's that weird thing now where they give you the coupe SUV thing they're like well we

curved it it's still an SUV but it's a coupe SUV now like this this is too low this is way too low

a car to be considered an SUV yeah they will call it that but it doesn't really feel like it it feels

like a like a sedan a car I really guess a coupe whatever I have no issue with that I I think

neither I think it's a great form factor mm-hmm except for the yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna have to

disappear because it's four o'clock Sam do you need me do I just need to stop I'm afraid to do

anything just just leave your browser window open as you walk away and it'll it'll just leave it going

like I don't get leave or anything you can hit the leave button okay and then your browser and

I'll just leave your brow you leave the riverside window open all right good bye everybody bye

oh that was quick she's not even like a um all right maybe enough boys to men it's so hard to

say goodbye nothing all right let's carry on um so SEMA was this past week the SEMA show

and I mean there's always all kinds of crazy stuff at SEMA but there's um there's one in

particular I want to talk about Toyota had a bunch of stuff that they showed including a Tacoma

the fuel cell Tacoma H2 overlander so thank you all right okay let's just let's just get started

off um Toyota makes great trucks I really enjoy Toyota trucks I really enjoy the Tacoma I like

the 4Runner once they get bigger than the 4Runner I'm just like as a person as a you know

mid-size is big enough mid-size is big enough in my little my little uh my little brain that said

you make a very good point you can't go anywhere that's why you have to live in your truck it's

now a motorhome yeah except no mobile home it's a mobile home once you get somewhere you'll be stuck

there forever so the the reason why all this is is true is what Toyota did was they made an

overlanding version of the Tacoma which is fine thumbs up but they put their hydrogen fuel cells in

it thumbs down yeah I mean the whole point of an overlanding truck is to take it out somewhere

remote uh you know let me just read from the the beginning of the press release

like any responsible camper the Toyota Tacoma H2 overlander concept can venture deep to the

great outdoors tread lightly and leave no traces cool that word vent that those words venture deep

you know in the United States I didn't say deep and back yeah so let's just start right there

in the U.S. there's a grand total of 50 public hydrogen fueling stations all in the state of

California all next to my house yeah about half of them are next to your house the other half are

somewhere in LA but yeah so to put fuel cells into a Tacoma and call it an overlander and say you

can go into deep into the great outdoors just it doesn't work because you know first of all

yeah this this thing has a capacity of six kilograms of hydrogen and as an overlanding

pickup you know that's been lifted it's got big all-terrain tires on it it's got a camper on the

back not great aerodynamics this is you know and 547 horsepower you might be lucky to go 200 miles

total on this thing which means because you basically are mostly most likely going to have

to come back to where you started in order to refuel it again you're talking 100 miles and

then if you actually want to use any of the capabilities like it has 15 kilowatt power

export so you can you know they talk about features 15 kilowatt power takeoff capable of

running something as power intensive as an as a home off grid or even charging two EVs simultaneously

while using dual NEMA 1450 outlets so if you are using using this thing to charge two of your

friends EVs you're going to use up all your hydrogen and you're never going to make it back

so it's kind of pointless it's it's it's a truck that should have been an EV to be honest

or just you know what an e-rev would have been great yeah that would have made more sense

because then you have a you know you have a nice-sized battery so you can do all the cool

things that you want to do plus you know you still have gasoline and you can charge it

so let's say you get stuck up in the mountains you run out of battery you run a gas if you have

solar panel yes it's going to take a few days before you get home but you'll be able to start it

and move it and when you're going downhill you're gonna regenerating as much as you can

again the end of days whenever people talk about like you know zombie time zombie apocalypse EVs

are the best vehicles because gasoline a no one's gonna be refining it b the gasoline that's there

it's probably pretty much junk after about a year yeah i mean if you watch the last of us and you saw

hey you know let's uh let's siphon some gas out of these vehicles that have been sitting here

abandoned for 20 years and put it into this beater that we're driving across the country

yeah no not gonna work that's not how that's not how any of that works meanwhile there'll be a lot

of like solar panels everywhere that you can just you know tap into they put a bunch of solar panels

on top of the over the parking lot of the uh safeway down the street and then there's also the

there's remember those EA stations i was talking about like months and months ago yeah they're still

there they're not open yet uh that's just been sitting idle for like four months but but you

know end of times i can go down there rewire it stick a level two charger in there because i have

an extra one in the garage because that's who i am apparently uh i just like it what i'm saying is

buy a book about being an electrician a hard copy that way when the system uh when when society

collapses you can teach yourself how to run your EV while everyone's gas cars eventually die

or you can go to what's the town in mad max gas town gas town gas town yeah gas town or you can

find gas town one of the but but that's that's in australia yeah that's a long drive so it's kind

of hard to drive there from california or michigan it's mostly ethanol from pigs right i think probably

yeah yeah anyway gas town raggedy man the whole sorry so i mean cool concept but cool you know

far less practical than than it seems on the surface i tell you how to really want hydrogen to

happen i understand why uh the the fact that you know years and years of me getting emails from

toyota and other vendors and to the partners about we're going to have x amount of new hydrogen

stations in california this year and then we actually have fewer than we did it went from 60 to

like 50 i yeah again hydrogen is uh makes sense for long haul trucking you can build out an

infrastructure because there's already an infrastructure there and then maybe maybe maybe

after that then it spiderwebs out to passenger vehicles because then you already have an

infrastructure and involved uh yeah and today there's really cool things with hydrogen at its

pedro port down in southern california that uses hydrogen in trucks which makes a lot of sense

because they're like oh these trucks only they take things from the port they take it to a place

they come back easy peasy live and squeezy and hunday's doing the same thing the port of oakland

with their excellent hydrogen trucks they're doing the same sort of thing they've got about

three dozen of those operating out of the port of oakland they've also got a couple excuse me that

are running uh in south carolina um opera or george i should say uh their their meta plant

near savannah um that are moving parts back and forth between their between the factory the assembly

plant and supplier facilities um but you know those you know those are being fueled you know they're

they're generating hydrogen um i think they're generating hydrogen on site now um and fueling

those and you know that's not a public fueling station that's that's just private to to hunday

for their trucks again for large trucks it makes a lot of sense i think hunday showed off a vision

of hydrogen stations in the united states that included you know essentially junkyards not

junkyards uh the dump the dump like using the methane that's been escaped from the dump in

order to create hydrogen it's a long way off obviously um and yeah we don't hate hydrogen it

just doesn't make any sense for a car it doesn't make sense for passenger cars now give us 20 years

especially for an overlanding pickup yeah yeah like you know this this truck looks dope though

yeah it does i mean apart apart from the powertrain everything else about it is is pretty cool

like if they brought it to my house it'd be fine for me to drive around and like there's a few

off-road places that are close enough to hydrogen that i could use it but that's just me i'm the

only person it's me and like a bunch of other bay area people who would go to like holister

to do off-roading um all right look one one more um with uh with toyota um at the

japan mobility show last week when i was in tokyo um i got to see the land cruiser fj in person

and i must say um you know when i when i saw the pictures of it uh it was underwhelmed uh you

know i thought that the proportions looked a little odd uh it was it was kind of strange looking

when i saw in person it actually looks a lot better in person than it does in the pictures

see i love it in the picture so i'm glad i'm not in japan because i just would have never left

and it's actually bigger than i thought it was going to be

you know it's like it's kind of bronco sized yeah if you look at that like if you look if you

look at the pictures by themselves it's like the ionic five where it looks smaller than actually

is i've told a lot of people like oh you know an ionic five's a lot of room they're like no no man

i'm like six foot like two and i'm not gonna fit i'm like i don't think you realize how much bigger

this car is than than you if you look at the the the splash video at the top there's a person and

then there's a bicycle next to the f to the to the vehicle and that gives you a better idea

of the size but when you look at in the picture it looks like the vf3 or the jimney it almost looks

like jimney size and it's definitely not yeah no it's it's much bigger i mean it's it's smaller than

the the 250 series land cruiser which is the one that they sell here in the us now uh and you know

that's also the the lexus gx is the based on the 250 land cruiser it's it's a little bit smaller than

that but it's it's definitely not you know a little compact this this could be you know ideally you

know if toyota decided to bring this to north america if they could if they could potentially

sell it for you know what you know maybe a starting price you know 37 38 thousand dollars you know

maybe reasonably equipped mid 40s um you know slotted in underneath the land cruiser um i think

this could do really well i think so too i think it's it's you know you're going to see a lot of

people who are going to rip off that bumper yeah and and and you know making it a you know more

capable off-roader than say the the current length yeah it's because it's already got skid plates and

everything yeah it's already got all the bits so yeah well you know i think you know so you

know most people don't realize that a lot of japanese companies are actually pretty conservative

with with what they what they they do um and so you know they're so it is not just going to jump

into something then you know but i i do believe this this has a potential to to sell really well

here i mean they have a suv that's like three inches bigger than the pre then like every they

have a trim or a level or an suv model that's only three inches bigger than the one before it

so they have every size now so they might just do the fj i wonder if they're concerned that it would

actually um cut into the Land Cruiser uh it probably would take some Land Cruiser sales away

that would be in five years before they do this yeah they would have to look at you know they

want to either establish the Land Cruiser really really well or see what's what you know if it's

not doing as well it's doing good enough they're like well let's just throw another car in the

market because we're Toyota and we can do that and people are going to buy it because it's Toyota

because again regardless of their their their obsession with hydrogen

you tell you how to make really good cars yeah um all right so while i was in Japan there's also

besides the prelude there were two other cars that we got to drive at tachigi

one was a prototype uh although Honda calls it a study but i mean you know this this is

their next generation hybrid system um and and the the mule vehicle that we drove you know for those

not familiar with the industry terminology a mule is when you take a current generation vehicle

and you adapt parts from a next generation model onto that and you know kind of like a you know

melding a horse in a and a donkey uh you know it's it's a mix of of different species

that somehow is made to work um and so you know before they have you know a complete

you know prototype of the new generation vehicle to test with you know they will they'll adapt parts

from the from the next generation to the new one uh and in this case the the car we drove

was based on a current 11th generation civic sedan uh but had some weird camouflage on there

and a whole bunch of parts under the skin that uh you know that are from both from their next

generation platform as well as their next generation hybrid system uh and so right now

honda's got two different variants of their hybrid system they've got the one that they

sell here in the us is their their so-called mid-sized hybrid uh and that's in the the civic

the accord and the crv and then they also have one a small hybrid which is for some other cars

that they sell overseas uh and then for the next generation there's going to be also the

large hybrid the large size hybrid and that's going to go into vehicles like the next generation

pilot the passport the ridgeline and the odyssey and um so you know as i was saying earlier about

honda's hybrid system you know it's got two motor generator units um one that is the primary

traction motor that drives the vehicle the other one mainly just acts as a generator

and the engine is coupled to that generator unit and it is running that to charge the battery

and then there's a clutch between the engine and the the final drive so that at higher speeds higher

load conditions uh you close that clutch and you can have hybrid drive worth parallel hybrid drive

both the engine and the primary traction motor are driving the vehicle um but most of the time

that clutch is open and the engine is not even feeding any torque at all to the wheels so um

for the next for the large size hybrid the next generation large size hybrid they're actually

going to have two clutches in there and two sets of final drive gearing so uh they'll be able to

expand the envelope where they can also feed in some engine torque to the wheels so at lower speeds

it'll they'll have one clutch connected to a set of gears for lower speed blended operation

and then the existing one to for higher speed operation and and then that's going to be paired

with a new generation v6 engine it's based on the the the engine that's in the passport now in the

new passport a visa and a new updated v6 engine atkinson cycle there also it's also going to have

electric rear drive so a rear axle because the current crv uh hybrid with all-wheel drive

uses the mechanical drive it's got driveshaft uh that goes back to the rear wheels

the the next generation large hybrid is going to have a rear axle instead

um so even a little bit more electrical power um and then uh the other big thing that's changing

for honda's next generation platforms is in the structure so one of the you know kind of

conventional wisdom for the last several decades is that to optimize handling for the vehicle you

want the the chassis structure to be as stiff as possible so that the position of the wheels the

four corners are not moving relative to each other um you know and then that way you can you

can have better control you can uh you know if the the if the structure is not flexing and the wheels

are maintaining the same orientation relative to each other then you can go with a little bit

softer springs and dampers and still maintain good handling because it's all going to be more

predictable what honda is doing for their next generation system is a little counterintuitive

um so the structure so you get the front structure where the wheels are attached and the powertrain

and everything is attached that's going to stay relatively rigid and then where all that attaches

to the central portion of the vehicle the passenger cell it's going to be a little bit more flexible

than it is today so that basically if you if you can visualize it it's kind of like the whole

front structure can pivot relative to the passenger cell and under side loads what this

allows it to do is actually put more um vertical force on the outside wheel because you know the

amount of traction that you can get is a function of how much force is pushing the wheel down onto

the the tire down onto the road and what the friction coefficient is between the tire and the road

so the more force you can have on that outside wheel the more grip you're going to have there

and better handling and that's basically what they're doing there so you got a stiff structure so

it keeps the two front wheels oriented relative to each other the same but um the you know you get

more grip on that outside wheel and then it flexes relative to the back half of the car

which is kind of weird um the amount of flex is actually pretty small they said it's like

no more than a millimeter so it's not like a body on frame where you see like a truck in a cab

like the bed in a cab like you know yeah exactly it's not it's not like that at all it's like you

know barely a millimeter and and then you know they've also done other stuff with the front structure

you know to make it stronger in some places more flexible in other places for a crash energy

dissipation in a crash and they've managed to take a bunch of weight out of it and a bunch of cost

out of it so they say that the structure would be about 10% less expensive to manufacture

and then also weigh about 90 kilograms less that's about 200 pounds less than the current structure

and the first vehicles that are going to get this approach are the zero series at EVs so starting

with the Acura RSX and then the zero SUV and the zero saloon and then you know all of Honda's next

generation platforms are taking this approach so this mule that we drove has that kind of structure

under the the wonky skin uh and um and uh the other thing that they told us is that

all of the next generation hybrids are going to have the s plus shift mode so we got to drive

this around a handling track a few laps and you couldn't really tell that there was anything

unusual it didn't feel like it was flexing or anything but it just it just handled really well

interesting that's how I mean Honda loves an engineering problem

I mean and and I think they yeah there's something I was gonna say I'm not allowed to again

but no the Honda loves an engineering problem and I think this is you know

remember the Type R the you know the last generation Type R came out

and the first time you drove it and you're like what wizardry is going on here

how did they do this to to understeer what did they do what is happening

who sold their soul to the devil to make this a reality so yeah they I'm very I'll be very

interested to see see this in series vehicles and and how it how it works out

yeah so the zero the zero series EVs are going to have this so you know we'll get to drive those

next year and then probably the you know the next generation Civic which will probably be out

like sometime 27 I think is about the time frame 27 or 28 and the next generation large

vehicles as well and that same time frame 27 28 time frame when those will start to appear

you know we'll all have this type of approach along with the next generation hybrid system that is

both more powerful and more efficient than the current generation stuff yeah this should

put it in an element they should Honda makes like they'll put out like some crazy weird car

that'll do okay and then it'll go away and then five years after that car has gone away

everyone loses their mind about the car that's that's the Honda way like they'll put it out

and be like oh this is nice and you'll have the people who wanted who will buy it and then it

goes away and then later on everyone's like oh my god that car was so cool why didn't I buy that car

maybe they won't wait 24 years before they bring back the element alone maybe how long

it's been when did they all get discontinued let's see it came out 2009 or 2010 no later no it came

out in early 2000s yeah 2002 so it was in production from December 2002 until April 2011 so it's been

14 years almost almost 15 years so it's time for the time for the element to come back yeah

it's time for the element to come back again I have first I have right a first refusal when

my brother sells his element you're gonna do an electric retro mod or a rest a lot on it it's

you know eight eight ten years ago it was way cheaper to do rest oh yeah it's it's it's gotten

really weird like it's weird how that happened we're like oh when people were just like gutting

leafs like you know broken leafs and broken Teslas out of junkyards and you and you know and it was

you could like build one for you know eight thousand ten thousand bucks now like that's

thirty thousand dollars turn to you i'm like what is happening why don't you just buy an EV never

mind yeah and then finally the the last car that we got to drive at tachigi we actually

originally were not scheduled to drive so you know when we arrived at the tachigi proven grounds

last saturday we saw the cars parked out there they had the prelude out there and they had

there was also the Honda super one that we saw at the show a few days earlier

and you know there was actually two different groups that were there at tachigi so there was

this group of people from north america from you know it was a bunch from the us a few from

canada a few from mexico and we were only supposed to drive the next gen hybrid and the prelude

um there was also a group of japanese investors who were there and they got to drive the next

gen hybrid and the super one um and so we weren't supposed to drive the super one but then when

when they told us oh no you guys aren't going to get to drive that one a bunch of us started

complaining and whining and moaning like children and like i like children come on come on what's

it gonna hurt come on ashi san who's the director of the honda transformations division

yeah he he saw how enthusiastic we were about trying out the super one he said uh let's let's

adjust the schedule we can we can get him some time in it and so at the end of the day after we

were done with all the other stuff um we got a short presentation on the super one so the super

one um they actually initially showed this prototype uh at the goodwood festival of speed

last june or july whenever that was uh and it was at the time they called it the honda super EV

and so this is based on the honda n1e k car um and you know k cars uh you know in japan they make

up more than half the the japanese automotive market that's because they're small they're

relatively cheap um you in tokyo places like tokyo and some other big cities you have to prove that

you actually have a place to park your car before you can get it registered in tokyo um but that

k cars are exempt from that because they're so small and so there's there's certain dimensions

dimensional limits for k cars and there's also uh you know they're limited to six for gas ones

they're limited to 660 ccs and are limited to 64 horsepower and so um you know everything has

to fall within those constraints well the super one is based on the n1e but it has wider fender

flares which means that it's it's about 100 millimeters wider than the n1 uh which means

that it doesn't technically qualify as a k car anymore which means that since it's not a k car

it also doesn't have to be limited to 64 horsepower and they wouldn't tell us exactly how much power

it has uh but from driving it it felt like it was probably somewhere around 75 or 80 horsepower

maybe maybe a little bit more but they yeah we it's the one we drove was right hand drive uh and so

traditionally um k cars have not been exported outside of japan this one honda is planning to

export to right hand drive markets like the uk maybe australia some other asian countries where

they where they have right hand drive um there's no plans to do a left hand drive version of this

unfortunately um it weighs about uh about uh just over 2000 pounds

and we got to drive it and you know they did you know kind of the ionic five end thing with the

sound and the simulated shifting so it's got simulated seven speed uh transmission uh so the s

plus kind of control strategy but it's all electric it's not hybrid it was so much fun to drive

it was hysterical um so so sam sends us a picture from japan of him in front of this car

and i've never been more jealous of sam in my life it was a blast you know we only got a few

minutes with it we only got a few minutes each with it but you know tossing this thing around

you know i mean it at the limit it understeers a bit and it's uh you know it's not super fast but

it's quick enough you know it's exactly what you would want from like a small sporty runabout

it's it's perfect fortunately as i said you know we'll never get it here because the n1e uh in

japan is priced at about 17 500 dollars equivalent so the the super one would probably because it's

not a k car anymore so it doesn't get the uh the the insurance breaks and and other incentives that

you get for k cars it's probably going to cost somewhere around 24 25 000 when it goes on sale

in japan next year and uh you know by the time if they were to try to make it meet us regulations

you're probably looking mid 30 000 range and it's probably only going to have about

120 to 140 miles of range at best um you run into the fiat 500 e problem yeah so it would

it you know it wouldn't make any financial sense for honda to try to bring it to the us

but if you happen to go somewhere uh you know starting in 2026 where they do sell this car

if you go to japan and you get an opportunity to drive one i strongly encourage you to try it out

because it will just put a smile on your face it's light it's nimble it's quick enough

it's yeah it's just it's a hoot i really had a lot of fun driving to succure around uh yukahama

yeah we drive it around the road and it was it was fantastic and i had the best time

and imagine you know adding another 20 or 25 horsepower to that oh my gosh and bigger tires

uh yeah uh yeah it's it's i also um a little thing about if you go do go to japan um the little

japan there's a thing where you can like it's like a zip car where you can like rent a car and drive

for a few hours and then bring it back i tried that it wouldn't work because i didn't have a

japanese driver's license so if you go to japan you have international driver driving permit

doesn't work yeah it wouldn't work so i had it you had to get like a proper rental car but also

driving a car in japan is very expensive like every time you get on the freeway is like monies

it's like like so it's it's a very expensive endeavor just warning people before you're like

i'll just go you need to find a japanese friend who can rent one and then take it out for an hour or

two yeah all right let's let's answer some listener questions and comments

first up from andy and sydney question about evs and 12 volt systems i understand the need

for this arrangement 12 volts to power lights wipers etc but why have an actual 12 volt battery

installed it seems a few car makers have had issues with their 12 volt batteries so why persist with

them is it not possible to somehow siphon off 12 volts from the big battery is this just

technically difficult or is this some there's there's something else at play here i hate to use

the c word but um am i right in thinking that the cyber truck has such an arrangement keep up the

good work um so yeah so in the case well in all evs they have a dc to dc converter um so which

because the you know batteries put out direct current not alternating current

and you know the high voltage batteries are anywhere from 350 to 800 or so volts depending

on the the architecture of the vehicle um and so that dc to dc converter is used to as andy said

siphon off some of that power and it's used to charge the 12 volt battery so in our ev6 that's

sitting in the garage if we go out in the garage and you happen to notice a little yellow lamp

on top of the dashboard that's blinking that means that it's currently charging your 12 volt

battery uh from through the dc to dc converter and um the cyber truck they did get rid of the

the battery entirely most of most of the cyber truck's low voltage stuff is actually running

at 48 volts they they also have stuff that runs at 12 and and five volts because like the computers

and stuff actually run at five volts not not 12 volts um so uh they they did dispense with the

battery with the low voltage battery it's it is possible to do that um the the challenge is

before before you you know for i think for safety reasons um you know when you're not using the low

voltage system uh the reason they have that they typically have the 12 volt battery is to power

things like um you know the systems that detect your um keyless entry system your key fob uh and

assorted other bits and pieces you know and being able to power up the computers to boot up the car

when you first get in there and for a system like the cyber truck um without a battery basically you

have to keep the contactors for the the high voltage battery open all the time so it's constantly

got to be open to the the high voltage circuit in cars that have a 12 volt battery when it's not

charging that battery the contactors open up so there's no energy flow from the high voltage

battery to the rest of the car so it's it should be in theory a little bit safer um and you know

then only the 12 volt battery is engaged to power these auxiliary systems it's also again it's a lot

of work to do all this stuff and they are they already have suppliers that are giving them you

know that they buy 12 volt batteries at for pretty you know inexpensive relative to like what we have

to pay because you know they're for GM Honda Toyota whoever so when you look at the problem

you're like well we want people to be able to get in and out of their car just in case the battery dies

yeah and we already have a system that works as long as you can keep that 12 that low voltage

battery charged yeah as long as we can keep it charged why don't we just keep doing that thing

it's sort of yeah it's like the path it's almost it's almost the path of least resistance this

works let's not mess with it except for when it doesn't when like you know the Hyundai Kia issues

where they were draining the batteries that was not great because then you get out and you couldn't

start your your car it's even the you know your 76 kilowatt hour battery pack was fully charged

if the 12 volt wasn't working it's like if you have a tv no way to boot up the computers

yeah it's like it's like you have a like a really fancy wide screen television but there's no power

switch on it and so while it's plugged in the wall it's ready to go if your remote doesn't have

like two AAA batteries you can't turn on your television it's like almost like that situation

it's pretty much yeah all right also from David S said on this week's podcast you mentioned that

Tesla was testing autonomous driving vehicles in Austin actually I was in Austin for a couple

days this week and I had signed up for the the Robo taxi thing I was hoping to to try it out

but I was still on the waiting list and never never got a chance to to try it out

anyway last week while driving from South Austin to the UT Austin campus we were on the South Lamar

bridge when a Tesla sedan with no one inside passed by there was no visible signage on the car

indicating it was a test vehicle in Austin almost every fifth vehicle you pass is a self-driving

Waymo there were a lot of those in Austin and some Zooks cars as well they're clearly marked as

self-driving vehicles and however not the Tesla fleet and and the thing is with the the Waymo's

and the the Zooks cars even if they didn't have any markings on them you can tell by all the sensors

all over the car yeah they I don't know about the particular vehicle you saw you know and if this

was one of Tesla's test vehicles as opposed to one that they're actually operating the service with

the as far as I know all the ones that are operating the service the the so-called Robo

taxi service they have a Robo taxi graphic on the side on the doors it's pretty subtle and

depending on the color of the car you may not notice it but that's you know you know other

than that you know the rest of the car is stock Tesla Model Y so it wouldn't be immediately

obvious and if you if you didn't notice the Robo taxi graphic on the the lower side of the front

doors you you may not you may not realize what it is unless you looked over and saw nobody in the

driver's seat it's interesting like there's an SAE standard coming SAE was it J yeah J3134

and the idea is you have these like blue lights now if you look on the the turquoise lights that

yeah the turquoise you look at the Mercedes yeah Mercedes start using on the s-class that has the

level three and then when we went to New York to look at the iq sk iq is supposed to have a level

three you know in 27 28 I forget the year a while from now 28 28 those also that that vehicle also

had those turquoise side lamps and the idea is that as a driver passenger bicyclists whatever

you can look you can very quickly look at a vehicle and identify it as something that's

driving autonomously so you wouldn't have to worry about like oh does it have signage on

does it have this or like maybe this was a test vehicle that didn't have any signage I think

for the average person on the road it's important to know how that vehicle is being driven whether

it's being driven by a human that you make eye contact with or if it's being driven by a computer

with a human like you know six miles away on honor with a you know with a joystick or whatever

but either way like it I think that's it adds an extra bit of safety and understanding of what

you're sharing the road with so that you can drive or react in a way that makes sense for you as a

vitality and thank you vitality for giving us a pronunciation guide for your name so you know if

you you know if you write in if there's any question about how your name might be pronounced please

you know give us some help you know we will try we will do our best to pronounce it correctly

like Sam's last name yeah anyway so long time listener fan I was served this ad and he provided

a link to an Instagram ad for an armored Volvo XC90 while scrolling through Instagram and I was

surprised this exists I suppose I never think about armored cars though I have so many questions

such as how many consumer channel vehicles are actually offered as armored variations is this

an actual thing in the industry so yes usually it's like high-end luxury cars like BMW offers

armored versions of the seven series and I think the X5 and X7 yeah I saw the X5 in Germany

the armored version Mercedes Benz offers armored versions of several of their models like the S

class and the I think that probably the G wagon and GLS so typically yeah some high-end vehicles

offer you can order them you know through through the manufacturer you can order armored versions

I don't know if they if they're always necessarily built on the same assembly line or if they send

them somewhere else to be armored but yeah that is it is not uncommon oh Land Rover also does

armored versions of Range Rovers so they are out there usually on high end

do you guys ever get to see or get to drive them I've never driven one but I've seen them

and like up like they showed us the the BMW one they should like they lifted it up like on the

side so we could see underneath it and all the plating and everything in the glass and it was

it was really cool it's really you know it's it's it's it's uh it's one of those things like oh this

is a cool thing I'm not uh head of state so I'm okay I don't need it but it's it's kind of cool the

way they do it yeah yeah I've never driven one either I've seen them at auto shows but never

driven one um so what's the experience like are they significantly heavier and slower

are the mechanicals reinforced to accommodate the extra weight and whatnot other differences

so yeah they are heavier very heavy you know like the armor might add in some cases two to

three thousand pounds to the weight of the car so that means you know they've got to use tires with

higher load ratings they've got to have bigger brakes you know brings yeah update the suspension

components yeah all all kinds of things need to be upgraded to accommodate all that extra weight

um who's the target market for this I have no idea why the ad was served to me

well that's pretty standard for Instagram ads but it seems like Volvo's like trying to target some

kind of retail customer for this car outside of specialty security circles um well you know

if you live in war zones like Portland um you might want one of these that one block where the

everyone's right you know those those uh those inflatable costumes whoo dangerous yeah yeah no I

mean the target market is going to be uh you know the heads of state you know political figures um

maybe some CEOs you know uh you know really big companies things like that for anyone who's ever

angered a lot of people oh maybe I better get one man yeah and so journalists uh yeah every

journalist uh what's the destination fee for all that beefed up armor uh if you have to ask

you can't yeah yeah I think it's I think the destination fee is probably the same but the

car is so much more expensive that the destination fee doesn't even count yeah doesn't even matter

anymore they're like you know what we're gonna we're gonna waive the destination fee here's

$300,000 in armor yeah plus you have to wait for the glass the glass has to be bullet proof

any other experiences or insight you may have with this category of vehicle

not beyond what we've just said so yeah they don't I think they don't I think for the most part they

try to keep these a lot of the information about these vehicles just a little bit close to their

chest just so there's so you know if you share the more information you share the more information

that's out there that allows someone to exploit something that's my I mean that's my opsec idea

about these um you know you don't need to you don't the fact that was on instagram at is

bonkers to me um because you know the people who need these are looking for these yeah that's

what it comes they know where to look yeah they know they know a guy yeah um all right um before

we uh before we wrap up uh after after we say goodbye uh there is also an interview

that Nicole um recorded a couple weeks ago with Omer Weisman from Michelin uh so we'll

have that on at the end here uh but before we say goodbye uh Robbie it's November uh and I know

usually in November you do something to raise some money for uh those that uh you know maybe a need

uh you know maybe food insecure you want to talk about that are you doing that again this year

yeah yeah I usually do in October um we didn't we did because we do taco tober and then part of

taco tober is that we also so so the idea was we have a I have a band and it's called drastic cats

and if you donate more than $50 to Feeding America and you give me uh if you tell me you know some me

a link or you know via blue sky or email or whatever we'll write a song about you we don't

have to know much about you can like share some information about yourself so it helps because

sometimes it's people I know but sometimes people I have no idea who they are and they'll

just take like one person like oh I just bought a new computer so we just wrote a whole song about a

computer um and so yeah so um well if we're talking about I might as well do it so yeah so I think if

you uh talk I'll I'll I'll set it up and send you a link you can put in the in the um the show notes

for it um but it's yeah so as I grew up really poor uh like we were very few insecure there

there are photos of me as a child where I look like a skeleton like a skeleton child um and so

it's to me it's it's you know we've been doing this for for for years I think now it's more

important than ever with the the sort of insanity of the of of snap that benefits um and you know

I will occasionally meet somebody who doesn't understand who doesn't believe that there are

people in this country who go hungry at night who go to bed without food who kids especially who um

and I remember like not having food especially in the summer when you don't have like that that

free lunch at school that we had so it is a it is a real issue it is continues on um and if you

want to send you know some money then uh I will write a song about you um I will I will

wrangle in the other guy from dressed to cats it might it likely will not come out in November

it takes us a little while because the whole deal for this is that we write and record a song in

about an hour um but we it's always best if we come in with some ideas you know maybe a melody

maybe a guitar riff maybe one of them was just a drum beat that I have and I'm like what's this

how's this sound to you and then the the other person in the band he came up with this really

great uh guitar riff for it and so then we wrote a song about car saturday morning cartoons that

was because it was about somebody had said it they wanted to be about their kids and their love of

saturday morning cartoons so yeah so feeding america I will set it up uh now and I'll uh well

we can put a link in the show notes and I will warn uh michael calori he's an editor at wired he's the

other person in drastic cats that we uh we need to uh we need to get the get the band back together

because we haven't we haven't done an album in two years and we still owe music from last year so

here we go let's do this all right and you know also you know if you you know if you have a local

food bank you know as as robby mentioned you know a lot of people haven't gotten their their snap

benefits this month because of the government shutdown um you know reach out to your your local

food bank see what they need um you know a lot of times you know they will have a list of the

the stuff that they need donated um or you know just give them a cash donation that that also helps

cash cash is best because they can use they have a better buying power than you do so like the

dollar that you spend on a can of peas they could buy like five cans of peas with that dollar so

it's always best to send them cash yeah last week my wife and I went uh you know we got the list from

from one of our local food banks and we went to Costco and got about 400 bucks worth of stuff and

took it over there um and so you know check check out what your what your local food bank needs

um and help out people who uh who aren't getting fed uh yeah and if you have time they're having

you know some of them are looking because they have to they feed they fill boxes it's for people

who are coming by to pick it up sometimes they need people to help just fill boxes or all day

you know a couple hours you're just putting things in boxes and getting it ready for the next person

are your handing stuff off here checking off a list you know just whatever you can do if you

can if you can afford it but if you have some time or if you know just whatever if you can't and if

you can't I completely understand don't this is not I I've never wanted to guilt anyone into doing

anything just because again growing up without you know money or time is like really sort of

wires your brain in a weird way where you're like okay I understand it's cool it's cool being poor is

very expensive you have no idea people people if if you've been fortunate enough to grow without

being broke all the time you don't think about it but like being poor like a traffic ticket or

a parking ticket can like throw off your entire month you're like well now we don't have money for

this so yeah being poor is extremely expensive yeah and then um one other thing that I participate in

is a project called Operation Frodo which our friend Nick Miles started organizing several years

ago we found out that in Nebraska for example at the end of hunting season in the fall a lot of

dogs a lot of beagles get abandoned hunters will you know the dogs were not productive enough

they will just abandon them you know sometimes they'll just shoot them out in the woods

sometimes they'll turn them into shelters or rescue organizations and so we work with with a

rescue organization in Omaha to transport dogs to homes on the west coast where there are people

looking for dogs to adopt and so coming up in mid-December we have this this the next edition

Operation Frodo where we get we get some press vehicles that are loaned to us by automakers and

they provide also provide cash donations to help pay for the fuel and food and supplies for the

dogs and hotel rooms and we drive from Omaha to Denver to Salt Lake City to Boise to Portland

last year we transported 23 dogs to permanent homes and we're going to be doing it again

this December and so there's a link for any in the show notes as well for that if you you

know if you want to make a little donation to help out with that operation and right now I'm

actually working on organizing the next one which is going to be in the spring probably late May

early June when we're going to do it and use all EVs for that one so that should be that should

be an interesting challenge I have told Nick that I'm going to do it every year and every year

I've just it's never worked out and so I'm glad you're doing it because I would just be like just

cuddling with puppies the entire time I'm like oh you guys can drive I got to keep track of these

dogs somebody's got to cuddle the puppies someone has to cuddle so yeah last year we had about

about 20 automotive journalists that that took part and we went you know in shifts and driving

from the middle of the country to the west coast and made a lot of dogs got better lives and

and happier families so all right now we'll say goodbye and continue listening to Nicole's

conversation with Omar Weissman from Michelin bye okay everyone so I have a chance to attend

the Petit Le Mans in Atlanta with the folks from Michelin and I have here with me Omar Weissman

trying to say his name right and he is the VP of Marketing North America B2C from Michelin thank

you for taking the time to chat with me no hi Nicole thanks for having me I am super looking

forward to our short discussion today yes so one of the things that I this sort of struck me when

I was at the event they took us on a tour we saw the pits and the number of tires that they go through

it's a huge number of tires it's not a small number and but they're all tires that are really

specifically designed for racing and I'm wondering why for Michelin the effort for those tires how

does that translate for consumers because no one's putting theirs those tires on their Toyota Camry

oh you're right and you know for motors for for Michelin motorsport has always been a very

important place first of all it's in our DNA because motorsport is the center of excellence

for innovation and when you look at our purpose we want to be and to develop the best possible

tires no matter the usage no matter who is the end user of it and so when we have

decided obviously to accelerate our presence into the motorsport industry the first objective was

to make sure that we develop the best possible tire for a racer and obviously if you develop the

best possible tire for the race that tire and that technology will help you to develop the

best possible tire for the street so having the best combination between the grip between

the traction between the wear helping you actually optimize your performance within a race will

obviously help us get all those insight and all this technology into our street tires so the first

really reason is this center of excellence of innovation the second reason is our sustainability

effort i think that you had the chance to be exposed to the new tire line that we were going

to launch in 2026 the pilot sport cap two endurance which is made with 50 percent five zero of

recyclable and renewable material so we try as much as possible to have again the racing industry

with the sustainability goals a second element within the sustainability goals is all of our

AI simulation so what we try to do as much as we can is to minimize the time on the road to test

the tires so thanks to AI simulation we are able actually to take those tires to model those tires

within the right cars and then to test it other all the different conditions and so we don't have

to go every time you know to the track then to rebuild the mold and to rebuild the tire we can

adjust it very quickly so one we are obviously being way more sustainable and two in terms of

go to market and the time between the launches of product is shrinking so that's actually a great

laboratory for us to be even more active in our sustainability goals but at least and i hope you

saw it the connection with the consumers those people that are so passionate about racing when

you talk to them about the tires nicole i have to say um i'm only three years in the industry

but when i had the chance to sit in some of the table talking with passionate consumer of corvette

about how the tire affect their driving and how they're so happy with that it's it's just mind

blowing and you saw so many people coming into the fan zone so it's a great way for us as well to

express the why machine and why we feel that we produce and provide to our consumer the best

possible tires and so the combination of the three is why do we want really to continue and be present

and that's why we extended our uh insa partnership for for ten additional years so for the sustainability

part of that which when you think about tires i mean there you see tires disposed of in places

it's a separate place at the dump like it's a big deal trying to dispose of tires so making

them more sustainable how you used recycled materials how about in terms of wear like in

and the ability to say once that tire is done what do you do with it it's not hard environment

so so so you are totally right that's a key point that we we try to tackle um one of the promise

that we have is it as a company is obviously to extend the wear that we can have for our tire line

and if you look at our major tire lines today so if we take the defender um the defender tire line

the cross climate two tire lines they are lasting on average 25 percent more than our major competitor

25 percent to five it's huge it can go up to two years of additional wear that you have with the

mission tire and and it's compared to major competitors that are actually premium players

and i think it's so important for us to be proud of of that because that's really something that

we are working and all of our team are working so hard to make sure that from the first mile to the

last mile you have the same performance so it's not only about the wear but it's about the wear

within the performance making sure that you have the best performance from your tire from the first

mile to the last mile and that's something that we are um very attentive to because in terms of

the overall cost we know you know tire are um a big part of the total cost that we have for cars

but if you are managing to have an additional one year 18 months two years with the same performance

without actually having any any issues to your safety or to your um driving habits that's that's

great also for for your portfolio for your for your for your bank account so at the end of the day

we are trying as much as we can to have this magical formula between optimizing the wear

and optimizing the performance within the wear and something you just want to touch on because

you're the tire expert and as we just mentioned i live in new england and winter is coming the

optimized wear the optimized performance how important is putting a winter tire on your car

when it gets cold i mean you know it's uh there's there's something in french you can say that

one image can describe a thousand words and i think that when when you have the real feeling

when you go actually into a winter condition and you don't have the right tires um i trust me when

you go once you you don't want to go again and so i think that i can obviously tell you how much i

believe in that from a security standpoint etc but if i want to be real if you experience it once

you just don't want to get into this situation again and that's why um you know our cross climate

to um tire line um is obviously for an all weather situation helping us being able to

have the same performance across the different condition if it's for winter or summer and obviously

if you are in an extreme winter condition then you can go with a specific and a tailored winter

tire so we try as much as we can in our um different portfolio of tire line to have the

right tire line for the right condition but also to have these um those choices for the consumers

because at the end of the day we are here for safety and to make sure that um the um the driver are

having a smooth drive without without our lines and as far as understanding tires because there's

a lot more to it like they're not the most exciting looking part of your car right they're the black

pieces of rubber that we don't we don't think a lot about tires what if you could give consumers

one really good piece of advice like this is what you need to do to make sure that you are driving

on the tires that are right for you in your vehicle what would you give consumers so that's a good

question um the first thing i would say um be curious be curious and and try to um to get the

most information that you can obviously um we implemented a new immersive experience nicole

and i invite you to go and see on our missionman.com website where you can really play and have a

gamification that helps you also understand what tire line you need for what usage and so we try

really and we saw a huge engagement for new generation actually that they don't necessarily

want us to talk to them as we've been talking to consumer about tire before but we try to have

more dedicated about usage and what can i do with this tire it's not only necessity it's also about

the pleasure of driving and we see it more and more i was talking about this notion of pleasure

from the corvette drivers um but more and more the more you'll be exposed to premium tire the more

pleasure you might get even without noticing when you're driving the quiet that you can get so all

those elements are so important to get educated on to understand you know what do you really want

from your tire you want the wear but you also want the right grip you want to make sure that you

are driving safely um and those elements are important i would say from an overall standpoint

so just going to our website to our different touch point trying to get familiar with what we

are producing sorry we what you're we're producing and and the attention that we pay to detail and

the innovation that we put in the into a tire um that's what i guess we are most proud about is is

every tire that we are taking out of our of our plans is is checked individually by all of our

by every employee uh at the plan to make sure that we have the best possible tire going out of the

of the plan to the streets so um just just that just that and what's that what do you think the next

big thing that you're gonna like that you're excited about for Michelin in terms of your

your next there's always some new products some new idea what's your what are you most excited about

um that's a good question i'm i would say i'm very excited about the new partnership that we have

with the IMSA the extension of our partnership uh for um our until 2035 i'm super excited about

the new tire line uh that you saw also about the design of this new tire line i don't know if you

pay attention to it but it's a really a breakthrough design so it's not only the as you said the old

black i would say uh round it looks pretty nice i like it to be honest and i think that that's

that's something i'm excited about um and definitely our our action in term of uh

leading the way in terms of sustainability and you call it's it's an important one you know we

are within the tire industry um within the racing industry and the fact that we race for change

um that's that's something i'm excited about it's it's it's all the small effort that we put

together into driving the next mobility of tomorrow to be more sustainable and to be closer to our

consumer expectations so um overall i'm i'm definitely excited about the next things that are

coming some of them i cannot share with you today i promise i promise that i will so we'll talk in

the next few months we have some great news um and um and hopefully um those great news are going

to be um appealing as well for our consumers and partners excellent so well um we thank you so much

for taking the time to chat with me i appreciate it i'm looking forward to seeing what the next

secret things that you won't tell me right now are take care again because bye bye bye

Fun Not Hardcore

About this episode

Honda That Honda

Land Range Rovers

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Wheel Bearings