Is Elon Musk Worth $1 Trillion and What Are the Most 'Made In America' Vehicles?

Welcome back to The Gas, brought to you by AmericanCars and Racing.com.

I'm Gary Gastelew, and this is your service station for the latest American automotive and

racing news.

Joining us later in the show, one of our favorite people from the motorsport scene, you know

him as Bozy.

He's going to be helping us dissect the very tumultuous end to the NASCAR season.

But look, this is the Gary and Alex show, and with me in the right seat, as always, despite

my best efforts, Alex Nunez.

How's it going today, sir?

Let's see.

We've made it now two weeks.

You have not thrown me out of the car yet, so I'm happy to be here, Gary.

Yeah.

You got to stop adjusting the temperature, though.

I like it at 68.

All right.

Well, I'd like to go a little lower, but we'll get that solved.

Always a problem when you're in the car.

I don't know if you noticed, we've updated the intro music, we got the old-timey guest

station bell there.

I was just thinking of this.

When do you think the last time you pulled into a guest station that had the bell was?

Did they make it into the 2000s?

Was it the 90s?

I cannot remember the last time I pulled in and heard a bell.

So I would have to guess it was probably in the 90s.

It may be even earlier than that.

I mean, there's got to be one out on a dark desert highway somewhere that still has it.

100%.

I mean, they're definitely out there because somebody's going to walk out and ask if you

need help or whatever, somewhere that still exists, but not around here, man.

Obviously self-serve guest stations got rid of the need for that, especially once you

have the self-pay guest pumps.

I'm from New Jersey though, of course, where we have full-service guests and always will.

But I was thinking of something odd.

The new electric car chargers, they are self-service.

I'm surprised the guest station folks haven't gotten in on that action and said, wait a

minute, what are people doing charging their own cars?

Get in.

Give it time.

Somebody will figure out a way to legislate some level of assistance, required assistance

into that, I'm sure.

Might be the worst job ever.

Plug it in, wait a half hour, unplug it, plug it in, stand there and do nothing for a half

hour.

But monitor plug-in, you could probably add to the cost per kilowatt hour for the

babysitting aspect.

A lot of those stations, of course, run by Tesla and the Tesla Supercharger Network,

a lot of people forget probably the key to that company's success.

Having those chargers, you couldn't have sold cars a decade ago without that charging

network and that was a brilliant move by Tesla.

Of course, the design of them, very good as well.

Every automaker is now adopting the Tesla style plug and is going to be compatible

with the Tesla Supercharging Network.

So no surprise, along with many other things, that Tesla shareholders just voted to give

Elon Musk a new pay package that could be worth up to $1 trillion if he hits a bunch

of hurdles, company value, sales and profits targets, but 75% of the shareholders voted

for this.

Now, I understand there are people out there and I understand why they would like

to see Elon Musk fail.

Let's move that aside.

There were also some people who are against this pay package, but it's entirely

performance-based.

The company needs to be worth $8.5 trillion by 2035.

It's $1.3 trillion now.

Everybody wins.

The people running the company think they can't do it without him.

Seems like this was kind of a no-brainer when it comes down to it.

As ridiculous as the number sounds.

Number's crazy, but also he gets nothing if he doesn't hit these different targets.

Yeah, it's all in.

The motivation is there.

I know there are a ton of people that have issues with Tesla or electric cars

or whatever and more Elon.

But the reality is, the guy has done things that nobody else can do.

If anybody's going to pull this off, it's probably going to be him.

It's not surprising.

I mean, if you look at Tesla, not as a car company per se, but as like a type

of founder-led thing, I mean, this guy is the visionary that's been pushing a

lot of stuff for the last whatever, however many years we're with Tesla now.

I'm not surprised by it.

I'm not surprised that the shareholders voted for it.

Would I bet for it or against it?

Neither.

I think it's going to be really interesting to see how this all plays out

now because this is a guy who's clearly motivated to do it.

And, you know, the body of work suggests that even if he doesn't

hit all the targets, probably going to hit some of them along the way.

And forget the vision part.

Forget his knowledge of technology.

I'm not saying he designs all of the Tesla products, but he obviously

is good at guiding the people who do.

He's also one of the few people on the planet who could call literally

anybody else on the planet, including presidents and kings, and have them

not let it go to voicemail.

That ability is probably more invaluable than anything else he does with the company.

Absolutely.

Again, there's a lot of reasons why people voted for it so overwhelmingly.

I mean, you heard some of the arguments against if you listened

to the meeting or read the transcript.

People making their case.

But the majority of shareholders are like, yeah, we're all in on this.

Everybody involved has, you know, really made a lot of money.

Tesla is a wildly successful company.

And Elon's other companies are doing really impressive things.

So again, I'm not surprised.

Will it get there?

I mean, these targets are crazy.

I mean, these are not, you know, garden variety numbers.

These are like all moonshot numbers.

Even some of the steps along the way are almost hard to comprehend.

I guess we'll find out.

But not surprised, not opposed to it either.

You know, if you could pull that off, I think you've demonstrated that you earned it.

Good news for American manufacturing, perhaps, based on the latest.

We love this report.

The Made in America auto index that comes out every year from American

University's Co-God School of Business.

Now, this is different, of course, than the American Cars and Racing

U.S. Built Car of the Year awards, Alex.

Not the same thing.

Yes.

U.S. Built Car of the Year awards.

If it's Made in America qualifies.

And those are our favorite cars to drive the ones we think you should be buying.

Go check it out on American Cars and Racing.com.

But the Made in America auto index looks at car companies who build the cars

in America, looks at where the parts for those cars come from, looks at

where the companies are headquartered and calculates their impact on the U.S. economy.

And Tesla absolutely slam dunks this report.

On a scale of 100, the brand got 84.

Honda was second.

Honda, 56.

And then Ford, who actually builds the most vehicles in America, 55.

But every Tesla sold in America is made in the United States.

So the cars have a huge impact when you do buy them.

And obviously, this is becoming much more important these days.

Yeah, it's interesting because you think of American automakers,

you think of General Motors, Ford, and what I still call a Chrysler,

but Stalantis, whatever.

And you sort of forget that Tesla is now this very impactful,

completely American player in U.S. automobile manufacturing.

And everything sort of is dotted lines back to how we open the show.

They sell a ton of cars here.

They build them all here.

And by all third party accounts, these cars have all gotten better over time.

Ford 55, I said.

GM 53 and American Motors 50.

That, of course, being the Stalantis American brands,

which I will continue to call American Motors until they actually change the name.

Make that change.

And you mentioned Honda.

It's important to note, I think, also,

Honda built a ton of cars here.

And you'd think back decades, right?

It was like, oh, you wanted a Japanese car.

Well, this is a Japanese automaker that builds exceptional cars

and builds a ton of them here.

And that's really noteworthy.

I mean, people forget also, it's not just your garden variety every day.

You know, daily driver stuff like a pilot or whatever.

It's these guys developed and built the NSX here.

So Honda is fully capable of building world class automobiles right here.

Part of the hit on the Stalantis American brands, Jeep, Bram, Chrysler,

and Dodge is the fact that Stalantis is headquartered in Europe, technically.

So they had to take off a couple of points there.

If it did constitute, though, the American Stalantis brands,

American Motors, it owns the rights to that.

It should use that name.

Forget Chrysler.

Chrysler's done.

It's a poor brand.

It should not be the umbrella.

If they ever reconstitute the American brands under one umbrella,

I'm going with American Motors.

But that would really help out their score on this list

if they can bring that corporate money back to the United States.

All of it. Yeah, I mean, a lot of this, you know, too,

when you just look across the board, I think is and you're seeing it happen now.

It's not going to happen.

None of this can happen quickly.

But when you you talk about manufacturing, you know,

previously it was like North American manufacturing.

And now the focus there's a huge focus and incentive to build more things

in the United States proper.

And so we're already seeing things, you know, shift and move around.

And I think we'll continue to see that the bottom line is

there's a ton of really good cars and trucks that you can buy

that are made entirely here and supporting American workers and all of that stuff.

Well, regardless of what Stilettas does with their headquarters, Alex,

they are getting back into America's motorsport next year.

Ram trucks heading into NASCAR.

We were talking to Brendan Queen last week.

He was a great guest.

But let's talk about NASCAR a little bit here.

We have to. The season just ended.

It was quite controversial, to say the least,

the way things wrapped up.

Denny Hamlin not winning the championship due to a late tire blowout

on William Byron's car.

Hamlin dominated the race, started from Paul, led the most laps,

three laps from the finish.

And as happens in NASCAR, a yellow flag came out late.

We got thrown into overtime.

And with the winner take all championship format,

Denny was denied yet another title.

Alex, was there anything good to take away

from the end of the NASCAR season this year?

This is what I'll say. It was a weird weekend.

You have what everybody, I think the consensus is,

on Friday night in trucks, you had the rightful champion

come away with the with the title, right?

Saturday, wild stuff.

You know, a ton of people talking about, you know,

Conor Zillish coming up short after what was a dominant season.

Jesse Love in the two car is the Xfinity series champion

and the swan song for Xfinity.

And obviously, we had Kyle Larson coming out on top on Sunday.

And what I would say is this,

I understand a lot of the disappointment.

And I think that Denny is really interesting

because Denny, who's not to use like a wrestling term

because I hate to like attach that to NASCAR,

but like Denny always like is has this persona

of like the heel for a lot of fans.

But I think a lot of people were really rooting for him to win.

And he did dominate.

He had three second.

I mean, he was cruising to the finish.

It sucks that it ended the way it did.

But all of the champions are legit champions

because they are champions in the format.

The drivers don't have a say here in the format.

So you cannot denigrate any of the three titles

that were won over the weekend.

So I mean, and Kyle Larson,

I mean, absolutely a deserving champion.

The guy is unbelievable.

NASCAR is in actually a good spot.

They have a ton of fantastic drivers.

And maybe down the line,

we'll see some changes that, you know, alter the circumstances

that determine the championship.

It's sucked to see Denny lose.

You felt for the guy, all legit champions.

My final thing that I'll say is the winner.

Take all format does take away, in a sense,

from the actual race itself on Sunday.

I'm watching the race and it's like,

I didn't realize for a couple of minutes that, you know,

Blaney won the race.

So no one remembers this.

No. And you had you had a race winner

and you had a race to the finish.

You don't get Brad Kosolowski was, you know, in there too.

And you had what was a thrilling finish,

but the focus was entirely on, you know,

the jousting to see whether Larson or Denny

would come out ahead of each other.

So I think it sort of takes away from that,

which I think sucks because any automobile race,

these guys are really all like busting their ass to win.

And I feel like the the actual race winner

Sunday didn't get quite the the props that was that was deserved.

Yes, it got coverage, but the focus was on the championship.

So the the actual race results got lost.

Corey Heim also had a poll, an amazing move

in overtime in the trucks race to save his championship

almost lost because of a late yellow as well.

I mean, that's seven wide was was wild.

I mean, that's what you want.

That's what you want actually in racing.

I mean, that that was reminiscent of IndyCar, that Fontana.

You know, you would see these like four or five wide type things.

That's what it felt like, you know, the end of that trucks race.

But NASCAR really is the only sport

where something that happens to someone behind you

could ruin your race.

There's no yellow flags in the Olympics, you know,

somebody trips behind you, you get to win the race.

And that's really, I think, what hurt the most

in this instance with Denny Hamlin.

And then, of course, you have the situation

where Kyle Larson during his press conference says

he felt awkward about it and is almost apologetic for winning.

William Byron, who caused the yellow flag

and it wasn't his fault, the tire blew out.

You know, he had to apologize as well.

I mean, the only championship I can remember

that seemed that strange was when Naomi Osaka

beat Serena Williams at the US Open

and had to apologize at the end

because there were some bad calls during the game.

But you don't see champions feel like they have to justify

the fact that they just won something.

Yeah, that was weird.

And I think that also like created this weird atmosphere

in all of the celebrations.

You know, you mentioned Larson, I would also add,

I think that William Byron came off as a really class act.

That guy felt awful about it.

And it's not it's not his fault.

You know, the mechanical failure, you know, a tire going down.

That's not on him.

That's racing.

Exactly. But it doesn't always happen in racing.

It only happens sometimes and in this car only at some tracks.

But as we saw in Phoenix, when it happens, it happens badly.

There were a bunch of cars blowing out tires left and right

or should I say right, because they were mostly the right side tires

during the race, which begs the question, why did that happen?

And to help us answer that, we're now joined by race mechanic,

journalist, you know him as Bosie.

He is Bosie to Taravich, also one of Charlotte, North Carolina's

great pie enthusiasts.

Welcome to show him Bosie.

Thank you. I appreciate the intro.

That's very, very encompassing.

You're so jacked.

We see you there in pit lane, but you eat pie every day somehow.

I don't know how you do it.

It's it's it's it's all about all about a moderation

and enjoying the fun things in life.

I think that's something that I've learned kind of in my older age now

of like it's good to train, it's good to be on top of things,

but you need to take a moment to enjoy, you know, everything every day,

whether there's just a walk outside or a piece of pie.

If you love racing, follow him on his social media.

If you love pie, do that as well.

So the Michelin man, he's actually made of tires,

Bibendham, the old fashioned white tires,

but I'm fairly certain you know more about tires than anybody.

So I need you to explain to us why every once in a while

there's an S car race where tires just start blowing out.

So I'll say that there are a lot of other people that know a lot more.

I'm just really good at asking them questions

and getting them to tell me what's happening with the tires.

But the general idea actually goes back to the design of the NASCAR Cup car.

So the NASCAR Cup car is different than previous generations

that are raced in the series because it relies on underbody arrow

to generate downforce.

So previous versions of the car, they would rely on the spoiler

on the sides of the car, so stuff that goes over the body.

So as air hits the rear spoiler, it pushes the rear of the car down,

creates downforce.

The Gen 7 or next gen Cup car uses a flat underbody

with the diffuser on the rear.

And the way that works is air flows from under the front of the car

down that smooth slippery floor and then hits the straights to the rear diffuser,

which are basically these blades that stick out from the back of the car.

As more air attaches to those blades, it creates more downforce

as it pulls the car down.

So the goal of the teams is to get the car as low as possible to the ground.

Now NASCAR, in their kind of all encompassing idea for the next gen car,

doesn't want the teams dragging those diffusers on the ground

because that whole underbody is tens of thousands of dollars.

So what they did is they put rub blocks, which are these metal blocks

at the center of the car to prevent the car from bottoming out.

But they also put stoppers in the rear shocks.

So the rear shocks can only compress to a certain point.

And then they'll hit these hard stops.

And those hard stops basically prevent the teams from setting the cars up

so they can hit the ground or get as close to the ground as possible

in order to prevent some of these issues like destroying the diffuser

and some of these other things.

So what teams have figured out is, hey, if the shock can't go any lower,

we'll just make the tire go lower.

So what they do is, you know, Goodyear might say, hey,

we want you guys to start these at a minimum of 15 psi or 20 psi or 25 psi,

depending on the track and the side of the car.

And the teams go, well, we'll do half of that just because we want

the car basically slammed to the ground as much as possible

because that allows them to generate maximum downforce and over a long run

as the tire generates heat and builds pressure on the car rises.

It won't rise as tall as it would if they ran the minimum pressure.

But that creates an issue at certain tracks where they're doing these

types of things, when they go out on those fairly, fairly low pressures,

you have a tire that's basically pressed down on the sides.

So if you've ever seen an HRA drag racing, when you see the tires kind of ripple,

it's not that bad, but it's leans in that direction.

And what happens here is they'll go out on track and especially at a track

like Phoenix, if you have low tire pressures and you say transition

into the dog leg where you can see the cars bottoming out,

sometimes creating sparks, what you're doing is you have this

very floppy piece of rubber that hits the hard, hits the track hard.

And the edge of the wheel will actually hit the sidewall of the

tire. So all those supporting metal braids and things in the sidewall of the

tire, they'll get pummeled by an aluminum wheel that's very stiff, a forged

aluminum wheel. And if it gets pummeled enough times, it'll start to break

some of those reinforced belts in there and it'll weaken the sidewall of the tire.

So now as these cars keep racing, the temperature and pressure inside

will continue to build and eventually it'll build to such a point

where it'll escape out of those cracks that were created when

the sidewall got damaged early on in the run.

So that's why we typically don't see tires blowing out immediately after a pit cycle,

but after a few laps, those degraded sidewalls will will break open and then

eventually it'll completely bust and you'll have a flat tire.

Now, if you get lucky, like Hamlin did at one point, it started going down

as he was coming to Pit Road anyway for a pit side as well.

You'll be you'll have teams because his team was probably I would say

his pit crew had the best contingency plan with the double jacks and everything.

They only lost maybe a second and a half on the pit stop, even though they had

to use two jacks because the car was on the ground because of a flat.

So that's the optimal scenario if that happens to you.

But occasionally, especially attracts like Phoenix, which has reduced

downforce anyway, because it uses smaller diffuser, that's the short track diffuser.

You'll occasionally have blowouts that'll happen at inopportune times

or inopportune areas of the track or corner, like we saw with A.

Jammondigger and they'll hit the wall.

So there's big, big reward, but also a big, big risk.

And the only way to really mitigate that is to crank up the pressure.

So we'll see teams occasionally they'll get into trouble like that

and they'll crank up the pressure on the next set of tires.

But sometimes teams will get behind and that's really the only tool

they might have in the moment to try to gain some track position back

is, hey, we need to make the car as fast as possible.

So here's what we can do and here's the risk involved.

So people who don't know what you just told us, they see this and they think,

oh, man, good, you made some junky tires and they're all blowing out.

But it's really a choice that the teams are making by running the low pressures.

Now, my question is, why can't NASCAR or why doesn't NASCAR

institute a minimum tire pressure role that might mitigate this

and, you know, level the playing field for everybody?

I think that's partly partly team slash NASCAR politics and partly

technology of what the the temperatures and loads are in NASCAR.

So in in a lot of other race series, the wheels will have tire pressure

monitoring sensors and that data is transmitted back to the teams,

helps them with tuning the car, figuring things out.

And then series like IMSA will actually black flag you if you go

below a certain pressure.

And that's similar situations there, whether it's for downforce

or just for overall handling, you know, just for the way the pressures build.

Because even if you're not chasing any of this stuff with the aero perspective,

you want to start really as low as possible if you're going on a long run

because the more the tires will pressure, the worse the handling is.

So outside of all the aero benefits, teams will want to have pressures

as low as possible.

So you'll have series like IMSA where they'll monitor this.

And if you run with too low a pressure for too long, they'll black flag you

and you'll have to come in and do a pit stop to put tires on that can reach

the proper pressure in NASCAR.

I think part of it's just the hands off environment to a lot of the stuff

where they say, hey, we'll give you these recommendations.

We'll check you before the race and after the race,

but we're really not going to police a lot of this stuff here.

So that's kind of been part of it.

But NASCAR has looked at opportunities to monitor that.

And they actually do monitor tire pressures during testing.

So when they do these wheel force tests that are, you know,

non-competition environments, they'll have wheels and tires

with tire pressure monitoring sensors.

But what's happened in a lot of tracks when they've tested,

at least the early generation of the TPMS sensors is the loads

and temperatures are so high that the sensors fail.

So they have good year has had to really develop some advanced stuff

in order to be able to monitor this.

And they're getting better at it.

I think during like the third or fourth generation of the sensors

they use for testing now.

And the really fascinating thing is that the piece

that helped push the technology forward wasn't on an oval,

but it was a Le Mans.

So when they took the Garage 56 car to Le Mans,

they had a lot of development prototype stuff that they tried.

And that was an opportunity for Goodyear

to really put some of the tech through its basis.

So this is where they tried some of that TPMS technology.

And now they've been using that over here for testing.

So that's really the only way that they could prevent the teams

from doing what they're doing is to implement TPMS

and then implement a rule set.

But I think that's a tricky subject

that it also wouldn't nip all of it in the bud

because it's not just solely tire pressure.

It's also set up of the car.

So things like camber, which is the angle of the wheels,

also have a significant impact on how those tires get loaded.

And teams will want to get aggressive with camber

because it improves handling, but it impacts of, again,

how the tire gets loaded and how easily gets damaged.

So it's a combination of multiple factors.

And some of it's just really impossible to check in a race environment.

You could check it in pre-race tech or whatever else.

But teams are pretty crafty when it comes to this stuff.

So it's hard to do it.

But I don't put any of the fault on Goodyear.

Goodyear has been doing exactly what the industry and the teams have asked for.

And from my understanding, like the Phoenix tire now,

they've gone so soft that it's something like 50% softer

than any tire they ran with the previous generation cup car,

which is like significant.

So they're maxing out their equipment to try to give fall off

and do all of this other stuff.

But the structure of the tire, like the sidewall,

that's still very strong and based on any of the other stuff.

So the compound of the tire may not necessarily,

even though it's a lot softer,

now may not necessarily make a huge difference

of how these tires are failing

because the teams are damaging the structure of the tire,

the sidewall from these huge impacts.

And it's just really the shock loads.

There's thousands of pounds of pressure

that hits in that one point on the rubber.

Whenever that stopper and the shock bottoms out,

because if you can imagine,

it's basically like riding on a solid piece of suspension

because the shock bottoms out.

So everything between the driver's seat

and the edge of the wheel is solid now.

The only thing suspending the car from the track

is that little bit of rubber

between the edge of the wheel and the track.

Alex, you were involved with the Garage 56 project

to some extent.

You're a communications guru, as I've always called you.

As far as Goodyear is concerned,

how do they communicate what Bozy just told us

so they don't look bad when this happens again?

I don't think there's a whole lot for Goodyear to say.

I don't think Goodyear,

I think that Goodyear is not really being blamed by this.

NASCAR fans understand what the teams are doing

for the reasons Bozy just articulated.

It's one of the few things

that a team can adjust to try and take advantage

of the circumstances.

I'm glad that Bozy mentioned the Garage 56 program.

That was one of the big stories that came out of.

Garage 56 was Goodyear announcing

that they were gonna run this TPMS system

on that car at Le Mans.

This is not a Goodyear problem.

Just that's my position on it.

I don't think there's anything for Goodyear

to go out and defend themselves on.

Well, the good news is that next year

this probably won't be quite the same issue.

NASCAR certainly is gonna be updating the playoff

or the post-season format.

We don't know what it's gonna be yet.

The winner-take-all finale,

more likely than not, is gonna be going away.

So at least we'll have more races to pick from.

Makes it easier to win a championship

if you have one bad race.

And as far as the TV ratings,

hopefully they'll help there as well.

2.7 million for this year's finale, 2.9 last year.

I think maybe the best thing about this finale was that

it was really just the hardest core NASCAR fans watching it

and casual fans maybe didn't catch

what became something of a fiasco.

And hopefully they could start growing again

starting next year.

Next year's, it's around the corner.

I mean, that's the funny thing.

For as long as these seasons are for NASCAR,

this off-season is gonna feel like

it's about 25 minutes long

and we're gonna be talking about Daytona again.

And then, yeah, the playoffs will still be a conversation.

Obviously, there's gonna be a playoff in NASCAR.

They already announced that the championship ends

at Homestead Miami next year.

It'll be interesting to see what changes are in store.

I have no information on that, but let's see what happens.

Well, NASCAR season starts in Daytona.

Bozy's season in IMSA starts in Daytona

but of the 24 hours.

Good luck there.

And thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

And Alex, as always, again,

keep your hand off the thermometer, please.

The car is perfect temperature right now, all right?

I don't want to leave anymore.

I will trade you the HVAC control for the radio control.

That's not a bad sweet.

It depends on how long the trip is, not a bad swap.

Anyway, anybody listening on the radio right now,

thanks for listening.

And check back next week for the next edition of The Guest.

Thanks again, Bozy.

Talk to you soon.

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