The Jeep Wagoneer is a large, luxury SUV made by Jeep. The newest version, called the Wagoneer S, is a fast, high-tech vehicle that runs completely on electric power.
It's a high-performance version of BMW's standard 3 Series sedan. It looks like a regular luxury car but has a much more powerful engine, stiffer suspension, and stronger brakes for high-speed driving.
The BMW 3 Series is a luxury four-door sedan made by BMW. It is designed to be comfortable for daily driving while also feeling sporty and fast.
Car
BMW M340i
This is a fast, sporty version of the BMW 3 Series that sits just below the extreme M3 model. It gives you plenty of speed and fun handling but is softer and more comfortable for long road trips.
It's a used car that has been officially checked out and approved by the company that built it. Because they inspect it and fix any issues, they sell it with an extra warranty to give you peace of mind.
This is a fast, loud, rally-race-inspired version of a standard Subaru sedan. It has a big wing on the back, all-wheel drive for grip in the dirt or snow, and is popular with car enthusiasts who love manual transmissions.
The BMW M2 is a small, powerful two-door sports car made by BMW. It is designed for high-speed driving and sharp handling on race tracks and curvy roads.
The Subaru BRZ is a small, two-door sports car made by Subaru. It is designed to be lightweight and fun to drive around corners, rather than having a lot of passenger space.
The Chevrolet Trax is a small, affordable SUV made by Chevrolet. It is designed to be an inexpensive option for people who want a new car with modern technology and decent cargo space.
This is a small, rugged Subaru SUV that uses both a gas engine and an electric battery to save fuel. It sits higher off the ground than a normal hatchback, making it great for driving in snow or on dirt roads.
The Subaru Crosstrek is a small, rugged hatchback made by Subaru that sits high off the ground. It is designed to be easy to drive in the city while still being able to handle snowy roads and camping trips.
The Subaru Forester is a small, family-friendly SUV made by Subaru. It is designed to be safe, easy to see out of, and good at driving in bad weather like snow and rain.
This is the amount of space between the bottom of the car and the road. Cars with high ground clearance can drive over bumps, rocks, and deep snow without scraping their bellies.
The Mazda Miata is a small, two-door convertible car with two seats made by Mazda. It is designed to be fun and easy to drive on curvy roads, rather than being built for high-speed drag racing.
It's a small, budget-friendly pickup truck made by Ford that drives like a comfortable SUV rather than a giant, heavy truck. It is famous for getting excellent gas mileage and being easy to park in tight spaces.
The Hyundai Accent is a very small, budget-friendly sedan made by Hyundai. It was designed to provide simple, fuel-efficient transportation for daily commuting.
The Subaru Outback is a raised station wagon made by Subaru. It is designed for families who want a comfortable car that can also handle snowy roads and light dirt trails.
The Ford Lobo is a sporty version of Ford's small Maverick pickup truck. It is designed to sit lower to the ground and handle paved roads more like a sports car than a traditional off-road truck.
This is a giant, heavy-duty off-road version of Chevrolet's popular pickup truck. It has massive tires, specialized racing-style suspension to absorb huge bumps, and sits very high off the ground.
This is a large, comfortable Subaru station wagon that sits high off the ground like an SUV. The 'XT' part means it has a turbocharged engine, which gives it extra power for passing cars on the highway or climbing steep hills.
It's like cruise control but specifically for going down steep, slippery hills off-road. The car automatically pumps the brakes for you to keep you moving at a slow, safe crawl so you don't slide out of control.
The Subaru Outback Wilderness is a special version of the Outback wagon that is built to go further off-road. It sits higher off the ground, has tougher tires, and features special electronic settings to help it climb down steep, slippery hills safely.
The Toyota Corolla is a small, everyday passenger car made by Toyota. It is designed for driving on paved city streets and highways, and it sits close to the ground, so it is not meant for driving over rocks or rough dirt paths.
Instead of the pistons moving up and down like in most cars, the pistons in a boxer engine punch side-to-side horizontally, like two boxers sparring. This flat layout helps the car stay more balanced when turning corners.
The Subaru Trailseeker is a name used for a new electric SUV from Subaru. It is designed to run entirely on battery power while still being able to go on outdoor adventures.
The Jeep Wrangler is a rugged utility vehicle made by Jeep that is specifically built to drive over rough terrain like rocks, mud, and sand. It has a boxy shape, large tires, and parts like the roof and doors can be taken off.
This is a special version of Ford's small truck that is designed for paved streets rather than off-roading. It sits lower to the ground, has sporty wheels, and is tuned to handle corners more like a sports car.
The Aston Martin Valhalla is an extremely expensive, high-performance sports car made by Aston Martin. It uses a mix of a powerful gasoline engine and electric motors to go incredibly fast.
The Lucid Air is a high-end, luxury electric sedan made by an American company called Lucid. It is powered entirely by batteries and can travel longer distances on a single charge than almost any other electric car.
The Renault Wind was a small, two-seat convertible car made by a French company called Renault. It was unique because its metal roof could flip backward in one quick motion to let the sunshine in.
Slate is a new electric car company that is trying to build very simple, cheap electric trucks. Their vehicles are designed to be customized by the owner, even letting you print your own parts with a 3D printer.
The Toyota 4Runner is a tough, truck-like SUV made by Toyota that is famous for lasting a very long time and being excellent at driving over rough terrain. Older versions from the 1980s and 90s had a back section that looked like a truck bed with a removable cover.
This is a small, all-electric hatchback made by Chevrolet. It was one of the first electric cars that regular people could afford while still offering enough battery range to drive all day without recharging.
The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is a modern, fully electric van made by Volkswagen. It is designed to look like the famous retro VW buses from the 1960s but runs entirely on battery power.
This is a type of battery used in electric cars that is cheaper to make, safer, and lasts longer than standard batteries. The downside is that they are heavier and don't hold quite as much energy, so the car won't go as far on a single charge.
The Volkswagen Golf is a small, hatchback-style car made by Volkswagen. In the United States, it is mostly sold as a sporty, fast version of a practical hatchback.
This is the computer brain that watches over an electric car's battery. It makes sure the battery doesn't get too hot, too cold, or overcharged, which keeps the battery safe and helps it last as long as possible.
The Kia Soul is a small, box-shaped car made by Kia. It is known for its unique look, low price, and surprisingly roomy interior for passengers and cargo.
The GMC Sierra EV is a large, luxury pickup truck made by GMC that runs entirely on electricity. It is designed to do heavy work like towing while offering a quiet ride and high-tech features.
The Hyundai Elantra is a small, four-door family sedan made by Hyundai. It is designed to be fuel-efficient, affordable, and packed with modern safety technology.
It's a vintage car that looks classic on the outside but has been completely rebuilt with modern parts on the inside, like a new engine, modern air conditioning, and better brakes. It gives you the cool retro look without the headaches of driving an old, unreliable car.
The Ford Bronco is a boxy, off-road vehicle made by Ford. While there is a modern version you can buy today, older versions from decades ago are very popular collector's items that some companies convert to run on electricity.
The Volkswagen Bus is a classic, boxy van made by Volkswagen that was very popular in the 1960s. It is famous for its retro look and is a highly sought-after collector's item today.
A boxy, quirky SUV made by Honda that was designed to be incredibly practical for outdoor adventures or families. It had rear doors that opened backward, no carpet so you could easily sweep or wipe it out, and seats that could be completely removed to carry bulky gear.
The Ford Bronco Sport is a small SUV made by Ford. It looks like a rugged off-road vehicle but is designed to drive smoothly on everyday roads while still being able to handle light dirt trails.
These are car doors that open backward (hinged at the back instead of the front). When you open both the front and back doors, there is no metal pillar in the middle, making it super easy to load large items or climb into the back seat.
Polestar is a luxury electric car brand that started out making fast racing versions of Volvo cars. Today, they make sleek, modern electric cars that share a lot of parts and technology with Volvo.
The Polestar 4 is a sleek, electric luxury SUV made by Polestar. It is unique because it does not have a back window; instead, it uses a camera and a screen to show the driver what is behind them.
The Chevrolet Blazer is a mid-sized SUV made by Chevrolet. While older versions from the 1990s were built like rugged trucks, the modern version is a smooth-riding family vehicle available in both gasoline and electric versions.
This is a slang word used in Australia and New Zealand for a pickup truck. It originally referred to a car that had been modified to have a truck bed in the back, but now they use it for almost any small or mid-size truck.
The Chevrolet El Camino is a classic vehicle made by Chevrolet that looks like a regular car in the front but has a pickup truck bed in the back. It was discontinued in the late 1980s but remains famous among car collectors.
The Hyundai Santa Cruz is a small vehicle made by Hyundai that looks like a comfortable SUV in the front but has a small open truck bed in the back. It is designed for people who want the easy driving of a car but need to carry dirty outdoor gear.
The Jeep Cherokee is a medium-sized SUV made by Jeep designed for families. The 'Trailhawk' version was built with special parts to help it drive over dirt trails and rough terrain better than standard SUVs.
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Sam Abuelsamid (00:00)
This is episode four hundred and fifty nine of wheel bearings. I am Sam Abuelsamid from Telemetry.
Roberto Baldwin (00:08)
And I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:12)
And good to have everybody back again. Did it d you know what, let's let's start off with ⁓ Nicole's ⁓ experience. I think last week we briefly touched upon ⁓ or did did we talk about it last week? With okay, maybe it was after the show. Maybe it was after recording. But yeah, a a as everyone knows, Nicole is no longer the owner of a Jeep ⁓ Wagoneer S. And so she's been contemplating what to buy ⁓ as her next vehicle.
Nicole Wakelin (00:26)
I think we did 'cause it happened. No.
Roberto Baldwin (00:26)
No, we talked about it it was after
I am I am yeah. So I'm contemplating and it's actually kinda harder I think almost to buy a car when you know about them all because you want different parts of different cars. So it's really hard. Yeah, kind of, sorta sometimes.
just narrow in on the one or two cars that you like versus because you don't know any better, essentially.
Nicole Wakelin (00:59)
Right. And I'm like, well, I like this, I
like that, but this also like it's so it's very hard for me to decide. And I don't buy cars very often. So whatever it is, is I'm gonna have it for a while. So I have been looking at BMW and I was looking at thinking M3 or M340i, I think is what I was looking at. And ⁓ I said, Well, I just need I wasn't sure the M3. I love sporty, don't get me wrong, but like if I'm gonna go on a long drive, too sporty in New England is harsh. Yeah.
Like Robbie is bouncing around in his seat. It's harsh. And I haven't been in an M3 in a little while. And I thought, okay, I just need like five minutes at sea time, maybe 10 minutes. Take it on the loop.
I always take it on at my house and see, just see real quick, how harsh is this? Do I want that? I kind of want it because I like the idea of the power, but I don't want it because I'm worried it's going to be too harsh.
So I thought, well, I'll just go down to the dealership and I'll see what we can do. So I get down to dealership, walk in. I'm like, hey, tell him the deal. He goes, We you can't drive those.
And you cannot drive an M3. And I said, I'm sorry. He's like, you can't drive an M3 until you fill out all the paperwork and are approved and we've decided the price on the M3. Then you can drive it. And I literally thought I walked into the Twilight Zone. Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I did not say, Do you know who I am? But I did say, Why why would anybody buy a why would I buy that site unseen? Are you serious?
Sam Abuelsamid (02:10)
Did you say do you know who I am?
Nicole Wakelin (02:23)
And he said it's a dealership policy. I'll call him out. It was Tully BMW in Nashville, New Hampshire. And I said, he's like, well, it's a Tully policy, but a lot of dealers, I'm like, wait, so I could go to another dealer and they might have some option.
And I said, Why, PrayTel, am I not allowed to drive an M3? And he said, Well, you know, because people really want, you know, it's a collectible car and people want that car and people don't want to have anybody have driven it.
And I said, Well, it has some miles on it. You rolled the sucker off of a
truck somehow along the way. I don't need to put 50 miles on it. I literally just need like zip zip like five minutes in this all is all I need. I just need to feel the harshness. And he's and he knows what I've done.
I already told him I'm a journalist. He's like, well, you know, you really can't tell anything about a car. And I'm thinking, I can. Like, I know exactly what I'm doing. Yes, I can. That's all I need.
So then he's well, you know, and you might find that this is a little harsh and this is little too much and this is a little I'm like, are you drive, you begin it?
Sam Abuelsamid (03:22)
That's what I want to evaluate.
Nicole Wakelin (03:23)
Right. So so I'm thinking, okay. And then I said, All right. I said, well, I said, if it's because somebody buying a new one doesn't want any miles on theirs, I said, Do you have even a CPO that I could do that that would still give me enough of a taste of what this feels like to to get an idea?
It doesn't need to be the exact one I'm gonna buy, but it'll remi refresh my memory. No, you can't drive that either. And I said, If miles are the problem, then why can't I drive a CPO? 'Cause those all have miles.
hence the certified pre-owned part of the discussion. No, because they want exactly the number of miles on it that are on it when they see it online. I'm like, really? Okay.
Roberto Baldwin (04:03)
I I will tell you as someone who's who's who's who's been in the market and has dealt with like ⁓ performance vehicles, niche vehicles like this, is that they won't let you drive an STI at a lot of dealerships.
They won't even let you drive a WRX at a lot of dealerships because and and they can tell you all these reasons. The reality is they don't want twenty year old guys to come in and just do burnouts with their car and then bring it back.
And then so they have to come up with a thousand reasons and also the rule can't be
Roberto Baldwin (04:32)
We won't let twenty year old guys. It has to be we won't let anyone
Nicole Wakelin (04:36)
Feel like I'm thinking, like, I get it, like I get it, guys. It's not a car you want someone putting a thousand miles on. You don't want people hooning around in it. Come with me and cut me off if I'm like, nope, stop, get out.
I'm driving. Like, whatever. I I'm not do literally just you can drive it. You can drive it. I can still feel the harshness of the suspension, and I can feel enough. Just nope. So they went to it. So I was aggravated and ⁓ the husband was furious.
Because he felt a little bit like they're like, Well, little lady and they did have a little little lady attitude going on. And ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (05:09)
Yeah. I'm and I'm sure they had that that going
on, but also literally every like every time I've ch went to go drive like a car like this, it's always been like, Well, you know, unless you're buying it you can't drive it.
get it. But it was more the like, well, what are you what are you gonna be driving it for? What do you drive? What do you already drive? What's your like he was asking me these and you know, well, are you sure you'd want something? That's a lot of power. And I'm like some BS, yes. And I'm like, I get it. It was. Yeah. I know. So I said, you know what? Thanks. Thanks, appreciate you. Bye.
Roberto Baldwin (05:32)
No, that's some BS. That's some male BS girls. We have female drivers, you know, from the Simpsons.
Nicole Wakelin (05:47)
And I walked out and I thought, well, it's not okay, let's see. Let's see if we can find a dealership who will at least be better. Like maybe they won't let me drive one new. Maybe let's see.
So I find one in PBD Mass. And I call, I literally say to the guy, Dude, I want to compare these two cars. Can I drive them? I just need five minutes of seat time in that M3. I write about cars for a living.
I'm a journalist. I'm just trying to remember how harsh it is. That's all I'm trying to do. And he said, Absolutely.
Only problem is I don't have an M3 right now. He's like, however, let me see what I can do. And he's like, okay, I calls me like, texts me a couple days later. Is it okay if I text you? Yes. Okay. Here's the deal.
I don't have one. I have this. ⁓ he had M3, so he had one of the M's in the three series, but straight up M3. And he said, and I have an M2. He's like, the M2 is not the same. But if you want to sort of a vibe on that, how the suspension is, it'll give it to you.
And I said, well, but it's like different dimensions.
And he answered me like I wasn't an idiot. And it was brilliant. He talked about the the length of it and how it'll come out of corners and the chassis and this and that. And thought, he's my guy. He's my guy.
No. And he said, I have you on the wish list for the M3. And if I get one, I will let you drive it. We just don't get a lot of them in our dealership. So but I can put you in an M2 right now if you want to go for a drive.
So I'm gonna chat with him later and we're gonna see about going to drive a BMW. But I and I, you know, and it was such it was.
I guess the story is not just that y it's hard to drive higher end cars or performance cars, but man, don't go with a dealership that treat that does that. Like search around.
Roberto Baldwin (07:23)
They're probably this same type of
dealership that'll charge like like throw a fifteen thousand dollar surcharge on the car. Like BRZs when the f when the new BRZ came out, the dealerships some of the dealerships around here had fifteen thousand dollar it's a thirty thousand dollar car, guys.
Nicole Wakelin (07:39)
Right. It's like I'm not doing that. And that that
Nicole Wakelin (07:41)
was my thing. It was okay, get dealership policy. I even get that you don't want 20-year-old kids hooning around in your car. However, come up with a solution that doesn't prohibit someone who actually wants to buy your car and not destroy it from driving it. And also because it's a dealership policy, because initially he said that's our policy. And that's when I said, our policy meaning BMW or our policy meaning Tully BMW. He's Well, it's a Tully policy. I'm like, aha.
So he's like, well, you you'll find that everywhere. I well, let me make a couple phone calls, see what I can find there. First place I called was said, and then the guy even said to me, He's like, he's like, Well, that's surprising.
He's like, But did you ask him, could you just why wouldn't he let you drive it? I told him. And then he said, Well, would he would he let you drive a CPO? They must have one of those on the lot. They do, they will not.
He's like, ⁓ and I can see the guy at Peabody does not want to throw them under the bus, but he's like, I I don't, I don't even know what to say. Let me see how I can help you.
dude, but yeah. Yeah, so when I when I bought my WRX, I bought it used and w you know, some places were like, Yeah, you can't no one can drive it. And I found one in like Santa Monica. They're Yeah, we sure, go for it. Drive it around. Take your friend, my friend Micah, who was an automotive journalist at the time, he came out with me and we drove it around and we brought it back and yeah.
So I'm gonna have to I'm gonna make it time after the fourth of July to head down to BMW and Peabody and ⁓ see about
Nicole Wakelin (09:08)
It's P P P E A B O D Y. It looks like Peabody. It's pronounced peabity.
Nicole Wakelin (09:19)
PBD, that's just how you say it. P-E-A-Body. ⁓
It is a Massachusetts thing. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, it is. It looks like Peabody, but it's pronounced Peabody. So I will be going there. J D is the name of the guy that's been helping me out. He's been wonderful. So I'm gonna go there and see about driving some cars. And ⁓ if I decide I want the ⁓ I don't care if I have to wait longer. I am gonna buy it from the guys at Peabdee BMW instead of the guys at Tully BMW because
Nicole Wakelin (09:48)
I just did not like being treated that way. And then I also walked into a Porsche dealership where they made me wait for 40 minutes and never got me a car, and I walked out. I literally sat there. I'm like, hi. Like I felt like a little bit in Pretty Woman when she has the whole like handful of cash and she walks back into the fancy hotel and is if you could get something more appropriate. And she's like, I have money and they won't take it. I'm like,
I want to buy a car. Somebody. Yeah. So yeah. So the so I walked out of the portion.
Sam Abuelsamid (10:23)
So so so the lesson here is
if if you're shopping for a car and a dealer treats you with disrespect like that, just turn around and walk away. There's other dealers. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (10:34)
They're like they're usually like five,
ten miles away too. It's not like dealers are like
just walk away. ⁓ yeah, that's what you do. You walk away and you find somebody who will help you out and who will actually treat you like real person and not talk down to you and and when they hear your question, answers your question and has real answers for you and doesn't make you wait around, which you know they're it and it doesn't matter whether you're buying a Chevy Trax or a Lamborghini, you should get
Decent treatment in a dealership, no matter what you're buying. You're spending a lot of money. Walk away from a dealer who doesn't treat you well. There's no rant.
and if you work in automotive retail, treat any potential customer with respect. Even if it's a twenty year old guy. You know, explain to him, you know, this this is the deal, you know, I'm sorry, but you know, we don't trust twenty year old guys. And but treat with respect.
Sam Abuelsamid (11:36)
'Cause you never know, that twenty year old guy
might actually have enough money to buy that product that you're selling.
Nicole Wakelin (11:42)
You know, some of the people over the years, I worked retail a lot of years, and the people who often came in who looked the most like they didn't have two cents to rub together would be the people who would come in and actually turn out to be regular customers who spent quite a bit and did have a chunk of change.
And so you can't judge people by how they look or how their age or whether you're a guy or a woman or what they're wearing, and just treat everybody with respect and definitely.
Nicole Wakelin (12:09)
Definitely don't make people wait around for you for hours, like for almost an hour, forty minutes, and I was like, I'm out. Or just sort of talking down to him, like, Well, you don't really know what you're looking for here. I'm like, I do. I know what I'm trying to figure out, but you won't help me.
Sam Abuelsamid (12:21)
yeah, I mean if you if if you see a customer
in your showroom like Nicole that's sitting there that clearly is interested, you know, take a moment from whoever it is you're talking to and just go over and say, Hey, we're we're really busy right now. Can I make an appointment with you and have you come in at a at a at a time, you know, when it's convenient for you and and we can we can talk about what you need. That's you know that's a simple way to do it. Don't
cool with that. Like I get it, busy people call out. You're you got ten people walk in at the wrong moment. I'd be totally cool with that. But it was that sort of like, We see you, we're not gonna help you. You're gonna sit here for forty minutes to get the keys to the one car you asked to drive, and you're gonna sit here for forty minutes waiting for a set of keys. I'm not sitting there for forty one minutes. Forty was my max. And I'm like, dude, I'm out. I'm I like so
used to work in in in s I was a waiter for a long time in a busser and then I worked at like Kinkos and it's very easy to say, Hey, hi, how's it going? Thanks for coming in. ⁓ we'll be with you in a little bit. We're really busy. That's it. That's that's all you have to say. All you have to do is if if you acknowledge yes, you just acknowledge people, that goes a long way.
Sam Abuelsamid (13:25)
Yeah. Just acknowledge their presence. Yeah.
Nicole Wakelin (13:28)
Right. Well the the Porsche guy The
Porsche guy acknowledged me and I and he was initially nice, but then he said, I just have to I just give me one second, I have to give these keys to this other customer. Forty minutes later, he's walking he's like, just a second, just a second. I see him at the service desk. I dude, I'm right, you're killing me with this. And I was like, No, I'm out.
I I would have laid it fifteen minutes and left. I don't I'd have zero patience. I know you're you I'm like there's
Nicole Wakelin (13:54)
I know I gave it a good long try. I'm let's see how long this takes. It then became like a little thing, like how
long will he make me wait? And I'm like, no, at forty minutes, I'm out and done.
there's there's one thing you can't get back and that's time. And that could be napping. ⁓
Nicole Wakelin (14:07)
Mm-hmm. I could have been napping.
Nicole Wakelin (14:12)
I should have just napped. I do have to they had really comfy chairs at the porch dealership, but ⁓ yeah, could not get into the car I wanted. So that was my frustration. So after the fourth, I'm gonna make appointment with one BMW place and I'm gonna see about driving a couple cars, kinda get a feel for what I'm looking for, and I might go that route in my endless quest to decide what the heck car I should be driving.
Sam Abuelsamid (14:33)
So since you didn't get to drive a BMW and you didn't get to drive a Porsche, what did you drive this week?
things that were not nearly quite that exciting. so I I realized that I forgot to talk about I had ⁓ a wit bit bit ago, I had a Subaru Cross Trek hybrid. whoops, I just lost my screen. Wait, there we are. I'm good. so I had a Subaru Cross Trek hybrid, which isn't a new model, it's like part of the third gen of the vehicle to bring in the hybrid.
had this last week and then you have the week before, Sam.
Nicole Wakelin (15:09)
I don't know. It's just me.
it's I haven't had the Cross Track hybrid. I've had ⁓ Forester hybrid.
well, you know what was I had a whole bunch of Subarus and I'm like, wait, I never talked about this one. It was like on Subaru Fest for me. ⁓ you guys wanna take a guess at destination right off the bat? Since you know, why not?
Nicole Wakelin (15:31)
you got it, Sam. 1420, which is a weird number that I actually confirmed because it felt weird. But that is in fact what the website says right now. So as of this moment, 1420. ⁓ so there's only two trims of this.
So it's either 30, let's say $34,000 or $35,000 for the sport or for the limited. ⁓ you get plenty of cargo room in it. I like the cargo room. Subaru's always so good at making versatile vehicles with like lots of cargo room and it has that durable Subaru thing where you feel like you could just, you know.
throw in wet garbagey junk or whatever and it's just gonna be like no problem and it's gonna be totally fine, which is what I love about them. I feel like I should have had a Subaru when the girls were little because kids are so hard on things. ⁓ and this just stands up to everything. ⁓ there's a so you get an eleven point six inch touch screen, wireless Apple CarPlay Android Auto, you get a bunch of charging points. it has eight charging points, charging ports. Let's try that again. ⁓
Nicole Wakelin (16:30)
Eight, a bunch. I don't know how many. A bunch of charging ports. and the eight was gonna be eight point seven inches of ground clearance. That's where I was going with eight. So yeah, eight point seven inches of ground clearance.
so you can handle like with with most supers, you can go a little bit of off-road, no matter which one you get. You can handle a little bit of bumpity, you know, more than just a muddy road. You can go up things that have a little bit of terrain to it.
You can with this too. ⁓ 194 horsepower horsepower, so it's not
Nicole Wakelin (17:00)
especially aggressive. It's fine, but yeah, it goes. You guys said pretty much the same thing, right? Wasn't it like it's fine? It goes, it's fine.
Roberto Baldwin (17:10)
Just go yeah, it's fine. Like what are you doing? I'm not drag
if you're gonna drag race a Subaru there's yeah, it's not a BRZ, which you really shouldn't be drag racing anyway, it's not really that fast. it's like drag racing a Miata. You're like, Well unless I'm drag racing other Miattas
Yeah. So it so it's it does the job and I you know, it's a hybrid like low thirties, low to mid thirties. That's not a bad price for this. if you're a Subi fan, I like it a lot. I I've always liked the crosstruck and I just think it looks cool. I I don't know, I just like the cross-track. I don't know why that styling of that has always been one that I've liked. Even I just I think it looks good. I like it. So I had the Subaru Cross track.
It wasn't a cool color. Shoot, I'm trying to remember because this was a couple weeks back. It wasn't orange. I wanna s I feel like it was like a mech color. Maybe. Wait a minute, let me look it up. I'm trying to remember which color I had. I gotta go back in time. there have been a few cars in between here and there. Wait a minute. I bet if I see it.
Sam Abuelsamid (18:02)
Wasn't that ⁓ wild orange?
Nicole Wakelin (18:23)
floating really slow, you guys. Yeah, I think it was this this sort of bland color. What is this called? Hmm. I want to say it was the this plain, whatever this was it wasn't. I don't think it was an exciting color. It wasn't exciting enough that I have no I have it in my notes. If it was good, it would be in my notes saying super cool whatever color. It's not in there. Yes, it could be maybe it was a sand dune. That's a kind of brown like
what it was. ⁓ so yeah, not a not especially great color. so I you know, so I liked it. All wheel drive, which is great. ⁓ I, you know, it's it's gonna be 100 degrees here. No one needs all-wheel drive. Our tires are all about to melt. But yeah, when winter gets here again, that all-wheel drive will be great. right now you don't need it. so I yeah, so the Subrew Cross-Truck Hybrid, I it, you know, it's it's a Subaru, feels like a Subaru, looks like a Subaru, drives like a Subaru.
Nicole Wakelin (19:28)
And then I did have this one is sitting in my driveway this week. And it is actually, I know the color in this because I don't like it. It's marsh gray. do you know what it is? Well, you can see on the thing.
The Ford Maverick, the hybrid. I like the Maverick. This color is just meh. Why am I getting meh color cars? The only real cool color it has, so they have the accent color inside, and it's a really bright blue.
So the little removable thing for your phone and like your
Nicole Wakelin (19:57)
cup holder and stuff that goes in it's this really, really bright blue, which is good because otherwise it looks like you're riding around in the Death Star. It's just like gray, gray, gray. It's really it's yeah, it's not super exciting. Do you want to take a guess at ⁓ destination on this one? Wow, that was
Sam Abuelsamid (20:13)
I I am I'm not gonna say because I I know because I also have a lob ⁓ maverick that I'll be talking about. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (20:19)
he also has a maverick. Everyone's
Nicole Wakelin (20:22)
do you have you do? Wow. So we get different yeah, but you have the logo.
Roberto Baldwin (20:27)
All we have are Mavericks and Subarus on this episode. 'Cause I'm I have an outback. That's what I'll be talking about. Well anyway, so what's the what's so what since you both know?
Nicole Wakelin (20:29)
That's that's apparently it.
to know you are off by $20. It was $18.45. So well done, Robbie. You don't want anyway, even if Sam guessed. You were so close. So you get a you there's a range of trims on this. They start at about 26, 7. So let's call it 27. They top out with a logo according to my notes at 34. You can tell me if I'm right or not on that, Sam. That's what I have in my list.
the the starting price for the Lobo is like thirty four. I'll I'll I'll get I'll get to that in a few minutes.
Nicole Wakelin (21:03)
Right. This they top out of the starting price. Yeah. So keep that number
in mind before you get to the next one. So the starting price load was 34. Also, the starting price on this one, the hybrid is ⁓ 27. I had the XLT, which starts at ⁓ about 29. So affordable. ⁓ not super cheap, but still really affordable. And my god, I parked next to a ⁓ Chevy Silverado off-road. What was that? What's the off-road term in that?
The wheels, I swear to God, were bigger than the hood. Maybe ZR2. Thank you. We're just at the grocery store today and I'm like, holy heck, it looks so tiny. The Maverick looks so wee tiny sitting next to it. It's like, it's just a baby truck. Like you don't realize how big big trucks are until you park the maverick next to one. And it it looks like it could roll over it and it might not notice. ⁓
Nicole Wakelin (22:00)
But not and it's not a knock against that truck. It's just, wow, full size trucks can get really dang big. and this one still has plenty of room. I think this the the probably the drawback is you have a nice little short bed. It's not a huge bed, but you do have enough for doing mulch truck stuff, basic truck stuff. The back seat is kind of tight. Most truck stuff. Most truck stuff.
Roberto Baldwin (22:19)
Most truck stuff to be honest.
of the stuff that most people are actually gonna use a truck for.
Nicole Wakelin (22:25)
Exactly. Most people aren't really truly doing stuff they need a full size truck for, except for on occasion and you could just rent one. but this is nice because it gives you the truckiness that that bed so you can do that kind of stuff.
⁓ you have a little bit of room for cargo, make a run to the dump or whatever it is you need to do without having to have Yeah, see, there you go. Without having to have a super expensive, outrageous truck to do it.
as the hybrid, this has a ⁓ two point five liter.
Nicole Wakelin (22:55)
Eco Boost. Is it Eco Boost or Echo Boost? I always say Eco Boost. Eco Boost? ⁓ look at that. Look at you. What are you throwing away? You rip something apart, old wood.
Roberto Baldwin (22:59)
I think it's eco boost. Ooh, look at this. Video.
Nicole Wakelin (23:10)
Your old deck. ⁓ mine does not have anything in it. Sorry. I didn't make it to the dump. ⁓ so that's the hybrid. you can get it in front wheel drive or all wheel drive. the EPA says 42 city. Why does it come up that way when I looked at it? 42 City. I'm like, what? I made notes that don't make sense to myself. I looked at it, I'm like, what did I write? 42 City MPG is what I have. And I normally put in combined, so I don't know why I wrote that down. but
Nicole Wakelin (23:39)
Max payloads 1,500 pounds, 1,400 if you go with the all-wheel drive hybrids. So and max tow rating is ⁓ up to 4,000 pounds if you do the tow package, 2,000 if you don't. That's still decent towing.
Like you guys, you don't normally tow that much stuff. Everybody out there saying, Well, I could tow a house with my okay, fine, but how often do you tow a house? You don't. You only need to tow a little bit of stuff.
You have a tile boat, you have a tile trailer, you you you've got almost nothing in your towing. So 2,000 standard, 4,000 if you need to put a little tow package on there if you have a lot of.
stuff that you want to carry around. and it still has the coolest thing where you can there's like the 3D printed stuff you can do and you can use like two by fours and stuff to partition off the bed so you can carry stuff however you want to carry it.
⁓ things don't roll around. You could s like you can make it a little little like plano box. Do you guys know what plano boxes are? They are like a tack tackle box that people use for fishing lines and stuff.
They're the best for organizing little things because it's like a
Roberto Baldwin (24:36)
We use them for in art school for all of our pens and needed erasers and pencils and paint.
Nicole Wakelin (24:38)
Yeah, and you can yes. And you can move it around.
You can move the little partition pieces to whatever you have to fit it. So if it's long or short or whatever, I think it's the Plano box of trucks. It's it's kind of awesome. Yes. It's exactly like that. So I I think that's really like one of the really cool features about this aside from the fact that it gets good fuel economy and that it's not outrageously expensive. So I I've been a fan of the Maverick since the first time I drove it.
Sam Abuelsamid (24:50)
I've I've got one from my Dremel and all the little bits for the Dremel.
Nicole Wakelin (25:08)
And I'm still a fan of the Maverick. I think it's it's a solid little truck at a solid price.
Sam Abuelsamid (25:15)
My my neighbors have had theirs since the beginning of twenty twenty two, four and a half years now. They you know, they got the when you could still get the XL hybrid for twenty grand, that's what they got. Still gets forty two miles per gallon. They they love that thing.
Yeah. So yep. So that's the oldie Maverick. It's I'm you know, I'm a fan. I've always been a fan, so there we go.
Roberto Baldwin (25:42)
I had the Subaru Outbag Limited XT. So a bigger Subaru. It's bigger. It just looks like a raised station wagon. And I actually did off-road y things with it. ⁓ I had to go somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas. I won't say where because I pretty sure the the locals would kill me if I told everyone where this was. but you have to go, it's five hours from my house. So it was a trek and like the last hour or so is on dirt road or
Roberto Baldwin (26:12)
Ten percent from being dirt road. It's just like every you can still see where there's asphalt is, but it's not really. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ so yeah, and so it went we had you had to go over rocks. It's a very narrow road in some places where a cliff on one side and a cliff on the other. So you have a a wall and then a drop. And yeah, no, it felt zero issues, no problems. We gotta go over big ⁓ you know, over things. We had
Roberto Baldwin (26:41)
giant holes in the road, we had big gouges we could move around. what's funny is it wasn't until on the way back from the location, from this sort of out in the middle nowhere ⁓ place that I reali I I remembered to use the little cameras.
I'm like, here's the little cameras. Cause there was one part where you have to 'cause like, I'm gonna go to this one little area and there are rocks on either side and there was a good like two or three inches ⁓ of clearance on either side that I could use this to get through.
Roberto Baldwin (27:12)
these rocks. So what I I really like is that, you know, ⁓ and I sa I I first use on ⁓ outback wilderness during the drive program is that you have downhill descent on you know vehicles they have any sort of off road anything on them.
But typically what you've had to do for years is like you gotta stop at the top of the hill, you gotta turn it on, you gotta set it to whatever speed you're like eight miles an hour, five miles an hour, whatever, and then go down the hill.
With this with the the outback is this you just start going down the hill and just turns it on automatically. Which I find which is yeah, it just turns it on automatically. Yeah. And so it doing about eleven eight to eleven miles per hour going down a hill and, you know, putting the brakes on when I need to and ⁓ it's it's yeah, no it did really well.
⁓ this is defin it was definitely a road you couldn't take a corolla on 'cause it would have scratched up the bottom. ⁓ but again if you you know
Sam Abuelsamid (27:46)
⁓ nice. That's the way it should be. Yeah, just have like a pitch sensor in there. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (28:09)
If you had a pretty high little something or other you probably could have done it. But you had you know, I had the peace of mind of knowing that this is a Subaru. ⁓ knowing that, you know, that that that hill descent ⁓ is going to keep me from having to like, you know, sort of h stand on the brakes sometimes in order to get over things.
And you know that thing where you're you're going down a hill and there's something and it's off, so it's like one tire is going over it. And so you kinda have to like sort of feather the brakes a little bit so you don't like catch and then slide.
as the wheel comes back down to the road. It you don't have to worry about that, which I found very helpful in my drive. ⁓ yeah this thing has that ⁓ four liter two point four four liter four cylinder two point four liter turbo boxer engine ⁓ it has 260 horsepower 277 pound feet of torque ⁓ there was a lot of freeway driving with this thing ⁓ so it was it was comfortable on the freeway
Roberto Baldwin (29:07)
It was comfortable on back roads. It was it's just a really nice like, hey, you want to go on a long road trip that at the end of it you're gonna have to drive for an hour to go ten miles?
Because that's what was. That's the last ten miles or the the extra that extra hour. ⁓ then yeah, you could you could do it. And there's tons of tons tons and tons and tons of space in the back. Now originally I was supposed to get the trail seeker, so I was very excited about taking the EV, essentially EV out back up to this place.
⁓ but I don't know, I had to go to the shop or something. So they're like, Hey, we'll get you an outback and I was like, All right, fine. And also originally we were going to we were going to car camp.
'cause I just have like I was going with my brother and I just have a small little one human t tent for like people who backpack and stuff. And so I was like, Well, we can just sleep in our cars. And I was really excited about like showing out the fact that Trailseekers and EV I just leave the E V on the air conditioning all night without like, you know, the car idling.
Anyway, but you know, we ended up with the Outback. But it was, yes, plenty of room in the front, plenty plenty of room in the back. ⁓ very comfortable. ⁓ on the on a very long, long, long, long, long. It was 10 hours. We ended up doing it all one day. I will say, so driving on the way there and most of the way back, we were getting a little over 29 point ⁓ like 29.7, I think, was the MPG. The ⁓ combined for this vehicle is 24, highways 29.
That makes sense. Then of course on the way back we're driving up North California, which means we're hitting a headwind all the way until you hit to to to ⁓ to about ⁓ forty-five minutes outside of Oakland. So by the end of all it we're doing like twenty-six point seven, which is still it's better than combined. But ⁓ you know, t twenty-nine's it's fine. It's ⁓ four liter ⁓ again, damn it, four cylinder two.
Roberto Baldwin (31:01)
Points four liter. ⁓ it's eight point seven inches of ground current clearance. So that gives you, you know, tons of space to get over things. there were so there was one spot where I was just like, I could drive there, but I always just think about D beating out in the middle of nowhere. That's my biggest concern. Less scratching the bottom of the car or scraping, it's just like pshh. And now I'm having to like maybe put something on the thing to you.
Sam Abuelsamid (31:30)
Yeah, just just cutting your tire on one of those rocks as you're maneuvering through them.
Roberto Baldwin (31:34)
Yeah, and they're they're really sharp, some of those those those tires. it has a twelve point one inch multimedia system, it has that Subaru infotainment system, which is great for turning on ⁓ car play. pop it on, you know, or Android Auto. It was wireless. It had it like the ⁓ what I have a cute the the cross trek, it has that flat spot for the wireless charging.
Which means your phone's just sliding all over the place, especially when you're off roady. So you're making an off road car, but you're not making an off road charging thing. So I ended up bringing a cable because I knew what was gonna happen.
At least it's connected to something, you're not fishing it out from the minute.
Roberto Baldwin (32:12)
Yeah, I'm just like, you know what,
this is just gonna it's just gonna slide all over the place. Not gonna get anything.
been one of the first automakers to put ⁓ the Chi two or MagSafe wireless adapters in there. Nissan's got and and
Roberto Baldwin (32:24)
Yeah. I mean they they might
I don't have a wirel I don't have the the the magnet case 'cause my wife bought me a nice case. So I have a magnet case somewhere on my desk, I think. That this one's cracked, so I have to ch change it pretty soon.
⁓ so it might have had the the the magnet. It just says wireless smartphone charger, it doesn't say anything about cheat two, it doesn't say anything about magnets, so so maybe it has a magnet. I don't know.
Subaru owners if you own if you have one, yell at me on the internet about it.
⁓ yeah, Subaru owners are yeah are Subaru people. I mean that's that's the whole thing. At the end of the day, you know it how's it look? It's fine. But does it do the thing you want? Yeah. Does it have buttons? Uh-huh. All right, cool. That's it. That's a it's Can you drive over things that other people buy a Dreep Wrangler for? Yep. No problem. ⁓ I could s you know, and w we got there, there was ⁓ there was a couple people there who were fishing.
Roberto Baldwin (33:24)
And ⁓ one of them we we pa they they were leaving as we were showing up on so we passed them and then one of them came back and they were looking for a a a hook. And I was kind of like wondering if they were coming back to make sure that we weren't gonna go there and like Instagram the hell out of it and make it like, Hey everybody, this is a cool place 'cause it's it feels very much like a ⁓ a locals only type situation.
And we used to s camp there like forty something years ago.
That's so I haven't been there in forty three years. That's what my brother and I figured out. And it looks the same 'cause, you know, mountains, ⁓ trees. There's like an extra tree that I'm like, Whoa, that tree wasn't there before.
But it's such it's so out in the middle of nowhere that normal people wouldn't go there. So I was think were like kinda like, So where are you from? So why you here? So in a very nice way. In a very sweet, nice way.
But but w I am not going to give up the this location. ⁓ there is more than there are more and plenty of
Roberto Baldwin (34:21)
Locations in California that look like this and are beautiful that you can go to. That you won't that also you won't have issues because you decided to take your SUV that only has two wheel drive and it doesn't have and it's got summer tires on it and you're just like, I got my infinity and pshh. So yeah, no, ⁓ yeah, so I did Subaru things with the Subaru is the only way it could have been more Subaru is if I had like shoved a bike on it and I had taken my dog.
Nicole Wakelin (34:24)
This one will remain a secret close to the garden.
Nicole Wakelin (34:50)
That was the only way to beat.
Sam Abuelsamid (34:50)
See the only only thing that's missing from
Roberto Baldwin (34:50)
That's it. That's the only way. Or or or like
Sam Abuelsamid (34:53)
the super experience. Or kayak, you know.
Roberto Baldwin (34:53)
a canoe. I could have put a canoe 'cause it was at a river. I could have or a kayak or something like that. Yeah, I didn't do those things. But the other but the all the other Subaru bits I did.
And yeah, the Subaru Epic. I like the I like the wilderness alike. I like this vehicle. ⁓ I know they looked they're just big. They're like they're they're SUVs now. They used to be wagons, but they're really just raised SUVs.
They're it's really big. It's it's just feels like so big.
Nicole Wakelin (34:57)
Yeah, yeah, that would work too.
Roberto Baldwin (35:20)
compared to the old Outbacks. I don't there's so much space in it though. So if you want a if you want a ⁓ if you want a what do you call it a a a a wagon for the family that's a little that's that's higher off the ground. Outback.
you go. There's there's a couple of in my neighborhood now and I've I've been seeing ⁓ pretty regularly when I'm out walking the dogs and I'm still not crazy about the new design. I still like the the look of the the old design better but it you know, whatever. But that's the trail seeker. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (35:47)
Yeah, the old design's cool.
a s it's a Subaru. What what do you like? What's it look like? it looks like a Subaru. Or not. Whatever. I'm gonna buy it.
d design has never been one of Subaru's strong points anyway. Yeah. It's more about how it works and they get that covered. So did you say what the price was, the total price?
Roberto Baldwin (36:03)
Yeah. You just think of that.
Roberto Baldwin (36:11)
The total price was ba ba ba. This was for the ⁓ what do you call it? Outback Limited XT. ⁓ manufactur with destination. Come on, scroll down. It won't scroll down. There we go. Forty five thousand eight hundred fifteen dollars. what do you you want a destination guess?
Sam Abuelsamid (36:34)
⁓ I'm gonna guess fourteen twenty.
Nicole Wakelin (36:36)
I'm also gonna guess fourteen twenty.
it's fourteen fifty, it's thirty dollars more. ⁓
I almost have 1421 just to be different. I would have won!
Roberto Baldwin (36:46)
you could have won. Yeah, sorry. Anyway, yeah, this car starts at less money than that. Hold on, let me scroll up real quick. So it starts at thirty four. It starts at thirty five, thirty four nine ninety five for just the regular outback, which they call the the base level, which is called the premium.
Roberto Baldwin (37:05)
it has a smaller engine, so you know.
Nicole Wakelin (37:05)
It's it's so good there's no just
boring level. Everything is premium. It's an amazing
has less power than this one. This one, you know, getting on the freeway, I could slam on the gas and ⁓ and it would take off, so yeah. It's fine, to be honest. Subaru at back. Limited X T.
Sam Abuelsamid (37:24)
Well, I also had a Maverick, but I had the the Maverick Lobo, which is new for Model Year twenty six. and ⁓ it's the the Lobo, you know, is it's supposed to be like a street truck version of the Maverick.
Sam Abuelsamid (37:44)
So, you know, it's the suspension's tuned a little differently. it's not available with a hybrid. It's only available with the two liter EcoBoost. So two hundred and fifty horsepower.
⁓ which is fine. It's it's more than adequate. You know, it's not it's not any more power than you get in any other EcoBoost Maverick. Same same output, so they haven't done anything to the engine. They did ⁓ they did change the transmission.
So all the other EcoBoost Mavericks get an eight speed automatic transmission.
The Lobo also still has an eight speed, but they electronically lock out second gear, which is supposed to keep the engine more in the power band. I don't know. It d didn't really make any sense to me.
so second gear is that's the gear that's gonna go out on your car. Because first gear you take off and you slam it in a second. That's the number one shift you're doing in your car is is second gear. And so, you know, like some cars like they could have just like like say the the the the WRXSTI, that second gear, that that that gearing is really tight. So you're in second gear for like a second. But instead So you're just in first gear for a lot longer?
then it drops down to you know, it goes to thir to what would normally be third gear, so you get more rev drop. I don't know. It does doesn't really make much sense to me. But ⁓ so ⁓ yeah, the the Lobo is ⁓ you know, more expensive. ⁓ as I mentioned, you know, my next door neighbors, they bought an XL hybrid in twenty twenty two when it first came out for nineteen nine ninety five. You know.
That one starts now at well the the EcoBoost starts at twenty seven one forty five. The the hybrid starts at twenty eight one forty five. The Lobo starts at thirty five thousand nine hundred and thirty dollars. As equipped.
but it's got stitching. It says lobo. Well actually it's in boss. It's not stitching. It's a psh
It's yeah, it's embossed into the vinyl. ⁓ so the the one that I had ⁓ has the ⁓ the seven two equipment group which adds pro power on board with full four hundred watt ⁓ output in the bed. Yeah. acoustic windshield, all weather floor liners, ⁓
Sam Abuelsamid (40:17)
bed tie down locking rails. It's got a a spray and bed liner, which is nice. That's that's always a good thing to have, especially if you're going to use it for truck stuff. You know, if you're actually going to use it as a truck, you want to have a spray and bed liner.
You know, because that protects, you know, keeps it from getting scratched up and and rusting. ⁓ it's got the B and O sound system, ⁓ dual rear USB ports, the connectivity package is ⁓ for one year is is included.
Co-pilot 360 assists, a lane lane centering capability, but it's hands-on, so it's not not blue crews, heated seats and steering wheel, power moon roof, and a and also pro trailer backup assist and pro trailer hitch assist. A lot of stuff. ⁓ and you know, if you are going to use this for, you know, the four thousand pounds of towing capability it has, the pro trailer backup assist can be handy if you don't do a lot of towing. You know, so if you're not
Sam Abuelsamid (41:13)
real intimately familiar with the the mechanics of how you back up with a trailer, the Pro Trailer Backup Assist is actually a really nice feature. ⁓ you you probably should. ⁓ but but that's like a five thousand dollar package.
Roberto Baldwin (41:23)
I just feel like you should learn.
Nicole Wakelin (41:30)
Yeah, that's all you needed.
Sam Abuelsamid (41:38)
⁓ mine did not have the turbofan wheels. It had the nineteen inch black painted aluminum wheels. and it also had the the the trifold hard tonneau cover, which is twelve hundred and sixty bucks. So, you know, if you want if you want stuff in the bed to be secured, then you know, you can you can get that. ⁓ and you know, it'll keep stuff from hopefully getting stolen out of the bed of your truck. ⁓ so
Sam Abuelsamid (42:07)
Mine was black and ⁓ as I said, I did use it for for truck stuff. I used it to to haul a bunch of wood from my old deck that I tore apart a few weeks ago, to to redo, to rebuild. ⁓ and I did took me two loads to haul it out to to the dump. but I did. I filled it up, filled you know, filled the
Roberto Baldwin (42:31)
You sh you should have given that that wood
to some skaters. They would have made a ramp out of that puppy. That's all I'm saying.
Nicole Wakelin (42:37)
picture is perfect because it shows you've got like l that's a large amount of stuff in the back of that. It's large wood. Yeah. And you just so you had to make two trips, big deal. Like that like that's far cheaper than having to buy a giant truck. Yeah.
Sam Abuelsamid (42:41)
Yeah, those are those are eight eight foot long boards.
Sam Abuelsamid (42:47)
Yeah. I mean it it's only fifteen, twenty minutes to the Yeah,
it's only fifteen, twenty minutes to the dump. ⁓ I used the feature that they have on the Maverick where you can unhook the cables that hold the tailgate and rehook them onto a a higher spot, ⁓ so that the the tailgate is at a little bit of an angle. you know, and that helps keep things from sliding out. ⁓ and so put the boards in there, kept everything nice and secure, drove it out to the dump.
Nicole Wakelin (43:04)
I saw that. You can see it and how it's angled. Mm-hmm.
Sam Abuelsamid (43:18)
hauled all stuff out and threw it in the dumpster, came home, did it again. ⁓ and it it worked great as a you know, as a a little truck. It was great. ⁓ the the the my my only complaint about this thing is that it cost ⁓ forty where is it here? ⁓ it cost ⁓ estimate ⁓ stop stop scrolling. Okay.
Sam Abuelsamid (43:48)
Estimated net price if you're buying it, ⁓ came to a grand total of forty four thousand six hundred and thirty dollars.
That's a little more than the twenty thousand dollars my neighbors paid for theirs.
doubled, you could buy two. You could have bought two of ⁓ one for each foot, and then just rode them. Like you're headed for Valhalla.
Yeah. And that includes that eighteen hundred and forty five dollar destination charge, which, you know, I think we talked about before, recently went up again 'cause, you know, a few months ago it was sixteen ninety five and now it's eighteen forty five. So, ⁓ yeah, destination charges keep going up and up and up. ⁓ fuel economy also, not fantastic. ⁓ not not terrible, but not fantastic. ⁓ you know, aside from my trip to the dump,
Sam Abuelsamid (44:39)
The most of the rest of the driving I did was highway driving and the the Maverick Lobo is rated at twenty one city, thirty highway, twenty four combined. I got about twenty four and a half. ⁓ and like I said, that's with mostly highway driving. So not not outstanding fuel economy in a small truck. Yeah. And I didn't have any serious headwinds.
Roberto Baldwin (45:00)
So worse than the Outback. Substantially worse than the Outback.
Roberto Baldwin (45:07)
Yeah, those headwinds, man, they they are not there. If you ever drive to Northern especially in the summer, because it's hot and then it gets cool and then the air, you know, the ocean and the bay are cold. So that wind just flies in in the afternoon. It's crazy. ⁓ I wonder what the Maverick Lobo would do.
Sam Abuelsamid (45:27)
Probably wouldn't be thrilled about it.
Roberto Baldwin (45:29)
Yeah, yeah. I'm also very curious about this this vehicle where would you are are the you know, the the idea is it's a mini truck. Bring it back mini truck magazine. Mini truck and magazine. do you buy this or do you buy just the regular Maverick and then do your own thing to it?
Sam Abuelsamid (45:46)
I would say the latter. Buy buy it and do do your own thing to it. Find find some wheels that you like, you know, do do the suspension mods that you want to do.
Nicole Wakelin (45:48)
I would. Yeah. Buy it and do your own thing. That's what I would do.
Roberto Baldwin (45:56)
'Cause you'll probably get a better deal at the end of the day. You won't get the bigger you won't get that missing second gear though.
Roberto Baldwin (46:05)
I'm sure someone at Ford's gonna yell at us because they'll they'll tell us why the second missing second gear is good.
Sam Abuelsamid (46:10)
Yeah. ⁓ well let's let's stick with small trucks. ⁓ 'cause Robbie, you went to ⁓ LA a few days ago to to see the slate. And Nicole, I don't think you were there, but you wrote about it too.
Nicole Wakelin (46:26)
I did write about it, but I did not go to the reveal I was not invited to the little revealy there, so I didn't see it. I know. No love. But
there we you weren't there and then I cried a little. There's no Nicole. But then I saw other people and I'm like, and I forgot all about you. so yes, so I went to the ⁓ the Slate event last ⁓ Wednesday, ⁓ which was a very odd event because it turns out there was also an event on Tuesday where p some people got to drive the car. I was not one of those people. like the Verge, I think Car and Driver and the Octopian got to drive the car.
Nicole Wakelin (46:36)
I want to see that's okay. Who cares?
Roberto Baldwin (46:59)
three completely different places, if you to be honest. that's it. $25,000 for this vehicle, 205 miles of range. ⁓ it is the modular pickup. You have to roll up the windows with your arm. You have to use the crank windows. there's no stereo in it. All the things that people apparently ⁓ love and hate about this truck. This truck is very fun.
on the internet because people will get very angry because well it has you know it would only have cost this much to put the the window the you know the automatic windows the reality is it's gonna it would have cost more than that because the engineering so I talked to them because there used to be an option to put power windows in the truck.
And I'm like, hey it's not there anymore. What's going on? They're like, well first they were like hey you know it's the you know the they made a big marketing push about it n having a crank. You could get little little pins about having hand crank.
And they're like, huh? People love that. And then at I at and they're like, Well, we'll see. And I think what really happened was when it came down to engineering, the amount of work they had to do inside the window, inside the door, in order to have the the window roll up, and then running another they're like, you know what? Forget it. Forget it. Forget it. Forget it. Forget it. just forget it. instead you get like a st a gigantic frunk. Seven cubic feet of frunk. It is I what
so I hadn't that I like we'd already seen it with with with the with the hood down. We hadn't and you know I'm sure I'm sure they had videos of it. But it wasn't until you I sh I should have there like, my gosh.
It is so big. You can throw like two like they showed two carry-ons in there and like a backpack. They showed like coolers in there. It there's so much fuck and that's sort of as a as a person who is very interested in that vehicle, ⁓ one of the things I was thinking about was like look what do I put
put things that I want to lock up. Turns out I can shove it all in the frog. ⁓ they did go from two batteries. One was 150, the other one was two twenty something. I forget the the second battery. So what happened was eighty percent of people online who were doing using the maker, the this little little configurator, ⁓ they were building it with the larger battery. So they're like, well, why don't we just do the same price that we're gonna do
And then you just have one battery that's sign up like a Goldilocks in the middle. So that's where you end up with two hundred with one battery, two hundred and five miles of range. There is not an extended range battery.
Maybe there's one in the future. Who knows? They didn't re they were sort of mum on that. it has a hundred and eighty one horsepower, 195 pound Peter torque. It'll go up to sixty miles an hour in a blazing eight seconds.
Which to be honest, like I that's more I think my Honda Civic would do that in nine in the nineties. So I'm like, yeah, this is fine.
Sam Abuelsamid (49:41)
That's that's ade that's more than enough.
Roberto Baldwin (49:48)
And when you take and it's funny because the you know, during the drive, ⁓ the ride along, not the drive, I just sat there. while someone else drove the gentleman who was driving me, Matt, I believe Matt is his name.
⁓ yeah, he he went he went around the corner really quick and like you could tell the tires are trying to like break loose. And from zero to thirty, which is what everyone cares about really in the city, totally quick, and it got to sixty in I guess the eight seconds.
Sam Abuelsamid (50:00)
I think it was Matt, yeah. I watched your video earlier.
Roberto Baldwin (50:18)
Yeah, I didn't verify it. I didn't have I
didn't have my GPS ⁓ timer. did not bring my race box along, which which which is god, I'm so dumb. ⁓ but you can, here's the thing I did find out, you can disable traction control. So if you want to drift, go crazy. Knock yourself out. The ride was surprisingly nice for a pre-production vehicle. it had did have some wind noise. I was a the NVH guy and
Sam Abuelsamid (50:22)
Didn't bring your race box along?
Roberto Baldwin (50:45)
So I'm like, so pre production is some window. He's Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I asked them, like, how do you NVH something that is a transformer? Because you're like, it's a truck.
Well, now it's a truck. Now it's an SUV. Now it's this. And so he's like, We it essentially he was his his whole thing was we just make you make the base of it like really good and then you go from there.
So we'll see how the N V H ⁓ changes from when you have the truck versus the the SUV when you just essentially just throw a cab on the back like it's a
It's a a a forerunner from the from the nineties. ⁓ yeah, it's ⁓ the Z C fast charge at hundred and twenty kilowatts, so not fast at all. ⁓ Twenty to eighty percent and and thirty and twenty to eighty percent in thirty minutes is what they say. They said point five hours. ⁓ in thirty minutes. it but it has eleven kilowatt AC charging, which
Sam Abuelsamid (51:25)
What'd they say? Twenty to eighty percent in twenty eight minutes or something?
Roberto Baldwin (51:42)
before I talked to them and figured out that they were doing a lot of fleet stuff, I was like, I'd already written up that this makes sense for fleets because you know, 10 to they they talked to 20 to 100% in four hours.
So lunch breaks, the car's on at a level two charger. ⁓ between ships is at a level two charger. And then you talk to them, I talked to them more and they're like, Yes, yes, we are talking with fleet people.
⁓ they wouldn't tell ⁓ Chris Barman, president of autos, she wouldn't tell us who, but she's like, Yes, we are talking to people about this. The telematics system that they have.
first sales like two seventy five. It's really for fleet management. So so they have a telematics you could add to the to the truck for ⁓ fleet management. It'll tow ⁓ fifteen hundred pounds instead of fourteen hundred they originally said it'll I'm sorry it the payload is fifteen hundred originally it was fourteen hundred.
The towing is now two thousand pounds is originally one thousand pounds. So you're getting more than what they told you. ⁓ seven point eight inches of ground clearance for a truck, seven point six for the
For the SUV, blah blah. All you know, all these numbers, all these things. It really really comes down to is does this truck speak to you? And that's really what's weird about this vehicle. Is that for for again I've I've talked about this before where I feel like Slate built a truck for Robbie.
And I've met a lot of people who are like my age who are like, I'm so excited about this truck. They're like texting me like regular normies. And then people younger than me who have never like had to roll up a window with their hands are like,
What is this madness? And then I think there's gonna be people who are below them, like you know, a truck for their kid, a first-time vehicle. Those people will be interested. But I think there's like this gap.
Like millennials are like, no. Like, why would I ever roll up a window with my arm? And every Gen X person, I'm like, well, they don't have the power window thing anymore. And they're like, whatever. It's like the least like okay.
I'm like, you have not been on the internet where people are very angry about this roll-up window situation.
Roberto Baldwin (53:41)
It doesn't have a stereo, so you have to go to stereo. For for old school people, Crutchfield. I'm sure Crutchfield's gonna have something for this. ⁓ And then, you know, the It's yeah, it's so it's you can still yeah, I checked.
I checked Crutchfield because I was looking for I thought the stereo of my car was broken. And I was like, no, I'm gonna have to get a double den for my Subaru, but it didn't turn out it just a bag of wire.
Sam Abuelsamid (53:54)
Yeah. yeah, Crutchfield's still around.
Sam Abuelsamid (54:11)
Yeah. If if if you need if if you need
to get like bits and like if you're if you're installing a car audio system yourself in one of your cars in you know an older car that still allows you to do that sort of thing or in a brand new slate, ⁓ Torchfield is the place to go. I mean they have adapters and installation kits for literally every vehicle and every possible combination of audio systems.
Roberto Baldwin (54:25)
it's the crutch feels the best.
Roberto Baldwin (54:38)
They have little connectors, like one goes just for your car, one goes just for a stereo, and then you just click you just click the stereo. It's it's the best. It's always been the best.
It'll continue to be the best. I think Slate, if Slate ends up being like a big seller, then I think we're gonna see more cars like this, more vehicles like this that are sort of like bare bones that people can just do things with.
the ⁓ so we will pr you know, Crutchfield's probably like, ⁓ I hope this works.
⁓ you can also 3D print like pretty much anything you want for the truck. You know how you're talking about the the the fishing ⁓ the tackle box for it's this they have the same thing in the back of the slate. They all the little the little slats so you can put wood in. and what I I did find out was interesting, you know, in addition to all the accessories Slate will sell you, if you design and manufacture a part for Slate, you can contact Slate and see if they will sell it for you.
Roberto Baldwin (55:35)
So your thing will be in the slate marketplace. So if you so it's like Etsy, but for sl only for slate. Because I would assume that what's gonna happen is truck will come out, people will build things, and they'll sell it via Etsy or you know, whatever 3D, you know, there's a lot of 3D sites.
You could actually go to Slate and do that. So it's it it they'll they'll do that for you. ⁓ yeah, all that said if you wanna it it drove it drives nice for what it is, it's a five-foot bed.
We put Jessica from from from Motor Week in there. She's five foot closed the gate. She fit perfectly. So if you have any five foot friends, they will fit they will fit in the bed. ⁓ I sat in the the the setup that I want, which is the open air, and I got very excited.
It was actually a lot easier to get into the back than I thought it would be, because we've been so used to like having four doors. I was like, this is gonna suck, especially because the last time I did that, you know, did this and any
Roberto Baldwin (56:33)
you know, regularity. I was in my maybe my thirties, probably my twenties, and I did it and I was like, ⁓ this isn't so bad. sitting behind me would be tough, but there's a lot more leg room than I anticipated.
I assumed those those rear seats would just be worthless, but they're actually they're fine. They're they are pretty close to the ground. ⁓ so you will have, you know, some some some bended knee issues.
⁓ if you have bad knees, I guess I don't know, sit in the front. yeah, I think there's there is a very
⁓ they sold they said they had sold by like 9 a.m. and they went on s they went on sale at 5 a.m. or the pre-orders opened. They had 10,000 pre-orders already. So within four hours on the first day. So you know, maybe they only got eleven thousand by now. Who knows? The we'll have to see how it works. But I think it is a very ⁓
a very ⁓ different vehicle than what a lot of people are used to. And for some people they're very excited about it. And for others, they're like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to automobiles since the the the There are some people are very like, this is dumb.
These sh people shouldn't have to do this. People shouldn't have to like put a stereo in. People the the the the the opposite of that is that people want to do that. People want to tinker around with things in a way that you can't do with a with a
a a a regular new car now. And you know, the bolt if you want an EV that's inexpensive and has all the bits and pieces, the bolt's only a few thousand dollars more. ⁓ they did not share a destination charge for this, but ⁓ multiple people told me like, well the destination charge is gonna be in the same line with what how we do everything else.
So I'm thinking it's probably gonna be a thousand versus eighteen hundred like for a Maverick. I think they're gonna try to try to keep it ⁓ pretty low ⁓
That said, yeah, if you don't want a slate Alright, fine, I don't care. If you do, you're probably weird like me and very excited.
Sam Abuelsamid (58:37)
So so the question is, you know, at twenty five thousand dollars starting price and you know, the square back SUV is thirty, the fastback SUV is thirty two. And like last year when they revealed when they announced this thing, you know, they said you'll be able to put this stuff on yourself. I guess you can't actually do the SUV conversion yourself, right? You have to
you can have it sent to your house and do it yourself. So they have beginner, moderate, and advanced.
Sam Abuelsamid (59:00)
Okay, 'cause what I saw in a lot of places was they were saying that y you have to it has to be done by
a shop, by an approved shop to install that stuff.
Roberto Baldwin (59:08)
The only thing they really I think the thing they're really they they're like, don't do any battery stuff. Don't try to do it don't so there there are on the site on the marketplace it tells you how difficult they have three levels.
Ad beginner, moderate, and advanced. ⁓ advanced would be something like this, you know, putting an SUV kit on there, getting your friends over to help you put it on there because it's gonna be heavy.
⁓ and and tighten it down with one of a thousand ⁓ torque screw torque torque wrenches. ⁓
So yeah, it's it's you know, if if that's my biggest question is what ha so you I buy the truck and then I want the SUV kit and it's only you know, let's say it's five thousand dollars. How much does it cost to ship that? What is the shipping price for a three it's about two hundred and something pounds. So let's just say three hundred. Let's just round it up to three hundred because there's probably
five hundred to five to seven hundred bucks I'm guessing at a minimum.
Roberto Baldwin (1:00:03)
Yeah. And things you buy for the vehicle, if I buy the vehicle from Slate and I want all these extra accessories, they just ship it with the accessories for you to put in yourself. So if I want colorful
can't say I want these things done and it comes to you that way. You have to do it yourself.
could I I assuming they'll just send it to you or they'll send it to like one of the places to do. It is a ver DIY yeah. So I asked them like, what if I want these colors? They're like, we'll just ship you all the color bits for you.
So you don't lose the gray bits. You're not gonna show and like, I paid extra. You get the gray bits and the colorful bits. So if you scratch the colorful bits all to hell, later on you put the gray bits in, but also you have to put the things in.
And that's where it and that's where I think there's a divide between people who are interested in this vehicle.
And people who are just like, I don't want to do anything. I just want to get in my car and go somewhere and be able to like do car play and have you know window up, window down. ⁓ I do think it's a smart play. They're the fleet man I think fleet management's a smart play 'cause you could, you know, you could deploy these things like there's no tomorrow 'cause they're if they're inexpensive. And they said they have some out already.
Or and they're gonna send some out to places that are be testing them for for fleets. yeah.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:24)
think that's yeah, I mean there's obviously, you know, some people like you, you know, that that want to mess with this kind of stuff, but I think the the fleet market is is where this thing really will play the most. But
all trucks are the fleet market. I mean, there's the fleet market and then if you get a big truck that people don't know about the the fun. If you have a business and you want to buy a vehicle for this business, if you buy a really heavy truck, you get an awesome tax break. So if your business is I I'm a hairdresser and this is my business, I will have to buy a F one fifty in order to get this tax break for my vehic my business vehicle.
fifty dually to carry around a pair of scissors and a comb.
Nicole Wakelin (1:02:07)
You never know, they might be big scissors.
Roberto Baldwin (1:02:08)
So so you could yeah, so it that which I think is still sort of ridiculous that you can only get that tax break if you buy a gigantor truck. But it also but it helps, you know, F ser F series sales are you know, a lot of it is is fleet, a lot of it is businesses. This is my business truck, and then you have people who just want a broom broom big truck.
I see a lot of small businesses running around, you know, with Mavericks, you know, doing for deliveries and stuff like that. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (1:02:35)
There's two of on my block that are
Mavericks. I think this is and I think because the and then the price went up forty percent on the Maverick, which is like, come on.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:43)
Yeah, I there there's a there's a roofing company not far from here. Yeah, they've got like ten of them in their parking lot.
Roberto Baldwin (1:02:50)
I know someone online who bought they bought they bought a couple right when they came out and they use them for the business. And I think we're gonna see a lot of that with this vehicle as well, where people are gonna buy them for their business.
I I and again, the the excitement for this vehicle is higher than the ID buzz was in within normies within my group of humans. Because my group of humans is Gen X. So they're and a lot of them apparently all work on cars, they all had like, you know, something.
And then there's people who just like, I just need a car. I don't need all this stuff. so I feel like it's gonna be this weird Gen X vehicle because I get a lot of texts, Instagram messages, Facebook messages, just like, tell me all about when I got back from I went straight from the event to band practice and I walked in and the rule was everyone could ask one question in between each song. And I prefaced everything with hey, it doesn't have the
roll up windows, you have to use the crank and everyone's like and everyone in the room's like, So I was like, You guys gotta go on the internet because obvious 'cause clearly you're you're you're in the the minority. So maybe it's just me and my friends.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:59)
So, Nicole, you're not ready to celebrate yet. Why?
know, I I I'm with Robbie on everything that he said in terms of it's for certain people in a specific market and all of this. I am your Gen X, Robbie, and I don't see the appeal in it at all. I don't want it's not I don't want a stripped down car.
And I feel like it's a lot of money still for a stripped down vehicle because most people are going to want to add something. Something. You're gonna want something. I mean, you can buy no the base price, but it's like somebody you're gonna want something.
is is that you don't have to buy this thing right away. You can buy it two years from now.
Nicole Wakelin (1:04:34)
That's but you still have to buy the thing. Yeah, but
you still have to buy the thing. So the money, so you spend two years without the thing you want until you decide you have enough money to buy the thing and have them ship you the thing you want for you to rent your own car and put it into your car, which is cool. I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I'm saying I feel like I don't I don't know how well I just don't think
Roberto Baldwin (1:04:53)
You want the bolt. You just want the car. I don't want to wait for a stereo. I don't wanna figure
Nicole Wakelin (1:05:01)
I don't think it's that big of a I thought, like, I I'm not amazed by it. Like, first of all, they haven't built like no one's driving them yet. It's really hard to build cars.
There's a lot of other solid options if you just want a nice, efficient trunk, ⁓ truck like the ⁓ or maverick. Like, there's other things that you could get that do it without having to strip it down to nothing.
Take the risk of whether or not Slate will be there. Because I know Jeff Amazon and Pain Force are behind it. Right. That's every startup.
Nicole Wakelin (1:05:29)
You don't have to take that risk, and there are plenty of things that do what it does. Which is why I just I'm hoping they succeed. I am. I am wishing them all the best. I want them to succeed.
I want you to have your little truck, Robbie. I want you to have your little sleet and pull it apart and put it back together again every Sunday before the show. I want you to do that. But I just, I am, I'm not ready to celebrate because I don't, I'm not convinced that this is gonna go over as well as they think.
Like, there's gonna be a certain segment of people are like, yeah.
How big is that? How big is that? I don't think it's big.
Roberto Baldwin (1:06:00)
That's the question. That really is the question. I think the ten
thousand sales is like that's his first def I'm excited about this. ⁓ but I w you know, they need to get at least eighty thousand.
Roberto Baldwin (1:06:12)
Yeah, is there another seventy thousand after that? That's the real question.
Nicole Wakelin (1:06:14)
This is reservations. Have they
you i if there's a hundred and eighty thousand fifty dollar like reservations. So hundred and eighty thousand people said, Here's fifty bucks. That is refundable fifty bucks. Fifty bucks it's a it's food, but it's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things of of vehicles.
or may not follow through. That gets you your spot in line. So we'll have to see
bucks is not then there's so now they've opened up okay, if you've already put your fifty bucks, two hundred fifty dollars more. If you have it, three hundred dollars. So three hundred dollars is a non-refundable deposit on the vehicle for them to build the vehicle. I talked to them that the the factory is about seventy, eighty percent done, according to to so and they have videos of the you know robots and crap. but you know, putting robots in
Roberto Baldwin (1:07:05)
Making one car is almost is impossible. Building one car. Impossible. Building thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of cars at scale. All of them work. That's like my especially when you don't have, you know, the the the history and the legacy of building cars. You can't and they can't, you know, the we're Ford and I I made this this point. I'm like, every automaker right now could build this car.
They could build a twenty-five thousand dollar electric truck that just has a stereo and roll-up windows that have atletic. They could have the thing that people are are are have issues with this car that they will but they won't do it because the profit margins are super slim and they're gonna make way more money on those F-Series pickups. We had a good cheap truck and then the price went up tw 40% because Ford got greedy. That's all.
so like what that's that's where all my questions are with this. It's not of like they shouldn't have made it. It's not ⁓ nobody's gonna want this. Are enough people gonna want this? Are enough people gonna want it? And are they actually gonna be able to pull it off at scale if they need to? Like are they gonna be able to do it? And I'm not saying I I wanna make it really clear, it's not that I want them to fail. I'm just not convinced they'll succeed.
really, really, really hard and hype does not equal sales. Manual train because if if you listen to the internet.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:31)
Remember when there were two
the time you see things where the reservations, especially the five fifty dollar, you know, get it back. Fifty bucks, okay, I'm in line. I'll see what it is. Do I get my fifty bucks back? Do I wait, hold on that until I see what people think about it?
Do I change my mind by time by the time it becomes available? Do I wait to see what reviews are and then go, mm-hmm? No, thank you. Like that's great. It shows there's interest to a point, but it doesn't mean any those people are all gonna buy it.
Nicole Wakelin (1:09:03)
It doesn't and I and I'm I am excited about it, but I I look at how the like the the nerd us car nerd people are talking like, my gosh, it's amazing and then like but everyone
Roberto Baldwin (1:09:13)
But the though it's it's it's split.
That's the weird thing. It's it's my god, it's amazing and then it's like this is the stupidest thing ever.
think it's stupid. I don't think it's the stupidest thing ever. I think it's a neat idea. I'm just not convinced they can pull it off. I don't care how much money's behind I'm not convinced. It is super duper duper hard to build a car, people. Super duper.
what they what what hurts them is the idea that they want to make an affordable car. Everyone else that's new, they make an insanely expensive car, which by the way, we have enough. We we don't need any more expensive EVs. And that's the biggest part is that this is an EV, which means it has they have to pay for that very expensive LFP six sixty-five or s whatever use yeah, kilowatt hour battery pack for that vehicle. That's where all the money's.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:55)
Sixty five kilowatt hour.
Roberto Baldwin (1:10:01)
If they wanted to make a four-cylinder whatever, they could sell this thing at twenty thousand dollars. Fifteen thousand. You know, they could sell this for a lot less. The thing is is it's it's it's an EV, which for me is very important because I'm tired of watching the the fires in my area kill people because climate change.
⁓ and it's just weird in a way that's exciting to me. But again, it's exciting to me. How many Robbies are there in the world? Because I feel like if there's more than three, that's too many Robbie.
Roberto Baldwin (1:10:30)
And so no, I completely understand. Like this is this has a a lot of reasons why this has failed. We have seen automakers come and go. Ones that we thought were going to do well just like fall apart.
or had, you know, money and had backing and all these things, you know, and they're still they they've either disappeared poof and seem they're gonna be amazing, or they're struggling. you know, it's it's just so hard. And I also, you know, launching in an EV only company, I know Eva, you know, EVs we will still say is the way of the future, right? But how close is that future? I think we thought it was maybe all EVs was closer.
than it will actually turn out to be. So launching an all EV company, you you've you know, only people who want EVs, only people who want a truck, only people who want a sm it's that like an increase smaller and smaller. And that's that's
Roberto Baldwin (1:11:21)
It gets smaller and smaller. I think that's but I th I think what happens
at the end of the day is that people are I think my underst my thinking is that people are sort of angry at traditional automakers for not offering up something that they want at an affordable price. And I think this is like them s putting their finger, you know, giving them the middle finger for that. Because we had something. We had the maverick and we had the bolt for for EVs and
Nicole Wakelin (1:11:37)
I would agree with that a hundred percent. I think people are really tired.
Roberto Baldwin (1:11:51)
one of them went up too p expensive. The other one just got taken away, even though it was number one selling EV that didn't have the word Tesla emblo in you know emblazed upon it.
⁓ and you're just like, what who who can we trust? And now they're trusting and there's you know, someone from GM is, you know, at their electrical something or other is just started. So they're getting a lot of smart people to work there.
But at the end of the day, a lot of smart people have worked a lot of smart startups. And so my advice always with these like sort of startup things is
Roberto Baldwin (1:12:21)
Do you want to make the ch take the chance? Because you might you might put your $300 down and at the end of the and and in eight months. ⁓ yeah, things didn't work out. So you're out $300. It's it is still always a gamble, ⁓ more so than it would be with a legacy automaker. ⁓ I'm very curious of what their sales numbers are now. ⁓ you know, again, $10,000 in four hours is a pretty good amount for a new car. Which it's more than it's more.
Roberto Baldwin (1:12:50)
They've so they've done pre orders for more vehicles than Volkswagen sold golfs in the United States in twenty twenty five. I was like, why are people buying the golf?
It's exciting and I'm excited for them and I really do hope it works out. And I hope they're able to pull it off. But I am so skeptical that they're gonna do it. Because we've seen it over and over. I mean, just because it's failed doesn't mean that it's not destined to succeed this time.
But the track record says it's gonna look amazing. Everyone's gonna be excited. They're gonna build a like some cars and then things will fall apart, or they won't build cars and things will fall apart, or you know, there's there's a there's a variety of ways it could fall apart.
Roberto Baldwin (1:13:09)
Because we've seen it. We've seen this before.
What what works in their favor is that they've gone from last April to now and they're like, we have cars that run? Well they had cars at the event that run, but that doesn't count. You know. Unveil events with moving cars is that doesn't yeah.
Who knows what those are things or anything. But they have cars that run now. They have the factory. They are moving quickly in a way that an automaker should versus like some of the other, you know, startups that just took like Rivian, when Vivian first came along, I made someone else that in gadget cover them 'cause I'm like, this isn't gonna work.
Right, right. Yeah, no, no, no, that's not the same thing.
Nicole Wakelin (1:13:59)
I know. They you and you still don't know and Rivian still, you know, they have amazing products and they're still they're doing okay, but they're not like, God, these guys are set. You're still like could they are they gonna be here? Are they really gonna make it? Look at Lucid, mm, are they gonna be here? I don't really know. Like you don't know.
Roberto Baldwin (1:14:02)
Yeah, and Rivian still is like
Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:08)
We're still not profitable.
Roberto Baldwin (1:14:09)
Yeah, still not profitable.
I wonder like how much of that is like is it because Rivian Lucids had software issues, this company Yeah, it's just yeah, it just drives, you know, software issues or it's mostly it's mostly the BMS. BMS is your biggest thing, the battery management system. ⁓ so it's it's there are yeah, so yeah, I completely understand any time someone says, I don't know if they're gonna make it, that is completely logical assessment based on what we've seen. I think
Nicole Wakelin (1:14:26)
Right, there's no stock rations to be made.
Roberto Baldwin (1:14:43)
As a startup, I think they've done a lot of smart things and good things and they seem to be on track to me. I've I am leaning more that they were gonna make it versus they are not, but that's this week. Next month, I have a month to put my $250 down. I have not put my money down yet.
You know what, do you have fifty dollars down right now and you could turn it
this is the only vehicle I've ever put money down on first. Again, because it's such a it's such it is so coded for Robbie. It is so it's like they had it is so coded for me as a vehicle. And like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. I'm clear I'm currently I'm gonna build mounts to put up a shimmer wall on top of a DJ set that I built. That's so yeah, this truck is a it's really Robbie coded.
Nicole Wakelin (1:15:08)
Yeah. But you still haven't done the three, you've done the fifty. It's not going for it.
so let me let me let me ask you a question. Okay. So the starting price of this thing is twenty five thousand dollars.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:39)
Given what you're getting, which frankly is not that much. Yeah, there's you know, ⁓ manual windows, no infotainment at all, not even cup holders. You gotta pay a couple hundred bucks extra for the center console with cup holders.
Roberto Baldwin (1:15:55)
No you don't, you just print I'm gonna pay five bucks for cup holder, Sam. What are you talking about?
is twenty five thousand dollars cheap enough? Because for twenty five grand, you can go buy a Kia K four hatchback, you can go buy a a Corolla hybrid.
the electric car the electric car is very, very important to me at this point.
Nicole Wakelin (1:16:21)
The electric car's important too, but is the electric car if you just want a cheap car? Like we're saying people are tent. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (1:16:25)
If you just want a cheap car, there are dozens of cheap cars that people
just don't buy. Like i why is the Kia Soul gone? That thing was awesome.
Yeah. And the yeah, the the the the question is, are they gonna buy this thing just because it's electric?
Roberto Baldwin (1:16:41)
That's th and th that's what Nicole's saying. It's like you take in a a market, you're like only EVs, only trucks, only weirdos. And so like is that circle that circle is
Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:47)
Well and and and and and the fact that it's a two door, two seat pickup as
Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:53)
opposed to ⁓ a four door like a Maverick.
Nicole Wakelin (1:16:53)
It'll look smaller. It like it's
of the day, most people don't have friends. I see four doors and a lot of parts. I drive my That's the thing, is like America work we buy based on what we think we're going to do. That's why we have giant SUVs and giant pickups. N there's nothing in these they're just hauling air. They are just hauling air. So you have to is there a mindset where people are thinking, you know what? I never drive with anyone.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:02)
They they may not they they may not have friends, but they like to think that they will have friends at some point in time.
Most people are not dragging their old their old deck to the dump in a maverick.
Roberto Baldwin (1:17:26)
Maybe with my partner. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (1:17:32)
Do I need I have a BRZ. Let me tell you how useful that rear seat is. That is, I have been driving a two-door two-seat car for like eight years now. and so I yeah. So for me, again, for me, it's totally fine. And I can make it and later on I can make in the open air. You can take the rear window out and the rear wall.
Roberto Baldwin (1:17:56)
Just take it out. Woo, have a party. Everything is a party for me in this vehicle. If you're a big nerd who likes to mess with things and wants you wanna take the doors off, go crazy.
Nicole Wakelin (1:18:06)
We just have to wait. So So
we're he what we're doing here is waiting for to hear when it's like the countdown. When will Robbie put down the extra two fifty? Like we need to take that when will Robbie finally
Roberto Baldwin (1:18:15)
Yes, we are waiting. When will Robbie put down the extra two fifty? Cut.
Roberto Baldwin (1:18:22)
I have to July twenty fourth.
Nicole Wakelin (1:18:24)
I'm going with July twenty third. Or is the last day you can do with the twenty fourth? I'm going with the last day. Whatever the last day.
Roberto Baldwin (1:18:26)
July twenty third, Sam when
it says 'til July twenty fourth, so I I if I were going to do it, I would do it July twenty third.
if people are are people waiting to hear what the numbers are before they put their deposit in. Because if the numbers at like sixty thousand are like, All right, these people are gonna build this, I'm gonna put my four my three hundred bucks in.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:51)
no doubt that they're gonna build it. Yeah, I mean they've got they've got a you know, a lot of auto industry pros working there, a lot of a lot of people with experience. You know, I think the actually getting it built is really the least of my concerns with Slate. My my primary concern is just, you know, is is there really enough of a demand for this this form factor? That's 'cause I love the concept of what they're doing. I just
Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:20)
I just feel like the two door pickup slash SUV is the the wrong form factor for to get a significant volume of customers. But we'll see.
Roberto Baldwin (1:19:34)
We've seen. They're they're already you know, we talked to them a little bit about future vehicles and yes, they're gonna have something. I the next vehicle's gonna have four doors. If they're around. If they're around 'cause I think I think
Nicole Wakelin (1:19:43)
If there is a next vehicle. Let's see. Let's see this one that launched and be successful
Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:43)
Yeah. If they survive that long.
Nicole Wakelin (1:19:48)
and sell enough to make making the next one something that you can afford to do in the sense.
term, I'm not really that concerned about slate. Long term is where I worry about because this vehicle has a like you said, a limited, you know, it gets small that circle gets smaller and smaller, has a limited ⁓ appeal for people. And so once you once you give all those people that car, maybe they can convert a few people in their neighborhood because it's in their it's at their house. They're like, hey, look at this, it's electric, I only drive around, I do this, I do that.
Roberto Baldwin (1:20:18)
You know, they're gonna ask how many miles it has, and you're gonna say 205, and they're gonna be like, Well, that's not enough, and then you're gonna have to say, you know, the average person only drives thirty-six miles a day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
All the annoying things that EV people like myself tell everybody. ⁓ And so, you know, so you maybe you'll do a few conquests with that, but the reality is they need something else. What is the long term version of Slate?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:47)
Alright, let's let's move on to another truck that was revealed this past week. the the twenty twenty seven GMC Sierra. And I think the you know, I mean for the most part this is basically the same as the Silverado, you know, the week before, you know, new engines, you know, different different a little bit different styling. I think the really big news though, it has a cookie table.
Nicole Wakelin (1:21:11)
Does it have a cookie table? Wait, I'm just seeing this. I miss that. Where's the picture? Where's the picture? Where's the picture? Where's the ⁓ look at that? That's amazing. See? What do they call it? Do they call it a work table? They call it as they should a cookie table. You stupid people, it's a cookie table. If you called it that, more people would buy your truck.
Roberto Baldwin (1:21:13)
Got the little fold table.
that there's a little video. What's this? there it goes. It opens up and then it flies flat.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:25)
There you go. It's got a cookie table.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:31)
yeah, it's like a work surface or something like that.
Roberto Baldwin (1:21:36)
You know, for fifteen dollars I could
Roberto Baldwin (1:21:39)
three D print this for thirty five for for like six dollars.
is the ⁓ professional grade brand. Or is it industrial grade?
I think it's professional grade. Industrial sounds yeah.
Nicole Wakelin (1:21:50)
Professional grade. Is it professional grade? Industrial
sounds like toxic somehow. I don't know. Professional grade.
a it's in a they sh they show the truck off in a airplane hangar, which is just like, hey, you know it's gonna be a lot Not with people working, but like, hey, I'm gonna take I'm gonna drive this in and then I'm gonna get in my play my airplane and then I'm gonna fly to my meeting and up
Nicole Wakelin (1:22:08)
I'm gonna take my airplane after I drive up in my truck. Yeah, that that does kind of that kind of speaks
to it, doesn't it? It looks great. It looks fabulous.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:19)
Yeah, it's got a little more of you know, and the lighting and everything, a little more of the design of the the E V.
I like how it looks. I'm excited about the cookie table. Now I've got to drive one.
it it's got a column shift so they don't have to do the the weird motorized shift lever that Ford has.
Roberto Baldwin (1:22:36)
I was gonna ask you what car you're driving, Nicole. I gonna three D print you a cookie table for whatever your car you have, but you don't have anything right now.
Nicole Wakelin (1:22:42)
I want a cookie table, Robbie, when I pick my car, will you do that? my god, you have to do that. Okay, now I gotta pick my car even more quick because now I really want the cookie table to go with it.
Roberto Baldwin (1:22:45)
Yeah, I'll just I'll make a you a cookie table.
see it's like it's like six bucks, ten bucks and and but it's like an hour like a couple hours of me designing it. I'm all mm-hmm mm mm mm mm and then hours of sanding to make it nice.
Nicole Wakelin (1:22:59)
I will pay you whatever it costs to do the plastic bits. I will
I want a cookie table. I want a cookie table for can you imagine? And if it's a BMW, you could say make it say like BMW on the cookie table. Right?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:07)
What what you need to do, Nicole, is you'll need to find somebody
need to find somebody that's got one of those handheld laser scanners so you can scan the whole center console area of the car. And then Robbie can work from that.
Roberto Baldwin (1:23:22)
⁓ I usually s I just have a little
figure I'm gonna do it. Okay, this is gonna happen. When the car happened.
a measuring thing that does it in millimeters but has a little digital display.
Nicole Wakelin (1:23:35)
I can probably get Russ to measure things. That that feels outside my it's already this is why I don't need to sleep. That's already too much. Too much to figure out. Okay.
Roberto Baldwin (1:23:38)
I got a fancy ruler, I can't think of the name.
Roberto Baldwin (1:23:43)
Yep. I got a f I got a fancy ruler that I
Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:49)
⁓ okay, carrying on. ⁓ Hyundai at the ⁓ Busan Motor Show in South Korea showed off the next generation ⁓ Elantra Avante as they call it in ⁓ in South Korea. what do you think of the design of this thing?
Nicole Wakelin (1:23:51)
Yes, sir. How'd they hide?
Roberto Baldwin (1:24:09)
Sorry, I had a it took me a while to find the tab. I mean it's cool. I like it's very wedgy. It's it's like a better version of the Ionic six.
Nicole Wakelin (1:24:12)
Very very wedgy. It's very wedgy.
Is it better? I guess. Definitely better than the profile. The profile is there. I like it in profile. It looks cool. The interior looks pretty sexy. Yeah, I'm good. I like it. I I'm okay. Good job.
Roberto Baldwin (1:24:23)
Have you s remember the have you seen the Ionic six?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:24)
It's got big it's got very bold fenders.
Roberto Baldwin (1:24:27)
Yeah, b it's gonna fender you in the face.
Plios ⁓ infotainment system. So you get a a tiny little instrument cluster display in front of the driver and then a big center screen.
Roberto Baldwin (1:24:48)
Way up in the front, I see.
Nicole Wakelin (1:24:50)
Is it gonna be blocked by the wheel? Hopefully
Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:50)
still got lots of physical controls.
Roberto Baldwin (1:24:54)
It's got hardware for your vents.
little knobs and stuff. It looks like there's little things to move the vents. That's a good sign. What a weird. Okay, look at this center, look at the center console. There's this okay, you know in a bank when you go through the drive thru used to put little thing in the tube and little pneumatic tube. Doesn't that look like that's what that is? Exactly what that looks like. Right? Yeah, is that like is that what is that? What does that slide?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:11)
Yeah, the pneumatic tube.
Roberto Baldwin (1:25:13)
the magic shoop. It look doesn't it look like you put you put things in there and it shoots it th thhoop. It sho
Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:15)
That's that is kinda what it looks like.
it's it's it's if you need to if it's if you need to pass a water bottle to the people in the back seat, it just shoots through the center console to the back seat.
Roberto Baldwin (1:25:23)
It shows up in a bank in nineteen eighty six.
Nicole Wakelin (1:25:32)
is. I need to know what that is. I can't
Nicole Wakelin (1:25:38)
It's the weirdest shape though. It's like perfectly
round. Like it looks like I'm about to like deposit a check at the bank like it's nineteen eighty six. Uh-huh. It's kind of funky. Okay, that's standing out to me.
Roberto Baldwin (1:25:47)
That is kind of weird. I'm gonna three gonna 3D print one
Nicole Wakelin (1:25:53)
Your own pneumatic seed water bottle shooter.
to fix my three I had to finish fixing my three D printer because ⁓ I was sh printing something in the PLA the the stuff that comes out of it, the filament. Like something happened and went inside the the the head and it just broke all these things. Or just it just got all these things dirty, so I spent like two weekends fixing it. So I'm like, I'm gonna three D print everything in the house.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:20)
⁓ all right. So I guess since you ⁓ since you seem to have largely decided on getting a slate, I guess that means that an ID buzz is out of the picture for you, right, Robbie?
Roberto Baldwin (1:26:34)
And you know, unless they do something next month. Like we it's just so Yeah. But did you see that did you see the the the the Kia? They have sale they have it yeah, in in Canada for like thirty for like thirty something thousand dollars American or something ridiculous? I'm like what? What
They get they get better stuff than we do now. They could still they could still buy pole stars. They they get they get, you know, cool Kiyas and Hyundai E Vs.
wagon or that Kia van was coming to the United States, that would really put it that would make it be Sophie's choice between that and the the slate. 'Cause the van would be cool 'cause the dogs get to run around the van. I could put the band stuff in the van. I mean I could do a lot of that in the the slate, but it'd just be funny to have a van.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:23)
Well, our our buddy Andre from TfL got to drive a different electric bus recently. ⁓ he tried out ⁓ a twenty three window first gen ⁓ microbus that was converted by Kindred Motorworks to make it electric.
Roberto Baldwin (1:27:41)
They're like ten miles from my house. Yeah, they're they're in ⁓ in the city of Alejo on Mare Island. I talked to them a lot before a long time ago. I have I should probably reach out.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:52)
Yeah, you should get a test drive in this thing.
Roberto Baldwin (1:27:55)
Yeah. I'll get around to it. It's yeah.
it's basically the same price as the slate, but with one extra zero.
Roberto Baldwin (1:28:02)
Yeah, you throw another zero on there, and it's a slate.
I e I I have a this A this is wonderful. there's a place in ⁓ San Diego that does the same thing with vans that these vans, ⁓ Zelectric. ⁓ and I have a story about how I could have got pretty much this van, but a gas version in the late nineties for fifteen hundred dollars. Because the person I worked with thought I was a nice guy. And I couldn't and I was about to pull the trigger and then the family member needed twelve hundred dollars for something.
Roberto Baldwin (1:28:37)
And that was the end of my my my VW bus ⁓ owning lifestyle. So
Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:44)
Well, Kindred Kindred does r electric resto mods of Ford first gen Ford Broncos, old nine eleven's and microbuses now. ⁓ and the the bus, like I said, it's only two hundred and forty nine thousand dollars, two hundred miles of range, but it looks fantastic.
Nicole Wakelin (1:29:07)
It does look very, very slick.
Roberto Baldwin (1:29:09)
I wonder if they've changed the the the crank windows.
Roberto Baldwin (1:29:19)
I just think people are like yeah.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:19)
I think I think they might have put new handles on there, but you know, it's
Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:28)
let's see. ⁓ so the Honda Element apparently might be coming back, according to automotive news. ⁓ it should be coming back in twenty twenty nine. Gonna be built in Ohio like it was before. ⁓ and apparently it's being targeted as a competitor to the Ford Broncos sport.
Nicole Wakelin (1:29:53)
I loved the Honda element. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. And I thought they marketed it wrong back in the day because they marketed it as like this adventure vehicle. And as a parent with little kids, it was the most brilliant car with little kids.
It was so you could hose it out, the kids could get in and out easily. You could sit on the tailgate, that little clamshell thing, and it would act like a little roof over your head if it was raining and you were sitting there.
Nicole Wakelin (1:30:19)
It was the most brilliant car when our girls were little and they marketed it as just an adventure vehicle. I'm like, you should have marketed that sucker to parents. I hope they bring it back.
I am excited. I I the thing only thing made us get rid of it was that the fuel economy, it was a toaster and you know, your mileage was garbage. And I just couldn't we couldn't afford it. Like gas prices went up.
We literally could not afford to keep the car and we ditched it. If it had decent fuel economy, we would have kept it and they're saying it comes back as a hybrid.
Is the the going wisdom? Like, man, I want one of those.
Roberto Baldwin (1:30:54)
My my brother still has his ⁓ Honda Element. I have right I have right of first refusal when he sells it. And every every dog walker in the Bay Area owns a Honda Element. They snatch them up as because for a little while you could get a Honda Element for pretty cheap.
It was before people realized how cool they were. Like they came out, the people at the bottom bottom, and then they w they went away and everyone was just like, boo, Honda Element. And so for a little while you could get a Honda Element like three and a half.
Roberto Baldwin (1:31:23)
four thousand dollars. And then everyone realized how cool the Honda element is and the prices went right back up. And now everyone's like, the Honda element. I'm like
Roberto Baldwin (1:31:36)
Where were you? Is the Honda element the slate of Honda?
know. Maybe. Was it really cheap? It was pretty cheap at the time, right? Wasn't that its thing? It was relatively simple. ⁓ that was amazing. I had a child who got car sick constantly. I was like, no problem. Just stand there, hose her off, hose the car out. We're all good. Just done. We're ready. Let's go.
Roberto Baldwin (1:31:46)
You could hose it out with a with a hose sh little seats went up.
Roberto Baldwin (1:32:01)
Here we Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. ⁓ nope,
yeah, no. This will if they do this if Hon it you know, Honda might cancel just because people are excited. ⁓ but if they do it, ⁓ they're gonna make a lot of people happy. yeah. Fingers crossed.
enough for them to do it. I don't know if I I don't know if it doesn't make any sense at all for me to buy one. If they come out and BMW gonna let me drive one, maybe they will. Yeah, three years.
Roberto Baldwin (1:32:23)
Yeah, you don't need it now.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:24)
Well it's it's it's still three years away. Yeah.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:30)
You get three years to enjoy an three and then, you know, decide, All right, I'm I'm I'm good. Time time to get an element.
Tie to get an elephant. And I want to be just as boxy and the panels to look well, it can't look exactly the same because they just don't do that when they bring cars back. Like they don't they change them somehow, you know.
The fact that they're saying it's supposed to be what is this compete with a sport? Is that what they're saying? The Bronco or the Bronco? Bronco sport? Okay. I'll give it that. Just don't make it complete.
Try and compete with a Bronco. Don't pretend some off road monster. Don't do that.
Yeah, no, it's gonna be s I mean, it's gonna be smaller.
It's gonna be you know, 'cause i it's got it's gotta be different from the the passport. Yeah. So it's gotta be a a little bit smaller.
Nicole Wakelin (1:33:08)
I want it to look like a little box like this with the suicide doors and everything.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:13)
Yeah, I don't know if they'll do the the doors, but yeah.
Nicole Wakelin (1:33:16)
were part of the cards. The doors were great. That was part of what made it so cool. fucking.
Roberto Baldwin (1:33:21)
I know, I know. But remember you got the circle
of people who want can see a lot smaller. People who want suicide doors.
Nicole Wakelin (1:33:27)
You got your little slice you got
your slice of the circle. Where's my slice of the circle? Dang it. Where's my slice of the circle, Honda?
Roberto Baldwin (1:33:32)
Where is Nicole's slice of the circle? Listen,
if Slate was just like, you know what, we're just gonna make a Honda Honda Elements knockoff, I'd be like, Here, take your truck back
Nicole Wakelin (1:33:41)
Like, I'll take Robbie's reservation. ⁓
Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:48)
All right. ⁓ Polestar. You know we're we were talking about, you know, start up brands, you know, kind of failing. ⁓ and you know, Polestar, you know, it's relative it's relatively new as a standalone brand. But, you know, it's been around, you know, and it started in the nineties building first building Volvo race cars and then doing tuned road road Volvos and then got absorbed into Volvo and then spun off out of Volvo as an E V brand and you know, still
Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:18)
owned by Julie out of China, well they're giving up on the US market. And well, no. They're they're giving up because so, you know, a month ago, ⁓ so in twenty twenty four, the Biden administration introduced a new rule called the connected car
Nicole Wakelin (1:34:24)
They they didn't ha you know, the rules were impossible.
Roberto Baldwin (1:34:35)
I think that what what's gonna happen
Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:40)
Yeah, well exactly. So they they introduced the connected vehicle rule in twenty twenty four which said starting from twenty twenty seven, vehicles ⁓ sold in the US cannot have any connectivity software or hardware or ADAS hardware or software that originated from China or Russia. And we obviously don't get anything from Russia, but ⁓ you know, they you know, China is obviously the big issue here making claims about, you know, security
Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:10)
You know, and the Chinese, you know, spying on on America, you know, with the cars they're selling, ⁓ you know, sending data back from their their cars back to the com Chinese Communist Party, which is ridiculous because if they actually wanted to spy on us, there's a lot more efficient ways to do it than that.
Roberto Baldwin (1:35:28)
The fact that we don't have a proper privacy rules in this country means that China can just buy the data from data brokers like everyone else. They don't need Polestar, they don't need Gili, they don't need BYD. They everyone could just yeah.
else does. Just go to the data brokers and buy the data. So anyway, a month ago, Volvo, Volvo got a waiver from the Commerce Department to continue selling their cars here. And Volvo and Polestar, both owned by Geely. Volvo builds the Polestar three in Charleston, South Carolina. ⁓ and they're Volvo's ⁓
Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:07)
Volvo is ⁓ can continue selling vehicles here, but Polestar is pulling out of the US market. And you know, ev pretty much everything in the Polestar three is the same as what's in the EX ninety that's built in the same factory. It's the Polestar four that would potentially be problematic. ⁓ and Volvo or Polestar is pulling out of the US market. And when I looked at the the sales numbers
Like that's the real reason. They're using the connected vehicle rule as an excuse. They could have very easily made it comply with the rule, but
Roberto Baldwin (1:36:40)
they but they also like when they launched that car was supposed to be a lot cheaper and then a tariff happened right before they launched. So they just it just kept hitting they just kept hitting headwinds after headwind after headwind and then you have to deal with the software issues that come from from and so it was just like all these problems and then you're like we're gonna make it even more complicated and you know what?
F you we're out F you we're not gonna do your we're not gonna play your game anymore is essentially what Polestar's doing.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:44)
yeah. Yeah, because of the tariffs and everything.
Pol Polestar's US sales peaked at about twelve and a half thousand in twenty twenty three. Last year it was about seventy-two hundred. They sold half that number in Canada last year. They sold thirty six hundred units in Canada, which is a market one tenth the size. and I talked to Michael Fiara the other day. He's the PR guy for for Polestar. And he said, Yeah, no, we're gonna keep selling cars in Canada. It's just the US that's that's losing Polestar. So
Sam Abuelsamid (1:37:36)
Yeah, they're gonna continue to you know, they're gonna sell down the whatever they've got for the remainder of this year. they're gonna continue to support them. I think ultimately what'll probably end up happening is they will just tr they'll probably close down the Polestar dealers and have Volvo dealers handle service and support going forward.
but they're not saying that right now. But yeah, it's it's too bad, you know, 'cause I think Polestar had a lot of potential. Yeah, I had I had some complaints about the Polestar Four because everything was in the touch screen, but
I still love driving that car. But yeah, absolutely.
Roberto Baldwin (1:38:09)
Polestar two is a great car.
Roberto Baldwin (1:38:13)
And then, you know, it's it's like everything every time they felt I feel like every time they thought they had like a foothold, something weird or stupid would happen, or it's like, son of a mm
software issues with the yeah, it's just it things just kept hitting them and hitting and they're like, you know what? The the pain that is selling in the United States now and the the fact that the tariffs are like, Who knows what's gonna be next week? When you're Polestar, you're like, you know what, forget it. Just forget it. Forget it. We're done.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:43)
Yeah. ⁓ all right. So IAHS did another crash test of a new vehicle versus an older equivalent vehicle. This time they took a twenty twenty six Chevy blazer and a nineteen ninety six S ten blazer and they ran them into each other in a moderate overlap crash test, so it's about a forty percent overlap. And did did you guys watch this video?
Roberto Baldwin (1:39:09)
I'm scrubbing through it right now and it is terrifying what I we drove in the nineties.
Nicole Wakelin (1:39:14)
thing is, it's not like that's a car from like nineteen forty-five. It's nineteen ninety-six. It's not it's old, but it's not old. Like a lot of people are driving around in cars from the nineties still.
The you especially the little the one you handed down. Right. And if they're hand-me-downs, you know, like you give it to your kid, give it to somebody, you know, that's it's scary. I mean, I guess scary to see how they what happened to them, but great to know that that doesn't happen anymore.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:22)
It's only thirty years old. It's not as old as my Miata.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:45)
I mean the it was it was so bad in the ninety six blazer that the crash test dummy got decapitated. The head came off the crash test dummy.
Nicole Wakelin (1:39:56)
I mean, that's not good. That's not good. That's not the desired
Roberto Baldwin (1:40:07)
I don't think I mean maybe like a step or two. Maybe a free chicken, a step or two. But yeah
Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:08)
Well, maybe for a chicken.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's scary. I mean, it is scary to see that, but truly the good thing to know is that that was like how how far we've come in that much time, right? The the scary part is you might be driving in cars that still are that old. The the positive thing is in that brief amount of time cars have gotten considerably safer than they were.
Well thirty years. I mean it's brief for us. 'Cause we're so old. Forty something years I had to like do the math about that camping spot and I was just like, no. ⁓ no.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:52)
all right. in ⁓ in Australia a ⁓ an executive from Toyota or an engineer from Toyota, ⁓ that ⁓ is responsible for the RAV four was talking to an Australian journalist, and said, a Rabfour Ute, which is what Australians call pickup trucks, ⁓ the Rab Four Ute would be quite appealing.
Roberto Baldwin (1:41:19)
I mean a RAV4 El Camino would be rad. I mean it's just a Santa Cruz, but it's Rabfor. Yeah. Why one one dude being like, Yeah Do you work in Japan? No.
Nicole Wakelin (1:41:24)
One engineer does not a product make, however, so we'll have to
Sam Abuelsamid (1:41:36)
⁓ and then ⁓ Jeep has confirmed that ⁓ the Cherokee Trailhawk, probably you know, one of the worst kept secrets, ⁓ is actually coming. And they they released a teaser image. Yeah, they they had a concept at the Easter Jeep Safari, which was basically a trail hawk.
Nicole Wakelin (1:41:56)
Mm-hmm. I don't think anyone's surprised.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:00)
Yeah. Got red toe hooks. Yeah. Gonna gonna have a different front end. Not sure why it's not ⁓ showing up. ⁓ there it is. There it is. Yep. See? Yep. It's gotta be a trail hawk. Yep.
Nicole Wakelin (1:42:08)
There you go. There you got it. No, it's got it. That's how you know. Red toe hook. That's the definition of ⁓ there you go, red toe hook, trailhawk. Trailhawk
Roberto Baldwin (1:42:10)
Nope. there. Well, there it is. There it is. There.
Roberto Baldwin (1:42:20)
rip right off when you use it.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:22)
⁓ so Autopian had a had an article. They had ⁓ four bad car commercials from the from the nineteen eighties. seventies and eighties. And the the one that really caught my attention, I watched all four of these. I don't know if you if you guys had a chance to watch these.
to watch all of them. Which was the one that you hated the most?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:42:53)
Yeah, which was a it was something special. ⁓ and so at the end of the ad, let's see. The end of the at the very end of the ad, I mean it's it's just a terrible ad to begin with, but it's at the end the the last line in the ad, after five years, over a billion dollars and this is in like early nineteen eighties dollars. So that's you know, that's when a billion dollars was a lot of money.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:43:22)
And a million miles of testing, Mercury unveils the topaz.
it's like spending seven thousand dollars on a Subway sandwich.
Nicole Wakelin (1:43:37)
⁓ Not even a subway standards like the it's the gas station standard.
Roberto Baldwin (1:43:39)
After twelve years and ten thousand dollars, we recreated the subway sandwich.
calculator. What was a billion dollars in nineteen eighty four? Let's see.
Roberto Baldwin (1:43:51)
Today's ⁓ here we go. Today
⁓ can't even calculate that. Please use values less than ten million. Please try again. Okay, let's try.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:14)
So that so that let's see, that would be ⁓ one point nine trillion dollars adjusted for inflation.
Roberto Baldwin (1:44:30)
I don't think that's a real number that they use I don't think they spent a billion dollars on the Mercury toopaz. I think they just like, well, we've driven since we've been around, we've spent a billion dollars. And since we've been around, we've driven a million miles. Let's just say that and then say Mercury Topaz.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:44:54)
⁓ let's see. And there was ⁓ one one more article here, ⁓ which Nicole wrote ⁓ about the Cox mid year automotive update. Cox automotive mid year update. I I was at this presentation ⁓ here in in Dearborn. But ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (1:45:15)
She didn't write this. Unless your name is Tom Murphy.
Sorry. When I searched for your name today, this come this came up.
Roberto Baldwin (1:45:25)
Maybe it's her f maybe she has a photo in there?
Nicole Wakelin (1:45:25)
⁓ did I take one of the pictures
Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:36)
⁓ no, you know why? 'Cause there's a related story that's linked in there. It says by Nicole Wakeland at the end. It's Americans are buying more car than they can afford.
Roberto Baldwin (1:45:36)
Yeah. Shouldn't write it.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:45:49)
Yeah, apparently we do that sort of thing. But this this is from March of twenty twenty five, so never mind.
Roberto Baldwin (1:45:50)
Or not enough car if they're buying a slate.
Nicole Wakelin (1:45:55)
What happened? Okay. There we go. Never mind. Don't look here. Close that down.
Roberto Baldwin (1:45:56)
this is do do do do do close.
anyway, one one of the key aspects of the the presentation, you know, they were talking about affordability. So Cox Automotive, if you're not familiar, Cox Enterprises, you know, is into all kinds of stuff. They have a cable company, they own all kinds of media businesses. ⁓ Cox Automotive owns Mannheim Auctions, they do all kind they provide all kinds of services for dealers, provide dealer management systems. And so they get access to all kinds of data from
Sam Abuelsamid (1:46:29)
from the sales side from the retail side of the auto industry. And they were talking about affordability and you know what what they showed you know they they actually showed an inflation curve and basically you know vehicle ⁓ transaction prices are going up at about the same rate as inflation so they're not really outpacing inflation although it is outpacing you know income growth but ⁓
Plus cars are used as an inflation index, aren't they? So
it it's ⁓ it's not so much the the price that's actually the the problem. It's it's all the other stuff. like increases in insurance and repairs and ⁓ and stuff like that. That's that's where the real affordability problem is coming, you know. And and actually you know, for payments, you know, because interest rates are high, you know, that's really jacked up
the monthly payments, which is you know what most people make their buying decisions on is based on monthly payments. you know, and because interest rates are high, their monthly payments have gone up a lot. Even though, you know, the you know, they're they're saying the you know the the MSRPs are only going up, you know, roughly the rate of inflation. But I don't know. Cars are just still just too expensive. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (1:47:52)
Cars are too expensive. Yeah.
At the end of the day it's they're they're so expensive. And people are like, I got a thousand dollar car payment. Like you make less than I do. How does that work? How can you how can you aff are you not eating? Like you look slim.
Roberto Baldwin (1:48:10)
Yeah, it's I cannot I can't fathom the thousand dollar car payment. It's just like you when we bought we nope.
Nicole Wakelin (1:48:14)
Mm. That makes my head hurt.
so so there was a a comment from the the live stream from Paul Kavanaugh. ⁓ says he wanted us to comment on the the new Elantra, which we talked about a little bit before. Said it looks like the sedan version of a Kia Tasman. And we own a a twenty eighteen Elantra and would not consider this next gen Elantra.
Yeah, it it's it's different. It looks it's definitely different.
Roberto Baldwin (1:48:46)
I got a I got a couple of questions for about slate. ⁓ in the c in the Discord. ⁓ one's sport truck accessories like aerobits or performance parts. ⁓ they don't I mean they have some some flares for the fenders right now. ⁓ I th there's a lift kit if that's what you want, there's lowering kit. arrow par arrow bits and performance parts. I'm t there's gonna be you know again if this thing sells well, people are gonna make, you know
Roberto Baldwin (1:49:15)
They're gonna sell those or Slate's gonna gonna make and sell them to you. That's sort of the whole thing. ⁓ all wheel drive version. ⁓ we we you know, they s they they're not gonna tell us that yes, they have an all wheel drive version, because no automaker is going to say, Well yeah, we're totally making this other thing, so don't even bother buying this rear wheel drive version.
We don't talk about future products. There's there but there is a little like, well, we'll see, kind of, you know, there's a lot of that at Slate because they're new, they can do whatever they want, to be honest.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:49:31)
We we don't talk about future products.
Roberto Baldwin (1:49:45)
To be completely honest, they can say, Yeah, we'll see, because again, they're like, Well, we'll just see. Little you know, they they also will see how things are going ⁓ based on ⁓ you know sales.
and then there's a question ⁓ but wondering how the second row for the SUV add-on is, meaning space for leg room and car seats. Is it a good family vehicle? ⁓ y a a reminder that you have to put the seat down, forward and down, just like it's the eighties and the early nineties.
Three of them would have to be pretty thin in the back. ⁓ the the rear seats, again, s shorter people. if you get the if you get the open air kit though, they can just jump over the side like one of the you know, like they're ready to party, like they're going to the beach. Like they would with a truck. is it a good family vehicle?
You're gonna need to go, they're gonna have these pop-up events all over the country where you can go and actually drive the slate. You can do a test drive, so you're not buying something, you're like, Well, I guess it's cool.
I don't know. ⁓ I would go to one of those and check it out, especially if you're thinking about buying something for a family. Yes, I would if I had a family, I would throw them in there because you know, YOLO.
but you might you're your your your your mileage may differ on how you want to treat your children. I'm like you guys sitting in the back.
Sun's gonna be up. I don't feel like putting the cop on. Hold on. Well, I guess it doesn't make any noise if you're
Yeah. I think they'll they'll probably have an all wheel drive, they'll probably have a four door something at some point. but again, you know, short term, all we know is the truck, long term we'll see how Slate does with the truck.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:31)
Okay. ⁓ anything else? Or is that it for today?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:51:38)
All right, well thanks everybody and we will talk to you next time. Bye.
About this episode
Nicole Wakelin shares her frustrating quest to replace her Jeep Wagoneer S, highlighting the challenges of shopping for a performance car. After being denied a test drive of a BMW M3 at one dealership due to restrictive policies and condescending treatment, she contrasts it with a stellar, respectful experience at another dealer. The hosts discuss dealership etiquette, the absurdity of test-drive bans on sports cars, and why buyers should always walk away from disrespectful sales staff.
This week Nicole shares her adventure of trying to get a test drive in a BMW, and testing the Subaru Crosstrek hybrid and Ford Maverick hybrid. Robbie went on an adventure in the new Subaru Outback and Sam did truck stuff with the Ford Maverick Lobo.
In the news, Jeep teased the new Cherokee Trailhawk, a Toyota engineer said he's like a Rav4 Ute, and we discuss bad old car ads. IIHS crashed old and new Blazers, Polestar pulled out of the US market, Honda is bringing back the Element, our pal Andre tries a restomoded 23-window VW bus and we look at the new Hyundai Elantra. We also spend a lot of time discussing Slate.
