The Excursion is a very large SUV from Ford. It’s known for being big and capable, with lots of space. The podcast mentions it in a personal story about an outing.
The Ridgeline is a pickup truck from Honda. It’s designed to be practical for hauling and carrying, but it’s also comfortable for everyday driving. The podcast mentions it because it was parked nearby and discussed in passing.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is Mercedes’ top luxury sedan. It’s designed to feel especially smooth and high-tech for the driver and passengers. Here they’re talking about the 2027 version’s updates and how it drives.
The “super screen” is Mercedes’ big digital display inside the car. It’s the main screen setup for things like navigation and controls. In this episode, they mention it as a new interior update.
MBUX is Mercedes’ in-car screen system. It’s what you use for navigation and other controls without needing your phone. The host likes it because it’s straightforward and map-focused.
The S500 is a small older sports car made by Honda. The podcast mentions that there are only two engine options and talks about how many versions have all-wheel drive. It’s included as a specific model detail in the conversation.
A mild hybrid uses a small electric motor to help the gas engine. It usually can’t move the car on electricity alone, but it can add extra help when you start moving. The host says it provides extra boost at low speeds.
Here “compression” means how the engine squeezes the air/fuel mixture before it burns. Changes to that can help the engine use fuel more efficiently. The host says Mercedes is using compression changes to improve efficiency.
An inline six is an engine with six cylinders lined up in a row. It’s a common layout in smooth-running engines. Here they mention the S500 uses an inline six.
4MATIC means the car drives all four wheels. That can help with grip, especially in rain or snow. Here they’re saying the S-Class versions they drove are all-wheel drive.
Term
E booster
“E booster” is Mercedes’ name for the mild-hybrid electric assist. It helps the car feel more responsive, especially when you’re starting from low speeds. The host says it’s been updated and provides boost at the low end.
Car
Mercedes-Benz S580E 4MATIC
This is a Mercedes-Benz S-Class that can run partly on electricity. “4MATIC” means it has all-wheel drive, so it can send power to more than just the front or rear wheels.
Kilowatt-hours (kWh) tell you how much energy the battery can store. More kWh usually means the car can go farther on electricity, but it still depends on how you drive.
Car
Mercedes-Benz S580 4MATIC
This is the Mercedes-Benz S-Class with a V8 engine and all-wheel drive. It’s the version that’s meant to feel more like a classic V8, even though Mercedes made changes to improve efficiency.
A flat-plane crankshaft is an engine crankshaft design used in some high-revving engines, where the crankpins are arranged to support a different firing and vibration character than a traditional cross-plane V8. The host notes it can change how the engine sounds and vibrates, which is why Mercedes added countermeasures.
The Miller cycle is a way of running an engine that aims to use fuel more efficiently. Here, Mercedes uses it to get better efficiency, but then they tweak the engine so it still feels and sounds right.
Exhaust manifold valving uses valves in the exhaust to control how the gases flow. That can change the sound the engine makes—here, it’s used to make the V8 sound more like what you expect.
This is an air suspension system that uses the internet and other cars’ data. If one car hits a bump and reports it, other cars can prepare their suspension so the ride is smoother.
They talk about how you could test if the car’s “smart” suspension really helps. The idea is to drive the road, add a temporary bump, and compare the ride results.
“Digital lights” means the headlights are controlled electronically, so they can change the light pattern more precisely than older headlight designs. That’s what makes advanced features like automatic masking possible.
It’s headlights that automatically “aim” the bright light so you can see farther without blinding other drivers. When a car comes toward you, the system darkens part of the beam and then restores full brightness after they pass.
Masking is when headlights “turn down” the bright part aimed at another car. That way you can still see well, but you don’t blind the driver coming toward you.
The Miata is a small two-seat sports car. It’s built to feel light and easy to drive, especially on twisty roads. The podcast mentions it because it’s a popular example of a low, sporty car.
The Rivian R1 is an electric vehicle platform that the speaker says was one of the early U.S. deployments of adaptive headlights. They describe driving it at night where the high beams automatically dipped around an oncoming car and then returned to full brightness.
Tear gas is a chemical that makes your eyes and breathing feel awful. Some armored cars can seal the cabin and provide air so people inside can keep going for a while.
Run-flat tires are tires that can keep you moving for a short distance even if they’re punctured. They’re designed to avoid immediate total loss of mobility.
CDL means Commercial Driver’s License. It’s a special license you need for certain big/heavy vehicles, and the speaker says the armored car may require that kind of qualification.
Body-on-frame means the car has a strong “skeleton” frame underneath, and the body is attached to it. It’s often used for heavy-duty or armored vehicles because it can handle a lot of weight.
The Studebaker Presidents is an older luxury car model from Studebaker. The podcast mentions it because it’s associated with a very large V12 engine and special driving requirements. It’s brought up as an example of a car that’s not simple to drive.
The 2026 Nissan Sentra SR is a mainstream compact car meant to be affordable but still feel modern inside. The host talks about how it drives with its automatic-style transmission and what you get for the money, like the big screens and usable trunk space.
The Nissan 200 SX is an older Nissan sports car model. The podcast brings it up while comparing it to a newer Nissan Sentra SR. The point is to contrast different Nissan cars and what the speaker likes about them.
CVT is a kind of automatic transmission that can change “gears” smoothly instead of stepping through fixed gears. The host says Nissan tuned it so it doesn’t feel as weird as some CVTs can, and it can mimic normal shifting for a more familiar feel.
The “motorboating effect” is when the car feels like it’s surging or wobbling instead of moving smoothly. It’s usually a sign the transmission and engine are not matching up as well as they should.
“Rubber banding” is when a car’s engine revs up, but the car doesn’t speed up as directly as you expect. It can feel disconnected, like the power is stretching rather than pushing you forward.
Simulated shifting is when a CVT pretends it has real gears. It changes the “gear ratio” in a way you can feel, so the car feels more normal when you accelerate.
Incentives are discounts or money-back deals that lower what you pay for a car. They’re comparing different incentive options to figure out the best deal.
Hyundai is the company that makes the electric car they’re talking about. They mention Hyundai because the deals and incentives depend on the manufacturer.
Electrify America is a company that runs public fast-charging stations for electric cars. They’re saying they got some free charging time at those stations.
Charging at home means using a residential charger (or outlet) to refill the battery between trips, which is usually more convenient and can be cheaper than relying on public stations. The hosts also note charging overnight when electricity is cheaper, which is a common strategy with time-of-use rates.
The Corvette is a sports car made by Chevrolet. It’s designed for fast driving and has a big fan base. The conversation mentions it as a well-known example of a sports car people might own.
The ID. Buzz is an electric van from Volkswagen. It’s designed to carry people like a family van, but with an EV powertrain. The podcast mentions a future version called the Tourer.
Electric cars use high-voltage electricity to move and charge. A “400-volt” system is one design choice, and the hosts are comparing it to “800 volts,” which can help with faster charging.
The iX3 is an electric SUV. The podcast talks about it in comparison to a newer version and mentions electrical system details like an 800-volt setup. It’s included because it’s part of the EV lineup being discussed.
The BMW iX3 is an electric SUV. They bring it up as a comparison point, including how its electrical system and interior space stack up against the ID Buzz Tourer.
Some electric cars are built around higher voltage electricity. “800 volts” is a design that can help the car charge faster at the right fast chargers.
A “two-tone paint job” is when a car has two different colors on it, usually one for the roof and another for the rest of the body. They’re saying the newer ID Buzz models will come with that look.
“Camping mode” is a setting that lets an electric vehicle stay on while you’re parked, so you can use the cabin like a mini hangout. They’re saying the ID Buzz previously shut off unless you stayed buckled in, which was annoying.
Climate control is the car’s heating/air-conditioning system that keeps the cabin at a set temperature. In the story, it’s used to keep the inside cool for the dogs.
The Lexus ES is a luxury sedan. It comes up because the hosts compared how different cars handle keeping the cabin cool for pets using remote start and the phone app.
The Honda CR-V is a popular SUV. It’s mentioned because Honda’s hybrid version mostly drives like an electric-first setup, with the gas engine helping more at highway speeds.
The Honda Civic is a popular Honda model. In this discussion, it’s mentioned because Honda’s current hybrid system in the Civic uses an electric-motor-first approach, with the gas engine helping at higher speeds.
The Honda Accord is a family sedan. Here it’s mentioned because Honda’s hybrid version uses an electric-motor-first layout, with the gas engine connected more directly at higher speeds.
In a series hybrid, the electric motor does most of the work moving the car. The gas engine is mostly there to help make electricity, not directly drive the wheels all the time.
A clutch is a connection mechanism that can link the engine to the drive system when needed. In hybrids, it helps the car use the engine more directly at certain speeds.
Nissan’s e-Power is a hybrid where the electric motor moves the car, and the gas engine mainly makes electricity. The comparison here is that Honda’s new system will behave similarly—mostly electric driving.
The Acura RDX is a luxury SUV. In this segment, it’s important because the hosts say the next RDX will get Honda’s new hybrid system and then updated safety/driver-assist tech a year later.
ADAS is the set of safety and driver-assist features in a modern car. It can help with things like staying in the lane and controlling speed, depending on the system.
Level 3 means the car can do most of the driving in specific situations, but you still have to be ready to take control. It’s not full self-driving all the time.
Solid state batteries are a newer type of battery design that could be safer and store more energy. The hosts are basically saying Honda is still working on them, but it’s not guaranteed they’ll succeed on the timeline they need.
The N-Box is a small vehicle model name mentioned in the podcast. The conversation connects it to plans for more electric vehicles and mentions solid-state battery development. It’s brought up as part of a bigger EV strategy discussion.
The HR-V is a small crossover SUV from Honda. It’s built for normal daily driving and easy access. The podcast mentions an overseas version that’s described as an EV.
A joint venture plant is a factory run by two companies working together. The point in this segment is that Honda’s hybrid battery work is planned to be made in Ohio through that partnership.
ASIMO OS is Honda’s software system for controlling parts of the car. The hosts say Honda plans to use that same software approach in hybrid models too.
Zonal architecture is a way of organizing the car’s electronics by sections of the vehicle. The hosts are saying Honda won’t use that approach here, even though it was developed for another platform.
A domain-based electrical architecture is how the car’s electronics are split up into different areas, like power and body systems. The hosts are saying Honda will keep that kind of setup instead of switching to a different layout.
ECUs are the car’s onboard computers that control different systems. The hosts are saying the design they’re using will involve more of these computer modules.
“Zero Series” is Honda’s name for an EV platform effort. The hosts are saying some of the electronics design work from that EV platform won’t be used in the hybrid cars.
Lotus is the car brand at the center of the discussion. The hosts are talking about how Lotus changed its electric plans and whether the new cars will still feel like Lotus.
An e-rev powertrain is a hybrid-style electric system. It still drives like an electric car, but it can also generate electricity instead of relying only on the battery.
The Esprit is a sports car made by Lotus. It’s known for being lightweight and built for driving feel. The podcast mentions it because a newer car is described as being a successor to the old Esprit.
The Emira is a sports car from Lotus. It’s meant to feel like a true Lotus by focusing on driving performance. The podcast mentions it as the newer car that’s supposed to match Lotus’s style and character.
A “900 volt hybrid” means the car’s electric system runs at a very high voltage. That can help the car move power more efficiently and potentially charge faster.
A Supercharger wait list is a digital queue system for Tesla fast-charging stations. Instead of drivers competing for an available plug in real time, the app assigns a number and tells you when to pull up to a charger that’s free.
The Tesla Model S is an all-electric car from Tesla. They bring it up because, back when it was reviewed, charging stations were less common and people sometimes waited in line.
The Tesla Model X is an all-electric SUV. They mention it to explain that, years ago, there weren’t as many fast-charging stations, so waiting could be a real issue.
A virtual wait list is a digital line in an app. It’s meant to stop people from arguing about who gets the next charger by telling you when your turn is coming.
The Charger is a car from Dodge that’s built to be quick and sporty. People often associate it with strong acceleration. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because it’s the car involved in a driving moment.
Chrysler is a car brand under the larger Stellantis company. The discussion here is about what Chrysler is selling right now and how limited its lineup is.
The Ram 1500 is a full-size pickup truck. It’s meant for towing and hauling, but it can also be comfortable for everyday driving. The podcast mentions it because the speaker is considering one and likes it.
Car companies sometimes meet with their dealers ahead of time to show them what new models are coming. That’s how rumors can start—because dealers see the plans early.
Car
Chrysler Pronto
The Chrysler Pronto is a rumored sub-$30,000 car nameplate being discussed for the Chrysler brand. The hosts also connect it to an earlier “Pronto” concept from the 1990s, described as PT Cruiser-like but with a two-door layout—so the name carries a history that could influence expectations for the new model.
The Plymouth Prowler is a two-door sports car with a very unusual, retro-style design. The podcast mentions it because another car’s design was described as mixing Prowler styling with a PT Cruiser-like concept. It’s used as a visual reference point.
The Kia Soul is a compact crossover with a distinctive, boxy design. They mention it as a quirky, fun car that still didn’t achieve big sales the way you might expect.
The Nissan Juke is a small crossover with a very distinctive, quirky look. They’re bringing it up as an example of a fun design that didn’t end up selling in big numbers.
The Volkswagen Beetle is a classic, recognizable car with a quirky, fun personality. They’re using it to argue that a weird-looking car can still sell well if it really connects.
The PT Cruiser is a Chrysler model with a very unusual, retro look. The hosts are saying it’s not fun to drive, even though some people love the style.
This means the car’s automatic gearbox only has four forward gears. With fewer gears, the engine may not stay in its best “sweet spot,” so the drive can feel worse.
The Suzuki Samurai is a small, rugged off-road-oriented SUV known for its simple, lightweight design and “go anywhere” reputation. Here it’s mentioned as another example of a quirky, unconventional car someone might offer to drive.
The Chrysler LeBaron convertible is an older convertible model with classic styling. They’re talking about a particularly clean one and joking about its voice/alert system.
This is the car’s talking alert system. Instead of understanding your questions, it just announces things like whether a door is open or if your seatbelt isn’t fastened.
The Corolla is a common, practical small car from Toyota. It’s usually chosen for reliability and everyday driving. The podcast mentions a version that can be ordered with a manual transmission and fewer features.
A manual transmission means the driver has to shift gears themselves, usually using a clutch pedal. The episode mentions this because the training car can be set up for lessons even with a manual gearbox.
The Road Runner is a Dodge performance car name. People associate it with a loud, energetic character. The podcast mentions it as a comparison for a sound someone made.
The Model T is a very old Ford car from the early days of mass-produced vehicles. It’s famous because it helped make cars more common. The podcast references it as a historical comparison point.
The Tundra is Toyota’s full-size pickup truck. It’s made for work like towing and hauling, but it can also be used like a regular truck. The podcast mentions it because Toyota builds it at a specific factory.
The Tacoma is Toyota’s midsize pickup truck. It’s designed for both daily driving and tougher roads. The podcast brings it up while talking about manufacturing locations.
The Maverick is a smaller pickup truck from Ford. It’s meant to be easier to live with than big trucks while still offering pickup utility. The episode mentions it as one of the compact truck choices being compared.
Motor oil is what keeps an engine’s moving parts from grinding against each other. The hosts are talking about Toyota warning dealers that a certain kind of motor oil might be hard to find.
A service bulletin is a message from the car maker to its dealerships. It tells them about problems or special instructions—this one was about a possible shortage of the right engine oil for Toyota hybrids.
Viscosity is basically how thick or thin a fluid is. For engine oil, that matters because it changes how well the oil flows and protects the engine, especially when it’s cold.
The Jeep Wrangler 4xe is a Wrangler that can run using electricity part of the time and also uses gas. They’re talking about how Russ stays on top of maintenance for it.
The Polestar 3 is an electric SUV. They mention it to explain what kinds of cars are being produced at a factory and how that affects business economics.
The Volvo EX90 is an electric Volvo SUV. In this segment, it’s mentioned as another model made at the same factory while they talk about production levels.
The XC60 is a Volvo SUV that’s designed for everyday comfort. It’s a popular size for people who want an SUV but not something huge. The podcast mentions it because Volvo makes it at a factory and talks about production capacity.
Tariffs are extra taxes on products when they’re brought in from another country. The hosts are saying it can be cheaper to build cars in the same country instead of importing them.
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a sports car that’s famous for its stainless-steel look. It also has doors that open upward. The podcast compares it to another car because they both have a similar brushed-metal style.
The Cybertruck is an electric pickup truck made by Tesla. It has a very unusual, sharp-looking design. The podcast mentions it because of its distinctive brushed-metal look.
A V10 is an engine with 10 cylinders arranged in a V shape. They mention it because the concept bike uses a V10, which helps explain why it’s so extreme.
The Viper is a high-performance sports car made by Dodge. It’s known for having a big V10 engine. The podcast mentions it while talking about a vehicle that uses a V10.
Alpina is a company that makes special BMW-based cars. The hosts are talking about Alpina’s style and history while judging the car’s big front grille.
Thermal runaway means a battery starts overheating in a way that can’t easily be stopped. It can lead to smoke and fire, which is why emergency crews showed up.
The host mentions their Jeep Wagoneer S as a comparison. They’re saying it didn’t catch fire, but it still had a serious failure that made them give up on the car.
A vapor cloud refers to the airborne mixture of gases and fine particles released during a battery event like thermal runaway. In this context it’s described as extremely dangerous to breathe, even before you see major flames. The practical takeaway is to avoid inhaling smoke and to move away from the vehicle.
LIVE
Sam Abuelsamid (00:00)
This is Wheel Bearings episode 453. I am Sam Abuelsamid from telemetry.
Nicole Wakelin (00:06)
And I'm Nicole Wakeland from Test Miles and Top Speed.
Roberto Baldwin (00:09)
and I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:14)
And welcome back, Nicole. We missed you last week.
missed you, but I was having a lovely time on my vacation. Disney World. Yes, I had a fabulous time. We were there for a week. We went fishing on Bay Lake. You guys, I caught a fish and I held it. I held the fish. I held his slimy body. It was awesome. No, it's a catch and release. So we throw it back. But I caught the biggest fish of our little excursion.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:20)
Did you have fun at Disneyland? Disney World or Disneyland? Okay.
Nicole Wakelin (00:44)
He was only he was like four point something pounds. And it was also I got the most fish. I got 18 fish. Yeah, I got I got as much as my own and both my husband and my daughter's fiance got together. I just like to point it out that I was the best fisherman on the boat, except for the guy who was the actual guy. He's like a retired guy who now works at Disney, does the fishing tours.
Nicole Wakelin (01:09)
And it was funny, he's like, yeah, sometimes there's a lot of fish here. And he throws the rod out. I swear to God, the line hit the water. He's like, bing, oopsie, there you go. I'm like, okay, fisherman.
like a you know an enclosed stocked lake that was just packed with fish or
the huge no, it's actually he said they're natural at this point. It's it's a huge lake, the Bay Lake, which is a giant water that like they run boats and stuff across it from the parking lot and stuff.
It's a huge lake in front of Disney World that a whole bunch of the hotels are located around. It's actually quite big. And yeah, they have I forgot what he told me. Was it bass? Maybe. And I think it was bass.
⁓ But yeah, you can they I think they may have stopped at once upon a time, but they don't anymore. There's a there's just a ton of them.
Nicole Wakelin (01:51)
So yeah, see you go out there.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:52)
But since everybody has to throw them back, keeps the population.
right. You're not supposed to actually be fishing to keep them. Yeah. Yep.
All right, ⁓ and you didn't get a chance to drive the Honda Ridgeline that was parked in your driveway all week, right?
told them I couldn't take a car and there was some. ⁓ Yeah. So a Honda Ridgeline lived in my driveway, but I did not actually take said Honda Ridgeline. It just sat there. And now, OK, in case you're wondering if there's a pollen season in New Hampshire, because it is sat untouched for a week. got home like, whoa, it's covered with pollen. could. I could clearly write like the name of the show on it and you would see it.
Sam Abuelsamid (02:23)
Is it a little dusty? A little yellow?
All right ⁓ Robbie, ⁓ I think you have something that ⁓ you drove before but you weren't allowed to talk about yet last week ⁓ So, can you tell us about it now?
I drove the 2027 Mercedes Benz S-Class, the sexiest of classes. I don't know. Anyway, the S-Class sedan, this is the luxury vehicle, unless you're like a billionaire and you get a MyBach or, but which is just a crazy fancy version of an S-Class. It's like you,
which is really just a fancier version of a Mercedes.
Roberto Baldwin (03:10)
but nice like that. ⁓ If you watch, ⁓ what was that? ⁓ Secession, ⁓ they had a lot of My Box in that show, which makes a lot of sense because those people are supposed to be bazillionaires. ⁓ That said, yeah, I drove it. ⁓ It drives as you would expect really, to be honest. Unless they really, ⁓ Mercedes, yes, they have to make changes. Yes, they have to make updates. And they did make a lot of updates, sort of on little things, big things.
they still have to deliver that S-Class driving and passenger experience, and they did. The front, there's a design update to it. The interior now has the super screen as opposed to the hyper screen, which is the same as The screen and the, I mean, it's not weird. I mean, it's just how every other car is, except for the CLA. I don't know. It's a very weird decision on the screen situation in the vehicle.
It still works, still has MBUX, which is, I think I've said it again, like really the only ⁓ infotainment system that I can use without like having to use my phone for anything. ⁓ And again, it's just a big map. It's just a big map with little widgets around for all the things you need to do. That's it. That's all we want. We just want a big map so we know where the hell we're going. ⁓ So they have three engines for the, or not engines, I'm sorry, powertrains.
There's actually only two engines. You have the S500, all these are 4MATICs, they're all all-wheel drive. You have the S500, it has an inline six. The inline six motor has been updated. Mercedes has been doing a lot of stuff with compression in order to make these vehicles a bit more efficient. It's a mild hybrid, so the S, their little S, I believe it's called the E booster, E's booster, has been updated as well. So you have that boost at the low end.
to sort of get you going, get a little extra something while you're driving. They have the S580E 4MATIC, which is the inline six, ⁓ but it is a plug-in hybrid ⁓ and you're getting, I don't know how much range. To be honest, they don't have the EPA numbers. ⁓ Probably a lot of, it does have ⁓ essentially a 22 kilowatt hour battery pack in there. So it's probably gonna do pretty well. ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (05:34)
And it is, ⁓ and then finally they have the S580 4Matic with the ⁓ V8. And so they changed the V8. put a flat crankcase. So they put a crankcase in there that is typically for like race motors, flat plane crank shaft. Thank you. ⁓ And so what happened, but the problem with that is A, they don't sound as cool as a regular V8 and B,
Roberto Baldwin (06:03)
They vibrate like a son of a bitch. They're just like, da da da da. So what they end up doing is they end up putting that motor in there to get that efficiency. It's on the Miller cycle, you saw on the CLA. And they've added little things to reduce the vibration. So the vibration is gone. And they changed the exhaust manifold valving so that it sounds like a V8. And I drove all three of these vehicles and it
that it sounds like a V8. It's got, you know, I drove it on the Autobahn. You know, it's ready to rock, it's ready to roll. It does really well, which means that there's actually three sort of flavors for the S-Class, to be honest. So there's the driver. If you're the driver and you're like, want, you get the V8. You get the S580E. ⁓ If you're buying this vehicle specifically just to take people around, you get the 580E, you get the hybrid.
the plug-in hybrid, because in E mode, in electric mode, it is so smooth. It's so nice. So everything, yes, yes. You get the S580E, you get the hybrid. You get the one that's, it's smooth, it's nice, it has plenty of power when you need it, but most of time it's just a nice, quiet, hey, you wanna sit in the back and take a nap because this car's not gonna bother you. And then you have the 580.
Sam Abuelsamid (07:08)
So if you're driving those billionaires around Manhattan, you get the 580.
Roberto Baldwin (07:29)
which is sort of the, I guess the Goldilocks, I don't know. It's the inline six. That's the one I drove most of the time while I was in Germany driving the car. It drives really well, it has plenty of power. It's just like, hey, you I have this car. I don't really need to spend the money for the V8. I don't always pick up people. yeah, I think the 500, that's probably gonna be the least vehicle.
Someone has it, they buy it, they drive it around, they put their family in the back. That all said, they've done a lot of stuff to this vehicle. They come with 4.5 inches of rear steering up to optional 10, I'm sorry, not inches, 4.5 degrees of rear steering, inches. ⁓ Yeah, it might be.
Sam Abuelsamid (08:17)
mean, depending on how big your tires are, you turn it four or five degrees, it could
Roberto Baldwin (08:23)
Yeah, and it does have the optional 10 degrees of rear steering. The SuperScreen is like 14.4 inch, it's, yeah, it's big, it's fine. ⁓ The passenger screen, I used it, and again, I think it's the same thing that every time I use a passenger screen is, okay, I did it because I have to. ⁓ I know my drive partner, when they were driving it, I looked over to it and I couldn't see what they were doing, which is great. ⁓
of Nick Miles. Nick's like, hey, look at this. I'm like, I can't, Nick. ⁓ It's got the new generation of MBUX, which is fine. ⁓ MBOS, they're software-defined vehicle software, which is impressive because they're kind of the only, Mercedes is kind of the only people who have software-defined gas cars. they got that. It's a little bit more difficult.
versus ⁓ an electric car, to be honest. ⁓ Let's see what else. It also has that cool, they have their air suspension, which is great, but they also have this sort cloud-based air suspension system, whereas if one Mercedes goes over a bump, it tells the cloud, hey, there's a bump in this exact spot, and then every other Mercedes primes that vehicle for that bump or that pothole or that whatever thing that's going on in the road.
It's really difficult to sort of test that though. Like how do I test that? How do I know it's better than it wouldn't? Cause we were all driving on the same, you know, the same roads. We're all going over the same.
like have you drive the road once and then wipe the cloud and then have you drive it again after they update the cloud.
Roberto Baldwin (10:06)
That was the only way I was like,
Sam Abuelsamid (10:08)
what they do is they have you drive the road and then they go out and put a temporary speed bump there and have you following somebody else as they drive over the speed bump and see if it impacts your car.
be the first person to drive over the speed bump and then go back and get in another car and then drive over the speed bump so I can see the difference.
Nicole Wakelin (10:28)
be complex to make this happen. Does it really update that fast, Roberto? Is it that quick? Hmm.
Roberto Baldwin (10:29)
It's a yeah, it's, it's, I don't know.
Roberto Baldwin (10:34)
I don't know. I don't know how quickly it updates it. I
really didn't think about that because I don't think they were like, we're to have a train of S classes.
to have 45S classes for you to hop in and out of to test this theory.
know what they're doing over at Mercedes. It's fine.
I guess. Sure, why not? Okay. ⁓ The back seats are comfortable. you get a little, ⁓ it used to get like this tablet in the rear seat, the sort of control, like all the extra bits. Now each person gets their own like phone sized little controller. You could also do it with the display. If you had the display in the back seat, the only version of the car we had that didn't have the display was the V8, ⁓ which you can get the display in the back seat if you want, just that.
That's how they optioned ⁓ that vehicle. ⁓ It's got all, you know, it's comfortable. Those rear seats are so, like the front seats are very comfortable when you're driving. And then you get in the rear seat for a little while, you're like, yeah, this is the stuff. It's so nice. You know, you can watch, ⁓ and you know, they keep talking about how you can do Microsoft Teams meetings in the back of the Mercedes.
Sam Abuelsamid (11:51)
because everybody loves Microsoft team meetings so much when they're sitting at their desk. They just want to continue it.
Nicole Wakelin (11:58)
You just never want to give up that Teams meeting because Teams is such a joyful experience.
well, at the end of the day, you know, you have rich people who make a lot of money, who are probably CEOs or VPs, and there's gonna be a meeting while they're in there. And they can either hold their phone, which is like, oh, I've done this in the car, or you can have the team, and I tried it out.
I had a Teams meeting with me. I I used like two of my email accounts, and I logged in and it worked, and I'm like, oh, this is really nice. If I needed to have a Teams meeting back here, I could. Sure.
be fair, I have done team meetings in the car, even when I'm driving, just voice only. Usually just put myself on mute just so can listen in and let everybody else do the talking.
Roberto Baldwin (12:40)
Yeah, that's usually how I do it when I'm driving. Cause it's in CarPlay and I'm sure it's in Android Auto. It's just a phone call. Let's see. Yeah, they all have a lot of power. me see. The V8 540, the 580E 576 and the V8 530.
Roberto Baldwin (13:05)
They are all incredibly at speed, over 200 kilometers an hour. On the Autobahn, they all very tight, even though they're still very smooth. ⁓ Again, there's no pricing on these vehicles yet. They will be available Q3 and Q4, I think. Q3 for the 580 and the 500, Q4 for the ⁓ 580E. They have the digital lights. There's adaptive high beam, which I'd be really excited to try out. ⁓
Typically, they don't let us drive. We don't do drive programs at night. So when we go to Europe and we drive these cars, and they're like, hey, we have these adaptive high beams. And then we just never get to test it. So that would be interesting. We'll have that in United States. ⁓ Yeah, overall, I mean.
be the first Mercedes to have that feature in the US market?
Roberto Baldwin (13:55)
I believe so. think it's going to be the first one. So that'll be that'll be nice. ⁓ And what it does it it masks. So if you're. I'm driving. In my Mercedes and there's a car coming the other direction, I can still have like these really nice bright high beams because it masks out ⁓ that incoming that oncoming vehicle. It essentially makes a mask so that person doesn't get blinded. So we're not blinding people anymore with our vehicles, but able to see the road.
So it puts a dark spot where that person is at. So that's nice for them. It's nice for me. If you've ever driven a Miata or a BRZ or any sort of low vehicle and you have oncoming trucks, no matter what, it would be nice. I would be very happy if they brought this more of this to the United States. It's a long story with NHTSA. It's not worth getting into it now at the end of the day.
Roberto Baldwin (14:55)
They just hate joy and freedom. ⁓
did actually change the regulation like back in 2022, it might've even been 21 to allow for these. just so far, one of the only companies that's actually deployed these on vehicles in the US market is Rivian. ⁓ When they did the refresh of the R1 a couple of years ago, they added adaptive headlights on there. And I was driving an R1 ⁓ at night.
know, driving along a rural road, full high beams on, and then I see the headlights of an oncoming car, and then all of sudden it dips and there's like a cutout where the car was, so everything around the car was fully lit, but then it went to low beams in the area where the oncoming car was. And then as soon as we passed, then it went back to full high beams everywhere again.
Roberto Baldwin (15:51)
wonder, because I know, I was talking to Audi like years ago about this, and they're like, the hardware's there, we're just waiting to update the software. I wonder if there's a difference between the US and the European version of this.
I think maybe there's something like a little weird that they have to figure out. Yeah, yeah, maybe. ⁓ But, yeah, so, I don't know. I should probably ask somebody. I haven't. ⁓ Yeah, yeah. S-Class, it's an S-Class.
Sam Abuelsamid (16:03)
in terms of the regulation.
Roberto Baldwin (16:20)
It's solid, it's quiet, it's smooth. It's all the S-Class things.
Sam Abuelsamid (16:26)
It's everything an S-Class should be.
Roberto Baldwin (16:28)
It's everything an S-Class should be. I also saw the Guard version, which is the, you know, if you're being attacked by people ⁓ version of the car. They had that there. ⁓ And that was really interesting. Like the glass is like a couple inches. And then the inside is a polycarbonate. that the even if something does penetrate like glass and stuff, it'll catch it within the polycarbonate. It has if
If someone deploys like say tear gas, you can shut all the vents and there's a gas, there's a tank of oxygen or air in the back of the, in the trunk. So every, for like 30 minutes of like cruising around, you can shoot out the tires and they'll go for, what is it, 80 kilometers at 30 miles an hour? No, 30 kilometers at 80 kilometers an hour. So you can still, because it has those Michelins that have like essentially just a
thing of rubber on the inside, you know, inside the tire. you can, it's your red flats. It has a fire suppression system. It has a, it's so thick that you can't hear anything, but it has microphones. You can hear everyone outside the car. has a little PA system so you can hassle people. You can't buy it in the U.S. There's like all these weird regulatory, like who can buy it, where they can buy it, et cetera. So yeah, it's interesting. But yeah.
Seisman's guard. and it weighs so much that it's like nine and a half tons that you have to get a special license. Yeah, you have to get a special license for it because it weighs so much in like Europe. Also, they will teach the driver how to drive it. You can go and take a class. Because it's so heavy. It's got the V12. Woo!
Roberto Baldwin (18:16)
I guess so. You have to get a CDL and Mercedes will teach your driver how to drive the car because again, it's only V12 you're gonna get unless you're getting a Mi Box.
Sam Abuelsamid (18:30)
So it's kind of like driving ⁓ the beast, the president's Cadillac limo, which is also, basically, it looks vaguely like a Cadillac sedan, except it's built on a GM heavy duty truck platform.
Yeah, it just looks like that thing was like a tank. The S class just looks like an S class. then unless you put the weird flags in the front and then you're like, well, now we know.
Sam Abuelsamid (18:56)
⁓ All right. Anything else on the the new S class?
Roberto Baldwin (19:04)
Nah, I'm sure I'll think of something later, but you can look it up.
All right. Well, I had kind of the opposite of the Nest class, which is the 2026 Nissan Sentra SR, which actually I really like this car. You know, I mean, I've said this before, you know, and it's still true, you know, for for a relatively affordable car. You know, and there are not so many of these around anymore. You know, that is affordable cars.
Sam Abuelsamid (19:36)
You know, the Sentra is good. know, it's not like, you know, if I think back 15 years, back to about 2010, Nissan introduced a version of the Sentra, which at the time they advertised as the cheapest car available in America. It was under $10,000. And this thing, you know, it had no air conditioning, no radio in it, and manual crank windows.
and it was $10,000. And they did not sell very many of them. And they only had it for a couple of years for this special version of, and this was in the time right after the big financial meltdown in 2008 and 2009. So they brought out a cheaper ⁓ version of the Sentra. ⁓ The Sentra is now the cheapest car in ⁓ the Nissan lineup in North America.
And I think the base Sentra is actually, it's not the cheapest car you can get in the US. I think the Hyundai Venue is still a little bit cheaper. ⁓ And I think they still have some stock of Versas. ⁓ It's still listed on the Nissan website. So if you can find a Versa, you can get those for cheaper. But the Versa's going away for 26 model year.
So there's 20 2025 versus but the the Sentra, you know, is there a compact? this is their their car that's competing with the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla and the Hyundai Elantra and the Kia K4 and You know, it's a it's a good car. It starts at twenty two thousand six hundred dollars the one that I had was the the SR version there's three
three trim levels, there's an S, SV, or sorry, four trim levels, S, S, SV, SR, and SL. And the SR is, know, mean, Nissan has long used the SR badge, you know, for a, to denote a slightly sportier, usually only visually sportier, not actually functionally sportier ⁓ version of the car. And, you know, the SR,
starts at $25,000. The ⁓ one that I had ⁓ was, let's see, what is the official name of this color? ⁓ It's a blue. ⁓
I cannot find the color on the Monroni. ⁓ But it's a blue, so this one was a two-tone with a blue body and a black roof. And it actually looks quite good. And compared to that cheapo Sentra of 15 years ago, this does not feel like really cheap. It's got the same infotainment and everything that you'll find.
on every other Sentra, so you get two 12.3 inch displays ⁓ behind a single sheet of glass. ⁓ It's roomy enough. It's a two liter, ⁓ cylinder, naturally aspirated four cylinder, 149 horsepower, 146 pounds feet of torque. CVT, ⁓ for 26, they've done some recalibration work with the CVT, so it doesn't drive quite like, know, doesn't have the worst characteristics that we expect of CVTs.
with the rubber banding, the motorboating effect. ⁓ It does some simulated shifting in there, so it feels okay. It's certainly not a speed demon with 149 horsepower, but it's quick enough. It will easily merge into traffic on the highway. gets reasonable fuel economy. ⁓ It's reasonably roomy, even in the backseat. It's got a decent sized trunk. ⁓
I would personally like to, since it's a modern fastback sedan, I would like to have it as a hatchback so you can get more stuff in there. I remember last fall when they did the launch drive of this, ⁓ they had one on display with the rear seats folded down and a 65 inch TV fit in there through the opening, no problem at all. So you can fit big, long objects.
not too excessively tall through the trunk opening. ⁓ There's only a minimum use of ⁓ piano black in here, a little bit around the shifter, and then a little bit around the volume knob in the center of the dashboard. The rest is various ⁓ textures of non- ⁓
shiny grays, ⁓ a few different shades of gray and some black in there. ⁓ When you touch it, most of the surfaces are hard plastic, but they're nicely textured, so it doesn't look super cheap. It's not like the kind of stuff we would have seen in the past where it's just like a completely untextured smooth plastic. And it actually drives surprisingly well.
It's got decent steering feel, it handles reasonably well, it's got good ride control. ⁓ And if you're looking for some relatively basic transportation, ⁓ if you wanna buy a new car and you want a new car warranty and everything, and you've got a minimal budget, the Sentra is a really good choice.
you know, would probably go with like the SV, you know, which starts at 23,370. You know, there's certainly, there were certainly lots of options on the one that I was driving, the SR. You know, this one came to a grand total of $32,070, which by today's standards is still relatively cheap, although, you know, it's not the most affordable car. You want to take a guess at the destination charge?
Sam Abuelsamid (26:03)
⁓ rick Nicole got it was twelve forty five
Sam Abuelsamid (26:14)
So this one had the $2,300 premium package with the sport leatherette seating, six-way power driver seat. What else here? Bose premium audio system. A lot of stuff that you can probably make do without if you don't really, really need it. $650 for the sunroof. Again, you
So it's nice, but you can certainly go without that. So you can get this down, certainly down into the mid 20s, ⁓ if that's where your budget ⁓ can afford. ⁓ Rated at 32 miles per gallon combined, ⁓ I was averaging about 30 ⁓ over the course of a week. So not too bad at all. ⁓ So, like I said, if you're looking for some affordable
⁓ Basic transportation, new car warranty. The Sentra is actually a really good choice to consider. ⁓ I would like to see a version of this with say the e-power system at some point. ⁓ But ⁓ for now, it's not bad. You can do all right with this.
Sam Abuelsamid (27:38)
All right, let's carry on. So Robbie, you actually just bought a new car. So I guess.
Roberto Baldwin (27:48)
I bought a car. I've never purchased
a new car. This is our first new car, both my wife and I, we've never purchased, we've leased new cars. we've, we first time we ever bought a new car. We've bought, we've purchased used cars. We've leased new cars, but we've never bought a new car. And ⁓ after two years of the IONIQ 5, we got an IONIQ 5. So our lease was up.
Nicole Wakelin (27:55)
Is it really? This is the first time.
Roberto Baldwin (28:14)
The deals were the deals are very, good on the IONIQ 5. We paid, I think, gases. Yeah, we just I mean, we have it. I mean, we have the infrastructure. We have charging on our house. We have, you know, it just makes sense. We ⁓ we don't like paying for gas if we can help it. So, yeah, we got a 2026 IONIQ 5. It's got the rear wiper. It's got some other things that make it better. More range, more power, more.
Sam Abuelsamid (28:20)
And gas is very, very expensive in California.
it's got an X charge port. It comes with the CCS to the next and the AC to the next adapter. It's got all the bits. It's a color. We got the digital teal. It's kind of like a dark green. It's not really teal though. I don't know what.
Nicole Wakelin (28:57)
What color? Is that the really crazy bright one? Wait, I gotta look it up, digital teal. Digital teal. that's pretty, I like that. Actually,
it's kind of blue. mean, I guess teal is kind of a blue.
Roberto Baldwin (29:10)
It's kind like a blue green. Yeah, it's like more like you
look at it in the sun. You're like, ⁓ greenish ⁓ but
as I read what AI came up with when it gave me a picture of it, it's a unique color shifting metallic paint with striking shoes, between green, deep teal. And this is my favorite part, a sinister gray.
interesting is that we went to our local dealership and they know me, they know what I do. our handless Hilton Hyundai ⁓ is, I mean, we're a pretty easy sell. I've driven a car. I know all I was saying about the car. ⁓ But yeah, they're always like really nice. It's like the one dealership I've ever been to where like both
the service center and the actual sales department are actually nice people. Like the guy who runs the place came by and like was chatting with us and was really nice. so yeah, Joel was like our sales guy and even the finance guy was, everyone was, yeah, it was a pretty seamless, except for like having to figure out how to get money from the bank to them. Because you got to get on the phone, because you got to, you know.
Roberto Baldwin (30:33)
You know, we wanted to put a big down payment down ⁓ because we took the there's two different Incentives, there's a $3,000 incentive where you get like zero APR Cool, right and there's an $8,700 incentive where you have to pay an APR But our plan is like as I whenever I do, know I have the job at SAE but I'm allowed to do freelance Anytime I do freelance. I just throw that money at the car. So the car is actually it's cheaper quicker than
we would if we did it the other way. And the differentiation between having the pain for that APR versus having zero APR is like $2,000. So as soon as I pay more than $2,000, we're already ahead. And if you're paying cash, but we got an SEL rear wheel drive for like $31,000. It was like 30,000 and some change, so I'll just say $31,000.
Which is funny because I'm looking at the paperwork and I'm like, all right, cool. And then I remember like, we're going to have a $35,000 model three and it's going to be this and this and this and it's going to be.
And then I realized, I'm like, wait, we have that electric car now. whole, that whole like, well, you know, maybe it'll be 35, maybe it won't. This is without incentives and stuff. Hyundai put some pretty deep, or without any federal incentives.
Roberto Baldwin (31:58)
If you live in California or Colorado or some places, like you can get like incentives to put charging on your house, you can get incentives for because you bought the car, there's some other things, I have to look it up, I'm too lazy to do that right now.
⁓ But we have two IONIQ 5s for like two weeks because they're like, you wanna drop off the other IONIQ 5? I'm like, no, I still got two weeks of time on that. I've already paid for it, I'm getting my money's worth.
Still has the free EA charging for 30 minutes, Electrify America charging. So I'm like, well, I'm going to get some Electrify America charging out of this. Because we rarely charge it at the charging station because we just charge it home, even though it's free because it's convenient.
We just plug it in, boop. And then in the middle of night, it charges when electricity is the cheapest. But yeah. So yeah, we got a new car. It's pretty cheap. We had nice experience with our dealership.
Sam Abuelsamid (32:54)
Yeah, well, especially having a good experience with your dealer that
with dealership, I was like, I think I'm gonna talk about this because I've had experiences with dealerships where I'm just like, I'm so angry at you. like, you're, it. Stop, you're trying to rip me off. I'm like, I know what I'm talking about. Please shut up.
know, it's usually the F &I guy that is the one that's, you know, they're the ones that keep you there the longest.
like, do you want to get some, ⁓ do you want a protection for your catalytic converter? I'm like, what are you talking about, man?
Sam Abuelsamid (33:24)
Yeah, well when we bought the Civic back in 2017 they tried to offer me an additional insurance policy to pay for the radar sensor if the radar sensor got damaged Yeah, yeah, it's like the radar sensor cost $40
we bought when we bought Rose's car when she was first started college, they wanted to sell her a million things as they were sitting there. Rose just kept looking at me and I'm like shaking my head like, nope, nope, none of those things.
And one of them was a like a rust proofing, like what was that old, that old rust, Rusty Jones or whatever. Yeah, like a whole big thing. And I'm like, she's looking at me and I'm like, no, he's like, well, you know, in Wisconsin winters, no, no, we would not like that.
Nicole Wakelin (34:09)
Thank you very much. Take all of your fancy things away. No.
Roberto Baldwin (34:12)
We, when we got Kona, which was at a different dealership, that was good. We went to a different dealership because the one that we go to is like two miles from our house because they had a color.
They had blue one, but they were like, oh, we have a tracking. There's a track that we installed. You know, it's like $15,000, $1500. I'm like, no, they're like, but we are installed it. like, I don't care.
That's not what I want with it. And they kept bringing the price down. Like, how about $700? I'm like, no, like, but then you can track the car.
Roberto Baldwin (34:42)
And they keep bringing, they kept bringing it like, by the end they're like, well, how about a hundred bucks? I'm all no. They're like, but what if your car gets stolen? I'm like, I don't care.
That's insurance's problem. It's not a classic car. It's not like some fancy, it's a car. It's, know, there's, there's, if this car gets destroyed, they've made more. It's not like, you know, I don't have a 67, you know, Corvette sitting here.
don't have, it's not, yeah, it's not anything that like you haven't made thousands upon thousands of.
Roberto Baldwin (35:10)
that if this one gets stolen and broken or whatever, okay, insurance will take care of it. And then I'll just go out and get another one or the different one or whatever.
Sam Abuelsamid (35:20)
Well, since you have a brand new IONIQ 5 in the driveway now, I assume that means that you won't be looking to purchase the new 2027 VW ID Buzz Tourer.
Roberto Baldwin (35:34)
Man, I love it's every with all of its warts. I think I said this the other day on blue sky I'm like deep the ID buzz is like the Jeep Wrangler. It's like, you know, don't buy it You know, you shouldn't buy it.
You're like you're never gonna do the thing, know, you know for years up until the latest generation The Wrangler was just a bad car, but I but I still want one. It's the same thing with the ID buzz I think I like put all the dogs in it like everything about it is great except for the price and the fact that it's
Roberto Baldwin (36:02)
It's a premium vehicle on a 400 volt architecture.
Come on. I mean, as a fleet vehicle, yeah, that's fine. You don't need 800 volts for a fleet vehicle. can just like, meh, plug it in at night, you run your business with it, whatever. But as a, you know, when you're trying to sell it to people and it's only a few thousand dollars less than ⁓ the new iX3, which is 800 volts, has more rain, blah, blah, you know, you can just name off the grocery list of things that make it better. You know, the...
Essentially the $10,000 worth of cool stuff that the ID buzz doesn't have.
Sam Abuelsamid (36:39)
But you can't put a bed in the back of the iX3.
Roberto Baldwin (36:42)
You can. You can go. I found out online they make beds for like almost any car that has a hatchback. Like little inflatable beds.
Sam Abuelsamid (36:52)
Well, so for those that haven't been paying attention, VW, we've talked about before, VW took the 2026 model year off in the US for the IDBuds because they had enough 25s left over to carry them through the 26 model year. So they stopped importing them. But now they're starting again for the 27s. And they've done some updates. And so for the 27s, all of them are getting
two-tone paint job, so no more solid color ID buzzes. And there's a new trim level called the Tourer, ⁓ which comes with ⁓ a fold-out mattress and a platform. So when you fold down the second and third row seats, put this platform and the mattress on there, and it's also got shades that you can put on all the windows, and you can use it as a camper. Or if you've got a bunch of dogs, you can put them in the back there.
and they can just relax while you're road tripping. Yeah.
Sam Abuelsamid (37:55)
So no information yet on pricing for the ID Buzz Tour, but ⁓ it'll be around sometime this fall.
Roberto Baldwin (38:05)
What's nice is they a camping mode or something that they've added to it. So previously on the ID Buzz, if you wanted the car to stay on, you had to buckle the driver's side seatbelt. You couldn't just get out of the car and get in the back and have it on all night. It would just turn off. So you had to buckle the seatbelt in order to keep it on. Which was like, what are you doing? It should have a camping mode or something. You're selling this vehicle as it's like.
It would automatically turn off after a few minutes. ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (38:34)
all encompassing sort of fun ability vehicle. And then you immediately like, no, we're going to turn that off as soon as you get out of the seat.
gonna tune it off for every second you step out of the seat. I can imagine that being super annoying if you're loading up. You know, if you're trying to load in the car, I forgot this, you run back, that's gotta be annoying as heck. That would drive me crazy.
it turns the vehicle off. ⁓ One of the things I learned with the, I'm sure the new one has the same thing, but with the Hyundai, you can't lock the doors that the car's on. So I couldn't like leave the cars, the dogs in the car with the air conditioning on and lock it.
So what you have to do is you turn off the car, you lock the car, and then you could turn on the air conditioning or the climate control with your, with your phone. You can just say, I want climate control on.
And so then your dogs are nice and cool while you're running and get your burger. That's usually, I typically don't.
Sam Abuelsamid (39:13)
Yeah, you use the remote start. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (39:23)
Yeah, I don't think I've ever gone shopping with the dogs in the car, but I have run in to get food. But even like that few minutes of, if you ever sat in a car when you turn it off in the summer, like three minutes later, like, ⁓ I'm in a, know, even though, you know, it's the Bay area, ooh, it's 70 degrees.
It still gets really hot in the car. Yeah, so you turn it off, turn the air conditioning on, the blasted, and then you come out they're all like staring at me like, where you been?
Sam Abuelsamid (39:30)
⁓ yeah, it heats up fast.
I was out in California this week ⁓ to drive the new Lexus ES. We can't talk about driving impressions until next week. ⁓ I asked if the ES has a dog mode. ⁓ And they don't, but they mention the same thing, that you can ⁓ just lock the doors and then use the ⁓ smartphone app to turn on, remote start and turn on the air conditioning. ⁓
why they, you know, I mean, it's such a simple thing. Yeah. Just, yeah, just one button.
Roberto Baldwin (40:18)
Just take the extra little step, just take the extra step to have like a button that says dog mode so you can lock the car
and it keeps the climate control on. So I don't have to turn off the car, lock the car, turn on the climate control. Just one little button, boop, boop.
It's always those one little extra steps that trip everybody up.
Sam Abuelsamid (40:45)
All right, so Honda had their basically their annual business, you know, their annual call this week, their Honda business briefing for 2026. And, you know, they had they had a bunch of information to share. You know, we've obviously heard, you know, in recent months of Honda basically canceling all their North American EV plans. They're pushing all their EV stuff out. And now they've
They've shifted their target for being fully electric out to 2050. But they did talk about. Who knows?
Roberto Baldwin (41:20)
None of us is be alive that far from now.
Sam Abuelsamid (41:30)
Let's see, that's what, 24 years? Yeah, could maybe be alive. Not sure if we'll want to be alive in 2050, but...
Roberto Baldwin (41:32)
Yeah, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, am I?
Roberto Baldwin (41:39)
I gotta fight for water. I don't know. I think I feel like doing.
But they are they are making a full press with hybrids over the next four years between now and 2030. By the end of their 2030 fiscal year, ⁓ March of 2030, they are planning to launch 15 next generation hybrid models globally. ⁓ And most of those are going to be here in North America.
When I was over in Japan last October had a chance to drive one of the prototypes with this and it was really good and you know, so it's basically an evolution of the current gen hybrid that you have in the Civic and the Accord and the CR-V Which is mostly a series hybrid but has a clutch to couple the engine to the wheels At higher speeds at highway speeds for a little bit better efficiency the next generation one
has two sets of gears and two clutches ⁓ so that it expands the range where it can do that. But it's still going to be mostly series hybrid, so mostly running on electricity ⁓ like a Nissan e-power system. ⁓ And probably the first models to get that, they showed two prototypes, ⁓ the Honda hybrid sedan prototype and the Acura hybrid SUV prototype. ⁓
which are basically previews of the next generation accord and the Acura RDX. So the current gen RDX already went out of production in the last month or two in Ohio. They've built ahead and the new one should be coming sometime in 2027, Yeah, I think in 2027. And then...
That, you know, so this one, you know, looks a lot like the MDX, but a little bit smaller. ⁓ And it will have this new generation hybrid system in there. ⁓ In 2028, it's also getting Honda's next generation ADAS system, their driver assistance system. ⁓ And we haven't had a chance to talk to Honda about this yet, but.
Presumably this is the system that they were developing for the Zero Series. ⁓ so, you know, we may see Level 3 coming to vehicles like the RDX and some of the other models in the next few years.
Both these cars seem very angry with me. They got very sinister.
Sinister. As sinister as the sinister gray. They got sinister gray vibes.
Roberto Baldwin (44:30)
It gets, they got sinister gray vibes. Like different, if you look at the
Sam Abuelsamid (44:37)
Yeah, well, yeah, especially the the sedan, you know, very, sharp lines. You know, it's it's definitely a
sedan i guess i don't see in the the suv but yeah i think that's a sinister sedan
a very different look for Honda compared to what they've had for the last few years.
I mean, I like it. I don't know if I like the back of the sedan. I'll have to see it. Yeah. Yeah. Some it's kind of hard to pull that off and make it look good. We'll have to wait until we see what it looks like. ⁓ But yeah, no sinister Honda sinister hybrid. We're going to get you. And I'm sure they'll. Yeah, we. Yeah.
I got like this coopy kind of swoop thing going on.
Roberto Baldwin (45:21)
You know, I'm very disappointed in Honda with their EV stuff because it just seems like the timing was absolutely horrible. I think.
makes sense, but you know there's some expense situation in the background where they're looking at going, this is not going to pay off in the time frame. We need to pay it off. Yeah, right. At the time, you know, the decision changes by the minute.
Roberto Baldwin (45:38)
Well, they didn't think it would, who knows. I think there's a lot of, and they're still doing stuff and
again, it's mostly North America. Cause you look at the North American market and you're just like, I don't know, man. I don't know what's going to happen. Every automaker is essentially like, I don't know, man. I don't know what's going to happen. Let's just keep doing the thing or not do it. Who knows?
They are expanding their EV lineup in Japan and elsewhere with their K cars.
China, doing their, have their, their, their partnerships in China. They want to do more EVs and they're still doing, they're still doing all the work on the solid state batteries, which, would kind of suck if they cracked the solid state battery thing and then we don't get it.
Yeah. So they're launching the new N-Box EV, which is one these little taller K cars for the Japanese market. It's basically sort of a K van, mini micro van, I guess you could call it. And they've got the Vezel as an EV, which is the overseas version of the HRV.
Sam Abuelsamid (46:46)
which is smaller than the HRV that we get here. ⁓ But they, even though they abandoned ⁓ their EV plans, they are gonna be using the battery plant that they built with LG in ⁓ Ohio, but it's gonna be producing batteries for the hybrids, because they're basically gonna be putting hybrids into everything they sell in North America. they're starting with the new Accord, the RDX, but then as each of the other models get updated,
Sam Abuelsamid (47:16)
over the next four years, ⁓ they are all going to get ⁓ the new hybrid system and these will be ⁓ assembled at the Joint Venture Plant in Ohio, or the batteries will be assembled at the Joint Venture Plant in Ohio.
Roberto Baldwin (47:30)
Yeah, well, you know, instead of making like 80, 100 kilowatt hour battery packs, they'll be making like 25, 20. Man, this Super N looks so awesome. We're not gonna get it, because America hates fun.
Yeah, well, you know, to to to certify that to meet US crash standards and everything, it would just it would end up being too expensive. mean, this would be like probably a thirty thousand dollar car and you'd have a hard time selling those here at that price point.
Still pretty dope. Anyway, I just bought a $30,000 car so I'm okay.
Sam Abuelsamid (48:08)
But it's a lot bigger than a super red.
Roberto Baldwin (48:12)
Well, the super end you can put the dogs, I could still put the dogs in the back. I mean, that's literally all I care about is it's an EV, put the dogs in the back and it's not a piece of trash. We do love 800 volt because we do drive a lot. do take the dogs on a lot of, yeah, road trips.
Sam Abuelsamid (48:30)
So the ASIMO OS that they were developing for the EVs, that is going to be applied to the hybrid models. ⁓ But they are not apparently going to be putting ⁓ the zonal architecture that was developed for the Zero Series ⁓ into these cars. They're sticking with the domain-based electrical architecture. So you'll still have more ECUs.
Roberto Baldwin (48:53)
It's really, it's hard on, it's hard on gas
cars. That's the, you know, the fact that Mercedes is doing it is sort of crazy. It's really hard on gas cars. It's, it's harder. It's harder.
Sam Abuelsamid (49:00)
Not really. It's not, it's actually not.
Roberto Baldwin (49:10)
According to the people who build the cars, it's harder, Sam. And so, I don't remember the last time you built a car. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it. They're just saying it's hard, like, ⁓ At the end of the day, they're nickel and diming everything, so they're like, ⁓ nevermind, who cares? Again, I don't know what's going on. That's the entire...
⁓ Let's see, ⁓ continuing on with automakers that are pulling back from some of their EV plans, Lotus, ⁓ which is now owned by Geely in China, along with Polestar and Volvo and a bunch of other companies. ⁓ They had planned to go all electric this decade. ⁓ They launched ⁓ three different EVs. They had the Avaya 2000 horsepower supercar.
⁓ the ⁓ the Electra big electric SUV and the Amara ⁓ Sedan. ⁓ Now they've pulled back from that, know, cars like the Electra is getting an e-rev powertrain that they've already launched in China. then ⁓ they Lotus just announced some plans for the next few years, including the development of an all new ⁓ hybrid V8 supercar.
which is sort of the ⁓ successor to the old Esprit.
Sam Abuelsamid (50:45)
because ⁓ we need more of those.
Roberto Baldwin (50:47)
Reforcing brand DNA. A heavy car. That's not the Lotus brand. I don't think Noliss knows what they're doing right now, to be honest.
the only car in the lineup that's even remotely close to the Lotus brand DNA is the Amira. ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (51:04)
Yeah. They're like, we make
light, quick, fun to drive cars. Here's a V8. Blah. Like what?
Roberto Baldwin (51:14)
It's this reinforcing brand. don't know what brand DNA they're reinforcing, but it's not the Lotus brand.
Sam Abuelsamid (51:20)
Yeah. But this type 135, the hybrid V8 supercar, ⁓ is scheduled to launch in 2028.
Roberto Baldwin (51:30)
We got lots of time. Who knows what's happen between now and then. I remember having conversations with them about their EV stuff and I guess that all went out the window. Cause now we got a giant hybrid V8 super car. Which again, just gonna throw, okay, sure. If you wanna be Aston Martin, go for it.
But it ⁓ is a 900 volt hybrid for whatever that's worth.
Sam Abuelsamid (52:04)
So Lotus is targeting about 60 % plug-in hybrids and 40 % BEVs by 2030. So we'll see.
40 % BEVs. Let's see. How many cars do sell a year? 12, 13?
Roberto Baldwin (52:24)
It's such a niche little brand and it's so it's it's I think for the last 20 years it's it's just sort of people are like, ⁓ yeah, Lotus is still a thing.
Sam Abuelsamid (52:30)
They're... they're... they're gu-
They're guiding towards a steady ramp up to 30,000 sales a year. Lotus has never sold anywhere near 30,000 cars in its entire history.
Yeah, mean, it's Lotus wants to make a V8 super hyper car and you want to make a thousand of them fine. Whatever. It's like when I talked to Bugatti about electrification, they're like, we don't, it doesn't matter. We're so small. does. And most people who buy our cars don't even drive them.
they built 150 cars a year. And most of the cars that most of the cars they've ever built in the last 20 years have fewer than 10,000 miles on them. Most of them are probably less than a thousand miles on.
them, they'll buy them, they'll sit in the garage and they'll maybe get like a hundred, who was I talking to? I don't know, someone important over at, I hope they're not listening to this, they'll be like, what the hell, man? I took time out of my day to talk to you you can't remember my name. But they're like, we have cars that come up for sale with less than a hundred miles or people buy two of them and one of them sits for sales and they're which is just some bonkers money.
Roberto Baldwin (53:46)
When I'm just like, can't, you right now I have two Ionic 5s in my driveway and I'm like, I'm living that Bugatti life, but one of has to go back in a couple days. Yeah.
Aren't we all, aren't we all Robbie, living that Bugatti life?
Roberto Baldwin (53:58)
Aren't we all just living the Bugatti life?
Roberto Baldwin (54:00)
So, yeah, mean, look, 30, I mean, they sell 20,000 cars.
all got one of those empty condos in the really super skinny ⁓ skyscrapers in Manhattan, Billionaires Row.
I have like five, Robbie. I've got five, just so you know I five.
Sam Abuelsamid (54:16)
You have one in each of those buildings on Billionaire's Row?
Roberto Baldwin (54:16)
No one's ever in that home.
I'm living okay. I'm doing alright. One for each dog.
Roberto Baldwin (54:28)
The cats get one they share so they can all cuddle together. Actually, we couldn't separate the dogs. They'd lose their minds if they're not together.
Nicole Wakelin (54:32)
There you go. Okay, that's fair.
Sam Abuelsamid (54:36)
All right. ⁓ Let's ⁓ stick with ⁓ EV for a few more minutes. ⁓ So Tesla, ⁓ they've started testing Supercharger wait lists. So Robbie, have you ever had to wait in line at Supercharger?
Roberto Baldwin (54:56)
I'm not at a supercharger. ⁓ I will tell you what, I've only had to wait in like a long line more than like five minutes once. And it's because we were driving back from Palm Springs and it was Christmas. It was like the day after Christmas. And so we had to wait like an hour and a half. And I was explaining to my wife that there's, was a Tesla supercharger, like, you know, 50 stations, like right over there.
Roberto Baldwin (55:22)
that people could just drive up and use. And she's like, what the? And so when I told her that the new IONIQ 5 has that charging station, that 99.9 % of time we're gonna charge at home, we might use the Tesla Supercharger Station 1, she's like, yeah, that's good enough for me.
Roberto Baldwin (55:40)
you know what, in the early days I had to wait for superchargers. Back when there was like one in the Bay area. when I was reviewing the Model S and Model X, that's how long ago it was. those cars don't... Back in the olden times.
Sam Abuelsamid (55:47)
Yeah, mean, now there's so many of them.
Nicole Wakelin (55:54)
Gosh, back in the olden times.
Sam Abuelsamid (56:01)
So, let's see, where is it here? So Tesla, I guess at five stations in the Bay Area, in the app, they have a virtual wait list that you can sign up for. So if you get to a supercharger, and like I said, so many of these superchargers now have 30, 40, 50, I think there's a couple that have over 100 chargers now, which is kind of crazy. But in the app, you can,
Sam Abuelsamid (56:31)
Sign up for the wait list at the location you're at. ⁓ So instead of fighting with other drivers saying, I was here before you were, I get that charger next. Now you get a number on your app and when it's your turn, you pull up to whichever charger has been emptied out. ⁓ And I think that's actually a much better solution. For what it's worth ⁓ in US and Canada right now,
There are currently 3,372 superchargers locations with 40,476 charging ports. 40,000. Did I say 4,000? meant 40,000. So over 40,000 superchargers that are available. ⁓ But some of these on certain times, like certain holidays when a lot of people are traveling, especially along certain routes, they will get filled up. And so I think every
charger, you know, charge station operator should be doing this. I it should be a no-brainer, you know, to put something like that in there. You know, if there's a line, just create a virtual line in the app and wait your turn. No more fights.
think that's a good idea, because you don't want to be fighting. It's like, you know, it reminds you of like when you go to a restaurant that doesn't have an actual wait list and you're all supposed to just wait like you're supposed to kind of right?
And then somebody always shows up and walks to the front. You're like, we're all following the rules. And then you, you, jerk, you're the one who messed up the whole thing. And now we're all cranky because now we feel like we're going to get cut off waiting for our breakfast on a Sunday morning.
One of the diners I like does that. And I don't go there because it makes me anxious.
⁓ stand out in a line. And then someone shows up and they don't know the line or they're jerks.
Nicole Wakelin (58:16)
This would make me anxious too, having to think like, okay, I'm next. The charger, that guy cuts me off. That jerk, I'm gonna get mad. This would make it so there's never that jerk. You can't do that. You can be like, I am next. Look at the app.
it, if you pull up, if it's not your turn, will it not let you charge?
Nicole Wakelin (58:32)
Yeah, will it not let you? Will it go like, meh, make a really loud noise?
I think that's probably one of the things that they're evaluating.
would happen if you somehow decided to drive away? You'd have to say it your app or maybe it only gives you like five minutes to get your acting gear and plug in before it would give it away. Say like, you've lost your spot.
Sam Abuelsamid (58:49)
Yeah, it probably gives you
a few minutes leeway and then have to get yourself organized. So if you walk away to go get a cup of coffee and you lose your spot, that could be rather annoying. It may just shuffle you down the line. If you haven't plugged in within a few minutes, it could just shuffle you down the line, let the next person go.
you just drive away and you don't turn it off, it's like the person they come out there. I'll Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith. All right, to hell with him, You're like,
they'll wedge Smith back in there, but now you gotta wait for a little while.
Sam Abuelsamid (59:30)
All right, let's see. ⁓ So coming up this week ⁓ is the Stellantis Investor Day, where they're going to reveal their strategic plan for how Antonio Filosa is going to save Stellantis and make it a viable business, which should be entertaining to say the least. ⁓
more power to this person. I mean, this is a giant pile of automakers that's sort of been mismanaged for so long. It's just like, I don't know.
just it. It's been so long and it's gotten into such trouble.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:10)
Yeah, mean every few years it goes through some sort of reorganization or some sort of merger and they revamp the product lineup ⁓ and they do great for a few years, make a ton of money and then they just sit on it and do nothing. Or... ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (1:00:28)
Back to Magnum, that's all I'm saying.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:33)
would not be the worst idea in the world. ⁓ But ⁓ this time, they waited a long time before doing EVs, and then when they did EVs, they did not do a great job.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:00:51)
They had a few issues as Nicole can attest to.
Nicole Wakelin (1:00:56)
Ew. Just a few. Just tiny ones.
So anyway, you know, there's been a lot of speculation about, you know, what they're going to do with all their brands. know, they've got Stellantis has 14 brands, ⁓ many of which do not sell very many cars. ⁓ And one of those is Chrysler, ⁓ which, you know, currently only has one nameplate for sale. They actually sell a fair number of Pacificas, but that is the only Chrysler.
might, well, I think the Pacific, you know what, just get rid of everything, Pacifica Wrangler, that's all you need.
Nicole Wakelin (1:01:38)
I probably need a Ram 1500 in there. It is. I really like the 1500. It is. It's the most, it's the least truck-like in ride and I think that's nice.
Roberto Baldwin (1:01:39)
I mean the 1500's are really good, that's a good truck. really, it's the smoothest, it's the smoothest of the...
so three, three, three cars. They have good cars. just, then they fill it up. Then they fill up all the cracks in the edges with like, ⁓
Sam Abuelsamid (1:01:58)
So one of the things that happens in the auto industry is periodically automakers will gather with their dealers and they will show them stuff that's coming in the future. And one of these things that they supposedly showed dealers actually last fall was a new sub $30,000 car called the Pronto for the Chrysler brand. And the last time they used the Pronto name was on a concept back in the 1990s.
which was a PT Cruiser-like concept, but it was a two-door. ⁓ It was kind of a cross between the Prowler and a PT Cruiser ⁓ when you look at it. ⁓ I sincerely hope this isn't the type of car that they decided to introduce to the Chrysler lineup, but.
Roberto Baldwin (1:02:52)
mean, not that design. I think the idea?
Nicole Wakelin (1:02:53)
Is this picture an actual
Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:56)
Well, that is the actual concept
Sam Abuelsamid (1:02:58)
from the 90s. Yeah, that's the pronto concept.
Nicole Wakelin (1:03:02)
I mean, really? ⁓ god, I panicked. Okay, that's the 90s concept.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:03)
But that's not necessarily what they're gonna build. Just that they're gonna build, yeah.
Just that they wanna reuse, that they wanna use that name. ⁓
mean, okay, let's hope that doesn't mean they're going to use that design. my gosh, both. that grill. ⁓ that's terrible. ⁓ that's.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:19)
Yeah, I can't see them actually going back to this design language.
you know what I'm doing? I'm looking at Gen Z cartoons to see ⁓ if it builds something that's like sort of, Dexter's laboratory is in a Gen Z cartoon. Come on, man. What is this? I'm closing this window. Now I'm just angry.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:43)
But I mean, do you think you know, do you think a sub $30,000 car for the Chrysler brand is what what that brand needs?
Roberto Baldwin (1:03:51)
I mean if he can sell it, mean what is that brand anymore to be honest? mean what was it and now what is it? Before it was like the Lincoln of Dodge.
Nicole Wakelin (1:04:04)
going to be that. And we don't want another Lincoln like that's an old school. How do you make it new school and not be like an old person's car? I mean, the Pacifica minivan is great. You make an affordable if you made a good affordable car, make a nice little afford like not a garbage car. It has to work. It has to look like it's decent quality, feel like it's decent quality and run.
Roberto Baldwin (1:04:21)
Yeah. You know what? Let's
Nicole Wakelin (1:04:31)
I think it could do well if they make it well. And I have such doubts about that these days.
Roberto Baldwin (1:04:36)
Yeah, that's a... a bit... a little bit of all that.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:37)
about their ability to manufacture it well or design
Roberto Baldwin (1:04:44)
I mean, they're essentially going
to be going up against Hyundai and Nissan if they're making, and both of those automakers make really good inexpensive cars.
Nicole Wakelin (1:04:48)
That's the thing, there's some really good vehicles in that segment.
That's it. It's not as if this is a segment that doesn't have a car, doesn't have a thing. You know, there's things there that are very, very good. So if you want to be competitive with a new thing from a brand that has become nothing but one car, you've got to make it like knock it out of the park. Do you think Chrysler can do that?
Roberto Baldwin (1:05:14)
I mean Nissan. Yeah, maybe. I mean.
it's its own animal and who knows they might sell a million of them, but.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:22)
Can they do it for $30,000?
Roberto Baldwin (1:05:24)
It's... Yeah, and then you got the design, like what do you do? Because Nissan tried everything, the Juke and all the sort of weird, fun things. It didn't really sell very well. I mean, they're cool cars. I the Kia Soul, that didn't even... That's a fun little weird car, but it didn't...
fun is great, but quirky and fun doesn't generally mean volume for the most part. Sometimes it does. I guess a beetle was quirky and fun. so I don't. I had one as a rental, like my car got in an accident and that was my rental car. And I thought, oh, I'm so excited. I get to drive this. I drove it. And then I got rid of them when I drove it. Oh, my gosh. How long is it to take for my car to come back from the shop, please?
Roberto Baldwin (1:05:46)
Yeah, except for the PT Cruiser, the worst car, one of the worst cars I've ever driven, but people loved it.
neighbor has a PT Cruiser. It's her second one. Yeah, she wore out the first one and then went and found another one.
Nicole Wakelin (1:06:16)
Wait a minute, you say she
when you say she wore out the first one, did it have a ridiculous number miles on it or did it just like.
Roberto Baldwin (1:06:27)
People that love the design, they love the, you know, I remember we got a PT Cruiser, we driving down to LA to do a ⁓ video, me and my roommate, and he's like, you know what?
He's like, I'm not feeling well, can you go with me to shoot camera in case I'm not feeling well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, I'll rent us a car. I'll get us a PT Cruiser. We're all kind of excited. And then we started driving the PT Cruiser.
I'm like, I kind of hate this thing right now. I wish I was dead.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:51)
You only got 400 miles to go.
I was dead. That's the thing. How'd you like driving this car? I wish I was dead.
dead. But people love this car. I'm like, all right, more power to you, but it's a horrible car.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:06)
The only time I actually drove a PT Cruiser was around like 2008, like towards the end of its production run. And it was this limited edition one that it was like stupidly expensive. it still had like, you know, 2008 still had a four speed automatic transmission in it. And it was just, it was not good. Not good at all.
Roberto Baldwin (1:07:32)
It was just not a good car,
but people absolutely, you know what? If you love your PT Cruiser, I'm happy for you because you love your car. That's all there is to it. I also would, if someone gave it to me, I would just light it on fire.
You know who else likes PT Cruisers? Tommy Micah. Yes. No, not yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if at some point he does buy one.
Nicole Wakelin (1:07:59)
Tommy loves quirky little, that fits Tommy Micah. I can see Tommy liking that car. Tommy Micah and a quirky car that goes together like peanut butter and jelly,
Roberto Baldwin (1:08:08)
to like drive it. He just likes the fact that it's wacky like I'm ones like hey, do you want to Suzuki Samurai? I'm like boom Geo track. Oh hell. Yeah PT Cruiser. No. No, I don't want
Nicole Wakelin (1:08:11)
It's just that exactly his no, it's not great to drive. Yeah, yeah, he's just he's just going to have
a car at like a garage full of all these weird quirky cars, none of which are really fun to drive. They're all just super quirky and he's going to be happy.
they just, ⁓ this is on TFL. They just posted a video that Tommy did with Case. ⁓ One of their listeners who lives near them in Colorado has ⁓ a vintage, mint, mint 1983 Chrysler LeBaron convertible with the woody sides and everything. And it's in great condition. And so they brought it over and they did a video.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:08:55)
with that. And it's got the voice system that, you know, it doesn't listen to you. It just talks to you. You know, tell you your door is ajar. You know, please fasten your seatbelts. ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (1:09:06)
Your door is a jar. The door is a jar.
Nicole Wakelin (1:09:06)
Your door is ajar. The worst
joke ever and it is stuck from your door is not ajar.
So ⁓ I'll put a link in the show notes to that one. It's worth what? They actually kind of like the
Roberto Baldwin (1:09:23)
mean, it's hard not to like a convertible, even a bad one. ⁓
my husband's dearest friends had like a turquoise colored one. It was like a turquoisey kind of colors I remember. And Craig drove that thing forever. Like he drove it into the ground. It was done when Craig, there was, he loved it. He absolutely loved that car.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:46)
Well, Frank Marcus used to have one. had, he and his husband had an 84 ⁓ LeBaron wagon ⁓ with ⁓ the turbo four cylinder. ⁓ And they bought that one because that was one of the cars that ⁓ Frank worked on as an engineer when he worked at Chrysler in the 1980s before he became a journalist. so they had that one for about three years before they sold it off.
The last Chrysler LeBaron convertible I saw on the road was in Austria. No, Switzerland.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:20)
Like a a k-car LeBaron in Switzerland
Roberto Baldwin (1:10:24)
Yeah. It was like parked alongside the road in, ⁓ not in Zurich. We're like, what the hell?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:37)
All right, ⁓ let's move on to Toyota. ⁓ So first off, ⁓ did you know that Toyota actually sells a version of the Corolla with a manual transmission and no radio?
Nicole Wakelin (1:10:51)
I don't know, I mean here? Here? Where? Where?
⁓ it's in Japan only. ⁓ It's for driver training. This is the driver training model of the Corolla.
Nicole Wakelin (1:11:01)
Could you just get one? I people would love that. That's the cheap car you need to have. Make that thing. Chrysler make that, but yours.
just a slate now. Now you're just building a slate.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:13)
Well, I think it does have power windows and it's got an automatic or you can get it with an automatic or a manual. So like I said, this is the driver training model. So it does come equipped from the factory with the second pedal on the front passenger seat, the second brake pedal on the front passenger seat. So that when, when student drivers do something really colossally dumb, the, the instructor can slam on the brake pedal and bring the car to a stop.
⁓ And then also, ⁓ instead of, in place of ⁓ the radio, because the Corolla's got kind of the stand up tablet display, radio display in the center of the dashboard. So where the display would usually be, there's ⁓ basically just a panel there that has a little speedometer readout and let's ⁓ see, ⁓ brake indicator.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:12)
Yeah, and an extra horn button so the instructor can hit the horn.
I may sound like the Road Runner, I'm not sure why.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:22)
It's also got extra mirrors on the outside. I'm not sure why they've got that. So there's like two extra little mirrors on top of the main mirror housings.
Roberto Baldwin (1:12:31)
So you could, so the driver training person can adjust their mirrors because they're sitting in different.
Roberto Baldwin (1:12:42)
Yeah, so you have a little extra,
so you know. So you can see what's behind as driver training. And then the driver can has their own mirrors for driver, for driving.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:53)
Yeah, so in 60 years of continuous production of various Corollas, they've sold over 50 million of these things. Yeah, it's the best-selling car of all time by a pretty wide margin. Yeah, it passed the Model T and the Beetle back in the 90s, the early 90s.
Roberto Baldwin (1:12:53)
and they're gonna hit the horn. Meep, meep.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:23)
All right, and then continuing with Toyota, ⁓ they are apparently, they've filed plans to build a new assembly plant in Texas adjacent to their existing factory in San Antonio where they build the ⁓ Tundra and the Sequoia. So they're looking at a $2 billion assembly plant. ⁓ No indication yet of, they're calling it Project Orca, but there's no indication of what they're gonna build there.
Nicole Wakelin (1:13:53)
Project Orca, they're building a whale.
⁓ So this would be, it gets built, it would be their sixth assembly plant in the US. ⁓ the story from Automotive News speculates that it could potentially be a compact pickup to go up against the Maverick. ⁓ Another possibility would be ⁓ the Tacoma.
because currently Tacomas are built in Mexico and with the way the trade situation is, they could potentially be hit with significant tariffs on that from bringing those in from Mexico and that is one of their top selling vehicles. Tacoma is the best selling midsize pickup in the market, over 250,000 sales in the US.
Roberto Baldwin (1:14:52)
Yeah, it's clear. Yeah, this seems smart likely. ⁓ Yeah, just because I mean, it's Toyota. They got a lot of money. They're doing okay. They're the opposite of Stellantis.
Roberto Baldwin (1:15:05)
They're doing all right. They got the money. They're like, you know what? Let's just build a factory. It's gonna take a while. 2030, I don't think people, when people are like, ⁓ just build a factory. I'm like, I don't think you understand how long it takes to build a factory. This is four years. This is from a company that has a lot of money. And if it's gonna take them four years, then yeah.
⁓ So Toyota also reportedly sent out a service bulletin to all their dealers ⁓ warning ⁓ about a potential shortage of motor oil. And there's some other stories out there that are floating around out there in the last week about potential motor oil shortages. Yeah, I don't know how legit this all is. In the case of the Toyota thing,
Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:56)
It was specifically referencing ⁓ 0W8 and 0W16 motor oil. This is like really, really thin oil. And that's what they use in their hybrids. ⁓ so they're letting their dealers know that there may be shortages of this motor oil ⁓ and that it's okay if they need to do oil changes. They can use a heavier weight oil in these engines.
Viscosity. That's your word for the day, everybody. Viscosity.
Roberto Baldwin (1:16:33)
I just bought an EV, woo! And you know what, I just had the oil change in my BRZ, so I'm rocking it, I'm good.
Yeah, I did oil changed on the Miata not that long ago, so I'm fine there, Have you had the oil changed on all your cars, Nicole?
Nicole Wakelin (1:16:51)
I mean, we have the oil changed on all my cars. You make it sound like I have a fleet on the one car I now own. On all my car, yes. I do have the oil changed on all my car. Russ is actually pretty good about getting the oil changed on his little ⁓ Wrangler 4XE. So he's good about that. He's not good about cleaning it. Man, I had to ride in it this weekend. Ooh baby, that thing is filthy inside.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:54)
Well, I guess yeah, you just have the one right now.
Nicole Wakelin (1:17:17)
I think there's like little science projects happening in cup holders. I don't know what's happening. It's like, look, clean that thing out, man. I am. Maybe he'll hear it and then he'll start actually cleaning the car. ⁓
Roberto Baldwin (1:17:20)
Shamin or husband on the podcast
Do you do you do either of your own oil? I will swap a motor before I'll change the oil I'm done done
Nicole Wakelin (1:17:33)
Do I change my own? I know how to, I can, but no thank
Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:38)
used to change oil all the time. ⁓
like that goes in line with things like, know, when you're really like in your early twenties, you're just out of college and you move things yourself. You like pack up a U-Haul and you move all your stuff many times from one apartment to the next, eventually to a house.
I don't do that anymore. I'm not U-Hauling stuff. I feel like that way about oil changes was for the time I wanted to save the money and do my own oil change. No, thank you. I'm now grown up. I want to pay somebody else to do that for me.
Roberto Baldwin (1:18:05)
My friends would bring their cars to my house to change the oil. ⁓ see, I'd rather do that.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:06)
I am currently in the process of rebuilding our deck.
Nicole Wakelin (1:18:10)
You didn't- you were like the
Roberto Baldwin (1:18:13)
Yeah, friends are like, hey, can you change my oil? I'm like, all right, sure. Now I'm like, nope. No. If someone's like, hey, can you fix the, you know, can you help me swap like the power steering? Oh yeah, I'll help you do that. Oh, you know, the distribution, yeah. Oh, the ignition, yeah, yeah, I'll help you do it. We need new starters, yeah, yeah. Can you change your oil? No.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:37)
Yeah, I used to change the oil all the time. I'm currently in the process of rebuilding our deck. ⁓ So, you know, I still do stuff around here, but I haven't done an oil change in many years. Yes. I still do things once in a while.
Roberto Baldwin (1:18:50)
Yeah, I still do stuff around the house. It's just the oil changes.
The oil change to me, it's, The return on investment. It's messy. It's, got, now, okay, now have this oil to take it to the auto zone. You gotta stand there and be like, hey, I got the old oil, where do I pour it? And they're like, go over to this one.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:00)
And then you gotta go take the old oil somewhere.
nope, none of that. Nope, nope, nobody, nope, nope.
they're like, our oil thing's full, you gotta go to the other AutoZone, cause it's the weekend and everyone did it at the same time.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:20)
All right, ⁓ let's see ⁓ Volvo has a factory near Charleston, South Carolina, which is running slightly under capacity ⁓ They let's see it has a capacity of 150,000 units a year ⁓ They last year built about 18 and a half thousand ex 90s and Polestar threes there So slightly under capacity which means that they are losing a ton of money on that because they still got all the overhead costs
Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:50)
So, you know, there's you know, I've speculated that you know, they will add production, you know, they've already said they're gonna add production of the ⁓ XC 60 there, but you know, that's still only about another 45 or 50,000 units. ⁓ So Volvo has, you know, has said that they would be open to building vehicles for other manufacturers at the plant. ⁓ Yeah.
Nicole Wakelin (1:20:17)
What's money? You gotta make it somehow, that's money.
Magnum probably isn't happy about that. But... I know. Exactly. That's probably why they're not happy about that. Because then people who are like, I'm building our car here, or in Austria, well I could build it here without tariffs at the Volvo plant. That's a smart... it's pretty smart, to be honest. High five to Henrik. Or Haken. Sorry, not Henrik. Henrik's the other guy who...
Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:23)
Well, Magna doesn't have any factories in North America, or at least not any vehicle assembly factories in North America. Yeah.
Roberto Baldwin (1:20:49)
Hawkins like the opposite of it
Roberto Baldwin (1:20:52)
They pulled a guy out. He's like every time I try to retire they pulled me back. That's Hawkin
Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:01)
⁓ Alright, and then finally, ⁓ BMW ⁓ is at the Concorso Della Ganza Villa Dest in Italy, Lake Como this week. And they showed off a couple of concept vehicles. ⁓ Robbie is our resident motorcyclist. ⁓ What do you think of the Vision K18?
Roberto Baldwin (1:21:25)
Okay, sure. I mean it's like a concept car. That's the thing is like when I see these bikes like this They're like, you know, they're like the concept cars out there. They're like, oh cool, but I like riding this would be like, okay So I'm way back.
I mean for me it would work cuz I have like really long arms I'm like a spaghetti monster But everyone else is gonna have to lean like I don't know It's it's it's it's a concept fine. Sure. Whatever. It's like whenever someone shows up with like a
Roberto Baldwin (1:21:53)
like one of those really low slung motorcycles where you're essentially laying straight down on the ground, and you're like two inches. Those look cool, but in reality, you're I can't see anything that's going on. You can't see what's coming up, you can't see what's in front of the car in front of you, you can't see a damn thing.
of gives me DeLorean vibes, because it's that brushed steel, like the Cybertruck. It's the DeLorean of motorcycles. It looks super cool.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:19)
It's got a 1.8 liter inline six cylinder engine, which is a lot of engine for a motorcycle.
Roberto Baldwin (1:22:26)
You know, they have a two liter bike right now that I rode. That wasn't an inline six. Yeah. You know, it's cool, you know, design, fun thing that, yeah, I mean, it's gonna go fast, but you know, it's fine. Oh God, no. This thing's probably, an inline six, you how much this thing weighs? Oh my God.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:29)
Yeah, but it's not an inline six.
Nicole Wakelin (1:22:47)
Would you buy one or is it two?
the weight so the heavy weight just like a car heavy weight is not great to drive. So you want it to be nice and light right.
Roberto Baldwin (1:23:01)
It's, mean, cruisers are pretty heavy bikes. Like, you know, the big like, you know, ⁓ cruiser bikes and choppers and stuff. They're heavy bikes, but this thing is going to weigh way more than that.
Cause the size of the motor. And so now you have all this mass. And so, you know, if you look at, you know, you got that breaking issues, you know, turning, like when you stop, you need to make sure you better, you better have your feet, your, your, your feet down on the ground.
Roberto Baldwin (1:23:30)
Cause if you ever laid this thing down, well, that was the of that. And let me tell you, like sometimes you'll put, you'll lay a bike down for like the stupidest reasons. I like, had a, I was riding a DS, so it's a tall bike and I parked in a garage and it turned out the garage, the part that cement or the concrete was really slippery.
And so I put my foot down and my foot, and it was raining. So I just, my foot just slid out from underneath and I put, you know, I laid the bike down. I mean, in slow motion, but still I'm like, all right.
Roberto Baldwin (1:23:58)
You know, I'd drive my shoes and lift a bike up and it was fine. Like it didn't scratch or anything. This thing, you get a call like some friends, get a crane. ⁓
construction crew across the street. Be like, guys, guys, guys, I need you for a second.
it's a beautiful piece of art. It's a beautiful, you know, it's kind of a cool concept. But at the end of the day, just, that's, there are people who like, I love this bike. I would buy this bike. That's not me. I'm very, yeah, I have a very, the big cruisers, I'm like, ⁓ that's just so much weight to be hauling around so I can be all blop, blop, blop, blop, so I can make that noise. I don't need that. Blop, blop, blop, blop.
Nicole Wakelin (1:24:37)
What's that noise again, Robbie? What sounds like a?
Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:40)
the Dodge Tomahawk, which was a concept bike that Chrysler built back in 2003 around a Viper V10 engine.
Yeah, was sort of ridiculous. I mean, that thing, was the same thing where you're like, oh, look at me. I'm like, you're laying down. You're so close down to the ground. I'm like, okay, so now you got a V10. You're going on incredibly quick, fast bike, but you can't see anything. It's, you know, it's, you're out in the salt flats, cool. If you're on the road, I don't know what's going on. What's coming up next? Who knows? I just ran over a box. Now I'm dead.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:19)
⁓ And the other concept that BMW showed is the new Vision Alpina coupe. So Alpina was a brand that did ⁓ custom versions of BMWs for many, many years. They're basically more luxurious versions of conventional BMW models with more performance too. ⁓ And last year, BMW acquired Alpina and brought them in-house.
⁓ And now they've done this vision alpina coupe, which is it's a big two door coupe ⁓
I don't know. Just when BMW was getting away from the massive kidney grills, they bring it back on this thing.
like everything about this except for that huge grill, which is pretty signature thing, but like from the profile and the back, it's gorgeous from the back. But I don't like that really angular and really aggressive. It's too much. I don't know. What do you think? You like it?
I think BMW broke me. So now I'm like, that looks nice. Looks fine. I think for an Alpina for the size of this vehicle, for what this vehicle is, I'm fine with the giant weird grill. ⁓ You know, Alpina used to make typewriters and they also have a wine. They also have a wine cellar. I went to Alpina like years ago and like I went there. I went to Alpina like years ago on a beat like we drove Alpina and then we went to Lake Como for for the
Roberto Baldwin (1:26:56)
for the concourse, the eleganza. ⁓ It was a, yeah, it was really hot. They didn't have air conditioning, but they had a wine cellar and we all ended up hanging out in the wine cellar. But they make, yeah, typewriters.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:09)
mean, in profile, this thing looks great.
is great. It's a really pretty vehicle. It's just for the, except for that one whole, you know, front thing.
Roberto Baldwin (1:27:25)
I just don't like the fact there's no buttons inside.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:28)
Yeah, well they're starting to do that on all the BMWs.
Nicole Wakelin (1:27:30)
is there a significant lack of
the S-Class, you can get it. It has, you can control the vents with your screen, but also with your hands.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:44)
⁓ there you go. That's the way to do it.
Nicole Wakelin (1:27:47)
so you can do either or it's your choice. Whatever
level of comfort you are, of control you are comfortable with. Okay. I'm fine with that.
Roberto Baldwin (1:27:52)
Yep, whatever you feel like doing.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:58)
Alright, let's answer. Let's respond to a couple of listener emails ⁓ The first one came from Glenn Says big fan of wheel bearings, especially given Nicole's Jeep adventures. I thought you would find the link to YouTube interesting I think she may have gotten off easy and
Glenn, I went and watched that just like, wait, this is directed at me. So this poor woman had a Grand Cherokee four by E that in the middle of the night decided to have a thermal runaway issue with a battery and it started smoking and popping and there's video there and she like the whole fire department is out there.
Like her poor little cul de sac or whatever in her neighborhood has like, like just lined with fire trucks. They had to push it out of her driveway and you see this has to be a dozen firefighters.
in full gear because you don't know what's going to happen when a battery does that. Pushing it out of the driveway. Yeah, her. But so there was some there was some drama with it because it was ⁓ she. So the recall for those, because it's the same recall that was at the Wrangler 4 by E that ⁓ we still have, ⁓ was that you were not supposed to plug it in to charge, which removes the central reason why you buy.
a plug-in hybrid and it affected all the four Baes. Huge number of vehicles and it was an issue for ages and ages and ages. And ⁓ she did have a plugged in, which technically they tell you you're not supposed to do.
And I guess shortly before this, because we've all been waiting forever for battery fixes for this, the dealership had called like in a matter of weeks, you know, we have your battery. Okay, I can't do it like today.
I've got work stuff. ⁓ I'll, you know, we'll schedule it. And in that time,
that's when the thermal runaway happened. So I guess there's some consternation about ⁓ how Jeep people are gonna handle it and how the dealership or her insurance, I guess I should say, is gonna handle it.
⁓ So it caused an issue, but it's kind of funny, not funny, but horrifying, I should say. You see this poor woman, on her ring camera, her car is just letting out lovely little puffs of gray smoke. It's like you can see it coming from underneath the car, and then she's out there in her nightgown in a robe.
like watching then her husband's out there also in his jammies trying to unplug the car, you know. So it was a big thing. So yeah, yeah, mine did not burst into flame. My Wagoneer S thankfully, ⁓ it did everything else, but before I got rid of it, it just died. said, you know what? I'm done. I've chosen not to do the work of being a vehicle that moves. Although I did learn something in this video. So the video, she posted the link Sam, because it was
Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:24)
It just died. Repeatedly.
Nicole Wakelin (1:30:36)
A guy who is a former firefighter is a firefighter. I forgot which now, but he talks about how you still active and in it, he talks. I did not know this until I, he mentions it in the course of when he's talking about the video and what happened. And you can see the gray clouds of, of smoke coming out from it and poofs from underneath the vehicle. And he actually talks about how it has like that, that smell of a battery. And I've never smelled a battery.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:41)
think he's still an active firefighter.
Nicole Wakelin (1:31:04)
go into a thermal runaway like that, I don't know what it smells like, but he said it's very distinctive, especially if you're a firefighter, like, oh crud, like you know exactly what that smell is, but he also said it's incredibly toxic, it creates this vapor cloud that is really, really, really very bad for you.
And if you wait until you sort of see it, or until there's a huge amount of, you know, little flame smoke to put on your gear as a, your respirator as a firefighter, you've probably waited too long and that's not good.
And not that all of us have respirator gear in our garages if we have an EV or a hybrid that could go into thermal runaway. But I thought that was an interesting note just in general. I mean, you don't want to be close to the car anyway because it could catch fire, but you want to stay away from it and not be breathing that smell.
mean, you know, it's logic. You don't want to just breathe in smoke. But I think you think if you'd smelling, you're like, ⁓ a little bit of smoke. But that that vapor cloud is incredibly dangerous.
Apparently, it's really, really bad for you. So stay away if that ever happens. Be aware that the vapor cloud is a thing. Thank you, firefighter guy.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:07)
All right, and then from ⁓ Leof Winn, think, I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing that. ⁓ Just wanted to let you know that this is entirely your responsibility, all your fault. ⁓ And had to learn to drive a stick again. And he sent us a picture ⁓ of his new car, his new ride, ⁓ which is a brand new Miata RF.
Nicole Wakelin (1:32:38)
which is the only color to get. Well done. Well done. You got the right color. Nicely done you. I'll take responsibility for that being us.
I had already responded back by email earlier this week, ⁓ acknowledging that yes, we will fully take responsibility for that. I admire your choice.
Nicole Wakelin (1:32:56)
We all fully take responsibility.
Yeah. That was a good choice. You got the good car. All, all... The answer is always Miata. Unless you're me.
Nicole Wakelin (1:33:04)
Yeah, you got a good car.
as long as you fit, answer is Miata is always the answer.
Nicole Wakelin (1:33:14)
Yes, as long as you fit. Small caveat. Even then it might be the answer to see what.
Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:20)
⁓ All right, well thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you next time. Bye.
About this episode
The hosts bounce from luxury tech to electrification plans, starting with Mercedes’ connected suspension and adaptive high beams, then moving through EV charging and hybrid strategy. Roberto praises the S-Class infotainment and mild-hybrid assist, while the discussion also covers Tesla’s Supercharger digital queue and Honda’s push to “making a full press with hybrids” through 2030. The episode also includes practical buying stories (IONIQ 5, Sentra CVT) and safety talk around battery thermal runaway.
Nicole is back from Disney World and she caught lots of fish. Robbie got to drive the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Sam had the latest Nissan Sentra.
Robbie and his wife also got a great deal buying a new Hyundai Ioniq 5 to replace the one that is ending its lease shortly which means he probably won't be getting the new 2027 VW ID Buzz Tourer. Honda had their annual business briefing where they made a big commitment to hybrids and showed prototypes of the new Accord and RDX. Tesla is testing supercharger waiting lists and Chrysler might be planning a sub-$30k car. Toyota is planning a new factory in Texas and also selling a driver ed special Corolla in Japan with no radio and a manual gearbox. Volvo wants to fill its South Carolina factory and will build cars for whoever needs capacity. BMW showed two wild concepts Concorso d"Eleganza.
