One Trick Pony

This is wheel bearings episode 434. I am Sam of bull all samed from telemetry. And I'm Roberto

Baldwin from SAE international. Sam's at CES. I'm at home. I'm winning life. He that that is

absolutely the truth. I just I just got into Vegas about an hour and a half ago. The show,

the press day doesn't actually start till it's now Saturday afternoon. The press days don't

start till tomorrow or until Monday morning. By the time this is posted, it will be Sunday

afternoon. But we've got you know, part of this program here, where we're going to have a bunch

of briefings with companies tomorrow. So we get three briefings tomorrow on Sunday before the show

even gets started. And it's funny on the on the flight from Detroit today, it's like half almost

half of the first class section was people coming here, including Gary Shapiro, who was sitting

right across the aisle next to Jamie Butters. I'm not going to say anything about Gary Shapiro.

Okay, well, Gary, Gary is the the president of the Consumer Technology Association, which is the

organization that puts on CES. And we will leave the conversation there. Yeah, you can you can guess.

All right. Well, unfortunately, Nicole pinged me about an hour or so ago,

to let me know that she unfortunately will not be able to join us today. Because she had to take

one of her daughters to urgent care. She's going to be okay. Everything's fine. But she's she's

held up for a little while. So she won't be able to join us today. So it's just me and you Robbie.

Yeah.

You know, I know you didn't drive anything this week or ride anything this week. But

recently you talked about something else that you rode. I did want to share some additional

information with us. So here's some fun and really exciting news. So remember when I talked

about that verge motorcycle, the TS pro, it's the one where the the motor is part of the the rear

wheel, they call like a donut motor. So the there is no chain, there's no kids because the motor is

the wheel is the motor to motor is the wheel. Cool, fun, fun fun bike to ride. So they have

some news that they're unveiling at CES this year. And the news is is that the second generation,

the second version of this bike that one that they're going to be selling in the United States

will ship with a solid state battery, which makes it essentially like the first production

vehicle, really, that is at, you know, they're going to mass produce, they're not going to make

a lot, they're going to 50 the first year. But you will be in 2026, according to the

verge motorcycles and their partner donut lab, they will be you will be able to purchase a solid

state battery powered electric vehicle, which is huge news. It's it is sort of I really hate this

term, the holy grail of something. It's just it's annoying, it's cliche, then it's this is sort of

the whole electric vehicle. For those who don't know, solid state batteries, the electrolyte is

it's solid, it's not a liquid. And so it's the idea is that it it it it allows for a more dense

energy. So there's more so you can get essentially the same amount of energy to say 100 kilowatts

and a pack that's like 60% the size 40% the size 50% the size sometimes is you know probably about

half the size of that pack. So if you have a let's say a vehicle and the battery cost it weighs 2000

pounds for let's say 300 miles, it can now be 1000 pounds for you know 300 miles. But also

because you've lost all that weight, you're now you're getting extra miles because you've lost

1000 pounds. So with the same capacity, you get more miles per kilowatt hour because you're not

moving as much mass. And because the the the pack is less likely there's there's very little

thermal runaway like you would with lithium ion so they're less prone to fire, which means you

don't have to protect them quite as much. You don't have to build this giant you mean you still

have to put some protection around it because you don't want to get destroyed. But you don't have

to like build you know essentially build a tank around it so you're also losing weight in that

respect. The whole and they charge quicker they charge much quicker than your regular battery packs.

And potentially if you can fix the problem which is the biggest problem with them is dendrites what

happens is that as everything's going back and forth through the electrolyte you start getting

little spikes and those little spikes are called dendrites and they start creating shorts within

your battery. And the biggest problem that's been with solid state batteries is that they

their cycle life is pretty short because yes they charge quicker, yes they have more energy

density, yes they're less prone to fire, but if the battery can only be charged like a thousand times

that's not ideal for a mass market. Donut lab which is the partner with Hverge says they

the way they are building their solid state batteries they will not have dendrites so they

will not have the issues that everyone else is trying to solve when it comes to a solid state

battery. So that's huge, huge news. I get they are making 350 this they are not you know they're

Honda they are not Toyota these are you know two companies that are actively working on solid state

battery they are not Nissan they're not having to make you know 30, 40, 100,000 a million units a year

with these batteries. But even 350 if you say you know we can we can do this the batteries have a

five-year warranty they're saying that the the issue with the the life cycle is they will you

they're going to last way longer than lithium ion batteries it's a lot of really exciting stuff

that they're they're sharing with everything that comes out when it comes to solid state

battery you kind of have to like okay wait and see but they told me that they are already building

the batteries they've been building them for months they put them on bikes they've been riding the

bikes around for months they've been testing them in super essentially in freezers and testing them

essentially at like a hundred centigrade which is like why but they have the hundred

centigrade is the boiling point for for us Americans with the deal with Fahrenheit which I

have no idea what Fahrenheit boiling point is a lot to it's 212 but 212 Fahrenheit um yeah it's

it's really 212 oh I did know that I wasn't a guest 212 but I didn't want I was like ah I'll sound

stupid so their their their bike that they have now that I've ridden it has a lithium ion battery

they can essentially half that brat battery and still get the same range which is about 217 miles

is what's what they offer with the bike they have now so you can get the same bike with the same

amount of range that weighs less because the battery is like 60 of what the lithium ion battery

also that donut motor in the back that's smaller that's about that's way 50 less so the tires now

is quite as wide in the rear which is nice for a bunch of reasons a wide tire is great for stability

but it's also you know you're you're having to kind of fight a little bit more for uh for nimbleness

the capacity of that battery is uh 20 about 20 kilowatt hours and it'll charge at the

they they're new the solid state um at 100 kilowatts for a motorcycle it'll have knacks so it'll go

from 20 to 60 percent they say I'm sorry 20 to 80 percent in 10 minutes is that's that's essentially

putting more the gas in your your motorcycle if you get the long range version which they just put

two solid state batteries uh it'll be 30 about 33 kilowatts um and then uh that one will DC fast

charge it up to 200 kilowatts again this is a motorcycle this is not this is not some some you

know uh this is not a car um and it'll do uh 20 to 80 percent again in about 10 minutes and again

both of these have they have a five-year warranty on their battery so they are definitely uh making

sure that these these batteries uh last a long time it's really really impressive

I'm excited to ride these bikes once they come out they will start building them again the first

quarter of 20 uh 26 which is now yeah no I I I have a whole interview over on SAE we'll put that in

the show notes uh with the CEO of verge motorcycles and with the tech team over at donut lab

originally they were like one company and then they sort of split off I've talked to them a little

bit about uh coming up with the the what what they've done to create this battery obviously they

don't share too much uh because it is a proprietary uh a proprietary bit of information um it is a big

deal for them and they also talk about you know looking beyond the two-wheel vehicle they look

you know what where else can these batteries you know energy storage your phone like everything

uses a battery now if you can make that battery uh if you can have that battery with uh more capacity

in a smaller footprint that charges quicker you know it's not just the idea that you know you can

get a car that does all this you could you know your phone could last you know twice as long

your your your earbuds could last twice as long home chart you know your home battery can hold

twice as much uh capacity so it's it's a yeah it's it's it's a huge deal it is um from a

relatively small you know a small company they have been making more cycles selling them in Europe

the more cycles they'll be selling in 2026 uh will be essentially for Europe and California

so if you live in one of those places you can order one they said there's still some spots

they've had they have over 600 you know I think there's they have reasons for selling them only

into uh regions uh I mean most places when you remember when when EVs first came out most

of them were only sold in California I think that's the sort of the same uh reasoning yeah no it was um

it was a pretty after I they they they shared the information with me after that ride I was like whoa

whoa whoa sold down hold slow down when is this bike coming out expecting them to tell me by the end

of the by the end of the decade which is essentially you know Honda's talking about by the end of the

decade uh Toyota I think is also talking about by the end of the decade um I oh gosh I forget what

Nissan I should have looked it up I think Nissan's around the same time Nissan's been talking about

like 2028 or so yeah so the end of the decade I think everyone's like the end of the decade which

which seems plausible and and makes sense um and then this small company and it comes out and says

oh yeah we're doing it we're doing it in a few months enjoy so yeah so that's the big news for

me out of CES yeah I mean this is great um you know I mean one of the challenges one of the big

challenges there's a lot of companies have been developing um solid state batteries and um you

know there's been you know a lot of companies that have gotten you know good samples of the

batteries the the problem that everybody has had um is scaling manufacturing you know and I think

you know the fact that Verge is only planning to make a few hundred of these you know kind of maybe

a test of that you know companies like QuantumScape and SolidPower and SES and and all the traditional

battery makers you know have they've been able to make small numbers of these things but it's

scaling the manufacturing to high volume where it's been a challenge for everybody

and it'll be interesting to see if uh if these guys you know if if um if Donut Labs and Verge

can actually get the the volumes up you know and produce these in in like you know enough for

thousands or tens of thousands of motorcycles a year yeah I think you know I think and I I'm sure

they're open just just to to to offering up batteries to other companies I think this is a

for a company like them if they can do this at 350 you know they're making 600 you know

700 packs essentially plus they're talking about you know they're partnering with other

companies already for the technology Donut Lab is if they can get let's say they they get

a thousand two thousand batteries out this year that gives them you know a little bit of a a leg

up on a lot of these sort of other companies outside you know the automakers you know because

then they have real-world tests people going out and using it versus like oh we built one Mercedes

that we're driving around and testing the solid state battery which is great you know that's

that's how you that's how you learn things that's how you figure things out but when you're you know

we got 350 of these vehicles going around and we also are building them for other companies and

for other types of vehicles and we're able to get the data from all these vehicles while we're

building this this this battery pack it's uh yeah it's exciting times because it does I think on

one hand it's it's good for this company individually sure that's great good for them but I think

overall it's really good for for the the industry because it pushes everybody if everyone's like

well we're just going to say end of the decade and now there's one small company's like hey we're

making we're making vehicles that makes you like oh gosh okay now competition is happening because

now someone's out once somebody has something then everyone's going to try to to to emulate it try to

to at least catch up to them to beat them to be better than them and at the end of the day that's

really good for uh EV adoption because I think you know a lot of people are just like well it takes

like you know it takes an hour to charge an EV I'm like well not I mean most modern EVs know

yeah but you know it's if we you know if people are like well you can get a motorcycle

and again more electric motorcycles essentially the ones on the market are really

sort of weekend or they're commuter bikes because you can go somewhere you come back it's a daily

rider it's a commuter bike it is not the the motorcycle that it's not the Harley Davidson

rider it's not the person who you know once a month rides 300 miles with their friends or they

say they're going to ride 300 miles they realize how 300 miles is a long way and they ride 200 miles

but they don't want to worry about you know charging they want to ride out to whatever

restaurant they're going to meet at they want to hang out with their friends they want to go

broom broom and then they want to ride back they don't want to like oh hey let's stop you know my

motorcycle only has 150 miles of range on the highway that's not that doesn't that doesn't you

know that's not the excitement of the motorcycle lifestyle that that sort of that almost that

weekend warrior lifestyle you know you want to be able to just ride your motorcycle all day

without stopping to get gas and if you do stop to get gas it only takes five ten minutes

this but this gives you that option to to join your Harley riding friends

on their trip so so this is going to charge at 100 kilowatts and what's the size of the battery

what's the capacity of the battery so the so they have two they have a standard range in

a long range the standard range will charge at 100 kilowatts and it's 10 20 to 80 10 minutes

it's got a 20 kilowatt hour battery the long range version has a 33.3 kilowatt hour

battery it'll charge it up to 200 kilowatts and the same you know 20 to 80 percent in 10 minutes

charge time I mean that's you know 10 minutes 10 minutes that's that's good enough that's

I got to get off the bike I'm going to go inside I got a pee I got to get some beef jerky I go out

to the bike times up yeah yeah awesome after after 80 percent obviously it's probably probably 15

the 20 after you know if you want to charge to 100 which you know it's that's slower obviously

than putting gas in your in your bike you know 20 80 10 minutes is is and to get was

you the long range sorry let's you 200 miles on the highway it's 370 in the city for the for

the long range I mean you know 200 miles is four hours that's that's fine yeah I would think after

you know 200 miles on a bike you're you're ready for a little bit of a break stretch your legs a

little anyways yeah riding at 10 10 or 15 minutes if you ride you know that sort of vibration

that your hand like if you haven't ridden in a while there's the vibration of the handlebars

and your hands feel really weird because you're getting used to if you haven't ridden in a while

you don't really get that on electric bike you get a little bit because of the road and but you

don't get that that constant vibration that makes your hands feel a little odd and so that's I think

you know stuff like that is one of the reasons why people sort of like okay well I'm gonna I'm

gonna take a little break from riding this is why there's so many stops on these sort of monthly

once a month rides because these people are not riding every day they don't ride you know I

live in the city I rode every day because that's how I got to work that's how I got around the city

and so I just did you get that sort of vibration just kind of goes away you stop thinking about it

it's just part of how you ride it's just part of you know what your life but when you you know you

ride once a month because you know you there's no need for you to ride a motorcycle in your work

or for whatever reason yeah that you know that vibration it feels it's a weird feeling but when

you ride electric bikes and I've done a couple electric bike rides in the last year and a half

long days on ride programs and it's just it's just not there because you don't have that vibration

the whole time so you're actually less fatigued riding an electric bike so you can actually ride

longer yeah I mean I don't I don't ride a motorcycle but you know I know you know from mowing my lawn

you know I guess vibrations are the handles of the lawn mower so I know I know the feeling you're

talking about that tingling sensation you get in your hands from from the vibrations of the mower

there yeah it's like that it's that tingling that the the lawn mower vibration I haven't

mowed I haven't mowed a lawn say oh gosh 30 years maybe it's well you live in California so I think

yeah so well we have we I lived in I lived in apartments for most of my life and now that I live

in a house when we when we bought the house it came with fake grass so we never have to do that

yeah I have a weed wacker it's a little that's electric and that's that's pretty much for weeds

yeah I mean all all all of my outdoor gear my lawn mower my weed wacker chain saw

hedge trimmer all that stuff is battery powered anyway and you know I I've been a homeowner for

you know going on 32 years now and I have yet to ever mow yet to ever water my lawn I I've never

never once watered my lawn wow yeah California you have to water your lawn yeah

all right cool well and that's that's exciting you know first first solid state batteries come

into EVs here in the US this this year and yeah this year first first first quarter or 2026

and I bet you half of those 350 bikes get bought up by automakers and battery companies

oh looking to test these things and tear down those batteries and figure out what the hell's

inside them I feel like they're good there's going to be they have over I think over 600

reservations but they're all again they're only selling them like in California and parts of Europe

so they still have reservations available so if you're looking to buy one of these they're

they're over 20,000 they're not cheap it's the Verge TS Pro I think as soon as the news drops

it's $20,000 is nothing to an automaker I think there's going to be a couple of them like

peanuts they're like we have an engineer in California have him order one now

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uh all right uh well i um drove the Subaru wrx ts uh with a six speed manual transmission

um and oh boy was that fun i i really like that car it is i was like i think myself i talked to

to tim stevens who has a big pile of like wrx's and sti's and i drove yeah and uh we so we talked

about because i used to own a wrx the ts is kind of like hey it's kind of chill it's like the regular

person's version it's still fantastic like we i think we both thought it was going to be like a

little like well they're going to like you know shave off the edges and make it like you know sort of

nope it's just a fantastic vehicle yeah you know they

uh Subaru dropped the the sti versions of the to trx at least here in north america a couple

of years ago uh although there's strong rumors that uh it's going to be coming back you know and

they did show the two concepts at uh at the japan mobility show including one that you know is based

on the wrx uh you know based on uh it's a wrx hatchback and so you know there's a seems like

there's a strong probability that it you know a wrx sti hatchback will be back sooner rather than

later uh but um you know what what we have right now is the wrx ts uh with the ts standing but for

tuned by sti so it's not quite a full blown sti but it's it's close um so you know it's a super

or super turbocharged 2.4 cylinder 2.4 liter four cylinder boxer engine you know which is

what you've had in wrx's forever 171 horsepower and this one 158 foot pounds of torque uh from

2000 to 5200 rpm and that's one of the things about this you know the you know it's been years

since i drove an sti but i you know some years ago i drove a regular wrx at an sti back to back

on consecutive weeks and i actually preferred driving the regular wrx to the sti um you know

for as as a daily driver you know for driving on the street because the you know the sti had a lot

more turbo lag um you know it was a lot stiffer uh you know this one you know is i think a really

nice middle ground between the standard wrx and you know what we had as an sti um and you know

it's it's got plenty of low end torque so it's really responsive it's it's a lot easier to drive

as a daily driver it comes with a six speed manual no cvt in it it's got you know electronic

to control dampers adaptive dampers developed by sti it's got uh brembo brakes all around six

piston front calipers and dual piston rears the the one that i had was finished in the galaxy purple

pearl which is this really dark purple color that in the sunshine it looks fantastic unfortunately

there wasn't a lot of sunshine the week that i had it it was mostly kind of overcast and you know

snowing and raining and kind of miserable you know wind you know kind of early winter weather um

but when the sun was shining it it looked really fantastic and that galaxy pearl you know it was

gold colored calipers coming through the the gray wheels and then in the in the interior

it had rikaro performance seats and um there was these bright blue accents on the seats and on the

dashboard and the door panels that you know contrasting against the the black and predominantly

black and gray interior they really added a nice splash of color to the interior made it a little

more fun the seats are fantastic you know not a lot of adjustments on the seats but you don't

really need a lot of adjustments uh as long as you know as long as you fit the seats uh fortunately

i i do fit those seats um you know i just i took this thing out you know on a day when when the

weather it was cold but it was you know it was relatively nice out you know the sun was shining

a bit um the roads were dry um and you know it it came on fortunately they they put it on winter

tires uh so that was that was helpful because you know the temperatures were you know right around

freezing uh which you don't want to be driving summer tires on on on those kind of and those

kind of conditions uh so the winter tires still gave it decent grip um and it was just it was

such a ball to drive you know on some nice curving back country roads um outside of Ann Arbor

the uh and you know like i said the you know with the the adaptive dampers on here um you know

it was just it was really nicely tuned so it's it's something that you know it's feels really

sporty but it doesn't it doesn't it's not punishing ride quality it's you know it's actually

really comfortable to drive um you know and this is something that you can easily use as a daily

driver and it's quick um you know the the gearbox was was really nice to shift um you know it had

uh you know had the you know the usual um array of uh assistance features that you find on modern

Subaru's like the iSight system with the dual cameras the stereoscopic camera system for you

adaptive cruise control so if you need to take a road trip you know it makes it makes it a little

easier with the adaptive cruise control um but uh the there's really only one complaint

i had about the car uh and that was the infotainment system uh you know it's got support for wireless

android auto and and apple carplay but um you know this is the old um Subaru system that they've

had for quite a while they call it starlink uh and it's just it's slow uh you know the interface is

is is okay but it's slow it's just an ipad yeah basically it's like someone gave you a third it's

like a first generation ipad yeah someone gave you an ipad from my two generations ago and you

stuck it in your car that's essentially what it's like having this infotainment system um

when i drove this car i i sort of forgot about the infotainment system because i was having

so much fun driving uh but yeah i thought it's like oh this is kind of slow hmm well all right

well it doesn't have that all the power went to the motor yeah exactly they're like you know what

we did all the other stuff you can put your ipad you know what you can connect your iphone leave

us alone yeah well you know it took a couple of minutes you know just for you know android auto

to pop up on to finally pop up on the screen you know just to to get some music or something uh so

you know just just to get that far you know i had already been driving for a while before it even

came up on the screen but you know if you don't need the navigation if you don't if you don't

need the music just just turn it off you know turn off the audio just listen to the sound of that

boxer because it it's it's such a unique sound and it just sounds so good i i used to work at a

at a at a at a i used to work in entertainment so i worked at a studio and some one of the one of

the little perks of working in the studio is that you work uh 12 15 hour days so what would happen

was there was a place down the street that the car washes and oil changes and a guy would just

show up at the studio and be like hey give me your car keys i'll take your car well you know car

and you can pay for it when i bring it back it was great because i never had to worry about you

know um you know getting you know getting my old change because they would just do it while

i was working they would just wash my car while i was working um they like to call my car the sewing

machine because it does kind of sound like a sewing machine like oh your sewing machine i'm

like here you go they're like all right it's kind of unique it's a it's a unique sound i mean the

the only thing that sounds remotely close to that you know is like a a Porsche boxer engine

you know the the Subaru even has its own kind of unique sound to it distinct from distinct from a

Porsche and it's it's a fun sound and this thing is quick this thing is seriously quick you know

the 271 horsepower you know it's not that it's you know it's a fairly compact car uh which means

you know the backseat's not huge uh you know i could i could fit back there behind myself but

you know it's it's probably you know it's probably not something someone something you'd

want to have you know Robbie sitting the backseat of uh unless he was maybe sitting behind Jill

Simonillo uh you know who's Robbie and Jill like like like Jill and I are going around solving

crimes traveling the world in our WRX uh you know and currently you know the WRX is only available

as a four-door sedan you can't get it as a hatchback unfortunately hopefully that's

something that will will change um but uh you know we'll see but even as a sedan you know it's

this is a great little car to drive it's yeah let's see if i on your like i think in Detroit

this is like the perfect car um yeah because the i've driven like the Aston Martin Vantage

i've driven like it's like a carbon corvette of i've driven like all these you know and and and

supercars around my part of the bay and we have we you know my part of the bay area we have you

know hills and mountains and and windy roads except my part of the bay doesn't have like

marine money so the the roads can be a little rough and all those other cars get tossed around

like there's nothing because they're so like you're going around a corner and they're just

like it's rough so you're you're essentially tossing the supercar around the WRX this this

one and i drove the other one a couple of the the one right before this so the TS and then the

previous generation and both of them just ate that ate those right up like there was nothing

just absolutely yeah just tore that's the nice thing about the way the the suspension is set up

you know it it does you know it you know it's got there's kind of that Subaru rally heritage in

there you know where you know they you know rallies you know driving it on unpaved gravel roads

you know bumps and stuff so you know it's got to have some suspension compliance to it and so it

just you know it it works really well um so you know on roads like we have here in Michigan or you

know around where you live Robbie um you know it uh this whole the whole system works really well

it's a good combination it is and and most people don't know what this car is that's the best part

it's a sleeper yeah yeah it you know it doesn't look like anything you know crazy you know it looks

it looks fairly conventional you know like just a basic compact sedan you know it's

got you know nice nice looking wheels on it uh but other than that you know it looks fairly

conventional um and uh see the the Monroney they gave me didn't have a price on it so let me uh get

the furry pricing here uh so you know the base WRX which strangely enough is is premium trim that's

that's the base WRX is a little over $37,000 the um the TS uh that I had um you know if you're

gonna get the TS you know spring for the 395 bucks for the the galaxy purple and um then uh let's see

this one uh came to a grand total of $49,270 which is not inexpensive but you know if you're

considering yeah if you're considering something like a VW Golf R uh or let's see what you know

some other you know yeah Pacific Type R or an Integra Type S uh you know that's that's not you

know or or you know uh yeah a GR Corolla you know it's not quite as um you know it's more uh it's

more subtle in the way it looks you know if you want something that's not gonna jump out and grab

too much attention from you know from the the people from the law enforcement that you might be

driving past it uh slightly more than the speed limit um you know this this might be a better

choice plus um you know a Golf R you can't get it with a manual transmission anymore it's

it's you know automatic only or DSG only um and uh you know this six speed manual transmission

49 grand uh you want to take a guess at the destination charge I I already saw it oh okay

oh it's it's $1,170 it's relatively cheap compared to everything else yeah but by

by today's standards it's it's quite cheap I think of all those cars you just named

I think this is probably the best balanced out of all those this is the one yeah this is

sort of the the the winner of all of those cars I think the GR Corolla um is a little bit more fun

but it's also like will rattle your teeth out um and and is a uh it's it is a it for the term gizoo

this is the most gizoo of the of those vehicles um everything else is a little bit tamer I feel

like especially the type that the the Golf R which is unfortunately I think they really shaved off a

lot of the sort of like danger of that vehicle um and now you can't even give it to manual

transmission so I think of all those this is the one that it's it's the less the the one that

doesn't really stick out but the overall this is the best way that second that short gearing of

second is so amazing yeah because you're just like for second really you're you're in the third

really quickly because of that rally you know inspired and a lot of people don't they have

problems with this vehicle with the manual transmission because they can't figure it out

give give it a like a week like after like a week some people will take a month but once you figure

out that that uh the gearing of this vehicle oh you that's it you're in love you're in love with

this vehicle for the rest of your life yeah and you know if you like driving a manual you know you

will you know you'll spend a fair bit of time actually shifting it and it it just works really

well once you figure that yeah so it's a fantastic no I definitely like this car had a had a lot of

fun with it and I know that and I'm gonna tell someone's gonna tell us someone's gonna tell us

that they raised the prices on all these vehicles the WRX the this and the BRZ and I I know they did

Subaru is a small company they but they raised the price without like raising up the the the

destination so yeah yeah and you know like I said by by today's standards you know it's not like

it's wildly overpriced relative to the competition yeah it's and what you're really competitive

the engineering you're getting in this vehicle it's it's not a high you know it's not a high

high volume vehicle so they got it you know yeah yeah good times all right let's move on

so let's leave the Subaru lovefest

you know we we didn't I didn't give particularly high marks earlier this year or actually it's

last year now when Ram brought the Hemi back to the 1500 you know you know after after driving it

yeah I thought it sounded great but you know I if I was actually buying one I would probably

buy the Hurricane because it's better you know more powerful faster better payload better towing

and gets better fuel economy and you know when they when Tim Kaniscus came back after his

brief retirement after Carlos DeVaris left Stalantis you know the first thing he did was

bring the Hemi back to the Ram and as soon as that was confirmed everybody knew it was just a matter

of time before the Hellcat was back because if there's one thing that Tim likes to do

it's put a Hemi or a Hellcat and everything and so the Ram TRX is back for Model Year 2027

it's coming back this summer and you know I mean it looks pretty much the same as it did before

and the same as the the RHO you know so it's the the sheet metal is all carry over they

they did make some improvements you know so it's got the the updated

uh the updated uh electrical architecture um from you know when they refreshed the

the Ram 1500 last year and so that means it's got you know updated infotainment and other features

like you know it's got uh level two you know hands off and and uh hands off uh assisted driving

capabilities although you know why you would want that on on this vehicle I'm not quite sure

um but you know the big thing is they they got more power out of it you know because you know if

you're going to bring it back you know why bring it back with less power than your your primary

competitor which is the Ford Raptor R so they bumped it up from 702 horsepower to 777 horsepower

and it's it's it's it's what the kid you give the people what they want

yeah and this is what they want can any of the people afford it no but you give them what they want

yeah I mean it starts now when the TRX first came out you know it started at about 72 thousand

dollars now it's going to be 102 thousand dollars including the 25 $195 destination charge

but it has an SRT badge now they brought back they're bringing back SRT

to Stalantis so okay does that they go does they have the angry kitty cat on it

uh it does yes okay well there you go you got that and yeah I'm just gonna 3d print one of those

put it on my ionic five done there you go

look at that I got a hell cat my ionic five go put a hell cat in my BRZ gonna put a hell cat on

my Vespa 250 boom you know I'm sure that this is gonna help you know Ram's bottom line uh you know

they'll sell some of these you know it'll help their profit margins for a while um you know I don't

know you know I don't know how many people can actually afford these things uh but you know it

it's back yeah but you know when what you know they've they've got they seem like they have one

strategy for what to do just put a hammy or a hell cat and everything you know what they're gonna

come up with something original let's again it's what the people want the thing is they just need

to start naming everything hammy just be done yeah make a make an affordable car make an afford

make bring back the dodge rampage put like a four liter turbochar I'm not four liter a four cylinder

turbocharged uh engine in it call it a hammy be done then the hammy four the hammy four

H there's only four letters in hammy each letter gets its own cylinder

boom thank you but but that's not all that's not all from ram this week

don't they also launched uh a new an updated power wagon that you can now get with the

Cummins turbo diesel before you could only get it with the 6.4 liter hammy now you can get it

with the Cummins turbo diesel and so it's basically it's basically a you know a ram rebel HD with

triple lockers you know but a little bit cheaper than a rebel you could pull a house off its

foundation with this pretty much yeah one thousand seventy five pound feet of torque

get all the torque get all the torques pull a house if you buy one of these guess what everyone's

calling you to pull that uh pull that tree stump out of a yard because you can do it you can pull

yeah uh yeah payload you know payload is about uh let's see with the six and a half foot bed

that's about 3600 pounds uh yeah it's it's got some you know it's got some significant payload

capabilities which is you know to to be fair that is significantly better than a TRX you know the

the light you know these light duty off-road trucks typically they they lose a lot of payload

capacity because you're adding all this extra weight for the skid plates and the big giant tires

and everything else and you know I think the TRX payload capacity is only about 1400 pounds

which is less than my neighbor's four cylinder hybrid maverick but uh you know so at least you

know with the with the the power wagon you still get lots of payload capacity and lots of towing

capacity I think this thing will tow about 19 000 pounds so yeah you pretty much could pull most

houses off their foundations yeah and it only start and it starts at 88 thousand 88 and a half

thousand dollars hey that's you know that's 15 grand less than a TRX

I'm I'm you know our our our our cars leases anything in January not january june and so we're

like oh I guess we'll just get another maybe we'll just find an ionic five that's you know

essentially the same car on the lot for like 25 and I'm like man that's gonna be a lot of money

every month for a car payment and then 88 thousand dollars pops out you think oh that's

that's kind of cheap that's pretty cheap that's nothing I'm just like yeah how I don't understand

how people can afford I think I think priorities are different for other for folks plus again I live

in the Bay Area so my cost of living for a lot of your other expenses are a lot more than I bought

a house in the Bay Area that's really where it comes down is that I bought a house in the Bay

Area so my my expenses go to you know a big chunk of my stuff goes to my home and then I have a

lot of animals so you know they got to eat uh yeah yeah but

88 thousand dollars 90 thousand dollars probably after everything probably 95 what's the

oh 88 thousand including destination oh bravo so it's a bargain bravo stilantis for st for doing

that there you go so 90 thousand bucks there you go bravo you know what I'm not gonna complain about

because they because stilantis did the right thing and said including destination

I'm very easily swayed okay so let's let's swing to the opposite end of the spectrum

from a power wagon do you ever watch the rich rebuilds youtube channel

um I oh I like once or twice like a long time ago I yeah I've watched some of his videos he's

pretty good it says rich uh rich benoit lives in massachusetts and you know kind of his stick is

finding uh really cheap cars that you know you know that most others would just send to the scrap

heap uh would not spend any money on them you know like he's he bought a fisker for like the

a pan you know almost nothing uh that wasn't running and he managed to get it running you know

fisker ocean managed to get it running again um this is one uh that popped up in my youtube feed

the other day uh it's actually from about a year ago uh but uh thought it was was kind of fun uh he

got uh he got an opportunity to get a Honda beat that wasn't running you know so so basically the

way he described it at the beginning of the video was uh you know I was offered this Honda beat for

the low low price of just get it off my lot oh so he he got the beat brought it back to his shop

and he had uh an arcamoto you you've ridden the arcamoto right I have ridden the arcamoto

it's a fun little vehicle I I really don't know if they're around I know they had some problems I

know they were kind of like hit or miss for a couple of years trying to get everything going

but it was it made a lot of sense for like small town small dense towns like college

towns it made like it was sounded awesome well um Rich decided to merge the Honda beat and the

arcamoto um you know since the beat had a an engine that wasn't working um he uh he pulled the

train out of it pulled the fuel tank out of it pulled a bunch of other stuff out of it

and then took an arcamoto apart the arcamoto's got dual motors and driving the two front wheels so

the arcamoto for those who don't remember is it's a trike a tandem seat trike it's electric

and he pulled the the motors and the batteries and the electronics out of it and he put them

into the Honda beat and he got it running um and then you know took it out and was uh you know the

the third video in the series uh put the the links to the videos uh in the show notes the third

video in the series did what they call the the Honda beat off um which you know he went went and

drove it against a standard gas powered beat so the beat um for for those not familiar with it

is this tiny little mid-engine roadster that Honda sold in Japan many years ago it's a K car

so that means it's got a 660 cc three cylinder engine with all of 63 horsepower um and a five

speed manual transmission uh my friend Mike Austin's got one uh i've driven it fantastic yeah i'd love

quick um and um i'll let you watch the video to see how the electric uh beat the arcamoto

powered beat does against the original gas powered beat uh but it's fun it's a fun fun project

it's i i i love everything about this this is like everything this is everything i wanted to do with

my old uh my uh Datsun 2000 roadster i essentially just wanted to buy the roadster back this is my

first car from a friend of mine who who has it who won't sell it to me i won't say his name but he

knows who he is and every like once a year once every other year i'd like dude i want to can i buy

it he's like no i don't i don't i don't really want to sell it i think his kid is going to do

something with it which i'm like okay all right fine but they haven't done anything with it

and it makes me sad because i we were going to do a whole video series about making it

an EV um at one point and of course we never got it so but uh yeah no this i the the honda

beat is is is is a wonderful little k car and i would love to have one that has a little you

know that's built that's powered by the arcamoto you know what would be cool around town yeah now

honda you know instead like the the beat was built in like the late early 2000s i think late no late

90s late 90s and they currently have a model that's sort of a successor called the s660

and what would be cool is if they took the electric powertrain from the the super one

that i drove in japan in october other little electric k you know hot hot hatch k car oh put

put that into the uh into the s660 oh that would be that's just like that's someone's a lot yeah

see this is why if like if i were rich there's a couple things i would do first i would buy like

it's a big plot of land and just be the guy who has a lot of like rescue animals like because

that's like my that my wife and i that's kind of our deal we rescue a lot of animals like all of

animals were essentially like well like one of our cats doesn't have a paw because the people

were like well we don't know if he's gonna take him away we'll take him we'll take him he's missing

a paw we'll take him um and so i all that would make my wife so happy if we bought a big ranch

and we would just rescue a bunch of animals so there'd be that and then there would be just

the most ridiculous car bill and that would be horrible if i put them on youtube i would have

to hire somebody i would give somebody a job to just shoot video of me doing doing bad bad

like builds and swaps yeah like people would subscribe yeah i would do it riches i would

just i would just be rich's best friend i would call him every day rich have you decided to do

this yet i'm gonna do this okay so there'd be signs like i wouldn't tell people i was rich

but there would be signs yeah why is he at 57 dogs now and why is he what is he driving a model

t with a viper engine i think he's gonna die i'm not even sure a model t frame it couldn't hold

the weight the way it would hold the weight of a viper engine yeah but you could you know i think

every old car if at least you're like super like oh it's going to be original just throw an EV

an electric motor in it i saw an IX yesterday yesterday in fact that the side had been sweat

like both wheels were destroyed the car was a total loss but the battery area looked fine

and i was like i was driving with my wife we're going to lunch and we're like we should follow

that car and steal the battery and the motors out of it she's like what are you talking about

just put them in the garage until i figure out somewhere something to install them in

you know what we could make the jaguar a real car

there you go nah nah i get just don't have that thing i still have i this is all this is one of

those it's one of those things that you have in your house they're ever have you ever have a

like a like a chore that you just keep putting off this is it all i have to do is go down and

update some of the some paperwork and it's gone we're going to give it to like kqed we're going

to give it to like npr like you know this cash for cars thing like you just give it away and then

you write it off at the end of the year we don't care just just want it gone and i'm just like oh

every time i'm like about to do it something happens i'm like oh yeah i have plenty of those

projects around the house yeah yeah my mind just happens to be a giant x-type sitting in my driveway

taking up space okay so we have talked previously about electromechanical door latches and cars

and you know we've been critical of a bunch of automakers including rivian for these things

well an article popped up the other day apparently and i guess this there's a whole thing on reddit

um where rivian owners are because the the mechanical backup latches are so hard to find

on these things especially on the r ones on the particularly on the rear doors so on the rear

doors they're actually hidden there's a panel by the door handle that you have to pop out so you

need like a screwdriver or something to if you know so if you're stuck in the car in the door the

the mechanical the electronic latch won't won't work you have to pop off this little panel and then

reach in and pull on this cable to release the door handle so you know if something happens you

know you get into a crash and the the doors won't open and your kids are in the back how are they

supposed to do that you know or if you got a friend in the back that is not familiar with this car

how are they supposed to know that or you know even the owner how's anybody supposed to know

that's how you do it and so some rivian owners have apparently started taking to their own

diy emergency door releases uh on the the back doors of the r1s and the r1t and you can see the

the photo in here you can see the the rope they basically took off some of the parts attached

this rope to the the the wire loop that you're supposed to pull after you pull off this panel

yeah and then just have it hanging out it looks so ridiculous but it's it's ridiculous

it is a little bit because they're using this they're using a pair pair pair cord at least it

looks like on brand but it does look ridiculous it's true yeah it is true it does it does fit

you know with the adventure theme of a rivian nonetheless uh yeah it's like you know if if

owners have to do this then the manufacturer is doing it wrong rivian take note fix this stop doing

this just make a mechanical door they work they've worked for decades i've just a little quick

just i had the model when i had the model x and they gave me the wrong one they gave me a

pre-production model to review by accident uh anyway um i had to find where the little cord

was to do all this create i had to rip things out and it was a huge pain in the butt and it

still didn't fix the problem um but yeah it's we're clever for the sake of clever stop it

yeah um all right the the tokyo auto salon is coming up in a couple of weeks

and this is you know this is a very different kind of show from the japan mobility show

this is more like japan's version of sima where you have all kinds of custom stuff on display

and i found this article there is a school in japan um forget the name of it here

but oh it's the nihon automotive college and a group of students there have been working on a project

for the the tokyo auto salon um to take a uh a dahatsu kopen which is a k car it's a little k car

roadster um and they're transforming it into uh into a supra um so putting miniaturized um you

supra bodywork on a dahatsu kopen which just looks so cool

yeah no this is awesome yeah

so it's kind of like a like a little hot wheels version of a supra

hot wheels supra uh yeah you can drive it around town and unlike and unlike the actual supra

it's uh it's a convertible too oh no car have i gotten into where i get into an immediately like

this car should be a convertible and it's because it's you know it's the z4 it's the convertible

it just you could feel it you can feel that its soul is out of the convertible yeah

all right um gelopnik had one of their listicles that they do all the time

and uh this one is uh nine trucks that had really super cool bed features you know this is this is

one of the things you know the competition in the pickup truck market uh has led manufacturers to

you know to get a little more creative and you know figure out what kinds of

interesting utilitarian features some of these are better than others uh but you know some of

these are are really good like one of my favorites has always been the uh the ram box uh that they

launched back in 2009 on uh on the ram 1500 yeah so this is on the sides of the bed uh you've got

um these storage lockable storage boxes uh and you can put tools and all kinds of other stuff in

there uh including uh even a guy named mike levine will fit in the ram box um and uh if you know if

you know uh let's see uh but some of the other things you know that they've got on here the the

utila track that they had on the original 2004 nissan titan uh which was this track system with

cleats that you could move around so you can tie stuff down and retain stuff um the the dual action

tailgate on the honda ridge line that opens like a regular tailgate or open sideways you know they

did that long before anybody else started getting these crazy tailgates um the the avalanche midgate

back in 2002 um the uh the multi-pro tailgate the gmc launched in 2019 um what else oh and of

course the in bed trunk in the ridge line you know the the ridge line you know even though it's never

been a huge seller honda got really creative with that truck the ridge line is so great i love the

ridge line so much and when my wife got into one she's like oh is this electric i'm like no she's like

no like she really liked it because it was like it's a good size it's really comfortable it's like

a it's a honda odyssey essentially yeah and it's comfortable there's like i'm like look it's got a

tailgate you know you look it's got a it's got a uh a trunk underneath the bed she's like oh like

everything about the ridge line is awesome except that people are like oh we're just not f150 it's

not a real truck because it's a body on frame it's not you know i'm sorry it's a unibody it's not body

on frame um but no the ridge line's dope well you know what you need to do and that's why it's

that's why i always say the r1t is essentially just the ridge line yeah well you if you if you could get

that ix you were talking about and get like an old first generation ridge line

there you go i bet you that you could make that fit

get put the ix battery and the motors in here yeah we might lose the tail the the trunk though

for the batteries uh not not necessarily because the battery is between the axles i think yeah we

can blow through with my bill my million dollar lottery ticket that i don't have that i never play the lottery

and of course one one of the uh one of the the best on here of course is ford pro power on board

you know if if you're gonna have some electrification either a hybrid or or battery electric on a

on a truck um you might as well put a bunch of plugs in there yeah yeah the the pro power is great

i'm gonna go somewhere do some work we when we we did a a wedding and we had the f-150 lightning

the band and they were doing power they were turning power out during the around that time

that weekend they were talking about they having to cut power in places in northern california and

i was like i got the f-150 lightning i could save this wedding if things go sideways i was all ready

to go i brought some extra like extension cords it didn't happen extension cords and power strips

and extension cords is power strips all you need but you were ready you're ready i was ready

let's that's the way it always works you know when when you're ready then everything goes fine

you know it's when you're not ready that everything goes sideways that's why i'm always ready yeah

um all right uh so another thing that popped up um was uh an article about an old uh ford concept

and interestingly this one was on autoblog and uh they did not uh they did not link

to an article that i wrote for autoblog back in july of 2007 so this is this is all about the uh

the ford interceptor concept so the 2007 detroit auto show ford unveiled three concept vehicles

they had this van called the airstream which had uh or purportedly had their uh high series drive you

know the fuel cell plug-in hybrid system in it um they had um the uh lincoln mkr which was this

four-door lincoln coop concept that introduced you know a design language that they subsequently

brought to all their production models for a few years uh and then the interceptor

which was this big classic american sedan um it was built on a stretched Mustang platform

um and uh i will put a link to the original article uh that i wrote back in 2007 because

one of you know usually when automakers build these concept cars more often than not they're

not even drivable um but even if they are drivable they've rarely ever let outsiders actually drive

them but for some strange reason in july of 2007 ford um had an event at their Dearborn

Proving Grounds where they brought out these three concepts plus some other stuff that they were

working on and they let us actually spend the day driving these things around the proving grounds

and so i've got to drive this uh this interceptor and so i've got the um you know the the article

that i wrote for autoblog in 2007 um all about this and you know this thing uh like i said it had

it was built on a stretched Mustang chassis an s197 Mustang chassis um and it had it had a five

liter cam or crate engine in it so it was a twin five liter twin cam this is before the coyote

you know and it was a crate engine and it had a big four barrel carburetor on it

and this particular day when they had this event was like ridiculously hot and humid it was like

90 plus degrees and about 90 humidity and you know because because this was a concept you know it

didn't really have proper cooling and everything you know it didn't have good you know they hadn't

sorted out all the air flow through the engine compartment so you know this thing kept vapor

locking you know so you'd drive like two thirds three quarters of a lap you know and then it would

grind to a halt because it would the carburetor would vapor lock uh and then it would have to sit

for 10 or 15 minutes under the tent um you know with the hood up while while they let it cool off

you know and they're blowing blowing fans on the thing oh my god my dad's my dad had a 260

no 240 260z that would vapor lock constantly use me up it started choking because it couldn't get

any power it couldn't get any gas because it would vapor lock this this was a cool cool looking car

but you know they obviously never built it instead we got the 2010 Ford Taurus

you know which was not quite the same thing no one talks about the Ford to 2010 Ford Taurus and

now we know why this is like cool I think I don't know this it's fine because the front of it is very

reminiscent the flex it's got the sort of the flex front end I think it's it's cool I don't think

I think you'd have to adjust it a little bit um yeah in order to sell it obviously but this is a

cool car and I think it would have been it would have been hooved forward to make it just make you

know what just pull this out throw an EV engine get some of those f-150 lightning motors you got

sitting around throw them in the interceptor and watch people lose their minds yeah that would be

fine uh okay let's see back to the the rundown here um oh so I mentioned Fisker earlier you know

Rich rebuilds you know um he had rebuilt a Fisker ocean he also did uh did a Fisker Karma

he found a Fisker Karma and got that thing running again but um you know Fisker you know Fisker

Automotive which was the original company that Henrik Fisker started back in 2008 or nine

and built the Fisker Karma and it went into production briefly they built I think about

2100 of them before the company went bankrupt uh so you know he actually got more oceans built than

he did of karmas but after like when when Fisker Automotive went bankrupt they uh during the banks

bankruptcy process the assets of the company were bought by a Chinese company called Wang Xiang

and they launched Karma Automotive so they rebranded as Karma Automotive and they basically

continued to build these things in very small volumes ever since you know there's probably uh

I think maybe five or six hundred of these things that have been built over the last

12 or 13 years um you know over time they they updated it um originally it you know so the

the Karma was an e-rev it was an extended range EV uh you know true e-rev with the the engine was not

connected to the wheels at all it just drove a generator and had a battery pack you know it had

about 40 ish miles of range originally and then the the engine would start up and run the generator

to keep the thing going um and uh over time they replaced the original GM four-cylinder engine

that was in there with a BMW 1.5 liter three-cylinder turbo uh that had more power um they replaced

the generator they replaced the batteries they replaced the motors they did some tweaking to

the design but they're still basically building the same car and even now you know they recently

you know they rebranded it as the Karma Revero for a number of years and they recently discontinued

the Revero and launched uh a new uh what are they calling it now just just Sarah?

Yeah just at Gaia Sarah Gaia Sarah I mean how do you say that something I don't know but I mean

when you look at this you know as soon as you see it yeah they've you know they've refreshed the

styling they changed the front and rear faces yeah they changed the front fenders a little

but it's clearly it's it's still the original Karma yeah which is a pretty car yeah I mean this is

the car that Henrik designed you know 17 years ago it's still a really pretty car it's still

yeah I still like the way it looks I would buy one oh god no but I love those looks yeah well I

you know I actually had a chance to drive um the uh uh the Revero driver Revero uh probably

about six or seven years ago uh they brought one uh up to the management briefing seminars

in Traverse City and their their PR guy at the time uh who's actually here with us now

he used to be a GM uh he's uh a guy named uh Lamar Blaken on his name now uh anyway he's here

he's here at CES now uh and uh uh he's he I ran into him and said hey I'm working with Karma now

you know we've got a Revero here do you want to try it out I said sure why not and took it out for

drive for about 45 minutes and it was actually quite fun and look yeah I think it's it's just

no one knows it's even a car still I've talked I talked to Karma at Monterey car week like five

years ago probably and they're like yeah you know we got the car at the time I'm like oh it's cool

I'm still beautiful it's still this but like no one knows yeah it's like what those are a thing

it's a secret it's like a cool indie band and everyone's like oh wow this is really cool

no one knows the indie band it's the band that it's like one of the bands when I talk to friends

I'm like have you heard the new blah and they're like I don't know what the hell you're talking about

all right um one last story um VW uh as I was flying out here today got a

email you know got a notification from the VW newsroom they unveiled the interior of the new

id polo which we've talked about before so this is their new smaller EV you know it's supposed

to be priced under 25 000 euros and you know this it's it's a shame that this thing is not

going to be sold in North America because I think this actually I was so happy when I saw this photo

yeah so the the big thing is the the interior you know we wanted one of the big complaints about

all the current id cars the id3 id4 the id buzz yeah is all the touch controls you know especially

you know they've got touch controls for the volume and the temperature and everything at the bottom

of the the center touchscreen you know it's just annoying to use and um the id polo um VW says they've

they've heard the complaints about touch controls going back to physical controls yeah so you gotta

get a bunch of physical there's a whole row of physical buttons there's uh there's a rotary

volume knob on the center console uh so you don't have you know if you just want to adjust the volume

you don't have to reach all the way up and reach out for the screen you just reach down give it a

twist um it's got manual vents uh just as it should be it's got physical buttons on the steering wheel

not not touch you know haptic buttons on the steering wheel um four window four window levers not

two and a weird like switch front to back four window levers yeah I mean it's they have they've

heard all the things that everybody hated about all their current generation EVs and looks like

they've fixed almost all of them um and and you know I love I think this is they are faux

little LCD uh displays in the dash cluster yeah I think they're yeah there's a ten inch so much

there's a ten inch um digital display for the instrument cluster and one of the options on

there is um basically a replica of the old first generation golf um instruments you know kind of

like Ford did on the Maki not actually not on the Maki but on the um the the regular Mustangs

you know where you have the option to get the Fox body gauges on the digital instrument cluster

you know vw's doing this on the id polo as well uh so I think uh I think this this could I want I

would love to be able to try one of these out uh put all these controls in the id buzz make an 800

volt put some rear put some cup holders in the back seats lower the price give you which give

everyone a real cheap option so they can up build up build it and Volkswagen's back they're back baby

after I don't know very long time of just sort of not making it anyone care this is this is beautiful

uh all right um we got some listener emails and and messages uh so some of these we're going to

address uh a couple of these we are going to save uh because they uh concern um uh Nicole's

Nicole's car so we're going to save those for Nicole uh but there are a couple that we're

the first one is from Mr Burns uh this this was on the discord um and uh says so here's a

topic for the next episode or maybe it should have been for sunday's episode what was the weirdest

thing you had to fix on your vehicle in 2025 either diagnosed or diagnosed and fully and

either diagnosed or diagnosed and fully repaired example Nicole had to have her gone

EV Jeep uh after it was dragged over and through an airport parking garage parking garage gate system

and uh Mr Burns his example is I'm waiting until 2026 to replace $700 worth of rear seat seat belts

in a 2022 Jeep Wrangler 4xE because of a nervous seat belt chewing greyhound

oh the okay so so for me I haven't like I've been fortunate with my cars but um I think early

in the year I I went to put my seat belt in and a spring shot out like a cartoon out of the

seat belt in my BRZ and so I was like three in the morning I had a six a.m. flight and I'm like uh

okay what am I gonna I'm leaving my house to go to the airport I can't take the other car

because my wife needs it for work so I'm just like so I'm fiddling with it to get it to work

and I finally get it in but in order you it doesn't like it doesn't have the spring anymore to get

it out so when I when I get to the place it takes a little while to get it out so that was sort of

the weirdest fix and I just it was like 70 bucks I went to the Subaru dealership I ordered it I was

still able to like sort of like I could get it in it would hold but it took a little while to get

it out so if I was in an accident and there was a fire when it died um but that's the weirdest thing

I've had to fix this year but I all I remember is that it's it's dark like this little spring

that shoots up and I was like what the yeah that's the only I think that's the only thing that's

that's broken on any of my cars this year except for like you know flat tires and stuff like that

but uh but it was also very weird with the the seat belt thing because that had never happened I mean

I've had cars for over 15 years that the seat belts are fine after all that it's sort of a

weird thing to to break on a car well I had on the Miata the fuel gauge hadn't been working for

a couple of years actually and so I was just using the the tripodometer to keep track yeah every time

I filled it up with with gas you know I would reset the tripodometer and yeah

you know I was only you know I only drive it you know for for fun you know so I about every 150

miles or so I would stop and put gas in it reset it so I finally decided you know it's great I'm

gonna you know figure out how to fix this thing and part of the reason why I had left it is I

figured I'm gonna have to take it somewhere you know drop the gas tank to do it and when I actually

researched uh you know replacing the sender unit turns out that it was actually a lot easier than

I thought so on you know on the the gas tank is behind the seats between the seats and the trunk

and so there's there's a carpeted panel when you put this top down you know there's a shelf

behind the seats there and all I had to do is actually just pull up the carpet that was on

top of this there's an access panel you know five five six screws take this access panel off and then

right on the top of the gas tank was you could the the thing to access the fuel pump and the

sender unit was right there so you know another five or six screws lift this thing out take off

the sender unit put another one on put it back in except when when I pulled off the the main

access panel I found I found a bunch of stuff sitting on top of the gas tank which it's like

as soon as I saw it I knew oh shit it's a mouse nest that was nice and you know so you know they

had they had chewed through one of the wires for the fuel gauge sender unit as it turns out even

after I resoldered that I still had to replace the sender unit so the sender unit had died anyway

but they had also chewed through one of the wires so I had a little bit of soldering to do

but before I got to the soldering I had to clean out all of the stuff all the detritus that the

mice had brought up to make their little nest you're going to get the haunted virus the parcel

shelf or bubonic plague well so I get my shop vac out and I'm reaching rooting around in there

vacuuming up all this stuff and then all of a sudden you know that sound you get you know when

something plugs the end of your your vacuum and so I pull it out and it's like there's a mouse

there on the end of the vacuum wriggling around it's like oh shit it's like turn it off take it up

shake it out on the ground you know to get it out but you know finish cleaning that off replace

the sender unit you know it was about a 15 minute job and you know I've you know I found a I got a

replacement sender unit on on eBay for like 100 bucks I think and fix that up so yeah so that was

that was an easy fix and then then the other the only other issue that we had to fix this year

was when we bought our replacement EV6 after the first one got total

before I bought it you know I take I put the VIN number you know I'd gone on the NITSA

recall website and you can put in a VIN number to see if there's any open recalls on the vehicle

I put in the VIN number and you know to check for recalls because you know the these EV6s like

all the other Hyundai and Kia EVs had the issue with the integrated charge control unit and it

wasn't it would fail and not charge the 12 volt battery and so I put the VIN in said no you know

no unrepaired recalls now it turns out that no unrepaired recalls doesn't necessarily mean

found out after the fact that it doesn't necessarily mean that the ICCU has actually

been replaced it just means it's been inspected and so you know they inspected it it was fine

it hadn't failed so they didn't do anything with it well about a month and a half you know

about two months after we got the car I was on a trip I was coming home the next day my wife

text me and says just got an electric system fault on the car and it went into turtle mode

she was only like two blocks from the house so she was able to get it home but the ICCU had failed

and so she got it home got it in the garage when I got home the next day I plugged in the scanner

yeah it's like the the 12 volt battery was low it wasn't charging it was the ICCU fault and so I

had to have it towed to the dealer it was fixed under warranty that didn't cost me anything

and the dealer was great they actually you know they were and this was like right before Christmas

and they were thinking that you know they they weren't sure if they were going to be able to get

the part in before Christmas and get it replaced in which case it would have been like till December

29th so it would have been in the shop for a week and a half as it turns out it the part got shipped

out like the the next day they got it fixed in two days and back on the road and haven't had a problem

since yeah I've always had such great not so much with like the dealers like as sales people

but like the service centers like when we had our mini we take it to the mini service center

because it was less expensive to taking it to Jiffy Loop I don't change my own oil I stopped

doing that in the 90s like I'll switch anything else in the car but changing the oil is just that's

no I'm not going to do that and our dealer service center for the hunt for the for the

Hyundai they're just fantastic just great wonderful people and every time I hear the

dealers like oh well we're not going to make money at EVs I'll make you lean into your service

centers that's where all the cool people work all the cool nice people work in the the service

center and the parts department they're like hey what you need I'm like oh I need this and then

you see all the cool stuff for you like your car from that like you know like you know the Ford

branded or the Hyundai branded or the Toyota branded or Subaru branded like little Chatsky's

you can buy you're like oh maybe I'll get a you know keychain or whatever I don't think it's the

same as like you know the money they get from selling a car but I really think it should

lean in lean into the nice people you have in your dealerships yeah especially you know when it's

something that's under warranty anyway well it's not free but you know it's money well I mean

it's free it's free to the customer you know it you know they get they get paid by the by the

manufacturer for doing warranty work so absolutely you know take advantage of that yeah yeah and

also the the idea that you can just get to the to the to the fuel pump through a panel on top

is just another yes vote for what's the the the answer is always Miata yeah that's I mean that's

just you know that's just good design for serviceability oh yeah my friend sent me a an MG like

on Facebook marketplace the other day and she's like oh should I get this and I just replied no

period because it's an MG because it's an MG I'm like no it's like oh I'm like you should get a Miata

get the ND she didn't get and the ND is probably the best for for for non car people

could it's I mean I fit in it so I'm happy and her boyfriend is a little taller or the answer was

the answer was Miata yeah ND you know unless you're someone who likes to spend a lot of time working

on your cars yeah if you have the time and and the wherewithal to to work on your cars

then you know then absolutely get an MG or you know some other yeah some other British car if you

like if you have a lot of like meters in your home like the little electric meters like the test

stuff yeah like I have meters and volt meters and yeah volt meters if you have those in your home

if you're that type of person yeah go ahead get a get a British car or or as my cousin once said

I'm going to get a sub and I turned to him and said no you're not

and no you're not because he's not a car person yeah if you know how to solder

your if you have if you have multi meters and you know how to solder then you know then get a

British car yeah a British car and if you're if you're an architect get a sub an architect

taking notes how to work on a car get a sub okay or if you're Keith Price uh Keith you know Keith

Keith buys lots of old sobs and Volvos but you know Keith is kind of weird

anyway last one's from Colin in Minnesota so last week we talked about you know some of the

parts from cheap cars that show up on on supercars Colin from in Minnesota

wrote to us that said I'm a total sucker for did you know this car used X part from Y car trivia

one of my favorites is that the F1 the McLaren F1 used the front marker lenses from the Lotus M100

De Laun Peter Stevens kept that a secret from Gordon Murray and Peter Stevens designed the

M100 De Laun and he also designed the F1 but he kept their secrets from Gordon Murray because he

hated the front front wheel drive M100 probably apocryphal but who knows you know I I wouldn't

be surprised you know if that was the case you know if that if that was a true story but you

never know and listening to the podcast while putting a new water pump on my 79 alpha spider

here in snowy Minnesota you guys are even more entertaining when working with brake cleaner

yeah a few

we're we're not you know we we we try to be entertaining but we you know I don't want to

recommend working with brake cleaner unless you absolutely have to but yeah I can definitely see

how you know you might get a few more laughs out of us if if you were inhaling some of that stuff

everything's funnier when you're doing brakes

yeah these guys are hilarious

all right well thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you next week and hopefully

Nicole will be back and hopefully Rose is okay yeah bye bye

One Trick Pony

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