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This is episode 417 of Wheel Bearings.

I am Sam Webual-Sammet from Telemetry.

And I am Nicole Wakeland from Let's Go with Car Talk this week.

And I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.

And Nicole, you've been driving.

Yes.

I have been driving a tiny petite little thing this week.

I have the Ford F-150 tremor, which is a big truck.

It's really big.

It's a really fun story about this, like, to start off.

So I've got this big truck and you would want me to haul mulch or go to the dump.

Did, in fact, go to the dump, cleaned out my garage with it.

So I got rid of some dump stuff, so go me.

But I also had some stuff I wanted to donate.

When I say stuff I wanted to donate, it's an armful of like puzzles and toys

and stuff. So I put them in the back seat of the giant Ford F-150 tremor

and I went to Savers.

I don't even know if they have those near you guys, but it's like a good

will type place, but I show up and the guys are all kind of chilling

because they help you unload stuff from your vehicle.

And they see me pull up in this F-150 and they're all sitting there

like the entire crew gets up. I'm like, no.

They're like, oh, no.

Like they're standing by the back of the truck when I get out.

I'm like, you guys can all go back to sitting down.

The truck is confusing you.

You could fit this in a civic like open the back door.

Guys like, oh, I thought we had some work out of us.

Takes the stuff out, walks away.

So I'm like, sorry, misled the entire crew into thinking I was donating

half my house. No, just kind of a little armful and a great big giant vehicle.

But I did make a dump run.

So I didn't buy mulch, but I made a dump run.

Well, that's good. At least you used it for something.

I used it for trucky stuff.

I go around a dump run, bring in stuff that won't fit a normal car.

It was too big.

I feel like I used it appropriately.

So F-150 tremor.

So it is one of the nine hundred and fifty two thousand variations

of the Ford F-150 that you can buy.

There are how many trims of the one according to what I'm seeing.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight different trim levels

for the F-150.

And then you can you've got how many one, two, three, four, five different engines.

There is somewhere they've written up with the possible number of combinations

you can get on the F-150 is and it's ridiculous.

Like there are a ridiculous number of ways that you can outfit this goofy thing.

So the tremor in sort of I'm going to say it sits in the middle ish

where it's not like a heavy duty off road like a raptor, but a little off roady.

It looks kind of cool.

They made some updates this year.

They put they call it active orange because again, orange is the color

of off roading and red is the color of going fast.

So it has orange accents on it that do actually look fantastic.

It has, you know, it has a standard 12 inch infotainment screen.

It has the pro access tailgate and power tailgate.

So it's like you can open the tailgate again, like the configuration is 18 different ways.

The one that I had, you can get more than one engine with this,

but I had the three, five, six EcoBoost in this,

which is with a 10 speed automatic, it's 400 horsepower and 500 pound feet of torque.

So it's a pretty robust engine.

It's kind of fun to drive.

It's just fun to drive a truck onto a highway

because it's not like you want to go on a road trip in a truck because it's a truck.

They're not like the most comfy.

They're a little bouncy, especially when the bed is empty by nature.

That's just how trucks are.

But when you're trying to get on highway and everyone in front of you

is going slow and you mash the gas in this.

And it's not like I'm trying to be angry and aggressive.

I'm not trying to be a jerk and like you're in my way.

But you sound that way as soon as you mash the gas.

It just like takes off and it sounds like you're angry.

I'm like, well, now I am you go greening onto the highway.

I did. So I really enjoy driving this.

I took it into Boston over bouncy Boston roads.

It handles nicely.

It was good in stop and go traffic.

And you know what?

Here's so here's a weird thing, like the Sumner tunnel,

you have to go back and forth through to get to Logan Airport.

And tunnels always feel narrow.

Like, you know, in your head that somewhere

an engineer like you, Sam, has measured this and has said,

the vehicles that we permit to go in these two lanes

in this narrow tunnel will fit in these two lanes in this narrow tunnel.

But some part of your brain, you're in a civic, you're fine.

You're in an F-150 and you're like, Dear God, I'm going to lose a side mirror.

It feels so big.

I was driving.

Oh, I mean, there's a difference between having, you know,

a foot and a half of or two feet of clearance on either side of your mirrors,

you know, and having three inches on either side.

It fits, but just barely.

I like it.

So for one second, I sort of cast my eyes to the side.

I'm like, Oh, don't even look at that wall.

I'm just like going straight ahead and a tractor trailer passes me

in the left hand lane, like, because I'm slowing down to take a right.

As you come out of this tunnel, he's coming really fast.

It's like, this is where I die.

There is no weird near enough room in this tunnel for both of us at once.

It was so tight, but it's fine.

It turns out the engineer who measured the tunnel measured correctly.

And I didn't die, but it does feel big when you're in the city.

In fact, I went back into the city yesterday.

I'm like, I'm not taking the truck.

I have to park this time.

I'm not doing it.

Just I can't do it.

I don't need that kind of headache in my life.

This is what makes Mavericks, you know, for people who live in the city.

I would have needed a Maverick.

It is not friendly in a city.

I mean, like, is that a fit?

But I would not have wanted to have to wedge it into the parking space

that I wedged my car into on Saturday afternoon.

So, but I did enjoy driving it.

I mean, it's a nice as trucks go it out.

Also, it has it's comfortable.

It's powerful.

It it looks like the burly truck that it is.

And I feel like it does a nice happy medium.

Like, sometimes you get into trucks down like the screens are

everything is too huge.

Everything is like oversized.

Like an ogre is driving this and we need big things.

So big, meaty people can handle it.

Not everybody who's driving an F-150 is like, er, is this huge person.

So it it felt right sized for a full size truck.

It had steps so you could get in, which I definitely needed

because I tried to get in one.

Like, can I get in this if I don't step on the steps?

The answer to that is awkwardly.

Like I tried to just step up.

I was like, oh, Lord, that's a step.

I can do it. Just do that.

I can do it. Hold on.

Yeah. Right.

And then I'm like, well, what about stepping down?

Same thing. You're like, whoa, that's a long way down.

So those side steps are pretty essential on a truck,

especially if you're I don't want to say sure what's the word

then my mom would say she's like vertically challenged.

What's that? Vertically challenged.

If you're vertically challenged, thank you.

That's exactly what I was looking for.

If you're not Robbie, let's put it that way.

If you're not Robbie, Robbie is not vertically challenged.

Robbie, probably just be like, what's wrong with you?

Jump on in. It's like some five foot person.

It's like, I can't. It's too tall.

So overall, I like it.

It's it's not and it's not cheap.

But you're getting it.

So the price range on this, the the XL,

which is the base trim on the F-150 starts at thirty six nine six five.

The Raptor, which is the top is eighty thousand one five five.

The tremors like this is kind of the middle sixty four nine one five.

It's it's not an inexpensive truck.

And that's if you just get the truck.

And that's that's a lot of money to have

stickers put on the back of your truck.

Correct.

Because those are our stickers.

I've seen them.

I've seen them like peeled off, like peeling off.

No, I'd be.

Yes, I've seen the tremor is peeling off of of of trucks.

To be fair, the tremor does get some other stuff, too.

Yeah, it's not just stickers.

It's it's got a little bit of I know, but if you're paying that much money

and it's a sticker and it comes off, come on.

I'd be mad. Yeah.

I'd be mad if the sticker came off.

That would make me cranky like peeling off like cranky.

I'd be like, gosh, dang it, I want the stickers to stay on there.

You know, it has a good toe rating.

You can tow like eighteen hundred pounds if you have the V eight.

You know, it's or the payload.

Sorry, the pale is eighteen hundred.

The towing is ten thousand six hundred pounds.

You could tow a house.

You could tow a small house.

You know, it's you could tow another tremor.

You could tow another tremor.

Definitely to another tremor if you wanted to.

And you get things like this, like Sam was saying, you get things on this.

You have some skid plates on there.

You get all three tires.

So, you know, it has off-road capability without being the bazonkers off-road

capability that you would find in a Raptor.

Like the Raptor is super fun.

We've all driven Raptors, right?

You've driven the F-150 Raptor.

I'm assuming everybody's on the planet has driven it.

Have you driven it, Robbie?

I've driven it. Not the current generation.

OK. Yeah, I don't think I've driven the current one

because you drive the first one.

You're like, all right, I got it.

Like in general, I haven't asked for it, right?

You're like, I want to go.

I want to go drive and have fun and be stupid in the dirt.

Fine, get yourself a Raptor.

It's super fun, but it is expensive.

It is an $80,000 truck.

And you're not going to, I mean, unless you're, I don't know,

you're just retired and all you do is drive off in the dirt all the time.

You're not going to do that.

A lot of most of the time you're going to be driving around

on real paved roads where the Raptor is not the ideal vehicle to have

because it's too bouncy.

I like that this is the halfway point.

It has all the niceness and all the sort of like, this is comfortable.

I drove a city.

It's not so big that I felt like I truly felt like I was going to die.

Like it's still that fit through the tunnels.

It's still a usable vehicle.

But if you want to go off road because you plan to do that occasionally

on the weekends, whatever you can, without having the real downsides

of having something like a Raptor, which is just not great on road.

And it's not in a city like I don't think I would even try to drive that.

I lived in San Francisco when they gave me the Raptor.

How and you lived, you survived.

You still live.

I made it period.

How traumatized were you?

I mean, you just get used to it.

I mean, if you live in the city, you used to having like very small lanes,

but also like I tried to pull into that.

We had a parking garage when I worked at Engadget on the ground

and I went to pull in and the guy who runs the parking garage turned

and he came out and looked and he just shook his head and told me to.

It was like it wouldn't fit in the garage.

I had to go park it like down the street.

It was a whole thing.

And everywhere, every time I had to park it, I was like, right?

See, that's the challenge.

Like that's the tough part in the city.

It's really the parking.

Driving can be sketchy because things are narrow and stuff where you go to park

and you look at every parking garage and you're kind of like, huh,

this isn't going to fit. Is it going to fit?

I think it'll fit. And then you have those pipes.

It's always like you get through the little yellow, you know,

the thing that says max height in a garage.

And then as soon as you get through, like, oh, yeah, this is totally fine.

But then there's random pipes and that's what the max height is.

That's where that you're like, oh, that looks really low now.

Yeah, that's the yellow pipe.

It'll it'll move, you know, if you're close.

Those other pipes, they're not going anywhere, right?

So I always look at those.

I'm like, oh, God, is this where I've misjudged?

One of these is a quarter inch too low.

That's it all over. Cars have like they have variable

suspension, some of these.

Like, you know, you'll have a like a Land Rover or whatever.

And, you know, it has real suspension.

You're like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

And because like the parking garage I use for for all my trips,

like I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on.

What was it on? Was it on the lowest?

Was it on the highest?

Is it going to adjust while I'm driving?

Like, like, and because I come back from the garage.

Yeah, I come back in the garage and now I'm going to be stuck

in the garage because I can't get back out.

Like, when I come back from the trip, I'm like, oh, no.

And so I'm just driving really slow through the parking

garage, like every one of them, like you're waiting.

You're like, you're like, nope.

I wouldn't have had no sense.

I have the glass roof or if they have to be like looking.

Oh, I looked up.

I have the glass like a panoramic roof open and I looked up

and like, oh, my God, it's right there.

This is where I destroy a press car.

What happened?

Well, there's this low roof all the way

that crossed the top of the vehicle right through the glass.

That's the fear.

And it's never happened.

But the sense of that happening would make me not want to drive

in a city with a big, big vehicle like that.

Years ago, I worked in an office in downtown Ann Arbor

and we had some parking spaces in a garage,

public parking garage across the street.

And one time Ford sent me an F-450 Dooley.

Oh, did it fit?

It, height-wise, it would have, it would have fit.

But the Dooley, the Dooley axle, that was not going.

So I just did not even drive that one to the office at all.

Yeah, you can't.

There's some vehicles that are just not made for the city.

The F-150 Raptor is one of those vehicles.

F-150 trimmer, that could do it.

Barely.

You got your masculine.

Just to give a little sort of expectation

of where I grew up, everyone in school

that I knew wanted a Dooley.

So you grew up in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, but you lived in farm country and people.

No, it was mountain country.

It was mostly for horses.

We had a lot of Dooleys or did more so here once per time

because there's just a lot of farms.

So I always tow in a trailer with something or equipment.

We have tons of farms.

There was a Ford Ranger Dooley out for a while.

I know, because someone in my town had it.

Ford Ranger Dooley.

Someone in my town had a Ford Ranger Dooley.

Not from the factory.

They never, Ford never built one.

Ford Ranger.

Wait, I'm Googling, I'm doing the same.

We're all looking up the Ford Ranger Dooley.

Tony, I'm Matt.

Ford Ranger Dooley.

I built one.

I mean, I'm sure somebody, yeah, I mean,

I found a few pictures here of ones that people built.

But Ford never actually produced us from the factory.

According to the AI overview when I Googled,

it says it was never officially built,

but companies like JC Whitney sold kits

to convert a standard Ranger into a Dooley.

Well, what could go wrong with a JC Whitney Dooley?

Absolutely nothing.

That sounds like a perfect idea.

Let's give it a go.

I mean, you know, that probably only cost what, 20, 30 bucks?

Yeah, I'm sure it's fine.

Yeah, someone in town, they had a Ford Ranger Dooley

and everyone in town was like, where did you,

what, and then everyone just sort of made JC Whitney.

He made that himself.

It was, yeah, I don't know if he had that JC Whitney version,

but if he did it.

And there's, when I did the search for Ford Ranger Dooley,

the second image, the second image here shows,

it's a screenshot from a YouTube video.

Come and swapping my Dooley Ford Ranger.

Oh my gosh.

So this is a red Dooley Ford Ranger

that's rolling coal at the same time.

I mean, when you, I mean,

everyone, I recommend you just Google this right now

and just spend a few minutes looking at the images

that come up when you do Ford Ranger Dooley.

It's fantastic.

I don't know how many of these people like had a kid

and how many of these people just said, I can do this.

This is ridiculous.

In the best way possible, it's ridiculous, these images.

Just, you know, take an axle from an F-450

and, you know, bolt it to the back end of the Ranger.

I think you just stuck something onto the tires.

I don't think it was that.

I think you're giving away.

Oh, the J.C. Whitney, that's probably what it was.

It's probably, yeah, the J.C. Whitney kept on wheeling.

Actually it's not even bolted on.

They just had some like glue dots on the one side

of the rubber and they stuck it to the other side.

Yeah, I remember that person with the Ford Ranger Dooley.

I mean, everyone's like, what the, what?

That would be neat.

You know, if they actually, you could do that,

I bet there'd be a fair number of people

that would do that for kicks.

You know they would.

People want to buy the slate

because they want to mess around with colors

and all the random you can do with a slate.

You know what I mean?

Oh, how about a slate Dooley?

How about a slate Dooley?

Somebody do that image.

Somebody AI that and send it to me.

This is the Ford Ranger Dooley.

Slate Dooley.

Somebody has to be able to AI a slate Dooley.

I can't remember.

Now you gotta track it down.

Robbie, you have a mission.

You gotta track down the dude that had this

and see if somewhere he has an old faded picture.

I think they were just out of high school.

They were, it was one of those guys that was like 19

but still kind of hung around the high school.

You know those guys.

I do know those guys.

Yeah, those guys.

Some of them are still hanging around the high school.

It's not quite right.

Yeah, yeah.

They're like 20 years old

and they show up at the high school like during lunch

and you're like, what are you doing, man?

Oh my God, I remember those people.

Yeah, did you ever,

I don't think I went back to high school ever.

Oh gosh, just as soon as I got out of there,

I never went back.

I did a couple of reunions

but they were even at the high school.

That's not true.

I went back for, I was in a punk band

and the bass player was still in high school

and I was like 21 so he was like 18

and so they had a battle of the band.

So I went back to my high school

to play in the auditorium slash gymnasium

in a punk band.

Slash band room slash whatever it was for the moment.

So I was, yeah.

I mean, I guess that's okay.

That was a battle of the band.

So it's not the same thing as just showing up

and be like, hey, I thought I'd stuff by.

How's it going?

No, I never did that.

I'm glad to hear this, Robbie.

I used to laugh.

It's good news.

I had literally anything better to do.

Anything but going back to high school.

So I tried Gemini and I asked it

to create an image of his slate

with a duly rear axle

and it just gave me a picture of a Rivian R1T.

Yeah, that's about right.

Well, there's AI going.

So I said try again.

Where did I just hear an engine go by?

Whose house was that?

Or was that my house?

That was my house.

Sorry.

That was the sound of the slate slash Rivian slash duly.

I don't know.

The slate Rivian duly has a V8 in it.

That's you should call this show

the slate Rivian duly.

Everyone's going to be like, what?

Slate Rivian.

What is this?

Make it a duly for.

What is this collab that's happening?

I don't.

Yeah, it was anyway.

Now that we're talking about slate Rivian duly's.

No, that was the F-150.

I mean, it's a good truck.

It does the trucky things you want.

If you're looking for the off-road light version of the F-150

that's more affordable, more manageable in the cities.

Just it's the one to do.

It's the one.

See, I'm still trying to make a picture.

I can see Sam's eyes.

And he's like, that's not what I want.

Now it gave me, it created an image of a Silverado EV

with two rear axles.

So it's a six by six.

Right now, you've increased everyone in your areas

like electric bill by one kilowatt hour,

one cent per kilowatt hour.

And you've used more water than like you will use in a month.

But to create a six by six.

But we have these great things that we've made now on AI.

It's horrible.

Someone's got to make one.

One of you guys has to make one.

I never do AI imaging.

I've never played with it.

I know you can do it.

I just never play with it.

You could just use Photoshop.

I know people who love playing around with it.

I don't use Photoshop either.

I hate managing picture stuff.

Drives me crazy.

Not my thing.

My new jam.

Not my jam.

But that's it.

F-150 done.

Bam.

F-150.

How much did it cost?

Oh, I did say how much it cost, didn't I?

Yeah, it was like some 60 something thousand.

Wait, let me bring it back up.

Hold on.

It was the base on the tremor is 64915 mine.

Mine had a, I almost said a word that I shouldn't.

Mine had rather a lot of options on it.

Holy cow.

What are you going to say, F-ton of options?

Yes.

An F-series ton of options.

It had an F-ton.

Nicely done.

Here's a new guess.

How much do you think the options were on this vehicle?

Oh, the one they gave you, probably like $15,000.

Almost nailed it, Sam.

$15,430 worth of options, which included, yeah.

So now it's an $80,000 car.

An equipment, then there was the moonroof and the rear center

step and a bed liner and the tonneau tonneau cover.

How do you say it, is it tonneau?

I always get it wrong too, Nicolle.

But you, OK, so let's see if you can go two for two.

So you guessed the amount of the options.

What was the destination on this?

I believe that it's now $21.95.

Oh my god.

I said $18, but now I feel like I didn't go high enough.

$21.95.

It was $19.95.

It was $19.95, but Ford raised the price.

We talked about this last week or the fourth.

Well, my particular one.

I have, and just I'd like to point out,

I have a real, actual money.

Yeah, well, when you're a particular truck, OK, so I should.

So we should make a rule.

Not what is the current delivery charge,

but what is the delivery charge on at the time

that this particular vehicle was delivered?

Yes, when this was built and put into the media fleet,

it was $19.95.

$19.95.

And I have $15,000 of options.

$21.95, that's $2,000.

That's a lot.

I think I won.

I think you won.

You know who lost?

Consumers, we all lose, really.

Yeah, that's the important thing.

Who lost?

Yeah, you were off by $19.95, and I was off by $2,000.

So you won by $5.

Yeah, $5.

I was like, wait, did I win?

So you're each one for one.

You won on the option, Sam, and you won on the destination.

Remember?

But we're all losers because we're paying

the most two gram for destination on a truck that

came from not very far away to New Hampshire.

Why is there lightning under just those two?

Just imagine, if I had bought that truck,

the plant that built that truck is like 20 miles away from me.

I mean, oh my gosh, you just sent a picture.

The six by six.

You need to put this up.

You need to include this in the little images

that you do for the show.

And see if anyone goes, what the heck?

And you can put it in the show notes.

I already created the show art, but I'll put it in the show notes.

Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff for a show.

OK, so I tried chat GPPT.

It says, create an image of a slate electric pickup

with a dual rear wheel axle.

And what it did was create something

that looks kind of like a slate pickup,

but it's a crew cab, which is actually

what slate should be doing anyway.

Is that what you sent me?

Is that what this AI image is?

No, that was the product.

Yeah, but it's actually a Silverado with dual axles.

It's like the sleekest.

Like it's all like every bit of angle to any metal on it

has been wiped out.

It's all very curvy.

It looks like the vision of the future we had in 1980.

Like everything's rounded in this.

I mean, it's funky.

It's like, you know, AI's just have no concept of what

a duly rear axle is.

It doesn't know what to do.

They haven't trained it on that.

They trained it on everything else.

Trained on everything else we did.

There's not enough books about dualies.

I guess I'll get on that.

It put some futuristic building in the background,

like a bunker.

Yeah, I don't know what that is.

It looks like something out of the Avengers.

You definitely have to share this picture with everyone,

because this might be the best image.

I'll put these both in the show notes.

So if you're listening to this,

take a look at the show notes.

And these will be in the show notes.

You get to see these and see if you can come up

with a better one.

The slate is huge.

This is like a full-size slate.

It's not even like a small.

This is just a truck.

You can't even know what a slate is.

Does it not understand what slate is?

Apparently not.

Because these are way too big.

This is a Silverado with a slate, like.

Yeah, it's exactly that.

Between the headlights, that's it.

OK, somebody do better than what Sam has done,

although this is entirely amazing.

So just open up Photoshop, throw a slate in there,

and make it a duly.

You'll be, it'll be literally much easier

than trying to do what we're trying to do.

And then add a 20,000-pound trailer behind it

with a fifth wheel.

Yeah.

I love this.

I think we should be designing vehicles.

All right, you guys keep doing the podcast.

I'm going to put my graphic design thing to work.

Have you ever searched for yourself online?

I do it because in the work I do as an industry analyst

and journalist, I have to maintain my credibility

and can't afford to have it damaged by bad actors that

are abusing my data.

You'd be surprised and upset about what you can find

about yourself online.

Your phone number, home address, even details

about your family are out there, whether you agreed to it

or not.

That's because data brokers are

collecting and selling your information

to marketers, scammers, and basically anyone willing to pay.

It's the reason robocallers know your name

and why ads seem to track you across every screen.

Or a fight's back.

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So why don't we move to the car's car

because your stuff was, especially the first one, Sam,

totally competitive set.

Yeah, I mean, I had basically the same thing.

Right, no difference whatsoever.

I had the Lexus LC 500 convertible,

which is a lovely car.

This is what a grand touring car should be.

This is the definition of it.

It is not the fastest car, but it's a very quick car.

It is lovely to look at.

And it's something that you can take on a long drive.

You will, compared to, say,

getting into a McLaren or some,

okay, I just changed the prompt slightly

and tried GPT, I finally finished generating it.

I changed it from a dual rear wheel axle

to just a duly axle,

and it generated the exact same image.

So I give up for now.

Anyway, compared to, say, taking a Lamborghini

or McLaren or a Ferrari for a long road trip,

the Lexus LC is something that you can get in

with your favorite companion

and just have a lovely, comfortable, fast drive.

The one I had had the bespoke package on it,

which basically means you got a couple of paint options.

And this one was silver with a red top,

which is a really nice contrast.

What else did it have on there?

The engine is a five liter V8 engine with 471 horsepower,

10-speed automatic transmission.

It's rear wheel drive.

I've driven the LC before and actually a couple of years ago

at the Mama Spring Rally,

I actually had a chance to drive an LC 500 convertible

on the track at Road America.

And you would not think a big Lexus luxury convertible

would be something that's well suited to the track.

And it's not designed as a track car,

but it actually works really well on the track.

It's very well balanced, it's fast,

and with the active sport exhaust that's on this one,

when you get into it,

when it gets to about three and a half, 4,000 RPM,

it opens up the active valves and it sounds really good.

It's not the kind of rumble you get

from a Chevy small block and a Corvette,

or like a Mustang, but it sounds really, really good.

It's really a pleasure to drive.

Fortunately, we had really nice weather when I had it here.

So I had the top down most of the time.

My wife and I went out, we went for a drive

to go to this farm stand to get some native plants

for the garden, had the top down, fantastic.

For some inexplicable reason,

this is one of those cars where the manufacturer

insists that it should be,

that it should have four sets of seat belts

and seats in the back, even though.

No one fits back there.

I'm about five, 10, five, 10 and a half,

so I'm not that tall.

And with the seat in my driving position,

there's about an inch and a half between the back

of the driver's seat and the seat cushion

in the rear seat.

Essentially, if you are fans of King of the Hill,

Hank's dad, Cotton, somebody like Cotton

is about the only one that could fit in the seat,

in this back seat.

There's literally zero leg room back there.

So it's like, come on, Lexus, why are you wasting

the effort, just make it a really nicely upholstered

package shelf, which would actually be really useful

because the other downside of the LC 500,

and even to a slightly lesser degree, the LC coupe,

is the trunk is really small.

It's very shallow.

So the trunk is so shallow

that you cannot actually put a standard carry-on bag

in there, you could put like a garment bag

or a couple of half-packed duffel bags

back there, was able to put some small seedlings back there,

but that's about it.

That's about all you're gonna get in the truck.

I bought a pack of seeds.

And some teeny tiny little.

You can get a lot of seeds back there.

I get so many seeds in the back of it.

But you can use that seat back,

the rear seat is perfect for a couple of carry-on bags

or a couple of duffel bags.

So that's literally the only thing

the rear seat is good for.

The rest, it's like, don't even bother.

You could put the dogs back there.

Yeah, but you wouldn't want to put your dogs, you know.

And the LC 500 is too pretty.

Yeah, they'd be tearing up the nice leather.

So yeah, you don't want to do that.

But you could.

You could.

Would they fit?

Would your corgis fit back?

Oh yeah, my corgis would fit back there.

They probably wouldn't be real happy though,

because the belt line is fairly high

and you'd be sitting there.

Basically, they're not going to see anything.

It's going to be like being in a bathtub.

I love that you've evaluated the happiness of your dogs

in the back, not just will they fit,

but is this a suitable vehicle?

Will the dogs be pleased?

The humans will like it, the LC 500 riding up front,

but the dogs are going to be like, this is substandard.

Where's my Subaru?

Yeah, precisely.

That is precisely the way you've got to look.

I mean, if you're going to have dogs in your family,

you have to consider their feelings too.

Yeah.

Dogs have feelings.

And that's why we have Subarus.

I still think the fact that Subaru makes things

that actually are designed for their cars,

like dog covers to protect the side doors and things,

so that when they put their paws up on the door,

they don't scratch the interior door panels.

I'm like, that is a company who knows it's target markets.

Yeah, exactly.

And this is why I would not put the dogs

in a car like the LC.

In the LC.

The LC is a fantastic Grand Tour Inconvertible.

I would drive across country in this thing easily.

No problem.

What color would you pick?

Because it has some beautiful colors.

Ooh.

The color that I had was the iridium, which is the silver.

Which is like the white.

Is it iridium?

Oh, no, wait, oh, yeah, it is silver.

It's silver.

Yeah.

I mean, it's probably not the color I would choose.

What would you pick?

Let's see.

Let me find.

OK, I think I like this ultrasonic blue mica.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I've seen that car.

That's pretty.

Yes, that's a very good color.

Ultrasonic blue mica.

I think that would be it.

Or I don't know if I was trying to go a little less

in your face.

I might pick that nori green pearl

with a saddle-colored interior.

It has a very English vibe to it.

I like that.

Let's see.

I mean, the red, the infrared, is really good.

I've had that one before.

I love that they call black caviar.

That's very nice.

The nori green pearl is very good, too.

And the ultrasonic blue.

It's a neat color, right?

I would probably go with any of those three, really.

But my first choice would probably

be the ultrasonic blue.

And then the red and the green.

Yeah, red and green would be my second choice.

I don't know which one I'd go with.

One of each.

How much is this car again?

Enough.

Enough that two is not a big deal.

Just two.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Right?

Get the colors you want.

You can't assign just by one in every color that you like.

Depending on your mood.

You drive a different, really fancy car

and save the subi for your dogs.

There we go.

Perfect.

You've solved it.

I solved the problem.

World peace is next.

The big change for 2025 was to the interior.

Actually, I'm not sure if they did that for 25 or 24.

But the LC was one of the last Lexus's Lexi that still

had the old trackpad infotainment controller.

Yeah, it was not good.

So that's gone.

That is officially in the history books.

So they redid the interior.

So you've got a new dashboard now or at least a heavily revamped

dashboard that now has a large touchscreen in the center

with the latest Toyota Lexus multimedia system, which

works really well.

Same as all the other vehicles it's in.

It's a good system.

As I've said before, my only major complaint with it

is that when you're using the standard Toyota software,

you can't display two panes side by side

on the screen at the same time, like have your map display

and your media controller display at the same time.

Other than that, if you're using CarPlay or Android Auto,

then you can have a multi-plane display.

So it's not a big deal.

The volume control, there is a nice big rotary knob

on the center console, which is that's your volume knob.

Nice big volume knob.

Very easy to get to.

Give it a nice twist.

You get nice precise control of your volume.

But it's funny, on the passenger side of the console,

there's this little mini wall that sweeps up

from the console to the dashboard.

And then it has a hole in there.

So you basically have a grip.

My wife asked me, why is this here?

And said, give you some place to hang on to when you're

going through the curves?

I don't know.

It's not real clear why it exists.

It's possible that that's a structural element

that they put in there to give it a little more rigidity

for the convertible.

When you first get in the car and you sit down,

it's like you look around and you

can't see where it's like, OK, how do I put the top down

in this thing?

And towards the back end of the console,

just in front of the cup holder, there's a flap.

You lift that up.

And underneath there are two switches.

One is for the top to put the top up and down.

All right, Robbie has succeeded in creating a duly slate.

The truck isn't very long.

I would have had to extend it a little bit

for it to work perfectly.

But yeah, see.

Oh, you know what?

That's OK.

Look at that.

I didn't have to.

Actually, you know what?

That's the one that truly does look like the most

what you would think it would look like.

That's really a slate.

Anyway, the two switches are up.

One is to put the top up and down.

It's a fabric top, but it's powered.

And so there's a big panel behind the top that lifts up.

The top folds down underneath there, and it comes down.

So you have a nice smooth cover over the top.

So it doesn't look cheap like my Miata.

And then next to it is a switch.

When you put the top down, it drops all four windows.

And when you put the top back up,

there's only two window switches on the driver's door panel

for the two main windows on the driver and passenger doors.

There's no switches there for the rear windows,

the little quarter windows in the top.

But the switch next to the top control

just raises or lowers all four windows at once.

So that's handy to have there.

Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy driving this car.

It handles really well, but it's also got a comfortable ride.

It is a true grand tour.

And let's see, the bottom line price on this one

was $117,055.

It's like, oh my god, you definitely buy two.

Yeah, but well, I mean, compared to buying

a Mercedes SL or a BMW M8 convertible,

it's a relatively modest price.

So you want to guess at the delivery charge?

1,600.

I'm going to go 1,895.

Robbie gets it.

It was 1,350.

Oh, I went way too high.

Yeah.

Remember, with a lot of these import luxury cars,

they just don't bother trying to hide the price increases

in the destination charge.

They just put it right on the MSRP.

And so the destination charges

are somewhat more reasonable.

A little bit easier to manage.

Yeah.

All right, the other car that I had,

which I had for less than 24 hours,

and the only reason I had it was because I

had to take some photos of it.

Somebody else had written a review of it for a site

that my company does some work for.

But the photos were not satisfactory.

And so it reached out to Hans at NAVS and said,

hey, can we get this car for a few hours or just for a day

so we can redo the photos for the review?

And so they sent it over.

They brought it over Monday afternoon

to get back Tuesday morning to deliver it to somebody else.

It was the 2026 Cadillac Lyric V.

So this is the first electric V-series car from Cadillac.

And it has all the things that we've liked or not

about the Lyric in the past with more power, more tire,

more brakes.

And it is what you would expect a V-series Cadillac to be,

a V-series Lyric.

So it's the higher performance version.

It does 0 to 60 in 3.3 seconds.

It has about 615 horsepower.

So basically, the Lyric V has the more powerful motors

that they also use in the Vistic, which

is the 3-row that's based on the Lyric.

And this one was the first Lyric that I've

had that has some of the other software updates.

So the same stuff that we had when we drove the Vistic

in the spring with Supercruise, where it will now

follow some interchanges when you're in Supercruise mode

while staying hands-free on Google Maps.

It shows you when you're on a Supercruise-capable road

using navigation, it'll show you with a white line down

the middle of the blue route line that Google Maps shows you.

That lets you know that it's a hands-free capable road.

And some of the other updates that they've

done to Supercruise, continuing to increase the number of roads

where it's usable.

Still, same caveat we've always talked

about with hands-free systems, about whether it's even

actually a good idea.

But it has that.

But when you turn that off and you get somewhere

where you have a little bit of room

and you press the V button on the steering wheel

and unleash all of the available power,

boy, does this thing quick.

How does that?

It's a quick machine.

Quick enough that it is arguably too fast.

Wait a minute.

Why do you say it's too fast?

I think for most people, for the vast majority of people,

they do not need 3.3 seconds or a 60 acceleration.

You don't think?

Yep.

I think anything under five seconds is.

Now, I like to drive fast.

I am not opposed to performance.

But I think arguably most people do not necessarily

have the skills to handle this much performance.

And realistically, I mean, this thing,

it pushes you back in your seat.

I mean, you get that instant acceleration

that you get from an EV, and then it just keeps on going.

And it's just not necessary.

And it's not necessary.

And also, it's the thing where, and I

mean, no one's giving this car to their kid,

but there is the danger of you haven't driven things that

are fast and you suddenly drive something that is fast

and it's thrilling and it's exciting

and you don't know how to control something that fast.

Yeah.

Take it easy, folks.

You buy something really fast and you

haven't driven that before.

He's into the fun of it.

Even people who buy something fast

and then they've driven it for years,

they still don't quite, they're driving.

Most of the time, you're just driving on a freeway.

And you're already doing 60, 70 miles an hour.

And they're like, look at this.

And then you speed up and your tires are already warm

and blah, blah, blah, blah, all the bits that make the car.

And of course, the car is keeping you from dying,

to be honest.

The car, if you didn't have traction control,

if you didn't have lane keep assist,

like you'd probably be dead.

So you get this car, you're driving around,

you're going quickly.

And the problem is that for years and years,

the failure, the line, the event horizon for failure

when things go wrong was like in 30, 40 miles an hour.

Now it's around 90.

So now the event horizon, the failure point

where the car just can't keep up with your stupidity,

is at a speed that is incredibly dangerous.

And so that's how you end up with people.

And when things go wrong at 30 miles an hour,

the consequences are significantly less

than when they go wrong at 80 or 90 miles an hour.

Absolutely.

Because kinetic energy goes up with the square of your speed.

So if you go from 30 to 60 miles an hour,

you now have four times as much kinetic energy.

And so that's a lot of bad stuff that

can happen at those speeds when things let go.

A standard Lyric will do 0 to 60 in about four and a half

seconds, which is more than fast enough.

That's plenty quick enough for it.

It's an interesting thing where you look at all of these,

the numbers for cars.

It's this many seconds, that many seconds.

And your brain wants to say, well, 3.3 seconds versus five

seconds, one is fast and one is slow.

No, they're both really fast.

Yes, both very fast.

It's just because you're seeing those numbers jump.

You don't realize how quick that actually

is when you're behind the wheel of a car.

Like, can you tell a difference?

Sure, if you drive those cars all the time.

But in the average day to day,

are you noticing the two seconds?

Absolutely not.

But you have a lot more control when things are

accelerating, not quite so much like they're on fire.

Yeah, when you're driving down a two-lane country road

and you're behind somebody that's going 45 in a 55 mile

an hour zone and decide you want to get around them,

when you pull out and you step on the accelerator pedal,

in something like this, you will

be going 80 miles an hour before you realize it,

especially because of the fact that it's an EV

and it's so smooth and so quiet that that speed

creeps up on you very quickly.

And that's where the danger of it is,

because even if you drive cars that are very,

and I like this car, I'm not knocking fast cars,

but that is kind of where the danger is because your impulse

is and has been that you need to go around somebody quickly,

you mash the gas to do it, right?

Like, I got to mash that pedal so I can get around this guy

in the time that I have because he's a slow poke

and he's driving me nuts.

And even if you're doing it in a legal spot

and all these things you're following all the rules,

when you mash the pedal on a car that's just an average car,

it's one thing, when you mash it on an EV

or you mash it on something with this kind of power,

it can get away from you if you're not paying attention,

your instinct is to mash it.

So it is something that takes a little bit,

like you got to think a little bit,

got to think just a little bit.

Yeah.

But other than that, I do like this car.

I like it.

I've liked the Lyric since the beginning.

It still has, they've still not taken away car plan

from Android Auto from the infotainment system,

which is kind of surprising to me.

It's not surprising.

They read my article.

Okay.

And the Lyric V also adds the augmented reality

heads-up display that debuted on the Vistik.

So it's a multi-plane heads-up display.

So when you're using that, if you're using navigation,

you'll see your driver information hovering.

It looks like it's hovering roughly

about where the end of the hood is.

And then your navigation information,

where it's telling you where to turn,

will appear to be further down the road.

And it looks like you'll have the arrow hovering

over the place where you're supposed to turn.

And as you get closer and closer,

it gets bigger and it looks like it's getting closer

to you as you're approaching it.

And those are, it's actually a really useful feature.

Although I had the hardest time remembering

where to get into the settings to adjust the height of it.

Cause when I first got into it, it was, it was up too high.

The lower, the near part was up too high

and it looked like it was, it was getting cut off

because of where, you know, my height

versus the previous driver that had set it up.

And I had a hard time finding the settings for that.

But once I found it, then it was great.

So yeah, Lyric V is, you know,

a really good mid-sized luxury electric SUV.

Actually, it's really, it's just a really good

mid-sized luxury SUV, regardless of what the powertrain is.

And everything works really well on it.

The V series starts at $80,090.

The premium, which is what I had,

which adds the Napa leather package

and the panoramic power sunroof,

bumps that up to $85,290,

which is what was on the sticker

for the one that I was driving.

Sorry, the total, the total was 85,615

because it also had the radiant red tint coat

and the red painted brake calipers.

Because, you know, that gives you that,

just that little bit of extra speed or something.

Guess is this the destination charge?

1600.

1795, which I know is not gonna be right.

Robbie goes three for three today, 1395.

13, I'm just going way too high.

I was scarred by the brother number on the F-150.

It is kind of low.

Yeah, especially for the F-150.

I was like, oh, after I said 1600,

I was like, oh, that's not enough, I'm doomed.

The Lyric V is rated at 285 miles of range.

I didn't have enough time with it

to do any kind of range testing.

But, you know, the standard Lyric,

you know, generally gets pretty close

to what it's rated at.

So I suspect that this one

will be able to achieve that as well.

Cool. There you go.

All right.

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Let us move on to the Honda Prelude.

Yes.

So this week, Honda released a bunch more images

and some more details on the new Prelude.

And what do you think?

I like how it looks.

I want pop-up headlights, I'm sorry,

but I like how it looks.

Oh yeah, now I just want pop-up headlights.

That was fine until Nicole said something.

Sorry, I ruined it for you

because you had pop-up headlights once upon a time.

I'm a big fan of the Honda BRZ.

Yeah, the second and third generations of it

had pop-up headlights.

The first and the fourth and fifth generations

had fixed headlights.

I learned how to drive a manual transmission

on a Honda Prelude that had pop-up headlights.

And the reason I know this is

because I was just so panicked

about driving a manual transmission,

that every time I went to hit the turn signal,

I would accidentally hit the wrong thing

and I'd turn the headlights off.

I was like, bing-bing, bing-bing, bing-bing.

I have this memory, it's like, ah, panicking.

I couldn't get my hand-eye coordination

going in this vehicle.

But that's how I learned to drive a manual transmission

on my friends, their husbands, Honda Prelude.

Yep.

So the Prelude, they haven't released

full specifications of it yet, dimensions

and everything, weights.

But it has the 200 horsepower, 232 pound-foot,

two-liter hybrid powertrain from the Civic Hybrid

that's also in the CR-V and the Accord.

But interestingly, it has the front suspension and brakes

and adapters from the Civic Type R.

So right now, it's going to launch with 200 horsepower.

But who knows, maybe at some point.

That makes you feel like there's more in the works, right?

Yeah, maybe at some point we'll see a Prelude Type R.

We're speculating, that'd be kind of cool.

I like the Prelude.

I mean, I always thought it was a neat car

when it originally came out.

Every Prelude is a good Prelude.

Every Prelude is not what, right?

Except the ones with the pop-up headlights

were slightly better, because of the pop-up headlights.

I am always on the search for a first-generation Prelude.

See, there you go.

So I like the Prelude.

I love that body style.

It's just like a really tiny car.

Yeah, the first-generation Prelude.

My local Honda dealer here, Jermaine Honda and Ann Arbor,

has a first-gen Prelude sitting in the showroom.

I'm not sure if it's for sale, but there is one.

Look, did you hear the sigh?

Robbie's like, oh, it's out there.

There's a couple of them out there that are convertibles.

The factory, they delivered into a couple Honda dealerships.

They were convertible Preludes, but they were post.

They had Honda hired someone, essentially,

to make them into a convertible.

And I saw one for sale, and I was just like, oh, my gosh.

I had zero monies at the time.

I mean, it's not like I have money now, to be honest.

I had less monies then.

Now I could be like, OK, I could swing this.

I'm just excited that they're finally showing this,

because here's what we're going to build, because it's almost two years, right?

It's been almost exactly two years.

Because we first saw it at the Japan Mobility Show in October of 2023.

So OK, so we're right at the two-year mark.

And sometimes you get, when it debuted, I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's gorgeous.

This looks like this would be really cool.

It looked production-ready.

It wasn't too crazy, but you kind of thought, well, it's been two years.

Is it really happening, or did they just tease us or change their mind?

But now they're saying production is happening in sales by the end of this year?

It's, I mean, it's September.

The end of this year is like a month away.

We're in the Burr months.

We're there. Yeah.

So any minute now.

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, this is based on a civic chassis.

So, you know, we know the civic hybrid drives really well.

Yes. And all it is, you know, is slightly shorter, a shorter wheel base.

You know, like I said, they didn't they haven't released the dimensions yet.

But comparing the, if you look at the profile images of this car versus the last

generation civic coupe, you know, it looks very close.

You know, so, you know, it's probably about five, six inches shorter

than a civic sedan or hatchback.

It makes sense that it's based on the civic too, because it was once upon a

time the Accord, but the Accord was smaller back in the day.

Yeah. So it made more sense.

If you were to base this on the Accord now, it would be just weird.

Gigantic. It would be gigantic.

Yeah, it would just be way too big.

I think it looks great.

I think the dimensions look good.

I'm excited about this.

Even how the trunk opens.

Look, well, it's a hatchback now or hatchback.

I should have a hatchback open better.

Look at that. Yeah.

That looks that it's it's a freaky looking.

It looks really funky from the back, like when the with the hatchback

actually open, but it looks awesome.

Like this car has some style.

I'm excited to do it.

I'm excited for this car.

I wanted to but then I get, you know, it's always a little scary

when you get too excited about something based on partial

information and pictures, because then you you fill in the blanks

with what you want it to be, which doesn't mean that Honda's

like in my head.

It might not live up to those expectations.

I think it will, though.

I hope it will.

One other feature that they've added to this compared to the Civic

is it's their first application of the S plus shift system, which

simulates manual shifting and rev matching

and provides some some enhanced audio inside the cabin.

Well, yeah, that's the scariest part.

What does that good to sound like?

Because sometimes you get enhanced on and you're like, OK.

Well, you know, in the IANA Clive-N, it's really good.

That's true.

So maybe it's going to be good.

It makes me nervous because some of them are not a Honda thing.

Some of them are not great.

And you're like, can you turn off the sound of the dead squirrel

that you think sounds like a cool engine?

Can we make that stop?

Like sometimes it just it's it's just not ideal.

So I'm hoping that this one I have I have high hopes.

And based on how it looks and what they've

said so far about what it's going to have,

like you're talking about the possibility

that we could who knows we have fancy breaks.

Maybe we can get a break package that's, you know,

maybe there's something cooler coming down the line.

I think this has really great potential.

I think this is a segment that people still want.

They're just not super fun options.

Pricing will be a giant question mark.

Like I'm I'm guessing that I'm guessing the price,

the base price is probably going

to be somewhere in the 36 to $38,000 range based

on, you know, the the Civic Hybrid Sport Touring

and hatchback starts at $33,500.

And the Civic Type R is $46,000.

So somewhere in the middle there, you know, $36,000, $37,000,

$38,000.

And it has to be in the 30s.

I can't see them starting in the 40s.

So I bet you're right.

It has to be somewhere just above that Civic Sport Touring.

So if that's $33,500.

Yeah, $36,000, $38,000 feels about right.

So the Type R suspension and brakes,

that adds some cost compared to the Civic

or compared to the regular Civic Hybrid.

So, you know, a few, you know, a few thousand dollars extra

to cover that.

So in that 37, 38 range is probably where we'll see it.

But now imagine this with the 310 horsepower turbo

and six-speed manual from the Type R.

Oh, that'd be so cool.

Don't tease, Sam.

That's mean.

I'm gonna get my hopes up.

We don't know what this is gonna be.

We don't know what it's gonna cost.

We don't know that like, I just,

I'm really excited about driving this.

I just love the look of it.

I just love the old prelude so much.

And I know it's an entirely different,

like that was a while ago.

Hopefully it's not just like that

because cars have come along, you know what I mean?

But I want it to hold the spirit,

the spirit of the old prelude with modern trappings

is what I'm hoping for.

And it looks like from what they've said so far

because we're still a little light on details.

From what they said so far,

it looks like it's gonna do that.

So like, come on, Honda, do this for me.

Do it.

Well, we'll find out more next month.

I'm going to the Tokyo Motor Show,

the Japan Mobility Show.

So you'll find out.

We are going to get a chance to try this out

while we're there.

Nice.

Lucky.

Oh, I can't wait to, are they gonna embargo it forever?

Are you not gonna be able to say anything

for 12 years?

Well, I mean, it's supposed to go on sale

by the end of the year.

So maybe it'll be no embargo.

I'll be able to say something right off.

That would be cool.

Although I feel like, you know, as your colleague,

when we go off the air,

you could tell me what you think about it,

even if you officially can't say.

You signed paperwork.

Damn it.

Don't get me in trouble.

No.

All right, let's move on.

Okay.

So a guy in Minnesota got ticketed this week,

or recently for having too loud and exhaust

on his Charger Daytona EV.

Well, there you go.

Too loud and exhaust.

Wasn't it like a hundred billion decibels or some stuff?

A public nuisance.

Yeah, but apparently, you know,

he's claiming that he didn't even,

he wasn't even in sport mode,

didn't have the exhaust on,

because you can turn it off.

You can drive, basically, you can drive in stealth mode.

Wait, they actually, as I was reading this,

I was assuming he had done some weird thing to it

to give it, quote, an exhaust.

He didn't.

There was no weird thing.

I thought there would be some weird modification to this

to make it, no, it's just the actual stock vehicle?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Can he fight that?

Technically, it's not an exhaust.

Well, it is.

I mean, the exhaust, you know,

it's based on how loud it is.

I guess.

And it's, you know, if it's too loud,

you know, it doesn't matter if it's simulated noise

or actual exhaust noise, you know,

and this does have that fretsonic exhaust that,

you know, Stalantis claims, you know,

is as loud as the Hellcat was.

126 decibels.

Yeah.

That's, that's irresponsible, to be honest.

Yeah.

My exhaust was way too loud and disturbing the piece.

I love this.

I tried telling him it's an EV and

it doesn't have an exhaust.

And he stated he's not going to argue with me.

Like, well, he doesn't have an exhaust.

Yeah.

Wow.

There you go.

Oh, and he was driving in a group of you.

Okay, so the confusion, the concern, the whatever,

he wasn't just like cruising along all on his own.

It looks like he was with a group of,

I lost it now in the story,

with a group of other folks, like enthusiasts,

like a group all driving that had, you know,

fancy cars and loud mufflers and all that.

And somebody peeled away from a red light

and was really loud.

And the lead car was loud.

And so he got pulled over, like as part of the pack.

It almost kind of sounds like

he wasn't quick enough off the line.

He was eight cars deep, so.

But also the car will do 126 decibels,

which is about 40 decibels past

you destroying your hearing.

It's irresponsible.

I'm gonna keep saying that 126 decibels

on anything coming from any sort of company

that people will stand near or be near is irresponsible.

Decibels, what do you know?

I'm looking at cars from 2020.

Anything over 70 is like really bad for your ears.

Anything over 80s can cause

potential long-term hearing loss.

And, you know, in most racing series now,

you know, race cars are limited by the rules to,

I think, in like in the FIA WEC,

the World NJ Championship,

I think they're limited to 100 decibels.

Yeah.

And this is more than that.

And that's for a race car.

Now, again, you know, this guy claims that, you know,

he did not have the Fratsonic exhaust on, you know,

but the fact the officer was not even willing to discuss it,

he said, didn't care that it was an EV.

It was too loud.

So I just looked to see,

because I was curious and I was doing some Googling,

it says the average production cars in 2025,

based on what it could find are from 49 to 60

and it consists at 55 miles an hour.

So if you're mashing it, it could change.

So, and what did you say this car is?

What's the decibels on the?

In track mode, it'll do up to 126 decibels.

Geez, so that's more than double what the average.

Well, but it's worse than that

because the decibel scale is logarithmic.

So it's, it's, it's, it's like, yeah.

Going up by, by 10 decibels is actually 100 times louder.

Okay. I get what you're saying.

Yeah. Wow.

Wow, that is loud.

I just, then I thought, how it seems loud,

getting a comparison, and this has a breakdown

where it's showing, you know,

mainstream vehicles versus luxury vehicles versus,

oh my gosh, the high end on the average is 60.

This is more than double that.

That's loud, much like the speed.

We are approaching unnecessary territory here.

We've approached in crash,

covered the line, gone into, dove into unnecessary noise.

Again, irresponsible.

As someone who has to deal with that,

like loud noise all the time, like on stage,

during band practice.

Well, we heard the car that just came by,

someone ever came by to you earlier,

that like total, it sounded like it was like

your windows opening with a mic out there,

and you're like, no, that wasn't my house.

Just found the, you know,

I'm walking my dogs in the neighborhood every day.

And, you know, when cars drive by,

you know, most modern cars are very, very quiet.

You know, anything under 50 decibels,

you almost don't hear it until it's right next to you.

Yeah.

So, you know, the car is certainly capable

of being very loud, but it's, you know,

as I said, the driver claimed that it was not at the time.

So, you know, if you are driving something like this,

you know, be aware, you know, if you're driving

in town, you know, driving around other people,

don't, you know, don't do this.

Don't put it in track mode.

No.

Because, you know, the reality is, you know,

most law enforcement officers probably don't know

or care about the distinction.

Right.

They're gonna give you the ticket regardless,

whether you have the exhaust or...

Yeah, like it's technically not an exhaust.

It's like you're still noisy,

you're still breaking the noise ordinance, you know.

Yeah.

It's, yeah, that's, now you're splitting.

It's like, you know, well,

my car stereo wasn't my exhaust.

You're still making the noise, man.

Yeah.

You're still making, it is very much.

It's still too loud.

It doesn't matter how loud the noise was generated,

it's still noise.

It's the dude riding down the street

and is hurriedly and revving his engine.

Someone once asked me, do they have to rev their engines?

I'm like, well, yeah, Ninth Sense,

like the mid-80s, do they have to rev their engines?

They don't need to rev their engines.

They just do, because look at me.

And that is, yeah.

They're like, oh, wait, do they have to?

They keep to come, no, no they don't.

They have to depress the clutch, twist their right hand.

Boom.

Blop, blop, blop, blop, blop, blop.

So quiet it down and slow down, people.

Now we're all 80 by the end of this podcast.

All right.

The IAA Mobility Show is officially starting tomorrow

as we're recording this, so Monday in Munich, Germany.

Unfortunately, none of us are there this time.

I was hoping to be here.

I'm going to Nissan.

That's what I will be this week.

Hey, we're all going to Nissan.

I'll be there tomorrow, I'm flying out tomorrow.

Yes, so am I.

Sam, huh?

I'll see you guys at dinner.

Oh, we'll overlap.

I fly out Tuesday.

All right, yeah.

So anyway, we've seen a bunch of the cars

that are going to be unveiled there.

And unlike most auto shows here in the US now,

there are actually new products and concepts and stuff

that are being shown at the IAA show.

And there will be a bunch of stuff

at the Tokyo show next month as well.

So first up is Audi.

They revealed the Concept C,

which is kind of a next generation TT.

They discontinued the old TT a couple of years back.

And this is a new electric sports car from Audi.

What do you think of the design?

I think all concept drawings

are any of these actual pictures?

They look very concept-y of this car.

I think they're soft.

They look very sketchy, not like sketches.

No, this is actually what the car looks like.

This is all.

Yeah, darn it.

I just downloaded all the images

instead of just looking at them.

I'm going to just substitute it when that happens.

Enjoy your 85 images of the Audi's Concept C.

Parts of it I like, parts of it I do not.

The grille is really kind of weird.

It's very narrow, pointy, long.

It looks like the vertical infotainment.

It's like the vertical infotainment screens

you have on some cars.

And they just stuck it on the front.

I'm okay with how this looks.

I don't love it.

I don't love it, guys.

I don't love it.

I like it.

It reminds me of Batman in the animated series.

So, there you go.

Okay, well, if it comes with like caltrops,

you can send out the back of it

and an ejection seat and all the other things

and I'd be down with it.

I like most of it.

I'm not totally enamored with the front.

But this is apparently the look that,

the new design look that Audi's going with

for their next generation of vehicles.

It's kind of reminiscent of the 1930s Grand Prix cars,

Audi Grand Prix cars,

or Auto Union Grand Prix cars,

which had this sort of vertical, almost rectangular grill.

Yeah, I'm not keen on the front of it.

I like how it looks from every other angle.

I just, I think the grill is throwing me a little bit.

The inside looks nice.

I mean, the interior is nice,

that very nice, clean, simplified interior

that everyone's going for.

Funky is door handles.

At least I think that's a door handle.

It like, points down.

That is a funky looking door handle.

The inside actually really liked that interior.

The interior looks very cool, future different.

And that's a lot of the time.

No physical controls in that inside though.

It's all.

No, they can't.

So we're going to have,

we're going to have infotainment screen AC then Sam.

Is that what you're trying to tell me a thing for?

That's what it looks like, yeah.

It's a concept.

Well, we can talk them into it.

I'll make some calls.

Make a caller to see what you can do, Robbie.

Cause that's going to be my deal breaker.

But I do like how,

I think the interior actually is really looks fabulous.

And I like all of it.

I just that grill in the front.

I don't know if it's going to look different

when I see it in person,

but here I'm not keen on the grill.

I even like how the design of the front of the car goes

like the angle it takes to the grill.

I just don't want it so long and skinny,

the grill itself.

That's it.

Change that.

Then you have me.

So apparently, you know, this car,

the production version of this car

is sharing its platform with the new Porsche 1718,

718 EV.

So that's the Boxster replacement.

They're both going to be electric.

And this should be arriving around 2027.

So we've got at least two years before we see this.

Yeah.

At least two.

So we'll have to see how close it stays to this

in two years.

And I guess a big part of the focus we talked about

was speeding up the development time.

They're trying to get to the same kind of product

development times that they have in China,

which is about two and a half years

from the traditional four to five years

to do a new product.

Well, that'd be good.

Yeah.

All right.

Okay, we'll see.

We'll see what they come up with, right?

Yep.

So next is BMW,

which has shown off the first production model

from their new Neu-Class EV platform,

which is the new IX3.

And it's basically the car that they first showed

as the Vision Neu-Class SUV,

or Vision Neu-Class X, I think,

a couple of years ago, in 2023.

They had two concepts.

They had the Vision Neu-Class, which was a sedan,

which is gonna be the new electric three series.

And they had the SUV, which is this vehicle, the IX3.

And this looks like a huge step forward

in EVs for BMW.

It's, you know, the current BMW electric platform

is already really good.

Their motors are very efficient.

You know, they get good power, good performance,

decent range, and this one takes it to the next level.

So they've got new motors on here.

It's an 800 volt architecture.

The battery is using larger,

they've switched from prismatic CAN cells

to 46 millimeter cylindrical cells.

I think on the IX3, they're 46 120s,

so they're pretty long, but larger.

So they're longer than the 4680 cells that Tesla uses,

but the same diameter.

And with the 800 volt architecture,

they're claiming it can do 400 kilowatt charging,

which is obviously not nearly as fast

as some of the Chinese are claiming

with their megawatt systems,

but it'll go from 10 to 80% charge in 21 minutes.

It will add, what, I think 250 miles, 220 in 10 minutes.

And the first version, the eDrive 50,

according to BMW, should get about 400 miles of range

on a charge based on the EPA cycle.

So that's not a WLTP number, that's EPA.

So that's what it should be getting here in the US

when it launches here towards the middle of next year.

Which is really good.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I really like about BMW,

because the first, their last generation,

I guess the current generation of EVs,

they weren't using permanent magnets.

And everyone's like, oh, you can't do that

because the car won't be as efficient.

The car won't have as much performance.

And then BMW is like, yeah, we'll figure it out.

And they continue with the, using the electrically

excited synchronous motors, which don't have

rare earth permanent magnets in them.

So they don't have to worry about that.

That sort of that supply chain that comes from China

and China owns it and they control it.

And so everyone else is sort of like beholding

to what China or somewhere else is doing in BMW.

He's like, no, no, we can still figure this out.

We can still make a very efficient

and performance oriented car without permanent magnets,

which is good, thumbs up to their engineers for doing that.

Yes, German engineering for the win.

It's the IX350X drive, the launch version.

It's got dual motors, 463 horsepower.

And it's supposed to start at around $60,000.

Again, this is for the US.

So that's actually pretty impressive.

That is really good.

I mean, it's still a BMW.

Yeah, yeah. Right?

It's a BMW, so you're not expecting it

to be a cheap car to begin with.

You know, it's a performance luxury brand.

You're expecting to pay a premium for it.

And I mean, the technology in this,

what they've done with the batteries,

everything in there looks and sounds like a great deal.

The car itself looks fantastic.

They've changed up the grille.

I like what they've done with it.

The styling, I think, is better

than what they've done with vehicles lately.

I like this much better.

You just like the smaller grille.

I like the smaller grille.

They finally listened.

They listened.

I appreciate it, but it's still very different.

Like, I've been reading online people's reaction to this

and it is quite hot or cold on how the grille looks.

Like, some people like...

I think it's a lot better.

I think it's better,

but other people think that it's too narrow

because, you know, there was the sort of like...

What's the word for this grille?

Kidney grille?

Is that what they call it?

Kidney grille, yeah.

And it's very vertical right now

and at times it's been more horizontal,

the two kidneys.

And the very vertical kidneys.

The I3 is gonna get a more horizontal layout.

So they're going with this to distinguish

between the SUVs and the cars.

And I think it looks great.

I think it's a good...

But even I just think it's a nice...

I think they've done a good job.

I think it looks good.

I think it stays true to the brand,

but it moves it away, excuse me,

from something that a lot of people really didn't like.

It wasn't just me who thought the old girls

were just a little bit too much giant beaver teeth

looking at ya.

So I think that they've...

I think it's good.

I think they've done a good job where they're like,

nope, that's still a signature part of our design story,

but it's in a new interpretation

and it looks considerably better.

And considering the cars are different,

all what's underneath there,

all the technology, everything underneath is different too.

It's a nice way to bring that in

with a new look to that kidney grille.

And just for comparison's sake,

the current 2026 X3 M50 X-Drive

cost $72,000.

This is the last.

This is supposed to start at 60.

Right?

Yeah, so it'll be cheaper than the gas one

and probably have similar or better performance.

Oh, totally.

Off the line especially, it's going to be quicker.

So are we going to talk about the other tech,

the other part, the other story you have about the BMW

that goes along with this?

Because I think this is cool.

So for several months now,

BMW has been teasing out various information

about the technology in the Neue class.

And they've talked about the fact

that it's going to have a zonal electronic architecture,

which means that they're going from having

100 plus distributed electronic control units

around the vehicle to a consolidated system.

And this one is going to have

four centralized compute units.

One of which controls all the ADAS driver assistance

automated driving features.

And this is one that they first announced a partnership

with BMW or BMW announced a partnership with Qualcomm

back in 2022, I think, 21 or 22 to work together

to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon ride chips

and work together on the software.

So they're doing all the driver assist

and automated driving stuff in-house

between BMW and Qualcomm.

And they call the whole system Snapdragon ride pilot.

And when they first announced it,

they said that we're going to put it on BMW vehicles first,

but we're going to offer it,

we're going to make it available to any OEM

that wants to use it.

So they will sell it to other manufacturers

if they want to use it.

And this one is going to have

hands-free driving capability,

which has been somewhat limited on BMW models

up to this point, and it's a whole new system.

I'll be interested to try it out and see how good it is.

The Qualcomm had before their partnership with BMW,

they had been working with,

originally it was with,

oh, what was that?

There was a joint venture company

between Volvo and AutoLeave, a supplier, Zinuity.

And then AutoLeave pulled out of that

and they split it up and,

or Volvo took part of it in-house

for their own software work that they were doing.

The other part came part of Viennir,

which had been spun off,

it was the electronics business

that was spun off from AutoLeave.

And then when Viennir went up for sale,

Qualcomm bought it to take the software component

that they'd been working on with them,

which is called a River.

So this is the vision perception component

of the driver assist software.

And then they sold off the rest

of the electronics business to,

I think most of it went to Magna.

So the River software,

they brought that to BMW

and they built on that to build

the full driver assist software stack

for that launches on the IX3

and it'll be coming to other BMW models

over the next couple of years as they launch.

So it's a whole new software system.

I had a chance to try it out a couple of years ago,

an early version of this

on one of Qualcomm's test vehicles.

It worked pretty well.

But that was before they had the stuff

that they were doing with BMW.

And that system was just using the cameras.

It wasn't using the radar yet.

So the system that they're going to production with

is multi-camera, multi-radar solution.

Kind of like what you find with Supercruise

and BlueCruise and other systems.

Cool.

Still don't know what to do with my hands.

I know it's funny you look at the picture

of the woman in the image and she just,

it's like she has her hands perfectly placed

like one on each thigh.

On her thigh.

Because like sit, try and sit that way

for one second at your desk right now.

That is in no way natural.

This is how I sit now.

This is how you sit when you're just sitting

in like the waiting room of the doctor's office

and they don't have any magazines

and they've taken your phone.

But you can't even cross,

she doesn't even have to put one hand on each thigh

and just sit.

Does that feel even remotely like a normal way to set?

No, it feels weird.

You want to put your hands on an armrest or something.

It's, what do I do with these?

Just hold them up in front of your face.

Just hold them like this.

Speaking of which, what do you think

of the interior of the IX3?

It's got this pillar to pillar heads up display system

that at the base of the windshield

and then a big screen in the middle.

There's, you know.

I actually, I was, it's funny.

I was noticing the screen because it's,

it's very angular.

Like, like it's, it's, it's like a parallel angle.

Yeah, what is a parallelogram with,

even with a choppy little corner,

like it's very, it's, it's the most designed screen.

I think I've seen where it's not just like,

it fits the design, they've put little angles on it

to make it fit to just like,

there's no reason to do those little choppy angles.

There's no reason to do that angle

other than just like,

we thought this would look good in the car.

So I think it's kind of neat.

Screens are normally so boring.

There's just these, you know, slabs in the front.

I think it's kind of cool

that they gave it a little bit of a design.

And I, you know, the, across the dashboard,

that part of it, it makes me think of the stuff

they're doing in Lincoln,

the, the Lincoln's that have that giant,

although this looks thinner.

The Lincoln is like, the whole thing is the screen.

It's the whole thing.

So they don't, yeah.

This is tinier, which is like, okay.

I appreciate it as tiny,

but also what's going on the right hand side.

I don't care.

Right?

Like it's a lot of like,

that's some wasted screen space is a lot of things.

It looks much thinner to me.

And it could be just, you know,

the perception in the image.

It looks like slim.

I've had a couple of different demos

over the last couple of years

from different suppliers showing this type of screen.

You know, both Morelle and Harman

are building this type of display.

And I'm not sure which one BMW is using.

I think they're,

I think they might be using the Harman system,

but they're both pretty similar in the way they work.

You know, so it's, it's actually,

like heads up display technology,

but because it's at the base of the windshield, you know,

and the base of,

it's the base of the windshield

kind of below the edge of the hood.

So you're not actually losing any visible area.

So the top of the dashboard is lowered down a little bit.

So it's not taking away

from any of your windshield visibility.

Right.

You know, but,

and it's a heads up display technology within this strip

that's about three, three and a half inches tall.

Cause some of them, like, I don't know.

It feels much bigger than like something like the Lincoln.

It's much wider.

That's a pretty wide piece.

Yeah, it's a,

the Lincoln and Ford system is much taller than this one.

Right?

This is noticeably narrower,

which makes it honestly look like it fits

a little bit better.

This is more of a dash cluster is what they're going for.

Yeah.

Which is the Lincoln system, which is like,

this is the, this is your infotainment system.

And then way down,

when you have to look way down to see that second,

that second to display,

whereas this one, the main display is where you can,

you don't have to look down

and then they have this instead of heads up.

There's no really low screen on this.

Yeah.

There's a sort of a normal spot screen for the infotainment.

It's where you would expect the infotainment screen

to be just to the right.

And it's actually very close to the steering wheel.

It's like right next to the steering wheel.

It looks close.

Yeah.

Does it go behind it a little?

Yeah, it is behind.

It's in a separate plane behind.

Okay.

So you're not going to,

you're not going to wrap your knuckles

as you're turning the steering wheel.

It's not a smack.

No, but I like how this looks.

I think this is kind of neat.

This whole thing with,

I like how they've done that.

I really like how BMW's doing all this.

Like I like where they're going.

I like the technology they're incorporating here

with Qualcomm where it's making the automated driving

and the, you know, level two, you know,

self-driving, it's not driving.

Driver assist for the Heliket.

You want to call it?

Hands-free driver assist.

Thank you.

I'm like, we use the right term.

The hands-free driver assist.

I definitely think this is,

like I was saying about the car,

it's moving everything forward.

The design is moving forward.

The tech is moving forward.

In fact, in how it looks inside,

the tech is moving forward with things

like the Qualcomm chips that are making this,

the Snapdragon chip that makes it better to do

for these hands-free self-driving things.

It's, this is pretty neat.

It's, it's an,

this is an interesting vehicle

that just moves everything forward a little bit.

All the things.

Normally you see a vehicle

and it moves one thing forward.

The design is dramatic

and everything else gets a little touch.

Or the tech is dramatic.

Everything else gets a little touch.

This is a lot,

a lot at once.

It'll be interesting at some point,

hopefully I get to drive one and see how it is.

So I think it's gonna be cool.

What do you think of the steering wheel design?

The steering wheel, let me go back to the image.

Steering wheel design, steering wheel design.

I mean, it's a little,

it's different.

It's kind of like the squirkel thing.

It really makes you do nine in three.

That's its job.

It's gonna force you to,

cause there's no way you could put your hands

up on that wheel.

Here's the problem with nine in three.

For me, cause I have big hands.

So when I do nine in three,

I start hitting all those little controllers with my hand.

But Robbie, I have the same,

I have like five, six woman sized hands

and I do the same thing.

I tend to have things.

Things are beeping.

Especially if there's a touch pad on those at all.

Who is it?

Is it touch pads?

I hit them all the time

and it's accidentally I'm doing things like why?

Why is the radio station changing?

Why is the volume going up?

What did I touch?

And it's cause I hit those little pads,

especially when you turn the wheel

cause your fingers shift a little bit.

So it is hard.

I had imagined more so

cause your hands are bigger.

You're more likely to do that.

And I do that.

It drives me crazy.

Well, the other thing that's different about this wheel,

a lot of times you'll find steering wheels

that have spokes at nine and three and six.

So down from the bottom.

But this one also has one that's going up at the top

at the 12 o'clock position.

It looks freaky.

It looks a little odd.

It's odd, but it doesn't bother me as weird as it is.

It doesn't bother me in the context

like when you just look at the whole thing.

Look at the steering wheel by itself

and you're like, well, that's different.

But if you look at it in the context

of the entire interior of the vehicle

and how the entire vehicle is designed

and sort of the changes that they've made,

I think it's an interesting spot

to put some detail into it.

Cause it's not even just a flat piece.

Like it's got sort of these cutouts

on either side of that little piece.

Like fancy scaffolding.

So it becomes a design element.

Like it's exactly what I was saying about the screen,

all the little cuts, the angle of the screen,

the little cuts in the steering wheel,

the angles in the steering.

It creates a design element out of something

that could be really dull and boring.

It just needs to be there.

They make it design and make it the interior,

the whole thing look a little bit more cohesive.

Do you notice what's missing from this dashboard?

Vents.

Yeah.

No manual vent controls.

You keep pointing this out and like just making me sad.

Well, you know what?

We need to make the automakers sad that they're doing this.

That's why I keep doing it.

Apparently they think it's a good idea.

Well, it's not.

It's a bad idea and we need to keep reminding them

and keep reminding them.

Every time I grab a vent in a car that is a physical vent,

I'm very conscious of it now.

I think I do adjust the stupid vents all the time.

I really do.

Constantly, it's something I just move a little bit.

I'm too cold.

I want to, or too hot, whatever.

I want a vent that I can physically touch.

Dang it.

Well, now I'm sad and none of us are going to IAA

so we can sit there and corner someone and be like, why?

Why do you not have physical vents?

Don't put this into production without the vent controls.

Gosh, I do not like that feature when they do that.

And only the Kia folks were like, this is dumb off the record.

Kia and Hyundai and there's others.

Yes, but I mean, I've only ever asked one per one OEM directly

that didn't do it.

Like, why didn't you?

Why would, right?

This is dumb.

All right, let's move on to Porsche.

Porsche did a couple of things that they're showing.

They've got the new 911 Turbo S,

which is, as if it needed to be faster, it's even faster now.

It's faster.

Yeah.

They added the hybrid system from the 911 GTS to the Turbo.

And so now it has 701 horsepower.

The fastest production 911 yet.

And I'll still get stuck behind them

on like a mountain road while driving a sedan

because the people who can afford them

don't know how to drive the car.

Yeah.

There you go.

0 to 60 in 2.4 seconds.

Yeah, I mean, it's, again, crazy fast.

61 horsepower more than the previous Turbo S

thanks to the hybrid system.

It's capable of going really, really fast.

And most of the time it will be wasted.

Oh, yeah.

It's going to cost, let's see, the Coupe is 270,000

and the Cabriolet is 284,000.

Dollars, dollars, people.

That's like a house.

You can buy a house or you can buy the new 911 Turbo S

and then drive it very slow.

And then I end up behind you in something boring

and you won't let me go around you

because you've spent so much money on this car.

There's no way in hell you're going to let Robby buy you

in like the Nissan.

Your Kona?

You created quite a backstory there.

Yeah, yeah.

But if you're rich and you know how to drive,

this is a great car.

The other thing that Porsche is showing

is the upcoming Cayenne EV.

Right now, they're not fully revealing it.

Well, I mean, they've fully revealed it,

except it's wrapped in camo.

So it's sort of kind of hitting the disco camo.

Disco camo.

It's a little more 80s, actually.

It's more 80s camo.

Yeah, I mean, they used a similar type of camo a few years ago

when they first showed the VW ID 7 at CES.

They had it wrapped in a similar kind of camo then.

OK, this looks like Tron.

Yeah, it does.

All I can see is Tron looking at those glasses.

It's a black base with turquoise and purple and pink.

But when you drive, a little light comes out behind

and the car goes over, it explodes.

Oh, wouldn't that be cool, right?

Sorry.

But the thing that is really kind of unique

is they are going to offer the Cayenne EV

with an optional inductive charging system.

You know what standard that is?

Don't actually plug it in.

SAU standard J2954, yo.

Well done.

Which means that if there were any other vehicles out there

with a compatible thing, they would

be able to use the same charging pads.

There's so the standard is, so I know Mahler.

I went to Germany.

What's funny is I went to Germany to try out the test.

I have a whole video.

I'll send it.

We can put it in show notes.

Oh, did you actually see this, the Porsche?

Yeah, I've driven it.

So the standard, the part of the standard

that I went and saw was how to get it to drive and land

on top of the vehicle.

Oh, to be in the right spot so that you're lined up properly.

But yeah, it charges at 11 kilowatts.

Now, I believe Porsche, how big, how tall is Porsche?

I think it's like two to six inches or something.

Four to six inches.

The actual standard will go up to 11 inches.

Unless you could do something with, wow, OK.

And what's interesting is it'll do it through ice.

It'll do it through like leaves.

It'll tell you if there's something metal.

So it won't do it through metal.

So it'll actually tell you when there's metal there.

It's actually quite impressive.

And what it allows for is if you embed these in parking lots,

you don't have to have the wire, the cable, the whole thing

for AC charging, which is kind of nice.

So you can increase AC charging out in the wild.

So at the mall, when you're not on a trip,

you could just park your car and go inside and do whatever.

So how did they say, or did you learn, Robbie,

how much does something on the ground in between you

and that plate impact?

Like if there's snow, a little bit of snow,

a little bit of water, like do things?

Does it have to be a lot of dirt?

How finicky is it?

That's what I'm thinking.

They bought leaves.

It really comes down to metal.

It'll go through a lot of stuff.

So it's really just metal.

Because I'm thinking about how dirty the bottom of your car

gets in the winter and stuff, or just dirt and mud,

and leaves get stuck to it, and all the stuff

that can blow over something like that.

It'll work through all that.

It's really quite impressive the way it does it.

The only things you don't want in there are metal

or anything that's alive.

Alive, yeah, nothing alive.

It also checks if there's a squirrel.

What happens if a squirrel, wait, what if a squirrel?

It also tells you if there's a squirrel.

It'll melt them, probably.

It'll be charging, and the squirrel runs under your car.

It turns off.

Garner.

It'll shut off.

It'll immediately shut off.

Yeah.

Same thing if someone throws a bolt in there and it'll shut off.

It would immediately shut off.

So no metal that would suddenly make things go sideways

and you're not killing small animals.

Yeah, cats will go into our cars to stay warm.

Yeah, well, also do it with us.

Can you put an exception in there for mice?

No, it'll still shut off, sorry.

Oh.

Sorry that you're in there.

You want to kill the mice.

I'm getting up in the wiring and eating the wire.

Little chit-links or squirrels that run under cars

just sitting there, they just run around everywhere.

They're wild animals.

OK, I had a moment of panic.

I'm like, wait, are we killing small creatures?

No, I kill it.

Did Porsche say anything about who's producing this system?

So here's the thing.

As I went to Germany to Maal, M-A-H-L-E.

Mali.

So they showed me their setup.

The test vehicles, I parked the little test vehicles

over the car, made a whole big video about it.

And then while I was in Germany, I contacted Porsche

and said, hey, I would love to talk to the head of powertrain

for the Taycan.

And they gave me access to the person, very nice guy.

And so I have a video of that.

But I didn't realize that Porsche was working on wireless

charging at the time, because they probably

they wouldn't have told me, to be honest.

So it was just happenstance that I was in Germany

to do this thing about wireless charging.

Then I didn't because I was in Germany.

I went and I got a Porsche and I drove it around

and I talked to their head of powertrain.

So yeah, no.

So this is, I think it's, like everything,

it's going to take a little while to get it out.

I remember BMW had their box, their little system.

Yeah, they were using a system from Vitricity

that they piloted for a while.

And Genesis was using the same system

that they offered in Korea for a while on the GV60.

So yeah, no.

And so it's really cool that this standard is,

because now you have a standard, that

means everyone can do this.

Everyone can start adding this to their vehicles.

And again, I think for home charging, it's great.

But I think for charging at places where you're parked

for a long time, movie theaters, the mall or whatever,

even going to the grocery store, if I could go to the grocery

store and just pull into a spot that had EV charging

and I didn't have to do anything,

and it gave me like five miles, 10 miles or whatever

while I was in there buying taco supplies, that'd be great.

Because then every time you're going to do an errand,

you're charging up your vehicle.

So I'm a big proponent of more and more AC charging.

I'm not a proponent of wires just sitting in the street.

I think we either have to do wireless or bring your own cable,

like they have in a lot of European countries.

Yeah, I did a video about that too while I was there.

Man, I did a lot of stuff in Germany that time.

Yeah, make sure you put that link to the video in the rundown.

And I'll put it in the show notes.

So yeah, it looks like this might be the Mali system.

One thing that's interesting about this one

is they're referring to it as a one box system.

So most of the previous systems I've seen,

there's a wall box that you have to install.

And then you've got a cable that comes down

and runs through a conduit across the floor

to the transmitter pad that's on the floor.

And this one has everything self-contained

within that transmitter pad.

All you have is one cable that you just basically plug it

in and everything else is within this box.

So it should make installation a lot easier.

Yeah, the video also, they have, do I have any photos?

No.

In the video, they also show the inside of what

the box looks like inside.

And the whole team is there.

They were very, this, you know, I travel a lot for these videos.

And sometimes I'll go all the way to another country

and I'll get there.

And they'll give me like five minutes with the car.

And I'm like, you put me on a plane

and brought me all the way here

and you're giving me five minutes.

I can't drive, I can't do anything.

The Malay people, outstanding.

They had the whole day set aside.

They had multiple cars.

Again, they bought leaves.

They bought ice.

They bought all these things to show how it worked.

I appreciate, because that literally was my question.

I was like, wait, what about all this other stuff?

They were ready for a person like me to be like, prove it.

They had a spot where it was shaded

so the light wouldn't change all through the day.

They're like, oh, we have this spot.

It was great.

It was amazing.

Also, they have really, the food in their cafeteria

is very good.

Side note.

Did they have tacos?

They did not have tacos.

Nitzel tacos?

They did not have, unfortunately no tacos,

but they did have delicious German food,

which I'm a big fan of.

So yeah, I'm happy to see that this is coming out

on a production vehicle and you'll be able to do this

and then hopefully more and more automakers

will start adding this to their vehicles.

I'll be curious to see how much they charge for it.

Cause that's been one of the challenges

with wireless power transfer systems up until now

is that they add $3,000 to $5,000 to the cost of the vehicle.

They're not cheap.

And for the foreseeable future,

you still have to have wired charging as well.

At some future date, when wireless is ubiquitous

and you can get rid of the connector,

that would be great.

But you're adding potentially a significant amount of cost.

And of course, Porsche is putting this on the Cayenne,

so it's not gonna be a cheap car anyway.

Yeah, you're already paying monies.

Yeah, no, it'll be interesting.

And obviously this vehicle still has an AC charging point.

So you'll still have that.

Yep, all right, Volkswagen last up at IAA.

We already talked about Audi,

but the Volkswagen brand is changing its naming strategy

for its EVs, cause you know,

ID2, ID3, ID4, ID5, 6, 7, et cetera, et cetera.

Those just make so much sense, right?

They're so memorable.

What did ID even stand for?

I don't know.

I forget, I'm sure there's a reason.

I'm gonna Google that.

And now that we're talking about naming,

I'm like, oh wait, the designation ID stands

for advanced technologies and electric,

that's not, those words are not that.

It literally is in there release,

it says the designation ID,

you would expect it to make sense,

stands for advanced technologies and electric mobility.

That's not the ID.

It's an alphanumeric naming scheme.

It's not supposed to make sense.

Yeah.

It's like, you know, Mercedes and their EQ.

Yeah, just, no.

I think that actually means something though, isn't it?

I don't know that I've ever heard anybody

from VW articulate what ID, if it stands for anything.

Oh no, I mean Mercedes.

Oh, Mercedes.

It's electric, something, but whatever.

Okay, so I found a Volkswagen dealership

and it says it stands for intelligent design.

All right, probably.

It's from a random dealership.

You know, it's good enough.

Well, anyway, it's good enough.

At the 2023 Munich show,

VW showed a concept called the ID.2 All,

which was a small hatchback, you know, smaller than a Golf,

although still larger than like probably

a third or fourth generation Golf,

you know, but smaller in a current generation Golf.

And they said at the time that they were going

to produce that car and they've unveiled

the production version of it,

but they're ditching the numbers in the ID naming.

So for the electric versions of their cars,

it's just gonna be ID and then whatever name.

So in this case, because this is a car

about the size of VW Polo, it's the ID Polo.

See that makes sense.

And when there's a new electric Golf, I think next year,

it's gonna be ID Golf.

So they're just gonna tack on ID to whatever name

they're already using for the car.

To show that it's an electric vehicle.

Yeah.

Okay.

And it's a shame that we will probably never see

the ID Polo.

We will not get a Polo.

These are all things that we're not gonna see.

I'm like, look at this crazy little ID Polo

and it's a little funky wrap.

We don't get the regular Polo,

so we're definitely not getting an ID Polo.

We're definitely not getting this one.

It's really cool if you're in Europe

and you see a Polo, you're like,

oh, look at this cool little car.

You got a little Polo R.

Yeah.

Or the Polo GTI.

Yeah.

And there is gonna be a GTI version of the ID Polo.

Of course there is.

It's a lot of letters.

Yeah.

ID Polo GTI, what?

So VW has created an updated version

of their MEB electric architecture

that they've taken cost out of it.

They've updated it.

It's lower cost to manufacture now.

And this is the basis for the ID Polo,

as well as another new model that they are showing

as a concept in Munich called the ID Cross concept,

which is a slightly taller crossover-ish version

of the ID Polo.

And the ID Cross is actually pretty cool looking.

It does look pretty cool.

Second nice little crossover.

It does look pretty good.

Yeah.

I think people in America would want.

The size of it is actually,

it's about three inches longer than the Hyundai Venue.

Oh, that's not that big.

Yeah.

It's not that big, but also not crazy small.

So, you know, it could conceivably sell here in the US.

Where else would we?

Volkswagen, who knows what they can afford to do.

Yeah.

They're all gonna be based,

they're gonna have a 223 horsepower front motor

to start with.

And then other versions like the GTIs and so on

will have a little more power.

And then there's also,

they're also showing a CUPRA version of this

on the same MEB,

what do they call it?

MEB light or MEB entry platform is what they call it.

And this one's called the Raval.

So a little, little hot hatch.

And I wonder if CUPRA had given any consideration

to this being part of their US lineup,

which has now been pushed back indefinitely.

Yeah, maybe, who knows?

Again, Volkswagen doesn't have,

Volkswagen needs to sort of reshuffle and figure things out

as a company.

And so they're gonna be a little bit more,

I think, conservative with what they bring to the US,

because they don't wanna bring it over here

unless they think it's gonna do really, really well.

And I think the sort of delay with the ID buzz

is some of the sort of, I don't know.

The ID buzz itself, I think sort of is not helping them,

to be honest.

And the tariffs just make it even more complicated

if it's not being built here.

If you're a company and you can sell,

you know what, we can sell a lot of these in China,

we can sell a lot of these in Europe

for the next three and a half years,

and then just sort of like keep,

what we know we'll sell in the United States,

selling in the United States,

you're probably gonna do that, especially for Volkswagen.

Like you're not gonna take a lot of chances,

which I don't, I mean to be,

I don't blame Volkswagen for not taking chances.

I think they've spent like the last couple of decades

just giving us really boring vehicles, unfortunately.

And now that they're like,

oh, we really gotta do something about it,

now it's like the worst time.

Yeah, try to do something about it,

and you're like, ah, I guess.

Yeah, it's a shame.

I'd love to see more cars like this on the road here.

They won't.

I know.

Yeah.

You won't, Sam.

They go like, no.

Bringing you back down to earth, no.

Yeah, the ID Polo is supposed to start

at close to 20,000 euros.

Yeah, which is what, about $22,000 right now.

Yeah, yeah.

You get a lot more when it got here though.

Well, yeah.

With everything.

A lot more, so.

It'd be $70,000 after share.

$70,000 Polo, and sell like hotcakes, guys,

sell like hotcakes.

I know.

I know, it's depressing.

Psy.

But we got the duly slate that we built, so.

You guys, we got that.

Got the duly slate, so everyone, thumbs up.

Yay.

All right, well, that's it for this week.

It seems still like I'm not getting the cars that one.

Fine, I'm done.

Cutting the show, that's it.

We're done.

We'll talk to you all next time.

Bye. Bye, everyone.

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