Episode 425 dives into the latest automotive news and reviews, featuring hosts Sam, Nicole, and Roberto. Nicole shares her experience with the 2025 Subaru Forester Wilderness, highlighting its rugged capabilities and practicality for winter driving. Roberto discusses the 2026 Ram 1500 Big Horn with its powerful Hemi engine and luxurious interior, emphasizing its emotional appeal despite high destination charges. The episode also covers the Japan Mobility Show, showcasing innovative concepts from major automakers like Honda and Toyota, and wraps up with insights on Ford's home power management system for electric vehicles.
This week Sam is in a Tokyo hotel room after attending the Japan Mobility Show. Before leaving he drove the 2026 Kia Sportage X-Pro. Robbie spent some time in the dunes of California with the next Mercedes-Benz GLC and Nicole drove the revived Hemi Ram 1500 and the latest Subaru Forester.
Others are finally taking notice of inflated delivery charges, NHTSA is investigating Tesla's Mad Max Mode and we have lots of interesting stuff from the Japan Mobility Show. That includes the Honda 0 Alpha, new Subaru STi concepts, a rotary plug-in hybrid from Mazda and lots from Toyota including a Corolla concept, ideas for a next-generation Lexus LS and a stand-alone Century brand. Sam also visits the home of Ryan O'Gorman to check out the Ford Home Energy Management system.
"So I had two I have two vehicles. So you're already messing it up Nicole. What I know I'm going to be quick. I'm going to be quick. So I have the I had your time. I have the 25 Subaru Forester Wilderness like last week. So this is you know the Subaru's been doing a whole bunch of the wilderness trim is their sort of more rugged trim..."
The Subaru Forester Wilderness is a special version of the Forester that is built for off-roading. It has features that make it better for driving on rough surfaces, like higher ground clearance and special accessories.
The Subaru Forester Wilderness is a rugged trim of the popular Forester model, designed for off-road capability and adventure. It features enhanced ground clearance and off-road accessories to improve its performance in challenging terrains.
"...it has a 2.5 liter four cylinder engine in it. 180 horsepower, 178 pound-feet of torque. It's not especially robust when it comes to acceleration..."
Horsepower tells you how powerful an engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster and more powerful the car can be.
Horsepower is a unit of measurement that indicates the power an engine produces. It is a crucial factor in determining a vehicle's performance and acceleration capabilities.
"...it has a 2.5 liter four cylinder engine in it. 180 horsepower, 178 pound-feet of torque. It's not especially robust when it comes to acceleration..."
Torque is how strong an engine is when it starts moving. More torque means better acceleration and the ability to pull heavier things.
Torque is a measure of rotational force produced by an engine. It is important for acceleration and the ability to move heavy loads.
"...puddles on the highway that are like you know just begging for you to hydroplane but it handled really really well. I was I was impressed with how it did..."
Hydroplaning is when your car's tires can't grip the road because of water, making it slide. It's a risky situation that can happen when driving in the rain.
Hydroplaning occurs when a vehicle's tires lose contact with the road surface due to water, causing the vehicle to slide uncontrollably. This can be particularly dangerous in heavy rain or standing water.
"...it has an 11.6 inch screen on it with Subaru Starlink..."
Subaru Starlink is a system in Subaru cars that helps you with navigation and connects your phone to the car. It makes it easier to use apps and listen to music while driving.
Subaru Starlink is an infotainment system offered in Subaru vehicles that provides features such as navigation, entertainment, and connectivity options. It enhances the driving experience by integrating smartphone apps and services.
"...this vehicle and it has 9.2 inches of ground clearance so you know again you can take it a little more off-road than you would with other vehicles..."
Ground clearance is how high a car sits off the ground. A car with more ground clearance can drive over bumps and rough roads better than one that sits lower.
Ground clearance refers to the distance between the ground and the lowest point of a vehicle's chassis. Higher ground clearance allows vehicles to navigate rough terrain and obstacles more easily, making them suitable for off-road driving.
"...I can look on the OEM site it's vaguely 1400 dollars uh so it's not crazy like yeah because we do hear..."
OEM means the original parts made by the car's manufacturer. They are the same parts that came with the car when it was new.
OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, referring to parts made by the vehicle's original manufacturer. These parts are typically designed to fit and function exactly like the original components in the vehicle.
"has a much higher uh destination charge because not only is it an American car it's a truck..."
The destination charge is a fee that you pay to have the car delivered to the dealership. It's added to the price of the car when you buy it.
The destination charge is an additional fee that covers the cost of transporting the vehicle from the manufacturer to the dealership. This charge is typically added to the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price).
"I had what I had was the 2026 ram 1500 in the big horn trim with the new 5.7 liter hemi v8..."
The Ram 1500 is a popular truck that can carry heavy loads and is often used for work or towing. The 2026 version has updated features and options.
The Ram 1500 is a full-size pickup truck known for its strong performance, comfortable ride, and advanced technology features. The 2026 model continues to build on this reputation with various trims and engine options.
"my monroni is wrong uh so I had what I had was the 2026 ram 1500..."
The Monroney label is a sticker on a new car that shows how much it costs and what features it has. It's important for buyers to see this information.
The Monroney label, also known as the window sticker, is a label attached to a new vehicle that provides important information, including the car's pricing, fuel economy, and standard features. It's required by law in the United States.
A Hemi V8 is a type of engine that helps the truck go faster and perform better. It has a special shape that makes it work more efficiently.
The Hemi V8 refers to a specific engine design by Chrysler that features hemispherical combustion chambers, allowing for more efficient airflow and power. It's known for providing strong performance in trucks and muscle cars.
"...it has the 5.7 liter d8 engine which has um oh my god I just forgot 395 horsepower and 410 pound feet of torque..."
A 5.7 liter V8 engine is a type of car engine with eight cylinders that helps the car produce a lot of power. It's often found in trucks and performance cars because it can deliver strong acceleration.
The 5.7 liter V8 engine is a common engine configuration that features eight cylinders arranged in a V shape. This engine is known for its power and torque output, making it popular in performance and full-size vehicles.
"...so eight-speed automatic transmission it is the exhaust note is just amazing..."
An eight-speed automatic transmission is a system in a car that helps it change gears automatically. More gears usually mean better performance and fuel economy.
An eight-speed automatic transmission is a type of gearbox that automatically changes gears in a vehicle, providing smoother acceleration and improved fuel efficiency compared to older transmissions with fewer gears.
"...it has that little badge on the side where the symbol of protest hemi fender badge the symbol of protest that's what they call it..."
The Hemi fender badge shows that a car has a special type of engine called a Hemi. This engine design helps the car perform better and is often found in powerful vehicles.
The Hemi fender badge signifies that a vehicle is equipped with a Hemi engine, which is known for its hemispherical combustion chambers that enhance performance. This badge is often associated with high-performance models from brands like Dodge.
"...I also like that it's a short bed because again I drove it into the city again and the short bed made it a little easier to maneuver in a parking garage..."
A short bed is a type of truck with a smaller cargo area. It's easier to drive and park in tight spaces compared to trucks with longer beds.
A short bed refers to a pickup truck with a shorter cargo area, making it easier to maneuver in tight spaces, such as parking garages. This design can offer better handling and ease of use in urban environments.
"this has like that giant infotainment screen it is as I flip my paper around 12 inch infotainment screen..."
An infotainment screen is a big screen in the car that shows you things like maps, music, and other information. You can touch it to control different features.
An infotainment screen is a display in a vehicle that combines entertainment, navigation, and communication functions. It allows drivers to access various features through touch or voice commands.
"Detroit back to Colorado where they're based and then you know did the fuel economy measurements"
Fuel economy tells you how far a car can go on a certain amount of gas. It's usually shown as miles per gallon (MPG), which helps you know how much gas you'll need.
Fuel economy refers to the efficiency of a vehicle in terms of how far it can travel on a certain amount of fuel, typically measured in miles per gallon (MPG). It is an important factor for consumers when choosing a vehicle.
"was it gonna drive there what am I gonna drive out in the middle of the doomont the doomont dunes well I drove the uh the um 2027 uh mercedes-benz glc well let's say it's like an obvious choice to drive in the doomont dunes the electric the electric glc the glc 400 formatic with eq"
The Mercedes-Benz GLC is a small luxury SUV that looks nice and is comfortable to ride in. It has lots of features that make it a good choice for people who want something special.
The Mercedes-Benz GLC is a compact luxury SUV that combines style, comfort, and advanced technology. It is designed to appeal to buyers looking for a premium vehicle with versatile capabilities.
"...well I drove the uh the um 2027 uh mercedes-benz glc well let's say it's like an obvious choice to drive in the doomont dunes the electric the electric glc the glc 400 formatic with eq technology..."
The Mercedes-Benz GLC 400 4MATIC is a fancy SUV that can drive well on different types of roads, including off-road. It has features that help it perform better in tough driving situations.
The Mercedes-Benz GLC 400 4MATIC is a luxury compact SUV that combines performance with advanced technology, including all-wheel drive and electric capabilities. It's designed for both on-road comfort and off-road capability, making it suitable for various driving conditions.
"...the electric glc the glc 400 formatic with eq technology..."
4MATIC is a system from Mercedes-Benz that helps all four wheels of the car get power, making it easier to drive in tough conditions like mud or snow.
4MATIC is Mercedes-Benz's all-wheel-drive system that enhances traction and stability by distributing power to all four wheels. This system is particularly beneficial in off-road and adverse weather conditions.
"...the electric glc the glc 400 formatic with eq technology..."
EQ technology is a system from Mercedes-Benz that focuses on electric and hybrid cars, helping them use less fuel and be better for the environment.
EQ technology refers to Mercedes-Benz's electric and hybrid vehicle technology, which includes features like electric motors and battery systems designed to improve efficiency and reduce emissions.
"...and it was like 25 percent which doesn't seem like a lot until you're in a car that's a lot actually that's a lot and you're looking out the side window..."
Pitch is how steep a hill is when driving. A 25 percent pitch means the hill is quite steep, making it harder for the car to stay balanced.
In automotive terms, 'pitch' refers to the angle of the vehicle relative to the ground, particularly when navigating inclines or declines. A 25 percent pitch indicates a steep incline, which can significantly affect vehicle handling and stability.
"you know it's an all-wheel-drive vehicle you know each wheel is controlled um based on like you know"
All-wheel drive means that power goes to all four wheels of the car, which helps it grip the road better, especially in bad weather or rough terrain.
All-wheel drive (AWD) is a drivetrain system that powers all four wheels of a vehicle simultaneously, improving traction and stability. It's particularly beneficial in adverse weather conditions or off-road situations.
"there is a very uh hilarious uh video of a bronco in the dunes um on car and driver I believe where you can see the rear brake is just red hot"
The Ford Bronco is a tough SUV designed for off-road driving, making it great for adventures like driving in the sand or mountains.
The Ford Bronco is a classic American SUV known for its off-road capabilities. The latest generation has been reintroduced with modern technology while retaining its rugged charm.
"it has a 94 kilowatt hour usable battery pack and it has 483 horsepower 596 pound feet of torque"
A kilowatt hour is a way to measure how much energy a battery can store. It tells you how long the battery can power something.
A kilowatt hour (kWh) is a unit of energy that represents the amount of energy consumed by a device using one kilowatt of power for one hour. In electric vehicles, it indicates the capacity of the battery.
"so going 800 volt is uh extremely it's a little late if you're a luxury brand I think they were sort of waiting"
An 800 volt vehicle is an electric car that uses a higher voltage, which helps it charge faster and perform better.
An 800 volt vehicle refers to electric vehicles that operate on an 800-volt electrical system, allowing for faster charging and improved efficiency compared to traditional 400-volt systems.
"...e so I'm very happy it looks nicer than the other EQs you know the the EQS you know that looked a litt..."
The Mercedes-Benz EQS is a fancy electric car that is very comfortable and has lots of high-tech features. It's made to be a luxury option in the electric car market.
The Mercedes-Benz EQS is a luxury electric sedan that showcases the brand's commitment to electrification while providing a high level of comfort and technology. It is designed to compete with other luxury electric vehicles.
"I can tell you what it's like when you put in sand mode and go and do you know and drift it in around corners"
Sand mode is a special setting in some cars that helps them drive better on sand, making it easier to handle the vehicle in those conditions.
Sand mode is a driving setting in some vehicles that optimizes performance for driving on sandy surfaces, adjusting parameters like throttle response and traction control.
"...the uh they're estimated zero to 60 time right now for this vehicle is 4.4 seconds which is fine I guess it's probably more than needs to be..."
0-60 time is how long it takes a car to go from a stop to going 60 miles per hour. It's a way to measure how fast a car can speed up.
0-60 time refers to the duration it takes for a vehicle to accelerate from a complete stop to 60 miles per hour. It's a common performance metric used to gauge a car's acceleration capabilities.
"...it's got the new um eek wait mbos sorry the new Mercedes Benz OS which seems nice..."
Mercedes-Benz is a well-known car brand from Germany that makes luxury cars. They are also working on new electric vehicles.
Mercedes-Benz is a German automotive brand known for luxury vehicles, buses, and trucks. They are recognized for their innovation in technology and performance, particularly in the electric vehicle (EV) sector.
"...which is uh interesting you know like the uh the taikon if you you know remember taikon had this two-spee..."
The Porsche Taycan is a fancy electric car that goes really fast and is fun to drive. It's made by Porsche, a brand known for its sports cars.
The Porsche Taycan is an all-electric luxury sports sedan that combines high performance with cutting-edge technology. It showcases Porsche's commitment to electric mobility while maintaining the brand's signature driving dynamics.
"...l bearings dot media I had I had the uh 2026 Kia Sportage X pro prestige all wheel drive so Sportage got g..."
The Kia Sportage is a small SUV that’s designed to be comfortable and stylish. It has lots of features that make it easy to drive and enjoy.
The Kia Sportage is a compact SUV that offers a blend of style, comfort, and technology. It has been redesigned in recent years to compete with other popular models in its class.
"it seems that way you know and you know the top seller talked about last week you know the Toyota RAV4 sold 475,000 units last year which is more than the f-150 you know so Kia's entry in this segment is the the Sportage goes up against the RAV4 the Honda CR-V you know the Nissan Rogue"
The Ford F-150 is a big truck that many people buy for work or to carry things. It's really popular because it can do a lot of different jobs and is known for being tough.
The Ford F-150 is a full-size pickup truck that has been the best-selling vehicle in the United States for decades. Its significance lies in its versatility, strong performance, and wide range of configurations, making it popular among both work and leisure users.
"...ainst the RAV4 the Honda CR-V you know the Nissan Rogue and many others and it's it's a good vehicle you..."
The Nissan Rogue is a small SUV that’s great for families and everyday driving. It has a lot of space inside and is designed to be safe and efficient.
The Nissan Rogue is a compact SUV that is known for its comfortable interior, good fuel economy, and advanced safety features. It competes in a crowded market against other popular SUVs like the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V.
"RAV4 sold 475,000 units last year which is more than the f-150 you know so Kia's entry in this segment is the the Sportage goes up against the RAV4 the Honda CR-V you know the Nissan Rogue and many others and it's it's a good vehicle you know the last you know several generations of"
"...t after you know I hop out of our our family Kia EV6 with dual motors and 320 horsepower and jump into..."
The Kia EV6 is a new electric SUV that looks cool and can charge quickly. It's part of Kia's push to make more electric cars.
The Kia EV6 is an all-electric crossover that features a modern design and advanced technology, including fast charging capabilities. It marks Kia's entry into the electric vehicle market with a focus on performance and sustainability.
"...n the the honda zero series as well as the actor rsx that are coming um and those are hondas you know ..."
The Acura RSX is a small, sporty car that was fun to drive and looked cool. It was popular a while back for being reliable and enjoyable.
The Acura RSX is a sporty compact car that was popular in the early 2000s for its performance and stylish design. It is often remembered for its engaging driving experience and reliability.
"... half two years um and uh one of those the actor zdx has already been discontinued uh because honda ha..."
The Acura ZDX is a stylish SUV that was made to be both fancy and practical. It didn’t last long in production but was designed to stand out.
The Acura ZDX is a luxury crossover SUV that was produced for a short time, known for its unique styling and premium features. It aimed to attract buyers looking for a sporty yet practical vehicle.
"...v and the zero alpha is closer to the size of an hrv at least the us market hrv uh maybe a little bit ..."
The Honda HR-V is a small SUV that has a lot of room inside for people and stuff. It's a good choice for city driving and everyday use.
The Honda HR-V is a subcompact SUV that offers a spacious interior and versatile cargo options. It is designed for urban drivers seeking practicality without sacrificing style.
"...zero suv is probably going to cost similar to the prologue so you know in the 50 to $60,000 range what what..."
The Honda Prologue is a new electric SUV that’s coming soon. It’s made to be roomy and good for the environment.
The Honda Prologue is an upcoming electric SUV that aims to provide a spacious and eco-friendly option for consumers. It reflects Honda's commitment to expanding its electric vehicle lineup.
"...hey went that way with a lot of you know i buy a honda fit i'm not expecting all these crazy features in the..."
The Honda Fit EV is a small electric car that’s easy to drive around the city. It’s made to be efficient and has a lot of room inside for a compact car.
The Honda Fit EV is an electric version of the popular Honda Fit, designed for urban driving with a focus on efficiency and practicality. It offers a compact size while providing ample interior space.
Car
Honda That Honda
"...eah all right uh so you know the the other thing that honda uh highlighted is uh the the super one uh which i..."
The Honda That's is a small car that's made to be practical and useful, especially in Japan. It has a unique look and is designed to fit in tight spaces.
The Honda That's is a compact car designed primarily for the Japanese market, known for its practicality and efficient use of space. It is often recognized for its unique design and functionality.
"...ta the the big thing from toyota was uh this new corolla concept um did he have you looked at this thing i..."
The Toyota Corolla is a small car that many people choose because it's dependable and doesn't use a lot of gas. It's a good option for anyone looking for a simple and affordable vehicle.
The Toyota Corolla is a compact car that has gained a reputation for its reliability, fuel efficiency, and affordability. It is one of the best-selling cars globally, making it a significant player in the automotive market.
"...uh called the ls coop and the other one was just lexus ls concept uh which was this wild luxury van what ev..."
The Lexus LS 400 is a very nice car that was made to be super comfortable and luxurious. It helped make Lexus a well-known brand for fancy cars.
The Lexus LS 400 was a luxury sedan that helped establish Lexus as a premium brand in the automotive market. Known for its smooth ride and high-quality interior, it set the standard for luxury vehicles in its time.
"...w toyota has the alfard uh and then they have the lexus lm you know so you know these are uh you know often..."
The Lexus LM is a fancy minivan that’s made for families or people who want to travel in style. It has lots of comfort and high-tech features.
The Lexus LM is a luxury minivan that offers a high level of comfort and technology, catering to affluent families and business users. It is designed to provide a premium travel experience.
"... he spoke and he talked about the history of the toyota century uh you know the the backstory you know when it w..."
The Toyota Century is a very fancy car that’s often used by important people in Japan. It’s made to be really nice and well-crafted.
The Toyota Century is a luxury sedan that has long been associated with Japanese royalty and high-ranking officials. It is known for its understated elegance and exceptional craftsmanship.
"...r um and more recently you know they expanded the century from from just the uh the sedan uh they've added..."
The Buick Century is a comfortable car that’s been around for a long time. It's known for being smooth to drive and good for families.
The Buick Century is a mid-size car that has been a staple in the Buick lineup for many years, known for its comfort and smooth ride. It has evolved over the years to meet changing consumer preferences.
"...lack and it looked very much like a a rolls royce cullinan you know or bentley vintega um but what they sho..."
The Rolls-Royce Cullinan is a super fancy SUV that’s made for people who want the best of everything. It’s luxurious and can handle rough roads too.
The Rolls-Royce Cullinan is a luxury SUV that combines the brand's signature opulence with off-road capability. It is designed for those seeking the ultimate in luxury and performance.
"...sti um and uh you know they they discontinued the impreza wrx sti a couple years ago uh but it looks like it's com..."
The Subaru Impreza WRX STi is a super fast version of the regular Impreza car. It's built for people who love to drive quickly and enjoy racing.
The Subaru Impreza WRX STi is a high-performance version of the Impreza, known for its turbocharged engine and rally heritage. It is favored by enthusiasts for its speed and all-wheel-drive capabilities.
"...hink of the performance e sti it looks like a um brz or gr 86 or whatever you want to call it oh it do..."
The Subaru BRZ is a sporty two-door car that’s designed for people who love to drive. It’s fun to handle and is built to be light and quick.
The Subaru BRZ is a lightweight sports coupe known for its agile handling and rear-wheel-drive layout. It appeals to driving enthusiasts looking for an affordable yet fun-to-drive car.
"...u know it's actually a little bigger than the the wrx it's a big five door hatchback um you know it an..."
The Subaru WRX is a fast car that can handle well in different weather conditions because it has all-wheel drive. It's a favorite among people who enjoy racing or driving quickly.
The Subaru WRX is a high-performance version of the Subaru Impreza, known for its all-wheel-drive system and rally-inspired design. It is popular among car enthusiasts for its speed and handling capabilities.
"...of the subaru people uh this is not built on the solterra platform this is this is an e it's this electric ..."
The Subaru Solterra is a new electric SUV that can drive in all kinds of weather. It's made to be good for the environment while still being practical.
The Subaru Solterra is an all-electric SUV that represents Subaru's entry into the electric vehicle market. It is designed to offer the brand's signature all-wheel-drive capability in an eco-friendly package.
"...ers long so this this car is about the size of a genesis g80 wow um and when you see this thing you know when ..."
The Genesis G80 is a fancy car that feels very comfortable and has a lot of cool features. It's made by Hyundai and is meant to compete with other luxury brands.
The Genesis G80 is a luxury sedan that combines elegant design with advanced technology and a comfortable ride. It represents Hyundai's push into the luxury market, offering features typically found in more expensive brands.
"...ll our carbons that we've captured like like like ghost busters we got to catch all the carbons um yeah ..."
The Rolls-Royce Ghost is a super luxurious car that looks and feels amazing inside. It's made for people who want the best of the best when it comes to cars.
The Rolls-Royce Ghost is a luxury sedan that epitomizes elegance and performance, featuring a powerful engine and a meticulously crafted interior. It is aimed at those seeking the highest levels of luxury in their vehicle.
"... in his driveway with the truck plugged into his charger and powering his entire house you know pulling ab..."
The Dodge Charger is a big car that looks tough and can go really fast. It's popular with people who like powerful cars that have a lot of style.
The Dodge Charger is a full-size sedan known for its muscular styling and powerful engine options, including V8 variants. It has a strong following among those who appreciate performance and American muscle cars.
"about two kilowatts um roughly from the truck to power his whole house and uh you know two kilowatts you know for something like an f-150 lightning is nothing you know if you're if you're driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour in an f-150 uh it's"
The Ford F-150 Lightning is an electric truck that can do everything a regular F-150 can do, but it runs on electricity instead of gas. It can even power things like your home if needed.
The Ford F-150 Lightning is the electric version of the iconic F-150 pickup truck, offering impressive performance and innovative features such as vehicle-to-load capabilities. It represents Ford's commitment to electrification in the truck segment.
"... on the hot days we had she'll actually crank the air up knowing we're running off the truck and not f..."
The Lucid Air is a high-end electric car that can go very far on a single charge. It's made to be really nice inside and has a lot of tech features.
The Lucid Air is a luxury electric sedan that emphasizes performance, range, and advanced technology. It represents a new wave of electric vehicles aiming to compete with established luxury brands.
"... which is the great part about being on the front edge of this for Ford is how customers behave like ho..."
The Ford Edge is a medium-sized SUV that’s good for families. It has a lot of space and features that make it easy to drive and enjoy.
The Ford Edge is a midsize SUV that offers a comfortable ride and a range of technology features. It is designed for families and individuals looking for a versatile vehicle.
"...ke say here you know you get three to seven with DTS you know peak rates um and if you're running off ..."
The Cadillac DTS is a big, comfortable car that’s made for luxury driving. It has a lot of room inside and is smooth to ride in.
The Cadillac DTS is a full-size luxury sedan known for its spacious interior and smooth ride. It was designed to provide a comfortable driving experience and is often associated with traditional luxury.
Select text to request an explanation
This is episode 425 of wheel bearings. I am Sam of all salmon from telemetry and I am
Nicole Wakeland. Let's go car talk this week. And I am Roberto Baldwin from SAE International.
And as you this time usually we're only in two different time zones Eastern and Pacific
time in the US. This time we're in three different time zones as we were bragging is what's
happening. That's what's happening right now. I'm in Japan standard time which means
that it is 6 a.m. Japan time on Sunday November 2nd and I'm about eight hours away from heading
back to Haneda airport to head back to Detroit. Yeah. Japan all week. Yeah. All right. Yeah
it is. Yeah. So it's a free day. So hence I'm sitting here at six o'clock in the morning
recording a podcast. We should be very quick because being in Tokyo roaming around is far
more important than chatting with us. Exactly. You need to get back out there and explore
some while you're there Sam. Yeah. All right. So let's let's get started. Nicole what are you
been driving. So I had two I have two vehicles. So you're already messing it up Nicole. What I
know I'm going to be quick. I'm going to be quick. So I have the I had your time. I have the 25
Subaru four-ster wilderness like last week. So this is you know the Subaru's been doing a whole
bunch of the wilderness trim is their sort of more rugged trim which is kind of funny because
Subaru to begin with they're not they're pretty rugged to begin with you know they're the kind
of cars. It's more rugged. It's more rugged. It's got more rugged than the average Subaru
and it looks cool. It has like I forgot what the color is called. I'm going to call it orange
because that's the color of off-roading but they call it bronze. I didn't look up the exact way they
phrased it. I'm going to get mad at me. So it has those accents on it to let you know that it's
something special. And it was funny as I was driving to the airport in it I passed like myself
the exact same car the exact same color the exact same everything I was like hey neighbor.
So it's kind of fun. I like this. I mean I like Supers. I think Supers do a good job of being
exactly what they say they're going to be without anything extra. They're not overly fancy. They're
overly done. They're just these nice comfy rugged durable cars. You can put your dog inside. They
can run around their muddy pod prints. They're perfectly fine. You don't have to worry about it.
Like it's kind of harrowing out. Just take this one. It's not going to cause any problems.
So I had it has a 2.5 liter four cylinder engine in it. 180 horsepower, 178 pound-feet of torque.
It's not especially robust when it comes to acceleration but it has more than enough to
get out of its own way. I enjoyed driving it. We had some actually terrible windy rainy weather
that I was driving in on the highway which is sort of a weird test of a vehicle because you
think snow is rough weather but everybody kind of slows down in the snow and no one slows down
in the rain or at least they don't hear it's like they forget about it. It's not LA where the world
comes to a screeching halt. So people just like fly along and it can be a little disconcerting
sometimes because a lot of puddles like there are all these puddles on the highway that are like you
know just begging for you to hydroplane but it handled really really well. I was I was
impressed with how it did because I was driving to airport first thing in the morning on the day
there was pouring rain. It's got great cargo room 29.6 cubic feet behind the second row is 69.1
when you fold that down. So it's a great vehicle if you have you want that extra room and you want
all that space. They have for the infotainment it has an 11.6 inch screen on it with Subaru Starlink
multimedia system. I'm not a huge fan of their infotainment. I mean it works they all work right
let's say none of them don't work. I just don't find this one as intuitive and something about
the screen that looks a little bit I don't know the layout maybe or something about it always feels
like it's a little old even though that's a good side screen which should make it feel more new
somehow it feels a little bit dated to me although it works just fine. So overall I liked I like this
vehicle and it has 9.2 inches of ground clearance so you know again you can take it a little more
off-road than you would with other vehicles and what I like that for that like for me the reason
I want a vehicle with extra ground clearance is literally about snow and it's not like there's
9.2 inches of snow generally on the ground like driving but if you're in a neighborhood when they
plow as they're plowing their little pattern there's a moment where there's a berm of snow at
certain side streets that you have to get through or over or at the end of your driveway or at the
end of your driveway right and it's the the thing isn't about how good your sedan is or any kind of
low vehicle it's just begging for you to get stuck in that and having something with a little more
ground clearance gives you just a little bit better of a chance you're going to blast through
that snow berm and with winter like it's cold here right now it's I can feel winter is coming
and to think about having a car that I know is not as liable to get me stuck is a big deal I think
this way superiors are so popular in New England and again it's not like I know that it's supposed
to be an off-road thing and a capability thing I always look at that my first thought is how well
would I get through the snow bank at the end of my driveway you know so I so I like this I think
it's a good I think it's a good vehicle it is uh the wilderness is let's see we're sorry
wilderness um is 36815 uh want to guess on destination according to what I have when I
look this up and who knows if it's 1600 uh 1395 uh Sam wins it's 1420 is what I got when I was
looking things up I don't even care if it's right anymore because I feel like it changes and I can
look on the OEM site it's vaguely 1400 dollars uh so it's not crazy like yeah because we do hear
the next vehicle I drove it's not expensive that one is well it's not an American car so
bingo that's where all of this is going is so yeah so that's the super forest or wilderness
which I really like I've driven it before and I just think I think their wilderness is neat I
think they look good they add a little bit more pizzazz to the super vehicles with the extra accents
and ground clearance they have like all terrain tires and stuff so it's a nice upgrade for a
vehicle that is already great for driving in crummy conditions to begin with so that was one
vehicle I have the second one unsurprisingly um has a much higher uh destination charge because
not only is it an American car it's a truck so don't don't don't so I had the well my my
monroni is wrong uh so I had what I had was the 2026 ram 1500 in the big horn trim with the new
5.7 liter hemi v8 um my monroni says that I have a warlock that's not what I have I went out there
double checked I'm like it literally says big horn on the dashboard this is not correct
in a moment of confusion I was like I swear it's a big horn on the dashboard I go out and I look
I'm like yep shut the door so this one since we're talking about the differences in pricing
um this comes in at a price of and I was putting together so there could be extras online but
55620 dollars do you want to guess what the destination is on this puppy 23 uh well we've
we've talked about this at far too much like repeatedly over the last several months uh
so I know that if you get one right now I'm guessing that your monroni probably says 2095
I think uh but I know that right now if you go to the go to a ram dealer it will cost you
$2,595 you are correct and my monroni I didn't even look at it because I don't this is not the
vehicle I'm driving so now it's just a monroni for a different truck $600 all the all the full-sized
trucks and SUVs are now $2,600 yeah that's a lot right that's another car they've got multiple
times in the last six months yeah and the funny thing is you know we've we've been talking about
this delivery charge stuff for ages yeah and you know now all of a sudden in the last few weeks
you know everybody else is starting to catch on you know I just saw there was an article I think in
automotive news this week about you know rising delivery charges there was something else you
know there was a couple of other websites that had articles about this and of course
none of them cite us for you know for exposing the scandal the scandal of the destination
charge it's just insane you know we're trend setters if the people in the know they know to
listen to this podcast you know for a long time if um the New York Times would cite uh or wouldn't
any tech sites it would just say a tech blog it didn't matter if it was wired against moto they
weren't blogs it wouldn't there was no link to it like so they would take the news that someone
else broke and then said according to a tech blog and then write the article oh that's obnoxious
and well I think I think the the Times still has a policy of not linking out if I'm not mistaken
I don't think that they link out to others they should at least say who it came from
like this came from blah blah blah not like random site we're giving no credit for giving us our
news story the times any who so I have the I have the ram 1500 big horn which is a crew cab
four by four and it has a short bed on it first Robbie's making little like horns things on his head
so first thing is this thing sounds amazing things sounds fantastic it sounds that's the only reason
this version exists and you know what that enough that's it this is what you need to know pressing
the start button is the best part of your day okay that's it that's my whole room and it's all
downhill from there it's all right but it might be but this is really fun so it has the 5.7 liter
d8 engine which has um oh my god I just forgot 395 horsepower and 410 pound feet of torque
I was trying to figure out exactly what my head but I don't know but that's what I it's coming
up I guess I think I think just I know the 395 is right I think the 410 is right yeah the 410 here
we go so eight speed automatic transmission it is the exhaust note is just amazing everything
about this is amazing the exhaust the engine the sound of this it like okay so I parked it behind
Russ's car the one day by accident so when he got up before me and had to leave early he had to
move it and I was sound asleep and I remembered that I had put the truck behind his car because
all I hear was in the driveway at like 530 in the morning I'm like that sounds glorious like it just
sounds so good it's it is really fun to drive it it's just you know what this is why you have a
I know it has that and it has that little badge on the side where the symbol of protest
hemi fender badge the symbol of protest that's what they call it it is the official tim kiniscus
badge oh the tim kiniscus the kiniscus badge it is yes and they call it the symbol of protest and
it looks like a little engine with like a little little it's being relegated to mere six cylinder
engines with more power more more torque and better fuel efficiency stop with your logic Sam
it's this is amazing I you know I want to say this is really dumb and this is stupid and you
shouldn't do it and why did they do it and there's no reason to whatsoever and then you turn it on
and you hear it and you feel it and you drive it you're like this is why this is why there is
not a logic based purchase this is totally an emotional car and I would if I was buying a truck
I'm like yep the emotions would get me I'd be buying this one because it was just fun to drive
I also like that it's a short bed because again I drove it into the city again and the short bed
made it a little easier to maneuver in a parking garage because that long bed can be tough if you
end up with you know guy with long bed parked behind you and you're suddenly trying to back up
and like I have three feet like it's just like an 89 point turn to get out of the parking space
so I like how it handled it looks great inside I still think that Ram's interiors are fantastic
I think they consistently do a good job on them I think they look good I think they're comfortable
they look more premium I I've always loved their interiors and I think they're great
this has like that giant infotainment screen it is as I flip my paper around 12 inch infotainment
screen it's it's I mean it looks great there there's the the thing with it is this is pricey
it has a crazy destination and the fuel economy from what I have looked up is not great um
it is 1616 highway no sorry 16 city 20 highway 18 combined but the way it sounds people
forget about the fuel economy last week or earlier this week TFL truck posted a video
you know our buddy Andre picked up a new you know because they wanted they wanted to test
you know a relatively more affordable full-size pickup truck okay and so Andre went to Detroit
and he got a ram 1500 a new ram 1500 express I think with the the the hurricane engine the
the standard output hurricane three liter hurricane and he road trip that back from
Detroit back to Colorado where they're based and then you know did the fuel economy measurements
on a couple a few weeks ago they had a 26 2026 ram 1500 hemi which they also did their
fuel economy testing on and the they got like 18.1 or something like that with the hemi
with the the hurricane which has again more power more torque and cost less
he got 25 miles per gallon yeah yeah so it is objectively in every way a better a better engine
and yet and more affordable and yet mm-hmm yeah it doesn't have that sound of a hemi it doesn't
sound I told you this is not like there's not there the logic will leave you and here's what I
see happening a logical person goes into the dealership is like I don't want that I mean because
it's all these reasons not to and he goes drive it and he pushes a button and he goes
sold literally that's all it takes it just it sounds so darn good and it is really fun to drive
at a couple of truck people ask me about it like hey because you know what they notice they notice
the little symbol of protest the caniscus badge the Tim badge on there so you know people are excited
about it I think you know I'm not anti either engine is I'm saying how fun this is if this is
what you want get it like I've always been a yes a car has to fit your your needs a truck has to
fit your needs an SUV has to fit your needs but if it fits your needs and you like one that makes
no logical sense for a variety of reasons but it's in your budget makes you happy knock yourself out
buy the vehicle that makes you happy and if this makes you happy then buy it I really can't say
a reason like the logic part but in terms of driving in the experience it lives up to the
experience that you would expect it to have our little symbol of protest caniscus badge
truck should drive in look and sound exactly like this one does
okay that's it there's my summary of that one I have one waiting for me at Detroit metro airport
when I arrive back in 27 ish hours I think oh my goodness so we'll see it'll wake you up when
you get to the airport I'll jet lagged and you'll be awake yeah well I mean part part of the reason
that sounds like that you know they previously before they discontinued the hemi they had a
GT exhaust option that you could get with the hemi when they brought back the hemi they decided to
make that standard as they should really to really emphasize you know the only reason that people
wanted this was because of the way it sounds it sounds great you guys it sounds great it sounds great
I love it so hey Robbie I think she likes it I love this truck this is fun what do you love
I love it you're gonna take one and trade for your wagon air s oh my god so a listener actually
emailed me I should mention that when you said asking about the wagon air s and that they never
heard a resolution to it and I haven't talked about it a lot but I'll give you a quick update
so the resolution is there's still no resolution it's been in the dealership now this is this
particular stint it is about to start week five that it has been sitting there and so there will
be a resolution to this guys I'm not ignoring it or not trying to tell you what's going on
I'm just waiting until there is something to say about what's going on so that's my update
deep sigh I love how that thing looks I'm sad
oh well whoop whoop whoop whoop mm-hmm mm-hmm yeah
Robbie yo we've been driving so I went out to the desert uh to the dude which desert
the I don't know my hobby desert that's south side of Las Vegas south side of center barondino
you know the california desert it's in california even though they flew us to Las Vegas it's two
hour drive into california that drives these and anyway um I went out there to to drive a car
to the it's the doomont dunes is what's called and it's an OHV area you can take your off-road or
most people are there with their side-by-sides and maybe some motorcycles or some quads
and when I got there that's people were there it's middle of the week but you know these dunes are
huge it's beautiful it's wonderful like oh what am I gonna run you know you probably think what
was it gonna drive there what am I gonna drive out in the middle of the doomont the doomont dunes
well I drove the uh the um 2027 uh mercedes-benz glc well let's say it's like an obvious
choice to drive in the doomont dunes the electric the electric glc the glc 400 formatic with eq
technology it's got an ecu so you can get your levels correct in your music um that's not what
it is but you you definitely want to make sure you have your car equalized you got to have
especially if you're gonna go out in the dunes especially if you're gonna have to go up into
the dunes so yeah it was um it was very interesting because I expected them you know well we're gonna
drive on some like pretty you know chill rolling hills now they had us go up on like the sides of
things so the really difficult parts they had uh drivers doing that because they didn't want us
rolling the cars I'm assuming um and so I was looking at the the the pitch and it was like 25
percent which doesn't seem like a lot until you're in a car that's a lot actually that's a lot and
you're looking out the side window and look at the side where everyone lean into the mountain
everyone lean into the mountain uh and it did fine and then they gave us the keys and we did some
some a little less uh extreme but still uh in the dunes and I it was it was very impressive uh you
know and this is you know a part of you know EV powertrains you know it's it's it's it's four
you know it's an all-wheel-drive vehicle you know each wheel is controlled um based on like you know
millisecond decisions like oh this wheel this wheel spinning oh this wheel spinning no this
wheel spinning oh this one's spinning this one's spinning this one and so when you talk about torque
factory a lot of sort of gas not sort of gas a lot of gas powered vehicles when they do torque
factory what they do is they apply the brake and so there is a very uh hilarious uh video of a
bronco in the dunes um on car and driver I believe where you can see the rear brake is just red hot
it's just oh wow yeah from far away because it's you know kids kids constantly
applying the brakes so now you don't have brakes so I'm assuming they got some pretty
nasty brake fade on uh on that uh with the EV with the glc you don't have that and what was
interesting is you know we're down to about bum this you know sort of giant you know hill
that we're going up and down on and these folks show up in their side by sides in their quads
and the guy's like what is happening they were like they were just flabbergasted because when I got
there it was there was a uh there was a gmsuv that had decided to get close to the dunes and it
immediately got stuck and Mercedes had to go and tow them out that's awesome with the glc
with the glc yeah so um yeah no it was it was uh incredibly impressive of what we could do with
this vehicle um typically my first drive or really any first drive is I'm going to get into this
vehicle and we're gonna you know here's the route we drive along the route we have a driver
partner with us halfway through the route we swap we drive some more we talk about all the
things we hate in the world we drive we drive we drive we get back right you know you're making
notes you're like okay well they drove like this and you know and handles like this blah blah
this was completely out of left field of yeah I I'm still writing this um because it's either
this is not a typical drive first drive program it is completely bonkers and weird and really really
fun um and yeah uh I mean let me tell you just the regular old bits about the uh the the important
bits about the the glc the electric version is actually a little bit longer than the gas version
so you get a little bit more space um they don't have a price yet um it has a 94 where is that
number 94 kilowatt hour usable battery pack and it has 483 horsepower 596 pound feet of torque
it now this is uh on I'm sorry on Mercedes new um electrical architecture which means no more
400 volt no more 400 volt Mercedes Benz 800 volt like a proper EV uh it charges it up to 330 kilowatts
so haza so that's a nice um AC charging up to 94 kilowatts so then it feels like you know Mercedes
uh you know everyone's come out 400 and you know key and Hyundai came out with 800 and so it's sort
of made the luxury brands Mercedes BMW look sort of old it felt like they were already laggards
laggards yes um they were falling behind already when the the Koreans were like oh here here you
got here's an 800 you know kilowatt hour uh vehicle so going 800 I'm sorry 800 volt vehicle um so going
800 volt is uh extremely it's a little late if you're a luxury brand I think they were sort of
waiting and hoping uh while you know I don't think they expected Hyundai and Kia to just be like boom
800 forget the so I'm very happy it looks nicer than the other EQs you know the the EQS you know
that looked a little bulbous didn't have a rear seat that these had a you know nice seating it was
comfortable again I drove it on dunes so there's really I don't have a lot of like frame reference
I'm like what's it like driving on the road I can tell you what it's like when you put in sand mode
and go and do you know and drift it in around corners again and again and what's what you don't
think about when you're riding on dudes is that as you're drifting you're putting you know huge
giant whoopedie do's in the road and then when you then you have to drive over those to do so
it was like it was fine um the uh they're estimated zero to 60 time right now for this vehicle is
4.4 seconds which is fine I guess it's probably more than needs to be um and what else do we need
to know I think that's kind of it to be honest um yeah it's comfortable it's uh it's got the new um
eek wait mbos sorry the new Mercedes Benz OS which seems nice um you know their Mercedes been working
on their next generation of EV it looks like they've they've delivered on you know what they're
working on again I have was driving it on dunes we had like about 20 to 30 minutes of actual drive
time with these vehicles but on dunes so I did get it I did get stuck for for a second because
I was talking to them and and I wasn't thinking about um my momentum and they're like oh wait
momentum I'm like oh no and then it kind of stopped and then I I was able to get it out because
yeah because that's that's I don't know I've been doing a lot of off-road driving when I was a kid
um but uh yeah no I'm I'm a big fan of it on dunes we don't have for those of you who are just
driving on dunes go for it yeah and and it doesn't it doesn't arrive into dealerships until late
2026 so we're like a year out from this vehicle and they're like hey we're gonna lower you know oh
also when you're driving on on sand and stuff you gotta lower the uh the air pressure in your vehicle
so yeah they definitely lower the air pressure in the tires for the for this they didn't go you
know because anyway were you running on regular street tires or all-terrain tires
oh my gosh they were just like
no they were just I was like looking I'm like oh these are just the regular tires that come with
this car cool yeah no it was uh everything about it was like this shouldn't work at all like not at
all so this is not a four-motor vehicle right nope that's two motors one in the front one in the
back yeah so they can't use the electric motors to do the torque vectoring which means they must
be using the brakes to do the torque vector so why wouldn't this have the same why wouldn't this have
the same you know issue of cooking the brakes they told me they wasn't using the brakes
okay do they have like clutches in the differential to
it was very yeah okay yeah yeah it was it was uh yeah they're like we're not using brakes for
torque vectoring I'm like wow they're like yeah and then I told them a story about the
it's got a two-speed transmission which is uh interesting you know like the uh the
taikon if you you know remember taikon had this two-speed transmission um so yeah so I think they're
I am I think this vehicle is overshadowed by the Neue class at IAA um but driving it I'm like oh
okay yeah yeah you know what you're doing over here so uh yeah it'll be interesting once it'll
be a lot uh I'll have a more rounded idea of this vehicle once I'm able to drive it on the road
but if you live anywhere like inclement weather or you live on the you know Arrakis um and you
have to like Arrakis you have to listen I have made sure that I have not made any dune references
in my article I am why you should make a dune reference in the article Arrakis you know
yeah I see you know what I think that's what the podcast here Robbie Robbie's trying to be creative
he doesn't want to do the obvious thing yeah the obvious thing is lazy well what about Tatooine
could you work that in there that's less obvious it's not called Dune Desert Planet that's Tatooine
is also lazy it's very lazy yeah you get a really yeah sorry okay fine fine whatever that's what the
podcast is for okay so you know here in Tokyo in Tokyo this week they also had both the ix3 on
display and Mercedes had the the new glc on display and I think there's one very important element
that you're overlooking that you have not mentioned about the Mercedes versus the ix3
dun dun dun and it that's oh yeah I can just move the vents you can't do that on an ix3
just regular only has digital vents uh well like Mercedes wins but Mercedes wins by default
Mercedes wins I can I can I can drive around uh you know the mad max wastelands and I can
adjust the ac so it's right in the face it's funny how much the digital vents literally like I that
it drives me bonkers enough when I'm in a car it is literally a deal breaker for me I'm touching
the vents constantly in my car people say that I'm like you don't touch the vents that much and I
think am I the weirdo I move mine constantly depending on you are the sun is hitting my face
like the sun's in your face I want the vent in my face suddenly the sun goes behind a cloud I don't
want the ac vent in my face and I I am more more aware of how often I use the vents because of the
digital vent situation because you go to reach for you're like could so uh so what you're saying
is this was really a plot by designers to make us appreciate what we had because we were we were
getting complacent about vets yeah and so now now we appreciate vents again yeah mm-hmm very
appreciate vents it's like on a rack is from all the water went away and now you have to appreciate
too well done Robbie that well done Robbie bringing that back again there you go bringing it full
I've read that book in a long oh the movies are out I forgot I'm like I haven't read that book a long
time oh yeah the movies I I never did manage to read that book you know I tried multiple times
and I don't think I ever got past about page 20
no I read the first one I thought I thought I thought I read the first one oh I like the first one
but it took me a lot of tries like I started it and didn't finish and started different I'm like no
dang it I should read this entire thing and I did but I I'm not a great story but I'm not a fan of
his writing style I know he's like that's that's the issue it's his writing style that I cannot
deal with we don't have to worry about anymore he's dead so his son kept writing additional
books after he died though all right I never had anything past Dune oh yeah my mom had all of them
my mom had all the dunes I guess until the sun started writing I don't know what happened after
that uh but yeah she had them all gotta do them all there you go doing it and doing it and doing it
well uh all right in the in the comments tell us which dune you like the david lyncher the uh new one
it's become a dune discussion oh what was it we were talking about did you did we did you talk
about the DLC my brain just went to a different thing the guy who we were talking about him going
to the like how long bill did you finish that conversation last week or do we we did bills
bill bill is just it's just uses logic to do this whereas I'm just like I'm gonna go on a trip I better
drink like all the liquids I can find in my house and then I love that he sent us I just have to say
because I know you guys are what I love that he sent us like a lengthy email like addressing the
situation so it's my turn to say good job bill I appreciate that so okay sorry side I still believe
in the bill challenge where we make someone we make people drink a 32 ounce to drink and then
draw and then see how long they can drive a highly caffeinated 32 ounce drink yeah like either like
like a like an espresso it has to be coffee or drinking or you know just a 32 ounce mountain
dew you know or you can still find some jolt cola or something jolt they still make jolt cola I
don't think they do I think it's illegal do they still make jolt I don't know or maybe 32 ounces
a red bull oh my gosh that's too much we're gonna everyone's gonna have a heart attack I don't want
to do that that brain's gonna explode we're gonna kill all our listeners do not do not drink 32 ounces
a red bull no that's just joking as someone who drinks red bull every day don't do that that's an
excess of the amount of red bull they do still make jolt cola it's been relaunched as a modern
energy drink uh it became available this year it became available this year I
oh maybe I'll bring back four loco too while they're out here I mean you know just saying if
you want your jolt cola it's out there apparently you're ready to party four locos here for you
all right good anything else on your 25 minutes with the uh glc uh it was comfortable um the new
steering wheel is nice um it's got a selfie and a video camera I didn't try that out because that
was too busy cruising in circles sports a car playing apple auto if any idea how much it's gonna
cost nope it's a tba so who knows
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I had I had the uh 2026 Kia Sportage X pro prestige all wheel drive
so Sportage got got a mid-cycle refresh this year which you know as as is the trend these days
you know had to make it look a little more trial at the times exactly I wore a more
an onion on my belt as with the style at the time
so you know they had to had to make it look a little more truck like than before you know
so more upright bigger more upright grill you know a little more squared off in the front
because you know you have to you know be able to go up against you know drivers of super duties and
Silverado eat HDs and RAM HDs you know in your Sportage
you know it's you know the refresh is fine I I actually thought it better before but you know
it is what it is you know it's it's a matter of style um you know I you know and it's fine
you know this is really it's not it's wow clearly it's not he's like
it's not my favorite it's like someone's gonna take you to a nice steakhouse and
instead they took you to Sizzler that's what it feels like right now yeah so I got it's fine
it was yeah this is yeah this is in the same size class you know the the upper compact crossover
class is the highest volume segment in the US market now and has been for for the last several
years so you know we always hear about you know full-size trucks being the the biggest selling
name plates you know the f-series being the biggest selling name plates and you know that's
true up to a point in that they are you know those are those individual models selling huge numbers
but there's only four entries in that segment you know in the compact crossover segment
there's about 300 different vehicles that you can choose from just in the US along or at least
it seems that way you know and you know the top seller talked about last week you know the Toyota
RAV4 sold 475,000 units last year which is more than the f-150 you know so Kia's entry in this
segment is the the Sportage goes up against the RAV4 the Honda CR-V you know the Nissan Rogue
and many others and it's it's a good vehicle you know the last you know several generations of
the Sportage you know have have all been have been good good options to to go with
the was it last year I think or the year before they added the X-Pro trim level so you know again
as is the style you know Kia had to add an off-roading variant you know so this is this is
their answer to the to the likes of the you know uh what is it the RAV4 woodland or the Forester
what the hell was the wilderness the Forester wilderness
yeah yeah and you know as as is the case with pretty much all of these with the exception of
the Forester wilderness you know it's really more about the visuals than it is about you know
real-world actual you know off-road functionality so you get you know some off-roading looking tires
you know it's got some all-terrain tires you know but it doesn't really have you know any of what
you would actually want you know in a true off-roader things like you know ground clearance or skid plates
you know things like that you know to to give you true off-road capabilities
so you know in this case here see how much was the ground clearance I think the the ground yeah
the ground clearance on this one is 8.3 inches which is actually not bad it's it's better than a
lot of them it's right in the ballpark with you know RAV4 and CRV clearly you know not up to snuff
against the Forester you know but this is you know the X-Pro is for people who want to look
what they kind of might someday go off-road without ever actually going off-road so you know
you're going to have you know an inch less ground clearance in those those hardcore you know winter
weather conditions you know when you've got you know nine ten inches of snow or you know you've
had six inches of snow and you have cleared your driveway and then two hours later the plows come
through your neighborhood and they create a 12 inch berm at the end of your driveway and and you
know this is a berm made up of not just you know the the drive powdery snow that that you cleared
with your shovel or your snow blower but because it's a snow plow that plowed it there you know
now it's you know hard packed compressed icy slushy berm you know that you know now you've
got to go out there with you know you know typical snow blower is not going to be able to cut through
that you know you've got to go out there with a hardcore shovel maybe a pickaxe you know break it
up and shovel it out of the way so you can get out of your driveway and you know with 8.3 inches
of ground clearance you're probably not even going to be able to you know just plow right through it
because you know if you try to do that that that hard packed icy snow berm is just going to shatter
the the plastic front fascia because you know you don't have metal on the front there um
just having said all that you know it's it's a good vehicle you know this is the kind of vehicle
the majority of americans are driving today you know so it's a it's a nice roomy five passenger
vehicle with a decent amount of cargo space it is it comes with a 2.5 liter four cylinder
naturally aspirated engine an 8 speed automatic transmission which is you know got an adequate
amount of power you know it's 187 horsepower 178 pound-feet of torque which is this you know fine
it's what it's exactly you know as much as most people ever really need but after you know I hop
out of our our family Kia EV6 with dual motors and 320 horsepower and jump into this you know all
of a sudden it feels kind of slow you know that's every that's most gas cars after you jump out of
vehicle it's like oh man where did all that responsiveness go but you know if you're driving
this on a daily basis you're going to be fine you're not you're not going to have any complaints
about this it's rated at 23 miles per gallon city 26 highway I and 24 combined I got about 25
uh during my time driving it and let's see um the only options I had you know the base price
of the expo prestige is 30 39 590 mine had the wolf gray paint with the black roof
um the cargo mats the carpet floor mats and a cargo cover um and the grand total
came to 40 660 dollars uh guesses on the inland freight and handling as Kia labels it on their
minroni 1200 free 1200 I'll go uh 13 Nicole gets it it's 1395 man I'm losing all over the place
today yeah I need the I need the clarity of just waking up that's the problem we're we're recording
right now it's like two in the afternoon for me so I'm like I'm completely off kilter yeah I'm off
you know the other thing they changed with the the mid-cycle refresh as they went to
the same kind of dual 12.3 inch panoramic display that Kia has on a lot of their vehicles now
so it looks like one big sheet of black glass when it's off that's sitting on top of your dashboard
when you fire it up you've got two 12 at 12.3 inch displays in there it does have an updated version
of the Kia Hyundai infotainment system so the interface has been updated a little bit
it's still it's still pretty easy to use you know it works well it's responsive enough
you know it didn't have any issues with connectivity or you know no crashing no lagging
it just works it's pretty simple it's got wireless android auto and apple carplay
there's a wireless charging pad at the front of the console so it's got all the stuff that you expect
all the amenities you expect in a modern vehicle and it works it works well it's a good vehicle
you know you've got a lot of options in this segment and you know most of them work largely
the same you know there's you know there's for the most part there's not huge differences
among these in terms of performance and it basically comes down to which one do you like the
looks of the best and you know if you like the the looks of the the sportage or sportage
then you know then this this is one to put on your shopping list you know if you want something
that looks a little less you know a little less angular you know chiseled than the new
rap4 you know this this is one that you might want to consider or you know if you want a little
different look you know you can there's the Hyundai Tucson which is the same it's basically the same
vehicle with a different look but same powertrain and i think you can also get this with uh with
a hybrid you can get the i don't know if you can get the x pro as a hybrid but you can get the
sportage with a hybrid or a plug in hybrid option as well so i like that all right yeah
so that that is the the 2026 Kia Sportage x pro prestige all-wheel drive
all right let's talk about what what happened this week let's see
uh we already mentioned uh the uh destination charges and that everyone else is noticing this
automotive news we'll have a link in the show notes if you want to check it out you know they
they wrote about what we've been talking about for ages no that's true you know what
i'm not going to link to them because they didn't link to us they didn't they didn't
reference that we've been talking about this for ages so take that automotive news take that
yeah this is going to this is going to cripple them
cripple this is done no no we're going to read automotive news again no um all right uh so
back somewhere in the past in the when uh tesla added the full self-driving mode on top of their
top of their enhanced autopilot variations on their cars at one at one point they had you
know they've got different modes that you can choose from in terms of the aggressiveness of the
system and you know elan being elan had to include a mad max mode in there uh and it went away for
for a while but it came back recently uh they you know in a recent software update they added
the mad max mode back in there which makes the makes the fsd drive more aggressively
including you know doing things like ignoring speed limits uh which to be honest i'm not sure
that even without mad max mode that it ever you know did a great job of following speed limits
anyway uh but but you know uh it does a bunch of things and so the national highway traffic safety
administration has decided to investigate the mad max mode on tesla fsd um yeah you know if you
have a tesla you know fine um you know if you're going to use fsd um you know remember despite the
name not really fully self-driving or it's certainly not unsupervised yeah you have to keep your eyes
on the road be ready to take control you're still in charge yes you are very much in charge
um you know please you know follow the rules of the road be safe out there um you know because we
know that we know that tesla's rebo taxis running the same software not so much uh you know they
they already reported three crashes to nitsa in austin you know from just their very small fleet
vehicles um and and they have uh safety observers in there with a kill switch
that are supposed to be ready to take control or you know to shut off the system at any moment
and uh you know we have no idea how many times they have disengaged uh fsd uh since uh since they
launched their supposed rebo taxi service back in june so you know be careful out there if you're
you know if you're in a tesla and if you're not in a tesla but you see one near near you
you know keep your eyes open make sure it doesn't swerve into you especially you know if you're
driving a police vehicle make you know make sure it doesn't run into you they love just they're like
magnets to tesla those emergency vehicles i don't know what to do i've had a few teslas sort of like
riding the lane like riding the the edge of the lane like on the edge of the lane yeah i'm like
what is this person doing i don't know if it's the person driving i wasn't really i didn't want to
die so i didn't like let's go let me look over here and do i mean let me investigate while i'm driving
but yeah i've had a couple teslas like right i'm like what is happening what's this why is this
person driving like this oh maybe um that's this anac that's anecdotal evidence everyone that doesn't
mean that's not real that's just me driving around wondering what's wrong with people what's your problem
all right um let's let's talk about the japan mobility show uh you know unlike auto show
wait wait wait did you go to japan uh nobility show nicole no i did not i didn't go who went
i didn't go who's there who's there now i was here i went lucky i'm i'm so lucky i know he is lucky
all right it lots of japanese food this week
yeah and uh you know so this is the show formerly known as the tokyo motor show
you know takes place every other year odd numbered years so i was here in 2023
back here again this year thanks to honda they brought a whole bunch of us over here for the
show and then to go to meet with their ceo uh mibe san uh a couple days ago and then also uh to go
to tochigi to drive some some stuff that i'm not allowed to talk about yet we'll talk about that next
week um but uh there was you know again unlike most north american shows uh there was participation
from all the major japanese automakers here uh as well as booths from Mercedes Benz
bmw uh from byd they were here um there was trucks and there was buses and all and motorcycles
lots of motorcycles uh one thing that was interesting to see hydrogen powered motorcycles
calisthen a hydrogen okay go ahead sorry hydrogen motorcycle that's freaky
yeah calisaki had this wild looking hydrogen motorcycle you know internal combustion
engine so it's not a fuel cell but running on hydrogen sozuki yamaha also had a hydrogen motorcycle
so yeah that was that was pretty interesting but lots of lots of concept vehicles here
uh and let's let's start with honda um you know we've seen the the honda zero series
as well as the actor rsx that are coming um and those are hondas you know honda you know has been
selling uh some evs built by gm uh for the last uh year and a half two years um and uh one of
those the actor zdx has already been discontinued uh because honda has been developing their own
new ev platform uh we saw the prototypes of those at ces uh last january uh the honda zero suv
and the honda zero saloon um and those cars were here those those vehicles were on display here
in tokyo uh but they showed another one uh called the honda zero alpha um and this one looks very
much like the honda zero suv that we're going to get in the us next year um but it's a completely
different car it's still it's still an ev um but it's not destined for the us market it is uh targeted
at japan and india in fact it's going to be produced in india in 2027 um so it's um
that even though it looks a lot like the honda zero suv it's a little bit smaller not a lot
smaller it's kind of like the zero suv is about the size of the crv and the zero alpha is closer
to the size of an hrv at least the us market hrv uh maybe a little bit bigger than the hrv um
but uh a lot of the most most interesting technologies that are going to be in the
the north american evs things like their new zonal electrical architecture their asomo os software
platform they're that's not going to be on this car because they're targeting again targeting the
indian market um so they're cost reducing it going to have different batteries they they're still
finalizing some stuff with the batteries so we don't really have any specifications on this
we don't have a lot of detail um but we did learn you know it's going to have more ground clearance
different suspension setup to deal with indian roads uh compared to the the one for north america
but uh you know hopefully what they do is they take some of the things that they learned from
doing this one and bring some more affordable evs to north america because the the zero suv
and the zero saloon probably going to be more a little more high end uh you know i think the
zero suv is probably going to cost similar to the prologue so you know in the 50 to $60,000
range what what do you think of the zero alpha listen i think we i still think we need less
expensive evs on the road period in the united states um i know why if you're thinking if you're
a company and you're like oh i would like to bring an index you know especially for not an america
company like i would like to bring an inexpensive ev to the us uh it's kind of a bad time uh inexpensive
vehicles have a slimmer profit margin than say a luxury vehicle so you're not going to make much
money you know you're you're going to sell a lot of these like oh but now we've added tariffs on
there and you know the tariffs are going to change from week to week to you know depending on whatever
the hell's on television whatever um so as a as an as an auto maker like i i get it when you know
key is like yeah we're not bringing that ev over that you know the ev over here when you know i get
it when you know you're you're like well why would i bring the zero alpha over over the united states
when we're again you know these these high volume but inexpensive vehicles don't have the profit
margin the luxury vehicle do and if you're like well they're doing everything to to get like at
least half the country not to want to buy an ev for whatever i'm still not a hundred percent
sure of the reason um and then we're going to throw just like crazy tariff chaos and everything
as a company like well why would i do this here's a bunch of here's here's another here's some more
CRVs made of gas there you go just you're right it's it's it's given the complications of bringing
car over here and what they have over here and what sells over here it's really cool and i'd
love to see some of these things but it you can understand why it doesn't make sense yeah it's
again did the yeah and just move to japan yeah and that you know i i certainly wouldn't advocate
you know for honda to bring the zero alpha you know from india to the us um it's about
even issues around or yeah or even even to bring you know that particular even to build that vehicle
in the us you know because it looks so much like the zero suv you know and it's not that much smaller
you know that and if you put this into a honda showroom next to the zero suv you know people
are gonna look in and say um okay why is this one fifteen or twenty thousand dollars less than this
one explain to me why i should buy the expensive one versus this one um and you know that's that's
not what i you know what i advocated for when i spoke to honda people this week um but rather
you know take what you're doing you know in terms of cost reduction and do you know do a
different vehicle build it in the us you know with some of the the lower cost systems uh you know
and have have a more affordable ev based on the same technology as you're putting into the zero
alpha but just you know give it a different look you know not not every ev car yeah not every ev
needs to have like mid to luxury you know bells and whistles in it that's the thing that's weird
what they did with that you know you're right robby like the way they they went that way with a lot
of you know i buy a honda fit i'm not expecting all these crazy features in there i shouldn't
expect all those crazy features in there if there's an inexpensive ev i should expect like how i get in
it's got like you know 12 inch screen or you know a tiny screen that i can you know maybe the
navigation works maybe it doesn't i just plug my phone into it that's it i drive around i do the
thing it doesn't have you know i don't have lane keeping assist and after we're you know
maybe i have adaptive cruise control but that's about it like i don't need you like that's like
just keep cramming this this is the thing when you know when uh the slate ceo is like they just
keep throwing thing all this technology and then making you pay for it where you don't use the
technology like she is very much on point about that like they're just here's a bunch of technology
so now this car costs ten thousand dollars more than it would if it didn't have all this stuff in it
why why am i paying all this money for all this stuff i don't need the stuff i don't use the stuff
people don't use the stuff they don't want the stuff give us less stuff is what i want less stuff
please less stuff so i can save money so i can buy more tokens that's you're you're sounding
positively un-american there robby i know i we don't need all the stuff being american is all
about having more stuff not less stuff but you can have more stuff that's just not the car stuff
you can you can go out and buy stuff with the money you save from not getting the stuff in the car
so you're getting more and the other stuff you want both stuff so you get the car and then all the
stuff and then all the stuff inside we we are we are i believe supposed to have all the stuff
that's true all of it all the stuff we're the best we're the best at having all the stuff
even though yeah we're else anyway that's even when we can't afford it
yeah that's my that's the problem that's my rant is like i don't need all that's and this is again
this is why i i'm so drawn to the slate because it doesn't have any stuff all the stuff's gone
you just want an ev it's essentially it's essentially just a body a motor a battery some
wheels and a steering wheel go away take it here here you want to take parts off it yeah whatever
you want to buy some parts put on yeah yeah just here here you want a screen you got a phone stop
whining get out of here go to the store pick up some mulch go to the store pick up some mulch
or some topsoil you know if you don't need mulch you need some topsoil get a few bags of topsoil
you know get get a vegetable garden going yeah all right uh so you know the the other thing
that honda uh highlighted is uh the the super one uh which is another car that uh we are not ever
going to see in the u.s at least not for 25 years until you know once they're 25 years old
you know so i'll be put 85 you know when when we can import this thing but you know i think it
might might just be perfect uh you know when i'm 85 uh but we'll you know i'll talk more about the
super one next week um the uh let's see toyota uh toyota had the entire south hall of tokyo big
site which is the convention center where they do the the show um and they had four booths within
within this you know four four different brands uh they had uh and you know they basically the first
hour of the media day was toyota group uh with four press conferences in a row starting with
toyota uh and then going to daihatsu uh which used to be able to get into u.s but not anymore uh and
then lexus and finally century so let's start with toyota the the big thing from toyota was uh
this new corolla concept um did he have you looked at this thing i woke up
started working looked on the old internet saw the new corolla and i was like well shoot i've
got to buy a new corolla now i guess it does look good right it's kind of cool looking
it is it is slick it's it's an interesting design how close is it gonna look see how many
do a concept i want to know how close is the concept to reality is it like
not at all or is it like yeah guys are just gonna make a few tweaks it's hard it's hard to tell
you know toyota you know sometimes they do stuff that is you know that translates to production
and sometimes they don't uh which we'll talk more about in a minute um i think the general shape
of this you know and the design direction that we see you know this so this this corolla you
know it's a four-door compact four-door sedan um you know i think that this is the the general
design direction i think it's going to be the production version is going to be toned down
a fair bit but i think that this is the overall direction that they're taking with it you know
so it's it's pretty sleek it's got a very low hood in the front um you know one of the i think
one of the interesting details to me is you know the belt line which you know really sweeps down
in the front so the front doors um you know the the the front edge of the belt line is down quite
low um which is actually great for visibility uh you know really helps you know when you're looking
up to the corners um you know and i i i think we'll see a lot of this in the next generation
corolla which is probably we'll probably see this you know production version uh sometime later
next year i'm guessing for you know for 2027 um you know the what what we probably won't see
is the interior of this car the interior is wild the linter is always like a thing that's never
going to happen yeah it's always like here's a seat that like you know three people can
are comfortable in and there's nothing else in here and the steering wheel is made out of
corn or something and the steering wheel is made out of corn so you know one one of the key elements
of the interior is this center pedestal you know so instead of a traditional console you've got this
pedestal that's got like a platform that's angled you know down towards the back and the gear the
shift selector the transmission selector instead of a a knob or like a rocker or something like that
you know or a lever is a clear plastic thing that looks is shaped just like the car itself
and it goes when when you when you grab it to put to put it in drive you're grabbing a miniature
version of the car that you're sitting in so you're like a child playing with hot wheels
are dream countries hot wheels it works i support the i support hot wheels uh shaped uh
gear gear selectors i like it if i think it's silly but it's fun the problem is that child is
going to get in the car and shove it in reverse because like hot wheels there you go they'll probably
be able to shove it in neutral not probably not in the reverse but you'll be driving all
what's going on it's exactly the kind of thing you want to do in a concept and it's exactly what
you know that will never make it to production no i wish it would it would be fun that would be
nice but toy didn't talk at all about what might power this thing except to say you know uh well
they didn't talk about you know what's powering this particular concept which you know means it
probably is not powered by anything uh it probably you know it because we certainly didn't see it
drive on to the stage or anything it was just there and it pulled the silk off of it um but you
know what what they did say when i talked to folks from toyotas that you know the corolla is
you know going to follow toyotas multi pathway approach um you know with different different
powertrain options uh which means that most likely um you know they'll do what they've
done with rap4 it'll be a standard hybrid maybe a plug-in hybrid option and there will be an
electric option as well it looks really good it really does look good yeah yeah i i hope they
i hope they preserve a lot of this for for the production model at least the exterior
i would love to see the interior stay but you know it's not gonna i would love that
not gonna happen not gonna happen definitely not um okay they uh move over to lexus so recently
lexus announced uh you know an ls final edition uh you know so the current generation ls which
was you know the ls was the that when they launched lexus in 1989 the first car they launched was the
ls 400 the you know sedan you know which at the time you know that one looked a lot like
a mercedes benz s class of the era um you know and you know the ls has evolved over time but
it's always been a four-door sedan well going forward that will no longer be the case it appears
so they they had two different concepts both badged as ls uh one was uh called the ls coop
and the other one was just lexus ls concept uh which was this wild luxury van what even is this
these look like vans from the movie dune oh both of these look perfectly look at them they're
these are from the these are from dune so that's our theme dune arachis
sorry everyone so i mean you know we we've talked a bit about you know these luxury van
you know we talked about faraday x remember you know that earlier this year they launched their
they announced their their luxury van
yeah you know and these kinds of these kinds of vans are actually quite popular uh in asia
particularly here in japan in korea and especially in china you know so you know here in in japan you
know toyota has the alfard uh and then they have the lexus lm you know so you know these are uh
you know often used you know as chauffeur driven vehicles you know so they're very luxurious inside
very roomy um and um this is kind of taking that idea to the next level
but it has six wheels it's got two very large wheels in the front and even i was so
i didn't even catch the wheels i was like oh you didn't see the little tiny
i literally was so taken by the design i missed the fact that it has six wheels that's how weird
it is you need all that traction for the oh my god look in there if you look at the the
the they they're they don't have any tread just like a sand what is this this is this is wow these
these these these renders here don't really show the tread but the the the physical model that was
on the stage uh did what did you think of the physical model that was on the stage well first
as i was looking at this thing i was i'm walking around and looking at it from different angles
um i would not call this a pretty beautiful vehicle you know the the outgoing elis sedan
i think is a very attractive car i think it's a really good looking large sedan i would not
look at the wheels but as i was looking at the wheels i realized why they why they did that
and i and i talked to one of the designers and got confirmation that so the reason why it's got
the four wheels in the back is the four wheels you know this is not like uh like um you know
some of those six by six mercedes g wagons uh the you know you see out there you know where
you get press releases about the same size wheels stupid cars all the time like here's the new six
by six marmar marmar many like oh my god delete yeah so so these four these four rear wheels are
you know rather small uh at least compared to the ones in the in the front and and then i realized
why you know when you when you have a van you know if you if you look in the back of a van
if you put the put the seats down or move the seats around you'll see that the the wheel wells
you know intrude into that volume you've got this big spacious volume in there and then the wheel
wells stick into that well by using four smaller wheels they don't really stick into the volume
anymore so you maximize the interior space which is the whole point of this thing uh you know smart
okay we we have no idea what this thing might be powered by you know it might be electric it might
be hybrid who knows but um you know those those four those four smaller wheels in the back are
entirely intended to just minimize the intrusion into the passenger volume and because you know
this is it again this is a vehicle that is for the the owners you know it's it's more a vehicle to
be driven in than a vehicle to drive um and so you want to really optimize that interior volume
provide as much room for those people riding in the back as you possibly can so it's uh it's something
and then there is the uh the cross from that uh there was the lexus ls coop concept
which uh is something else entirely different uh zaford or tall riding coop it's kind of
imagine you know the toy to crown but take into a new level
it looks like it's ready for sand i'm just yeah it could be you're not wrong you know if a Mercedes
glc can do it so it can be a lexus ls coop concept can do it it does with those big beefy wheels and
the tires and the and the clearance looks high yeah that's a clearance there's a lot of clearance
on that you might not want this particular set of wheels and tires you know because they're pretty
low profile you might want like a smaller set of wheels and tires with more sidewall you know so
that when you let you know when you air them down they're you know you can actually still something
there yeah like the suicide doors those are cool yeah you know that's a typical concept thing
you know designers like to put suicide because they can open it all up and you can see the whole
thing wow yeah um but what what do you think of the overall look i think it's kind of cool
it looks cool i don't know who's gonna buy it it looks very rough and ready it's like it looks
you know it's like it looks like it should be a Subaru concept is what it looks like
it should be like an STI side of it it's on because it wants to be sleek like that little
is so and then it's like like you can't decide like it's it's like the mullet of cars it's like
but it's like party on the top business party on the bottom yeah like it's business in the front
top like it's a little sleek and then it's like yeah look at this it's a car mullet
well the the impression i got from talking to people at lexus is that this is probably
something like this is probably the direction we're going to see them go with their their next
generation flagship vehicle i do like it i don't know that we'll see anything like the the van
but i think we will see something roughly like this in the next couple of years from what about
this little teeny thing that you skip by what is this it's just called the lexus ls micro concept
you want to talk about dune this looks like the thing that like they just have that one big guy
come out of that's his own little cavern his own little portable thing like the like did you see
car yeah yeah it's like a little it looks like a little like a credit card that you sit in it's
really tiring it's it's a single-seater mobility pod uh but very luxurious pod yeah this is very
much the emperor's pod he just as long as the emperor is not too broad-shouldered or you know uh
you know you would you know henry the eighth would probably not be uh real happy in this thing
because it is other slim doubt yeah i don't know it does look like a throne in there the way this
is set up it is literally a throne it is very much like a throne i kind of want this one i want a car
and the way i feel like i'm a queen the way it opens up is pretty wild so you know when you look at
it when it's closed you know from from the the front you know it's like if you look at it from
the side it's a rectangle and there's you know square fairings around the front wheels
and uh you know if you're looking at it from the the left side of the vehicle
you know the upper left corner you know it's basically like a black triangle you know glass
triangle um that kind of cuts across this rectangle and that whole triangle slides upwards uh up up
and back and the the the front glass surface flips up and then the the lower portion of the body
work flips down so you have like a ramp and you have one seat in there and there's you know
it's beautiful inside you know you got these this wood you know lots of wood lining in there
and leather and everything uh and the seat will slide forwards and then you just gently step up
out of the seat and step down that ramp this is so ridiculous i love this thing this is there's
not a practical thing about the square wheels that would do great in the winter imagine that in a
snow bank it's just done but i love how this this is so ridiculous that i love it yeah it it is
absurd i mean it is yeah back in the day you know when it when this was the tokyo motor show
you know japanese automakers would make some of the wildest concepts and this is the kind
of thing that you would see you know in the 1990s or early 2000s tokyo motor show just
something totally off the wall um and yeah it's it's cool they're never gonna build it uh i don't
think but it's you'll never get it but yeah i just think it's wild yeah all right and then
after they were done with lexus uh you know took a few minute pause and they had the uh the century
press conference and this is the one where uh chairman akyo toyota uh finally came out and he
spoke and he talked about the history of the toyota century uh you know the the backstory you know
when it was the original century was created you know by his his father or his grandfather i can't
remember now uh and you know they're they're they're they're uh you know the um head of engineering
and design um you know and century has always been you know toyota's flagship you know just it's
only ever been sold in japan you know big v12 engine uh you know and uh it's you know it's kind
of a you know serious luxury car um and more recently you know they expanded the century from
from just the uh the sedan uh they've added an suv a century suv and the one that they had on display
there was painted in matte black and it looked very much like a a rolls royce cullinan you know
or bentley vintega um but what they showed the concept that the century concept that they showed
well what what they announced is that century is being split off into its own um sub brand you
know so now you're gonna have toyota and lexus and above lexus is going to be century and century
is going to expand beyond uh the japanese market um starting primarily targeting asia whether we
ever see it in north america or even europe uh is undecided at this point but it's uh you know
that the concept that they showed and i don't even have a link to it here why don't it's a good
looking no it's i just googled and found a link and it's actually we got google on our computer
yeah we got this sam um it looks really cool that color it makes me think of the um
who's doing magma is that genesis with her magma line somehow the color makes me think of that it's
this very orangey red it's really cool looking ember it's it's ember yes ember it's really cool looking
so yeah so it's this it's this two door um actually no four four door because there's
all sliding doors uh big high riding luxury coop you know the overall profile of this thing
is you know kind of rolls Royce uh the uh you know kind of dawn or specter kind of profile but taller
you know hot sit you know it's like the lex like the ls coop you know it's it's looks like it's ready
to go off-road so you know this is the kind of thing that you know maybe you sell to extremely
wealthy people in the middle east uh you know to go off in the dunes in in the middle east
and uh yeah it's a three-seater so there's one front seat and then you know that's kind of
separated from the two back seats and then uh the you know and this one you know because it's
japan it's right hand drive the left rear seat you know can also slide forward and then tilt
outwards to make it easier to get in and out of the car the uh you know it the the doors
on either side split it comes out from the body splits and slides forward and back
so sliding doors it's it's a pretty wild looking concept and the you know the the paint
I mean it just it it's amazing yeah it's really good looking it really stands out yeah it is very
cool and you know the the the logo for century is a phoenix you know because part of the original
idea was century you know when they created the original toy of the century you know in the the
post-war era you know it was kind of the phoenix rising from the ashes of post-war japan and so
you know we will probably see something like this produced and sold uh again in in a couple of years
I mean interesting uh it doesn't seem like something that makes sense to bring here but
who knows maybe they will but it is century has never sold in huge numbers anyway
all right yeah and they're you know they're targeting you know mercedes bet or you know more
mybok and bentley and rolls rois with this thing so you know they're they're not looking to sell
tens of thousands of very many yeah yeah it's really low volume this is more you know in the
hundreds to low thousands uh at most globally well okay sure
all right well robby you you mentioned subaru uh yeah and so let's let's go to let's move to subaru
subaru had two concepts on display the performance b concept and the performance or performance b
sti and the performance e sti um and uh you know they they discontinued the impreza wrx sti a couple
years ago uh but it looks like it's coming back in the performance e or the performance b i should
say uh you know so and and to bring them back the hatchback so you got a wrx hatchback with a
giant wing and big you know turbocharged engine in there and big flared fenders i mean it is and
it's it's also got a manual transmission whoo that looks good yeah it looks very fun these actually
all they have a bunch of fun concepts in here look at wilderness concept even the wilderness like all
prototype and an outback wilderness prototype look oh yeah look at the outback wilderness
prototype that looks like yeah they've got that one all rigged up with some saddlebags on the side
and a roof rack like wrap under that oh it's very cool that i'm pretty sure they'll build um and the
performance b sti uh you know they're they're not saying anything specifically but i think the fact
that they're that they built this and showed it uh you know they're bringing they're bringing that
back i mean subaru hardcore subaru fan performance fans have been clamoring for this car and i'm
pretty sure it'll be back probably next year they'll be very excited what do you think of the
performance e sti it looks like a um brz or gr 86 or whatever you want to call it oh it does a
little bit you're right the brz 86 it's like a brz the brz 86 a little bit but this this is this is
a lot bigger uh you know it's actually a little bigger than the the wrx it's a big five door
hatchback um you know it and the the one they had on the show floor you know the i'll have links to
some photos uh in the show notes and but you know this one was finished you know it's in the same
subaru classic performance blue you know they had on their rally cars for years and years and
you know it was always kind of the color of wrx and sti but it was in a matte version of that
and uh this thing looks stunning uh you know i was talking to uh one of the subaru people uh this
is not built on the solterra platform this is this is an e it's this electric uh and it's a
completely in-house subaru developed platform uh so this is uh you know they're not you know
they're not committing to anything but i wouldn't be surprised to see them build something like this
in a few years time and i mean it looks fantastic i mean it looks it looks cool it's i mean subaru
doesn't i mean they have money from i mean mostly they work with toyota so um so but they're not like
you know a huge company but they do really well in this country and and you know they have the
market that loves subaru loves subaru that's the thing with subaru people people subaru people
love their subarus like i'm on my second subaru and i'm like wow wow it'd be cool if we had another
cool subaru coming out yeah right well there's definitely cool subarus i mean that that performance
b sti i mean that's that one i think is definitely coming and uh i think i think the e will be coming
at some point as well yeah it'll be fun um all right and then mazda mazda had a couple of concepts
as well and um they the two mazda concepts were uh were real interesting um you know one was a little
b segment car so kind of a mazda two sized car um and that one it uh
yeah that one basically had no uh no kind of infotainment interface on it uh it's all voice
controlled uh i don't know if we'll see something like that you know it's you know using an ai chat
bot that is not coming here yeah well it's not coming anyway but but i i do think that you know
that the uh the vision x compact which is that one i think you know that one will probably be built
for overseas markets um you know where you know they they appreciate small cars um you know and it's
you know it's got the you know the koto design language um but uh it uh it's it's good i like i
like the design uh you know not not that's crazy about the interior and then there was the vision x
concept which is a whole different beast um this is a five door coupe it's five meters long so this
this car is about the size of a genesis g80 wow um and when you see this thing you know when you
look at the lines you know like the shape of the side glass and everything you look at it in profile
it looks like they took a current mazda three hatchback and stretched this thing out by about
two feet and squished it down a little bit made it wider um and you know longer hood and it looks
fantastic uh when you see it um and it has you know because it's because it's mazda you know
it's got a rotary engine in it it's a it's a turbocharged two rotor wankle rotary plug in hybrid
yeah we're gonna get that rotary engine any day now uh 100 miles of electric range 500 miles total
um you know they you know they say you know it's designed to run on biofuel derived from micro algae
and it has a metal carbon capture system on it so in the exhaust system the exhaust
goes through uh this thing that uh it's filled with uh something called zeolite that absorbs
the co2 from the exhaust gas flowing over it and then there's a pair of electric compressors that
then take that co2 and put it into a storage tank in the car and the way the system is intended to
work is you know that storage tank is is removable so it's kind of like uh you know when you get a
propane tank exchange and in reverse so you know you take normally you would take your empty propane
tank you know to wherever you know where they've got the blue rhino or you know whatever brand
swap it out exchange it for for for a full one um and you you pay way too much for the propane
because they only give you 15 pounds of propane whereas if you just take it to some place that
just sells propane and take your empty tank there you pay like half as much and get more propane
yeah whole other story um but we're dropping propane knowledge on y'all folks just like king
of the hill right yeah yeah been watching been watching too much king of the hill um anyway
the the idea here is that uh you know when you stop at the fuel station you slide this tank out
the full tank and you change it with an empty tank and put that in there to collect your co2
until the next time you you fill up um and then those tanks can then be taken off somewhere and
the the co2 used for industrial applications or perhaps you know taken to a facility where they're
growing micro algae to make biofuel and used to feed the algae um you know or you know put
into a large-scale carbon capture system it's an interesting idea um i was talking to
head of strategy from masda about this and i asked you know so how much of the co2 from the
exhaust stream is captured so they're targetting about 20 percent so it's about a 20 percent reduction
and there are two emissions let's just talk about how carbon capture is essentially a scam
anyway so why don't we put it on the car look up just do some research about carbon capture folks
it's not it is a yeah well you know the other thing is you know to do this make it a hybrid how
about that how about get rid of 40 percent of the co2 and make it a hybrid you you would have to
well it's already a plug-in hybrid so you've already done that and you're running it on
biofuel algae biofuel well how that means hold on i gotta pull up to the ocean get some algae biofuels
uh you know in order to do this you would have to have uh you know uh an infrastructure setup
so all the fueling stations would have to have you know this you know this setup you know for
exchanging the uh the co2 tanks you know to store the co2 tanks and give you empty ones um and really
to make it commercially viable everybody would have you know every automaker would have to do this
yeah if it's just masda it's it's a it's a concept car we you know yeah making it's
making fun of making fun of the ridiculousness of a concept car is it yeah i don't know why
i'm getting so angry about carbon capture i just the fact that people are like hey how about carbon
cut no um but yeah it's it's what do you think of the design of the car oh it looks cool it looks
it looks it looks almost like a wagon whichever yeah it's got a really long hood i guess for capturing
carbon i guess this is where we put all our carbons that we've captured like like like ghost
busters we got to catch all the carbons um yeah i mean automakers always you know with these you
know this you know the wheels are made out of you know reclaimed i don't know chicken bones and the
the the motor runs on you know unicorn farts and you know all you know concept cars always have
some crazy ideas which is cool because you're like oh we're kind of thinking about something in the
future but especially when it comes to like powertrain stuff and and it's it's typically a little like
yeah it's it's just like you know designers had some fun and the engineers will talk again like oh
we can you know i i read a thing about a thing let's just make it just say it does that like it
doesn't have to do many of these things because it doesn't it's it's a it's a model it's you know
once i was on autoshow like really late and they were moving the mini the first the mini electric
the first one and they had a remote control like it was a giant remote control car
they were like and only went like three miles an hour at tops and then we're trying to get it off
the stage like so yeah they're not none of these are real cars but they look cool um it's frankly
i still like the little the little tiny compact but you know america america can't have nice things
i think a lot about the amount of kids you're riding uh e-bikes now like are they gonna grow up
and be like why would i buy anything that runs on gas like they're already used to plugging in
their stuff at night and they're already used to the instant torque of all that like and now
they're buying like little electric motorcycles everywhere i wonder what i wonder what happens
with them when they get old enough to like buy a car do they just like i'm getting a gas car
or do they like why would i get this when i can get something that has instant torque and just a
torque yeah all right well that's that's it for tokyo next week i'll talk about
the stuff i drove at hondas tachigi proving grounds before before i left for japan i did
go over to ryan o gorman's house last friday ryan o gorman is a director
uh i can't remember exactly what his title is he's at ford yeah ford energy ford yeah
and so uh we uh he got a demo of ford home power management so you remember when the
lightning came out they had this pretty slick home backup power system that i guess a few
hundred people have purchased you know so it allows you to connect your your lightning to your car
or to your house and when the power goes out it'll automatically switch over and power your
whole house off of the battery and your lightning um well you know that's that was you know that's
kind of an insurance policy um and you know for when your power goes out uh and you know you might
use it you know a couple times a year or you might never end up using it um so you know ford's been
looking at okay how can we make this system uh more useful to customers uh you know and actually
kind of make it pay for itself and so they came up with um home power management which uses the
exact same hardware it's just a software update to it uh that what it what is designed to do is look
at um you know you're if you're on time of use rates with your local utility
during the the times when you're on peak uh rates your peak power rates uh
your your your the what it'll do is it will if your vehicle's plugged in it will automatically
start powering your house off the vehicle um up to whatever maximum power the the vehicle can output
and that there's if you have demand that goes beyond that you know it can still take power from
the grid but it's blending it uh and then when you go to off peak rates then it recharges the
battery back up again and you know people really overestimate how much electricity they actually
use in their house compared to how much electricity your vehicle uses um so it doesn't typically
doesn't actually take that much power or that much energy from your your vehicle battery uh
and it's it's a pretty slick system and especially if you live somewhere where you have very expensive
electricity like to California like my house my house is like five by five and I just pay like
a thousand dollars a month or something no I don't pay that much and it's bigger this this could
this could actually potentially save you quite a bit of money um you know the challenge of course
with systems like this has always been what they call the interconnect to the grid you know to to
make this work with the grid because you you know in order to have a system like this where your
house is still connected to the grid but you're mostly taking power from the vehicle um you know
you have to demonstrate to the utility that you know you got clean power coming out of the vehicle
and that frequency matched with the frequency of the power from the grid because you know
alternating current um and there's a bunch of other requirements uh and then you know the the
next step beyond this is you know actual you know feeding power back into the grid uh you know if
there's too much demand on the grid uh and so right now they're testing this uh here and testing
this in Michigan they've got 15 forward employees that live in different places and you know different
kinds of houses uh different different setups and they're testing it with DTE energy uh they've
also been testing it in Baltimore with Baltimore Gas and Electric um and they started that test
in 2024 and ran that for about six months in 2024 again same thing you know with primarily just
blending and now this year it with uh in Baltimore they're the utility like the system so much that
they're actually testing you know feeding power back into the grid you know and having the the
consumers you know get credit or get paid for the power they're feeding into the grid you know
basically turning their their vehicle into a virtual power plant um and uh possibly sometime in
2026 uh you know start to see you know as they as they get approval from various utilities
start to see some general availability rollout of this um it's it's a pretty pretty cool system
and uh I you know I spent about 40 minutes sitting in Ryan's truck parked in his driveway
with the truck plugged into his charger and powering his entire house you know pulling about
about two kilowatts um roughly from the truck to power his whole house and uh you know
two kilowatts you know for something like an f-150 lightning is nothing
you know if you're if you're driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour in an f-150 uh it's
going to be pulling probably about 15 or 20 kilowatts just to move the truck so you know
it's barely a dent and you know from the the the testing that they've done you know uh you know
they found that this has no real impact on the the lifespan of the battery the durability of the
battery so we've got a recording of the conversation I had with Ryan which I will tack on at the end
here give it a listen uh some interesting stuff in there um and uh I think that's it for this week
that is it anything else no I think we're done nope all right well thanks everybody
we will talk to you all next time bye bye
and you can start wherever you like um while I think I can start kind of from the beginning
a bit so we when we launched the f-150 um we introduced intelligent backup power
and now it's called um home backup power uh and basically um you know we have the charger
and we're obviously putting energy into the vehicle with ac power and then we we drew customer
research and things we learned there's an opportunity here and the opportunity is to
take the same resource that customers already own sits in their driveway and is at rest 22 hours a
day right uh and give them access to the power they already own so we we took the dc pins so if
you look at our charge um plug we have dc and ac in the same right couple are fully populated
take the dc pins out you can pull them through the charger and then there's an inverter on
the back of the house there the gray box sticking out and in the top we take the 400 volt energy
you get off the vehicle convert that to 240 usage for the house so we have a dc dc converter that then
is converted to the ac and we put the ac into your main panel yeah and then we have what's called
so this is our forward charge station pro it's our adm charger and then we have what's called
the home integration system the home integration system composes to get the transfer switch and
the martin berger yeah so you have the inverter transfer switch and a dark start battery which
basically powers out so you have to communicate so there's a battery that does that and so yeah
it'll read the powers out um and then it communicates there's a series of um communications between the
the units and then once it's confirmed the power is out the energy is ready the truck's ready
we dispatch the power into the house and it back feeds the panel which is now isolated from the
grid uh so um i know when when the system first came out and i saw some stories you know a couple
people that had the system um like what's her name now i can't remember now she was out in
Oregon um she's got a youtube channel but there were you know some reports that when when the power
you know power stopped um it took quite a while for it to actually start and you know it was a
little flaky sometimes yeah there's there's about um 45 seconds to a minute and then there are various
interferences and things it was a new product nascent market at the time so obviously we had
some growing pains but we've worked the majority of those out but yeah it's not quite as um uh
like some people want to switch on immediately and it takes it can take a minute it'll try a few
times if it's struggling to get started but yeah if it will um you know it's generally about a minute
minute and a half okay so when you have once it once it identifies the power is out because you
have to remember the you have to disconnect from the grid first confirm the disconnection
then you have to communicate with the truck so if your truck's gone to sleep or anything like that
it's not like uh wake it up yeah you got to wake it up and it's not like a generator you just flip
it on because you want to do it responsibly and you can't just export power without knowing where
it's showing right so there's a communication between the charge station the inverter and the
vehicle and is that going through the the communications pins on the ccs connector yep
to wake up the truck yeah so we wake up the truck that way we actually communicate wirelessly with
the charge station so there's a wireless communication between that to do the operation
but we can wake up the truck by kind of pulsing the the the communication protocol okay
so that's how that generally works and then um what we're what we're introducing now is
home power management so same system um the difference is uh you don't have to isolate
from the grid now so obviously in order to do that you have to have like to to to do home backup power
we had a filing in michigan that we cooperated with the major utilities in michigan and that
allows us to do home backup power without an interconnection it sounds like you're you're
familiar with interconnection or a little bit okay so think of interconnection is if i want to put
an addition on my house i have to get a permit i'm sure i'm following all the rules yeah right and
my grade is right and my foundation set properly so an interconnection means that the utility
company recognizes your technology responsibly interacts with their power ending our power is
frequency matched its quality um it's not disruptive uh things like that so in order to
do that now that you're interacting with the grid you need to match the power that the grid's
providing because it's coming into your house and you're meeting it if something goes wrong
there's a problem and then would be true if you just do the solar install on your own
stationary storage anything like that that interacts with the grid while the grid's live
yes you have definitely an interconnection so with an interconnection you have to basically
work with the utility company to make sure they're comfortable with the way your technology
works from from transitions to power levels to activation um and you're responsible and obviously
ford wants to do that so we've been working with utilities across the country to introduce
home power management and in doing so we've achieved interconnection with with several
utilities and what that now means is when when we want to run grid tied like we're doing right now
so like right now if i pull up my dte app you can see dte seeing from my house it'll be about 100
200 so they're seeing about 200 watts flowing from from this truck through the house zapped into the
grid so that's what the grid's providing my house okay i'm actually using 2.2 kilowatts okay so it's
only seeing so it's like a land watch so all total your house is using about 2.5 kilowatts 2.4
which is coming from this truck right now that's right okay so it's basically coming from the truck
you have you can see this bounces around a little bit the energy in my house is probably fluctuating
yeah refrigerators cycling yeah you get cycling so this is like a buffer because we don't if this
buffer weren't here when it were to drop we'd be sending energy back to the grid okay exporting
we're not allowed to export and that's part of the responsibility of the interconnection we have to
validate that our process is going to work in this way where we're powering we're prioritizing the house
power from the truck okay and then we're managing any fluctuations from so you're able to blend in
the power from the truck battery uh up to the point of up to the what that can offer yeah okay
but you can't you can't send it out from the house back to the grid yeah to be inter there's
there's two types of there's definitely millions of types of interconnection but our interconnection
is zero export right okay now we are in baltimore right now doing a next phase so in baltimore um
with baltimore gas and electric we had three customers last year who were the pilot introduction
of home power management so we gave them home power management from i think it was june through
september four months and they ran for four months with baltimore and there's just three
customers and they did this they were powering their house zero export so you need to validate
that the system was working well if everything works good we're kind of demonstrating how cool
this is and then this year they were so so excited with how successful it was like and then we've
been slowly rolling out to other markets since then with home power management but um now they're
doing export so we have the same three customers same systems did some software update and now they
can export so this summer they went to june to september and they powered their house for the
two plus kilowatts that they needed and then the rest went back to the grid so they're putting
seven to eight kilowatts back into the grid oh okay and so the way the the kind of benefits of
that work is when i do this the general way it's set up is it runs off of a time of use schedule
if you remember the time you so my time you use schedule is actually 11 to 7 we flipped my schedule
so we could do this before 11 but so my schedule is 11 to 7 so what typically happened is overnight
once it gets past 7 p.m my truck would start charging and once it would charge yeah once it
would charge then the next day at 11 p.m if it's plugged in it would start discharging the house
take my house off the grid okay and so what i'm doing is i'm saving eight cents from here to here
so every kilowatt that i'm using charging and then discharging in the house i saved eight cents
now we're michigan not quite as dramatic of the market to say texas or arizona or california
they might have rates that are 30 40 50 as much as 70 cents delta right so you can imagine if i live
in southern california and it's a super peak they call it a super peak period i might be charging
really low cost like 20 cents and i might be paying 70 cents for peak now i'm not paying 70 cents
i'm paying 20 cents anytime my truck's there so that's one advantage and then with this v the g
thing we're doing with export and baltimore you're actually figuratively selling that energy back to
the grid so they're going to pay you an incentive or pay you a unit of energy fee and you get that
benefit so is is that utility in baltimore are they actually doing that now have you figured out the
the financing model for that to to provide some there some form of revenue whether it's a credit
on your bill or whatever it might be for those customers yeah those customers are given a benefit
for an incentive and they're capped at a thousand dollars okay so they i think last year they there's
one customer made over that and so they put a cap but you know we're that that industry
still navigating the value of it significant value because they otherwise have to turn on
like a peaker plant right right and then the thing that is is additional to that that's harder to
kind of calculate and i'm not sure you know it's not our job to do that so we don't necessarily
understand it but you've got a transformer back over here and then you've got a substation
i can go put a commercial sized battery in for utility at the plant to buffer peak and load and
things like that it doesn't handle the distribution network so if i've got everybody cranking the
air conditioner and this transformer has blown three times since we've lived here in 13 years
if i had three neighbors like my two neighbors like myself doing this that's no problem anymore
because not only taking the load off the transformer taking the load off the transform and if i could
export i'm powering those three houses too or four houses right so now the local distribution
network i forget the exact terminology for but that that local circuit here in your neighborhood
you can be you would be feeding the potentially be feeding the power back to that network but not
the main grid through the transformers lower okay yeah and you could you could back feed and you
know if everybody had you could back feed all the way to main grid so that's up to the utility
company how that's managed the nice part is now that you have these resources kind of at the
distributive level you can you can have this like at my house just disappeared from the grid right
now right like they don't see my house they maybe like where'd where'd that house go you know that
they having power worked on in their house but you know this is this is quite a bit of power
and so it's it's interesting that you know the way these demand response programs if you're from
the way they worked in the past was it might change your degrees in your house with your
thermostat three degrees right that's like moving the needle like this this makes the house disappear
i i we found ourselves now that this is an opportunity not me but my wife will actually
on the hot days we had she'll actually crank the air up knowing we're running off the truck
and not feel guilty about it yeah so i don't know if our like net savings on her bill is quite there
but the logic of it is definitely still but even if you're not necessarily you know the situation
like you just described if you're not necessarily saving any significant money yourself you are taking
that load off the grid you're able to take advantage of that air conditioning you know on those hot
this summer was particularly hot we had long stretches yeah heat and humidity and you know
so you're taking that load off the grid so that's less probably a little bit less probability
that you know you're gonna have an outage for everybody exactly and i think i think there's
the independence of it like i'm running off my energy right i bought this energy and i'm using
the way i want to use it which is kind of cool the other cool part is yes i'm powering my i'm
shifting your energy i'm time shifting i like what like we did with vcrs and dvr exactly yeah i mean
you you have the opera that's a great analogy and then the other thing that i like is i don't think
of it as the grid as much as my neighbors so like we've had events where they're like hey we need you
to reduce energy it doesn't happen as much here but in texas where my parents are actually here
right now from houston um they'll actually tell them to turn on their natural gas generators
because the grid's so tight well now you would be running your house and you can look across
street or neighbor and say you're good you can run your air conditioner because i'm not my air
conditioner is not online my house isn't online my truck's not using the grid right now you're good
right so it's almost like yeah it helps the grid but i think of it as this feel good moment and um
you know i did have a conversation with the neighbor once and um i i had that conversation
i was like well my house is off the grid right now so you're welcome you know it's like you can
run your air conditioner because our transformer is no longer enough low because of this opportunity so
i think as this scales to market um it's going to be really interesting to see the impacts and you
know you're you're describing you know some of southern states where you you have periods of very
high uh peak rates super peak electricity rates you know now you start to see the economics of
this because obviously the system is not inexpensive you know both for the the hardware and the very
cost of installation and especially i think probably for your house you know because you've
got a detached garage it was probably quite a bit more i did the trenching myself for you
yeah yeah save the bus there so uh you know now when you you start to add up that uh you know for
a scenario like that where you've got those very high rates now you know you start to see the actual
payback it's not just the the convenience of you know when you have a power outage you've still got
power but now you can actually get a real uh financial payback on that investment you've
made in this in the system yeah it's it's a bit like an insurance policy paying you right because
you buy the backup system for your insurance right so that your freezer doesn't go your
pipes don't freeze whatever and that's that's at a cost competitive level with a full house
backup system right so you kind of break even there on the backup but yeah now your truck
can be sitting in the driveway working for you and either saving you money making you money
you know being reliance for the grid all those types of things so yeah it's it's imagine if your
insurance company paid you money you know because you've had something work a certain way and it's
pretty cool it's um it's neat on the savings level because you don't do anything like that's
that's the weird part about it you plug in just like you always do you drive like you always do
and when your vehicle's home and I've had the question where well what if the vehicle's not
home it's like what causes peak it's when everybody gets home you know it's like the peak period
matches your behavior for the most part they can do that are doing the yeah your kids come in turn
the computers on tv's you know everything's happening your your air conditioner goes up because
everybody's coming home so yeah you're you're kind of timed really like nicely with that so
with that perspective you don't change anything like this just is natural fit for the usage of
the product but it's also cool that you drive your truck maybe two hours a day at the most like me
it's an hour and a half and then the rest of time you didn't do anything with it previously now
it's working for me for hours and evening right and that's why I'm on the 11 seven because anytime
I'm home because I'll still work from home once a week and sometimes I'll leave the truck home
like we had a few hot days it took my wife's car and it's like you know there's there's a bunch of
different kind of tradeoffs here that are really interesting one thing that we're going to learn
which is the great part about being on the front edge of this for Ford is how customers behave
like how do they change their behavior what do they do differently what do they like about it what
is what are you know and so like what we're seeing with you know um the gentleman's name is he's
been public in Baltimore his name's Brian Brian changed some of his behavior like he he got home
he wanted his truck always running that peak period to keep his house lower cost and he
he really gamed the system and exercised and it was like wow this is cool and then we had one of
the other three customers who just lived normally he didn't change his life before and after and
had savings as well so it's really interesting to see the um adoption of this mentally because some
people just don't even think about energy right because you only have one energy company to pull
from now you have an option yeah now that they have that option they want to like take advantage of
you've got a multi-modal energy system you do yeah so you know one of the one of the concerns
you know with any type bi-directional vg vdh type of system you know for a long time has been the
effect on the vehicle battery because now you're you're potentially cycling the battery a lot more
than you would be just riding uh so the number of charge cycles you charge and discharge cycles
you're going through have yeah I assume you know Ford has looked at some of that um and you know
you've you've done testing to see you know how much real impact it actually is there on the battery
how much does it potentially reduce the lifespan of the battery or or does it have any you know
maybe depending on how you're cycling and how you're managing it you know what what maximum
state of charge and discharge uh you're using you know maybe actually healthier for the batter
great questions so what I'll start with is I think the first is the comprehension of um
how much this is using like a lot of people will think oh I can't do that because I need
to use my car every day yeah I think that's people overestimate how much power they actually
totally overestimate so on a normal day that like during a peak period or whatever you're
going to probably use six miles per hour like per hour of using your truck at six miles so
this morning just for this demo um I took screenshot and I was at 261 miles at seven
o'clock this is when my kids get up coffee toaster oven microwave you know my daughter was
actually doing some finishing up on her homework and computer they had the tv on so this was seven
o'clock and I did screenshot at eight o'clock two fifty nine so in one hour with and you have
that morning peak when this all happens so one hour we had a space heater going one hour we
okay so when you put that in context of driving down the road and things like that so that's the
first kind of thing is the awareness of does it does it actually use the battery does it actually
yes it does but it's probably not the expectation people would think they might think oh I'm going
to use like half my battery every day no it's about six miles on a normal regular usage day I
use two on a you know non-air conditionary whatever so so you figure if it's about six your peak
period usually four or five hours so you're talking 20 to 30 miles in a day right now we have a team
within for that's working on managing that managing the battery optimization and battery
health and things like that the big tell from Ford is we're not changing the warranty if you do this
okay so we're giving you the same standard warranty and we're giving you the ability to do this every
day so the expectation will be you know through everything we know that we are containing the
warranty don't worry we've got your back we're not going to put any burden or viability on so
you're using this 365 days a year you know doing you know like say here you know you get three to
seven with DTS you know peak rates um and if you're running off your vehicle for those four hours
every day 365 days a year your battery your battery warranty is the same okay you get to the end of
battery warranty and we got your back okay don't worry about it so yeah we anticipate that and again
you know you you did ask the question about benefits those are the types of things that
our team's looking at we do do optimization so we're making sure that what we're doing is in the
most responsible way possible and most beneficial to the consumer but yeah I mean you know I had my
last f150 for three years and I didn't have any issues and we didn't do home power management yet
but I was obviously doing simulations of backup power all the time because I was part of a working
group that worked on that so now doing this though like I said you know it's it's I think this is
the part that's kind of insightful for me is the amount of energy you're actually using is not
the anticipation that people might think it could be and I'm on the 11 to 7 just because it's you
know a much longer period of time I've got eight hours a day and so I can exercise it much more
frequently so I'm trying to live the customer experience and see what's happening so so with
the the home energy management um you can you would you would how would that work do you set
the schedule in the Ford pass app or something that's that's the time when if the car's plugged in
it's going to start drawing power from from the vehicle um to power your house yeah so you would
go into Ford's app okay and you have your vehicle location you have energy is that in the Ford pass
app or is it an app or app for this we also have an energy app that shows you it'll probably log me
out because it does an auto log out um but we also have an energy app so this will show you the um
the what's happening with your vehicle as well and it gives you a view of your schedule like I said
my schedule is special today because I'm 11 to 7 we had to pull it ahead but that's that's how we
would do it for DT too as if DT has an event and they wanted to occur we'd send the information
down to the vehicle so you can see my my vehicle is running basically all day kind of just turned
on the whole time but it's powering the house right now and it'll go from 6 to 9 59 p.m as my
my period so you would put your schedule in um we have a a flow or an experience where you can
select your utility in your plan or you can just put the hours in whatever's easiest for you um we
can also make an estimate right like are you like if you live in Michigan you have no idea 99% chance
you're on the base plan right so we would just apply that so um those types of experiences are what
we're doing and then yes we just would map to that to you um that rate plan that you're on
and then what we're doing with DT in a pilot is working to receive signals we have 15 Ford
employees that are trialing this right now kind of first of its kind we've done the home power
management where you just follow the schedule now we're going to do DT he's going to say hey
tomorrow at 2 to 4 or you know right now we need you to do something different we will be able to
dispatch those 15 vehicles in that way so yeah there's the the either schedule kind of set schedule
and the schedule changes three years throughout the year you've got holidays you've got weekends
you know you get seasonal variation so the system does all that for the customer you don't have to
think we'll come straight from the utility to your account that sets automatically just we
know what the plans are we know what plan you're on if you don't know we do the default and then
yeah we just manage to those plans and we know what the plan does over time then we pay attention
to the utilities and if they change the plan we're going to adapt that for you as well um so it's
all automated it's all just kind of no-brainer easy to do and then the other part of it is if you
sign up for the kind of program with the utility which 15 of us are are trialing right now they'll
send something to Ford saying hey this is what we want over the next period and Ford will adapt
your schedule and download it to the truck and then you'll you'll see your schedule the same way I
was looking at mine here you don't see it right now but there'd be blue sections typically where
it's going to charge um so you see the you'd see the schedule so you know what's going to happen
and you can always override it you want to charge or you don't want to transfer whatever you can
always do an override okay so and then um yeah for the only if you need to go somewhere during the
time when it's powering the house you know when the log you want to go come back log back in it
will start up again okay um the one so that that's the advantage of having the blended system where
you've got power coming from multiple sources it starts taken from the grid and then it takes
from the truck when the truck's here and you can see I have my range reserved set to 10 miles
which is really low I think that's the lowest way you have um and that's just because I
no I I know better I'm not worried that this is gonna be a problem but some people may say to
like 200 miles and say you came home and eat your 200 miles it's not going to use the the truck
because you want that 200 miles so we do have controls for the customer they're in full control
the whole time but they don't have to think about it the only thing they think about it is if they're
ever at a point where they are at risk and I have come home less than 10 miles to empty before so
um but not not in a situation where it would be powering or not charging so it's usually
night when I'm get back from dropping a kid at college or something like that but yeah okay so
in terms of availability of this now is this generally available to DTE customers at this
point or is it still we're working with DTE right now to make it available we've um brought it to
nine states okay um and those are typically with a single or a couple utilities um obviously we're
in Baltimore um we're in Vermont Michigan Ohio and the export program in Baltimore that's still
a pilot right that's just the three customers yeah and it's similar to what we're doing with um
so there's policy uh thresholds right so to do the to do isolated backup power is not a big deal
and um we had I think I mentioned it but we've got a filing that we we had success with we worked
with the utility companies in Michigan to say there's no interconnection required across Michigan
to do backup power because there's no interaction with the grid so as long as we're proving we're
isolated from the grid before we start a process we don't need to interconnect so we got we got that
now with home power management we're doing the same things we have we have backup power across
country um now we're doing home power management we're doing the same kind of process we did with
backup power we're slowly leaning into the market saying hey we can do this in the there's there's
more policy required because you have to interconnect so now that we're interconnecting
we're going through that process with utilities and there's gotta be a one by one basis right now
it's one by one we're also um going to be working the same way we did with backup power and the
success we had in Michigan where it's if you can get a a public utility commission or state level
approval then all the utilities have agreed to do it the same way so that's you know this is new
and it's a relatively nascent market to expect the state to just say hey we're gonna do this you
know it's it's not realistic so yeah we're being responsible and we're bringing it to market and
working with key partners in the industry that are influencers and so once as we do that to export
that takes even more policy because now you're actually putting energy back into the grid so
you have to the the quality of energy and all that's already been proven so that's not the problem
now the challenge is when do you do it and under what conditions can you do it and because taking
your house offline that's not super disruptive to the grid it's actually helpful right putting
energy back into the grid if you did that when they were at a low period and already overcapacitized
like at night and you started putting power back into the grid they don't need it right right so
that's that's there was saying to Emma earlier you know I think you know one of the the situations
that's a concern is if there actually is you know if there's been a storm the power line down the
crew's working you know you don't you don't want the power flowing back into the grid while there's
into the lines while there's crews working somewhere to put lines back up and that's
one of the key aspects to interconnection is does our system shut off when there's an outage
in which it does it's actually what it'll it'll you can do backup power but it will be isolated at
that point so are we sure we're isolating are we sure we like if the grid goes down are we sure
we shut down first like we stop behind fire so you don't have that problem so that's part of
interconnection so that's where you can detect that through the same batteries other the backup
system that the there's no there's nothing coming from the grid the grid yeah so we shut down flip
the transfer switch and so we when the grid goes dark because we can't flip the transfer switch
immediately so when the grid goes dark we shut down immediately okay and then we go through the
the gumball the power back up with the disconnect from the grid yeah good and then when the power
would come back if you're still in a power management mode we'd do the same in reverse we
would wait we'd make sure the power is back on the grid and it's stable once it meets that requirement
we would shut the truck down we transition back pull energy from the grid make sure everything's
good system one monitor the grid power create quality power off the truck and re-establish
the connection and boom we're back on home power management and this all works with the same hardware
so somebody bought a lightning back in 2022 and it first came out and bought one of these systems
and installed in her house that's the same the same heart the hardware hasn't changed it's just
Ryan Ryan in Baltimore has done backup power was an original buyer
with his 2022 yep he's one of the original kind of adopters so he's he did backup power he did
home power management last summer he did vehicle to grid export this summer and he has not had to
have an electrician out to his house it's all been software updates by Ford that we do remotely to
the devices and then update software and enable it and then we're off and running great I mean
that's you know now you know said now the both convenience and the the economics of these kinds
of systems are really starting to make make some sense for people you know it's it I mean you know
I said it's it's not it's not an inexpensive system to put in but you know you start to see
some genuine benefits from it yeah I mean if you bought it for backup power this is all
spryzen delight this crossing on top yeah I mean the backup power you know you might only use a
couple times a year or you know maybe not not ever while you own the the the vehicle but now all
of a sudden you've got something that you know every day yeah that provides a real balance
sitting in your truck sitting in your driveway and doing doing something for you I like to give it
is working for you yeah like it's um and the big tell was when we were still working from home
you know I I played with the concept of this by we would simulate outages I'm sorry I would you
know for a week shut my power down in the morning at like 11 o'clock go flip your main switch I'll
put my main and I've run off and then I'd flip it back on at like seven o'clock and I was working
from home every day and it was it was exciting it was like wow this is what it's really gonna do
like this is how it's gonna act and behave and without me having to go to the basement and flip
main and you know keep my fingers crossed everything works I got that off does it takes
care of everything for yeah and the nice part is there's no like transition like when the system
comes on and comes off there's no flicker in the house there's like backup power there is a transition
sure but here it's just it's like starts taking power from the truck starts taking power from the
grid and it just fluctuates and you can see it fluctuates up and down as things come on I don't
know what they're doing inside but numbers changed a bit while we've been sitting here so
you'll you'll see that fluctuation go and it's it's kind of it's been I'm looking at your cluster
there it's been sitting at 91% you know for the last half hour that we've been sitting here it's
powering your house yeah and it's I mean this is actually a pretty substantial pull right now so
I have a feeling they're the space heater on somewhere yeah I mean I remember a couple years
ago we had a power outage after a storm and I'd been running stuff off a gas generator I have
yeah it's a portable gas generator and I posted something and Emma reached out to me and offered
to send over a lightning I said well you know I've got a generator but then it occurred to me
but wait some of my neighbors don't have power so if you send you send the lighting over I can
loan my generator you're there yeah remember that says you're writing this story yeah and then you
know coming coming back you know the the funny thing was when the truck was delivered I switched
all the all my extension cords over plugged everything into the truck to get the power because
obviously I didn't have the yeah the home power the home backup system but just powering up the
pro power on board and when I looked at the draw you know running a couple of two refrigerators and
some fans and you know lights and the sorted other things in the house and I looked at the draw
you know it was only it was barely pulling like maybe one and a half kilowatts you know so you
know I think especially in an emergency situation you can actually get by with a lot less power than
than you realize I think that I think that's the thing is people don't anticipate the amount of
energy they use like somebody will say yeah well I turn the hairdryer on or the vacuum or the
coffee maker but that only runs for a short period of time right even your air conditioner cycles
like it's 15 minutes on well even something like I said the refrigerators yeah take when when you're
sitting there the doors are closed modern refrigerators don't actually draw that much power you know
just when the compressor runs and it's just the depth they're not opening the door and staring at
it trying to figure what they eat the compressor doesn't usually run that much yeah I mean I I like
I like I'm kind of in bit of an energy nerds I've been doing this stuff but you know you can see when
when the kids ran the dishwasher it's like you didn't run the dishwasher but I didn't see the
energy being used so but yeah you have this variable use of energy in the house and I think
that's what people only think of the peak when the air conditioner is running and it's actually
you have to think about the average now and so when you get when you think about the amount of
consumption you're using the power a couple kilowatts you know to to drive down the road
we do two miles per kilowatt hour right roughly for the truck it's 2.1 so you figure 2.1
there's a lot more power to actually move this vehicle that typically isn't to power your house
exactly so like just idling through the parking lot I use less of my house than idling through the
parking lot so from that perspective you can go 300 miles so yeah you have plenty of energy for
your house it's it's really it's hard to comprehend I think and once people experience it I think
they're like wait what yeah I think I think the US average household electricity uses I think about
20 28 29 kilowatt hours a day yeah it's how you use 30s around number yeah yeah so you know if you
got 100 kilowatt hours you know even if you make no changes correct to to your usage in the house
you're still looking at at least three days yeah no I had an outage here during covid and um ran
off the truck for four days yeah and it was like I still had 150 miles or something and it wasn't
even full when I started and I was telling my wife was like I mean we should turn some stuff off and
you know and she's like kept looking at the truck and I was like wow so you can get up we've we've
done a 10 day test you can run up to 10 days um so I you know most of your long term outages are
you know less than four days yeah by easy amount so I think that's four is about the longest we've
yeah four is about the longest it's usually about the 2003 black yeah I remember that one yeah that was
we weren't we weren't there yet I was still in a different place in life then but working on gas engine
back then um yeah no so it's it's quite exciting and I think the the way we've intentionally gone
through this where we started with kind of charge management and smart charging we introduced back
of power we're now doing home power management now we're experimenting with the vehicle grid export
right the the path forward's taking is really intentional and it's been it's been a really good
cadence and we've had really good experiences with the electric industry um and the utilities and
things like that so um it's really kind of fun to be at this leading edge to be part of this
change and then knowing the opportunity um has always been kind of driving for us but now that
we have customers using it is even more exciting yeah because you're seeing how they use it you're
seeing behaviors that you you know you wouldn't necessarily anticipate you could think about
but the gaming they do and things like that it's just it's really fun to um to kind of be a fly in
the wall in this and just continue to improve it every day that we that we have the opportunity to
do that and so Ryan's part of our DTE pilot um of 15 Ford employees it's starting with 15 Ford
employees that have the integration system the pro charger at a lightning so for this home power
management so hopefully once we trial with the 15 there will be more progression to wider it's a
bit of it's a bit of proof by evidence right and so that's where bg and e turned around in a year and
that was exciting like we'd never expected them to say hey you want to do export it was like well
we just did like you know home home power management last year and they're like yeah this is great
and i think they are a bit surprised that um how how fluid it worked right i mean i i think because
it's so new people don't have it's it's a bit like for the customer they don't understand that you're
not using as much power as you might think right and so for the utility companies i don't think they
realize you know how seamless this can be and how beneficial it actually has the opportunity they know
from calculations and but it's just exciting to see a company like bg and come back out and it's
exciting to see uh working with dt with 15 of our employees right so things like that and then the
various places we're pursuing interconnection in the utilities really moving forward with us you
would you would you know i if you're skeptical like i could have been you know this is really
exciting to see the advantages that this is um moving forward on customers that have the opportunity
i history it's also like 15 doesn't sound very many but if you think about those 15 customers
having really quite different use cases different homes different setups so you know learning so much
about the the makeup of how people use their energy rather than it be like you know it's not
like 15 generic houses on the same as what learning all these different yeah when i've talked about
you know systems like this and written about them you know you know talk about okay here's the here's
the price of the hardware you got to buy but you know what your your actual cost is good very widely
depending on your yeah what what your house configuration is you know if you you know if
you're putting it in your garage and your power like you know my house you know my power panel is
on the wall that separates the house from the garage you know so in my case it would be a very
easy installation um you know i've got a 200 amp panel everything's right there no no brainer you
know probably be on a two three thousand dollars for installation um but you know in a situation
like this i mean i'm sure you remember you know when motor trend when the liken first came out
you know one of their riders was going to have this installed in his house he lived in an older
1950s house with a hundred amp panel in a detached garage and was going to have to upgrade the panel
going to have to trench and all all this other stuff and you know the headline you know was yeah
i think something like 18 thousand dollars uh so it yeah you know i mean yeah yeah it's like it's
gonna be horses yeah but that's why the 15 is so interesting every you know they're all different
levels of the company and you know like yeah and it doesn't usually resonate but my house was built
in 1845 like i have this michigan stone basement so when we went to install this it was really yeah
don't worry that part i've been too but um it was really exciting for me because to have an 1845
house i i've done some history on the house and to know that they didn't have cars they didn't have
plumbing they didn't have electricity when the house was built right and now my house is being
powered by a 2020 2020 you know truck this kind of just crazy for me to imagine that you know imagine
the guy who built this house when this was all farm field and you know he would have no clue that one
day there'd be a you know there'd be a garage for one but there'd be a truck sitting here powering
the house when they had candles so to your point we've installed in modern new homes where like you
said ideal service comes in here main panels right here garage right here right 800 bucks they all
just fits and then you have my house we had the trench you had to figure out how to wire into because
i have like four sub panels right because every time they did an addition they added new wiring
so it's it's been really exciting to see the variations of the different homes in the way
those work so that to me has been like super super cool because we're also learning even just on basic
things like installation what are some of the pitfalls what are the challenges customers are
facing how can we help them overcome those and iterating as we go so same with the product you
know we're we're in home power management we've been doing this for about a year now and we're
learning and you continue to learn the more houses you go into so that's one of the cool advantages
fort has is we are going into the i call it the wild right we're in the wild right now we're going
into homes where we don't have control over the house we don't control or the way they use the
vehicle or the way their house runs and operates and we're seeing and learning how that how how to
adapt and how to make this product perfect so so when do you think you might see general availability
for DTE customers is that something that could happen in 2026 i can't put timing on it i think
as we move forward um you know you get through the interconnection went into interconnection
is agreed to and they're comfortable with the way it operates and functions um and we're in
operations seeing how it interacts with the grid is it disrupted not disrupted then the doors can
open um i think this pilot that we're doing with them is more of the signal processing from DTE
so i think they'll be really interested in that so again as we have these 15 customers do it in
this very dynamic environment um wherever house is unique across kind of the trade area um you
know it's it's kind of up to them we don't control that but we do negotiate and work with them to make
sure that all their questions are answered and they're comfortable with it and we see you know
you can see where baltimore is right they were like what are we doing you know and and all of a
sudden we did v to h and now we're exporting like that was kind of unexpected right i mean it's it was
a really fast pace for an electricity company and here we are so it's it's a matter of the policy
piece you're going to have state policy of the utilities policy and how fast are they willing
to go and so you have say green mountain power in vermont right we have a person running in vermont
and you know it wasn't really a challenge they're a very progressive utility company they saw the
benefits of it they did the quick technical you know so we have those experiences with utility
companies we're going to continue as ford to move and ford's been at this a long time i mean i remember
you know back in 2007 when ford built that initial fleet of like 20 plug-in hybrid escapes prototype
plug-in hybrid escapes and give them out to different utilities to to start doing some v to g
testing you know so i've been at this for what 18 years now not me but the company the company's
been exploring and working with a variety of utilities on this stuff so yeah it's good to see
the we're finally starting to get to a point where you know this is becoming a reality for
you know the potentially for real yes it's in market and having it in market is the exciting part
like you know the first handful of houses we put back a power and it was kind of like you know
but you you you had confidence in the technology and everything and then when it went in and it
worked it was it was awesome it was uh it was there are a lot of special moments there and
you know i'll retire one day and think back to those very fondly and i look forward to as this
continues to progress people think of it as normal you know so i think i think the weird part for me
is you kind of forget about it like you start especially me monitoring it and stuff and i'll
still work with the engineers and stuff to make sure it's working properly and we'll do
evaluations that they want to want to do but you know it's interesting that you you like
watch it and oh this cool and you're on the you sit out here when it comes on and you know
but then if you forget about it you just plug in and it's like you come out and it's like oh it's
green oh yeah i'm powering the house because there's nothing to really that instigate like
you don't have to do anything you know it's not like other things where you have to like flip a
switch or plug something in or try to manage it just kind of happens magically and it's it's
that part i think is cool so building on top of the kind of insurance policy of backup to your point
there's a lot of unique value there but then that you don't have to do anything
yeah you know what he said you have a generator is that he will eliminate in the friction for
for users as is a key component of this yeah and i mean we're going to continue to make it
better and better just as we do with most of our products so it's it's a fun space for me
i just probably the longest um longest in my career path of role i've been in so that's been
really fun for me too because it's it's it's never ending school all right change the world
well thank you yeah absolutely
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