[SPEAKER_02]: This is episode 430 of wheel bearings.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am Sam a bull samad from telemetry.
[SPEAKER_04]: Roberto Baldwin from SAE's automotive engineering podcast and other SAE properties.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm Perry Stern, and I'm mainly freelance.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Nicole will finally be back next week.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, she can tell us all about her travels and what the status is.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can get a possibly a final status update on the wagonир s. Oh, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's see, Perry, let's start with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: What did you drive this week?
[SPEAKER_03]: which I hadn't had a chance to try before.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's the dual motor elite top of the line.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's actually it's quite nice to drive.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I know it's basically a GM car.
[SPEAKER_03]: It shares the whole platform with the General Motors EVs, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And
[SPEAKER_03]: I just took it out in snow earlier today and found that the all season tires did just find with the tracking control was working over time as was the all wheel drive system.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I also did find that when you're in one pedal driving, the ABS does kick in when you let off the throttle.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, because if you let off too fast, it'll throw on him.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or if it's icy, it doesn't matter how fast you let off, it just ticks in the ABS anyway, which could be part of the reason that my battery was going quickly.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that in the fact that it's about 20 degrees outside and got the heat going and all that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that'll do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: It, you know, between the traction and stability control that actually handled it just fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, if you have one of these and it's Michigan winter, unless it gets deep, you could do pretty well.
[SPEAKER_03]: You throw winter tires on it and it would be unstoppable.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would think it is the pro log.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not the amateur log.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a pro.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it's the professional log.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's, you know, it does have all the, you know, that.
[SPEAKER_03]: GM infotainment and everything else.
[SPEAKER_03]: The nice thing is that even though it's an EB, it does have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, which we know GM has been slowly getting rid of.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it also has the Google Maps, it's the Google Bay system.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you're an Android user and you want to log in to everything you can almost replicate the Android Auto experience with the native system.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's not a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it's it's got a decent amount of ground clearance, you know, on the elite looks like you got 8.1 inches of ground clearance with lead all wheel drive.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's, you know, if you've got some snow on the ground, you know, as long as you got less than 8 inches on the ground, you should be able to get through.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it did just fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's it's also, you know, would
[SPEAKER_03]: with the EV.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's nice that it heats up so quickly inside.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remote started it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They had by the time I had all the windows and everything cleared off.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was nice and toasty inside.
[SPEAKER_03]: So nice added benefit.
[SPEAKER_03]: He did seats.
[SPEAKER_03]: He'd steering wheel all of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's pretty comfortable to drive.
[SPEAKER_03]: The rear seat has got good room, but the seat itself is a bit
[SPEAKER_03]: flat and stiff.
[SPEAKER_03]: So long trip in that my GMC.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes, you know, front seats all very comfortable.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the the sticker on this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, this is a 25, but if you convert it to a 26 because it's unchanged for 26.
[SPEAKER_03]: The sticker on it is just about 60,000, 59, 850.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that includes the extra scarlet red metallic paint.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, did you kind of have that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, that's, this has been my main problem with the prologue.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the, the prologue drives really nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually like the design, the exterior design.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's, it's a nice clean look, but it's, um, it's kind of pricey.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's 60 grand for that elite.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, when I first drove it, you know, the, when I first got into it,
[SPEAKER_02]: you immediately notice that it's all hard plastics it is it doesn't it doesn't look premium I mean it's nicely laid out you know everything's functional it works well but it looks kind of cheap and for 60 grand I find it hard to make the case for that that's when you have some of you buy a car and then at the cell the car after you buy the car from other car company yeah I mean I agree it's it's it's it's not like it's it's on attractive inside it
[SPEAKER_03]: But it is, it is a lot of plastic, if you, you know, if just a simple, you know, leather padded trim along all the hard plastic on the dash and center console, because the center console is big and I mean it's and it's got this big space for length, you know, for storing items, it also has the wireless charger there, but if it is a lot of dark black plastic, which isn't necessarily attractive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, especially when you compare it to other Honda vehicles, you know, that are considerably more affordable.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just doesn't come across great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you're paying a lot of money for 400 volts as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but you do get a 300 horsepower all-wheel drive vehicle and it's got this is the top of the the elite gets the lowest range.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think EPA range is about 283 which is what I'm showing which is what I'm showing on the when I've had a full charge.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's it does it's at least seem to be matching up.
[SPEAKER_03]: But as I mentioned, you know, it's this particular.
[SPEAKER_03]: tank of charge, it's probably not going to go as far just because I can already see my average use is about 1.7, 1.8 km or miles per kilometer, miles per kilowatt hour, sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's not going to equate to 283 miles.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, I mean, the prologue is an interesting combination for Honda because it's it's a mix of parts from the blazer and the equinox, so it's got the smaller battery from the equinox, but the long wheelbase of the blazer.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so it's actually the same size as the blazer EV, whereas the equinox is a little bit smaller.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the equinox EV gets a smaller battery because it's shorter wheelbase.
[SPEAKER_02]: They can't fit the 100 kilowatt hour battery.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they go with a 10 module, I think it works out to about 85 kilowatt hours.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh and so you get a little bit less range than you might get out of the blazer but uh it's it's also a bit a bit lighter than a blazer and so I think you know in most ways it's a pretty good compromise but it's just that that price point it's just kind of hard to swallow yeah especially when you look at what else is out there you know it what else is available
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be, you know, it's going to be expensive now I mean it's it's I don't have to be you know, it doesn't get the the leaf
[SPEAKER_02]: the ionic five, you know, prices down to 35,000, starting price, the equinox EV, you know, the equinox EV starts at 36 now for modular 20.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there really that low, no?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, the base model starts at 36 and a low to the equinox EV, I think, you know, is under under 50,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's about 48,000 for if you get with pretty much all the options.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, and you get in the same battery the same motors as this, you know, the only difference is it's it's slightly smaller, but it's still very roomy for its size.
[SPEAKER_03]: Definitely, but the product so the base price of the ex, which is the base model that's a single motor that's 474 without destination.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you're going to have a bit more range, but you're not going to have all wheel drive.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have a ported 308-mile range on that one.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, but obviously it's not going to be any nicer inside as the lesser model.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, if that's what's important to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, an equinox EV RS with all wheel drive.
[SPEAKER_02]: goes for 45,895, and let's see, if you, so it's at base level trim, or is that?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the top trim level.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's the LT1, LT2, and the RT1, LT2, and the RS trims.
[SPEAKER_02]: And let's see, if you add the active safety package that includes supercrues, that's 3,300 bucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: which can't get on prologue you cannot get that on prologue and then if you you know if you want the 19 kilowatt charger that's another 1295 but you know you don't really need that at home you know for this size of battery you know the 11 kilowatt charger that's standard is more than adequate.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you want the fancy, you know, bow tie, pedal lights, that's another 1550.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the trailer package is 1495.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that's, that's most of the, the most expensive stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want the dual pane power sunroof, that's another 1500.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all in, you know, that's that's 56,000 to 90.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so it's so that's still less than top of the line Prologue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, and you know, you say if you if you want to get it more does the prologue have the glass roof?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you drop the super cruise package, you know, that gets you down to 53,000, including destination, and that, you know, that's pretty equivalent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, that's about $7,000 less.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's a big difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, you know, are you willing to pay $7,000 to get CarPlay?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, I mean, that's basically, that's the main thing you're getting with the, with the Honda.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it's CarPlay.
[SPEAKER_03]: You also get a Honda badge, which for some people, they want to be badge.
[SPEAKER_03]: They want a Honda badge.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's, they'll pay the premium for a Honda badge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because not having to deal with the
[SPEAKER_03]: yeah it's uh... there's clearly market for them because they seem to be selling pretty well uh... relatively speaking so uh... i think i believe it's it pushed on to the lake sort of oh yeah we should make our own evey
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and, you know, Honda does have its own EVs coming out next year, you know, they've got the accurate R-Sax that's launching first in Q1, and then the Honda 0 SUV is coming, probably late summer, and then the saloon in early 27.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and once the 0 SUV arrives, that's probably going to, you know, they're probably going to drop the prologue at that point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they probably
[SPEAKER_03]: is the accurate version.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that didn't last long.
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Any other thoughts on the prologue?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, it's it's I'm taking a road trip in it tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that should be interesting to see how it does for a 200 mile drive.
[SPEAKER_03]: with 280 mile range.
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe do some fast charging along the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's there's an electrify America station in Portage near Kalamazoo.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a new far off of freeway.
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw that there's actually there's a slew of them all you know, all long that you thought.
[SPEAKER_03]: trail about the track.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, once you get past that EA station, no, most of the other ones that are like out west Michigan area there are they're like 50 kilowatt chargers.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're DC chargers, but they're not fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I might want to top off at that one that EA station.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I don't know if that's the one or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's one that's about 140 miles from here.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's I think that's the one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's at a higher grocery store.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's right next to
[SPEAKER_03]: It's right next to a Tesla supercharger, but it's it shows at least on electrify America's site that it's a 350 kilowatt charger.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll see if it works, you know, I've had hit miss experience when I've done road trips with EVs and counted on a charger that didn't work.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll do it happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll be fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I also had a GM developed EV this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: She still have it in the driveway.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have the 2026 Chevrolet Silverado EV Trail Boss.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just practically the same car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, pretty much the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, the cells in the battery pack are the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... it's just a lot more of them all of the cells but about two-and-a-half times as many almost and the the the battery pack weighs about three thousand pounds so it's it's almost a thousand pounds more than my miana just for the battery pack
[SPEAKER_02]: But for Maliya 26, Chevy realigned the Silverado EV line up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when they launched Silverado EV, they launched initially with just the work truck and selling those to fleets.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then a little while after that, they added the RST trim, which is the
[SPEAKER_02]: really expensive and the luxury trim level with big 24 inch wheels, airsprings suspension, all the goodies on there for like $95,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
[SPEAKER_02]: what they've done is because GMC, they don't sell enough of these to justify so many different variations of roughly the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: GMC has the CR-EV Denali and the Denali ultimate, I think, that it was equivalent to what the Silverado RST was, so they dropped the RST for this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: but they added in a middle-level LT trim and also the Treblas, which is a more off-road oriented version.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the Treblas has got a couple-inch lift compared to the other Silver Autos.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on 18-inch wheels with big all-terrain tires that have a
[SPEAKER_02]: Sidewall and everything which is nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice change, you know, from the skinny little tires that were on the RST in the 24h with like no sidewall, which makes them very susceptible to damage from pot holes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, on the trail boss you get.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get the good, you know, altering tires that are much more suitable for driving on Michigan roads, especially in the winter time.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've been driving it this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've had a bunch of snow this week, and the one that I've got also has the four wheel steering.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, there's, you can turn off the four wheel steering if you don't like it, but I'm not sure why you would.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I took it, I took it in a parking lot and did a couple of circles with four wheel steering on and off and looked at the difference in this, the turning radius.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about an eight foot difference in the turning diameter between four wheel steering on or off.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on a big truck like that, it's like just turn on the four wheel steering and leave it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's so much better.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we were studying the game changer for big vehicles
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they also, this year, they added side-winder mode, which is Chevy's branding for when you're off-road, having the wheels turning in phase.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's equivalent of what Hummer calls their crab walk mode.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all the wheels turn in the same direction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Drop, drop, he's doing little crab.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm still waiting to see a situation where that really does actually make a difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless you're taking it off road, there may be a few situations off road where it might be helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for the most part, no, it's not, it's not actually.
[SPEAKER_04]: You kind of have to practice with it because it's unnerving and a little difficult to control.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I feel like if it's like the truck is sliding off a hill if you're going to like on the road and then like if you're been off-roading with like you know silt or mud or snow or ice and the trails a little off-camera and you feel the vehicle sliding like off-road that's a little bit that's what it feels like when you're driving
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, pretty much interesting to be it.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're in that situation where it's sliding, you put it in phase turning the other direction.
[SPEAKER_03]: What does balance itself out?
[SPEAKER_04]: You just keep going, you just keep sliding slowly up the hill, I guess.
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope fingers crossed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, it's more of a gimmick than anything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Most people are never going to
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's one of the things, you know, where you, you show it off to your friends once or twice and then you never touch it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You never touch that button on the touchscreen again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the, the G-turn makes more sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: So even that's goofy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: So on the trail boss, you can get the trail boss two different ways with either the 20-module battery pack or the 24-module battery pack.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had the spec sheet open here, and I chose 5 and 170.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, approximately.
[SPEAKER_02]: I definitely think, yeah, Jim, Jim doesn't actually list the capacity and kilowatt hours, but you know, it's people have figured it out.
[SPEAKER_04]: Some of you told me to 18 at GM, but maybe that was a different.
[SPEAKER_02]: The gross capacity is actually somewhere around 225.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I loved it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Why?
[SPEAKER_04]: Why don't they?
[SPEAKER_04]: I've spoken to them numerous times about it and they've always, they're like, Well, they talk around why they don't tell us the, the kilowatt hours.
[SPEAKER_04]: But none of the the reasons ever made sense.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like everyone else does it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have to share this with my readers and like well, you know, every battery pack is a little different.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, yeah, but it's not like different by like 30%.
[SPEAKER_04]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just give me a number.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, they offer different benefits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: They offer three different battery pack sizes across the Silver Auto EV line up.
[SPEAKER_02]: The standard, extended, and the max.
[SPEAKER_02]: The standard is a 14 module pack.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the work truck, it gives you 286 miles of range.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or an LT is 283.
[SPEAKER_02]: The trail boss is only available with the extended or max battery packs.
[SPEAKER_02]: The extended battery pack is rated at 410 miles of range.
[SPEAKER_02]: The max pack is 478 miles of range.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the starting MSRP for the trail boss is 88,695 dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it goes from about 55,000, so you can get a Silverado EV work truck with similar range to the prologue that you're driving for about $5,000 less, and it's got a lot more payload, a lot more passenger capacity, you can put stuff in the bed, you can put lots of mulch in the bed, more mulch than you can use as a truck.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can use it as a truck.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do truck things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: The trouble, the trouble, like I said, is the more off-road oriented one.
[SPEAKER_02]: It loses a bit of range relative to the LT because it sits a little bit taller and it's altering tires.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, and it's got recovery hooks, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you might have a hard time, you know, if you were taking it off-road and you got stuck,
[SPEAKER_02]: You might have a hard time getting it out, uh, you'd have to find, uh, you'd have to get a really big vehicle to tow it out of a mud pit that you're stuck in, like a trap, because I took this thing to waste gales yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: 8,760 pounds empty.
[SPEAKER_05]: Whew, that's a lot of mass.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's over 2,000 pounds more than an F 150 lightning platinum.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's that's that you know mud loves mass too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, yeah, just like a dinosaur sliding into the amber just like so, you know, like I said, the one I've got is rated at 478 miles of range.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been cold this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a couple of days where temperature got, you know, actually one one morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was minus two.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think on Wednesday morning or something this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was my minus two or third.
[SPEAKER_02]: one of the days.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's been cold.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've been using the heat and, you know, nice thing is, you know, you've got the quote unquote remote start button, you know, but unlike the old days, it doesn't actually fire up the engine.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just powers everything up and turns on the heater and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: So use the, use the remote start to defrost it in the morning and get the cabin warmed up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's been averaging about 1.5 miles per kilowatt hour this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty good to be on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you're sort of, you're pretty, you're, you're, you know, you're warming up the battery when you start it up.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's one of the nice things about the sort of remote start is that it gets to bat, it warms up the battery before you start driving.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're using the grid in order to pre-condition the battery before you start rolling around.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, except I didn't have it plugged in.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll never mind then because it's just using the battery so it's just using the battery and if you're doing this if you should plug it in before you can use the grid power so you're not draining the battery
[SPEAKER_02]: But that contributed to the relatively more modest efficiency that I've had this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that works out to pretty good for a little over 100 miles of range.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: In cold, cold weather, you know, that's actually fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, with the size of battery that's in this thing, it will actually tow unlike other electric trucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it will actually tow, that's pretty significant difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have a trailer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have any to test to tow it with or to tow with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when the guys at TFL had one couple of years ago, when it first came out, they had a Silverado EV work truck, which has the same battery in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were telling a big box trailer, which is not particularly aerodynamic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is just a box.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a box with a vehicle in the back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they were telling about 9,500 pounds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they went 232 miles.
[SPEAKER_02]: with it, which is, you know, a lot more than you can do with a lightning or with a cyber truck, uh, towing a similar trailer.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's about, uh, more, more than twice as far as you would get with the same, with the same trailer with those other vehicles.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it actually can tow pretty significant different distances, just because of the size of the battery.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, you pay for that, you
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, a big heavy battery and an expensive truck, you said, you know, things almost $89,000 before you add any options to it, you know, and that doesn't include, GM doesn't include the destination charge and the pricing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the one that I have had just a few options, it had a hard-folding tonno cover, which is $1850 for a tonno cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: $1800 glass roof.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the game day tailgate package which you know so it's got the fancy multi flex tailgate that can fold in six different ways and part of that it's got a package of speakers built into the part of the tailgate so if you're using it for a tailgate party you can blast the sound up from from the tailgate.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then 250 bucks for floor mats and 150 bucks for the roof sunshade.
[SPEAKER_02]: So driving this thing around, you know, all told it came to 93,940 dollars.
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is, by the way, if the regular public still thinks this vehicle starts at $100,000.
[SPEAKER_04]: When I had this Silverado, I had a man come up to me and say, did you buy this?
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, no, I'm a blah, blah, blah.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I tell him the whole spiel.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's like, yeah, because these things started $100,000 and then walked away.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, yeah, that's a, yeah, they were GM's kind of sort of dropped the ball of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, you can get, like I said, you can get that work truck for $55,000 and, you know, the LT, which is a little, a little better equipped than the work truck starts at 63, of course, actually those prices are actually going to be slightly higher now because
[SPEAKER_02]: Destination charges have changed since this was published.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Monroeney I've got shows the Destination charges is now out of date.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you remember, as remember, what the Destination charges for full size trucks now?
[SPEAKER_04]: Ah, 18.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's going to say close to two, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, no, not close to two anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: When this was twenty two.
[SPEAKER_02]: Monroe, the Monroe, he says two thousand ninety five dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, twenty.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's now two thousand five hundred and ninety five dollars.
[SPEAKER_04]: My gosh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they raised $1.00 more than my first car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's the base that's hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and raise the destination charges on the full size trucks and SUV's twice since the beginning of the year.
[SPEAKER_02]: They went from 1995 to 295 and then to 25 95 sometime in a round September.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're hiding part of the the tariff costs in the destination charge.
[SPEAKER_02]: Huh?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you're going to do what you're going to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, you know, to their credit, you know, I do give GM credit for the prices that they advertise for their vehicles includes the destination charge.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't get any surprise.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're pretty much the only automaker that does that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, that's that feels I the pushing of the prices up via the destinations not great, but at least they're saying hey, it's cost is right as opposed to sort of hiding it and you're like, oh, I wonder how much this is all dear
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, like you said, Perry, the Silver Auto doesn't have any smartphone projection, so Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just got the Google built-in services, but GM gives you eight years of connectivity for that when you buy their EVs.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you'll still have navigation and Google Assistant stuff for at least eight years.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, it works pretty well, you know, and the supercrews actually works really well.
[SPEAKER_02]: On Wednesday night when I was coming back from Nashville, driving home, you know, it was dark, the road was kind of wet and slick and it was snowing a bit when we arrived.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I put on the super crews and you know, it had no problem at all driving hands free from the airport back to the exit from my house off of the interstate.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was curious to see how it handled since I was driving, I was driving a Honda Civic without any super crews or anything at that point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that same weather.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and, you know, I mean, the upside to weighing almost 9,000 pounds is it's somewhat more impervious to crosswinds.
[SPEAKER_02]: True.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not quite a sense of the crosswinds.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's some silver lining for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Aside from the lack of smartphone projection, the only other major complaint I've got on this thing is I have noticed a little bit of a squeak coming from the headline, the top of the roof area in front of me, where I think where the glass is joining the steel, going over some bumpy surfaces, there's a little bit of a squeak there, which is not particularly
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, all that mass, something's got to give somewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, other, other than that, you know, it's, it's a, you know, for a full-size truck, you know, it's very roomy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, 725 horsepower.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's stupidly fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you enable the wide open watch mode, it does still scramble a bit, you know, it's got some torque steer and you know, I haven't, I've only tried it once a few days ago, in between periods of snow when we had some dry pavement to work with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I tried it and, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Just as when I drove the RST a couple of years ago, it does tend to crab back and forth a little bit when you're doing full throttle acceleration.
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, that's not something you're going to use most of the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's probably arguably too fast for what it is, but that certainly helps in terms of
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it's comfortable to drive, it's just big, you know, and, you know, you definitely want to work on your parallel parking skills before you get something like you got this slidey thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was going to say, can't it just like go sideways into the parking spot?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's sorta, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You still need a lot of space for you know this thing is actually the same it's not large it's not any larger than a gas silver auto so it's it's like within an inch or two on all the major dimensions of a gas silver auto it's just it's just electric.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and it does this one does have the midgate.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, if you need to carry long stuff, you know, you can put down that fancy tailgate and flip up the little stopper at the end there and put down the midgate, and you can carry stuff almost 11 feet long inside.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're building like a caddo or some other cat related, like outdoor thing like me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's a pretty common use for us, uh, pickup truck.
[SPEAKER_04]: I, I, I, I, I, I bought eight foot long like one, two by two's and what I, I drove, I put it in the BRZ and so you can, so if you put them from the driver's side rear corner out the window or the passenger side and you make sure you wrap your side mirror, you're totally fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: That'll fit in your car.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you can also do jousting on the way home.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you can jazz.
[SPEAKER_04]: I did not go on the freeway driving home from from from that trip to the hardware store.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was a lot of like I should take the side streets.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, good call, but you can do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Or you can buy a giant silver out of.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and you could carry the, you know, the BRC in the back of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I could put my beers in the back.
[SPEAKER_04]: I could fill the beers here with wood, but the beer is in the back.
[SPEAKER_04]: And pretty much.
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's move on.
[SPEAKER_02]: On that note.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Perry and I were both in Nashville this week, actually more precisely in Franklin, Tennessee, with Nissan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nissan brought a bunch of people down to, drive a bunch of, a whole bunch of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of which we can talk about, others we can't talk about entirely yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: One that we can't talk about yet is the 2026 Pathfinder.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't talk about driving impressions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's one thing I do want to talk about with the Pathfinder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Got a mid-cycle update for this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the Pathfinder and the Morano for 2026 are the first vehicles to get an updated wireless charging system that has support for T2.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, T is been the industry standard for wireless charging of small devices like phones.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Che-II standard that they updated basically incorporated a few years ago Apple introduced what they called MagSafe charging on the iPhone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they attributed that technology to the Che-Standard to make Che-II.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what that means is it includes a magnet in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, one of the complaints many of us have had about wireless charging pads and cars is that, you know, the phones, phones are all the phones are different sizes and somehow you've got to come up with a charging pad that fits all of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if the charging, if your phone is smaller than the charging pad, when you go around corners and stuff, the phone slides around and then it doesn't charge.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is how I left my phone in the EV6 GT while drifting.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's just gone, and then I didn't realize it, and then an hour later, I'm like, uh-oh.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and another complaint that, you know, it is common with wireless charging pads and cars is after a few minutes on the charging pad, you get a message popping up on the screen saying, please remove from your phone from the charging pad because it's too warm.
[SPEAKER_02]: because it heats up and so the the G2 pad in the in the pathfinder and in the morono basically gives you a little circular island on the charging pad and it's got the magnets in there and so you put your phone on there and it holds your phone in place
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's got a fan built into the pad underneath there, so it draws away the hot air So it keeps your phone from overheating, which is a it's a great option unless you happen to have an Android phone Without a case that will actually stick to the magnet in which case you cannot use the wireless charger at all But if there's no place to put your phone if you buy a new Google Pixel 10 It's got support for Cheeto and the newer Samsung phones do as well
[SPEAKER_04]: That the answer is Perry by a new phone for your driver.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I'm gathering.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or at least in a case.
[SPEAKER_03]: A new case would do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was, you know, I imagine there are plenty of people out there that have older phones that don't have that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And where the other one charged slowly and occasionally overheated,
[SPEAKER_03]: I could still use it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I wasn't able to use this one at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was a bit frustrating for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I know that you know, you have to look forward and that's the future and all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it still was annoying.
[SPEAKER_04]: You need to be a better consumer.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the only reason we're alive.
[SPEAKER_04]: Harry, come on.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're not spending enough money, Harry.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has to be clearly clearly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's important to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I need to make more to spend more.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: You've got to know.
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: No debt.
[SPEAKER_04]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_04]: Make more the American way.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're asking too much.
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, clearly Drink up those credit card bills in you'll be fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you go on?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: So
[SPEAKER_03]: So I didn't actually get to try out the wireless charging in the Pathfinder, but I did it does work well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it worked perfectly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was flawless.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I definitely like that in the Pathfinder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we also got to drive the Nissan Cash Guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the cash-kai is a crossover that you cannot buy in North America, at least not currently.
[SPEAKER_02]: The previous generation cash-kai was sold here for several years as the rogue sport.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the current generation is not sold here, it's sold in Asia and Europe.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's based on the same platform as the rogue, but it's a little bit smaller, but the reason why Nissan brought over a few cash guys is because they wanted to give us a preview of what is coming for model year 2026, sorry, 2027 coming out in 2026 on the road because the road is being redesigned for next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the challenges for the road today is they don't offer any sort of hybrid option.
[SPEAKER_02]: And most of the top-selling vehicles in the segment, like the Honda CRV, Toyota RAF4, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, they all offer at least hybrid and in some cases plug-in hybrids as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the next year Nissan is bringing their e-power hybrid system, which has been available in Japan and some other markets for several years.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're bringing it to the US market.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's their third generation of this system.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of a unique system.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a series hybrid.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the engine never drives the wheels.
[SPEAKER_02]: The engine is completely disconnected from the wheels.
[SPEAKER_02]: It
[SPEAKER_02]: and all of the vehicle motion is provided by an electric motor and about a 2.1 kilowatt hour battery pack.
[SPEAKER_02]: They brought over the cash tie from Europe with with the e-power system.
[SPEAKER_02]: We both got a chance to drive it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did you think, Perry?
[SPEAKER_02]: And you've driven the e-power as well, right, Robbie and Japan?
[SPEAKER_02]: I did.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't sure if I could talk about it until just now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, talk to you can talk about it's been like months of like can I talk about the cash guy with the power it's a unique idea because you're basically you're driving an EV but as you give it more throttle you still have an engine that's coming on to add more power to the batteries and so it's but you have that smooth power delivery that you get with an EV and obviously you know with the auto shut off of engines right now it's seamless
[SPEAKER_03]: driving anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just providing power.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you're just cruising it up, you know, relatively smooth speed, the engine can shut off and it comes on briefly as it needs to, just like you would expect a hybrid.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you still get that electric car performance.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're saying that when the road comes here, it will be a dual motor.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll have all wheel drive
[SPEAKER_03]: And they also said that, you know, at least initially, that will be the exclusive power train.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it won't come with a conventional gas engine driving the wheels, at least initially.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think for consumers though, I don't know if you didn't tell somebody that it's doing it, you know, that the gas engine is not driving the wheels.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think a lot of people wouldn't even know.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think they were just think this car is really smooth.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think it's the because we drove one in Japan.
[SPEAKER_04]: We drove the old Power system and then the new P power system and the cash guys and it was like, Oh, this is really nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: It just feels like a much nicer driving experience And yeah, like you said, yeah, I don't yet average people person wouldn't realize that it's you know series and and it's just it's only electric motors going They will think, oh, this is a really smooth if it feels premium
[SPEAKER_04]: as a hype and that's one of the nice things about you know any sort of electric motor powering the wheels is that it always feels a little bit more premium than what people are used to with the gas car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and it's you know the in sport mode it's uh two hundred and five horsepower.
[SPEAKER_02]: or 203 horsepower I think and about about 190 or so in standard mode and you know because it's you know all electric drive you know the engine doesn't have to work as hard you know the and and one of the things that they did with this third gen E power they did a bunch of things with the third gen E power one they they've cut the cost of the system by about 30% compared to the previous version
[SPEAKER_02]: because they've done a lot more integration and they're using shared components with their EVs.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of parts from the leaf and the area that are also in the e-power system, like the power electronics are the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get this basically the same motor and the reducer gear from the motor.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of shared component trees, so that helped them cut the cost pretty substantially.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because the electric motor is providing all the propulsion, the engine doesn't have to work as hard, even under maximum acceleration.
[SPEAKER_02]: You do hear the engine a bit, but it's not, it's a lot quieter than if you do the same thing in a RAV4 hybrid.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... because i don't think at least that i can that i can remember there's ever been a series uh... hybrid sold uh... at least in america that didn't plug in uh... so it is something pretty you know not a lot of pure series hybrid no i mean uh... vault vault you know i know there was some odd circumstances where the engine could drive the wheels um...
[SPEAKER_03]: but you also plugged it in.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was, you know, different than this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just had to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, what one of the challenges with a series hybrid because you'd go in, you've got an engine, the striving a generator, that generator is producing alternating current.
[SPEAKER_02]: the battery store is direct current.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have to convert that alternating current to direct current for the battery and then it goes back through another inverter to back to alternating current for the drive motor.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're changing between AC and DC twice in there and there's some inherent losses associated with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And under most conditions it's pretty small, under most driving conditions it's fine and you're still going to be
[SPEAKER_02]: But at higher speeds, those losses start to build up a bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so vehicles like the Honda Hybrid system is mostly operates as a series hybrid, except at higher speeds at highway speeds.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a clutch that engages the engine to drive the wheels directly and blend in with the electric power.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the volt was the same way.
[SPEAKER_02]: This one does not do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no clutch.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no mechanism at all for the wheels to drive for the engine to drive the wheels, but what Nissan is done is for this this generation, they've actually gone with a little bit larger battery.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, typically the demand as you're driving down the roads, the power demand cycles up and down a little bit, and they did some clever things with calibration us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Typically a hybrid is somewhere between one and one and a half kilowatt-hour battery.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the cash kites, 2.1, and on the road because it's going to be all we'll drive it might actually even be a little bit larger than that, but it's still fairly, fairly small.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's enough that they don't have to, they can make the overall system more efficient by taking advantage of regenerative, more regenerative braking.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's one of the things about the e-power.
[SPEAKER_02]: Does it have the e-pedal mode?
[SPEAKER_02]: So you basically have one pedal driving just like in a leaf or an area, except it doesn't bring it all the way to a stop, which is a whole...
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a whole thing that we've we've been hassling niece on about this for about, you know, since the since the area came out like wait what you you sort of you popularized this this feature and now you're not doing you're not even giving us an option.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, they're estimating that the rogue with e power, and this is going to be all we'll drive, as Perry said, to launch, all we'll drive only, and then they'll probably add a front drive version at some point and also add a gas engine option.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they estimate that the all wheel drive rogue with e power is going to get around 40 miles per gallon, which is actually a little bit better as 40 miles per gallon combined, which is a little bit better than what you currently get with the RAF4 and CRV, all wheel drive hybrids, which are about 38 miles per gallon.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it's.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, I'm really excited to drive it, drive the new rogue with the system.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, I think people are going to really like this.
[SPEAKER_03]: It would be interesting to see how they market it since it is something so different yet for the average consumer.
[SPEAKER_03]: It drives exactly like everything else that they have.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, not that it doesn't drive us, but there's nothing else they have to do different.
[SPEAKER_03]: It drives more like an EV.
[SPEAKER_03]: It does, you know, and better than most
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's nothing that, I mean, you still fill it up with gas.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't have to plug it in.
[SPEAKER_03]: So for most consumers, it's just like buying any other hybrid.
[SPEAKER_03]: But a lot more efficient.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it'll be interesting to see how much Nissan markets the fact that this is something completely different or just that it's more efficient, it's quieter, it's smoother.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I mean, I just say it gets better gas mileage.
[SPEAKER_04]: Really, that's what comes out to it.
[SPEAKER_04]: The new new song.
[SPEAKER_04]: It gets getter gas mileage and it's smooth like better That's it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's your hold.
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you get to too far in the weeds Sometimes people get a little yeah It's like if you if you tried our road with the 1.5 liter turbo Try this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll like it a lot better exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot more efficient.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's quieter Yeah, no, I think I think I think it'll probably do pretty well
[SPEAKER_02]: And then during the presentation we had before we went up to drive Thiago Castro, who's the VP of Infinity America, has got up to talk a little bit about Infinity's future plans.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things he talked about, you know, the Trinity is going to have four new models over the next four year, each year, a new model each year for the next four years, starting with the QX65 middle of 2026.
[SPEAKER_02]: 2027 they're watching a new hybrid crossover based on the rogue.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were shown some teaser images but we were not allowed to take any pictures of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had to cover, you know, get our cameras and everything covered up.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, that's it's going to have a rogue-based crossover with e-power.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that, if anything, is likely to be the first one with e-power to have a larger
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think if they if they if they do that, um, you know, that's probably where it'll show up first is in that vehicle before it shows up in the rogue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then, um, we also got to drive the rogue plugin hybrid, which we briefly talked about a little bit a couple weeks ago when they when they released images of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And pretty much everybody is calling this
[SPEAKER_02]: because it's basically a Mitsubishi outlander plug-in hybrid with me son batches on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, they barely hit the design.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it looks exactly the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that they're referring to it as a bridge product that will hold the space as a plug-in hybrid until they can come out with their own.
[SPEAKER_03]: But stop-capped bridge, whatever you want to call it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, over dinner, the night before we drove, you know, more of the folks from Nissan was saying, you know, the reason why they're doing this because the thing is this is going to be a short-term play for them, you know, because the rogue e-powers coming out next year, and this will probably only be for a one-model year, maybe to depending on how the demand goes for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the reason why they're doing it now, instead of just waiting for the rogue hybrid, is they found that from their research, looking at when people were doing searches for crossovers, they were, if they just searched for a compact crossover, they would see rogue and CRV and RAV4 and all the others.
[SPEAKER_02]: cross over.
[SPEAKER_02]: They, you know, they would get all of the hybrids and the rogue would immediately not not even show up because, you know, it didn't have, it didn't have any kind of hybrid option.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, they, you know, they were losing a lot of sales because they didn't have this hybrid option.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by doing this by just taking the outlander plug-in, putting Nissan badges on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no engineering cost for Nissan, except for however much it costs to make a new mold for the upper grill with the Nissan logo on it instead of a Mitsubishi logo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they will at least show up in those online searches for consumers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even if they end up, I don't a lot of people search for the most efficient crossover.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, to once they figure out, okay, what's the monthly payment going to be, but at least there'll be in that conversation when people are searching and that's the main reason why they're doing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, have you driven the outlander before either of you?
[SPEAKER_04]: I've driven the outlander, um, it's fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's this my sort of, I know is huge in Europe.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that is huge in Europe and then I drove it and then I was like, it's fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not horrible.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not, you know.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I remember, uh, one of my British colleagues, this is when I worked at Engage, it was like, how dare you?
[SPEAKER_04]: He was very angry that he didn't give it like a like a like a like this this really I'm like it's a rape about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm like, well, it's it's good enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: But this was a couple years ago.
[SPEAKER_04]: So this is gosh probably seven years ago.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe more.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's a mess.
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't driven it since that because so you haven't driven the current generation.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have not driven the current generation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I assumed that they would be the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I mean, the driving experience is the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's fine, you know, it's fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I mean, it's, it's evolved.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm fine to find, you know, the thing is, you know, I was looking at, looking over specs the other day as I was writing something up on this.
[SPEAKER_02]: and compared to the current rogue.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the rogue and the outlander, the current generation rogue and outlander, are on the exact same platform.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's same wheel base.
[SPEAKER_02]: The outlander body is like two inches longer than the rogue body.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Mitsubishi for some inexplicable reason offers a third row seed option in the outlander.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I will include a link to the video that Tommy like to put up the shot with Safian Bay.
[SPEAKER_02]: They, you know, Tommy tried to climb into the back seat, the third row seat on this road.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and the default setup, there's basically, you know, you can have maybe an inch
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, if you've got, you know, a small kid with no legs, like a baby, you can put a baby seat back there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like put the baby in your body, but you want a baby seat in the third row.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, you know, because sometimes you need to attend to the kid.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why you have other kids.
[SPEAKER_04]: Those are there in the second row seat.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're the babies.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's got four baby seats going that I suppose in the second workout, but then you got other issues.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: In that case, you probably want something a little bigger than this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably, but you know, the thing is if you compare the weight of the outlander plug and hybrid versus the gas rogue, it's almost a thousand pounds heavier.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you've got a 20 kilo watt hour battery, you've got electric motors, that third row seat.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it doesn't, when you're driving it, to me at least, you know, driving it on some curvy roads.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels a little softer and more sheer than a rogue does, it doesn't feel quite as precise in terms of its handling.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, the performance isn't really any better, because you get more power, you get about 240 horsepower, but it's, you know, the 1000 pounds more, you know, so 40, an extra 40 horsepower doesn't really do much to overcome the 1000 pounds of dead weight.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the, you know, the Mitsubishi hybrid system is another one that is mostly series hybrid, but has a clutch to bring in the engine that, you know, when you need it for maximum acceleration.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it, you know, when the engine comes on, it's not, I found it not as obtrusive as an
[SPEAKER_02]: there was a wine from the motors.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you notice that, Perry?
[SPEAKER_02]: I did hear that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it wasn't bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I liked it better than the fake noise that they usually put in.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I'm not a big fan of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I thought it was also interesting when you have an EV mode and you put your foot to the floor.
[SPEAKER_03]: It stays an EV mode.
[SPEAKER_03]: It will not kick the engine on.
[SPEAKER_03]: which I thought was kind of unusual, but so if you're an EV mode and suddenly you realize you need to get around somebody, you need to take it out of EV mode to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then with the 20 kilowatt hour battery, it's got about 38 miles of electric driving range.
[SPEAKER_02]: But once the battery, once the battery is depleted and you're in hybrid mode,
[SPEAKER_02]: a outlander and the road are only rated at 26 miles per gallon as a hybrid, which is actually pretty poor.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's worse than the gas road.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, because you're still carrying around the next 1,000 to better, it pounds of batteries.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it's kind of a mixed bag, you know, it drives fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, I think, well, I think it will fit the fit the need that they have though that, you know, they need to have a hybrid and now they have one.
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, and, you know, it's it's temporary, like you said, also the onboard charger that they use the AC charger is really slow.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's only three and a half kilowatts, which means that even though the battery is only 20 kilowatt hours, it'll take you about seven and a half hours to fully charge it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, if you're plugging it in at night, you know, you'll probably be fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll probably have a full charge every day, but it doesn't, it doesn't charge particularly quick.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, whereas other plug-in hybrids will typically charge it six and a half to seven and a half kilowatts So, you know, you can fully recharge the battery, you know, from a a 240 volt outlet in a butt But three hours three and a half hours So All right, any other thoughts on the the road road-lander plug-in hybrid?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, like I said, it'll it'll do what it has to do Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, all right, um, Thursday night, uh, Friday morning in Japan, Toyota had an event, uh, to finally unveil, uh, their, their new sports car, uh, including, uh, the race version of it, the GT3 race version of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's been a lot of speculation back 2022, I think, Toyota showed a concept for a GT race car.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then at goodwood festival speed, last June, they showed both the road version and the race versions wrapped in camo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's been a lot of speculation about whether this was going to be a Toyota or whether it was going to be a Lexus as a replacement for the old LFA.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what they ended up showing was actually a GRGT, GRGT III, which is the race car, and an LFA concept.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the LFA concept, we've actually kind of seen twice now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We saw at the Japan Mobility Show with an interior.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was shown first in August at Monterey Car Week with no interior.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now, we know that the new LFA concept is actually an elect, and it's built on the same architecture as the GRGT.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually electric.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you know, so Toyota is using the GR branding for their sports car.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not technically a Toyota, it's Toyota Gazoo Racing, which is a race division.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_02]: It looks amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's always interesting when a car company comes out with cars like these that are clearly
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how you turn a profit necessarily on one of them, but you bring it a lot, you know, you draw attention.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they're, they're the, they're the Halo card and Halo cards are cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no question.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I like the fact that it doesn't really look like anything else out there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's, it's not your typical swoopy sports card that kind of all look about the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's, it's got its own look.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's, it's cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to drive one.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and this is saying, so this is from someone who hasn't been excited about Lexus vehicle and I don't know 10, 15 years like I just died, I don't, I'm like okay fine for the Lexus brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: You like the LFA?
[SPEAKER_02]: What about the GRGT?
[SPEAKER_04]: The GRTT, you know, it's great to have a car that you can land a helicopter on.
[SPEAKER_02]: It does have a very long hood.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like they even have a car now.
[SPEAKER_04]: They do even have a cutout or sort of where it shows where the engine begins and it begins like right at the the midpoint of the front wheel.
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's like just a good mile of like extra hood after that.
[SPEAKER_04]: It just feels, um, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like the
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure it's going to be tough to see out of, because it's just so long, and you do sit very low in this thing, you know, that there's, that's a, I feel like I wouldn't fit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, like the diagram showed like, with the helmet on, it looks like the head is like, just within like, it's actually practically in the roof.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't think I would fit in this card to be honest.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, even though we don't wear your helmet, I know that's well, that's a problem I have was like Lamborghini's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't like I get in the Lamborghini with a helmet now.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm driving around with my headlock.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can't crooked.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm like, well, it happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, when I get in my
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's beyond first world problems.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that is first world problem.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it would be the same if I read a meata to be honest, even then the new and the, I guess not new, even in the current and the, I would have that so that I could have a helmet on them off.
[SPEAKER_02]: Murm, I'm only five 11 and with a helmet, I can not fit in a meata RF with the top closed and a helmet on.
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't even get me starting the RF.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's not any know if I'll fit in that at all.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, that's it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the loose cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, um, for, for folks who like a, a vehicle with, with the, a hood.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is like half the set.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let me say, it's almost half the size of the car.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, it's a pretty long hood.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and you could, yeah, you could put a lot of things on that hood.
[SPEAKER_04]: So many things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do like the idea of landing a, like a drone on it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, like a giant drone.
[SPEAKER_04]: you can just for for touching goes you know when jets land and then take off so they can practice getting on aircraft carriers um so yeah no I don't know why the I mean I look at the Lexus and Lexus you know this is basically designed as a racecar first.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the Lexus has a long hood, but it has a big, like, like, angle at the end.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it feels a little, it's, it's probably just as long if not longer.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it feels less.
[SPEAKER_04]: Does that make sense?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, Toyota needed to need to need the replacement for the Lexus RCF GT3, you know, that that car is definitely getting old and the current RC is going away.
[SPEAKER_02]: soon, and so they develop this basically from the ground up as a GT3 race car.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it's got an all-luminum structure, it's got a rear trans axle, it's speed automatic rear trans axle.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a four-liter twin turbo V8 up front that is behind completely behind the front axle.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, yeah, that basically half of the distance from the, from the base of the windshield to the front of the car, there's no engine there.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just for the cooling system that radiators in the front.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the engine is behind the front wheels.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a hybrid.
[SPEAKER_02]: So 650 horsepower.
[SPEAKER_02]: At least that's what they're saying now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the race version, the GRGT3, is going to debut in the world and endurance championship and in Imsa and other series for 20, 20, 7 season.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the LFA is basically an electric version of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they said, you know, we saw it was shown at Monterey as a concept, then they showed it at the took-in mobility show that's a panel of mobility show without talking at all about any power train, and, you know, now they're saying it's going to be electric.
[SPEAKER_04]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think the GRGG-3 is the way I cater to it and wants a new phrasecar.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what it really comes down to.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's that's really when everybody's like any GR anything like a Q's like yeah, let's do this listen you can get to you can probably fit the g r corolla on the hood Why did I just looked at that that the new one is about two feet longer than a g r 86 there you go two feet yeah you could definitely stick a g r corolla on this hood
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you stop and then you jump in your little girl, we should just add a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the getaway, getaway car.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's stick with long hoods from on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember, the Jaguar Type 00 concept that was unveiled last year at our Basil, I think, in Miami, the Battle of the Universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jaguar's a concept version of Jaguar's new electric GT car.
[SPEAKER_02]: That thing had a long hood, even though it's electric.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was somewhat controversial.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I think how the controversies of people didn't like it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was pink or light blue.
[SPEAKER_04]: I made a gray one with Batman standing behind it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think people love that lot more.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm fine with the colors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I like I thought the blue one look good person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was the first one.
[SPEAKER_03]: I first time I'd seen it in person because all the images look like AI.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, they don't look real, but you, but it's quite, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: The people who buy a jackpot are dying off.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the people who are buying jackwars are are dying off.
[SPEAKER_02]: The so Jaguar needs new new kinds of customers.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why they're doing it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It'll be interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: See what kind of customer that brings in though because it is pretty different.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the guy who is overseeing the design of this and all of the other Jaguar Land Rover products for the last decade plus is a guy named Jerry McGovern.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Jerry is now as of this week unemployed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So much surprising.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I've heard that he can be difficult to work with.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've heard, yeah, I think that having met him in person, I could see how that would be.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't think anyway, let's, I don't know him personally, but I don't think people were like, oh, boo-hoo, Jerry's going at the Jaguar.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I haven't seen a lot of that, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think there's been a lot of, I think there's been a lot of good designs that come out during his tenure, both from Jaguar and Land Rover.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, stuff like definitely, you know, the eye pace, the F-type, even the, you know, the F-pace, and then, you know, the current generations of range rovers, the defender, he's definitely a good designs.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he's definitely talented.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no question.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but talent doesn't give you a license to be a
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, again, I'd never I've never worked with a guy.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have I have talked to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have been an events with him and he seems pretty prickly I don't know what it's like to work with him, but from what I've heard Well, if he if he's maybe he's the maybe he's the light person, you know, the vents like that That's probably not a good sign because there's people that that I have talked to that are very pleasant cordial to talk to
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, none of us have worked with McGuvern, so we don't know, you know, they, J.L.R.
[SPEAKER_02]: just got its fourth CEO in six years, a couple of weeks earlier, a guy named came over from Tata, he's the chief financial officer, Tata Motors, PB, Balaji, and two weeks later, McGuvern was fired.
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you know, you're going to do a body didn't get along with somebody.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it's cleaning house, maybe like you need to change everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's hot top probably.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like your bot, your job is to go in and clean house.
[SPEAKER_04]: And right now it's not working.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean, the defender is beautiful.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love the defender.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's the only thing it's selling.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, pretty much.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, which is, you know, it doesn't matter how beautifully your cars are.
[SPEAKER_04]: If no one's buying.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it might not, it might be beautiful to us, which, you know, if it, we like it, we know it's to do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's just the automotive journalist way, like we're like, everyone should buy this car and then no one buys it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, we, we all wanted CTSV wagons with many transmissions and Brown in Brown.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brown.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think they sold about 500 or so of those.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then GM discontinued it, because nobody else bought them.
[SPEAKER_04]: We all love the V-16, the V-90 when the vote was like, hey, we're now keep doing wagons.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're like, cool, we all drove over.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're like, these are rad.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, no one else bought them.
[SPEAKER_04]: My cousin bought my cousin got one.
[SPEAKER_04]: So at least my family is doing the right thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: One cousin bought the V-60, and then the other one bought a Honda Odyssey.
[SPEAKER_04]: And these are both people supporting two dying to dying breeds minivans wagons we got we got I got good I got good family I got good car family vibes
[SPEAKER_02]: So speaking of wagons, you know, the Trump administration made an announcement this week that they're basically rolling back corporate average fuel economy standards to about 2020 levels.
[SPEAKER_02]: And but what was particularly surprising about that announcement.
[SPEAKER_02]: is apparently Donald Trump has fallen in love with K cars from his most recent trip to Japan and they also want to bring back 70-style station wagons.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so a stopwatch is wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: twice a day yeah and of all the things you're like well this isn't enough this isn't just to find all the horror but I also I don't know if Americans I think outside of like people are been buying cake cars for you know they see their automotive enthusiasts or people who are like oh I can just buy this for my farm because you know farmers and ranchers love these things because you can get them for like five six thousand bucks and you can do all the you know F1 50 stuff with it
[SPEAKER_04]: around, around, you know, just on the farm.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't think the average person wants a K card to be honest.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I do.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's so bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: If there was a market for them here, date be here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if the car companies, if there was clearly demand for something like that, then there would have been more of a push to get something like that here.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there's a reason that it's all crossovers in SUVs out there because that's what people are buying.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's also like a lot of marketing because they marketed crossovers in SUVs like a mow.
[SPEAKER_04]: True.
[SPEAKER_04]: For years because they get more money and then you go, you know, it's, you know, it's sort of sideline.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's, it's propaganda people.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're buying crossovers SUVs because of propaganda.
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's definitely, whether you like it or not.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, then you don't have a choice, especially if you're buying a Ford.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's something like, well, and then that lie that like, oh, they're more, they're safer because you're taller, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, you know, there's a lot than went into it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But at the end of the day, how are, how we got here, doesn't matter because we're here.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're here, and the K-Car is not that, which, again, I would love a little, the Sakura, the Nissan Sakura EV.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love that little Evie.
[SPEAKER_04]: I drove it around Tokyo or Yokohama, loved it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Tiny little car.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, the big guy in the tiny car.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I, I remember his role.
[SPEAKER_02]: Trip to Japan.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to drive the Honda Super 1.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's actually technically not a K-car because it exceeds the width limit for a K-car.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, it's based on a K-car with with wider fenders, but yeah, I think you know, one of the things they said during this announcement was we want we want these tiny little cars to be built and sold here in America.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we, we have approved them, you know, cleared the decks for these things, which, what exactly does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the only thing that was besides the market potential, the only thing that was actually preventing K cars from being sold here was federal motor vehicle safety standards, crash requirements.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're not going to crash these, these cars are only 134 inches long.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the maximum that they're allowed to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: or as a point of reference, a current mini-cooper hardtop is 152.6 inches long.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's about 18 inches longer than a K-car and a Fiat 500 E is 143 inches long.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's almost over nine inches longer.
[SPEAKER_02]: almost 10 inches longer than a K-car.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're also less than 5 feet wide.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's the other thing about a K-car.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as it stands, there's no way these things would meet crash requirements here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if they are, if they're approving these things for sale in the U.S. does that mean they're basically just waving all the occupant protection standards?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like a motorcycle switch would it be like a morse like if a morse like less than 200 ccs you can't put it on the freeway Will a K car be like oh, you can only drive it around town.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's essentially a golf nobody knows nobody knows right because this we don't have anything like that right now here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean it's
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, in Europe, you know, you have these little smaller than cacars, you know, when I was in Amsterdam, there's no cycles, right, which are street legal in the city, yeah, but they're limited to I think 30 or 35 miles an hour, right, and you apparently don't need to driver's license to drive them 30 like it's 12 year old driving them around, exactly, because they're about the size, you know, for a 12 year old, but we don't have anything like that year.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, to have cars that are certain, you know, designated for certain places that you can drive them or not, I mean, no one's going to listen to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, the car is the American car.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are marvels of packaging efficiency.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Seeing Bank, Bank Talverson, sit comfortably in a K-car.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Bank is six foot eight inches tall.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bank is so tall.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he can fit comfortably in both the front and back seats of a K-car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, they are remarkable little vehicles and, you know, they tip at the gas K cars typically go for about $10 to $12,000 Japan and the EVs go for, but I think the Honda N1E is about 18,000 in Japan and this is why, you know, I mean in Japan and most of the major cities, they have regulations, you cannot register a car in a place like Tokyo.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless you can demonstrate that you have some place to park it, you have to have documentation, you have some place to park it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And before you can get a license plate for it, you know, an inspector will go out and actually measure the space and make sure you have space for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That rule does not apply to K-Cars, and they also get breaks on insurance and taxes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is why K-Cars represent more than 50% of the market in Japan, but here in the U.S.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think no matter what the regulators do,
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a hard time seeing insurance companies even being willing to register to ensure these things in the US.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because someone's there's not going to free away.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not for free away.
[SPEAKER_04]: You drive it around town.
[SPEAKER_04]: We.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's, I mean, there's also, you know, one of the reasons for bringing them would be the added fuel efficiency.
[SPEAKER_03]: When at the same time, they're just lowering the fuel efficiency requirements.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so another reason that the car company really isn't all good.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, less than a liter of displacement.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really, okay, Carl.
[SPEAKER_02]: You sit like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're riding around with a more cycle engine.
[SPEAKER_02]: 10 to 60 on a good day.
[SPEAKER_02]: On to Antonio.
[SPEAKER_02]: He even discontinued the fit in the Yaris here.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't even sell those anymore.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: The fit was so great.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember when I asked about that.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're like, well, when we look at the sales, the CRB's higher and we would rather just, you know, and then eventually essentially just said, we'd rather just push people towards the CRB, because we're going to get more.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a higher profit margin.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so these are going to have low profit margin very people like me are going to buy them and that's it and then And then same things with the station wagons.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's there's a reason the car companies don't offer station wagons anymore because nobody bought them
[SPEAKER_04]: Just there's only so many automobiles.
[SPEAKER_03]: I bought a world.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't have so many others.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have so many of us that would out there like, well, there's those 50 out of automobiles.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's 50 sold used in four years.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember when when the last generation Audi RS six of them came out and I was at the Geneva show.
[SPEAKER_03]: with Audi to see it and I asked if they would be bringing it to America because, you know, I wanted them to bring it to America and he said, well, if I could find 50,000 to my friends, they would consider it.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would one by the car.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Amazingly, they do offer the current generation R6 of ont and BMW sells the M5 touring here as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder how many they sell.
[SPEAKER_02]: That probably not many.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not many.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's like, that's one of my dreamcars.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the best.
[SPEAKER_04]: See, anyway.
[SPEAKER_04]: But we don't have, we don't have RS6 about money.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the bravo.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, no.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's also the other issue.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, what else?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and either of you ever driven a Lotus Esprit?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think they would have a Lotus Esprit.
[SPEAKER_03]: I drove the Vora a long time ago, but I have not driven an Esprit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was fortunate enough early in my, the beginning of my engineering career to get the spend a bunch of time with, uh, with the spree, uh, that was with the S4, the series 4, the spree, um, after it had been, the styling had been updated by Peter Stevens, um, but, uh, there's a company in, um, in the UK called, um, what, the heck was it called again now, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: on core?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and core.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is creating a sort of restomod.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, typically a restomod is you take an old body and you put new hardware under it.
[SPEAKER_02]: In this case, they are taking a newer set of hardware and recreating essentially recreating an old body, older body, to put on top of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they have created what they're calling it, reimagined Lotus Esprit Series 1.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is your memory.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's kind of deer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, the, yeah, it's kind of, kind of like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a low production, any of those kind of deer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, the first generation, the first, the series won a spring, you know, had a cleaner design.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was done by George Jero Jajaro, you know, came out in the 1970s.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of people prefer that design to the later S3 and S4
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what encore is doing, they're planning to build 50 of these, they're using the last generation Esprit V8, which was based on the series for, but with a V8 engine, turbo twin turbo V8 engine instead of the turbo 4 cylinder from the earlier Esprit's.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're buying up a bunch of those to use as donor cars, and they've created a new body that is inspired by the S1 Esprit, but it's all made out of carbon fiber now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has some modern updates to it, but it looks a lot like this series one Esprit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Putting it on this twin turbo V8 platform.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've upgraded the engine in production form Between the mid 90s and about 2003 or four when they stopped production of these pre the V8 made about 350 horsepower They've they're rebuilding the engines getting them up to about 400 horsepower and This thing looks fantastic
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I mean, it's even got the pop-up headlights.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got the, you know, I have to say tail lights.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
[SPEAKER_02]: It weighs just 1200 kilos.
[SPEAKER_02]: So about under 13, under 3,000 pounds with 400 of horsepower.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it will cost you 430,000 pounds, not including the donor car.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have to find one first?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or they'll find one for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: They'll find a suitable car for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was how I always found it interesting with the lotus the spree was that the windshield was perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it was it wasn't it had It was like no curve to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there was some curve to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't it wasn't completely flat
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... but it it it was for all intents and purposes flat but not not not exactly uh... so yeah i mean this this this mcal n core uh... s one spree uh... i think i think this looks fabulous if i had half a million dollars i would that would definitely consider one of these well i'd have to be a house and i'd have to sell my house
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I guess like a tough warehouse or by this and then when it breaks down, I'm just I guess it better fix it in my own or 50 K cars Put them all on Turo because now K cars are a big United States
[SPEAKER_02]: they've also they've upgraded the gearbox original gearbox was a five-speed gearbox that got from run-out which uh that was always one of the weak links on the on the spree.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would best.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, may not have gone here in particular.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Second gear was was weak and those things.
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you whenever you drive in a spree It's the most important gear like you said that you'd actually be the hardest to give a gear And they're like I said gear went out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm up Yeah, we don't need second when you drive in a spree you have to be careful.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know be be delicate You know be delicate.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know you don't want to jam the thing into gear.
[SPEAKER_02]: I keep that in mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah And that's the drive in the spree.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... but yet plaid plaid uh... upholstery on the seats and on the door panels that's good uh... alright let's see uh... what else oh uh... json fanski you guys know who json fanski is he does uh... uh... and you're in explained yeah really good job of it too he does do a great work there big fan yeah well he bought uh... bottom-self elucid error about six months ago uh...
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not, that's been a great experience.
[SPEAKER_04]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't watched the video, but like I was reading some of the stuff.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like his, like his, like some of the comments, like there's reply, this is like, no, but yeah, but it's not working.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is not working for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's had a lot of issues that are mostly related to software.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's it's been a big disappointment.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's unfortunate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like when he first got it it you know, it said that needed the software update and it kept failing the update, you know, for like the first six weeks or so, he could not get the software to update.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he finally managed to get it updated, but even then he's still having all kinds of issues with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's having the entertainment screen go blank on him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got issues with using the phone as a key.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got issues with using the key card.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got an NFC card with it that you can use as a key.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I had the gravity a couple of weeks ago, I tried using the key card and it didn't work most of the time either.
[SPEAKER_02]: I ended up having to use the key fob most of the time to unlock it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it would lock sometimes it wouldn't lock.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he would try to lock the doors and walk away from the car, going to the store, come back and it was still unlocked.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, that's not all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, all all kinds of problems with this thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, that's just really unfortunate to bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because they're great cars to drive.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the, the opportunities I've had, but, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's it's a unique to be able to get to live with one for that long.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I guess you learn all sorts of things software is hard.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ask SPMW as Volvo as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: pretty much every car company, but those two, in particular, software is difficult.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that Lucid had hired the guy away from Apple, but he's no longer there, so who knows.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think they did some cool stuff with the latest update, but that doesn't mean that, you know.
[SPEAKER_04]: New things mean new bugs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean even again software is hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, even even car play was a thing He's had a lot of trouble with where it keeps forgetting the phones that are connected to it or, you know, it will Connect to the wrong phone, you know, regardless of which driver profile you're using, you know, to him and his wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, it's, he's had to do a full factory reset on the system at least a couple of times now and then have to go back in and change all the settings and, you know, when you, when you pick a driver profile, you know, it saves things like your mirror position and your seats and everything else to your driver profile.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he would get in the car with his key, his phone, and it would for some reason decide, nope, I'm going to give you your wife's driver profile, and set everything for his wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so he'd go in and manually switch it to his driver profile, and it might move the seats, but not change the mirrors.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just been...
[SPEAKER_02]: Sounds like a nightmare.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure Lucid has already reached out, since he's such a...
[SPEAKER_04]: I would imagine.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, oh, hey, so here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, here's your new lucid.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this one's better than the other one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but it still has the same software.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's not the hardware that's been the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the software.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that sucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and so there's a new Mazda CX5 coming for Modlier 2026, and Mazda has finally given up on the central rotary controller, I've got a 15-inch touchscreen.
[SPEAKER_04]: We should have waited until Nicole was back to talk about this in that case.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I'll leave it for next week then.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that was when I see it here reaction or excitement.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're like, what?
[SPEAKER_04]: That thing's gone.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, I'll talk about this one next week though.
[SPEAKER_03]: That way it was pretty, it was pretty annoying I have to say.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nicole had personally didn't have a problem with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I, it's I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: The turning tank.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's, that's it for for this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, actually there is one more.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you guys want to rant about Mercedes-Benz charging you for subscription for features that are in the car?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, have we been down that road before?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, isn't that the Tesla Model, they just build a car with everything in it, all the hardware, and then you just pay for it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Mercedes wants you to pay $50 for a front seat and massage function, even though the hardware, $50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
[SPEAKER_02]: I $50 per month.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a one time, it's not clear, but the thing is, they're charging you 50 bucks and all it's doing, it's a lumbar supporting the one bar support, just, yeah, just pretty lame.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's that late, is that fake massage that you get sometimes in the car was like, oh, it's a, and it's just sort of moves you back and forth every, like a couple of nights.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: and $200 to use dash cam functionality.
[SPEAKER_02]: The car, all the CLAs have a front camera.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have the ability to record, but you cannot actually get that functionality unless you pay them an extra 200 bucks.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's the, I mean, so why not just raise the price by that much in call it, I mean, so if it's a subscription, it must be a continuous charge, I assume.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just, is it, is it just pay once, because if it's just a pay once, then you're just paying 200 bucks for a camera, which, you know, that's doing, this doing other things.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's, again, it's a Tesla model where they would build the car with all the, build the cars with all the hardware, and then say, hey, do you want to add, do you want to turn this on, do you want to turn this on, do you want to turn this on, do you want to turn this on, because it,
[SPEAKER_02]: cost less money in three in order to sort of have it a bunch of different streamers in the line yeah stream money manufacturing yeah this is just Mercedes doing something that you know to be fair it does cost money to develop that software yeah you're adding software in there there's there's a cost associated with that and manufacturers have to figure out a way
[SPEAKER_02]: to recover those costs, especially if consumers increasingly expect to get new features over the life of the vehicle.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like in the past where whatever was in the car, when you drove off the lot was what you had for the life of the car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, they've got, thanks to Tesla, Rivian and others, they've gotten used to getting new functions over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the cost money to develop that and maintain that software.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now this is really the only way that you can realistically cover those costs over the life of the vehicle.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think whether it's there or not, if you want a product, you should have to pay for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if they want everybody to pay for it, they just increase the price of the car and everybody has it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know, it's, I understand the principle of not, you know, it's already there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why should I, you know, I've already bought the car.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's already got all the things I need.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why do I have to pay more?
[SPEAKER_03]: But like you said, it's, you know, and we know it's software is important because, you know, look at what Jason's going through.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, is it?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know, I don't think it's that big of a stretch for, you know, especially if you're making these transactions at the time of purchase anyway.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe you don't want it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's maybe one it later.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe you know whatever.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like ADAS stuff and I think you know, if it's top of the ADAS.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's, if it's a one time thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably not so bad then compared to if you have to pay a subscription for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, subscription would be different.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you're paying you know 20 dollars a month so that you can have a seat massage or.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's the BMW thing and they got big trouble for that yeah, I don't know trouble.
[SPEAKER_04]: They got a lot of pushback That's the one to say they decided not to do it because of all the pushback.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it wasn't even here It was in Europe and like one market and it was like they're like fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh gosh.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: We tried it out This is yeah, I mean there they're I guess they're ADS the subscription for the ADS is more expensive than other systems ADS Which I'm like it's tomorrow's 80s
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you have a subscription for super crews.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's just more expensive than those other ones, but again, it's a Mercedes, so yeah, it's going to be more expensive.
[SPEAKER_04]: Even if it's not as robust, it's still sense Mercedes.
[SPEAKER_04]: You bought a Mercedes, I'm sorry, I mean, I mean, I'm not sorry.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I like to say, I'm sorry that you don't realize it.
[SPEAKER_04]: A premium car, everything on it's going to be premium.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you buy a Mercedes, guess what?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to cost you more to get a fixed.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything costs more.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just, that's just a, that's what happens when I look at the brand.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to cost you everything's going to cost more.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why I'm like, I'm thinking about buying this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, well, you know, do you have the money to have it for upkeep?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you might be able to buy it up front, but, you know, when it's 75% percent more, 60% more, yeah, cost of ownership is higher than that of, you know, on a scape.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, the last thing is, I recently had a few days ago, I spoke with Mark Andre for Jay, who's a co-founder and CEO of a company in Montreal called Decable Energy.
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple of weeks ago, decibel announced a partnership with Volvo and Polestar to offer their, and to integrate their home energy management system.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's calling it this because it is more than just a charger.
[SPEAKER_02]: At, you know, we've seen systems like from Ford and GM to do vehicle to home capabilities to use the battery and your car for home power back up and do other stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: The decibel system can do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: but it's all integrated into one box so it's easier to install but it also has more stuff in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like one of the things and one of the key things is that it has DC charging capability built into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's got two cables on it so you can actually charge two cars at home at the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you have a solar system on your house, you can connect it to this decibel aura home charging system.
[SPEAKER_02]: And your solar panels put out DC direct current.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your battery takes direct current.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and with most systems, most, most home charging systems like the Ford and GM ones or, you know, anything else, they're all doing AC charging.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you have a solar system, it's got to go through an inverter, get converted from DC to AC.
[SPEAKER_02]: go through the charger and then when it gets back into the car into your battery, it's got to be converted back to DC again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've got some losses associated with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're wasting electricity when you do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: With this system, it goes straight through.
[SPEAKER_02]: As DC from your solar panels, through the machine, it's got a CCS connector where you can get it with an X connector on it and it goes straight into your battery as direct current.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's going to be a more efficient system and it can do a bunch of other stuff too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I talked with Mark Andre and after we say goodbye, you can listen to that conversation and we'll be back next week and guess we'll be back next week Nick Cole.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Nick Cole.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and the Cole's going to be back from her ventures.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So talk to you all next time and stay tuned for the conversation with Mark Andre for Jay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm here talking today with Mark Andre for Jay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope I got that pronunciation correctly, the co-founder and CEO of decibel energy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And welcome Mark Andre.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a nice nice to meet you and talk to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a few weeks ago, your company, your your based in Montreal, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hold on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not hearing your voice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you just say something?
[SPEAKER_02]: One, two, three.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: There we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Looks like it for muted automatically for some reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sam, you can call me M.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: But call me M.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not easy or for everyone.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So your company is based in Montreal, I believe, and you are in the home energy business and you recently made an announcement with partnership with Volvo and Polestar.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's talk a little bit about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, actually, let's start with a little background on decibel and kind of
[SPEAKER_02]: How long the company's been around and what you're doing, what your focus is on, and then we'll get into your partnership with Volvo and Polestar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: The company was born out of a series of ideas by people like me that's get around.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were from the energy sector, surprisingly, not the automotive sectors, and we find out that energy for home was to complex, to expensive, natural, and we say, how can we put the customer, the homeowner, in the middle of the equations?
[SPEAKER_00]: with the EV, start to go on, and it says, how can we make something that's going to make sense out of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, we're a serial entrepreneur.
[SPEAKER_00]: We say, well, three years in the process, it will be done, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're 10 years later, product is in the market right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Customer VIP, I suppose it takes 10 years to make an overnight success.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's mostly the genesis of this, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've now started delivering products to customers and you've got a couple of different things that you're offering.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the key, as I understand, with the Volvo Polestar partnership, is your aura home energy station.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so tell us about this and what makes it different from some of the other solutions that are in the market for vehicle to home integration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ara is a home energy stations.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's all about the home and your energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's surprisingly, of course, home is the gas stations.
[SPEAKER_00]: for electric vehicles most of the time, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So of course, you cannot be a home energy station if you are not also providing faster charge at home, better charge at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the mean time here, you know, using the energy from the car to borrow your home during a blackout or selling your energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not only that, this is a true stroller to EV product.
[SPEAKER_00]: We take the energy from the Sun, DC energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I don't want to start a new current war between Edison and Tesla, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to go there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the point is solar energy is DC, cars, battery, DC energy, grid AC.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we take the energy in DC from the Sun straight through your car and we keep it in DC.
[SPEAKER_00]: Better efficiency, safer faster, simply.
[SPEAKER_00]: The big difference with current product out of the market is also the intelligence.
[SPEAKER_00]: The disadvantage of energy stations just learn from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You start to learn when you use your car, how much energy you need, how much energy you need for your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know your electrical contract, access to weather forecasts, solar forecasts, no one to sunshine, and it basically deliver your energy so you can live a life without compromise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simply, just that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's interesting what you mentioned about DC straight from your solar to your car.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, would it be accurate to describe, you know, this is, you know, on your website, you say, never call our a charger, you know, it's obviously much more than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, for at least that part of the functionality,
[SPEAKER_02]: Is what you're providing here, essentially a DC charger for your home, at least that component of the functionality, the DC charger for home.
[SPEAKER_00]: That absolutely correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, ARA is a fast DC charger for your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can reach a miles a minute of charging with the decibel ARA.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ARA can charge two car at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have one DC port in one AC port.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you have a plugin, Iberids for examples that only accept the AC port, the ARA sidekick on the AC port can keep and manage two cars at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: both side-art bidirectional what we're launching obviously with full-star and Volvo DC bidirectional past DC charging at home chart with the Sun at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really this part that is truly different from everything in the market right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: okay and it looks like you also offer integration with a home storage battery as well so presumably again takes it directly from your solar if you have that to the to the storage battery without the losses that you get typically you know of having to go through the power electronics to you know go from DC to AC and back to DC again so it's a more
[SPEAKER_00]: absolutely correct and there's another little things about the battery also as we know residential storage may be quite expensive we see people starting to stack you know 20 30 even 40 kilowatt hours of battery that's super expensive 50 $60,000 worth of battery for black out purpose
[SPEAKER_00]: But think about it, Sam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you've got a Volvo EX90 with a one-on-threat an 11-kilowatt hours battery in your driveway or blackout.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, your residential storage may be much smaller.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may need it only for your solar or the blackout when you're not at home, reducing the costs improving the return investment for every single customer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't realize this, but our cars or EVs is probably the second most expensive investment from for any family, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you have it in the driveway, and you don't use it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it should be powerful even when part.
[SPEAKER_00]: So your blackout power from the Volvo, from the Polestar right, smaller battery blackout where you're not home or basically to absorb too much solar when the car is in prison.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, one of the things that appears to be different with the system compared to solutions offered by Ford or General Motors, is it's all in one box.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the other solutions you've got a wall box, a wall charger, a bidirectional charger, and then a transfer switch and an inverter, and the control box, it looks like you've integrated all of that into a single unit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that correct?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is correct, but yes, we still have a transfer switch, an islanding devices that will be installed by your breaker panel, it's more convenient so you can basically put it in the right place.
[SPEAKER_00]: The battery to DC battery is also external to the box, but
[SPEAKER_00]: smaller and we have a partnership with LG so it's great LG battery that's going to be installed with it and you can position it everywhere in your house, excite this, everything into a single box, faster installation, easier for everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then obviously an inverter in here as well so that if you're charging your vehicle at night don't have solar available,
[SPEAKER_02]: You're taking power from the grid or even if you just don't have solar at all, you can you can still get it So is it doing taking the AC and still doing DC charging on your course?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely in the case of super charging.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where the operating system came at play orchestrate OS look at basically where's the power should come from and where it should go
[SPEAKER_00]: A good example is that the excess of solar, I don't need it for my house, price on the market is depressed, don't need to export right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to go from DC to solar to your stationary battery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, I need to go to the movie theater catching of the kids that are as super low on charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go super charge super charge in DC.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I'm going to use all the power from the home in DC converted in DC bypassing the onboard inverter so I can really zoom in at the miles per minute of charge so I can go and take care of the kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what is the maximum charging rate
[SPEAKER_00]: So right now, this unit of models can go as high as 16 kilowatt hours at DC, but we measure it at the DC port, not at the end trend.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the equivalent of 20 at 22 kilowatt AC.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's much faster than most other home charging solutions.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, you said it's got two cables on it, so you have an AC and a DC connector.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that a presumably sensor partnered with Volvo and Polestar right now, you've got CCS and a J1772 on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so what, what, what is, what would one of these units cost?
[SPEAKER_02]: What was that are a cost?
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are a unit itself, start at $5,000 US, but right now to be honest, everyone bought it all the rest up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So with solar, with stationery storage and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking about $20,000 with solar on the roof installation, stationery battery, two charger, blackout kit.
[SPEAKER_00]: To average, people are going to spend about $20,000 with installations to have the arrow fully functional at their home.
[SPEAKER_00]: depending where you live, depending you replace your generators and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the return on the investment is between three to seven years for a normal customer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And is that those prices are those in Canadian dollars or US dollars?
[SPEAKER_00]: US dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's theirs any other dollars available in the market right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an US dollar.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, obviously you've got the partnership with
[SPEAKER_02]: But can this unit, you know, if you own a different EV, you know, from some other brand, can you also utilize this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sarah is absolutely yes, we are universally compatible from a charging point of view, any car.
[SPEAKER_00]: that basically can be charged, we can charge it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can afford the super charged on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the bidirectional viewpoint of you, now we took the decisions to work with manufacturers to make sure that we preserve the battery warranty that we make the experience seamless.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are launching alongside car manufacturer one after another with this key user experience, one after another for the bidirectional part.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you buy it today, the decibel definitely compatible with charge and supercharc with every car on the market, then by the rationality, it's still going to go as more manufacturers, basically, and else they're by the rationality on their car.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK. Let's see, what else?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you have the bidirectional capability on a Volvo or Polestar,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in a power outage, the aura unit automatically detect that the power flow has stopped from the grid and then triggers the transfer switch to start the flow back from your vehicle battery back into your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to find a story here about 18 months ago, we start working with Volvo with Polestar about to make everything work flawlessly.
[SPEAKER_00]: from a technical point of view was fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We go into it and then all of a sudden we start thinking, what do you have to challenge up in the middle of the night to customers asleep, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: No one would want to wake up the car for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now we start to think and says, so the Iraq and I have been wake up the car for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go into bi-directional modes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never are going to see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then boom.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the auto, the middle of the night, if so, I run and start to think it says, well, I suppose you need your car to go back to the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to go start super charging to make sure you're going to have enough energy in your backup.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all done automatically.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have, for example, solar install or stationary battery install, you're away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say you have a secondary house.
[SPEAKER_00]: The power electronic of aura is always on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's power by its own internal battery.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as you connect a car, aura will figure out this is, okay, this is biterationals, engage with the car, and we're going to start to power your residence right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is seamless.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say it's out to the point it is blurring.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just works.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's the way you would want it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and that's, you know, that's one of the advantages of an EV event, both an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage of an EV compared to a gas vehicle.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know a gas pump never really talks to the vehicle it does there's no there's no communication you know with an EV the the charger and the the vehicle are always talking to each other to manage charging anyway so that makes it relatively straightforward to send a signal from from an R.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: into the vehicle to say, hey, wake up, I'm going to need some of your power up for a little while, you know, and to manage all of that, you know, fairly seamlessly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, you know, as many EV owners have experienced when doing public charging, that sometimes be a downside, if the software isn't quite right, but, you know, that's that's that's something that hopefully
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if a customer wanted one of these today, you know, it's available now to customers and they can order it and get it delivered fairly quickly and then get an electrician to install it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are doing a rollout right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We start with California.
[SPEAKER_00]: If people want to order in California, something doesn't seem to be interesting right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a rebates.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a discount of to $14,000 available for people of California to want to install the Discibelera right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is basically an incentive that has been done by the state of California that people in California
[SPEAKER_00]: available for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you order right now in California, you may be eligible to dead discounts, making the era of why affordable, I should say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we start also a rollout in both Texas, Florida, and we're going to be available in all the 50 states probably by mid-time next year by the summer of 26.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for that maximum rebate, is that for a complete system with solar and the
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the beauty of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's start with just the bi-directionality supercharging the black out and
[SPEAKER_00]: helping to grid with your car, of course, into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really an amazing, amazing program for anyone in California right now that want to go with bidirectional detail, that want to engage in the future of our energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really reduced the cost.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's mostly risk free.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for the maximum speed capability on this, you would probably want to have this on a 100 amp circuit in your house.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes, the way it is is intelligence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, of course, we are an North America electric code certified in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you installed at 100 times breakers over 200 times breaker panels.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to upgrade your breaker panels at 200 times it just works.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they'll intelligence in the era.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just gonna manage the energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, make sure we never gonna trip any circuit in your home and make it absolutely safe all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, it looks like you've got an app to manage all of this remotely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you don't have something, you know, if you want to schedule when you want your vehicle to charge that sort of thing can handle all of that fairly easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can talk about my own experience here with the app.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so proud of our app, we have an app store, people can install different indicators and information and do it, and I show it to my own family, and so on, and I must say something's ham.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of the artificial intelligence, that just learned from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: After probably two weeks, no one used to have anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just plugged the car and the RF light arrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usage battery and then learn and the price of electricity and just find out the way to provide you the energy at the lowest possible price.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, we want to manage energy price at home to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we, the RF is quite smart.
[SPEAKER_00]: On this point, just plug, let it go and it just works.
[SPEAKER_02]: So are you working with utilities to be able to communicate with whatever the local utility is and find out what their rate schedules are and then manage the charging optimally to get the lowest rates?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, and even in some part of the country right now, we're discussing with the deal with utilities to have access to real-time energy market.
[SPEAKER_00]: So basically, the ARO will know when the price of energy is super high, you have excess, why not exporting and have the Omorner-Mick money helping to grid, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the price is very low, why not using this moment in time and basically bring energy back home?
[SPEAKER_00]: We are working on different projects with utilities that will really change the way we're going to interact with utilities in the future.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I mean, recently I was talking with another automaker that has integrated their system as part of a larger home energy management solution so that even even when the power is on even when you don't have an outage, you know, especially during the day if you have solar or even if you don't have solar hooked up, you can use, you know, for some period of time use the
[SPEAKER_02]: the battery and the vehicle to power your home, you know, reducing the load on the rest of the grid so that, you know, if there's less risk of an outage for your other people in your area in your neighborhood, is that something you can do as well?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is something it is done automatically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good for the grid, absolutely reducing the otters, but think about the money saving aspect of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In some part of the country, people pay at dinner time up to 80 cents per kilowatt hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in low peak per year, middle of the night, some plays 10, 15 cents, down to five cents.
[SPEAKER_00]: So most people use their EVs this way, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They charge it up to 80, 90 percent,
[SPEAKER_00]: will completely full right to preserve the battery, go to work, get back home, battery is still at what?
[SPEAKER_00]: 70, 80 percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a great moment where we're going to use about 10 percent of your battery to help you cook dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: and prevent you to buy the energy at 70 cents or 85 cents.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then during the middle of the night, we're going to charge it back then at 10, 15 cents.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just by doing this automatically, the arrow make you save thousands of dollars for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, very boring just works just to do it automatically.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's something that our can do right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything else that we haven't covered that, you know, that, either that our system is doing now or interesting things that you might have coming up in the near future?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we are at the end-fancy of this transformation of home electrification to be honest, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything was built kind of silos.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have multiple product in our home, intelligent thermostat, intelligence, EV charger, intelligent brick or panels, and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Arrow, we just want to simplify everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just want to think that at some point in time, you just have something
[SPEAKER_00]: Tats should manage your energy on your VAT.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know Sam, I'm in electrical engineers, I have a lot of degree, I'm a serial entrepreneur.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at home, I'm just that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even myself, I don't want to manage my own energy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be constantly fiddling with all that stuff in their house.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly correct, and then the utilities try to engage with us, right, at the home levels, but there's no CFO at home, there's no engineers at home, right, and so when they call
[SPEAKER_00]: no one answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where Sera is going and I think that we're going to see more and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the collaboration between the homeowners, but thematically with the utilities, all together to be just better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Better energy, lower energy costs, more reliable energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's just really where we were heading with the Hara product.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me today, and this sounds like a next-generation version of some of the things we've started to see in recent years, but a higher level of integration that can potentially do even more and be simpler in a lot of ways and provide a lot of advantages.
[SPEAKER_02]: And certainly some efficiency advantages, especially if you have
[SPEAKER_02]: Solar and you're able to, you know, not have to be constantly switching back and forth between AC and DC.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a lot of potential benefits to that to consumers over the long run.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is to make it symbols and just provide, you know, more affordable energy, reliable energy to all.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's if we can deliver energy so we can live a life without come from my Sam.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be in the good place.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks so much for your time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hope to talk to you again soon.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you have other things to to announce.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.