[SPEAKER_05]: This is episode four hundred and forty seven of wheel bearings.
[SPEAKER_05]: I am Sam Abuel Samad from telebtry.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am Kowaklin from test miles and top speed.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm Perry Stern doing freelance work for a number of places like US news, capital one, JD power, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he is a standin because Robby now sounds like Sam did.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have to go up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps he's the worst.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably worse.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, because he was rehearsing with his bands over the weekend and went into rehearsal with the sore throat and did not turn out well and they have a big show on Friday night.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he's got no voice right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hopefully, but Friday he'll be able to sing again.
[SPEAKER_05]: But in the meantime, we got you Perry.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's good because last week all three of us were in New York for the New York Auto Show and Unlike most North American auto shows of late Actually, there was actually a lot of stuff there.
[SPEAKER_05]: There was a bunch of new stuff
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of cool because it didn't feel quite as frenetic as old school auto shows when we just go from conference to conference to conference and never stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you did have stuff to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of think the biggest thing of the whole, I mean,
[SPEAKER_01]: that they pulled it off was Hyundai with their new concept, where they told nobody anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: No pictures, no hints, no nothing, even the people who were hosted by Hyundai were like, well, like they didn't tell anybody anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, you couldn't have had no idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you wanted to know when they revealed it, you literally had to show up for their conference.
[SPEAKER_04]: which is how it used to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, I'd give the Detroit Auto Show, and there'd be 50, 60 new cars debuted, and we wouldn't know any of them until the Rapt came off, which was a lot more work, but it's exciting.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was, you're right.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was almost like that was the start of the show, the fact that it was a surprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, that they actually, and one of my favorite things was we were all trying to guess what it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like everybody is, is it a truck?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it an SUV as a full-size truck as a mid-size truck?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it neat?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like nobody really knew.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody knew.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved that they were guessing by the journalist going because there are a couple of truck journalists.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That went through.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did the same thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does he pick up truck talk and SUV plus SUV pick up truck talk?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mess it up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Pick up plus SUV talk or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, anyway, he was there and we all look really all tens there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got to be a truck.
[SPEAKER_01]: They invited him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not a truck.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was an off-road SUV concept.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all part of the distraction.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was and they even kind of said like we sort of tried to really throw you guys off your game Or I mean even right up to the last second
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we didn't know Jose Munoz was there.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was doing the introductory part of the presentation.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was talking about kind of where Hyundai's business is right now and what's going on.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they put up this video and he mentioned, we're doing a mid-sized pickup truck.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so everybody, then media, because the night before, we're a bunch of us that were hosted by Hyundai.
[SPEAKER_05]: We were at a dinner at Genesis House.
[SPEAKER_05]: and I'd say it was probably about 50-50 between truck and off-roader.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah?
[SPEAKER_05]: And he mentioned pickup truck and everybody thought, oh okay, he's gonna show us a pickup truck.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then they pulled the curtain up on this thing and it was an SUV.
[SPEAKER_05]: But we'll come back to that in a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the way you call a teaser in the business.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll come back to what Hyundai actually showed us.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the meantime, the call, what have you been driving?
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been driving and I was saying this before the show, I'm so excited that I actually holding it up because I'm so happy that I actually have not quite a monrony, but almost better because it's got like a picture and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have, I can read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The 2026 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat Gelbreak All-Wild Drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not the right color of the one that you're driving.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, the one that I drive and I'm driving and well, you know, you can't have everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: This one is right blue.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one I have is sort of like a sparkly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not red.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more like a burgundy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really pretty.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it does still have, and I think this one has a whole black lid on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: This one just mine just has like the racing stripe that goes all the way across it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: So because besides SUV's need racing stripes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this one does.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you get 710 Superchar source power you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: 710 horsepower, 645 pound feet of torque.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's a 6.2 liter heavy V8, uh, uh, it's, it's stupid.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's stupid that they did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, it is ridiculous that they did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a three row SUV with like room for your whole family, nice and comfy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's absolutely the most ridiculous thing ever and I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: like it's just perfect that they did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no logical reason why this should have been built.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just somebody showed up and said, you think we could do this like that's dumb when do we start?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's just, it's brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am very glad that it's still around.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad that, you know, just a crazy, powerful Dodge vehicles there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that the Durango is just aging something fierce.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: 710 horsepower, 645 pound view to torque, three rows of seating, I'll take it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has the drive modes.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, I think there's seven drive modes on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seven, seven distinct drive modes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Andy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gee, gee, auto sport track, snow, toe, eco, and valet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you want that valet so that your guide doesn't go cruising around having a good time while you're having dinner and trash your SUV has brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I drove it in auto and in sport, mostly sport.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so obnoxiously beautifully loud when you put it in sport.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when you started, when you first started, it just sounds fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I went to take the picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why you know what color I had, Sammy, was to see in the picture I put it today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was playing and going taking pictures and doing a couple of social media videos, I spent 45 minutes at the little park in Merrimack, New Hampshire because everybody was coming a nice car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I take a look?
[SPEAKER_01]: A nice car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody was there at the dog park, everybody needed to see the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they know what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: People recognize a little Hellcat on there, and it means something to people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really fun to drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the powers ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sound is ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has really heavily bolstered season.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking, like, you want that if you were actually going to track.
[SPEAKER_01]: the car, which I guess you could.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who's going to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have find the guy who does and just be like, why?
[SPEAKER_01]: But you could.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has really heavy bolstering on the seats, but it's not that kind of bolstering like you get in a short low little sports car where it's so much so that when you sit down, you're like, feel like you can't get out, you have to lean forward and then get out because you're like, it like it's holding you in.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of perfect for what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like this car.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always like the Durango.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the one thing is that it's starting to get.
[SPEAKER_01]: It hasn't been changed in forever, but there's still some- That started production in 2010.
[SPEAKER_01]: The car generation.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of a stalantis way to go.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, look at the 300C, the charger, all of those were around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: As long.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they were still good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're still good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the thing is they're setting like sales records with this thing right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's doing so well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can see this in like, we don't really need to do other stuff or selling it like as fast as we can make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just have it go and do it's thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I feel economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we, I didn't even look, oh my god, I'm not even looking because it's going to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has some, no much, it has some.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it does go with certain number of miles per gallon.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's not for miles per mile.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's for a video.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's for a video, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wait, I have the official numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, God.
[SPEAKER_01]: city highway combined is 12, 17, 13.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this might be an expensive, exceptionally expensive car to drive right now, or gas prices near me just crept over $4.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that's cheap for a lot of people, but we don't see those kinds of gas prices.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just was 405 when I got home yesterday and I was kind of bundling like there we go over $4.
[SPEAKER_01]: Top speed though, look at this 180 miles an hour,
[SPEAKER_01]: these are ridiculous numbers and fun for the whole family fun for the whole thing you imagine if your kids and there's a launch control you imagine you launch control with your kids in the back way they would have so much fun I I love this now the problem is it is not an inexpensive vehicle so the base price on this is 79,995 dollars as equipped the one I
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot, that's a lot of money for an SUV.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Green City truly is a performance SUV, but you're right up there luxury car territory at $95,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so I don't, but you're going to hellcat on the side of your door, and it says jailbreak on the, like, the sticker on the dashboard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what more do you want for $95,000?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, jailbreak should be worth at least a couple of thousand just to have the sticker.
[SPEAKER_01]: At least, at least that much, easily.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and it is nice to drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun in the highway.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun on side roads.
[SPEAKER_01]: It handles really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: You put it in sport and it does tighten up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, even though it's a big vehicle, it doesn't feel super top heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It actually is a pleasant SUV to drive, even if you're just cruising along responsibly and not trying to be like, yeah, how good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can.
[UNKNOWN]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I did enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would buy it, but 95,000 is a little steep for my blood, but it's, it's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep building weird stuff, don't you?
[SPEAKER_05]: What about you, Perry?
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you drive anything this week?
[SPEAKER_04]: I did.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've got a Toyota Tundra, a Formula Drive crew cab, TRD Pro.
[SPEAKER_04]: high performance off-road truck designed to go you know it good speeds when the road is not good or basically when you don't have a road and I like it it's you know it's it's uh it's somewhat subtle because it's it's a stark gray color but does have the big break calipers you know the red tow hooks
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, is it red to looks?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm trying to remember now.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's, it says, you know, T.R.D.
[SPEAKER_04]: Pro and big letters on the back of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's still, um,
[SPEAKER_04]: It's funny, it doesn't really look like it's raised up that high, but it's got the off-road tires, it's got the off-road suspension, and the coolest thing in this track are the, I guess they're called the ISO dynamic seats.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has those crazy seats.
[SPEAKER_04]: It does, both front seats have their own independent suspension.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so you can adjust, there's little switches in the back of the seat and they look really cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: They've got these two like cross pieces that have little gauges on them and you can actually change them from off-road to on-road.
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you're on the pavement, it's a little firmer.
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't move around as much.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you're off-road, you put it to
[SPEAKER_04]: off-road and it absorbs all the bumps and you can actually rock around and the seat and it moves on its own.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I actually have it in off-road because I find that's actually more comfortable.
[SPEAKER_04]: out in the road.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I've just kind of left it there.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the interesting thing is there's a little pump.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can actually change the pressure if you want.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can make it stiffer or make it looser.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's such a wild feature.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's not cheap.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's about a thousand dollars to add that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it worth a thousand dollars for a.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you know, given the fact that the whole price of this truck is $82,000, $1,000 here and there is really not that much difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, but I took it.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's, you know, where I live, there's a lot of gravel roads that are now.
[SPEAKER_04]: really bad shape after, you know, after the winters.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I mean, potholes that are, I don't know, four or five inches deep and they're big and and uh, and there's a lot of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I had taken a Proko sport out on some of my favorite roads a couple of weeks ago and I thought over 25 miles now or I thought the whole thing was going to shake loose.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it was just, it was really bad roads.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I took the Tundra on the same roads.
[SPEAKER_04]: 55 miles an hour and it's a smooth it's amazing how well between the seats and the trucks suspension it is designed to handle roads like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so if you lived in a place like that you know where you know the roads are not paved and they're not good.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean having something like this could improve your life dramatically.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's comfortable inside.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, you know, it has red leather interior.
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, I thought this was quite amusing yesterday.
[SPEAKER_04]: I looked outside, and there was a female cardinal sitting on top of the truck looking in the sunroof.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's on the red.
[SPEAKER_02]: Got a little piece.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's apparently so, but it's nice to drive actually on the freeway.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's surprisingly smooth and comfortable.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's got a ton of power.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a hybrid, you know, it's getting
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, 14 or 15 miles per gallon right now, but a lot of that's been off-road or at least off-payment.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's pretty enjoyable to drive.
[SPEAKER_04]: Actually, you know, like the hybrid system, I would expect it that it would be, you know, even on the freeway, it still wasn't getting much over 17, 18 miles per gallon.
[SPEAKER_04]: The actual EPA numbers are 18 city, 20 highway, 19 combined.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was about where it expects.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's a, it's a big truck and it's, it's got off of tires and all of that, but, but overall, you know, good power and really enjoyable to drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I've never gotten over 18 with any of the current Tundra's or Sequoia's with the hybrid system.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not really not particularly efficient power train, especially when you compare it to the F-150 hybrid, which you own one of those.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, right now, I mean, a typical just city driving, we get between 23 and 24 miles per gallon and the F-150 hybrid.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's,
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I've noticed, you know, just in a little bit of time, I drove Toyota, it doesn't drive on electric near as much as the F-150 does.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the F-150, you can actually cruise through town, and it'll just sit there with zero RPMs.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're, you know, when I left off the throttle on the Toyota, it will drop down to shut off the engine.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, you breathe on the throttle, the engine's back on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, the Tundra is a lot heavier than the F-152.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think similar to Call, it's about like six or seven hundred pounds.
[SPEAKER_05]: Have your money would be more than that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, would make a difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm trying to find it here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and it's it's significantly heavier, which I'm sure contributes to the to the fuel economy difference.
[SPEAKER_05]: Even though, you know, they make roughly, you know, pretty close to the same power and torque, but they're just, you know, the one is just significantly more efficient than the other.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, if you, you know, obviously, we know which choice you made when it came to buying a truck, but if you were, but I had to buy one choices, yeah, I mean, if you're going to buy one today, I mean, you know, would you go for a Tundra or an F-150?
[SPEAKER_04]: I like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, for, for what I do, you know, for towing and for just driving is a daily driver F-150 question, because they're both very comfortable inside.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they're very comparable, but I think that the hybrid system, the F-150 is better.
[SPEAKER_04]: The other thing is that, you know, which I use in the F-150 is it has a 7.2 kilowatt generator built in, which still shocks me that no one else has done what Ford did.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can run, you know, 30 amps to my travel trailer and run air conditioning anywhere with my truck.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's an amazing game changer that no one seems to remember or take it back, which always surprises me.
[SPEAKER_04]: But anyway, yeah, I'll take the app for it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, the Tundra is the only other hybrid full-size pickup truck that's available right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: GM does do that on their electric trucks, but those are all in very small numbers.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I suspect that probably when the next generation GM trucks come out, I think probably later this year they're going to be introduced.
[SPEAKER_05]: So those, they will probably add a feature like that on those trucks, I would guess.
[SPEAKER_04]: It certainly makes sense.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, anything else on the Tundra?
[SPEAKER_05]: Probably move on.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I think, you know, it's, it is pricey, you know, like I said, $82,000 for a full-sized truck.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, everything's pricey.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what's cheap anymore?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely nothing.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I had the Volkswagen Jetta Jetta GLI Autobahn edition, which was finished in a, what it called, Monterey Blue.
[SPEAKER_05]: And one of my wife came home and she saw this thing in the driveway, so, and that car is so boring looking.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, God.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's not wrong, you know, as a former Jenna driver, you know, she, you know, she has the right right to her, her opinion, and to be honest, it's not a particularly exciting looking car, although you do get that nice slash of red in the front face of there on the GLI, you know, under the around the grill.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, so that it gives it a touch of something, but it, you know, it's not, it's not an exciting car to look at, but it is actually quite pleasant to drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the, the jet of GLI is basically the, uh, a four door sedan version of the GTI of the, of the golf GTI.
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, so, you know, if you are one of those people at for some reason, thinks that having a trunk is better than having a hatchback.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what's wrong with you, but, um, uh, but, you know, a VW's got you covered on both fronts, you know, so you can get the,
[SPEAKER_05]: In the GLI, it's got the 2-liter EAA-884 cylinder turbo engine, which is the same engine that Volkswagen currently uses on almost everything that they sell in North America.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's 228 horsepower, 258 pounds feet of torque, which is actually pretty good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, you know, it's, it's, it's more than enough for this car.
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, it's also paired.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can get it with a six-speed manual transmission.
[SPEAKER_05]: Unfortunately, the one I had had these seven speed DSG dual clutch automatic, um, which,
[SPEAKER_05]: Actually, most of the time is fine, the one, you know, when we had our Jetta TDI wagon, we had a DSG gearbox in there as well, but it was a six-speed.
[SPEAKER_05]: The seven-speed, you know, doesn't, doesn't behave significantly differently, but the, the one thing that you will notice the most is just accelerating off the line.
[SPEAKER_05]: You sometimes get some lag,
[SPEAKER_05]: you know, before the thing, before the clutches engage and it really kicks in.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so you step on the accelerator and this is particularly noteworthy when you go to one of these from an EV, you know, we also, we own an EV.
[SPEAKER_05]: And when you get, get into an EV and you step on the accelerator, it just goes immediately.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's no waiting around.
[SPEAKER_05]: And with a regular automatic transmission, a torque converter, automatic transmission, you get a slight bit of lag, but not much, modern automatics are pretty good about that.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're pretty responsive.
[SPEAKER_05]: And when you get into a dual clutch gearbox, it's like,
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah, okay, yeah, you stop on it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, don't get this coffee and come back.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you know, it's, it's most problematic, you know, when you're, for example, trying to make a left turn out of your neighborhood onto a busy street.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, you're trying to time it right to, because you know that there's going to be some lag there.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you want to be able to get out there before the cars coming at you from the left are going to get to where you are.
[SPEAKER_05]: And before the cars coming from the right, get to where you are, you want to try and get that gap.
[SPEAKER_05]: That can be a little problematic time, just right.
[SPEAKER_05]: But other than that, the gearbox works fine, you know, it's just smoothly, it's just quickly, the engine's nice, you know, it's got plenty of power, plenty of performance, no real complaints with that, the seats are quite comfortable, I've always liked the W seats, they've always been pretty good, you know, this one, you know, has most of the options on it, it's, uh,
[SPEAKER_05]: It still has, you know, some of the touch control stuff that VW put on a lot of the recent vehicles like for the temperature controls, you know, drag your finger along the slider on the dashboard, which is a bit annoying.
[SPEAKER_05]: But there is a volume, you know, a rotary volume control, so that's good.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's got Android Auto and CarPlay support, all the usual stuff.
[SPEAKER_05]: The rear seat is roomy enough as well for adults, so I can easily fit behind myself in the rear seat.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's generally quite a pleasant car to drive the handling.
[SPEAKER_05]: The ride is good.
[SPEAKER_05]: The chassis dynamics of both the GLI and the GTI are it's a fun car to drive once you get it off the line, once you get it moving.
[SPEAKER_05]: The one that I had, as I said, was pretty loaded.
[SPEAKER_05]: There was actually no options on this thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: So for the Autobahn edition, that's the top of the line model.
[SPEAKER_05]: The total price on the Monroeney 35,670 dollars, which is quite a bit, I think, for a jetta.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're seeing that three of those for the price of a Durringo, how good.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're noting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything is relative.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: You guys want to guess at the destination charge on this one?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go 1295.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm thinking 1,500.
[SPEAKER_05]: Nicole, you're up by just $20.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was $12.75.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that's a good movie.
[SPEAKER_05]: The GLI with the DSG transmission is rated at 26 city, 35 highway, 29 combined.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was averaging about 27 with it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mostly, I think probably because every time I went to accelerate, I probably gave it more gas than it should have gotten just because I was trying to get it to get up and go, but other than that, you know, it's a very nice card to drive, like I say, not exciting in the least to look at, but very nice to drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if you want a GTI with a trunk, VW's got you covered.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually just pulled it up to see when you're talking about the pictures or not being very exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is really just the red stripe that's the only personality and the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But on the one that I have to pull up, it was black with the red stripe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for all the world, the little red piece in the bottom reminds me of when you see some in driving like a charger and they still have the little protectors on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to kick them off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh, that doesn't give me the right vibe.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's literally what I thought when I looked at it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and on the Autobahn, you know, you get the black wheels and everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so it really makes it even more subtle to look at.
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's a couple of little splashes of red inside the cabin as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: On the steering wheel, there's a little splash of red on the bottom spoke of the steering wheel.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a little red surround on the shift lever.
[SPEAKER_05]: Get some red contrasting stitching on the seats.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, inside there's a little bit of some interesting stuff.
[SPEAKER_05]: But again, just, you know, not...
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's good, you know, if what you want is a car that you can drive fairly swiftly and not get noticed by, say, you know, law enforcement officials.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's something to be said for that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: So let's see, that's the Jenna.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, let's let's talk about some of the stuff we saw in New York.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, so let's start with that Hyundai concept.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, ahead of the show, I sent a son of note to one of the folks at Hyundai, you know, because I was just trying to figure out, you know, where I could write something about this, to figure out if there was anything green associated with this car.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, yeah, and I said, you know, okay, you know, you sold us, you know, nothing under embargo.
[SPEAKER_05]: Can you at least say if there's any, like, hybrid component or anything to it?
[SPEAKER_05]: Nope, we've gone totally old school on this, not telling you anything, and so, you know, what they showed us was a big, four-wheel drive off-road SUV concept.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, roughly, it seems like it's roughly about the size of a Ford Bronco Raptor, a big, big, brony fenders on it and everything, and a couple of days before the show, they released a teaser
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't even know if that would qualify as a T-shirt.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like fused and bolster.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're announcing something on Wednesday.
[SPEAKER_05]: And here's a rock to look at.
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, it teased the name.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because it's called the bolder.
[SPEAKER_05]: On day, bolder.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does did tease the name technically I saw it and I thought it was a rock.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I know I thought like what is it?
[SPEAKER_04]: It didn't it the boulder didn't occur to me until after I saw the boulder content that is with us like oh that makes sense exactly exactly so what would you think of the boulder?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was really great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it looked fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, at this moment, they're not building it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They haven't confirmed they're building it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were talking to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We did an interview with the designer saying,
[SPEAKER_01]: He was so enthusiastic about it and he had, you know, he was really positive about it and he said, well, a lot of it's going to depend on what people think about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, everybody thought it looked pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't really hear anybody saying they didn't like look of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: My favorite part of the entire thing was when he got really excited, talking about it, you know, designers get in like, okay, you look at this little curve and look at this little line and look at this little flat sheet metal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, come around here and we're like at a rear three quarter, which is like on the corner of a car for people don't know what that means.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like kind of look at it at the tail lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like if you call it to the top here, see how it's rounded and it kind of comes down.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a 1950s refrigerator.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, huh.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's that really what you want in the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see that right now once he said that, and the handles are sort of the door handles for the tailgitter sort of hidden into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, he's like, it was like that fridge refrigerator.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, okay, I can just see you trying to pitch this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna make this offer at STV.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called look like a fridge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going.
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
[SPEAKER_05]: And it is, you know, I'll finish the fridge and brush metal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a retro fridge, you know.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not painted.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's just brushed metal.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it does kind of have that stainless steel refrigerator feel to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the handles as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the side handles, you know, it's, it's like a bar that you grab.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like you could see it big door handle on a fridge, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_04]: But of course, now I can't unsee it looking like a fridge.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I mean, I think I love the big wheels on it.
[SPEAKER_04]: The, you know, short overhangs.
[SPEAKER_04]: It looks like it would be able to go anywhere.
[SPEAKER_05]: If it actually
[SPEAKER_04]: But the very first thing I thought when I saw it, though, was the original braco concept from early 2000s.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like 2003 or four.
[SPEAKER_04]: And because that was also silver, almost the same color.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the grills are different, but the same basic shape.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was funny because it was braco.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when Ford showed that, you know, it's like, oh, we're going to build the braco.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was how many years later.
[SPEAKER_04]: 20 years almost 20 years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, so hopefully Hyundai won't take 20 years to build a production version of this I feel like it's gonna be sooner than that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, you know, good day, Dave's
[SPEAKER_05]: Undead did announced that, you know, they're going to, uh, you know, actually, uh, uh, Jose, uh, Munoz, the CEO said by 2030, Hyundai is going to release 30 or 36 new, um, or updated vehicles in North America.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, and that's, that's a lot more vehicles than they have in the lineup right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, you know, and some of that, you know,
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, we know that they're doing a mid-sized pick-up, which is coming probably around 28-29 and, you know, which means that, you know, they're tooling up for a body-on-frame assembly line.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this will, you know, this is going to be based, you know, I think this is going to be based on the same platform as that pick-up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, you know, they didn't tell us anything about powertrain or anything, you know, as far as we know, the vehicle we saw does not even have a powertrain, you know, but, you know, looking underneath, you could see it had a solid rear axle, uh, it was body on frame.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, some, some interesting design details to this thing too.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like they, they mentioned, uh, I forget exactly, I think, like softened pixels.
[SPEAKER_05]: And like when you look at the tail lights, you know, like on the ionics and some of the other models, you know, we've seen this pixel lighting theme with these little tiny pixels, you know, these arrays of a little pixels making up the lights.
[SPEAKER_05]: On this one it's kind of like you've got this kind of like the duplow pixels, you know, where you've got big, big blocky pixels for the
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, you, on both sides of the tailgate, there's, uh, there's theoretically a handle there on another.
[SPEAKER_05]: There actually is on this particular concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a, like, there was a hand actually you could fit because when I was talking to him, move the stagions and let us actually get up close and there is a handle, like when you slide your hand back there is probably, like, I don't know, two or three inches behind there that your hand goes that you could pull the handle out.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't open it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, there are a little handles that are hidden in there.
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, so you've got that on both sides, which means they've got some sort of mechanism so it can hinge either to the left or to the right, you know, presumably depending on where you are, you know, so I guess, you know, if you're sitting parked at the curb, you know, you want to open it up to the left, you can do that or if you're somewhere else you want to open it up to the right, you can do that as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then you get the safari windows above the side doors, kind of like on an older land rover discovery.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so that's kind of a neat touch.
[SPEAKER_05]: So a lot of interesting design details on this thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like the tow hooks integrated into the bumper too, both from the back there.
[SPEAKER_04]: They almost looks like the bumper was put on and then they strapped it in with those tow hooks.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It just, it just looks solid.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, if they were to come out with something that looks exactly like that, I don't think would have any trouble selling it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it looks like it's just carved out of a giant block of aluminum.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks really cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if the pricing is cheaper, then like what you get for comparable other cars, SUVs, that's going to be pretty much different, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, honey does a good job with their pricing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and they have a really good warranty.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, he gives them some really strong competition to the other guys.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I could see them, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if they, if they did this and put an e-reve drive train in it, you know, with a gas power train and then also with an e-reve as an option.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, and I think that would be really interesting because, you know, a vehicle like this, you know, no matter what gas power train you put in, not going to get great fuel economy.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you, if you made it in e-reve, it could actually be pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is interesting.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just looking at it.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is no fuel filler or port of any kind on either side of the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fuel was also a concept at this point.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I thought it was also interesting that they gave it a rear differential.
[SPEAKER_04]: but not a front one.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, you know, I know it's all fake and, you know, it's just the design study anyway, but it just seemed odd that this design study technically is real real drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, it's probably front-wheel drive, or I would say a four-wheel drive, but within an independent front suspension, so that the rear differential is probably mounted up a little bit higher to give it some more ground clearance.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I'll give you that.
[SPEAKER_04]: You'd add to the electric motor is powering the front wheels, and that's also a part of the rear wheels.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the possibility too.
[SPEAKER_04]: So many options when it's a concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: So many possibilities.
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything is possible.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: So let's move on.
[SPEAKER_05]: So,
[SPEAKER_05]: had a press conference and they showed two new vehicles, both of which have been sort of seen before, but this is the first time they've been seen in North America, and they're both coming to the US market.
[SPEAKER_05]: So first up was the new 2027 Seltos, the second generation Seltos, and what did you think of the Seltos?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I didn't realize so I wasn't there when they showed it officially and I didn't realize it was the cell toast when I walked by it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looked so different in the front.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, that that's the cell toast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they made it look so different.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't even remotely resemble what it was before.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like a baby tell you red.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a bit of a telly right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very much just confused.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like this looks, what does this?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a telly right?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is too small, but what am I looking at?
[SPEAKER_05]: It's kind of, the design is kind of a mix of telly right and EV nine.
[SPEAKER_05]: The teaser image that they showed the week before the show was a front view, straight on front view.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it just had the running lamps on it.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's got the two vertical running lamps, like the telly right, the new telly right has.
[SPEAKER_05]: But then when you look at it from the side, the side is much more evenine, you know, some creases in the body work and like the same sort of roof line as the evenine, but obviously a lot smaller.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's slightly larger, it's about two and a half inches longer than the current generation saltoes.
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, it's still fairly compact crossover, and it's going to have two gas power trains.
[SPEAKER_05]: The same ones that they have today with the two liter naturally aspirated and the 1.6 liter turbo.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then later in the year, they're going to launch a hybrid version as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it'll be the first time that there's a hybrid version of the Seltos.
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think, and that will be all we'll try.
[SPEAKER_04]: They said it's the first electric oil wheel drive system they've ever offered.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, first with the hybrid.
[SPEAKER_05]: First one was a rear e-axle.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_05]: So they've had, they've had hybrid, but with with the mechanical drive shaft driving a rear wheel.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: So this would be just the drive motor, just the motor is driving the rear wheels, I guess.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, front wheels.
[SPEAKER_05]: Same way, Toyota does it on the
[SPEAKER_04]: But I thought it was interesting that the tail lights almost look a little k4 that vertical, you know, it's it's almost like night I could see them being almost the same yeah there's elements of a bunch of different Kia current Kia models in there but I thought the most interesting thing was the headlights.
[SPEAKER_04]: are completely integrated into the grill, in fact, I tried to get them turn them on just so I could even see where they come through.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you get close, it's like the grill looks like it goes all the way to the edges except that the headlights are built into it, which I thought was kind of a cool feature.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then interior, it's like the rest of the newer models like the telly
[SPEAKER_04]: It gets rid of the dual purpose display, which is always driven me crazy, where you have the toggle between vents and audio and, uh, hey, that, uh, so that's gone.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's gone.
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, the key of folks, I think weren't big fans of it either, at least the U.S. folks.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and so, uh, yeah, I think that it's going to be, it's, it's really, it has a nice interior.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's, it's going to do well.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there's again, you know, a lot of elements that you find in other current generation keys, so you get the same basic display set up, you get in the EV nine and in the tell your ride and I think the K4 as well, where you got single sheet of glass, there's two 12.3 inch displays and then you got that little five inch display in between for some
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, that does bug me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I granted it's not something you have to access or do anything with much, but it still bugs me that you can't see it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: But then you do at least get physical controls for temperature and fan speed and then some other stuff and the little volume roller in the
[SPEAKER_05]: I sat in the back seat, I set the driver seat for my position and then I got in the back seat and I had plenty of room back there I had several inches of knee room, I had enough headroom in the back just plenty of cargo space in the back It looks like so I think this could be a very practical vehicle
[SPEAKER_05]: Starting price will probably be similar to where the current salt us is around the current salt us starts just under 25 grand so you know probably be around 25 26 grand to start the hybrid will probably run I'm guessing low 30s Yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: be a good price.
[SPEAKER_01]: People can be happy about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They finally are paying attention to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the step child no one's looking at.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and it's a sharp look in the little crossover.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it fits nicely with the lineup, just but the styling and everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then next to that was the EV3, which I think we saw that they have the EV3 at the show last year.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know they talked about it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think they thought it was an EV4 last year that they had an EV4, but I think they also had an EV3 there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe remember that from last year, but I don't think I've seen it before.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know they talked the last you know last year they talked about the plan was to launch the EV4 It was supposed to launch in the fall of 2025 and then the EV3 was supposed to come out in the first half of 2026 Well the EV4 has been canceled for the North American or for for the US market you can actually buy the EV4 in Canada
[SPEAKER_05]: and in Mexico, but you can't get it in the U.S. Because we can't have nice things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_05]: But the EV3, they kept the EV3, because it's more...
[SPEAKER_05]: crossover type body.
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, it's looking at the dimensions of it.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's slightly smaller than the cell toast.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's about three inches, two and a half inches shorter than the cell toast.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it sits a little bit lower.
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, it's got that kind of cross-overish shape to it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's built on a 400 volt version of the EGMP architecture.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it doesn't charge quite as fast as like an EV6 or EV 9, but still, it'll do 10 to 80% in about 25 to 30 minutes.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just reasonably quick.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this one is coming out later this year.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're not talking pricing yet.
[SPEAKER_05]: But when I talked, when I talked to a couple of people from Kia, you know, about what their targets are, you know, what are they benchmarking for this thing?
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, they specifically talked about bolt and leaf, you know, which both started $30,000.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, the EV3 is going to be available to battery sizes.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a 54 kilowatt-hour battery in a 74 or 75 kilowatt-hour battery.
[SPEAKER_05]: The smaller battery is supposed to give about 220 miles of range and the larger battery will give up to 320 miles of range.
[SPEAKER_05]: And front wheel drive or all wheel drive, I think it's about 288 is horsepower with all wheel drive, about 200 horsepower with front drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: I, I like to look at this thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a nice size, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, with the, I guess it's the GT that gets 288 horsepower with the sport tune suspension and, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, it could be, it could be a pretty entertaining little vehicle to drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I, I think, like, I believe that this is going to replace the Nero in the lineup.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think the Nero is going to go away because it's, it's not a huge seller.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think this is going to replace that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that makes sense because I think the other wise they'd be too, they would be competing against each other anyway.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, they're too close together.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, alright.
[SPEAKER_05]: Another, um, all new vehicle that they viewed at the auto show last week.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, was the, uh, the 2027 Volkswagen Atlas, the, uh, second generation of the Atlas.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, and what, what do you think about this one?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more exciting than Magenta.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a rousing endorsement.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I can say, I mean, they made it a little more modern looking, but it still looks like an Atlas.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, it's never been super exciting.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't know that that was their goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the antids added some neat stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it definitely looks like you said.
[SPEAKER_01]: The style update is cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks better than it did.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has nice lighting is fabulous inside now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like how they did that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got some neat stuff along the doors, like the way they've done lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've got really into the lighting.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they added some more features to compare to what they had before.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they added
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the infotainment is upgraded, there's Apple other, there's seeds, like they've added all the bells and whistles to make it better and to make it more appealing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still not like the super compelling vehicle to me though, but it never really has been, I think it's nice steps forward, but I don't like, like, wow!
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about you, Sam?
[SPEAKER_01]: Orte Perry.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say, I mean, that's kind of how it was, I remember when the first Atlas came out.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was bigger than some of the other models in that class.
[SPEAKER_04]: So a little bit more seat room, but it's just, it's, it's, when it's a boring, it's just doesn't stand out.
[SPEAKER_04]: I had it, you know, there's nothing I can think of
[SPEAKER_04]: the one for that, you know, that it's not the sporty one.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not the, uh, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just so many, there's such competition in this segment, like there's so many.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess putting outless in there, you know, gives them that vehicle, so that they fill it that niche for people who are Volkswagen loyalists.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I don't know that it would, I don't know, with this
[SPEAKER_01]: or just wanted to move up from my boring jet into something else or my tiny little, you know, tiny little car into something bigger and family friendly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I don't know that it would.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think, I mean, what, who do you think the person is?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to get this.
[SPEAKER_05]: probably the same people who buy the current atlas.
[SPEAKER_05]: People who like VW used to want something bigger.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think the front end is definitely more interesting looking than before.
[SPEAKER_05]: Especially those headlights.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lights are fabulous.
[SPEAKER_05]: The headlights and kind of the grille.
[SPEAKER_05]: You've got a couple of different sections of body color separated by grille around it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the interior, looking at the interior, it does still have the same infotainment setup that you find on like the ID4 and the ID buzz where it's got the touch sliders across the the bottom of the screen, which you know for temperature and volume, which is not great.
[SPEAKER_05]: Obviously, you know, this one was too far along before Tom is safer, the CEO of Volkswagen decided,
[SPEAKER_05]: One interesting detail I did notice from looking at the photo of the interior that I hadn't noticed before, it's got, there's two circular pads on the center console there in the bin there.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's got two wireless magnetic wireless charging pads, they're G2 charging pads for your phone.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if you have an iPhone or if you've got any other phone that's got either built-in magnets like the current Google Pixel or or you've got a magnetic case, you can just pop it on there and it'll charge and it's not going to fall off for you.
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's that's nice.
[SPEAKER_05]: So so far Nissan is the first one that's introduced those in cars on the on the Marano and I take on the Rogue and they've got those and on the Pathfinder Refresh but now VW's got them on this new Atlas as well so hopefully we'll start seeing those on other new vehicles as they start coming and market in the next year or so.
[SPEAKER_05]: powertrain-wise, you know, they're launching with just another variant of the 2-liter 4 cylinder turbo, this one producing 282 horsepower, 258 pounds feet of torque, so it's 13 more horsepower than the old Atlas.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I actually liked driving the Atlas, you know, again, like you said, it was not real exciting to look at, but it was really nice to drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: We had one for Operation Frodo in December, and I spent a, you know, a day driving it with some rescue dogs, and it was actually one of the best cars we had for that trip.
[SPEAKER_05]: In terms of just in terms of driving, driving long distances on the highway, very comfortable, very smooth, you know, good, good wind resistance, you know, we had crosswinds, so it was, it was nice to drive, and let's see what else, oh, they have a one year, it comes with a one year trial subscription of premium speech Volkswagen's generative AI enabled voice assistant helps with natural language tasks, oh boy, we'll have a fun.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm already thinking of trying to find the off switch.
[SPEAKER_05]: They have promised that they're going to add a hybrid as a mid-cycle refresh for this Atlas.
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's probably two, three years away.
[SPEAKER_05]: Unfortunately, it'd be nice to have one at launch, but better late than never I guess.
[SPEAKER_05]: True.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, and then there was another brand new 3-row SUV that was launched and that was the Subaru getaway Perry, I think you'd probably seen more of this thing than either of us have Yeah, I went and spent a day crawling through it and taking pictures of it and it's interesting because this is the You know, it's on the same platform as the Toyota Highlander that just recently was introduced which is also all electric
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, pretty much every Subaru Electric has a Toyota twin, but interestingly, this one has more power than its Toyota partner.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think the Toyota is what?
[SPEAKER_04]: 370?
[SPEAKER_05]: No, 338 for the all-wheel drive and 221 for the front-wheel drive.
[SPEAKER_04]: where the Subaru is going to come standard with a dual motor 420 horsepower system.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they're saying, you know, zero, 16 about five seconds, which, you know, for a three row SUV electric or not is still not bad.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I like the style of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it, it's, it doesn't have all the cladding of all of their other cars, which gives it a bit of a cleaner look.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it still has the whole Toyota system inside, but it's, it's
[SPEAKER_04]: the same dashboard that's in the trail seeker in the unchartered and in soterra where you have to look above staring wheel to see the gauges.
[SPEAKER_04]: This one is a more normal setup.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it has the newer system where it's got a digital display, but you look at it through this steering wheel like a normal car.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it has the big touchscreen display, which is a nice improvement over the previous one as well, which is introduced.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a Toyota system, but it's on the new Toyota
[SPEAKER_04]: does get the dual phone chargers.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's got, I think, come standard with six passenger, but you have optional seven passenger seating.
[SPEAKER_04]: I got in the back in the third row, and it's a little short on legroom, but with-wise, it actually is pretty countable.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, if you can convince the people sitting in front of you to slide their seats forward, do you actually have a decent amount of space back there?
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think, you know, it's,
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not, it's a little bit bigger than the Ascent interior and exterior.
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't sound like the Ascent is going anywhere at least in the near future.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's still, but who knows?
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't, I don't, I don't.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was concerned that they were going to come out with this quality ascent and say goodbye to the ascent which that apparently is not going to be that not going to be the case.
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, it's supposed to be in showrooms later this year and later on they will have a more standard battery which will be obviously less expensive with a lower range.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think they're saying for this one, the range they're expecting is they're the same more than 300 miles.
[SPEAKER_04]: So and charging, it's still max of 150 kilowatt, so 10 to 80% and about a half hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a chance to look at this one too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to the preview out in California.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a chance to sort of check it out, crawl over it and I agree with you, Perry, about space and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's a good, give you a call, I wonder how well an EV is going to,
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't know with EVs right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's such a giant question mark in terms of their reception, regardless of how good they are, you know, how good or bad the range, the price, whatever, people are so skittish about EVs these days.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's also interesting that Subaru is, you know.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't say flooding the market, but, you know, in the last 12 months, this is the third new EV that they're going to come out with, which is really interesting as every other manufacturer or not, well, most other manufacturers seem to be pulling back from EVs altogether.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it's, it will be interesting to see, I mean, they grant to, they don't compete against each other, they do compete against Toyota.
[SPEAKER_04]: Try to see them sell more of everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have more showrooms, and it's just the way it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, and this one will be built in Kentucky, I believe.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's gonna be built in Georgetown, Kentucky, alongside the Toyota Highlander, and whatever they call the Lexus version of this, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Still have to come, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: Still have to come, wait and see.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, but I'm guessing we'll probably see that in May when they do the drive for the ES.
[SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, but you know, the interesting, you know, for a company like Toyota that was so kind of anti EV by the end of this year, they will have seven EVs in their lineup.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they will have really quickly, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, one right after the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, it feels like they should have done this a little sooner or not done it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think it's probably given what they had to start with.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's probably better that they didn't do it sooner.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I mean, they launched the BZ4X and the Saltara.
[SPEAKER_05]: They were very underwhelming.
[SPEAKER_05]: They had.
[SPEAKER_05]: terrible charging, mediocre range.
[SPEAKER_05]: They were kind of pricey.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they listened to the complaints.
[SPEAKER_05]: They went back and completely re-engineered everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: All the important stuff anyway.
[SPEAKER_05]: And made them a lot more efficient, a lot faster charging.
[SPEAKER_05]: They lowered the prices.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you know, now they're using that hardware set to build all these other vehicles.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you've got, you know, basically two different motors, a couple of different batteries that they're putting into, you know, everything from the BZ and Saltera to the uncharted in CHR, the BZ woodland and trail seeker.
[SPEAKER_05]: now the highlander and the getaway and then the Lexus ES is going to have the same kind of components in there and the Lexus three rows is going to have those components in there.
[SPEAKER_05]: So they're leveraging, you know, a lot of components sharing to keep their, keep their cost down.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think that's, that's a good thing, you know, and rather than rather than rush them out when they had something that wasn't great to begin with, they, they waited, you know, got it right first and then rolled out all these other variations.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you look at the sales numbers, especially the Q1 sales numbers, the sales for the BZ and the Solterra in the first quarter, we're up significantly over the first quarter of 2025.
[SPEAKER_05]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_05]: And particularly in March, the March sales numbers were way up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Gee, I wonder what happened in March that could have caused EV sales to go up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm, carry out.
[SPEAKER_05]: The most interesting, the right one gas prices went up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Those EV cells started climbing.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the most interesting thing is that this all started what three years ago, I mean, the first Seltere was a 23.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's only 26.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is a lot of advancement in a very short time, which is unusual in this industry.
[SPEAKER_04]: That, I mean, Subaru is completely changed their,
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I don't know if that sounds like a good name for a super.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll let you out back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, super, I'll look at that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I got out back.
[SPEAKER_04]: My daughter always wanted to know why that wasn't called the out front.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've seen two outbacks in my neighborhood in the past week, the new ones.
[SPEAKER_04]: The new one.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Starting to see them around.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're out there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it is funny to look at the old one and if the old one looks really old now compared to the new one and it's not been gone that long Not really that old.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well, I mean if you like to look at the old one you might want to check out the trail seeker rather than the outback
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It might really much more.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really like that one.
[SPEAKER_04]: Think of all of Subaru's EVs that I've driven so far.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's my favorite.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's that's a whole other subject.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's also one other key vehicle from the auto show that we neglected to talk about, which is the PV5.
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, which they showed as a taxi in partnership with Braun Ability, so they key in first show the PV-5 and uh, a bunch of other variants of it at CES in 2024.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, 2024, they showed them.
[SPEAKER_05]: And those, so this is sort of a mid-sized van that they had on display that are the PV5.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so smaller than something like a transit, bigger than the old transit connector, the old ProMaster City, relatively tall.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they partnered with Braun Ability, Braun Ability,
[SPEAKER_05]: is one of the biggest providers of wheelchair accessible vehicles in the US and so they do modifications on a wide range of different vehicles.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you can buy Chrysler Pacificas, Toyota Sienna's.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a bunch of different SUVs that they do.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think they can't remember if they do the Odyssey or not, but there's a bunch of different vehicles that they sell with wheelchair accessibility kits.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, one of the things you'll notice when every, you know, whether it's brown ability or one of the competitors, typically whenever you see a van that's got wheelchair kit on there, it's usually been jacked up, you know, so suspension's been lifted up.
[SPEAKER_05]: So they can get the access in there for the wheelchairs with a reasonable ramp height and other things.
[SPEAKER_05]: But they worked very closely with Kia on integrating into the PV5.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I talked with somebody from from Braun Ability about what they did with this thing and because the PV5 is a skateboard chassis with, you know, the battery comes up to the rear axle and then there's independent suspension.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's nothing really between the rear wheels.
[SPEAKER_05]: They were able to basically cut down the floor in between the rear suspension on either side.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they didn't have to really do anything to the suspension at all.
[SPEAKER_05]: So from the outside, it looks like a perfectly standard PV5.
[SPEAKER_05]: but it's got a nice reasonable ramp angle for the wheelchairs and one of the things he was explaining about a lot of these wheelchair conversions is the anchor kits for the chair.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's usually separate cables that a lot of times they'll get lost or misplaced and then when a driver is going to pick up somebody in a wheelchair,
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't always have cables that can't drop the chair down and so then they got to call another car This one, they've designed the system with integrated cables or integrated anchors in there for the chair so that they're always there.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're not rattling around and You know, it's a lot easier to use a lot easier for the driver to get the chair hooked hooked in there So you roll the chair up into the back
[SPEAKER_05]: hook it down so it doesn't move around and then the ramp folds up in the back when there's a chair in there the ramp folds up in the back when there's no chair in there the ramp can actually just slide right up on top of the part of the ramp that extends out just slides up on top of the floor and so you have you still have a flat floor so if the car is picking up somebody else who's not in a wheelchair you still have all that cargo area back there
[SPEAKER_05]: And they've got this one wrapped like a New York City taxi.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're talking to the taxi and limousine commission about getting these things approved for use as taxis.
[SPEAKER_05]: They haven't got that yet, but I think this would be a good addition to the fleet in New York and other cities where you need wheelchair accessible vehicles.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's a cool setup.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then to make it a little bit more easily accessible for people and mail trust, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, not have to do any kind of up, fitting to make it work.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looked really neat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a great idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see.
[SPEAKER_01]: They seem very positive about getting it approved.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it really is just hopefully just a matter of time.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, all right, next up, Stalantis, they have a plant in Brampton, Ontario, which is just west of Toronto, which is where they used to build the Charger and Challenger and Chrysler 300, and then before that, they actually built jeeps there for a long time.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the plant was originally slated to produce the next generation Jeep compass.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, last spring, after somebody imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Stalantis paused their retooling efforts at the factory.
[SPEAKER_05]: And decided not to build the compass there.
[SPEAKER_05]: They later on changed their plans and decided to build the compass in Illinois instead.
[SPEAKER_05]: But they've got this empty plant.
[SPEAKER_05]: They've been trying to figure out what to do with it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, now that Canada has a trade deal with
[SPEAKER_05]: with China that allows, that's going to allow Chinese vehicles to come into the Canadian market, Chinese EVs to come into the Canadian market, and they're also encouraging the Chinese, encouraging Chinese vehicles to be built in Canada.
[SPEAKER_05]: over to building vehicles from elite motor which is a partner that you know they own an equity stake in elite motor and they they're talking to the Canadian and Ontario governments about
[SPEAKER_05]: which could be interesting, you know, I think I have a feeling, you know, when these Chinese EVs come into the Canadian market this year, they're probably going to sell pretty well.
[SPEAKER_05]: But now we're starting to get a lot of noise from Washington, the Canadian ambassador to the US ambassador to Canada.
[SPEAKER_05]: already declared last week that Chinese vehicles are not going to be allowed to cross the border from Canada.
[SPEAKER_05]: So Canadians who buy a Chinese vehicle, if they want to visit the U.S., they are not going to be allowed to drive those vehicles across the border.
[SPEAKER_05]: Senator Bernie Morano has introduced a bill to ban any Chinese vehicle.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, to ban vehicles from being driven in, from being
[SPEAKER_05]: which is kind of nuts and a big part of one of the reasons that keep giving for trying to ban Chinese vehicles is, you know, this nonsense security reason they're saying, you know, if we get these Chinese vehicles in the US, you know, if they've all got these cameras on them, you know, it also has cameras on every other vehicle you can buy right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_05]: Not to mention your phone and everything else that you carry around.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then, and you're going to be sending all this data, you know, doing, you know, all this, uh, spying and sending data back to China, like, uh, they don't need to import vehicles or, uh,
[SPEAKER_05]: build them here or anything else to do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: It can just go out and buy, you know, any vehicle that's already on sale here and slap some cameras in it and if they want to spy, they can just drive around and capture whatever they want.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a ridiculous argument, but what do
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a good move for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if they have a way to use the factory that's being unused and to help their struggling bottom line, I think you should do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I think it does make sense.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, why waste the space and if there's going to be demand for them, I mean, I had no idea of pricing-wise, but it would seem that they would be
[SPEAKER_04]: and less expensive way of getting into an EV.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I mean, a couple of years ago, when Stelantis had their last investor day here, Carlos Tavaras, the then CEO, talked a lot about leap motor and said, this was a pathway for them to get much more affordable EVs into the market, not just here, but in Europe as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, I would guess that these are going to be fairly inexpensive vehicles.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, not as cheap as they are in China, obviously, but apparently fairly inexpensive.
[SPEAKER_05]: Although according to the story from Electric, the proposal from Stellantis is already drawn fierce opposition from Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the Uniform Union, which represents about 3,000 laid-out workers at the plant.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't understand why they would be so upset about it, if Stellantis wants to build something there, you know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to protest it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But there must be something else there as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, but that could be interesting.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, the last story I want to touch on for today is one that actually just popped up in the New York Times today.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's about how a family of three lives on $25,000 a year in Corona and Queens.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, this is New York City.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, this is an immigrant family.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the husband,
[SPEAKER_05]: is driving for Uber and Lyft, and he is, you know, he's clearing about $25,000 a year after expenses, which, you know, to live in New York, you know, or even even Queens.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if anywhere, it seems, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Seriously.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's insane, but reading through the story, you know, the thing that really jumped out at me,
[SPEAKER_05]: is that he's renting a Toyota RAF or hybrid to use to drive.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I know Uber and Lyft and some other companies do these rentals of relatively newer vehicles to drivers that want to use them for ride share or for deliveries or whatever else.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, they can use them for door to ash or things like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this guy is paying $2,400 a month to rent a RAV4.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he has another $450 in car insurance on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's almost $28.50.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did he spend almost three grand a month?
[SPEAKER_04]: Just almost more than he's spending to live.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, actually, it is more than he's spending.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is because they said they split the rent with people with somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is more.
[SPEAKER_01]: That I feel like there should be a better way to do that than that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like he's getting taken advantage of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, tough.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you know, it's like one of these these rent to own deals, you know, except that he's never actually going to own this vehicle, yeah, there there needs to be, you know, some sort of pathway for, you know, for for people to, you know, if they want to do this work, you know, and, you know, reading your article, you know, explains, you know, why he's doing this, you know, instead of some other job, because, you know, he's got a seven-month-old
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, he likes having the flexibility, you know, so you can go with them to doctor's appointments and things like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so that's fair.
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, if you're going to do this kind of work, there needs to be some other pathway to getting a reasonable vehicle.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, you know, reasonably priced vehicle to use, because, you know, $2,400 a month to rent a RAV4.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I mean, even if you took an insanely long loan, you wouldn't be paying anywhere near that much to buy one.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say, you know, he doesn't rent it for, you know, four months, three months, he could buy a reasonable used car.
[SPEAKER_04]: Seriously, I mean, for, you know, 7,500 to 10 grand, I mean, no, it's not going to be anything great, but it's, you can, you know, there's got to be something that is still driveable, still usable that he could use for, I mean, I don't know what their, what their qualifications are.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, yeah, it would seem that that's, that's, there's no way you can win.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's never, you're never going to get yourself out of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's that's that's that's that's amazing to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, unfortunate.
[SPEAKER_05]: It is it is it is really unfortunate, you know, and, you know, that's something we should, you know, maybe take a look at this, you know, how can we provide people that are working in the the gig economy as drivers, you know, a way to make a reasonable living doing this stuff.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this this certainly isn't it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That said, I mean, it is hard to make a living driving a car if you don't have one.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's that's, you know, I'm not saying that what they're doing is right, but he's chosen a profession that requires a car or chosen a job.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I'm not, I don't know what other possibilities they're ironing granted.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's certain benefits to having the flexibility of an Uber driver,
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why it works for so many people as they use what they already have.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then it's just money on top, where he's taken pretty much all the money he's making and just putting it back in the car, which just doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says he clears $25,000 a year and he's spending like 30 on the car so he's spending a lot on the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I mean, you know, he's technically earning about 55,000 a year, but 30,000 is just going into that vehicle.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, I know that, you know, if you don't have credit, you know, you can't get a loan or you can't get a reasonable loan, you know, buying a used car, you could end up, you know, you end up paying insanely high interest rates, you know, on a used car loan.
[SPEAKER_05]: But even at that, you know,
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you should be able to get something like, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh uh, uh uh, uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, on a, you know, say you could find a used draft for for, you know, for 25 grand, you know, and you could, you know, buy that for, you know, for even a thousand dollar a month loan even if you had like a 20% interest rate.
[SPEAKER_05]: That, you know, still better off.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're still far better.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's at least at least at.
[SPEAKER_04]: a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel on that where this one, at least you know at some point you're actually going to own it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to own it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be your enough just renting it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's an investment to suppose to, but this is, which is thrown away money, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a couple other stories I've got on here, but I'm going to save those for next week because some stuff with Mercedes Benz.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know Robbie went to visit Mercedes last week.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to save those for next week when he's back.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hopefully.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds good.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we do have two interviews that we recorded and we've actually got more, but I will save some, save a couple for next week as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: Nicole, Nicole did several interviews last week in New York and we did one together.
[SPEAKER_05]: We actually did a couple interviews last week together.
[SPEAKER_02]: First one.
[SPEAKER_05]: The first one is with Craig Pearsma.
[SPEAKER_05]: Craig is the Vice President of Marketing Communications for a company called Gentax.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we've talked recently about the camera mirror systems, like when we talked about the Polestar 4.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, speculated about, you know, what could be done to make those more more usable for drivers, you know, especially if you have a difficulty refocusing, you know, going from the mirror to the, you know, focusing on the outside world.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so Craig had some very interesting information to share with us on that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm going to run that here, and then we'll be right back after that, and I'll introduce the next interview.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hello, and this is Sam, and I'm here with Nicole, and we're joined today by Craig Pearsma, who is the Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Gentax, which is a company you more likely than not have never heard of, but you also very likely have some of their products in your car if it's been built anytime in recent decades.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, Craig, welcome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, let's start off with a little bit of background on GenTex and what you guys do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, today we think of ourselves as a technology company.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in automotive aerospace, fire protection, premium audio, biometrics, but we are claimed to fame as automotive.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where most of our revenue is.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were put on the map probably close to 40 years ago when we invented the automatic dimming rear view mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: So almost everybody has driven with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a uses two cameras, one looking forward to the vehicle, one rearward.
[SPEAKER_00]: They talk together and then darken that mirror to the precise level necessary to eliminate glare.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that mirror, that location on the wind screen is where we play.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've integrated hundreds of features into the mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, the topic we're talking about today is we've actually taken and turned it into a digital mirror, so using a camera to see what's behind you with a mirror integrated display.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anything related to that side of the mirror and seeing what's behind you in vision, that's where we play.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, where did the idea for, you know, what, you know, as Gentex Branson, the full display mirror, you know, the digital camera mirror?
[SPEAKER_05]: Where did that originate from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was back in the early 2000s.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most likely we were, you look at car design and how it's evolved of less couple decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have the belt line of the car sweeping upwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have the roof line sweeping downward, resulting in a smaller and smaller rear opening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we were doing studies that showed that on average 30% of a mirror's view is blocked when it's looking out the rear of the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that includes things like headrests, but prominently or predominantly the C and D pillars in that vehicle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're looking and thinking whether it's got to be a better way to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around the same time we were producing a product called rear camera display where you put
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we knew that, hey, this is what's coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of where car design is leading.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's where technology is leading.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can digitize this and actually see better behind the vehicle if we use a camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that camera reveals a bright panoramic, wide view, unobstructed of what's behind you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's just where we are with car design.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just one of those things we felt was necessary to take that step.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I think the cameras are great, but there are some challenges to having them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I noticed that the very first time I ever used one, there happened to be construction on either side and hit the orange barrels on either side of the road.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was almost distracting because they saw so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they saw all these orange barrels floating by in the background.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know they've, and it was early on, so they weren't, I don't think the clarity of the resolution was as good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a little hard to watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: But with the review cameras, one of the things I have a question about is like, especially nighttime, when you have those at night, it becomes, like, they don't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the glare is really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you, like, then you still have to do the old, you know, flip the camera kind of flip the little button thing to make it work.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's been a lot of advances when we look at handling nighttime performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually, it's the other way around.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are saying that the human eye can see into the darkness better than the camera could.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we should point out to your point, even every one of our full display mirrors is by modal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can switch back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most customers, when we've studied them, they do it about 60% of drivers will say that they switch regularly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if there's a part of the driving task where the camera is not
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're trying to monitor multiple lanes of traffic, you want that wider, unobstructed field of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got passengers, a drop down entertainment center, luggage.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're switching it to that display mode.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, we did a lot in terms of flicker mitigation as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ever noticed that, that was a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen that on occasion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, those LEDs would flicker at the same frame rate as the camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we've done some tricks to minimize that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, cut that phenomenon in half.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, you do, you know, glare, which is another topic I'm often talking about, is just one of those instances that's reality today.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and you're going to get a little camera flare.
[SPEAKER_00]: When there is a bright LED, I like behind you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do have some software that helps take care of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, glare is just something that we live with today.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you know, I mean, one of the, one of the things that I do appreciate about many of these systems is typically when they're met when the vehicle has one, there's also a washer on that rear mounted camera.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, you know, I mean, living here in Michigan where, you know, we get winter weather, your rear window gets, you know, covered with, you know, snow or salt
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, even with the defogger on, you don't always get a clear view through that rear window or, you know, on many newer vehicles, they don't even have a rear window wiper, which is more problematic.
[SPEAKER_05]: And most of the cars, most of not all the cars I've seen with the full display mirror, have a washer on there.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when you flick the washer, it actually washes that camera.
[SPEAKER_05]: So even if it has gotten obstructed, all of a sudden you got a nice clear view again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the other benefit about that, they really do work well in all weather conditions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it's pouring rain, like you said, if you don't have a rear wiper, that rain is just flowing down that rear window, when you're driving down the road at speed, usually that cameras in a location where the water is just whipping away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you almost, it's almost like you're not driving in the rain.
[SPEAKER_00]: That rear view is pretty darn clear because the wind is whipping the rain and the snow away from the camera as you're moving and you have a nice clear view in that display.
[SPEAKER_05]: So Nicole, I think, I mean, I think I tend to be more enthusiastic about these things than you and Robby too for something to, to something free.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I like the cameras and I think here's the thing that throws me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things that
[SPEAKER_01]: when they work and they do like when they work I don't mean that the technology breaks but when they're working the way they're supposed to and you're using them the way they're supposed to and all the conditions are right they're brilliant I love it it's the best thing ever but the minute conditions aren't right it feels like they have a very narrow perfect operating window how's that to phrase it where you know if it's rainy or if it's you know there's snow or ice or stuff blown around or it's nighttime when you got the glare
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes they're like, I think I just, just the old school mirror might be better.
[SPEAKER_01]: Proofy wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I said, that's why I wish you're my people.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is by modal.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are going to be times where that the mirror mode you might prefer versus the display mode.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I hate to talk about other drawbacks of the product, but most of the time when people say they have an issue, it's this need to judge depth of field that admittedly
[SPEAKER_00]: In the other is when you're having to refocus your eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know that I am older.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have reached that point where I have what I think is called Presbyopia, which is basically my eye, the older I usually do after the age of 40 cannot focus on a nearby object as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we're looking in, when we're in our car, we're looking down the road, our eyes are focused far down the road, tens of feet to hundreds of yards down the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment we look at any display or anything interior of that vehicle, whether it be my instrument cluster, whether it be the center console,
[SPEAKER_00]: or a full display beer, our eye has to refocus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that does take some energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we get older, that refocusing isn't as easy to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where when we, you know, we'll get into it in a bit, I'm sure, but some of the advances that we're working on are helping to alleviate some of those problems, both the depths of field issue, as well as that, those that we're dealing with Presbyopia, or can't refocus as quickly as they'd like.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do sometimes have the depth of field issue, which, I mean, honestly, you get your side view mirrors that are real mirrors.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to get the same thing, like you have to over time get used to the fact, closer than appears, you know, the Jurassic Park moment, that thing is right there, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wonder how much of it is just if you had one of these, if you had a camera all the time-fiery of your mirror, do you just eventually figure out?
[SPEAKER_01]: how close things really are.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'd love to hear more about how you're countering it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about the person who's really struggling with that and has that, you know, that dual mode, they are constantly just putting an old school mode instead of using the camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can jump to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was exciting because I actually started talking to our product guys and some of our engineers just to kind of catch up as I was preparing for this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's some pretty cool things we're working on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are launching right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matter of fact that the consumer electronics show was the first time we showed what we're calling the next generation full display mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's usually it's it's the fourth generation as we call it internally, but and we're doing some interesting things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, it's a different camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today, the camera that's being used most of the FDMs that are in the field is accompanied by a two and a half megapixel camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're jumping to an eight megapixel camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right there, you're going to get a much sharper CRISPR brighter view.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing we're doing is we're switching that display a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the current display, it's about 171 pixels per square inch, we're jumping to 205, so 205 pixels per square inch.
[SPEAKER_00]: What that does, as I just mentioned, it's a brighter, sharper, more contrast, better color-saturated image.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you think about it this way, if our eyes were perfect, if I'm in my 20s and I can refocus no problem, if I'm looking at a blurry image to begin with, your eyes can't bring that into focus, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the sharper and crisper that starting image is, the easier on the eyes and the easier it is to focus on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this kind of is something that we came across somewhat anecdotally.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are certainly customers like you that have said, hey, this is an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe this is an issue, especially for older drivers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we came up with this next generation FDM.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had some of our customers driving it and they were like, oh, the accessibility or the image is much better, that accessibility for our customers we think is going to be great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we like, wait a minute, we didn't even think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that makes sense purely because that starting image is brighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're taking it even a step further.
[SPEAKER_00]: The latest version you're going to be able to go into.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's usually a menu for adjusting contrast
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to add a menu item that is an accessibility, so some secret sauce ISP, some image signal processing, that even checks that Christmas, the brightness, the color saturation up higher for those that might have this Presbyopia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we're finding, and we've even done internal studies with our design studio, is that those that deal with Presbyopia find this accessibility mode better, almost eliminating that problem for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, very, very exciting for what's coming down the road with this product.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how close to coming down the road like you're working on it, but then you have to work on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to get a testing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to get it ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have to get it into a vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like how long do we actually see that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are selling it to automakers today.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like you said, they have current versions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just started showing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them are saying, yes, we're going to adopt that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll see a probably within next year to two.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll start to see that being on the roads today.
[SPEAKER_05]: So just to step back to exactly how this is working, by simply increasing the resolution and contrast and color saturation and everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: It sounded like what you said was, if the image is slightly blurry to begin with, then people are going to have a, especially as you get older and the lenses of your eyes get stiffer, they don't focus as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: It becomes harder to refocus.
[SPEAKER_05]: So by just making that image quality better, your eyes don't have to work as hard to refocus.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is that in my understanding?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's also worth mentioning, and this is what we find when people are using this in real use to make driving task decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: The average glance to the mirror, whether it's a full display mirror standard mirror, is milliseconds.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's somewhere around like 150 to 300 milliseconds.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a you're really not focusing at that but you're the I always make the joke I need to know that there is a car behind me not what kind of cars behind me so when I'm when I'm making those split second decisions it's a quick millisecond class you can imagine as you're if you're merging.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of the time you're checking your mirror, you look at how quick is there a big enough opening, how quickly is that car coming up beside me?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's millisecond clances.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why even when we're using the full display mirror, we find that most people get accustomed to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty darn quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's that millisecond clance, it doesn't really need to be in perfect focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now certainly there are times where we're glancing up there, and we want to see something clear in sharp.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where when people see this, this will make a real difference for them because they'll be able to focus on that much easier.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, you mentioned going to an eight megapixel camera, you know, you're also working on things like the dynamic resolution, improving the dynamic resolution.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, in, especially at nighttime, you can see more, more stuff pops out of that image.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nighttime performance is greatly enhanced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matter of fact, that's kind of, we've been showing that it's seen us for a couple of years, but the nighttime performance is, is, is greater.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you can turn up that camera to see better at night and but then of course it starts to look black and white you start to lose any kind of color it starts to get grainy and this new camera combined with our image signal processing makes night time performance much much better.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, as more and more manufacturers are moving to software-defined vehicles and getting new electronic architectures that centralize the compute.
[SPEAKER_05]: For something like this, you know, I think up till now, you're probably doing the processing of that image probably right in the mirror module.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you going to be, is that going to be moving into these central
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it all depends, so certainly, some automakers, if they want to do that off board off the mirror, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time we're finding that there are benefits to just having that that put power right on the mirror itself, the mirror's already got a micro-processor for other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we're also finding is that, you know, typically that mirror becomes it's on the vehicle bus, so it's getting other bits and pieces of information.
[SPEAKER_00]: This next generation of full display mirror is actually going to do some cool things.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to adjust or calling it dynamic view assist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is really why we're getting getting to the better screen and the better camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it will adjust according to the driving task.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for instance, when you put the vehicle in reverse, we're actually going to tilt the view digitally downward a little bit to make it seem more natural.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you imagine the full display mirror, the camera is capturing a wide rectangle.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're only showing that small rectangle view in the mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can digitally move, tilt, pan, and zoom around in that image that we're actually capturing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that would mean if we put the vehicle in reverse, we can tilt that downward a little bit to make reversing seem more natural and you'll see that car bumper behind you.
[SPEAKER_00]: At high speeds and to call this is what you're learning to before,
[SPEAKER_00]: You're driving down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're seeing all the orange cones that are flying past you at high speeds We can actually contract that view a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can automatically do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean perfect for the auto bind where those speeds are crazy high you could just contract it so things aren't flying past you on the edges of that display But at slow speeds or as you come to a stop at a stop sign Expanding it so you can see the bicyclists and the pedestrians and other traffic that you're in
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is something that could, it will happen automatically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't need to say, I'm on the Autobahn or I'm backing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to know, you've hit a certain speed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's on the vehicle bus, we'll have that speed input.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll know how fast the vehicle is traveling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can adjust that automatically.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're also going to do something called side blind zone assist.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if there's a vehicle along side you, we'll know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get a signal from the vehicle side blind zone system.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can actually then show a little inset image of that car.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just behind you, because again, we're capturing a wide image.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're only showing a small portion.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can go find that car in the portion that we're not showing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then put a little inset image of that right in the mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the final thing we're doing is looking at with, if you have a truck, typically we're showing the view just off the tailgate, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We say aim that camera, we're grabbing a view just off the tailgate.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the camera is seeing it at the same time into the bed of the truck.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can, again, grab that portion, put that into the mirror so you'll have a bedcam view showing you if you're, if you need to monitor the bed of your truck for some reason, that can be shown simultaneously.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of things that just cool features, some of them are definitely safety, but all of them start to address some of those drawbacks of the original system that you were mentioning earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the idea of having these different views in there because automakers do that with think with their cameras that aren't part of the review camera that you know show you, but then they put them up in weird spots like suddenly it takes over part of your instrument cluster or your inner city and you're looking at really complicated directions like no now I chose you to show you the right hand side of your car instead like I need to know when I turn
[SPEAKER_01]: So putting it up in the review mirror in that area that there's no other thing other than vision that's happening up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's actually kind of a brilliant idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the mirror is definitely in our natural scan pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the kids' transportation safety act, when we needed to put that rear camera to prevent back over accidents, most automakers chose to put that in the center console somewhere in your right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not in your natural scan pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've had to learn to incorporate this fourth location.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have outside mirrors, two of them, an inside mirror, and now suddenly we're trying to bring in this fourth location.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, this is a very natural location for some of those features.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's neat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make that happen now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just before you start talking about having the blinds on assist information in there, I was about to ask you, if you were looking at integrating with some of the other driver's assist features on the vehicle to perhaps, you know, when there is something in the view that the driver should be particularly aware of, maybe throw a bounding box around it or highlight something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those are things we've experimented with, and we actually have versions of that here where you can actually week in a, we have software that identify pedestrians, identify vehicles, identify bicycles.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a matter of doesn't automaker find that value and want to provide that to their customers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we show those things, but then it's up to an automaker to say, yeah, I want that in my system.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any idea of just how likely the automakers are, like if you show them anything, is there any kind of feedback on that yet?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, everybody that's seen the next generation full display mirrors is gravitating towards that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll just be a matter of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Any other questions and cool?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he answered all my questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel better about the technology.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything else you want to add about cool stuff.
[SPEAKER_05]: The Gentex has come in down this down this business.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this this product like most of our mirrors comes with other features.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where even this next gen FDM,
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a version that's scalable so you can still integrate home link which is our card home automation system.
[SPEAKER_00]: So buttons that can be programmed to operate gates, crowds, doors, home lighting, home automation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's part of this system.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually have a version that will do a dash cam.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's an integrated dash cam.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's got a camera looking forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: We use the rear cameras view.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can on demand press a button and you can capture the 10 seconds of
[SPEAKER_00]: video or if there's airbag deployment, we capture that video right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're actually implementing a secondary camera, a Wi-Fi camera that could be placed on the back of a trailer, we're doing trailer cam or theoretically you could put it interior and use it as a baby cam and a rearward facing car seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are just some of the other additional features that will be part of this system in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you so much Craig.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a great.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_05]: I appreciate your time I'm I'm gonna hit stop now and then All right, and the second interview we've got for today.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was Nicole and I sat down with Matt Maccola
[SPEAKER_05]: who is the CEO of both the Dodge and Chrysler brands now.
[SPEAKER_05]: We talked about Matt a couple weeks ago when mentioned that Chris fuel was leaving Chrysler.
[SPEAKER_05]: Matt is now running both of those brands.
[SPEAKER_05]: And Nicole and I sat down with them at the New York Show last week to get some thoughts on what's going on with those two brands.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll run that here.
[SPEAKER_05]: and actually before we run that, let's go ahead and say goodbye and we'll talk to you next time and just keep listening to the interview with Matt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye!
[SPEAKER_01]: See ya, bye everyone!
[SPEAKER_05]: by the hat, Maccaller, CEO of Dodge, and now CEO of Chrysler, as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's absolutely awesome.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if you're a week's, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you were running around and we're at the Dodge program up north, and I'm like, why is he so crazy?
[SPEAKER_01]: A day later, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the lead we're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it all becomes clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I've got to come on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I got to come on.
[SPEAKER_05]: I got to come on.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, Chrysler, you now down to,
[SPEAKER_05]: down to one official main plate, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_05]: The Voyager has been rolled back into Pacifica again.
[SPEAKER_05]: Good, it's a lot easier to double main plate than when you start with one.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think it's a very good point.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, I guess, let's start with, you know, besides the obvious front refresh on the Pacifica, anything else changing for 20 to 7.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, a lot of evolutionary things.
[SPEAKER_03]: So in addition to the refresh which only isn't just looks, it also 17% better light visibility.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as we move around to the side of the car, we've got five new wheels, finishes and designs come in.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got five new exterior paint colors, which is something that a lot of people have asked them for for the last couple of years.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a couple of pretty bold colors.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like that blue.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're high-drove blue, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we've brought the evolution of the wing badge to the rear of the tailgate.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the big thing on the tailgate is is now you're able to set the opening.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you lived in a lower garage or you parked in a parking garage where, you know, maybe it would always bump the top now You can set that lower if you don't have a thing on the old one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't take it even realize that wasn't a thing Always full open or folks
[SPEAKER_03]: and on the interior we moved in we brought the new blue agave leather into the pinnacle which we have the one you're sitting in and then we put some evolution of the safety and security features with turn signal activated blind spot cameras and then the forward sensing cameras when you're parking the beepers start to go off now the camera automatically turns on inside.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we still have, you know, stolen go with FAMCAM and stolen back and all of some of the things that just make us different in the second.
[SPEAKER_03]: For the blind spot cameras, does that show up in the center display or in the instrument cluster?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, center display.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and you can turn that on or off if you like it or don't like it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, yeah, you've also, now, lost the plug-in hybrid by our train, so we've got to just the panistar.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: Was there any dot to maybe doing something with the new hybrid system that you have in the Cherokee maybe bring something like that and the air yeah I mean we're always looking at the iterations as we go forward of how we balance our you know corporate fuel economy as well as our greenhouse gas across all of our Nameplates was brought out the full battery electric on the charger and the wagon here and then and now the recon so we're always looking at that in the iteration of how we can evolve our power trains
[SPEAKER_03]: hybrid I think or obviously one of the power trains can be important for the future but with this model right now I think you know it's such a great fit with the penistar the nine speed the all-wheel drive capability There's no one-to-one second-hand third row best in class knowing one this vehicle Really kind of chinosi separated itself from the other name place in a segment so I think we're
[SPEAKER_03]: Excited to kind of get that it's knowledge back out there again and to kind of focus your marketing on one initiative versus You know two power trains and a segment that a lot of time people are buying for ease and simplicity and that necessarily trying to figure out which one's the right one for me And you know that I'm excited about this this model this launch and I think it's the right time as we start to see the segment growing Pork acid to grow year over year for the second and third straight year
[SPEAKER_01]: So many hands are still growing, so that's growing again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Growing again, 10 years ago again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got one car in the many hands, and to double it, you need to introduce one more car to double your product line.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much can you share about what the plans are for that?
[SPEAKER_01]: What have you shared?
[SPEAKER_01]: What can you say that I'm not going to have heard staring at me and giving you that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, no, I think the exciting thing is is that we have our investor day presentation coming up next month.
[SPEAKER_03]: May 21st in Auburn Hills, where Antonio and the team are going to lay out the future of many of our brands.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Chrysler is one of those brands.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have to wait too long today.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're focused on obviously the launch of this vehicle.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Chrysler has an important future and we're excited to disclose and show all that next month.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we will see more from the Christ of Brand going forward.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's good to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that it's still happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll take it.
[SPEAKER_05]: We've been hearing that for a number of years now.
[SPEAKER_05]: I haven't seen anything yet.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hopefully we'll see something not too just a future.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, May 21st still stops, working in just 20 years in a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: 20 first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: May 21st.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: The email, I got from me last week, mentioned the 12th.
[SPEAKER_05]: But anyway, it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, maybe somebody else I was talking to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: May 21st.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going with the 24th.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: That worked.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, let's shift over to Dodge.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've got another special edition of Durango now, too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so it was an exciting day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Durango is one of those cars that it just continues to set records.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had our best sales year in 20 years last year.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this year is already started off.
[SPEAKER_03]: The vehicles are turning extremely quick.
[SPEAKER_03]: We announced the...
[SPEAKER_03]: the V8 only strategy back in road to a night and demand the so high as we ramp up for homies we had to bring back some production of the V6 to meet consumer demand.
[SPEAKER_03]: We continue to see him turn extremely fast that the Durango SRT Hellcat with the Joe break is now available in all 50 states so people are extremely excited about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We opened last week for the return of the 392 in the Durango and we took enough orders in the first six hours to cover the remainder of the 26-modular production and people are super So that's the most horsepower available in the segment under $50,000 for and 75 horsepower Under 50 with all will drive and and seven passes shoot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you order one today now you're it's 2027
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... it's that far out well depends on the dealer so we just went out of the location and now so dealers put all the orders and now we got to figure out okay did the right dealers put them and who earns the allocation do all we call balance out is the behind the scenes and making sure they go on but then yeah we'll quickly be turning to twenty-seven out of here
[SPEAKER_03]: And then so to follow on the heels of the 392, we launched the America's 250 edition today, which is the first of our four brands to show the buzzmows are coming, price sir, Jeep and Ram also have an A250 edition coming, which we kind of showed on the spotlight in the background today on the slides.
[SPEAKER_03]: But,
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a neat appearance package that is super cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: And with the SARS and the stripes and the blue trace on the outside, the first time we've done a blue petrol blue interior with the Black Laguna red sea bells, red and white stitching is pretty neat.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the Durango in its current form around for what 12, 13 years now and that's pretty impressive that you're still getting sales records with that after, you know, such a long time on the market.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's some tweaks over the years, but still basically the same is what you launched a lot of about 2012, I think.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and then we did a refresh in 15 and then 21, so yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, the rest of the line up, see, the corner's gone now, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: And so then it's just the chargers, it's the various chargers.
[SPEAKER_05]: How's that going?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's terrific.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just in ramp mode, so obviously last year, we launched the six or seventy horsepower Daytona Bev, and then we started shipping a few months ago, the 550 horsepower,
[SPEAKER_03]: been turbo in line six, six facts.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we've transitioned production from focused on the battery electric with the changes in regulatory and now focus on our ice production.
[SPEAKER_03]: We shipped the two-door high-alt puts the scat facts now for a few months and then just last month we started shipping the rest of the lineup.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now we've got two-door and four-door scat facts and we have two-door and four-door RTs which are the 420 horsepower.
[SPEAKER_03]: So by middle of April we'll start having cars
[SPEAKER_03]: you know uh two door four door four twenty five fifty available across the country so may be our first kind of full month with
[SPEAKER_03]: good dealer stock around the country and we just started the marketing launch last month in March mid month as we went in the NCAAs so things are starting we've had quarter month-over month growth this month we're starting to see dealers citing their turn in the cars quick but it's still early in the in the launch so second half of the year is going to be extremely exciting for Dodd just we've got the 392 back in the Durango we've got all of our
[SPEAKER_01]: You talk about, so you're talking about that you called the 8250, the American American, and I heard you call it the 8250, like the, the link of, how did that come to be?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's a big deal with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, we're, you guys decide, like, we're, we're buying this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was, um, all the way up to, to John Elkin and the team that decided this to Lantis was going to be the exclusive automotive partnership of the, uh, America's 250 bipartisan celebration of our birthdays.
[SPEAKER_03]: So once that happened, obviously we've worked with the design studio and our teams.
[SPEAKER_03]: to design applause model around 8250 and then the LVA and team are working on a lot more from the marketing standpoint.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some activations with the summer as we go into the actual birthday around July 4th.
[SPEAKER_03]: So with the Mordicum and obviously the other brands are still going to unveil theirs and it'll be exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: The, um, don't back to the, the six pack in the charger.
[SPEAKER_05]: What's, what's the customer response been to that so far?
[SPEAKER_03]: The customer response is, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh, once I drive it, that's all with the challenge is getting a little blind.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's why we invite you guys out to ride and drive and maybe you do it for us, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because a dealer buddy of mine always says you have to grip the wheel to seal the deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's just it.
[SPEAKER_03]: People, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: they hear it online they read about online but it seems believing and it didn't win five-star the year awards for you not being impressive and when you actually feel what all will drive in five-burn thirty-one pound feet of torque can do and pin you to the back of the seat
[SPEAKER_03]: or you can put in full rural drive mode and roast the tires.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it is absolutely, it's in a white space.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always done with Dodgers done well.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is, build something that's different.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, it's a full size.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was wide as you can get in the industry without running lights.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got SUV like cargo capability, all will try to keep going.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it was any wider it would need running on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, eight and five inches.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I think that much of needed running.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, kidding.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fast, kind of cool.
[SPEAKER_05]: with incredible rear leg room I've taken on road drips of people in the back and uh... it's it's unlike anything else you can buy uh... is it a track cars that a phony car that's never what it was intended to be it's it's it's not it's a muscle car it's it's been taken friends and family with yeah yeah and the they tell that you know is it great cruiser yeah uh... and that's the thing when i when i drove the Daytona at the launch you know the impression i came away from was you know forget about the fact that it's electric
[SPEAKER_05]: drive it, just get in and drive it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think that's that's part of the problem is getting people to get past, get past whatever might be propelling this thing and just try it out.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think people would do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: They, you know, I didn't want a six-pack or the electric.
[SPEAKER_03]: They would probably say, okay, maybe I don't need a VA right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you starting to see it on the forums and you start reading about you're like, okay, I win trust Throw, but I didn't think I didn't love it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I bought it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it doesn't take long for people to realize Yeah, this is something special and it doesn't mean you have to fall out of love with V8, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not telling you to get rid of any of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We said we still have standard V8s in Durango Got them all over the line.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we're not saying fallin, but we're saying if you want something that's far superior Then you're V8 that are going on the five seven the six four those those lower way all day long
[SPEAKER_01]: And what do you think like where the Dodge brand is now, where you have the EV and you have the Durango and you have the gas chargers, what do you hope the public perception is?
[SPEAKER_01]: They look at this, they look, they're here, they see this.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you hope they think when they see that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope they just say, okay, we weren't sure maybe for a year, but Dodge is back.
[SPEAKER_03]: We, you know, we should have trusted him.
[SPEAKER_03]: We should have, we shouldn't have maybe been quite so vocal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and then do I mind that people being vocal know, I don't have to talk in the not talking, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We still have such a passionate fan base.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we release a social video or an ad that the number of people that engages just overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I keep doing that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Keep pushing us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are we done with that car?
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you look what we've done in the year and what we've brought out to our Florida 425-5670 colors, wheels.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's just in one year.
[SPEAKER_03]: We got a lot of stuff we're still working on.
[SPEAKER_03]: You never get it right.
[SPEAKER_03]: out of the gate if you got right out of the gate there you know you'd have one car and be done and never have to evolve there wouldn't be a new car so you just get it so yeah you're always pushing the boundaries always making things better and I'm excited for the future so what you're saying is the charger hell cat is coming back haha I don't want to see the earth here's that noise and that's it that you just have to hear about the podcast the handbook's like no
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything else?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that covers it for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Perfect.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for coming out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you very much, Matt.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good seeing you.