Good morning Grid Connections listeners and Happy New Year.
I'm thrilled to have Johnny Lieberman back on today's episode.
He's the co-host of the Inevitable podcast, Motor Trend veteran and one of the spiciest voices in the automotive world.
In this episode, we talk about EVs and natural disasters sparked by Johnny's firsthand experiences with the California wildfires.
We explore the role electric vehicles can play in such emergencies and share insights into charging challenges, off-road ready EVs,
and how automakers are stepping up to assist communities in crisis.
But it's not all heavy.
Johnny and I geek out over upcoming electric vehicles that we're both excited for, including off-roadable rigs and designs with new tech reshaping the EV market.
Whether you're curious about electric vehicles, emerging trends in the auto industry, or just looking for some candid car talk, this episode has something for everyone.
If you enjoy today's conversation, help us grow by sharing this episode with someone who's love it too.
And don't forget to leave a pause review on our podcast page.
It makes a world of difference so we can keep bringing you content like this today.
With that, enjoy.
Johnny, thanks again for coming onto our podcast.
just for anyone who might be unfamiliar, who have missed the
previous episode we did about six months ago.
If you could just share a little bit about your background and we'll kind of jump into the topics for today.
I mean, you know, I'm a god almost almost 20 years and four months.
I've been doing this professionally writing about cars, talking about cars, making videos about cars.
Yeah, the inevitable podcast is a podcast about the future of mobility, which I hate just the future of cars.
The E and the V are capitalized get it because you know, we are transitioning away as a society, whether America likes it or not away from fossil fuels towards electrification.
of stuff, everything else in your life is electric.
Why not your car?
and then I'm also on a podcast called spikes car radio.
and, if you haven't heard of that one, it's like a comedy car podcast.
spike Ferris didn't, he is a former writer of Seinfeld among many other things like the Simpson space goes, the Letterman show.
And he wrote the soup Nazi episode of, of Seinfeld.
So he's pretty funny and, yeah, that's, that's what I do.
but I guess over the last two decades I've driven almost everything and Had a pretty good time doing it.
So
I think that's a great way to summarize it.
yeah, I think, I guess one is just relevant.
But two, the reason I'd been wanting to reach out to you anyway to catch up on stuff, but I unfortunately was seeing all the stuff that was being posted about the LA wildfires in
general.
And obviously it seemed like you, especially in a lot of your close friends were unfortunately being really impacted by it.
And so one, I just want to kind of catch up and hear kind of more about what that's like been like.
But I mean, the first thing, and obviously given the focus of the podcast was just you were talking about how your friends have been displaced and you're helping charge his
review at your own home.
just kind of like what, one, guess, just how are you doing and the experience right now, but then also just like, what is it like?
we always hear these horror stories of owning an EV and a natural disaster and you kind of got to experience it recently.
Yeah, well, we'll start with we'll start with my buddy Mark.
So his house burned down as did his charger for his Rivian.
Burnt down and then also their temporary housing.
They were lucky enough that his partner's sister-in-law had an empty apartment in Silverlake so they could live there, but had one parking spot.
And, you know, if you've been to LA, lots of parking tickets.
So he was like, A well, first of all, his, his Rivian, it wasn't level three charging.
Meaning you could level two or level one.
So level one is a plug in the wall level two is a home fast charger
Essentially anything AC just having issues with DC fast charging.
Yep
couldn't for whatever reason.
he said, can I stick my truck at your house and charge it?
And because he has a review in primarily because they own some horses and no one's ever thought about this, but man, Evie, no gears, tone horses.
It's great.
There's no there's no jerking around for the poor horses.
So they love it.
So anyways, they evacuated.
They got their three horses out.
But, you know,
like they thought it was just evacuating for the night.
they're gonna end, it's how do I put this really rare that a place can suddenly take three horses and leave them there long-term.
So they're having to move the horses around.
So anyways, he wanted his truck.
So I was sitting there and I'm like, all right, this, you know, I lost everything.
I have a good relationship with Rivian.
I have a Rivian.
I call Rivian.
Hey, my buddy's truck won't DC fast charge won't level three.
A could you expedite the service because he was, you he put in a ticket for the service B could you get him a truck so he can move the horses around or, know, I was also thinking
maybe use my truck, but get to that in a second.
Um, and they were like, Rivian was awesome.
They were like, Oh my God, thanks for calling.
Um, and this was like, I believe Wednesday morning.
So everything kind of burned down Tuesday night or at least his house burned down Tuesday night.
Um, and they're like, we've been trying to think of ways to help, you know, um, uh,
people do whatever fire victims.
And they said, absolutely.
And when he did take it in, they dropped everything they were doing and fix his truck immediately, which was cool.
The other thing was based on me saying like, Hey, know, evacuate large animals.
They put out an internal bulletin.
I don't think they publicize this, but they said like, Hey, if you're a riving employee and you want to help grab a truck or an SUV, put a trailer hitch on it and go move a
horse, you know, or move a whatever.
Yeah.
so they did that, which was really cool.
Also, not to just make this a Rivian ad, but, um, my wife is a legal counsel for a group called sidewalk project and they, it's a homeless, um, outreach group or help group,
whatever you want to say.
Since the fires, lot of like already unhoused people are like even more screwed.
So they were like, you know, they can't be where they normally are.
So the sidewalk project has been going around and delivering supplies to, um, these are people who've already been suffering.
Anyways, the vehicle they used to do that broke.
So my wife said, do you think Rivian?
And I said, I'll ask, probably not.
And like a day later, she had an SUV and they like it so much that they're gonna buy one because they've been using their own personal cars and puts a lot of miles on driving
around LA day after day after day.
So they're actually, they think it's perfect.
They're gonna buy one.
So anyways, horrible.
It's been, I mean,
zooming out.
Yeah, man, the end time suck.
We were packed and ready to go.
We were like a half mile.
So there's evacuation sites and there's evacuation warning.
So we were like a half mile from both an evac site and an evac warning location.
So we just sat there and this app called WatchDuty.
Everyone in LA is using it.
this is actually a great app and I, unfortunately living in Oregon, we are very familiar with forest fires the past few years.
So unfortunately I'm very familiar with everything you're talking about, but actually this is great.
We're going to these details because for anyone listening, if you're ever in this sort of situation, I cannot recommend and watch duty and then also specifically what you're
talking about.
I think so many people hear these different fire notice, fire clearance, fire like
And then there's even the different stages, but I'm sorry to continue.
And these are just things to people kind of realize, understand that even though it's like, I'm on fire warning.
And sometimes that doesn't happen, but just in this case, you can get a quick, wind pick up and then boom.
What was a 30 minute kind of delay is nothing.
Yeah, we had both cars packed.
I mean, we also learned real quick that in actual, if our house had burned down, we would have lost everything because we packed all the wrong stuff.
but watch duty.
Yeah, we knock on wood.
Class half full.
to stay positive about that, but totally.
Watch duty is a 501 c3 charity.
So if you have used them or you like them, you can subscribe It's like 25 bucks a year or you can just make a tax-free donation I'm plugging them because I really leaned on that.
Yeah, I gave him I gave him some money but it was horrible and then like this next part is gonna sound crazy, but like I Mean I can probably stop and think of them, but I've lost
track of the number of people I know
that lost their homes.
I'm saying they're my best friends.
have two very dear friends in Altadena that lost their homes, Mark with the Rivian, my friend Gene and like, you know, the number of times I couldn't even guesstimate.
I go over to Mark's house like once a week to smoke a cigar and look at his horses.
You know, my family were at Gene's.
had a pool.
We were there like all the time.
She has two young kids.
I have a young kid.
You know, was just it was like a great backyard kind of house, you know, and it's burned.
It's it's gone, like gone.
And every house in their neighborhood is gone.
The city of Altadena is, it's gone.
It's not there.
It's wild.
And then it's happening in the Palisades.
my brother-in-law, my brother-in-law and my nephew were evacuated twice from their house.
Spike, who I do the podcast with, he's not back in his house.
He's got National Guard sealed off his street.
They're not letting him in.
Cause I think they don't have power maybe is the reason why he can't go back.
But like,
Yeah, been at his house for a week.
I was the guy I work with every week, you know, a friend of mine.
Um, it's, it's just terrible.
And like, it's better today, although supposedly, even though it looks really nice and pretty out, like the air is terrible, although it really doesn't look okay.
But like, I have a satellite photo, uh, from, from Wednesday of the smoke and like my house was under it.
Uh, and it was like a demarcation where you can like, you know, a satellite photo, you can see land and freeways and then you can see smoke.
was under the smoke.
And we actually bugged out on Friday just because schools were closed.
We had wet towels under the doors.
I don't think it does anything, but whatever.
A house is like 101 years old now.
It's pretty drafty.
So we went out to the desert and that was a nice little eight hour reprieve.
But I just wanted to be around, help my friends out, and just help out in any way I can.
My wife, she's helping out.
Anyways, um, yeah, I've just absolutely horrible.
I, you know, I've been through not that many, but a couple of natural disasters with the scale and the scope and the suffering in this one.
Uh, for the U S at least is, know, it's, it's a Katrina style event where it's like,
gone, things are gone, you know, and I know this happened up in Northern California and paradise, uh, and not to diminish that in any way, but just like, you know, I think, I
think there's like 10,000 structures.
Remember a structure is a house or a business or a school or church or whatever.
And like burn down and it happened like within 24 hours.
It was just total madness, total madness.
Um, so yeah, it, uh, into
There's no upside.
Nothing.
Yeah, I mean, some people are saying like, it's so nice that like people are coming together and meeting their neighbors.
Like, I don't I wish they didn't have to do that.
Like, it's just it's just flat out.
The, the reason they have had to is pretty unfortunate.
Yeah.
My, uh, my wife actually went to college in Occidental.
And so she has a lot of friends and lit have lived in quite a bit in that area.
And, um, and it's kind of interesting because especially just with the fires we've had on the West coast up and down, I think, and I think those fires you just referenced kind of
in Northern California, there's what is.
I don't think fully appreciate by a lot of people is they, when they think forest fires or wildfires, they do think of kind of more rural remote areas.
And with just kind of the current state of things, unfortunately, it doesn't, it can be kind of anywhere.
You really just need dry conditions.
And, uh, especially if you get heavy winds involved, it can happen pretty quickly and sweep through whether it be remote forest or especially when you have really dense houses
together.
And, uh, I mean,
Unfortunately, like you said, your house is a hundred years old and just the way houses were designed and built have changed so much.
And some of that does help, but it's just, you get the right conditions and it's going to go up.
doesn't really matter where it is.
And I think that's why so many people are surprised.
No, no, totally.
nobody in the car community seems to want to mention it, but like this is climate change.
This is this is what the scientists said is going to happen.
You had the hottest year in recorded human history.
2024 you have the hottest ever recorded ocean temperatures.
Well, why does that matter?
Well, when the oceans are hot, they heat the air so the air is hotter.
You have Los Angeles or Southern California should say is.
500 % below normal participation.
0.2 inches by January, whenever the fire started, instead of five, at 500%, you had Santa Ana winds, and I've lived here most of my life, I was born here.
Yeah, Santa Ana winds are always strong and hot, but nothing like this.
These were hurricane strength, 100 mile an hour winds.
And then you had two years of totally
abnormal precipitation proceeding this where everything was overgrown.
And that's also due to climate change.
So it's just, there's a perfect shit storm.
Pardon my French.
like, you know, yeah, nothing, sadly, what would have prevented this was, know, if like Chevron back in the seventies, when they internally had the studies saying, Hey, you know,
burning gas seems to like really, it raises the temperature of the earth.
of the atmosphere, like maybe we should say something instead of burying it for 40 years.
So anyway, yes, it sucks, but yeah, so it's climate change.
And sadly, you might say, it's a natural thing.
I'd I'd point to the six trillion tons of carbon dioxide mankind has dumped in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.
I'd say that's actually the culprit.
Our addiction is also a tool.
I will be the first to push that like climate change and all these things are not getting enough attention or all of that.
I do think to try and be a little balanced.
Obviously, the big part too is just like, are these individual things that haven't been seen before?
No, like it's these types of winds have been seen in Santa Ana have low precipit...
this.
As far as I know, honestly.
far as I understand, it was seen like 30 years ago, but what I'm trying to get to that, that points to your point or kind of backs up your point is like, those are like that
happened, but there was high precipitation this, that year.
You, you, you just get, you get all the, you do get these one-off things and that just naturally does happen, but the frequency and then also the, the amount of these one-off
things happening together and at that frequency is yeah, that is a thing of climate change.
is unfortunate and that is just something we have to face and kind of figure out like, how do we, you're totally right.
We can't go back to the seventies until Chevron did change their mind.
Yeah.
Well, but like, mean, what are the odds of this fire happening three months after, you know, North Carolina was hit by a tropical storm or hurricane, you know?
And, again, and again, I think it was 1964.
There were Santa Ana winds that were close to this strong, but, like, that's like sustained not with the, mean, there's 80 to a hundred mile an hour like bursts.
mean, you know, there's, there's a photographer, Oh God, I'm blanking those names.
Supposed to do a project with them.
Come to me in second anyways, but he was not a Dina He's a fire photographer meaning he puts on a fire suit and a respirator and he goes with the fire department and document
stuff for Wall Street Journal and You he's got this video of this McDonald's like being hit by this wind gust and it's like it's it's a fire hurricane like like nothing on planet
Earth could have stopped it except for tsunami, know, I mean, there's just nothing could have stopped it and
Yeah, just horrible.
I'm sorry to get so educated about it.
think especially with where you are in this, I think everything you're saying is 100 % valid.
just, my, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, your Instagram feed is, but specifically not what you post, but the comments are almost like great reasons why I avoid social media.
Good or bad, yeah.
heard it.
But I mean, again, it's just like, know, again, yes, the Pacific Palisades is part of Los Angeles, the city, but like Altadena is not, know, Karen Bass is not the mayor of
Altadena.
You know, there's no reservoir that was like one reservoir out of a bunch that was, it's like, you're just picking and choosing.
Like this was like, you know, disaster, catastrophe caused by climate change, you know, and again, you know, like,
The scientists have been predicting this for years and people just ignore them because they you know whatever reason
Yeah, and I agree with you 100%.
I think my only thing is, and it's so unfortunate, like what has happened, what has, and will unfortunately continue to happen.
I think my, the thing that troubles me is I see people make that argument and then they kind of just throw up their hands in the air like, then I guess we can't do anything.
And that's where I kind of like to say that there are things, it's an uphill battle, yes, but there are things we can be doing to be proactive, to minimize.
Yeah.
these things are going to happen, we can be reactive, but we can also be proactive to really help with this.
just personally, think wildfires are just something, and it's really unfortunate with this incident.
Wildfires personally are just something I've become really personally affected by.
But too, I really just want to see what we can do because there's so much beautiful landscape that unfortunately, and obviously lives lost, that we need to start coming out
with a better
We have to be, there, thinker pointing, sure, that is, there is some of that to be done, but it, that's not going to solve the problem.
We, we just, we, we have to be realistic and move forward.
And so that is my little soap box about wildfires and stuff.
greening greening power consumption, you know, worldwide is the best thing we can do to curb it.
like, know, you know, electric vehicles are totally helping with that.
It just even like if you think about like how oil is moved around, right, it's put on giant tankers and they spill sometimes in the Gulf of Mexico or near Alaska.
We were familiar with that.
Well, those ships burn this
crap called bunker oil or bunker fuel, is just, it's the stuff that's so grody and noxious, you can't even make gasoline or oil or Legos out of it.
And so that's what they burn.
It's horrible.
as like, you know, you stop shipping oil because the cars are running on electricity.
Well, then you stop burning bunker fuel.
it just keeps adding up.
right.
And that's maybe snowball isn't the right term when you sound about global warming.
But it but it is but it is that sort of experience where it's yeah.
the other thing is like, know, EVs get greener the more you drive them.
Whereas like, you know, gasoline powered cars do not.
They stay the same level of filthy their entire lives.
We had a guy on the inevitable from the, basically the California power grid, it's called Cal ISO, or ISO Cal, not Cal ISO.
And he was just explaining that like,
sorry to cut you off there.
It's so funny that one, I think this is what's so great about your podcast is that you have conversations like this and you even know what that is.
Whereas like the traditional automotive industry would have no idea what you're talking about when you talk about Cal ISO, but especially with like people on our podcast, how we
can't talk about, obviously automotive and electric vehicles are a big portion of it, but it's just like combining how this isn't, this isn't the same as
having a vehicle from a manufacturer and then you go to a gas station with this evolution to EVs.
Like all of these things are a platform and really intertwined to make, are kind of the sum is greater than these parts that you have to deal with.
But I'm sorry.
Yeah.
no, no, no.
And he was just explaining that, you know, the, the, the grid is, you know, being more and more decarbonized and a big part of that is actually EV adoption.
And it may not be the reason people think, but because EVs have lowered the price of a battery so much and because a used EV battery can be used as a storage device.
Well, okay.
Let's say, you know what?
I'll look it up.
I got this app on my phone.
It's called ISO and,
It's great because I can tell you like right now I'll give you some actual numbers.
Okay, hang on a second.
It's nice sunny day today.
All right, ISO today is California grid.
currently we are demanding the state of California 25.197 megawatts of electricity.
And we have the capacity to basically double that 49,573 megawatts.
Okay, well how much of that is renewable at the moment?
72%.
Sun goes down.
Well, you wouldn't be able to have renewables.
You wouldn't at least solar.
Hey, wait a second.
If you have battery storage.
Well, great.
All the electricity, because right now, again, the capacity is 49,000.
We're using 29,000 megawatts that we can store that and then you deploy it at night.
and, you know, and soon it's, it's, it's gonna, there's a, we had another company on called mobility house and, basically sitting at home.
A lot of work from home now, or even at work you can do this.
EVs plugged in and instead of charging, maybe you can take some of the solar load that's being generated, store it in your EV for a while and they'll pay you a storage fee.
And then when they want it out, they'll take it out and deploy it at night for heaters or lights or whatever.
And they'll pay you a little bit too.
So EVs actually help make the grid greener.
I mean, I think I'd be curious about this.
I think you're at the forefront, like I said, with your Instagram posts of always kind of fighting these arguments.
But one of the ones I've talked about lately is like, you know, let's, let's ignore the climate change part of it.
Sure.
There there's a lot of, there's a lot of good data that kind of proves that.
you, yeah, I'm just saying like when you're having an argument with something that you can literally just say like, okay, let's say it's not making the earth warmer.
Sure.
But you can go to LA, you can go to so many great different cities.
and look at the sunset.
The sunset's beautiful, but you don't have to really, you kind of miss something.
The one upside is the beautiful sunsets.
The downside is the massive amounts of smog.
And it becomes, you're right, you're right.
And I think there's an element, like my background's in physics, and so I'm big on the science of it.
It's easy to kind of understand that.
But when you're talking about the atmosphere and stuff, it's really hard for a lot of people to see it.
Totally.
you look at, you see a sunset in LA and you're like, okay, you can see the smog, you can see that difference.
That is hard, that you can't ignore.
a wonderful guest on, believe her name was, boy, I'm so bad at names, Chase.
I think her name was Dr.
Christine something.
Anyhow, she was a climate scientist, PhD in the atmosphere.
And she had this really interesting point she brought up that like when COVID shut down the world, but shut down LA specifically.
They have satellites and these satellites, measure like, know, noxious particles in the air.
And for like three days when no one was driving for the first time ever, they were gone over LA instead of being this big yellow mush over the city.
It was clear there were none.
And yeah, it lasted three days, but still it was, it shows, it shows what's possible.
And I think that's a great example of kind of what I like to focus on.
What was so surprising about that was not only did it kind of show what everyone expected to happen, everyone was kind of surprised by how quickly it happened.
And so...
Yeah, that's the hope.
I mean, I keep reading these things and I'm sure, you sound like you have a much better science background than I do, but like climate scientists are saying there's like nine
barriers that hold off the apocalypse and we've eclipsed six of them and we're about to go through the seventh, you know, like acidification of the ocean, ocean heat, percentage of
Celsius, degrees Celsius, the average temperature rises a year.
forget the others, but like...
We can stop it.
We do actually have it within our control.
would take like effort.
It might take a little inconvenience.
And I always go back to the, you know, there's a great Dead Kennedys album, you know, give me convenience or give me death.
People are choosing death.
It's a slow death, you know, unless you're in one of the houses that burned down or one of the houses that got washed away in North Carolina in Asheville, but it's death.
And, know, again, George Carlin made this point a zillion years ago, but like, it's not that we're saving the earth.
It's we're saving the earth for humans.
The earth will still be here after the dinosaurs went extinct 70 million years ago.
The earth was here for 70 million years.
It doesn't care about us.
know, that everything in this universe is trying to kill us.
You know, if it's not like, uh, you know, a fusion reaction, 93 million miles away, it's like, you know, zero degrees Kelvin.
There's no air.
There's no this.
We have this.
one inhabitable place.
That's it.
That's all we got.
don't care about terraforming Mars or all this other nonsense.
We got earth.
and yeah.
Yeah.
mean, sure.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
so anyways, yeah, not to be, know, credit turnburg, but like, Jesus, man, we're shit's bad.
So
And again, I've had a very rough week of, mean, just a rough week.
Well, and I'm sorry, and I hope this doesn't push it further, I'd be curious with, I mean, personally, when I've driven through LA recently with an EV, DC fast charging in LA, LA
air is pretty bad.
Just as far as like, and I think it is changing, be wrong, but it is, I think it's one of, like, if you look at the whole US, it's probably one of the worst areas, just with like
usage and that stuff, which
It's like a good, bad problem to have.
And it's one of those scaling things that will eventually change and more of a short-term problem.
But I'm just kind of curious with, with the recent fires and that stuff, if there's been any talk or what your takeaway has been with just like, you really do need to have AC
charging even more.
So, as far as that reliability and access to it.
Yeah.
mean, you know, I was mentioning my, my wife, no, no, no, no, no, no.
was saying, I no, I saying my wife's, homeless advocacy group.
you know, they want, they're interested in buying a Rivian, but I said to them, said, look where you parked this vehicle, is there a charger?
Cause if there's not get something else, because if you can't charge it home and you know, this is, this is, it's a real problem.
know, the, only out I've seen is in Norway where
January 1st this year, they've outlawed the sale of internal combustion vehicles.
So somehow this very Northern cold country with extremely long drives between towns, because if you know Norway is longer than Europe, the rest of Europe, I should say, they
can get by with EVs.
And when I was there last March, February, March, and it's cold as hell and silent because everyone's driving an EV.
A friend of mine picked me up from the airport, drove me home in his Model 3, Tesla Model 3, got into his apartment garage and pulled a cable out of his car and plugged into a box
on the wall.
So they went and did that in Norway.
That took some political will, took some money.
think, know, and Gavin Newsom, if you're listening, you got to pass a law, at least, you know, it should be nationwide, but in California, just like you have to have heat.
You have to have a way for people to charge their electric vehicles if you're going to rent them an apartment.
And you're doing it for the greater good of the society, not the greater good of the EV owner.
because without that, like I know so many people that want an EV.
But to your point, and it's not that there aren't chargers in LA, it's that they're full.
Everyone's got an EV.
so much of it is, one, there's two parts.
One, a large part of it is like Uber drivers and other kind of ride share drivers who are taking up the space.
And two,
why Uber drivers?
Well, it's cheaper.
It's cheaper to run an EV, even paying level three prices, which used to be cheap.
Now it's like 57 cents a kilowatt.
So it's not that cheap.
Still half the price of gasoline, half the price.
And in LA, it's probably like a third of the price, because we have outlandishly expensive gas for no good reason.
But yeah, so that's why, but I'm sorry, go ahead.
Well, I mean, it speaks to that too, where it's one, you have the right to drivers who are saving money by going electric.
And sometimes there's incentives to do that.
But second, it's exactly to what you're speaking of.
They usually don't always have a great place to charge AC charge overnight.
And so sometimes they have to do that.
And I think there's two parts to this one.
If you look at actual taxis that run combustion, they have, there are commercial fueling station.
And so I do think part of this is
There actually needs to be commercial EV charging to kind of solve some of this problem.
And a lot of it would go away overnight, but yeah, it is a growing pain.
It's like a good thing that things are going this direction.
But even as myself, I I'm sure you're kind of the same way I drive way more than most people I know.
And most people I know who are kind of kind of pushed back or complained about the idea of an EV.
One, they own their own house so they could charge at home.
And then two, in everything I've talked to them about.
Anytime they have to drive more than like 300 miles, they end up just flying anyway.
And so like a lot of those issues do go away, but we there, there have been some pretty cool, and I think it speaks to your idea of like, what we're seeing in Norway with just
like making the infrastructure easier and simpler for apartments and other kinds of multifamily living situations to, make you charging that much easier at home.
So you don't have to deal with DC fast charging.
And that's, that's, think, I think that's long-term.
That's the key.
I'll just say one more thing.
And again, this is a small anecdotal thing, but, you know, we woke up Wednesday morning.
the fires started really Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning.
We just, my wife and I woke up at like, I don't know, four in the morning, something like that.
We just smelled like a campfire and,
we had plugged in the Rivian and we'd set it to 70%.
And I'm sitting there going like, boy, you know, at that point, we weren't even close to an evacuation zone.
And I'm like, you know what, maybe we should charge this thing up to 90%.
And so in bed from my phone, because it was plugged into my house, just cranked it up to, you know, have more range.
Now get 70 % on that car is 250 miles.
you know, if your disaster is going on for longer than 250 miles, like, that's actually the end of the world.
So
That's yeah, that's that's a much bigger issue.
That's pretty much as short of the Sun turning off Yeah But no, mean
to go through a gas tank.
No, my other car is gasoline and I was sitting there while I'm cranking up the Rivian thinking like, oh shit, that's like below half a tank.
Ugh, you know, so, you know.
and so is it you have the riveting and the Toyota still or yeah
I have a 914 on paper, but yeah, have a Giro Corolla drives.
It's in my position.
Yeah.
some of the updates you've made to that are definitely pretty sweet.
guess that
before anyone says it, I'm a giant hypocrite.
I get it.
I'm just like, we remember I was a couple of years ago.
I was at the first Miami F1 race and was Sebastian, Sebastian Vettel's last year.
And, we went to go talk to him and all he wanted to talk about was how there won't be a Miami rice race soon because the ice caps are melting and this part of Florida will be
underwater.
And so the first thing we said to him was like,
Isn't that hypocritical?
Like you're racing these internal combustion cars.
Worse than that, you're 747 loaded with hundreds of people.
Yeah.
And he's like, oh yeah.
He's like, I'm a hypocrite.
A hundred percent.
I'm a hypocrite.
So everyone out there, I'm a hypocrite.
I'm not perfect.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Um, but my little three cylinder, uh, car, yes, it burns gasoline.
And I violated the warranty.
can't even tell you how many times.
But even then, like, think about that.
The fact that it's a three cylinder little sports car verse.
And I mean, there's there's definitely some asterisks to that.
But in the.
Yeah.
very clean.
I don't think my car is now in its current form is that clean.
But I know.
should...
Yeah.
reality, though, like even just go back 20 years, 15 years even, like what you could unlock and do to that thing even then, especially if you're going to erase it or take it
out on the track is still like leagues ahead of what.
Yeah.
just wild.
Yeah.
mean, you know, the, what I'm doing right now is there's a company out of England called, I believe it's eco tech, but ECU tune, sorry, ECU tech, ECU space T E K and they're,
they're a tuning company and they make this really cool thing.
It's an app on your phone and, you plug in a little wireless dude into your OBD two port.
I don't know why I always say, DB two, whatever that port, you know, we plug it in next to your phone.
And then a garage or, you know, they can send you, they can like, you know, get a hold of your data logs, look at it, send you a file.
Custom to your car.
and then you, you upload it and, you just start tuning in.
So, so what I've been doing is, actually after we're done, I'm to go do the 11th, tune and then do a little data logging session with it.
But, like, yeah, basically I get a new file.
I download it, drive it around.
And we look at different things like, okay, top end horsepower, like six to 7,000, that felt strong, but like 2,400 to 4,000 was literally dead.
okay, make some changes.
Okay, that felt strong, but then it cuts out, whatever, getting this error message.
And you can just fight through all that.
I would say right now, and I've done, the reason,
One of the many reasons I've gone with ECU tech is because my car has been physically modified.
So I've got a new intake by eVenturi, which is kind of the gold standard for aftermarket intakes.
It's just giant like.
the photos you post of it are...
Yeah.
Especially on that car.
It just looks so...
Yeah,
Yeah, it's literally as wide as the three cylinder engine block.
And when I say literally, I know what that word means.
So it's got a big cold air intake.
It's got a Jackson Racing radiator, intercooler, new intercooler and a separate oil cooler which is actually now on its own channel.
So factory, the cooling,
the radiator and the oil cooler use the same fluid.
So what this does by breaking it out, it's just cooling the oil.
So now it's just air to air cooling or air to oil.
I don't know, whatever.
not on the radiator, but it puts the radiator on its own channel.
It's more efficient, does lower the temps.
And I've seen that.
then, yeah, know, look, it adds costs and that's why it didn't come from the factory.
And then it requires more oil.
So it probably adds, you
10 pounds of the car or something.
And then it's got a Fi exhaust, which is just like a better looking, better sounding.
Maybe it does something exhaust.
I don't know.
But anyway, there's all long way of saying stock 300 horsepower.
What's that?
I said long story of saying you're a hypocrite is what is that what we're coming back to?
that obviously, yeah, yeah, I mean, you said you're living but, but so stock is like 300 horse 273 foot pound torque, which again, pretty good for 1.6 liters.
yeah, it's I think the upgrades and I, I think, um, I mean, I'm in a similar boat because I don't remember.
I don't know if you remember this, but the reason I originally reached out to you was obviously the vast majority of my, uh, driving we do as electric, but we also have a 1987
Land Rover Defender 90.
And you had posted this.
Yeah.
Well, and speaking of like what it came from the factory from the factory, which it was doing 12.
Well, not even the power.
was saying it could get 12 miles per gallon.
And I don't think we've ever hit the double digits, unfortunately.
But I did do the math of between what we get in our Teslas and then what we get with the Defender.
And we're still at about high 90 mile per gallon annual equivalent.
So I'm still feeling pretty good about that.
See that, makes me feel bad because the, the, the Rivian is about a 65 mile per gallon equivalent, which is still better than a Prius, still better than a Hummer by, by a
couple.
but, anyway, so probably right now, if I had to guess we're at about 340 horsepower and 320 or so through 30 pound feet of torque.
Problem is everyone's seeing me doing this.
Now I got like a turbo company, a fuel.
Rails company, Clutch, well, Clutch, I don't mind, but Clutch company, Valves, top of the engine.
I don't, know, it's diminishing returns and also like, yeah, okay.
with extreme costs going straight up.
You know, honestly, I'm very fortunate that like my costs are are almost nothing because they just want to get their name out there that hey, somebody makes somebody makes a
turbo.
what are you at?
You got like a hundred thousand followers now on Instagram or something.
So yeah, you also have a good following for what you do.
I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to round down.
I'm just messing.
but was I say, you know, it's it gets into like, well, one of the nice things about a gr Corolla, as opposed to like, I don't know, I use BMW is I think Toyota reliability, you
know, so I start first, put in like, you know, schmuckos turbo not no French Marco, like, you know, and like,
All right, now you're really changing internals of like, it's like, it's like, if you look at like a Lotus Elise, right?
Camry motor.
what's the one part that fails on the Lotus Elise camshafts?
Why Lotus makes them.
That's the only thing in the engine they change and it's the only thing that fails.
And so I'm, not as wealthy as I'd like to be.
And so if my car goes down and it's not warranted, it's like,
So I'm, I don't know, I don't know, but I'm actually really liking it at the moment.
I might leave it alone.
I will say though, one of the cool things with this ECU tech is that you have various engine maps.
think there's like four available maps.
So I could map it to like a hundred octane.
There's actually 16 stations in LA that sell a hundred octane at double digits a gallon, but.
If I get a new fuel delivery system, E85, so E85 you can really, know, because it's just ethanol is colder than gasoline.
So for direct injection motors, you can really lower the combustion temp and big power.
Do I want to change the fuel delivery?
I don't know.
mean, and that's kind of where it's an interesting thing because like, like I was saying, I reached out to you originally because I had seen some defender guy that you're, uh, had
to kind of mentioned it in a post on the West coast and go figure trying to find good British, uh, sources for some of these parts domestically can be a bit of a challenge.
But, uh, I think it goes to exactly that.
It just like what our interests are, are definitely kind of more of the combustion vehicle nerd side of stuff.
And I think what's also interesting about your podcast.
on inevitable, especially is it's trying to go kind of into the, EV car nerd side of stuff too.
But for most people like day to day, like there's 10 % on each side that are really interesting and kind of fascinating, but an EV solves like 80 to 90 % of the market today
as to what they actually want or need.
but I, but I think that's, I think that's what's makes such a cool opportunity is like,
There's a lot still to be done with combustion engines.
And there's some kind of cool things for like, especially weekend projects.
mean, I'm sure with your Corolla, don't want to be, there's a lot of times you don't want to drive that around town.
And that's where the Rivian and Canada is nicer to.
Honestly, I'm one of those weirdos, like, you I don't mind driving a stick anywhere.
love, I just love driving stick.
That doesn't even bother me in traffic.
Like at least I'm not bored, you know?
So I love driving the Toyota.
That's the one thing I'm not changing is actually anything to do with the suspension.
Although, just take that back.
I got some wheels and tires coming, which is probably gonna ruin everything, but they, yeah.
when you're driving around LA, if it's just you, do you take either car or if it's like you and your wife, you and your kids?
And to God, if I'm here by myself and I have one car to pick, I pick the Rivian.
I like it better.
Now, you know, we have to have two cars because sometimes she takes it.
I mean, the funniest true story is I had an Alfa Romeo Giulia Least and it was time to get another car.
Least was up and I've been wanting the GR Corolla.
I love it.
I do love it.
And my wife goes, could we get two Rivians?
And I was like, ooh.
I'm like, ooh, we could set up one for mileage and one for off-road.
And I thought about it for a split second.
said to her, said, you know what?
You could, I couldn't.
I already get accused.
Now, again, I pay Rivian every goddamn month.
I pay those people a lot of money.
I get accused of working for them all the time.
They make a product I really like.
And I mean, don't be wrong, I'm a big fan of their products too.
I've been accused of that and of Tesla ones just because I like both their products and people accuse me for being a Land Rover show every now and then.
And they're definitely not paying me.
Let's put it that way.
you know, I guess with the, the, guess the geo corollas is sort of like accepted, like, that thing's great.
But like, if you would have ever told me before I bought it, before I drove it, should say, initially that like one day I would own a Corolla.
I would have laughed at you.
Like I hate Corollas, but I like this whole.
have immediately think like, so my life took a change and then I became like a tax accountant or something.
Yeah, exactly.
believed you.
I honestly, now, if you, if you know me, I've, you know, boy, I bought my first WRX in October of 2001, which was like the second month they were on sale in the U S you know
what I mean?
So, and I had two of those and I love little Japanese compact, Wagony fast things.
I just, there's something, I know.
I just, love them.
Yeah.
I just, and just to me, they make a lot of sense.
Especially again, it has to be in hatchback form.
don't know sedan hatchback or wagon.
Yeah, so I would take the rib again, you know, you're asking like the fire so I went down to
Well, and I'm sorry, not, not to interrupt you.
think it's just so funny.
We went down this path because you were talking originally about the software on your Rivian and how you could just do it all from your phone.
And then we kind of went on a big tangent about the software and the two weeks tweaks you've done to your Corolla, which are awesome, but it is, it is so fascinating to me that
it's like it, um, combustion software and like EV software is almost like digital.
This is a weird analogy, but it's like digital versus analog.
where it's so manual versus yeah.
like, you're not going to get any more power out of your EV, but there's a lot of cool things you can do with the software.
Um, but again, I'm, I'm, I'm tuning the damn Corolla with my phone.
Uh, I'm not tuning them.
I'm uploading and downloading, what was it?
was good.
Oh, go ahead.
do you do that?
I figured you were using a, but you do plug it in.
You can't do it wirelessly.
You have to do it through the phone and then you connect it via the OBD.
It's a, it's a, it's a wireless transmitter that plugs into the OBD.
Yeah.
And you got to charge it every once in a while.
It has an indicator light.
I mean, it like, it's like a hundred, you know, I, I discharged it for the sake of it.
didn't do anything.
but yeah, it's like, so basically, the guy, the garage is helping me counter space garage.
they push out a new file.
My, my app on my phone receives it.
get an email like, Hey, there's a new file for you.
Install it in your car.
It's a little two, three minute installation process.
And then I open up a data logger on the app and you know, just it's every parameter like, know, intake temperature, um, yeah, whatever, you know, uh, spark adjustment, you know,
everything in the engine computer spits out, it logs it.
And I go through, you know, I take it to red line and third gear, do this, do that, press these buttons for five seconds.
Um, you know, if something goes wrong, there's a mark, uh, function where it's okay.
You know, and I tell him like, Hey, you'll see there's a mark.
Here's what happened.
This error popped up or I felt this or whatever.
Um, and then he, I don't know what he does on a computer and sends me back a magical file the next day.
And we're about to install number 11.
So it's been, it's been super fun.
Um, Oh, but fire.
So, uh, the civic center in Pasadena, uh, was turned into an evacuation center for everyone in and of the, in Pasadena that was affected.
Uh, friend of mine was kind of coordinating the early, uh, relief efforts.
So I just bought like a bunch of like tampons and diapers and stuff like the toothbrushes, whatever that people fleeing their homes wouldn't think to grab.
Uh, and I brought it down there.
First of all, I've never been in a war zone.
Um, I have no idea what it's actually like, but I have to imagine like Pasadena Wednesday night was like, everything was covered in.
in soot, thick white soot, trees were down everywhere from the wind.
Like you could see, I don't know, 75 feet in front of you because the smoke was so crazy thick.
And I rolled up and there were like, they cops kind of like, you know, kind of controlling the scene.
It kind of a madhouse.
And I had a mask on and this cop standing there and I, you know, just waiting, I'm looking at him and I go, hey, no mask.
And he's like, man, they don't do an effing thing.
And I like lowered my mask on my, my God, like he, it's, it's, was so bad.
Like it did that.
There's no way it was doing anything.
but anyways, you know, I was really thankful to have the, I had a Tuesday night.
So Tuesday was on the winds really started and I had a review car, a Maserati, grand Cabrio Trofeo.
And, sadly because of the fires, I didn't really get to do anything with it, but Tuesday night I went out,
some friends were in town from Tokyo, met him for dinner.
And then I was driving back and it was like crazy because there was like trees down everywhere and like, you know, the Maserati.
Well, that night when I was rolling around Pasadena in the Riviera, it was like, it just felt great.
I've driven Humvees.
It had that kind of feel to it where, tree go over it.
Who cares?
You I'm also on these really cool Toyo tires, these open country threes that are like, you know, super tires for off-roading.
And it was just,
It's the thing to be driving around in and then I don't know if you've seen, I like the video, it makes a lot of people upset, but there's this video, for some reason there's
some university that tests guardrails and they punch cars through guardrails at like 60 miles an hour and they put a Rubian pickup truck through a guardrail and it just snaps the
guardrail, hits a cement K-wall and shatters the K-wall and then like.
The front doesn't even deform.
Like I bet the hood would still open.
you know, Rivian's the only pickup truck with like a safety plus pick rating.
So I told my wife, I'm like, the kid moves around in the Rivian during this because people were driving like maniacs because like, know, drunk or fleeing or both or whatever, know,
who knows?
So don't put them in the little Corolla, put them in the big truck.
So I was very thankful to have the Rivian.
you know, and then like we used it for a bunch of like, there was people, you know, you, you, some people are on medication, like it was on pig, very popular in LA, but lots of
other medications where you got to keep them refrigerated.
and their house burned down, so they don't have refrigerator.
So we got a bunch of mini fridges from home Depot and I was able to like move them around with the Rivian, you know, just stuff like that.
Like, yeah.
So it was just, it was a good, what would any pickup truck do the same thing?
Absolutely.
I just happened to have this one.
No, I mean, they are great off road.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's true.
Actually, they're there.
Yeah.
as much fun as it is to take the little Toyota up like Angela's Crest.
I also enjoy driving my truck like Angela's Crest because you lower it and it into a sports car with mine's 835 horsepower, which I like.
Now, mean, I guess shared friend Kyle Connor, he's always talking about how much he loves that about his too, that he can kind of have best of both worlds.
It's obviously not the same as the Corolla, but it gives you so much of that that you just don't expect from a truck.
And especially, like I said, with the Land Rover, the Defender we drive, I love that thing.
And I am still like, say what?
no, no, well, I mean, that's the thing is like, we were...
And I think I still might or I might get another one to convert to being electric.
But there is something kind of beautiful about it, just like, cause this not to go down a completely different rabbit hole.
were kind of talking about, essentially like just into world disasters and like, well, solar flares and all that.
And I'm like, yeah, that's true.
No one's real cars would start in there.
was, you know, actually our Land Rover has a carburetor and it just like, it would be kind of, and it is such a, like just, it's not fast, but it goes over anything and everything
at the same speed.
It's funny, were, we had a guy, uh, company called moment motors and, they do, uh, they do EV conversions.
And he was talking about like, you know, like a lot of people feel that all cars are improved by going EV, but there's some cars that are much more improved.
And one of them was like a Mercedes Pagoda, which beautiful car engine and transmission are nothing to write home about.
Nobody's ever been like, man, the motor in my Pagoda.
So it's like, oh yeah.
quickly double the horsepower and actually because the batteries are that big, reduce the weight.
I bet you a Defender 90 is a great candidate for electrification.
Yeah.
I actually, uh, yeah, we we've had them on the podcast before, but, uh, some of the team up, they're actually based in Wales and now I'm driving, uh, uh, Felton Felton's the name
of the team that does a really amazing, uh, drop in conversion kit.
And then I've worked with, uh, legacy EV and where they've been on the pocket.
I took their classic car conversion course, actually a couple of years back, um, highly recommend.
And it was just fun.
It was, uh, it was kind of a wild experience because.
I had originally pitched it to my wife because we had the Land Rover and at the time this is another this is a rabble and rabble.
I actually had a 72 Ford Bronco body and I was actually looking at making I just had the body beautiful kind of midnight metallic blue and I was like I'll make that electric long
story short ween up game read that and so the defender became the prime candidate and I came across this thing and I was like you know what
I pitched it to my wife as like adult summer camp for a week.
I'm going to go take this course down in Phoenix.
Uh, we'll see if we get our money back, but it just, it's a lot of fun things playing with, uh, tools, doing kind of electrical work in a car, playing with some wrenches here
and there and learning stuff.
So I was like, why not?
And she's like, okay, go for it.
Uh, the company is called legacy Evie and they originally started as mostly a education or no, I'm sorry, not education.
Part supplier for people to do EV conversions for classic cars and then they kind of they still do that And they actually probably have one of the better online Just SKUs and stuff
to if you're looking to do that But what they ended up I think has probably become a bigger business for them Honestly, and it's a great program is teaching how to do the
conversions And then if you want to buy the parts from that you can obviously and so I took this course and I figured I was gonna be kind of a bunch of guys like me like yeah,
I'll be
the one, it'll be me and kind of like a bunch of average, kind of like garage guys that kind of do this for the weekend.
I was literally the only one there was a, it will, and that's actually what made it so fast.
And there were guys from Shelby America.
There were guys from the Kindred Motorworks team.
There were, I think the closest thing where there were two different guys, if I remember right, who were actually high school shop teachers who had kind of gotten a grant to learn
how to do this.
And so they were taking the course and then teaching the kids, which was great.
So
That's great.
There's still high school shop courses.
that, that unto itself for sure.
And so that, that was kind of the reason I was like, yeah, this would be so much fun to convert the defender.
And I think we probably still will.
but it's also just kind of been kind of the more we think was like, yeah, if something like was really just go.
Completely sideways.
It is kind of funny just to have like a really reliable, not fast, but just, but I'm sure we'll do it anyway.
but, I think that's the thing that so many people.
don't realize is like, oh, these EVs, when the power goes out or some sort of issue, it's like, well, yeah, the incident run a gas, you got to go to a gas station that's also
dependent on electricity.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and again, you just like, you know, you can charge it to whatever you want in your house.
They go many miles.
Yeah.
think Lucid's definitely one of the other ones that are kind of catching up with the software side of stuff, but it is just wild.
Between them, Tesla and Rivian domestically.
then it's like some of the legacies, some of their apps are finally kind of getting polished.
Cause for so long, so many of them, would open the app and it just wouldn't do what you told the car to do, which was like drive.
just one of the most annoying.
It's like, it shouldn't even be an app.
Like it makes the, it's one thing to have it.
It's so much worse in some ways to say, your car can do it.
And then when you go to try and do it, it fails.
And then you're trying to do it for like three minutes.
mean, you see the advantage that like the new car companies have with software is like, you know, I had the electric G wagon.
and, it's an interesting car.
It's, it's, it's, it like, it's, held back by the fact that it's a G wagon.
Like if it was, you know, it's just like the battery should be bigger, but there's nowhere to put it because this is what a G wagon is.
Like if they were to
take that powertrain and put it in a GLS, which I think they're doing.
Like, boy, they'd really have something, because then you could get like another 40 kilowatt hour battery in there.
But like I got it and I was just, I was like, God, this is so weird.
I, you know, like I have never driven one before, but like, there's like no EV menus.
Like I can't figure this out.
Like it's like, legacy.
And then I live like on a hill.
So when I parked the cars are kind of pointed downhill and I backed it in.
And so,
I put it in drive and it starts rolling and then takes me about two seconds.
I quickly realized like my foot has nothing to do with it rolling.
It was just kind of a neutral and it just something weird that happened.
It just died.
Uh, it just, you know, like it was just, it was actually funny.
It blocked in like a bunch of me and my neighbors.
Um, they came and got it and they were like, Hey, you know what?
We have another one.
It's exactly the same.
looked the same picture, same plate.
And I turned that one on and it's like, Oh, this one.
has the EV software.
in other words, when they ship a G wagon somewhere in the G wagon software, you got to say it's the electric, not the gas.
So I had an EV that was running the gas software, which turned out to be the problem.
but like, yeah, it was, it was crazy.
So like, you got to write both and it's like, that's not good.
You can't, you know, you can't be great at both.
You can be good.
Like, like I think Mercedes and BMW.
they have good EVs and know, good specifically like the gas seven series is good.
The electric seven series is great, but they're both held back by the fact that you gotta have for the seven series, you gotta have a structure that can hold that battery and
support all that weight.
it's, it's the gas one's too heavy.
And then, you know, like the way it's put together, although with the seven series, kind of like through design out the window, but like, you know, it's like,
kind of part of what makes it so.
Yeah.
car I would love to own one day, the I7 M70.
That's my kind of limousine.
That thing is, that's a good vehicle.
like 200 grand.
it's an amazing around town vehicle or like driving around LA because you can go a cup, really?
Yeah.
we put one stupidly on a race track.
had a Bentley flying spur, the W12, I think it was even the Speed.
And yeah, the BMW, the electric one beat it by like three seconds around the track and was just way better in every way and accelerated better.
Everything except for looks, the BMW did much better.
Bentley did much better in terms of looks, I will say.
They've got that pretty delved in.
not good-looking is you know water is also wet
of reason it's so fast, as they say with a lot of BMWs lately.
It has to be fast so you don't see it.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Well, and I guess I'm kind of curious.
That was one of the other things I want to talk to you about is just like looking towards 2025.
And it's interesting.
I mean, the electric G-Wagon to me, it's going so far.
And I mean, you can say this in some regards, the this generation defenders too, but it's going so far from its original roots to what it is.
But I think the G-Wagon especially is the epitome of it where it's just like, what is it?
Maybe one.
out of every 10,000 goes on to gravel or any other hard service.
it's, yeah.
Well, I mean, I, and I've obviously I'm just making that up, but it's just like, see them everywhere in LA or like Scottsdale and sure they're great vehicles, but it's like, they
don't go on a road trip with it.
And so in some ways, if, it is what it is being used for making electric, actually makes a lot of sense.
If you want to use it for like what it can do, then yeah, some of those come out more.
So two things.
One is very quietly, but I did get the pressure release Mercedes the day they launched the G 580 as it's called, or actually it's got a horrible name.
It's like G 580 with EQ technology is the official name.
Uh, but it was when they launched it, they put out a pressure release saying, Hey, in 18 months, we're going to have a new battery chemistry that'll have 20 % more range.
So it's a lithium sodium, I want to say battery.
Um, so when that happened, it would be much better because right now it's like EPA to, I can't remember if it's two 60 or two 40 and like, it's about.
mean to its credit, it's a brick.
Like Arrow has
but it's like they wanted to keep all the off-road chops.
They actually had to figure out how to do a live axle with two motors.
But I mean, they're so German.
I will say this, I will give them credit.
I took it off-road.
I thought the Rivian was good.
The four motor was good off-road.
I think the G-Wagon's better.
And the G-Wagon was on like street tires.
Damn.
You know, I've made this point elsewhere, like, okay, lucid, they want to have a really fast E V.
So they figured out how to spin a motor faster, with software, right?
Porsche runs into that problem.
what do they do?
They put a two speed transmission on the Tycon.
it's hard to, you know, control, off road.
So, you know, you're going from 80 miles an hour to one mile an hour control.
Yeah.
with a four motor system.
So Rivian has spent a lot of time on the software.
What does Mercedes do?
Each motor gets its own two speed transmission.
So there's eight gears, there's four transmissions.
which like on paper it looks that means it almost looks the same as the regular one.
It's like, both have eight gears.
Just in a completely different way.
Yeah.
Right.
don't care what they say really, but maybe they have a point because it is the proofs in the pudding.
It is really good off road, but like, I think you could have done that with software.
I don't think you had to gear it down.
Whatever, they're German, they look for mechanical solutions.
hardware versus software.
In a way.
And it was funny too, cause when I was in Norway, I actually, I drove, I was a passenger in an electric G wagon from Norway to Ariaplog, Sweden, which is a big testing center up
in the Arctic circle.
Actually a little south of the Arctic circle, but they say Arctic circle.
And I had a whole point.
Oh my God.
Sorry.
I'm a little exhausted from these fires.
So the proof is in the pudding.
German engineering.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
And so I was with these guys and they were engineers.
Engineers don't have like the best PR training.
And I'm one of my strengths as a journalist is I know how to like, if there's not a PR person around, I know how to like get answers out of these guys.
Anyways, so there was four guys from Austria.
One guy was from Czech Republic.
Anyways, they were German.
there were Magnus Steyer employees that work on the G-Wagen.
Well, they were the employees, but whatever, they do the traction control on the G-Wagen, stuff like that.
I just kept asking them, I'm like, well, and this is a good question if you're a budding journalist out there, what are your benchmark?
And so they said, well, number one, had to be a G-Wagen.
So everything, couldn't change a thing.
They changed four things on the exterior.
used to be a real nerd to see them, but.
But they said, well, we benchmark every competitor, all crap, all terrible.
This was bad, that was bad, except the Rivian.
We really liked the Rivian.
And one guy who was a non-German was like, we even really thought about the air suspension.
It was a real game changer being able to increase ground clearance by five inches, however many centimeters that is, 14 centimeters.
But G wagons don't have air suspension, we couldn't do that.
But man, it really does pay dividends and blah, blah, blah.
anyways, my thing is off-road, I think for turning out, unless it's extreme rock crawling, because you can't connect the rear motors, although somebody will figure that out, it's a
real advantage based on traction to have four motors.
Individual wheel control is really
A good thing, it turns out.
Yeah, I mean, it is really impressive what Rivian and just Tesla and some of these others, how they have kind of approached that idea of doing it software first and what I mean, and
to your point exactly, actually Tom about the review, how good it still is off road with some interesting kind of compromises as far as what like not having lockers and some of
these having an E locker and that stuff and.
Yeah, the Rivians don't even have e-lockers, but,
Well, that's true, right.
But like they're kind of software and kind of manipulating in a way to try and get around that.
It's definitely not perfect, but it is still wild how that is actually accomplished still.
Yeah, no, for sure.
And Rivian, look, they get away with it by having so much goddamn torque.
It's like, okay, you're only using one motor, but that one motor is like over 200 pound feet of torque.
So that's enough to get a lot of things up a hill.
Yeah, no, it's like Tesla famously, well, why did they come up with their own language and do a software-defined vehicle?
They invented it because nobody would work with them.
No supplier was like, what?
You want what?
No, here, take our...
whatever, and it's like, no, I guess we're gonna make our own.
And then it turned out there's these huge advantages.
but anyways.
And I realized we're kind of going a little bit over time, but one of the things I wanted to talk to you about were just like, if you have time for it, is just upcoming into 2025,
any vehicles and especially like EVs or even plug-in EV hybrids that you're kind of excited for.
I know you're also a pretty big fan of Lucid's technology.
don't know if you've had too much time around like the gravity and that stuff or.
yeah, the big dog, the new, you know, gravity out here.
It's great.
I hear it's also very prototypey so far, the ones that have been driven.
but I, I imagine they'll get it right.
And that that's going to be cool too, because not only is it the SUV, but the, fascinates me about Lucid is their, their motors, because they're so efficient.
Now, what does that mean to me and you powerful?
it turns out efficiency just you can use more energy to make power but so I think a lucid is capable of something like five miles a kilowatt where my truck does like to barely and
these
I will push back on that.
Like I have yet to see those.
They're efficient.
I think they kind of, I think they kind of got a little ahead of themselves by saying those numbers because I haven't really seen those in reality, but.
them when I did a thing with Lucid where we drove at 70 miles an hour.
It does do it.
does do it.
Yeah.
I've seen like over four though.
It's insane because my...
But so supposedly they'll be able to achieve like five and a half to six with the gravity.
So that'll be, that's new motor.
So that's pretty fascinating.
The new model Y,
you know, like say what you want about everything Tesla related, like, and it makes some good products.
So that's, that's very intriguing.
obviously the small Rivian, the art to the R three scout, which is probably a couple of years away, but I'm curious about that.
I'm also curious that are actually going to bother with a range extender that adds 150 miles only, which seems kind of like, what's the point, but okay.
cause you're going to compromise something's got to give.
Yeah.
Right?
If you're going to suddenly have an engine in a gas tank, where does that go?
I don't, I think they're just kind of saying that.
I don't know if that's going to make production.
That's just my guess.
interesting.
No, I agree with you.
That'll be really interesting.
You can't you can't just like, like, it's not like you want leather.
It's like that's like a real big engineering compromise.
You know, you're taking up a lot of space and
when it's kind of funny, and admittedly, I don't think the art too is like, maybe some will like, like just barely roll off, like December 31 of this year, but it sounds like
it's more 2026 and then same with.
Okay, right.
Yeah.
Who?
I mean, I look, they, you know, RJ, uh, we had RJ on the inevitable RJ, uh, scrunch is the owner CEO.
We used to be owner now CEO of Rivian.
And he said, he's like, we'll never be profitable until we launch the art too.
can't.
And you know, they probably IPO too early, but like, yeah, they have a lot of pressure to like get that stock price up.
And how do you do that?
You got to have the art too.
Um, so.
No, I agree with you.
I'd love to see it come out.
I was just for anyone listening, just to clarify it probably.
Yeah.
the, the other thing is that they did say 26, but remember they said it was 26 out of the Georgia factory.
They pause the Georgia factory and they're converting the existing factory.
So, you know, the Georgia factory is not built.
So they already have the factory.
boy, you know, and, and EVs are a lot easier to spool up than internal combustion turns out.
so maybe, maybe sooner than later.
I'm curious about.
still within like a 12 to, it's coming.
I think that's for sure,
Yeah.
And then I'm also curious about, the Dodge, sorry, the Ram Ram charger, whatever they're calling it, the, the EREV, truck, cause I'm, it sounds like a lot of, in the short term, a
lot of these EREV.
So EREV different than plugin hybrid where it's kind of like the Chevy Volt.
It's a, it's a, it's a battery electric vehicle that has a range extender.
It's the EREV.
range extender, internal combustion engine that is not unlike the Chevy wall that is not connected to the drive wheels.
It just creates electricity, which, you know, I think it's good if you're a locomotive.
I think it's probably better just to be fully V but you know, people are like, well, what if I have to go go on a road trip suddenly and I can't and there aren't any charges.
say, if you're make that argument, it does kind of make the most sense for like a Ram pickup truck or something where it's just like, you need a lot of the torque, exactly,
towing and yeah.
you know that that's the thing nobody ever wants to talk about.
But like, yeah, EVs you cut the range in half when you hook up a trailer.
Guess what happens to a big diesel, you cut the range in half and you hook up a trailer.
It's just that they have humongous gas tanks.
And, you know, diesels.
Yeah.
to test out, and maybe this is for the scientists and you guys, you professionals at Mudder Trend to test, is what's interesting is like you look at like, kind of going back
to when we were talking about the G-Wagon, talking about Arrow.
It's a brick, so it doesn't have the best arrow.
But in Rivian's defense, it actually looks like a brick, but its arrow is actually really good for what it is.
It's so good.
Let me tell you how good it is.
Yeah.
I do want to talk to you about that, but it's kind of a follow this is like, so Rivian can optimize their arrow.
The Cybertruck is crazy.
It looked actually kind of optimized this arrow, but then you've got like the Chevy Silverado, which essentially didn't do a whole lot.
They kind of focused on being a brick and just shoved a bunch of batteries in it.
But talking about towing, what's really interesting is you see that because the arrow is actually so bad on the truck, it actually
it does not affect the towing as much.
So the Rivian and the Cybertruck are kind of inversely affected by that.
And so what I'm kind of curious, I'd love to see someone do, and this is kind of ridiculous and kind of over the top, but I've seen so many people do crazy towing things
just anecdotally over the years, that what I'd love to see is, can you optimize the aero, even on a Rivian or one of these other, or any EV truck, by literally taking like a sheet,
and some magnets and essentially just optimize instead of you getting that huge arrow hit because of the air going over the vehicle and then hitting the surface of what you're
towing.
Can you actually try and make it more like actually a semi and one long area that minimizes that arrow drag hit and see what that Delta becomes?
Yeah.
Breaking up with the boys.
I was going to say I got this, I got a topper for my Rivian by go fast camping.
I'm helping them develop their Rivian product.
So they gave me the prototype and oh, it just killed my range.
It's the prototype and we knew it would happen.
But again, the Rivian truck is really optimized and it's like, yeah, it's like a
the good and bad of it.
It's like the instant you start kind of playing around with it, you see the penalty of it.
It's kind of like 8 % like, or yeah, 8 % from like two miles of kilowatts, like 1.8.
So it's pretty significant.
And you put pretty like you mentioned those Toyo tires on.
I have the least efficient rivet on planet earth right now.
Yeah, I it's terrible.
those, those kinds of tariffs, especially like you do actually, I don't be wrong.
My biggest issue with Rivian right now is nothing to do with their product.
has lately been their drivers where I live.
cause it has now become the, R1S specifically has become the new Range Rover.
And I swear to God, if I see another Rivian driver in an R1S just doing this with their phone down the road, I'm going to lose it.
But,
Yeah, it's become the new, not once again, anecdotal, once again, anecdotal, and not to stereotype, but it is now the new kind of like soccer mom Range Rover driving vehicle here
in Bend, Oregon.
Having said that, having said that it is, it is really cool what they've built.
And I think it is really interesting.
Like, if you're going to actually use it for what it's capable with, like you do getting some, like their tires options are awesome, but if you really want to crank it up, yeah,
you kind of got.
have to go to something like a Toyo or like the Falcon kind of more off-road tire.
you know, it comes on the Pirellis.
I did plenty of off-roading on the Pirellis.
But I let my buddy drive the truck and I was walking next to it filming, some, doing some, again, was a double black trail, hardcore trail.
And I'm looking at the tires and I'm like, those look terrible.
It just doesn't look like it's happy.
And yeah, so I put these on there.
Now I did kill the range by 7%.
So I took them off and I put on some other.
kind of expected.
That's not great, but not as bad as it could be actually.
Right, well I combined that with this topper and I'm like, you know, I'm way down.
But I had some other tires on there and it was the, one of the wheels was out of alignment and I just wore through one of them.
instead of buying another set, the Toyo's only had like a few thousand miles on them.
And that's the other thing too, is those last a long time.
They're just, such beefy things.
getting, know, cause they're like, they've basically been on there.
The truck has like 30,
2000 miles on it.
They've probably been on there like 20,000 of the miles, something like that.
More or more.
Yeah.
So.
Yeah, I guess one other question I had was like going back to looking at like the Gravity versus some of these other cars like kind of coming out.
Where do you think, where do you think is a, I mean yeah, you mentioned Model Y, the new one, the Gravity, Rivian R2 and all this stuff.
Where do you think there's still a gap or any areas that maybe
EVs need to serve better.
Yeah.
At least domestically for sure.
Yeah.
my, my GR Corolla, like, don't know if I, I don't know it's a hundred percent.
And I don't know if I could have been a two Rivian family, but had that R3X been out, when it was time for my Alpha lease, like, you know, cause I think there's a tri motor version
that's going to be like the tri motor.
little thing.
That was the worst thing they could do though.
They should have just announced the R2 and left it at that because everyone talks about and don't mean all the R3 looks cool.
I think it's gonna be a great vehicle, but they first just need to that R2 out.
And I think that's gonna be an awesome vehicle.
It wasn't until honestly, I saw the new Scout that I was like, actually I might be born to that.
Yeah.
I mean, the art is size better than the scout.
Um, um, I'm not, I don't need a vehicle like that ever.
Um, I like odd vehicles, but that are three X again, and I couldn't get RJ to like say either way, but I think he, I think I'm right here.
It's going to have the same power output as the tri motor, uh, R one.
So, uh, I want to say that's like, what is that?
850 horse, uh, 1100 pound feet of pork.
in a little tiny guy, like that's my kind of vehicle, you know.
Well, and it's just so cool, kind of like what it is, like the old rally be kind of cars that you can buy modern and electric.
mean, it's awesome.
I get why it got so much coverage.
I just think it was kind of unfortunately.
I think the art is kind of a cool and a great product as well, but I think that that is the downside by them announcing it.
It kind of overshadowed their the announcement of the art.
I mean the R3 should be a fast follow because I believe that the R2 and the R3 are going to share almost everything, whereas the R1 is just sort of its own platform, more premium
and advanced, blah, But yes, aside from small, I think more choice in actual big three-row SUVs.
know the Cadillac is just out, but I'd like to see an electric Tahoe suburban-sized vehicle.
Yeah, yeah.
that makes a lot of sense and, you know, and, and, Americans like big vehicles.
just do.
so small and big, like, like, you know, there's enough model Y competitors right now.
and, and that's not an original thought.
RJ again was saying that, but if you look at like, you know, from the ionic five to the Maki, like they're within like an inch of everything of the model Y.
And again, a model Y was, I think it was unseated by some Chinese thing called a BYD, whatever, but it was the best selling vehicle in the world.
It surpassed know, Corolla for that, for that title, which is pretty amazing.
So it's an important car.
What else is lacking?
mean, sports cars are tricky.
don't, I'm not convinced that at the high end, top end of the market, like there'll ever really be a place for an electric sports car.
Well, that is where I mean, I going back to our conversation earlier about your role and stuff like that kind of makes sense for the weekend category to have a combustion vehicle.
If you're that kind of person that it's kind of fun to have that.
Yeah, yeah, look, and you know, I don't want it to be like, you know, you know, no, you can't do this.
But it's just like, you know, lightness is not an EV attribute.
And so you get around it by just adding tons of power, but it's still heavy.
So, you know, I don't know, I don't know.
And you know, it's also it's the theory of the leisure leisure class, Thurston Veblen, right?
So so
You know, when everybody, when nobody could afford electric lights, electric lights were considered romantic.
It's only the rich could afford them.
And then once everybody got electricity candlelight dinner was romantic because only the rich could afford to have candles and electric lights.
And so I think for like the top end, everybody has an EV now.
Cause it remember when EVs first launched model S only rich guys could buy them, right?
Rich rich guys.
And so once the masses get only the very rich can afford a V8 or a V12.
But I think there'll be a little.
can make the argument is already the case in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
I get what you're saying.
Yeah.
It's more like it becomes more of a luxury kind of status.
I totally get it.
Yeah.
right?
Okay, Matty Rimmatz just pulled the greatest trick in the world, right?
He got a bunch of billionaires to buy an EV.
How?
He put a V16 in it, but that's a Navara with three electric motors and a battery that he couldn't sell.
How do you sell it?
Shove a V16 in it, same car.
I mean, obviously they're gonna say it's not, but if you look at them with their skin off, it's the same car.
So he fooled them.
Nobody, no billionaire wants to admit that, but they bought an EV.
It happens to have this complication, which is a V16, but you know, it's going to get 700 horsepower out of the EV side of it.
Um, and so, yeah.
could see, speaking of that, do you think we could see a return to the hyper cars being purely combustion or do you think because of the hybrid technology, it kind of makes it
really the pros and cons of
I wrote an article about this saying that like you'll never get rid of like the V12 and some maybe a couple more 16 cylinders, but always be a market because of again is he was a
Economist slash philosopher but economist from Wisconsin University of Wisconsin the odd name of Thorsten Veblen and Theory of the leisure class.
I recommend everybody read it.
I read it in college.
I should dust it off.
But you know
the as a Fitzgerald said, the richer, very different than you and I, they have more money so they can afford to buy.
You know, I just drove the Pagani utopia.
Awesome.
Like, Hey man, what a great car.
It's 2.5 million to start and they're all sold out.
So if you want to buy one use there more.
Um, and it's a, it's a 25 year old Mercedes V12 with a, you know, a new plenum or something on it.
Uh,
you know, it's, you know, wink, wink.
And again, back to the Bugatti Tourbillon, it makes less power than it's slower than the electric one, but you gotta have it because it's got the V16.
You know, so.
wheel.
It's it's is funny.
Like what are the things that sell it?
But I mean, and that's you're totally right.
It's like almost no different than with the advent of the Apple watch.
Now there's the high end traditional watch space that obviously you and Matt Farrell of like, and then you get into like the higher side of it too, where it's just like, it's
ornamental.
It's very cool, but it gets to a point where yeah, it's purely ornamental versus.
But again, it's like, you know, it used to be when I was a kid, you know, what mattered in sports cars was who was the fastest and who was the quickest and now nobody cares.
They just think, like, if everybody has an EV, I need a gas car.
You know what I mean?
It's just, it's just, I got a lot of money, do what I want type of thing.
So, but yeah, that's, that's the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing a whole bunch of 450 billionaires to buy an EV.
by smashing a V16 into it.
And I think you're right.
That is going to be a great place for us to end today, Johnny.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Thank you for sharing kind of the updates and my apologies.
And I just thank you so much for coming out with everything going with the wildfires right now.
And for anyone that can help or do anything, please let us know.
And definitely recommend following your Instagram story to kind of get the latest on that and everything that you've been doing with the MotorTrend team as well.
Thank you.
Cool.
All right.
Huge thanks to Johnny Lieberman for joining us again and sharing his perspective on everything from navigating California wildfires with an EV to the future of off-road
capable electric vehicles.
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