Good morning, Grid Connections listeners.
Today I've got a bit of a different episode for you.
I wanted to share a few different updates.
We also were gonna have a one-on-one interview today, but due to some
scheduling things that had to change.
However, overall, I've got some big announcements about just the series in
general and some of the things we'll be doing this year.
And recently, I also had the opportunity to go car shopping with my mom, who's
looking for a new car to replace her current Mercedes.
So...
I'll get to that in a second, but just wanted to share the updates.
And that's going to be the majority of this episode today.
Uh, I learned a lot.
I mean, I've dealt with dealerships and car sales over the years quite a bit, but
I think my most recent experience, especially since she was looking to buy
something electric is just, uh, was a really interesting one that I want to
share with you and then I also just had some other updates.
Um, but first I think the big thing is.
Traditionally, I've been releasing these episodes every Tuesday and I also want to
just say my apologies if I sound a little congested unfortunately, I kind of thought
is cold for someone but Hopefully it's not coming through too much and as you might
notice I'm at a different location than usual So I'm actually currently staying
and kind of helping some people with something for a few days But wanted to get
this episode out anyway, so This is more a one-off episode
Uh, follow, following episodes will be back to kind of the normal location and
normal audio and video setups.
But overall, I'm going to be moving, I think, uh, the release date for a lot of
episodes moving forward to Wednesdays.
Uh, currently they come out every Tuesday, but just with usually logistics and
editing and scheduling.
Uh, having it be released Wednesday mornings would actually just, I think, be
a lot easier for me to manage.
I'm hoping that this year we're definitely getting a lot of interest, not just in
listeners, but people wanting to be on the show.
I'd really like to get to a point where we do maybe every Wednesday is a one-to-one
episode and then Thursdays would be more of a panel interview.
So ideally I'd like to actually be doing two episodes a week, one of each style.
So if you know of anyone that's interested in being on the show, please reach out to
them and then reach out to us.
It's just guests at conn
We're going to be changing that email as well.
But for now, I'll still continue to get emails there.
But if you know of anyone or if you just have recommendations of people you'd like
to have me reach out to or even topics to cover, just email me or reach out to
Twitter.
And once again, that email is guests at conn So yeah, we'll be moving to
Wednesdays.
And I think with just the momentum we're seeing, it might even be, it might still,
it's probably still a few months out.
But
even start releasing two episodes a week, which I think would be awesome.
With that update out of the way, I just wanted to share kind of a quick overview
of some of the things I'll be talking about today.
And then if this isn't for you, totally understand, but it has been a really
interesting experience.
So the majority of today is going to be talking about my recent experience,
probably over the course, I guess actually over the course of three days, helping my
mom buy a new car to replace her current car, which is a...
Maybe 120 to 130,000 mile, 2012 Mercedes GLE.
It's a beautiful car.
She got it used originally in one owner and it was pretty much fully loaded, but
it was kind of wild, because I think she paid just under 40 and it would have been
close to probably a six figure, maybe at the very least 80 to $90,000 car back
then, even when it was new.
So it's been a great car and honestly,
It's just the fact that it's kind of getting up in miles.
It's had some minor things needed, like just headlight replacements, but I think
even one of those was like 1100 bucks.
So it's getting to that point at diminishing returns and which is the miles
on it, she is looking to return it.
And she's had it for almost a decade as it is anyway.
So she's usually really good about keeping her cars for a long time.
So I think it's going to be a thing that kind of works out for her anyways.
And she's kind of accept the fact that she's probably going to be spending more
money.
Probably the most money she's ever spent on a car for this one.
And so we looked at quite a few different options.
Her big thing is she wanted it to be electric.
And I'll tell you kind of more about how we even kind of dabbled with maybe not
doing that and even looking at a couple traditional, as you will, combustion
engine vehicles.
But we eventually landed back on electric.
We still actually haven't made the final decision as to what she wants, but we do
have it down to two vehicles.
The other kind of interesting thing is in this process, I was able to swing by a, we
ended up going to two different Tesla dealerships here in the Portland area.
And at one of them, they not only had the new Tesla Model 3 Highland, but they
actually had the new Cyberjunk.
So I want to share some of our thoughts on that because that was kind of a surprising
experience and overall really positive.
And then the final thing is recently I decided...
Just with some of the stuff I've seen online and just kind of general curiosity
about the space, I actually decided to sign up again for Tesla's full
self-driving beta through our car.
I'm doing just the monthly thing.
I didn't spend the $12,000.
I used it a year ago.
I found it really fascinating.
I still didn't think it was ready for prime time, by any means.
It has definitely improved.
I still think it isn't ready.
But some of the stuff and things I've been hearing about, version 12, I just wanted
to kind of get a good baseline again for it and hopefully when that gets rolled
out, if it does get rolled out next month or two.
I'm really curious to see how that works.
I've always thought, whether it's Tesla or a different company, that seems the most
likely is the version to, or a big component of what would become a truly
full self-driving vehicle.
So I'll talk more about that as well.
just at a high level, yeah.
The majority is gonna be about car shopping experiences and some of the
brands we dealt with and cars we came across.
Some of the things that we saw with doing that, like the Cybertruck and others, the
FSD doing, trying testing that again.
And then finally, I was gonna also share, unfortunately, it seems like every year
now.
My car gets a big rock chip in it.
I mean I drive about 25 to 30,000 miles a year and I drive a lot in rural, oregon So
even though I give people a lot of space rock chips happen pretty frequently And
unfortunately my windshield cracked again So I was just going to kind of give a
quick update about that and i'm haven't posted yet but i'll be sharing videos of
recent drives on fsd and just kind of for people who might be curious or People who
don't know just i've
recorded what it takes to actually submit a service request for getting the
windshield replaced and I have to admit this is such a really interesting way to
do these things I Think maybe the Tesla's the Rivians and some of the startups of
the world can do it But it would be a struggle for any car that uses traditional
dealerships not that it couldn't be done I think it's just they're usually so
fragmented between brands and locations that to have this kind of seamless
experience would be hard and I know it's
The comparison is made a million times, but it is very similar to Apple's
ecosystem and platform versus like, I mean, Samsung's probably a better one too,
but just the fact that you can go to an Apple store and stuff like that and have
it all taken by one company.
So to kick it off, let's get into the majority of today's conversation, which is
around the car shopping experience that we had.
So originally I kind of spoke with my mom and
She has a very well equipped Mercedes, I mean, even though it's a 2012, it had
ventilated seats, it had night vision, it had all sorts of crazy things.
And majority of the time, she doesn't really use them.
And admittedly, she tries not to drive at night anymore either.
So she had kind of a list of a few things that were really important to her.
And to be honest, there are now things that are, I would say, in premium
vehicles, but there are also just luxury components that in this process, she
discovered that she really liked.
And overall, I think she's appreciated the Mercedes experience from driving in the
car.
But she's really been impressed.
Now, this isn't the first dealership she went to.
But now she really does enjoy, when she's ever had service issues, taking it to this
one specific Mercedes dealership.
She's just had a consistently positive experience.
And that was one of the things that she really liked and kind of attracted her to
staying with the Mercedes brand.
and put the Mercedes EQE at the top of her list to replace her GLE Mercedes, because
it is similar size and similar things overall, obviously their electric
platform.
But we were kind of talking about that.
She had gone to the dealership, she'd already test driven it, and she was pretty
sold on it to begin with, but she just wanted to see what else was out there.
She...
didn't really like the idea of having to deal with CCS or a non-Tesla, I guess to
give further context, my stepfather has a Tesla Model X, I want to say 2019 or 2020
maybe.
It's a newer one, but it's not, it's one of the later ones before the refresh.
And personally, I've driven a few different Model Xs.
I, to be honest, just don't really like theirs.
I just feel like it makes a lot of noise, there's a lot of issues with it.
And to be honest,
He is a contractor, so he does beat it up quite a bit.
He has two trucks that he uses for work.
One's an F-350, I mean, and he's a roofing contractor, so he uses those quite a bit.
But he tries to use the Tesla as much as he can.
And one of the big things too is it did qualify for supercharging.
He isn't bothered by the sound.
He likes the fact that he doesn't have to pay, especially because it's for
supercharging.
And then the fact that it's electric.
But realistically, he just doesn't...
get to use it, he uses it quite a bit, but the reality of his job means he still has
to drive his trucks quite a bit.
Quentin Alley, he has a reservation for a Cybertruck and he's still excited for it
even as a contractor.
But I think what's interesting was my mom likes the idea of going electric, but she
is definitely much more, I would say not technology adverse, but just she kind of
prefers more of a traditional driving experience.
And so while she thinks a lot of the things that Tesla's doing is great and she
likes the charging and a lot of the other stuff, sometimes the actual car experience
being so fully digital and focused in the minimal button, so focused in the main
infotainment screen really isn't something that she's really into or excited about.
So from an early start, her focus was really on going to more of probably kind
of a more traditional...
vehicle or less electric a Electric vehicle with a more traditional driving
and car experience.
So that's Consistently, we're gonna have the Mercedes at the top list.
You just didn't like the CCS And that even though I did kind of share with her if she
waits here that should change And she actually kind of came around to that is
like well if I can get an adapter and start using it sooner That's not ideal,
but that should be fine.
That shouldn't hold her back the main issue she had with it was when she bought
her
current Mercedes, she had actually been looking between it and a Range Rover Sport
at the time I believe.
And both were very beautiful vehicles, they were both used, one was brown and the
Range Rover Sport was this, I want to say beautiful blue, but it could have been
their metallic green.
And exterior and looks wise she was leaning towards the Range Rover, but
technically the Mercedes was better equipped and it still was a really
beautiful brown metallic which she liked.
In the end, she's kind of happy she went with it, but she's always wanted a Range
Rover so that is something we kind of go down as we Go through this Experience I'll
share a little bit more about that later too looking at Ranger every game but one
of the things that stood out to her a lot was just on the road we kept seeing
Rivians and so when I came up to work and More or less really spent a couple days to
test drive these vehicles with her Rivian was kind of at the top of list we
both enjoy the exterior.
I hadn't been in one in quite a while and I really hadn't been in an R1S.
So we were both kind of excited, like, yeah, let's try something different.
We love the boxy exterior of the R1S.
And then we got there and the interior was really great too.
The location of the Portland Rivian dealership I wouldn't say is, it's not
necessarily.
It's kind of easy-ish to get to because it's near 405 and I-5 and a few other
things here in the Portland area But it's pretty close if people know to like
Southwest.
I believe I want to say Southwest first That doesn't sound right but it's really
close to PSU and so while it's kind of easy to drive to the downside was They
have fences up all around even though the Rivian I guess you want to call it service
center dealership itself was really nice and really beautiful made
kind of temporary fences all around it because there were quite a few,
unfortunately, just helpless people kind of around there and for security reasons,
they had the fences up.
So that's kind of the downside to it, but the actual location was really nice.
And they had quite a few cars there, but that's what kind of got us interested.
We thought like, okay, it's a derivative of the kind of Tesla experience by it
being all one company it's newer.
And she had enjoyed kind of working with Tesla and doing that stuff in the past.
She was a little hesitant just because they were new or.
Um.
And I think they're going to be successful as a company, but just with the current
markets and everything, in a lot of ways, there's a lot of uncertainty with a car
company, a newer car company.
And so we decided, though, to take the test drive.
The person we went with on the test drive, I forget his name, I think I have it
somewhere, but overall he was a really nice guy, really great experience,
reminded me a lot of kind of the old or even today kind of current Tesla
experience.
It's not really high pressure.
It's very educational.
It's not really trying to poo or look down on other brands.
They just want you to go electric.
And obviously they'd love it if you go with Rivian, but they were even interested
in, hey, if you go with Mercedes, we get it.
Just get an electric one.
So I thought that was kind of a cool and really good experience.
And that was something my mom really had a positive experience with because we'll get
to another dealership experience down the road that wasn't as positive.
So we start driving the car.
And what was really interesting to me was my, we decided to have us both test drive
it.
I'm not really in the market, but the Rivian R1S is just something I've kind of
looked at in the past and something that's been interesting to me.
So I get in the back, my mom's the one that test drives at first.
And I've been kind of interested, but it was funny sitting in the back, I was like,
wow, the materials are nice, the seats are really comfortable.
I actually got, started getting really amped up about the car.
I was like, oh crap, now I'm gonna wanna buy one of these things.
and we start driving it and I kind of notice after we've been in it for a few
minutes, my mom is driving it but she doesn't seem very excited to be driving
it.
So I asked her, what do you think?
She kind of responds and she's like, you know, it just feels kind of boaty.
And from the back seat, I didn't really get that experience.
So that kind of surprised me.
And I got in the, we pulled over and then I was like, okay, I'll go to drive.
And I started driving it.
I wouldn't describe it as boaty.
But it also...
surprised me.
It felt more disconnected than I thought it was.
It just wasn't bode and maybe disconnected isn't the right word.
Just driving it, especially in normal mode, really was kind of surprising.
It's interesting that is what they have it in.
It makes sense, especially if someone's coming from like a traditional combustion
vehicle.
I thought it was like really slow and then they put in a sport and of course then
you've got the acceleration of like an EV that I've been spoiled with.
But the overall driving experience, still from a steering perspective and a couple
of other things, I honestly kind of both of us were surprised.
After it all, we just kind of felt like that's not it.
Even though there were a lot of really great things about the car, we really
liked the software and stuff.
But one of the interesting things is we started talking to them.
And my mom would ideally like to get an electric car and especially one that has
dogma because she has a few dogs.
And so...
He's like, yeah, the sales person we were working with mentioned it did have dogma.
So my mom thought that was a big plus.
But then we started asking about other things that we'd kind of been spoiled
with, with either the Tesla or even in some of the Mercedes competition.
We did kind of consistently get this thing of like, no, we don't have that yet, but
let's come in a software update, which probably is.
But at the same time, I feel like early Tesla was really good at it.
And nowadays it's not as good as far as like the...
Oh yeah, I'll be a software update.
I'll be there maybe in a couple of weeks to a month.
And it does happen.
And we've seen this actually still happen with Rivian, but it is one of those things
like, okay, we're looking at the car now and it's something, some of these things
are things that we really wanna have and like, and since it doesn't have it today,
it's kinda what we have to go off of.
Hopefully and most likely it'll be added down the road.
And I'm trying to remember what a couple of those things were.
One of them was some map functionality, but there were just a couple of small
things like that.
Having said that,
totally get away people like the car.
And I'm really happy for them, but we, I think, went in with really high
expectations and both of us kind of just walked away with kind of meh.
And we're surprised by that.
We still love the exterior and we thought the interior was really nice too.
But other than the looks, the rest of it we weren't as really happy with.
I think we did agree that it was quiet, but not like super quiet.
And...
there were some kind of interests.
Oh, and one of the things I remember was like, seeing the music functionality, I
was asked about Apple Music and they said, that'll be added as a software update down
the road.
It was a few things like that.
It was kind of cool to see the R1V, I believe, the Rivian van.
They had a few of those and it was really cool that they pretty much had all of the
different exterior colors as cars there.
Of course they had it in their little kind of sales area.
See what they look like but to actually see the cars in person was really nice and
then they even had obviously it's not a common thing but one of the Versions they
have I think is really cool that they have something so unique and one of the things
that my mom liked about the Mercedes was this really beautiful brown leather
interior that they offered and With Rivian they have this pretty wild green leather
and brown wood It's very earth tones and stuff.
It's very unique
And since she was thinking of going with a green car, she's like, you know what, I
would never get this otherwise, but green exterior with the green interior could be
kind of cool.
And so they did actually just happen to have one car.
And the guy was able to get it right before a service person took to drive it
somewhere.
And so it's kind of cool to see that exterior and it is cool, but I think we
even decided like, yeah, we probably would just go with black or something.
Just keep it simple.
Even though I just thought it was such a unique and cool thing.
Maybe personally, I would have gone with a green interior if I had a green car, but
it...
I think my mom also appreciated that they had it, but it wasn't for her.
And so I think that was our biggest thing that we were kind of surprised by.
Overall great sales experience.
And one other thing that's worth mentioning is my mom wanted a test drive a
lot sooner, but previously you had to put down $1,000 to even get a chance to test
drive it.
And that was something that kind of rubbed my mom the wrong way, understandably.
And I think
Especially so, now that we have test driven, I would have been really annoyed
to put a thousand bucks and then kind of walk away with my overall experience of it
just not being that.
what I expected it to be, it just was.
In some ways it's good to have a boring car when you drive, but it was boring in
kind of the wrong way.
And I know something of that size, it's not huge, but it's kind of Tahoe-esque.
It's big enough that I expected it to not be super sporty, but I expected it to feel
kind of more from it other than just kind of the acceleration, excitement you get.
Other than that, I just didn't really get much from the experience.
So we go to lunch, we start talking, and we realize, well,
That was pretty cool, but we really enjoyed the sales process and the people
we work with, but clearly the Rivian's off the list.
And then we start kind of talking about things and she knows and loves the 1987
Defender 90 I have and she's like, yeah, I've always wanted a Land Rover.
We can't talk about that previous one.
She looked at it and I was like, yeah, that was pretty a cool car.
I mean, personally, I'd get a Defender versus a new Range Rover for a few
different reasons.
And we start talking like, well, let's just go to the Land Rover dealership.
And she had been aware that Land Rover was looking at making a...
They kind of sent out this like, I think they even posted originally on YouTube,
but an announcement that there's an electric Range Rover coming, but really no
other details other than maybe we'll see it later this year, but it's not supposed
to come out till next year at the earliest, I think.
So it was pretty vague, but it was immediate.
We decided, you know, let's just...
and I mean for me personally, I had a...
I've been to a Land Rover dealership in a while.
And so I was just curious to see if they had any of the classic Defenders like I
have, and just what they had in general.
And so we drive over there, and I think immediately one of the things that stood
out to us was it definitely felt like a traditional high-end dealership.
Not that the Rivian one was bad, it just had more of the kind of like a Tesla.
It was like high-end but new.
And this one, I mean, they had a person there making cappuccinos and all sorts of
stuff that you could get.
which I'm sure works the salespeople advantage quite a bit, but it was just, it
was a nice experience.
And we met a sales guy there who, I kind of mentioned, originally he just asked us
if we had any questions and at the time we didn't, we were really just there just to
look, we really didn't think it would become as much of a thing as it did.
And then I started talking to one of the sales guys, kind of a super nice guy,
originally from the UK, I want to say, or at least lived in London for a while.
And then he finds out I have an 87 Defender 90 and pretty quickly he kind of
start talking.
He's like, okay, so you kind of know your stuff and all this.
And as we're walking around or just kind of talking, it's a large, we were in the
inside area and there's obviously a pretty large parking lot, but the interior had a
lot of cars in there.
And so my mom's kind of looking around and she sees the new generation Defender.
And I like both of them.
Obviously I'm a little partial to the classic because I just think it's kind of
beefier and kind of.
the new ones that look a little too toyish.
But she starts looking at it and she's like, you know what, I really like the
110.
And we asked him, does that have an electric version?
Of course it doesn't, or no even announcement about it.
But he's like, and so she's like, okay.
And so she just kind of keeps walking around.
I figured we would be leaving shortly, but I just kind of kept talking to the guy
until she told me she was ready to leave.
I'm talking to the sales guy for like another 15 minutes before.
I see my mom again and some other person had let her in because she got locked out
from walking around.
I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry I didn't realize that.
And she's like, so can we test drive a car?
And that really surprised me because I thought immediately just because I know
she liked the looks of them and she really loved the colors.
And this is what stood out to me but really ends up standing out in this whole
process was just how many different colors that Jaguar and Land Rover have for their
cars and trucks of all kinds.
And the colors they had.
were by far the most options and the most beautiful, in my opinion.
They had reds, greens, blues, blacks, and they didn't just have one of each.
They had a few different versions of each.
And there was very few colors I just didn't like in general, even colors I
normally don't like, especially some of the browns they had were just awesome.
And so we actually go, end up taking a test, and she had spot this one brown Land
Rover Defender in particular she really liked, and that's how she ended up getting
locked out because she wanted to walk closer and check it out.
But then she said, yeah, let's test drive on the Defender.
And I was like, oh, and I thought at first you wanna do the two-door one, because
that's what we kind of looked at when we first walked in there, just because it's
kind of the smaller, kind of cute style I got out.
But she's like, no, I want a four-door, so let's do the 110.
And immediately what was clear to both of us was, we love the exterior design.
We actually really like the interior, but it was obviously much more luxurious than
the classic Defender, but it was also much more a truck.
and kind of, or maybe I should say SUV, but it had, it just was tough and it had
the grab handles and all these things that were just like, not, they were.
maybe you could say luxury-ized, but it wasn't a luxury vehicle.
But it was very nice and pretty well equipped.
It obviously didn't have all the gizmos and gadgets, but it had all the gizmos and
gadgets that were kind of important to my mom, which were really heat steering
wheel, ventilated seats, a lot of stuff that was common, but even though her car
had all sorts of things, because it had a wood steering wheel, it couldn't be a
heated steering wheel.
And that's one of the things that, that was the only thing that really annoyed her
about the car, which is kind of funny.
But obviously now, especially with this new generation
even though it looks kind of toyish on the outside, it's still a very capable
off-roader.
And the interior for sure has become much more Range Rover-y.
And so it was still really nice, and we liked it, and we drove it back.
But as much as my mom liked the styling of it, she was like, it's just a little, it
was a little too big.
She was like, if anything, I'd like to go something smaller.
And she was kind of looking at these things.
And in the end, we were there for a couple of hours, at least, if not a few hours.
And by the end of it,
She's like, you know what?
I think I want to get the...
We looked at a few different ones and it was really the Range Rover Discovery,
which kind of surprised both of us that she landed on that had the right size,
right functionality, right options.
And price-wise wasn't too bad, but it also surprised both of us actually how
expensive the Discovery's got.
We're almost the defender now.
It's kind of the...
I mean, the Discovery is the entry one, but to find an entry one...
is a lot harder than it is to find like an entry price defender or in that ballpark.
They got up pretty quickly in price.
And her ideal budget was mid to high 70s or 80s.
She could go higher than that, but that's like what she really wanted to spend.
And then could go into the 80s for sure if needed and maybe even higher than that.
But she really wanted to kind of get a deal because
She did also hearing about how sales were slowing, especially with electric
vehicles, and she realized this was an electric vehicle, and she felt really bad
about not getting one, but there was just everything she really liked.
She liked the style and the interior and the functionality, and she really liked
the Land Rover.
So we leave, it's probably about six at this point, we go get sushi and we kind of
talk about it, and we both were pretty pleased and pretty pumped about the
experience, but we kind of finally say, why don't we go to the Mercedes dealership
the next day?
to go talk to the person that you had been working with and just kind of look at the
Mercedes electric.
And this kind of turned out to be a whole thing.
And not in a bad way, but what was interesting to me was, first on the way
there, I didn't know that the Maserati Ferrari dealership had actually been moved
to pretty much right down the street from it.
So as we're driving,
I was like, oh, this is essentially a couple blocks away.
And I was kind of jokingly saying we should go look at it.
But as we're driving by, I know it's like, oh, those look like defenders.
They are not the new ones, but kind of like the classic boxy ones.
And then really quickly I was like, oh, those are Ineos Grenadiers.
And my mom's like, what?
And she just thought that they were just defenders and maybe that was some version.
And so we drive past them to look at it like, no, these are their own brand, which
I forget the specifics, but.
Long story short, the Ineos Grenadier is kind of, I mean, it's been kind of called
the Defender 2.0 because it is very chunky and kind of got those hard edges like the
classic Defender.
And long story short, what happened was there's some, I've been told an oil baron,
but kind of an entrepreneur in the oil space, oil and gas space that wanted to
buy the molds, I believe, from Jaguar Land Rover for the old defenders to make a
couple for himself.
which is a pretty big flag, so it would be pretty cool at a man.
But Jaguar Land Rover said no, and he's like, okay, how about you just make me a
few more?
And they still said no.
He's like, okay, wait, screw it.
I'll make my own company.
He started Ineos Grenadier.
Obviously very, I recommend Googling, but very based, very similar to the Defender,
the classic Defender.
And he in fact gets sued by Jaguar Land Rover for being kind of a trademark in
design infringement and all this stuff.
He ends up winning the case.
And so they've gone into production and now they, I knew they were being shipped
in the US, but I didn't know that there were any locations on the West Coast.
Maybe I figured there was one in Seattle or maybe the LA area.
But I guess this Maserati Ferrari dealership also, if they didn't have, if
they weren't officially a dealership, they at least had a couple there and some
information on it.
So we just checked it out and quickly, obviously it's a really cool truck and
it's much more like the classic Defender where it's about going off road and being
utilitarian than luxury.
So.
My mom thought it was cool, it was interesting, but it was clearly not a
competitive thing and obviously they don't have the electric version.
So we go to the Mercedes dealership and this is where I find out this whole back
story where my mom went the first time and had a really great experience with this
one guy named Brian.
He was super charismatic, super educational, kind of took his time.
They went on this test drive with the EQE and she really liked it.
I was like, okay, that's great.
She goes back and she wants to talk to Brian.
And they're like, okay, yeah, we'll go get your Brian.
And some other guy comes out, and it was pretty clear because the first Brian was
about her height, maybe like six foot, a little taller.
The southern Brian was much taller.
And she's like, she didn't really say it, but she's like, no, this isn't, or I think
she did.
And she's like, oh no, I was working with a different Brian.
He was like, well, do you know his last name?
And she's like, I'm off the top of my head.
He's like, well, there's five Brian's here.
And to be honest, if I was in that situation, I would probably not be going
by the name Brian anymore.
I could have just come up with a nickname or something to make it a lot easier.
But yes, there are five brands there.
And coincidentally, when we drive up, we start kinda looking at the cars on the
lot.
And even then it stood out to me how many of the cars are either gray, black, or
white.
Gray, black, or white.
Occasionally there is a blue one.
But it's pretty much gray, black, or white.
And like one red one.
But that was it with a couple of like blue ones here and there.
And...
one guy starts coming up to him and my mom just kind of leans over and was like,
that's the Brian, that's the original guy that helped me.
And it did for sure turn out his name was Brian.
And I immediately asked for a car and I took a photo of it.
So we just had it for future reference, but that was just fun.
It was like, why don't you just have a nickname or something else?
But anyway, we get in the car and, or we, we started looking at the cars and we go
through one in particular that my mom had been following actually.
that had been on the lot.
She wanted the blue, I think it's called Twilight Blue, they did, and it's a really
beautiful color, but it turned out they didn't really have that, but they had this
one with the brown interior she really wanted, and that was also beautiful.
It was like, and it was a black car, so she's like, yeah, whatever, if it's black,
that's fine, but just really wanted the brown interior.
So, and he's like, yeah, it's been on the lot for a few months at least, and so,
they just had that December to remember, whatever they call it, holiday event, it's
still here, they must be, they probably really wanna get rid of it.
It's a 23.
They've got 24s getting on the lot.
And so we're like, okay, let's, let's sure.
We'll give it a test drive and see if we can get some sort of deal on it.
And I get in the car.
It's nice.
And if you're familiar with the new Mercedes electrics, they have something
called the hyper screen, which I'm not a big fan of, and this one doesn't have that
and it turns out now only like the really high end models have that.
And that's fine with me.
I actually think it looks better with just those standard
screen and then kind of a traditional dash around it for the most part.
And it's, it's nice.
It drives, Cal and Cal Mercedes were pretty light, pretty soft.
Um, it was really nice, but to be honest, I expected it to be a little bit quieter
and maybe ride a little bit softer, but it was still a very, clearly a very nice car
and they, one of the things they wanted to show me is like, well, it else has
rear-wheel steering, which I knew.
Um, but it'd been a while since I'd really
driven anything I really hadn't driven anything that nice with one and so we did
and that was one of the perks about it my mom like and I don't even think it has the
full 10 degrees I think in this version only had five degrees but it was wild how
much of a difference that made when we did a u-turn that I just whipped around like
nothing and so I was like I get it this is pretty sweet we can test drive other
things but if this seems to be the one you want this is what you're interested in
it's all the color what you want but like they always say the used car factory
burned down last week
And so you kind of have to get what you, if it's already built, you kind of have to
go with what you want.
And so we start kind of looking at it, looking at other options.
They really, turns out they can't really knock down the price at all.
They're pretty hard on the price.
The people we're dealing with, especially this one Brian, really nice guy.
And I guess this is what was also interesting was my mom started working
with the other Brian the second time she went in there, but he was like starting to
say stuff against Tesla and other car companies.
And...
It was just like she didn't like it because when she's just a very positive
person, she doesn't like kind of talking negatively about other people.
So she didn't like that he was kind of poopooing other brands.
And especially kind of tells us that she just didn't like that kind of more, some
might say traditional sales car sales experience.
But we're not really having that issue.
The issue we're running into is one, they don't seem to be interested, like they
knocked maybe two grand off the price.
So it's still like 90, it's like 93,000.
So it's a very expensive vehicle.
Um, it's not the color she wants and we were like, okay, do you, if we're gonna
spend that much money and it's pretty much you could custom make it at that point.
So it's like, well, we could custom make one and they might be there in June.
And really, to be honest, my mom's not really in a huge, there's no real
immediate rush.
She just wants to get it before it becomes or needs to be an immediate rush.
And so she's like, okay, maybe we kind of do that.
But the soonest it might get there was June.
and then she could do her own colors and they actually had a really beautiful
emerald metallic green and if you've never followed them I highly recommend the
YouTube channel Juice Motors because they're a UK defender kind of resto mod
but just they do amazing builds of classic defenders for being either super off-road
or kind of making them more kind of all of purpose or on-road and they recently did a
Defender 90 in this emerald green Mercedes metallic it's such a beautiful color
We later saw a car in that color.
It was like, that's the color I would probably get, just because it's unique and
it's really beautiful.
But they also had a really beautiful brown metallic that they had for one of the
cars.
But of course, it's the AMG EQE, which was at least like 130,000.
So way out of the price.
And to be honest, my mom was even kind of fine with just the base one.
She didn't need the speed or anything like that.
It was still gonna be faster than her current Mercedes.
So it just was really interesting that we started working with them to find a car.
They don't have anything in their dealership.
They start going through their dealership network.
They don't have any car in blue, and, or they have cars in blue, but the only
interiors they have are kind of this gray.
I think it's white, it's technically gray, but it's like, I would say more like off
white than like a traditional gray.
And they also have a gray, but it was interesting that the majority of their
cars are, as I've said, black, white, or gray, and they have very few,
cars of the EQE in this color.
You pretty much do have to custom order at that point.
And even then, they've been sitting there for a while, and they weren't really
budgeting on price at all.
And it was just a really odd experience.
And so my mom was kind of like, you know what?
This is good to know.
If I'm gonna spend almost this much money anyway, I'm not gonna buy one on the lot.
I'll just have one custom made, which is what I would do too.
You might as well just get the exact version, exact colors you want.
And so that's kind of like, okay, well, we figured it out.
It's probably gonna be now either the brown or this, I think most likely to be
emerald green with this brown interior, which will be a beautiful car.
And like I said, it handled really well, it drove really well.
It's much more of the traditional kind of car experience.
There's like, you know, start stop thing that I'd even like, I kind of forgot about
at one point when I was trying to get it to go.
And I'm like, oh, you gotta do this thing.
And so this, I know it's already become kind of a long story, but this is where
we're kind of like, okay.
We go get lunch, it's a lot of money.
It's more that she wants to spend, but in some ways it works better because she's
also got some things going on financially that she's like, well, if I'm buying this,
it actually would be better if it's probably the second half of the year
anyway.
And that's where it would kind of be nice.
Okay, if I design this, it doesn't get here until June, July, yeah, whatever.
But it's so 95,000, that's a lot of money.
And I was like, yeah, I agree, but you've always liked your Mercedes, you have them
for 10 years.
You're gonna spend a lot of money.
I mean, it's probably not the financial advice thing, but it's like you're the
delta between What you're spending and what you want what you have to spend to
get what you?
Want and what you're getting it's almost just like you might as well just do it and
Normally what she does anyway, she usually finances a car makes maybe Payments for a
year or so and then just pays off at all at once later anyway, so it's like Across
the board not that big when issue on the price
even though it's more money than you want to spend.
And we kind of keep talking at lunch and I was like, you know what, we've been
looking at cars that you've won all this time and it turns out, I think they've got
the new Tesla Model 3 Highland at the Tesla dealership off McAdam, which is kind
of like Southwest Portland.
And she's like, you want to go look at it?
I was like, oh, sure.
I was kind of like, nah, we don't have to go.
It's like, let's go look.
I was like, okay.
And so we go there.
It turns out they don't have.
The Model 3 Highline at that location, they have it at the new Tigard location.
I was like, oh, okay, whatever.
But I guess they were getting one the next day.
But while we're there, in the dealership or in the film room, they have a brand new
Tesla Model X with the red, ultra red color, which is a beautiful color.
And that was actually what my mom had looked at and spec-ing it with.
I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting.
We started kind of sitting and playing with it.
One of the salespeople comes over and helps us, someone I had known and kind of
helped with a car I'd bought previously.
He was pretty good.
It was I wouldn't say high pressure, but there was like occasionally there were a
couple things he would say that was a little more pressure in Look down even on
the Mercedes a bit which I get it at the same time.
It's like person.
It's good to have options Personally, I think I like the layout of the Tesla, but
I wasn't a big fan of the whole new drive thing you can use the physical hardware
thing which is once I show that to my mom and she's like, oh I would do that and
That's what she ended up using it really wasn't that bad but
it's just a different thing than having to swipe on the screen.
So we start talking and she really likes the new interior.
I thought it looked so much better than that old, the old model, uh, model X
interior and what they have now.
And we kind of start talking, we hang out there for maybe 30 minutes and then we
leave and we keep talking about it.
And she's like, you know what?
I did a test drive like a year ago.
Why don't we just do a new one?
And she's like, yeah, maybe, or she.
We were trying to go back and forth.
It's like, you test drove it before and you weren't that impressed with it or you
just, it wasn't enough for you to do it.
So yeah, it was like, honestly, it seems to be now with her experience and what
just seeing it again, it's like, it's either going to be the EQP or because the
Model X is about 15 to 20 grand cheaper, a red Model X.
And I was like, well, why don't you just test drive it again after we test run all
these other vehicles anyway, if you're going to spend that much money, let's just
double check.
So the next day, and this is where the Cybertruck and the Highland come in.
We actually go to the wrong location.
It's their new location.
And they're still actually doing in the Tigard Southwest, really Southwest
Portland metro area.
They're still doing it out of the mall location, which was their first location
in the whole Oregon area.
But I think they're actually gonna be closing that out soon.
And what was, but we get either way, we go to the wrong place, but it's only a five
minute drive.
We get there a bit early.
And not only do they have the new Model 3 Highland, which you can sit in the
showroom, they actually have the new, the Cybertruck.
And that was really fascinating, because it was roped off, so you couldn't touch
it, you couldn't get in or anything.
But I have to admit, my mom and I, and technically my mom does have like a, like
I said, my stepfather has a reservation for one.
I think it is actually technically my mom's name, and so the plan was when it
came out, he would probably get it, and then my mom would.
trade in her car she had already and get them all like, I don't know, something
like that, but that was ages ago.
But we were both surprised at it in person because it looked so much better in
person.
I couldn't believe it.
I really, I always thought it looked pretty good from the front, but even from
the sides and all this, it really surprised me how much, not only did I like
it, but my mom even liked the looks of it.
And even from like directly on the side, which I thought was its ugliest.
dimension, seeing it in person, seeing it eye level, it didn't look somehow, it did
look triangular, and it actually looked really good.
Which really surprised me, the overall look had kinda grown on me over the years
now, compared to when I first saw it, but seeing it in person was pretty shocking.
How much I liked it, and how much, also surprisingly, my mom's looking at this EQE
and a model X, which exterior-wise I don't think are great looking cars, they're very
egg-shaped, and then this super kind of aggressive.
triangular thing, she's even, I mean, it's definitely still different from the
Defender that we looked at, but she was saying it was one of her favorite designs
and she really liked the look of it.
And I think the best way I can describe it, especially being in the showroom,
especially being roped off, it's like looking at modern, and I know I've
experienced this with the car before, but the last time I can ever think about
having a similar experience was when I accidentally came across the Concours
d'Elegance in Tokyo when I was...
Tokyo actually means in Kyoto I just been in there for vacation and then randomly is
going on and we were at this one It was at a Japanese castle that it was actually
going on that we were just taking a tour of anyway as I will screw it I'm here
already.
I'm gonna go check these cars out there all these beautiful classic Italian 60s
and 70s and British like in my opinion the best car design era ever European sports
cars rare like Zagato Aston Martin Edition all this stuff.
It was amazing
And that was years ago, but like, this was the first time since then where it's like,
you're going to see cars and it's like a art exhibit.
It's you're appreciating for its beauty.
And the cyber truck truly was like looking at a good or bad.
But it wasn't like, I thought it was incredibly beautiful.
I didn't think it was like, and it, but it still looked a lot better than I was
expecting, but it was truly like looking and going to a modern art exhibit.
And you just see the cyber trucking.
I literally would.
We looked at it probably for just 20 minutes and we would just walk around from
different angles and look at it and it would just shock me.
I was like, this thing looks a lot better in person.
It's just so weird and so unique, but at the same time, it looks a lot better than
I thought it would look.
And in a lot of the photos and videos, the back of it looked horrible.
In person, it's probably still its worst angle, but it doesn't look as bad as I
thought it did somehow.
I think just instead of looking out at it and where it makes the back look so big,
just naturally you're kinda looking more down on it.
And so the back proportions aren't as big and off as it seems like in a lot of the
photos and videos.
So that was really, I think, my favorite part of the weekend.
It kind of big a surprise was like how much I like the look of it.
I am very envious of the fact that it has this, as they were even promoting there,
the rock chip proof glass, because that's an issue I've been dealing with, my
stepfather has been dealing with at least once or twice a year with his Model X,
where the glass is much larger and needs to be replaced too.
And one of the other things was my mom liked that it had the rear wheel steering
when she found out about that Because it is clearly bigger than anything we've been
looking at Closest was probably the Rivian and even then it was still a bit a little
bit longer than the r1s But she really liked the fact that every real steering is
like well if it's this big anyway it's gonna be able to handle a lot better more
like the Mercedes and then the r1s did well, okay, well, that's funny that this
is now maybe an option but
Either way, it was clear that she was either going to do the Model X or E-Q-E
Mercedes because of the size and just functionality and just use case.
And then coincidentally, right next to it was the new Model 3 Highland.
I didn't get to drive it, but just sitting in it and looking at the new materials, I
think it makes it look a lot more premium, higher end.
It's obviously still like an entry premium vehicle.
And I think...
I think the Model 3 already was a great value and now at the price point that it's
at and what it does, it to me is still a really good value.
It's probably not...
I mean, it's been a while since I've even been in an entry.
Three series or four series or even kind of a for a three from Audi and so on But
my thing even with those cars is I think a lot of car reviewers always talk about
like oh the Mercedes this and That is better equipped and this there's a huge
price delta when it's equipped In an equivalent matter for one thing, but the
other thing is so many people especially in that entry Mercedes and BMW trim get
basic trim because they want to just get the brand or they want the steering of it.
And in my experience, the average Tesla is usually better well equipped and specced
than a lot of Mercedes or BMWs and people don't realize that because like when you
see these people testing and so they're testing like the fully loaded versions.
And so I just thought, yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally get it.
There's definitely a difference.
But for the price and the money you're getting, I think it's...
Tesla really has cemented itself pretty well in the premium where it's not luxury,
but you get a performance in a premium, I think steel for the value and the
performance it offers.
But yeah, so Cybertruck, Model 3 Highland, both really surprised and delighted by, I
guess you could say.
And I've always enjoyed, I got a chance to drive the last gen Model 3 Long Range just
through Cornwall, kind of Southwest UK, a couple summers ago.
for a week and I love that thing.
That thing was perfect for kind of the European roads and the B roads and C roads
and the UK.
And I think this new one would be just as good if not, maybe slightly better, but I
love the exterior and the interior updates for sure.
So we went on the Model X test drive and the interesting thing was on this one, and
this was also an interesting thing, is when we did the Rivian test drive, the
salesperson came with us.
When we did the Mercedes test drive, the salesperson came with us.
But when we did the Land Rover Defender test drive, they just let us take it.
And when we did the Model X test drive, they came out to the car with us, kind of
showed us a couple things, but they let us drive it.
And pretty quickly, what surprised us was, it was for sure, it wasn't as quiet as the
Mercedes, but it was by far the closest thing we'd driven quiet wise.
It was much more competitive with the Mercedes interior quietness wise.
but it also turned out to have the best steering.
It wasn't, obviously the Mercedes with the rear wheel steering and slow speeds could
turn tighter, but this new Model X turned definitely tighter than the old one did,
or at least maybe there's something wrong with the one they have, but it turns
tighter than that one.
But more importantly, it was just the actual steering driving feel was just a
lot more fun, which is crazy for how big and heavy this thing was.
And I think it was more kind of a sporty steering that I'd hoped that the Rivian
would have when you put it into its.
but it really didn't.
And I didn't expect it to be super tight or anything, but just more feeling, more
fun than what it turned out to be.
And with the Model X, even though it's still a big thing, we were just both kind
of impressed, like yeah, just finding very kind of good or bad that Tesla driving
experience.
So it's kind of more like a BMW and just you point it somewhere and it goes there.
And so that was pretty fun and kind of the surprise thing was like, well, if we,
yeah, if we.
don't go with the Mercedes, it'd be the Model X.
And it kind of surprised me, I've never been a big fan of them.
The interior and the sound and the audio quality of the new speaker system was
really nice.
And that's what was crazy.
Now it's probably not the same as like the Hein-Burmeister, but pretty quickly, and a
lot of these EQEs, you just get a Burmeister sound system, which was pretty
shocking.
Now it's probably not the same quality as other upgraded sound systems along the
German cars, but we listened to it and it was still really good.
And getting in the Model X the sound system and that was also really good.
And I think that's what kind of blew me away is like, you know what?
The Model X is different.
It's not as good as some of the German equivalents in some areas, but once again,
for the price and overall it's a lot closer than I expected it to be.
Um, and it was still my favorite handling of the three cars, even though they're all
big and heavy, so it's not like it's going to be super sporty, but when you need to
kind of
starting in and out of traffic, it was really good.
And so there were a couple things.
Obviously the removal of turn signals, I didn't kind of struggle with.
I had to look down, which I...
I wasn't even against the idea of them getting rid of the turn signals.
It just was silly to me that they both had left and right turn signals on the left
side.
So you have to look down to see which is which you're telling.
After a few minutes, I realized, I think it was the bottom one's right, the top
one's left, so I got that.
But like in Ferrari, I mean, obviously a much different car, but a lot of
high-end...
Sports cars have gotten rid of turn stalks for and this has been for quite a while
What they do is the left turn signals by your left hand and the right turn signals
kind of the equivalent space by your Right hand on the steering wheel.
So now it's really natural to go right or left And I think a lot of people complain
about this, but if you're using Especially in van where I live there's a lot of
roundabouts and if you're using The Turn signal like you're supposed to you're
actually supposed to signal before you turn anyway, so it's really not a big
problem
However, when you're going into a roundabout, it's different in Europe.
The way you're supposed to do it in Europe, and it's because the roundabouts
are smaller, you're actually supposed to signal which way you're gonna go before
you go into the roundabout.
Because the roundabouts are so much bigger and you don't have the visibility from the
other side, you're actually supposed to signal, at least in Oregon, when you're
leaving the roundabout, which one you wanna take.
So that's about the only situation where, depending on where your hands are on the
wheel, it would be a little more awkward, but it'd be a lot less awkward if they'd
have.
the left one where your left hand is and the right one where your right hand is.
I don't think they're gonna do this, but I would love to see a software updateable
option where you could replace, I think it's like the mic audio, if you could
actually make that button become the right.
turn signal and then the right turn signal on the other side just became like it just
essentially even though it says it on the hardware it just switched by it would make
it such a better driving thing altogether and then getting rid of the park reverse
neutral drive we just found it so much easier to use the things by where the
inductive charges are the physical kind of backup buttons and honestly that's
probably what I would do too for a long time I just found that so much easier so I
realize this game a little bit
I think our big takeaways was for the better deal, my mom would go with the
Model X if she had her choice and price was an object, she'll probably go with the
Mercedes.
It's still TBD.
I think she's probably going to go with the Mercedes likely.
But it was really funny.
After we did the test drive, they asked us if we had any questions.
We were like, I don't know.
We're pretty familiar.
And immediately my mom goes, do you have the better class in the Model X?
And he didn't know.
He thought my mom meant like the acoustic sound glass.
And he's like, yeah, we have a better sound dampening.
He's like, no, or, and so my mom's kinda like, oh, okay.
But pretty quickly I realized what she was asking about was in the Cybertruck, where
I had this new, essentially, I'm, if I remember what it is, it's called, what
the, I wanna say it's like silicon, borate.
It's something with silicon, moron, and.
one other thing, but it's essentially Gorilla Glass, is more or less, like in
phones, is now what they're using on the Cybertron's front windshield, so it's much
stronger.
And so my mom was asking if they had brought that over to the Model X, because
of how many Rockchips they had been getting with their Model X, and he was
like, oh, no, we haven't.
But it was just funny that was the only question my mom had, was like, she was
much more sold on this new version of the Model X, and honestly, so was I.
But the big thing was like, well, we get so many Rockchips with that front
windshield.
And...
Due to her light sensitivity, that's probably the reason she doesn't like light
interiors, it just reflects too much into her eyes.
And her biggest gripe with the Model X is the fact that the windshield goes above
you and just lets in a lot of light.
But they do make a essentially mesh cover you can put over that.
Not sure if it's enough, but it seemed to make it more likely that you could get the
Model X.
It would just be nice if they did something really cool like...
Adaptable glass where I would change the or I'm trying to think of what that's
called But essentially the lecture of the electronically adaptable glass where it
goes from being fully opaque to transparent It's something I've loved it
would love to see on Tesla's for a long time now, and I thought they would but
they still haven't So I think the big takeaway was The Tesla molex turned out to
be a lot closer than we thought to the Mercedes as far as being a competitor It's
probably the next one if she doesn't go with the Mercedes
And the other kind of big surprise, no offense to anyone, that's Big Ruby.
I still think it's great brands.
I still think they're making great products.
I love, I'm happy for people who are happy with them.
But I think that was also the biggest surprise is that just was more of a
disappointment than we thought, or not even disappointment, just it was more, we
thought it was going to be a much bigger contender and much more, uh, better
experience and it just kind of meh.
So, um,
I will have an update when she finally decides what she's going with.
I think she likes that the Mercedes is just a little bit more classic.
She knows what she's dealing with and there's still stuff that needs to be set
up.
But she figured worst case, you can always ask me when she gets it.
And she'd probably be doing the same with the Model X either way.
And she also realizes, and this is something I criticize a lot of automatic
journalists about is they always like critique the new interior, especially air
vents where it's like the ones you have to manually set versus like being able to
physically grab them.
There's some truth to that, but my big thing is like with most of these modern
cars, once you've set it, especially since you can save it to a profile, you don't
have to change it again.
And car reviewers kind of complain about it because they're always getting
different cars and having to set it every time, which I get.
But in practicality, it's actually really nice to have features like that, that once
you set it, you don't have to really touch it again.
Because for example, my old Subaru Outback was a great car and really good when I
bought it.
The more I had it, I had the traditional adjustable air vents.
And what would happen is they would just start to kind of droop.
And so it'd be really hot out.
I'd get in the car.
I want to blast the AC.
I'd aim them at me.
And then over a few minutes, they drew it back down and they would be, and I'd have
to be like adjusting it every few minutes.
It was really, I mean, it's a first world problem for sure, but it's one of the
things that was really annoying and just makes it kind of less safe to drive.
Cause you're looking, taking your eyes off the road.
And I think with a lot of these electric cars, there are kind of these one off
functionality things that.
I do make the experience better for the owner, but maybe worse for people who
aren't either as tech savvy or used to the technology and then also for people like a
car reviewer that has to kind of hop in and try a different car every 10 minutes.
But the other big surprise from all of this was how much we thought the
Cybertruck looked cool.
And that was kind of a funny experience just to see the, like I said, it literally
was like going to a modern art exhibit.
And we would just walk around and we'd...
look at it from one angle for five minutes, kind of talk about what we
thought was cool about, and then we'd go to another angle.
And I just, the last time I could think of anything was when I was at Concourse
Elegance, and it was literally essentially the same art experience, where you're
trying to look at these cars from different angles and just appreciate them.
So that's the big and still undecided car shopping experience.
And I think the other big takeaway is just like, it's clear that dealerships still
have so much to learn about educating on.
electric vehicles and trying to figure out the simplicity of CCS versus Nax and what
that is.
I mean the car we, when we were at the Mercedes place they were even talking
about electrify America as a discount and even before I said anything my mom was
like yeah that's useless.
I don't want to chart there.
It's too complicated.
It doesn't work.
And I was like it's pretty funny that my mom even says that versus like a person
that doesn't really drive an EV that frequently.
And for other people who might hear that and get sold on it.
It's just not going to create an ideal experience, at least right now.
I hope that changes, but.
I thought the Mercedes dealership overall did pretty good with positioning and
selling electric vehicles, but it was still interesting that there were a lot of
gaps and it's just one of the challenges.
And this kind of goes to the second part that I wanted to cover, which is around
now having in my car, being able to set a service appointment, schedule when it was,
schedule what the issue is, have it all taken care of in about 10 minutes.
And now next Tuesday, I'm just going to go in and they'll replace the glass.
And I've got a video coming about that with more details, but it is just one of
those things that just makes the experience so much simpler and easier with
kind of the Tesla.
When, when you do have an issue or it's not like it's a problem with Tesla, just a
fact of life game rock chips.
It is just well, how easy it was to schedule, get it all figured out, get it
approved by insurance.
Because just for my own curiosity, I've been going through Tesla insurance.
It essentially all approved and ready to go.
And then I'll go on next Tuesday, they'll swap it out and be done and move on.
Now some might argue, since they're not a professional window glass, could that be
an issue?
Potentially, I did notice when I had my class swapped with them last time that
there was kind of a weird rattle at first that was new, but it has since gone away.
So I don't know, but it just kind of, once again, it's an interesting time with kind
of the pros and cons of having it all done by one company.
And so I mean, I think it'd be one thing if it's like the X or an S, but I've got a
feeling with the frequency of three or one, they have that probably more down
then.
But yeah, for an X, I'd really be skeptical with that one huge piece of
class and getting that dialed in right.
So yeah, I'll have an update on that soon and there's gonna be a video kind of
posting how that's gone, what that experience is like.
And then finally, just to recap.
Going to and playing with Tesla's full self driving as they call it.
It's definitely not that but It's just super fascinating for me.
I totally understand.
It's not ready for most people.
I'm asked people don't need to buy it I don't think it's worth the 12 grand I
think the what's known as enhanced autopilot for six grand is expensive, but
that might be more worth it for a lot of people And it's kind of on the more
expensive side and becoming less Competitive than it was just a couple
years ago
to other brands that have found the auto lane change.
I think there's even some cars now that offer it for, I just come standard with
it.
But for like a lot of the luxury cars, it's still an option.
And if it for it to be standard, you're still buying a much more expensive, a much
higher starting price car to just get at standard.
But overall, it's very fascinating.
There was one example where, I know,
I don't think my wife would be comfortable with it, but just from my own experience
with kind of autonomy and other technologies, I had set it to go back to
the place I was staying and I turned it on in this parking lot.
And I realized unintentionally, I kind of set it to be about maybe 50 feet from a,
which was the way we drove in, but it's actually not a way you can drive out.
And the car started going like it was going to go out that way.
And then I realized.
oh that's not the right way, we can't, I can't, that's a one way and it figured it
out.
And it's like, kind of when you see these moments, you're like, that is a pretty, I
don't wanna say ingenious, but it is just while, it's like when you see a puppy or a
baby, like see something for the first time in the world and kind of like, you
see the kind of gears start turning, this realization of what it needs to do or what
this experience is.
And it was kind of weird to just see that with your car and learning like, oh, I
can't.
I can't go that way.
And it was, it obviously had a couple moments where it was like on the fence and
not sure what to do, but then it pretty confidently and quickly made it.
At other times it does the wrong thing and it is something you have to pay attention
to.
I am more of the mindset that, well, I understand that this isn't beta, even
saying it's in beta is kind of rough.
It's probably more like alpha in some regards.
But the big part of the reason I did this again was one, just to test it because
it's been about a year and two, their fully neural net version should be coming
out and which they're referring to as V12.
They've said in the next month or two and as soon as it's been following autonomy
and kind of had some exposure to it professionally over the years, I've always
thought a fully neural net which for those who aren't familiar to explain it is...
Essentially, instead of writing lines of computer code, you have the computer and
the driving system almost experience whether through real world experience or
through simulation or just throw...
This is probably the most common case, just throw a bunch of video at it and it
learns what to do in these situations.
And so in a lot of ways, it's actually much more similar to the human brain.
And that's what's so interesting about this is Tesla had like 300,000 lines of
code and then some of those...
elements were actually helped with neural net and Video kind of comprehension to
make certain aspects of the self-driving smoother whereas this version essentially
gets rid of 300 like 300,000 lines of cab and it just learns by itself and It's kind
of spooky and it's kind of wild but to me that makes the most sense when you look at
Whether it's the end all be all I don't know but it seems like it's gonna be
definitely a complete
to get to a truly full self-driving vehicle and whether it's Tesla or someone
else, I don't know, but I'm pretty convinced that that's gonna be the way and
I've been watching some of the videos online where it's obviously not perfect,
but it's become much smoother and less harsh and be able to kind of critically
think about what needs to be done.
And so I'll be actually posting more videos fairly frequently now on our
YouTube channel about drives I've taken with the full self-driving in our Model Y
and what I've kind of my commentary on what it is.
I'd say majority of the time or over not it's impressive, at least to me, what it's
doing.
I think the big takeaway is it usually makes the right decisions, but it needs to
sometimes think through or make those decisions sooner, like with a human
driver, especially one that knows the area of where it's driving, which is
interesting to see when you see other people on the road, and I'll talk about it
in a second, but it needs to know which lane it needs to get into earlier to plan
for maybe a...
Off-ramp or a turn it does that pretty well But it would be much smoother I think
a lot more people would feel more comfortable with it if it did those
certain things sooner a lot of the time and then there's other times where it does
something weird and so you do have to kind of watch it but I Get some people are
freaked out by it But I am more of the mindset that you need to be for sure
responsible with it, but I'm Glad that people have access to it and I think Tesla
gets all the flack, but they're actually far from the only one I was even talked to
someone yesterday
about how a friend of theirs has access to Comet AI, which if Tesla's Apple in the
full self-driving and EV space, Comet AI is definitely the Android or kind of
homebrew hacker style, where it's essentially a video system that you can
install yourself into a car if it has, if it meets certain hardware already in the
car.
And then this will take over and do a lot of the driving, at least on the highways
for you.
And I think they're starting to do some city stuff, but.
I think even if the car never becomes full self-driving, it's well to see what it's
already learned and doing because the areas where it more often than not the
areas where I've had to interact or Kind of hit the accelerator do something to
change it is because it's following the law too closely and human drivers Don't
and I think that's what has brought I've also just seen so much is like human
drivers doing kind of what would be Technically illegal or the wrong thing to
do
For example, with one of the Nitsa things, which is probably the right thing to do,
but has kind of caused awkwardness as it comes to a complete stop at a four-way
intersection and you just realize how many people don't or how quickly someone either
stops and goes.
Whereas this kind of comes to a nice gradual stop, but then cars behind you are
going, wait, you're actually going to a full stop or kind of causes other weird
things like that.
Or you'll just see like the car is trying to do the right thing, but because of the
harder to do what it's trying to do or had it known that humans are unpredictable and
to realize maybe it should have made those attempts to make a lane change or whatever
sooner.
And it's just really fascinating because I think it's good that people have exposure
to it.
I totally understand.
I totally agree that in a lot of ways it's not ready.
But at the same time, it just shows how bad it actually does do a good job of
showing how bad human drivers are because you're kind of so much more now in tune to
some of these
And I'm just really excited to see if this version 12 of the fully neural net system
is as big of a game changer as some of these people have been saying.
Obviously, most of the people who have been exposed to it are either at Tesla or
very pro Tesla people.
So I'd like to have a little bit more open-mindedness to whether it's right or
not.
My guess is it's still not ready for primetime, but will be a big step forward.
And I'm kind of curious.
I haven't had my wife be in the car with this version, which is 11.4.
I think of FSD, but I know she really didn't like the one we had when we just
did the monthly thing of it last year And so what I might do is I might wait till I
get 12 point whatever And once I have that in the car and then have her Be in the car
went and turn that on and see what she thinks of it and my guess if I'm being
honest She still won't like it But she might be much more comfortable with it if
it's driving as smoothly and pick out a lot of this stuff as what?
I'm seeing along
You're not, it's, you have the option to give it control at the speed and then it,
instead of being so robotic or going a certain corners really fast rather things,
it's a lot better about that.
I will say since I've driven it last year, there is definitely a lot more things it
does as being so hard to following the rules of speeds where it'll kind of adjust
and has a bit of a flexibility because of how it'll see like traffic is going.
So it'll go a little bit faster with speedlite, which I think is actually the
safer and right thing to do because sometimes it would go the speedlite and
then you're just getting passed like crazy because Arun's doing like 15 or 20 over.
Then reality by going 10 over, then it's not being people coming up right on your
back and all this stuff.
So it's been a really interesting experience and just want to give the
update that we'll be sharing more of those on the YouTube channel.
So it's been pretty interesting and I'll have more updates but
I think like I said, my biggest issue is in that it's better, but it still isn't
fully like a human driver kind of making sure, especially human driver that knows
where they're driving as opposed to somebody who might be driving it for the
first time, making some of these decisions while in traffic or even on road settings
a little bit sooner.
And so I'll be posting videos of those soon with kind of my commentary and it'll
be interesting to see if you guys find this interesting or not.
Let me know if you do.
Um, but with that, I think I've, I mean, it's already been almost an hour and 10
minutes, but just to recap, we're going to have some really cool, um, interviews in
the next couple of weeks and we'll be back to the one-to-one interview, uh, set up
soon and we'll be doing these on, uh, releasing new episodes on Wednesday.
We'll also hopefully be trying to get to later in this year, two episodes a week.
And, or at least I would like to, but that will probably require some.
additional support so we'll see how that goes.
And then, yeah, I just want to share the recent car buying experience.
It was just really interesting to me.
If anyone has follow-up questions, please let me know.
And if you didn't like this episode, also let me know.
But it was just really interesting how, and just to recap, with the Mercedes
dealership, it was like 90% of the way there.
Just like my mom can almost get exactly the car she wanted, but it was 90% of the
car.
And it was so much more expensive than just like, okay, if I can't get my, if I'm
going to have to spend all this money anyway.
and it's gonna take all this time to get a 90% car.
Why don't I just spend like two to three grand more and just get the car I actually
want and just wait six months?
And so it was probably the best.
It just really interested me that it was a good experience but at the same time it
was really frustrating and like we're almost there.
Why can't we just get across the line and buy this thing?
And that was the frustrating part of that.
I was like, no, we just have black, gray and white.
Whereas the Tesla was also a good experience.
The car itself.
was like 90% of what she wanted, but she could get one quickly and she had multiple
color options.
But with the Mercedes thing was such a more struggled or such a greater struggle
to get the car she truly wants.
So with that, I wanna wrap this up and I hope you guys tune in next week for our
one-to-one interview because it'll be a really exciting and a fun one.
But with that, thank you for listening and talk soon.