Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - Apple Changes Course on Right to Repair

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

This week Marques and Andrew talk about the breaking news that Apple will allow people to repair their own iPhones! Seems like a pretty big W for the right to repair movement. Then they dive deep into all of the new EV news including a new Subaru which Andrew is really excited for. Buckle up! Links to articles: What is Right to Repair?: https://bit.ly/3FqDxUU Apple vs Right to Repair: Part 2!: https://bit.ly/3x3fNn2 iFixit breakdown: https://bit.ly/30FoV57 Apple Face ID story: https://bit.ly/3FqMnSH Electrek Tesla Model 3: https://bit.ly/30E0O6x Subaru Soltera: https://bit.ly/3nCI0Ot Twitters: https://twitter.com/wvfrm https://twitter.com/mkbhd https://twitter.com/andymanganelli https://twitter.com/AdamLukas17 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wvfrmpodcast/ Shop the merch: shop.mkbhd.com Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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There we go. What's up, TechVember Crusaders? How's it going? Welcome to the Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marques. And I'm Andrew. And today's episode we have like a whole lot of EV news. We've got some announcements, some disasters, some just pure head scratchers. We kind of got it all. And then Apple officially announcing some right to repair steps they're taking which kind of blew all of our heads off. Really interesting. Yeah, but first, Marquez is big mad.

Why are you mad, Marquez? I don't know if I'd say I'm mad as much as I'm just a little bit confused. I don't know. So, okay, we got the news this week that Staples Center, I don't know. I just, so, okay. We got the news this week that Staples Center, the iconic, you know, middle of LA arena hosts the Lakers and the Clippers. And I'm sure like four or five other teams will be rebranded, I believe starting next year as crypto.com company, inked a deal, they'll be the name of the arena for the next 20 years. And I was looking it up. I was like, wow, that's a long time. Obviously, Stable Center is probably one of the most iconic in the States.

And I was so curious how much that costs. And it's $700 million. The only reason I'm confused is like, I don't know, crypto.com doesn't seem like a great name for an arena. It's the crypto.com arena. Yeah, like in terms of just catchiness and rolling off the tongue, Staples Center is way easier, way more iconic. I mean, you mentioned it's built to the iconicness of it.

Yeah, I was thinking about this. I was like, here's my slightly lukewarm take. All arena names are pretty bad, but we've gotten used to them over time because we say them so often. Like I've seen, I've pulled up right now just a list of a bunch of them in the US just for NBA teams.

The Milwaukee Bucks play at Pfizer Forum. Pfizer Forum. We've got Smoothie King Arena in the NBA. We've got the Cav play at rocket mortgage field house like nobody really wants to say the company names out loud but staples is a company and they've paid for their name to be on the side of the arena and tons of memories have been made with iconic lakers teams especially in staples center and i still think people are going to call it staples center that's the funny thing but there is going to be like, you know,

I think someone's already tweeted like a render of like that helicopter shot at the beginning of an NBA broadcast where like it's going to be on the front, on the top, on the sides. Like I was saying, I went to crypto.com today for the first time ever. I didn't know about them. So it's working, and I'm kind of surprised this is the first crypto company because I bet a lot of them have $700 million. This is the first time we've seen a crypto company put their name on an arena like this.

Yeah, I was kind of talking to David about how crypto.com, we didn't know it was a website. And I think it's one of those sites that suffers from having too good of a domain name. It's like too general. It's too broad. That crypto.com just feels like too easy. Like it doesn't, it's like too general it's too broad that crypto.com just feels like too easy like it doesn't it's not catchy it's good i guess it's only it's it feels generic but it's kind of what they are it's like they're a crypto wallet and a crypto trading service like coinbase is kind of similar but it's a coinbase is like a unique name it's a little more specific

yeah crypto is just now this all-encompassing internet currency that they just like, crypto.com just feels, and you have to put.com because if it's just crypto arena, that sounds better, but that's not going to send anybody to your website, which is the biggest issue in terms of advertising it, which is what they're paying for. I think they won the SEO battle.

I just, yeah, it's a weird name. Also, one of my favorite hot takes was like, a lot of URLs aren't around for a very long time. Like they expire, companies are born and die quickly. Do we think crypto.com will still work in 20 years? I can only imagine. I don't, you know, crypto is pretty young. We'll see.

But this is, that's, I'm not mad. I'm just like yeah a little thrown off by that i think crypto will be around there whether crypto.com is one of the places doing it in 20 years although i'm sure all these places try and lock up something so long to get somewhat of a discount and then oh yeah who break i'm sure plenty of people break contracts at a certain point if it goes defunct i wonder if they pay in advance the 700 million or if they pay it like every year they exist or if they'll be in debt. Who knows?

I don't know how these deals work. I don't know how it works. I think the biggest thing here that you mentioned was that it is still the same building, which people just have known as the Staples Center for so long. I've seen NHL arenas switch, but it's usually when a building goes down and becomes a whole new arena that it's much easier

because you're not referencing specifically that staple center will be called staple center for the rest of its life until it's a new arena yeah until everyone who who knew about staple center is dead uh apple right to repair we got to talk about this this one caught us by surprise this morning it definitely did i i am fascinated by this and i've been as we record record this, which is on a Wednesday, which, you know, you listen to the podcast on a Friday, I've been sort of organizing my thoughts into a potential video. So that may be up by the time you see this. But yeah, we can sort of summarize the announcement and then our thoughts about it. So we get this Apple newsroom press release titled Apple announces self-service repair

program, which is, well, okay. Apple's notoriously been against right to repair. So what is this program? So Apple will allow customers like you and me, customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs, access to Apple genuine parts and tools available first to iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups and soon to be followed by Mac computers

featuring M1 chips and self-service repair will be available early next year in the U.S. and then expand to additional countries throughout 2022. The initial phase of the program will mostly be focused on commonly serviced modules such as iPhones display, battery, and camera. The ability for additional repairs will be available later next year. So it goes on to explain all these different details, but there's a lot in those first two paragraphs there that is quickly being digested. But I want to go through each of them

because I think there's a lot. First of all, we did a video already on Right to Repair. If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it. I'm pretty biased, but I think it's pretty good. We have some interviews. We talked to Lewis Rossman. We have a whole breakdown on a bunch of different companies, including Apple, but Apple's one of the biggest companies in the world. One of the most influential consumer

facing. So when Apple changes a stance and makes a pro right to repair move like this, not only is it big for Apple, but it's big for the ripples it sends through the industry. So the first detail is they're starting with iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, soon to be followed by M1 Max. So, you know, a lot of people who are probably hoping to get repairs done are probably on older iPhones and older Max.

Fine. I imagine those were not built with commonly accessed repairs by normal people in mind. Yeah, not in mind. Not that they couldn't be done, but clearly not when Apple was thinking of doing this. Cause this has clearly been something they've thought of doing for a little bit, which is probably showing in the internals. Yeah. To me, this says we've been thinking about this since at least iPhone 12 and M1 Max. So

that's good. Um, and actually if you look at some of the teardowns of like this 16-inch MacBook Pro or the 14-inch, they look a little more friendly, at least for battery repairs. There's like tabs under the batteries now, and there's a couple less screws involved to get in, which is nice. I mean, we opened our first,

in that rights repair video, we opened an iPhone 12, I believe it was, which is the first iPhone I've ever opened. And opening that on the inside felt like a render. It was just so neat and everything. And I mean, I've only opened up a couple of phones. None of them I've successfully repaired. So I'm not claiming to be an expert here,

but like that internal looked like almost inviting, almost like it would be fun to play with. Yeah, and I mean, you gotta know what you're getting yourself into. For sure. So basically what's happening is individuals like you and me paying customers are being added to the group of people,

including repair shops that have access to these documents and parts. So if your screen breaks, for example, on your phone, you have the choice to go to an Apple store and have them repair it, however much that costs, or to go to an apple store and have them repair it however much that costs or to go to an independent repair shop and have them repair it however much that costs or your new option is go look online at the guides yourself and decide you want to do it yourself order those parts and the guides straight from apple repair it yourself send the parts back to

apple maybe even get a little bit of credit i believe back on your account for the stuff you send back for them to recycle that's what they said and uh then you did it yourself on your own time on your own dime which is a very new option it is and it does say in there that they provide some sort of a like service a repair kit manual that i think they want you to read first and and decide if you're comfortable doing this before you enter in for the parts, like get the parts mailed to you and to actually do it yourself.

And like you said, it does say that they're offering some sort of credit for returning the parts. Now, I'm assuming that means tools that they send. I'm assuming it means any parts that you replace so that they can properly recycle them. And that's great because Apple has been this company that has talked a lot about the environment

lately, but it always felt super hypocritical when you're so stingent on right to repair and reusing phones and refurbishing phones and basically using phones as long as possible and buying new products because that's kind of the worst thing that can happen. Like cool, your boxes are half the size and you don't include a charging brick anymore, but really the phones being able to use as long as possible and recycling them is what's the biggest impact we can see. So overall, I think a good change

on the surface, but there's still more details, right? So the other thing I want to look at, the initial phase of the program will focus on the most commonly serviced modules such as the iPhone's display, battery, and camera. yeah now on one hand that's most iphone repairs yeah i'm pretty sure like screen and battery are probably top one and two right i bet that's like almost 80 percent of repairs yeah so that makes sense in theory but this also like if you talk to lewis rossman which

we did in our video or if you ask independent repair shops, like what their biggest problem with the program is, a lot of them will say like they're so strict about what you actually have certified access to repair versus all the other stuff. So, you know, ports, buttons. Storage. Storage. Face ID notoriously. If you repaired or if you replaced a display with a non-Apple genuine part. Yeah, and it was the old Touch ID too. Yeah, they would disable Face ID or Touch ID.

They recently rectified that, which is nice. But like now, if you want to replace like your port gets loose or water damaged or something, you just want to replace that. That's not one of the things covered by Apple. They don't have manuals or parts or anything for that. You've still got to go back to the Apple Store in Apple's world. So that hasn't really changed. Um, so again, I think it's great that if my display cracks or if my battery is getting old, I can do that myself, but that's a, that's a pretty important note, which is like, this isn't changing for independent repair shops. It's still true. Yeah, and I think there's clearly

an optimistic side of reading this and a pessimistic side of reading this. And I think taking a little from both is really good. If we're talking pure optimism, this is a step in the right direction. The fact that Apple's even using the term repairability and stuff like that is just huge and something,

like I said, none of us expected. We came in this morning, we were gonna record the podcast. Without a paper full. Yeah, this huge and something. Like I said, none of us expected. We came in this morning. We were going to record the podcast. Without April Fool's. Yeah, this article pops up and we're like, okay, this is now the number one thing we're talking about today. Yeah, so it was interesting.

The pessimistic side is this still feels a little bit like this is a small first step because how many people in the world of one of the most popular phones in the US at least, how many of those people want to make these repairs themselves? And that's essentially what this is opening up. That is

very, very little, but that's always been the argument. So the fact that the step happened at all is really interesting. Yeah. And I think that I think I was gonna say the question I had right away was, okay, why is Apple doing this? Like they didn't have to, they never looked like they were going to. So why are they suddenly doing this? And, you know, David made a lot of good points about all the impending legislation around right to repair the presidential order.

There's some local orders in New York, a lot of stuff in Europe happening where it like, seems like there's a lot of momentum behind the movement. Yeah, for sure. And Apple's squarely in the middle of that, like target, like they're the notorious ones everyone mentions.

So they're kind of getting out ahead of that a little bit by saying, look, we let you repair phones. We give you the genuine parts, but we're not going to let you do too much. I think it's pretty clear this is, like you said, a step ahead. This is not listening to the customers. This is saving their... This is purely Apple-focused yeah it's not a pure this is purely apple focused

it's not tim cook going oh you'd like to repair things okay sure this is the first time i'm hearing that yeah we should do that what great feedback you have um yeah no so i think it's a lot of that but it's also and i think i'll make this point near the end of the video is like it's a great headline it's great pr yeah for Apple to have a right to repair positive headline, which goes back into the whole like getting ahead of legislation thing. But also I still think it makes ripples in a sort of a positive way.

I still think there are the John Deere's of the world. There's all kinds of other companies that don't have anything near this friendly for like, let's say you're a farmer and you want to repair your tractor. Like even if it's only the top three most replaced parts, that's better than nothing. Yeah. So we're still going to want to see those ripples through the industry for other companies to actually take a bit more of a positive stance on right to repair. Even just in our own tech

industry, like we're seeing all the more and more gadgets getting smaller and smarter, smaller and harder and harder to repair and harder and harder to find things because they're realizing that Apple's done this so well, make so much money off of it. They like to do what Apple does and it works. So seeing Apple go this way, it's going to make a lot of other tech tech companies go this same way. Yeah, that's awesome. The the note in the newsroom thing, I want to hit one last time, is they've said that this program will be expanding to more than just cameras, batteries, and screens. They haven't provided any details on what more things that will be. Maybe it will be ports and camera or face ID or maybe not. I don't know.

And the other thing that we don't know because it's not anywhere in the article is what qualifications will there be to get these parts and what will the prices be prices are huge i think and and what the um rebate or credits are when you return it as well yeah so that we'll have to see i mean we'll get the details early next year when they like start the program i'm hoping it's not ridiculous prices there's already memes on twitter about like oh you'd like to repair it yourself that'll be like a hundred dollars a pop like it should be ideally reasonable yeah um but we all know how expensive it is to repair like a to go to the apple store and get a new screen if you don't have apple care it's it's very expensive so we'll see all that is yet to be seen but hey it's a positive right to repair Apple headline. Who would have thought?

Who would have thought? That's not on my 2021. Yeah, my bingo card did not have that on the square. Well, I'll leave that. We'll go to a break on a happy note there. That's a pretty solid spot to take a break. So we'll take a quick, quick break. We'll come back.

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or they could be late for the bus. You never know. Ambition is on the inside. So that thing you love, keep doing it. Drive your ambition. Mitsubishi Motors. All right, we're back. Welcome to the car section of the episode.

We have a bunch of random stuff in the ether that all happened to be related to cars in some way. Yeah. But I think they're all really interesting. So like kind of fun. Yeah. Let's, let's go through them.

You'll understand why we're talking about these. They're all talking to tech stuff, but, uh, first up lucid air becomes motor trends, car of the year. Okay, cool. Now I think, uh, we've had a, Air becomes Motor Trend's car of the year. Okay. Cool. Now, I think

there's a large variety of cars that have won car of the year from Motor Trend. This doesn't shock me, but it is interesting that this particular one won. I think Tesla Model S won a couple years ago. It has won.

And I think there was one other EV that won. I mean, listen, years. And I think there was one other EV that won. I mean, listen, I don't follow Motor Trend that much. From after this happened, there's a lot of people saying that they haven't made some of the best choices in the past. Oh, yes. Motor Trend in general. But like this is just one where the Lucid Air,

in both of our eyes as far as I know, has just kind of been, we've been wondering is this a fair day or is this an actual real thing that's going to come to market? So to me, we, I did a video on the lucid air riding in it very close to fully functioning prototype. I think like air conditioning didn't work, which was like, yeah, we were the first people to do that. This was like, I was on the job for like four months and we went over and did that. And I was so am it was so cool yeah so we've seen the rolling lucid air happen many years ago right and i this has happened before where companies are like hey marquez come back check

out our factory hey marquez come back check out like this new update to our interiors and i'm like i've seen the car i've covered the basic idea please start shipping them yeah because I want to see if they can actually deliver on a couple really key things which include 500 plus 520 miles of range yeah now okay I saw that they had like an initial delivery event but that got me really amped because I was like oh my god there's really EVs out there in the wild today with 500 miles of range. Please somebody tell me there's like a video on YouTube or some test or something where I can go watch that happen.

Haven't seen them yet. I'm going to keep looking. But I would really like to see like somebody go do the road trip test or like actually get the 500 miles of range because if that's real, no one's talking about it enough. That's a huge deal. If it only gets 80 of that it is still by far the best range out of any ev that's out there it's like astronomical like range yeah compared to everything else you know plaid plus got canceled

and part of the reason why is it's like that car would have had like a 500 plus mile range also and i think elon had a quote on twitter after it got canceled saying you know what 400 miles is enough like we just don't need more than that we ripped that apart yeah we're like okay but like if you could do 500 you would people would buy it over the 400 um so the fact that lucid is doing it allegedly i want to see it but i think that would be super cool so the lucid air is out there i don't really honestly care who wins Motor Trend Car of the Year, but I think it's interesting that it's so brand new and barely shipping, and we're giving it these awards.

It's like, all right, well, Motor Trend, you do you. But I want to see more of them in the wild. I want to see them. I mean, it's something where I follow them on Twitter from the day that we went to visit them, and I remember two years ago them tweeting. And I was like, I forgot I followed these guys. This is just like, I think when we first went, their original release date was supposed to be 2019. We're now end of 2021. And I think I just cannot find somebody who has this as an owner, including in the Lucid Motors subreddit, where people are really excited about it. People have reservations for it. There's a whole thread that says who has theirs yet there's probably like 50 comments and the closest you

can get to it is i met somebody with vin number 006 and they really love it and that's the closest i can get to really seeing this thing in the wild interesting yeah and you know i think a lot of the early delivery stuff from all these companies are probably like super fans or like employees and things like that. So we don't know where those deliveries went. But I want to bring up two things. One, Tesla Model S got Motor Trend Car of the Year also very early in its life cycle. I think it was like before range was proven to the public yet, probably very few deliveries as well. So I have actually no problem with it winning the award.

I just think, well, I want to see more of these in the wild um but number two the lucid air seems awesome it seems really good it's very expensive that should just it is say that right off the top it's like 140 000 we've always kind of known that because like it was very they very specifically told us like that top end model with the bucket seats in the back that like that was like a luxury like ride share car that wasn't really somewhere between that and like a maybach yeah like you want to be in the back seat of this when you own it exactly and for that it is awesome and for that 160 000 is probably not that crazy if you're looking towards like bentley's and stuff like that yeah with the the specs that this thing has it's crazy i think it's a good looking car it kind of looks like a like updated lincoln which i don't love but again it's the trend yeah yeah um there's

some really really cool things 1111 horsepower 1390 pound foot of torque like imagine a maybach with a thousand horsepower what there's just like some really really crazy numbers about this and my issue with it winning though is like i get that they're trying to do things that are like breaking trends or like these big new things in the category, we are starting to see Rivian be delivered right now. And to me, Rivian like hits this a little better and it wasn't even in the finalists. Yeah. Yeah.

I think if lucid actually does is delivering and delivers a little more, like it could have been next year's where Rivian seems a couple steps ahead and is also this pickup truck that's coming out, EV, really, really great stuff on it. I'm somewhere between giving them credit for not being Faraday and just like never delivering anything and wanting to see more like maybe,

I mean, Rivian's also barely starting deliveries, but just a little bit more. I want to see them in public hands, YouTube tests, kind of like we see maybe Plaid Model S is barely out now, to that level maybe. So I'm sort of stuck in between them, but at the end of the day, I would love to drive a finished version. I'm excited for Lucid,

and I think why I've always been so excited for Lucid is because when I started was right when you got back from CES where you test drove the Faraday, and it was like the completely gutted interior you know like absolutely nothing and then we directly went to Lucid where I was like wow they're so far ahead of Faraday here and it felt so much more promising and it felt like something that was right around the corner an hour four years later and I've been waiting yeah so I hope this doesn't sound mean against Lucid. I'm really excited to try it, but it just felt weird.

I think there's more Rimacs in the wild, probably. If we're talking about that guy saying VIN number 006, I can almost imagine there's more Rimacs out in the wild. So technically, so the Rimac Concept 1 had, I think, let me look it up. It was a single digit number. I thought it was double digit, but in the teens. They made.

Didn't Hammond crash like the 18th? The what? He crashed one way up. Oh, one of them. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the Rimac Concept 1, they only ever made eight. Wow, okay, I was wrong. Six have been sold.

So then I'm probably wrong about that. Six have been sold. Uh-huh. The one that wasn't sold is the one we drove. We drove, yeah. And the eighth one is the one that was crashed. Okay. So there is only, yeah, only eight ever made.

And then the Concept 2 or the Nevera. That's going to be like 18, right? Or something? Yeah. For 30? I don't believe there's any deliveries yet but they're doing a lot of tours with it and it's coming soon nevertheless not a lot that was a pure yeah i thought i was being smart i mean like i the closest i've seen is vin number 006 so there

could actually be more concept ones out there but i feel like there's probably more lucids out there and we just haven't seen them i think uh john rattinger said he's on a reserve list he's in california and they've been getting them sooner because it's a california-based company so if you're listening to this or if you're watching this and you have one please get in touch please get in touch all right we also want to talk about uh another kind of quirky story with the mustang mach egt spent a couple days with, actually. I didn't have a ton of time to like really push it because it's just sort of driving around, observing how new it feels. It is the fastest version of the Mustang Mach-E.

But there was an Edmunds review of the Mach-E GT that discovered that it is only able to ever put down five consecutive seconds of full power. Of full power, yeah. And so they discovered this because they were doing track tests on it. Yeah, versus the Model Y Performance, because similar-sized cars, both the higher-end, sportier performance models of them.

A lot of praise for the Mach-E in general. It's a very well-selling car, despite some weird quality control issues which like every new car kind of has at this point like better suspension by a lot of people's standards i think it drives just as well if not better than the performance model y the the guy in edmunds said the overall package until he discovered that felt like a way more cohesive track car right than the model y now it's a whole nother debate about whether people buying these cars are taking them to tracks it's a crossover it's it's whatever i don't even want

to it's fine but five consecutive seconds of power was the limit according to ford because they wanted to preserve battery life how did they not build a button into the software that lets you disable yeah like track mode track that away, I don't care about preserving battery life if I'm on a track. Even if you are a track, like if you're someone who brings it to the track, you are probably still only on the track at most 10% of the total time you're ever driving this car.

And that's probably even being super conservative. Like it's not going to like vastly deteriorate this battery. And you're saying if there's a big debate on how many people bring these to the track, I would argue more people bring the Mustang Mach-E GT to a track. Like you're probably buying this because you want to bring it to a track. Mustang already has the legacy,

whether you want to put this in the Mustang family or not. I know that's super controversial. That's another debate. But if you are talking about a Mustang Mustang a car that is just known for performance and known for people wanting to get the most performance out of it and then you also had a GT model like this is meant for a track this is meant to get the most power and then you just cut it at five seconds just feels like a slap in the face it was odd it was like they were driving it and they would come out of a straight away and they'd get five seconds straight and then they would out of the next straight away not have

power and they'd wonder why and then they'd they'd wait a bit and then they'd give it full power again but then on the next straight away they'd have only like one second of power left out of the straight and it was like what is going on with this car so props to edmund for like putting the car on a track and actually finding that but yeah ford just confirmed like oh yeah we're just we're just doing that to save battery life. Ford, if you're listening, you can push OTA updates to the Ford Mach-E.

I know you can just add a button for track mode so that you can not have your power nuked on this fun car you've made. That's my only advice. Um, I dug the yellow that they gave us. It was like a papaya. I, I,

I think it's McLaren orange. Basically. I thought it was more yellow. I felt like it was more yellow, a little brighter. Yeah. I think Adam will putaren orange, basically. I thought it was more yellow. I felt like it was more yellow. A little brighter, yeah. I think Adam will put something up on the screen. And if I'm wrong, you better color correct it to look like I'm right.

It's a good looking car. I kind of dug it. I liked it more than some of the other colors we've had. Because the GT also, they put like the black grill on the front. Even though it's plastic, it does look sportier. It's got a little more like fins. Just make it matte, not Mac.

Yeah, make it matte. Make it matte. That would have been nice. I mean, it's's gonna catch bugs no matter what yes but it looks good cool maki gt is in the wild by the way random fun fact i think i said this on the last episode the rivian is faster than the rivian is just actually what is the Mach-E GT 0-60? 0-60 and 3.5. That's what the F-150 does. Right. The Rivian does in 3.0. What? Wait, how can Ford make, even going past that, how can Ford make an F-150 go 3.5 and not make the car that's probably half the weight?

Ford makes both, yeah. I guess they just put more power, bigger motors in the F-150. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you're not sport driving an f-150 it's just hilarious that it goes that fast now i want to put like f-150 motors and like the mini cooper ev and watch it just take like that's like the future of that's the future of mods i think like before because everyone would be like oh i have a custom built engine in this like sleeper chassis like you have no idea how fast this like 68 mustang goes now it's like yeah i put quad motors and a huge battery in the hummer ev regular looking ev and it crushes what was the hummer ev

zero to 60 too fast it was also that thing was zero to 60 under 10 seconds i think that's a safety hazard that thing is it's already a safety hazard that yeah i honestly think that's going to cause more accidents than any other car. I just looked it up and it's quoted at three seconds flat. That's faster than the Audi e-tron RS GT. If I'm ever driving and I see a Hummer EV, I'm taking an alternate route. I need my ways to direct me to avoid Hummer EVs because at no point will I trust that thing. Anyone driving that on the road? When they deliver that, I can't wait to see it on the road.

It's going to be wild. Okay, here's another weird, weird one. Yeah. Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys right now have been spotted being delivered without wireless charging or the USB-C ports, but not just, like, gone from the car. The cutouts for the ports are still there they're just

delivering the car without the ports and they're blaming the chip shortage for not having the part ready yet and they'll retrofit it for free in the future but they're not telling people they're just giving you the car hey here's your car would you like to accept delivery uh it's missing the usb ports which is like i have a picture here in the dock which adam can put it on the thing but it's like it's a usbc port it's small no one's like peering into it to make sure the actual connector is there like i'm sure people i would not doubt if there are people who have this car that have their their phone plugged in like right now no idea and like not paying attention and wondering like oh i must have not connected it all the way after my drive i mean wireless charging not working i think that's

one of my favorite features of the car it just sits right up in the front where the gps would be and it just wireless charges the phone so that's how the first big post i saw about this happened was somebody had it on the wireless charging mat and i mean like we're at the point where most people throw it down on wireless charger and don't really look to see if it's charging and then they'll notice later so the guy in the post noticed that noticed it again and then went to go plug it in and i'm assuming just didn't he feel the snap or anything and then realized it was just straight up missing it yeah and then when they went to the tesla service center the people there said that they will retrofit in december it will be free but the fact that he had to go back to a service center to guess that and then there's a ton of comments

in that reddit thread and there's multiple people reporting this that they're just and like sure there is a chip shortage it just seems insane to me to one even deliver these and to two not say anything yeah if i was tesla okay, put yourself in their shoes. I don't think you stop delivering the cars, but you have to tell people. I think the best way they could have done it while still delivering is, hey, you know, we're having an issue with the chip shortage. You can still take your delivery now. You can wait to take your delivery later.

If you do take it now, free supercharging for three months, and we'll retrofit in December. Well, here's the thing about, you know, keeping cars around. They don't have a lot of space. Like they're building cars as fast as they can and they're flying off the shelves

or however you want to phrase it. And so if they offer people the option to refuse delivery because of it, which I guess they do, they're just going to sell the car to someone else who will take it without the ports. So they're just like, they're just making the car

without the ports. And it's like, here, do you want it? Yes or no. And if you say yes, here you go. We'll retrofit it later. If you say no, someone else will probably take it without the ports. It's really hard to get these right now, but tell people, tell people that they don't have the ports. So obvious. I just can't like, I know Tesla gets a lot lot of a lot of flack for a lot of things that happens and they clearly like people try and make stories out of things and usually they're blown up this one feels kind of like the opposite where I'm just

I can't imagine a legacy car manufacturer doing this and not having like what is going on you're the like a lot of weird quirks I think if the F-150 came out with this, people would go bananas. It's really, it's,

it's like, yeah, no, it's, it's weird. It's really strange. Weird issue. It's,

I feel like you got to at least offer like a little something. Yeah. Tesla's, Tesla's also been one of the companies that's like been somewhat unaffected by these shortages. Like they seem to be delivering cars just fine. Like there's lots of cars that need chips that are just like, oh, we can't make as many Hyundai Elantras

as we thought we could this year. They all need the same chip and there's a million of them. So Tesla has been like sort of cruising along seemingly unaffected, but it's like, this is a big deal. Like ports, simple things, hard to get. So that was a sort of a wacky story but yeah hopefully if you

if you have a model 3 or model y pull over and check out whether your ports work or not and if they don't definitely uh definitely get in touch with your service center you get those ports for sure okay i guess uh let's take a quick break we'll come back we got some new ev announcements to go over. The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or have out more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs.

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okay so that's that's some of the weirdest stories let's get into some new ev announcements that have come out there's one from let's see subaru subaru and nissan which one do you want to do so both of them are like their cars have been announced but we didn't see much of them these are like almost the full announcements for it um i mean i'm gonna pick Subaru. Let's talk Subaru. I'm a little Subaru fanboy, so bias warning. 2023 Subaru Solterra SUV. You like it? I like crossover-ish. To be honest, I think it looks... Do I like it? Man, you really just are asking the hard question right off the bat.

I don't think I can just say yes or no on this. Interesting. What do you want to say? So right off the bat, do you like it can just say yes or no on this interesting what do you want to say so like right off the bat do you like it normally means design right yeah i like how this looks it's fine it's fine and then then you gotta look at like specs and price yeah so the design i don't hate it but i don't love it it's like pretty typical i feel like the cross trek and the impresa has kind of been going this a little harder line route. My biggest complaint about it is I've always loved how much of a hatchback you get with like

an Impreza or Crosstrek as it goes all the way to the trunk of the car where this has that really, really hard slant kind of like a Honda Crosstour, I think it's called. Don't love that. I think you're kind of losing space. I wish it were a tad bigger, but again, I don't hate it there's some design things that aren't my favorite but i kind of think the color was kind of weird they announced it and also i think maybe in a black or a gray or a white it might look a lot better um i don't mind it yeah it's fine i don't yeah it's there it's not a head turner but then then the specs we've got a starting price of 37 000 wait wait where do you

see that did i write that i have that on car and driver 2023 subaru sotera starting at 37 000 wait what hold on hold on this is what i did not have a price in here and i have a lot of price speculation and is this real this is estimated wait hold on. It says EST. Let me see what they mean by EST. So they think it'll start in the high 30,000s. This is not official from Subaru. Subaru hasn't announced pricing yet. Okay, so let's go with that. My heart's fluttering here for a second.

No pricing, but estimated somewhere in the high 30s. But the spec we know is range, right? Yeah, let's talk specs first. And then pricing, I think I have a lot of thoughts on. Okay, let's do that's talk range let's talk specs first and then i pricing i think i have like a lot of thoughts on okay let's do that okay so yeah range i've been super pessimistic about it i think in a previous episode i guessed 240 miles and i even thought that may have been on the high side instead we have a single motor and a dual motor. The single motor has 329 miles of range and the dual motor has 286 miles of range.

Now, just to be clear here, this is WLTC standard, which is a standard in Japan and generally is a little overrated versus an EPA rating. So the EPA rating will probably knock that down a bit. But we're still talking at least 300 miles of range okay on the single motor single motor like lower performance okay yeah yeah which blew blew my expectations out of the water i mean we've seen way too many legacy car manufacturers come in make an ev with a abysmal range i often will i usually will see here's a new EV, it's available now,

it has 210 miles of range. Or I'll say I'll see, here's a new EV, it'll have 315 miles of range, it's coming out in 2024. Which is like, oh, that's a good number but it's going to be three years too late which is when we'll all expect even higher numbers. So to have a new

Solterra assumingly coming out somewhat soon and with 300 miles of range is pretty good. I'm very, very excited for that. I think that's awesome. Awesome. Um, let's see. It says it supports DC fast charging up to 150 kilowatts. They didn't say about how long it would take to charge your battery, but we're lucky here. And this is built on the same platform as the BZ4x which is from toyota because they partnered with this got it they look very similar bz4x and toyota claim that will charge 30 minutes to 80 capacity so i mean we're looking at a pretty standard about a 70 kilowatt hour

battery if if you know the network actually turns on so that's always something you have to think about question yes um we have subaru talking about their x mode which is a pretty standard company-wide thing it's an all-wheel drive control system and you know Subaru is known for their all-wheel drive that'll only be in the dual motor one I'm assuming so I mean right it didn't specifically say that but I can only imagine okay um so when it comes to I have like two main gripes or questions I guess that aren't answered quite here um number one is price. If we're pricing this out, $40,000 feels like kind of the sweet spot of now that we're seeing the Model 3 creep up in price to like $46,000. If we're talking about a car kind of similar to it, I think the Solterra

is a little bigger, clearly does not have the performance that the model 3 does but six thousand dollars cheaper and most likely will have the tax break because it's a new company doing evs that seems pretty awesome and similar range i mean like the main thing we're talking here is range right when we're comparing i think 40 000 could get quite a few people to make the choice if they're between a model three and a solterra okay if some the thing is is like subaru is very well priced for a lot of their cars um at least i think so and i do think a lot of people think so i bought my impreza in 2013 for 21 all-wheel drive great car cross treks and forsters and stuff kind of start around like 26 which is great great pricing so 40 000 is a big jump there if this could somehow be at 35 000 i i'll buy it i will 100 buy it this is at 35 000

35 you're in i don't think it will well that would be the starting base price probably at best yes and i kind of have wonder price wise on which model will be which but um i'm worried though that this will be closer to like 45. And then I think it's, they will only get sales for Subaru fans. You are not going to have the person going to it over the Model 3 when you're at the same price. Yeah. And maybe this is people cross shopping.

I don't know if it'll be Model 3 or Model Y more, I guess crossovers Model Y, which is a little more pricey. But when you're at the same price as Model Y, you have to offer somewhat the same stuff to be considered if you're priced above model y you have to be better at something yeah which seems like just the subaru things and being a subaru and having like maybe more range or sorry maybe more storage or a cross track type features model y well the hard thing is if you compare it to Model Y because it's a crossover, this is like a weird,

this feels like the, at least by the pictures, I haven't seen full size, but it looks like the lower end of like a size of a crossover. Whereas like Model Y feels like it's closer to like compact SUV and it's this really, really confusing. But Model Y is 58 starting, I think. So like, no way Solterra's that. So I kind of want to compare it to Model 3 more,

but yeah, you do get some more room probably than a Model 3. It's in a weird spot. It's a really weird spot. If you undercut it, you just got to do a couple things as well. Obviously, it doesn't have the supercharged network, but that's an advantage that they can take advantage of. If you're cross-shopping model y and solterra i think solterra is going to have a great chance even at 45 to you know if you are not a tesla fan or you're not a subaru fan

you are just looking for an ev around that size i think it will split it pretty well which is all all companies need to do now is split the price split the difference for tesla to that um if you're looking for a model 3 or solterra i think the solterra has to be 35 to 40 to really sway the model 3 buyer over to that for saving enough money let's let's make a bet over under would you take over under or sorry would you guess that the solterra's announced price for the base model will be over or under $39? Over. Okay. I'll take that bet.

You'll go under? I'm hoping I'm wrong. I'm hoping I'm right and it is under, but I don't know. Now, see, if we really want to make this bet interesting, if I win, you buy me a Solterra. And if I lose, I'll buy myself a Solterra because that sounds like a good price. That sounds like a good bet. I don't know if I'm going to agree to it right now, but it's a solid bet. But so now my next big thing kind of loops into pricing,

and that is I'm confused at what is going to be the more expensive version of this. What is going to be the base? Because in every single EV, range is like the number one priority, right? Yep. Now, Subaru is known for all wheel drive. Their thing is that essentially every car comes with all wheel drive, super great price point for it. You go to Colorado and like 90% of the cars in the shopping, the shopping mall parking lot are going to be a Subaru because of the all wheel drive. Yeah. Driving in snow, all that stuff.

So if you are now buying a Subaru EV, what is your choice? Are you prioritizing all-wheel drive or are you prioritizing range? Because the all-wheel drive is about 50 miles less range, according to WLTC standards. The single motor will be cheaper. The single motor with longer range will be cheaper, and the extra motor, which costs a lot more, which has better performance but has all-wheel drive,

will be more expensive despite lower range. Real quick, what you're saying is correct, but like the single motor has a higher horsepower per motor, whereas the dual motor, yeah, there's, they are technically each motor is less performance, but together. But total is larger. Exactly. Just clarifying. Oh yeah, definitely I believe that that base model will be the single

motor front wheel drive with a longer range because that gets you longer range the all-wheel drive one will cost more it will have better performance because of the higher overall power and all-wheel drive but it will have slightly less range interesting um man if the if single motor could be 35 and dual motor could be 40 that would be really awesome yeah also dual motor performance though

is not going to be anything close to a model 3 no no like we're all I think I hope we're all on the same page

that we're not comparing it like that yeah but yeah I'm excited well the other one that I'm less excited about

but it exists so I'm happy about it I think it's important still yeah is Nissan's upcoming electric SUV so Nissan is able to claim that they excited about but it exists so i'm happy about it i think it's important still yeah is nissan's upcoming electric suv so nissan is able to claim that they are a leader in the ev space because of how long the leaf has been around sure i'll give you that so now in 2023 they're going to drop

what's called the aria a-r-i-y-a it'll start at 47 and will have, did they say the range? You can see the pictures. About 300 miles of range. So, yeah, 300 miles of range for 47K. You can go up in performance and also up in price. There's a 60K option with 265 miles of range but a little more power. It looks fine. Okay, if you are already buying a Nissan Rogue, this looks like a Nissan. You know what this looks like. It looks like an EV Nissan, which is fine. Okay, if you were already buying a Nissan Rogue, this looks like a Nissan.

You know what this looks like. It looks like an EV Nissan, which is fine. I don't like it. You've brought up pricing of Subarus in the past. This is an expensive Nissan. $60K for a Nissan is a big ask. Yeah, can I look up what a Nissan Rogue is? Sure.

Yeah, like a Nissan Rogue starts at $26K. Yeah. And I believe, I just want to make sure i'm on the um morano's 32 the rogue is 26 it's not is there 24 to 26 like there's not a lot of brand new 60 000 nissans and this will start at 47 which is you know still pretty premium for a nissan yeah the leaf if i talk about the leaf anymore i'll get sad but like they did they did hop on that early and lots of people have leafs because they don't have long commutes it had like a hundred mile range at best and it was like all right you

can drive this as your commuter car back and forth and like have a totally good time never pay for gas again great but when we talk about like the inspiring like let's replace every car on the road with an electric version you need a couple more versions than just a leaf so this is something else i they're accepting deposits i don't know if this is gonna start getting cross-shopped with model y it's 47 so it's cheaper yeah there are two main things i have out of this one's good one's makes no sense okay 47 000 for this pictures, this looks bigger than like a Solterra. So I think this is a direct competitor to the Model Y. Yeah.

300 miles of range is also meant at $10,000 cheaper. There's definitely, they're going to sway some people. Okay. Yeah. I think that's really cool. Again, really happy that we see another 300 mile range. I'm so glad we're actually seeing these legacy car manufacturers putting real miles on their range. The thing I don't get is

who on earth wants a performance Nissan Rogue EV, essentially? I don't get why you'd spend an extra 15K to get the performance version of this. Interesting. It doesn't look like a sporty car. It doesn't look like something that you're gonna go drag race or even just like, I that's the thing about evs is they all naturally are able to offer performance and instant torque and the base model will have that yeah yeah true like

enough for what you need so in main in normal everyday driving like this ev thing the best thing about it is merging onto a highway like you don't feel stuck yeah but the base model will have that like it'll feel better than a regular nissan rogue which i by the way if you haven't noticed i'm comparing the rogue to this thing because they look very similar i just don't get why you'd pay an extra 15 000 for this like performance version of this there's a lot of questions that we didn't think had a there were like solutions without a problem like who wants a crossover mustang ev but here we are and like this might be another one of those where we're like looking over the obvious answer of like oh yeah i've always wanted like a faster like i love

my nissan and i love this the ui for some reason but i really wanted an ev version with more storage like here we are yeah i don't know there are nissans that people mod and like to do stuff it's just as far as i know it's not the rogue it's a small group if you haven't modded nissan rogue show send us some videos or pictures because i'd love to see it but i'm i'm not really sure that those really exist but like you know good point here ten thousand dollars cheaper than a model y for the people who don't care about the model y performance and who are are able to you know not have to use the tesla supercharging network right ten thousand dollars is a big big price jump price difference so yeah so we'll see it's the next year car so that's that's it for evs thanks for sticking along with our rambling i

thought all of those were pretty fun pretty interesting or even pretty important yeah ev podcast exactly wave can we label this one where the ve and wave is switch the ev yeah switch the ev now it's the waveform podcast the wave form we can do that for april fools or something but um i just have like one psa i want to end this on every year we talk about black friday a little bit but we always talk about it on Friday where it's too late. So we're just going to do our little PSA if we're looking forward to anything. But like, I think the main thing I always tell people on black Friday is go into it with a plan. We all are tech heads here. We all want to get tech cheaper. We all know tech gets cheaper on black Friday, but stop going on amazon or best buy and just like buying things because they're on sale do your research pick something that you really want hope that

that goes on sale buy it on sale yeah going to whatever retailer and buying what's on sale is how it's designed for you you should go in with your own plan and then buy things also i'll give a little psa uh if you're holiday, the chip shortage and supply shortages are very real. So if you are not yet getting stuff for gifts for family or whatever, think about that earlier than usual. As in like, right. Use your pride balls. As in like you should have already ordered too late. Yeah, that's it. That's it for my PSA. But yeah, I, yeah I I actually with a new house and stuff I do have some

I'm ready for Black Friday I haven't bought anything for a really long time so I actually have you're gonna be part of the like the crowd running for the TV section

when Best Buy opens no no no online on my couch in my slippers under a blanket I don't do this I'm looking for a new

gaming monitor because I haven't upgraded since probably Black Friday like five years ago really about that. I was ready to look for the Logitech G Pro Superlight, but now they just came out with the Logitech G303 wireless, which I ordered already. That's the collab with Shroud. I'm so excited. That was like my favorite. That was my first gaming mouse. I had two or three of them. Then they discontinued them, and I was very, very sad. Whatever, that won't come up.

And just like some smart home stuff, there's this really good TP smart switches. Hopefully those will go on sale. They're not too expensive, but when you're buying them for the majority of your house, it adds up pretty quickly. Yeah. And like, I mean, you should probably be looking at these too. Like all the Ego electric house tools, like Leaf Blower, Weed Whacker, all that stuff. If that went on sale, I'm buying that up ASAP.

I'm excited. All right. Get your retail on, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for listening to this episode of Waveform. It's been a fun time. Make sure to watch that right to repair video when it's out if you haven't seen it already. But that's been it. Catch you sure to watch that right to repair video when it's out if you haven't seen it already but that's been it catch you guys the next one peace waveform is produced by adam molina we are partnered with vox media and our intro outro music was created by vane silk Bye.