Speaker 1: Welcome back to car Stories with some k and Amelia Hartford.
Speaker 1: So hypothetical. Okay, so you're married, sure, okay, the future
Speaker 1: all right? And I love your husband? Right, I hope?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Okay, I hope so too. Do you know the store
Speaker 1: Ross and Marshall's. Yeah, okay, so pair of Nike socks
Speaker 1: and Marshalls you could get like three for sometimes two
Speaker 1: ninety nine, okay. At the Nike store they're like fourteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, yeah, ten nineteen ninety nine. If you're gonna
Speaker 1: go buy a pair of Nike socks, would you go
Speaker 1: to Ross Marshall's or would you go to the Nike store? Thoughts?
Speaker 2: I think that's a two part answer.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I obviously.
Speaker 2: In this scenario, Ross sounds like the better deal. But
Speaker 2: the bigger question is what is your time worth? Are
Speaker 2: you already purchasing a pair of Jordan Wants or a
Speaker 2: sneaker at the Nike store and does your time cost
Speaker 2: more for you to then drive to Ross to save
Speaker 2: five dollars or does it make sense to buy the
Speaker 2: difference and just buy the socks while you're there.
Speaker 1: You're not at the store, not at the.
Speaker 2: Store, just need socks and nothing else go to Ross, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: her marshals.
Speaker 1: Or no, no matter if you win the lottery or.
Speaker 2: Not, I feel like you just you can also shop
Speaker 2: for other stuff. It depends what you want to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah wait, wait, you're not answering their question, so you wouldn't.
Speaker 2: No, I said I'd go to it. Ross makes more
Speaker 2: sense financially. But if I wanted to go buy some Nikes,
Speaker 2: I might go shop at a Nike store and then
Speaker 2: if I'm already there, then maybe I'll just buy the
Speaker 2: socks there versus then making a second trip.
Speaker 1: You know. So this Ross test, right, was something I
Speaker 1: worked with this like super super famous like superstar actor
Speaker 1: once right, I man named names and they announced that
Speaker 1: his family was going to come visit set, and his
Speaker 1: mother had a bag from Ross and had stuff that
Speaker 1: she had bought from Ross, even with all the money
Speaker 1: that this family has, the value system from the mother
Speaker 1: and of course, like there's a time for luxury items, right,
Speaker 1: But then the fact that she did not care that
Speaker 1: she went to Ross and bought these items and handed
Speaker 1: it to this guy right with no like there was
Speaker 1: no shame, there's no embarrassment, there's no pretense. It really
Speaker 1: really impressed me, and I was like, I think that
Speaker 1: is a great value system to have. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not against like bad things or expensive things or.
Speaker 2: Truthfully part of buy socks. I'm probably gonna buy the
Speaker 2: money Amazon.
Speaker 1: And nowadays, yeah, you don't even need to go to
Speaker 1: Ross anymore. And you know that's the place that meet.
Speaker 1: Me and my wife used to go on dates. We
Speaker 1: used to go to Ikea.
Speaker 2: I love Ikea and then walk around and get lost.
Speaker 1: And then go eat in the cafeteria meatballs. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: because it was like so cheap. It was like under
Speaker 1: like ten bucks you could eat the two people that
Speaker 1: would be a date. And then we would go to
Speaker 1: a Marshals in way deep in North Hollywood that was
Speaker 1: like the they called it. The managers there called it
Speaker 1: the Flagship Marshals of the Valley.
Speaker 2: There is a place deep in North Hollywood and I
Speaker 2: forgot the name of it where I used to buy
Speaker 2: my shoes and it'd be like ten to twenty dollars
Speaker 2: a pair of shoes. And it was this giant like
Speaker 2: I could find out on a map. I couldn't tell
Speaker 2: you the name of it because I don't even if
Speaker 2: it had a name, but it was this giant warehouse.
Speaker 2: But then there'd be like one hundred different little stores
Speaker 2: inside of it. But it wasn't even like stores. They'd
Speaker 2: be like like tents almost, and they would just kind
Speaker 2: of lay the shoes or whatever, and everyone had their
Speaker 2: own little section kind of walk through these rows of
Speaker 2: like different shoes lined.
Speaker 1: Out like a swat meat.
Speaker 2: Swat meat. Yeah, oh yeah, it was a swap meat,
Speaker 2: but it was of new stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. My college roommate had parents sold nikes that had
Speaker 1: swept meat.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was the thing back in the day.
Speaker 2: That's where I got my shoes for a while, the
Speaker 2: same thing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: They weren't shut No.
Speaker 2: I mean I don't know, I thought there were. I
Speaker 2: wasn't buying like name brand. I just needed protection for
Speaker 2: my feet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, thanks for answering that, yes question. I think
Speaker 1: you'd make a good wife.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to our next guest. We have our
Speaker 1: friend Ed Low, editor in chief of Motor Trend. That's right,
Speaker 1: fascinating human being, the great history just I think there's
Speaker 1: this like wisdom that he has.
Speaker 2: And he's always been very passionate about education, whether it's
Speaker 2: teaching at high school or even just helping teach on
Speaker 2: the internet the history and love for cars.
Speaker 1: What a great ambassador and we just learned a lot
Speaker 1: about his history and also the future of the car industry.
Speaker 1: So we get to sit down and listen to a
Speaker 1: progressive thinker talk about the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, without further ado Ed low Ed.
Speaker 1: Even though he is a car afficionado, editor, car guru, evy,
Speaker 1: forward thinking gentleman, he's actually a huge green thumb, right.
Speaker 1: I mean you compared to a lot of other people
Speaker 1: like you are into gardening.
Speaker 3: I like to like a little bit. My wife's more
Speaker 3: into it. I like to cook what we grow and
Speaker 3: what do you grow?
Speaker 1: What do you grow?
Speaker 3: We got like peppers, we grow like I like. I
Speaker 3: like to saw a picture of that. I like peppers.
Speaker 3: No like serranos. I'm a big Serrano pepper guy. I
Speaker 3: don't know. We got tomatoes, little little tomatoes and strawberries.
Speaker 2: I've been wanting to do like a strawberry garden, like
Speaker 2: a little area, but I travel so much that I'm
Speaker 2: worried I'm going to kill this plant.
Speaker 1: What about just citrus I have? I have three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty nine trees. Wait what, but this house is
Speaker 1: because I have a full orchard. We have so much citrus, avocados.
Speaker 1: I have avocuta, but.
Speaker 2: Avocados are hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this for the past two years, nothing but the
Speaker 1: year so three years ago, it was like everywhere avocados
Speaker 1: are like gold.
Speaker 3: You know how much you can get for avocados, Like
Speaker 3: that's huckum avocados or I don't know, it's good cause
Speaker 3: I grew up actually on avocado. I grew up. I
Speaker 3: grew up outside of a little town about sixteen miles
Speaker 3: north here Camerio, and we had avocado. We had a
Speaker 3: we had a small avocado orchard, and I had to
Speaker 3: pick avocados from my parents. Really, they actually all that
Speaker 3: whole area, this is Venture County, they've they've all shifted
Speaker 3: all of the from avocados. For a while, it was
Speaker 3: oranges and lemons and then went to avocados. Now everybody's
Speaker 3: taken all of their trees down and they put these
Speaker 3: big greenhouse type setups and they're growing all sorts of
Speaker 3: high value, more expensive crops and also weed. But it's
Speaker 3: mostly they've moved away from avocados, maybe because it's it's
Speaker 3: so hard. I think all of our avocados come from Mexico.
Speaker 1: Now Scott Bryan Scatto, he has an avocado he does farm.
Speaker 1: So I grew up with like a greenhouse like attached
Speaker 1: to our backyard. My mother was like the neighborhood, you know,
Speaker 1: like rescuer, right, So she would she had this greenhouse,
Speaker 1: and then people's plants that you buy at the grocery
Speaker 1: store would start dying and they would just give it
Speaker 1: to her. And then like twice a week, I would
Speaker 1: have to like put all the water and the the
Speaker 1: and the and the food and then it would all
Speaker 1: come back to life.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So I feel like I have this connection to plants.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So the avocado tree was like no avocados every year.
Speaker 1: So then I went down. I just started talking to
Speaker 1: the tree. Really, I was like, hey, avocado tree, come on, man,
Speaker 1: give us some avocados.
Speaker 3: I love. Didn't work.
Speaker 1: It worked that year. Then I stopped and no more avocados.
Speaker 1: And so this particular tree, you have to go down.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like a dog. It's like a living creature.
Speaker 1: You have to go. You have to like kind of
Speaker 1: talk to it. You have to clean the area right,
Speaker 1: and then it's fruitful. And then I haven't been.
Speaker 2: Doing that, but it's a thing for plants to like
Speaker 2: play like Beethoven and Mozart, right, has never been study.
Speaker 1: We used to do that at the greenhouse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just wrote an article about apparently plants can
Speaker 3: actually they've proven they can communicate with each other. There's
Speaker 3: some weird like they release something in the air and
Speaker 3: the other plant. There's a weird science experiment that demonstrated this.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I feel like everything that's living, you know,
Speaker 3: could stand with some more love and attention. So that's
Speaker 3: probably all you were doing.
Speaker 1: And then we had a conversation years ago. Was it
Speaker 1: you that suggested for me to put like a fish
Speaker 1: head into the ground. The Yeah, well that's I had
Speaker 1: this conversation with.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is. This is I mean, this is I
Speaker 3: learned this like I was thinking third grade and this
Speaker 3: is like I grew up in an era where Thanksgiving
Speaker 3: was a thing that they taught in school about how
Speaker 3: the Indians and the call and the you know, the
Speaker 3: colonizers all got together. We know that was true, but
Speaker 3: back then, apparently the Indian way of planting corn was
Speaker 3: you would dig a hole drop of corn seat and
Speaker 3: then drop a little fish covered up and the thing
Speaker 3: would there's your fertilizer. Yeah, I don't know, but these
Speaker 3: days you can just buy like a bag of fertile.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to use fertilizer. That I'm very proud.
Speaker 1: I have no fertilizer in.
Speaker 3: My compost, no composting thing. Oh you should compost. Why
Speaker 3: this is why I think you're saying, I'm I'm a
Speaker 3: green thumb. I'm not really a green thumb. I just
Speaker 3: like to I was composting. We moved, We recently moved,
Speaker 3: but at the old house, I had this giant, like
Speaker 3: forty gallon drum composter and we would just dump coffee grounds,
Speaker 3: vegetable peels, apple cores, and if you and you put newspaper,
Speaker 3: you put the dry stuff and the white paper in there.
Speaker 3: My neighbor actually was a science teacher. He's like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put some earthworms in there. I just get
Speaker 3: a little thing at earthworms, and literally the next six
Speaker 3: months later, the entire compost spin. It was probably forty
Speaker 3: gallons of huge earthworms. And it was awesome. It was
Speaker 3: so rad We could just dump stuff in and it
Speaker 3: would just all be composted, be eaten up by the
Speaker 3: earthworms and they the waste The liquid waste that's created
Speaker 3: is called it's basically called liquid gold. You can bottle
Speaker 3: up and sell it. That's really that is amazing, and
Speaker 3: it's all organic, it's all super clean. That was hilarious
Speaker 3: because I did that for a long time. And then
Speaker 3: two years ago we had a really hot summer and
Speaker 3: it killed all my all my porter worms. Oh no,
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I wasn't there. I couldn't cool them down.
Speaker 3: It just rays more.
Speaker 1: Oh sad, I'm worried about rats though.
Speaker 3: No, it won't happen. No, no, if you do it correctly.
Speaker 3: And this is what beauty of compt I can't we're
Speaker 3: talking about this. But composting is if you have a
Speaker 3: big piece of property, you don't need this drum system
Speaker 3: you can buy is for people who live in a city.
Speaker 3: You just dig a big hole, you dump the scraps out,
Speaker 3: and then you cover them. The rats they can't smell it,
Speaker 3: they're too lazy to dig in there. Just turn it over.
Speaker 3: It creates heat, it keeps itself warm during the winter.
Speaker 3: And you have this amazing fertilizer, just giant pile of fertilizer,
Speaker 3: and you do one over here and after that gets
Speaker 3: all full. You need to let it go for a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks. You start another one over here, and
Speaker 3: then you just kind of altern it.
Speaker 1: It's great, I have a perfect area for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, you could pack it up, put your face
Speaker 3: on it, say songs, organic compost. Yeah, I would like
Speaker 3: to cut it that. I'll help you.
Speaker 1: I could do that.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: No, because dead plant starts to really stress me out,
Speaker 1: like I feel like bad things are going to happen, right,
Speaker 1: like even and birds, like I'm very superstitious on plants
Speaker 1: and birds.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So so anyway, we had a prune tree, gigantic prune tree.
Speaker 1: It was like every year was like, they give me
Speaker 1: all of these great prunes and I would make jam
Speaker 1: out of it, right, And I told the dude. I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, you got to cut those branches because
Speaker 1: it's going to topple over and he's drunk all the time.
Speaker 1: And then the winds came and then it toppled the
Speaker 1: whole This was like a massive tree. And I got
Speaker 1: so depressed I almost sold the house. I was like,
Speaker 1: we have some it's a sign from nature telling me
Speaker 1: to leave, right. And then by next door neighbor he
Speaker 1: has like great great gardeners, And I talked to the guys,
Speaker 1: this this soil like, you know, unhealthy, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's just because it's too top heavy. It's like we
Speaker 1: can plant something else and you'll girl right away. So
Speaker 1: we put in a lemon tree and started. It's like
Speaker 1: it's so healthy, right. But then I'm also the birds
Speaker 1: like in my like one of the back doors and
Speaker 1: then in the main front door. They're these birds that
Speaker 1: create nests. Other people would show these birds away, right,
Speaker 1: but I'm superstitious, like I'll feed them because it's a
Speaker 1: sign of like good luck. But there's bird ship all
Speaker 1: over the fucking but I don't mind cleaning it.
Speaker 3: But they're probably snacking on the fruit on the trees too.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Yeah, maybe we should start talking about
Speaker 1: some car stuff whatever, a nice change of pace. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's how you kind of keep balanced with your life, right.
Speaker 1: It's like I think people forget that editor from Motor Tread.
Speaker 3: Does its own composing. I probably get more inquiries about
Speaker 3: the cooking that I do because I like to cook
Speaker 3: a lot, and I post that mostly on social like
Speaker 3: I'm like the worst. If you want to fall somebody
Speaker 3: me for car stuff. You're going to be disappointed because
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm likely going to talk about how much
Speaker 3: I love minivans or something I'm not going to show you,
Speaker 3: you know, like my co host on our podcast, Johnny's
Speaker 3: always showing you the latest Porsche he's driving. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I might do that at a car show if I'm
Speaker 3: there next to one. But I'm more apt to show
Speaker 3: you what my kid is doing with his toys or
Speaker 3: what I'm cooking that evening.
Speaker 2: Do you make bread?
Speaker 3: I that's a whole thing. I was on the bread
Speaker 3: train probably more before anybody, anybody in the social or
Speaker 3: automotive sphere. And I'll even call out again Johnny Lee Reman,
Speaker 3: my co host, like, oh, I make great bread. He
Speaker 3: does make pretty good bread. I will say I was
Speaker 3: way before. And I can tell you how because there
Speaker 3: was an article written in the New York Times about it.
Speaker 3: So I believe me, I'm not the only one. The
Speaker 3: entire other the world has known about Sullivan Street Bakery
Speaker 3: in New York. Jim Lahy's No Need Bread recipe. This
Speaker 3: article came out like two thousand and six, and it
Speaker 3: is the best recipe for the amateur. I want to
Speaker 3: get into making bread at home. It's literally three scoops
Speaker 3: of flour, a cup and a half or a little
Speaker 3: bit more water, a quarter teaspoon of yeast and like
Speaker 3: a little bit of salt. You mix it up. You
Speaker 3: leave it on the countertop for twenty four hours and
Speaker 3: it's this huge mass of bubbling bread dough. Bunch it down,
Speaker 3: fold it up, put it into a preheated oven with
Speaker 3: a crockpot or a cast iron pot, Dutch oven, whatever,
Speaker 3: and you'll have the most amazing boulet like this little ball,
Speaker 3: this big like soccer ball sized bread with huge holes
Speaker 3: in it, and it is awesome to eat. And that
Speaker 3: do is awesome for pizza.
Speaker 1: So are you the cook at home? You're the one, yes,
Speaker 1: cooking all the meals yetty much?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Pretty much?
Speaker 1: What's ed Low's specialty?
Speaker 3: The go to dish lately? The one I like right
Speaker 3: now is this sky Kenji Alt Lopez. He's done a
Speaker 3: series called Serious Eats. So serious eats dot com has
Speaker 3: really awesome recipes. And the one that I cook a lot,
Speaker 3: probably my wife is so sick of it is chicken
Speaker 3: chili verde. Chicken chili verte. So you need an insta pot,
Speaker 3: you dump the chicken thighs in it, you dump an onion,
Speaker 3: you dump two different kinds of chili however spicy you
Speaker 3: want big gold tablespoon of cumin and just water chicken broth.
Speaker 3: Put it off for forty five minutes and you have
Speaker 3: this awesome shredded chicken chicken chili Verdi trust me, huge fan.
Speaker 2: So it's cool that you have hobbies outside of the
Speaker 2: car world. Yeah, you garden, you make bread. You are really,
Speaker 2: what it sounds like, great at cooking, and you have
Speaker 2: these hobbies, sustainable hobbies outside of automotive. Do you feel
Speaker 2: like cars is all work for you? Do you still
Speaker 2: get some personal enjoyment out of it.
Speaker 3: No, I get a lot of enjoyment out of this
Speaker 3: thing I do. I tell people all the time, like
Speaker 3: I've never worked a day in my life, right, Like
Speaker 3: I get to do this thing around cars. I love cars.
Speaker 3: I think the big difference probably in the last few years,
Speaker 3: especially since having a kid, and just I'm a voracious
Speaker 3: consumer of social media. I'm all up in everybody's business
Speaker 3: on the Instagrams, and so I'm seeing what everybody else
Speaker 3: is doing, and I don't necessarily want to do that
Speaker 3: or to have the Motor Trend team do that either, right, So,
Speaker 3: and I'm probably giving away way too much, but I
Speaker 3: a lot of the a lot of the other a
Speaker 3: lot of our competitors or other people out there like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's all about, you know, save the manuals or all
Speaker 3: of these the death of the internal combustion engine, and
Speaker 3: oh this you know, And I get it. You guys
Speaker 3: want to celebrate, like be very passionate about that's awesome,
Speaker 3: But there's this whole other world that's coming. And it's
Speaker 3: not just EVS. I've been talking everybody at Motor Trend's
Speaker 3: ear off about SDV SO software defined vehicles and the
Speaker 3: future of automotive and how huge this shift is. And
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people just I don't want
Speaker 3: to hear it. I don't talk to EV's. I'm like,
Speaker 3: it's bigger than EV's.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little more about a soft an SDV.
Speaker 3: Yes, totally, So how long do you have as long
Speaker 3: as you need? It all started, it really did start
Speaker 3: with Tesla. Tesla created the first software defined vehicle, and
Speaker 3: that vehicle was the Model S. Came out fall of
Speaker 3: twenty twelve as a twenty thirteen model and a software
Speaker 3: defined vehicle has a number of key characteristics. It's probably
Speaker 3: an ev Okay, so it's going to change from internal
Speaker 3: combustion to having an electric power plant. Now it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to, which we get into. But it also had
Speaker 3: its entire electrical system, the entire electrical architecture, all the computers,
Speaker 3: the little every the black box, anything you want to
Speaker 3: talk about, the wiring. Everything designed from the ground up
Speaker 3: to talk to each other. Okay, it's very different how
Speaker 3: cars have been produced. Cars have evolved have iterated to
Speaker 3: where hey, you know, the engine, the powertrain, the transmission,
Speaker 3: this whole thing came together and these guys all talk
Speaker 3: to each other. But then over the lights over here,
Speaker 3: it's a separate system. The brakes are separate. The steering.
Speaker 3: We'll get into steering steer by wire, but that's on
Speaker 3: its own sort of hardware loop. Nothing talks to each other.
Speaker 3: Tezla designed from the ground up, the entire car, all
Speaker 3: the sensors, all the systems talked to We talked to
Speaker 3: each other, and then it allows you to do all
Speaker 3: this fun stuff that you've heard about. Right, So over
Speaker 3: the air updates OTA that's a big deal. That's a
Speaker 3: key definer of a software or five vehicle. So you know,
Speaker 3: when the model that's first came out, it had really
Speaker 3: cool features, had this app. You know, you could find
Speaker 3: a charger, you could go charge your car. They kept
Speaker 3: iterating on that. They added fun stuff you guys have seen,
Speaker 3: like the light shows the tuzzls can do. You know
Speaker 3: the Miata Model X, the doors will open.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the cyber truck's doing a show now when you
Speaker 2: pick it up.
Speaker 3: Exactly cyber trucks got a show. You know. Tesla famously
Speaker 3: pushed out fart mode, so the car will there's a
Speaker 3: difference in any anywhere you sit, you can make a
Speaker 3: different fart, noise, hilarious stuff right like no other car
Speaker 3: manufacturer has that capability. There are very smart people spending
Speaker 3: millions and millions billions of dollars trying to get to
Speaker 3: this level, and they're failing, like Ota, which is again
Speaker 3: this foundation of a software five vehicle. The ability to
Speaker 3: update your car like you update a phone still not
Speaker 3: in widespread use across the industry. That could be for
Speaker 3: a little while.
Speaker 2: When you're talking about over the air updates, you're also
Speaker 2: talking about the fact that you can do an over
Speaker 2: the air, updated performance package. It's not necessarily just upgrades
Speaker 2: in terms of software. But your point is that performance wise,
Speaker 2: they can add horsepower, they can take away, they can
Speaker 2: do performance exactly.
Speaker 3: And that's actually again, and I hate to this. This
Speaker 3: is going to sound a lot like I'm all on Tesla,
Speaker 3: And there's no mistaking that they started this thing. Everybody
Speaker 3: is watching them. We can talk about it. China is
Speaker 3: coming up in a big way in this space, and
Speaker 3: they're actually the existential threat for all of the legacy
Speaker 3: car manufacturers globally, including all the four GM all anybody
Speaker 3: in Europe. They're all sort of watching out what China
Speaker 3: is doing. But yeah, to your point, Ota, it's a analogy.
Speaker 3: It's been used a lot. Think of the car as
Speaker 3: a smartphone on wheels. When the iPhone came out two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, right, everybody lost their mind. They're like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, where's the keyboard? Like it's just a
Speaker 3: glass screen. This is either amazing or terrible. And it
Speaker 3: was a big sort of paradigm shift from a physical standpoint.
Speaker 3: But the actual biggest thing about the mobile phone, about
Speaker 3: what Apple did with the iPhone was the app store.
Speaker 3: iPhone comes out a few months later, app store comes out.
Speaker 3: A few months after that, they open it up, and
Speaker 3: then all these apps from third party developers come in.
Speaker 3: And the thing I tell everybody is there will be
Speaker 3: changes to the car that are coming that you can't
Speaker 3: even imagine, just as there was with the iPhone. You
Speaker 3: remember when you when you first got your you took
Speaker 3: your first Uber. I took my first Uber in like
Speaker 3: New York City. Think about how crazy it is. Blew
Speaker 3: up the taxi business, blew up all of the ride
Speaker 3: you know, it created a whole entire industry of ride sharing.
Speaker 3: That level of disruption is coming to cars. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm a little worked up. Can kind of motion. I'm
Speaker 3: a little worked up about it. This is where to
Speaker 3: bring it all the way back. I own. I own
Speaker 3: a couple of eighties era cars. I love that stuff
Speaker 3: I've got. I've shown I showed my Porsche lift gool like.
Speaker 3: I get it. But there's so much more going on
Speaker 3: in the future space if you can get your head
Speaker 3: around it and get out of your own way about
Speaker 3: what's coming for automotive, Because it's like the asteroid for
Speaker 3: the dinosaurs. It's gonna when this thing lands, when this
Speaker 3: when this ship cares you, well, it's it doesn't scare
Speaker 3: me because luckily for me. Like here's the other thing
Speaker 3: I tell people EV SDV and tchunk combustion, end of
Speaker 3: the day, we're motor trend. They're always going to be cars.
Speaker 3: I want to turn seventy five this year. We've been
Speaker 3: giving car the Year since year one. So car of
Speaker 3: the Year is our biggest, most famous word. Everybody knows it.
Speaker 3: We don't call it EV of the Year. We're not
Speaker 3: going to call it software to find vocal year and
Speaker 3: of the day. It's just a car. It's just a truck,
Speaker 3: no matter what power is it, no matter if it
Speaker 3: drives itself, still a car. So that's how that's that's
Speaker 3: how I see the world.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that's going to change? Like car
Speaker 1: communities and totally car culture totally Like how how does
Speaker 1: Amelia do a YouTube video about modifying a fully EVA
Speaker 1: software updated car.
Speaker 3: It's a great question, and I think the people who
Speaker 3: are thoughtful about EV's and what's coming and still hate
Speaker 3: on them, they go right to that point, which is, well,
Speaker 3: I don't want a car to drive me number one,
Speaker 3: So I don't want autonomous, which I get and then
Speaker 3: there's this whole other issue of right to repair. You know,
Speaker 3: you go back to why are manufacturers so interested in
Speaker 3: going to EV's right. What's the reason. It's not that
Speaker 3: they can charge a lot more money for them, because
Speaker 3: actually that's a huge problem for the manufacturers. The issue is,
Speaker 3: end of the day, when you scale these companies and
Speaker 3: you and you're trying to sell cars across not just
Speaker 3: a country, but continents, different markets. It's way cheaper to
Speaker 3: run an EV. Evs a battery, it's a motor, some wiring,
Speaker 3: some software code. You know what you don't need. You
Speaker 3: don't need an emissions testing lab. You don't need to
Speaker 3: federalize a power plant for California separate from the rest
Speaker 3: of the country or for Europe. You can just sell
Speaker 3: one electric motor and a battery combination around the world.
Speaker 3: It doesn't emit anything. There are like ten times fewer
Speaker 3: parts in an EV than there are in an internal
Speaker 3: combustion equivalent.
Speaker 2: Just to interject real quick and doing me wrong, and like,
Speaker 2: I'm pro EV, I have no problem again some I'm
Speaker 2: excited for the future of them. But I asked this
Speaker 2: question because I don't know. I have heard though that
Speaker 2: it is worse in the environment to make the batteries
Speaker 2: and then dispose of them. Is that true?
Speaker 3: So that's a very complicated question. This will be a
Speaker 3: topic to be debated in the comment section wherever this appears,
Speaker 3: all science on all platforms the sciences. It depends a
Speaker 3: who you ask and how big you want to take
Speaker 3: this question. First of all, there are there's a lot
Speaker 3: of incentives going on to develop all the industries that
Speaker 3: surround electrification. Okay, so for instance, you've mentioned battery recycling.
Speaker 3: What happens at the end of the life in the batteries.
Speaker 3: There are a ton of uses. So when the battery,
Speaker 3: let's say, falls out of spec and it's ah, you know,
Speaker 3: it's only got like eighty percent of life, let that
Speaker 3: battery has a lot of other uses. That battery could
Speaker 3: be used industrially. You can put it into a house
Speaker 3: or business. It can be a storage battery. There are
Speaker 3: minerals and materials in the battery themselves that can be recycled.
Speaker 3: So one of the longtime executives at Tesla, this guy JB. Straubel,
Speaker 3: he left Tesla. He was their CTO for many many years,
Speaker 3: and he started a new company called Redwood materials, and
Speaker 3: they are looking into recycling these batteries at scale. How
Speaker 3: do we buy them all back? A lot of the
Speaker 3: major carcum Toyota tries to buy all their PREUS batteries
Speaker 3: back because you can fundamentally reuse these items. Now, there
Speaker 3: are lots of people on both sides who will do
Speaker 3: the calculations and show you that if you do it
Speaker 3: this way, it's cleaner, and it's cleaner by this much,
Speaker 3: or the other guy says no, but you know you're
Speaker 3: not factory, that you got to ship this material from here,
Speaker 3: or this one's got to go from herere My take
Speaker 3: on it is overall, I love internal combustion. We have
Speaker 3: been living in the golden age of horsepower. We have
Speaker 3: never had cars that are internal combustion, cars that are
Speaker 3: more powerful, more efficient, cleaner. We want that same level
Speaker 3: of investment and evolution to take place with the entire
Speaker 3: process behind even hydrogen vehicles, but electric vehicles. I'd rather
Speaker 3: be on the cutting edge of this. I'm happy that
Speaker 3: we're doing it. It is a solution. Maybe it's not
Speaker 3: the best solution, but at least we're working towards the
Speaker 3: greater solution versus like I just want to do the
Speaker 3: same thing we've been doing for the last you know,
Speaker 3: seventy five years, and that's cool, not really, you know.
Speaker 1: I thought ev cars were going to be the end
Speaker 1: of car culture or enthusiasts. And I got the opportunity
Speaker 1: to drive the day Ionic five n and then I
Speaker 1: got to write in their rift version of it too.
Speaker 1: At first, I never thought these words would come out
Speaker 1: of my mouth that well, this was the coolest car
Speaker 1: that I've ever driven in and you forget that you're
Speaker 1: in an electric car. And it converted me like right away,
Speaker 1: and it was like I couldn't believe like a Hyundai
Speaker 1: actually did it. So I was like, well, you can
Speaker 1: modify this car, like you could be an enthusiast and
Speaker 1: customize it.
Speaker 3: And I would say, I would say customize, not modify,
Speaker 3: and because break sure, sure, I don't know that they're
Speaker 3: gonna I don't know if they're selling that well.
Speaker 2: Code for software updates. But I think to your point,
Speaker 2: some car culture is car culture. I don't just because
Speaker 2: the power plant changes. I don't think that's gonna you know,
Speaker 2: I'd like to believe it doesn't change anyone's love for
Speaker 2: cars and having them be more than just a to B.
Speaker 2: You can personalize them and have a community around that.
Speaker 3: So let me just because I don't want to be
Speaker 3: unfairly painted like this. Oh it is just like this
Speaker 3: EV guy's always going to talk about EV Like, I
Speaker 3: totally get it. The existential threat for the community of
Speaker 3: car enthusiasts as it currently stands is that evs present
Speaker 3: a level of potential sort of commodification, right, Like, what
Speaker 3: do we know now about EV's About Tesla's like the
Speaker 3: fastest cars out there? It used to be a Tesla
Speaker 3: mode less plaid right now it's this thing called the
Speaker 3: lucid Air. Lucid Air Sapphire is the quickest and the
Speaker 3: most efficient vehicle. The rimats is I think it is
Speaker 3: the quickest and possibly has the topsy record. Anyways, when
Speaker 3: you talk to people about well, yeah, but you know
Speaker 3: they're quiet, they're fast. You drive around La, everyone's in
Speaker 3: a Model Y. They all look the same, They're all
Speaker 3: painted white or black or silver. Like that is the
Speaker 3: fear when all EV's are quiet and all EV's are fast, Like,
Speaker 3: who's going to care about trying to go faster? Right that?
Speaker 3: And I get that, I totally understand, right, And this
Speaker 3: is where the manufacturers are really be tested, because then
Speaker 3: it comes down to how much is your brand actually worth?
Speaker 3: How much is that story when Ferrari they said they weren't.
Speaker 3: They're probably going to have to when they make a
Speaker 3: full EV. How are they going to set themselves apart? Right?
Speaker 3: Is it just going to be the styling, because that's
Speaker 3: that's something that far has always had, like great style,
Speaker 3: very sexy. Right, But if there's a car there there's
Speaker 3: a tuzzle that's quicker or almost as fast and it's
Speaker 3: a quarter of the price, how much do you really care?
Speaker 3: I think that's where people are like, this is why
Speaker 3: I don't want these EV's coming.
Speaker 2: As far as we know, in fifteen years, cars are flying,
Speaker 2: so it's supposed to happen. You're drifting. It's going to
Speaker 2: be the new thing.
Speaker 3: It's not going to happen in the US first, but
Speaker 3: it's definitely going to come in China. We talked. We
Speaker 3: just talked to a guy who said, yeah, end of
Speaker 3: this year. Xpang. Is this one of these Chinese companies
Speaker 3: that as they launched it at CS they showed this
Speaker 3: flying car.
Speaker 2: I saw it at CS.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the one that had to fold out. It looks
Speaker 3: like it. It basically looks like a DGI Mavig. There's
Speaker 3: that one. The other one, which was more mind blowing
Speaker 3: to me because it looks six was a six wheel version
Speaker 3: of it. Okay, it had the it looks like a
Speaker 3: cool van, but the entire back section pops out and
Speaker 3: it's a little personal helicopter for two. Yeah, and I
Speaker 3: didn't see that. And that one is apparently going to
Speaker 3: be flying somewhere, probably in China by the end of
Speaker 3: this year. They're already starting to take orders the car.
Speaker 3: The six wheel car is a hybrid, the helicopter is electric,
Speaker 3: and the car chassis acts as the charging station. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's literally like what you can do with the drone.
Speaker 3: So you pull up someplace, the back door open, the
Speaker 3: things lads out.
Speaker 2: You need a rotary license to fly that, which is expensive,
Speaker 2: and it's gonna.
Speaker 3: You just need to be rich. Yeah, you just go,
Speaker 3: just go do anything. The question is when is anything
Speaker 3: that's gonna happen in the US. And that's where I've
Speaker 3: been challenging everybody to talk to. I'm like, come on,
Speaker 3: there are like twenty million things that have to happen
Speaker 3: before any of us are going to be able to
Speaker 3: like what are we gonna do, Like we're gonna like
Speaker 3: just up stopped in traffic on the one on one
Speaker 3: and then take off Like no, like you can't, you
Speaker 3: just can't do that.
Speaker 1: So I at first ten people can do that. After
Speaker 1: that it's like nope.
Speaker 3: Yes, So I mean look from a brand motor Tain
Speaker 3: has been covering flying cars literally for seventy five years,
Speaker 3: every like two years, car a flying car on the
Speaker 3: car sign. When does that happening? And it's like I've
Speaker 3: always said it's going to happen after the mid engine Corvette,
Speaker 3: and you know, so here we are, so it's gonna
Speaker 3: happen pretty soon.
Speaker 1: You have such a forward thinking, like perspective on life.
Speaker 1: Even I was reading this like article on you and
Speaker 1: the interview gave like you're one of the few people
Speaker 1: in my generation that is like pro social media. Where
Speaker 1: does that perspective come from? Like how why are you
Speaker 1: so forward thinking opposed to other old parts that are
Speaker 1: just like stuck in their ways.
Speaker 3: It's very kind. I hope that it's still true. I
Speaker 3: have been with more Trend for a long time. So
Speaker 3: I started at the company. I started the industry in
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, thousand and one at the little
Speaker 3: tiny these these import magazines in Orange County. But I
Speaker 3: joined the company that's now motor Trend in two thousand
Speaker 3: and six, and officially at Motorshow in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: And I was there, I saw we used to be
Speaker 3: on Wilshire Boulevard and it was a Peterson Publishing building
Speaker 3: and we shared offices with the guys at Superstreet. So
Speaker 3: this is a great story because you guys, you guys
Speaker 3: are enormous on Instagram. The editor in chief of super
Speaker 3: Shit at the time, Johnny Wong, is a good good
Speaker 3: friend of mine. He said, yo, yo, yo, you got
Speaker 3: to check out this thing called Instagram. And I was
Speaker 3: using Hipstomatic, this camera app. I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: filters and cool. I like to take pictures. It's like,
Speaker 3: show me Instagram. I was all right, cool, and I
Speaker 3: was like I couldn't figure it out. I'm like, what
Speaker 3: is I don't know? Like, so you take a picture
Speaker 3: you posted like who cares?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: I was just in the camera and the photography and
Speaker 3: the filter aspect. I did not understand the network, the
Speaker 3: social networks out of it. So I slept on it.
Speaker 3: I was like, cool, not for me. I came back
Speaker 3: to it six months later because I heard something about like,
Speaker 3: oh dude, supershates a taken off. So then I put
Speaker 3: motor Trend. I finally set up motor Trend on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and two years later Superstreet hit like a million followers
Speaker 3: and then two million, and Motor tred had like one
Speaker 3: hundred and like eighty thousand. And that was the difference
Speaker 3: in me sleeping on it and waiting six months. Wow,
Speaker 3: So what it ed learned? It's like, Okay, any new
Speaker 3: social media platform that comes up, I'm all over it.
Speaker 2: So do you, as an individual think about the legacy
Speaker 2: you want to leave behind? Because you have this incredible
Speaker 2: I'd say motor Trend is a platform itself. But do
Speaker 2: you as a person you're very forward thinking, You're working
Speaker 2: with a brand that is very forward thinking. Do you
Speaker 2: have a legacy of stuff you want to leave behind
Speaker 2: for the next generation? Are you thinking about that?
Speaker 1: Not really to be a starter y? Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, I mean it's very flattering for you for you
Speaker 3: to say that. I mean, I I do think of
Speaker 3: myself as more of a steward of this seventy five
Speaker 3: year old brand. I was editor. I was named editor
Speaker 3: in chief in twenty eleven, we don't have that title anymore,
Speaker 3: but I've been with the brand in a leadership position
Speaker 3: basically since then, so it does really feel like a
Speaker 3: part of me. And again turning seventy five this year
Speaker 3: and then thinking about, like, man, I've been with this
Speaker 3: brand for like fifteen years, and it sounds hokey, but
Speaker 3: like I wanted to be successful for the next seventy
Speaker 3: five years, we've already we've gotten this point. It'd be
Speaker 3: great to if somebody if my you know, my three
Speaker 3: year old son is you know, eighty, and he's like,
Speaker 3: what ver you used to work on that thing? You know,
Speaker 3: back when he was still alive and I was heads
Speaker 3: in a jar and I could ask him about what.
Speaker 2: It's like because oh god, yeah, and they've still.
Speaker 3: We uploaded his consciousness to to to sky in it
Speaker 3: and we can ask him what it was like to
Speaker 3: drive cars and when you put gas in them.
Speaker 1: And you draw them yourself, Like how weird is that?
Speaker 1: And you almost went into snowboarding right like you're you
Speaker 1: you went deep? Yeah, hey, I gotta do my research,
Speaker 1: my guests.
Speaker 3: I did. I I was pretty into snowboarding in college.
Speaker 2: Do you still snowboard.
Speaker 3: I got some shoulder stuff, so I not as much lately.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out this year whether we get
Speaker 3: the kid on the We're gonna get him on the snow,
Speaker 3: but I were gonna put him on ski. I learned
Speaker 3: skiing first and then I transitioned. Snowboarding came up when
Speaker 3: I was in high school, so I did that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I done this program called Teach for America. That's my
Speaker 3: first job out of school, high school in Pasadena. And
Speaker 3: coming out of that job, I applied for a program
Speaker 3: at Burton. They were doing a program called Chill, and
Speaker 3: I was teaching inner city youth how to snowboard.
Speaker 2: That's cools chill, yeah.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and Teach for America has that had a similar mission.
Speaker 3: It was all about, you know, going to underserved schools
Speaker 3: and teaching so like you'd be perfect. This is year
Speaker 3: one of the program. I remember I was talking to
Speaker 3: my dad about it, and I remember he seems I
Speaker 3: was like, should I go do this job with this
Speaker 3: publishing company or should you go be like the snowboard
Speaker 3: shot And he's like, you went to college to be
Speaker 3: a snowboarding structor. So I was like so and ultimately
Speaker 3: ended up being the right decision, although that that chill
Speaker 3: program went on for years.
Speaker 1: That statement from your dad actually made me laugh because
Speaker 1: I read that he said they're both bad. I clear options,
Speaker 1: but this one as a publisher is better than snowboarning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's funny. I mean, my dad means
Speaker 3: while he still I don't think he understands what I
Speaker 3: have done. Uh, he didn't for a long time. He's like,
Speaker 3: my kid's like a photographer or cars or something.
Speaker 1: I read your dad had an eighty one R seven,
Speaker 1: the eighty one that would be the FB. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was ay man. I remember seeing that car as
Speaker 1: a kid. My neighbor had one. He would take me
Speaker 1: for rides. I was like, yeah, you had to be
Speaker 1: a super cool dude and a real like out of
Speaker 1: the box thinker to have that type of car in Georgia.
Speaker 1: I mean, and your dad had dadda.
Speaker 3: You called him a super cool dude.
Speaker 1: But your mother, your mother even cooler because I read
Speaker 1: that she had a Mini Vana Toyota party.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, right, the father of this figure out. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so well, my dad's a My dad was a cardiologist
Speaker 3: and he was the first cardiologist in our town, little town, Camerillo.
Speaker 3: My parents moved there in the seventies. Actually I was
Speaker 3: born in Saint Louis. So my dad wooed my mom
Speaker 3: and said, come to America, right, and he brought her
Speaker 3: over there. I mean, they've been in Hong Kong, but
Speaker 3: they moved her over here. And Hessa and she's like
Speaker 3: this same, this is way too cold. We get out here,
Speaker 3: so I want palm trees. Moved to California. Yeah, my
Speaker 3: dad's successful. He bought this RX seven and this is
Speaker 3: a great story because he bought it and everybody's first
Speaker 3: ARC seven in town. I was like, that's awesome. And
Speaker 3: I remember this is back in the day when I
Speaker 3: got a brother, older brother, younger sister. Is a two
Speaker 3: C car and like, I'm sitting on the package shelf
Speaker 3: in the back and my sister's in the foot well,
Speaker 3: my brother's in the stuff in the seat. We're driving around.
Speaker 3: And he said, though inside of a year, that car
Speaker 3: developed a crack in the dash. And he's like, man
Speaker 3: like Japanese cars man, still not there yet. So he
Speaker 3: sold it. And he told me he sold it freshing
Speaker 3: more than he bought it. The fast forward though, and
Speaker 3: this this park kills me because I think it was
Speaker 3: someone around his midlife crisis era. He was like, I
Speaker 3: need to buy a cool, cool sports car. We were
Speaker 3: a Honda and a Toya family, and so we had
Speaker 3: good connections to the handa guy the Handa de ships. Heymen,
Speaker 3: and this new car coming in it's called it Acura
Speaker 3: and Essex and checked this thing out, you know ninety one.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, my.
Speaker 3: Dad goes there and he looks at it. He's like, wow,
Speaker 3: this seems really cool. I mean I think we had
Speaker 3: gone in testro of like the prelude too. I was like,
Speaker 3: this thing is awesome. There's one with the digital digital
Speaker 3: cluster right, and he sat that he looked at He's like,
Speaker 3: this thing reminds me of that R seven I had,
Speaker 3: Like you know what, that thing got a crack in
Speaker 3: the dash instead of year, I think they got figured out.
Speaker 3: He went instead and bought eighty seven nine to eleven,
Speaker 3: like a nine thirty turbow. Second owner Litt Miles, I
Speaker 3: was so mashed. I was like, get out of this.
Speaker 3: You know. They got this German car with the bround
Speaker 3: headlights looks like a BW like like nine thirties. Back
Speaker 3: in THO was like mid nineties. There weren't that cool.
Speaker 3: It was like yeah, everybody, I mean it was cool,
Speaker 3: but they weren't like there looked cool. Yeah right now right.
Speaker 3: And I still think about that because actually it probably
Speaker 3: saved me because I would have like snucked that car
Speaker 3: out or convinced my dad I should have it, and
Speaker 3: I would like slammed it and wrapped around a tree
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was on your show and I
Speaker 1: brought up the the CNN I'd love for this year,
Speaker 1: Johnny had such a like reaction to it. Huh, simple
Speaker 1: man child that Johnny. He did not like that answer
Speaker 1: that I love the CNA, which but the rest of
Speaker 1: the minivan owners in the world used that clip.
Speaker 3: Actually did I tell you?
Speaker 1: I didn't tell you this. I didn't get the overage.
Speaker 1: So I was I was at this thing events and
Speaker 1: then this little Asian woman walks up to me and
Speaker 1: she's like, hey, I just want to say thank you
Speaker 1: on behalf of Toyota, and I was like what. She goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I work in the Sienna department. And so there's this
Speaker 1: clip of you on The Inevitable Show, like going around
Speaker 1: Toyota for like bragging, right because you know we get
Speaker 1: no love. We're in at the cool department and it's
Speaker 1: like Han loves the Sienna. It's like we just want
Speaker 1: to say thank you. I was like, you're welcome.
Speaker 3: People think it's a joke, but you got to respect
Speaker 3: the mission of the minivan, which is to deliver, Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: maximum value, maximum cargo and passengers carrier capacity. And I'm
Speaker 3: talking of efficiency. You know, all of this in a
Speaker 3: package that is reasonably fun to drive, safe, has all
Speaker 3: the bells and whistles, passes the NITSA and safety test
Speaker 3: when you have that. And I do love a Sienna
Speaker 3: because it's got like the most amazing fuel economy. That's
Speaker 3: a big problem a lot of these things. You put
Speaker 3: all that package together and your your your mileage goes
Speaker 3: to hell. This thing does really really well. There is
Speaker 3: six miles a gown all day long. Couple holds exactly
Speaker 3: so you know, I can't wait and then I'll just
Speaker 3: bring it all the way home. One of these guys
Speaker 3: they got they gotta make the ev I'm just waiting
Speaker 3: for the Evy minivan, Like that's it. It's got to
Speaker 3: be full electric, like where is it?
Speaker 1: Oh for sure doors.
Speaker 3: Can we just talk about how much time in your
Speaker 3: life you have saved with dual sliding doors?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and it's like motion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you hit the butt, your hands a full, you
Speaker 3: come up to it. It opens. If you're listening at
Speaker 3: home and you are in a position where you can
Speaker 3: get your phone out, go to Instagram. Just hit up
Speaker 3: the account van culture with a K, y z A
Speaker 3: N k U L t U r E Van Culture.
Speaker 3: It's like sickest rides, thickest big wheel, air bags, air bags, dumped, tucking.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. So I dan culture, Baby.
Speaker 3: I'm all about it with a K and I'm I
Speaker 3: just I've got to play this whole simmy for Johnny.
Speaker 3: He'll be vomiting on the floor.
Speaker 1: I never thought I would fall in love with the minivan. Really,
Speaker 1: I like my whole life. I'm like, I would see
Speaker 1: people driving a minivan or guys driving the man and
Speaker 1: I go castration, like what's up with you, dude? And
Speaker 1: then I was hanging out with a high school baseball
Speaker 1: coach who drove an early model Sienna and this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, was a super well respected man. I knew
Speaker 1: that he had money too, write, but he's just so understated.
Speaker 1: And he drove a Sienna and had an early Tacoma right,
Speaker 1: and I asked him. I was like, hey, coach, what's
Speaker 1: up with this minivan? It's like and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I can carry the team. It's like it's understated. It's
Speaker 1: like reseal it. I could sell it for probably fifteen
Speaker 1: grand now, right, They last forever. It's like, Wow, as
Speaker 1: I get older, you know, it's like I'd start looking
Speaker 1: at those attributes, like is something that I really respect.
Speaker 1: So when I had my nephew live with me, it
Speaker 1: was the excuse to get a minivan. And then I
Speaker 1: got the dog and I was like, hey, I got
Speaker 1: a family man, I need to get a mini van.
Speaker 1: And this is really hard to get.
Speaker 3: If you're listening. A Meal is not buying any of it.
Speaker 2: No, I know, I trust me. I know he is
Speaker 2: so so.
Speaker 1: He's trying to get to get.
Speaker 2: I get the appeal to them of mattress in the back.
Speaker 2: It's like a home on wheels. You know, you have.
Speaker 1: Explain this.
Speaker 3: All you got to say is if you come arrive
Speaker 3: at a point in your life when you need to
Speaker 3: carry that many people and park in a reasonably sized
Speaker 3: parking spot or he doesn't. I know, I know, but
Speaker 3: it's a pure love for the mini van. It's they're comfortable. Again.
Speaker 3: I can't speak enough about the dual sliding doors. Like
Speaker 3: I just love that song. Yeah, like I would buy
Speaker 3: if you started out.
Speaker 1: I just don't think. I don't think you're looking for
Speaker 1: like true like happiness in your life currently you like
Speaker 1: to be uncomfortable, right.
Speaker 2: Why are the smiles per gallon? Again?
Speaker 1: But Santa has eighteen cup holders though Porsche ninet eleven
Speaker 1: is like two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're starting on, you know you're you're actually
Speaker 3: onto something, which is thank you vehicles like minivans, any
Speaker 3: of the American vehicles. What I love about this country
Speaker 3: is that we are so demanding and of the things
Speaker 3: we want, and a lot of the rest of the
Speaker 3: world goes. Man, you guys are what like that's crazy.
Speaker 3: For the longest time, German car manufacturers like, we're not
Speaker 3: going to put a cup We're not put a cup
Speaker 3: holder in a Porsche. If you're gonna drive this car,
Speaker 3: you're gonna drive it. Don't be a big drinking stuff.
Speaker 3: That's why even when they did, they were terrible. These
Speaker 3: couples like pop out of the dash and they can't
Speaker 3: hold anything. They made it so I can hold a
Speaker 3: red Bull because they like to drink red Bull in
Speaker 3: Europe in the skinny can, but everything else will like
Speaker 3: fall out.
Speaker 2: The Lamborghini has an eight thousand dollars cup holder upgrade, right.
Speaker 3: Right, that's like that's the total fust, right Like America,
Speaker 3: We're like I need big gulp, Yeah, we want. I
Speaker 3: want to put this giant thing in here. I want
Speaker 3: to put my purse on this big bag underneath it
Speaker 3: like we do. We'll put like eighteen USB ports everywhere
Speaker 3: like customers always.
Speaker 1: Right, that's America. I have two questions for you, okay. One,
Speaker 1: you're a teacher for two years science teacher, high school, right,
Speaker 1: public school? What did you learn from your time as
Speaker 1: a teacher that has helped you throughout life or in
Speaker 1: your other careers. I don't think teachers get enough credit,
Speaker 1: first of all, in America, especially public school teachers. You know,
Speaker 1: they are the foundation of America, this country. I mean,
Speaker 1: what was the takeaway for you? So good question.
Speaker 3: So just to some context, I did it pro I
Speaker 3: went to USC So I went to school locally here
Speaker 3: in La and I was a science major. And in school,
Speaker 3: one of my jobs was I was an SAT tutor,
Speaker 3: so I was pretty good at teaching kids. So I
Speaker 3: ended up teaching Capacady Nosad High Passador in a high
Speaker 3: school home with the Bulldogs Red and White Grade school.
Speaker 3: I was a volleyball coach. I was the Asian American Club.
Speaker 3: We started in Asian American Club. I did help through
Speaker 3: the yearbook. I was taking pictures and the takeaway was
Speaker 3: it was the hardest job I've ever had. Again, California
Speaker 3: public schools I think are better. Back of the day,
Speaker 3: it's pretty rough. The start of the year at fifty
Speaker 3: five students in a class fifty five maybe seats for
Speaker 3: forty five to fifty, so kids were sharing seats. The
Speaker 3: textbook we were teaching from was as old as the kids,
Speaker 3: so the kids were born eighty one, the textbook was
Speaker 3: publishing eighty one. They were showing pictures of a computers,
Speaker 3: like room sized computers. One day you have a computer
Speaker 3: that you can use, And I was like, these kids like,
Speaker 3: what is this right? And so under resourced and you
Speaker 3: you know, in this high school. So it was fifty
Speaker 3: five kids every fifty five minutes, they'd switch over and
Speaker 3: I'm twenty two years old and I was teaching. Three
Speaker 3: of my classes were juniors and seniors. So I'm teaching
Speaker 3: kids who are four years younger than me and I
Speaker 3: look like them, and I was getting stuck, like high school.
Speaker 3: The security They're like, where's your past. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: I got I put a tie on. I took my
Speaker 3: shirt in like I'm just going to get a bite.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: The teacher's cafeteria. So hardest job I've ever had. Everything
Speaker 3: else after that was a piece of cake. So I
Speaker 3: think I learned work ethic. I learned how to speak
Speaker 3: in front of a lot of people and wing it
Speaker 3: like a lot. So that's where I get the gift
Speaker 3: of gab. And a couple guys are in the industry.
Speaker 3: They're they're like, oh, man, mister Lowe, you were at
Speaker 3: remember I was a PHS. I'm like, yeah, it's like, dude.
Speaker 3: One dude works at like Toyota Connected. He works for
Speaker 3: their new their software to fine vehicle division. He was
Speaker 3: like as a student in my in one of the clubs,
Speaker 3: was an advisorund.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so this question, it's a deeper question. I
Speaker 1: read that you know your your mother passed away when
Speaker 1: you were young, pretty young, right after.
Speaker 3: Senior year of college, so it's twenty two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you deal with that?
Speaker 3: The weirdest thing I did was immediately afterwards, I immediately
Speaker 3: got interested in I had some stamps lying around and
Speaker 3: I just organized them all in a in a stamp album.
Speaker 3: I spent like two weeks just I sit down and
Speaker 3: just organize these stamps and they're from all over Hong
Speaker 3: Kong and stuff. And I still have that stampout. But
Speaker 3: I don't know why I did it. But that's that
Speaker 3: was sort of the most direct thing I can tell you.
Speaker 3: The rest of it. I mean, I thought a lot
Speaker 3: about it over time. I thought, first of all, death
Speaker 3: is obviously it's a it's a fact of life. It's
Speaker 3: going to happen. I have some friends that have either
Speaker 3: just gone through that with a parent or about to,
Speaker 3: and the only thing I can tell them that I've
Speaker 3: told them to in council is don't rush any part
Speaker 3: of the of the process, especially after it happens. So,
Speaker 3: you know, for me, I think we all kind of
Speaker 3: went back to what we were doing. And we were
Speaker 3: so young at the time, you know, we were my
Speaker 3: sister was in college, I was just graduating. My brother
Speaker 3: was like two years out. And I mean I remember
Speaker 3: for me, it happened about two months before I graduated
Speaker 3: from college. So I told all my professors on the hey, uh,
Speaker 3: there's a sudden illness my mom. I was really sick,
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna have to be bail from classes. And
Speaker 3: then she passed. And then a couple of weekscater I
Speaker 3: went back and I took my finals, and I remember
Speaker 3: one of the counselors was like, you know, you don't
Speaker 3: have to do this. You can come back in a year,
Speaker 3: you can come back in two years, take as much
Speaker 3: time as you know. I'm like, it's cool. I just
Speaker 3: took it. And then I went and started this teacher
Speaker 3: training program, and then I was teaching high school like
Speaker 3: four months later. And I look back at that time
Speaker 3: and I'm like, man, like, didn't have to rush. Any
Speaker 3: of that could have take gap years or a thing
Speaker 3: could have taken a year off. Everybody would have been
Speaker 3: okay with it. You tell any program like yo, man,
Speaker 3: parent died, I would like to take some time, they'd
Speaker 3: be like, cool, man, just let us know like that,
Speaker 3: these mechanisms are in place everywhere. So that's what I
Speaker 3: tell people, I'm like, if this is happening, is these
Speaker 3: are major life events. Don't don't diminish it, just accept it,
Speaker 3: deal with it, and when you're ready, move on, do
Speaker 3: your things.
Speaker 1: Great advice, Thanks Ed. I appreciate we're driving all the
Speaker 1: way from That's right, no traffic for you, guys.
Speaker 2: He'll take the four or five to the one on
Speaker 2: one for us any day, exactly