Looking Out - The Podcast: Ep. 8

Take a peak at the design secrets behind the new Tesla Model 3, also known as Highland, and how they give Tesla an incredible pricing advantage against legacy OEMs.

Joe and Drew also discuss a small French company called Lormauto, which is reinventing the origianl Renault Twingo as a EV designed for life.

And they take a looks at the interiors of the new Mercedes EQS SUV and E-Class, and the new Mini, to see what they say about the future of German car makers.

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Click ‘Read more’ for the transcript

Transcript:

Note: This transcript is machine-generated and may contain some errors.

Joe Simpson: 0:00 So it’s not just what colour, you know, 64 colours of light you want to choose, but four zones of colour. And then, when we put the music on, it’ll pulsate. That lighting will pulsate to the beat of the music. And then we can add this 4D experience, as they call it. Where the seat will then, you know, pulsate to the music as well. So you’ve got this kind of Mercedes, which is like, and I’m like, does your average E class buyer really want

Drew Smith: 0:25 give a shit. Yeah,

Joe Simpson: 0:26 Yeah.

Drew Smith: 0:28 Exactly.

Joe Simpson: 0:29 So fascinating to see how that all plays out. 0:34 Yeah.

Drew Smith: 0:38 Hello, I’m Drew Smith.

Joe Simpson: 0:39 And I’m Joe Simpson.

Drew Smith: 0:40 And welcome to looking out the podcast auditory sidekick to the newsletter in which we connect the dots between the automotive industry mobility design and culture. And yes, that’s right. For those of you who are watching on YouTube, this is the first time that we are coming to you in glorious 1080p. For those of you who are listening in on your favourite podcast app, you can now head to YouTube and search for Looking Out Podcast and see what us two munters look like in real life. That’s fair, isn’t it, Joe?

Joe Simpson: 1:18 I think it is.

Drew Smith: 1:20 So, coming up in this show, we are going to be talking about the new Tesla Model 3, which is a bundle of surprises, and we’re also going to be talking about a really interesting little French company called Lormauto, and what it tells us about the future of circularity in the automotive industry. So, Joe, do you want to kick us off with the new Tesla Model 3?

Joe Simpson: 1:50 Yes, Drew. Thanks. So… In the last episode of Looking Out, the podcast, we talked about the Munich Auto Show, the IAA, or the Ee Ah Ah to be correct. And one of the standout launches there was of the new, um, so called Highland Tesla Model 3. Now, interesting for a few reasons, and, you know. I’m sure there are listeners and viewers saying this isn’t interesting at all, it looks no different. But it was interesting for one that Tesla chose to be at a major international auto show, a place where it doesn’t usually show up. And I think the new Model 3 is very interesting in the context of how the industry and how car design is evolving. Um, Drew, before I continue with my thoughts, do you have anything that you want to kind of chip in at this point?

Drew Smith: 2:49 Oh, look, I think probably the thing that stuck out most for me with the new Model 3 was the fact that Tesla has managed to make the interior look even more spare than it was before. And… You know, there’s, there’s a real trick to doing simplicity well, and, um, you know, if we think of, okay, I mean, it’s a cliched example, but Apple, right, and Apple products, and when you strip and strip and strip away extraneous detail, there’s very little room left to hide when it comes to your manufacturing processes and material qualities and what have you. Whenever you rode in or whenever I rode in a in a previous Model 3 was so evident that they didn’t quite have the perceived quality to match the simplicity that they were going for in the interior. Now with this new car they’ve simplified it even further and you know from a cost of manufacture point of view that’s gonna be a good thing for Tesla, right because they’ll be able to extract more margin. What I’m super super super curious to see is how that translates into a living three dimensional product. Now I happen to know somebody who works, uh, in the craftsmanship team at Tesla and they are really, really proud of what they’ve managed to achieve with this car. But I also know that it’s been a battle for a brand like Tesla to get the right balance between ornamentation and bright work and tinsel and the cost of production that they’re, that they’re aiming for. So that’s probably the, the, the biggest sort of question that’s running through my mind with, with Highland.

Joe Simpson: 5:09 Maybe I can fill in a little bit in terms of your kind of curiosity, having seen, touched, and sat in it. Um, I, or one of my colleagues actually, and I think it was a really neat phrase, described this as car design as maths puzzle. And I find this interesting because I think it’s sort of an illustration of how… Elon thinks, or I think it’s an illustration of how Elon thinks, in that to me what the new Model 3 represents is a car that I think is cheaper to produce than before. A car that through a facelift improves its efficiency quite a lot which gives Tesla the Going slightly further on the same battery pack as before, or meaning that they can probably take a few batteries out. Battery packs don’t really work like that, but in theory they can take a few batteries out to achieve the same range, which saves them cost. And then, in terms of what you articulated about probably the… traditional way in which particularly an automotive interior is set up and how it feels. They have managed to redesign things and take, um, stuff out in terms of a manufacturing process. So the IP is now basically, uh, sorry, the IP being the dashboard to people not in the industry, is now kind of like an overwrapped top section. So you’ve just got one single crash pad, um, into which is kind of cut a section into which they drop what becomes the decorative element and the air outlet. And it’s kind of representative of a way of thinking which, um, simplifies, it reduces a number of parts. But actually, and I think to your friend, I think I know who we’re talking about, um, this point, it actually gives you a perception of quality which increases. Um, the kind of, compared to before, there’s no longer the sort of obviously fake veneer of wood that came in that step, um, on the previous model. And instead we have this quite nice sort of fabric element. And quite an interestingly kind of profiled section that drops into the top of the IP. But what’s also interesting is there’s other things have gone. So they remove the indicator stalks, for instance, and place those onto the steering wheel control. And this is another cost save, reducing kind of parts. But then what they do is they kind of give back to the user. So what I think this cost saving has allowed is then A move to, they put this, um, I think it’s a nine inch rear screen in the back. Now in, in other brands, um, that, if there’s a screen there, it’s usually just to control the climate. You can’t do anything else. In the Model 3, guess what? You can play YouTube. You can play the games.

Drew Smith: 8:29 it was only two weeks ago we were talking about a BMW, a 98, 000 euro BMW 5 Series that doesn’t even have like air conditioning controls

Joe Simpson: 8:39 Yeah, that you have to pay extra.

Drew Smith: 8:41 Right,

Joe Simpson: 8:42 extra for the air conditioning controls and that’s all you can do, you know, on a car that’s, you know, twice the price as a Model 3.

Drew Smith: 8:49 yeah,

Joe Simpson: 8:50 And I think this is what’s interesting. I guess my point is that I think it’s interesting for two reasons. One is that, um, we, I think we’re reaching this point where the automotive world is diverging between those who stick to the kind of old Um, if you like tropes of what conveys premium and those like Tesla who are moving to a new world where I think, yes, the fit and finish and perception of quality is actually slightly better than before, but it is simplified it’s even more spare. But actually what you’re getting in your premium comes through the kind of digital content and the overall experience that you might have in the car. The other thing that’s really interesting about it then is that by doing this and, I think, saving money on how much the car costs to build, it gives Tesla more, um, room to play with. We all know, or most of us in the industry know, Tesla has been kind of fighting a war. Their margins are so good that they’ve been able to eat into their own margin. and reduce the price of Model 3 and Model Y at various points in the past few months. And that’s been fascinating to watch because other OEMs who don’t have the same margins, and particularly in China where most of those brands are kind of losing money, kind of, some of them felt the need to follow suit to kind of continue competing and kind of to keep their volumes up. But I think it’s part of a larger strategic play which means that Elon can either reduce the kind of asking price, the entry level asking price of the car, or in future he can choose to kind of erode his own margins to gain volume by just dropping the price through discounting. And that puts massive pressure on everybody else. And particularly in China where… I see these brands doing fantastic and interesting stuff. And really we should talk about that in another show about the kind of approach to technology, the approach to kind of solving use case problems through car design, which some of the kind of Chinese brands like Li Auto are taking a fascinating approach to, but they’re all losing money. And at some point, you know, despite the setup of China, something gives and people are expecting a bloodbath over the next few years.

Drew Smith: 11:16 And I think if we then bring it to thinking how the Europeans fit into all of this, of course, um, there was that fantastic evocation you gave us of the rear seat of the 5 Series, where the window switches would, look out of place, i. e. too crappy for a Dacia Duster. But I was in a Mercedes EQS SUV last week. And I was having a really good poke around that car. And what is fascinating is that there is so much evidence of Mercedes desperately trying to play the old game when it comes to colour material and finish and just not having the money to execute. And, you know, in Australia, this is a 300, 000 dollar car. I mean, it’s super, super, super expensive and a Hyundai or Kia would put this thing to shame when it comes to, to, to sort of the, the, the perceived quality of the interior and I think there’s a really there’s a really interesting question that Highland Tesla Model 3, the facelifted Tesla Model 3 poses to the market, which is what, what do customers actually really value in an interior now? And what is it that sets their heart to flutter, not, and I think this is why this sort of design as mathematics framing is really, really interesting because cars for many people are a highly emotive purchase, right? And the way in which cars have tapped into our emotions have been not just through sight, but through touch and through sound and through smell. And when you minimize sort of the sensory richness to the extent that something like Highland does, you need to have new hallmarks, new calling cards for what quality is. And… Okay, so there’s a hypothesis, I guess, that, that, that Highland poses which is that that is digital content and it is digital interaction, right? And it is, if you like, digital novelty. And I’m really, really curious to see how that plays out.

Joe Simpson: 14:11 Indeed, I think it’s what’s fascinating about the times we find ourselves in in the industry, and it’s why I talk about this kind of, this split, and I can see, uh, maybe old world or new world is the wrong phrasing, but… To the kind of premium European brands, this has been their kind of hallmark for so long and as you say, and as the EQS example, the 5 Series example show, well, if electrification for those brands takes away their ability to execute at the previous level, then what do they have? Because right now, Brands like Tesla, brands like the Chinese are definitely ahead in terms of the software enabled car or the kind of software sort of experience led car. Um, and I think it opens up opportunities for other and new brands to kind of define what that future premium is and it also asks questions around, Uh, buyers. What do younger buyers, people our age and below, sort of in their 30s, 40s, what did they expect and want? What does someone in their 60s, 70s want? And just to round this off, I think it’s fascinating to then draw a parallel with the new Mercedes E Class, which we didn’t talk about a lot on the last, uh, episode, but how Mercedes in that car Seem to be doing a better job, at least on the face of it, than b m w of kind of giving that sense of quality and old world. But we’re then trying to mix it. I mean, in my view, relatively unsuccessfully with software and digital tinsel.

Drew Smith: 15:47 the electrically, the electrically controlled vents.

Joe Simpson: 15:50 the electrically con.

Drew Smith: 15:52 They’re right there. I can, I can reach them. I can reach them.

Joe Simpson: 15:56 But, but this band of light which goes round under the cowl. And they were like, oh yeah, and you can adjust how much you want the intensity in four zones. So it’s not just what colour, you know, 64 colours of light you want to choose, but four zones of colour. And then, when we put the music on, it’ll pulsate. That lighting will pulsate to the beat of the music. And then we can add this 4D experience, as they call it. Where the seat will then, you know, pulsate to the music as well. So you’ve got this kind of Mercedes, which is like, and I’m like, does your average E class buyer really want

Drew Smith: 16:31 give a shit. Yeah,

Joe Simpson: 16:32 Yeah.

Drew Smith: 16:33 Exactly.

Joe Simpson: 16:34 So fascinating to see how that all plays out.

Drew Smith: 16:39 I, I, the, the, the one kind of final example that I think is fascinating to call in here is probably the new Mini. Right? Because of all the European brands at the moment, it feels like the one that is most successfully treading this line between new form, new technology, um, executing a central display with a new, brand new piece of technology. It’s a circular OLED and. consolidating a whole bunch of functionality within this screen, which, as we know, is a huge cost saving measure, but it doesn’t feel like a cost saving measure, because of the way the dash architecture has been put together.

Joe Simpson: 17:32 Exactly. Yeah. And there’s still… You know, some physical controls and little, uh, sort of nods to the past, like the stop start button is not a flick, you turn it like a key, even though it’s kind of fixed into the IP, and the use of fabric and, um, materials that are not sort of traditional luxuries, so not leather, I mean there was leather option on the seats, but a lot of, rather than going to fake leather, actually going to fabrics, and I think, Just to kind of round on that point, to me, what was fascinating about that, and I did read about this somewhere, I think it was someone I’m connected to on LinkedIn who works at Mini, was articulating, and the minute they said it, I was like, yes, you can see that in the car. A UX team and an interior team who worked on that stuff hand in hand,

Drew Smith: 18:23 Yes.

Joe Simpson: 18:24 see it just in that interior. It’s like, it’s actually not two teams that have worked in separate buildings and never met.

Drew Smith: 18:31 Right. A hundred

Joe Simpson: 18:32 about this all together and it works.

Drew Smith: 18:34 A hundred percent. Ugh. Oh, that makes my heart sing. Oh, gorgeous. Alright, let’s move on to the next topic for today. Um, now, to provide perhaps a little bit of context to, to my interest in this. A little while back, I was involved in a forum that brought together Massachusetts Institute of, oh wow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That’s really hard to say at ten o’clock…

Joe Simpson: 19:04 easy for you to say!

Drew Smith: 19:04 In the evening. And, um, a bunch of very senior people at the organization that I worked for. And the remit of this forum was to I wanted to think about, um, some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Now, it just so happened that I was working in a, uh, in a team, in a collaborative team that was looking at the future of mobility in particular. And you know, in, in the classic sort of management consulting workshop way, no ideas were meant to be off the table. There was no such thing as a bad idea. And ever since our friend, Joe, Mark Chalmer, talked to us many, many, many years ago about the idea of electrifying Saab 900s,

Joe Simpson: 20:09 Right.

Drew Smith: 20:10 I have had in the back of my head, um, This idea that it would be super, super interesting to understand to what extent it was really feasible to retrofit the existing internal combustion engine fleet with EV powertrains. Now I put this idea on the table and the global head of my business, who was responsible for our automotive relationships, did this, it was like the equivalent of Miranda Priestly in, uh, The Devil Wears Prada when she didn’t like something, And this guy gave me his,

Joe Simpson: 21:10 The look.

Drew Smith: 21:11 his purse, his pursed lips. And I knew that from that moment on, that topic was never to be discussed again. Because, let’s face it, at the end of the day, the business that I worked for couldn’t make any money out of it. And that was really the M. O. of the whole exercise. So that’s kind of the context for this. And, you know, thanks to Mark and, and, and what have you, I’ve, I’ve always been curious about this idea. And I will admit that there is a, a degree to which it feels very much like a fringe idea. It feels like… An idea which is the preserve of bearded men, probably with body odour issues, stuck in sheds, tinkering with a rusty MG, right? And, and trying to put a 300 horsepower

Joe Simpson: 22:02 an image.

Drew Smith: 22:03 yeah, trying to put a 300 horsepower Tesla motor into a rusty MG. That being said, there is this company in France called Lormauto and I am absolutely fascinated by them. There were 2. 6 million of the original, uh, Renault Twingo produced. An

Joe Simpson: 22:24 6 million?

Drew Smith: 22:25 absolutely iconic car, right? For people that know them, it’s very difficult not to love them. And just a beautiful piece of design, um, headed up by Patrick Le Quément when he was, he was at Renault fairly early days for Patrick, I think. And what this company is doing, is buying up old Renault Twingos and refitting them with an electric powertrain. 70 percent of the base vehicle remains. The other 30 percent is tied up obviously with drivetrain and battery. Um, they’ve also with Forvia, which is the new merged form of Faurecia and Hella to completely redo the interiors. And here’s the really interesting bit. They offer these cars for 100 euros a month. You can’t buy

Joe Simpson: 23:21 What? What?

Drew Smith: 23:23 100 euros a month. Maybe 200. They’ve got, there are different figures going around. So they’re 100 euros.

Joe Simpson: 23:30 even for an old car. Really cheap.

Drew Smith: 23:33 Right. And what you get is a, essentially a remanufactured Twingo, uh, with a hundred kilometers of range. Um, they claim that it results in 47 percent lower emissions, lifetime emissions, compared to the purchase of a new EV. Um, and 66 percent lower lifetime emissions than the purchase of a, uh, equivalent sized diesel engine vehicle. Right? And they are currently taking deposits, uh, and the cars are going to be on the road later this year, early next year. So, that’s super interesting. What I also find interesting is that as I was sort of digging into this, it turns out that Renault themselves, um, yes, they’re doing kind of the classic sort of EV refits on Renault 5s and Renault 4s. But, they are developing a retrofit kit for their master vans. And they have a, an entire facility set up for this called the Re-factory. Um, which is part of their circular cluster, um, in Flins, in France.

Joe Simpson: 24:49 Yeah,

Drew Smith: 24:51 So, this isn’t really that much of a fringe interest. There’s, there’s, there is something to it and I’m really curious to hear your take on this because of course we talked about the iVision Circular, BMW’s um, concept from Munich two years ago. Okay, cool. But it’s another new product. What about the stuff that we’ve already

Joe Simpson: 25:15 we’ve already got. Um, I think it’s fascinating. Um, I think there are a few things. One is that if people don’t know it’s worth reading on what Renault are doing, they’re being largely open about it and I think in a lot of the industry they are actually considered the leaders in this space so if you’re interested in kind of circularity and re manufacturing stuff go and have a read about that. I think that the thing I find very interesting is the question that it poses as you’ve just kind of articulated around the car industry has been built for a hundred years, slightly more, on the idea that we bang a load of raw material through a factory and out of the other end plops a car. And then as the OEM, that is sold, usually to a national sales organisation, who then sell it to a customer. And then… Off they go. And they have interaction with the manufacturer, except it’s not the manufacturer, through dealers that are franchises of the brand when they need to service the car. And then use these somewhere between about 3 Everybody loses contact and fundamentally OEMs have no idea where their cars end up. But at the same time, you’ve got this legislation coming from the other end. There’s already end of life vehicle legislation that says certain things about recyclability and kind of stuff like that. And manufacturers have to kind of take care of that. So this is kind of an acceleration of, or this is potentially an acceleration of where we might get to in the future where I think, Manufacturers have to think, what happens to the vehicle at the end of its life, how can we extend its life, rather than just thinking about the, the, the output of the factory and the value we get from that, how can we continue to, um, fundamentally, and this sounds very cynical, but derive value from the fact that we put all these materials into service, and actually in the future just scrapping them, shredding them, burying them in the ground is not going to be allowed. Um, and then I think on top of that is this idea that there are cars, you mentioned the Saab 900, that Mark talked about, the Twingo is an obvious one, we can probably all think of others, where there are vehicles that are loved, generally the kind of characterful, significant vehicles, which are all aging 20, 30, 40 years old, but actually, if they’ve been kind of maintained and a car like the Saab, you know, they generally got a long lasting, they were built in Sweden to kind of survive the harsh climate here, um, that you can sort of maybe take something that has a lot of still, you know, integrity and value and put a new powertrain in it and give it a new lease of life. And I think it’s really interesting to hear that Renault are actually thinking about that as a, as a kind of OEM, you know, Original Equipment Manufacturer, rather than it being this Bearded Men in Sheds kind of side interest.

Drew Smith: 28:33 Yeah, and I think, I think there’s two points that are really interesting there for me. Um, the first one is You know, if we look at what cars have been electrified, what sort of older cars have been electrified they are by and large iconic vehicles

Joe Simpson: 28:55 Yeah.

Drew Smith: 28:56 Now, the purists might, you know, scream into their tea at seeing something like a 911 be electrified or seeing a BMW 2002 be electrified or, you know, an original Fiat Cinquecento or a Beetle or a Volkswagen Camper or whatever. Who gives a fuck? It keeps it on the road.

Joe Simpson: 29:17 Yeah,

Drew Smith: 29:17 Um, because as part of, as part of that whole remanufacturing process, these vehicles are getting essentially restored from the ground up. And I know, look, we’re talking about sort of a 1 percent pursuit at, at this point in terms of, in terms of this being something that is being done by people with a lot of money to spare. But that brings me on to my second point, which is around Lawmorto’s decision to rent these things um, for a hundred or two hundred dollars, uh, euros a month, they’re not selling them. So they are retaining the asset and they have an incentive therefore to sweat that asset for a lot longer. But they also have an incentive to work out how to produce a safe, reliable, functional and yes, enjoyable vehicle, EV, at the lowest cost possible. And when you start thinking about developing drive train replacements for something like a Renault Twingo, as I said, 2. 6 million produced, then you start thinking, shit, there’s got to be some economies of scale to this.

Joe Simpson: 30:32 yeah, I mean, I, I think what’s fascinating about that business model is that it, it’s, it sounds a bit like a win win in that there’s a lot of uh, comment out there at the moment and actually truth in the fact that new electric vehicles are way too expensive for most people. I mean, if you can afford a car in the world, you’re already in a kind of top percentile. If you can afford an electric car, you’re in the top sort of point something something percentile. They are too expensive. Um, and to make them go mainstream. We have to bring the cost down. Now, there’s numerous ways you knew that make smaller, smaller batteries reduce the cost of batteries in new cars. But this is another way. So if the aim is to decarbonize travel, then yes, you have the kind of what goes into the battery, but then there’s the kind of emissions that you’re taking away from that and the emissions you take away from producing what would otherwise be a new vehicle to kind of replace that, that Twingo. So I think that’s fascinating because you get more people then have sort of accessibility to electric mobility and kind of decarbonize travel. But then, as you say, it creates this scenario where the, the, uh, in this case, Lormauto keep the kind of the asset on their books and that switches the kind of what you’re incentivized to do what you actually need the vehicle and the powertrain to keep doing how you think about what you do sort of five ten years down the line and It’s not a secret to say that at the moment, yes, there are some regulations, especially in Europe, but mostly for OEMs the incentivization is all around that point where it goes out of the factory and it’s brand new. Um, and there’s not so much around what happens down the line.

Drew Smith: 32:30 And, and, and, and all of the costs, pretty much from that point onwards, the OEM externalizes. It’s just, it’s not my, not my problem. Whereas, Lormauto, you know, reading their vision, they’re like, we want to create cars for life. We want to create cars that, and, and this is, I mean, this is the reality of the cars that, that have been manufactured for quite some time now. Is that. But, uh, drivetrain aside, they’re pretty bloody robust things, right? And there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have extremely long service lives.

Joe Simpson: 33:12 Yeah. And particularly when you start to understand the sheer amount of raw materials that are put into a car and the, let’s be honest, planetary boundaries that we are starting to butt up against you start to think, oh shit, we do need to how do we make this thing actually live 50 years? But one thing that’s not so much related to that that I’m fascinated by about this is that this kind of cheap, let’s call it, subscription model and Lomoto keeping the ownership or the asset on their books is fascinating in another way, I think, because it starts to migrate us towards a logic, which is something that Horace Dediu talked about when you interviewed him. And that’s that rather than thinking about the value being in the thing, an object and the ownership of it, you are starting to migrate towards the value that you kind of can derive from vehicle miles traveled. It’s not that, because it’s still a flat amount per month, and someone can maybe choose, I guess, to, I don’t know how this, this subscription works, whether there’s a kind of kilometer limit on it, or whether you drive, you know, 50 kilometers or 5, 000 in the month, they still charge you the same, you just have to pay for your charging. But it does start to eke us towards that. And I think that’s fascinating in the context of, we hear a lot of people, particularly in the media and again, those kind of people you referenced before the, you know, bearded men in sheds, no offense to them, um, uh, that people want to own things. And I don’t like this subscription thing and being on the hook forever and, you know, it coming from the OEM, but actually yes, there are issues with that model, but there are also benefits from it in terms of wider environmental and potentially moving towards thinking about not the value of stuff per se, but the value of, you know, how far you travel in a, in a kind of given period.

Drew Smith: 35:09 Yeah, and, and I think, you know, I, this is sort of personal for me in a way because I stopped thinking. of myself as being somebody sort of purely interested in cars as, as, as, as a cultural object, but actually starting to think about, okay, moving people and stuff from A to B. And This is the perfect example of a, of a new product and service paradigm that starts to fit into that space. Yes, there is a car which is a part of it, but it is just a part of a more broadly considered whole. as with all of these things, the proof is gonna be in the pudding with Lormauto, and by pudding, I mean actually launching. You know, I think… Even if we look at established OEMs, we’ve seen so many false dawns for shared ownership models um, and, and that’s a question that, that many OEMs still haven’t managed to answer successfully. So it’ll be really interesting to see if Lormauto with a very, very different set of incentives, and the total absence of legacy when it comes to digging shit out of the ground and chucking it down a production line, whether they can actually build a sustainable business out of this. But I tell you what, given my experience in that workshop with MIT, I will be rooting for them. I am absolutely gunning for this company to succeed.

Joe Simpson: 36:50 Yeah.

Drew Smith: 36:53 Uh, but look, uh, that’s it for this. Uh, episode of Looking Out The Podcast now coming live to you on YouTube. Uh, but guess what? There’s going to be another one. There’s going to be episode nine, and we already know that we are going to be looking closer at the new Toyota Century SUV because quite frankly, it’s a bit of an odd duck and I’m somewhat surprised, um, that it even exists. But, that’s what we’re going to dive into in the next show in

Joe Simpson: 37:33 And I think it’s, uh, fair to say, Drew, that this will be where YouTube comes into its own, because we have some interesting visualizations and annotations, which people might want to see and look at, rather than just listen to.

Drew Smith: 37:48 Yeah, a hundred percent. Uh, we’re going to be going back to our days in design school and doing a line by line analysis of this very strange, very luxurious SUV. All that being said, if you liked this show, please leave us a review. Um, click, like, subscribe, I think is what people say on YouTube. The young kids.

Joe Simpson: 38:13 Yeah.

Drew Smith: 38:14 Okay,

Joe Simpson: 38:14 But please do subscribe, yeah.

Drew Smith: 38:18 And, but if you like the show, please go ahead and share it with somebody else who might like it too. Uh, we’d love you to share the love. For more about the topics in this show. Uh, you’ll be able to find a bunch of links on YouTube below. Um, or if you are listening to the podcast, head to lookingout.io where you will find the show notes. it’s also there that you can sign up for looking out the newsletter. We haven’t forgotten about the newsletter. Looking Out, the podcast, was written and presented by Drew Smith.

Joe Simpson: 38:50 And Joe Simpson.

Drew Smith: 38:53 Uh, with sound and production by… Well, actually, sound and production, it’s gonna be me, isn’t it, Joe?

Joe Simpson: 38:59 Well, and maybe a bit of me. I’ll probably break it.

Drew Smith: 39:05 Shit, alright. This is Drew Smith. Thank you so much for watching and listening.

Joe Simpson: 39:14 Oh dear. —