Inside Look At New Car Company Canoo - Jay Leno’s Garage

well it's very nice to drive well handles well again it's less effort to drive than a gas car I mean I'm not shifting gears I'm not you know it's quiet yeah I mean I'm talking to you I'm quite not raising my voice people think cuz you like old cars they know you must hate new technology I don't I find it fascinating yeah I think both can live together exactly exactly I'm here in Torrance California company called canoe one of the founders is a man named Phil Wiker he's full of ideas we'll find out so Hawaii my friend Ray J good to see you here today we've been working on something really exciting for the last couple of years why don't you come in and meet some people and see what we've been up to let's check it out okay so you're a car company you're building cars but they're not cars people actually buy is that correct that's right there by subscription-only so that means I would have the car for a certain amount of time like it's subscribing to a magazine or something I would get it from X to what yeah well deliver it when you need it we'll pick it up when you don't and we'll take care of anything that comes up along the way okay so any maintenance involving the car any trouble with the car it just disappears you bring me another one that's out that's that's right so the car is not a personal item I could not personalize this car in any way right it's just the way I would use a refrigerator or wash it becomes like an appliance sort of thing I think that's a good way of looking at it okay okay and this is the car right here this is it okay I'd like to introduce you to one of my colleagues and co-founders Richard Kim yeah welcome thanks for coming good to see ya yeah likewise well it's fascinating you said it looks like the future it almost looks like you know back in the 30s they did a lot of the stout scarab and a few other vehicles like this which were well their version of people movers they used to call them back of the day and you could take like how many is is seat actually seat seven although this cars we think perfect for City use so it's a very small footprint but huge on the inside so it's electric full electric okay all-wheel drive two wheel drive rear wheel drive rear wheel there okay and obviously can go highway speeds as well yeah yeah definitely now as a subscriber do I Drive the car myself or is there a driver included with the car well you'll have to supply your own driver okay okay now is this aerodynamically efficient or for for the shape it's actually the aerodynamics performs quite well mostly for a city and lower speeds so really it doesn't apply it right so you know okay okay now the subscription part I find fascinating because I'm a guy I like to own things and you know but I'm the older generation I I think younger people look at vehicles not so much as a personal item they're attached to as just something to get around yeah yeah I mean we still see that owning cars and enjoying cars is there still obviously a market for that but there's actually a big piece of the market that wants just a really nice way to get from point A to point B but I've always felt that in the future your Ferrari or Lamborghini your mg that'll be like a snowmobile you use on weekends maybe you go through the hills but during the week with congestion and whatnot you don't wanna sit in traffic in a car like this so this would be your weekly transportation pod so to speak just to get you to work it did story that type of thing that's a good way to put it okay now is it autonomous as well it does have autonomous features that's for sure we call it something like a level two point five out of the five number ranking system but I see that you have a steering wheel and controls for driver because I think for the foreseeable future autonomous vehicles will have to have some sort of human driver behind the wheel right even if it is autonomous because you know over the years I see people come everything and there's no controls of any kind pair oh you just give me seven meters don't get on a plane that has no pilot hey wait a minute you know so I think that's very clever that you've sort of incorporated the realistic fact oh yeah laws are laws yeah what is your range do you know two hundred and fifty miles what we're targeting okay so it's standard electric technology in terms of lithium-ion water-cooler battery yep standard motor okay that type of thing I guess the whole uniqueness is in the subscription part and then the seating arrangement fair to say yeah we did to bold things one is it's a very unique design it's radical but very irrational at the same time and then the subscription model so those are two things we took a bold step can we take a look at yeah yeah let's take a look at the inside so what you see here is really a different experience than any other car on the road we consider this more like a little loft on wheels right now I assume this here is for safety reasons yeah there yeah whenever I see people in all cars in the future this is missing the doors open this way for all this space but they haven't thought about crash protection and roll over and all right that's right which is obviously that's right yeah what you have here this is like a prototype what we call it it's not a show car it's a practical vehicle incorporating all this junk is exactly okay we designed the car here even though it's in prototype phase it has all the the requirements for industrialization what you have here is lucky you you get a home you can put someone here as well yeah yeah so those those two extra seats are for maybe you would say occasional use but we designed these seats to behave and feel more like furniture furniture in your own home right like you know when you used to get an old-style Cadillac limo it would be like a jump seat yeah that is the government demand that airbags and everything be necessary in those situations yeah we fulfill all those requirements we we plan to have five-star safety standards okay all right very nice here you can grow your own marijuana I see right down the door that's California yeah so instead of offering features that the customer may or may not want we set up this concept that's more like a peg board mmm or you bring your own stuff depending on what you want to what you want to use so when someone subscribes to a car I find Americans like to individualize things whether it's your iPhone with a bedazzler you know and the same thing is that the family here you drive to it but you can personalize it it yeah that's right so the peg board offers interior personalization the car comes in any color you want as long as it's black and then because of the simple shape you can apply wrapping and personalize the outside however you want now are there any sort of solar panels or any that type of thing no we have an all glass roof we want to have the sensation of space we do offer this feature here these are what we call Safari style okay Volkswagen there's a rest road to this feature but we think it's really cool especially as a space where you may hang out well this is the most impressive part to me because it shows you've engineered yeah the safety factor involved as well and okay low to the ground easy to step in I assume the floor platform is your battery tray yeah everything is housed in what we call a skateboard so you just put the body on the skateboard okay and you've got an awful lot of room up front there why is that yeah what is it what is the reason for this area here well so you can see through the car in the past this was what used to be an engine compartment but now that we can open this up because everything's in the skateboard you can now see through so you can imagine in like a city or a driving environment how how cool and how oh a smell or something on a tricycle and you would see exactly how about luggage capacitor where would you where would you go there we do have a trunk it's actually pretty decent in size but we see a world especially in this city where you want to grab your stuff and go yeah I know just in and out and that's why people love these rideshare platforms because you just get in and now so size wise this is about as big as well I mean it's a it's it's a small car it is small but you know it's standing here it looks big because of the shape it is quite small I mean I don't imagine this wheelbase is I mean long in 911 Porsche it's a 28 50 in wheelbase the overall length is 4,400 so that's a very compact footprint very cool obviously you put your phone yeah no yeah so no screens we find that cars after sometimes the oldest technology when it comes to infotainment and what better screened and the one in your own pocket because I'm trying to figure out how subscription is different from leasing well we we see a lease is something that you're still tied to for for several months or years twelve thousand miles a year anything over that it's so this you could drive the heck out of if you wanted to and that's right a money at a time and of course being electric mileage is not really an issue because electric doesn't work we've done a really good job with range with 250 250 miles so we think especially for the city that's more than enough yeah I think that's more than enough and most people don't go yeah and you know I looked it looked to me as if I thought at first those were induction systems to charge her from underneath as opposed to but this would be a standard plug-in yeah okay yeah so I mean it sounds like you've made a practical realization of what the future is as opposed to yeah you know like the steering wheel like the infrastructure we already have it's okay very good so what is the next step for you guys is it do you want to sell this to a major manufacturer do you want to produce them all yourselves run the whole company here or be part of something else how does that work so we're doing contract manufacturing we're gonna be in the next phase of our our our company and testing so we're gonna produce these vehicles we call beta vehicles and they did go through the safety requirements and the validation right that's the next phase now do you start in a city like Los Angeles and you just keep it here yeah and then when you go to the next city do you build a manufacturing facility in that city as well is that all no will manufacturing one place but that is a good question we are going to go city by city most of electrification is centered around specific cities around the u.s. and so we're gonna target one city at a time you know that's what they used to do in the early days when they built cars there was the company built cars in San Francisco and the selling point was they had massive brakes I'm you like the slowly asides of the wheel so they sold it on the basis this is the only car that can stop on the hill in San Francisco and less than how many feet and so each town had different requirements you know so how far away do you think you are we're gonna launch in the end of 2021 that's the plan so far we've hit every milestone so things are looking good okay now selling people on the idea of a subscription how does that work what is what what is the selling point there as opposed to leasing from like the Chevy dealer across the street how do you beat that guy with subscription yeah well everything in life now is subscription this is just sort of the modern way the next generation and maybe it's a younger audience they really believe in subscription right so we follow that same model can we take this one for a ride yeah let's do it let's give it well I got a minute right comfortable back you got all kinds of legroom I'm trying to get this subscription thing when you obviously when you buy a car maybe you drive it off logged appreciates what at least a third right okay yeah the true cost of ownership of a vehicle right it's not it's not really you know communicated well right you have down payments and we're a trader and stuff like that so see the idea here you as a subscription I just sign up I pay three four five hundred a month but that's insurance that's everything everything there's no down payment I don't own a I don't know a big chunk of money at the end of the subscription period you just whatever you subscribed it for that's it is that right yeah it's just like you described it it's it's all-inclusive no down payment no commitment right many of these programs even the lease that you're stuck with them for a long time or if you buy a car you know right as you drive off the lot it tanks and value so we see this is let's say I come to LA to do a movie for four months I could sign up get a four month subscription you have the car for four months the day I go back to New England or wherever I'm from I just give the car back and we walk away that's right yeah so simple so easy so and you know wear and tear and no mileage charge no nothing okay that's pretty cool I mean I'm on the freeway every day and I rarely see two people in the car most of the time why do you feel the need to make it a seven-seater well most people they they select a car for every possible use case right so the beauty of our car is it's a really small footprint so it's the size of what mostly two-seaters would be but you do have when you want the benefit of up to seven seats and a good greenhouse it's nice and open in here yeah it's a lot of glass we see this is like the third space it's not an office it's not home it's somewhere between so we wanted to give that that feeling of lightness and the feeling of more like a little room on wheels well it is sort of reminiscent of a VW bus a 23-window it's that same kind of feel instead of the engine being while the engine is still back here would be in the Volkswagen yeah we know that car it's a it's quite the icon I'm pretty sure that car is a lot bigger than this one yeah so we've really maximized space compared to get a lot of the offerings so you know you're talking about if you were to go to a car rental and say I'd like a compact vehicle you know this fits in that category right right but at the same time you have XXL SUV space and with a 250 mile range you just plug it in when you get home and the next morning you got a full think again yeah yeah I said part of the the membership would include charging credits and really we want it to be one-stop shop ok and how many dads to be thrilled to have their daughters getting this look you can lie down on the floor here fabulous yeah you go take a woman out there ya go all right hit the road bug I'm taking my daughter on that thing I'd be curious to see more of the technical side there's a place where we can see it without the body on the chassis and the the motors are cool yeah sure right after this test drive we'll break down all the components of the car yeah I mean the nice thing is I don't have to chip in for gas so let's just drive around well that was fun so I want to show you a really cool feature very exciting this is the first the true steer-by-wire on the market okay and and there's absolutely no mechanical linkage so there's no mechanical backup and that's all yeah the letters their safety systems that are redundant of course but you can see if you look at the base we're turning the wheels turn on their own so alright oh cool I see this body goes on top of that that's right yeah and is this this is steel huh yeah this is all steel okay we find the system of sufficient material for our use case yeah the the steer-by-wire is really cool because you can put this basically this module anywhere in the vehicle right so depending on what kind of vehicle you want to do you can move this all the way forward like we've done you can push it back this really can go anywhere in the vehicle now just to be devil's advocate if your power should suddenly be cut would you lose your drive-by-wire would you lose your ability so safety is really important for us every single component has a redundant backup system okay so you have a power supply separate that working okay that's right all right very nice all right let's take a look at the chassis do you still call it a chassis I don't even know we're calling it a skateboard a skateboard oh yeah and so this is really great for design it's very slim it's very low profile you typically have struts that are intruding into the space we got everything very very flat so this is basically module you can put anybody you want a truck on it you could put it a seven-passenger anything goes okay now this one's dual engine but the one we drove in just now that was a single yeah we can offer in either configuration so what is the standard its rear wheel drive your wheel drive okay what's that about 300 horsepower that's right 300 horsepower and up here it's a different engine now a little different isn't it yeah so you can you would start with rear-wheel drive as a the base option or you can have dual motor okay so I assume this is modular if one section goes bad you have a dead cell you can replace just that cell that's right yes so it's just one module that would need to be replaced and how many volts am I looking at this is 400 volts okay Wow okay well I'll get the word I have a 1909 Baker electric and that's 78 volts but it moves pretty good yeah I mean 1909 lead acid batteries it goes 80 miles on a charge you know electric cars are zippy they're fun to drive they are I mean the biggest sort of Bugaboo or whatever you want to call it is battery technology you know Edison came out with an alkaline battery and he sent Henry Ford lettuce and he's going to put your Model T out of business it's going to change electric cars but the alkaline battery never really came to fruition it really was not the saver he thought it would be but the only thing that's kept electric cars down has been the battery technology now it's moving yeah leaps and bounds yeah it's amazing at all it's all quickly oh yeah it's just unbelievable that's unbelievable all right very nice alvey's has regens so every time you get off the throttle you put anymore that's right yeah okay very nicely done yeah what's really great about the escape were here is it's totally independent right from the top hats yeah and that for us is that was quite hard to achieve but we've done a good job here even though this is I don't want to say it's standard electric car technology but you you do you design your own motors you design your own you know to me any with an internal combustion company to me the companies I really admire the ones that build their own engines and you build your own motives for these correct yeah same same story here we do everything from scratch we do whatever is the most optimal for our use case so everything has to be done from from Ground Zero and I imagine also the less outside suppliers you have the less problems you have you know if they have a problem you have a problem and we when you design your own electric motor if you have a problem it's just your problem yeah that's right yeah and we do work with suppliers or their key partners for us but there's a lot of ownership that we have to take that's right that's right so if something goes wrong with them you they don't nobody blames them they blame you and so I think it's very clever that you've done your you're on motor and there's a lot of work designing in manufacturing your own motors it's pretty amazing all right Jay I want to show you something really interesting over here you know that was really interesting yeah this one's also just as interesting all right yeah so if you stand there right you notice that oh yeah any problem but maybe apparently so we use a deep learning technology to recognize your face and the reason we do this is it's super annoying when you have all these sensors around the car and they're like beeping at you as like you know cars are driving past night and what happens is you just turn it off yeah so what's happening here is it's recognizing if you are paying attention then it leaves you alone if I'm fumbling around with something else so if I'm driving and my eyes start to close then it'll beep they don't want to be all I say ya know if I look down somewhere okay so yeah it's like having your mom hate smart now hey pay attention hey the hand will actually route and do that to you yeah that's cool but if you are paying attention then no one will slap you okay oh that's alright that's good now does it stay on my face of that forever that would be if I have a two-year subscription that would get real annoying after about the first half hour so there isn't a screen that actually shows you like this but yeah all right cool so recognize we also wanted to get in the car so I so does this also work for example do I get in the car and I sit here for a minute recognizes me and I go or I still need a fob or something this is more of like for driver assistance you still have your your app or can you app and that's how you do enter and exit the vehicle so it's basically a safety feature to make sure except your eyes are focused on the road and not but more personalized yeah now what if I want to take my hands off the steering wheel from them this would make sure what I'm looking in the right direction is that right so if you're hands-free driving then it makes sure that you're at least focused on towards the road and I like that pointed thing on the end of my nose that's that's really attractive cool yeah kind of a Pinocchio thing yeah no I'm not lying honest hey okay J let's look at some more of the technical systems over here you've been shot so this here is our dyno room okay and we do complete powertrain systems testing here you check for for noise temperature speed torque well the fascinating part for a car company how quiet it is yeah I mean yeah I mean it's almost no noise good yeah you know you think you'd be seeing sparks flying and machines pounding you know but it's not it's that's part of the clean technology or it can they fire that up we can we spin that motor that's going oh there you go there you go so they can barely hear anything yeah they check for speed and in range and efficiencies all through this this room here all right so here we're gonna take a look a few other things so Jay I want to introduce you to Charlie he's in charge of drive unit engineering I salute you now what is the cart time is that it's not an engine it's a motor right its trick is motor it is internal that's that's correct okay our electric motor is here in our gearbox and gear reduction system is on is on that side there this is our lubrication development test rig what we're doing in order to increase the efficiency and range of our vehicle is concentrating pressurized jet lubrication directly to our electric motor we're evaluating splash lubrication in the gearbox and of course if this was an internal combustion engine the engine would be this big and then the transmission will be out here at the end that's correct it showed you how efficient electric motors are because it's all and there are no gears in here and I mean you have gears but not first second third you just have one because electric motors make such torque you don't need a transmission to multiply it or reduce the back that's correct it's a single speed now my question is this don't be a dumb question your motor and your transmission should share the same oil that's correct okay but if it this was a internal combustion engine you'd have combustion byproducts within the oil and the oil needs to be changed with electric you don't really ever have to do that that's right fill it and forget it so centralize it so once you put oil in your engine or your motor and your transmission your fill from life that's correct now these gears constantly are chewing that lubricant they are so that wear out like it wouldn't internal combustion engine no we have filter specifically designed for use with electric vehicle transmissions and the oil that we're using has really good thermal characteristics as well as durability and wear characteristics so we can just set it and forget it so the oil literally never wears out that's correct but it's pretty much life of the vehicle fluid that's correct okay so again that's another advantage to an electric car as you never have to change the oil in the lubricant lower maintenance cost higher efficiency yeah okay and I imagine it's sealed you kid you couldn't once this engine is done you can't put more lubricant into it can you correct okay wow that's fascinating all right and of course you never break teeth because you're not shifting gears that's correct so our gearbox and and motor are designed for specific life targets and we're able to meet those durability targets and performance requirements and our really power dense efficient packaging space yeah because there's an internal combustion engine your power impulses are like this right so that puts so you can break teeth in a gear with this you're constantly you're constantly engaged you're never not engaged so the teeth are never shifting you know a lot of times you get to be you break a tooth in transmission or you know the syncro goes out but with this you're constantly smooth engagement so nothing of a breakthrough it's fascinating it's fascinating I mean it really shows this is PRT of electric motor versus an internal combustion I agree yeah is this a running it is so we can evaluate lubricant flow and pressure distribution into the internally cast passageways of our driving it down there so give me one second so you can see how our electrical oil pump takes oil from the sump through the filter through our heat exchanger and then directs that fluid flow onto the stator so we have a really efficient sleep efficiently designed cooling now the fast of the motor runs the fast of the pump goes is that it is the pump control is based on vehicle usage so with an e V we're chasing watts of power and we want to be able to have the minimum necessary pump power so we can have the maximum amount of range can you run the whole engine just by hand for this development test rate I say okay so you can see how some of the splash disturbia happens inside the gearbox those throws it around it does yeah yeah and then we have again pressurized Lube directed right on you know I have a lot of early engines internal go bugs like T head Mercer's and things like that and they have little cups that come around and they scoop the oil and they just throw it back you like throw it over your shoulder the way this too kind of does same kind of thing same thing what do we got on the table over here come on let me show you so these are some some of our powertrain parts so what we have here is the main bell housing and the electric motor this is our output ring gear and open differential the intermediate gear so this second stage pinion would mesh with the output ring gear and the sum of all these parts create that nine to one fear reduction ratio and the motor in that efficient package these and you cast all your parts for example this year this is where your these are here to give you strength all right that's correct so the ribbing benefits are for stiffness strength and noise they don't add in cooling at all do they no they don't we don't take you we don't take into consideration some of the air cooling right right but they actually do cool they would have passing cooling effects yeah and these are this is aluminum obvious it is yes okay and that's all you're inside there now do you polish this to give it even more smooth like even in turtle kabocha named Jean you polish this to make it more efficient but not necessarily so with I like to know I think with with what we're what we're doing here is we've cast in some of these lubrication features just like you mentioned before and we're able to run with an AZ cast surface with machined surfaces for each one of the critical features like the bearings and some of the the park system components yeah I mean to me this is a beautiful blonde I mean if you know nothing about engines or cars or anything you cannot help but appreciate just how beautifully made these are I mean it's almost like a piece of artwork or a piece of sculpture with the heat where the helical these are correct yes yeah straight cut is stronger but noisy dozen typical like this they're actually quieter so big you won't you hear it it doesn't make you almost any noise at all Betsy oh okay and this is the assembled yeah this is our assemble drive unit so small package such that we're able to package with respect to the the leaf spring and the that really low skateboard body and what is that a motorway this motor will blade in the neighborhood of 200 pounds okay all assembled but an internal-combustion equivalent motor about that size would weigh 550 maybe 600 pounds efficient packaging okay right thank you very much you nice it really cool so you had a chance to ride in our first prototype right now you get a drive our first beta test vehicle so let's let's go try it out so J this is a pre-production beta vehicle so it's still a development vehicle right so it's obviously not completely finished but this is what we're doing right now is we're validating it we're checking it we're testing now as we get into a mass production right and so you can see the Street View window is pretty sensational yeah you know I mean I'm looking through the windshield I'm not looking down that my god there's more your parking situation right lower lower speeds but it's it's light its Airy feels good yeah and where they call it the NVH noise vibration harshness yeah all good noise yeah there's no vibration exactly obviously you're hearing like squeaking panels because this things are not finished right but for where our stage is it's pretty comfortable to to drive well I mean you know for a crew that's like giving birth to a baby and make the thing and then you better now you have the bellows are the growing pains and you drive it around you know we learn from yeah lines and good visibility is excellent yeah a lot of glass yeah the great pillar placement because in most cars you're sitting right up there with that with that eye pillow see that April of this you're blocking is blocking your view all the time right yeah we did a lot of optimization to make sure that especially in the city which is a dynamic environment you had a lot of visibility right but really a unique I mean this is a quite the dream scenario to design a top hat that had no limitations yeah so that's why you're sitting in a very different different setup and you're crumple zones look especially strong mm-hmm safety always a important factor to validate five-star is now considered you know we have to we have to get there so we will yeah that's I mean you've got to be five-star that's right yeah anything less is ah and so if there's absolutely no clutter only what you need we put there all right so you have an air bag we show it right you don't drape over a bunch of ugly components um you know fashion statement everything here is designed so is that your intention as a young man did you want to be a car designer did you ever think you'd be starting your own car company I mean that's that's that's quite ambitious no I didn't think so you know actually that it's a to start a car company is kind of a crazy idea it's a crazy concept it's extremely challenging to do this so I of course worked in all the sort of om traditional car companies right and I felt like you know this was kind of school continuation in school to get to the point to do a car from from scratch mean that that only it doesn't come very often you know I mean most people I know the designers there's been their whole life doing the door handle of the tourists or designing the you know the power plug in the dash and how it's going to I have one little area they work on so for you guys to just kind of come in with a clean sheet of paper and design you won't and to make your own motor which to me is the most impressive feat I mean that to any vehicle the powerplant is the heart of the vehicle and most people will use one of the LS and Chevy or something you know so to actually sit down and even though there are engines available or motors available that you make your own I think that's that's impressive that's that really shows the commitment yeah the largest group of our our company is and the powertrain team right and because that's it's not an easy task to do a motor from scratch but also when you work for another car company a car company with a lot of legacy there there are so many requirements that are built in and so there's always ya can't do this you can't do that flex you can move in leaps instead of steps you know most cars are evolutionary it looks kind of like last year's model but it has this I remember when the Chrysler airflow came out in 1934 was a revolutionary car aerodynamic and people just went too far ahead of his time where's the big radiator on the front with a big emblem that that's supposed to show status yeah you have legacy yeah it had this waterfall grill and and it was a huge flop even though aerodynamically and engineering wise it was a brilliant car yeah there were the customer they they have certain expectations when you have legacy right and there's an expectation that it it looks and behaves in a certain way yeah I mean the best example of that is Porsche when they first came out the engine was in the rear they made their reputation now Porsche does anything without a 911 we Brits out oh go crazy 928 was a great car people ran away 944 great car people and it's not a Porsche thing you know Harley Davidson v-twin has to it has to look and sound like this yep you know so when they came out with their electric I guess they're still gonna come out with it I know it's been delayed for teething problems or something but it's it's to get people to change it's very I think that's the benefit also of a new brand right you can really take a position you can take a new position that makes sense for now and for the times I think a legacy brand is just much more difficult yeah and the fun thing about this people this vehicle is some people will love it and some will hate it sure and you need both because without Ted hate no get the love on the other side you know there are people that dare to be different that wants something new mmm-hmm you know when when Elon came out with that truck some people just hate it an awful ugly and I know other people went crazy they had what two hundred thousand people put deposits down okay all you need are two hundred thousand people will like it and your success the way we see it is if if you maybe don't understand the design once you use it once you see all the benefits right I see that's a great deal you'll you'll change your mind about it because it's it's it's a meaningful functional design yeah how about the name itself see when I was a kid that was a Cologne okay if you google e you'll see these old canoe commercials but the the sexy guy and the woman's going is that canoe wait is it where did it come from we took reference from the the actual canoe the boat oh um something about a canoe is sustainable it's clean its effortless it's not about hauling ass you know you don't feel it you know you have to drive and when a zero-to-sixty war well you know and that same thing when Stanley Steamer the company in 1906 they set the world's record for the fastest car 127 miles an hour Stanley Steamer and what they did was they went to every Canoe Company New England and the lake I think it was Lakeville canoe company had the best canoe they pulled it through the water using a meter you know how many pounds of pressure needs to pull and their canoe was the swiftest through requires the least amount of pressure to go through the water so they bought two canoes they took one on top of the other and they put the engine inside and they 127 miles an hour I mean it's kind of cool yes it's using sort of water as the as as the wind there wasn't a wind tunnel obviously so they used sort of water as the aerodynamics yeah so we liked the name I find it also a little bit quirky it's not trying to be super cool it's just it is what yes yeah so we we very quickly when we actually daming a company's probably harder than designing a car because everyone's right and wrong at the same time so I can't challenge our powertrain team on the efficiency of their their motor but we can talk and debate about a name of a company right three years yeah that's drive-by-wire steering is very nice yeah and I'm gonna tune it it'll get better you can adjust it for amount of Road feel it feels very French the French like the Citroen SM has a hydraulics Pacey faster you go the less power-steering you have so at low speed you go like this when you get this and then when you get up to 60 or 70 it turns and drives it yeah but I'm sure I'm sure it must have been a great day the first time you took this thing around the block there must have been some champagne corks popping and all that stuff yeah I mean we do a lot of development and as things pop into the the cycle there's always something to celebrate so we go very fast well that's I mean but but it's a great feeling to make something and to produce something yeah you know a lot of people can sit everybody wants to be a you know a web designer or something but I don't mean to snap you're making a product of which somebody else would make tires with somebody else and make fluids somebody else to make brake somebody else you know and you make a you build a company yeah it provides work for other people which makes for a better economy yeah I know that's very true there's a lot of suppliers partners yeah there's there's hundreds of parts on this vehicle that need to come together it's not a digital product this is a physical product so yeah it's nice it's nice - yeah yeah and you watch and if you used to be going remember that first one we built up man well another thing you know I didn't even look at it you know you'll be so far ahead of the game no I think it's great III think it's I think it's wonderful people think cuz you like old cars they go you must hate new technology I don't I find it fascinating yeah I think both can live together exactly exactly well it's very nice to drive well handles well again it's less effort to drive than a gas car I mean I'm not shifting gears I'm not you know it's quiet yeah I mean I'm talking to you I'm quite not raising my voice when I accelerate doesn't get louder it no it's great I think you've done a just a terrific job Thanks well I want to thank Richard the Hulk old crew thank you very much I'm very optimistic about the future I think it's great I'm not one of these doom and gloom guys you know because when I came to LA 40 years ago there were a hundred and sixty days you couldn't go outside the smog I mean there's still smog but it's we have ten times as many cars and it's ten times cleaner do you know I'm one of these people believe engineers like yourself will save the world whether it's feeding people we run less acreage whether it's converting to electricity to save fossil fuel I think it's all great and it's it's really fun to see new companies start up that not in China not in Japan not in Canada but right here in Los Angeles you know so that once again thank you my friend congratulations that end maggot it give my crew the best I'm gonna take this home for the weekend and see how that cool thanks [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 2,007,929

Keywords: EV, electric vehicle, subscription, Silicon Valley, Silicon Beach, Canoo, Torrance, technology, tech, Made In America, Phillip Weicker, Richard Kim, battery technology, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: 5FIViMSeigM

Length: 41min 3sec (2463 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 06 2020