Crutchfield: The Podcast Ep 60

[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 1:22)

Electric vehicles, hybrids, and pure EVs are kind of a big deal these days. What's the deal with the audio systems, though? Are they good enough?

Can they be upgraded? What are the limitations? What are the ramifications of installing a big, amperage-sucking audio system into an electric vehicle?

We've invited Chris from our tech support training team to discuss that with us today. We're even going to answer a listener-submitted question about his 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E. I hope you are as charged up as we are on this episode of Crutchfield the Podcast.

Hello, and welcome to Crutchfield the Podcast. I am your host, JR, joined in our new underground bunker studio, as usual, with our co-host, Eric. How are you doing, buddy?

Doing great. What's up, JR? How are you doing?

I'm excited. I'm excited to talk EVs with Chris here today. In fact, Chris is here listening to us talk about them.

Chris, how are you today? I'm doing well, thanks. So you are, let's talk about what you do.

You are in tech support, have been in tech support since as long as I can remember, and you train our tech support folks. Is that about right?

[Speaker 1] (1:23 - 1:40)

Correct. Yeah, I'm the training supervisor for the tech support crew, and I've been here since 97, 1997, that is, for those young people out there listening. That's in the last century.

It seems to be a kind of a little bit of a joke these days. People went, you were born when? Yeah, decades and decades ago.

[Speaker 3] (1:40 - 1:45)

So JR, so Chris kind of is for tech support what you are for our sales.

[Speaker 2] (1:46 - 1:46)

Correct.

[Speaker 3] (1:46 - 1:49)

Yeah. So you guys are both in charge of training our folks.

[Speaker 2] (1:50 - 2:04)

That's pretty cool. Which means if you call anybody in sales, you will talk to somebody I have trained, and if you call anybody in tech support, you will talk to somebody Chris has trained. There you go.

I'd say we have experts today. And then me. And then there's Eric.

[Speaker 3] (2:04 - 2:10)

Yeah. Why are you here, Eric? I'm just charged up to be here.

I'm really excited. You know, I already used that.

[Speaker 1] (2:10 - 2:11)

I know. I know.

[Speaker 2] (2:12 - 2:24)

Well, one must have the sidekick. Exactly. He's the sidekick.

He's my Ed McMahon. For anybody as old as us who might understand what that means. Get that added to my business card.

I'm on that.

[Speaker 1] (2:25 - 2:28)

So he's the Ed McMahon to your Johnny Carson.

[Speaker 2] (2:28 - 2:29)

Exactly.

[Speaker 1] (2:29 - 2:37)

You got it. He's the Paul Schaefer to my David Letterman. There you go.

So for you young people out there, yes, you can go use your search engine and figure that one out.

[Speaker 2] (2:37 - 2:39)

He's my Andy Richter to my Conan O'Brien.

[Speaker 1] (2:39 - 2:40)

Nice.

[Speaker 2] (2:40 - 2:41)

Nice.

[Speaker 1] (2:41 - 2:43)

I'm suddenly realizing all of those are getting to be pretty old people.

[Speaker 2] (2:43 - 3:12)

Those are all very old late-night talk show references. There you go. And I'm not as old as you guys, so there is that.

All right. Chris, we did not invite you here to talk late-night talk show references that nobody understands unless you were born a long time ago. We invited you here to talk electric vehicles, and we invited you specifically because you're kind of leading the charge.

I didn't mean to do that.

[Speaker 3] (3:12 - 3:13)

Again, so is that three times?

[Speaker 2] (3:13 - 3:20)

It just happened. Come on now. You're kind of leading the charge with our support knowledge on electric vehicles.

[Speaker 1] (3:20 - 3:36)

Is that fair to say? Pretty much, yeah. Working on gathering the information that we need about the various vehicles, what we can and cannot do, things of that nature.

I've been working to try to learn more and more about the various vehicles, what they can do.

[Speaker 2] (3:36 - 3:52)

And have you gotten the chance to get your hands on some electric vehicles to really see up close, hands-on sort of how these things function and do what they do with regards to the electronics and the audio systems and the other creature comfort of an electric vehicle?

[Speaker 1] (3:52 - 5:54)

A few years ago when I started learning about electric vehicles in earnest, I attended Weber State University. I took an online course for about a month, took care of that. After I knocked out those certifications, then I got on a plane and I went to Utah.

And I hung out out there with a professor and about 15 classmates. And we spent a week taking apart and putting back together and examining and learning about EVs and hybrid vehicles. I got to drop the battery pack out of a 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E.

That was pretty cool. I enjoyed that a lot. Took apart a 2021 police cruiser, big Ford Explorer type vehicle.

That was really neat. I learned they've got this extra tiny little battery way in the back of that vehicle. It's like, wait a second, I can unhook the battery under the hood and I've still got 12 volts on the car.

Why is that? And you go digging around for a while and finally you find this thing about the size of three packs of cards in the back of the vehicle, which is a little 12 volt backup battery keeping the computer alive if the front computer connection to the main battery disappears. So to render the car safe, part of it is you have to unhook both of those 12 volt sources.

So EVs and hybrids are a little different, but if one pays attention and is careful, they're not unsafe to work on. A lot of people get worried about the super high voltage in the battery pack, which no fooling can hurt you, can definitely hurt you. We're talking, depending upon the vehicle, battery packs can be in the hybrids and smaller battery electric vehicles.

You're looking at a low end on the hybrids of maybe 150 volts, 160 volts on the lower systems on some of the older cars. And then on the battery electrics, you're looking usually at a minimum of about 275 volts for those systems. And more commonly, we're seeing 400, 450 volts in a lot of the car.

[Speaker 3] (5:55 - 6:02)

Let's slow down real quick. Why is that? Why are we seeing such drastic numbers there?

Is there a benefit to more volts in this situation?

[Speaker 1] (6:02 - 6:31)

Indeed. Yeah. You've got to put the pedal to the metal, so to speak.

The rubber meets the road, which is the wheels turning. You need to move the vehicle down the road. The number one objective of a car, contrary to what we at Crutchfield like to do is putting good sound systems in them, the number one objective of a car or passenger vehicle of any kind is to move you down the road somewhere, travel to your destination.

So the higher the voltage capability of the car, it helps it to be more efficient. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (6:32 - 6:56)

What little I know about electricity, I know that, you know, voltage is kind of like the muscle behind the electricity traveling over a wire through a circuit, etc. Do I have that right? Volts and amps together.

Yeah, very much so. So is it true then that the voltage is also kind of the muscle that makes the motors have as much torque as they do to spin your wheels as fast as they do?

[Speaker 1] (6:57 - 7:21)

It's because of the voltage? That's a big part of it. Yes.

Yeah. The higher the voltage, the more efficient and the more torque you can get out of a motor. Absolutely.

The electric motors, if you think about it, another object that we play with a lot is speakers and subwoofers. If you've ever looked at a subwoofer and maybe you've ever cracked one open, I know I've seen you cut speakers open before. You see that voice coil in there, all those windings of copper?

[Speaker 2] (7:22 - 7:22)

Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (7:22 - 7:40)

Well, that's basically what you find inside of an electric motor, you know, very similar, different configuration and geometries for the copper windings. But essentially, you know, a subwoofer and an electric motor have a lot in common. They both have tons of windings of copper inside.

And then you need the voltage to make those things work.

[Speaker 2] (7:41 - 7:41)

Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (7:41 - 9:25)

So your high voltage in the 400 volt architectures, and then some of the other makers are even going higher end, they're going to like 800, 900 volt architectures. Some of the cars like there's one or two of the Porsches that do that at 800 above. And I think one of the new Hyundais is also doing an 800 900 system, the higher voltage in the systems, a big advantage for them is you have all that energy there, you have all that capability to move the wheels.

And then you certainly have, you know, enough left over that if you wanted to, you could, if you're able to figure out and they haven't built it in such a way that it's going to prevent you from being able to do so you could add a sound system to a lot of the cars. You know, not a lot of people doing that on their own yet these days. Largely, it's, you know, here and there, I surf the web to try to find shops and different people around the country doing installations on electric cars and various electric cars and what kind of installs they've been able to do, and what tactics they had to take.

At this point, honestly, for most folks, I'd recommend that if they really want to upgrade their sound system that they do take it to a shop of some kind, unless they have a, you know, like a vehicle specific solution that has been made for those vehicles, like our Alpine speaker setups for the Teslas. Oh yeah. You know, the amplifier was designed and made to go in the Tesla.

It was, you know, based on one of their other amplifiers, you know, but Alpine, you don't have to entirely redesign the wheel to make it fit a different vehicle.

[Speaker 2] (9:25 - 10:22)

Yeah, there's been some developments, right? The last time you and I sat down with microphones, and in that time it was cameras, we were on Crutchfield Live, which was a YouTube and Facebook thing. It was like three years ago, though.

That was 2022 that we did that, seemed like yesterday, but we talked a lot at length at the time. This was not too long after you had gone to the class you just described, and there wasn't much that we could tell people about what you could do in your electric vehicle yet. I'm hoping we have more things to tell them, and you just mentioned one or two of them, like the Alpine systems.

We're going to get to all of that. I got to say, though, before we get into the real techie sort of deep dive, I just kind of want to know, like, the three of us, none of us, as far as I know, currently drive an electric vehicle on the road, Eric. I know you mow your grass with one.

Yeah, that's true.

[Speaker 1] (10:22 - 10:26)

You have an electric mower? I do. I mean, I don't mean to brag, but yeah.

[Speaker 2] (10:26 - 10:52)

It is pretty cool. So if any of us were going to replace our car tomorrow with an EV, what would it be? Like, what electric vehicle do you have your eye on?

What do you think you would like if you were going to go down that road, or would you just never go down that road? Have you not gotten to the point where you would even consider it? What are your thoughts?

Let's start with you, Chris.

[Speaker 1] (10:53 - 10:57)

Oh, I want an electric car. I do. You do?

Yeah, I currently drive a gas vehicle.

[Speaker 2] (10:57 - 11:00)

And you live in the city, as you just said, right?

[Speaker 1] (11:00 - 11:29)

I do. I live in the city. The lot's not very big.

I do have... it's a side-by-side duplex, so it's not set up where all the infrastructure in my house is exactly to easily install, like, for example, a charger system for a car. You can add this piece to the outside of the house and run a conduit to where you need it and pull cable, and now you've got your 60-amp circuit for your home charging for your level 2 charging.

[Speaker 3] (11:29 - 11:32)

Now, which car would you want to plug into that?

[Speaker 1] (11:32 - 11:43)

That was the question. Now, the actual question being, which car would I want to plug into that? Actually, I have a list of several that I would love to have, none of which I could truly afford.

[Speaker 2] (11:44 - 11:46)

Oh yeah, let's take price out of this.

[Speaker 3] (11:46 - 11:55)

Yeah, we're taking no object. That might change my answer. Well, I couldn't afford my answer either, but then there's like, I really can't avoid...

[Speaker 2] (11:55 - 12:03)

If you can have whatever EV you could possibly own, then yes, but if you've got something more practical as an option as well, I'm open to all of that.

[Speaker 1] (12:03 - 13:35)

Okay, so there's one that you can actually buy now that I would love to have, and that would be, you know, I haven't had a truck in years, but I miss my old Chevy Stepsides. I used to have a 67 Chevy Stepside. It had three on the tree, and I had a 77 version of the same thing, and I really loved those old trucks, so I wouldn't mind buying one of those and doing a conversion, but out of what's like actually commercially available for you to go out and buy these days, the Chevy Silverado EV truck would be high, high, high on my list because of the, you know, gigantic battery pack and the efficiencies that it's able to demonstrate. This is the thing about electric vehicles, you know, you compare an electric truck like the Silverado to its own self, right? If you look at the gas truck and you look at the electric truck, the electric truck gets something like one and a half or one and a quarter miles per kilowatt hour of energy.

There are 33.7 kilowatt hours of energy in a gallon of gasoline, so if your truck is getting more than one per, you're getting over 33 miles of the gallon in your truck, basically, right, to compare your electricity to your gasoline usage, but what Chevy Silverado pickup truck are you aware of that runs, you know, an ICE truck that actually gets 33 plus miles per gallon? I'm not aware of any.

[Speaker 2] (13:36 - 13:42)

ICE truck, Chris, I know what that means, but let's make abundantly clear to our audience, when you say ICE, what are you talking about?

[Speaker 1] (13:43 - 13:51)

Okay, so ICE is short for internal combustion engine. Traditional vehicle that most folks drive around these days.

[Speaker 2] (13:51 - 14:03)

Got it. From here on out, the rest of this episode, if we use the term ICE, that's what we're talking about. So the Chevy Silverado EV would be your, like, first choice.

That's the one you want. If you could buy one and get it tomorrow, that would be the one.

[Speaker 1] (14:03 - 14:20)

Yeah, if I could actually go buy one and get it tomorrow and have it paid for, yeah, I would go get myself one of the Chevy Silverado trucks. At this point, the sound system in those, I haven't gotten to hear one. I have been informed that they're pretty decent.

[Speaker 2] (14:21 - 14:43)

So if they're, I mean, presumably, I mean, Chevy has been a car company, truck company for many, many years making stereos, and as of late, they've been putting, like, you can get a premium audio system in any Chevy or GM truck that's pretty darn good. And I would think that the electric vehicle version is no different. Am I right?

[Speaker 1] (14:44 - 17:13)

Yes. You know, the sound quality and the usability, you know, I gotta give it to the OEMs. They have done a pretty decent job of improving their audio systems over the years. But I would probably still take the strategy that I've sort of led by as an aftermarket guy forever, which is when you go shopping for a car, you find the low-end sound system on that car, right?

If you want to upgrade and you want to tune it and you want to do your own thing, the best way to do that is to start with the bargain basement bottom-end sound system, usually, right? With the advent of DSPs, you can, you know, digital signal processing and having it built into amplifiers and multi-channel amps and things, it is possible now to take even their premium systems and tweak them to your joy and delight all day long as much as you want to. The only trouble you run into is, you know, where in the car, where in the truck, where in the vehicle, whatever it is, are you going to get power for that?

How are you going to trigger it? How are you going to keep it from upsetting the computer system of the car? It's one of the things about the modern vehicles, and this is even starting to become a little bit more of a thing with regular traditional vehicles, you know, the new ones, everything's so computerized these days.

The battery management systems of vehicles are monitoring and keeping track of and trying to use the current draws from all the various devices in the system to understand, you know, like how much battery it's got left or whatever, or calculate whatever it needs to do. To keep your car running smoothly, you know, like for example, in traditional cars with an alternator, you know, one of the things that they're doing there is they are monitoring the current draw from your battery so that they can tell how much energy the alternator needs to put out. Similarly, battery electric and the hybrid vehicles will use current draw sensors at various places, mainly the one on the different batteries, to figure out, again, how much current, how much voltage does it need to continue to deliver to the system in terms of the, instead of an alternator, now they're using a DC to DC converter.

[Speaker 2] (17:14 - 17:17)

Hold on, we're gonna, I've got a whole section.

[Speaker 1] (17:17 - 17:17)

Okay.

[Speaker 2] (17:17 - 17:35)

We're gonna come back to that DC to DC converter. By the way, this is what happens when you ask the tech trainer what electric vehicle he wants to buy. One question, man.

You end up with so much valuable information that I'm happy for our listeners to hear. This was supposed to be the fun part, though.

[Speaker 1] (17:35 - 17:38)

Yeah. Okay. I want a truck.

I do.

[Speaker 2] (17:38 - 17:39)

You want a truck.

[Speaker 3] (17:39 - 17:40)

A Chevy truck.

[Speaker 2] (17:40 - 17:43)

I want the Silverado, yes. Eric, your turn.

[Speaker 3] (17:44 - 17:45)

Can I give a shorter answer?

[Speaker 2] (17:46 - 17:50)

Can you? I actually kind of wonder if that's possible, too.

[Speaker 3] (17:50 - 17:51)

That might be tough.

[Speaker 2] (17:51 - 17:54)

I'm gonna ask you to get more technical and less fun.

[Speaker 3] (17:54 - 17:55)

Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (17:55 - 17:57)

Don't be so verbose like Baker.

[Speaker 3] (17:57 - 18:24)

Yeah. So this would be tough. I've enjoyed following EV news for quite some time.

You know, I love tech news, right? I like gadgets. I like toys.

We've talked about this. And so I find myself often, like, really fascinated by the ones that don't work out. Like, there was a company called Canoe, right?

And oh my God, it was so ugly. I think I can say that now. Go ahead.

Yeah, you guys should look it up.

[Speaker 1] (18:24 - 18:26)

Those things were going to be great little delivery vehicles.

[Speaker 3] (18:26 - 18:36)

And it just was so practical looking. I loved that. Yeah, but they filed for bankruptcy, so that's probably not happening now.

There's a new one on the market.

[Speaker 1] (18:36 - 18:39)

Oh, yeah. Hold on. I just got it.

Somebody else will buy all their tech.

[Speaker 2] (18:40 - 18:42)

The Google image search just came up for the Canoe.

[Speaker 3] (18:42 - 18:44)

Canoe EV, right? Yes.

[Speaker 2] (18:44 - 18:44)

Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (18:45 - 18:58)

It's so practical. I love it. I love it.

So there's a new one called the Telo. T-E-L-O. Just saw some information on that one recently.

That's a mini truck. That looks fun. That looks different.

[Speaker 2] (18:58 - 19:00)

I've seen a couple videos on this now.

[Speaker 3] (19:00 - 19:00)

Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (19:01 - 19:08)

You shared one. I found another one. And why did they decide to completely chop the nose off the front?

[Speaker 3] (19:08 - 19:21)

Because you don't need a nose. You don't need a nose. So why?

If you want it to fit in tight parkings, I just think it's fascinating. I don't know if that's the one I would go with, but I do find myself attracted.

[Speaker 1] (19:21 - 19:22)

But it's not available for sale yet.

[Speaker 3] (19:22 - 19:24)

That one's not. Right. No.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (19:24 - 19:28)

If we're going for things that are not available for sale yet, let me say I want an Aptera.

[Speaker 2] (19:28 - 19:30)

Is that the Honda Sony car?

[Speaker 1] (19:30 - 19:50)

No, it's its own thing. The Aptera, it's a solar car. It has solar panels embedded all along the top of it.

It's teardrop shaped, elongated. It's a two seater, and it's three wheels. And it has.

That's not a truck. No, it's not a truck. No, no, no.

You know, I thought the object was things we could actually buy.

[Speaker 3] (19:50 - 19:54)

Okay. If we had the money. We can also talk about the future.

We let you talk for 15 minutes.

[Speaker 2] (19:54 - 19:55)

It's my turn now. All right.

[Speaker 3] (19:55 - 19:56)

Go ahead.

[Speaker 2] (19:56 - 20:01)

Okay. So Eric wants the canoe and the Tello. Maybe.

[Speaker 3] (20:03 - 20:04)

I'm fascinated by this.

[Speaker 2] (20:04 - 20:07)

So you got to get an electric vehicle tomorrow, Eric. What is it going to be?

[Speaker 3] (20:07 - 20:11)

So we're not going to talk about the Volkswagen little mini bus right now.

[Speaker 2] (20:11 - 20:13)

Okay. That's available today, isn't it?

[Speaker 3] (20:14 - 20:15)

I think it's on its way.

[Speaker 2] (20:15 - 20:19)

They're doing commercials for it with the Californians from Saturday Night Live.

[Speaker 3] (20:19 - 21:10)

So I figured it's got to be available. That is so cute. That is so retro and neat.

I love that one. I'll tell you the truth, though. The one thing I don't like about it is it doesn't have buttons there.

I said it. I like buttons to do button type things, and it's very much touchscreen. But anyway, this is not a car review podcast to answer your question.

I'll take a Rivian. Yeah, I'll take a Rivian. Yeah.

They're coming out with some new models coming out with a little bit smaller truck SUV. They're coming up with an off road, a little hatchback as well. So they're expanding their portfolio a little bit over the next couple of years.

But right now they make a pretty awesome truck. It's got that pass through storage. It's got four motors, one for each wheel.

It can do all kinds of cool things. I don't need it to really do anything off roady. I just think they're cool.

That's why I'd want one.

[Speaker 2] (21:10 - 21:29)

That little snub nosed Tello future electric vehicle truck that you just mentioned also has the under bed storage, just like a Rivian. I love that. And you know what they call it?

What do they call it? They call it the monster. Nice.

You know why they call it the monster storage? No. Why don't you educate me?

Because it's under the bed. It's a monster.

[Speaker 3] (21:30 - 21:33)

The monster's right under the bed. That's where you store the monster.

[Speaker 2] (21:33 - 21:34)

Got it.

[Speaker 3] (21:34 - 21:35)

Got it. Got it. Got it.

[Speaker 2] (21:35 - 21:45)

Yes. Shout out to Jerry Rig Everything YouTube channel. That's where I learned that little tidbit.

Is it my turn to tell you what electric vehicle I would buy if I was going to buy one today? AJR. Go for it.

[Speaker 3] (21:46 - 21:50)

Enlighten us. Money is no object. Why don't you enlighten us as to which vehicle you would pick?

[Speaker 2] (21:50 - 22:58)

I would buy the Lucid Air Sapphire. Oh, fancy. Okay.

Oh my gosh. Now, see, I don't need to go that fast anywhere. I, well, depending on which Lucid you get, the range is, can be over 500 miles.

And I'm kind of digging that. That would be my main concern. I have no doubt that I could drive an EV every day to and from work and commuting and doing the stuff around home without a problem, without ever having battery charge anxiety, right?

But I like to take road trips. And if I'm going to go visit my mother in Florida or my dad in Iowa, I can do that right now. I can drive all the way to see my dad in Iowa with two gas stops.

That's it. And those gas stops take about 10 minutes unless I need more time, right? And that's just not possible with any EV right now.

But this sounds like the closest to that. I can go as far as possible, charge it back up, go as far as possible.

[Speaker 3] (22:58 - 23:02)

And a luxury. Those are luxuries. Oh, and you'll feel very comfortable doing it.

[Speaker 1] (23:02 - 23:02)

Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (23:02 - 23:02)

Absolutely.

[Speaker 1] (23:04 - 23:24)

Yeah. The Silverado EV truck, it's actually got the 800 volt architecture, except that it's split pack and it drops to 400 and 400 for charging. So it's a little weird.

Stop making it boring. Sorry. It's cool.

It's a very, very cool truck. There we go. But you're not, you're not going to charge it back up in 10 minutes.

[Speaker 3] (23:25 - 23:27)

Like the crab walk thing. Right.

[Speaker 1] (23:27 - 23:37)

Kind of do a little, uh, that's, that's the GMC Hummer. I'm not sure they're actually putting it on the Silverado yet. Although I think they may have given that a capability to the GMC version.

Okay.

[Speaker 2] (23:37 - 23:45)

That GMC, the Hummer EV is probably the coolest looking EV truck. I mean, truck period.

[Speaker 3] (23:45 - 23:45)

Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (23:45 - 23:48)

That thing just looks amazing. Yeah. It looks pretty cool.

[Speaker 3] (23:49 - 23:58)

Another one that's coming. I know it's not out yet, but the Scout, have you guys seen this one? It looks like a retro pickup truck.

Scout was like a retro name in the world of trucks.

[Speaker 2] (23:59 - 24:00)

The international Scout? Yes. Yes.

[Speaker 3] (24:00 - 24:16)

So Scout is being rebranded, uh, with an EV line. Um, and they're in cahoots with, uh, Rivian for some of the software. So, uh, Volkswagen's backing it.

Uh, but the trucks look amazing. They really do. So it's another one to keep your eyes on.

[Speaker 1] (24:16 - 24:39)

Yeah. These EV companies going out of business. This isn't anything new, you know, it's, it's the cycle of business.

There's lots of companies that, you know, come and go. I don't know if anybody remembers the, uh, Jeff Bridges movie, uh, about a car called the Tucker. He played a guy named Tucker after World War II, took over airplane factories and such, and was building this amazing car with all these cool new things like seat belts and disc brakes.

[Speaker 3] (24:40 - 24:41)

And, uh. That won't catch on.

[Speaker 1] (24:42 - 25:03)

Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, 20 years later, all that stuff was like mandated for cars because, hey, safety and whatever.

Boring. Um, the technology that these companies are producing, the various different companies, even the ones who fail, their intellectual property ends up getting bought up, you know, bargain basement dollars by some other company who's going to survive probably, or maybe, hopefully.

[Speaker 3] (25:04 - 25:04)

Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (25:04 - 25:21)

And they're going to move along and they're going to improve the technology and they're going to make it better. And they're going to take what they can learn from the other company's ashes, basically, and use it to improve their company, their cars, and make the, you know, technology more accessible and easier for people to use. Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (25:21 - 25:36)

So these experimental sort of EVs that are coming out are not just a total waste of time. There will be technology that they will have innovated that can get used by the other companies that are able to, big enough to actually make it work.

[Speaker 1] (25:37 - 25:42)

Precisely. And with any luck, some of those companies will actually grow and become larger companies themselves and survive.

[Speaker 2] (25:43 - 25:57)

Rivian seems to be one of those companies. I mean, they grew out of nothing, right? I mean, 10 years ago, there was no Rivian and now there is.

And there's Rivians all over the place. There's plenty of them here in the Charlottesville area. There's one that lives on the farm next to mine.

[Speaker 3] (25:58 - 26:22)

So I imagine from, you know, to kind of bring it back to where we're going with us, you know, in the past, we've been able to research cars because of our deals with local dealerships, but there's quite a few car companies out there, electric car companies in particular, that don't necessarily have a traditional dealer network. So that makes it a good bit harder for us to get our hands on those vehicles ourselves.

[Speaker 1] (26:22 - 26:29)

Very true. Very true. Like, you know, there's not a local, for example, Tesla showroom per se around the area.

[Speaker 2] (26:37 - 27:21)

Let's rewind a little bit. We had you on the show three years ago, and at that time, I kind of want to talk about the baseline, right? Where we were at three years ago, and what has changed since then, and what are we looking for here out of the future?

So back then, we talked about the electrical constraints of EVs and hybrids. I think we've covered that already here. Yeah, those haven't changed a lot.

Another thing that hasn't changed is we have a big old warning on every hybrid vehicle in our database that says that we do not recommend you install any amplifier with more than a 30 ampere current draw, and that hasn't changed, right?

[Speaker 1] (27:21 - 27:28)

Correct. We're still going with that. We are a somewhat conservative company when it comes to blowing up people's cars.

[Speaker 2] (27:29 - 28:10)

At the time, we talked about some products that made a lot of sense to install into EVs and hybrids, like the, maybe mostly hybrids, like the Kicker Key 300-watt subwoofer amplifier was a subamp that did a nice job providing decent power to get a lot of bass, but did not exceed the 30 amp current draw limitation. So there was a few products that kind of fit the bill for hybrids, and I'm hoping that's changed a little bit. Would you say that it's true that we have more stuff available today that would give you significant amounts of power with a reasonable amount of current draw, making them good for a hybrid vehicle?

[Speaker 1] (28:12 - 29:35)

That hasn't changed that much. We're still looking at, you know, efficiency, efficiency, right? We want to make sure that we don't overtax the, in the case of hybrids, just like battery electrics, we're not looking at an alternator in the car.

We're still talking about basically a solid state, you know, there's a green board in there with lots of components on it, you know, the DC to DC converter that's taking the high voltage, because that's where it's coming from. The energy that the car actually uses, yeah, okay, in the hybrids there's a motor running to charge the battery, and in some of them the motor actually helps drive the wheels, but there's no alternator in there like in the traditional car. So it's first, you know, first and foremost they got to charge that battery, and then from that battery they take that high voltage and the gizmo that I keep talking about called the DC to DC converts that down to the level that the low voltage systems in the car can use.

So that object, depending upon the car, some of them I've heard tell are pretty frail. People have fried them relatively easily by putting too big of a device on them, like a thousand watt subwoofer amp on a DC to DC converter that's only rated for maybe 120 amps, and then the rest of the car also has to still run. So that's a problem.

[Speaker 3] (29:35 - 29:48)

So it might not just be like, you know, for the cool stuff we sell, but, you know, if somebody wanted to hook a refrigerator in their EV or have huge light bars or winches for towing, you know, plug it into the 110 socket. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (29:49 - 29:58)

Yeah, that's a different thing. You could literally plug in a home theater receiver in there and, you know, park nine speakers around on the 120, and it would totally be fine.

[Speaker 3] (29:58 - 29:58)

Okay.

[Speaker 1] (29:58 - 30:01)

Well, put some pro audio in there, maybe a little DJ station.

[Speaker 2] (30:02 - 30:48)

I know. In the ID Buzz? Heck yeah!

Okay, I could get behind that. I could do that. So, Chris, the 30 amp limitation that we implemented years ago when we first started seeing hybrids is still in play.

That's not based on, like, we haven't researched every single hybrid that's out there to know this is exactly how much current the DC-to-DC converter or whatever it is in the hybrid vehicle, that's how much it can provide, right? Do we have a way to know in hybrid vehicles especially, but also in EVs, like, what is the available current draw? Like, what can we do with a, like, vehicle-to-vehicle specific number?

Does that exist? Do we have it? Are we trying to get it?

Like, can you tell me about that?

[Speaker 1] (30:49 - 32:24)

We are trying to get them, and the information does exist. All the car companies know what their cars can do in terms of the specifications for those devices. The trick is that those specs don't get published, you know, for the first few years.

You know, you can't find, you know, like, if I can go try to look up a 2024, 2025, almost anything, I'm not going to be able to find, I might find anecdotally, you know, what some people out there are saying they found in it, or maybe they've, you know, been able to find some model numbers off of it, and, you know, through web searching, finding, you know, what the part actually is or whatever. Specifically, one of the things I'm looking at is trying to track down for as many vehicles as possible, the actual literal specifications for the DC-to-DCs, and also looking for any service or anecdotal evidence, you know, looking on different web resources that we have, like, for example, alldatapro.com, you know, digging through their information about the vehicles and such, looking for online reports, looking for people actually having done and doing installs in the various cars. And that 30-amp limit that we impose, we're sticking to it because, again, we conservatively don't want to cause damage to people's cars. I'm pretty sure there are a fair number of the newer cars with better, larger DC-to-DC converters that could probably do larger systems, but we don't want to put people in a position without evidence, you know, without really knowing that it's going to stand up to it.

[Speaker 2] (32:24 - 32:37)

Because the risks are aplenty, right? And they probably, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but they probably range from the minor inconvenience stuff to explosions, right? Like, and everything in between.

[Speaker 1] (32:38 - 32:57)

Yeah, if you fry your DC-to-DC converter by drawing too much current out of it, which is, you know, that's how you fry things. You draw too much energy through them in terms of amps at their rated voltage levels. And you draw too much and poof, you know, you let the magic smoke out, is that old industry expression.

Yeah, you don't want to do that.

[Speaker 3] (32:58 - 33:01)

You can't put it back in after it comes out. That's why it's magic.

[Speaker 1] (33:01 - 33:55)

Correct, yeah. Even if you were ready and caught it with something, you can't stuff it back in there. But DC-to-DC converters are not inexpensive.

I mean, you know, you were planning on putting in a $1,000 system, and suddenly you blew up your DC-to-DC converter on your car, and now instead of a $1,000 system, you're looking at a $5,000 or $6,000 or $8,000 system, depending upon the car. I was looking up some vehicle earlier today. I forget which one exactly, but I was trying to find the price of a DC-to-DC converter for it.

I think it was actually a hybrid, about a 2018 or 19. Oh yeah, I was looking up a Chevy Volt, a hybrid, plug-in hybrid electric, 2017. And I'm pretty sure I found a few quotes online for the cheapest one on eBay was around $1,100.

So that's a cheap one on a small car that wasn't very expensive to start with.

[Speaker 2] (33:55 - 34:03)

And if you can find replacement parts like the DC-to-DC converter, can't you also glean from that the current capabilities?

[Speaker 1] (34:04 - 34:09)

Yeah, and that's the kind of research I'm working on now to fill out my Excel sheet for all of this so I can... Got it.

[Speaker 2] (34:09 - 34:12)

So you do have the numbers for a lot of cars.

[Speaker 1] (34:12 - 34:22)

Yeah, I have the numbers for probably 80% of the vehicles in our research files out to about 2022, 2023.

[Speaker 2] (34:22 - 34:43)

And are these numbers making it to the point where, like, a sales advisor at Crutchfield can use that to recommend an amp? And if so, are we taking it to the next level where a customer can use this information to pick out an amp for their vehicle? Or are we just headed that direction, but we're not quite there yet?

[Speaker 1] (34:43 - 35:40)

We're headed that direction, and we're definitely not there yet. I don't see it happening this year, but perhaps by mid-26, we'll have something more solid. Because again, slow and steady wins the race, so to speak.

Part of the philosophy here is we don't want to damage people's cars, obviously, or trucks or whatever it is they're driving. We want them to be able to get the toys and actually enjoy them. Sometimes installations are not easy.

I've been under those hoods and behind those dashboards and all that stuff, and I get it. You can get really stressed out trying to do an installation. It's one of the reasons we're here is because we want to be around to help people, and we do a pretty decent job of that over the years, I think.

They call up, and they actually end up getting a human they can talk to, and their gear, the object of putting the gear in, making it work. So this is progress, Chris.

[Speaker 2] (35:40 - 35:41)

Yes.

[Speaker 1] (35:41 - 35:42)

We're making progress.

[Speaker 2] (35:42 - 36:30)

When you and I spoke three years ago about this, the end result, the culmination of that discussion was, stay tuned. There's lots of people thinking about this, working on this here at Crutchfield, at the manufacturer level, and there should be some developments, and we're starting to see some developments in what you're doing and the database of the information about EVs and hybrids is going to help us immensely be much better at getting people with these cars a system that makes them happy, right? Something that sounds as good and as loud and punches as hard as they want it to, which we're not confident we can do until we know these technical specifications.

[Speaker 1] (36:31 - 36:55)

Right. And in the short term, I mean, if somebody wants to take it upon themselves to do an installation in their car, hey, it's their toy. They bought it.

They can do anything they want. We just don't want to be the ones pushing them over the edge to go get something without reliably knowing we can confidently say, yes, you can put that in there. And yes, that's going to work.

Here's a few rules and caveats, and we'll help you put it in, kind of thing.

[Speaker 2] (36:55 - 37:07)

You know, I'm not a mechanic, but I have replaced multiple alternators on vehicles over the years. And so I can tell you... You did it yourself or paid somebody to do it?

No, I did it myself, Eric.

[Speaker 3] (37:08 - 37:19)

I did it on a school bus one time. Wow. Come on now.

I'm way more of not a mechanic than you are. Continue. So...

One of the great things about EVs, you don't have all those daggone belts.

[Speaker 2] (37:19 - 37:47)

Right? No belts. But I'm wondering if...

I cut my mower. Replacing... I'm wondering if replacing the DC to DC converter with a newer one, an upgraded one, a higher current one, is something a ShadeTree mechanic could do similar to upgrading an alternator from the standard one for your car to a high current alternator.

Like, is that a thing that's possible for EVs and hybrids?

[Speaker 1] (37:48 - 38:21)

Not that I've seen yet, no. I mean, there's the history in 12-volt car audio where after everything else is said and done and you're trying to build that gigantic system, you could potentially upgrade your alternator. You know, you can do your big three upgrade, increase the cable size for all your power and everything, and improve power flow through your entire vehicle.

That's not doable with an EV system in the same way, shape, or form. Or even the hybrid systems, for that matter, because again, they don't have alternators either. Right?

[Speaker 2] (38:21 - 38:42)

So the DC to DC converter, in my simple mind, I'm just literally picturing a black box somewhere near the high-voltage battery with some wires going in and some wires going out. And it wouldn't be as simple as get a new black box with higher current capabilities and unplug the plugs and plug the new one in. Like, that's just not a thing.

[Speaker 1] (38:43 - 40:32)

Nope, not at all. No, they're going to be matched to the vehicle system by design. It's going to talk to the other gear, as with pretty much any modern car, you know, starting out in the early 90s with the Cadillacs and the Corvettes getting the early treatment on some of the Mercedes, the data bus stuff, you know, the computer talking to computer part of our cars.

So your DC to DC converter is going to be on the data bus, right? It's going to be talking to the car computer that manages everything, right? Like in the Teslas, after their first few years, they changed over to a system where they've actually got three computers, like one that's kind of like the main system, and then they've got a left-side computer, right-side computer thing going on, right?

And they don't even have fuses in them. They have those computerized boxes are also electronic circuit breakers, right, that will trip and reset. So it's not like if you're not getting power somewhere, you can't go to your fuse box and start pulling fuses and looking at stuff.

There aren't any, right? There's only in a modern Tesla that's, you know, last five, six years that they've been building them now, I think the only place you're going to find a fuse is like in the gigantic battery pack. There's a big old honking like 200 amp or 500 amp or whatever it is, master fuse that protects battery pack stuff.

The rest of the stuff in the car, you go look at it, it's like a lot of people want to add an amp and they go, well, I just put a fuse tap on a fuse and, you know, run that and get a, you know, off and on with the key signal. So my amp will turn on. No, no, you're not going to do that.

Not with a lot of these EVs.

[Speaker 2] (40:32 - 40:56)

And this is where we come back to the mildly inconvenient all the way up to explosions, right? The mildly inconvenient is your computer in your car going, hey, there's a problem. It's not such a catastrophic problem that your car doesn't work.

But you're going to have to deal with it before your car works the way it's supposed to, right? Like limp mode and things like that, like that becomes a thing, right?

[Speaker 1] (40:56 - 41:22)

Yeah. You might get error codes where it just goes, hey, you need to check something out and nothing else operationally seems to be any different. You might get the limp mode thing where indeed all of a sudden your power is restricted.

You know, you can't run HVAC. Most of your electric stuff in the car doesn't really work because they're trying to conserve power for the battery pack so they can do that one object that a passenger vehicle is supposed to do, which is to turn the wheels and move it down the road.

[Speaker 2] (41:23 - 41:25)

Yeah. Yeah. It needs to be able to do that.

[Speaker 1] (41:25 - 41:37)

Right. And in limp mode, you know, you're also going to be speed limited. You know, you're not going to be able to drive highway speed.

If you get yourself stuck in limp mode, you're talking going down the road at like three to five miles per hour, if you're lucky.

[Speaker 2] (41:38 - 41:40)

Yeah. It's just there to keep you from being totally stranded.

[Speaker 1] (41:40 - 41:43)

Yeah. So you can get the car off the road or that sort of thing.

[Speaker 2] (41:43 - 41:43)

Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (41:44 - 42:00)

So, you know, we're not wanting to set people up for failure. So we're doing a lot of research and working on figuring these things out and working with the manufacturers. You know, I love that Alpine product, the amp and the speaker package system they made for the Tesla.

[Speaker 2] (42:00 - 42:05)

Yeah. Let's talk about that because that's a new development since we talked three years ago.

[Speaker 1] (42:05 - 42:05)

Right.

[Speaker 2] (42:05 - 42:13)

So here's some things that haven't changed. You still can't replace the radio in most of these. Like that's just new cars in general.

That's not even specifically to EVs.

[Speaker 1] (42:13 - 42:13)

Correct.

[Speaker 2] (42:13 - 42:14)

That's just cars now.

[Speaker 1] (42:15 - 42:15)

Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (42:15 - 42:36)

And it's also still true that to get a sonic upgrade, you could probably replace the speakers in a lot of these cars with higher efficient, good quality speakers and have higher quality sound, right? If you did nothing else, like that's possible in a lot of EVs and hybrids.

[Speaker 1] (42:36 - 42:38)

Is that still true, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

[Speaker 2] (42:39 - 42:43)

And you're not risking any kind of electrical weirdness if you do that. Is that still true?

[Speaker 1] (42:44 - 43:01)

Correct. Yeah. I mean, unless you personally damage something while you're taking your car apart, which is, of course, sometimes a risk.

You know, you need to follow the instructions if there aren't any available. And of course, you know, you are proceeding at your own risk with caution or whatever. The great thing is...

[Speaker 2] (43:01 - 43:05)

But simply putting new speakers in that work and doing it properly, you're not causing a problem.

[Speaker 1] (43:06 - 43:31)

Correct. Yeah. As long as everything goes smoothly on your install, then you end up with a situation where one of two things is going to happen.

Either your new better speakers are going to actually make your car sound better or your new better speakers are going to reveal to you that the electronics in your car are kind of bad. You know, they're not very good quality to start with, which is part of why the original speakers sounded as bad as they did.

[Speaker 2] (43:31 - 44:06)

Which brings us to amplifiers again, right? That's the deal here because replacing the head unit, not doable. Replacing the speakers, doable.

And once you start going down that road, if you're like a lot of our customers, you've just opened the door, right, to the sound you want to get. You've made a small improvement with better speakers, and you realize, okay, what if we had more power? And you want to do that.

And that's something that we're starting to see systems available for specific vehicles. And you mentioned the Alpine systems made for Teslas.

[Speaker 1] (44:07 - 44:43)

Right. Those guys are great. The Model 3 and the Model Y, we have speaker package and amp systems, you know, designed and made to go in those cars.

And it's a bit of a numbers game. You know, the manufacturers of all this gear, of course, you know, they're corporations in business to, you know, make a living, try to make a profit. And they have to, you know, choose and pick and where they're going to allocate their dollars.

So a lot of the EVs and things, there's so few of them out there comparatively to the rest of the vehicles that they're not getting a lot of love yet on any of them.

[Speaker 2] (44:44 - 45:18)

So what Alpine has done is they've designed a system that is one amplifier and replacement speakers for every speaker location in some Tesla. So, for example... Yeah, it's one 12-channel amplifier.

Right. With digital signal processing. There's a system that replaces all of the speakers and powers them with an amplifier.

What makes these systems different from our traditional systems that we've been selling, and what makes them right for the Tesla?

[Speaker 1] (45:20 - 46:07)

Well, they designed it from the ground up. I'm pretty sure that the 12-channel amplifier system was set up by or set up as based upon, you know, one of their other existing 12-channel DSP-type amps. But they reconfigured and re-engineered the power systems in it, made it even more efficient, and, you know, figured out where to be able to tap into the car to get an appropriate signal to trigger it using the CAN bus interface.

They're tapping onto a certain wire. So they're listening to the car, just like a lot of our other CAN bus interfaces where we can replace head units and things. You don't always think of necessarily having to use one of those interfaces to put an amp in a car, although there's lots of those around as well.

[Speaker 2] (46:08 - 46:22)

And just to simplify, that whole CAN bus thing, that's the computer connection technology used in cars. And so if you have an aftermarket device that gets on your CAN bus network, it has to have a computer in it and speak the same language as the computer in the car.

[Speaker 1] (46:22 - 47:12)

Exactly. And every vehicle system, you know, every brand of car has their own operating system, right? They're not necessarily identical.

Like one CAN bus interface that I could put in a Tesla doesn't necessarily work in anything else. You know, a Hyundai Ioniq or whatever wouldn't be the same thing because they're not talking the particular code that the engineers for that vehicle system have written. But they're great.

I mean, we got to see the full install done. They brought us the car here. You know, we've had hands-on with the product.

The car sounded amazing. They did a wonderful job of it. Yeah, I was highly impressed with how good that system sounded.

Oh man, yeah, I enjoyed it quite a lot. If I could have taken that car home that day, I would have been perfectly happy to do so.

[Speaker 2] (47:12 - 47:14)

Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1] (47:14 - 48:02)

I mean, just to sit in it and listen to the sound system. Yep. You know, and that's kind of the thing is that because of the way the head units are integrated and the way that the dashes are with the big giant screens and everything, you're not going to, you know, go pull a head unit like we could, you know, well, with a lot of cars still today.

But, you know, 5, 10, 15 years ago, you just went in, you popped the head unit out. Maybe you had a kit to slap on it to fit it to the dash and it wasn't difficult to wire up at all. You'll plug it in and hook it up and, you know, things are working pretty good.

Do a little tuning. Alpine's already done the tuning on that system. It comes with the DSP pre-installed in the amp for you.

So you don't have any of the tuning stuff to do afterwards. Like we carry some things where you get to monkey around and do all the tuning yourself later.

[Speaker 2] (48:02 - 48:13)

Yeah. You sit in your driver's seat with a laptop and spend three or four hours playing test tones and tweaking every little crossover and EQ setting and DSP that you can possibly think of.

[Speaker 1] (48:13 - 48:28)

And some people love to geek out over doing that kind of stuff. And some people just want to get it done. No, that's not a thing.

The Alpine guys did all that for you. So if you want your Tesla to sound better, check the vehicle guide on our website.

[Speaker 2] (48:28 - 48:59)

Another thing that Alpine did for you was make a complete installation video. Oh, God, yes. Step-by-step.

They have a great video. And we're talking, they show you how to install all 11 speakers, including the subwoofer. Every single one and even where the amp goes.

And where the amp goes. All of the wiring, all the plugs, all of that is designed for these Teslas. And they don't skip any steps.

Like you literally watch them unscrew and screw back in every screw.

[Speaker 1] (49:00 - 49:21)

Right, right, absolutely. And the sound, once you get done with that, and the fact that it's pre-tuned for the car, you know, and we actually have to, when you order for that, you have to make sure you have the right car on because there's a couple of different ones that their systems are for. It's the same amp that they use in each of the, what is it, two or three systems they've built.

[Speaker 3] (49:22 - 49:26)

I've seen six different systems currently on our website.

[Speaker 1] (49:26 - 49:29)

Okay, six different systems. But it's the same exact amp in each one, right?

[Speaker 3] (49:29 - 49:30)

Yep, absolutely.

[Speaker 1] (49:30 - 49:38)

Right. So, but here's the thing. They actually have different tunings they have designed for each of those.

Because the speakers are in slightly different locations.

[Speaker 3] (49:38 - 49:38)

Exactly.

[Speaker 1] (49:38 - 50:04)

Different locations, different lengths. You know, so the time alignment and everything has to be tweaked for, you know, the particular car. And they've done it already.

So when it leaves their factory, like we don't stock them here. We get them sent from Alpine to the customer. And we tell them exactly which car the customer has.

And they send them out the one with the tuning put in it already for that car.

[Speaker 3] (50:05 - 50:27)

I mean, so you're going to be saving some time, kind of, towards the end of the install as far as the setup versus a traditional install that would be this thorough. Oh, yeah. And we're also talking about packages.

You know, the least amount of speakers in one of these packages is 11. Right. 11 speakers with the amp for the Tesla Model 3 and for some Model Ys as well.

[Speaker 1] (50:27 - 50:46)

So pretty cool. And that's actually, you know, the Teslas, they do things a little weird when it comes to, like, the model year stuff. It doesn't exactly coincide with the way the other makers do it.

It also depends upon which plant the car was built in and what month of the year it was built in.

[Speaker 3] (50:46 - 50:57)

So as always is the case, really important to qualify your vehicle all the way through. I'd hate to be halfway through a day's worth of install and realize that, you know, it's not going to work.

[Speaker 1] (50:57 - 50:59)

And that goes for any car. Right, right.

[Speaker 3] (50:59 - 51:18)

If you have questions, call us. We'll help you qualify your vehicle, make sure we get you the right one. Yes.

I'll say I'm encouraged because last time I looked at this list of the Alpine Tesla specific packages, I don't think we had this many, which means they're continuing to add to it. They're continuing to hunt down other models to be able to fit their stuff into. So that's great.

[Speaker 2] (51:19 - 51:36)

It also seems like they're breaking these systems out so that if you say just wanted to replace some of the speakers in your Tesla, you could do that with just the Alpine speakers, and not necessarily go all the way with it with the new amp and such. Is that true? That's correct.

[Speaker 1] (51:36 - 51:37)

Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (51:37 - 51:52)

And this is not like only a Tesla thing. I think there's many companies, Alpine, Focal, Kenwood. I mean, there's several big companies making like vehicle-specific replacement speakers, and we're just seeing them more for unique, interesting vehicles like Teslas.

[Speaker 3] (51:53 - 51:53)

Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (51:53 - 52:05)

All right, Chris, you ready to answer a question? We have a question that came in as a result of our last show where I teased the idea that you were going to be here talking EVs. Can you handle a spur-of-the-moment question?

[Speaker 1] (52:06 - 52:07)

Absolutely. All right.

[Speaker 2] (52:08 - 53:04)

William writes, Hi there. I've been enjoying your podcast and love the service and support I always get from Crutchfield. Right on, William.

Thank you. A few months ago, I purchased a 2024 Mustang Mach-E with the B&O, or Bang & Olufsen, sound system. Overall, I find the stereo to be quite good for a stock system, with the one-week link being a lack of bottom end from the very small factory sub.

I would like to upgrade and add a powered sub, and I have a few questions. So we've got a full EV vehicle here, one you're familiar with, right? You took one of these apart.

Yes. And it's a newer one, so it's a 2024, and it's got the nice system in it, but it's not quite enough for William. Here's his questions.

The advice I've received in the past is that Crutchfield does not recommend adding a powered sub to EVs yet, as it is uncertain what effect this could have on the functioning of the car. Is that still the case? All right, that's the first question.

[Speaker 1] (53:05 - 54:14)

So answer to the first question is it's still a proceed with caution. However, anecdotally, I've seen multiple systems put into various Ford Mach-Es, so it's definitely possible, but you've got to stay small. You don't want to overtax that DC to DC converter.

You know, you don't have an alternator, but you have the DC to DC. So in the case of the Mach-E with the Bang & Olufsen, if that's a GT vehicle, then you've got a slightly bigger DC to DC, and you could do 30 amps of current off of that. You definitely want something that has a, you know, 30 amp or less current draw, and you want something that's going to turn on automatically from audio signal out of the system, because finding a room of turn-on lead in the car is very difficult.

I haven't seen anything personally yet where there's a good place to do it. I read about one guy who tapped off of the rear pedestrian sensor system off of a wire back there that would become active when the car was running, you know, because the sensors are on. But I just, I can't caution tamping into any kind of system that has anything to do with safety of the vehicle in any way, shape, or form.

[Speaker 2] (54:14 - 54:20)

So Crutchfield does not condone or support the disabling or messing with of any safety systems in a car.

[Speaker 1] (54:20 - 54:25)

Exactly. Yeah, no bypassing or disabling or buggering up in any way.

[Speaker 2] (54:26 - 55:42)

And you want yourself to turn on when the car's on and not on when the car's off, so you're not draining that little 12-volt battery. Exactly. So be really careful where you get remote turn-on, hopefully from signal sensing, right?

Yes, signal sensing. You really want to go signal sensing. All right, question number two, are there any powered subwoofers that I could power by plugging into the 12-volt port located in the back hatch, or do I need to run power wires all the way up and directly connect to the car's accessory battery?

If the answer is that plugging into the 12-volt power source will work with some lower powered subs, what is the mathematical calculation I need to consider when sub shopping? I think I can start here and say that's not how you're going to want to connect the power wires of any powered sub, even a small, modest one. You're going to want to run that straight to the battery.

Am I right with that, Chris? That's 100% correct, yeah. Don't do it.

Got it. So what I'm hearing so far for William, depending on the Mach-E and the B&O system and the GT, which one he has, very possible that it could be done. Keeping a smaller powered sub, wiring it properly, hooking it up to the signal sensing for the input and all of that.

So far, you're not telling me it's impossible, we can't do it.

[Speaker 1] (55:42 - 56:56)

Correct. Awesome. I don't believe it to be impossible.

I've seen enough anecdotal online evidence of various people working on systems for it. I have not personally done a sound system in one of these cars yet. I want to, definitely.

But I don't think that going after some giant system would be wise, right? You want to keep it small, save that DC-DC converter. Because I was looking up prices on those things and they run about twice to three times as much as the actual alternator for the ICE version of the car.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So alternator's not cheap and a DC-DC is much worse.

But yeah, I believe it's totally possible. Stay away from that power socket at the back, definitely don't. You'd want to run your power cable to the battery off the positive with proper fusing up at the front.

We have no idea what size gauge of wires that socket in the back is fed with. Right. So yeah, just stay away from that.

That's always the policy. I mean, unless it's a little small, you know, portable speaker of some sort that you're just using at the beach or something that can be powered off a socket like that, stay away from it.

[Speaker 2] (56:56 - 57:36)

William also asks, if I go ahead and install a powered sub, how can I determine where to tap into the existing speaker wire? For example, I believe there is an amplifier for the stock sub in the side panel of the back hatch. But I assume that the signal that goes to the sub has passed through a crossover to eliminate or diminish lower frequencies that the small factory sub cannot handle.

I do not know if that crossover is in the sub amp or before it. I want to be sure that the signal I'm sending to the new aftermarket sub crossover does not already have low frequencies removed. That's a pretty deep question.

William knows a thing or two about this. William Sharp. Yeah, good question.

[Speaker 1] (57:37 - 57:37)

Absolutely, William.

[Speaker 2] (57:37 - 57:45)

So where do we tap in to get good bass, amplified speaker level to go into a powered sub's speaker level inputs?

[Speaker 1] (57:46 - 58:18)

Well, in that car specifically, from what I've been reading about the sound system on the B&O, you have to go after the subwoofer, pardon me, after the sub amp, you know, the factory amplifier, that Bang & Olufsen. If I read it right, and the individual who wrote this about it was correct, it actually receives a digital audio signal from the head unit, right? It's kind of like a GM most system or something like that.

It's not like four or five channels of analog audio being fed back through the car. It's like a two-channel, you know, PCM signal.

[Speaker 2] (58:18 - 58:33)

And we're seeing this in a ton of cars now, right? The signal from the head unit in the factory radio in the dash to a factory premium amplifier is not one you can mess with without some sophisticated aftermarket gear. Right.

And in this car, it's even worse, right?

[Speaker 1] (58:33 - 59:30)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So he's going to need to pick it up after the amp and before the sub. And we do have the breakdown where we took the car apart and, you know, can show you how and, you know, see where to get there and everything.

From what I was looking at in our research file on it, the distance from the amp to the, you know, nine-inch sub they've got, their little factory sub on the right there, is maybe a foot and a half worth of wire total. So they're right there. You can see them.

Once you get to the sub, you can, you know, go ahead and pull that out. And what I don't know is whether or not the sound from that factory sub and the sound from the aftermarket sub is going to blend well together. So it's possible that William might want to unplug the factory sub, in which case the factory amp may not be happy.

It might get an error from it, or it might not put out sound. And if that's the case, he'll have to leave the factory sub reconnected.

[Speaker 2] (59:31 - 1:00:05)

So, and most likely, we're going to tap into those wires to run signal down into the speaker level inputs on a powered sub. And if that crossover does indeed take out the lowest bass frequencies, because the B&O system knows that factory sub can't play the lowest, deepest bass frequencies, there's no way to get them back, right, to feed into this. Or could we use, like, a line output converter with some Accubase or something to restore that lost bass?

We could still do that, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:00:06 - 1:00:34)

Well, the Accubase might help with that. I mean, if the frequencies are literally completely gone and not just suppressed or reduced, you know, a lot, if they're not there at all, Accubase can't fully restore it. It'll come close.

It'll be better. So it's going to be a wait-and-see, you know, when you do your install kind of thing and realize that, yeah, you might want another piece in there to see if it will improve it or not.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:35 - 1:01:12)

All right, so it's possible. We could add a powered sub to this car. There's some things to consider.

You might not get the deepest bass you were hoping for, William, but it can be done. That being said, we still, as a company, don't officially say, it's official, you can put this sub in there. Correct, yeah.

If you're willing to give it a try, be careful. Don't touch any wires that shouldn't be touched, the big ones especially. The big orange ones.

Yeah. Stay away. And don't go with a really big sub.

There's a limit, right? And Chris, based on your research, what are you seeing as the limit? Like, how big of a sub amp, like a powered sub, could we put in there?

[Speaker 1] (1:01:14 - 1:01:30)

Honestly, you know, I'd check the fuse ratings and make sure you stay under the 30-amp rating. Non-GT, stay under 20-amp rating, so pretty small. And definitely find something that has a auto turn-on circuit that will turn on my audio signal.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:31 - 1:01:56)

So that doesn't sound horrible. I mean, I'm looking at these JL Audio, Chris, you mentioned to me earlier. I mean, that's a 10-inch powered sub with a 400-watt amp with a 30-amp fuse in it, so limited to a 30-amp current draw.

If you had the GT version of this vehicle, that's a possibility. You wouldn't be too worried about that damaging the electrical system or anything like that.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:57 - 1:02:08)

No, I think that could work. You know, it's about as big of a system as I could envision wanting to, you know, try putting in that car without more empirical evidence about the systems.

[Speaker 2] (1:02:08 - 1:03:28)

Yeah. So, William, if you're shopping for a powered sub, you want to look for the fuse rating. That's how you'll know how much current draw a powered sub has, and you want to keep it under 30-amp for the GT and under 20-amp for the non-GT version of your Mach-E, and that information is on crutchfield.com.

You got to dig a little for it, right? If you're looking at a powered sub, it might be on the details tab. Scroll down, we'll usually have the fuse listed right there, and that's what you want to look for.

As we gather more information and build up our database, I am certain that Crutchfield is going to leverage all the information that, Chris, you are looking for on these cars, and that we as a company are gathering as we do our vehicle research and product research. And, you know, as those pieces of the puzzle get put together, you're going to be able to shop for a powered sub for a Mach-E at some point in the future on our website, right? You feel confident that's coming, right?

I believe that is coming, yes. We're not quite there yet. No, not quite.

So for now, all you can do is email podcast at crutchfield.com. Chris and I will talk, and we'll answer your questions right here on the show about whether we think you should try it or not. Ultimately, it is up to you, and please be very careful if you're working with your electric vehicle.

[Speaker 1] (1:03:28 - 1:03:29)

Absolutely. Definitely.

[Speaker 2] (1:03:30 - 1:03:43)

Did you happen to listen to the February episode of this show in which we highlighted stories from tech support? I have not yet, unfortunately, no. Nope, we caught him.

[Speaker 1] (1:03:43 - 1:03:45)

I have not yet.

[Speaker 2] (1:03:45 - 1:04:39)

So the whole premise of that show was that I wanted to hear from our tech support agents discussing out-of-the-ordinary, strange, fun, interesting experiences they've had supporting our customers. And I got a lot of responses. I had a bunch of great stuff.

I had more stories than I could even put in one episode. So many that I want to keep including them in future episodes, like maybe just pepper them in when I have a good story to use. I'd love to have one in every show.

You're in tech support. You've taken calls. This is your opportunity to tell us about a memorable customer experience, and I will say a positive one if possible.

Okay, well, does it have to be car audio? No, it could be anything. Stories from tech, it could be anything at all that's ever happened on the phone with you and the customer.

[Speaker 1] (1:04:39 - 1:06:04)

Okay, so there's this thing that people do with their home networks for their Wi-Fi and their Ethernet and their routers. And they buy this thing from their internet service provider on their monthly bill, and it's called a router modem. It's a combination machine.

It does both things, and they're used to using that. And then they decide that one's not good enough. They want a better router.

They need better coverage in their house, and they call up, and we sell them something nice, maybe one of the Eero systems. They take it home, or they get it delivered home, whatever. If they're a local customer at the store or whatever, maybe they pick it up.

But anyway, they go and set it up, and they follow the instructions in the app, and they get it all set up. And then things start doing strange stuff, because what they didn't do during the course of the install is disable the routing function of that factory or OEM, if you want to call it, their ISP provider's modem, cable modem router deal. So now they've got two traffic cops directing traffic.

So basically, they have their original network and the new network. Right, which they've given the same name and password as the old network. But they've got two different traffic cops, so to speak, directing traffic in their house.

And they're kind of competing with each other. And sometimes the devices on the network will talk to the one traffic cop, and sometimes the devices talk to the other traffic cop.

[Speaker 3] (1:06:04 - 1:06:05)

And they won't talk to each other.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:05 - 1:06:22)

And they won't talk to your phone, right? Because your phone's on one connection, or your tablet or whatever. Right.

So I actually had a writer working on a story for a $8,000 Macintosh receiver, right?

[Speaker 2] (1:06:22 - 1:06:25)

A Crutchfield writer you're talking about? I am.

[Speaker 3] (1:06:25 - 1:06:26)

Whoa, you're not supposed to tell on us.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:26 - 1:06:29)

An internal tech support call.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:29 - 1:06:31)

You know what? I like this. I like this.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:31 - 1:06:45)

This was internal tech support because he had actually talked to someone at the manufacturer first. And they had floated the theory that the wireless chip module for the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and such inside the machine might be defective.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:46 - 1:06:46)

Inside the Macintosh.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:47 - 1:06:54)

Inside the Macintosh. No, that doesn't sound right. I looked at the item number and the price and went, nope.

That's not it. No, no, I don't think so.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:54 - 1:06:57)

That doesn't sound like something Macintosh would do.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:57 - 1:08:13)

No, no. They build super good stuff. And as it turns out, our poor writer fell victim to the same thing that so many of our customers do and didn't realize it.

He had gotten his... Once upon a time, his cable modem, well, DSL modem was actually in bridge mode, like it should have been. And his Eero network was performing flawlessly.

He had no problems. Turns out, and the longer I talked to him and figured out about his system and roadmapped everything, figured out that he had gotten a replacement modem router from his ISP about a month ago, or maybe two months ago. Anyway, he hadn't yet seen problems.

But when he got his new unit, his replacement unit, by default, it shows up in router mode. Right. Right?

So instead of it being bridged like it should have been, it was in that mode. And he talked to other people before he called us, right? Before it got to...

Actually, I got it on an email chain. Somebody says, hey, can you check with this and find out what's going on? I find it hard to believe this $8,000 Macintosh is going to have a problem.

And I went, yeah, no, I don't think so. And in my brain, the very first thing I thought of was, I bet his network's not right.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:13 - 1:08:14)

There's something wrong with his network.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:14 - 1:08:17)

Something wrong with his network. And sure enough...

[Speaker 2] (1:08:17 - 1:08:32)

Did you ask him why didn't he just buy a completely new modem router combo, or a new modem and a new router from us, and give that stuff back to the internet service provider instead of continuing to rent it from them?

[Speaker 1] (1:08:33 - 1:09:08)

No, I didn't want to rub salt in the wound. But the poor guy was like, okay, here's what you need to do. And he needed to just call his service provider because there's like some special coding that they do on their router for whatever reason to put it in bridge mode.

So I was informed. So I said, yeah, just call them, tell them to do this for you. Give you the how-to and make it happen.

And then it will fix your whole network and this will work just fine. And all we had to do in the short term while we were talking to him to make it work the way it was supposed to, was simply connect the Macintosh straight into one of the EROs. Plugged it up to the ERO.

[Speaker 2] (1:09:08 - 1:09:10)

Hardwired it to one of the mesh network nodes.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:10 - 1:09:40)

Right. Hardwired it, changed a setting in the ERO temporarily, and then boom, everything was fine. Worked great for him.

So he's real happy. He gets to write his article, get all that done. And then he's just got to get that modem from his ISP set to bridge mode and change the settings back on his ERO and his network's going to be perfect.

And the Macintosh, I'm informed actually earlier today, I got a message from him, and I am informed that the Macintosh is performing flawlessly and does sound like an $8,000 receiver.

[Speaker 2] (1:09:41 - 1:09:41)

As expected.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:41 - 1:09:42)

As expected, yes.

[Speaker 2] (1:09:43 - 1:10:11)

Oh, that's fantastic. You know, when I had various tech support folks into the studio to give me these stories, I also asked them for a tech tip, you know, something they want customers to know that might even help prevent calls to tech support. Oh, man.

I didn't have to ask you for that. You gave me both combined into one, the tip about how to deal with your network and your service provider and bridged mode and all of that, and a pretty fun story.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:11 - 1:10:33)

He fell prey to the same thing that so many other human beings, you know, the people we help fall prey to, a little bit of bad information, right? And not realizing what had changed when he got this other piece replaced, right? His system materially functioned different because of the difference in the hardware, just the settings inside that thing.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:34 - 1:10:34)

Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:34 - 1:10:46)

Right? He had one in bridge mode before and it was working perfect and he had no issues and everything he ever hooked up worked great. You know, once he said that he had gotten the replacement modem, I'm going, yeah, that thing's not in bridge mode.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:47 - 1:12:58)

There you go. Dude, thank you for exceeding all of my expectations for what you might be able to do on today's episode of Crutchfield, the podcast. All right, Eric, Chris, it is that time again for a not a sponsor break.

I'm so jealous of other podcasts where they get to, you know, do an ad read and they get paid by sponsors and stuff. We don't have that. Bill Crutchfield sponsors this podcast.

So I'm taking it upon myself to go find some of the neatest, weirdest little individual products that we sell here at Crutchfield and do up our own quote unquote ad. This week's not a sponsor is the Lorex 2K Wi-Fi smart light bulb camera. If you are looking for the easiest to install and use camera for the exterior of your home, well, stop looking because I found it.

The Lorex 2K simply screws into a standard light bulb socket. Leave the switch on so it always gets power. Download the Lorex app to set it up.

View the camera and control the light. It is a camera that you simply screw into your light bulb. And that's it.

It's awesome. OK, that's done. That's enough for the ad copy.

Let's really talk about this thing because it is so cool. I mean, this thing, you can put a micro SD card in it. There's no monthly fee to see live or recorded video app in the video in the app on your phone.

You'll get like alerts when there's motion, just like any other, you know, house camera, ring doorbell camera, anything like that. It's like that, except it's even easier. You can have a two way conversation with someone standing on your front stoop.

And you can even trigger a siren to like remotely from your phone in case there's somebody bad on your front stoop. This camera works well in the dark. You can have the light in it come on like based on a schedule or when there's motion, or you can turn it on and off from the app.

Did I mention that to install it, all you do is screw it into a light fixture? It is a light bulb with a camera, and I want one. What do you guys think?

I think that's an awesome choice.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:58 - 1:13:10)

How many customers does it take to screw this thing in? I wonder if that'll fit in my fixture on my porch. Hey, you know what, last episode, the not a sponsor, I purchased...

[Speaker 1] (1:13:10 - 1:13:10)

You may have just sold one.

[Speaker 3] (1:13:10 - 1:13:23)

You know, hey, if so, he's two for two, because last week's not... Actually, I need two of them. Last week's not a sponsor.

I bought before the end of the episode. Did you? I went ahead and purchased it, so no pressure, but...

[Speaker 2] (1:13:23 - 1:14:07)

We heard the ding on his computer when he got the email confirming he had placed the order. It was amazing. So I'm going to read through these final credits here.

I'll be waiting for the ding for when you place your order. This episode of Crutchfield the Podcast was hosted by Eric and JR with our special guest Chris. We recorded it in our new underground bunker studio at Crutchfield HQ in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia.

Reminder, if you've got a name suggestion for our new studio, email it to us using podcast at crutchfield.com email address. Big thanks to our guest this week, Chris from Crutchfield Tech Support, who looks to be frantically busy placing a order for the Lorex camera light bulb. Is that true?

That what's happening over there?

[Speaker 1] (1:14:07 - 1:14:09)

He's thinking about it. I'm thinking about it, yeah.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:09 - 1:14:10)

All right.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:10 - 1:14:19)

I'm thinking about it for sure. You know, like I said, we have a duplex at home, and I have an elderly mother-in-law, and having a camera out on her porch would be wonderful.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:20 - 1:14:30)

Oh, by the way, there's no reason it has to go outside. You can put it anywhere. Into a light bulb fixture.

Put it inside if you need to be able to see things inside your house as well.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:30 - 1:14:39)

Yeah, I got to make some measurements and see if it'll fit. Actually, come to think of it, globes and the outside fixtures are all frosted. I'm going to have to change those.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:39 - 1:14:44)

It does take the right kind of outdoor or indoor light fixture for it to work.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:44 - 1:14:48)

Yeah, outdoors, you're going to need a clear globe.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:48 - 1:14:52)

Clear globe or remove the fixture entirely and just screw the bulb up in there.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:52 - 1:14:57)

Yeah, but I'm not going to like the way that would look. Well, okay, so how am I going to do that? I'm going to have to figure something out.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:58 - 1:16:03)

All right. Stay tuned. I'll tell you what I come up with.

Also, big thanks to Abby and Alexis. They work in our social media department. They're constantly dealing with it when I send them emails and say, hey, can you ask people to send us questions that we can answer?

And they are always so gracious at doing so. Thank you so much. Just a reminder, we'd love to solve your consumer electronics mysteries on this show.

Do you want to know what kind of stereo we would recommend for you, for your house, for your car, for your truck, your whatever? Send us an email, podcast at crutchfield.com. We'll get you an answer.

We know how to do that. If you're not currently a subscriber, go ahead and subscribe. Yeah, currently.

Currently. I picked up on it that time. I have been expecting more puns from you, Eric, today.

I feel like you have underwhelmed a little bit. I think you need to go back and listen to the recording. Yeah, I'm going to.

That's my job. And lastly, thank you to Bill Crutchfield for continuing to pay us to talk about the coolest tech on the planet.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:04 - 1:16:05)

Thanks, Bill.