Hotline: Folding phones in cars, EVs in Mexico

0:00Nilay Patel:Support for the show comes from Amazon Prime. Maybe you have a project or hobby you've been meaning to tackle one day, like a much needed upgrade to your holiday decor or that cookie decorating kit you've been eyeing for years. Well, mark your calendars because Prime Big Deal Days is coming October 6th and 7th, and you can turn that someday project into today's reality. With two days of deals, there's never been a better time to cross that long-awaited project off your list, and Prime Big Deal Days is your perfect excuse to make it happen. Whether it's getting that stand mixer for making those holiday meals, or building that weight room you've been waiting for, Prime Big Deal Days is your chance to finally make your move.

0:41Nilay Patel:Mark your calendars. Shop new deals every day this Prime Big Deal Days, October 6th and 7th. I've got a text. The summer might be almost over, but a new bombshell has entered the villa. Meet the voices of DeepGram Flux TTS. I'm Drew. Low-key casual. I'm Alexis, an upbeat morning person. I'm Hayley. Always cheerful. Flux TTS has some real personalities that are ready to speak. You can interrupt, pause, and keep talking without losing the plot. Fancy a chat? Come try all the voices free through September 12th at deepgram.com slash keep talking. Terms apply. Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Android Auto.

1:26Nilay Patel:I'm one of the producers of the show, Travis Larchuk, and today we've got a very fun hotline episode for you. The Verge's transportation editor, Andrew Hawkins, is going to join us to answer some of your questions that we've been saving up about cars. Before we get to it, you should know that we did tape this before the iPhone Duo was announced. The first question we talk about hits on folding phones. We specifically talk about the Z Fold 8. We obviously would have brought up the Duo if we had taped this after. We do not have time machine technology at The Verge yet. We are working on it. Before we get to that, here's what else is happening on The Verge today.

2:02I'm Josh Cajas, and this is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026. Meta is expected to announce new smart glasses tonight. Its MetaConnect event starts at 7 p.m. Eastern, and we'll be live blogging it here at The Verge. The big question, can you forget how you feel about Meta? Mark Zuckerberg would probably like it if he did. Meta has found itself at the center of high-profile lawsuits, negative press, and public backlash against its products and technologies. And its Reality Labs division also took over$80 billion in operating losses over the last five years. Let's see if these new pervert glasses can right the ship.

2:36Meanwhile, Discord will now automatically estimate your age. Starting today, Discord will automatically assign users to an estimated age group based on multiple account signals, such as account age and history and connected communities, servers, and games. Back in February, Discord received criticism for its botched age verification rollout. That resulted in a data breach that exposed user info and scanned photo IDs. With this new system, the company is anticipating that 90 % of its users won't be asked to confirm their age and aims to use less intrusive options that don't require sensitive personal data.

3:10With this new system, the company is anticipating that 90 % of its users won't be asked to confirm their age and aims to use less intrusive options that don't require sensitive personal data. And finally, if you're looking for another place to see advertisements, great news. According to a report from Bloomberg, McDonald's is launching a limited pilot program for displaying ads from other brands on its drive-thru menus while customers wait for their meals. A McDonald's spokesperson told Bloomberg that this test allows the company to explore ways to share post-purchase content that customers may find helpful, relevant, or interesting.

3:40In other words, people aren't buying enough 20-piece McNuggets, so can we please sell you some meta AI glasses on the side? You can read more at TheVerge.com. That's 90 seconds on The Verge for Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026.

3:54Nilay Patel:Support for the show comes from Amazon Prime. Some of us are blessed with a natural ability to do gift-giving right. You probably have a few in your life. People who can make a mental ledger of what their loved ones like and buy things here and there throughout the year. My mom has always been the best gift giver in my life. She could even make the smallest gift feel incredibly special because you knew that she had really thought about that person receiving it. It doesn't have to be the biggest or the most expensive gift. It just has to show someone you were thinking about them. Well, for the rest of us, here's a tip.

4:28Nilay Patel:Prime Big Deal Days is coming October 6th and 7th. That means that for two straight days, you can get deals on those kitchen gadgets for your dad, electronics for your brother, fitness equipment for your bestie, toys for the cousins, and so much more. There's new deals dropping every day so you can become one of those expert gift givers that we all know. And it's all happening with plenty of lead time into the holidays. So no more scrambling to come up with something last minute. The hardest part will be finding a good hiding place for it all. Mark your calendars. Shop new deals every day at this prime big deal days, October 6th and 7th.

5:08Nilay Patel:Support for the show comes from Horizon 3. You know that feeling when you can tell you're being watched? That's a primal instinct that took millennia to develop. Unfortunately, we don't have anything like that in our digital lives, so we need tools that can help us know when we're in harm's way before the worst-case scenario. They say that in cybersecurity, the scariest thing isn't the attack you see coming, it's the attack path you didn't know existed. Horizon 3 is a proactive AI-native security platform that wants to change that. Here's how it works. Horizon 3's Node Zero is an autonomous AI hacker that continuously attacks your own environment at machine speed, the same way a real attacker would, finding all the areas that are vulnerable.

5:51Nilay Patel:To see exactly what an attacker would find in your environment before they do, go to horizon3.ai slash vergecast and request your free Node Zero demo. That's horizon3.ai slash Vergecast. Again, that's horizon3.ai slash Vergecast. No commitment required. Results in hours, not weeks.

6:19Nilay Patel:Andrew, let's talk cars. Let's do it. I'm down. All right. First of all, you're the transportation editor. I am. What is your favorite form of transportation? Bicycle. Yes. Hands down bicycle. It's the most efficient. It's the one that will leave you feeling better about your life and your choices. Everyone should ride a bike. And if you can't ride a bike, I'm sorry, but I hope that there's a variety of mobility devices that are close enough to a bike that I feel like everyone has the potential to get on a bike. And I very much encourage everyone to do that. Well, now that we've said that, let's talk about cars.

6:55Damn it.

6:55Nilay Patel:All right, we've got our first question. This is from Brandon. And this is kind of a curveball to start us off. It's actually about the Galaxy Z Fold. Something I know a lot about. And it does relate to cars. So here we go. This is Brandon. I've been listening to your podcast for a while, big fan. And all the discussion about the new Galaxy Z Fold and how you kind of don't need a phone that opens up, I know there's not much of a case for it, but I was wondering if there might be a case made by, weirdly enough, the slate truck. Because I can see a market where you have a phone that you then unfold and set up as like your console in your car.

7:44Or if you're a drone pilot, you open it up and you use that as your control system. Obviously, it's not going to be much use for the average person. You just open it up, watch videos. Nobody's really going to do that. But for utility uses, the Z Fold and these foldable phones might have more use as long as they have like as a control system. And I just want to know what your thoughts are on that. Is that a good enough case for them?

8:10Nilay Patel:So first of all, can you remind us what the Slate Truck is? Yes. And why this question might make sense? Yeah, I just want to, we'll set this up. The Slate Truck is a new electric truck that is in production right now. And the whole concept of it is like, you know, strip out everything that you possibly can strip out from an electric vehicle except for, you know, all the basics. And that is the way to sort of bring down the cost, right? Because that's been sort of like this persistent problem in the EV market today is that they're just too expensive. And a lot of that has to do with the battery and supply chains.

8:42But essentially, Slate's philosophy is like if we just strip everything away, if we start get rid of all the features, all the fancy stuff. I mean, they really did. I mean, they got rid of power windows. They got rid of the internal screen. There's no radio. There's not, you know, I mean, there's HVAC and there's a steering wheel. And that's basically it. So, you know, the idea of like a manual crank for your windows, I think, would probably shock a lot of people in our modern days today. But I think that that is sort of what they're trying to get at. You can add a lot of stuff. You can sort of spec your slate truck and build it as you would like to see it.

9:18But the bare bones blank slate has basically very little. So I think what this guy is getting at is, you know, there's no screen in the car. There's no infotainment system. There's no way to sort of get, you know, sort of the standard things that we all kind of like live to expect these days, whether it's navigation or media, music, podcasts, whatnot, this podcast. So I love this question so much because it could only spring from the mind of a Vergecast listener in some ways. Right. Because it shows that you're listening to all the stuff that we're talking about. And I really appreciate that. I think that that's amazing.

9:52And yeah, I do think that there is a case to be made that a foldable phone slash tablet like the Z Fold could have a use case in the Slate truck. Because it is sort of like the ultimate BYO electric vehicle. Like you bring your own phone and you can add a mount to the dashboard and you can just have your phone sort of mounted in there much in the way that a lot of people do with their phones. A lot of Uber drivers, for example. And so the idea of having just like your skinny little iPhone or Android phone, maybe that's not appealing to a lot of people. Maybe they want something that's a little bit bigger.

10:27So they could possibly have, you know, bring their foldable in and that could serve that purpose, I think, very well. I feel like this feels like a challenge to me personally. Like once we get the Slate truck to test out, and I feel like I got to bring a Z Fold with me in order to do this. So Brandon, if you're out there, I'm going to make this happen. I don't know how or when it's going to happen or if Slate is ultimately going to be a successful product or not, but I'm going to try my best to make this happen for you.

10:58Nilay Patel:Yeah, that's just, it gets to the ongoing, you know, where is the computer question. I can't wait for the article where we go through what foldable form factor is best to put into your slate truck. Well, this next question is related to this. This comes from Maxwell, who writes in, I drive a Tesla that has a built-in wireless charger, and I really liked it when I got it. Handy place to put the phone, no cords, neat. Until I upgraded to a 17 Pro Max last year, and now my phone won't charge because the massive camera bump lifts it too high off of the charger. This is such a problem that you can find aftermarket MagSafe replacements that go in the same spot.

11:43Nilay Patel:But personally, I have just started using a cord again. This is like a tale as old as time with like built-in technology and cars, right? Like you've got a bunch of, you know, USB-A ports now all over the place. Right. And if there's anything that can really show sort of like how fast technology is moving and how quickly old technology becomes obsolete, it's the car, right? Because that is the, you know, sort of the piece of technology or the product that people tend to keep around the longest, right? Like, you know, if they're not, maybe, you know, maybe they don't have like a three-year lease.

12:14Maybe they, you know, they're paying off their car or what have you. It's something that they want to keep for a long time and they want to get a lot of use out of it. So it is, I can understand the frustration when wireless technology and obviously phone technology is sort of not keeping the pace with what you got in your car. Yeah, it's a first world problem, but it's a problem nonetheless. And it's something that I did a little digging after I read this question and saw that there's a lot of people who are experiencing this problem. Especially because, I mean, this is something that people have been complaining about wireless charging in their cars for a long time.

12:51If you don't have Qi charging in your car, it's a fair bet. I don't have it in my car, for example, and the wireless charging pad sucks. every time i take the phone out it feels like it has less power than it went in and it's like really hot to the touch um so it just feels like it's not working so i've actually been been plugging it in with the regular old usbc for a long time as well and it's fine it works a lot better that way i think um because yeah it's like with that camera bump you're just making the the the charging pad have to work all that much harder to get the charge into your phone which you don't want to do that's what really heats up uh the uh the phone too so it's i i can see the problem there and i think that the solution while inelegant is just plug it in i have a question

13:34Nilay Patel:are there any cars that have figured out a good place like if you've plugged your phone in a good place to put your phone when it's plugged in because i've been in so many cars where it's like okay because i can like jam this into a place that was like made for coins or like put it upside down into the cup holder have you have you been in any cars that have figured this out they they are trying they have their best minds working on travis i i and i i feel like they are still struggling i've been in a lot of cars and i've seen all variety of little drawers and slots and cubbies and weird sort of like all sorts of manners of things that they're trying to find a where people can put their phones so that it doesn't fall in that dreaded place, the space between your seat and the center console where everything goes to die and nothing ever comes out again.

14:26So, yeah, it is a constant problem. I haven't really seen anyone quite figure it out yet. I feel like Tesla has a good solution. It's just like it's at an angle and it just goes there really well, although now with the camera bump, it's a little bit less of a flat, perfect fit for a lot of them. I mean, yeah, I don't know. It's it's because phones are changing and the sizes are so different. It's like, how do you design a solution? Right. When everyone's got something different. Right. Maybe you have a Z fold and you want to like unfold it and have that charge. You know, it's sort of like I can I can sympathize with automakers who are just like trying to engineer a solution to like a constantly shifting problem.

15:08All right.

15:09Nilay Patel:This is our last question along this theme. It is from a listener who has not identified themselves. Can I just say that I don't care about Apple CarPlay and all that. Like, all my cars have it, and I want it. But the reality is the only reason I actually want it deep down, if I had to, like, strip away all the features and you're like, what's the one thing you can have, it's for the maps. I drive a Toyota Land Cruiser now, like the new one, and I had to pay a subscription for the map to tell me what road I'm on to tell me the north, south, east, west, anything. And the map sucks. They gave me the free trial.

15:44Nilay Patel:It was terrible. So CarPlay, I don't care. Good maps, I do care. We found the one person who doesn't care about CarPlay. Was that person's name N. Patel? No. That's probably not. No. You know, it's a lot of people disagree with that statement. A lot of people care about Apple CarPlay. As we find amongst our readers and in surveys done, you know that it is the number one thing that people care about in their cars. And I think like automakers are figuring out that maps are kind of like a sneaky way of getting around having to sort of bend over backwards for Apple or for Google. And the way that they figured it out is to bend over backwards for Apple and Google by just integrating their own map, those own, you know, those tech companies mapping products directly into the software of their vehicle.

16:43So you've got GM right now who uses Google built-in, a variety of other automakers do as well, Volvo, Polestar, a bunch of others. Ford just announced that it's going to be directly integrating Apple Maps into its future vehicles, which has sneakily become, I think, a lot better in some ways than Google Maps. It really is. I made the switch recently and I'm enjoying it a lot more. But yeah, I think that's That's sort of like what you're seeing from the automakers is that they're realizing that their own navigation systems suck terribly. And while they would love to keep their customers within their own sort of like software ecosystem, I think they're realizing that that's not what they want.

17:27The customers want Apple CarPlay. They want Android Auto. They want their own maps with their own saved places and their own routes and everything that's sort of perfectly curated to the way that they want it to be. so the way to do that is to sort of just have it be a native app on the infotainment and i think

17:43Nilay Patel:that that's what we're sort of seeing the trend now what is the advantage of that as opposed to just carplay or android auto well yeah i think the uh especially if you have an electric vehicle there's ways in which you know you can bring in vehicle data into your into the map and into the navigation um that a lot of electric vehicle owners will find very useful so um like for example like if you're navigating you know on a road trip and you want to see how much charge you have left when you get to your destination uh you know a native a native system will would be able to see that better than a phone mirrored system a projected system um and there's also a lot of other things too about uh sort of like ways in which that they can better merge sort of the data of the vehicle itself the driving data fuel levels all that kind of stuff into the map um to make it you know just a better experience for people cool i have a comment about maps in cars yes i think if i'm on and there might be a way to do this i think if i'm on a road trip where i'm going like five hours or something i need to be able to hide how much time is left in the trip because i look at that like maybe every two minutes i'm like oh my god i need to do the exact same thing but only because i have a petulant eight-year-old in my backseat usually who's like sees the map and sees the amount of time and is constantly giving me a headache about how much how much literally if it takes more than five minutes to get to any destination he's pissed off so yes i agree with you we need to find a way to hide the amount of time left you hear that apple yes you hear that google please find it for andy and travis are asking you specifically to hide that let us swipe it away

19:24Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August, 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.

19:54Nilay Patel:Support for the show comes from Amazon Prime. Some of us are blessed with a natural ability to do gift giving right. You probably have a few in your life. People who can make a mental ledger of what their loved ones like and buy things here and there throughout the year. My mom has always been the best gift giver in my life. She could even make the smallest gift feel incredibly special because you knew that she had really thought about that person receiving it. It doesn't have to be the biggest or the most expensive gift. It just has to show someone you were thinking about them. Well, for the rest of us, here's a tip.

20:28Nilay Patel:Prime Big Deal Days is coming October 6th and 7th. That means that for two straight days, you can get deals on those kitchen gadgets for your dad, electronics for your brother, fitness equipment for your bestie, toys for the cousins, and so much more. There's new deals dropping every day so you can become one of those expert gift givers that we all know. And it's all happening with plenty of lead time into the holidays. So no more scrambling to come up with something last minute. The hardest part will be finding a good hiding place for it all. Mark your calendars. Shop new deals every day this prime big deal days, October 6th and 7th.

21:10Nilay Patel:All right, our next question. We did a very fun episode about this trend of EV golf cart-like cars. Oh, yeah. That was fun. Yeah, it was great. And this question is related to that. Hey, VergeCast. This is Jason from Nova Scotia. I've been thinking a lot after hearing the EV golf cart episode. And I've been thinking a lot about Fisker and the downfall of Fisker 2.0. I think there's a lot to learn there. And I guess my question is, like, why haven't we seen a company that essentially takes as many existing off-the-shelf pieces and builds a reasonable car? One of the things that I see, like the downfall of Fisker was that they really tried to do in-house software that was bad.

21:56Nilay Patel:I think one of the things that they really did right was partner with Magna for manufacturing and engineering because they took a company that knows how to build and manufacture a car. And a lot of these startup companies try and do everything and reinvent the wheel themselves. So like new batteries, new motors in-house, software in-house, all of these vertical integration like Tesla, and they try and copy that model. But I wonder, we're at a point now where Rivian provides automotive software, Google provides automotive software. We can buy off-the-shelf batteries. You can buy Bosch motors that are really good.

22:32Nilay Patel:You can partner with Magna. And I'm just wondering, like, why we have we I don't think there's a car company that I'm aware of that's like just taking as many off the shelf pieces and just putting together a really good car. Just curious if you have any thoughts on that and like whether there's just kind of a missed opportunity there. And we've just yet to see it. So first, can we can we define some terms here? Can you remind us Fisker, who they are? What what is the the failure that is being referred to here? Absolutely. So Fisker was a car company. company that went bankrupt a few years ago.

23:07Henrik Fisker was the founder of that company. Their idea was to build, you know, and they did. They built one car, one car only called the Ocean. And if you live in New York City, you'll probably see a lot of them out on the street right now because they're being used by Uber drivers almost exclusively. But this was, you know, he's sort of like this famed automotive designer who had like a long story career, wanted to start his own thing, fashioned himself a bit of a, you know, as like another Elon Musk type. And it just didn't work out. You know, it's, you know, for I think a variety of reasons, you had the pandemic, you had chip shortages and supply chain disruptions and all sorts of things.

23:46And he tried to go, you know, try to sort of navigate through those turbulent waters and didn't end up happening. It was one of many EV companies, EV only companies, sort of in that, those exuberant pandemic and post pandemic years that did not pan out. And I think, yeah, I think that Jason has the right idea, that they tried to do too much, right? And you're seeing some of those companies, it's working out for them, right? For Rivian, it's working out. They are also sort of taking the Tesla path of vertically integrating, designing their own software, designing their own chips, building their own motors.