Electrek Car of the Year, Tesla bringing back radar?, FSD failure, and more
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And we are live for a new episode of the Electric Podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your host. And as usual, I'm joined by Seth Winshaw, who just revealed the electric car of the year. Big news today. Exciting. Yes.

- Surprising, shocking. - Yeah, I said it to you, but as it pop up on Twitter, I look at this in the comments, the very first comment I see it's the . - Yeah, oh nice, you got the beeper. - Yeah, a little censorship thing going on. - Get your finger, keep your finger on that. - All right, without any further ado, what is the electric vehicle of the year?

so this year we decided that um taken into consideration we're in the middle of an economic downturn maybe a recession i don't know uh value became kind of the the primary mover um everybody was jacking up prices this year as well uh tesla just like every month uh seemed to be raising the prices ford uh made their mustang more expensive

The government took away a lot of the federal tax credits, but the one outlier was the GM Chevy Bolt, which GM dropped by $6,000, which is pretty impressive. And that was kind of related to the fires issue that we talked about a lot back when that was happening. But-

The bottom line is you get a really good car. And I'm a Chevy Bolt driver from 2017 to 2020. And I just got a new one yesterday. And I love it. And I've driven just about every EV. I've driven Porsche Taycans, Mercedes EQS. And obviously, it's not as great as those cars. But in a lot of ways, I would rather have a Bolt. It's just easier to get into and out of. It's easier to drive.

You don't have to worry about people hitting it. It's smaller footprint, so you don't have to... Parking spots are easy. There's lots of room in the garage. There's just so many bonus pieces of owning a Bolt. And also, I think we also as... I don't want to say Americans, but just as drivers, we're not thinking about the big picture quite as much. And...

you know, when we're driving around, you know, I'm driving around at a Ford F-150, I'm feeling like, what am I doing here? Like I'm using two or three times as much electricity as I need to be using. If I was driving a Bolt, I can't see like around me because I'm so high up in the air and I, you know, I'm such a big vehicle. So pedestrians and bicyclists are in danger. So there's all these like little factors that kind of play in and the Bolt kind of

you know, it's, it's kind of alone in its form factor. I mean, you could say like the mini or the BMW i3 are kind of there, but they don't have, they have like half the range, not really usable range. So it's, you know, it's kind of alone in the hatchback area. So, you know, taking all those things together with the price that I think it's like $15,000 less than the next comparable vehicle. You could say like,

you know a base model id4 would be kind of in the same ballpark um as the bolt but it it you know it's quite a bit more expensive um yeah i guess the mustang machi is kind of close to a bold euv a little bit with the uh only the rear wheel drive but there's just nothing close to it and you know obviously the leaf with the chattimo that's not gonna nobody's gonna want that so

It's about the same price, but it's just not comparable in terms of the value. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, I mean, the Leaf that is near the Bolt price is a 40 kilowatt hour Leaf with a CHAdeMO charger, way slower. I don't know who would buy a Bolt at this point. I don't know who would buy a Nissan Leaf at this point.

it yeah i mean he suddenly shut himself in the field a long time ago but now we're getting into the downside so you just listed all the positive of the bolt which i all agree with you all right about and uh and value i mean no one can argue with it like the even even with all the downside that i can i can mention the value is still is still there but there are some downside to the biggest one i mean you led with it and you're opposed on the downside part of it it is the charging like this

for a 2022 for a vehicle in 2022 to have 54 kilowatt of dc fast charging capacity it's it's kind of unacceptable but that's how much like that's how crazy the market is really that right you you can create like you you can go cheap enough that even if you have like a completely unacceptable charge rate for 2022 you can still have like the the best value car in the ev market in the us so

congrats on sure i will say so just talking about that a little bit a few things um it i totally agree like it's totally unacceptable even if like the regen can go up to 70 kilowatts so you know the system can handle 70 like just throw that in there at least like throw me a bone apparently it's like the wires they just had to replace the wires they just didn't want to do that or something anyway um

things to think about uh the Bolt is one of the most efficient I think it's like the second to the Tesla Model 3 as uh the most efficient cars out there so every I mean the Ionic and and and company or not they're not Ionic 5 yeah the Ionic 5 is not but the old Ionic yeah yeah that one is but yeah have a look um they're all kind of in that range um

So anyway, it's one of the more efficient cars. So I think it's 28 kilowatt hours to get 100 miles, which is the same as a Tesla Model Y. Although, you know, we know that Teslas don't quite do the range that they say they're going to do usually. So

the thing is though like if you're talking about versus a ford f-150 and you're getting half the mileage or even less per kilowatt um then you're kind of charging at the equivalent of over 100 kilowatts in the bolt if you're talking about just a miles basis so it's not quite as slow as you think because of the efficiency and then on top of that you know it is slow but

theoretically you wake up every morning with 260 miles maybe there's a seven day ten days a year where you're driving more than 260 miles so you're going to add a couple you know 15 30 minutes onto each of those stops that you would you know versus the ionic or any other the corners are sorry to interrupt you but the corners are also uh more efficient more efficient in terms of the long range ev you're right it's the long range ev it's a mold three mile wide

The Lucid also, it's a long range EV, just not at the same price point. Then you have a bunch of like 100 miles EVs that are more efficient. But if you want like 100 plus miles EVs, yeah, it goes Model 3, Model Y, Kona, and then the Bolt EV, right? Yeah, and they're all in the same general area. Yeah, it's 120 MPG. Right.

so there's some there's some other downsides um you know the the look of it is uh i would say at most polarizing and i and i said i think i'm the only one at electrek who really like likes the look of the bolt you know it's kind of a hot hatch uh in my book and like frankly there's a lot of cuv

vehicles out there it's kind of nice to refreshing to not have a cv yeah my thing on the design has always been that like i'm not mad at the exterior with the update with the front end too it's it's better i think the when when was the update uh like

2021, 2022. Yeah, so that was a good update. My point was always the interior is not great looking. It's also a little bit cheap looking, especially when it was a $35,000 car. So now it's a $25,000 car. I'm not mad at it. This is a decent interior for a car in the 20s. Yeah. And yeah, you've always said that. And now it's finally in the 20s. Yeah.

Yeah, and here's the weird thing. The Bolt EUV actually has less cargo space than the EV. Yeah, I never got that. Yeah, I kind of just want to fill it up with balloons and see what the heck's going on because it doesn't make sense. But yeah, I don't know. It's just been a great car for me. I love zipping around. It's great for my kids. I mean, to be honest with you, we do two things. One, we go to Vermont, and that's going to be in the Model Y.

And then I'm also an Uber driver for my kids. And that's pretty much like my day, my life. So neither of those things require me to fast charge too often, although I do plan to take the bolt up to Vermont at least once. So.

Yeah, I mean, I completely understand. That's why I didn't fight you too much. Let's be clear. Seth had the final say on what car of the year is going to be the electric car. I was open to arguments. Yeah, and I didn't fight you much, if not at all, because I do understand where you're coming from. Because one of the biggest things, I'm sure you will agree with me, as the electric car guy within your friend group, I

I mean, I was thinking about it the other day. We've been at this for a long time. I mean, it's going to be my eighth year at Electric.

uh next year coming up so it's been a long time so i i've been like an electric car guy so long that now i've pretty much converted all my friends like they thought they they're all they'd all have an electric car or want one for the next one but for the longest time the biggest argument against it that i i did the biggest pushback is like i you need to be rich to have an electric car like there's no there's no cheap electric car and everything and um

And they've been right for the most part, unless you want to make some big compromises.

And like you just explained, basically, the only compromise that you make with this car is like, yes, it's going to be a bigger compromise if you're someone who does a lot of long distance driving. But if you have a more normal case, which is the vast majority of people, you make the compromise that the once or twice or three, four times a year, whatever it is, like the handful of times a year that you do make long distance travel, it's going to be a little bit more cumbersome.

So this is a very small compromise for all the benefits you get from driving electric, including the financial benefit, which is even greater for the Bolt EV because of its low cost of purchase on top of all EVs low cost of operation. So yeah, I mean, this is the other winner at that price for sure. The only thing that's like I see some people in the comments already mentioning it is like,

Are they making any money on this? That's the big question because even at $35,000, there was a lot of questioning whether they make money on it. And now at $25,000, it's even more. I don't know. I mean, they said they're ramping up to $70,000 or something. Yeah, that's the thing where I was like, all right, we can make it.

it's not it's not like it's a compliance car and things like that even though it's a low volume vehicle at 30 000 units they are talking about doubling the production capacity for next year and it's going to stick around for at least a little bit because that's the other worry we thought like the the bolt tv was over now and they were switching everything to old siam but uh no they're keeping it for a little bit so yeah i mean can you imagine if next year like the this the ramp up to 70 000 units and the

keep the price around like less than thirty thousand dollars and they just bump up to like a hundred kilowatt of of charging just just even though that's too low for me either but still it's a big upgrade for both tv owners that would that would kill that would everyone would buy that yeah i it just seems like a very small thing to i mean it's it's been six years like the bolt's been around for a while and from the get-go people are like yeah but

That's a nice charging speed, but really let's talk about 100 or 150. Yeah. So the only other thing that I would put as a big downside, a big compromise, but that's not against all other EVs, especially against like the Teslas and Rivians of this world, is that $25,000, that's the MSRP that...

right yeah then you have to deal with the dealers and a lot of dealers because of the great value that the bolt tv is offering right now this msrp they are marking up the price there is a lot of demand for it so you can still find some good deals on it so it's not too big of a deal but we cannot really fault the bolt tv as a vehicle program and not give it the car of the year because of its value just because some dealership

Stealer ships are trying to make a buck off of it. Yeah. So, you know, just anecdotally, I bought my mom one that we talked about a little bit ago, had kind of a bad dealer experience there. They they kind of hoodwinked her into buying a two thousand dollar maintenance package. And then they they did a poor job of handling the Q merit charging charging install.

This time it was good. The guy did know who I was. I talk about EVs, so it did seem like they were... I don't know if that was because of that I'm a writer or that he was just a nice guy and didn't try to screw me over.

But then I got on OnStar because, you know, you have to register OnStar when you turn on the car. And the OnStar guy was really a douchebag. And I was like, no, I just don't want it. Like, I don't want it. And he just kept saying, yeah, you should get it, whatever. And I was like, look, I'm not going to get it. And then he just hung on about me. I think that hasn't changed for years because I kind of like sort of vaguely remember because my parents have been GM owners for the longest time.

And when I saw the Bailey, remember now is like my dad would never take OnStar unless they gave it. Like sometimes there's a deal that they give it to you for a year, but then they cancel it. And I think you remember my dad like fighting. I was a small child and my dad fighting on the phone over with the OnStar guy. I just don't want your service. Just cancel it. I got like he added for like a year. And then after a year, you had to cancel it. Actually, it might have been the same guy. Well, he was probably a French guy, but yeah.

This guy seemed old and he just would not stop. Actually, I recorded the whole thing. So when GM inevitably is like, what happened? I'm sure it wasn't that bad. I can just say, here you go. Yeah, I'm sure it was pretty bad. Normally, you're a pretty easygoing guy.

all right so yeah i mean congrats to uh to gm and chevy for uh the ball tv becoming the electric vehicle of the year i heard that it's becoming the most prestigious award in the uh oh for sure auto industry i think everyone agree with that yep i said what the website is like super slow right now i don't know what's happening but yeah we're moving on to some tesla news aren't you happy we know we didn't start with tesla news today guys

So this is a strange one here that we've been discussing for like the last six months now. But now we even have a date on it. It's becoming a little bit more certain. And it's confusing a lot of people. Rightfully so. So Tesla says now that it's going to add a radar to its vehicles and going to start marketing it.

starting next month, mid-January. So how do we learn that? So, well, first of all, some context for people who are not aware of it. Tesla, especially Elon Musk, has famously said that radar is not needed for achieving self-driving. It thought it was at first, and the first generation of Tesla's full self-driving hardware vehicles

had a front-facing radar. Tesla even developed a new radar technology and a new way to read radar data in order to improve on the readings that they get and the performance of the autopilot system. Back then, there wasn't really a self-driving system yet, but Tesla was saying that all vehicles that they produce going forward have all the hardware needed to achieve self-driving.

turned out not to be true especially with the computer though that was already sort of expected so not and tesla upgraded the computers when needed so it's not too bad but then there's also some early cameras the earlier version like 2016 2017 had to upgrade their cameras so that wasn't true either

And then in last year, in 2021, Tesla stopped producing vehicles with the radar altogether because they said we don't need the radar. They're going full Tesla vision, they call it. There's their own computer vision system. And the idea behind it basically is that, I mean, I'll read, this is a text message that DM that Elon sent us at Electric last year.

The probability of safety will be higher with pure vision than vision plus radar, not lower. Vision has become so good that radar actually reduces signal and noise. So the logic behind it apparently is that...

it's the roads or design are built for human drivers and human drivers drive with their eyes and with their brains that's what we use to drive uh i mean obviously our hands with the steering i don't think anyone argues that you cannot replace steering with robots with actuators and so on uh so the idea is like to the easiest way to replace that to copy that is going to be

Replacing the eyes with the closest thing is going to be cameras all around the vehicles. And then replacing the brains with the brain is basically a biological neural net. So let's replace it by a coded neural net, actual neural nets. So running on computers. So that's what they want to replace it. And the humans don't have anything that resemble radar. So let's not use it.

So it wasn't a very well received, I don't know if you guys remember, it wasn't necessarily a well received approach, like people like fought back, they're like, it doesn't seem smart to take away a sensor, like you should be a way to make it work. And sure enough, at the time, Elon, and that's an electric exclusive, I think Elon only sent that to us in the DMs back then, he said that a very high resolution radar would be better than Pure Vision, but such a radar does not exist.

I mean, vision with a high-res radar would be better than pure vision. So he did admit that if there was a high-resolution radar, and he was right that it didn't exist, though there's been, for the last two, three years, a lot of ongoing projects right now for what they call a 4D HD radar. And that...

like they call it a million or so millimeter wave radar that is a very precise radar that would get better readings so he seems open to it but it was very vague saying that he doesn't even exist yet which wasn't exactly true because back then we already uh had some indication that tesla was testing uh this this rb radar is called another 4d imaging radar so they already were testing some applications all right so that's the context here then

Earlier this year, we reported on an FCC filing that was introducing the fact that Tesla planned to add a new radar. With the FCC, you have to register any kind of system that sends waves

uh raise your waves and uh to register the kind of spectrum that it goes it goes in and you need to register any device that deals with that so they register with the FCC saying that we're going to add a radar to a vehicle and but when they did back then they put a six months uh you can ask the FCC to put a six-month confident confidential treatment on your uh on your request so that that will make like hide everything hide all your filings and that was coming um

up to Wednesday of this week. So Wednesday, the confidential treatment was going away and we were going to see all the files and know exactly what kind of radar Tesla was talking about and all that. And even the instruction manuals and all that stuff that's in the FCC filing. But Tesla put a request in this week where they want to extend that confidential treatment. And they did. And in that request, they confirmed that this device will not be marketed until mid-January 2023. So they don't want

The argument is that we are about to release it, but a month from now, so they don't want people to talk about it. But still, we still have enough information on it that it's an HD millimeter wave radar. I think the only arguments against it that people are like, yeah, this is not actually a big deal. This is probably a cabin-facing radar. Nothing on the filing that is not redacted because of the confidential treatment.

Something fell behind me. There's nothing behind me, but I heard something falling behind me. Maybe it's that red light computer thing back there. Yeah, I don't know. That was weird. Got me scared for a second. But...

If I get murdered, it's going to be on camera at least. If there's something behind me. I'll try to keep the podcast going. Yeah, I'll call 911 if something happens. Yeah, so where was I? So it looks like it is like an autonomous driving radar. The goal is driver assist on that front. And it's coming up next month.

So that gets a lot of people confused now because there's two possibilities here. So Tesla would mean that Tesla would be updating its hardware, its sensor suite for autopilot and self-driving, which is not necessarily something to worry about for current Tesla owners in terms of we already knew that Tesla would always upgrade their sensor suite, their computer and everything. But

With the fact that Tesla has yet to deliver for self-driving and has missed a bunch of timelines on it, and many people in the industry have raised concern of Tesla's ability at all to deliver on that current hardware demand.

it does add to the worries that Tesla might not be able to deliver on its promise with the current hardware. And that would be quite a fiasco. It's even hard to imagine if that is... I'm not saying this is the case, but it's adding to that worry. And it's hard to imagine what kind of scenario that would create, like Tesla would have to... Because the promise that Tesla made are clear. So Tesla would have to...

upgrade all the vehicles but having a radar and like 2 million cars that Tesla has produced, not 2 million but close to 2 million has produced over the last two years since they removed the radar. And then it sounds like they would need also to replace the one that have a radar but it's not as good as this one. Like there's so many like these with millions of cars at this point, it would be like a nightmare scenario.

for Tesla. I mean, some are even calling it like a company ending type of deal. I wouldn't go as far as that, but pretty close. It would be like a $10 billion more, maybe like a $30 billion recall program or something like that.

And then the thing that happened at the same time or last weekend, really, that is adding to the whole situation is that a Model 3 vehicle, you know, if you remember, there was a rumor last week that Tesla is upgrading the Model 3 next year with a little design refresh, the new...

front and back casting and all that. But last weekend, there was a Model 3 that was spotted in California with manufacturer plate, which would mean that Tesla owns the vehicle. And there was some camouflage on it, front and back. And one thing, there's not much, because of the camouflage, there's not much that we can detect on it. But some people suggested that even the headlights are heavily camouflaged, but with a thinner camouflage.

a thinner fabric that you can see through it a little bit and it looks like a camera is encased into the top end of the headlight here. So it's very, that's obviously not as strong as the FCC filing, obviously, but if true, it could lead to Tesla testing right now a whole new hardware, a sensor suite for autopilot and self-driving.

which would be significant. And the camera also, there's the image, which again, I'm not completely convinced by the image, but also it would make a ton of sense to put a camera there because Tesla has a blind spot around the bumper there. And also if you have one on each side, it would facilitate when you're

making a perpendicular turn when you have to creep forward to see if there's a car coming, that would be so much easier to use that camera than using the front-facing camera that are in the windshield right now that are closer to a driver's view. So, yeah, this is... It's adding a lot to the concerns, I think, of... I mean, what would be more expensive, retrofitting everybody or refunding...

the FSD autopilot money. That's a good call. I've been saying for years that Tesla should offer refunds anyway on the FSD just for not delivering on it and the timelines and all that.

And especially for people that are like, that's one of the biggest thing for like the hardcore Tesla fans that are like, are realistic about, you know, there's plenty of Tesla fans that still think that FSD is just around the corner and whatnot. But for those that are more realistic about the full self-driving that have the beta and everything, and they're just not satisfied with it,

But they still love their Tesla vehicles so much that they upgrade when they feel like it, whenever they want a new car, they want a new Model S Plaid or whatever. That's one of the things that hurts them the most where when they had paid for FSD on their old car and then they never got FSD, they never got full self-driving, they just got some kind of FSD beta or whatever that means.

And now they have to buy it again on their new car. So just for that alone, people should be able to transfer it or get a refund on the old one and buy it on the new one or whatever if you still believe that Tesla can deliver it. But yeah, retrofitting a radar in the front end, I mean, ask Jason Hughes about it. He's the only person I know that actually took

took a Tesla, a non-autopilot Tesla and made it autopilot with the front-facing radar and the front-facing cameras before Tesla had cameras all around the vehicle in 2016. And it's extremely difficult. He understood after that. He was like, Tesla cannot do that. I just... When I see someone questioning whether like $10 to $30 billion, here's the thing, it wouldn't even happen, I think. I don't think just the load that they would put on Tesla's service

Because it's hours and hours of work for each car. And now you're talking about, I don't know, like millions of vehicles at this point. So no, I just don't think it would happen. So again, this is if. This is not just an upgrade that Tesla is working for the next generation. And I wouldn't be that surprised if the current generation of vehicle gets screwed and they're like, no, this is actually, we promised FSD Beta. We delivered FSD Beta or whatever it is. I don't know.

Yeah. Oh, Sylvain Belanger said they also did. I didn't know that. Sylvain Belanger works for Simon André. He has a dealership here that they deal with a lot with Tesla's.

So I didn't know that. That's cool. But I mean, I'm sure that Sylvain is going to agree with Jason. It is quite the endeavor to do. I mean, just all the wiring that you have to go through. And then you probably have to change something with the bumper, I would assume, too, because it's hidden behind the bumper.

This it's so much and so much pressure on Tesla service centers that I just don't see it happen. Yeah. And I don't think all the materials that they use are radio transparent. So like you can put it under the hood. You'd have to put it under the plastic parts. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's good. We'd be behind the bumper. But it's it's great. I cannot even I cannot imagine Tesla doing that. Yeah, it seems insurmountable.

So basically right now to conclude, the best case scenario is that Tesla, this is just a next gen that's going to improve on full self-driving data and Tesla still plans to convert full self-driving data into a truly full self-driving system with the current generation of hardware.

But as I say that, I have a hard time believing it. So worst case scenario, Tesla actually needs this new hardware suite to achieve full self-driving. And now they are at a very strange scenario where they either fight the customer saying that, well, this is going to be it, or they actually do the right thing and reimburse everyone. I really don't know. No good way out. No, there's not. But again, this is the worst case scenario. This might still happen. I don't know.

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Still on self-driving, really, I thought it was an interesting one. It's true that the inevitable class action lawsuit for full self-driving that happens. We reported on that in September. So we knew what's coming. There was just no other way that some people would try to challenge Tesla at the court where they're regarding its claims of achieving self-driving. And Tesla last week, they filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

And there was a few interesting comments in that motion to dismiss the most interesting one being that mere failure to realize a long-term aspirational goal is not fraud. So that's Tesla's argument for it not being in troubles for what they said about achieving self-driving, which is a very weird way to present it, in my opinion, because it

It describes the way that they presented people with self-driving. And I mean, we can go up with a bunch of quotes and things like that. But I mean...

They have used self-driving to sell cars. There's no other way. Elon has been adamant that, hey, buy self-driving right now because it's going to be more expensive in the future. If you buy your car right now, your car is going to be self-driving at one point and everything. There was a lot of things like that that he said. Appreciating asset. Yeah, appreciating asset and all that. This is where we're clear, very actionable comments to do. And now calling it a long-term aspirational goal?

Like that's, like I wrote in the article, that's really the most cautious description of its goal to achieve self-driving that Tesla has ever used. Like the most cautious language ever used by automaker. Everything prior to that was a lot more confident, really. Even though Elon is...

He has a talent for getting as close as saying a thing is like a done deal but not saying it. He has a talent for that. A talent that someone like Terranos, the Terranos girl should have. She, I guess, stepped over the line. Yeah.

I mean, you did send me a quote from that, from like the SEC when the SEC charged there. And if you read the quote, like right on, like you can tell like that, oh, that could apply pretty much to this situation. Other than the fact that, and I'm not an expert in the old Terran situation, but my understanding is that they didn't, they never really had a clear path to achieving what they said they were aiming for. And then they were literally like using,

like regular labs to do the things that they said that only their little box machine would do that never achieved in terms of tesla achieving self-driving i think there is a clear path to achieving self-driving and it's just in the form that tesla wants it to be it's it's harder well i guess it's similar to to the thing is they wanted the form to be in the little box thing that you can have at home i mean it's hard to say that there's a clear path until you get there because

Well, there's a clear path to self-driving itself. I mean, like, you know, like the Waymo and the Cruze, if you do it that way, if you're like a geofence, like mapping away, there's clearly a way to do it. It's just Tesla with the generalized self-driving. It's like achieving AI and general artificial intelligence. Those are like two different things. But yeah, so Tesla said that. And then the other argument that they use is that they never stated like a clear timeline to make it happen.

which is also like an argument that it's tough to make technically like in in writing they never did the tesla has been good about that in writing there's no right you won't find any writing that tesla says we're going to deliver but their ceo is on video yeah like a thousand times giving time frames in the article i put a three minute video of you i'm just saying like oh next year it's coming with next year like by the end of the year like all that so robo taxis yeah next year

But even then, like if you actually listen to the video, even then, the way he phrased things is always a little bit like if you're really paying attention. But most people, they don't read it like that. So it's hard to say that it's not deceiving. It's going to be an interesting lawsuit for sure if it doesn't get dismissed. I would assume that it doesn't get dismissed, honestly. And it wouldn't be the first time that Tesla has to face a class action for wrongdoing.

like they did with the battery thing and the the the supercharger throttling and all that and they ended up settling for that so so it's not like tesla is completely immune to those things like they they face the uh they face the fire before all right moving on from fsd a few more tesla news and then a few more non-tesla news and then we're gonna jump into the comment section so if you guys have any question for us any comments put them in the comment section right now uh we are live and we're gonna take those uh comments and questions lives in just uh 10-15 minutes all right

Tesla is a new champion of people. It's a new head of HR, really. So you know, like Tesla like to have those little silly names for their C-suite executive. I mean, to be honest, the C-suite names are also kind of silly, like chief officer, executive officer, chief financial officer, like just chief in itself. It's kind of a...

of a silly name for a position. But Tesla has changed things up with Elon being now a techno king of Tesla and Zachary Corcoran, unofficially CFO, officially master of coin. I think that's Game of Thrones reference, if I'm not mistaken.

And now the HR position, the top HR position is back to being a C-suite position because it wasn't for last year. The top HR position at Tesla hasn't been an easy role. Between 2018 and 2019, there was like three different heads of HR. And then Valerie Capers, workman, took over. And she had a little bit more prominent role, especially within the COVID thing.

a lot of the racial lawsuit against Tesla and whatnot. She was like the face for that. But she left earlier this year, early this year in January. And since then, they haven't been like an official top position. I assume Tesla just had someone, one of the VPs take over. And now Tesla is hiring Chris Winton for the position. So Chris Winton is coming up of a 35-year career at FedEx.

Is it 35? I think that might be a typo for some reason. 25. In my head, it was 25. Yeah, 25. This is a typo. I'm going to have to fix that. This is a 25-year career.

at FedEx where he rose to the ranks and most recently was chief people officer. He was made chief people officer in March, but he didn't stay long in that role because now he's been hired at Tesla to be the champion of people, which is of the people. Again, he's chief people officer, head of HR, whatever you want to call it. It's kind of a deceiving name too, that champion of the people, because let's be honest, the head of HR and HR in general,

They work for the company. They don't work for the worker. It's not a union. It's not the head of your union or something like that. They work for the company. And yes, sometimes they can be useful in terms of… Kind of like a liaison, but not advocate and not a champion. Yeah. At the end of the day, that guy reports to Elon. He doesn't report to some kind of conglomerate of test employees. Elon pays his checks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, he's coming, moving from Memphis to Austin, taking over. So we hope the best for him. This is a hard role. It's been over the years. Another someone who's moving to Austin. It's Mr. Tom Zhu.

You might know Tom Zhu as the president of Tesla in China. And also, I think he took over earlier this year, like all Asia Pacific operation from Tesla. And most famously, he was the one responsible for Gigafactory Shanghai, which is by far Tesla's most successful manufacturing project to date. Biggest electric vehicle factory in the world, a million vehicle capacity right now. It's just an incredible project. And now we learned that he's been moved

to uh to work at the factory texas so he's taking over the responsibility of gigafree texas and we just reported a few weeks ago uh that tesla had yet to find a leader for gigafactory texas uh so so that that confirms it now instead of uh they would have an open position but uh actually i didn't check if they closed that position i'm

So maybe worth checking. But now they moved Tom Zhu. And it's weird because this week there was a rumor also that Tom Zhu was taking over Elon's position soon as global CEO. But we put a big grain of salt on that report, though, because it was coming out of a publication called Ping West.

which is a legit publication. Like I looked into it, it's a legit publication with a lot of employees and a big presence in China. And then they also have like an English version for like China news for the Western world. And so it came out of that. But again, looks somewhat legit publication. But at the same time, the weird thing is that

Their claim to fame when it comes to Tesla is that they reported a year ago that Tesla, they called Gigafix Shanghai like a modern sweatshop. And based on a few sources there, they described like a very, like a lot of wrongdoing at Tesla Gigafix Shanghai. Things like using defective part, knowing lean and things like that.

And Tesla sued them in court in Shanghai over that report. And they won just last week. They won that. Tesla won that case. Sorry, just to be clear. Tesla won that case where Ping West had to issue an apology. And he had to pay Tesla like the equivalent of like $14,000 or something like that. So and then like this, Elon stepping down as CEO of Tesla would be the biggest Tesla news of the year basically ever.

biggest scoop of the year to get yeah of the decade maybe and uh within a week of being found guilty by a chinese court like like i'm not i'm not saying that they did anything wrong i'm not saying that because you've been found guilty in court in china doesn't mean of of of saying something of a company that's close to the chinese communist party like it's just it's not like let's

takes it to perspective and everything here. But so I'm not saying they did anything wrong or but at the same time, it is weird that within a week they get like the biggest scoop ever about that. So I don't know. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. Elon asked talked about stepping down the CEO in the future.

Pierre Faragoud, he's a big Tesla analyst for New Street Research, I think. He came out with a note this week where he said that he could definitely see a scenario where Elon maybe still remains officially CEO, but Zyu takes over operational roles other than products maybe. A bit like what Jerome was. Jerome Guillen was for a while president of Tesla Auto, basically.

before stepping back into Tesla's mind and then leaving. Oh, Zhu is pronounced like Zhu? Maybe one day he'll be the CEO and that story will be correct. And I will definitely learn how to pronounce his name. I'm sorry about that. The guy is, he was never really mentioned as a potential CEO.

replacement, like there's a lot of other people that came up. We discussed it, I think, two weeks ago. He didn't come up and we really see him come up, but it would make a lot of sense, I think, especially after his success in China and with Gigafactory Shanghai. All right, moving on from Tesla news, Ford this week announced this Model E, which is the reason why Tesla couldn't call the Model 3 the Model E. Ford wanted to retain that trademark and

They never ended up using it for a car. They use it for what they call their EV dealership network. It's called, they want dealership to become model E dealership, which means that they can sell electric vehicles. So they put that program together. And this week they announced the, basically the take rate within the dealership because they have to make large investments to be in that in terms of training and also a charging station that they need to put in.

So they revealed this week that basically two-thirds of their U.S. dealerships have gone on board with the Model E program to sell EVs, which means that one-third of the dealership will not sell EVs until at least 2027, which is when they're going to do another round of it. So that's five years without selling electric cars for a third, almost a thousand for a dealership in the U.S.,

But that means that almost 2,000, 1,920 will. And also it gives Ford basically one of the largest charging DC fast charging network in the US because all of those will have not one, but most of them will have two. I think I broke it down somewhere. Yeah. So...

1600 F59 will have two DC fast charging station and the rest will have one. So it adds up to 3,500 fast charger that's going to be added in the US to that program. So this is a significant deal. Although with a lot of caveats because first off, I guess one and two chargers per station. So like if it's in use, you're screwed.

It's not like most of like even like the smallest electric American station and the EVgo have like four normally connectors. Tesla is normally like eight plus.

So that's a concern. Also, the location of it is not ideal. Some dealerships are located, you can probably grab something to heat somewhere around it and everything, but a lot of them are in places called dealership rows, basically, where it's just all dealership for a mile. So those ones are going to be a little bit less useful. Also, they haven't confirmed the charging capacity of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if they go with the cheapest one, like the 100 kilowatts and below.

but something to confirm yeah it'll be interesting I doubt they'll go over 150 because uh their vehicles don't go too much over 150. you kind of want to be future proof though I would assume that the next generation like they already talked the thing about the next generation of the F-150 Lightning being uh um over 150. yeah all right I'll mention it because it's a project that we've been following for a long time now

And they need your help if you want. I wouldn't advise anyone to do it. I would say charity maybe. Yeah. Maybe not charity, but Sono Motors and the Scion, which is their electric solar car,

it's a project that's been going for a long time. It's been mostly crowdfunded with tens of millions of dollars and they had several prototype builds and then they are getting closer to production intent. But now they announced that the project is almost at the verge of dying. And if they don't

get a big influx of capital and information from their user base, their fan base that they will buy this car. They are just going to kill the project. So the idea behind it is, this is the Scion here that we're talking about, is that they are launching the Save Scion campaign where current reservation holders, which they have plenty of, I think they have like 30,000, 43,000 reservation holders,

and new ones if you want to place a reservation. Now, instead of just being a normal deposit that you place in, you confirm your order, and there's sort of a slider in terms of the deposit where the more you deposit, the more you're going to get a discount on the vehicle. So it's basically a way to get more money out of the reservation holders. But they are being very honest about it where they need it. Like if they don't get it, they're trying to get –

They're basically trying to get to all of the 43,000 people that they have out there is they want 3,500 of them to pay fully for the car. Again, that's not necessarily like the 3,500 people will pay fully. It might be like the 43,000 people pay 10% more or whatever. That will also do it if my math is right. So or 10% of the value of the vehicle is what I'm saying.

So this is their effort. Those Sono Motors would not be dead if the program dies because as we reported last year, we did go check them out in Munich. Yeah. At those little facility that they have. And we did drive that. Did we drive it or we rode it? Test rode it? We rode in it. The actual CEO. No, no. I did drive it, I think. Did you? Yeah. I feel like I drove it. Anyway, it was...

a piece that we drove it with the prototype was not great at all but uh it was just a prototype at that point yeah we were saying at the time like why are they building their own car like their technology is the solar and the you know the integration into the car what they should have done has got like a chevy bolt you know they're cheap uh and just put solar panels all over it and their their technology inside it

Well, that's what they're doing right now, but not necessarily with consumer vehicles, but with trucks and trailers and things like that, which makes a ton of sense. So they're being more of a business-to-business, supplying their solar technology that can charge a battery pack as the vehicle moves. It's just more difficult than you would actually think because they're trying to optimize the solar power on a moving vehicle with moving shades and all that. So it's...

they they they sort of spent a lot of time developing that technology less so the rest of the vehicle to a degree even though they have good plans they have a fully good feature plans for the vehicle it's just the one we tested was not there we weren't really impressed by it but we were impressed by the solar technology on it so and they already had that business to business uh going and uh it is profitable apparently so the right now they're thinking of just

dropping the Scion and focusing just on that, unless they do get like the strong commitment from the user base and also the money that comes with it, they will move to build a production line. But right now, they figure that even with the profitable business to business, the solar business,

the Scion, if they use that to finance the Scion, the whole company will go on there, which I truly believe. I don't think that's a ploy to get more money out of customers. I know it takes a billion dollars normally to do a car project like that. Now, I know that they have a great partner in Siemens and a few other European manufacturers that are helping them with the Scion, so it wouldn't be as much of a financial burden. Not exactly like a Magna situation, but similar to that where...

other companies are helping them build it so it's not that big of a commitment but still it's uh a project that uh is cool and if you if if you want to help save it you can I'm not not recommending it or anything like that because you could lose your money but just to be clear all right let's move on to the comment section all right moving in all right uh I need to start the first couple

Farfo Lomu says, "Kamen, after owning a Bolt for six months and driven 10,000 miles, my dream car would be this with a range extender or an EV battery pack of 700 to 1,000 miles." Come on, dude. - No, I so disagree with that. Like, 700 to 1,000 miles. I mean, I disagree, but I don't for the Bolt because...

If there was a decent charge rate on it, like 700 miles for a car that has a decent charge rate makes no sense because you're not going to just drive... Very rarely going to want to drive 700 miles in just one shot. You're going to stop for a few minutes and do something else, like go to the bathroom, eat or something, and charge your car. Unless you're some kind of hardcore...

What was it? The astronaut woman that drove her car from Texas to Florida to kill her husband or something like that. She wore a diaper. Yeah, she wore a diaper. That's what I imagine when I see people like, oh, I drive 1,000 miles in one go. But in this case, he's kind of right though because with the Bolt EV, stopping to charge is a hassle because you're going to have to charge for a few hours. But I don't think that's a solution for the Bolt. Don't give it a 1,000-mile pack. Give it decent charging capacity. That's your charging. Exactly. Yeah.

all right moving on carl in san diego i'm glad to see you reward chevy for the bolt only problem is gm admitted they still lose money on all their evs so this is a loss leader pricing that others are not willing to try to pull off i feel like they they kind of pulled back on the losing money thing uh no they i think that might be accurate so 2025 or something yeah

Yeah, I think that might be accurate. It's just that, I mean, for the consumer, that doesn't change much of anything, really. I mean, we do that more for the consumer side of things. Like, this is the car to, like, a lot of people ask me, like, what EVs to buy right now. Like, normally, I'm always like, I drive a Model 3, I love the Model Y and everything. So, I buy that. But now, I'm like, yeah, for the value, like, you should probably get a Bolt, really.

You want to hear something controversial? I like driving the Bolt more than I like driving the Model Y. I like driving the Model 3 more than the Bolt. The Model Y just doesn't drive well. But you've never been an SUV guy either, right? No, but the Bolt is kind of an SUV. Whatever. That's just, you know.

The standing position is kind of SUV-like, but you're still low to the ground somewhere. Yeah, and the car has a very low center of gravity because of the battery, so it drives like that. No, I mean, the first time I drove the... No, was it the first time? One of the first times I drove the Bolt EV was at an autocross event, and it was a blast to autocross that car. It's a fun car to autocross. Yeah, I know. It can be a ton of fun. I've been having fun in the 24 hours since I've had this new one.

I'm excited. What color is it? That was the one that you posted, I guess. Yeah, it's the white one. So it's the one that is in the post? In the post, yeah, the Storm Trooper color. By the way, that guy who wanted a 1,000-mile range bolt is at a charger charging right now. So that's a bit amusing.

All right. Question. Did Chevy solve the battery fire problems with the Chevy Bolt? I think they did. They did take them a couple tries, but we haven't heard of any fires in the year since. I do plan on parking mine in the garage, so hopefully that is a solve. And yeah, I don't know. I think, I mean, this is a six-year-old car with six-year-old technology, so...

We know a lot about this car now. It's not like the new one rolling off the line. All right, moving forward. I was thinking about that when you were like, I didn't mean about the Chevy Bolt EV should be the car of the year. It would kind of surprise a lot of people because almost people know about your affection for the Bolt EV. But if you actually just look at the coverage on the electric of the Bolt EV for the last year, it's just us like telling GM, you need to recall that car. You need to recall that car. We just...

we've been leaving they did eventually yeah i mean they need to do something after we and a few other media put a ton of pressure on them though and cotton and consumers too but yeah i mean we at electric literally i hired a guy to just report on the multivifier for like a year he should have got a pulitzer for that yeah he basically like forced their hand and finally got them to do what they were supposed to do he got a billion dollar recall program for uh for owners

Yeah, and then when it was over, he's like, yeah, I don't want to write anymore. And I think he actually traded in his bolt, so maybe that was part of it. All right, LG Chem did a long investigation, blamed their manufacturing equipment, stating that things got out of spec and created problem cells. Yeah, and there was like two separate problems that when combined caused the fire to

And the concern with the Jaguar I-Pace, too, I reported last month that they used the same cell and there was a bunch of fires. And then just this week, too, there was a whole truck trailer full of I-Pace that caught on fire. But it wasn't clear if the fire came from the truck or from the hype. Yeah, and Hyundai actually used the same cells and they had a more quiet recall. And, you know, kind of.

That's on Hyundai. Hyundai just did the right thing. They were like, all right, we don't want to mess with that. And they recalled them. Yeah. And I think they had a bigger thing to swat at LG because LG got right on it. But LG, Hyundai, both Korean, they probably know who to talk to. And they maybe got LG to do the right thing sooner. And maybe GM had some issues fighting them. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, Carl in San Diego, think Edmunds is a good place to see actual efficiency rating. Bolt does well. Mini crushed it. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely a bunch of low-range EVs that are more efficient. You put a smaller battery pack in it, it's going to be more efficient. But low-range EVs are – technically, there's place for them in the market. It's just –

It's just we don't focus on them as much because they are not as good as replacing gasoline vehicles on the market. It's just it's too big of a compromise for a lot of people to make, unfortunately. All right. Far follow again. The two biggest bolt deficiencies are slow, fast charge times, which we talked about. It averages 40 kilowatt hour charge rate. I've seen 54 kilowatt pretty consistency at the Electrify Americas that are 150 or 350. So.

i think depends on the charger also lack of standard super cruise is frustrating and i agree there i would love to get super cruise on the the smaller bolt uh ev the car is steering correct but not hands-free so it has like this lane thing where if you go out of the lane it kind of pushes you back in and people have like messed around with that and got it to actually do like lane keep but um and then of course you can use like the comma ai thing in the bolt

Oh, yeah, to the boat? Yep. Oh, that's cool. I'd do that. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I might do that, but that port is used by my utility to give me cheap electricity. All right. Unfortunately, EPA numbers suck because those are untested, self-proclaimed efficiency numbers. Tesla overestimates their efficiency greatly on many cars, and Porsche and Mini massively underestimate. I think that's kind of like the...

the going the going the going theory theory theory uh carlson diego bolts a decent uh car car car car car car car car car it's no ev6 but it's passable so we have an it's no ev6 but it's passable so we have an it's no ev6 but it's passable so we have an ev6 lover ev6 lover ev6 lover i don't know i i like the ev6 except i don't know i i like the ev6 except i don't know i i like the ev6 except the back is kind of weird to me the back is kind of weird to me the back is kind of weird to me i like it i like it i like it yeah all right green gold the chevy yeah all right green gold the chevy yeah all right green gold the chevy bolt is the perfect everyday commuter bolt is the perfect everyday commuter bolt is the perfect everyday commuter car it's very affordable and you don't car it's very affordable and you don't car it's very affordable and you don't need more than 50 kilowatt charging for need more than 50 kilowatt charging for need more than 50 kilowatt charging for every day back and forth to work car that's every day back and forth to work car that's every day back and forth to work car that's kind of what i use it for and i agree kind of what i use it for and i agree

uh question can the bolt hold a 54 kilowatt charging rate for a significant percent uh yeah it can probably get about uh 10 to 55 percent there so um that's what 30 kilowatt uh hours uh GM admitted they are not profiting on EVs until 2025 we talked about that earlier they'll have to bump price to 7500 as

As soon as the Fed rebate kicks back in. That is interesting. We expect that. But that could happen any week now, really. They could announce a price increase when they announce how much the Fed's going to come back.

All right, Dan Negative, I'm charging it right now. So he's talking about he's at the charging station as I watch this stream. Started at 48 kilowatts at 15% state of charge. Now I'm at 43 kilowatts sitting at 45%. After 50% state of charge, it drops well into the 30s and 20s. So again, that's probably dependent on the charger. It's a 2022 bolt and the charger is newly installed one rated at 62 kilowatts. That's weird. I've never heard 60 kilowatts. So it's not the charger bottlenecking it.

tesla news comes second oh my gosh i know it's crazy but the charger is rated at 62 but like being rated and that would actually output sometimes is uh is different unfortunately yeah it's sometimes the amps and the volts uh it's weird uh what's the status of every tesla owner who paid for fsd in years past and now tesla is changing the system there's years as evs now i think we kind of discussed that but i guess it bears repeating like it's a lot of cars

Yeah. I mean, I never did the math, but it's, I mean, technically it would only be, I guess, the cars of the people that bought FSD. But at the same time, a lot of people bought the car thinking, I'm not buying FSD now, but I'm going to buy it in the future when I think it's worth it. And so it's such a weird situation. It's so hard to see. Yeah, that's actually the issue we got in trouble with Elon over is, you know, they were charging people for a hardware upgrade that,

for a car that was supposed to have all the hardware that do FSD um all right uh the way that Tesla's handled AP1 and non-upgraded hardware to 2.5 makes me nervous for people after hardware 4 is released uh I think that's probably a pretty pretty accurate yeah I just cannot see them actually retrofitting to hardware 4. uh I would be shocked especially if it involves a radar and

Those cameras. And probably an upgraded computer. I mean, those things, they get upgraded too. I mean, the upgraded computer looks easier to me, though it is expensive as hell. It's easier to do. Like, the biggest, like, we're talking about the value, the $10 to $30 billion. Like, a lot of that value would be purely in hours spent editing.

labor hours at the service center. How much does Tesla charge for a service center hour these days? Like $200 or something like that? I don't know. It might depend on what they're doing. Yeah. I think the regular one is like $200. So, I mean, let's ask Sylvain. If Sylvain is still in the chat right now, like how many hours of labor hours do you think it's going to cost to retrofit a radar into the front end of a

of a Tesla vehicle. And that's just the radar. If they have to change the cameras too, it would be ridiculous. I don't think the Tesla service network can support that. Yeah. Elon already said that the newer ones would be better and older ones would be as good as possible, but seemed comfortable with these different tiers of performance. So he's saying that the older cars wouldn't be able to self-drive as good as the newer ones. I don't think that's realistic, but maybe. Yeah.

I mean, yes, I understand that like this. But again, he said that, but he was wrong about what he would need to achieve self-driving several times in the past. So how much weight do you put on what he says if he was already wrong before? So that's my point here. And I'm not saying that I know more than him. I'm saying that I'm analyzing the whole situation and that's how I see it.

all right it's an hour for the radar alone so to have a radar in the car that doesn't have radar would only take an hour that surprises me i'll defer to sylvain here and knows more than me about that but that would be surprising to me all right uh charging keep giving us update on the truck yeah at first to add ap we needed the bumper sensors front facing camera new abs modules bunch of wires and a full reprogram of the car

Yeah, okay, all of that together sounds like more than an hour. Maybe it's just Sylvain. You would need 10,000 Sylvain, you can make it happen. Oh, they left the harness there. Is that what you're saying? You're saying that if the harness is already there, then that would be odd. But that's weird, though, if they still left the harness there but removed the radar.

So Tesla knew this was going to happen. They removed the radar and then they knew they were going to put it back.

Well, maybe it was just... Well, I should have reached out to me because if that's true, I want to know more about that. Yeah. Well, the thing is, though, they might have just been like, when you remove a kidney or when you get a kidney transplant, they leave the old kidney in there. It might have been one of those things where they're just like, why stop making this thing and get recertified or whatever. Yeah, there might be other reasons to leave the harness. You're right. All right. Let me see if I can find where we were. Okay.

I rented a Tesla back in April, drove it in Hawaii. Even the autopilot was full of annoying driver interruptions. It was way overcautious. Tesla, please improve autopilot and leave. They're sitting driving to humans. Theoretically, we'll get to drive them soon. I generally like autopilot on the highway. It performs very well. Andrew McDonald says Tesla would not need to change all vehicles, only vehicles that paid for FSD. Yeah, well, we just discussed that. Technically, maybe, but...

they have a case those that don't that didn't pay for it but thought they would want it in the future they have a case to to get it too because then what happened if they pay for fsd right now they pay for if it's in tesla like spends a thousand plus dollars to to retrofit them too oh all right is that 28 kilowatts at that point um

love these charging updates that is love these charging updates that is love these charging updates that is helpful to know 43 minute charge times are helpful to know 43 minute charge times are helpful to know 43 minute charge times are rough i have to say uh i've been at rough i have to say uh i've been at rough i have to say uh i've been at 50 and 50 kilowatts at 50 and 50 kilowatts at 50 and 50 kilowatts at uh on a bolt so i don't know take take uh on a bolt so i don't know take take uh on a bolt so i don't know take take grain of salt this was at a uh grain of salt this was at a uh grain of salt this was at a uh electrify america in electrify america in electrify america in yonkers new york all right moving on yonkers new york all right moving on yonkers new york all right moving on we're still talking about the charger we're still talking about the charger

uh joe kachanis there's a clear path but humans can do it that means it's possible so that's talking about is there a clear path to self-driving i guess that's true like uh we know it can be done it's kind of like we see birds flying so we know that we can fly um right uh so that's true i guess uh you need an index gen module in your y step

yeah i didn't know that's the way it works for nginx too maybe he doesn't doesn't i don't know but it's the other one yeah it's another company based in toliva that uh they do the modules that unlock some powers and like the things that tesla unlocks you have to pay for it but they do it too but they do a few other things on top of it too unfortunately i already got everything on my model y so

and the Model 3. Actually, the Model 3 would be fun to play with. They can take a dual motor Model Y and basically make it into a performance almost close to it. They can do things like that. Yeah. Sylvian, give me a call. Hyundai's recall was publicized as the most expensive in automotive history. I guess it wasn't. I think Bolt beat that after that. Hyundai was just first to do it. The Bolt EV was a bigger one.

But as a second car, they are perfect for low range cars. We were probably talking about the bold at that point. Ping pong lane keep. Yeah, that's a little bit like that. Hyundai estimate. Hyundai recall was estimated at 900 million. I'm sure the bold is over a billion. Shout out to Mikey G and the Electric Daily YouTubes. Thanks, Mikey, for joining us here. It's a separate YouTube channel called Electric Daily if you want to check it out. Yeah, go subscribe.

If Tesla removes the ability to buy FSD on currently owned hardware three cars, then and only then you'll know that they can't run an FSD on hardware three. That would be a bad sign. Yeah, that's a good point from Dan there. Something to look out for. Again, we're just introducing the scenario that might happen. Maybe everything goes well and it's just a regular update.

upgrade to the new hardware. But I mean, there's certainly room for concern with the missed deadlines and the current performance of FSD Beta. Yeah, so the Bolt autocorrect is most definitely a ping pong lane key, but can't be used at all practically for any sort of hands off driving experience. Super Cruise on an EUV is that and I think by that he means it's an actual autopilot. Alright, that's a fact. Harness is still there.

Yeah, but they know that based on the cars that they've seen, like the most recent ones, but it doesn't know like maybe the eventually like the most recent cars, like this year, maybe they removed the harness. We don't know.

Armageddon says we need the EV for poor people. Poor people shouldn't be buying new cars, though. Well, yeah. Used cars. So, like, get a Fiat 500E. Yeah. Even Bolt EVs, I would assume that used ones are not going for too much these days. And used car price in general have been going down the last two or three months. Yeah. So, I would assume that you can get a Bolt EV for less than $20,000 used. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe closer to 15. Yep. And then, you know, all those compliancy cars, even for less. Yeah. Maybe even an older kind of dinged up Tesla. Because we have seen a bunch of cars without radar and the harness is still there. Okay. So we're talking about that still. Mikey G says, hey, Nanda Holtz, thanks for joining in. Sylvan Boulanger says, we need the Honda E over here. That's true. We do need the Honda E.

And then finally, we have Carl at San Diego. Thanks for a good show and appreciate your willingness to talk fairly about Tesla. Too many channels fail to do that.

- Yeah, appreciate that too. - You're welcome. - And Arma comes up, especially only by old stuff. That's what I'm saying. And when I say poor people, but you said poor people, I didn't say poor people, but I don't even mean like actual poor people. Like a lot of people are buying new cars, even though they make like a decent living and everything that probably are not an official place to buy a new car. Like you see those ads about like the financing and things like they try to get you with the financing, like, oh, it's not cost you anything.

Like a new car is technically like you ask any kind of good financial planner, they'll tell you it's for like, I don't want to tell it on top of my head. I don't know exactly, but a certain part of the population in terms of the income that they can get. So yeah, I mean, most people, they buy, I think it's,

20 or 30% of car buyers buy new cars and then the rest it's transaction in car transaction overall car transaction I think it's like 30% of car traction or new cars the rest it's all used car so obviously most people buy used cars that's what I'm saying yeah and it's kind of the same way for houses and even things like phones like it's just smarter when I was a student I didn't buy new things I had

I didn't buy a new car until my second Tesla. My first Tesla was a used car. My first new car was a Tesla Model 3. That was in 2018.

So yeah, before that I was poor and I was buying used cars. Yeah, mine was a Prius. My first new car. First new car, please. All right. Thanks, everyone, for watching. If you're still watching an hour, 13 minutes into it and like a good 30 minutes of comments and a lot of great interaction today. Appreciate everyone that was here. Arma, Sylvain, Carl and San Diego. Forget the name of the guy that was charging. He had a strange name, I think.

Farfolo Mew. And he also tipped us. Yeah, I appreciate that. $13.78. We're getting beer. Yeah, we'll each get a beer tonight on you. Thank you very much. And we're going to see you same place, same time next week. Have a good one, everyone.