Electrek does CES, Tesla deliveries, cheaper Model Y, and more
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we are live on the episode of electric podcast i'm fred lambert your host and as usual i'm joined by seth wintraub coming right back from las vegas how was it it was good uh some people got coveted but it was good that's surprising um all right so the crew uh electric crew minus myself and micah i guess um

Was there for CES. And there was, like there usually is, there was a few AV, a few electric mobility news going on, announced. Probably the biggest one, I would assume, was the unveiling of the Ram Trucks Electric. Calling it the Ram Revolution concept. So always a little bit of a bummer when we hear concept in there. Yeah.

not quite necessarily a production vehicle, but I think it was the announcement. The thing about it being production intent. No, I think they usually call it a prototype when it's like that far. Yeah. But it's impressive nonetheless. Like some of the things. I have 2024 here. Peter said that he said something about 2024. Yeah. So I guess prototypes will be coming out this year. Yeah.

But they did release some specs. I was looking right here. 200 plus Glotor battery pack. So that's no joke. It's like Hummer EV type battery pack right there. Yep.

And again, not that many details because it is a concept, but there's a lot of picture, which again, that too, it's not ideal when it's just at a concept level. And you can very much see like there's a, I don't even know what I'm looking at here. I'm looking from like the back seat that's folded down.

Is that it? I guess. Oh, yeah, because there's a third row. That's part of the concept, right? That's what's crazy, the third row, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was going to say you see it better here, but I'm not so sure. Okay, is there like a canoe in there? Yeah, a kayak. A kayak. So you can...

Fold down to or remove, I guess, the back wall of the cabin. Yeah, but that's very similar to the Chevy Silverado. So Chevy Silverado has something similar to that. The full wall you can remove? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. It's not just that. I thought it was just like the bottom part of it.

I'd be very curious to how that has effect like aerodynamic performance and efficiency. So here you get the bird's eye view of the concept here with you see full glass roof. Again, I wouldn't necessarily expect to have that in the production version. Maybe there's going to be a glass roof, but exactly like that where the glass extend from the windshield. It's like a Model X windshield on stereo right there.

Yeah, can you imagine a work truck that you get a stone hits your window and you're replacing the whole roof. Yeah, it's going to be pricey. That's an interesting center display here. It's a little screen set up, a little bit like you used to have Razer laptops that look like that. Yeah, it kind of looks like it folds out. Yeah, I don't think it does, but yeah, it seems like a laptop type of thing.

I don't mind it, but again, I don't think that's going to be in production version either. We're talking about a bunch of things that won't necessarily happen. What's that here? That's the side opens up and you can put those space into the side of the truck. Yeah, that's something that current Ram trucks have and it's neat where you have the storage above the wheel.

But this kind of expands it a little bit more. And I think like those you see on the above the bed, you see those like little things. I'm assuming that's like the, you know, the hinge for the thing comes down. My camera lights are like blinding me so I can barely see the screen. It's weird.

Yeah. I cannot see it better. I mean, it's all renders, so it's probably broken stuff. It's all rendered, but they had something there, right? Because you saw the skeleton of it, right? Yeah. So I put it in the room. I don't know if Peter added to his story, but I had the skateboard of it, and it looked more like a skateboard for a car than a truck. I mean, it was a bigger version. I guess it was kind of like... A $200 battery pack, I would assume. Yeah, it was pretty burly.

Oh, Dan said that TFL says that the lower screen in the RAM is removable to use like an iPad. Yeah, that's, again, one of those things that I think that's just what a concept. I would be surprised if it makes it to production. Yeah, why would you want a RAM...

iPad. They're not going to be as good as Apple, I don't think. What do you mean? With their incredible track record of user interface inside trucks for years, you would think that they would translate to consumer electronic perfectly.

All right, the ID Aero has been unveiled as the ID.7, so the new top-end sedan for Volkswagen or VW's lineup of ID vehicles. So obviously, it started with ID.3 in Europe. Then we have the ID.4, ID.5.

What's the ID6? Oh, the ID6 is China only. It's a China only. Yeah, yeah. And now the ID7. So you got to see it in LA a few, well, sort of see it in LA a few weeks ago. And now it was fully unveiled at CES here as obviously a very much concept vehicle also with this heavy duty camouflage.

Yeah, the camouflage is actually probably one of the most interesting things about the vehicle. That... You can play that video. It actually is lit paint. That's not, like, light behind the paint or anything. It's, like, a 40-layer process, and they have, like, you know, electrodes in the paint. And, you know, by electrifying it, they can light it up. So they said it's too expensive. Like, the paint costs more than the car at this point. But...

Something they could do in the future, police, EMS might like those kind of things. But I'm sure advertisers are probably thinking about that as well. Yeah, let's not have your consumer product ever. Yeah, I don't think it would be legal. And I think as soon as somebody brought one of those out, they'd make it illegal. Yeah, also just the consumption, your consumption would probably kill your efficiency too.

Yeah. Yeah. That's something that I do like from Tesla. Like they just like what you what they show you was I mean, it changes a little bit, of course, but for most part, what they show you is what you get. What you get. These these we just saw the RAM and then we see this like is that we really need to do that. Like, I guess it does create some impressions like we do. We do report on it and things like that. But I kind of want to see what we're going to get. Like, I'm not like the

even though I know like it's a fancy paint and all that but they still stuck to the camouflage pattern that screws with the actual shape of the vehicle like you don't see the shape of the car even forget about the video yeah you see the profile of it for sure but that's you could put a silhouette in there and you would see the same thing like look at the front end like you have no idea what the front end looks like from this it just kills the whole lines of the vehicle yeah

I would venture to say that it looks good. It could look good. I do like the design of it. But again, coming back to what I just said, you cannot tell for sure. Anything else on the release about the car in terms of specs and whatnot? I mean, it wasn't new, but 38-centimeter, 15-inch screen, which is bigger than current MEVs. Digitally controlled air vents, which I hate. Illuminated touch sliders.

Not too exciting. You know, I think, you know, the thing that they were kind of impressed about was the 700 kilometer range, but that's optimistic WLTP. That's 435 miles. But in reality, the EPA is probably going to have it under 400, maybe 350 miles.

uh which is still good like 350 miles in a sedan sedan is solid um and i i think a lot of that's uh because of the aero of the the vehicle it kind of the same size as a passat um which is a fairly popular car in the u.s um yeah i mean otherwise like they didn't let us inside it in in la which was like weird like they didn't release any new pictures of the interior too no i

Yeah. I mean, they flew us to Las Vegas or sorry, Los Angeles, like had us, you know, like fed us whatever. And then they wouldn't even let us inside it, let alone to drive it. It felt very weird, like something weird.

wrong had happened. Like they still had... Like something else was supposed to be shown? So now you're saying actually the 700 kilometers range was unveiled when they first presented it in China. So it might not even be WLTP. It might actually be the Chinese standard, which is even more lax than... Well, they called it 700 kilometers on WLTP. But it might be... What's that old standard called? NEDC? Yeah. So, I mean, yeah. So...

it's definitely not going to get 700 kilometers but yeah 300 something hopefully and that's going to be a new like top of the line is it going to be like yeah equivalent to the id5 as a sedan or is it going to be more like a new because wu is not premium premium like they they venture into it a little bit it's not the cheapest vehicles out there but um

Should we brace ourselves for the pricing on that one? I think it's going to be like the IONIQ 6. I think it's going to be premium, like upper middle class kind of thing. Not quite into the EQE or i4 area. Probably bigger than the i4. But I think it's going to be...

similar, maybe slightly more premium. You know, like the Ionic. $50,000 probably. I would say in the 50s or 60s. You know, after tax credits and everything. Okay. All right. Lightyear also used CES to launch the... Well, to launch to...

they unveil some pictures scooter actually says this he saw the prototype so and the pictures are like are strange but like this lighter things that we have but you still see most of the vehicle out there and it's the light year two so obviously we know the light year one uh very much high hand super expensive vehicle but it's kind of uh

a test bed for light years ultra efficiency ev technology and solar

on the on the top of the vehicle to create a long range vehicle that you can charge with the Sun to a certain degree it's uh it's not like the Adterra or anything like that where they basically kind of car can charge itself it's it's a little bit it's more functional of a car but that also comes with efficiency losses obviously it has four wheels to start with that's a big difference um and uh but but this one is going to be a lot less pricier uh did they start at an MSRP below 40 000

Which is like way lower because the original, the zero is like way into six figures. I think it's like $200,000 or something. Yeah, I think it started at $150,000, but now it might be closer to $250,000. But I would put it for the same thing though. I would say below $40,000 now, but by the time this hits the market, it might be different. And when does this thing hit the market again? Yeah.

i think uh 2025 so we still have a good two years going here so i wouldn't i wouldn't be uh yeah they already well yeah remember they already targeted around thirty thousand dollars i already went up by twenty five percent so yeah i would be surprised if we see it closer to fifty thousand dollars but this this is the kind of car that uh even if it's a little bit more expensive a lot of people will go for it simply because of what it represents like it's uh

Even though we don't agree with the idea that all electric vehicles are not that efficient because they are charged on the grid that is dirty. I mean...

At least you have an option to have it not dirty because with gas, like wherever you get your gas from, you're going to burn it and that makes it dirty. With electric vehicles, at least you have some options in terms of choosing what kind of electricity is going to go into it. Obviously, if you're in a place where the grid is dominated by fossil fuels and coal and things like that,

It's not an ideal situation. But this eliminates the whole thing where you could technically just leave it in the sun and have it charge. Have they updated the... Again, charging with the sun depends on where you park it, depends on where you are and all that. So any kind of figure that they would release is not ideal. I don't think they released anything here. No. They just released a range where promising to deliver over 500 miles of range.

So that's the fun thing about this. Again, I think 500 miles and 100 kilometers is a bit optimistic for sure. But with the idea of...

We want it to be charged by solar panels that's on the car. Having solar panels on the vehicle has a lot of limitations. So you cannot have a ton of energy under the power from any kind of solar cells that's embedded in the body of the vehicle. So in order to optimize that, you have to make the car as efficient as possible.

That efficiency also translates to whatever power you get from... Whatever energy capacity you get from the battery pack that you have in the vehicle, which you can also charge like a regular EV. So the idea of optimizing for daily range from the sun will result in efficiency gains from the battery pack too. So I wouldn't... Again, I would be shocked if this thing gets 500 miles range at $30,000, $40,000, whatever it's going to be. But...

I would expect it to get a decent range. Just like the Aptera surprised a lot of people, you can get one with 1000 miles of range. I think it's overkill though, but it's possible to get a lot of range with a lot fewer batteries. All right, the last thing that was on the VLAT CES that we want to talk about is the Sony Onda. So Sony has been talking about making electric vehicles forever. They released a bunch of different prototypes over the year, but we...

Never really get that excited about it because plans to bring it to production have always been extremely vague. Now they partner with Honda last year, we reported on that. And that sort of brought some credibility to their EV plans because obviously Honda already produced cars, including EVs. So now Sony partnering with Honda, maybe it's actually going to come out in something. And now they unveiled this prototype that's supposedly going to lead to a production car in 2026.

Well, we'll take that with a grain of salt though. And it's called apparently the Afila. Afila? Yep. That's how you would pronounce it, right? They released a few specs here. Okay, those are the specs I would announce on the last prototype though.

So 400 kilowatt motor system, pretty powerful. Yep. Resulting in the 4.8 second 0 to 62, 100 kilometers an hour. Top speed of 149 miles per hour, 240 kilometers per hour. That's a lot. Yeah. So it's a Sony and they are bidding on their autonomous driving technology and that is built with 45 sensors. So take that Tesla. They're going to complete other way to Tesla that's just been removing sensors like crazy. They're like...

all out with the sensors 45 of them that's kind of insane really for some reason I can't zoom in on that photo I just want to see like what kind of sensor I'll add 45 I assume that they have everything in there ultrasonics lidar serrate our sonars cameras and all that

Yeah, they also obviously sit Sony, so the in-car system is going to be powered by their entertainment system, supported by PlayStation products, of course. PlayStation in every seat. It sounds like it. Well, you don't need a PlayStation in every seat, but...

uh you know people nowadays you remember the good days of the split screen like playing multiplayer on split screens on the console so now that doesn't exist anymore like it does exist but people don't like it like online has taken over so much that people are used to playing the same screen so maybe they should that could they could develop some kind of technology here with having just one playstation in the car

playing one game multiplayer but dual screen. Maybe that technology already exists. I haven't played console even though I'm a gamer. I'm a PC gamer. The one Tesla game, the racing game is split screen. Yeah. I mean, it's like a Mario Kart type racing game. I think I've still... If there's... I don't remember exactly the last game I played split screen but it's probably like a Mario Kart type game.

So not much other details, nothing on the range, on the battery pack. Obviously, Sony has some experience with batteries. They can consume electronics, you know, all powered by lithium-ion batteries these days.

but that's pretty much it for ces so it wasn't a giant ev thing this year but i mean ces is consumer electron well i think no no actually now it's just called ces right they don't they don't even call themselves consumer electronics i mean that's where the thing came from i would i would also mention that i saw and i tweeted about this but i saw a lot of dc fast charging there like from a lot of companies um i was going to do a roundup but i didn't get enough information from anybody

There was a cool one called FreeWire that we saw. Scooter and I were both talking about it. It comes with like 160 kilowatt hour battery pack. So like enough for, you know, two full charges. And what's good about that is you can put it on just like a normal, you know, 240. And the idea is that people come up and they charge, you

their car pretty quickly. And then when they're gone, the batteries fill up again. And, you know, obviously if there's a line of people and they, you know, don't take a lot of time between charging, then the battery will deplete. But that's just not how things work. You know, there'll be depending on the station. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, if if it doesn't fill up, then it goes down to a level two and people are upset. But it's so much cheaper to install these that the price of the batteries is actually less than usually the installation price. And then with the batteries, you get some extra benefits like, you know, if you're putting this at a restaurant or a convenience store.

You can use those batteries as backup and you have a 160 kilowatt hour battery backup for your restaurant or business, which is something you would already pay a lot of money for. And then also in the future when the utilities get around to eliminating super peaks, this can send electricity out to the grid or it can not accept electricity from the grid in a super peak kind of situation.

But it already eliminates the peak charges, right? Because you're always going to charge a battery pack as a level 240. Yeah, you always want to charge it at the lower rates, but because it's always taking electricity in from the grid to fill the batteries back up or whatever, but it can stop taking electricity from the grid and just charge from the batteries, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

a few micro mobility stuff too that i assume you guys are going to talk on the yep wheelie podcast next next week right is it not yeah not this weekend i can see it every day that's enough week yeah all right um all right let's jump into some tesla news because there was actually quite a lot of tesla news this week so uh might be a long show but we'll try to get it fast and then we're gonna have two other non-tesla news that's non-ces also and uh

And then we're going to take your questions. So if you guys have any questions, any subjects you want us to discuss, you can put them in the comment section. Right now, we're going to get to them in about 30 minutes. And if you do enjoy the show, please give us a thumbs up, a like and subscribe. Always super useful. And if you're listening on your podcast app, if you can give us a five-star review, those help tremendously. Free to do, take a second. And we appreciate every single one of them.

Alright, so Tesla last weekend released their delivery numbers and production numbers. So they were 439,701 production, obviously a new record, and 405,000, 405,000 vehicles delivered. So that was below expectation, which was around 420 for the quarter, the consensus, I would say, from Wall Street.

So significantly below that. Tesla, again, sort of blamed their delivery wave being smoothed out at the end of the quarter and not going all out like that, even though Elon sent out an email for people to go all out for the deliveries at the end of the quarter. He said, Tesla, and I quote, that we continue to transition towards a more even regional mix of vehicle builds, which, again, led to further increase in cars and transit at the end of the quarter.

Believe what you want. You can either believe that or you can believe that there was some demand issues in some market because quite surprisingly right now, there's some market that you can... there's a lot of inventory available right now in certain markets, not everywhere, but in some market that normally Tesla doesn't have anything at the end of the quarter because they're waiting for a shipment from either Shanghai or Fremont or now Texas really.

Now they have a bunch of inventory early in January. That's not exactly normal. And we're going to get into that. Full year production, 1.3 million cars produced, 1.3 million cars delivered this year. So that's awesome. That's a significant increase year over year.

And quarter over quarter, it's a 40% increase. Well, no, excuse me. Year over year for the quarter is 40% increase. And year over year for the whole year is a 47% production increase. So that's extremely good. Close to the 50% that Tesla is looking for. But yeah, a little bit disappointing for sure. And keep in mind that Tesla had 20,000 vehicles in transit at the end of 2020.

last quarter and there was a discussion, excuse me, there was a... they say in transit, there was a discrepancy between deliveries and production of 20,000 vehicles. Now there's a discrepancy over 30,000 vehicles this quarter. So you can do that pretty easily right there. - Yeah. - All right. We have more indication that Tesla is preparing to launch the cheaper version of the Model Y, the Texas Model Y in the US. So basically in every other market,

Tesla is offering a cheaper Model Y. Some are calling it standard range or mid-range or whatever you want to see it, but it's like the 279 miles version that is a little bit higher range actually than the standard range that you have in China and in Europe. Elon has said before that at first they didn't want to launch that standard range version because the range was not enough for the North American market.

So that version with the 4680 cells in Texas ends up with 279 miles of range, 449 kilometers, which they find appropriate apparently. So when it was first launched, it was just for employees. Then it started showing up in inventory and some test employees would sometime offer it to people that order a long range Model Y. And then it's like, ah, we can get a quicker delivery, a price adjustment. I think the difference is 5,000 bucks. I think it's 62,000 it starts at.

this version and then they would deliver that instead um now in the back end and that's thanks to um uh green the only i think found it the uh the more white standard range now is in uh the back end of the code so you still not see it right here but it's there in the back end so we assume that tesla is about to turn it on at some point and we've seen an increased number in inventory too over the last few weeks uh of course that matched the fact that tesla announced that uh

they're now producing enough 4680 cells to build 1000 Model Y and get factory retail. Well, no, this is a bit confusing now because obviously Tesla is producing up to 3000 Model Ys a week at Gigafactory Texas, but most of them are still with the 2170 cell. So we assume that now about 1000 of them or soon to be 1000 of them are going to be 4680 because Tesla has now the capacity to produce enough 4680 cells to produce 1000 Model Ys per week.

So that explains the increase availability and inventory of those vehicles. And we expect that Tesla will soon release it in the configurator. And apparently at $62,000. Now, it's still a problem for the tax credit in the US. It's still over the $55,000 limit unless you get it with a seven-seater option.

But we did discuss that a little bit more this week, and it looks like the problem with that, with the Model Y not being considered an SUV if it's not seven-seater, has to do with the gross vehicle weight needed to be at 6,000 pounds. And Tesla comes up short of about 300 pounds. So...

That's a problem. Then there's the IRS right now is taking public comments about it and you can actually send one if you are concerned about this issue. And there's even a petition going to allow the Model S and the Model Y, but not just the Model S, the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just the Model Y, but not just

when you compare it to other SUVs like the ID.4 for example that is getting it and the discrepancy is a bit confusing because the Model Y has the same capacity as the even more cargo space like everything that makes an SUV an SUV normally like the Model Y also complies to is just because it's more efficient in terms of the weight you don't get the tax credit so it makes no sense

uh so there's an effort right now to change that but whether it's going to result in anything concrete we don't know yet all right moving on to china so there was a lot of talk in december about what's going on in china just offered a bunch of incentive for people to buy and then there was a rumor that there was significant demand issue in china uh the tax credit was even though there was a small uh incentive government incentive that was going away in january

So it did help some people to order, but there was a lot of talk about the many issues. And also there was a lot of talk about Tesla cutting prices. And then Tesla came back and like shut down the rumors, we're not going to cut prices. But then they specified we're not going to cut prices in 2022. It's 2023 now. And they did cut prices and they cut prices significantly. The price went down.

Up to $7,000 for the Model Y Long Range, one of the most popular vehicles out there. But a bunch of, like even the standard range Model 3, which is the cheapest vehicle out there, so a $4,000 price reduction. Now at $33,000, the cheapest it has ever been. Even cheaper than the original price that was supposed to be at $35,000 in the US. And it was briefly, really.

Yeah, so we see up between 5% price reduction for the multi performance to 13.4% price reduction for the mobile. So significant price drops there. And I saw that, I want to get the next story about it, but I saw that Grace Tao, the VP of Tesla China,

tried to justify the price increase by saying that, I'm going to quote her here, behind Tesla's price adjustment, oh, this is a,

I think there are, that's a typo here. There are countless of engineering innovations which are essentially unique and excellent laws of cost control. This is all translated from Chinese, so it might sound a little bit weird. Including not limited to vehicle integration design, production line design, supply chain management, and even milliseconds level of automation of robotic arm, coordination route. So I assume she means like within the production factory. Start from first principle, like they love to use that word. Mm-hmm.

uh and insist insist on cost pricing again translated from chinese uh respond to the country's call with practical action to promote economic development and release consumption potential a lot of blah blah blah to say like oh we actually reduce cost that's why we are reducing pricing right now but historically speaking tesla has never reduced

pricing because they could. If they have cost improvement... They can. They charge as much as they can. They've always done that. That's what everybody does. Virtually any product, really. So...

Tesla, they have made cost improvement in the past. I don't know if they did right now. They might have done it on this and might be through for sure. But when they do, they just increase their gross margin. And we've seen that consistently over the last year. Big time. When they do reduce pricing is because they have to create demand. There's no doubt about it. So I don't believe that TAO statement at all. It might be true. They might make some cost improvement, but

13% like that just as the new year starts and some incentive went away. No, the incentives are smaller than the price reduction too. So that goes to show. I mean, I guess you could make an argument that it might be the incentive plus the cost improvement, but it would be a stretch in my opinion. And then the funny thing that happened, so that news came out like in the middle of the night.

And then... Oh, get that back on. Okay. Oh, okay. I was already doing the right article. Came out in the middle of the night and Tesla opened in pre-market trading like 5% down, like significantly down over the news because China is obviously an important market. And...

with the price reduction, I think we assume that the price reduction are going to work though because it makes actually Tesla's vehicle very competitive with like NIO and Xpeng and cheaper like Chinese competition out there. Even BYD, though BYD has a lot of plugins rather than just fully electric vehicles. So it makes Tesla very competitive. It's likely going to result in a surge in buyers and

But the problem is that even that happens, it's obviously going to shatter Tesla's gross margin in China where they sell a lot of vehicles and that's going to affect the bottom line. So I think that was the main reason why the price of the stock went down, though it goes down all the time these days anyway.

But then the Tesla fans got involved and the pump started going and they started releasing these videos here, like this one of a crowd forming in front of a Tesla store. And there was a few of those Tesla stores that happened today. And the Tesla fans and investors tried to frame it as like, oh, this is people are rushing to the stores to buy stuff.

Tesla cars, which doesn't make that much sense to start with because most people buy online and not even that, especially when there's a price decrease like that, people generally just, they, um,

The people that are going to buy are already people that are in the market for a car. They probably already have checked out the car and everything, and they're just waiting to pull the trigger. And then the price decreases is what makes them pull the trigger. So they don't necessarily need to go to the store in the first place. But then I put this through a few of my Chinese channels, and they all agree the same thing. And I saw a bunch of Weibo messages. And the same videos on Weibo. Unfortunately, we cannot embed Weibo in our videos.

But the same videos on Weibo, but from the people that are there and they're saying that are protesting Tesla for the price decrease. And I know this is like people are like, oh, Fred, you're taking a story about like Tesla decreasing prices and boosting sales and you're making it negative. I'm not making negative. They are making it negative. I'm just reporting on it. Like I'm not necessarily agree with protesting on Tesla.

price drop though in this case i do have to admit that this let's send out some mixed messages saying that we don't we won't decrease the price of course they they did had this of this year and sure enough as soon as this year is over they did decrease it so they didn't lie or anything like that but they did like they didn't incentivize a lot of people to buy last year and now it would the car would be much cheaper for them this year as much as seven thousand dollars depending on if they had access to the incentives

And, well, it's been a while since Tesla has dropped prices, and so we don't remember this, but every time Tesla makes a huge price drop, it also lowers the value of every single Tesla out there. That's true, too. Yeah. But for the most part, the people protesting, and this has been a pattern for Tesla customers in China, they do tend to protest after Tesla.

after price drops like that it happened back in 2019 but so there hasn't been a lot of price drops of Tesla vehicles but there was one 2019 there was one in October of this year a much smaller one of this one though and even the smaller one resulted in a bunch of people protesting after that and now again this one the bigger one obviously but it's kind of funny that the Tesla fans and this video went viral like uh I think it was seen like half a million times can I click on yeah um

it's still up as if yeah over half a million views on this and it's still up as if a crowd are buying tesla cars and a bunch of tesla super fans are are retweeting it and everything but oh this is well this is weird elon musk uh i don't know if i like i can share this stuff instead all right this is a weird one

So views on the videos are 185,000 views, but views on the tweet are half a million. So people are taking the video elsewhere and tweeting it separately. Or maybe it's taken from somewhere. But as soon as you're viewing the tweet, you're viewing the video, no? Oh, you're saying there's more views. I guess people aren't hitting play. It plays automatically. Oh, is Elon boosting his tweet views? Yes.

i don't know could it be could i just uncover this i don't i don't somehow i don't believe that they're that advanced yet maybe well yeah it was it was pretty funny that uh people are seeing it there's like oh this is people rushing the the stores to buy but in fact most of those videos are about people protesting the the pricing the price but but you forgot the best part

Now there's a $35,000 Tesla. You just have to go to China to buy it. $33,000. Yeah, it is pretty cheap. I mean, if Tesla is still making money on that, it's impressive by itself. Yeah, it's great news. Yeah, yeah. But again, we're going to keep a close eye on that story going forward because in the next few months, we're going to see how it's affecting Tesla's sales in China. And then, of course, that's going to be a while because that's going to be the Q1 earnings, which is going to be...

probably April, end of April. We're going to see how this has affected Tesla's gross margin, obviously. Because that's cutting the gross margin by a third, basically. And if you cut gross margin by a third, you cut net profit by like half easily. Obviously, this is only China, but China is a giant market for Tesla than any other EVs. All right, this is good news from all S and X buyers or...

all the rich folks out there i guess because this is unattainable for most people you know ain't a cheap car but the yoke steering wheel is not the only option anymore if he goes on if you go on tesla's uh configurator for either the mol s or x right now you can scroll down and the in the interior section you don't just have the option of choosing your interior colors you can also choose between your steering control whether round or yolk or kind of a butterfly wheel is better known

Demand trigger. Yeah, you think that's the demand lever? Yeah. Maybe it is to a degree, I guess. I don't know. It's a low number car, so it's not going to move the needle. But I think a lot of people are going to go for it. But obviously, a lot of people are calling it, oh, this is the normal wheel now. Sorry. Yeah.

it's not necessarily a normal steering wheel though it's it's a round steering wheel but it's not normal so people kind of forget but the yoke not just the shape makes it a novel steering wheel also doesn't have any uh stock on it doesn't have a turn signal stock doesn't have a drive uh drivetrain a drive mode stock uh it doesn't have a windshield wiper stock anything like that so now everything is either automated

or it's a force touch button on the steering wheel. So it's a different way of driving for other people. Not everyone likes it. For most people that I thought that are using it, actually, most people say that they get used to the shape

pretty well it's the no stock that is the more difficult to use to and some people don't like the force touch button personally i did use them but again this is this is more of a habit thing so if you if you have the car it's completely different thing than just test driving it like i did um i didn't mind the force touch button personally

And what I generally do anyway for the windshield wiper and things like that, what I like to do in my Model 3 is I just hit whenever the automatic wiper are not functioning well, which is like half the time basically, because Tesla refused to use a weather sensor and then use their vision sensor instead for the weather. It's not bad in rain, for example, but in snow, it's a bit different.

So I just I touch the button one that gives your wiper one and that that pops up your wiper controls at the bottom right of your screen. So it's easy to change them real quick. So you can do basically the same instead of like you click the button, the force button at the end of the stock. So it's basically the same thing on that front. Turn signal might be a little bit more of a problem for some people, I would assume.

But the shape itself is a big deal for some people. I posted this picture here. Look at that. This is a very hardcore way of driving here, of holding your steering wheel. And

Obviously, you don't have to do that that much, especially with higher speed. It's never going to happen. But for parking situation, you have to do full revolution on the steering wheel. Then for sure, it's going to happen all the time. So it's not an ideal situation. Again, people say they get used to it pretty easily. And I assume that's true. But if you prefer a full round steering wheel, then go for it.

And the thing too about that, about the shape itself is that, so what's the benefit of it? It looks cooler. I agree. It does look cooler. But Elon's excuse is that it's better visibility for the instrument cluster, I guess, which probably true, but just how much better? Like what? Five, 10% better? I don't know if it's worth it. It does look cool though. It does look cool. Yeah. Very Spaceballs-y. And along with the new option for...

for a new order, if you custom order it, Tesla is now offering it as a retrofit for existing owners. So if you bought a Model S or X over the last two years since they did the refresh, you can now order a $700, though that's going to be a bit of a bummer because people that order right now brand new, there's no, the yoke or the round steering wheels are the same price. But if you get the round now, it's going to be $700, but that includes the installation. Do you get to keep the yoke?

Good question. That's a good question. It's not in the... The only thing they note is that the rear-floor-to-rear fit is only compatible with Model S and X vehicle configured with a yoke steering wheel. Purchase price includes installation through Tesla service. I'd be surprised if they let you keep it. So yeah, also... Or a flight simulator or something. Also, they say no stock, no shifter. Again, you don't have any stocks on this.

And yeah, $700 if you want to do it. It starts in March. Installation starts in March. But you can put your name on the list right now. That's something that came out earlier this week. Tesla announced a new investor date coming in March 1st.

So at first view, it might sound like a shareholder meeting type of thing. But no, this looks separately than the shareholder meeting. It's more of like a battery day or AI day, but now it's investor day. And it's going to be at Gigafactory Texas. It's going to be live stream like those other examples I just mentioned with option to attend in person for some institutional and retail investor. But details will follow later. I would assume that this is going to use their new shareholder platform that they launched last year for that.

And they say that they're going to, our investor will be able to see our most advanced production line as well as discuss a long-term expansion plan, generation three platform, capital allocation, and other subject with our leadership team. So, I mean, correct me if I, you think differently here, but it sounds like it's a bit reaction, like a reaction to the stock price. I feel like it's,

What is investor day? It's pretty vague. I understand like battery day. Okay, we focus on batteries and we update on our 4680 cell program and all that structural battery pack and everything. AI day obviously speaks for itself.

Maybe if you want to talk about production, you could do maybe a manufacturing day or you do a powertrain day if you want to talk about the new platform. I don't know. But expansion plan, generation platform, capital allocation, all that, that sounds like, let's pump a little bit. Let's do a little bit of a pump. I was thinking the same thing. And obviously, it's in response probably to the stock price. Yeah. Yeah.

that's what i was thinking too i mean that obviously what's exciting for us in there because we're more like a consumer product type people generation three platform like getting some details on that that would be nice um from what we know so far this is like the new if you consider like model s and x being uh generation one then model three and y were generation two uh now the new platform is supposedly gonna enable um a cheaper or cheaper models uh

because they're going to be probably more than one likely the robotaxi is going to be built on that and a model two that's what people have been calling it but i don't think it's going to be the official name like a new uh twenty five thousand dollar tesla probably closer to thirty thousand dollars if you're realistic probably like a small hatchback something like that which would be real nice i would love a light tesla built hatchback that would be cool like a little hot hatch cooler than a bolt

Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be cooler than the Bose. There was like a slight hesitation, but not more than the time it takes for me to say that to you. The Bose is cool, especially at the current pricing. It is cool, but I mean...

It's cool if you are a two-car family and everything like that. For you, it makes a ton of sense. You have your little wife and you have your boat and whoever needs a car right now in the family grabs the car that makes more sense. But I'm a single guy.

yeah and no family so i think technically i have two cars but it's i have one car really that i use all the all the time the other car i just keep it ownership wise because i have some sentimental value to it but my parents are using it all the time i don't really have access to it anything like that so i have one car i need that car to be a good like

everyday driving car around the city and whatnot. And if I want to go on a road trip, I want to use the same car. I want to have to use another car. And if I had a bolt, I would have to do that. A nice little hatch though, a hot hatch can go like do some racing with it too and everything like that. That would be nice.

Yeah, like electric GTI. It's weird that Volkswagen doesn't think to bring a nice ID.3 over to the US. They don't think people would like that. Can you imagine a nice dual motor ID.3? That's basically what I would assume Tesla would do with that Generation 3 platform. Less expensive, but lighter. So you get decent range still, but through efficiency gains, structural battery pack with 4680 cells.

You can probably make it like a 40, a 40-kilowatt-hour version and still get 250 of range in it. Yeah, I might be a little optimistic, but yeah, something like that. No, I mean, if it's not too big, if it's not too big, it would be a smaller car again. All right, moving on from Tesla, we have two pieces of news that we want to discuss, and then we're going to jump into the comments section. If you have any questions, please put them right now. We're going to get to them in just a few minutes. Rivian, just like Tesla, releasing their production number.

raven's release uh theirs and they announced that they produced just over 10 000 vehicles 10 020 in q4 and they delivered 8 000 of them so there's uh 2 000 vehicles in transit and it brought the tall vehicle produced to 24 337 so just short of their goal of the 25 000 with 25 000 25 000 units for the full year and they delivered 20 332

So pretty good performance, really very close to what they were aiming for. You see the progression here. They went from like 2,500 in Q1, jumped 4,400 in Q2, 7,000 in Q3, 10,000. It shows a very nice progression in terms of the ramp up and production. Very quick ramp up too, faster than Tesla was for the Model S, for example.

uh but i still have some serious concern though for the company uh and i know a lot not a lot of people share that and uh with me and i understand but they are not even close to making any money on those cars yet and they are producing 10 000 of them a quarter i mean we don't know for this quarter yet because obviously we're going to be waiting for the earnings call uh their earnings result in in a few

I think Rivian is a little bit behind normally. It's not going to be in January, but probably in February. Yeah, but they got to get the price per vehicle way down because it's been hovering over three times the sale price. The cost per vehicle down, you mean? Yeah, the cost per vehicle. Because last quarter with 7,000 vehicles produced, it cost them three times...

what they are charging per vehicle to produce them. So for every $100,000 in revenue, and I mean, the cars are like about what's this like 75 to $90,000 depending on the configuration. So it's basically caused them like $250,000 to produce a truck.

every time and they're selling them for for a third of that so it's it's completely unsustainable and i understand that like people are like yeah people were seeing the same thing about tesla and everything and tesla ended up improving that and everything and i agree that's true but in terms of rivian we're not seeing an improvement and by the time tesla was producing anywhere near these kind of volumes here 10 000 equals a quarter now

Not only did we saw an improvement in the gross margin, the gross margin was positive. They weren't making a profit overall because, again, Rivian has the same problem too. They were building their supercharger network. They were building their service network and all that. And Rivian is doing that too. So they're losing a ton of money on that. But obviously, they have to do that if they want to become a digital maker. Also, don't forget Georgia. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that on the ice though, Georgia? I thought it was on the ice though.

I don't know. I mean, they have a battery plant there. So, yeah. But I think the big factory is on the edge. I think it's moving forward. It did have a couple of hiccups. Okay. So, Tesla was already...

making money per car though so let's say that the molas at this point was selling for on average uh 75 000 or 80 000 it was a bit cheaper back then actually um than it is now because now it starts at like 105 or something uh they were making it for like uh 75 000 and selling it for 80 they were making a small profit on it and everything this is completely different obviously they have a giant um

cash on end position I think I did the Jamie share it on this one I think it's over like 15 billion dollars 16 billion no no that's not it 14 billion dollars so losing right now about two billion dollars a quarter uh you're gonna last a little bit you're gonna last a while actually with it but

If you're not seeing any improvement in the gross margin, then there's no way out of it. You're going to go bankrupt or you're going to need to raise more money. Now, Rivian has a lot of very big investors that might be able to put more money in it, i.e. Amazon and others.

other big funds and things like that that could help them out. Ford, though Ford has been kind of walking away a little bit from Rivian. There's another big one too, Cox, Cox Automotive. So there's big partners in there that can play a role, but

But would they want to do that if Rivian hasn't shown any improvement in the gross margin? Because then you're like, okay, what's your business? You're in business of selling a truck for a third of what it costs you to produce it? Like, that's not a business.

So you need to see at least some improvement towards getting to a profitable vehicle program. And we're not seeing that from Vivian right now. So I know a lot of investors hate to hear me say that right now. It's like, Fred, you're being too negative. It's a startup. You have to be positive. It's like, yeah, I understand all that. And I want Vivian to succeed so much. At least...

Not yet. I don't have any people calling me like RAIVNQ or something like that, but it's going to come. But I'm not negative about them. I don't want them to fail. I'm just letting people know the trend is not good right now. We need to see a major change in the trend. And I want to see it this quarter, honestly, because 10,000 vehicles is a lot of vehicles to lose money on. So if they're still losing like $100,000 per car they sell,

uh 10 000 vehicles it's it's mass on top of losing money of course building out your service network your charging network the waypoint network uh all that it's it's i want to see a change if we don't see it like this quarter or the next i uh i have real worries about rivian's prospect at this point yeah it's true um but we'll find out um do you still have yours on order

Yeah, that's the thing too. Like the last time that they sent me an update, they said they were going to get my truck in January. Now I'm not like, I haven't seen, obviously they're not going to do that until they do a service center in Quebec, which I haven't heard anything about yet. So I wouldn't be surprised if it is pushed from January. But also I'm thinking, do I really want it? To be honest, even if Rivian by itself fails, I kind of feel like,

it would be a great acquisition target for someone. - For sure. - But it would be a big someone because this is a big problem that they have. Like, they have a great team and all that and they're producing a lot of cars. Like, they're producing 10,000 electric trucks a quarter. That's awesome. But it's worth nothing if they're not making any money on those trucks. So you would have to have a company that's able to come in and fix that, which is a giant problem to fix.

So who can do that? I was thinking Apple and Apple obviously has some interest in electric vehicle market, but they didn't want to do that. It's not really the Apple way, right? To come in and like buy a huge company like that. They haven't done that in forever. So I don't know. I don't know who else would come in. Like would an automaker want to do that? I don't think, I don't know an automaker that would have the money to do it.

If they're going bankrupt, they might need that as much. Yeah, I mean, they're already a lot cheaper than they used to be. It used to be a $100 billion company. Now, I think they are worth like $20 billion or something like that, which is a lot, obviously, but not in the context of what's their market cap. $15 billion. Tesla could buy it outright cash right now.

Yeah, Elon could with his Twitter sale. Yeah, he could sell Twitter right now for half of what he bought it and still buy Rivian from that money, literally. I mean, Tesla would actually be the best buyer for them, I think, because Tesla knows how to bring down cost of producing electric vehicle and mass. They have done it before. But now that's also not really Tesla's MO to buy the giant companies like that. What about Geely with their Range Rover deal?

division oh yeah daily could be yeah gilly would make sense especially since they bought they they have a history of buying other automakers yeah gilly could be an idea i i again i i know like salvo and a lot of rivian fans especially rivian shareholders right now are going to be really mad about us even discussing this possibility of them going bankrupt and deny that

I'm not saying that this is exactly what's going to happen. I'm saying this is exactly where it's trending right now if they don't start making money grossly, even if it's a slim gross margin on this truck, or at least show an improvement of the gross margin, significant improvement, and not just selling trucks for a third of what they cost to make right now.

Right. At least start going in the right direction. I don't think anyone can argue with that. I don't think RJ, the CEO of Riven, could argue with that. He knows this is a giant problem that they need to fix. I think their position has always been, though, we have the cash position to withheld whatever is happening and do it. Yeah.

All right, last piece of news before we jump into you guys' comments is Mercedes-Benz is going to move ahead with their own charging network, their own branded charging network like the Tesla Supercharger, basically, in partnership with ChargePoint. But ChargePoint is not really a charging network operator. They're more of a...

hardware they build charging station and other people buy them for them so this you're selling them to Mercedes that's gonna make them like this right there nice looking station Brendan Mercedes and I don't think they release any specs for the for the actual charger but they they talk about ten thousand um I think I think they said charge point so they didn't see uh Station oh and I don't mean charge point uh the company I'd be like uh charging stalls or

connectors really not 10 000 you guys saw 400 locations is that like uh yeah i think that's in north america though so they're gonna start with north america so we'll finance 20 operate 400 charging hubs 25 000 charging points yeah in north america and 10 000 charging point total around the world so this is uh i mean i was talking to scooter about it he said uh

He said that GM also is going to have their own branded charging station with EVgo. But I thought they were going to be EVgo because that's the difference between EVgo and ChargePoint. EVgo is their own charging network operator too. So I think this is basically like the first other than Rivian, other than

uh rivian that did follow tesla with their own brendan superchargers the charging station this is this is the first one that's not a dealership network type of thing because i don't really count the dealership network because it's not as optimal as an actual charging network meant to enable long distance driving which is generally what would you use a dc fast charger for other than maybe in cities for for people that are don't have access to home charging which is also very important but

When you're talking about a Mercedes owner, you own an EQS or an EQE, I would assume that you have access to home charging where they're at. Like normally you have a garage. Normally you have a garage. I know there's some exceptions to that rule, obviously. And that's why people are building charging station within cities so that people can just once a week you go there and you charge instead of have.

having a full battery whenever you leave in the morning at home every time. So this is great news. We should note that Volvo actually has a small mini charging network going from like Seattle to Colorado at Starbucks stations. Oh, really? They did a little press release. I think we did a little post on that. And they're using ChargePoint as well. So kind of similar to this, but obviously on a much smaller scale.

I think they promised like 10 or 20. Yeah, then let me rephrase that. For sure, Mercedes-Benz is the first automaker, the first legacy automaker to follow Tesla into having a global DC fast charging network.

The supercharger is the only double DC 5-star network. Even whatever EVgo is doing with GM, that's just in North America. And Rivian is also just in North America, though I know they have global ambitions, but I don't think they're going to exit the North American market and go anywhere else for a while. They need to figure out this market first. So right now, this plan from Mercedes-Benz is the first to actually follow Tesla and not rely on third-party station anymore.

i mean people would say like oh volkswagen has uh electrify america but like that's a that's a whole other story right there i mean they were they were forced to do that uh by regulators uh and then you have in europe you have ionity so ionity is is what makes a lot of it makes a lot of sense to be honest i'm not saying i'm not trashing an identity a bunch of automakers bent together and build that but it's still a third-party company

that you have a stake in. And Mercedes is actually one of the companies that have a stake in, or Daimler, I should say. But yeah, now you have your own brand and station with

uh unlike Tesla although obviously Tesla is opening up the network right now uh Mercedes plans for those stations to be available to any uh to to EVs from other brands but they say that uh Mercedes-Benz owners are going to have benefits only to them including the ability to reserve a station which makes me a little just a tiny bit worried that there's not going to be that many state not many charge point per station but we'll see all right should we jump into the

Yep. Comments, which is an hour in already. All right. Have we heard the rumors about the Polestar 2 becoming our rear-wheel drive and getting more range for 2024? I think the Polestar 2 has already had a rear-wheel drive model. But I saw maybe like a half hour, hour ago, an email came across with a new Polestar 2 design or something. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the same person that's asking right now. It's phrased a similar way. Yeah.

Yeah, but I know that there's some efficiency improvement in the Polestar 2 also. So it might be just that and not necessarily like a new model. But they say 2024. 2024 wouldn't be that exactly. So yeah, there's a single motor. Oh, it's a front wheel drive, the single motor Polestar 2. So that's the difference. Yeah, that was my thought. Yeah.

yeah i do prefer a rear-wheel drive for an ev to be honest so that's uh that that would be good news and yes there's definitely some efficiencies improvement they can make and increase their range a little bit and the pole star 2 could use a little bit more range in my opinion uh so yeah yeah uh we'll keep an eye on that all right i think uh we're talking about the dodge rant or the ram uh truck here from empty to full 500 miles 200 kilowatt hours 36 to fill up at the house

Depends on the house. Yeah, where you're located. Yeah, my place is going to be a lot cheaper than that. You're living the dream. TFL says that the lower center screen in the RAM is removed. Oh yeah, we talked about that. Happy New Year for BC. I hope more for the ID1 and ID2 from VW. I mean, let's get to the ID3 first. But you know, we saw the ID Life. Is that what it was called? That's going to be the ID2, I think. ID Life is

It's all a bit confusing, but if we follow what just happened with the ID Aero that become the ID7, I think the ID.Life is going to be the ID2. ID.Life concept was going to become the ID2, so it's going to be cheaper. ID.Aero became the ID7. Makes sense. All right. Why is there such a lag? Get the Bolt EV? I don't know what we're talking about at that point. Is that VW?

No, I think they're asking if people are having issues getting their hands on the EUV. Is that what the theory is saying? It's hard. Yeah, demand for such an inexpensive vehicle, especially with the tax rebate. I'm hearing actually some dealers are saying up to eight months wait for this, which is like when the Equinox will be out. Yeah.

All right. Chris Mullen. Electricity is not only about being chemically clean, but it's also about... Maybe we'll not move on to that one. All right. Brian Martindale. Hoping you received my email about that media package for my 48th date trip in a Chevrolet-provided electric vehicle to recruit 100 adult kidney donors for 100 kids. We'll cover 18,000 miles. Hoping it's a start that interests your network.

Thanks. All right. We'll look out for that email. Yeah. Good for you. This is cool. Mike Angeles. Is the idea that convenience stores or restaurants would buy a DC fast charger to make money and offer a destination for EV drivers? How long typically would it take to pay off the investment? That is the idea. Yeah. And that is actually the million dollar question because that's

These DC fast charging stations are sometimes like $20,000, $30,000 or up to $50,000 if you get a couple of stalls. There's hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of them too. Actually, you just mentioned pricing that would be quite cheap, but it would be pricing also that's closer to a 50 kilowatt station or something like that, which I think is fine for restaurants especially, but maybe not convenience stores.

convenience stores are more like gas station like you go you're gonna want to have like a top top of the line like 250 plus kilowatt station uh but restaurants i think even level two would make sense to a degree uh because you're gonna be there unless it's a fast food i'm not talking about fast food but you're gonna be there normally for at least an hour or something like that so

a slow dc or fast ac like a you know these are 16 kilowatt ec uh would make more sense i think those are so much cheaper than the fast charger the ultra ultra fast charger yeah and you know i saw so many of those at ces and i kept asking prices nobody wanted to talk about it but they were all saying prices were coming down as scale and innovation happens there so that's good

all right moving on uh oh i saw uh will there be a tax break for the bolt euv you must be new here that's all we talk about yeah there's one right now for the next three months at least hurry up uh go go find one all right curtis mullen municipalities ought to pay half the cost for the uh first time whatever is to you know what i'm not gonna go on that one uh you guys just praise them better yeah guys

Work on that a little bit. Is there a consistency or discernible logic behind the pricing of Teslas in various markets? It seems like they do...

They just do whatever they want without concerns of what customers think about fairness. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm old enough to remember why Tesla was so proud and boasting all the time about their pricing policy being no discount and same price everywhere plus shipping costs and discounts.

duties and port duties and all that. That's not the case anymore. Now it's whatever we can sell them for that price in that specific market. That's Tesla's policy now. Yep. And that's capitalism. All right. I'm going to try to get through some of these. Yeah. Let's see. Have there been any standout debuts at CES you see moving the EV tech forward in big ways? Yeah.

Not really. I mean, I would say some of the CCS combo stations we saw that are lowering the price, adding batteries, you know, packaging them up in ways that will be good for the IRA, the infrastructure. That's kind of the idea. Getting a whole lot more DC fast charging stations out there is what we needed to do. So that's kind of my answer to that. Let's see. And people who suddenly continue to operate archaic incorrectly engineered. Okay.

and that guy has something about audio like uh dan oberst i think tesla should market the yoke as a as safer since it keeps you from holding your arm over the airbag keeping you from punching yourself to death in an accident huh yeah but you're you're supposed to be holding okay if you're holding the steering wheel wrong you're supposed to be holding it then and do like that's uh that's not really good argument in my opinion all right uh

Trying to get some good ones. Tesla doesn't seem to think old looks will be noticed by the general public. Where is the new look? I guess they're waiting for an update. Do you know of any EV pickup for the EU market other than the Maxxis MX90? I don't even know what the Maxxis MX90 is. Is that a Chinese imported truck that we don't know about? Yeah. You guys have some of those and...

uh dial up mike is uh uh alibaba thing and yeah yeah you or you can just follow those mic as i have a post i think that board's gonna bring the uh f-150 out there's just they have so many orders here that they don't have yeah eventually but i mean pickup trucks like europe is not a priority no no i don't all right do you think after the steering wheel stocks might come back on the sx no uh that that would be shocked because that would

that would be a big reversal from uh elon's comments that every input is a mistake there's an error i think they want zero input from the driver and this has done a lot of moves over the years that are based on them delivering on self-driving and obviously they haven't done that yet but reverting on something like that would be uh would be a big deal oh so let me say hi so let me fix my uh i got my uh my wheel hubs done

a few weeks ago appreciate it i was in the bag bad pickle about that and i have to pay like 2500 bucks to tesla all right i think good solution i think we can end it there i'm seeing a lot of not great questions so uh all right well tyler hallard said where's the tesla safety report of full years missing at this point yeah that's a weird one tesla just stopped releasing their safety report about autopilot

mileage accident and everything. Maybe I should do an article about that because it is strange that they stopped that article

We have this suspicion that Tesla, when they don't release data, is because the data doesn't look that good. And that safety report, obviously, the data was so bad to start with. Like, it's not good data. The only thing it was good for is if you track it against itself. So if you see any improvement over time. But we saw very little improvement over time with that. So maybe the Tesla just gave up on it. I don't know.

At one point, even added like fire data, which was also interesting. And that made Tesla look a little bit better, I think, especially when the fires were a big story. But I think fires are not that big of a story for Tesla anymore. So maybe they just thought it wasn't worth tracking. I don't know. Anyway...

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