GOP moves on EV tax credit, Tesla takeover/takedown, $20,000 VW EV, and more
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one and we are live for a new episode of the electric podcast i'm fred lambert your host and as usual i'm joined by seth windrow how are you doing today seth i'm good all right i hope you're good because we don't have good news this week it's gonna start out with the biggest news of the week all right we knew it was coming since the election so since november we knew what's gonna happen but

Now we have a little bit of details of how it's going to happen. And that's the EV tax credit, federal tax credit in the U.S. going away. The GOP have made their first move. They have introduced a couple of bills. Unsurprisingly, those who are introducing those bills are oil-backed senators. People are taking together over a million dollars in the last cycle from big oil companies.

I'm sure you're shocked. Yep. So it's our friend John Barrasso and 14 other GOP centers that introduced a couple of bills. So it's two bills back to back. And we don't know if this is actually all going to happen.

Obviously, things change between the time that the bill is proposed and goes into law or doesn't go into law at all. Some of this might be negotiation tactics. Right now, the way these bills stand are like worst case scenario possible for the EV world if it goes through like that, which it might because the GOP has the House and

has the Senate, and it has the White House. So hopefully some of that changed. But right now, as it stands, the first bill unexpectedly killed the $7,500 tax credit for a new EV buying or purchasing it, the tax credit for used electric vehicles, the $4,000 one, and all the incentive for a charging station.

And then I'll quickly does it because a lot of people were hoping, okay, maybe they do that this year. And then they say that the deadline is January 1st, 2026. So it still gives a pretty good year, actually, probably like even a better year for 2025 because it forces people to, it creates some urgency for people to go ahead and take delivery this year.

But no, they say that right now the phase out will be completely done within 30 days of the bill being signed into law. Again, we don't know when that's going to happen, but the bill is right now in the Senate.

So that's the first one. The second one is our friend Deb Fisher, along with Pete Ricketts and Cynthia Loomis, introduced another bill that would add a one-time $1,000 fee to the purchase of an electric vehicle. The idea behind that is the EVs contributing to the cost of maintaining and repairing roads.

So this has historically been achieved through the gas tax, even though you can argue against that because the gas tax hasn't changed since like 30 years or something. And, uh,

It hasn't been enough to finance the repair and maintaining of the roads in the US. So other funds have been used over the years. It's not like it's just a gas tax, really. But that's the main one, to be fair. And a lot of people argue that electric vehicles don't.

use gas, so they don't contribute to the gas tax, and therefore they don't contribute to the cost of the road, which they do use. So yes, there's been a lot of efforts to try to find solutions to that, and there's a lot of solutions, especially some things like tax on the electricity used, mileage, so keeping track of mileage and assessing that with your registration fees. So most states, but not most states, but

All the states that have taken an approach to having EVs contribute to funds for repairing and maintaining roads, I've used the registration aspect because that's yearly and it makes more sense. And I don't know if any of them actually tracks the mileage, but I'm sure that could be easily done. And then you can have like a reasonable fee based on your mileage. And that would be it.

But instead, Fisher here had the brilliant idea of adding a one-time fee of $1,000, which is based on an average of over 10 years what a gasoline-powered car would contribute to the gas tax. So you would pay ahead of time 10 years for buying an EV. And there's completely indiscriminate of how much you drive that car or how little you drive it.

So very little sense of that. It's clearly something that's aimed at targeting slowing down electric vehicle adoption. It's as clear as day because there's no logic to it whatsoever. Fisher even goes as far as saying like EV can weigh up to three times as much as gas powered car, creating more wear and tear on our roads and bridges. I don't know how she got that figure whatsoever. Three times as much. I mean, I don't know.

Even if you take the Hummer Heavy, for example, and you take a comparable giant SUV, it's not three times as much, is it? No. No, nowhere. And if you take, in the article, I took the more reasonable example of the most popular gasoline car is a Toyota Corolla.

And the comparable EV would be like a Tesla Model 3. And that's just 800 pounds a year. Yeah, I think probably what they did is some really poor... They probably took the lowest...

weight of a gas car, like a small Toyota, and then probably compared it against a Hummer EV. Yeah. And said, well, it could be three times as much. Well, I think that's literally what they did. I think you're right, because isn't about 9,000 pounds a Hummer EV, and then it's 3,000 pounds? So that's the only way that this makes sense, comparing a Hummer EV, a giant SUV, electric,

to the tiniest and smallest and one of the most efficient gas car in the world. Makes no sense whatsoever. And these people run the country right now. Yeah. I just need to let that sit in for a second. Yeah, it's pretty clear that they're trying to kill EVs. Yeah. There's no question about it. And Fisher took $350,000 from the oil and gas industry during the last election cycle.

shocking and barraso took 780 000 for the last cycle so these guys are very unbiased it's

It's pretty clearly. So we know that the second bill, something was coming to regarding that because Sean Duffy, the newly appointed transportation secretary, during his appointments or his confirmation hearing, he did signal that, yeah, we were working on something for that, for making EVs contribute to that. And

I'm the first to say like, yeah, it makes sense. I don't think it makes sense right now for the U S to have EVs contribute to it because it's a, it's an added tax on a product that it's already taxed too much compared to this benefit to the environment and to the,

auto industry in the US, which is falling behind against the rest of the world. And if you continue to do that, you eventually will lose the auto industry in the US altogether. So I don't think it makes sense. Long term, when the...

When the transition to electric transportation has been completed or near completed, or let's say that EVs account for a significant portion, not of new cells, but of the actual fleet of electric vehicles in the U.S., then yes, of course, it makes sense. But for the most part, anyway, like the actual vehicles that contribute to EVs,

road damage, infrastructure damage, are mainly trucks, are mainly like heavy-duty trucks. Smaller ones, like probably like the Hummer EV, for example, probably, yes, the Hummer EV definitely like 9,000 pounds or so. Yeah, that could be, but maybe that should be taxed, sure. But mainly like commercial trucks are the big ones. A little Tesla Model 3 on the road won't do much damage.

So yeah, now, now this thing needs to move through the Senate, through the committees and then, uh, to a vote. Uh, so we were not, we're not close to any of that. We're going to be tracking these efforts so they could change. Maybe, maybe they push for a phase out period for a tax credit, uh, throughout the end of the year, or at least, you know, a quarter or two, or maybe they reduce it through a quarter and then kill it completely by the end of the year, something like that. Um, then, um,

And for the $1,000 fee, I hope this is a negotiation tactic because it just makes no sense. Well, here's something else that people don't often think about. Electricity is almost always taxed at a higher rate than what we tax gasoline at. So instead of...

re-taxing or double-taxing EV owners, why not just say, hey, electric company, you're probably giving this much, you're getting this much tax from cars that are charging. We're going to just yoink that right out of your purse because that's additional money that they're getting for, you know, the infrastructure is already there. Everything's already there. So they're getting additional tax revenue.

Maybe some of that should go to roads since a lot of what the electric grid is now supporting are roads. So I don't know that EVs should be charged anything more. Also, they're not polluting the environment and everything else. So I don't like this at all, obviously. Yeah. No, what you said makes sense, too, especially those...

electric utilities will benefit from the transition to electric transport greatly anyway. So it makes sense to, as you see their tax volume increase, let's just use the percentage of that towards roads. It makes total sense. Yeah. But obviously also, it's like now, okay, are you going to ask people when they buy a gasoline car to pay their gas tax 10 years in advance? As you buy your gasoline car,

We'll charge you $1,000. What are you going to pay in taxes for the next 10 years? And then when you go to the pump, now you won't be charged taxes for the next 10 years. Because that's the equivalent of what they're saying here. It makes no sense. Literally, the US is being run by a bunch of crooked morons. All right.

Moving on, there is an effort right now, a global effort to protest Tesla. It's using both two different hashtags, two different Thailand. And when I wrote this article, it was the Tesla takeover. But now they're also using the hashtag Tesla takedown.

So it seems to be like a real grassroots movement. There's some organization behind it, but most of them are a grassroots organization in different locations. Anonymous, though, is behind it. Not behind it. They're participating in it, but they're not the ones that started it. I've seen a bunch of accounts that started before that. You know Alex Winters, the actor from Lost Boys? He was one of the first ones that I saw that actually posted this idea.

idea of picketing Tesla. Interesting. Tomorrow, starting at 11 a.m., or different times to the idea, they have a map now. I don't know if Jamie sent it to me earlier. They posted the map after they did this article. Yeah, they have a map here of across

This is just the U.S., but I saw some protests in Canada, but I saw some protests in Europe too. But for the Action Network map, it's only the U.S. and Canada. So at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the social rooms, all the social rooms are listed on the map here, but a lot of them are on the U.S. People are organizing protests to...

peaceful protests in front of these stores to tell people to stop buying Tesla vehicles. And the idea behind it is to protest Elon specifically. So there's been a growing momentum to the justification basically to go after Tesla in order to go after Elon through Tesla is the idea that even though Elon is the CEO of Tesla and only owns like 13% of the company,

He's in complete control of the company, as we've seen with the lawsuit over his competition package. That was literally about that. And people see Elon as using Tesla as his own piggy bank, basically, to take over the government, meaning that

He sold Tesla stock to buy Twitter, which you obviously use Twitter as part of his effort to get Trump elected. And then he literally sold Tesla stock to give Trump $290 million as part of the campaign. And that bought him a nice little role in the government that he's now using to do things that goes against Tesla's mission.

So a lot of people seem to have different reasons for this protest. It's varying a little bit, but most of them seem to be ending oligarchy, which a lot of people see Elon as becoming an oligarch to this effort. But the one that actually made me aware of this protest

of this protest was Raph Ballard from California, a longtime Tesla owner and electric reader. And his reason was a little bit different. I mean, I think he is fed up with Elon Musk too, but he said, I have a 2015 Model S and the only reason I want Tesla sales to decline is to get Musk out as CEO and get someone like G.B. Straubel to replace him.

And that's something that if you've been listening to the Energy Podcast for a while, you know that Seth and I have been advocating for that for quite a bit. I don't know about GB Straubel, to be honest, like nowadays, because he's come back to the company. He's been on the board for two years now, maybe, something like that, two, three years. He's been silent, dead silent. We have never heard of him. I think that's what you have to do. If you want to be a defense, you mean? Like if you want to be...

part of Elon world, but also keep one foot in reality. Like, I don't think he wants to be part of Elon world, but I think he wants to be part of Tesla world. That's an assumption too. Like I would agree with you. Like I've not, everything I've heard from GB Straubel made sense to me since the beginning. Like he, he's been one of the greatest communicator of this transition to electric vehicle effort. Very knowledgeable guy. Yeah.

should get most more technical credits for Tesla's achievement than Elon. No doubt. He was a chief technology officer for years. A lot of that. So I have no reason to doubt him other than he hasn't said anything against Elon. But like you said, so your argument, I guess, is like if he wants a shot at taking over. Right.

he cannot show his cards. Is that what you're saying? If he said anything that was even slightly anti-Elon, he'd be gone in a second. I mean, look at what happened to Drew Baglino. I don't think Drew even said anything bad. It was just that Drew was like in a position that he could be CEO, I thought. You think he was threatened by him?

I think Elon was threatened. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we, you've seen a lot, a lot of that going on. There's no doubt. It's like, it's, I mean, I think what happens is like, he's like, Hey, I'm, you know, Tesla, I need this $60 billion thing. There's no replacing me. And then if there's somebody who's could replace him, that's, you know, that's a lot of money that he's kind of trying to corner. So anybody who's,

He's not even working at Tesla. It would be so easy to make the argument to replace him right now. He's literally sleeping in Washington, D.C. every night now working on Doge. He's not even CEO right now. I'm going to give JB Straubel the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to agree with your argument.

there. But yeah, I think we need that. But to Ralph's point, he's right. If you want that, if you are amongst the Tesla fans or the Tesla mission fans who still believe in a chance of, you know,

prying Tesla away from Elon Musk and returning it to its goal of accelerating the advance of electric transport and clean energy rather than, you know, all in on full self-driving and that's all that matters now and even lying about it and all that.

At the detriment of the electric vehicle programs, because Tesla has not released a car in the last five years, other than a Cybertruck, which is a failing program. I'm going to get into that in a few minutes in another post. And killed vehicle programs like the $25,000 Tesla because he said that you don't need it with full self-driving. All these things have been detriments to Tesla.

So if you are someone who thinks that there's still a chance to remove Elon Musk and to go back to the good old days, you need Tesla sales to continue to decline. You need people to blame that on Elon Musk and you need the shareholder base to turn on him and remove him. So, yeah, I mean, this effort.

is a step in that direction, I guess, because they are linking these protests, telling people to sell their shares and stop buying Tesla vehicles and all that. They're linking that to Elon Musk, not to enrich Elon Musk even more. And that technically is

Tesla's board, if it is successful, I'm not saying that it will be successful. I have no idea. Though there already was a protest yesterday at the Seattle store. And so the protest might be ongoing after that, but they're trying to make like a big one for Saturday globally. If they are successful, the board can technically say, all right, now we are having issues selling cars and they already are having issues selling cars, but even more.

And some of that is now directly linked to Elon because of things like this. Because other than that, they can always say, like I was on CNBC this week and they asked me, like, what do you think is the impact of Elon's meddling in politics on Tesla right now? It's like, ah,

I don't know. I assume it is bad, but there's no way to tell. There's absolutely no way to tell for a fact. Sales have been declining and he's CEO. I guess that's the only thing that you can say for certain. But other than that, it's like, yes, it's the new Model Y that's also affecting sales. So it's hard to say, I think. But if things like that are successful, then

It makes sense. So now the board can say, all right, so we have to act. Even as I'm saying that, I'm like, this is just not happening. I just don't see the board acting. Did you see today we learned that Joe Gebbia was on Tesla's board. He's the former CEO or co-founder of Airbnb. He's joining Elon at Doge.

Oh, I didn't see that. That sounds crazy. Yeah. So like it's, it's a, if, if people that's, that's why that's my only concern with GB. And I, I don't want to disparage him if he's playing his card close to his chest and everything like that. Good for him. Keep doing what you're going to do. But I have this general idea that if people are still at Tesla at the highest level possible and everything, it's because they are on Elon's side on this. Yeah. They are like,

you know let's go the US becomes a technocracy and oligarchy and that's good I assume it's only way to see it so we'll keep we'll report if you go at these protests or if you pass by them and everything send us some reports send us some pictures I'll be curious to see how it goes this weekend yeah

All right, this was an interesting story this week. The U.S. State Department on its budget forecast for 2025 had a budget line for something called Arbor Teslas worth $400 million. And I wrote kind of funny articles on it where I said like this was approved at least before December. So it was still under the Biden administration.

And there's a lot of illegalities with this because it was under the NIICS code for all other miscellaneous food manufacturing. Armored Teslas worth $400 million in food manufacturing made no sense. And a bunch of it was like group with three other line to about armored sedan, armored BMW X5, X7.

and armored EV, not sedan in parentheses. And all of these were in wrong categories. Like the armored sedan was in soft drink manufacturing, the BMWs in bottled water manufacturing, and armored EV was in ice manufacturing. Made no sense whatsoever. But all of these other ones were smaller programs, worth $50 million, $40 million, $40 million, while the armored Tesla one was worth $400 million. Wow.

So it's really not clear what it was about. We assume maybe some Cybertruck, some armored Cybertruck. Tesla does say that its Cybertruck is armored and it's bulletproof. But every test we've seen so far showed that that's only true for very low velocity vehicles.

munitions talking like a 22 or something and nine millimeters maybe it's gonna stop it and that's if you hit the doors obviously because then the windows are not bulletproof whatsoever but we've seen companies like this image right there is the is a partnership between unplugged performance and Archimedes defense to build some cyber trucks that are truly armored and

Windows are baseball-proof. We know that. Oh, yeah. I tried throwing some baseballs at the window. No, it was a steel ball, to be fair. No, no. So originally they did the steel ball, and that broke the glass. But then in the actual event, you remember he lobbed a couple baseballs at the window? And even those cracked? I don't remember that. Yeah, it was anticlimactic. Yeah, right.

But yeah, since then, though, after it was reported yesterday, the U.S. State Department removed that from – they removed the mention of Tesla, actually. They just removed the – I think they replaced it with Armored EV instead. And they said that the program is on hold. So it's not being actually attributed, awarded to Tesla or anyone. Yeah.

And Elon said he didn't know about it. He had no idea about it, which I believe him, actually. He didn't know about the new Model Y, I don't think. It was like, oh, wow, that's good looking. That looks pretty good. Yeah, I'm happy with that.

Yeah, Tesla is finding some pretty creative solutions to the problem of people cutting supercharger cables. So this has been a problem with Tesla, but with also other companies operating charging station where people are cutting the cables to sell the copper in them, the metals in them, because that's worth good amounts of money and people are crazy enough to cut these things. Yeah.

So people have been, it's such a problem that you actually need like dedicated solution to this. There's cameras and all that at the station. I think that's been like the go-to, but even that's not enough for a lot of people. They're still pretty brazen about it and they'll find solutions.

So Tesla right now is testing one thing. So in Seattle, at the supercharger in Seattle, they had what they call a die defender, which is a bunch of small stainless steel hoses that wraps around the cable with this wrap. If you're watching here, you can see it. It's a pretty solid wrap. And there's hoses in there and there's die in there. And if you cut through them, you have a gift going on right now. You see that too in the...

Anti-robbery, like in banks, they put that in bags, like in money bags in banks. If you rob a bank and then if you open the bag, it explodes like that in their face. So it's the same principle, I guess, but wrapped around an entire cable. So obviously it's costly and I don't know just how useful it is because I guess you could just rob it

Dressed like this guy is dressed and then remove that after. I don't know if it's actually worth it though money-wise, but anyway. Max de Ziger, Tesla's head of charging, communicated another solution that's quite interesting. He says that now Tesla is engraving on the cables property of Tesla on the supercharger cables on the actual copper in them.

And the idea behind that is that the scrap yards or the recycling facilities, if they see cables coming in and they see that, that Tesla motor is engraved on this, they should not take it. Obviously, that does require these places to comply with that. And I know that there's been some effort over the years to make these places a little bit more legit, but...

Historically speaking, a lot of recycling facilities have been crime related. There's been the Mafia involved and whatnot. And there's also black markets for this, but black markets are generally the prices are lower. So sometimes it's make it not worth it to go through them.

All right, we have a few more news items to discuss, and then we're going to jump into the comment section. So if you guys have any questions for us about any of the topics that we're discussing today or any other topics in the EV world you want our take on, you can put them in the comment section right now. I'm going to get to them in about 10, 15 minutes. So the Cybertruck sales are not going well still, and Tesla is now increasing the discounts on them as inventories are piling up.

And they have a weird situation right now, Tesla, because the 2025 Cybertruck is eligible to the federal tax credit as it stands right now. Obviously, that might not be the case very soon. But the 2024 Cybertruck is not. And Tesla still has plenty of those. So not everyone...

qualify for the tax credit on the revenue side of things. There's the limitation, $150,000 per filer, dual filer, $300,000. So that eliminates a lot of people. A lot of people that would be buyers of $80,000 trucks because also if you're making less than $150,000 per year, does it really make sense for you to buy an $80,000 truck? I'm not a financial advisor, but I would be careful about that.

um so so maybe tesla is trying to push these 2024 on those people uh that that don't qualify and uh they're having to discount them obviously because otherwise like i just want a brand new 2025 version and an old one that's been sitting in accumulating dust in a parking lot so this is offering four thousand dollar discounts on the um 2024 one with uh

The regular one, the non-Fundation Series one. And they still have Foundation Series, by the way. So those are getting now a $6,000 discount on top of already the package, the bundle features and everything.

Weren't they just deleting the foundation series part off and selling them like that? They did that on a bunch of them. I saw a work order for like 800 of them or so from a source. But apparently there's plenty more. That thing is just not selling at all. You look at the inventory and there's inventory everywhere. I had...

I was talking yesterday, I had a mobile service come to fix my battery on my Model 3. And the guy came in with a Model X, an older Model X, which is like Tesla service on this. And I was looking at the car and it didn't even have all the, you know, the...

Some of them, like, actually, I'm only selling mobile S, I think, not mobile X, but, like, a custom, like, tool system in there that you can pull out and all your tools in there. It was just, like, a tool bag in the back or something. So I asked him, like, hey, do you think you should have, like, a Cybertruck do mobile service instead? Like, and having all fitted in the back with, like, a bunch of different parts and whatnot. Yeah.

And he was like, yeah, I like the idea. And we have plenty of them to do it too. Because in Quebec too, they have a bunch. And in Quebec, they sent, or actually Quebec and Canada in general, they sent US one that weren't even homologated for Quebec. We have a few difference in Canada to have to be approved. Like, I think like our seatbelt buckles needs to be red, things like that. Or a bunch of etiquettes needs to be in French and English.

And Tesla homologated a bunch of Cybertrucks that were made for the US in Canada to do that. And now they are here and they are not selling either because they are super expensive. So this is like doing anything it can to sell those right now. It's just not going well. And then if the tax credit goes away too, I guess there's a leasing. They released the leasing recently. So that will help.

especially with the tax credit because you can get around the income requirements through the leasing. But the thing that's probably going to make the biggest difference is the rear real drive single motor version of the Cybertruck, which is supposed to come later this year. Tesla could shift production toward that and that could help a little bit. But either way, the goal of 250,000 trucks per year right now seems extremely unlikely.

then I think it's pretty fair right now. You could call the Cybertruck program a failure by itself, I think. Yeah. So would you call it a failure because they didn't come anywhere near the price and the features? Or is it just because people don't like what it looks like? Or is it Elon or a combination, I guess?

I think if you have a 500 mile, $70,000 Cybertruck, like they first announced, I think it would sell like crazy. There's no doubt about that. So, so it's, it's, that is definitely the main issue. There's no doubt. It's just the, like, this is screwed up bad with, with that because like the price thing, you can always like make the argument, all right, inflation and all that. Okay, sure. But the range, you can, you cannot argue against the range. They failed on that. Like,

Now, if you want to get close to 500 miles and you don't get 500 miles, it's the extended battery pack thing, which they still haven't launched. There's been no word on it for a while. I think last time they talked about Q2, I think, 2025. But it remains to be seen. And even if you have that, then you're not even – I think it's like 440 miles, the top you can get with it. So you're still short of the 500 miles. And then it's $16,000 on top.

of $80,000, which was already $10,000 over the price of the final version. So now you're $26,000 over the price and you don't even get the range you were promised. It's, it's a fail and you lose a third of your bed, I think. Yeah. So yeah, it's, that is the main failure. I think altogether, the only thing you can like salvage the Cybertruck program for, I think is like as a, a,

testbed for new technology like the Turbo Wire, 48-volt system. For that, you could make the argument like it's not a total failure because we get to test that at least. But even then, I guess you can do that with a more successful vehicle program. So do you remember when, right? I think it was actually before they even unveiled the Cybertruck. Elon said something to the effect of, if everybody hates this,

We have a backup of a more normal-looking pickup. Do you think that still exists? No. The problem isn't really necessarily the look of it, although it might be. I think the problem is that they weren't able to hit the specs at the price point that people were expecting. Yeah, I think you're right. But I also think that if they had the same truck right now that was less weird-looking, it would also sell better. Maybe not...

Not as much as if you keep the same look and you do the spec that were originally announced. I think that would sell more. But I think the look also has an effect on it. But I don't think that's happening because I don't think they are even looking at this realistically. I don't think that Elon would admit right now that the Cybertruck program is a failure. I think he would still tell everyone that wish to listen.

that it's a great success. No, it makes no sense. And if you want to know, it's not a great success. Like this, this next article here is interesting. This is a big Tesla fan, a Cybertruck owner, gold Cybertruck owner. Like that's, that's another step. If you wrapped your Cybertruck gold, like that's, that's pretty hardcore, but at the same time he does it. And that's the other thing too, that you can, you know,

Try to look at if you're on the silver lining it. As a marketing tool, the Cybertruck was useful, like just getting eyes on Tesla. Like a lot of people know about Tesla through the Cybertruck too. So that helped a little bit. And this guy is a cosmetic physician and he's advertising his plastic surgery business through the Cybertruck. So like he's using it like that. But now it's backfiring for him because he says...

that he's being harassed. He says that at first it was just like a bunch of middle fingers and whatnot, but now it's going a little bit further. He says, now they're not just waving at me. They're not just giving me the middle finger. Somebody tried to cut me off while I'm driving with my kids and three guys came out of the car and just pointed my middle finger and started screaming at me.

Point at the middle finger. What does that mean? Does that mean you do that and then you point at your middle finger or you point with your middle finger? I don't know. I don't know how to do that.

I don't know how that works. Yeah. I'm pretty sure you meant they gave me the middle finger, but yeah, probably. Yeah. That's, that's not cool. Obviously like swerving in traffic is insane. Funny enough, when I was testing the cyber truck, the same thing happened to me, but it was not out of anger. Like people were trying to get pictures of the truck and everything. So that's, that's also dangerous. Don't do that.

But then I think the thing that was too much is like someone stocked this sticker that says Nazi fuck off on it. And...

That was like the thing that went too far. And he says his wife now doesn't want to drive the truck. She's scared. But why I posted this article was more about the thing that I found the most interesting about it. Because obviously, I don't approve of any of that. Like, leave the guy alone. Leave the family alone. Makes no sense. But he tried to give the truck back to trade it in for something else at Tesla. And Tesla told him, according to him, that they're not taking Cybertruck's trade-ins. They're not letting people trade in their own vehicle.

That's weird. Yeah, that's weird. And that's a sign that they have an inventory problem on this. You're like, yeah, you took it, don't give it back because we don't want to have to sell that one too. Yeah. And it's also just the depreciation on the Cybertruck is pretty crazy right now. There's not a Cybertruck that it's a little bit over a year old right now and they're crashing in prices. Yeah, and I think the Cybertruck represents...

Tesla or Elon more than Model Y, Model 3. I think people buy Model Ys and Model 3s because they're convenient and low price for an EV. And they could have bought it in 2020 when he was still behaving kind of like a normal person. So like

me, for instance. Don't mess with my car, please. You're right. I think that was part of his argument, that guy, too. I looked at his comments and he said that he wanted to trade it in, especially because a Cybertruck is basically the most recognizable Tesla, so people associate it with Tesla more, and it's also the most recent one, so it's harder to make the argument that, hey, I bought this before Elon went crazy. It depends on when you think it went crazy, but

Yeah. It's funny. Everybody has their points. We were talking about a German Tesla superfan who, like, you know, he was cool with everything happening until he did the D&D. And then he's like, oh, okay. Yep. Elon's crazy. Everyone has their, they call it the realization moment. The realization. Yes. It's interesting. I mean, we've had our own, you and I.

Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of them like, oh, oh, they're like, they stacked up, they stacked up for a while. BYD had a big week this week. They shocked the market in China by releasing their new version of their God's High smart driving system. So it's like their autopilot full self-driving equivalent.

And what was shocking is that they went with a tier system that is included in all cars, but you have three different ones. So here you have the entire BYD lineup across their different brands. But do we have...

The first one is the God IC option. There's another word for it. Oh, yeah, the Dipilot 600. So you have the Dipilot 100, Dipilot 300, Dipilot 600. Also, God's IC, B, and A. And the smallest one, the base one is C. And that's for the cheapest vehicle they have. Like even the Seagull, the $10,000 car gets this. And it's still like pretty...

significant uh hardware suite for for an advanced driver assist system 12 cameras 5 wave radars and 12 ultrasonic sensors so compare that to test vehicles it's more cameras five more sense if i have more radars 12 more transonic sensors for the latest vehicles um and that's standard on all

base BYD including the 10000-01. Then you have the middle option which is GUD's ISB which adds a LiDAR to the system. So that's going to be for the premium, the more premium BYD so the Denza brand and the Tang Chang Bao lineup which I'm not as familiar with. BYD has a bunch of different brands. And then they have the GUD's IA for the luxury Yang Wang brand

And this one has three LiDARs instead of one. And the aim to have... So all these except the base one, the C one, have basically already the equivalent of Navigate on Autopilot that Tesla has on City Street and highway driving. The C right now is only for highway driving. They don't have City Street just yet. But it's based on all vehicles have that.

So people saw that as a big hit for Tesla in China because Tesla was supposed to release FSD in China last year. It couldn't do it. So the idea has beaten them to the punch to a certain degree because this system, at least for the B and A, are very similar to what Tesla offers with FSD. Maybe not on par just yet, but it's better than what Tesla offers in China.

It might just not be on par with Tesla offers in the U.S. just yet, but still. Peter Wallison, Lucid's CEO this week, kind of made some comments that hint at Lucid expending its business. Well, yeah.

It's already doing that, but it's going a little bit heavier on the supplier front of things. So he says that Lucid doesn't just want to be a luxury car makers, which we kind of know about. They aim to sell a million EVs a year, but not just to selling their own EVs like they do now with the air and the gravity now, but they want to be a supplier too. So,

So Peter hinted that Lucid does not exist to be a niche luxury manufacturer. Lucid is in the luxury space at the moment because it needs to be for financial support. But in the future, he's looking to... We want Lucid to be huge, he says. He envisions Lucid to producing 1 million cars a year. And he wanted to go through that by also supplying the powertrains to other automakers. We already reported that Lucid has a deal with...

We had the British manufacturer, Ashton Martin. And actually Lucid started like that when it was called Ativia back in the day. It planned to just produce the powertrain and sell it to their manufacturer. And then it pivoted to making its own cars. But now it's kind of going back to that. Ashton Martin is just one example, but I think they are working on other deals too. Don't have any specific details on it.

The digital strategy for manufacturing car will also secure licensing and supply partnership as long being part of the company's business plan. I feel like they should just sell to a bigger company that can manufacture. They have such valuable IP. I mean, even like Google or Apple, it kind of feels like they're worth so much more than their stock price. They have basically everything.

you need to start an EV, like a good EV, like the best. I mean, you're talking about efficiency and power. Like they build the fastest EV. They build the most efficient EV. Like they have everything. Yeah, you see here the chart on the efficiency side of things. It's really impressive where Lucid is at. And like I said, there's no clear catching up right now. Like you look at Tesla,

And there's a significant disadvantage. And Lucid says they're working on the new Atlas drive unit right now, and they think that will continue this difference here. I don't know about that. They claim that Tesla will not be able to catch up until 2032 to what they're doing right now. I don't know about that. Yeah, that's optimistic. Yeah.

But technically, you're right. Like, do you have the advantage? So what you're saying basically is like if someone else could come in with a lot of cash and just like let's try to use their tech to make higher volume EVs and all that. Yeah. Like what if Volkswagen, instead of, you know, joining up with Rivian, said let's just eliminate the middleman. We're going to just buy...

buy this and you know obviously that would be more expensive than i think what they spent four billion with ribion yeah it's my joke too but but lucid is not it's not that much like how much is lucid work right now on the market it's like six i want to see like six billion

Oh, $10 billion. They're just sort of 10 billion. Oh, but they just shut up like 20% of the time. But like, I mean, if you're willing to spend $4 billion and just get some software from Rivian, double down, you get a whole company, which might not be entirely good, but like you get probably better technology or just good technology. No, I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah.

We have a little bit more images of the new Nissan Leaf, albeit still heavily camouflaged. That's one of them here. Very heavy camouflage, too. Never seen that before. But you see the shape is a lot more like crossover-like than the previous Leaf, which is something that I would agree with. You have this one here. I can tell you, having seen an early version of that car two years ago, it's...

Doesn't look like the Leaf. It's basically like they are just reusing the name Leaf because it's one of the most successful EV programs. Right. Similar size, but totally different car. Yeah, it's a totally different car.

I mean, even the first Leaf to the second Leaf was already like, it's a bigger change from the first generation to the second generation. The new generation is a bigger change than that change too. Hopefully not still Chattamo either. Yeah, no, that's dead. All right, the ID1, ID every, whatever you want to call it. This is the $20,000 Volkswagen. We have a new teaser image, a new,

before the debut that's coming next month. So last week it was the ID2, which is the $25,000 Volkswagen. And Volkswagen is also aiming for $20,000 or so, or at least 20,000 euros, because it's probably just going to be for Europe. And that's the first render image here.

which looks similar to the drawing that they had previously released uh you see the the headlights obviously like this kind of windows and the short top that's always always a design drawing thing it's not really a way it's going to look like you can already see that's already a higher standing up car but that's gonna be an interesting thing i think the twenty thousand dollar vehicle because um we had some spec on this i think

Yeah, because it's going to use the entry-level MEB platform and two battery options, 38 kilowatt hours and 58 kilowatt hours with a driving range of up to 279 miles, 450 kilometers. But that's obviously going to be for the 58 kilowatt hours, which is not going to be a $20,000 car. So the $20,000 car is going to be the 38 kilowatt hour version. And how much mileage is that going to get? Not 200, but it'll be fine for some people.

I would like to note that this hatchback that they're building with a 58 kilowatt hour battery has a very similar spec as the Chevy Bolt. Yeah. 2017, which if they had, if Chevy had just gone with would, would be doing very well. But yeah. Well, that's coming back to, but you know, 38 kilowatt hour. So that would be like just short of like 200 watt hour per mile. Yeah.

To get 200 miles? I mean, it's possible they could get to 200 miles. Yeah. If it's really small, and I assume it's going to be quite small. I feel like that's similar than the last IONIQ, the Prius IONIQ, had like a 38 kilowatt hour battery. And that had like around... And that was not small, small. That was like a... Yeah, but it was... Yeah, it was like the aerodynamics were good. Yeah.

Yeah, so I'm not like, could be close to 200 miles. All right, let's jump into the comment section. All right, Skeptic says, if this was really about funding road maintenance, we're talking about the battery or the EV tax, they would base it, the fee on gross weight, but that would piss off all their stupid voters driving Ram trucks. That's a good point. Weight and usage. It's the only two things that make sense. Or some combination.

All right, Mike. The Car Geek says, I'm okay if Congress votes to repeal tax breaks for EVs. That's democracy. I am totally against presidential executive orders letting one person undo laws. That's dictatorship. Well, for this one, we're waiting for Congress to send it in Congress. Bobby Bishop says they could collect through the chargers just like they do at the pumps. That's one way, although most people charge at home. Yeah, so that's the thing. Yeah.

Carl in San Diego says Rivian R1S launch edition weighs 6,900 pounds, so not an insignificantly overweight vehicle. It's why they were alarmed that in testing it blew through concrete barrier. In the Army Corps of Engineer testing, that was pretty big. The problem was... But even that, it's not three times as much as a pickup truck. No, no. F-150 regular. What's the weight on that regular F-150? Yeah.

It's 5,500 pounds. Right. So not even 50%. Yeah. All right. The regular cab is 4,500. Still not double. All right. Carl Sandigo says the problem with thinking, and F-150s are full size, the problem with thinking that you just replaced Musk as CEO is that Musk is still profiting and has his power from Tesla stock ownership. So he's still the financial target of a boycott. That's a good point.

But if Elon is out, he's out, out. He's selling his stock. He's going away. He's not... Elon doesn't own stocks and company that he doesn't... He's not in control. Right. And also the stock would probably take a huge hit, which would devalue his shares. Yeah. You know, if Tesla was valued like a normal car company, he wouldn't even be the richest person on earth. He would probably be like two or three or four or something. I mean, all of his...

Most of his money comes from Tesla stock and SpaceX as well. All right. Hi, Fred. Are there any new good options for an electric cutaway bus that is those smaller shuttle buses that carry 20 to 30 people? I looked into this five years ago and there were no good options. I think Ford is...

Doing stuff with their e-transit, like you can get a longer range e-transit and with people putting buses on there. I know this because of there's a small electric school bus based on the 4D transit platform. So I'm sure they're doing similar. There's a city bus too that I've seen on that size made in Quebec, actually. I don't remember the name of the company, but it's not a big one. So it's about the same size. I don't know if they're in production though.

All right, it looks like Sylvian has had the realization, loved my Highland, hate must now, sold my car, sold my shares. So he used Tesla as one sale less Tesla. What did you go with instead of your Model 2 Performance? Didn't he get like a Silverado or something? I mean, it's not one for one trade, but I thought he had one of those. No, that's not a Sylvian. It's another Sylvian. Oh, okay.

Electric Brian says to pay for road maintenance, add tolls and jurisdiction responsible for the road gets the money. Yeah. I mean, I hate tolls though. Yeah, I know. It's, it's frustrating because like now they just pull it right out of your account without you. I mean, there's cameras anymore. Yeah. I don't know what the good solution is there. Brad says thousand taxes BS in Texas. We pay additional $200 for renewed car registration each year. Just for EVs or for regular cars too?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if he's upset in $200, I don't know. You're assuming someone who buys a used Tesla would have bought a new Tesla. Seems unlikely. Also, if Tesla dies, BYD takes over. You're okay with China domination. Good-ish points. That is the problem. Like, you know, Tesla is very U.S. or I guess North American. A lot of workers here.

Yeah. But like, it's, it's not like the only two option is Elon Musk or China. I mean, these are not the options. Like we are selling, people are saying their Tesla because they want Elon Musk out because they want still to, that's the, that's the thing that a Tesla, the Elon cultists, like,

cannot get rather read their head around is like they think that if you go against elon you go against tesla and and if you go against tesla you hate tesla so these they think that oh you hate elon you hate tesla it's like it's not that at all on the contrary like i'm a giant fan of tesla giant fan of the mission the giant fan of the products the reason why i want elon out is like i don't think this is gonna head well for tesla uh and the us in general but

So it's a place of love that I'm doing that. It's not like it's never like, what would I care otherwise? Like if I didn't care about Tesla, I wouldn't care about what Elon is doing right now because on the country, I was like, all right, you just blow the whole thing up. Like, okay, that's good for him. On the country, why I care so much is because I care about Tesla.

And the option is not just that or BYD. And if BYD wins, BYD wins. What do you want me to tell you? Yeah. All right. Moving on. Skeptic. It's hard to believe anyone who would buy a Cybertruck at this point. Regardless of price, it's like waving an I'm an idiot flag to buy standards on both sides of the political spectrum. It's not completely true, though. I understand that. But I don't know, Skeptic. Have you driven one? Because...

It is super fun to drive. Like, especially like I've never driven a steer by water vehicle ever before. And it is quite an experience. Like personally, I would have an issue right now buying a Cybertruck. Like even if it wasn't my price range and everything, it's not, it's like $130,000 in Canada. It makes no sense. But if somebody would take off like the Cybertruck thing and put on like an F-150, I know they had those wraps before. Yeah.

I would like a Model 3, Model Y type vehicle with that steer by wire. It would be insane. Some people don't care about that. They're like, I don't care what people think. I love the truck and I love how it drives and I want to do that. I know some of those people. It's not just like you're an idiot because you believe in Elon Musk if you're buying a Cybertruck. It's not just that.

All right. Fred, what U.S. law would you most want and or not want as the 51st state? Oh, boy. Hey, it was crazy this week as a Canadian watching Trump in the Oval Office, like saying that I talk with Governor Trudeau. I just talked with him. Governor Trudeau.

He sounded like no joke. He sounded, you remember that scene from the Sopranos when they go in this coffee shop and they do their protection racket in the coffee shop. It was like dangerous world out there. Like you don't seem to have a lot of protection around here. Like what happens is like that's Donald Trump with Canada right now. He's like they don't have an army.

And there's Russian ships. There's ships around. It's dangerous. Dangerous world out there. And you don't have an army. We could protect you guys. We could protect you. This is a protection racket that he's running on the whole country. What law would I most want?

that I would most not want that I can tell you that that's the easiest one though like I do like living in the country where people don't go bankrupt because they get cancer that's a

That's a pretty, a pretty good one. That's fancy. You guys are fancy. Yeah. And I'm not saying that our system is perfect. Our health system is perfect. And I know like a lot of people like to say, Oh, you wait in hours at the, uh, an hospital, all that. First of all, there's, there's long waits and emergencies in the U S too. It's not unknown. Uh, but, uh,

Our system is very good. If you get really sick, if you have a flu or something and you need to go to the emergency, yeah, it sucks. You're going to get there for hours. It's going to take a long time and everything. Sometimes we have a long wait time for getting family doctors and all that. But if you get cancer, you're going to get great treatment, top-class treatment, best in the world, or equivalent to any kind of developing country and everything. And it's not going to cost you a thing.

And yes, our taxes are higher than in the U.S., not everywhere, because you guys don't take into account property taxes sometimes. If you take into account property taxes, it's different. But yeah, a lot that I would want, though, in the U.S., I don't know.

You know, Seth? There's nothing you want here. We got nothing. Yeah, all the best ones we have too. We have free speech also here. I know. Secretly, I think a bunch of northern states, northeastern states are like, come down and take that. We'll take your healthcare.

All right. Donald Parrish says Nebraska has extra registration tax on EVs. Yeah, a bunch of states do. Ohio has a big one as well. My mom with her Chevy Bolt got hit. And it doubled. It doubled this year to $150. It's ridiculous. Yeah, kind of ridiculous on my 2021 Leaf used for town driving. Yeah, I mean, it's almost time to get a bike, everyone. Yeah. Just get an electric bike.

I feel if they produce 20 to 30 K cyber truck for the year, then it would be considered a success. I don't think that's what maybe, maybe twice that. I think something like that, maybe like 60 to a hundred max. Eric Williams says, Hey guys, keep your head up. A lot of political noise. EVs are going to win. It's inevitable. I think we're in agreement with that. We just want it to be sooner rather than later, which Tesla used to want. Yeah.

And we want the US not to fall too far behind. It's clearly falling behind. There's no way to stopping that right now. Yeah, so this is a good point. Electrified light vehicles also, the single motor would be overpriced and decontented, so would pay $65,000 for it. Yeah, what do we think the single motor Cybertruck is going to cost? Yeah.

I think they announced already that's going to be around that $65,000. I think that's about right. That's crazy. But that's still more than $40,000. So yeah, it's going to help because some people really want a Cybertruck and

they just can't afford it right now. And at 65,000, they could afford it and everything, but it's going to be a fraction of what that truck was supposed to be and still more expensive. So yeah, it's, it's going to help, but not that much. Like I said, the, the 30, what did the other guy said? Like 30 something units, 30,000, 35,000 units this year. I think it's going to be more than that, but I think it was 60. They would be like pretty good.

All right. We want a lucid SUV. Well, gravity. Yeah, I think that gravity is going to do well. All right. Fantastic. Three things Sam can enter. One, I got my second Model Y with FSD when it was $15,000 paid that much because of Elon saying it would just go higher. You all know any class actions regarding this?

I believe there's quite a few. Yeah, I don't know where you're located, but yeah, there's some of them going around now. But I don't know one specifically mentions the idea that you said that the price of FSD would keep increasing even though it went down. I think the biggest one is, so if you bought when it was $15,000, does that mean you have hardware 3? Yeah.

Because a lot of people, like I think a lot of new lawsuits are going to start now that Elon finally admitted that part of the world 3 is not going to achieve for self-driving. I think it's going to be new lawsuits centered around that. Yeah. All right. Two is an earning caller. Elon said via the cabin-facing camera, they could see people disengage FSD to their phone and re-engage. I know Tesla said that footage never leaves the car, but sure. Sounds like it does. That's right. That's a good point. Yeah.

Yeah. Also, we saw somebody who had defeated the camera by just putting a picture in front of it. Yeah. We got to do more research on that. Yeah, that's a good point. Why would they know that if the footage is never supposed to leave the... I mean, maybe the processing is done on the car. And then it tells you that they disengage it to check their phone? I don't know.

Donald Parrish says, looks more like a sedan. I think we're talking about the Lucid, hopefully a hatchback. That's one thing that really bothered me about the Lucid. The Leaf, maybe? Oh, the Leaf. Oh, yeah. No, it's definitely a hatchback, I think. Yeah. All right. Three is during earnings, Elon talked about the idle compute power in our cars when they sit not being used and that they should use it. Seems like we should be compensated for this and that would put extra where...

on our cars, computers, and also a lot of electricity on your house. Yeah, yeah, for sure. They would need to compensate you to do that. I don't think he was suggesting not to do that, to be honest. That would be crazy.

Easy way to send questions for the podcast live stream. I rarely get onto the stream, but listen every week. I assume there would have been a place on your website. You know what? We should address not just maybe we should post the thing earlier and take questions there, but I also think maybe we should address comments on the actual Apple podcast or whatever. I think a lot of people talk about. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a good idea. So you could post

Like a review, put a review on the Apple CarCast and then put the question there and we can answer that. Yeah. And only Spotify has a comment section though. Yeah. Oh, just go on Apple or other. All right. Sylvian has a Blazer EV. Oh, that's what he went with. Okay. Yeah. EV is Texas tax.

Shout out to Chris Bailey for the five bucks. Appreciate it. Road tax on all cars based on GVW and engine displacement or battery size. Fair. Yeah. All right. Similar to Japan. I guess Japan has that. Japan has a more rational and efficient solution than the U.S. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. Yeah. So, my Highland was and is still the best car I ever owned. I will only go back to Tesla if Musk is gone.

I know that's the frustrating part. They build good cars. It's frustrating because I know I'm going to take a downgrade. Cancel the Cybertruck as well. A moped is fun to ride until somebody sees you on it. That's like something else. That's in the U.S. That's very much a U.S. or maybe North American thing. I guess in Canada we're a bit like that too. You don't see a lot of people on scooters and mopeds. Yeah.

In Asia, it's like in Europe, it's perfectly normal. There's a joke about mopeds. Like they're fun to drive until your friends see it on it compared to something else as well. Anyway, we'll talk after the podcast. I love my Cybertruck and would buy it again in a heartbeat. Greg's a Cybertruck fan. It's fun to drive. Yeah. Dan, over stay. How far do the rear wheels of the Cybertruck steer? Seems like it was three degrees when released, but they promised 10 degrees eventually. Have they changed that?

Three degrees sounds short. Yeah, meaningless almost. Yeah, I think it's a little bit more than that. It's visible. It's clearly visible when you do it, but I don't know how much degrees by Howard. All right. Canada needs to call Trump's bluff and invoke NATO as its protector. The USA cannot afford to bully Canada. We apologize for President Musk and his VP Trump. That would be funny to call NATO on a NATO member. A single motor does not, although I think there's some kind of

Isn't that part of NATO that one NATO member can't invade another NATO member? Isn't that part of the whole treaty? I mean, it's never written to invade us or something like that. I'm not preparing for 1814 again or something like that. But it's...

Canadians are not dumb. We understand why he's doing a trade war and he's putting economical pressure. He thinks, all right, we can put enough pressure on an ally economically even though we have a free trade agreement with them and we're going to make up some fentanyl smuggling scheme

to put the executive order on them. Not, not, and not to say that there's not a fentanyl problem in the U S I'm just saying, it's not Canada's. It's not because of Canada, that the DPI has a fentanyl problem, but that's the reason that he's using to go past a free trade agreement with us. And put pressure on that as I, we don't take to that kindly. It's like,

It's like you guys go back on your word and lie to put pressure on us because Trump wants to be the president that expanded U.S. territory. And if Greenland doesn't work, he wants Canada. And if Canada doesn't work, he wants Panama. It's all crazy stuff.

Justin says, single motor doesn't sound appealing at all. 250 miles, 0 to 60 in 6.5 seconds. By the way, stopping there, 250 miles, 0 to 60 in 6.5 seconds, that's reasonable for a pickup. $62,000, that's a lot. That's a lot. Especially when you get Silverado or whatever. Tunnel cover is manual.

Which is kind of a big deal because you need it. The tonneau cover is important in the Cybertruck because you need it up or down if you want to see. So that being manual is kind of a bummer. And there's another thing too, I don't remember, that's going to be optional.

Not sure. All right. We've got a few more. Last chance. Chris Bailey says, except the road tax on my 1971 Corvette was the same as a Japanese dump truck. I don't know what that means. I can only type half that joke. Okay. I don't know. I know the previous joke was...

Something else, but not 15. Do you know what Sylvain means there? Yeah, I'm not sure what he was referring to there. Last thing was the 51st state. I don't know what that means. 15th province? No. Skeptic says, just want to say I appreciate Electric providing EV news and breaking stories on the EV sector. Great place to end. Thank you, Skeptic. Yes, thank you, Skeptic. We're doing our best. We're trying to...

provide some guidance some uh stick to the truth and this uh this madness right now that's happening in the world and especially especially for me was on the tesla beat it's uh it gets heavy sometimes to having to like people like oh you're so negative right you're so negative on your tesla reporting it's like show me something positive and i'll report on it but like

There's not much. I mean, the last time that I posted something positive about Tesla, I think, was my Cybertruck review, which, you know, people said doesn't age well. I mean, I stand by it. Like I said, I think it's a fun vehicle. It's just, I don't think it's a successful vehicle program, but still. So, yeah, I mean, show me something positive and I'll do it. 15 degrees of rear steering was Carl, was, was, was, Sylvain was reporting, was correcting us on. That makes more sense.

All right. That's it for us this week, everyone. If you do enjoy the show, please give us a like, a thumbs up, whatever it is on your app you're watching, a five-star rating on your podcast app. All these things help the show more than you think. And we appreciate when you do it. It's free to do. The show is always free. And yeah, we're going to see you same time, same place next week. Have a fun one. Bye-bye.