Tesla sales keep crashing, Cadillac Escalade IQL, Volvo ES90, IONIQ 9 unveils, and more
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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 Wintraub. How are you doing, Seth? I'm good. All right. We have plenty of things to talk about today. We're going to talk about the sales of the largest electric vehicle automaker in the world. Keep going down quite significantly.

we have uh an even bigger electric escalate the iql we have the volvo es90 unveiling the ionic 9 unveiling a few 2025 model year unveiling of a few vehicles that we need to share you the specs and the uh the changes and all that and then at the end as usual we're going to take you guys question it can be about any of these topics that we're going to discuss today or any other topics in the ev world you want or take on we are open to that so

Jump in the comment section right now. I'm going to remind you of that a little bit later for people that are still coming in right now. I don't know that everyone can listen live. We can also take your question if you leave a review, a five-star review, only if you enjoy the show, of course. On the Apple Podcast app, we can take questions through that too now. So you can do that. All right, let's jump in.

Tesla sales in Europe, the numbers for February now have come in. We reported the one in January that were down roughly 50% from the year prior. Sorry.

So I want to start out with something because there's like the main thing that people always come back at us when we report these numbers as significant about we think that it's a clear indication that Tesla is going very badly right now. The demand is falling off a cliff. People always don't worry about it. It's the Model Y changeover. That's what's affecting the sales mostly. And we're not worried about it.

There's some truth to that. For sure, the new Model Y changeover is affecting sales to a certain degree, but there's two things you have to keep in mind. Around the same time last year, it was the Model 3 changeover that was happening. So there was already this effect in play from last year. You're going to tell me Model 3 is a smaller vehicle program than Model Y, so the effect on that is not as big. True.

But now you have to look at another thing is like, how do you compare Model 3 sales from last year, which should be bad to start with because of the changeover to today's Model 3 sales, which had the benefit of an entire year of production RAM for the new version. And those are down too. So that should be your clear indication that Tesla is having a very big demand problem, especially in Europe. Data is a little bit more opaque in the US. In China, we're getting some numbers too.

And it's down, but again, less so than in other markets. And in this case, probably the Model Y can explain most of it. Now, going back to Europe, we have all the numbers here coming in. And yep, it's not great. Germany is the biggest issue right now by far, which you can imagine.

Put a direct correlation with Elon's involvement in the meddling in politics and backing the AFD party, which just lost the election. So last month, we reported like a 50% drop. This quarter, it's a 76% drop from 6,000 units to 1,400 units. And so now it's 70% down year over year in what used to be Tesla's biggest market in Europe.

Now, the UK is the biggest market. And the UK is actually, after being down the first month, it's up a little bit this month. So now it's up. It was up roughly like 15%, 20% in February. Now it's up 7.7% through the year. So that's good for Tesla there. But Germany is down big time to a certain degree that, you know, I'm starting set to expect layoffs and even possibly even store closures there.

Because if you go from delivering like 6,000 vehicles a month in the market to 1,500, something has to give at one point. Yeah. I wonder how that works. What's going to be the first ball to drop? Will Tesla, as you said, start laying people off? I can't imagine closing stores.

It would be unprecedented. The closing start would be unprecedented. But layoffs around this time last year, maybe like a month further into the year, there was the big 15% cuts of the staff. And Tesla does yearly cuts, head counts by roughly like 10% or so yearly. So maybe we see that happening and that goes to a broader layoff wave at Tesla. I don't know for sure.

Looking at other markets here, you have France is also way down. Not as bad as January, but still significantly down. They are down 44% for the whole year. Netherlands is now down 34%. They were down a little bit, again, a little bit less than January, but still significantly. Norway, which, you know, biggest EV market per capita in Europe, down 45%.

Spain recovered a little bit, but still down 44%. Sweden down really bad, 44%. Denmark is roughly slashed in half the entire market. They only delivered 500 cars. Portugal, same thing. It's not doing very good, other than the UK, which is surprising. What's the anomaly there? Is it just because they stopped for a while there and now they're catching up to demand? Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know for sure. I didn't look into it that much, to be honest with you. I know that the sales of used Tesla has surged in the UK. So I know that a lot of people are selling their Teslas and the price of that are going down. But they're buying new ones. There's still incentives in place. So I guess people want to take advantage of those. But the general thing in Europe is sales going down for sure.

And in China, so we talked a bit about the Chinese market. Chinese market is down near over a year for Tesla. And some of that can be explained by the Model Y changeover, but Model 3 deliveries are also down. And this is just as biggest problem in China. It's the competition. It's not as much, you know, it's not Elon meddling in politics and all that. They don't care about that that much there. But also Elon doesn't meddle with Chinese politics at all. Yeah, he doesn't do that.

He keeps a healthy distance with that. Everything else he's willing to discuss that not much. But it's the competition. And I'm using this example here because I'm kind of reminded of the, you know, Seth, you're going to remember this because we've been around for a long time with the Tesla space, the Tesla killer.

The medical creature, the Tesla killer. It's a term that the media would use all the time in the early days of Tesla. They would use it for every new car that came out. The Porsche Taycan was a Tesla killer. The Audi e-tron was a Tesla killer. Everything was a Tesla. The Bolt EV was a Tesla killer, even though it didn't compete at all in the same segment.

It's a term that was overused. We laughed at the media for using it because none of them came close to affecting Tesla negatively, let alone kill the company. But I'm not saying this one is, but this one is coming as close as it gets for a few reasons. First of all, it's in China.

China is the biggest EV market. It is Tesla's biggest market, the most important market. It's the one where Tesla has the most competition. And this one competes the closest with Tesla, and especially the Model 3. So I've been saying that Model 3 sales are down. So last month, Tesla delivered about 8,000 Model 3s. Not last month. We don't have the sales from last month just yet. So January. January.

January, Tesla delivered about 8,000 Model 3s in China. And Xiaomi delivered over 20,000 SU7. So it's transiting Tesla's sell in China. And Tesla's Model 3 trend has been going down in the country. And they are copying, to be fair, Tesla to some degree. But they're also improving on it because...

Just on the production level alone, I don't know if you remember this, but the Gigafury Shanghai for Tesla was massive. Super impressive rollout from construction to production within nine months or so. Yeah, that was crazy. Absolutely insane. And then when the production started, Tesla produced 50,000 Model 3s within six months of starting production.

which was wild. Like no one saw it coming. That's when Tesla stocks started going crazy too because Gigafactory Shanghai was a giant success. As impressive as that is, Xiaomi destroys that. Within the first six months of SU7 production, they produce over 70,000 of them. So they beat Tesla by 20,000 units, like 40%. It's nuts. And then now you look at the sales figures,

And over the first year of production of the SU-7, they delivered, where did I put that? I'm getting ahead of myself.

I didn't even put that in an article. Okay. I remember it by heart. It's around 150,000 units for Tesla and 160,000 units for the SU-7 within the first year. So they had a bigger ramp up in the first year, more demand in the first year, sold more cars, stole market share for Tesla.

And now if you need the biggest indication of how the SU-7 is just destroying Tesla right now, even though the Xiaomi has higher production than Tesla has Model 3 production in China, you can get a new Model 3 order, or at least you could at the time of writing this article earlier this year, within one to three weeks, while you have to wait between 31 and 34 weeks for the SU-7. So you can imagine the kind of backlog of demand there is for both.

You could argue that it's actually helping Tesla sell a few Model 3s because if you're on the market for a car right now and your SUV is on the top of your list, but you cannot wait more than a half a year for it, you're going to go for the Model 3.

And then you look at the actual specs of like why this will be more popular. I mean, the design is kind of subjective and I do very much like the Model 3 update, the new design from last year. It looks like a Taycan if you like try to draw it from memory or something. No, I mean, I do see the resemblance with the Taycan, especially on the front end. But yeah, I think it works very well for the car format. It's a good looking car.

It's 20,000 yen cheaper than the Model 3 in China. It's about 2,500 bucks cheaper.

It has a bigger battery pack that gets you 10% more range than a Model 3 at the base standard. And it's packed with a lot more tech that Tesla doesn't really go for, for better or worse. But like heads-up display, for example. That's standard on the car. Tesla doesn't do heads-up display. I personally, if it's well-made, I've never tried the Xiaomi SU7. But if it's well-made, and most of them are these days in new cars, it's very useful. Yep.

It has something like a mini fridge in the back too. Some people like that, don't care about it that much. And if you're comparing it with Tesla, it has a turn signals talk. High-tech stuff, said high-tech stuff. So yeah, with all of that, okay. And yeah, when I said it was copying Tesla too, it has giga casking.

well, they call it hypercasting. They're just changing, but they have the 9,000 pounds casting machine like Tesla does. So it has the giant rear casting system, which Tesla actually doesn't have in the Model 3. They have in the Model Y, but they never transfer that to the Model 3. So they're kind of ahead on this front. They have even something that is very similar to Tesla's structural battery pack, which I also don't think Tesla is doing on the Model 3, only doing on the Model Y, if I'm not mistaken. But anyway...

All of this now, why I'm saying that it's as close as a Tesla killer as it gets, not necessarily the SU7 itself, but what Xiaomi managed to do with the SU7, it's going to do now with this car, the YU7, which is what the SU7 is to the Model 3 to the Model Y now. And that's the Tesla killer thing is that if they do the same to the Model Y in China as they did with the Model 3,

You basically slash Tesla's biggest market with its most popular vehicle by far. And I think that's problematic for Tesla. They should be worried about that greatly. So basically, Tesla is feeling the pain right now in Europe. Most likely in the US, again, very opaque market. We're going to have to wait a little bit more to see, but we have a few posts about that too.

And then China, I think the pain is going to come later this year, especially if the Model Y changeover is either the ramp up is not great or the demand is soft, which the demand looks quite soft, to be honest, which we talked a little bit about it last podcast. But the wait time on the new Model Y order are surprisingly short. And now going to the U.S. market, Tesla is pulling hard.

diamond lever diamond lever every uh side of things and even the cyber truck uh is getting now discounted financing option which is very surprising so early in the program and when you're supposed to have a million reservation for it so mold three model why this and also sorry the model y is still good because of the changeover but ball three got uh discounted financing for the end of the quarter so tesla is boosting that for the end of quarter with the zero percent

apr on 60 month or 72 months and one percent if you want to put zero down so these are very subsidized financing options and now you even have it on the cyber truck do i'll buy it a little less at two percent rather than i think the regular rate without this subsidizing it it's like five percent or so

So these are very expensive promotion for Tesla to slash 3.5% off of APRs. It's no joke. So I think at this point, it's fair to say that the Cybertruck is a flop because it's basically Tesla is having issues selling it at 10% of its planned production capacity. Yeah, I mean, it's not what they said it was going to be. It doesn't have the range, doesn't have the price.

I think if they sold, you know, $40,000 Cybertrucks, I think they would sell a little bit better. A lot better. Would they sell $250,000 a year, though? I'm not even sure they would get to that with the original plan. I don't know. I mean, at this point, they're kind of hated. So I think it's kind of a pariah vehicle. Yeah. Not just bad news, you know, at Electric. We are accused of only focusing on...

Bad news when it comes to Tesla. But we do have good news this week. So it's something that Tesla mentioned at the last earning calls. It was like we already have a location in mind for a new mega factory to produce the mega pack. So it was like, oh, that's interesting news. And now we know exactly why. As far as I know, this came out two days ago. Unless I missed it, I didn't see Tesla post about it. So we learned about it through Waller County.

which is just outside of Houston, Texas. The Water County Commission, they announced that they approve a tax abatement to seal the deal on Tesla building a mega factory there.

So Tesla is getting plenty of tax abatement. It deals includes $44 million in facility improvement, $150 million in Tesla manufacturing equipment that will install the next phase, involves a new $31 million distribution facility with about $2 million in Tesla distribution equipment and building upgrades. So they're getting tax abatements on all that. So it's just outside of Caddy, Texas, which is just outside of Houston, like I said. It's the Empire Industrial Park.

And so it is already building about a million square feet. And it's called the Tesla Empire Warehouse, but it's actually operated by someone else, by a subcontractor of Tesla. So this subcontractor is going to be moving out and Tesla is going to be moving in and install the production.

production line for the mega mega packs for new mega packs on top of another building so i'm assuming this is the if you're looking at the screen this is the space here that's uh empty they're gonna build a new building about 600 000 square foot square feet and um fist is gonna be gonna support the manufacturing operation for the mega packs at the main building

They didn't confirm any production capacity. Like I said, Tesla didn't actually announce this. It was based on the abatement approval from the Waller County. But the approval mentioned 1,500 jobs that are going to be created to that project. So I assume this would include a construction job and then after that the permanent jobs to produce those packs.

So Tesla Energy is the part, the only part of Tesla's business that is growing right now. And it's growing at an impressive rate, as we noted. And a lot of that is through the ramp up of Tesla's other mega factory in Latrop, California. Hey, do you remember when Elon said Tesla Energy could one day be as big as the auto part of that? Do you think he meant that the automotive business would crash? Energy's going up.

Yeah, give it to Elon. He's a great visionary. He saw that. He saw that coming. Yeah, and now they have the Shanghai megafactory that just went online earlier this year. So this is going to be a pretty big ramp up. So this is going to keep things going for Tesla. They have the 40 gigawatt hour that I think is pretty much ramped up now and later up. Now this year, they ramped that up in Shanghai and, you know, they've

No official timeline on this starting production, but I would assume it's going to be sometime next year. So there's going to be a good momentum for Tesla Energy at least. But not everything is rosy at Tesla Energy. The margins have been going down. The prices have been going down. And the competition has been going up, especially from CATL and BYD, which are a tough competitor for Tesla because they are the one that provide the cells for those products, right?

And now they are doing the entire product themselves, the cells that they build and they build the packs. So it's something to worry about, I would think. All right, before we move on to non-Tesla news, the last one is kind of a weekly update on the podcast on the big Tesla protests that are happening all week, but mostly during the weekend. And we reported, it's been three weeks now that we've been reporting on this. And we noted that we were surprised by just how much momentum they're getting. They are really ramping up.

And for the most part, they are peaceful and they are, you know, just people expressing their freedom of expression. But it got a little bit wild last weekend. First of all, it got a lot bigger, like a lot bigger. Put the sound here. But like, look at this set. This is Tucson, Arizona. Yeah, Tucson. Look at that. These are all people here on both sides of the...

It looks like a big boulevard there in front of the Tesla store, like hundreds and hundreds of people. I don't know how many exactly. Yeah, I heard there were 700 people at my local Tesla place in Mount Kisco. Wow. That's unconfirmed, but that's... I believe it. I believe it. There's been a lot of reports that things have been like huge. Some of that in Seattle, there were a ton of people. A lot of stores had to close because there's just too many people. In Manhattan, they had to close, but this one got a little bit wild.

I can post the video here. But some protester got inside the store, and so they had to shut it down because they were disruptive. And I think some vandalism was going on too because I think I see some broken glass in that video on the left side when they pan out. Maybe we don't see it on this one. I already saw it.

So you see one of the protesters here tried to open back the door so that more people could get in, though even though it mainly looks like media is right there. Yeah, it's Manhattan, so 600 media, 500 protesters. Yeah, but to be fair, there were a lot of people in Manhattan protesting, like about 300 people, and that's like a tight street and whatnot, so you're kind of stuck there. But it keeps going.

This weekend, there's dozens, if not hundreds of more protests planned at Tesla store. Like they're not letting go of the pressure. They want to be heard and they want Elon Musk out. That's pretty much it.

All right, before moving to non-tested news, I want to remind you guys that we are live and we can take you guys' questions. So if you have any question about any of the topics that we're discussing today or any of the dirt topics in the EV world that you want to take on, you can put them in the comment section right now on whatever app you're listening to. And we're going to get to it in just a few minutes. But let's start out with the unveiling today, this week, of the Volvo ES90. Well, they can always say it.

It's pretty good looking, 800 volts. It's pulling up all the complaints you would have about Volvo EVs. This one looks good. It's got the 800 volt fast charging. It's got a 3.9 seconds, zero to 60. It's somewhere between a sedan, an SUV, and a fastback.

So it's got plenty of trunk space. It's got a microscopic front. But, you know, it's like one of those cars that kind of checks a lot of boxes. You know, we don't have all the specs on it yet, but and they're not all finalized. And of course, this isn't coming to the U.S. first first round. So we don't have EPA range, but 430 units.

um wltp so you're looking at probably 360 70 or something um and that's with 100 kilowatt hour battery so that is way more efficient than um what was like ex90 full star 3 which have the same or the similar size battery but don't go nearly as far on a charge so they're doing a lot of good stuff there there's a lot of efficiencies happening um

These battery options are interesting here. You have a 106-pack for the all-wheel drive, and then the other option just for the rear-wheel drive. So it's not really an option. It's either you want all-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive. Right. They dropped the pack, but not by that much, just by 10 kilowatt hour to 96. So it's basically they take the efficiency gain you get from having just a single motor, less weight, and then they were like, yeah, I mean, we can probably get a similar range of

That's right. Yeah, because you get the same range for everything. Yeah. I don't hate that idea. Speculator asks, will the Volvo ES90 have a NAX port? Which non-Tesla NAX port if the cars are coming soon? I don't know, actually. It's something that didn't cross my mind because I know Volvo is right on the cusp of doing NAX ports. Obviously, the ones in Europe aren't going to have a NAX port because it's North American. But...

I imagine it might. I think we're at that point where they're going to start having them. All the ones that we're seeing here are going to have CCS because they're for Europe. The timing makes sense. A lot more aggressive looking for a Volvo, right? Yeah, it's not boxy. It's sportier than you would be used to with a Volvo. Yeah, it's their most efficient car ever. The lowest coefficient of drag, 0.25 coefficient of drag.

From the back here. I mean, from the back, it looks very much like a Volvo. Yep. But it's the front hand and profile that you have some LiDARs. Is that a LiDAR sensor? It's got a LiDAR. It's got the same kind of sensor suite as the EX90, which means it can do a lot of safety stuff, but also traffic-aware cruise control and software updates will mean more and more stuff. It's looking at trunk opening here. Yep.

Decent size, so it's a nice hatchback. Yeah, you can throw a couple bikes back there, some golf clubs, plenty of room. Not mad at the format at all. Yeah, Volvo's really kind of looking good in the EV space. They've got some good offerings. The EX30 on the small side, midsize, you've got the EX60, and now EX90, ES90. And in the inside, you have the Android, the Google setup. Yep.

And the screen is bigger than the EX30, which I thought was too small. But I still wonder if it would be beneficial to be a little bit bigger than that. The center one or the driver display? The center one. Yeah, I mean, you know, you're reading stuff off of like Google Maps, which is kind of meant for like a tablet or whatever. And, you know, if you're someone like me who drives without glasses but needs them to read, it becomes problematic.

Nice glass roof, and it also has Porsche and a few others have that glass roof. Electromagnetic thing, right? Yeah, not at all. So when is that thing coming to market? I think they're taking orders now. I think we're looking at 2020. It's a 2026 model, so it's probably coming toward the end of the year. Yeah, in Europe first. In Europe. I would imagine...

for real in 2026 in the US. If we're lucky, because some automakers, they're getting a little bit shaky about launching sedan, electric sedan in the US. Yeah, I know. The thing that all the American wants is this thing, Seth. What is that? So the other new announcement that we covered this week is the Cadillac Escalade IQ L. And the L stands for length because it's longer.

And my thing is Escalade is just the biggest boat of a car you can get. And how are they going to innovate on that? They're going to make it longer. So the new one, the IQL, which comes out next year as well, or it comes out later this year.

Um, 2026 model has more leg room in the third row and more, and you can see behind the third row. Yeah. It's huge. Yeah. You've got almost like another car, you know, like a car trunk behind. So, um,

I mean, you could almost put a fourth row in there. That was kind of my... Yeah, or they could have made the third row even more spacious and you fold it down completely when you actually need the space in the back. Yeah, or they could have made the second row like swivel and had like proper third row there. I mean, that would have been a popular item with Cadillac owners and...

limo drivers. Yeah, it would be great for limo drivers, for Ubers, for like Excel Ubers because your third row is now super comfortable and you don't always really need the back unless you're like bringing someone to the airport or something. Yeah. Price tag $136,000 or $133,000. Yeah. And that's the starting price. That's like there's four models. They didn't even, you know, they didn't give a range but

I remember when $100,000 was like, whoa, a supercar. And now it's just like right by that. I mean, someone has to pay for that 200 kilowatt hour battery pack in there. 205 kilowatt hours, excuse me. Yeah. And the regular...

Escalade EQ gets like 420 miles of range or you expect just a little bit less off of that, I assume? No, I think they actually expect the same amount of range. Really? Yeah, just, I don't know, a little heavier. I mean, at that weight, it's already just a tank. Yeah. Still staying with the SUV, but a little bit more reasonable in size and in price is the full-on wheeling now of the Hyundai Ioniq 9 V8.

So it's the biggest SUV, biggest EV period from Hyundai. Heading to the lineup from the 5 and then 6. Now you have the 9. Comes with the latest battery technology, NCM from Hyundai with 110.3 kWh battery pack. It's going to get you an estimated 330 miles of range. And that's EPA estimated. So they already released that. That's cool. In...

WLTP, that's 385 miles, so 620 kilometers. It's going to use an advanced HVAC system. In this one, I'm like, I'm not so impressed by that number, but they say that extremely cold temperature, which they quote as minus 7C or 19 Fahrenheit,

And I'm like, this is basically what we have right now. And it's like, it just got warmer for us. Like, is that really extreme cold? Uh, you get 250 miles of range or 400 kilometers. Uh,

So it's not that impressive because you're still losing almost 100 miles on the EPA, but I think they do that more for the WLTP, I assume, because the WLTP doesn't account for climate control. So it's very useful for them to do that while the EPA does account for some of it, though obviously in extreme cold you should expect much lower range in your EPA.

But actually, I don't know why I'm being picky with them on that. I do like that they share some data on that ahead of time because it wouldn't be bad for automakers to do that in general, I think. How do you feel about the design? So we have the front hand in front of us right now and they say that they have like new active air flap for airflow. I like it. It's just a little bit weird. I don't know why. A little bit busy. Yeah. And it's like a bent station wagon or something. And like...

this part here is i don't know what's going on exactly but then you have the headlights which are pretty cool which are similar to uh the onyx 5. they have a 25.9 cd so you said that the es90 from volvo had a similar cd right drag coefficient that's impressive because this is uh you know full-size suv uh let's look at the inside a little bit um

It has a little bit more space inside than the Kia EV9, which is interesting because they are based on the same platform, I would assume. Almost 100 liters more space. That's good. It's a bit smaller than the R1S from Rivian. Look, we can check a few. No, the pictures don't work here if I do that. I don't like this specific gallery we have on the website. If I click on it, it's not always working, but I can zoom in.

what about that button on the top right no it doesn't doesn't do anything it's weird it's weird because the gallery you had on the es90 work when i click on that yeah i think it's a specific like former gallery that just doesn't allow expansion anyway this is inside baseball for electric it's not for you guys uh you can see the third row here doesn't look too bad it doesn't look ideal either but uh you know it's a little bit smaller than the iql that we just talked about

And this thing is coming to Europe, US and other markets this year and they're opening the pre-orders right now, so you can do it. And the starting price is expected in the US to be around $60,000, just a little bit more than the EV9. But like the EV9, I think you can option it up pretty high. We're starting to have a lot of options in the SUV space. Yeah, especially if they're gross. Yeah, it's no joke.

and another SUV here but this little bit smaller one is the Prologue from Honda aka Equinox with Apple CarPlay and we have the 2025 model year so a little bit of changes here same price but a few upgrades especially the range is now 12 miles higher than the 2024 model year at 308 miles of range

um you have the trims now or the ex the touring and the elite and the same starting price of 47 400. um what else uh single motor now has 220 horsepower versus uh 212 so you get eight more horses in there a little bit more torque as well so it's you know fairly mild update here

But all of the versions have a little bit more range, a little bit more power. Differently here, so you can see you get down to 294 if you use the all-wheel drive, but you get a little bit more power again. And we have a lot of other options here. They have charging options to credit for charging equipment and also, you know, subscription for...

Oops, what happened there? To charge at home. And this is something that a lot of, this is something I think a lot of automakers and unfortunately for legacy automakers, it's also going to involve the dealerships, but they need to have more options there because I think a lot of buyers are a little bit reticent to go electric right now.

the home charging situation is a big part of that and they want it taken care of. So I think a lot of automakers should do that where they're like, all right, you buy the car, you'll get a certain amount of credits with an installer that we have approved and you go directly there. And I know some dealers do that, some automakers do it too, but more dealers take the lead on that because they have a better chance of knowing the local installers and whatnot.

Well, I think this is something a lot of automakers and dealers should invest in because it facilitates the selling experience for new electric vehicle buyers. And one thing should help with that too is the standardization of charging station in North America with NAX now. If you have a NAX or if you have a universal charger, you're good. Whenever you change your EVs, you get a new one. You don't have to have a new charging station installed or use an adapter or anything. Yeah.

all right two more news articles before we jump into the comment section so if you guys have questions for us you can put them in the comments right now when i get to them in just a few minutes uh we have a little bit of an update from rivian nothing too deep but like i know a lot of people are very excited about the r2 and the r3 or 3x and all that so figure it's worth mentioning to you guys but it's uh from claire mcdonough the cfo at rivian she even started a few questions and see she gave basically a little update on the uh

work for the r2 happening at normal because the production is going to start there she says that the uh the sourcing of parts is now 95 percent complete and they're still working on building the production lines and those production lines sorry are expected to start up in the first half of 2026 so about a year from now it's still uh

you know on schedule and then a little bit more color on the r3 production i know some people hope that maybe rivian would you know do the r3 first because people are really excited about it but they're sticking to the r2 first and the r3 production is going to start if i understand it correctly from a comment at the georgia plant

So when they have expended R2 production there, so they are starting out at normal with the R2, ramping up production, like hiring out the production process in normal, deploying the production in Georgia, and then doing the R3 after that also in Georgia. So the facilities are expected to come online until 2028.

So if I'm understanding that correctly, that would mean that the R3 would not come until 2028 either, or even further than that, because R2 would come there first. Unless I'm mistaken, unless I'm understanding you wrong, but the R3X is like... Still weighs out. Yeah, it's the mythical hot hatch that we... I mean, now you can have other hot hatch options. You have the IONIQ 5N, kind of like a nice little hot hatch. So it's not...

the nlb all after all chevy boat just kidding yeah i mean give it uh i mean maybe maybe they're gonna launch like the new one's gonna have all-wheel drive and uh yeah they could do it i can see them doing it let's see and then we add another volkswagen show car unveiled uh the id the id every one with one in numerical numbers and not everyone is a word yeah

It's hard to follow these things. So you have the ID2 that's coming. So if I understand correctly, so the ID2 is like the $25,000, $30,000 vehicle that's going to be based on the ID2 all.

that was unveiled a few weeks ago that we talked about so that one is coming next year in 2026 and now you have the id1 which is going to be based on this concept that was unveiled and this is going to be the 20 25 000 car which doesn't mean it's going to come to the us so what we have right now we have some of the specs some of the images also

very much a show car looking but you get an idea of the size you get an idea of you know the form factor and we had some specs too but they were specific to the specs for the show car what they are achieving right now and not exactly what you're going to get in the production version which is going to come closer to 20 uh 2027 or 2028 i think

So what you get right now is a top speed of 81 miles per hour, front-wheel drive motor capable of 70 kilowatts. That's 94 horsepower, 155 miles on range, equivalent to 250 kilometers. Seating for four, a little bit of cargo space. It's shorter than the ID2 all, obviously, but longer than the VW Up. So you can compare it to the Up. It's a little bit longer.

Chances of this coming to the US? Less than 10%. 0.001. Yeah. I think they were talking about maybe doing a, what is it, like a sport version, a hot hatch version. So maybe that has a better chance of making it in the US. Maybe not. I mean, maybe even more of the ID2 than the ID1 or everyone. Yeah, I mean, the ID3 isn't even in the US. Yeah.

All right. And it's still selling okay in Europe and in China. All right. Speculorier says, people that pay more to get an EV do that for the ideological reasons. Isn't this boycott permanent since Elon aligned with the climate villains, Trump and AFD? Yes, sort of. I mean, theoretically, that's like somebody's buying them right now. Like they're not buying a lot. Some portion. I'm still tempted. Like I wish I...

I wish I had another option, but I'm so tempted to upgrade my Model Y. It's not like they're not making good cars. They're not perfect, obviously. They have issues. And I am personally worried about the quality going down just because...

Tesla is like what you're seeing with the boycotts right now, the protests and everything like that. Don't think that everyone at Tesla also like feels great about working for Elon Musk and what's happening. Like a lot of them are also not happy about it. And, um,

And a lot of people are going away. We reported quite easily on that, on the exodus of talent, if you will. Yeah. But yeah, I think he's generally right that this boycott is to a certain degree permanent because I think a lot of people, Elon has, you know, tarnished his reputation in the eyes of many people permanently, a lot of people for a long time. So yeah. Yeah.

We talked about the S90 not having, or we don't know if the S90 has a NAX port. What other non-Tesla NAX port equipped cars are coming soon? I think GM is going to start rolling out there. Like GM and Ford are going to start. Hyundai too? Hyundai already has one, right? Yeah, Hyundai has. Yeah, there's plenty of them.

yeah all right uh peter ruiz uh what other ev companies are real competitors beyond the traditional car companies for chevy honda volvo toyota will lucid rivian and others survive financial needs for continued growth and operations will foreign companies like byd be able to sell into the usa is it possible spinning off byd america or other companies to be an independent company from chinese or other foreign ownership in order to sell in the u.s market that's the question that's a crazy question that's basically why we're here this is like

what's going to happen? First of all, in terms of real competitor to Tesla from traditional automakers, the ones that you named are pretty good, but I would have had, we do love the Koreans here. Kia, Hyundai, I think are doing incredible work, so I would put them in there. Lucid and Rivian, I don't think you can put them exactly in the same spot. I think Rivian is most likely going to survive. Lucid has good chances too, but they're very different. Yeah,

Like Lucid is making it pretty clear now that they are willing and going the way of pivoting a little bit towards supplying other people with their technology. So maybe that's more, maybe Lucid ends up, I do think Lucid is going to probably get to the next generation vehicle, sort of like Rivian with the R2s. I think it's probably going to get there. If it's going to be successful there, I don't know, but it's probably going to get there and see partnerships and all that.

Rivian, I think, could definitely manage on its own. Not that it's going to be easy, but they made great progress on the gross margin front for the R1s with the next-gen vehicle. And now it's about maintaining that in a very tough US market right now while bringing up the R2's production, which is the... Sorry, financially, that's the R2. That's where the money's at, where you can be sustainable by itself without further investment.

And right now they have the money to get there. It's just it has to...

not be a flawless launch production from the r2 but it has to be like a very well executed one which is very difficult to do so it's possible but also very difficult but everything is difficult in this industry it's super hard to make mistakes yeah a big mistake is super costly because you have a car with like you know thousands and thousands of parts in it like one part is just not working or is not being delivered or production issues with it and then you cannot deliver a car that you built

and spend tens of thousands of dollars building. It's a real problem. All right, Colin. San Diego wants to bring back CCS1. I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I think the NAX port is much easier to deal with. NAX cables are much easier to deal with.

so on the consumer front for sure but uh jb was just in the um in the room right now talking about that a little bit like he talked with some industry people from other companies that are adapting next right now and he said he said that they are having some issues cost wise with it though they're surprised at the cost all right uh carl continues is ionic nine three row yeah it's three row these giant evs are antithetical to zero emission goals so i i kind of agree with that sometimes but the problem is is

If this is not... Like, if they're not going to buy a three-row EV, they're going to buy a three-row gas car, which is going to spew a lot of gas. So, I mean, you could probably make three or four cars with the batteries from a giant Escalade, but people are going to buy...

I agree with you. Like it's more difficult to get people to change their buying habits than it is to just make a better product that's more efficient. And it is way more efficient than a gas SUV. And also like, it's not always true that it's completely anti-ethical. Is that the word? Yeah. Uh,

like here in quebec you're gonna get all your electricity from renewable sources hydro so you can you know it doesn't it doesn't change anything and uh so the the other impact is like at the manufacturing level i guess like you said it's a bigger battery pack sure but it's a recyclable one so not the end of the world either by the way did you hear you guys are taxing our electricity

Coming down? Yeah, I think they're doing it in Ontario. I didn't see all the details on that. So it's Ontario doing it. Quebec is not doing it because also the federal government is not doing it. So it's like the Ontario premier, like who is he? Ford is his name? Yeah, not Rob Ford's brother or something. Yeah, yeah, the guy that was caught smoking crack. Yeah.

So I don't know exactly how that works because I would assume that we have like contracts with – well, not we but Ontario again has contracts with selling their electricity to these states in the US. Yeah.

they can they just break the contract and say hey now because you guys your president is nuts and he's by the way we should give a little bit of an update on the tariffs because that's a little strange situation i've never seen anything so screwed up in my life so last week so last week podcast on friday we were expecting the tariffs to come in place on tuesday and sure enough they came on tuesday

Canada, Mexico got flat 25% tariffs on everything except energy. That's just a mere 10%. And the tariffs were in place for a nice full day.

or even maybe maybe even a little bit less because well trudeau got a call trump but i'm not sure it had that really an impact i think the big three called trump and they complained about it because you're like hey you're gonna ruin our business because you know we get a ton of parts from canada we get a ton of parts from mexico and then we sell cars to the us customer who's gonna pay a lot more

And he gave them another month delay. So now it's two months in a row that it's been delayed a month. So now we are back to early April for the tariffs. And then if you're concerned about something else than vehicles, of course, we cover mostly vehicles on the network. But the...

delay at first was just for the automotive business and now it's been extended for every product that's under the free trade agreements between the US, Canada and Mexico which is basically everything so the tariffs were a complete farce it's just a threat also it's a free trade agreement that is just a few years ago I know it's comical yeah it's pretty crazy to watch by the way

Something to think about, you know, Elon Musk is talking to Trump's ear. Tesla's supply chain is way less competitive.

you know focused on canada and mexico like they they supply most their stuff from inside the us so if all their competitors are getting taxed you know yeah it would be good i agree that tesla would be affected less than other automakers right but it would still be badly affected because i just posted a report on that this week but tesla gets roughly 25 of its parts from mexico

That's what we know for a fact from NHTSA. It's between 20-25% on all models, but 25% for Model Y rear-wheel drive, Model Y all-wheel drive, which are the by far the most popular models. So closer to 25% for Mexico. And then the NHTSA data,

bundles together because we're such good partners canada and the u.s so it doesn't actually tells us exactly what's coming from canada from the u.s but there's another percentage of that i don't think that it's that high like maybe like 10 or something but that would put like closer to 35 percent of tesla sparts getting a 25 tariffs on it so it would still hurt tesla badly all right does anyone in canada want to be the 51st state in the u.s i think they did it

There is some. They did it before Trump, but they did a survey and I think it was like 12%. I'm sure it's a little bit higher right now. I think there's a movement right now in Alberta to… Loyal state, yeah. Yeah, our least loyal state. Now our least loyal state, before that it was here in Quebec that was least loyal. Right.

There's a movement to like, all right, we don't even need to get the rest of Canada involved. It's just Alberta itself will join the US. There's some people, there's some Trumpers everywhere around the world, including Canada. But for the most part, no, most people are not interested. And that's the thing with the tariffs that are just like threats now. It's just it's tariff threats rather than tariffs. It's like even though they're not getting implemented,

And Trump, the only thing Trump has really managed to do right now other than scare the hell out of the markets and create a slump, which I wouldn't be surprised if there's some insider trading going on on that because I know I've made a lot of money shorting the market in the last two weeks. And I would have made a shit ton more money if I knew Trump and Trump would tell me whenever he implements and not implements the tariffs, I would be surprised.

ultra rich right now i'm sure some people are involved in that there's just no doubt about it but uh what what they have managed to do is that they they have uh made every mexican and canadian think twice about about buying american products now regardless of the tariffs because you're like right we're supposed to be friends now we have a free trade agreement and you keep making threats for nuts

for half a pound of fentanyl that might or might not have crossed the border from Canada? Are you kidding me? Not that the fentanyl problem is not a big problem in the US. I agree, it's a big problem. It just has nothing to do with us or our border. Right. All right, let's move on. Question. Your analysis on Tesla is extremely comprehensive. Why do most larger outlets struggle to cover...

This company, I think it's, well, I mean, there's no PR, right? So that's true. That's a good point. I would kind of rely on PR. Also the whole EV, it's fast moving.

Yeah, we're a niche media. And we've been doing this for a long time. I've been covering Tesla for like 15 years. And I'm coming up on 10 years at Electric this May. 10 years full time. So obviously, you have to be kind of an expert at that point. But we do appreciate a comment. I do think we're fair on Tesla, even how harsh we are. I think Tesla needs that right now.

I think I'm a bigger Tesla fan than people like the Sawyer, Merit of the World, the Omar and everything because I think they are ultimately destroying Tesla by just agreeing with everything that Elon does. I don't think that's positive for Tesla. I think that long-term, Tesla will do a lot better. If you want Elon to stay at Tesla, you want it for the stock price because I do agree. If Elon leaves tomorrow, the stock price crashes and everything. But the stock and the company and everything

Its mission to accelerate the advent of electric transport and renewable energy are separate, especially when you're sitting on $30 billion. It's not like Tesla. Tesla is not looking to raise cash right now. And, you know, the high stock price is only good for raising cash. So if you don't need to raise cash, you know, I'm not looking at the stock price. I'm looking at Tesla selling fewer and fewer cars every year. And Tesla having launched one single car in the last five years, and it's a total flop.

selling at 10% of the production capacity. At one point, do you blame management? At one point. All right, let's move on. Peter, which expensive EV are you excited about getting leased in 2025 here in North America? Got to go with the Bolt on that one.

Yeah, I mean, what's inexpensive? There's no new Bolt to buy though right now, right? No, you can't buy a Bolt. I mean, I guess the Equinox is kind of cheap, but it's already there. Yeah, I mean, there's a pretty cheap one. The Prologue is not too expensive too, especially if you're released in 2025. Oh, okay. Well, we're still early in the year now. Yeah. It's hard to tell.

All right. I'm most excited to see what Tesla has come with for the cheaper cars. Not saying I would get one, but hopefully they will pressure other companies with lower price offerings. Yeah, that's true. The lower price Tesla is supposed to be on the way. Maybe we'll hear about it shortly.

Yeah, we should hear about it soon. But keep in mind, from everything we've heard so far, they are based on Model 3 and Model Y. So they're going to be pretty close to those vehicles. A little bit more bare, a little bit fewer features in there, a little less luxury. And yes, a lower price, which should help. It's going to be like a robo-taxi with a steering wheel. Some people think that. I mean, the robo-taxi is kind of weird for a consumer vehicle. Yeah.

All right. Jamie, a colleague, says specifically on the NAX board, what I heard is that they were having trouble with electronic interference and it was just a bigger tooling job than they thought, having to get a whole new harnesses. Okay. Makes sense. All right. When Tesla discontinues Cybertruck, no demand, toxic public view, continuing production will be at a loss eventually. Okay. So, I was thinking actually about that this week. And, um,

I don't think this continues, the Cybertruck under Elon Musk. I don't think Elon can take a loss like that. I don't think he wants to admit defeat or anything like that. So forget about it. If Elon's league, for whatever reason, the stock crashed to $100 and then he gets shareholder pressure and they leave, then new management put me in charge. I'm not saying that I want to be in charge or I'm going to be in charge. I'm just saying like...

what I think competent management would do about the Cybertruck. First of all, I do think the cells will be helped along by Elon not being associated with Tesla anymore. That will help a little bit. Then you have to rethink the 4680. I think the 4680 cells that Tesla use in the Cybertruck are part of the issues. I wouldn't be surprised that you could use the latest generation cells from suppliers and probably make the Cybertruck cheaper and have longer range.

which are the two main issues with the Cybertruck compared to what was announced. So I think there's a possibility that you could redesign the Cybertruck around other cells than Tesla is producing. So instead of discontinuing the Cybertruck, you might discontinue the 4680 and do it something else and make the Cybertruck better, longer range, potentially even cheaper, and removing the mask from the equation, higher demand. I think it's salvageable because I drove the Cybertruck.

i actually enjoyed it for the most part i i had some issues with it obviously i think it's not a perfect vehicle but at the same time the thing i love the model was a steer by wire and you could just bring that to other test vehicles and do great too yeah

all right uh jamie which then compromised their plans for other electronics in the car he's talking about the next uh yeah still on the next day uh ian says the boycott is permanent i've since bought an r1t and id buzz after unloading my model s and model y canceled my day one cyber truck order as well so the last of my stock bought in 2012 i won't be all involved in anything tesla while musk is involved a lot of that going on like yeah

When we get a bidirectional NACS standard, I think NACS can do bidirectional. It's just the software at this point, right? I don't think it's like this is standardized. I don't think it's in the protocol. Like it's not part of the SAE protocol just yet. Isn't the Cybertruck bidirectional NACS? Yeah, it's just I don't think so. Tesla can do it, but I don't know like...

I don't know if, well, I mean, if Hyundai did it, if Hyundai already has NAX on it and they have bi-directional, it has to be a standard then. Yeah. Think of it. Yeah. Maybe we should look into that. Canadians are even turning on Gretzky now. I respect you all for swiftly taking a strong national stance on this. What did Gretzky do? I think Gretzky is a Trump fan. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Rob Ford blocking U.S. liquor is a great move.

Yeah, not for Kentucky though. We buy in Canada and in Quebec and Ontario specifically, we buy a ton of Kentucky bourbon, myself included. And I'm not a boycott guy very much. I had to go and load up on the bourbon myself on some buffalo trays. I need my buffalo trays. Yeah.

If Elon sells all his Tesla, I'll buy Tesla. I'm in the same boat. I'm in the same boat. I think I'll buy Tesla. Yeah, I think Tesla is back down to around where I sold it last year. And I made some money shorting the market, the NASDAQ. So I would buy back Tesla. If Elon is out and the stock is under $150, I think it's a buy. Yeah.

because i think you can turn this around bring back a few some a few people obviously what is going to depend on the new management but i think tesla is is more than salvageable even though it has a lot of issues and you know the biggest one i think is going to be how do you end all the liability of enon's promises on self-driving that's going to be a big one so that's going to be a big hit and everything but i think it's it's all doable these still have great products they have fallen behind a little bit but

I think there's still a lot you can do with it. Anyway, that's it for this week's episode of The Electric Podcast. I'm Fred Lambert, and I'm joined, as usual, by Seth Winchroud. And we're going to see you same place, same time next week. Bye-bye.