Tesla pulls demand lever, new referral program, Toyota shuffles EV plan, 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 this week, Seth? I'm good. All right. Let's get ready to jump in. But right before, I want to say a quick thanks to our sponsor, AnyHill. AnyHill.

Annie Hill has his latest line of UM2 electric scooter featuring a new powerful brushless motor with a maximum of 750 watt motor output power and a detachable LG battery pack. You can check out the website in the show notes right now for a discounted UM2 electric scooter. And we're going to have a little bit more to say about them later on in the show. So stay tuned for that. But thanks to Annie Hill for sponsoring this episode of the Electric Podcast.

All right, we have a little bit of a lighter show than last week with all the news that came out of the earnings, but still a few interesting things to discuss and a lot of follow-up from previous news story that we discussed over the last few weeks, months, and quite recently even.

The main one we discussed, I think, in the last few weeks is all these questions about Tesla's demand and if there's really like a diamond cliff happening right now and if that's part of the explanation for the mis-on-delivery last quarter or if Tesla is really 100% accurate about this vehicle in transit thing and whatnot.

Our main argument was always if there's truly a demand issue, we should start seeing Tesla pull on some demand levers because they are available to them. It's not like Tesla has no way whatsoever to boost demand if they need to.

And of course, we talked about the main lever being pricing. Tesla has some room to reduce pricing just because they have industry-leading gross margins right now. And also, Tesla has been indicating over the last few months that there's a price gap.

There's a trajectory, a trend for our costs and the supply chains going down right now. So it looks like inflation is stabilizing or even going down.

And so the big news story this week is Tesla did pull on that demand lever in China, at least. And that's obviously an important market for Tesla or any electric vehicle makers right now. So Tesla did reduce the price of the Model 3 in the Model Y in the country by a decent margin here. The Model 3 built in Shanghai went from 279,000, basically 280,000 yen to...

266,000 yen. So now it starts at $36,800, which is a lot cheaper than in the U.S. The cheapest model 3 right now is $46,000.

the Model Y went down even more so that's a 5% decrease for the Model 3 Model Y went down 9% from 217,000 yen to basically 300,000 yen so starts at roughly $40,000 so that's also fairly cheap compared to when 66 for the Model Y in the US but that's

Although it's not the same version, obviously. Not just that it's built in China, but in China they have a standard range malware, which we don't have access, or at least not yet in China.

Not currently, because there was a point, wasn't there? Or am I thinking? Well, I mean, are you talking about the Texas one? Right. Oh, well, no, there was a standard range one, too, at one point that shortly lived. And then Tesla launched the Texas ones, which is not really a standard range, more like kind of a mid-range version. So, yeah, there's still room for Tesla to launch something else in the U.S. if they feel like so.

And then that subsidy knocked them down into a... Sorry, the price drop knocked the Model Y into a standard range, into a subsidy subset that lasts until the end of the year. Yes. You needed to be under $300,000, so they got that just under that. But that subsidy apparently hands... No, it can't...

I think it ends at the end of the year. Yeah, but there's other. So yeah, it's a direct subsidy that ends at the end of the year. And then there's a tax abatement that is still going to be applicable into 2023. So that's the first demand lever that Tesla pulled in China. Price adjustment on Bolt Model 3 Model Y.

And then the automaker also launched the new referral program in China. So we talked last week about the new referral program. There was some indication in the latest mobile app update that Tesla was working on a new, about to launch a new referral program. We talked about Tesla. Some sources told us that Tesla was bringing back the program for vehicles. It looked like the program was being implemented

becoming more of a loyalty reward system rather than a Zirek referral program, though it does include referrals. And now that Tesla launched it in China, they call it the Treasure Chest Points Reward Program. I assume that the treasure chest is like a reference to the loot chest because that's how it appears in the app. So maybe it might be a translation issue here.

But the points reward part of it, though, that might be the most interesting part. It's more like a point reward because you accumulate points. Right now, it sounds like the only two ways to accumulate points is buying a tester yourself. So if you buy a new tester, now you don't need someone else's referral like you used to.

which makes sense. I mean, like if you are already a Tesla owner, you probably don't really need the guidance of another Tesla owner to buy a new car, but people would still use the referral of another owner just because you get the benefit yourself. Because if you remember, the benefit goes both ways. The referral and the referee also get, the referrer and the referee both get, well, used to get

Now, for the longest time, it was the free supercharging miles. Now, instead, they get points, these treasure chest points. And those points can be used to get prizes, like some items in Tesla's accessory store, as well as supercharging miles.

are attached to points and then you can transfer those and get what there's a lot of different prices available we can get to them real quick but it's basically all the Tesla accessories available in the Tesla store in vehicle software upgrade that's interesting so if you have some of those like we're talking about hand-to-hand autopilot full self-driving better you can apply those points toward that

and like I said, free supercharging miles. Then on top of directly transferring your new treasure chest point loot box points into these accessories or upgrades,

There is quarterly and annual raffles or sweepstakes that you enter as you make those referrals or you buy a new car. Like I said, that also gives you points. You actually get more points, I think, from buying a new car than you do referring one. I think it's 3,500 points for referring a car, like 5,000 or 7,000 depending on the car if you buy it yourself directly.

So for example, the quarterly, like the first quarter 2023 raffle, you can, there's going to be 89 Tesla Texas bell buckle available. There's going to be a Tesla Model S stroller. And I'm not sure what that is. Might be like a translation issue here. A new home charging station. So there's going to be...

Five of those is going to be raffled at the end of the quarter. And a 24-month right to use in-vehicle software upgrade, FSD. So you basically get FSD for two years subscription. That's actually a lot of value here. They put it at 33,000 yen. But I mean, in the US, it's $200 a month, the subscription. So 24 months of that is significant.

Then they have also an annual sweepstakes that will include five VIP access to Gigafactory Shanghai, supercharger, 50,000 kilometers of supercharging miles. That's also significant. Three years of

Yeah, that one also, I'm not so sure. It says three years are right to use new items in the Tesla shop up to $45,000 in value. So I don't know exactly what that means. You can just get wheels and new wheels and tires, but for three years, it's not clear. Oh, maybe you can spend up to $45,000 at the stores over a three-year period. Okay.

That would be interesting. So you could buy a car. Yeah, just one of those. Model 3 rear-wheel drive or Model Y rear-wheel drive for a year. That's also significant. You can basically lease the Model Y for a year for free. But that's obviously just for the Chinese market for now. We expect Tesla to launch a similar version of the new... I guess we're going to change it from referral program to loyalty program maybe. We'll see how the...

All the marketing of it changes, but coming to the North American market soon, I would assume, or whenever they need it, I guess. Yeah. That's why it's a demand lever too. Another interesting news this week, Tesla is looking into making an investment into a facility in Mexico. The report came out.

from routers. It's a follow-up basically on the report that came out earlier this year with the state of Nuevo Leon, which is bordering, small border with Texas. The state of the state capital, well, not the state capital, but the biggest city in the state is Monterey. And it's a hub for

maybe not as much vehicle production, but vehicle supply. There's a lot of tier one suppliers that are based in Monterey. And Tesla has a lot of suppliers there. And the report that came out earlier this year was a weird thing where you see it on the screen right here if you're watching. Tesla got its own lane at the border between Nuevo León and Texas. So just to make sense,

between Texas and the state of Nuevo Leon faster. And the explanation that the economy minister there gave at the time was that Tesla has a lot of supplier in the state. So it makes sense for them to have a fast lane there, even though apparently the wait time at that particular border are not significant because it's a weird border. Like it's a,

They basically created the map out of the state in order to get the portrait there. And so, yeah, we suspected at the time, like, maybe there's a little bit more to that story than just like Tesla. It's quite a deal here to get your own lane along with like trucks and cars. Like you literally see on the screen here, you have just cars, just trucks, and then you have Teslas, like just Teslas. But then...

Now, what we learned is that Elon met with the governor of the state, Mr. Samuel Garcia, and a bunch of other officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. And what came out of it, apparently, is that Tesla is looking to invest specifically in the town of Santa Catarina, which is just outside of Monterey and is known to house a lot of investors.

So it's not clear that the report doesn't indicate what exactly Tesla is looking in term on investment, if it's an actual factory, a gigafactory, or if it's going to be a factory to create components. We really don't know. Maybe just a warehouse. But the talk with the governors and things like that, I would assume that's a little bit larger scale than warehouse operation, distribution, anything like that. So something to keep an eye on.

Of course, that comes also amid discussions that Tesla apparently is also looking at a factory in Canada. And we reported that originally when that first came out, Elon was asked by a Tesla employee, where is Tesla's next factory going to be in the US? And he corrected, it's like, actually, the next factory is probably more in North America than the US specifically. And we're looking at both locations in Canada and Mexico. So, yeah.

However, I don't think it's going to be necessarily a competition between Canada and Mexico. I think that Tesla could quite easily pull the trigger on both locations, one in Canada, one in Mexico, because as you know, the automaker's goal is to produce 20 million electric vehicles per year by 2030, and they need eight more gigafactories to make that happen. Now, 2030 is coming fast. That's less than eight years from now. And

Eight new gigafactories, that's one per year, but that's one per year at production or even like almost like full production, really, that they need to get them. So they literally need to announce those eight new factories in the next like two to three years in order to then build them.

and uh and ramp them up so like there's gonna be a lot of new gigafactories announced in consecutive orders i think uh probably again at least two in north america probably two more in europe uh two more in asia most likely maybe one in south america if tesla feels uh like they could pull it off even though south american market is not exactly ready for electric vehicles that's a little bit in there though

Lots of lithium there. Yeah, that's true. The supply chain is there, but it's the infrastructure like Tesla would need to invest heavily into superchargers. Mexico, Tesla already has a somewhat decent supercharger network, though it definitely could use more stations. It's not about it.

Another week, another Tesla software update. Tesla released the update 2022.40.1. Not a massive update, but still a futuristic thing. The biggest one, like leaving the, what Tesla called an improved charging efficiency.

So we don't have that much detail in there, just the release notes. Tesla says during DC fast charging, which includes supercharging, the thermal system controls have been optimized for each charging station's power capability, improving both charging and on-route battery preconditioning efficiency. This results in fast charging time and reduced energy costs. You know, the fact that this actually doesn't specify supercharging here, just as DC fast charging, sounds like it might be specific specifically for non-charging

supercharger, fast charging station. So that, I mean, I feel like Tesla should have probably mentioned the adapter if that would be the case. Like it would be like, oh, we optimize the charging when you charge with the CCS adapter. They didn't say that. So it's- Maybe it's for both. Yeah, maybe it's for both. But to me, the way it's phrased, it sounds like Tesla is basically introducing like on-route battery preconditioning for CCS, which would make sense.

We've seen Tesla starting to include non-Tesla charging station on the charging map. So,

Because obviously in order to unroute battery preconditioning for DC fast charging, the car would need to know that it is going to a charging station. And for the supercharger, that's fairly easy. After you're on the map, you click on them and Tesla knows exactly where it's going. But for DC fast charging station, it's not as easy. I think a lot of owners, what they do is they pull up PlugShare or a similar app and find the address and then...

route the address on their car for that. So Tesla would need to know exactly that it is going to be charging. Then a few other things. Tesla introduced something. It's sort of like a combination of dog mode and sentry mode. So they can both run at the same time. So in the release note, Tesla writes, your vehicles and pets can be kept safe by activating dog mode and sentry mode at the same time. Sentry mode alarms are silenced if dog mode and sentry mode are both enabled. So obviously you don't want your

your dog to freak out and the alarm starts in the car and you can a mobile app notification will still be sent and video footage will be saved so that's the primary way i think people use sentry mode like a kind of evidence if someone like messes with your car then there's this driver door unlock mode so when activated uh in the control lock settings uh driver door unlock mode uh

when you long press on the interior door switch, it unlocks all the doors and the trunk. So it's a quicker way to do it. But also if you're afraid that you're going to press on it too long, if you just want to unlock the doors, you can not activate it. Assume it's not activated by default.

And finally, Tesla is also adding the logos of radio station in the media players. So if you're a radio listener, you're going to start seeing some logos coming up in your center screen. So that's interesting. That's the 2022.40.1 update. So keep an eye for that. I don't think I've got it yet. I haven't gotten on either of mine. Yeah.

All right. A recall from Tesla this week. An actual real physical recall. We've been reporting a lot of Tesla recalls over the last year, but a lot of them were simple software updates. And that led a lot of people to complain, especially the media. The media, they like to put, oh, giant. Tesla has recalled a million vehicles for safety issues. And it's like, oh, there's one beep missing when you...

click your seatbelt on or something like that. Like it's, um,

Pretty ridiculous at that time, and it pushes a lot of people to maybe change the way that we address recall. It shouldn't be called a recall because recall kind of implies that you need to recall the vehicle physically to a service center to address the issue, which is not the case with software update. But in this case here, it's an actual real recall and actually set, got the notification for his own Model 3. It affects 24,000 Model 3s

in the US built from 2017 to recently. The weird thing here, it sounds like it's not a manufacturing defect. It sounds like it's a service issue. The vehicle affected were tampered with during a certain service thing and that led to this issue with the seatbelt.

So describing the issue here, Tesla has decided to proactively recall certain multi-vehicle manufactured between 2017 and 2022 to inspect the assembly of the second row left-end seat belt and the center seat belt anchor to ensure component are fastened to specification.

So why do I say that, that it's like not manufacturing the effect but a service issue is that Tesla did say that the bolt component have been incorrectly reassembled after disassembly during service action. So I don't know. Did you ever had set a problem with like your backseat or something that they had to disassemble the backseat or something like that? I mean, there was an early, like I feel like 2018 issue

um recall um and I haven't gotten my there's a another recall with the uh there's a cable that runs through the trunk and I uh last time I went to the service actually the last two times when my door was like cutting my hand and um when my LTE modem went out um I went to the um service center

And they didn't have the parts for the previous recall. So yeah, that car is, I think I'm going to trade it in soon. It's not really that great anymore. Yeah, I mean, it was a very early model. Exactly. The early ones aren't great. Yeah.

So, yeah, it sounds like, I mean, they don't even need to replace the anchors for the seatbelt. They just need to fasten some something. So at some point, they were disassembled by a service for whatever reason in those 24,000 cars. And now they just want to make sure that they were reassembled correctly. Yep.

but that's pretty much it for the recall but there was an other tesla recall that was a little bit more ridiculous than this one this week and it concerned the tesla cyber quad for kids and when i saw that i kind of i got a laugh out of it because all right i started looking into the recall notice from the uh it's called the what's it called the u.s consumer product safety commission

So if you don't know what a cyber quad for kids is, the cyber quad is, of course, the electric ATV that Tesla unveiled with the Cybertruck. And supposedly it's going to be available as an option with the Cybertruck. So you're going to be able to order that. And it's a full scale electric ATV. That's going to be pretty cool, apparently. But.

The Cybertruck is not there, so the CyberQuad isn't there. And we haven't heard much about the vehicle program ever, really. But last year, Tesla decided to, through its partnership with Radio Flyer, which is a toy maker, they

They build a cyber quad for kids, like a smaller vehicle. But this is not really like a real ATV for kids. There are real ATVs for kids that go quite fast and everything. This is more like a toy. I gave an example of these Jeeps that you see a lot of. When I was a kid, the rich kid would have that. We never had one of those. But the rich kid would play around with those while we had our tricycles.

And so they're not really powerful in the case of the, I mean, it's actually not powerful. I mean, it's 500 Watts. You see a lot of electric bike that have 500 Watts electric motors, but they, they, they are to have a top speed of 16 kilometers an hour, which is 10 miles per hour. Because I mean, it's not, it's not an electric bike either. It's like they are, they are on four wheels that it's not really powerful though. We played with one a few weeks ago when I had a real electric ATV, but fun.

funny than my girl, the guy that had me try it also had a cyber quad for kids. So my girlfriend was on the cyber quad for kids and I was on the relay TV and you cannot confuse the two of them. This is really a toy. But

Radio Flyer apparently was in discussion with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and they determined that this was not a toy, but a UATV. And that comes with regulation in terms of mechanical suspension, maximum tire pressure, and something called a CPSC-approved ATV action plan. So basically...

This, they consider this a UDTV anymore and it doesn't comply to the UDTV regulation because of course it's a toy. It wasn't meant to be. So they have to recall all of them. Apparently they made 5,000 of them and they are asking them to recall. So it's kind of a weird thing. Why did they decide now, like a year later, that these things are real UDTV instead of toys?

Well, I dig into the commission's recall report. And while they didn't say specifically that that triggered the recall, they did find it relevant to include an incident report in there.

But their incident report is kind of funny where it says that radio flyers received one report of an incident where the single rider cyber quad, so they specify that only one person is supposed to be on a cyber quad, tipped over when driven by an eight-year-old child. Okay, so far it sounds good. An eight-year-old should be using this. But then they say, and a 36-year-old adult female resulting in a bruised left shoulder to the adult female. So,

Just to make it clear, a 36-year-old adult was on the ATV with an 8-year-old and she fell or the thing tipped over as it should because you're not supposed to be two on it and you're not supposed to be a full-size adult. I mean, some women are smaller. Like I said, my girlfriend is an adult and she tried it and it was somewhat okay. And she fell and she got a bruise.

And now they are recalling the whole thing. So I cannot believe like the kind of mentality it takes to tip over in the ATV and like hurt your shoulder as an adult. Kids ATV. Yeah. Yeah. On a kid's toy. And then you're taught is like, let me report that to the manufacturer and apparently to the commission, the U.S. Commission for safety product, consumer safety product.

and just ruin the party for everyone well i say ruin the party for everyone look they recall

I don't think anyone's going to enforce that recall on you because the recall, you don't even have to send the whole cyber quad back. So if you like the cyber quad just for the look of it, like you want it as like a decorative piece or something, that might be a good deal for you actually because all you need to ship back is the drivetrain. Because I guess they don't want to put the nightmare of shipping all these things back because they're pretty

pretty big. Not that big, but still inconvenient to ship back. While the drivetrain, you can see it actually a little bit in this picture. It's a very small drivetrain. You can put that in a box, easy, ship it back, and you get a full refund. And I guess you keep the rest of it, the rest of the ATV.

And then if you don't want to do that and your kids are enjoying the toy, I guess you just don't do it. And I doubt that the U.S. Commission for Consumer Product is going to knock on your door and request to get back the ATV. So wait, you only have to send back the motor and you get the full refund? Yeah, that's what they said in the recall notice. You know what? We should find out what motor that is. We could get like an upgraded motor.

Well, I'm sure there's like, you have to have like a series numbers or something like that. Yeah, but I mean, like you could send back that motor and get, you know, some third party motor on Amazon for, you know, a hundred bucks and do a swap. Oh, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. I guess that's doable. So you get a refund and then basically the cost of your ATV now is just the cost of a small electric 500 watt motor. Yeah. That makes sense.

Like the way you think, Seth. What's that? I said I like the way you think. Yeah. All right. Should we do a quick hat read? Yeah, sure. So this week's episode is sponsored by Anyhill Electric Scooters. Great to have a scooter manufacturer on board here. Anyhill's latest UM2 electric scooters offer super stable riding performance and include a new powerful brushless motor with a maximum 750 watt motor output power.

You'll also find a detachable high-quality LG battery that uses 21770 LG lithium-ion battery cells. The UM2, along with Anyhill's other scooters, include a unique three-second fast folding system and a dual brake system with both electronic brake and mechanical brakes. Anyhill's latest lineup also includes a double-sided kickstand, three-speed adjustment mode, and a fixed-speed cruise control function.

and an integrated high-brightness anti-glare LED headlamp to provide maximum nighttime visibility up to 35 feet. You can currently get the UM2 for a special limited-time price by hitting the link below or in the show notes visiting anyhill.com. Thanks again to Anyhill for sponsoring. Looks like a good scooter.

Yes, thank you for any yield for sponsoring the show. We have a few more news items to discuss before getting into the comment section. So we should have a decent amount of time to answer your question. If you have any, put them in the comment section right now. And if you have any other subject in the EV community that you want to discuss this week, we can do that too. You just put them in the comment section whenever you're ready. All right.

That was kind of a big story this week. Toyota is considering, apparently, based on a lot of sources that spoke to routers, they're considering a complete reshuffle of their electric vehicle plans. So, of course, if you've been following Electric, you know that I've been hammering Toyota for years now about their being a lagger in the electric vehicle revolution. And not only being a lagger, like themselves not launching vehicle program, but they literally have...

lobbying against regulation that would encourage battery electric vehicles because they are heavily invested in hydrogen's fuel cells and and don't forget the marketing and advertising against evs so they've made fun of charging stations and stuff yeah they had a lot of advertising for their hybrids saying that they are like basically like never it's an energy vehicle that never needs charging like something which is like it's okay like it's not how you should approach this issue at all like

Gasoline card only charging too. Is that what you're saying? Last year, though, they finally...

They finally unlocked their wallet when it comes to investing into battery electric vehicle programs with a $38 billion plan to launch 30 battery electric vehicle models by 2030. And of course, that started with the BZ4X, which has had a ton of issues itself, which might be also part of why they are rethinking their approach here because their first project

Their first entry was kind of a disaster. If you're not aware, the BZ4X had a problem with the suspension or the wheel falling off. And they had to stop sales for months. They just restarted production recently. But according to the report, actually, it's Tesla that's driving them to reconsider their plan. And they are particularly impressed with Tesla's manufacturing capability when it comes to SUV vehicles, which is kind of...

a nice stamp of approval from Toyota which has been known as like the leader in not electric vehicle manufacturing but car manufacturing period for years now so they say that Tesla is winning the factory cost wars when it comes to EV that was something that apparently was said by Mr. Terashihwa who's leading the review of this of Toyota's EV plans right now

So it's not all good. Normally, when I say, okay, when an automaker, especially one that has deep pockets like Toyota, is looking at what Tesla did and is like, all right, maybe we should copy that. I'm all on board with that. Copy Tesla as far as they are the leader in electric vehicles for a reason. However, when it comes to Toyota, which is lagging so much already, it sounds like this is going to delay them a little bit. It might delay them

the launch of some new vehicles, but ultimately it sounds like it could help the automaker in terms of overall volume of electric vehicles later on. So it's a good for a bad because the report did say that they halted work. They stopped working on some existing EV programs

because of this review so they are waiting for the review to see if they should move forward with their existing because i mean if they plan to launch 30 new ev models by the end of the decade there have to be some programs already in the work that are fairly close to launch here so the report says that they have halted work on those until the review and um

It sounds like one of the things that they're looking at the studies doing that they want to incorporate in their own EV plans is the bigger casting strategy.

that Tesla has been doing with the rear casting of the MOWI and now the front casting of the MOWI that has greatly reduced manufacturing complexity, capital investment into new production and cost in general to manufacture those vehicles. So that's a big deal. We did report that Hydra produces those gigapress that Tesla use for those giant casting pieces.

that Hydra was in discussion with six other OEMs about selling them those giant casting machines for a similar approach because other than Tesla, no one is doing casting that big right now. But even Hydra said when they disclosed that last year, they said, yeah, six automakers right now are looking to follow in Tesla's footsteps, but they did warn that it would take a while for them to

first of all build the machine themselves and then for for the automakers to integrate that into their own production in some new or existing vehicle programs so even though it's my takeaway basically on this is like it's nice that they're looking at tesla's approach and how what they did well and looking to replicate it but it does sound like it might delay toyota's plan a little bit in order to achieve that and can toyota afford any delay at this point i don't know

Yeah, it's hard to say. Toyota's so far behind right now, it doesn't... They could kind of just start from scratch, almost begin a new electric vehicle company. The BZs are really not anything to look at. I mean, technically, it's not... The specs are not bad, but so far, I haven't tried one, but people are not impressed, it sounds like. Yeah, it's a good... It would have been a good one a while ago, but like...

you know when hyundai's got you know really fast charging 300 mile range um it just doesn't compete you know it's not in the same boat and key head obviously and then you would think all right about the advantage of toyota is like the quality of manufacturing and all that and then their first vehicle that comes out like their wheels are falling off so it's not a good look literally um

All right, the Kia Niro EV, the 2023 model year as launch. It's available this month in a US dealership and it starts at $39,500, which is $500 less than the 2022 model year. And you have only two trims, not the wind and wave. And if you want the wave, which is the higher end model, it starts at $44,500, so $5,000 more.

You still have the same 64.8 kWh battery pack. So the $5,000 package is just like little goodies like heated mirrors, power sunroof, some exterior and interior trims that changes. So nothing too crazy. Oh yeah, obviously a lot of people are comparing the why would you buy the Niro EV, which is like the last generation platform from Hyundai, Kia, when you have the EV6 and the Ioniq 5.

Because price-wise, there's not that big of a difference. So Jamie wrote that it's basically $2,000 cheaper than the base EV6, though it has a bigger battery pack, but it has lower range. Yeah, it's not as efficient. That's right.

The new EGMP platform is extremely efficient, surprisingly efficient, really. Not that the Nero was not that efficient either to start with. Again, the question is why would you buy that versus an EV6? I think the answer is pretty easy. Because you probably can while you cannot or you're going to have a tough time getting the EV6. I think the availability of the Nero, even though they're not giving incredible allocation in the US, it's not

I don't think it's in the tens of thousands. It's very, very low. But still, I think you're going to have an easier time buying that than putting your name on the wait list for an EV6. And

what happens a lot when you put your wait list right now on the on most not just hunting kia but most electric vehicle is you can have a dealership calling you it's like yeah i know you're on the waiting list right now but uh the only allocation we have is on this higher end version of the model with this um markup on ms msrp if you want that you can have that right now but if not you're gonna have to wait until next model year or whatever whenever we have more location

And then the prices are going up with the new model year. So it's not a great scenario unless you're willing to pay over MSRP or to get the higher version of the vehicle. But if you want the base version of the EV6 or the Niro EV, you're probably going to have an easier time getting the base version of the Niro EV at MSRP. So that's basically the only reason that makes sense. Yeah, it's a little bit smaller of a car. Some people like small cars. Yeah.

Yeah, a little bit higher up. I think you're sitting a little bit higher up. Probably why it's less efficient too. Yep. All right, Mary Barra has decided to...

Dipper feet in the pool of gauging whether or not you're going to get the full credit for the vehicle with a new tax credit coming next year. So there's not a lot of people that are willing to say anything on that until all the details are coming out. But Bara, for giving her credit, she said today that she believes that they're going to get the partial credit next year. So for the battery component, I guess, the $3,750.

But the full credit, which required at least 40% of the value of the critical minerals to come from either manufacturing the US or free trade partners or recycled North America too. Well, that's ambitious and I don't think you can get that much volume from recycled just yet.

And that's next year. Then it goes up to 15, 2024 and 16, 2025. So what she said is she said that they expect to get the full credit within two or three years. So that would be 2024 or 2025, which would be again, 50% or 60% of the critical minerals. So the

That's the thing. A lot of people have the 40% for next year and then they plan to catch up pretty fast after that though. Of course, GM actually deals right here next to where I live in the Battery Valley in Quebec to produce some anodic cathode materials that's going to bypass the Chinese supply chain and

definitely help them achieve that goal and i think they are aiming for 2025 for production if i'm not mistaken so that that would that would make sense they're probably waiting for that in order to to get that tax credit but yeah it makes a big difference 30 3700 bucks it's a it's a pretty big difference yeah i'm surprised they weren't able to do it uh this year uh you know like i would imagine like the problem is that a lot of their stuff goes through china but

I feel like a lot of, you know, Tesla stuff goes to China. Ford, I think, believes that they're going to get the full credit for a lot of their products. I'm surprised GM, you know, with their whole Altium thing isn't fully there yet and won't be for two or three years.

Yeah, I mean, it depends what we are dealing with. So they're dealing with LG. So I guess LG is getting more of their base material from China than SK. Yeah, Ford is SK, right? Ford is SK, yeah.

That's interesting. Speaking of Ford, last week we discussed the little towing test that you did with the F-150 Lightning. Now we're going to discuss a little bit about your road trip that you took with the electric pickup truck. Yeah, so it was great. Obviously, the Ford F-150 isn't a road trip car. I actually had a tonneau cover put on top of it just so I could drive a little faster and wouldn't have to charge as long.

theoretically. And I think that was, I think it made a pretty big difference because you don't have that back door just like scooping air as you're driving. So was that an aftermarket product or did Ford supply that? It was Ford supplied. It was installed at a Ford dealer and it's just like a vinyl cover. I think they're like a couple hundred bucks. And it took not even a lunch break to install. So

Pretty quick and easy. And obviously, because Ford F-150 Lightnings basically have the same exterior stuff as the most popular vehicle in the US for the last 30 years, there's tons of third party stuff around. So, you know, I'm going to Detroit. So I just go into a better route planner and say I'm going to Detroit and it plots out, you know, three or four areas.

electrify america stations um i wanted to do electrify america not only because they're fastest at 350 kilowatts usually but because ford has plug-in charge with electrify america i didn't actually it didn't occur to me that uh evgo also has auto charge uh with ford so port is i think the only uh maker that will do both plug-in charge and auto charge which means they can go to any evgo

or Electrify America station and just plug in as long as you're signed up. So that's nice and it works. I stopped at four or five stations every time I plugged in, took 20 seconds to authenticate and started charging.

Did every one of these stations work first time? So every station worked until I believe Toledo. And then there was a station with a weird screen. I tried plugging it in and the, you know, the Ford was like, no, this is no good. So I just like reached back to the other station, grabbed the cable and, you know, it was a little bit tight to bring it all the way up, but yeah,

It worked fine. You know, like the Ford F-150 is a massive vehicle. Like it should not be used for a single person traveling cross country. I would much rather be in a, you know, a Chevy Bolt or a Tesla Model 3. Not a Chevy Bolt. Well, a Chevy Bolt would have been a longer charging stops. But, you know, you...

I'm just carrying a lot of stuff around with me that I don't really need to be carrying around. So, yeah, you know, I got to the first EA station in the middle of Pennsylvania and plugged in, started working. I was getting like 160, 170 kilowatt at the beginning. I think 167 is when I took the picture.

Um, and it, uh, got down to 150 kilowatts at about 50%. And then I think down to 130 or something toward the end of the charge. So, you know, not, not crazy fast. 130 at the end is pretty good though. Yeah. So, uh, and that, that was like, it's 70%, not at like, uh, 80 or 90%.

So, you know, half hour stops, 25 minute, half hour stop, something like that. I don't have to grab a sandwich, maybe go to the bathroom and get back in the car. So pretty typical, like, you know, I would want to stop anyway, you know, two, two hours or so.

uh you know 150 miles between stops it was pretty normal i was thinking like if i was driving i mean not real realistically but if i was driving at a regular f-150 how would my path change and i probably would want to stop every two and a half hours or so so and i would probably want to you know get out walk around get a snack go to the bathroom um so there was really no added time um

in each of my stops. So, you know, it was pretty much the same as it would be with a gas car because, you know, the charging at Electrify America is very simple and it's pretty fast. And I think it's pretty similar. When it works. When it works. And you're right, it didn't work that one time in Toledo on that one station. But, you know, luckily there was four other stations that, including one that was like, I didn't even have to move the car.

so and and honestly like this has been my that was my best Electrify America experience by far so I think things are getting better um and uh you know it's it's just uh it's starting to feel more normal the flip side is like it's got 130 kilowatt hour battery if I was in something like a Kia um

a Kia EV6 or some other high-end, high-range car and plugged into the same Electrify America station, I would get a higher charging rate, but I would have half the size battery. So I would stay at each station half as long. So I'd probably be there like 15, 20 minutes tops, maybe even less, and be able to go to the next station. So

This is less of a, you know, Electrify America experience thing because I think, you know, the F-150 requires so much electricity to get from, you know, one stop to another. But it's more of like, well, you can do a trip in an F-150 and it does seem very similar to what a normal trip would be like in a gas car. Yeah.

So, yeah, you know, it's great. It's just like, just don't road trip in any huge pickup truck if you're alone. Like, it's just a waste of time and space. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Do we have any information about the next generation 2025, I think you said, the F-150? Yeah.

Yeah, so the F-150 is going to get a big overhaul in 2025, but I think next year it's going to have Android Auto as the center stack. And what's kind of interesting is that they're not going to update the current ones that are going out. So they're going to be kind of left behind a little bit in terms of...

But I think the charge rate, like you said, the charge rate, that would be the biggest update that they would need. But that, I think we're going to have to wait until 2025 for the new platform. Yeah, I think they could probably go a little faster. I know the GM Silverado and those 350 kilowatt real charging. And I think I saw somewhere, maybe Tom Malagny or something got like 370 or something at some EA station.

so hummer right might have been the hummer yeah but that's that's all the same altium stuff so uh yeah it's it's happening like of course let's put it in perspective every time we discuss that we always talk about like the max charge rate and everything the charging curve is the most important like keep this thing up a long time um so we'll wait until we see what that looks like to uh

make a judgment but uh yeah generally speaking if you can achieve a higher charge rate especially in the beginning it makes an impact for your entire session uh overall time yeah i kind of want to do a road trip in um an ev6 or uh actually probably ev6 because i think the uh

the hyundai um ionic 5 isn't quite as aerodynamic um but i think traveling in with a ev6 that the stops would be like 10 or 15 minutes tops fast charging small battery efficient all that stuff yeah have we we haven't done a full review of the v6 yet right no i just had uh you know what i have a uh

Genesis, so still the EGMP platform. Next week, I have the Genesis GV60 coming, so that should be fun. All right, should we jump into the comments? Yep. All right. Let's see. First up, will Tesla eventually use Starlink for connectivity in its cars? I think it's inevitable. What do you think?

I think Elon already said it would eventually. I mean, there was a recent patent that came out from Starlink or SpaceX, I guess. I don't know if SpaceX or Starlink now is a completely separate entity to follow up.

intellectual property, but there was a patent that came out about using the Starlink constellation for a more precise GPS. What do you call a GPS? It's not a GPS, but localization system, I guess. Yeah. Competitor to the GPS system, basically. Right. So obviously, test of eagles could benefit from that.

Yeah, and it would add another benefit to owning a Tesla because you would have a backup internet connection for your home or when you're driving about and your AT&T signal doesn't work, whatever. Yeah, you've seen what Apple did with their latest generation of phone where you have satellite connection in case of emergency. So that's one of the concerns that...

could be alleviated by adding that. Like we were just talking, I was talking with my dad the other day about the Tesla is planning a supercharger here a little bit further north from where I am, where it is like further north of where I am right now, there's not much civilization out there, but there's a big patch of road that leads to civilization in Saguenay, like Saint-Jean, which is another region pretty far north in Quebec.

And a lot of people don't want to take that route because it's this alert for there's no, there's no like cellular connection for a long time. So if your cars break down there, like you're kind of screwed until someone comes over. So the, for, for something like that, it would be great to have a satellite connection.

all right uh nanda holes uh ads it would be nice if they bundled starlink with fsd to make an even better or more justifiable value and to perhaps help the neural net of road data to be updated more efficiently

Yeah, I mean, I guess Tesla is mostly waiting for you to connect to Wi-Fi normally to upload a lot of data. So I don't know if they would want to use the bandwidth of the Starlink to do that. But I do like the idea, though, of combining it with FSD just so...

it makes the FSD package as long as they don't change the price of the FSD package to reflect that it would make sense that would be a good deal but knowing Tesla at this point the way Tesla is trying to squeeze all the money all the people with those subscription services I feel like it would be just an additional subscription service there's a lot of money in that

For sure. Love that the Y is crushing in the EU, like Elon said, the Y would. You know, I was thinking, we were talking about earlier the, you know, pulling the demand levers in China. I wonder if that's because Berlin's ramping up so much that, you know, the Chinese vehicles used to go all over Europe. Now Berlin's kind of taking care of Europe and maybe, you know, there's a glut, you

in china now because they're not they're not exporting nearly as many no it's a hundred percent good point um i mean i think shanghai is still exporting a lot of vehicles in europe there's no doubt but yeah two thousand vehicles a week now in berlin uh they might start tempering off and releasing some uh capacity for uh for the chinese market or any other market too there's also australia and other asian market too all right let's get back to these um

Okay, so a little clarification on the very important issue of the cyber quad toy being recalled. Dan Ober says you have to send back the drive controller for the refi. Oh, not the drivetrain. Well, that's probably about the same size as the drivetrain. Yeah, I was going to say that might be even easier to replace than the motor. Just get a cheap e-bike thing. All right, Dan.

See, Tesla could monkey wrench other car makers if they bought IDRA. IDRA, yeah, that's the Giga Press manufacturer. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. All right, Toyota said they're going to start a new clean sheet design coming in five years. Yeah, five years is a long time. Yeah, I mean, I'm okay with that as long as, like, does that mean no other EV programs between now and then? Like, that would be, that might be the end of Toyota, to be honest.

All right. Our own Mikey G notes that the BZ4X isn't a bad car, and he should know. He drove one all over Santa Barbara. No, wait. Santa Catalina Island. But it will be left behind like the Leaf. Also something he knows a little bit about. I agree. I don't think technology-wise it fits with the current bunch of vehicles. What do you think? Yeah. Also, even if it was...

popular it doesn't sound like toyota has the production capacity for it either way so it it does feel a lot like yeah you know we haven't asked i haven't said that word in a long time but compliance car like it sounds like like they're still in the years at mindset compliance ev and

Yeah, I agree. They're in that mindset. And the BZ platform was actually adapted from an ICE platform, according to Rollo 20. I think I remember hearing that. Yeah. Apparently some Toyota aren't happy with it. Yeah, yeah. That's part of the reshuffle. Like they are considering building a new platform and giving up on the BZ right now because I think there's a few other vehicles that are coming up on the same platform. So those programs have been halted for now.

All right, Carl in San Diego. The other toy that Radio Flyer sells, the Model S, has a 130-watt motor and goes three or six miles per hour. I can't believe we're even talking about this.

So the ATV toy was really pushing it at 500 watts. Well, it did come in two modes. They also have a turtle mode and a rabbit mode on it. So I think it also locks up at five or six miles per hour, and then you can crank it up at 10. But let me tell you, I've seen people riding it. It's not dangerous at all.

It's less dangerous than a bike, really. Could you even, like, if you really wanted to hurt yourself with it, could you hurt yourself with it? Well, I mean, yeah, sure. Especially if you tip it over. But, like, the bigger you are, the more easier it's going to be to tip it over because the center of gravity is going to be higher and these things are not that heavy. So...

But I was playing it. We were playing around with the ATV on the same route. And there was like a little slope, not that strong of a slope, maybe like 20% greater, something like that. And my girlfriend on it, my girlfriend is not an AV at all. And she couldn't ride up the slope with it. Like it was that not powerful.

But yeah, I mean, if you take a quick turn at 10 miles per hour and you're off balance, then maybe you fall over and you hurt your shoulder and you get a bruise like that lady that had the recall happen. I can't believe that. 38 years old. 36. 36. Come on. I can see if she was like 86, maybe. Well, even if she's 36, she has no business getting on that thing. Right, right.

All right. So the last two questions involve Twitter. Andrew McDonald says, any news to report on Elon's Twitter purchase? And then Vince says, how do you think Twitter's acquisition may affect Tesla since most Twitter account is their only PR? If Twitter becomes less relevant, could it damage Tesla?

I mean, I don't know how much less relevant Twitter can get, to be honest. Twitter is not that big of a social media platform. It's just not. It's very popular, though, for us, for journalists, media people. That's definitely the main platform that we use.

versus like Facebook and whatever other platform there is other tech talk Instagram it's not very popular for it's Instagram and take that away more pop at Facebook to them than Twitter but just not for kind of like new sharing and things like that and news commenting and whatnot

So I don't think Elon can screw Twitter more than it was screwing itself, to be honest. So I think he can definitely overpay for it. There's no doubt about it. But I think it's going to go up from there. Now, it's going to take time. How it's going to affect us. So I don't think the PR aspect is going to be a big deal. But it's going to...

take time away from Tesla for him for sure. And then the other big deal too is like, while he can, I don't think, I don't think he can like badly affect Twitter itself too much. He can badly affect his image the way Twitter is handled. So of course, like for example, a simple example of like bringing back Donald Trump. Well, yeah, half the US hates Donald Trump. So, I mean,

I'm not a big fan of Donald Trump personally doesn't affect like I don't think less of Elon if he if he brings him back I don't think it's like that big of a deal personally because whatever he says on Twitter I'm gonna take it with a grain of salt and it's not gonna affect my my opinion that much but a lot of people that that upsets them

So that affects Elon's image. And unfortunately, Elon's image is closely attached to Tesla's. Yeah. And in that regard, like that kind of hurts Twitter a little bit because, you know, is Ford going to spend advertising money with Elon? You know, one of their competitors, you know, is any of the car companies going to spend money on Tesla?

Twitter, like all the energy companies that are against Tesla. Yeah, that's a good point. And you saw he tweeted, right, because of the acquisition. Because I guess the first question was, what was the news with the acquisition? And when it became official last night, sorry, and Elon came into the office with a sink. Right. And he said, let that sink in. Hilarious. So his sense of humor is so straight. It's very weird. Like...

Because he said it on Twitter before that, like last week or something. And it's one of those things that you say and you get maybe like a, not even a laugh out loud, but just a, okay, that's kind of funny. But then he does it in person and you're like, what? No. And it seemed like unscripted, like almost like a gorilla Kanye West running into a building and being a goof and having somebody film it.

uh so yeah it was very weird especially you know like he's about to go in and fire like the ceo yeah and like the whole c-suite by the way i don't know if you saw today but like a whole bunch of other people are getting fired uh so i don't know if it's 75 of twitter or or what but

There's certainly not a lot of happy Twitter employees today. Honestly, 7,500 people work. Is that? No, 7,000 people. Over 7,000 people working at Twitter. That sounds like a lot to me for a fairly simple social media platform. I guess there's a lot of legal aspect to it and moderating and whatnot. Advertising. Advertising. But even that sounds like a lot to me.

So I'm sure there's fat trim at the end of the year. 75% of that sounds like a lot. I really don't know the end workings of it. But yeah, I mean, my main concern is

I've said that several times before, but I have serious concern about Elon's own use of Twitter. And I think he's being negatively affected by the algorithm or his use of the platform, period. Because we've seen him...

block some critics of himself and Tesla on Twitter, even fair critics, in my opinion, including ourselves. I would put ourselves in the category because we're a big fan of Tesla. And when we criticize it, it's for the good of Tesla, not to put it down. And then he

interact mostly with people that I would consider like yes men that just like they did not provide like the tough feedback that you you would need for a company like Tesla but

And then it's more recently, like in the last few months, there's this weird practice that really highlights the whole thing and how I feel like he's like stuck in a weird echo chamber at this point where he keeps retweeting people quoting his own words.

Right. Like they take some of his quotes that he said either on Twitter itself or like in an interview or something. And someone just posts that like quote Elon said that. And then he would like retweet that and said exactly like, sure. Like, like things like that, which is kind of such a agree with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very, it's, it's gone past like normal, like interaction. Yeah.

And it's like very culty and very, very weird. So I don't like, obviously this was happening before he owned Twitter. So I don't know like how Honey would impact it. He said a lot of things about what he was going to do with Twitter that I think are very interesting. And one of them might actually help him with that bad echo chamber he stocked in on the platform, I think, which is to...

Kind of, I've...

like an info buttons on tweets that explain why you're being like show this tweet or something or what's happening with this tweet. So that's interesting. I think like you could get some more feedback, like the rankings, like making the ranking system of Twitter public basically, like which is something that I'm personally interested in because I've been looking into it and because they do have, they don't have the specific ranking on there, but they do say what affects the ranking and

And so like today I tweeted that now I'm blocked by the CEO of Tesla, the main company I cover and the CEO of Twitter, the main social media platform that I use for work. So that's like that's doesn't give me like great prospect on the platform, really. And yeah.

And one, people took it into a free speech issue. It's dumb as hell because it's not a free speech issue. Like Elon blocking me on the platform is not a free speech issue.

But to a degree, it is just a tiny little bit because of that, because him blocking me and him having an extremely influential platform that based on Twitter's own comments that deranks my account so that lower my exposure on the platform. So it does affect my way to reach people with my speech.

So it would be interesting to see if he does make that public exactly like it shows on my Twitter. You're getting less exposure because Elon decided to block you. Then that opens up the question like, all right, do I deserve to have my exposure restricted because Elon didn't like what I said and blocked me? Like, is that really like other so that affect my way to reach other people?

Because then that's starting to get into the realm of free speech issue and he wants to make it a completely free speech platform. So would he change that? Because I don't know, someone blocks me. It's okay. Like I said, it's not a free speech issue at all. But if you put that ranking system into it, then that becomes a murkier situation, in my opinion. Yep. I agree.

So let's see how it plays out. I mean, like that's one of those things that I'm kind of excited about Twitter a little bit though, because it's unlike Tesla. Like it's not like, all right, like Tesla delivering FSD, Tesla delivering Optimus, like that's like years and years and years in the making. Twitter launching a new software feature, that's a lot quicker. Like it's not exactly quick either. Like software development does take time and engineering effort and all that, but it is generally a lot faster than, than, than,

than obviously a vehicle that has 10,000 individual pieces. Yeah, but before we sign off, we should probably address one part of that question, which was, is Elon's time at Twitter, which he's going to have to spend a lot of time there, going to affect Tesla's

uh and you know his other entities and i i have to say like it's going to mean less elon time at tesla right like that's that's a given i mean undoubtedly at least some is that good or bad though uh i i think i think it's bad for tesla because even though i have some disagreement with

the way Elon does things lately, I think his impact on Tesla is still massively positive one. So I think all the time he spends and I think it's also true like what he says that I don't know a lot of people don't believe it, but I do believe that he spends a lot of times on actual engineering issues at Tesla and not just like

meetings, which brings us back to the long standing question that should just should should Elon not be CEO of Tesla and you hire like a real good CEO that handles all this like more like high level meeting stuff and just like day to day stuff while you can just purely focus on the long term vision and the products. I feel like he's more like Steve Jobs where he can't find anybody who he thinks is up to the task.

because you know he thinks he's you know the only only one who can possibly do it so i think he stays ceo of all the entities which he you know owns or whatever and i think that's going to be the case for twitter too like i don't think he's going to be you don't think he's going to find a seal for twitter either i don't think so wow that's good but we'll see like i i uh but that's not there's a herbert diaz is still out there uh yeah

I keep looking at his LinkedIn to see if he updates it. And so far, no updates. I'm sure he's got some sort of golden handcuffs from VW. Oh, yeah. You think so? Maybe a year or something. I don't know. Yeah, that would make sense. It's been a few months already. Things are going to be moving. All right. Well, thanks, everyone, for listening to the show this week. If you do enjoy the show and only if you do, please give us a thumbs up.

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