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This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including a Tesla fatal crash goes viral in the media, another Model 3/Y r price change, Cadillac Lyriq production version, and more.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including the Tesla Semi service program, Audi e-tron Q4, Mercedes-Benz EQS, and more.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including a partner segment on Electric Last Mile Solutions (ELMS) where CEO James Taylor joins us 20 minutes early to discussing the company and going public via SPAC. We'll have tons of Tesla news, Mercedes-Benz EQC specs, and more at the normal 4:00 ET time.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla's delivery record, Tesla Semi production, the new Kia EV6, and more.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla's v11 software update, Tesla accepting Bitcoin, another Model 3 price increase, and more.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla Heavy Trucking, the BMW i4, the Rivian Adventure Network, and more.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla's new price changes, the Model Plaid+ delay, the Audi Q4 e-tron, Volvo C40 first look and more.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including a new Tesla Solar Roof, the launch of the Chevy Bolt EV/EUV, the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, and more.

The Electrek Podcast is me, Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief of Electrek, and Seth Weintraub, founder and publisher of Electrek and the 9to5 network, discussing all our top stories of the week while taking questions from our readers and highlighting the most insightful comments on the site.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including the current situation at Tesla Fremont factory, Hyundai Ioniq 5, WD ID.4, and more.

The Electrek Podcast is me, Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief of Electrek, and Seth Weintraub, founder and publisher of Electrek and the 9to5 network, discussing all our top stories of the week while taking questions from our readers and highlighting the most insightful comments on the site.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

Fred Lambert: We are alive for a new result of the electric podcasts. I'm Fred Lambert, your host, and as usual I'm joined by set. When job are you doing today? I'm good. All right. You've been okay. The VW ID for, for a while now, you were able to test it for a week a week. We weren't supposed to be able to talk about it.

[00:00:19] We don't have a post to reference for, for, for you guys to go read because the, the, the embargo was supposed to be later this weekend or early next week, Monday. On day and, but it was broken for some reason. And then the illustrator journal screwed up. They speed it 

[00:00:36] Seth Weintraub: up. I think they put it in the print.

[00:00:37] So you can't take it back? No, you can't take that back. 

[00:00:41]Fred Lambert: So, so we're going to be able to talk about that. We're going to do it later on in this show, even though, like I said, the post is going to be coming probably this weekend and a video and the video too. All right. And then you went on that bolt, you.

[00:00:54] Just a UV or did you get the new Evie too? Well, they were 

[00:00:57] Seth Weintraub: both there, but we weren't allowed to drive the bolt Evie, which is weird because you know, it's been around for five years. But we got to drive the boat EEV and it was pretty insane. 

[00:01:07] Fred Lambert: All right. That is Virgo though. So it's not interesting.

[00:01:11] It's just blank. You cannot say anything about it, right? On Phil Monday, right? Monday, 

[00:01:16]Seth Weintraub: One o'clock I think. 

[00:01:17] Fred Lambert: All right. So we're going to discuss that on the next episode next week, but you're going to be able to read about it on Monday. Of course, if you follow electric we got to start with our testing and use as per usual, and we going to stop with something that happened last weekend, and then we add some more information this week that that came up and that's the mobile wise standard range.

[00:01:39] So last week we discussed the price changes and everything, a good $2,000 a half. The standard range. I was like, all right, this is interesting stuff. And we'll just a month into the vehicle being launched already at $2,000 price cut. Now the model Y is less than $40,000. Interesting stuff. Then it just disappeared this weekend, this weekend, they took it off.

[00:02:01] They took it off the configurator and people were like, Hey, well what's happening? Is it cancel? Or they just stop to take orders. We don't know. We didn't know. But that was very surprising just a month into watching it. And then a few days into cutting the pricing effectively. And then this week Ilan commented on the, on the issue.

[00:02:20] He said that it's still available, but. Of the menu. So we know what that means. We know that what happens with that generally means that it's it's, it's going away. That's what happened with them all three salmon range. And it's, it's a weird thing just to, to have an existing 3m of your vehicle. Just, we don't tell you that it's there, unless you like you're in the know if you will.

[00:02:43] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I've got some questions about that because you can't just have a battery configuration. Like, are they going to still have the battery that battery size or are they going to like software limit? The long range battery. 

[00:02:59] Fred Lambert: Well, the way I see it is that the standard Mo wide standard range was really a standard Amal as the same powertrain as a model three standard range, plus really call it a standard range because there was no standard range to be a plus though.

[00:03:14] The same thing is true now for them all three. So they could, you could also change that. But it, so if that's the case, then. I assume it's not that big of a deal to just use the military center drainage plus power train and build them all wire around it. Or like you said, if it's really low, I mean, I felt like there was going to be a popular vehicle.

[00:03:32] So if it, if it's to be popular, if it'd been a lot of people gonna order it, I don't, I don't think they cannot. I D I just don't think the, the, the, they would stop for a lucky, with a bigger batch of bag, because then you're you deliver more value for a smaller price? 

[00:03:46] Seth Weintraub: Yeah, I agree. It's weird. I don't get it.

[00:03:49] Yeah. It's that AI is that AI pricing. 

[00:03:53] Fred Lambert: I think it's Ian, because Ian said that you said in many driving condition as yet to meet a Tesla's standard of excellence. So it goes back to originally why we were surprised in the first place last month when this law shit, because you had said that it was canceled.

[00:04:08] So, if we go back to the beginning of the history of the military standard range, it was announced all the way back at the launch of 2019 and the March doesn't 19 of them. The more why. And it was part of the configurations that this was planning to make available at last, the 250 miles of range back then.

[00:04:26] And then later on like a year later, I think, you know, and said that yeah, we're not going to launch it because it's going to have less than 250 miles of range, which we, we w we find unacceptably low. And yet a few months after that, they ended up launching it with 244 miles of range, which is. I think it's good for that price.

[00:04:46] Like, I think it makes sense though. He is fair when he says to be fair, he does mention in many drive conditions. So, right. Like in, in, in Canada, for example, or in places where you have a lot of snow, you have cold temperature. Yes. I mean, two 44 miles range will be a lot closer to one 50 miles range in very cold conditions.

[00:05:09] So with snow tires and everything. Yeah. Yeah. So at that point, yes. It, it's not, maybe not opposite Tesla standards. Yeah. You got 

[00:05:19] Seth Weintraub: to make it between superchargers. 

[00:05:22] Fred Lambert: Yes, exactly. But but in, in plenty of other markets, do I think it would be, would have made a ton of sense. Like it's still up with with the incentives too and everything like it's, it is, it becomes a very attractive vehicle, but.

[00:05:34] And they decided not to do 

[00:05:35] Seth Weintraub: that. Yeah. I mean, like right now. So if you order one of those in, let's say a month, if they're still around in a month via phone, is that going to have a battery, like a small battery pack? I guess it's the battery pack, like you said, that goes into the model three and they have the model three standard range plus, but that battery pack isn't like normally, like most model wise, they're going to have a long range battery pack.

[00:06:02] So it would, it's just a weird thing to have, like, like I'm sure the call volume isn't high. So it's just a weird thing to do. 

[00:06:12] Fred Lambert: Yeah. Well, this is, we're speaking about that. I think it might be worth noting when Elan said yesterday about the LFP batteries. Yes. Making it to standard range vehicle at Tesla, because you just said standard range.

[00:06:24] He didn't say cars, didn't say mole three. So you said that Nicole is our biggest concern for scaling leads to my onsite production. That's why we were shifting standard range car to  plenty of irony. And leads him exclamation Mark. So we know already that the Mo three standard range plus produced in, in shin guy and the operation guy in China is using an

[00:06:50]And then if the chemistry 

[00:06:52] Seth Weintraub: that's from cattle, right. 

[00:06:54] Fred Lambert: CATL yeah, I think so. So I run phosphate is known to be to have that as much energy density as Hi, Nicole cattle. Am I on with like NCA or NCM? Nicole manganese or just very high density? Nicole. So. There wasn't as much used in, in passenger cars though in China, it was a bit more popular with, with cheaper vehicles.

[00:07:18] Cause it is cheaper to, and so a lot of people were saying the white Tesla was bringing that to the standard arrangement. All three it's not necessarily because they were saying that the energy density has improved enough and it has improved, but it's also obviously a cost situation here. The standard range plus is this is cheapest vehicle and People weren't too worried about it because it's just for China, the Chinese market, it sounds like, and people already a lot more used to it than China, but then they launched it in Europe.

[00:07:44] They brought that vehicle to Europe. Now this thing arranged model three is produced in Shanghai for the European market. And then in Europe, people are starting to know this, Oh, it's not as good as the version with a nickel Kitto because the, the charging speed all a bit slower. And also in winter conditions, when it's colder, not as efficient, doesn't get as much range.

[00:08:07] So. People were a bit worried about that, but what was interesting? Yeah, his comment is that that's where we are shifting standard range car to an iron ghetto. So he's implying that the shift is, is ongoing, the are shifting right now. So that might be meaning that the mode three standard range plus produced in in Fremont for the U S market and North American market.

[00:08:29] And then everybody, everything else. Could also be shifting to LFP battery cells, which would be interesting. Yeah. And maybe they are waiting for that shift to happen in order to launch a model Y standard range. There you go. Because again, it's not just about range, it's also margin. This shoots also cost issue, and that might make more sense for them a little while at $40,000, if it has that battery.

[00:08:55] Seth Weintraub: Also, we should note that I think iron phosphate is a little bit safer. Like you know, you puncture the battery, it doesn't have the runaway. Okay. It's not as explosive. 

[00:09:03] Fred Lambert: Yeah. Thermal runaway, thermal runaway. Yeah. So yeah, I thought it was interesting too. Yeah, that's a good connection in to that, that poster, but now let's let's go back to what's happening at Fremont this week.

[00:09:15] So there was a report. Yesterday from Bloomberg stating that a bunch of employees on a mole, three production line were told not to show up to work until March 7th. Because there was they were shutting down the production line. It wasn't clear why, but we speak later that it could be because of the Industry-wide microchip shortage that the automotive sector is experiencing right now because why we speak to did that.

[00:09:40] But first of all, if someone is an automaker is announcing not that this announced anything. Of course, people had to find out by looking good, but yeah. The if for the filmmakers announcing production out or, or deceleration of production, it is generally because of that microchip shortage right now.

[00:09:56] I mean, GM for Nissan Toyota in Subaru. Yeah. Christ are, they all announced at least deceration of some production line and in some cases, a complete alt of the production due to the shortage. So. With that in mind and with the fact that what happened in Texas last week, and we know that Samsung is in Texas and Austin with a big factory that, that lost power and that factor is, is part of the supply chain for Tesla for Tesla is a chip that goes into the hardware 3.0 computer.

[00:10:27]We just made one this morning through and it would make sense that it affected this as inventory and they would eventually have to outside their own production capacity. Now what we learn after that, Ilan commented later on yesterday that it was indeed, there was indeed the production shut down, but it wasn't exactly that it was actually a broader shut down than we expected.

[00:10:50] It was just one production line. It was actually the whole factory that shut down for two days, started back up a day before yesterday. A lot of people assume all that means that the Bloomberg report was was nonsense. I w I wouldn't go as far as saying that, like, W what Elan actually said is that it was even bigger than that.

[00:11:07] The whole factory was shut down. They said it's already getting back up. So it's not going to be shut down for, for two weeks. Like like Bloomberg stated, but Bloomberg was just talking about one specific production line that, that production, I might really take two weeks to bring back up. Like the factory is not just a switch.

[00:11:21] You just. Go on and off. So it could, it could very well be the case. He didn't confirm it's for a microchip shortage, but did say some some parts supply issue. So I think that's very likely at this point, but in that email that we obtain You also mentioned a few other interesting things, especially regarding the model S and X to upgrade.

[00:11:41] So when, when does the launch the refresh that's? The next thing was, it was really, it was saying that it was going to be deliveries in the next few weeks by the end of February. And we we haven't really seen that. So, so far it looks like it might have been pushed a little bit. And in the email you wrote Maul S and X production liner almost done with the retooling.

[00:12:00] So. Implying that these two are going to be a few more days needed to start ramping up production and started deliveries. We will be aiming for max production next quarter. So that's encouraging and then he added, there is high demand. So we are going to need to go back to two shifts even ask employees to recommend France for recruiting.

[00:12:20] So it's been a while since the all S the next lines of I've been on two shifts. We, we noted of course, cells have been declining a lot in the last few years as the program became sort of stale and, and the, the store was focusing of course, on all three middle Y. So, so yeah, it looks like a, the, the refresh did it.

[00:12:38] Breed some, some life into the, the vehicle programs. And now they're going to have to ramp up production to society. 

[00:12:46] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. So the original email March 7th, what do you think that person who got that email is that guy or woman, is he, or she. Fired now, or like what, what 

[00:12:58] Fred Lambert: I mean, it was, it was a whole production line, so I assume it was a lot of people would be like track it down.

[00:13:03]There was some people that were stating today that they were told to come back to work now. So, so maybe the, the ripping up faster, or maybe they're going to be used to do the maintenance, the retooling, like they said that they're going to do two on more, few more wise. So.

[00:13:20] Yeah, I doubt anyone's called fired, but you never know. I'm sure they're looking. Yeah. All right. We're already a very, do you want with two tests news use pretty quick. So let's move on to ya. I think personally, what I think was the biggest news of the week here, the good news. It got me the most excited was the Hyundai ionic five official on dealing.

[00:13:41] We sort of equal and full on the 23rd. And it hit the Mark for me. It hit the Mark. Pretty, pretty good. I 

[00:13:49] Seth Weintraub: was also pretty excited 

[00:13:50] Fred Lambert: about it. Yeah. Design wise. I mean, look at that car. Yeah, it's for everyone. It's definitely a step forward and not again, like it is so, so like anything like you need to change like any more like drastic design.

[00:14:02]Do I, I would argue it's not that drastic. It's not like BMW high three, eight years ago drastic, but it, it is forward. But in my opinion, like a lot of automakers dropped the ball in term of design when it comes to the front hand. I don't think that's the case here. I mean, the headlights are very new, like this old square thing.

[00:14:23] It's not usual, but it works very well into the design, the hood. And then, yeah, this thing here and the middle, there's a little line here. It just works for me. It works. Yeah. Let's go on no need for a fake grill or anything like that. Just, they don't 

[00:14:39] Seth Weintraub: even have the charge board in the front anymore.

[00:14:41] Yeah. 

[00:14:43] Fred Lambert: I mean, that was the Nero. Oh 

[00:14:46] Seth Weintraub: yeah. That was key and Monday. Yeah. Cause it, the solar DB had that too. 

[00:14:52] Fred Lambert: Did the, yeah, the soul and. So the Cola doesn't have it is it's only the 

[00:14:58] Seth Weintraub: Negro. Yeah. I think that Kona has a normal one. 

[00:15:00] Yeah. 

[00:15:01] Fred Lambert: Maybe not. I don't know. I mean, I know the Niro as it from Kia and that pissed me off, but yeah, I think it works like it's and here's the thing that's interesting with it.

[00:15:13] That thing is basically the same size as an ID for VWR D four. It's actually a little bigger than ID for, in everything except the eyes of the car. So, because if you look at it that it looks like a hatchback, they call it a CUV, but looks like almost a hatchback, but it's actually the size of a CUV again, except from the height.

[00:15:32] And of course their height also contribute to your volume cargo volumes. So technically the ID four has slightly bigger or even decently bigger cargo volume, but that's because of the height, the actual space in terms of width and the length is is slightly bigger for the ionic five, which I found really interesting.

[00:15:55] And then you'll you, you look into all the interior as well as some of these, I know it's got to get in there clean. Yeah. The, they didn't over complicate things. They, they they're still buttons. Of course it didn't go full Tesla, but it it's, it's minimal. I like it. It's not a big fan while there's an extent as much, but still pretty good.

[00:16:16]The seats look. Very comfortable to me. Like of course that's just like, from what I can stand 

[00:16:21] Seth Weintraub: built in Ottomans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:16:23] Fred Lambert: Yeah. That's a, that's like a lazy boy. Yeah. That's luxury right there. Like, I've seen that in, in luxury car before, but I mean, I guess the, the Hyundai is going like a Honda as a Genesis for its luxury brand.

[00:16:35] But I think with ionic, they're trying to like, it's going to be a higher hand too. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the panoramic roof. Yep. Which they didn't mention in the launch an option for a solar roof? I don't know how it's going to work though. Is it, is it going to be cells embedded in the glass or is it going to be, Oh, you're going to have a full metal roof with cells on it.

[00:16:55] I don't know how it's going to work, but yeah. Apparently is going to be an option. I mean, look at that. Isn't that look like comfort. Yeah, it's 

[00:17:01] Seth Weintraub: crazy. I mean, Th they, they did some crazy stuff there. Not only, I mean, notice the, for the floor and the front is flat. Like, that's almost a problem. Like if your kids are, you know, put their volleyball down at their feet, like any, you know, make a sharp right.

[00:17:18] Fred Lambert: Turn, look, look, look, this, this is a cool thing too. Is that it goes back and forth. Yeah. The center console, when you're driving, like, no, right now I don't know what she's doing. Like she's just thinking of having in her car for some reason, but she lives there. Yeah. Maybe very, very stylish person for being homeless, but still.

[00:17:36]That that center console is much forward. I don't know if it's for both. I assume it's for both seats, but when, when you recline a Cedar or push it back, the, the whole center console goes back. So those are through the dashboard once once you're in driving position I, I don't, I don't maybe a ball of some kind could still roll from the passenger side too, though.

[00:17:59] Driver's side. I do understand your concert, but I also look at that center console right there. Does that mean you want some volleyballs put them there? Yeah, exactly. 

[00:18:07] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. You got your laptop case and they're your briefcase. They got room for everything right there. Yeah. I 

[00:18:13] Fred Lambert: mean, it's kind of a reminiscent of like the early mole SNX when there was like two seats and everything.

[00:18:20]Yeah. In terms of the powertrain. A few interesting functions. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, that's the key word really options. You do get two wheel drive all wheel drive two battery packs, and they are both available on boats options. So unlike Tesla, like if you want all wheel drive, you have to go with long range and everything.

[00:18:38] Honda that doesn't push that on you. The standard range is 58 kilowatt hour battery pack again, all wheel drive, two wheel drive which is 125 kilowatt for the two wheel drive, which is a real driver. Yeah, rear wheel drive, I think, and 173 for the all wheel drive. So it's not a big bump that you get with the front motor, but still you're going through snow.

[00:19:02] Yeah. Decent enough for, for things like Hi-C conditions. No, we conditions. And then if you want to go with the long range, you get a 72.6 kilowatt hour for the European market. And th this is a trend that we're starting to see Hyundai is going, like why not? Or they want more range. They want more, not only do you want more range, the PE standard is, is more difficult to achieve a longer range.

[00:19:25] So it's easier to look like you have a higher range on the w LTP. So the, the actually going to offer a 74.7 7.42 other a backpack for the North American market. So almost five. More kilowatt hour that you're going to get in North America. Yeah, that's right. And then you still get the two wheel drive option, which is going to give you the longest range option of them all.

[00:19:46] When combined with the long range battery pack and an all wheel drive all wheel drive, we'll give you two 25 kilowatts. So you're starting to get like a petty level, a little car there. And that goes zero to a hundred kilometer an hour, which is 62 miles power in 5.2 seconds. Respectable. Yeah, it's not bad.

[00:20:02] Like you gotta have some fun with that. Like off of a red light or something. So range wise. I mean, they didn't release the EPA, but did they? No. Okay. The w LTP is four 70 for the longest range version. Do you want me to read so two 92 miles. But then, so that's on the 72.6 gold or a pack. So I had the former kilowatt hour.

[00:20:27] I mean, I know normally, like you're on the, see if you get to 92 miles on WTP, you'd be lucky to get like two 40, two 50 right off of APA, but with the fire Marshall at hour. And like we noticed, I mean, two 50, at least maybe up to two 70, I think. Yeah. Of course that's for the longest range version and everything.

[00:20:48] So that's longer long range battery pack 

[00:20:50] Seth Weintraub: too. It probably has to have more than the Kona. Like they have to maybe that's why they, I don't know, but like the Kona's at like two 60 or two, two 55 or something like that. So it's probably just over that. 

[00:21:06] Fred Lambert: Yeah. That, that, that would make sense. Cause it's going to be probably like, like I said, that that's all we'll get to the pricing, but I'm charging.

[00:21:14] 400 volt, 800 volt works on the infrastructure up to three 50 kilowatt charging. 

[00:21:21] Seth Weintraub: But that doesn't mean it's an 800 volt system. It just it has the 800 volts. 

[00:21:27] Fred Lambert: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can, you can, you can take up to hit on a wall chart right here, though. I mean, it's crazy that that's good. Like, I mean, 

[00:21:37] Seth Weintraub: real world is not going to be like that.

[00:21:38] Fred Lambert: Yeah. Most of the time, like you're going to need to have a three 50 kilowatt charger, which are not, they're not that many, but they're getting more. But I mean, like if you want a three 50 kilowatt charging you want to tie in or something like that, or GT ADI GT. Or the Hummer and the heart Palmer, I mean, but those are all a hundred thousand dollars plus cars.

[00:21:57] This thing again, I'm going to get to the pricing. We don't know yet, but we're going to speculate about Honda. They said that you're going to be able to charge from 10 to 80% in 18 minutes. So of course that's awesome. Yeah. That's crazy early. 

[00:22:11] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. That's it like, that's pretty close to like gas. Yeah, I mean is, you know, 10 minutes tops, but we're getting so close.

[00:22:20] It doesn't, it almost doesn't make. 

[00:22:21] Fred Lambert: And again, you'd only need to do that when you're actually doing like long distance travel, right? I'm like this isn't charging is not even in your mind. We already talked about the ionic coming with the vehicle. Now they are calling a vehicle to load so that the vehicle to grid vehicle to home thing and everything.

[00:22:36] That's, that's what they're called to talk about. No, you're talking, you're calling his vehicle to load. 

[00:22:41] Seth Weintraub: This is the best thing for me. I think like finally, somebody is doing 

[00:22:44] Fred Lambert: this. Yeah. Added that already. No compromise, like everything looks great. And then this is like a good headed value to have that through 3.6 kilowatt capacity that you can get all of it.

[00:22:56]There's, there's a port that is under any the second row seats. That as a regular power off bet on it. So, so you can like plug it into your laptop if you're in the back or something and just use that as you drive or whatever which is not like unusual for cars, but there's also, you can literally use a bi-directional charger into the charge port of the vehicle and get access to that vehicle load capacity.

[00:23:20] Seth Weintraub: Do you get the 3.6 kilowatts out of the, the plug, do you think, or do you have to use the bi-directional for that? 

[00:23:29] Fred Lambert: They don't specify it here. They do say that the V two L board is located under the second receipt and it connects within when the vehicle is on another V2. Port is like the other charging port on the vehicle exterior.

[00:23:42] Seth Weintraub: Hmm. Cause they did a little video and they had you know, it was a European plug, which is two 40 already, but to be 3.6 kilowatt, it would have to be about a 20 amp. Output, which is be a lot of power, but that'd be cool. And then they showed it like powering refrigerators and TVs and a bunch of other stuff like camping, like, but you know, 3.6 kilowatts, this is an important thing.

[00:24:10] Like you can back up your house with that. Like you know, those generator ports that you know, people build into their houses and they have the separate fuse boxes and all that, that that's, that's the kind of power that, that those things need. You know, a typical house, like, you know, I probably could look at my house right now, but our typical house runs at like two kilowatts or less.

[00:24:30] So, you know, as long as you're not doing like, you know, laundry and cooking at the same time, you can probably backup your house with this thing, which is a huge added incentive because you know, the cost of that you know, if you're buying a generator which is dirty or you're buying power walls, which are like 10 grand, like that's a.

[00:24:49] Big value, add that nobody seems to be talking about. 

[00:24:52] Fred Lambert: Yep, definitely. Yeah, we do the solar roof thing already talked about it. Didn't really mention any type of range that you can get all of it, but I wouldn't expect much to, to the surface of the vehicle 

[00:25:03] Seth Weintraub: here. Mostly just the vampire drain elimination.

[00:25:06] Fred Lambert: They have the latest heads up display here. I need to find a video of their, of Hyundai's ends of this Lakers. I mean, I've seen the one in the corner, which I wasn't really impressed with. Not, not really one of the best, but they said it's a new one with augmented reality capabilities. So I'm really curious to see what standard Alec is.

[00:25:23] That could be good because I've seen some very good ones with augmented reality. So I'm going to look into that if I could get a video because. I'm sure people would want to see that. And then the, the smart sense, which is the driver has to suit of a Hyundai that you get, I guess, equivalent like of a autopilot, if you will.

[00:25:40]Yeah. And it's coming this summer. The first app available in selected regions starting in the first half of 2021. So, so like that the regions, I would assume that South Korea, some are repairing markets. I wouldn't expect it in North America and then the second half, and now in term of the pricing. So they already released some pricing in Europe starting at like 40,000 euros, which should be expensive, but that includes the, that, so maybe a little bit cheaper.

[00:26:11]In North America, I don't know. Some people were saying, Oh, the base base version could be starting at 30,000. I'd be surprised. But something around 40,000 would be, would be, would be interesting. I think. Yeah, if they 

[00:26:25] Seth Weintraub: can get below 40, they still have the $7,500 tax credit, then all of a sudden that's a $30,000 car.

[00:26:34] That's, that's, that's tempting, you know, that's like a. You know, I don't know, like it's hard to, it's hard to think about like a VW ID or ID for a Chevy, a Chevy bold. EEV a Mustang. Like this thing has all those little extra things that are pretty sweet. And if it's around the same price, it's going to be hard to think about those things with this thing around.

[00:27:00] Yeah. 

[00:27:01] Fred Lambert: I might become a Hyundai owner again. I was on the horn at some point with my super Superman. How was that? I like it to run. I mean, I mean, I was a kid when I bought it, but it was like a very cool looking sports car that you could actually afford. Like I paid, like I bought it used, but I paid like $10,000 and $10,000 for it.

[00:27:21] It was a cool looking little, two doors, a sports car. So, and it worked well. I liked it. 

[00:27:30] Seth Weintraub: I've never owned a Hyundai or any 

[00:27:32] Fred Lambert: Korean car, Korean cars. All right. The USBs. Okay. We're going to discuss this piece of news right here. And then we'll talk a bit about said's experience with the ID four, and then we're going to take questions.

[00:27:43] So if you have any questions, put them in the comment section below especially if you have questions about the ID for, I guess. Then didn't write a post, anything yet, like you could help him like formulate some kind of thought and idea of what you guys really want to know about the core. Be fun. So USBs the announced their, their fleet renewal contract this week.

[00:28:04] So they are replacing the 160 some thousand cars in their, in their fleet. And they're not even going all electric with it is kind of crazy because, I mean, if you remember just last month, One of the first thing Biden did when he came into office, it's like the old federal government fleet is going all electric.

[00:28:21] Like every all vehicle in the government is going in. All the Trico were what period of time and all, no, but the made it like a priority. And then a month later, what the federal government fleet, like the most interesting one, like the biggest one, the biggest part of it, the USDS, the announced the renewal of the fleet.

[00:28:42] And like, we're going to have some. Did your car, some internal combustion in general, we are working very hard to promote alternative fuels. I mean, I read the announcement that I was like, what are they talking about? And then a day later Mr. To boss of that thing, what was it called? Yeah, the joy was by the way, was elected by Trump was pointed like, huh.

[00:29:05] Or under the Trump administration. I'm not sure if Trump is even know that guy is, but. It was under Trump. He was appointed committed to only 10% of those of that fleet. 160 some thousand vehicles, garbage going all electric, which is what shows a complete lack of leadership, complete lack of vision. I mean, Those those vehicles are so primed for electrification.

[00:29:31] Like it makes so much sense. Although SPE stopping, starting all the time it that's all of the things that EVs are super good at as opportunity. Yeah. Super efficient at. And Nope, they're not doing it also. They gave the contract to some defense contractor for it. Yeah.  

[00:29:50] Seth Weintraub: Wisconsin. We thought it was going to go to work 

[00:29:53] Fred Lambert: horse.

[00:29:53] Right. I mean, I wasn't like, I wasn't old, then I have any like favorite or anything like that. But I mean, a defense contractor, like these guys make pinks or whatever, maybe that thanks. But like military vehicles. Yeah. 

[00:30:07] Seth Weintraub: Somebody got paid off. I'm 

[00:30:09] Fred Lambert: sure. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised about that, but like this, th this, this needs to be made by a of theory, like a myth, every contractor that deliver mails, like 

[00:30:18] Seth Weintraub: we've been kind of nice.

[00:30:20] That thing is the ugliest thing I've ever seen. I mean, it's a post office, like thing you wouldn't expect it to look amazing, but that looks like it was drawn by like, you know, a third grader, something, it looks like Homer Simpson design. 

[00:30:34] Fred Lambert: Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't have that egg at the front end. Exactly. This Elmer Simpson designed vehicle.

[00:30:40] But yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't care a lot of these items just, yeah, 

[00:30:45] Seth Weintraub: I'm more upset about the electrification, but like, if we're going to go back to the thing, like at least like, if, if they're going to do in current internal combustions, they should make it at least look decent and they didn't. So it's a 

[00:31:00] Fred Lambert: zero.

[00:31:00] Yeah. And I mean, after the announcement, the next day Biden announced that  was, it was able to appoint three more chairs of the, of the board of the ESPs. So he did that, which gave majority to the Democrats for the board. But I don't know if that's going to be able to do anything to reverse the decision and why Nike, they gave a contract already to contractors.

[00:31:25] Officially cost. So like, can they do anything up? I don't know. I mean, I 

[00:31:30] Seth Weintraub: guess I could tweak the 10% into 90%. Yeah. Yeah. But, and, and we should note the vehicle itself is supposed to be able to be upgraded from. Combustion to electric at some point later. 

[00:31:46] Fred Lambert: Did it say that, but then why like, yeah, it's not, it's not like, Oh, we have like a battery constraint and everything.

[00:31:53] 160,000 vehicles is going to be a big problem. It's over 10 years people. So the upgrade is over 10 years. Did they gave the contract now for 10 years? So that means that in eight, nine years under that contract, you could still be delivering and talk about engine vehicles. Which w can you imagine the in 20, 28 and buying a brand new and talk about an engine vehicle that you ordered 10 years ago?

[00:32:21] Seth Weintraub: I got it. And knowing them and knowing that the post office and the government, they're probably like backloading the EVs. So they're, they're going to make a hundred percent internal combustion for like the first five years. And then, Oh, we'll throw in some electric vehicles in 10 years. 

[00:32:36] Fred Lambert: It's just, I was very disappointed by that because you're not in the market.

[00:32:41] Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, I know, I know if the us does it too, because of Biden's announcement last, but no, I agree because of the USBs actually gave contracts to a bunch of companies, including like workhorse and like a few of those, like to, to, to build like prototypes and everything, like to show that they can do it and whatnot.

[00:33:00] So it's not like, not, it's not like. No one could do it. So they gave the contract to the Oscars, like make most of the internal combustion engine. It's like something weird happened in that, that the joy guys is plenty. I've never met him, but I would safely assume that easy to a moron or yeah, some vested interest in like three or three years from now.

[00:33:24] He gets a cushy little job on the Oskarshamn board. For some reason. I wouldn't be shocked by that. Yeah. 

[00:33:32] Seth Weintraub: 5 million a year consultant bastard. 

[00:33:35] Fred Lambert: All right. So let's talk about something a little better. Did you find the ID for it's a great 

[00:33:41] Seth Weintraub: car? You know, there's, there's trade offs, always and Volkswagen you know, they have three tiers, they have the Volkswagen Audi and Porsche inter you know, in Volkswagen's kind of the people's car.

[00:33:52] And I think, you know, overall they have a saying, I guess, It's not for millionaires it's for the millions. So they, they took some, you know, it doesn't charge at 150 kilowatts. It charges at one 20 or one 10 or whatever. It's not super fast, like I got a rear wheel drive version in the snow it's sucked in the snow.

[00:34:11] Like I've had, they told me it was snow tires and I was like, this is, you know, barely made it up. My driveway, I got stuck twice. I had to shovel it out a couple of times. So it's a great car. 

[00:34:21] Fred Lambert: All wheel drive version is all the 

[00:34:23] Seth Weintraub: all wheel drive version is coming late summer. Hopefully we'll get invited to that after the summer.

[00:34:29] Yeah, just in time for the summer, they have a two wheel drive just in time for the winter. Smart. But what's cool about the all wheel drive one. We are a North American is they're making it here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So, you know, maybe, maybe it's, if you're, if you're into that car, maybe it's a good thing to wait.

[00:34:44]But this was the first edition. And we got it for three days or no, sorry, we got it for 36 hours. And that I got it for an hour. I took it, you know, did my. Waterfall pictures and whatever. Went shopping for some groceries, came back snowstorm for about 24 hours. And then the snow turned into rain and then I had another, like three or four hours.

[00:35:06] So at the imagery and the videos, aren't going to be great. And I didn't get to take it to Vermont. Like I did the Mustang, which I couldn't put on 

[00:35:13] Fred Lambert: knowledge on it really. 

[00:35:14] Seth Weintraub: Yeah, I really couldn't drive it because, you know, in the snow, like the row, even though like, even if you can get out of my driveway, which is not that easy, the roads were just horrible.

[00:35:25] So with a two wheel drive car, I just didn't trust being able to get up Hills and, and stay, you know, stay on the road. But that said like the car is really pleasant. Like it's a great drive, you know, BWS, German engineered. It feels great inside it, it it, it was like somewhere between like the Mustang level of luxury and a Tesla, like the, you know, when you hit a bump, it didn't make a loud noise.

[00:35:49] Like my model, why does, but it also didn't like totally softened it like Mustang dead, which is weird because I don't think of the Mustang as like a luxury vehicle. Yeah. I mean, inside, it was really nice. It wasn't you know, we talked about like Tesla, no buttons, it wasn't, or even Mustang didn't have very many buttons and it had the screen, it was very much more like a traditional car.

[00:36:11]You know, like if you want to know where the. The door handle is you don't have to like search around and try to figure out what Tesla or Ford was doing. It's just a normal door handle inside and out. They did of course make the gear shifter. I don't know why this is impossible for people to understand, but like they made the gear shift or super weird.

[00:36:29]It's a, it's like it's on the dashboard. It's like, it's like the BMW thing. It's a dial on the dashboard. And of course, if you want to go into region mode or one pedal driving is everybody calls it. You got to go twice into drive, just like the Chevy bolt or everything else, which is super annoying.

[00:36:46] I asked them if they're going to upgrade that, they said, you know, we're thinking about it, but it could be upgraded over, over the air where, you know, you can switch that or change. That one thing was really disappointing. I took it to a Electrify America, the same kind of thing that I took the Mustang too.

[00:37:04] And the Mustang has plug-in charge. So you just plug it in. It does a thing for like 15, 20 seconds. And then you're charging kind of like a Tesla Volkswagen who owns electrify America and has the ID for took it to the station, plugged it in. Ask for my credit card. So I gave it my credit card that didn't work.

[00:37:27]I did Apple pay that didn't work. I signed up for an electrify America account, which I've had, well, I had one, I just couldn't remember the password I signed up again. That didn't work. So maybe it was the station, you know, like, you know, we shouldn't know electrify America has been a great partner for electric and it works more times than it doesn't.

[00:37:48] But in this particular case, it was quite frustrating that I had a Volkswagen and their charging system didn't work. And I asked them about plugging charge. Like guys, Like do that. Ford's got this, your other company you 

[00:38:01] Fred Lambert: own  you own 

[00:38:03] Seth Weintraub: electric. Yeah. America, you have a car, you know, on the other side of the, the company that's doing pug and charge already called those engineers, like just download that software, do whatever you have to do.

[00:38:15]But they said a plugin charge is coming via software update at a later date. So that's good. That's something to look forward to, I think like from now on like, if it doesn't have in charge, Like they gotta, they gotta just go back to the drawing 

[00:38:29] Fred Lambert: board. Yeah. I mean it, it, I feel like it's going to be a quick standard to be applied to the whole industry and it 

[00:38:35] Seth Weintraub: just totally makes it a much better experience.

[00:38:37] Fred Lambert: I mean, it's like that stuff was, was smart to do like their home thing start with their own charging, that work. Cause they were able to apply that easily if it's with their own network. It's not as easy though. It should be for Volkswagen. This would just described, but. I mean, they they're doing it like Ford is doing it.

[00:38:55] So yeah. I would 

[00:38:56] Seth Weintraub: assume if Ford can do it on Volkswagens chargers Volkswagen can do 

[00:39:00] Fred Lambert: it. Yeah. I mean, officially there's a whole Chinese wall between the different American was Vegas, completely different company and everything, but still. 

[00:39:08] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. So I don't, you know, that was one bad thing I have to say.

[00:39:11] Like overall though, I was really impressed with the inside. The interior, the drive was great. You know, when you're not on snowy roads Like, you know, he kind of wonder like, all right, so am I just getting used to these electric vehicles? Like the Mustang was really good. The, you know, even the Chevy today also good.

[00:39:30]And this thing, like baddie Ford, like, it was just great. Like it just flies down the road. Not, not crazy fast. I don't even think as fast as the Mustang that I had, but it gets there and, you know, You accelerate onto the freeway. You're not like wanting for any more acceleration. You're not pinning people back like a Tesla will, but I like Volkswagen says this is for the millions.

[00:39:52] So I think it's a very appealing design. I think women and men who aren't necessarily electric vehicle nerds like us, they're going to be really comfortable in this kind of car. So. For me, it's a big winner. They do have some work to do, you know, all wheel drive getting the the and charge working.

[00:40:12] But I think it's going to be a popular car. 

[00:40:15] Fred Lambert: Yeah, let's go. Sorry. I'm supposed to get one for a while, right. For a week for a full review. Do we know when that's 

[00:40:21] Seth Weintraub: gonna happen? I mean, I don't know if it's going to be all the way until. Late summer, but Oh 

[00:40:27] Fred Lambert: yeah, I was 

[00:40:28] Seth Weintraub: coming up. No, I hope so. I dunno when 

[00:40:31] Fred Lambert: whatever we though.

[00:40:32] All right. Let's, let's jump into the comments. What do you guys are saying right now? All right. 

[00:40:38] Seth Weintraub: So Jonathan whirling says the boat. Evie is interesting. LOL. I think it is. I, I I've owned a boat Eby for three years. I, I loved that car. So the EVs. Kind of interesting, but I can't say why. All right. Matt, Oh, what are your predictions for model two $25,000 car price upon delivery.

[00:40:59] Do you see anything below 50,000 Canadian out the door is 25 K too optimistic? Well, I don't think it's going to be called the model two. 

[00:41:08] Fred Lambert: Yeah. I mean either, but I don't, I don't understand that quick. Would it be bill 50,000 Canadian? I mean, wouldn't it be? Yeah. I mean, there's no, there's no con artists ourselves right now.

[00:41:21] And in Canada, that is twice the amount that it's sold in the, in the us on that's the saying that maybe it won't be $25,000 in the U S eater, which might or might not be like the Headspace glacier, because it's the, has had some issue delivering on pricing before. So yeah, mean maybe. But yeah, we'll, we'll see about that car.

[00:41:40] W w we'll see when we get there. So very speculative right now, it's probably still like three or three years away. So I don't know, 

[00:41:45]Seth Weintraub: In terms of the chip shortage station two 40 says Tesla also use a lot of chips from Texas instruments who are in Texas also 

[00:41:53] Fred Lambert: good point. Yeah. It's Texas instrument, Texas.

[00:41:56] I think 

[00:41:57] Seth Weintraub: so. Green gold Tesla needs to figure out what models and prices they want and stick with it. This is in regard to the pricing. That would be nice for sure. I wonder if they're trying to create some like nervous energy with potential buyers saying it's at a good price. Now I should buy it before they raise the price or do something weird.

[00:42:17] Fred Lambert: I mean, we would hell no is like test as it's so weird pod that for so long now and in the U S with the whole tax credit thing that like looms around everything too, is it's getting a bit confusing. Yeah, we didn't talk about that. I should mention this. There's a, there's a, like a competing reform for the tax credit has been introduced to we talked about the green act last week or the week before that was introduced.

[00:42:41] Gives 400,000 more cars to Tesla and all the auto makers of the hidden threshold at $7,000, a dollar tax credit, the electric cars act, which was actually introduced in 2019, but of course was shut down under the Trump administration and the Republicans still have the Senate and whatnot. Now bringing that back and that one, if that one makes it instead of the.

[00:43:03] Green act. That would be a big deal because first of all, it's retroactive through through the year. So it would start in 2021. So every car that was delivered in 2021 would apply to still 7,500, so $500 more. Who's going to complain about 500 or more in their pockets. Big deal here. Big, big deal. At the dealership, you can get it at the dealership on the sticker price.

[00:43:28] So not a tax rate. It can be a tax fee too. And if you want it as a tax rate, it can be over five years. So if you don't have $7,500 of tax liability at the federal level you should have it over five years, especially if you're buying a new car. So. That's good, but then again, you probably, the most people won't do that.

[00:43:46] If you can apply it to the, at the dealership at the sticker price. So some 

[00:43:49] Seth Weintraub: people, I don't know why you would anyway, 

[00:43:53] Fred Lambert: I'm not a tax lawyer, accountant. Maybe, maybe they would have a reason for it. But I I'm on the same page as you on that. And then the, of course the biggest thing of them all, they remove the cap.

[00:44:04] There's no capital it's on a 10 year period. It's crazy. Yeah. Which is crazy. But I feel like that's more of a, like a negotiating standpoint, maybe like we asked for that. And then we like five years would be plenty. And then between you and me, like 10 years is a, is a long time, like by 10 years, like it's either, he's going to be way more competitive on pricing than any gas or cars.

[00:44:26] I mean, I would have 

[00:44:27] Seth Weintraub: to say this out loud in public, but like Tesla is already competing pretty well without a tax credit. Yeah. My thing is like, all right, take all that energy and, and all that. Stuff and carbon tax, like, or a carbon dividend. I mean, I know that's not popular and never going to be popular, but like not at the station at the well, like 

[00:44:46] Fred Lambert: I dunno.

[00:44:47] Yeah. But I mean, even though that the electric cars act sounds a bit crazy it's easier to do I'm sure than the car with AXA. Right. 

[00:44:57] Seth Weintraub: All right. David authors, as sorry if I missed it. But did you guys ever discuss the Apple TV plus show long way up? It included reveal and truck driving up from South South of South America to LA quite a feat.

[00:45:10] We did discuss it. Micah did a couple posts on it in conjunction with nine to five Mac, which covers Apple TV plus. It's pretty interesting. I only watched some highlights, but it was also with two Harley Davidson Livewire electric motorcycles. So go Google it. We're the 

[00:45:26] Fred Lambert: focus on the show?

[00:45:27] Really? Any does comes up a few times cause they were the support vehicle to the, but it's really just a motorcycle drive Molson. 

[00:45:36] Seth Weintraub: All right. Kevin, do you have pictures of all the nine colors as being offered in? Was that in regard to the Hyundai or. 

[00:45:43] Fred Lambert: Tesla. I don't know, but yeah, I mean, we, we should do that.

[00:45:47] People always love those posts. Like we should probably do that with the high-end Nick in the ID for and post all the colors available. 

[00:45:55] Seth Weintraub: All right. When, if do you think LFP equip Teslas will make it to North America? Well, they're not going to make it, they're going to make made in North America. But it could be, I mean, if Yuan's kind of hinting at it, now, it could be happening as we speak.

[00:46:10] Fred Lambert: Could be, but I have no idea 

[00:46:14] Seth Weintraub: we might not ever have it. Electric car market is finally heating up great for customers. I was just thinking the same thing. Like, you know, we're reviewing the Baldy UV, the ID for the Mustang model wise here, and they're finally catching up to demand. That's great.

[00:46:29] Yeah. 

[00:46:31] Fred Lambert: If there was like the standard rainbow, why competing with diet before competing with the ionic five competing with the Mustang Nike all the same year, that would be like crazy. It's pretty much what's happening though. Standard rainbow wise is kind of up in the air. 

[00:46:45]Seth Weintraub: Green gold also asks is SCC investigating Ilan again.

[00:46:50] Fred Lambert: That was a first Quoc, the Newswire financial news wire, which generally is pretty early on those news. So I think it was the one that they break the news to for the last ACC the station on Ilan. But yeah, probably they are, we don't know, they didn't ever come into an active investigation. So we very hard to permit by union is asking for it.

[00:47:12] That for the news came out, he was, he went on Twitter and was like, I only do it will be Duke. 

[00:47:17] Seth Weintraub: That's like when the the diver was like, when to Sue you, he was like, do it, 

[00:47:23] Fred Lambert: but you want that one? So that's true. You didn't want the sec though, you could argue that he kind of won and we reported it like the deal that he had to buy more shares for Tesla.

[00:47:32] You actually made money on that. So you could have done that anyway, though. Yeah, that's true. Like it wasn't, it 

[00:47:37] Seth Weintraub: Manda whole says Ilan for president Andrew Yang would have made the mail trucks, EVs, no doubts, man, probably. 

[00:47:46] Fred Lambert: Well, you know, or Andrew for, for president, he left for president, but Andrew Yang would have 

[00:47:51] Seth Weintraub: made it, I guess Andrew would have been at Yuan's.

[00:47:54] Fred Lambert: Yeah. I said, I wasn't, I wasn't really prefer Andrew Yang as as president than Elan. I mean, I love the guy 

[00:48:02] Seth Weintraub: you on should be making cars. Yeah. How is Oshkosh qualified to offer EVs? I know they make kids overalls. How are they going to make a EVs? 

[00:48:14] Fred Lambert: I mean, I think that's a different division, 

[00:48:17] Seth Weintraub: different, different company, probably entirely.

[00:48:19] All right. Wayno says you have to look at the quality of people working for the post office. Most drivers of Subpart. If that who cares, what does it, what does the driver have to do 

[00:48:29] Fred Lambert: with it? Like morons going to drive electric vehicles right now. Yeah, it's easy to enlist a few. If you want. 

[00:48:36] Seth Weintraub: We have a couple of good videos on the channel.

[00:48:38] Alright, Chris, 50 fives stop. Well, Biden dropped $15 minimum wage and then bomb Syria. So that this doesn't surprise me. Yeah. I don't know. I don't want to wait too much into politics. Is giving did joy the hook news today. Oh, we got an exclusive from MDC 4runner. So I guess the joy has gone according to a YouTube commenter, Chris 55 stop.

[00:49:06] That would be nice. All right, Mike Metcalf, Fred, you mentioned mining companies you're invested in. Can you share which ones, any other investments you're excited about? Disclaimer, time. 

[00:49:16] Fred Lambert: Yeah, I'm not a financial advisor or a stock picker or anything like that, but I can discuss my own investment if you want.

[00:49:22] I mean, I'm very high on Nicole. I mean, Elan's concerns I think are warranted. Like the diamond is coming for Nicole from the battery industry is truly immense. Like it's hard to overstate. It just all big it is. And it's starting to get reflected into the price of Nicole. But it's not just about the price of the, of the actual commodity.

[00:49:48] Like it it's about having new mining projects that are sustainable. And that's why I'm looking into like, things that are not contributing to the problem, but they're just a part of the solution. And also, also The the, the, the, the, the closer to the supply chain, too. It would be nice, like not going like too far deep into the wild and whatnot.

[00:50:10] So, yeah, there's a few projects that I like. Well, the, the giga metals, a Vancouver based company that has been rumored to be working with Tesla on a potential Nichole mining project and vested in that there's another company that I like that is related to giga metals. That could be an interesting exposure to, to nickel is a conic metals, but I think they're changing their name right now.

[00:50:33] It's not going to be kind of mills and anymore, but that company is very interesting where the invest, the, the buy steaks and nickel projects and that's all they do. So they're there and they're not a mining company. They invest in mining companies with small stakes and a bunch of different them with a focus on nickel and so, so that gives you exposure to Nicole really, but with a wide variety of projects.

[00:50:54] And so if you invest in legal metals, for example, it's, it's a riskier project because if it doesn't come to fruition, well, that's it, you lose your investment, but if you have a bunch of different projects like that, it makes more sense. So Connie metals, they are invested in, in the gold medals. For example, they have a small stake in the company.

[00:51:10] So if it does succeed great for them, they have a small stake in the, in the. And another functioning mine in. I want to say Papua New Guinea. I might be mistaken, but one of those places that are big and they go producer. So they own like an 8% stake in.com that mind that's already producing. So that's revenue for a company and then they invest.

[00:51:33] That revenue and to acquiring steaks in smaller like junior mining companies and that, that are looking into Nicole. And then if those projects come to fruition, then the company grows and everything. So I think that's a good exposure, I think, but look into it, like do your own due diligence. Yeah. There's plenty of opportunity for bashing materials, mining.

[00:51:55] Seth Weintraub: All right. So moving back into the comments the ID for all wheel drive is the one to get, or the iconic five all wheel drive. We talked about those. When does the all wheel drive ID for arrive and the summer coming out of Chattanooga? We'll, we'll be there for the, a bunch there. Hopefully hopefully it codes over Nanda holds them back saying cyber truck is going to decimate these soft first time entries.

[00:52:20] Nothing else will make sense. Good. Glad to hear from the Tesla fan club here sat in the ID for it's barely bigger than our least narrow E V. That's true. It's not huge. And it looks like an ice under the hood. It doesn't have a Frank that's also true build quality was tops true, but they missed the Mark.

[00:52:39] Okay. It would be funny if one of the Elon sons will be the CEO of Tesla someday. 

[00:52:44] Fred Lambert: I mean the isn't the whole, this like 13 years old or something right now. Yeah. If that would be like, you're talking about a 50,000 people company right now. It's not like you earn like 30 or something and like, ah, I can run the company 

[00:52:58] Seth Weintraub: anymore.

[00:52:58] That's a very South Korean like mindset. Like why would it? Yeah, 

[00:53:02] Fred Lambert: well, it's like a foreign mindset to maybe also like Ian might not be the best person to run the test though right now. So why would his son be the best person to run the company? And also which 

[00:53:13] Seth Weintraub: son, like they're going to all fight over it.

[00:53:14] There's like, and they're all like, The same age, because 

[00:53:17] Fred Lambert: we don't know any of them we'd have to toot the horn leadership or anything like that. Because like I said, I, I'm not saying that I don't like even running the company, but I'm seeing like at this stage of Tesla, I, there's definitely an argument that could be made for Elan stepping into like a chairman role and then like a product architect, role boat role, but the already older Tesla and then leaving the CEO role to somebody else.

[00:53:42] I mean, It worked pretty well for companies like Apple, for example, like Tim cook is as I'm pretty good, even though people said that not as innovative as it used to be, but at the same time Apple, I didn't have a jobs to stick around cancer took him away, but if he can have you to stick around and have someone as a CEO that, that I think that would be.

[00:54:05] I think the optimals iteration. 

[00:54:06] Seth Weintraub: I mean, he's really not the CEO anyway, like he's, you know, in the traditional sense, he's a chief like architect or whatever, you know, whatever you want to call, like the head engineer or whatever. He's not doing a typical SEO CEO, sorry role where he's taking meetings and doing all that stuff.

[00:54:23] Especially since he's got two companies going or 15 companies all right. Okay, Nana holes. Again, the only reason Tesla up the model Y price was to get some of the government cheese on one spite in GMB, $7,000 credit's head. It will be the best value at that point. I don't get that logic. You get the same 7,000 on a cheaper one.

[00:54:45] Maybe we'll skip those for now. All right, Tom gearing says instead of model to what follows Elan's joke. Name convention, the sexy would have been sexy except for it on the E I'm guessing the next C six models. Okay. All all right. So sorry. Shane was Sullivan. It's a bit surprising that Ford didn't go with the heat pump in the Maki.

[00:55:07] Did they reverse engineer the model three and decided to copy them? Or there is a lot of similar similarities with the Maki and Tesla's vehicles. Heat pumps. It's not a new technology it's been around for awhile. I don't, I mean, I know Tesla did like the OCHA valve, which is supposed to be interesting, but if they wanted to, they could've probably put a heat pump.

[00:55:27] I think it's just a cost and size constraint. All right. Moving on, Kevin for the ionic five colors of the ionic five. Oh yeah. So I guess we'll have to dig around. Maybe we'll get one of our artists. To mock up some cool 

[00:55:44] Fred Lambert: stuff. I think they released a bunch of them that might, there might be a configurator in Germany open or something.

[00:55:50] Okay. 

[00:55:51] Seth Weintraub: I'll look into that. All right. Jose Dela Cruz asked if the Maki had a heat pump, it would increase its real-world range and the winter for sure 

[00:56:01] Fred Lambert: can argue. Yeah, I did test the Nike though in the winter and I was impressed by it. So just set that same. So yeah, 

[00:56:07] Seth Weintraub: we drove to Vermont in like single digit.

[00:56:10] And it was fine. All right. Our Panasonic and LG chem getting into LFP seems like NMC is on a downward trend due to nickel cobalt. Yeah. 

[00:56:22]Fred Lambert: I don't know exactly the product roadmap for pass and I can in LG, but yeah, I mean, Desola is laid out. It's planned like four hour or shorter range vehicle are gonna use.

[00:56:38] ILS, the mid range are going to use in an MC. I'm not getting these nickel and then high nickel for, for, for long range or demanding product, like the cyber truck and the Tesla semi and whatnot. And I think the broader industry is going to have to adapt to that. That means dish surprising if they don't.

[00:56:59] Seth Weintraub: All right. Tristan ward asks any guesses on the ionic five price. So we, you know, rewind. We, we did a lot of guessing there. Some thinking it'll be between the ionic and Kona. Nope. It's going to be above the Kona looking great. 60 mile charge in five minutes, et cetera. Yeah. Kona. Kona is I mean, it's just dead in the water really.

[00:57:19] I mean, I, I think 

[00:57:21] Fred Lambert: it depends on if the price is still better, you might, you know, it might go with that, but. Also some people might it's too radical, maybe the design, but I feel like it hit the Mark for me. Like it's, it's, it's new potentially radical, but it still works well. It's okay. 

[00:57:39] Seth Weintraub: It's the only car I'm kind of like, like really thinking about right now, but you know, obviously thinking about cyber trucks and Roadsters, but you know, ones that are going to be produced this year.

[00:57:51] All right. Moving on Shannon Sullivan in Europe, ABB is providing a lot of the hardware to the identity network, which is what electrify America is called here. What is the predominant DC charge point? Electrify America is mostly ABB. They do most of the chargers, even ego, I think is. Mostly ABB 

[00:58:08] Fred Lambert: I think at different, like if we had four different ones, they diversified 

[00:58:13] Seth Weintraub: a little bit, 

[00:58:14] Fred Lambert: they went to their site a lot though I, it is not really what the age of farm America is.

[00:58:21] I mean, it's a coalition. I on a T in Europe, I think, I think Hyundai is it is. One of the big owners in Ford is too Fagen is for sure. But a department guy is Volkswagen is the sole owner. Perfect. 

[00:58:34] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. And I think this was in regard to my comments about how I wasn't able to initiate a charge with credit card.

[00:58:39] I think that's more like that. I don't think that has to do with ABB. I think that's more like the payment processing stuff, the credit card stuff and the communications, which I don't think ABB is a part of, they might be. And then we're at our last question from Shane. O'Sullivan a nice trend is all wheel drive.

[00:58:55] But with the front wheels driven by a low speed, high torque motor, just for snow or off road driving. That's actually interesting because GM talked about that at their battery day in March or not battery day, but whatever they did. What was that called? Was it the battery then? 

[00:59:10] Fred Lambert: The one last year? Yeah, last year.

[00:59:12] Yeah, that was the easy 

[00:59:13] Seth Weintraub: day, I think almost a year ago. Some of their cars are going to have a very low power, high torque front wheel. Well, you know, all wheel drive motors, just for that time, you know, three or four times a year when you're stuck in the snow, which I think is really smart.

[00:59:31] There's really, you know, that's kind of, a lot of people are just buying all wheel drive for those particular times. And I think it's smart. I mean, you can do that with a luxury. You can't really do that with gas. You have, you know, you're either running a axle, like the length of the car or you're not.

[00:59:45] So this is kind of a cool thing. I don't know if anybody else's, you know, 

[00:59:51] Fred Lambert: I don't know. I mean also he's, he's, he's talking about front wheel drive. I mean, it's not all the people doing front wheel drive and the EVs of people doing real drive now. 

[01:00:01] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. 

[01:00:02]Fred Lambert: Ionic, I think is real. The two wheel option has to be real drive, I 

[01:00:05] Seth Weintraub: think.

[01:00:05] Yeah. So basically the, the wheels that aren't normally driving the car. 

[01:00:12] Fred Lambert: Oops. Did I lose you right now? All right. If I, if I lost you, I'll I mean, that's it for today's episode of the electric podcast people. I think we lost set right now, but thanks a lot for listening. If you like the video or on YouTube, you can leave us a likeness, subscribe on your podcast app.

[01:00:30] You can give us a review. So I always appreciated, and we're going to see you next time. Kind of get one, everyone.

Transcribed using Descript

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla's price cuts, the unveiling of the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, and more.

The Electrek Podcast is me, Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief of Electrek, and Seth Weintraub, founder and publisher of Electrek and the 9to5 network, discussing all our top stories of the week while taking questions from our readers and highlighting the most insightful comments on the site.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

[00:00:00] Fred Lambert: And we are live for a new episode of the electric podcast. Welcome back everyone. As usual, I'm joined by set one champ. Are you doing today? Set. I'm good. All right. Well, let's dive right in. We have a few, not too many news. This was kind of a, a slower weeks in in the world, but there was a big weekend with the reading of the bolt E V E V last weekend.

[00:00:21] So we're going to discuss that old letter M on their show, but we're going to start as usual with the Tesla news this week. And the, the bigger news this week. I would venture to say, was that the price got for the model S three and model? Y I should say. And yeah, some, some pretty significant price.

[00:00:37] Got, sorry. I'm hearing myself from new things that, well. Hmm, not true. Yeah. 

[00:00:46] Seth Weintraub: It's coming through my 

[00:00:47] Fred Lambert: head outside one, two, one, two, one, two. Yeah. I think I'm hearing from right now. It sounds not too bad, man. I don't know, let us know in the comments if you're eating the same thing, but I'm I have a lot of feedback and it feels like it's from a group you're speaker.

[00:01:00] There's nothing coming out of your speakers. And you're saying no, one, two, one, two, one, two,

[00:01:09] this strange. All right. Let's power on. Yeah. And the CFN price guts, especially for the base version on both mall three and more why the standard range Polis gets down to $37,000 from $38,000. And the model, Y it gets an even bigger price cut from $42,000 to $40,000. So the normal wife for the first time now is under 40.

[00:01:33] And if you remember that standard range, mole wide didn't exist until last month when it was a. Launched by Tesla. So. So this is a, this is a quick price drop for the, for the new 3m of the, of the electric SUV. But other than that the long range all wheel drive for Baltimore, Wiremold three status saying 47 and $50,000 respectively.

[00:01:56]But the, the, the performance version, interestingly, they get. The price increased by a thousand dollars, which, which adds up to 56, furthermore, three performance and a 61 for the model Y performance. So people are trying to read into what is happening here. Exactly. There's a lot of different theories.

[00:02:17]Of course the main one, if you follow more of the Tesla of, of, of the, of the Tesla narrative is that we, we adjust the pricing when we make improvement in term of production efficiency and everything. So we pass those on to the consumer in term of in, in order to be aligned with our mission to accelerate the energy transport, all make sense.

[00:02:41] Could be the case here, but there's also a bunch of different theories here because also we we've been talking about the green act that could bring back and significant tax credits and in the U S for perjury, because of course those price changes are in the U S by the way, though, there's been some, a few other adjustments in other markets, but other than Japan, I don't think there was anything significant with mode three and more wine.

[00:03:03] So. We discussed last week. Was it last week when we talked about the green act or the week before that? Whenever it was introduced anyway, yeah, it was introduced in Congress and we discussed like they're going to bring, basically extend the limit from 200,000 deliveries to 600,000, giving Tesla, GE and GM, another 400,000 and more vehicles to, to receive a 7,000 tax student instead of a.

[00:03:32]Of a 7,500 and surprisingly, there wasn't any specific price requirements in there. Like a lot of other countries are introducing like in Canada where there's a price limit on the model they can get, they can receive a tax credit. In, in, in Canada we have a, like a 45 and $55,000 limit, depending on some configurations.

[00:03:52]There wasn't that in in the green act as it was proposed, but. As, as we discuss it, it could change by the time it gets adopted. If it gets adopted, though, it is. Likely. And so some people are speculating that a 40,000 limit might be introduced, which could have created this this price change, especially for the model Y so that the model Y gets accessed, at least at a standard version, could have been also why Tesla even introduced the standard range in the first place.

[00:04:19] Because as you remember even less says that that's the wouldn't introduce that version. He didn't like the range of the vehicle was getting. So of course Tesla is most likely in talks with, with the new Biden administration while we know that they are in talks. I mean, Elan even confirmed that the suggested you suggested to them to introduce a carbon tax, but we also know that Tesla is part of the new Zita.

[00:04:41]Association for electric vehicles in the U S that is pushing for a national national standards and whatnot. So this lobbying group really w people involve in their with know what they're, what they're planning and through all the tax credit and everything. So that might be something that I've been in talks for a while.

[00:04:58] So Teslas might be making some move to, to take advantage of that preemptively. That that's my fake on it. But I mean it speak leash of obviously 

[00:05:09] Seth Weintraub: 37,000. If you get a $7,000 tax credit brings to the model three below 30,000 bucks, which would be a pretty big deal. So that th you know, obviously $7,000 is the number being thrown around now.

[00:05:21] So that prospect is, is obviously there. And I agree with you, like if, if the green act does have a $40,000 cap, Tesla's got a model Y for you there. So I think, I think the new pricing makes a lot of sense and clearly you know, less expensive overall. The problem, as we may have mentioned a few times, is that the uncertainty of the act, you know, whether it gets passed or not, and in what form people are gonna wait, like they're not, who's going to buy a car now, if it's not right.

[00:05:50] You know, we don't know if it's going to be retroactive. I don't think it's going to be retroactive. So Everybody was talking about buying a Tesla now is thinking, well, I'm just going to wait until this comes 

[00:05:59] Fred Lambert: through. Yeah, this is, this has been confusing because because it's a tax credit you think all right, happens in the tax year, but you can deduct from that.

[00:06:08] So if the delivery happened, then if you paid for the cards during that year, it would work. But the way that there was. Raymond in the proposal, at least it didn't sound like that. It says when did he get adopted? So, yeah, that was confusing. I've been trying to, to gain some information from, from sources.

[00:06:24] Of course, like I said, in the past few quarters, the slides tightened up the, the, the, the delivery goal, the, the, the, in the cells, the cells data. But I'm trying to get some information and how this affected the cells, because like you said, I would assume that. That will be quite significant because I mean, especially for standard range, more three 30, $7,000, like 7,000 differences is massive.

[00:06:49]So no one would be buying a car. If you think that there's even a 50% chance that you could get $7,000 off that car within the next 10 months. So, so yeah, it's, it's interesting. So also. For, for the bowl TV, UV that just released those also that, that, that put a big question marks around those cars because They, they could also potentially get a new tax credit at the same time for all the other vehicles that are still on the old program.

[00:07:15] Well, that's, that's a $500 more that you want right now, if you, so there's, there's a, it's a to a double edged sword, really, because technically it would bring down the tax credit by 500 bucks for, for the vehicles that are for the Nate that haven't reached that 200,000 threshold just yet. 

[00:07:35] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, either way they should get through this quicker, like figure it out and get it done before for too long, because nobody's going to be buying fewer people are going to be buying Teslas and GMs until then.

[00:07:47] Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:07:48] Fred Lambert: I'm, I'm really curious to see how it's African DISA sales right now. Yeah. Other than that, I mean, the increase on the performance version without any changes in actual specs as far as I can tell, but as you notice though, is weird about that. They will introduce changes and not show them in the configurator for, for a while.

[00:08:04] So we don't, we don't know exactly what might be happening here, but yeah. Interesting price change that happened overnight that two, two days ago. All right. Still talking about the model S to refresh, we had never got that thumb, that call that was supposed to happen, but it's so we were kind of just working with what we have in term of MLS refresh right now.

[00:08:28] And there's the big question around the steering wheel that remains, people want to know if the, the butterfly is going to be standard or is going to be an option. Are you even going to be able to have the round around steering wheel? Are you getting able to have the stock or where you really won't be really done with the stocks and everything?

[00:08:45] So The little development that happened this week is that a test vehicle or testimony as refresh was spotted in Ohio. And and it had the around steering wheel. I said, I said, regular steering wheel in, in quotes, in the In the video because in the article, because I mean, you could argue that the shape of the new steering wheel butterfly shape is not the biggest change to it is the removal of all the stock and all the user interface.

[00:09:12] Now being the forced touch buttons and everything that. Is arguably the bigger change and that's still the case with that steering wheel. So this is still a new Tesla steering wheel with the forced us button. And you can see even the scrolls of all, you cannot see the force us buttons, but you can see that there's no stocks only.

[00:09:26] It has to be some forces button on it. And the scrolls a little bit different too, but this is a standard round, a steering wheel. They're clearly a test vehicle because a little cup here is not very high in that hiding very well. A stop bottom that is standard for prototypes. 

[00:09:43] Seth Weintraub: I think that's not. Legal that way like that, that stop button is supposed to be accessible, not, not covered by it.

[00:09:49] Dixie cup. Yeah, but you know,

[00:09:54] Fred Lambert: someone that someone touches in that veritably, if you, if you do many times and it's more dangerous to have it in the open like that, then, then to have the cap on it, maybe why interesting seeing things from that picture that, that the, on the prototype that was part of is that, like I talked about.

[00:10:09] The earlier we can see those buttons on the release of Tesla, but I found them in documents that we obtained that said that there was some forced touch button for the drive modes underneath the phone. This is the phone charger right there. That's in building the center console and there, you can see them clearly because there's a, put some tape on it with clear Clear indication of park reverse, neutral and drive.

[00:10:32] So, yeah, like I said, when we first talked about, about that, like, I don't think that's the removal of the stock, at least for the drive modes and people saying, Oh, now that with the autopilot that is supposed to automatically detect which drive mode to use, that's a big deal and everything. I think if you don't like that, I mean, they're right there.

[00:10:50] They're really right there. You just click on those and I mean, you have the. You have the, the Mustang Nackey that basically has a dial right. At the same spot that those are, and this is not that different. Really. 

[00:11:04] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, compared to some of the other stuff, like the the BMW I three, which has that weird dial on top of the dashboard and Some of the other stuff going on in business actually 

[00:11:14] Fred Lambert: kind of normal.

[00:11:15] Okay. Yeah. The, the bigger changes are more significant turn on the user interface will be more like the the blinkers, like the turn signals. That's people are like, you grew up however long. It was that you've been driving cars. It's always been a stock that you pulling. So that's, that's a bigger change, but I mean, If this is a clear indication of Teslas, this, the strategy with, with, with self-driving like the company has been so focused on self-driving so confident about the ability to bring self-driving to market, that the they've been making change to the user experience of driving a car and sometimes even lacking in some specific area, because they're like, yeah, once it's self-driving and won't even matter that I feel like that that has been like a a trend for Tesla.

[00:12:02] And even things when you, that you can think like like ends up display. Like, if you, if you drive like one of the latest Audis and BMWs, universities, other vehicle that like more S is obviously going to compete with, they have some very, very good ads of this place. Now in those cars, like they are actually useful.

[00:12:22] They will look great. They're, they're, they're fun to use. And that's the never, never even invested right too much into that and trying to bring that to market a version of that. And they think, cause they're like, eh, w w why, why do you need that for when, when it's sells driving? I feel, I feel that's one part of the trend and now of course we're seeing things like getting rid of the turn signals and even the drive modes.

[00:12:45] But yeah, I mean that prototype also that the person that spotted some artists, the owner from the center, Michigan club in, on the Facebook group said that he asked, it was part of the local service center in Toledo. And he, as the service people, if that round steering wheel is going to be an option and they did say yes Now it's still not on the configurator.

[00:13:05] It's still not an option. Even though this, those living, you place an order right now for them pneumo ass. And when I asked my sources at Tesla, they said that they haven't communicated to the soul force. Anything about it being an option, but like we reported the, the image appeared on not.

[00:13:22] Consumer-facing but in the source correlate, this is website with the standards. The round thing will, and just now this, the posted a new video on this Twitter of the very short video of the, this, the plaid winter testing. And it does show that it has around seeing wheels. So, 

[00:13:38] Seth Weintraub: yeah. And you should note that that steering wheel that you're looking at right there, the, the one in the, the sales stuff is the exact same steering wheel that the, the beta Gar at.

[00:13:49] Yeah, yeah, 

[00:13:49] Fred Lambert: yeah. But at the same time, like when it comes to the winter testing, I like I would the, the drive modes, the four-star spot, Nike that's one thing, but the butterfly shape needs to be tested too. I feel like as the butterfly shape does change with other things in term of the driving experience, especially in.

[00:14:08] Things like winter testing where like, if you lose control of the car and everything, that's, that's when you, you want to be able, like to turn the wheel properly and everything. And it's not just about, it's about configurating the, the, the, the wheels turn a certain amount specifically for the ball of fire shape, because you cannot just do the normal motion of rotating like that.

[00:14:27] So It's a strange situation. Some, some more clarity would be appreciated, but I mean, you cannot ask too much of the test that these days when it comes down to communications and clarity, Not their forte. Not much with anything coming out of there. Yep. Yep. Yep. I stay with some prototypes sightings. Another Tesla semi was cited this week.

[00:14:51]This times is our friend at the Sacramento, Tesla, Jerome spotted the vehicle in Tuckey Truckee, cert Stuckey, a Truckee. Trucks are old trucking. Yeah. Truckee, California in between Sacramento and Reno, Nevada. So it's we, we saw one going from the Bay area and was going East and then ended up in Chicago last week.

[00:15:17] And. It was clearly a new test as am I the first one that we've seen in the first new one that we've seen in three years, but now a second one, the second new one. So the fourth overall test is somebody that we knew about and clearly a different one. There's a, there's some changes in the back here that we can see that the forms, the picture, but the back of the other one.

[00:15:37] And it looked like that at all. Maybe, maybe it was going from Fremont. My feeling is that it's being those prototypes are being built in Fremont and then ship maybe to Gigafactory to have the powertrain cause or the battery pack at least or something like that because we, we know that that that's where I at this last been installing some production capacity for, for the new, every new powertrain that they've been developing.

[00:16:02] Even the mall as the new model, as model acts this there's, they have a new drive train there and everything that they are they're building. So it could make sense to make them the same thing for that. That's a semi, but a very active, easier 

[00:16:14] Seth Weintraub: to take the the battery back to Fremont than take the, the old truck to 

[00:16:19] Fred Lambert: Yeah, it depends where the truck is going after.

[00:16:22] Like, like, like the last one, if it's going East and it's already going the right direction, you would decrease the, sending the batch back the other way. And at the same time, it's also it also looked like they give they're not, I you're not driving it on the roads on the public roads. Maybe, maybe they're still, they want to do some testing on proving grounds before going on public roads.

[00:16:41]We, we haven't, we haven't seen any of those two new prototypes driving just yet. They've been on the backup trail so far.

[00:16:52] All right. I'll. Yeah. So heart goes out to everyone who's in that situation right now with the blackouts and everything in Texas and in the neighboring States are having issues. Do I know my, my girlfriend is in Mississippi right now and she they, they got a few, a rolling blackouts too. Yeah, that's a pretty significant wetter for, for this part of the country.

[00:17:09] Really? Yeah. 

[00:17:10] Seth Weintraub: Anytime there's snow in the deep South, it's going 

[00:17:12] Fred Lambert: to be a mess. Yeah. I mean, obviously they are not equipped to, to deal with it in term of like snowplows and everything that comes with it. But yeah, in Texas, it's the, I mean, it, it showed some massive weaknesses to the electric grid that just couldn't end-all at all the people cause, cause it wasn't just the snow, it was the cold, it was, it was extremely cold.

[00:17:33] It was freezing temperature and people were running their electric heater like crazy. And the load on the grid was Also, there was some damage I think, on the grid to from the weather. But the load was was the, the biggest issue, my understanding. And there's been a ton of really bad few people speculating about what happened.

[00:17:53] And I know that even though, even though I think that the governor of Texas even said that it was because of wind turbine freezing. Yeah. Really it wasn't. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it was in, in that, Oh yeah. That article. I shared it right there. You see here what went down and you see that every, all the turbo power plants, 25% of the output went down.

[00:18:13] And renewable went down 1%. So, I mean, was a culprit here. I obviously have receipts, the natural gas and the coal power plants that took the biggest hit. But yeah what it did show that it showed that the strength of the power walls and all the others all on battery packs because a lot of Powerwall owners and In Texas started sharing their backup is to read, which was pretty crazy because they were, they were running some, some ruling blackouts, which means that they were planning the blackouts because in places where the grid infrastructure was still located, just couldn't handle the load.

[00:18:47] They would have to shut down the electricity in section. Of neighborhoods and everything because to, to lower the load, you know, in order to some people to have so many Tricity throughout the day, at least so you can see what it looks like when your grids goes out. So during the same day well, is it the same or at least.

[00:19:06] Well, these are all the same people. I don't know, 22.5 hours of backup within 32 events. And I don't know if it's all on the same day, but you can see here on the same day you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 different events all about between 30 minutes and an hour and 10 minutes.

[00:19:24] So very useful to have your balls during those times. And. If, yeah, if you have it combined with solar during the day, it's going to replenish itself. And the, she is fine. Air are the test owners club in Austin shared a, a video of a whole neighborhood being plunged at dark, except from one house that has a power, a power wall on right there.

[00:19:48] So you've seen a lot of those videos being passed around the. And we've seen what we've seen. The same thing happened in, in, in Australia a few years ago, then two years and last, what were the last few big wildfire season in California also as, as, as cause a lot of rolling blackouts and, and that's per the China interest in, in own battery packs.

[00:20:07] And I mean, it really shows that the, the future of a strong electric grid is going to be in these partly in de-centralizing energy storage at the home level. Makes a big difference, I think. Yeah. 

[00:20:21] Seth Weintraub: And, and why even have to rely a hundred percent on, on the grid. Like it's not super expensive and it's pretty, you know, economical to, to have solar and a battery backup, especially, you know, as prices come down, the grid gets a little bit wonky.

[00:20:40] You don't even have to think about it. We've been in a few out outages, and we didn't even know we were in an outage because. That's so quick. Yeah. 

[00:20:50] Fred Lambert: I mean, I, the more I think about it, I think your situation with green mountain power and Vermont, is that in my car, I think the have the best approach.

[00:20:59] It has to be some kind of mix between. You can hone your own system. If you want you have your own power wall of your own solar and the either have grid or connected to the grid with net-metering and everything, and add some value to that or subsidize those battery pack like crazy from the electric utility level.

[00:21:20] And I have the advantage of having backup power, a very low cost while your electric utility can use some of that backup power. When needed. Cause I mean, if there was a high mix of that in the grid right now in in Texas, I mean, I don't know how high it is, environment, it's still relatively new.

[00:21:38] It's probably much higher of course, because a lower population and, and they were early with that, with that program. But yeah, you, you you'd have a similar situation in Texas and it would be not as bad for sure. We'll have better. Yeah. All right. Next news items is the Chevy bolt, EU V and E V. Being unveiled at twin 22 version and are coming this spring, the spring, or this fall coming this year?

[00:22:07] Yeah, the spring. All right. That was early. 

[00:22:08] Seth Weintraub: So we've been sitting on this for almost a year, like we went out to Detroit and saw these two cars in March of last year. And that the bolt Evie was supposed to be a 20, 21 model that was supposed to come at the end of last year. And then the EEV was supposed to come this year.

[00:22:28]They weren't supposed to be released at the same time. But Chevy delayed the the bold Eby cause of pandemic, I guess. So, you know, as you can tell, like it's a upgraded front ends, which some people, like some people don't like a little bit of upgrade on the back. But the big stuff is inside the interior as much more luxurious.

[00:22:49]It's like night and day better. 

[00:22:50] Fred Lambert: I, that was my biggest, I'm playing with the, with the bowl TV. When I, when I got it. I mean, especially back then when I tried it, it was like, what, 2000? 17,018? Yeah. And like the model I was, I was, I was driving was like 40. $43,000 car and the, in there felt like a $20,000 car.

[00:23:08] So that's hard, that's a hard pill to swallow for this. This is a lot closer to it and also the price when we're going to get to that. But 

[00:23:16] Seth Weintraub: yeah. Yeah. So the seats another huge complaint from a boat owners, although I have to say, like I was in, like, I wasn't really in that campus, he'd seem fine to me.

[00:23:26]But the seats are much more luxurious. The inside's a lot better thought out. You can see from the pictures, it's just a much better experience inside. I actually got to sit in it seats felt way better. Yeah. 

[00:23:38] Fred Lambert: Outside support looks more significant. Yeah. 

[00:23:41] Seth Weintraub: Or lateral support, back support, all that stuff.

[00:23:43]So, you know, compared to the 2020 model, there's a lot of things to like but is it, you know, is it something that's going to be Yeah. Are a lot of people going to buy it? I mean, I think so. I think if Chevy put some marketing muscle behind it, I think they could do quite well there, but I don't, I still don't really know if they're making much of a profit on these, these guys.

[00:24:04] Fred Lambert: I mean, the prices are crazy. Where were the prices in there? Is that 30 

[00:24:08] Seth Weintraub: 1030 3000 for the EEV. 

[00:24:11] Fred Lambert: Yeah, not the wall more 32 33 34. Yeah. 

[00:24:16] Seth Weintraub: That's a, that's great. And then you throw us another 7,000 on that 

[00:24:20] Fred Lambert: and it gets good. Yeah. Yeah. Because of course, Jim doesn't have access right now to fill tasks. You did, but if it does get renewed, like we think it will, that's a cheap car.

[00:24:29] I mean, in, in California could cost you like less than $25,000 for a brand new. Both Evie and just a few thousand more for both UV, which is, I mean, not all, exactly what we expected, but like the same car, just a tiny bit, 

[00:24:49] Seth Weintraub: really a tiny bit bigger three inches more in the, in the back and like strangely they put three more inches in the front, right?

[00:24:57] Like, why wouldn't you, I don't know, keep the front and move more space in the back. I don't know. But yeah. It's definitely more roomy inside as well. And I think the big thing for me is that they have the super cruise option on the UV, which for me, that's a, that's a big deal. That's 

[00:25:13] Fred Lambert: an option.

[00:25:14] Do we know how much of the cost. 

[00:25:15]Seth Weintraub: I don't know if they broke it out, but there's a, you know, a version with, with super cruise and everything else. That's like 

[00:25:20] Fred Lambert: 43,000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well the launch edition. Okay. Yeah. Usually it's a $2,500 option. 

[00:25:26] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. Which is, you know, and Tesla's world where it's like 10 grand.

[00:25:31]That's pretty well. 

[00:25:32] Fred Lambert: I mean, let's be like, let's be fair. It, yeah. It's more like autopilot, which is included in the price. Right. And then while it's some other people are getting super cruises Dillard in the standard autopilot. So, which I don't know if I agree with that, but you don't need a long time.

[00:25:50] Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:25:52] Seth Weintraub: You can take your hands off, but at the same time, you can only go on roads that GM has blessed, which is 

[00:25:57] Fred Lambert: the driver monitoring part of it. 10 times better, the pilots and driver monitoring. But yeah, I mean, I w you know, what I'll do I think is gonna work great for the UV as if you, for, for Ubur drivers and taxis and whatnot.

[00:26:13]I mean, right. Rideshare. Drivers, I should say that's what most people use these days, because I remember like when when GM at the Maven thing, and they did that program for, for rideshare drivers with the bolt DV that was super popular and the, they were doing great. Like all the both TV drivers, the Uber drivers that were using the bull TV.

[00:26:33]That I talked to loved it. They said it's great financially. It makes a ton of sense too, with the driving electric and using that car for for the job. The only complaint is like, For your, your, your passengers are in the back seat and the bold TVs backseat is not bad, but it wasn't. Wasn't great either.

[00:26:52]You're going to have, like you said, three more inches. It's, it's a big difference for that. So if you're writing, if you're a lot of people are writing as passengers in the back seat the Bolty UVS is a great option. So I think the, and now with the price too, at $34,000, if you get I mean probably going to lease it more.

[00:27:10] I figured like most people lease they're bolted on by it, but I think it's gonna be the same thing for ride share owners. So drivers so you had that to it. I think I think it's gonna, it's gonna come through with the exact right pricing for that. 

[00:27:22] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. So there were two kind of downsides there too.

[00:27:25]One is like, Hey, it's you know, the bolt EVs and SUV. Why not all wheel drive? So I think a lot of people were hoping for all wheel drive that didn't happen. It's front wheel drive only. And the other kind of downer was that the charging speed, the DC fast charging speed fast is still 54 55 kilowatts, which is about half of the speed that most new cars are coming out at.

[00:27:51] And, you know, we, we asked GM about that and they were like, come on, you know, like what's, what's the problem. And they were like, look, we're trying to hit a price point here. You know, this is a dead end platform. We're not going to, you know, invest in, you know, a faster charging thing when we have the whole Altium line coming down the pike.

[00:28:08] That's just how it goes. So for, for people who are okay with that, who don't do a lot of road trips, no big deal. But you know, if you're, if you're expecting to charge, I think that quickly it's, it's going to be kind of a bummer. 

[00:28:20] Fred Lambert: Yeah. I mean, GM strategy on that front is pretty obvious at this point.

[00:28:23] Like they have the old CRM coming up and the bolt is obviously on a whole platform at this point with the older powertrain. And so we knew that it wasn't going to be updated with the new version, but if you look so we're thinking, all right, well, when are they gonna update it with the old cm? Then I went in all by Brett with that, because if you look.

[00:28:44] Everything that's going on. I mean, it's, it's a mid cycle update for the Chevy bolt, TV, and wall, and the launch for the UV, but it's very, very close vehicle, really. So probably going to run for another four years like that. And and during those four years, GM is mostly going to release more expensive vehicle with the Ultium platform.

[00:29:04] I mean, the armor heavy. For like starts 120 and doesn't go down to 180 for like three years or something. The Tad's lack w lyric and the other one that has a weird name and I forget and the, all those cars. Sell a stick are, are more are going to be more expensive. And it's gonna take a while for GM to come down in price with the LCM, like any new technology, really.

[00:29:27] And so, so by the time that the bolt's going to be due for a refresh or something I think, I think GM's going to introduce the OCM through it, or it might be like a refresh or they might do a whole. They might strap the whole bowl, TV all together and just launch a different vehicle in the same segment or something.

[00:29:47] Seth Weintraub: I hope they keep it. It would be nice. I think they could go really low end cause you know, the F the voltage, the LTMS come in like 50 kilowatt or a hundred kilowatt or 150 kilowatt, I think they could do a really low end 50 kilowatt, maybe, you know, 20 something thousand dollar bull out with the Altium, but, you know, quicker charging and some other nice stuff.

[00:30:06] Fred Lambert: Maybe yeah, maybe not 20, but 25 or something like that. That would still make sense. Like I like a nice car. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. All right. The not so good news, a Mercedes Benz can sell the lunch of the QC that gets you the altogether in the U S this week. So if you remember, the car has been around for a while now 2010 of 2019, really?

[00:30:31] It was launched then we both drove one, right? Yeah. Yeah. I went all the way to Norway to, to like the, normally the European automakers. They don't invite us to go drive their car in Europe unless they plan to launch it in the U S and the plan back then, once you launch it in the U S in 2020 but then early in 2020, they decided to push it to 2021.

[00:30:50] We are now in 2021 and The automaker confirm in the interview with Ulta blog that the following I'm quoting following a comprehensive review of market developments, they QC will not be offered in the U S for now. So they might change, but for now it's, it's it's canceled. So they don't have plans to do it right now.

[00:31:10] So unless some of those market developments that they didn't specify what they are change then then they won't launch. So. I mean, I, I th I think it's quite obvious what's happening here. It's the QC is sort of turning into a compliance car, which that's not a bad word. Like, don't use it. Hey, you know?

[00:31:29]But I mean, it's, it's just, it, it's not, the volume is just not there. Like, if it was, it wouldn't be a compliance car. If they had the volume, if they had the volume, they would ship it to the U S and try to surf for the U S. For sure. Like ADI, ADI has a higher volume where they each run like th th this would be a very competent equal with the heart of each one, but How do you invest in more in the higher volume production?

[00:31:50] And that's how allows them to sell a lot of them in Europe. Most of them are sold in Europe for sure, but they have enough volume that they send some to the U S they don't sell that much in the U S with silver. So some decent selves, a Mercedes is not there yet. They don't produce the vehicle and high enough.

[00:32:04]Capacity. So the, the sell it where it counts and for them to council a lot more in Europe because of the regulation there that forces them to have a higher mix of EVs and their fleets to lower their overall fleet emissions. So, yeah, we're not getting the QC, but it did confirm that the, they will bring the EQs this year to the U S so that's the sedan.

[00:32:26] Yeah. I mean, it's kinda weird. Like it shows you like, technically the SUV sells better in the us than, than a sedan. So why would you bring a sedan? The reason is that they are making it in a higher volume than they're going to be making another thing in the higher volume. It's a bigger vehicle program for them.

[00:32:43] Of course, though, the Mercedes is. Has an expertise in Sudan. I feel I did like the, they do have like the GLC and everything, great cars and whatnot, but I think like the, the S class it's kind of iconic and even really the C-Class do so the EQs is obviously going to be as class competitor. So, 

[00:33:00] Seth Weintraub: yeah, but I mean, we, we we both drove the QC and we, I, I don't know about you, but I thought it was a really nice ride.

[00:33:08] Yeah, it was a great car for sure to be. So, you know, there's a lot of people saying, well, Mercedes isn't competitive and, you know, with, with like Teslas in the U S and I do get that a little bit. Cause the mileage is so low comparatively, but I, you know, I also think like if they really wanted to sell here, they would, they would sell pretty good.

[00:33:29] Fred Lambert: I mean, just, just like we talk about the bowl. I mean, there there's some limitation that has longer range for sure. But with the charging, everything, it doesn't make it great for a road trips. I would argue that QC is probably not great for a road trip, Cedar, but I mean, if you're for a, for an around town SUV to get your kids to soccer and whatnot, like it's, it's, it would be a great car.

[00:33:50] And if you're a Mercedes owner already. I mean, it's, it's, it's the easiest transition ever for, from a Mercedes SUV to the QC, because it's very much a Mercedes car. Like they didn't cut any corners on that front and everything. And you get everything you'd expect in an SUV. It's just, and then Mercedes SUV is just electric.

[00:34:09] Yeah. All right. So last week we talked about, or two weeks ago, whenever when the Ford announced that they're doubling their electric vehicle investment to two. $22 billion through 2025. We noted that it's nice and everything, but you didn't, they didn't S didn't release anything concrete. What are you going to do with that money?

[00:34:30] Like you just said, double the inventor. $22 billion is going to be great this way. Give Elisa more concrete details, or at least for one of those $22 billion. One of those is, or is going to go to transform their their factory in cologne, cologne, Germany. So the, the, they already have a factory there, but they're going to reinvent it all to become an electric vehicle factory, bringing their first high volume EMV to market in Europe passenger car in 2023.

[00:35:02] So they didn't really reveal which one is going to be. A lot of people are assuming it's going to be the one with the MEB platform that they are supposed to have in partnership with VW. But it's going to be built right down. So that's not, that's not clear did any confirm that there was the immediate in the press release.

[00:35:18]But, and they also said that there a second vehicle is being considered for, to be built at the location of technology vehicles. So, 

[00:35:25] Seth Weintraub: yeah, I think Autocar a UK based website said something about a smaller Mustang, like vehicle that was based on the MEB platform which would make a lot of sense, like.

[00:35:36] You know, there's already a, we already know Ford in Europe is kind of in Germany, is going to be building a lot of MEB platform vehicles. So this, this is probably the you know, it's meant for that.

[00:35:51] Fred Lambert: Oh, yeah. There's also a release some goals that term of electrification shouldn't mention them real quick. They said that by mid 20, 26, a hundred percent of Ford's passenger vehicle range will be zero-emission capable electric or plug-in hybrid. So the way I interpret that is that for every model that they sell, they're going to have an all electric or plug-in version.

[00:36:15]Which it's never, I'm never impressed by that those kinds of announcements. Like, just to me, it sounds like an ionic, like where you have like the, the hybrid, the plug-in hybrid and which, which has never high deal. But anyway more significantly they did say that we'll be completely all electric by 2030.

[00:36:31] So that that's more exciting to me, for sure. For is also big in Europe, but also in the U S but in Europe they have a big commercial division. And they said that they will be zero emission capable, all electric drink again, or plug-in hybrid by 2024 across the commercial lineup. And the expect that two thirds of their cells will be all electric or plug-in hybrid by 2030 for the commercial side of the, or their business.

[00:36:59] So, I mean, not, not bad those are, those are good goals to have, I think in Europe I would like for, to have similar goals in the U S but if those are their goals in Europe, I would expect that it's not coming close to that in the us. And it should be. Yeah. All right. If you have any questions, put them in the comments right now, we're going to get to them in a second.

[00:37:17] We just have one more news item to discuss here and That's that's an interesting one here, like with the pack deals these days that are happening in the ed. Well, not a lot of them are getting very excited. Some of them are fine. Some others I'm like, yeah, we can just opportunistic that this one is not opportunistic, but it's one, that's more exciting to me for, for, for a few personal reasons, of course, because there are close to here.

[00:37:40] Like there they are located in Quebec, but I've been following Taiga fruitful for a long time. Tested their first prototype of their electric snowmobile back in 2018, I was really impressed by it and they improve on it a lot since, and now they're going public with a lot of money, so we should expect them to reach production volume production a lot easier with that without backup.

[00:38:04]So they're doing the reverse merger like everybody's doing right now. They're doing it with the can I core Genuity growth through founds? So that's trading on the Toronto exchange and the Neo exchange. I'm not sure is that, do you know that the new exchange is that for the U S people that they, so they could invest two in us dollars?

[00:38:20] I'm not 

[00:38:21] Seth Weintraub: familiar. I've heard the name. I just don't 

[00:38:22] Fred Lambert: know what it is. Yeah. Yeah, they're giving a hundred million dollars through the deal and they're going to be valued at 500 million, which is just significant for a company that's just starting now deliveries of their snowmobiles. But yeah, I'm excited to, I like the team, they, they kind of spun out of the, of the McGill university engineering program and the, the sun opportunity to electrify all power sports release, starting with a snowmobile, which is a very mission producing vehicle really.

[00:38:49] And But the, the figure, if you develop a power train, a good at it, you powertrain rubbish. And that first snowmobile and everything, you can leverage that and produce electric watercraft and eventually ATVs and, and all, all power sport vehicles. So that's what they want to do. And they're going public too to make that happen.

[00:39:07] So I chew a few bucks there away. If you want to do the same, we are not advisor financial advisor. You can do your own due diligence and everything. But I think, I think it's an interesting project and yeah, I can't wait to get on one of those general fund reviews, right? Yeah. I mean, as was jet skis, it's not a jet ski and selfishly a brand, but everybody calls them.

[00:39:28] Jet-skis, it's a personal watercraft, right? Yeah, they, they do look fun and I mean, they they're getting some great performance out of them. Like I don't like the snowmobile world is kind of a crazy one too. Like there's some people here that are just snowmobile nuts, like the, the leave and breeds snowmobiles.

[00:39:43] I never enjoyed it that much because of the sound. They have to be honest with you. The sound, the vibration is also pretty crazy, but the sound always killed me. Like you're, I mean, Your nature. I just went skiing through like in multimedia and my first time skiing in years, I'm like, this is beautiful.

[00:40:01] Like, wow. And then rural, crazy snowmobile rides by you. And like what? Like, it just, it kills like the moment in nature and everything and those ones. I mean, there's still a sound, especially if you. Crank them up a lot, because they are very high performance is zero to a hundred kilometers an hour in 2.9 seconds.

[00:40:19] And Erik motor does have a winding sound, but if you're just cruising and everything, and this is, this is very, very fun to use. So it's like it's the, the mission of the company is really to electrify power sports by. Bringing performance that you vehicles that have better performance than their gasoline powered counterparts.

[00:40:43] So it makes sense to, to, to to, to buy DHE version because they offer a higher performance. And at the same time, by doing that, you, you remove the emissions and the sounds from that power sport that enables you to enjoy it more and be one with nature. If you will. Yeah, exciting stuff. All right.

[00:41:01] So if you have any questions, let's, let's dive in right now. 

[00:41:05] Seth Weintraub: All right. First question from the Jose we were talking about the Greenville has really hope Tesla doesn't pump up the prices. Once the Greenville passes and $7,000 tax credit is up for grabs. That's 

[00:41:16]Fred Lambert: That would look bad. It would look crazy bad, but at the same time, when, when the credit went away, they did reduce the price.

[00:41:24] They hit the bullet there in the U S they reduced the price of their vehicles. So, I mean, I guess it goes both ways. But I doubt it, especially with now introducing that new, lower price with with the green bill being coming at very least like we, we know it exists. We think it's coming. So I don't think that's going to happen versus 

[00:41:45] Seth Weintraub: yeah, I hope not.

[00:41:47] Alright. Isaac Luttrell, they should put retroactive to January 1st in the bill draft bills. So people will keep buying. Isn't that the point to drive sales? Great point there. Yeah. 

[00:41:57] Fred Lambert: I completely agree with that, but again, I'll certainly extends for tax credit with every call deliver in the tax year and everything, but I don't know.

[00:42:05] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. He has a corollary to that big three auto don't want it retroactive. I have. I big three. What is big three anymore? 

[00:42:12] Fred Lambert: Yeah, this is bigger than all bakeries. 

[00:42:16] Seth Weintraub: So I think maybe Ford doesn't want that, but big three auto doesn't want it retroactive because you can't produce some would lose out to Tesla.

[00:42:24] Okay. Yeah, 

[00:42:24] Fred Lambert: for sure. Forwarding Chrysler and not completely on the, the, or the ones that are more certain vintage. Buy it right now. Yeah. The same time companies like, Aw, these two they've taken advantage of that right now. Like, okay. 

[00:42:37] Seth Weintraub: All right, Wayne. Oh, says the NTSB has regulations on steering wheels and only custom cars are allowed to have non-conforming steering wheels.

[00:42:44] I've heard some of that, but 

[00:42:47] Fred Lambert: apparently ambiguous. Yeah. Tesla is very confident that the butterfly will w w we be allowed to, so, 

[00:42:55] Seth Weintraub: all right. This is something we didn't talk about. Can you guys comment on Tesla, lease pricing for three and why I heard it's down $40 a month, or so, did we check that out?

[00:43:05] Fred Lambert: Yeah, I did. I did look at the pricing that they were updated in, in line with the w with when, when you sit down by $40 and that down. To get not down to but yeah, the, the, the, they were, they were updated in line with with the price decrease for the, if you buy the car, like in the purchase price.

[00:43:24]And yet they do make a lot of sense. And those are going to also be affected by the tax refund, the dust come in, though, because. If the car is leased and the automaker is allowed to take the, the, the tax credit there. So and apply that to, to the pricing of the, of the car over, over the least to the least price.

[00:43:44]So that reduced the price. It, I mean, I remember when when Chevy's still had access to the tax credit that both TV and like $142 a month. We lease at one point. So with the $37,000 price down the mall three, and if it goes get the 7,000 and the lease price in California would go will be pretty cheap.

[00:44:07] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. All right. Lou, so sailor says the old central and CX had a strange blinker knob to that's in reference to the new model S and X. Right. Blinker situation. 

[00:44:18] Fred Lambert: I don't know what that looks like. A knob and knob for a blinker. 

[00:44:23] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. For me, it's like, you know, that it has to be much better than the current situation for it to be worth changing because everybody drives normal cars or all the time.

[00:44:35] So I hope it's a lot 

[00:44:37] Fred Lambert: better. Well, the idea is like on the highway, you're using the power that the pod would pull the blinker by itself. Right. And then if you're driving, normally you have both hands on the steering wheel, you and your Tom's are going to be where to blinkers are anyway. So you just, boop, boop, boop, boop.

[00:44:54] Seth Weintraub: So you have a Deepak. All right. Chain of Sullivan says, have you seen the new FreeWire 120 kilowatt DC charge point that was installed in the UK last week with 160 kilowatt hours onboard battery looks really interesting and only requires 28. Kilowatt grid connection. 

[00:45:13]Fred Lambert: I'm aware of the three wires, a combination of battery and fast charging.

[00:45:17] I didn't know about a specific one installed in the UK, but yeah, I mean, a lot of, a lot of charging companies are looking into that now just due to have battery capacity too. Cause then you, you, you completely avoid so to speak charges that are 

[00:45:31] Seth Weintraub: yeah. Jacks up the price a little bit though. And obviously like if somebody's charging for, you know, that there's like a lineup of people willing to charge that 120 or 160 kilowatt hours doesn't show disappearing.

[00:45:42] Yeah. All right. Green gold says Chevy. Evie looks pretty nice for 33 K 

[00:45:48] Fred Lambert: yeah. I'm not a big fan of the front end to be honest. But other than that, I think, yeah, it's a big improvement. 

[00:45:55] Seth Weintraub: All right. What did I pass up here? Do you think Tesla will make a more affordable LFP Powerwall? 

[00:46:02] Fred Lambert: Good question. If it can get a lot of LFP batteries, maybe.

[00:46:07] I mean, a, I w Sonnen that use Lyft, I think, is that right? I think siren did use it FTE at some point, at least, or something close to that chemistry yet, but. Yeah. I mean if you could make sense for it, for, for wall. But I mean, anything you can do to not just, I mean, at this point they don't even need to make it more equitable.

[00:46:28] They just need to make more because people will buy that, that price. Of course, if they make more than they can make it more affordable too. So that's had a bonus. Yeah. 

[00:46:38] Seth Weintraub: All right, Brian says you need a full circle wheel for handling in case of emergencies. We can talk about that a little bit. 

[00:46:45]Fred Lambert: Not if you change the turning radius that you don't have to go all the way down, you just make it so that if you turn just that much on the wheel, well, it turns that much in a car and 

[00:46:54] Seth Weintraub: whatnot, and yeah, so we were talking about steering by wire at that point, which I think we saw previously Tesla had some like patents 

[00:47:02] Fred Lambert: or something like that.

[00:47:03] Yeah, I did. They've been working on that, but we didn't get, I think everyone assumes that that's in the mall ass right now. 

[00:47:08]Seth Weintraub: So back to we were talking about Texas being out of power. The culprit is Arthur K lode says the culprit is the fossil based death grip on Texas politicians, which. It seems pretty obvious to be true.

[00:47:21] I mean, even with Tesla making huge investments in Texas, they seem to still think that oil 

[00:47:27] Fred Lambert: and gas, I mean, I was shocked by the amount of people that were carbon dioxide poisoning. Accent. Yeah. Camera on the left side. Sorry. I'm poisoning. I was like that like hundreds and hundreds of cases happened since it was freezing and like, and Jamie had a good point where I was like, eh, I mean, that, that doesn't have to be your first thought, like let's.

[00:47:51] Start the car in the garage that makes no, first of all, everyone should know that you shouldn't do that. Like that's start with, but also that's even, even if you could, let's say it shouldn't be a first stop. Like just put some blankets, just put more, more close on it and like keep warm. But Jimmy was like, it's Texas.

[00:48:08] Your first thought is like, let's burn some fossil fuel. 

[00:48:12] Seth Weintraub: Yeah, it's funny. You know I'm in Vermont we snowboard all day, like literally out in zero degree weather all day long and don't even like, You 

[00:48:20] Fred Lambert: know, like it's snowboarding, you're like you're doing exercise and everything like it's warm through, but I mean, even then he can, it can be minus 10.

[00:48:29] And of course I'm, I'm better equipped than most people in Texas, but I mean, it gets, gets cold through in Texas. Like people have sweaters, they have blankets and whatnot. Like you can keep yourself warm. If you need to go start the car in the garage. Actually, it's not, it's not like, Oh, the report, it cannot afford blankets.

[00:48:47] You have a garage, you have a garage. You can afford blade kits. Yeah. It's kind of rough. I know I have a garage and I have blankets. All 

[00:48:57] Seth Weintraub: right, Wayne. Oh, says the government can't tax power. You can make stores. So there's no incentive for government to promote it. They can tax, building it. They can tax. I mean, electricity.

[00:49:08] They can. 

[00:49:10] Fred Lambert: So power is not tax it's tax for 

[00:49:13] Seth Weintraub: sure. But you're saying you can't tax solar power that you generate on your roof and bring into your house. 

[00:49:19] Fred Lambert: I mean, the, the, you, you, you could tax the, the power at the panels and everything that's already done really well, though. There's the ITC that controls that, but still, yeah.

[00:49:31] Seth Weintraub: All right. Let's move on. Chain of Sullivan. When you are heating your home with a heat pump, it will eat into the battery storage pretty quickly pulling between two to four kilowatts every hour.

[00:49:46] Yeah. I mean, heat pumps actually way, way more efficient than a resistive heating, which I think probably most people in Texas had, which is probably one of the big problems with the grid, which is like, it's not. They didn't really expect everybody to have to deal with like below zero degree weather with their electric heaters like Nana LOL, you could argue that any new car model coming out in 2022 should be adopting 800 volt batteries.

[00:50:15] Thoughts? 

[00:50:15]Fred Lambert: Depends on the pricing, I guess like right now what we're seeing is like every 800 volt vehicle is a lot more expensive. Like Tiken the e-tron GT and the more pneumo S 

[00:50:29] Seth Weintraub: yeah. The first inexpensive ones are Hyundai's. The ionic line is a 800 volt. I think 

[00:50:37] Fred Lambert: the new ionic one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we don't hold the prize for that just yet.

[00:50:42] Right, but we assume that it's not going to be okay. 

[00:50:44] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, the idea with 800 volt is it's half. You only need half the amperage, which means you need much smaller wires and you could theoretically charge it much faster. And those all seem like good things to do, but it's more expensive to have a higher voltage systems.

[00:51:01] All right. Did you have the opportunity to check the website and roads? Oh yeah, we didn't do that. Did you do that? I didn't do that. We didn't do our homework. 

[00:51:08] Fred Lambert: Sorry. Right. 

[00:51:12] Seth Weintraub: Tesla is smart. Says Brent. They are basically the VW of the 1930 sevens. If he can get every American driving one, he will indeed be a genius.

[00:51:21] All right.

[00:51:26] Moving on Justin Moore. When do you think there will be a largest electric SUV on the market other than the model X. Well, the 

[00:51:33] Fred Lambert: Caribbean, Caribbean, that's the new 

[00:51:35] Seth Weintraub: Caribbean. Yeah. It's big. And also a VW has got the ID. 

[00:51:39] Fred Lambert: What is it? Six. The six is pretty big too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's more of a Ford Explorer on the pilot competitor, I guess.

[00:51:46] Cause the ribbon is a little bit more expensive than that though. The ribbon will get the 7,500 tax credit if it's still there or the 7,000, if it's by them, but maybe 

[00:51:57] Seth Weintraub: it's got a third row, 

[00:51:58] Fred Lambert: right. Yep. Can get it through the whole thing on the, yeah. What do 

[00:52:04] Seth Weintraub: you think about getting a ribbon? Can I, can I maybe get that?

[00:52:08]

[00:52:08] Fred Lambert: Yeah, you were thinking like a different change. It like it, thank you. You can make some more sense to the youth to have the electric pickup for now. I can, I can wait. No, I'm not going to get the pickles, a big, big truck. Yeah, we were just still on my reservation 

[00:52:25] Seth Weintraub: and I would think we need the big wheels Hills in Vermont.

[00:52:28] All right. Pre-runner want to be says, do you think with the Sr plus price guide Sr model three buyers could upgrade to an Sr plus for less. 

[00:52:38] Fred Lambert: I don't think the SRE exists. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:52:43] Seth Weintraub: It was kind of phased out at the end of 

[00:52:44] Fred Lambert: last year. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think like, what we've been hearing is like, you can't really like get it and even, even if you could, like, it was $35,000, but the cut a bunch of things.

[00:52:55] And now at 37,000 or to like the things that you get for those $2,000 was like no-brainer. Yeah. So. 

[00:53:03]Seth Weintraub: What do we think of spark charge? Should Josh Aviv meet Joe Biden and produce millions of portable level three, Evie charters that fit in your trunk? 

[00:53:12] Fred Lambert: I don't, I don't get that, that much, this little thing like this portable I, a spark charge makes sense for me for like triple A's and, and, and things like that.

[00:53:20] Like that, that makes a lot of sense. Like all triple A's vehicles should have a spark charge or the equivalent of it and everything. But like, I only get like, people, you have a big battery and electric car is like, Oh, let's have some battery and efficiently the trunk so that they can charge it and like, stop, like.

[00:53:39] No. If, if Biden needs to do anything, it's more charger everywhere. Like you can get that. You don't have to carry the battery with you to get there. He is making a, I don't like that logic that people have. Like the only thing that makes sense, it's like, you're, you're going to desert, for example, like you really need to go.

[00:53:57] Through it, do you really need more batteries? I'll just put a spark charge in your back, the back of your truck and the echoes, but you're going to be less efficient doing that than just stopping at a charging station. So if you can start a subluxation, it's always a better solution. Yeah. 

[00:54:11] Seth Weintraub: All right. In regard to LFP Powerwalls K star uses cattle LFPs 

[00:54:18] Fred Lambert: lowercase store is 

[00:54:20] Seth Weintraub: I heard it.

[00:54:20] I 

[00:54:21] Fred Lambert: can't remember where I was like a rapper or something. 

[00:54:25] Seth Weintraub: I think you're thinking a Worldstar. Alright. No, I 

[00:54:27] Fred Lambert: mean, I know what the word is, but like, can you start, could be a rapper on WellStar. 

[00:54:32]Seth Weintraub: Taylor's Zeller Newman says will be interesting to see if aging vehicle programs, both leave ivory, et cetera, will continue to chase the higher range charging targets or start to lower MSRP and led future programs.

[00:54:44] Push on spec wise. 

[00:54:47] Fred Lambert: They don't need a ladder. I think. 

[00:54:49] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, Th those cars, the  in particular belief. I just 

[00:54:54] Fred Lambert: think that, well, actually it's pretty much dead. I think. Yeah. The, the, the leaf at the, I think it's going to go the, the second way lower prices and the REO and future Vico from Nissan's got takeover and GM, it's pretty obvious that's what's happening with that old cm and whatnot.

[00:55:11] Yeah, we talked 

[00:55:12] Seth Weintraub: about that before a little bit. The new bolt is certainly less exciting, but it is cool to finally see the price start to take down a touch. I mean, if you've been following the boat we have a page on electric about the prices they've been cutting the price of bolt for over a year now.

[00:55:25] Pretty pretty ever since the, the tax rebate disappeared, Chevy Chevy has been getting it down to around 30,000 anyway, so. 

[00:55:32]Fred Lambert: It's going to be interesting to see the price now of the old or the 20, 21, both like, cause it's still going, are they still producing it? Or even if they're not like whatever, then three is yeah.

[00:55:44] If you can 

[00:55:45] Seth Weintraub: get one of those, they're going to be quite inexpensive. 

[00:55:48] Fred Lambert: Yeah. Now you have a new one. Yeah. The new one that is not only better in a bunch of ways. It's also got cheaper at the MSRP. So. The MSRP or the other one. I mean, even the brand new one's going to have to go down. 

[00:56:03] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. There's going to be some very inexpensive old 

[00:56:06] Fred Lambert: site there.

[00:56:07] Oh yeah. 20,000 and things like that. 

[00:56:09]Seth Weintraub: The automakers should be pushing for solid state batteries, 

[00:56:14] Fred Lambert: for sure. 

[00:56:15] Seth Weintraub: For sure. Toyota electric Toyota. Alright. Electric blankets with blue lady power storage would have helped a lot in Texas. Well, You know, if you have a battery powered electric blanket, congratulations.

[00:56:30] You're not going to freeze to death. Electric blankets use very little energy overall. That's a good point. You know, if you're talking about keeping yourself warm, probably the most efficient way to do it, electrically is with an electric blanket, I guess if maybe you live in Texas and worried about the next storm, that might be a good investment.

[00:56:47] Fred Lambert: Hmm. I'll look into those weighted blankets. Love them. That's what I use. Yeah. Okay. 

[00:56:53]Seth Weintraub: Tommy says the new model S is 800 volts question. Do we need that? I think so. 

[00:56:58] Fred Lambert: No. Is it? I think so. Or at least the plaid version. 

[00:57:03] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. The plaid version. I think we got yeah. And, and frankly Tesla will move at, around its line in the years ahead.

[00:57:10]Interesting to see Volvo Eby trucks becoming very normal in Norway, as we've seen in Tessa, Bjorn's recent video with four trucks charging at ABB, 150 kilowatt high power chargers. I did see that 

[00:57:22] Fred Lambert: all that is though, but 

[00:57:23] Seth Weintraub: yeah, that's just one, one instance in one place in Norway. Yeah. 

[00:57:28] Fred Lambert: I'd like to know how many of them were delivered in Nori period at all?

[00:57:31] I don't think it's a very high number, but yeah, the Volvo is definitely the leader or leader of the middle on that electrification of, of a mid-sized trucks, commercial trucks. 

[00:57:41] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. And our last comment is bolt has horrible styling. I disagree. I was a boat owner for three years. I loved that car. I I'm thinking about getting another one.

[00:57:52] Was crazy. It was a good time. 

[00:57:55] Fred Lambert: All right, we're going to end it on that. Thanks everyone for listening or watching on YouTube, Facebook, the weather, wherever you're watching on your podcast app, we appreciate you and I'm going to see you. Same place, same time next week.

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