238: Junk in Your Trunk

This is the What Car EV Podcast for Thursday, August 28th, 2025, Episode 238, Junk In Your Trunk.

Guess what I saw?

I don't know.

A Yang Wang?

Oh man, that would have been interesting.

You know, I probably wouldn't have even known what it was if I saw a Yang Wang.

But no, I saw a Lucid Gravity on the road.

Wow.

Are they out?

I think so.

Well, I mean, I think like a VIP list have received theirs, but I didn't know they were

like, you know, being widely sold and distributed.

I mean, I have no idea if they're being widely sold and distributed, but I'm driving

along and sure enough, there it is.

Did you mistake it for a Chrysler Pacifica?

It was pretty unmistakable.

The second I saw it on the road, I knew exactly what it was.

Now we've seen it in person at a car show.

This was way smaller in person on the road than I remember seeing it at the LA Auto

Show.

But it definitely is not a head turner, you know, but it's definitely got its own style.

It's very distinct.

It's not like we were talking about with the Tesla's where it was like generic future

mobile.

It has definitely got its look, but I would also say things like the Vinfast has its

own look.

Now, whether or not you think that's good or bad, you know, I've actually seen

a few of those surprisingly, yeah, they're they're all kind of handsome vehicles.

You know, it's I didn't see it and go, whoa, you know, I said, whoa, because I didn't

have any idea that they were being so older.

Yeah, you know, I didn't look at the plate.

I didn't get to see the plate.

So, you know, for all I know, it was manufacturer car and I just happened to

see them.

So pretty cool, though.

Whatever it was.

I'm Phil Royal.

I am one of the co-hosts here on the podcast.

I'm the guy who tells you every week to go to youtube.com slash at the

walk car and watch our smiling faces and then leave comments there.

I used to give an email address.

I don't do that anymore because YouTube is the new email, I guess.

For us, at least.

But yeah, I've been doing content and stuff for many moons

more than I care to say.

And this week, I guess I've outlived auto week.

Yeah, sadly.

Yeah.

So in the ever shrinking world of automotive journalism.

I'm still standing.

Yeah, independence.

Yeah, we're better for us.

The only way you can keep doing this is to be independent.

Tell me about your independent self.

My independent self.

I am a podcaster four plus years with my steamed colleague.

Who's that? Oh, that's you.

Do you have another podcast?

You've got an esteemed person.

What?

So anyway, day job, automotive, no, that's my side hustle.

Day job, automotive electronics industry analyst.

And yeah, I've been doing this a while, but currently podcaster.

I don't know.

I would say extraordinary.

But yeah, I'll just send it with my.

Some people think we're a chore.

So anyway, I'll leave it at that.

OK.

Have you got junk in your trunk?

Do I have junk in my trunk?

You know, interesting question.

Because in my garage, there was a.

OK, so there was an article.

You sent this to me.

It's Ars Technica about.

Junk filled garages and is that hampering EV adoption.

And one guy thinks it is.

Tell me about it, because I.

I don't quite get this.

And I also like.

I assume it's about installing the chargers.

And that's an easy place to install them.

I know in my area.

There's a lot.

There are a lot of junky garages where people can't park.

But there are not as many, but there are quite a few where

they've got their nice car parked in the garage.

Like a guy a block from me has his Viper GTS parked in there.

There's a guy with an old like 50s style.

Looks like it's out of happy days car.

There's a Camaro drag car, like two houses down from me with big old slicks and everything.

I've got a road race car that sits in my garage.

There's just a lot of enthusiast stuff that goes on where I'm never going to pull

my race car out parking on the street.

So I can put an EV in the garage like that's non-negotiable.

And it's the same thing with the guy with his 60s Camaro drag car

and the guy with the Viper and all this stuff.

Like those are not coming out.

So whether it's junk or not.

But the premise of this was everybody's got junk in their garage.

And why is that?

Why is that stopping people from?

EV charging?

Like, I don't get it.

I think the premise is it's.

People are making assumptions on like suitability based on their circumstance.

And I guess I've actually met the author of this study, Sam Abul-Sameed.

Oh, I didn't realize he wrote this.

All right, that gives it a little bit more creep.

Yeah. So anyway, I mean, so he's, you know, he's got his opinions.

He's, you know, consider a really smart guy by a lot of people.

Oh, everything I like, yeah, everything I know about him.

He's usually right on target.

But this I saw him was like, I don't.

I mean, Tim, well, it's.

He comes from a very specific viewpoint of this that I'm not sure I completely agree with.

Anyway, TLDR, he thinks that there are basically outlets buried in people's

garages that some people aren't even aware of because they're covered.

Basically, they're covered with junk or they have mystery breakers on their panel.

They don't even know what they do or where they go.

I am one of those people.

I do have breakers that I don't know where they go to.

So so according to the study that Sam published, I guess, along with some others.

Yeah, so it's actually written by somebody else, but then it's looking through it.

Well, the firm is called Telemetry.

Yeah, so so Sam Abul-as-Sameed.

Sameed, I should know how to say his name.

He's the one being interviewed in this.

Anyway, he there, the study claims 90 percent of all houses can add a 240

volt outlet near where cars could be parked.

So that seems feasible enough, but there there are a lot of variables to this.

Anyway, the study claims creating garage space would increase the number

of homes capable of EV charging from 31 million to more than 50 million.

And so this one, you got to kind of parse the words a little bit says,

when houses are included where the owner thinks it's feasible to add wiring,

the number grows to more than 72 million homes.

So yeah, however, there is an asterisk to this.

And they cited an NREL study, which is the National Renewable Energy Labs,

which I'm surprised is still operating and are under the current administration.

But anyway, don't don't say it too loud.

Exactly.

It's according to NREL, it says almost 34 million

of these homes will require, quote, extensive electrical work

to upgrade their wiring panel scope, the added demands of the level two charger,

which they classify as at least 30 amps.

I have thoughts with this because I've been kind of on the edge cases

of many of these kind of scenarios they give.

So in my last house, I actually parked predominantly outside

even though my charger, the charger outlet was inside

and I just ran the cord under the garage door.

So I don't I don't really fit in any of these categories from that standpoint.

Now, I can tell you when you came to my house

and we ran the cord underneath the door, the door wouldn't close.

So I was stretched to it.

No, it just the door sat really close to the concrete.

So I would have had to have not to.

I mean, if I had the car, then I would just not the door.

It like it wouldn't be a big deal.

But just when I was doing it with you, I'm not going to notch my door.

Just just for me. Yeah.

Was one or two times a year I come to visit. Yeah.

So so there was that.

So in terms of upgrading the wiring.

So both of my houses were 100 amp panels

and both of my outlets were 30 amp

to 240 volt, 30 amp

and neither time

did the electrician seem to have any concern about.

Oh, you got to upgrade your to a 200 amp panel or anything.

They said, yeah, it's fine.

So say you were doing it on a 100 amp panel.

Yeah, in both cases, yeah.

And I don't.

Now, the way it was done in each instance was slightly different.

I mean, in both cases, it was a dedicated circuit, but

one that the breaker one, the breaker was on the main panel.

They just added a 30 amp breaker.

The other one, the breaker was separate and dedicated.

It was still kind of on the same panel, but kind of.

Different. I'm not an electrician.

I didn't see you behind the scenes.

So I don't know exactly how they did it,

but in neither case did they did the electrician seem to be alarmed or say,

oh, you got to do this massive upgrade.

They just, yeah, we'll just pop it in there.

Bada boom, bada bing done.

Yeah. So I.

So 34 million homes will require

extensive electrical work to upgrade their wiring, maybe.

But I think.

I think some analysts and electricians are probably overstating the need for upgrades.

The main thing you got to look for is, like, overall, like household.

Basically, the right way to do this would to be to do a household energy analysis.

Look at the previous month's bills over, I don't know, however long a period.

Let's say probably, I mean, ideally, probably over a year or two.

Yeah, for the seasonal differences when the conditioning.

Yeah, when the solar people come to your house,

they want to look at a year's worth of bills.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

If you really wanted to be like nerdy and scientific about it,

you do an analysis of a year's worth of bills accounting for, like I said,

the seasonal differences in energy use, so on and so forth.

Also, also the time of day you're charging typically.

Now, a lot of people are saying with with the advent of data centers

and a lot of they're going to change.

So time of use right now is typically 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Basically overnight that could be shifting to more

toward daytime in the future.

But that's kind of beside the point.

I think we almost did an entire podcast on that at some point along the way.

Yeah, so anyway, but if you're I mean, if.

You know, if I'm plugging in, I'm starting charging, let's say it.

At say one or two a.m. through through six or eight a.m.

I'm not using a lot of other power.

So basically, if your car is pulling most of that power,

but you're asleep most of that time, you're not really stressing out

your the overall capacity of your panel.

Now, if you're doing that, running the AC, you know,

cooking spaghetti, you know, run and washer and dry or everything else.

Yeah, potentially you could stress out your panel.

You could, you know, cause the main breaker to flip and, you know.

So I don't know.

I think I mean, I think aware.

I think the biggest thing this study points out to me is awareness

because I think a lot of people, especially they've been in the house for a while,

if they move some of their junk, move some stuff off the walls,

you might say, Oh, what's this?

I've got an extra outlet here.

One of my friends was looking to buy a truck.

He ended up buying a tundra, not a lightning.

That was he was looking for the lightning.

But he he said, you know, I asked about charging.

He had a 200 amp panel and I was like, do you have two 20 in your garage?

And him and his wife are like, I don't know.

Like they we went and we looked and they didn't have.

They ended up not having two 20 in their garage, but they didn't.

They looked at the different plugs and they didn't know what anything is.

Like they don't know.

So to then they even need an electrician to just come out

and tell them what the difference is between like 120 and 240 versus, you know,

like they don't I went and looked at their panel, told them kind of what they had.

And I was like, yeah, you know, you need to get somebody to run a wire,

but it wouldn't be that hard.

But like they just don't know.

And so basically they had the capacity, but it wasn't built in.

Yeah, is what you're saying.

But I don't think it would have been hard either

because it was like one wall away, the run wouldn't have been very long.

It would have cost money.

But, you know, but the point there is that they were looking at plugs.

They didn't even know.

Yeah, like to them, a plug's a plug's a plug.

Yeah. And I think that's probably your average person.

Yeah. No, I mean, I think the consumer awareness level on this is pretty low.

I don't think most major automotive brands, unless they're

EV specific, like Tesla, like Rivian, like Lucid,

necessarily does a very good job educating.

They're just say, well, you know, here we throw, you know, a charger in the trunk

and, you know, there you go.

And then they say, wait, this plug doesn't match the wall plug.

And, you know, they don't know.

Yeah, or you plug in.

There was an article where somebody, some I think she bought a leaf or something.

She wrote some article about it.

She like got home and discovered it was like five days to charge it.

That yeah, from a wall plug.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because she was actually because I think it was actually Machi.

Was it? Is that what it was?

Yeah, I if I remember correctly, it doesn't even really matter what it was.

It was a time to charge 60 hours.

Yeah. And was like, she's like, what?

Because you just don't know.

It's just something that you just like.

I think a lot of people probably think that a level can't really distinguish

early, early on EV, like when you're getting EV curious

or maybe even just bought your first one.

You might not know the difference between a level two and a level three

when you go to like a shopping mall

that you just go, oh, that's going to charge it fast

because I'm at a destination.

I am at somewhere out.

That's a charging area you plug it in and it's eight hours to full.

And you're like, wait a minute.

I think there's just so much education that's needed.

And that sounds kind of stupid.

But at the same time, I think it's very real.

I think people just don't know, especially when you get to NACS.

This is a whole rabbit hole because now you don't even know

based on the size of the plug.

I can't even tell you, oh, if it's big and bulky

and you can't really lift it and bend the cord or plug it in

like it's really difficult, that's going to charge you fast.

Whereas if it's easy to put in, then it's going to charge it slow.

Like at least with CCS, you could say that with NACS.

You're like, yeah, the plug-in looks the same.

Yeah, the cord is usually a little thicker on level three.

Yeah, but it's it's a lot more difficult to describe the same.

So it's like, yeah.

So, you know, I don't know.

I don't I'm not going to say he's wrong.

I'm not going to say he's right.

I think it really I'd say it really is a case by case basis.

I think what's going to make the difference is is adoption increases,

which, you know, if you listen to the mega narrative, it's like

EVs are falling off a cliff.

It's all going to be a bunch of rolling cold, you know, diesel's and all that.

Whatever, I think as consumer curiosity increases for EVs,

awareness will also increase.

And also, too, I don't know if this is national,

but certainly like in California and other more,

I guess you call politically progressive states,

they're basically mandating 240 volt outlets and garages in new construction.

Yeah.

So I think their base code is basically mandating.

I want to say 1450 outlet and garages now going forward

or at least a 1450 circuit where you could hard wire, you know,

you know, Tesla or whatever, you know, wall charger like permanently installed.

So and, you know, depending on how enthusiastic, again,

this varies by individual dealerships, believe it or not,

there are some franchise dealerships that sell quite a few EVs

and have like EV specialist salespeople

that are really knowledgeable and enthusiastic about this.

That is not the general rule.

It seems overall they're kind of like, hey,

let's get you into this V8 Silverado over here.

But yeah.

Well, no, so this article, I'm going to go and actually read it now

because I thought it was about people parking their cars in their garages

and that that would be better for charging.

It sounds like that's not what it's about at all.

And then it's about awareness.

It's about it's about physically finding the plug in the in the garage

and seeing if it works.

And yeah, so I now all of a sudden I think this is a great article.

So, yeah, I don't know.

You changed my mind, Ed.

There you go.

So varies, you know, by case and by person, you know.

And I think over time, consumer awareness will change on this.

Because I mean, you think in the early days of cell phones,

you know, micro USB versus lightning versus, you know, USB-C.

And now everything's kind of converging around USB-C.

And you typically, if you say that most, if you say USB-C,

people will know what you're talking about.

Yeah. Whereas in the early days, you're like, I don't know.

You know, yeah.

Well, meanwhile, though, you've got legacy items

like the headphones I'm wearing now.

If you go to youtube.com slash at the walk car,

you'll see the headphones I'm wearing now.

These are powered and they charge with like a micro USB or something.

It's one where it's like longer at the top and shorter at the bottom,

but skinnier, not that it's like one that it's a standard

that didn't last very long, that it was like between the mini and and USB-C.

And so it's like the chat-a-mo of headphones that I'm wearing now.

Oh, no, it's actually USB-B, believe it or not.

It's like, I don't even know.

And it's still this is really bizarre.

The one application that's still common is printers, believe it or not.

My scanner uses the same thing like I can use.

I can charge my headphones and I can use a lot of them are USB-B,

which is a really oddball. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Moving on.

Yeah, let's scoot through some of this stuff here.

We've got BID, Yang Wang, Unine, Track Edition,

sets new EV top speed record, which I was like, eh.

And then I saw that it was 293 miles an hour.

So they're pushing the triple Benjamin.

That's yeah, that's a lot of air to be pushing.

Yeah, well, it's also has a lot of power.

This is also the 3,000 horsepower

Bugatti color that we were talking about a couple of episodes ago.

I assume this is a quad motor, quad motor, yeah,

with 3,000 horsepower.

It's a lot of power for a motor.

So, I mean, doing the math, that's what.

I was a major 750, yeah, 750, yeah.

Seems like a lot.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's a lot.

I guess it was certified.

They did this at the Pappenberg test track in Germany.

I guess. Sure. Why not?

I guess it was officially certified and they, they, you know,

this is a legit record.

Makes you wonder.

Remember the footage, I think it was the Hellcat or something.

They had that thing.

It did like a zero to was it or maybe it was coming.

I don't remember.

It was one of the muscle cars, big V8.

And somebody put a camera on the fuel gauge

while they were doing like a Nürburgr, not Nürburgr.

And you can literally see it moving.

Yeah, they were on like in Germany, like on

you know, one of the things and you could watch this thing go.

And it was something like seven minutes to empty, something like that.

It just, you just watch in this YouTube video, just the needle as it moved.

And you're like, whoa, I imagine it's the same thing

with the power graph on this Yang way.

Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, this is not in the green area of the, you know,

how they get a little leaf on some of the dashboards.

And say you're driving green.

Maybe it's like a red dragon or something.

Yeah.

So Mercedes AMG GT double X concept.

Yeah. So this is the one I think we might have mentioned this episode or two ago.

Still concept prototype.

But I guess they ran these at the Nardo track in Italy, which is pretty famous.

So I if you read the articles, confusing, because they set multiple records.

So they I guess they ran two cars.

But they ran them for more than 24 hours.

I think they ran it over like, I think seven or eight.

Yeah, under just under eight days.

So in 24 hours, they covered over 3, 3, 400 miles.

And I guess for the full course, they basically I want to say was like

24,000 miles or something, which is basically this circumference of the earth.

Yeah.

And the average speed.

So, you know, we've talked a little bit about hypermiling.

And, you know, I remember what was it, the Silverado EV,

how they got over a thousand miles out of one charge.

They were averaging like 20 miles an hour.

Yeah. Yeah.

They were a little faster than that.

You can, but should you?

Yeah. Well, this one they averaged a little over one hundred thirty six

one hundred thirty six miles an hour.

They reached speeds up to one hundred eighty six.

So they basically went all out except for pit stops for fast charging.

And this thing has a nine hundred kilowatt.

Charging capacity, which is great, Scott.

That is one point twenty one gigawatts.

Yeah, it's getting up there.

Yeah. Actually, you know what?

One point twenty one gigawatts is not far off from.

No.

So, yeah.

So this thing was moving fast, charging fast.

I mean, maybe not quite Yang-Wang level, but it's it's up there.

And I like the way this one looks.

Yeah, it is the most important part of this whole story.

It's it's it's kind of the way it looks.

Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of retro looking.

Actually, Mercedes had a concept, I think from the 70s

that looked really similar to this.

It was very kind of kind of sporty.

Had kind of the low set grill with the the tri-star.

So, yeah, it's really cool looking.

Yeah, I don't I don't like all of it, but I like as a whole.

I think this car is a winner.

Well, it's definitely.

I think if you were to see one of these on the streets, you wouldn't.

I mean, you were talking how, you know, when you saw the gravity,

which, you know, it's kind of.

Yeah, it got your attention, but I mean, I think only because we're EV nerds.

We're like, oh, that's a gravity.

Nobody else in the car was with turned ahead.

But I think this like anyone that looked at this would be.

What is that? You know, that's kind of wild looking.

Anyway, I think it's bright orange.

Yeah, price, who knows who cares?

I'm going to guess at least a quarter million.

Yeah, if it ever.

More than I can afford. Yeah.

Speaking of another car, I probably will not be able to afford

in my lifetime, barring mega millions.

The 2026 Porsche Cayenne EV, so I guess a small handful of elite

journalists of which we are not of that group were invited out

to a top secret location to experience it.

So what do we know about it?

We know it will have over a thousand horsepower

in the top of the line turbo model.

So it's going to have one Yang Wang motor.

Yeah, basically 800 volt architecture, battery capacity.

I saw little conflicting reports.

Car drivers saying 108 kilowatt hours.

I've seen 113 in other places.

So I don't know if that's usable versus total.

I don't know. Yeah.

Claim 10 to 80 percent charging in 16 minutes, not bad.

This is going to be the first Porsche with the NACS port in North America.

Seventy seven hundred pound towing capacity, which sounds

somewhat impressive, I guess, but that's pretty standard for that class of vehicle.

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah.

I mean, you look at like Range Rover.

Yeah, all of them.

It's it's around a ball.

It's going to get the job done. Yeah. Sure.

And so I guess Porsche a couple of years ago had like really

I would say a lot of auto makers had really ambitious eV goals.

They kind of scaled those back a little bit.

So I guess the plan now is you're going to continue selling

the inter combustion Cayenne model for until roughly about 2030.

And at that point, the plan, at least now, is to go all EV.

The plan is no plan.

That plan is let's see what sells.

Yeah. Yeah.

They have managed to the one thing that people have managed to impress me with

our manufacturers have been able to impress me with just recently is

how fast they are able to pivot.

I've always viewed auto manufacturers as giant ships.

You know, you just can't turn them that you're on this trajectory.

And the one thing that seems to have happened in the last five or six years

is they've shown that they're very agile on certain things when they want to be.

When they want to be when they can be very agile.

So they can go from oh, we're going all EV to oh, no, we're not.

And maybe maybe I'm just not seeing other things that are in the works

that like they went, oh, we're all RV EV.

And then what I don't see is in the engineering department,

them go, we don't know how to do this.

And so they maybe the tides turned at the same time

that they realized that they couldn't actually engineer something

at the price point that they needed to with the technical technological needs.

And maybe that just all like coalesced and came together at the same time.

But it looks like to me from the outside that they can all

that they can actually pivot if they want to.

So I think you you touched on something and what you just said

that's that's very poignant.

It's a lot of times it's not so much the capability.

It's the cost and the profit margin.

So you can build a rematch in a vera, you can build a lucid air sapphire.

But can you do it profitably, you know, and at a price

most people are willing to pay or can afford.

So it's not so much.

Oh, can we build an amazing car for two million dollars?

Of course you can.

Can you build an amazing car for thirty five to forty five?

A little harder.

Yeah, possible. Yes.

But a little more of a challenge.

So I think that's now for premium brand like Porsche,

it's not as big of a consideration.

I mean.

I mean, you can find McCons for over a hundred thousand dollars.

So my guess, they they haven't announced pricing on this.

My guess is this is going to is going to start around a hundred thousand.

I would guess a fully loaded Cayenne is probably going to push

if not exceed two hundred thousand.

So for that buyer, it's like who cares, you know?

Yeah.

And Porsche for a long time is I don't know if it's still the case,

but had the reputation of the industry as being one of the highest

margin brands in the auto industry in terms of profitability.

So, you know, when you're not constrained to a budget

quite as much, you can do more things.

Bottom line, specs on this sound pretty awesome.

Sounds like this is going to kind of be in the same league as the the gravity

Model X plaid if we still care about that.

I don't know.

And I really like the idea of selling Navy and an ice version side by side

so we can see the comparison in sales.

We can see the comparison in price.

We can see the comparison in specs.

I like that during this interim period, I really like that.

It's it's easy to make to say, oh, well, you know,

I don't know, I can't think.

And in a strange way, it makes it easier to compare stuff from our perspective.

Well, and only that.

And I don't know how often this is going to play out.

But it could be an interesting kind of side by side for consumers

that aren't really where is, let's let's say some guy drives the V8 Cayenne says,

oh, this is pretty nice, sounds good, pretty fast.

And if the salesman is so motivated, you might say, you think this is fast?

Drive this. Yeah.

And they'll put him in the EV and I'll be like, oh, my God.

Yeah, you think this top of the line Cayenne ice vehicle is fast?

Let's go drive the base model EV Cayenne.

Yeah.

And what's funny is you're already kind of seeing that a little bit

with the charger EV, which initially, you know, kind of went over with the lead

balloon because, you know, all the bubbles when they're hemmies and Hellcats and all that.

But I saw one like Mopar Influencer, I guess, if you want to call him that,

who I guess he was able to get a charger EV from Dodge

and he had a buddy with like a totally tuned Hellcat, like a thousand horsepower

and on paper, the charger EV only has safe only.

This is how spoiled we've gotten six hundred seventy horsepower,

which, you know, compared to the Yang way, it's nothing.

But anyway, and he was smoking this other guy's

thousand horsepower Hellcat up to like probably like 90 miles an hour.

And that guy was like, dang, that thing is fast.

Yeah. No, I can believe it.

Because when I was testing the Hellcat lineup,

the one thing that you couldn't get on the Hellcat

challenger or charger was traction.

Yeah. So it's a 90 miles an hour.

There's there's no traction like that's happening.

So anyway, so yeah, we'll see how it plays out.

But yeah, kind of sounds sounds pretty cool.

I don't know if we're going to chance to drive one, but maybe.

Let's go through the last couple items and then get on out of here.

OK. Let's see.

Scorange, RJ Scorange, the chief dude at Rivian,

where I'm seeing more and more rivets recently, a lot of R1S is around

that they says it doesn't take, quote unquote, a huge amount of imagination

to envision an R2 pickup.

Nope. Yeah, I agree with him.

So I guess this was in a pot.

I don't know if we're supposed to mention rival podcast, which are podcasts.

So we'll do what we want.

We'll include a link to the show notes.

So on the Inside EVs podcast,

I guess they they were fortunate enough to have them on.

And yeah, he said, yeah, some we could do.

But from the sound of things,

it sounds like their main priority right now is getting the SUV launched

and presumably after that, I'm hoping because I kind of want one still.

R3 will come after that.

And then potentially variations thereof of R2, R3.

And I guess they even mention R4, R5, which

who knows what those are going to be?

Eventually, they'll have to change their naming convention

because once you get to like R10 or 15, I don't know, eventually.

I think it would be like RX,

but then you get a cease and desist from Mazda.

Yeah, I guess by the time they get to the chance,

it might solve itself because by the time you get to like the R10,

the the name might not be Rivian on the back of the car.

Well, we shall see.

Yeah.

So do you remember when the Yoke first came out on the Model S?

I do.

I think you were out with a picket sign.

Yes, and I had strong opinions about it.

So they they did that for a while,

and then they realized a lot of people didn't like it.

And then they reverted back to the good old standard round steering wheel.

So this is kind of come in full circle.

So you remember with the early Model 3

Highlands, they went with the stockless steering column.

Yep. So they basically shoved all of the controls

either between the touchscreen or the steering wheel.

And they got a lot of pushback on that,

specifically for the turn signal stock, because

and this is kind of a specific use case.

But some people said

if you're in a turnabout on round about around about in Europe,

like trying to do the turn signals on the wheel

while doing the roundabout is really tricky.

Yeah.

So it's easier to do it with with the stock

and, you know, to signal to get in and out of the roundabout.

Anyway, I guess if you have a stockless

Highland and you want the turn signal reinstalled,

that Tesla will do that for you, of course, for a price.

So right now they're just doing this in China, but this could go global.

So for $350, they'll put a stock back on your car.

You remember a few years ago, it was BMW

who started charging for heated seats and that went over.

Not well. Yeah.

And people were like, I'm not going to pay for something like that.

Like I'm not going to pay a month.

We're Audi for dual dual zone climate control.

Yeah, they were charging like a monthly.

And it's some will only that on the Audi.

It said you do not have this feature.

It actually. Yeah.

And so they were trying to nickel dime, nickel dime, nickel dime.

Is this Tesla admitting they're wrong?

Or is this them being?

Are they crazy or crazy like a fox?

And have they discovered the way to make extra money?

People are going to buy these cars anyway.

No stocks isn't going to make somebody not buy the car.

But you can get some additional revenue

if you take away a feature and then two years later,

you sell the feature to them and people will pay you another 350 bucks.

I mean, and then when they're in, I mean, then you can be like,

ah, you know what?

You should probably get your the gear reduction oil changed

or the, you know, the the battery coolant changed or something.

You know, so you're saying Tesla is just like the old old style dealerships.

I'm wondering like I'm looking at this and they did it with the steering wheels.

Now they've done it with the stocks.

Is it the kind of thing where are they admitting they're wrong

or are they playing this like crazy?

Are they playing 4D chess that people like to talk about now where it's like,

OK, we'll take this away because we know they'll be outraged,

but people will talk about us and no such thing as bad press, which there is.

But the people will talk about us.

It keeps our name in the in the press that we don't need to advertise as much

or anything, and then people will sell them the feature

that they should have had when they originally bought the vehicle.

We'll charge them extra money.

They could come in. We can upsell, like you said, the old dealer model.

I don't know.

I think this is an admission of we screwed up without admitting we screwed up.

There will be some people that won't care.

That might say, oh, yeah, I would have preferred if it had a stock,

but I'm not going to pay extra for it.

Yeah, I wouldn't.

But there are no matter how much I hated it, I would not give them extra money.

To get some people might say, no, this really bugs me and I'm going to pay for this.

Yeah, just like I paid for the puddle lights,

even though that's not really totally apples to apples.

But yeah, I would almost say that it was like the the turn signal was a turn signal.

I know you had to pay to fix the turn signal problem.

The blind spot monitor.

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was that with the one blowout?

They gave you that.

But then they gave it to you like you got that as a free

software update where it suddenly did blind spot monitor.

But when they did that, they did it with a part

that was problematic that you needed to pay them for.

Once again, four D chess that they're playing.

Well, I mean, something that then required you to pay them

in order to get it to the way that it should be.

But the funny thing is that flaw was not revealed until they activated that.

Yes, but they knew about it.

There's no way they didn't.

There's no way prior to that.

I didn't even know because they didn't have a future.

But when they activated it, I'm like, man, that's annoying.

Lights, they knew when they released it onto your model car

and all the cars that had that like light leak issue on the turn signals

that would affect the blind spot camera.

They knew that there was light leak issues.

There's no way they didn't.

And if they didn't, of course, it's scary.

I mean, and that's why they denied my warranty claim, as they said,

oh, this is working as intended.

Yeah. So just give us a few hundred bucks and we'll fix it for you.

OK, so I think.

I I've not been one to buy into like conspiracy theories,

but I'm beginning to like my conspiracy theory that I just came up with.

The Tesla's nickel and diming us after the fact.

They've come out with a way to nickel and dimming, yeah, as a recurring.

This is their recurring.

So BMW had a revolt when everybody

had to suddenly pay a monthly fee to get heated seats here.

They're doing it just in a slightly different way.

They're doing it with broken parts.

Yeah. And they said, oh, we'll sell you the upgraded ones,

but not for free.

Yeah, I need I need a hashtag for this conspiracy theory.

And then we'll have a movement.

We'll have to think of it.

Yeah. All right.

I want to call it a day.

I've got things to do other than shitty chat.

All right. We just chitty chatted.

We just chitty chatted. Yeah, we did.

Anyway, more to come.

We may we may or may not take a break next week.

There is a chance we're 50 50.

There may not be an episode next week.

If there is not an episode next week,

that will be the first time in 230 that would be 239 episodes.

There'd be the first episode since we started 238 episodes before

where we skipped a week, which is just shocking

that we somehow managed to do this.

But I don't know. I mean, we may try.

We're we're going to try.

But, you know, don't be surprised.

We'll be back the week after if we're not here next week.

You can find us in on all the social media is in the meantime.

And you can while we if we take the week off,

you don't take the week off.

You share us on social media.

Share the podcast that you will find links at the walker.com.

And you can go back to your house.

Yeah, I watch the old oldies.

Go back to episode one is amazing.

I don't amazingly bad.

Yeah. Yeah.

So let's just call it a day at that.

I'm I'm happy with the way that episode went.

So we'll put a bow on it and end it here.

See you.

238: Junk in Your Trunk

Lucid Gravity

Chrysler Pacifica

Chevrolet Camaro

Dodge Charger

Toyota Tundra

Ford F-150 Lightning

Chevrolet Silverado

Challenger Hellcat

Chevrolet Silverado EV

Porsche Cayenne

Land Rover Range Rover

Lucid Air

Tesla Model X

Dodge Challenger

Toyota A90

Rivian R1S

Rivian R2

Tesla Model S

Tesla Model 3

About this episode

Original notes