The discussion covers Tesla's Model Y price cut amid no refresh this year, and highlights automakers' Super Bowl ads, with Volkswagen's electric bus teaser driving significant search interest. GM's Chevy Equinox EV pricing and range details are revealed, alongside Toyota's leadership shakeup at Daihatsu due to safety test rigging. Chrysler's futuristic Halcion electric sedan concept is examined, while Stellantis adopts the J3400 charging standard. BYD's affordable Seagull EV launch in South America is analyzed, including its limited US crash compliance. Finally, a former GM truck exec shares insights on the Cybertruck's appeal to traditional truck users, comparing it to the shift to cordless tools.
Topics:tesla model y pricingsuper bowl auto adschevy equinox ev pricingdaihatsu safety scandalchrysler halcion conceptstellantis charging standardbyd seagull evcybertruck user perspectiveelectric vehicle rangeautomotive industry news
- No Tesla Model Y Refresh This Year - 4 Automakers Score Big with Super Bowl Ads - NTSB Calls Foul on Anti-Tesla Super Bowl Ad - Chevy Equinox EV MSRP is Not $30K - Toyota Takes Action at Daihatsu Over Safety Scandal - Chrysler's Halcyon Concept is Just a Concept - Don't Call It NACS, Call It J3400 - BYD Sees Big EV Opportunity in South America - Why the Cybertruck is Like Cordless Tools
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Last year, we reported that Tesla was working on refreshing the design of the Model three and Why. We even learned the code names. The Model
three refresh was called Highland and the Why was called Juniper. The Model three
refresh launched in China last September before going to other markets. But now we're
learning that there won't be any refresh of the Model Y this year in either the US or China. And you know what that likely means without anything new
to offer. The only way that Tesla can really lure more people to look
at a model Why is by cutting the price, And sure enough, yesterday Tesla cut prices of some models of the Y by about one thousand dollars.
Only four automakers aired commercials during the Super Bowl, Volkswagen, Kia, BMW and Toyota What. They were a hit with consumers and helped drive interest in
the brands, especially VW, who teased the new electric bus. The id
Buzz. The German automaker, generated the biggest increase in search traffic on cars
dot Com, Kelly Bluebook and Autotrader. VW also had the third highest engagement
amongst all the advertisers, according to EDO, Inc, an analytics company that measures traffic searches when ads are aired. Meanwhile, Kia's ad ranked third in
the USA Today list of most popular ads, and BMW's was at number seven, and Toyota's ad helped boost traffic on cars dot com and Edmund's websites.
Among the auto brands, EDO says VW accounted for sixty nine percent of search activity after the ads aired. Kia was next at fifteen percent, followed by
Toyota at ten percent, and BMW at six percent. There was another auto
related commercial that aired during the Super Bowl that garnered a lot of attention.
A group called the Dawn Project ran two ads criticizing the safety of Tesla's autopilot system, but one of them drew the ire of the National Transportation Safety Board for using its logo without its permission. The NTSB put out a statement saying
it quote had no involvement in the production of this advertisement, did not authorize the use of its seal, nor does it endorse the work of the Dawn Project, so the agency asked the group to remove its logo from the ad which it did. When GM first introduced the Chevy Equinox EV, it promised
a base price of thirty thousand dollars, but the automaker just confirmed it's going to cost a bit more than that. The front wheel drive one LT version
starts at thirty four nine ninety five dollars including destination charges, but the model also qualifies for the seventy five hundred dollars federal tax credit, which will drop the price to twenty seven thousand, four hundred and ninety five dollars for eligible buyers. The model has an estimated three hundred plus miles of range and will
be available later this year. GM also confirmed that the all wheel drive Equinox
EV will have an epa estimated two hundred and eighty five miles of range, but it did not reveal pricing for those models. According to Autofourcast Solutions,
the Equinox EV goes into production in June at GM's plant in San Luis Potes in Mexico. Toyota is laying down the hammer it at Daihatsu's cidiary over a
safety scandal. The company replaced the top leadership at Daihatsu with Toyota executives.
Daihatsu's chairman and president are resigning, and Toyota is abolishing the chairman position altogether.
Toyota will also bring some of Daihatsu's overseas operations into its own and refocused Daihatsu's business on mini cars. Toyota is making the changes at Daihatsu because an
independent investigation found that it rigged safety tests on sixty four name plates over three decades, including Toyota vehicles, and last year Daihatsu was forced to suspend shipments of all of its models. Toyota blames growing Daihatsu too fast over the last
several years for the issues, because it overstretched its development and production resources.
Chrysler revealed an all new electric sedan concept called the Halcion. If Stalantis hand
pulled out a CEES, this would have been the vehicle it would have shown there. It's based on the Stella large platform and features future technology like an
eight hundred volt lithium salt for battery, inductive road charging, and autonomous driving.
But we got a chance to check out the Halcion in person, and it seems more like a preview of future styling elements that it will incorporate into production models and technologies that it's pursuing. The car itself was too small.
I'm tall, but my head's stuck above the roofline, and I wouldn't have fit if the roof didn't fold up and out of the way. It also
didn't look like there was a battery in the floor, So if this car ever gets built, it will be a lot taller. Plus autonomous driving with
fold a waste steering wheels seems like a far off pack. No one is
making lithium sell for batteries for evs and volume production yet, and there's only one public road in the US that I'm aware of that has built in inductive road charging. Even still, I think you can take a lot of way
from the design and we can see how this could be massaged into a future production car. Things like the simplicity of the styling, the lighting signatures,
the new Chrysler logo, the fastback roof line, the wheels, as well as other little styling elements. The brand says it will have an all electric
lineup by twenty twenty eight, but it doesn't say when or if we'll see a vehicle like Halcion. It will have an all new all electric CUV based
on the Stella Large platform that launches next year, which is a good thing.
With production of the three hundred ending last year. Chrysler only makes the
Pacific a minivan right now, and sticking with Stilantis for a moment, It says it will adopt the SAE J thirty four hundred charging connector on some of its evs next year. You may not have heard of J thirty four hundred,
but you know what it is. It's testless charger or what it calls
the North American Charging Standard or KNACKS for short. However, Stillantis makes no
mention of Tesla or NAX, so its vehicles may not have access to supercharger stations, but it's partnered with six other automakers to launch the IONA Charging Network in North America, which will feature NAC's connectors. BYD is on a tear.
It ended up last year as the biggest car company in China and sells more pure electric cars in the country than Tesla does, so meet the BYD Seagull, the company's best selling car, which goes for about eleven grand in China, and now BYD is launching it in South America first in Uruguay, probably followed by Brazil, but in South America byd is calling it the Dolphin Mini, and it's raising the price significantly, even though the car is still a bargain. There are two versions of this four door hatchback. A thirty
kilo hour battery pack that delivers three hundred and five kilometers of range according to China's CLTC test procedure starts at twenty grand A thirty eight point eight kilowad hour pack with four hundred and five kilometers of range starts at twenty three thousand dollars.
The car gets a fifty five kilowad electric motor that has one hundred and thirty five newton meters a torque that converts to ninety nine horse power and ninety nine pound feet of torque. But let's go back to those range numbers for
a moment and convert them to miles and roughly calculate how they perform on the EPA test, which is much more stringent than what's used in China or Europe.
The thirty kilowad hour pack would likely deliver around one hundred and twenty three miles of EPA range, while the thirty eight point eight kilowad hour pack would be about one hundred and sixty three miles. One reason the car is so
inexpensive is that it would never meet US crash standards. The people at Caresoft,
who specialize in benchmarking and cost comparisons, estimate the BYD Segull would need another four thousand dollars worth of structural improvements to meet US standards. And speaking
of care Soft, they're about to begin a deep dive into a Tesla cyber truck, but before they do, they invited us over to check it out, so of course we jumped at the opportunity. The company's president, Terry
Wachowski, also happens to be a former full sized truck executive at GM as well as a genuine farmer, and he's been putting the cyber truck to work hauling hay and thousand pound loads of horse feed. And since Terry knows trucks
and truck buyers, we felt like the million dollar question for him was are people who actually use trucks like trucks going to go for the cyber truck.
Here's what he had to say. Many that I know, their first impressions
are non No, I have no need for that. I don't want that.
And you know, early on in the EV revolution here it was kind of on the same mindset. But you know that we've got a lot of
tools that we use out of the ranch, and I remember buying the first cordless tools. Let's try this, got this tool, got this tool.
I will never buy another corded tool. I just won't. Now I have
chainsaws. I got a hole portfolio of chain saws for different sized jobs out
there. And there's trees all the time, need management out there, and
well, never get electric chainsaw will yeah, And it's really I've gotten an election. Oh yeah, yeah. Once you have those batteries, you never
go back. Yeah. So you think the same thing could happen when when
hardcore V eight truck buyers get a chance to really experience not drive around the block, but I mean work on a ranch like you have to do work.
You think they'll start to sure, do I believe that. I thought
that was a pretty interesting answer from Terry. And we go through a lot
more in that video, like fit and finish ride in handling, and all the pros and cons of using the cyber truck like a truck. If you'd
like to see more, we'll provide a link in the transcript and description box that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in.
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