China reaches EV tipping point, Tesla retreats, some slack with tax credit, and more

The two, one, we are live for a new episode of Electric Podcast.

I am Fred Lambert, your host.

And as usual, I'm joined by Seth Winshaw.

Are you doing this week, Seth?

I'm good.

All right, I'm joining you live from British Columbia.

I'm doing a little road trip and testing out

the Cadillac Escalade IQ, which is a very impressive road

trip vehicle, honestly.

I think 200 plus kilowatt hour under you

when you're doing a road trip is extremely useful.

Getting over 800 kilometers of range.

There's five people in the car full of luggage for 10 days.

And we fit very nicely.

The only complaint that I have, and that's a narrow user

more than anything else, is that I

should have specified not to have the executive seats.

So the GM gave me the executive seats.

And if you're more than four people,

and so you need to have someone in the back seat

with the executive seat, you get the giant center console

in the middle.

And that does make the third row a little bit less useful

because it's a lot harder to get in and out.

And also, they have less space because they cannot use

the middle space for their legs.

So that's my only complaint so far.

But I should have just specified,

hey, just give me the regular six-seater captaincy.

Because you can get regular captaincy, which are still

nice.

You just don't have the controls

from the side of Michael's stuff.

And are you seeing charging like 300 kilowatt hours?

Or sorry, 300 kilowatts or 200 kilowatts?

I haven't really had the need to really so hard.

We pick up the car from Vancouver.

And then we went to Whistler right away.

So that's about like 200.

We went quite a bit past Whistler.

So about 200 kilometers.

Michael, can you take a little farm cap here

that keeps wanting to get some attention?

Sorry about that.

So it's all over 200 kilometers.

So that's nothing for the Cadillac,

even if you're going uphill.

And then we've been traveling around Whistler

for the last four days, just doing hiking,

some hikes every now and then and again,

and going 100 or so kilometer each way every time.

So we got the battery down.

It's only about 50% doing that.

Wow, that's a huge battery.

So all we did is go to the grocery store

and there was like a charge point station

next to the grocery store.

And that's 125 kilowatt station.

But if you're over 50%, like I figured it's not that bad.

And it's a lot cheaper too.

So like it cost me like 20 bucks, get it back to 100.

And then we're going a long road trip later today.

That's where the podcast is a little bit earlier

to go to, next to Victoria on the Vancouver Island.

And that's gonna be probably like a four hour

driving plus the ferry.

So now I'm back up to over 90%.

And we're gonna get there pretty easy just from that.

So I don't even know if I'm gonna have to charge

after that that much to get back to Vancouver.

Probably if we decide to road trip a little bit more

around the Airbnb where we're staying next to Victoria,

that's about it really.

So over 800 kilometers of rain.

So for American listeners,

it's 450, I think 460 miles, something like that.

It's just massive.

Super cruise is useful on the highway.

Now, obviously it's limited to where they have mapped out.

So past a certain point, past like Whistler,

it's not super useful, but they're still link keeping.

They're still cruise control.

And I really liked them.

It's a heavy vehicle obviously,

it's extremely heavy,

but you feel the weight at times.

But again, you have a crazy super powerful

electric powertrain on there.

So most of the time, if you need the power,

it's there even with the weight.

The thing I like the less about the vehicle

is just it's its size.

I'm not really, but you know,

if you want a big vehicle,

you get used to it at one point,

but I don't drive big vehicle that much.

And when you have to park that thing,

it's not as fun, honestly.

Yeah.

All right, we have plenty to talk about.

I'm going to give you a full review of the Cadillac

when I'm done with the roadship, obviously.

So we'll have to spend too much time on it,

but the cat just spotted something.

We just got the release

of the Malawai performance this morning.

Only in Europe, it's launching a,

this is being a little bit weird

about this rollout of the Malawai.

Like it's coming out in China and Europe

and then US and then performance version.

Model YL is just in China right now.

So it's kind of complicated to keep track,

but Tesla earlier this week

had announced that something's going to be unveiled

specifically in Europe and the Middle East

with a spoiler alert.

That's what they put there.

So we figured out it's probably something with a spoiler

and that would probably mean the Malawai performance.

But the specs have been released today.

The probably the most interesting thing

about this, the Malawai performance

on the refresh model Y is that it gets 580 kilometers

of range WLTP, which is just six kilometers fewer

than the long range all will drive.

Generally speaking, with the performance version

of any of Tesla's vehicle,

you lose a lot more range versus the longest range version

because of the bigger wheels,

because of the higher performance,

it becomes less efficient and then you lose

quite a bit of range.

Not the case here.

And that's why the reason is Tesla says

that they are new high voltage battery cells

using the vehicle.

So we don't have more details than that,

but I assume that as soon as delivery starts next month,

we're gonna be able to figure out a lot more

about the vehicle and about those new cells

that are interesting and could obviously

at some point trickle down to other version of the vehicle.

So 580 kilometers of range, that's 260 miles,

but that's WLTP.

And WLTP doesn't take it to account climate control.

So there's no, it's not as precise as the EPA rating.

So you can expect a little bit less than that,

but you should still get over 300 miles of range

based on the difference between the long range version

and the performance version in Europe on the WLTP.

You should get something very similar.

Here's something that's weird.

Look at the supercharge numbers.

The supercharge to get in 15 minutes,

you get to 66 kilometers.

And then on the performance, you get 243,

that's 23 kilometers less.

I wonder if there's a typo either there

or in the range thing because you know,

you're theoretically dealing with similar batteries

unless the batteries are just slower to charge.

Maybe they have a special mystery.

Yeah, that's probably just it.

Like there's maybe they are a little bit better

in energy density, but their charge rate

is just a little bit slower.

I mean, look at 205, like we're talking

about 20 kilometers over 15 minutes here.

So it's not.

Yeah, it looks bigger because of the short period of time,

but it's not that big of a difference.

So just to figure it out that it's better off

having a little bit more range

than the faster charging here.

It's still pretty fast charging too, but you're right.

So it's a.

It's also surprising because, you know,

it has the arachnid wheels, which you have 21 inch wheels

which are also not very efficient.

I wonder if that 580 kilometers is a typo.

Maybe it's like 560 or something.

I don't think so because specifically the release

says new high voltage battery cells

to justify the closer range.

So I think it's really the range.

So what would be interesting is like,

if this thing makes it into the long range

all world drive version, like you said,

without the 21 inch wheels that are killer

for efficiency, like this car would easily get

over 620 miles, not miles like kilometers

of WLTP range closer to 350 miles

of range on the EPA.

Like it would be would be impressive.

So a few other things that have been added to the vehicle

but like we said, the 21 inch arachnid wheels

which first launched on the Model S back in the day.

I still have those on my 2012 Model S.

Bigger touchscreen slightly.

Yeah, yeah, bigger than the touchscreen.

It looks like they basically use the touchscreen

in the Model YL.

That was a little bit bigger

and like a little squareer.

So but just you gain a little less than an inch of touchscreen

but it looks a little bit better to be fair.

There's the new advanced multi-link suspension

electronic continuously variable damping and drive mode.

So that's the same thing in the Model 3 performance.

Then, so for people that are watching on YouTube

versus listening right now, I have a picture up.

There's a few other changes to the look.

So the front fascia has been updated a little bit.

Here you have a new air intake

that that's not there for the regular versions of the Model Y.

The side mirrors are black

and obviously you have the spoiler behind.

I don't know if we have a good,

oh yeah, we have a view of it here.

Yeah, you have the spoiler here.

Whoop, I have a little beef after me.

That's the joy of doing a podcast outside.

What else that's different?

Oh, the seats are different.

Do we have the interior?

Okay, so there's a few design accents

like we saw in the Model 3 performance.

The new seats, the multi-performance.

And that's about it really.

Should we watch a little video of it there?

My lunch.

The new badge for the performance version two is in there.

It's a good looking car.

It's just that the Model Y performance,

it doesn't attract me as much

as like the Model 3 performance.

I don't know.

I would be curious to see like the percentage of cells,

what the performance version for the Model Y,

what's the percentage of the Model Y cells

versus the Model 3 performance

as a percentage of Model 3 cells.

I'm pretty sure the Model 3 is much higher.

Just more fun to drive.

Start shipping in September at a price of 62,000 euros,

equivalent of 73,000 US dollars,

but that's obviously with taxes there.

So normally the performance version is about $5,000

more expensive than the long-range all-wheel driver.

So you can expect that when it launches in the US,

but we don't know when it launches in the US.

I'll fully sooner than the Model Y L

since Elon said that that won't launch

until the end of next year.

I think it will be much sooner than that obviously

because Elon said that the reason

that they are not launching the Model Y any sooner

and might not launch Model Y L any sooner in the US

and might not launch it at all is that autonomy is coming

and that won't be useful,

even though it would be super useful for autonomy.

But in terms of Model Y performance,

like obviously it's a performance vehicle,

you want to drive it, you don't want it to be autonomous.

But this is the new Model Y performance.

All right, speaking of launching in Europe only,

it won't help itself that much,

but Tesla badly needs it

because the latest data coming out of Europe

is that Tesla is down 40% in July

and now down 37% year-to-date in Europe.

Is 40% year-over-year?

40% July year-over-year, 37% year-over-year year-to-date,

so January through July sales.

Geez.

Yeah, it's pretty bad and it's getting worse,

as you can see since the average through July is 37

and it was 40%.

So Tesla went for basically 15,000 deliveries

in July 2024 to just short of 9,000 in July 2025.

And now the interesting thing, sorry?

They can't blame the Model Y launch

or anything for seven months.

Not for July, yeah, not for July for sure.

They can maybe that affected a little bit

the year-to-date number because yes,

Model Y was less available for like February through May,

but June and July, they had plenty of availability

and the demand is just not there.

And there's a few explanations

and we're gonna get to that

because we're gonna talk about China here,

that China has achieved a very interesting tipping point

as I posted this morning in an article,

but it's a competition, look at BYD here.

So we have Tesla here down 40%.

BYD in Europe is up 225%.

And BYD has been in Europe for less than three years now

and it's already outselling Tesla

with 13,500 deliveries compared to Tesla,

8,800 in the last month.

So this is obviously massive.

And I know people are gonna say,

hey, there's PHEVs in there too.

BYD sells a lot of PHEVs.

BYD sells mostly BEVs in Europe.

I think they have like eight models of BEVs

available throughout European markets

and one or two PHEVs.

So it's mostly BEVs.

And in China, there's a lot of PHEVs,

but there's more BEVs too from BYD

and the share of BEVs are rapidly increasing.

So this argument doesn't stand anymore.

A year today, they are at 84,400, up 290%

versus the 21,000 that they delivered

throughout July, the same period last year.

So if you look at Tesla now a year today,

they are at 113,000 and BYD at 84.

So at this space, if this continues,

they could potentially outsell Tesla

for the whole year in Europe

with just being in the market for less than three years,

which would be absolutely nice.

And we've been admiring that a lot at Electric,

but there's a little big differences

in the North American EV market

versus the European EV market and the Chinese EV market.

And it's not just different requirements,

there's different regulations, that's true.

There's different demand for a different type of vehicle.

North America likes larger vehicles,

Europe like smaller vehicles,

China is increasingly going larger,

but for the most part,

likes a smaller and specifically cheaper vehicles,

but less expensive, I should say.

But one of the other big differences

when we come specifically to the EV market,

because that could apply also

to the broader automotive market,

is that in the EV market,

the competition is widely different

in all of the street market.

And I would rank them as China

is the most competitive by far.

Then Europe is the second most competitive,

but that's a 25% behind,

since they put 25% tariffs on Chinese EV.

And then the North American market

is by far the least competitive one.

And you see what happens to Westerners,

American automakers, Western automakers,

and Tesla specifically in those markets,

their sales are going down,

while the only place that they are maintaining their sales

or about that is North America,

because it's the least competitive ones.

So let's talk about that, right?

While we're on the subject,

when we'll come back to the Cybertruck

and the self-driving stuff,

it's the tipping point has been achieved now in China.

According to the latest data

from the China Association of Automotive Manufacturers,

EVs average 51% market share so far this year in China.

The last five months,

the EV shares have surpassed 50%,

and now for the whole years,

they are just over 50, right about 51%.

That's all electric vehicle and plug in the hybrids,

but to be fair, the EVs or the majority of that,

EVs by themselves were at 31% market share in China.

You had PHEVs, it's 51%.

So this has often been seen as some kind of tipping point

in the market, like the achieve majorities

of electric vehicles, of car sold or electric,

then it becomes, if you're in the minority

buying an ICE car, it's the tougher decision, right Seth?

You're like, oh, am I buying the old generation,

the old technology right now?

Because everybody else,

the majority of people is buying electric.

So that's kind of a psychological barrier

that you just break.

And for fun, I tried to make a little comparison.

I know that the markets are vastly different,

but I looked at Norway,

which is obviously now basically 100% EV sales

to get a little bit of an idea of how fast things

can move and Norway achieved 50% market shares for EVs

and again, EVs, PHEVs in 2020.

So 2020 was the first year where they had 50% market shares

for the whole year.

And then by 2024, they were at over 90%.

So in four years, they covered the,

it took probably like 10 plus year

to cover the first 50%,

but then the second 50% can happen very, very fast.

And I think we're gonna see something very similar

in China, where by 20, 29, 20, 28 even,

you would see like 80, 90% market shares for EVs,

which would be used because China is by far

the most important market out there.

Not only the important market,

but also the important manufacturer

because look at this stat set.

In 2024, global electric production

reached 17 million vehicles.

China trying to produce 12 million of those

and 11 million of those were sold in China.

So China produce the majority of electric cars in the world

and also consume the majority of electric cars in the world.

And now this market is at 51%

and gonna grow a lot faster.

This should be like a giant red flag

for every manufacturer in the world.

This is where things are going

and it's going there fast.

So any kind of slow down just because the US is like

not fully in EVs right now

and the administration is kind of like showing some sticks

in the wheels of some EV manufacturers.

You should be careful.

I understand that like if the US is a big market for you,

you want to supply vehicles

that people wanna buy in that market.

I understand that,

but that doesn't mean slowing your electric vehicle programs.

If you do that, you're gonna be screwed in a few years

because of it.

I understand that for all the manufacturers

that are like not big in Europe and China

and they're bigger in the US,

it's a tough line to walk.

But if you don't invest heavily

in your electric vehicle program,

you're gonna be left behind

because what's gonna happen,

it's already happening really in China

is that now there's so many manufacturers,

there's a lot of players

and it's not gonna be the case in five years.

It's gonna consolidate.

A lot of them are gonna fall,

but the best one are gonna rise on top

and then once they are on top of the Chinese market,

they're gonna set their sight overseas

and it's already been the case in Europe

with NIO, with Expang, with BYD,

but they're not gonna stop there.

They're gonna want the whole thing

and they're gonna be much more prepared than anybody else

because they're gonna be already the most competitive one

in the most competitive market

with extremely high volumes in China.

It should be a little bit scary for people.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like all the pieces are in

for China just to take over kind of,

and you know how like in Apple world,

they're like, oh, we can't build phones in the US.

It's just impossible.

There's just no way.

We don't have the supply chain.

We don't have the workers.

It feels a lot like fast forward 10 years,

we can't build cars in the US.

We don't have the supply chain.

We don't have the workers.

Oh man, you're right, you're so right.

Yeah, it's going that way.

Cause that's the thing.

And then we have Trump administration saying,

oh, we don't need to innovate on EVs.

So it's like, oh God, we're so doomed.

Yeah, because cars, cars, weapons,

are the last like things that the US is like producing

in a high volume and distributing around the world.

And it looks like they're going to lose that.

And it's a sad thing.

Yeah.

Going back to Tesla,

the Cybertruck is entering a new market set

and you won't believe which one it is.

It sounds like a clickbait headline,

but it is kind of true.

It's South Korea.

The Cybertruck right now for those who don't know

is unavailable in Canada, US, and Mexico,

so North America.

But sales are not going well.

So a new market could be useful.

And but South Korea is kind of a surprising one.

But at the same time,

when I was in South Korea earlier this year,

I saw a Cybertruck there and I was like quite surprised.

I didn't get close enough to see the plates or anything.

So I assumed that it's someone that imported it

by themselves going through a few oops,

but it could have been maybe the testing.

It could have been a testing vehicle

because I couldn't get close enough.

I literally saw it like just drive past an intersection.

But there's a few explanations for that really is,

first of all, Tesla is doing quite well in Korea.

Their sales are strong.

And they have a very strong fan base.

They have a very strong investor base in China.

Like Tesla is the most popular stock

to sell by retail investors there.

So Tesla is extremely popular in Korea.

And Tesla obviously took notice

because they are not very popular

in a lot of other markets outside of North America.

So in the US specifically really

because Canada is not doing well either right now.

Europe is not doing well.

And China is also sliding down

even though not at a rate of Europe obviously.

But so Tesla decided we'll take advantage of that.

We'll launch a Cybertruck there.

We think there's a market for it.

However like, I don't know how popular it's gonna be

because it starts at 155,000 million South Korean one

which is the equivalent of 104 USD.

So that's $24,000 more than the Cybertruck starts

in the US, but I'm only counting the all-wheel drive

Cybertruck, the regular one,

not the cheaper one that they saw the unveil

because I don't even know what they did that

like this one like doesn't have a lot of value.

So yeah, but the Cybertruck is entering a new market.

We'll keep track of the sales there.

Would be interesting.

Did they say when the sales start?

Now I think they're gonna start confirming the orders soon.

Yeah, they are in the AVA.

We're currently in the period

where they start confirming the orders.

So if you have a reservation in South Korea,

you're gonna get another confirmation

like your reservation's gonna be transferred

to an order basically.

All right, I published some Elon DMs this week set

that Elon texted us like back in the day

because it's very relevant to a bunch of statement

he's made this week.

This week, Elon's been in the headlines a lot

for attacking way more specifically

but also more broadly of people using LiDAR

and LiDAR for the autonomous driving system.

He accused them of being less safe than just vision.

So Elon said here LiDAR and LiDAR reduce safety

due to sensor contention.

If LiDAR riders disagree with camera, which one wins?

The sensor ambiguity causes increased, not decreased risk.

That's why Waymost can drive on highways.

We turn off LiDAR and Tesla

to increase safety cameras for the win.

Now this is straight up a lie by the way

like the Waymost do drive on highways.

I mean, you couldn't make the argument

that it's not in the riders only mode right now

for paying customers, it's only employee testing

but then that's the same thing, sorry.

I don't know if you heard that donkey just now

it just-

Yep, I can hear it.

It's gonna shut off in a second.

The donkey, yeah, shut off that donkey.

But yeah, Tesla is doing the same thing.

Tesla is not driving on highways

without a safety operator in the car.

So it's basically the same thing.

So I don't know why he's even said that

as if like Tesla is in a better position than Waymo

because it's in the same one when it comes to highway.

And when it comes to none highways

then Waymo has a big league

because they don't have a safety monitor on city streets.

So it's just not a good look.

And then when you look at the idea

of sensor contention in LIDAR and riders,

first of all, he is partly right here

because it's true that it's a challenging problem.

Sensor fusion, sensor contention is challenging.

If you don't end those sensor fusion properly

it adds noise to the situation

and makes it harder for autonomous system to operate.

That's true.

However, the way that Elon has approached

and this is one of several comments

he's made this week.

He also said LIDAR also not working well in snow,

rain, dust, YouTube reflection scatter.

That's why Waymo stopped working in heavy precipitation.

Again, complete lie.

I posted several videos of Waymo working autonomously

in heavy precipitation.

As I said many times, there's a rule for LIDAR

and then he says that LIDAR works well for his SpaceX

but won't work for cars, which is not true.

But yeah, Elon is basically saying that

because Tesla couldn't figure out sensor fusion,

sensor fusion won't work.

And that's a fallacy, like oh, I cannot make this work

so no one can make this work.

It doesn't work like that.

And so I wanted to point out these DMs that Elon,

so I was texting to the electric account with Elon in 2021.

So right after they announced

that they were going vision only

and they were literally removing the radar

from the vehicle, I was texting him

to just try to get a better understanding of this

because there was obviously quite a radical move

at the time and still is today.

And I asked him about the safety features

because when Tesla did that,

and this has been Tesla's modus operandi for a while,

when Tesla transitioned to a new technology,

they don't wait until the technology is ready

to be equal to the previous one or better.

They just, they do it and then it result in a regression

and then they try to play from behind after that

and catch up to the features.

In this case, it was safety features.

It was several safety features

that weren't available on new cars

being delivered without radars.

So I was asking him like, this is pretty nuts.

So how does it work?

Like what was the thinking behind it?

Because obviously radar right now is safer

if you can deliver those active safety features.

And Elon says, these things are all about probabilities.

Nothing is certain.

Well, in his new comments now, he sounds pretty certain.

Pure vision reduced probability of injury

versus vision plus radar in our opinion.

Yeah, okay, your opinion.

And then, but then that's where things get interesting.

A very high resolution radar would be better

than pure vision, but such radar does not exist.

I mean vision with high res radar

would be better than pure vision.

So he does admit that radar plus vision

if the radar is high definition enough

is better than pure vision.

So he knew that when they remove the radar off of the car.

Now, in this same conversation,

I also pointed out to him,

next generation high resolution millimeter wave radar

that we're coming out telling him like,

hey, like, what about this?

This sounds like exactly what you're talking about.

Also, LiDAR are basically very high definition radar

just using photons, right?

Or then, then, then, then range of wave.

But that's another thing he obviously has

like a very strange fixation,

a fixation on LiDAR.

But they are now plenty of extremely high resolution radar.

Waymo use six of them in their vehicle.

They are out there and Elon has admitted

that if you use high definition radar plus vision,

it is safer than vision.

And that's basically what Waymo is doing.

They are using LiDAR and LiDAR at high definition

plus 29 cameras and neural nets to power the system

just like Tesla, they just have another layer of it.

And unlike Tesla, we went all in on vision

only five years ago, during that time,

Waymo and other companies have been working

to improve sensor fusion.

So they have been making progress on sensor fusion

where Tesla hasn't been working on it at all.

So obviously they are way ahead of Tesla

when it comes to sensor fusion

and Elon is like sensor fusion is the problem.

Yeah, it's a problem if you haven't been working

on it for five years.

It's as simple as that.

And it's really how I think just how full of himself

Elon is when it comes to autonomy

and that Tesla is the leader and all that,

it's all lies basically and he knows it

and he knows that he should have probably kept working

on the radar and instead of going all in on vision

is just that now he painted in seven a corner

that if he goes back on, he looks very bad.

And I think he's, I worry honestly

that his ego can be more important

than safety of Tesla driver

and road users in general, honestly.

Right, and Tesla profitability and viability

in the future as well.

Yeah, because then if you,

yeah, you really painted in seven a corner there

because if you admit that, ah, you know what?

You kind of need the radar or even LiDAR

to get level four autonomous system,

then what happens to the millions of cars

that you promise are gonna have fully self-driving?

It's not as simple as just retrofitting in a computer

which is not, by the way, it's not that simple

to it's a nightmare and that's why Tesla

is not doing it for all the way three yet

because it's such a big program to roll out.

But adding a radar would be even,

had a lot of complexity, the whole thing

having LiDAR would be probably impossible at this point.

So he kind of, he has to make vision work.

That's the only thing.

But maybe we're gonna see at some point

like Tesla adding a radar sensor to new vehicles

would be interesting.

All right, we have a few more news items to discuss

before we jump into the comment section.

I know we don't have a lot of people

in the comment section right now

because we were doing the podcast live a lot sooner

and we didn't warn you about it beforehand.

We're sorry about that.

But if we have some people live right now

that wanna put some question for us

either about any of the subject that we discussed today

or any of the subjects in the EV world

that you want us to discuss,

we can respond in maybe 10 minutes or so.

So sort of a good news for the tax credit,

the IRS updated their website

giving it a little bit of a leeway

to people buying cars this quarter.

So as we reported often in the last few months

the tax credit is going away by September 38.

And the way that the language was

in the big beautiful bill that killed the tax credit,

it looked pretty clear that you needed to take delivery

of the electric vehicle by September 38

to take advantage of the tax credit.

Now, in an update on their website,

the agency wrote,

if a taxpayer acquires a vehicle

by having a written biding contract in place

and a payment made on or before September 38, 2025,

then the taxpayer will be entitled

to claim the credit when they place the vehicle

in service, okay, take delivery,

namely when they take possession of the vehicle,

even if the vehicle is placed in service

after September 30th, 2025.

Now, the curious thing about this

is that they actually don't put end date

to when they need to take delivery put in service

as they say.

So that's a bit weird because technically

like Rivian could reach out to customers

and say like people that want the R2

instead of having a reservation that you have right now,

we change that into a biding contract.

So for people that are very serious

about taking the R2, I guess,

and you have the binding contract by September 38,

you put a payment, a down payment on it,

maybe a little bit more than your reservation

just to make it legit.

And then technically they could take delivery early next year

and still get the tax related since they didn't put in it.

But to me, I wouldn't recommend that obviously.

I don't think I wouldn't be surprised

if the IRS doesn't support that.

But technically in the language,

there's nothing about that not working.

So it's strange to me.

But at least like in term of it should work,

I would hope it would work for people

that cannot take delivery by September 30 yet

but still have like a real order place with a dealer

or a manufacturer for those that goes direct

like Tesla, Lucid and Rivian.

So it's a little leeway or it's potentially a loophole

but it's not, I don't recommend it to be honest.

Okay, I already did the tipping point.

The UID just broke a new EV speed record

going nearly 300 miles per hour with the Yang Wang U9.

We talked about it quite a bit.

Now I think, so is it the,

I think it might be the regular one too

because a few weeks ago in the podcast

we talked about the track edition

that's gonna get 3,000 horsepower in there

but the current U9 which is available to purchase right now

is 1,300 horsepower and it apparently drove

at 472.41 kilometers an hour.

That's 293 miles per hour, which is absolutely nuts.

So and that was done certified

at the ATP Automative Testing Papenberg Test Track

in Germany.

They have a video of it on the YouTube.

You can go check it out.

They have the V-Box live on there.

But yeah, that's pretty nuts.

We're talking about beating the previous EV speed record

by over 20%.

Yeah, that's not even close.

But it is well said that we are like what,

we are a good 10, 15 years in the latest EV revolution.

It's only a matter of time

before that's the EV is the fastest car

for sure.

Because it's still improving at a crazy rate.

They might even get this car.

Yeah, I mean the track version,

the track edition of it certainly with 2,000 horsepower.

I just, I don't think,

I don't know how they're gonna keep that thing

from flying away, but it is quite impressive.

So yeah, it's really happening right now

as you see EVs taking over,

not just in terms of efficiency,

not just in terms of cost of ownership,

but also in all type of performance.

And BYD is leading the way on that stuff.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, go ahead.

It's just like super interesting

and I would be surprised if Mate Remak,

who of course is famous for the Navara

and having quite a fast EV history out of Croatia,

but also got thrown by what VW into the Bugatti group.

So he's now kind of the head of that.

And obviously the Bugatti Chiron is one of the fastest,

I think it's the second fastest next to the Koenigstag.

So he's got to be looking at this and what's that?

They keep beating each other,

like they keep going back and forth basically.

Yeah, so he's got to be saying,

hey, Bugatti, you're not going to win.

You're not going to win with combustion.

Let's move over to electric or something like that.

I think hell will froze over before that happens.

Like Bugatti is next level when it comes to being reticent

to go electric.

But yeah, at one point, if they want to compete,

they're going to have to.

That's the only way really.

But some automakers are stepping back a little bit

on their EV plans and the next article is related to that.

So Porsche announced that they are going to stop

producing their own battery systems.

So they have a cell force, they call it.

So the cell force was their division

that I performance EV battery company

and they're going to scale it back quite a bit.

It's not going to do any production anymore.

It's just going to be a research and development group

with production being uploaded

to other company, other suppliers.

They cited challenging market conditions,

especially in the US and China.

So they're talking about lower demand in the US

and too hard to compete in China basically.

So CEO Oliver Bloom said,

for volume reason and a lack of economies of scale,

Porsche is no longer pursuing

its own production of battery cells.

So there's going to be a staff production

that's going to follow.

But they said that the Volkswagen's battery unit power code

will take some former employees from them.

So that's good, at least they're going to still have a job.

But yeah, they're scaling back quite a bit

with their EV plans.

Now they're saying that they're going to keep releasing

internal combustion vehicle well into the 2030s.

But they're still going full steam ahead

with their current plans.

So the Taycan is still going.

The Macan is happening too.

And we're going to talk about the 2026 version

that was released this week a little bit.

And then the Cayenne is also coming electric.

So that's the bigger SUV.

So that's probably going to be good

for internal American cells.

And then there's the 718

that's also going electric relatively soon.

But yeah, I mean, Porsche is kind of in a weird situation

right now because Oliver Bloom was their CEO

for a while for a long time.

And then now he's also CEO of Volkswagen.

And now he's kind of like doing both at the same time

but not everyone is happy about that.

So lately in the last few weeks has been reported

that Porsche is actually looking for a new CEO

and Oliver Bloom to fully move on to Volkswagen.

So that they can have a little bit more

of their own identity, I guess.

Not that they're already quite separate

but they're still part of the Volkswagen group, obviously.

And then let's talk a little bit

about this new Porsche Macan.

And then we're going to jump into the comment section.

I appreciate all of you that joined with us

a little bit earlier to make the podcast

a little bit more interactive.

So we have Joseph here, we have Dean,

we have Speculer Lawyers, that's a regular watcher

of the show, appreciate you guys.

The 2026 Porsche Macan EV has been updated

with a lot of more like infotainment stuff really

and connectivity features, more than anything else.

So you have the new Porsche Digital Key.

So it's a new digital key fob that enables you

to unlock the car control function

from your phone directly.

I'm always surprised when automakers

are not on board with that fully already.

The cab's like, I had some issues connecting it to it

but I think that's more to do with the fact

that it's not my car, it's a press car being long to me

and it was like complicated to get the link to me.

But once that was done, the app is like super useful.

So I'm always surprised when automakers

are not already like really well equipped on that front.

They're going big with video games now.

They say that they have this new,

what they call it, air console system

that enables you to connect your phone

to the infotainment system

and use it as some kind of control

as you see on the screen there.

So you have a bunch of video games

that you can download and play directly

on your infotainment system.

There's updated 3D surround view

so the 360 view has been improved quite a bit.

They're using high resolution cameras now for it.

They have a new transparent hood system

so that you can like see through the cameras,

through the hood to know exactly how close you are

to the curbs and whatnot,

which when you drive a Porsche,

you don't want to scratch the wheel on the side of the kerb

so these things are pretty useful.

The wind capacity has increased by 1,100 pounds now,

5,500 pounds which is pretty decent

for a smaller SUV like the McCann.

And it's going to start at $78,000

and delivery start spring of 2026.

They went a little bit early for it,

but releasing that now,

even though it's not coming until the spring of next year.

All right, let's talk to you guys a little bit.

4PM came a little early today.

That's because you're doing some boating I guess, right?

Well, yeah, the Cadillac is pretty big.

It feels like a boat.

All right, Joseph says I'm surprised to hear

about the South Korea market.

I wonder what market research led to that.

I was thinking maybe it was a battery thing.

Like, you know, the batteries obviously come from,

or not the batteries for the Cybertruck,

but they could source batteries

for the Cybertruck there pretty easily,

you know, from LG, one of their suppliers.

I wonder if that's part of it.

Yeah, but I don't think they're going to change the,

I think it's going to be the 4680 that's produced

and I think they're going to produce the whole thing

in Texas and ship that out to Korea.

Like they have the capacity, they have the capacity.

It makes no sense why they would do that,

like Korea as opposed to Korea.

I think they do believe that they're going to have

some decent demand in Korea.

I don't know if I don't think I explained it well enough,

but it's like all the Elon stuff has no effect

in Korea, basically, or very little effect.

Like they don't care about that there.

It's not, they don't care about.

Why not sell it in China then?

I think that's more, okay, that's the other aspect

that I should have explained better.

I think it's on a regulatory standpoint,

I think Korea was easier.

Like the Cybertruck's radical design

is not easily adaptable to every market.

Like I don't think they could launch in Europe at all.

I think they would, even in Australia,

I think they would have issues.

I think China is too difficult

because obviously you're right,

China would be better.

Maybe the tariff situation too,

like Korea, I think part of the Trump deal

that they made where they just get 25% tariffs

is that the US doesn't have any tariffs or that.

So that probably helps a little bit too,

but it's still quite more expensive.

But the demand, the hype around Tesla

in South Korea cannot be overstated.

Like the extremely high their sales are strong right now

and the investor base is extremely strong in South Korea.

So they think they're gonna sell quite a few,

just honestly with the pricing,

it's gonna be hard I think.

All right, let's move on.

Dean McManus says Lidar was very expensive

when Tesla committed to vision only.

I think Elon was betting on vision only

so that he could sell a solution

that wouldn't rely on expensive cameras and sensors.

I think that's at least partially correct.

Yeah, that was a factor for sure.

Like Elon wanted to have all the hardware in the car

before self-driving was ready.

So obviously that meant that even people

that don't buy full self-driving and pay the amount

would need to be profitable to put the hardware in there

without the self-driving package being purchased.

So yeah, it makes sense that they had to reduce cost,

which it really highlights how different of an approach Tesla

has to all other companies developing self-driving technology

because other self-driving technology,

they just don't care about costs that much at first.

They want like, let's go completely overboard

with the sensor suite, the computing inside the vehicle,

even if it's not viable financially to achieve,

to succeed, to achieve autonomous driving

at a safety level that is decent

and then reduce costs while not reducing safety.

Like that's the approach.

Tesla was like betting that the hardware

would be sufficient to full self-driving

without even achieving full self-driving

or any kind of level of safety

that was decent enough to be unsupervised.

So it's a completely different approach

and it's not paying off for them.

I mean, it's paying off through misinformation,

lies and all that, that's maintaining

some kind of a little bit of an aura

where they are seen as leading and full self-driving

in some circles, but in anyone that's looking at this

with an unbiased approach,

have to admit that Waymo is like five years ahead at least.

All right, specular question,

which non-Tesla automakers are best positioned

for EV growth in North America?

We get that question a lot, it's a hard one, right?

I mean, I think Kia, Hyundai comes up a lot.

You know, I would throw GM,

it's doing a pretty good job at the moment.

The problem is, I mean, you're driving a GM vehicle

right now that you're liking.

I think one of my recent Cadillac adventures,

they told me that they were gonna be 50% EV next year.

Cadillac, as a brand, is doing well.

Like you have, I mean, obviously it's SUV heavy,

but that's always the North American market,

but like between the Lyric, the Vestik, the Optik

and the Escalade IQ, they cover the whole SUV market.

Now it's not cheap, like the one I'm driving right now,

I think in the US, it's probably fully equipped,

like that is probably 120, 130, I think it's closer

to 200,000 Canadian dollars.

Yeah, it's a crazy expensive vehicle,

but so is the Escalade gasoline version.

So it's a very luxury vehicle, but then you can,

the Lyric is, I've seen plenty of Lyric's driving up here

actually in the very nice vehicle, way more affordable

and a little bit smaller, obviously too.

So Cadillac is doing well.

Now the question is like, are they making money

of those vehicles, are they sustainable long term

without the tax credit, with the tax credit

going away, there's some questions on that too.

So, yeah, a Hyundai Kia is a good move

because they actually put some production capacity,

some decent production capacity in the US.

So they are able to manage with that.

I would throw forward in there maybe,

because even though they announced some slowdown

of their approach, they are aware of the challenge

like they understand that China is leading the way there

and they all know that the industry is going there.

I think Farley is really on top of that.

So if they do nail this next generation platform

that they announced a few weeks ago,

I think they are well positioned to still move

the North American market to electric.

Obviously they've disconnected the EV business

to the regular business, now the Ford Mobile E.

We see that this is losing money,

so they're not still making money

on their EV effort right now,

but I think they are bidding on that next generation

to be able to get them over the top for that.

And they hired a lot of great people to do it,

a lot of tech people, a lot of early Tesla people

like Dogfield and all that.

So I think they have a good shot,

but we won't see the result of that

until probably towards the end of the decade I think.

All right, and obviously Rivian,

you could throw it in there, they've got a big factory.

Oh yeah, I thought we were talking about legacy automakers

to be honest, but none Tesla automakers.

Yeah, Rivian is really well positioned.

Lucid, we need to see probably their next gen

more mass market vehicle before making a judgment,

because they're doing well right now on the IRN

and they have great vehicles,

but it's very niche until they have mass market stuff.

Dean McManus says the problem with software visual cameras

only is getting the 100% flawless operation

that people expect, even though 100% is not possible,

more sensors and cameras get closer than vision only can.

Yeah, and I would say something else,

like the goal is to be as good as human drivers,

but you need to be better than human drivers

to further the safety to come out.

And Elon's thing has always been like,

well, if humans can see with eyes,

then cameras should be all you need,

but you really need it to be better than just eyes

and for everybody to trust it.

So I think that's another reason too.

Yeah, and Elon says that the sensor fusion

is the problem, but he always like to go back to,

like you said, how human drives,

but human do sensor fusion all the time.

Like we, to determine-

Ear sirens and-

Yeah, your ear sirens,

you try to know exactly how far it is,

then you can see it.

Like if I'm, I have a cup here,

like if I want to touch the cup,

like I can, I see the distance of the cup,

but we do that a lot,

like the cup is maybe not really because it's a static object,

but like in, I do a lot of Muay Thai and in boxing Muay Thai,

you see opponent right in front of you,

you have a good idea of the distance from them,

but you can miss a lot of shots,

just trying to get to them purely on a precision basis.

So we say that you get your distance from your jab,

if you touch them with your jab,

now you have the good idea of the distance that they are.

So that's sensor fusion right there.

I'm combing my hands with my touch.

I'm actually touching him, I know where he is,

and then I can get him with the next shot.

So sensor fusion is happening in humans all the time.

It's a hard problem to solve on a computational approach,

but I did cite a few expert in my article on it,

and there's been great advancement

in the use of specific mathematics to make it happen.

So it's just Tesla, Tesla,

Elon doesn't know about it

because Tesla is not working on it.

All right, Speculaura says question.

GM is making a GM CCS1 DC adapter

that allows new NAX equipped cars

to use their vehicle-to-grid power shift system.

Does this mean that there is a NAX vehicle-to-grid standard

now, perhaps unofficially?

Well, NAX adapters are basically just pass-throughs.

So GM is just using the new adapter.

I don't think it's...

I mean, I wonder if you could, with that adapter,

you could theoretically use GM system

to have a Model Y backup your house.

But there's a standard,

as I saw, standard now for bi-directional charging.

So I think they're just using that.

So it's probably just certified for that.

So yeah, but like you said, it's a pass-through.

So if it's certified with a protocol,

then it does enable...

It could enable that for any car that support the standard,

which is still like, I mean, it's fairly new.

I think it's 2022, 2023, the standard,

but it takes a while before everyone adopts it

and everything, so...

But it's probably a good adapter to have in your pocket

if you have an NAX car

that you want to eventually bi-directional charge.

All right, let's move on.

Question, the USA is clearly backsliding in EVs

due to the Fanta Menace.

Is that a new name for Donald Trump?

Because of Orange?

Anyway, is Europe still fully committed to EV adoption,

or are they backsliding a bit as well?

No, I mean, Europe is...

With their lower tariffs on Chinese EVs,

and that wasn't big enough to scare China,

they kind of forced that way.

They're gonna have to go that way.

Now, they are not as high of EV adoption as China, for example.

They're at 15%, but 15% is still twice the US adoption rate.

So I think what we see with BYD now growing 220%

year-over-year in the European market

before really Neo-Expang get any kind of decent volume there,

I think it's gonna move fast.

Like Xiaomi coming in 2027.

When they're gonna come, I'm assuming they're gonna come big,

like the launch being in China.

So it's gonna happen.

It's gonna happen...

It's already twice the rate,

so it's already significantly high.

It's not tipping point like China,

but I think we're gonna see them by the end of the decade

being more than twice the US, where the US is gonna be.

Yeah, and there's little pockets of where,

obviously Norway and Denmark and the Netherlands are all like that.

Yeah, it's the bigger markets a little bit tougher,

and they weren't as consistent with their incentives.

And we are realizing right now that the incentives

are not always as impactful as we think they are,

because they are really efficient at pulling them in forward

and backward, so you create some fear of missing out,

and then the fact that you missed out after a fact

makes you reticent to go electric, it's a weird thing.

But it's a short-term effect, though.

So on the longer term, I think we're gonna see the impact

of the European market opening to China and all that.

Yeah, and the domestic makers, like France and Germany

that have a big domestic market are a little bit slower to adopt

because the domestic automakers were slower to adopt EVs,

but I think the writing's on the wall there, too.

Yeah, and Volkswagen, obviously the biggest one in Germany,

which is the bigger market, is still pretty confident

in their EV effort, and then you have the UK,

which is open to China, and Chinese companies

are launching there quite a bit,

so I think it's gonna move pretty fast.

Daniel DeYoung says, didn't Tesla buy

a high-definition radar company a few years ago?

Did anything happen with that?

When do you think he backtracks and adds a radar back?

Oh, I don't know if I'm blinking

about the radar company that they bought,

or if you're wrong, I don't know that's the case,

but if you can find it, Daniel,

I might just be blinking on the fact,

because I'm pretty sure I reported

on this acquisition ever, but there've been quite a few,

so I might be just forgetting this one in particular.

Tesla wisely started at the top of the market

and worked their way down to sell EVs,

so he's talking about starting out with the Model S

and the Model X, and then mid-range vehicles like the YN3.

With Autonomous, they flipped and started at the bottom,

that seems to have been a big mistake.

Yeah, that's basically what I was trying to say earlier,

but you put it more concisely,

that's what I was trying to say earlier.

All right, the six-seat Model YL would be popular in the US.

Would it be in Europe?

Maybe once the rebate goes away in the US,

they bring the Model YL.

Elon, can say you heard all the people

begging for it and backtrack.

It would not be his first, well.

Yeah, the Model YL in the US

would obviously be popular.

It depends on the pricing,

but the pricing in China is pretty close

to the long-range all-wheel drive.

Yeah.

I think it's cheaper than the performance version,

if I'm not mistaken.

So, Fred, you and I both know firsthand

how worried Elon is about the Osborne effect

where you announce a car in a market too early,

people wait and they don't buy the Model Y,

so I think he's worried about Model Y sales

going way down as people wait for the Model YL.

So I think that's a big part of that picture.

I would have understood that if,

like, waiting until Q4 to launch it,

because Q4 is gonna be awful for Tesla in the US

because of the damage pulled forward

in Q3 for the tax credit.

But then he said, it's not coming

until the end of next year.

So unless he's lying and it's like,

for the reason that you just said,

it was surprising.

It doesn't make much sense to me.

Unless it's like a manufacturing reason,

like obviously you cannot ship it from China

and the Model YL is only been produced in China right now

and Tesla is not capable of producing it in the US

in a reasonable time.

That might be the case.

How long did it take for the Model Y

when it first, you know, the new Model Y

got released in China?

I feel like it was like less than a year

that it-

No, the time,

that's probably a good article to look at

when each of the models came out

in a different market and different version.

Like I did look for the Model Y performance.

I looked at like the Model 3 performance

after the refresh last year.

I think it was four months

between the refresh and the performance version.

Now it's been five months or six months

for the Model Y performance launch

after the Model Y refresh.

Did Tesla does seem to have-

Tesla always had issues running

several vehicle program at the same time.

It's probably the worst maker is that

they like to be laser focused on something.

But so honestly,

with all the talent exodus in the last few years,

it might be becoming an issue for Tesla

to have like simultaneous launch to other market.

It did work for the Model Y refresh,

the all launch pretty close to different market.

But other than that, it hasn't been great.

All right, that's all from comments.

All right, well, thanks a lot to everyone

for listening to the electric podcast this week.

And next week, I should be back home.

So it's gonna be, I'm not even sure,

because actually I'm also leaving right after I come back

for test the Can-Am Electric ATV in Wyoming.

So we'll see, we'll try to get a podcast on time

at one point, if not appreciate for everyone of you

that makes it flexible so that you can join us live.

And if you're listening after the fact,

you can give us a thumbs up

or like a subscribe that helps us show it quite a bit.

And it's free to do.

All right, we'll see you next week.

Bye-bye.

China reaches EV tipping point, Tesla retreats, some slack with tax credit, and more

About this episode

Cadillac Escalade

Tesla Model Y

Tesla Model S

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Cybertruck

Renault Modus

Rivian R2

Yangwang Yang Wang U9

Porsche Taycan

Porsche Macan

Porsche Cayenne

Renault Wind

Cadillac Lyric

Tesla Model X

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