On this week's episode of Ride the Lightning, the Tesla and EV podcast, I took my first RoboTaxi ride,
and I'm going to tell you all about my experience.
Plus, Tesla published its master plan Part 4, then continued its busy week by proposing a massive new CEO compensation package and more.
What's happening friends, my name is Ryan McCaffrey, and this is the September 7th, 2025 episode of Ride the Lightning.
It's the weekly Tesla and EV podcast, episode number 527.
Well, I want to start this week's episode on a serious note,
and that is, I want to send some serious good vibes and speedy recovery wishes to long-time listener and Patreon backer Michael Gallo,
who is undergoing a big surgery this week.
Now, Michael's name, if maybe you've been listening for a long time, might ring a bell, because I'll just, and if not, that's okay.
I'll just tell you a quick little story about him.
Way back in 2018, when I first got my first Tesla, my Model 3 performance, The Spirit of Adventure,
Michael caravanned with me over the holidays from San Francisco to Phoenix.
As it turned out, he had messaged me, he was also heading there to see family of his own.
Like I had mentioned on the podcast that I was going to be going and taking my first EV road trip, and so we ended up going together.
And as I said, it was my first ever EV road trip, and as I had said at the time, I was a little bit nervous about it,
which I know it sounds kind of silly for me to even say to myself, out loud now, because I'm so comfortable with it,
but for the very first one, not knowing the ins and outs of the battery and how much range was really what I had on, what it said on screen.
Anyway, even after all the research that I had done, all the knowledge I had accumulated, I was nervous about that first EV road trip.
And having him there, and his lovely daughter was with him as well, along with me and my daughter in my car.
So just having Michael there, not only made it really fun because we'd chat at the supercharger stops and we'd get bites to eat together,
but it also made me feel a lot more comfortable taking that first EV road trip as well.
And I don't know if I ever told him this, but having him there really meant a lot to me, and you know, it's a little thing,
but it's something that I've never forgotten, and I've always appreciated that and appreciated him for that.
And I've had the pleasure, we've seen each other a number of times since then, because he's local to the San Francisco Bay Area.
And he even, far more recently, a couple of years ago, he gave me the honor of letting me be there in the car with him
when he did his first proper, quiet back road cheetah stance plaid launch when he got his Model S plaid a couple years ago.
So best wishes, Michael. I will be thinking about you this week.
Getting going with the podcast as I teased at the top, I got my first Tesla RoboTaxi ride this week.
In fact, it was today, just not just more than a few hours ago from as I'm recording this now.
The app opened up to anyone living anywhere.
Even Canada has access to the RoboTaxi app now.
And if you're not in the San Francisco Bay Area or Austin, all you can do is join the waitlist.
And I did the same.
So as soon as I saw that the app was available, I downloaded it and joined the waitlist.
So the next day I saw on X that a lot of people were getting in.
So I checked my email because it says will contact you when you're when you're invited, when you can use the service.
So I checked my email, no notification that I had been admitted.
However, a little while later, I just happened to open the RoboTaxi app and boom, I had access.
I was like, yes, this is great.
And so I'm thinking, OK, where should I go?
What kind of where can I send the car that's going to be somewhat challenging, not just like a straight shot somewhere?
And so it's like, what errands could I run?
And I had a couple meetings during the day.
And as of now, the fleet is seemingly pretty small here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
So getting a car was going to it said it would take like 27 minutes or something to get a car.
And the point being the timing didn't end up working out yesterday for me to take a RoboTaxi ride.
But I had arranged a lunch across town with Taylor Robinette, who if that name sounds familiar,
he is a former guest on this podcast.
He used to run the Tesla referral program.
So if you remember that episode where I interviewed him about his experience as both a Tesla owner,
Tesla enthusiast who crossed over, if you will, to become a Tesla employee.
So I had messaged him because I knew he had mentioned on social that he had access as well.
Anyway, so we make plans to meet up and then that would just give me a fun reason to chat with him,
have a nice meal and RoboTaxi each way.
And so OK, it's like I still have these plans set in stone.
So the next day today, I had made a note in my phone that long before I needed to leave to go to this lunch,
I should check the app and see how long it takes to get a car so that I can request the car in enough time to make it to our lunch on time.
So I opened the app today and all and it just shows me I'm locked out and it just says click here to join the wait list.
So wait, what?
So unfortunately, I had access yesterday and today I don't anymore.
So Taylor was very nice, though.
What he was kind enough to do was I weigh mode to the lunch,
which I thought would give me an excuse to kind of compare the two almost back to back, right?
So I weigh mode to the lunch.
We had a great time chatting and then and then he got a RoboTaxi and we RoboTaxi back to my house.
And then he RoboTaxi home to his house.
So at least I did get a ride, even though, in fact, I'm going to take a look one more time here.
I can't imagine anything's changed late into the evening here on a Friday night, but you never know with Tesla.
Let's see. Yeah, no, I still we will reach out as soon as you can book a ride.
So no, I still don't have access, but hopefully that'll change sometime soon since I am in one of their service areas.
But anyhow, my impressions of my one ride, it was it was about a 30 minute ride across San Francisco.
And it did take the freeway for a chunk of it, but there was also some city driving.
And my impressions were that it was pretty uneventful.
It did it did do the trip about six to seven minutes quicker than the Waymo.
Now granted, one was one way, one was the other.
So there's variants there.
Also, it was a slightly different time of day.
So it's not quite apples to apples, but probably a factor in the trip going faster in the robot taxi
was that the robot taxi took the freeway.
And yes, there of course, there's as I've said on the podcast and you may have heard already,
there is a safety monitor in the driver's seat in the Tesla, which of course in Waymo
here in San Francisco, there is not.
It is fully driverless.
There's no one else in the car.
But the safety monitor did not do anything when when I was on my robot taxi ride.
So it did take the freeway for part of it.
But yeah, it was very uneventful.
It was quicker than the Waymo was heading back.
It was also notably 40% cheaper than Waymo.
I didn't think to check an Uber price.
I should have done that for another comparison.
It just it didn't even pop into my head.
But it was 20 bucks in the Waymo to go from my home to the to our lunch spot.
And it was $12 from the from our lunch spot back to my home.
So 40% significantly, significantly cheaper via the robot taxi.
And as I said, yeah, it was it was just uneventful, which is good.
It didn't necessarily feel obviously ahead of the version 13 in my car.
But it's also it didn't really it was very human like it was very smooth,
very natural.
I really don't have any complaints.
Like it's it's probably a good thing that I don't really have anything to say about it
in terms of nothing eventful happened.
So I'm grateful to Taylor for again, I thought I'd be able to take my own first robot taxi ride.
Instead, it took Taylor's generosity to do it.
So thank you, Taylor for facilitating that.
I really do appreciate it.
And I will say one other thing.
I guess my my one nitpick, which FSD does this as well.
And I have I think I've taken away Mo from the same spot we met for lunch back to my house.
And it and it didn't do this.
But the robot taxi did take a route that I did not prefer.
It went away that I'm not going to get into details.
I don't want to dox myself.
But it just went away that I would rather it not have gone.
It wasn't the end of the world.
It did its job.
It handled the drive just fine.
So it did it did its work.
I just would have preferred it gone a notably different direction.
I don't think it it maybe took a couple minutes longer going the way it did.
Then if it had gone the way I wanted it to go.
But still very cool to get to experience it.
And hopefully the first of many more robot taxi rides to come sooner rather than later.
But thought I would share my first experience with you.
Now Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on X this week in the wake of the widening of the user base
in both Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area saying quote the safety driver is just there
for the first few months to be extra safe.
There should be no safety driver by the end of the year end quote.
So all right.
So if we're lucky maybe January 1st 2026 or so we'll have completely empty Model Y
Robo Taxis.
Now granted he's not just giving some off the cuff answer there I don't think.
Because I believe at least in the Bay Area but I think also in Austin that the
state DMVs each require a certain number of miles of service with the safety monitor there
before those respective DMVs will allow you to go fully driverless.
And yes Waymo did have to go through the same thing in both San Francisco and Austin.
So a few months must be when Elon believes that Tesla will have accumulated enough miles.
In each of those areas.
Now obviously Austin's been running a bit longer than the Bay Area but the San Francisco Bay Area
geofenced region geofenced usage zone is significantly larger than the Austin one.
So SF might be able to make up the difference there.
On next up this week Tesla's latest addition to its lineup that would be the six seat Model
Y L is proving to be a massive hit in China with early demand far exceeding expectations.
I saw this quick story on Drive Tesla Canada who wrote according to a local Chinese media report
citing a Tesla salesperson since its launch on August 19th the long wheelbase electric SUV
has already generated 120,000 orders. That equates to an average of close to 10,000 new
orders per day. The first deliveries began on September 2nd and Tesla expects the first
large wave of customers to receive their vehicles in October. That needless to say
is a crazy order rate. Needless to say it's also not sustainable nor what anyone expected to be but
if that report is accurate which again they're citing a Tesla salesperson there
120,000 orders on this single variant in less than a month's time is absolutely bonkers.
To put that in a different context, 120,000 in about 12 days as of this report
means again on just the Model Y L not the long range not the rear wheel drive just the Model Y
L that represents 10% of all Model Y deliveries from the entirety of last year from all of 2024
1.2 million Model Y last year 10% of that just happened in 12 days on one version of the Model Y
in China. One trim 10 days insane so I'm gonna say it again and I know you're all with me here
nobody's nobody's arguing against me Tesla's got to get the L over here and take the W take the win
Tesla get it over to the US get it to Europe ASAP do not deny this vehicle to your customers
in the rest of the world let's go let's see that Model Y on the road and coming out of
Austin Fremont and Berlin. Next continuing to warm up this week friends of ride the lightning
Franz von Hulshausen Tesla's chief designer and Lars Morevi Tesla's chief engineer brought the
mini refresh Model S plaid over to Jay Leno for a new episode of Jay Leno's garage they
brought it in frost blue their newest color now Jay of course has one of the very first plads from
back in the summer of 2021 so for him this was seeing what Tesla has updated on the car over the
past four years for the rest of us that have been following along with all of this stuff super
closely I will tell you there's no real new information here though as all of you know
I always enjoy hearing from Franz and or Lars so I do encourage you to give it a look check it out
on Jay Leno's garage YouTube channel if you're interested in watching it it's about 40 minutes
long as usual the format is the first half or so of the episode is Jay walking around with
the company representative or in this case representatives walking around the car in his
garage pointing out all kinds of external and internal stuff and then the second half of the
episode is Jay out driving the car and that's exactly what the case was here I do want to play
you just one clip though it came from right at the end of the episode and I'll warn you in
advance it's there's no new information or details in this clip but I just want to say
and I've said this before that Jay like me always asks Franz and Lars about the new roadster every
time he sees them because I think Jay is as excited about that car as I am and I appreciate Jay for that
so here's the clip of Jay doing just that it's always a pleasure when you come by and I hope
one day soon to see the new roadster yes I'm very excited about that coming coming so I promise you
Jay we will bring you here first I was a young man when I first thought about getting so are we
yeah yeah so very good well cool like a fine wine yeah aging aging well yeah well I get that Jay
has a much bigger audience than I do so uh hey guys Lars and Franz could you maybe bring the
new roadster to ride the lightning second please maybe could I could I get in the queue for that
that would be fantastic when the time comes before I get to the main stories this week
I wanted to say that I hope all of you who are kindly supporting my efforts with the podcast
over on my patreon page enjoy this week's lightning round mini episode if you're with me
at that ten dollar per month tier or higher this week's lightning round was the second
patreon profile as I'm calling them it's with a listener so it's a it's just a conversation
with with one of you with a listener to hear your tesla story your ev story I just I found
off the air over the years of doing this podcast that I just really enjoy talking to each of
you when I get a chance to meet you and just I just like hearing how you got to the podcast
how you got into tesla because everybody has a little bit of a different story right so uh this
week's lightning round is the patreon profile with a listener named Jared from Seattle whose
background in software has him particularly fascinated with tesla's autonomy efforts
so our conversation on patreon this week is definitely tilted in that direction if you enjoy
those let me know if you don't let me know I'm doing you know I'm thinking once a month for that
but obviously every other week is just a different evergreen ev tesla related topic so
check that out on patreon if you are with me on patreon if you're not already with me on
patreon I would be humbled and grateful if you chose to join me on patreon and support the podcast
support me support my family the way to do that is to go to my patreon page found at
patreon.com slash tesla podcast patreon spelled p-a-t-r-e-o-n or just click the link in the
episode description and you'll see that at that ten dollar per month tier that's the most
popular tier you not only get all hundred and fifty something of those lightning round
mini episodes that I do every week but also you get an ad-free version of the episode every week
and you get early access to that ad-free version every week so each tier has different perks and
bonuses they stack as you go up just if the if ten bucks if if I'm not worth that to you
but you know what maybe five bucks you can do well for five bucks a month you'll still get
the ad-free episodes and you'll get the early access each week to that that ad-free episode
so again patreon.com slash tesla podcast for that and if you'd prefer to do a once a year
annual pledge there's an option for that on patreon and as a thank you for doing that
I give you a 10% discount so thank you so much for considering your patreon pledge
probably the biggest tesla story in yet another busy week of tesla news the company released
its master plan part four following part one in 2006 which I remind you was two years before
they ever delivered a car which is pretty sweet especially when you look back on it and see
that they've achieved everything from the original master plan part two or part two
was in 2016 which I covered on the podcast at the time yes I've been going that long
and part three was in 2023 just two years ago the heart of this one is a term that we've already
heard Elon use and that term is sustainable abundance I'm going to read you the whole thing
and it's a lot but I'll start just start with the intro and we'll just go from there
it's this this one it's long ish it's definitely longer than part one or part two
it's not longer than part three which was a hefty thing but anyway let's just get started
here so the intro says since tesla's founding each iteration of our master plan has focused
on our north star to deliver unconstrained sustainability without compromise humans are
tool makers at tesla we make physical products at scale and at a low cost with the goal of making
life better for everyone as the influence and impact of artificial intelligence technology increases
the mission set forth in master plan part four should come as no surprise this next
chapter in tesla's story will help create a world we've only just begun to imagine
and will do so at a scale that we have yet to see we are building the products and services that
bring AI into the physical world we have been working tirelessly for nearly two decades to
create the foundation for this technological renaissance through the development of electric
vehicles energy products and humanoid robots now we are combining our manufacturing capabilities
with our autonomous prowess to deliver new products and services that will accelerate global
prosperity and human thriving driven by economic growth shared by all we are unifying our hardware
and software at scale and in doing so we are creating a safer cleaner and more enjoyable
world this is sustainable abundance so again i'm i'm gonna get into the whole thing i'll try
and make it as quick as i can because i i normally i wouldn't read the whole thing because i
i worry that when i read things that are just too long at a certain point it just gets boring
to listen to is my concern but i think i kind of just have to read you the whole thing
if you don't mind because i just want you to get the full picture of it so here's the rest
the first section is guiding principles the first one is growth is infinite
they say growth in one area does not require decline in another shortages in resources can
be remedied by improved technology greater innovation and new ideas the technologies
that gave us the ability to power machines led to industrial revolutions that have widened
our economic landscape creating more opportunities for all groundbreaking inventions like the
semiconductor and the internet have expanded not diminished social and economic opportunities
across all aspects of the human experience from creating more jobs to providing greater
access to information to enabling deeper interpersonal connections our desire to push
beyond what is considered achievable will foster the growth needed for truly sustainable
abundance and then the next section under guiding principles is innovation removes constraints
for centuries humans prime humanities primary mode of transportation was the horse
then over the last 50 plus years cars with internal combustion engines powered by fossil fuels
became the standard and expected transportation method the idea that batteries could be produced
affordably and at a scale large enough to pivot the transportation industry away from
fossil fuels seemed a fool's errand until tesla led the way forward through continued
innovation we have overcome the technological constraints of battery development and built
an industry powered by renewable resources the next the next part of this is technology
solves tangible problems the products and services born out of the acceleration towards
sustainable abundance will advance humanity by solving real-world problems to further accelerate
our innovation we build each product more efficiently and more sustainably than the last
solar energy generation and large-scale battery storage are increasing the availability
and reliability of clean electricity in our communities and are doing so more affordably
and more sustainably autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the
affordability availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution particularly
in our increasingly dense global cities optimists are autonomous humanoid robot is changing not
only the perception of labor itself but its availability and capacity capability pardon
me jobs and tasks that are particularly monotonous or dangerous can now be accomplished by other
means in this way optimus's mission is to give people back more time to do what they love
autonomy must benefit all of humanity the tools we make at tesla help us build the
products that advance human prosperity how we develop and use autonomy and the new
capabilities it makes available to us should be informed by its ability to enhance the human
condition making daily life better and safer for all people through our autonomous technology
has always been and continues to be our focus greater access drives greater growth
making techno excuse me making technologically advanced products that are affordable and
available at scale is required to build a flourishing and unconstrained society
it serves to further democratize society while raising everyone's quality of life in the process
the hallmark of meritocracy is creating opportunities that enable each person to use
their skills to accomplish whatever they imagine everyone deserves access to these opportunities
and technological growth can help ensure that each of us is able to maximize our most limited
resource time now the next section and the end they say we're accelerating the world's
transition to sustainable abundance we must make one thing clear this challenge will be extremely
difficult to overcome the elimination of scarcity will require tireless and exquisite
execution some will perceive it as impossible and plenty of others will laud every obstacle
and setback we inevitably encounter along the way but once we overcome this challenge
our critics will come to see what they once thought was impossible is indeed possible
and that will be fine with us because what matters most is that together we create a sustainable
and truly abundant future for generations to come and then the final subhead here all worthwhile
journeys are long and they all begin with a first step our first step was to make an exciting
sports car roadster then we leveraged those profits to fund the development and production
of more affordable yet still exciting products model s and model x then we repeated the process
bringing us to model three and model y and onward this process required us to take many steps some
of them small and others large but ultimately each win led to another win and even with our
failures we were able to keep building momentum our momentum allowed us to build out a fully
integrated ecosystem of sustainable products from transport to energy generation battery
storage and robotics today we are on the cusp of a revolutionary period primed for unprecedented
growth and this time it will not be a single step but a leap forward for tesla and humanity
as a whole the tools we are going to develop will help us build the kind of world that we've
always dreamed of a world of sustainable abundance by redefining the fundamental building blocks of
labor mobility and energy at scale and for all so there you go that is master plan part four
i read it over a few times and i'll be honest with you it seems pretty vague to me and i think
that's what disappoints me about it the first three plans were all quite clear on what exactly
the company wanted to do and how exactly it was going to do it i will give you an example here
it's it's just very idealistic actually let me let me just first go over what i just said so
part one still my favorite one because i don't know it just is it was three steps basically build
a low volume expensive sports car to prove out the capability and excitement of evs then use the
money from that to build a cheaper sedan mid volume then use the money from that to build a
more affordable high volume sedan and they did it they absolutely did it if you went back in time
and grabbed 2006 elan musk after he first wrote that like after he just clicked publish
and went to the tesla.com website i guess at the time it was tesla motors.com
and you brought him to 2025 he'd be like whoa how many how many cars do we have how many did
we make last year like he'd he'd be like wow we we did it that's amazing so i still love the original
master plan now part two literally concluded with a boiled down plan of action that i'll
just read you real quick it concluded by saying so in short master plan part two is
create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage expand the electric
vehicle product line to address all major segments develop a self-driving capability
that is 10x safer than manual via massive fleet learning enable your car to make money for you
when you aren't using it and so well let's look at that they've done the solar roof with home battery
storage they've expanded the evi product line to address well some segments i hope they get back to
finishing that one and going into all segments develop a 10x safer fsd capability well they're
in the final stages of this like for real it's i wrote in it today and enable your car
to make money for you well that one hasn't happened yet but it is genuinely within sight as well
then master plan part three was a massive 41 page document that i had to go back and refresh myself
on in advance of this week's episode explaining in detail quote a proposed path to reach a sustainable
global energy economy through end use electrification and sustainable electricity generation
and storage and again what they're doing this mega pack look at the mega pack installation
in california in australia in hawaii they are doing this mega pack is basically the key to that
part three uh goal and and they're doing it like it mega pack is a is a growing and successful
segment of the tesla energy business now part four here is again pretty vague certainly by
comparison to parts one through three it is an idealistic here's what we want to do and it's
gonna be hard to get there like okay yes but i don't really feel like it explains how we're going
to get there for example optimus is super cool and all i fully recognize that i've been at an event
where they've been walking around teleoperated or not it's crazy that that's like they've
been walking around serving drinks and snacks like i've seen it i've seen the the sort of early
version of it but with the amount that elan has said they think they can sell of optimus
the fact of the matter is they're going to need to convince a whole lot of families to spend
about 25 grand on a robot that's a lot of money for a lot of families i'm not saying it's not
worth it but i'm just saying that's a lot of money for many many people and there are cool examples
that tesla could have pointed to of how tesla can be of real world benefit to human beings like for
instance being a home health aid to the elderly not like literally replacing a human but very
much assisting a human in that capacity like for instance helping lift an elderly person
in and out of the shower or bath as one example so i'm not sitting here saying that tesla should
have outlined every single use case for optimus but i just think they didn't really provide any
details on how these products particularly given what they're going to cost are going to create
abundance for everyone for the wealthy sure the people that can afford a 25 000 robot yeah
that that then those people are going to get some time back and that's cool but for a lot of working
families that's going to be a taller order i i guess i would sum it up it's i would sum it up by
saying this sustainable abundance thing it's a very star trekking aim like you know star trek
there's no money there's no currency people just do things to intellectually enrich themselves and
challenge themselves and you know humanity pushes into the depths of space to learn things and
you know it's not about commerce so it's this this master plan part four it's a very star trek like
idea and and i love the optimism don't get me wrong but this just doesn't feel grounded to me
like the other three master plans felt and i think that's ultimately my issue with it
and i wasn't alone in that after i read it and jotted down my notes i went and looked at
the comments under the x post because this unfortunately this wasn't posted to tesla.com it was
only posted to x which i mean i get why but i think the tesla master plan should probably
live on the tesla website but that's a very minor little nitpicky complaint but anyway i guess i
maybe i shouldn't complain too much because if it's on tesla.com you can't there's no
comments underneath to see how people feel about it on x there very much is and on x
a lot of people had very similar reactions to me now elan did respond to one of those people
tesla investor dave lee who i i know a little bit dave's a good guy uh the next day elan responded
to dave the next day and dave had been saying same thing like hey there's kind of a lack of specifics
here and elan responded saying quote fair enough we'll add more specifics now tesla also put up a
short video to accompany this that you can see on their social channels that shows little bits of
footage from all across the company right it's like a sizzle reel kind of thing narrated with the
with parts of this sustainable abundance plan and you know you know i mean i work in media
so i very much know but you know that every frame of video in something like that is carefully
scrutinized before it's cleared for public publication that's that's just a fact now
why do i bring that up it's because in one brief moment during a shot in the design studio in
franz's shop of and and in the foreground the thing you're supposed to be looking at
is the cyber cab it's a clay model of the cyber cab being carved that's what's in the foreground
you're supposed to be focusing on that but in the background there is a row of what appear to be
tiny cyber suvs exactly the vehicle that i was talking about on last week's lightning round
over on patreon now it could be the perspective the angle of the image the still frame messing
with me but that's why i said many these these cyber suvs because there were like three of them
they definitely did not look like full-size models because a full-size cyber suv would be
a very very large vehicle but i would have to imagine that tesla doesn't go ahead and make a full
one-to-one scale model every single time they probably start and iterate with smaller models
first and to describe it to you if you haven't seen it online these cyber suv models are almost
identical to cyber trucks but instead of sloping back down from the peak of the triangle aka the
top of the windshield and down towards the bed of the cyber truck instead the roof glass from the
peak of the of what was the triangle the top of the windshield just goes straight back forming a boxy suv
shape so i would be thrilled if this is a real product to a address a relatively unaddressed
market segment for tesla that being the large three row boxy suv you know the the escalades
of the world and then b i would be thrilled because it would further leverage the cyber truck platform
the tooling and the production line all the resources that have already gone into the
cyber truck that unfortunately for the moment seem to be underutilized or at the very least
that those resources are a far cry from the 250 000 per year production total that elan had
repeatedly stated over the years for cyber truck leading up to the launch and we they're instead
they're at like an order of magnitude less than that right now by the way um i'll conclude
here by saying that well besides the fact that i really want the cyber suv to be real
on a more kind of general level i do absolutely adore the concept of a company issuing evolving
updating master plans and doing so publicly i would honestly like to see more companies do it
i mean i suppose the cynical perspective on why no other company that i'm aware of
does this is because most companies master plan is just make as much money as possible
so i'd love to see more companies adopt a public public facing master plan strategy
i mean tesla's done so now for almost 20 years wow wow actually that's right
we are less than a year away from the 20th anniversary of the first master plan in fact
the exact date i looked it up master plan part one was posted on august first 2006 so yeah we're
about 11 months away from the 20th anniversary of that one and really more to the point is with
a master plan we are able to hold tesla accountable to an degree to a degree to what they've laid out
and then they've been able to hold themselves accountable to that as well and i think just i
just think that's a good thing so i'd like to see more companies do it uh to conclude on this
topic because there there is plenty more to talk about i know i've already been
been chattering away for quite a while i made the master plan part for the subject of this week's
patreon poll i linked to it for people to read and i simply asked what do you think of tesla's
master plan part four running away with the vote with 44 percent of over 270 votes
was the second choice on the list which was it's interesting but light on details
23 percent voted i'm not sure what they're going for with this 15 percent said i love it bring on
sustainable abundance 14 percent said so no mention of new cars and then the remaining
four percent just said just show me the results so just as the online response was
not dissimilar from my takeaway from it sounds like those of you that voted in the patreon poll
this week were kind of along the same lines as me generally speaking as well a little vague that's
that's the complaint here a little vague thank you to everybody that took the time to vote
and plenty of you left comments below as well a lot of good points down there and a quick reminder
that you do not have to be supporting me at all on patreon in order to vote in each week's patreon
poll it's totally free it's open to anybody i just want you to swing on by and cast your
vote each week at patreon.com slash tesla podcast the new poll question typically
goes up on tuesday evenings so look for that stop on by and make your voice heard
a quick mid-show break right here to remind you about my friends at xcare accelerate auto
and their product xcare it's the ev specific extended warranty these folks have rewritten
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you can do that you may be eligible for that coverage as well so again check them out xcare.com
hundred dollars off with the discount code lightning when you select xcares one-time
payment option yep or 45 plus minutes into the podcast this week and we are still rolling
another big story this week tesla has released its 2025 proxy and it includes an unprecedented
one trillion that's with a t pay package for elan musk if he meets all of its objectives
i want to give a tip of the cap to our tesla tipster friend soyer merit who wrote up a wonderful
summary of this after cruising through the aforementioned proxy and soyer writes if elan
wants to receive the full award he will need to create 7.5 trillion dollars in shareholder value
making tesla an 8.5 trillion dollar company the plan spans 10 years the additional shares elan
could receive would push his stake in tesla to at least 25 percent there are 12 tranches
with each worth about 1 percent of the company the first one would come at a 2 trillion dollar
market cap as the puppy drops a toy ball on the floor if you're wondering what weird sound that
just was to capture each tranche elan not only has to meet a market cap milestone but one of the
operation milestones as well meaning if elan doesn't deliver he gets paid nothing making this a well
in uh soyer's opinion anyway a very shareholder friendly one elan will have to hold the new
shares after he receives them for seven and a half years tesla wrote in the proxy quote the 2025
ceo performance award similarly challenges elan to again meet a series of even more aspirational
goals including operational milestones focused on reaching adjusted ebit dot targets thresholds
that are up to 28 times higher than the 2018 ceo performance awards top adjusted ebit to milestone
and rolling out new or expanded product offerings including 1 million robotaxies
in commercial operation and delivery of 1 million ai bots all while growing the company's market
capitalization by trillions of dollars now soyer added in another post this he says quote this is
an interesting tidbit in tesla's proxy filing the board says quote ultimately the committee
believed it to be critical to tesla to secure musk's commitment to tesla and receive
assurances that musk's involvement with the political sphere would wind down in a timely manner
end quote the company doesn't really go into any further depth on this so it's unclear what kind
of assurances they may have received the company also says it wants to develop a meaningful framework
for long-term succession planning led by the board with elan's participation so thank you to
soyer for that now those of you who are tesla shareholders will be voting on this ahead of the
upcoming shareholder meeting in about two months from now in november so i very much encourage you
to read up in more detail on this than just the general three-minute overview that i've given
you here but a couple of quick thoughts from me one i am glad to see that 20 million vehicles
delivered is one of the tranches now it's not 20 million per year so it's not the battery day 2020
goal that they had set for themselves to achieve by 2030 it's not that it's 20 million total vehicles
delivered if you're curious tesla is at about eight they're just over eight million now and so far
they've yet to crack two million per year as you know they've been just below that for the past couple
years and they are likely to come in a bit under that this year as well so they would either hit
this in about six years from now at their current pace or it could certainly be quicker and probably
will be a bit quicker depending on how many cybercaps that they're able to produce and really
basically it's not even the production of it it's what's the demand for it you know how how many
cybercaps does tesla want to make for themselves for fleet owners in which cities etc but cyber cab
and then if tesla introduces more vehicles like wood could uh a cyber suv like i was talking
about earlier be one of them i mean the roadster i hope to goodness is is in there that's
going to be a drop in the bucket it's not really going to get a much closer but roadster and then
semi as well they are about to uh open up their high volume semi facility up in up in reno that
will be in early next year and so that the semi will contribute a decent bit to to growing the
the vehicle total as well but the point is 20 million vehicles delivered is still going to
take some time and and really that's what i want to see so if tesla introduces more vehicles to help
hit that goal great i am all for that that's what i want i'm a car guy who loves tesla cars tesla
vehicles i want to see fran's cook in more vehicle segments i want to see that tesla
minivan i mean i don't want to i've been i've been given the same the same spiel here a
lately so i'm just i'm happy to see that that is one of the tranches if you're curious what uh a
couple of the other ones are there's also 10 million active fsd subscriptions one million robots
delivered and one million robo taxis in commercial operation so uh the other ones are all from
adjusted ebit to numbers that's the the rest of the the operational milestones there
so uh i'm also glad to see the board at least have a meaningful discussion with elan with regard
to politics such that just whatever they decided on in that negotiation i guess it was got put
into writing because i think regardless of your political affiliation i think we can all probably
agree that it's not the best thing for tesla to be actively politicized in any way right like it's
you want everybody to want to buy your cars no matter who they who they uh cast their votes for
in in elections and then finally i wanted to mention on the long-term succession planning
part now you guys know my pick for that i've said it before it's jb straubel he's the guy
he is young he has all the engineering knowledge and he knows the company back to front
top to bottom as well as anyone other than elan he is a co-founder but as i think that i've
said on the podcast before the sense that i got from jb during my interview with him for episode 501
now i will note slash admit that i didn't i chose not to ask him this question directly
because to be honest with you it was just kind of my my interviewers my journalistic
intuition if you will i just i didn't feel like that i had quite earned enough trust with jb
in that first meeting with him to to ask him because that's that's a that's a big question to ask him
and without that trust built he might have just kind of brushed it off or you know
that would be a question i'd want to ask him maybe on a second interview if i ever if i ever
get the opportunity again but um so anyway my sense was from jb that he would turn down
the opportunity if he were asked to be the first in the line of succession after elan to be the
ceo of tesla that he would turn it down because my sense was that he seems really
dedicated really focused on the large-scale battery recycling problem that he is tackling
over at redwood materials now if it turns out that tesla ceo's succession isn't needed for
10 15 maybe more years from now then by the time it is needed jb would still be relatively young
and redwood has a comp and maybe at that time redwood's accomplished its mission
and then maybe he'd say you know what yeah okay i'll i'll come back and run tesla here
and help help steer the ship if if elan's no longer there but as to who else could be on that
shortlist my only other thoughts are two things one i don't think i would want an outsider for that
like uh um what's the guy's name herbert oh geez the guy the former volkswagen guy
dice is that his name anyway yeah he was floated as maybe a board member or something
at one point or or like a coo like like when shot well is it spacex next to elan but
i just i don't think you'd want to like tesla is such a unique entity and operates so differently
than any other car company that i don't think i would want someone who was forged in the fires
of traditional legacy automotive to come in and with that background into tesla so i think it would
have to be somebody internal and so and i also would rather it be an engineer than a c-suite guy
no disrespect to c-suite guys but i think an engineer is because of the kind of company that
tesla is you'd really need somebody with that very intimate product knowledge
and and just thinks that way rather than just thinking about you know making the most money
so would larz moravy want the job larz i don't know if you're hearing this and you're you're
bursting out laughing right now um larz is doing an awesome job engineering the actual safest
vehicles in the world and larz is he's definitely an engineer and he's and it's the other thing it's
not just because he was on the podcast and you know i i'm honestly floating his name because
and i think this came through in my interview with him on episode 499 so maybe you'll agree
from when you listen to it but my sense from talking to larz both on microphone and off
is that he is a person not only is he obviously a tremendously talented engineer
but he cares deeply about tesla's mission again i think that comes through in my interview with him
but that's whether it whether you think it did or not i very much got that sense from him
from talking to him on the on microphone and off microphone as well so
i would trust him to do it i guess is what i'm saying i don't i don't know if he would want the
job but it seems like we probably won't need to even worry about succession for quite a while but
if the board's gonna have they it's there it's in their fiduciary duty to the company
to have a succession plan and well larz would would be on my short list right behind jb stravel
anyway like i said you can read up on this ceo compensation package proposal if you're a shareholder
and then prepare to cast your vote in around a month or so a couple more stories for you this
week if you'd like to take delivery of your model y or presumably cybertruck at giga texas i've
got good news this comes via drive tesla canada who writes according to giga texas observer and drone
pilot joe teggmeyer tesla has quietly been conducting limited direct deliveries out of giga texas for
several months including of course the first fully autonomous delivery of a vehicle from the factory
to the other side of austin now tesla is taking it a step further with a permanent facility
designed to handle a larger volume of customer pickups the new delivery center is being developed
on the north end of the plant's west end of line building where completed vehicles roll off the
production line this area will serve as a public facing delivery hub where customers can finalize
paperwork complete the transfer of ownership and drive away in their new tesla to accommodate
the new delivery flow tesla is building additional road infrastructure a new access point is being
constructed on the northwest corner of the outbound lot connecting to a north south road that links
tesla road on one end and river road on the other this will give customers direct access to the
pickup area without interfering with the plant's internal logistics tesla originally planned to
conduct a excuse me construct a separate welcome center closer to tesla road but those plans have
now shifted instead the visitor facility will be built just north of the end of line building
taking advantage of the new public road connection according to teggmeyer the new delivery center
should be up and running by the end of the month it's unclear at this time if tesla will
allow any customer to pick up their new vehicle from giga texas or if it will be limited to new
owners in texas and nearby states well this is awesome news i love it and maybe i'll tell you
i'll say it's a little surprising and the reason i say that is because of tesla's push for autonomy
meaning that they are investing money and resources into this delivery center on site
at giga texas when they will soon have autonomous self-deliveries available at least for local cars
so my hope is that anyone can choose this and not just austin residents or texas residents
and i really hope that they pair this with an optional giga texas factory tour if they don't
i'll be honest if they don't oh hey this my i just caught this out of the corner of my eye my
phone lit up and i was like i'll look at that later and then i took a quick glance out of the corner
of my eye it's the robotaxi app that sent me a push notification that said good news ryan
you now have access so yes 9 42 p.m pacific here somebody at tesla's working late on a friday
go home please have a weekend i could this could have waited it's okay but thank you i
nevertheless i don't want to i don't want to uh be ungrateful here thank you for access
so if i tap that it launches the app welcome ryan get ready to book a ride activating your service
and sure enough it says a ride can arrive in 23 minutes i will put this to more use over the
weekend and have more to say on next week's podcast well excellent i get that i'm glad that that sort of
now you have it now you don't ended up being just a little hiccup and now i've got access so
back to my thoughts on the giga texas delivery center oh right the factory tour i really seriously
hope that tesla will offer an ellio optional of course not everybody's gonna want to do it but
i hope tesla offers a giga texas factory tour for those folks who are taking delivery out of this
delivery center at giga texas if they don't it will be a crying shame it's it's just it's a
layup to pair those things i know it still requires resources you need tour guides you
so you have to pay employees to do it you have to have the trams and they have to have
routes and it all has to get figured out so that it doesn't get away get in the way of vehicle
production but tesla please i hope you are going to offer free giga texas tours for those people
who are taking deliveries at giga texas it's uh because really and i'll be honest there so
there's a legitimate reason not just because it would be cool the real reason the legitimate
reason is this because offering a factory tour is only going to foster more enthusiasm for these cars
more enthusiasm for the tesla brand and more importantly more enthusiasm for tesla's mission
because take it from somebody who has had the extreme privilege of doing tesla factory
tours a few times over the years including i i did have the great fortune to walk
the cyber truck production line at the cyber truck delivery event at giga texas back in
november of 2023 you've heard me say this word before and i'm gonna say the same word again
because it is the first word that comes to mind when i think of my factory tour experiences with
tesla the word is inspiring it is inspiring to me to see what goes on in there and i think a lot of
other people would be inspired to especially if they're new owners right just think about it put
yourself in the shoes of someone who's never who's not like us they're not like super enthusiasts
like us they've decided they've done their research maybe they've talked to neighbors friends
family whatever they've said okay i'm gonna i'm gonna make the jump to an evie i'm gonna get this tesla
model y and they buy it and they they take delivery maybe they're in austin or you know texas
they say okay let's let's go take delivery at this at their factory maybe that would be kind of
neat and then they get the factory tour when they when they see the process they're only
going to be inspired to really care even more about what tesla's doing and what these cars and the
company's all about so it would just be really great to see tesla extend that tour offer to
anyone taking delivery at giga texas here's hoping on that one and i've got just one more
story for you this week something many tesla owners have been asking for going back years
now has finally arrived and that is a proper suggestion box i saw this story on drive tesla
canada who writes tesla has introduced a new customer feedback feature designed to streamline
how owners report issues and share suggestions across its wide range of products and services
the tool called tesla echo and now live at ts.la slash feedback marks the first time tesla has
offered a centralized feedback system that routes customer input directly to the appropriate
internal teams for resolution with this new web-based system tesla is consolidating everything
into one platform owners can select the area of concern from a list of the following categories
and submit details of their experience there's service sales delivery insurance robotaxi super
charging energy vehicles fsd and other tesla says the system will track feedback for closure both
internally and with the customer ensuring better follow-through than previous processes owners
can also upload supporting documents or images to provide additional context which should help
tesla address problems more quickly one of the most sought-after additions for many owners is
the ability to report fsd related concerns including mapping issues that drivers encounter while using
teslas adas features feedback submitted through the new portal is routed directly to teslas
autopilot and fsd teams enabling better tracking and response to issues this represents a significant
improvement for owners who previously had limited ways to raise specific fsd related concerns according
to tesla creating a unified feedback channel is quote mission critical to improving its end to end
customer experience by consolidating input across all products from financial services and
insurance to energy and vehicles the company aims to better understand customer pain points
and respond more effectively the system is currently only available on the web
through each owner's tesla account but the company confirmed it will be integrated into the tesla
mobile app in the near future thank you drive tesla canada for that and all i have to say is
finally yes very thankful for this one for basically ever the only way to give feedback
to tesla and have it receive any chance of being acted upon was to have a twitter now x account
tweet at elon and hope he sees it and responds which of course is not a very efficient system
when you're a car company so i'm over the moon that tesla has launched this it sounds like
they've put a ton of thought into it and i can't wait to see what new features what new
improvements we see in our cars and in the customer service process overall as a result
i want to say bravo to the tesla software team and teams internally that built this
all right that's everything i've got for you in another super busy week of tesla news i've
got time for a few of your ride the lightning phone calls so stay tuned for those right after
this this is bill daniels the voice of night industries 2000 or kit you're listening to ride
the lightning the tesla unofficial podcast happy electric motoring welcome to the ride
the lightning hotline your chance to call in and potentially be featured here on the podcast
if you've got a question comment or discussion topic i encourage you i welcome you i invite you
to call in with it and you're wondering well how do i do that there are two easy ways one
use your smartphones built-in voice recording software record your question please try to
keep it to 90 seconds or less so that i can get to as many callers each week as possible
and then email that file to me at my tesla podcast email address which is
tesla podcast at gmail.com or you can take that same 90 second or less question
and simply call in and leave a message anytime day or night on the ride the lightning hotline
it's a toll-free number and that number is 1-888-989-8752 that's 1-888-989-TSLA
and if you know someone special with an upcoming birthday anniversary graduation
or some other special occasion you can give them a unique gift of recorded voices from friends
and family telling them why they're special the recordings can be podcasted or put onto a keepsake
visit life on record dot com to learn more first up this week is james from brisbane
sharing the local sentiment down in australia about fsd good day ryan it's james from brisbane
australia i thought i'd share a bit of the local sentiment since the fsd supervised down under
announcement unfortunately the coming soon announcement was simply to tell us fsd supervised
is coming soon something that we've been hearing for some time now the announcement followed with
a very limited early access program to very limited media and some social media influences
and primarily on tesla own demo cars in fact i'm only aware of one personally owned vehicle
that's had it installed as part of this program there is absolutely no information on time lines
as to when there might be a broader release it's very frustrating to further add salt in the wind
hardware three owners have been told it's not coming anytime soon for them so i just wanted
to share that as when i listened to last week's episode and heard your congratulations for the
release from all the owners i know and what i'm seeing online people are now more frustrated
than ever what i would say though as someone who has watched most if not all of the content
shared it seems to be doing an incredible job on our side of the road with very minimal disengagement
so surely they can't keep us waiting too much longer james thank you for calling in to share
that local sentiment i realize now that i probably didn't help the situation by offering
congratulations on last week's show to tesla owners in australia when almost none of them
have gotten the software yet so i do apologize for that however i am glad to hear that it
sounds like it's performing beautifully on your roads so far and hopefully the wide rollout will
happen soon and happen quickly i guess those are the same thing but heck i mean ideally
hopefully you've got it in your car by the time you hear this of course as you noted that will
not apply to the hardware three owners anytime soon and i guess i hadn't really thought about it
until listening to your call but when i stop and realize that tesla has aside from a number of
minor fixes updates not put any new effort into the the hardware three ai three release of the
software it doesn't really bode well for the ai team adapting it for australian right hand
drive use anytime soon i'd be thrilled for them to prove me wrong on that because again clearly
we've all seen it all of tesla's efforts have been going into the robo taxi until more recently
when we finally heard about version 14 moving along and hopefully coming out at least here in the
us this month but i sure as heck hope that at least somebody over at tesla is working on
adapting version 12 for the ai three hardware three cars for australian use so godspeed james
you've all certainly waited long enough as it is let's now hear next from somebody with a
hardware four car in australia who did luck out and get into that first wave of fsd installs
it's pete from western australia good day ryan it's pete patrotsky from western australia as
you reported last week tesla is riding out fsd supervised in australia as we now know it's
a stage rollout starting with employees plus a handful of journalists who will lend hardware
four cars for about an hour in brisbane but on thursday the 28th of august i was absolutely
beside myself to join the early access program and to the best of my knowledge i'm the first
public user of fsd supervised in a right hand drive car i was so excited i couldn't sleep
downloaded the update and tested it just before midnight fsd is absolutely amazing as you
remarked in a single jump ozzie's are leaping from what was effectively a limited version of
enhanced autopilot straight to this absolute game changer it feels like i've been in a coma for six
years and have woken up to a car that can drive itself after 30 hours of driving i can report
it is incredibly smooth very much human-like and it feels like it's reading my mind it's not
perfect however it still requires supervision but i can say i've had multiple two to three
hour drives with no interventions what's over but i can't say i've had none as i did have to
make a few safety this engagements that being said i'm mindful we are the first right hand
drive country and i also understand this is only a very limited test version as i'm one of only
two non-employees in western australia given early access and only among a handful nationwide
it's also probably the worst the software is ever going to get this software's potential
is absolutely huge it will save lives reduce injuries prevent dogs and cats from being run over
cut pollution and give independence to non-drivers while saving both time and money what a time
to be alive right i'm so grateful to tesla for this much valued opportunity and i also
wanted to thank you for giving australians an international voice in the tesla community
worldwide and for everything you've done over the last decade thanks again from down under
pete thank you for the call for the kind words and let me say congratulations to you uh because
you really you really hit the tesla lottery here by getting in on the first wave of fsd
supervised rollout in your country and i'm super happy for you that is awesome i mean i love
hearing that you've logged 30 hours with it already and no doubt plenty more than that by the
time this episode airs and you hear this and it's really great to hear your perspective from as you
noted from skipping all of the other versions of what was fsd beta and is now fsd supervised so
have fun with it thank you for calling in and i hope that you give a lot of your fellow
australians test rides and i mean that for both giving fellow tesla owners who haven't
got the software yet or maybe you know like like james are on a hardware three car uh and also non
tesla owners like i hope you're given lots of rides to everybody to demo the software cheers
pete thank you so much and while we're on the subject of fsd uh let's i've got time for one
more call let's come back to the us and hear from david in yorktown virginia who has an example
of fsd being awesome hello ryan this is david from yorktown virginia i wanted to call in with an
interesting example of how just awesome uh full step driving has become uh like you i come back from
those days uh many years ago where i had to drive like a grandma for months just to get a steep
score of 95 so i could be one of the early adopters the full self-driving and of course
i've been using it all the time uh i was driving on uh a road uh in a conga line a car is going about
five miles an hour and then one of the cars on the oncoming traffic side had its left turn
and signal on uh signaling you wanted to get across the road and my car slowed to a stop
allowed him to make the turn and then continued on i was just like wow not only that but another
like 30 seconds later the same exact thing happened guy with the left turn blinker on
my car slowed and stopped he went across the road gave me a little wave and off i went so there you
go another good reason to have full self-driving uh be nice to other people thank you ryan for
all you do above the podcast bye thanks dave and you're right sometimes there are those really
human-esque moments with fsd that make it feel like magic in fact i'll give you a recent example
of my own that i don't think i mentioned on the podcast so i was in the far left lane on a four
lane freeway and the reason i was in the left lane before you yell at me was because i was
passing the car that had been in front of me in the second lane and so fsd was was passing it
uh in the left lane but before i had finished overtaking that car and thus would move back over
into the the second lane three guys on sport bikes you know motor so big fat the fast motorcycles
came zooming up behind me and i admit i i felt a bit bad i saw them in my rear view mirror
because i was kind of stuck like i couldn't if i went to move i just couldn't get out of the way
basically i so i was stuck in the left lane as these guys were zooming up because i just i never
want to be that guy that's holding somebody up in the left lane specifically but what happened was
that you know in california it's not illegal to lane split so it's it's a it's
something that's done it's practiced here so what fsd did was all on its own it moved over to the left
side of the lane to the point where the car was riding the left lane line which very clearly and
obviously gave the lane splitting bikers room to zip by me and as each one went by each one of them
put their arm out and kind of down and with two fingers out gave me kind of the peace sign pointing
down as they as they zoom back which i'm pretty sure at least certainly the the contextual
thing for this and if they're motorcycle riding folks in the audience you can correct me if i'm
not interpreting this correctly but it's basically i think the biker sign for thank you for moving
over to make it easier for me to go by and i was thinking to myself as they're as they're giving
me the the two fingers that you know the the thank you sign i'm thinking to myself well they're
thanking a robot i didn't do that maneuver which is pretty cool right that's a very human thing to
do and and remember for version 14 which elan says is targeted for release this month but
we'll have to wait and see if that actually happens version 14 is supposedly another really
big step forward and waiting for us beyond that you'll remember just a few episodes ago when
when i talked about elan's comments on what the robo taxis in austin are running
he said that those cars have quote some additional breakthroughs in tesla ai that will
make the car feel eerily human so more of this to come i guess these these good human movements
um you know indications or um actions that's the word i'm looking for these good human like actions
taken by the the cars so exciting times ahead in fsdville all right that's all the time i've
got in this week's ride the lightning hotline but again i welcome and encourage you to call in
if you've got a question comment or discussion topic for the podcast i give you the call in
information at the top of the segment so refer back to that as for what's going on with me and my
car well after more time driving the spirit of adventure this week after i had the bent rim
fixed i will say again the the fsd performance the intra lane wandering slash drifting that i was
getting it is better but it's still not it's nowhere it's not as as rock solid as as version 13
in my ai 4 car is and i would say the thing i've noticed the most common thing it does
again this is my car i don't know if everybody's ai 3 car is doing this is on curves in the highway
i'm talking specifically about highway driving here not city driving on highway driving on curves
it will hug the inside of the lane on that curve so if it's a curve to the right it's
over very close to the the lane marker the lane lines on the right hand side which
not ideal i'd rather it just stay centered as it curves through which is what the ai 4 car does
but it does seem better than it was so i'm not sure if the bent rim really was affecting it
it's tough to tough to be able to say for certain but it does seem a bit better now like
noticeably better than it was before and it's not like there's been a software update so
hopefully having that bent rim did fix things and i've got my alignment appointment coming up this
week that probably isn't going to change anything because it's not like the car is like if i have
autopilot off and just let go of the wheel on a straight road it's not like it drifts one way
or the other so i i'm not anticipating like if it does need alignment i'm not anticipating
that it's like way off to the point where it could be affecting fsd but it does need alignment anyway
to ensure proper proper wear of the tires since the spirit of adventure has rotatable tires the
soul of adventure does not but in any case it is nice that that the fsd does seem to be behaving
a little bit better on the on the highway than it was prior to the bent rim being repaired
also on the 2018 car the spirit of adventure with 75 000 miles and seven years under its belt
i finally ran the battery health test which takes like 12 to 16 hours to do and you have you
can't even start it until your battery is at 20 percent and then it drains your battery from there
down to like zero so the lower the lower the you start the lower state of charge you have when
you start that battery health test the less time the test will actually take but i finally had all
the all the planets aligned to run that test on the spirit of adventure and it came out to
have an 84 percent battery capacity so not bad you know not bad seven years 75 000 miles i posted
that on my instagram and a lot of the the responses i got from people with similar
milages were all kind of right in that 84 85 percent range so that uh that was definitely
nice to see energy out your bet your battery's energy retention is within the expected range
based on its age and mileage um so yeah 84 percent there so good to know after seven years kind of
what to what to expect on my newer car as as time goes by here's an entertainment recommendation
real quick for this week uh wait shoot did i say this i think i said this one last week
peacemaker on HBO so all right i'll give you a video game one and it's i'll get in fact i'm gonna
cheat and give you two real quick two video game recommendations one is probably the most anticipated
indie game ever maybe or if not in a very very very long time it's been seven years coming and
the developers just stayed super tight lipped the whole time until finally very recently they
said all right here's our release date that game is hollow knight silk song which is the sequel to
hollow knight which is a beloved metroidvania game so my daughter is was like counting the
minutes until that game came out she loves the first one in fact i think she's upstairs playing
silk song right now i'm gonna have to go take her switch away and tell her to go to bed
because it's getting pretty late but hollow knight silk song which is out on pretty much all
platforms pc ps5 xbox and nintendo switch it's also on xbox game pass if you're a subscriber to
game pass on either xbox or pc and then one other video game uh it's it's uh it's actually an
expansion pack for an existing game so if you don't already have the game you'd have to buy
the game but uh if you have already bought this i highly recommend this dlc and that downloadable
content is the ancient gods which is for indiana jones and the great circle uh it is and i i'm i'm
loving it that was my 2024 vote for game of the year last year uh indiana jones such a
phenomenal phenomenal game so if you would like more of that the expansion is now available
on uh again xbox pc and playstation 5 how about a tesla pro tip of the week
here's one from shon in new york hi ryan shon bloom calling from new york great show
i listen every week just wanted to give a tip to the rival lightning community i made a
shortcut in my iphone recently called set personal hotspot and anytime i get in my tesla
i tell the theory to do that i say theory that personal hotspot and by doing that it
makes a wi-fi network that the tesla connects to and i can run all the apps it automatically
connects on the tesla side and i don't have to unlock my phone to do this saving me lots of
time and effort i hope other people use this tip and thanks again ryan great show fantastic pro
tip here shon this is a great tesla life hack slash awesome workaround thank you for calling in
with this one love it if anybody else out there has a good tesla pro tip of the week or ev pro
tip of the week boy would i love to hear it because then i could learn something and i could
share it with my audience and we could all learn something and have either more fun with
our cars or just be smarter users of our cars so keep those pro tips of the week coming you can
send them in the same way that you send in a regular ride the lightning hotline phone call
which i gave you the two call-in instructions for a little while ago and before i sign off this
week i just want to mention some friends of ride the lightning that can hopefully be useful to
you at some point maybe sooner maybe later abstract ocean dot com has so many great aftermarket tesla
and rivian accessories depending on what ev you own for all makes and models whether it's s3 x y
cyber truck r1 s r1 t they've got so much great stuff a lot of lighting kits if you want to
either change the color of the of some of the lighting on your car either internal or external
or just have something brighter like a brighter white they offer that as well plus the tempered
glass custom cut custom fit screen protectors made from gorilla glass those are super recommended
those are great uh for cyber truck owners they've got expel wrap kits like custom cut already
pre-cut comes with everything you need tools for all of the the trim pieces the non-stainless
pieces of the truck especially those high wear areas like back at the tailgate the top of the
tailgate the the top sort of sail top parts you know again the non-stainless parts of the
truck so all that definitely recommended and abstract oceans got you covered and they
also continue to kindly offer the 15 percent discount to new customers from this audience
so to take advantage of it go to abstract ocean dot com click on the vehicle you have at the top
it will then show you all of the various accessories available for your vehicle
pile everything you like into your online shopping cart and when you get to check out
enter the coupon code RTL podcast that's all one word no spaces RTL podcast to get 15
percent off of your first order thank you very much to my friends at abstract ocean next
if you either want or are legally required to have a front license plate on your tesla
I do recommend that you use the snap plate or the newer stronger snap plate plus and not
the front license plate bracket that tesla gives you because the tesla one uses automotive tape it
will stick physically stick to your paint to the front of your vehicle which means if you
ever want to get it off it's not going to go well in terms of making sure the that it comes
off without damaging your paint in some way so use the snap plate it's a nice clean minimal look
and it goes on safely and securely with included tools but if you ever want to take it off for
any reason maybe you're detailing the car maybe you're showing it at a cars and coffee in your
area whatever the case may be it'll go on and off easily it'll go on securely off easily
enough with the included tools it's not like anybody's just going to walk up and take it off your car
but it's a really nice clean minimalist look so make those fix it tickets go away for those of
you who like me do not like having to use a front license plate get yours at everyamp.com
slash RTL and don't forget the coupon code RTL as well for a nice discount thank you to my
friends at snap plate for that one how about immaculate reflections they offer so many
awesome detailing services professional detailing services they're here in the greater san francisco
bay area hey i just realized that the next time that i need to take one of the cars to immaculate
reflections i could actually robotaxi back i think i gotta double check yeah that i think
it'll be in the coverage area so that's cool that's a nice option to have now anyway immaculate
reflections if you're in or going to be in the greater san francisco bay area with your tesla
or other car in your garage that you care about that you want to have cleaned up you want to keep
it protected so whether that's paint correction to get the paint finished looking as good as it
possibly can whether it's paint protection film to protect said paint uh and or whether it's
ceramic coating to then not have to worry about waxing the car for the next five to seven years
in my case with the spirit of adventure seven years in fact that'll be the next time i think i go
back to immaculate reflections is to have the spirit of adventure re ceramic coated it lasted
seven years which is awesome that's the high end of of what's expected on that so
the summer special is winding down you got your last chance to get in on that
so it's 200 bucks off of any paint correction service 500 off of any ceramic coating package
and 15 off of any paint protection film package go to the website to get in touch and that
website is ir detailing dot com and when you go to the contact form there you reach out you know
mention that you arrive the lightning listener and that's how you'll get the summer special
applied to any work that you have booked in the patreon i mentioned it earlier let me mention it
one more time you can find it at patreon dot com slash tesla podcast or just click the link
in the episode description this is the way that you can voluntarily choose to support the podcast
this is a free podcast always has been always will be but it is your support that is what keeps me
going here and enables me to continue putting in all the time all the effort all the energy all the
love and enthusiasm in this again i love doing it don't get me wrong but your support does mean
the world to me and to my family so i'd be mighty grateful if you would at least take a look at the
patreon page you can find it again at patreon dot com slash tesla podcast every tier starting with
the base five dollar per month tier gets an ad free version of the episode each week and you
get that ad free version early each week typically late friday evenings as soon as i finish
recording editing and uploading the podcast it goes straight to patreon and you get that ad
free version nice and early if you step up to that most popular tier that's the ten dollar per
month tier you'll get the ad free you'll get it early and you'll get access to all past
present and future as long as you're pledging editions of that weekly lightning round bonus
mini episode finally the various podcast feeds if you're using one of those i urge you to
follow this podcast so on apple podcasts spotify tune in through your tesla that's
tune in's right in your car etc or a youtube podcast as well just search ride the lightning tesla
should pop right up click the follow button which means anytime there's a new episode which is
every sunday at nine a.m eastern six a.m pacific you'll get a push notification on your device
tap it and you will immediately start listening to the new episode so that's a nice easy
totally free thing you can do to help make your ride the lightning listening experience
that much easier and finally you can follow me on x and or on instagram i have the same username on both
that username is dmc underscore ryan you can always email me tesla podcast at gmail.com i want to shout
out the top tier patreon backers now these are the kind folks that are being extra generous
in their support of the podcast i'll start with the maximum plaid backers tomorrow as i record this
we have our monthly patreon zoom hangout for september there's plenty to talk about that's
for sure between robo taxi and master plan part for elan's compensation package i'm going to be
really curious to hear from everybody on everything happening in the the tesla nevy space so i hope
to see a lot of these maximum plaid backers there because as part of their patreon benefits
they get invited to the monthly patreon zoom hangout every single month but anybody who makes any new
pledge or upgraded pledge at any level any tier any amount gets a one-time thank you invitation
to whatever the next patreon zoom hangout is so hopefully we'll see some of those folks tomorrow
as well but the maximum plaid backers big thank you to jonathan wales cameron clark daniel grummer
seth capello nick and tony the galpin family ryan from new york city darin nickle cos Barnes
patrick wasneski gill cabrera todd badger joe edgel kevin yank the tesla owners club of
sandwalking valley will stedman justin parez jeremy harris chris beach tom mills choreo donnell
erin john codie jolsap paul casarino chris osborne kb adam lavoie jason chelukas travis krenzel
bruce otterstein tom behan josh pennington john from cream ridge new jersey dustin hart
derrick finley charles clement daemon kline jeff brown jerry slinger kenneth corbett
brian bertoglio kim bae troy sievers nick jacoby chip hooper matt chinander robert moran
and rav next up extra big thanks goes out to the roadster in space tier backers the tippy top of
the patreon tiers these very kind folks get all the stuff i've mentioned plus a one-on-one
hangout with me each month should they elect to take it and some of them do and it's always
fun to chat so thank you to pete white lile austin steve rad spinner fernando cordero
laughton from chicago shawn nightig neil weaver jackson wallace rulf and jennifer evers howard
anthony smith victoria aya coveto tesla hitchhiker 42 carol weston robert from near philly american
home contractors dug carry michael gallo and tony figaroa finally the grandfathered in plaid
level supporters these very kind folks continue to pledge even though this tier is technically no
more so i want to give them everything they're supposed to continue to get because they deserve
it they're super generous thank you to george cassiopo logan willis peter chalet eric randolph
dory and steve guberman the tesla owners club of taiwan ron lee charlie gillespie jeff angwin
chase cabaneas the lydia family erin alchool jared brown gerome strack jamie dalton
mike and barber from louisville matt nixon the tesla owners club of wisconsin ish not elon musk
peter and the bear boys of colorado and with that we come to the end of yet another long
episode of ride the lightning i can never tell i know some people love long episodes of podcast
i do think it's important to be respectful of people's time i guess i'm okay if it's a long
episode as long as i've used the time wisely and i'm not wasting your time and hopefully
you don't feel like i'm wasting your time maybe i am right now so maybe i should just stop
and go to bed i actually do need to need to pack it in here but uh yeah this has been another busy
one lots of fun stuff lots of excellent news to talk about in terms of just interesting things
and that's what makes it fun right is every week there's something new and interesting to discuss
and that's what i'm here to do and just uh it's fun for me it's fun and hopefully it's fun
for you as well if you made it this far it's probably fun for you too so thank you for your
time your attention your support whether it's on patreon or you're just listening any in any case
you are supporting me thank you so much happy electric motoring my friends and i'll see you
back here next week
elan musk people don't like elan musk the guy found a paypal and tesla and people are like
yeah but he's a troll and a bad dad i'm like so is mine he did nothing to fight climate change
also have you been in a tesla have you been in a tesla my buddy let me drive his tesla i laughed
out loud at how fast it went been clinically depressed my entire life on dozens of medications
in a tesla for 13 seconds cured forever i mean i think a tesla is the most fun thing
you could possibly buy ever that's what it's meant to be our goal is to make it's
it's not exactly a car it's actually a thing to maximize enjoyment it's maximum fun
About this episode
Experiencing a Tesla RoboTaxi ride for the first time, the host shares insights about the ride's efficiency and cost compared to competitors like Waymo. The episode also delves into Tesla's recently released master plan Part 4, which emphasizes sustainable abundance but leaves some listeners wanting more specifics. Other highlights include a new CEO compensation package, impressive demand for the Model Y L in China, and a new customer feedback system called Tesla Echo. The episode wraps up with listener calls discussing FSD experiences in Australia.
I took my first Robotaxi ride and I'd love to tell you all about my experience. Plus: Tesla published its Master Plan Part 4, then continued its busy week by proposing a massive new CEO compensation package, and more!
If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support my efforts, please check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/teslapodcast and consider a monthly or (10% discounted!) annual pledge. Every little bit helps and there are stacking bonuses in it for you at each pledge level, like early access to each episode at the $5 tier and the weekly Lightning Round bonus mini-episode (AND the early access!) at the $10 tier! And NO ADS at every Patreon tier!
Also, don't forget to leave a message on the Ride the Lightning hotline anytime with a question, comment, or discussion topic for next week's show! The toll-free number to call is 1-888-989-8752.
INTERESTED IN A FLEXIBLE EXTENDED WARRANTY FOR YOUR TESLA? Be a part of the future of transportation with XCare, the first extended warranty designed & built exclusively for EV owners, by EV owners. Use the code Lightning to get $100 off their "One-time Payment" option! Go to www.xcelerateauto.com/xcare to find the extended warranty policy that's right for you and your Tesla.
P.S. Get 15% off your first order of awesome aftermarket Tesla accessories at AbstractOcean.com by using the code RTLpodcast at checkout. Grab the SnapPlate front license plate bracket for any Tesla at https://everyamp.com/RTL/ (don't forget the coupon code RTL too!).
BONUS: If you're in or going to be in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, bring your car to be professionally detailed at Immaculate Reflections! They're offering a Summer special: $200 off of any paint correction service, $500 off of any ceramic coating package, and 15% off of any PPF package. Check out his website at irdetailing.com