Episode 527: My First Robotaxi Ride!

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

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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

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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

Episode 527: My First Robotaxi Ride!

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Model Y

Tesla Model S

Ford F-150 Lightning

Cadillac Escalade

Tesla Semi

Tesla Cybertruck

Audi S3

About this episode

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