Episode 528: Robotaxi Gearing Up to Launch in 2 More States

On this week's episode of Ride the Lightning,

the Tesla and EV podcast,

new evidence suggests Tesla's RoboTaxi network

is about to roll out in two more Southwestern U.S. states.

Plus, using non-Tesla chargers is about to get easier

for Tesla owners in a new pilot program.

Tesla Energy unveils the mega block and more.

["Castle in the Sky"]

What's happening, friends?

I'm Ryan McCaffery, alongside Daisy the Boxer

and Lily, the giant baby Labrador.

She's up to 58 pounds.

This is Ride the Lightning, your weekly Tesla and EV podcast

publishing on September 14th, 2015.

I'm recording it as usual on Friday evening here, September 12th.

Well, hopefully you won't be able to tell

over the course of the episode, but I am exhausted today.

I got up at 5 a.m. on purpose to pre-order the new iPhone.

It's the first new phone I've gotten in five years.

So I'm like, all right, it's time.

And I guess I want it on launch day,

so I better get up right at the pre-order time.

And sure enough, it was some pre-order chaos.

So that's done, at least that's all secured.

But I couldn't get back to sleep.

I thought, okay, I can just get up, pre-order it,

go back to sleep, didn't happen.

So here we are, I'm running on fumes,

but hopefully you won't be able to tell.

No, I've got enough energy for Ride the Lightning

because I always have a blast doing this podcast.

And you all are so super supportive.

So let's get started.

First up this week is the headline story.

This should not surprise any of you

who've been following along with all of this

in the last number of weeks and months.

But it looks like we know the next two markets

that Tesla's Robotaxi Network will be activating in next

and seemingly soon in both cases.

We start in my, not my home state,

New Jersey's my home state,

but the state I grew up in for the most part,

that would be Arizona, the Phoenix area.

X user Adub0808 posted a video of a new Model Y

on the freeway in Tempe, Arizona.

Couldn't tell if it was the 60 or maybe 101.

But anyway, Tempe, Arizona,

which is a suburb of Phoenix,

part of the greater Phoenix area.

It's also where I went to college

at Arizona State University.

But anyway, that Model Y had obvious self-driving

testing equipment on the roof of it.

We've seen Model Ys with this before in other places,

giving us a very strong hint that the Robotaxi

will be coming to the Sonoran Desert and fairly soon.

Of course, again, this is no surprise

because Arizona has already been mentioned by Tesla

as being on their short list.

Plus, Waymo's already there.

Thus, the way has been paved a bit, figuratively speaking,

at least in regulatory terms.

So if you are a listener of mine

in the Phoenix metro area, get psyched

because you may very soon have access

to the Robotaxi network.

So the other state that we got wind of this week,

or at least some evidence of, is Nevada.

Likely Las Vegas, but we don't know which city for sure.

Reno is definitely on the table.

It is a possibility, given Tesla's presence there.

And this comes from our Tesla tipster friend,

Sawyer Merritt, who posted on X saying, quote,

Tesla has officially received approval

from the Nevada DMV to start testing autonomous vehicles,

AKA Robotaxi's, on public roads.

He says, I confirmed directly with the Nevada DMV

that Tesla's application

to obtain a testing registry certification

was approved by the DMV office of business licensing team.

Autonomous plates and the registry certificate

were also sent back out to Tesla this week.

Next, to officially start offering Robotaxi rides

to the public in Nevada,

Tesla will need to complete the self certification

for operations, that's the last step

to roll out a service similar to the one

they currently operate in Austin, Texas,

where there is no one in the driver's seat.

This approval shouldn't be difficult to get,

posits Mr. Merritt.

So Phoenix and hopefully Viva Las Vegas,

quite soon in terms of Robotaxi, presumably.

And that's all great news, the rollout is happening.

I don't know, I mean, for something like this,

I guess there's no real playbook or rulebook for it.

The rules are kind of being written

as we go along in terms of the technology

and how quickly it can roll out.

I guess all we really have to go off of is Waymo.

Like Waymo was the first to actually get into the market

to actually offer it to anybody, to a regular customer.

And it seemed like Waymo's process

was a lot slower and more deliberate

in terms of rolling out to additional markets.

And that's probably because they have a very

hyper specialized solution to their self driving system

whereas Tesla, as we know,

has developed a generalized AI solution

so that it can work pretty much anywhere pretty quickly.

And we are seeing that now.

Austin and then not too long after,

here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

And now Phoenix appears to be next

as well as somewhere in Nevada

I would put my money on Las Vegas.

Speaking for myself, I took three Robotaxi rides

this week and I will tell you all about those

later in the podcast when we get to the part of the show

near the end where I just tell you about

what I've been up to with my Teslas

because I don't wanna waste any more time.

We've got a million things to get to

on this week's episode of Ride the Lightning.

And I will go next here, which is

as a follow up to last week

when I was talking about potential successors

for Elon Musk, since he and the board

have formally put succession planning

into his proposed new compensation package.

Long time loyal listener, Anthony Helmstetter,

suggested this week's Patreon poll on that topic

which asked you for your thoughts

on who you'd like to see be at the top

of that next in line list.

And so the poll had four choices

plus a fifth other choice.

And then in the comments, there were a couple

of really excellent suggestions

that I wish I had included in the main poll.

But of the four choices other than other,

55% of you voted for J.B. Straubel

who of course is a Tesla co-founder,

the former chief technical officer of Tesla.

And you all remember him from my interview with him

back on episode 501.

Coming in second place in that poll

was Lars Moravy, another friend to Ride the Lightning.

Tesla's head of engineering, 31% of the vote for Lars.

And then I put Tesla's CFO in there,

he got 1% of the vote.

And Oshak Elloswamy, Tesla's VP of AI software

AKA the head of the FSD team,

I threw him on there as well,

given his engineering background

and knowledge of, intimate knowledge

of everything the company's doing

at an engineering level, he got 4% of the vote.

And then the couple of folks I wish I had included

in the poll, thank you to a number of commenters

who mentioned these in the comments.

There was Tom Zhu, who heads up,

well he had been heading up service for a bit.

Now I think he's back to logistics,

but he's basically the gentleman

that oversaw the development

and the very rapid development

and then the operations of Giga Shanghai,

which as we all know is Tesla's most,

let's see, what's the best word here?

Efficient, highest output factory.

And it's not even close, Giga Shanghai.

There were a number of commenters

that mentioned Tom Zhu,

Matt Kalin throughout Gwynne Shotwell,

who's running SpaceX alongside Elon.

I thought that's a great suggestion.

I don't know if she would wanna bounce over

from SpaceX to Tesla,

but in the event that something happened to Elon

or that Elon stepped down,

hopefully nothing happens to him,

I just mean like in terms of him retiring,

I don't mean any physical harm, certainly.

But Gwynne would, you would think she would be

the first in line to just assume

the CEO role at SpaceX

rather than bounce over to Tesla,

but that's not what this thought exercise is about.

So that's a good suggestion.

And then another good one I saw in here,

where to go, ah, Mike suggested Drew Baglino,

who left Tesla not too long ago.

He's working on power grid stuff now,

as Mike notes, could fold into Tesla's master plan,

but Drew was basically the battery boss,

the chief of all battery things at Tesla.

The primary person behind the development

of the 4680 battery cell.

So that is a good list from those of you on Patreon.

And again, for the Patreon poll,

you don't have to be giving me a dime,

you don't have to be supporting the podcast.

The poll is open to everybody every single week

to swing on by patreon.com slash Tesla podcast every week.

Typically the new poll goes up on Tuesday.

We had, let's see here,

almost 300 people vote in this week's poll.

So thank you to everybody that took the time

to stop by and cast your vote.

Next up this week,

Tesla has discontinued the very short-lived,

long-range rear wheel drive trim of the Cybertruck.

I had to go back and look this up

to see exactly what the timeline was.

That truck was announced in April

and Tesla had said that deliveries of it began in June.

So for all intents and purposes,

it effectively lasted three months

in terms of the amount of time

they were actually delivering to people

and building that truck.

It had been $70,000 in case you needed a refresher there.

It was $69,990.

And as you all know,

it was also a pretty stripped down version

of the Cybertruck.

No to no cover, let alone a powered one.

No adjustable air suspension.

It had fabric seats

and those fabric seats didn't have

any ventilation cooling capability.

It had a lower payload, a lower towing capacity,

no second screen for the second row passengers,

a much slower zero to 60 time,

no bioweapon defense mode,

fewer speakers in the sound system,

no power outlets on the inside,

no power outlets in the bed,

and no light bar on the back either.

And I know I've said this before,

but now that it's officially discontinued

and more time has gone by since the last time I said this,

I'll say it again, cause it's still true.

I live in the very Tesla-tastic San Francisco Bay Area,

tons of Teslas here.

I see them every day of all varieties,

except the original Roadster.

That one's still a pretty rare sight.

But I see all five currently in production Teslas,

all the time, and I can honestly say I have literally,

it's no hyperbole, no exaggeration,

I've literally never seen a long range rear wheel drive

Cybertruck in person.

And they would be easy to spot even from a distance

due to the smaller and distinctly different wheel design

on them and the lack of tonneau cover on them as well.

So I didn't see a single one.

I'm sure eventually I'll see one,

but the whole time they've been in production

and been for sale, I did not see any of them.

I see plenty of Cybertrucks every day.

If I go out, take a drive anywhere,

I will see plenty of Cybertrucks,

but none of this long range rear wheel drive trim.

I mean, they seem now destined to join

the Model 3 mid-range as Tesla unicorn trims

of which not many must exist.

And if you're a relatively newer listener,

and I guess you don't even have to be a new listener

because the Model 3 mid-range was offered back

for a very short time in the fall of 2018.

So about exactly seven years ago,

Tesla offered this as a way to try

and get the price of the Model 3 down in the early going.

The mid-range trim and it,

I wanna say, I think it had a 260 mile range.

If there are any mid-range owners out there,

you can correct me.

I guess I could just Google it

after I'm done recording this,

but the mid-range did not last long.

There are not too many of them out there.

And again, I would call that a Tesla unicorn

and we can now, I think, pretty comfortably add

this variant of the Cybertruck

to the Tesla unicorn list as well.

I just can't imagine that very many people

at all bought them.

And not just because I haven't seen any of them,

but we know the overall numbers of the Cybertruck

and they are disappointing so far.

And granted, I will have to catch myself here,

price is the number one contributor

to that in my humble opinion

to the disappointing overall numbers of the Cybertruck.

And this truck did address the price very, very directly,

but as I said, back when this trim

was first unveiled in April,

for me it just took away way too much of that truck

in return for that lower price.

But I'll say to end this optimistically,

maybe Tesla's finally in a position to lower the price

of the existing awesome, fully featured dual motor Cybertruck

and maybe that's part of the reason

that they are getting rid of

the long range rear wheel drive trim.

And I do say part of the reason

because I suppose the end of the tax credit

must also be a contributing factor here

because obviously there will now be no motivation

for Tesla to sell a truck under $80,000

just to qualify for the tax credit

no matter how much stuff they had to strip out of it

to get it under that price point.

So we shall see, but that trim is now officially retired

on the Cybertruck.

Before I continue with this week's Tesla and EV news,

I wanted to mention this week's lightning round mini episode

that I do exclusively over on Patreon

for all of you kind souls

that are supporting the podcast over there.

You can head to patreon.com slash Tesla podcast.

There are a bunch of support tiers there

starting at just five bucks a month.

It's the $10 per month tier

that's the most popular one

probably because you get

all of these lightning round mini episodes.

I do one a week

and you also get the ad free episode

and early access to that ad free episode

that the $5 tier gets.

So this week's lightning round topic

was the five menu items that I would add

at the Tesla diner.

So I've had the privilege of going twice now

and these are the five things

that I would like to see added to the Tesla diner menu.

I'm looking forward to reading the comments on that

from people making their own suggestions

for what they'd like to add to that menu as well.

So again, if you'd like to join me on Patreon,

you'd be supporting the podcast

which again is free every week.

It always has been, it always will be

but if you'd like to support me

the Patreon is the way to do that

and whether you're pledging at the $5 per month tier

the $10 per month tier or higher

I try to offer some perks and bonuses

and ways to say thank you for your support

and that lightning round weekly mini episode

is the most popular way I do that statistically

based on how many people are at that tier on the Patreon.

So hopefully enjoy that

and all of the other 150 something of those lightning rounds.

So again, check it out if you get a chance

Patreon.com slash Tesla podcast

or just click the link in the episode description.

Next up this week, we have of course

already seen Tesla welcome in non-Tesla vehicles

to the Tesla Supercharging Network

and provide them a super easy way

to charge their vehicles

and pay for that juice through the Tesla app.

Well now Tesla is turning that around

and returning that favor of convenience to Tesla owners

and offering a new convenient way

to quickly and painlessly charge and pay

for Tesla owners at non-Tesla chargers.

Saw this on the official Tesla charging account

on X and they wrote introducing multi-pass

using your Tesla account to charge at non-Tesla chargers.

Simply activate your Tesla key card

or use the Tesla app to start charging

at non-Tesla chargers.

Find chargers, start charging

and view charging history

all in the same convenient location.

Live today for Tesla owners in the Netherlands

more sites and countries soon.

So I'm jealous of those of you

who are in the Netherlands that get to test this out.

Max Dazeager from the Tesla charging team

I've cited him here many times

because he is a frequent poster on X

talking about what the Tesla charging team is doing

and I very much appreciate him posting about that.

Well, Max posted a response to

that official announcement there saying

nobody likes creating more accounts

with payment details and passwords.

For charging, this can even mean

needing a third-party charging card

mailed to your house.

Starting in the Netherlands today,

meaning this past week,

your Tesla app and your existing Tesla key card

can start charging at third-party chargers.

We'll expand this to more countries quickly

if customers love it.

To make ownership effortless

the Tesla app should really be the only thing you need.

Thank you, Max.

And my response to you, Max, is

you'll expand this to other countries

if customers love it.

How could they not love it?

Granted, I haven't used it,

but from that description,

I sure can't imagine how we wouldn't love it.

This just seems like a really smart,

really smart way to do this.

And finally, a tangible use

for my backup physical Tesla key card

that lives in my wallet.

And the thing is, if you don't carry a wallet,

if you're one of those folks, you're just totally digital,

you don't even have to use the Tesla key card

for this purpose.

If you don't carry one,

you can just use the Tesla app as they noted.

Now, I admit, I personally do not use

third-party chargers very often at all.

In fact, really the only time I ever do,

it's on occasion and it's because

it's in a particular parking garage

near my favorite pizza place in San Francisco.

And the EV charging spaces in that parking garage

are nice and wide to help minimize the chance of door dings.

So I happily will plug in and pay to charge,

even though it would be cheaper to charge at home,

in exchange for getting that much wider parking spot.

And that particular spot is a ChargePoint post.

And so that's the one I can comment on having actually used.

And I'll say, ChargePoint, it's not the worst app to use,

but it's also a far cry from the ease and convenience

of the Tesla UI, the Tesla app.

So if Tesla can bring that or a version of it

to third-party chargers,

which that's exactly what they've done,

it only makes fast charging easier

and more convenient to everybody,

thereby removing some pain points

in the overall EV ecosystem,

which is a good thing for the entire EV movement,

if you ask me.

So Max, if you're listening,

I really hope this makes it over to the US soon

and hopefully everywhere, Europe, Australia, New Zealand,

et cetera, everywhere Tesla is,

I hope this functionality will follow very shortly.

Next this week, I know that I don't typically cover

the energy side of Tesla's business on this podcast too often,

but Tesla made a big new announcement

in that department this week

that I wanted to bring up here.

They unveiled a new grid-scale battery backup system

this week, and it is called MegaBlock.

That has a very space ball sounding name, doesn't it?

Which of course, fitting for Tesla.

I guess I'm just, maybe I'm just,

I'm hearing MegaMade in my head,

but it's MegaBlock.

So here's the text accompanying the video

that was on Tesla's official X account.

They said, MegaPak is our utility-scale

energy storage platform,

a key part of our mission

to achieve sustainable abundance via sustainable energy.

Tesla MegaPak stores energy when production is high

and discharges slash releases it when the grid needs it,

balancing renewables and supporting a reliable grid.

MegaBlock is our pre-engineered medium voltage block

designed for 20 megawatt hour AC, 25 year life,

and more than 10,000 cycles.

91% round trip efficiency at medium voltage,

inclusive of auxiliary loads,

ambient operating temperature range

from negative 40 Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius.

It has a 23% faster to install time

with up to 40% lower construction costs,

site-level density of 248 megawatt hours AC per acre,

with all clearances needed for installation and service.

And then they mentioned that MegaBlock uses MegaPak 3

with a proven inverter and fire system,

a drastically simplified thermal bay

with 78% fewer connections.

The latest cell technology supply from the US,

meaning battery cell, not cellular telephone,

supply from the US, Southeast Asia and China,

and they have a 50 gigawatt hour per year

manufacturing capability for the MegaBlock.

Deliveries start in the second half of 2026,

and they say software and services from Tesla

demonstrated across more than 36 gigawatt hours

of a global operating fleet.

So I have to admit first and foremost here

that I know very little about this

compared to the vehicles,

but from what even I, a layman, can see, slash read,

it seems clear that the ceiling on this,

this, and meaning by this,

I don't just mean the MegaBlock,

but I mean Tesla's entire grid storage solution ecosystem,

the ceiling on it is still sky high

and that Tesla is almost certainly not even close

to tapping into what all of this is capable of.

I mean, this is a huge leap forward

for grid scale storage in a lot of ways,

as you heard from Tesla's description,

but the big one certainly seems like

it's gonna be the one that ultimately

decides how successful this is,

and that is of course money.

Tesla mentioned up to 40% lower construction costs

because obviously by cutting construction costs

way down through no doubt speed and simplicity,

it's just going to convince more utilities

and other large scale enterprises and municipalities

to go this route, to do a MegaBlock.

So I think it's kind of a lot

like the Tesla Semi in that regard,

meaning nobody in this space is shopping

for which utility energy storage system looks the best.

No, no, it's not about sexy,

it is all about the bottom line.

And Tesla, as we've just heard,

has a very strong argument

with both the bottom line argument for this

and also the bottom line argument

on the Tesla Semi as well.

And remember too that the energy side

of Tesla's business has been booming

even while the car business has struggled a bit.

So MegaBlock should only serve to keep the good times rolling

on the energy side of things at Tesla.

Here's a fun story next.

We've got a couple of interesting new nuggets

that have been unearthed from the latest decompile

of Tesla's iOS app code.

And this comes courtesy of the folks

at Tesla iOS app updates,

whose X account handle is Tesla underscore app underscore iOS.

They mentioned that there's a line of code in there

for a new paint color called silk road silver

with a mention of a hashtag 2D2C2D

and then metallic and roughness.

So these are fields for these things.

So I don't know if this is anything

or if I'm completely on the wrong track here

but I searched that as a Pantone color code hashtag 2D2C2D

and Google spit this back at me.

The color code 2D2C2D is a very dark neutral gray

that falls between black and dark gray

with the closest standard Pantone match

being Pantone black C.

And then the little image icon next to it

on that Google result that showed the color

had the Pantone color code and the words carbon fiber on it.

And yes, the color that Google showed me

was close to that of carbon fiber

if that helps you picture it a little bit.

I mean, I have to again acknowledge here

it may mean absolutely nothing

in terms of describing this color as Tesla is using it

but even setting that aside,

I'm actually kind of at a bit of a loss here

because I can't figure out what this might even be for.

The Model 3 and the Model Y just got quick silver

not too long ago, at least worldwide, right?

Obviously, giga Berlin has been painting Model Ys

in that color for some time now.

And then the Model S and the Model X

not too long ago got lunar silver.

So purely anecdotally speaking,

quick silver does seem very popular

and I see, because I see it on a lot of 3s,

I see it on a lot of Ys,

whereas lunar silver, again purely anecdotally speaking,

does not seem to be that popular around here

because of the S's and X's that I see,

it's pretty rare that I see one in lunar silver.

So all I can wonder is,

is Tesla considering cutting bait on lunar silver perhaps?

And the reason I mentioned that

is because I just can't see them adding another new color,

especially when it would be yet another

gray scale color at that.

And I can't see them adding another color

to either the high volume

or the low volume vehicle lineup.

I guess theoretically it would be easier

to add it to the S and X, the lower volume vehicles,

but I guess you can color me confused on this one

until, if and until, we hear more.

And then there's one other interesting part of this,

again, courtesy of Tesla iOS app updates.

They say, looks like a new program

will be spinning up soon called challenges.

We see many strings relating to this,

again in the code of the app.

Sadly no extended details on this quite yet.

This could be things like supercharge five times a month

or drive X number of miles on FSD.

This could be a rewards program

for exploring more Tesla products.

And then they list some strings

that were listed in there,

but I definitely thought that was worth bringing up

because this could be a real life implementation

of an idea that I tossed out on the podcast years ago

where you'd effectively earn achievements,

digital achievements,

for visiting particular supercharger locations

and things like that.

Basically, fun little ways to encourage you

to use your car more.

I mean granted, achievement systems

have basically become commonplace in gaming at this point.

Ever since the Xbox 360 first brought them to the table

20 years ago, oh wow.

That just hit me.

The Xbox 360 came out in 2005,

November 22nd, 2005.

So we are rapidly approaching the 20 year anniversary

of the Xbox 360,

which wow, does that make me feel old

because I was a working professional

covering the launch of the Xbox 360

back at Official Xbox Magazine when I worked there.

Man, 20 years.

Anyway, Tesla does like to have fun.

We know that, right?

So implementing something like this

does feel very on brand for Tesla.

And as such, I will be cheering this one on

and looking forward to its hopefully imminent debut.

Heck, maybe they'll even offer real world prizes

at some point along the way.

Like I'm talking stuff like t-shirts,

Optimus figurines, stuff like that.

And if you're thinking, well, no way they'd ever do that.

They've done physical prize giveaways before

with the referral program.

So you can't rule it out.

We'll see what happens.

But that is a very enticing line of code there

discovered in the Tesla app.

Let me take a quick moment here

in the middle of the podcast

to mention my friends at Xcare.

Accelerate Auto and their Xcare Extended EV Warranty.

I've got one on our 2018 Model 3.

It has served me well a couple times so far.

I guess ultimately I hope I don't have to use it again.

That is ideally, you don't wanna have a problem.

But if you do, you wanna have

good extended warranty coverage.

If you plan to keep your Tesla longer

than the manufacturer's warranty,

which my wife and I certainly have that plan

and we have done that.

We're at seven years and 75,000 miles right now.

So we are still covered no longer by the manufacturer's

warranty but by Xcare.

And what I love about Xcare compared to Tesla's

extended warranty is that Xcare lets you

customize it to your liking.

So the number of years from two more years

to 10 more years or anything in between

from 25,000 more miles to 125,000 more miles

or anything in between.

You wanna cover the high voltage battery

in the drive unit, the most expensive

components of the car so that if anything happens

to them during the course of your extended

warranty policy, they're covered

and you don't have to pay thousands

upon thousands of dollars for a new battery pack.

You'll feel good having Xcare.

So the good news here too is you get $100 off

when you select Xcare's one time payment option.

All you have to do is use the discount code Lightning.

So go to xcare.com, pick the plan that works for you,

the number of years, the number of miles,

the different coverage options.

And when you're all set to check out,

use that one time payment option

and use the discount code Lightning for $100 off.

Again, xcare.com, that's X-C-A-R-E dot com.

Here's a piece of news that might seem bad on its surface

but I don't think it ultimately is.

I saw this on Drive Tesla Canada who wrote,

Tesla's grip on the American electric vehicle

market is loosening with new data

showing its market share slipping to levels

not seen in nearly eight years.

According to figures from Cox Automotive shared with Reuters,

the company accounted for 38% of US EV sales in August,

the first time it had dropped below 40% since October of 2017.

The downward trend became evident in July

when Tesla's market share fell from 48.7% in June

to 42%.

Its sharpest single month dropped since early 2021.

While Tesla has still sold over 53,000 vehicles

in the month of August,

rivals expanded sales by as much as 120% year over year.

In August, Tesla sales grew just 3.1%

compared to a 14% increase

across the broader EV market,

Cox Automotive data showed.

Once dominating more than 80% of the EV market,

Tesla now faces intensifying competition

from traditional automakers and newer entrants.

Brands like Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, and Honda

have rolled out new EV models

with attractive financing options,

zero interest deals, and aggressive lease incentives.

These strategies have helped rivals grow their market share.

So I guarantee that you will see this throne.

You might even hear it at some point

come up at like a dinner party or who knows.

But you will see this throne around

as some sort of gotcha against Tesla, right?

Like see, I told you so from the, you know,

that's the fudsters, the anti-Tesla people,

but here's the thing, it doesn't really mean too much.

Now Tesla's sales, those are ultimately

the measuring stick, and yes, they are down a bit.

That is true.

But market share is the wrong metric

to try and measure Tesla's success or failure by.

I've talked about this on the podcast before,

many years ago now, as I recall.

Tesla basically started at near 100% market share

from the Model S and Model X days

to then the Model 3 days.

Now sure, you had people like Nissan in there

with the leaf, Audi had the first gen E-tron,

but that was mostly about it.

Now, there are so many more EVs in the market

and that's a great thing, not a good thing, a great thing.

Elon Musk himself would probably tell you

that that's a great thing.

Remember, Tesla's entire mission

prior to this very recent sustainable abundance pivot

was to accelerate the world's transition

to sustainable transport.

In fact, this jogged my memory,

so, and I'm gonna jog yours here,

go all the way back to 2012,

back when Tesla unanimously won

Motor Trends Car of the Year award for that year.

In his acceptance speech, Elon Musk said,

and yes, I've dug up the exact clip for you

from the Motor Trend Presentation.

Well, just listen for yourself.

This is what Elon had to say back in 2012.

But I think, I'm hopeful that other car companies

will in fact copy us and follow through

and do electric car programs with Greater Vigor

as a result of this award.

So, that's the thing I hope will most occur

as a result of this.

That's right, Ryan McCaffrey always brings receipts.

But in short, again, it's a good thing

for the EV movement overall

that Tesla has lost market share.

It's not a good thing that their sales are down,

but it is a good thing for the transition

to sustainable transport overall

that Tesla's market share has gone down

from its absurd and unsustainable peak.

Now we have other options.

This is what Tesla wanted all along

was more EVs in the marketplace,

and we have that now, and that's a good thing.

Moving along to our next story, yes, there's more.

Let's see, we got one, two.

Yeah, I've got like four more stories for you.

There's still plenty more to talk about.

And so, we move to this one.

Well, let's go back to Las Vegas.

I was talking about Vegas

in the beginning of the podcast.

And in fact, I was talking about FSD

in the form of RoboTaxi in the beginning of the podcast.

So here we go.

Tesla begins full self-driving tests

in boring companies Las Vegas tunnels.

Tip of the cap to drive Tesla Canada,

which is where I saw this story.

And they wrote, the Las Vegas Convention

and Visitors Authorities confirmed

that testing started quietly at the end of 2024

lining up with our earlier reporting

and has continued throughout 2025.

Fortune reports.

Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD supervised

are now navigating the three and a half mile underground system

while boring company safety drivers

remain behind the wheel ready to intervene.

According to the convention center CEO, Steve Hill,

these human backups still quote periodically

need to take control,

signaling that full autonomy remains out of reach.

The development is significant for both companies.

The boring company's tunnels were promoted

from the beginning as an ideal showcase

for autonomous transportation.

Since launching in 2021, however,

the system has relied exclusively on human drivers

transporting convention goers

through single lane tunnels to nearby hotels.

Despite the tunnels eliminating many of the obstacles

of surface driving,

such as weather, pedestrians or cross traffic,

Tesla's FSD has encountered unique challenges.

The tunnel's colorful LED lighting

and semi-polished rock walls create visual conditions

that confuse the camera-based system.

Unlike rivals such as Waymo or Cruz

that use LiDAR and radar,

Tesla's approach depends solely

on vision-based neural networks

making unusual light patterns a tricky variable.

Hill explained that while the environment

is simpler than city streets,

the system quote finds spots

that are difficult for them, end quote.

These issues highlight the complexity

of refining autonomous driving software

even in space's purpose built for controlled transit.

Although no accidents have been reported so far,

Hill cautions that widespread driverless service

is quote a ways off.

Before safety drivers can be removed,

Tesla and the boring company

must prove the system can operate

with exceptional reliability

and earn the trust of passengers.

Hill added that the LVCVA would likely hire

independent consultants to review safety data

before approving any expansion of autonomous operations.

Well, I suppose you could count the boring tunnels

as one giant edge case, right?

Because it's just, as the article stated,

it's nothing like what you would find

anywhere up on the surface.

Sure, there are plenty of tunnels in the world,

but none that narrow where one wrong flinch of the wheel

will result in the car trading paint with the tunnel wall.

Honestly, I think it's a little bit surprising to learn

that the funky neon lighting of the Vegas loop

can actually throw off the system,

but I guess the optimistic way to look at this

would be that it's a great learning opportunity

for the Tesla AI team to examine the data

and train the cars to more reliably

and comfortably navigate through those tunnels.

There will be more boring tunnel projects, we know that,

and that means there will be more need

for autonomous Teslas in these loops.

And on a side note, I just wanna say

that I really appreciate the honesty and transparency

of the Las Vegas Convention

and Visitors Authority CEO on this.

He did not give any, there was no spin on that.

He just gave a straight answer about what's good

about this testing, what's going well,

and what is still a work in progress

on this autonomous portion of the boring loop project.

If only all spokespeople for all companies

were more like that, I would certainly be grateful,

but good to see Tesla rub off on him a little bit

in that way, cause Teslas like that too,

they don't really put out sugar-coated PR statements,

which I've always, always appreciated.

And speaking of the boring company,

they have received the green light

from Vegas larger county, Clark County,

Clark County officials to move forward

with its latest project in the Las Vegas Valley.

This time it is not an underground tunnel,

but something above ground,

a six-story residential development

with direct access to the company's

Vegas loop transportation system.

One more tip of the cap here goes to Drive Tesla Canada,

which is where I saw this story.

And they wrote, county commissioners voted unanimously

to approve the proposal, paving the way

for the mixed-use complex that combines housing,

lifestyle amenities, and sustainable transit options.

The development known as Loop Apartments

will be built near Flamingo Road and Paradise Road,

one of the city's busiest intersections.

The Loop Apartments will be a 132-unit,

six-level complex featuring a swimming pool,

state-of-the-art fitness center,

co-working spaces, a game room,

and a Bodega-style restaurant and bar.

What sets the project apart, however,

is the integration of a Loop Transit station

on the ground floor.

The underground station, accessible by two ramps,

will connect directly to the boring company's

Las Vegas Loop Network.

Once operational, residents will be able

to step out of their apartments

and ride Tesla vehicles through underground tunnels

to destinations across the city in minutes.

The Las Vegas Loop began as a pilot system

beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center,

moving attendees quickly between the halls

that would otherwise require long walks.

Since then, expansion plans have been steadily approved

to extend the network throughout the resort corridor

and into the broader Las Vegas area.

By including a residential stop within the Loop system,

this project marks a significant evolution

in how the network could serve not just tourists,

but also local residents.

According to the boring company,

the goal of Loop Apartments is to showcase

how modern housing can be seamlessly integrated

with next generation transit systems.

Instead of relying solely on surface roads,

residents will have direct access

to a network designed to cut congestion and travel times.

Thank you to Drive Tesla Canada for that one.

Well, this to me is a fascinating civic experiment,

especially in Las Vegas,

where not a lot of it is walkable

since everything's so spread out.

Like the strip is,

but in terms of if you're going to live there,

it's not a particularly walkable place,

just like the Phoenix area that I largely grew up in.

And then of course,

it's a fascinating civic experiment

because as we all know,

it's blistering hot outside in Vegas for half the year.

So if you can zip around Vegas,

I mean, eventually as the Vegas Loop continues to expand

as I've covered here before,

if you can zip around Vegas

and do so completely underground,

out of the sun in a climate cool,

nicely controlled Tesla

without the sun beating down on you,

that could prove to be a really attractive option

to some residents.

I mean, it might not necessarily make as much sense

for families who have to shuttle kids to daycare

or school or after school activities

or their friends' houses,

but for younger professionals, younger couples,

I could see this being really appealing

if this project and the larger Loop network

live up to their full potential.

So I once again would like to salute

Las Vegas City Leadership

for their forward thinking approach to transportation.

They have completely embraced the boring company

in a way that truly no other city has,

at least as of yet.

And as I've said before,

I'll just say it again here,

I do look forward to my next Las Vegas visit

so that I can finally take my first ride

in the boring Loop.

I don't have any plans at the moment

to get to Vegas,

but we'll see, hopefully I'll have a good reason to go

sooner rather than later.

And moving, I guess those last couple of stories

were kind of already non-Tesla stories.

They were Teslaverse, Tesla Universe stories.

These next two are definitely outside of the Teslaverse.

They are other EV news stories.

So check this out,

there is a limited edition,

officially licensed Batman-themed SUV,

and it's an EV.

Unfortunately, you can't get it in the US or even Europe.

It's only available in India.

I saw this on Jalopnik,

who wrote the Mahindra BE6 Batman Edition

has just what the Dark Knight needs,

a unique satin black color,

a 79 kilowatt hour battery,

and more emblems than you can throw a batarang at.

Best of all, it's a real vehicle that you can buy,

at least if you're in India rather than Gotham City.

The Mahindra BE6 Batman Edition sure looks the part

and it was developed in partnership

with Warner Brothers Discovery Global Consumer Products.

The image of the caped crusader himself

behind the front fenders

is a little over the top for an actual Batmobile,

but not for a limited edition of 300 cars.

And the BE6 already has a wild design.

I certainly encourage you to Google image search it.

The unique 20 inch alloy wheels,

complete with Bat logo center caps,

are perfect for the Batman theme

as are the gold calipers and springs.

The panoramic glass sunroof lights up with the Bat emblem

from the Dark Knight trilogy,

visible from both inside and out.

It's definitely a gimmick,

but Batman is all about gimmicks,

whether functional or not.

The Jalopnik writer adds my favorite feature

is the Bat signal puddle lights,

which yeah, that does sound pretty cool.

The Batman Edition is appropriately based

on the most powerful version of the BE6.

While it's 282 horsepower and 280 pound feet of torque

may not quite match the turbines or jets Batman is used to,

it should be plenty quick for his biggest fans.

One nice touch is that the boost mode button

on the steering wheel,

which provides an extra burst of power for 10 seconds,

has only a Bat symbol labeling it,

making it feel like a special crime fighting feature.

Mahindra spread Bat emblems throughout the cabin as well.

Some are in your face like the one

on the dashboard at startup

and the numbered Batman Edition plaque

on the center console.

Others are subtle,

sewn into fabric door pulls or tags on the seats.

Well, this thing, again, if you take a look at it

in on Google,

it certainly sounds over the top

and it definitely looks a bit over the top as well.

I'll say for my part,

it looks kind of like a lifted Polestar three,

except all in black of course.

And I do find it strange

that Warner Brothers would do this licensing deal

in India of all places.

I mean, Batman is popular worldwide,

but it just seems like why wouldn't you also do this

in Europe, UK, the US?

Sort of a strange, just maybe unexpected choice

to have this be only available in India.

I mean, I don't know,

maybe Batman is a particularly popular character there

even more so than elsewhere.

I'm not sure.

But for what it's worth,

I will say after looking at pictures of it,

I certainly don't see Batman driving this.

And as for Bruce Wayne,

like I don't even know if this one would be one

that Bruce Wayne would be rolling around in.

Bruce Wayne would drive a next-gen Tesla Roadster,

maybe a Rimock Nevera.

Of course, Batman would maybe rock a

Matt Black Cybertruck as well,

that would make sense,

versus Bruce Wayne in the Roadster.

But when I did see this,

I did get a kick out of it.

So as a big Batman fan myself,

I thought I would share it with you.

And finally this week,

Porsche is preparing to become the first automaker

to bring factory integrated wireless charging

to the EV market.

One last tip of the cap to drive Tesla Canada

who wrote,

the technology will launch

with the upcoming electric Cayenne scheduled to debut

at the end of 2025,

with deliveries beginning in 2026.

The system called Porsche Wireless Charging

uses an inductive floor plate

that transfers up to 11 kilowatts of power

directly to a charging coil

installed in the underbody of the vehicle.

Owners simply park their Cayenne over the plate

and the car automatically lowers itself

to optimize alignment.

Once in position,

charging begins without the need for plugging in.

Unlike traditional wall box setups,

Porsche says its one box approach

integrates all necessary electronics

into the charging pad itself.

Aside from a supply cable,

no separate wall unit or control hardware is required.

The company claims the system achieves

an efficiency rate of up to 90%,

which rivals conventional wired AC charging.

According to Porsche,

who will debut their wireless charging tech

at the IAA Mobility Show in Munich,

the charging pad is not small

and weighs about 110 pounds or 50 kilos,

coming equipped with both Wi-Fi and LTE

for over-the-air software updates.

Safety features include a motion detector,

foreign object detection,

and automatic shutoff if interference is detected.

The wireless setup will be offered

as a paid option on the Cayenne Electric,

meaning not every vehicle will come equipped.

Initially, the technology will roll out in Europe in 2026

with other markets to follow.

Well, man, 90% efficiency is incredibly impressive.

The question is,

what will this optional wireless charging setup cost?

Now, it will no doubt get cheaper over time

and having everything built right into it

is the best, the smartest way, I think, to do this,

but I'm curious about the price tag

because Porsche is not known

for having affordable accessories.

That's it.

They are known for getting a lot of extra money

out of their customers through accessories

and customization on the vehicles.

But seriously though, whatever the price ends up being,

this is really, really cool to see.

We already know Tesla's going down this road as well

with the CyberCab and presumably future versions

of its other vehicles as well.

And I know there's at least one or two other

plug-in hybrid supercars slash hypercars

that already have this.

I had to Google this to double check

but my memory was correct.

The McLaren Speedtail,

which was like a $2 million car new,

now they're worth even more than that,

but obviously we need this tech to scale up

in both scale up in volume, I should say,

and scale down in price for the rest of us

that don't have McLaren Speedtail money,

but I'm glad to see that that is starting to happen

courtesy of the engineering team at Porsche.

Thank you guys, I will look forward to seeing

more of that in the real world

and seeing Tesla's implementation next year

with the CyberCab as well.

All right, that's everything I've got for you

in another busy week of Tesla and EV news.

But stick with me, I've got a few of your excellent

Ride the Lightning hotline phone calls

all queued up and ready to go 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.

Enough talking by me, let's hear from all of you

in the Ride the Lightning hotline,

it's your chance to call in

and potentially be featured here on the podcast.

If you've got a Tesla or EV question,

comment or discussion topic,

I welcome and invite you to call in with it.

And how do you do that?

Well, there are two easy ways to call in.

One, use your smartphone's 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 podcast email address,

which is teslapodcastatgmail.com.

Or you can take that same 90 second or less question

and just call in and leave a message anytime day or night

on the Ride the Lightning hotline.

It's a toll-free number and the number is 1-888-989-8752.

That number again, 1-888-989-TSLA.

And if you know someone special out there

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 even put onto a keepsake.

Visit lifeonrecord.com to learn more.

Let's go to their first caller,

which is Dave from Georgetown, Texas.

Hey, Ryan, it's Dave from Georgetown, Texas,

just north of Gigatexas.

Forever the listener called a few times.

I just listened to your human-esque comment about FSD.

My wife and I were driving down the Tula in highway

that was interspersed with small towns.

We came up to a light at the small town

and it turned yellow and FSD speeded up

to get through the yellow light.

We both laughed out loud.

The other thing was I picked up my car July 26th

in Gigatexas and I was offered a tour.

I wasn't able to take it as it turns out

it had to be done on a Friday.

But they did offer it to me.

And the third thing is a question.

In my Model Y, I set the height of the tailgate

so it didn't hit my garage ceiling or door

and it never does.

But it doesn't always go up to full height

when I'm not at home,

which is annoying because I hit my head on it.

I don't know if there's something that will fix that.

I'd like to suggest you to have it.

Thanks for all you do, Ryan, appreciate it.

Dave, it's great to hear from you.

Thank you for calling in.

You mentioned a few things there

so I will start with the yellow light behavior.

Now I am obviously no AI engineer

but I would have to imagine that getting the car

to do the right thing, which I suppose means

the safest thing at a yellow light

has gotta be one of the biggest challenges

for the Tesla AI team.

Because legally stopping might sometimes be

the thing you're supposed to do

but if you've got someone right on your tail

you don't wanna jam on the brakes, right?

And have them potentially rear end you.

So you're right, yellow light behavior

is definitely human-like when the car gets it right

which in my experience, knock on wood here,

it does seem to get right

a pretty large majority of the time.

Second, thank you for letting me know

that Gigatex's tours for new deliveries

are already a thing.

That's great news.

Hopefully Tesla continues to expand that out

beyond just one day a week

once that delivery center that they're prepping

opens up here pretty soon.

And finally, as to why your Model Y's rear liftgate

is not going up all the way

in places where you haven't GPS tagged it

to not go up all the way,

I'm at a loss for words on that one, I'm afraid.

So if anybody out there might happen to have

a good suggestion that can help Dave out,

feel free to either call in or email me

and I'm happy to pass it along to both Dave

and everybody else out there

in case it can be helpful to others.

But cheers Dave, thank you again for your call.

Here's Nick from Northeast Ohio up next.

Hello Ryan, this is Nick again from Northeast Ohio,

longtime listener and now a recent Patreon subscriber.

Thanks for all you do.

This is more a request for Tesla in dog mode.

So I am a fellow lover of dogs

and we are out today enjoying Labor Day

and left our dog in the car after our hike

and notice that when you put on dog mode,

the rear fan turns off.

So we keep our dog in a dog crate

in the back, we don't leave him free rein inside the car.

But we keep the rear fan on

while we're driving with him in the back

and also if you push keep, it also keeps the rear fan on.

But if you hit dog mode, that rear fan turns off.

Means no airflow going to the back where his crate is.

So if any Tesla engineers are listening,

it would be great to have that rear fan enabled

during dog mode.

So thanks a lot Ryan for all you do

and we'll talk to you next time.

Thank you Nick for your call

and for your kind and generous support on Patreon.

Both are sincerely appreciated.

I too am a frequent dog mode user

and I have to say I've never noticed this

and to be honest with you, it doesn't make sense.

I mean, I would hazard a somewhat confident guess

that the majority of people using dog mode

are not leaving their pet in the front seats

but instead in the back seats.

Maybe I'm taking crazy pills on this one?

I don't know.

Daisy, because Lily is not really old enough yet

to trust her on her own in the car in dog mode

if I'm running an errand,

if I'm going inside somewhere real quick.

But Daisy is in the back

with my Tesla dog hammock set up back there.

And she's always seemed perfectly comfortable

when I get back, but I do have to wonder

what the reason is for not running the rear fan in dog mode.

Surely the Tesla team has to have considered it.

So if anybody happens to know anything about this

that Nick and I might be missing,

again, please email me or call in and educate us.

I'd love it.

I've just got time for one more call this week

on this busy episode.

Here comes Tyler from Michigan.

Hey Ryan, this is Tyler from Michigan,

been a long time listener of the show.

Also of Podcast Unlocked.

That's where I originally heard you from.

But recently joined the Tesla family in April

with a 23 Model Y with hardware four.

And I've been itching to try FSD.

So last, a couple of weeks ago,

we decided that we were gonna go in and give it a shot.

So we opted in for the $99 subscription,

which in hindsight may have been a huge mistake

because it's really good in our area

and it's making it very difficult

to cancel the subscription.

But I do have a suggestion or maybe even it's a question.

Maybe you can do this and I'm just unaware.

But as we drive just on city streets,

I like to have a hurry mode just because it's more natural.

It seems less like a robot driving the car

or more like a human.

And on the highway, I like to have it in standard

and that is because hurry can be kind of a jerk.

An example of that might be if I'm gonna get off

on an exit and I got a little over half a mile left

and I'm in the right lane and there's a car in front

of me just going slightly slower.

I prefer it just to slow down

but it generally opts to pass that vehicle

even if it means cutting them off the last second

right before the exit when it's in hurry mode.

So I switch it, which obviously means I have to look down

at the screen, switch it when I get on the highway

and then vice versa when I'm getting off,

which is a safety hazard at the very least.

But it would be really cool if Tesla had an option

in the settings for FSD,

we're on the highway I could have in one mode

and then on city streets in a different mode.

Thanks for the podcast, look forward to hearing from ya.

Hey Tyler, thanks for your call

and thank you for listening to Unlocked as well.

I genuinely love doing both podcasts

and it's the highlight of my day on Wednesdays

for Unlocked when I record that

and Fridays for Ride the Lightning.

You mentioned looking down at the screen

to change FSD mode so I wanted to, I spoiler,

I already emailed this to Tyler

so that he wouldn't have to wait

till I played this on the air

and he was appreciative of this

so I'm putting this out for everybody.

In case you're not aware,

you can switch the FSD mode pretty quickly and easily

by just clicking left or right

on the right scroll wheel button on your steering wheel

when FSD's engaged.

So if you're in standard,

clicking to the left will put it in chill

and clicking to the right will put it in hurry.

Now I personally use this in a specific way most of the time.

I've actually, I don't think I've ever used chill

so I basically go between standard and hurry

with 95% of the time I'm in standard

but if I want my car to pass the person in front of me,

I will just click over to hurry

and when I do that, the car will typically

immediately put on the left turn signal,

go over in the left lane

and make its way past that car in front of me

and then once I'm past it,

I click it back over into standard

and then the car will get out of the left lane.

If you leave it in hurry, it will stay in the left lane.

So I go, I click over to hurry, pass,

click back to standard and it moves back over.

So Tyler, I hope that helps

but by the way, I nevertheless still like your suggestion

of having a separate optional default preference

for highways and another separate default preference

for city streets.

That is a good idea.

I fully endorse it for whatever little that might be worth.

Thank you Tyler.

Thank you to everybody that kindly took the time

to call in this past week to ride the lightning.

Keep your calls coming

and I promise I will get to more of them

on next week's show if you're curious

how to call in.

Well, I mentioned how to do that,

the two easy methods at the top of this segment

so refer back to that.

Now, as for what's going on with me and my cars,

well, I took as I mentioned

near the top of the podcast this week,

I took three more RoboTaxi rides this week.

So they were all routes that I've done before,

in fact, done a number of times in one or both,

really, I guess both cars at this point.

So the first one, the first familiar route

was from my home to our canine companion's

puppy training class location.

And it's not a short distance,

it's like a, I don't know, 15, 20 minute drive

or so across the city.

And the RoboTaxi completely aced it.

There wasn't anything even remotely annoying that happened.

And I'll add that on that drive,

I also got very lucky and got a very chatty member

of the Tesla AI team as my driver.

I got to tell him about a particularly wicked edge case

near my house, which I think I've mentioned vaguely

in vague terms on the podcast before,

so I'm not gonna bore you with it again.

So I got to tell him about that

and I got to complain about the lane keeping troubles

of my AI3 car.

Now, I have to say, if I'm honest with myself,

he was very nice, but I'm not so sure

he's gonna be taking any action on the AI3 car,

but in all seriousness, he did ask me specifically

what intersection that the edge case is at,

which as I've mentioned before,

there's a no write on red

and then a stop sign right after,

that it doesn't always adhere to.

So I showed him that.

So hopefully I can help affect positive change

for the RoboTaxi network.

Sadly, I have not been in the RoboTaxi in that spot

as of yet, it has not worked out that way.

So I'd like to see if the current RoboTaxi version

of the software handles it any better

than the production version in my AI3 and AI4 cars,

but so that was great to get to talk

to that Tesla AI team member.

I was asking him, so like how much of your day

is spent in the office doing other,

whatever else, I don't know, other coding

or what have you that you need to do,

versus how much of it is spent doing RoboTaxi safety

monitor rides, and he said in his case,

100% of his time is behind the wheel

as the safety monitor right now.

So Tesla is making just, he said that it is all hands

on deck for this, and that was just, that was pretty wild.

So they've got their actual team members out

doing these rides in certain situations.

At least here in the Bay Area,

there's probably some engineers in Austin as well,

I would guess, that might be out doing the rides

as the safety monitor, but then the other two rides I took,

I had very quiet safety monitors

that didn't say anything, which is totally fine.

I mean they, I said hello, they said hello,

I said thank you, they said have a nice day.

So it was all perfectly pleasant,

but just had the one Tesla AI team member

who was super nice, I'm not gonna,

I don't wanna give any more details

in case, I don't know if maybe he's not supposed to talk to,

I don't know what the actual policy is,

I don't wanna get anybody in trouble,

but I enjoyed chatting with him on that particular run.

So the second two rides that I took this week

in RoboTaxi were two, the Tesla San Francisco Service Center

as I took the 2018 car, the Spirit of Adventure

in for that overdue alignment I've been mentioning

here, plus I just did a brake fluid check

because it was recommended

and a cabin air filter replacement.

So it was just in for that,

so I took RoboTaxi on the way back

from dropping the car off,

and then I took it back from my home

to Tesla San Francisco Service Center

to go pick the car back up,

and again, it was flawless both times.

So I still, it's small sample size

so I've been in RoboTaxi four times now, four rides.

So far, I have literally nothing I can complain about.

I mean, I guess if I really, really wanted to drill down,

I can get super picky,

which maybe eventually Tesla can get to the point

where they can't address stuff like this,

like there are spots along routes,

my normal routes where the road kind of,

there's like a drain or a sewer grate

and the road like really dips down.

So if you just go over it,

like if you're just kind of in your lane

and you're staying in your lane,

you will go over that grate

and you'll feel the bump on the,

it's a pretty significant bump on the dip

as your rear, or side wheels,

one side of the car wheels

will dip into the grate,

I guess the right side wheel, passenger side.

So like when I'm manually driving my car,

I will drive around them

as long as there isn't another car coming at me

from the other direction.

So like that would be a longer term,

like, hey, can the car actually see this stuff

and adjust around it?

I guess that would maybe fall

into the pothole kind of category,

which is gonna need to be addressed

sooner, probably sooner rather than later,

cause potholes can be damaging to vehicles,

to any vehicle, including a Model Y, a RoboTaxi.

So, but of course now you wanna start

squeaking toys over there.

She's been so good so far,

but anyhow, all of that is to say,

three rides this week, four total,

all within San Francisco,

which is not, in my opinion,

not an easy city to self-drive in,

and it has performed flawlessly thus far.

It's been awesome.

So I'm gonna keep using it whenever it makes sense,

and I'll keep reporting back to you on my experience.

Time now for an entertainment recommendation.

I realized at the last moment

that the thing I wanted to say,

I can't say till next week,

because it's still under embargo

when this podcast goes out.

It's a game review.

I reviewed a game this week that I,

well, I guess I won't say anymore.

I'll save it for next week,

but for this week I will recommend a different game,

but it's specifically a free playable demo of a game

that you can find on Steam,

and that game is called Dispatch,

and it is a game made by X Telltale employees.

So if you ever played Telltale's adventure games,

they're narrative games from at this point,

like five to 10 years ago.

So I'm talking about like The Walking Dead,

The Wolf of Us, The Wolf Among Us, pardon me,

Tales from the Borderlands, Batman.

They did a Game of Thrones one.

They did a bunch of stuff over the years,

and some of those former Telltale developers

have started a new studio called Adhoc,

and their first game is a similar Telltale-like game

called Dispatch,

where you play a dispatcher for a superhero group.

Like basically people call a 911-like service,

like a paid thing, and they have a problem

and you have to dispatch the right superhero for the job,

and the main character is voiced by Aaron Paul,

who's great and the writing's really funny.

And again, this was just a demo.

This isn't even the whole game.

And so yeah, I really enjoy the demo of that.

So if you like Telltale stuff,

check out the playable demo of Dispatch over on Steam.

Back to Tesla stuff.

Here's a pro tip from Steve in Austin.

Hi, Ryan.

This is Steve from Austin with a pro tip.

I've been enjoying this podcast since episode 200,

and I've never heard this come up before.

The tip is that the card key

can work in multiple cars at the same time.

If you have two or more Teslas,

you can program a single card key

to work in all of your cars.

Let's say you have two cars, Alice and Bob.

Make sure you have both keys

and your phone with you and sit down in Alice.

Go to the settings, locks,

and tap the add key button in the upper right.

The car screen will first tell you

to go to your Tesla app and select Alice.

Then place Bob's card key

in the appropriate place for your car,

either just ahead of the armrest

or in the left phone charger bay.

The screen will then prompt you to remove Bob's card

and put Alice's card key in the same place

to confirm your action.

After a moment, Bob's key will be paired with Alice.

Also note, the lock screen will allow you to name the key

so that you can see which key is active.

Because my wife and I are swapping our cars out

before the US tax incentives expire,

I've got a couple of things to say

about the sales process,

but I'll send those thoughts separately.

Keep up the great work, Ryan.

This is a great pro tip, Steve.

I absolutely take your word for it

that this one's never been featured as a pro tip,

which is surprising since I have used this pro tip myself.

I have both Model 3s bound to both cars' key cards.

So yeah, I am a user of this particular pro tip,

but it is an excellent suggestion.

If I've never mentioned it, shame on me.

Thank you for calling in with it.

This is an excellent suggestion

for the growing contingent of multi-Tesla households out there.

Thank you very much for sending this in.

And if anybody else out there has a good Tesla or EV

pro tip of the week, I'd love to hear it

so that I can learn from it

and I can share it with everybody else

and we can all learn from it.

So give me a call.

Just call in with it the same way

that you would call in

with a regular ride to lightning hotline call.

The two easy call in methods

I gave you the instructions for a little while ago.

All right, I need to finish this podcast

before I pass out.

I'm so tired, but we're almost there.

I just wanna mention a few friends of Ride the Lightning

that can hopefully be useful to you sooner or later.

I will start with abstractocean.com.

They have a 15% discount offer

for listeners of this podcast

who are making a first-time purchase

on abstractocean.com.

Just taking a quick look at their best sellers.

So for the new Model 3 mudflaps,

they've got a super hydrophobic camera cover

for three in the Y, that seems very handy.

They've got the ultra premium tempered glass screen

protectors for everything.

There's the expel armor frunk protection for Cybertruck,

the expel armor bed sale trim for the Cybertruck.

You've got an ultra premium tempered glass

screen protector for Rivian now too.

It just goes on, the ultra bright lights, the puddle lights.

There's so much cool stuff in here,

you gotta check them out, abstractocean.com.

Click on whichever vehicle you have at the top of the page,

then it will show you all of the accessories

they have available for your vehicle.

Pick out what you like, put it in your online shopping cart,

and when you get to check out,

use the coupon code RTLpodcast

to get that 15% off of your first order.

That's all one word RTLpodcast.

Meanwhile, the Snap Plate and the new Snap Plate Plus

that's even stronger, I just got an email from them today

actually, maybe you got it too

if you're on their mailing list.

They have the new version of their Snap Plate,

license plate bracket for the new Model X

because the X of course gained a lower

front bumper camera so they had to redesign

their Snap Plate to accommodate for that.

So if you've got whatever it is, SX3Y Cybertruck,

they've got a Snap Plate for you

and I do recommend it because it's a nice clean,

minimalist design and it doesn't stick

to the front of your car with automotive adhesive,

with automotive tape, the same way

that the one that Tesla gives you does.

So head on over to everyamp.com slash RTL.

Choose whatever one you like,

throw it in your shopping cart

and use the coupon code RTL when you get to check out

for a nice discount.

Thank you to my friends at everyamp

for that listener discount.

Immaculate Reflections.

My detailer here in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area,

if you're here or gonna be here

with a car that you care about,

whether it's your Tesla or something else in your garage,

I cannot recommend enough that you reach out

to Immaculate Reflections through their website irdetailing.com.

And when you reach out, let them know when you're coming,

when you're looking to get some work done,

it'll get you on the schedule

and the summer special is winding down 200 bucks

off of any paint correction service,

500 off of any ceramic coating package

and 15% off of any paint protection film package.

So again, irdetailing.com,

I guarantee you that you will leave happy

when your car is finished.

I absolutely love the incredibly professional,

just top shelf detail work that Immaculate Reflections

has done on both of my Teslas.

My Patreon, I mentioned it earlier,

I'll mention it here real quick one more time.

The website is patreon.com slash Tesla podcast

or just click the link in the episode description.

You can support the podcast for just five bucks a month.

That's the base level tier.

And for that five bucks,

you'll get an ad-free episode every week

and you'll get early access

to that ad-free episode every week.

Step up to the $10 per month tier,

you'll get those things

and all of those 150 something weekly lightning round

bonus mini episodes.

The support tiers keep going up from there.

I would be so grateful

if you would consider supporting me here at Ride the Lightning.

As you know, I show up every single week

for the last 10 plus years now

and I'd be thrilled if you could see it in your heart

to join one of the tiers.

Doesn't matter which one,

whichever one looks right to you

at patreon.com slash Tesla podcast.

You can follow this podcast

on any of the big podcast services.

The big ones are Apple podcasts.

They're Spotify, tune in,

as well as YouTube podcasts as well.

So just search Ride the Lightning Tesla.

You should see this podcast pop right up

and just tap the follow button.

Simple as that.

And so what does that do?

Well, every time there's a new episode,

which is every Sunday at 9 a.m. Eastern 6 a.m. Pacific,

you will get a push notification

notifying you about that new episode.

Just tap that notification

and boom, you'll be listening in no time.

No need to remember when new episodes drop

if you are following on your favorite podcast feed.

You can also follow me on social media if you like.

No pressure, but I'm on X and Instagram.

I have the same username on both.

That username is DMC underscore Ryan.

You can also email me anytime

for Tesla or EV related things

at teslapodcastatgmail.com.

Lastly, before I go,

I would like to express my sincerest thanks and gratitude

and say hello to the top tier Patreon backers.

These are the extra generous folks

that are really, really supporting the podcast

out of the goodness of their heart

in a very, a way that's significant to me

in terms of the effect on my life.

I mean, every Patreon pledge is appreciated.

Don't get me wrong.

A little bit helps

and that's kind of what Patreon's all about, right?

It's like, you're not having one person donate

$1,000 a month, most of the time, I don't think.

But, you know, five bucks here, five bucks there.

These folks are very generous at the plaid,

maximum plaid and Roadster in Space tiers.

Starting with the Roadster in Space tier,

big thanks to Pete White, Lyle Austin,

Steve Radspinner, Fernando Cordero,

Lawton from Chicago, Sean Nydig, Neil Weaver,

Jackson Wallace, Rolf and Jennifer Evers,

Howard Anthony Smith, Victoria Aya Caveto,

Tesla Hitchhiker 42, Carol Weston,

Robert from near Philly, American Home Contractors,

Doug Carey, Michael Gallo and Tony Figueroa.

Next up are the maximum plaid backers.

By the way, we did have an awesome

Ride the Lightning Patreon Zoom Hangout

for the month of September last week.

As we always do, it's just, it's always a nice conversation.

It tends to go in a few different directions

and that's what's fun.

I'll usually bring a few, like a short list of topics

and then it's wherever people want to take

the conversation about all things Tesla and EV

and so we always have a good time.

Thank you to the maximum plaid backers

who are Jonathan Wales, Cameron Clark,

Daniel Grummer, Seth Capello, Nick and Tony,

the Galpin family, Ryan from New York City,

Darren Nickel, Cos Barnes, Patrick Wisneski,

Gil Cabrera, Todd Badger, Joe Edgel, Kevin Yank,

the Tesla Owners Club of San Joaquin Valley,

Will Steadman, Justin Perez, Jeremy Harris,

Chris Beech, Tom Mills, Corey O'Donnell,

Aaron, John Cody, Joel Sapp, Paul Casarino,

Chris Osborne, KB, Adam Lavoie, Jason Chalukis,

Travis Krenzel, Bruce Otterstein, Tom Beehan,

Josh Pennington, John from Cream Ridge, New Jersey,

Dustin Hart, Derek Finley, Charles Clement,

Damon Klein, Jeff Brown, Jerry Slinger,

Kenneth Corbett, Brian Bertoglio, Kim Bae,

Troy Sievers, Nick Jacoby, Chip Hooper,

Matt Chinander, Robert Moran and Rav.

Finally, a thanks to the grandfathered

and plaid level supporters, George Casiopo,

Logan Willis, Peter Chalet, Eric Randolph,

Dori and Steve Guberman,

the Tesla Owners Club of Taiwan, Ron Lee,

Charlie Gillespie, Jeff Angwin, Chase Cabanillas,

the Lydia family, Aaron Altschul, Jared Brown,

Jerome Strack, Jamie Dalton,

Mike and Barbara from Louisville, Matt Nixon,

the Tesla Owners Club of Wisconsin,

Ish, not Elon Musk, Peter and the Bear Boys of Colorado.

Well that will do it for Ride the Lightning Episode 528

here is a, this is, let's see, well no,

I'll be recording next week's podcast

while I'm still 44 years of age,

but then after that I'll be 45.

My birthday is next weekend,

coming up, or I guess this coming weekend

by the time most of you hear this,

but yeah, boy, years flown by,

but looking forward to next week

to see what topics the Tesla and EV universe bring us,

but for now this has been hopefully a fun episode for you,

it's been fun for me.

Here we're coming in at the 90 minute mark,

so I wanna wrap it up, get you back to your day,

but I do so much appreciate your time and your attention

because those things are in, they're not plentiful, right?

You only have so much time, so much attention

you can pay to things.

Thank you for sharing in the joy and enthusiasm

in Tesla and in the EV space that I find with this.

It really is so much fun for me

to get to talk about this stuff

and have fellow enthusiasts, fellow car people,

I love it, it's great to have all of you with me,

so thank you all so much, happy electric motoring,

and I'll see you back here next week.

["Pomp and Circumstance"]

Elon Musk, people don't like Elon 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 not exactly a car,

it's actually a thing to maximize enjoyment.

It's maximum fun.

Episode 528: Robotaxi Gearing Up to Launch in 2 More States

Tesla Model Y

Tesla Cybertruck

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Semi

Tesla Model S

Tesla Model X

Nissan Leaf

Audi Etron

Rimac Nevera

Porsche Cayenne

Tesla Cybercab

Mclaren Speedtail

About this episode

Original notes