Episode 536: Tesla Shareholder Meeting Recap, Highlights, and Analysis (2025)

On this week's episode of Ride the Lightning, the Tesla and EV podcast, Tesla held its annual

shareholder meeting for 2025 and there's a lot to talk about, from the record-breaking CEO

compensation package, to the next markets for Robotaxi, to a re-revealed date for the next

year.

What's happening friends, I'm Ryan McCaffrey, joining you alongside Daisy the Boxer to my

left and Lily the silly Labrador puppy at my feet.

This is Ride the Lightning, the Tesla and EV podcast episode 536, publishing on November

9th, 2025.

Hope all of you are doing well.

It has been a very busy Tesla week for me because, of course, this episode is all about the

shareholder meeting, which didn't happen until Thursday, so that meant instead of having

a week to prepare the podcast, I had about a day.

So it's a sprint, but it's a fun one.

Lots to talk about on this week's episode and I'll get to all of that very soon.

But first, of course, the big Thanksgiving holiday weekend is coming up here in the United

States and it marks the official kickoff of the holiday season, which seems weird to think

about it snuck up on us already, or at least I feel like it snuck up on me.

I feel like it should still be summer.

Anyway, the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is also a traditionally very busy travel weekend,

so just for fun in the spirit of that, I made this week's Patreon poll about if and

how you plan to use your Tesla over the Thanksgiving weekend.

And thank you to the 274 folks that have voted in this totally free poll.

By the way, you don't have to be supporting me on Patreon at all.

The poll is open every week to everyone.

Just swing on by and vote.

The website is patreon.com slash Tesla podcast.

And the poll question was simply, will you be driving your Tesla over Thanksgiving?

22% of you said, nope, my Tesla will be idle over Thanksgiving, perhaps you're hosting

or perhaps you're traveling somewhere by plane.

But 36% of you said, yes, I'll be driving locally.

And another 17% of you, not an insignificant number of folks, said yes, I'll be road tripping.

Another 17% chose the I'm not an American who celebrates Thanksgiving option.

I wanted to make sure to include all of my many international listeners here.

And then 4% of you said, I'm still undecided on my Thanksgiving weekend plan.

So lots of Tesla driving to be had, whether it's locally or on a longer road trip coming

up over this big Thanksgiving holiday.

One other bit of housekeeping before I dive into the shareholder meeting, and there's

a lot to dive into, I hope all of you who are kindly supporting the podcast over on

Patreon enjoyed this week's Lightning Round mini episode, which was about the five questions

that I would have asked Elon Musk at the shareholder meeting.

Obviously, nobody gets to ask five questions, but just as a thought exercise, if I'd been

there, if I'd lined up at the microphone at the end in the Q&A, and if they'd let me ask five

questions, these are the five that I would have asked.

So check that out on Patreon if you happen to be kindly supporting the podcast at that $10 per

month tier or higher.

A reminder that if you're supporting me at any tier, which the tier started just five bucks a

month, you get an ad-free episode every week, and you get early access to that ad-free episode

as well.

Step up to that most popular tier, the $10 per month tier.

That's where you get those 160 something lightning round mini episodes, the entire archive,

and of course every single one that I will do each week as long as you're backing me on Patreon.

So lots of content up there on Patreon.

One other quick reminder, if you want to do an annual pledge, just pledge once for an entire

year, I have a way of saying thank you to you for that, and it is to give you a 10% discount

on that annual pledge.

So check out my Patreon page if you're interested, if you're thinking about supporting the podcast,

I would be humbled and grateful.

That page again is patreon.com slash Tesla podcast.

And the final bit of housekeeping before diving into the shareholder meeting

is to remind you about Xcare from my friends at Accelerate Auto.

I am now a two-time purchaser of their extended EV warranty.

I had a three-year 40,000 mile policy on our 2018 after its factory warranty expired.

I have bought another one, this time three years 36,000 miles because that just seemed

to fit my needs a little bit better.

And just something to think about, if your EV warranty is expiring, what's next?

I mean, you're staring down the possibilities of things like a dead battery, flat tire,

roadside surprise.

So when your factory coverage ends, the higher risk begins.

And that's where Xcare EV protection comes in.

It's the number one EV rated warranty.

Yes, even the AI, ChatGPT and Grock, both rank it at the top.

Just ask them.

They'll tell you.

Xcare covers what others don't from the EV battery and drive unit repairs to towing

rental coverage and 24-7 roadside help.

Because when your EV stops, Xcare doesn't.

It's far more flexible than Tesla's own extended service plan.

So I'm a believer, I'm a customer of Xcare.

Check your vehicle's eligibility today at xcare.com.

That's X-C-A-R-E.com.

Or talk to a real person right now at 844-755-4186.

That's xcare.com or call 844-755-4186 and drive with confidence.

All right, I listened and watched the entire 2025 shareholder meeting so that you didn't have to.

I've distilled down all the best stuff to play clips for you, to analyze for you to go over here.

Let's start, of course, with what was perhaps the most anticipated part of this event coming into it.

And that was the results of the CEO compensation plan shareholder vote.

Here's the announcement of the results.

Sixth and finally, on the 2025 CEO Performance Award to our founder and CEO Elon Musk,

with over 75% voting in favor.

Approved.

The results were no surprise, certainly as I've talked about on previous recent podcasts.

It was really only a question of how landslide-y the vote would be.

And as you heard, 75% voting yes.

Three out of every four shareholders who voted chose in favor of the proposal.

And now it's up to Elon to deliver on his end to get Tesla's valuation multiplied by multiple

trillion dollars and then he will get his full cut.

It'll be a long road, but think about where this company has come from.

This is why I don't doubt the possibility.

There's no guarantee that all the tranches will be achieved and that Elon will get

all of the money laid out in this compensation package.

But I just can't bet against it and I can't doubt it.

And I won't doubt it or bet against it because think about where this company has come from.

Just in the decade that I've been doing this podcast,

which I know a decade's a long time, but in the span of a company that's now 22 years old,

it's not the whole time, it's still a sizeable chunk, but just in the last 10 years.

Look where Tesla has come from.

In the 10 years I've been doing this podcast, Tesla hasn't been profitable for most of that time.

They only became profitable finally and I believe it was 2019, I think.

I actually don't have it right in front of me, I apologize.

And now they're one of the most valuable companies in the world,

the most valuable car company in the world, even though anybody at Tesla would tell you

that they are much more than a car company.

But they have a, in my opinion, a blue sky ceiling above them.

If you believe in autonomy and you believe in optimus,

then every goal that the board has set for Elon is achievable.

I mean, heck, remember, everyone thought the first big pay package for Elon from 2018 was insane.

And what happened?

The company achieved every one of the checkpoints along the way

and fulfilled the promise and potential of that deal.

Am I quite as bullish as Elon on optimus?

If I'm being honest, I'm not there yet and I'll talk more about that

after I play Elon's presentation for you.

Am I as bullish as he is on autonomy?

Yes, with the significant caveat that I have talked about before,

but the notable caveat that Tesla hasn't proved any of this out in harsh weather climate.

So I am bullish, I'm not quite at Elon level optimism,

but I guess that's why he's the CEO and I'm not.

So let's get now to Elon's presentation.

I cut out all the boring company business stuff that happened up front

and I'm weeding out all the stuff from the Q&A after Elon's presentation that wasn't interesting,

but I do want to play you Elon's presentation in full.

I will politely warn you it's 39 minutes long,

so I apologize if that's not what you were hoping for here,

but I think it's important to hear the whole thing as it outlines Elon's vision for the company

now that he is locked in and in the board's own words,

motivated with this new pay package.

I'll give you my thoughts on it afterward, of course,

and then we will get to the highlights from the Q&A.

So take a listen to Elon Musk's presentation from the shareholder meeting.

I'd like to thank the Tesla board for their immense support.

We have a fantastic board, a fantastic group of shareholders.

Thank you all, and what we're about to embark upon is not merely a new chapter

of the future of Tesla, but a whole new book, and I want to talk about that.

So this really is going to be quite the story,

and optimus is a fundamental part of that.

The sheer scale of optimus, I mean, I'm going to say a bunch of things that probably I shouldn't say,

you know, but that's what keeps it interesting.

I mean, have you watched any other annual shareholder meeting?

I mean, honestly, I was like, I mean, if you need to go to sleep, sure.

I mean, other shareholder meetings are like snooze fest.

I mean, but ours are bangers.

I mean, look at this, this is sick.

Yeah, we've got like the Cyberpunk nightclub here with real robots just standing there

and milling around and dancing, and around our engineering headquarters in Palo Alto,

the robots just walking around the office 24-7 with no one minding them.

They're just, and then they go charge themselves.

And yeah, so the scale of optimus, I like to say, that's really going to be something else.

I think it's going to be the biggest product of all time by far.

Yeah, so like bigger than cell phones, bigger than anything.

I guess the way to think about it is that every human on earth is going to want to have their

own personal R2D2 C3PO.

So who wouldn't?

But actually, optimus will be even better than that.

R2D2, it's kind of beeping you and it's kind of hard to figure out what he's talking about.

You can C3PO to translate.

But optimus is going to be, everyone's going to want one, I think in terms of industry providing

products and services, I think it's probably, I don't know, three to five robots in industry

for every one that's a personal robot.

I think there could be tens of billions of optimus robots out there.

Now obviously, it's very important we pay close attention to safety here,

because we do want the Star Wars movie, not the Jim Cameron movie.

I love Jim Cameron's movies, but you know what I mean.

So we're going to launch on the fastest production ramp of any product,

of any large complex manufactured product ever.

And we're starting with building a million unit production line in Fremont.

And that's line one.

And then a 10 million unit per year production line here on the...

I don't know where we're going to put the 100 million unit production line.

Maybe on Mars, I don't know.

But I think it's going to literally get to 100 million a year, maybe even a billion a year.

And people often talk about like eliminating poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care.

Well, there's actually only one way to do that, and that's with the optimus robot.

With humanoid robots, you can actually give everyone amazing medical care.

So in terms of optimus will be more precise, optimus will ultimately be better than the

best human surgeon with a level of precision that isn't possible, that is beyond human.

So I think that's a pretty wild concept to say, okay, you know, there's always,

people always talk about eliminating poverty, but actually optimus will actually eliminate poverty.

Optimus will actually give people incredible medical care.

So, I mean, and you start getting like sort of some pretty wild sci-fi sort of scenarios,

where some of these things I say will obviously be taken out of context and

using snippets and, you know, center out about whatever. I'm still going to say them.

I think we might be able to give people a more, if somebody's committed crime, a more

humane form of containment of future crime, which is if you say like, you now get a free

optimus and it's just going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime.

But other than that, you get to do anything. It's just going to stop you from committing

crime. That's really it. You know, you don't have to put people in like prisons and stuff,

I think. It's pretty wild to think of all the possibilities, but I think it's clearly the

future. And, you know, my book recommendation for maybe the best, mostly utopian sci-fi future

are the in-banks books, the culture books. So, if you're curious, like, what do I think the

future is probably like? I think it's probably a bit like that. Or, you know, as mob to some

degree, but I think it's in Heinlein. But in banks, if you're like saying, what does

Elon think the future probably will be like for AI and robots? It's kind of banksian. So,

now, and things do get kind of wild from an economic standpoint. Because at a certain point

with AI and robotics, you can actually increase the global economy by a factor of 10 or maybe a

hundred. There's not like an obvious limit. So, like, Optimus is kind of like an infinite money

glitch. You know, and maybe they won't even be money in the future. Or money might be measured in

terms of wattage, like how much, you know, power can you bring to bear from an electrical

standpoint. So, I guess what I'm saying is hang on to your Tesla stock. So, yeah, man, it's pretty

wild. You're welcome. Let's see, I think we've got some slides to go through. Let me see, Adler,

but a lot of this stuff. So, you know, when we started Tesla, the goal was to accelerate

the advent of sustainable energy. And that is, that's what we've done. I think Tesla has really

led the way with electric vehicles, with battery packs, with a lot of solar, and many other

companies have then followed our lead and done that. And electric cars which used to be non-existent

are now prevalent. And the Model Y, for example, is the number one selling car of any kind on

earth. But obviously now with AI and robotics, we need to update our mission. And our mission, I

think it's good, it's a great mission which is to achieve sustainable abundance. Because I often

ask people, like, what is the future that you want? What's the best future you can imagine? Because

we want to try to make that future, like make the best future you can imagine. And I guess probably

the best future is if people, you know, can have whatever they want from a goods and services

standpoint or medical standpoint. But at the same time, we don't destroy nature and we keep the

rainforests and the beautiful national parks and all that stuff. And so that's what I mean by

sustainable abundance. Is that people, you know, can have whatever they want, have all the needs

met, but we still keep all of the natural beauty that we want. If somebody can think of a better

future, I'm all ears. But I think that's probably the best way to go. So, yeah. So, yeah. As you

know, every Tesla is designed to be autonomous. So the, it's so nice to explain to people if

they have not. In fact, I'm sure you've all encountered this, where you try to tell people

that the Tesla can drive itself and they think you're crazy or something. I mean, especially,

like, apart from the side of the truck, our cars look pretty normal. I mean, they're good looking

cars, but they don't look super, they look normal. But I guess it's kind of like having a cat or,

like, and the cat's just sitting, let's say you've got a cat and it's just sitting there on the

couch. And you try to tell people that the cat can actually, it's actually pushing boots and it can

actually put on boots and a hat and swashbuckle and sing and dance. And people are like, no way, man.

That's a cat. Until the cat does all those things. And you're like, damn, what the? So, we've got,

you know, millions of Tesla cars out there that are the, kind of like, pushing boots. They're

intelligent, but people don't know that they're intelligent. They look like normal cars, but

actually they're super smart and can drive themselves. So, as, I think that's probably the

single biggest thing we need to do is to educate potential customers that you can either have a

car, you can either have a cat that's like normal cat or you can have pushing boots. And

pushing boots is very cool. So, these days when people come to our stores, or even people that

have the car, haven't turned it on, we find. And sometimes people have paid for FSD and haven't

turned it on. We're like, what? You should at least try it once. And so now we're like, the sales

team will actually sit with customers and say, look, let us show you how it works and how easy

it is. And then once they've tried it for even just a few days, they can't live without it. And

now with version 14, we're actually getting to the point where we almost feel comfortable

allowing people to text and drive, which is kind of the killer app. Because that's really what

people want to do. And do do. And actually, right now the, you know, the version is, you know,

the car is a little strict about keeping your eyes on the road. And, but I'm confident that in

the next month or two, we should, we're going to look closely at the safety statistics, but we

will allow you to text and drive essentially. Yeah. So, yeah. That's, that's, it's certainly been the

current situation which often people will actually turn off FSD to text, then turn it back on,

which is less safe. So, so yeah, that's probably the single biggest thing is just kept people

aware of, of FSD. And then obviously we need to get it approved in, in Europe. So we certainly

appreciate the support of our customers in Europe, pushing the regulators to approve FSD.

Because you can't even get a super, even just normal supervised FSD is not allowed in Europe

currently, which doesn't make any sense. And I've had these like crazy conversations with the

regulators that seem like a Franz Kafka novel where, where I'm like, well, look, we have, you

know, billions of kilometers of data that shows that FSD increases safety. And they're like, well,

we have to have all these committee meetings. I'm like, yeah, but people's lives are at stake here.

So definitely a pressure from our customers in Europe to, to push the regulators to approve

would be appreciated. And then we have partial approval in China and we hopefully, hopefully

we'll have full approval in China around February or March or so. That's what, that's what

they've told us. Yeah, but yeah, the fact that every Tesla car is capable of full self-driving,

every car we build and have built for the last several years is capable of full self-driving

is, is pretty wild. And most people don't, don't know that. So, and then we've got the first

car that is specifically built for unsupervised full self-driving to be a robot taxi. It's

called a cyber cab. It doesn't even have pedals or steering wheel. Yeah. So there's no side

view mirrors. There's no, yeah. So it's, it's, it's very much optimized to minute for, for

the lowest cost per mile in an autonomous mode. And that production is happening right here in

this factory and we'll be starting production in April next year. So the way that cyber cab is

designed is, it's, it's, it's designed obviously for a purely autonomous world, but also the

manufacturing system is unlike any other car. It, the manufacturing system of the cyber cab,

it's, it's sort of, it's closer to a high volume consumer electronics device than it is a car

manufacturing line. So the net result is that I think we should be able to achieve, I think

ultimately less than a 10 second cycle time, basically unit every 10 seconds. Maybe ultimately

take a few years to get there, but it's theoretically possible to get to a five second

production time. And so, so what that would mean is you could get on, on a line that would

normally produce say 500,000 cars a year at a one minute cycle time, like model Y, the, this, this

would be maybe as much as, you know, two or three million, maybe ultimately, you know, two or

three million, you know, it's theoretically possible to achieve a five million year production

line, uh, if you, if you can get to the five second cycle time. So.

It's a lot of cars. So these, these will be everywhere in the future. So.

And we wanted to, we wanted to look futuristic. So like it changes the look of the roads. Um,

now the, yeah, um, the ingredients, when you look at, at, at what optimist is, what's required to

make optimists and the various ingredients, uh, what do you need to do to make, to do high

volume, uh, humanoid robot production? Uh, I think it's worth considering that really the

cars we make are already robots, but there are four, four wheeled robots. So Tesla is already

the biggest robot manufacturer in the world because every car we make is a robot. Um, and

when you break it down to the fundamental elements, you've got, you've got batteries, power

electronics, uh, motors, uh, gearboxes, you've got, uh, you know, connectivity, you've got

vision based AI, high optimist. Um, and, um, you know, all the various pieces that you need for a

humanoid robot, you need the AI chip, you need the AI software, you need to be able to manage a

large fleet. And, um, and so really optimist is a robot with arms and legs as opposed to, as

well. So, you know, Tesla's ideally suited, I think, to, to make, to succeed in this arena. Um,

you, you, you will see certainly many, uh, companies showing demonstration robots. There's

really three things that are super difficult about robots. One is the engineering of the

forearm and hand, uh, because the human hand is an incredible, incredible thing actually. It's

super dexterous. So, uh, engineering the hand really well, the, uh, real world AI, and then

volume manufacturing. Those are generally the things that are missing, one or more of those

things are missing from other companies. Um, so Tesla is the only one that has all three of

those. Uh, yeah. So, yeah. So this is the optimist kind of, uh, initial, it's a kind of a prototype

production line. The, the high volume production line will be very automated, obviously, but this

is, this is really the production line that we use to make the prototypes. So you can get a

sort of rough sense for what it takes to build the robot. Um,

pull the finger.

Um, and then as I've said before, I think once we reach about a million units per year, uh, of

sustained production or in excess of that, I think probably the cost of production, uh, is

around $20,000 in current year, current year dollars. So this will be certainly very

affordable. Um, and, uh, yeah, like I said, I think optimists will ultimately increase the

size of the economy probably by a factor of 10 or more. Um, you know, next year we sell production

with Optimus version three. Uh, this is what you're seeing here is Optimus version 2.5.

Optimus three is, is an incredibly good, good design. The Tesla engineering team is amazing. Um,

when you see Optimus three, yeah, uh, you, it will seem as though that there's someone like, like a

person in a robot outfit, um, which is how we started with Optimus. Um, it really is going to be

something special. Um, and then Optimus, uh, Optimus four, you know, that, that, how, how

hopefully starts production in 27 and then Optimus five in 28. So it's kind of like an annual

release cycle with significant improvements, uh, with each one and, and gigantic increases in the

scale of production. So, yeah, sustainable abundance via AI and robotics. That's the

idea. And as, as I think most people here know the safety statistics show that, uh, uh,

miles driven on FSD are much safer than miles driven with, without it. So, uh, what this will

translate to ultimately is saving the lives of millions of people, uh, and preventing hundreds of

millions of accidents. So a massive increase in the, in, um, you know, life-solved and, and

tragedies avoided. Uh, it's going to be amazing. And how many people here have tried 14.1? Okay.

All right, cool. Um, yeah, you can see the, even with the point releases, it's getting quite a bit

better. Uh, should be pretty smooth at this point. Um, but really 14.2 is, there are major

changes, 14.2 and then 14.3. Um, and, uh, I think, I think by 14.3 is when we'll really be at the

point where you can just, uh, pretty much fall asleep and wake up at your destination. So, uh,

and then I've been putting a lot of time into the new Tesla chip design, uh, because in order to

have a functional robot, you have to have a great AI chip. Um, and it needs to be an

inexpensive chip and it needs to be very power efficient. So we, we believe the, uh, AI5 chip will

be probably about a third of the power of, uh, say something like a Blackwell, um, and a video

Blackwell, which is a great, a great chip, um, for roughly a comparable performance. Um, and, uh,

and much less than 10% of the cost. So, this is a chip that is, that is very much optimized for the

Tesla AI software stack. So it's, uh, it's not meant to be a general purpose chip, it's meant to be an

amazing chip for the Tesla AI software. Um, and, uh, I mean a couple things that I think make, like

how is Tesla able to achieve such an improvement? I think it is because, uh, because we are

specialized, we're not trying to, you know, NVIDIA has to serve the super set of all past and

future customers. So all of their requirements, all of the software that they've written has to

work, which is a very difficult problem. Um, whereas, uh, we just need to make it work for our

software. Um, and, and so we, we're able to simplify the chip dramatically. Um, and then we, we also, uh,

I think, I think we're unique in this, but like we, we have an integer based, uh, system. Um, and

integer operations are fundamentally more efficient than floating point operations. So we can do

floating point, but we, but the vast majority of, of our inference is done in integer. Um, which is, if

you're familiar with sort of logic gates, like the simplicity of, of integer and, uh, it's, integer

is much more power efficient, much more silicon efficient. Um, but you have to, you actually have

to train for, uh, integer, uh, inference, which everyone else is training for floating point. Um,

those, that's kind of like a niche technical detail, but it's actually very important. So, um, yeah,

this, this is, this is going to be a great chip. Um, so this, this chip will be, uh, made in, basically

in four places, uh, TSMC Taiwan, Samsung Korea, TSMC Arizona, and TSMC Texas.

And, and we already know, uh, what improvements to make for AI6. So, I, I'm hopeful that we can

within less than a year of AI5 starting production, we can actually transition in the same

fab to AI6 and, uh, double all of the performance metrics. Um, I, I'm super hardcore on chips right now

as you may be able to tell. Um, I had chips on the brain. I dream about chips, literally. Um, I can, I

can't believe I had a brush stroke, physical design of the AI5 chip by, of my heart at this point. Um,

it's, it's a good chip. It's a good chip, sir. Um, so this, this is, this is really key. Um,

now one of the things I'm trying to figure out is how do we make enough chips? Um, so, uh, you know,

I, I, I have a lot of respect for our, the, the Tesla partners, TSMC and Samsung. Um, you know,

maybe we'll, we'll, we'll do something with Intel. Uh, we haven't signed any deal, but it's

probably worth having discussions with Intel. Uh, but, um, even when we extrapolate the best case

scenario for chip production from our suppliers, uh, it's still not enough. So, uh,

I think we may have to do a Tesla terra fab. So, it's like Gigabit way bigger. Um, I, I can't see

any other way to get to the volume of chips that, that we're looking for. Um, so I think we're

done. Um, we've, we've, uh, done a tremendous amount for sustainable energy, um, and that,

uh, that's only going to grow over time. Um, the world is moving towards a, a solar, a

battery economy. Um, which is ultimately the, that's, that's where, that's where it was

going to go anyway, but what Tesla's does is accelerate, um, accelerate that outcome. Um,

sometimes people don't understand quite how much energy comes from the sun. So the sun is

99.8% of all mass in the solar system. Jupiter being 0.1% and then 0.1% is miscellaneous, uh,

earth being in the miscellaneous category. Um, so the, the total amount of energy, like, so,

the, sometimes people would say like, well, we'll, we'll build fusion reactors on earth. It's

like, well actually the giant fusion reactor in the sky is basically impossible to beat. Um, to

such a degree that even if you, uh, could burn Jupiter in a thermonuclear reactor, the amount of

energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%. That's how much energy the sun

produces. So solar power is necessarily the future. Um, and I think, uh, there's going to be a lot

of solar-powered AI satellites. And, um, I think Tesla's going to play a role in that.

Um, we've obviously refreshed the product line. So as the sun goes down, we're going to

test 3XY. Uh, if, uh, if you haven't tried the Model S, 3XY, uh, or the Cybertruck, I recommend

at least getting a test drive or a test ride. As the case may be, try out the full self

driving. Um, and I think you'll be blown away to those who do not, if you might be listening and

don't have a Tesla, you should try one. Um, so, of course we've got the, uh, Cybertruck, which is

the toughest truck of all time. Uh, it's literally bulletproof, uh, faster than a Porsche 9-11, and

can out-toe a Ford F-350. So, it's a great car, a great truck.

Um, and then starting next year, we, uh, we manufacture the Tesla Semi. So, um, we're going to

have a lot of, um, prototype Tesla Semis in operation. Uh, PepsiCo and other companies have

been using the Tesla Semi for quite some time. Um, but we will start volume production, uh, at

our, um, Northern Nevada factory, uh, uh, in 2026. So we've got, we've got two big products, or three,

three massive products starting production next year. We've got Optimus, we've got, uh, Tesla

Semi, and we've got the CyberCat. Um, and then battery packs. So, the, uh, if you, if you

look at total, uh, U.S. power generation capability, it's roughly a terawatt. Um, and

the average power usage is less than half a terawatt. And that's because the, the big

differences in power usage, uh, between, uh, day and night. So the, the, the, the daily and

seasonal variations in power consumption mean that, uh, the United States and, and really

every country is only using about half, is only producing about half as much electrical

energy as it could. Because without batteries, there's no effective way to buffer the energy.

Um, so what batteries actually enable is, uh, even if you don't build any incremental power

plants, you could double the energy output of the United States just with batteries. Uh, this is a

super big deal. Um, and in fact, I think that's really where most of the incremental energy

production in the United States is going to come from. It's literally batteries. So, a bigger

deal than it may seem.

And then we've got, we keep improving the battery design. So the, the mega block, which makes it

really easy to deploy battery, uh, utility scale batteries. Um, so we've, we've just simplified

and, and brought more of the components to be internal to the batteries. So you can just

show up and drop off a battery and it works. Um, and then, uh, hopefully with, uh, it won't

out hopefully. Over time, we will actually add, uh, more and more of the power electronics so

that, uh, mega pack will actually be able, able to output up to 35 kilovolts directly. Um, so you

won't need a substation is what I'm saying. You can just literally drop it off kind of like the

way that a power wall, you just connect it to the house. The utility wires go in one side and the

other side goes to the house mains and that's it. Um, so we want to get mega packed to the

point where you just literally take the utility wires and you plug them in and it just works.

So.

And then we've got, uh, the, we've also built the world's largest super charger network. So we do a

lot of things here at Tesla. Um, that's the biggest, uh, super charger network, uh, in the

world by far. Um, and, uh, ultimately you'll be able to go anywhere on earth using a Tesla

super charger and it's pretty close to anywhere on earth, but it's, uh, you know, it's going to

be ultimately just anywhere. It'll just work anywhere. So, um, the super charger team has

done great work expanding that and improving the efficiency of the super charger network. Um,

and, uh, in North America, they did such a good job that the, uh, uh, the other car companies

basically said, well, they'll just use the Tesla super charger network. Like, like, okay,

sounds good to us.

Um, you know, it's always important to have a, a, a slide on safety in the factory so we

continue to improve, uh, safety for our factory workers where we care a lot about their

well-being. Um, and, uh, you know, like one way you can just tell, like, if a company's a good

company or not, if you, if you just walk through the factory or walk through the office and

catch the vibe and the vibe in the Tesla factory is, is, is good. People are happy. You

know, that's how you know it's a good company.

Um, we've, we've also put a lot of investment into, uh, raw materials. So, um, the, uh, we've,

we've built in, in South Texas and Corpus Christi, uh, the biggest lithium refinery, um, outside

of China, I believe. Uh, so it's, it's gonna, it's starting off with 50 gigawatt hours of, of, of

lithium, uh, and we'll expand from there. So this is a, very, very important to have, uh, um, you

know, in a worst case scenario that we have the ingredients necessary to make a battery. Very

important. Um, and, uh, and then we've got here on this site the, the cathode, uh, factory, which is

just the sort of giant building, uh, about a half mile that way. Um, and, um, we're just making

sure that we, from a supply chain standpoint, uh, are, uh, resilient against any potential

geopolitical challenges. And then also at this factory we also make the 4680 cell, uh, which is

getting better and better. Um, and that 4680 cell, uh, will be used, uh, in the cyber cab,

cyber, it is being used in the cyber truck and will be used in the, in the cyber cab, um, and

also in Optimus. So that, that's going well. Uh, but we continue obviously to get cells from

many suppliers. It's kind of like the, the chip-bap thing. We'll, we'll take as many

chips as our suppliers can provide us, but then beyond that, if they can't provide us with

any incremental cells or chips, we, we kind of have to make them ourselves or we get stuck.

That's the, uh, Tesla Semi-Factory. So it's gonna, it's gonna be pretty cool to see these

going down the road in scale. Yeah, so that's, that's the, that's the basic, uh, plan. So

sustainable abundance for all.

I hope you enjoyed listening to that. I was taking notes on the fly to sort of some stream

of consciousness thoughts as I was listening to it. And then I went back, listened to it

again and made some more careful notes, more considered notes. And so I'll start here.

I've got a number of points I want to hit on after listening to that. As I alluded to

earlier, while I am very much a Tesla enthusiast, I don't think that's really in doubt. I mean

I, I wouldn't be doing this podcast, let alone every single week for the past 10 years

and counting if I wasn't, but pardon me if I'm a bit skeptical at some of those Optimus

claims. In that speech, Elon mentioned Optimus ending poverty, replacing prison by having

robots follow convicted criminals around and stopping them from doing further crimes, Optimus

being the best surgeon and Optimus being an infinite money glitch. Now in fairness, he

did caveat some of that by saying these are quote, wild concepts. And while I've, I really

do appreciate the optimism truly, just maybe we should temper expectations a little bit

so as to avoid any potential avoidable disappointment down the road, because these are just absurdly

grandiose visions here, which again, yes, have those visions strive for those visions,

but maybe 2025 at the shareholder meeting before Optimus has even gone into production,

maybe that's not the best time to start giving the absolute best case scenario for this thing.

So I, I couldn't help but, but take note of that, but one other Optimus note I'll throw

into aside from the Gen 3 version of Optimus going into production next year, Elon mentioned

the first pilot line of Optimus being a 1 million unit per year line in Fremont. Now

the Fremont parts, what kind of jumped out of me because my question is where in Fremont?

From what we've been told, Fremont is effectively bursting at the seams and Tesla has maxed

out that facility. Now certainly a humanoid robot line, I would think, I don't know for

sure, is physically much smaller than a vehicle production line, but I hope that nothing drastic

would have to happen in order to accommodate that 1 million unit per line, per year Optimus

line in Fremont. And when I think of drastic, because my brain went straight to, oh I hope

they're not going to sunset the Model S and Model X and use the S and X production line

for Optimus. That was the first place my brain went, it just jumped straight to the, what

would for me as a Tesla car enthusiast and someone that thinks has repeatedly said that

S and X are two of the greatest cars in the world. Again, I've said it a hundred times,

here's a hundred one. I think the Plaid Model S is the best overall car in the world, taking

everything into consideration, price design, performance, safety, driver assistance features,

technology, all that stuff. Plaid S, best car in the world, so it would crush me, it

would crush my heart if S and X had to go in favor of Optimus, so hopefully that's not

going to be the case. Now there were moving along past Optimus, because obviously there

was plenty more in that presentation besides just Optimus. There were a couple of things

in there that were on the slide deck that accompanied the presentation that were shown

on the live stream that I was watching live as it happened, that Elon did not actually

mention and thus I certainly want to mention them here for you because they are notable.

The first one of those was about Robotaxi and one of the slides listed the next markets

that Robotaxi will be entering into had them listed at the bottom of the slide on the screen.

Those cities are Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and Miami. Now a couple of those we

already knew about, but a couple we didn't, so if you happen to be in any of those cities,

get ready. Robotaxi is absolutely great and in my experience, and also in my experience

thus far, it has been pretty consistently cheaper than both Uber and Waymo thus far

again. Here in the San Francisco Bay area, every time I've used Robotaxi or at least

every time I've remembered, which is most of the time, I booked the Robotaxi and then

I check the price on the other two just to see and every single time I've checked, it's

been usually at least a little cheaper and in most cases quite a bit cheaper. So Vegas,

Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Miami, you all are on deck for Robotaxi.

I did very much appreciate Elon saying that Tesla needs to educate customers about FSD

and he gave a great example of Tesla stores and service centers offering demos to customers.

That is absolutely a great step. I love seeing that. But Elon, if you're listening, which

he's not, but just bear with me, go with me on this. Elon, you are so close to the next

step of this, good sir, and that is advertising. Let's do it. Let's start planning that for

when unsupervised FSD hits. Let's advertise to the mainstream public that isn't terminally

online like so many of us are and isn't plugged into the Teslaverse online. Let's get out

and stretch past that on the television onto just traditional forms of media. Let's tell

the world and educate them about full self-driving. I love this first step for him. He's making

demos happen in stores and service centers. Hopefully, proper widespread advertising

is up next. Although, I have to say, speaking of unsupervised, I couldn't help but chuckle

a little bit when he said that you should be able to text while driving in your car

in another month or two and I wasn't laughing at the idea of that because that'd be great.

But rather at NHTSA. They're probably laughing when they heard that because NHTSA is sitting

there going, yeah, not without our approval, buddy, and I don't think NHTSA is just going

to flip the switch on that and rubber stamp it in another month or two. It's going to

happen eventually. It will happen. I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but Elon said that

as if regulators will just go ahead and approve that without even a second thought. There's

going to be a regulatory process before anybody is legally sitting on their phone texting while

the car is doing the driving. That might not be a month or two away, is all I'm trying

to say there. Just temper your expectations a little bit.

Another nugget at the bottom of a slide that Elon actually did say a minute or so later

in the presentation, so you did hear it if you listened to that whole thing, was that

the start of production for the cyber cab will be in April. We already had been told

Q2, in fact, right at the earnings call, very recently Q2, but now April specifically, so

hey, April is actually early in Q2. That is something to look forward to. I'm recording

this on November 7th. That means we're talking five months away. That is from the start of

production. That is pretty cool. Yeah, that's right around the corner. Good to see it. There

are already cyber cabs starting to run around engineering prototypes, validation cars, running

around Texas, running around the San Francisco Bay Area. The process is happening as we've

seen with other vehicles, with the Cybertruck and then the Model Y before that. A couple

other notes that I wrote down from his presentation. One, he said that Tesla can transition to

the AI6 chip in the fabrication plants at TSMC and Samsung within about a year of starting

production on the AI5 chip. So does that mean, I'm legitimately asking here, does that mean

that the AI5 chip is going to be a short-lived one? Like it's more of a stop gap between

AI4 and AI6? Elon's been talking up the AI5 chip quite a bit, but that just threw me

for a loop when he said that the AI6 chip can be transitioned to in the fabrication plants

within a year of starting production on AI5. Meaning, again, unless I'm just not understanding

the chip making terminology properly, it sure sounds like the AI6 chip will actually start

getting made about a year after AI5 goes into production. So if I am misunderstanding

him there, if I have any chip experts out there that want to correct me, if I've got

that wrong, please do reach out and let me know. You can email me, TeslaPodcast, at gmail.com.

You can call in if you like. Actually, I guess I might as well give you the call-in information

real quick because this is a typically long special episode and I'm not going to have

time to get to your phone calls. You can send in, ride the Lightning Hotline phone calls

in one of two easy ways. Either use your smartphone's built-in voice recording software and just

use that software, record the question. Please try to keep it to 90 seconds or less so that

I can get to as many calls each week as possible and you can email that file to me at TeslaPodcast

at gmail.com. Or you can simply call my toll-free number and leave a message on the Ride the

Lightning Hotline. You can do so any time, day or night, and the number is 1-888-989-8752.

Again, that's 1-888-989-TSLA. Okay. One more thing that I want to make clear

that you could see on a slide, but you couldn't hear in the audio of Elon's presentation,

is that the Tesla, because he actually didn't address it, strangely enough, the Tesla Semi,

the final production version of it, has received a design update and a new look. A slightly

new look. It's not a drastic one, but it will be noticeably different. So instead of two

just vertical headlights, kind of more traditional headlights on the front of it, it has got a

light bar across the front now that looks, it looks almost identical to the light bar

on the front of the new Model Y. Except, of course, the one for the Semi is much wider

since the Semi itself is wider than the Y, but it's that same exact design language from

the new Model Y being applied to the final production version of the Tesla Semi that

will start spitting out of the Tesla Semi factory early next year to the tune of, once they

ramp up, to the tune of 50,000 Tesla Semis per year. And I'll just say, I think it looks

really nice. I mean, I thought the Tesla Semi looked good before, but I do think this updated

look is an improvement, looks super nice, looks a little bit more futuristic now, and

that's probably what Franz and the team were going for. They wanted a Tesla Semi that looked

like the future. We hear that from Elon a lot. The future should look like the future,

and so the Tesla Semi has been given a styling tweak. And then finally, the last comment

I wanted to make off of Elon's presentation there, and correct me if I'm wrong on this

one, but I believe that might be the first time that we got confirmation that the 4680

cells will be going in the CyberCab, the Semi, and Optimus. Now he didn't mention the Semi,

but it was on the slide that was on the screen as he was talking there. So that means Tesla

is probably wisely sort of divvying up their battery. They're not putting all their eggs

in one battery basket. You've got the Model 3 and the Model Y, two high volume cars, I

mean, combine those that's like 1.5 ish, 1.5 to 1.8 million cars per year are getting

the 2170 battery cells that have been super reliable here for the past, what, seven years

and counting. The Model S and the Model X continue to get the 18650 cells that they've

been using since the beginning, so I mean, the chemistry has changed and evolved over

time, and the thermals have evolved over time, particularly in the plaid, but the form factor

itself has been in use since 2012, since the very first Model S. And then the 4680 cells

will go into everything else with an asterisk on that. We don't know what Tesla's gonna

do with the Roadster. We know it's gonna be high tech, it's gonna be crazy, we'll see

if it's got 4680 form factor cells, or if they're using something else. That we will

find out, well, we actually have a date for when we might find that out, but stay tuned

for the Q&A clips coming up momentarily. In fact, let's start now. Let's start right

now with the highlights from the Q&A session where shareholders in attendance lined up

for the chance to ask Elon a question, and to his credit, they tried to cut him off,

like a Tesla rep was like, this will be the last question, and Elon said, oh, I'll take

a few more, and he ended up taking a number more questions, so good on him for that, for

putting in a little bit of extra time to hear from some more Tesla owners, Tesla shareholders.

The first clip I'd like to play for you was a question that I personally applaud, and the

question was, can we please get FSD tied to our Tesla accounts rather than tied to an

individual car? Here was Elon's response to that.

Well, we have done that a few times. I guess we could extend it again. We'll extend it for at

least another quarter, and then play it by year after that. So even though Elon actually

sidestepped the question slightly there, he did not address the actual question of having it be

an account-based thing rather than a car-based thing. He answered it as if the gentleman was

asking for FSD transfer as we have had it for a while. Whoops, sorry, I just tapped my microphone

on accident if that made a noise. I still want to salute the gentleman that asked this question.

Again, it's a great way to politely keep the pressure on. As I've said before, it sure seems

like Tesla has unofficially made FSD transfer permanent which would actually solve the quote

unquote problem of, or at least it would address our desire as owners to have it be more of an

account-based thing rather than a car-based thing. I share the gentleman's opinion and I know I'm

still not there yet. It should transfer from car to car, and so Elon's saying there that

they're going to extend it another quarter which presumably means Q1 since we're already in the

middle of Q4, but he wouldn't quite commit to making it permanent there. At least not yet,

although again as I've said, it seems like it's unofficially permanent because they just keep

extending it quarter after quarter after quarter. So we'll just keep our eye on it and see if it

continues to survive from one quarter to the next. Next up was a good question about accessibility.

Will Tesla build something that can accommodate a wheelchair?

Sure, yeah, obviously we need a vehicle that's big enough to fit a wheelchair accessible

so I think that is the Reboven or Rova, so whatever we call it.

It's not like we're slowing down because we want to slow down. We're spinning like a zillion

plates here, but I do think it would be very cool because I think aesthetically as well it's just

would change the look of the roads and make it feel like the future. So it won't be long before

we make that, but since we do have Optimus, we've got Cybercab Optimus and Semi all next year,

we'll probably have to be maybe a couple years from now or something like that,

but we certainly will make a wheelchair accessible vehicle.

This is another question that I was really glad to see asked because accessibility is important,

especially as we head into the age of autonomy where autonomy can help restore people's

accessibility and well I should say mobility, it can help restore people's mobility

for whom accessibility may be a challenge. So it sounds like a wheelchair accessible Tesla

and by that I mean a Tesla that can accommodate a wheelchair without any modifications or at

worst maybe very minor modifications to the vehicle rather than like the equivalent of

automotive open heart surgery, which is kind of how it is now, but it sounds like

that wheelchair accessible Tesla isn't imminent, but again I think it's good to put it on Elon's

mind because the the Robovan or Robovan if you want to is it's just going to be too big for

individual I know it may not have it might have been tough to see on the WeRobot livestream from

last year, but having had the privilege of being physically at the event the Robovan is enormous

like it is huge. I wouldn't say it's the size of your traditional like full-size city bus,

but it's it's far larger than any regular passenger vehicle. So the Robovan is going to be too big

for individual use cases and and probably even far too big for a single family use case and thus

there needs to be something else that Tesla can build that can assist with this. Again mobility,

it is a big part of what autonomy can either enable for someone or better enable. So glad

this got asked glad it is it has been put into the front of Elon's mind. The next Q&A response I

want to play for you started out as an answer to a question about how the dry cathode battery cell

production process is going and as you'll hear it ended up giving some numbers about where vehicle

production for Tesla is heading. Take a listen. Yeah I guess the dry cathode man that's turned

out to be a lot harder than we thought. So I mean it it does look like it's going to be

successful and it will have some cost advantage relative to wet cathode but if I had to wind the

clock back I would probably have gone with wet cathode instead of dry cathode because it just

turned out to be a lot harder to make it capable of high volume production with super high

reliability. So yeah we will be scaling up battery cell production at Tesla and looking for cell

production from our suppliers as well because we're going to be ramping up production very

dramatically at Tesla. So now that we we believe we have full self-driving that we have autonomy

solved you know or at least within a few months of having it unsupervised autonomy solved at a

reliability level significantly better than human it's not that means it's time to ramp up

production because the value proposition is now much greater than a regular car. The killer app

really is for people can you text and drive or can you sleep and drive you know can you can the

car take you to your destination or do you need to pay attention and be and have to drive it. And

before we allow the car to be to be driven without paying attention we need to make sure it's very

safe. But but like I said we're we're on the cusp of that. I know I've said that a few times we

would. But we really are at this point and you can feel it for yourselves with with the 14.1

release. So the you know what we're going to try to we're going to push to expand vehicle

production as fast as we possibly can. So aspirationally we'd aim to increase vehicle

production by about 50% by the end of next year. So yeah. So that's it's it's very hard to

increase production but that's that's roughly you know I don't know maybe we get to like I'm

just guessing at an exit rate by the end of next year of around 2.6 2.7 million vehicles

annualized production and then aim to get to maybe 4 million by the annualized rate by the end

of 27. And then maybe 5 million by the end of 28. That those are rough those are our

aspirational goals. So these are this this is a gigantic increase in output which means that the

entire supply chain has to move in in in unison with that with that increase in volume. So

and the nature of the nature of producing a large complex product is that it moves as fast as

the least lucky damaged element in the entire system and there's 10,000 plus items. But but

this like so this is really is a new it's not just a new chapter for Tesla it's a new book and

and that new book is massively increasing vehicle production and ramping up optimist production

faster than any things ever been wrapped up before in history. It's interesting to hear that

Elon feels like the dry cathode experiment was something of a failed one. But this is one thing

that I have always appreciated about him and about Tesla. They're not afraid to not only try

things even if they don't always work out to fail fast if you will. But they also just are

cool with openly admitting and discussing those failures as well. In fact, an example from the

distant past that comes immediately to mind just to illustrate that they've always been this way

is the battery swap station. If you're not familiar with it the quick version of this is back in

the early Model S days when the supercharger network was in its infancy, Tesla set up a battery

swap station at Harris Ranch on Interstate 5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

You would pull in a machine would quickly come up and from underneath your car,

unbolt your battery pack, drop it from your car and put it away and charge it and install a fully

charged battery pack that it already had charged up and ready to go so that you could continue on

your way in something like five minutes it was it was pretty crazy. And then you would on your way

home on your way back you would pick up your battery your exact so you're basically borrowing

a fully charged battery. So Tesla tried that they realized it was going to be too mechanically and

logistically complicated and they instead decided to ditch that and not only invest in the supercharger

network but also invest in faster supercharger speeds v2 then v3 and now here we are today with

v4 superchargers that can max out on a cybertruck at 500 kilowatts. Anyway I think it's cool to

hear where Tesla intends to take production in the next few years as well sort of the part two

of what Elon was talking about there a five million vehicle per year run rate notice that's not

necessarily actually having delivered five million in the year but be on a pace like a weekly run rate

that would extrapolate out to five million by the end of 2028 aka three years from now it is a far

cry from the 20 million per year goal by 2030 that they'd set back at battery day in 2020 and

have since walked back now that Optimus has changed their plans but five million is still a heck of

a lot more than where they're at now so I applaud it I anticipate it I look forward to it and I hope

the day comes soon where Tesla delivers five million cars in a year next up a very kind soul

asked about the new Tesla Roadster and here's Elon's response I feel confident in saying it

the most exciting product unveil ever and I hope that whether it goes well or doesn't go well

since I'm up here can I get the first one well I guess the it's it's according to who

whoever put down their deposit in that sequence so that's the but you'll get you'll get a very

early one and I mean the new Roadster is very much sort of like it's not even the icing on the

cake it's the cherry on the icing on the cake so I mean it's really kind of like you know it's

like it's not essential for sustainable abundance let me put it that way but I do think there

should be uh you know very cool technology in the world that is um that you know that's way

beyond anything that's ever existed and I think I'd like those like even if I could never have

access to those things I'd like to know that they exist and and see the future happening so I

think I think it will be inspiring to a lot of people um and and just it's it's extreme it's

like the coolest car if it even is a car uh that has ever that will probably ever exist

so nothing we haven't really heard before in fact just as recently as last week when he was on Joe

Rogan but I did like what he said about it being inspiring because as cheesy as this might sound

to some of you and hey if it does it's all good I get it but for others of you listening perhaps you

were like me in this regard and that is as a kid I had posters of exotic cars I feel like we didn't

call them super cars back then or at least I don't know I don't think I remember hearing that term

as a kid but exotic cars I had posters of them on my walls and they did inspire me they really did

I ended up getting to own my original dream car in the form of a DeLorean and that was such a special

part of my life that I'm so forever grateful for and having cars that inspired me did matter and so

I do believe that having one of the goals of this new roadster be to inspire people I think that's

important and I think that's pretty cool so again maybe that's cheesy to you but it's not to me I

think it's pretty great two more clips for you the next one I have is in response to an excellent

question about whether or not Elon thinks that the cyber cab might be ready to go in terms of meaning

production wise before the government regulations approving it are and here's what Elon had to say

about that yeah I think I think the rate at which we'll we receive regulatory approval will roughly

match the rate of cyber cab production it'll be maybe a little tight but that's it's about right

and I'd like to thank Waymo for paving the path here it's very helpful so yeah but it I think

we'll be able to deploy all the all the cybercaps that we produce and the other thing is like once

it becomes like extremely normal in cities it's just going to become like the regulators will

have just fewer and fewer reasons to say no and then you've got this you know we've got the accident

statistics at scale and you can show that autonomous miles save lives then and you've got

unequivocal you know billions of miles to prove it then I think it's hard for regulators to say

no I have to take Elon at face value here because a he has government contacts and b it would be

shareholder malpractice for them to be charging full speed ahead on cyber cab with production

slated to start in April if they thought there was any real chance of the government regulators

stopping them in their tracks right as production is starting so I have to believe that Elon's

confidence there is well placed all right the last clip that I have for you is another one

about the roadster hey I didn't ask the questions if you're rolling your eyes like oh another road

it wasn't me I wasn't there so here's another question about the roadster it's an excellent

question about well you know what I'm going to let the shareholder ask the question himself take a

listen hi Elon my name is Jonathan you mentioned that the roadster will have more tech than all

the James Bond vehicles combined do you think there's a possibility that any of that tech will

make it into the current vehicle lineup um no and to follow up on that do you have any estimate

of production or delivery timelines for the roadster um I guess uh well so we're aiming for

the so the the product unveiled uh will be of the roadster too which will be very different

from what was shown previously uh that that demo event will be April 1st of next year I have some

deniability because like I could say I was just kidding uh but uh we are actually tentatively

aiming for April 1st uh uh for what I think will be the most exciting whether it works or not uh

demo ever of any product and then um I guess production is probably about you know 12 to 18

months after that I think production is probably a year or a year or so after that oh well I can't

give away secrets uh but you won't be disappointed I couldn't help but laugh at the very blunt no

that Elon responded with there to the question about the roadster tech trickling down into the

cars so this thing really is going to be a unicorn both amongst other Teslas and most likely within

the entire automotive world I can't wait to see what it looks like now and I certainly can't wait to

see what it's capable of I did furrow my brow at the April 1st date that he gave for the

re-reveal event though because not only did Franz tell me just three weeks ago that they were still

on track to do the re-reveal this year but Elon himself told Joe Rogan the same thing last week

that they're still on track to do it in the next couple months so perhaps they had some sort of set

back with one of its SpaceX powered tricks I don't know but in any case I will circle in pencil

not in pen I will circle in pencil April 1st on my calendar and hope that that's when it's finally

going to happen and it seems I was right not that it was some grand you know prediction I was right

about starting the countdown clock to production once that event happens now I was saying 18 to

24 months from the re-reveal and I was kind of saying that almost as a buffer because you know

Tesla and timelines don't always go together Elon said 12 to 18 so hopefully his estimates the real

one or maybe it'll just kind of end up meeting right in the middle right right at 18 months but

if it if that's the case if it's 18 months from the re-reveal that means production would start

I mean in that in the range he gave anyway forget about what I said his range it would be

starting sometime between Q2 and Q3 of 2027 so we shall see on that and that's everything

that I wanted to play for you from the annual Tesla shareholder meeting for the year 2025 hope

you enjoyed all of those clips all of the analysis and I will get to as I mentioned earlier this is

already a super long episode so I'll get to your phone calls next week if you want to call in in

response to something I said or something Elon said in the shareholder meeting feel free to call

in in using one of the two easy call-in methods that I gave you just a few minutes ago as for

what's going on with me in my car well not my car specifically I drove my car to do this

today was a bit of a bittersweet day in the McCaffrey household our service dog puppy with

canine companions our second one Mina she matriculated today so she went off to as I like

to call it she went off to college so she is now at the canine companions headquarters where she

will work with their professional trainers every day learning advanced skills and hopefully over

the course of the next several months as they teach her and assess her and evaluate her she will be

deemed good enough to graduate and become someone's service dog so that she can help somebody out

there who needs her and help that person live a more independent life we will miss her it was

definitely a lot less emotionally difficult this time than with Zalina Zalina that was that was

tough this this one it still wasn't easy right to say goodbye but I know I just that she has the

temperament like she wants to work she loves to work so she's now going to be working hard every

day like she's going to be challenged to learn all these cool new advanced skills I am genuinely

excited for her and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to co-raise that dog with

with my friend Michael and his family for the last I guess what 15 months or so yeah it's

it's been yeah about 15 months I think is what it was so again I'll just say you know I don't work

for canine companions obviously I'm just a volunteer puppy raiser but if if that might be

something that you and your family would be interested in is raising a puppy and kind of

providing them a loving environment and teaching them basic skills you know canine companions is

nationwide so their website is canine.org and it's canine the word not the letter k in the number

nine so canine.org if you'd like to maybe take a look and learn more it's an incredibly fulfilling

just absolutely satisfying thing to do and you know just it's a small way that the way I feel

about it is it's a small way that my family and I can can just help give something back

to to somebody you know to the community really um and maybe that's I don't know maybe that's

overstating it but uh we we really enjoyed it we're gonna we are taking a little break here

because we've got Lily and Lily's still very much a puppy she's eight months old just gonna

give her some time to grow up a little bit um just mature but I think we we will definitely

be puppy raisers for canine companions again it's it's really truly a a really rewarding experience.

How about an entertainment recommendation for you I did mention this game before but it was in the

context of there being a a free playable demo that you could go try out well now the game's

actually out and I've started it and it is fantastic so far I'm only one episode in out of the eight

episodes but I want to recommend the game the new game called Dispatch it is from some X Telltale

developers so if you liked any of the old Telltale narrative adventure games like The Walking Dead

or The Wolf Among Us or the the Batman game that they did or gosh I mean they did a Game of Thrones

game they did Tales from the Borderlands they did so much great stuff but uh so it's a it's a group

of X Telltale folks because Telltale unfortunately kind of crashed and burned through mismanagement

at the top but that's that's a whole other story that's not relevant for this entertainment

recommendation but Dispatch is very much a Telltale style game it's told episodically

it's very narrative driven but you have some control you have you have narrative choice

but there is also a little like light strategy game layer now it's nothing complicated nothing too

complex if if that if the idea of that's like oh I don't want to do that that sounds like too much

give it a try um I mean you'd have to buy the game I guess if because the demo is no longer

available but I'm really digging it if you like Telltale stuff you're gonna love this I will say

that confidently Dispatch is on PC and PlayStation 5 sadly it's not available on Xbox at least not

for the moment maybe it'll come out like in a year or something but for now PC and PlayStation 5

all right time for your Tesla pro tip of the week it comes from Damon in Northbrook Illinois has a

tip about fsd version 14 go ahead Damon hey Ryan this is Damon out of Northbrook Illinois with a

quick tip here for the new fsd version 14 if you are looking to increase the speed or decreases

speed of the car like you would in past versions by moving it up by single miles per hour or five

miles per hour increments with the scroll wheel they've now done away with that so you switch through

the profiles with the scroll wheel but you'll find that if you're in the fastest profile and you

want to get to the slowest for let's say a school zone or something and you're trying to scroll down

with the wheel it takes a while there's there's a delay in between all the scroll no matter how

fast you might wheel it around there's a delay in the system but if you use the side buttons to

switch profiles you can quickly tap tap tap and go down to the sloth mode or go up to mad max

pretty quickly and we're just clicking it like that so still getting used to this new system

not entirely sure that i like not being able to cap the speed but hopefully the algorithm

learns a little bit more about appropriate speeds in appropriate places but uh yeah thanks so uh

take care and i'll look for a next one bye i love that one daemon thank you so much i appreciate

you calling in with it i'm going to put that one to use myself as i get more and more comfortable

with fsd version 14 on my on my newer model 3 a reminder that i if you have a tesla or ev pro tip

of the week i'd love to hear it so that i can share it with everyone so if you've got one please do

call in with it there are two easy ways to call in i give you the call in instructions there a

little while ago so just all you got to do is send it in like it's a regular ride the lightning

hotline call and i'll take a listen to it and add it to my queue for the pro tips of the week

which of course i play one at this part of the podcast every single week it is a purely community

sourced part of the show and i i love the pro tip of the week i think it's super helpful for everybody

some you know not every tip is going to like set off a big light bulb in your mind but i guarantee

you if you've been listening long enough you've gotten some benefit out of the pro tip of the

week right i know i have i definitely have so thank you daemon for this week's and thank you in

advance to anybody else out there that wants to call in with a new one i know i'm already past the

90 minute mark here on this very long episode shareholder meeting recap episode but before i go

i wanted to mention a few friends of ride the lightning that can hopefully be useful to you

at some point sooner or later starting with abstract ocean dot com they've got so many great

aftermarket tesla accessories a lot of different lighting kits if you want to change the color

of the lighting in your car on the inside or even outside of your car maybe you want to do some

puddle lights they've got a lot of that stuff they've got the tempered glass screen protectors

custom fit for any of the teslas as well as rivians they've got just so many different things

you got to take a look over at abstract ocean dot com and when you get everything you like

into your online shopping cart and you get to check out use the coupon code rtl podcast

to get 15 off of your first order that coupon code again rtl podcast all one word no spaces

meanwhile the snap plate and the newer stronger snap plate plus is available for all of the teslas

at everyamp.com slash rtl or just click the link in the episode description there's also a coupon

code for a discount that coupon code is simply rtl and the snap plate if you're wondering what

this is this is the front license plate bracket that i recommend if you either want one on the

front of your car or are legally required to have one the one that tesla gives you sticks to the

front of your car with automotive tape meaning if you ever want to get it off yikes so i'm a big

fan of the snap plate it's a nice clean minimalist design if you ever want to take it off it won't

leave any unsightly anything behind no no evidence that was that it was ever there so i'm a big fan

snap plate and the newer stronger snap plate plus available at everyamp.com slash rtl discounted

via the coupon code rtl as well uh meanwhile immaculate reflections such a wonderfully talented

detailer jeff is his name he is awesome he's done both of our model threes and i just couldn't be

happier couldn't be happier with the work that he's done paint correction to get the paint finish

looking as good as possible maybe you'd like that for your car paint protection film on some or all

of the car in order to help protect that paint against rock chips road debris scratches etc

ceramic coating to protect the well the paint from those uv rays from the sun it's basically

the 21st century next gen version of traditional car wax that's what ceramic coating is it lasts

a good five to seven years ask me how i know our 2018 finally just reached end of life on

its ceramic coating after seven years and now as soon as i get some other household bills paid i'm

going to go right back to immaculate reflections for another ceramic coating over the entire car

and uh i'm actually i'm i'm so looking forward to that because i see it now when it gets wet

and the water doesn't just beat off of it anymore like it does when it's ceramic coated now it's

just like oh man i gotta get it ceramic coated thankfully it lives under the cover we know because

it's outside so at least as far as the uv part goes it's not like being cooked the paint's not

being cooked in the sun but hopefully in the next two three months i'll be able to free up enough

money to uh to get over there to immaculate reflections and get the 2018 model 3 performance

that i call the spirit of adventure get that thing with a fresh coat of ceramic on it so anyway

there's a ride to lightning discount for any services that you do end up having done at

immaculate reflections if you're in or going to be in the greater san francisco bay area

go to the website irdetailing.com you'll see a contact form there when you fill that out and

submit it make sure to mention that you're a ride the lightning listener and any work that you have

done you'll get that ride the lightning listener discount applied tell jeff i said hot tell jeff

i sent you and tell him i said hi he's good people and i promise you will be thrilled with

the service performed on your car finally my patreon i mentioned it a little while ago near

the top of the podcast but if you'd humor me for one more minute here you can find my patreon page

at patreon.com slash tesla podcast or just click the link in the episode description patreon is

the way that you can best support this podcast if you'd like to support it please head over to

that page take a look there are several different support tiers starting at just five bucks a month

and again as i think i mentioned earlier there are also annual pledge options if you just like to

pledge once for an entire year of support there's a 10 discount on that if you happen to see fit to

do that and otherwise each tier of the patreon has more and more perks that stack up so you get up

to the maximum plaid tier you'll get your name shattered out as i'm going to do in a few minutes

you'll also get invited to those monthly patreon zoom hangouts that we always have such a good time

at you'll also get the lightning rounds every week and the entire archive of them you'll also get the

ad free you'll also get the early access you get the idea the uh the higher you go on those tiers

the more perks and bonuses you get but again the support tiers start for just five bucks a month you

can be supporting what i'm doing here and in return get early access to an ad-free version

of ride the lightning every single week and lastly the podcast services if you're not already

following ride the lightning on a particular podcast service if you've got one you prefer

just search ride the lightning tesla you should see this podcast pop right up and just click

the follow button that way every time there's a new episode which is every sunday at nine

a.m eastern six a.m pacific you'll get a push notification reminding you about that new episode

just tap that take you right to the show page and you'll start listening to it nice and easy

nice and convenient so you can follow me on pardon me on apple podcasts on youtube podcasts on

spotify and tune in and pretty much all the big ones oh and you can follow me on x and or on

instagram i have the same username in both places and that username is dmc underscore ryan you can

also email me anytime about tesla or ev related things at tesla podcast at gmail.com allow me to

say hello and thank you to the top tier patreon backers before i go i'll begin with the newest

maximum plaid to your backer hello and thank you goes out to michael williams really appreciate

your support michael i hope you enjoy all the lightning round episodes and your early access

and your ad free and hopefully you'll join us at the next monthly patreon zoom hang out

which will be in most likely the first saturday of december that's what i'll be aiming for

unless something else comes up but that's most likely where we're going to be anyway i'll send

out emails and the patreon post when the time gets closer so michael thank you so much and thanks as

well to the rest of 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 darin nickle cos barns

patrick wasneski gill cabrera todd badger joe edgel kevin yank the tesla owners club of sandwalking

valley wil stedman jeremy harris chris beach tom mills choreo donnell erin john cody joel sap

paul caserino chris osbourne kb adam lavoix jason chelukas travis krenzel bruce otterstein

tom behan josh pennington john from cream ridge new jersey dustin hart derek 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 rave christof and christopher

man and of course yeah michael williams was the new one that i mentioned earlier next up the

roadster in space tier backers huge thanks and a hello to pete white lile austin steve radspinner

fernando cordero laughton from chicago shawn nightig neal weaver jackson wallace rolf 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 last but certainly not

least the grandfathered in plaid level supporters they are 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 muskin

quotes peter and the bear boys of colorado and that will wrap it up for i knew this was going

to be a longer episode these uh these special tesla event episodes typically are from all the clips

and recaps and stuff but like i said i hope you have fun listening to these it's a sprint but it's

fun putting them together um i at least i hope it's that my goal is for the for it to be enjoyable

to listen to and that you get something you get some good information out of it but i will leave

that for you to decide but i do thank you for listening i thank you for your time your attention

and your enthusiasm because especially if you're still listening at this point an hour and 30

something minutes in you definitely share the same enthusiasm for this stuff that i do and and i

appreciate that i really truly do that's you know that's what makes life fun right is sharing in

things that you're enthusiastic about with other people that that share that enthusiasm so

that's that's what i'm trying to do with this podcast in any case i will bid you fair well for

this week before i return of course next sunday at nine a.m eastern six a.m pacific as i always do

for now though happy electric motoring and i'll see you back here next week

um

elan musk people don't like elan musk the guy found a paypal and tesla and people are like

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 536: Tesla Shareholder Meeting Recap, Highlights, and Analysis (2025)

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