Episode 545: Model Y Gets 2 Design Updates in China (That Should Go Global)
Ride the Lightning: Tesla and EV Podcast
Episode 545: Model Y Gets 2 Design Updates in China (That Should Go Global)
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Car
Tesla Model Y
The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV that can drive long distances without needing gas. It's popular because it's spacious, has cool tech features, and is environmentally friendly.
Term
FSD
FSD means Full Self-Driving, which is a feature from Tesla that helps the car drive itself. However, drivers still need to pay attention and be ready to take control.
Car
Tesla Model 3
The Tesla Model 3 is a smaller electric car made by Tesla. It's known for being affordable compared to other Tesla models and has many high-tech features.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is an electric truck that looks very different from regular trucks. It's designed to be tough and has a lot of high-tech features, making it interesting for people who want something new and powerful.
Car
Toyota Corolla
Car
Toyota RAV4
The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that many people like because it has a lot of space inside and is good for families. It's also known for being safe and reliable.
Car
Tesla Model Y Performance
The Tesla Model Y Performance is a faster and sportier version of the Model Y. It has better acceleration and handling, making it more fun to drive.
Term
AI4 hardware
AI4 hardware is the computer system in newer Tesla cars that helps them drive themselves and perform other smart tasks.
Car
Tesla Roadster
The Tesla Roadster is a fast electric sports car that can go really, really fast and travel long distances on a single charge. It's important because it shows how electric cars can be just as exciting as traditional sports cars.
Term
center touchscreen
The center touchscreen is the big screen in the middle of the car that you use to control things like music and navigation. It's an important part of how Tesla cars work.
Part
headliner
The headliner is the fabric or material that covers the inside roof of a car. It helps make the car look nice and can also help with sound inside the car.
Car
DeLorean
The DeLorean is a unique car famous for its futuristic design and was featured in movies. It has doors that open upwards and is made of shiny stainless steel.
Car
Delorean DMC-12
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a famous car from the 1980s that has a cool design with doors that open upwards. It's well-known because it was in a popular movie, and many people love its unique look.
Concept
Giga factories
Giga factories are big factories where Tesla makes its electric cars and batteries. They are important for producing a lot of cars quickly and efficiently.
Company
Motor Trend
Motor Trend is a popular magazine and website that talks about cars. They review new cars and share news about the car industry, making it a trusted source for car enthusiasts.
Term
Supercruise
Supercruise is a feature from GM that lets you drive hands-free on some highways. It uses cameras and sensors to help the car stay in its lane and follow traffic.
Term
ADAS
ADAS means Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. These are technologies in cars that help drivers stay safe and make driving easier, like keeping the car in its lane or automatically slowing down if there's an obstacle.
Brand
GM
GM stands for General Motors, a big car company that makes many different types of vehicles. They are known for their innovations in car technology, including self-driving features.
Term
Hyundai Drive Assist
Hyundai Drive Assist is a feature from Hyundai that helps you drive by steering and controlling speed on highways. It makes driving easier and safer in certain situations.
Term
Ford BlueCruise
Ford BlueCruise is a feature from Ford that lets you drive without using your hands on certain highways. It helps keep the car in the right lane and can even change lanes on its own.
Term
BMW Highway Assistant
BMW Highway Assistant is a feature from BMW that helps you drive on highways by keeping the car in its lane and managing speed. It makes highway driving easier and more comfortable.
Brand
Mercedes
Mercedes is a famous car brand that makes luxury cars and trucks. They are known for their advanced technology and stylish designs.
Term
level three system
A level three system is a type of self-driving technology that allows the car to drive itself most of the time, but the driver still needs to be ready to take over if something goes wrong.
Company
Rivian
Rivian is a new car company that makes electric trucks and SUVs. They focus on making vehicles for outdoor adventures.
Company
Xcare
Xcare is a company that offers insurance-like plans to help cover repair costs for cars, especially electric ones, after the original warranty runs out.
Car
Lucid Gravity
The Lucid Gravity is a new electric SUV that will be luxurious and packed with technology. It's important because it shows that there are more options for people who want fancy electric cars.
Car
Lucid Air
The Lucid Air is a fancy electric car that can go really far on a single charge and has a lot of luxury features. It's important because it shows that electric cars can be both high-quality and stylish.
Term
EVs
EVs stand for electric vehicles, which are cars that run on electricity instead of gas. They are usually better for the environment and can save money on fuel.
Company
Uber
Uber is a company that connects people who need rides with drivers using an app on their phones. It's a popular way to get around in many cities.
Company
Nuro
Nuro is a company that makes self-driving vehicles designed to deliver things like groceries or packages. They focus on using robots to make deliveries easier.
Term
lidar sensors
Lidar sensors are special devices that help self-driving cars see their surroundings by using laser beams to measure distances. This helps the car understand where things are around it.
Term
in-vehicle rider experience
The in-vehicle rider experience is about how comfortable and enjoyable it is for passengers inside a car. It includes things like seats, temperature control, and screens for entertainment.
Term
robo-taxi
A robo-taxi is a self-driving car that picks up and drops off passengers without needing a human driver. It's like a taxi, but it drives itself using technology.
Company
Lucid Motors
Lucid Motors is a company that makes electric cars, focusing on luxury and performance. They are known for their high-end models like the Lucid Air and the upcoming Gravity.
Term
EV
EV means electric vehicle. These cars run on electricity instead of gas, making them better for the environment.
LIVE
On this week's episode of Ride the Lightning, the Tesla and EV podcast, as we've seen in
the past, Tesla China rolled out a couple of design updates to the Shanghai-built Model
Ys.
I'll tell you all about them and why we'll probably see them in North America and Europe
as well sooner rather than later.
Plus, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the Model Y topped global sales charts again in 2025.
A Model 3 on FSD successfully completes a full coast-to-coast drive with zero interventions
and more.
What's happening friends, I'm Ryan McCaffrey, joining you for Ride the Lightning, it is
the weekly Tesla and EV podcast.
This is episode 545, publishing on January 11th, 2026.
I am flanked as always by my two canine friends, Daisy the Boxer and Lily the Silly Labrador.
The latter of whom is in heat, so she is trapped in the house and I just feel bad for her.
Every time I get Daisy's leash to take her out for a walk, Lily starts wagging her tail
like alright it's time and then she stays home, but it'll be over soon pups.
This is a palindrome, this week episode 545, the number reads the same way forwards and
backwards.
Why do I like palindromes, I don't know, they're just fun to me.
But anyway, getting going this week, I want to start by saying thank you to listener Joe
in Frisco, Texas who called in in response to my request when I said if anybody out there
has actually seen a long range rear wheel drive Cybertruck, please let me know and Joe
called in to say that he has seen one and again I was questioning the real life existence
of that vehicle, I'm not really right, I'm half exaggerating, but still I have truly
never seen one, but until I hear from more people, I might still quit, no it's fine,
it's real but thank you Joe for calling in to say that you've actually spotted one before.
Next up this week, getting more serious, huge congratulations to Tesla on the Model Y holding
on to its crown as the world's best selling car of any kind for the third year in a row,
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posting on X saying quote, Tesla Model Y is now officially the world's
best selling car for the third year in a row, end quote.
Well I do have to just caveat that I have not seen the numbers published anywhere as they
have been when Tesla has topped the global sales charts the past two years, but it would
be super weird and also wrong for Tesla to falsely claim this, so as long as they aren't
caveatting this in some strange way, meaning cherry picking the numbers to make it look
better for them in some way, then of course I'm happy to take them at their word here.
I only even bring it up at all because A, I am a train journalist and I can't help it
if you'll forgive me, and B, last year, in fact I think each of the two previous years
were the Model Y was number one, it was really close, like by a razor's edge with, if I recall
correctly, I think it was the Toyota Corolla and or the RAV4, the Toyota RAV4 right there,
those were the three, the Y, the Corolla and the RAV4, just all neck and neck and neck
at the top of the list, but Tesla says number one for year three, the third consecutive
year for the Model Y and thus I will say I must eat a little bit of crow on this, now
it's not as if I was running around all year on this podcast claiming the Model Y was doomed
or anything like that far from it, but I do have a memory of saying on this podcast that
I thought it would be unlikely that Tesla kept the belt this year on account of the
early year production changeover from the Gen 1 Model Y to the Gen 2 Juniper, so the crow is
delicious, little just little saute it, little salt, little season it, little salt and pepper
and it goes down just fine, even more impressive they did this without the Model Y performance
being available in Juniper form at least for quite literally 99% of the year, again the Juniper
version, though maybe the debut and strong sales of the Model Y L over in China probably
may have offset the lack of a performance variant for all but the last days of 2025,
which I think bodes well for this year since both the performance and the L will be available all
year long at least in certain regions and on that note as I've talked about recently in my
New Year's Predictions episode, the Model Y L looks pretty likely to debut in Europe soon
and hopefully as I've gone on record predicting that it will come to the US in the second half
of this year as well. Next up, your next appetizer as we get started this week, as I said at the top
Tesla in FSD, a Model 3 has successfully completed a full coast-to-coast drive
with zero interventions. I saw this written up on Tesla Roddy, I mean this this news was all over
the place pretty much anywhere you looked in the Tesla community but thank you to Tesla Roddy for
the nice summary here, they wrote the coast-to-coast feat was accomplished by Tesla owner David Moss
who drives a stealth gray Model 3 with AI4 hardware, in other words a new Model 3. It's a 2025. Based
on data from the FSD database and a community tracker, the last 10,638.8 miles that Moss drove in
his Model 3 were completed using FSD 100% of the time. His vehicle is equipped with FSD version
14.2.1.25 which was installed, well I guess at this point, more than 12 days ago.
As per Moss in a celebratory post on X, his Model 3 was able to complete a full coast-to-coast drive
across the United States in 2 days and 20 hours. His trip started at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles
and it ended in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Overall, his trip spanned 2,732.4 miles. So
just as a quick pause before I go to a quote from Moss, from Mr. Moss himself, just remember those
two numbers. So the trip was 2,700 plus miles but David has actually gone well past that not well
as of when this post was made, it's probably a good bit more now, 10,000 plus miles on FSD
without an intervention. That's pretty wild. David says quote,
this was accomplished with Tesla FSD version 14.2 with absolutely zero disengagement of any kind
even for all parking including at Tesla superchargers, he said in his post. He also added in
later comments that there were zero close calls during the trip. So boy, congratulations to David.
I mean that is a genuinely impressive achievement on a number of levels, not just for the software,
like it's, I want to make sure we're celebrating David as much as the software here because yes,
it is awesome that FSD did this. You know, this is something that has been kind of held against
Elon and justifiably so for the past, well what, the better part of the last decade
because I think it was, what did he, I think he first promised a coast to coast drive on FSD
in like 2019 or something. But anyway, David himself deserves a lot of props here because
doing a cross-country drive in under three days while, you know, having to be awake and alert
and, you know, just making sure that you don't accidentally disengage it, let alone, you know,
needing to intervene for any critical reason or any other reason. I mean, it's just, it's,
it's definitely an Iron Man achievement on David's part. So kudos to the Tesla AI team,
but kudos to David Moss as well. And David, in fact, got a well-deserved shout out on Tesla's
X account as well as by a couple of Tesla executives on X as well. Now, does this quote,
unquote, prove that FSD is ready for full autonomy? Well, no, of course not, not yet.
It doesn't prove anything, but it is a great data point and a significant step in the right
direction for Tesla's overall goal. So it does deserve to be celebrated in that proper context.
By the way, I had a couple of wonderful listeners send this story to me and say,
hey, you should interview this guy on the podcast. And indeed, that is a thing that I would do. You
all know me very well at this point, except Kyle from out of spec reviews on YouTube already did it.
There's a 30 minute interview, 30 minute video with Kyle interviewing David on the out of spec
reviews YouTube channel. So if you'd like to check that out, I do recommend it. I went and
watched it. I checked it out myself. And speaking of FSD, by the way, I made it the subject of this
week's Patreon poll after listener Thomas emailed in to suggest it. So Thomas's suggested poll was,
have you ever accidentally fallen asleep while using FSD? And this is a good question because
it's, you know, the good news is this poll is anonymous. You know, even if you vote yes, no
one's going to know nobody's going to, you're not going to get in trouble. We're all human beings.
And we know that I think the impetus for Thomas's question here is, you know, for any yes, even if
it's 1% yes, FSD can save, potentially save that 1% of people voting in the poll from potentially
hurting themselves and or other people. So I was really curious what the results of this poll would
be. I included four choices while three plus a just show me the results and 11% of the people
chose the latter. So of the three other choices, 14% said yes, it has happened. So thank you to
those 14% for anonymously acknowledging that in this poll. 32% said no, but I've had a few,
my eyes were closing for a second, close calls and 43% the the plurality of votes,
by the way, out of 338 votes as of this recording. So thank you everybody for
turning up in big numbers. It's the number of responses to each week's poll is going up and
up each week. That is awesome. I appreciate all of you taking the time to stop by my Patreon page
to vote in each week's poll. Friendly reminder, you don't have to be giving me a dime. You don't
have to be supporting me on Patreon in order to vote in each week's poll. It's open to everybody.
So 43% said no, I've never fallen asleep while driving with FSD activated. I will be honest with
all of you as I always am. I would be in the 32% group who said no, but I've had a few my eyes
were closing for a second close calls. I've definitely been in that situation before with FSD
or even potentially autopilot going back further, but thankfully I've never completely lost consciousness
even momentarily. But yeah, even for the 14% where it's happened, you're still here to vote
in the poll and that's probably in at least in some part, perhaps a large part, due to FSD
having your back there. So good stuff. Thank you to everybody for taking the time to vote.
You can stop by each week and vote on my Patreon page. Again, it's open to everybody. Patreon.com
Tesla podcast. Speaking of my Patreon, if you are supporting me on Patreon, number one,
thank you sincerely. You are making a positive difference in the lives of my family and I.
And number two, I hope you all enjoyed this week's Lightning Round mini episode,
which wasn't so many. It was, I believe, the longest lightning round yet. It was 45 minutes long
and it was me answering your questions in the first monthly mailbag lightning round episode.
This was a community suggested thing and I'm super grateful to the community for suggesting this
because I had a ton of fun with this. There were questions on the Patreon post when I had
announced this a couple weeks ago and then there were a bunch more questions on the community started
RTL pod subreddit over on Reddit. So I went through and I answered every question that was
up there and I had such a good time doing this. I definitely did not expect it to go on for 45
minutes, but there were, there were such great questions and topics that I just kind of lost
myself talking about each, you know, addressing each one and talking about it. So it was everything
from sort of the state of the cyber truck to what I'd, what I'm going to do with the roadster to
Tesla's non steering wheel enabled future vehicle strategy. There were a lot of good topics in
there. So thank you to everybody that kindly took the time on either Patreon or the subreddit to
put up a question and I hope, hope everybody enjoyed that, that lightning round episode
on Patreon. I will do this again. I just, as long as I get enough good questions each month,
I will very much look forward to doing this in February and every subsequent month thereafter
as well. So a quick reminder that if you'd like to join me on Patreon, if you'd like to, to
follow, not follow, if you'd like to support, I mean, you're following it already. If you'd
like to support the podcast, Patreon is the primary way to do that. Go to patreon.com slash Tesla
podcast. The $5 per month tier will get you an ad free episode and you'll get early access to that
ad free episode every week. And if you go to that most popular tier, that's the $10 per month tier,
you'll get the ad free early access each week and you'll get access to all 175
lightning round mini episodes. It's goodness knows how many hours of extra content that is at this
point. And as soon as you join at that $10 per month tier or higher, you get instant access
to all of it. So check it out. If you see it in your heart to do so, Patreon.com slash Tesla
podcast. If you'd rather do a once a year pledge, there's an annual pledge option and you get a
10% discount for doing that. That's my way of thanking you for doing an annual pledge. And there
is a seven day free trial option that Patreon enabled not too long ago as well. So you can also
do that without actually committing any money if you just want to kind of see what the Patreon's
all about. Moving on to my headline story this week, at least it was the biggest most interesting
story of the week in my humble opinion. Tesla has begun rolling out interior updates to the Model
Y in China, offering a subtle but meaningful refresh for the popular electric SUV. Tip of the
cap to my friends at Drive Tesla Canada, they're right up on this says in part,
one of the upgrades is to the center touchscreen in all trims of the Model Y in China. The 15.4
inch display has been replaced with a larger 16 inch screen, bringing it in line with the display
first introduced on the six seat Model Y L and later the Model Y performance. However,
this larger screen is no longer limited to higher trims. In China, all Model Y variants,
including the base rear wheel drive model, it's worth noting that China does not have the Model Y
standard. Now come standard with the 16 inch display, but perhaps the most notable update,
especially for longtime Tesla fans, is the switch to a black interior headliner. The A-pillar trim
headliner seatbelt D-rings and sun visors have all transitioned from light gray to black
across the entire Model Y lineup in China. This effectively marks the end of the gray headliner
for the Model Y in that market, as the dark headliner is also included on the white interior
option. Thank you to Drive Tesla Canada for that, and I must say, this is unexpected. I could never
have predicted that the entire Model Y line, at least in China for now, would switch over to black
headliner. The headliner piece, not the slightly larger touchscreen piece, that I could have seen
coming because there was just no way that the Model Y performance outside of China was going to be
the only variant with a slightly larger screen. I suspect that Tesla was just ramping up with their
new 16 inch screen supplier, or if it's the same supplier, they're just phasing in the new part.
On the lower volume Model Y performance, while they exhausted the existing supply
of the 15.4 inch screens on the regular Model Y trim, so it's less than an inch larger of a screen,
which is such that you probably wouldn't even notice it if someone didn't point it out to you,
but that being said, it's certainly a nice little improvement for new Model Y buyers.
The headliner, let's come back to that, because again, that is far more interesting to me.
I must say I love this change, at least for both cars, but particularly the white interior car,
because for me, it makes the white seats and the white door panel trim pieces just pop more.
For the black interior, I think that some people might like the black headliner,
because it effectively blacks out the interior, but other folks potentially might
find that it makes the cabin feel a bit smaller, even if it actually isn't, and or makes it feel
a little bit more claustrophobic. And the reason I say that, without having obviously yet sat in a
black headliner Model Y, is because to tie into my own life experience here, yes, I have a legitimate
reason for mentioning the DeLorean on my Tesla podcast. I think if there's a Ride the Lightning
drinking game, it's take a shot anytime Ryan mentions the DeLorean, which in fairness isn't
that often, right? I don't think, but anyway, my DeLorean experience and the reason it's relevant
here is because the DeLorean came in two interior colors, gray interior or black interior. And those
choices, you really got all one color, like the entire interior was gray, or the entire
interior was black, other than the steering wheel, which was a black leather wrapped on both colors,
so the seats, the dash, the headliners, the A pillars, all of it was one color or the other.
Even the carpets and the headliners were not black, but a dark gray on the black interior cars,
versus a lighter gray on the gray interior DeLorean. So I had a gray interior DeLorean,
which was my preference, and the times when I would be at a DeLorean meetup and sit in a
black interior car, or the handful of occasions I drove a black interior DeLorean, it did to me,
just my experience, it did feel more claustrophobic and smaller to me than my own gray interior
DeLorean did. Again, personal opinion, I realized that, and so we'll kind of see
how people react to it in the Model Y in China, but on the whole, I personally love this change
for the Model Y in China. Now on that note, as the folks at Drive Tesla Canada reasonably
speculated in their article and I completely agree with them, it is highly likely that both
that slightly larger screen and the black headliner for the interior make their way
to every Model Y around the world with an asterisk on that because I expect it will probably not come
to the Model Y standard. I expect that will be a differentiating factor on the interior of the
cars, in addition to the cloth seats of course, but any Model Y premium trim, as well as of course
performance, I expect we will see this in Europe coming out of the Giga Berlin factory and in the
US coming out of Giga Texas and the Fremont factory. And the reason I'm pretty confident in saying
that is because, as I said at the very top, we've seen this a number of times over the years where
Giga Shanghai debuts a small but noticeable design tweak to the cars. I'll give you an example.
On the Generation 1 cars, 3NY meaning, remember when it was Giga Shanghai that first introduced the
revised front row door panels where the sort of the dash trim was made to look like it kind of
wrapped around onto the door panels and sure enough within a few months or so that eventually went
worldwide and came to the US factories and to Giga Berlin and I expect that that's going to be the
case with these two changes as well, the slightly larger screen and the black interior headliner,
again on the premium variants of the Model Y. If I were to guess, because I mean hey,
I'm on a Tesla podcast, that's what I'm here to do, is give you an educated opinion on when this
might roll out globally, I think my money would be on some time in Q2, so basically in the next
three to five months from now would be where I would put my money on that.
Alright next up this week, some high praise coming in for FSD version 14, we've already
talked about FSD this week with that coast to coast zero intervention drive, but more praise
coming in for FSD this week, major automotive media outlet motor trend, which you've probably
heard of even if you don't follow all this stuff super closely like I do, motor trend is one of
the biggest names in enthusiast automotive journalism, motor trend has named FSD their
best tech of 2026 saying believe it, Tesla FSD supervised is the best driver assistance system
on the market. I'm not going to read you their entire feature length piece on this,
but I wanted to read you some parts of it, motor trend says, based on our extensive evaluations,
which admittedly have been performed primarily in fair weather driving conditions and over largely
decent road surfaces, there is no system more advanced than Tesla's FSD supervised at assisting
drivers. Last year GM's Supercruise took our inaugural crown for this award, based on the
strength of its performance against our criteria versus the other ADAS systems on the market.
Most notably, we selected Supercruise over Tesla FSD, which is the most controversial ADAS in the
world, with the following withering criticism, quote, although we've been amazed at FSD's
attempts to navigate complex situations, we've been equally amazed at how it randomly decelerates,
changes lanes for no apparent reason, or responds to a road closure by endlessly circling the block.
More alarming, we've had so many near collisions with FSD that we've begun to question whether
it's responsible to keep using it, end quote, from last year. So getting back to motor trends
right up this year, they say, how do we explain our abrupt U-turn in selecting Tesla FSD as our
2026 winner? Simply put, the latest iteration of FSD, version 14, is vastly improved over the system
we tested in 2025, which they note was version 12. It's crucial to note that although it remains
far from perfect, the majority of the flaws we noted in earlier versions of FSD have largely
been addressed, while its features and capabilities have only improved. Despite the camera only
approach and the safety concerns it raises, particularly in decreased visibility situations,
there is no disputing that from a pure innovation and capability standpoint, Tesla is doing a whole
lot more with a lot less. No other ADAS on the market today can do what Tesla FSD does, which is
drive on most roads, city, freeway, divided highway, two lines or one, you name it, FSD can
probably drive it as we've tested over thousands of FSD miles. The other systems we've evaluated,
including Ford BlueCruise, GM SuperCruise, Hyundai Drive Assist and BMW Highway Assistant,
limit their semi-autonomous or hands-off eyes on driving aids almost exclusively to mapped roads,
primarily limited access highways. While it's worth noting that many of these systems are
updating and adding more roads every month, none of them comes close to the pure utility of FSD.
For those who want the car to do most of the driving down to the tightest city streets,
the only answer is FSD. And then they conclude by saying quote,
if you've been burned by a previous version of FSD or its earlier system enhanced autopilot,
we understand your skepticism. Many of our staff were and have been right there with you,
that is, until they spent significant time behind the wheel of FSD version 14.
If you're like these folks and have an open mind, or if you're new to Tesla and FSD, we think you'll
be amazed. Tesla FSD Supervised really is that good, and for now at least, it's the best advanced
driver assistance system on the market. End quote. Well, that is cool to see. Very high
praise there. Congratulations to the Tesla AI team. They must have all read that this week,
and not that they are surprised, but that's just got to make them feel good, right? That's
got to be a little validating for them to have arguably the biggest name in automotive media
run everybody's system for weeks, months, however many thousands of miles each,
and for them to come out with that level of praise for Tesla's system and to name it the best tech
of 2026. Next year, I'll say there could be new entrants in the market, they did in their article
elsewhere in the article, mentioned Mercedes' upcoming level three system that's due out early
this year, but the other thing to keep in mind for next year with this award from Motor Trend is that
the others will continue to evolve, but guess what? Tesla will evolve too, and probably more
quickly than everybody else, given the team in place and their unmatched dataset that comes in
every single day from the growing Tesla fleet. So let's see if FSD version 15 or whatever is out
when Motor Trend tests this again in 9 months or 10 months from now, whatever it's going to be.
So let's see if FSD version 15 wins this competition again for Tesla next year.
Before I continue with the rest of this week's Tesla news, as well as the other EV news I've
got lined up for you, a quick note for my Rivian owners out there listening. If you're planning
to keep your Rivian long term, you already know that repairs, suspension, electronics,
they're not cheap once your factory coverage ends, that's why I continue to partner with Xcare,
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to shout out Rivian specifically this week. Right now Xcare is offering $200 off of coverage
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I am a two time policyholder, there we go, two time policyholder of Xcare and I'm a fan so check
them out Xcare.com. Next up this week, here's a weird one, remember when Tesla's trademark attempt
at the word robo taxi got held up by a counterclaim, we're actually I think still waiting on that one
I guess, I feel like I haven't heard about it in a while unless maybe it got quietly dismissed in
Tesla's favor, I'm not actually sure, but anyway this week Tesla's cyber cab trademark has been
suspended following an earlier filing by a French beverage company, another tip of the cap to drive
Tesla Canada who writes, Tesla's attempt to secure the cyber cab trademark has been suspended by the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the USPTO, with the blocking party identified as UNIBEV,
an interesting twist given Tesla's own history of pursuing a liquor related trademark of its own.
According to a patent trade office suspension notice dated November 14th, 2025 and obtained by
Electrek, Tesla's application to trademark cyber cab cannot proceed due to two issues,
a likelihood of confusion with an existing registration and more importantly,
a prior filed application that takes legal priority. That earlier filing belongs to UNIBEV
which submitted its own cyber cab application on October 28th, 2024, roughly two weeks after
Tesla publicly unveiled the name at its WeRobot event, but before Tesla filed any paperwork in
November. Under U.S. trademark law, timing is everything. Because UNIBEV filed first, the USPTO
is required to halt Tesla's application until the earlier claim is resolved, either by the
company following through and registering the name or abandoning its claim. On the surface,
the cyber cab situation looks like a classic trademark squatting scenario. UNIBEV, known
publicly as a French beverage company with U.S. trademarks for Tesla Kila, has filed for the
name Tesla wants for its autonomous cab. Tesla itself previously sought to trademark Tesla Kila
for distilled agave liquor after teasing the product online. While there's no direct public
evidence that UNIBEV's decision to apply for cyber cab is meant as payback, the connection
between both companies' beverage-related trademarks is hard to overlook. Tesla is left with limited
options. It can negotiate a settlement with UNIBEV, attempt a costly legal challenge,
or abandon the name entirely in favor of another rebrand. Electric reports that
discussions between Tesla and UNIBEV are ongoing, though no agreement has been reached. If a deal
does materialize, it would likely involve Tesla paying to acquire the rights. Thank you to Drive
but chuckle at this one a little bit. Not that UNIBEV is some guy in his basement, it's obviously a
very large company, but it reminds me of people buying website domains like Coca-Cola dot com
and McDonald's dot com in the early days of the internet so that companies would have to pay them
to get the domain back. Now as the article notes, it remains to be seen if that's the case here,
but it sure looks like it is on the surface. At the very least, you have to wonder, and I don't
mean this in any kind of mean way, but I think it's a fair question here, what's going on with
Tesla's legal team? They knew what they planned to call the car and when they planned to unveil it,
so why weren't they more on top of this one? Obviously I'm no lawyer so please pardon my
ignorance if there's a good reason why Tesla's corporate attorneys weren't quicker on the draw
here, but I guess here we are and now I suppose it just comes down to how bad Tesla wants it.
Do they want to pay UNIBEV off? Or I guess more accurately, are they willing to pay
whatever UNIBEV is asking? They could, just to throw out an alternative suggestion if they don't
want to pay UNIBEV or fight over it, they could always call it the RoboCab, I guess right, which
honestly when I wrote my notes I was like, I kind of like that and now that I'm actually saying it
out loud, I kind of like it a lot, not that Cybercabs bad, Cybercabs great, but as a backup,
like RoboCabs, what do you guys think? I don't know, am I crazy on this one and maybe I just like
it because it's so close to RoboCop, who will forever be awesome, but RoboCab, anybody, Tesla,
you can have that one for free, I'm not going to trademark it before you guys do, you can go ahead
and take it if you like it. And the final Tesla news story I have for you this week is this one,
Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared on a technology-focused podcast this week called Moonshots
and among a number of things that we've heard him say before, the hosts did ask him about the new
Tesla Roadster, which I always appreciate anybody interviewing Elon doing that, and Elon said something
that honestly, I had to laugh when I heard it because not because it's funny per se, because
it's not funny, but I laughed because I'm so sure that it's going to get twisted the wrong way and
used against Tesla. In fact, it may have already happened by the time you hear this. Here's the
clip and a tip of the cap to Tesla Roddy for posting this clip. I think it's going to be the safest
thing ever built. Safety is not the prime, it's not the main goal of, if you buy a sports car,
like you buy a Ferrari, safety is not the number one goal. Safety is your number one goal,
don't buy the Roadster. Oh, believe me, I drove just this week on New England roads,
sheet ice, I had just a little thrust. I could be very much more, I was just drifting towards
something very concrete. I'd love to. The computer will probably keep you safe, but a little thrust
is all I need. If you go really fast, bad things can happen. You can decelerate really quickly with
thrust. Rubber on road is not a great way to decelerate. I'm thinking fast and safe. I hope
so. We'll aspire not to kill anyone in this car, but it'll be something, it'll be the best of the
last of the human driven cars. Well, I'll say this, at least Elon's honest, it is a bit shocking,
not in like a real life affecting way to be clear, but just to hear him say that a Tesla vehicle
won't necessarily be the safest thing on the road when the company has spent the past decade and a
half working on doing the opposite of that and making their cars the absolute safest vehicles
on the road. But he's right. I mean, a supercar that can accelerate at a potentially production car
record rate and can achieve a top speed well north of 200 miles per hour is definitely not,
by definition, an inherently safe vehicle. I suppose you could say that about almost every
car. I mean, any car is dangerous at excessive speeds, but you get his point here. The roadster
will be capable of automotive performance feats that could go very wrong in the wrong hands.
Here's hoping the April 1st date holds for that re-reveal, and it's not an April Fools joke,
and we all finally get to see what this car can really do. T-minus 80 days from the date that
this podcast publishes, not that I'm counting or anything. Alright, that's everything in Tesla
news, but there's some more EV news to talk about. Lucid doubled their annual production in 2025,
finishing the year with a record Q4 output. Lucid closed out 2025 on a positive note,
increasing both production and deliveries in a global EV market where many competitors were
scaling back. The strongest gains came in the final quarter as Lucid accelerated its manufacturing
ramp heading into 2026. For the final quarter of the year, Lucid delivered 5,345 vehicles,
a 31% increase compared to the third quarter, and 55% higher than the same period a year earlier.
Production in Q4 reached over 8,400 vehicles, up 104% year over year. On a sequential basis,
the company said fourth quarter production rose 116% compared to Q3, reflecting a sharper focus
on scaling output and improving operational efficiency. For 2025, the luxury automaker said
it produced 18,378 vehicles during the year, more than doubling its output compared to 2024,
while deliveries climbed to 15,841 vehicles, representing a 55% year over year increase.
Lucid's full year results land within the 18-20,000 vehicle production range that it
previously outlined. Through September, the company had produced 9,966 vehicles and delivered
10,496, meaning nearly half of its annual production came in the final quarter alone.
While I am happy for them, the Gravity Launch is a huge moment for them, obviously,
as they have been a one-model car company for quite a while now. Their new SUV,
from what I've seen, and I've read a number of reviews, watched a number of videos on it,
the Gravity has been a long time coming and by most accounts that I'm seeing out there,
it's a fantastic vehicle. And purely anecdotally, I've seen a number of them out on the road
so far already, although weirdly, I think all the ones I've seen have all been in the same,
in my humble opinion, please don't take any offense if there are any Lucid Gravity owners out
there. But every Gravity I've seen has been in a, in my opinion, boring grayscale color.
In fact, once I put that in my notes this week for the podcast, I decided, I was like, wait,
let me just go to the Lucid website and see if I'm crazy. Turns out I'm not crazy. Lucid offers
six colors for the Gravity. Five of them are grayscale. The exception is Aurora Green Metallic,
which is honestly pretty muted. It's not exactly like a bright green at all. So anyway,
paint color is obviously subjective and not the point of the story. So to get back on track,
I am really thrilled to hear that Lucid did hit that production goal for the year.
That's big. I mean, that's a big thing for a small growing company that's still trying to find
its footing. Their Bugaboo, which honestly is kind of hard to forgive them for at this point,
considering that they've been selling cars for over four years now, seems to be software.
I have heard from a few reputable channels who have spent considerable time with Lucids,
be it the Air or the Gravity. The two channels, namely that I'm referring to here,
are the aforementioned Out of Spec, as well as Engineering Explained. That gentleman,
I believe Jason is his name. He actually bought a Lucid Air and was super excited about it,
and then made a follow-up video like two months later explaining in great detail the ludicrous
number of software issues, just frustrating things and issues that he's had with the car.
So the fact that Lucid still seems to have serious frustrations that haven't been ironed
out on the software side after four years on the market, that's tough. But by all accounts,
the Gravity, like the Air before it, drives incredibly well and is well built as well.
Their factory is down in Arizona. They are also supposedly working towards a more affordable
mid-sized sedan, think of it as the Lucid version of a Model 3. So hopefully they can keep their
positive momentum going, continue to build their business because we need more EVs on the road
and more good EV choices out in the world. The more good choices there are in the marketplace,
the easier it's going to be for gas car owners to feel comfortable making the switch,
in my opinion anyway. And finally this week, Lucid again is the subject of this next story,
though it's a completely different story altogether. Lucid and Uber have teamed up with
Nuro and URO for a new robo-taxi program with the aforementioned Gravity SUV.
I saw this story on TeslaRati who wrote, Lucid and Uber are teaming up with Nuro to launch an
autonomous robo-taxi program utilizing the automaker's Gravity SUV. The project is unveiled
at CES, introducing an in-cabin rider experience completely designed by Uber, the world's largest
ride-sharing service. Back in 2025, the partnership between the three companies was announced,
aiming to launch a unique ride-sharing platform using over 20,000 Lucid vehicles equipped with
Nuro Driver technology. The vehicles are owned and operated by Uber. The companies have already
initiated some testing in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is a big step in the right direction
for the project. The plan currently is to launch it to the public in the Bay Area later this year.
Nuro will lead the testing using robo-taxi engineering prototypes that are supervised by
autonomous vehicle operators. Currently, TeslaRati writes,
there are over 100 robo-taxies in the engineering test fleet. The Gravity vehicles are fitted with
next-gen sensor array featuring high-res cameras, solid-state lidar sensors, and radars that will
provide a 360-degree perception model as well as a, quote, purpose-built roof-mounted halo
designed to maximize sensor visibility. Uber is customizing some things for the Gravity so that
it is specifically catered to robo-taxi riders. For the first time, Uber is designing the in-vehicle
rider experience which will include interactive screens with entertainment and climate control
options as well as support contacts and vehicle maneuver requests like a request to pull over.
It will also have in-vehicle visualization showing what the robo-taxi sees and its path in real time.
This will be a nice transition for those who are skeptical about driverless vehicles
and will show what the vehicle and its sensors, lidar, and cameras see. I like that.
The Gravity is also a sizable SUV which will give riders space for themselves and their luggage.
So yes, the halo that they're talking about, it's a hat. It is wearing a hat just like the
Waymo's currently do and the Tesla's do not. And thus, this is not going to be a situation as
Tesla is promising with their service where someone can enter their own car into the robo-taxi
fleet. But here's how I look at this. The more safe autonomous ride-hailing options we have,
the better. Not only for occupant safety and pedestrian safety and people in other cars
safety, but for occupant prices. If Tesla's robo-taxi network were to, let's just hypothetically
say this isn't actually going to happen, but if it were to drive Uber or Lyft out of business,
again not saying that is going to happen because it probably wouldn't. But just for the sake of
What incentive would Tesla have without serious competition to continue to undercut
Uber's pricing significantly, which I can tell you from over a dozen robo-taxi rides that I have
taken and compared pricing to Uber on is absolutely the case. Pardon me. They are doing that right
now. Every time I hail a robo-taxi, I double check, I cross check the price against Uber and
Waymo. And every single time so far, the robo-taxi has been significantly cheaper than Uber for sure.
And sometimes Waymo is close, but it's never been, I've never, at least in my experience,
I've yet to see Waymo come up with a cheaper price for the same route
at the same time than Tesla's robo-taxi. Now, granted, I know that there is a separate
discussion to be had about things like urban traffic congestion and how much of these ride
hailing driverless passenger cars does a city want running around versus, say, people using
mass transit that doesn't take up as much space on the streets, stuff like that. But that is neither
here nor there for the purposes of this story. Let's see what Lucid, Uber, and Nuro can do with
this partnership. When they roll it out, I'll try it. I'd love to try it. I have yet to sit in a
Lucid gravity, let alone ride in one, so I'll give it a go once it rolls out here in my neck of
the woods. Side note, while I'm on the subject of robo-taxi, if anybody out there happens to be
on the Tesla robo-taxi team, I have a bit of feedback. Now, I did already submit this feedback
via an email survey that they sent out after my last ride. But those of you that have a Tesla
with a second-row screen in it, so new Model 3, new Model Y, new S, new X, or Cybertruck,
you probably are aware that if there's nobody sitting in the front passenger seat,
you can, from the back seat, from the second-row screen, move that front passenger seat forward
to give yourself more leg room. So that functionality is already baked into the Teslas. However,
the robo-taxi software is hiding it. It does not make it available to passengers.
And I would like them to do so, because I had this happen in a Waymo, and it was the same thing,
there was no ability to move the passenger seat forward from the screen in the back seat.
So for Tesla, you already have that functionality, please just surface it
in the robo-taxies. That is my constructive bit of feedback that's hopefully pretty quick and
seamless. Alright, that is everything I've got for you in the world of Tesla and other EV news,
but there is plenty more to go in this week's Ride the Lightning, starting with the Ride the
Lightning hotline. If you've got a question, comment, or discussion topic for the podcast,
I would love for you to call in, because there's a chance you could hear yourself on the show,
and I love hearing from my audience. There are two easy ways to call in. Either use your smartphones,
built-in voice recording software, record your 90 second or less question, just I try to ask that
you keep it to 90 seconds or less, so I can get to as many people each week as possible,
then email that file to me, that recording, send it to teslapodcastatgmail.com,
or you can take that same 90 second or less question and call in and leave a message on
the Ride the Lightning hotline, it's a toll free number you can dial at any time, 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 like I do with them, or put onto a keepsake for the recipient,
visit lifeonrecord.com to learn more. First up this week is Robert from Near Philly.
Hey Ryan, it's Robert from Near Philly. I was planning on sending you an FSD enhancement
request, hoping the Tesla team would hear and implement it, but I think it's kind of turned
into a pro tip. Basically, I was going to ask for a way to select head in or back in parking
in a driveway or parking lot. At my home, my Tesla would seem to randomly pick
one or the other when navigating there via FSD, but head in is what I wanted
due to the charger being mounted on the wall on the left side, head in, which is where the
large port is on a Tesla. Meanwhile, at supermarkets, it would always tend to back in, which
is a good thing if you're at a safety-related place such as, say a mine, where during an
emergency you don't want everyone backing out and bobbing into each other, so it's a requirement
at many safety-oriented locations to back in. But at a supermarket, I want the rear of the car
accessible for loading a lot of groceries, so I was going to suggest some sort of option on the
screen. Well, they just added rock navigation capabilities, so I thought I'd give it a try.
Today, I said, take me home and pull into the driveway head in, and Eve responded that she
would do exactly that, and the car did it. It's stuff like this why I would never recommend
anyone buy any other EV or even ICE vehicle other than a Tesla. They're just so far ahead.
Robert, this is fantastic. I didn't quite want to call this a pro tip just yet,
because we need to find out if it's repeatable. So if it's repeatable, it just adds an extra layer
of awesomeness to that grok integration on the AI4 cars. I got to test this out myself the next
time that I go somewhere where I want the car to park itself at when I get there, because I have
a weird garage situation. My FSD is not yet capable of wiggling its way into my garage,
but Robert, let me know if you can try this multiple times and see if you can make sure
that it's repeatable. And if anybody else out there wants to try this as well, please let me know
your results. Next up this week, here's Al from Maryland.
Happy New Year, Ryan. This is Al from the East Coast in Maryland. I wanted to make a recommendation
to the engineers at Tesla related to the most common or most recent software update,
specifically the hands-free driving. While I really like most of the updates with the
FSD update, I'm currently running version 14.2.1.25. The hands-free driving operation has
one main issue from my perspective. I don't know when it's engaged or not. Ideally,
I'd recommend that there should be an annotation either on the screen or as part of the new dash cam.
That's the driver know if the features on or off. Thanks for hosting your great podcast,
I'm definitely a super fan. Al, happy New Year to you as well and thank you for your call.
I think you make a reasonable point and request here. The tiny little green dot at the top right
of the screen, that's the primary way to know that hands-free mode on FSD is on. When it's green,
it's on. When it's not, it's not. The good news is that the car is still in control even if hands-free
is not activated and of course after a short while you would get that big text on screen asking you
to get your hands on the wheel, put a little apply force, apply pressure to the wheel in case you
don't realize that the hands-free mode is not activated for some reason, be it due to you
wearing a hat and temporarily blocking the cabin facing camera. I run into that one a lot
or it's too dark inside the cabin for it to see you. Well, I've run into that one as well
or maybe something else. But yeah, I think a more prominent way of indicating that hands-free mode
on FSD is active would be a beneficial thing for everybody. Cheers Al, thank you so much for calling
in. Next up, talking about Grock from earlier, here's Jay from Chicago with some more grocky goodness.
Hey Ryan, this is Jay from Chicago. I have a 2024 Foundation Series Cybertruck and I was just chatting
with Grock the other day during my drives and I accidentally, I don't know, kind of stumbled upon
some hidden features that Grock had. I thought the only new feature we had was
integration point-to-point navigation, like multi-point, which works great. But also, I stumbled
upon a feature that Grock knows a little bit about your car. It knows the make model, the year,
I knew that my part of the foundation series, I knew I had full self-driving and then the kind
of whole thing. They knew the tire pressure of all four tires and my back right tire was low at
42 psi and then Grock actually told me, you should probably go ahead and fill that up as soon as you
can. The recommended pressure was 50 and I already know all this. I know like what the psi is and
what the set it as, but for someone who doesn't know, Grock could be insanely useful as you're
a great reminder. Yeah, Grock is awesome. Thank you. Bye.
Jay, I love this. It borders on being a pro tip, but I'm going to play it here as a regular
call regardless. It's just, it's awesome. That's the bottom line here. I'm happy to play this.
Thank you for calling in with this and I am happy to pass it along to everybody listening
in the very likely event that others find it useful as well. Cheers to you, sir. And our final
call this week comes from Robert in Texas comparing AI three to AI four with his two cars. Go ahead,
Robert. Hey, Ryan. It's Robert from Texas with just an observation. I have two different cars. My
X has the hardware three. My Y has the hardware four. I know you have the same situation going on
in your household. And my comment is I really think the hardware four is really getting incredible
and it's kind of leaving the hardware three behind. You know, if you go back kind of three or four
months ago, I think they were pretty similar, but now it's night and day and it's kind of
irking me a little bit that my X, which is, you know, 2022 is not driving as well as the
model Y that we have. But I'm hoping Tesla as they, you know, take the safety person out of the
model Y's in Austin and get the software up. I think it's time for them to go ahead and make the
change on the v3 and get them up to speed. This lagging v3 now, I think has become more of a
problem. Thanks a lot for your show. My daughter, one of my daughters has something to say also.
Thanks for the show, Ryan. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. Bye-bye.
Well, thanks so much to both of you for calling in there. I completely hear you on AI3 versus AI4.
The gulf between them just continues to widen. Now, as you know, we're supposed to get a v14
light on the hardware three cars in Q2 of this year. So in somewhere between basically three to
six months from now, effectively three to five months, I guess, which, I mean, until Tesla proves
me otherwise, I'm just going to assume that that's going to ship on June 30th at the earliest, which
is the last day of Q2. If they want to pleasantly surprise me by delivering it earlier, great.
Now, how v14-ish that version feels for hardware three cars remains to be seen, of course.
And we also have no idea where the AI4 cars will be by the time that version drops.
Are we still going to be on version 14? Probably. But could v15 have come out by then? Yeah,
it's possible. I think we have to presume, again, until Tesla proves otherwise, that this v14 light
is going to be the end of the line for the hardware three cars in their current hardware state. So
therefore, I hope I'm wrong, would love to be wrong. But if anybody else agrees with that
principle, and I'm basing that just off of how things have gone, right, like we've been on 12.6
for, gosh, well over a year, right, a long time. So if that proves to be correct, then therefore,
I would not personally expect any movement on the hardware upgrades that we've been promised
until the second half of 2026 at the earliest after this v14 light has come out. And it probably
will be much later than that as well. I'm just saying that's the absolute earliest that there
might be any real movement on hardware upgrades for the AI three cars is going to be the second
half of this year. And I know that a lot of people out there are understandably skeptical
that any upgrade will ever happen. So again, it's on Tesla to make good on their word here.
Let's hope they do so in a relatively timely manner. Well, thank you, Robert. Thank you to
everybody that kindly took the time to call in this week or recently. I will get to more of
your ride the lightning hotline calls on next week's episode. But for now, we're starting to wind
things down here for the Palin dramatic episode 545. But first I wanted to move to the soul of
adventure part of the podcast where I tell you what I've been up to with my Teslas. And for this
week, I tried out a new to me method for cleaning the inside of the windshield, which as I'm sure
pretty much everybody can relate to can just be really annoying when it gets fogged up or hazy and
no matter what you spray it with or what you wipe it down with, it always seems that that sort of
fog or haze always seems to come back. And I've found a video on the out of spec detailing channel
Colton is the professional detailer there. I've mentioned him before on the podcast because I
think he's he's an exceptionally talented detail. He's up in Colorado. I like some of his videos
where he's he's going through different cleaning procedures like he had a great he was the first
person I saw that had a really excellent detailing video on the Cybertruck, which great to that one.
You know, I had I had said well in advance to all the future Cybertruck owners that it's
Windex is your friend, but Colton added in the barkeepers friend as the pre the sort of
pre Windex portion of it. And now that's that's how you get Cybertruck's looking awesome. So anyway,
out of spec detailing, I saw a video there about a regiment for cleaning that inside of the windshield.
I've just tried it out on the the spirit of adventure the 2018 car because that one's been
hazy and that's the one that lives outside. So when I take it out this weekend, I'm going to see
how it is. I'm sure it's going to be great because obviously this Colton from out of spec detailing
wouldn't have put the video out if he hadn't tested this and found that it works great.
And all the comments on that video, too, by the way are like, oh, this this works great. Thank you
so much. So I'm excited about this because if I now have a just repeatable process for cleaning
the inside windshield and keeping it nice and crystal clear, that's going to make me so so happy.
All right, time for your pro tip of the week. It comes from Joel in New Jersey.
Hi, Ryan. It's Joel from New Jersey. Just calling in with an interesting pro tip. I was just listening
to your call from last weekend and they were talking about reordering the, you know, recents and
favorites and so forth. I've found something very interesting. I never knew existed. If you slide one
of the recents off to the right, it deletes it from your history. So if there's, you know, a place
you put in and you're like, yeah, I don't want to keep that in history anymore. You can literally
just take it and slide it to the right and it erases it from the history. Never knew that was there
and people might find that helpful. Thanks so much for all you do. I did not know this one either,
Joel. So thank you very much for this. I can see this one being useful for those of you who share
your Tesla with your significant other and maybe you went somewhere to get them a special gift
for their birthday or some other occasion or what have you. And maybe you wouldn't want them to see
that location in the nav and ask you about it, right? Now, I suppose there are also nefarious
reasons that you'd want to erase certain destinations from your history, but I do try to stay positive
and optimistic on this podcast. So I'm just going to leave it at that, that you're buying them a
present and you don't want them to know about it. Thank you again, Joel. I super appreciate this
pro tip of the week. And if anybody else out there has a good Tesla or EV pro tip of the week,
I would love for you to call in with it so that I can learn from it and I can share it with the
audience and everybody can learn from it. The way to send that in is simple. It's the same two ways
that you can choose to send in a regular ride the lightning hotline call. That's also how you send
in pro tips. So refer back to a little earlier in the podcast for the instructions there.
Let me mention a few friends of ride the lightning before I go starting with abstract
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pre cut expel armor pieces for the non stainless trim pieces of the truck. Highly recommend those
if you want to keep your Cybertruck looking nice. There's just all kinds of stuff. You got to go
take a look abstract ocean.com and then at the top of the screen click on whichever vehicle you have
and it will show you all of the accessories that they have available for your car. Pile everything
you like into your online shopping cart then use the coupon code RTLpodcast to get 15% off of your
first order. Next up, TeslaTeacher.com, your own personal Tesla tutor. If you're new to Tesla or
you know someone who is new, maybe a friend, family member, and maybe they're overwhelmed by the
touchscreen, the autopilot, the endless features, there's a lot to take in. You are not alone.
They are not alone. These cars are packed with incredible technology and it does take time to
master. At TeslaTeacher.com, their experienced staff, Tesla owners for over six years now,
offer personalized in person tutoring right at your vehicle. They cover every model from 2015
onwards answering all of your questions and guiding you step by step. While grok integration will
make talking to your car even easier someday, until then let real experts help you build confidence
today. They proudly serve the Greater Bay Area here in the San Francisco area with a 150 mile radius
of San Francisco. If you're looking for the perfect gift, Tesla gift cards are available on their site
as well. Ideal for any family member with a new Tesla, visit TeslaTeacher.com now to book your
session or grab a gift card. The snap plate or the newer, stronger snap plate plus, this is the
front license plate bracket. It's a nice, clean, minimalist design, but it's good. It's strong
and it's not going to mess with the looks of the front end of your Tesla or other EV because,
yes, they do have the snap plate for other EVs as well. I'm a big fan of the snap plates. You can
get yours at everyamp.com slash RTL and there's a coupon code for listeners of this podcast.
That coupon code is simply RTL. So these are what I highly recommend rather than the
plates that Tesla gives you, the mounting plate that is, the mounting bracket.
Snap plate is safety optimized with breakaway features to sacrifice itself in a worst case
scenario like a parking accident or a car wash. Snap plate plus is strength optimized with harden
features for maximum strength. Both are made from recycled made in the USA plastics with stainless
steel reinforcements. Again, get yours at everyamp.com slash RTL and don't forget the coupon code
RTL for a discount. If you're in or going to be in my neck of the woods here in the greater San
Francisco Bay area, I do highly encourage you to set up an appointment ahead of time with immaculate
reflections. Get your car looking better than ever, whether that's with ceramic coating so that
you don't have to wax the car for the next five to seven years, whether that's paint protection film
on the front end of the car or all kinds of key areas or maybe even the whole car. Maybe you want
to do paint correction service, which gets that finish looking as good as it possibly can, better
than factory new taking all those surface details, surface imperfections, little cross scratches,
all that kind of stuff comes out of that paint. I've had paint correction on both of my Model
3 performances and I could not be happier. They both look incredible. So go to the website to
book an appointment or ask any questions. That website is irdetailing.com. You'll see a contact
button either right kind of there in the middle of the homepage or in the upper left corner of it
as well. Make sure to mention that you're a ride the lightning listener and then you will get the
ride the lightning discount kindly extended to you. My Patreon page found at patreon.com
slash Tesla podcast. That is where you can go if you'd like to support the podcast. It's also where
you can go to vote in each week's Patreon poll totally for free over the public, but there are
a number of features stacking a stacking set of features. In fact, for those of you who are
willing to sign up and support me and what I'm doing here with ride the lightning on Patreon,
as I mentioned earlier, the base level tier for just five bucks a month or 10% discounted
for the year. So that's what that's $54 for the year instead of 60 bucks for the year with that
annual per the annual subscription discount. You will get early access to each week show and you'll
get an ad free version of the show early every week. That most popular tier 10 bucks a month
will get you the early access ad free and that entire 175 episode and counting archive of those
lightning round mini episodes that I do exclusively for Patreon each week. So check out my Patreon
page. I'd be very grateful if you did that. It's patreon.com slash Tesla podcast or just click
the link in the episode description. If you're not already following this podcast on your favorite
podcast service, it's easy and free to do so. The reason to do that is if you do, you will get a
push notification when there's a new episode so that you don't have to remember to go find it,
although it is easy to remember with this podcast. It is always scheduled for Sunday at 9am Eastern,
6am Pacific, but you can find me by searching ride the lightning Tesla on Apple podcasts,
on Spotify, on tune in, on YouTube podcasts, pretty much all the big ones just search that
and then click follow and you're done. Finally, you can follow me on a couple of different social
media platforms if you're interested. I'm on both X and Instagram with the same username.
That username is DMC underscore Ryan and again, you can always email me if you like Tesla podcast
at gmail.com. Before I go this week, I just want to say hello and thank you to the top tier
Patreon supporters. These extra generous folks get a shout out at the end of each week's episode
and they get invited to each month's Patreon Zoom Hangout where we always have a great conversation
about a far-ranging list of EV topics. As of this recording, the January one will be happening
tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody, wishing everybody a happy New Year
face-to-face on Zoom. So thank you first to the Roadster in Space tier backers who on top of all
the other perks, they get a one-on-one hangout with me each month if they elect to choose it,
and a number of them do and it's always a good conversation. So thank you to Pete White,
Lyle Austin, Steve Radspinner, Fernando Cordero, Lawton from Chicago, Sean Knightig,
Neil 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,
Doug Carey, Michael Gallo and Tony Figueroa. Next up, the Maximum Plaid Group, hopefully I'll
be seeing a lot of these faces tomorrow on the monthly Zoom Hangout. Thank you to Jonathan Wales,
Cameron Clark, Daniel Grummer, Seth Cappello, Nick and Tony, The Galbin Family, Ryan from New
York City, Darren Nickel, Cos Barnes, Patrick Wisnesky, Gil Cabrera, Todd Badger, Joe Edgel,
Kevin Yank, the Tesla Owners Club of San Joaquin Valley, Will Steadman, Jeremy Harris, Chris Beech,
Tom Mills, Cory O'Donnell, Aaron, John Cody, Joel Sapp, Paul Casarino, Chris Osborne, KB,
Adam Lavoie, Jason Chalukis, Travis Krenzel, Bruce Otterstein, Tom Behan, Josh Pennington,
John from Cream Ridge, New Jersey, Dustin Hart, Derek Finley, Charles Clement, Damon Klein, Jeff
Bertoglio, Kim Bae, Troy Sievers, Chip Hooper, Matt Chinander, Robert Moran, Rav, Christopher Mann,
Michael Williams and Eric Harbert. And finally the grandfathered in, Plaid level supporters,
big thanks to George Casiopo, Logan Willis, Peter Chalet, Eric Randolph, Dory 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 Barber from
Louisville, Matt Nixon, the Tesla Owners Club of Wisconsin, Ish, not Elon Musk in quotes, Peter
and the Bear Boys of Colorado. Well that will wrap it up for the Palin Dramatic episode 545.
I had fun on this one, I hope you did too, hope you have a great week and as always I'll be back
every Sunday 9am Eastern 6am Pacific. Happy electric motoring my friends and I'll see you soon.
Elon Musk, people don't like Elon Musk. The guy founded 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.
About this episode
Tesla's Model Y receives exciting design updates in China, including a larger 16-inch touchscreen and a switch to a black interior headliner across all trims. The Model Y continues to dominate global sales, with CEO Elon Musk announcing it as the best-selling car for the third consecutive year. The episode also highlights a remarkable coast-to-coast drive completed by a Model 3 using Full Self-Driving (FSD) with zero interventions, showcasing the advancements in Tesla's autonomous technology. Discussions on FSD's recognition by Motor Trend as the best tech of 2026 further emphasize Tesla's innovative edge.
Original notes
As we've seen in the past, Tesla China rolled out a couple of design updates to the Shanghai-built Model Y's. I'll tell you all about them and why we'll probably see them in North America and Europe as well, sooner rather than later. Plus: Tesla's CEO says the Model Y topped global sales charts again in 2025, a Model 3 on FSD successfully completes full coast-to-coast drive with zero interventions, and more!
If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support my efforts, please check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/teslapodcast and consider a monthly or (10% discounted!) annual pledge. Every little bit helps, and you can support for just $5 per month. And there are stacking bonuses in it for you at each pledge level, like early access to each episode at the $5 tier and the weekly Lightning Round bonus mini-episode (AND the early access!) at the $10 tier! And NO ADS at every Patreon tier!
Also, don't forget to leave a message on the Ride the Lightning hotline anytime with a question, comment, or discussion topic for next week's show! The toll-free number to call is 1-888-989-8752.
INTERESTED IN A FLEXIBLE EXTENDED WARRANTY FOR YOUR TESLA? Be a part of the future of transportation with XCare, the first extended warranty designed & built exclusively for EV owners, by EV owners. Use the code Lightning to get $100 off their "One-time Payment" option! Go to www.xcelerateauto.com/xcare to find the extended warranty policy that's right for you and your Tesla.
P.S. Get 15% off your first order of awesome aftermarket Tesla accessories at AbstractOcean.com by using the code RTLpodcast at checkout. Grab the SnapPlate front license plate bracket for any Tesla at https://everyamp.com/RTL/ (don't forget the coupon code RTL too!).
Ride the Lightning: Tesla and EV Podcast
Ryan McCaffrey
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