Episode 549: Tesla Introduces New Model Y Variant

On this week's episode of Ride the Lightning, the Tesla and EV podcast, Tesla has introduced

a new variant of the Model Y in the United States, but sadly, it's not the Model Y L.

At least not yet.

Plus, Apple CarPlay is reportedly still on the way for Teslas, Consumer Reports gives

the Model Y a major accolade and more.

What's happening friends, Ryan McCaffrey joining you for episode 549 of Ride the Lightning, it's

your weekly Tesla and EV podcast.

I've got a relaxed Daisy the Boxster to my left on the couch looking out the window

and laying on the ground out near my wife somewhere in the living room is Lily the Silly

Labrador who is in her last night of having to wear the E-collar or as it is maybe more

commonly known, the cone of shame.

She's actually been doing really well with it.

She's adapted to it quite well but she is definitely going to be happy to have that

thing off tomorrow.

Fortunately, she hasn't been going for her spay surgery stitches so I think, knock

on wood, that it's going to be fine when we take that E-collar off tomorrow morning.

As expected after last week's episode, which of course covered last week's huge shocking

news of the discontinuation of the Model S and the Model X, I got a lot of Ride the

Lightning hotline calls, plenty of emails, plenty of messages on social media, all in

response to that and I'm grateful to all of you for sending in those messages and

I promised you a longer Ride the Lightning hotline segment this week and I will deliver

that later on in the podcast so stay tuned for that.

But first, as we get warmed up, I made this big news the subject of this week's Patreon

poll because last week that news broke too late to make it a poll, I'd already put

up a poll.

So here we go, this week's Patreon poll question which as a friendly reminder is

open to anyone and everyone.

You don't have to be supporting me on Patreon, you just have to stop by my Patreon page each

week which is found at Patreon.com slash Tesla podcast to cast your vote in each week's

free poll.

So the question this week was, how does the cancellation of the Model S and X immediately

affect your thinking about your next car?

And I tried to put in as many reasonable responses as I could and the number one choice, it was

actually really close, it was two top vote-getters and then everything else was single digits.

So 34% of the 367 of you that voted, thank you so much, that's a really good turnout

compared to usual.

So 34% said I wasn't planning on buying an S or an X so this news doesn't affect my thinking

about my next car.

And that is a perfectly reasonable reaction because we know, like if we were to poll this

podcast, the percentage of people that have or plan to buy an S or an X isn't going

to be super high.

I mean we know that there are 3% of Tesla's cumulative production and delivery totals

so they represent a small portion of Tesla's sales.

So that response is not surprising but the runner up poll choice with 32%, so just 2% behind,

this maybe was a little surprising to me.

The 32% of you said I wasn't planning on buying an S or an X but this news shakes

my confidence in Tesla staying serious about cars so I might look elsewhere next.

So that is, I think that is a significant thing right there, you've got a bunch of Tesla enthusiasts

listening to this podcast voting in this poll and a full third of you said hey this kind

of gets me thinking that maybe I need to look elsewhere next time.

So I thought that was a pretty significant result in the poll.

And then from there, 9% of you said I would have preferred a new S or X for my next car

but I'll go with a non-Tesla instead, 6% of you said I would have preferred a new

S or X for my next car but I'll go with a Model 3 or Y next instead, 9% of you said

I'm not even remotely thinking about my next car yet which is also perfectly reasonable.

And then 3% of you said I just ordered a new S or X because of this news which if we're

talking about 367 people that means we're, that's like, let's see what is that, that's

like 10 or 11 of you that actually ordered an S or an X, in fact I got emails from

a few of you that did so I thought that was pretty cool because I was talking about

for myself last week it made me want to buy a Plaid S, this thing getting discontinued,

it just made me want to get one so I'm very happy for the number of you that were able

to do exactly that.

So again, stop by each week and cast your vote in the poll found at patreon.com slash Tesla

podcast.

Alright, getting to the headline story this week, I'm putting it in with the appetizers

here up front.

Tesla introduced a new variant of the Model Y this week but sadly no, it was not

the Model Y L, at least not yet.

We'll see if it is coming sometime later this month as the tip that I passed along to you

suggested or if it could end up maybe that will change and we'll hear about it after

the X has gone away.

So in other words that would be Q3, maybe we get the Model Y L then, so we'll see.

But in any case the new variant is an all wheel drive version of the Model Y standard except

Tesla has dropped the standard name.

So it is now the Model Y all wheel drive and then the cheapest Model Y for $40,000 is

now just Model Y rear wheel drive.

Standard all wheel drive is still called premium and performance is still called performance.

So this new all wheel drive standard variant, and I'm sorry I gotta keep using standard

here just for the sake of discussion to be as clear about this as possible, so the standard

all wheel drive is $42,000 so it's just a $2,000 premium over the rear wheel drive

Model Y.

And I think I was talking to Lawton from Chicago this week who's one of my super generous Roadster

in space tier backers and that top tier of the Patreon gets a one on one hangout with

me each month if they elect to take it and Lawton typically does and we always have

a good convo and we were talking about this this week and he made the good point

that I believe $2,000 is the cheapest that Tesla's ever charged for a second motor in

a car.

It's typically been more like $5,000 to get a dual motor versus an otherwise identical

car but in any case, $2,000 and for that extra $2,000 you obviously of course gain

all wheel drive but you also gain a lot more performance because this version of the Model

Y does 0-60 in 4.6 seconds compared to 6.8 seconds for the standard rear wheel drive.

However, there is a trade off and if you've been around Tesla's for a while you probably

know what I'm about to say and that is range.

You are going to be sacrificing 27 miles of range going from 321 miles of EPA rated range

on the rear wheel drive to 294 on this all wheel drive version.

I think for most buyers of the standard Model Y, either if you're considering the

rear wheel drive version or the all wheel drive version, if you're asking would I recommend

spending that $2,000, I would honestly say probably not.

However, if you're in a climate where you get winter weather, that's where the $2,000

might really come in handy.

Now proper tires in winter weather is the most important thing.

It's far more important than having all wheel drive.

Having proper winter tires or in some cases were appropriate snow tires on your car.

But that's really who I think should really be, would probably get the most out of spending

the extra two grand on that all wheel drive version of the standard Y.

I would suspect though that the overwhelming majority of those standard Model Y buyers

probably don't care about the extra performance.

The Model Y in general, performance is not top of your list the way that it might be

for Model 3 and Model S buyers, the sedans that tend to be a little sportier and attracting

more performance oriented customers, I can look straight in the mirror on that because

that is me.

Sure, I could have bought a Model Y this time around for the 2nd Tesla when we were replacing

my wife's old Mini Cooper because it would have been a heck of a lot more practical, all

that extra cargo space, but I prioritized performance, so that's the way I went.

Anyway, I don't think necessarily that people considering this all wheel drive standard

Model Y are really going to be that moved by the drastic increase in performance here.

And certainly they're not going to be thrilled about losing 27 miles of range, so it really

is going to be about the all wheel drive, getting that all wheel drive for those buyers.

And of course the extra performance I should note really is it's not so much that it's

intentional on this, it's a happy side effect of having that second motor, having the dual

motor configuration, you just get a whole bunch more power.

And so the car does 0-60 quite a bit quicker.

Now speaking of the naming thing though, the whole standard nomenclature really didn't

last very long at all.

So I have to think that there's a reason for that.

I wonder if Tesla wasn't seeing the order numbers that they expected when they introduced these

lower priced 3s and Ys, and maybe they thought that the word standard made it sound like

it just wasn't good or wasn't good enough, like oh it's just the standard, I don't

want that.

I don't know, I just feel like with this change in naming convention coming so quickly after

Tesla introduced it, that they probably didn't just change their minds for aesthetic reasons,

like oh well, because AWD sounds better, like no it's actually more annoying to say.

So I have to expect that there was a reason and the first reason I would suspect would

be sales numbers, it's affecting the bottom line, they're not seeing the take rate on those

that they were expecting.

It's possible that they did just get tired of having to refer to it as a standard and

so they decided well let's just have the standard one just be the Model Y and then

the premium one will need to be called the premium if you're not talking about the

base model.

So I don't know and I don't have anybody from Tesla here to ask but that's my suspicion.

So to wrap this up before we move along to all the rest of the Tesla and EV news this week,

if you're keeping count there are now a total of five Model Y variants here in the US.

We have the again standard as I'm calling it but the standard rear wheel drive and

the standard all wheel drive, premium rear wheel drive and all wheel drive which have

more range and better sound systems and the performance version which means if the Model

Y L is coming soon per that tip that I passed along to you a couple of episodes ago it means

we might soon go to six Model Y variants which is that's a lot that's a lot for really for any car

maker Tesla or otherwise but just a just a fun little fun little nugget there all right moving

along more appetizers remember the Apple CarPlay rumor that I headlined an episode with when it

first popped up late last year well the holiday software update where I was hoping

we might see the Apple CarPlay get dropped that came and went without CarPlay but a new report

suggests that Apple CarPlay is still in the works at Tesla. I saw this on Tesla Roddy who writes

although we have uh excuse me although we saw little to no movement on it since the November

speculation Tesla is now reportedly still developing the user interface Mark Gurman

a Bloomberg writer with a weekly Apple newsletter stated that CarPlay is quote still in the works

at Tesla and that more concrete information will be available quote soon regarding its development

now if you're not familiar with Mark Gurman he is legit on the Apple beat so he's not just

pulling out a rumor for clicks it's not a clickbait thing thus I personally take this

report as being pretty darn rock solid and thus for me as far as I'm concerned

CarPlay is absolutely happening and now it is simply a question of when when will it roll out

to our cars I I would probably set my expectations for it to only be available for the Ryzen chip

cars I hope I'm wrong and that it does in fact roll out to to the the hardware three cars the older

cars with the Intel mcu's as well which I own one of those too and it'd be great to have it in both

cars I guess maybe maybe there is good reason to be optimistic that it's going to roll out to

the entire fleet and not just to the newer fleet because Apple CarPlay does run on lots of

other cars that have far inferior processing horsepower compared to an Intel based Tesla so

all right that that's got me that's got me now feeling a little bit more optimistic about it

now that I think through it but anyway so for the question of when I would say the spring update

which is probably going to come along in another month or two I guess well yeah another

next couple months or so could be in there could be the summer update and then hopefully it wouldn't

take any longer than that especially if German is reporting that more concrete information will be

available soon he doesn't say that it will be rolling out soon necessarily but more concrete

info probably means that it's it's getting there and that Tesla is going to be getting it out to

in the not too distant future but so if you've been waiting for this then this report should come as

good news and reassuring news for that matter another appetizer sized bit of news as we

continue to get this week's episode going it comes courtesy of our Tesla tips or friend

Sawyer Merritt who found Tesla's just filed trademark applications with the U.S. patent

and trade office for the new Tesla Roadster's silhouette logo you know similar to the triangle

side profile logo for the Cybertruck that the Tesla's been using as a branding image you know

they've got it on hats they've got it on shirts etc so the the new Roadster has a new little

silhouette logo you know the little illustration from the side that is that we will probably be

seeing on shirts and on hats before too long and also the this in a separate filing but at the same

time with the patent and trademark office for the new Roadster wordmark the font the new ROADSTER

wordmark I will admit this is not a major bit of news but to me it's relevant because

a it's anything anything new on the Roadster after you know we're going on we're past eight years

since actually wait well no yeah we're past eight years since it was unveiled we're in year nine

since that car was initially unveiled and it's also it's it's proof of life basically on the

Roadster it is an indication that progress is happening on that car and that it is finally

moving along and it's going to happen so anyway about the image that silhouette image in the trademark

application so the silhouette is just three simple curved lines basically a sort of hood

a sort of top roof glass on down to the back of the car and then a body line

along kind of the the fender and well not the fender the door and the side of the car

so it's three lines that give you just a a very very minimalist of of pen strokes basically as

something of a sneak preview of the car's primary body lines admittedly though it's not much of a

sneak preview on purpose no doubt until we will see it hopefully in less than two months from

now in fact the 2017 prototypes silhouette could pretty well fit into that new little

three line silhouette drawing i want to give a shout out to listener joel listenby who sent me a

grok generated interpretation of what the car could look like basically he gave grok the silhouette

image from the trademark application and grok generated a car out of it and uh that car looked

pretty good it had kind of a lamborghini mercilago vibe to me it doesn't matter it's just ai generated

it's probably not what the actual car is going to look like but it was nice to to see it

realized into something more tangible and grok did a good job of making a good looking car

out of it i thought but uh i would be i for one would be pretty thrilled if the car that we're

hopefully going to see on april first stays fairly close to that 2017 version that we saw

eight plus years ago because to me that original prototype is a gorgeous design that has already

aged well even though the car never came out that design that prototype still looks really good to me

especially from the back the back of that thing if and if you don't know what i'm talking about

just google image search it the rear of that car is just beastly it is so aggressive and so cool

looking that i would be thrilled if if the rear end of that car ends up being the same

when it finally goes into production but at the very very very least the final car that we'll be

seeing soon enough is going to be freshened up to some degree or it could even end up being

very radically different from that 2017 design we shall see as for the wordmark the roa d

s t e r wordmark it is to describe it generally i think it's fair to say it's kind of a stylized

riff on the tesla font the e in roadster is even the three horizontal bars like it is in the tesla

logo like there are no vertical lines in the e on the roadster wordmark but uh the roads

unlike the tesla wordmark the roadster wordmark is slanted forward as if the word itself is moving

super fast which i guess is fitting for this car so again hopefully we're less than two months out

from seeing this thing in fact if it's going to be april first that means we're just over seven

weeks away but who's counting who's counting maybe me i might be counting on a similar note

while we're talking about the us patent and trademark office so i also found another trademark

application pertaining to the cyber cab because you may remember the story that i talked about

not too long ago here on the podcast where another company in fact a liquor company

had already beaten tesla to the punch on trademarking the term cyber cab so it looks

like tesla now has its backup plan if they're unable to secure cyber cab so this comes from

soyer's account on x and he writes tesla has filed two new trademark applications for the words

cyber car and cyber vehicle in preparation for launching the cyber cab in some u.s states where

tesla is not allowed to use the words cab or taxi now as i recall on that episode from not too

long ago i think i had suggested robo cab yes that was the that was what i said because i thought

it was cool because it was super close to robo cop and i and i also just liked the sound of the

word robo cab but i guess cyber car is literally one letter off from cyber cab so it is about as

close as you can get to cyber cab without actually using the word cyber cab so i suppose that'll work

just fine too uh admittedly cyber vehicle that doesn't do much for me but hopefully that's the

plan c so it's it's the fallback to the fallback plan so we'll see what happens with that as the

cyber cab nears its supposed start of production in april uh next the in fact the last appetizer

i have for you this week has we're already 23 minutes in here the winners of the latest

round of community voted new supercharger locations have been announced and i'll just

give you i mean there it's a whole bunch of it's 36 of them so i'm not going to read all of these

but the community voted and thus there will be new locations new supercharger locations going in

in turkey poland italy estonia checia lithuania portugal south korea hungary slavakia kubek

japan malaysia greece and then in the u.s and canada we have portage township in michigan

heber utah i don't know if that's heber or heber i'm gonna guess heber peintop arizona peintop lakeside

key lago in florida poultry in the uk in the uk columbia mexico uh gerildton australia

curvil texas winter park colorado rocky mountain house in alberta west glacier in montana new glasgao

in novus scotia atoka oklahoma lake ticapo in new zealand excuse me rhinelander in wisconsin

rexburg idaho gualala california harrison arkansas clovis new mexico waycross georgia clearlake iowa

and summer side in prince edward island i say this every time that there's uh the tesla

does these every quarter but i just love that tesla involves the community on this i really do i

think it's so great and really all ev fans should be voting in this since at least here in north america

they've all got access all the evs now have access to the supercharger network so it really is not

just a tesla community thing anymore it is an ev community vote and i think that's pretty cool

before i continue with the rest of this week's tesla and ev news i want to mention this week's

lightning round mini episode over on patreon for those of you kind enough to be supporting what

i'm doing here on the podcast i put up a mini episode every single week for the kind folks at

the ten dollar per month tier or higher on patreon this one uh continuing what i hope is going to

be a monthly tradition here this is the second one now i answered your questions in the monthly

mail bag and there were a ton of them a ton of great questions that end up being a 40 minute

lightning round episode one of the longer ones lots of interesting questions were asked

topics like what i think about the possibility of the the quote-unquote model two returning

the possibility of s and x returning there was a great question that i i had uh i at least i i

think maybe some surprising responses i think to the question of whether or not the next gen

roadster will have fsd and a whole bunch more again it was 40 minutes worth so thank you to

everybody on patreon who posted a question and thank you to everybody who is kindly supporting

me on patreon at that ten dollar per month tier or higher the support tier start you can you

can support me for just five bucks a month if you like uh that won't get you the lightning round

mini episodes but it will get you an ad-free episode every week and early access to that

ad-free episode each week uh the ten dollar per month tier again gets you the ad-free the

early access and all hundred and uh seventy nine now my goodness hundred seventy nine and

counting of those weekly lightning round mini episodes to learn more to sign up to join the

patreon head on over to my patreon page at patreon.com slash tesla podcast and then a quick word

from my friends at accelerate auto this goes out to ev owners not just tesla owners one thing

that comes up a lot on this podcast is how long people actually plan to keep their cars in fact

stay tuned for a call about that later in the podcast and whether people realize that or not

there is a timing element to ownership that matters more than most people think and when it

comes to ev coverage it's really not about if you buy it it's about when right and we learned

that in the world of tesla more than more than probably any other car maker and coverage is

generally more cost advantage when it's when it's purchased before your factory warranty ends

rather than after that's because pricing eligibility and available options change with time and mileage

even if there's nothing wrong with the car think of it like tires you have you don't wait until

they're bald to plan a replacement you look at mileage you look at where you look at timing

ev ownership works the same way x care helps ev owners understand where they are now what

changes later and when it makes sense to act and you can talk directly with tesla and ev experts

not a generic call center so if you want to find out more considering an extended option cover

extended coverage option for your ev you can go to x care dot com and during checkout use the

referral code lightning for a hundred dollars off that's l i g h t n i n g referral code

lightning for a hundred dollars off if you'd rather speak to a human on the phone by all means

call them up eight four four seven five five four one eight six again that's x care dot com x c a r e

dot com referral code lightning for a hundred hundred dollars off or call one eight four four

seven five five four one eight six moving right along with more tesla news this week tesla's

picked up another major third party endorsement with the model y named the best electric vehicle

in consumer reports newly released 2026 top picks list while the annual ranking spans just 10 vehicles

across the entire market the model y stood alone as the only full ev full bev to earn a category

win i saw this on drive tesla canada who wrote consumer reports evaluates more than 260 vehicles

each year combining its own road testing with predicted reliability safety performance and owner

satisfaction data for 2026 the organization noted a clear industry shift toward electrification

and hybrids but when it came to pure evs tesla's best-selling vehicle remained the standout

according to consumer reports the model y continues to deliver a rare mix of traits that

appeal to a broad audience performance was a key factor with the publication highlighting the vehicle

strong acceleration and responsive handling attributes that have long separated tesla

from more traditional automakers entering the ev space at the same time the model y's hatchback

design and roomy interior give it everyday practicality that many electric sedans and compact suv

struggle to match consumer reports pointed to a smoother ride reduced cabin noise thanks to

acoustic glass and interior upgrades that make the vehicle feel more premium than earlier versions

charging infrastructure also played a role in the model y's win consumer reports specifically

referenced access to tesla's supercharger network as a major ownership advantage particularly for

drivers who regularly travel long distances perhaps most notable is the improvement in reliability

consumer reports said the model y's reliability metrics continue to trend upward addressing

one of the most common criticisms levied at tesla's early vehicles combined with strong

safety scores and high owner satisfaction the publication concluded that the model y now presents

a more complete ownership package than ever before well as always all i can really say to this

is congratulations to the tesla teams all of them i i will say for my part i am particularly impressed

as drive tesla canada did point out as well by tesla's improving reliability score now

this of course this is because it's the new model y and that's it is quite a bit better in

in basically every way than the first generation model y but that's really the one that if more

casual buyers see that that is gonna stand out to them because that's really that's the one

the reliability thing that's the one that the fudsters have been pointing to lately so now

guess what the fudsters will have to move the goalposts again to something else that they

can complain about their their shoulders must be sore from having to haul the goal the goalposts

constantly moving them back i i don't know how they're they must need chiropractic visits on

the regular i don't know all right anyway uh next up china will ban hidden door handles on

electric vehicles starting next year under a new national safety standard forcing automakers to

equip their cars with mechanical exterior and interior handles saw this one on tesla roddy who

wrote the rule effectively ends a design trend pioneered by tesla and widely adopted across

china's electric vehicle market china's ministry of industry and information technology noted

that the new mandatory national auto safety standard on ev door handles will take effect on

january 1st 2027 for models that have already received approval and are scheduled for launch

automakers will be allowed to complete design uh required design changes by january of 2029

under the new rules exterior door handles must remain operable even in scenarios involving

irreversible restraint system failures or thermal runway incidents in the battery pack in other words

fires doors must also be capable of opening even if the vehicle loses electrical power interior

doors must include at least one independent mechanical release handle per door as well

hidden and electrically actuated door handles have become mainstream in recent years

as ev makers pursued cleaner styling and improved aerodynamics tesla pioneered the hidden handle

design and it was adopted by most chinese ev manufacturers either uh in either fully hidden or

semi-hidden forms as noted in a cnev post report today about 60 percent of top-selling evs in china

use the design chinese regulators have stated that the designs pose safety risks particularly in crashes

or power failures where doors may not open from the inside or outside authority cited multiple fatal

incidents in which occupants or rescuers were unable to open vehicle doors after collisions

well my understanding here as it pertains to tesla is that franz von holzhausen had already

said that tesla is redesigning their door release system well prior to this this new uh law going

into effect this new regulation in fact yeah i'm i am i am remembering correctly on that

here is a quote from the bloomberg story on this from september of last year so about four months

ago maybe five tesla is looking to combine the electronic and manual door release mechanisms

which are currently in separate locations the company's longtime design chief franz von holzhausen

said on a bloomberg news podcast von holzhausen said the decision is intended to make the

handles more intuitive for occupants in a quote panic situation end quote uh note too that the

story talked about exterior door handles as well as interior ones though so presumably the three

in the y aren't affected on the outside uh at least in terms of their operation their their physical

operation because the uh they are manual even though they're flush with the body obviously

you push in the fat side and you pull on the thin side but when you do that it's popping an

electric door release so that component of the door from the you know inside and outside

is going to be getting redone uh model s i suppose would be an even bigger problem with this new law

because of the electronically self-presenting door handles on the outside of the car but tesla's not

only discontinued the car outright but they had stopped selling it in china a good little while

ago anyway uh what's interesting to me here is that if you look around and i'm digressing

a bit here since this story is about china and most american made cars aren't available there like the

tesla model three and model y are but a lot of cars at least here have also copied tesla's door

handle design and i'm old enough to remember when the model s was the first car to ever have

self-presenting door handles or as fran's likes to describe it doors where the handle

is extending out to greet you as if it's a handshake i mean nowadays so many cars have them

because i think everybody realized what tesla did is that oh the this having the handles flush

with the car makes a small but very meaningful aerodynamic efficiency bump over a traditional

door handle that sticks out away from the body of the car but i guess we will see now in the

not too distant future what fran's and lar's and the engineering team cook up as a combo design

and engineering solution for model three and model y in china which will probably not just be limited

to giga giga shanghai built cars this the new design that they have will almost certainly be

implemented into all model threes and model y's worldwide at all four factories uh the last

piece of tesla news i have for you this week is a welcome one tesla to increase dash cam recording

history keeping up to 24 hours of footage saw this on not a tesla app who i've cited here a number of

times over the years before who wrote one of the longest standing frustrations of tesla's dash cam

feature is the arbitrary one hour limit on rolling dash cam footage regardless of the usb drive

plugged into your vehicle whether it's a 128 gigabyte flash drive or a two terabyte ssd the

vehicle only retains the last 60 minutes of driving before overriding it that means if you

forget to save footage within the hour it'll get overwritten with new footage what's worse is that

the vehicle uh records any time it's awake meaning that even after you park the vehicle is still

recording and overriding data that is finally changing according to the release notes for

an upcoming software update in china tesla's dash cam feature will now support dynamic recording

durations instead of a hard cap of one hour your vehicle will now look at the total storage capacity

of your connected usb drive and scale the recent clips buffer accordingly the updated logic

follows these benchmarks with a 128 gigabyte drive you'll now retain up to three hours

of rolling footage based on available storage space with a one terabyte drive or larger

you'll now have up to 24 hours of rolling footage this change allows users to retain

video for much longer before it's overwritten even for smaller usb drives the three hour limit

is a significant increase over the previous one hour limit for rolling footage well i love this

this is great i mean there's nothing to complain about here i have tesla's official one terabyte

ssd drive in well at least in the new car i guess it's only in the new one i forget i think i think

i've got a one terabyte ssd in the old one talk to check uh that that the old one is currently

at immaculate reflections getting its new it's fresh coding of uh it's fresh ceramic coding

applied i will be picking it up tomorrow after after uh recording this on friday night so

looking forward to seeing it but then yeah i'll have to check have to check what size storage

drive is in there but anyway up to 24 hours if you've got a one terabyte drive or larger plugged

into your car so that that is great uh i will happily take the 24 hours of footage you hope

that you'll never need it you'll hope hope i'm just gonna leave it hopefully rather than

risk jinxing anything by saying probably but you'll hopefully never need it but if you ever do

you'll be glad it's there i have a couple of other ev news stories for you this week the first

one's quick it's for rivian and uh rivian is now offering autonomy plus for either a one time

$2,500 payment or a $50 per month subscription so this is the point to point end to end you know

fsd sort of their their initial version that's supposed to be coming along sometime this year

but it is now available to purchase my advice from my tesla experience would be

to probably not at least i would politely advise you to not spend any money until rivian has

actually delivered on that point to point functionality that they say is coming soon

this year when they do that and if it's good because you'll be able to check out reviews and

videos on youtube and stuff then by all means $2,500 for my part seems pretty darn reasonable

in the grand scheme of things certainly it's a heck of a lot cheaper than the $8,000 that i paid

for the tesla but you know that 2,500 is pretty reasonable once it's shown to work and you can

always even after watching videos reading reviews you'll always you'll be able to just give it a

try yourself in your rivian for 50 bucks a month just spend a month 50 bucks and then you can

buy it if you like it so it is worth noting that the specific fine print on that is that rivian

is not currently doing an account based thing here like tesla they are tying the purchase

tying the subscription to the car rather than to the owner rather than to your rivian account so

just bear all that in mind as as you make your decision on this moving forward if you're a rivian

owner and then finally this week thank you to my friend trevor for sending this story to me it

comes via the cbc who writes prime minister mark carney is repealing canada's electric vehicle

mandate that required all new car sales to be electric in a decade scrapping a true dough

environmental policy instead carney is taking his own approach by introducing stronger greenhouse gas

emission standards for vehicle models 2027 to 2032 to encourage automakers to produce more

zero emission vehicles he said quote canada will set a new more ambitious sovereign path to

reduce automobile emissions we're tightening by twofold our greenhouse gas emission standards

and we're giving the industry the flexibility how they achieve that whether through plug-in hybrids

evs more efficient ic e vehicles end quote carney expects his new emission systems will lead

system pardon me will lead to 75 percent of new cars sold in canada being electric by 2035

an ambitious goal but still less than the previous mandate that carney is ditching

government officials said they haven't precisely calculated how much carbon pollution the new

system will eliminate but carney said it was modeled based on grams per mile so quote from

carney it's a 57 percent reduction in the emissions as this ramps up for the vehicles in the country

end quote carney announced that the liberal government is also launching a new 2.3 billion

dollar program to offer consumers and businesses purchase or lease incentives of up to five

thousand dollars canadian for evs and up to $2,500 for plug-in hybrids plug-in vehicles must be

under $50,000 canadian to qualify and be made by countries canada has free trade agreements with

which would exclude any vehicles made in china the price cap will not apply to canadian made vehicles

but the maximum $5,000 and $2,500 rebates will only be available for this year starting next year

both rebates decrease steadily until the program is slated to end after 2030

well i would be curious to hear how my canadian listeners feel about this i mean it's something

that's the good news it is a meaningful incentive the problem is if you're after a

teslas specifically is that only the model y standard qualifies that vehicle is exactly

$50,000 canadian 49,990 meaning you cannot put a single hardware option on that car and still

qualify for this rebate and as it turns out the model 3 standard isn't available in canada

at all only the premium model 3s are and those are $80,000 canadian so there is exactly one tesla

in one configuration that qualifies for this fortunately there are some other ev options

in the mix here too that do qualify i was looking this up two of the three trims on the new

nison leaf qualify there's at least one trim on the upcoming limited time return of the chevy bolt

as well plus a trim of the chevy equinox ev also appearing to meet the criteria are the kia ev 6

which is a pretty popular car in the ev space the volkswagen id 4 same thing the kia nero

and the toyota bz 4x the latter two i'm not personally a big fan of but they are a lot more

affordable than uh well then then teslas options in the country at least so there are some options

but really only at the bottom of the ev market and that must clearly be canada's intention with

this is they want to only offer this incentive to buyers who theoretically really need it or

would really benefit from it compared to people buying more expensive evs that's everything i've

got for you in the week's worth of tesla and other ev news but now it is time for the ride the

lightning hotline i promised you an expanded version of this this week so let's do it

if you've got a question comment or discussion topic for the podcast you can call in anytime

using two methods one use your smartphone's built-in voice recording software record your

question please try to keep it to 90 seconds or less so i can get to as many calls each week as

possible then email that file to me at tesla podcast at gmail.com alternatively you can call in and

leave a message on the ride the lightning hotline it's a toll free number you can call it

whenever you like and that toll free number is 1-888-989-8752 that number again 1-888-989-TSLA

and a quick reminder if you know someone special with an upcoming birthday anniversary graduation

or some other special occasion you can give them a unique gift of recorded voices from friends

and family telling them why they're special the recordings can be podcasted which is what i'm

doing with them or put on to a keepsake visit life on record dot com to learn more and thank you

to the life on record folks for providing me the ride the lightning hotline here for most of the

duration of the podcast like most of the last 10 years love it hey ryan jason out here in utah

hey thanks for everything you do for the show hey i just wanted to comment on the s and x and

all the autonomy changes for tesla from the earnings call i mean at the end of the day

the s and the x probably had to go i don't think that was any secret but the challenges is that they

seem to want to just move to totally autonomous and not make driver-based cars anymore you know as

someone who loves to drive and someone who uses fsd all the time there's times i still want to

drive because it's fun plus i go skiing or camping or off-roading and i'm always going to

want a car with a steering wheel so my fear is that tesla just isn't going to do any more

new car segments or really do anything for the driver who still wants to be able to play

sometimes too besides a super expensive roaster so you know this is the kind of thing that you

know could force people to go start looking at other car segments i'm always going to want to have

fsd but other car manufacturers are also going to continue to improve their autonomy and unfortunately

this is the kind of thing that may force me to have to start looking at other options here

in the years to come thanks ryan for all you do appreciate bye thanks for your call jason

i have seen a very similar sentiment expressed by a lot of people and quite honestly i feel the same

way there was a period not long ago and i may have even said it on this podcast where i thought

that i would have teslas for the rest of my life but while i certainly can't predict the future of

what my family's transportation wants and needs are going to be i can say that as i sit here

now in 2026 it's possible that i might not buy another tesla i mean my wife's car is likely

going to be the next one to get cycled out barring any unexpected issues with my new one

but that's not going to be for a while the 2018 car is only seven and a half years old

it just hit 80 000 miles on the odometer it should knock on wood have plenty of life left

and it doesn't have any monthly subscriptions on it because it has premium connectivity included for

life as all the cars did back then and i'm super lucky that that car has free lifetime super

charging on it but when the time does come we'll see i mean maybe a model y makes sense maybe another

model three will make sense but i could also see my wife potentially wanting something like the

rivian r3 which will probably be out by the time that my wife's ready for a new car since again

we don't anticipate that being for a long time so we'll see i mean again we could easily get another

three or maybe a y for her if the next refresh for those two cars includes a steering wheel and

pedals in them it's entirely possible that they don't just like how the cybertruck as we

heard on the earnings call last week is apparently going to be converted into an autonomous cargo truck

so i hear you jason and as i think i said last week i do worry as a tesla fan that that elan's

getting a little bit out over his skis here in terms of the world maybe won't quite be ready or

willing to abandon manually driven cars yet even as autonomy arrives next up is stefan from monoray

hey ryan it's stefan from monoray i just listened to the earnings call and i just had one point to

make it's it's really interesting it seems like elan has removed the emotion from driving

which is completely contrary to the very last sound bite every week that you put on your podcast

or he talks about maximum fun he's removing the fun he's replacing his fleet with cars that just

focus on getting you from point a to point b comfortably and safely which is good but he

is removing the human factor which is one of the biggest parts of driving my tesla that i

enjoy i enjoyed taking the roads and accelerating through the curves and having having emotion

between point a and point b it's not just about getting there which is what i think tesla is decided

to do now so it's not going to be about maximum fun anymore and that's really unfortunate he's

sanitizing the uh the experience now and you were right uh last week when you talked about

most people not wanting to farm out their car to other people uh people it's an individual thing

having a car is is something personal uh the marketing of many cars talks about that talks about

how it's your identity and he's removing all that it's truly unfortunate i think

they're going in the wrong direction here and it's sad to see anyhow that's not maximum

fun to me bye bye and thanks again gosh stephan you are absolutely right i hadn't even thought about

that truth be told when i make each week's podcast i just click and drag those audio files that i

sneak on to the very end into my project file i never actually listened to them anymore i've

always liked them though that's the reason i put them at the end of the podcast they're

like funny little easter eggs in case you actually listen through the entirety of each episode

but you are absolutely correct the 2026 elan clearly does not think about tesla cars in the

same way that the elan from that clip did it's from his very first appearance on joe rogan i

don't actually remember exactly what year that was but in short people like you and me enjoy

the journey as much as the destination if i may sum it up that way i found myself knotting

along an agreement with everything you were saying on your call i appreciate you calling in

next up here's mathew from portland oregon here i am this is mathew in the portland oregon area

thanks so much for this podcast and your work at uh i gm so i have a thought about tesla and

autonomy i'm thinking about this because i plan to trade in my 23 model y for a mono yl assuming

the rumors are true or the rivian r2 once they start delivering it with lidar if i wonder if rivian

will actually pull ahead of tesla in the long run in autonomy in terms of safety and if tesla

will get stuck at level four whereas rivian may be able to achieve level five and this possibility

may happen thinking because a camera only system compared to a camera plus ladder system has

one limitation that may be surmountable the one that is insurmountable as far as i understand

so the potentially surmountable challenge is that a camera only system has to infer distance and size

based on depth cues which our visual system has to do as well but this challenge may be surmountable

through developing algorithms with the assistance of lidar validation which tesla does appear to be

doing but the insurmountable challenge is dealing with weather conditions that create poor visibility

you know dense fog heavy rain heavy snow as far as i know there's no way to get around that

limitation with a camera only system so i'm curious about your thoughts on this topic and

also thoughts of any of your listeners who have training and engineering or AI programming

since my training is in neither area thanks have a good day thank you for your call Matthew

no one knows what the future holds for rivian certainly but we do have a pretty good

idea of tesla's immediate future and that's the cybercat if that car is given regulatory

approval it is a level five car lidar or no lidar because it's got no steering wheel or pedals

how reliable it is in snow fog and other adverse weather conditions as you mentioned

does remain to be seen for what it's worth there have been pictures and videos posted online

of cybercabs testing on the roads in for instance the chicago area and tesla itself posted a

pic of a cyber cab on the roads up in alaska so i think you're well within your rights to be

skeptical of the vision only fsd systems performance in really rough winter weather conditions

but tesla to their credit isn't just running them around in california and texas where that

kind of difficult weather doesn't really exist at least in the in the kind of areas that

tesla has a presence as for rivian as i've said before i am rooting like heck for them

i can't wait to see where they go with their system and how long it takes them to get there

i mean on the one hand they're still at the start of their autonomy journey but on the other hand

they might be able to skip some steps by learning from what tesla and wemo have already been

an example of that would be neural nets tesla as we know switched over to all neural nets a couple

years ago after coding everything by hand for years and years before that rivian has the

advantage of knowing to just start with the neural nets which they are doing cheers matthew

thanks for the call uh moving down to california here is ben hi ryan this is ben from california

long time first time my question is in regards to uh if you could tap one of your tesla sources

to let us know if we buy a used model three or why um specifically i'm looking at a hardware

four car with full self-driving equipped from a from a private party from a normal person

not from tesla after february 14th will that still transfer over can we get confirmation on that because

i'm leaning towards uh buying my next tesla that way to still retain the full self-driving

with the car but i would like confirmation before uh going that route love the podcast thank you

bye hey ben thank you for taking the time to call uh good news for you here in short

you're fine cars with paid for fsd can still be sold privately and the fsd will stay with the car

just like it is now it's the fsd transfer to a new car that's ending so no need to worry

about this upcoming deadline in your particular situation and i expect that that might help a

lot of other people out there feel better too so hope that helps ben thanks again for calling in

and moving along we've got still several more calls to go this next one is from a regular say

hi to brian from pennsylvania thanks ryan appreciate that so this is gonna be a little pessimistic uh

you're playing um devil's advocate with elan maybe a little bit on this and i'm curious

your thoughts and listener's thoughts here too um why does anyone want to buy a tesla now

they're not going to be making cars they're not going to be putting their effort into cars

why would i want to buy a new tesla especially if i'm a new person coming to the brand

i have the feeling this move might affect sales in that sense where new people are gonna

they don't see the whole picture of what elan wants to do and they're going to oh

they're not making cars anymore i'm not gonna buy a tesla i'll go buy whatever else

and my other comment here elan is saying that autonomy is the future i disagree and i feel

that autonomy is part of the future things have been going autonomous for a hundred plus years

my furnace is autonomous i don't have to load coal or wood into it it automatically does that

my icemaker in my fridge is autonomous i don't have to fill trays with water now i know he's

talking to a whole another level here of autonomy but i feel that's decades away you know as the

old elan statement is next year next year so my my question here to the group is in the areas that

have robo taxes and i know you in san francisco have them um you have uber and you have maybe

some tesla ones my question is why have you not switched over to using those exclusively

to get around and yes i know that is kind of a weighted question in a sense maybe not a fair

question but i feel it is because if autonomy is the future that elan thinks it is why are not

you all who have these available to you making that jump thanks again i hear you brian and elan

and tesla are certainly making a giant bet that being first to autonomy at least in terms of a

regular affordable car that most people are going to be able to find a way to acquire is the key

to tesla's future along with the humanoid robots i think the point that you bring up about people

shying away from tesla cars because of an apparent lack of focus on them even if for now again tesla's

only discontinued three percent of their yearly car production and they're about to launch a new

car in april that if elan proves to be correct will be the equivalent to 100 percent of their

current production so basically doubling their current output but because perception is often

reality even if it shouldn't be right so that's to your point and and that's goes to the poll from

earlier this uh this episode that i was telling you about too but also as i was saying on last

week's episode i do think there's an emotional component to autonomy that he's not accounting

for that a lot of people are not going to want an autonomous car even if it's affordable and

even if it's safer because people fear change that's not a criticism we are all human and humans

just generally speaking don't tend to embrace change more often than not and thus those people

will not easily cede control of something in this case the act of driving right so we'll see

it is a bold bet as we all know and it means that the next few years of tesla are going to be

mighty interesting one way or another thank you as always for your calls brian there are

let's see one two three more calls to get to this week so let's roll on here with joey from ohio

hey ryan this is joey uh from ohio i've called in a couple other times but i've been listening to

your podcast and wow like i as a fan of tesla i'm so on the same page that you are disappointed

that there's so much focus on this whole automation piece and not on the driver experience

on the car i fell in love with the model y and i love the cybertruck i'd love to have one one day

just not in the in the scope of my pay right now but uh just feeling like all this stuff is

just disappearing as options just almost sickening so uh hopefully they find the right path and who

knows i just can't see people getting in cabs and driving around i can't see everybody wanting a robot

in their house i mean for someone like me who lives out in a rural part of the country i'm not

going to hail a cab from my school where i work to come home every day so that seems kind of

pointless and living out in the country just isn't something that that's that's going to solve

problem for me so anyway uh just wanted to share my thoughts i agree with you on many levels

i appreciate the call joey in fact you make a fantastic point that i failed to make

about more rural areas in fact i heard from a few other people on this too the reality is

a whole lot of the country here in the united states but this probably applies pretty globally

as well don't live in big cities autonomy can still benefit you certainly but in a car that

you own you're probably not going to be hailing a cyber cab as you mentioned so we shall see what

teslas future holds a next commenting on the fsd subscription changes is robert from texas

hey ryan it's robert from texas i've got a call related to the fsd and the monthly uh payment

on it and also the taking autopilot off the cars first on the monthly payment the hundred

bucks a month uh one thing you have to take into account is the time value of money if you actually

use kind of six percent as a time value of money you know assuming you can get six percent

you know in stocks and bonds or whatever um then actually uh the hundred bucks a month

versus 8 000 is actually 8.5 years i think versus 6.7 so 8.5 years so i think economically you know

that's pretty that's a pretty similar or good deal because most of us don't hold our cars

for that long eight and a half years uh some of us do but uh and also because the transfer

ability is not always guaranteed um you know that's probably not that bad a deal

so on the surface of it it looks worse than it is but when you do the math especially with the cost

of capital it um you know i think it works out okay on the autopilot getting rid of that i think

that you mentioned this it's a safety issue i think if tesla actually has really good data

which says that autopilot uh use saves lives and and having that as a standard package saves

lives then they should add that back i mean that i mean that's just crazy to try and get a little

bit of economic gain out of eliminating that uh so i would ask tesla and hopefully you play

this on your show and someone from tesla listens that they actually look at the data

and look at it in terms of saving lives as opposed to an economic decision to take autopilot

off the basic package love your show thanks a lot talk soon bye

robert i always appreciate your very considered calls i take your point about the time value of

money but i would politely very politely counter with this and i did have to look this up to fact

check myself here americans are keeping their cars far longer than eight and a half years on average

i found an article from roiders from 2024 that says in part quote automobile owners in the united

states are holding on to their vehicles longer according to a new study the average age of

us cars and light trucks this year rose to a record 12.6 years according to the report by s and p

global mobility up by two months from 2023 end quote and then for another bit of data here's an

article from 2025 that i found on carscoops.com that says quote according to data from s and p global

so the same same data provider here as the as the other one from 2023 or excuse me 2024 so according

to data from s and p global the average age of vehicles in the us has reached a record high of

12.8 years in 2025 up from 12.6 years in 2024 end quote so again i totally hear you on the time value

of money but removing the option to buy fsd outright for eight thousand dollars when statistically

speaking more americans than ever are keeping their cars longer and again not just longer but

way long enough to justify to to quote unquote make money on the eight thousand dollar option

versus paying the subscription option and on your second point yes i would hope that tesla

would go back and look at the safety data that they have every quarter they put out numbers that

tells us how much safer their cars are than an average car with autopilot activated or fsd so

that is part of why i am upset about tesla a self-proclaimed safety first company removing

basic autopilot from all the new cars thank you as always robert appreciate the call and this

last one comes from not too far from where i'm podcasting from it's brian in menlo park

asking about the roadster that i have coming my way go ahead brian hey ryan this is brian from menlo

park i've been curious about the next gen roadster that she won through the referral program i know

it's it's been a really long time and you don't talk about it all that much but i'm curious

do you think tesla will follow through on that referral program promise and then

also do you get any communication with tesla on this are they just quiet on the whole thing

is it in your tesla app um yeah i'm just wanting to know because i know you deserve it and looking

forward to you telling us how that whole thing goes when and if it ever does but um yeah let us

know like an update thanks so much hey brian thanks for the call the big thing that i want

to be very very careful about with that car is to always make sure that i am liberally

sprinkling anything i say with regards to winning that car with a a heaping helping of humility

i just i never i hope that i never sound like i'm bragging about that car the reality is i was

in the right place at the right time and it's the craziest thing that's ever happened to me

in terms of just unexpected good cool things i mean sure i had spent three years prior to

winning that car building up this podcast and its audience by showing up here every single week and so

yeah i did put myself in a position to get those referrals but it was still very much

a right place right time thing i acknowledged that so with that said i'll tell you to answer

your questions i've had zero communication from tesla about it none of the winners have to

my knowledge because quite honestly and i don't mean this in any sort of mean way but i just don't

think anybody at tesla is thinking about the approximately 80 or so roadsters is the best

guess that they owe to a number of winners or at least they haven't thought about us for most

of the past eight years and i get it because they haven't thought about that car at all for

most of the past eight years the company has had a lot of other priorities but the good news is that

those two cars are in my tesla account when i log into my account on a desktop i see my 2018 model

three performance my 2024 model three performance and then two founders series tesla roadsters

that are marked referral award in there so i have four squares 2018 model three 2024 model three

founder series roadster founder series roadster and i do absolutely think that tesla is going to

make good on them i i really do and i hope maybe it's just naive wishful thinking maybe you're

all going to be pointing at me and laughing and saying haha you actually thought you were going

to get that i don't know but i do think they're going to make good on it the cost to them will be

really an absolute drop in the bucket of just one quarter's profits and it would quite frankly be

an incredibly bad pr look if they suddenly had a bunch of winners super mad because tesla

pulled back on their end of the deal and besides tesla came out pretty far ahead in that deal i would

say it took 55 referrals to win a roadster so if you add up the amount of cars worth that those 55

referrals generated it's way more than 250 grand so anyway to kind of move along here

my plan is to keep the car if i can afford to do so and it is an if because even with the car being

quote unquote free after paying substantial income tax on the value of the prize and sales tax i

presume i'm gonna have to pay on that as well there's still on an ongoing basis annual vehicle

registration which is expensive just on any car in california but the higher price of the car the more

the annual vehicle registration costs there's insurance costs and there's tires which that car

is going to have michelin sport cup twos or some equivalent to that which i looked it up

they run roughly three thousand dollars per set and last about 5000 miles because they're

basically street legal racing slicks for all intents and purposes now can you tell that

i've had a lot of time to think about this yes i've gone and priced out the tires so

it it wouldn't be a trivial thing to keep even when it's free even when it's a roof a prize

that i have won but because it's a thing that i would absolutely never in a million years have

in the normal course of life if not for this right place right time circumstance i can tell you again

having had years to just think about this i can sincerely tell you that i want nothing more than

to share the joy of this car and share the fun of winning this car and i want to try and do something

good with it i want to give as many rides to people as possible and hey brian you're in

menlo park so you are very welcome to come and meet up with me but what i mean by do good with

it which sharing you know giving rides hopefully that's some basic level of good is just

giving you know sharing that fun with other people but i also want to generate something

a little more out of it than even that so my plan is to get a qr code well hopefully that's an easy

thing i want to get a qr code for a charity or non-profit that i care about and right now i'm

thinking that it would be the norcal boxer rescue association who does great work trying to help

boxers out there and they don't have nearly the funding of say canine companions who as you all know

i am affiliated with happily i donate my time to help raise service dog puppies

actually on that note i'll just share with you all right now that we got the

bittersweet news that minna the future service dog she career changed she did not make it

which was just it was surprising to me i'll say because she was so

keen on the training with me the base level stuff but i talked to her trainer they were

the trainer was nice enough to call me to to share the news and directly you know on the phone

with me and when i mentioned that she said yes sometimes the dogs the higher the higher level

of work they're just not you know they get anxiety or they're just not up for that work and so

the good news is that my co-raiser friend who's a former listener of this podcast

he he and his family that again we we raised minna together with them they are

adopting minna forever because the puppy razor gets first dibs to adopt the dog forever if if that

dog does career change if they don't graduate so mine is going to be in a very happy home and

selfishly it'll be nice i'll get to see her and my family will get to see her so that's cool

it's it's still i will say and and i was texting with with michael my co-raiser friend

we were both saying like it is still it's sad like because even though you know it's it's sad to say

goodbye to them and i realize i'm going off on a tangent here but it was kind of relevant so

forgive me for a minute it's sad to say goodbye to them right like the the number one thing by

a mile that i hear when i talk to people about when they ask like oh you know they see the vest

and they're like oh what what's that what's the deal with that dog and i explained it's a service

dog puppy and we're volunteer puppy razors and we raise the puppy from eight weeks to about

15 16 months and then we we give them up we turn them in and they go into professional training

and hopefully go graduate and like i would say eight out of 10 people say to me oh i could never

do that i could never give them up which is a perfectly reasonable emotional response right

because you get attached to the dog but uh it is i had the privilege and the pleasure

of zelina our first one graduating she made it and she graduated and getting to attend her graduation

ceremony and more importantly than that to meet the family that she was gonna live with forever

and help it was it's a very moving experience and it makes the the emotional difficulty of saying goodbye

to the dog that you've raised since eight weeks trivial by comparison and so that's what i would

say politely to anybody that maybe might be interested in puppy raising with canine companions

or another service dog organization but is either you're kind of held up by by that idea that difficult

thought of giving the dog up but anyway so mine mine is gonna have uh it's sad that she didn't make

it but um although speaking of so it turns out zelina uh her family they're they're going

out of the country for a a physical therapy opportunity that happens to be in another country

so they're not taking zelina and they've so very sweetly reached out to us and said would you

guys like to watch would you guys be able to watch zelina for us and it's like well you're

doing me the favor so we're gonna get to see zelina again zelina will be back on the podcast

in is it next week i think two weeks from now i think it's two weeks she'll be back so anyway

i realized sorry i got way way off track there but to circle back to roadster and again so i canine

companions is an awesome organization but thankfully they are very well funded not that they don't

graciously accept donations um but that they're they're in good shape the norcal boxer rescue

organization that's who i'm thinking like because they they could really genuinely use the donation so

my my thinking is anybody that takes a ride in the roadster i will politely request but but to

be clear not require if you say no that's okay politely request that you scan the qr code that

i'll hopefully have and that you donate say ten bucks to norcal boxer rescue in exchange for

the ride in the roadster and so um that's that's how i'm that's how i want to try and use that

car to do good that's that's my thinking and then if i'll tell you this if the car

really can hover as elon's been talking up for years i mean he he's been using the word fly

which obviously it's not going to like literally fly but if it hovers and that's a cool party trick

kind of thing i would love to see if maybe any local children's hospitals would want me to come by

and and demo the hovering and let the kids who are being treated there sit in the car ask

questions poke around on the screen that kind of thing so sorry i know that was an extraordinarily

long answer and and admittedly i recognized that was kind of a navel gazing thing too that i was

that i was doing there but um brian you can tell again i've had many many years to think about all

of this so thank you so much for your call and and to anybody that wasn't interested in hearing

any of that i apologize for how long that tangent was and i will now move along that was

actually the last call that that uh especially after how long that was so i'm going to stop there for

this week but i will get to more of your ride the lightning hotline call phone calls next week so

keep them coming and again if you're wondering how to call in i gave you the two calling methods

and the easy instructions for both at the top of this segment as for what's going on with me

in my car i am up to 98 percent i think i might have said this last week but i'm at 98

fsd usage since version 14.2 and just today i had to pick my daughter up from school normally she

takes the bus because she had an orthodontist appointment and so uh i let fsd do the whole

thing so let's see how this goes because as i've as i've talked to you guys about

many times over the last several years since i've been lucky enough to be in the fsd beta

program san francisco has is a is a tough place for fsd it's a tough place for a self-driving car to

work and uh it's really i would say version 12 was the first one where i could like it could

legitimately drive around san francisco with minimal disengagement uh version 14 now so i'm on i'm on

whatever the i think it's 14.2.2.4 i think but uh it went across the city to my daughter's school

and when it got there it parallel parked itself on the street my daughter gets in the car i put

in the address for the orthodontist office it drives us back across a different to another

side of the city uh and did a tremendous job there too and then after we're done you know had it take

us home and it did i had zero disengagements i did have to goose the accelerator once at a particularly

tricky intersection that i've talked about on this podcast before but it it just did i was

really incredibly impressed like that that was probably i mean it wasn't that many miles of

driving but it was all hardcore san francisco city mileage uh and it was probably in a total of an

hour and it's not like we were in stop and go traffic it was just san francisco takes a while

to get across it was probably a total of an hour and 15 hour and 20 minutes worth of driving

zero disengagements it did incredibly well i was really genuinely super impressed with it i mean it

was it was awesome so that's what's going on with me and my car uh as for your pro tip of the week

it comes from john in palo alto this is john from palo alto long time listener i think

2016 i started listening right after we got our model s and love your show

ryan anyway i have a simple pro tip and that is uh i always seem to struggle trying to get the plug

out of the receptacle when i'm using the 120 volt portion of the mobile charger so my fix is just

to get a cable tie wrap it around the cylindrical portion of that plug and before you cinch down

the cable tie fully tuck the tail of the excess cable tie behind uh next to the rubber receptacle

behind the band of the cable tie and then snug it tight so you have a little loop to be able to

stick your finger into and pull out from the wall anyway seems to help me uh a lot i've been

using that uh one cable tie for about a year now it seems to hold just fine anyway i hope this helps

some folks and uh thanks again for your show john thank you for your pro tip and thank you for being

such a longtime listener 2016 that's almost all the way back to the very beginning of this podcast

i love it as for your pro tip you know how tesla just started awarding all of us those

different badges in our app at the end of last year based on the different charging related

things we did well i don't have an actual badge to give you here john but i'm awarding you the

ride the lightning macgyver award for 2026 for this make your own handle life hack to more easily

unplug that 120 volt adapter out of the wall with your tesla mobile connector now by the way

for younger listeners who might not be familiar with macgyver it was a tv show where the hero

was a guy known for solving problems by coming up with creative solutions using the things around

him it was a very very 1980s show in the very best of ways but anyway i am happy to share this

in case other listeners out there find it useful thank you john very much and if anybody else

out there has a good tesla or ev pro tip of the week i'd love to hear it please do send it in you

just call in like you're calling into the regular ride the lightning hotline please try to keep it

to 90 seconds or less just like with a regular call and i gave you the two calling methods the

instructions for those just a little while ago so refer back to that before i go i want to

mention a few friends of the podcast including a new friend infinity shield quick funny story

did i ever tell you all back in 2018 not long after i got my first tesla about the time that i

accidentally lowered my garage door onto my tesla as i was backing it out of the garage

it was a long time ago and i'm really lucky that i got away with literally just a super

small scratch on my roof glass in fact when i told my wife about it she couldn't even see it

she couldn't even find the scratch but if i had had the infinity shield back then it never

would have happened so you're wondering okay well what's the infinity shield most garages

like mine only have a single beam sensor that detects objects about six inches off the ground

this is a leading cause of damaged car hatches bumpers and garage doors ask me how i know

so infinity shield is the world's first full coverage garage door sensor utilizing 25 beams

yes you heard me right 25 beams it looks like i mean you can't see the lasers obviously but if

you could it would look like the laser sensors surrounding the hope diamond in a heist movie

right that the cat burglar is trying to like contort his or her body through to try and

get to the diamond so it detects protruding bumpers it detects open hatches or anything else in the way

of the garage door it's easy to install yourself with no special tools it does not need to be

aligned ever and it's compatible with all garage door openers it's really a heck of a piece of

engineering get yours at infinity dash shield dot com and use promo code rtl at checkout for 10 for a

10 discount or click the link in the episode description so again that's infinity dash shield

dot com promo code rtl for a 10 discount and then of course we have my friends my also other

new friends at rpm tesla they've been around a long time they specialize in oem style tesla upgrades

focusing on carbon fiber interior enhancements and functional accessories that integrate seamlessly

with teslas factory designs and they are all about compatibility meaning their accessories don't

compromise teslas design language their safety systems or their functionality rpm tesla designs

a ton of stuff in house like all their steering wheel upgrades for the yoke and the round grip

they prioritize quality over speed so you're not getting cheap junk here uh speaking of cheap

though you can buy with confidence because rpm tesla offers free returns no restocking fees

and lifetime warranties they feature over 500 diy installation videos to make your installation

quick uh the they only sell the best high quality accessories over 1500 of them since 2013

and they are family owned located in southern california they also continually refine their

designs based on actual customer feedback in all rpm teslas about enhancing your tesla ownership

experience elevating what's already awesome about your car check them out at rpm tesla

dot com and use the promo code rtl pod plus rtl pod and the plus sign for 10 extra

off of your next order that's rpm tesla dot com promo code rtl pod plus abstract ocean dot com my

long time friends and they're still around still thriving for good reason again if we go there

right now abstract ocean dot com uh so much good stuff i'm gonna click on model three here

let's see model three they've got satin black logo emblems of course tesla themselves switched over to

satin black ones for the 2026 model year if you've got a 2024 or 2025 new model three as i do

maybe you want to grab these they're 19 bucks for a front and rear pair that's that is uh pretty

darn affordable they've got premium floor mats for the model three door noise reduction seals

they've got the super hydrophobic camera cover the puddle lights in different colors the wheel center

cap kit depending if you're running without the arrow cover on your wheel depending on which

wheel design you've got they've got the ultra premium tempered glass screen protectors for the

front and second row screen as well those are just 50 bucks so i could keep going and going all night

here but you gotta check them out abstract ocean dot com when you get there click on the vehicle

that you have whether it's a tesla a rivian or something else and it will show you all the

great accessories and products that are available from abstract ocean dot com for your vehicle

and make sure that when you've got everything you like in your online shopping cart you use the

coupon code RTL podcast all one word no spaces use that promo code at checkout to get 15 percent

off of your first order the snap plate and the newer stronger snap plate plus available for

all the teslas the rivians lots and lots of evs at this point you can get yours at every amp

dot com slash RTL there's a coupon code here as well for a discount for you guys and that coupon

code is simply RTL this is the front license plate bracket it's a nice clean minimal design i

recommend it if you either want or are legally required to have a front license plate on your

car i recommend the snap plate or the stronger snap plate plus both are made from recycled made

in the usa plastics with stainless steel reinforcements and they both have that signature minimalist

aesthetic that blends in super nicely with the front end of your car so again get yours by

clicking the link in the episode description or by going to every amp dot com slash RTL

and don't forget the coupon code RTL immaculate reflections if you are in need of or desire of

some top shelf professional detailing services for your car whether it's your tesla or any

other car in your garage that you really care about and you're in are going to be in the

greater san francisco bay area i cannot recommend strongly enough that you reach out to jeff at

immaculate reflections make sure you do it ahead of time you got a book and appointment because he's

he's always got a lot of cars in there i was just there and he's he had let's see what he had a good

maybe half a dozen cars in there so get in touch with him get on his calendar and then work with

him he'll work with you on what you want to do maybe that's paint protection film

on the front end of the car maybe that's ceramic coating which is exactly what i'm having

redone literally right now uh well i mean he's not working right now it's 9 34 p.m

at least i hope he's not working the car should be just the ceramic should just be curing curing

overnight but anyway i'm having my ceramic coating redone because the first ceramic coating

that i had on that 2018 car that i got right when it was new lasted seven years seven years

well worth the money and so i'm having it done again because we plan to keep this as i was saying

earlier in the podcast we're planning to keep my wife's car the 2018 model 3 performance for a good

long time more so we want to keep that finish protected with ceramic coating keep those evil

uv rays from getting down into the paint and damaging that paint so ceramic coating you can do

maybe paint correction where jeff will get into the finish of your car take out all those little

swirls and imperfections and have your paint looking better than it ever has so whatever you want to do

jeff will work with you to go set up an appointment go to the website which is irdetailing.com

click the contact button and either the the center of the homepage or the top left corner

and when you reach out just you know again mention what you're looking to do

maybe what your budget is and again jeff will work with you make sure to mention that you're a ride

the lightning listener and then any work that you have done you will get the ride the lightning

discount applied which he was kind enough i got the ride the lightning discount so i'm very very

grateful for that the patreon i mentioned it earlier let me mention it one more time that

is the primary way that you can choose to support this podcast i'd be mighty grateful if you would

at least take a look at my patreon page find it at patreon.com slash tesla podcast or click the

link in the episode description you'll see the five dollar tier you'll see the ten dollar tier

you'll see the seven day free trial option you will see the annual pledge option if you

don't want to do the month to month thing but you're like hey you know what ryan yes i'll throw you

i'll throw you a one-time payment for a year of supporting you uh that's that's there too and i

i say thank you for doing an annual pledge by giving you a 10 discount on that annual pledge

so you can find all that stuff on the patreon page again patreon.com slash tesla podcast

the uh podcast is mostly found on all well it's it's available on all the big podcast services

that's what i'm trying to say spotify tune in apple podcasts youtube podcasts etc just search

ride the lightning tesla this podcast should pop right up click the follow button and then

you will that's totally free by the way and then you'll get a push notification anytime

there's a new episode which for this show is every sunday at nine am eastern six am pacific

also the referral program my my referrals got reset i noticed because i had maxed out you

guys had used them all of them which is great super appreciated but if you are buying a new

tesla let me just double check here ah so the perk now is uh if you order with my referral

code you'll get three free months of full self-driving which i presume is on top of the 30 day free trial

that you already get i hope i actually don't know for sure hopefully it's not just two extra months

and it's a total of four months but anyway if you're planning to buy a tesla feel free to use

my referral code or anybody else's you don't you don't have to use mine and use anybody's

but if you're going to buy a tesla you might as well get the three free months of fsd for that's on

model y or model three if you're buying a cyber truck or getting in on a model s or x before they go away

the referral code the referral link pardon me will get you a thousand dollar discount off of

those three vehicles eight any of those three vehicles cyber truck model s or model x so to

use my referral code you have to order through it so type in in any browser mobile or desktop tes.la

slash ryan73014 and that will take you to the referrals page where it says order with ryan's

referral and then you click which car you want you can either buy from inventory or custom order

a new car and when you submit that order it will have that referral baked in so you'll either get

the three free months of fsd or you'll get the thousand dollar discount and finally you can

email me anytime teslapodcast at gmail.com you can also follow me on x and or instagram i have

the same username on both and that username is dmc underscore ryan finally let me say hello and thank

you to the top tier patreon backers i'm going to start with the grandfathered in plaid level

supporters this week this tier is officially no more on my patreon but these very kind and

generous folks continue to pledge at that tier and so they get all the perks and bonuses

that they should get for continuing to be at that tier big thank you to george cassiopo

logan willis peter chalet eric randolph dory and steve guberman the tesla owners of taiwan

ron lee charlie gillespie jeff angwin chase cabaneas the lydia family aron alchool jared brown

jamey 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 next up the maximum plaid backers

we've got our monthly zoom hangout monthly patreon hangout coming up on zoom tomorrow as i record

this should be a good one an extra big thanks then goes out to the maximum plaid backers who

get invited to every single one of those hopefully i'll be seeing a number of you tomorrow on the

call jonathan wales cameron clark daniel grummer seth capello 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 will stedman jeremy harris chris beach tom mills

choreo donnell aron john codie jolsap paul casarino 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 severs chip hooper matt chinander robert moran rave christopher man

michael williams and eric harbert finally the roadster in space tear backers big thanks goes out

to pete white lile austin steve radspinner fernando cordero laughton from chicago

shawn nidig neal weaver jackson wallace ralph 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 and uh want to wish by the way victoria

aya coveto messaged me her dad turned 96 this week happy birthday to your dad victoria that is

awesome and what's awesome is that all of you hung in to this point this was another long episode

where are we at here we're at uh oh yeah we're well past the 90 minute mark so

i will stop talking here and let you get back to your day or evening whatever you happen to be

listening but uh this was a fun one i hope you enjoyed it i had fun putting it together

and recording it happy electric motoring my friends and i'll see you back here next week

you

ilan musk people don't like ilan musk the guy found a paypal and tesla and people are like

yeah but he's a troll and a bad dad i'm like so is mine he did nothing to fight climate change

also have you been in a tesla have you been in a tesla my buddy let me drive his tesla i laughed

out loud and 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 549: Tesla Introduces New Model Y Variant

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