Episode 552: The $60,000 Cybertruck Seems to Be a Hit
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Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new kind of electric truck made by Tesla. It looks very different from regular trucks and runs only on electricity instead of gas.
Car
Tesla Model 3
The Tesla Model 3 is a small electric car made by Tesla. It is popular because it is cheaper than other Tesla cars and has good performance.
Term
non refundable order deposit
When you want to buy something popular like a new car, you might pay some money first to hold your place. This money you pay won’t be given back if you change your mind.
Car
Morgan Six Plus
The Morgan Plus Six is a special sports car made mostly by hand in Britain. It looks old-fashioned but has a strong modern engine inside. People like it because it feels like a classic car but drives like a new one.
Term
all wheel drive
All wheel drive means the vehicle sends power to all its wheels at the same time, which helps it drive better on slippery or rough roads.
Term
referral link
A referral link is like a special code you can share with friends so they get a discount when buying something, and sometimes you get a reward too.
Term
loyalty bonus
A loyalty bonus is a special discount given to people who already own a product from the company, to thank them and encourage them to buy again.
Term
trim
A trim is like a package for a car that decides what features it has and how much it costs.
Term
air suspension
Air suspension is a special kind of car suspension that uses air bags instead of regular springs. It helps the car ride smoother and lets you change how high or low the car sits.
Term
headliner
The headliner is the fabric or material you see on the inside roof of a car. It helps make the car look nice and can keep noise down.
Car
Tesla Model Y
The Tesla Model Y is a small electric car that looks like a tall car you can sit in comfortably. It uses electricity instead of gas and has cool features inside, like a roof lining that changed color to black. People talk about it because it's popular and has new design changes.
Term
extended coverage plan
An extended coverage plan is like extra protection you can buy for your car after the original warranty runs out. It helps pay for repairs so you don't have to spend a lot of money if something breaks.
Concept
EV ownership
Owning an electric car means you have to take care of it differently than a regular car, like watching the battery and knowing when to fix or replace parts.
Car
Tesla Model 3 Performance
The Tesla Model 3 Performance is a fast electric car that can go really quickly and is a type of electric sedan. The 2018 version is one of the first ones made.
Car
Tesla Cybercab
The Tesla Cybercab is a name Tesla wanted to use for something related to their Cybertruck, which is a new kind of electric truck. They had some problems because other people wanted to use the same name. This is about who owns the name.
Term
wiper
Wipers are the parts on your car that clean the front window when it rains or gets dirty. Sometimes they can make noise or wipe when they shouldn't, which can be annoying.
Brand
Lucid Group
Lucid Group makes fancy electric cars that are designed to be fast and have a lot of tech features. They are trying to make more cars and sell them to more people.
Concept
production guidance
Production guidance is when a car company tells people how many cars they think they will make soon. This helps people know if the company is growing or not.
Car
Lucid Gravity
The Lucid Gravity is a new electric SUV that the company is making. It's a bigger car than their sedan and will have lots of cool features and run on electricity.
Car
Lucid Gravity
The Lucid Gravity is a new electric SUV that a company called Lucid is making. It will be a fancy car that runs on electricity and is bigger than their first car. People are excited because it shows the company is growing.
Car
Tesla Model X
The Tesla Model X is a big electric SUV that started selling in 2015. It has special doors that open up like wings and lots of space inside. It's popular because it’s fast and good for families.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is a fancy electric car that started being sold in 2012. It can go far on one charge and is very fast. It helped make electric cars popular and is still a top choice for people wanting a luxury electric car.
Concept
vehicle launch delays
Sometimes new cars take longer to come out than planned because of problems making them or getting parts. This is called a launch delay.
Term
EV sedan
An EV sedan is a car with four doors that runs only on electricity, not gas or diesel.
Car
Hyundai Ioniq 6
The Hyundai Ioniq 6 is an electric car that looks like a regular sedan but runs on batteries. It's designed to be very efficient and go far on one charge.
Car
Bmw I4
The BMW i4 is an electric car that looks like a normal BMW sedan but runs on batteries. It tries to give a fun driving experience without using gas.
Car
Mercedes-Benz EQS
The Mercedes-Benz EQS is a big, fancy electric car that is very comfortable and has lots of features. It's bigger than most midsize electric sedans.
Car
Lanzador
The Lanzador is a new electric car that was shown to the public in 2023. It has a fresh look and new technology and might be sold soon. People talk about it because it shows what future electric cars could be like.
Car
Lamborghini Urus
The Lamborghini Urus is a fast and fancy SUV that looks sporty but can carry more people and things. It started being sold in 2018 and is special because it’s both a sports car and an SUV. Many people like it for its speed and style.
Car
Ferrari Luce
The Ferrari Luce is a new car from Ferrari that people are excited about. It looks great and is expected to be very fast. Fans of Ferrari are watching it closely because it shows what the company is doing next.
Concept
EV game
The 'EV game' means making cars that run on electricity instead of gas, which is becoming more popular.
Car
Lamborghini Countach
The Lamborghini Countach is a very famous sports car from the 70s and 80s that looks like a sharp triangle. It has special doors that open up and is very fast. Many people think of it as one of the coolest cars ever made.
Car
Lamborghini Diablo
The Lamborghini Diablo is a very fast and cool sports car made in the 1990s. It has a big engine and looks sharp, making it famous among car fans. People remember it because it was one of the best supercars of its time.
Concept
mobile service
Mobile service means a mechanic comes to you to fix or check your car, so you don't have to drive it to a shop.
Car
Ford Expedition
The Ford Expedition is a big SUV that can carry lots of people and stuff. It's good if you want to tow trailers or go on big trips with family. People talk about it because it uses more gas but is very useful.
Term
driver door unlock mode
This setting lets the car unlock just the driver's door and charging port when your key is nearby, so you don't have to unlock all the doors at once.
Term
FSD
FSD means Full Self-Driving, which is a technology in some cars that helps the car drive itself in some situations.
Term
EV
An EV is a car that uses electricity to move instead of gas. It helps reduce pollution and can be cheaper to run.
Car
Audi S3
The Audi S3 is a small car that is faster and more fun to drive than regular models. It has a strong engine and can drive well in different weather because of special wheels. People like it because it’s both practical and sporty.
LIVE
On this week's episode of Ride the Lightning, the Tesla and EV podcast, the newly offered
$60,000 Cybertruck seems to be generating plenty of demand, but its price is already going up.
Plus, Model Y's recent interior changes appear to be imminent for the Model 3,
Lamborghini abandons its EV plans and more.
What's happening friends? From scorching San Francisco, we had summer in February here today,
very strange, but a nice change of pace for us when it's often not even 75 degrees in July.
My name is Ryan McCaffrey, welcome to Ride the Lightning, your weekly Tesla and EV podcast,
publishing on March 1st, 2026, recording here in the evening on Friday, February 27th.
I've got a tired Lily the Silly Labrador just out of sight from me after a nice little warm
weather walk and a nice chill Daisy the Boxer looking out the window to my left.
Zelina has gone back home, it was so nice to have her here for just to have a nice visit.
It was like she was at summer camp. She didn't have to be a service dog, she just got to play with
two other dogs for a week, so that was fun. Well, I want to say thank you to all of you.
I got so many supportive messages after my sort of unplanned rant, I didn't intend to
to get as riled up as I did, but talking about the $60,000 Cybertruck last week and the whole,
well, only for 10 days comments. So thank you to those of you that sent me a supportive comment.
And sure enough, since last week's recording, we do have a clarification and update on the status
of the $60,000 Cybertruck. And I want to caveat this before I continue a moment further, that by
the time most of you hear this, you know, this episode publishes on March 1st, the price of the
$60,000 Cybertruck, the standard all-wheel drive version, will be going up on the day this episode
comes out. So this is one of those rare times where the recording and publishing of this podcast
just falls into a spot where it's, it kind of leaves me, leaves me hanging out to dry a little
bit. I wish I could get you the accurate information, but in any case, we'll see what happens. I guess
whatever did happen as you're listening to this, you can either not along if I get it right, or you
can just smile and laugh if I get it wrong. But we did get a clarification this past week from
Tesla CEO Elon Musk of the many people that responded to his very vague post of, you know,
only for 10 days that I was talking about last week, one person asked, how much will it be in 10
days? And Elon responded, quote, depends on how much demand we see at this price level, end quote.
And then after that, we got a proper clarification of this on the Tesla.com website,
on the Cybertruck Design Studio, where at the very top of the Cybertruck Design Studio page,
highlighted in gold, it says very clearly price increases after February 28th. And so
Elon's comments seem to suggest that if they did see sufficient demand for it,
they might keep that price. And now all of you know the answer to that. I mean,
it does seem like there's demand for it. I'll get to that in a second. But keeping it at that price
does not seem like it's going to be the case according to the wording on the Tesla website.
And so when the price goes up by the time 99% of you are hearing this, it's a question of how
much, how high it goes from the $60,000 it's at. My heart says $65,000. My brain is planning for the
what I would consider a worst case scenario at $70,000. I can't imagine it would be $75,000,
because then it's right on the heels of the premium all wheel drive at $80,000. So I think
70 is the ceiling, 65 is probably the best case scenario. So we'll see. Again, you all know the
answer to this as you're listening to me do this podcast. But circling back to what I meant by the
there does seem to be demand for this $60,000 version of the Cybertruck, the estimated delivery
window is showing for me here in California as a quite vague 2027. I just checked again right
before recording this because when I'd initially made my notes for this week's podcast earlier in
the week, it was showing for me as September to October. So now it's pushed all the way back to
2027. Does that mean January, February, 2027? Does that mean November, December, 2027?
We can't be sure. And I guess if you're placing an order with your $250 non refundable order deposit,
you're not going to know for a little while, at least the answer to that either.
Now this variant isn't going to start delivering at all until June. So if Tesla is already booked
out six plus months, six to 18 months, I guess we have to call it. It's probably closer to six
than it is to 18. But again, we don't know for sure. So if they're already booked out six plus
months on this variant, it means they're getting orders. Now that is, there is one thing we have
to reasonably consider here. And I promise I'm not trying to reign on the parade. And this isn't
what I think is happening, but we have to acknowledge the possibility. The possibility is
that Tesla is simply not allocating very much Cybertruck production to this $60,000 variant,
which again is possible. I don't think it's in Tesla's best interest to be making people wait
six to 18 months to get a $60,000 Cybertruck. So I don't necessarily, not necessarily,
I don't subscribe to that reasonable hypothesis that it's a very limited slice of the Cybertruck
production allocation, but it's, it's not all of it, right? Because if I choose the premium
all wheel drive version, which I would say prior to the introduction of this $60,000 version was
probably 90% of Cybertruck production. Because again, just anecdotally what I see on the street,
because I do see lots of Cybertrucks here in the San Francisco Bay area, I would say maybe one in
10 Cybertrucks are Cyberbeasts, you know, with the Cerberus three headed dog logo in the back
right corner of the tailgate. So the new $60,000 all wheel or whatever it costs now as you're
listening to this, but the new regular all wheel drive version is cutting into that allocation
somewhat, not, not the Cyberbeast allocation, but the premium all wheel drive allocation.
So five to seven weeks is what it shows for premium all wheel drive. 2027 is what it's showing
for the basic all wheel drive. So I mean, my best guess would be that it splits down the middle,
that if it was 90, you know, 90% was premium all wheel drive, it might now be 45 premium, 45
regular all wheel drive and 10% Cyberbeast. So regardless, whatever the number actually is,
Tesla is clearly getting a bunch of orders if they're showing 2027 as the deliveries if you
place an order for one today. Now here's another sign that they're getting as if that wasn't enough
of a sign, but here's another sign that they are getting orders for this thing. You can no longer
order it with a referral link, meaning you cannot get a $1,000 discount unless it's your own code.
You can still use a loyalty bonus, the loyalty benefit. If you're an existing Tesla owner,
if you have a car, you have a Tesla account, but if you're a new Tesla customer using someone's
referral link, you can no longer get $1,000 off and get it for $59,000. That was the plug was
pulled on that in the middle of the week. And so I just want to come back to the criticism that I
was levying last week. I do stand by it introducing a variant for 10 days, especially after you've
sent out formal company marketing emails, I got one, did you, announcing that new version with no
mention of a timeline being on that $60,000 price. It's not great. Now to Tesla's credit,
they did send out a second email this past week that did mention the February 28th deadline that
the price would be going up after February 28th. And so the question is, well, why did that happen?
Why did it go down the way it went? And my best guess is probably because the content team or
in-house marketing team that crafts those emails probably didn't know about the 10 day thing when
they were crafting and sending those emails, because it probably wasn't communicated internally
if it was even premeditated at all, or given that it was posted by the CEO in the middle of the night,
he may have just decided it. Maybe there was some meeting that day about the truck and,
oh, we're barely making any money on it, and he may have just decided in the middle of the night,
you know what, let's just cut this off after 10 days and we'll see what demand looks like.
And then he just goes ahead and posts on X without running it by anyone, because that's how this
company has always operated. And mostly that's been a pretty good thing in terms of their nimble,
their quick, they make moves that generally favor the customer, but in this case, again,
I just feel like this really could have gone down a lot better. As I said last week, I just think
it's just not fair to the Cybertruck team who busted their tails to put together a good $60,000
version of the Cybertruck that was actually compelling without presumably losing the company
money on each unit sold. And like I said, I also don't love how you're treating customers,
especially with the follow-up, because you're basically holding a figurative gun to your
customer's head saying, oh, you like this $60,000 Cybertruck? Well, it sure would be a shame if it
went away in 10 days if not enough of you buy it, and then it's seemingly going away anyway.
I mean, most people can't make a car purchasing decision in 10 days
if they weren't already planning one. A car is a huge purchase. I imagine a lot of people got
that first email that Tesla sent out announcing that new $60,000 trim and thought, okay, yeah,
cool, I'll be super interested in that when we're ready to buy our next new car later this year or
next year or whatever. But they circle back around months later or a year later, whatever,
and find that the price has gone up possibly out of their budget range. Well, they're not going
to be happy. They're going to have gotten excited about it, and then it won't be available to them.
So I don't love it. I'm disappointed by the way it was handled. It is what it is. Now,
you could say you could make a case here in defense of the way this has gone by saying, well,
anybody could go ahead and just lock in the $60,000 right now or as I'm recording right now,
not by the time you hear this, but you could lock it in by just putting in an order with that $250
non-refundable deposit. And if your number comes up, if the time's not right for you,
or you change your mind, whatever, then you're out $250, but if the timing does work out for you
whenever your name comes up in line in 2027, and it all works out, then you do get to take
advantage of that $60,000. So I see both sides of it. I still don't love how this went. I'm
definitely less upset about it this week than I was last week. But again, I'm really curious
what the price is going to be. If it's $65,000, again, you all know the answer to this right now
as you're hearing it, but if it's $65, honestly, just being honest, as upset as I was last week,
if it's $65, that's still a pretty, I think for what this truck is, the range, the performance,
the utility, I went over all of it last week. I think $65,000 would still be pretty appealing
to a lot of people. If it goes to $70,000, or even, I'll say this, if it's above $65,000,
I think that's where it's going to lose a lot of the enthusiasm, a lot of the momentum
that it's had for this past week plus since it was originally announced. So I hope it's
no more than $65,000. Maybe there's even a world where it's $62,500. I feel like that's
maybe unlikely. I don't know why I have nothing to go on that but my gut, but
we'll see when you're listening to this. I'll be waiting to see. I'll wake up on Sunday morning,
and the first thing I'll do is, well, the first thing I do on Sunday mornings is check to make
sure that this podcast went up okay, because I schedule it in my RSS feed, my hosting service,
and then I'm at the mercy of Apple Podcasts and Spotify and all these guys to pick it up and
publish it properly as scheduled through my hosting service. So that's always my first thing. It's
no joke. That is the first, first thing I do when I wake up on Sunday morning. But the second thing
I'll do is check to see what the price of the standard all-wheel drive Cybertruck is. But
again, you know, this whole thing, it just, it could have been avoided if they had said
from the get-go. This is an introductory limited time offer, $60,000 for this Cybertruck.
It's only going to, you know, if it had been messaged this way from the beginning,
I certainly would not be nearly as upset for, for customers or for the Cybertruck team,
but it's just because it didn't go that way and the way it went, I just feel like my, my gut says
that this wasn't a planned thing, that this was a CEO decision in the middle of the night for,
and I'm not saying he didn't have good reason. He, I'm sure he, you know, he's, he's put together
a trillion-dollar company. I have not. I have never done that and I probably never will do that.
So, you know, I, I get that there's, there's a level of trust that a lot of people have there,
but I just, you know, we all make mistakes. We all could handle certain things differently.
And I feel like I just, I wish this had been messaged better from the get-go, but in any case,
it is definitely worked to some degree because Tesla is, is booked out on the
standard all-wheel drive Cybertruck into next year. But yeah, this, this is again,
this is why most companies have communications teams to get on the same page with messaging
before you go out with your message. But in any case, I'm, I'm, all we can do now is move forward
with what we have. So in the meantime, well, at least while I wait for what the new pricing is
going to be, as promised last week, I made the new $60,000 Cybertruck the subject of this week's
Patreon poll, which I remind you is open to everybody. It's totally free. You don't have
to be supporting me on Patreon. You don't have to be giving me a dime on there. Just stop on by
my page once a week. The poll usually goes up on Tuesday nights. My, my Patreon page can be found
in the link in the description or just by going to patreon.com slash Tesla podcast.
And the poll question was temporary or not, and it was, how do you feel about the $60,000
Cybertruck variant? Thank you to the over 300 of you that voted as of the time of this recording.
And not surprisingly, 46% said I'm not interested in the Cybertruck at any price.
That's perfectly reasonable. It's a full-size truck. A full-size truck is not for everyone. However,
I think what's interesting in this poll is the 31% of you that said I would at least
consider this version, whereas before I would not consider an $80,000 Cybertruck. So I thought
that was pretty telling here. And then after that, it's single digits. 9% of you said this is the
right price for me. I'm ordering one or I will eventually, if it sticks around beyond 10 days,
8% of you said great price, but the air suspension is a deal breaker for me, understandable.
And 7% of you voted $60,000 is still too expensive in my book. And you know,
something I didn't talk about last week that I think is worth mentioning real quick before I move on
is that $60,000 in 2026 is basically equivalent to the $50,000 dual-motor Cybertruck that was
originally announced in 2019 for $50,000. And that truck was promised to be a 300-mile range.
I believe, if memory is serving me correctly, I think it was 300 miles. And I forget what the
zero to 60 they said was. But basically, the short version here is with the inflation we've seen
between 2019 and 2026, the $60,000 version that they have been offering here for the last 10 days
prior to whatever price it went up to, basically is like it is Tesla fulfilling that promise.
Now, the Cyber Beast is still way past the $70,000 price point, even with inflation
from 2019. And it certainly doesn't have the 500-mile range that was mentioned in 2019.
But that middle truck, the $40,000 one has not come around and might never. But that middle one,
Tesla arguably just delivered it. It just took them, well, seven years from the announcement
and two plus years from the beginning of production to actually get it out the door.
So Tesla does deserve, I think, a lot of credit for that because that was such a big part of
the initial interest in the Cybertruck and then the subsequent lack of demand for it when it went
into production, right? So many people, including so many of you, put a reservation down that $100
refundable reservation down for the Cybertruck, largely on the fact that they were offering
either a $40,000, 250-mile range truck, a $50,000, 300-mile range all-wheel drive truck,
or a $70,000, 500-mile range, what we now know as Cyber Beast. And so the fact that they have
delivered the middle one of those, which is arguably the one that, I mean, of course,
the cheapest one would probably sell the most units. But in terms of features, performance,
like everything, the fact that they basically have delivered on that middle one now,
I don't want to let that go unnoticed. Tesla, I think, does deserve kudos for making that happen.
Next up this week, the Model Y's recent interior changes appear to be imminent for the Model 3.
Saw this one on Drive Tesla Canada, who wrote,
back-end references discovered in Tesla's EU and China configurator assets by ex-user
Tesla underscore NL underscore TR, point to the addition of a new trim code,
IN3PB, Interior 3 Premium Black. This code is tied to a black headliner and has already been mapped
to 2026 Model 3 Performance and Premium Vins. Following that same trend, another upcoming
addition is a new entry spotted in Tesla's electronic parts catalog called display underscore
16 underscore QHD, which clearly refers to the larger 16-inch QHD display that was
also recently added to the Model Y. Multiple 2026 Model 3 builds associated with this component
are marked with a green dot, suggesting the hardware is already in production or imminent.
At this point, none of these changes have been officially announced by Tesla.
The references were discovered within Europe and China configurator assets and back-end systems,
but they have not yet appeared in public ordering pages. While this should certainly surprise no one,
at least none of you listening to this, this is clearly going to be one of the differentiators
between the standard and Premium versions of both the 3 and the Y. With the Y already getting this,
it's inevitable that the 3 would follow suit and probably sooner rather than later,
which is exactly what appears to be happening. I'm sure I said as much here at the time, but
I do really like the black interior. I think it looks better personally.
I just think black interior, excuse me, black headliner will look more premium to most people,
and I did a Patreon poll on it back when the story broke about the Model Y switching over
to black headliner, and the plurality of responders in that poll did feel the same way.
So yes, I do think this will happen quite quite soon. It just makes too much sense from a supplier
perspective, right? If you look at it from Tesla's point of view, you want to have the Y
and the 3 headliner material be mostly all one color and not a bunch of one color and a bunch of
the other color. If they can instead have their supplier be providing like 80% of the black for
the Premium and Performance Ys and the Premium and Performance 3s and then 20% gray headliner
material for the rear wheel drive Y and the rear wheel drive 3, that would presumably allow them
to get a better deal on the black headliner than if it were more of a 50-50 or 60-40 kind of thing.
At least that's my best guess. I acknowledge I'm not a supply chain expert, so I might be wrong
here, but just even setting that aside, it does just make sense that the 3 and the Y would
follow the same interior design language since they both pretty much have the same interiors,
and again, they'll still have the light gray for those non-Premium cars,
but I do think those are probably going to represent a minority of what's built overall across
both the 3 and the Y. Before I continue with the rest of this week's Tesla and EV news,
I want to mention this week's Lightning Round episode over on Patreon. For those of you kindly
supporting my efforts here a weekend and week out with Ride the Lightning, I've been at this
for 552 weeks straight, and I'm super proud of that, and super grateful for those of you that
choose to support me and my family with Ride the Lightning here on Patreon.com slash Tesla podcast.
Every week for the most popular tier, which is the $10 per month tier on my Patreon,
I do a Lightning Round mini episode, and if you join today, you get access to all of them,
and there are over 180 Lightning Rounds now. There's so much content, and honestly, I really
had fun with this week's because I kind of didn't have a plan for it before I started. I was like,
okay, what do I want this to be? Anyway, the Lightning Round this week is the five EVs
I'm most excited about in 2026, and I don't want to sound like the clickbait thing,
like the clickbait blog kind of deal, but I guarantee you you're not going to guess all five.
Like even the first one, which I went five, four, three, two, one, number five will surprise you,
which I know sounds like ridiculously clickbaity, but anyway, if you'd like to hear that as well as
the other 180 plus Lightning Rounds, you can join me on Patreon, support the podcast, I'd be so
grateful if you were willing and able to do that to find out all the information and to
join the Patreon. You can go to my Patreon page at patreon.com slash Tesla podcast.
A friendly reminder, I should be mentioning this more often, if you are kind enough to support
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mini episodes. So I'd love it if you join me. There is an annual discount. If you do the
once a year annual pledge, there's a 10% discount on that if you'd prefer that rather than being
billed monthly. And then a quick note for my EV owners listening out there, and I'm not just
talking to Tesla owners. One thing that comes up pretty regularly here is how long people keep
their cars. I'm one of those people. We've got, let's see, the shortest, I don't know, I've always
kept cars for a long time, so has my wife. And it turns out statistically, a lot of Americans at
least, I don't know about Europe so much, but we have the data for the US and people are keeping
their cars longer and longer. And so whether folks realize it or not, there is a timing element
to ownership that matters if you're thinking about doing an extended coverage plan. So when it
comes to EV coverage, it's not really about if you buy an extended coverage plan, it's about when.
Coverage is generally more cost advantaged when it's purchased before your factory warranty ends
rather than after. And that's because pricing eligibility and available options change with
time and mileage. Even if nothing's wrong with the car, think of it like tires. That's a good
analogy, right? You don't wait till they're bald to plan your tire replacement. You're looking at
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the phone. So again, xcare.com, referral code lightning for $100 off or call 844-755-4186.
Next up this week, Tesla is not backing down in its efforts to claim ownership of the Cybercab
trademark, filing a formal challenge with US regulators against French beverage company
UNIBEV whose earlier filing is blocked Tesla's application.
Saw this one on Drive Tesla Canada and they wrote, according to newly filed documents submitted by
the US Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, boy that's a lot of words,
you need to acronym that better guys, obtained by Electric, Tesla's filed a detailed opposition
against UNIBEV accusing the company of fraud, bad faith filings and attempting to capitalize on
Tesla's growing portfolio of cyber branded products. The dispute arises from a complicated
trademark timeline that's been unfolding for months. Tesla publicly revealed the Cybercab
during its WeRobot event in October 2024. However, UNIBEV had already filed for the name in France
earlier in 2024 and submitted, later submitted a US application on October 28th, 2024 before Tesla
filed its own paperwork in November. Under trademark law, earlier filings often carry
significant legal weight which previously resulted in Tesla's application being suspended while the
competing claim remained active. In its February 18th, 2026 opposition filing, Tesla outlines
five separate legal arguments challenging UNIBEV's claim to the name. Tesla alleges the beverage
company falsely told the US Patent and Trademark Office that no other companies were using similar
Cybercab branding for related products. The automaker argues that claim could not have been
accurate given the extensive publicity surrounding the Cybercab reveal two weeks earlier.
The company also questions whether UNIBEV ever had legitimate plans to produce vehicles or
transportation services covered under the trademark classes it applied for. Tesla says the filing
fits a common trademark squatting strategy, registering high profile product names outside
a company's core business in hopes of later negotiating a payout. Tesla's filing also points
to connections suggesting awareness of the automaker's branding, noting UNIBEV's principle
follows Elon Musk and other Musk family accounts along with SpaceX on social media.
I must preface this by saying that I am certainly no lawyer or judge,
but based on what Tesla's filing points out, it would sure seem like Tesla might have a real
case here, at least using the barometer of common sense, which is all I can really apply since I
don't have the legal knowledge. If any lawyers out there do want to reach out and tell me how long
something like this typically takes to reach a resolution, one way or the other, whether it's
going to go Tesla's way or not, I would appreciate it because that's the part I'm really curious
about. I mean, obviously I'm curious about the result, the ruling, if Tesla will be granted
the CyberCab trademark or not. But I'm curious, is this a situation that's going to linger for
months and months because CyberCab is supposed to basically be released like officially launched
in about six to eight weeks from now? So that's coming up pretty quickly. So I don't know if this
is going to be a months and months legal hassle or something that would be wrapped up in weeks.
Either way, I will keep you posted on this because it will be mighty big news if Tesla ends up unable
to use CyberCab because a beverage company beat them to the trademark filing. Now, as I had said
in this initial story, it does seem like, and again, any legal experts, any lawyers out there
can please correct me if I'm wrong on this. But the fact that Tesla waited until well after
the public unveiling of the car at the WeRobot event, that seems like a misstep on Tesla's part.
However, on the other side, as Tesla claims that the company Unabev falls, again, falsely told
the patent and trade office that they were filing under the transportation services or
vehicle production. So that seems like it's open and shut right there. If Unabev,
why didn't they just file it under beverage, like CyberCab, Sauvignon or whatever? I'm curious now,
and if so, if there are any legal eagles out there that want to help me out on this, I'd certainly
be grateful. But it does seem like Tesla has a pretty good case here against Unabev, and again,
we'll just see how long it takes to play out. I think maybe last time, when this had initially
come up, I thought that it probably would just end in a settlement, and Tesla pays them some money
and gets the filing. And maybe that's Tesla's penalty if in fact they should have filed their
trademark sooner. But in any case, regardless of that, I do think that's probably a decent
probability of that's how this turns out is Tesla does go ahead and settle, which I know
might say, well, then the trademark squatter is basically winning here. But at the end of the day,
Tesla's a massive company with massive piles of Scrooge McDuck cash in their silo, and if they
want that cybercab name bad enough, if the appeals process doesn't go their way, then they might
resort to just paying them out. We'll see. But an interesting twist in the case, no doubt there.
Moving on here, in Tesla news that will affect all of us directly, Tesla's working reportedly,
working on a major wiper upgrade. I saw this via Tesla Reddit user ConfidentImage4266 who posted
in the Tesla Lounge subreddit and said, software 2026.2.0 something something something, they're
not revealing the number maybe for some sort of security reason, like if they reveal the number,
it can be traced back to them. I don't know, but an upcoming software build reveals a new vision
system currently being tested under the name wiper underscore vision underscore v five underscore
shadow underscore mode. So here's what appears to be changing per this Reddit user. The system now
uses full surround camera vision, not just the front cameras, it can detect water spray from
vehicles ahead, and it can identify reflections and mist forming on the hood. Tesla seems to
pardon me tongue twister there, Tesla seems to specifically be targeting drizzle and road spray,
which are the exact conditions where current auto wipers tend to struggle the most,
credit to X user Tesla underscore n l underscore tr. Again, we're hearing from them,
they get the shout out again on that one, which is which is pretty cool. The feature is still running
in shadow mode as the title of that line entry in the code suggests, meaning it's active for data
collection and testing, but not yet controlling the wipers directly. So interestingly, as an
addendum to this, the original poster on X that's referenced there for the second time in this podcast,
by the time that I saw this post on Reddit a few days after it initially went up,
I clicked the original source link because that's always journalistically a sound thing you want
to do is don't just take the word of the reporting site, click through to the original source and
check it for yourself, make sure there's no misinterpretation or anything like that. But
anyway, so I clicked through to that original source link from that X user, and that post
had been deleted or removed. I don't know, it just said when I clicked through it said this page does
not exist. So hopefully this is real, because it'd sure be great if Tesla was about to roll out a
significant improvement in the windshield wiper functionality for us all. Now to Tesla's credit,
at least in my experience, the wiper situation has gotten a good bit better recently,
which I do want to say I very much appreciate. But if we really do have a new fifth generation
revision coming, hopefully it can finally get us to the point where the wipers work reliably
at the right setting for any given condition and, big one for me at least and probably for most of
you, they don't do those annoying and quite frankly somewhat embarrassing dry wipes anymore.
When you're just driving down the road on a sunny day and the wipers go off. So hopefully some good
news there, we'll have to see. This is probably something that's not going to appear in release
notes for an update, because I don't know, I mean Tesla's never, they've never put this in notes
before, probably because it might be seen as something of an admission of guilt that the
wiper activity is not great. So I guess we'll have to maybe wait for Tesla NLTR or maybe a green
the only to dig into the code and tell us once it's active, once they see it in there and it's
happening. In other EV news this week, I've got a few stories, one, two, yeah four of them in fact,
in the other EV news department. The Lucid Group released its fourth quarter and full year 2025
financial results showing strong delivery growth and record revenue, but also highlighting the
continued financial challenges facing the automaker as it attempts to scale production and work toward
profitability. Another tip of the cap to drive Tesla Canada who reported in 2026, Lucid expects a
significant increase in output, issuing production guidance of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles, potentially
more than 50% higher than its revised 2025 production total of 17,840 units. Beyond
increasing production of the gravity SUV, Lucid is also preparing for its next growth phase.
The automaker confirmed plans to begin production of its upcoming mid-sized platform vehicle
while advancing autonomy efforts tied to planned robot taxi deployments with Neuro. However,
challenges remain. The company recently announced its third round of major layoffs,
affecting roughly 12% of its U.S. salaried employees as part of a broader effort to improve
efficiency and control spending. So the layoffs are terrible news and I don't want to minimize that.
But what I do think is the most notable, at least the most exciting thing, because layoffs are certainly
the opposite of exciting, but the most exciting thing here is the news of the mid-sized vehicle.
Will that really go into production this year? Like, can Lucid really get their Model 3 fighter
out the door less than 12 months after shipping the gravity? I'm not saying they can't do it,
I'm just saying recent history is telling us it's really hard to do. Tesla has arguably never
shipped two cars within 12 months of each other. Model S debuted in 2012, Model X shipped in 2015.
Both of those cars saw big delays. Model 3 of course in 2017, Model Y in 2020,
Cybertruck in 2023, and the Cybertruck of course also had some significant delays.
Now unless you want to count the new Model S shipping in June of 2021 after the Model Y came out in
March of 2020, so still not quite a year, but even then I don't know if I want to count that
because it wasn't a completely new car, which is what Lucid's doing here, with the gravity
totally new car and their mid-size, which will be a totally new car. But even if we did count that
for Tesla, going from Model Y to new Model S, that's still 15 months, not 12. So I mean, I guess
the new Model 3 and the Cybertruck were right about the same time, but again, I'm not counting it for
this thought exercise. But the point is, I'm skeptical of Lucid, especially while it remains
in its still pretty young state as a car company, just launching two completely brand new vehicles,
12 months or less apart. I am skeptical, but I'm not, again, I'm not down on it,
I'm rooting for them, rooting for any and all new good EVs, especially more affordable ones,
but his recent history says it's the odds are against them that they'll get it out that quickly,
but regardless, I'm eager to see that car and I hope it can compete because there are just,
there really aren't a ton of EV sedans out there. I mean, we can always use another good one
in the marketplace. You've got the Model 3, you've got the Ioniq 6, you've got the BMW I4,
and that's, I guess, well, what? There's the Mercedes EQS, the sedan version, but that's,
yeah, that's a big car, that's not a mid, so I guess, yeah, in terms of midsize, it's Model 3
and it's Ioniq 6. I think, I'm struggling to think of another one, at least here in the United
States, in terms of midsize EV sedans. So, I would love to see it or, well, we will see it,
I will look forward to seeing it. I know that SUVs are the thing that the market wants,
but I've always been more of a sedan guy, so I'm looking forward to seeing what Lucid reveals.
Next up this week, Lamborghini has abandoned its EV plans. I saw this one on Inside EVs,
who wrote, Lamborghini is all about the drama of noisy combustion engines, but we weren't surprised
when it unveiled a pure EV with plans for production since, like all car makers in Europe,
it faced a 2035 year gas engine ban. However, with the ban postponed, it turns out it's not
going to happen after all, since the manufacturer isn't willing to invest in producing a vehicle
that it's not sure will sell. Lamborghini CEO Stefan Winkelmann recently talked to The Sunday
Times, saying it would be, quote, financially irresponsible for the company to invest heavily
in the department of a pure EV when interest in such a model is, quote, close to zero.
But is that so? The electric vehicle in question should have been the production version of the
Lanzador EV, revealed in August of 2023 at the Pebble Beach Concourse Delegance.
It would likely have undergone changes during its transition from concept to production,
but it would have remained a high riding SUV like 2 plus 2 coupe grand tourer with an electric motor
powering each axle, delivering a combined output of over 1360 horsepower. The original plan was
to launch the Lanzador in 2028 or 2029 as a pure electric vehicle. The model could still arrive
though with plug-in hybrid power instead. We will see an increasing number of performance plug-in
hybrids as we get closer to 2035 when automakers must cut their CO2 emissions by 90% relative to
2021. Lamborghini also has no intention of building a larger electric SUV, but it already
offers an Urus, I think that's how you say that, the Urus P8 plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
with 789 horsepower and up to 37 miles of pure electric range.
Well, this is a bummer, and for me it only makes me root for Ferrari's luce that I've been talking
about recently more than I already was since if the luce is a success, perhaps it will inspire
their longtime rivals, Lamborghini, to go ahead and take another crack at getting into the EV game.
Now, I don't know about all of you, but for those of you around my age, I'm talking about
80s and 90s kids who grew up with supercar posters on your walls, I've always liked both Lamborghini
and Ferrari. I've never been a big Porsche guy, like I've never driven a Porsche of any kind,
but in terms of just the supercars in posters on my wall, I've always loved Lamborghini and Ferrari,
but if you made me pick, I would say even as a kid, and probably this is still true today,
I would still say I would pick a Lamborghini over a Ferrari, just personally, totally subjectively,
obviously. Nothing against Ferrari, but I've just always loved the aggressive,
fighter jet-like wedge designs of the Lamborghinis. I mean, when I was a kid, I definitely had a poster
of the Lamborghini Countach on my wall when I was fairly young, and then later I had a Lamborghini
Diablo poster on the wall. And I will say, I was always obsessed with the scissor doors too,
that Lambos had, because Ferrari always had regular doors, and it just wasn't as cool.
So, I've always preferred Lambo, and I would love to see Lamborghini make a Pure EV, but for now,
go luce, let's go Ferrari, let's show Lamborghini what it's missing.
Next in other EV news, Rivian is planning to scale its service infrastructure as more of its
electric trucks and SUVs hit the road, announcing a significant expansion aimed at improving ownership
experience ahead of the highly anticipated launch of the R2. One more tip of the cap to drive Tesla
Canada, who says, according to Rivian, more than 50 new service centers are scheduled to open through
next year, pushing its global network beyond 150 locations by the end of 2027. Larger,
higher capacity sites are planned for regions where Rivian ownership is most concentrated,
which I would presume would be the Pacific Northwest, because any time I'm up there,
it seems like Rivians in the Seattle area are like Teslas in the San Francisco area,
where they're just everywhere. So I would guess that higher concentrated areas are Seattle,
San Francisco, and LA. Anyway, getting back to the story, I lost my place here.
Yes, while customers in less densely populated areas will increasingly rely on mobile support
options. Mobile service has already become the company's most popular service method,
and Rivian plans to increase its fleet of service vans by 50% through this year. At the same time,
Rivian has been expanding its workforce to support growing demand. The company says it added and
trained more than 1,000 service specialists over the past year alone, while continuing to hire
additional technicians for both new and existing locations. Those investments appear to be having
an impact, with Rivian reporting a 35% reduction in service scheduling wait times compared to
the previous year. Well, you love to hear this. Service, as you may recall from the early Model
Three days, was the number one thing that I kept harping on on this podcast with Tesla,
as they were in the initial part of their own major growth spurt from a low- to mid-volume car
company into a high-volume one. And I guess, as we sit here in 2026, we can probably say that
it seems like Tesla's done a fairly good job of keeping up with the necessary growth on the
service side with the growth of the fleet itself. Could Tesla use more service centers? Well, sure.
But I don't really read about any serious issues with service or wait times for service or locations
out in the Tesla community. Again, not to say that there aren't pain points, but
it seems like Tesla's done a pretty good job of it. But I guess the point here is, Rivian,
they're already starting to scale up on the service side, which is very reassuring because
they're only just about to start significantly increasing their production and delivery volume
with the R2. The R2 can be awesome, but if you can't get any service support when you need it,
because service isn't available in your area or if it takes weeks to get a service appointment,
even when there is a service center in your area, well, guess what? People aren't going to recommend
your car to friends and family, or they're just not going to be happy and they're not going to
become repeat customers. So hopefully, Rivian is riding the wave well here and they won't get
swallowed up by that wave. They'll continue to ride it and be able to keep up with service
infrastructure and service needs as their fleet grows. And the last story that I have for you this
week is about NHTSA. The administrator there has announced that the agency will be holding a major
event on autonomous vehicles on March 10th, so coming up very soon. Credit for this goes to our
Tesla tipster friend, Sawyer Merritt, who posted on his ex-account saying with a quote from the
actual agency, the first portion of the meeting will feature keynote addresses from the Department
of Transportation Leadership and Industry Executive Panel discussions on key automated driving
systems topics. The second portion of the meeting will build upon the ADS workshop held last November.
NHTSA gleaned valuable information from stakeholders on various topics. In this subsequent meeting,
NHTSA intends to gather specific input on potential actions, including potential future
guidance to the safe domestic development, testing and deployment of ADS-equipped vehicles.
Well, the timing of this is certainly interesting as it pertains to Tesla, because of course
that previously announced April timeline for the formal launch of the cyber cab.
Could this be an announcement of a new federal level policy that will allow for inputless vehicles
to operate on public roads? Because remember, even the Waymos are jaguar eyepaces that still
have steering wheels and pedals. So if you're a Tesla shareholder, you are probably crossing your
fingers hoping that that's exactly what this announcement is so that the cyber cab or whatever
it's called pending this trademark dispute can get out on the roads and start making money for Tesla
in April. So we shall see in just a little over a week here.
Alrighty, that's everything I've got for you in the world of Tesla news.
Stick with me though, I will be right back with your ride the lightning hotline calls coming up next.
Happy electric motoring. Welcome to the next segment of the podcast,
which is where I get to hear from all of you. It's the ride the lightning hotline,
your chance to call in and ask questions, leave comments or discussion topics for the podcast.
If you would like to participate and potentially get featured on an upcoming episode,
there are two ways to do that. Either submit your question, comment or discussion topic
by making a voice recording on your phone's voice recording software, try to keep it to
90 seconds or less please so that I can get to as many callers each week as possible,
and email that file to me at teslapodcastatgmail.com or you can take that same 90 second or less call
and just actually call in and leave a message on the ride the lightning hotline. The toll free
number is 1-888-989-8752 that number again 1-888-989-TSLA. And if you know someone special out there
with an upcoming birthday, anniversary, graduation or some other special occasion,
you can give them a unique gift of recorded voices from friends and family telling them why
they're special. The recordings can be podcasted or put onto a keepsake. If you'd like to learn
more, visit lifeonrecord.com. First up this week is Dave from Florida responding to Brian from
last week's episode about the CyberCab not fitting all use cases for multi-stop errands and whatnot.
Go ahead Dave. Hey Ryan, Dave from News Summer in the Beach, Florida. Hey just responding quickly
to Brian's call on episode 551 about how the CyberCab really doesn't fit certain use cases.
And as you mentioned, a higher option certainly sounds like a great idea. So much for hour or
so much for hour plus a small amount per mile, something like that would solve that expedition
type of shopping experience where you're going from one store to the other. And I think that's a
perfectly reasonable request to make. Second, waiting for arrival. If you're waiting 15 minutes
for the cab to arrive, what if you simply integrate calendar functionality with it
so that you can have a checkbox in your calendar that says I need transportation for this.
And it would automatically route a request to Tesla or to Uber that says I need transportation
from here to there and I'm leaving at this time. And the service level would be, you know,
the ride would arrive 10 to 15 minutes prior to your necessary departure time.
Give you time to get in and get everything set up. And especially with the CyberCab,
there's really no cost to sitting around, maybe a nominal cost, and then it gets you there and
you're on your way. So that could be from appointment to appointment, etc. depending
on availability in your area. Just my thoughts. Take care.
Thank you for this call, Dave. I do love this idea. Our cars already integrate with our calendars
if we allow them to. And actually I do because I find it super useful when my car already has
the destination loaded in the nav because it's pulled from the appointment on my calendar. So
presumably it would be relatively trivial to add it to the RoboTaxi app and RoboTaxi experience.
I think your suggestion is great. I am happy to co-sign it and try to help speak it into
existence. Thanks so much, Dave. Next up this week is Mel from North Carolina.
Hey, Ryan. This is Mel from Fayetteville, North Carolina. I'm calling about,
so I'm a longtime Tesla owner since 2019. I've got a Model Y and a Model 3.
But currently here over the past couple of months or so, I don't know what I pressed
or if everyone else is having this problem. But when I go to unlock my door,
the passengers cannot get in unless I open up the driver's side door. I can't even get in
the passenger side or even open my trunk unless I open the driver's side door first,
lean in and press the unlock button that is popping up on my screen. I'm at a loss.
I've been all over the dashboard. I should know this stuff because I've driven Teslas forever,
but I'm stuck and I'm frustrated. And it's something that I need someone to reach out and
or give advice back or maybe you know, but it's driving me crazy. Yeah, so anyways,
that's my shout out to everybody. I don't know where else to go other than reaching out to you
and the Tesla community to say help. Thank you. Hello, Mel. Although I am definitely not the best
source for tech support, I acknowledge I am happy to try and help. And I have one suggestion that
I'm hoping will solve this for you. And if it doesn't, then I'm not sure if there's anything
else to be done except making a service appointment to try and get Tesla to diagnose it at a service
center. But if you go into your locks screen in the car settings menu, you will scroll down and see
driver door unlock mode in there. If that's checked, uncheck it. The description, I went
when enabled, the driver door and charge port will unlock when the key is detected near the driver's
side of the vehicle. Holding down the interior driver door button will unlock the rest of the
vehicle. That's what it says in the menu there. So maybe based on your call, based on what you
were saying, maybe that somehow got enabled on you, maybe it just accidentally got checked
somehow. So give that a go. I hope that helps. If it doesn't, I think you're probably going to
have to take it in for service on that one. So Mel, good luck to you. I've got time for
one more call this week. It is a reaction to the $60,000 Cybertruck from last week and then
Elon Musk's subsequent 10 day limit on it. Here's Bill from Wisconsin. Hey Ryan, it's Bill from
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Again, I've had a little chance to settle down here and I was thinking
about more about why Elon would have tweeted about that new trim of the Cybertruck only being
available for 10 days. I wonder if this was him intentionally trying to keep that trim from being
wildly successful because he's so all in on autonomy. And as he said in the recent earnings call,
they want to start selling Cybertrucks with no steering wheel or pedals for cargo delivery.
Maybe he's trying to submarine his own product so he can say, see, we need to start making them
as an autonomous old caption. I would hate that, but maybe that's where he's going with this.
Just spitball like, see ya. Well, Bill, I am absolutely here for conspiracy theories, but
while I'd love to put my tinfoil hat on for this one, I would have to think that if that were really
the case, Tesla never would have offered this $60,000 version in the first place. Again, I guess
we'll have to wait and see until, well, in my case next week's episode to see what the new price is
or if by some miracle the price doesn't go up and the demand is strong and per Elon's tweet,
it stays at $60,000, but we shall see. You'll know when you hear this, but I'm looking forward
to finding out. Bill, thanks as always for your call. I do appreciate it. And thank you to everybody
that kindly took the time to call in this week. I promise I will get to more of your ride the
Lightning Hotline calls on next week's episode. And with that, we move along to what's going on
with me and my car. I call this segment the Soul of Adventure. My car is clean, ready to rock. I
will say I'm continuing to stay vigilant with FSD usage in the new car in the AI4 car. I'm up to
98.3% FSD usage, which means, because I've seen this already from, from keeping an eye on it,
when it gets to 98.5, it will round up and show 99%. So I've still got some driving to do, but
this weekend, if it goes well with FSD, could roll me up to 99% FSD usage. So I'm just happy
to have it clean because we're supposed to have beautiful weather this weekend. I do need to clean
my wife's car, the 2018, the spirit of adventure. That's got to get clean this weekend,
but the weather should cooperate for it. So I always enjoy that again. I've said this 100 times,
but I just, I can't explain it. I just find the act of cleaning the cars cathartic in some way.
It just makes me happy to do it. So I'm always happy to do it. And this is the weekend for one of them.
An entertainment recommendation for you this week. This one is for adults only, not in any sort of,
not in the way you're thinking, but it's a video game. It is, uh, is rated M for mature,
new release this week, huge new release, biggest game of the year so far, Resident Evil Requiem.
The ninth main Resident Evil game that series has been going for 30 years now. And the new one is
excellent. I am looking forward to digging into it myself. It's available for PC, PlayStation 5,
and Xbox series X and S. So if you're into scary games, survival horror, Resident Evil,
basically invented the genre and the new one is exceptional. So give that a look if that sounds
good to you. Time now for your pro tip of the week. It comes from John in West Virginia. Go ahead, John.
Hey, Ryan. This is John from West Virginia. Thank you for what you do.
So I've been running into an issue from time to time to where my music has been paused because
I've used the voice navigation or I've used McGroch and the music does not restart.
What I have discovered that it says music paused for voice navigation.
In order to get this to unpause my music, if I press my right scroll wheel once,
then swipe down to cancel out that voice command window, I'm able to restart my music.
I hope this is helpful to somebody. Thank you and have a great day.
Oh, this one is super handy here. Thank you so much, John. This is quite useful. Always love tips.
It doesn't matter. Big or small, any pro tip is useful. If it makes your Tesla or EV experience
even 1% better, then it's a worthwhile pro tip. Thank you very much, John. Appreciate you calling
in with that. And a reminder, if anybody else out there has a good Tesla or EV pro tip of the week
that you'd like to share with me and your fellow Tesla and EV owners and enthusiasts,
I would love for you to call in with it and you might potentially be featured on an upcoming episode.
Now, I only play one pro tip a week by design, so I promise, though, I will eventually get to
your pro tip of the week if you send one in. So how do you do it? Just send it in like you would
a regular ride the lightning hotline call, which I gave you the two easy call-in methods for that
just a little while ago, so refer back there. Let me mention a few friends of ride the lightning
that can hopefully be useful to you here, and then I promise I will bid you farewell for the week.
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Yes, this will be combined with their current discounted sales prices. This exclusive promotion
is only available here on RTL. So again, that's RPMTesla.com, promo code RPMRTL.
AbstractOcean.com, so many great aftermarket accessories, lots of useful stuff, plenty of fun
stuff too. It's a nice mix of practical, useful things and also fun things. Whether you've got
well really any of the Teslas, whether it's an S3, XY, or Cybertruck, or even the Rivians as well,
they've got products for those. Everything from lighting kits for the inside and outside of the
car, they've got the puddle lights, they've got the custom fit tempered glass, gorilla glass,
screen protectors for all of those vehicles that I just mentioned, all the Teslas and the Rivians.
Just so much stuff, I encourage you, if you've never taken a look on their website before you
listen to this part of the podcast and maybe you've just heard it enough where you're like,
okay, yeah, that's fine, just give it a quick, just trust me, just take a pause right now on the
podcast, just take out your phone or if you're in front of a computer, just go to abstractocean.com
and click on whichever vehicle you have in that top banner there and just see what they've got.
I guarantee you'll find something you like and if and when you do, put it in your online shopping
cart and when you get to check out, use the coupon code RTLpodcast to get 15% off of your
first order. That coupon code again is RTLpodcast, all one word, no spaces.
The Infinity Shield is the ultimate garage door opening and closing sensor. You know,
most garages, mine is certainly this way, only have that single beam sensor that detects objects
few inches above the floor. This becomes a leading cause of damaged car hatches,
bumpers, roof glass in my case, and garage doors as well. Infinity Shield is the world's first
full coverage garage door sensor utilizing 25 beams. Yes, it detects any protruding bumper,
open hatch, or anything else in the way of the garage door. It's easy to install yourself with
no special tools, 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-shield.com
and use promo code RTL at checkout for a $35 discount. Again, that's
infinity-shield.com promo code RTL at checkout for that $35 discount.
The snap plate, that's the one I recommend if you either want or are legally required to have a
front license plate on your vehicle, go to everyamp.com slash RTL and from there you're
going to choose which vehicle you have and from there you're going to choose either the snap plate
which is safety optimized with breakaway features to sacrifice itself in a worst case scenario
like a parking accident or you're going to choose the snap plate plus which I believe is like five
bucks more I think. I haven't looked recently. It is strength optimized with hardened features
for maximum strength. Both have their signature minimalist aesthetic that blends in perfectly
with the Tesla front end. Both are made from recycled made in the USA plastics with stainless
steel reinforcements. Nice clean minimal design here. I'm a fan of this. If you're going to do a
front plate on your car get the snap plate or the snap plate plus and again there's a discount
available. Go to everyamp.com slash RTL and use the coupon code RTL at checkout on whatever product
you end up purchasing. Immaculate reflections that is my detailer. If you are in or going to be in
the greater San Francisco Bay area with your Tesla or other car that you love get in touch with Jeff
at Immaculate Reflections ahead of time get on his schedule get an appointment by going to IR
detailing.com and then from there you can click the contact button in either the upper left corner
of the page or right in the center of that home page. You can reach out and discuss with Jeff
what's your budget what do you want to have done to the car he will work with you whether it's
paint protection film on some or all of the car whether it's ceramic coating on the car you know
so that's that's going to take the place of traditional wax maybe you want to have paint
correction done to get your paint finish looking better than ever and dare I even say better than
new whatever it is Immaculate Reflections will do an awesome job on your car I will personally
vouch for that I've had both cars done at Immaculate Reflections and the work really is
just pristine I couldn't be happier with it and you will be too again IR detailing.com and when
you reach out to make your appointment just make sure to mention upfront that you're a ride the
lightning listener and politely request the ride the lightning listener discount.
Again my Patreon found at patreon.com slash Tesla podcast that is how you can voluntarily
choose to support the podcast if you like my hope is that eventually and maybe this is the week
that I will earn your support and even once I earn it I've got to continue to earn it every
single week and that's why I make sure this podcast comes out every week it comes out on time
for the Patreon backers it comes out early I do that lightning round mini episode every single week
so there's just so so many of those that become instantly available to you if you join at that
most popular ten dollar per month tier all the tiers all the information it's all there
at patreon.com slash Tesla podcast or click the link in the episode description we also have a
really nice lively community there too there's a there's a sort of chat channel like a kind of
like a discord of sorts in there there's where where everybody just kind of keeps an open dialogue
it's the chats the group chat in the open open tesla discussion chat in fact we just welcomed in
Scott Sheper who's the newest maximum plaid backer I'll give him his proper shout out here
in a minute but Scott chiming in after joining the patreon saying what's up everybody just joined
fellow tesla nut here and he got warmly welcomed in so come come join me come join everybody
over on patreon we have a good time in fact this coming weekend as you hear this this first weekend
to march we will be having our march patreon zoom hangout it happens every month that is for the
folks at the maximum plaid tier or higher so that one's reserved for the upper tiers however
if you pledge at any tier or upgrade any existing pledge you do get a one-time thank you invitation
to whatever the next month's patreon zoom hangout is so that's I'm just I'm doing my best to say
thank you for your generous support on patreon so I am looking forward to our next zoom hangout
coming up because we always always always the hour flies by we always have a fun time chatting
if you are not already following this podcast it's totally free to do I recommend doing it on
whatever your preferred podcast service is and the reason that I recommend it is because that
means you don't have to remember to go hunt down each week's new episode your follow your
podcast subscription follow on your favorite podcast service will send you a push notification
reminding you that there's a new episode of ride the lightning so whether it's apple podcasts
spotify tune in or youtube podcasts or pretty much all the big ones just search ride the
lightning tesla you should see this podcast pop right up click the follow button and that's it
you're done the referral program is back or at least I guess it's not back it's that mine got
reset so you can use my code again if you want to I'm not here to push it I'd say use somebody
else's code if you have somebody else in your life but if you're buying an s or x before they go away
or a three or a y or a cyber truck now the again the the whatever it costs now
base level cyber truck is not available for that thousand dollar discount the premium and
cyber beast cyber trucks are uh s and x are a thousand dollar discount three and y if you buy
with a referral link you get three months of free fsd so anyway if you need a referral code
you know find some buddies but if you just don't have anybody in your life with one
you can use mine type in ts.la slash ryan73014 in any browser it'll take you to the tesla
landing page choose your car configure it submit the order and once you do that it'll it'll have
the order submitted with the referral bonus baked in finally you can follow me on x and or on
instagram I have the same username on both that username is dmc underscore ryan you can always
email me anytime about tesla or ev related things at tesla podcast at gmail.com finally I'd like
to say hello and thank you to those top tier patreon backers who do get invited to the monthly
patreon zoom hangout each month looking forward to seeing and chatting with a whole bunch of you
I'll start with the maximum plaid tier and that newest maximum plaid backer Scott Shepard Scott
welcome thank you so much for your generosity and your support on patreon I hope to see you at this
weekend's patreon zoom hangout and a big thank you and hello goes out to the rest of the maximum
plaid backers they are Jonathan Wales Cameron Clark Daniel Grummer Seth Capello the Galpin family
Ryan from New York City Darren Nicholl Cos Barnes Patrick Wisnesky 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 Sap Paul Casarino Chris Osborne KB Adam LaVoy 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 Brown Jerry Slinger Kenneth Corbett
Brian Bertoglio Kim Bae Troy Sievers Chip Hooper Matt Chinander Robert Moran
Rob Christopher Mann Michael Williams and Eric Harbert next up the Roadster in Space tier backers
who on top of everything else get a one-on-one hangout with me each month if they elect to
utilize it and it's always fun to talk to these folks big 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 Ayacaveto Tesla Hitchhiker 42
Cara Weston Robert from near Philly American Home Contractors Doug Carey Michael Gallo and Tony
Figaroa and finally the grandfathered in plaid level supporters big thank you and hello to George
Cassiopo Logan Willis Peter Chalet Eric Randolph Dory and Steve Guberman the Tesla owners club of
Taiwan Ron Lee Charlie Gillespie Jeff Angwin Chase Cabanillas the Lydia family Aaron Altshule Jared
Brown Jamie Dalton Mike and Barbara from Louisville Matt Nixon the Tesla owners club of Wisconsin
ish not Elon Musk in quotes Peter and the Bear Boys of Colorado and that will wrap it up for
episode 552 of Ride the Lightning your weekly Tesla and EV podcast this was a fun one for me
hopefully you enjoyed it thank you so much for your time your attention your enthusiasm your
support in whatever way you're giving it whether it's on patreon or just by listening each and every
week I do appreciate you all I don't take any of you for granted because you know when I started
this thing I was pretty much just talking to nobody I was talking to myself and I just put it out
there and I kept putting it out there week after week and tried to keep getting better and slowly
over time an audience built up and so I'm just I'm so grateful I know again I don't take it for
granted I could I could lose lose you all tomorrow if I if I don't put out my best effort
week in and week out so thank you to all of you super appreciate everything and with that
I will bid you adieu saying happy electric motoring and I'll see you back here next week
music
Elon Musk people don't like Elon Musk the guy founded PayPal and Tesla and people are like
also have you been in a Tesla have you been in a Tesla my buddy let me drive his Tesla I laughed
out loud at how fast it went been clinically depressed my entire life on dozens of medications
in a Tesla for 13 seconds cured forever I mean I think a Tesla is the most fun thing you could
possibly buy ever that's what it's meant to be our goal is to make it's it's not exactly a car
it's actually a thing to maximize enjoyment it's maximum fun
About this episode
The discussion centers on Tesla's recently introduced $60,000 Cybertruck, which is generating strong demand but faces an imminent price increase. The host explores the confusion around Tesla's brief promotional period, Elon Musk's vague communications, and the impact on customers and production timelines. Delivery estimates have shifted to 2027, indicating high order volumes or limited production allocation. The episode also touches on Tesla's marketing missteps and the removal of referral discounts for this model. Additionally, updates on Model Y interior changes and Lamborghini's EV plans are briefly mentioned.
Original notes
The newly offered $60,000 Cybertruck seems to be generating plenty of demand – but its price is already going up. Plus: Model Y's recent interior changes appear to be imminent for the Model 3, Lamborghini abandons its EV plans, 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!). Enhance your car with cool carbon-fiber upgrades from RPMTesla.com and use the promo code RPMRTL for 5-10% off your next purchase. And make your garage door foolproof with the Infinity Shield – get yours at infinity-shield.com and use the promo code RTL at checkout for a $35 discount.
Ride the Lightning: Tesla and EV Podcast
Ryan McCaffrey
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86:56