“Year over year” (YoY) compares performance in the current period to the same period in the previous year. It helps smooth out quarter-to-quarter noise and shows longer-term trends in deliveries and production.
The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV made by Tesla. It’s one of Tesla’s most common models, so when Tesla changes production or updates the car, it can affect a lot of deliveries. That’s why it comes up in discussions about factory shutdowns and refreshes.
“Inventory left” implies vehicles were already built and sitting in the pipeline, so deliveries can continue even after production stops. This is common when companies manage production schedules around demand and factory downtime.
The transcript says “SNX production,” but it’s not clear which Tesla model that refers to. If you share the surrounding lines where the model name is clearer, it can be explained properly.
Lucid is a company that makes electric cars, especially the Lucid Air. The point here is that Lucid improved its EVs quickly compared with what Tesla did.
A yoke wheel is a steering control that looks more like a U-shaped handle than a normal round wheel. It can make the dashboard easier to see and can be used with tech-heavy steering setups.
FSD is Tesla’s software that tries to help the car drive more on its own. It gets improved by software updates, and not every Tesla can run the newest features the same way.
Rivian is an electric-vehicle company. They sell vehicles like trucks and SUVs, and they report how many they build and deliver each quarter. The discussion here is about Rivian’s Q1 2026 delivery performance and its overall 2026 target.
Ford is another automaker being compared in this EV delivery report. The host is using Ford’s Q1 delivery numbers to show how it stacks up against Toyota and others.
BEV means “battery-electric vehicle.” It’s a fully electric car that runs on electricity only. The host is saying they’re counting only these cars, not plug-in hybrid models.
Concept
pricing in when these EVs get to other markets
This is about market-entry pricing: how EVs launched in one country (China) will be priced in other regions (like Australia and eventually the U.S.). Pricing determines competitiveness and can shape consumer demand more than specs alone.
Apple CarPlay lets you connect your iPhone to the car and use certain apps on the screen. It’s popular because it makes the infotainment easier to use.
A joint venture is a partnership where two companies share resources, risk, and profits to build or operate something together. Here, it’s discussed as a way to bring Chinese manufacturing know-how to Canada and build long-term local capability.
Tariffs are taxes applied to imported goods, often used to protect domestic industries or respond to trade disputes. The speaker discusses tariffs as a driver of where production happens and as a reason to negotiate local sourcing requirements.
EV batteries require a whole chain of work—from digging up materials to processing them and building the battery. If one step is missing, EV production can’t ramp up smoothly.
Steer-by-wire is an electronic steering setup. It can make the car feel smoother and more isolated from bumps, which is often the goal for luxury vehicles.
Road feedback is how much you can “feel” the road through the steering and car. Some people like that direct feel; others prefer a smoother, more isolated ride.
Four-wheel steering is when both the front and rear wheels can steer, usually with different angles depending on speed. The segment links it to improved turning radius, making the EQS feel more like a smaller car when maneuvering.
Toyota is the company being talked about here—both for how it handled EVs in the past and how it’s changing course. They also connect Toyota’s EV plans to battery size and expected driving range.
Hyundai is showing a new SUV concept called the Boulder. They’re basically saying it could become a real off-road-style electric vehicle later, and it’s meant to be built on a new platform.
A concept car is a design study that previews styling, tech, or future production direction. The speaker emphasizes Hyundai’s claim that the Boulder concept is close to what could reach production, which matters for how seriously listeners should take the EV/off-road packaging and design choices.
Range is how far a vehicle can travel on a charge (or on its available energy strategy). The speaker links range concerns to real-world EV factors like tire size and aerodynamics, which can significantly reduce efficiency.
The Ford Bronco is a rugged SUV. “Bronco vibes” usually means the vehicle looks and feels like an outdoorsy, tough SUV—more about style and shape than exact parts.
An extended warranty is coverage beyond the factory warranty period, typically sold by the manufacturer or a third party. It can reduce the risk of expensive repairs, but the value depends heavily on the specific terms, price, and how likely the covered components are to fail.
An extended warranty is extra insurance you buy to cover repairs after the original warranty ends. Sometimes it’s worth it, but the host says dealers can make a lot of profit on them, so you should compare the cost to the actual coverage you’d likely need.
Aston Martin is a British luxury sports-car brand. The host mentions a person associated with Aston Martin in the context of an advisory board, implying that brand affiliation doesn’t necessarily mean battery expertise.
The Tesla Model S is a Tesla electric sedan. The hosts are talking about how Tesla could have sold more of them if it offered a more affordable version and improved battery performance.
Energy density is basically how “full” the battery is for its size. A higher number usually means you can go farther or fit more battery into the same space.
LIVE
We are alive when you've sold up the archic podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your host. And
as usual, I'm joined by set. When you're doing set. I'm good. All right. Hope you are
because we have plenty to talk about this week, even though it's a little holiday long
weekend, we're going to try to get to it as clearly as fast as we can. So you guys can
enjoy your holiday with your family and loved ones. But there's still a couple of things
that happened this week that are worth mentioning in the EV world for the nerds like us that
follow it closely. First of all, obviously end of the quarter. So we got a bunch of deliveries
and production numbers. We're going to discuss Tesla's delivery numbers, Rivian, Toyota,
and Ford. But we also have a few other pieces of news I want to discuss. We have an update
on full stop driving. The Toyota, Elix electric pickup truck that not coming to the US just
yet, but still probably was our biggest article of the week. So people are interested. So
we're going to discuss it. Chinese EVs potentially being built in Canada. We're going to discuss
that stare by wire, making it more EVs now more electric vehicles with the Mercedes
EQS Subaru's gateway, Trio electric SUV. We've discussed that and then probably further down
the future, but still very interesting. Hyundai had the big unveiling of a new kind of off-road
SUV. That's really interesting. Let's start with the delivery numbers. We're starting with
Tesla's. So the expectation for Tesla this quarter were at the 365,000 vehicle delivered,
which was significantly up from last year by significantly down from last quarter. But the
actual delivery numbers was 358,000 units. So they missed that by quite a bit. My morning
6,000 almost 6,000 units on 458 versus 365. And that was on 408,000 vehicle produced. So
Tesla overproduced by 50,000 vehicle this this quarter last quarter. Technically, it's up 6.3
percent year over a year. But it's not really the main star because if you've been following
Tesla for a little bit, you know that the last year in Q1, it was just an abysmal quarter for
Tesla and for good reason. It was the acceleration of the downfall of Tesla through Elon Musk,
basically torching the brand through his association with Trump. It was the salute. It was
the, you know, the Elon going to the deep end. But it was also the Model Y refresh and
Tesla literally shut down factories for weeks, all its factories in the world during that
time. So, you know, beating that by 6% after having like full production a year later and
everything is just not ideal by any mean and missing expectation by 6,000 units is also not
not great. And the Cybertruck was supposed to be ramping as well. And it hasn't.
Yeah, the other models. So for people who don't know, Tesla doesn't even break down
Cybertruck deliveries versus Model S and X. They all bundle together in other models.
6,000 units, 16,000 units versus 13,000 units produced. So Tesla actually delivered more than
produce this quarter, which so Cybertruck is hard to calculate this quarter. But
Model S and X with production ending, this, this would align more with that. So it looks, it looks
like this, well, we know that you just stopped production on the end of the quarter, but it
looks like they managed to deliver some inventory and now there's just inventory left. And we hear
we're gonna have another post about it, but there's just a few hundred units left.
Cybertruck in that, it's hard to tell set with, you know, I mean, we know that there was a lot
over production of a Cybertruck in Q4, maybe, maybe also they contributed to deliveries being
higher than production in Q1, sorry to tell. But yeah, the big headline is 50,000 units and
inventory we had it in Q1. It's pretty bad. It would be pretty bad. If there wasn't an oil crisis,
like I think we were seeing a big OPTIQ in interest in electric vehicles in the last few
weeks because of the oil crisis, the gases is shooting up like crazy. People, every time that
happens, I mean, we know it set to probably have the same experiences as I have right now in the
last week, you know, people that are acquaintances, like people that I don't really know very well,
but they know me from like, you know, high school, college or whatever, they know that I'm an EV
expert or whatever. So they reach out to me when when something that happened and then they were
like, Hey, what do you think about this electric car? So is that a good deal and everything like
that? And in the last two or three weeks, I had a bunch of those. Yeah, you know, yeah, you know,
when that happens is like, all right, now it's getting into the mainstream, like the mainstream
people are thinking about EVs. And to be honest, we should the most that has ever happened, this is
like now 2022 during the gas crisis, every time that the price of gas shoots up, this happened.
So we're seeing it. And I think I think as if it lasts long, and so far, there's no clear way out of
it. There is a, it could be a big impact on electric vehicle sales. So if you have no one
has more inventory right now than Tesla, so you think it would go well, but it does seem like
the balance between the oil crisis and Tesla's brand damage is still favoring the brand damage
right now. And that's pretty bad. The even the energy situation was quite bad for Tesla,
people were expecting 14.4 gigawatt hour of energy storage deployment, Tesla delivered 8.8.
Now, I wouldn't put too much weight on the consensus for the expectation from Wall Street
analysts, because analysts are they haven't really figured out Tesla's energy business just yet.
There's a sequential decline to from 14.2 in Q4. So they were just they were expecting Tesla to
grow from Q4. It's not the seasonality of energy storage is not as big as the vehicle seasonality,
obviously, but this is still still there. Construction project do get affected by by winter,
obviously. And also, you know, you have one big one gigawatt hour project that just doesn't get
online in time in a quarter. And then it's really can affect the whole deployment. But 8.8
going from 14 last quarter to 8.8 is it's still a bigger draw than people anticipated. So Tesla
took a beating yesterday over that news on top of the inventory. Even though the inventory I'm like,
normally, I'd be awful. I've seen that that's worth almost like $2 billion worth of inventory
that's overproduced in Q1. But at this time, I'm like, I wouldn't be I wouldn't be filled too
bad if I had a big inventory that you vehicles to sell us because I think I think the old crisis
is gonna last a little bit longer. And then have a you're going to be able to sell those cars.
Yeah, more SNX production has officially ended now.
Elon announced that the stop production in Fremont and only inventory are
available right now. I did a little inventory check. And it looks like there's, you know,
a few about 300 more s 300 more x left globally, most of them in the in the US, Canada, Europe
as very little inventory right now. And, and yeah, they're they're going they're going pretty
fast people. You know, those are very love vehicles. And I said, and I bought you own both of these.
And I also we are we're big fans. And the they're gonna they're gonna be remembered as vehicles
that greatly accelerated the EGC revolution, I think. Yeah, it's a little bit sad.
It's a little bit sad they were neglected vehicle program. That's for sure. And you know,
they were they were refreshed. That's the term that they use in June of last year. So
not that long ago, but the refresh was a new paint color, a front bumper camera,
a little bit more range, some ambient lighting and a $5,000 price increase. So it's
so can we say that they probably didn't know that the program would be ending within a year
if they refreshed, like why even do a refresh if you're going to end it in a year?
That's fair. I'm pretty sure that Elon was like, All right, we're where are we going to build these
robots right now? And it's like, Oh, let's just kill Melissa next, they're not selling
any way they're we're losing money on them. So yeah, I mean, it was in money because these are
iron vehicles that are becoming subpar in some big ways, especially when you look at the charging
capacity of those vehicles, the energy capacity of the pack, like there's you could, you could have
done more, you could have brought still and the competition Mercedes EQS Lucid, they all got really
good. And there's things like, you know, the cyber trucks, steer by wire system, like they
introduced the, the yoke wheel in the Melissa next before they had steer by wire, which made no sense
to me at the time, then they did deliver a steer by wire, but only in the cyber truck, even though
they already had the yoke wheel in the more as it would have made sense to like, you have the
technology right now, just put it in the Melissa next, I think that would have worked very well,
like a lot of people and I mean, I know the cyber truck is not the best seller, but it's not
the best seller for a lot of reasons. And steer by wire, I don't think is one of them. The country,
I think, steer by wire, like balance things out a little bit. So if they had brought that
Melissa next, I think that would have been great. 48 volt architecture. I mean, just better batteries,
faster charging, you know, it's still using like the because on Japan. Yeah, there's a lot of
opportunities that could have done, but you don't care about cars anymore. And you see it like
Tesla is the only electric vehicle automakers in the world right now was stuck is like dropping
like crazy amid gas prices going up like crazy. It makes no sense in 2022 was the complete opposite,
by the way, if you remember, the stock was going crazy gangbusters in 2022. And because people
were thinking about about EVs. All right, a little update on the full self driving FSDV 13.
V14, sorry, V14.3, which is the big one, Elon called it the last piece of the puzzle,
the sentient update. Obviously, these are hyperboles that Elon's is used to. But it's it's
going on with full self driving is ever since rebel taxi has launched last year in June. The
focus has been on that. There was a V14.2 that was released and use some of the improvement from
a robot taxi into that for the consumer vehicles. It was a very great update that reviewed it
positively. Just on the technology itself, obviously, I think there's major issue in the
markets and sell the technology to consumers. But on the technology itself, it's a great
improvement. However, in the last few updates in the latest 14.2 point updates, we've seen
some degradation. I think the the update peak at like 2000 miles between critical disengagement,
which is starting to be like pretty good. And then we're back down to 1000. Of course, that's
also with more mileage and everything. But specifically for the latest update, it's also
down if you if you really separate the mileage between the latest update and the and the earlier
14.2. So clear regression. And I mean, we saw even Tesla already if Tesla already is
criticizing a full self driving update, you know, it's a bad one. And they came out on Twitter and
said something I was like, what happened? It makes no sense. Actually made sense. So that's
what made no sense. It made no sense made no sense. Yeah. Yeah. So you know something is bad
going on. So you and I would I would think that what we know it's always a two step forward one
step backward process. But also as the focus has been on the really revamp neural nets in
v 13.2 that three, we know that the latest point of date might have been, you know,
neglected a little bit from Tesla, which is problematic. I mean, I specifically haven't
updated in like two updates, I haven't updated the last two updates, because I actually really
like the performance of FSD, my current version right now. But but yeah, so
so is it an answer? You're on hardware for right? Yes, yes, yes, on my hardware for yeah,
you don't you don't have any car on our work for right? I don't. Yeah, yes, you're still on
on v 13. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's and by the way, let's give it a little update to the
RR because we know that we have a lot of listeners who have hardware three cars and
nothing is nothing happening on that front. And if you remember, the only thing that
they hinted at was that once they are done with v 14 on hardware four,
they will release a v 14 light on our word three. But we are on v 13 v 14 dot three. Well,
not we're not even there yet. We are. That's what I thought that was going to finish is that
Elon said that they are testing it with employees this week and by the end of the week. So this
weekend, most likely maybe early next week, we should have a consumer version of the 14 dot
three. Once we have that, you know, or what's the plan from there we I honestly don't know because
I'm extremely, extremely confident and I've been pretty right about this for four years now that
we won't get to unsupervised self driving but with 14 dot three. And and yeah, so
what do you do? What do you go from there? The 14 dot four is going to be a little bit better.
But like when when are we going to get out of 14 and you can spend some times on order three?
There's there's nothing clear at this point. And I said that I think where this is going to
hand it's in court. That's the only way that this is going to do the right thing about this
because there's there's no indication that they are even really trying to do anything right now.
Oh, yeah, sorry, our word threes on v 12. That's right. There's no v 14 v 14 was just for
briefly for hardware for and then switch to
v 14 dot two. And now soon three
revian at the somewhat positive production and delivery result in in Q one 2026 the
announce that they produce 10,236 equals and deliver 10,365. It's it's up from last year.
Well, up from Q four, really. And do we have Q one 225? No, pretty sure was up from Q one 225.
And they are still guiding from 62 to 67,000 deliveries in 2026. So not too ambitious on
the R2. I'm still glad to see that they are able to still deliver 10,000 units a quarter
even with people knowing that the R2 is coming because I think that's
sorry, that's going to hurt the Q one, the R1S cells quite a bit, which are the vast majority
of of revian's current cells. And also don't think they break down R1S and R1T, right?
No, taking Tesla's bad habits there. Yeah.
All right.
Toyota, we have some cells from Toyota and Ford too, which Toyota managed to beat
EV deliveries in the US, beat Ford on the EV deliveries in the US and Q one. Toyota,
with just the BZ sold just fewer than 7,000 units. But that's right a little bit more than
than Ford, which had their cells crashed or EV cells, sorry, crashed in Q one. They were at
6,000 or so with 6,860. So that's not even counting like the
Prius and the RAV4 plug-in hybrid. Yeah, I'm just talking BEVs here, just the BZ.
Yeah. And they were up because they were like they are up 79% compared to Q one last year. But
again, that's what's because of very limited cells. But it's just it's just not a great look for
US deliveries as a whole. And even even Tesla, Tesla missing on on their Q one cells that we
were talking earlier about that those are global cells. The fact that they miss is probably
the US is the culprit market here because we've seen Tesla actually be a little bit up in Europe
in Q one versus Q one last year. And we've seen some markets like Turkey, like Korea do very
well for Tesla in Q one. So it's likely and China did. We don't know exactly just yet China
because we only have the whole cells number. But it probably is a little flat to a little bit up,
I would assume. So probably US is quite bad for Tesla in Q one. And if the US is bad for Tesla,
it's bad for EVs in the US, because Tesla is still the vast majority of EVs sold in the US.
There's Hyundai that didn't do too bad with just short of 10,000 Ioniq five. But yeah, it's
not looking great. But I think the last few weeks of March was probably pretty good for most EV
manufacturers in the US. And it's hard to I was gonna say hopefully the momentum keeps going,
but at the same time, saying that means hopefully the war keeps going. So I don't want the war to
keep going. But I do I want people that's I wrote an article this morning on this about the title
the the old crisis is making buyers, car buyers realize that they cannot afford not to drive
electric. And I hope that's what happens. People remember that this crisis happened. Gas prices
went crazy up. This is like the third gas prices in like five years or something. So they happen
even more often. So people need to remember them and remember like EVs, at least you have some
control over your charging experience to some degree. And that means and also electricity rates
are a lot more predictable than gas prices, obviously. Alright, people are really hyped on
this on the Toyota, Alex electric, the BV version that they launched in China. And it's it's making
its way in other markets now, including in Australia. So we're starting to get an idea of pricing
in when these these EVs get to other markets. And, and that's the thing to keep in mind,
because people always look at these cheap Chinese EVs and the the just translate the price to us
and like, all right, that's what it would be if it wasn't the US if it wasn't Canada, and if it
wasn't wherever. And it's just it's not exactly as simple as that. So this, this is I looks, I
US so it would make it like the cheapest electric pickup truck in the US, if it was sold in the US.
But it's so the avad diesel I looks and that's 55,000 Australian dollars,
basically 38,000 USD. So there's 20,000 Australian dollar difference here. So it's in that's always
a problem. We've been seeing this for years, it's less so these days. But there's an issue when you
have a vehicle, an electric vehicle that's the same model as your gas one, and it's much more
expensive. Unless people are absolutely going for an EV, it's it creates like a psychological
barrier and are like, Hey, this is the same vehicle, but $20,000 less expensive. And yeah,
it's not exactly the same vehicle, but you have a point. Now, this is not also the craziest
pickup truck when it comes to specs too. So we have to manage that with pricing with the
know, it looks good, the interior looks good, you have a nice screen, you have Apple CarPlay,
but you have also a 59.2 kilowatt hour battery pack, which is listed for an NEDC. Really,
they're using any DC range in Australia. Of 315 kilometers 196 miles of range. So it's
nothing crazy, especially if you're going to do and that's, that's the SR cab one. And then if you
want the SR cab chassis is rated at 245 52 miles SR cab chassis. So that's the cheapest one.
Yeah, it's pretty low for any DC. That's 100 something miles. Yeah, extremely limited.
So I don't know. I mean, surely some use cases for it, but for like the average consumer
looks good there though. It's, it's going to be a hard sell.
All right. We have four more news item to discuss before we jump into the comments section. So we
are show live unedited live and we take comments, questions from the audience. So if you guys have
a question for us about any of the topics that we're discussing today or any other topics in the
EV world that you would like set or nice take on, you can put it in a comment section right now
and we'll get to it in about five, 10 minutes or so. All right. Next speaks of news is Talentis,
Chrysler's owner is looking into building Chinese EV, especially Leap Motors in its
idle plant in Canada in Ontario, Brampton, Ontario to be presumed. And this is very
indicative of the changing automotive landscape right now. But this specific case is also a little
bit more complicated because, okay, you would think this is this is good news. It's an idle plant.
Chinese EVs are incredible. A lot of value. Canada just made a deal to reduce the tariffs on them,
but also with the goal to create some joint ventures in Canada to bring Chinese manufacturing
so that Canadian can learn and improve manufacturing long term. This seems to be
everything in line with that. The problem with this particular deal here is that the Brampton
plant in Ontario was being upgraded with billions in investment, $500 million in government subsidies
in Canadian government subsidies. I think it was a Jeep Compass, if I remember, to build the electric
version of the Jeep Compass, exactly. So it was $3.6 billion investment, although it was part of
that investment. So $529 million in subsidies and to retain over $4,000 employees that was working
with the plant, convert that to make a vehicle production. That was the plan. Jeep scientists
decided to change that plan during the tariff war that Trump started with Canada. They basically
chickened out on making the vehicle there and moved it to the US and basically leaving Canada
stuck with now an idle plan and $500 million investment that didn't work.
So now introduce this deal here, but even this deal, okay, you're not going to be building a Jeep
Compass, but you're going to be building Leap Motors, which Leap Motors, by the way, it's popular
EV brand in China and price or Stenlandtis invested $1.5 billion in the company in 2023. So they own
about 20% of the company. So that's how this deal is coming together. The problem is that the deal
right now would be for knockdown kits to be imported from China into Canada and just assemble
at that plant. So that's making a lot of people unhappy because especially the Ontario government,
the federal government and Unifor, which is the local union, because that's going to require a
lot fewer jobs and the $500 million investment was also to retain those jobs. So I obviously
understand the pushbacks on that front. The problem here for me is that if that's the best
you can get, it's better than nothing at least, even though I do think that that Chrysler Stenlandtis
should probably re-emborse the government for the subsidies because we're not talking about
the company going on there, even though maybe someday, but they still make money. You said
you want to do something, you're not going to pay it back. But in terms of a deal here, I think
there's room to negotiate here because you could do something like, okay, let's start with this
knockdown kit deal that's not going to create a ton of Canadian jobs, but a few and going to start
building out the experience of understanding how they make these cheap, great electric vehicles.
And then over time, maybe you start doing a requirements of like, all right, if you don't
want tariffs on your vehicles, then you're going to have to increasingly have a greater
percentage of local sourcing in Canada so that these vehicles are not just imported and assembled,
but the batteries built in Canada at some point, things like that. I think that would be a fair
deal, but right now it sounds like they're pushing back to not have this done at all,
which I think it's a loose, loose situation at this point.
But yeah, this seems to be part of the plan of the Chinese manufacturers.
They want to get some kind of foothold in Canada, and they're doing these deals in Mexico also.
So at some point, the US is basically going to be surrounded by these Chinese.
Are there better factories in Canada? I know there was a lot of battery factories
up around where you're at that were, you can't necessarily put them back in.
We don't make batteries just yet in Canada ourselves. We have some very low volume production
of battery cells. We have some battery pack production, also not a great volume.
Right now, our biggest investment in electric vehicles is in the precursor, the anode and
cattle material. So we do the mining for that, and then we do the processing. But there's still a
bunch of missing pieces to the proposals, and electric vehicle manufacturing at scale is one of
them, even though there is some planned in Ontario doing that. But yeah, I think the idea
that Corny had is basically copying what China did with the auto industry is like,
let's bring people that knows how to build these vehicles in, train our staff. The staff
training is the big thing. European automakers, European and American automakers train a generation
of Chinese vehicle manufacturers would then integrate it with China's greater educational
and also manufacturing expertise to bring that to a whole new level and destroy the rest of the
auto industry around the world. So you want some payback from that, and that's what Canada is trying
to do. Obviously, I think China is a little bit reticent in doing that. And like any other
nation, these automakers, they did that in China because they wanted to have access to the Chinese
market too. The Canadian market is probably not as attractive as the Chinese market in
terms of size. But still, I think there's an opportunity there if we work together.
All right, moving on from Stirland, Mercedes has been working on steel by wire for quite a bit,
but now they confirmed that the 2026 EQS is going to get the steel by wire. But
I don't know about the design of the wheel. Yeah, look at this. Yeah, 11 years, looks like 11 years
to me. The Dumbo wheel. Yeah, yeah, Dumbo wheel, that's good. It's just not a great look to be honest
with you. No, look at this though, Seth. What's that? Yeah, it does have a stock, so that's nice.
But yeah, it's steel by wire. It's going to be interesting to drive. It's not for everyone. I
know, I think someone, that was the, yeah, someone did come in that some point. I was
reading the comments in the article, but I know that steel by wire is not for everyone. A lot of
people want more feedback because if you have a mechanical connection on the seat to the front
axle, you do have more road feedback from it. But at the same time, most, especially luxury
vehicle like an EQS, they are mostly trying to remove any kind of feel from the road. You want
to be like feeling like you're gliding over the road. That's what they're going for anyway.
Yeah, yeah, you have the the QS SUV. It's that that's the goal here. And if you remove that,
it's you're going to remove some vibration for the driver, you're going to make it smoother. And
it's not a performance vehicle to drive. You're not like going on the track with an EQS here.
It's like a comfort feel. And for that, steer by wire is perfect. That's exactly what it does. So
I'm excited for it. I just don't know about the design. Yeah. And if you think about it, Mercedes
already has steer by wire in their EQS. They have rear wheel steering. So that is actually
steer by wire. It's not fully that way. But one of the great things about the EQS is that it has
a turning radius of a small compact car because it's got the four wheel steering.
Yeah, they complement each other, the rear steering and steer by wire. They work great together.
Like you can literally turn on to a full circle by just like barely turning the wheels. It's awesome.
But yeah, I'm overall this news is more about like I'm hyped that now you have the Toyota Lexus
having a few steer by wire option, you have the Cybertruck, you have the EQS, you know, it's slowly
but surely it's becoming like anybody else done a 48 bolt system that we can think of?
Yeah, not on top of my head. Like it's in the work though. I know it's in the work. I feel like
Rivian was talking about it. RJ Scurin maybe commented on it like it was a good idea.
But I don't think the R2 is going to be like that.
Yeah, it makes it makes it ton of sense. I think it's going there for sure.
All right, we have our own Jamie Dowd that went and checked out the Gateway.
That's the new Subaru full size SUV with electric SUV. It's basically it's not super exciting because
it is the well the highlander EV was exciting in itself. So it's exciting in that it's actually
looking to be a great option for full size SUV electric. But it is basically the same car with
a little bit of Subaru twist to it. It's the Islander EV. So we don't have any pricing yet.
But the main thing like it's going to be very similar in terms of specs and everything to the
highlander. But the design is the bigger difference looks looks very cool, especially in all black
there. It looks it looks amazing. And now they're going to have a nice little lineup with the Uncharted,
the Trailseeker and the all of a sudden Subaru is right in there. Yep. Thanks to Toyota, obviously.
Toyota is also right in there. By the way, like four years we just crashed Toyota for their poor
all electric performance, all electric effort, which Toyota also trashed all electric vehicles.
I don't feel bad about it. But you know, they're starting to come around to the reality that
everywhere except the US, like you need to have great in the option if you want to be a major
automaker, which obviously Toyota is a battery pack starts at 77 kilowatt hour, you know, not huge
for full size SUV, but they are not that you're pretty efficient. So the range we don't have the
range on this just yet, I think. But they should be able to get up there.
I love the rear, the rear looks amazing.
So October is when these things are going to hit the dealerships and we should get some pricing,
you know, probably in the summer.
All right, one more piece of news and when we jump into this comment section, so if you guys
have question now is your time going to get to it in just a few minutes. We see we have Dean
that's already here. We have Dan that's always on the podcast. We appreciate you guys.
I'm going to get to your question in just a few minutes.
All right, the Boulder SUV that was the huge unveiling for Hyundai this week,
they made a big deal out of this. They are excited about it. It's going to be a big new
platform for them and the off-roading type of vehicle, not something that Hyundai is normally
getting into. And it's going to be a whole new platform for them that's going to support
electric plug-in and well, they separated the plug-in hybrid and the extended range. So it's
going to be, you know, a more like scalp like battery, big battery with a generator rather
than a small battery. Well, the operating is going to be also an option for a small battery
and an IC power train, which is kind of strange because this thing is supposed to come in 2030.
Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. So it's not quite there. I feel like in 2030, you're going to be good
with them just an electric option on this thing. It's going to be, I don't know, that people are
Do you think this will light a fire under Ford to get an electric Bronco out or?
An electric Bronco outside of China probably. Yeah, because they already have that option in
China. I would also, because this thing looks slick, like I know it's a concept, but again,
it's the Hyundai was very specific that while it is a concept, it's getting pretty close to what
they're going to bring to production. And if that's the case, that's a nice looking vehicle right
there. I wonder how they do with range on it though. Those are big tires. It's not very aerodynamic.
It's not a lot of space for a battery either. You're going to have to have a big battery on this.
It's kind of the only option. Yeah. The prototype that they showed didn't have an interior, but
they did release these. That's cool. Yeah, looks cool, but looks pretty concept. I don't know what's
going on here on the dash in the middle. It's like a wheel. Yeah, the dials are wheels and a log wheels.
But then a bunch of smaller displays, which, you know, could be cool to be cool to each
had this, they had their own info on it. Is that a full screen full full with reality? Oh,
no, the full width. It's a display display. Yeah, looks like they had this. I saw this
in person at the New York auto show. Yeah. Yeah. Not me, not the inside, but the outside. Yeah.
You, uh, it looks as good as in person. Yeah, it's nice. It definitely definitely has Bronco
vibes. Bigger, right? Um, I mean, it has bigger wheels, but I think size wise, it might be about
the same size. The rear door, like we don't, we haven't seen how the doors open. So a lot of
people are talking about the rear door. You see, like probably is the width setup right now is
going to be like a suicide door. Um, but, uh, yeah, don't know about that. Like that, that's
another thing that feels concept to me. Yep. All right. Let's jump into the comment section.
All right. Uh, EV fan. Oh, SU says I am considering an extended warranty for my 2022
e-tron. Seth, are you planning on an extended warranty for your EQS interested in your thoughts
and how you evaluate the decision? Thanks. Um, I'm not a big warranty guy. Like I never get
Apple care on my Apple products. I'm saying basically barely get car insurance. Um, sometimes
sometimes things go wrong and I end up paying, you know, top dollar for it. But I think in the end,
I end out, end up okay. That said, uh, you know, I hear horror stories about EQS or Mercedes just
in general. Uh, so I am considering it. I haven't made a decision yet.
Yeah. I mean, if you get a good deal on it, it depends on the deal you get on it too. So if you
get a deal that makes sense to you, go for it, but I'm, I'm the same though. I'm have a lot of issues
doing extended warranty stuff, uh, insurance and all that. It's, you know, I, I remember when I
first started like getting into investing everything, I read a bunch of books and you know,
I find out that one of the ways that Warren Buffett got so rich is through, uh, buying,
I don't know if it was Gekko at the time, but he bought Gekko and yeah. So like how did guy guy
get so rich is like, it's, it's not because the insurance was paying out to people a lot. It's
like, it's a giant cash flow that they can invest after that. And the reason that they get that money
is because they pay out as little as they can and they make money. So he just doesn't make that
much sense. It's the same thing for the extended warranty. But if you can get a good deal and these
cars, especially like if you're worried about the battery, uh, the e-tron battery though,
I feel like it's pretty good. It has like a lot of buffer, a huge buffer. That's right. That's right.
Uh, 20, they reduced it over time of 2022. I think it's you're still in the big buffer days.
Yeah. I probably would not get a warranty. It would depend on the price, I guess.
All right. Uh, Dan overstay. I would say generally that extended warranties are huge profit centers
for dealers, meaning not good value for customers. Yeah. I mean that, that goes across everything
like any kind of medical insurance, huge profit centers. Uh, all right. Uh, we have a bunch of
doughnut stuff here. Verge doughnut lab advisory board is stacked. We got Mark Wilson, Aston Martin,
George Blankenship, Apple store retail, Allen Foster doesn't, doesn't make it a
sold done deal, but it certainly doesn't hurt either. Yeah. Look, uh, CFO, CRO,
I don't know, Allen Foster, so I don't want to comment. And I, I mean, I'm sure those Wilson and
Blankenship or Blankenship I've met before, nice guy and everything, but yeah. And none of these
guys are battery expert. None of these guys are, none of these guys are, and let's be honest, like
today, so yesterday, more mostly I, and I reached out to the lab about this. I'm like, what's happening
guys? Yeah, we're supposed to get one. Yeah. Q1 is done two weeks without updates now. Q1 is done.
I don't see any verge motorcycles sold state batteries being delivered. I don't see any 400
watt hours per kilogram of energy density. Uh, I'm losing faith at a rapid rate. So let's just,
let's just put it that way. That's the rate that these things charge. Yes. But they prove that they
charge fast. But I mean, other batteries are like, DYD starts in five minutes these days.
And these are in cars being delivered. Now there's other cars going to get some miscellaneous state
batteries and all that. So I mean, they're not lab. If you can prove otherwise out there, please do
it. I'm open to it. I'm not, not an aider or anything on that, but it don't look good. It don't
look good. Q1 is gone. All right. Moving on. Hardware three FSD version is only 12.6.4.
I was just checking what mine is. Mine is 12.6.4. Yeah, same one, not even 13.
For me, I think I've since I haven't updated it, I'm a little bit behind, but I'm 14. Yeah,
dot two dot two five. So hardware three people like myself are two versions behind and and growing
to full version. Yeah. All right. Sad for the model X and S they had such a strong brand and they
could have rehabbed the program to make awesome vehicles. But alas no, sad day for Tesla.
Yeah, like, can you imagine what another car company would pay to have like the model S and X
and they're stable and like, Hey, let's pay some attention to it. And
yeah, just killing off killing off all that work. It seems like a big waste.
All right. Dean McManus 4862 says, I think that the robots taking over the SNX manufacturing
space was a lame excuse distraction if they use the new 4680 batteries and 75 kilowatt hour
real drive 70 k base model S it would have sold very well. Yeah, maybe, maybe, but I don't know
how good the 4680 hours to be honest, like we only know them from what's in the Cybertruck, which,
you know, Cybertruck does charge at a peak rate that's higher, but doesn't charge that fast overall
either. So the entire charge cycles, you know, it improves, improve quite a bit and it's better
than the Model S and X. So I agree with that. But I think they could, they could go even better
than that for, for, for, for, you know, these are the flagship vehicles and everything. So
and BYD has some great batteries now and BYD also is already a supplier for Tesla batteries.
CATL is already a supplier of Tesla batteries and they make some, they make better batteries. So
they could go just with that. Obviously they're Chinese and
this is using, I think this is still using Japanese batteries and less next to the end.
All right, Dan overseas says this should cause two car households to embrace this,
the oil crisis right now, at least one EV in the garage, being able to take advantage of
whatever fuel is cheapest at the moment. Yeah, that's fair edge, I guess.
Yeah, because I have to say like driving in electric vehicles is cheaper if you,
you know, manage your charging attention. Like if you go to superchargers all the time, the fast
chargers, especially, especially like in California and in some places where electricity rates are
not super cheap, it, it, it goes up. But if you charge at home or find some cheaper charging
solution to, which they are, you, you're going to get massive fuel savings for sure.
All right. We talked about donut labs a little bit. Was there an April Fool's Day video?
I avoid those. I wasn't on April Fool's Day. I was not on Twitter or anything like that at all,
because it's just, it's worthless. It's all, it's all just lies and everything. So, but yeah,
no one that didn't see anything shit. Yeah. All right. Ford was talking about 48 volt accessories
on its recently revealed truck. That's the, the, the election. I don't remember that.
I'm on this unless they're talking about the P plan. Yeah.
I don't know. All right. Mike, the car geek says, has Tesla shipped anything with 4680 other than
Cybertruck? I thought there was a tweet saying it's going to be back in the Model Y. It was
originally in the Model Y a little bit too, right? Yeah. There was some of the Y's that had the 4680
for a little bit, then just a Cybertruck and now back to the, to the Model Y because, you know,
they have over capacity. But yeah, it just, I'm not convinced that the 4680 is just,
it's it, like, just not convinced.
That's a good question. Is the semi as 4680? That's a good question. I kind of want to look at you.
Maybe they haven't even announced it. I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they discussed it in the Jay Leno video.
Apparently it's the 4680.
Okay. Okay.
And yes, we did talk about March sales used in new BEV sales, huge spike in US too.
I wouldn't say huge spike, but
Yeah, it's just, you know, what's significant? I don't think we have enough data just yet
on everything, but, you know, April, April is going to be interesting. I think if, especially, like,
because it did spark quite a bit. And then it looked like it was,
oil was going back down to normal levels. And because of what Trump was saying, but I think,
I think, I think now it's pretty clear that no one believes anything Trump says about the,
literally US media and US markets believe more what the Iranian say about the state of the war
than Trump at this point literally has a bigger impact on the price of oil,
what they say versus what Trump says. So if it continue that way, I think, I think we might get
some pretty crazy prices in April. And yeah, anything over like 115 will
start like you're going to see gas price over $4 gallon consistently throughout the US.
We just hit $2 a liter here in Canada, which is a big deal for us. That's, that's when it's over
$2 people like the freak out. And if it's maintained throughout the month of April,
forget it. Everyone's going to want the EB. No, it's bittersweet. It's because I think there's
some statistics of like if the barrel of petrol is over $100, like every day, like X number of
people die from, you know, just not having access to things. So it's not a good situation either
where you don't, we don't want the war to continue, but yeah, rabies is good.
We should take a look at the latest donut lab video. It sneaks out a lot of new info despite
the April Fool's joke. I don't know about it. I haven't seen it, Dean, so I don't
but it's not a good info as an April Fool's. Exactly. If I have to watch an April Fool's
video to get to get critical information about a company that claims to be revolutionizing the
world, it's like, that's not a great look. And, and we're past the deadline for them to
said to have to have, you know, clear independent testing on the real big claims on the battery,
which were always the energy density and the life cycles, and we just don't have that at all. So
I think they have something. I just don't think it's might be as good as they thought it was.
And they are trying to navigate this situation. So it's not all bad, but I think it's not all
good either. And I just, I don't think we guys see, you know, what we, we said could,
this could come out of this, which would be like, you know, global revolution in terms of
Alright, but that's it for this week's episode of Electric Podcasts. I hope you enjoyed the
show. And I hope you guys have a nice Easter weekend and fun with your loved ones and everything.
And we're going to see you same time, same place next week. Bye bye.
About this episode
Quarter-end EV numbers take center stage: Tesla delivered 358k vehicles vs 365k expected, with production at 408k—leaving a sizable inventory overhang, plus energy-storage deployments coming in below expectations. The guys also cover Tesla ending Model S/X production in Fremont, Rivian’s R1 output/deliveries, and Toyota and Ford’s weaker-than-ideal US BEV results. The news sweep includes Toyota’s Australia-bound electric pickup (and its limited range/pricing), Chinese EV assembly in Canada, Mercedes confirming steer-by-wire for the 2026 EQS, Subaru’s Toyota-based EV SUV lineup, and Hyundai’s off-road “Boulder” platform concept. FSD update chatter and warranty debate round it out.
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss EV deliveries from Tesla, Rivian, and others, Toyota's electric pickup truck, and more.
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