Electrek Feb 20, 2026

New Tesla (temp) Cybertruck, Cybercab, Ford wants China in the US, and more

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Car

Tesla Cybertruck

The Tesla Cybertruck is a new kind of electric pickup truck that looks very different from regular trucks. It can drive all four wheels and is made to be strong and useful for work or everyday driving.

Term

range

Range means how far an electric car can go before it needs to be charged again.

Part

air suspension

Air suspension is a special system in some cars that uses air to make the ride smoother and lets the car raise or lower itself.

Concept

Gigafactory

A Gigafactory is a very big factory where Tesla makes batteries and cars to sell to lots of people.

Term

all-wheel drive

All-wheel drive means the vehicle can send power to all four wheels at the same time, which helps it drive better on slippery or rough roads.

Part

battery pack

The battery pack is like a big rechargeable battery that powers the car instead of gas.

Part

active damping

Active damping means the car can change how soft or hard the shocks are while you drive to make the ride better.

Concept

inventory reduction

Inventory reduction means the company wants to sell cars quickly so they don’t have too many sitting around unused.

Term

software locked

Software locking means the car has parts that can do more, but the computer inside stops it from using all of them. This can be changed later by updating the car's software.

Term

rear wheel drive

Rear wheel drive means the car sends power only to the back wheels, which can make it feel more fun to drive, especially on dry roads.

Term

resell value

Resell value means how much money you can get if you sell your car later. It helps you know if a car keeps its value over time.

Term

Tesla Autopilot

Tesla Autopilot helps the car drive itself a bit by keeping distance from other cars and staying in the lane, but the driver still needs to pay attention and control the car.

Term

AFSD

AFSD means Full Self-Driving, a set of features in Tesla cars that help the car drive itself, but the driver still needs to pay attention and be ready to take over.

Term

emergency braking system

This system helps stop the car quickly if it thinks a crash might happen, even if the driver doesn't press the brakes.

Term

autonomy

Autonomy means a car can drive on its own without a person controlling it.

Part

turn signal stalk

It's the little stick next to the steering wheel that you push up or down to show other drivers you want to turn.

Part

drive gear stalk

It's the stick you move to choose if the car goes forward, backward, or stays still.

Term

yoke steering wheel

A yoke steering wheel is a steering control shaped more like a video game controller than a round wheel. It lets you see more of the dashboard but can feel different when turning the car.

Term

unsupervised self-driving vehicle

This means a car that can drive itself without a person watching or controlling it at all.

Brand

Waymo

Waymo is a company that builds self-driving car technology, which means cars that can drive themselves without a person controlling them.

Concept

robotaxi service

A robotaxi is like a taxi that drives itself without a driver. You can use an app to call one, and it will take you where you want to go on its own.

Concept

vehicle customization

Vehicle customization means changing or adding things to your truck after you buy it to make it look or work the way you want.

Car

Ford Maverick

The Ford Maverick is a small truck that’s easy to drive and can carry things like a big car but isn’t too big itself. People like it because it’s affordable and you can choose different options to fit what you need. It’s good if you want a truck but don’t want something huge.

Car

Polestar 2

The Polestar 2 is an electric car that looks nice and has lots of modern features. It’s made by a company related to Volvo and is good for people who want a clean, quiet ride. The new version has some improvements to make it even better.

Car

Polestar 4

The Polestar 4 is a new electric car that looks like a small SUV with a sporty shape. It’s designed to go far on a single charge and be fun to drive. It’s coming out soon and is part of a new group of electric cars.

Car

Ford F150 Lightning

The Ford F-150 Lightning is a big truck that runs on electricity instead of gas. It can do many things a normal truck does but is better for the environment and can save money on fuel. People talk about it because it’s one of the first electric trucks from a big company.

Car

Tesla Semi

The Tesla Semi is a big truck that runs on electricity instead of diesel fuel. It’s made to carry heavy loads while being better for the planet. People talk about it because it’s a new way to move goods without pollution.

Term

EV factory

An EV factory is a place where electric cars are made. They have special equipment to build the batteries and electric parts.

Car

Byd Shark 6

The BYD Shark 6 is an electric car made by a company from China. It’s getting popular because it looks good, drives well, and doesn’t use gas. People are sharing videos about it online because it’s a new and interesting car.

Concept

focus on efficiency

Making a vehicle efficient means it uses less fuel and is better for the environment, so it costs less to drive and pollutes less.

Car

Dodge Charger

The Dodge Charger is a big car that can go very fast and has a strong engine. It’s popular with people who like cars that feel sporty but can still carry a family. Sometimes it’s talked about when rules about cars are changing.

LIVE

One, we are live on the episode of the Electric Podcast.

I am Fred Lambert, your host, and as usual, I'm joined by Seth Winscham.

How are you doing this week, Seth?

I'm good.

All right.

Now, I can actually talk to you this week.

We had some issues with the live broadcast last week, but looks like the internet situation

is a little bit easier this week, and the stream yard stuff is always pretty heavy

on the internet.

I don't know why they're like, when we have like Zoom calls and everything, it's

fine, but the stream yard, not so much.

But we're back to our regular show this week.

Let me mute my notification right now so that I can focus entirely on the show.

All right.

We're going to start out by a new Cybertruck being launched this week.

I was very excited about it for a good half a day because after half a day, Elon already

canceled it or sort of.

So for those of you that haven't followed, last night, Tesla updated its online configurator

for the Cybertruck and launched a new all-wheel-drive Cybertruck at $60,000, starting

at $60,000.

So compared to the $70,000 rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck that was decontended, when Tesla launched it

last year, we right away, we said, this is not going to work.

It's going to be canceled very soon, and sure enough, I think it was only online

for about four months before Tesla canceled the vehicle because it didn't have suspension,

no cover, or at least mechanical technical cover that you had to manually open it.

It didn't have the outlets in the back.

It was like crazy, crazy decontended, a smaller range too.

Everything that makes sense for just a $10,000 difference in price.

Now we have a $20,000 difference in price, and all of these features except for the

active air suspension are still in there, which I think is a giant difference maker here.

The range is also adjusted though, it's 325 miles, if I'm not mistaken, yeah, 325 miles.

So the two main things you're losing here is the little bit of range and the air suspension

for $60,000, which it's not the $40,000 that Elon Tesla originally announced with the Cybertruck,

but it's getting closer to the ballpark at least.

So I wasn't going to say that this is going to save the Cybertruck program, I think like that.

For those who don't know, the Cybertruck is selling as of last quarter at about 5,000 units a quarter.

That's roughly 20,000 units a year.

Tesla had planned for a capacity, Gigafactory takes us about $250,000 a year.

So when you're running about less than 10% of your production capacity,

normally a vehicle program doesn't survive on that because it just doesn't make sense.

You're underutilizing your productive assets and it gets canceled.

Though we do suspect that Tesla is going to try a lot of things before canceling that

just because it makes Elon look so bad that there's Cybertruck, because he's been the champion of that vehicle program.

But then what happened next set, it's Elon on Twitter ended up sending out a tweet,

he quote tweeted Wes Morrill, who's the head engineer on the Cybertruck program.

Wes had just announced Cybertruck now started $60,000 instead of $80,000.

And then Elon responded with only for the next 10 days.

No follow up, nothing else.

So what does only for a next 10 days means?

Because Wes tweet was specifically mentioning the price of the, but it's also a new trim,

even though it's, there's already an all the drive Cybertruck.

It's, you know, there's less range, there's no air suspension, it's a different trim.

So does he mean that this is only the price for the next 10 days?

Or is this version of the Cybertruck only going to exist for 10 days?

We don't know.

And I do have some theories and I'd like to know your take on it set.

So this is very close to the existing Cybertruck.

So meaning that this doesn't have to do much to do to make this truck different.

We don't even know if the battery pack is different.

It might just be soft for a lock.

Tesla has done that before.

So maybe a different battery pack.

Maybe not just the air suspension is the main thing, but the air suspension for

those don't know, so this has active damping like the other ones.

So it's, it's a fairly small modification to make, even though I can have a big impact,

but it's in terms of the production process, it's not that big of a deal.

So my take on it, I see two potential things happening.

Well, one main thing I think Tesla is trying to reduce inventory.

So it's trying to not, not finish inventory because this is obviously a new new

vehicles that they're building, but maybe that they have a certain

quantities of Cybertruck parts that they want to, you know, finish and

then sell out to either end the production of the Cybertruck or to get

rid of what they have now for a potential refresh of the Cybertruck

program because it badly needs something.

Like if, if you want to keep it alive, you have to do something bigger

than, than this change here.

So I think it's one of those.

What do you think?

I mean, is it possible that these are just software locked?

Like they, they pulled some of the battery capacity.

They pulled the air suspension and yeah, even the air suspension could

be software lock, you're right.

Right.

So is it possible that they're just taking inventory from somewhere, you

know, much more expensive vehicles, locking up some of the features and

selling them at a discount.

And then those people that buy them, you know, hey, unlock the

rest of your battery, unlock your suspension for a price.

But the only thing that would point not to that is that did every

day, they talk about July, June, I think June.

All right.

So that would point to new production.

Right.

Unless they're just tweaking the software to do that.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Um, it is weird that they try and included so much of the, you know, the

standard build that in this, and it all wheel drive, especially for 60

K is actually a pretty good price when they were talking 40 K for the

real rear wheel drive, um, you know what, however, like 55 years ago

when they announced this thing.

So 60,000 for a all wheel drive cyber truck is actually kind of

close to what they were originally promising.

Yeah, it's the same ballpark.

It's a similar ballpark.

It's not, well, I mean, obviously they would sell a lot more at 40,000,

but for your right, for the specs, for the features, you could

argue it's a ballpark.

And then the biggest comparison obviously is between the, um, previous

and still current all wheel drive version, uh, $20,000 difference for

the suspension, uh, a little bit more range is not that big of a deal.

Quite obviously.

So, um, this, there's something going on here is just not clear what it is.

And obviously Tesla is not saying anything.

Uh, but it's, I don't think it's helping the program much, uh, because

even the, the situation is kind of putting buyers in the, uh, you're

not, you know, when you're spending $60,000, $80,000 on a truck, uh,

resell value is also important.

So you want to know like what's happening with the program right now.

It's just this, is it just, is the trims going to still exist next quarter

or, or Q three, or is it just a pricing situation?

It could be Tesla just trying to like boost, uh, the man, uh, for, for

the cyber truck short term with, uh, this sort of, uh, discount to create

urgency within the next 10 days.

We don't know.

I think it's bigger than that.

I think it's more like inventory related to say it's trying to, you know,

get through, get rid of some inventory of the parts level.

And then, then something is going to happen.

Maybe not in 10 days, but, uh, in by the time they produce all of

these and deliver them, which sounds like it's going to be June.

So maybe in the second half of the year, we see either the end of the

program, I'm less likely on that just because of, you know, I think

it would be a big fail for Elon.

Uh, and he wouldn't really take that or a refresh, just how much refresh

can you put in a program that's like not even three years old at this point?

I don't know, but one thing is sure is that you, you need it.

It's just, this is not working right now.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Yeah, we'll keep you guys updated.

Uh, then we have a couple of, uh, news that we'll discuss related to Tesla's

autonomy effort because that's mostly what Tesla is doing these days.

It's related to autonomy.

Uh, first off, big news on the first Tesla autopilot fatal accident

liability case, uh, that happened in Florida last year.

Tesla for the first time went to trial on a fatal case involving

a crash of, uh, on autopilot and was found 33% liable for it.

And, uh, the victims were awarded $243 million.

Um, and, uh, yeah, there was, it was really an historic case because

it is the first time that Tesla went to trial over such case before

that Tesla had dismissed, uh, or in, in, uh, one case, the, the

settlement and this that was prior to that very not prone to do

settlements, but then after the first judgment, we saw a series of similar

cases from 2018 to 2020 crashes that, you know, it takes a lot of

time to go through the entire, uh, court process, um, being settled by Tesla.

So this, this case completely changed the game regarding Tesla's, uh, liability

in, in court regarding, uh, crashes related to its, uh, advanced driver

assist system, specifically autopilot because against, because of the timing

if it's the launched in late 2020.

And most of these cases are about crashes that are older than that.

But now, uh, the 242 million dollar judgment as the, uh, went to ask

a federal court to overturn it.

And, uh, today, uh, the, uh, judge of that bloom in Miami, uh,

throw the case away saying that Tesla didn't have any, wasn't adding any

new arguments that justify setting the case aside.

Uh, there's still an appeal process that's possible, but, uh, it's

going to, it's becoming obviously harder for Tesla.

It's, uh, they are quickly exhausting their way to avoid, uh,

paying this 243 million dollar settlement.

Uh, this is, this is a big deal.

Like, uh, we said and I were talking about it today.

I'm, I'm going through all, and it's, uh, crash information

right now from Tesla's ADS system is like, we're, we're just

seeing the peak of the iceberg here because like I said, most of

the crashes based on the data we have happened after 2020.

So 2021, 2022, 2023, the biggest, the most amount of crashes were

in 2024 and 2025.

And then we're just not even two months into 2026.

And there's already a bunch of them.

So these, not all of them, because I'm sure some of them

are Tesla's clearly not responsible.

And sometimes people crash into a Tesla that's, uh, self-driving

or, uh, on autopilot or AFSD, I should say, it's not really

self-driving and, uh, there's no responsibility, but in some

of those cases, like this one, even though this, and what's

crazy about this one, like obviously the, the stakes

were high.

Someone died that was outside of the, of the car.

I was not related to the Tesla driver and someone else was

gravely injured.

Uh, so obviously that, but in terms of the liability that

Tesla has, which was only 33% of liability, which I think is,

is fair, honestly, because the driver was also clearly at fault.

Well, the driver was using autopilot, drove their phone,

meaning they were using their phone on autopilot and was

reaching down to grab their phone.

And as they were doing so, they ran a red light and, uh,

or blinking light and, um, crash into the victim's

vehicles and, and the victims.

So the, the, the main development with this case and the

jury verdict is that the Tesla was liable one, because

autopilot, you know, was playing to have emergency

braking system that should have detected the crash and

should have activated to Tesla based on its, what, what

the Tesla was communicating to customer, shouldn't even

have been able to activate autopilot in these, uh, in

these specific roads since it was supposed to be a

highway system.

And three, Tesla was also found to have misled customers

into thinking that they could not pay as much

attention in this, even though there's, it was kind of

using the contrast between what Tesla is saying in

its user manuals and it, and it's, uh, uh, allured to

the customer versus what Tesla is saying to, um, uh, in

its marketing effort.

So those two have been quite a bit contrasted and that

led to the situation with the customers here.

And now you can apply that to a bunch of other cases,

literally hundreds of them, potentially even thousands

of them, and that, uh, the, the liability here, like

I'm still working through this, all this data, but

I think it's minimum in the billions of dollars,

potentially in the tens of billions of dollars.

It's, uh, absolutely huge.

Um, moving on, Tesla announced this week that, uh, they

are, uh, distorted production of the cyber cab, even

though we're not sure it's going to be called cyber

cab because of the previous, uh, trademark issues that

we discussed, but for now we'll call it cyber cab.

Uh, they said that the first one rolled off the

production line in, uh, in Gigafactory, Texas.

Now it doesn't mean that continuous production is

starting.

That's not expected until April, even Elon Musk

said that, uh, the ramp up is going to be, uh, very

slow and, but the first one is being produced, uh, even

though the, uh, has not solved autonomy yet, which

is the, the craziest part here is that, um, they're

producing, there's, there's sort of starting slowly

production of a steering wheel less, pedal less

vehicle without having truly solved autonomy yet.

Um, but my, my agreement on that set, I think

it's very interesting is that this is like the, the

most blatant case of Tesla putting the cart in

front of the horse, but it's, um, not the first one

when it comes to autonomy.

Like we've seen this happen with Tesla many times

before with the removing of the stall, uh, whether

it be the turn signal stock or the, um, drive, uh,

gear, uh, stock, um, Tesla said at the time that

they were doing this because of autonomy, like the

time is around the corner, you don't really need

those if it's autonomous.

And then they backtracked on that specifically for

the turning signal stock, but also, um, to some

degree for the drive gear and, um, the, the

yoke steering wheel is also very similar situation.

Like, uh, unless you put drive by steering, like

in the Cybertruck, uh, it's, uh, a sort of

steer by, uh, by a warrior, like, like in the

Cybertruck doesn't really make much sense to

have a yoke steering wheel.

You kind of need that to have, uh, uh, be somewhere

like if you're going to do full turn, uh, on the

ratio with the, with the steering wheel, doesn't

make sense, but, um, Tesla has a clear tendency

of doing these hardware changes first and then

hoping that autonomy happens.

And this is no different.

Um, I don't know if you remember, um, when

they unveiled the, uh, the Cybert cab in, uh, the

Wii robot event in 2024, MKB HD, uh, did the

little video on it and said that he would, he

was going to shave his head if, um, if Tesla

would deliver this car for $30,000 or less to

consumers by 20, 20, who's seven?

Yeah, it's a pretty safe bet, I think.

Um, and 20, 20, in the, no, I mean, at

$20,000, that's not going to happen, obviously.

But, um, you know, the bigger thing is like they're

going to have all these cars without steering

wheels and, and the software is not going to be

safe enough to run.

And I guess they could still have follow

vehicles.

I don't know.

I don't know what, what they're going to do

with all these steering wheelless vehicles

with, while they're fixing their software.

Yeah, my take on this is that these are

entering production and could be used in

Tesla's, you know, pilot robotaxi programs.

Whether it be training cars or remote

operation, I think, I think it's feasible

right now, but the, the MKB HD bet was

specifically about delivering these to

consumer vehicles.

And I think that's what brought the most

headlines when Tesla on the old days is

like, a lot of people thought they would

be the molo twos that they were expecting

the cheaper $30,000 Tesla is like, oh,

that could be it.

And Elon sort of ended at that by saying

that we're going to sell them to consumers

for $30,000 or less.

And, but he specifically said that as in,

you're going to have it in, in like a

use it in the robotaxi fleet.

Like it's going to be a personal robotaxi.

But now that the enter production, a lot

of the Tesla fans were like, oh, when

KB HD is going to have to shave his head.

And then Elon got involved too and says,

yeah, it's going to happen.

By the end of this year, we're going to

deliver it out to consumers.

And which I think it's probably the

biggest relief for MKB HD that Elon

actually says that is if you, if you

track Elon's prediction, and especially

the end of the year ones, when it

comes to autonomy is just never happens.

I think the only thing like everyone

that's hoping to see Marques's bear

cranium, you, I think the only

hope you can have is that maybe just

to prove Elon right, they deliver a few

of these to like our core Tesla fan in

Austin and then they tell them you can

only drive them in the same geofence

area as the robotaxi in Austin with

the same software that's running on

the existing robotaxi there.

And that's it, which I think would

be nuts, like would be just purely

an OPTIQ win and no real value.

Again, it would be apt to be delivered

to some hardcore fans that just don't

care about, you know, you're saying it

would be nuts, it would just be for

optics and just just the hardcore fans.

You're basically guaranteeing they're

doing it. That's like, yeah, just, I

just convinced myself by saying that

you're right. I just convinced

myself that they could do it.

But I mean, not my point is like

they could do it like that.

But if I was MKB HD and I'm not, I

would not shave my head if they do

that because like obviously it's

quite the stretch if they do that.

It's like it's not it's not in the

spirit of the bed that, you know,

Tesla would deliver it through unsupervised

self-driving vehicle to consumer

by the end of the year.

It's just it's just not going to

happen.

Yeah, so that did that.

Oh yeah.

And I still just, just for

AI is good at something.

Sorry, Mark.

The other big news this week when it

comes to FSD is now Tesla, even

though Tesla lost the we reported

on that in December, the case with

the California DMV about

misdeeding autopilot and full

self-driving where the

still avoided the, the, the

predictive damage that come with

that, that case, which was a 30

D band, a minimum of 30 D band

under California sales because

Tesla is now fully dropping

autopilot from its marketing and

full self-driving has now been

completely changed to

supervised full self-driving.

And now with the end of

Tesla selling

full self-driving as

as a package that

in the future will become unsupervised

now is just a subscription

base. So there's no promise of update.

Well, they tell you that you're

going to update it, but there's

you're paying for what you get right

now. So there's no promise

of you don't pay for

a future on supervised version.

The the

avoid the comply

now to the request of California's

DMV to stop misdeeding people

into thinking that they're buying

a full self-driving vehicle or

something that will become unsupervised

full self-driving.

So it's kind of it's good for

this to avoid that.

And a lot of the stuff and

took this as a win. But at the

core of it, Tesla

had to make some really significant

changes because of this case.

So I think I think it's

overall good.

It's one of the rare regulators

out there that's actually pushing

Tesla to do better right now.

So I'm going to I'm going to give

this as a win for the California

DMV for this one.

And I mean, I was pretty

confident to that it would they

would comply because

having a 30 day salesman for

Tesla in California by far

the biggest market in the U.S.

for Tesla is I don't

think they wouldn't even consider

that.

All right, we have four more pieces

of news that you want to discuss

right now. And then we're going to

jump into the comments section.

So if you guys have comments or

questions for us, you can put them

in the comments section right now

where there it is on YouTube,

LinkedIn, Facebook, X,

whatever. We're going to take your

comments in just a few minutes.

But the next one I want to discuss.

Oh, yeah, this is a big one.

So this is also with California.

But this time with the California

public utilities commission, which

has the oversight over the self

driving permits there.

And this is one of the best way

to really track through progress

for Tesla's full self driving

level four on supervised

levels.

Because California has pretty

strict laws there. So for those

I've been following like in Texas,

it's it's free for all.

Basically, there's some regulators,

but it's minimal.

And that's what allowed Tesla to

run their service right now with,

you know, the supervisor in the

passenger seat or in a training

car or in a kind of

call center somewhere.

But in California, Tesla is not

doing that because if they do that,

they need to classify their vehicle

as level four.

They need to share the data

about their vehicle, this engagement

rate, crash rate and everything.

And they just simply don't want

to do that or you're not

and then you have to ask why

they don't want to do that.

And the only reason I wanted that

is because it would make them

look awful.

But they are

still actively lobbying

and commenting on proposed laws

to change the regulations

in in in California.

And there's kind of a regulatory

battle now between Tesla

and Waymo there.

Waymo basically wants to distance

itself as much as possible from

what Tesla is doing, meaning that,

you know, Tesla likes to be

compared to Waymo because it looks

good for them.

But and they claim

to be competing with them.

But Waymo is like, we need

to differentiate Tesla's

robotaxi, which shouldn't even

be called robotaxi according to

Waymo because it's a level

two system and our level four

system.

So these days are doing with that

and our agreements in the last

filing this week were very

interesting where

they use the example

of the December blackouts

that was in in San Francisco,

where they're operating and they're

like, look, our system is better

than Waymo's because we were

able to keep operating the blackout

while Waymo's couldn't.

But then you look at the reasons

that they gave for that, which

are kind of obvious when you think

about it, is that

they were not they're not

autonomous vehicles.

They it's not an autonomous

robotaxi service.

There are drivers behind the wheel.

And that's because the drivers

are behind the wheels that they

were able to keep

operating through that day.

So the reason that Waymo couldn't

operate anymore is that Waymo

does use remote operator.

I think they call it remote

assistant operator because they

are not actually, you know,

controlling the vehicles.

But in certain edge cases,

the vehicle asks the operator

to look at the situation and

take a decision for them.

And in the case of the blackout

with a lot of the lights

not working anymore, they

had to tell them whether they

could go or not in some

intersection because of it.

And since, you know, the entire

I don't know if it was the entire

city, but a large portion of the

city at this problem.

And there's a big Waymo fleet

there. They had not enough

capacity of those remote

assistant operator to keep

operation going smoothly.

Meanwhile, Tesla, they

just had to take the wheels

to people that were behind the

wheels and do it.

So, so Tesla basically

makes the argument that their

system is better because of

that. But the at the

same time, the they have to

concede that it's not an

autonomous system.

And so basically the problem

with this filing there is that

they're trying to make the

argument that they have a

better system at the level

to level, which I don't think

anyone is making a counter

argument to that, because

they do claim, by the way,

to use obviously drivers.

They're not supervisors, by

the way, and in tests as

findings, they refer to them

as drivers in the driver's

seat, and also remote

operators. They do also use

remote operator, which the

the the pride themselves

apparently Waymo use some of

them that are outside the US.

And this says that they're

only using people in the US

with driver's license in the

US. But basically, Tesla

wants to market the system

as autonomous at the

marketing level. But the

regularity level, they want to

clearly be level two for the

reasons that I previously

mentioned. And so the spat

right now is mostly about Waymo

wanted to have a distinction

between the two at the

marketing level and Tesla says,

you know, people know what

they're getting into. And I

don't know that that's a

really good argument,

because the only place that

Tesla is making this

argument is in those filings

everywhere else, you know,

if you go on X and you look

at Elon Musk and Tesla's

points on this, it's the

refer to it as a rubber

taxi. I think I think on the

only other place that I've

seen them more clearly

listing the San Francisco

B area stuff, not as

rubber taxi is in the

earnings report. And the

earnings report, they do

reference it as a right

hailing system, which which

tells you a lot. If you

know, if in the regulatory

filing and earnings report

places that are, you know,

subject to more scrutiny

from regulators, especially

like SEC, and in this case,

the CPUC, you, that's

probably what the marketing

should be based on, not

something else. We posted

the whole filing on the

electric. If you guys want

to check out the, because

everything I just said is

basically just from Tesla's

own words.

Moving on, Ford is

apparently, according to

reports, making the

argument with the Trump

administration that Chinese

EV technology should come

to the US. In what form

exactly? That's less clear,

but the way that I read

the report, which from

Bloomberg, the kind of

making the argument that

China made in the early

days of foreign automakers

coming to China and now

Canada doing the same thing

with China is they want

to partner with the one

Chinese automakers to come

to the US and partner

with American automakers

to learn from them.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has been

quite clear that he's been

more than impressed really

by Chinese EV technology

and he started a whole

program, a little

short work program at Ford to

probably not replicate the

technology is not like probably

the right word, but it's pretty

close to that. They want to

have similar technology that's

cheap but high tech also

to create cheaper electric

vehicles in the US.

But they are quite

open about the fact that

Chinese expertise would be

very useful with that.

Now, I don't think that the

government

mentioned much about the

Trump response there

or the Trump administration

response, but I think we can

guess what it was.

Yeah, Trump's

pretty cool.

Probably not very open to it

based on what

on existing

Chinese

and US relationship

lately.

From Slade this week, Slade

the Jeff Bezos

backed electric

small pickup truck

company that

they plan to announce their

exact pricing in June

and that the base

version of the truck is

still expected to start in the

mid $20,000

range.

So maybe 25

to 27, something

like that would be interesting.

Slade is going with

a very, like the blank

approach is

right. It's a very blank

Slade truck.

I don't think that we have much

spec yet, but it's

you can expect a decent range,

electric range

with a lot of customization available

after the fact. So you can

buy the truck and then customize

it here, but it's

also a very

small sized truck

and the idea is

to kind of do a bit

of what Ford wants to do

at the higher range Chinese

TV style in the $30,000 range, but

even cheaper and more

bareborn.

How do you feel about Slade?

Are you excited at all or are you just

wait until you can see it?

It's a new company, so

it does take a while to spool up.

It's not even like

a new company like Scout is a new company

coming from a Volkswagen

expertise.

So look at

Rivian, how long it took Rivian

to kind of spool up. And then you

also have to consider like, all right,

Ford is looking at this and saying, oh,

all we have to do is release a Maverick

that's very configurable

and very modular.

Let's spend a few

months and build one of those.

It feels like

other companies could build something

similar, but that being said

it's like, I've seen

so much

social media hype, like it's gotten

a lot of hype, so

if nothing else, it's waking up the market to

a product that very well

would be

a blockbuster.

Hopefully, the other companies

are seeing this and saying, okay, let's

build this.

And then also, hopefully, Slate

can get something together pretty quickly.

Yeah.

I'm with you on that.

Obviously, the U.S. is falling behind

when it comes to electrification

and it does seem that

part of the solution to the problem

is finding a way,

I guess it's not really a solution, but it's

a direction towards a solution

is finding a way to electrify the pickup

market in the U.S.

If you don't electrify the pickup market

in the U.S., you want to electrify the U.S. market

unless you can change

buying habits at a higher level

in the U.S., which is

most of the time more difficult

than trying to solve it

at the product level.

So, yeah,

at least it's one more

potential solution, so I'm all for it.

Let's see if

they can make an impact

on it.

All right, last piece of news

before we jump into the comment section

is from

Polestar. So, I'm actually going to

test out a few Polestar

next week.

I don't know how much I can say about that,

so I won't go into details, but in

two weeks maybe I'm going to have

something for you about that.

But they announced this week they wanted

to remind us that

the company is still going strong

when it comes to Polestar.

And there's always this,

it's backed by a big company obviously

with, you know, Geely.

I'll always forget how you pronounce that.

Geely, okay.

With Geely.

So, there's always

a chance that they stop supporting it,

but so far so good, so far they seem

to be behind it and

this is another example of it

that they say that they are releasing

four new models in the

next three years.

Though

one of them is

a refresh of the

Polestar 2.

So, not entirely new model, but mostly new model.

So, you have

the

Polestar 5 customer delivery

that are starting.

And then in Q4 you have the new

long groove variant of the Polestar 4.

So, again, not completely new models yet.

And then you have the Polestar 7

that's going to come in

2028.

They are already at

190,000 car sold since

reviving the brand.

So, that's something to be proud of.

And when I

drove the Polestar 4, I was

quite impressed by it.

I really liked the vehicle.

It's a revive of the

brand, so it's not exactly

a new brand, but it's new for most

people.

Sometimes it's tough to

find yourself a place

in the market when you have to shell out

high-five figures

for our new engine vehicles.

Yeah, I think one of the problems with Polestar

is that

people see that they're very similar to

Volvo's and Volvo's got a more established

brand.

So, why not just get the Volvo version, but now

I think they're differentiating themselves a little bit more.

So, that's...

Volvo are already pretty good.

I think they're just a little more aggressive,

a little bit more fun at Polestar.

Alright, not a lot of comments yet,

but there is still time to jump in there.

So, if anybody has a comment,

please add.

Rob

685 says,

I love the four blue crews on my Mach-E.

I won't have a car without it now.

So, I'm stunned by Tesla's decision

to eliminate autopilot.

And Robo taxis are four times worse

than drivers

crying, laughing, and moji.

Yeah, I have to admit that

I've been a while since I've used blue crews.

My last Mach-E

test drive was probably two years ago.

So, I don't know how much it has improved.

Have you got sometimes

with the blue crews last year?

It's been a while, I haven't.

What did I have last? I think it was

an F-150 lightning with blue crews.

Maybe about a year and a half ago.

The good news for people who are

well, we don't know we haven't

re-announced it yet, but we have

a new effort for

New Tesla (temp) Cybertruck, Cybercab, Ford wants China in the US, and more

Tesla Cybertruck

range

air suspension

Gigafactory

all-wheel drive

battery pack

active damping

inventory reduction

software locked

rear wheel drive

resell value

Tesla Autopilot

AFSD

emergency braking system

autonomy

turn signal stalk

drive gear stalk

yoke steering wheel

unsupervised self-driving vehicle

Waymo

robotaxi service

vehicle customization

Ford Maverick

Polestar 2

Polestar 4

Ford F150 Lightning

Tesla Semi

EV factory

Byd Shark 6

focus on efficiency

Dodge Charger

About this episode

Original notes