Our 2025 Tesla Predictions | Tesla Motors Club Podcast #71

Hey there, welcome toanother Tesla Motors Club podcast.

My name is Lewis.

I'm Doug.

And I'm Mike.

Today's episode, we're goingto cover all the new details thatcame out around the Model Y, whichwas leaked through Australian Tesla.

we'll also look at our scorecards forour predictions that we made last year.

And of course, we'll do some newpredictions for 2025, the new year,new podcasts starting off again.

Episode 71 starts nowand we're back.

Hey, gentlemen,Hey, happy newhappy new year.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks,Indeed.

2025.

Oh man.

So anything new, anything fun to share IMean, Doug's going to bedown my way later thisOh yeah, yeah,we're going to seeeach other a couple of days.

I'mYeah, I'm gonna make myway out for the , Astro Awards.

, that's , done by um,Everyday astronaut.

Tim Dodd, Everyday Astronaut.

wanted to do kind of a production note.

Behind the scenes a little bit.

We do the show when we can.

sorry that it hasn'tbeen as frequent lately.

A lot of us have been busy.

Some of us have been dealingwith natural disasters.

a bit.

The other thing is that, , thereare two versions of this podcast.

There's , the YouTubeversion, which we record live.

, you just see what it is here.

And then you can, come back watch it. And then we also do an audio version

it used to be the audio version wasjust, , the YouTube audio, basically,, but, , I try to do a better job of it now.

Where, , kind of get ridof pauses and, , time.

Someone's been looking somethingup, basically respecting thetime of the audio listener.

Also, , since they don'thave the visuals, they can'tnecessarily tell what's going on.

The thing is though, I've been doingthat myself and it takes a lot of time.

I mean literally I spend hours.

On that and part of it is I'ma little bit of a perfectionistbut so I want to apologize.

Basically, , the last few haven'treally come out yet because I've beentraveling and other things going on.

, so what I will try to do.

Is, , this particular episode, I'll tryto get out as soon as possible, , in theaudio version, and then I will work onsort of backfilling the previous episodes.

So audio listeners, you know, , ifyou're like missing something,obviously you can just go getit from YouTube, and watch that.

But if you're waiting for a morepolished version, come, but I'llprobably do it in reverse order.

, like I'll do the,, most recent one.

Next and just sort of walk back.

I think I'm missing like 3.

So anyway, just a little,background on that.

And , I'm working on it,but it's, takes some time.

So anyway,, Mike, what can youtell us about the new Model Y?

Where would you like to startthey call it the refresh and I guessvery broad stroke, that's true.

But there's a lot going on withthe Y that is a little bit morethan just a, traditional refresh.

, they've changed up someof the electronics.

They've left a stalk.

They've removed shifting stalk.

So if you want to shift the car, youhave to push a button on the screenor push the button in the overhead.

But if you want to hit yourturn signal, that's still there.

, remains to be seen ifthey fix the wipers yet.

Kind of looking forward to that,but they've got ventilated seats.

Now they've got a screen inthe back for your passengers.

Obvious changes are the front and back.

We've got the light bar front and back.

Now, there seems to be quite the debateon the community about that light bar.

I've seen renderings wherepeople have removed it.

And personally speaking,I like it removed.

I'm not a fan of the lightbar the way it sits today.

If Iwanted a Cybertruck, I'd buy one.

Let's talk about that a little bit.

Sure,so the light bar, , itevokes, the Cybertruckvery strongly.

and then also the cyber cab Thething is, , I know Elon wants to looklike the future, but, this look,even when the cyber cab came out, itbasically looks like the Volkswagen.

XL one or something like that.

concept vehicle.

don't know that thisis futuristic anymore.

Like I feel like that front lightbar thing is stale at this point.

Isn't it?

I think so.

Icalled it dated, but stale works.

I do kind of like how theysmoothed out the front and gotrid of the little bubble lip.

That's a minor update.

are a lot of minor updates.

Now, one thing is interesting thatpeople won't generally pick up on unlessyou've either been a victim of it oryou're paying attention on the back ofthe trunk below the light bar is now aseparate panel and what people who havebeen a victim of this myself includedwhen you get hit in the rear, uh, It'salmost always guaranteed to replacethat entire rear hatch, because thatlower panel is not a separate piece.

So even if the hatch is fine, the glass isfine, everything's fine, if you get a dentin there, they replace the entire hatch.

Now with that being a panel, there'sa fighting chance that they can justrepair that one small panel and leavethe hatch alone and reduce the cost.

I hope that's true.

So what it looks like isthey've made the rear diffuser.

More proudThey have.

SoFor a normal vehicle hitting it.

Maybe that's what getsdamaged black plastic asopposed to painted body panel.

when I got rear ended bya Toyota, , not a Honda bump.

I got a Toyota bump.

It hit the diffuser, whichis the plastic piece below.

And it hit me just below my licenseplate on the metalwork that's betweenthe gap and the license plate.

Now I was lucky.

I was able to get a PDRguy to pull that out.

But if I had not been ableto do that, they were talkingabout replacing the entire rearhatch.

Mm hmm.

And PDR's paint list didn'trepair.

dentremoval.

I think what they've donenow is, that license plate is nowdown in the diffuser, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

rear of the trunk.

Looks pretty blank, doesn't it?

Yeah.

They moved the plate down.

Yeah, the plates way down herewe'll, see.

Yeah, we'll see.

one of the funniest things to meabout it is look, the model Y,it is their best selling vehicleBy far.

that up.

You know, we've had this discussionso many times about, the lack ofstalks on the new model three.

And it turns out that this model Y.

They split thewe'll get one stalk.

for the turn signal.

One.

That'sright.

don't know if it's atacit, , admission , of amistake there, but, it's welcome,but now to me, it's unbalanced,Oh, you get one stalk.

why not give me two?

That's really kind ofinteresting because know, Elon hadto personally approve that design.

some little design engineerdidn't sign this offwithoutthe blessingof the boss.

some people probably lobbiedhim quite a bit and some peopleprobably lost their jobs lobbying himabout it.

imagine so.

I mean, I've said manytimes with the stalks, right?

The turn signals, the only one thatI care about, I don't ever miss thestalk for gear shifts and all that,but the turn signal for roundabouts,when you're in a turn, being ableto signal partway through,cars have done pushbutton shifting for decades.

this is not new fromthe fifties on forward.

It kind of comes and goes, youknow, it seems to be a generationalthing, , somebody tries it, sucks.

And then they go back to stalks andthen the next generation tries it.

Itgoesbackfunny I'm tryingto thinkBMW has got a knob,soI went back to, What do you call it?

Three on the tree, four onthe floor, three on the tree.

that, kind of stalks the shiftgears, the Mercedes had things likethat, and that's actually wherethe model S got their switch gear.

I guess the other thing about itis that FSD has gotten better.

version 13, for people who have hardwarefour, the car is willing to go in reverse.

And then one thing that's gottenbetter for me on, , hardware,three, is the parking assist.

That's gotten a lot betterand it goes forward and backand I'm not having to do that.

So yeah, the need to change.

Directions is lessit's just not as necessary.

Now, what I still use it for is,engaging and disengaging autopilot,but I take it Lewis, , there's abutton on the steering wheel orsomethingon the steering wheel.

youpress the right, , scroll wheel.

You just press it down and thatengagesHmm.

you know what?

I'm not that happy with thescroll wheels though, on my carWhy is thatit doesn't feel nice.

It doesn't feel nice to press.

. I use that fairly often at least

on the left side to like pauseaudio.

And it just feels kind of mushy and weird.

mine are metal.

, are yours metal?

No, it's rubbery.

Yeah, mine are a cold metal, andthat's about the only complaint I've got.

They've got kind of a chunky feelwhen you press them, but as far asrolling response and how they feelwhen you roll them, they're fine.

Other than the fact they're hard metal.

Hmm.

now as far as Hardware 4 goes,I've put something in the neighborhoodof 1500 miles in FSD in the lastmonth, , since the last upgrade.

And it's come a long ways.

so you got, version 13.

NowI do.

And I'm impressed.

It's not perfect, and it stilltries to kill me occasionally,Yeah.

it's gotten a hell of a lot better.

Yeah.

So, so with this new model, Y so nowyou got your model, why part of thereason you got it when you got it wasit has stalks.

I wanted my stalks.

so with this new ModelY how would you feel about.

It now, that you dohave a turn signal stalkwhen I was going through the specson the new Y, none of it really jumpedout at me and said, this I have tohave.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, none of it.

supposedly even revamped thesuspension again, which is good.

It's a point in their favorbecause the wise suspension fromthe beginning has been marginal.

What Do you thinkI would like about it?.

um, it's new.

Yeah,front camera,You have the thing you'realways getting on me about I'm gettingon them about is the front camera.

It has a front camerathat's what they say.

I haven't seen it yet,but that's what theysay.

When we had this discussion lastyear, about the new model 3 coming out,renderings or images, I think it actuallydid have a front camera at some point.

Yeah, but it didn't keepit.

yeah, we didn't get it.

I think at this point they would have it.

I mean, the Cybertruck.

Has a front camera.

It really should have a front camera.

I guess there's a bit of an issueabout, , keeping it clean, but, honestly, that's a solved problem.

It's just whether they're willingto spend the money for it, youknow, , honestly, if the camera itselfhad a nice hydrophobic coating anda wash jet, that's all you need.

God, they've been doing that for 30years.

that's what I'm saying.

, this is a solved problem.

The question is, are they goingto spend the money to do that?

The fact that the cyber truckhas it, the fact that it'sbeen shown on the, , cyber cab.

I think they would do it.

I think there is the intention for it.

Hardware 4 probably.

I don't know if it's using that inputyet, but it probably can and should.

Yeah.

Hardware four has the input on the boardfor anothercamera.

yeah,So just to finish up withthe new Y. It's interesting.

It's progress.

glad that it looks differentfrom the three though.

I have to say, I'd prefer thelook of the newer three to this.

, the light bar at this point,is feeling a little bitstale.

So,Here's the question foryou, Doug and Lewis.

You see that blue color , it'sa frontal shot of the new Yandwhat they call it.

Glacier blue, which is abouthalf as light as my dark blue.

, I kind of like this blue, atleast from what I've seen.

saw a story on Reddit wheresomebody was saying they hadordered a Y for a May delivery.

They flagged it and calledhim and said, Hey, you haveto change it to glacier blue.

We won't give you the darkblue, or you can change itto some other color one time.

Interesting.

That's fine.

, Tesla again, saves money byhaving very few color options.

, and what that does is allowsthem to not have so manyturnovers in their paint shop,That makes mine a classic now.

I guess.

Uh, yeah.

colors come and go.

It's nice to have some changes and littlethings that allow nerds like us to bettersay, Oh, that must be from this yearbecause the color changed or whatever.

That's fine.

Especially since anyone can do whateverthey want with a wrap these days.

True enough.

A color that's close to my heart wasthe Miata Laguna Blue, which I had on my94 MX5 that I owned for, , 15 years or so.

And that is not quite it, but it'sgetting closer to it and I kind of likeit , when the Tesla Roadster, the originalTesla Roadster, all those bodies weremade, , at the Lotus plant in Hethel,England and, Lotus has tons of colors.

And so there was a glacier blue back then.

And I tend to think it was aboutthis color, maybe a little lighter.

yeah, the Roadster had tons of coloroptions because they were the Lotuscolors, but they just renamed them.

Like, , there was a color , I think itwas called Laser Blue and Tesla calledit Electric Blue or Magnetic Blue.

Like they, it just, it wasjust a nameSame paint.

Yeah.

Ijust a different name, yeah.

Of course.

That's kind of what's goingon with the Y, just, , minor.

Well, I guess you couldcall some major changeslikereskinning the nose and the front, butI think thereare major improvements.

, ventilated seats.

Once you've tried them, there are ahuge improvement.

been wanting that for a very longtime.

Yeah.

that, was the one thing that I wouldreally want from the new three versus mythree, , my 2018 is a ventilated seats.

Yeah, but that enoughto get me to buy a new Y?

No.

no, it's not enough toget me to get a new three.

But perhaps in a year, you'll havea stalk and you'll have a front cameraand you'll have the ventilated seats.

yeah.

up those features.

right.

We're going to hit critical mass.

the other thing is whatkind of incentive will I get?

because I'm supposed toHardware 4.

Elon said he'llmake us whole, right?

SoI mean, just wait until next year.

You'll get hardware five.

You don't need hardware 4, and,uh,next year you have Optimus drivingyou around.

theBut that's the Y in a nutshell.

Okay.

so don't we, , talk about , ourpredictions for last year?

How close we were.

the wonderful predictions , haveto say when we were looking through andseeing all the answers,, wasn't that bad.

We definitely, were wrongon some of them for sure.

What the heck do we know?

got pretty closeon a couple of them.

All right.

So yeah, , . It was episode number

57, , from last year where we,went over our, predictions for 2023and made new predictions for 2024.

This'll be our annualtradition . So let's dig in.

Prediction for 2024.

So let's see.

the question was, , will Teslaunveil a brand new model in 2024?

Let me read the question exactly.

It says, , will Tesla unveil a brandnew model, something they do not sellcurrently, have not sold in the past.

Or have not announced they will sellsuch as a redesigned Roadster, , in 2024.

And we all said, no, webasically all said, no.

I said, I hope not because, I wascomplaining about Tesla unveilingsomething and then taking fiveyears to deliver it., literally.

and then I said, I would liketo see them do a box van.

So.

We were all wrong,because Tesla did unveil therobo taxi at the cyber cab event.

Actually, they called it the werobot event and our past coupleepisodes, two episodes ago wasour sort of live watch party.

, and then we had a redux about amonth ago, like the end of, November.

, , and I said, I wanted a van.

They did kind of show a van,the Rabobin, , they called it.

I wanted a box van, like a deliveryvan, , just another segment.

, we need to replace thediesel vehicles on the road.

the UPS trucks and those sort of thingsand Rivian has done some of that and Ithink Tesla could be in that, place too,could be,if they chose toespecially since they're doing asemi they could have a modified semi.

Where, they put a box onthe back of that thing.

, and I think that would be great.

. But instead they showed the Reboven,

which looked like something out of iRobot,and it looked completely impractical.

It had ground clearance of,a pack of cards or something.

You know, it, just to comment, theydid finally start delivering the cybertruck and, people are interested inthat, but it just wasn't that practical,, Tesla would have done gangbusters ifthey literally just, Made , what weconsidered the Tesla design language,between the S and the X or whatever,and just made a pickup truck versionof that, , they would have done great.

the highest selling vehicles inthis country are pickup trucks.

Yeah.

The three highest selling modelsof vehicles or pickup trucks.

It's literallyF150s and then Chevy and thenDodge.

Rams.

yeah.

And so the cyber truck, , it's , gotsome neat new technology, but.

It's divisive and, uh, you know,it's a little off topic, but, mydad is now 93 years old and I'vebeen driving him around a lot latelybecause he wants to go someplace.

And I'm like, okay, my dad's 93.

He wants to go someplace.

I'm going to take him there, you know?

, we were in DC and there was a, Bigold cyber truck with a wrap thatmade it a matte black or whatever.

And he was like, what is that?

what is that piece of, you know,I'm not going to say what he said.

who makes that?

and I just had to explain, , it's Tesla.

, , you know, he doesn't keep up with thesethings, but it doesn't look like mythree, my three looks, nice and sleek.

, and what's this thing, thisbrutalist, Judge Dredd vehicle.

no kidding.

anyway, it is what it is.

So we were all wrong.

Robo taxi.

yeah, we're all wrong, robo taxing.

Let's predict for next year.

Will Tesla unveil a new model in 2025?

,Louis: I feel like they're going toHe hinted at some more roadsterupdates, , in the last few months.

Yeah.

But that's not new.

but That'snot new.

Yeah.

there's been some leaks around hownow he's trying to get to like onesecond, zero to 60 instead of 1.99.

Oh, he said that last year.

But he said it like a few monthsago though.

said it again because hesaid it over a year ago and we've,talked about how that's ridiculous.

Yeah, I think they'restarting to work on that.

But To the point of the question, do Ithink there's gonna be a new vehicle?

Probably not, they mightdo a, some crazy thing justbecause, again, stock price, butI'm saying no.

yeah, I guess no, the thingis, what they should be doing at thispoint, there should be a refresh onthe model X. There should be a refresh

on the Model S, , they're small,Potatoes compared to, , the volumeson the model Y and, , the model three.

But, these should be the more luxuryvehicles, they should invest somethingin that and go ahead and charge a premiumfor them for the people that want themand make them actually better, , do it.

, and then, yeah, there should be a van,there should be a proper pickup truck.

, so anyway, you have any comments, Mike??

I think they're going touse the underpinnings of the Y andthe interior as their new vehicle.

They'll build a mommy car out of it.

Like a van.

okay.

Yeah, maybe.

I don't think it wouldbe an X or an S. I don't think

that's going to go anywhere.

okay.

Will Tesla get a publicly facing COO?

And related to that was , will Elonstep down, . There was a bit of

controversy with Elon at the time,with the acquisition of Twitter andwhatnot, he so thin, gee, SpaceXdoes so great with Gwynne Shotwell.

Will someone else step up for Tesla?

And we've all said they should.

but they won't.

and if we're going to make aprediction for next year, itwould probably be the same, right?

Yeah.

AbsolutelyYeah.

This is an easy one.

will Tesla offerFSD transfers in 2024?

What did we say?

I said yes, you said no.

And Mike didn't really give ananswer.

Yeah, so, , Lewis is right,Yes.

they did offer it.

can youelaborate Lewis?

They keep offering it right.

They've done it a few times.

We can get into it later.

I know.

, I saw, , Stefan in the chat madea comment about hardware 3 users.

We'll never get an upgrade.

That's their prediction.

, ,I have a feeling thatthey're either working towards.

An upgrade of some kind, or they'reconcerned about liability and they'rereally pushing towards trying toget people off of hardware three.

so I think that they're goingto keep offering , this, FSDtransfer.

Yeah, so I agree.

If we, , push forward interms of predicting for 2025.

Yeah, , they'll offerit when they need it.

And they're going to be especiallyoffering it to people like me totry to reduce the number of folksthat they have to do something for.

and then the question is, what dothey do if they're able to get thosenumbers down smaller and smaller?

, cause then it makes less sense for them.

To do a proper upgrade, right?

because I think the only way theycould really do it is they would haveto design a board specifically for usthat will have the connections withthe hardware we already have and then,also have the formfactor.

you're such a small footprintright now and you're going to bea smaller footprint in the threeyears it takes to build the board.

just don't see that being very practical,especially with the Ys bricking themselvesbecause of the board defects they've gotrightnow.

those, guys will probablyneed a replacement as it is, to me,that's like the ring of death issuewith the, uh, xbox 360, you know,Ring of death on your Y?

that's a testing problem.

That's, uh, what do you call it?

QA.

QA,Yeah.

quality assurance.

Yes.

Mmso, yeah, they'll fix that.

Well, they will, but that'stime and effort and resources.

They won't be able toapply to a 3 upgrade.

well, you would hope thatthey would be iterating that anyway.

, and certainly at the chip level, someone is doing yield ramp for them.

so that stuff is happening.

or should be happening.

so the question is Maybe theycan just take that same chip, butthey'll need a new motherboard.

I mean, it's not that bad.

I don't know.

Maybe it can be done , if they cankeep the same chip and somebodydesigns , the board that fits letit work with the existing hardware.

Cause I doubt they wantto change out cameras.

, they can probably get by withouthaving to change out cameras.

SoI want new cameras.

I do want new cameras.

I want cameras that can actually readlicense plates when people hit and runme at night, which has happened twice.

while I'm parked,, okay.

Next one.

So the question was in 2023, Teslaopened 11, 000 new supercharger stalls,reaching a global total of 50, 000,given the worldwide popularity ofthe model Y and how Tesla is openingsuperchargers to other vehicles.

Wow \ It it feels so dated now.

, what do you think theworldwide total will be?

this is superchargerstalls by the end of 2024.

Now, Mike guessed 65, 000.

I guessed 70, 000 Louis guessed 75, 000Optimusic that is.

turned out to be 67, 000.

Now, whywould that be?

So let's be very clear though.

Yeah.

I feel like this was rigged against mebecause Elon fired all of the superchargerstaff partway through the year.

fired all the supercharging peopleand then hired them back.

what were the percentages on that?

Cause a lot of thosepeople moved onthey didn't hire thewoman that originally ran thesuperchargers.

That's the onlyperson that should beenfiredwell she shouldn't have been fired tobegin with, but that was the only onethat made sense to fire given, thewayElon reacted,she was arguing for herpeople.

She was doing the right thing.

you have an issue with anexecutive over the whole department,you don't fire the whole department.

Usually youfireThat's right.

and youbring in a different executive,except , the argument was aboutfiring more people in your department.

That's correct.

She had been told to cut,thelet me, really show you.

me really fireYeah, that was,that was kind of rough.

So, yeah, that probablyslowed things down.

it certainly put some existingprojects up in disarray.

There's certainly amount of institutionalknowledge , point of contact, like,who to reach, for certain things.

And with those people gone.

things as simple as a lease.

whO doI talk to you about my lease?

I just signed with Tesla.

Yeah.

That, being said in 2023, theyadded 11, 000 new superchargers in 2024.

They added 17, 000.

So they did increase by 50%, , or about,Well, I want, to qualify one thing.

They did add.

The stalls that we're talkingabout, including the version4, magic dock stations.

But what they ended up doing isthey pulled back the magic dockand said, yeah, we're not goingto give you that right now.

So like, none of the magicdocks around here work,, notas they should.

You can't pull the magic dock out.

You have to use an adapter, eventhough the docks there, even thoughthe adapters there, even thoughit all works, it will charge cars.

You cannot use the CCSadapter of the version four.

It's locked inplace.

And what, vehicledo you use to test that?

I use them on my Bolt.

So I've done quite a bitof driving since , that firing.

Right.

I drove to Texas and I drove toFlorida in that time, , I saw a lot ofversion 4, , cabinets and it's kind ofinteresting because, yeah, it's, better.

You backup to them.

They're nice.

it seems like it's set up tocharge a vehicle with the outlet on theright side,but it's long enoughfor me to reach over to myleft side.

Like,I canfor everybody.

side on the Bolt.

I can pull straight in, centeron the dock, pull around,charge.

it'sgreat.

Yeah, it seems less protected.

, there aren't like thebig bollard in the way.

Yeah.

Well,I don't know if peopleare crashing into them or what,everything's a trade off.

yeah, so I, saw plenty ofchargers , , rarely had to wait.

, for my travels, so, , they'redoing a good job don't know how.

Well, it's doing for folks on othervehicles, but it's still the main reason IRecommend Tesla to people.

With, the adapters, accordingto the various subreddits I'm in,it's actually working very well.

People are generally pretty happy.

So again, thisone, give it to Mike.

Mike got it right fordoing Price Is Right rules.

If they hadn't done the firing,Doug probably would have been right.

Maybe,I probably stillovershot eitherway.

we're all pretty close.

pretty fair.

I IAll right, let mefind the next one here.

I'll talk to this one.

So this one is, Will another vehicleTesla or otherwise dethrone in modelY as the world's best selling car.

Doug said, no, Mike said, no.

And I said, yes.

However, my yes was thinking aboutBYD and some other competitors.

And the correct answer isyes.

So it was dethroned.

I was correct in it being dethroned, butI was wrong in the what dethroned it.

It was the Toyota Corolla,which blew my brain because I did notthink that that car was so popularFor many years, it was themost popular carright.

it's cheap and it's reliable.

I mean, youknow,what, where do you wantbut like for itto come back in 2024and crush, likeIwouldn't have expected that, but Yeah.

is it that they crushed oris it that Tesla slipped a bit?

I feel like that might be it.

Tesla lost a lot of sales fromyear past.

So this is forthe first time in 2024.

Tesla sold fewer vehiclesthan the previous year.

, and there could be many reasons for that.

, there's been a misreportedsoftening on EVs.

I think just , the rate of increasein, sales has reduced, but Ithink still in 2024, more EVswere sold than the previous year.

It's just that there aremore options, not just Tesla.

And, it's hard to say how much thishas affected things, but certainlyElon's reputation has changed some.

Elon as the face of the company, , haskind of soured for people that are like,I want to buy an environmental vehicle.

Elon's imagehasn't reallyalignedwith those values lately.

There's definitely a shift inwhich, , segments of the populationare pro Elon versus anti Elon, right?

That's definitely shifted alot of it having to do withTwitter and things like that.

,I think another factor, and Iactually curious what you guys think.

, obviously the global economy, right?

So exchange rates for theUSD to other currencies, USDhas been incredibly strong.

, a lot of different countries,economies have been slow to recover.

due to inflation, all theother types of stuff going on.

Do you think that was a factor ordoes Tesla not raise their pricesbased on that?

I'm not sure that'sgot a lot to do with it.

I think what has more to do with it,think Doug alluded to this a littlebit is there's a limited pool ofbuyers for EVs at any point in time.

And for the longest time, the onlyreal EV of, any caliber was Tesla.

That's not true today, because when youlook at GM's growth and you look at,, Honda's, the new, , prologue and some ofthe other new cars that have come out ofthe market, they're doing really well.

Despite all the naysayers, , thetalking heads on the news, talkingabout how bad sales are, theirsales are actually doing quite well.

GM's up, Honda's up and Honda'sup because , it's a brand new EV.

Well, to them, it's brand new.

It's a GM underneath the skin,but, they're not complaining,andthat'snot counting the smaller players.

And I guess the other stuff too,like you said, like I assume BYD eroded alot of Teslastuffin China, right?

inChina.

Yeah.

China, was one ofTesla's bigmarkets for abit, briefly.

I think they took a prettybig hit.

and BYD has been doing things that.

You've been hoping that Tesla would do.

deserves its own topic.

no kidding.

maybe, we'll talk about itin a, future episode, but I can'tremember the name, but basically theBYD has this, Roadster type vehicle.

And they have, , a suspension systemwhere it jumps over stuff, it'salmost like turbo boost, from, KnightRider.

wasn't that speed racer that weused tobounce the car over things?

Yeah.

that.

Yeah.

Given the personality that Elonhas, that's the kind of thing thatElon would have Tesla working on.

Except that he's had them, comingup with solutions like cold gasthrusters, which makes no sense.

But having some kind of, Linear inductionmotor type suspension system thatcould, , basically hop over stuff um,For many years, , Bose the Bose soundsystem guy was a MIT professor and heworked on this thing called Project Sound.

some friends , were TAsof, his class back , at MIT.

And, , one thing they, demonstratedthis product sound thing was thisactive, , suspension system on vehicles.

This is back in the nineties where, youcould basically drive over a very bumpyroad, but the car itself stays level.

, so it's very good feedbacksuppose there are some patentson that, but, , I don't know.

It's been 20 years, so it'sprobably expired by now.

And, those are the kinds ofthings Tesla should be doing.

, the complaint I have, , when I'm drivingmy 93 year old dad around in my, , modelthree, I hit a pothole or something.

He's like, Ooh, Ooh, like, I don't know.

He feels all that stuffin his bones now, I guess.

system that I can turn on and offthat will, make the car feel like I'mjust, , Driving on, a perfectly flatsurface.

Yeah, exactly.

I agree.

I feel like modern car improvementsthat I really want are just likesmoother ride, quieter ride,you know, that kind of stuff.

Something that you candial in from the cockpit.

Sometimes I want to, smoother ride.

Sometimes I want to feel really sporty andI want to be able to, , feel a dime or aquarter when I drive over it or whatever.

right,So this, BYDthing, it looks so cool.

It's like jumping over a huge hole,like , a sink hole and I'm like.

Yeah,Do that, Tesla.

That's what you should be doingand forget the gas thrusters.

, , I mean, I still think it's a bad ideato, , basically go to zero traction.

So you'd only do that in a straight line.

Someone said Tesla isthe wrong brand for that.

They make really nice all aroundcars though, with great software.

think I think Tesla is the rightbrand for doing, , hardware.

That's, electric, basically, , amotor type thing, , and putthat in the suspension system.

I think Tesla could do that kind ofthing.

I would say, even a littlebit recently, but certainly someyears back, Tesla is a big operatorfor pushing the boundaries, right?

Trying new things, trying thingsthat other companies weren'twilling to do.

Stefan says, they don't do premium.

Well, they used to, at least inname, they used to say they weredoingpremium.

they used to pretend tobe premium.

pretended to be premium.

that was a big debate.

Back in the day, shouldTesla even go down market?

You have your fancy Model S andyour Model X, , and , Cybertruckis, , trying to be premium, eventhough they've, obviously did a lotof cost cutting type things there.

I wish they were premium.

maybe actually deliver the Roadster,Obviously the moneyis in the mass market.

So I think that's important todo that, but I mean, just throw acouple engineers on the premium,just keep the premium stuff going.

It's not like you need 100 people.

You don't need 100people workingon the premium car all the time!

But anyway,uh,so the question was,Will another vehicle dethrone theModel Y as the world's best selling car?

And theanswer was yes.

answer was it did,let's, alter this question for 2025.

Will the Model Y regain, , thebest selling vehicle.

You could say part of thereason there were fewer sales.

Of the Model Y is that, , we allknew this Juniper, , was coming.

And while Tesla kept trying to downplayit, , so they didn't Osborne themselves.

Now it's finally here.

So, maybe that will juicethe model Y sales and maybewe'll put them over the top.

I'm going stillwith no.

Nope.

don't think So,so to the question of, willthe model Y regain the throne?

You're saying no.

Nope.

I thinkOkay.

I'll say yes, just to be different.

Cool.

Perfect.

All right, will GigafactoryMexico or MegaFactory Shanghaiopen in calendar year 2024?

Now, we all said no on Mexico, andwe said yes on this MegaFactoryin Shanghai just because they canbuild things so quickly in China.

And the answer was neitheropened.

We were almostright.

They were doingtesting in Shanghai, butit's notofficiallyopen.

Officially opens I think inlikethe next month.

okay.

So for 2025 for this year, thatShanghai factor will definitelyopen.

I'm going to say still no on Mexico.

Cause Mexico is all in the air nowsince, , the new administration wantsto have a ton of tariffs against.

Our nearest neighbor allies.

, , and you definitely sensed a change in Elonin terms of putting the brakes on Mexico.

Imade some comments , lastyear, basically saying that theywere waiting for the electionbefore deciding to move forward.

So they kind of paused it already.

And now that the election has gonethe way that it has, and also withElon, kind of a mixed bag, right?

Because Elon is embeddedinto this administration.

He's connected to the administration.

So if there is financialincentive, is there is an actualbenefit to Tesla to do it?

And Elon, you would imaginehas some influence into it.

He could make an argumentfor it to be viable again.

That being said, it's also possible.

They just say, nevermind, andthey just never do it.

but either way, I don't think ithappensthis year.

the other thing was, , what wasthat Mexico plant for and our speculation.

A year ago was that it was for thismodel 2 this lower cost vehicle.

So what they said,actually, I looked it up.

So it is slated for the next gen vehicle.

So that robo taxi, maybe not, , orlike some otherour assumption was the model too.

Cause , the information we had backthen, partially from the Isaacsonbiography was that cyber cab and.

Model 2, we were calling itthe lower cost vehicle were thesame platform that would happen.

, and more recently, it seems Elon isstepping back from that and saying model2 won't happen, but you'll be able tobuy a cyber cab, but I don't see whyanybody would actually want to buy acar.

They can't actually drive.

Actually,I didn't even know if it's legalto sell something like that.

You couldjust put like an X Boxcontroller there and go, it?

What was ocean gate or whatever?

Yeah.

how well that worked.

dodo a nice little ocean gate,Xbox controller to drive your,roboThat was , Logitech actually.

Oh, you're right.

You're right.

It was a Logitech control.

you're talking about the Titan,Yeah.

Yes.

Weall saidsame page, you know,it's all about the details.

Uh, all right,Will we see the model three,version two in the United States?

A. K. A. Highland.

I think we all said yes, right?

And we did see it.

so the time we had, Adam, who wasa great producer at the time,but that, question, we allknewthe answer by then becausewe had already seenpictures of the Highland, Iguess we're calling it in Europe.

So that was definitely going to happen.

Thenext one.

Cybertrucks.

Ooh.

How many Cybertrucks willbe on the road by the end of 2024?

, Now, again, when we didthis, , a year ago, cyber truckdeliveries had recently happened.

, but they kind of felt not quitereal . Cause , it felt like

internal people that got them.

, and they did this big delivery event thatwas, , four years, , after the originalunveiling and that delivery event was.

Pretty disappointing in a way,because, the main thing that we, uh,were so impressed by in the originalunveiling in 2019 was there wasgoing to be, I forget if it was 50 or60, but let's just say 000, I thinkit actually might've even been 40,It was supposed to be pretty cheap.

was a really cheap40 60 version of the car.

Like, wow, they're going to do that.

And, , yeah, they didn't quite do that.

The range was much lower than expected.

But in terms of technology,it's interesting.

The 48 volt architecture for thelow voltage the steer by wireand the, , all wheel steering.

That was cool.

Anyway,options that we were given, , byAdam at the time This is by the endof 2024 more was fewer than 5, 000.

than 5, 000, but fewer than 10 K andthen more than 10 K. So we all said.

More than 10 K, though, wedefinitely caveated that, thisis an exponential kind of thing.

Certainly possible thatthey could stumble.

But we said more than 10 Kanother thing we're talkingabout is how many would they.

Actually get out by the end of Q1,well, if the ramping is going well, theyshould hopefully have 1, 000 over 1,000 deliveries by the end of Q1, and Ithink we're all pretty, pretty spot on.

, we basically all said the same thing,it turns out the actual deliveriesby the end of Q1 was 2, 800, so 2,800, and so same order of magnitude.

Typical physicist.

As long as it's the sameword or magnitude, youcount it.

No,sorry.

That's right, that's rightconsider the spherical cow.

Okay.

Sothat's how, that's how itworks.

The spherical cow...

total number sold by the end of 2024was almost 40 K. 38, 965 Almost 40, 000.

So it was definitely more than10, 000 and , how's it going now?

not so good.

yes, Stephen's right.

, , they keep sending people home.

, see it a lot locally because obviouslythey build them here in Austin, SoI see it in the news here where it'slike, all the contractors are sent home.

They're told not to come back in.

They'll let them know.

So that's happened several times.

this is the factory inTexas , that manufactures them.

Austin, correct.

, so they've, done that a couple times.

There's definitely a lot of them justsitting in lots right at, the factory.

, but I do see a lot driving.

Ido see a lot of them drivingaround,certainly in Austin,right.

I, see the occasionalone in the DC area.

I saw a good number in Florida.

I think there'sthree in my neighborhood.

There's two in the neighborhood next tome.

so I see them daily.

the main thing is you noticethem when you see them, but it's,yeah, obviously nowhere nearlike the number of model threes.

I don't even register when II see way more Model Ys, right?

Y is everywhere?

Yeah.

one thing, we talked aboutlast year was how long wouldthis foundation series go on?

Cause that was essentially a way of.

tesla, capturing that extra value of,Early adopters that can afford it.

or at least the supply notmeeting the demand early , inthe manufacturing ramp.

, so it was basically an extra 20 K.

So the question is, how long wouldthey do this foundation series?

And we're like, they'll do itas long as they can, obviously.

And so the foundation seriesended, I think, in October.

Of 2024, so that's, , 11 months thatthey did it, , but we've heard reportsof foundation, , series vehicles beingavailable, but they , are sandingoff , the special badging and tryingto sell them as standard vehicles.

, That's not great necessarily.

and so what, everyone that wantedone has one or what's the sense?

Absolutely.

Idon't think there's awaitlist at this point.

I think if you want it, you gotit.

the, market, saturated, , gotall the YouTubers and influencershave got their toys andthat's it.

you know, I said earlier, it'sa very, controversial design, I'mokay with it, but it's not somethingI would go out of my way to get.

,They put a lot of capacity in it.

Now.

dOn't know how they're set up in Texas.

If it's like multiple lines orwhatever, is there a way to diverta line for some other vehicleorI think the factory setupwould support that, but no, the waythat my of what I've seen in, like,the tours and things that people havefulfilled and shown it was insideis they pretty much have dedicatedlines because the manufacturing ofthe panels and stuff is so different.

Right?

, like I said, it's been in themedia a few times locally here.

, that's obviously gets picked upnationally because Tesla, , butwhere they sent contractors homeand they're like, there's no work.

Don't come in.

, now some of that could be, they'remaking changes, they're retoolinglines, they're doing things,Hmm.

Um, what it seemsto be is just, it'sIthey can now outproduce the demandsfor the cyber truck.

how do they managethat going forward?

Because they've made such alarge investment in that plant.

what do you do to shiftto make that profitableagain?

think the, main change is therobo cab or the cyber cab or the robotaxi or whatever the heck it's called.

I think that is now going to bemanufactured in Texas as well, insteadof being manufactured in Mexico.

and that also has like thestainless and some of theother things.

So there's a lot of overlapin what cyber truck was doing.

had that look, but I don'tthink it actually had stainless,Oh, okay.

We'll find out soon enough.

.

Louis: Honestly, I, I would thinkFor example, what I'll say isa few weeks ago here, there wasanother, , massive plane that came in.

It's like the biggestcargo aircraft from Italy.

The assumption was that itwas carrying another gigaPress?

So I think they did just deliverone to the Tesla factory.

And again, this is like two,three weeks ago at most.

Like I think it was, , that recent.

, so yeah, so I, they're definitelynot doing no production.

They're not shutting everything down.

, , they're still doing work there.

, my assumption was robo taxior whatever, but maybe not.

we had this discussionabout the CyberCab.

And the cyber truck, ideally thisstainless production, if they get itdown, it should be cheaper somehow.

And easier somehow.

the issue I see with it though, is,it's, basically a pedestrian hazard.

They need to do something that it'snot so sharp, , these sharp panels,like Cybercabs, especially, that needsto be really pedestrian friendly.

if it hits somebody or whatever.

, I've suggested you might have, uh, somesort of little gaskets you're runningaround insert in those body panelgaps on, on something like the cybertruck to just cover those sharp edges.

Um, you know, maybe theycan do something like that.

I don't know, but, uh, orjust run some, some caulking.

little Dow cockthere, yeah.

Oh boy.

Stefan says it's not evenlegal in most of the world.

Yeah.

Well, it was definitely made forthe U S made for Texas made with hubris.

And I will say I've metmultiple people here locallythat have them and love them.

And when I, drove down to,, Brownville, Texas back in November , forone of the,, Starship launches, , sawtons of Cybertrucks and really cool peopleand, , a lot of them had, , special wrapson them and, looks like fun and people, really enjoy them, , but, , , that seemsto be a relatively small amount of folks.

All right.

, here's the next question.

Will we e see a driverless ride fromthe West Coast to the East Coast?

now in, 2024, we all said no.

Nope.

and the answer was no.

And will we see one in 2025?

So if you take intoconsideration how goodFSD v13is, the answer isNo.

Uh, they're making steps, right?

Yes.

are making steps.

It ain't there yet.

FSD 13.

Hardwareor AI 4, if they wantto be fancy about it.

is better.

significantlybetter.

I'm confident inmy prediction that I made.

I don't know what it wastwo years ago, three yearsago whereI said 20, 30.

Yeah.

yeah, that's, right.

looking plausible tome.

pretty good.

Yeah.

, , we're still on a level, , two system,. It's basically an, , ADAS, . , we

need level four, level five autonomy.

For this to be practical.

And we don't think that'shappening until the end ofthisdecade.

more than that.

I mean, you're going to need to makesure we don't have an Arctic winterblast or your cameras get occluded.

You won't be able tosee where you're going.

Here's the thing.

I would even give them that,oh, I wouldn't.

I'll give them credit.

If you have to still manuallycharge it, you have to cleanthe cameras or do anything.

It doesn't do it.

If it's bad weather, you just have to waitout bad weather, like all those thingsI would still give it to them.

If they could get coast to coast,still don't think it's doable.

Like, I just don't think it'sdoable without intervention.

with the tech,That's , no missed exits,no blown stop signs, whatever.

we'll see,yeah,yeah, so still going with no,Okay.

The next question was, andthis was, , basically thelast question we had for 2024,will Tesla deliver a roadster 2.

0 in 2024,now I have to point outthat the nomenclature is badhere because Tesla used 2.

0 back in, 2009 for a updatedroadster back then there was even a 2.

5 that had a different front and fascia.

So I think what weI mean, theanswer is no, either way.

I'm just trying toget the nomenclature, right.

That's the nerdy thing.

The Next Gen Roadsternext gen roadster, youknow, we used to call it roadsterThat's true.

We didwell,Cause it was unveiled , in 2017 andit was supposed to be delivered by 2020.

kind of missed that boat, didn't we?

2017 man.

I still remember seeing theunveiling and thinking how cool.

Andlike, I totally want to buy one of those.

I can't believe it's been that long ago.

it was a Steve Jobs one more thing,Yes.

to the, Tesla semi event,MmOh, you're right.

Wow.

the, trailer opened up fromthe semi and, , someone, maybeit was Franz drove out with this,, roadster and that was really cool.

And a bunch of people plunkeddown money, , for that.

The full price at the time wasa quarter of a million dollars.

And then there was also a deposit,50,000 dollar deposit..

50 K deposit.

Did some people pay fullprice at that time too?

Yes.

That's a lot ofmoney for a lot of time.

That's a lot of money.

zero interest loancoming up on 10 years.

We'll see what happens.

that's fair, though.

I was living in France when ithappened, so that was, yeah, 2017.

Time flies, man.

Yeah, we'll see.

so predictions for thisyear, will they, deliver?

No,Not a chance.

Uh, yeah, absolutely not.

I'm thinking we mightsee an update about it.

Like we did have some smallupdates, but they didn't reallyofficially reveal anything.

But personally, I think that we mightactually get to see like a real,like, Hey, this is what we're doing.

And it might come out next year.

don't want to say it's copium because I'mnot planning on buying one at this point.

but who knows?

I might change my mind whenI see what they do with it.

But, not this year, maybenext year, hoping we see anupdate about it this year.

The thing is that wewere promised a new unveilingby the end of last year and itdidn't happen.

,so that, promise was made at, back in, January of 2024, , he said,we'll see something by the end of theyear and then certainly by the time thatthe cyber cab event happened, he's beensaying the Roadster's not just the icingon the cake, but , the cherry on theicing on the cake , and I've always saidit should be a lower priority that thesemi should probably be the main priorityin terms of doing something that, , ishelpful to the environment or whatever.

, and then of course the Y andthings like that are profitablefor the company, but it's nice tohave a proper flagship vehicle.

I don't think the Cybertruckis a great flagship vehicle.

but the Roadster certainly would be.

So yeah, I guess we'll see, but, I don'tthink the roaster will deliver in 2025.

I think that actually is a worsedeal than us with, our FSD.

theMm hmm.

I mean, it's fewer people, butthe level of which those people made acommitment and they're still waiting.

Man,Honestly I wouldn't be surprisedif they gave back some money and wejust didn't hear about it, right?

Like it's like hey, we'll giveyou back the money for some periodbut you got to sign somethingto agree not to say anythingbut I don't know,that's rough.

I get my money back andI got to sign an NDA.

You thinkthey would do that justto get my own money back?

but you're stillon the list that you're inyour slot.

You know what I mean?

Cause I mean, that's a lot of money.

Can you imagine a quarter million dollars?

Sure.

The majority of people that gave them aquarter million dollars are quite wealthy.

And it's not a big deal to them, but Imean, even just in an index fund, right?

They're out a lot of money.

The cost is way higher.

Think of all theBitcoin you could have boughtwith it.

or Nvidia stock, this is 2017.

Anyway,so we'll see.

all right.

So that was our last question that we didfor2024.

And now we have some new questions.

When will RoboTaxi start delivery?

Not this year.

Uh, yeah.

did he say?

Actually, we had so littleinformation at that WeRobot event.

anD I've said this in the past, thateven with the existing technology now,certainly with hardware 4 and, FSD 13,they could do a geofenced kind of thing.

I thinkFSD is probably goodenough.

who Tesla Tesla doesn'thave the structure of the runtaxis right now.

They could they're tryingto theyhave an appthey have the hardware,but they don't have the actualbusiness infrastructure.

they can do itthey could, they could do it.

hahaha.

program of 10 carsin Austin or whateverthey could certainly do it And Ithink probably they should do it.

They'll probably learn a lot.

They, probably need sixmonths to build out whateverthey need to build that.

I mean, they have thecapital to make it happen.

They do have capital.

They certainly have thecapital and I think they have thesoftware infrastructure for it.

, they just need to extend what they have.

, they've certainly been preparingfor it and they've showed offtheir little app , or a demo of it.

Maybe it didn't actually do anything,but, they managed to do essentially thatat this, we robot event, the cyber cabevent,That was a verycontrolled environment.

very controlled environment.

And they spent a lot of time withpeople with, LIDAR backpacks,really, mapping that place.

I'm sure they did.

but they could dothat in the city of Austin.

Probably, know, it'scertainly more variables.

but if they're going to show something,I think that's where they need to start.

That before the coast to coast drive.

think they are going to geofence and actually do a localizedtaxi service, similar to Waymoexpecting that.

I think they have to.

And I think that's the next logical step.

probably in 2026.

I don't think we'll see that in 2025.

Yeah, but I wouldn'tsay that's starting delivery.

Yeah, that'sthat's a different thing.

Except that, Robotaxi delivery has nevermade any sense to me not to consumers.

Not to me.

Maybe To uber or to some other,company wants to be in that business.

Yeah,I would rather have a model threethat I can actually drive, and thenmy model three, promised will alsoa taxi.

can act as a robot taxi.

if I want it to, and it will onlybe driving me around basically.

So, you know, drive me to Florida,drive me to Texas or whatever.

WeWe need to get you in a Y withHardware 4 uh, road trips down tosee SpaceX and see if it actuallyget there.

I have to, say, I obviously don'thave hardware 4, however, they have anupdating hardware 3 pulling in a lotof the things from FSD 13 into FSD 12.

So I think we're on like 12.

6. 6 or something like that.

, and it is loads better.

It is significantly better.

To the point of where I thinkit is fairly comparable to whatpeople are saying for FSD 13Yeah, that'd be pretty slick.

But I don't think the robotaxis are goingto start delivery this year or next year.

I think they've got toomuch homework to do.

So Mike says no tothis year, no to next year.

Yep.

the answer should be ayear.

Yeah.

delivery.

Yeah.

let's broaden delivery to, , notjust the individuals, liketo a company or something,Yeah,Let's even, extend itto Tesla, putting them in thewild, , Let's put it that way.

So I was going to say 29 fordelivery to an organization likeUber, for example,hmm.

who wants to do a test, ifyou want it in the wild, then I'mgoing to say we're in the 30s.

AtleastDamn.

I, don't thinkthey can wait that long.

Yeah.

I, I think it's goingto be sooner than that.

don't think they got the resources.

I really don't.

I mean, they got the money.

but I don't think they have the resources.

Well, isn't money resources?

just a piece of resource.

Money buys other resources.

Money can be exchangedfor goods and services.

think how many problems are going toget uncovered in the wild with this thing.

I think the problemsare probably livable.

, what they, do need is, a backstop.

Like, pull over or remotecontrol or, , something.

I was talking to someone justabout this and I'm thinking, what'sTesla going to do with a robo taxi?

Someone drops an orange cone in frontand back on the side, like happened toCruz, Cruz had a way to override thecomputer, basically do, , remote control,Yeah.

But Tesla technically doestoo, right?

We'vealreadyseentheyokay.

We have not seen them do that.

in theory?

I think theycould.

we know through securityresearchers, you can control the car.

agree,So in theory, yes, theycould have the ability to dobut I haven't seen it.

the next year or two,the other thing, there was that,cyber truck that was, set on fire infront of the Trump hotel in Las Vegaswith the fireworks thatblewup.

Elon was able to just hand overimages,Mike: by the way, lookWesaw.

Here are pictures of theguy stopping at superchargersand like, uh,doyou have all that info?

course theydo.

theydo.

course they dobut but you're just gonna giveup that infoYeah, that, was theweird thing, but That's awholenother conversation.

that's a wholenother show.

I don't, think they'll,need to do remote driving.

I think , just having basic thingsthat they could do to override.

did that for years.

they probably still do to some degree.

I think by, 2027 you'llhave limited fleet testing.

I agree.

, I don't think this year, , delivery topeople, not next year, , but they'llhave their own on the road next year.

For sure.

I would be shocked if in 2026,there aren't Tesla controlledones, even if we can'tpay to ride in them.

mm hmm.

2026 for sure.

They'll be on the road.

2027.

I expect them to be it.

So for thepurpose of this question,which we've of very floppyyeah,You'll just say 2027 I I said 2026.

I think there should be somekind of pilot program by then.

it's possible.

now I'll just saythat.

Okay.

Mike, you're saying 2030or 2027, what are you saying?

2027 for fleet.

Okay.

Moving on.

Another question was, will Teslaadd the single stalk or front camerato the Model S, 3, or X, by 2025,I would say yes.

I don't think they have a choice.

We've seen them , ona week by week basis.

Do things like change the button,work , on the door, or changethe gaskets those kind of things.

I'm nott sure about something that'ssay yes, because thecurrent Highland Model 3 has gotthe computer that can handle it.

okay.

It's all there.

but the wiringharness is the other thing.

is it in the wiring harness?

easy.

You canslipstream that into production.

the stalk is super easy.

People have retroed them onthe, my car already, right?

They buy housing from a Model3, buy the stalk, you wire it in.

In theory, it should be doablethe camera's harder to do, but I agreewith Mike, they do have the computer.

So the question is, are theygoing to do it this year?

if they don't releaseit, they'll definitelymention that they're doingit, but Ithink,they'll releasethink it'd be a slipstreamfeature where it just kind of showsup quietly.

I want them to do it,but I don't think they will.

Yeah.

Maybe it's just copium on my part.

So I'm going to say no.

So both of you guys are saying yes,I'll say yes,and it could be either of them.

either of them.

it could just be oneand it would still be yes.

Correct.

yeah, I agree that thestalk should be pretty easy.

It's just, , make a new part and then justa little change in their manufacturing.

But I don't think they'll do it.

and that's what the three, the S andX are overdue for an overall update,They are desperately overdue.

but feel like their volume isso low that they just don't care.

They don't bother.

Yeah, it was 2021 whenthey last updated them.

So,Okay.

So the next thing,will a competing company beat Optimus tomarket Optimus is currently planning tosell in 2026.

That's kind of broad.

It's a pretty broad question,but there is a lot of competition now,This year.

I would expect you to beable to purchase a somewhatautonomous robot for your house.

Bipedal humanoid robot will not do muchuseful, , it won't be doing your laundryand cooking or doing that kind of stuff.

It'll probably be on more of the adultand inappropriate side of This podcast.

I would, expect somebody to beselling that this year basedon tech that we have today.

But I think somebody is going tosell Optimus like, not for that,but just in general to peopleprobably before Optimus comes out.

Now I think they're goingto be too expensive.

I don't think peopleare going to buy them,be toys.

Very expensive toys, but they'll beExactly.

The robot that we lookedat before is by, the company 1Xand the robot was called the NEO.

and yeah, it looks likea dude in the suit.

It really does.

, but the model is,it's remotely controlled.

So, it's kind of a privacy thing.

, are you willing to, , have , basicallya dude, like a driver, , in yourhouse that can walk around and opendoors and stuff,, like having a maidor a butler that, works remotely.

Telepresence, yeah....

I can see that for hazardousenvironments, but it seems kind ofoverkill for thehouse.

Yeah, , we should have theseguys on the moon doing stuff,I was thinking nuclearphysics labs, but whatever.

in an interview, one oftheir ideas was for bio labs.

Like, workinginside a lab environmentcan see that.

kind of things you haveto do in a lab, like, pipettingor whatever.

Sure.

you're selling not just therobot, but the lab . Having lab space

to do some experiment can be difficult,but you have some lab space andthen, yeah, you can do it remotely.

the rent the hiredhelp and call it good.

I used to work onthat in medical, right?

Da Vinci robots and all that.

Like that's, been a thing , for,closer to 20 years, but, yeah, anyway,So the answer is yes,I think a company will.

I think somebody will release somethingfor sale in 2025 that will beat optimus.

let's add another question.

will they actually startdelivering Optimus inregular consumers,I don't think so.

industrial maybe, but notJoe Average.

they're supposed to be pushingto use them in their own factories.

Right.

So , let's wait tosee where that goes.

I thought theywere.

What I've seen of thathas been pretty unimpressive.

Louis: exactly.

Unimpressive or not,they're still using them.

Yeah, but is itsaving anybody any time?

No, it's, a gimmick,it's a sales pitch.

Yeah,but if it gets somewhere usefulthis year, they might sell them toother companies next year, but I don'tsee them selling them to consumers.

Okay.

That question was you all said no,will Tesla actually deliver them in 2026?

Yeah, no.

All right.

so next question is, will Tesla offer anupgrade path for hardware 3 owners in 2025Not a chance.

I'm a hard no on that.

Mike says, "Hard no!"

I'm going to copium and say yes, please.

Lewis is hoping beyond hope.

ha haI think they haveto do something, right?

So I'm not sure what thatis or how bare bones it is.

Oh, I do, but therewon't be an upgrade path.

They'll, give you a killer dealto upgrade your car, I don't thinkthey'll replace your computer.

I think they will, during thisconversation, I've sort of decided thatthey can just use the same chip and thensomeone just needs to design a boardif there's no , hard mismatch on theinputs, , if the data is compatible.

Or even if they can just add a chip totranslate the data for whatever and theycan just use the existing chips, thenI think it makes it a lot easier path.

That's still a lot ofengineering to do in less than a year.

To answer the question, Idon't think they'll do it in 2025.

They'll do it at the last possible moment.

, and I don't think it even mattersuntil FSD gets to zero interventions,driving, , from here to, Texasor whatever, , then I'll be like,hey, , I was promised something.

So maybe at that point.

So I don't think, FSD 13is enough better that.

People are clamoring for it, but , saythey reach autonomy or whatever.

I feel like that's wherethe step is, Right,And, at that pointmay even be a new chip by then.

Honestly, if they wait longenough to the point where they have that,they may just replace everybody's cars.

Right?

You get the number of carson the road down enough.

It might be cheaper for them to just go.

We'll give you a huge discount on atrade in or some other kind of not.

You know what I mean?

okay, let's naildown our answers then.

, in I say no, but yes, eventually.

I agree with that.

I think eventually they will, Butno it's unlikely this year.

I'm gonna disagree.

I don't think there'll ever bean upgrade path for the hardware.

I think they'll take the easy route likeLouis just suggested and say, Here'sa substantial discount on a new car.

The funny thing is bythe time it matters, what willthe actual resale value of mycar be?

Very low.

probably not much.

my car is not evenworth a third of I paid for it.

And it's less than threeyears old.

Uh, that hurts.

just saying,So yeah, , I, think, them offeringa killer deal on a new or even a usedTesla that's just a couple of years oldout of inventory might be a great deal.

that's an idea.

It's like, we'll give you an older car.

they take himback from lease returns.

, why not?

Yeah, I guess we'll see.

okay.

And then, , the lastquestion is kind of a shift.

And I should preface this.

So, a lot of stuff has been going on.

, last year we had a question after Elonbought Twitter, will it be the same?

Anyway, Twitter is what it is nowor X or whatever, I don't think itneeds a whole lot of discussion,but, , we all thought, wow, , Elonlost a ton of money on that thing.

, he spent over 40 billion for it and itlost what 70 percent or more of its value.

As a company, but for him personally,it seems to put him in a large,power position, , and in certainlyin terms of , influencing anelection and, shortly after his networth, , went up like 200 billion.

So, , it certainly made sensein that, , vein for him.

, so along with that, , Trump hasnominated Jared Isaacman, , to bethe new NASA administrator clearlyTrump, doesn't know Isaacman fromAdam, , except that, , Elon musthave suggested, , Jared Isaacman.

So, probably some changes are coming,, for NASA administration., Jared is

kind of an exciting pick , in terms of.

Pushing forward human exploration andNASA, and that's something that should bepart of NASA's mission while still beingcognizant of NASA science, , mission.

, and , I look at NASA and Isee so much wasted money.

Mainly because, SLS is essentially ajobs program, and that was to me, partof the problem , with the space shuttlein that it was designed to spread it outall over the place so that everybody'sdistrict could have a piece of it.

There's so many thingsthat don't make sense.

Like we have these cost plus contractsand I think about something like the JamesWebb Telescope, which, they said, oh, itwill cost, , a billion dollars . costing

10 billion and they spend all thismoney on technology development and yetthey put all their eggs in one basket.

They make one, right?

10 billion dollars for justone James Webb Telescope.

I think you could havejust a marginal extra cost.

Of say another, 500 million dollars orsomething like that and make another twoof them, you know, , , you spent all thistime developing the technology and you'reonly going to make one, , before you shuteverything down, make a few, because likeright now, if they wanted to make anotherweb telescope, you know, It would be,Another 10billion.

yeah, probablyhaving to relearn things.

why only make one?

So that doesn't make any sense to me.

so anyway, with that long preface,,the question is,,Will, SLS, the SLS iswill, that survive past Artemis II?.

, Artemis II is the manned mission.

That's kind of like.

Kind of like Apollo 10,even like Apollo 8, maybe.

I guess it's more like Apollo8, where they just go aroundthe moon and come back.

think it's a pretty easy answerand the answer is absolutely not.

There's no way SLS almost shouldn'teven last to make it to Artemis II.

and I think a big part of why I did waslike you said, due to the contracts andthe jobs programs and all these legacycompanies and lobbyists, but because ofthe shift of power now, even, Bezos istrying to be all buddy, buddy with themand blue origin just did their launch.

Like, 5 years from now, spaceflight in this country is going to beprobably SpaceX and blue origin, ? And

maybe some other smaller companiesthat are still around that mostlisteners probably never heard of.

, there's a few cool onesthough here in Austin.

, but SLS.

I don'tsee the, Boeing and Lockheedpartnership stuff Lasting, , it's soexpensive and ROI on it is just awful.

a funny part of that isthat Boeing is trying to sell offtheir Starliner and also theircommitments on , the space station,yet trying to keep the SLS contracts.

Because that's where the moneyis, , these cost plus contracts.

So, as usual, I have a sortof a nuanced answer for this.

It should go away.

SLS makes no sense.

in the, 10 year horizon, it shouldbe , , these private companiesthat can do it at fixed contracts.

, the only issue I have with itthis kind of question is bouncedaround on the forum at TMC.

We're kind of racing China to get tothe moon and, , I've seen some peoplewas like, let China have the moon.

We already went there.

We need to go to Mars, and.

Elon is really big on Mars and he'skind of like moon too, but no, it'sreally about getting to Mars , for Elon.

And, I kind of have a problem with that.

You're not going to gettoo Mars if you don't do the moon,that's possible.

He could probably go to Mars, butto me, Okay, Mars is important insome ways, but for the next hundredyears, at least, I think the moonis much more important than mars.

Much moreimportant than Mars.

You need to build a base,build a station,The moon right there,The moon has tons of resources.

We talk about miningasteroids But guess what?

The moon has beenpelted with asteroids forlowbillions of yearsor whatever, right?

And so, all that stuffshould be on the moon.

, all of the manufacturing we, concernedabout pollution on earth, , there'snothing to pollute on the moon.

. We can , do whatever we need to do there.

There's no life there.

One of the big questions that we need toget an answer for is, is there any evenmicrobial life or prehistoric or evendead now, but used to be life on Mars.

Okay.

, once you get people up therewho knows that you contaminated.

Yeah.

where's the moon?

There's no worry about that.

And yes, , , you can manufacturein a low, , gravity environment.

Also, , if you need to go anywhereelse, you're in a relatively low gravitywell, so the moon is so importantand I'm more of the mind of, , ifwe want to, , back up civilization.

Mars.

it's going to be a long timebefore it's really useful.

viable., Yeah.

really we should be makingO'Neill cylinders , space stationsat L5 or whatever, all that stuffshould just be built on the moonand then, launch from there.

We've not had a human actuallyoutside of the earth's magnetosphere formore than a few days, Like, , it'll be.

A thousand times easier to go to Mars.

If we build up on the moon first, like itabsolutely makes a lot more sense there.

And everything you said, it's waymore valuable in the short term.

midterm,If you go to mars,you need resources.

yeah, you got tobring everything with youthere'snot vacuum, but it might as well be,Right.

the soil ispoison.

Um,you need resources so you willneed regular supply from earth.

, there's no independentcolony on Mars for decades.

You could go visit, you could dowhat they call footprints and flags,and I feel that's maybe part of.

, Elon's real impetus.

You know, , he talks aboutbacking up the biome.

Sure.

he already is a historical figure, he'sbig on getting credit for big things.

And I feel like he wants to be, "I'mthe one that got us to Mars!" . , but

Mars will not be . As important as

the moon for at least a hundred years.

So we really should begetting to the moon.

And then, , China will be there by2030 and I think they'll do it andChina is pretty territorial, thereare conflicts in the South China Sea.

They're basically, usurping Islandsfrom the Philippines, and there arespots particularly on the South Poleof the moon that are Resource richand if China gets there first, theymay stake out a lot of that stuffNASA goes on about the Artemis Accords,which to me is a little silly because,most of the countries that have signedon to the Artemis Accords aren'tgetting to the moon on their own anyway.

well, guess what?

China is not part of those accordsand China is going to get thereand stake out the best resourcesthat we need to get there too.

Okay, so all of that.

I don't know that we can get somethingtogether before 2030 without SLS.

NO, no way.

That's the one thing about it.

Yeah.

But I don't think it will survive.

I think there definitelywill be a major change.

don't think the blockB will be made of SLS.

I don't even thinkBoeing should survive as acompanyI mean,by 2030.

yeah,they just shouldn't even bea company anymore at this point.

But, you know, whatever.

So we'll see.

you think about all those Southernsenators and congressmen that,they're constituents.

That havethose entrenched interests anda lot of them are RepublicanSo what is your actual answer?

do you think it will, do youthink it won't, obviouslyyou don't think it should.

I think it won't, but Idon't know that we can come upwith something else fast enough.

Okay.

think Artemis 2 will happen.

, they started building it, as quickly asthey could before the end of the year.

so I, I think that will happen.

But, it probably won't, survive pastArtemis 2, least in its current form,,Louis: How about you, Mike?

Are you also in camp?

No.

won't survive.

It's unfortunate, but it won't.

Okay.

Well, I guess we're donewith our predictions.

Well, thank you everyonefor hanging out with us.

And as always Love thecomments and the chat.

Keep coming , like and subscribe, become asupporting member on TeslaMotorsClub.Com.

That always helps out.

, this was episode 71.

That's a wrap.

See you guysnext time.

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