Rivian R2, Lucid counter attack, and Tesla's 'Digital Optimus'

And we are alive for a new episode of the Electric Podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your

host. And as usual, I'm joined by Seth Wintram. How are you doing this week, Seth?

I'm good.

All right, let's jump right in. We have just one Tesla article this week, which is

going to please a lot of you guys who don't like to talk about it too much. I

mean, we wrote plenty of other articles this week about Tesla, but mainly about

like people leaving and things like that, things that aren't, I don't think it's

worth mentioning the podcast. But the big one this week was this digital

optimist stuff. And I mean, it's, I mean, I wrote the whole article about it and

still have issues understanding what it is exactly. The whole thing is happening

amid this kind of complete breakdown that's happening at XAI right now. You

even had Elon yesterday admitting that XAI was built wrong from the start and

now it needs to be rebuilt completely. It follows a ton of people exiting the

company. Literally 10 out of the 12 co-founders have left the company in the

last few months. A ton of important people have left. And now last week we

discussed about this thing going on where the optimist's brain might be

developed by XAI, something that Elon has previously said would not happen. And

now he's confirmed it and went a little bit further, kind of merging two things

together. What he now calls digital optimist. So basically the brain of

optimist and micro hard. So for those people don't know micro hard is Elon's

incredibly funny take on Microsoft. And it's the goal of basically using AI to

recreate all of the Microsoft software tool through AI to distill their

business. It's nothing ingenious. It's something that basically all the AI

companies have been doing. Cloud has, you know, destroyed like six different

industries by the time I've finished that sentence, basically just recreating

the software is worthless right now. Basically, like if you have software,

you can just recreate it with AI with a few effort. And he wants to do that.

But the thing is that this XAI is far behind the competition compared to the

frontier labs right now, Google and Tropic, which is which is called an open

AI, obviously. If you look at the, the more respected kind of AI leaderboard,

and this is, I mean, we can argue about that all day, because there's a lot of

different leaderboards and whatnot. But I think RKGI is probably especially second

generation is the most respected one. And you can see from there that gruck is

lagging behind those other models on performance and cost. And Elon has been

kind of raging about that lately. And there's been a few reports coming on the

media this week saying that he's very concerned about it. And he finally

admitted this week that they need to basically reall the entire company. But

the weirdest thing about that is that six weeks ago, they had Tesla invest $2

billion in the company, then they had SpaceX basically bail out XAI at a full

valuation, like no drop to the previous round that happened just before. And

where they are where we're Tesla investor made aware that the company was

needed a full overall that SpaceX investor were made aware of that. It's

it's unclear really, because that that is kind of material information. And the

frustrating part with all this is that like this is basically a bailout from

everyone. If you have a 401k, if you're invested in index fund, you're invested

in Tesla, because it is one of the biggest company in the US, and it's an

all index. So you kind of bailed out Elon's, you know, failed AI experiment,

which should have been according to many Tesla shareholders built within

Tesla anyway, since the start. And this is the point of contention in this

article here, where now this new digital optimist, which is kind of being merged

with micro hard, even though it's, I don't see a direct link to it. And there's

a few facet to this. So basically, Elon wants to merge the effort with XAI and

Tesla to develop this this new intelligence. And but for the most part,

it sounds like any other AI agents that have been released in the last few

months, most like like Claude, co work, Claude, cod code, and, and like, open

the icodex, like it's, they seem they want to be building that Elon says it's

going to be ready in six months. So that it looks like they are a year behind

at least, because this these things have been out for for a bit now. And now we

just got a report from Financial Times building on this report here, that even

a shock Tesla's head of full self driving and optimist now, has been deployed at

XAI to lead this effort too. So literally, the arguably the most important

engineer at Tesla because autonomy is supposedly the most important thing at

Tesla right now. The head of that is now also working on this thing on top of it

all. That's being stretched quite thin. I'm sure the board is going to jump all

over that, right? I mean, if you had any semblance of decent governance, this I

don't even know how these things are illegal right now, like just literally

using top, top resources at your public company that you're in charge of the

chef industry duty of to save your what is now your private company XAI slash

SpaceX, which is the same thing, which is not Tesla, I know that Tesla is now

invested in it. But even the shareholders voted against it makes it makes no

sense to beginning to end. Then Elon also mentioned the Tesla self driving

chip. So he said this whole micro our digital optimist going to run on that and

said that even in the cars, even you're going to be able to tap that from the

vehicles, which is something Elon has discussed before. I mean, if it's the

same thing, because he's not using the exact same language here, but I'm

assuming that he wants to use your in car computers when you're not using

FSD to run inference for this digital optimist AI. And assuming you get

compensated for it, even though there's no details, it's if I don't sound very

convinced, it's because I think it's just the latest griff like we go from FSD to

optimist to inference and cars from Mars to the moon to all that. Elon seems to

be completely out of control, losing grass reality and trying to hold on to

anything that makes sense, especially, I think this is all leading to the SpaceX

IPO that supposedly is going to come as soon as in the next three months or so,

which is also going to be a crazy, crazy deal because rumors is that he's aiming

for $1.5 to $1.75 trillion valuation. And he's had a few of the, a few of the

markets compete for it, a few of the index and the contingent that he had, if

you want, like if the NASDAQ, for example, NASDAQ separately, the leader

right now wants to win the IPO, they have to include them in the index NASDAQ

100 right away instantly, which is, which has never been done before for good

reason, because you need to IPO and then the market has to, has to figure out the

price of that thing. In this case, SpaceX, especially like big IPO like that. And

then once they figured out that price, then maybe you're included in the

index, if you are eligible based on all the index criteria, makes sense, right?

But if you, if you speed run that, then you do it right away. The problem with

that is now, now you force all the index fund that tracks the NASDAQ 100 to buy

up into, into that, that company boosting the price nicely. So you don't, you

don't have the real price adjusted on the market, on the public market, because

of that, you know, artificial, like force demand for it. And, and then that

all happens before the lockup period of people like Elon and like other

investors that can dump all of that on the market now at a made up price. And,

you know, potentially even crash the whole market because we're talking

about such a big price here. So this, this seems to be the goal here, which is

pretty scary if you ask me. And to get momentum around all that, what do you

need? Obviously, SpaceX is focused on the moon now, they've given up on Mars for

now, but so the moon is the target. And data centers in space now is also the,

you know, is that really a goal or is that just like?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, he's all in on that. Okay. Even though everyone serious,

I've talked to that's not invested in this, that, you know, are familiar with

data center and the need of AI are like, makes no sense.

And

doesn't make sense.

Yeah, the map, this doesn't add up. So that's the thing on the SpaceX side on

the XAI side is the digital optimist thing, which is now attached to Tesla. So

these dragging Tesla into the whole thing, which is obviously invested in the

SpaceX XAI stuff. So crazy nonsense. All right, we already spent 10 minutes on

this. It's more than I wanted to do. I think I think it's something that everyone

should be aware of because it's happening and it's, uh, uh, there's no regulator

that's going to stop this at this point right now. So it's, it might literally on

top of everything else that's happening with the crude oil at $100 a barrel

and everything could, could, could be a bad time for a little bit. So I just

want to, well, ironically, now would be a good time for electric vehicle

manufacturers. Theoretically, if oil does go up, but that's not really a game

anymore. They're just building robots.

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, one of Tesla's like biggest boost back in the day. Like

I don't remember which period was it, but, uh, uh, there was a big spike in oil

prices. Yeah. And I mean, the, the, who was it? Was it the war? Are we three

years into the war now already? Like 20, yeah, it was the Ukraine war was 2022.

It started.

I don't know, man. Too many words.

So many things have happened since, but the price of oil went crazy up at that

point and that, that helped Tesla quite a bit. They, they saw a big surge in

demand at the time and that was a time where Tesla still cared about making

entry vehicles. But now there's alternative. There's other companies that

are taking the torch and the Rivian is one of them and hasn't been taken

seriously by the wider market because of the price range. It's an expensive

vehicle, the R ones. But now the R two is the vehicle that's going to propel

Rivian in the whole new category and make them, um, first of all, also bring

them to other markets because they've been limited to the North American

market right now. And this is going to be the vehicle that, uh, launched them

in Europe and other places.

The, I'm talking about the R two. Uh, so it's the full size SUV, midsize SUV.

Um, some people call it a crossover, but I think, I think it makes no sense

for, for this one. Like it looks like an SUV. It's the size of an SUV.

It's pretty much an SUV. And what we have this week is we had the final specs,

most of the specs at least, and the pricing for, um, for the entire lineup.

And the good news is that they respected their price for, since the, the

launch, the original launch, the, these, these stuck to it. So let's start with

that. So right now what's going to, because if this thing is already in

production or at least low volume production and the actual first

deliveries are expected this spring. So just a few months, a few weeks away.

And, um, the, of course, they start with the more eye hand version of the, of the

R two, which is the performance all will drive with the launch package, which

includes a bunch of features together. That is $58,000. So that's not cheap.

But once that is gone and they have, uh, filled out the production, the, the, the

demand for the launch edition, then she'll have the premium all will drive that

will launch, uh, which is $54,000. Um, so still expensive, but you know, it's, uh,

comparable to like the performance, um, all the way.

And then you have the standard real drive long range, which is, uh,

$48,500, which is pretty good. And, uh, and then you have the standard

real drive at $45,000, which was the best price that was originally announced.

And that's, uh, but that's not coming until the end of next year.

Um, yeah, by the way, I should have said the other ones too.

So late 2026 for the dual motor all will drive premium,

real drive long range is early 2027. So early next year.

And then late next year for the standard one for the specs.

So that performance of dual motor version,

sorry, is a 3.6 seconds 0 to 60, uh, 88 kilowatt hour battery pack.

That's going to be good enough. And that's EPA estimated range, uh, 330 miles of range.

That's, that's more than decent. Um, then you have the premium

all will drive versions, same battery pack 4.6 seconds.

So you lose a second of speed versus the performance version at 330 miles of range

also. So you get the same range out of it, $54,000. Like I said, so this is, um,

no really good offering. There's going to be something that's going to compete,

let's say with like the new BMW UI three, uh, for example, uh, not I, uh, I X three, sorry.

Actually, yeah. Yeah. And then the standard long range, uh, same battery pack,

5.9 seconds. So you just have a single motor. It's slower, but not incredibly slow.

It's the longest re, uh, longest range version of it at three and three 45 miles of range,

but that's not EPA submitted. Like I said, this is coming a little later.

So do you haven't done the EP on it yet, but Rivian expect a 15 mile gain with a single

motor? And that's the 48,500 one. So this, this is, this is probably best value one.

And then it's a big, uh, jump though. Let's admit it for to gain, uh, all wheel drive

dual motor from 48 to 54. You know, I'm impressed probably most of all by, you know,

we're talking about an 88 kilowatt hour battery and getting, getting a all wheel drive big,

big wheels, you know, truck looking SUV. Not this is not a, you know, car that's jacked up

like a model X, right? That's a, you know, all wheel drive off road vehicle and getting 300

plus miles out of just 80, like not even a hundred kilowatt hour battery. That's pretty impressive.

Yeah. You're right. They've made some improvement on efficiency here because this is like, so this

full SUV, like a mid-sized SUV, but it's, it has the form factor of install has a big back.

It has also nice utility features like the open rear window like that. It's, I think it's powered to

and so you can have extended things inside of it. Your dog can enjoy it too. So it's a fully

featured SUV. It's not like the model Y is extremely well designed vehicle and very

uterian in many ways, but it's not an SUV. Let's be honest. You still have a front on it too.

You have knacks as standard on it. Looks like Tesla would have designed that too.

Like it's a very sleek charging situation. Some other specs here I weren't mentioning. So

semi-active suspension. You still get the incredible colors that Riven has, including their

superb interior, all premium interior with birch wood accent and black carrier signature.

Heated and ventilated front seat. Heated rear outboard seats. Heated steering wheels. So,

you know, it's still a premium vehicle. You have the premium audio system in there and

so that's for the launch edition. Yeah, that's for the launch edition.

The Riven has made some great improvement to their audio in the last few years.

My, uh, then we have a ton of snow and a heist on the roof right now and I have the,

I have brand new roof that's in the Lubinium and sometimes it just slides off and it sounds like

crazy. I love you heard it. Yeah, I did hear that. It's funny. This morning's podcast with Micah

from Israel is like in between bomb things. Did he have to do it in the middle of the show?

No, it was like one before and one after. Oh, geez. Crazy timing. Well, yeah.

Thanks Iran for waiting on the right time for that to respect the podcast schedule.

They're big fans. Yeah, big fans of an EV podcast. One of the biggest seller of petroleum in the

world. Um, all right. What else do we have here? Integrated tow hooks. That's, that's all the

package here. You have a lifetime of autonomy plus that's worth 2,500 bucks, 50, $50 a month.

So that's nice for the, for the launch package. So that, you know, that's for the $58,000 base

price. That's 2,500 already. That's, uh, you know, worth it. Uh, and all these other features that

just discussed, which are, are nice too. Uh, 10 to 80% in 29 minute charging. So, you know,

we're talking about top of the line in North America these days, talking about, uh, children's

toys in China. Uh, what else were it mentioned in? So yeah, for the $45,000 price base price is

what caught a lot of people's high, but this is next year. So that's, we have to wait until we

see it. Cause you know, they said the same thing about them all three, for example. And I mean,

you can argue it did happen, but for a brief period of time only. Um,

yeah, they have these new colors too. I won't get into it too much, uh, since it is a podcast

after all these interior pictures are pretty nice. Like they, they really took everything that was

best about the, um, design on the R ones and simplified it a little bit. Like it doesn't

look at luxuries, though the, the seat looks just as good as the R ones to be honest, but the rest

is boxes as well. Yeah. I remember when they first announced there are two people freaked out

about that. Like, uh, I mean, you know, it's useful for sure, but, uh, they still have these, uh,

little flashlight on the sides of the doors. Yep. Plenty of, um, no real to speaker though.

Huh? Uh, yeah, you could on the R ones, you could get a speaker right here instead. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe, maybe that's going to be an option. I don't know. It's mostly pointless.

I mean, you just buy a Bluetooth speaker from mod attack for 30 bucks. Exactly. Um, these are

the rear seats, which looks pretty good too. It's very comfortable. Uh, here you see the, the

put the front seat a little bit forward and it looks plenty of room for the person behind

flat lay flat as they can row also. No word on third row. If they're going to try to squeeze

a third row here, I think so far no. Yeah. Not so far. Yeah. Like if you need that third row,

you got to go R one. Um, yeah. So we have all the dimensions here. Maybe we should do a post

to compare the dimensions to the R one and also to the, like the Malawi is I think the, the more

I see into this, this core, um, looks like it's going to be a success. I mean, you look at the

pricing of the specs and look at the price point is great. The specs are great and you don't lose

a ton from everything that Riven has done great with the R ones. Like it's still a luxury vehicle.

I kind of feel like the, uh, the model three and the model Y hurt Tesla's premium

things. I think R one is going to be the biggest, uh, hit from this. I mean, obviously,

you know, all the other luxury SUVs, electric SUVs are going to be, um, targets here, but like,

I think all, but maybe, you know, 10 or 20% of Rivian's customers are going to be our two customers.

Oh yeah. I'm not thinking even well, at the same time, there's also an opening the door of, uh,

you know, maybe you like the R ones, the R two so much and, uh, yeah, you do a little bit better

and like, uh, maybe I want the R one instead. Like it's still a better vehicle. So I could see that

happening and expanding the market over time, but you're right. Like you, but you cannot fear

cannibalizing yourself with that stuff. Um, I think you're right. I think it's going to steal

some customer for the R ones for sure, but I think it's going to be, uh, uh, if we're talking

about EVs here, it's going to be a big, a bigger impact on the premium on the Y. So premium mobile

drive on the Y, the 50,000 ones are going to be hit by that. And, uh, and then like I said,

the I X trees also something in that, in that range that's, uh, that's going to be heard by

that market. But to your point of cannibalizing sales for R ones, Rivian has already, um,

taken that into account and the phasing out the R one S dual standard. Uh, so the, the one with

the LFP sales, basically they are, uh, uh, unavailable now or the, I think they are removed

for the website already. Now you can just, uh, inventory ones, I think. Yep. So, uh, so this,

this makes sense. This one that's closest in price to the R two and you get lower range in the R

two too. So like, I think, I think it's clear that Rivian wants to separate them. Like, all right,

you have the R ones that are higher hand, more performance, bigger vehicle. And then you have

the R two, if you want something a little bit more efficient, a little bit easier to park.

And, uh, yeah, I think, I think it makes sense. We were seeing slowly Rivian becoming like a more

mature auto maker. And, um, I think this is going to be a big deal. I think the R two, uh, by the

end of the year, we were going to have a better idea, obviously, especially once the launch

edition is, uh, is done. But, uh, I think we could see something very interesting.

Yeah. I'm, I think, you know, besides the efficiency, I think I'm also impressed that Rivian can

actually, or things that they can actually make a profit on that because it's such a premium vehicle

reasonable price. Well, we, I'm encouraged by what we saw with the gross margin improvement in the R

ones. And there's limits to how much you can improve margin on an existing vehicle program,

uh, without the complete overall. And you can argue that the second gen was, was close to it.

Well, it was not complete overall, but it was a significant overall, uh, and that, that bring a

lot of, uh, brought a lot of improvement. But I think it's clear that when they did that with the

gen two R ones, they, uh, they learned, they saw a lot of things that they could improve to, uh,

financially, efficiently, whilst that, uh, they then, they were like, we cannot implement that on

the R one, but with the R two and the new production lines and everything, we can do that.

So yeah, I'm very, I'm very, uh, hopeful that, uh, we can see, and I don't expect it this year,

obviously the vehicle program takes some time, but once it reach volume production into next year

with the dual motor ones, I think we can see, we can start to see some positive gross margin and

I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be shocked if by the end of next year we see Rivian being profitable.

Maybe not. Maybe it depends on, uh, market expansion too, because market expansion are very

expensive. You need to build out, especially for an auto maker that goes direct sales like

Rivian. You need to build out your, uh, sales infrastructure, your, your service infrastructure

and all that. Uh, we saw it with Tesla when Tesla expanded with model three in Europe,

they almost went bankrupt. So it's production hell. Yeah. There was a production hell and the

expansion hell. Yep. All right. At the same time that, um, yeah, the Rivian announcing their,

their R2, their next generation mid-sized cheaper vehicle, Lucid, the other American auto maker,

Evia auto maker, uh, didn't want to be left out of the spotlight. And at the same time,

they had their own announcement and, uh, the preview so we don't have the full vehicles here,

but they did a bunch of previews and shared some details about their next generation mid-sized

vehicles. So there's going to be the, uh, Cosmo, Cosmos, Cosmos, Cosmos, uh, and the earth.

So obviously you have the air, you have the gravity. I have Cosmos and earth. And these vehicles

deliver unmistakable Lucid design driving characteristic, uh, while embracing a rigidly

slipper, more efficient approach to manufacturing and cost. So very much like what Rivian is doing,

the, uh, they are taking what they learned from their previous vehicle program at the IRN to go

a little bit lower hand, more efficient, uh, lower cost. And that's what's going to come.

So we already, Lucid is already a leader in efficiency, but, uh, so how same range cost

is $2,000 less. So for 300 mile range battery pack here, they say that they can do it at

69 kilowatt hour to get 300 mile. We just talked about Rivian, uh, getting to 330 miles, uh,

but with 87 kilowatt hour here. So you see it on the side here. Um, obviously, you know, like

based on what we see here, I think these are going to be a little bit sleeker vehicle

other than the last one here. So it's not necessarily like a mid-sized SUV, like the R2,

but still you have a view here of the side view of the thing that's going to be the Cosmos. Yeah,

Cosmos. I don't know, headroom in the back, but yeah, especially with, uh,

battery management system in the back. So these, uh, what's the timing on those talking?

Uh,

thinking it should be an unveiling this year and they're coming next year, if I remember

correctly, but, uh, we didn't put in an article. Okay. Moving on. Um,

all right. There was one more thing that the unveil this week, Lucid, and that's, uh,

their own little Rebel taxi concept called the Lunar concept. And it is exactly what I just said

based on the new mid-sized platform that they are launching, uh, for efficiency.

They plan to bring, uh, Rebel taxi also along and they went very much, uh, Tesla approach with

just a two-seater, which I'm not sure I'm super excited about. Um, but, um, you know, they, they

had their same, the same comments as Tesla had that, uh, you know, 80% of vehicles for a right

chair have one or two people in it. So it doesn't really matter, uh, which is true. But also, you

know, if you design it for four people and when there's four people, it becomes very useful.

But at the same time, they also have the gravity that's already the, um, new platform for

Rebel taxi for Neuro and, uh, and Uber and they're working right now. So

the first one I've been delivered already and they're being, uh, they are being converted for

by Neuro to, uh, to Tesla self-driving technology.

I don't understand why two-seaters are the preferred Rebel taxi platform. It seems like

putting a third and fourth seat in these would not be hard and it would also be way more useful.

Yeah. I mean, if you have the cosmos already, which is going to be a five-seater, I assume.

Yeah. Um, I, I'm sure that removing the steering column is not that complicated for these vehicles.

Like just remove the steering column, you know, rearrange a little bit the interior around that.

Uh, and, and that's it. You have a five-seater that's, you know, not, you're going to be just as

comfortable as this. That really makes no sense to me. And if you need, you know, space for a

bike or luggage or whatever, make the seats foldable, not rocket science. Exactly.

All right. We have a few more news items I want to discuss before we jump in the comments section

below. So if you guys have questions for us, you just put them in the comments and we're

going to get to it in a few minutes. It can be about any of the topics we're discussing today

in the EV world or any other topics that you want or take on just a few minutes.

All right. We referenced BMW with their new vehicles coming a lot today. And now we're

talking about the i7 that's getting a nice little refresh with the new class. So that's

the new design language, new generation of vehicles coming from BMW and

they had the iX3, that was one of the first ones. They have the i3 also coming. They have,

you know, a bunch of lineup that's getting the new class treatment. And the i7 is being teased

now as getting it too. So we should see that in the next few. The only thing is, I think

next week, I think this is coming pretty fast. What's the next big show that's coming?

New York Auto Show. I don't know. I don't know how big that idea is.

I'm going. Yeah. Look at the iX3 interior. It's, it's wild. It looks like it's distorted almost

with that screen. Yeah, it's like a MCS or interior. Yeah. I don't know. I think they're

doing too much, to be honest. It is nice to see cars though, like cars, not like SUVs.

Yeah. Well, it's a sure maker for you. They have the iX version of everything too.

Yeah. All right. BYD now. We just heard today that they are thinking about building cars in Canada.

And the vice president, Stella Lee, as I said that, so they put aside the joint venture,

which is interesting, because Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, as when he introduced

the plan to open up the, to the Chinese market for EVs, reduce the tariffs,

he specifically said that he would, he was emphasizing the use of joint venture, just

like China did, you know, train ventures have foreign automakers come in, share the knowledge,

build up the industry in China, and then Chinese company can then hire those people and, you know,

build up their industry from there. Seems fair to do the same approach in Canada. But BYD,

probably not the best candidate for that, just because of how vertically integrated they are,

like they do, they do everything they do. Like I said many times, they are known for building

everything in their car, except for the rubber of the tires and the class. That's it. Everything

else, they do themself. So they're not looking for a joint venture, she confirmed, but she's,

she said that they are open to building cars in Canada, and they are even actively

looking for potential acquisitions. So they're looking to maybe buy an automaker, an existing

automaker in Canada, or buy their Canadian operation to take over from there. So that's

So in Canada right now, I mean, who actually, I know GM's got a big footprint there.

Yeah, we have GM, we have Ford, maybe they want to get out, I don't know.

We had Toyota, we still have Toyota, I think Toyota's still doing good in Canada, so I don't

know if they want to get out from there. Probably everything's happening in the US, probably the

US automakers are the easier target for, I'm talking about Canada operation here, if they

knew, like they've done that, like GM sold the operation in Europe, just a decade ago,

Ford had Volvo and they sold it to Geely, so Geely, so that's, we could see something similar

happening. It's, the door is open, Lucid said. And Lucid is, but not Lucid, sorry, BYD said,

and BYD is moving fast right now. We talked a few weeks ago about the unveiling of the

Denza Z9 GT, so it's the first vehicle to use the next generation blade battery from BYD that

has the crazy charging time, 500 mile range, all the goodies that comes with the new blade generation

and 644 miles of range on the CLTC, I'm still going to be well over 500 on the WLTP.

And yeah, it's not coming to Europe, they just confirmed it, the first second gen

blade to come to Europe. Do they confirm specific market? I don't think so, but you know,

BYD is now pretty much everywhere in Europe. And this, this is not, so when we talk about BYD,

we often talk about cheap cars, the Denza brand is not cheap, this is still a luxury brand.

But you know, BYD has taken this approach now, like we want to own everything in the market.

And yeah, that's going to be a little bit different though, because the exemption on

the tariff do force them or force any Chinese automaker to deliver a big part of the quotas

need to be from EVs that are less than $35,000. So that limits a lot of vehicles because that's

$35,000 Canadian dollars, which is about, I'm going to guess like $29,000 US dollars,

28 maybe. So it's, you know, the dolphin for BYD for example, things that will work, the seagull.

So BYD can load them up in Canada and also bring like something like a Denza, for example, to

to the market as well on the IRN if the filter quota is on the lower end.

All right, we have some bad news from Honda. They are scrapping three EVs in the US, although we

just like as I was putting the podcast post together earlier, I saw that there was a denial from

Honda for the prologue. So apparently the prologue is not dead. They say that it's still going to

come and again, the prologue is a GM car basically. So it's Blazer SS with CarPlay.

Yeah, exactly. So the RSX, the Acura RSX, which was brand new, the first Acura build

electric from the ground up by Acura by Honda is apparently dead in the US, which is pretty nuts

because the last year they literally flew me myself and my girlfriend out to California

to check it out. And with a bunch of other journalists too, you know, they paid a lot

of money to get all of us out there, lunch it in the US. And now it's not even coming to the US.

It was disappointing because I was, I thought it was a really nice car. I mean, we only saw the

exterior within the interior at the time. No, but it seemed like a solid vehicle to be honest.

And now it's not even coming to the US because we know why. So this report mentioned the RSX,

the prologue, but not apparently they are kind of backing down on the prologue and the

the ZDX, but they know the ZDX is the prologue for us. So it really, really just two cars really

because the Acura ZDX is just the Acura version of the prologue, which is not a bad car either.

Like I said, it's just an equinox. A blazer. A blazer, yeah. It's a blazer, but

you know, with Apple cars, which is also a Cadillac lyric. So there's like this one car is

like 17 different cars. All right, quick update on Abterra, which we'd like to do every now and

again when something comes out before we jump into the comments section. They raised $6.3

million to warrants this week, which you know, it's good. It's a little bit more money going to

bringing the solar electric car to production, which I like. But to be fair, it comes with

extremely high dilution. So you saw the stock crash that day that I come out because it's

it's pretty clear that Abterra is not able to raise money any of the traditional way.

So they have to do it the most, do it the way possible, which is this. And you know, it was

8.1 just a few months ago, then 12 a few months before that. So the amount keep going down. So

it's going to be becoming pretty clear that it cannot really tapped into the capital market right

now. And it's not so it's not really good news. But with 6.3 right now, maybe maybe they can bring

this car to production because they'll the other first validation units a few weeks ago, a few

few more weeks. And you know, maybe maybe they can start to get them certified and get a few

deliveries. But long term, it's hard to see them survive even though I wish them the best. And

you know, it's not impossible. Maybe they are an acquisition target. I don't know.

That's so sure. All right, I get a few off the line, you know, like it would be like Fisker

oceans, like there'll be a few out in the wild that you know, you can see and I mean, I think these

would be appreciated because there's such a unique vehicle. I'd get one, I'd get one even if there's

no support for it. The Fisker wasn't that interested here. But like if I can buy one after

even though for the company doesn't pull true, I'll buy one. Yeah.

All right. Fat for life law says micro hard is the lamest joke I've heard in a while.

It's actually micro hard. And it's not any better. Like

digital optimist is good enough since real optimist is a joke.

You know, it was funny this week too with optimist. One of the other figure is the one of the other

humanoid robot company. They posted a video of their latest robot tidying up a room.

And and you know, obviously, there's a lot of these around now. And the main thing is always

is this still operated? Is this pre program? Or is this actually autonomous? Because the third one

is, you know, extremely hard to achieve and figured and Elon commented on it and asked

as the exact same question because he couldn't believe that it was autonomous, but apparently

it was. I don't know if we believe them. But it's pretty it's pretty clear that optimist is also

the price of lightnings. Yeah, because it's going away. It's going away. I wonder if Ford's

having second thoughts. I don't think they are. I mean, we don't know how big the the new Ford

pickup battery is. I mean, it could just be kind of like a scout, which they're already delaying

their their vehicles, but it could be, you know, a battery like 90% the size of a lightning, but

in that extra 10% having a little generator, we don't know.

The Rivian R2 is going to finish off Tesla. They are priced competitively with the Model Y,

but they have cheaper self driving package free V2, whatever, and a great tow package.

I mean, I don't think there are two is going to finish off Tesla. I think it might be the CEO,

but we'll see. What do you think? Yeah, this has other other problems. And it's not like the

car business is very much in focus right now for them. Anyway, I think, but I still think

that as a point there, because Tesla gets most of its profit from its higher hand Model Ys,

that's where this is sent profit center right now. All dual motor Model Ys is where it makes some

cash. And yeah, that that going to be heard by the R2, even if even if they just take like

10, 15% of that market is still huge for Tesla. It hurts like crazy.

All right, I bet the R2 premium is going to be a huge seller. I think if they can make a lot of

those, that's not going to have a problem getting rid of them, at least in the immediate.

Because how many people would want an R1 but would like to pay 20,000 less?

Yeah, and also like R1 is a big, I mean, it's not like an F150, but it's a pretty big vehicle.

You can have one that fits into like a normal garage and a normal like, sure.

Actually, I don't know if do you have a reservation? I have a reservation.

In Canada, it's not worth it to get a reservation on these things.

The performance in premium trims are getting 266 watts per mile based on the EPA numbers.

Damn good. Yeah, that's pretty good for, I mean, that's almost unbelievably good for a

truck. For the form factor. Yeah. There's a premium audio option, which could be a

removable speaker. Yeah, you know what would be actually cool is if that speaker was actually

part of the whole, you know, like maybe that's the subwoofer or something.

But we saw the details of the premium option for the audio. I don't think I saw a removable

speaker. Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. I saw an electric article of EVs with VTOL. What about

third party solutions for other vehicles? Vehicle takeoff and landing. I don't know if that's

Vehicle to load? Oh, yeah. Yeah, vehicle to load. Sorry. Oh, yeah. No, he's talking about,

yeah, Joe, Joe, Joe has like an article that he posted with all the getting updates with all

the vehicles that have vehicle to load. What about third party solution for the vehicles?

So are you talking about like the, the home solution? I know like there's some automakers

that you can have also the adapter that you put directly in the charge port and it has

outlets on it. So there's, there's, there's plenty of that have not tested any myself. So I

cannot recommend any. The only thing that I've tested are actually the home solution to have

to plug in. And the one that I've been very impressed by I posted a video and article on

that trick has been the SIG Energy one, I think is really impressive. But there's also

DC Bell out in Montreal that's doing one, two, that's, that's, that's, yeah, this of all, yeah.

Yeah, those are DC and Bell. Yes. And they were at the Volvo event. I think they're partnering

with Volvo and they have a deal with Volvo and full-storey. Yeah, they, that's, that's a cool

product. And we also saw, what was that company that was started by the Tesla supercharger guy

that never, the German one? It was European, I can't remember. Yeah, Sonnen, Sonnen. Oh, yeah,

that's the battery company. Anyway, no, there was another DC, remember, there was like a,

they had it for like the Nissan Leaf. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't remember which one. Yeah, I'll think of it. As soon as it shows over, I'm sure.

And then also you can get 12 volt, you know, inverters, which, you know, old school EV folks

like us, we used to, when the power, power used to go out, we just took those up to the 12 volt

system and anybody can do that. Any vehicle, almost every vehicle has a 12 volt system.

Yes. The premium audio is included in the top two premium trims on the R2.

Have you seen the prices on used Lucid air? Some are in the high 30K range. Would you buy one at

that price on a, or a new model three? I would definitely buy one at that price. That's a pretty

good price for, you know, I would need to check the reliability issues first because

could be a problem too. Yeah. All right. I have an all wheel drive hybrid Ford Maverick. I would

consider changing it for a smaller size and cost full EV truck. That being said, it's a great truck

for the money. Yeah, I mean, the all wheel drive hybrid Ford Maverick is kind of like the thing

that everybody's chomping at the bit for, for an EV. I hope Ford, you know, they've indicated

that they're going to build a small pickup EV. I hope that comes out. They don't drop that or

whatever. All right. Ian Smith from Facebook says two seaters are the preferred Robo taxi form

because must panicked and repurposed the model two as a stock pump. And now we're stuck in an

emperor's new clothes scenario. That's an interesting point of view. But, you know, is Lucid just in

such a copy Tesla mode that they even copy the bad ideas? I don't know. Not impossible. I'm

disappointed, but this, but not surprised with Honda bailing on Bevs. Yeah. Being on Bevs in the

US, let's be, let's be clear because they, they, they still are going strong in Europe and well,

in Asia, depending where you're talking in Japan, I don't think it's super advanced on EVs either.

But yeah, it's, it's very much in the US. Yeah. And they have that really cute one in Europe too,

right? The ritual looking one on the E. All right. I have an air in an M three, the software

and phone for the key on the air will frustrate you if you come from a Tesla aside from the range.

I prefer my model three. Yeah, I've heard the same like software on Lucid's little rough

question. Fred, if you still have an open line of communication to the Donut Lab CTO,

could you please ask him when he is going to release the weight of his batteries being tested

in the lab to date? None of the tests allow his claims regarding the grab of metric density to

be verified. Releasing the weight would be the most meaningful metric. Yeah. Yeah. I think,

so there was another, because I think we mentioned in the last two podcasts that the

independent test results from Donut Lab, there was another one this week, I didn't mention it,

I did write an article on it when it was a little bit like lighter on details. It's just,

it's just a test of the discharge, the another, not even the phantom dream on it and a certain

temperature, which was also a good result. But again, like you said, we want, we want to know the

weight. Because the release the energy capacity of it, but not the weight. So we don't have the

400 watt hour per kilogram capacity that they claim hasn't been tested yet. I assume that that's

coming. I assume like it's been very clear they've been doing one test a week. And they're going to

continue through March until they start delivering them in the virgin motorcycle.

So I would expect it either Monday or next Monday.

Yeah. I mean, if it's in a motorcycle, it can't be too heavy, right?

All right. Up there is latest video was surprisingly skating toward the current

administration, which I found refreshing for a public company.

Really? And then I didn't watch that.

Yeah, neither. I'll have to check it out. Microsoft describes efficient software. I

grow hard and since you insinuates inefficient hardware insinuate that the CEO of the company

as the sense of humor of a 14 year old, that's not that funny. Because I've seen some 14 year old

that are pretty funny. Not really. I mean, the thing you post online is just mind blowing.

All right. Laker Sales X says, why does it seem like EV knowledge of dealerships is so poor after

a decade of EVs on the road? Is it a structural problem with the dealership model? I think that's

part of it, right? Like dealerships really don't want EVs because they don't really require tune-ups

or any of those. People are just incompetent in general. My dad's rule is like 50% of the people

is incompetent. And I think that's harsh. It sounds harsh, but I think it's technically right. It's

not just because people are incompetent, want to be incompetent. It's also like, I think a lot of

people just shouldn't be in the job that they are for whatever reason. They don't care and are

passionate about and everything. And that's a broader societal issue. But I think it's

very true in dealership in general. You have some good salesmen, people that know the other car,

they care about their clients, and they want to have a win-win situation. You have some of those,

but you also have a lot of people that just suck. So if you go to a dealer and get some of them that

that sucks, you're like, oh my god, the dealers just don't know anything about EVs.

And there's also a broader issues, especially in the US. There's a lot of misinformation being

pushed about electric vehicles. Some of these dealership and employees of dealership are subject

to that propaganda. So yeah, it's more of an issue like that. But at the end of the day, if they

have an EV on their parking lot and you're interested in EVs, they're going to try to sell it to you.

Yeah, just maybe the gas cars first. In the market for an EV and used EVs have lost 3 to 50%

of their value in the first few years. Do you think depreciation will flatten from here,

making likely used EVs a smart buy compared to leasing?

Yeah, especially with the end of the tax credit now.

Yeah, the tax credit was, you know, you take off $10,000 the second the thing rolls off the lot.

So that's a big part of it. But there's never been a better time to buy a used EV.

Yeah, the price is still low right now. You still can find a ton of good deals.

But we started with Tesla, for example, like Tesla was kind of the cannery in the coal mine,

just because of volume. And also last year, they had such a bad year also brand-wise and

everything that the price of used Teslas went down faster than anything else EV otherwise,

especially in the US. And we see them picking back up now in 2026 already,

not the broader EV market, though, in the used market. But I think that's going to follow now

that's happening for Tesla too.

All right, if somebody buys a used Tesla with FSD, but it has hardware three,

how likely is Tesla to upgrade that car if future FSD requires hardware four,

hiring a 2021 Model Y hardware three with FSD? I don't think it's very likely.

No, I think you're more likely to get a check in the mail at some point,

from like a class action settlement, something like that. Then Tesla was just, well, at this point,

people that still believe in about the retrofit stuff is just its madness. Like you just think

about this kill of the retrofit program over time is just it would completely freeze capacity

of Tesla's service network in a way that's just not sustainable. And there's also,

there's nothing, there's no solution. And we're about to go from hardware four to hardware five now,

at least towards the end of the year or early next year. So yeah, you're going to be

to computer behind. It's just not going to happen. How can you expect like Tesla to upgrade a 10

year old car with new hardware to make it self driving? Now it just makes no sense. And by the

way, I'm just saying like logically right now, obviously, they should do it. They should do it.

They said that they would do it. They promised they sold car on that promise and everything.

So there has to be a resolution at some point there regarding that. I'm just saying that logically,

also just logistically, it just doesn't make sense.

All right, Gandalf asks, why are all the Fisker oceans in New York City? I see

your half dozen minimum a day. I've seen quite a few in the area as well. I mean,

then New York City metro area. I think it was a some some company out here bought a ton of them.

Got some more snow coming down. Yeah, it was just not Iran. It was a giant thing of highs. I just went

right down the window. Careful out there. Yeah, it's no joke. It was such a weird temperature

in the last few days. All right, do we know when Slade is going to come out? I wanted more than

what I'm seeing right now. Slade is that Jeff Bezos backed modular small pickup truck.

Do you know anything about delivery? We saw some testing being released this week.

But it's still early. I wouldn't all night breath for them to release anything in time soon.

Gandalf says, struggling to believe our two range claims, do you really think it can deliver 330?

I would say in the same vein that a Tesla Model Y can go 330 miles and it can under the very

very specific conditions. I think the Rivian will be able to do that. And I would note that

my Rivian R1S, if you put it in range mode, it would actually out do the number. So if the range

was 310 miles, you could get 330, 340. It would only use the front wheels, which was not great for

anything. But they were pretty honest with their range so far.

Yeah. And the figure right now is the EPA range. So it's using the EPA formula. So we know that this

is not a perfect one. And we know that automakers also have a multiplier decision. They are limited

in the multiplier decision, but they have one. So they can be a little bit more on the optimistic

side versus the conservative side. And Rivian has been known just like Tesla to go on the

optimistic side. So they can advertise that. But like Seth said, you can still achieve it,

depends how you use the car. Peter Principal describes dealerships. I don't know that one,

do you? Nope. Dealers are filled with old timers who don't want to be bothered with new technology.

I always have great conversations with the younger generation. And the dealer lobby doesn't

help. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good factor too. All right. I doubt Tesla will put

hardware four and hardware three cars power and connector requirements are completely different.

Also, you would need the camera washers and front camera too. Elon did say he will figure out

something for hardware three FSD owners. Well, his next comment is like Elon said a lot. So I

think I think he's seeing that tongue in cheek too. So yeah, everything that you know, I'm says

now is you have to take it with a grain giant grain of salt. And this is exactly what I think

at best, Elon will refund what you pay for FSD with zero interest over the 10 years you owned FSD.

That's what a court will probably make them do. I think the court should technically go further

because I think the negative impact it was bigger than that like Tesla sold cars with people thinking

even if they were not buying FSD that they had the hardware necessary to achieve FSD that affects

the value of the vehicle. So I think I think if a court, you know, would be the sensible thing to

do, they would be like a punitive charge to it also for the entire fleet. And obviously,

a refunds on top of it for people that paid for it. And yeah, I think that's, that's the thing

that makes sense. Dean McManus says I had heard that Tesla had developed a newer FSD version

that works with hardware three Tesla faces big liabilities can now provide a new FSD solution

for hardware three. I think maybe what he's thinking of was Elon said that they're going

to work out some solution or wasn't there something about the timeline was that Elon

admit that they cannot deliver on supervised cell driving on full cell driving, then they said

there will be a retrofit for it. And then like a year later, he said, actually, we're developing a

mini FSD v 14 for hardware three, and then nothing after that, that was a few months ago too. So

and to be clear, v 14 is incredible, but it's not on supervised. So a mini version of it is

going to be even less unsupervised. So it's not a true solution here is just there hasn't been

a meaningful hardware three update in over a year and a half at this point, v 12. So it's over a year

and a half now. So I don't and then and then the guy that's in charge of that software is now

working on micro heart. It's if you really believe this whole unsupervised full cell driving in

consumer vehicle now, you're completely out of your mind. Let's take a concrete example real quick.

The Robo taxi in Austin, Texas, June was launched in June of last year, almost we're coming up on

the year now. And Elon said that it would be unsupervised by the end of the year, but within

a few months, and it's going to be 500 cars and then a million vehicle by the end of the year and

and so on and so on. We're almost a year in right now. There's one single unsupervised Tesla Robo

taxi in Austin limited to basically a quarter of the city that's doing a few rides a day. That's

and the reason they're doing that is because if they were doing more, they would be crashes,

they would be issues and they cannot afford that as the only reason. So if that's the reality right

now, and you think you can jump to Tesla doing that within their own fleet or on single vehicle

to allowing that within the entire US or even just bigger markets and consumer vehicles and

all the logistics that comes into that and all the liabilities issues that come to that with

insurance and all that, it's makes no sense. Tesla will never deliver unsupervised self-driving

in consumer vehicle with order for it's just it won't happen. Stop believing that makes no sense.

Clip it. All right. And then one last question. How do you think the war on Iran will affect the

EV market? I think it's going to be good for the EV market. Unfortunately, it sounds a bit crazy,

but I mean, what's the crude oil? Is it back to 100? It was like 108 last week and then it

calmed down. Yeah, it's basically $100 right now. Yeah, crude oil, $100 a barrel. When it's

over in Lainey, there's a lot of pressure throughout the market. So I don't even know just how good

it will be. It's good for current EV owners. And I think it's good as a like if I have someone that

I know that's complaining about gas prices, I can look at them. I'm like, you see, I have an EV

and it's not affecting me that much. That's what we do. EV owners. Yeah. So if you reinforce that

into people, maybe they were like, they're thinking maybe my next car should be an EV and like you

think that. But I think as a brother thing, I don't know how good it will be because at $100

barrel and I'd probably keep going up because I don't think there's a clear plan to hand that

war at this point. There's just there's never been a regime change that come from bombing

shit. And I don't think that's going to happen this time. And you saw this this week said there was

a report that came out that the Trump administration admitted in Congress that

they had no plan whatsoever contingency plan for if Iran was closing the straight. So they

didn't even think about it. It was like, oh, that could have happened. So there's there's no clear

way out of it. So I think oil is going to keep going up. But at over $90 a barrel and going up

in just the pressure, the economic pressure globally is so big that I think it's going to

create a down market for a while. And so all new core cells is probably going to be negatively

affected. EV is less so than I so that's good. But I just don't know how if it's going to be a

net positive overall for EVs. Yeah. And in the US, we have our own oil and obviously Canada has

plenty of oil. But like in China, where you know, EVs are already taking off. They don't have their

own oil and they get a lot of it from places like Venezuela and Iran. And they're probably

letting the ships get through the straight though for the Chinese ships are able to get through

the straight. Right. But it's still affecting the prices, I'm sure. Yeah, for sure. And I'm

sure China is like, let's not do this anymore. Let's just go to EVs, you know, I'm sure they're

like, rant, let's go. Let's get this done. You know,

yeah, and they are on pace for their goal for 2035 to be completing a carbon carbon net

negative. So it's at least they have a plan. The US is just like, let's bomb the shit out of them

and see if it's good for us. I don't know. I don't know about that. All right. That's it for this

week's electric podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give us a like a thumbs up and

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friends to all right, have a good one.

Rivian R2, Lucid counter attack, and Tesla's 'Digital Optimus'

Tesla Model X

Tesla Model Y

Rivian R2

Lucid Gravity

Lucid Air

iX3 (G08)

Z9 Denza Z9

Seagull

Honda Prologue

Blazer Ss

Acura RSX

Acura ZDX

Cadillac Lyric

Ford Lightnings

Ford F150

Nissan Leaf

Ford Maverick

Rolls-Royce Phantom

Fisker Oceans

Rivian R1S

About this episode

Original notes