Aptera is working on an electric car. The company built a small set of test cars to check that the design works correctly in real conditions. These test vehicles help them confirm the car is ready for the next steps toward production.
The Tesla Model S is one of the most famous electric cars. The host is comparing its time period and price to what they were hoping to see from a cheaper EV.
The Rivian R2 is an electric SUV/truck model from Rivian. The host is explaining the different versions you can buy and how features change the driving range and price.
Rear-wheel drive (RWD) means the electric motors (or drive power) send torque to the rear wheels. Compared with all-wheel drive, it can be simpler and sometimes more efficient, which can help preserve EV range.
Range is how far an electric car can go before it needs charging. In this segment, the host shows how different versions of the Rivian R2 can go different distances on the same charge.
All-wheel drive powers both the front and back wheels. That can help the car grip better, but it may use more energy—so the host says the range drops on the AWD version.
Wheel size can change how efficiently the car rolls. Bigger wheels often mean the tires don’t flex as much, which can make the car use a bit more energy and go a little less far.
21-inch wheels are the largest wheel option mentioned here. Bigger wheels usually come with tradeoffs, and the host is listing the cost of that upgrade.
A tow package is an add-on that helps the car tow a trailer. It usually includes the extra connections and settings needed so towing is supported safely.
An autonomy package is a paid upgrade for advanced driver-assist features. It’s the kind of option that can add more automated help for driving, beyond the basic version.
FSD is Tesla’s set of driving-assist features. “Unsupervised” means the system is supposed to handle driving with less (or no) help from the person behind the wheel, which is a big deal—and also something to be careful about.
A compact spare tire is a temporary spare that takes up less space in the car. It’s meant to help you limp to a shop, but it’s not meant for long distances or high speeds.
All-season tires are meant to be a “do-it-mostly” tire for different weather. They’re not as specialized as summer-only or winter-only tires, but they’re convenient for year-round use.
All-terrain tires are designed for both regular roads and rougher surfaces like dirt or gravel. They usually have a tougher tread, but they can be noisier and feel less smooth than regular tires.
A launch package is a bundle of extras you can buy with a new car when it first comes out. Instead of paying for each add-on separately, you get a set of features together for one price.
Term
launch key fob
A key fob is the remote you use to control the car. The “launch key fob” sounds like a special version included with the launch bundle, more for style than for driving capability.
Over time, an EV battery slowly loses some of its ability to store energy. That can mean the bus goes fewer miles between charges later in the vehicle’s life.
Concept
EV route planning vs bus routes
It’s about making sure the EV can handle the bus’s daily trip and still have enough charge. If the route is unusual or too long, you may need a different plan (or a different bus).
Diesel buses are the traditional type of school bus. The host is saying you don’t have to switch every bus at once—use electric where it works well, and diesel where it’s necessary.
Tailpipe emissions are the dirty stuff that comes out of a car’s exhaust pipe. Electric vehicles don’t have an exhaust pipe, so they don’t produce those emissions while driving.
Idling means the bus is stopped, but the engine is still running. That can still produce exhaust, which is why you might smell it even when the bus isn’t moving.
Route planning for electric buses means figuring out the trip schedule so the battery doesn’t run out. If you have to stop to charge in the middle, that can make the route harder to run.
The Tesla Cyber Cab is Tesla’s self-driving taxi idea. The hosts are talking about a special car wash Tesla is building for it, because these vehicles need regular cleaning like any car—just at a larger, more automated scale.
FSD 14.3.2 is a particular software update for Tesla’s self-driving features. Even with it running, a person still has to watch and step in if the car needs help.
“Supervised” means the car is doing the driving, but you’re still responsible for watching it. If you take over, the car asks you to explain why so the system can improve.
When the self-driving system needs help, it asks the driver to report what went wrong. The driver can pick a reason on the screen or record a short voice message, and that’s how the system learns from real-world situations.
This is a U.S. government safety agency for cars. Here, they’re mentioned because they track and collect reports about crashes involving driver-assistance or self-driving systems.
The host is saying that if self-driving tech is being tested on real roads, the company should explain crashes clearly. That way, people can understand what went wrong and whether the system is safe enough.
A tele operator is a person controlling the car remotely. The segment describes a situation where the car paused, and a remote operator took over to drive it.
This is a special lane for right turns that merges into traffic. The host is using it to describe a specific crash scenario and whether the self-driving behavior matched what a careful driver would do.
Term
yield sign
A yield sign means “let other traffic go first.” The segment mentions it because the self-driving car was supposed to follow that rule at the intersection.
An Automated Driving System is the car’s “self-driving” software and hardware working together. It can do things like steering and slowing down, but the driver may still need to watch and be ready to take over.
Term
center lane
A center lane is the middle lane on a road with multiple lanes. Where the car is positioned affects what can cross its path and how quickly it can react.
A pedicab is like a bicycle taxi with a little seat/carriage for passengers. It travels differently than cars, so it can be harder to predict in traffic.
A bike lane is a lane meant for bicycles. If a car is passing nearby or turning, the bike lane location changes what parts (like mirrors) might get hit.
The side mirror is the mirror on the outside of the car that helps you see traffic next to you. Here it gets hit by something sticking out from a trailer, showing how tight spaces can cause damage.
A gooseneck hitch is the part of a trailer that connects to the truck and often sticks up. If it’s sticking out into the road, it can hit a car’s mirror or side when the car passes.
A “gap” is the space between cars. If another vehicle moves into that space quickly, it can create a crash risk.
Term
reversing into an empty parking space
Reversing into a parking spot is when the car backs into a space. It’s tricky because you’re watching the area behind you and the car has to steer accurately.
Concept
navigation help
Navigation help means someone steps in to assist with where the car should go. In this story, that help is tied to moments when the remote operator takes control and accidents follow.
A construction barricade is a temporary barrier used at road work sites. The speaker is saying the robotaxi had trouble with these barriers during takeover situations.
Autonomous vehicles are cars that can perceive their surroundings and drive with little or no human input, using sensors and software. The segment discusses how a rider’s mindset changes when the system is in control versus when a person could intervene.
“Elon” is Elon Musk. The speaker is saying his comments can affect public opinion more than the crash details do.
LIVE
Hello everyone and welcome to kilowatt a podcast about electric vehicles renewable energy autonomous
misdriving technical problems and much much more my name is Bodie and I am your host and
putting this show together while putting the articles together has not been a challenge
at all putting this show together for a lot of technical reasons that I'm not going to
get into some of which involve logic and some other things.
It's been a problem like my internet and my internet went out for a decent part of the
morning and all these things just are all piling up and every time I go to record there's one
problem here and one problem there and just trying to work through each of those another
one pops up.
So I say all that to say this we're going to talk about news today so a little bit later
in the show I am going to mention FSD on FSD supervised 14.3.2 and I just want to let you
know that there is an article not an article there is a YouTube video by Kerry Murphy Kerry
was on the show not that long ago he is the host of the final lap podcast and he's also
the host of the Wushan YouTube channel and Kerry actually did a really good breakdown
of FSD 14.3 the video is about 30 minutes long but I would highly suggest a 14.3.2 but
I would highly suggest that you go and take a look because what we're going to talk about
today is in that video so I'll put a link in the show notes.
Let's go ahead and jump right into our news.
Aptera has assembled five validation vehicles.
Now this is a big deal because Aptera has been on the precipice of production for years
which is to say that they haven't really been on the precipice of production but they're
getting closer with these validation vehicles.
If you don't know Aptera builds this really cool looking car it looks like an airplane
without wings and it's a three wheel vehicle I think technically it's still considered
a motorcycle but they started development of this car in 2006 so we are 20 years of ups
and downs for this company.
In 2012 the founders actually sold the company to a Chinese OEM and they bought the intellectual
property they actually announced a gasoline powered version of this electric car which
I thought was funny and then in 2014 or so everything went dormant with Aptera.
The founders bought the company back in 2019 and over the last seven years they've been
trying to get this car out.
In 2025 interestingly enough a really dumb podcaster while begging an interview at CES
asked the CEO what exactly do you do here and he says I'm the CEO and I was like oh
the dumb podcaster was like oh that's interesting I should have known that by your shiny orange
suit.
I don't know if it was orange in my head it was orange but anyway yeah I got an interview
with the CEO and did not know who he was and then on top of that it was on the day that
they announced their partnership with Panasonic.
Fortunately in the middle of the interview it had to be cut short probably three minutes
in had to be cut short because the CEO already had a scheduled interview with Kyle Connor
and Kyle was ready so honestly even though I've seen Kyle around I've never actually
met him face to face he saved me that day because that interview was not going as well
as it could anyway.
This is a big step forward for Aptera and hopefully they can get this car over the finish line.
By the way this podcast actually exists largely because of Aptera.
Now a lot of people who have been listening to this show for a while already know this
but for the new folks I saw an early video of this car and the promise of an affordable
vehicle like we're talking like sub $40,000 when we say affordable.
At one point in time Aptera was saying you know the car would cost in the mid 20s I haven't
looked to see what they're actually saying what the car will cost now but you know affordable.
I think if my memory serves me I saw it on a Jay Leno's garage in like 2012 or 2014.
I don't think my kids were born yet but I think they were close that's why I'm putting
those date ranges out there but the video also could have been another video that Aptera
put together but I just remember the car driving through a neighborhood that's a lot of what
I remember and I thought this is so cool.
Two seater car, three wheels, looks really unique and will be affordable and you know
2012 that's around the time the Model S was coming out at an affordable $70,000 to $80,000
so something sub $40,000 really caught my eye.
Alright we talked a little bit about Aptera getting their car over the finish line.
It looks like Rivian's getting the R2 over the finish line because you can now officially
configure the Rivian R2 so I'm going to break down the trims for you.
So starting at $49,000 you get the standard package that gets you 345 miles of range it's
rear wheel drive although you can get a all wheel drive version if you add another $3,500
onto the price tag but your range will drop down to 330 miles 19 inch wheels are standard
but for a little extra you can get 20 inch wheels.
You have a choice of 5 different paint colors the Esker Silver is free and then the other
colors cost between $1,000 and $2,000 you only get the option for a black interior and this
more affordable version you're going to wait a little bit but then it gets to the premium
premium the premium model which starts at $54,000 and you'll get 330 miles of range it is all
wheel drive there are six paint colors with the same you know price range between free
for the Esker Silver and $1,000 and $2,000 standard wheels are 20 inch but if you want
a 21 inch wheel that'll cost you an extra $2,000 you do get an option for a white or
black interior which is great the white is an extra grand and you have the option to add a
tow package which is $950 you do not get this option in the standard version.
Oh by the way on all of the cars you can pay an extra $2,500 for the autonomy plus package
which is you know we'll say roughly equivalent we haven't really seen it in real life yet to
Tesla's unsupervised FSD so $2,500 is downright reasonable and then if you wanted a spare tire
you could pay an extra $755 for a compact spare tire which is too much money that is entirely
too much money this is a cool looking vehicle Rivian you should have just included the spare
tire on the back like every other off-road vehicle has that big tire on the back and it looks super
cool but yeah that's $755 for a spare tire I realize there's other things they have to do
the car but come on that's that's that's a that's a lot all right so that leads us oh that car will
come out in later in 2026 the premium version and that leads us to the performance which starts at
$58,000 gets you 333 or 330 miles of range it is an all-wheel drive vehicle so that's great
eight different paint colors to choose from two are coming later this year including Borealis
which is that kind of cool purple the black interior comes standard but they have a really
cool coastal cloud which is kind of a dual color interior I don't remember if it's black or gray
but anyway I thought it looked really nice but that's not coming out until later this year so
that's an extra thousand dollars this trim comes standard with 21 inch all season tires however if
you want all-terrain tires you can get the 20 inch all-terrain tires for another thousand dollars
now here is where I think the value comes in with the launch package that comes with the $58,000
that you're buying the car for you get autonomy plus included you get the tow package included
you get the option you don't have to take it but you get the option for the launch green
paint which is that really cool ravine green I'm sure there's a difference but it's still to me
looks the same and then you get a launch key fob which I don't know if that's all that important
to many people but you get all that included in the $58,000 price which I think is pretty reasonable
and then on top of that it'll be available in spring of 2026 just so you know spring ends in
summer begins at the end of June so they don't have a whole lot of time to deliver their first car
but we'll see um but yeah Rivian is definitely making a step in the right direction we'll kind
of see how it goes and what people think of this particular vehicle I hope that it's a hit honestly
because I think what Rivian's doing is is really unique it may be too much of an off-road type
vehicle to appeal to a lot of people but I don't think so I think this is going to appeal to
so many people that will never take this car even on a dirt road much less off-road but
yeah it appeals to me and I am in that category I would not take it off-road but I
might take it on a dirt road we'll see how adventurous I am not many dirt roads in my area
all right in our final EV story or final story in the EV segment we're going to talk about
electric school buses so there are plenty of arguments against electric school buses you
know the high upfront cost you have battery limitations that come in the form of just
range limitations but also in hot and cold environments that's going to affect the battery
range and then over time we have battery degradation I think we all could agree or at least the folks
who listen to this show and who are in this community can agree that those are legitimate
arguments but if you really understand how EVs work and how you know bus routes work
in most cases it's not a big deal now if you have a bus route that falls outside of that
and maybe it's it's kind of far out into the country or whatever like I used to take me an
hour to get to school when I was in elementary or in middle school I lived in a community called
Nikiski and we had to drive all the way into Kenai to go to middle school so it was about an hour
ride sometimes even more than that when it was when the weather was bad so I am fully aware of what
these bus routes look like in those cases you just use a diesel bus it's not to say that you
can't ever use diesel buses but when it's appropriate use an electric bus and when it's
you appropriate use a diesel bus at least we're not burning diesel all the time and then that's kind
of you know the kind of goal of this show is makes incremental improvements where it makes sense
um now on the other side of things for this show I don't tend to put a lot of emphasis on climate
change I like to climate change is is very political I don't think it should be political
but it is a very political argument and even if I agree even if I'm sitting next to somebody or
across from SOTI who agrees on climate change agrees with me on it there is still a lot of things
to argue about when it comes to climate change and I find myself trying to avoid those conversations
but what I do like to talk about is air pollution because air pollution is something that all of
my friends with widely varying political beliefs this is something we can all kind of come together
on because air pollution nobody thinks that the air pollution is is good nobody that I know of
anyway um and we know that things like smog and the soot in the air that increases you know risks
of asthma attacks and heart attacks and you could have cognitive issues later in my family we have
lots of cognitive issues as we get older so this is something that's important to me and they've
even found evidence of air pollution in umbilical cords that was crossed through the placenta into
the umbilical cord so you know this is something that starts very on early on in life well by the
way they also found microplastics and all these other things I don't know how we get away from it
but here we are um and then you know recently we talked to Kim Lundgren which was episode 700
of kilowatt and she mentioned that they developed a plan to put these filters I can't remember exactly
what they were but they were basically putting like filters on on school buses so they weren't
polluting so much because we have you know all these little kids standing out by the bus at the
tailpipe level and we want to avoid exposing them to this air pollution if possible right when
possible and we want to when it's not possible to avoid it we want to mitigate it as much as we can
so I like to kind of highlight stories that are a little bit different when it comes to
this kind of segment of the podcast you know something that's a little more
different like there's lots of stories that we could discuss that are backed in science
but today we're going to talk about a story that is backed in someone's personal experience like
their lived experience so all of that leads to this a school bus driver named Nicole Trone
she wrote a letter to the editor in the Salt Lake Tribune where the Salt Lake Tribune published it
and I don't they called it something different than letter to the editor but it was kind of
like one of those things and she is a school bus driver who moved from a diesel bus to an electric
bus and she has no desire to go back to a diesel bus so she's worked in the Salt Lake City School
District since 2021 she's logged over a 100000 driving miles which is nuts initially
she was assigned to this standard diesel bus that a lot of us are familiar with
she now drives one of the district's 12 electric school buses in Salt Lake Skid in the Salt Lake
City School District excuse me so here are some of her takeaways from driving electric bus and
from my experience being on the bus I remember it was just utter chaos kids jumping from seat to
seat I'm sure it's very different now and when I say that I'm sure it's not different at all now
but what she notices when it comes to the the electric buses is the buses are quieter
so in turn the students are keeping their voices down one of those reasons is because she can hear
them and I don't know if she can overhear their conversations or when they talk to her she can
hear them without them having to yell over the noise but anyway by by reducing that noise it
reduces the chaos on the bus and again um some sometimes I was a good kid but sometimes I was
the chaos on the bus so I can completely understand why having a quieter uh ride environment would
make it better for the students but also better for Nicole and in fact in her words she says my
days are more comfortable which I'm going to take that to mean less based on the article that I read
less stress and that but honestly even if the kids are being good the constant buzz of people in
the background for me at least is exhausting just that constant noise yesterday I had eight
13 year old girls at my house and my son um they were all getting ready for a dance my son actually
just you know got dressed and watched Star Wars but there was a whole like uh getting ready thing
in my living room with with the with all of the girls and some of their moms and there was even
a dad there and it was fine like all the kids were great but with these are good kids they're
13 but the the noise in my house is it was louder than normal and in general they're only here for
about two hours so not a big deal but if I was driving and I had to deal with that kind of noise
in the background over time that's going to be very stressful for me but um in this situation
all the kids were great no issues everybody did a really good job then they were able to go to
their eighth grade dance and have a good time which is great the other thing is Nicole says
there are no tailpipe emissions so the interior of the bus is more pleasant to be in notice you
know she's not talking about air pollution she's not talking about you know climate change or
health issues she just says it's more pleasant because there are no emissions in the bus and I
can attest to that as a kid you know I definitely remember that diesel smell and how especially in
in my communities because as I could just open the bus window and you know when you're sitting
in idling and you have the bus window open the exhaust is going somewhere and it's inside the
bus I don't know if you could do that anymore on the bus during the winter she can keep the bus
warm waiting for the students without burning dead dinosaurs that's great she did mention that
driving the buses in colder temperatures did require some extra planning and consideration
when it came to like charging and routes and things like that but her route is
assigned but anyway did you had to um have a little bit of extra thought in
there and extra planning but really she said it didn't really affect her daily route so I thought
this was just a really good thing to share in terms of her perspective and it's not one I think
we hear from often but this is you know this is a good reason to have electric buses again
if it if it meant that we had to have electric buses but they had to charge halfway through
their route then that that doesn't work but overall I just thought this was really interesting
and I'd like to do some more stories that are like this
all right everybody that is it for EV news before we move on to our Tesla news I just
want to let you know that you can go to support kilowatt dot com and you can sign up to become a
patron and you can either support the show on supercast or patreon whichever you know floats
your boat whichever one you want and all of the money goes back into the show none of the money
that comes from the patreon goes into my own pocket and you get an ad-free experience
and you can support the show for as much as you want but really for a dollar everybody gets the
same uh experience so if you want to support and and we certainly have people who support a five
and ten dollars sometimes that's great but that's not necessary you could definitely support for
just a dollar all right here we go with our tesla news tesla is building a huge car wash
for the cyber cab in las vegas this is going to be as advertised a 36 000 square foot car wash
it's going to also include some minor maintenance like paint scratches and i'm sure you know somebody
vomits in the back of the cyber cyber cab it's going to be uh some cleaning in that regard as well
so i think this is great i you know tesla has that big supercharger uh location in mesa
arizona that is simply for cyber cabs it's not for any other tesla vehicles i wonder if tesla
is testing this stuff out to see kind of what works before they deploy it to other markets so
arizona gets the cyber cab vegas gets the um you know the car wash and i don't know what's in austin
but you know over time as they roll these out i'm sure they're testing this stuff out to see
what works and what doesn't so they can deploy to other markets in a thoughtful way so i thought
that was it was pretty cool and then they have fsd 14.3.2 um this is fsd supervised i mentioned
that carry murphy has a really good video on this um but the the thing that i want to talk about is
when using fsd supervised 14.3.2 drivers will now need to provide feedback each time
they intervene so what happens is if you intervene with the with fsd when it's turned on a prompt
will come up on the screen and you'll be giving choices to as to why you intervened and in the
past that that prompt would go away on its own after a few seconds now it stays up until you you
either touch on the screen what was the reason why you intervened or you create a voice note
note by pushing on the button on the on the steering wheel on the right button you can
create a voice note for that and then it will go away after you have actually said why um
again carry's video shows a really good example of this so i would highly encourage you to go
to the wooshin i'll put a link to the show notes to the wooshin youtube channel and and watch the
video it's really good and say hi to carry in the comments that would be cool all right now
this is our final tesla story here we finally have some details on those robotexy crashes that
the tesla leadership team at least at the conference call the last conference call
seemed like they were saying that there weren't any accidents but you know they're being they're
being very sly let's say in how they were presenting this information but we knew at that time that
the national highway traffic traffic safety administration had at least 17 incidents that
were redacted so there was the incident and then the narrative just read redacted may contain
confidential business information okay um i was very um my opinion hasn't changed i i do think when
you're testing these these vehicles in public you owe it to the public to explain why or what
happened so that we have transparency so we know what's going on because you are in some way
endangering the public's life by having this software or these uh this technology that hasn't
been fully tested yet and in in the trade-off you have to be transparent about what's going on
and what's going on is that most of these 17 accidents that you know tesla had to report
were not the fault of the of tesla which or cybercab which honestly doesn't shouldn't surprise
all of you um you know most were very very dumb uh just small accidents and well well i'm going to
give you some examples i'm not gonna go through all 17 and then there were some that were actually
teslas fault but none of these accidents were all that big of a deal to be honest with you so here
just a couple that i just kind of pulled ram randomly for examples so the first one is the tesla
ads stopped on the right side of the street the safety monitor requested support because the ads
wasn't proceeding forward the tele operator took over and drove the car left up a curb
and into a metal fence no passengers were in the vehicle now i started with that one for a reason
but i'm going to save my opinion until i read the rest of these so the next one uh the tesla ads was
stopped at a light at an intersection an suv that had been stopped behind the ads crept forward and
rear ended it the passengers were not in the vehicle so this was not test this fault uh here's
another one the tesla ads was in a right turn only slip lane with a yield sign uh yielding for
cross traffic the ads was stopped then crept forward at two miles per hour while continuing to yield
and was rear ended by an suv behind it the safety monitor later reported pain and saw it some medical
evaluation so again uh is this the the is this tesla's fault legally probably not because the
the suv hit it from behind but was it acting in this scenario like a regular person would
i don't know um but in reality the accident wasn't caused by tesla it might have been helped by tesla
but there shouldn't be a fault for this they got rear ended that that's in america that's typically
all the always the person in the back uh or the person who were into them so the next one is
the tesla ads was proceeding straight in a center lane approaching a green light when a
dog ran into the intersection from the right so the ads reduced speed and steered left so
i don't know if it was 27 miles per hour is what they were going and then they reduced speed or if
the car was going 27 miles an hour at reduced speed when it hit the dog uh the dog ran towards
the tesla made contact with the bottom of the front right bumper pushing it into the path of the van
but the dog was later seen running away so seemingly maybe the dog was embarrassed and
maybe they had some bumps and bruises but hopefully nothing that was long term this next one is a
property damage only the tesla ads was stopped at a red light a pedicab approaching a pedicab is
you know somebody with a bicycle and they have a little carriage in the back that people sit in
so the pedicab was approaching from behind and the bike lane clipped approaching from behind
in the bike lane and it clipped the right side of the tesla mirror as it rode past so no big deal
this is this is actually pretty common the mirror thing there was a couple of them where
a mirror had had been clipped or hit something the next one is a tesla ads made a left turn
onto a residential street as it passed the house the ads's side mirror made contact with a dump
trailer's goose neck hitch sticking out into the street so there's another example and then we have
we only have three more here just in case these aren't interesting to you i found them to be very
interesting i would have done all 17 honestly but i i'm trying to you know keep in mind that not
everybody thinks this is as cool as i do the next one is the tesla ads was stopped behind
a traffic stop behind traffic at a red light a person on a motor scooter approached from behind
moved into the gap behind the ads steered right and made contact with the rear end the scooter
driver then hopped the curb and continued onto the sidewalk so again not tesla's fault
the two more the tesla ads was reversing into an empty parking space when the right rear tire
made contact with the corner of the curb i can totally see why tesla wouldn't want us to know
any of this like these are so heinous um that's actually not true i think this is
next one and the first one are the reason why tesla didn't want to report this uh this the last
one the safety driver requested navigation help the teller operator took over the ads when stopped
and drove straight into a temporary construction barricade scraping the front end of the fender
entire so i started with the first one on purpose because in that same situation the safety monitor
requested help and then the the person the teller operator took control and drove it up onto a
up onto a curb into a metal fence and in this one it went you know the safety operator that
are assuming the tele operator put it into a construction barricade now were these big accidents
no but clearly uh the tele operators i don't know if you need more training or if it's
something that tesla needs to do on their side in terms of making that a safer operation for the
tele operators but yeah i mean if that was for me the concern wouldn't be when the car is driving
around without being unsupervised the concern is more that the tele operator is you know doing
something that uh through controls different controls may be unsafe and i don't know how
it works on the tele operator side and i don't know what they're doing you know nobody's ever
really seen this as far as i know so that would be my concern is that something's
going on when the tele operator takes over that is um um increasing the risk of an accident happening
now is that a significant increase i don't think we have the data for that is that
you know based on these 17 different accidents yeah i i think that that is something that
should be investigated a little bit further to see why this is happening with the tele operators
also you know tesla made such a big deal about having no safety monitors in the vehicles when
it first started the robo taxi or right before it started robo taxi and it turns out they had to
have at least a safety monitor but they were in the passenger seat not in the driver's seat and
i think this is mostly for optics um it would be just as easy to put the safety monitor in the
driver's seat and have the tele operator operate the vehicle but when it's unsafe the safety monitor
who's in the driver's seat can override that and slam on the brakes whereas in these two situations
i'm sure the safety operator was not pleased when you know they jump a curb and hit a metal
fence or get run into a barricade that's probably not a great feeling from them um these are minor
minor problems you know but it's not minor problems can lead to big problems um i i've
driven in the wamos multiple times uh i had at one point in time access to the chevy cruise one of
the vp's at cruise or gm cruise one of the vp's at cruise gave me access which was really nice of
them but i could only drive or ride uh in the car between like 10 p.m and 5 a.m or something like
that and honestly man um i'm up a little bit later tonight it's 11 o'clock at night but typically i
am in bed before 10 p.m and i don't want to go anywhere at 10 p.m so i never i should have i was
waiting for them to get more realistic hours for me to test this i should have tested it when i could
but um yeah so that that's pretty much my experience is wamos uh hopefully this next
time i get to vegas so i'm gonna ride a couple of zooks but for right now that's uh that's where i'm
but i'm pro autonomous vehicles and they don't they don't scare me you know i said recently i
took a wamo on the freeway it it was interesting for about eight minutes and then the rest of
time i just zoomed out on my phone or zoned out on my phone and didn't worry about it because there
was nothing i was going to do about it anyway so i might as well be blissfully unaware of the dangers
that might be coming my way so yeah anyway um tesla this is these none of these are that
big a big deal um i know i don't even think like one comment from elon is way more one more comment
from or one comment from a uh a frustrated or froggy elon is way more brand damage than this
like this is nothing to worry about uh there are definitely some things that maybe they need to
look into like i said with the tele operator stuff maybe move that safety monitor behind this
behind the wheel which i think would be smarter uh if i'm being honest it i think it's more of an
optics thing like look we don't really have to have somebody there but maybe you should just so
they can hit the brakes when the tele operators is you know unable to control the car like they would
control it if they were sitting in the driver's seat so all right um that's it for me i hope you
all enjoyed this episode i certainly enjoyed recording it i am recording this on saturday
night but i am going to bed so i will release this on sunday morning i hope you all had a wonderful
weekend and i will talk to you soon
About this episode
Rivian and Aptera take center stage in the EV news roundup, from Aptera assembling “five validation vehicles” to Rivian R2 pricing and range across trims. The show then pivots to a real-world electric school bus perspective: a driver “moved from a diesel bus to an electric bus” and “has no desire to go back.” Finally, the host tackles Tesla Cybercab robotaxi crash reporting, arguing “we have transparency” amid NHTSA-redacted incidents and questions about tele-operator safety.
In this episode of Kilowatt, we dive into the EV news, starting with Aptera’s massive milestone of assembling its first five production-intent validation models to prove the solar EV movement is very real. We also explore the newly live Rivian R2 configurator, breaking down the diverse trim options, initial pricing structures, and the agonizing wait for the brand's best colors. Tesla dominates much of our discussion as we dissect the unredacted NHTSA logs detailing 17 "Robotaxi" crashes, exposing what really happens behind the scenes with teleoperator interventions and minor collision data. Additionally, we analyze driver feedback on the controversial Tesla FSD 14.3.2 update to see if the system's performance is truly taking a step backward. Finally, we take a look at a massive Cybercab car wash being erected under the lights of Las Vegas, and share an inspiring story from an electric school bus driver who vows never to return to diesel.
