Tesla delivery record, V4 Supercharger, messy US EV market, and more

We are live on the episode of the Electric Podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your host, and as

usual, I'm joined by the publisher extraordinaire, Seth Wintra. How are you doing this week, Seth?

I'm good.

All right. I hope you are, because we are playing news. A lot of tests and news this week, but

a lot of good testing news. The stock doesn't reflect it, but good testing news to

the degree. Probably on some of the last good tests, we're going to get for a little bit,

because the US market is going to get tough, and we're going to talk about that, about

the messy US heavy market that's starting this week, basically, as a Q4. We have also

the Rivian delivery numbers. We have the Supercharger V4s. We have, I would talk

about the new Chevy Bolt that we get to see a little bit ahead of the unveiling next

week. Ford gives us a little bit more details about the next-gen $30,000 supposedly pickup

truck, though we're going to have a little bit more to say about that later.

Let's start with the test of delivery numbers. Still the biggest EV makers in North America,

second biggest in the world after BYD, a very important company still, and just

got a new quarterly delivery record with 497,000 deliveries in Q3. We anticipated

that this would return to growth in Q3 after a few quarters of being down quite

severely, about 13% in the first half of the year deliveries, but with the end

of the tax credit in the US, then being pulled forward into Q3, it was going to

be a good quarter. Now, it is a beat. It is more than anyone expected, but the entire

estimate situation was very confusing. So technically, that's a release. It's usual

company Compile Analyst consensus at 443,000 units, but that was very wrong

and no one expected that. A lot of these analysts hadn't updated their estimates

for months. So they were completely inaccurate. If my own Analyst consensus

Compile consensus estimate of delivery estimates, most of them were between

460,000 and 490,000, with some of the more accurate ones being closer to

480,000. Now, Tesla announced 497,000. So it's still a beat on that, but not

as crazy as the beat as Tesla insulated with their own company Compile Analyst

consensus. So production was as far as 47,000 versus 497,000 deliveries. So

basically Tesla delivered an extra 50,000 units, which it badly needed to

because that's basically what it had in inventory just for the first half of

the year. So now Tesla has managed to lower its inventory back to the same

level as the beginning of the year, which is a big deal. Still Model 3 Model Y

dominating deliveries by a wide margin, basically just 16,000 deliveries

between Model SX and the Cybertruck. So the Cybertruck is still basically

a 5,000 units, a quarter vehicle program. Energy storage, also a big

upswing at 12.5 gigawatt hour deployed during Q3 2025 compared to 6.9 in Q3 of

last year. So that's almost doubling the capacity in just a year. So that's

great news, but obviously this great news needs to be put in the context of

why Tesla is getting a big boost. Most of the boost is coming from the

U.S. coming from that demanding pull forward. So Q4 is most likely they're not

going to be a lot harder. In short, Tesla, like a lot of other automakers in

the U.S., I think Q4 is going to have to make a choice between revenue,

delivery volumes and earnings because technically you could keep things

going just by reducing prices. And we already seeing a lot of that, which

is why we say that the U.S. A V market is getting is getting messy right now is

that you have a lot of automakers that say that they are extending the tax

credit. So the way that they are doing that is like, obviously there's no

tax credit anymore. It's like some of some people can still get it if they

locked in an order with a binding contract with a deposit before the

end of the quarter. We talked about that extensively. A lot of automakers,

including Tesla, promoted that quite a bit. However, for anyone that didn't do

that in Q3, and they are looking to buy a car in Q4, there's other incentive in

place, which are mostly automakers saying that they are extending the tax

credit, whether they are compensating the owner at the purchase price right

away, or they are applying it the same advantage that they would put on the

lease, for example, because most people in North America leases their EVs, they

would keep the same down payment and monthly premiums as they would if the

tax credit that the automaker gets normally was getting when someone would

lease a car, they would just pass that along. So they would absorb the

$7500 difference. You're seeing a lot of that. We're going to talk about some

of them later on. Tesla has not done that just yet. They actually have passed

on the cost of their leases to the buyers, to the leases, and they haven't

changed their prices, their straight up prices for financing and cash

purchase. I would expect some things going on in the coming weeks,

because right now, Tesla is probably enjoying the fact that they locked in a

bunch of orders in Q3 with the tax credit. So they're going to deliver that in

the coming weeks. But I would doubt that they have more than a few weeks worth

of order for that. And then it's going to be back to trying to find

ways to get people to order lighter cars. All right, moving on from

that, we had the new affordable strip down Malawi that was spotted for the

first time on camouflage, or mostly on camouflage. So you see here, cheaper

or cheaper looking, I should say, aerial wheels. The front light bar has

been replaced with just the headlights. The glass roof looks like it can look

like a glass roof on top, but there's no glass roof anymore. Here is it in real

life rather than rendering. So does it look bad from the outside? Looks maybe a

little bit more like bubble-like in the front than without the light bar?

It kind of looks a little bit more like the Model 3. At least in the

front. So it looks like a light bar in the back, but I think they're

no light bar either. I'm not 100% sure on that. And what do we know about

SPACs and what do we think about SPACs here? So there was a leak this week that

claimed that Tesla had some more. We already talked last week about some

of the features that's been removed, like the textile seats now, a lot of

cheaper material in the inside, remove all of the some of the ambient

lighting, the rear passenger screen, a lot of that has been removed. But in

third, the biggest unknown really at this point is going to be the range and

sorry, and the price. Now the leak this week was supposedly within this

Tesla's configurator firmware, which if true would point to Tesla

launching this vehicle very soon, including the fact that it was spot on

the road mostly on camouflage. And that would make sense honestly, because I

expected Tesla to be waiting for Q4 to launch that vehicle because Q3 was

going to be no diamond issues that was clear. So Q4, a lot more diamond

issues, a cheaper vehicle, obviously making all that sense. Now the leak

was talking about a 40,000 based on the configurator, $40,000 starting

price, which I think is too high. I mean, it might be it might be through like

they just quickly removed it. But we've seen sometimes they're so just

throwing placeholder numbers on that configurator update. So it's not

confirmed. If it is 40,000, I think I don't think it's going to sell very

well. I don't think it's going to be similar to the situation we've

seen with the Cybertruck when Tesla launched that stripped down

rear wheel drive Cybertruck and for a $10,000 less than the already paying

48 or whatever. Yeah, you know, 45, you can get like a decent way more

decent version. So and then you have the equinox, like you can go with

equinox, you can go with the ionic five at that price. There's

other options that will have more features than this. It's going to

be less of a stripped down vehicle. I think Tesla needs to aim closer to

like 35, 30, 36, 37, 37 max. I think that's that that will start

making a bigger difference like when you're closer to $10,000

difference. You think it's possible that they do this on

purpose? So everybody's like, Oh, it's gonna be 40,000. And then

they come in with like 33 or 34 or something like that.

Yeah, it's possible. But at the end of the day, I think I think

this vehicle will mostly cannibalize this as well as Y cells. So

that that's the main thing here. So I don't I think so every

kind of every thousand dollars or so that they can move it will

make a difference between like, just how much more demand you

can have versus how much more we're just like cutting into our

own margins by stealing cells from a little bit more

profitable version. So it I don't think I think the bigger

impact would be, for example, in China, I think in China, that's

going to be a bigger impact from that. But even then, not as

big as I think some of the Tesla shareholders would hope

because the competition in that price range is huge in China.

Speaking of with the Tesla numbers. Tesla was still down 8%

roughly 8% in Q4 in China in deliveries. So you know, the US

market is really what's driving Tesla right now. Europe is down

though a little bit less on Q3 than in previous quarters. So

that's good on that. But still down. And Tesla the downfall

in China is accelerating. So I think this new model is going

to slow things down in Q4. Also the model YL being available

a little bit longer. You know, there was just like four weeks I

think of deliveries in Q3 for the model YL. That's going to

help Tesla a little bit. But the competition is so ferocious in

China, it's going to be super hard. It's really

interesting, like the Chinese EVs, like you look at them,

you know, China is the most competitive market by far, then

you go to Europe, which is the second most competitive market

because there are some Chinese vehicles available there and the

half tariff zone. So it balance things out a little bit. But

it's the second most competitive market. And Tesla is doing

poorly there. And then North America is the least competitive

market by far thanks to 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs. And just

you know, American automakers being less inclined towards

electric vehicles in general, in average, let's say. And that's

where Tesla is doing the best. So let's just send a message to

the market. Clear message. This week, Tesla also launched

the model Y performance in the US literally hours before the

end of the tax credit. And Tesla said that the tax

that applied on it. So we already knew pretty much

everything about the model Y performance from the European

launch last month. The price was the amazing link here. And

it's 57500. But like I said, when Tesla launched it, they said

that the tax credit will apply. So I think what happened here

is that Tesla tried to take as much advantage as possible as

boost the Q4 numbers a little bit to get people to rush to

order the performance model Y with an order in a binding

deposit, number fundamental deposit, which is what Tesla

has right now. It could technically qualify for the

tax credit. So Tesla probably got a few, I would assume a few

thousand orders from that, which managed to get a few

millions dollars from the federal government again. So

that's, that was the move here. That was a very smart

move. Tesla is pretty good optimizing for instance. Let's

be honest. But then we got we learned a tiny little bit of

information that's pretty interesting about the model Y

after right after the launch, this the confirm that for the

performance version, it does support bad directional

charging. So that's, that's interesting news there. This

said that vehicle to load is right now available through

adapters. So this the launch this little adapter outlet

thing earlier this year for the Cybertruck. Now it sounds

like it's going to be available going to work also for

the model Y performance only. And then with software updates

later on in Q4 currently, vehicle to home and more vehicle

to load capabilities are going to be unlocked. So we're

going to be waiting for that. But that's interesting. Now

again, we knew that Tesla bi-directional charging has

been possible on Tesla vehicle for quite some times

basically for every vehicle that has like the CCS protocol

capabilities. Just in August, I went to my friend, Sylvain, we

has the SIG Energy bi-directional charger. And I was able to

discharge from Tesla model Y 2023. So even before the

refresh. So the onboard charger is capable of bi-directional

charging is just that Tesla is not making it easy to to

access it to per party system.

And you were able to get 10 kilowatts out of that?

Yeah, yeah, basically the full onboard charging capacity

almost. So

So it can go both ways 10 kilowatts?

Yeah, it didn't go long though it it because the protocol is

just like it detects it does the end shake and it works but

probably like the Tesla system is like what's happening why you're

discharging so after like maybe two or three minutes, it

was like, nah, it doesn't work. But the capability is 100%

there like it works. We did get some energy out of it 10

kilowatts for, you know, a few minutes. And depending on the

vehicle, like it works very well, like you have like the Ford

vehicle work great. We tried the the the Daytona charger it

worked great. So with that system, most vehicles actually

work pretty well. Tesla is just, you know, making it a

little bit more difficult because they want to sell their

power sure system a lot like GM actually GM also does makes it

a little bit more difficult.

Yeah, proprietary doesn't seem like the way to go in this case.

Nah, you have to you have to make it like just the regular

standard protocol. Yeah, yeah, it exists in 2022. It's pretty

easy to dop like just do it. I know that some automakers are

like, yeah, we're like, how does it work with their

warranty now because our warranty is mileage based and

everything is like, you have to update that you have to do

it like, with a cycle with a mix of discharging and

mileage is not that complicated. Still on the Tesla

charging front, we have the launch of the first v4

supercharger station with 500 kilowatt capacity this week.

So that's big news. And it's a bit confusing for other

people because technically v4 superchargers Tesla has

announced like deploying them for for a few years, not

this point. But it was a confusing rollout because

while the v4 post the charging stall has been

installed and launched for years. The main difference

with that stall was just a longer charging cable. Some of

them had the credit card payment system and everything

but the charging cable was the really the biggest change.

It's much longer, which is a lot easier for non Tesla

vehicles that have the charging connector that's

charging port being located at different locations than

that on the Tesla vehicle. But at the time with v4

Tesla has announced that it would be a 500 kilowatt

system. And that wasn't the case because for for the

higher power output, you needed the cabinet. So the

the way that the picture here, so that that's a

charging post the v4 charging post, but that's not

where the power comes from. The powers come from

the cabinet, which is here it's installed a little

bit further out than the post. So that's where

you have all the different chargers linked together

that takes the AC power and converts it to DC

to send it to the post and through your your car

battery system. Did I see that you have the Elon

tweet where he said, what are you referring to a

toy? Yeah. So so finally, like this is what almost

10 years later, almost almost 10 years in 2016

when Tesla started talking about the v3 super

chargers that was deploying v2 at the time. So v1

I think lasted less than a year or a year or

something. Tesla quickly went to v2 v2 was 150

kilowatts and everything. And then v3 was started

to be talked about in 2016 to be launched in

2017. And then I casually asked you on what are

you aiming for in terms of power output for v3?

And I mentioned 350 kilowatts because some other

companies were starting to deploy 350 kilowatts

at the time. I think charge point was the

first one to do so and everything. And Elon

sensor was a mere 350 kilowatts. Whether you

referring to a children's toy. So this this makes

it clear. All right, v3 is going to be a lot

more than 350. And then it wasn't v3 was was

capped at 250 for the longest time, a good 100

kilowatts below. And and then v4 when v4

station like v4 with v3 cabinets came out just

earlier this year to slow boost the capacity

to 350 kilowatts for or three. No, sorry, 325

kilowatts that they boosted it. Again, just

so so the the thing to get into the context

is important here is like Tesla is limitation or

at the core level. So a lot why the other

operator went with higher peak charging

capacity is because a lot of non Tesla vehicles

are capable of over 250 kilowatts charging, 400

kilowatt charging we've seen with some vehicles. So

they had to deploy the capacity. Tesla had

nothing. Then they had a Cybertruck with the

said was able to do 500 kilowatt charge. At

one point they said it was able to do one

megawatt charging. We've never seen that. But

you know, 500 kilowatt then after that. But

the Tesla didn't have anything to to do it

didn't have the chargers to do it. So v4

was supposed to be that. And this week in

Redwood City, California, Tesla deployed the

first full before supercharger stall and

cabinet. And they showed the

Cybertruck charging at 500 kilowatts. It was

literally at zero miles. It had a completely

completely depleted battery pack. And it

was able to charge at 500 kilowatts. That's

that's awesome. That's very impressive. It

now says a 35 minutes zero to 80% charge. So

that's that's really good. Probably means

there's something like a I guess like a 30

minutes 10 to 80 because zero to 80 is not

really a useful metric because you will

really, you know, ideally you're not that

zero percent. Yeah, it's not good. But yeah,

I read the station. So yeah, it's not the

idea. But we need to see a full obviously

charging session. But you know, 30 minutes

10 to 80 is excellent. It's very good. And

and now it's going to be mostly useful for

non Tesla EVs that did the supercharger

before because most of us, all other

Tesla vehicles are going to be capped at

250. And

and the Cybertruck is, you know, there's

not that many Cybertrucks out there. So

it's mainly good news for non Tesla

EV owners for now. Yeah, especially

like the big, you know, GM Silverado

types. Yeah, exactly. That's going to

be very useful for them. We'll

see though with the adapters, though, how

does it work exactly in term of cap

capacity, but with the new Nax version

coming out next year. And so that's, I

think that's going to be that Tesla is

going to be like, I think this is best

product right now. And going forward

is going to be a supercharger network.

Like Tesla is going to be a big, you

know, seller of electricity in North

America. I think that's going to be

you know, we're seeing, we're seeing

the EV cells going down. Well, not

this quarter. Again, the last quarter,

I should say, but in the future, I

think it's going to keep going. But

Tesla keeps delivering a ton of energy

to a supercharger network. They have

their make up their energy storage

products are doing very well. And

the next news is Tesla is reviving

its solar business of all things.

So for the people that haven't been

following, we've reported on that

extensively. But you know, this

is our, I want to give an important

context here, because Tesla acquired

its solar business through Solar

City, which was a controversial move

because, you know, the company was

failing and Elon, the home was the

biggest shareholder in the company.

His families were in charge, like

his cousins were in charge of the

companies, his cousins were really

invested in the company. And, you

know, it was failing as a company

and Tesla bought it overpriced

a lot of people think, and Tesla

shareholders sued Elon and Tesla

over that. And, and in 2024, the

lawsuits with them, okay, later the

lawsuit was resolved. And, and Elon

won. And Elon won on the main point

one point, like many everything is

like, his argument was the

acquisition of solar city was

critical to Tesla because solar is

critical to Tesla's mission. And,

and sure enough, you know, Tesla

continued to deploy solar after

the acquisition of solar city, just

they just integrated solar city

steam and continue to deploy

solar and there was a solar roof,

which was, you know, a flop.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out

like it was supposed to. But

still, there was, there was the

integration of residential solar

with Powerwall, which had, you

know, some success of what over

time, Tesla's solar deployment

kept going down. And Tesla

mostly sell Powerwalls through

other installers that install

other system and not this is on

solar installations. And that

kept going for a while. Still

Tesla did a few things like the

revamped the solar leasing. So

solar city was a solar installer,

but was also mainly a financial

company that was, you know,

finding financial products to

basically offset the upfront cost of

installing solar. And one of

them was what people call

solar leasing, which Tesla later

rebranded as solar subscription

or solar rental, where basically

Tesla owns the system on the

customer's home, they installed it

for free or with a small down

payment. And but they own

these solar panels on your roof

and then sell you monthly the

electricity that comes out of it

at the lower rate than your

local electricity from the grid.

So it's a way basically to

reduce your electricity bill

without or with very little

upfront costs. And then at the

end of the contract, Tesla, you

know, uninstall them or and, you

know, fix your roof. And that's

it, basically. So that that

Tesla launched that in 2019, but

then killed it in 2021. And as

we reported electric, the Tesla

went basically mostly with

third party installers started

winding down their own solar

installation other than solar

roof. And that too, also

later on, and power was

installation, basically. And then

in 2024, right after Elon

Winslow's lawsuit that claimed

that solar is a very important

part of Tesla. So that justified

the solar city acquisition and

the price they paid for. Tesla

sees reporting its quarterly

solar deployment all together.

They're like, yeah, solar is

like none part of the business

anymore that. So I think

that's important context, because

you know, I think I think

it's it's I think it's clear

why Tesla bought solar city

and what happened next is

clearly straightforward. But

now out of nowhere, this

revived the solar business with

launching a new solar leasing

program, very similar to the

last one. So if it's solar

plus powerwall, you can also have

powerwall only. It's a 25 year

contract, which is pretty

crazy. 3% escalation of price.

So it price goes up with time.

So you're not completely out of

inflation of the higher cost

electricity. However, if you

look at the grid cost of what

you see in the US right now, it's

high rocketing a lot faster than

3%. And some people anticipate

that it's going to accelerate

even more with AI, the

demand for electricity that

comes from AI. There's a $600

upfront cost. So taking me for

$600, you can have

solar on your home. And then

after that, you just pay

Tesla for the electricity that

sells you every month, which

is going to be cheaper in most

cases, then the electricity

get from the grid. And then at

the end of the contract is to

remove the system, there's a

removal cost, removal cost

applied. That wasn't the case

before. But that's that's a

lot of good deal. And if you

have to pay to remove it at

25 years, that's

yeah, like the upfront

cost like here, here, I put

I put a system on it here

with like $300 a month.

Electricity cost Tesla came in

at $198. So you would save

like $100 a month. So within

a few months, technically, you

would start literally saving

money because after the $600

installation cost at the

beginning, you would start

saving money within six

months. And you know, this

says $86,000 of electricity

fixing over 25 years, like,

okay, potentially, I will

need to look into the exact

like cost of electricity that

they assume that was in

California too, by the way.

So you can still buy the system

on the right to that's still

available. So that's with one

Powerwall 9.8 kilowatts of

solar for basically $27,000.

Is it discounts being plowed?

Not sure why. But

yeah, that's the system is

$37,000 and you pay

$198 a month. But that's for

the electricity for the system.

It's like normally buying the

system out right away and

financing it that if you can get

low interest rates, you it's

going to be more valuable for

you because then it's added to

the value of the house.

Panels can last longer than

the RRNT too. You can still

get some decent power out of

it after the fact Tesla is the

one that owns the panels after

the fact. So the the

advantage of that. So there

is a it's an option.

But no, I think I think

there's all plenty of other

options out there. The most

interesting question I think

is like, why is Tesla

coming back now? And a bit

to what we were talking about

earlier with Tesla is being

very savvy about taking

advantage of the incentives

for electric vehicles. I think

it's the same thing. So Tesla

saw the big boost in these

cells that they got in Q3

with the end of the tax

credit. And the solar

incentives are also being

phased out over the next

year. A bunch of different

incentives are going away.

So Tesla is like, oh,

probably is going to be a big

boost and solar from that

might as well take advantage

of that also. And with the

solar leasing, it's Tesla

getting advantage of that

because they own the system

that they deploy, they get

the credit from that. And then

it gives them a big boost

ahead of time. And then

after that, they just need to

maintain the system and sell

you the electricity over time.

So obviously, I think

Tesla is just trying to get

more incentive.

They seem to be so two

observations. One is

whenever they don't want to

like whenever something's in

bad shape, they start

stop reporting on it.

For instance, how many

cyber trucks do they sell

last quarter? No idea.

No, we have a pretty good

idea. But I mean, not from

Tesla. And also, it's

awful, right? Yeah.

Same here. And then the

other thing is like

when there's incentives to

be had.

That's a little show up.

Yeah.

Yeah, look, we are not

against incentives.

Like we we're not pro

incentive either.

We I don't like track our

position. I was always been

clear and used to be in on

some position back in the

day, too, is that

we are free market people.

But the free markets only

works if you account for

the external cost of things.

And when it comes to

air pollution, climate

change emissions, these

things are real. I said

a lot about you, but it's

25 Celsius this weekend

in October in Quebec.

That's like, I don't know,

it's like it's over 70, like

or over 80 Fahrenheit.

It makes no sense.

This is this is very real

and it's happening.

And then there's a giant cost

of that on the population, on

humanity. So it makes sense

that if you're releasing

polluting products, you would

have to compensate for

that. And a carbon tax

is the only way we know to do it,

but it's super hard to implement

politically and to

especially make one that makes

sense for actually accounts

for the cost.

So meanwhile, if we cannot do

that, then the second best

thing is those incentives.

But those incentives

are often more than not

like just been taken advantage

of. So it's whoever is

like the best at taking it

out of the tension of that is

going to succeed. And Tesla is

incredible at it.

Let's be honest.

All right, moving on, we have

some Rivian

numbers. Oh, by the way, we have

like five or five more news

articles that we're going to

discuss. And then we're going to

jump into the comments section.

So if you have questions for

us, you can put them in the

comments section right now

where they're on your YouTube

on X on LinkedIn

on Facebook, we're live

everywhere. You can put your

comments with your questions

about any of the topics we're

discussing. Do they are any

tougher topics in the

EV renewable energy world that

you want to take on and we're

going to get to it in about

10 minutes, 15 minutes.

So Rivian, Rivian announced

that the

delivered.

Where's the delivery numbers

here?

It produced 10,700 vehicles

during Q3

and it delivered 13,201,

which was just over the

expectation of 13,000.

Basically, they needed by 200

something vehicles.

And it basically narrowed the

range now, which is just Q4

left that they think is going to

deliver 41,500

to 43,500 vehicles

in Q in 2025

as a whole.

Which is down from 2024,

by the way. But we expected

that there's a big there's

been a lot of changes at the

production level

at at Rivian right now

because we're waiting for this

thing here that's being

set up at a normal

in Illinois for the factory to

production next year.

We're talking about the R2,

obviously, coming in the first

half of 2026.

So the lot of focus is on that

right now.

And I think Rivian is one of the

other one that are,

you know, putting discounts now

that the tax

rate at Q3 is gone.

I think they are reducing the EPR

the interest rates on their

financing by a few percentage

points. So they're already the

discounts coming in with Rivian

couple of things that

you know, the typical Rivian

currently are one buyer is

maybe a lot.

A lot of them are outside of the

$7,500 tax credit

range already.

But also it's interesting to

note that the stock didn't

go up too much with

the expectations on numbers

because every Rivian

they sell, they're losing

money on right now.

Like you kind of want to see

Rivian say, hey, it

costs us the same amount to

build one as it costs.

That would be that would be the

kind of news that would shoot

Rivian right up.

Yeah. But even then, like none

of that at this point would have

a big impact because I think

at this point, all eyes on

are on the next generation.

The R2 and everything is that's

that's where they actually have

a good shot at achieving the

volumes where profitability

comes into play.

Yep.

We have some numbers from Honda.

The prologue is still doing

quite well in North America

and the US.

So.

They deliver the record

or four thousand five hundred in

September alone.

Now they had thirty six thousand

five hundred fifty three.

So they already outpays the

twenty twenty four number with a

full quarter left.

Obviously, quarter is expected to

be a lot tougher.

But still.

It's a good news for for

Honda with the prologue.

But on the is also waiting

for their next gen vehicles

there with the accuracy.

Did they come this accuracy

action? No.

Is it the RTX or the CDX?

What which one is like?

I mean, they're both Chevy

Blazer as that air blazer

is with with carplay.

You know, it's not returning

next year to.

It's it's interesting because

like if you talk to a lot of

the owners of these vehicles,

they're like, yeah, we were

going to buy a blazer.

But we want to carplay.

So that's the same thing.

It's the only reason.

Yeah, the cars are extremely

similar otherwise.

And for the prologue, it's the

equinox that is equivalent.

And now we have some numbers

with equinox.

Gem is now the second best

selling aviota makers

behind Tesla in the US.

They sold.

Sixty six thousand five hundred

EVs last quarter.

Now they are at one hundred

forty four thousand six hundred

sixty eight.

No, this is double over

last year, same period last

year. It's it's crazy

because it's really it's really

a bummer that the tax

rate is going away right now

because GM is really

was really getting into its

groove. It felt like this year

like we've bolts come in

with the bolt coming also

and a hundred and like

almost one hundred and fifty

thousand. They could I got two

hundred thousand almost around

that. Maybe probably we have

over two hundred thousand EVs

in twenty twenty five

if they could so over a hundred

percent more than doubling

year over year.

I mean, they're not about to

catch Tesla by any means, but

you know, they're a third of

the way there.

Yeah, it's real volumes.

Like I remember just a few

years ago, like, you know,

twenty thousand like forty

thousand for a year at GM

was was huge for the BVs.

Like now we're like deep

in the six and then the six

digits and it was

real momentum on top of it.

You know, Cadillac having a

full full lineup now

like Chevy having a great

lineup, you know, they

have a bunch of pickup

trucks like the things were

going well and now it's

going to slow everything down

a bit.

Do we have like some specific

models here that were the

Equinox?

Twenty five thousand Equinox

last quarter. It's pretty

good.

Almost fifty three thousand

in the first nine months

of the year.

And we don't have the other

numbers here.

Oh, we have some Cadillac

numbers with the OPTIQ

the Q three seven thousand

three hundred lyrics four hundred

and eighty four thousand eight

hundred optics and just short

of four thousand vistic.

Yeah, those are selling very well.

Yeah, Calix is going to be a

majority EV car maker

next year.

Yeah.

Well, we'll see.

We'll see.

We'll see how the market holds up.

And then they have the bolt

coming.

And it was spotted at

just a supercharger in L.A.

last week earlier this week.

There you go.

It's giving EUV vibes.

You have an export.

So that's good.

Interesting.

You're the resident.

Yeah, I wish they made the EV

like they should like

nobody has a good hatchback.

EV, there's a million.

You know, small SUV EVs,

but you know, GM's got the number

like they have the sheets of what

sells and what doesn't.

So I guess they said.

Although if I look around,

I mean, the EV sold for many more

years than the EUV did.

But I see way more

EVs around than the EUVs.

So I don't know.

This here gives me giving me some

bolt vibes, though, the EV vibes.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's the higher back

here like so a little bit more EUV,

but.

Yeah.

The pricing is going to be a big one

with this one like we need to see

how the how they're going to price

that and spec it to

like we want we need to see the

range and everything. But how is

it going to compare to the Equinox?

Because like you said, now they

went with, you know, a little bit

more crossover SUV format.

So how closely does it compare to

the Equinox?

This is probably going to

analyze some of those cells.

And then we have some new comments

from Ford CEO Jim Farley

on the highly anticipated.

Next Gen pickup truck,

though now it sounds like it might

not be exactly a pickup truck,

the first vehicle on the next

gen platform. So Ford has been

heavily investing in the last few

years in making a new

cheap electric vehicle platform

inspired by Chinese EV automakers.

They build the whole theme around

this.

Hire a ton of tech people.

I heard former Tesla people

like Darkfield, also from

Mahapal, executive

and they've been spending a lot of

money on this.

And now at

was the context of this

on the decoder podcast.

Doug Ford made a few new

comments. He said, well,

he radically reduced the cost of

the complexity of the vehicle.

We already knew that was the goal.

So

his Ford is returning to Henry Ford's

original concept of a universal car.

OK.

So that's he's slowly linking us

towards the fact that it might not

be a pickup truck.

According to the CEO said, the EV

pickup is really not a pickup

and said they will debut with a new

silhouette.

And that's just a story.

I don't think there were many more

comments. Oh, I said it's going to be

very fast.

It's a real drive, super fun

to drive and has a digital experience

that no one has seen even in China.

Not sure what do you mean by that?

A digital experience never seen

before.

We know that's going to be enabled

by LFP battery cells

that they plan to make with the

text from Seattle CETL

out of Michigan.

I don't know what to make of that.

It's not going to be a pickup truck.

I don't know. I'm thinking tello,

right?

Like the truck we talked about last

week. That's what I'm thinking about.

I was thinking more like El Camino

or something.

Wow, that'd be something.

Yeah, I mean, imagine a maverick

but like a little, you know,

with less truckie and more

station wagon.

Yeah, I was I was driving the other

day on the highway and I caught up

to a maverick in my model three

and passed by and I was like,

it's it's so low like it's

makes makes big difference.

Like it's it's still like you

have a decent sized bed.

You have a full cab in there,

but it's low to the ground.

Electric, it would probably be able

to tow like pretty good also.

A lot of torque.

Yeah, like something around

the maverick, I think would be.

Yeah, the maverick hybrid ones,

I think they get 50 or no,

40 something miles per gallon.

So there's it's not.

It's efficient.

Yeah, it's efficient.

Yeah, but the knowledge of powertrain

in there with, you know, some of the

latest LFP cells that are, you know,

as close like basically last

years and MC kind of energy

density they're at now.

So.

It's it's very, very possible,

I think to get something

$30,000 range that it would

it would make current impact.

Now, that that thing is still coming

not it's not coming next year.

I think it's going to be on bill

late next year and then 207.

When it enters production.

All right, let's look a little bit

at the comments here.

You have a good 1015 minutes.

All right, I snuck another post in there.

Oh, I missed it.

Hit refresh.

Is it is it your?

Yeah, it's a trail boss.

Oh, I guess I wasn't sure if

I want to talk about it this way

because of time.

We talked about it last week a little bit, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, well, I don't know.

I just well, you didn't you didn't have

like you were straight from the

the airport didn't have all your.

Well, I guess that's in place.

Just like as far as off

roading vehicles with 205

kilowatt hour batteries,

which includes basically nothing

except the Hummer EV.

Um, did you think?

Yeah, maybe not.

Anyway, I thought I didn't

and refreshed it, but it might not

be in the refresh yet.

Anyway, so not now it's there.

Silverado.

So it was nice to be brought us out

to San Diego and the mountains

just outside of the city.

And I was like, oh, wow,

this is going to be cool.

And unfortunately, like the experience

was just like, we're going to go

very slow over this next bump.

And, you know, we're going to

like there was a lead vehicle

and they were very, very, very

cautious about everything,

which is unfortunate because the

vehicle seemed like it could do a lot

more stuff.

And we went over some, you know,

very hilly, very, you know,

the back wheels up off the ground

stuff, which is fine.

But it just like, you know,

when you want to go off

roading, you kind of want to go

fast and have some fun.

I mean, this is an example

like not very fast, but like

you're getting wheels up off

the ground and stuff.

So I would say like pretty

steep hill, though.

Oh, that one. Yeah.

This was this was for sure part

of the more intricate stuff.

I guess maybe, you know,

a little spoiled by Rivian events

because, you know, those

events you're going all out,

you're going fast, you're doing,

you know, I mean,

last one I was on, they did the

tank turns or what a kick turns

now.

And this one was, you know,

it was fun.

Like it was certainly a great

venue, but like it would have

been nice if we could have just

gone like speed that we felt

safe at.

Anyway, that's that being said,

205 kilowatt hour battery puts

this all all GM trucks

in kind of a class of their own.

You can tow for much further.

You know, a lot more.

Just all those all those things

that are nice about the Silver

Autos and then the trail boss

version can go off road.

That's a two inch lift,

35 inch tires.

The interior has one option.

It's black with red trim,

very similar to the Blazer SS,

which is fine.

Like it's definitely an aesthetic

like if you're looking for,

you know, a white version or

whatever inside, maybe not.

So, yeah, I mean, overall,

it's a fantastic vehicle.

I really enjoy like riding around

in those things, even though

it seems like a guilty pleasure.

Supercruise is on there.

You can trailer with Supercruise,

which is, you know,

trailing with that thing is also

kind of insane because you forget

that you have a trailer,

which actually becomes a hazard

because like, you know,

you just cruise around

whatever feels like nothing.

Then all of a sudden you make

too sharp a turn and you're

running your trailer over

like a fire hydrant or something.

Mm hmm.

So, oh, and the other thing

that was nice is like on these

events, you hardly ever do

any charging, but they took us

to a Tesla supercharger

and this one doesn't have

a native Naxport, but, you know,

get out the old adapter,

throw it in.

And with an 86% state of charge,

this thing was charging

at 120 kilowatts, which is pretty good.

Until you think about it,

it's like two, two, two 100 watt

hour water packs.

And if if each one of those

is charging at 60 kilowatt,

that's kind of what you're seeing here.

So not quite as impressive

in that context, but.

Yeah, but you don't need to

stop and charge that often

when you have to do it

in five kilowatt batteries.

That was my experience

with the with the Cadillac

Escalade. Yeah, I barely ever

needed to charge it.

And if I, I would know

I was doing a road trip.

So, you know, it was getting

to one place to another.

And I didn't even I wasn't

the one planning all the

air beans and beans and stuff.

So normally I would plan

around like having charging

overnight, but I didn't in this case.

And so I had to charge

like twice basically over 10 days

of traveling in 1000 kilometers.

So it's a different

kind of with those batteries,

so like charging, like even on a,

you know, if you have a home

charger, 40 amp, you know, like

but 9.6 kilowatt charger,

that's going to take 20 hours

at least to charge.

Yeah, that was big battery packs

take forever to charge.

And on even fast charging,

it takes some serious time.

So, you know, for instance,

if you were at 100 kilowatt

charger, for instance,

it would take two hours

to fully charge that.

And that's not with the,

you know, the the wind down at the end.

So correct.

Yeah, it's no joke.

By the same time, there's

though, it's also like a big buffer on this.

This is other advantages.

Yeah. And, you know,

this also has a 10 kilowatt output.

So you're talking about having 200.

I mean, you have like what?

Five and power walls worth

of battery there.

So yeah, nice to have.

Absolutely.

All right, let's move to the comments.

William Pesano says,

I think Tesla did what GM and Ford did with lease deals

before the $7,500 ended.

Purchased the remaining stock of cars to lease out.

That sounds right.

What do you think?

That they purchased the remaining stock,

of course, to lease out.

So.

That they bought, they bought their,

their own inventory.

Yeah, somehow.

I mean, accounting wise,

you can just say, oh, yeah,

we bought all the cars

right before the $7,500 tax ended.

And we're going to distribute them

via lease as if,

you know, we're a leasing company.

In Q4, like after the, after the court?

Well, they, they did it theoretically

at the last day of Q3

so that they would get the $7,500 tax credit

and they can distribute them

through the third quarter, fourth quarter.

Maybe it's a possible thing.

Yep, you all did say they would have a good quarter.

To be fair, it was even better than,

like I was seeing like 480, 485.

There's a, there's a few.

Market that are harder to predict

that they're getting like decent size

like South Korea, for example.

So 497 was still better than I expected.

Right, William Bassano says

you can still lease in stock.

They currently have the poor GM

with the $7,500 probably for the next three months.

It's it'll be interesting to see if they do,

you know, they have these like

one payment leases

and basically they're just selling it to you.

And it, it's just accounting.

Carl says, I think the real question is

who are all these uninformed people buying Teslas

in the face of Elon's ex and Doge behavior?

It's baffling that people just don't know.

They're fueling problems.

Not everyone is political.

I think, I think that's something important

to keep in mind.

Carl, you sound like someone that's very political

but a lot of people, you just,

you don't care about any of that.

You just, you talk about to them

of all it is like, what are you talking about?

Yeah, and if you're going to go into the politics

of the leaders of other companies,

like I'm sure Mary Barra is not like a liberal, you know,

like I'm sure there's, there's some problems

with like Ford's founder, you know, like.

Yeah, with specific in the context of the time,

you had a lot of problems with Henry Ford.

Right. So, yeah.

William Pisano, there was a leak of 39, 999

for model Y base, but I will be honest,

the Tesla wants a new market share.

They need a price model Y three for 35 to 37

because you have a leaf bold equinox in that price range.

Yeah, I think we kind of talked about that.

Yeah, we touched that. It's a little bit too high,

but 35 made more sense.

In China, they are 30 K model Y three.

Tesla is losing money because of competition.

Europe has 17,180 miles range EV brand new.

I think those are Chinese.

All right, Marco question with incentive is in Croatia,

cheapest EV is BYD Dolphin surf starts at $16,000.

Crazy, but correct.

11,000 without 25% tax fees.

Without incentive is 23 K.

Would EV like that with price like that be popular in USA?

So, in the U.S., without incentive, it's 18,000.

So, in the U.S., we do before tax, it would be 18,000.

And I assume that he converted all those prices

to U.S., that's what I assume here.

Yeah, I mean, the Dolphin surf still gets

over 200 miles of range, I think,

like 180 to 100 miles of range, something like that.

I think it would be super popular city EV.

That makes sense.

At some point, I remember a time where like,

everyone was buying like Yaris and things like that,

like the Hyundai, when I was a kid,

like your first new car you would get as a young adult.

In your 20s, and before that,

you would get like a used car, of course,

but then it would be cars in that price range

that would cost like $15,000.

And the Dolphin surf is way better car than those

back in the days.

So yeah, I think it would be popular.

All right, moving on.

Carl, ChargePoint operation has been a losing business

for everyone except Tesla.

Is Tesla vertical production of superchargers

the reason they're profitable?

Or is it just a lying creative accounting?

No, I think, you know, no one is,

you get economies of scale with scale.

And no one is making more supercharger,

no one is making more charging station than Tesla,

but also no one is making more power electronics period

than Tesla has been great.

And like the inverter system that takes the

DC to DC system in the superchargers are either the same one

or inspired from the one in the Powerwalls,

inspired from the one in the Tesla vehicles,

onboard chargers, so they all share the same system,

where a lot of the development costs

and then a lot of the economies of scale

from building them.

So I think it makes sense that Tesla

is a lot cheaper building the supercharger station.

And then they install them,

they are in charge of the installation process,

to a certain degree,

they work with local installer, obviously,

ethical companies, but they work closely with them

and they see like, okay, why is it so expensive

to deploy them?

And they'll tell you for this, for this, for that.

All right, let's make one that's like preassemble

at the factory and then deploy that faster.

So this has had a lot of innovation on that front

that it's true innovation, like you cannot deny that.

And you see it now that's deploying,

like a terawatt hour quarter

through the supercharger network,

something like that, it's absolutely incredible.

Yeah, and as you said,

they came up with some like really good innovation.

Like for instance, electrify America stations

have to be able to work with,

there's a screen involved,

there's credit card machines,

there's all kinds of things that can break,

they're huge, the cables are really long,

Tesla's are just like little square with little cable

and everything is done on the back end.

You don't have to push buttons or,

so I think that's, that was smart on their part.

I mean, superchargers are game changers.

Yeah, they did a really good job.

It's arguably this is best product ever.

All right, it's the range in the United States

is the problem for EV 300 miles of range so well

where there's place like Texas to be drive a thousand miles,

you're still in Texas.

Yeah, yeah, but at the same time,

there are people that just drive in their cities,

like I know, like my girlfriend is a city person

and all our friends are city people

and a lot of our friends are like,

they'll drive in Montreal,

they will like, they have their own car

or they use the Comminoto that's called,

it's just like a service,

like public cars that you can rent out

like that are just in the city

and they will drive in the city and they're like,

nah, I don't drive on the highway,

I don't get out of the city,

like they're not comfortable with that

because they're just always driving the city.

There's millions of people like that in the US too

and shorter range vehicles will make sense for them too.

All right, for comparison in Croatia,

the cheapest Tesla Model 3 starts at 48, yeah.

We were talking about the Dolphin.

Why is the electric so negative on Tesla, right?

Why?

Well, we're realists on Tesla.

I mean, there is some resentment for sure about Tesla,

like I think the main one being like,

a lot of people feel, or myself included,

that Elon kind of betrayed the mission of Tesla

with the backing of Trump with,

Trump, it's not,

yeah, I understand, I'm sure that Elon in his head

justifies it or like he thinks that the world mind virus

and all these cultural war issues

are more important in climate change.

I think that's how he approaches his backing of Trump,

but I don't see it like that.

I think the cultural wars are purely a distraction

and Elon just fell into that

and backed someone that campaign against such vehicles,

campaign against renewable energy.

And I think that's a betrayal of Tesla's mission

for stupid personal reason that he had.

And that basically deluded Tesla

into what it is now,

which is kind of the stock is the main product.

And it's, the community is being led

by degenerate gamblers that are,

the way I see it, like now Tesla is like

some kind of parlay, like it's a gamble.

It's a parlay where autonomy needs to work.

Humanity with robots needs to work

and Tesla needs to lead in those two sector.

And that's not what Tesla used to be.

It used to be just let's drive electrification

of transport super fast

so that when, at the same time,

when renewable energy improves,

you have an incredible impact

on accelerating the world to a sustainable economy,

which we need to do badly.

And you just steer Tesla completely away from that.

So it's not, I think that's a net negative for humanity.

So I'm not negative, like if Tesla can go back to that,

I'm positively reporting on that.

And like this quarter is technically great for that.

Like they deploy the record number of electric vehicles.

I'm super happy for them.

It's just that it's hard to be super excited about that

when you know what's coming around the corner,

which is-

Yeah, and I would say, I would add to that.

Like, you know, we spend all this money with Tesla,

like on cars and whatever.

And that money goes to making Elon wealthier.

And what does he do?

He spends his money on the most climate negative person

and gets that person elected.

Like, hey, that doesn't feel great.

Yeah.

Like I'm here for the saving of the climate

and some of the other nice things about electric vehicles.

And I'm not a Elon fan or heater or whatever,

but like dude kind of did us dirty, you know?

That's fair.

He did us dirty.

Because I thought, if anything,

if he was going to sell Tesla at one point,

or like, you know, I don't mean sell the company as a whole,

but like divest from it or, you know,

take some profit basically.

I thought it would be to bring us to Mars

that that's what he kept saying all the time.

Like he's like, all right,

we need to be a multisplanatory species and like,

and I'm not against that.

I'm actually a big fan of SpaceX and a lot of what they do.

But that's not what he did.

He bought Twitter and then,

and now it's all about, you know,

the culture wars on Twitter

and then the degradation of the discourse in the US

through social media, misinformation,

and all that AI slop with XAI,

the, you know, the Annie robot, like the AI girlfriend

and all that stuff.

I think it's just a complete net negative for humanity.

Even if it's a step toward

the super lizardly AI God that, you know,

Sam Altman and Elon are trying to bring on,

it's the road there doesn't have to be this dirty.

I feel like.

Right.

Yeah.

All right.

Carl says Australia youth market has always thrived

despite it being focused on them.

I think.

What makes a youth versus a pickup truck?

I think it's smaller, right?

Like.

Is it smaller?

Really?

I don't know.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, let's call can explain it to us.

So youth is an Australian aberration for a utility vehicle

or car based vehicle with a separate cargo bed at the rear.

It's a pickup truck.

Reminding the comfort of passenger car with a utility.

Okay.

So it can.

Okay.

So the idea is I see pictures that are like Camino style

vehicles and I see some like regular pickup trucks,

but like more with a separate bed,

like more like a box truck in the back

and just a platform where you can,

you can do a bunch of things.

All right.

Yeah.

All right.

Ford should use the F 100 name plate

for this first vehicle.

Maybe.

That could be cool.

Or E, I don't know, whatever.

Dan is listening by working too hard

on a bathroom model to chat of our darn.

See you next time, Dan.

James Whittingham.

Seth, what would you like to see

in the upcoming Bolt EV?

Glad you asked.

Well, first of all, I would like it to have been Bolt EV,

but so charging speed obviously should be much faster.

GM hasn't told us, but the fact that it's Altium means

it likely will be, although it's going to be,

it's not going to be lithium ion battery.

It's going to be phosphate one.

So.

Yeah, LFP.

LFP.

So we're not like expecting 300 kilowatts.

We're probably expecting like 150 or something to charge.

Yeah, maybe closer to 200, 180.

Yeah.

I know this won't happen, but all wheel drive

would have been super cool.

I mean, even rear wheel drive would have been

much better than the front wheel drive.

What else?

I did actually add an article about like

what the next bolt should have.

Trying to think of other things.

The charging speed is the biggest one probably.

Like it's going to make the biggest difference.

Where would you like the range to settle?

So like it was, where did the bolt doge

or bolt cap at like 260 or something?

The original one was 239, then they upgraded the battery

about halfway through the cycle.

It went to 259.

Yeah, I think 250 is enough,

especially if they're honest about the range.

You know, that's fine.

Yeah, I don't see why they...

I think they're going to try to beat it a little bit.

Yeah.

Maybe, maybe, well, that was the EV.

The EV was a little bit shorter range.

Yeah, a couple of miles shorter.

Yeah, not that much though.

So if they can get like the new one,

which is a little bit bigger than the original EV,

I don't know if it's going to be going to go EUV.

Probably just going to call it the bolt EV, I think.

Or just the bolt, I don't know.

But I would like to see like 260 miles of range

between 260 to 80, 180 kilowatt charging.

And then a base price that's competitive with the leaf,

maybe a little bit more than leaf,

not too much, a few thousand dollar more.

Yeah, and it would be nice to see stuff

like vehicle to grid or whatever.

And it would, you know, maybe a towing option

which I know is not going to happen.

But, you know, just nice to have a place to put a bike rack.

You know, if I can get, you know, like cam mode would be nice.

If you can fit in that thing.

A lot of things that GM can be working on.

All right, Carl says Ranchero is a ute.

Okay.

Ranchero is like, I think it's like an El Camino type.

Yeah, Brad.

Brad the Brad, yeah, I remember the Brad.

No, I think there's room for that.

I think.

For sure.

And that's that you might be on to something

with what the Barley said this week.

I think, like you said, the El Camino UT ute,

what do you call that?

I think we might be heading that direction.

It would be great.

I think the market stagnates a lot

where not a lot of people are bold about things.

I mean, there's a Cybertruck out there.

And it didn't work out exactly,

but it didn't, I don't think the Cybertruck didn't work out

because it looks like the Cybertruck.

I think it didn't work out purely from the spectrum

and price situations, especially the disappointment

from people that prices shouldn't,

with also the context of Elon, you know,

losing a lot of fans at the same time.

But, you know, if they launched a next gen Cybertruck

like a year that has a closer than the specs

originally announced with more range

and a little bit lower price,

I think it could come back and still be a success.

So I would like to see other filmmakers

not being discouraged by that and be bold

and try to bring like new form factor,

just like Tello, obviously Tello, capital issues,

probably, but there's hope.

Like you can be bold out there,

you can do something new.

I'd like to see that.

All right, well, that's it for us this week.

I'm going to Italy next week to check out something.

Hopefully, I'll be back in Quebec,

it's just a quick trip,

so I'll be back before Friday,

so I'll be in Quebec, maybe not here,

but I'm not sure.

I don't know, I don't have the embargo's information

just yet, so I don't know if I'm gonna be able

to talk about what I'm gonna see next week in Italy,

but it's gonna be quite exciting.

And yeah, that's it for this week.

I hope you guys have a good weekend.

Be safe out there, bye-bye.

Tesla delivery record, V4 Supercharger, messy US EV market, and more

About this episode

Supercharger V4

Chevy Bolt

tax credit

Tesla Model Y

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Cybertruck

Tesla Model Sx

gigawatt hour

lease

Hyundai Ioniq 5

bi-directional charging

CCS protocol

kilowatt

v4 supercharger

charging cable

charging port

Chevrolet Silverado

Rivian

Honda Prologue

Chevrolet Blazer

CarPlay

Cadillac Optiq

Chevrolet Equinox

electric vehicle platform

LFP battery cells

Chevrolet El Camino

Ford Maverick

GMC Hummer EV

lift

35 inch tires

Cadillac Escalade

Ford F 100

Ford Ranchero

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