Electrek Jan 2, 2026

Tesla Q4 deliveries, BYD secures BEV crown, Cybercab spotted, and more

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Car

Tesla Model Y

The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV that is known for being roomy and high-tech. It's popular because it doesn't need gas and can drive a long way on a single charge.

Car

Tesla Cybertruck

The Tesla Cybertruck is a futuristic-looking electric truck that stands out because of its unusual shape. It's designed to be tough and is powered by electricity instead of gasoline.

Car

Tesla Model X

The Tesla Model X is an electric SUV from Tesla that has unique doors that open upwards and is known for being very spacious.

Car

Tesla Model S

The Tesla Model S is a high-end electric car from Tesla known for its long range and fast acceleration.

Car

Tesla Roadster

The Tesla Roadster is a fast electric sports car that was Tesla's first model. It's famous for being really quick and having a long driving range on a single charge.

Car

Tesla Semi

The Tesla Semi is a big electric truck made for transporting goods. It's designed to be cheaper to run and better for the environment than traditional diesel trucks.

Term

production

Production means making cars in large numbers. It's when all the parts come together to create a finished vehicle that can be sold.

Term

steering wheel

The steering wheel is what you hold to turn the car left or right. It's an important part of driving any vehicle.

Term

autonomy

Autonomy means that a car can drive itself without needing a person to control it. It's a key feature in self-driving cars.

Car

Cyber Cab

The Cyber Cab is a type of self-driving taxi that Tesla is developing. It won't have a steering wheel or pedals because it drives itself.

Term

AI5 chips

AI5 chips are special computer chips that help cars think and make decisions, which is important for self-driving technology.

Term

FSD

FSD means Full Self-Driving, which is a feature from Tesla that allows their cars to drive themselves with little to no human help.

Term

II4 hardware

II4 hardware is the latest technology used in Tesla cars to help them drive themselves. It includes sensors and computers that make decisions while driving.

Term

Level four self-driving means the car can drive itself without needing a human to take control in certain situations. It's a step closer to fully autonomous cars that can handle all driving tasks on their own.

Term

electric Miata

An 'electric Miata' would be a version of the popular Mazda Miata sports car that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It would aim to keep the fun driving feel of the original while being more environmentally friendly.

Car

Mazda Miata

The Mazda Miata is a small, two-seat car that you can take the roof off, making it fun to drive. It's known for being light and easy to handle, which many people enjoy.

Term

autonomous

When a car is described as 'autonomous', it means that it can drive itself without needing a person to control it. These cars use technology to navigate and make decisions on the road.

Term

kilowatts

Kilowatts are a way to measure how much electricity is being used or sent to something. In electric cars, it shows how fast the car is charging.

Term

megawatt

A megawatt is a big measure of power, equal to one million watts. It's used to talk about how much electricity is being used or produced, especially for large systems like electric car chargers.

Term

charging infrastructure

Charging infrastructure is the system of places where electric cars can plug in and recharge their batteries. It's important for making sure electric cars can be used easily and often.

Car

Dodge Charger

The Dodge Charger is a big car that looks sporty and can go really fast. It's popular because it has a powerful engine and a lot of space inside.

Term

electric vehicles

Electric vehicles are cars that run on electricity instead of gas. They are better for the environment because they produce no exhaust fumes.

Part

87 kilowatt hour battery pack

An 87 kilowatt hour battery pack is a big battery used in electric cars. It stores energy to help the car run, and the bigger the battery, the further the car can go on a single charge.

Term

hypermiling

Hypermiling is a way to drive that helps save fuel and get the most distance out of a tank. It often means driving slower and being careful with how you speed up and slow down.

Car

Aptera

The Aptera is a type of electric car that is designed to be very efficient and even has solar panels to help charge it. It's different from most cars because of its unique shape and focus on saving energy.

Term

EV (Electric Vehicle)

An EV, or electric vehicle, is a car that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. They are often considered better for the environment because they produce less pollution.

Car

Ford Maverick

The Ford Maverick is a small truck that's easy to drive and good on gas. It's popular because it's practical for everyday use.

Company

Rivian

Rivian is a company that makes electric trucks and SUVs. They're trying to be a big player in the electric vehicle market.

Concept

EV lineup

EV lineup means all the electric cars that a company sells. It shows what options you have if you want to buy an electric car from that company.

Term

economies of scale

Economies of scale mean that as a company makes more products, the cost to produce each one usually goes down. This is because they can spread out their fixed costs over a larger number of items.

Term

advanced driver assistance system

ADAS is technology in cars that helps drivers stay safe. It can do things like help you stay in your lane or slow down if you get too close to another car.

Term

LiDAR

LiDAR is a technology that helps cars see their surroundings by using lasers to measure distances. It's important for self-driving cars to understand where they are and what is around them.

LIVE

We are alive for a new episode of the Electric Podcasts.

I am Fred Lambert, your host, and I'm joined by the Electric Publisher, Seth Wintrow.

How are you doing, Seth?

I'm good.

All right.

Good 2026, the first episode of the Electric Podcast of the year.

I hope all of you guys had a beautiful holiday season.

And you're starting the year 2026 on the right foot.

As you might expect, our first podcast is going to talk a little bit about sales numbers

because that's what happened when a new quarter starts, a new year starts.

And we're going to start with Tesla's new release of its Q4 and full year 2025 numbers.

Now there was something a little bit interesting about this one ahead of the number release.

So earlier this week, Tesla released the company Compile Analyst Consensus on the deliveries

and production for the year.

So Tesla makes that report every quarter, but doesn't release it publicly.

It releases it to some investors and some analysts.

And it keeps this private.

The number normally gets out and everything, but the fact that it's somewhat private is

a way to get people to participate in a survey, so get all these analysts to jump on the survey

and Tesla can get the information directly and then he releases it to all these analysts

and then it gets to some investor and whatnot.

It's like one of the few tasks of the Tesla's investor relations program.

Now Tesla decided to release it publicly this quarter, which brings us to ask why.

Now it could be as simple as this is a new process for Tesla.

They decided to do that.

They have a somewhat new investor relation team, at least a new leader on the team.

So maybe it's just that.

Maybe they decided to change the policy and everything.

Or it's more PR reason, more for public relation reason.

And the reason for that would be Tesla's own consensus, which add 20 analysts, was much

lower than the public number.

So there's always a public number like Bloomberg, for example, will just gather all the most

recent delivery predictions from Wall Street analysts and compile those and do an average

on that, which for Bloomberg's average was 440,000 units.

So it's possible that Tesla saw that and got a little bit nervous that, oh, if people

think we're going to deliver 440,000 vehicles, you're not going to like our numbers.

So they released their own consensus, which was much lower at basically 423,000 units.

So much lower, almost 20,000 units lower than the public ones.

And then Tesla this morning released the actual numbers and they came up at 418,227

vehicle delivered, 406 of those were Model 3 Model Y and 11,000 of those were other models.

So SX, Cybertruck, and maybe some Tesla somebody, it's never clear if they are included in that.

But anyway, it's probably like single digit stuff.

So it's not that important.

But yeah, so they came below basically any estimates, though there was there's always

a whisper number if you're on the street of like, you know, some people know already,

you know, the best estimates out there, like, you know, Troy Tesla, for example,

as one of the best tracks record out there.

And he goes, he gets all of the data that's publicly available, because we do get a decent

amount of data from, you know, Europe and China specifically.

There's always a little bit of a delay so you don't have everything.

And in the US is the toughest market to get.

And it's the most important because it's the biggest market for Tesla.

So it makes it hard to base anything on hard data.

So there has to be some predictions here.

But Troy is one of the best one because he does actually look into the production number

based on the VIN that are released at the DMV level, I think.

And that enables him to be very good at predicting actual production from Tesla for the quarter.

And then you just have to basically deduct inventory, which is also not, you know,

a perfect science to know the exact inventory at Tesla and get something closer.

So for this quarter, the whisper number was around, you know, 415, 410.

So Tesla kind of beat that at least.

But the whisper number is not that many people are into that.

So what does that do quarter over quarter?

It's a 15-person drop year over year for Q4.

And for the full year, Tesla has reported 1.63 million vehicle deliveries.

And that's down 9% year over year.

So for those that haven't been following Tesla, basically for a decade,

has been averaging a 50% growth in deliveries year over year.

Absolutely incredible, especially for a big product like a vehicle.

And then that's top quite abruptly in 2020.

Well, I mean, there was some years that they didn't get 50%.

I'm thinking an average.

It was one year that was 100%.

But I think I don't think it ever dipped below like 30%, which is crazy.

But in 2024, it dipped for the first time.

Tesla didn't grow.

It declined by just by 1%.

So like nothing too crazy.

But now a 9% drop is a lot more significant.

And the scary part is like nothing points to this trend going away in 2026.

In fact, everything looks worse for Tesla in 2026,

because China is becoming increasingly more competitive

and Tesla just needs cheaper models there to compete.

So even if it does launch those and grow volume a little bit,

it won't grow earnings from that.

And then Europe is a total mess for Tesla.

And even though the EV market is growing there significantly,

so the US is still where Tesla's stronghold is where they can still get some volume,

move some volume.

But now the tax credit went away.

Fair enough, it was last quarter.

So Q4, but some of those sales went into Q4

because you could lock in your order with a deposit in Q3 and still deliver in Q4.

So Tesla still had an advantage there in the US.

So with that going away, 2026 might be a tough year for Tesla now going ahead.

And Tesla did report 14.2 gigawatt hour of energy storage deployment in Q4,

which was a significant increase both year over year and also quarter over quarter.

So good for Tesla there.

That's the silver lining.

But the increase there doesn't compensate for the 15% year over year drop in Q4 deliveries.

Which brings us to one of the most popular articles we had this week,

which was Elon Musk stopped five Tesla prediction for 25 that did not happen.

And the first one was related to what we just talked about right now,

which is volume growth.

So basically everyone that knew anything about Tesla,

and that wasn't heavily invested in it and everything,

everyone has been following it closely.

And even people have been invested in it because they keep telling us that

EV deliveries don't matter now.

But I think it was clear that Tesla was going to have another down year in 2025,

even before 2025.

Yeah, that's not what Tesla was forecasting.

Elon talked about in late 2024,

talked about seeing a 20 to 30% growth in volume in 2025.

That was three months ever 2025,

with arguably the guy that has the most visibility in Tesla cells out there.

And then in early 2025, so we're in the year now,

Tesla was still talking about going back to growth with its EV deliveries early in the year.

But then by the second quarter's earnings,

they kind of like removed that guidance entirely,

not saying that they won't be delivery growth,

but like they started talking about,

oh, we're between growth wave and all that stuff.

And now we know that for a fact that Tesla cells were down 9%

while global, we don't have the exact number just yet,

but global EV deliveries increased between 20 and 25% in 2025,

which is, it's weird to see the market leader,

the company that was a market leader not long ago,

going, adding a decline amid surge in the specific market.

Yeah, you have to wonder if Elon had been such a showboater

on X or Twitter, where Tesla would be?

Like what are the major factors?

I mean, obviously Model Y hasn't been updated much, Model 3,

both got mild updates, obviously, but

both products are a little long than tooth, Model S and X are obviously very old.

Yeah, there's a lot of factors like Model Y.

So a lot of people wants to say that 9% drop is not too bad

in the year that Tesla had to switch over to a new Model Y,

so that affected production quite a bit, which is true.

But on the whole year though, you cannot account for that,

because yes, in Q1, Q2 that affected Tesla,

but Tesla then ramped up production and had to throttle down

Model Y production throughout the second half of the year,

because there was no demand enough for it to go full throttle.

So Tesla has satisfied Model Y demand worldwide in 2025.

So I don't think the switchover really affected it.

So if it did affect it, like you said, I think yes,

it didn't negatively in the sense that the refresh was not enough.

It's not a big enough refresh for the Model Y.

You know, Model 3 I thought was a decent refresh,

but that was last year, well, now 2024, like two years ago at this point.

And Model 3 is just not that big of a, oh, it's still a big vehicle program.

It's still probably like half a million cells a year,

but it's slowed down quite a bit.

The impact of Elon himself is so hard to tell.

Like I think, like let's say that, because it's not just a 9% drop,

it's probably like a 20% difference.

Like Tesla could have grown with the market in 2025, it just didn't.

So it's more like a 30% drop that Tesla had this year.

They missed out on 30% of sales.

I think realistically, Elon is probably responsible for like a 10% of that

and the other 20 is, well, he's responsible for all of it,

but the is direct impact at the brand level is probably like a third of that.

And then two thirds is the fact that Tesla has a tired lineup without new models.

And that's his fault too, because he's the one that has pushed Tesla to focus on what?

On autonomy.

And now is Elon's autonomy prediction went in 2025.

And again, I'm trying to focus on like short-term prediction

and there's going to be a payoff at the end of that wait until you see that.

But because, you know, it's hard to predict the future period, but, you know,

predicting what's going to happen 10 years from now versus what's going to happen

within months and year, it's completely different.

And historically, like early years, Elon, if he was saying that something's going to

happen like relatively short-term, it would generally happen at Tesla.

Not anymore, because the Rebel taxi, just a few months ago,

Elon was talking about Rebel taxi covering 50% of the US population.

That didn't happen.

He talked about having a thousand Rebel taxi in Austin early in the year.

That went down to 500 in October.

In October, it went to 500.

That's just three months ago.

And then he went to 60 just in November, a month before the end of the year.

And the reality was about 30.

And as we discussed last week too, that 30 is also kind of a random number to use,

because Tesla is very much focused on optics with the Rebel taxi, and it's clear,

because the numbers that they share are service area size and fleet size.

And those two numbers are not really relevant if you're just operating a few cars at the time,

which is what we learned Tesla is doing with the Rebel taxi in Austin.

So you can claim like, hey, I cover the whole of Texas, and I have a fleet of 2,000 cars.

But if only three of them are out at the same time in a small downtown Austin, it's like,

okay, you can say that, and you can technically order a car, but it's never going to click on.

So it's not an ideal situation.

So yeah, the Rebel taxi timeline has been pretty terrible in 2025.

One that's personally frustrating to me is the mind blowing demos.

So that wasn't this summer.

Elon comes out of an engineering meeting, a design studio meeting at Tesla,

and says the most epic demo ever by the end of the year after what he saw,

that design studio in Alton, Los Angeles.

Didn't say what it was at the time, but we quickly find out after the

Joe Rogan interview that he had that it was about the Roadster,

and was going to be like the whole flying car thing and everything.

And that didn't happen.

We're now in 2026.

There was no demo whatsoever.

So that's not even releasing an actual product.

That is just showing us something.

That is just hype, and he's good at hype, and even that didn't happen.

We didn't even get to see that.

That's a weird one.

Yeah, and I think it's indicative of how serious Tesla is with the Roadster,

that whenever they have a showing of all their vehicles,

they conveniently forget that the Roadster even exists.

Even they've got three or four future vehicles in there, and it's just not there.

Or they're having a Jay Leno interview.

Oh, that was the worst one.

And they bring up the Roadster, and the guy's like, oh yeah, the Roadster.

Yeah, Jay had to remind, it was France, I think it was a chief designer.

He was listing cars at Tesla, and he's like, but what about a new Roadster?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we're doing that.

Big stuff.

And then the other one, what vehicle program at Tesla,

that probably is the only one that doesn't actually get the attention they deserve,

is the Tesla Semi, and I understand why.

Because it's been constantly delayed all the time and gets super frustrating.

I do think, and it got delayed again this year.

So that was another prediction that didn't happen.

Elon said that production was going to start in 2025.

Now, past 2025, production haven't started, even though the claim had started in 2022,

but then that was just pre-production, pilot, small volume pilot program.

Now the real production is going to start in 2026, apparently, early this year.

So we're probably around Q2, and then a ramp up in the second half.

So another delay for the Tesla Semi, but I do think it's going to come in 2026.

Like everything is set up for it at this point.

Like if they don't turn on production, it's just a giant cash drain at this point.

And we have another Tesla Semi news that we're going to discuss a little bit later on on the podcast.

So that's encouraging too.

So we're going to stay tuned for that.

The last one, top five of the prediction that didn't happen that Elon made,

was the army of Optimus robots.

He talked about making an actual legion of them in 2025.

We're going to make a legion of robot between five and 10,000 robots.

Optimus robots are going to be produced by Tesla 2025.

Now we don't have any actual numbers on that.

For sure it didn't happen, because we would know about it.

Elon would have been yelling about it on X every single day if Tesla produced

even close to 5,000 robots.

So we have no evidence that Tesla produced thousands of robots.

We don't have evidence that Tesla even produced a few hundreds of these robots.

In fact, we have several supply chain reports and executive and top engineers leaving reports

that shows that the program is actually in shambles.

And the only thing that Tesla showed in 2025 was a bunch of demonstrations that were

pre-programmed or teleoperated by humans and even some fails, even with those limitations.

So I think it's fair to say that in 2025, Elon's prediction for the Optimus program

didn't come even close to reality.

So I want to hand this article with a quick note, a quote from Elon Musk.

The ability to predict the future is the best measure of intelligence.

So based on Elon's own standard of intelligence, he's a great A moron.

When people actually pointed that to him, you're not that good at predicting the future.

Then he was like, actually, I aim to be 51% right on things.

If you're 51% right, then you're good.

Yeah, and he also says at various times, I'm right, but I'm late.

Yeah.

But then there's a degree of being late that you're not right anymore.

So if you're so late in autonomy, that other companies solve autonomy and then you just

copy them and solve them after that.

Were you right?

Like, no, you were not right.

All right.

We have only three or four more news that I go to discuss before we jump into the comments

section.

So as usual, we take you guys comment.

The show is live on edited.

And we have a few people that are really live with us, like Carl, like James and West.

Hi, guys.

Thanks for joining us in the first episode of The Electric Podcast in 2026.

If you have questions for us, you can put them in the comments section.

And we're going to answer it at the later part of the show.

All right.

The cyber cab has been spotted testing.

There were quite a few spottings in the last two weeks.

And a zoo or a tandem of them were spotted in Austin driving around.

And nothing crazy to report about the sighting itself other than like, yeah, it's cool to

see Tesla testing the vehicle.

But the main interesting thing in like people, like almost 400 comments on this article here.

The main thing was the prototypes have a steering wheel on.

Now this could be as simple as like, yes, it's the prototype.

You know, you need a steering wheel on it to control it and everything.

But first of all, it means that it can have a steering wheel.

It does have a steering wheel and it's interesting, you know, getting closer.

This thing is supposed to be in production in the matter of like two or three months,

apparently, if you believe Elon, like this is getting really close to production.

And the steering wheel is interesting for a few reasons.

Because we reported just a few months ago when Robin then home,

we basically doesn't exist unless she needs to sell a compensation package for Elon Musk,

like you'd never see her around.

And then you need to get Elon paid and then she shows up everywhere.

So in one of those interviews, she actually mentioned the cyber cab.

And she said that this might actually have a steering wheel and pedals to it if needed,

meaning like if we need one to sell them.

But then Elon quickly chimed in, you know, a week after that, he said,

no, no, no, no, no, no, we're all in on the autonomy.

Cyber cab will not have a steering wheel or pedals.

But then then a few weeks after that, we also learned that apparently the AI5 chips and the

latest generation hardware for self-driving at Tesla has been pushed to mid-2027.

And it was supposed to come out, I thought originally it was supposed to come out in 2025

and then it was supposed to 2026.

But now mid-2027, it looks like cyber cab, if it starts production a few months,

just won't have the chip in the new hardware that comes with it.

So that means that Tesla is going to run, you know, FSD, the latest FSD,

II4 hardware on the cyber cab, which, you know, we know for a fact that Tesla has

installed level four self-driving on that hardware.

So how, why would Tesla launch a vehicle without a steering wheel if it doesn't have

level four figured out?

Of course, it can always figure it out in the two or three months between production,

but no, that's, that would be quite surprising to me.

So there's a, there's this big question mark around the cyber cab is like,

is it going to actually launch without a steering wheel or not within a few months?

And to me, like, I'm undecided.

It could go, it could go, I mean, literally statistically speaking,

the chances are 50%, but I'm aligned with those pure, you know,

two options, statistical possibilities, because, but the way I see it is like,

if it launches without a steering wheel, it's going to be an extremely low-volume

program that's just going to be used for geofence robotaxis services like the one in Austin.

And we know that the production of those is limited to 2,500 units a year by NHTSA anyway.

So unless Tesla gets exemption on that, which, you know, could be possibility,

considering all closing on is to the current administration, there is a possibility that

happen. But then if it launched without a steering wheel, then

it makes even less sense where, sorry, if it launched with a steering wheel is like,

it's going to be a very small program also, maybe bigger than the 2,500, but we was going to buy that

because unless they make like big changes to the vehicle to make it more consumer friendly,

but it's a two-door coupé with fairly good luggage size, but clearly meant as like a low-end vehicle

that's not centered around driving. Like it's not like, I've been, we've been talking for a long

time about we want like an electric Miata. That's like, that's would be a very cool thing to have,

like a lightweight, fun to drive vehicle. Like is this car designed to be driven?

Design has like an autonomous, it wasn't even supposed to have a steering wheel.

That way they're going to try to set it as a driver's car. Like what,

the market is not clear here. Like, do you see, do you see Tesla saying this car?

Like, let's say that they gave up on the autonomy, they go, we go with a steering wheel,

like as if right now, do you think it's going to sell?

I don't know. I mean, we've been kind of chomping at the bit for, you know, model two or whatever.

So if that's this, I don't know, maybe.

But you thought that model two would have a backseat.

Yeah, this thing doesn't have a backseat.

Right. Well, it's got a lot of space back there though, right?

I mean, yeah, it has a lot of space for luggage, but so that's what I say.

Like, I see that the only thing that, you know, the lunch, this thing with a steering wheel,

as if right now it's going to sell like the cyber trucks for like 20,000 units a year,

if all goes well and everything. So completely useless for Tesla as a vehicle program.

If they make like significant changes, you're going to have to have doors,

maybe suicide doors or something like that, at least in the backseat.

Then yes, now we're talking. Now, you know, I could, I could see they be a six-figure

vehicle program, you know, low six figures, maybe.

It would be kind of a weird thing for Tesla to like, to do like to like a big change, but,

you know, possible. Or maybe it was the plan all along. Maybe they were like hiding.

In plain sight.

Yeah, you know, this is our program. And then at that last second, like, oh, by the way,

we have two more doors on that thing and a backseat and you can buy it for like $25,000.

And this is the model too. But I just, it would be surprising to me just because

how big of a bet Elon had on autonomy and he insisted the cyber cab is going to launch without

a steering wheel. So I don't know. Tesla Semi, there was a big high video released by Tesla.

That was really cool this week. The release, look at the charging capacity of the vehicle

on the Megacharger from Tesla. So first of all, we get a good look at the connector here,

which is the new MegaWatt connector that is here. And Tesla plugged it in and we see 15

kilowatts charging. Oh, we can actually see the state of charge here for a second. I thought

that we couldn't see it. What did it say? Oh, 11%. Okay, so 11% capacity. So there's

11% left on the car. Quickly jump up to 200 kilowatts, 271, 350, 430, 525, 628, 738, 850,

981, 11, 11, 1206, 1.206 megawatt of charging that Tesla demonstrated on the Tesla Semi,

which I think is pretty cool. Tesla said, confirmed that this is using the same V4

cabinet that you see on the V4 superchargers. The few that do have V4 cabinet because most

V4 superchargers you see out there have the three cabinets. So this is basically the same

hardware, other than the connector and in the cable, of course, but the stalls are different.

But Tesla is using the same charging capability, just ramp up to 1000 volt for the Tesla Semi,

which I think is pretty cool. So this is, you know, why I'm a little bit hype about the Tesla

Semi? You know, I understand that this is kind of a little bit late to the game with the Tesla

Semi because there are plenty of electric trucks out there right now in China. I think it's like

20% of the market now is electric. In Europe, it's smaller. I think it's like 5% or something.

But still, there's trucks out there, you know, there's Freightliner as one, Volvo as a bunch of

them. There's competition. So Tesla is not the first mover there by our long shot. But I think

Tesla is coming up with its known formula, which is long range efficiency. And we figured out the

charging infrastructure for you. We don't just sell you an electric vehicle in, you know, hope that

the infrastructure catch up, you know, Tesla when they launch the model, ask the launch of

supercharger with it and, you know, the rest is history. That was a big part of this a success.

So I think I think this is like the missing link here. Tesla is bringing this charging infrastructure

that we got chargers and we already seen a few of them in construction in LA and Texas.

And a few already deployed at Tesla's own infrastructure and a few of customers like

PepsiCo. But, you know, for this thing to work long range, and obviously this is not the market,

the long hole trucking market, I don't think is the first market that this is aiming with the

SSMI. But they are going to, you know, go for like regional distribution at first, it's a more

much more reasonable market for electric trucking. But, you know, the goal is to replace all trucks

at some point. And there's, you know, if your truck has value, it needs to have value to be

used for different applications and everything. So for that to work, you need enough range,

fast charging capability, and then those fast charger to be readily available in, you know,

big routes between cities and states and all that. So I think Tesla has still a good chance of,

you know, disrupting the sector with the SSMI. If it hasn't lost its touch, which, you know,

I still have some doubts about.

BYD also released its numbers today, or yesterday, actually, and they officially

have the BEV Crown. Now it's not even closed. They are the sales leader for battery electric

vehicles and electric vehicles period. Like I said earlier, Tesla reported 1.6 million deliveries

of all electric vehicles. BYD reported 2.25 deliveries of electric vehicles, almost 28%

year-over-year increase in the lineup, absolutely incredible. And that's just all electric because

50% of the lineup is still PHEVs to deliver 2 million, 288,000 plug-in hybrids. Those went

down though. So like the overall sales for the year went up a little bit. But the shift was mainly

in BEVs going up and then slightly down for PHEVs. And also a big change in BYDs. So BYD

is like Tesla being squeezed in China right now. There's a lot of competition in China,

and Tesla and BYD have been the long time leaders there, but they're both beginning

to get squeezed by this new competition. But you have to give it to BYD. They saw it coming,

and they timed their global expansion at the right time. And their exports from China is

compensating for the drop in sales in China right now. So that's the good news for BYD.

Yeah, it's something to learn there. That's what I wrote in my text there. I was like,

if Tesla had real management and an independent board and not a moron tyrant that runs everything

and takes all the decision, that would be like a big wake-up call for them. They're like, oh,

shit, we had the lead for years, and we never saw BYD catching up to us. And then all of a sudden,

they were like way ahead within two years. Within two years, BYD snatched the BEV crown from Tesla

and then surpassed them by what? Like 600,000 units or something?

Yeah, not even close. Yeah, not even close anymore, like 50,000.

There's that Bloomberg interview from probably, I don't know, eight years ago,

where they asked him about BYD, and he starts laughing. And he's like, have you seen the quality

of there? And here we are. And to be fair, like you had a point at that time, BYD's car were not

comparable to Tesla, but BYD at the start was a battery company. It still is a battery company.

And then they just, they made cars because they made batteries for them. And

they kept getting better, and they keep getting better today.

All right, the last piece of news before we jump into the comment section, if you guys have

questions for us, can be about trends in 2026 that we think we're going to see in the EV sectors

and things like that, or any subject in the EV world you want to take on, you can put them in

comment section below and get to it in just a few minutes. But this week, Renault released an

interesting demonstration of their latest efficiency with the Renault Filante, a new

record, a new efficiency driving record with this car that's based on their own production and F1

tech. So it's the managed to drive more than a thousand kilometers in less than 10 hours.

And so this is kind of like a hypermiling record, because they did that with an 87

kilowatt hour scenic e-tech battery pack that they made, so a production battery pack,

and there was 11% left in that battery. So it's very impressive record. So let's look at the

efficiency. I didn't actually look at the efficiency of this when Joe posted it here. So yeah, it's a

hypermiling record, by the way, but it's not like driving at hyper slow speed, like a lot of

hypermiling record, they drove at like 60 miles per hour, I think, for this record around that.

That I saw, I don't know where they put it, but yeah, it was around 60 miles per hour

over a track. And the efficiency was 7.8 kilowatt hour per 100 kilometers.

So for friends that like miles in the US, in the UK, that's 7.8 divided by 0.62. So

around 12 kilowatt hour per 100 miles. So 120 watt hour per mile.

Half of what a Model 3 does, if you don't push it too hard, if you BB it,

which is good, but actually not that good when you look at the car. Because this is not

a useful car, let's put it mildly. Wait, is that, yeah, an instrument cluster and I think like

a round instrument cluster? Yeah, that's cool. But you look, you know, it's interesting. I like

things like that, because, you know, we're big on efficiency and electric and we love things

like the Aptera and things like that when we push it. So this is a cool project, but I, you know,

with, I would have expected I think something a little bit better, actually.

Form factor. But it's still so good. All right, let's jump into the comment section.

All right, Carl and San Diego, happy 2026. Maybe we have, maybe we have to put our hopes and dreams

on my Aptera, speaking of Aptera, to shift momentum in the right direction in the USA,

the dark ages of deny and delay, by really screwing the climate movement.

Yeah, I mean, don't expect a lot of government support for Aptera in the next few years.

That's for sure. But yeah, we like Aptera mainly for what they stand for. It's like,

you don't need bigger cars all the times. You need something that like, it's going to fit your needs

and do it efficiently. And especially in the world with a lot of families and people have two vehicles,

you know, it could make sense to have one that's like smaller and just for your commute,

which often involves just you or another person. If you can get those mileage a lot more efficiently,

it's, it would have a great impact. It's something I've said for years. It's like,

you know, ideally, we have everyone has great public transit and we use public transit most of

the time, reduce our mileage, personal mileage, and that has a trade impact on air pollution,

on climate, on all of that. It's just, it's so hard to convince people to, but first of all,

the government needs to get involved when public transit is involved. And so that's,

you know, can you, can you count on the one hand? You can count on one hand, probably the city you

know that have great transit. Like it's just, it's not that popular, especially in North America.

Question, does Tesla not making new EV models hurt the overall US EV market? Maybe without Tesla

being aggressive with EV models, other companies don't feel the need to create their own EV models?

And it's kind of disconnected there. No, I can't, I can't get it. I can't get it. Like,

you know, because Tesla has been the leader in EVs, a lot of people are like following Tesla's

lead. And since Tesla is not like doing like, let's say, a hatchback, like a $25,000 hatchback in the

US, others are not doing it. You know, I don't think you can put the blame on Tesla specifically

for that. But I do agree with James that if Tesla would have done a $25,000, you know, smaller

electric hatchback in the US, probably some other people would have followed through.

But in general, the US market, you know, is going for bigger cars instead of smaller cars.

Yeah, you need, it would have been incredible if Tesla would have done something like that,

because especially like a year or two ago when the brand was still strong, and you know,

there's still a lot of fan of the brand. But you know what I mean, you know, before the

yes, before that stuff, I think it would have a great impact and probably a few other companies

who have followed through. But you know, we have Riven working on the RX3, the R3, R3X,

which you know, there's going to be probably like an R3 version of that, that's going to be,

you know, lower priced and, you know, not fully hot hatch kicked out and everything.

So I think, I think it's still coming. I think we still have hope that there's

people are going to move that and Riven has a strong brand presence too.

Yeah, I actually hope they make a R2 pickup or an R2, you know, maybe an R3 pickup, like a very

small Ford Maverick type of pickup. I think that's where they're going with this. I think that's

what they like. They're going the R2 right now, because it's quite obvious this is like the biggest

segment in the world. So they do that, and they can, you know, export it, that's going to be the

vehicle program that's going to launch Riven globally, and you know, make them financially

viable and all that. So it makes sense. Well, after that, I see Riven, you know, Riven is not

going to go that test, like even though they are, you know, following Tesla with autonomy and

every time that they're not going to go all in autonomy, like you're clearly more about, you

know, having fun with your vehicle, like being a truck and everything.

Inventory, yep. All right. Wes, Fungi, Tesla sales have slowed because of Elon. I personally

know 12 people who are going to buy a Tesla and that won't because of Elon. I mean, I would

I think even even that, like there's a confirmation bias with that. So you're right. I'm sure you're

right. But if you look at the actual impact, like you said, I said, it's not 9% decline is like

they also missed out on the 25% growth of the industry. There's more like a 30% decline that

Tesla had missed out on sales in the last year. And yeah, you know, 10% of Tesla sales is still

like hundreds of thousands of vehicles that they missed out on. So it's a big impact. But I think

the state of Tesla's EV lineup is the bigger culprit. My guess is that the Tesla Semi is a

money loser. That's why it hasn't been produced in volume. He priced it very wrong. Well, we don't

have the price yet. That's the thing. So I said that the charging infrastructure with the missing

puzzle piece. But for sure, the pricing is still yet and we reported last year that

based on some customer information, the price has increased quite a bit. We don't know exactly what

it is. But it's not going to be $180,000 for the 50 500 mile version. That's for sure. If it's

250, maybe if it's below 300, I think I think Tesla is going to do very well with the

Tesla Semi. If it's over 300, it's going to do okay, but just not, you know, 50,000 units a

year is going to be hard to sell. And it always, the problem is like, you got to make sure you have

the sales lock in to build a lot. Kind of the problem with the cyber truck. But the good thing

about the Model Y was they knew that if they built a lot, they would sell a lot. So economies of scale,

they don't necessarily know that the semis are going to sell, but I think they will.

Yeah. And I reported like a few weeks ago that I saw that Tesla hired a bunch of

sales people like commercial sales people that that sells shrugs, sweet sales, you know, to

lead sales. So they're going to they're going to have to, you know, is it cannot just rely on the

brand power anymore? You're going to have to sell those things. Sergio Claudio says a great

2026 to all I follow Tesla since the original Roadster. It's so sad to see the Paul of Tesla.

And I can't see myself buying a Tesla because of all the hate Elon is spreading. It is frustrating

for sure. If it was a super cheap, the cab would sell to individuals less than 20k.

I don't think there's a 20k is reasonable, but you know, 25, 25 is possible.

But do you mean like that, though? Do you mean as is? Or do you mean, you know,

make it more consumer friendly? Your seat, your seat, maybe doors, steering wheel.

Well, that it's funny that that was you remember when he said that would be an option or something?

Oh, I don't remember that. But I do. I do remember clearly when a few months ago when

Robin then home said, we could we can add a steering wheel, which was I guess always obvious.

Elon was like, No, we're not going to do that. We're all in.

All right, for Tesla to say something will not be launched sometime this year means that they

have no idea when they're going to they're doing with it. Elon just can't plan for any other scenario

than sometime this year. Seems right. Yeah, I mean, Elon, you cannot you cannot really

listen to what he says these days in factor. You need the big asterisks with every one of his

prediction. All right, what are the Chinese going to open a car factory in Canada?

A good question, good question. I you know, I would like that. I would like to see

our government in Canada. For those don't know, I'm based in Canada, based in Quebec.

Negotiate the removal of the tariffs in Canada with something that includes an investment in

manufacturing here. So like India, for example, had a similar deal. I think the India deal was a

rough one, to be honest. But the they have more room to be rough when you have, you know, a

billion people population and the fast growing economy. So but you do one where, you know,

you can import vehicles, you can build out your service infrastructure and everything.

But you have to invest a certain amount either in, you know, a car factory and or,

you know, finance some junior mining company that have mining projects in Canada to get to

production and, you know, or buy out their production and things like that. So I think that

would be great for the overall economy and, you know, for the consumers in Canada.

Specular says question. Can anyone make sense of Elon once again, going all in on Republicans

when they destroyed Tesla's business? Is his racism overpowering his greed?

That's one way to look at it. Yeah, I mean, it's a real possibility. I mean, if you see

if you see is his Twitter feed these days, it's it's pretty rough. It's pretty rough on the on

the racist stuff. And you know, you can always make the argument like it's not racist, like if

someone commits a crime and it happens to be a certain race, like I can mention is like, yeah,

but if you do it like 25 times a day, and you don't talk about like Epstein and things like that,

you talk just about a certain type of crime, it can be seen as racism. So why does he go back

all in? Well, first of all, where does he go? You think he makes a switch and backs the Democrats

on the midterm? I don't see that happen. Like not impossible. By the way, I think half of them

would probably take his money. I wouldn't be surprised on that. It's not like I'm a big like

fan of the Democrats either. But when you go by comparison, it's a pretty easy deal to take.

So I think I think Elon is still on the same reason when you back Trump in the first place is

like, he's in trouble. Like if the ec the sec decide to enforce its laws, he's in real trouble.

If if NHTSA wants to make roads safer and safer and make sure that you cannot abuse

advanced driver assistance system like FSD, which Tesla is quite openly now doing,

like it's encouraging almost abuse of its system. It's downgrading its monitoring system

not to allow you to use your phone in the car or the cars, right? You know, things like that.

It's it's something that you wouldn't see a few years ago. And that would but but now now it's

kind of a freefall. And so I think I think Elon needs that freefall going as long as possible.

Because right now his idea is like there's a race against time where he needs to create, you know,

AGI with XAI and autonomy with Tesla before everything comes crumbling down on him.

So anything that slows him down is an existential existential threat for him at this point.

All right. Speculator asks, can the Tesla semi be a viable product without a MCS charging network?

Yes, as like I said, as a reason, regional distribution truck. But it's well successful

product, not successful at the scale that Tesla wants it to be for sure. Because first of all,

there's already a lot of electric competition in that specific case, because it's the easier one

to electrify. But no, it's that's pretty easy, because you know, you run the truck at the

distribution center, you charge it, you charge it overnight. There's there's a lot of opportunity

versus you know, long haul trucking, where you need a fast charge. So yeah, it's not going to be as

successful. But it could be like 10,000 units a year or something like that. But the 50,000 you need

ubiquitous fast charging, make a charger all over the world.

If Tesla built a Model 2 like they planned and released 10 work on autonomy,

do you think they would be doing better now?

Yeah. Yeah, I think that they bet on autonomy too early. And, and Elon was so sure of it that it was

going to work faster than it did. That he didn't foresee having that big of an impact on Tesla's

core business. I think it's as simple as that. I think he also didn't see other people catching

up, especially because of sensor fusion. So when you went all in on vision,

sensor fusion was a very hard problem to solve. So you figured out if we can solve it,

no one else can, at least not in a reasonable amount of time.

So we just might as well just go all in on vision instead. But then AI happened and AI

made sensor fusion a lot easier to handle. So now and at the same time LiDAR prices came down

quite a bit. So now Tesla is having to compete with people that have a working sensor fusion,

such as Waymo. And it's, it's like, Elon kept saying like, oh, FSD is like a superhuman. Well,

if you have lasers in your high, it's like superhuman. That's what Waymo has.

All right, Waymo can place mass transit with the right form factor. Los Angeles should hand

over their bus network once they create a subway car form factor. Yeah. I mean,

for the Olympics, that might be something to think about.

I mean, Los Angeles can hand over its transit system to the first homeless guy at the corner

street and it would probably be better than it is right now. So I don't know if that's really

the standard that you want. Yeah, obviously any kind of autonomous ride ailing system,

especially if it's electrified. And it works well on autonomous front can lower the mileage

cost quite a bit. I don't I don't know if it can be, you know, unless you mean like you equip

buses with Waymo. And I mean, yes, I think probably be there's opportunity for efficiency

gains there. But at the same time, you wouldn't need like a overall of the mass of mass transit

system anyway, I think. Yeah, all right. Waymo's place replacing public transit. Imagine Google's

AI IP price the same as Tesla. It would be like a $10 trillion company right now. Easy. I'm even

more than that. I mean, what's the P ratio of Google right now? Put a 300 T ratio on Google. It's

yeah. I think Google's a little high because Gemini is doing well right now. Yeah, they're

doing they're doing well for sure. But nothing like Tesla. The cyber cab couldn't fit a rear seat

unless they were rear facing unless the rear roof is raised. But that's a totally different vehicle.

I wonder if they can move the first row seats up at all. So they have a 30 price to running ratio.

So basically, they would 10x. So it would be a $38 trillion company.

The cyber cab couldn't fit a rear seat unless they were rear facing.

Oh, because of the roof.

Yeah, possibly. Yeah, I mean, we kind of thought that the model Y can fit a third row because

of the roof. But somehow they got one in there. Yeah, so sort of a third row. But yeah.

Joe took a break, I think. Yeah, Joe's gonna be back soon. Yeah, it's not a big deal. But we'll

let him know that his fans are waiting for him. You know, that's good to know. All right, well,

that's that's it for this week's episode of Electric Podcast was a quicker one. We'll hope to get

more news next week and get a longer show for you guys. But we are live every Friday at 4pm. You

can count on us unless we're traveling. That sometimes it'll change a little bit. But we we've

been we've done a show set like every week for like what now like years seven, seven, eight,

maybe 70 years or something like that. Yeah. I want to say like seven years, I think I was around

like I think our first one was like the model Y launch. Yeah. Crazy stuff. All right. Thanks

everyone for listening. If you do enjoy the show, give us like a five star or whatever it is on the

app you're watching. We appreciate you will see you next time.

0:00

52:47

Tesla Q4 deliveries, BYD secures BEV crown, Cybercab spotted, and more

Tesla Model Y

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Cybertruck

Tesla Model X

Tesla Model S

Tesla Roadster

Tesla Semi

production

steering wheel

autonomy

Cyber Cab

AI5 chips

FSD

II4 hardware

level four self-driving

electric Miata

Mazda Miata

autonomous

kilowatts

megawatt

charging infrastructure

Dodge Charger

electric vehicles

87 kilowatt hour battery pack

hypermiling

Aptera

EV (Electric Vehicle)

Ford Maverick

Rivian

EV lineup

economies of scale

advanced driver assistance system

LiDAR

About this episode

Original notes