The BYD Shark is a type of electric car made by a company called BYD. It's known for using good batteries and being affordable compared to other electric cars.
Three-phase power is a way electricity is delivered using three wires that work together. It helps give more power and keeps things running smoothly, especially in big buildings or factories.
The Toyota Highlander is a big car that can carry families and lots of stuff comfortably. Toyota is now making an electric version, which means it runs on a battery instead of gas.
Fast charging means you can fill up the car's battery really quickly, like in half an hour, instead of waiting for hours. This helps you get back on the road faster.
The Kia EV9 is a new electric car that looks like a big SUV and runs only on electricity. It’s meant to be a good, affordable option for people wanting a big electric car.
Analog base design means the car has real buttons and knobs you can press or turn, not just a touchscreen. This can make it easier and safer to control things while driving.
The instrument cluster is the set of gauges and lights right in front of the driver that shows how fast the car is going and if anything needs attention.
Greenhouse gases are gases that make the Earth warmer by trapping heat from the sun.
LIVE
Hi, this is Fred Lambert for the
Electric Podcast. Um, I'm sorry I'm not
doing the episode live this week because
we just tried to do it through
Streamyard and uh it just completely
bugged out. Um, I'm in Mexico right now.
I'm testing out the BYD Shark and
everything was working well. We were
going live with Seth. I was talking to
him for the podcast and I have good
internet connection here, but for some
reason when we got into StreamYard, it
was just bunging out. So, I'm just going
to pre-record the show, me talking about
the biggest articles of the week. And
unfortunately, we won't be able to do
the back and forth with set or the um
question and answers at the end of the
show. But hopefully, if you're a fan of
the podcast, you still get the you know,
a little bit of the taste of the show
this week through this this live
recording of me going through the the
biggest articles of the week. Starting
with Tesla sales numbers uh in the US
and China. Want to do that. Last week on
the show uh we we talked about the uh
the European result down roughly 30%.
Now we have the US and Chinese result
which are you know more of the same in
the US. It looks like it's down 17% in
January. And uh the important thing to
note here just like Europe last week is
that we're comparing these versus the
Model Y refresh of 20 uh 25. So back
then Tesla was production constraint uh
constrained but we also assumed that it
was likely demand constraint and that
the production constraint was just
hiding the demand issues and now we know
that for a fact because there's no
production issues whatsoever right now
and demand is even down further than it
was when Tesla had the production contra
issue. So I think that's a clearly a
significant problem for Tesla that need
to be addressed and um the US was
Tesla's last stronghold major stronghold
where you didn't have too much of demand
issues at this point we're seeing 17%
down uh of course is also the end of the
tax credit but that happened in Q at the
end of Q3 of last year so things are
accelerating right now for Tesla's
domain issues as for China which is the
biggest EV market in the world biggest
auto market in the period. Uh 45% down
versus last year when Tesla had uh the
Model Y refresh. We're down to just
18,500 units in January 2025 uh for
domestic sales. Tesla's wholesales are
up uh which includes export. So, you
know, they're still strunging out a lot
of cars, but they have to export them
because the Chinese market is having a
harder time to absorb them. So, these
cars are going to go to, you know,
Korea. uh they're going to go to some of
them to Europe and again Europe was down
30% too. So it's just not a good look
for Tesla at this point. We we've been
sounding the alarm for a long time that
the demand issues at Tesla are real but
at this point it looks like it looks
even like Tesla could be losing money
this quarter unless there's a big
reversal of the demand issues in the
next uh you know four or five weeks u by
the end of the quarter really. Next news
I want to discuss is we had a big scoop
this week at electric. We got a quote on
the Tesla semi long range. So Tesla
released new information uh everything
basically except the price. So Tesla
released the specs of the two trims
that's going to be a Tesla semi. We kind
of already know knew that that was going
to be the case. It's going to be a
standard range and then the long range.
Uh but Tesla only said 300 miles for the
standard range. Now we know it's going
to be 325 miles of range. Uh the long
range is 500 miles like originally
announced. Uh but now we also have the
curb weight and the total weight
capacity. So, for those of who don't
know, a diesel class 8 truck normally
has a 80,000 lb capacity. Uh, but you
get 2,000 extra pound if you have a
battery electric class 8. Uh, just
because the batteries are generally a
little bit heavier and that gives a
little bit more room to have more load
capacity because, you know, trucking
companies will make money by moving as
much capacity as possible. So, uh, we
have, um, an extra 2,000 lb, so 82,000
lb capacity. Uh, so the tractor then
takes uh away some of the capacity. For
the standard range one, that's 20,000
lb. So you have 62,000 lbs capacity
including a trailer and 23,000 for the
500 mile range one uh due to the bigger
battery pack. Uh the
efficiency is 1.7 kilowatt hour per
mile. So we already knew that three
motors of uh 800 kilowatt of total
power.
So we most of that we already knew the
the biggest the biggest update is the
weight. It's 325 miles for the standard
range. And now the scoop is we actually
have a price. So Tesla has not announced
any pricing yet still other than the
original $180,000 price for the
longrange version. $150,000 for a
standard range. We knew that was not
accurate anymore because that was a
decade ago at this point. The test SMI
program has been delayed quite a bit to
say the least, but it is finally going
to production in the next few months.
Volume production by the end of the
year. Uh we cannot wait. It's actually
one of the few Tesla vehicle program
that I'm still excited about. And um and
yet now we have a quote for Tesla Smi
customer for a long range customer at
$290,000.
So a 60% price increase. Even if you
account for inflation, it would be
closer to 240. So know inflation is not
the only thing that accounts for for
this price increase. So it has increased
in general.
Now it's still a lot cheaper than the
average class A truck in uh in the US uh
California specifically which is
$435,000.
So Tesla is you know both has a higher
range and a lower price here. So it will
compete with that. But you don't really
want to compete with other battery
electric class A because if you take
that market right now, you take, you
know, a few hundred sales a year. It's
it's really nothing. You want to be able
to compete with diesel trucks. And
competing with that, you know, the
average diesel truck class 8 is roughly
$180,000
to $200,000 fully equipped. So Tesla is
much more expensive than that. However,
if you account for uh electricity rates
of roughly 18 cents per kilowatt hour,
you could pay the difference back uh
between a class A diesel and the SSMI
long range in roughly 4 years at the
current diesel cost,
assuming similar maintenance cost and
everything, which could actually be much
lower for for battery electric trucks.
uh maybe the tires could be a little bit
more expensive, but other than that, uh
it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
So Tesla could have a real a real winner
product here on their hand at at that
price. Um that said, we still need
that's that that's definitely for local
distribution. If you can charge the Chro
overnight at, you know, off peak rates
and distri use it just you know the full
capacity 500 miles in a day and then
charge overnight.
Tesla's a winner product for long haul
trucking though. Uh Tesla still has to
deploy the mega charger station and also
control the cost of charging there
because at the fast chargers you're
going to have peak demand chargers is
going to increase the cost way above 18
cents per kilowatt hour. So that's going
to make the uh equation the economy
financial of the Tesla a lot less
competitive. Uh so this this is still a
problem to be solved but for local
distribution Tesla's a winner product.
Also we kind of feel vindicated here at
electric because uh if you remember last
year we did report that Tesla semi was
delayed into 2026 which we now know for
a fact because we are in 2026 and the
vehicle is still not in production.
Though we we do think it's going to be
in production quite soon.
But also, we said at the time that there
was a dramatic price increase for the
the DS SMI uh above the original
$180,000 price. And now we can confirm
it that it's actually a 60% price
increase, which I think accounts for
dramatic. And back then, uh so that was
in April 2025 when we first reported
that, uh Dan Priestley, who was the head
of the Tesla Semi program at Tesla, told
us uh sort of gave like a half denial of
a report, like not a vague denial of it.
and uh and that's that was simply not
true. It it was wrong to to deny it
because we we were quite accurate in our
reporting. So, it's another example that
you should be careful uh when Tesla
denies a media report. It's not always
true. Moving on from the Tesla Smi, we
have quite a nice little update on the
Cybert truck vehicle to grid is being
piloted now in Texas. So, you can earn
money from your Cybert truck battery
pack. So, this is, you know, through the
power share program at Tesla. So, you
already have access to
uh V2 home um V V2H vehicle to home by
directional charging that was already
launched. But the vehicle to grid so be
able to discharge your vehicle's battery
and send it back to the grid and earn
money for it. That was not available
yet. But now the program is launching in
Texas for select u owner Cybert truck
owner. So you need to have the
powershare installed obviously. Uh so
you have to have the actual hardware
installed and then uh you need to be a
customer of Center Point Energy or
Encourse which are two of the largest uh
electric utilities in Texas in the uh
Houston and Dallas metropolitan area. So
if you um are eligible if you have all
that you can potentially send some
electricity back into the grid and be
paid for it. I don't know how
financially viable that will be but you
know it's being piloted right now and we
are quite hyped longterm on vehicle to
to grid but uh for now it's still very
much a pilot program.
Uh moving on from the cybert truck the
power wall 3P has been launched this
week well announced uh not quite
launched but no it's we we don't expect
anything quite special about it. 3 P is
for P wall 3 which was launched last
year but P is for phase. So we have
three phase. So the European uh market
is going to be able to enjoy a more
seamless integration with the power
wall. prior to that because you know
they use a three-phase system here which
is which is more efficient more um
um more powerful and more efficient and
easier to install often time too lot of
advantages but Tesla wasn't didn't
design the power wall for that so in
order to integrate it you had to do
literally a three power wall
installation to get your three-phase so
now Tesla has updated its inverter to
have a three first inverter integrated
into the power wall now called power
wall 3P P uh so basically u a European
customer going to be able to buy the
power wall. Now uh Tesla is starting by
taking reservation in Germany.
So uh you can enjoy a power wall there
but it's going to be competitive for
Tesla because there's already plenty of
solution there that was already
integrating the uh read three phase.
Sorry if there's some background noise
right now. Um, okay.
Moving on. We have the Toyota Highland
Dury EV that was fully unveiled this
week. So, this was teased for a while
and uh uh look like a killer product on
their hand. Oh, damn.
I'm going to wait a second.
Okay, I think. Okay. Um, yeah, it's the
first three row electric SUV from
Toyota, the 2027 Islander EV with up to
320 miles of range. Uh, 77 kWh battery
pack for the standard uh, which going to
give you uh,
uh, 287 miles of range. So, still pretty
decent. To get the 320, you need the
95.8 kWh battery pack. Uh, plenty of
option for four-wheel drive. Oh, okay.
Uh and also all-wheel drive. Um
good looking truck too. We can see here
with the two-tone uh looking sleek.
338 horsepower
um for the all-wheel drive. 20 221 for
the four-wheel drive. Uh multi-turn
select crawl control option to optimize
traction.
What else? What else? Uh
we have some interior pictures here that
you can see from the electric article
too if you want to check it out. All
corly Android Auto is going to be
available. Uh 45 cubic feet of rear
cargo space. Pretty good
being I recommend you go check out the
pictures because it does look pretty
nice. uh big upgrade versus the BZ and
it's closer to the language that we see
in the CHR. That's uh you know big
improvement for Toyota in terms of their
all electric uh vehicle effort. 10 to
80% fast charging in just 30 minutes. Uh
heads up display available.
Um what else? What else? Uh vehicle to
load uh is going to be made available.
So you're going to have some charge
capacity in the back.
And uh do we have a pricing? Uh expected
to be priced at about $50,000. So this
is going to be like a Kia EV9 competitor
which starts actually a little bit
higher at uh $55,000.
Do you have any
moving on from Toyota, we have some
Rivian news this week. So, first off,
I'm going to go through this pretty
fast, but u the earnings came out and
they surprised quite a bit. The revenue
was actually up 20% on this because uh
they had a higher revenue and a higher
uh gross profit. Not quite profit just
yet, but gross profit already um
came in and most of that is obviously
because of uh
um the software revenue mostly through
the partnership with Volkswagen.
In term of guidance for 226,
uh just don't want to get it wrong here,
but I think it's uh yeah, targeting
between 62 and 67,000 deliveries. So,
don't expect an insane amount of R2
deliveries. Uh I think they are leaving
some room to surprise us here with, you
know, if the if the production ramp goes
smoothly, maybe we can see a beat here.
But uh I I think Riven is being quite
conservative here with with their with
their production at 67,000
on the upside too because 62 on the
lower side. Speaking of the R2, we saw
plenty of Ardu this week. Uh there were
a few lucky YouTubers that were able to
get access to uh the first vehicle. So
we saw Zach from Jerig Everything. We
saw motor trend then we saw MKBHD that
could access the vehicle and it um it
you know they were able to give like
first drive impression. They didn't
Yeah, I don't I don't know about their
you know PR for the vehicle roll out.
They're like this is this normally
something that you the first drive you
do when the vehicle becomes available
but they kind of limited what they could
share uh with them. Uh but they were
actually able to drive them. So, uh,
Doug Demorro, the YouTuber, uh, I who
actually scores all of his vehicles, uh,
was gave him gave, uh, Riven the best
score for electric vehicle tested for
him. So, that's, uh, good news for Riven
on that front. But, um, pretty limited
in term of, uh, first drive release that
they did, but it did give us a little
bit more specs on the Riven R2,
including, uh, the RV uh, the
architecture is limited to 400 volt, so
they're not going to 800 volt with it.
Uh, 87.4 4 kWh battery pack, uh, dual
motor allhe drive. We know that. Uh, 656
horsepower, 609 foot pounds per foot of
u torque, 0 to 60 and 3.6. Again, very
good. uh no max charge rate though they
do say uh fast charging 10 to 80% 30
minutes which is uh what most people are
quoting these days but we expect to have
a little bit more information on the R2
in the coming weeks as deliveries to
employees are expected to start you know
the next month or two and then uh later
in Q2 probably the first uh um customer
deliveries towards June probably
Ferrari had a a little bit also
releasing their first electric vehicle a
little bit at a time, a little bit like
uh like Rivian with the R2. Uh we uh we
went to Italy
last year and saw the powertrain, all
the technology behind the Ferrari uh
Electica it was called at the time, but
we knew that was a placeholder.
I actually I was there. I was the the
quarter. I saw all the powertrain stuff,
but I never saw the car, never saw the
interior or anything like that. They
didn't want to show any of that. Uh so
this week was another part of the
unveiling ahead of the full unveiling
later this year. I think uh Q2
we saw some of the interior and also get
the official name for it which going to
be the fairy loose uh apparently means
light in um Italian uh but can also mean
electricity. So light in the sense of
like light from electricity kind of.
And in term of the design, um I
personally like it quite a bit from what
we saw from the interior. And obviously
the the big headline is that the design
is from Johnny Hives uh the famous Apple
designer this new new design company
called Love Form Love from
and uh it's uh very much analog base.
So, there is a touchcreen, but it's
there's buttons everywhere and like nice
physical button that, you know, I didn't
get to play with it. Obviously, I'm just
seeing pictures, but it's um they they
look satisfying just from the look. I'm
sure that they're going to be satisfying
to to use. Uh the um the steering wheel
is very old school racing steering wheel
style. The instrument cluster is
actually attached to the steering wheel
column. So when you when you turn around
with the steering wheel, this the the
instrument cluster is going to follow
you. So you know when you're driving
normally you're driving like that, but
when you're driving aggressively, you're
driving a little bit like and then
you're going to be able to follow it a
little bit. So that's I think that's
cool. Um it's not for everyone. I saw
that all the different uh
reaction to the loose interior and very
much split, very polarizing. A lot of
people love it, myself included. A lot
of people hate it. Uh I I think I think
everyone needs to give it a chance.
There's a center console which with a
screen, but the screen is much smaller.
Physical switches much like a airplane
switches a little bit, which I like. Uh
the center display can be is on the
swivel can be put towards the driver or
towards the passenger. I think that's
cool, too. Um sleek interior with
recycled aluminum. um solid billet
precision mill Corning fusion 5 glass.
Uh
yeah, the the full unveiling of the
interior and the exterior is coming in
May 226. So we also got an information
from the unveiling of the interior
partial interior unveiling this week.
All right, one more piece of news and
then we're done.
Very important one though and I would
recommend anyone who hasn't read the uh
Jaime's article on this this week. The
uh EPA has penalized its illegal dirty
hair plant to hike fuel cost by 76 cents
per gallon despite public outcry. So
this is uh the big Trump move this week
that's been going on for for months
really ever since he was elected. Uh
he's been trying to deregulate
uh the fossil fuel emissions
and uh we're talking about more
specifically here is the EPA's end
finding. So the EPA's regulation of
greenhouse gases was based on this
finding that some specific gas more
specifically the or obviously carbon
dioxide methane sulfurex fluoride
hydrofluorocarbons
nitrous oxide and perfluorocarbon
are harmful to humans which they are
because if you're lock inside of a tight
room and uh emit those gas you're not
going to get out of that room. Uh now
obviously the atmosphere is a much
bigger room but same principles apply
and um yeah the the these findings are
the basis of the APA regulating these uh
greenhouse gases and um yet
sorry
the way that the Trump administration
has been trying to deregulate the um the
emission of those greenhouse gases is by
removing those findings like saying that
those findings were wrong and that
actually these greenhouse gases are not
a problem and therefore we don't need to
regulate them and uh those rules were
made official this week. Uh now there's
going to be most likely not a lot of um
uh court battles over this, but um it's
going to be an uphill battle. And uh now
the travel administration is opening the
door for companies to not follow the the
EPA rules uh anymore. And um this this
create kind of a messy situation where
you either they're going to fall back on
state rules uh or or are they going to
you know it's going to be a
free-for-all. So uh it's going to be
pretty messy situation going forward.
And I I really encourage you to go read
Jaime's article because he goes into
very great very details about this. Uh
it's on the net. it's EPA finalized
illegal dirty airplane to hide fuel cost
and um because most likely than not it's
going to increase fuel cost also. So the
the idea behind this obviously is that
they don't believe in climate change.
They don't believe in greenhouse gases
being harmful to humans. But um their
their logic is also that you know these
regulation increase fuel costs for
people which is not even the case
really. And um if uh you know people
that are you know that that like this um
trend from the Trump administration
these efforts I would suggest that you
send them this article because it's uh
it goes into details of why this is just
as dumb as an idea as I get from from
all perspective not just from an
environmental perspective but also from
a financial perspective and uh it's
going to slow down innovation in
reunable energy which are taking over
the um energy landscape globally.
and was also in the US until Trump uh
slow it down quite a bit last year. So,
it's just going to make the US um a
lagger in this very important field.
All right, that's uh that's pretty much
it for my articles that I wanted to
discuss this week. Again, I do apologize
for the format of the podcast. I know
it's not ideal, but um uh next week, I'm
still in Mexico next week. I'm driving
the BYD short right now, which I'm going
to I'm excited to talk to you about. Uh,
and I'm going to try to get another BYD
car next week, too, that I'm going to be
reviewing for Electric. I'm going to try
to be able to do the podcast regularly
next week. Uh, if I can, it's going to
just be the week after that. I'm going
to be back in Quebec. But, u,
hopefully next week we're going to be
okay to be back on schedule. All right,
have a good one, guys. Bye-bye.
About this episode
Fred Lambert covers major EV news including Tesla's declining sales in the US, China, and Europe, highlighting demand challenges despite no production issues. He reveals updated specs and a significant price hike for the Tesla Semi, now priced around $290,000 for the long-range model, while still competitive against diesel trucks over time. Tesla's Cybertruck vehicle-to-grid pilot program in Texas is also discussed, alongside the launch of the three-phase Powerwall 3P for Europe. Toyota's new Highlander EV is unveiled, featuring a three-row layout and up to 320 miles of range, marking a strong entry into the electric SUV market.
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss the Tesla Semi, Toyota Highlander EV, Rivian R2, Ferrari Luce, and more.
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