Tesla turns to energy, BMW i3 EV makes a splash, Donut Lab update, and more

And we are live for a new episode of the electric podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your host and I'm

joining ISEP Wendtram. Are we doing set? I'm good. All right. All right. So what we're going to

talk about this week, we're going to talk about Tesla, you know, making a pivot to energy, a lot

of energy news when it comes to Tesla this week. So we're going to discuss that, which I think is

interesting. Then we're going to talk a little bit about FSD. There's Nitsa, it's kind of closing

the walls on Tesla regarding a potential recall of FSD. So we're going to discuss that. And then at

the same time, it's about to launch in Europe, though it was delayed to next month again. Then

the BMW i3 was launched this week, and it grabbed a lot of headlines due to its specs, specifically

the range, the charging. And also we're going to discuss the design. It was a big change in design

for BMW. Uber and Rivian are partnering up. We're going to discuss that. Volvo is getting the

ix30 in the US, unfortunately. Next gen already a next gen upgrade for Xiaomi the Su7. BYD getting

a giant boost from the oil situation right now, oil prices. And then we're going to finish it up

with an update on donut lab, which we didn't do last week because it wasn't that big of an update.

But this week is a little bit bigger. And we discussed the clock is ticking for them to

deliver on what they claim because it's almost the end of the first quarter. And then as usual,

we're going to end with questions for you guys. I already have a question from NC

1966. But if you guys have any question about anything that we discussed today or any other

topics in the EV world that you would want to take on, we are we going to discuss that at the

end. So you could put that in the comments section. And yeah, we're going to get to it in a half an

hour 45 minutes, depending on how fast we go through the biggest news of the week that we covered

on electric. So first one. This is reportedly

Ah, that's so frustrating when a sneeze comes and he just doesn't come.

Like nothing is happening. This is reportedly in talk to buy about $3 billion worth of Chinese

solar manufacturing equipment. So this is this is a big change of pace for Tesla.

We we kind of announced that this is solar business was effectively dead a few years ago.

We closely reported on the phasing out. There are a lot of Tesla let go of a lot of installation

team, a lot of scheduling team, a lot of solar panel design, solar system design teams. The

obviously the solar roof is one of the biggest flop ever. It's still alive, but it's being installed

by a handful of third party installers, not Tesla. And yeah, it's nowhere near the installation

or production rate that Tesla planned for for the product. And even a year and a half ago,

almost two years ago, now this let's stop reporting its solar deployment almost exactly

when Elon managed to get rid of the lawsuit that was on top of him for the soy city acquisition.

And his defense for the lawsuit was always that. Yeah, yeah, sure. There was a lot of,

you know, self dealing when it comes to buying a company that I was able to invest it in.

And with Tesla, which I control buying a public company that I was the biggest investor of

at control of the board, and my cousins were in charge of the company. But it's all good because

solar became a big part of Tesla's business after that. And then as soon as that lawsuit was cleared,

he killed the business at Tesla, stopped reporting solar deployment because it was getting so small

anyway. But this year really in the last in the last few months, we saw Tesla actually doing things

towards the expanding solar deployment at the company, mainly producing their own solar panels

and a small scale in Buffalo, and selling those panels. So that's that's something mainly again

through third party installers and everything. But still, it's a big deal for Tesla. Like one of

the rare steps towards that. And then Elon went pretty big with his Cheyenne, you know,

hyperboles after that saying that Tesla is going to deploy roughly 100 gigawatts

of solar capacity solar manufacturing capacity in the US. Now,

one way to look at this to be fair, though, it's like it's not, it's not really Elon going back

to his roots as someone who wants to accelerate the advent of renewable energy. It has almost

exclusively to do with data centers. Now data centers are extremely hungry in power. So he

sees an opportunity to, you know, capture a market which specifically a market of

new energy demand from data centers in the US. And you know, with his good friend Trump in power,

now the in his, you know, endless trade wars, especially with China, which produces

much of the world's solar panels. There's a lot of incentive to produce those in the US rather

than somewhere else. But still, there's reasons why China is producing a lot of these panels is

they have the manufacturing expertise for them for even, even though Tesla wants to manufacture them,

they have to buy manufacturing equipment from China. But this is, this is a big deal nonetheless,

because so that the apparently from what we heard from the routers report,

the front runner is a company called Suzhou Maxwell Technologies,

listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. And they are a manufacturer of our solar cell screen printing

production. So they're going to, Tesla is looking to buy from them a ton of that equipment. But

there's still a few things to clear, especially regarding the need approval from China's

Commerce Ministry to export these equipment, because of course they will also compete

with China's solar power manufacturing. But if that goes true, Tesla is reportedly,

based on the report, looking to have these equipment delivered by this autumn. So by the

end of the year, and apparently they're going to Texas. So the panel manufacturing would happen

in Texas, which makes sense. Most of Tesla's new manufacturing capability have been going to Texas

in the last few years. Didn't have some solar in New York, they were going to build panels in New

York. Yeah, they are building panels in New York, but we're talking about 300 megawatts of capacity

per year, roughly, versus 100 gigawatts here. So it's a big several order manual to bigger.

And again, 100 gigawatts with I think, triple or quadruple the current capacity production

capacitive solar panel in the US. So we're talking about a completely new scale here. And

as usual, it's Elon Musk saying this. So keep that in mind, like the often, you know,

his targets are a lot bigger than reality. But $3 billion worth of just solar equipment. So

that's not the factory itself. If they are ordering for $3 billion of solar equipment,

the factory entirely could cost like 10 or something. This is still a giant investment

towards solar production. So ultimately, it's a good thing. And it should reduce the cost of

solar panels in the US quite a bit. In the same vein, Tesla was also confirmed to be the buyer

for LG's LFP sales in, this is an OIO in Michigan, I keep always keep confusing the two of them,

because they have a couple of factories there.

I'm Michigan, the Michigan factory. Okay, so, you know, a few like a year ago at this point,

a little bit more maybe GM and LG had a little falling out because, you know, Trump came into

power. GM was like, we don't care about making that many EVs anymore. Since Trump changes the

rules. So we don't need all this battery capacity that we made a deal with LG to build new factories

in the US. So they basically, you know, divided things out, you get a factory, we get a factory,

and then LG with its factory in Michigan was like, figure out what you want to do with them.

And then there was a rumor that a company, a specific company last year, was looking to buy

out all the capacity of $4.3 billion deal, well, LFP cell capacity. We reported that we believe

that this was Tesla, and now it was confirmed through US government officials this week that

Tesla is indeed the buyer. So these will be LFP sales made in Michigan, specifically used for

Tesla's mega pack production in the US. So these are sales for energy. Like I said, everything

points to Tesla going big on energy right now, it's only growing business segment right now.

So let's see if it's down, but energy is up. So they're doubling down on it seems to be a smart

move. Rare one for the auto maker these days. But yeah, it's, it's big capacity. So we're talking

about they are aiming to get to 50 gigawatt hour capacity. Maybe not right away. The first delivery

mass production has been in the second half of 2027. So we're still we're still not too close

from this. This is a while. Yeah, over a year out, right? Over a year out. In the meantime,

what's going to happen is that Tesla is going to have to keep buying cells from China. This

has its own very small scale production of LFP cells in California right now. But the capacity

once completely scale is going to be 10 gigawatt hour, which is like, it's not that much. But

it's actually pretty good. But what that's when it is scale, this is like five times that. So

meanwhile, this is going to have to take care of that and use that and the supplemented with

production from from China, which is tariffed up to 84% I think now in the US. So it's pretty bad.

I mean, unless something happens with these court decisions.

No, I think the court decision was not China, right? China still the tariff still holds,

I think it was it was more the other countries. I'm confused by that.

All right. Moving on to FSD. So there was a big upgrade to one of several

NHTSA probe into FSD in the last few years. These things move slowly. I think this one,

this one started in October 2024. So we're already like a year and a half into this probe.

This one is specifically, it's not the biggest one. The biggest one is the one with the 58 incident

regarding traffic violation and Tesla is having like a hard time delivering the data to the

tunits about it. I think that that line was actually this week for the latest

deadline. So we should we should know like in the next few days to weeks max about this one.

But the the the one that was updated this week was specifically about visibility, road condition

includes some sun glare and fog. So it's about the cameras that Tesla not being able to see the

road and not warning the driver enough that I cannot see what's going on. So you should probably

take over. And there was a several accident that were linked to those conditions. And through

their investigation to their probe, like the first stage of NHTSA probe, talk with the automaker

about it. And they found they found other accidents. Tesla just said that, you know,

as they often do, they're like, we didn't know over the air software update already thinking care

of that. But based on Tesla's own analysis of the situation, they admitted that it would only fix

about half of those accidents that were part of the probe. So even their own update would not

have prevented all of these crashes. So what happened is that NHTSA upgraded the probe to

what they call an engineering analysis. So it's just, you know, more resources being spent to

the probe. And generally, it's the last step before they actually do safety recall on this also

extended because of the new incident that were added, they extended the coverage of the probe

to 3.2 million vehicles in the US. So I assume that's pretty much every vehicle that has like

autopilot, hardware dot 2.2.0 and up, I would assume.

Yeah, okay. What else to say about that? So that could actually lead to a recall in the next,

I mean, these things can take another 18 months really. So it's, it could never happen. I could,

they could fix it before then they could be like your recall with the OT update might have already

happened before that. There's a lot that could happen from this. And like I said, this is not

the biggest one. The biggest one is the traffic violation one that is also ongoing and we should

get an update on that in the next few days. Meanwhile, while this is happening in the US,

Desley is pushing hard to get FSD lunch in Europe. And it was supposed to happen today, March 20,

but you know, as usual, it's not really the case. What happened is that last year Elon said,

actually in January, Elon said that this would get approved in March, by the end of March,

in Europe for FSD. And when he said that the RDW, which is the Dutch road authorities,

said that whoa, we didn't say that at all. We said that by that date, we're going to complete the

text, the testing and the, you know, data collection and analysis phase. We're not, we're not necessarily

going to approve you by then. And sure enough, what happened today is that Tesla announced that they

have finished this process. But now they have to review all the documentation and test result to

to move forward. But Elon has already announced that by April 10, this is all going to be done

and they're going to be approved. So let's see about that. This story tells us that it might be

a little bit more complicated. And that's for the Netherlands. But the way it works in the EU is that

once an exemption to the rules is approved, in this case by the RDW in the Netherlands,

then FSD can launch in the Netherlands. And then other countries can decide whether they adopt

the same exemption as it and just transfer it over. So it simplifies the process to go, you know,

Europe wide. And they expect that that's going to happen by the end of this summer. So we're

still a few months away from a true launch of FSD throughout Europe, but, you know, getting closer

a step at a time. And this is obviously Tesla's hope. Elon has described this as like the main

issue for Tesla in Europe. That's what's preventing them to grow their cell. I actually stopped the

bleeding because there's the cells that keep being going down. So it's more about stopping the bleeding

and then maybe trying to clothe ourselves back into a higher level of cells over 200,000 units per

year, still pretty far from their peak at 300,000 units a year. But I just I don't personally see

that happening just because even in the US, which has had FSD for a long time, the take rate is,

you know, high teens, maybe something close to that. So to go from the how does a product that's

only, you know, less than one in five people buy going to really boost your cell, maybe this can

have like a 10 to 20% boost on cells, but it's just going to stop the bleeding basically in Europe.

It's not going to have that much. And then also at the same time, I think there is like kind of

a negative effect that comes out of this, we've seen it in Australia set when Tesla launched

a FSD last year, where people who've been waiting in the case of Australia, let's say that the you

know, some of them have been waiting for at that point, almost 10 years. Yeah, some of them like,

oh, well, 10 years since they announced the self driving was coming. And you could buy a car that

was supposedly gets something coming, but you're right five years since it actually launched in

the US. But then they were told that they would get on supervised self driving and then they

weighed this 10 years or five years or whatever. And then they get FSD, which is still supervised

and they're like, we waited all this time for that. So there was a little bit of a backlash and

some lawsuits already in Australia regarding that. Alright, let's move on from Tesla. Let's talk about

the BMW i3. So did you follow the launch? I did afterwards. Yeah. But I guess my better question

was like, did you did you get a sense of the impact it had? Because it had a pretty big impact it looks

like. Yeah, it was strangely, you know, for a sedan, it was strangely followed. I got a lot of

Yeah, you're right. Specifically, I had a bunch of people reach out to me like, Hey,

did you see that? That's that's pretty, pretty big. And yeah, the big, the big thing is like

moving to a 800 volt system, 400 kilowatt charging on that thing, over 400 miles of range, which is

huge. So all great things, great, great efficiency, great charging. And the brand new looks at look

at this, the beaver beaver tea, kidney, kidney grill is gone. Yeah. It's weird. How do you feel?

Because like, when you think of the i3, you think of that like weird mobile that, you know, that

tall thing. So they're going to have to do a little bit of marketing to kind of, you know,

shake people's, you know, we've talked about the i3 was launched in China a while back, it didn't

look like this, but it was a sedan. Yeah. Not entirely new, but it's, it's good to see this.

I also see this as like, you know, the Mercedes CLA is also very compelling. Next generation,

like, you know, as good as Tesla and beyond kind of, you know, charging software, battery range,

all the things that, you know, we kind of expect from like a very modern EV. So this is kind of

like in that same vein, I think. Yeah, that's a good point. I like the CLA comparison. This is,

I'm curious about the pricing. I don't think we have pricing yet unless I missed it, but

it's going to make a big difference. So the obviously the look a lot more palatable than

the original i3, like you said, but also a completely different vehicle, like it's just

a different form factor. You just reuse the name, but this is like what, you know, three series

electric was always supposed to be. But the big kicker is obviously it's the range because

in Europe, WLTP, they're going to be able to advertise this as up to 900 kilometers,

559 miles, which is massive. Obviously, realistic range is closer to 440 miles,

I think on the EPA, but still this is still massive. In North America, it's going to have

NAACS standard. So here's a quarter from behind look quarter to quarter behind.

It's sharp looking. Yeah, I like that. Very simple lines, right?

Yeah, that behind the rear wheel, like, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's new for BMW,

I think it's pretty, pretty yeah, it's, it's definitely a statement for them, like a front

end, specifically front end is completely different. Like every time there's something

different, it's like, you're resistant to change. And I, you and I were both not big fans of the

kidney grill and divertid, however you want to call them. I've seen, I've seen better front ends

from other makers as well. Because it feels like they want to keep that, that real feeling.

Yeah, they have to have that like BMW to, you know, circles or whatever. Yeah. But I mean,

that's just a small part of the overall look. I'm just happy people are still making sedans,

geez. It seems like everything is going to do well in Europe. Yeah.

The interior, you have what we've seen in a few other BMW lately, these

crooked corners here for the big screen. Also, I don't know why you would do that.

It just, it kind of, it frames the entire interior in a weird way, like maybe it's my OCD,

but my OCD doesn't like it at all. This though, the screens here in the back are becoming increasingly

more popular in China specifically. And I do like them, especially then the YU7 from Xiaomi,

I've used it, I drove in it and driven it with that. And I do really like this, like it's

a good compromise between that and it's up display. So instead of having an instrument

cluster and or, and as a display, you have this thing here and it works very well and also can

add information for passenger side too. I like it a lot.

You have a beautiful interior here with a backseat.

You're going to get an M option on this too, right? Then I think,

I think this could be a pretty good car with the hem.

Yeah, do they call it the MI3 or the IM3?

Yeah, good question. Well, I think also BMW does,

yeah, not to get confused with the actual M model versus like an M option package on an

i3 model, which is going to give you more aggressive sports feature, but

not an actual change to suspension, powertrain, etc.

So this is starting production in Germany in August that every start in

an autumn, it's going to arrive in the U.S. this summer.

It can't be this summer.

Yeah, that makes sense. Because so I said to arrive this summer, so that's going to be the

Europe as well, I would assume. But the price MSRP to be around $60,000.

So it's not cheap either.

Yeah, so it's not. It's not going to really compete with like the Molo 3 and that it's

going to be probably more a CLA competitor.

All right, but great addition nonetheless from BMW.

Uber and Rivian had been used this week. They are partnering on bringing the R2 as

rubble taxis on Uber's fleet with a deployment of up to $50,000 R2s.

And at the same time, they're doing an investment into into Rivian. So Uber is

investing into Rivian. And so it's going to be up to a billion dollars, but it's

entrenched as I heard. So yeah, to begin, Uber has committed to an initial

investment of 300 million subject to regulatory approval.

I've already said it's going to invest up to 1.25 billion through 2030,

kind of contingent on achieving specific autonomous milestone by specific dates.

So yeah, we know that Rivian as its autonomy plus package now all the R2s are equipped with

a very extensive software in hardware suite that's going to improve over time to software update,

much like Tesla's FSD. It's a competitor to Tesla FSD. And right now, it doesn't have all

the same capabilities and all the same performance, but it's getting pretty decent. And

Rivian is investing heavily in that. And by the end of the year, should have a competing product.

And then through the next few years, they're going to release increase,

increasing higher level of autonomy. And as they do that,

Uber is going to keep investing more and also buy some R2s for a for a

Rebel taxi deployment in the US. Similar deal to Lucid and Uber did last year or earlier this year.

I don't remember the exact timing. However, the Lucid deal was also with Neuro. So Neuro provides

the self driving technology and add also a hardware on top of the gravity for that. So

Rivian kind of pray plays the role of Lucid and Neuro in this deal, similar deal with Uber.

Lot of competitor in the self driving advanced driver assist system, like people always thought

like the Tesla superfan was always the idea that there's no one close. Tesla is going to own the

entire market. But we were always pretty skeptical on that. And sure enough, it looks like by the

time Tesla has a through level five system, like a lot of other companies have to.

I'm moving on to some worse news, although as confirmed, according to the report from the drive

that the EX30 it's most affordable EV is going to be out of the US market by the end of this

model year. So basically, they don't see a market for it right now in the US amid the

current political situation, which is a real bummer. Yeah, I mean, that's one of our favorite vehicles.

Yeah, it's I see a bunch of them in Montreal. They're really great looking, small sharp. And

you did the review of it. You like the powertrain too a lot. Yeah, I love everything about it.

The software was a little problematic. And the screen was a little small. I need reading glasses,

so but other than that.

Yeah, one less affordable EVs in the US. Yeah.

Xiaomi, Xiaomi, one of my favorite company to follow these days is just the have some great

stuff. They came out today to this week with an update to the two seven we knew was coming but

now we get everything we get the look, the updated look, which look a lot less now like the

tyken. So for those that were upset by the resemblance, that is mostly gone, in my opinion.

I actually like I see a little bit more of the high hand model three in front with the sharp

front end. So which I like actually but the model three. Also little Ioniq six in there,

maybe. Yeah, and from this angle, if you go from the back to quarter, I think you see it less.

So I have another picture in there now. Yeah, so it's a slight design refresh,

you know, especially the front end being updated. There's also you get a little bit more range

out of it, which you know, was already the big, you know, the thing that the Xiaomi

Su seven is a direct model three competitor in China, already managed to outsold it last year,

which was a crazy feat for company, you know, this car is two years old, and they already

are doing a significant upgrade to it. Most of it is things that they learned from the

why you seven that launched last year. So they bring a lot of the capability over so a bigger

battery pack, you have the still the 400 volt system, a smaller pack for the standard version

that gets you 720 kilometers CLT CLTC. But that's, you know, that's still over 300 miles of range.

And but now you get 72 miles increase on the pro version, which you just break 900,000 900

kilometers, which is over 500 miles, realistically closer to 400 miles. And the max version,

which has a little bit more power, so more also 835. So just 34 kilometers, 35 kilometers more.

So you all version get a little bit of a bump between 20 and 72 kilometers of bump of range,

a little bit faster charging to now 10 to 80% in just 11 minutes, which is, you know,

not by the five minutes speed, but still pretty close. One of these actually use by these cells,

I don't know a CLT. Yeah, the first version, the standard version I think use and CLTC for the

the others. At least that was the previous version. I don't know if they changed that for this.

The updated the suspension a little bit, continuous damper control. They updated their

sensor suite now with the they have the cameras have auto cleaning on them, which I think is a

big upgrade. If you really want autonomy, I think you have to have auto cleaning cameras.

Otherwise, humans are going to have to be in the loop at some point. They have a 700 tops

system up from 508 tops for the onboard computer. And Xiaomi has a FSD competitor in China called

Hawi Autonomous Driving. I might actually check it out next month. I might be going to China.

Oh, interesting. I was just going to say, are they coming to Canada?

Not yet. I don't, I think BYD, GD and so forth or GD are going to be first.

I don't think Xiaomi has the bandwidth for it just now. They still don't have the capacity

for production capacity just for China. So they are focusing on that market. But yeah,

Beijing auto show coming up next month. So I might go check it out.

They updated the safety, they added more airbags. They had quite a few crashes that

made the news in China. A lot has to do too with the car just crazy powerful, like people are not

using that kind of power and they crash it, but you know, they have to come through that with

better safety. The prices went up. So we have a lot more capacity, but the prices went up. The

standard now is 229,000 yen up by 10,000 yen, but it's still $33,000 base price. And then if you

want the max that's 309,000 yen up also 10,000, $44,000, which is still like, I mean,

between you, it would be, I would like to have like, we just talked about the I3, I would like

to have a comparison between the I3 and this, like the max I3 and then let's say the base,

let's say the max Su7 and the base I3, which is $16,000 more.

And see a comparison. I think I would probably have to go with the Su7 Max with those specs.

For the price, for sure. Yeah. The $16,000 difference is not little. And they all come

with LiDAR. They also have LiDAR and radar sensors, four millimeter wave radar sensors.

All right. Two more news item. And when you jump into the comment section to talk to you guys,

so if you guys have a question for us, I see already pretty many people

are in the comment section. But if you have a question, you can put them down with staff

sometimes to get to them. So I don't know if you've been following the war in Iran,

pretty depressing stuff, but one of the direct consequences other than, you know,

the people affected in the region is the no more global consequence is the oil prices have

been shooting up, hovering around $100 a barrel and often threatening to go much higher. I think

it peak at 120 at some point and then went back down quickly, but still around 30% more than

they were before the war two weeks ago. And this is impacting everyone, not just everyone that has

a car, but everyone that everything is on a truck at some point in those those gas prices

are affecting the price of transport of everything. But when it comes to people having to go to the

gas pump, pumping gas, it's especially frustrating. And then you see your neighbor arriving home

without having to stop at a gas station and just parking with their car. And it's it makes you think

and BYD is apparently one of the biggest benefactor of this, especially in Asia, because a lot of

especially China and Asia in general, is getting a lot of their petroleum from from Iran. And

they are specifically worried about not just the higher prices right now, but just the supply

capacity overall. And China has been moving rapidly into being being 100% electric by 2035.

But now it's making people think that they want to be in that transition sooner rather than later

because you don't want to be stuck with a car that runs on something that you cannot import

anymore. And BYD is noting now that there was a report in Bloomberg this week that

pulled some salesman across across Asia, the Philippines, Thailand and China. And the report

that their showrooms are just buzzing with people, they're being extremely busy right now.

And you're citing the gas crisis as a reason why

makes sense. Yep. I think we're going to see a lot more of that before this is over.

All right, a quick update on the land. Nothing crazy again this week, the last two weeks. So

for people who have been following the lab miracle battery that's supposed to have 100,000 cycles,

400 watt hour per kilogram of energy density charges in five minutes.

First state battery in production in the production vehicle. And on the let's see yesterday

this year, and supposedly going to be inside the verge more cycles shipped by the end of the quarter,

which is a week and a half away at this point. So something's going to happen that has to happen

now. And over the last month, month and a half, what they've been doing to try to build credibility

is they've been releasing test results, specifically independent testing from VTT lab in Finland,

every week to show like, Hey, we have a real capacity on this, real capacity on that. However,

a lot of those things that the independently verified are not the biggest claim about the

battery, which are repeat or 100,000 cycles, and the energy density. Last week was, I think,

discharge, a little discharge like phantom drain on a certain temperature or something like that,

which was not that it was pretty good, but not that impressive either. This week, what they did

is that they actually claim to have one of those battery pack inside a verge motorcycle and they

brought them verge motorcycle for charging at a charging station and they charge it at five C 100

kilowatts for five minutes straight. And the the posted the video with the full cycle,

which is, you know, which is good, it's arguably a game sheet and not that many

motorcycle can energy motorcycle can charge DC fast charge at that rate. So that that's good.

I think also the clear claim is that there's no active cooling. Yeah, so so yeah, it's air

cooled. So it's not there's no active liquid cooling in there. And when you start getting to

100 kilowatt charging, normally, you would see liquid cooling, preconditioning the battery pack

and all that you don't need that in this, which is obviously a great advantage. So that is impressive

in itself, but we cannot confirm it really. But my main thing with that test that was not

too impressed is that it's the standard 18 18 kilowatt hour battery pack, I think.

Yeah, 18 kilowatt hour battery pack in there. So is there a smaller pack? The impressive thing

with the doughnut lab is that supposedly it's going to enable due to its extremely high energy

density, both volumetric and weight related, a 30 kilowatt hour back inside a motorcycle,

which is huge, and that's unable 270 miles of range. This is not that apparently this is the

18 kilowatt hour pack. So a little bit less impressive. And like I said, the clock is

ticking on them. So they need to do something within the next week and a half. Otherwise,

you're going to start losing credibility fast.

All right, let's jump into the comment section. All right. Question before the show. How big do

you think the operating fleet of Tesla is cars sold and still operating? Who do you think is the

next runner up by brand? I think that assuming they want to know how many EV like entire fleet?

Yeah, it's a couple million, right? More than that. It's like 10 closing in on 10 million at this

point. Well, why? I think yeah, they've been producing a few million per year for like five

years now or so. And it's closer to two million a year in the last three years. So yeah, it's

so are they asking operating fleet? So how many are left? How many have been like, not that many

are like other than the cars that crash and everything, but I still have my one of the first

Tesla ever produced all on the first real like not the Roadster. That was like more put together

from a Lotus. But I still have a model S 2012. So that's one of the very first Tesla is still on

the road. So though I'm kind of we just had the computer failed again. They're running out of

those things? No, they're still they didn't upgrade for it. And but we already did upgrade it like a

few years ago with the damn CU change because it had the memory issue and it kept crashing.

So I need to go back to look at my service history because I'm curious how long it lasted.

All right. Top of the evening, your biggest Ken Power fan and now Lucid fan to Cosmos will be wild.

Cosmos is the is that is the cheaper? Yeah, the cheaper Lucid.

All right, Carl says Elon took a huge government tax break in New York for that flop of a giga

factory there. They are making some superchargers. Yeah, now they are in good standing with the

New York government. So the New York government had to deal with them that they had to maintain a

certain level of employment. And if they did, they had access to the factory basically rent

free or so. Yeah, first of the number of years tax free. Yeah. So a an account from Facebook,

a real account called RJ scurringe. You know, it really frustrates me that they got rid of the

verified badge. Like they just totally made it like wouldn't that be great if you could actually

verify? I don't I don't imagine that RJ is jumping in our yeah, he's welcome on the podcast whenever

he wants though we'd love to talk to him. Yeah, yeah. All right, Jesse SCA 77 sorry if it's a

repeat how do you see the US war on Iran affecting EVs and renewable energy in general? Are we seeing

any going on already due to it? I think it's positive for EVs and renewable energy. But

this is one of those who are too early to tell how big an impact I think. Yeah, it depends on how

long it lasts. But every time humans they forget quick. So even even if it doesn't last, which I

hope it doesn't last just for the benefit of everyone, it should be in your mind that this

can happen like just a few geopolitical things happen. It's not a small one, but it's still

there's a lot of ball necks in oil that can affect oil prices. And politics are involved,

which is also true to electricity prices. However, you cannot have your own gas pump at home for

the most part. I'm sure some rich people do it. So like some like wealthy crazy wealthy people for

the most part. Yeah, you cannot do that. But you know, set right now is inside a house that's

powered by solar with solar on top. And you know, that goes into his EVs. And if the electricity

rates go up next year, it just doesn't change anything for him. And that a lot of people can do

that this is accessible to, you know, not everyone, it's not exactly cheap, but it's also a lot more

accessible to more people. And in general, even if you don't have a home, if you have a rent or

whatever, electricity rates, even though they can vary, they're a lot more stable than gas prices in

general. So people should just remember that and think about their next CVs being the next

carbon electric. And I think a lot of people will do that regardless of all on this last,

but also a lot of people as soon as the prices go down, they forget about it and like, let's go

fill up my giant diesel truck. Yeah. And for all the crazy preppers out there, like,

it's going to be a lot easier to generate electricity in the Mad Max Armageddon land than

it is to refine, you know, fossil fuels. Yeah, gas doesn't last that long.

No, it's Mars. Yeah. All your solar panels gonna last like, they're warranted for like 20 years,

but they can last like 40 years, whatever. Yep.

All right. Some tariffs on China were illegal. Some stayed. Yeah.

A question of the verge motorcycles using donut batteries still being delivered this month.

I think that's a supposedly right? Yeah, we're still, we're still out of a week and a half to see.

All right. And then I3 will be sick as a wagon. We didn't talk about that. Is there a wagon version

of the engine? Yeah, I think so. I think there's a wagon coming. Yeah, shooting break or whatever

they call those cool things. That would be actually a pretty sweet car.

It'd be like kind of like a Taycan Cross Turismo or whatever. All right. I had an old I3 and it was

amazing. Part of me wishes they'd bring it back with the same design. Yeah. So there's, so the I3

original design was very, to put it nicely, polarizing, polarizing. And there are people

who love that design. Suicide doors and all. Obviously, everybody who loves it didn't have

to drop off kids at school from the back seat because you have to open the front door to open

the back door. That was my big gripe. So yeah, the size was interesting. It might be maybe

Jesse's in Europe. I don't know. I don't know a lot of her pen liked it. Like it was not too big,

not too small. I know I have the only time I've driven it actually was in Barcelona. And I was,

I was happy to have, you know, kind of, you have a feeling of being a little bit tall in the vehicle

while still, you know, being manageable in the city that's, you know, whole roads and all that.

So yeah, it's an interesting car. Yeah, it's pretty similar to the Bolt actually. You know,

obviously different tires, but similar form factor. All right. Carl, my disappointment with the I3

is that it's using over 100 kilowatt battery. Carl, I think you're in the minority there. I think

people like the big battery. We need to shrink them, not grow them, not sustainable to inflate

with every generation. I think they are shrinking the size of the battery per kilowatt hour. We're

getting more dense energy efficient batteries. So it's not necessarily growing linearly.

I agree with Carl as a principle, like we efficiency is way better than just jamming

more batteries inside our car. But in most market, especially in the US, you're still trying to convince

people to go electric. And it's easier to convince them with longer range. And then after they are

hooked on EVs, you're like, Hey, do you realize right now you don't need 400 miles of range every

day in your car? It doesn't make sense. You're better off with a more efficient, smaller battery pack

with fast charging capacity. That's going to enable you to do long distance travel while being on a

day to day basis a lot more efficient in your travels. I agree. All right. And they're dropping

the I4 so that sucks. Yeah, the I4 was a good car. I enjoyed that, but it was actually shockingly good

for basically doing no work. They just pulled out the engine and threw in an electric drivetrain.

So it was actually amazingly good for the amount of effort they put in. But I think a purpose

built EV is going to be much more. It was expensive, though, wasn't it too? Yeah, it was expensive as

well. And a little bit bigger than the I3 obviously. Tesla will be the last to enter. I think we're

just talking about fuel cell driving. Skeptic says, imagine telling somebody in 1975 that one of the

youths of the 21st century would be taxis. I can't help but think all this taxi stuff will

struggle to find demand. I don't know. The idea of a robot taxi seems like it will have a lot of

utility. Yeah, I see that. But I think if you look, it's like anything like the AI race right

now, there's some good use to it, there's some obvious good use to it, and then there's some

trashy use to it. But when you're in a sector, you like to inflate the impact. Everyone in Silicon

Valley says that their product is going to revolutionize the world. This is like a whole

meme really. And I think a lot of people are doing that with taxis, with robot taxis, Elon being the

main perpetrator, obviously. But compared to that, I understand Skeptic's point of view, where

there is clear benefit to it. But in terms of the actual overall demand, if you look,

you have to look closely at the current ride-ailing market, which is significant,

but not growing at an insane pace anymore. So we seem to be closer to a plateau. And then you look,

how much can we realistically reduce the cost of that by removing the driver? And then as we reduce

the cost of that, just how much more growth can we get? I think it's smaller than everyone that is

in this sector, like Elon, and where else is the big proponent of that? Even way more, I think,

is being a lot more realistic about this thing. And people love already the experience. So there's

dual benefits, I think, because people that are using way more now prefer it to the average

Uber experience. So there's an advantage there, but it's expensive right now, and the price will

come down. So as it comes down, obviously, it's going to be way more popular, and it's going to

swallow ride-ailing at some point. But is it going to, how much more can it grow ride-ailing? I just

probably like a 2x maybe, 3x? I don't know. But not like 10x, like Elon claims right now.

Right. Do you think RJ is following Elon off the cliff of moving towards full autonomy,

robotaxis, and now robotics? I think Rivian makes great vehicles that people want to drive.

Yeah, I think Rivian's really focusing mostly on upping production and getting the R2 lineup,

and eventually R3 lineup going. But they're also, as you would have to do, moving toward autonomy

and robotaxies. Yeah, there's a lot of people right now that will tell you, myself included,

if I'm buying a car right now, I would want to have autopilot in it. I will have to have a very

advanced driver assistance system in it. It is useful. I see benefits in it. I know there's

ton of problems with them, but the way I use it, I think I'm safe how I use it, and I enjoy it.

It makes driving longer distances, especially on the highway easier, more relaxed. I arrive home

a little bit more relaxed. I think there's an advantage of that. So he knows that if he wants

to sell a lot of cars, especially with the R2, that's going to be a more mass market vehicle,

it would be an advantage for him to have that and compete on that front. I think that's it.

And robotaxies, like if you're doing that, they might as well aim for the highest level possible,

and then we see a get there. So I don't think easily. With Tesla, the problem is that we've seen

Tesla making compromise on the driving experience, on the features inside the vehicles,

because they thought autonomy was around the corner. Have we seen that from Rivian? I don't,

not that I know of, nothing that I can think of. So to answer your question, I don't think so. And

then the robotics part, so that he's referring to mind robotics, that's panna of Rivian. I mean,

I think, I think that's just smart business where they, they're not doing humanoid robots,

or anything like that, like Tesla, they are, they develop it some robotic technology for their own

manufacturing. They're like, Hey, this is actually something that other companies could use. So

they're spinning that off so that they can actually sell that to people. That's it. I don't, I think,

I don't, not a concern for me, going to RJ. All right. My thing's a little frozen here. All right.

Here we go. I3 is a Model 3 killer, 550 miles of range, 50k price range. I would wonder what the

300 miles range I3 would cost 400 ish and the I3X with almost 500 miles range.

I wouldn't say it's a Model 3 killer just because the price is a lot higher.

Yeah, it's closer to 60 to start. Right. But you're right though, if they have like a 300 mile

ones, rear wheel drive, 40? Yeah. Now you start to take away a lot of that, you know, premium

Model 3 stuff. Carl says, Volvo dumping, what is essentially a new, barely started model is a

huge problem for them. I've seen zero EX 30s in San Diego. That's funny. I just saw an EX 30 maybe

like an hour ago here in New York. And I need to get back. Yeah. And they're, you know, they're

all wheel drive. So maybe something you don't really need in San Diego is all wheel drive.

All right. BMW look like 100k cars, but half price. I'm glad Honda canceled the 100k

electric Sony cars that would be a massive flop against Rivian R2, Lucid Cosmo, BMW I3 IX,

who would pay 100k? Is it canceled? The Sony Fila is done. I hadn't heard that actually.

Yeah, that's news to me. I need to check out. Elon told people a car could drive by site yet

that car didn't have a front bumper camera to see directly in front of it. Now he started

a group think nonsense about humanoids. Yeah, Elon's got some issues to that for sure.

I checked out the I3 subreddit and all the I3 owners are pissed. They slapped the name on that

new car. Oh, come on, people, they can, they can do whatever they want with that. Like

all right, do we have estimates outside Google searches if EVs are selling better in the US 2022

Google searches is not how you get. Yeah, it wouldn't be. There's so many factors. I'm sure that

it's helping right now. But from what we saw for the first like few months of the year,

in the US cells are basically like half of what they were last year for EVs. I'm sure March is

always better anyway. So maybe March catches up a little bit. And then what happened with the gas

prices helping to skeptic says it'll be ironic if Trump's reckless stupidity ends up being a

bigger factor for the EV adoption than the tax credits he canceled out of spite. That's a great

point. I agree. Yeah. Maybe maybe especially with the timing when you think about it because

the timing for like boosted EV cells quite a bit in Q3 last year, and Q4 wasn't that bad because of

the you know, they were really relaxed on the rules of like, finally, if you add the hoarder

and place a deposit, then you can get deliveries whenever you want. So Q4 wasn't that bad either.

And now Q1 2026, where it would have really hurt, you have gas crisis also engineered by

mistake by Trump. So yeah, there's a there's a definitely an argument to be made there.

All right, we got some diesel truck stuff here. But let's move on. Yep. Need those sweet mcs from

Tesla and Ken Power. All right, we got the Ken Power guy in here. We're talking about diesel. I

do ring dips to Fred. Great chest and try workout. Oh, about my plastic equipment. Yeah, it was a

GSB product right there. Great product. I don't know about the oil infrastructure, but the two

sides have already destroyed 17% of the natural gas production capacity. I read it will take decades

to bring some of that back online. Yeah, natural gas was hit pretty hard this week. Yeah.

It's not just the petroleum. All right, my next TV will have vehicle to load unlike my model three.

Yeah, Tesla's really late on that. Yeah, I think I think they have it right now. The hardware is

there. And everything is just, you know, letting people use it. Yeah. BMW never brings their wagons

here. That's true. That's sad point. original i3 was sweet. We rented one for a wedding as gas and

bride was mad at us because we got all the attention. Yeah, I'm going to find out that like

didn't happen. Hopefully the bride was better looking than the EVs were super rare back then.

Excellent city car. But Fred, your stance on initiating folks on big batteries is like

indoctrinating them on SUVs and then asking them to move to station wagons. You're indoctrinating,

Fred. Yeah, I mean, I think it's still better that they go electric with a bigger batch back

than not going electric. So I think that's the main point I'm trying to make here. Yeah. And I

think it's easier after that to tell them like, all right, did you realize how often you actually

need the front of my range? By then to like right now, maybe they can make the argument that

oh, infrastructure where I need to go is not there right now to support a shorter range

to get me to get there with faster charging. But then in a few years, maybe when they need their

next car, the infrastructure is a little more deployed by then and it starts to make sense. So

there's a, I think getting them to drive electric is more important than getting them to drive a

super efficient electric vehicle. But I understand the sentiment, Carla, I'm with you. I mean,

I'm not that terror, like I dropped like I'm lost $10,000 investing in that terror, fully knowing

that there was most likely than not to happen, but wanting wanting to encourage hyper efficient

vehicles. So yeah, I think I'm definitely with you on that. And people need a way to get into

EVs. You can't just go from gas to EV very efficiently. So there's two ways in my opinion

to do it. One is, you know, plug in hybrid. That's how I did it. I had a plug in Prius,

you know, I had like 12 miles of EV range. But like, you know, once you once you get comfortable

with 12 miles of EV range, then pretty much any car is great. And then the other way is

with a bigger battery than you actually need. So there's, there's more.

Yeah. And efficiency is going to improve overall anyway, with more better batteries,

like even, even an automaker that doesn't do anything for like, let's say BMW is like, we're

done, we're done working on EVs. This is all I three is the best we got. BMW is not meeting the

cells in those batteries, the cells are going to get better, more energy, more energy, energy

dense, and then lighter, they can put fewer of them in there. And I achieve the same range,

the efficiency improve, like it's going in the right direction. The important thing is going

in the right direction. And then yes, there's things you can do to get there faster. But

there's also going in the wrong direction, which is the US is always on the verge of doing when

it comes to EVs, because you know, 10% take rate right now on new car cells is just,

is just abysmal for an advanced nation like the US. There is third world countries that are

adopting EVs faster in the US, with with way bigger infrastructure issues and all that. So

yeah, also happened just today too, like Mexico, XPANG is going to Mexico right now. So

soon enough, like the US is going to be surrendered by EV, EV nations, all electric nation. So let's

see, let's see if the gas crisis does help right now. Otherwise, I don't have my hopes up.

All right, I think it's ironic that a new i3 goes 440 miles, but needs super fast charging. Pick

one. Well, I think the bigger battery packs allow for faster charging. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a pick

one, like a lot of automakers are like to like, why are you making like family vehicle drive 0 to

16 2.5 seconds? Like, well, I mean, you want the range? Well, the range also comes with a lot of

power. So might as well give you access to that power. So I think it's more a consequence than a

choice. Last thing is my i3 was when I lived in Utah, snow tires made it amazing in the snow,

maybe BMW will hear the cries and bring back something like that. That's interesting because

the i3 had some of the thinnest tires I've ever seen on a vehicle, although it was rear wheel drive,

one of the big differences with the bolts. But yeah, I don't think I've ever recommended the i3

for snow. Yeah. I mean, it's basically bicycle tires like this, this thing right here.

Yeah, but it was a fun vehicle. So we're not we're not crashing it. This is yeah, I agree with

you. All right, well, that's it for the electric podcast this week. I hope you enjoyed the show.

If you did, please give us a like a subscribe on whatever app you're watching. If you're listening

on your podcast app and you do enjoy listening to us, you can give us a five star rating if you

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when you do it. We're going to see you same time, same place next week. Have a good one.

Tesla turns to energy, BMW i3 EV makes a splash, Donut Lab update, and more

BMW i3

Xiaomi SU7

Rivian R2

Lucid Gravity

Hyundai Ioniq

Rolls-Royce Phantom

Porsche Taycan

Buick Century

Tesla Model 3

Cosmos Lucid Cosmo

Tesla My Model

Toyota Prius

About this episode

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