What is the Tesla Cybercab? | Tesla Motors Club Podcast #63

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the Tesla Motors Club podcast.

My name is Seb.

I'mMike.

I'm Doug.

And I'm Louis.

On today's episode,chock full with good content.

We're going to talk about the highlightsfrom the most recent Tesla earnings call.

We're going to talk about theintroduction of the cyber cab andthe recall of the cyber truck.

We're going to talk about the new modelthree performance and Tesla licensing.

FSD episode 63 starts now.

Hello.

Good to see you guysin true Tesla fashion.

We're starting late,butit'svery nice to see you.

Tesla.

Time.

I know duck turn up the EDM.

Yeah.

Why did we start late,Seb?

Oh,disclose that.

Thanks.

Somebody had to reboot their machine.

Hmm.

Well,alright.

Chock full of nuts.

I'm not kidding, right?

There's lotsofgood stuff that cameout of the earnings callresults, maybe not so positive.

We'll dig into that in a little bit.

, but catch me out.

What's new guys, Doug.

I know , you're to talk about thenew, , cyber cap announcement,Cybercab.

, there's nothing so specialabout it except that.

It's a name that Elon droppedduring the call, We've all beeninformally calling it the robo taxi.

I guess they've been calling it robo taxi.

It's funny cause it calls back to.

A random time where Elon was walking withsomeone and someone had a camera going andElon mentioned the model X and that wasthe first time anyone heard the model X.

And what would that be?

, and it would be, you know,a crossover SUV type thing.

And so he's referred to therobo taxi as a cyber cab.

Does it tell us somethingabout what this vehicle is?

, does it relate to the cyber truck?

Is the thing going to be stainless steel?

Is it going to have stylingthat looks like the cyber truck?

He said he wants the futureto look like the futures.

He wants this thing to look futuristic.

We saw the drawings out of theIsaacson, Isaacson book, whichto me, weren't that great.

little three wheel go-kart.

Yeah.

First of all,yeah,the future as envisionedin the 1980s is not the future.

So I'm sorry.

I just, I couldn't hold itin.

CauseAnd I'll reiterate also thatfuture was a dystopian future.

Right.

much soso,I don't know, really whatElon has in mind, but it doesfeel a little bit, , juvenile.

to me, form should follow function.

And so if, they're able to dothat, then maybe it'll be okay.

But , again, the drawings wesaw to me don't look so great.

It looks like a little three wheel twoseater, , a two seater maybe does makesense in terms of efficiency or something,but anyway, just calling it cyber.

Does it mean it's goingto be stainless steel?

We would expect you wouldhave things like the 48 volt,,architecture.

Is it bullet resistant?

to me, that's the kindof thing that's a waste.

, butif It's using the same stainlesssteel, then, that's just somethingthat comes along with it.

, so, yeah, I don't know.

, it's very clear that Elon is, puttingmost of the eggs in that basket.

And he pretty much said, , if you don'tbelieve in Tesla autonomy, you , probablyshouldn't be an investor in Tesla.

Which is the kind of thinghe's said in the past, really.

, are you good enough?

Are you good enough tobe an investor in Tesla?

you want to be part of that club?

,Seb: I have to ask a questioncall just because I've been busy.

So are they saying that the cybercab and the model two, is thatgoing to be the same vehicle?

Is the cyber cap, a different vehicle?

, I guess that's the partthat a lot of people may be.

Wondering about, right?

takeaway?

Yeah, I It's not so clear.

, Mike and I talked about it on theprevious show, , because therewas, the media trying to interpretrumors, , there's a sense that the modeltoo, , Or what we've been calling thatlower cost vehicle, is that canceled?

, my sense is it's maybe the same thing.

, like they're both at the same time.

But it is a bit of a reversal, again,from the Isaacson book, we got the sensethat, people were able to convinceElon let's make it the same platform.

And, we'll get the lowercost vehicle out sooner.

But unclear to me what's theorder, like what's happening, , andis that cyber cab, essentiallysomething without a steering wheel?

My guess is they're stillon the same platform.

Is that, , it's going to comeout sooner, , perhaps by theend of this year or next year.

I doubt that's going to happen,but that's , the fire that Elonlights under his employees,partially by firing a bunch of them.

10 percent that's a few.

so we'll see.

, another thing is that it's goingto be on the same productionline as the 3 and the Y.

So does that mean perhapsthey've scaled back?

Some of the,the stainlesssteel and all theother.

cause you would think it's not going tolook like originally the early rumorswere like model two is going to look alot like the cyber truck just scaled down.

Right.

And I agree, if we're now talking about,it's going to be model three, modelYproductionso , go back further, Louis.

I mean, the original cyber cab robotaxi was going to be your model three'soff lease, which is why you couldn'tbuy your model three off lease.

Good point.

So, it's a C change,whatever it's going to be.

I would hope though that it would atleast be an aerodynamic design, , whichthe Cybertruck does not really evoke.

, you wantit tobeefficient.

If it's a robo taxi cab thingybob, it's going to be in town primarily.

Aerodynamics are not that much of aconcern.

Passenger capacity is a concern.

Luggage is aconcern.

I wouldthink, , if you want it to be lowercosts and you can get away with fewercells, or less battery capacity,you can say,, you want it to be a more efficientand to me, I'm not sold on the,boxiness , of the cyber truck.

So, but does it just turninto a cheaper model three?

, is it essentially a modelthree that's stripped out orsomething?

could see that onthe same line easy enough.

What I can't see is them buildingwhatever a model two is on the sameline as a three in my mind, that'dbe very disruptive to the workflow.

, you tend to tune your lines tomake assemblies quick, easy, andoptimized and switching models.

Midstream strikes meas a bit of a bad idea.

what do we think as far asthe innovation in the cyber truckthat we'd expect to be pulled down?

The 48 volt,forexample, I think makes a lot of sense.

There was a lot of innovation in.

, not having to paint in,potentially streamlining, , withyour giga castings, reducing.

Parts for assembly, stuff like that.

So I'm wondering what else youguys think we're going to seein the model two slash cybercab,Four wheel steering would be nice.

Yeah.

That'd be awesome in a cab tobe able to maneuver in and outof really tight parking areason, , street parking and whatnot.

Probably tough to doat that lower price point.

Right.

I think Mike, I feel like I askedyou that question a couple of podcastsago, what's going to be so materiallydifferent about the model two comparedto the three that would allow them tosell it at a much lower price, right?

Like what other leversit's the battery capacity,Your battery capacity would beone, but I think if you could do agigacasting for the whole chassis,I think that'd be a second one.

Because right now you got a front and backcasting and the battery's in the middle.

If it is a smaller vehicle,particularly if it's twoseater type thing, that might besomething they can get away with.

I tend to think four wheel steeringbecomes less necessary if thething is pretty small, but steer bywire might still make some sense in termsof,costless parts, less stuff.

fewer parts,And by smaller, you'rethinking BMW i3 smaller.

Isn't that really smaller?

,Seb: It's pretty small.

prettysmall.

it's short.

, yeah, I would guess a shorter wheelbase.

and then that gives you, , lessspace for batteries too.

Unless you stack them up.

fewer space.

No, I'm sorry.

This joke is going too far.

.

Seb: The other question I have,question about the cyber capis what kind of vehicle is it?

The other question, andI want to go to Lewis.

Is part of it is the software, right?

They showed off the appas a nice prototype.

It's probably going to look prettyclose when it's released to whatthey've shown in those pictures,because they have a tendency to do that.

But I've seen tons of posts onReddit where people used summon.

In a parking lot at the grocery storeand the thing hits the curb or it,you know, it just hits another carSo here's the question, Louis, firstof all, what do we think about thetrajectory of FSD to make it reallyreliable that it could drive by itself?

But also would you have yourcar just driving around likethat completely unsupervised?

I would be scared to letit drive through my town.

Yeah, with you.

I would be scared as well.

I don't expect them to do robo taxiwhere it's people's cars immediately.

, I know that's the goal.

The plan is that , your own car,you can put it into the fleet.

I imagine there's gotta be somerestrictions and limitations becauseas we see right now, even with FSD,you're going to have to restrictamount of parking lots or likeother things that it can drive into.

Right?

It's probably going to haveto be, you can only go to thestreet, ? To minimize hitting things.

, is FSD going to be good enough?

And how soon?

I mean, we've already doneour predictions, right?

I think we're a few yearsaway, atleast,To me, there aretwo main aspects of it.

For your own vehicle, ? It's your

stuff and how much you're able totolerate people messing up your car.

We've already TNC seen plenty ofhorror stories with people thatRent their carsout onTuro.

the other thing is liability.

, the only way robo taxi or cybercab or any of this works isTesla taking that liability.

it's, their software.

once Tesla is willing to do that, , we'llsee if that makes sense, , to shiftjust a little bit, Mercedes, , issupposedly having their autonomousvehicle, which is certified level 3 ona very limited amount of, situationswhere you don't have to look at the road.

But you would think that only worksMercedes is willing to take liability,inthat instance.

we talked about this last year whenit first came up and Mercedes announced,then they were going to take liability.

And I haven't seenanything since then to sayotherwise,.

Doug: it needs to be so clearly. , if you look at Twitter, which

is, primarily, Tesla fans,They're upset that, Mercedes gets to claimthis because it's such a minor thing.

, and their estimation, I wouldlike Tesla to do something similar.

Okay.

Define some strict parameters lessthan 30 miles an hour on specifiedhighways and put it in the software.

You don't have to lookat the screen right now.

Whatever.

And Tesla's taking liability.

, that's the part.

I don't expect Tesla to do Tesla.

I think is so much on passing thebuck in terms of the liability, andthis is why competition is good.

Maybe with Mercedes doing the step,I feel like Tesla's already there andthey just need to be ready to say, okay,we'll take the liability in this space.

Just what needs to be clear isthat we're in those conditions.

Then, Tesla should be able to do that.

It's just that whenever there'san accident, Tesla makes a pointof it not being an FSD or you'resupposed to be in control.

, if Tesla could, , make that step now, ifyou believe in it so much, go ahead andtake the liability, go ahead and do it.

But, , we need to knowwhen those times are.

I would agree.

Tesla has a running historyof not taking responsibility.

I think they're going to start feelingthe pressure now that Mercedes has got theofficial certification for level three.

It's not that impressive asfar as like, I agree with you, Doug.

I think Tesla's is.

Yeah.

At the same point as where Mercedesis with, yeah, under the conditionsof driving slow on a highway.

, yeah, , I actually trust my car.

I trust FSD to do that effectively.

The liability being the concern, I don'tthink they're going to be willing to do itsoon after just because Mercedes did it.

I think they're going tokeep doing what they plan.

, so will we see that kindof, liability claim this year?

Probably not would be my guess from Tesla.

I think they're going to keep pushingfor, , improving FSD in a widerrange, most of their work thatthey're doing is not on highway atthis point, It's all city driving.

yeah, Ethan, commented in the chat.

, I don't think Tesla feels anypressure based on this announcement.

I agree with you, Ethan.

, there are some people that willprobably care more about howthe press is portraying it.

so I definitely think will react inthat way, but I don't think they'relike, Oh man, Mercedes did this.

We need to do thisWell, I don't think that'sentirely true, Lewis, because firstthey said they were going to not dothe small version of the Tesla, versiontwo or whatever you want to call it.

All of a sudden they backed out of thatand said, Oh yes, we're going to doit, but it's going to be a robo taxi.

Something pushed themthat other direction.

And also Mercedes pops up andsays, Hey, guess what guys?

We're certified level three,Well, I, think what pushedthem in that direction was , thefact that, , sales are down , andjust , the reality of, , the macroenvironment right now for EVs.

So, They're trying to recover faster,getting the lower price vehicles.

They've been cutting their own prices.

I would say one thing about it thatwould be difficult for Tesla to dowhat I was suggesting in terms of,having those strictly defined momentsis that, already the promise has beenmore than what has been delivered.

for years.

So, , there could be theperception that they just need todo everything all at once becausethat's what they promised years ago.

, and for them to define a specificset of circumstances might admittoo much that they're not actuallywhere they're supposed to be.

Yes.

And I would say Tesla has been uniqueout of all the automakers in thatthey oversold the level of autonomy.

And at the same time, kind of chastisedpeople that got stuck in accidents orother situations and kind of pointedat them saying, well, I mean, it'syour fault, you shouldn't have maybeused it or trusted it too much.

And at the same time, how long hasit been called full self driving?

When did that term come out?

it came out , in responseto autopilot, not being whatautopilot was supposed to be.

And, it's, been used so longthat the words have no meaning,Yes.

self driving.

Supervised.

Right.

And now it's supervised.

within the name now is a contradiction.

cause full self driving shouldmean that it is driving on itsown and it doesn't need to besupervised.

So, that's.

a conundrum of their own making.

Now here's a feature that wouldmake me want to use the cyber cab though.

Imagine you've got the apppulled up, you had a red lightand there's a launch button.

Wouldn't that be awesome in thecyber beast or the plaid and youcanjustHave a plaid cab.

plaid cab.

What, if they charge you likefive bucks every time you hit thebutton?

Yeah, might be worthitonce or twice.

Would you still hit it?

That's good.

Well, speaking of performance.

They just announced not really , withgreat fanfare, I would say, butthere's definitely been a coupleof, new commercials on YouTube.

I saw there's been emails.

I think Doug, they'recomingafter you to ask you to upgrade.

It's on the website.

Long story short, new modelthree performance is out.

We talked about it a few times, ? When

. the new version of the model three,

the Highland code name came out.

We knew the performance hadn'tbeen announced at the time.

Now it's out.

So what do you guys think?

was it worth the wait?

How does it look to you?

What's everybody thinking?

It'sSo as far as I know, I don't thinkany actual deliveries has happened.

We've seen, , test drives frompeople like Marcus Brownlee, andothers, , and you can order itnow.

Yes, you can.

don't, know that anyonehas, necessarily gotten it yet.

we've seen bits before, oflike the special seats that itmight have,It's ventilated seats now.

Well, , ventilated seatscame along with the upgrade, I testdrove like a couple months ago andI had the ventilated seats, , butthese seats have more bolstering.

They're basically sporty seatsludicrous, , which is, Spaceballsversion , of Star Wars makingand jump the hyperspace.

To me.

That looks a little goofy.

Actually, it's like inset in the seat.

Yeah,but, I think theysaid, uh, 0 to 60 and 2.

9, which is prettyimpressive.

Yeah, it is.

Seb alluded to it.

I did get an email this morning.

They're really trying to sell those carsI did a test drive like some months agoand they're like, Hey, what do you think?

I feel very shamed.

I've got two model threes.

I didn't get anemail.

well specifically, I dida test drive of the new one.

And they're still trying to sell it to me.

my conclusion at the time was it's nice,especially the ventilated seats, but notdifferent enough from my existing car.

And even right now, , I like FSD.

I use it quite a bit.

, but I still haven't gotten what I paidfor with FSD in terms of , the promise.

And, , it was directlyasked at this earnings call.

Would you, havepermanent, , transferable FSD?

just straight up said no.

Even though they've done it at least twicenow, , allowing, , you to transfer FSD.

But, anyway, it looks good.

I'm not sure there's muchelse to say about it.

It looks good.

Theperformance isgood.

Oh, come on.

They got a whole page of stuff about it.

They've got new improved suspension.

They'vegot new improved quietness on the doors.

Andand they, put out a commercialand stuff and that whole advertisingteam has, , since been, laidoff.

yeah,thanks for your work.

Appreciate it.

It's funny on, , Twitter, , onceit was announced, they're laid off.

. What is up with these people?

Everybody was saying, oh yeah,they were crappy ads anyway.

Oh, , they were so generic and even Elonwas like, yeah, it looked like you'readvertising any car as opposed to aTesla, you know, it's got to be special.

Okay.

Except they're using it.

Okay.

Yeah.

But you're using it.

And when it first showed up, thefolks that, oh, that looks great.

And then you find outthose people are fired.

Ah, well, they didn't do, such a greatjobanyway.

The life of a fanboy.

The mob can befickle.

Indeed.

Well, Mike, youcertainly have, uh,, Some goodappreciation for gas cars, right?

So I think somebody mentionedthere was a reviewer.

I think it was Jason Kamisa,didn't he say that now that thenew model three performance isout, there's no need anymore forthe BMW That sounded like a prettybigstatement to me.

That's a pretty bold statement. Different strokes, different folks.

There are people that reallylike pure speed , and Teslacan deliver that in spades.

Look at Lewis, you know,he's got himself a plaid.

He gets out there and just tearsthings up despite what he says.

But there's also the otherside of the coin where peoplereally enjoy the hands on,shift through technology.

Theshifter here, thenoise.

I do miss mystickI can imagine.

And I would miss the noiseof, really winding up gettingsome revs out of the motor.

So it really dependswhat you want out of it.

I don't think it's the end of the M three.

Hardly.

It may change the M three.

It may not, Germans are kind offickleabout that.

take the Jay Leno approach for that.

, there'll be space forthose cars for a while.

, you know, a lot of those sportscars are becoming automaticsthesedays, which is terrible to me.

That's true.

Six, seven, eight speeds.

Yeah.

even if they have discretegears to shift into, it's happeningautomatically with the computer.

, so a lot of that, , involvement, , theengagement , of driving , , Like,already that third pedal's gone, right?

, maybe you're paddle shifting.

Once you've gone that far, Ithink probably the Model 3 mightbe better than that M3, you know?

, it's a preference thing.

Certainly.

, my own experience was, , hada Miata for many years.

Of course, it's not an M3, but it'sa really fun car for the price.

And I got that BMW i3 and then of asudden a year later, I'm like, gee,I haven't driven that Miata becausethe, that little i3 actually hadbetter performance, than the Miata.

Then again, when I got the Miata ready tosell, I'm like, man, this is a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun toroll through those gears.

So, you know, as long as they're stillmaking them, , make them more expensive.

We're talking about the future, , makeit a thing that, is sort of specialized,but, yeah, that model three.

It's pretty good.

I'm sure.

I mean, I'm happy again with myown car, which is years old and itbeats everything else off the line.

, most of the cars, whenit comes to a stoplight,yeah, I'm sure it's an amazing car.

, I would love to test drive it oncethey actually become available.

Although Tesla, I think stopped doingtest drives of the performance versionsat local stores, but I'll see if Ican maybe get a ride.

Yeah, we'll see.

I'm definitely interested to test drivethe performance, I'm already drivingmodel three and you're trying toconvince me to get a new one, come on,letme drive it.

Well, if you do end up buying one,we definitely want to review from you.

, like we said, new performanceversion, not shipping yet.

However, the Cybertruck, I think they'vemade around a couple of thousand, right?

That are out in thefield with real people.

And something wasn't quite rightwith the accelerator, right?

Like what was, uh, whatwas going on there?

That's why we know that thereare a few thousand out there.

, to me, that's the mostinteresting part of this recall.

, there's a recall of Cybertruck because,the, , accelerator and it's two materials.

A sort of a crummy bit on top of,uh,though, right?

I mean, it's like a, it's a chromepedal, which they have in all theperformance versions that looks likeit's just glued to the actual metal,right?

orsomething to fixit, right?

but the glue wasn't working becauseof something they blamed on somebody else.

And so the fix was juststicking, uh, rivet on there.

It's not exactly pretty.

it's a good quick and dirty fix.

I would have thought they would have.

added a little piece of cosmetics,like, just put a sticker orsomething on top of that rivet.

Cause it doesn't, it doesn'tlook that great, but it works.

it calls back to, theissues with, floor mats.

My first car I owned was a, already oldFord Escort and had some aftermarketfloor mats just slid all over the placePerformance floormats.

They had stripes.

yeah, performance as a Walmartperformance floor mats or something.

, and yeah, , they kind of slid aroundand so, it was possible to get.

The accelerator pinned underneaththe floor mat, which, , very famouslyhappened with, I think, a Toyota Priusand , some people died with that.

, now this wouldn't be so much ofan issue with the Cybertruck.

It's all electronic.

It's all, drive by wire in termsof the accelerator and the brake.

So very easily you can step onthe brake and that will overridethe command from the accelerator,, as opposed to the thingactually fighting, right?

The engine going, and thenyou're, stepping on the brakesand you might not have enough.

, breaking authority toovercome engine in the past.

So, , as far as I know,nothing really happened.

But it was an important thingto fix and there was an officialrecall about it easy fix.

Again, to me, the mostinteresting part is we learned.

The actual numbers, 3,800 , , which is right in linewith what we were predicting.

We all said for Q1, it would be lessthan 10 K and above a thousand say,and we probably all landed around4, 000 and that's what they did.

They paused deliveries, , and I guessnow they can continue those deliveries.

The aerial photography of,Texas, we see there are a bunchof cyber trucks ready to go.

So I think it's, overall pretty positivein terms of what you'd expect from theirproduction ramp.

Yeah.

I saw my first one on the road, maybe acouple of weeks ago., I also see lots of

Rivian by the way, at the moment, I thinkthey've really ramped up their production.

So it's just cool to see, youknow, overall as someone who'sbeen following Tesla for so long.

is kind of nice to seedifferent EVs on the road now.

alrighty.

We talked about FSD.

There's one more thing that we wantedto get into, which is the fact thatTesla either announced or is interested.

In licensing FSD to other manufacturers.

So Louis, any hypotheses onwhat's behind that and whomay be lined up to license it?

What they talked about on theearnings call, , I believe primarilybecause, they're trying to bounce backfrom the sales numbers going down and,, the stock not doing great they gotta, putout all the good news they possibly can.

I think it is good news.

We kind of expected it.

been rumored about they'regoing to try to license it out.

My guess is a, which major is Ford.

, just because they've had sucha close relationship before Idon't think GM would do it.

specifically, I don't thinkTesla would sell it to GM , , dueto the relationship there.

, and , you've got all the cruise stuffand all that other nonsense goingon, so I feel like VW is not buyinginto the self-driving yet 'causeof their problems they run into.

So just looking at the landscape tome, forward makes the most sense.

It is interesting.

, I would say, Ford, definitely in termsof the relationship with, Jim Farley, soFord already has their blue crews, right?

I could see them doing it on the highway.

the fact that Elon said majorautomaker, , if it wasn't that, I wouldsay, , Rivian is the one that's inthe best position to make use of it.

, Rivian already has a bunch ofcameras . Rivian is positioned

to do over the air updates.

, Rivian seems fairly nimblewith their software.

They had some software issues when theystarted, but , they're sort of catchingup and, , honestly, Tesla did too, , whenthey were starting with the model S.

So they'd be in a position, butthe fact that he said major, by nostretch is Rivian a major automaker.

it's Fisker actually.

Are, they still a companyforthe thirdtime?

Are they,I think they'rethatI think they're still around, butthere's no way, again, the same reasons.

It's not Jim.

Elon , he has his, , personalityquirks and he has a long memory andhe has a thin skin so there's no way.

just like it wouldn't be GM , but youknow, Ford, they say the right things,, and make theright compliments.

Yeah,exactly.

I don't know if there'sany animosity with Rivian.

they are a competitor.

, they are a lot of, former Tesla people.

, and I kind of feel like , rivian dealsthe cyber trucks thunder, especiallyafter the R reveal of the R two and Rthree, , I think a lot more people are.

Probably actually interested in thosevehicles than the Cybertruck, eventhough there's such a huge pent updemand for the Cybertruck of people thatordered it 4 years ago, , still waitingfor their vehicles.

I see a lot of Riviansaround by me, by the way,and I'm in Tesla land, right?

I'm where the factory,the headquarters is.

, and yet I still see a lot of Rivians,not to say I don't see a lot of Teslas.

I've seen a number of cyber trucks, butin my specific neighborhood, , thereare a number of S's and, Y's and stuff.

there's no cyber truck inmy immediate neighborhood.

The next neighborhood over has one,but there's a shitload of Rivians.

Isee R1sYeah.

over the place.

well, I would say that in termsof somebody, if they wanted an electrictruck and they actually wanted to do truckthings, I think the Rivian, got there.

And I think that satisfiesa lot of what peoplewanted.

there's two thingsto consider though.

You've got the Rivian truck, and thenyou've got the Rivian suburban typeSUV.

yeah,And I see a lot of that SUV,theSUVeverywhere here.

I see more SUVthan I do the truck.

Interesting.

I'd say it's the opposite here.

.

Doug: I guess you're more in truck land.

, whereas, , the Bay area, but alsoI've seen them on the East coast.

It's more, , you're peoplemover , and the R1S does that,you know, the, soccer mom thing.

, people are trying to do thatwith the cyber truck andthat's just, , overkill and,if you don't need a truck bed.

You'd rather that to be seating.

Well, in our case,we've had soccer teams.

We've got dogs to move around.

I mean, we don't need a trucktruck.

mm hmm.

need theenclosed spaceRight.

And the Y and the X kindof struggle with that thirdrow.

a bit.

We looked at the why with the 3rd row andjust decided now too much trouble to use,well,but I've got my 100 in for an R2.

We'll see what comes of that.

I will claim I was lookingat the bigger Rivian I've lookedon and off several times now.

, hard, to say what might motivate me.

for those, R2s and R3s.

Yeah.

It's a ways off.

that's a little ways off.

And to be fair, Cybertruck juststarted delivering a few months ago.

It's still ramping production.

, , . Q1, they did , almost 4, 000, , high 3000.

So be curious to see, howlong does that, keep going?

, does it hockey stick up a littlebit for a while before it plateaus?

or like you said, did Rivian kindof steal their because there wasno competition to the Cybertruck.

From the time they originallywanted to build it.

And then there was a crap load beforethey ever got to deliveryeah, I think the F one 50lightning stole the thunder actually.

See, I think they stumbled, I feellike the F 150 basically dropped the ballbecause they could have,beenthis dominant.

they could have,they were first to market.

But you're right, they've kind ofscrewed thingsup.

I don't see them, they'reeither taken too long to make themor there's too many problems or don'tknow what it is I just don't see f150 like I do RiviansHmm.

to me, the main thing with the F150 Lightning was the, dealer markup.

They just really took advantage.

Tesla was the first tounveil, the Cybertruck.

It wasn't what people were expecting.

It was pretty crazy.

that appealed to a lot of people, butthen, the announcement of the F 150 andthen the Rivian and both those managedto deliver before the Cybertruck.

Mm hmm.

but yeah, I think the F 150 stumbledin that, the pricing got crazy because ofdealer markups because they do what they,want,Now, maybe one of youguys have heard this, but I'llkind of throw it out there.

On the lightning, I read a coupledifferent places that peoplehave gone to a dealer to getsomething done to their lightning.

Not the dealer they boughtthe truck from and the dealersays, nope, I can't touch it.

I didn't sell it to you.

Thatwouldn't surprise me, but, I know nothingabout it.

that's insanity.

The badge says Ford.

Your sign says Ford.

Well, I actually think you guysare touching on something important,which may be getting lost these daysbecause buyers now have options.

Right.

You got Hyundai Kia.

There's all, yeah, there'stons of EVs on the road now.

Right.

That's very differentfrom 10 years ago when itwas basicallyjustI think.

exactly.

So I think as an owner, one ofthe innovations Tesla has alwayshad is how they've changed theexperience of buying the car, right?

It's direct to consumer,a doubt.

Without a doubt.

I don't think I could everbuy a car through dealer again if noother car company manages to do theexperience of what Tesla has likeI just I'm just always gonna buy aTesla fromnow on not sayingthat they are the only onebut It's that important.

I would agree, but I willgive props to a local dealer.

I dealt with last week who actuallycame very close to the Tesla experience.

They still were a dealerand they still had paper.

You had the sign and all that.

But I was in and out of there inan hour and a half with no upsell,no tacked on fees, no dealerfees, you know, none of that crap.

It was just, here's thecar, here's the price.

You want that?

Great.

Sign here.

Done.

Tesla was five minutes inmy underwear at my house, right?

Like it's, you can'ta visual.

Oh,hour and aYeah.

aplace.

Soundsawful.

it sets the bar pretty high.

did.

I'll tell you though, a coupleof months ago, , when I went and testdrove a bunch of vehicles, includingthe newer model three, and then alsoa Porsche and Audi, the Porsche andAudi people, they called me back once.

And I kind of said,well, , I'll let you know,.

And they've never called me again.

And Tesla has been textingme at least five times.

in terms of the desperation, , I'vebeen feeling it more fromTesla,Well, and that's a good point.

, I've dealt with a couple of EVmanufacturers, myself, lookingaround, poking things and onlyTesla called back only Tesla.

, I have not talked to a Rivian salesrep, everything's been just online.

, the dealer I dealt with last week actuallycalled me back a couple of times before,and they called me back twice afterwardsto make sure everything was fine.

I was happy with the deal.

That's great.

some of the dealers I think are learning.

Some are still stuck in the old ways.

I ran into a few of those.

yeah.

it's a shame to be honest that notmore companies have copied thataspect of the buying experience fromabsolutely.

there's more stuffon the list, right?

Imean,can'tyou know, by the law,true.

I mean, it's, , you're Right.

they want to write.

Like even Ford said,we want to sell direct.

We can't, we'vegot a hundred years ofdealership models and lobbiesand organizations thatwon't legally let them dobut It's not even just direct.

it's the markup we werejust talking about.

went to a dealer and they,had the car I liked and theysaid, yeah, here's the price.

No, by the way, here's 1, 900in DRL options that are nonnegotiable that you have to take.

no, I don't have to take them.

Actually.

I don't have to deal with you.

I think that part may not changejust because it's how these places endup making money and paying the bills,unfortunately, but there's other stuffon the list of pros for Tesla, right?

Mobile service.

That'samazing.

I wouldn't miss that.

But at the same time, I'm tryingto come full circle and get yourthoughts a couple other items.

But to me, it seems like it's reallymaybe the first time that Tesla is notlimited by capacity and output, right?

We've seen the sales numbers godown a little bit first time.

And Doug, I'm sure youhave them top of mind.

I think it was maybe 10 percent ayear of a year or something likethat, butdon't expect me atthe top of mind, but,,what I'll say is for the longest time.

Whether it was true or not hasalways said , we're supply limited.

Like , there's so much demand thatwe're supply limited and , in thepast, that sometimes hasn't rungso true because, they had a lotof control over the supply, right?

, or they were, having problems, up.

Sorry.

I just want to, give thereal number just it was55 percent revenue drop.

Itwas 13 percent sales drop, but revenueYeah.

that's because they've beencutting their prices so much.

Right.

so the margins have gone down quite a bit.

and in that earnings call, , Elonemphasized, they're basicallypredicting, , we're between twomajor, times of selling vehicles.

And so right now there's avalley, there's a slump here.

There's a chasm that they have to cross.

, and it's the whole industry.

It's funny how the restof auto manufacturers aresaying, we're back to hybrids.

Which I don't completely understand,, because I think evs are cheaper, as abridge, maybe hybrids make sense perhapsit's, new acquisitions, existingEV owners, you already have EVs andperhaps, they're good with them.

And it's, the convincing of theexisting ice drivers , to make that step.

And I think hybrids are good,training wheels, as they put it.

, it puts Toyota in a goodposition, which is what they'vebeen wanting forever, right?

It's just to sell more of theirhybrids and to slow down EVs.

one of the comments thatjust showed up, the user.

Wendy, Now we're interest constrained.

Uh, yes and no.

, last two weeks have beenkind of interesting.

If you've got good credit.

And you're careful shopping.

I saw interest rates available tome everywhere from 1.9% to 13%,

depending who you were talking to.

It was a wild widerange.

that's interesting.

Cause, The one thing Tesla,as far as I know, doesn't doyet is their own financing.

Pretty much every major auto manufacturerhas their own financing arm becauseit isanother profitcenter,make more moneyfrom that than selling thecar.

Yeah.

No kidding.

so, Tesla isn'tquite doing that yet.

, and maybe they haven'tfelt the need to do that.

, but yeah, if you're the one selling thecar and you're making some money on that,and then, it may behoove you to, givesomeone interest rate when the, globalinterest rate now is, five or something.

they can get away with 0 percentfinancing or 1 percent financingor whatever, but Tesla doesn't havethat yet.

I guess that's anotherspot they could work into.

I saw wasn't gm, it was a private.

Consortium of dealersand that thehook was,,three years.

You can only financefor three years, but 1.

9 is pretty good.

because typical that I've seen inthe last two weeks was anywhere fromfive to seven, that seemed to bethe sweet spot, the 13 was obscene.

that was just a dealer out of control.

I feel like we're onwith Dave Ramsey right now.

you know, I think these areall valid points thing to keep in mindeven though the economy is what it isand interest rates arewhat they are the U.

S.

auto sales market for, Q1 did goup, it went up like or 6 percentyear over year for the quarter.

5.

1 percent it looks like.

Now, a lot of folks didn't do well, , , Ithink GM, , fell and couple otherswent down Toyota though, went up a lot.

They went up like 20 percent orsomething sales, on the quarter.

So there's definitelystill winners and losers.

I think the EV market is probablytaking it hard compared to most.

the public is fickle and a lot of peopledon't understand how great EVs are.

, they just haven't experienced it.

Tesla's , they have alot of levers to pull.

, so even though things arelooking down right now, Idon't expect them to stay down.

but who knows?

none of us can predict the future.

Yeah,very true.

Well, , just looking at the earningsand everything going on in the industry,it does seem a little bit like Teslaknew they were going to report.

Not the best news, right?

We had 10 percent layoffs.

We had, , this new cyber cap topicthat they all of a sudden brought up.

It seemed like they were kind ofreaching for a couple of things.

They could present to getpeople excited again, right?

Get the numbers juiced.

, it was kind of crazy tosee The stocksearchand after hours that went up, like 10 or12 percent but I guess, you We'll see howmuch of this actually does materialize.

,there was some interesting newsthoughts on, which is that Bostondynamics showed off Atlas, right?

And Doug, I think, you know, a littlebit more about the specifics, butwhat does that mean for optimists?

Well, Tessa did mentionoptimists in the earnings call andthat,, there'll be selling, , tonsof optimists and that will makea ton of money.

He basically said eventuallyit'll be bigger than cars.

Yeah.

way bigger than automotiveasa sector.

And that's believable.

I wouldn't put it past Tesla to sell.

Optimists, , with limited function andthen promise, , software updates thatwill like, make it do better later.

I wouldn't be surprised that Tesla soldthe thing and it basically just kind ofwalk from one room to the next room andthen do nothing else or just be like,.

A security thing, just send , century, and then eventually there'llbe the folding laundry update,And that's when I'll buy1.

yeah, exactly.

So I wouldn't be surprised if Tesladoes design it for manufacturingand get out the door and there'llbe plenty of people to buy it.

I mean, people bought the flamethrower.

And there are people buying that,, ridiculous, , sledgehammer and whatnot.

So, , I wouldn't be surprised.

but the Atlas thing ispretty interesting to me.

, because they've been workingon these things for a while.

And, they did put out a video.

What's funny is the timing.

So they put out a video , thefarewell to HD Atlas and peopleweren't quite sure what HD meant.

, but I think what we figure out is HDprobably meant, Hydraulically driven,and we've seen over the years, that,, robot being very nimble, like doingflips and, all this other stuff,,and they've been working onwith a single sort of Pogo bot.

That was restricted to bouncing around ina radius to then being able to move allX, Y, and then, , this Atlas, which is, abipedal robot, , that takes some abuse,, but this thing is run hydraulically.

And in this video, I mean, youcould really feel it like it doessome flip and then you see thehydraulics burst out its knee.

It's just so rough.

just cringe when I see that.

some time and I haven't hadany serious injuries, but I've seenpeople do something and then, you know.

Blow out an ACL or whatever.

And that's, what I feel from this robot.

And, when boss of dynamics put out thisvideo, , it's kind of funny cause again,on, , Twitter or X, , you would seethese comments of like, well, they'rethrowing in the towel, , optimist is one,Apparently balsa dynamics is giving up.

Right.

For anybody that knows Bostondynamics, though, and understandsthat they've literally been doingthis since the 90s and goes evenback before that in labs and M.

I.

T.

like.

What theydon't, they wouldn't be giving what'sthat's such a ridiculous thing to say,Yeah.

they actually have customers.

They ship their product.

that's definitelya fan boy thing to say.

But one question I do have is when Isee these videos and I've been watchingthem for a long time, it's amazing.

, that stuff is incredible.

So.

I don't see them at my local WholeFoods bagging groceries, right?

Like is this mostly a military applicationor are they just sold in low numbers?

I just don't understand why Tesla wouldthink the market for Optimus is so large.

If I don't see these robots anywhere yet.

they're thinking of iRobotis the problem they're thinking of.

There's one in every person'shome on the planet and it's likea caretaker and a cook and it doesyour lot, like all that stuff.

But we are years and years and years andyears away from that, not just becauseof software, but also hardware, right?

. It's a complex problem on both sides.

the reason you don't see BostonDynamics robots at your supermarket.

Other things is because guess what?

they're, expensive.

they're expensive as hell.

They're waymore than a person.

, so they're mostly doing jobs thatare high risk and considered toodangerous for, like, loss of life.

, so they use them in, Power plants and,doing like switching of high voltage,connectors and things like that.

the other thing is liketheir battery supply, right?

How long they can run without beingpluggedinto power and all thatkind of stuff.

the first vehicles wererunning off a gas generators, right.

exactly.

so they use them and they sellthem in industrial applications.

, but to be honest, as we've talkedabout in previous episodes, guess what?

A humanoid robot is not the best,form factor for most work period,it's a phenomenal form factor forbeing general purpose and like in ourhuman built world, because obviouslythat's our bipedal form factor.

But.

Guess what?

Factories have shit tons of robots,their arms or their, things that,like, move up and down is conveyorbelts and all that kind of stuff.

We have tons of robots.

, a general purpose bipedal robot.

While cool and I love it and it's sci fiand I want to own one and I want one inmy house, we're so far away from the techbeing there to be good in your house.

That's why, while I agree withElon, Optimus could be a biggerbusiness and would be amazing.

And I will totally buy one.

, they're honestly, in my opinion, moreon the order of decades away from thatbeing realistic as opposed to years away.

, so I don't know.

We'llsee.

Well, , I'm not sosure it's that far away.

I think as soon as Tesla is able to, andTesla will do this, I think as soon asthey're able to make it cheap enough.

, if you can buy it for 20 K, oreven, even the cost of a car,say,say it's50 KBut it's not going to do anything.

Tesla won't need it to do anything.

Tesla will sell it and it willjust walk around and do nothing.

And theneverything will be a software update.

fan boys willI say it's morethan a decade away to beinguseful.

How about that?

That's reasonable.

but you're right.

They'll probably sell them way before.

So basically what Doug was talkingabout earlier, they published avideo saying, Hey, goodbye Atlas.

And everyone's like, oh, they're done.

, they're closing shop.

And then of course, the next day theyreleased a video on, , the new Atlas,which is no longer hydraulically driven.

Now it's electric.

It definitely got some Terminator vibes.

Just a fewit definitely gives youthat vibe of, Terminator, wherehe's against the wall and then hishead, , reforms in the other direction.

Yeah.

obviously, it's not as cool asliquid metal, but that's not reallypossible with physics as we know it.

, it's kind of neat though.

So, , Boston Dynamics has moved over to, a fully electric driven, I shouldn'tsay they're not doing hydraulic anymore.

They're just not workingon hydraulic atlas anymore,according to what they're saying.

, and so this looks closer to being acompetitor to optimists, , but I don'tknow that that's necessarily their intent.

I think.

The technology has gotten there.

The batteries have gotten there.

It probably makes senseto move to electric.

, hydraulic made a lot ofsense back when they started.

But I'm happy to see there's competition.

I'm happy to see , there's now moreelectric drive research being donemore, bipedal robots being worked on.

, it'sexciting stuff.

it'll be interesting to see whatthey end up coming up with soon.

Again, it was funny,Boston dynamics did that,Atlas is going away video.

And then the next day theyreleased this video, and then the,overly, Tesla oriented fans werelike, well, that's too creepy.

, and it's hands look like claws.

It doesn't have the dexterity, that optimists will have.

, maybe, , I think it lookspretty cool actually.

And I think if you're goingto have a bipedal robot.

It should be super human in terms ofdoing things that a human can't do.

And also, if you look at the way itgets up, it just makes perfect sense,.

If it can flip its feet around likecenter of mass and just comes up insteadof like, , how does a human get up?

Oh, they got to put your arm outto the side and watching a humangetting up from a lying down positionis kind of weird and awkward.

You do a kipobviously,right?

yeah, okay.

You got asix pack and youjust flipyourself up.

I, bet you this could do that.

I mean, the, the hydraulic,Atlas did that itself.

Right.

anyway, I think it looks cool.

, the fact that it can rotate.

It's body around in a more dynamicway, , makes a whole lot of sense.

, , and actually how many jobs reallyneed that fine manual fingerdexterity, that humans have.

if a robot is supposed to the threeDs, the dull, dangerous and dirtyjobs , how many of those jobs arelike, , do you need to play the piano?

Do you need it to play the violin?

You know, those aren't thedull, dangerous, dirty ones.

I'm having a hard time thinking ofwhich job that fit in those categoriesreally required that kind of dexterity.

No, agree.

, I think the, human like dexterity ina , bipedal robot is more about the scifi nature and the being cool factor.

So , I totally get it.

And yes, in theory, if youcould do it well, why not?

Yeah.

It's just it adds a lot of complexityand cost to something that isso much easier to do without it.

, and even is not as good as many otherthings, how many , sci fi moviesand games and books or whatever have,like attachments and things, right?

They're not using a fivefinger human like hand.

Even folks that haveprosthetics do that, right?

Even humans that have prostheticlimbs have attachments that theywill switch to because it's moreefficient and more effective at doingthings.

snap it on, snap it off.

so I feel like that'sprobably the direction they'll go.

, and I honestly feel like optimists willeventually be in that same boat, right?

It'll just make sense towhere you have a replaceable.

Appendage that you cando different things with.

, but yeah, anyway, , Boston Dynamics,they seem to be much more focused , theyhave customers that are buying the robot.

So they know they have market demand.

They know the things thatthey need to work on for theirparticular market segments.

, Tesla is working on cool.

And sci fi and futuristic,which is all great stuff.

Love all that stuff.

Keep doing it.

, keep working on those things.

I want to buy one.

But, , they're not targeting theexact same market , in that regard.

Certainly not now.

I think, , five years fromnow, maybe that'll change.

Maybe there'll be,bumping into each other.

But, , yeah, it's cool stuffeither way, in my opinion.

Well said Lewis.

I think one thing I hadn't consideredreally is , the difference in havingsomething that's general purpose versushaving very specific applications, right?

Mowing the lawn, doing thedishes, whatever it's goingto be in like 20 years.

But, well guys, I thinkinteresting topics today.

I would love to drive themodel three performance oncethat's hitting dealerships.

But for today, I'd say it's a wrap.

Thanks to a producer, Danny, andthanks everybody for joining.

If you would like to follow us, youcan do so on Twitter and YouTube.

If you'd like to support the show, pleaseconsider becoming a supporting member.

And of course you can join us onthe Tesla Motors Club website.

All right.

See you guys next time.

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