Tesla Model YL, Q2 deliveries, BMW iX5, and more

Speaker A: One. We are live for a new episode of Electric Podcast. I am Fred Lambert your host and as usual I'm joined by Seth Wintrom. How you doing this week? Set?

Speaker B: I'm good.

Speaker A: All right, I hope you are because it's uh, a big week. It's the first week of the quarter. First week of the quarter we get a lot of data, uh, a lot of sales data. We're gonna go through that uh with Tesla and Rivian are two or two main um, you know, EV only manufacturer in North America. Big quarters for both of them. A big beat for both of them, especially Tesla. But before that uh, we're going to talk about the model Y L launching in the US So that's big news. Uh, expansion of the robo taxi into Miami V14 light FSD launching on otherworld 3 cars. Um then we're going to talk about also Rivian. Like I said, uh, BMW ix5 was fully unveiled this week. After weeks of teasing it looks like ah, another solid, very solid entry from BMW with their new class generation. Um, uh the trailser we get the Subaru pricing on is on it in the U.S. lucid. Uh, we also going to discuss their, their sales number but mainly the, the bigger story that overshadow shadow all of uh the sales number and production numbers was the um, big overall of the entire leadership uh from the new CEO coming in and then we're going to finish up with a quick word about the electric American Solar Challenge coming in at the end of the month. Uh Aaron did a nice little report on that for us with all the schedule and everything. So if you're in Minnesota around the time it's uh, um, it's worth checking out see the next generation of engineers.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: all right, uh, let's start with the model Y L. If I. Oh sorry, I have a new mouse. She's clicking on it. Uh, all right, so it is not, not that much new information here uh with the, with the YL because we already knew quite a bit. It was launched last year in China first and since I expanded another market in Australia and, and elsewhere in uh, Asia and Pacifica. So we know about it quite a bit. It's, it's unlike the previous, you know, third row model Y which was on the same exact frame which was extremely, it was basically a joke of a third row. Um now you have an extended wheelbase. It's not that much extended, it's that much bigger but it's at the very least usable. And uh, Tesla also uh, did something else that, that helped quite a bit is that it's not a seven seater, it's a six. A six seater with captain seats in the middle like the picture that you see right now. So what does that mean? Is that the, the space in the middle um, does give you a little bit roomier feel. Uh, the people in the back can at least like extend one of their legs a little bit. Doesn't sound that much, but it's big because obviously it, even though it's a bigger wheelbase, it's still extremely small of a third row. Uh, we've seen probably the pictures that on social media when it launched in China where people were like uh, taking picture with the, the trunk open where you could see the full head like getting over like. Yeah, it's not, it's not a massive third row, but it's usable especially for children.

Speaker B: Yeah, I had a six seat model X and it was way, way, way less claustrophobic in the back than uh, for instance the seven seat, uh, Rivian.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Uh R1s like that having that third row be a bench is way, way, way worse than the captain shares for the people in the back.

Speaker A: Yeah, for the feeling, you're right. So it's a, it's a feeling of claustrophobia because you feel stuck in that you're locked in. Like you literally cannot get out unless someone like lets you out. If there's someone in the over, the seat can reach in, but if there's someone in the front seat, they can lock you in if you want, uh, in the second row seats. So that's not the case here at least. So yeah, you're right for the feeling of cluster for that it helps quite a bit. So yeah, it's seven inches uh, longer than the uh, the regular model Y. So if you know, if you, if you've seen like the, I mean you, you'd be one of the rare person. Because the model Y, uh, third row was only briefly available in North America, was quickly canceled. But uh, you can imagine with 7 more inches what it does like. It helps a lot but still makes it for a small uh, third row. So really the bigger news is the price. The big information is the price. That's the first thing that uh, we learn. So the model Y L is only available in the premium version and there's a launch edition. So the launch edition package, all the main features like the bigger wheels. Uh, what else is there? All wheel drive. Well, that's come with the premium. Um, yeah, there's one year of fsd. So the previous launch version that Tesla released uh, had like FSD included like in the cybertruck for example, like that, that was nice because obviously that was worth like $8,000 at the time. Uh but now with the subscription base, I mean technically it's worth $1200 because it's 12 months, $100 a month with the subscription base. So it's not, it's not that big of an upgrade. And the starting price, price is $62,000. So it's uh, it's a little bit more expensive than people thought because it's literally more expensive than a wide performance. Um, it's um, you know the equivalent in, in China. I think I put the pricing equivalent somewhere in there. Uh yeah, people were expecting closer to $54,000 if you look at comparative pricing in Australia for example which gets the Chinese model obviously uh, which is not the case in the US So you see the difference. You see if you don't have access to the Chinese vehicle even from an American automaker like Tesla, uh, it hurts. So we'll see. You do get uh, I'm sure the post launch edition is going to be cheaper but it uh, doesn't look like it's going to be 54. Probably like closer to 58. Um, maybe 57 would be nice but uh, you know there's pent up demand and Tesla is taking advantage of it so I understand that. Uh, but then it's going to be interesting to see how popular that's going to be uh after the, the launch edition and the pent up demand is worked through and what pricing they end up at. Because if you compare like right now an EV9 for a third row SUV I think is a lot more attractive than this and that starts at 55 so it's going to be cheaper most likely even after the launch edition is done. Uh, the Ioniq 9 also uh, an interesting option. We reviewed it recently and there was a lot to like about this vehicle and it gets uh, same range also because the EV9 is 304 miles on EPA 335 for the Ionic 9. Uh but it is more expensive 59 but still less expensive than the launch edition so so right now personally I would go with those rather than model yl unless you're in love with fsd, which a lot of people are but you know in, within the Tesla community a lot of people are. I think people misunderstand like wider market that it's not that big of a feature. But I know you love it too. I love it as well but uh, it's Kind uh, of a premium thing. All right, Delivery results from Tesla for Q, um, Q2, uh, they are, they are beating records 480000 delivery in the quarter, uh, beating expectation by quite a bit. Although I, I put a caveat on the expectation because uh, you know the, the Wall street, the Tesla shared expectation was 406 uh, 000 deliveries. That's what Tesla, the, the company compiled the consensus, they call it uh, the Bloomberg consensus, which is the More widely used was 396 which was pretty bad. I mean I think at this point it's fair to say that we, you don't really need to use that because they were so far off. My, my own expectation was 450000 so I was a lot closer but I was still off by, by quite a bit. Um, and my, my expectation was higher than most primarily because Tesla ended Q1 with 50, 000 extra units that they hadn't delivered. Uh, so that, that will boost a quarter quite a bit. And sure enough Tesla has delivered a lot more vehicles than they uh, they produced this quarter. So they produced 451,000 vehicles and delivered 480,000. So that's um, you know, 29,000 more. A positive move of 29,000. But if you remember last quarter that still means that they are about 20,000 off of uh, unsold vehicles. So you know, even though it's good, it's not great either. They're still off. However, the demand has improved considerably. There's no doubt about it. Most primarily because of uh, the situation uh, with the gas prices obviously especially in Europe and um, in the US it helped quite a bit also. Now that has calmed down quite a bit. But I mean if people are smart, which is not always the case, you uh, you have to think that this is not going to be the last war over gas and that it's not going to be the last, you know, major geopolitical event that's going to affect uh, gas prices. So I, I think it normally and, and we've seen this at electric because we've, we've been around for quite a bit and we've been through some of these crisis and we've seen quite an uptick in demand with each one of those. And normally even though there is um, a peak that is not sustained obviously and I think we, we've seen that peak last month or maybe especially uh, like you know, end of May, early June, there was a lot of demand for electric vehicles because of that, uh, it, it goes down A bit but it's still, it's sustained over time at a higher level than prior because a lot of people are like they're tired of getting screwed over every time they go to the gas station. So hopefully that evidently it helped us a little last quarter. I think it's going to continue going forward, maybe not at a crazy rate like that. Um but yeah Tesla is now you know closer to their goal of uh delivering 2 million units this year but they still have quite a bit of a second half of the, of the year to get there because they are far off of a million still. Uh, we got some data on the energy storage as well at Tesla now uh disclosed uh with those production and delivery numbers for electric vehicles and it's AH 13.5. So also a great result there. A big jump over last year of 9.6. It looks to be about Tesla's level now. Quarter to quarter to be able to deliver 1314 gigawatt hours of energy storage mainly megapacks but also some, some power wall mix in there. So a recovery from Tesla. Well one, one of the interesting thing though said I know you don't follow the Tesla stock as much these days but um, a big beat way down 8 80,000 beat over the Bloomberg consensus, uh you know 70 something beat over the, the 7000 units plus beat over the the Tesla compile consensus and the stock crash at 7 or 8% after the results. The big short guy, great, great timing from Michael Burry to be honest. He sorted right at the top.

Speaker B: 415 right?

Speaker A: Yeah, ah416 I think and now it, now it's below four. So you know great call on Bury's part. Of course you know it's paper gain until you sell but whatever um, the, what I found interesting by this is like I have to give it to Tesla shareholders now. They are right. Tesla is not a car company. It doesn't matter that they beat by like 20% the, the, the, the the results, the, the expectations because this, the, the, the the the stock crashes. Uh so it's um, yeah I, I, the only thing I see that could have happened that that is not explained by, by that, by the fact. I mean obviously the logic is Tesla is still extremely overvalued as a car business. So um, the, the expected value, the valuation is in the expectation that Tesla delivers on robo taxis and Optimus and all that. So I do agree that beating by beating expectation by 80000 units delivered delivery doesn't do much to justify the valuation. So it makes sense that it would also go down. But at the same time the only the, the it's still a net positive on Tesla's financials. Like they're going to have a much better quarter thanks to these 80,000 vehicles that apparently Wall street didn't expect. Um, more like 30,000 for me. But still the only other thing that I would explain this is like the stock went up quite a bit earlier this week. So did someone already knew the numbers?

Speaker B: Whisper number maybe?

Speaker A: Yeah, whisper number went quite a bit up. People invested and then sell uh on the news like that. That happens also quite a bit. But again I, I mean the, the like uh, Troy test like ah Tesla at 466 the day before. Ah, so good on him. He was the closest I've seen. Uh, so, so even, even those that were the most optimistic about the quarters, this still blew them out and, and the stock crash still. So yeah, something to keep an eye on. Uh, all right, the um, the news this morning is that Tesla launch in Miami, Florida. Tesla launch rule taxi I should say. But um, yeah as you see from my headline here, Tesla maps a tiny robotaxis. Only my, I knew I still can scale in Texas. That's you know that, that sums up my, my sentiment about this because it's hard for me to get excited about this just because of. We already seen what Tesla does with the robotaxi in Texas where regulations are you know, not a problem at all. They launched a year ago. They've grew these geofence area like the, this is a small one by the way. Miami, it's like it's tiny compared to Waymos. Like it's just a little bit of west Miami and, and that's about it. There's no Miami beach downtown or anything like that. But um, Tesla is able to do that quite easily. Like they expanded the geofence area in Austin. They launch in Austin, they launch in um, Dallas. But the actual service of having you know a real fleet of vehicle unsupervised, deployed at scale they haven't been able to do in a year. So they're doing the easy thing instead of doing the hard thing of you know, figuring out the safety level which, which is the bottleneck. I mean I've been saying it for a year, been called an aider and everything but Elon confirmed it at uh, the last earnings uh call that safety is double neck. So until they figure that out they can launch you know, you know a dozen city have ah, a tiny geofence area, three cars running, um, which you know it's easy to keep the, the, the, the, the safety levels there when you have just a few equal running rather than actual scale robo road taxi service like, like Waymo already does in all those markets. Um, uh, the real thing when it gets exciting is when Tesla can actually like start thousands and thousands of rides per week which is not something we're seeing right now at all. Um, another thing that is like bittersweet for me is the rollout of FSD V14 Lite that's come. So you know I want to give them credit, it is progress, it is you know, better features for hardware 3 owners which have been neglected quite a bit but at the same time I just, I cannot get excited for it because I know what this really is and what this really is is a stalling tactic to make things right with auto ward. Three owners which were sold unsupervised self driving and they've admitted uh, at least Elon has admitted on two different occasions over the last year that they won't be able to deliver that on hardware cars. Uh, and the cancellation, uh, the um, the, the, the the what, what they get instead these owners is a uh, light version of something that it's also not unsupervised self driving which is V14 which I have V14 for on my, on my hardware four cars and I had for last few months. And I think it's an extremely impressive product. Kudos for Tesla for developing that. However it is not unsupervised self driving. It's very much a low level 2 system and much of the value in what Tesla sold to owners is in the unsupervised part of things. So yeah it's a bummer that's not happening. Um, but V14 Lite brings um. Still a little bit too early to say just how close of the performance in terms of you know the day to day driving is compared to V14 but it does bring uh, new features uh, like automated parking. Uh and um, I did put the release and that was earlier in the week so um, in there automated parking. And there was another thing too. I think it's the SE uh parking and unparking and reversing capabilities, um m. Uh mergers and forks that, that was already in there in V12. But yeah it's so I'm uh looking

Speaker B: forward to it but obviously it's not as exciting as getting a version 4 or hardware version 4 version of uh FSD. Although that's also not autonomous software either.

Speaker A: So yeah I think the rollout right now is limited to uh, to just uh, you know, the, the early adopters of Tesla, the green lit, uh, influencers and all that. So it should come to your car in the coming weeks, I would assume, if everything goes well. But yeah, is I that. But I think, I think the, the other thing that's interesting with this now we're going to discuss it in the next. I don't know if it's the next one or next article we can jump to the next article anyway is the next one. Uh, the other things that Daz does is like, okay, now this is the end for all war four. Like this is the best it gets. You get V14 light, a light version of something that's not unsupervised. So now the class action lawsuits are rolling in because dislikes basically admitting like this is the best you get, you won't get unsupervised. And the thing that we've been asking forever is like, what's the plan? Tesla has put a bunch of things out there like saying that they're going to retrofit all the cars. I've always said I don't think this is realistic at all. Um, the, you know, the, the talked about giving um, a discount for someone to upgrade. But again not everyone wants to upgrade their car because like Tesla, screw them over. It's like now, now you want me to buy another of your car. Like, not everyone wants that. So a lot of people just want to be reimbursed, want to be compensated. And the big one that I've been saying for years, and we've seen some great development in Europe with the class action and now this is a new one in the US that we discussed this week is that uh, they need to look at people being compensated even if they didn't buy fsd, because the promise is that your car, whether you buy FSD or not, as the hardware necessary to achieve unsupervised self driving, and now that's confirmed to be untrue and people that affects the valuation of the vehicle, that affects the market, the resale value, people need to be compensated for that. And now there's a new class action that's uh, popping up in the US uh Waller vs Tesla, Northern District of California. Uh, that's uh, trying to bundle a bunch of different, uh, um, you know, complaints against Tesla into uh, a larger class action lawsuit for all Tesla owners from Hardware 1 to Hardware 3. Because we need to, cannot forget that we talk about Hardware 3 because that's the bulk of it. But you know, there was the hardware one, hardware two or 2.5 and uh, N3 and uh, yeah the lawsuit is one of the most complete one that I've seen today that take uh, into account everything that I just said. Which is not always the case though it also works around a bunch of things especially like um, the problem with arbitration. Tesla has uh, kind of seen this coming and the forced abrotation on uh, their contracts in the vehicles sold in the U.S. now this is not enforceable everywhere I think and I'm not, I should say classic uh, classic disclosure. I'm not a lawyer, check with the lawyer first. But my understanding is that this is not enforceable everywhere. Uh and uh, and you also can opt out of that arbitration uh, after delivery. So the uh, the name plaintiff in the class action is a good example. David whaler from Frankfurt, Connecticut who bought his uh, Model S uh in June 2020 for $82,000, roughly $7,000 at the time for the full self driving add on. And then in July 6th I think you have a few months to a few weeks to opt out, he opt out of his arbitration uh clause with Tesla. So now it enables him to, to, to lead that lawsuit here. Um, yeah it's uh, what's, what's funny said is like uh, Electrek and myself are cited in the lawsuit like a dozen times. So uh, they, they definitely follow uh our writing on this. And um, where did I put the quote even I forgot that I said that but now that I read it I remember even saying it on the podcast they use uh, um my quote here uh, they use a bunch of example from our articles in terms of Tesla being misleading with the reporting but also on the performance itself. I don't even see what I put it in there but uh, I'm going to paraphrase it. It's something like uh, FSD drives like uh, a 14 year old that's just started to learn how to drive and sometimes do hard drugs. They actually quoted that in the complaint. I mean I think I'm pretty well positioned to comment on this. Like I've tested every version of Autopilot and FSD since it came out and um, minus a few fsd like minus fsd. No, no that's not true. I, well not all point version of FSD13 let's say. Uh, but that's, that's about it. So uh, and, and I can tell you also I'm honest about it right now it drives a lot better than a 14 year old on uh, on drugs.

Speaker B: It's uh 16 year old on like you know, like Advils, you get like

Speaker A: that's the thing, you cannot even make that comparison anymore because I mean it's so precise most of the time that it drives like a very good driver, like a, like a very um, professional driver. But uh, it does very weird and stupid decision every now and again, every few thousand miles. Which is not. So it's not human like in that sense. I mean plenty of drivers make mistakes frequently. However, the scenarios, the decision making that leads to those errors are not comparable to a human driver who's learning. So in other sense in some ways it's way better. In other ways it's way worse than the human driver. Um, all right, we're gonna move on from Tesla. We have a bunch of other news to discuss. We are 25 minutes into the podcast. If you guys have questions for us because we are live, we can answer them live. I see that we already have Dan that's here. Uh, we have Skeptic Carl William. Thanks guys for joining us live. If you guys have question for us about any of the topics we're discussing today or any other topics that we would like set on eyes expert take on, you can put it in the comment section below. I want to get to it in just a few minutes. But uh, Rivian said uh, that that's where yours article this uh, this week, uh, Rivian had a pretty good quarter when it comes to deliveries, um, and production.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, they under promise and over deliver. It's kind of weird. You don't, you know, electric vehicle manufacturers aren't typically in that market anymore. Um, you know I think it wasn't a huge uh, beat but the fact that they're making more cars than they thought they were going to be able to and they're selling every single one of them, that's got to be good news for Rivian people. And I personally believe that the R2, uh, they're not, they're going to sell everyone they can make for the foreseeable future. The only caveat there is that they have uh, a new hardware and new lidar coming out at the end of the year. So the early adopters are probably like me myself. Uh, I, you know I have a reservation for an R2. I'm not jumping on that because I would rather wait for the, for the hardware that can do full self driving. And also the other thing that kind of bothers me about Rivian and you know I could throw Tesla into this as well is that they've been promising this vehicle to Grid vehicle to ax vehicle to home home thing for so long. And you know, they do have a, you know, you can run uh, 120 volts out, but they've been promising, you know, 240 volts. You can, you know, use it like a generator. You can use it, you know, with third party stuff. They've been promising this for years. And again, this time I was expecting to see it at the R2 launch and they were like, yeah, it's still coming. Like that's, I'm sorry, I'm not going to give you a pass on that anymore. You're late. The Chevy bolt can do that. If the Chevy bolt can do it, you can figure it out. So, uh, those are the two things I'm kind of waiting for. Um, also Rivian's uh, self driving stuff is not quite as robust obviously as Tesla's. So that's another consideration. But my drive of the R2 is like, oh wow, this is really, really amazing vehicle. And um, it can do kind of everything the model Y can do. It's got a little bit bigger battery, um, and it can also go off road. So that's what you get.

Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. So in terms of the actual numbers, the company produced 12,613 vehicles during the second quarter and delivered 12,194. So yeah, basically even there, which is, which is really good. But the news that uh, people really welcome and send the stock higher, uh, was that the, the uh, outlook, the guidance for 2026 has been raised from 62 to 67,000 units delivered to 65 up to 70. So I, I think if I understand correctly in your report, they haven't disclosed the R2 deliveries for the quarter, which, um, you know, understandable, like I think they were like three weeks into the launch of the vehicle. But um, the guidance, the updated guidance hopefully points to them seeing the potential for a uh, smooth ramp up of the R2 into the second half of the year. Does that make sense?

Speaker B: That's what I've kind of read into that as well.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: All right,

Speaker A: moving on. Uh, the BMW IX 5 has been fully unveiled and BMW is doing something with their new generation. The uh, new class of uh, vehicle coming out. Uh, the, the X5. This is the new X5, but with uh, now the, the electric powertrain. So BMW is you know, investing heavily into this uh, this format of multiple powertrain per model. But um, there doesn't seem to be that big of a compromise with them. However, the big headline range that we see like the 525 miles range. 700 and that's like 750 kilometers. Yeah, that's WLTP. But still they are aiming to have 435 miles EPA. So these crazy range come from not necessarily incredible efficiency but giant battery packs. So this uh, this European version of the iX5 Get 140, 41 kilowatt hour battery pack like this is, this is bigger than a cyber truck I think. Um, and, and they're gonna get an even bigger one for the US launch with the 435 miles range with a 144 kilowatt hour battery pack. So this is, this is massive.

Speaker B: It is massive. It doesn't look like that big of a vehicle either.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's an suv. It's a full size SUV looks like. But uh, yeah it's, it's huge. There's. There's no doubt about it. The design. I everyone knows I'm not the biggest fan of the BMW design. I think the, the beaver theat with the new class has been like, you know, modified a bit and I think it's, it's not as bad for sure. These X headlights, I don't know about you set but they just don't do it for me. But the form factor looks amazing to be honest. Like the actual like body of the vehicle looks great. Uh, it's just these little details that just, they hurts me. Like look from the back. No, from the back looks great.

Speaker B: Anything from the. But the front I think is yes.

Speaker A: These, these um, you know, the grill and these lights is just. It's hard. And then same thing with the interior. So interior first look, the heads up display. I've talked about it quite a bit since first experiencing this in the Xiaomi Yu 7. I love this format. They call it the heads up display but it's really just a display that's uh, all the way down the, the dash, all the way down the uh, you know, the bottom of the windshield. And uh, I think this is a great format. I think this is going to be very popular in the future. We've seen already like a few models, um, a few automakers adopting this. However I. The center display for me makes no sense. Like the, the like angles. The cut corner is there is this. I uh. Nah, it just doesn't do it for me. The steering wheels is sick though. Steering wheel is sick. The, those seats, I mean I haven't tried them but confuse. L looks like you know, Lizzie boys like.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so that's great.

Speaker B: Um, I Wonder how much it costs extra to make the screen like ah trapezoid or parallelogram or something.

Speaker A: It has to cost more like it has to be fully custom. They're not, no one is making that like off the shelves. Right. So you know specs amazing through the roof on this. A few design things that just are hurting me like I don't like them. Um and then the price, it's, it's, it is going to be expensive like the ix3 like we said it's on the irn too with uh61,000 so this is going to be more expensive. It's expected to be you know in the 70, 75, 000 range when it comes to Europe. And, and uh, it's going to be coming to the US uh by the end of the year. It's going to be built at the Spartanberg plant uh in the US So this is obviously in the bigger suv. So the, the, the they want uh, uh the, the US is a target market for them. But it does look like BMW has, has something when it comes to the evs. It's just like I wish they would just tighten up that design. Uh, the Subaru Trail Seeker has gotten a price in the US it's uh, you know it's been touted as like the first real like Subaru electric, first electric vehicle from Subaru that feels like a Subaru after the Solterra and the Uncharted. Even though we had, we reviewed positively the uh, Uncharted.

Speaker B: Yeah Uncharted wasn't bad.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, so this uh, 0 to 64.3 seconds, 375 horsepower, 3500 pounds of towing capacity. Compared to the Salter it's 6 inch longer, an inch taller. So you know some off roading potential in there uh, in uh 74.7 kilowatt hour battery pack for up to 281 miles of range which you know is not bad especially when you look at the price on this uh, which is starting at 39,995. So for the premium trim 40 ah, thousand dollars it's uh, you know it's not a bad price at all. You can get the Trailseeker Limited uh for $44,000 which has a premium Harman Kardon audio, a panamic view monitor, 20 inch wheels, heated rear seat, leather wrapped steering wheel and uh, it comes with 120 volt AC power outlet in the back. Feels like these sort of things should be standard and it's so useful like just make it standard but yeah, uh, not, not a bad entry point for the trail seeker. Maybe, maybe it's going to sell in Colorado. You know the incentive there and it's already like their popular market.

Speaker B: Yep. Vermont.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, Vermont as well. All uh, right. Lucid. Uh overall it's the entire C suit under the new CEO. Uh earlier and last week we talked about the layoffs. They were earlier this year there was a 12% staff layoff. Then last week there was an 18% staff layoff. Uh, the second one coming after the appointment of Silvio Napoli, the new CEO coming in and uh, Lucid is having some issues like the, the gravity. We know the gravity was not saving the company but it was you know we were expecting a little bit more out of it in term of, of sales. It's not just issue. It's also I think the ramp up has not been going great. Production ramp. Uh, the software issues are still plaguing the company. It's, it's. We. We had the review just last week on, on Electrek. Uh we scored it in 86 and it would scored in the 90s if it wasn't for them software problems. It's an incredible vehicle. It's just you need to tighten things up a little bit. And now the new CEO is coming in and as a completely new leadership uh with him. So just to name a few, there's a new cfo, Alexander Debach, uh coming from TI Automotive. So a big tier one automotive supplier. Um, uh where he was CFO too. So it's like a more of a lateral change for him achieved like even some people would argue going down because I'm a assuming the TI is a bigger company than Lucid. Uh we have Raja Ramana Macha. Sorry if I messed up your name. Uh coming in as a new chief technology officer. Uh he was uh, had the same robe that Eaton. Also a big supplier, automotive supplier and technology company. Uh Billy A's joined as chief customer officer. Uh he was uh, in charge of marketing and sales at one of the big dealerships like that I have like 60 or so dealerships. Uh so as a uh, you know a veteran of the auto industry. Um but these are just a few. Like the entire C suit has been replaced. Uh they also. One of the bigger news is that they sort of spinning off the. The robo taxi and AI uh part of the company as K Stepper has been named president of losing technologies and chief Digital officer. Uh so he's going to be in charge of the robo taxi stuff. You know with the Uber front and Neuro, uh, AI Autonomy, adas and Enterprise. It uh, is coming from Bosch and Qualcomm. So I guess you can see um, kind of a trend going here is that they, they are bringing a lot of people from tier one, uh, automotive suppliers and trying to like consolidate the, the, the, the leadership into a more like mature company. And um, you know it feels like lucid is just, it's not far from, from working. Like obviously they're still losing a ton of money. Ah but the product is near perfection. Like it's incredibly good. Again with those software problems and obviously some quality issues over time too. But they've been working on that quite a bit. So it feels like they're really close to have a great product. And um, they are not that far behind a company like Rivian, which know also as their issues. But I think are, are, are doing incredible with their cosmos being the equivalent of the R2 being a more smart mass market vehicle. Uh, if they can get there and you know, iron out their issues with the gravity, I, I think it's doable. Uh, so let's give a shot to this new leadership and see uh, see what they can.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker A: We're going to jump into the comment section in just a few seconds. Before that, I just want to say a quick word about the Electric American Solar Challenge, uh, coming to uh, Minnesota at the end of the month. The 21st to the 24th set.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, I think the first teams uh, get out at around the 17th of July. That's when they do the quote unquote scrutineering, making everybody make sure the uh, vehicles are safe and they're um, you know, up to standard and they're not cheating and all the other stuff. Um, so that's all happens like the first couple days, 17 through the 20th. Then on uh, the 20th they start racing around the track. Um, they do that for a few days to like, I think the 24th. And then um, this year is one of the years where they take them on the road. So then they're going to take them on the road south. And we've got the map all laid out as well. So if you're anywhere in the Midwest and want to kind of find out where they're gonna go, um, check out the, the site. But the um, big stuff happens. The, you know, the race where you're going to be able to watch the cars go by on the 21st through the 23rd. Um, and that's, that's where we're going to be out there. Aaron and I are going to be out there, maybe Micah. Um, and of course anybody, uh, who's just listening right now, we'd love to uh, have you out there. Um, it is a kind of a sight to see. Um, there's a lot of uh, enthusiasm that college kids are really pumped up about the uh, you know, what they're doing. It's, it's just a really fun event. Um, so hope to see people out there. We're right outside of Minneapolis, um, and it's a lot of fun.

Speaker A: Yep. You get to see the next generation of engineers working on electrification, building hyper efficient vehicles, solar vehicles, and racing them is just a ton of fun.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah. And if there's any question like uh, you know, how valuable the people here are. Tesla's original team of engineers came out of the uh, Stanford program. JB Straubel, uh, was on the team there and he, I think he hired like 10 of his friends to basically start Tesla. You know, this is quite a few years ago, but um, Tesla is still out there usually recruiting to this day. Yeah, yeah, to this day. And it's funny because, you know, I try to get gm, uh, or Ford interested in, you know, taking part in this and, and I'm like, you guys know like Tesla's out there that the recruiter there told me a couple years ago. It's like, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. You can't lose. Like every single person they recruit from this event is like, it's superstar. So um, you know, like if you're,

Speaker A: they're actually building something like the, yeah, it's from scratch. And the, you need to be very entrepreneurial too because you need, you know, to, to find sponsors to get the money to get the, you need, you need to think outside the box, you know, try to get some components, like trying to see if you can get a donation of the components from the suppliers you get, you get to talking to suppliers, you get like all these things. Like they sound like not much compared to like an actual engineering degree, but it's the day to day work that gets things done and uh, talking to a lot of uh, people that do like uh, mentoring of engineers and everything. Apparently this is like the, the toughest part these days with the, the new kids coming out of school. Like it's, it's tough to get them to be like entrepreneurial and just get things done. They might know the theory of it, but in practice it's like something different. So these, these kids uh, have like actual like real world practice of you Know, not necessarily putting a product out there because these are the vehicle that you see right now are on screen. Are, are prototypes meant for the specific competition, but you know, it's as close as it gets.

Speaker B: Yeah, and this is the biggest year ever. I think we've got over 40 teams competing, so it should be really good.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: All right, let's move into comments. Uh, first one, happy uh, Bladed Canada Day. And happy fourth, uh, to everybody out there as well. M. Um, skeptic says Tesla is delivering more cars, which makes their pivot away from selling cars seem extra dumb. Uh, I don't know if they're really pivoting away from selling cars, but, uh, that does seem to be the official word from the top. Carl in San Diego says. Did anyone check to make sure Tesla's vehicle sales aren't all going to Anthropics employees at the Colossus Data center? I wouldn't trust any numbers from US employees to be true. Yeah, I don't think there's enough Anthropic employees to change, uh, the numbers too.

Speaker A: Yeah, and they're probably buying Ferraris.

Speaker B: Yeah, those guys are all way too rich to buy Teslas. Um, William Pisano says 62K model yl not worth it. Please Rivian give us give a uh, R2L. R2T 2000 pound lighter and 30k less. Not low. 50k for R2L. Long wheelbase, third seat.

Speaker A: Geez, do you want, you want a genie too? And give you like ever wishes? Like it's just.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, just you got an R1S, just get that, you know, like that's it's already built.

Speaker A: I mean, he wants a six seater, I guess, but, uh, yeah, I guess. 2,000. Like you're not gonna get 2,000 pound lighter than what? Then you're not gonna get a longer base. R2. 2000 pound lighter than, than R2. Makes no sense. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the. The point.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think he's just kind of throwing stuff at the wall. Um, then he continues. Tesla sales are up only because gas in places like Australia is 7 to $14 a gallon. Diesel is the highest number.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, not just in Australia, but I, I do think that the gas prices are responsible for probably like a good 10 to 20% of Tesla sales in the second quarter.

Speaker B: All right, James Corinus says comment. Jamie should join the live podcast once a month. I thought that was a good episode from two weeks ago. Yeah, it's always great having him on. Uh, yep, doesn't always have the relevant, um, stories but he's always great.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Whenever Jamie does like a particular story where they have ends on experience, like in this case was Aptera, we always ask him on um, because he's, he's great to talk to. One of the OG electrification. He's been at Electrek with us for like probably coming up on 10 years, I guess.

Speaker B: Yep. All right. Skeptic says question. If Cyber Cab production is ramping, who is Tesla planning to sell thousands of pedalous cars to?

Speaker A: That's the question. That's the big question. Because we've seen them in parking lots like piling up and I, I don't see Tesla selling the cybercap to anyone in the foreseeable future. People a little bit confused because when the launch event was like, like October 2024, I think at this point, uh, he announced a price. He was like, this is like less than $30,000 whatever. And, and so he said then we're gonna sell it. And then, you know, there was the famous MKBHD. Marcus Brownlee's comment was like, if Tesla sells that for less than 30000 or more M. I don't remember the exact price. He said I'm gonna shave my head. And then by, I think he said by 2027 or something like that. And then Tesla started production this year and like people are like, oh, he's gonna shave his head. It's like this muddies the whole water is like it. Tesla is not going to sell that car to anyone right now. The way electrificable, the way autonomy stands at Tesla, the only way the Cyber Cab is going to be used is as part of the rebel taxi fleet, just like the Model Y. And it's hard to say how it helps Tesla that much. It lowers. I think the only thing I see is that once production is ramp up, you lower the economy unit of uh, per drive per mile of the robo taxi using the Cyber Cab for people that are one or two person max using it. That's the limitation of how great a Cyber Cab is. The benefits are the economy units on one single, uh, in couples using robo taxis, um, for any kind of selling it to the public, Tesla needs to solve Level 4 autonomous driving at scale. There's just no way around it. This thing doesn't have pedals or a steering wheel, uh, at least not for now other than the validation units that we've seen. So to do that, no one is going to buy a Cyber cabin, uh, because they can use it within a small geofence area in Austin or Miami like you you use a car it. It's not worth. Even if they sell it for 25000 it's not worth that because who wants to use a car that's Joe fans. It's just. It doesn't. It doesn't make sense. So yeah, I think. I think we are quite a bit out for this. Was too quick to make the Cyber Cab. It's. It was a bad decision to make the Cyber Cabin like they did. They should have made you know the model two like they were supposed to was cancelled by Elon Musk but instead they did the Cyber Cap because m like many decision that test over the last few years were bad decision based on thinking that autonomy will be solved faster than it as as and still hasn't been.

Speaker B: Yep. All right, let's move on. Uh, when no one Cyber Cab can't be used or go into mass production without steering wheel to sell the consumers. I think that's kind of what we're saying. Uh, FSD is perpetually getting better.

Speaker A: It is though. It is.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, I was the fool who bought it. That reminds me of the joke. Instead of full self driving with F U L L it's F O O O l. Anyway, Question. Any updated opinions on used eqbs? There's Mercedes. Did Mercedes fix the recall item? So eqbs are about the least expensive Mercedes you can buy right now. They're. I think they're selling for like under $20,000. Part of that is because the range they were, they were kind of hacked together. Uh, the new EQB is a lot nicer, a lot bigger range. But if you're looking for a used um, Mercedes SUV, um, can't get a better price than the EQBs. Um, and those are, those are small. I um, rode one around Germany. It drove really nicely. I had uh, no problem with it.

Speaker A: Um, I'd say though that you're, you're getting what you pay for. Like personally I haven't experienced it. It's.

Speaker B: It.

Speaker A: It doesn't feel like I'm um, like you know, a very luxurious vehicle like uh, your aqs for example feels a lot more like Mercedes and everything. Like the aqb, I felt like, I mean um, I don't know if uh, Mercedes really wanted to put their logo on that thing.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it was it. They really just took out the gas engine and threw in some batteries. So um, yeah, you get what you pay for. Uh, but you know, a very inexpensive Mercedes.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Uh, please. Rivian build R2 oh, we're still talking about that. All right. Uh, unlike Seth, I'm okay with the current hardware on the launch edition R2. It's already better than Autopilot, so anything beyond that will be icing on the cake for me. Um, Rivian has said that uh, the current hardware will do point to point navigation, but it will not allow you to like read a book or use your phone or anything like that. That's kind of what I am hoping to get at someday.

Speaker A: So it will be FSD. It will be like an advanced level 2 system. Like it, it would be that. But even, even beyond that, my point when you, when you did your review or your first drive review was like, I think there's a significant market between now and uh, when they launch the lighter version that don't even want the point to point because by the way you're gonna have to pay for the point to point on top of it. Like it's gonna. The 2500 bucks or 50amonth, whatever. So I think a lot of people just don't care about that. They just want to drive their car. Uh, so, and, and Rivian is a driver's vehicle too. So it's uh, I think Ribbon's gonna do relatively fine.

Speaker B: And, and Rivian CEO RJ Syringe has, has said that eventually FSD is not going to be something that you pay for. It's going to be something that everybody has. So I don't know what that window is though.

Speaker A: Yeah, the way, the way it's looking, that's probably a 20, 27, 2028 kind of things gonna happen.

Speaker B: All right, David. Uh, Realtor says uh, you can turn off the X part of the headlights and the BMW that's.

Speaker A: Oh, well you should do that for the media picture.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, it's not really the point. I mean but I guess you can make it look less bad. That's great. Uh, wasteful battery size in the ix5. This sounds like coming from Jamie. Stop the madness. Who's taking unnecessary range?

Speaker A: I mean I agree with that. It's just, it's clear that BMW has made a decision where they are going for, for upmarket with it. Like they. It's a 75000 car. So it's people pay for, for the, the bigger range. I do agree that um, you, it's wasteful because 90 of the time you won't use it. You're just going to carry a giant battery pack around and you know there's value for like for example, right now I'm A new apartment in Montreal. And I don't have a charging solution at home. Having a long range there. It's very useful for that because you, you, you know, you can park outside for a week and you don't have to worry about it. Um, and just do your regular driving.

Speaker B: People.

Speaker A: Yeah. And people will buy a $75,000 car are not necessarily in that situation. So I, I get where BMW is going for there. But I do agree with Carl that, uh, you know, you don't need 435 miles of range.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I. So the, um, EQS that I drive, uh, in the summertime gets like 365 miles when it's fully charged. I don't use that. Like, I basically charge and it also has some buffer. So, like, theoretically I can charge 100% and not kill the battery too much.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But I basically get down to like 250 and then charge it up again and it's pointless.

Speaker A: And you're someone who drives a lot too long distances. Very often like that. For long distances, fast charging capability, like a quick, fast charging within the car and an extensive infrastructure is way more important than a range.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: I think it's still confusing for a lot of people. I get it. Like, uh, But I think, I think it's getting through a lot of people now that this is the most important part. All right.

Speaker B: Yeah. Tech US Solar energy says Fred and shadow ban on electric. Are we still shadowing?

Speaker A: I don't, I don't shadow ban people because I tell you that I ban you when I, when I ban you. So it's not a shadow ban, it's a band.

Speaker B: All right. Uh, you need 400 miles of range for any future EV over 60k. If. And that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying too. Once you get into the higher price range, it makes you trying to differentiate yourself one way or the other. And range is one of them. So I, I get that too.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right. Uh, if I owned a lucid, I would be looking for a sucker to buy it before they go under. That company isn't going to survive and it's still half baked. Carl in San Diego is not a lucid fan.

Speaker A: No, he's not.

Speaker B: He wants to hoist his lucid on somebody else.

Speaker A: I mean, he's not completely wrong like it is. But M, much like Rivian, is also in any company that's not profitable is technically on the path to bankruptcy. Um, so. So, so it's definitely something. Keep in mind, if you're A buyer, uh, Lucid though I, it's such a great product that uh, I'm like someone would have to buy it up. I feel like it's not like a Nikola for example, when they went on there is like, I mean there's, there's half a dozen other companies that, that produce, you know, equivalent or better battery electric trucks and also they are like half in between battery electric and hydrogen. So it's like, it's like what are you actually buying in terms of technology? Half of their technology is from Bosch or anything like that. Lucid has incredible powertrain engineering um, that is extremely valuable. The um, you know they make the one for the Formula E. They uh, make the powertrain for the Formula E for years. I don't know if they still do that. But you know there's a, there's, there's a lot of things that are very impressive about the engineering aspect of the vehicle. So I, I uh, would, um, I'm not, you know, I'm not guaranteeing it, but I feel like a company would, would buy this up and you know, you take advantage of it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Does that mean that they hold up to the warranties and the service? Not necessarily, but I would hope so.

Speaker B: Saudi's already building a factory in the Middle East. They will drop billions. It will survive if they bring a uh, forty thousand dollar car. Yeah. Deep pockets for that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean they can, they can always pull the plug, but you never know.

Speaker B: All right. Uh, it seems like the market is going to split up between lower cost 400 volt cars with around 300 miles of range and more expensive vehicles with 800 volts and more range. Uh, that feels a little bit reductionist. I kind of feel like. Yeah, I think, I think Everybody's going to 800 at some point. Why not?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think we're in a transition phase right now because also like there's the charging infrastructure, especially in North America. The, it doesn't necessarily all support the 800 volt and, and then if you, if you have an HRV core, you're not necessarily, uh, the range aspect doesn't have a big impact here. I think it's more, more related to the charging capacity and um, you know, the, the fast charging. So it's, it's more related to that than the range I think. So we're in a transitional phase right now and you have people doing both. Like we've seen the tele truck having a solution split between both, which I think is pretty good.

Speaker B: All right. Dan overstay says I give up point to point nav to get level four on the freeway. Yeah, I mean level four in the freeway is kind of the uh, holy grail.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lot better than point to point now. But I mean point to point now is it. You would think it's level four like the way they said like oh, you can go point to point without uh, you know, touching the, the vehicle touching the controls. But it's like no, it's supervised point to point. So yeah, it's a uh, it's strange. It's a weird approach.

Speaker B: I'm fine with BMW offering a bigger battery as long as they offer smaller batteries at lower price for people who don't need the added range. That's a good point.

Speaker A: That's fairly good. Launcher version with 100 kilowatt of battery pack for like $65,000 and that'd be perfect. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And yet ICE cars had around 300 miles of range when I was young. And now many road trip ices have 400 or more. Yeah, I mean it's really easy to make a ICE car. You just make the tank a little bit bigger.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Uh, did I miss comments on Polestar and the new deep discounts? Yeah, I saw that the uh, Polestar 4 is getting $25,000 off because Polestar is no longer in the US. Um, a friend of mine is actually looking at uh, getting one and you know what, what does that entail? Is it going to be like Fisker or you can't get serviced? I think Polestar should probably be clear about Volvo servicing them or what's going to happen.

Speaker A: But for now they said that they gonna keep servicing them. But again like, just like lucid. Polestar is not in a great financial situation. Lucid as the Saudis Polestar as the Gilly Chili. Um, so, so, so there's that. But the Polestar 4 is a great vehicle. I've driven it a couple times. It's an amazing car.

Speaker B: Most EV owners use 10 to 20% of the battery capacity daily, just as most EV owners charge up overnight at home. EVs are not for everyone and every need. But Many work with 300 miles of range just fine. Yeah, that's what I tell most people. A lot of people who are considering an EV for the first time are like well you know what, how do I charge like 360 days a year? You're, you know you're gonna wake up in the morning with 300 miles of range and use about 10th if you

Speaker A: can charge at home though. That's it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Uh, GM Empower and San Fran. GM never mentioned solar. Do you think GM energy sales are good except some employees features like. Some employees features like the one you did. We don't say many installation cases. I'm not sure what they're.

Speaker A: Do they have solar? Yeah, I'm not.

Speaker B: I mean it works with solar, I guess maybe, but yeah, that's not what GM's doing. Uh, we're talking about charging the 800 volt ionic. I mean the. I, I wouldn't call the Ionic a premium, uh, I mean it's a nice car. There's certainly premium versions of it but you know, the basic.

Speaker A: I think he's making the point that I say like 800 volt doesn't charge as well in the North America. Uh, because a lot of the infrastructure is made for front of Volt. Obviously you can still charge. It's just you're not charging as fast as you potentially can which makes having the 800 volt. Yes. Useful. That's all I'm saying for sure you're still better off with the 800 volt system. Um, and it's just you're not taking the full advantage of it all the time is all I'm saying.

Speaker B: Also, YGM never included Canada for public charging. Zero GM energy here, I guess.

Speaker A: I mean this GM is. GMCVs are super popular in Canada. I don't think most people are complaining. I mean especially now that they have access to the supercharger network. But also we have Great. Another charging network like circuitry, uh, electric and electrified. Canada is not as great but uh, we have a bunch of different networks.

Speaker B: Rick McDonald, uh, final. I guess there's one more comment. I'd love a i3 or iX3 with a smaller battery. I think a lot of people would prefer a cheaper. He's uh, charging at a DFC at 800 volt every time. I just plan.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean if, if in where you're going and your, your area as 800 volt charging readily available, then you're fine obviously. But I, uh, mean it's not, it's not everywhere that has the capacity. That's all I'm saying. All right, well that's it for the this week's episode of the Trick podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give us a like a thumbs up a subscribe whatever it is on the app you're watching. It helps the show more than you think. It takes a second to do. It's free and we appreciate when you do. It helps, you know, send us into the algorithm and all that. Uh, all right. I, uh, hope you guys have a safe weekend. We're gonna see you same place next week. Bye. Bye.