Tesla Semi, mixed bag of EV sales, Chinese EVs in the US, and more

Speaker A: And we are live a new Pizza Electric podcast. I'm Fred Lambert, your host and as usual I'm joined by Set Winchell. How you doing this week, Set?

Speaker B: I'm good.

Speaker A: All right, uh, it was a pretty slow week in the EV news world, but we have a couple of news item that I wanted to bring to you guys attention I thought would be fun, interesting to discuss. Uh, so we're gonna have plenty of times to talk to you guys at the end of the show too, so to remind you as more people trickle into the live stream later on. But uh, we're going to talk about this. I just released the Tesla Semi European spec ahead of the lunch next week. So that's interesting. Tesla is already adapting the Tesla semi to uh, the European market, which is, um, already adopting electric trucks a lot faster than North America. When I talk about global EV sales, uh, it's kind of a big mixed bag. A big boom in Europe, big slowdown in North America. Uh, Volvo killed off another EV in the us which is kind of in line with that. I'm going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Trump. A rumor, even though I don't put a lot of weight on that rumor, that Trump may open Chinese EVs to the US market, um, as part of a deal with China as the Chinese President Xi is, is visiting I think next week also we'll talk about the Xiaomi Sky Nomad that just got its pricing. It's going to be the third vehicle from the very impressive Chinese brand BYD, cutting the price on the Denza Z9 GT, uh, which is a very impressive vehicle in itself. And Nissan unveiling its new, uh, while at least getting a first look at its new entry level ev, the Pixel EXO name. All right, let's jump in with the Tesla semi European specs that was confirmed uh, this week. Tesla says up to 550 kilometers of range at 40 tons, which is fully loaded. Ah, 100 kilowatt, 1 kilowatt hour per kilometers of uh, energy efficiency, mega chargers up to 800 kilowatts, recovering 60% of the range in just 30 minutes. EPTO up to 25 kilowatts. That's the power takeoff in the back. So you can power things like uh, refrigerated trailer or something like that. And then um, 40 ton gross combination weight at 9100 kilogram curb weight. So there's a lot of things here that are different than the US version. First off, right away the range 550 kilometers, that's 242 miles of range. Now obviously the range in Europe versus um, North America is calculated differently but that points to Tesla just releasing the day cab standard range version uh, versus the long range version which is available in North America right now with the 500 miles of range. So not sure why exactly, but um, this is focusing on that first. Um, also they released this picture with uh, with those specs here and there's some controversy right now like some people believe that Tesla won't be able to deploy that in Europe because of the front end of the, of the truck, you know, European uh, flat trucks. But this is kind of an in between situation here. So I don't know, maybe Tesla thinks it can get away with it. I'm not so sure. The energy efficiency is the, is the same or roughly the same. It's equivalent to about 1.6 kilowatt hour per miles which is you very close to what this says in, in North America. Um, but the weight, the weight is different here. So the weight, we only had the weight of the long range version. So this might be the range of the shorter range version, the standard range version or it might be like specific to Europe because, because again there is some different regulation there. So that's about 20,000 pound versus 23,000 pounds in, in uh, North America for the long range. So I think it's in between the two if I'm not mistaken. And in your update, yep, it's a

Speaker B: third uh, spec vehicle, a special European spec vehicle is like this.

Speaker A: Yes, almost entirely. Sure it is but closer to the standard range than the long range version in the U.S. the weirdest one for me is the 800 kilowatt charging because

Speaker B: uh, yeah, why not a megawatt?

Speaker A: Yeah, Tesla did say a 1.2 megawatt capable in, in the U.S. so with that point to the standard range being limited to 8kW with the smarter batch pack, very possible. So maybe we get an information about the standard range ah through that release but we're going to get all the details next week as this actually unveil this truck in um, in Europe. But uh, yeah, European markets may be the most interesting one for, for Tesla because it's um, it's already full of competition there and, and the competition is already well established. They already have like service, they already have charging station even though tes be able to use the charging station for the most part I think. Um, but obviously they're going to want to deploy their own in Europe. But Tesla uh, is going more with the higher Hand here. So the, the Mercedes EACT Trust 600 is probably the closest competitor, uh because it also has over 500 miles of range on a 600 kilowatt hour battery pack and um, similar capacity as Tesla's. The, the price is what we don't know obviously here. Ah, the price is, is closely guarded. But uh, but yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how Tesla competes in Europe, which is already as an established market with electric, uh, semi trucks. All right, uh, there's a big report that Michelle wrote this week about uh, global sales, uh, EV cells, how they're doing. And it is based on benchmark mineral intelligence, which is one of the leaders in that front. You know, they try to track EV cells as close as possible since EV cells are kind of reshaping the uh, mining world and the kind of minerals that uh, the industry needs, you know, going away from fossil fuels to nickel, lithium, copper, um, all of these minerals. So where are we looking at right now? So obviously China still the leader, but they come in at -11 year over year. So here I want to put a little caveat on it, uh, here because I think they are counting all plugins, so plug in hybrids and BEVs. And we know the BEVs are up in China year over year, but the uh, they go by nevs, new energy vehicles there. And based on that, yes, it could be down year over year. So not great for the biggest EV market in the world. But the good news that contours that a little bit is um, um is that BEVs are still up, but year to date, uh, 6.9 million, down 12%. So August is very much, uh, representative of the whole year. Then you look at Europe where year over year they are up 29% at 3.3 million units. So Europe is surging quite a bit. And we have to admit part of that is because of Chinese EV. So Chinese EVs are being exported to uh, to Europe. Uh, North America is where things hurt. North America, just 1 million EVs year to date. Uh, and that's down, uh, sorry, the 33 is for um, August20, down 21 year over year. Obviously a lot of that has to do with uh, the federal tax credit going away in, in the US and also in Canada. There's, there's, there's been similar issues with um, a pause on the uh, federal incentive. And also then the tariff, uh, situation also limited quite a bit the number of EVs available in, in Canada, uh, earlier in the year, then the, the rest of the world. 2 million EV so the rest of the world alone is bigger than North America now and that's up 97%. So that's um, that's doing most of the lifting here. And so globally we had 13.4 million EVs up 4% year over year. So globally, not a great year. We're used to double digit growth, uh, for evs, for Bev specifically. But like I said, if you focus more on BEVs, China would, would do, it would be positive here rather than negative. And um, yeah, it's mostly North America dragging the world behind because uh, rest of the world and Europe specifically are doing quite well. And we were discussing that a little bit in the chat set and the electric newsroom on Slack. And we do believe that the big reason for that is just the availability of EVs and whatever. Of course the tax credit has made a difference, but I think the difference is already being compensated. It's just that the number of EVs available is hurting people.

Speaker B: Yeah, manufacturers only release like half their EVs in the US and anything that's not an SUV is like barely released. In fact, uh, you know, there's some pictures of the uh, Porsche, uh, Boxster EV coming later this year probably. And I'm like, that would be a sweet car to have. I don't think it's coming to the

Speaker A: US like that would be a missed opportunity quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. The best example right now is Volvo. Volvo just pulled the EX40 out of its US lineup.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: Now the EX60 is the brand most affordable EVS for now they have, ah, the EX50 that's coming um, next year on uh, the Spa 3 platform. But yeah, the EX4D is now game over in the US

Speaker B: was also taken.

Speaker A: Yeah, the X30 was already gone. You know, it's hard to blame Volvo specifically in the US here because I, uh, I would understand their cold feet just based on the Polestar situation because it's not even clear how Volvo is able to operate right now and Polestar is not because they are both in, in uh, almost the same company. They, they would, they would offend, take offense to that. But you uh, do have a point. And the, the Chinese ownership situation is very similar for Bola gd, uh, as a giant stake in both companies and that's what is being used to bar Polestar, but somehow not Volvo. So I do understand why they would get cold feet if you know, their sister brand just got banned from the biggest North American market. So yeah, uh, it is a concern, but it is a good example of one, uh, of the main issues with the US Market right now that's dragging the entire world down when it comes to EV adoption is that not everything is available and actually most of the things are not available in North America. If you're an ev, buyers like uh, other than Tesla, like and then you know, few gm, uh, board options and you know, the Koreans, you kind of screwed Other the cheapest option also not available, including the Chinese evs. But then there was a report this week, uh, I mean that made people talk quite a bit here. Well, almost 150 comments on it. But Senator Elisa Slotkin from Michigan, Democrat from Michigan, uh, tweeted out that we um, hear, I'm quoting here, we hear rumors that Trump is planning to allow Chinese car to be sold in the US as part of a larger deal. Is putting together, uh, Slackin wrote on X and she, she um, she's ah, insinuating that she uh, is coming I think next week, if I'm not mistaken, uh, or two weeks. By the end of the month, uh, President Xi is coming to uh, Washington and he's gonna meet with Trump and it's expected that, you know, the deal that was discussed a month or two ago when, when Trump went to China, um, is going to get finalized there and there's going to be some kind of announcement on a big deal between China and the US there's been rumors of that. Now Chinese EVs being part of that deal has never been rumored. This is the first time it's being discussed. We're talking about a U.S. senator here. You know, she is on the Hill. She's, she's in Washington. She hears things. So you might think like there's some, you know, weight to that rumor. However, I would take it with a big grain of salt because Slotkin. Well, first of all, we're in the middle of an election right now. Michigan is a very contested um, state and obviously a big auto state. And we have to remember that the Chinese ban on EVs was implemented by the Democrats, by Biden. Sorry, not a ban on EVs. The 100% tariffs effectively was acts as a ban on Chinese EVs. But it's a tariff. It's 100% tariffs. Ah, Trump has been in power for almost two years now and he has not shown any interest in removing the ban. On the contrary, he seems really happy about the ban. I'm pretty sure he even took credit from it at some point. Takes credit for everything anyway. But um, there's no indication whatsoever this is the first indication here and obviously with the race in Michigan being close, she has incentive right now of making it look like the Democrats are the one that's keeping Chinese EVs out of the US rather than Trump. And that Trump is like looking to you know, kill, kill US jobs by letting Chinese even the market. Which is, which is pretty telling by itself, right Seth? Because like she, she's like if we let these cars in, all of you

Speaker B: guys job is you're screwed because they're so good. That's not a good look.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean she has a point because you have the CEO of Ford saying that you know, he didn't want to give back his Xiaomi C7 when he was testing it because it was, it was so good. And he, he launched an entire program at the uh, you know, the most iconic American automaker ever to, to compete with this.

Speaker B: Yeah. Jim Farley, if uh, if Ford doesn't work out for him, could be a Xiaomi spokesperson. Uh, he's done so much work for them.

Speaker A: Yeah, maybe, maybe uh, they let Chinese EVNs as Senator Slotkin claims and then uh, they take over and Xiaomi buys Ford and Harley becomes CEO of Xiaomi US Ford. Obviously we're speculating if you haven't gotten our tone, but I'm very, very skeptical about this news here due to the context. Now uh, if, if I should add the one thing to the context too is that Slotkin is pushing a uh, bipartisan bill to outright ban Chinese ev. So Chinese cars in general. Actually. Uh, so she, she's pushing that right now. So that, that's our angle here. She's doing it with Senator Bernie Morono, a Republican from Ohio.

Speaker B: Also a big car manufacturing state.

Speaker A: Exactly. A lot of uh, especially um, uh, supplier of parts for, for big Honda plant there too. Mhm. So what they're doing is like, it feels to me that they're more like doing fear mongering of like Trump is going to let Chinese EV in so to push their bill before you can do that and, and so on. So again I'm putting like a ah, less than 10% chance that or claim that Trump is actually thinking about including Chinese EVs into a deal with China ah, later this month at less than 10% but still worth talking about because it would be out of the left field but it would be a game changer uh in the U.S. uh, I would assume that it would be a similar deal to Canada like uh, kind of letting trickle in some uh, some quotas, some yearly quotas. I mean if you do it like Canada like 2% market up to 7% and then maybe going up the fewers at 14. It doesn't hurt the market that much actually. It might actually help because then you, even though it's very limited in the number of vehicle that you competing against visually, it's a, it's a bad look. If, if the, the, the, the COP LE outpace, uh, uh, evs on performance and features and all that, then they're going to have to up their game even though they only have to compete for like 10% of the market, for example. Yeah, they could actually be a net positive for the industry if something like that happens. I think hard to see it that way if you work uh, at a plant in Michigan though. Ohio. All right, we have a few more news item to discuss and then we're going to jump into the comment section. So if you guys have question for us, you can put it in the comment right now when I get to it in just a few minutes. I see that uh, Specular is already here with a few question. Carl is here. Hi Carl. Antonio. Uh, Donald is here. So welcome to the show guys. We're gonna have plenty of time this week to discuss uh, you guys a question and uh, any other topic in the EV world that you would want a set or I stake on it because uh, again only three more news item to discuss. It wasn't a big news week this week. It was uh, doing research a lot, uh, quite a bit, uh, couldn't find significant news. But this is big. So Xiaomi, out of nowhere, this personal electronic company, kind of the Apple of China, Apple clone in China. Uh, they uh, came out of nowhere in the EV world and started producing the SU7 and then the YU, uh, seven and within two years I think, I think they are. Did I put it in article? I uh, think it's 600 or even 800,000 units. Just a crazy number of vehicle that they deliver in two years and also profitable. They claim that their auto unit is now profitable which is a big deal. And um, the you know, the SU7 is not the crazy expensive. At the base price though the new version is a little bit more expensive. Starts around $30,000. But now they have the Sky Nomad. We discussed it last month when they unveiled the vehicle itself which is a E rev, so an extended range EV where you have a significant size battery pack in there. Um, did I put it, I think it's 60 kilowatt hour 52 to start. So the base one is 52 with an NFP cell and then you have a 76 kilowatt hour option for the dual motor version. So you can use these vehicles as bavs most of the time. But if you are you know doing a long road trip and you don't want to charge too much, uh you, you have, you double, roughly double your range, even a little bit more than that for the, for the smaller batch pack version you end up with 1351km of range, 841um but you get you know 218 miles if you're just day to day driving uh, pure electric. So I'm really warming up to these uh, EREV as a know a bridge to uh, um to electrification because they are widely different from you know the plug in hybrids that we have right now in North America. Really the uh Scout if they ever come to market they are going to be the first one to have that. And now we are keep hearing about the. Is uh, it going to be called a Lightning also the new version. That's ERV said I'm not sure but

Speaker B: yeah, I was just going to say Ford's got a ERV pickup coming.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I think they're gonna reuse the Lightning badge uh for this but I'm not, I'm not entirely sure. Yeah. So the Sky Nomad uh the news this week is the price and the price is coming up like very close to the Su7 despite being again long range Erv plus also a full size SUV. So the Sky Lamad 70 Pro N70 Pro which is a five seater rear wheel drive comes in at 209, 210,000 RMB which is about $31,200 and then it goes up to $45,000 if you want the longer range version all wheel drive and also as a pop up camping roof. They unveiled new images too here of like the swivel seats here so you can have like kind of a lounging area with this and uh, and yeah it's uh hitting production right now. It's going to be in dealership while dealership in Xiaomi um showrooms really uh, quite soon. So it's uh, it's going to be their take on the uh, competing with the model yl, competing with the Leoto Ioto extended range evs as well. Um pricing wise they are pricing this super aggressive so I'm really curious to see how it shakes up the market. And we know Xiaomi is coming to Europe next year so I don't know if this is going to be the first one to come with or if they're going to try the probably the YU7 I would assume maybe even Canada. Maybe keep uh, getting an eye on Canadian market for Xiaomi. But that would be very interesting because to this day if I had my pick, I think I would yu7gt all day.

Speaker B: Oh yeah.

Speaker A: Oh yeah. Crazy car. This is close second though, the Denza Z9 GT. So prior to this update here, I wouldn't really go for this because the, the specs are just like too crazy. Was um, what was the spec before here? The performance version. 770 kilowatt, 1032 horsepower. It's absolutely insane vehicle. But now they're doing uh, a lower price version. Oh, it's still a tri motor version here. Wait a minute. The premium trim is based on the BYD. The setup is used trim order 1230 up front to 310kW in the B delivering a combined 770. Oh my God. So this is this version. It was even crazier the previous one.

Speaker B: I mean anything that's a th000 horsepower is going to be.

Speaker A: I, um, I'm keep, I'm not even keeping track of. I need Chinese evo over a th000 horsepower at this point.

Speaker B: I know it's, it's anymore. This is a $50,000 car.

Speaker A: But this. So this was an $80,000 car that the previous version, this one, this one is 50. No, you're right. So the new version that I just described is, is 50. The $50,000 and it's uh, a, it's a wagon. It's like a uh, crazy shooting break. It's a very interesting looking vehicle that we don't have in North America these days. But you know, it's, it's kind of uh, a nice mix between the utility of an SUV while having the efficiency of a sedan. It's uh, you know, very fun to drive. A lot more fun to drive than an SUV in my opinion. Even. Even if I think the electric SUVs are a lot more fun to drive than the regular SUVs because of the lower center of gravity. This has everything. The only thing it doesn't have is for the older folks. So it's like, oh, it's too low to get in and out. Like I get it, I get it. But I'm not, I'm not that old yet. So I still, I still enjoy quite a bit. But you get kind of.

Speaker B: It kind of looks like a Taycan Cross Turismo or whatever. You know, the Porsche's Taycan shooting brake Ish kind of vehicle.

Speaker A: You're right, you're right, I was not fair. There's, there's the Cross Turismo that's uh, that's uh, similar to that but not similar in price. No starting price is twice of that and, and not even half the spec on the base version. Um, though I think that like the Turbo GT Cross Turismo version probably, probably has similar capabilities as this. Um, range wise 534 miles of range, 160 kilometers. But that's CLTC so obviously it's going to be. No, it's still probably going to be a 400 mile range version. It has 122 kilowatt hour battery pack in there. So yeah, it's probably still 400 miles of range. And then you get the new Blade 2.0 battery cells in there which is 10 to 97, 97% in just nine minutes. And these are LFP cells too. So you charge them to 100% all day. There's no, no worries. Um, the interior looks slick. Very like ah, Tesla like for the center console here, giant screen. You get both an instrument cluster and a passenger screen on top of the giant center screen. Kind of an overkill if you ask me. But. A car, yeah, a lot of car for the price and you get God's eyes too which is their uh, FSD equivalent. But um, you, you get a lidar, you get a crazy air suspension that they have. I don't know if it's exactly. Yeah, the dc, a jewel chamber one. I think that's the one that I tried when I was in China with in the uh, Wang Yang U9. That's you know, jump around. It's crazy. I don't think that's going to be in the fifty thousand dollar version though. I think you need to get the bigger version. All right, one more news item and then we jump into the comment section. Uh, the Nissan Pixo Eevee here first image was released uh, this week. Is uh, the new lower hand small city car coming from, from the Japanese brand next year it's going to be the new entry level because they, they got rid of the, or the halted development on the electric version of the Washkai. I'll never know how to pronounce that. It is the question was a little bit bigger than this too. I think this is very much like a mini kind of a vehicle. Um, yeah, the starting price is expected to be you know, around the, the Dolphin, uh, in Europe which is about €20,000, $23,000. So they released this teaser here, you're gonna remove the sound here. I think this is only just the, the image that they showed earlier. That's not even. No, the image is not even in that teaser. Uh, but you have the camouflage version here. Looks very similar to the teaser you see here.

Speaker B: It's funny they use camouflage still. Like the camouflage is 100 times more spottable than just if they had painted it blue.

Speaker A: Yeah, especially that. It's not like a vehicle that's particularly like eye catching to start with. But yeah, uh, Nissan is just still trying to find itself, you know, with uh, financial issues and everything. And this is uh, in the next, uh, next thing they're trying to do Pixo. Probably not going to get it in the US anyway.

Speaker B: All right, let's head to the comments. All right, uh, Fred, you have a ticket to the Toronto Film Fest showing of Musk. That's the four hour documentary. My understanding is uh, his baby moms are all in there and talking.

Speaker A: The breeders. The breeders. That's all they call. He calls them that. And that's not me saying it. That's Justin Musk or Justin Wilson I should say is his first wife. So I, I pretty sure she has the receipts for that.

Speaker B: Yeah, she said that he calls women breeders.

Speaker A: Yep. No, not women. Is these baby mamas. The mother of his, of his kids, of his 14 kids. I think at this point. No, I mean I've heard a lot of feedback, I've heard a lot of feedback about the Musk movie. Uh, mainly for Musk himself. Even though he hasn't seen. Musk is the best at commenting on documentaries he hasn't seen. He's been doing that all week. Um, you know he called Gibney every word in the book saying he's an axing, is a, uh, you know, despicable human being. Um, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. So apparently I was wrong last week I said it was coming out in 2027. So it's coming out next month but only in theater. But it's a HBO documentary so I think next year then it's going to be on hbo. If I'm not mistaken. It'll be available next year but if you want to see it in cinema. I don't really go see documentaries in cinema. Like, ah, if I get my butt to, to a theater, I kind of, I kind of want like a crazy like visual experience. I don't, I don't want to see Musk's face on the 40 foot screen.

Speaker B: Yeah, for four hours too that sounds kind of awful.

Speaker A: I, I've heard that it doesn't feel like four hours though. I feel apparently it's like, it's really nice, uh, pace. But apparently the HBO one's gonna be. The on TV version is gonna be even longer, so. So I'm gonna wait for, to see the, to see it on HBO.

Speaker B: All right. Antonio. Uh, Hollyville 104 update of my Tesla solar roof. Nothing to update. Okay. Still not online. Lucent Energy blames Eversource and vice versa. I am taking this to the Connecticut Attorney General of Consumer Protection. Best of luck. I uh, am a new Connecticut resident, so I'm curious how our Attorney General fares in these affairs. He's uh, in South Carolina now though. Says not much EV adoption in South Carolina. I can. I also have noticed this the land of the late Lindsey Graham. Yeah, the infrastructure is not great there. The uh, education of EV is not great. So. But I think that cities there are a little bit better. Question. Yes, the EV choices in the USA sucks. What policies should be changed to improve the US EV market? I mean we talk about this quite a bit. Uh, you know, making it not hostile to own ev, um, you know, not charging extra, um, registration fees. They, uh, could put a, um, tax on gasoline. Uh, that would kind of bring it in line with uh, the damage it causes.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think you need to stop with the incentive at the purchase because like just putting them in, taking them away, putting them in, it hurts more than, than it helps at this point, I think. Uh, so yeah, I think taxing, like, like said taxing, you know, CO2 or you know, directly gas at the pump makes a lot more sense.

Speaker B: Um, and you can see when gas costs more, like because of the Iran war, EV sales go up. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, but everything's gonna go up now though. Like it's, it's like I've been looking at, uh, the electricity rates in the US they are double from 2020 to 2030 in this decade. Electricity rates in cities in the US are gonna double on average, which is not good for evasion. Yeah, uh, unless you're fully independent from the grid, then that's. I think that's the. In the us you're screwed. Like it's, I think you have to be independent from the grid and, and have your evs and have like bi directional charging and your own solar production. I think that's the only way at this point because, uh, but evs too, I mean, are going to get more expensive. Have you seen the diesel cost? These like, the diesel when diesel double in price in I think they are up like 60 in six months, something like that. It's um, it hurts everything. So yeah, I'm uh, I'm importing electric tractors right now in Canada just like I did last year. I import them and I sell them locally here and the fr the cargo cost just a year apart as double. Oh double. That hurts quite a bit.

Speaker B: All right Donald. 77 BS EX 60 is the right size for the USA but a cheaper one would be nice. I, I don't think one size fits all in the U.S. i, I think the EX30 was great. I think the EX60 is great. I think the EX90 is great and even some in between. So I don't kind of buy like one size fits all for the US I think that's the kind of thinking that has us with like one third of the models that uh, Europe has. All right, Carl in San Diego, Slotkin is former intelligence Democrat who is using that rumor to help Dems win back Congress. She's doing it for the good of the Democratic party according to Carl. Question, do we know what other EVs Ford is bringing to market besides the Fathom pickup? Well we know we talked earlier about the um, the, the full size pickup. They just um, stopped making the lightning. Uh so they're going to replace that with something obviously.

Speaker A: Um, in Europe they have the suv, they have the Explorer, uh, and they have a new one coming.

Speaker B: Yeah, they have a Bronco in Europe too.

Speaker A: Yeah. And then in China also as well. But uh, in, in the US we don't know that's uh, they are being very skittish.

Speaker B: Yeah. Note uh, that Slotkin gave Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union signaling she's been chosen by centrist established Democrats to run for president slot. According to Carl, she's the next Democrat.

Speaker A: First I've heard of her. Was this week kind of surprising?

Speaker B: I don't think so.

Speaker A: At the same time it looks like they're throwing everything at the wall seeing what sticks at this point because you know they'll have a uh, lot front runners that are interesting.

Speaker B: I just wish the E revs would allow leaving the ice out of your car until you need it. I hate the thought of dragging that weight around 90 of the time. Yeah, that would be kind of cool actually if you could like just pull the thing out of your car. Like what if it was just like a generator, you know like a Honda generator, this little handheld thing.

Speaker A: It's possible. It's quite, it's quite complicated at this Point, but at the same time, like that's what we've been seeing about these giant battery packs too. Like 99% of the time you're drying a giant batch pack that you don't need around when you're just, you know, you need 50 miles, which obviously 50 miles is not enough. But like for the most part, like most people don't need a batch pack over 50 kilowatt hours. I think the most.

Speaker B: That's a good uh, segue question. You said you are warming up to e revs. What EREVs are actually available in the USA or soon will to be available. Um, there's a little history of, I mean you can find some used um, BMW i3s. Uh, the Chevy Volt was actually kind of an E rev.

Speaker A: Technically. Yes. Ah, let's, let's differentiate like technically, uh, uh, an E versus like what we know as an E right now, which is actual usable all electric range in all condition. Because also there's the issue of like some plug in hybrids even though they might be. You're just using the internal combustion engine as a generator. You need it in certain condition, whether it's temperature or speed or whatever. I think none. Right. If you, if we're really thinking about like a 50 kilowatt hour pack with, with an extended range, there's, there's nothing right now. I think Scout was supposed to be the first one.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's probably true that you're right though.

Speaker A: The BMW i3 when it had a generator, I think that that would count as a uh, as an ef but that hasn't been in the market for a minute.

Speaker B: Dan Oberstay, we were talking about camouflage not being camouflage, but camouflage has become marketing. I think that's, that might be true actually. Uh, all right, uh, protocol six diesel just hit $6 nationally and was 2.14 one year ago. That's triple.

Speaker A: I thought, I didn't thought it was that but I know, I know it's up like 60 something percent since the war just like four or five months ago.

Speaker B: But yeah, there's a strategic oil, uh, and diesel, um, uh, supply and I think we're kind of running low on that. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, that might be probably. Yeah, I mean there's going to be panic uh, if, if that happens fully like already. A tripling hurts. Literally everything you have in your home, everything you buy, everything you touch has been in a diesel truck at some point most likely than not. And uh, now triple the highest cost related to running that truck. The fuel is going to have a significant impact on all pricing all around. Um, I, I, I see it because I, I ships like, like I said, I, I import stuff and I ship it around and it's uh, the prices are, they really don't make sense sometimes. Like I, I priced sending a tractor to uh, Alberta and last year was like three thousand bucks. You know, for thirty thousand dollar tractor it hurts ten percent. It hurts, but it's doable. Now it's like six thousand dollars and they just go, nope, no, that makes no sense. And they're right.

Speaker B: All right, that's all for the relatively short comment section.

Speaker A: Yes, that's it for this week's episode of Electric Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give us a like a subscribe thumbs up. Whatever it is on the app you're watching right now, uh, helps the show quite a bit and we appreciate when you do it. Um, we're going to see you same time, same place next week, hopefully with more news and this week.