The Autopilot Crash Course | Tesla Motors Club Podcast #10
01:12:21 Share

Hey, hey, hey, we're here. Thanks everyone for coming out to see us today. This is going to be Tesla Motors Club episode 10. I'm Mark. I'm Lewis. And I'm Mike. And we have a little something to talk about today. We're going to hit up the CCS Adapter Wars. There's lots of different options coming out right now. Tesla Supercharger Network opening up to other cars. How's that?

How was that? We're also going to speak about the New York Times and the FX documentary on Elon Musk's crash course. What they got right, what they got wrong. You hear our opinions. So for now, all of that and a lot more. And are we going to get the Model S plaid for Lewis? Hmm. It's coming. Anyway, Tesla Motor Club Forum episode 10 starts right now.

I mean, look at these guys. Look at Mike and Lewis. I mean, these are some handsome dudes. I mean, what a better way to spend a Sunday with these two cats right here. You know what I'm saying? All right, Mark, what do you want? What do you want? My brothers from another mother. It's been a minute. I haven't seen you guys in a while. You know, what's been going on? You know, everybody's good. Mike, is your daughter loving her BMW? Oh, the little i3 has been a kick in the butt to have around. Yeah. I'll say it's...

I raced a Tesla up the hill by my house the other day. In the BMW? In the BMW. And the guy in the Tesla was very surprised. He was on his butt at the top of the hill because he wasn't expecting this little dinky car to be with him. Is that a smart car? No, I'm just kidding. It's not that small. It's faster than I gave it credit for. I'll give it that.

But she's enjoying it. It's doing well. She's having a lot of fun. She's enjoying it. Cool, cool, cool. You know, it's a hell of a first car. I'll say that. I know. I know. And I know you were kind of saying right before we started that you and her and her mom went out last night, right? And they were trying to find a place to charge. Oh, my God. And they went from spot to spot to spot to spot, you know? So, yeah.

So this kind of kicks us into the CCS adapters that are starting to come out. So I'm sure a lot of our people listening, watching, many of them have heard about the CCS adapter that Tesla talked about for a while. Then they finally released it only in Korea. And then people are like, well, when are we going to get it? So I

Got one. You're special. Look, I have a fun fact. I have no reason to use it. I'm probably not going to really use it. I just got it because it was cool and I like to get gadgets. So let me quickly explain. I know, Mike, you've got the SeaTac, right? The SeaTac version, right? So we can talk about that. But for people who may want one of these,

Because now it's really cool to have it because with the supercharger prices kind of increasing a little bit, some people are kind of upset about that, and rightfully so. And so here in LA especially, there's people lined up in Tesla charger networks trying to get a charge across the street or down the road. You got the CCS ones, it's like tumbleweed. They're empty, man. Whatever. So having this thing is really cool. So-

There's two places that currently can do that. One place is Hirumio. I'm going to probably butcher the name. But what they did initially, and I was going to think about going with them, but initially how they did it was...

They're like a company that can, if you want something from Korea, you can ship it to them and they'll ship it to you. That's kind of what their service is. And so someone got the bright idea where, hey, I can order this charger, this adapter from Tesla Korea, have it sent to them and get sent to here. But the problem with that was, is that the company needs your credentials to log into your account and order it through your Tesla account to have it shipped to them. Once it gets there, then they ship it to you.

Me and a lot of other people like, nah, dog, I'm not trying to give up my credentials to somebody who I don't even know. But some people did and they had good results with it.

There was another company that came out called Delivered.ko, and that's who I ended up going with. And so what Delivered is, their option was a little bit cheaper, maybe $30 or $40 cheaper. It depends on the shipping cost. But what happens is you go to the Tesla site, the Korean site yourself, set up an account. It's totally separate from your North American account, so you need to have a separate account, log into the Korea site separately.

And then you log in, put your credentials in, get the adapter, put into your cart. And then you go to delivered and you set up an account with them. And fun fact, they give you two U.S. dollars for doing it. So you you put your information in. They give you a suite number, which is like a post office box, basically. And so you take that information in the Tesla Korea site, type in the your billing address and your debt shipping information to deliver it.

Tesla would send it to them, deliver it, says, hey, we got your package. And then now you have to give us, you know, pay for the shipping costs. And they offer several different shipping options. So I'm impatient. I ordered, I got the UPS worldwide, which is one to two days. So once they got it, it got to me in two days. Overall, it took...

eight days, including weekends, to get it, to start the order, wait for them to be shipped and delivered to me. That's pretty fast. Yeah. So this thing, it's huge.

This thing is huge. Like here's a phone. Oh, dude. Huge. You don't know huge yet. Here's an iPhone. This thing is like it's huge. And so it's got some weight to it. It's got some heft and some weight to it. It's probably like the smallest it could possibly be for the form factor. Probably, yeah. Yeah, and it's got a locking latch here. So you put the charger on first, the business end first, stick that into the car.

It takes a second for it to negotiate. Then you go and start up the charger and then it works fine. I haven't tried it yet because I don't really need to, but it's fun to have. Okay, so let's be clear about something here. That charger...

That adapter only works if you've got the board and the electronics behind the scenes for it to work. By 2019, no can do. I don't have that. What I do have, speaking of large, is this lovely beauty. And it's an adapter. It's got the Tesla side on it.

But this is an active converter. And what I mean by active is it literally does a conversion from CCS into CHAdeMO. And the Tesla thinks you're charging on a CHAdeMO adapter. And just for the record, this is the CHAdeMO adapter. It's also kind of hefty. And you've got this gigantic plug on the end that you have to deal with. But...

They do work. One of the differences, though, for Mark, though, is Tesla won't actively block you out.

Tesla has actively tried to block the C-TECH on several times and they keep issuing software updates. Right. So it's this tit for tat software war. Yeah. I'm kind of wondering maybe Tesla's finally thrown in the towel on that because they haven't done it in several months now. Now, have you ever had any issues with the firmware update on the C-TECH not working? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of hit and miss. The E-A chargers seem to work pretty well.

The charge point seemed to work pretty well. Some of the smaller vendors, not so much. And the thoughts that go behind the scenes with the engineers from CTEK is the CCS is a standard and the charger either drifts out of spec or something's drifting one way or the other. The voltage is high, it's too low. And the CTEK just says, nah, not doing that. You know, you're not within spec.

And you as a consumer would never know, you know, but I can, I can say this on the little I three that I bought, I've had the exact same problem with that car. There are certain chargers that will not charge on that car, even though it's a factory built CCS standard. And in fact, the CCS standard on that car was in place two years before the EA chargers went in place. And EA just gives me fits on that car.

So I'm just curious how, like how much are these things roughly? Like, I know obviously there's shipping and other things involved, but I'm, I mean, I'm, I obviously, I don't, so spoiler alert. I,

I haven't got it yet. I hate to say. Okay. Expecting it next month. My EDD is narrowed window. That's a fair question. And I've been looking at, you know, so I'm similar to Mark. I don't imagine I'll be using adapters much because I'm mostly going to be charging at home, which I do have my Tesla, you know, wall charger installed in the garage. But,

I imagine, being the whole Boy Scout, you know, be prepared thing, I imagine I will want to have lots of adapters ready to go. The CCS I bought from CTEK, I bought it used for $450. Okay. And you can buy them new for about $650. And that sounds like a lot. But in my case, I'd have to buy the Tesla adapter and pay for some type of upgrade when and if it's ever released. Right. This may end up being my only way to get it. We don't know yet. Sure.

Yeah, I've heard rumors that they're planning on letting you upgrade, right, at some point in the future. Words are cheap. Right, who knows if they're going to actually deliver on that. So I guess we'll see. Yeah, the one I bought, it was U.S. dollars. It was $247 U.S. And then the shipping was $86 because I wanted it right away. Right. But they have FedEx. They have other shipping methods. The lowest one, I think, was maybe $15 or $20. Right.

So it depends on how quick you want to get it. So if you have a newer car that has the capability of doing CCS already, then from a cost-effective standpoint, it might be worth trying to get the Tesla adapter because it's passive signaling. There's no software. It's simpler. It's just making the plugs line up versus mice. I would be interested to find out if the Tesla adapter works better with some of these other chargers.

Like where I have issues with certain brands, I'm wondering if Tesla has found a way to kind of adapt to that and get better support. But since Mark's not using it, he's using it for a bookend, you know. Like literally, like this is probably the third time I've taken it out. The first time I took it out was to actually say, oh, that's it. And the second time was just now. So let's compare something here, Mark.

I got mine delivered through UPS. I literally unboxed it. My wife goes, what's that? I said, it's my CCS adapter. Where are you going? I'm going to the charger. I mean, I was literally out the door 15 minutes after I got it unboxed. You know, I don't go enough places to run it down. I'm going to try. That's different work. I'm going to try. You know, but...

No, go ahead, Lewis. Go ahead. I was going to say, so what I'm getting from this is Mike is the guy that, you know, when he gets all his presents on Christmas as a kid, he's got to open and play with each one before moving to the next. And Mark's the guy that goes, look at all these things. And he's open and just put to the side, open the next one, put it to the side. So I see that. That's sort of the impression I was getting. Yep. I'm spoiled. I was spoiled rotten. That's just how it is. That's it. That's it. You know, but, you know, to talk about these adapters,

like we were saying earlier in the introduction is that, you know, because if you're in certain cities like LA or whatever, you know, there's going to be lines of people lined up in Tesla superchargers. And if Tesla opens up,

when they open up the charge, this network to other cars, these types of adapters, I think would be really, uh, more, more, more, more worth their value because now you test the people. Not only do they have the J 1772, they also have this CCS. So, and,

And Chattamo. There is a Chattamo adapter if you really want to go off the deep end. Yep, Chattamo's still there, you know. But we were talking about, you know, the Tesla opened up the Supercharger Network. And I think one of the podcasts we've done already, we kind of talked about this. Mike's got his certain things about this. So, you know, just to remind some new listeners, Mike, tell us, you know, your thoughts about Tesla opening up the Supercharger Network. My...

My opinion, strictly my opinion, is it's a mistake, plain and simple. But I understand why they might do it. I'm not sure it's actually going to play out the way people think. And the only reason I say that is I just don't see the traffic at all the CCS chargers I've been playing around with for the last month.

I mean, there hasn't been one. I take that back. There's been one I've had to wait for. And that's because it's at the Bristol Farms. It's a supermarket. And quite literally, the demographic of that store is the EV owner. And so there's a lot of EVs that cycle in. People go in for 20 minutes to get something. They plug in. They leave. So I had to wait a little bit. But in the last month and a half of playing with these adapters, I haven't had to wait at a single public charger for CCS or CHAD.

I can't say that for Tesla superchargers. We've got six around here within 10 miles, and they're all busy, every one of them. So I guess...

I was just going to ask, I have a question for you guys since, you know, obviously you already have your Tussies. You've been going around with them. And I imagine it depends on where you live, but you have all these different charging places and things. How are the prices? Like, is it like, oh, you're going to save money going to Tesla versus going to some random CCS? So not anymore. Okay. And that's a qualified not anymore. I was paying 39 cents a kilowatt peak.

And it's gone up to 51 cents. I think it's a kilowatt peak. Wow. But the average CCS public charger is anywhere from 40 to 45 cents a kilowatt. So no big deal there. Where the trick is, and I actually did this on my last little road trip, is I did not stop at the supercharger I normally stopped at because they just put the prices up to 51 cents a kilowatt.

I actually went two miles down the road to the city hall of the town where they had DC fast charging, CCS, at 21 cents a kilowatt. Now, mind you, it's not going to be a lot of money, but it's enough to buy a cup of coffee at the end of a trip. So is it possible today with, you know, you showed some adapters, obviously, if you're a Tesla, like are there other car company folks that could have adapters where they could plug in a Tesla and then...

have it charge their car? Would that work? Not that I've seen. Okay. She's not aware of anybody opening up. So, so there's new news then of, you know, Tesla that I guess they're physically adding the cables for CCS to, or they're supposedly going to add CCS cables. That's what I've been told. It would be a physical cable piggybacked off the charger. Now, whether they have to change the charger out or not, I don't know yet. So, so we're going to, so you're saying it's the typical cable that's already there. Yeah.

But then there's like another one added into the infrastructure, into the physical. So I have a feeling they're going to kind of do the same thing that EVgo does. So EVgo has got the CCS and CHAdeMO stations as a rule. When they have a Tesla adapter, it's a cable that's been piggybacked onto the CHAdeMO connection inside the unit. And so when you plug into Tesla, even though it's a Tesla connector, it comes up as a CHAdeMO charge.

Of course, it's also rate limited. Was it 40 kilowatts or 45 kilowatts? You're not going to get a really fast charge, although it's certainly faster than level two at home. Sure, sure. I would imagine Tesla's probably going to play some funny games like that.

Yeah, it's difficult for me to try to understand how this is going to look. They haven't told us. Because we're all used to just pulling up, taking the charge, pressing the button, the door opens, and we're done. Now we're going to be like, okay, is this the right one to get? There's a YouTube video I saw for Europe where they've opened it. And the guy walked through the process, and he pulled in Tesla supercharger.

And they've got a common adapter, so they didn't have to play games with the cabling. But he plugs in and he goes on his app. He goes on to the Tesla app and says, I need to charge. I'm at charger number blah, blah, blah. And this is who I am. And it works just like ChargePoint, where it remote enables the process. So I would think they might follow that same model. Maybe. And Tesla, they haven't said when they're going to do this. This is still kind of like that. I haven't heard.

It's all been smoke and mirrors and vaporware. Yeah. So, folks, I'm telling you, get this thing now. Because when it gets to America, when they finally release it, people are going to get these out. It's $250, I think, on the site. But because of the exchange rate, I got it for a couple of dollars cheaper. And you're probably closer to the truth than you think, Mark. Because I've actually gone to a supercharger that was busy.

Went down the road two miles to a CCS Chatham-O EVgo station. The CCS was busy, and nobody except a Leaf uses the Chatham-O. So I just walked. I basically drove up, grabbed my Chatham-O adapter, plugged in, and was done. Wow. So, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, again, I'm a big fan of this thing. I can't wait to try it out because…

Just to try it out, you know. I've used ChargePoint a few times. Oh, yeah. And it's pretty easy. You know, it's pretty simple. And I've got all, like, EVEGO, Electrify America, all of them. I've got all their little cards and their little accounts. I've got EVEGO, which has been very reliable for me. I've got ChargePoint, which has been very reliable. Electrify America has been a pain in the ass between...

It being erratic when it works and between it's got a huge cable and I've been told they're liquid cooled. I don't know that for a huge and very unwieldy and they're, they're very short. So you got to get the car in exactly the right spot. And that's, that's a bit of a struggle. Yeah. I haven't tried them yet. So, uh, I'm definitely going to, uh,

Try them all at one point, but I've had pretty, pretty easy, easy success with all of them because I, cause they have a NFC. So I just like, I'm done, you know, that's handy. Yeah. So, so recently, um,

Tesla was a Friday or Thursday, whatever. I saw a tweet from green. The only this is his name that the service manuals are now free. Yes. I know. And so and so I was like, I was like, what? Because those things are like, what? Three, three thousand. Yeah.

Yeah. And so and so I was like, is he trolling us? Like, does he know something? Is it an issue? So I got mine. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I got it right away, man. And and it's interesting to I was reading some of the things in it specifically like the charge because a big point of.

a big issue with a lot of newcomers to Tesla is like, how do I charge the car? Should I just wait for it runs down? Like, you know, it's like their phone, like, should I let it, let it run down? You know, and you see that question all the time on the, on the TMC website. It's like, you know, how should I charge my car? I just got it. What's the best way to do it? Should I leave it unplugged? And, and,

There's so many wild different people posting their own opinions. But in the manual, and even the service manual says, hey, no, there's no reason for the car to not stay charged up. You're helping the car out because, you know, there's pumps and different types of equipment that runs on the car to keep it cool. Basic housekeeping that goes on. Right. And if you just don't unplug it, the car still has to do, even though it's off, it's

It still will wake up and talk to the mothership, you know, and do certain things. And if you're out in the sun, it needs to cool itself. So, you know, having it just stay plugged up all the time just helps it. And so it's just cool to see those things in a service manual and be able to read a lot of things that you didn't know. I was reading also in the forums that one guy was able to – there was –

So a panel that was on the car that was kind of like it could be popped big into place. It was kind of out of place. So he had made a service appointment for that. But then once he saw the service manual, he just went out there and rejiggered it and he fixed it just because of the service manual. So that's what I'm most excited for. Like, I love being able to work on my car, model my car, do all that stuff. This is the official guide that service technicians use that they know how to do some of these things.

So are you going to be as fast or even necessarily do as good of a job of what a technician may do? Maybe, probably not, because they do it all day. Maybe, it depends. But, like, yeah, I'm super stoked. I guess, and again, I don't know what the pricing used to be. It looks like they either split the software price from the manuals

Or maybe they just made it cheaper. Because I know the software now, if you try to buy that, it's a few thousand dollars a year. So I don't know if they... It used to be bundled and now it's like, oh, you can get the documents separate. But it's pretty exciting. I think it used to be around three grand or something for the serviceman for a year. And then the software was like a few thousand, a couple thousand dollars. But now I think they increased the software. The software is increased now.

To offset, I guess, maybe the manual being free. I mean, I wonder, and you guys can, I'd love to hear your opinions. Like, why do you think Tesla did this? What do you think there's reasons for that? Right to repair. Really think so? They lost to Massachusetts. They had to give information.

in Massachusetts, and they're going to lose in some other states. So I think it was right repair. And they just looked at the long term of where things are going. And let's be frank. I mean, their service support is feeling pain right now. You know, they're a little overwhelmed. If they want to sell as many cars as they want to sell, they can either beef up service or they can open it up and let other shops take on the load.

Yeah, I definitely feel like it's less about you doing it at home and more about wanting other shops to be able to work on it. So while I agree with right to repair and it is fantastic, wonderful thing, I repair my own cell phones and take them apart and do all that. It's awesome. But yeah, I think they're probably looking to broaden their service network just from-

you know, what they need to do. So all the shops are able to do it and they will buy the software because they need it to do certain types of repairs. So I probably won't buy the software. I was telling you guys in our, in our pre podcast notes and whatnot that,

That this was turning into a time sink for me because I was happily reading through all the manuals and, you know, it's a damn rabbit hole. I'd find something interesting, go down it. I did find in the very back, they talk about body panel and repairs and whatnot. And when you read it very carefully and see what they say, I can see why Tesla's are getting totaled out with what appears to be minor damage.

Because Tesla basically comes out and says they don't allow used parts. They don't allow third party parts. They don't allow you to deviate from these directions at all, period. Which means you can only buy brand new parts and you can only use their stuff. You know, much like Apple has said, yeah, OK, we'll let you repair your phone, but you got to buy it all from us.

Sure, but I mean, that's the official policy, right? That doesn't mean you're doing it. If you want to work on your car, you're going to have to stick with it. Sure, sure. I mean, an insurance company is going to look at that and say, yep, total it. Yeah, yeah. You don't want the liability. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I don't mind Tesla, I mean, having to order parts from Tesla because they made the car and it's like Samsung. I'm a big fan of Samsung. Sure. But, you know, people...

They're like, oh, you know, I want to get this particular phone case or whatever. But I just always get the same Samsung phone case because they designed the phone. They know exactly all the millimeter differences and things. And so if my phone were to fall face first, I feel comfortable with it because I know it's a Samsung made cover and it's going to recover. The third party ones, it might cover, but will it really cover? So I don't have a problem paying. It's...

It depends. I mean, I agree with you. I usually buy I like to buy like official factory type parts and things like that for most things I do. But you do have to keep in mind that there's the notion of like when you have, you know, large volume production or manufacturing, those types of things, or even just like, you know, big tech companies, there may only be one guy that works at Tesla that works on cars.

this part or that thing or that component, it might be one or two people. And maybe they get three months to spend time on it where there might be aftermarket companies where their whole team is working on it because they don't need to, you know what I mean? Like their, their margins, the way that their, their emphasis. So like, I think there's some truth to their potentially being third party aftermarket parts, which are better than the manufacturer's part, just because they're able to put more time, more investment into designing it.

But you're right in the – there is a certain satisfaction or safety guarantee you think of when you go with the traditional official parts. So it's a balancing act. So would you buy a part made in China or a part made in Fremont in California? Which one would you do? Right now, I'd probably buy one in China. But –

Because, you know, because folks will say, well, where is it made? You know, is it made in America or China? Yeah. But see, but see what Tesla has really said in the back of that manual is I can't go down to the local wrecking yard and buy a door and swap my door. I have to buy a whole new door from Tesla if I want to keep my warranty. Right. I can't buy a new front fender or a used front fender, which is a pretty passive device when you think about it. It's a piece of sheet metal that's been stamped out and painted. It's not structural. It's not part of the frame.

Sure. Why can't I use a used fender? But according to the manual, they won't allow it. Yeah, I'm sure there's money involved, but also liability, right? They're worried about, well, it may look okay, but maybe there's a difference in how it's going to handle stress and an accident or other things. But I mean, to answer your question, Mark, right? Like I've lived and worked in the US and lived and worked abroad in Asia and Europe and seen manufacturing of things.

And this concept of, oh, manufacturing this other place sucks, like their stuff isn't good, is complete nonsense to this day in what I've experienced personally. Like, I've seen phenomenal manufacturing done in China. I've seen amazing manufacturing in Korea, in Japan, in Germany, you know, France. So, like...

You know what? It may could be better in one versus the other. It's not automatically good or bad because of which country it's made in, generally speaking. So do you guys – because, you know, because in the Model 3 section I was looking at, they show you how to remove the traction battery, the high-voltage battery. So, you know, in older cars, you know, you get to a point where you're out of warranty, and then they still have an extended warranty that you can buy through Tesla, right? Yeah.

kick it but then once you're done with that but then once you're done with that they just kick you out the system pretty much you can't even charge the car anymore now mike we do you think that's fair like you know i got this you know 10 year old 12 year old model s p90d you know and well it's out of warranty but i still wouldn't this car still drives great you know well i want to go supercharge it well i can't because i'm kicked out the system do you think that's fair

So, we were just talking about this, some friends and I, the other day. And in the last two years, I'll say I've modified my view a bit. I'm looking at cars like Tesla, Lyric from Cadillac, Polestar. You name the EV, and I'm willing to bet in the next five years, it's going to be like your iPhone. You basically subscribe,

And then you upgrade because the manufacturers are not going to want to support these cars more than five, six, seven years on the road. It's not going to, they won't wear out. I mean, they'll be fine mechanically. It's going to be the software. They can't keep the computers up. You can't, or people won't spend the money to upgrade the hardware so they can put the new software on the car.

It'll be just like your iPhone or Android or whatever. You know, at the end of five years, you chuck it because the manufacturer literally cannot support it anymore because it can't run the new software anymore.

which is really going to suck in a lot of ways. Yeah. But I mean, you'll always, you'll always have them. I agree with everything Mike just said. So that's do I think they're going to move to subscription? I mean, that's a big maybe, but there's some sense to it where, you know, it kind of makes sense. Technically cell phones aren't really subscription based, but the carriers let you do that where you paid every two years. You get to do one. Apple's talking about it. So, so that may come out, but,

the problem with cars is there's such a, you know, big expense. And it's kind of the argument of leasing, right? If you want to do that, just lease the car. Right. But, but, you know, I think there will always be some kind of an aftermarket third party, right? Like if you, if I had a 10 year old car, so we'll see, let's circle back in 10 years. If my car, if they go, well, it's not going to, you can't do it anymore. And I love this thing. I still want it. Well, you having software that says it won't work on your, that's not going to stop. I'll be very surprised if you have your flat in 10 years. I'll be surprised too. Although,

Hey, my car before my plaid I've had for 12 years, right? Like I, you know, it works perfectly fine, but it's not going to stop me from working in your system if it's just a software thing, right? And if it's a hardware thing, if it's reasonable that I can upgrade it myself or buy, you know, components I need to, I think it's... Well, that goes right back to the whole rider repair. Are they going to let you I think there's going to be, you know, tinkers out there. There'll be websites. There'll be posts on TMC where here's how I do this. Here's how I modify it. But that's the minority to be clear.

Sure. Agreed. That is a small minority of super nerds. People like my wife, for example, are not going to go on the can bus and try to hack their way to update their system. Sure. It's not going to happen. But I love the fact that you can. I agree.

So, so, so really, really quick, because I do want to talk about this doc, this doc later. But but Louis, you're telling us that the gigafactory in Texas, your backyard, they're going to start. There's a word that they're going to ship some wise out to people locally.

Apparently. I guess there's been some tweets and some things about this. How is that fair? Mike's got a while order. I have a while and I have to wait until December. Let's be clear. Gigafactory only make

model of the Y, right? They only do the all-wheel drive, the standard range type Y. So if you want the long range Y, it's not coming from there anyway. So let's just be, for right now at least. But yeah, apparently they've been, they're offering notes to folks saying, hey, if you want to increase your delivery, because they do this all the time to everybody, right? Like I get banners and stuff that say, hey, you've been waiting, you want a car now, let's look at what's in stock. Now, of course, they never have in stock anything

a plaid of the specs that I want. It's not in stock, so I'm waiting. But there have been folks that have said, hey, if you're interested, there's some Model Ys that

are the spec with the, you know, with the technology coming out of, you know, the gigafactory that you can get Texas, that if you are interested, you could get that. And it seems to be folks local in the Austin area that have been getting those pop-ups and those, you know, information. Now,

I'm not sure how that's legal because in the past there's all that drama around you can't buy directly from a manufacturer in Texas. Technically, it has to be an out-of-state car, which I'm covered because mine's built in Fremont. So, yeah, I'm not sure how they're doing that if they have to like –

sell it to some subsidiary company. Like they might have a shell company or something. They sell it to that other company and then that company is technically selling it to you. Right. Or technically it's not new. Like, I don't know how they're getting around it. But yeah, apparently they've been offering it. I think it's an interesting, you know, idea of, you know, if you're, if you want to move up the line and you want to try these cars out now, what now my question is, why are they, why would they only be offering to people locally? And that seems a little weird because,

Because they just numbers, they don't have the numbers. Yeah. Like maybe they don't have the ability to, to, to actually, you know, ship them or something like, you know what? It might be like a logistics thing because I've heard about like, you know, wire deliveries, you know, being so delayed or other things.

part of it is truck drivers, right? Part of it is the ability to transport the cars. So yeah, I mean, maybe, maybe that's a factor they're going, Hey, we've got all these cars and there's maybe people that will take them now, right? I mean, yeah, unfortunately, a full self driving is not actually full self driving. So they still need to get a truck driver. Speaking of full self drive. Oh man. Yeah.

I like it. Elon Musk's crash course, the New York Times FX documentary. Now, we all saw it, right? It was a documentary about an assassination. Yeah.

They call it a documentary. So, you know, I'm going with what they say. And hopefully some of the people out there in TV land who's listening to us, watching us, also saw that. But if not, it's basically Netflix and FX, not Netflix, New York Times and FX.

put this documentary together. I think it's like an hour and a half. I forgot what it was. An hour and a half, I think, something like that. But they put this documentary together speaking about Elon Musk, his promises of full self-driving, and also the issues that has plagued the company with that. And I got an issue with the documentary, but I'm going to chill out. Let the gentleman...

So I'm really looking forward to hearing from Mark. But let me phrase that. But let me see YOLO. Very biased. But YOLO, let me ask this question, though. Very biased in favor of Tesla or against Tesla? Tell me what you think. Is it before or what? So gentlemen, gentlemen. So what do you think? What do you think the documentary got right? And what do you think that they didn't get right?

Piece of meat. Getting right is a very relative term. So let's just say. Where's our legal disclaimer? Right. I heard Tesla's going to have a kick-ass legal team soon. I don't want to get sued. Maybe. YOLO is right. I think what they talked about within the scope of the documentary was accurate.

They omitted a lot. So in other words, they cherry picked. Yes. So, and you could argue now, okay, by cherry picking, did you skew the documentary? Absolutely. You know, is that wrong? Depends on your point of view. Well, it's Fox. So Fox is going to do, Fox is going to Fox. That's what they're going to do. They're all about sensationalizing. What do you think, bro? I mean, here's the thing. Everything is biased to some extent, right? Like,

And there's only so much information you can put into it. However, I agree that the producers of the documentary, I was going to say authors, but it's a documentary. The producers of the documentary, they certainly appear to have the position that's

Elon Musk plays fast and loose with the safety and in his over promising of full self-driving and what that entails. So I agree that from that perspective, it seems fairly skewed and biased. That being said, I also feel that there was a lot of accurate information in it and that they're not entirely wrong. Now, there's a lot more to the story. As Mike said, there's a lot of other things that kind of balance it out to some extent, but,

But I will try to be somewhat neutral and balanced in the arguments of, you know. Let's put it this way. I didn't feel that it was like some tinfoil hat out there like I'm going to make up a bunch of nonsense or like completely only view one side of the story, right? They did have, you know, comments from the family members and some other things that kind of were against their position, you know, that kind of counteracted some of it. So anyway, it was an interesting documentary.

Yeah, but when you've got a documentary that's talking about a very public accident and they steer the viewer to the conclusion that the car killed the driver because of FSD and neglect to point out the fact the driver was a DUI. I mean, you're missing some key information there.

I mean, I don't think that that's what they really meant or tried to say. I mean, you're right that there are folks that, again, the producers seem to be of the opinion that, again, from what they spoke briefly in the documentary, that Elon, when he talks about it,

So there's multiple accidents. So there's multiple accidents in the documentary. Joshua Brown. We're talking about Joshua Brown. Joshua Brown is the first big accident. A 40-year-old man from Ohio is killed.

I don't remember what year it was. Early... 2015. 2015. Very early. Very early. So it was like the first big publicized... Right. You know. Well, but that's also when Elon was making a big deal that hands off, don't have to watch the road, car will take care of you. Sure. Yeah. And so here's the thing, right? So there's this expectation of...

uh basically how do i want to say this there's this expectation of how say you know how autonomous is the vehicle right and in the early days if elon's going out there and saying oh it's super safe you know you could just you could just drive it and it'll do itself you could almost sleep you know there's a lot of those quotes that he made which a lot of that is marketing and a lot of that is you know it's not truly accurate right like they tell you you have to pay attention you as an engineer know that

And I, as an engineer, know that. Do you think the average consumer pays attention to it? No, I would argue that the average person does not necessarily focus that way. However, what I would point out is Joshua Brown, as an individual, seemed to be a very smart, very capable person that knew and understood the risks and all those things. And here's what I think happened. And I actually genuinely worry that this will happen with me.

You know what the risks are. You know what you should be doing. But when you have that car for six months, a year, whatever, you use it every day and you see that it works well to a certain extent, you start to become complacent. You start trusting it more than you should. And I know that I will do this. And, you know, again, it's part of my own fear.

And then all that needs to happen is one scenario where it doesn't work right. Because there's a whole notion of in machine learning and AI and all that stuff, everything is probabilities. There is no it will work 100% of the time. You will never have that. It'll work 99% of the time, 99.9% of the time. You'll eventually get it to where it works better than what a person will. And in some respects, it does now. But you know...

Anyway, I feel like he was a smart and capable individual that knew the risks and probably was just an unfortunate scenario where he was trusting the car. Maybe, or even it wasn't, maybe he was paying attention and then something quickly happened, right? He dropped his phone or something. You know what I mean? There could have been some scenario, spill the drink. I have no idea. But anyway, it's unfortunate what happened. But yeah, I mean, he didn't interact with the car for 30 seconds or so, you know, didn't touch the steering wheel. And that's,

That's distraction. And that's all it takes. But I mean, but I've done that today, right? My car today doesn't drive itself. And I've definitely looked away or done something. We've all unfortunately done that. I've got allergies and I've had it where, you know, I get hit with a sneezing attack and I literally can't see what I'm doing for 30 seconds because I'm busy trying to clear my head.

And in those 30 seconds, you probably wish your car had Tesla's auto. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah. So, I mean, these accidents are unfortunate. The thing is...

I agree with you where they kind of come off saying it's almost like it's Tesla's fault. Tesla released the stuff too early. Tesla had this technology. They were pretty clear. Okay, sure. They were clear that that was their position on it. Now, they also include how the U.S. government investigated, you know, NIST or whatever, and they did not find Tesla to be at fault.

True. You know, so and there was this whole thing of like, is it biased? Is it you know, what was the government folks? Were they doing their job? They seem pretty sound to me. They seem to, you know, make good arguments. So I while I agree at surface level, it looks it is a biased documentary, which, again, I think all of them are. There's always an agenda somewhere. My point is, my point is, is that.

Everything was several years ago. Now, if they did this stuff in 2018 or 2019, if we're still seeing these types of decapitations and things like that with autopilot in 2020, 2021, then I'll shut up. But that was way back in AP1, right? Autopilot 1? When, you know, it's...

They're still trying to figure it out. And, you know, if you think about it, you can kind of see how the camera on the Tesla thought the white of the semi kind of blended into the ground. I mean, you can kind of understand that. And so...

It's like, you know, the FAA, NTSB? No. Who is it that governs the flights when they wreck? NTSB. NTSB. So, you know, how many things have been learned from those accidents when, you know, airplanes wreck and they say, oh, you know what, it's because of this, you know. Sure, people died for it, but...

Wow, we didn't think to do these types of procedures when this happens. So AP1 is going to have issues. I mean, anyone who has a phone or anything electronic is going to have issues with it. So my thing is that they rely too much on something that happened years ago, and they didn't talk about, look at all these people whose lives were saved with the autopilot.

I've seen videos on YouTube where there was one guy, I know where I talked about, he was getting off the exit ramp on an interstate. And so the car in front of him stopped really quick. And then he didn't react in time. And the Tesla actually moved the car out of the lane. Yep. Yep. So...

You know, if you're going to say, you know, a crash course, this is then the third. Talk about what it's also done to save people's lives because people have been saved by it. I got a problem with that. I also got a problem with them talking about these disgruntled ex-employees. You know, one guy, Asian dude, well, you know, he wasn't fitting in with my standards at the bounce.

What does that have to do with the price of tomatoes? I mean, so if you got an issue with their thing, it doesn't mean that they're not trying to make a better product. And that was 26, 2015. It's 20 freaking 22. And we talk about some stuff that happened, you know, long, long time ago. There's all these two idiots in the Tesla who in Texas crashed it. Why? Trying to show off. You know, I mean, they didn't bring that up. Why not? Humans did it.

You know what I'm saying? And then all these... You're right. I think Mark's getting a little animated here. The New York Times guy, he's like, well, you know, Elon says all this. And we all know that Elon can say a lot of things. He tweets a lot of stuff. And we're like, oh my gosh. And there's people who love Elon or whatever, but

You also got to, if you're going to do a documentary about Tesla and their ADAS system, their driver assistance systems, then what about these other companies, right?

What about them? How reliable are they? I think the... Okay, so I agree with a lot of what you said. I guess my key points on this would be it's more about the perception and the marketing on the product, right? Like Elon was making claims of, oh, by the end of this year, you'll be able to drive cross-country and not have to intervene. He's been saying that every year for the last six years. He was kind of selling it as... And again, it was called Autopilot. It wasn't called Driver Assistance System. So I think...

I think there's some argument to be made that Elon was optimistic in the advancement rate of the technology, right? Even he admits that the problem was harder than he originally imagined. And because non-engineers are going to hear that and not dig into it, right? Or, you know, they may take it at face value. They may rely on a little bit more.

Does that mean that, you know, that it doesn't work at all or that there's other issues? You know, I agree. I think autonomous driving is important and it will save lives. I think it's already saved lives and it will continue to get better. Do I think what the issues that they showed, again, these happened in like 2016, 2017, those type timeframes, do I think that they'll still happen in the current stuff? No, I think there are other things that will happen that, you know, that'll go wrong. And I felt for the engineer, you know, I,

I get it. I did feel for him though. Like I've been in situations where, you know what the thing is you're building is capable of. And you see folks, uh,

say things more about it. You sell it. Like I've, you know, I've been in a company working on a product or working with a product and seeing what the CEO says to customers or see what sales folks say to customers. And you're going, that's nonsense. I know that that isn't true. You know what I mean? Like that happens. So let's take a look at this Lewis. So, so this goes back, this goes back to our prior discussion about subscriptions and,

If you were a car manufacturer and you're looking at the manufacturing troubles that you have with something that you've called FSD and you've realized, you know, the computers I put up for the last seven years are not capable of delivering what I promised. I need to change it. Which they've upgraded three times, right? Three times so far. They're about to do, yeah. And what are you going to do with these old cars? Are you going to support them or are you going to walk away from it?

I mean, if you, so here's the thing, Tesla charges people a substantial amount of money for this capability. And I think the expectation at this point is you need to be willing to upgrade the car for a very cheap price or, you know, free. You just said it upgrade the car. Your car is going to be another damn iPhone.

Sure. Oh, well, yeah, but people don't upgrade the hardware of their phones generally. Um, but you're, you're right. Um, but yeah, it will be upgrading it like another, you know, piece of technology. Um, I definitely think that that's, uh, you know, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, it's a, it's a difficult subject. There, there's something to be said though. YOLO on top of it. That's what my man YOLO, my man.

So here's the – I agree, Yolo, with the broad adoption of it. Tesla is definitely further ahead than many other technologies out there. But part of me feels like there's something – a lot of it early on –

had to do with like the position of where Tesla was as a company, right? Tesla in the early days and not even early, early, even 2015, right? They were not financially secure. There was a lot of risk. Elon need, there was all kinds of stories about is the company can get bought,

You know, is there, you know, are there, do they need to get more investment? Before the stock like really like went off like a rocket ship, they needed money. And part of that hype bubble was getting that revenue, getting that money stream so that they could survive as a company. So guess what? Most tech companies are in that position early on, especially with VC funding. And they're going to over promise and under deliver. It happens all the time.

Now, usually it's not with devices that can kill someone, but even in that position, I look at it and go, if you look at the technology development, you've got companies like Waymo that are really just a part of Google. Google doesn't need to make money from self-driving cars.

to be able to fund it. Their company doesn't go away if their self-driving project fails, right? So they're able to be very cautious, right? With how they do their rollout and develop their technology. Tesla could have gone out of business. If Tesla didn't have Elon saying like, we got an FSD or the autopilot or all these things that may have slowed adoption enough to where they may not still be around. So there's some argument to be said that he did what was necessary to get the car to the

the company to the point that it needed to be. Now I don't think they're at that point anymore. I think their company is fairly secure. Tesla's not going anywhere.

Can they afford to be more cautious now? Yes. And do I think they've been more cautious than they were in 2015? Actually, I do. I do think that they, you know, with their beta rollouts and other things, they're not just opening it up to everybody. They are aware of certain issues. Now there's some of that legacy stuff that is still around that isn't as safe as it could be. But like, I think they're, I think they're doing a better job. And I think you're right in the documentary doesn't paint the full picture of

where Tesla is today versus where they were, you know, seven years ago. You know, that's a legitimate complaint. I don't think the average consumer would know that unless it was told to them, you know. Right. You understand it. I understand it, Mark. I mean, we live and breathe, and this is our bubble we live in. But to the average consumer that's kind of looking at their 10-year-old Hyundai going, should I buy a Tesla to replace it?

You know, they wouldn't know. They don't know the history. They would watch this documentary and kind of go, oh, wow, I'm not sure I want that. So on the TMC site, there's a member. His name is Matt Mattedale. Mattedale. Mattedale.

I love this guy. I mean, he, I agree with a lot of stuff he's saying. He says, uh, there were no facts or data to back up the attacks on autopilot and full self-driving just opinions from friends of the guy who died and a handful of former employees. Did you ever hear the guy say that 40% reduction in accidents after AP was introduced was provided by Tesla? Well,

but that some experts didn't believe that number. So then he talks about, okay, well, where's the data to back up why it's wrong? And then he mentioned that it was BS. And he's saying, overall, he's saying the video paints, this doc paints a picture as if nothing has changed since 2016. This is my point, is that they're talking about something that was in the early stages of,

I know Elon said, you know, hands off, blah, blah, blah. But you still, as a driver, you got to be able to take responsibility for being behind something that could kill somebody or yourself. So, you know, I think later on that there's someone further down in this thread who talked about that the data was hidden from researchers until some system sued. And it's post number 12. But my point is, is that that was explained, but

But overall, the doc was just biased to show that, you know, look, this person died. And they pulled on the heartstrings of people right away. You know, you saw a lot of blood and stuff there, which I think was way over the top for a documentary. That didn't need to be seen. You know, you didn't see a lot, but you saw blood. You saw enough stuff to realize what happened. You know, so my point is they could have.

done better in talking about okay this happened and it's unfortunate but look at where they are today you know and even they even in the F in the force of driving they had some dudes who they were in the car where they hit like one of the little cone the little pylon things little green pylon things whatever the street and

We don't know what they were doing to make it happen. We don't know if they were fooling around with the car. We don't really know what was going on. But they just put that little bit in there. And they keep trying to say, look, it's stupid. To me, as a viewer, it's stupid. It doesn't work. I've had full. I was in a beta. And I had it for several months until I got a new car. And I can't get it back because I can't drive. Soon you will. I can't do it.

Yeah, but my point is the full self-driving beta that I used up until February, it was getting better and better and better. Now, there were some things they had to take away, like the car creeping out. The lady mentioned in a documentary, the female beta tester, she mentioned how the car could creep out. Well, they can't do that anymore because that was taken away from it. My point is that these producers, in my opinion, who did this documentary, did not...

Have not been in a car with current full self-driving or even the beta version because if they were they would see a different I think they have a different opinion They just took people who did who had earlier models now some of the force of driving software was flawed some of them came through with some with some bugs and and Patel squashed him right away And so maybe that video where those guys at the little cone, maybe that was the faulty firmware My point is they just didn't do enough to say look

This happened in 2016. I said 2015 earlier. It was 2016. His car was 2015, so I apologize about that. But sure, this happened earlier. And then the Asian gentleman who was in the Model X, who hit that barrier, those things happened, but they were a long time ago, and it's come a long way. And people are going to walk away from this saying, like, wow, why would I even think about getting full-size driving if these things still occur? I just think it just wasn't right. Yeah.

I didn't realize Mark had a YouTube account called YOLO. No, I'm just kidding. Mark's got a fanboy. I agree with you, Mark. No, YOLO's just smart. He just knows what's up. Yeah. I mean, I agree with you in the time. No, I agree with you in time. You got disgruntled ex-employees, okay?

The Asian guy, you know, well, he didn't seem that disgruntled. I understand. The Asian dude was like, well, you know, they wouldn't fit in with my morals.

Okay, you quit because of that. It has to do with the debate. Then he walks off and reflects into the downtown. What's all this nonsense about? Who cares about that? That was totally unnecessary. But they're trying to say, oh, you know, I feel this certain way. And Tesla wasn't. That's why you quit, because it was that. It wasn't because Tesla was trying to kill people. They're trying to better themselves. Let me read. Hold on. I don't think anyone thinks Tesla's trying to kill people. Yeah.

Well, you know, OK, Amin Saeed, Amin Saeed, you've been here before, my friend. Yes. So he says now you have to agree for the cabin camera to be enabled. If you use FSD, Tesla has the data and knows exactly what the drivers will be doing right before an accident.

I agree. How many times have we seen recently, like there's a car, a Model 3 that crashed into a building. You know, the guy was like, oh, well, you know, the foot, the brake didn't work or whatever. The brakes failed. Get the F out of here. I mean, he had to get off an exit and go around, you know, really? You missed all this other stuff. And so what people don't understand is that Tesla can get the data. They can pull it. I mean, Tesla knows how many times we use our lumbar in the seat, right?

They know this. So if they know that kind of grain of data, they'll know if the car was stuck. It's funny because I called him about a battery issue and the guy starts talking

typing and tapping and he starts rattling off all the drives I've done for the last month and a half and how many times I charged and what the state was when I charged and how long I was, I'm going, dude, you got a lot of data there. Right. They do. But so there were, there were two really interesting things though, in what you just said. And also in the documentary that I, that I found fascinating was one, one thing that 40% comment, you know, that they said in the, in the thread that,

The interesting thing about the 40% comment was Elon did go out and start saying like, you know, Nishita's report that they had, you know, showed that 40%, you know, reduction in accidents for cars AP. And what actually the truth of it was, is Tesla told them that and they put it in the report, but they didn't.

they themselves didn't verify that independently. So really that number doesn't mean anything or didn't mean anything at the time. Maybe it's been since, you know, third party verification, but, but it is funny that they then go to say like, Oh, even Nishta says that it's 40% reduction is like, well, no, they didn't actually do those findings. So that was a little, little squirrely, but you know, again, marketing and sales.

But the other thing that I found most interesting as somebody, you know, being an engineer is I was under the impression, you know, in the earlier days that Tesla had a huge advantage because of their data collection, because of all these metrics, because of all the stuff they're getting. And what was interesting was hearing from the machine learning engineers, data scientists, that back then they didn't have that infrastructure. They had all these cars on the road, but they didn't have the network connectivity to access.

get the videos to get the images from all these cars driving around so they weren't really in an advantage you know they didn't have a real advantage in that data collection back then with their fleet of cars over than say like other companies working on the technology now i'm fairly confident now they do now they do have you know they did the whole dojo thing they have all the data centers they have a lot of data so

So I feel like now what they have is stuff that I kind of thought they had, you know, seven years ago, which apparently they didn't actually have, but a lot of us thought that they did. So it was interesting to hear. Um, but yeah, anyway, overall, the documentary had some, some interesting data, but yes, for sure. Biased against Tesla, definitely showing old stuff, not, you know, not up to date, you know, with the newest stuff, but, but,

the same fact of the matter is it's going to be a continuous thing. There's, as the technology develops, there will be more people using it. There will be accidents. People will die. The question is, should you not have the technology or should you continue developing it? I, it's,

Firmly in camp, they should keep doing what they're doing. They should keep developing it. And if people die from it, it is unfortunate. I don't want anyone to die. But even if it was perfect, someone's going to die from it eventually, right? There's going to come a time where it's going to make a decision and the best it's capable of doing, even if it's better than what a human would decide, someone's still going to die from this accident. And do you blame the system? It's not just Tesla. I mean, every major manufacturer has got the same project on the table. Right.

Mercedes is doing it. Toyota is doing it. Honda does it. They all do it. They've all got the same idea. They all want the same end result. It's just that Tesla's got this big bullseye on them. Exactly. I will agree. I did not like something that I found appalling is they tried to make that whole argument about radar and then LIDAR and all that crap again. That pisses me off. Not because I disagree with...

you have any different types of sensors and technologies, whatever there are like cameras or I think cameras are fully capable. I agree with you on there. However, I do too. There are some restrictions or some limitations. So like, so there's the notion of like, there's the whole thing with the B pillar, right? Where the camera placed was a human. I can move forward and see, um,

The car can't do that unless the car moves forward. So like there is some argument that maybe it needs more cameras than it has today or, you know, could other technologies, LIDAR and radar don't automatically make the car safer, right? Sensors will, you know, there was one accident in the documentary where, you know, the third accident I think they mentioned where the car hit it, you know, it went under a tractor trailer just like the first one.

And they said, well, it had radar. Shouldn't that matter? And it's like, yeah. And the radar said there was a problem. And the car didn't listen to the radar because when you have competing inputs, which one do you listen to? There's no right or no easy rule. They won't always match. And you get false positives. My wife has a Jeep. That's driver assist. There's a bridge. There's an overpass where we used to live or we drive under.

Damn thing would fan and break every time, every time on the street, boom, slam, hit the brakes, almost cause an accident. Freaked me out the first two times until I learned what it, what it did now. So the question is, you know, would having lighter, would having radar, you know, since they've now removed from the newer cars, would that have saved more lives? Um,

It's possible. It also would have made it more expensive and it doesn't automatic. It's not a guaranteed. It's not an easy win. Yeah, Doug, the thing with Ray, the light out Doug, because y'all can't see what Doug is saying. I can see what Doug is saying. Doug's the one that produces.

Look, Doug, the LiDAR can get dirty. If LiDAR gets dirty and gets bugs on it, you know, it can also become unreliable very quickly, Doug. So this is one thing. It also has problems with rain and bad weather and other things. Radar is subject to atmospheric conditions. Something as simple as rain can screw with radar. Right, but... And cameras. I mean, they all have technical issues. Yeah, okay. All right, so...

Whatever, Doug. Radar cleans itself. Whatever, bro. To answer Amin's question, yes, Tesla has removed radar from their newer cars. So they did remove radar. But again, I think it simplifies the machine learning stack for FSD. So it's easier for them to write the software and to develop the software to work without having the competing signals.

Right. I'm going to read a comment before I say that. Before I got FSD beta, I had just a regular autopilot, and it was fine. And then once I got FSD...

I saw the improvements that's going to eventually go to just a regular... Like Summon. Like Summon is going to be improved. When I had FSD... I think I told you about this. When I had FSD Beta on my car, Summon was really much better at fitting into tight spaces than it was before I had it. So I think the FSD Beta is really going to be great. And once more people get...

get into it and can look at it and play with it, I think they'll agree also. Let me say this comment really quick about the documentary. This is from Tam, a well-known member. And this is someone that mentioned about in California, are you seeing constant reports of collisions? And Tam says, that's because when a consumer pays for technology, it should be better than humans or it should be free. We don't want to pay for a calculator that sometimes produces a correct result and sometimes not.

Thus, the message to the consumers must be consistent and clear, not just on the website, but also in talks and lectures. They are not buying a car that can drive itself. In public, Elon Musk keeps insisting on level five, sleeping, and not buying the FSD. It's just like buying a horse. The inconsistency led to the overconfidence and the arrest of pacifiers

Param Shamra who kept sitting in the backseat of the car so the car could drive on its own and then citing that Elon Musk really knows he's doing really knows what he's doing I think people are tripping and they're scared so this comment you know what do you guys think about that comment I do I have to agree to you know Elon people love Elon Elon can say hey look I'm going to

poop in its box and it's going to be fantastic and then people go out and buy it so there's people that will do that I'm not that person I love Elon I love what he's done but I'm not that fanboy dude I love his products but I do agree with this person what Tam is saying is that you know

So some people out there are weak-minded, and they'll just – if you tell them to go drive off a cliff, they'll drive off a cliff. So I think he needs to police himself and kind of back off under promise and over deliver is what I think he should probably do. That's not in his makeup. I know, but – It really isn't in his makeup. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I would argue that to be a CEO of a successful tech company, you're usually looking at five years out or more. And so part of the problem is Elon is living in what five years from now the technology could do. Part of the problem is he says things like this year or next year. Right, right. Which is where it really gets...

It gets a little bit dangerous. I mean, the man is brilliant, no question. No question. And I agree with most of the things that he says. I was a physics major. He was a physics major. I get it. We love a lot of the same things, rockets and cars and all that. I think that...

you know, he, yeah, it's people need to learn not to take what he says at face value conferences, right? Like there's drinking the Kool-Aid and then there's drinking the Kool-Aid and, you know, you gotta be careful there. But,

Again, FSD, especially the beta, is an amazing piece of technology. Mike, you made comments about how you don't think FSD is ready, and I agree with you. The non-beta version is definitely not ready for primetime. It sucks. There's a lot of issues with it. The beta is very impressive. It's really cool to see what it's capable of doing. They just released a new version, 10.12 or something, which is super exciting to see what that's doing. But, you know...

It's not level three yet, in my opinion, let alone level five. And yeah, it's going to take some time. Well, you know, I love FSD. I use it all the autopilot.

I use it all the freaking time. I will remind you guys, I mentioned this in a podcast previously, that there was a lady, and I saw it, it was caught on a helicopter, but there's a lady, she was clearly, she was drunk, inebriated, whatever, and she was in a Model 3, and she hit a

the guardrail or something. And so she put her car in an autopilot, I guess, navigate an autopilot. I'm not sure which way it was, but it was on autopilot. And so she was actually passed out in the car. Her friend was behind her.

Someone called the cops, maybe because she hit the guardrail. Not sure how the cops got called, but they got called. And you saw this. You can go on the Internet and find it. You saw the cops get in front of the car and slow it down. And the Model 3 came to a safe stop. So what other driving system out there can do things like that?

I don't think anyone's doing it. That was a really cool video. I agree with you. And that was a really smart cop. Right. So it just shows that the cops are getting more aware of these systems. Like, you know what? Maybe he had a Model 3 or a Tesla or he knows someone who has. So he's like, you know what? If I get in front of the car, it's going to slow down because it's got cameras. It's got full self-drive. The woman is clearly knocked out because she's probably like this or whatever. And so let me just slow it down. He slowed to a stop and it got out. And then that's all she wrote.

So because of that, I use it all the time. There's been times where I've used it in like,

Anyway, I'm not going to say that. I'll say it offline. Let's just say that you were maybe not fully capable of driving the car yourself. Yeah, there was a time where it was 10 minutes and I don't know where I was. And so the car was getting me where I was going. That's what I'll say. First off, let me give some compliments. It's cool that...

that they did this thing because it does bring awareness to people who don't even, like there's some folks who don't know what Tesla's are, what they have, what they can do. And there's, but there's lots of people that watch Hulu and everything. So,

They still don't know what it can do because they saw the documentary. Right, but the point, you know, but to be, but to have the be, you know, because I, you know, I want to be nice, you know, is that they made it aware for people to say, oh, well, wow, Tesla can do these types of things. Huh? Let me go find out more about it. And so I'm a big fan of, because I work in the media and television industry. So, you know,

Any publicity is good publicity. I don't care if it's negative or positive because now you got more people who didn't know about it now are knowing about it. Like, wow, that's cool that the car can do these things. Let me go see if I get a test drive. And then, you know, who knows? Maybe Tesla might get a new customer or two from it. You know, I think it was way just over biased and over the top. But, you know, it had its good points in it. So, you know, Mike, Luis, you guys kind of corrected me and thank you for letting me kind of.

do my thing and go off on a little bit, you know, but, but on that note, we got to wrap it up. We got, we got, we got to wrap this up. I want to thank everyone out there listening to us and watching us. And thank you for taking this time on a Sunday, beautiful Sunday to talk to myself or hang out with Lewis, myself and Mike.

These dudes are amazing. Like I always say, Lewis is on point software guy. He knows his thing. Mike is really good at old school, old school, you know, tinkering with automobiles. If you guys want any information about these things, these are the dudes go on their, their, their, uh, uh, usernames on the Tesla former right there. Hit these dudes up. Cause I love talking to these guys. They are fricking fantastic. Not to mention Mike was raised in a lighthouse. Yeah.

this dude Mike's got some stuff Mike's got some stuff but alright but alright but alright but anyway anyway you know if you watch us on YouTube as always please like and subscribe we want to hear your questions and comments you may have please share them with us in the comments section here or on TeslaMotorsClub.com

in the section there that's made for it. If you want to support this podcast, then please consider becoming a supporting member on the Tesla Motors Club website. You can also follow us on social media. Those links are in the description. So for myself, Mark,

Lewis and Mike we want to thank you guys for coming out hanging out with us what's our dude Jonas1 is his name Jonas1 Jones1 and Amin Saeed thank you guys for contributing and hanging out with us YOLO my dude YOLO that's my boy anyway thank you guys for coming out we see you guys for episode 11 coming soon stay tuned we're out