The European Connection with Balazs Biro of Villanyautósok | Tesla Motors Club Podcast #8
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Here we are again. Thanks guys and girls for joining us today. This is another episode of the Tesla Motors Club podcast. I'm Mark. I'm Lewis. And I'm Mike.

Today is kind of our European version, gentlemen. We have a guest who's going to be from Hungary that we'll introduce later. He's going to come on and give us a lot of information about some things in his side of the world. But some of the other topics we'll talk about today is Giga Berlin, what's going on out there. Some of our guests will hopefully give us some insight on that. Also, the supercharging in Europe. How does it look like? Are there going to be long lines piling up like it is out here with us in the States? And also, the thing that everyone is seeing...

Tesla crashing into a jet. Oh, my gosh. Guys, I tell you. All that stuff and more is going to be coming up on episode number eight, which starts right now.

All right. Again, thank you guys for coming out to another wonderful podcast that we have. Mike and Louis, you guys look fantastic as always. Thank you for joining us. We do have a guest coming. His name is Balazs. He is an EV enthusiast from Hungary, and we're happy to have him join us today. So, Balazs, welcome. Come on in. Join the party. Hey, guys. Hey, Balazs. Thanks for coming on, man. I know it's late. It's like a little after 10 o'clock there, right?

Yeah, it's past my bedtime, but whatever. Well, we thank you for joining us, man. You're really going to bring a lot to the table. We had some discussions before the podcast, and I'm really excited to have you here. So can you tell a lot of the people who are listening and watching what got you into EVs and how things are progressing out there in your side of the world?

Sure. So I guess I'm not the only TMC-er who is a geek. So, you know, that's what got me into the 80s. Lewis is giving it to you. You know, it's funny because I was just thinking about this the other day that when I was a kid, I was like subscribing to like, I don't know, 50 different car magazines, but somehow it just faded.

And I wasn't really interested in cars that much until I started to notice Tesla in 2012. And then I started investing in Tesla in 2013, mid 2013. And that's when I joined TMC, by the way. And then it just got to the point where just annoying me so much, you know, how much FUD I read in the Hungarian media about electric vehicles in general, and then on top of that about Tesla.

So I just kind of Googled which is the most popular electric vehicle website in the country. And I sent a note to the editor, hey, do you want someone who works for free part time? Because I would love to, you know, read, send the record straight and, you know, hopefully inform people.

So we sat down at a mall. It was a little weird thinking back, like, you know, I still have both of my kidneys, so that's good. But, you know, I just met a random guy in a mall. And then I had this list of like 12 topics I wanted to cover within a year. And here we are four years later and 1,200 articles later. Now I'm doing this as a full-time job. I left my old job.

which was at this little startup called Exxon Mobil. I don't know if you heard about them. That's where I was working while I was a Tesla enthusiast. So every time I was visiting Houston, the mothership, I was going to the Tesla store in the Galleria in Houston just to check out their cars. And then I just decided a year ago, actually, that that was it. Because of my investment in Tesla, I could afford to work for a lot less than I used to.

And I just do this full time now, try to inform our readers about Tesla and the competition and other EV news as well.

How are your neighbors that are around you and your friends? So was anyone into EVs before you got into EVs? And if not, has your influence, you know, because you're into it now, you're doing articles for it now. Has this influenced some of your friends? Like, you know what? Wow, Balazs is doing it. Maybe I should think about getting an EV. So have you kind of shifted some people's thoughts in your close circles?

Look, I think if we want to be honest, like all of us are on a mission to evangelize people into EVs. So, of course, I have, you know, and I try not to be pushy, but still somehow I managed to convince like one of my best friends actually bought an EV. And I'm pretty sure that I had a big part in because I was talking about it all the time. So, yeah, you know, it's funny because I think for EVs and also for renewable energy like solar panels,

seeing what your neighbor does kind of

pushes you to make that step. Like we installed solar panels, I think two years ago on our home in the countryside. And my neighbor actually, whom I didn't talk to that much before, just asked me for the number of the guy who installed it when they left because he wanted to do it now. So I think that kind of, this is how it works. And now another neighbor actually just see my car, is asking about EVs and talking about, well, you know, he still can't afford one, but the next one is probably going to be an electric vehicle. So yeah, for sure.

If money was no object in the Tesla world, and maybe you already can answer this question, in your opinion, what's the most advanced technology

Tesla that Tesla has the X the S the 3 and the 3 was you know the 3 was like this thing that a lot of people thought wouldn't come to existence I think Mike even was like you know what I don't know if that's going to be a thing or not but then the 3 actually came to be one of the you know one of its biggest sellers now the Y is doing that but in your opinion why

Which model do you think is the most advanced one that Tesla's done? Like, you know what, this is what they all have. You know, honestly, as much as it's fun to watch cars drag race, I couldn't care less. So, like, you know, I understand why people see the thrill in a plaid, for sure. But I'm still going to say it's the Austin Model Y.

the one with the new batteries and the structural pack and the front end recasting, that's the most advanced Tesla has. I know Mike Lewis can talk about this, but Mike, what he brought up about the new Y is the construction of putting a pack into the frame of the car. I mean, with your experience in working with ICE vehicles,

How do you think that will feel? Do you think it'll be a different kind of feel, more structurally sound, now that the battery pack is a part of the car itself? Well, Tesla's already pretty rigid, but that's where you're going to see the difference, I think, most of it. Especially the guys that like to be track, because they're looking for every last bit of stiffness they can find to keep that car from deflecting under load.

I just saw a picture, a pictorial that showed the Model 3 frame, and then they showed the picture of the Model Y with the new castings and everything. And they said the difference between these two frames is the reduction of 1600 welts. I mean, that's really significant. Now, the trade-off, as we're all going to learn, is when you have a casting of that size and you get hit,

the odds of the insurance company fixing it go way down. So we may see a lot of Teslas that become parts queens, you know, not because they're really totaled. It's just, it's too expensive to fix it. And so they'll get recycled as parts. But, um,

It's the way it goes. Yeah, I know. Yeah, Louis, the battery packs, because, you know, Balazs just talked about the battery packs. And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but, you know, these new batteries are coming out. Just to kind of refresh people who are listening, if you can, what this new batteries pack means. You know, what advantages does it have over what is currently out there?

Um, sure. I mean, I don't know anything about batteries and I don't know why you're asking, you know, um, I think it's, uh, it's, it's an interesting thing. I mean, in my mind, the main, there's, there's two primary advantages to this change, the new batteries they're doing, um, to Tesla one being manufacturing improvements, right. Uh, where basically you're getting a lot of, um, cost savings with simplifying certain things, not having, uh,

you know, all the welds as Mike mentioned, the batteries are much larger, so it's more efficient in the material usage. But also there's some changes to the chemistry of the batteries. So basically there's

potential to enable some additional things with charging and stuff in the future, higher charging rates and some other things like that. Currently, there's no real advantage for users yet other than the structural change, which gives you probably a better power to weight ratio. But anyway, so what I'll say is there are some potential advantages in the future, but the

What we're seeing right now is the trade-off, though, is some of the performance. So that's why you're not going to see these batteries in the plaids, for example, right now, because they're going to allow some charging cycle improvements there.

but their maximum output of power is not as high as some of the older batteries right now. So it's a trade-off, but you don't need that throughput. So it is a huge advantage to have in the 3 and the Y, I think, which right now is only in the Y. And I believe the only models getting it are Tesla employee models. They're not even...

They're not even releasing it yet to the general public. And that's because of testing, I'm sure. And also they want to, it's still a little R and D. They want to like make sure things are really polished before they, they do a wider release.

Yeah, I know that that's going to mean, you know, supercharging lines are going to probably increase now once people get the Model Ys. And so, Balazs, if you could tell us, how is supercharging out there in Europe? Are there any areas of growth? You know, are there any places that you think they need to, you know, refine to make it better as more EVs come out there in your part of the world?

Yeah, I mean, you know, first, let's define if you only mean Tesla supercharging or you think about EVs in general and their charging, because there's a huge difference. Right, right, right. You know, when Tesla announced that they're going to start to open their charging network to others, first, I was pretty skeptical. You know, at this point, Elon Musk doesn't really need to prove that he knows what he's doing. You know, like he doesn't need my advice. I was like, are you sure? Because this is like your biggest advantage.

The charging landscape in Europe is so fragmented.

that if you were to drive, and you know, remember within the EU, within the Schengen countries anyway, you don't even need a passport. Well, you know, these days with Corona, there were restrictions, but normally you can just drive from Budapest to France. And there's like, no one's going to even bother to stop you. Like, even if you go through Switzerland, which is not an EU country, they have an agreement with Europe. So it's like, we can use our own ID cards. You don't even need a passport. And chances are they're not even going to check on you, right?

But with an EV, you will need to know, okay, along my way, what are the chargers that I'm going to use? Who operates them? Do I need a token? Do I need an app? What app do I need? Do they accept a credit card? Mostly, they don't. You need to download their special app and then register your card there. Is it reliable? Is it going to work? And, you know, there are some solutions around that, like,

For instance, in Hungary, the biggest operator of the charging infrastructure here now has a roaming agreement with many European operators. So you can use their local app to charge your car anywhere. But it's still more limited than a gas station where you just drive up to any gas station and you pay with your credit card, even if you don't have a single local currency in your pocket. Like in Hungary, we don't use euros. So even if you didn't change your

any money, you could see you use your MasterCard or Visa and just pay and that's it. With Tesla, you know, I just made a trip to Italy, which was my first trip. First long trip with my car because I got my Tesla last November. And my first trip, first vacation really since COVID. And I took a trip to a little bit north of Italy.

Milan. I was going to say Milan. So it was like Lake Como. I don't know if you guys heard about it. Just, you know, take a look and just spend some, you know, a little bit of time there. And I charged four times on the way there, all Tesla superchargers. It was just seamless. The car just planned it.

So that's the biggest advantage Tesla has here and they have a pretty good network already in Europe. In our neck of the woods, here in Eastern Europe, I would say that it's getting better and better. Like for the size of our country, Hungary, we already have eight superchargers and like our country is just roughly the size of, I looked it up before the show so you guys can compare to something. It's roughly the size of Indiana.

So, you know, that's what you have to deal with. But, you know, three of those chargers are on the capital and then only five are around the edges of the country, around main highways. So like the difficulty you would have is, well, of course, if you're traveling to another European country using one of the major highways, it's fine. But if you want to travel within the country and you just take small country roads and you run out of charge, you're not going to have a supercharger. You're going to have to use

some other network, and those are mostly 50 kilowatt and are mostly old. So they're not even gonna give you more than 100 amps. So with your low voltage that you have it at Tesla, you're gonna charge it like I don't know, 30, 40 kilowatts at most. So you're gonna grow old charging and regret your life decisions pretty much. But you know, it's gonna take some time before Tesla covers like small rural areas of Hungary with chargers, of course.

How was the vibe out there for Tesla? Do people like Tesla out there? Are there Tesla haters out there?

Oh, you know, just look at the comments on my articles. Of course there are Tesla haters. You know, but it's, you know, I think in general, I think Tesla is lagged within the EV community. Sure, you know, some of the Tesla owners may have done a little bit to, you know, maybe appear a little bit snobbish and just stoke down on people who didn't buy Tesla. So that maybe didn't help. But in general, I think people recognize Tesla.

you know, the cars for what they are, you know, how far ahead they are from the competition. So in general, it's lagged. But for sure, you know, it's not for everyone. And this is what I always say, like, you're never going to have a situation when everyone buys a Tesla. Even if it's the best EV, people don't like the same design. Like, you know, who is a BMW enthusiast? Sure, they're going to pick an i4. Why shouldn't they? It's a good car. It's a perfectly good choice. Not everyone has to buy a Tesla.

yeah well you know i don't know i'm a bit you know yeah right you're right the key is coming out the key is coming out or has one out you know and then uh you know ford has their maki do you um talk about the maki at all on your on your podcast at all sure yeah i mean you know we have tested it yeah we have tested it and you know honestly my opinion is that it's it's a good car it's it's

The thing that I like the most about it actually was the infotainment system, which is a funny thing to say. But in an EV, I think it's important that it helps, especially a novice user, to plan your trip. And that's like one of the other test advantages, right? I just...

sat in my car, typed in Lake Como, like the address of the hotel, and it planned everything and showed me how much I need to charge, where do I need to charge. That's not the default by any means in many EVs. And the Mach-E was one of the first ones. I think they have some Google-derived system which actually does that, so that's a big improvement.

I think it's a good car. I don't think that it's better than the Model Y in terms of performance or range or charging capability. But if you don't like the Model Y design and you like the Mach-E design, it's a good choice.

There are worse cars than a marquee. You could use the, what do they call it, the Super Pilot, Blue Pilot, whatever it's called. Yeah. Whatever the thing is. I think it's something with blue. Super Cruise or something like that? Yes. I think it could be. Is it the GM? Anyway. Yeah, yeah. Were you able to use that? And if so, how do you think, how far close is it? How close is it to Tesla's?

Honestly, I haven't tried that because when I tested it, it was a very brief intro. They just wrote like the first

few units into the country or it was maybe just a European tour of the first units and we could see it for like 15 minutes. This is what they call the static presentation. They have some stupid names for this. And actually our editor-in-chief was the one who tested it later on. And I

Honestly, I don't recall how he graded their version of autopilot. But I think that there are only very few driver assistance systems which are up to the autopilot level. And maybe Ford has some work cut out for them on that regard. Now, Mike, if he doesn't mind me saying this, his daughter is going to be getting a BMW i3. And you talked about...

Or the FSD. I'm not sure what BMW calls it, but their autopilot system. So you were talking to Mike and saying how there's a new version of it coming out for BMW, the new...

that's closer to what Tesla's doing. What is your opinion on just the other EVs in your country? How are, just overall, is one closer to Tesla's full self-driving than others? Like, is BMW's, is it closer now than the Tesla's FSD? So, again, you know,

Our editor-in-chief is the one who usually tests the autopilot features because he's kind of an enthusiast on that side. He actually has OpenPilot installed. He's using OpenPilot on his Nissan Leaf. And he told me that the new BMW iX3, which is made in China and has a different system, different driver system from other BMWs, is actually the first one that he has seen that's already very close to the BMW.

to your standard autopilot features. But honestly, I don't think that people in general are super excited about driver-assistant features. We are for sure because we are enthusiasts, but normally people, when they buy a car, I don't think it's a major decision point yet. Maybe when FSD is actually there and people can use

true full self-driving then it's going to be a differentiator if you have it or not but for now people just use you know lane keeping as an extra yeah i love it i love the beta i'm not gonna lie well you know let's be clear full self-driving you got eyes and hands so that's the cheapest full self-driving we got and i think so far the best you got a point there you got a point there

It's called having a chauffeur. It costs a lot more than FSD. I've just seen the FSD prices lately. I'm not sure anymore. In this country...

Yeah, I just bought a new Tesla. I was happy to pay the $12,000 for it. I'm just a sucker for it. I loved it. I was an FSD beta back in... I had my old Tesla back in December up until February. And I loved it. I think it's much further along than what the current beta...

The current FSD is in the current software. I think the beta is really getting us there, but it still has a little ways to go. Anyway, that's just me asking about what you thought about FSD. So if I could talk about Giga Berlin, that's been a big topic for a long time for a number of reasons. And I think you were able to go there and even be able to

some of the things that a lot of people wish they could have seen. Can you talk to us a little bit about Giga Berlin and how it is out there? Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know about that. I mean, I haven't seen things I wanted to see.

So here's what happened, right? They had this kind of, what did they call it, this event last October, which was introducing people, locals to the factory. And I tried to get there. They actually contacted Tesla here in Hungary, and I couldn't get a ticket, even though the store manager of the Hungarian store is a high school classmate of mine. Even he couldn't get me a ticket. So

Then the factory opened and they had this event. And out of the blue, one of our readers IM'd me and said, "Hey, do you want to come? I have two tickets. You can be my plus one."

At that point, the only thing we had was the agenda that was there on Twitter. Someone posted it, I think one of the first buyers. And it said, well, you're going to start with a factory tour at like 11 a.m. I was like, I have to be like, I don't care who I need to bribe. I have to be there. And then, of course, it turned out that and I don't know if it was for security reasons, because remember, by that time we had the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and

And maybe with Starlink, Elon wasn't the most popular person with Putin. So I think they amped up security. But they didn't allow anyone to that factory to accept the first, I think, 30 people who bought the cars. And I'm sure some of the VIP politicians who attended the event. So we couldn't go there. We were only allowed to attend the party which followed starting at 3 p.m. Even though we drove there, we made the...

what was it like 1200 kilometer trip you tell me how much that is you know that's in miles but it's a lot it was like a 12 hour drive long day and yeah so we went there and we couldn't get into that but we could get into the party and it was still worth it first of all because Elon made a surprise you know

kind of presentation and speech at that. So we could still hear him talk. Plus, you know, I could chat with some of the employees there and just speak their brain about, you know, the culture of the company there and what they are seeing. And, you know, I actually, I learned some interesting things. Mainly that, you know,

In terms of the company culture there, there's a lot of young people who just came straight out of school, who basically are fine with that lifestyle of working 24-7 and it's a big party for them. And afterward, they still go out to party together and then they come back the next morning.

You do that until you're like, I don't know, 30 or 40, and then you have kids and stuff, and then it's no longer that enjoyable. So there are some people, right? So some people don't like it much. We also know that Tesla is not the best in terms of salaries in the region. They are competitive in certain areas, but there are already some people whom other OEMs try to hire away from Tesla.

with higher salaries. So that's something they have to look out for. But altogether, people seem to be very happy with what they saw in terms of how agile the companies, how they are picking up things and how they're changing things. And the people I've talked to enjoyed that part of the work for sure.

Were there anything, any highlights that you particularly liked when you saw, well, you didn't go to the actual event, but were there anything that people were like speaking about like, oh man, this was the greatest thing that happened there or whatever. Is there anything that you can remember that you might want to share with us?

the greatest thing that happened there that's a that's a good question you know it's not that much that it's more it's more that um you know i actually talked to some people who were knowledgeable in the uh in the in the assembly and they were talking about the final fit and finish and they actually one of them told me a story about

They were coming from an OEM, another big German company, and they said that when this guy was there actually from the early days of the company starting. Because remember, for us, it seems like the factory just started, but they started hiring people like a year ago. And some people were there to set up the machines and to bring everything online. And this guy told me that...

He actually, when the first test parts went through the new machines in Berlin, the quality was better than at his last job at that luxury German brand. Wow.

So, you know, there's obviously there is room for improvement in Tesla for rear quality. And I was actually checking that on the first cars they had there because we could actually see those and sit in them. And, you know, like one of the things that I, you know, if I look very closely on my Model 3 car,

The things that I pick up on is how the headlights are not perfectly aligned with the hood. They seem like a little bit of an afterthought of whether they fit or not. Those were much better on the Berlin cars, for sure. Now it's early days of production, so they do have time to care about every single car that comes up for production. Yeah.

So there's still room for improvement. I got you. So in response to Tesla's growth, you know, VW is a big company. So do you think that a major player like that is going to cause any big competition for Tesla out in that part of the country or in a part of the world?

You know, it's an interesting topic whenever people talk about competition. I always feel like there's this unrealistic expectation that Tesla would sell 100% of the EVs of the world, which is like, you know, it's just not realistic. Even Elon's crazy target of 20 million cars, which is, I don't even know if I believe that, but that's what he says, 20 million cars. That would be like, you know, like a fourth or a fifth of the global market.

you know, production of cars. And that's his crazy target. So someone needs to build the other cars as well, right? So I do expect that Tesla will lose market share, that others will build. That doesn't mean that Tesla can't grow and have a huge chunk in it. And some old players will go away. They will be bought up. They will cease to exist. Like with every technology revolution, not everyone will survive, but some will stay. And I think that VW has a good chance as long as they don't fire these, because he's like, you know,

really pushing that company. You know, they are kicking and screaming, but he is doing his part. And, you know, every time I report on that, I read German media and try to read some of the backstories that happen in the, you know, within Volkswagen. And it's a huge company. But it's almost like reading a Shakespearean drama.

Of, you know, all the intrigue and who tries to sabotage him. And then they leak something to the press on purpose or, you know. So it's not a done deal that they will come out of this. But I think with these, they have a good chance. So, Bilaz, I want to ask you about Volkswagen with a slightly different perspective. Mm-hmm.

In my view, I think what we see with Volkswagen today trying to adjust to the whole EV market is a self-inflicted wound. And I say that because if I'm not mistaken, Europe was pushing diesels really hard for a long time. That was their answer to gasoline. And then came Dieselgate.

you know, with the Volkswagen, kind of fudging the numbers a bit and really causing a lot of problems as far as acceptance of diesel as an alternative fuel. And I think in a way that kind of opened the door, kind of wedged the door open for the EV market to slip in there and say, hey, we got this great technology and it doesn't have all these problems that diesel has. Maybe you ought to look at us, you know, so...

What's your thoughts on that? Am I just putting my tinfoil hat on and kind of going off the reservation there? I like Mike's tinfoil hat. I love Mike's tinfoil hat, too. You know, the thing is that I remember when, you know, maybe in the U.S. And I assume that most of your audience is from the U.S. So, you know, maybe from the U.S. it's weird that these guys were so popular in Europe.

But they really were. And actually, just allow me because actually, I was expecting this question. So I just pulled up one of my articles from earlier this year. Great minds think alike. Because, you know, I do want to make an important distinction here. When we talk about diesel sales now, and we talk about the sort of the install base to use an IT term. So the fleet, that's two different things.

So even though you see a huge, huge decline in diesel popularity since Dieselgate, and it's really like gone by 50% every single day and then another 50% the next year. And in some countries these days, you have like 4% or 8% diesel penetration in the new car sales, where that was like half the sales a couple of years ago. But right now you still see, and let me just pull this up, in the European fleet as of 2019,

that almost 45% of the passenger vehicles in Europe were diesel. 45%. That's 2019. Right? So it's going to take a while until all that goes away and they age out. But to answer your question, yeah, I mean, in many ways, it was a self-inflicted wound for Volkswagen. They're trying to save their image. And I think it's in a way, and it's always...

It's always hard to say when something bad happens and there's a silver lining that, well, it is worth it. But in a way, I think it has really pushed them. And maybe Deese wouldn't have been able to push through his agenda had Dieselgate not happened. That's my view from the outside looking in.

And I would ask a follow-up question. Does Europe tend to separate out the fleet diesel as far as heavy trucks, delivery trucks versus the consumer? Or does it just lump together? So in this statistics, which I talked about, this is the passenger vehicles. Okay. But I also pulled another number because I was writing an article a couple months ago and I needed the numbers. So I went into the European Union database for statistics. And I found that

And, you know, the actual number is not that important. But in terms of the usage of the fuels, and remember when we say fuel usage, it's not just passenger cars. As you say, it's trucks, it's ships, it's, you know, even locomotives or, you know, trains. But, you know, we use about three times as much gasoline. I'm sorry, three times as much diesel as gasoline in Europe every single year because of the, you know, industrial usage of diesel.

I have a question about Volkswagen. I guess it's probably doing with their image. You remember when they had the whole issue with fudging the ECM numbers? You plug it up to do the... Dieselgate.

Is that what it's called? Yeah. Okay. Because it was even on, wasn't also on gasoline cars as well or just diesel cars? So that was for diesels, yeah. For gasoline, I mean, you know, there's this general issue of every emission data you see with every vehicle that uses the standard cycle, right? So, you know, it's the same with, and especially an issue with plug-in hybrids and hybrids where, you know,

We actually had some articles on this not so long ago where research has found that hybrids and plug-in hybrids, surprise, surprise, emit several times as much in real life as it says on the sticker because, you know,

You know, that small battery can only give you that much when it's, you know, a standardized cycle. And sure, you know, like Ari, there's sometimes some people are very touchy about this because they say, well, I have a plug-in hybrid and I charge it every night and I go to work in the city and I come back home and I almost never use the, you know, the gasoline engine except when we go visit grandma four times a year. Right, right.

Those are, you know, our readers are a subset who are interested in this technology. They are mindful about this. That's not your average consumer. Agreed. Agreed. And the other part that I was also just going to mention regarding that is that as long as companies, because many of these are company cars, right? So,

Many people get a car from their company and companies like buying plug-in hybrids. But the problem is that as long as they give fuel cards to their employees, like regular fuel cards, you can go and refuel your car at Shell or whatever, the people are not incentivized to charge up their car.

So they need these policy changes because I have already talked to many companies, mostly German companies are here in Hungary, but some of them already don't allow, there's a company policy that you cannot buy a pure ICE vehicle for a company car. It has to be a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric, which is great. But as long as you don't follow up with your other policies,

People are not going to charge up. Well, there's a secondary part to that. So I've been at companies that have said, well, we'll give you a hybrid or we'll give you an EV, but there's no place to charge at the office. And when you approach them about it, it's like, well, that's a capital expense and we didn't budget for it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, you know, the funny part about that is that whenever people think about charging, of course, they think about the monster chargers, you know, these 300 kilowatt, right? But at a place of work, you just really need like a standard socket, really, because the car is going to be there for like eight hours, unless you are like a traveling sales agent. Sure, but it's like a...

You plug it in, you work like eight hours. Sometimes you work 10 hours. For sure, it's going to charge back that, you know, small like 10% that you used to get to work. So it's really not that big of an expense unless they overdo it.

Interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about the EV incentives that are out there? Can you kind of walk us through how that works out there in your part of the world? Yeah. So honestly, my biggest issue with the EV incentives is that it's not like I would have to I would love to have a European level solution for that.

And I'm going to get to why in a moment, but let me give you two examples. I can talk a little bit about Germany because I know some about how the system works and it's the biggest car market in Europe, so it's relevant. And I can obviously talk about the Hungarian system. So in Germany, basically you get 9,000 euros for a full electric car. There is a subsidy for hybrids as well,

or plug-in hybrids, you know. But for EVs, for pure EVs, you have €3,000, which is paid by the car company, actually. So, like, Tesla's price is going to be €3,000 less than what it should be if the car qualifies for the incentive, you know, if it doesn't fall outside of the threshold for the price. And then the state is going to give you back €6,000 after you bought the car.

It's not a tax incentive like in the US. I'm not exactly sure how you get the money back. I'm sure you have to apply and stuff. But that's the basics of the system. And they're going to actually are now talking about, you know, changing that and making it less and then eventually phasing it out. So that's the German system. In Hungary, it's a little bit different. It's

It's the Hunger Games, maybe. That's the best way to put it. Well played. Actually, I tried. I actually applied for it twice, and I won twice. So it's a little bit odd that I say that. But the first time I did that was the year before last year, so 2020. Because...

Back then you could apply for and actually try to convert some of the numbers so you guys wouldn't have to calculate Hungarian for instance dollars. I think I could have applied for something like $4,000 or the equivalent of that.

And then I was looking at, I wasn't looking at the Tesla because Tesla wasn't officially available here at that time. Plus, I didn't even think it would qualify with the prices because we had a pretty low threshold for at least for the usable, usable threshold. And then actually there was a second amount. So like if the car costs less than $32,000, you could get seven, close to $7,000 back.

back so I was then looking for cars in that range and there were some okay choices but and actually applied for that but then I didn't go through with it and then the next year so actually last year I applied again and it was you know the thing is that there was a very small amount of money earmarked for this and it was supposed to last for two years it lasted for about an hour

People had to apply on this date at like 8 a.m. in the morning, the whole system crashed because there was such a big run for it. And actually they were supposed to do it in like three phases, but then in the afternoon they decided to just do it all at once because the money was already gone for the first phase in like an hour.

And the system couldn't even handle it. So there was this online system where you had to apply, given a bunch of data that the state already knows about you. So it was completely pointless. And then if you were lucky, then you were one of those roughly 1,200 people who were able to apply for this because then after that, the money ran out. So I was one of those lucky ones. That's how I got my Model 3 for a pretty ridiculous price given the car prices today.

So when Tesla introduced the Model 3 in Budapest in Hungary last year, May 1st, early May, when they opened the shop here, the price was...

Let me check it. It was about $43,000, which may seem like a lot for you guys because you guys have net prices and then you have lower sales taxes on that. But we have 27% of value-added tax. Plus we have all the tariffs because it's made in China. It's coming into the European Union, right? And then you have the logistics and all that. So it started, the standard range, 55 kilowatt hour started at $43,000.

And I could only apply if I went to the base version, like you couldn't even pick a color. Otherwise, it was already out of the threshold of the price. So that's how I got it. But the funny part is that my car right now, since the incentive ran out and Tesla has raised prices like 15 times, would cost 50% more than what I bought it for last May. And it was delivered in November. Wow. Yeah, that kind of hurts.

Lucky for me, but... Doesn't hurt him. Honestly. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. So I guess the worst part about the way the incentives work here is that it's just not, you can't plan with it. It's not like you have a five-year plan and it doesn't have any numbers it attaches to. Like, okay, as long as EVs are not more than 20% of new car sales, you can get back some of the taxes. It doesn't work like that. It's like, well, the government,

you know, is going to give you this much right now, but it's, we're not sure it's going to exist tomorrow. This, you know, this incentive. So that's a little bit of a bummer. Yeah. So I would consider the tax, the tax is so high. You would think they could just say, all right, you either don't pay that or you pay only a certain amount of that. You know what I mean? And then everybody could benefit from it.

And you know, that's the other part. There is actually a great industry of importing German cars, especially in Eastern Europe, German EVs, because the incentives are so high over there. And you only have to keep the car for like six months in Germany, according to the rules. So there are German companies who buy the car, hold it for six months, kind of get the incentive, and then you basically use the German car with German plates, which you can do in Europe, of course.

And then six months later, you just officially buy it from them. So this is why I would say that I think the best would be if you had like a universal system in Europe. And I would just say, you know what, until EVs are, let's say, 20% of new car sales or at least 20% of the installed fleet, whichever works, let's apply a 0% VAT universally in Europe, you know, as a environmental, you know, whatever incentive. And then it's the same system everywhere. And it's no longer just, you know, the flavor of the day.

Gotcha. So, so, well, tell us a little bit about the EV offerings that are in Europe that are not available here in the US, like like Seat, for example. What do you see as some of the best and worst EVs that are sold out in Europe but aren't necessarily here in the US? You know, so that's a good question. It's.

How to put this? So there's, of course, there's a Volkswagen group, right? They are the big ones. And they have all these sub-brands. And yes, some of these sub-brands like Seat and Skoda here in Eastern Europe, which is very popular, those have their own EVs, but they are normally, you know, built on the same platform as their Volkswagen equivalents or all the equivalents.

and they have the same specifications. So it's basically the same car with a different badge, a little bit different styling, and a little bit different price point.

So I don't, honestly, I don't really consider them different cars, which I'm sure that Volkswagen would be offended by. But, you know. Oh, they're very different. You know, at that point, you can buy a Cupra, which is a Seat sports brand, but it's an ID3 repackaged in a slightly more sporty design. But even if you just, you know, squint, you can see that it's the same car from the side profile. Yeah.

So, but in terms of, you know, best cars which are not available in Europe, I would say, you know, it depends on what your use case is. Because, of course, in the US, you guys, you know, use a lot bigger cars, right? And you use trucks. So, like, some of our cars are just not relevant for you. But here, even a Model 3 is considered a big car. I mean, of course, obviously, there's bigger cars, right? Like a BMW 7, right? That's a bigger car, right?

for sure. But no one would say that you have a small car if you have a Model 3. And the most popular cars in Europe are smaller ones. So the fact that Tesla is doing so well in terms of sales in Europe, which, you know, just going back to our TMC collection of data that we do every single month under the supervision of Troy and Hobbs, you know, to collect all the official. So that's the official sales data from the European databases. Right.

Tesla sold close to 60,000 cars in Europe in Q1, which, you know, it could be off by a couple hundred and then it would be number two. But if the numbers hold, it would be number one and the entire Volkswagen group would be number two behind it in Q1, which would be a first, which never happened before.

You know, like the Model 3 may have beaten like the ID.3, but not the entire Volkswagen group. And this is before Berlin, remember that. Berlin had like 30 cars delivered in Q1. So there's a little different potential there. But, you know, if you ask me about best cars in Europe, I'm sorry, long answer.

The Renault Zoe was a French car. Renault is a French brand. I don't know how familiar you guys are with Renault. Oh, yeah. Zoe was a relatively small car, definitely small car by U.S. standards that was very popular in Europe. It's now a little bit declining in popularity, but it was definitely good for a city runner, and it has a big battery. And finally, it has DC charging, even though it's only 50 kilowatts, but still powerful.

My previous car, my ICE car was a Renault Megane and now the first electric Megane just came out from Renault, which seems like a very good car in that sort of compact hatchback that Europeans love so much, like the Volkswagen Golf class and shape and size. And yeah, the ID.3 is also a strong contender in that. So like, you know, really Tesla is in a league of its own, but it doesn't have the range that

you know, instead of some smaller cars that Europeans like so much. Interesting question. Speaking of questions, Balazs, I'm going to put you kind of on the spot here. We got a question from one of our viewers here. And I'm not going to say his name, but he says, one important question is, how are these European OEMs planned to secure raw battery materials? I believe that would be the make or break key in surviving. What are your thoughts about that, Balazs?

I think that's correct. So, you know, we used to joke about this, that whenever one of the big brands had an announcement of what they're going to do and how they're going to, you know, Trump Tesla, our line was, show me your battery factory, and then I'll believe you. Because for the longest time, they were thinking that, well, you know, we're just going to buy batteries like we buy the ABS from Bosch. We're going to buy batteries from Samsung and CAT and whatever, right?

except everyone was going for the same supply from the same companies. And then to top that, they were actually, and I'm not sure, there's a debate within our editorial team whether it was actually something they believed or just marketing, but they said that, well, they're going to go, many of the European brands said, they're going to go for solid-state batteries. They're only going to invest in solid-state batteries until then they're just going to buy it. And then just like if they actually meant it, like imagine you're a supplier

And they're telling the entire world, hey, we're not going to pony up the money to build this factory for this obsolete technology for three years, because we're going to come up with a solid state battery in three years. We're going to buy it from this guy, this loser, who's going to build a factory for us. But we're going to leave them after three years because we have this super technology, the solid state batteries. Imagine how enthusiastic those suppliers may have been to expand their capacity for these companies.

And we have moved on from that finally. So many of these companies like VW, even if these are joint ventures mostly, but they are starting to build actually some of their own battery factories. Some of these are coming online now. Except when you look at the design capacity, like Volkswagen is running like six battery factories in Europe within the next couple of years with a 40 gigawatt hour capacity each. That's kind of like what

Tesla plans for Berlin once it's built out. And so, you know, that kind of shows you the scale. But at least they are doing that. Now, then comes the next question that our audience is asking. Okay, so now you have your fact. Finally, you realize that you need those damn factories to build cars, right?

Again, it's not going to be like ordering it from your suppliers. And what I have been reading lately is that some of these companies are now actually going directly to the mining companies and the refineries and talking to them like Tesla does because that's the only way.

Has this whole Ukraine-Russia thing, has that put any kind of pressure in your part of the world in terms of getting those materials for the cars or fuel prices? Has that factored a lot into anything in your world, this whole Ukraine-Russia war?

Well, I mean, you know, obviously it has affected, you know, a lot of things. Like for one, our country has a border with Ukraine, even if it's a small border, but, you know, that's still there. You know, the immediate effect that, and I don't know, I don't know if this was even communicated or it was media even picked it up in the US, but the biggest effect immediately was that there were many, many suppliers working in Ukraine and sometimes, you know, some of them in Russia as well, but many in Ukraine, especially key ones which are making money

It's going to be one of the stupid examples that maybe Elon would bring up when he talked about how they were running around to get the USB cables for the original Model S because they couldn't get any. But it's as stupid as that, that they were making these Ukrainian companies or these factories in Ukraine were making the cables for many, many cars, not just TVs, but many cars.

And those factories shut down or, you know, supply just wasn't insured after a while. So many European factories had to shut down for peaks. Volkswagen had to shut down not just ICE, but also electric vehicle factories. So there was a huge thing about that. And even today, it's not fully back online.

So, you know, after COVID and after the chip shortage, this came. So now prices of cars are sky high. And you have to wait like one or two years for a new car, any car, basically. So...

So that's a bummer. But then in terms of EVs and the raw material prices, Russia is actually responsible for some of that market. So the raw material prices, I don't know if you guys have seen the thing about the nickel price, which went up in the London metal exchange, like spiked up to like, I don't know, five times of what it used to be or something like that, something crazy. That has obviously affected a lot of things.

You have to bear in mind, though, that many of these companies have long-term contracts with suppliers. It's not like, you know, they're not going to have an issue tomorrow. But, you know, once those agreements run out, they have to renegotiate and then it's going to be a problem. That just sounds bad. Has anything, this may not be EV related, but has anything else, has that whole dynamic between those two countries, has that changed?

done anything else to your part of the world? Has it made anything difficult for things out there for you, not just EV related? You know, actually, let me bring a positive example. And again, I want to be extremely careful here because, you know, and especially, you know, the other thing in Hungary is that we have a Hungarian minority living in Ukraine who are also directly impacted. So, you know, in no way do I want to say that there's a silver lining of the war and, you know, none of that.

But you still have to mention that it seems like for once, and it's kind of difficult to say when the European Union thinks something, you know, says something that's actually meant like a big change, because usually they make a big announcement, like a big plan. And then it takes three years to ratify that. And then all of the special interest groups just kind of change.

loosen it up by the time it's actually there. But for now, it looks like we're actually going to make a big change towards renewables because they want to cut the dependency on Russian fossil fuels, which, you know, on the one hand, like in Hungary,

two out of three people, I guess, or at least half the country is heating in the winter with gas. And 80% of that comes from Russia. In some countries, it's 100% or 50%. So it's not just industry, it's actually people's homes where they cook and they don't want to freeze to death. So it's not a trivial question of, well, the ideals and we just give it up. These governments actually have to solve the issue of what's happening. You have until next October to solve it. Good luck, right? Building up terminals for LNG in four months.

So anyway, you know, but it looks like Europe wants to do like a shorter term solution of finding alternate sources, at least for oil, because I think like over 90% of the oil already comes into Europe on ships. So, you know, those could in theory come from other areas. But on a longer term or even on a midterm, I think it's going to accelerate our transformation into clean energy and battery storage. So, you know, Giga Berlin better scale up that battery fab.

Kind of shifting gears a little bit over here in America, there is we mentioned this earlier that there's a lot of a lot of Tesla hate out here in America. And you mentioned there are some out there in your neck of the woods. Just a few days ago, we had a we not we, but there was a Tesla that actually crashed into a jet.

And, oh my gosh, this thing. A few weeks ago, we had some rocket scientist jumping a Tesla Model S in a street that totally just crashed. That was ridiculous. But now we have this. In case of those of you who didn't know about this, there was an actual Tesla vehicle that

ran through, hit an actual jet. We're not sure if it's a Model Y or a

X. It looks like it might be an X. I think it might be an X. Yeah. I think you might be right. But there's a lot of articles, not a lot, there's a few articles that mention that this was on autopilot. And I guess it's kind of, you know, depends on how you look at it because the summon service, it was actually summoned. So someone was summoning it to wherever they were. So,

if you look at the FSD beta, the FSD option, it says summon is under it. So in some ways you can kind of say that it's, it's part of the FSD, but it's, it's kind of like, it's a separate thing. It's like, you know, you don't have to intentionally be in the car to use summon. Whereas in full self driving, you have to be in the car to do it. So, um,

When you hear things like this that's going on with Tesla and people bashing on it, what does it make you think as someone who writes for EVs and someone who is in the EV industry community?

How does this make you feel about Tesla? Do you think there's... Because, you know, there's Mach-Es out there. There's some Rivians out there. You know, and they might have some issues where they might hit something. But, you know, you're not really hearing things about those. But little things like this, it's like, oh, you know, full shift driving. You know, here we go again. This car is doing something on its own. And it just, in my opinion, it makes people afraid to get into electric cars, specifically Teslas. Because, like, well, you know, I don't want the car to...

to go crazy and drive into something. So do you think this kind of... And so TMZ is... TMZ.com is a gossip site. They're the ones that talk about, oh, the car was on full... You're being generous with that gossip site. Well, you know, but they're like, oh, you know, it's just full of driving. And then they also mentioned this other...

incident in Texas where these two gentlemen were in a Model S, I believe, and they crashed to a tree and everybody was like, oh yeah, no one was in the front seat. And then the NTSB came out and did a report saying no, people were in the front seat, they were in seatbelts, and because of how the steering wheel was deformed, it was someone that actually hit that and deformed it. So all that said...

How does it make you feel in terms of the Tesla brand? Does it make you think that, wow, this company is not – who's running the ship? Do you think it's this kind of stuff that you're talking about is warranted? Or do you think it's just people just trying to just embellish it because it's a Tesla and it's just the next big thing that's out right now?

You know, and this is kind of my general answer in terms of all of these autopilot accidents that are being reported and FSD accidents and all of that. Obviously, these have to be investigated, right? So we want to have safe cars, right? And then if Tesla screwed up and it's not safe, they should fix it. But in general, if I take my 15-year-old car, which has standard, you know, like...

what do you call it, the tempo map, you know, kind of the speed. Cruise control. Cruise control. That's the one. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. So your standard cruise control. And I set it to 100 miles.

and I just let go and crash into something. Is it Ford's issue? Is it GM's who made it? Or am I the moron who did it? So as long as it's not the machine, as long as Tesla didn't say that you're going to summon the car, you don't have to touch anything. You just click, pick me up, and it picks you up.

As long as they didn't say that, I think it's the owner's fault. Whoever was holding that phone and just looking at the plane and the car and they just didn't care. You can also think about where it was staged for use, although it was a pretty expensive stunt if anyone did it. But sometimes you have a feeling like that's happening. But let me bring in something else that's kind of related. The autopilot accidents with the police vehicles on the side of the street where Tesla crashes into police or fire trucks.

The part that infuriates me about how the media handles that is not that Tesla is in a bad light because, well, what's new, right? But the fact that that's a problem for every car that has a radar ADAS system because these systems by their design and the way they work are not always able to pick up stationary objects and stop. So this is not a Tesla problem. This is a problem for everyone.

who has a similar system and if a fire truck was on the side of the road, you know, another company's car could have crashed into it. Maybe they have, you just don't hear about it. We have this saying in Hungary that it's, how do I translate it? That it's not breaking news if the dog bites the postman, but it's breaking news if the postman bites the dog, right? Okay, but let's be clear about something here. And

You don't see the CEO of Mercedes or the CEO of Volkswagen, you know, standing up in front of the press saying, my full self-driving owns the world. I've got the best there is. That just puts a big bullseye on you.

Well, I mean, Mercedes did run an advertisement saying they have a full self-driving car. They just tried to forget about it because it happened a couple of years ago and they realized they shouldn't have done that, for instance. That's true. You know, sure, Elon oversells these things. Does it give you the license to just use it irresponsibly? I don't think so. But you're right. You know, I am not a fan of his projections on FSD.

I think my knowledge of IT, having some IT education, but by no stretch of imagination am I a programmer, but I know enough to know how difficult it is, and I just don't think that those projections are realistic. I think that Tesla is going to get there, but they're not going to get there in a timeframe that Elon suggests. So yes, maybe he should be more careful in what he projects because some stupid people are going to misuse it.

Well, Elon did a tweet, I think, back in July. He said, current summon is sometimes useful, but mostly just a fun trick. Once we move summon and plus highway driving to a single FSD stack, it would be sublime. Now, I've used summon a couple times. One time I was impressing a girl, and it was just – I saw the car. We were in the same parking lot. The ultimate party trick. Yeah, I saw the car there. And so I had walked –

Did you crash into a plane as well? No, no, no. But my point is we were in the same kind of parking lot area and I walked into a car and I was like, oh, can I walk you back? He said, no, nothing to do. Don't walk me back to my car. My car come to me. So I did all the thing, you know, and it just drove up and it stopped and it parked there and it was great. You know, so it was my first time ever doing. I was like to myself, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is cool.

But then later on, I got really cocky about it. And then I was at Best Buy or something. I said, you know what? No one was around. I said, let me have it come around to me. And actually what happened is it came out. I saw it, but then it went down the parking structure and then it was coming back. So I just stopped it because I didn't know where it was going. But it wasn't going to hit anything. It just didn't come directly to where I was. It was going to take a long way around. So, you know, I agree with Elon that, you know,

there's a lot of room for improvement. But, you know, if it's a relatively wide space with no barriers around it, I think it's actually pretty cool. I think it actually can work. But that's not California. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah, yeah. I can only imagine. Anyway. Yeah, you know, honestly, in terms of summon, I do think it's a part of the trick as well. And, you know, there's like one use case that's legitimate. Like,

You know, it's pouring, it's raining very heavily, you're coming out of a shopping mall, theater, cinema, whatever. And you don't have to walk across, you know, the parking lot in rain, the car picks you up. If that works, cool, that's a good use case. But the way I think about someone is that even if it's not really useful at this point, or, you know, it's just a trick.

it's inevitable that the car has to park itself and pick up the owner for full self-driving. So it's one of the building blocks of FSD. So it has to do that. They kind of try to release it early to generate some buzz. I'm not sure it's very useful at this point.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think they've updated the software in it in several years even. I'm pretty sure it's the original software stack. So it'll be interesting to see how it works once they do move it over. As the tweet said with Elon, once they move it over to using the new modern software stack, the new neural nets that they're using for the beta, maybe it'll actually be worth using. Here comes Mike. Honestly, I think it's... Here comes Mike. Yeah, yeah. So I had the...

The distinct pleasure of sitting at a supercharger just a few days ago with great entertainment around me. And that was watching people try to back up into their spot. And I was thinking that, you know, instead of the party trick of summoning, why don't they get it worked out where the car can actually back up to the supercharger and get it right? I mean, some of these people had some real struggles trying to figure out how to do this.

You know, it's funny you mention that. I did that one day. I was at the Glendale Gallery up here. This was in the pandemic. And so I said, you know, let me go up here and try it because why not? So I got out and then you can press the stalk button.

and then it puts the car into like, it'll back up for you. It's supposed to be park mode, yeah. Yeah, whatever it's called. Yeah, so I did that and it was like, which direction got out, closed the door and it actually went in and stopped and it worked. So I was like,

Yeah, I read the manual on that because I was going to try it, but there's some very clear limitations on the self-parking. Yes, it is. Honestly, in general, and this is for Tesla, but I'm yet to see, and maybe just my limited experience because I don't do all the vehicle testing for sure, but I'm yet to see a park assist which would park...

where I couldn't, right? Because that's where it would be useful. Like imagine, you know, like a town and again, in Europe, we have older cities, so narrower streets in the downtown area, for instance. You park on the sidewalk. You park on the sidewalk and sometimes they park on both sides of the sidewalk and you really only have like

0.9 lane left to cross. So I would love to have the car parked there because I can't. But at this point, you're lucky if it doesn't destroy your rims when it's parking at a Walmart. So I don't know. I wouldn't pay for it. I didn't buy the FSD package for my car because the price would have been just ridiculous for the service it offers now. Now, once it actually does FSD...

That's a different ballgame. I may buy it then, but automatic parking, summoning, for now, I don't really think these are useful at this stage, in this development phase. I got you. We got a question from Amin, and Amin says, my next question would be now that Tesla Gigabrow Land is up and running, Tesla will be looking to the next European factory. What country would be the best for Tesla, in your opinion, Balazs? And why? Sure.

You know, it's interesting because a lot of people are talking about the UK. And Tesla will have its reasons if it goes for the UK. I have absolutely nothing against the UK. You know, it's not a personal grudge. They're not European anymore. So, I mean, it doesn't count. You know, they've always been like that. If they could, they would take their island and swim away further into the ocean with it.

But I mean, joking aside, you know, the point of bringing a factory within the EU is bringing it within the EU tariff zone. So you don't have to pay extra on, you know, as we're talking about this before the broadcast, you know, actually the way this gets calculated is they add the VAT on top of it. Well, they actually add the logistics or the transportation costs. Like if you, you know, ship in the car from China, you know,

And then on top of it, they add the VAT, the value of the tax, which in our case in Hungary is 27%. And then on top of that, they add the tariffs, right? So it adds up pretty quick. So if you put a car factory in the UK, it's no longer in the EU. Now, the EU and the UK have a special relation. It will take ages for them to figure out what costs what. But I think they are moving into the direction where they're not going to try to

cause more harm to each other than necessary. So it very well may be that if a car is made in the UK, it doesn't pay any taxes or tariffs if it ships into Europe. So at that point, it may work. I don't know. I'm going to put a personal request in to Elon. I want the next Gigafactory down by Barcelona because I need an excuse to go back to Barcelona. Yeah.

That's my request. Just saying. A lot of people bring up why Tesla just doesn't buy a factory of another car company, which is not doing so well. So there are always rumors that Volkswagen is going to just kind of give up on the Seat brand, actually, because it's not selling well for ages within the Volkswagen group.

But I don't think that buying an existing car in a factory would be beneficial because there are a lot of baggage which comes with an existing factory that they would have to pay for. We saw how that worked in Fremont. That's right. They should build new factories. They got it to work finally, but it took a long time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Balazs, so your question about lease buyouts. So Tesla just informed us that they're not letting newer leases buy out their car.

All Tesla vehicles delivered on about April 15th of this year are not eligible for the purchase. Third-party dealerships and third-party individuals are not eligible to purchase these vehicles. So what do you think about that? How does that sour the water for you with Tesla in specific? Does it make you feel like, ugh? Or do you think it's not a big deal?

Honestly, I mean, in terms of changing the rules in anything, as long as it only applies for new people going into the deal, I think it's fine because you either sign the lease with them or you may choose another type of financing, maybe not financed by Tesla, and then you do whatever you want with that car. I'm more interested in the reason why they do that because originally people were saying that this is not the first time Tesla has indicated that it's going to do something like this.

And originally, people were saying that they want to do that because they are thinking about self-driving cars and they want to kind of have their own fleet of robot taxis. And then, you know, once the lease is up, they're going to use it. They're not going to resell it. But we're like years away from that. I don't think that's the reason. So at this point, I'm thinking that, you know, used car prices are probably...

just as high in the US as they are in Europe because new car prices are up because you have to wait ages for cars. So it's just a better deal for them to sell it themselves, I guess. So I agree with you. I think that's the reason. I think they're going to make way more money selling the used car than they are from having leasers

buy out the car to then flip it and sell it themselves, right? Because that's most likely what people are going to do. No, I am curious. I mean, you know, like my example, like my car, if you don't look at the incentive, which is no longer there, right? But as I was saying, it costs, when I bought it, the full price would have been $43,000. And right now it costs $56,000, so like $13,000 more. Sure, the new one has the slightly bigger battery, you know, the 60-pack, not the 55. It has the Ryzen processor, not the Intel one.

Okay, but still I'm pretty sure that if I sold it I could sell it for more than I bought it. It's six months old. Now I am curious and this is more addressed to Lewis and Mark. Balazs if you happen to know that's great. But when I looked for a Tesla back in November, I actually looked at a couple of the companies that offer you the chance to buy out somebody else's lease, you know, take over a lease or whatever and

And I remember reading the lease fine print, and everyone I looked at, you were not allowed to buy out the lease at the end of a Tesla, even in November. So I'm a little confused why it's all news now, but it seems to have been in place for quite a while. I think it was the Model 3. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was the Model 3 and Ys that you were not allowed to. So it was specific to the Model. And the Model S and X you could buy out.

And I think that's what the change is now. You can't for any car. I'm pretty sure. I'm not 100% on that, but I believe the reason why is they did not let you buy them before. Just because, again, it's a much cheaper car. They know the resale value would hold. So I believe that was the difference. Yeah.

There we go. Now everybody's equal. I know. I know. So, Balazs, you know, I know it's getting late for you out there and we can talk more about this stuff, but I really want to thank you for coming out tonight and, you know, staying up late for us, us Catholic in America. Before you go, can you just tell us more about your sites and any social media links that you want to just give to our viewers and listeners? Yeah, I think it wouldn't help much if I started to, you know, just...

give you the links in terms of just speaking about the links because you probably couldn't, viewers probably couldn't spell it. Plus it's only in Hungarian so it would be very beneficial for your Hungarian viewers but I think that's a minority. So, you know, I think because vilanyautosok.hu is the name of the site, those who speak Hungarian can probably spell it and it's the biggest Hungarian EV site and renewable site so people can visit us there. We have a weekly podcast

for the past 122 weeks now. So they can listen to that as well. Yeah, and we are not really good at social media because we are kind of my age. So we always drag our feet to post anything on Instagram. I did post some stuff when I was in Berlin at the party, but you can still follow us on Twitter and Instagram as well.

Fantastic. And of course, I guess you got the memo with Mike and Louis with the hair, you know, the kind of the hair style. Hey, man. Hey, that's why I did it. You know, I was thinking ahead of this podcast. It's all good, man. You're still my dude. Anyway, Balazs, again, we thank you for coming out. And Mike and Louis, what can I say? You know, I love you guys. Thank you all for making this fun and bringing your expertise to it as well.

So this is going to wrap it up for episode eight for us today on the podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, please, of course, like and subscribe. We want to hear what questions and comments you may have. So please share with them with us in the podcast section over at teslamotorsclub.com or also in the YouTube comments. Also, if you'd like to support

the podcast please consider becoming a supporting member on the TMC website you can follow us on social media the links are down in the description all the cats behind the scenes you know Danny, Doug, Adam, James, Joshua those cats rock they put this together we thank them as well and again we thank you all for listening to us for being with us today on this beautiful day and again for Balazs for staying up late for us but that's going to wrap it up for episode 8 we'll see you guys really soon look out for when we're going to come up next we'll have another guest coming to

Soon, I think, if I can say that. For now, it's Mark, Lewis, and Mike. We're out. Have a good evening. Talk to you soon.