Ep04 - Trending in Tesla w/ Ryan McCaffrey: Breaking Into a Cybertruck
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This could end up being a sneak preview. And it's crazy to come to this, right? That somebody has to break into one. It's the final frontier for EVs. This is already the best-selling vehicle in the world and now it's going to explode even more. Using the word explode. Sorry. Sorry if that offended you. In this week's Trending in Tesla podcast, someone appears to have hijacked a

a Cybertruck. Tons of new leaks coming in from the Cybertruck. We've got the most info we've seen with some specs, some features. Model Y also getting a soft refresh of sorts. All that and more starts right now.

Thank you guys again for joining us this week, whether you're watching us on YouTube or you are listening to us as a podcast. We are actually available now on all the major podcast platforms, Spotify, Apple, Amazon. So make sure you look for us there at Kim Java, Trending in Tesla. So I'm joined here today with PJ, who also happens to be my husband and has been following EVs for well over a decade, just like myself. We also have

Ryan McCaffrey from the Ride the Lightning podcast here with us today. And we're going to be getting into some trending Tesla topics. There is so much coming out on the Cybertruck. You know, we're super close to getting the big news here on the specs, the range, the metrics all about the Cybertruck. To Matthew Donegan Ryan, who is the self-proclaimed...

Cybertruck Whisperer. Yes. So we're going to go ahead and just kind of read through all the things that he tweeted about. X'd about, but yeah, I'm with you. Sorry. We're too old to... I have a hard time switching from Twitter to X. Do you say X'd about? Is that... When I do, I certainly feel silly. So X'd kind of like, I always think you don't like something I've X'd out. So

I was going to kind of go through some of these and get your thoughts on those, Ryan. Well, I will say to start with, this guy, the track record is a little spotty, and we're kind of playing a game of telephone here, where it's like this was something that was said in a Spaces that was from somebody that allegedly got a test ride. So not a firsthand source here, I think, is the thing to keep in mind.

That is true. That is true. It's definitely not a first-hand source, so anytime it's not, you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt. But at the same time, there was a lot. Some of the things were Cybertruck will have bidirectional charging and 240-volt outlet. The suspension height limits will show an actual 305.

instead of a low-medium-high on the UI. No RAM will be built into the tailgate. There's not any bulletproof windows, that it was kind of, what did he call it, the double-glazed glass versus the bulletproof windows? The glass, yeah, the glass was never...

stated as bulletproof that was the body it was that the stainless could take a small caliber round uh but the you know the armor glass is just supposed to be tougher i know i'm i'm like everybody in the comments probably hates me right now because just no i actually think it's really important like you have a valid point we get excited with this stuff

No, we get excited when we hear a leak. Yeah, and it's okay to get excited. And it's important to kind of realize that, you know, not every leak, that's the reason why we call it a leak, not every leak is like actually truth. It's not coming from Tesla.

So, or Elon's lips, you know. I apologize to the viewers that I am almost certainly coming across as just a giant rain cloud just dumping on the excitement. You're the Grinch, okay? I'm just trying to sort of temper the expectations a little bit. No, I think that you have valid points.

though. I mean, we've in the past had people and I know you as well have sent us little tips and I definitely protect their privacy because I don't want anything happening and I appreciate any tips that I can get. All right, Kim, how about possibly one of the better looks inside the Cybertruck's UI that we've seen to date? And it's in a controversial format too. Someone apparently turned out to stumble upon a Cybertruck. Yeah, tow truck driver, maybe. The key card was clearly in it.

He goes in, he's not speaking English. He starts recording. We see the center screen, couple of things stand out here. You can see the swipe to drive. It says swipe to change gears on the screen. It's almost, it's actually a Cybertruck icon there that you swipe unlike our Model X where it's just a line. - Yeah. - And then everything's got that Cybertruck triangular design into the UI as well.

The percentage, he taps on the percentage, tries to change it from the 84%. People were really hoping he can get into that screen, but it's locked in on that. Because, of course, you can maybe then gauge what the range would be. And he goes back around and scans the truck a little bit and finds a backpack with someone named Max Pratt.

presumably the driver. He says Elon Max, presumably the driver who left the keys. And of course, the comments section is blowing up saying Max is about to be fired. How do you leave your Cybertruck key card in the truck itself and walk away? So it seems like it was the transporter or someone at the transport yard that...

- It's pretty funny though. - It's really funny. - It's funny 'cause it's totally someone just like, was like, oh, they left the cyber truck unlocked and I'm gonna pop in there and record something on my phone really quick. - Just play dumb. - Yeah, exactly. - Now see, this is a leak. This is firsthand evidence. We have video evidence.

This is definitely, this is real. Like this is all for sure right in front of our eyes. Yeah, again, you kind of feel a little bad for Tesla because the UI is probably not quite final. I'm sure Tesla wanted to,

keep cleaning it up a little more ahead of the delivery event when they would properly show off the UI. Yeah, but it was cool to see. And I don't know about you two, but what I really liked about the UI, well, A, that it's unique to the Cybertruck. It's definitely a Cybertruck. It's not just a copy paste of what's in the SX3 or Y, but I really like that it's

that Tesla has taken that demo UI that they had in the original Cybertruck prototype. I'm sure you two probably got the test ride that night in the prototype, as I did. And yeah, they had like a demo UI in there that was radically different, certainly, of course, than what was in our cars back in 2019. Notably, like a lot of the fixed row of buttons, instead of being along the bottom of the screen, were along the left rail closer to the driver.

which I think makes a ton of sense. I think there's a reasonable probability that the Cybertruck's UI and these design elements like moving everything from the bottom of the screen over to the left rail

that this could end up being a sneak preview. They might bring this stuff over to the other cars. And it's crazy to come to this, right? That we've had to wait for so many leaks for so many years, no info given out. That somebody has to break into one. Yeah.

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get that warm fuzzy feeling inside when you support independent creators and help build up this community. So I'll link everything down below and let's just get back to the video. But thank you. I saw another image of a transporter in Texas with five Cybertrucks on it. The wheels look muddy. So they're probably doing some kind of

testing over there in Texas. So many images this week. And it ended up in Orlando as well. It's in Florida and parts near Cape Canaveral and other cyber trucks spotted at a Tesla store there. Our friend actually bearded Tesla, a friend of the channel, made a video where he heard it was in St. Pete and he rushed over there, made a YouTube video. And that was the one that was headed over to

Orlando. It might have been the one, yes. And it's even spotted now outside the U.S. in Mexico. The new wrap, it has that graffiti Cybertruck look on it. We've seen that writing before with Cybertruck. It's really cool, but it does look good on the wrap. And again, we've kind of talked about this where they're kind of showcasing all these different wraps on the Cybertruck to get you excited that the Cybertruck is something that you could potentially wrap and do whatever you want with. But I do like this graffiti.

graffiti style writing. But the one that really stood out to me the most is the footage of the Cybertruck pulling Starship's Raptor engine on the back of it. Yeah, it has a dry weight of 3,500 pounds. Of course, we've heard the Cybertruck's potential of up to 14,000 pounds as far as towing capacity.

So this is really impressive just to see the sheer size of and the scale of this particular engine on the back of the Cybertruck. And there's some talks that maybe this is for a publicity stunt. Are they preparing for this Cybertruck delivery event? Is it going to come out with a rocket on the back of it? I definitely think it's going to be a publicity thing. We know that that's what Elon likes to do. He shot the Roadster up into space. So this kind of fits with that same sort of theme as he likes to promote his other hobbies.

But it's definitely really cool to see. It's like, wow. And it does make me think about the new Roadster that's supposed to have the rocket engines on the back of it. The boosters, yeah. The boosters and things like that. So it's exciting to see. It's really fun. Whatever it's for. We also have another drone image from Joe T.

I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but he seems to be getting all these amazing drone shots at Giga Texas. And it looks like there's more crash testing being done there. So in that image, it looks like the front bumper was smashed inward. We have the airbags that have gone off. And then there's also some panels. So it looks like they're trying to maybe get some privacy there.

Maybe they don't want us to see this, but you know, it was all being tested at their facility. So it's their own internal testing that they're doing. Yeah, Joe's got a pretty neat angle though. I was thinking about how he had to capture that flying above the Texas factory there and then zooming in like an oblique angle to get down into the crash test viewpoint. I'm really curious what his story is and what the people that work there, if they're like, oh, that drone, there it is again, like...

I'm curious. If you guys know more details on that, put it in the comments below. I'm really curious. How about you get them on the podcast? Yeah. Reach out to me. And while we're all sitting around now wondering why we haven't heard the date yet for the Cybertruck delivery event, let's transition into the Model Y. Okay.

See what I did there with that? Y-O-Y. Y-O-Y. Y-O-Y. So we are seeing some really cool images of the Chinese Model Y that has ambient lighting. There's definitely some changes going on with that. It's fun to see this one. Of course, the Model Y getting ambient lighting is already the big enough deal because we already realized this is probably going to cross over to the Model Y sooner than later, but it's getting it in kind of a soft refresh mode.

versus what we saw in the Model 3 Highland. So ambient lighting is there, the wood trim, that iconic wood trim is gone. Now you've got sort of a textile trim that's there on the dash. And then the stocks are still existing now on these Model Ys. So again, it's halfway there. - Halfway there. And again, this is not like the refreshed Model Y. This is not necessarily Project Juniper as we've been talking about. This is...

some slow transitions. So the stocks are still there now, but perhaps those could go, I'm hoping. But that begs the question, you know, when this ends up in the U.S. here sooner than later, are they giving us the soft version the Model Y has or are they giving us the full version the Model 3 has over in Asia and Europe? Perhaps they're just sort of testing out some things over there. Again, these are the ones coming from the Shanghai factory. And, you know, it's kind of weird that the new Model 3 and the Model Y, everything, nothing's going

come into the U.S. first. It just feels weird for a U.S. car company. I'm jealous. I'm definitely a little bit jealous with all that. Cybertruck's going to be here first.

so i'm sure there's people jealous elsewhere okay okay i'll get that one too ryan what do you think about all this do you think that this is what we will see with project juniper in the u.s the u.s version of the refresh model y i think this is just a stop gap until the full proper juniper refresh that we're expecting in about a year because then you know you'll the y should get the second row screen that's on the back of the center console

like in the S and the X that the Highlands getting. Juniper should bring, of course, an exterior refresh.

It should bring the ventilated seats that the Highland is getting. And just an obviously and, you know, the dashboard will change and the just interior will refresh, too. So I really think this is just kind of a stopgap for the 2024 model year, which should take them one year until the full and proper Juniper refresh hits.

Yeah, I would agree with that as well. And then talking about the Model Y here in the U.S., we are getting something. They're giving us something and we're getting the rear wheel Model Y that is available. That's a pretty big story. There's actually an amazing story that I read saying that this could be the nail in the coffin for

for Tesla. And that came from Joey Klender over on Teslarati. It's a fabulous article. More of an opinion piece, I would say. But I love it because for so long, we hear about the Tesla killer.

And in this case, it's like the complete opposite. The script has been flipped. It has. It has been flipped. So let's kind of get into some of those details. Yeah, this Model Y is going to be a rear-wheel drive. The base price is around $43,990, I believe, with incentives. It does qualify for that $7,500 federal incentive that brings it down into the middle 30s. And then you factor in some states have an additional local incentive on top of it in some markets.

it starts at about $30,000, which is incredible. That's kind of where the nail in the coffin potential comes in. You are getting now only 260 miles of range in this standard range variant. A lot of discussion has been sparked because of this low range that does this have the LFP cells.

So if it does, typically those are the lower range ones. You can charge them to 100%. They last a bit longer. They do better in a variety of climates. And this possibly opens up Tesla to even more people in the affordability range and still giving you that potential of having a midsize SUV. So if it brings in more of an internal combustion crowd and it has these kind of foolproof battery cells that are less maintenance, less thinking associated with them to charge and maintain, then

then maybe that's a good thing. And of course, we know Model Y has already been eating everyone's lunch. I definitely feel like at this price point, it's kind of become the killer of other EVs. It is the nail in the coffin. We've tested so many other midsize SUVs at this point, and we always go back to Model Y because it's so affordable. Now this is even more affordable and cheaper.

How can you compete? Yeah, and the range of this 260 miles is right there with a lot of compelling midsize, whether it's the Aria, which had a lot of neat features, or even the VinFast VF8 that you talked about that got some heat. Range is right there, and the price now is significantly cheaper, and we can go on and on. But now with this price point,

I mean, I'm not really sure. I think most people would choose the Model Y. Yeah, with the incentive being built into since some of these EVs don't qualify for the incentive. But then at the same time, not everybody wants what their neighbor has. Right.

So that's something to think about is obviously this is already the best selling vehicle in the world and now it's going to explode even more. Using the word explode. Using the word explode with an EV maybe is not the best. Even though it's an internal combustion, the quality to explode, I guess, more so than an EV. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry if that offended you. So is the reason that Tesla is releasing this rear wheel drive engine

Model Y at such a low price point because they're trying to increase the number of units sold.

I mean, they've got a goal in mind, right? 1.8 million sales is what they're looking for globally by the end of this year. They're still on track to get there. Some people are worried, though. People are worried about this, that they're not going to reach those units. Yeah, so Q3 numbers showed that they sold 430,000 cars. They produced 435,000 cars. That's down 7% from Q2, which had about 460,000 cars sold.

So they're still on target, but Elon had already kind of said, expect Q3 numbers to be down slightly because there were summer shutdowns at the factories, retooling, getting ready for the Cybertruck. That we all saw with the factory really declining production for a brief period there. So we'll have Cybertruck, we'll have some deliveries from Cybertruck. And then now I think

We're definitely going to see the Model 3 Plus. We're seeing those being delivered. Refresh is being delivered at a higher volume now overseas. And now, obviously, the rear-wheel drive Model Y is going to push sales as well. Correct. And at 1.8 million units sold around the world, that's up 18% year over year. With the Cybertruck, we don't know exactly how that's going to play into all of this. How quickly are they going to ramp that? And, you know, obviously, they've got a backlog to get through. So that'll really expedite those numbers going into 2024.

And putting it into perspective, what Tesla's doing versus other automakers, Tesla's still selling

way more vehicles than anybody else right now. So, you know... At that price point especially, yes. Yeah. And then kind of going back into the nail on the coffin scenario, I keep going back to that one. I mean, the Detroit big three, they had to lay off a bunch of employees this week. They also had $10 billion in fines and fuel economy fines. They're really... $10 billion? $10 billion. Yeah. So they're getting hit hard.

Meanwhile, you know, here is Tesla. So when you think about what Tesla is doing and then these other companies are just falling apart right now. It really is a tale of two sides happening at the same time. I honestly didn't expect it to happen so abruptly in the end of 2023, the way it's happening right now. I mean, we've been firm believers that EVs are the way to go for a very long time. And we've seen those kind of start to play out.

But it seems like this year, especially with the UAW strike and what's happening now with these fines, it's happening on a dime for a lot of these companies. Let's talk about the price changes too, Ryan. We've got significant price changes yet again in the past 24 hours on 3 and Y. Pretty much all variants except the newly reintroduced rear-wheel drive.

Model Y there. So a $2,000 price drop for just about every single one of them. It's awesome to see. That's really been, it's the final frontier for EVs. We already know that the fuel is way cheaper and just throw out, forget about the green factor. Just, you don't even have to include that in this. Just in terms of sheer, what is it going to cost the average American, the average family to

Cheaper fuel, cheaper cost of operation because the maintenance costs are way lower. But yeah, that out-the-door price is tough to swallow for a lot of people. So now if you're getting, you can get a Y with the $7,500 tax credit, which as a friendly reminder, now that we're here in October, come January 1st,

that can become a point of sale credit. And you don't have to wait potentially up to almost a year to file your taxes and then get a credit back.

It'll be the dealer can take the price of that $7,500 right off the car starting in January. So, you know, you're just Tesla is making life really miserable for all the other automakers that are trying to make EVs. And while they are making them, but trying to convince people to buy their EVs rather than a Tesla. So, yeah, I mean, it's certainly a good thing for consumers in the end.

I guess I did have one little devil's advocate thought that I want to pose to you two, because I don't even know if I believe this, but just a thought that occurred to me as like a, maybe like a worst case scenario kind of situation. Do either of you think that

Tesla being so aggressive with price cuts, could it actually have a potentially negative effect on the EV movement in that if the traditional ICE automakers that are starting to pivot to EV, if Tesla just aggressively outprices them, would you two have any fear that they might just throw their hands up

And go, well, okay, nobody's buying our EVs, which because Tesla keeps undercutting them on price. We're just going to scale this back. We're just going to focus on what makes us money, which is our internal combustion engine cars. So again, total devil's advocate. I don't even think I believe that. But I could see a reality. Like throw in the towel. Or maybe that's a thing. Yeah. Which, by the way, even in this hypothetical scenario,

Worst case scenario that I'm laying out, it would be insanely short sighted of these other automakers to do that. They would, you know, this conversion to electric has to happen and it will happen. It is happening right now, but I could just see where, you know, these publicly traded major automakers and of course Tesla's publicly traded too. But the difference is Elon, he, he has the focus on the longterm and,

The traditional CEO at a traditional automaker, they have more of a short-term focus. They are looking at the next quarter to drive the profits for the quarter that they're in so that they don't get fired by their board of directors. That's just like the business reality of...

of most companies that aren't run by a person like Elon Musk. But what I will say, Ryan, what do you think about these major automakers that have now one by one have started to adopt NACS? Is that in some way almost conceding to Tesla? Kind of like, you know, tail between your legs, like, all right, we're not going to get them on the charging. Let them have this one. Also, we have two more this week. We have Hyundai and Kia that have...

have jumped over. There is a little bit of kind of tail between the legs, head down, like, oh, all right, you got us on this. Although I suppose conversely, it's not like any of those automakers were taking the effort and the, more importantly, the expense to build out their own network of CCS chargers. So it...

I guess the optimistic way to look at your question would be rather than kind of tail between the legs, they might actually be relieved that they're like, oh, okay, we don't have to build out a network. We just sign on with Tesla. Yeah, it's going to cost us a little money. They're going to make some money off of our customers, right?

But we don't have to spend billions of dollars building out a network because they've already done it and they're already doing it. So I suspect maybe it's a little of both at these various automakers. Because the holdouts, I mean, who are the holdouts and what's the reason behind their holding out? BMW is one of the last big holdouts. Dodge and Stellantis haven't signed on. Right, Lucid, that one, I don't know if...

if the offer will even be extended because we've just we've publicly seen Elon on Twitter, yes, is very much not a fan of their CEO, Peter Rawlinson, who used to work at Tesla in the early Model S days. I mean, Lucid arguably would stand to benefit kind of almost as much, if not more than than any of the other automakers, because

Lucid has the longest range products right now on the market. They've got a 520 mile range Lucid Air. At this point, if you're a car maker that hasn't signed on for NACS for your North American vehicles, you're actively doing your own customers a disservice at this point.

I agree. I agree. So other big news this week, we have a video from Jay Leno, a little bit of a mic drop going on right now where he gets to drive the semi truck and pull the semi truck. And he has an inside interview with a head of semi program, Dan Priestley. And of course, we had the chief designer Franz von Hohhausen there as well. So all kinds

of like inside details coming out of this. This was fascinating. I think the video was actually trending on Jay Leno's channel for, you know, his garage channel that he does with his vehicles. But he got to get into the semi truck, learn quite a few scoops. You have to kind of

dissect it. I had to watch it a couple times, honestly. So I did take some notes. Yeah, we can decode some of it. They talked about Tesla using the driver inverter from the Cybertruck inside the Semi and the carbon wrap motors from the latest Model S and X inside the Semi. So a lot of crossover from what's already existing within Tesla's fleet, even touching on the turn radius at one point

in the semi being roughly the same as the Model 3 and Y, which had Jay Leno's mind blown when he talked about that. And you know what made me think about that is how many times do you see a big semi kind of get stuck in the middle of that intersection where they can't quite make that turn?

What I thought was insane was that it has 1,500 horsepower, but Tesla kind of curates that for its different customers based on what they need so that the vehicle actually lasts longer. Yes, it is designed to be software limited to, again, whatever customer profile is in place. Pepsi right now is taking delivery of it. And Tesla is able to curate that, as you said, to the perfect amount of horsepower to make not only the motors last longer, the tires possibly last longer because...

That is a lot of ponies on any level truck. And, you know, they talked about going over the steepest of grades, the grapevine in California or Donner Pass, and being able to get up and over it at the posted speed limit. So you're not really having to, you know, go around these trucks as much as people always try to, you know, cut them off and get around them as quickly as possible. And what's likely is that the semi truck is probably not going to have that problem of being able to keep up with the traffic speeds, even going over these passes, which is pretty fascinating. Yes.

And it was also really cool, I have to say, to see Leno driving in the center of the seat. Yeah, the seated position. Center with the road, with the lane itself. And Leno just went right into it, like had no problem adjusting. I mean, Jay's driven everything, but Jay's not a semi-truck, he's not a truck driver. So for him to just hop in it and go and to hear his impressions of it and how smooth it was and how easy it was to drive is probably...

a pretty fair reaction to similar reaction to what any of us as Tesla owners who don't

drive trucks for a living. It's probably the same reaction that a lot of us would have. We also learned that the accessories on board of the Semi still run on 12-volt batteries. Their air brakes are actually on a 24-volt battery and then they like to go up to 48 volts but it makes it harder because a lot of trucker accessories like CB radios, they're all set on 12 volts. So what's actually one thing we didn't hear about that I find particularly interesting

Is that, and in fact, we haven't heard about this ever except at the original unveiling in November of 2017. And that's autopilot for the Tesla semi that remember, remember that was a big part of the presentation at the unveiling where Elon's up there talking about that. They could convoy like three of them could kind of chain together and all autopilot together.

And we haven't heard a whisper about that since. Now we know the semis have cameras all over them, which is great. And those cameras are being put to good use, which you could see in that episode of Jay Leno's garage. But I have to wonder, I guess it's one of two things are probably happening. Either autopilot development specifically for the Tesla semi is ongoing, but they're just not ready to talk about it because it's not ready to roll out yet. Or,

Maybe they've paused development on it because all of those autopilot team resources are being allocated to getting FSD to the finish line on the cars. And I suspect that's probably the answer, but,

But I did find that as kind of a curious omission from that Jay Leno's garage. I wish Jay would have asked. I don't blame him for not asking because it's something we haven't heard about in six years. But that's the question that I would like to ask Dan Priestley if I ever got the chance. But it did also make me think about, now back in the day with Tesla's referral program,

And you may remember this. Ryan, I'm not sure if you even had your Tesla then. I think Ryan will know about this. But he'll know about it for sure. He covered it. Yeah, they had this secret level. And so when we went to the Falcon Heavy launch, it was part of the secret level three, I think. Yes. And they had all kinds of things. One was, you know, riding the boring company vehicle. Sending pictures to space. Yes.

And one of them was to get a ride in the semi. Yes. But I never got that. I,

I think it was actually to drive the semi. Yeah. Yeah. They promised that in Secret Level 3. Just to be clear, there were seven levels, I believe. You've got the jacket that still has the level checked out. Yes, they had a jacket with like a little thing on it that they gave us. But I think happened is whoever was running that program left and then it just kind of fell through the cracks. And now they've brought the referral program and they probably, whoever's writing it doesn't even know that they need to continue this.

The secret levels. I want the new patch that goes over it. You want to drive that semi that was promised? I mean, I wouldn't mind. That would be kind of cool, right? Oh, I remember. Yeah, there are two referral prizes left from that 2018 referral program.

that Tesla has yet to deliver on. That's one, and of course the next gen Roadster being the other one. But I, now correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that that secret level prize for the Semi, didn't it say race the Tesla Semi? Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. - I think it is. - Oh my gosh, you have such an amazing memory. - I could swear it said race.

It's like, that was our prize you're giving Jay. - Teslas are still being delivered though by other semis. They're not being delivered by a Tesla semi. Why is that? - Well, one thing we learned is they delivered about 70 semis, right? So there still needs to be a lot more delivered to be able to get to that. That's obviously the end goal. They've been already hauling batteries back and forth from Reno over to Fremont.

using the same routes, the same exact approach. I don't think they have the infrastructure built up yet. Yeah, so the mega chargers, they're there. They're scattered about. Like you said, I don't think they're entirely lined up in every single major quarter just yet. I could be wrong. I'd love to hear in the comments section. And what was also interesting, they did talk a little bit about charging, though, and how quick these could...

charge up. Yeah, Kim Priestley, the head of the Semi program, did say the Semi was going to be able to recoup about 70% of its 500-mile range in about 30 minutes at these megachargers.

And then, of course, when you look at what that means as far as savings, it's about 2.5 times cheaper per mile than refueling conventional semi-trucks. Fuel savings for these companies that are driving hundreds of thousands of miles per year delivering goods, it equates to roughly, I think he said, $200,000 in fuel and maintenance costs in the course of five years of ownership, which

which kind of blows away the ownership costs, what we've been able to save with driving EVs for all these years. You kind of scale that up to the people that are- The nail in the coffin, I'm telling you. It really is. It's a Tesla world and we're just living in it.

I thought this was kind of fun. This is just like a fun random story that I saw actually over on Electric. Tesla had pulled permits for something called the Giga Water Loop. And I'm not sure if this is like a hiking trail or what it is. And I know at some point Elon talked about having this as this big campus. Yeah, Kim, it looks like this is located along the Colorado River in what Tesla hopes to call an ecological paradise at some point. Elon, again, as you said, has suggested waterways.

working on something like this. - Picture I looked at kind of reminded me of like a hydroelectric type of thing going on there. So I don't know, maybe they're gonna utilize some of the energy coming from the water. - Yeah. - I'm not exactly sure. If you guys have any inside details on this, let us know down in the comments below. So Tesla is also,

trying to be a little more transparent now so they'll let you know when your car is being tracked, which is interesting because there have been times where you are like, oh, you're at the grocery store and you're looking at where I am, but at the same time, sometimes I've tried to call you, you can't get ahold of each other,

This way, Tesla kind of sends you a notification that you're being tracked and you could look at it as maybe a heads up of like, hey, check in with whoever you need to check in with. Some people are joking around in the comments calling it Ashley Madison mode. So do you feel uncomfortable with having your vehicle tracked or that I might be checking out where you are?

I've got nothing to hide. Better not. You'll usually find me at the sports court playing basketball. So that's where my car lives. And there's obviously, this is not something unique with Tesla. A lot of families use different services to where you can, you know, look at where the iPhones are, different things like that. So this is just,

bringing it over to the vehicle. But again, they're trying to be more transparent. So you do get that update that is being tracked. So there's also been some big headlines this week that a woman was run over by a cruise robo-taxi, a driverless vehicle. We obviously did our driverless experiment when we were in San Francisco. We did not do cruise though. But what I think is interesting is that she wasn't actually hit initially by a cruise, but of course...

That's what's getting the attention with this story. Yeah, when you initially told me about this, my question was, because I thought initially as the headlines were reading everywhere, it was the cruise's fault. It had run over a lady. But my question was, how many other non-automated vehicles in San Francisco in the last couple of months have...

But she was stuck.

Well, she still got hit, but the car did try to slow down and it went over her leg and the rear axle, turned the hazards on, obviously realized that it had impacted something. The person that did hit her fled the scene immediately. Yes.

cops show up everybody shows up they're like oh look what happened the cruise is working with officials now and i imagine that they have some recorded visuals that they're able to provide the police you know with the vehicle that originally hit her and then fled so she was pinned though underneath the cruise for 30 minutes and then she suffered some injuries but traumatic injuries yeah traumatic injuries she's in the hospital hopefully she recovers fully so what are your

thoughts on this? Do you think that this will have any impact on driverless vehicles? I don't think so. I mean, we've seen San Francisco adopt, accept and expand driverless vehicles very openly now for quite a while, and they are going to continue to do so as a lot of other major cities are getting on. South Los Angeles is next year for Waymo, I believe. So I don't think it's going anywhere. But at the same time, it's

The human psychology aspect of it is definitely interesting because you see how people show up. The optics certainly don't look good for anyone, especially cruise and automation and self-driving cars. And honestly, when it comes to self-driving cars, Tesla gets so much attention, even though it's not even truly self-driving yet. It almost reflects poorly on Tesla a little bit when you get headlines of self-driving. When I worked in an office setting and, you know, would talk to my friends about how I used autopilot or FSD to drive to work,

Anytime, any news headline, literally they would stand up and, hey, come over here, PJ, check this out. Another self-driving accident. And I'm like, first of all, it wasn't a Tesla. Well, we are a Tesla podcast and we are talking about it. So obviously there is some correlation there. Absolutely. Yeah. But everyone would kind of pick on me a little bit for having a Tesla.

We have a video on our experience inside of Waymo that we both really loved and we had a great takeaway. We felt like it was safer than driving with a lot of Ubers, to be honest with you. So Model 3 Plus has the ambient lighting. Now the Shanghai Model Ys have the ambient lighting, but they were not necessarily the first model.

to potentially have ambient lighting. Yeah, Model X Plaid 2022 Model X owner was actually able to, as he was kind of fidgeting around with his door panel, he found some things hidden in there that implied that Tesla had initially planned on bringing ambient lighting to possibly S and X.

as early as last year's models, he was able to locate the actual channel for the cable to kind of be guided through and even the LED lighting strip that would have been placed there. The wiring harness was all in place for all of this to come in, but obviously Tesla decided to hold out on S and X getting that initially brought it to model three and now model Y. Now I'm curious though. I feel like we have a new refresh model X. I kind of want to open it up and check it out.

I can see perhaps this could be something where Tesla has a retrofit. - They do, I've seen this so many times. This absolutely has a potential retrofit written all over it for sure. - I have a PJ story. If you know this guy, he loves anything related to weather and climate. So this one is definitely for you. - Yeah, this is a pretty fascinating story because the research showed that the US needs to increase its EV adoption from where it is today by about 100X to reach its goal there for net zero

by 2050. So you look at where we are here at the end of 2022, EV adoption in the US was about 2 million, needs to reach about 44 million by 2030 and 240 million EVs on the roads by 2050. The report actually by the ICF, which is one of the oldest and largest research climate groups that's worked with the US EPA as well, they found out that the net zero goal is definitely reachable

but EVs are going to have a lot to do with making it happen. And this mass adoption, mass investments from the government land when it comes to infrastructure, charging networks that we're kind of starting to see now, and of course, installing more than 1 billion decarbonization measures within buildings to help get us to that net zero goal by 2050. But again, increasing our EV adoption that sits at around 2 million right now to 240 million

in the next, say, three decades is going to be a main, main player here. All right. So thank you guys so much for watching this podcast or listening. If you're listening on one of the many different platforms for podcasts, we appreciate you guys. Make sure you're subscribed.

as always and please make sure you share this content that really helps us grow also we have brought back our patreon so take a look at that there's all kinds of different levels on there and perhaps you could be asking some questions to us on our next podcast and again thank you guys so much for supporting us go check out ride the lightning the unofficial tesla podcast as well and we will catch you guys next time