Ep13: Is Cybertruck Rust Worth Cancelling an Order? Expert Guest
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- So the roadster's gonna be able to fly Kim. The Cybertruck is resting, at least that's what the media says. And what's going on with all the OEMs calling off their EVs? - Let's get into it.

I want to start out with something that we have been waiting for longer than you guys have waited for the Cybertruck. Roadster 2.0. It is finally here. It's not here. Not here yet. It's being talked about. A lot of people actually thought that it was kind of done for, right? They said Cybertruck came, Model 2 is coming, Optimus. So they said that this wasn't going to be a thing anymore. It was low volume, not really within Tesla's mission.

Well, I think they're wrong. Elon Musk just went out on record and said that the final designs here are going to be unveiled at the end of this year. And it's mind blowing what you're about to see. They're going to collab with SpaceX. Zero to 60 is what? Less than one second. Less than one second. Like, I don't even know if that's possible. I think about it because we just did a video with the Pina Farina Batista. A big part of that was like...

the tires and the logistics of making that go so fast. - They can tune it to go faster and even quicker than it goes. The problem is if they tuned it any faster, you might peel the tire off when you accelerate. - Yeah, 'cause I mean the grip of it is the issue, right? 'Cause the performance is there and as these tires are rotating this rapidly, it's not able to stick to the ground or propel you forward.

But that's where the catch is here because Elon Musk says that this is really not going to be considered a car. And he's hinted at this levitating and using other Back to the Future references of being able to get it off the ground, use cold air thrusters to lunge forward. And this looks like it's going to be the SpaceX package. Yeah, he said, can you even call it a car anymore? Not if it's not on the ground anymore.

if you're going to have to have like a special license for it. I'd imagine this wouldn't be this feature that gets you through these metrics would not be street legal track or private setting, then it's possibly going to be activated. So it's kind of crazy thing. And I was thinking about the EV toll, which is the

Electric car that's also like a helicopter that takes off is like the Roadster going to be like a rocket, like a full rocket with a car. And for those that don't know, I should probably say what eVTOL stands for. It's electric vehicle landing and takeoff. And I was able to see this at CES this year. Obviously, I didn't see it take off.

because I would have to have gone to China. But it's just like a lot of exciting stuff happening right now. So Roadster 2.0 kind of like reminds me of that in a way because if it is connected to SpaceX...

what's going to be happening. We have two of them in our cart. I don't know if I can call it my cart. Account, yeah. In my account. I'm like shopping. Add to cart. We have two of them and they were actually referral prices. So I have to thank all of you guys out there because it's kind of insane and amazing. We will have to pay taxes on them, which we're trying to figure out if we need to sell one to pay taxes.

if we're going to make that work. Do you remember what the tax number was on just getting the one for free? What was it? I believe it was $91,000 for your free delivery. Yeah. So I think selling one to acquire another is probably going to be the best bet. Or if you guys want to sign up for Patreon...

It will go towards these and we'll definitely make content on them. So the car is expected to deliver at some point next year after we get the unveiling at the end of this year, probably around say November-ish. So expect to be back in California possibly for that, maybe in Texas. If we get an invite, hopefully we will. Yes. If you're watching this and you work at Tesla. Quarter million dollars is what it was projected to be for the SpaceX package.

I highly doubt it's going to stay at that price because we're talking 2017 prices. Of course, we talked about Cybertruck's 2019 prices and see how they turned out. So maybe my $91,000 in taxes is going to be much higher if it's a far more expensive vehicle. So moving on, I do want to talk about some of the big headlines this week. And one of them is the rust on the Cybertruck because I feel like media has taken this and run with it. It's like...

something negative to say about Tesla and these Cybertrucks. So we're just gonna like, every headline will be rust on the Cybertruck. - I mean, you said it perfectly. You hit the nail on the rust. So I mean, that's stupid. - I liked it, I liked it.

All right. I was about to cut that part out. All right. No, it's basically what is going on, right? So this happens all the time with Tesla specifically. I mean, obviously other things, but Tesla is known for media just holding on to like a little headline, rolling with it. So we're seeing that going on with the rest. Now, there was a great video and it was put out by Justin over at Bearded Tesla where he kind of debunked it and talked about it more, about it being ridiculous.

more like rail dust or little pieces of iron that are settling on the Cybertruck and then causing that oxidation that we're seeing. And even one of the engineers at Tesla commented on X saying that that was great debunking. Yeah, I want to read an actual tweet and it makes sense when you look at it.

He said stainless steel is reactive and free iron that sits on it will rust and it's surface contamination. You saw that firsthand, right? When you're out there on the farm in Florida, this was something that in transit coming in from Texas over to Florida, the rust formed on top of the stainless steel, which is

is a thing and that can easily be cleaned off. We used Bar Keepers Friend, you can use a Citrus Surf 77, kind of loosen the deposit and wipe it off. So again, on the surface, not inside the actual metal in a permanent feature. - But I did want to talk to an actual owner of someone that doesn't own the Cybertruck, but owned the DeLorean.

So our friend Ryan McCaffrey over he does the ride the lightning podcast. We've had him on here. He owned a DeLorean, which is also a stainless steel vehicle. So I thought it'd be really interesting to call him up here in a second from that perspective of owning a vehicle. Let us know in the comments below if you guys still have questions about this. Again, it's like the little pieces that do sit on it. And I think about this because

We have stainless steel dishwasher, stainless steel fridge, all that kind of stuff. Our dishwasher has some rust on it. And I felt like it did start with like a couple little spots and we didn't take care of them. We just kind of like, you know, got busy. We have three kids.

We're doing these videos, and now it's pretty bad. All right, so we have Ryan here. Ryan, I know you talked about this a little bit on your podcast, Ride the Lightning, but I wanted to talk to you because you've owned a DeLorean, and that is also stainless steel. So is this something that the DeLorean had to deal with? You know, it's interesting. I never saw this occur with a DeLorean, and I don't have a...

for sure, scientific explanation for why. But my best guess is that the DeLorean, because this seems to be happening to the front of Cybertrucks, right? As they're cutting through the air, as they're driving down the road, they get these little deposits on the surface, on the front of the truck. And so if you look at a picture of the DeLorean...

the front of it, there's no stainless steel on the front. It's actually a pretty traditional... I wonder if that's... that I've never seen this or heard of this with a DeLorean because there's no stainless up front. So these little deposits are just hitting black, you know, plastic and painted surface the way that they do on literally every single other car. It's just a non-issue. It'll just... these deposits, it's not...

serious rust. It just, it comes right off. Now, was there any kind of special prep or anything that you had to do differently with the DeLorean taking care of it or prepping stainless steel? No, it's the opposite. There's, you just, you just don't have to worry about a thing with that car. It is just soap and water. Now with the DeLorean, that has a brushed finish. So there's a, there's a directional grain to it.

So you want to, it's best to wash sort of with the grain, just in case you were to introduce, if you had any grit on your mitt, your washing mitt. Paint damage in the sun because there's no paint. You don't have to worry about, you know, bird droppings or tree sap hit on the stainless. It'll all come off. You know, it's stainless steel, not no-stain steel, but it's really just not a thing anymore.

that you have to worry about. It's, uh, that's, and that's why I can't wait to have my cyber truck. Cause I it's my cyber truck is going to live outside. So it's going to be out on the street and it's going to be subject to the elements, but it's the one car on earth that I can leave outside and not, uh,

have my like OCD, keep my car clean all the time brain go crazy on me. It'll be fine. It'll, it'll get dirty. It'll get wet, but you can just wipe it down and it'll, and in 20 years from now, it'll look as good the day as the day that you took delivery of it. We're kind of still waiting to hear from Tesla on the best way to, to actually get a scratch out while maintaining the uniform look of the stainless finish and

And when I had last interviewed Franz von Holzhausen, which was, gosh, a year ago already, that time flies, I asked him that. That was a direct question. I said, what are we doing about this? And he said that they have a method for that that you could do at home. So hopefully we'll hear a bit more about stainless car care, stainless truck care from Franz and the team at Tesla before too long. Definitely.

Does this make you want to put some kind of clear wrap on it? Not in the slightest. In my humble opinion, I think I said this on your show already. I think a clear wrap, like if you're going to go with a color change, okay, great. By all means, you're changing the look of the truck, customizing it to what you want. But in my very humble opinion, a clear wrap on a Cybertruck is a $5,000 solution to a $5 problem problem.

Buy the Windex, spray it on the truck, wipe the fingerprints off, and you're done. So, I mean, to each their own, certainly. But no, I will not be wrapping my Cybertruck. I will be maintaining the original naked finish on my Cybertruck. Basically, like what we've said all along, it's really media taking the headline of rusted Cybertruck. It makes a, you know, it gets a lot of eyes on it.

but really a non-issue. Exactly right, a non-issue. All right, well, thank you so much for your expertise. We'll talk to you soon. Always great to see you both. So moving on, but I still want to talk about Cybertruck because there's still some other things going on. And one of those is they've added two new wrap colors to the lineup that you can actually get done at Tesla with their wrap. And one is the Abyss Blue, which I know you're a fan of. And then there's also a Rose Gold being added. Yeah.

But these are a little bit different than just like the vinyl wraps that a lot of people get. We've shown those. I actually have a DIY wrap video that's going to be coming out soon. And these are more of like a PPF color change wrap. They are. They're twice as thick as your normal vinyl. So they're far more effective as far as protecting your vehicle, where vinyl color change historically is very thin and doesn't really do much in the way of protection. And they're six grand, which again is in line with most...

Wrap pricing, but yeah, it's expensive. Twice the price, twice the quality. Twice the price, but it is pretty expensive. It's expensive, but it's actually cheaper than when we did do the vinyl and the PPF. It's cheaper than doing both of those, I will say. And again, the vinyl does, I think, add some protection against rust.

at least. So if you're worried about the rust, just doing that basic vinyl wrap would potentially help with that. I'm just noticing too, the blue is actually $6,500. It is slightly more expensive for the Abyss Blue versus the Rose Gold. Why would that be? Why would the blue be more expensive? Yeah, that is kind of odd. I mean, looking at their notes here on their site, it says the differentiation in pricing reflects the unique appeal and quality of the new wrap colors.

So maybe it's slightly more premium, but I think it's just a little bit of a wider margin here for them. So is it maybe like there's more demand, like it's more of a supply and demand thing? Possibly, yeah. Or maybe it's like when you're picking out, there's always like the free color with typical cars. When you go to buy them, it's like the white was free and then the black is free. So they're trying to do that with their cars.

Well, Tesla had the red color be slightly more expensive than other colors. For example, I think blue at some point was $1,000 on the SRX and then the red was the multi-coat and it was like $1,500. So they like the blue more. They think that's going to be the most popular. So they're going to like up the price on that one and try to like balance it out. Yeah.

So it's very interesting. But like I will say that aftermarket companies are having a heyday with Cybertruck because there's so many different options that you can do when it comes to wraps.

you know, not limited to just six different colors. Like there's like a whole deck of different colors you can do, especially if you're just looking at vinyl. And I've talked about this before because jeans started out as just like you wanted this nice dark denim jean and now everyone buys distressed jeans with holes in them. So is the Cybertruck like having rust?

Is it going to be that? Is it going to be like cool to actually have rust on the Cybertruck? I mean, you sort of called this when it came to Cybertruck unveiling back in 2019. I remember we filmed in the hotel that night after the event, our voiceovers, and I edited that video, got it out there. And you talked about celebrities embracing this and coming out and how Arnold initially took the Hummer H1 and made it from being a military vehicle to being really kind of a cool vehicle out in California in the mid 90s.

I mean, obviously I call a lot of things because I'm calling the Russ trend being cool and the celebrities. I think that when you take a vehicle like this that is kind of radical, different, unique, it opens up the doors for a lot of different things. A lot of people love that. So I can see people honing...

owning, what's the right word there? Honing, owning? I don't know, maybe a little bowl. The rust. And, you know, wanting that to be like this almost like patina-looking, you know, aged Cybertruck, maybe. We'll see what happens five years from now. And then also all the celebrities now. And I'm super jealous of them because something tells me that they were not on their phones during the delivery event. You don't think so?

four years ago hitting order, having it freeze on them, ordering like four accidentally. I could have sworn we had Kim Kardashian right behind us and Pharrell was right next to me. I know. I told you these things were parties. Justin Bieber was out in front of us. We're kidding. Obviously, none of them were there. But they're all in Cybertrucks right now. Or they all had enough referral credits because they're making YouTube videos on the side about Tesla. Their orders got pushed up the line. It's incredible. Yeah, who is everybody?

So Serena Williams is there. Obviously, the Reddit founder, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and NBA star Shea Gill, Jess Alexander, also pulling up to the game with a Cybertruck. Is that the one you're most excited about? That's definitely one that's kind of interesting. Who are you most excited about seeing? And maybe this is just part of Tesla's new marketing that they're doing. So that's what I want to bring up. A lot of people have said this is Tesla's marketing.

And obviously, these people have influence and have money, so they're able to get up higher in line without needing any of those things like waiting in line and referrals. But people even on the Justin Bieber pictures just kind of went public with his wife, what's

What's her name? Haley? Yeah. And, you know, people are saying there's a sticker there on the windshield and this is Tesla's way of marketing. And I think we noted there that the sticker itself is actually something you find a lot of new cars being delivered. And if you look carefully at that photo, look at the wheels. It doesn't even have the lug nut covers and the aero cap covers. So we know the aero covers were removed, but then there is...

when the lug nut covers you can put on them to make them look clean. This is not Tesla trying to market. Sure, Bieber driving it is Tesla's marketing, but it's not like Tesla went out of their way to clean this up and make it- So you don't think they're like getting paid to drive the Cybertruck around? I personally don't, but there is a big rumor, you know, spinning around there that, you know, Kim Kardashian charges a million dollars for Instagram posts and she's already posted twice and maybe Tesla's marketing it this way. But if they are, then why are some of these vehicles-

kind of sloppy and have stickers on them and missing... And in the past, they've been very like, everybody pays for their Tesla no matter what, even with celebrities. And it's actually turned...

a lot of celebrities off because they don't get like that free like special I don't know celebrity that's always been the case from what we know internally when it comes to Tesla and the people that we are close to but Tesla doesn't necessarily you know go and pay you to do this kind of stuff it is kind of cool to see it become mainstream at first I was kind of annoyed because I'm like how would they

how are they getting this before I am? But then at the same time, like, I'm like, you know what? Think about the big picture of it all. And like, yeah, Instagram post by Kim Kardashian, that's going to reach...

so many more people than I will on this podcast unless you guys all go share it with your friends which you know obviously you're all doing um but you know if you think about it in the big picture that we're all like here for with Tesla I think it's a good thing but let me know what you guys think in the comments below as always

So this next study is so interesting and I really like it because I get sent little videos and articles all the time about electric vehicles and how they're not actually environmentally friendly because of like the mining with the lithium and all

all the stuff that goes into batteries. But now there's this new study that's come out and I'm gonna let you take it away because it's kind of your expertise area. - Yeah, it's an environmental group called Lead the Charge and they kind of analyze the supply chain of companies, car companies specifically, to see how environmentally friendly they are and Tesla was actually ninth place

up until this past year. They leapfrogged from ninth to third place because of the improvements they've made. They said, quote, Tesla was the big improver of the year last year. And as you can see, Ford is number one, Mercedes is number two, Tesla comes all the way in right behind them to number three and basically increases their leaderboard performance according to this group by 21 percentage points. This even takes into account the elimination of emissions within their supply chain, their human rights violations within that chain and also environmental harm

during the production of their vehicles. So all of those things that, you know, we all get sent if we're into EVs, which I'm assuming if you're watching this podcast, you are, get sent all the time. It's like they're improving with all this stuff with their battery technology. So take a look at this. Actually, we should link it down below because this is what you should send to those people that, you know, as a response, it's like all laid out right there.

So when I was looking at all these different studies that have come out, there's also another one that says that the Model 3 was the most searched for vehicle in the last six months. Here in the U.S. Here in the U.S. Yeah. And I found this really interesting because the Model Y is the best-selling vehicle. So I would have thought it would have been the Model Y, but it was actually the Model 3. Yeah, and the study goes back actually from last August to this January.

And of course, the 3 wasn't even available in the U.S. until late January into February. The refreshed Model 3. Refreshed, exactly. But the study looked at 340 different EVs, hybrids, gas cars, and found the Model 3 at the very top on the search list on Google with 3.8 million searches.

in that time span of about six or so months. And in the UK, Nissan actually topped the list for searches when it comes to the same category of cars. And it was the Nissan Qashqai? It's not available here in the US. I'm not familiar with that Nissan variant. But that was number one. It had 800,000 searches in the past six months. The Kia Sportage was second place with about 760,000 searches. But

Model 3 ran away in the US. - And I think, I just, on so many different levels, and it makes me think about kind of the psychology behind buyers, and I think the Model 3 currently being the least expensive Tesla that you can buy is probably a big reason why people are searching for that, because they're trying to find something affordable to go electric.

And at the same time, we have all these headlines recently about how electric is over. You know, the heyday is done. We see all these car companies canceling their electric cars. The trend is incredible. Have you seen the tone just change so much to being a negative perception towards EV adoption in the past six or ten months? I feel like it's like the last two or three months, it's really gone crazy.

crazy with this. And we talked about this a little bit with the Cybertruck Russ stuff, like the media wants to hold on to anything negative to kind of get those headlines. And the problem with that is people just read the headlines and they don't actually read the article. And even if the article itself kind of clarifies that headline,

they just people read that headline and they'll be like oh you know electric electrification is over like it's done with i would never buy one and they don't they don't actually read what's going on with that yeah one of these titles was how evs became a massive disappointment it just kind of published recently on a major outlet and then you see the response in the comment section just like you said saw this on the wall this was gonna this was never gonna work it makes sense

And then, of course, the next headline comes in with Apple dropping its EV project as well. And then it really fuels this fire of people being negative. But then when you read the articles, they're actually saying that U.S. saw its first time where EVs exceeded one million units sold last year. It grew a significant percent. I think it was 40%.

from this time last year at the same quarter. So the growth is tremendous in the U.S. for certain EVs, and namely one being Tesla. And then I think Kia and Hyundai come in close second or distant, I should say, second. And then everyone else is far, far behind that. And I think what is going on with this, what we're seeing is sort of like in the beginning of electric cars, there was this huge arc. And now maybe it's slowing down a little bit, but not...

It's still increasing. We're still seeing more people buy it, but it's like you had those initial early adopters that come in. We're super excited. We start YouTube channels. We tell all of our friends. We buy electric cars.

And then now it's like, it's going broader. It's getting out to the mainstream. It's kind of like when you post a YouTube video, honestly, you get all of your views in the first couple of days. And then after that, they just kind of trickle in. Right. And that is sort of what is happening with electric cars right now. It's like, it's still growing. It's still getting better. But, um, and there's people are still adopting to them, but it's not like as high of a, uh, it's not a curve. What's the word? Arc or land or no. Yeah.

But it's still increasing. There are several reasons for this that are going on. Some interest rates have gone up. That's making it a little tougher for a lot of people to be able to afford them. Affordability is still an issue for a lot of people, even when you're talking mid-30s price point or even below that with some tax incentives. That's still pretty expensive for most people. And then even the likes of Ford and GM, they have scaled back because maybe they're not seeing their EVs take off, but could

Could Model Y be the reason for some of this? I definitely think maybe Tesla did a little too well with the Model Y, and they've been able to lower the prices on the Model Y. And then anytime anyone looks at an electric vehicle, and I'm guilty of this myself, I'm like, why would you not buy a Model Y? It's the best price, best range. If you're just looking at the metrics, it beats everything.

every vehicle out there, you know, get these amazing prices out there for the Model 3 and the Model Y. It makes it really hard for a lot of other manufacturers. Yeah, we were talking to someone who was saying, you know, when you look at some of the likes there of GE and, I said G-E-G-M, G-E-E.

GM. Anywhere you said GE, just put GM in there. We're tired. We have three kids. Yeah, GM, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, all these car makers that have kind of dabbled into the EV space, they're realizing that not only are their profit margins significantly lower than their gas-powered versions of these cars on their lot,

It's also harder to move them. There's education involved in them as well. So the time and effort is just not worth it. And then Tesla just keeps shrinking the prices and pushing sales out a lot easier. So it's almost like,

Do you want to die now or do you want to try to do what you're good at and maybe die later? That's kind of the approach that you're seeing. It's not like they're canceling all of their EVs. Like they're still going to be making EVs, but they're not going to be 100% electric by like 2030, which is what a lot of them initially were like, we're going all electric, we're going all in. But now they're seeing that there are still plenty of people that maybe still need an ICE vehicle. So they're just kind of scaling back.

And I think that's the truth here. And again, we live in this bubble. So we're all into our electric cars. But there are a lot of people that do not buy new cars, right? Like growing up, I never had new cars. I always bought used cars. And there are a lot of people that live in an apartment, not a house. And they need access to the charging infrastructure. And maybe the charging infrastructure is not...

Um, there, like as, if you're looking at the U S as a whole, you need to have a really good charging infrastructure in order for those people to be able to have an EV. And, you know, we're making big changes, obviously all the big cars now have switched over. Everyone's going to be doing NACS, which I think is.

positive because that makes it so much easier not to have to worry about that, the education part of it. We also have this joint venture now by a lot of the big ones. We have BMW, we have Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Stellantis, and they're going to be installing 30,000 chargers in the US and Canada. So that, again, is all going in the right direction, but maybe we won't be there by 2030. How much do you think the current administration has to do with

the mask is kind of being turned off from EVs because it seems like under the previous administration, it was almost being embraced maybe a little bit more, even though the administration itself wasn't embracing it. Well, we know the Biden administration and Elon Musk are not like fans of each other. Really Biden. Like, I mean, I don't want to get political, but we know that

You know, that's not necessarily helping things, but it's also incredibly confusing for people that are wondering if they get a tax incentive and, you know, what parts of the vehicle are they all built in the U.S. In order to get a tax incentive, you have to have everything, like all the batteries, all the different parts produced in the U.S. Well, that's what reduces these sales, right? That's another hurdle that these OEMs that are not Tesla are now having to deal with because...

A lot of their parts, unlike Tesla, are still coming in from neighboring countries or other countries. So they're not able to get that tax credit. So it's a losing battle, again, with the current guidance that gives credits to some makers and not others. Actually, that's a big reason, too, why BYD does not have plans to even come to America. Build your dreams. I think it beat Tesla this last year at the number one position.

vehicle being sold worldwide, but no plans to come to the US right now. The CEO said, it's an interesting market, but very complicated if you're talking about EVs. I think the US market is a little slower on electrification. There's lots of confusion around it, also very complicated, so we don't have plans to come to the US. Scared to get into the hot waters here in the US with the EVs. Yeah, exactly. But not everybody is struggling the way some of the OEMs are. I feel like

you know, Hyundai and Kia have really done really well. Like their vehicles are doing awesome. I know that Hyundai has plans for a new factory here in Georgia, which I'm excited about because I live in Georgia. - Hyundai and Kia are definitely stepping up their game. They're succeeding in the EV space unlike the other ones that are not Tesla.

And then they were recently spotted actually testing a Lucid Air, which a lot of people are like, what's Hyundai doing with a Lucid? Turns out, according to some document leaks, they are working on a high-end EV as well. So that's really interesting that they're going in for that upper segment. And they do Genesis, right? So they already have the Genesis, which is a

pretty high end, but like to go to Lucid's level. Yeah. And Genesis actually outsold Lucid, which you were telling me this morning, which I was surprised last year to see those numbers come out that Genesis did better. But I mean, Lucid is very high end. Yeah. Lucid is a lot more expensive. So I think that sort of makes sense. They did drop prices though recently. So...

They dropped prices. But still, you know, if we're thinking about the affordability factor, I think there's going to be a lot of changes in the automobile sector in terms of electrification in the next 10 years. And I think a lot of these, not a lot of these, but some of these OEMs are going to go bankrupt. We're not going to have them around anymore. And personally, I think not focusing on electrifying their fleet is really going to hurt them in the long run, in the short term. Mm-hmm.

It might help them, but in the long run, I also think Rivian has done a great job. And I know Elon recently said that he thought Rivian and Lucid are going to go out of business, but I don't think so with Rivian. They're like, I'm going next week to LA for the R2 event. No podcast next week because I'll be covering the R2 event. And I think that is going to be their game changer. That's going to be their model Y moment. So I'm super excited for that. And also in the comments section,

Let me know what you guys want to see with the R2. What would make you want to buy the R2 over, say, a Model Y? And Ford is not completely moving away, of course, from their EV plans. They are scaling back. But then you see what Jim Farley says. He says there's been a seismic shift or a seismic change.

in the EV space, Tesla having a lot to do with it with lowering its prices, making things a lot more challenging for other automakers. And what they've done now, it looks like a patent is in place for 800 volt architecture for Ford's EVs for their next gen EV coming out that'll allow it to charge faster at Tesla's superchargers.

So it is really interesting to see that they're definitely still in the game and in it for the long haul, but a different approach than was initially said. I think the Lightning didn't do quite as well as they had hoped it would do. Obviously, there's some competition with that with Rivian and Tesla Cybertruck and kind of in that field.

So now they're trying a different tactic maybe. Yeah. And they were the first to go NACS, weren't they? Out of all the OEMs, I believe they were. And so everyone else kind of followed suit. And I think they're also one of the first to say, hey, we're not going to be 100% electric by 2030. Yeah. Everyone just kind of copies them. Yeah.

um but it's kind of interesting to see where that goes now apple has completely canned their electric vehicle we briefly touched on this but apple is canceling its project titan which is their upcoming ev that was kind of long discussed here yeah i hear they're canceling it because it requires windows you've waited all day for that one i have i have i didn't make that one up

But I thought it was good. But yeah, last month, actually, Kim, they had talked about 2028. They're going to produce an EV. That was the deadline. And it was going to have limited driverless features. And that was quite a bit of a step back from what they had initially said was going to be the most advanced vehicle on the market. So they were slowly backtracking on what they thought they were going to bring to market. Now it looks like it's officially completely done and no EV from Apple, at least just yet.

Do you think that this is because they like to be the top in their space and they just don't think they can compete with Tesla?

Well, that is what a Tesla fangirl would think. Give me a hard time. No, but I mean, that could be a viable reason. But I think they obviously didn't see a path to making this a successful project long term. Obviously, putting cars on the road and making them sell and making them successful is extremely challenging, even for people who have automotive experience. So maybe that was part of it. But they were very focused in on the autonomous driving part of it. And so maybe they thought...

this is going to cost us too much. We're not going to be able to do this and make it affordable and then be able to sell this and have a profit. So let's just like hone in on, you know, our other projects. Yeah. Do you remember it was what, five, six years ago, a very desperate time for Tesla? Yeah.

And Elon Musk apparently had a meeting with Tim Cook. I mean, this is the time when bankruptcy was like a few weeks out. And they looked at getting Apple possibly to invest, buy, and come into this. So maybe Project Titan was just like an ego thing.

Maybe they're like, hey, you didn't let us buy your car company, so now we're going to do our own car, make it better. And then now, a few years later, they're like, wow, this is harder than we thought it was going to be. I mean, Apple's got that rich history of innovation, technological breakthroughs. So they've been able to come up with cool tech for a long time. And they kind of had this lull until recently with the Vision Pro. They got more hype out of that.

But the car stuff seemed like maybe it was too much for them to try to tackle at this point. Yeah, but I'm curious what you guys think about this. Are you disappointed not to have this Apple vehicle? I mean, the renderings and everything looked good.

Really cool. It looked like it could be a contender and we all love Apple. A lot of us are very loyal. Fan renderings. But yeah, I think it would have been cool to see what Apple could possibly bring to market and the features and the range and everything else that, you know, not chargers being patched.

packed into the car but I guess Tesla doesn't give you chargers anymore I mean Tesla does the same thing with the chargers right so I don't know I think it's kind of interesting um I like following along and you know we'll see what the future brings maybe later they decide oh actually let's let's go back with that or let's do a joint venture you know there's the the

the sony vehicle that's kind of been like a yeah so that's been like a collab but it hasn't actually come i feel like every year i go to the car shows and i see that there but honda it was honda right that joined sony with afila so that gives it a little bit of credence a little bit of possibility of having a chance to come to market whereas if tesla and apple had have collaborated a few years back then maybe apple would be in a different place but i know but maybe they still could

is what I'm saying. It's like that could still be something like that in the future happening, which I'd be down for. So anyways, thank you guys so much for joining us on this podcast. If there is anything else you'd like us to dive deeper into, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to read these comments. We'd love to, you know, get ideas for future videos. And if you guys have questions,

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