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- We have some good stuff for you guys this week. Wireless charging might be coming to your Tesla sooner than you may think. We also have non-Tesla branded superchargers that are being deployed. - We've got inside scoop on Rivian and the real reason it's halting its production line. - All that and more starts right now.
All right, welcome back to another episode of Trending in Tesla. You're joined by PJ and Tucker the dog. This is my nephew and we are dog sitting for a couple weeks. I am enjoying it. Not everyone in the family is a dog lover, but that's okay. We're just gonna enjoy the tweaks that we get to have a dog. The kids like it. Somebody else who I won't get
2 and 2 over there is not a fan. I love having him on my lap, and it kind of energizes me. And that goes right into the first story here about Tesla, who's preparing to have wireless chargers for the vehicles. I was wondering where you're going with that. Well, you know, I guess...
the charger would be underneath you and the dog's on my lap, but you know, it gives me energy. There's some induction going on there, yeah. Definitely. So it looks like over on X, someone actually found the service manual and a reference within Cybertruck's service manual that specifically references induction headers
that a lot of people are saying this could be for the Cybertruck getting the first vehicle from Tesla really getting wireless charging. And it's not the first time we've heard Tesla reference wireless charging. Yeah, I think during the Jay Leno interview, we heard Franz talk a little bit about it or kind of, you know, hinted at they hinted that it would be coming. Yeah. And we've heard it talked about for robo taxi. And I think that's where this is going is that it would
be needed for robo taxi now the other vehicles the older vehicles do we know if they would need a retrofit or do we know anything yet yeah probably would be a retrofit it might not be very cheap at least initially as well or maybe it's not even a retrofit option that really depends on the tech that's in there i know sandy monroe actually just recently posted his teardown video and in that video they uncover this exact spot where you can see these
unused headers and even on X another viewer found out it looks like headers that are not used or connected to anything and again references being made to maybe this being for induction charging. It could be for a number of things but induction charging and Cybertruck
especially if robo taxi is going to be a thing that's really where this comes into play right now is this something that you would want if this was an option for us to have this in our garage our personal garage would you want this i mean from from an outside perspective looking at this and thinking about this it seems like a no-brainer you get it it automatically charges your car then you think about the logistics involved even the cost involved if it doesn't come straight out of the factory that's going to be one hurdle the next is how
how efficient is wireless charging? Because even the most advanced wireless charging that I know of, even close to 90%, let's say, for a lot of people, they're saying, hey, if that's just a couple of seconds to plug it in and you're on the go and you're getting 100% or close to it of energy transfer, it's a lot better than maybe getting, say, 80, 90% of your efficiency transferred over, which over a lifetime of owning this car, that's a lot of lost energy that's being lost through induction. And it's certainly possible.
It's just how efficient is it and how affordable is it? But for a robo taxi model, that just, that has to be the case unless you use the snake chargers, which had been hinted at like 10 years ago. Yeah. Let us know in the comments below if this is something that you guys would want to have and you would definitely be into and how you would feel if you only had, what was it? 90% efficiency? If that's what it is. If that's what it is, is it still something that you would want? Would it be worth it?
Up next, we have an undercover sting. Two men actually were accused of stealing Tesla battery seekers and tried to start up a company over in China. - Yeah, this was in Ningbo, China. One of the guys actually thought he was meeting with a businessman, turned out to be a federal agent undercover. He was trying to sell these trade secrets and different techniques of Tesla's battery cell chemistry.
and he got caught red-handed. What I think is super interesting is that these men used to work for a battery company that Tesla acquired. So they obviously knew what they were trying to steal, knew what they were going in for, and they were trying to take that information and just start their own company up.
Yeah, these guys used to work at Hillbar Systems, which was actually a Canadian battery manufacturing company. Tesla bought the company in 2019, eventually sold it a few months later, but kept some of these employees on board for its own engineering purposes. And of course, these guys, at least two of them... Do you think they were bitter or do you think they were just...
trying to make some money. I think they were trying to make some quick bucks here because they actually set up a company in Brazil, another one in Canada, and a third one in Germany to try to do the exact same thing of selling these trade secrets in their own startup of battery chemistry. So obviously they saw what Tesla had was pretty unique and special and tried to capitalize on it. Yeah, and they face up to 10 years in prison. Well, they've caught one of them. The other one is at large. The one person that was speaking to a businessman that ended up to be an agent...
is facing up to 10 years in prison. I'd have to imagine stuff like this happens a lot more often in big corporations than we get to see, but obviously within our world of EVs and Tesla being the king of EVs, this always stands out to us. - Speaking of other companies,
taking Tesla's proprietary information, we're seeing some of the V4 superchargers now being deployed that are Tesla superchargers, basically, but not Tesla. Yeah, so I think what you're referring to, and by the way, this wasn't used without Tesla's permission, this proprietary information. So to a lot of people's surprise, Tesla announced last year that it was going to be partnering up with BP, the gas giant company,
to roll out superchargers at BP stations, but it would be actually BP that would have their branding on them. We've seen that come to market now across parts of the UK with a different Tesla supercharger that is not Tesla branded. That actually just rolled out in the last couple of days.
So these images you're seeing are coming out of the Asada Express area in Utoxeter, which is north of Birmingham in the UK. You can see these are Tesla superchargers by very definition, except the branding has that EV point branding on the surface. It feels like Europe is getting everything first. But I hope and what I want is for them to also do some of those non-Tesla branded V4 supercharger stations. And then I want them all in the US.
That's what I want. You want a pony too. Well, you know what? Now that we're seeing Rivian and Ford charging at all the stations, it means the stations are going to get a lot busier. So I feel like as a Tesla owner, we should get access to the fastest chargers and then
have or at least have a couple of them blocked off for tesla vehicles only there should be something like that that we should get i feel like it's part of our tesla superiority like we should have that which is funny i don't know if you guys have seen that episode of silicon valley it's starting to really irritate me okay i need to maintain my tesla superiority and i need to do it now okay i'm looking at a new set of wheels here the 21 inch arachnids very nice but they're not for sale
you can only get them through our referral awards program you refer three other customers to us they buy a vehicle and zoop zoop you get the wheels so i do feel like tesla owners though should get a couple spots at the tesla branded charging stations like v4 charging stations that are just for tesla owners a little bit of like priority because you have a tesla but there should be a couple that are reserved just for tesla owners and i know that might not be popular opinion
But I don't know. That's just how I feel. It's going to be hard to enforce something like that. I mean, unless you have someone manning it, it's going to be hard to shoo off people from a couple stalls. I think sharing is caring, Kim. You've got to open your doors and let everyone. So Rohan Patel, who is a top Tesla executive, went on X and said it's actually over 16,000 of these supercharging stalls that are rolling out with NACS on them. An additional 11,000 of these stalls
is just for Tesla customers. So those being, I guess, V2, V1, older charging stations that don't have that compatibility for the new ones. - I don't like that, 'cause like why just give the older crappy stations to us Tesla people? Did say that the limiting factor is utility interconnection, which takes too damn long. So really that's why we get the old crappy stations for us.
But then he goes on to say, if you buy a Tesla, you're automatically given a free Tesla charging membership, which gives you 30% cheaper supercharging costs than non-Tesla vehicles. So we get the crappy old chargers, and then we get 30% off. Personally, I want the V4 charging and then leave the crappy ones for everyone else.
Oh my gosh, you're taking this glass half full. I think V2 is not that crappy, but I see where you're coming from. V2, you still have to like share your charging speed with the people next to you. I don't know. How do you guys feel about that? Maybe it could be like a referral prize or something. I feel like I want something special other than just like...
oh we'll give you guys the crappy old v2 chargers and a little bit of a discount did you hear about speaking of referral prices there is something special out and it is a sledgehammer a cyber truck sledgehammer i want it yes only 800 are going to be made and i knew you're going to want it you've been nagging me about wanting to get this and i'm the voice of reason in this household i kind of always hold you back from getting all these things that tesla puts out and
I agree that not a flamethrower would have been cool to have. That's the one I wanted. He held me back from that one and I regret it so much. So part of me is like, should I just go ahead and order this myself and not tell somebody about it? But I feel bad doing that. 35,000 credits. You know, some people did the maths because you can't buy this cash. It's not an available thing in the store to just go buy. You've got to use referral credits. 35,000 credits, I believe, is the exact amount of credits you needed to get into the Cybertruck delivery event.
which we of course validated and went ahead and went to the event. This right here, I just don't see any purpose for having a sledgehammer. - But what if you, okay, here's my reasoning behind it as it becomes like a collectible, right? Because there's only 800 of them made, you can only get it with referral credit. So if you were going to try to resell this, you could probably get quite a bit of money for it at the same time. But then, you know, who knows, Tesla might come out with a resale policy
and see you at $50,000. Yeah.
So, I mean, who knows? But I still think that we should try to get it. 35,000 credits is about $2,000. So you're essentially using $2,000 for a hammer. That to me is where I kind of like, eh. It's not just a hammer though. It really isn't. Like, okay, it's like a piece of artwork that we could put up in our garage. We could put it back here on the wall somewhere. Use it for some cool videos. And worst case, if you still don't like it, I'm sure there's someone out there that would be willing to buy it.
Let us know what you guys think in the comments below. Should I just go ahead and order this thing if it's still available? And speaking of the referral program, they have included additional prizes here. Free premium connectivity for a year when someone uses your referral code now. So you could validate some of your credit to get that, which we've done. Now, if someone uses your referral link, you'll actually end up getting free connectivity on your car. And I believe they get free connectivity too. Is that correct? And new buyers also get three months of FSD.
as well if they use your code. So that's kind of cool. I know that we've had a couple people recently asking us for that. So it's always nice to go on there and check what is the latest promotion. It seems to change all the time. So if we sell that sledgehammer though, do you think that we will get banned from Tesla? It looks like some of the people with the Cybertruck that have been reselling their Tesla now, I don't think anyone's officially been sued the $50,000, but they have been blacklisted from Tesla, which
Personally, I feel like it's worse. Yeah. And speaking of Cybertruck, Kim, check this out. They've got 11 colors in total now. Six new colors were added to the Cybertruck color wrap that you can now get for their in-house shop. Yes. I love this so much. So with Cybertruck, they don't come painted. So people are wrapping them. The wrapping industry is going crazy right now.
But what they offer is kind of a combination vinyl and PPF and it's $6,500, which seems like a lot, but with our Model X, we have vinyl and PPF on it. And that's even more, I can tell you guys that. - That was closer to 10,000. This basically gives you the protection, gives you the look,
But about half the price when you think about it. And that's pretty good. And it's done in house. So when it arrives, it's already done. And there's some good ones on there. So the new colors are iridescent purple, forest green, satin crimson red, tactical green. So we have two greens there, satin dark gray and copper tinted clear. I really like that copper also. I feel like that looks really cool because instead of the silver, you're having the copper or something kind of different looking.
I'm surprised how much I like that one as well. But it almost is overwhelming because there's so many different options when you think about wrapping your cars. Like, how do you make that decision? I know you go from having only four colors over the years, basically four or five colors over the years to choose from, all of a sudden getting up to 11 for the Cybertruck to choose from.
It makes you almost love every single one of them because you're just not used to seeing different colors. Exactly, exactly. I love being able to do aftermarket stuff to our vehicles. And what's interesting about this is I know a lot of people are waiting new refresh Model 3. Right now, it only comes with...
the black interior. And a lot of people want the white one, which isn't out yet right now. And so they ordered the new one thinking that they would be able to get the white one and get their FSD transfer. And they're not able to. It's being pushed back now. And so they would miss out on the FSD transfer.
Yeah, so the seats are holding back these deliveries, right? The white seats. And remember, we took delivery of one of the first Model 3s and white seats were not an option for the early Model 3s. So we got aftermarket white seats put into ours. And that's essentially what's happening here again, but it's going to cost people possibly FSD unless Tesla extends that deadline out. So you get black seats now in the Model 3 and then you get it sooner. Yeah, and I don't think they're going to. I feel like that's partially why
why they gave that incentive of the FSD transfer is because maybe they knew, hey, we can only get the black out now. We're not going to get the white. So this is part of the incentive to go ahead and just take the black, which I don't like. I wish they would have been a little more upfront with that if they did know it and said, hey, if you take early delivery with the black,
you get the fsd transfer all right moving over to rivian they announced that they're actually going to be pausing their production line over in illinois for some retooling that's going to be taking place well i know when i spoke with rj he said that the r2 they're going to move it up and start making it in normal illinois just to get it out faster so that's obviously what's going on right here we know eventually it will always switch over to the georgia plant but that one's not ready and obviously rivian needs to get these things out quickly so
So that's what's happening. - I don't think this is for, no, no, I don't agree with you on this one. - Oh, really? - Yeah, I don't think this is at all for the R2. R2 is a long ways away from retooling in my mind. I will tell you, and I think I told this, shared this with Dan from What's Inside, 'cause he was there with us in California at this event.
But when we were there, you and Dan and other creators got to go inside the R2 unveil. And I didn't get a pass because it was such a small setting. I was outside and I was in a room with good Wi-Fi with some of the Rivian employees there. And I remember them asking me. I was the only one that was in there that wasn't a Rivian employee. Oh, so you got in on...
And they asked me what I thought about this, the R2. And I said, honestly, it's half the price as the R1S. And it basically offers a lot of the same features in a smaller form factor. I don't know why anyone would want to pay double the price to get the R1S. And one of the employees turned around and told me, well, we've got big, big plans. And it's something unveiling here for the R1S sooner than you think.
And I'm like, can you tell me more? And he didn't want to say anything else. And then this news comes out. So you're thinking that they're revamping the R1s? The R1s are being revamped. I'm almost 100% certain this is what this is for, and it's not for any R2. That's exciting. That is exciting stuff. All right. I'm curious. So there you go. Rivian has a lot of things up their sleeve. They're doing a good job. I'm impressed with Rivian. I feel like if I...
was not a Tesla girl, I might switch over to Rivian. And actually, I really liked the R3X. Yes. I really, really liked that. A lot of people seem to really be blown away by that one, yeah. That might be like my first non-Tesla vehicle. Your other non-Tesla vehicle that you've kind of hinted at going after was the R1T before Cybertruck rolled out.
The R1T actually had previously had a starting price for their base or their standard battery pack at $70,000 just under that. Rivian is saying for a limited time, you're able to take the $56,000 starting price for the standard pack R1T, which is the pre-order price that people put in years ago. So what you're telling me is that they're not going to do what Tesla did with Cybertruck?
and change the price or going to like honor the original price? Rivian did that early on, remember? And then people reacted. So they reverted back to honoring some of those earlier prices. Well, now they're honoring pre-order prices still for the R1 standard packs, which are finally rolling out. Are they able to do this? Because like the rumor was they're going bankrupt and now they're going to take less money.
Well, this is only for people who've pre-ordered for that price point years ago and now are finally starting to take delivery. So until September, you have to confirm your order. You'll get the R1T standard pack for $56,000. And after that, it'll go back up to being $14,000 more expensive to being $70,000. That's nice that they're doing that and honoring that, though, because you're not seeing a lot of...
automakers doing that these days and speaking of automakers that you know could possibly be going bankrupt it looks like lucid now has a new lifeline lucid just got a lifeline this morning from saudi arabia's public investment fund this is the primary investor in lucid they pumped an additional 1 billion dollars into the company they now hold over 62 percent stake
of Lucid and they're basically Lucid announced the statement this morning saying with this additional investment from PIF they're now focusing on accelerating their growth via deliveries, their relentless focus on cutting costs and also launching their game changing gravity SUV which is their three seater SUV that's going to be rolling out or at least beginning production later this year, $80,000 starting price point and then rolling out in volume at some point next year.
So Lucid got this lifeline here this morning. That's huge. That is big. That is huge because I feel like if they can get that three-seater van out, that puts them in competition with the Model X. It's an SUV, not a van, but yeah. Sorry, an SUV. Sorry, you're right. But it puts them in competition with the Model X. A lot of these like...
There's not a lot of options when you need a bigger vehicle. You have a family. There's not a lot of luxury options out there right now. So it puts them in competition for that. So it's really cool to see. I hope that they make it. Our neighbor has a Lucid. We've made some videos with them. It's amazing. He talks about wanting the Gravity.
But I mean, yeah, we always knew Lucid had a lot of money on the Saudi side coming in. And I think same thing for Rivian. Even if they get into, you know, desperate measures, I feel like there's a lot that'll come through and help them financially.
Yeah. Especially, I mean, I think they've proven enough to be able to have, you know, someone on their side to give them one extra surge. Yeah, definitely. But what do you guys think about all this news? Is there anything that we missed? Let us know in the comments below. Also, if you enjoyed Tucker being here, let us know how I can talk this one into getting a dog because he's so sweet and we need a frunk puppy.
My puppy's already taken. I know. I know. We'll have to start a new. It would be a trunk well puppy. Trunk well. I feel like that just sounds. Sounds bad. They all sound kind of dangerous, honestly, if you think about it. I don't know.
He's so sweet though. All right. And we also want to thank our patron members because they're also so sweet. Just like Holly Hendrick, Daniel Armir, Kenneth Moore, Tim Benford, and Dorothy Loveless. Also Andrew S, Gerald Wallace, Kevin Adams, Gary Wiseman, Andrew Sammons, Adam Berry, and Donald and Schwan Whiting. And a special thanks to our newest member, Tim.
All right, guys, thank you so much for watching, especially if you watched all the way to the end. Tucker says thank you. He was a good co-host today. Let me know if he should be back on our future podcast. Bye.
