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We are live for a new episode of The Electric Podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your host, and I'm joined by Seth Wintraub, live from the, well, not the LA Hotel showroom right now, but from Los Angeles. How are you doing, Seth? Close enough. I'm doing well. Thanks.
All right. Then I want to say a quick thank you to our sponsor for this episode of the Electric Podcast, EcoFlow. EcoFlow has its Black Friday sale coming here with up to 50% off of a wide range of EcoFlow portable power and solar panel solution. Use code EFBF8OFF. That
That's OFF for an extra 8% off on top of their super Black Friday sales. We're going to have a little bit more to say about them later on on the show, but thanks for sponsoring this episode of The Electric Podcast. So this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about the LA Auto Show because that set is there. We had a big part of the crew there. We had Jamie. We had Scooter. Anyone else was there? Mikey. So we had almost everyone there.
And not for much, apparently. I was just talking to Seth before the show. And any highlights or anything like that? All right. So very disappointing show. I think everybody kind of on the same page about that. So we had four people out. Mikey was out with Genesis. He did the post on the convertible thing.
and they were very cagey about you know they're doing electric or if they're doing gas versions of those things so not super impressed with that oh did you confirm that's electric
I didn't know that. I missed that one. The convertible is, they definitely have an electric version of that, electric version of it, but they were KGN. The prototype was electric, is that what you're saying? Right, right. But they don't, they're not guaranteeing what the final product's going to look like or, you know, some version of that. So Genesis, you know, they're partners with, or sorry, they're part of the same organization as Kia, which we were kind of hoping to see the EV9 version
uh the suv that you know kind of like the rivian r1s size uh vehicle with the third third row um they showed a prototype off at the last la auto show unannounced um so we were you know like all right well they didn't announce it last time so we're you know hoping to see something this time kia had nothing the only thing they did announce is the uh the ev6 uh gt uh
which differs from the GT line. The GT line is more of like an aesthetic GT, but the GT is actually like a high power, super fast, three seconds, zero to 60 version of the EV9. And they just announced it. So there's really nothing like we knew that was coming and we're going to actually get to drive it in
in mid-December, and I think we're going to, I think the embargo is probably around, you know, the holidays. So we'll have a review of that. Hyundai had nothing. Like they were showing off a gas car, which is weird.
Uh, we went to the Chevy booth. They were very standoffish. Like we were like, Hey, we'd like to talk about all your stuff. Uh, and they were like, you know, we're not going to tell you anything new, anything interesting, any newsworthy, uh, on the, the new, on the electric stuff. So that was a little bit of a disappointment. Uh, PR folks there, um,
Some good folks, but like a lot of bad folks, really kind of frustrating. I was there with VW. So VW brought me all the way to Los Angeles, which thank you. They, the, what we saw, we were not allowed to talk about to after CES. The rumors are the ID arrow was, you know, going to be shown. And I think that those were pretty correct. There's a new name for it. That's even more boring than the, the,
And then it's got an interesting paint job that I think will put BMW to shame. And we'll find out more about that at CES. What else did we see? We saw the Dodge Charger SRT with the Banshee 800-volt system prototype. So that doesn't move, doesn't do anything. It does make that sound. So it's got this like...
cat-like sound that it's when you, you know, as exhaust. So the thing about this vehicle is that it's got all kinds of fake things to make it seem like a muscle car. So it's got like sound that apparently goes up to 120 decibels, which is like
you know, ear damage kind of levels, you know, and it puts it out at the bottom. So it's like, you know, where kids are. So that's, that's a really exciting feature. One nice thing is they have the wing on the front of the car and it kind of allows it to look like the chargers of old. So it's got kind of a flat face, even though there's air coming up and over,
the front wing there. You can see it if you guys are watching. Can I click on this or is it going to be super loud? I think it's fine to click on. But that dark area is basically wind goes up through there and over the thing. So
And then they have a stick shift inside called the erupt. And apparently when you, it's all fake, but when you shift gears, it, it turns off the acceleration for a second, like, like when you're shifting gears. So that's not real. And, and apparently the sound inside is going to mimic like what it's like to drive a,
Why would you fake the downsides of a manual transmission? You know when you lose power for a second? Let's try to replicate that in a completely automatic electric-powered vehicle. Well, it's really all downsides. That's all you can really do. Well, people will argue the sound thing is not a downside. They want to feel it and everything. But when you know it's fake, I feel like you lose all the value in that.
You're just trying to trick yourself into feeling the power of the vehicle. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so that was there. In terms of availability of that and everything, because we know that they are working on a muscle car. Is it even confirmed that it's the SRT form factor they're going with or the Charger SRT? Yeah, they're calling it the Dodge Charger SRT Banshee. Yeah, that's right, Banshee. So I don't know.
I think they're going to make it. I don't know what kind of numbers or whatever, but it's pretty cool. Then next door in the Stellantis area, they had a big announcement about the Fiat 500. And that is that the European version of the Fiat 500.
500E, which has been quite popular in Europe, actually. The CEO was like, it's the second most popular EV brand in Europe to Tesla. So I guess that's good news. But they're not going to bring it to the... I don't know. It's probably like it's some geos. I mean, I know that Renault Zoe does well and there's a bunch of other stuff. Yeah.
So they're going to bring that to the U.S. They had three designer versions of the Fiat 500E. So they're trying to make it like a high end, like luxury fashion thing. They're going to bring it to the U.S. They're going to charge a lot for it next year.
And they're probably going to sell like 10,000 of them. So it's not a high volume thing. It's a product that already exists in Europe and it has for a while. The ones they showed us, they have like the Menke's CCS2. So they were just European versions. And it's not coming until, like they're going to have an announcement next year at the auto show. And that's when they're going to commence sales of it. So it's a 2024 vehicle that's existed already.
you know, in Europe since last year. So that's kind of like a good. It sounds like a compliance car. That's what you're describing right now. It's a compliance car, but they're going to sell it for too much money and they're going to try to make it a fashion statement thing. They were very like the whole thing was like about, you know, fashion brands. And, you know, there was like gold dust in the paint and. Oh, not gold dust in the paint.
Yeah. You're selling it to me, Seth. You're selling it to me hard. Right. So, yeah, just kind of disappointing all around. Yeah. There were some things a little bit more exciting that wasn't really with the Eliotto show, but what happens a lot with these big shows, a lot of companies, they will unveil things on the sidelines of their shows as the same time that everybody is unveiling everything. They try to capture some of that hype. And there was two of those this week.
We reported on the Draco Dragon. If you remember Draco, you might remember the Draco GTE, which is not for everyone. It's a million-dollar supercar. And it was based on the Fisker chassis and the Fisker Karma, the original one. And we were kind of excited about it a little bit when they first came out in 2019 and when we tested it out in 2020. And...
And what was interesting about it is that they developed a quad motor powertrain that was pretty impressive because it had a capacity for each motor at each wheel to output 225 kilowatt of power output and also minus 225 of regen. And they were able to do some cool things on the racetrack with that very impressive powertrain that they built. But they had a ton of limitations since it was all built on the Fisker Caramo chassis.
Now, so at the time, we all speculated basically that they were likely going to use that as a test bed because they were not planning to make that many of them either. I don't remember exactly how many it was, but it was, again, it's a million dollar car anyway. But they were going to use it as a test bed to make another vehicle from the ground up.
with that powertrain and sure enough that is a draco dragon uh they announced it a few months ago but today was the full unveiling with all the specs and all the details it looks pretty cool those giant like double gullwing doors so that's a giant hinge that you see right there it looks like a weak point yeah but but it's pretty cool that you can get both inside you just have to open one door you can get in the back seat in the front seat
The design is rock solid in my personal opinion. It's kind of reminds me a little bit of the Lamborghini Urus, which I think is what they're going for, like the kind of market they're going for, like a hyper, well, I guess the Urus is not a hyper SUV, it's like a super SUV. But this is a hyper because it's also efficient. Look at this one. This is a nice picture right there. Look at those sharp corners. Looks like you can cut yourself on that car. Mm-hmm.
The interior is pretty good too. And that's probably one of the bigger improvement over the GTE because the Fisker has a very good looking exterior for a sedan, but the interior was extremely cramped because that's how it was designed.
And obviously, this is an SUV form factor, though a very sporty SUV. So it's not about utility as much as the performance because we'll get to the performance in a second. But still a pretty sharp interior here. Giant, giant screen that you have in front. Still an instrument cluster. And it looks like a race car steering wheel right there. And of course, this is super luxury. So you have the screen for the backseat, too.
Looks like full-size iPads in the back. But yeah, in terms of performance, that thing rocks. So you have a lot of furs. First of all, in terms of weight, speaking of Lamborghini, you had one that just passed your hotel, I think.
Sorry about that. So they're claiming the first production SUV with a full carbon fiber structure, which is going to save 50% of the weight of the chassis. So that's a first right there. Another first is a 500 kilowatt charging capacity, fast charging capacity, peak charging capacity, which I would assume is more about being future approved because you won't find a lot of 500 kilowatt charging station out there. But
In the future, it's likely to happen. We're talking about a 0 to 60 acceleration in 1.9 seconds, a quarter mile in 9 seconds flat, and a top speed of over 200 miles per hour. So that's just pure performance in the SUV form factor here.
So, again, not for everyone, but a lot cheaper than Draco's first car coming in at $290,000. So it's in the super SUV category. But you, I was not sure at first. I'm like, I can get your opinion on that set. But when they announced, so $290,000 car and they are planning a production capacity of up to 5,000 units per year.
which make it like a significant vehicle program. Like probably they're going to make as much as the Fiat 500E.
in the u.s but it's a 290 000 vehicle so i don't i don't know about that like there's not a lot of 290 000 vehicle that's in 5 000 units per year but it's kind of carving itself its own little place in the market here as with that kind of performance that you can see in the model s plaid but in the suv form factor that is obviously extremely well in my opinion an extremely good looking car what do you think
Yeah, it kind of reminds me, I mean, spec-wise, it's a little bit closer to like the Rimac Navara. It's like an SUV version of the Navara with the 2,000 horsepower, subs, two seconds, zero to 60, 200 mile per hour, over 200 mile per hour speed and, you know, big range. 3,500 pound towing capacity, you won't find that in the Navara though. That's true.
$3,500, that's a very... It's small for... You can't do big trailers with that. I don't know what you would carry with this thing. Those little small trailers that you can put stuff on them. Yeah, you can put an ATV in it. Yeah, and $290, that's not super duper car price. It's not like a Bugatti or anything. It's going to play in that same...
hyper fast arena so i i definitely think there's a market for that i don't know what did you say that they were going to have a thousand years that sounds like quite a lot uh yeah but at 300 000 that's not crazy and you know it seems like it's it hits a lot of good spots so
We'll see. It's not coming right now. It's 2026, but Draco has already delivered vehicles to market with the GTE, so they have some credibility on that front. I think that thing might actually happen. The other vehicle that was not fully unveiled, but
The first image of the production version of the vehicle was the Lucid Motors Gravity following the air. It's the same platform, but with the SUV version of it, if you will. And we've seen the vehicle before in some teaser images and things like that, but it was kind of an early concept and it looked like it. These images are a little bit more refined of what you're going to see in the Gravity, though they are extremely...
You can see it basically on the moon right now. So I don't think that's a real picture taken on the moon. We'll never know. But you get why they put it there because this is all about like the visibility in terms of inside the vehicle. Like look at, it's basically all glass. I don't know exactly how they're going to do in term of their crash test performance and everything because those, when you go with all glass roof and all,
glass all the way on the sides and everything like that. It's normally a little bit more difficult, but I'm sure that they thought about that and they are reinforcing everything in the pillars as they need to.
But yeah, it's pretty exciting. Also another vehicle that we're going to have to wait a little bit for 2024. They're talking first deliveries and we don't know exactly all the specs yet, but you can sort of assume similar trims that you have for the air. But in the SUV form factors, a little bit less range and everything, but more space, more utility out of it.
And yeah, Lucid also this week started deliveries of the touring version. So they're still, the next year or two really are going to be used to expand deliveries of the air and all the different trims. And they're going down market with our trims starting with the long range and more expensive version. So now that they're slowly going down market with it, once all the trims are going to be available, they're going to switch to Gravity trims.
Not a bad name. I'm not against the Lucid naming scheme, Lucid Air, Lucid Gravity. What's going to be next, though? Lucid Black Hole. I don't know. Yeah. All right. So that's pretty much it for all the things that came out this week around the Eliotto show. Like Seth said, kind of a disappointing showing this year because the Eliotto show is kind of –
Probably the biggest one right now in the U.S., right? Detroit kind of slipped a lot in the last few years. Yeah, I would say it's the biggest in the U.S. And traditionally, that's because it's Los Angeles and California. It's been a place to unveil new EVs. And so that's why it's quite disappointing this time around. And they had zero mobility stuff like last time. They had a lot of bike stuff. There's nothing like that.
It's not a separate like LACOMOTION or something like that? They had that but that was another really small thing like Blink was there like the charging network folks but there wasn't much. Yeah, disappointing like you said. All right, let's move to Tesla or Elon more specifically. There was a lot of talk about this week regarding how much time Elon is spending at Twitter.
versus Tesla. And that's all within the context of Elon being challenged right now for his compensation plan at Tesla, his $54 billion compensation plan, sorry, that he got in, when was it? In 2018?
And yeah, I said that right, 54 billion, not million. And it's kind of a weird situation because it's one guy that is suing Tesla for it. I don't know if it's Tesla or Elon specifically. I guess it would be Tesla. Yeah, it would be Tesla because the Tesla board would have approved the competition plan and he wants Elon to give it back. And yeah.
The logic behind it is that he had too much power over the board back then and influenced the board to pass this plan that gave him that kind of compensation through stock option, obviously. And on Elon's side, the allegation is that this is not really the doing of this investor who owns apparently nine shares of Tesla stocks. So we're talking about an extremely small investor. And normally it's the firm's
that these class action lawsuit and they find someone like this this particular investor to be the the figurehead of the lawsuit that's the elon perspective on it which might be the right one i don't know fred i i own more shares of tesla than this investor does oh i thought you were yeah just one i thought you went all the way down to just one i did have one
No, I had one and then it split in five and then those split in three. So I have 15 now. That's good. No, yeah. So I mean, like this week was the trial. So a lot of it was not
Part of the logic behind the compensation plays in the first place was that the board put it in place to encourage Elon to spend more time at Tesla, to work on Tesla. And so within that context, Elon also said this week that he was sleeping at the Twitter HQ and he was going to do so until, and I quote, the organization is fixed. And, yeah.
in my point of view that means it would be sleeping there for the next few months if not a few years but obviously I don't think he sees it like that exactly yeah but at the same time he said that he has Tesla also covered too he said he's gonna work on Tesla also this week even though he's sleeping at
Obviously, Tesla has a lot of Twitter HQ are in San Francisco and Tesla has a lot of presence in the Bay Area, including Fremont Factory, but also the the former HQ in Palo Alto that are still used as offices for a lot of engineers and whatnot.
But yeah, this trial right now is very interesting because personally, if you want my opinion on it, I think it's kind of dumb because I remember all the naysayers back then in 2018 when the compensation plan was approved. Everyone was like, all right, this is crazy, a $54 billion compensation plan. But
that is only achieved if he gets all the trenches from the plan and each trench is associated with a milestone on tesla and the milestone involved um increasing revenue 10x and increasing ebitda 10x and profits and all that um maybe more than 10x i don't remember exactly so everyone was like that's impossible and like increasing tesla's value also by by a thousand percent and um
So people were saying like, okay, if he's able to do that, then sure, give him $54 billion. That was the logic back then because no one could see them doing that. And then he did it. So now that he did it, we're like, oh, give that money back. I mean, I'm not...
Like if you're a Tesla investor, are you really that mad that that happened? So I kind of go under Stanley Elon's perspective on this, that it looks like it's just the lawyers making the money here by asking a guy that has nine shares. Like if you really ask the guy that has nine shares, I would assume that he had those nine shares in 2018. Like are you that mad if you had nine shares in 2018 and now you're in 2022 and the stock is –
I mean, probably at least 10X in 2018, I would assume. Yep, 10X. Even with the recent stock drop, I think. Yeah. And there was another interesting thing that came out to the trial is thanks to Mr. James Murdoch from...
What's the company's name again? He's of the Fox Murdochs. Yeah, Fox. But that's not... It's Fox... News Corp. Yeah, News Corp. There you go. Thank you. Of News Corp fame, he's also a board director on the Tesla's board. And he was on stand this week.
He was on STEM this week and he was asked...
about if Elon has ever brought up a potential successor for his role as a CEO. Because that's another thing that everyone's talking about this week. Elon's spending more time at Twitter, like should get a new CEO at Tesla, should get a new CEO at Twitter. And Elon did say on Stan this week that he actually plans to have a new CEO at Twitter. Like he won't be CEO forever. It's just through this reorganization of the company.
And, but there's still talk of him being, because even before Twitter, there was talk of him not being CEO forever. Like adding Twitter to his plate is just one more thing because before that people were already concerned about spending his time between Tesla and SpaceX and then Neuralink and then the boring company and all that. So the guy has a ton on his plate.
And what's interesting here is that Murdoch, at his deposition that was months ago, he did say that no, Elon never brought up the idea of a specific successor to take over his role as Tesla CEO.
But this week on the stand, he was asked again and he said, actually, since the time of a deposition, so recently, Elon has suggested a potential successor for the role of Tesla CEO without naming him. But that opens the door for speculation. And we are good at that. And obviously, you see, if you're watching right now on YouTube, like I have the picture that I use for
for this article was a picture of Elon with Herbert Diaz, former CEO of Volkswagen. And that is, Diaz is probably the number one
potential successor, I would assume. If someone else is higher ranked than him as a potential successor, he's really under the radar, that person. Because Diaz was... I mean, it's a rumor, but I think it's pretty much confirmed because Diaz was asked about it and he didn't deny. And I think Elon also didn't deny that...
Before he became CEO of Volkswagen, he moved from BMW, I think. And he was... So during that transition, which was in 2014, 2015, around the time of the Dieselgate scandal, and he took over at Volkswagen, apparently he had an offer from Tesla to take over as CEO, and he declined it and went to Volkswagen instead. So we know that
Tesla has most likely courted him before to take over. And now what's interesting is that apparently Elon has brought him someone recently in the last four months. And what happened over the last few months, DS has left Volkswagen sort of being almost kicked out of it for being a little bit too pro-EV, it sounds from the perspective of some people.
Of course, there's a lot of infighting between Volkswagen and all the shareholders and the Porsche family and all that. So we don't know exactly what happened, but one of the main dialogue around that has been that DS has been extremely pro-EV and pushing Volkswagen hard to accelerate the transition to HIV vehicles and maybe a little bit too strong toward that direction than the board liked.
But he has a ton of experience leading as an executive in the auto industry, and specifically in the German auto industry. And Tesla is at a stage right now that it wouldn't probably make sense for them to have more like it's just a seasoned executive that is a little bit less controversial than Elon. While Elon stays around
Tesla, too, as like a visionary product architect and whatever kind of weird title he wants on his business cards. But also the other thing I think is interesting is that now I'm pretty sure that he could become chairman of the board again at Tesla, a role that he had to forfeit because of a settlement with the SEC over the years.
tweets about taking Tesla private. So maybe it would make sense for him to become like some kind of executive chairman of the board and be still a great influence on Tesla, but having someone running the day to day. I think you're on board with that, Seth, if I'm not wrong, right? Yeah, he sounds like a really good candidate. I think part of the reason he got
ousted from BW was they were a little bit behind in software. So that part maybe doesn't vote as well. But, you know, we clearly know that Elon likes him and he was in the running. I mean, that was a monumental mistake. Like if he had the choice at any point to pick between Tesla and
I don't know if I would have chosen BW. Although... 2015, though. 2015. Also, working for Elon probably isn't a walk in the park either. So I don't know what you do there. But it is interesting. I did see another analyst named Gene Munster throughout some other names. So Herbert Diaz is his first one.
JB Straubel from back in the day. They could buy Redwood materials or something and bring them in. Drew Baglino. I think JB would want to focus on the Redwood material thing. Redwood material is going to be a giant business, I think. And across different car makers as well. They've already signed up a bunch of people. A bunch of automakers. Including Volkswagen and Audi, in which case.
So Drew Baglino, what do you think about his chances there? I mean, I like Drew Baglino a lot. But if anything, I think Drew should become CTO. Elon is super stingy with those C-level roles and all that. He's basically CEO and you have Kurt. Sorry, what's his name? Kurt.
- Kirk Horn? - Yeah, Zach Kirk Horn. Zachary Kirk Horn as CFO, which you kind of need a CFO. But then other than that, like all the other C-suites, I mean, there's a chief compliance officer, I guess, but I mean, no one cares about that. Just kidding. Yes. So like, I think if like an asteroid came down and blew up Elon, I think interim CEO would probably be Zach, right? Most likely, yeah.
Right. So no planning. Zach's probably the default. Like usually the CFO is like the default or COO and there isn't one. So no, there's no COO either. So that's why I'm thinking like I don't think Drew would probably be made CEO, but making him now, whether Elon stays CEO or not, making him CTO would make a ton of sense, I think.
That would probably be one of the dream scenarios for Yolando if he somehow is not CEO anymore, like having JB CEO and Drew CTO. But I just don't see JB coming back yet.
Redwood is doing some very important things right now that needs to be done. Right. And then this guy kind of went off the wagon there. Vinit Mehta, another Tesla veteran. Alexander Wojcicki, which is the manager of propulsion at SpaceX. Lars Morevi, a Tesla executive for 12 years, is the VP of vehicle engineering and previously worked as a designer at Honda. And then Eddie Q from Apple. That's probably the worst voice I've ever heard.
Yeah, I mean, I think in genius smoking, whatever smoking I want. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I think this is probably the odds on favorite at the moment. No, I would agree. All right. Should we talk a little bit about EcoFlow before moving on? Yep. Let me grab that real quick.
And then we're going to discuss, we have a few more news items to discuss, and then we're going to jump into the comment section. So we are live. Remember, people, this show is live. If you have any comments, any questions for us, you can put them in the comment section right now, and we'll get to them in about 10, 15 minutes. All right. This week's sponsor is EcoFlow. EcoFlow's Black Friday sale is here. So it's the perfect time to score a deal on an EcoFlow portable power and solar panel solution.
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Thanks, EcoFlow. All right, a few more news items to discuss real quick before we jump into the comments section.
Another interesting tidbit of information that came from the Tesla trial, it was when Tesla chairwoman Robin Denholm was on the stand and seems completely unrelated to the trial itself, but gave us an interesting information that I think is newsworthy. She talked about the planned production capacity for the Tesla Semi this year.
She said that they are aiming to produce about 100 trucks this year. So this is interesting because we don't have much information on that. Back last year when we first reported that Tesla was planning some low-volume production at the building just outside of Gigafactory Nevada, we heard from our sources that Tesla was aiming to produce about five trucks per week.
So that was last year. So they might have changed that a little bit, but not too much. Like this is a low volume production facility. And we know that Tesla is aiming to move production to Gigafactory Texas, where they would produce a lot more. Elon recently said up to 50,000 units per year as soon as 2024, which sounds extremely optimistic if you want to ask me. But what between now and then, what between production that officially started
in early October. So deliveries are expected in the next few weeks and December 1st, but early October is when production started. So between now and the end of the year, how many trucks can they produce? How many trucks they can produce? About 100 units, it sounds like. So pretty good. That's actually higher than I thought it would be. If Tesla delivers over 50 Tesla Samayas here, I would be pleasantly surprised.
But then 100 units, between 50 and 100 units, that would set them up well for 2023 for a decent amount of deliveries. And they will have to deliver a significant amount because 50,000 units in 2024 is... How can you ramp for a few thousand in 2023 to 50,000 in 2024? It makes no sense to me. But that's what they said. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now. But it's going to be an interesting ramp up to follow because...
If you have the capacity to produce 50,000 Tesla semi trucks per year in 2024, you just
change the whole trucking industry on its head because if the cost of operation is lower than another cost energy efficiency is lower than two kilowatt hour per mile like Tesla has been saying it's a game changer because then you need less than 20 cents to move that truck 20 miles in terms of fuel cost which is nowhere near that with a diesel truck and then you put all the other potential maintenance
savings that you can add to it with an electric truck, a lot fewer moving parts and a complete game changer because that has nothing to do with trying to convince the consumers to move to an electric vehicle, which is a difficult task to do, though it is happening at an incredible pace.
Trucks is different. Trucks is not a lot of convincing to do other than is this going to save us money? And if their answer is yes, it's like, well, we're going to go on this one when we need to update our fleet and they need to do it fairly regularly because
These trucks are on the road non-stop and they brake. So, yeah, I think this is going to be massive. Not that Tesla is the only one doing it, but the only one with the kind of specs we're talking about here. And this is one of those things that because of with a load with the 80,000-pound truck fully loaded,
to get 500 miles of range, which you kind of need more because this is your job to drive. It's not about like, oh, I want to go on a 500 mile road trip. And if I have a 300 mile cars, I need to stop and charge. There's nothing to do with that. It's about like time is money for them. So having that longer range is important. And the other trucks we've seen so far from Freightliner, from Volvo, from BYD, they don't have that kind of range with that kind of capacity. So this is a big deal.
Yeah, and somebody in the comments or nobody in the comments said Tesla should be with their own biggest customer for the Semi. They obviously deliver a lot of cars via Semi, so they could be their own customer. And that's typically the case usually when Tesla releases a new vehicle. They dog food it, meaning that they use it themselves. So it'll be interesting to see if we'll see Semis with loads of Teslas driving around.
Yeah, I mean, you kind of have to, too. The whole concept behind it is like, oh, it's going to save you money. Well, I want to save money, too. I'm going to make those trucks for myself. So, yeah, it makes a ton of sense. Like if they're not using it themselves, then it's a red flag. It's like, is it really saving you money? So that's going to be interesting to take a look at. And the last piece of news here.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the Quebec Battery Valley. So we talked about this a few times because there's a lot of project coming on in the Quebec Battery Valley, which is around Bécan Côte, just outside of Trois-Rivières, which is the biggest city between Montreal and Quebec City in Quebec.
And what's interesting is like there's been a ton of new projects related to battery material production. Things that are kind of unique in North America right now because China has had a hold on that industry for a long time. Even though we are producing now battery cells in North America, like at Gigafactory Nevada, there's not a lot of production of the cathode and anode materials and other materials that need to go into those battery cells. The kind of processing, the refining of those materials, refining lithium, refining graphite, refining nickel. So,
These projects include, we've talked about them, about like Nouveau Mont-Grafay that's
producing uh that's building a natal material processing plant there you have namaska lithium that's producing lithium hydroxide processing plant you have posco that's making also cattle material for ev batteries there and um you also have veil that's planning a large nickel sulfate production facility they're all for batteries they hasn't have a battery factory announced there though there's been some rumors including tesla looking and poking around there
but all the ingredients to make battery cells are there. So it would make sense for someone to pull the trigger soon and just, all right, let's make also battery cells there.
But what has been very interesting too, that's the kind of trend that I didn't really identify until this week, is that GM has taken note of Quebec's battery valley and is snapping up all the production capacity already. We talked about the sort of POSCO $400 million cattle material facility that's in partnership with GM. They want the capacity for that. So they already had that. That I remember. I knew about that.
But then also, this one is less confirmed, but pretty close to be confirmed, is that GM Mercedes announced a partnership with Live End. And Live End is a partner in the Mascalizion. It's like a 50-50 partner with the Mascalizion.
Quebec government and they snapped up the capacity the upcoming capacity from Liven to produce lithium dioxide in North America and we assume that the capacity is going to be coming from Damascus lithium so GM also snapped that up
And now this week, what they announced, they announced that the Vail facility that they were planning there, GM also signed an agreement to secure a significant portion, if not all, because they secured 25,000 metric ton of battery-grade nickel sulfate and lithium.
All I could find is that Vail is planning a 25,000 metric ton per year sulfate capacity there. So it looks like basically they're going to be just working for GM there, unless they plan to increase capacity. And that's a lot what people are talking about, because everything that is already planned for that new Quebec battery valley, which most of it hasn't been built yet. It's all projects that are announced and currently being built. The capacity is not there yet. And that's already all sold out to GM mostly, it sounds like. So...
We assume that a lot of them will increase capacity over time and make some available for other projects. But yeah, the Quebec Battery Valley is no joke now. A lot of investment there. And it's a small region too. It's 30 minutes from where I live right now. It's already super low in employment there. So I would assume that these projects could change the region a lot. Pretty excited for it, to be honest.
All right, should we jump into the comments section? Yep, let's hit that. All right, we have DracoDragon. Any coincidence because of the Dragon SpaceX rocket or just coincidence? Yeah, I don't think it only has to do with it, but I like the name DracoDragon. It sounds like it's a solid name, right? Yeah. What are you driving? I'm driving a dragon. Can you beat that? I'm driving gravity from this. Yeah.
Yeah, or as Greg Paulin says, the Lucid Star would be a good one. Yeah, that's not a bad one. Yeah, that's going to be the next one probably. That's a good call. All right, Chris Williams, what is your prediction for the year when EV sales will outpace internal combustion sales? Global or? Yeah, that's a good question. Like in Norway, that was a year ago or two years ago. Yeah, more than a year ago, I think. I mean...
in the u.s let's talk to the u.s where someone else is uh is from the u.s um because because globally i mean globally i think timing with the u.s is going to be pretty close but because you're going to have a lot of like like south america and everything but overall south america doesn't contribute that much to the overall uh car buying again a new car like uh like chris said so i'm i'm gonna be i i think it's gonna happen fast i think because
What we've been seeing lately is not just like EV cells booming. We've seen ice cells crashing and people just attributed that first to the pandemic in 2020 and everything. But it's not going well. It's not coming back well. Like 2022 has been bad for ice cells in the US. So you have to assume that and
And so bad that EVs are not even compensating for it. So overall, sales are down too. So the way I'm thinking is like what I've been predicting for a long time is happening where people are like, if it's not an EV that I'm going to be buying next, I'm not buying anything. So I'm thinking that the market is going to be huge on like every EV that's
they can produce is going to sell. And also people are going to keep their cars. So like the mechanics are going to still have a lot of business going forward. People are going to keep their car longer instead of buying new because the resale value of those vehicles with everything going EV is not going to be as great. So I want to say 2025. Is that too crazy? No, that's what I was going to say as well.
And, you know, you were kind of alluding to it, but I think there's a portion of the population, there's a lot of people moving into cities. I think there's a portion of the population that, you know, gets by with e-bikes and scooters and Lyft, and they just, they don't need to buy their own bike, their own EVs or internal combustion vehicles. So,
I think that's a little bit of the vibe at the LA Auto Show. It was kind of like, we love to talk about EVs, but our main business where we make all our money is internal combustion engines, and we need to sell these things because we're dropping like flies here. That was kind of the vibe I was getting here at the show. Yeah, that makes sense. I know it sounds crazy because right now we're like, what, 8% in the US or 6%? Something like that.
of EVs. So to go from that in 2022 to over 50 in 2025, it sounds crazy. But I think it's very feasible. Yeah. And being in Los Angeles, where I'm at now, you see there's 10 or 20% of the cars on the road are EVs. So it's definitely a future here. Sorry, you have to also think too that
Why I'm thinking 2025 because 2024, 2025 is when a lot of those giant new factories are coming online too, like the new Ford factories in the South and the GM in Ohio and all that. When all of those are coming online, that's going to be the biggest impact, honestly. Yeah, on that note, we have Peter going to the Ford Blue Oval factory opening, I believe, on December 10th. Yeah, so that'll be...
All right. Friend of the show, Sylvain Boulanger. Is that right? Sylvain Boulanger. Okay. I ruined it. He is, let's see, the Beck... Maybe you should just read that. Yeah, the Beck-on-Cole region. People don't know what's going to hit them with all those battery factory that are coming. I don't know. I don't know. There's no battery factory coming just yet. That's the thing, though. That's...
There's a lot of plans that are coming up with, and yeah, that's going to have a big impact on the regions already, all those battery materials. But yeah, I think the biggest impact is going to be when there's actually someone that's going to build batteries there. That's going to be a much bigger impact. And then maybe even cars, they can build some cars. That would be cool. So yeah, Sylvain is also asking me if I'm coming to the VinFast Tour opening in Montreal. I don't even know when that is. So that's a no for me. We have...
So at the LA Auto Show, VinFast was actually giving rides in there. And we weren't allowed to drive and it was just around the parking lot, but they were giving rides in their vehicles. So that's the first time we've ever ridden a VinFast and it was a fine ride. It wasn't anything special, but they're actually making cars that move. Good for them. That's better than a lot of things we've seen at the LA Auto Show in years past. All right, moving on.
All right. We're talking about Elon's successors. Shana Sullivan says Carlos Gozen would be an option as CEO if he can get out of Lebanon. I don't think anyone wants that kind of eat right now. Carlos is a bit of a hot potato for people. I don't think anyone wants to do that.
Weird situation, that one. I'm looking forward to that. I think they're doing a documentary on it. I'm looking forward to seeing that. Yeah, because if everything he said is true, which, I mean, it's hard to... There's definitely a way to look at it where he comes out on top, for sure. Even though he's a fugitive. But there's a way for it, especially if it has to do with EV, him being ousted and...
There's some credibility to that considering what Nissan has done since then. I'm not saying that it is true, but if it is, this guy is going to be a folk hero. He should be at least. All right, Google Ponzi. In my opinion, Herbert Diess does not have the skill set to run Tesla. Maybe another legacy OEM, but not Tesla. I alluded to the fact that Volkswagen has had
Quite a bit of software issues, especially on their ID3 and ID4 vehicles. And that may have contributed to his ouster at VW. Joel, what do you think? I mean, it's definitely true that they had some issues with it. Like, how much is DS responsible for that? I don't know. I mean, the main thing for Tesla going forward is always going to be, can they...
retain top talent, can they attract top talent? And that has been Tesla's biggest force so far. And I don't think DS would impede that in any way personally.
If anything, like Elon right now is that he's on the verge right now where like if you're an hardcore engineer which he loves that word hardcore and everything, he probably is still the number one person you want to work for but at the same time, he's doing things that he's definitely driving some talent away too at the same time like this. What is happening right now at Twitter? Sure, like he's optimizing a situation for only the most hardcore people to stay
But it's that sustainable long term. Like you can have some great engineering talent that just don't want to kill themselves at work. That's the two are not necessarily exclusive. Yeah, I don't know if I would ever want to work for Elon. But all right. Gox back, in my opinion, JB Straubel will never go back to Tesla. I think Freddie, you agree with that?
Yeah, I'd be surprised. I don't think because he wouldn't want to and things like that. It's because he had the right idea with Redwood where we need to build in North America strong supply chains for battery production. And that's what he's doing. So, I mean, more power to him. He's doing important work that Tesla is going to benefit from too also. Yeah. And then Wall Ride says Drew. So, I think there's some support for him. Let's see.
Are you sure Tesla is canceling solar installations in what areas? We reported on that last week. Yeah. I mean, they rarely told clients that and they've canceled hundreds of installations. So, yes. Yeah, I think that was pretty universally accepted. Yeah, I mean...
I don't believe Tesla 100% that they're actually completely pulling out of those areas because that makes no sense to me because they are prime areas for solar. So it is weird to me, but that's what they're saying right now and that's what they're doing. Is it just temporary because they're focusing some installation crews to other projects? I don't know, but yeah, we have to take in for their words for now.
But a lot of people, they're reaching out to me. They're like, hey, they haven't canceled mine or something. That doesn't mean that they haven't canceled hundreds of times. There's thousands in the pipeline right now. All right, Joel Sapp again. Question, do you see Tesla selling their NAX equipment, NACS equipment, car side and charger side to other OEMs and charging network operators? I think charging network operators might make some sense. I don't think...
I don't think other auto companies until they, you know, redesign their cars are going to be interested in that. And I'm not even sure that's going to happen. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, there's some small OEMs probably like, I don't, we don't hold their breath for GM or Ford to adopt.
the standard. But like Rivian could make sense doing it. I'm not saying that they will either, but Abterra Operant is going to do it. Maybe Lucid should do it. I don't know. It is a better standard. It's a better connector. There's no way around it. So why not do it? Yeah, I think before, you know, GM or Ford or even, you know, smaller companies, you
get on board they kind of have to have some assurance that you know what tesla is going to do and they have to have some say in like the future of it i guess so just you know saying it's an open standard doesn't really make it so uh all right google ponzi in my opinion canada and australia will be two large beneficiaries of the biden ira no doubt about that yeah that's for sure for sure helping in mining industries and refining industries in those place right now
Reflect the Sun says like Apple, it seems Tesla would 95% promote from within. So yeah, Apple promotes from within quite a bit. I think Tesla probably does the same. Yeah. I mean, there's a, yeah, they promote a lot from within, but also the whole stick is they're good at attracting engineering talent. So they hire a lot from outside too.
I think that's about it. And then Gook said, Fred, Twitter is not equal to Tesla. Did I actually say that? Yeah. I don't know why you said that because I don't think I've ever said that.
Nor ever will. Or maybe he said that like in, in term of attracting talent, that that's true. And when I, when I, I referred to what Elon is doing at Twitter right now, referring to the fact that the kind of culture that he's obviously like, if you haven't read any of the emails that leak that he sent out to employees right now, he's obviously trying to implement some kind of all core engineering culture, but it involves a kind of a work-life balance that is on non-existent. So,
which Tesla has been known for SpaceX too for a long time so I'm saying that that adds its value for sure it works to a degree but you are inevitably driving away some talent too when you do that some actual engineering talent there's just no way around it that's all I'm saying
All right. But that's it for us this week. Appreciate for you for listening to the show. If you are still listening right now, you can do a few things for us that would be super helpful to help grow the show and help promote Electric's mission, which I hope you share with us, which is to accelerate the advent of electric transportation and renewable energy. And
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