Tesla launches Model 3 refresh, Model S/X and FSD pricing update, FSD Beta tries to kill me, and more
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on and we are live everyone for a new episode of the electric podcast i am fred lambert your host and as usual i'm joined by seth winchell how are you doing today seth i'm good all right coming us live from berlin for ifa is that right that's right um sorry for the sound quality right now uh my dongle for my external microphone i have like

Nice, fancy Shure microphone, but it is useless without a dongle that just seemingly gave up on me right now. So we're going to have to endure this level of sound quality coming out of my MacBook Pro. I hope it's tolerable. Again, I apologize. I'm going to try to fix that by next week because we're going to be doing this show from the road for the next two weeks. All right, let's jump right in because...

We might not have good sound quality with this show, but we have good news. Well, not good news necessarily, but a lot of important news. Lots of news. Yeah, lots of important news. Quantity is high. Yeah, the quantity. But also the impact of the news. It's not necessarily good or bad. It's just big news.

Let's start by the obvious, the Model 3 Highland, Model 3 Refresh, Model 3 Facelift, Model 3 Updated, however you want to call it. It's here now.

And yes, it's exactly what we've been expecting based on the prototypes that have been spotted out there. This sharper, more aggressive front fascia, updated taillight, updated headlights. A little bit more interior updates maybe than we were expecting. So that's nice on this front. But yeah, the exterior, you see the pictures here.

It's very much what we've saw, especially the prototype that has a halfway cover that we already saw the front end. This is it basically. I've been trying to get a pulse on people in terms of what they think of the update and it's kind of a mixed bag. A lot of people love it very much. A lot of people say it's pretty mild and the front end is a bit polarizing where people say it's a step back from the front end.

Personally, I love it. I mean, I said it when it first leaked a few months ago, but I very much like the front hand. I think it's a lot sharper, makes the car look a little bit more aggressive, and

And the rest of the, like, I admit that the rest of the design updates are fairly small, but they match together very well. Like, with the sharpness of the front end, I think the taillight and the headlights are, complements it very well. I don't know what you think on it, Seth. Yeah, fully agree with that. I love the lights. You know, the fascia, I think, is fine. I guess it helped with the coefficient of drag. We dropped it down a little bit, which helps with the mileage.

But overall, I think it looks great. I'm not always a fan of Tesla design. I'm a little bit on the fence, obviously, with the Cybertruck. But I really like this thing. I like the front lights. I like the back lights. And I love the more aerodynamic. So all good. The badging was slightly updated too. Now it reads out Tesla in the back rather than just the T. Yeah, I thought that was interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, you briefly mentioned the better efficiency. So it is resulting in a longer range. There was a rumor about a battery pack update too with the new CATL cells. Tesla in its usual manner has not

release any details under the hood uh they did have the launch they did have some launch event in norway and in china uh because the vehicle right now is uh only listed in europe and in asia it's not listed in north america right now it's still the whole model three if you go to the model three configurator at least it was this morning when i check out and check yeah it's still i just checked a few minutes ago it's still the old one so does that mean that the uh

the new the highland model 3 is only coming out of china that would suggest yeah oh i should have checked in canada too because that would have confirmed it because this does ship to canada now from china but not in the us for uh import duties reason

So yeah, so we don't know exactly if they did change the battery pack, but it is resulting in an 11 to 12% increase in WLTP range to 421 miles for the long range version, 244 miles for the standard range rear-wheel drive version. And so that might purely be explained through aerodynamics improvements. It's not clear.

The wheels as well. Yeah, the new wheels. That's what I was getting to now. The new wheels are nice. Nice new options, especially the new Nova one with the blacked out side. You don't see them very well in this picture here, but they are very cool.

I have a lot, like I was saying, quite a bit more interior changes than we originally expected. So the biggest one, the one that we listed first, I think that's the one that makes a bigger difference for people, especially for people with children's. The eight-inch rear touchscreen, so that was previously only for Model S and X. It has now made it to the Model 3.

deleted stock. So that's also one that has been talked about a lot, but it's the more controversial one. It's something that Tesla has already brought to other models. People are not too excited about it. It has been replaced again by the, um, force touch buttons on the, uh, on the steering wheel. So you either love it or hate it.

Ventilated front seat. So that's nice. Cushier rear seat. Oh, I didn't know that. That's nice. Sound system being updated from 14 to 17 speakers. Apparently there's an improved Bluetooth microphone performance, improved Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, quieter interior. So that's

Remains to be tested. Customizable interior ambient lighting. Yeah, there's a very nice new LED strip that goes all around the dash, which is pretty cool. It's a nice little... Do we know if we can turn that off entirely? Well, it's customizable, so I would assume so. But yeah, you can match the color of the car. You can match other things like that. So I think that's really cool. You can see it a little bit here.

It's red right now. I mean, I have to be honest. One of the things I like about the Model 3 so much is that it's really dark inside when you're driving at night. So I don't know if I would really want a LED strip, but obviously some people would. I would assume a Tesla would have thought of that. And when they say customizable, I would assume it's like you can remove it completely. Larger rear trunk went from 561 liters to 594 liters.

It also looked like the opening may have been increased a little bit. I saw a picture of the back, and it looks like the top is rounded a little bit more. Yeah, they also have included the taillights completely. The full taillights assembly is in the trunk lid. So that should also open things up more. Apparently, though, I didn't notice, but it's not approved in the U.S.,

to have your taillights completely assembled. Like you can have them like halfway or like there's a percentage, but not fully. So maybe that's, that's gonna have to change the design in the U S maybe that's why it's not in the U S available right now that the refresh version, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm very much looking at, there's a price increase too. Also. It's a, it's a little bit more expensive, but not much. I think it's like,

10% more or something like that. So we can forget about the Model 3 being the $25,000, $30,000 car that we were... I mean, it is with the discounts and the incentive, but not the next-gen platform. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing you in person. There's a chance we might see you next week at IAA, you think? I think so. I would give it 50-50, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

I was genuinely surprised that they didn't do it here. I mean, there's like 100,000 people running around IFA. And they have a booth there, right? They have a booth. Just roll it in. Yeah. All right. So Tesla kind of did a little news dump last night with that. So everyone focuses on the new Model 3 Highland.

But there was a few things that would change at the same time. So the main one is a little change in the configurations and pricing from all S and X. Mainly, they killed the standard range already. So those software lock standard range that we talked about a few weeks ago that just launched are now gone. And they slashed the price of the long range version, which is now the standard one, to make them the same price and cheaper price.

than the standard range. So this is not actually that big of a deal for Tesla because...

The standard range were the long range. It's just software lock. Same hardware. Yeah. So it's the same hardware. They just slashed the price. So probably that Tesla didn't like the response that they got from the orders of the standard range. And they were like, you know what? Let's just give them the long range at the same price because we were selling it for that price anyway. Yeah. But what if you bought one last week and you're still software lock? For sure, Tesla has to refund you. It makes no sense whatsoever. Yeah.

I'm not even sure they delivered any in the last, it's been two weeks, three weeks max, two weeks, I think, since they launched this thing. So, I mean, if you are one of those. So there's not going to be any software locked Model S's? I would assume not. I would assume that either you get a refund or you get it unlocked. I mean, they knew this was happening. Maybe that was just like a bait and switch kind of thing. Like they didn't want to sell. They still wanted people to buy it at a more expensive price, but they wanted to

kind of sell some more as well. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not so sure. But yeah, so specifics. Now the Model S starts at $75,000. Which is crazy. It's like the lowest price it's been in a long time. Yes, because that's $3,500 less than the

uh previous one that was the standard range one the software lock one so it's even cheaper now and same thing for the model x which now starts at 79 well 80 000 basically but just below 80 000 so that what you get you can get the full tax credit in the u.s yeah so obviously this is not a good look for tesla in terms of demand like it shows that the demand for the s and x was uh

Not at the level at all, because those are massive, massive price cuts. But I can also understand why, especially for Mola S, it's the cheapest it's been for a while, like you said, so they're going to get some demand from that for sure. But in terms of the Mola X, a lot of people, they just don't buy Mola.

Even though they are on the market for a more luxury vehicle around that pricing and everything, they won't get one that is electric because it doesn't have access to the tax credit and they feel like they're leaving money on the table. There's a lot of people like that. It's just human nature. Even though it's the Model X, I want the Model X more than the Model Y.

And I can afford them all. Maybe you can even afford them all, X. You can buy it cash and everything, but you're going to get them all, Y, anyway, because you're like, why would I leave? The government is offering $7,500. I don't want that. It's just pure human nature. It's the problem with the way that the incentives are set up in the U.S. and in many markets. Many markets other than Norway, really. Norway is the only one that managed to avoid that by...

Instead of incentivizing the EVs, they're penalizing the polluting cars, which probably makes more sense. Anyway, so now since for an SUV, the limit is $80,000 for pricing for the MSRP. Now the base Model X is eligible for it. So I think that's going to be a big boost in order and demand for the Model X because it is arguably the top car.

SUV out there in terms of performance and range and all that. And this might be the least expensive Model X has ever been if you include the tax credit. Yeah, I mean, there was a standard range before, I think, that was around this price. But yeah, with the tax credit, yeah, with the tax credit, this is basically a $75,000 car. Yeah, it's getting there. And then also, if you're thinking about a

70 something thousand dollar third row EV, you know, you're thinking about a Rivian R1S, you're thinking about a upcoming Volvo or Kia, but now it's like, you can get a Model X, almost a plaid version for the same price as a Rivian. It's kind of, I mean, obviously Rivian goes off road. It's a different vehicle altogether, but

as far as third row evs are concerned you know rivian's not like kind of a no-brainer anymore yeah it's uh it shakes up the space like the space was uh was getting settled now with the the rivian and the the volvo and the ev9 and all that like it was like this is where the options because model x it was just not in the game now the more like especially if you look at the average new car prices in the us right now like it's still a luxury vehicle it's still a 70 000 plus vehicle but

It's not too bad when you look at what's on the market right now. Yeah. All right. And the last thing that was like dropped on us last night is probably the most surprising one. There's a price cut on the full self-driving. It has the package $3,000 less in the US, $3,500 less in Canada. So that's $12,000 instead of $15,000. So that shakes up a lot of things now because...

I mean, there's already a lot of things that are controversial about Tesla selling that package in the first place. Tesla increasing the price of the package over time. Elon claiming it's an appreciating... Tesla vehicles are becoming an appreciating asset because of that. Now, we already were laughing about that because it hasn't proven to be true so far because Tesla itself devalues FSD on their trade-ins and all that, or at least they did before the whole...

amnesty, one-time amnesty that Elon is talking about until the end of the quarter. But anyway, that's neither here or there. This is an actual price decrease on something that Elon has been telling everyone that cares to listen that the price will keep increasing and Tesla improves the system. Now, at the same time, it's a bit funny because Tesla just released this new update this week that I just got, which I strongly believe that is a

decrease in performance for for fsd beta so maybe tesla is just very serious about this idea that they increase the price as performance improve that they now even decrease the price as the performance decreases because we can get into but this new update is is real bad in my opinion but anyway wait so do you think people who paid 15 000 over the last year or so should get a 3 000 dollar

credit yeah i just uh tweeted that actually like i i tweeted if anyone actually paid fifteen thousand dollars for this thing because i don't know of anyone that did to be honest with you well somebody i'm sure i'm sure some people have not a lot though because the take rate on this is less than eight percent globally and we just made like it's harder like like globally it makes sense that it's extremely low just because fsdb is not even available outside of non-america but

Even in North America, I think it's below 15% take rate and probably has gone down since it's been $15,000, even though that has been since FSDB came out.

So, yeah, I don't know of any people that paid for it. But yeah, if you paid $15,000 for it, I would request a $3,000 rebate simply because you bought it with Elon saying that the price will keep increasing, which is incentivizing you to buy it now instead of buying later.

And Tesla doesn't do anymore this thing where, oh, if you buy it before the delivery, you get it cheaper than after the delivery. So now it's like completely up to you. You can have bought the car two years ago and having bought the FSD last week for $15,000, you would have been completely screwed of $3,000 for absolutely no reason. So yeah, I hope that this is offering those rebates right now.

I doubt it's going to be like a big rebate program. No, I don't think it's going to be anything. But I think a lot of people are upset. Like I would be super upset if I paid $15,000 for FSD. For good reason. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm upset I paid like $7,000 for it.

Yeah. I mean, I guess that's the next article we can get into it that, uh, I, I tried the FSD, um, 11.4.7 that was pushed this weekend. And literally like I've normally I'm careful with my choice of words here, but it felt like it was trying to kill me last night, driving from Shawinigan to Montreal. I was on the, uh, on the 20 highway and, uh,

I say FSD better on the highway now because autopilot is no more. If you have FSD better, it is the FSD that's powering autopilot now since the merger of the stacks with V11. And what is happening right now is what I feared would happen with the merger of the stack because I was very comfortable with autopilot. I thought it was doing very well on the highway and I feared that

that going with the merger, the stack merger with FSD would potentially give it a few step backs, which with Tesla, to be fair, as warned about, they said that FSD is a two-step forward, one step back. And I think this one is a big step back.

Because it did something that it never used to do. You remember back in the day, autopilot would sometimes try to take an exit that it's not supposed to? Oh, yeah. That was like the main issue. Like this and phantom braking was like the main issue with original autopilot. But it was mostly fixed. Like I haven't had that problem literally in years. Now I had some of that problem, but even worse because it wasn't actually an exit ramp it tried to take. So...

I was on the A20 and the car automatically passes a car. So it goes into the left lane to pass a car. And then as it passes a car, it veers to the median strip, like in the middle of nowhere. And I had my hands on the wheel. So I was able to correct it just in time before I go off road. And I was almost going to go into the other lane and overcorrect it. But I got right back in the center right away. Okay.

I freaked out for a second. It was like real scary because I thought literally the car was trying to get me off road. I didn't see what was on the left side at all. It was just, I was just looking ahead at the road. And then, you know, when you take over control like that, FSD disengages and it tells you like, oh, you've disengaged with the pilot. Do you want to give some feedback? I was like, hell yeah, I want to give some feedback. So I get the voiceover thing and I'm like,

I didn't know what happened. I just told them, I just, the autopilot just tried to kill me. So please fix it so that they can at least like get the video of it or not. I was going to record a video of myself. Like you can see in these pictures, I have like the little video screen on my car because I have my storage device attached to it. But the video thing was not on it. And I just realized that there at that moment. So I don't know with that last update, it looks like my storage device is like not working anymore. I don't know.

I need to fix that or look into it because I don't know what's happening because I wish I had video of this. But then I was able to replicate the problem right after. So,

I reactivated FSD right after it, which I know people are like, hey, he just tried to kill you. What did you reactivate it? I reactivated very consciously that let's see if I can replicate what happens again. And sure enough, seconds later after I grab it, I put my speed back to 118 kilometers an hour, which is my cruise control speed on the highways here in Quebec, which is reasonable speed. It's about 73 miles per hour. Mm-hmm.

and sure enough, I started passing a car on the left and the car does the exact same thing, veers off to the left. But this time I saw that there was one of those, I don't know how you call those, but like it's basically a U-turn area for emergency vehicles. You're not supposed to go there, but like police vehicles would park there to give people tickets and everything. So it saw that and tried to veer through that. Yeah.

And that's extremely dangerous because that's not like taking an exit ramp that you're not supposed to, because in that exit ramp, at least the exit ramp is designed for you to slow down in that exit ramp to take that curve. There, there's no room to slow down at all. So if you're in there, you're in there. And I was for sure going to crash off road, which would have been very dangerous or even more dangerous potentially is like, as I corrected the risk of over correcting it and smashing into a car on the right lane, which is,

is likely to be there because when you're on the left lane, I mean, you're supposed to just use it to pass, which is what I was doing in this case. Anyway, so now I was able to send another bug report to Tesla and explain to them, even though it like it cut off in the middle of it as I was explaining to it. But I'm sure if they can pull the video, they're going to see what happened here.

But this is a behavior that's brand new to this update that I've never seen that before. And it's very dangerous behavior. And after posting it this morning, I had a bunch of people that reached out to me. They said that they saw the same thing. I got some people saying that they get the same thing in this new update. Would they realize that in this new update? So it might be very new, but I got some people that told me that the last update too, uh, or 3. Uh, like the 11.4.5, I think, uh, was, uh, was also having this issue. So,

Watch out out there. Always use FSD better while you have your hands on the steering wheel and you're looking at the road ready to take control at all times because this is dangerous stuff. Yeah, as Carl in San Diego says, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, Tesla kills you.

Yeah, I mean, the second time I was, I knew what I was doing. Like the first time I was already paying attention. I always pay attention. I don't screw around when I'm using FSD. But I was doing it because I had a suspicion that maybe there was something on the left. But I just, I couldn't see it because of, I wasn't looking that way. And it was at night too. And I realized right then, oh, I don't have, I cannot record this. I can, because you can go back 30 seconds and record this.

Yeah, can you honk the horn and it records or something? I know there's a way to do that, yes. But for me, it's just like you don't really press the button on it. You press the camera button and that records the last 30 seconds. But the option was just not there even though my storage device is connected. I wonder if that's a feature or a bug. Yeah.

Other than driving off the road, was there any other... It was pretty smooth. I was liking it until then. I was like, oh, this is actually a pretty good update until that happened. The one article that I forgot to put in this morning is that Cybertruck one, which I think was pretty interesting. I'm going to find it. Okay, right here.

This new siding, I don't know where this siding is from. On the Cybertruck Owners Club, the picture was posted, but it doesn't say where it is. It looks like it's either a port or it is like a kind of testing area and the picture is leaked. But there's a few things about this siding that is interesting. I want to get into it. First off, what is happening with those doors? I've seen quite a few prototypes of the Cybertruck lately, and they have these doors that look horrific compared to the actual body panels. Right.

I don't know if there are any stainless steel experts that can get explaining this, but I don't want that on my truck. If I have that on my truck, it goes back. But yeah, it's not actually the most interesting about this. The hood was open and there's a sticker on the hood that confirms. It talks about a VIN in the 602. So people say, oh, there's 602 Cybertrucks out there. They can jump and skip some numbers. I wouldn't say that, but

It looks like there might be hundreds of Cybertrucks out there. That's a real possibility. The other thing is that it mentioned dual motor. That is a dual motor version of Cybertruck. Now, there could be other versions out there, but Tesla has been known that generally when they launch a new vehicle, when it launches a new vehicle, it focuses on a single version of that powertrain for production at first. So,

If it was my guess, it would be that the first version of the Cybertruck to launch would be the dual motor version. And then Tesla would launch a tri-motor or single motor later on. That is my best guess for now. A few other interesting things. There was this power supply device that was in the front. Yeah, that looks like an inverter. Yeah, with a bunch of like hand-grounded outlets. And then these ones right here and a 12-volt one too. I don't know if this is for the prototype or this is something that's going to be like the interface and like the...

The front lining is going to go around it, and then you're going to be able to use that. It's not exactly clear, but... I imagine that there's going to be something like that because both the Silverado and the Ford F-150 have really good front power, so...

Yeah, for sure there's going to be something like that. I just don't know if it's exactly going to be that because especially like all the ungrounded one, it's kind of weird, right? You just don't see plugs like that these days. And what's that thing on the bottom? It looks like a volume thing or something. This right here? Yeah. I thought it was like a 12-volt, no? Oh, yeah, I guess it could be a 12-volt. A cap that you open up and it's like a 12-volt plug.

Looks like that to me. Then you have some interior pictures. The front, as leaked before, looks not too updated from what we've seen. This looks like the latest version with the phone holder, most likely wireless charging. The center console is very much a fixed one now. It's not the...

seat anymore it would be very surprising if there's a seat and you get kind of a little glimpse at the back seat which we haven't seen uh since the uh release candidates have been coming out um don't have a great look at the leg room but in terms of headroom looks pretty good looks like beefy seats in the back like the the side seats look quite beefy i like what i'm seeing

No third seat in the front anymore. I know initial Cybertrucks had a three-row front seat. Yeah, it was supposed to be a six-seater. We haven't seen that in a long time. Yeah, it looks like it's done. Then we have this thing right here in the back that says, How's my driving? Call 1-800-ELN-MUSK.

which seems to be just Tesla trolling for its... It appears to me that Tesla might have, the Tesla test engineers on the road might have some kind of instruction to troll people with the Cybertruck test vehicles between this and all of the, like the Tundra wrapped, Toyota Tundra wrapped Cybertruck and the F-150 wrapped Cybertruck. It looks like there's a team going on, a trolling team. Yeah, I mean, they know that the Cybertruck is like

When you see a Cybertruck, you know it's a Cybertruck. It's not like, is that a Ford or a Chevy or whatever. Good marketing, good advertising. People just post them on social media. But those doors, they scare me. Yeah, it's weird.

I've seen a few of prototypes that have that. So I don't know the kind of the way they treat the stainless steel and they don't do the same for the doors that they do for the rest of the other panels. And maybe it's just for testing right now. And that's the result. I don't know if there are any stainless steel experts out there that want to reach out to me and explain the situation. It would be worth it because it's going viral right now. And I would like to explain to people what's happening because I'm sure there's an explanation for it.

All right. We have a few more news items we want to discuss, and then we're going to jump into the comment section, you guys. So if you guys have any questions or any EV topics you want us to discuss today, we're going to have a few minutes at the end of the show to talk about them. So you can put that in the comment section right now if you're on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Not on X, though. Not working with StreamYard right now. You're going to have to work on that.

All right. Biden administration announced a big program for automakers this week. It's $15 billion in funding available for retrofitting existing factories to produce electric vehicles or batteries. So very nice program, which is kind of a lifeline for legacy automakers, because obviously it's going to be aimed at them because they want

They are those that have the existing factories to convert. But at the same time, it could be used by other AV startups, like technically Rivian. Their factories where the R1S and R1T are being produced right now is a former Mitsubishi factory. So technically they could...

they could get some funding through that program because of that even Tesla technically at Fremont Fremont was a former Toyota and GM factory so

that they revived through the electric revolution. So these are all programs that they could use. So what is it? It's $2 billion in grants, up to $10 billion in loans. Some people were like, oh, it's mostly loans and everything. Like, go try to get a big loan right now from a bank. It's going to be a fun process with a very high interest rate. I'm sure these companies are very happy about these government loans. Yeah.

Then there's also separately $3.5 billion in funding to expand domestic manufacturing of battery cells for electric vehicles in the nation's grid. So it sounds like both batteries for EVs and for stationary storage.

There is a little caveat, though, obviously. I mean, it's half a caveat because we know that the Biden administration is very close to the unions and they've tried before to attach incentives about electric vehicles to unionization effort, most famously with the federal tax credit reform last year. It was briefly attached to you need to be from the vehicles in order to be eligible for the tax credit need to be produced by union workers.

it was eventually killed because it goes against the reason why you're getting an incentive on an electric vehicle versus a gasoline one. It's because to represent the fact that it has a much smaller impact on the environment than the gasoline producing one. It's not because it gives union jobs. It doesn't work like that. If you want to have an incentive for vehicles, to buy vehicles from union jobs, you can have that, but separately from the EV ones, it makes no sense.

Anyway, they do mention in there that it is for the domestic conversion grants. So for the grants specifically, it's not for the loan program, it's for the grants program, which is free money, basically. They will give a higher scores to projects that retain collective bargaining agreements, so union jobs, and or those with high existing, high quality, high wage, hourly production workforce.

So technically, if you are a good employer and without a union and you just pay your employee well and have a nice working environment, you should be fine too. But when they've used that language, normally it's kind of a wink wink. You need to pay your union fees.

But anyway, it's still a good program and I hope that people are going to take advantage of it. But I called it a lifeline to legacy automakers and that upset some people. I mean, look at some of the legacy automakers trying to make EVs profitably right now. The list is short. It's hard right now to make money making electric vehicles for legacy automakers or for anyone that's not Tesla really. Yeah.

N-B-Y-D, I should say. So in the U.S., anyone but Tesla. I like Ford with the separation of the business. And I like Ford. I like the fact that they separated the business so we can actually get a good look into what it looks like to be a legacy automaker transitioning into EVs. And it is hard. So these kinds of programs are going to help a lot.

All right. I don't know if you saw this coming this week, but the Mercedes-Benz eSprinter van, the new generation with the longer range, it just got its U.S. pricing. And I don't know, people have been on the fence. Some people are like, oh, this is a good pricing. Some people are like, oh, way too expensive. But again, you have to look everything through the lens of everything is more expensive now because the dollar is devalued and inflation and all that.

So it starts at under 72. I thought it was a little bit more than that. No. Okay. Yeah. The 2024 starts at an MSRP of $72,000 for the standard charging capabilities one and 75,300 for the high output version. So what is the difference between the two? It's fifth. Yeah. Okay. So one is maxed out at 50 kilowatt of DC fast charging and the other one goes to 115. That's dumb as hell. Yep. Yeah.

you shouldn't sell a vehicle. I mean, I get it. I get it actually. So for, if you're just going to use it, it's going to, because a lot of those are used for commercial purposes, obviously. So if you're, you know that you're the way you're going to use, it doesn't require you to fast charge during the day. Then I guess you can save 3000, almost $4,000 and, and get the cheaper version. But to be honest, even the 115,000 cap one is kind of low, right? Well,

Yeah. For a big battery like that? Yeah. 150 at the very least. It's a 13 kilowatt hour batch pack. But at least, okay, so forget about the 72,000 version, $75,000 version, so you can actually get some decent fast charging out of it. At $75,000, you get a range of, don't give us the range here.

500 kilometers, 311 miles. Well, that's probably WLTP if I had to guess. But you're going to get over 200 miles out of that thing, EPA, I would assume.

Yeah, and you've got a nice big battery for, you know, let's just keep it at camping because that's all I really care about. Yeah, so that's what people are talking about right now. It's like there's plenty of companies out there that specialize in turning a Sprinter van into a camper. It's not cheap either, but now at least you have your base price. You have that $75,000 base price in the U.S., and then you can probably expect to pay –

anywhere from twenty thousand dollars for a very very very basic camper version up to probably a hundred thousand dollar more i've seen these thing goes for two hundred plus thousand dollars easily um but now at least you have an idea of what's what it's going to be because this is not the first e-sprinter version there was the previous generation but the previous generation has like a 50 kilowatt hour battery pack and was barely doing 100 miles of range so it wasn't

Wasn't a viable option for a camper. This one is, and it started at $75,000. So I'm sure there's going to be a big market for that. There's something so cool about the idea of like not having to pay for gas. Just, you can put some solar panels on it if you want. Trickle charge it, just leave it for a week at some place. Have your e-bike in the back, just bike around. And then you're fully charged and like, let's go 200 miles,

400 miles if you stop for a DC fast charge and all you have to pay is like that DC fast charge and you had already 200 miles

in from the sun on the solar panel on top like this is this is so cool maybe not a week you would need unless you have like deployable solar panels maybe right you could do it pretty fast but in a week if you just have the the top covered uh maybe not 200 miles out of it i feel like mercedes should should offer some like a panels option i mean how hard could it be just throw some panels on the roof and you know wire it down to the battery i don't know

Yeah, I'm sure there's going to be third parties that are going to offer it for sure. I don't know if Mercedes wants to get into that. But does Mercedes, I'm sure, does Mercedes has its own Kemper version that they sell? No, they don't sell their, I don't think so. But they do have some solar stuff like that EQXX had a solar panel. Mm-hmm.

All right, this was big news this week. Ford is retiring three internal combustion engine models to make some space in their lineup for electric vehicles. The three models are as follows, the Ford Escape, the Edge, and the Transit Connect. According to automotive news, they are all being sunset, along with the Fiesta that was announced just a few months ago. They announced that the Fiesta is dead. I think the Fiesta was already dead for a while.

In North America though, right? I think it was only in Europe. Yeah, they killed all cars except for Mustang. Yeah. So now even in Europe, those cars and the Escape obviously is coming as an electric version in Europe. It's the Escape that's coming as an electric version. The Explorer is... No, sorry, it's Explorer. Yeah. And the Edge. What's a Ford Edge? I don't even know what that is. That's a...

That was in Europe only, too. It was a car. It was not a SUV, a crossover. I believe so. That's a must-try. Well, yeah, Ford is the one from all the legacy automakers that I like their approach the most. I think they take it the most serious. All right, should we go into their comments section? Yep. All right. All right, so before we even started, Peter Moraine says, Theory, Model 3 performance is dead.

With the price drop of Model S, its existence only muddles Tesla's product categories. Highland is releasing only two trims, and this isn't changing. Interesting point. With the Model S dropping in price so much, it's almost close to where the Model 3 performance was. But I don't know. What do you think?

Yeah, I don't think the Model 3 Performance was ever a very popular version of the car. I don't see that many out there. I have one. I like it. But it's overkill for what it is. If I were to buy a new Model 3 right now, I would buy a long range. I wouldn't buy a Performance version. Why wouldn't you buy a Performance? I mean, I get track mode.

which I've used like three times since I had a car. Like, I just, I don't use it that much. I was talking to my friend, Bastian, actually, and he said, oh, I wish I would have bought the Model 3 Performance for the track model. I'm like, oh. So there's people like that for sure. You could trade it.

I mean, some people, it's not just because of the actual use on the track, though. You can do things like you can remove the ABS system and all that. So there's value for that. Some people, especially in Quebec here, they love that for like the winter. But yeah. And if you go with the Model S, because of the Model S price cut,

Yeah, I can see what you're saying, though. Of course, the Model S, so it would mean that you prefer the Model S long range over Model 3 performance. Because if you start comparing it with the Plaid, though, if you want actually the Plaid performance, then it starts to be a much bigger difference in pricing. But I assume that you're saying that the long range is just as good performance as the Model 3 performance, then that's fair. Yep.

Yeah, it's interesting. It'll be interesting to see what Tesla does, how it shakes out. Carl in San Diego says, Tesla Model S and X price slashing looks desperate. And the stock price is down, I think, 5% today, but not just missing that. Yeah, that and the FSD, I think it was not that much bad news. Maybe it's seldom used on the Model 3 island, I guess, but...

I mean, Model 3 Island looks like a good launch to me, other than the messiness of just being in Europe and Asia rather than North America. But yeah, there's no doubt that Tesla is having issues selling the Model S and X right now, and that's why there's big price cuts. Yeah, and I wonder if people are stressed out about not having a gear shifter on the stock of the Model 3. Yeah. I don't know how. Or Glenn Sanford? They give an impact on us.

Yeah, I really wish I hadn't bought it. FSD, I put a deposit down on the refresh straight away, but I just don't want to lose the 6,000 pounds. Yeah, I guess nobody really wants full self-driving at the moment. Shane O'Sullivan says, overall, it's a solid update, but there were a lot of rumors of Model 3 battery. That might be a bit of a disappointment.

Model 3 performance battery. Like Model 3 performance battery? I don't know. I remember the rumor of the new CTL battery, but exclusive to the performance. Or maybe the M3P was the name of the battery. I'm not sure. No right-hand drive for Ireland or UK either. Oh, I didn't know that. So there's no right-hand drive for the Model... Oh, so this is Model S and X. And these come from Giga Shanghai, which is strange. No, he's talking about the Model 3

Is the Model 3 not coming in right now? I'm going to look into that because that would be actually big news because that is what happened for the Model S and X. Right. But Model 3 and Model Y, we're always going to have right-hand drive, especially for the UK. Yeah, that would be surprising and kind of big news. I wonder if Tesla is going to… Yeah, because the UK is a big market for Model 3 and Model Y. And then there's other big markets like Japan. Yeah.

Carl in San Diego should have a rainbow of colors for the Model 3 if they're still building them to order anyway. It's an easy way to increase interest and keep them competitive as more models are entering the field. I tend to agree with that. I think Tesla could really do some interesting things with colors beyond the red that they announced.

Okay, so Shane just clarified that M3P is the name of the CATL batteries. That's what I thought. Yeah, I mean, we're going to have to wait and see, wait for some deliveries and work on some breakdown because Tesla is not saying anything anymore about their batteries. You have to guess everything. It's so dumb.

You don't even know what kind of batteries you get in your car that you paid for. It's my car. Tell me what kind of batteries in there. Yeah. But yeah, Carl is right. I should mention that the Model S and X also remove the up pricing for the different colors on Model S and X. So that's another price cut, I guess. Significant one too. Yeah, that's actually a big deal. I don't know. I don't think that's desperation. I think it's just a good choice.

All right, David WS, does it have vehicle to load or vehicle to grid? We did see that in the Cybertruck, kind of a vehicle to load, but nothing new in there. Yeah, that's another thing we're going to have to confirm too, some breakdowns. But officially, I think Tesla has only said that Cybertruck onwards are going to be vehicle to grid capable.

Shayna Sullivan, is it unusual that they didn't do an event for it? It's significant of an update to warrant one. I did kind of think this is something that they could have at least had a small. I guess they did have an event in Norway. They did have an event in Asia and an event in Norway to launch the vehicle with a select few media there. But yeah, I mean, it wasn't even like a press release packet like sent out to people like this. They don't do any of that now, which is...

Which is, like, people are going to get the information eventually, but it's just, it's not a pretty launch. Like, normally, like, now people have to, like, dig out and, like, there's going to be more information out there. Like, just do a nice press packet, sending the people. But apparently, there were some people that had it because there were some people that had embargo and we posted the pictures. The pictures leaked from the embargo. Yeah.

We weren't under embargo, so we don't feel bad about posting the pictures or completely allow. But I don't think there was any US media, right?

No, I don't think so. It hasn't launched in the U.S. Because there's no U.S. press part, which is still a very weird thing. But yeah, that's another winter too. What I don't like about when I keep saying Tesla should have a PR department, one of the weirdest complaints that I get from people is like, oh, Fred wants the media to have more information on Tesla than the consumers.

Like every information about Tesla that I have, I give to the consumers. We don't keep anything here unless for very specific occasion to protect sources or anything like that. But like it's very rarely.

So my point is for this case, like we could talk, if Tesla had a PR department, we could ask them the question that the consumer have. And that would be like, hey, what's happening with this launch? So it's only in Asia right now, only in Europe. Why is that? We have our suspicion for it that we discussed earlier, but it would be nice to have some confirmation on that. And then on the other side, like, hey, so what is the plan for North America so that the consumer can,

can prepare for it. So it's not us that doesn't want to have more information than the consumer. It's Tesla that doesn't want to give this information to the consumer. They want to keep it because they are afraid that it's going to affect sell in the short term for the existing Model 3, of course. Yeah. All right. Carl in San Diego, who would you argue with about Tesla's unfair price shift? Your browser? I mean, theoretically, somebody at the sales office or at the, yeah, you know, salespeople. Yeah. Yeah.

No vehicle to grid. They definitely would have said so. LinkedIn user says, I received an updated contract with a discount applied to it, Model X, while waiting for the delivery. Unheard of from legacy manufacturers as well. You don't really see the price drops like that either. Yeah, you cannot dig them on that because they're going to

change price based on the dealership and all that. So it's also before you receive a vehicle, if the price drops, you can just threaten them and say, Hey, if you don't give me the price, I'm just going to drop, you know, order a new one and drop this one. So, I mean, I don't get why you would praise Tesla on that. Like, of course I haven't taken delivery yet. And you've slashed the price. You have to give me the price. Yeah.

Carlson Neo, do you have to pay extra for a third row and a Model X? Yeah, I think the Model X standard is just a two row and then they have like a six seat and then a seven seat. FSD price cut also desperate and frustrating to fools who paid 15K. I think we talked about that. Will shareholders have a valid lawsuit against Musk for the company tanking if FSD is proven unsafe by NHTSA? I don't

I don't know. I mean, I don't see how. For everything that Elon is saying about FSD, I think he believes that Tesla is going to get there. I don't think he's lying about that. Yeah, and you can't prove it anyway. Yeah, you can't prove it exactly. All right. I love the new Model 3, but I got such a good deal today. I bought one inventory for $36,600. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing with the update being...

not the biggest one too. Like there is still mold trees available out there, especially in North America. So if you don't like with this, they'll just launch in Asia and, and Europe. It's like, you can still grab them right now for pretty cheap. All right. Gonzalo Zamora. Do you think the UAW strike will have a positive impact on Tesla and Rivian in terms of sales? I don't know if the strike has actually happened yet, but they're threatening one, right? Yeah. That's what I heard. I haven't heard that it started yet. I know like there's like,

The industry is having problems after problems. Toyota had to shut down all their production in Japan because of a problem, and now this is happening. I don't know. I just know it's hard right now to have workers. I don't envy anyone that has to operate with a lot of employees like that. Both sides, it's hard.

Yeah. Question. Will Model X third row versions qualify for federal rebate? If not, it seems like demand from price decrease would be limited. Yeah. How does that work? I don't know how popular the third row is. Like I know a lot of people want that. I don't think it will. But to answer the question, no, I don't think it will qualify because as soon as you get over 80,000, you don't get it. But there's still a lot of demand for the Model X with a 5C configuration or 6C configuration.

All right. Fred will be called in front of a grand jury. Do you not see how egregious it is that Tesla is hosting this dumpster fire called FSD? I guess that would make a good story. Don't call me in front of a grand jury. Yeah, you don't want to do that. No jury stuff is fun. All right, Mark Webb, you were supposed to press the horn to record. Yes. But I think that's a setting, so you have to set that up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paying $12,000 or $15,000 to risk your life. We were talking about FSD. Moving on. Cybertruck looks like car Russians would have designed. Okay. Well, I don't know if that's very nice to Russians.

Talk about a value add. That inverter looks like an afterthought. We're talking about the Cybertruck inverter now. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's not necessarily what's going to be in the final production version. Like this might be just for the prototype. Like it didn't look like it would fit nicely with once the, what do you call that? The fitting that goes over the front like that? Yeah, I don't know if there's a word for it.

But Mr. Turkey Neck says it looks like an EcoFlow unit. Yeah, it looked like a third-party unit. Right. Oh, so that was the other thing. Before they were talking about how they were going to make everything instead of a 12-volt system, a 48-volt system in a Cybertruck. Do we know if that is the case? Yeah, I think they confirmed that, no? Yeah, I think that was the latest thinking. Things can always change. Yeah.

So in regards to the doors being weird, brushed stainless steel is difficult to control consistency. And then Fremont was new me. Seattle, Vienna says in many European countries, you're supposed to signal when you're about to exit a roundabout. Will be interesting without stocks on such a high volume car. I mean, you still have...

Like, in a roundabout way, not. Theoretically, if it's full self-driving and doing the right thing, it should signal. Well, that's the whole idea behind it. Like, any input is a mistake. Right. That's the way it's designed for. But obviously, not everyone, well, not everyone even buy the full self-driving. Like, Tesla is still selling the car without full self-driving. So thinking like that is kind of thinking ahead a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, with the price drop for the S and X, could there be another upgrade coming, perhaps structural battery? Yeah, it's not impossible. I think it's more demand-driven than it is a sign of an update, I think. Let's just put it that way. All right. David WS thinks that inverter was not just a power supply, not part of the vehicle. Yeah, I think that's fair. Sprinters are a choice for rich van life people.

Yes and no. I mean, yes, it's expensive, but there are young people that do it and that's where they live. That's how they choose to live, especially remote workers now. They prefer that life and it's a lot cheaper than a house. A lot of people cannot afford a house these days. You can be a software engineer making $100,000 a year and you cannot afford a house in many big cities. Yeah.

especially with these interest rates. You can maybe afford a $150,000 van though. Yep. Some EV industry experts are saying that the mix of battery tech being brought online in the U.S. in the next few years is the wrong mix of LFP and NCM. Thoughts on that? I guess they're thinking LFP should be more and less NCM. But it's coming. LFP, like Ford, has announced several plans for that. CATL also coming to the U.S.,

So I don't know. I think, I mean, I think it's fairly recent that LFP has, has increased in capacity enough that it is a viable option for a shorter range vehicle. So it makes sense that it's, it's not the top investment yet. Companies that are looking ahead like Tesla, like Ford are seeing it and are investing in it. But yeah,

Yeah, it makes sense for me right now that the mix is if you're on the NCM side of things on the nickel chemistry. I'm not concerned by that, really. I think it's going to be a big mix over time. The nickel is not going away. It's still going to be there.

All right, Carl in San Diego. eSprinter could get WLTP range if you drive it slowly like a VW microbus. I mean, you're not going to drive it fast either. Yeah, and also it's got a big battery pack, like 115 kilowatts, kilowatt hours. I think you can drive it pretty normally and get some good range. Yeah, just like the ID.Bus. I mean, I think the ID.Bus, I don't know if the ID.Bus is more efficient, though. It's not as high for sure.

but it is like a flat front and all that. So I'm like, you gave me a choice between an ID buzz and the East printer. I'm sleeping in for camping or just for, for the base of, I'm going to turn it into a camper after. Hmm. I think I go with the East printer. Yeah. Way more space. Yeah. Yeah. Edges are crossover. All right. Stu asks, when will Tesla fans admit that brand damage is having an effect on sales?

You have to categorize, compartmentalize Tesla fans these days. I think a lot of Tesla fans like myself see it happening. However, I will argue that the bigger problem with demand right now is not, and brand damage is not, well, I mean, the sales, okay, so demand, brand damage, I think that the demand is not mainly affected by brand damage. I think it's the macroeconomic situation right now that makes just,

Any large purchase is more difficult for most people. Now, however, I think that brand damage is affecting sales too at a lower rate than is the microeconomics. We cannot admit that. A lot of Tesla fans cannot admit that. A lot of Tesla super fans or people that are stuck in the Elon Musk cult of personality cannot admit it because maybe they think it, but they are not admitting it out loud because then they will not be in the cult anymore.

You get rejected by the leader. Leaders, I should say, because now it's like Elon has his own minions. Yeah. Shayna Sullivan says, solar inverter manufacturer K-Star, who were the first to use cattle LFP batteries for home storage in 2020, today launched a new lithium titanate battery with 16,000 cycles and negative 40 degrees Celsius operating range.

Those are both good things. We'll have to check into that. Yeah, I assume that the energy density is not high, but if it's for home storage, it's not that big of a deal as long as you have the space for it. All right, J Hill says, which EVs will or can supply 240 to my house? Obviously, the Ford F-150 is probably still alone in that. You can obviously get an inverter and go off the 12-volt system and get 240 out, but you won't get that many amps.

But hopefully more things come along with that. I think the Silverado, not the initial Silverado, but the RS version is going to have something like that at the end of this year. Stu, most Tesla promoters keep calling for advertising. Are most likely EV customers aware of Tesla? Isn't brand damage with all the hard data more likely? Yeah, probably. I don't know. I don't know what advertising would do for Tesla. I think everybody's pretty aware of it.

They can kind of tell a story, though. Yeah, yeah. I think there's still approaches that you can take that... I mean, especially in cost of ownership, things like that, you can make some push in that sense. A lot of people just think they cannot afford it. Again, I think the micro-economics are the bigger problem. And some people literally can't. Some people that would have been able to afford it before can't now. But...

A lot of people just don't think that it's feasible, and it is when you account for the overall cost of ownership. All right. Shana Sullivan says the 21-inch Huber turbine is an attractive part of that Model 3 performance, other than performance, obviously. I do think big wheels look good, but I think they give a really poor ride, and they also reduce the power.

the range so not a big fan there yeah i drove all across the u.s on a road trip with 20 inch wheels from malta it's not 21 though i think it's 20 and uh it's not a smooth ride not good yeah all right mr turkey neck has a generic question does an ev battery suffer any degradation just sitting in your garage without any internal drain like sensory mode etc for extended period

Well, I mean, there's not a lot of information in there. So I assume like it's not plugged in. So if it's not plugged in, it's not necessarily a problem until you get below a certain state of charge. So Tesla warns against going below 20% for an extended period of time. So other than that, if you just charge it to 80, 100% and then let it sit there,

and at 20% you charge it again or whatever after a week if you're sitting there or not, more than a week actually, you could stay a few weeks until you're getting to 20%, then it shouldn't be a problem. All right. Shana Sullivan says the new refreshed Model 3 Highland is not launching in Ireland and the UK until 2024 apparently. So that's the left-handed driver. So that's what they mean by not being rear-wheel drive available, I think.

Every-wheel drive, right-hand drive, I think. Did you hear a rumor that Highland would move to 800-volt architecture? I don't think I did, personally. Yeah, I didn't hear that. I would be shocked if that's the case. Not impossible, though. Stu says Mercedes and Rivian sales uptick in the U.S. We don't really have any numbers, really, although Rivian is making more vehicles now. Yeah, and Mercedes has been doing...

surprisingly well with the EQS stuff, even though it's super expensive. Like we said, we're more than impressed by the EQB, EQC, but there was some price changes or some updates, so maybe that's going to help. The market is maturing. That's what's really cool. What we're seeing, especially in China, they have so many options. In Norway, they've been drowning in EVs forever. Now, in the US, it's always been a little bit more difficult.

especially with the hunger that people have for bigger vehicle trucks and all that. Now we're starting to see a lot more options happening. Take what you want about what the Cybertrucks look like. I think it's going to shake up the market a lot. It's going to make things a lot more interesting. If the interest rates can come down too at the same time and we can start to see an easier market for a new vehicle purchase at the same time as you have

The F-150 Lightning, the Silverado, the whatever they call the Ram electric one, whatever it is, and the Cybertruck at the same time, the U.S. market will finally be able to jump. And that's going to change everything too because like all these like

screwed up Bloomberg prediction that all the always crank up every year because they cannot predict past their nose. They're going to change completely because now everyone, the demand in the US is going to go from like a 6% EVs to like

15% in probably a year, 18 months, I think, something like that. And that jump is going to have all of those analysts change their predictions and everything. And instead of like 50% in 2030, whatever it is, it's going to be 60%, 70%. And that's going to light a fire under a lot of these automakers that are taking things slow. And once that happens,

it's just a snowball effect. And then the consumers, they're like, all right, everything is coming electric. Like, my next car needs to be electric. And then instead of like 30% of people thinking that their next car is going to be electric, it's going to be 70% of people. And then once people hear that 70% of people are buying electric for their next car, then it's going to be 100% of people because people don't want to be left in that 30%. So it's all a snowball effect. So it's my prediction that I've been saying for years that after 2025, there's not...

someone in their right mind that's going to want to purchase a new car that is not electric, I think it's basically gold right now, that prediction.

All right. That's it for us this week, everyone. We went an hour six. Seth is about to fall asleep at the keyboard right now because he's in Europe. And I appreciate every single one of you that's listening right now. If you do enjoy the show, please give us a thumbs up or subscribe. You can give us a five-star rating on your podcast app too. That helps the show a lot. It's free to do. It takes a second. Next week, we're going to be in Munich for IAA. If you're interested,

If you see us there, give us a high five. We're always willing to talk to our readers, our listeners. And the show is going to be, we're going to maybe be not at the same time. You're going to be back in the U.S. by Friday, right? I don't think so. Is that the 7th?

I might be fine on the 7th. No, it's going to be the 8th, I think. Okay, yeah. I will be... Well, yeah, I should be back in the U.S. by the 8th. Yeah, it's going to be the other way around. You're going to be back in the U.S., I'm going to still be in Europe, and I'm going to be in Greece by that time, but we're going to figure out a time to make this show work.

Maybe we'll do a live. We'll do a live IFA. Yeah, maybe at the end of the – yeah, we can do like earlier in the week, like on a Thursday or Wednesday when all the news has come out from the show and we can discuss that. Let us know what you guys think. We're going to make it work, and we're going to see you next week. Have a safe weekend, and have fun. Bye-bye.