Tesla Model 3 refresh, Cybertruck, EV startup earnings, and more
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We are live for a new episode of Electric Podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your host. And as usual, I'm joined by Seth Wintraub. How are you doing this week, Seth? I'm good. Was that some music back there? Yeah, we're just hopping the production value at the Electric Podcast through the roof. All right, let's jump in because we have plenty of news to discuss this week. As usual, we're going to start with some Tesla news, but then we have plenty to talk about non-Tesla EV-wise because there was a bunch of EV startups earnings this week. It was like

the week for that uh so we're gonna get into that but first off some um testamal 3 refresh news that came out just yesterday and um it's not giant to be honest but like this is the kind of thing that uh every little bit of of news that we get that people like to uh to know let me um i'm getting a bunch of notification for some reason let me just close that way all right we're good

So yeah, this Model 3 was spotted at the Fremont factory on the test track, thanks to TikTok user Hector696969. And there's not much we can see because again, it's a Model 3 that was spotted.

uh covered from the front bumper and the back so not much to see from the outside but at one point the door is open and we can see inside and they are also covered completely the inside which would indicate that the dash has been updated otherwise they wouldn't really hide it the door too as uh

either a cover on it or the panel is like detached from the door. It's not clear. But that could indicate another update there. The only thing that is not covered that we can confirm is new is the steering wheel. So we do have a brand new steering wheel and it looks closer to the Model S and X steering wheel, which makes sense since it's the most recent one that's been updated. Obviously the round steering wheel on the Model S and X, not the yoke.

It doesn't appear to be any visible stock, so that might indicate that Tesla is sticking to that strategy and the stock are completely going away. Though, I mean, again, hard to tell from this picture, but it doesn't look like there's a ton of space for these first touch buttons on there. But again...

Not the best picture to see. Looks like there's still scrolls. So those scrolls are still there in the middle. But that's about all we can get from that picture so far. And the rest of the part that Tesla's not covering up, that's all the same, right? I guess it looks a little new maybe with the matte, but I guess that's all typical stuff.

Yeah, I mean, there's really not much we can tell. Some people on Reddit found that from the video, it appears that the driver is switching gears from the side of the screen like you do in the Model S and X, on the new Model S and X. But again, that would just point to the stock not being there. So there's really not much. Some people claim, oh, it looks like there might be an instrument cluster behind the wheel, but that might just be the way that the

The cover is like falling on top of it. Really not much we can tell from it. Was the door covered? Yeah, it's either covered or the door panel is like sticking out, one or the other. But either way, we cannot tell. Maybe a new door as well. Yeah, maybe. All right, this week was the groundbreaking ceremony for the Tesla Lithium Refinery outside of Corpus Christi, Texas.

We have not a ton of new information about it. We have a render, so it looks pretty cool. We have a full render of the facility here that's going to be separated in a bunch of different buildings. Elon did confirm that they plan to produce enough lithium hydroxide to support the production for a million electric vehicles a year.

So that gives us some kind of capacity for the plant. Previously, we've heard a $365 million investment, 165 full-time jobs, plus another 250 during the construction phase. So originally, they were supposed to have like a pretty quick timeline on this, but now it's been delayed a bit.

uh, what's the new timeline I'm looking for. Okay. So, uh, construction to be finished sometime next year and, uh, production in 2025. So this is still a, it's a, it's a quick project, but maybe not on the timeline that we're used to from Tesla. Um, that might be because, uh, the process that they're going to use to, um, process the, the lithium, uh, or is, uh,

It's a new one. It's not something that's been done before. So that might explain the delay, like they need to validate that process before they reach any kind of volume production from it. But they say that it's going to be the...

It's going to produce more lithium hydroxide than any other refinery in North America or all of them combined, really, which is not saying much because there's not that much lithium being refined right now. And around that time that this thing is going to be online, there's going to be some bigger one, a big one in North Carolina, of course, with Piedmont lithium. But that's...

Tesla is also partnering with them, so they are securing that too. And then there's Livent with Nemaska Lithium right next where I live here in Quebec. And that's also, I think, production in 2024, 2025. And that's a big one too. It doesn't seem that big that you can build a million cars with that. It's hard to tell though with that render, like a bunch of different buildings. Yeah.

One thing that kind of stole the show from the groundbreaking ceremony is the Cybertruck that Tesla brought to the event. Why did it steal the show? Because it had a new accessory on it that seems like it might be something that could make it to production. It's sort of a tool rack that fits right on the bed of the truck.

And the design of it looks like it's something a little bit like refined. It's not necessarily something that they just put together for the event. It might actually be some kind of a product that Tesla is going to release. And just something that can make the roof flat so that you can also attach some more common accessories like windows.

baggage carrier or a bed tent or something like that that you can put on top so it it's it's an accessory that can probably enable other accessories too i was gonna i thought you were gonna say the the giga wiper was the new uh yeah where did you say you heard that term like giga wiper that's i don't know probably reddit or something yeah doesn't look too bad on this one

Yeah, as long as they keep the light off of it, it's okay. It's weird. Why didn't they make that thing flat? It seems like it's pointed backwards still, like the tool carrier or whatever. Is that supposed to be flat? I think it might be flat. It might be the angle. Or you mean from the inside, it's a little bit... No, from the top. Like if you were putting stuff on top of it. I think it's flat. Yeah.

Yeah, this one looks flat. I think it might just be the angle. Yeah. No, I think that would be the goal to make it flat so that you can strap other things on top of it. There was a big... Well, a big...

There was a Full Self-Driving Beta update this week. We actually talked a bit about it last week because Elon was hyping it up, saying that it was going to be a big one and that it's even going to be... It could have been V12, FSD Beta V12, but they are reserving that for this end-to-end AI system that would replace the

The AI will not just be for the perception part of driving, but it will also be for the decision-making part of driving. So it's saying that that's going to come to Tesla FSD Beta at some point this year.

In the meantime, we get V11.4, which you claim would still have some major improvements. We have the release notes right now on the website if you want to check it. But to be honest, from the release note, it doesn't look like that big of an update. Some improvement on phantom braking on the highway. Obviously, that's a big deal. But they've been saying that like every single update, honestly. And I haven't seen that much of a difference. So a lot of it is like a little incremental improvement to...

the capacity of FSD Beta. I haven't got it myself just yet. I think it's mainly for like the OG. It's not just internally right now. So they are outside of Tesla, but Tesla are getting it, but more of like the early ones, hasn't propagated that much just yet. I think I'm going to do a video on this one once it comes out, I guess, since it's going to be basically a year since I got my first update of FSD Beta. So see how much improvement you get over a year.

I've used it a little bit, the 0.3 over the last few weeks. And like I said, I was pleasantly surprised that at least it's not any kind of significant regression from the autopilot stack. But at the same time, it's not anything that's impressed me outside of highway driving. Big milestone for Gigafactory text. This little jumping thing is so annoying. I cannot click on it.

I don't know why it does that. It just does that when we're streaming. So it's really, it's the stream yard, update the stream yard or something that's doing that.

Milestone, 5,000 MW a week. So that's a big one. And it happened quite fast because, well, it happened behind GF30 Berlin, but in terms of the ramp up, it was 3,000 in December, 4,000 in April, and now we're in May, it's already 5,000 units. And obviously the comparison with Berlin is not the best one because Berlin is not producing it with two different architectures, the structural battery pack architecture and the old one with the 2170 cells.

That said, we don't know that 5,000 units a week has been achieved. In what way has it been achieved with mostly 2170? Or is it because of the ramp up of the 4680 in the structural battery pack? We don't know the mix. So that would be nice. But Tesla doesn't release that. Either way, it's good news for Tesla because now they have both Berlin and Geofactory in Texas at what...

the milestone that they normally claim achieve mass production and that's going to help them with their gross margin because the factories until now have both been underutilized and that affects your gross margin when you're not utilizing a full factory that's full capacity at least these production line has their full capacity because obviously the factories are still going to grow but they're expected to grow with new production lines

In terms of GFRE Texas, we know Cybertruck is the next thing to come out of it. In Berlin, it's not clear just yet what they're working on, past Model Y. Yeah, a quarter million a year run rate, though. That's pretty impressive for how young they are. And they're building quite a footprint there, really. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, this came out today. Tesla has surprised a lot of people. They announced that they won't be producing the new Model S and new Model X in the right-hand drive configuration, even though they've been selling it for the past two years without delivering it. And now they are announcing that it's just not coming at all. So a bunch of people woke up this morning with an email saying that their order has been canceled and they're going to be reimbursed.

Some of them, again, like two years in the waiting, they were waiting for that. In some markets like Australia, Thailand, Singapore, they are not even going to sell the MLS anymore. So the MLS is done there. In other markets like in the UK and in Japan, they're still going to sell the MLS or at least sell.

inventory model s from by the left-hand drive so they're going to try to deliver left-hand drive vehicles to um uh i'm gonna have to stop this it's just like driving me nuts um yeah so so they're gonna deliver but it's only inventory vehicles as i'm seeing right now so tesla send out an email is like if you still want a model s we cancel your order but you can look at the inventory and the inventory in term of the uk it's already in the uk so

My theory on this right now is like we knew that Tesla was having issues selling Model S and X. Last quarter, there was a big inventory of Model S and X left in the U.S. or worldwide when they released their production and delivery number up until April. Model S and X was like a big part of the inventory on N, Tesla said, because it was in transit and expensive.

Normally, when Tessa says that, it's like it's in transit to customers who bought it. But now what we're understanding is like it might have been in transit to the UK and maybe Japan too, and to sell them as left-hand drive in those markets. There's a £2,000, I guess, in the UK discount for those.

So it would be interesting to see if it sells or not. I would assume it would because there was a lot of pent-up demand. But it's very interesting that Tesla is giving up on more S and X in those markets now. Yeah, it seems like a big deal. And actually expecting those markets to accept left-hand drive vehicles are pretty nutty. It's really surprising that that's the solution.

I mean, I've seen a few right-hand drive vehicles here. I never thought about what they do in the right-hand drive markets. I assume that there are some people that already import them because maybe not all versions are available, not all models are available in right-hand drive. Yeah, and people take their cars from France to the UK all the time and vice versa. It's doable. It's doable.

But it's weird because it's not like Tesla had to invent a Model S that had a right side steering wheel. Like they had one. They were making them.

The plans were all there. It's just weird that they... They were selling it for the last two years with the refresh too. So it's not like... It looks to me, it very looks like a last minute decision over the last few months where they were like, we have a pent up inventory here. Instead of just making a right hand drive version, can we just unload that on those markets? Boom. It's a very likely explanation in my opinion. Awesome. Yeah.

All right, we have one more Tesla news before we jump into the non-Tesla news. So if you guys have any questions, you can put them in the comment section right now. We're going to get to them in about 20, 30 minutes. It can be a question about the subject that we're discussing today, or it can be a new subject in the EV space you want us to discuss, anything like that.

Yeah, this was a weird one that came out today that really upset me. It's the recall. So if you follow Tesla news, you've probably seen it everywhere this morning. It was picked up by all the big publication where they say that Tesla is virtually recalling all vehicles sold in China, over a million of them, due to an issue. And that's where I take an issue with the news over a problem.

an issue or a defect or problem that they're calling it with the breaks. When it has nothing to do with that. And just to clarify the situation, like I'm not, this is not one of those like, oh, should we call a recall or a recall when it's over the air update? It's not even about that. Like in this case, the recall is simply the update that we talked about last month that this is doing, bringing back the low regenerative braking option. So,

They did it in the U.S. and it was not a recall in the U.S. It was just they were bringing back this option. But my understanding is in China, because the update is like safety related to a degree because it affects the driving features and people sort of request it because it could technically be safer in low and some driving condition if it's slippery or whatnot.

So because of that, they're making it a recall, but it's simply the software update that is bringing back a feature that Tesla used to offer in the past. They removed it for efficiency reason. They wanted people to just focus on driving on standard, but now they're bringing back the low feature. And because they're pushing that, the regulators in China made it through a safety recall.

And all the media are picking it up like this is a big, like they're fixing a defect in their car on a million vehicle when it's simply an update that made it to the US a month ago and now made it in China. It just has to go through the recall process. That's it. It's literally a feature update. So I'm not, I put a tweet about it this morning because

I called out like Bloomberg, Reuters, The Verge, The New York Times. They all reported this. This is literally like the Chinese regulators found an issue with Tesla vehicles and now Tesla is fixing it through a software update. It's not that. It's not that at all. Yeah, kind of weak. Yeah. I feel like it's time for the auto industry to kind of forget about recalls and switch up to software update required.

Yeah, but that's the thing. For this one, it's not even that debate. It's more like it's a feature update. It's just that for the Chinese system, it has to go through that process.

But it was the same thing in the US a month ago and no one reported on it in the US. Like, why are people reporting on it from China now? Because it went through that process. That's it. So it's just like poor work from the media here where they saw like an opportunity to report on Tesla, like a recall. But if they knew what they were talking about, they would realize that this is just a feature update. But they're not following this as closely as we are, obviously, which leads to these little mistakes. Yeah.

All right. Moving on from Tesla, we have Honda unveiling a new poorly named SUV, electric SUV here, the e-NY1. Would you pronounce this? Yeah. It's like, how can we name something to not sell cars?

Yeah, I mean, I thought at first it might be like a Chinese SUV that they're going to release and then they just put a name for the global market or whatever. But this is actually, they unveiled it in Europe at an event in Germany. So this is going to be an international vehicle that they're going to sell. So they released some specs here. I'm going to put the screen back on so that you can see the image as long as it doesn't start going crazy.

Not too bad. Yeah, not too bad. Looks a little bit boring, in my opinion. The front is, I don't know. Looks a bit like the NIO SUVs in China, I think. It looks a bit like that. Spec-wise, we're looking at 150 kilowatts motor. They don't say front wheel drive motor. Okay.

68.8 kilowatt hour battery pack for 256 miles, 412 kilometers of WLTP range. So on the EPA basis, you're probably looking at around 200 miles, I would think. 10 to 80% in 45 minutes. So not the fastest charging here. Yeah, this is coming to the European market later this year.

I mean, Honda is showing that it is a little bit behind when it comes to electric vehicles. And so this is their new generation platform. And it feels like a generation platform that has been on the market for a few years, really. Yeah. I mean, those are the same specs as a Chevy Bolt, really. Yeah, you're right. Exactly. 150 kilowatt motor is the exact same size as the Bolt.

uh 256 miles of range that's three less than the bolt and the 68.8 kilowatt hour battery is about three kilowatt hours more than the bolt so yeah and and it's bigger a little bit than the bolt so you would assume like again like the range that you gave was the ep1 too so right you could expect a lot less range than that on the epa base it's also going to be slower yeah at least at least it charges a little faster

A little faster, but not super fast for like a 2024 SUV that's going to be basically. Yeah. Not that big fan. All right. Let's jump into all these earnings this week. So we like to follow them because, I mean, these are all electric startups. And the fact that if they can...

start to be financially sustainable business like it's a good sign for the industry of course tesla already proved that to be possible and beyond that but they already are the only one so far to have done it in a long time so rivian is arguably the one that's closest behind but we have had some problems with them in term of achieving positive gross margins on their vehicles

So we already reported that they delivered about 8,000 units last quarter, produced a little bit fewer than 10,000. They said that was fewer than the quarter before that, but that was apparently because of their van production line that was down for a little bit as they upgraded to their new drive units. But now we have the financials on that and they posted revenue of $661 million last

gross profit fell to a negative 535 million. So basically right now it cost them about twice as much as they sell them to produce the vehicles. And that's before the cost of operations and all that. Because when you include that, they are losing one... Can I zoom in on that? Sorry. Let me look at...

They are losing loss of operation $1.5 billion a quarter right now. So they raised about that last quarter. So cash on end is flat at still $12 billion. So they still have some room to burn because they're burning a lot right now.

And we are seeing an improvement in the gross margin. It's still way in the negative, but they still have until next year to turn that around and still survive. And that's their goal right now. They want to turn to a positive gross margin next year. But again, that's a thing to keep in mind. Even once they turn positive gross margin, the profit is still not there. They're still going to have a big loss. They need to have right now like a...

probably, let me see, they have to like triple their sales.

and get a 20% to 30% gross margin in order to compensate for the operation losses. So yeah, we're still pretty far from that. But Tesla was also pretty far from achieving overall profits. So we keep comparing them with Tesla, but we're comparing them from Tesla when Tesla was still losing money. But at that time, Tesla was selling their car for a gross profit, which Rivian is still not doing. Again, a little improvement.

I think I'm starting to get a little bit more confident that it could get there next year. But at the same time, the thing that's confusing me right now is like part, we just got an email from them where they are delivering, you can deliver new cars in two weeks. And you want it in two weeks for someone that's ordering right now. You get it. Right. Yeah. So that's not super encouraging in terms of demand. Well,

Yes, on one hand, but the other thing is people like you haven't gotten their original orders yet. So to me, it seems like they're prioritizing people who are paying the higher price than the original orderers who got the lower price, which on one hand, as somebody who ordered early and got the lower price, I'm like, where's my freaking car? But on the other hand, they need to get their price per vehicle way up. So...

you know, would you rather have the company survive and you get your car a little later? I don't know. I don't know if that's... Yeah, my main concern is like, okay, but if right now they can turn around the customer in two weeks, if they are willing to pay that new price, which is about like 20% higher...

So the question is like how much demand is there for Rivian vehicles at that higher price? Like over, like already in a year, like how has it been like a year and a half now that they've been in production? In a year and a half, they already worked through most of that backlog of order. They still have some, they still have some, but like people or the people that are buying that is like because they're buying it because they have it at a lower price too. So,

It's obviously also the timing of the market and then the price hikes, right? The interest rate hikes. I think it's like 6% on the car right now. So it's not an ideal situation to buy a new car too. There's no doubt. So that's not Rivian's fault. But still, we need to look at does Rivian have significant demand at those prices? Yeah.

And that two weeks is not super encouraging. Yeah, maybe good news for them. We saw that Volvo actually pushed back their EX90 till next year. So people who are kind of banking on getting that instead of the Rivian are probably going to take the Rivian. Yeah, that is going to create some demand for the R1S for sure. Yeah, other than that, they reaffirmed their production for 50,000 units this year. So the production seems to be stable, but they can, again,

there's still some room to get some economies of scales there, but they're going to have to be some other cost-cutting operations in order to bring that, to turn that gross margin positive. Next one is Lucid. They reported

Not the best quarter ever. People were not super impressed. So production revenue, $150 million, but cost of revenue of a $500 million. So over two, it's 2.5 times. It caused them to produce a lucid hair than they said for. But again, that is an improvement over the same period last year where there was a

over four times the cost of the sell price of the car. They also rein in some of their revenue. Their selling and administrative revenue has been rained down by a significant amount. So that's good news. But they're still losing a lot of money. We're talking about $772 million a quarter right now. But they still have some decent cash on end to survive. Let me see. They say that.

Total liquidity at this time of $4.1 billion. So they are good for about a year right now without improvement. Obviously, we do expect improvement throughout this year. So they should survive a little bit more than a year. But they also need to turn things around pretty fast here. They don't have the same wiggle room as Rivian.

who has three times the cash. They have three times the cash and they're burning two times faster. Yeah, Rivian certainly looks better if you look at the graph to get to profitability and they think they can do that next year. Rivian's been fairly good at meeting their goals with their numbers. They haven't really exceeded their goals, but they're pretty good at hitting them sometimes. Well, not all, but their predictions are not bad.

Whereas Lucid kind of seems like they might have some demand issues as well. Yeah, I mean, they have the pure version, the cheaper version coming later this year.

So that should help with demand, but is that going to help with the cost of gross profits still deep in the negative? If you're just selling more cars that are lost, it's just a bigger loss. It doesn't help that much. And then they have the tri-motor like Sapphire coming too. So a lot of people are excited about that because this is like the Plaid competitor, but Tesla has issues selling the Plaid. So...

It's not looking that good. Personally, I've never actually tried the Lucid yet. I wish I can because right now the only thing is like, is the product really that good? On paper, it's good. It looks good. But this is a premium brand. And that's the problem with them is like premium brand without a name behind it, like BMW has, Mercedes and all that. It's a harder sell. Yeah.

I don't know how they fit in that premium segment right now. Yeah, and then Mercedes is coming out with really nice EQS. Then there's the AMG version of the EQS, and now they have a Maybach version. So competition. Yeah, the Maybach is pretty wild.

uh all right lastly we're going to discuss also fisker's earnings this week and uh this one's a bit of a controversial one the it was again we're not done a ton of good news on the startup earnings front so it was also bad news for for fisker um they came in do we have like it right here uh so revenue okay that was really

So revenue came in at $198,000. So obviously it's just a few units that they deliver. But the thing is like they produce 55,000 units, but apparently they still count some of them in the engineering units and marketing. So it's not cars, they're the same customer. Apparently they only deliver two cars to customers, including one of them to Enric Fisker. And...

And so the good news here is that because they are producing these cars with Magna, they're already coming in at a profitable gross margin. So they made $35,000 on those couple of cars.

But, obviously, the problem with Fisker now where they lose money is like they are in charge of the servicing, delivery, and all that. And they are still losing a decent amount of money, $121 million last quarter. Yeah.

Now, where things get a little controversial is like they're saying that they might have some issues delivering those Fisker. Bloomberg came out with a report saying that they are having issues with the first one that was delivered in Denmark to a customer. They have to give it back right away. They claim some things about the software being a problem and limiting the speed of the vehicle, which Fisker denied. But they did one of those denied that sounds like, you know, when you do a report and like you claim a lot of things in the report.

And then the company comes out like, this is not true. And then they say the thing that's not true, but it's just one of the many things that was said in the report. So it sounds like they might be having a bit of an issue with the first Fisker. I would put more credibility on the Bloomberg side of things than on the Fisker on this one, just to be safe. So who's responsible for the software of those cars? Is that Fisker or is that Magna?

Well, I mean, this is an engineering part of things, and Fisker is supposed to do the engineering on the car, though in partnership with Magna. So I think it would be them. Yeah, the other big thing that slowed things down, too, that was the bad news for Fisker is that they revised down their production. So the automaker state production is expected to ramp up beginning next week. They expect to produce between 1,400 and 1,700 LCC in Q2.

And the runway did 6,000 units monthly in Q3. That's a lot. So, okay, the annual guidance has been, went from 42,000 units to between 32 and 36. So that was the setback here.

And so the big things that we've been talking about, the burn rate and everything, so like 121 million for Fisker. But the thing with Fisker is that they have a lot less cash on it. So they have $652 million on it. So they have about just over a year, five or six quarter max that they need to turn things positive.

Now, if they can deliver more cars, that's going to be good for them because they have a positive gross margin thanks to Magna. The thing with Fisker is I worry that the exact same thing that's going to happen the last time now where, all right, the car gets popular, a bunch of people deliver it, but then it's just not working anymore for whatever reason. Just a few... With the kind of margin that they have right now on cash of...

four between four and six quarters basically that they have like a few recalls could could change that whole thing up pretty quick i don't i don't hope that's what's gonna happen i hope that it goes well but i wouldn't be surprised if we see something like that happening all right our last piece of news before we jump into the comment section is uh very interesting news it's uh the electric formula sun grand prix uh that uh

is officially the new name of the competition because seth took his checkbook out and uh you can i share the screen by the way i said and um made us the official sponsors of the formula sun electric solar core competition take it yeah super cool uh so i've been a fan of this thing for a long time i used to like

when they were racing across Australia. This isn't that. That's like the world competition, but this is the U.S. competition. Although there's some international schools, including local one to you, Fred, in Montreal. I gave them some money to sponsor them. Nice, nice work. You know what? USC has a... My alma mater has a solar team. And I was like...

They got to be on the list somewhere and they're not. And I don't know what's going on. I had, I had the, uh, the like card they gave me around here somewhere, but anyway, uh, there's going to be 22 teams and probably more 22 have already like done the paperwork. So, um, and this is, you know, happening pretty soon, uh, the end of June. So about a month and a half from now, um, in, uh,

Kansas. Are you coming, Fred? Are you coming to Kansas? Yeah, I'm going to try to make it. I mean, Kansas in the end of June, there's no better place to be. Yeah. It's murdering hot in the middle of a racetrack. I was just going to show off with some good SPF 50 and maybe even an umbrella. Well, I actually have some news that we haven't said publicly yet, but Aptera is going to be there, which...

We haven't finalized the details, so they could still not make it, but we're very close to announcing that. It's a perfect match, obviously. They have their solar thing and the very efficient stuff, and this is a very efficient solar thing. So that'll be really cool. It's a smart move. In the post, I talked about how Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel

Got his start in this world at Stanford. Tesla started with a bunch of people from the Stanford solar team, solar car team. So this is also a sponsor this year, too. People don't know. Yeah. They're not the name title sponsor. Right. We are. But they are a sponsor. And I hate to say this, but that's unofficial because they haven't haven't paid the money yet. So. Yeah.

But they probably will be there too. I hope so. Like you were just saying, one of the big things is hiring for those people. Aptera too should probably make an effort to try to hire some of these people because they have some pretty good hands-on experience on making a solar car. Obviously not a road legal car because this is going to be done on this racetrack. But the same principles apply.

Yeah, I mean, as far as recruiting, everybody should be there. I pitched Rivian on being at the show, and they were like, we can't do it. It's too much. We don't have enough time to put it together, which is understandable. They have other priorities. But if I was an electric car company, I'd be at this thing already. So, you know...

like uh lucid and even the big you know gm ford they should all they should all send people to interview these kids um i mean they're not even all kids like there's a couple uh like masters students i think on the uh on one of the teams that are you know in their 30s so um it's pretty it's pretty good talent and they're building pretty cool vehicles um

So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see that. And then, you know, obviously Aptera being there will be, you know, kind of interesting to juxtapose those, you know, the efficiencies of each vehicle versus like the most efficient car on the road. So a bunch of electric people are going to be there.

Yourself included, likely me. And so what can people do? Can people go and buy tickets? It's actually free to watch. You're encouraged to donate to the thing. Heartland Raceway is like a big racetrack. So there's all the amenities available.

that any NASCAR show would have, I guess. Honestly, I haven't been there. I don't know the place. But that's the video of JB talking about his start. What's interesting to me is they haven't really changed the design of these cars that much. What has changed is the solar panels are more efficient. The inverters. Exactly. Inverters, batteries are all a little bit better.

I don't know what the battery requirements are. I think, you know, they get a little bit of a battery to, to, uh, you know, when the sun goes away, but, um, it's just a really cool project. Uh, it's something I've always like been super interested in. And, um, and another thing is, uh, that company light year that is, you know, not having the best financial time right now also came out of one of these kinds of events. It was, uh, I think a Dutch team that,

um won the uh sedan world challenge or whatever and then they decided to evolve that car into the light year one and and and there are subsequent cars yeah super cool project the electric formula sun grand prix it's coming up june 27th through july 2nd at the heartland motorsport park in topeka kansas we're gonna see you there everyone we're gonna remind you over the next month uh

um just to be sure but uh it's a cool little project and now we jump into your questions let's do it all right i hope you've been reading up on cattle question cattle has announced a new condensed battery with 500 watt hours per kilogram which it says will go into mass production this year will this revolutionize the ev space so we talked about this before and uh

So they specifically said that they're going to target the air travel with this. And so I know where you're going, where you're coming from, Glenn, but this is like, oh, I mean, obviously this kind of energy density can also be useful for land transport.

It's like they didn't mention the cost or anything like that, longevity or all that. So while the longevity, they did release some data that looks promising, but the cost is a big one, obviously. And it's less of an impact on air travel because the fuel consumption is such a big part of the cost of air.

per mile of air travel. So you can get that from that part of the budget here. But the fact that they said specifically this kind of aim at electric planes basically would tell me that maybe this is not going to be something that's going to be used in electric cars. It is impressive though. 500 watt hours per kilogram. If you multiply both sides by 100, you get 50 kilowatt hours

is 100 kilograms so that's like the weight of a person big person uh and you get enough battery to to run a car you know like the low end of uh electric car batteries so we're talking about and you know obviously this will get less expensive and uh so we're talking about batteries that not only is it a lot lighter you know 100 kilograms is really light but

you know, that starts to make things like modules that you could put in your trunk or, or other use cases. So that's pretty cool. I like, I like to see this kind of stuff. Yeah. It's for sure going to get, get less expensive over time. It's just that I think as, as this happened through a focus on hair travel, uh,

I think maybe like some of the technology maybe is going to trickle down to EVs, but it's probably going to be some kind of mix of like, oh, we can use this aspect of this battery to improve that. But at the end of the day, the cost is the biggest one, the cost per kilowatt hour. Like the energy density for ground vehicles, it's already figured out in batteries. Like we can make...

like super long range EVs if you want to, it's just more of a costing. But yeah, if you want to make a super efficient EV though, like you can make that into like a super, a super car that's super efficient, that could be cool where money is not a problem. Yeah. Cattle's really like been hitting it out of the park lately. They, you know, with the LFP batteries, which are the lower density side of the spectrum, but cheap and have some other,

you know can charge them all the way and they're more cycles because we see a lot of like people like claim these super high energy density batteries and most of the time we're like all right all right but when catl say that you're like oh okay like this this one might be a real one they have some credibility let's just say that right they i mean they have a lot of credibility they've been doing really well and they're the biggest battery producer out there so

Joy Lynn King says, what is the production goal for GM and Ford EV this year? So first of all, GM and Ford will never tell you what their production goals are. In fact, they will berate you for even asking. But Ford did say that the annual production capacity... Well, okay, so you're saying production goal and annual production capacity, then...

Yeah, I mean, they have goals, but they don't have the actual numbers. Yeah, well, they don't say how many necessarily they're going to produce this year, but Ford at least has been clear that they want to get to 600,000 cars. That's next year. Oh, that's next year? I think 2024. Oh, okay.

I thought it was by the end of this year. You know what? So at the end of this year, they want to be at a 600,000 car run rate. Yeah. So they're not going to build 600,000 this year. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. So yeah, December 31st this year, you know, they're going to make enough cars if they made one every day.

GM is going to be interesting because I don't think they've said, but obviously they're going to have the Equinox by the end of this year. I guess it's highly dependent on how quickly they can rim that up. The Silverado is this year too, right? Yeah.

Yeah, but the Silverado is only going to be for fleets in the spring. And then I think in the fall or even like the end of the year, they're going to have consumer versions. Yeah, so it really depends on how fast they can ramp up Equinox and Silverado because the rest is like, it's peanuts. Like the Cadillac Lyric and...

Hummer EV and all that and obviously well I mean technically the well 70,000 bolt because the we already forget about the bolt because it's dead but it's dead at the end of the year they're still in production right now so they still plan to produce about 70,000 of them I think yep and those will all be sold before they even be are made

So probably not that much more than that, I would say. Even with a good ramp-up of the Equinox, a good ramp-up of the Silverado, maybe twice as much, maybe $150,000. It's so low for GM, such a big company. 2023, if they produce only 150,000 EVs. But they're going to have a production capacity for probably...

Well, I mean, you cut the bolt again from it for next year. Yeah. Yeah. They really have to like, you know, they keep saying like, we're all in on EVs. Well, just like, how come when I go to a GM dealership, there's no EVs there? Like, you're not all in on EVs until the dealerships are full of EVs.

All right. Canoe is up to 17,000 pre-orders. Individuals can pre-order with $100 refundable, like Cybertruck. Do you think they can deliver and be successful? Honestly, I don't follow canoe too closely. Would have to ask Scooter for that. I think Scooter is the one primarily carving canoe. I don't know where they are at in terms of the production.

I mean, 17,000 pre-orders, uh, it's with a hundred dollar refundable deposit. It's not a giant commitment. So I wouldn't, uh, a lot of people are like, like, I think my parents have like three or four different EVs on order right now. They're just waiting like the first one that they can get. So a lot of people are doing that. Um, and, uh, yeah, I don't see a giant like differentiating factor of, obviously the design is, is not like anything else you've seen, but other than that, it's, uh,

I don't see any kind of things that makes them unique. Again, the design is unique, but who cares? Right. Some car people sometimes care. I'm just curious, though. Yeah, but I'm just saying if it's just that, if it's just like, look how weird we look. Maybe some people like it, but then...

They're not cheap either. It's hard for an unknown brand for people to make a big purchase like that. It's not easy. I'm curious. You said your parents put down money on a few EVs. Which ones are they looking at? Well, they just put down on an Equinox, speaking of. Interesting. And then before that, they had the ID.4.

But I think the ID4, I don't know if they gave up the ID4. The ID5 and ID4, they gave up one of them because I think it didn't work with the federal tax credit anymore. Not the tax credit, but the federal incentive that we have. The federal or the provincial one, so I don't know which one didn't work on one of them. Gotcha. Yeah.

All right. Front wheel drive is terrible in electric vehicles. Poor uphill switchback traction. Yeah, I actually agree with that. I have a Chevy Bolt with front wheel drive and going up hills and slippery stuff. I often spin the wheels. I mean, there's just too much torque. And the whole point of front wheel drive is it's over a very heavy engine.

and the weight of an EV is in the middle with the battery. So I think rear-wheel drive works a little bit better. Obviously, you know, not for everything. All right, Glenn Stanford. The UK is a good market for the S and X. Left-hand drive won't sell here. Could be a big mistake. How big of a market, though? Taking a look at some numbers, I think there's no more than, like,

12 or 15 or 20,000 molests in the last 10 years since they've been delivering them. So a huge market. UK is a decent market for Model Y and Model 3 though. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of people and there's a lot of rich people there. Josh Ash asked, what happened to the Saudis buying them out? I think he's referring to Lucid. Yeah.

well, it's not buying them out outright. They have a large investment in them. I guess some people find that reassuring. Or like bailing them out. Yeah. So if they keep needing some money, the Saudis would probably take them over, I think. All right. Question. Does that mean I won't get my right-hand drive Cybertruck launch day reservation? No.

Well, I mean, Glenn, I'm sorry, but if you're in the UK, whether you have a lunch day reservation or not on the Cybertruck doesn't mean much. You're going to get it whenever they get there. And if you get a Cybertruck before 2026 in the UK, that'd be presently surprise. All right. We have a French question from Facebook. That means that's you. Yeah. What is the actual fortune of Elon Musk? Please.

Yeah. Who cares? That's my answer. Sorry. All right. He's like, 100, 200 billion. Who cares at that point? Carl in San Diego, are you providing video coverage of the solar competition? There will be video coverage for sure. If it's not broadcast or streamed or whatever, we'll...

we'll do some streams and stuff yeah we could do something on the YouTube channel electric YouTube channel for sure and then I can be a commentator I can be like a I've been watching some F1 I can be like some kind of like it's a slow race too yeah you got plenty of time to remember the names they'll have to have a fast reaction time on this one no they go like 40 50 miles per hour sometimes we'll see we'll see depends on how sunny it is if it's cloudy it's gonna be a slow race

A far follow Mew request. Convince me into convincing my aunt to buy a fully V versus a plug-in hybrid. She currently has a hybrid and I have a Bolt. Go. Why have two drivetrains when you only need one? Yeah. It's more complicated. Maintenance is going to be...

It's going to be bigger. And I mean, you have a bolt already, so you can tell her. Because the biggest thing for people, especially if she already has an hybrid and she's thinking about a plug-in, so that would tell me that some kind of people that they have...

they have issues seeing themselves as being an EV owners it's like it's too different for them like they're charging and all that so obviously you know your end situation better than us like I don't know if she has a garage or driveway and all that because that obviously makes a huge difference for electric vehicles let's be honest about that and when you have a boat so you can tell her look I have one I've been having one for how many months how many years and it's actually makes my life easier because I wake up every morning with a full charge or whatever is a situation or your situation

Like there's a, that's generally where I go at because most people at this point, like, no, okay, this is going to be the future. They just have some issues like, all right, how does my day-to-day life look like as an EV owner versus having to go to the gas station? And as an EV owner, you can, you're in a good position to explain just how much easier that is. Yep. And then we have some conversation there. Hybrids burn gas and you still have to change the oil. That's true. Uh,

Asking about your parents' Equinox pre-order, I think, so they ask only in Canada. I think some Chevy dealers are taking orders. Yeah, I think it's with the dealers. They reached out to a dealer. Yeah, they say, you know, we'll give you the first one we have or second one or whatever. And then they, of course, lie to you.

Yeah. It's no guarantees. Right. Since more EV owners don't have access to home charging, any thoughts on the orange outlet that provides level one and two smart outlets with billing solutions? I'm thinking of multi-unit apartments, condo. That sounds like something I should know about. Yeah. The orange outlet. I have no idea what that is. But it's a solution for condos because we've seen already a bunch of solution for condos.

Yeah, it sounds like I'm getting like a mall. Yeah, I got it. A mall in Orange County. All right. It's called orangecharger.com. And it looks like just wiring for. Oh, yeah, I see it now. No, there are some solutions like that for properties. Yeah, I mean, it can be an issue for sure.

But you have to talk to – if it's an apartment and if you have charging, parking in this apartment, you have to talk to the managers, the property managers, or if it's a condo unit like the HOA and –

tell them like future is electric and if you want this uh property to stay a modern time to survive modern times like you have to have charging solutions and you can look it up i'm not too familiar with this orange charger thing but i know there's there's starting to be quite a few solution now that can make billing easy and make charging like to to

associate the charging with each unit because i know like in parking garage of big buildings and things like that it can the electricity cost for like things like the shared area like a garage or the lobbies and all that that it's hard to to like split that energy cost between the units if someone consumes more than the other but uh there are solutions right now for that yeah i'm just looking at it real quick um a pretty cool thing it's got a little uh

RFID or not RFID, a little 3D scan and then a 20 amp 240 volt plug, which means that, you know, 20 amps means that you can use your existing wiring. So it's kind of it's kind of a cool thing. We'll have to look into it. Moving on.

I'm suspicious of EV production delays being more to do with negative profitability. Can you report on the industry profitability issue at companies? Too many folks assume profitability.

I don't know that many people assume profitability. I think we just discussed it just now. We just discussed the earning of three startups that are losing money. And there's no doubt that Ford is also losing money. There's GMs like this. They're also in the same boat where they're just starting to ramp up and they're making huge investments in these big factories to produce them. And when these factories produce at low capacity, it's not good. Yeah.

it is it is a problem uh i don't know if it's certainly not the only problem the supply chains are still very real problems for the makers right now especially in the ev industry and uh they all the way down to the minerals like we're gonna need more lithium we're gonna need more nickel we're gonna need more cobalt we're gonna need more manganese we're gonna need more uh copper really uh there's there's a lot of that happening and um

We are in this awkward phase right now. Like in the 2023 to 2025, it's going to be a really awkward phase. But you're going to see things happening in 2025 and up, unless there's some major economic downturns and all that. I think 2025, you're going to see so many successful high volume EV programs out there.

that it's going to change the game completely. People are going to see, okay, that's the way to go. Because right now, there's a Model Y and there's a Model 3. These are the two high-volume global EV programs out there. The rest is much lower volume or it's localized. In China, you have some decent programs, but it's just in China. Obviously, that comes with some different standards, but

once you have like model Y programs from like two or three different companies out there and like four or five, six different models, uh, the cyber truck and the F-150 next generation that makes like a million units a year and all that, that's, that's the end of the, uh, combustion engine right there. Who's the next company to get to profitability on their EVs? Like something like Hyundai? Volkswagen has been, has been very focused on that, I think. So, uh,

Volkswagen, it's just like a lot of the companies are still chasing the subsidies and all that. So that's been a problem where the plans keep changing. All the U.S. did their protectionist move of North American manufacturing of batteries and U.S. production and all that.

So people had to change their plans and everything. But yeah, I think Volkswagen is a good one. Ford is going to get there pretty fast too, I think. But I think they need their next generation. So I think it's going to be like 2025. BMW, yeah, BMW. I mean, they don't go cheap, BMW. So it's easier for them to do that. But they're still not very high volume. So I want to see high volume. Yeah.

Glenn Stanford, 2026. I might get it before the FSD I paid for. Oh, man. You're in the UK and you paid for FSD. That's a bummer. You won't see much of that happening for a while still. Yeah. And then BMW and then Group getting spun up this year. Yeah. I think you're going to see some spinoff, some consolidation happening. I think you're going to see a lot of that in the industry in the next few years. Yeah. I mean, we still laugh at Toyota. They just...

They say something in the corner of their mouths and something else in the corner and all that. You're going to see a lot of that just dying away in the next two years. And people are going to have to have some big realization. Because when you have billions and billions and billions of assets linked to production of an internal combustion engine, and you finally realize that it's going away a lot faster, it's a bad day at the office. A bad day at the office. Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening to The Electric Podcast this week. We appreciate every single one of you. If you do enjoy the show, there's a few things you can do to help us out. You can just put a like on this video if you do like it. That helps a lot. You can subscribe and hit the notification button to know when we're going live next time. But if you're not aware, it's every Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern.

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