Tesla Robotaxi unveiling, Cybertruck battery pack, new Mustang Mach-E, and more
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We are live 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. Let's keep it at that. All right.

A lot to talk about this week. We're going to start with some Tesla news as we usually do. And then we're going to jump into a few, well, one unveiling of a new car. And then we get to 2024, 2025 model year update with some interesting stuff to talk about. But first, something that happened last weekend, right after the last podcast episode, Elon announced an unveiling date for the Robotaxi.

So this is the actual dedicated built from the ground up new Tesla vehicle for self-driving. Rumored, not too much, not rumored, I think pretty much confirmed by Elon that it's not going to have a steering wheel. It's going to be a robot taxi. The image that you're seeing right now, if you're watching on YouTube or wherever, is that image that was released in the authorized biography of Elon by Walter Isaacson.

And it was marked as the early prototype there. So we don't know exactly how much of this is going to be in the actual vehicle. But it was interesting that that was an early prototype because you have the rear wheel being covered. Some people are suspecting maybe a three-wheeler, but I doubt that. I'm thinking more four-wheel with wheel cover. But that was, again, an early prototype.

So Elon announced this weekend that the unveiling is going to take place August 8th. And what was interesting about that is he announced that right after the Reuters report came out saying that Tesla scrapped their Model 2 or the cheaper $25,000 Tesla model. We don't know the name. The name Model 2 has been thrown around in favor of the Robotaxi. And then Elon denied the report.

But now the more with this information coming out and what I'm hearing from back channels, it does sound that the Reuters report was at least based on some truth where maybe Elon denied the report just because it says scrapped, because it's scrapped them all. Maybe it's not scrapped. Maybe it's still in the plans. It's just that

but effectively it's been scrapped because all the resources have been put toward the robotaxi that's what i'm hearing that's what probably was based that the the router's report was based on so and now elon announced and somewhat early on the evening of the rolexi because previously it's he said uh that the next generation test of vehicle which has been the robotaxi and the some so-called model 2 towards the end of the year now don't know about you but for me like

August, early August is not really the end of the year. So yeah, it sounds like RoboTaxi plans have been sped up, Model 2 plans slowed down. I think that's a safe assumption. Now, a lot of people are thinking, okay, why is that happening? It's probably Tesla being a little bit more confident into its RoboTaxi plan because of FSD V12.

and the progress on that front. Now I'm happy to say that I just received a V12 late last week. And well, I think I said on the podcast, I just haven't tried it yet, but I was able to try it this weekend and a little bit this week. I haven't put a video together on it, but we're working on that. I filmed a few things. I'm impressed.

Hey, I was going to say the same thing. I actually tried it. Last week you tried it a little bit that you weren't too impressed, but you didn't try it much. You got to try it a little bit more? I tried 12 and I got 12.3 or...

I had like the 12, but then I got the upgrade, the 12.3. So 12.3 is probably the first one you got. And then 12.3.4, I just got it today. I just downloaded it on my car just now. So we probably got that too. Right. The upgrade, the first version of 12 that I got wasn't amazing. But the second upgrade I got of that was much better.

Nice. It was actually significantly better than any other one that I've used. Yeah. I've been impressed too. I got from not only from like I even got confident enough to

Started from my garage here, which is like not like next to the road. Like you have to navigate my completely dirt road driveway situation all the way to the road and get on the road. And then you have some highway, some country roads, and then some city street to get all the way to the grocery store. And I got all the way to the grocery store with zero intervention. Only thing I did was I had to press the accelerator at one point.

at a four-way stop because the car arrived at the exact same time as I did. And sometimes it's just a little bit too careful on that. It wants to be too nice and let the other car go. But you cannot do that in Canada because people are already nice here. So if you get too nice and no one is moving, it's like, oh, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. No, you go ahead. So you have to press the accelerator at one point to get it going. But

But no, I was really impressed. I needed probably a little bit more testing, obviously. But I've had FSD Beta for two years now in my car. And I've never seen a significant progress in two years. This feels, for the first time, like significant progress. I'm not saying that I'm all in now on full self-driving or anything like that. But...

At least I am an increase my level of like I put, let's say, like a 10% chance before of the all the ingredient being there. Like there's this idea right now that since now we have end to end neural net in the car, it's all AI.

potential for faster improvement plus no according to elon no compute training constraint anymore tesla invested 10 billion dollars in nvidia computers they have the training capacity now to feed it with crazy amount of video and improve it so you combine those two things together and you have technically a recipe for like extremely fast improvement

If I was at a 10% chance of that actually happening before, now with actually trying V12 and seeing how smooth it is, there's still some issue with it, though. I see maybe like a 30%,

30% chance of that happening like where we see crazy fast improvement now over the next few months which could explain why Elon is planning the August unveiling of the Robotexy again this is an actual car that Tesla is planning to unveil there that is built for self-driving but the idea is that it's going to have a very similar hardware suite as what we have in the cars right now so that they can just transfer the software to it and not exactly as easy as that obviously but it's

keep it as close as possible so that there's not too many things to change and having it obviously optimized for self-driving rather than human driving. But Elon is probably, how many months is that? So we're in April already. So May, June, July. So it's four months, about four months to get there, less than four months to get there. My understanding is that Elon is confident enough that within those four months, there's

enough improvement in V12 that it builds overall confidence in Tesla's potential for achieving self-driving. I'm not saying it's going to achieve self-driving in four months, but we see enough improvement in four months that we see now a clear path toward Tesla achieving self-driving, giving credibility in Tesla's Robotaxi. Because otherwise, Tesla will unveil the Robotaxi and they don't have a functioning or a path to a functioning self-driving. And it's a very mute point, right?

Do you get a little bit excited about the robot taxi unveiling? It'll be interesting. My, my, you know, the cyber truck event was so like poorly planned. I mean, I'm sure it was planned well, but like clearly Elon had not done any, you know, it seemed like this was rushed a little bit, a little bit rushed at first take. So I'm certainly interested about the information that comes out and the

But I'm not like the way it was presented was cringy. And I kind of don't want to see I don't want to cringe. So, yes, I'm excited about information and what's new. I'm not excited about watching it. But what I'm excited about is like I just discussed the self-driving part of it, but it's also going to be.

the first vehicle on the new platform. So I guess we're going to get some more information on that new platform, some more information on that unbox manufacturing technique. So these two things will also give us some information about the upcoming Model 2, $25,000 Tesla, however you want to call it. All right, Tesla launched a new version of the Model Y in Europe. So it's a rear-wheel drive, long-range Model Y.

something that has been available in some other markets before but now tesla has launched it in not every european market but most of them you can see the list uh here on the screen and you can go to an electric to to go check it out but uh 600 kilometers 273 miles of range on the wltp standard so it's now the new longest range model y and it's starting at um

49 000 euros 4 000 euros more than the rear-wheel drive standard range or tesla is like not using the term standard range for it anymore though so now you have like four models in the model y lineup in europe i think it's a good addition i think it's like especially in europe i think there's i don't know how popular all-wheel drive is compared to uh just um rear-wheel drive or front-wheel drive

I would assume by percentage less so than in North America. Would you agree with that? Well, I don't know. So, I mean, what do you think the battery pack sizes are on these things? What the what? The battery pack sizes. Oh, I mean, it's going to be the same one as the bigger one. So it's going to be over 60, around 70, I think.

Yeah. It's always hard for me to make the transition between kilometers and miles. I know you're better with that since you're- It's 273 miles of range on WLTP, so it's 320, 330 on the EPA. Okay. I think a lot of people do like the range more than the all-wheel drive, so it makes sense to have that option in your lineup, I think. Yeah. It depends also on the weather around you.

No, of course, for like colder climates. But Norway, Sweden, so the Scandinavian countries are on that lineup. Yeah. Oh, do we have breaking news from Paul here? Tesla just reduced full self-driving monthly subscription to $99. That's crazy. That's half price, literally. Yeah.

I mean, it makes a little bit sense because it was $200 when it was a $15,000 package and Tesla didn't reduce it, I think, when it reduced the price to $12,000. But at the same time, Tesla said that the price of the full self-driving package would keep going up all the time. And that was part of the appreciating asset theory that, of course, has been completely proven wrong since. But interesting move. So obviously, I think with V12...

a lot more attention on the full self-driving, a lot more positive attention, at least for self-driving. So maybe it makes sense to try to capture more of that. And Tesla could always increase the price because it's the monthly subscription. It's not the package price. But let me confirm that. So I'm not calling you a liar, Paul, but just want to make sure real quick here. Oh, no, wait a minute.

I'm looking at the design studio, but I won't even see that on the design studio. Do you have a car on your app, on your Tesla? Do you have a Tesla car that doesn't have full self-driving? No, all of mine are FSD. No, you're self-driving. All of mine, yeah. Yeah, because you need to check in the app, I guess. I guess there's a support page, this FSD subscription support page. Yes, right here. Yeah, it was reduced $99 per month. Okay.

But moving on... That's $1,200 a year. So it would take you 10 years to reach the $12,000 price. So that's kind of insane. It makes a lot more sense. Nobody would buy the full... Why not just buy the subscription? I think everybody's going to buy a subscription if it's that expensive. Yeah. Though I'm looking at it right now and it says...

Whether you go, you know, so that's pretty crazy. So whether you go from basic autopilot to enhanced autopilot, it costs you $100 a month. Because that's the thing then. Then, yeah, I wouldn't buy any of the package and go with 99 because...

Because like I was thinking, so there's the city street driving, I don't care about it that much. Like it doesn't, it doesn't like improve my experience. Enhanced autopilot with like navigator autopilot and lane changing on highway and all that, that's really useful to me. So I was thinking maybe I could have that and not...

not just pay for full self-driving when I want to, but at the same time that now I'm going to have to pay $6,000 and $9,900 a month when I need to. Right. Yeah, like Carl and San Diego said, it's not a lifetime guarantee. Yeah, for sure Tesla could increase that anytime. But as of right now, it would make more sense to buy that than to buy the package. But of course, if Tesla does achieve full self-driving, they're most likely going to increase that.

Most definitely going to increase that. So then maybe you've paid for a year $1,200 and then they increase it back to $200 or even $300 a month. And then you're like, oh, okay, maybe I should buy the package. All right, moving on to the Cybertruck.

Tesla's Drew Baglino, the head of energy and powertrain engineering, confirmed this week that Tesla is going to release an over-the-air software upgrade that's going to increase the charging curve to 144 miles in 15 minutes. Currently, it stands at 128 miles added in 15 minutes times. So that's a 20% increase in charging capacity, fast charging capacity.

So the charging curve has been one of the biggest critics, a critical point of the Cybertruck, where people felt like it's not on par with Tesla's capacity, especially for that big of a battery pack. We thought it could do more. And sure enough, it didn't.

It can, it's just Tesla is limiting it. So this is something that Tesla has been criticized on in the past, while both criticized and also applauded, like depending on their point of view, is that they don't do as much testing as legacy automakers. Like they do a lot, just not as much. And sometimes it feels like,

They just limit software-wise the vehicle as they release it to the customers in order to not go to the breaking point. And then as they feel more confident, as their own internal testing continues, because Tesla is continuously internal testing the suburb truck, even though it's already in the hands of customers, and at the same time using feedback from customers and data from the fleet,

Then they build more confidence in some of the things like the powertrains, the charging capacity and all that, and then release some of the capacity over time. So it looks like this is what's happening here. But it's good news, at least for existing owner. It's not something that you will have to go to the shop for. It's not something that needs a hardware upgrade. It's something that needs an over the air and you get 20% faster charging time, which is remarkable.

I know that Outer Specs did a pickup truck cannonball run recently, comparing a bunch of trucks. And that was the biggest downside of the Cybertruck. It was charging pretty good compared to other trucks too, but not as fast as it was expected to. So that would make a big difference, making the Cybertruck faster. Was it charging at Electrify America or was it charging on a Tesla...

Well, they had another problem with that because they also had the Silverado and the Silverado was bricked, I think, at an Energy Fire America station or Chargepoint station. I don't remember which one. So they had some issues with charging with that.

I saw a video where the Cybertruck was charging much faster at an Electrify America than it could charge at a Tesla supercharger. So I wonder if... Yeah, it has been seen charging, I think, at 320 kilowatts on a third-party station. So it is capable of more. It's just, but it peaked really fast and then went down. So the charging curve is still the more important thing.

We're also learning more about the Cybertruck battery pack thanks to a teardown by Monroe Engineering. They're currently doing a teardown of the Cybertruck and they are down to the battery pack now. And this week, they revealed this video and a few comments that got a lot of speculation going where they called the battery pack of the Cybertruck, they called it half empty or half full, depending on who you're talking to. So, I don't know. I don't know.

At first glance, when you look at it right now, it does look pretty much half full indeed. But I wasn't sold on it based on that video. The only thing that got me going is after that video came out and a lot of the speculation came out, you had Tesla's Cybertruck lead engineer, Wes Morrow, that confirmed it by saying instead of... He said he prefers to think about it as half full rather than half empty. But...

It still means the same thing. It sounded like a confirmation. Okay, it is indeed half empty, half full, whatever you want to call it.

So then it's like, why? Why is it half empty? Why is it half full? Well, we have today, we just got a lot more information from it because Monroe released their full video of the teardown of the opening of the battery pack. And first of all, it's not even close to half full or half empty. It's 30 millimeters more. So three centimeters, which is a lot. So it's three centimeters of empty space over the battery pack. So it's not enough for another row of batteries.

another layer of cells, all of these, not 4680 cells. 80 is 80 millimeters. But still, there's room. So Monroe speculated that it's either to vent gas from the battery pack, which I would find surprising. There's other ways to vent gas that doesn't take that much space.

And the other speculation is to like a crush zone for like off-roading since it's technically an off-roading vehicle. You can get some pressure on the battery pack. And then if it's significant pressure and something like a crash or something, it leaves room to crumble the batteries upwards rather than going into the cabin or whatever. I don't know if either of those are true.

I just know that the half empty, half full thing is an exaggeration. I don't know why this lead engineer on the Cybertruck contributed to it, but it's not like the Hummer EV battery where they go double layer. I mean, they probably could have done that, but they couldn't necessarily have done that with the same battery pack design. Because I probably heard the same thing said, but a lot of the speculation was around

oh that's probably why like uh tesla that that was the the range is so short on the cyber truck or so short or not as what was promised in the original dealing that's the plan a second layer on the battery that would have enabled that range but then they didn't do it because they felt like that would be too much battery to carry around all the time when even when you're not using it so that's when they thought about the range extender that you put it when you need to so i already don't know about all that sounds like this is a stretch

There's more like there's probably another reason for it instead. And it's just we're not seeing it quite yet. Yeah. One thing we talked about a little bit before the show, Rivian's new 46 series battery is a 4695. So it's another one and a half centimeters taller. I wonder if Tesla is thinking about going to a taller battery pack or taller battery inside the Cybertruck. That would fit inside that battery.

the case better, I guess. Yeah, that's exactly it. You said it's a 4695, I think you said? So yeah, that would still leave some room into the pack with the 30 millimeters more. That's a real possibility here for a future version. I don't know if Tesla is just now starting to ramp up the 4680. I don't know if going for a different format is really doable, but

It is interesting because I think Rivian is not the only one too that is moving to an even bigger than 46 CD format recently. So I think I've heard from Chinese automakers too that they're going from bigger formats. So yeah, not impossible. Yeah, John Kishagas in the comments says, "What if they're planning a 46 110 battery?" That would be the 110 millimeters, 11 centimeters tall. That would be a big battery. Exactly.

all right tesla yesterday uh last night they unveiled the sports seats so these are the seats that we've seen around on prototypes in the app uh that were linked to the new model 3 performance but they were unveiled this week as the model s plaid sports seats so they are now the standard seats on the model slad and if you order the truck since april 1st or any

uh since then you get these new seats uh i'm gonna get to okay here is the better look so it's pretty much what we've seen before you get the plaid

logo in the middle you get much deeper lateral support here at the base on the sides and even the headrest has like a little bit more support tesla mentions oh yes increase the level support i guess so modular seat architecture for comfort and support plus same 12-way power adjust heating and ventilation so that hasn't changed high performance suede

for increased grip and reduced weight. So they moved to some suede. I think that's probably that on the side here because the middle is still perforated, like perforated faux leather, I should say. No additional cost for it. You get it on the $90,000 Model S Plaid.

I would assume that that's probably the same seat, but probably not with the Plaid logo in the middle or going to come to the Model 3 Performance whenever that thing gets unveiled. Although we don't know if it's going to be called Performance. It might be called Model 3 Plaid or Model 3 Ludicrous or whatever. Yeah. I mean, the badging on the one that we've seen last week was clearly Ludicrous badging. So maybe it's going to be called Model 3 Ludicrous or Model 3 Performance with Ludicrous package. I don't know. That's...

Can do whatever it wants on that front. So when do we think that's going to come out? I thought last time we were talking about that. Sorry to jump subjects, but we thought it was like any hour now. And then the whole week went by without it. I'm so confused about that. I don't know what's happening. I don't know if the event that they did, they did an embargo with the people that were there, the few YouTubers that were there.

It's a strange one. It wouldn't be the first time that Tesla has done an embargo, but that's a long one now. It's been a week already. We've seen that car around. We've seen prototypes. It's the first time that we've seen Tesla launch a new car like that. It's brand new.

Going from the Model 3 to the Powerwall 3, Tesla had a webinar this week for the third-party installers to get some more information on the Powerwall 3. We put a link to the webinar in the post here.

But some of the more interesting details that came up, we already had a lot of information about the Powerwall 3. The main thing is higher power output, both continuous and peak power output that's enabled you basically to have a single Powerwall for most installation for the average house. But now we learned a little bit more about it. It's still the same. We hear a lot of your notifications right now. I know. I'm trying to get them off, but it's really annoying. Sorry about that. Yeah, no problem. You get...

Yeah.

some people still want more energy capacity. So now we have a better idea of how Tesla is going to approach that with the Powerwall 3 with what they call a DC expansion. So you can get an actual Powerwall 3 unit and what looks like a Powerwall 3 unit, but they call it DC expansion because it's not quite the Powerwall because it doesn't have the inverter included, all the power electronics executed. It's more just of a, like you said, DC expansion is the energy capacity added to it.

So right now, with Apollo 2 or Apollo 2 Plus, they call it, you need to stack them together to get more energy capacity and power capacity because they all have, I think it's 7 kilowatt of capacity instead of 11.5 on the new one. So now you have two options. What you can do is this on the left, where you stack...

for Powerwall 3, for example. So you get 54 kilowatt hour of energy capacity and 46 power capacity, 46 kilowatt. So that's a weird mix. Like I don't know exactly how you would need that. But the other thing you can do

is have, well, in this case, four Powerwall 3 and 12 DC expansion. So you have the same power capacity because you have four Powerwall 3 and the DC expansion just had energy capacity. So you have 46 kilowatt and 216 kilowatt hour of energy capacity.

So this is more for like a commercial project, obviously. But what you could do too is have just one Powerwall 3 and three DC expansion. So you would have still 54 kilowatt hour of energy capacity and 11.1 kilowatt power capacity, which would be like very good for a small store, a house, a big house or something like that.

And yeah, and these expansion two are going to be cheaper, going to be $1,000 cheaper than the Powerwall 3, which starts at $9,300 before incentive. So you get $1,000 cheaper on that because you don't have the power electronics that come with it.

Oh, yeah. And they also confirmed that the Power 3 is using the LFP chemistry now. So all Tesla's energy storage products are using LFP chemistry, which is a little bit safer, less energy dense, which is not too much of a problem with the stationary product and offers longer life.

More cycles. Yeah, more cycles, longer longevity. Also, not as much degradation if you charge it 100%. So I keep my Powerwall at 80%, 85% here. You could keep them 100% and get more of that 13.5 kilowatt hour capacity.

You know, what's something else interesting is LFP batteries don't do as well in super cold weather. I wonder if these are like inside only type of things. You know, if you're up in, you know, Vermont or Canada and it gets down to like negative 20 or whatever, I wonder if these colder capacity as much because I know that in cars, the

LFP batteries don't do nearly as well in cold weather. Well, that's pros and cons. I heard some people say at the same time, like, okay, but at least if I bring my power walls inside, that's better because

the LFP is safer. Some people feel better about bringing the LFP inside than they do with the NMC and CA because it is less prone to fire, even though the Powerwall, I don't think I've ever heard of a Powerwall fire, to be honest with you. And there are hundreds of thousands of them out there. So obviously they're not as roughed up as a vehicle battery pack. It's stationary, but pros and cons. Yeah.

all right this this was a very interesting one right there earlier this week um let's let's settle the lawsuit that we talked about a few weeks ago when it first came up well it first came up it's the it's a lawsuit based on the tragic fatal accident dating back in 2018 so it's not really recent but if you remember it's walter wong an apple engineer who crashed his model x on autopilot on the highway

in California where he was driving autopilot and the autopilot entered a median by mistake. So clearly an autopilot mistake. However, he was on his phone, not paying attention, didn't see the barrier coming, crashed in it. There was no crash accentuator or attenuator because it was pulverized a few weeks before in another crash. So that also contributed to the force of the accident leading to his unfortunate death. But the authorities said

Investigating the accident, they determined that the driver, Walter, was at fault because he was on his phone. They also put some of the blame on the crash attenuator not being there. And they also blame partly Tesla because the autopilot is the one that took the decision to go to the median. But again, Tesla recommends, not recommends, asks people to pay attention

pay attention at all time, keep their hands on the steering wheel at all time to prevent those things. And apparently the driver had several seconds to adjust and he didn't do it because he was not paying attention. Now, Tesla was brought to court over run full debt cases in similar accident in the past, and they won all of those cases. What we thought was interesting with this one

is that the lawyers for the family benefited from those prior cases, the Tesla one, and adjusted their strategy around it. And they adjusted pretty well, I thought. I thought they were going to make things interesting at the trial. They focused on, they don't deny that

he misused autopilot and did like that but this the they instead focused on two things one on the autopilot being defective and tesla knowing it meaning that tesla knew that this was a problem autopilot goes into the median and they didn't do enough to prevent this issue

which I think is somewhat fair. Like we knew early in the autopilot days, 2016, 2020, like this was a somewhat recurring problem where autopilot would try to take exit that wasn't there and intermediate and all that. So maybe there's something there. The other thing that I thought was even more interesting was the aspect of Tesla being responsible to a certain degree for the misuse of autopilot through statement that it made

Specifically Elon's statement, like over-promising about autopilot. And then you had the fact that Tesla knew that it was going to be misused and they didn't address it. We discussed specifically the lawyers on cover, like a message that Tesla's then president, McNeil,

John McNeil sent to Elon Musk and other people at the head of Autopilot at the time saying that he himself was like on his phone checking emails while using Autopilot because it was too tempting. So Tesla obviously didn't do a lot of driver monitoring at that time, which they have since increased so that it gave even more credibility to the theory that the lawyers had where Tesla didn't do enough back then because they were doing more now on Autopilot.

So there was, I'm no lawyer, but there was, it looks like there's an argument to be made that Tesla had some responsibility in the misuse of autopilot. Now, the case was about to go to trial. And what we learned this week is Tesla decided to settle the case. We don't know about the term of the settlement. Presumably it involves fraud.

some cash for the family and no admission of wrongdoing from Tesla. This is standard in the industry. That's generally what happens with, with those cases. Um, but, uh, the, uh, the, the,

they have sealed the case. Now, what makes this interesting is that even though there's no official admission of wrongdoing from Tesla, you could sort of take it as an admission of wrongdoing because what Elon has previously said, Elon was talking about Tesla hiring a team of hardcore lawyers that would go after people that go after Tesla. And Elon at the time said, we, speaking of Tesla, will never surrender slash settle an unjust case against us

even if you will probably lose so that's as clear as day so if they sell this case is that the the case was just it's literally what it would mean now of course you could say like oh elon was uh was not being serious about there like you you you say elon is lying all the time what do you say you know he's not lying now well there like that's literally what i got from people when i wrote that that post it was it was crazy it's crazy how the tesla fans went from

Tesla is going to crush Walter's family in that case because he was not paying attention to Tesla settling. And then they're like, oh, of course, that was the right move from Tesla not to go after that. It's a strange situation for sure. But it's now settled probably because I think the lawyers had a nice approach and Tesla didn't want some kind of precedent being set with that either. It's probably the course of action that happened there.

All right, we're going to move on from some Tesla news. We have a few more news items that we want to discuss, and then we're going to jump into the comments section. So I know we already interacted with the comments a little bit. So if you have a specific question that you want to ask us, you can put it in the comments section right now. We'll get to it. It can be about a subject we discussed today or any subject in the EV world that you want us to address. We're going to get to it in just a few minutes. But first, the EQS is getting a 2025 update that is pretty significant.

First of all, visual update. The new grille, which I was not a fan of the previous grille on the EQS. And you get the classic standing star rather than the giant one that was in the middle of the grille too. So this is more of a classic Mercedes look. More of a...

I didn't hate the old one, but I do like the new one a little better. Yeah. I mean, it's classic Mercedes. Though at the same time, because the EQS is a lot more aerodynamic than the average Mercedes, it does stand out a bit. Yeah. I guess I'm going to get used to it. All right. So I didn't look too much into the rest of the update. Let's look at a little bit more pictures maybe. It's still a little bit glassy, a little bit plasticky in the front though that...

that grill i'm not gonna lie to you the eqs is not the best looking mercedes ever ever built yeah it's not uh aesthetically on the outside it's just very like it looks kind of like a honda accord or something exactly uh but the inside is very nice yeah it's luxurious yeah like this the back seat i mean this is the nabak version

I was listening to the Masters this week. It was sponsored by Mercedes. I kept looking at it. As I was riding today, I already had a Mercedes in my background all the time. So many commercials and those things. It's insane. All right. What else do we have new here? The usable battery capacity has increased by about 10 kilowatt hour to 118 kilowatt hour. So that's nice. 340 miles of range is going to be enabled from that. That's significant.

New regenerative braking software enabled greater recovery. So that contributes to the longer range, I assume. And then a lot of interior updates. So optional pinnacle trim with executive interior package. So that's probably what we were looking at here. The executive seats. New backrest for the rear seat that can adjust up to 38 degrees. Rapid heating rear seats. Neck and shoulder heating for rear passengers. Jeez.

Pneumatic adjustment for ReSit depth. Okay. Eliminated trim accent, chrome accent, rear comfort pillows. An additional 0.2 inches of foam has been added to ReSit. A lot about the rear seats here, making the rear seat more comfortable, which always has been something that Mercedes has focused on.

All right, then you also have the Ford Mustang Mach-E getting a late 2024 model year update. So we're already talking about the EQS 2025 year update, but Mach-E was a little bit behind on its update model year this year. But it's a nice one. So a lot of range improvement, a lot of efficiency and range improvement.

You get 20 additional miles for 250 on the standard range rear-wheel drive and extended range.

We will drive. If you go with the all-wheel drive version, you are stuck with 10% more, but 10, not 10%, not 10 more miles for 280. And then you have the Mustang Mach-E Rally, which is a new trim that get 265 because it's one additional inch of ground clearance for off-roading. So that will heat through your mileage pretty quickly. Okay.

Yeah, other than the EPA rating, what do we get? We get faster charging. Now 36.2 minutes, 10% to 80%. So that's nice. I've always been saying that the Mackie, my main thing is the charging capacity that's a bit limited. So that's a nice little improvement there. You basically shave eight minutes.

with the extended range battery pack and 5.7 minutes from the standard range battery pack off of your, of a big charging session, obviously at 10 to 80%. You get a performance bond with that. So you get a new performance upgrade that saves half a second of the GT 0 to 60 accelerations time now to 3.3 seconds. So you got quite a beast here.

And again, so that's with the performance upgrade on the Mackie GT, which is optional. And then you have the Mackie Rally, which have the performance upgrade standard on it. So...

Yeah, you have a new suspension on the rally that's tuned for on and off-road, an inch higher. We have a video of it on the website if you want to check it out. So now here's your new lineup for the Mackie. So you have the select version, which is available in both standard range rear-wheel drive, standard range all-wheel drive, or extended range all-wheel drive. Then you have the premium, which has the same option.

plus standard range all-wheel drive also no you also had that what's the oh yeah the premium also has the extended range rear-wheel drive option so um

Then you have the GT with the optional performance upgrade. The GT is just all-wheel drive and extended range. And then again, same thing for the Rallye. It's just that the performance package is also standard. You also have the bronze package for the GT, which is just aesthetic improvements. I saw the Rallye at the New York Auto Show. It's a pretty sweet vehicle. Yeah.

I think that'll be a kind of a fun thing for people. It's got those white wheels and it's got kind of like a rally package inside. You know, just a little bit more ground clearance, better suspension so it can go off-road. Reminds me a little bit of the Cross Turismo.

It's not an off-road vehicle, but it can go gravel and dirt and whatever. So it's nice that you have that option and it has most of the speed. I think they lost some significant range though with those tires. Yeah, 265 instead of 280. It's not too bad. Yeah, it's not bad. Obviously, you're not buying a rally car if the efficiency and the range is your biggest concern. Right.

All right. The pricing has increased a little bit with the 2024 version, but stick around for a little bit. I'm sure you can find some discounts. They are all over the place when it comes to Ford. Actually, maybe one of the reasons why they're kind of late on this 2024 version is that maybe they had inventory for 2023. So they might have been just holding this back. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you're probably right on that.

Because speaking of Ford discounts, more discounts on the F-150 Lightning or more price cuts, official price cuts. Here's the new trim here. So the base one, the Pro, is still the same, still at $55,000. But the XLT gets a $2,000 discount at $63,000 now.

The Flash gets a $5,500 discount. So that's a big difference here. So we always said the Flash is like the most attractive trim on the lineup. And now it starts at just $68,000. So now I think we have a winner here. I think a lot of people are going to go for that because it's $68,000 electric pickup truck with 300 miles plus a range. You don't have a lot of those.

Then if you want a little bit more luxury out of it, you can go with the Lariat, but you're going to have to... It went $2,500 down, but it's still $77,000. So that's why I say that the Flash is like good value, $68,000 versus $77,000. Yeah, I'd still grab the Flash. I mean, $67,000 and then you get the tax credit. Yeah, that's a pretty good vehicle. If you are eligible for it, of course, but yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, the big range and the big battery. So you also have a huge battery in there. So you can use that for other stuff like power. And you have some of the premium features too. Like it's not full Lariat or Platinum, but you have some of them too. And then Platinum and Platinum Black stay the same price at $85,000 and $93,000 respectively.

But yeah, Ford Lightning gets a little bit cheaper. Of course, I think probably with the Silverado coming now, it's slowly ramping up. And the Cybertruck also a little bit competition tighter for this trying to compete here. All right. One more news item to discuss. The Alfa Romeo Milano, at least Milano for now.

as has been unveiled this week. So why do I say for now is that apparently the Italian government is like mad that Alfa Romeo for calling the model Milano. Yeah, they have some rights to the name. I don't know. So Milano is Milan in Italian, I would assume?

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I know that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, if I start a car company, can I name my model like the Montreal? Who's like, no one owns that name. It was like a Colorado, a Chevy Colorado. Yeah. I don't know. It's a weird one. Anyway, let's focus on the car here. So it's the first entry for Alfa Romeo, the famed Italian car company.

using the Stellantis ECMP platform, which we're going to first see in the Jeep Avengers. It's sporting a 54-kilowatt-hour battery pack here, which is not on the bigger size, for 250 miles of range. In the urban cycle, it can go up to 366 miles. Okay, I don't know why they mentioned that. I guess they are thinking that some people are just going to use it on city street.

Yeah, it is not super powerful with 156 horsepower in this. What's this size? Size is similar. 156 horsepower. Yeah, 156. That is really low. Yeah, that's Italian power for you. Oh, no, I mean, Lamborghini and Ferrari are Italian. I know.

It's about the size of the EX30. EX30? How much range you get out of the EX30 for the base version? I think it's like 260 or something. Yeah. Some design accent here. I know the EX30 has way more power than that. Probably more. It's actually the fastest Volvo ever made. So the quickest off the line. I mean, yeah, sure. I mean, this is more like a Fiat 500 idea, you know? Like really low power, really small. Yeah.

That's 100 kilowatt charging. Yeah, well, what year is it? What the hell? Yeah, they just went low on the specs here. I think it's like a Fiat 500, like very basic, basic thing. Yeah, but I mean, the Jeep Avenger, is the Jeep Avenger going to have those specs if it's on the same platform? Like, it makes no sense. 100 kilowatt charging in 2024. I mean, is this thing coming this year too? Is it available by the end of the year? I would assume so.

Order will open early this summer. Prices are expected to be closer to its launch year, of course. So no even pricing here. I mean, who's the house going to buy that? Unless you have a hardcore like Alfa Romeo fan, but I've never had one. That's what's weird. Alfa Romeo is not a bargain brand. So why would they kneecap this thing so badly? I don't know. Weird. I have no clue, but I won't be buying that one.

All right, let's move into the comments. Yes, sir. Mr. Turkey Neck, before we even went on the show, asked, what is Tesla's motivation for the free month of FSD for all owners? To sell FSD packages. So I know that a lot of like the Naysayer and FSD, when Elon announced that, they were like, oh, they're going to shoot themselves in the foot with that because they think it's so good, but it's actually not that good. And most people that try it...

Well, it's tough to have good data on how much people love FSD versus how much people hate FSD. The data is always going to be skewed. In my own experience, it's about 50-50. Some people love it, some people hate it. And a lot of people in between where they're like, yeah, it's cool. A lot of people like me think that it's really cool technology. It's just like it's so much not what Tesla is selling that it's a weird situation. But

Again, V12 is a significant improvement. So now that I've tried it, that I've experienced it, I understand more the motivation behind offering a free month because a lot more, maybe not everyone, but a lot more people are going to be impressed with it. And obviously Tesla now offering $99 a month subscription fee. Maybe they're going to get some keepers that are going to want to keep it.

yeah i mean certainly it's it's not perfect but for 99 bucks a month like why not and you get everything that's the thing like it's 99 bucks a month from the basic autopilot package so that's it's it's more than just we're selling fsd we're sending the package fsd so that's me let me just read it out to you so

for that you get navigate autopilot which is in the in the answer package auto land change auto park someone smart smart why they're still listing both them separately someone so you get all of that which is six thousand dollar normally and then you get all you get auto steer on city street traffic enlightened stop sign control which is like the city street driving uh of fsd on top of that it's not a bad deal especially like if you're going on a road trip this month or something

pay the $99 and cancel the next one because it's going to make your road trip a lot better just with Navigate, Autopilot, Autolane change. And I would even venture to say now on auto steer on city street, to me, I wouldn't even say yet that it's like better than it's enhanced my experience of driving just yet because there's still some issues with speed limits, for example.

We don't have 40 kilometers per hour speed limits here, and it still puts them at 40 for no reason. So I always have to crank that up. It gets annoying. Yesterday, I drove it on the highway, and I had an alert that the weather is bad, so the FSD might be limited. I always had that before V12, and I could still get it to the speed I'm comfortable with.

This time, if you have that alert, it limits your speed. And I was limited to 105 kilometers an hour, which is a little bit too slow. It was raining outside, but not raining bad. I would have wanted to drive at least at 115 or something and it wouldn't let me. So I had to get it off and drive by myself. So these things are a little bit annoying. So it's not exactly better, but I can see it getting there.

All right, moving on. Question, do you think Tesla should change their mission statement? The company is now a robotics and AI company, according to its CEO. I don't think accelerating the transition to electric is accurate now. I mean, it still does that. I mean, it has done that, to be fair. So, I don't know. They also changed. I don't think it's accelerating the transition to electric anymore.

I think they've changed that. So now it's to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. So that's the official mission now. Yeah, still a little different than Elon description. It's still the core business. The core business is energy storage and electric vehicles. Yeah, sure. I'm fine with it.

all right tesla just reduced we talked about that uh when tesla killed our real-world drive model initially to only build the all-wheel drive it was a cynical move to force a less efficient car on people for more money no one questioned it back then but it was a lame move yeah i'm all for more more options uh especially when it comes to powertrain

yeah it's lower price as well yeah i'm not big on option like trims like not trims but uh like uh like luxury like packages and all that and like bundling packages together like that that i'm not a big fan but when it comes to the powertrain actually like very useful like difference making on the vehicle like give me the option i want maybe i just want a real drive maybe i just want the long the long range maybe i want both i don't know yeah all right um

I skipped ahead, I think. I can confirm $99 a month. Yeah, Elon tweeted. The subscription fee is in a lifetime guarantee at that rate. Yeah, we talked about that. They can and will raise it when they want to or more likely when they can. The newest version seems to be ultra cautious in city traffic situations. You know, I had that problem on the initial one, but I think the upgrade makes it a little less cautious. Your thoughts there?

So I need to try it more. I want to do it this weekend. I'm going to give it a longer drive and try to film it. Yeah, like I said, the only time I had to do something is press the accelerator because it was being too cautious with another car at a four-way stop. But I've driven around like cyclists, pedestrian with dogs. And I felt for the first time like it was building my confidence fast.

A few versions ago, I would disengage when I see a cyclist because I would feel so bad if something happens. But this time, I see that the car detects it. I see the car's already moving to the left. I see the car willing to go over the lane to get around there. I'm like, this is the right way to do it. And it does feel more human like that, for better or worse. Yeah.

All right. $99 is preempting the end of the free trial, and it's a good move, according to Paul T. Andrew McDonald says, I think part of the reason Tesla is offering a one-month free FSD for new cars and may also want to reduce monthly subscription is to get more data for their training of FSD. I don't know. They're getting a lot of data. What are your thoughts? Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Carl in San Diego, let's talk about the half-empty Cybertruck pack. I think we did. Yeah. I think it's a clear sign they intended to do two layers. I don't know. But the battery prices never came down as predicted, and the truck was going to cost too much. We talked a little bit about how there's only three centimeters extra, so another layer doesn't really fit in there. No, no.

uh andrew my 2019 model 3 just got a free month of fsd obviously not a new car so yeah it wasn't for new cars only uh mr turkey next says the cyber trucks range makes the silverado look attractive i mean the silverado's got a huge huge battery pack for better or worse i mean if you need to tow things cross-country that's probably the vehicle for you uh to be clear years ago they said roadster would use a double thickness pack that's true yeah they did say that

I wonder if that prototype had a double battery pack in it. Yeah, I mean, since then, Elon has been very against higher than 400 mile range vehicles. He made a few statements about that. Even for trucks. I get the statement for most vehicles, but for trucks, towing, load capacity, it makes sense. All right. Does Cybertruck have normal crumple zones like other cars in crashes? No.

uh while normal like yes uh like they don't look normal from the outside but it has a frunk frunk space and the engine in the front is low uh so gives more more crumble zone before the cabin the passenger cabin uh so yeah yeah

All right. What if they are planning a 40? So we talked about the bigger battery pack that might be fit into the extra space there. I don't know, 46, 110, but yeah, like you said, maybe a 46, 95, something like that. Yeah. It sounds like that's another standard though. Tesla is so big, they can make their own standards.

Carl in San Diego, in the front, the Cybertruck has a crumple zone. I haven't seen any signs. Other sections were designed for predicted deformation or energy absorption. Elon confirmed. All right, we talked about that. 420 M3 performance rumor date. All right, we got it. That makes sense. I would be shocked. The only thing that would shock me is that it's far. It's like another week again. I'm going to spend another week of waiting for it. It's weird.

Yeah, and it's just the announcement. I mean, clearly they're being pumped out. A question, there are reports that used electric cars are booming in the US. Which brands have the highest rate of used EV sales? And in your opinion, which has the best quality? What does that mean, the highest rate of used EV sale? Well, I mean, they're... The more they are out there, the more they're going to be EV sales. So it's Tesla. In North America, it's going to be Tesla. Yeah, some Chevy Bolts and Mustang. No, I mean...

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. A new haircut sale. That's nice. You got a new haircut, that's right. Thank you. You got a fan in Thomas. But to come back to Kwame's point,

we're starting to get a real used EV market now. It's starting to feel like more of a real market. Before that, availability was so low a few years ago that everyone was fighting over. Now we have a lot more inventory and we have the US used $4,000 used discount for vehicles under $25,000. That's

If you're a used car buyer, like a lot, most people are, by the way, like I always try to emphasize that. Like, I think it's like 30% of the population of the car buying population that buys new cars. 70% buys used car. So if you're a used car buyer, now you can start looking at EVs and get some decent deals. All right. For that $4,000 though, that the eligibility criteria for income is lower, I think.

Yeah. It's pretty low. It has to be from a dealer. You can't just buy it on Craigslist. Yeah, that too. But I thought it was pretty low too for inflation. I think maybe it was even like $75,000, which is not a bad salary. But with inflation these days in some markets, you're in poverty, literally. All right, let's move on.

A big expansion going on in Giga, Texas, according to Richard Kuhl. Yeah, yeah, they are adding on one side, I think the west side. Yeah, on the west side, I think they're adding a big expansion to the main building.

All right. I've tried FSD a couple of times and I don't know what the use case is in its current form. It's unpredictable, makes poor decisions and even moderately complex situations and pisses off other drivers. I would recommend trying the latest version. It's a little bit better. It's noticeably better. If you have someone that follows you for a long time, like I had one earlier this week, a guy that followed me for like a few kilometers and in a place where there were like a lot of stops,

People will find you a bit weird for sure because they do a full stop. They don't do California stop or we call them American stops here. They do a nice full stop as if you're with your driving instructor in the car. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. That's weird that you call that an American stop. No, no, no. We call it American stop someone that just like doesn't stop and like just slows down. That's an American stop. So it doesn't do that now because of the NHTSA update. What other Americanisms are there? American... I don't know. That's the main one.

I don't know. Are you familiar with the Canadian tuxedo? Yeah. I do have a Canadian tuxedo sometimes. I catch myself in the mirror and I'm like, "Oh, damn. I'm wearing a Canadian tuxedo." A lot of denim. Yeah.

All right. Justin says the Tesla model lineup is looking dated. Well, I mean, obviously the Cybertruck is not dated, but it has been a while since we've seen updates in the Model 3. Sorry. Yeah, the Model 3 just got an update, but it's not a...

significant uh actually i think it's pretty good i i think most people are like thinking mobile wide because model y is so popular like monroe is everywhere there's millions of them now so like people are feel a bit weird about it that hasn't been updated i hear a ton of rumor about a mly update but tesla was pretty clear that it's not going to be one this year so i don't i don't know they can lie about that because

Some people would be pissed. I bought my wife because you told me there was not going to be an update this year. I don't know. All right, Greg Pullen. I've had FSD for five years, and I agree. Version 12 is the biggest change I've ever seen. Because FSD has been around for five years. I mean, they called it whatever back then, but yeah. I'm taking more FSD better, but...

Marlon, FSD has been a distraction and has the stupid robot, as has the stupid robot. Don't base your business model on the sci-fi speculation. Sell a righteous car that costs its owners less in the long run. A winner. All right. Old man shouting at the clouds. I remember Alfa has a cheaper cars in Italy like the MIT2. So this is an Alfa for the people.

Yeah, call says it's going to start at 30,000 euros. I don't know if that's official because, I mean, Scooter got the official release and everything and he didn't have pricing. So, I mean, 30,000 euros would make more sense. All right. Wow. FSD has wife approval, which I've never gotten approval on FSD.

uh from the wife so and me never yeah it's my it's more of a of like a early adopter tech adopter that gets on board with that so if you're not that yeah most most of the times the husbands are like yeah look how cool it is and like the wife's just like holding on to the holders like what are you doing and we're trying not to gender stereotype no just generally speaking yeah yeah

All right. Greg Poland, another Americanism, is driving five to 10 miles over the speed limit. You guys don't do that? We do that a lot. One of my main problems with FSD is that it doesn't always allow me to do that, especially on the highway now, again, with some rain or something.

All right. We call that a California roll here in California. Yeah. So, yeah, when I was living in the U.S., sometimes I called it that. But here, most people see an American stop when you don't stop fully at a stop.

I don't know what's going to happen with that because it was an interesting point. Tesla fought NHTSA over this. They were like, "Hey, we have all the data. No one stops like that. We cannot train our AI on that." So they have to bypass the AI and tell it to stop fully at the stop and not to do what the human does.

And it is kind of a bit frustrating. It's weird. It's weird. I would like to have actual data on how many people do a full stop at a stop, especially when there's no one around or something. Technically, you should. I'm not making any recommendation here. I'm saying follow the law because technically, if there's a cop there, they can stop you. And depending on where you live, these tickets are not cheap.

So, all right. Thanks, everyone, for listening to the show this week. If you do enjoy the show, you can give us a thumbs up, a like, a five-star rating on your podcast app. All those things are free to do and they help the show more than you think. We appreciate when you do it. We're going to see you same time, same place next week. Have a good one. Stay safe. Don't get a ticket out there. Bye-bye.