Autonomous Ambitions

[00:00:21] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous driving, and much, much more. My name is Bodhi and I am your host. And on today's episode, we have news. But before we get to the news, we have patrons to thank. And we're going to start with our brand new patron, Frank. Insert applause here. Everybody clap. Frank, thank you so much for joining the Patreon. I really appreciate it. Every little bit helps and I really appreciate you supporting the show.

[00:00:51] Do you know who else I appreciate supporting the show? Our other patrons like Kiwi Graham, Mark, Nate, Patrick, Paul, Rolando, Scott, Steven, Steve, Steve K, and Steve Sheridan. I don't think Steve minds if I say his name out loud. And Tommaso. Thank you all so much for joining and supporting this show through Patreon.

[00:01:20] It really means a lot. And thank you again to all of our ACAST supporters. And you know what? Next, next episode, I'm going to, I'm going to thank our free members as well. If you want to become a free or paid member, you can go to patreon.com forward slash kilowatt or support kilowatt.com to sign up. All right, let's jump into our EV news. Last week, we talked about Stellantis and how they're not doing so great, mostly in the US, but they're also facing challenges in Europe from

[00:01:50] Chinese automakers. And you got layoffs here in the US and revenue dropped 30% last quarter. Well, Stellantis is trying to change a little bit of that narrative and give some, bring some good news to everybody.

[00:02:04] They sent out a Peugeot E3008. So 2000 and late. Anyway, black eyed peas lyrics aside, they decided they were going to do a cross country drive with the Peugeot E3008, which is their electric vehicle. It's built on the Stella medium platform. And according to Peugeot's website, the range for this vehicle is up to 435 miles or 700 kilometers.

[00:02:34] And, you know, let's talk a little bit about the Stella platform, the medium platform, because this platform can go across multiple brands and multiple models. So it's just kind of give some highlights. Like I said, up to 700 kilometers or 435 miles of range battery pack up to 98 kilowatt hours. Energy efficiency, according to their website is 14 kilowatt hours per hundred kilometers.

[00:03:01] And 400 volt charging, 20 to 80% in about 27 minutes. So what Stellantis and Peugeot decided to do is they're going to drive from Paris to Nice, which is about 900 kilometers, 932 kilometers or 580 miles.

[00:03:19] They mostly stayed on the French highways. They mostly stayed on the French highways and they ran at highway speeds, which is 130 kilometers per hour, or for us here in the US, 80.7 miles per hour.

[00:03:32] They made two charging stops. The first one was about 340 kilometers into the trip or 211 miles into the trip. And they averaged 2.6 miles per kilowatt hour in energy consumption.

[00:03:50] And then from there, they drove another 366 kilometers or 227 miles. And they did a little bit better in terms of energy consumption there, where they got 3.34 miles per kilowatt hour of energy consumption.

[00:04:07] And then they drove the last leg, which is about 143 miles or 231 kilometers. And they did pretty good there as well at 3 miles per kilowatt hour in energy consumption.

[00:04:19] I'm not sure why Stellantis made two stops. Because if they were driving the version of this vehicle that could drive 435 miles or 700 kilometers, they should have only had to make one stop.

[00:04:35] I don't know if there's, I'm not familiar with that part of the world. So I don't know if there's a lot of hills that maybe impacted the range. I just don't know.

[00:04:43] And Stellantis really didn't give us a lot of information. Just basically what I told you already.

[00:04:50] So I guess what I'm trying to say here is it would have been nice to have a little bit more context into the drive, but this isn't the end of the world.

[00:04:57] I'm not really sure this is going to give anyone confidence to buy an electric vehicle that wasn't already going to buy one.

[00:05:03] But, you know, again, Stellantis is having such a bad quarter, even a bad year. Give them a little win. We'll give them this win.

[00:05:12] So congratulations to Stellantis for doing a road trip.

[00:05:17] Let's move on to BYD. BYD was planning on entering the Canadian market, but decided to pause those efforts after Canada enacted a 100% federal tariff on EVs imported from China.

[00:05:33] So BYD over the summer was working with dealers across Canada to set up a possible distribution network, according to Automobile News.

[00:05:43] And then Canada decided to enact these tariffs and, you know, they just put a pause on it.

[00:05:49] But according to analysts, they think that BYD could absorb this 100% tariff and still sell some of their cars at a competitive price.

[00:06:00] And they would do this just to prove a point.

[00:06:03] Now, I don't know if the analysts are saying that BYD could absorb that cost or if they're saying that the consumer, which is how it works here in the United States, would absorb that cost.

[00:06:14] But in either case, what they're trying to say here is that if BYD wanted to be in that market and including the North America market, they could do it.

[00:06:25] They would just need to get that foothold.

[00:06:27] Like maybe they'd lose a little money here and there at first, but they just need to get into that market so they can start selling cars and see what happens from there.

[00:06:37] Now, one thing that I do wonder about is how their plant, BYD's plant in Mexico would affect the tariffs.

[00:06:46] Because it seems to me, and listen, I'm not an expert on tariffs, that BYD would be able to build vehicles in Mexico with whom us in Canada have trade agreements with and sell the cars in Canada without a tariff.

[00:07:06] Now, I could be wrong on that.

[00:07:08] We'll have to keep an eye on that and see how it goes.

[00:07:10] But it definitely seems like a possibility.

[00:07:13] And it also seems like a possibility here for the U.S. as well.

[00:07:17] BYD's official statement is they're building the plant in Mexico to supply vehicles to Central and South America.

[00:07:25] However, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to sell a little cars up north as well.

[00:07:33] Let's move on to the 2025 IONIQ 5, which has more range and NACS port, and it starts under $44,000.

[00:07:44] So the base model of the IONIQ 5, which is the SE rear wheel drive standard range, has a 63 kilowatt hour battery, which is up from a 58 kilowatt battery.

[00:07:56] So it's got a bigger battery.

[00:07:58] It's got a range of 245 miles and starts at $42,500.

[00:08:04] But the SE rear wheel drive, which is the next model up, has an 84 kilowatt hour battery, which is up from 77.4 in the previous year.

[00:08:15] So a bigger battery, about 7 kilowatt hours bigger, 318 miles of range, and starts at $46,550.

[00:08:24] Now this car has several more trims above this, but it seems like the base model is out there if you want it.

[00:08:33] You could pick the base model if you want to, but I think most people are going to start with the $46,000 model.

[00:08:41] But we'll see.

[00:08:43] We'll see.

[00:08:43] I do have a little bit of good news if you want to purchase an IONIQ 5.

[00:08:49] All of the trim variants for the 2025 IONIQ 5 are eligible for a federal tax credit if you're here in the United States.

[00:08:59] But it's not the full tax credit.

[00:09:01] It's $3,750 if you purchase it.

[00:09:04] But if you lease it, you will get the $7,500 federal tax credit.

[00:09:09] You'll get the full tax credit if you lease over purchase.

[00:09:12] So that's good to know.

[00:09:16] And then moving on to Kia.

[00:09:18] Kia has launched the Kia EV3 in Europe, which is a compact four-door SUV.

[00:09:25] If you're wanting to know what this vehicle looks like, it has a similar interior design language as all of the other Kia EVs and the Hyundai EVs.

[00:09:36] It does look like a smaller EV9 from the outside.

[00:09:42] It's a good-looking vehicle.

[00:09:44] It'll have a starting range of 434 kilometers or 270 miles.

[00:09:49] Excuse me.

[00:09:51] And the price is starting at €32,995.

[00:09:55] So that's pretty good.

[00:09:57] Kia does claim that the higher-end trim, one of the higher-end trims, will get you 375 miles of range or 603 kilometers on a single charge.

[00:10:09] But here's where I'm a little bit skeptical.

[00:10:13] They're saying with the iPedal technology that they have and regenerative braking, in city driving situations, you would get around 700 kilometers in the city or 479 miles, which I am very skeptical about that number.

[00:10:29] So if you own, you know, a Kia and you know that I shouldn't be skeptical, let me know.

[00:10:37] Bode, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com.

[00:10:40] But it does seem like it's maybe an extra 104 miles city driving.

[00:10:50] It just seems like that doesn't seem right to me.

[00:10:55] But I could be wrong.

[00:10:56] I could be wrong.

[00:10:57] So the topped-out spec on this vehicle, the topped-out trim, I should say, is €43,895.

[00:11:05] So it's a pretty affordable vehicle.

[00:11:09] And it looks really nice.

[00:11:11] Like I said, it's got that EV9 design language, which makes it look kind of futuristic and spacey.

[00:11:17] I like it.

[00:11:18] I like it a lot.

[00:11:22] All right.

[00:11:22] That is it for our EV news.

[00:11:25] Let's go ahead and move on to our Tesla news.

[00:11:27] The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has some concerns with Tesla's social media posts,

[00:11:35] mostly on X.

[00:11:36] And I should say they have concerns about things that Tesla's been posting on social media and also endorsing or retweeting or reposting about their vehicle's full self-driving capabilities.

[00:11:50] One example that they gave is, you know, if humans can drive somewhere, FSD supervised can too.

[00:11:58] No HD maps required.

[00:12:01] The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is saying, you know, these tweets and reposts, and I guess they're not called tweets anymore, posts,

[00:12:10] they're not a good reflection of what your vehicle's capable of or what your technology's capable of.

[00:12:18] And so they have an issue with it.

[00:12:20] Whether or not they're going to do anything with it, I honestly don't know.

[00:12:23] Back in October, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said it would launch a probe into Tesla's 2.4 million vehicle fleet over autopilot and full self-driving concerns.

[00:12:37] There were some deaths.

[00:12:38] We talked about this a couple of weeks ago, so I'm not going to rehash this.

[00:12:42] But I only mention it because, and listen, this is not a political podcast.

[00:12:49] I don't want to get into politics on this podcast, but there is a reality that one of the people we cover on this podcast,

[00:12:56] a whole lot happened to give Donald Trump and the Republican Party a lot of money, and Donald Trump was elected.

[00:13:04] So I only mention this because of that.

[00:13:07] Trump is going to serve a second term starting in January.

[00:13:11] So I'm curious, and you know, again, without creating some massive political fight, because I'm not interested in that,

[00:13:20] I'm curious as to what happens in the future after January when Donald Trump takes his presidency,

[00:13:28] what that looks like for not only the companies that Elon happens to run,

[00:13:36] but also other companies when it comes to regulations and, you know, different rules and that kind of thing.

[00:13:47] But mostly I'm curious about what happens with full self-driving, because Elon wants to get full self-driving,

[00:13:55] you know, cyber taxis out there and, you know, running and making money.

[00:14:02] Right now, we don't really have any federal regulations, or at least I don't think we have federal regulations on autonomous vehicles.

[00:14:11] We have like guidelines or guidance, I guess I should say, on autonomous vehicles, but we don't really have any official regulations as far as I know.

[00:14:21] I couldn't find any.

[00:14:21] But what, but the states, they have regulations and rules.

[00:14:28] Elon mentioned this in the last earnings call, and I do tend to agree with him on this,

[00:14:33] is that we should have some basic federal regulations on autonomous vehicles.

[00:14:39] I don't know if Elon and I see us eye to eye on this quite,

[00:14:44] but I think the federal regulations should be at a minimum, your autonomous driving system should be able to meet these standards.

[00:14:52] And if states want to make that more strict, then they have the ability to do that because we have states' rights here in the United States.

[00:14:58] But no state can go below what this federal minimum is.

[00:15:02] I think that would be a really good idea.

[00:15:06] What do you think?

[00:15:07] I know this is hard because, again, I don't want to have a political discussion about this.

[00:15:11] I know there's a lot of feelings about what happened recently with the presidential election here in the United States.

[00:15:18] Not interested in that discussion.

[00:15:20] It's more interested in what do you think, or I guess, what are your thoughts on where we should be going in terms of regulating autonomous vehicles?

[00:15:30] Should it be done at a federal level, state level?

[00:15:31] You know, I don't want to box you in if you have thoughts outside of what I just talked about.

[00:15:36] Send me an email, bodie, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com.

[00:15:42] Okay.

[00:15:43] Ooh, that was a tricky minefield.

[00:15:45] I really don't want a bunch of political emails, so please don't send me any political emails.

[00:15:50] All right.

[00:15:52] Have you wanted to buy a Cybertruck or own a Cybertruck in some way, shape, or form,

[00:15:58] but you were just waiting until you could lease one?

[00:16:01] Well, good news.

[00:16:01] If you live here in the United States, you can now lease a Cybertruck.

[00:16:06] So the all-wheel drive version, which has a range of 325 miles,

[00:16:11] you would need to put $7,500 down for a 36-month lease.

[00:16:16] That would give you 10,000 miles per year in terms of a limit on how far you could drive each year without paying a penalty.

[00:16:25] And it would be $999 a month.

[00:16:31] So the effective lease price for that vehicle is $1,207 a month.

[00:16:39] So if you put the down payment together or the money you have to put down, I guess it's not a down payment,

[00:16:44] and the monthly charge that you're going to be charged over 36 months,

[00:16:47] and then you divide that by 36, it's $1,207 a month.

[00:16:53] If you add full self-driving, you're going to pay another $146 a month on top of that.

[00:17:00] Now, if you were to finance this, and this is according to Tesla's website,

[00:17:05] I put in $7,500 down, 72-month term.

[00:17:10] You have excellent credit rating for 5.59% financing.

[00:17:17] This also includes the $7,500 IRA tax credit.

[00:17:23] Your payment would be $1,119.

[00:17:26] So it would actually be a little bit cheaper with the same amount of money down,

[00:17:31] but then you're going to go ahead and pay it out for a little bit longer.

[00:17:35] Now, if you switch that to, let's see, 36 months,

[00:17:39] you're going to pay a little over $2,000 a month for that bad chicken, which is quite a bit.

[00:17:45] But if you go with a more reasonable five years or 60 months, it's $1,300 a month with that same information.

[00:17:52] So take that for what it's worth.

[00:17:55] It might work for you.

[00:17:56] It might not.

[00:17:57] I know I've been talking a lot about leases from other companies,

[00:18:01] but those leases are just ridiculously low,

[00:18:04] and it makes a lot of sense, in my opinion, to lease those vehicles.

[00:18:09] I don't know if the effective lease price is $1,207 a month.

[00:18:15] I don't know if paying that much money when you could just buy it outright,

[00:18:21] it's just a little bit longer.

[00:18:23] Like if you can afford $1,207 a month for 36 months,

[00:18:26] you could probably afford it for the rest of the term of the purchase,

[00:18:30] whether that's five years or whatever you choose there.

[00:18:34] And you can put as many miles on it as you'd like and not worry about it.

[00:18:38] All right, let's move on to our final story here.

[00:18:42] Amnesty International has recognized Tesla and Mercedes-Benz

[00:18:46] for their human rights diligence when it comes to EV manufacturing.

[00:18:51] We all know that sourcing raw materials for electric vehicles

[00:18:54] can be complicated and messy,

[00:18:56] especially when you are talking about the cobalt

[00:19:00] that comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[00:19:04] Like it's a bad deal over there.

[00:19:07] Tesla and Mercedes were recognized for doing the best

[00:19:11] out of all of the automakers,

[00:19:12] but the report goes on to say that the companies fell short

[00:19:16] of adequate demonstration of human rights diligence.

[00:19:20] So out of all the automakers, they did the best,

[00:19:23] but they could do better.

[00:19:25] And, you know, I wouldn't read too much

[00:19:27] into the adequate demonstration of human rights diligence.

[00:19:31] I do think that that's important,

[00:19:34] but I don't know what those metrics were.

[00:19:37] It doesn't sound great.

[00:19:39] It sounds like, hey, you did really good

[00:19:41] out of everybody who did really bad.

[00:19:44] And that might be the case,

[00:19:45] or it just may be that this is a high bar.

[00:19:48] I don't know that that's,

[00:19:50] that's an Amnesty International thing.

[00:19:53] Maybe someday I'll try and have some of those folks on

[00:19:56] to talk about that.

[00:19:57] But in regards to Tesla and Mercedes,

[00:20:02] they did it the best out of all the automakers

[00:20:04] when it comes to EVs.

[00:20:06] But here are some things that Amnesty International

[00:20:08] says that automakers should look out for.

[00:20:11] And I kind of thought this was

[00:20:12] kind of important to talk about.

[00:20:14] Again, we're coming up on Thanksgiving

[00:20:16] here in the United States.

[00:20:17] I know Canada, you just had Thanksgiving.

[00:20:18] So sorry, it's a little late.

[00:20:20] But we're also coming up for the Christmas holidays

[00:20:23] and other religious holidays

[00:20:25] and secular holidays that are coming up.

[00:20:27] So we all get together as families.

[00:20:29] Here are some things that we can talk about, right?

[00:20:32] In the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo,

[00:20:37] they produce close to 70% of the global cobalt

[00:20:43] comes out of the DRC.

[00:20:44] And they also happen to have one of the largest copper reserves.

[00:20:49] In 2017, Amnesty International found that in some cases,

[00:20:55] children and adults were hand-digging cobalt mines

[00:20:59] for some of the smaller cobalt mines.

[00:21:01] There were also some instances of people being forced

[00:21:04] from their homes to work in the mines, like forced labor.

[00:21:08] And then you have the toxic pollution that can happen

[00:21:11] whenever you have mining, which is a concern to health

[00:21:15] and people's health and the environment as well.

[00:21:18] And then we have Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia.

[00:21:22] There is quite a bit of lithium in that part of the world,

[00:21:25] in South America.

[00:21:26] And lithium extraction on indigenous people's lands

[00:21:30] is causing some issues.

[00:21:32] You know, there are some indigenous people in those countries

[00:21:36] that let's just say some of these folks

[00:21:38] are not a fan of companies coming in

[00:21:42] and extracting lithium in the way that they're doing it.

[00:21:45] They have a certain way that they would like to live.

[00:21:48] And these companies are coming in, you know,

[00:21:51] creating some problems and taking up water resources.

[00:21:54] And then there were some other ones,

[00:21:57] but I'll just give you one last here.

[00:21:59] In Indonesia and the Philippines, there's a lot of nickel.

[00:22:03] And they have these nickel mining companies

[00:22:06] have cleared forests and kicked people out of their homes

[00:22:08] and polluted waterways and that kind of thing.

[00:22:10] So there is certainly a right and a wrong way to mine.

[00:22:16] You know, this reminds me of the movies in the 70s and 80s

[00:22:22] where a big company wants to come into a small town

[00:22:26] and disrupt a bunch of people's way of life

[00:22:29] and the town fights back against the company

[00:22:30] and then the company loses at the very end.

[00:22:33] And usually in a really clever way,

[00:22:35] the townspeople trick them into actually,

[00:22:40] revealing their evil plan.

[00:22:44] This seems like that kind of thing.

[00:22:46] I have some friends in Kenya

[00:22:49] and when they come to visit,

[00:22:52] I'm always shocked at the kind of things

[00:22:55] that American corporations are trying in Kenya,

[00:22:59] especially banks.

[00:23:00] Like banks in Kenya, or at least a couple of years ago,

[00:23:02] last time I had a conversation with them,

[00:23:05] would offer these enormously outrageous high interest loans

[00:23:10] to Kenyan businesses.

[00:23:12] And these are American banks

[00:23:13] and I'm sure European banks do something similar.

[00:23:15] So what I'm trying to say is

[00:23:17] there's a right way of doing business

[00:23:18] and a wrong way of doing business.

[00:23:20] And I think we can all agree,

[00:23:21] no matter where we fall in terms of ideology,

[00:23:24] that kicking people out of their homes

[00:23:26] and off their land

[00:23:27] and mining without concern for the environment

[00:23:31] or human safety and forced labor

[00:23:33] and all those other human rights violations

[00:23:36] isn't the best way to do business.

[00:23:39] So yeah, I thought this was an interesting story.

[00:23:43] It was supposed to be a positive one.

[00:23:45] When I first read the article

[00:23:47] and I read the title,

[00:23:49] it says Tesla and Mercedes,

[00:23:51] top of the heap

[00:23:52] when it comes to human rights diligence.

[00:23:55] And I was like, oh, that's a good story.

[00:23:56] And then when I read into it,

[00:23:57] it was like top of the heap of mediocreness

[00:24:01] and maybe even not quite too mediocre.

[00:24:03] We have a long way to go.

[00:24:05] Hopefully these companies decide,

[00:24:08] you know, when I say companies,

[00:24:09] I mean automakers

[00:24:09] and the mining companies

[00:24:12] and the processing companies.

[00:24:14] Hopefully they buy into this concept

[00:24:16] that I've seen floated around a little bit,

[00:24:20] which is a battery passport.

[00:24:22] And one of the ways that I've seen this

[00:24:25] proposed is we do like a blockchain.

[00:24:28] So every raw material that's mined for this battery

[00:24:32] has, you can track it all the way back to the mine

[00:24:35] and all of the other raw materials

[00:24:38] you can track back

[00:24:38] and who did the processing

[00:24:40] and who put the battery cells together

[00:24:42] and who put the battery pack together

[00:24:43] and where all this stuff went.

[00:24:46] So it's easier to track.

[00:24:48] I'm on board with this 100%.

[00:24:50] I think this is only good for the EV industry

[00:24:55] and even the automotive industry just in general,

[00:24:58] because when somebody comes and says,

[00:25:00] hey, EVs are polluting the environment

[00:25:03] and when you buy an EV,

[00:25:05] you're supporting companies

[00:25:08] that have poor human rights records,

[00:25:12] that's not something I want to be involved in for sure.

[00:25:16] And being able to track that back and say,

[00:25:19] well, this company over here,

[00:25:22] Ford or Mercedes or Tesla or whoever it is,

[00:25:24] actually has a really good record

[00:25:25] when it comes to human rights

[00:25:26] and buying their materials

[00:25:29] from reputable suppliers.

[00:25:31] And here's proof.

[00:25:32] I think that there's nothing bad about that.

[00:25:35] There's only good.

[00:25:36] So, all right, everybody.

[00:25:38] I have talked long enough.

[00:25:40] Let's go ahead and end it here.

[00:25:41] If you want to email me,

[00:25:42] it's bodie, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com.

[00:25:45] You can also find me on X at 918digital.

[00:25:49] I promise to you that my posts,

[00:25:54] when I do posts, which is not very often,

[00:25:56] will not receive any National Highway Transportation

[00:25:59] Safety Administration scrutiny.

[00:26:01] So that is my promise to you.

[00:26:04] Thank you again to Frank for becoming a patron.

[00:26:06] I hope you all have a wonderful week

[00:26:08] and I will talk to you on Friday.

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