Chargers, Recalls, and Cybertrucks

[00:00:20] 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 are going to cover the news. So let's go ahead and jump into it. Let me go ahead and make this bigger. I turned 50 years old a couple months ago and now I can't see anything. It is like a switch. It was like a switch. 50 and then I'm blind.

[00:00:50] It's nutty. I guess I have glasses here. Let's put on the glasses. Also, as I go through this, I would like you to know that my coffee has gone cold. It was hot when I got in here. So what I'm saying is don't expect much out of this episode. The Trump administration is removing EV chargers from federal buildings. Right now there are about 8000 EV chargers at federal buildings across the United States. And when I say removing, the headline for the article that I read says that they're removing

[00:01:20] the chargers. But when you get into the chargers, but when you get into the article, it says they're just shutting them down. So it's unclear if they're actually physically removing the chargers and all the copper that went there, which is a that was very expensive to put in or if they are just shutting them down and canceling the contracts with the companies that maintain the chargers. And again, it wasn't just this one article that I read. There was several articles that just said shutting down, not removing. So

[00:01:50] if if I hear something different, I'll let you know. Let's see. According to the article, the administration is also trying to sell recently acquired EVs, which makes sense if you have no place to charge your fleet. And by the way, the 8000 EV chargers were not only to charge the fleet of electric vehicles, the federal government had, but it was also to let employees charge their own vehicle as well.

[00:02:16] So before somebody goes and says, wait a minute, you said you weren't going to talk about political stuff. Well, this isn't I don't think political because EV charging state infrastructure is something that we talk about on the show. And if it was 30 EV chargers, the federal government was shutting down, probably wouldn't mention it. But it's 8000. That's a significant number of charging ports. Man, I keep hitting my mic. Sorry if you can hear that.

[00:02:43] So that's why we're talking about it. Moving on. Rivian is recalling 17000 or more than 17000 R1 T and R1 S's for faulty headlights.

[00:02:55] The issue is in cold weather, the low beams may not light up once the vehicle has started. The good news is right now the driver will get a notification that the low beams aren't working. So that's good to know. If you're affected, Rivian will replace the headlight control module free of charge. So this is an actual physical recall and all notifications are expected to be mailed out by March 28th.

[00:03:21] Moving on to BYD or Build Your Dreams. BYD won the contract for the world's largest grid scale battery storage project. The project will be built in Saudi Arabia. So right now BYD already has a contract with Saudi Electric Company for 2.6 gigawatts of power storage.

[00:03:42] And the new contract brings on another 12.5 gigawatts of power storage for a total of 15.1 gigawatts gigawatt hours, excuse me, of power storage. The batteries will be spread out across five different sites in Saudi Arabia. And this is going to help stabilize their grid. And it also goes a long way to helping Saudi Arabia reach their goals of 50% renewable energy by 2030.

[00:04:11] The National Electrical Manufacturers Association or NEMA has published a standard for bright bidirectional EV charging. So by, if you're not familiar, if you're a new listener, and we have a few new listeners, bidirectional EV charging means that you can power your house or power the grid from the battery that's in your vehicle.

[00:04:34] Some of the things that the standard covers are the electrical parts, the communication and the cybersecurity. So I don't ever see myself paying to install hardware that would allow me to use my car as a whole home battery. I would just rather have a dedicated whole home battery to do that.

[00:04:57] However, I do recognize that there are situations out there, especially if you live in some place where, you know, you have extreme weather or you live somewhere where your electrical grid is spotty. I do understand the desire to have something like this. And Phoenix, our grid is pretty good. It's not, I'm not going to say it's rock solid, but it's pretty good.

[00:05:23] And our extreme weather is generally just really extreme heat. But because the grid has a lot of redundancies in place and the peaker plants and all the other stuff, we're able to handle the load as of right now. That might change. So I don't think this is something that I would ever use. But I do recognize that there are situations where people would want to use this for an extra layer of security and comfort.

[00:05:48] So I'm happy that Neiman developed the standard and hopefully we'll have some interoperability between manufacturers. Or hopefully this will help with interoperability between manufacturers because it would be great if when you bought, you know, like we'll use Ford as an example.

[00:06:08] You bought the Ford system and then five years down the road, you bought a GM vehicle that has bi-directional charging and you would actually be able to use that with the Ford system. So I'm on board with this is what I'm saying.

[00:06:29] And speaking of Ford, if I asked you how many Ford Mustang Mach-E's were sold in 2024, what would be your guess? I'm going to give you a second. Think of a number. And actually to help you out with your guess, I'm going to give you some additional information. The Ford Mach-E was the third best selling EV behind Model Y and Model 3.

[00:06:56] And to even give you some more context here, Tesla sold 1.3 million Model Ys and Model 3s in 2024. The majority of those were Model Ys because the Model Y was the best selling vehicle in the world. So we can assume the lion's share of that 1.3 million was the Model Y. So how many, I'm going to ask a question again, how many Mach-E's were sold in 2024 total?

[00:07:27] All right, I'm going to give you the answer here. 51,700 Mach-E's were sold in total. The third best selling EV, not the third best selling SUV, EV or crossover EV or whatever. It's the third best selling EV in that very broad category, only sold 51,700 vehicles. That is nutty to me.

[00:07:52] And I'm willing to bet by the end of 2025, the Chevy Equinox will be the third best selling EV. If, if, I shouldn't say that. We'll say third best selling EV. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to talk to you about a lease that you can get. If you happen to live in Southern California, you can lease a Mach-E for as little as $229 a month. And that's a 24 month lease.

[00:08:19] You get, you have to put down $4,329 at signing. And that brings the effective cost to $409 a month. So if you take the, the least cost plus what you have to put down at signing, that comes out to $409, which isn't a bad deal. It's not too bad. If, if you're into leases for sure.

[00:08:43] And Allison Sheridan is going to come on in a couple of weeks and we're going to talk about alternative vehicles out there for Tesla's. So it was a, it's a good chat. So I think this is a good primer for that conversation that we're going to have later in March. And then if you're one of those folks who is interested in an EV, but you don't like leases or you don't, you're not willing to lease for some reason. Ford is offering a 72 month financing with 0% down. And they'll also give you $2,500 in bonus cash.

[00:09:14] So not a bad deal on the Ford side. And I don't think we talked about this previously, but Ford is, has a new starting price for the Mach-E. And that is $36,495. That comes with a, let's see here, 260 miles of range. And that's a rear wheel drive version of that vehicle. So not too bad.

[00:09:37] Pretty, pretty on par with what the Chevy Equinox is selling for, except for the Chevy Equinox has a range of over 300 miles. All right. That is it for our EV news. We're going to get to our Tesla news in just a moment. But I do want to let you know, if you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash kilowatt or support kilowatt.com. And you can support the show there for as little as a dollar. You support the show and you get rid of all of the ads.

[00:10:08] So I've mentioned previously that I'm going to take the entire month of March off. But that means in January and February, I have been collecting interviews and prepping for shows that I'm going to prepping and recording and editing shows that I'm going to put out in February. So February has been a nutty month for me. Like it has been very, very busy. I can't even tell you all of the things that I'm doing because it would bore you.

[00:10:38] But it is just it's it's super busy. But I care about the folks who listen to the show. I want to give you good content while I'm away on a break, which is is really weird. A weird concept when you're a content creator, because when you want to take a break, you have to work twice as hard during the time that you're not taking a break to get the content out. But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

[00:11:05] The point of that is, is that this show is important to me. The people who listen to the show are important to me. The people in our community are important to me. And I want to make sure that I just don't drop you for a full month. So if you want to support that and this isn't a guilt trip, but now that I'm talking more, it sounds like a guilt trip. If you want to support that and not feel guilty about all the hard work I had to do. I'm just kidding. You can go to patreon.com forward slash kilowatt.

[00:11:33] Or if you prefer, you can support the show on ACAST+. The only thing is, is if you support the show on ACAST+, I just ask that you send me an email because ACAST does not notify me when new people support the show. And so I have no idea. So I usually, not usually, I like to send a thank you when someone supports the show. I can't do that unless I go in and I check it and I check it about once every couple of weeks. So there we go. All right, that's enough of that.

[00:12:03] Let's move on to our Tesla news. The Cybertruck received a five-star NHTSA safety rating. That's the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and Administration safety rating. Let's see. The Cybertruck received five stars in every category except the frontal barrier and the passenger side rollover test. Oh, excuse me. It's the frontal barrier rating on the passenger side and the rollover test.

[00:12:31] Those two tests received four stars, but a five-star overall rating for that. The frontal test, if you're curious, simulates a head-on collision between two similarly sized vehicles. And the passenger side didn't perform quite as well as the driver side.

[00:12:50] In the rollover test, the rollover test showed there was a 12.4% percentage chance of a rollover in a single vehicle loss of control scenario. So, I mean, sure, I think we have seen a Cybertruck rollover in the past right after the Cybertruck was released. Somebody rolled one over. With the EVs, it's not something I'm super concerned about.

[00:13:19] I have no idea if 12.4% is high or not, but I would willing to bet it's higher than vehicles like the Model 3, which are lower to the ground, just because the Cybertruck sits up a little bit higher. But let's see here. These tests, we should note, are only for the occupants inside of the vehicle.

[00:13:40] So one of the things that we were worried about with the Cybertruck and the stainless steel and all this stuff is how is it going to be for the people who are not in the vehicle? Like, sounds like people in the vehicle are going to be fairly safe or as safe as possible. The people, whether it's a pedestrian or another vehicle, how is that going to affect their safety?

[00:14:03] And at the moment, we don't know that, but I do have good news because the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is working on rules to assess the safety of other people on the road. So when they take and they do these tests with, whether it's the Cybertruck or the Hummer or whatever vehicle they're doing this to, they are working on a way to assess the safety for other people, whether they be pedestrians or other people on a vehicle.

[00:14:33] So I look forward to seeing those tests when they come out. Tesla is close to deploying a new public megacharger station at or near, excuse me, Carson, California. If you don't know, the megacharger stations will be there to fill up the Tesla semi-trucks. These are, you know, we've got superchargers and megachargers.

[00:14:58] Obviously, the semi-truck is going to need a lot of power, and that's where the megacharger comes in to deliver that power so that the trucks aren't just sitting there being charged. We want to charge those as fast as possible. So if you don't know, Carson, California is actually in the L.A. area, which is near the port of Long Beach. And that's one of the U.S.'s major ports in the U.S. I think it's the second biggest or third biggest port that we have here in the United States.

[00:15:27] This charging station will have 12 drive-through charging stalls for semi-trucks. And then it'll have a 1,600 square foot, not 16,000, 1,600 square foot amenities building, which will come with the driver's lounge, vending machines, restrooms, parking. I'm guessing showers because every truck stop I've ever been to has showers for the drivers.

[00:15:50] And I should say that this is the first public megacharger station, but there are private stations. There's one near Giga Nevada, and then there's some in private locations where Tesla was testing with like Frito-Lay and whatever other company they've been testing with. So it's not like there's other stations that don't exist, but this is the first one that's open to the public. Let's see here.

[00:16:22] Oh, volume production for the Tesla Semi is expected to begin in late 2025 or early 2026. And it sounds like the factory in Nevada for the Tesla Semi is pretty close to being done. This is this next story is good news, or at least I think it's good news. Tesla is testing a virtual queue at select supercharger stations in Q2 2025.

[00:16:52] So when chargers are full and you're just kind of waiting around to charge your vehicle, sometimes it can be a little contentious if somebody skips the line. And I think in my experience, everybody's usually very polite, but there's no clear indication of who is in fact next. And Tesla, it seems like Tesla could make it very easy when you arrive at a supercharger station.

[00:17:20] If there's a wait or if there's a queue, you check in and it tells you, hey, your vehicle, your number three in line. And when your charger comes up, it says proceed to charger 1B or whatever. It seems like that should be a very easy thing for Tesla to do, but they haven't done it to this point.

[00:17:42] Recently, there was a video of an argument where somebody thought that somebody else cut in line and, you know, it got heated. There was argument there wasn't nobody through punches, or at least I saw the video from the point of view of the video that I saw that nobody threw any punches or anything like that. But it wasn't a pleasant exchange.

[00:18:06] It wasn't, you know, we weren't nobody was exercising an overabundance of kindness in this article or in this video. So Tesla implemented is implementing this queue. Now, I don't think that Tesla started this because of the video of the fight. I think Tesla's probably been working on this for a little bit longer than that.

[00:18:30] I just think that they decided to announce it because there's a lot of there was a bright spotlight on this particular video. So I think this is a good thing. Tesla does say that superchargers only experience a wait time around 1% of the time, which I don't know if that's true or not.

[00:18:51] I do know that there are certain times near the at the supercharger near my house where there are a lot of people waiting like in the morning time. I would assume that it's mostly gig workers, Uber drivers and things like that that are wanting to charge their car before they go out and do their work. But yeah, it's it's. It's probably not a big deal. 90 percent of the time or Tesla saying 99 percent of the time, it's not a big deal.

[00:19:21] But when it is, you know, people want to charge their vehicle and move on. So let's implement a fair system so that people can do that. But also in the article, Tesla said that they want to expand the supercharger network 20 percent year over year. And they're still committed to doing that, even though their team last year, last summer was devastated. With cuts. Let's see here.

[00:19:49] OK, this is this is our final story for now. And this is my latest. This, hey, let's all be good humans and take care of each other conversation here. On January 20th, there was an arson fire at a Colorado, Colorado Tesla store. I read about this. I'm pretty sure I didn't cover it. However, sometimes I'm wrong on that. And I did. It's you'll when you do this long enough, you just forget what you read and what you actually cover.

[00:20:15] But there was this arson fire in Colorado. I just want to cover and I really feel like I don't need to talk to anybody in this community. But I just like it really hurts my heart when stuff like this happens. So arson is illegal. And if you're caught, you're almost certainly going to jail, which has ramifications on the rest of your life.

[00:20:38] And I won't use your if someone's caught, if someone commits arson and then they get caught, it's going to affect them for the rest of their life. It's bad for the environment. So I know a lot of environmental groups like in Europe and things like that. They were lighting Teslas on fire. I get that you want to make a point, but it kind of hurts your overall message when we know that when you light a car on fire, it's bad for the environment.

[00:21:06] But we shouldn't do this for self-preservation reasons. But we also shouldn't do this because someone could get hurt or die. The person who lit the fire, committed the arson, they might get hurt or die. And trust me, I've been on enough burn calls as a firefighter that my only fear that I have, like I don't fear dying because it's a very low chance that I'll die as a firefighter.

[00:21:32] The chance is higher than an accountant, but it's low in general terms. Right. So I don't I'm not worried about dying. One of my fears is actually burned. I've seen people with burns. I've seen people with significant burns across their body. And I've also seen how those burns are treated so that the person can get back on their feet. It is not something I ever want to go through in my life.

[00:21:57] So someone could get hurt, whether that's a bystander that's trying to put the fire out or that's a first responder being a firefighter or a cop. And this will add to those arson charges, by the way, like if you if you assault a first responder and this would technically be could could I guess technically this could be seen as an assault of a first responder. That's a it's a federal offense. So not not something you want to do. So anyway, it has an effect on public health.

[00:22:27] You know, cars when they catch on fire, they release carcinogens. Carcinogens cause cancer. You know, it's not something that we want to affect people with. But those those if you get cancer from a car fire, right, you're not getting cancer that day, that week or that month. You're getting it years and years and years later. So you could actually unintentionally cause someone to die prematurely of a horrible, horrible disease.

[00:22:56] Now, that brings us to Salem, Oregon. Playlists were called out to a Tesla store on Mission Street in Salem. After receiving reports of busted out windows. Officers arrived on scene. They determined that the cause of the busted windows was actually gunshots. And if I had to speculate, someone or a group of someones were mad at Elon and felt justified in shooting out the windows. It's a big company.

[00:23:24] They're not going to miss, you know, however many thousands of dollars it costs to replace that those windows. And somebody gets to walk away feeling good about themselves because they shot out the windows. Well, all of the things that I said about the arson story applied to this story. This particular incident happened at 5 a.m. So the people who shot out the windows probably assumed that the building was unoccupied. But you know who often occupies businesses after hours?

[00:23:54] People who are repairing things at the facility, tradespeople, cleaning staff, painters. Those kind of folks can be found in a commercial occupancy after hours because it's not good business to have somebody cleaning your office while you have customers in there. It's not good business to have somebody, you know, turning off the water to the facility so that they can repair the water heater or whatever it is.

[00:24:20] So just because it's 5 a.m. or just because it's after work hours does not mean that that building's not occupied. So I would like to set out a plea. And then I'm trying to recruit you, the Kilowatt community, to join me in this plea. If someone has a beef and they want to be heard, start a podcast, start a social media channel, start a blog, go out and peacefully protest.

[00:24:50] But don't get involved with something that's going to get yourself hurt or killed or somebody else, because that is that's just no good for anybody. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. I don't need to go further than this, but please, please, please encourage people and to be nice. I know everybody who listens to this podcast is nice. I've interacted with a lot of you and I've never had somebody be like super rude.

[00:25:19] I have had people be blunt, but I don't mind blunt. Blunt doesn't bother me. Blunt doesn't bother me. Blunt doesn't bother me. But I think we should all start sending a message of kindness. We don't have to agree. We don't have to do any of these things that we don't even have to hang out, but we can all be kind. And that includes if you have a problem, let's start a healthy dialogue instead of shooting out windows. All right. So that is it for me.

[00:25:49] I hope you all had a wonderful week. We did three podcasts in a row, not on the days that I said I was going to do them on, but we did them. I'm actually starting to upload March's podcasts now. So there should not be any missed days in March. Everything should be released on time. I have a lot of really good interviews for you. I interviewed the CEO of Harbinger, which is harbingermotors.com if you want to look them up.

[00:26:19] I'm going to talk to the Lead the Charge people. We had them on last year. They have a new I'm going to talk to them on Thursday of this week, which will be released next in next month. I have Chris Ashley is going to talk about his food business and running his food business off of an electric vehicle, his F-150 Lightning, including his food truck, like the trailer and everything. It's a good conversation. And Allison shared it. And like I said, it's going to be on.

[00:26:47] And then I have some things on Chinese EVs and security and stuff like that that I wrote up. So I hope you all enjoy March's content. It's getting really close. So I'm getting really stressed. I have one week to finish all this stuff. So thank you, everybody, for listening. I will talk to you on Tuesday.