Clearing the EV Queue

[00:00:22] 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 on today's episode. We have a lot of news. So I mentioned last episode that I was going to take a little bit of a break so that I could spend some time with my family. My kids are out of school now. We're going to do some hiking, you know, fun stuff, just family stuff.

[00:00:47] And I wanted to have time where I wasn't recording. I was just hanging out with them. Unfortunately, because life, the way that life works is I've only got one episode actually recorded out of the four. This would be the second one. So I still need to record two more episodes over the next couple of days. So it's not going to be exactly like all free time. But yeah, anyway, it will, it will be a good time.

[00:01:14] Um, and, uh, by allowing me to kind of take a break, it, it really helps. So thank you very much. Um, starting to get a little burned out. Not going to lie. Um, in terms of other things that I'm going to be doing on my break, I'm, I'm finally getting around to responding to more emails. I think I only have maybe seven or eight more emails to respond to. I responded to quite a few this morning, uh, in between putting this show together.

[00:01:44] So, um, if I don't respond to you within a couple of days and you're expecting a response back, please let me know. Cause I don't like leaving anybody, um, unresponded to. If you, if you take the time to send me an email, I feel an obligation to take the time to reply back to you. That that's kind of, I just think that's good manners. So although I don't mind when other people don't respond to me when I email them.

[00:02:08] So it's, you know, whatever, this is just how I feel. I feel an obligation to do it. Um, so if for some reason by let's say next Monday, you have not received an email from me and you were expecting one, just send me a note to remind me cause I might have missed it. Um, it's been a lot of, a lot of email inbox sorting, uh, the last couple of days. So I might've accidentally deleted something I didn't mean to.

[00:02:37] Uh, one more little bit before we get into our news. Um, if you could do me a favor while you're listening to this podcast is go to wherever you got your, your podcast or, you know, wherever you listen to your podcast and rate and review this show. Uh, that would be really appreciated just because, uh, one, it's a, it's probably a good idea, uh, for me to ask that more often than I do.

[00:03:02] And two, let me read to you the, um, I have, uh, let's see, 43 reviews. Here are just some of the reviews that I've gotten so far. This was eight years ago and I've been doing this podcast for almost 10 helpful review of the news. That was from Mason. So Mason, thank you very much.

[00:03:24] This next one was from Allison Sheridan three, three weeks ago. Tesla dominates the EV market. So it's easy to overlook the plethora of options we have available to us. Bode keeps us informed, which was very nice. And Allison goes on to say more.

[00:03:39] And then we have a very nice, great job. Always insightful. That's very nice. And then, uh, this one, this next one came three years ago. Uh, it just says unions one star, just the pro union podcast, which that is untrue. I am a pro union podcast host, but I'm not a pro union podcast.

[00:03:59] I have said many times on this podcast that as a proud member of a union, sometimes we cause more problems than we solve. Not always just sometimes. Anyway, uh, you got some great works, amazing show, uh, kilowatt works for me.

[00:04:17] And here's one from eight years ago. Stunned. What a dour and cynical show says something negative and then says, what do I know? I actually had to turn it off. Just a constant aphasic search for negativity. Ah, well, I mean, that might be true. And then the last one here, guy literally reads a headline and gives half informed opinions, which he admits to not being fully aware of the details.

[00:04:43] Worst of all, he found, uh, he found the need to announce every single freaking sip of alcohol you took. Dude, podcaster drink, don't do both. Now I will agree with this. This was early on in the podcasting and I was very nervous. So I used to enjoy a little bit of alcohol with the show. Um, that's also when I drank a lot more than I do now. So, uh, fair, fair criticism. Anyway, what I'm trying to do with this is please go leave a review. It'd be great if it's funny.

[00:05:12] It doesn't have to be four or five stars. It could be one star if that's really what's in your heart. Um, but yeah, uh, rate and review the show. I need some, I need some cover for the pro union thing. Um, again, I am pro union. This podcast is neutral. All right. Um, now having said all that, we have a really big show because what I did was I had 180 some articles in my queue.

[00:05:41] I whittled those down to around 33. That doesn't mean I have 33 different stories. I just have 33 different sources that I got information from. Um, and then I put those into the show notes. So just so you know, it's, it, it's not as scary as it might sound, but normally we do like, I don't know, six to eight stories.

[00:06:07] So it's going to be a little bit of a bigger show today just because I am going, um, we're not doing news for a while. So I thought I might as well clear my inbox and catch up on it. And I'm happy, happy to say.

[00:06:20] I have zero stories in my inbox. I did not push the button to retrieve more stories before I started recording because otherwise I'd never finish. But, uh, as of, as of the time of this recording and not hitting the refresh my feeds button, um, I have completely cleared out my inbox when it comes to the news feeds that I follow.

[00:06:42] All right, let's go ahead and start off with our EV news. Volterra and Revell are partnering up to bring DC fast charging to fleets. And specifically it's going to be fleets, rideshare drivers, and robo taxis. So this won't be available. These DC fast chargers won't be available to the general public.

[00:07:02] This is a new venture that will continue under the Volterra brand name and, uh, Revell will just kind of disappear into the sunset. But the CEO of Revell, whose name is Frank Reg, he will become the CEO of the new Volterra company.

[00:07:21] So, um, this is what he said about, uh, the, the merger. He said, companies have spent years building, said both companies have spent years building charging infrastructure for fleet operators in dense cities and combining forces is a natural next step to scale faster in key markets.

[00:07:41] The new Volterra will have, uh, around a thousand charging stalls in 11 different cities. Now that's not nothing. Uh, you know, it pales in comparison to, you know, what Electrify America has and, and what Tesla has, but they are very specific to rideshare drivers, robo taxis, and fleets. So, um, I mean, we'll, we'll kind of keep an eye on it and see where it goes.

[00:08:09] So, um, we'll keep an eye on it and see where it goes.

[00:08:36] It's created by the motor. And when that happens, it can cause the PR to lose power. So, Lucid is working on a recall for that. And I'm sure you'll be getting something in the mail stating as such, if you have one of those vehicles.

[00:08:55] Um, what's not exciting is they're taking a $300 non-refundable deposit. If you are wanting to pre-order one of these trucks. Now you might be saying to yourself, wait a minute, I put $50 down on this truck to pre-order. Does that mean I'm not going to get the money back? Cause they said it was refundable.

[00:09:18] Well, in your situation, the $50 that you put down, uh, to get in line is refundable. But then you'll, if you want to actually buy the truck, you'll have to put down a $250 non-refundable, uh, uh, um, down payment, I guess. What is it called? Uh, deposit. There we go.

[00:09:38] You have to put down a $250 deposit and then you will be able to buy the truck. Actually, the people who put down the $50, uh, deposit first, the refundable one, those are the people that are going to be first in line to actually get a slate pickup.

[00:09:52] But June 24th is the day as of right now. Oh, if for everybody else that didn't put down the pre-order, that's, that's who the $300 non-refundable deposit applies to. Now we don't have an official price yet for the slate. Uh, we know it's going to be sub $30,000 or we assume it is cause that's what they said.

[00:10:14] We'll see what happens when they actually release the vehicle, but we're going to find out the official price on June 24th, which is the day the pre-orders start. Speaking of deliveries, Rivian is set to deliver the Rivian R2 on June 9th. And that is going to be, those are going to be like early reservation holders. If you didn't put in, you know, within the first hour, you're probably not getting it on June 9th, but that's when they're going to start is on June 9th.

[00:10:43] Um, and I honestly cannot wait to start seeing these cars driving around. I'm super stoked about it. I think it's, I don't know. Uh, there's a, there's a certain amount of stocking that I do not, not creepy stocking. Uh, I mean, I guess all stocking could be considered creepy, but I, I like to look at these cars and kind of, you know, pull up beside them, get behind them. Um, just overall try to get a good look at the car without seeming creepy.

[00:11:13] Which, well, as I explain it, it sounds creepy. Not going to lie. What's not creepy is based on Rivian's, uh, EPA range information or data, uh, filings. The R2 matches the efficiency of the model Y performance.

[00:11:31] Now I'm not going to go through all of the numbers because, you know, um, those EPA numbers are, you know, not necessarily real life. So as these cars come out and as people start testing them and, and we'll kind of get a good comparison from a couple of reliable sources, we'll see if that's true. In other Rivian news, their chief of software. Oh man.

[00:12:01] Wasim bin Saeed said that CarPlay and Android Auto are obsolete, obsolete because of AI defined cars. Now I'm going to be honest. I think it is totally fine for a company not to include CarPlay or Android Auto when, you know, they're building a car. I think it's a mistake, but I think it's completely fine.

[00:12:25] But I think what a lot of car companies are underestimating is the connection that people have with their smartphones and specifically the smart, the, the apps that they use on their smartphone. It's just more of an intimate experience. So, um, I, I think that CarPlay and Android Auto certainly have their place there. They're also not obsolete. You know, I think that's a, an arrogant way of looking at it is how I should have probably said that in the beginning.

[00:12:58] Let's see. Stellantis is considering building Chinese EVs in North America. Now they wouldn't be building it under a Stellantis brand, which I actually said this, you know, a couple months ago when we talked about this initially, when Stellantis was going to use a factory in Canada to build some of their North American brands. And then they decided not to, I said, I wouldn't be surprised if they brought in something from Leap Motors and rebranded it as a Dodge or Jeep or Chrysler product.

[00:13:28] Well, it turns out they might be using their factory in Canada to build, you know, just Leap Motors vehicles, which is interesting. Now, none of this will happen in the United States. And we probably won't see these cars in the U.S. unless somebody from there is, uh, uh, vacationing or maybe they bought it in Canada and drove down here. Um, we'll kind of see how that goes.

[00:13:53] Um, I would imagine that at some point in time, this will be something that the U.S. stops if that happens or you have to get a special waiver. And we'll talk about some of that stuff later in the show. But yeah, sounds like Stellantis is going to start bringing over Chinese brands, um, to North America, not, not to the U.S., to North America, which means Mexico and Canada. Uh, this is a big if though.

[00:14:22] It does not mean that they are 100%. This is their plan. It's an F. Not, not a win. A couple BYD stories here. BYD is planning on bringing, uh, all solid state batteries to the market in 2027. That is not to say that they are bringing, you know, every new car that they build in 2027 will be solid state batteries. That is to say that it's not a semi-solid state battery. It is a true solid state battery.

[00:14:51] And their goal, like I said, is to have them in cars in 2027. I would imagine that's not going to be in a bunch of cars. It's going to be in a few cars by 2027. But this is, you know, we seem to be getting closer. This is something that other car companies are testing out. We have semi-solid state batteries and all that stuff. So we'll keep an eye on it, see where it goes.

[00:15:13] Uh, BYD also, uh, announced that they're going to take, um, uh, the responsibility if your car gets into an accident when it is operating in its self-driving mode. So BYD's autonomous driving software package is called God's Eye, which I have always thought is a weird name for a lot of different reasons.

[00:15:33] One of which is that this thing could potentially, like one of the reasons why we don't have Chinese connected, you know, uh, cars here in the U.S. Is because of spying reasons. And this is a car that could literally spy on you, um, which all, it's not just BYD. Any car with this technology could do that. I just think it's a weird, it's just a weird name to have cameras and potentially microphones and a bunch of other stuff everywhere recording everything that you do.

[00:16:02] Anyway, if a driver is using God's Eye and gets into an accident, BYD will accept the liability and cover the cost of the accident. There are some stipulations. So this is only available in China. You have to be using God's Eye version 5.0. You have to be using Navigate on Autopilot, although it does sound like there's some other features. And I'm not super familiar with, with their software package, but it does seem like there's some other features in which you're covered.

[00:16:31] But Navigate on Autopilot for sure. And then you have to be in compliance with a bunch of different regulations. I'm sure if, you know, you activate the Navigate on Autopilot feature and then you get in the back seat and you get in an accident, BYD is probably not going to cover it in that situation. God's Eye has, Navigate on Autopilot has to be activated at the time of the accident. And, uh, this is only for new car buyers, kinda.

[00:17:00] So, if you buy a car now and it comes, you know, it comes with the God's Eye 5.0, then it sounds like you're good for life. If you've already owned a BYD vehicle and you upgrade the software package to 5.0, then it sounds like you get a year covered for free. I don't, it didn't say anything about having to pay after that.

[00:17:24] But if you buy a new car and you get this automatically when it comes with the car, and then on top of that, you don't have to pay for any extra insurance. So, it's not like if you buy a Tesla and you go and buy Tesla insurance. Like, you have your regular commercial insurance and then that's for when you're just driving around like, uh, like an animal. Like, just with your hands and your feet and your eyes.

[00:17:50] But if you are using God's Mode, God's Eye, uh, Virgin 5.0, and you're driving around and you get in an accident, then that's when BYD takes that liability. And they will cover of any, um, they'll cover all costs associated with an at-fault accident. So, that includes repairs, property damage, and personal injury.

[00:18:16] Um, and then also, it doesn't, like, there's no payout cap. So, it's not like they'll cover up to $10,000 or anything like that. There's no cap. Um, so that's cool. And it should not affect, if you're using Navigate on Autopilot feature, it should not affect the premiums for your other commercial insurance that you're actually paying for. This sounds cool.

[00:18:43] You know, I don't think, I don't think this will be something that Tesla does, but we'll see. It won't be. It won't be something that Tesla does. Um, but I, I don't know much about the laws in China, right? Um, to say that I know nothing, I know next to nothing about the different laws in China.

[00:19:04] But it does seem like it's cheaper to pay this out when you're, when people are operating in your software package, your autonomy, your autonomous driving mode. It seems cheaper just to pay people out in this way than it does to, um, get sued afterwards. You know, uh, I guess they could still get sued.

[00:19:30] But if you look at, I don't know, a recent, uh, a Tesla judgment, there was a fatal autopilot crash and the family of the victim, they were awarded $243 million from Tesla. And I believe Tesla is fighting that, but $243 million is a lot of money.

[00:19:55] And I asked Gemini what, like based on the average cost of an accident, how many accidents could that have covered? Now, keep in mind, uh, there are lots of accidents every single day, especially here in the U S but we are talking about accidents for a specific car company in a specific, you know, country.

[00:20:17] So these numbers seem in some cases seem low, but if you, you know, just break it down to one company, I don't think they're as low as, as they seem. So if we use $243 million in a fund, we could on average cover 8,678, um, accidents.

[00:20:44] If you combine all of the accidents, uh, potential accidents that are out there, if you include property damage and no injuries, then we could cover 42,631 accidents. If we looked at accidents with injuries only, that would be 9,000 accidents, accidents with evident injuries, which I'm going to guess is more serious injuries, 5,522 accidents with disabling injuries.

[00:21:14] It would cover 1,455 and it would cover about 124 fatal accidents, uh, just that $243 million. So, you know, I don't know if these numbers are, are good and, or bad, um, but you know, they're just interesting to look at. And again, will, will Tesla follow suit? Probably not. I have been wrong before.

[00:21:42] Let's move on to another Chinese EV maker, XPeng or XPeng. I'm going to say XPeng, but I think it's XPeng. So, anyway, they started mass producing robo-taxis in Guangzhou, China recently. This is going to be a, uh, in-house, completely developed in-house robo-taxi with level 4 autonomous driving capability, which is impressive. Although I did note that it still has a steering wheel, just in case you were wondering.

[00:22:10] In the early days, and by early days, I mean like 8 and 10 years ago when people were still leaving negative comments on my, or negative reviews on my podcast, on Apple, on Apple Podcasts. Anyway, in the early days, uh, XPeng didn't have maybe the best reputation. They were accused of stealing or copying Tesla in the, in how their early models looked like their first two models.

[00:22:37] I believe it was their first two models looked very similar to the Model S and Model X. Not, not identical actually. It looked like a Timu Model S and Model X. It was not, not a, it was, it was an okay looking car, but not to my taste. Like the Model S and Model X looked so much nicer. Um, but XPeng, you know, they made some smart hires.

[00:23:00] Some of those hires worked for Apple and Tesla, and some of those employees were accused of stealing an intellectual property from those companies and giving it to XPeng. Um, I don't, I don't know how those, uh, cases turned out, uh, off the top of my head. So don't, don't quote me on what happened there, but over time, their, their, their, their vehicles have taken on their own unique look.

[00:23:30] Uh, they, they actually look quite nice. I saw a review of one the other day on YouTube. I can't remember which one it was, but the interior looked great. The exterior was fantastic. So XPeng has really come into its own. Um, but with all that controversy and that, those accusations behind them, they seem to be, um, kind of cruising along and making their own way. Um, there's a song. Anyway, I'm not going to sing the song.

[00:23:58] Uh, they are in terms of the robotaxi stuff. They're moving from the validation phase to the commercialization phase. So we'll see what, uh, later this year in 2027 brings for the XPeng robotaxis. Speaking of robotaxis, Waymo is introducing a new EV to the fleet. It's made by Chinese EV maker Zeker, which is owned by Gigli.

[00:24:25] So I, I, I see it being called the Waymo Ojai, O-J-A-I or O-J-O-I. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I see it being called the, the Waymo Ojai, but in reality it was built by Zeker. It's O-J-A-I. Um, and this is, this is an interesting, uh, import to let's, to say the least.

[00:24:54] Because we already talked about recently that I, I believe that you, you know, you can't, you can't import connected software vehicles or Chinese connected software vehicles into the U.S. So how was Waymo able to get around the restrictions on Chinese EVs? Well, first it's, it's heavily modified by Waymo.

[00:25:17] Um, before it is shipped, the Ojai is stripped of its Chinese connected software. So that helps sidestep the restrictions on the band. I imagine that the band, not band. I would imagine that Waymo still has to pay the tariff on the car, which is at a hundred percent. But this is a car that's built for mass production.

[00:25:41] And then these cars go to the Waymo facility in Mesa, Arizona, and then they're outfitted with, you know, all the software and whatever extra hardware they wanted to put in there. And then they're shipped to San Francisco, LA and, and Phoenix for now. Now we'll say, I did see one of these driving around the other day. I think it was on Friday. And then also I saw a semi truck carrying a bunch of these.

[00:26:07] And I actually got a video, uh, with my Tesla, cause I just happened to be driving behind it, but it's not a great video. It just shows the cars and it, I don't know, hardware three cameras, maybe not what they, they could be. Um, and I was facing into the sun on top of that. So I was going to post it and then I decided not to, but these Ojai, uh, vehicles, they have these elevator style doors.

[00:26:32] So they open, uh, in the middle and to the left and the right, uh, to make it easy to get in and get out of. It's got a pretty large cabin. It's got one screen in the front that you can't touch if you're sitting in the back and two screens in the back. And that allows the riders in the back to adjust audio and different climate, uh, controls if needed. And then this is really cool. There's an embedded, the embedded screen reader for people who are vision impaired.

[00:27:02] And then it also has embedded Braille. So that's neat. Uh, let's see. It has some different compatibility integrated into the seat handles. Um, I'm guessing that's the Braille.

[00:27:42] Uh, let's see. So it's better handling that. Uh, it's also cheaper. I think it's like $120,000 or something like that cheaper than what the, what it costs to outfit at Jaguar I-Pace. And yeah, I mean, I, again, I've seen this, I've seen one of these driving around and I happen to be in the area where I'm pretty sure that Mesa warehouse is. So I just happened to be in that area. Um, I think they look cool.

[00:28:12] They're, they're smaller than you would think, but, uh, they definitely feel, seem smaller than the I-Pace. But depending on how it's configured on the inside, which I have not gotten an opportunity to see, uh, this might be a really good option for families trying to get from point A to point B. You know, my kids are in camp right now. And while I can take them on my days off, we're kind of stuck when my wife and I are both working.

[00:28:41] So having an opportunity to use something like a Waymo, uh, to get them from point A to point B would be really helpful right now. But they're not 14. You have to be 14 in order to, to do that. So now we just manage as best as we can. But at some point in time, this will be a cool option to get them to different places where they need to be. Uh, in addition to the Ohais, Waymo is also planning on using Ionic 5s in the future.

[00:29:07] So we'll, we'll keep an eye on that and looking forward to Waymo expanding. All right, let's move on to some renewable energy, which we don't, we haven't talked about recently. IndeBridge, which is a Canadian energy company, is investing $1.1 billion into the Sequoia Solar Project, which is in Texas. Um, and it's just, I can't remember, it's just outside of Dallas, I believe for this one.

[00:29:36] I said just outside of Tesla because I'm an idiot, but I'm pretty sure it's just outside of Dallas. There are two phases to this project. And when it's all finished, it'll be capable of generating 815 megawatts, which is a lot. They recently turned on phase one, which is currently generating 400 megawatts. And phase two will come on later this year and give us another 415 megawatts.

[00:30:02] Now this specific project is not for like residential homes or anything like that. It's going to go on to supply, to supply electricity to like AT&T, Toyota, PepsiCo and Donaldson company, which I thought was a weird mention. But I looked it up. Donaldson company manufactures like filtration systems and stuff for filtration systems. So, uh, cool. Now, now we know what that company does.

[00:30:28] Uh, in, in related renewable energy news, Vesper Energy just closed $236 million in financing to build a 201 megawatt solar project in Swisher County, Texas. Now this is in the Northern part of the state, not by Dallas. If you're not from the U S Texas is an enormous state, not as big as Alaska where I'm from. They're number two.

[00:30:57] They're teeny tiny compared to where I'm from, but they are the biggest state in the lower 48. So we'll give them their props there. But anyway, this project is up closer to Amarillo. Amarillo is in a different County than Swisher County, but it's in that same general area. Anyway, uh, the County has about 7,000 people in it.

[00:31:18] And this solar project called the Nazareth solar project will cover around 2,400 acres of private land and it will supply power to about 53,000 homes. So that's pretty cool. Um, based on, you know, those numbers, 200 ish megawatts.

[00:31:36] If the Inbridge, um, that the big old, uh, uh, 815 megawatt system, you know, we're looking about 200,000 homes if they actually decided to power residential, but they're not, they're going to power some industrial places. Which I think that's needed too. I'm not hating on it. Okay. Well, that is our EV news. Now we have our Tesla news. If you want to email me, you can do so. It's Bodhi.

[00:32:05] No, I'm going to leave this in. I'm leaving this in because I'm so stupid. Well, that's our EV news. Let's get to our Tesla news. Before we do that. But if you want to support the show, you can go to supportkilowatt.com and, you know, sign up and support the show for as little as a dollar. All the money goes back into the show. None of the money goes into my own pocket for the Patreon.

[00:32:28] So it pays for things like Riverside, which is what I use to use, what I used for, um, recording my interviews. It pays for like my Gmail, uh, workspace and all the other things that I need to Canva and all the other stuff that I pay for to keep the production of the show going. So it's very helpful if you support the show. All right. Moving into our Tesla news.

[00:32:54] Lars Moravi, Moravi, uh, said on a podcast at the Ride the Lightning podcast, you should, you should, if you're into Teslas and he does other things now too. He talks about other EVs, but if you're into the electric vehicles, so check out Ryan at the Ride the Lightning podcast. But, uh, I don't know him, but I, I wouldn't hesitate to, to recommend his show. I think it's good.

[00:33:19] Uh, anyway, he said that Tesla, Lars said that Tesla thought about building a Model 3 Plaid and, you know, doesn't mean that they're going to build a Model 3 Plaid. And I do see that kind of being, um, presented out there and in, on the internet. It just means that they thought about it and it might be a strategic mention to kind of gauge interest.

[00:33:47] Would people be interested in paying for a tri-motor Model 3 Plaid? Plaid, Plaid. Now I wouldn't. Because I'm not going to spend that much money on something like that when I could spend much, much less and, and get 80, maybe even 90% of the same car. But there are other people who have different priorities. So we'll see where it goes. I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Actually, I would be surprised if they did a Model 3 Plaid before they did a Model Y Plaid.

[00:34:17] But that's just me. All right. Uh, by the way, I did not listen to that, that episode. So go, go listen to it and let me know where I got, what I got wrong. Uh, let's see. Tesla China released a retractable solar shade for the Model Y. So this is to cut down the radiant heat through the glass. This is really cool. It fits just underneath the glass roof, uh, inside the trim pieces.

[00:34:44] There are some things that you need to do to, to get it put in place. And it also takes about, if you're going to do it yourself, it takes two people to, to get it in place. Um, but it's pretty cool because it will, the, the screen will retract. And then when, when it's hot outside, you can close it and hopefully save yourself some of that radiant heat. Now in Arizona, when it's really hot outside, I have not noticed my car needing, uh, this kind of thing.

[00:35:12] Uh, it would be nice to have when you go into a store, be able to close it because why heat up the car extra? But in general, the air conditioner works just fine. Is, is, but I live in a dry heat. Maybe this is a little different when it's, uh, more humidity. I don't know. I've not experienced that. But anyway, I'm just something to think about. Uh, I do think it's, it's a neat idea. It's costs about $220 us. It's only available in China. Um, it looks like it's very well made.

[00:35:42] And if you don't want to install it, you can pay Tesla to install it for an additional fee. But if this came to the U S I think I would consider it. I don't know if I would actually buy it. I would have to see it in person. All right. Let's see. In 2021, Tesla started making efforts to build a factory in India. At least there were rumors starting in 2021.

[00:36:11] It was actually probably earlier than that, that they actually started making efforts in this direction, um, behind the scenes. But Tesla has given up on its plans to manufacture cars in India. Um, India has a lot of rules when it comes to manufacturing products in their country. Like a certain amount of the parts need to be manufactured in the country and, uh, you know, good, bad, or indifferent.

[00:36:36] Uh, Tesla decided to just walk away and pay whatever tariffs they needed to pay or to, to, to get that done, uh, to get cars into that country. Uh, okay. Uh, this next one, uh, it's a little bit of a bummer. A Cybertruck owner activated Wade mode and then tried to cross Grapevine Lake in Texas.

[00:37:03] Now, if you don't know what Wade mode is, it pressurizes the battery pack. It raises the height of the, uh, the truck so that you can wait across streams and things like that. Gene was on, I think about a year ago and he talked about his Cybertruck, um, and he did some off-roading in it and he activated Wade mode. It takes a few minutes and it worked great.

[00:37:25] Well, Tesla says the max depth that you should be wading through is 32 inches from the bottom of the tire. Obviously, if you are trying to cross Grapevine Lake, which I think is just outside of Austin. Anyway, if you're trying to cross that, uh, you know, in a Cybertruck, that is, that's not going to work.

[00:37:50] It's if it, if it does work great, if it doesn't work, it's not going to be covered under warranty is what I should say. So, as they're trying to cross the lake, somehow, uh, Wade mode was disabled or somehow the Cybertruck was disabled. And then it started to take on water. Uh, all of the passengers and the driver abandoned ship and then they had to get emergency services involved.

[00:38:15] The Cybertruck owner was actually arrested for the attempt, which, uh, I was a little bit surprised at first, but there was no valid boat registration. Uh, no, like no safety equipment on, on board. I'm going to imagine some of this, that safety equipment you would need would be like a fire extinguisher, life vest, that kind of thing. None of that was on board.

[00:38:41] So yeah, he got arrested and he was in jail for, I believe, a few days. Um, Elon in the past has said that the Cybertruck could cross rivers, lakes, and seas.

[00:38:55] Uh, he actually said that you could be, you could possibly, I don't know why I don't want to put, uh, the exact words in his mouth, but he talked about crossing the water between Starbase and South Padre Island, which is, um, you know, I don't know how I wrote 360 miles. That can't be right. And it can't be 360 kilometers either. So, uh, I don't know exactly what that distance is, so don't quote me on it.

[00:39:22] But anyway, that does, um, that does, you knew somebody, when he said that, you knew somebody was going to try. Uh, so even though Elon has said that the capable, the truck is capable of something, uh, many times, uh, cause I've heard him say it more than once. Crossing a lake actually violates to what it says in Tesla's warranty.

[00:39:47] So, you know, um, it's always going to default back to the warranty. It's going to be very difficult to get it to, without suing the company for it to default back on to Elon or Tesla. So on top of everything else, the owners got arrested. Uh, they now have to eat the repair for the truck and it will likely have a salvage title when it's all said and done. So there's no resale value.

[00:40:14] So I just want to make perfectly clear, like I do not, uh, I'm not making excuses for the person who drove this across the lake. Like that was clearly a really dumb thing to do. I don't know if they were doing it for the lulls. I don't know if they were trying to do it for a YouTube thing. I don't know if they're creating content or they just thought it would be fun to do after having a few beers. I don't know what the motivation was, but it was, it was reckless and it was irresponsible.

[00:40:42] So I, I'm not, I'm not necessarily on the side of the driver. However, I certainly feel, um, bad for them because, and, and take no joy in this because this is a mistake.

[00:40:58] This is a bad judgment that's going to cost them tens of thousands of dollars, if not more on top of somebody could have gotten hurt, um, or, or died. So, uh, I feel bad for them. Um, but I don't feel like that absolves them of responsibility for what they did.

[00:41:23] But yeah, when, when I think about if this was to happen to me or, or heaven forbid, my kids decided to do something like this. Well, how, how would I feel? I would feel devastation. I just feel like a huge gut punch. So yeah, this sucks. That's what I'm saying. All right. If everybody else is jumping off the bridge, that doesn't mean you should jump off the bridge.

[00:41:49] Moving on Tesla 14.3.3 is rolling out, uh, a new feature, which is reduced driver monitoring requirements, which just means let's kind of nag you less to pay attention. I guess it was doing it around 20 to 30 seconds in previous versions of the software. And now that it'll nag you about every minute if you're not paying attention. So it gives you an extra 40 seconds to make a mistake.

[00:42:16] Uh, if you're in Mad Max mode, it actually requires you to pay much closer attention because it's so much more aggressive in the way that it drives. So, um, yeah, I don't know. You could argue that this is a good sign that we're getting closer to unsupervised full self-driving or, or we're getting closer to a catastrophic event, uh, or accident when somebody is using full self-driving.

[00:42:42] One of the two or both 10 Tesla owners in China are suing Tesla over full self-driving and they are claiming fraud. So they are seeking 3.95 million won, which is about $583,000 in damages. So each plaintiff paid around $7,800 for their full self-driving between 2019 and 2021.

[00:43:09] They claim that Tesla staff and Elon Musk assured them that full self-driving was imminent and that it would work on their car. Well, it's obviously come clear that that's not going to happen. So, um, but these promises were a big motivation for them to buy the car. And instead of getting what they were promised, they're saying that Tesla concealed the hardware limitations in order to sell vehicles.

[00:43:34] And in China, if you're found guilty or a company's found guilty of fraud, the consumer gets a refund for what they paid, which would be around $7,800. And then they get three times or triple damages on top of that. Uh, of course, Tesla is claiming no wrongdoing. So, um, yeah, we'll keep an eye on it and report back as we hear, um, how it went.

[00:44:02] Now, in other Tesla China news, Tesla posted on May 20th, 2026, that full self-driving supervised was approved in China. Um, now it's weird because Tesla has different names, um, in China for full self-driving. At one point in time, it was like, uh, intelligent assist driving. It's not exactly called full self-driving for legal reasons.

[00:44:32] Um, but it's only available on hardware for vehicles. And at this point in time, you can still make the one-time $9,400 purchase, American dollars. So, yeah. And there is some confusion to, to, to some folks in China about how this is being rolled out and I was not able to fully nail down the confusion. Like there, there's some sort of different stories.

[00:45:02] So until somebody writes a better article on that, and I'm not reading Reddit posts about it, uh, we'll just leave it at that. There's some confusion about that. Now, back in the U S Ben Gowser, Gow, Gow, Gow, Gow, Gow, Gow, Weiser. He bought a Model 3 in 2021, paid $10,000 for full self-driving. It became clear that he was not going to get full unsupervised, unsupervised full self-driving like he was promised.

[00:45:30] So he decided to sue Tesla and was awarded $10,672, which I'm guessing was the cost of the, um, the cost of, of the full self-driving plus court costs. Quite a guess. Oh, that other name that I couldn't remember for Tesla, uh, self-driving in China, it's called Tesla assisted driving.

[00:46:01] So yeah, there you go. It's now called the Tesla assisted driving instead of intelligent assisted driving. Uh, let's see. FSD supervised has been approved in another European union country, which is Estonia. I've always wanted to visit Estonia. Seems like a cool place. But if you're keeping track, the official list where FSD supervised is approved in the

[00:46:25] European union or in Europe, not necessarily in the European union, but in Europe is the Netherlands, Lithuania and Estonia. So there we go for that. And then, you know what? I was working off the wrong document. So I'm going to go back here and make sure it's actually working off the old document. So I have other stories to tell, but I'm going to finish this out as if we're, we're doing it normal.

[00:46:53] And then, um, we'll go into the, the stories that I missed out on. Um, sorry about that. Let's see. All right. So this will be our, our final organized story. And then I'll go through and pick up the stories that I forgot about, uh, the, or didn't forget about, but I left out because I opened up the wrong document.

[00:47:21] In May of 2025, Elon said that Tesla would have over a thousand robo taxis within a few months. Now we're one year later. How many robo taxis do we have in service? Based on that, you know, if you, if you are saying in May, we're going to have a thousand in a few months, he would think that we have at least 2000 now.

[00:47:43] Uh, right now we have, according to the Texas department of motor vehicles, Tesla's operating 42 cars offering, uh, self-driving rides and electric is reporting that Tesla's only really operating 20 of those cars that are full unsupervised. So, um, I guess the other 22 have a safety monitor in them. Um, now you might say, well, what about the Bay area?

[00:48:13] Well, the Bay area at one time was operating 107 robo taxis. They did still, and they still have a safety driver behind the wheel, but electric is saying that 107 is now down to nine, which seems like a very low number to me, but 107 also seems like a high number to me. So I would imagine that that number's closer to somewhere in the middle, but, uh, Tesla

[00:48:38] is definitely still operating with a driver, uh, in, in the seat because they have not been approved for driverless, uh, cars inside of, uh, where is it? Inside of San Francisco or the Bay area. Now to, as they build up their fleet, cause I do believe at some point in time, Tesla will have a decent sized fleet. As they build it up, Tesla's going to need a location that can kind of manage the fleet

[00:49:06] so they can get, you know, maintenance done and a dispatch center just so the cars just aren't sitting anywhere and everywhere, uh, littered amongst the city. So the Robotex, they're building a, um, dedicated maintenance and dispatch center in Irving, Texas, uh, which is, uh, there's a lot of Texas stories going on today in the show.

[00:49:32] Uh, this center or facility will be 35,000 square feet. It will do storage service and it will have cleaning services. Uh, this is similar to the one we talked about in like Las Vegas. So I wouldn't be surprised to see these in more cities for sure that are operating in RoboTaxis, Tesla RoboTaxis. And here we go. Here is our final, final, um, until I have to go back and figure out which ones, what stories I left out.

[00:50:02] A new law in Texas will allow companies, uh, with society of automotive engineers, level four autonomy or higher. I'm reading that out. SAE level four or higher because lots of car companies are using some sort of marketing speak, but like level two plus that's not a thing. It's love society of automotive engineers, L4 or higher to offer commercial driverless transportation.

[00:50:30] So basically if your car meets this SAE level four driving, autonomous driving, then you can offer commercial RoboTaxis. So the society of automotive engineers in international defines level four autonomy as, and I'm reading this as it's written entire dynamic driving tasks.

[00:50:54] So the system does all of the steering, braking, accelerating lane changes, signaling and monitoring of the driving environment. It'll also have a dynamic driving task fallback. So if something goes wrong, a sensor fails, or there's a road closure, the system itself must be able to handle the situation and achieve a safe outcome. And it cannot depend on a human driver taking over.

[00:51:23] And then there's ops operational design domain, which is a set of specific conditions under which the system is designed to operate. So certain roads in certain cities under certain weather conditions or different speeds, that kind of thing. So these companies in Texas need to be able to prove all of that stuff that I just told you, plus I'm sure a bunch of other stuff in order to operate level four RoboTaxis.

[00:51:54] Tesla has officially self, self, I'm going to highlight self, certified their FSD software on the RoboTaxi fleet as L4 compliant. Now, if you are somebody driving around in a Tesla vehicle and you have full self-driving supervised, you're still technically L2. You have not changed from L2 to L4. The RoboTaxi fleet is L4 compliant.

[00:52:23] Here are the standards, according to the Texas law, that companies need to meet in order to self-certify their vehicles. First one, they need to operate in compliance with Texas traffic laws. They need to maintain proper registration title and insurance. That seems like a low bar. They need to be compliant with automated driving systems or they need to use compliant automated driving systems.

[00:52:50] And they need to record onboard activity and handle system failures and glitches safely. I don't, I don't, I don't love that companies have the ability to self-certify. I would much, I would feel much more comfortable. And I'm not just saying just Tesla, just like all of the companies, I would feel much more comfortable if there was some sort of certifying board that ran the test and said, yep, it passes. And the self-certifying, I don't feel great about.

[00:53:20] It's not to say that anybody's doing anything wrong, but it does leave room for somebody to do something wrong. And I guess we'll just have to kind of play it by ear and see how that goes. Okay, let's, let's clean up my mistakes here and talk about some of the stories that I left out. Wasn't very many. Starting off, Volvo. So remember when I told you, when we talked about the Waymo stuff where they had to get,

[00:53:48] they had to have the Chinese connected software stripped out of their vehicle before they can bring it into the U S well, Volvo went another way. They got a waiver on their software to be able to bring it into the U S. So if you don't know, Volvo is partially owned by Chinese company, and Volvo had, they got permission to sell their connected cars in the U S starting with model year 2027.

[00:54:18] So I'm going to read Volvo statement here. And I'm actually going to read the second part of the statement. Cause the first part of the statement is just basically whereas, and therefore is, and here as is. So let's read the second part under the rule. Volvo car USA will, was required to follow a process with the department of commerce to obtain a specific authorization for the continued import and sale of connected cars in the U S. The process is carried out by on a case by case basis.

[00:54:47] And the issuance of a specific authorization follows constructive discussion with the U S department of commerce and other U S officials regarding Volvo cars, governance, technology, and data security. So basically they proved their case that they weren't going to be spying on anybody. And I, I tend to believe that Volvo is probably not spying on anybody. If you're wondering if this affects the Polestar, which is Polestar is partially owned by Volvo. It does not.

[00:55:18] Polestar is working on getting similar approvals that Volvo just got, but as of right now, they don't have it. So does this mean that other Chinese car companies can appeal to the U S and get around this band? I, I, a band. I don't know why I keep saying band, band. I guess it does. Um, but it doesn't mean that U S will grant them approval. Uh, and it also, they still,

[00:55:45] they're still a hundred percent tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports. So I'm not sure that that's going to be a, a wise use of your time. all right. Uh, okay. So that was the one for EVs. Let's go back down to the Tesla stories here. Oh, European sales. So we talked a lot in the beginning of the year about European sales of Tesla's being down in 2025.

[00:56:15] In 2026, Tesla registrations in all of Europe, uh, which includes non-European union countries was up 46.5% year over year in April. And if we just look at EU countries, the Tesla sales or registrations were up 67% year over year. So, um, this pretty decent growth. It marks the third consecutive month of growth in Europe for Tesla.

[00:56:44] So I'm just going to run down a couple of things here. Um, may was a strong month for Tesla year over year. We're looking at registrations that are up 655% in France. They are up 29% in Norway. Norway has pretty, uh, decent saturation of EVs and Tesla's the leader in Norway anyway. 71% in Sweden, up 136% in Denmark, up 113% in Spain,

[00:57:11] up 350% in Portugal. So, uh, listen, these are great numbers in terms of signaling the rebound for Tesla and Europe. And the percentages sound impressive and, and technically they are. However, we're not like all total with all of, all of the numbers that we talked about being up 600% and 350% and all that stuff. They still only sold around 15,000 cars in April. That's not nothing like that. I'm not,

[00:57:41] I'm not taking away from that, but it's not hundreds of thousands of cars. It's 15,000. Like Sweden sold 858 in May and France, you know, they sold 5,446. And then the rest of those countries fell in between that. And honestly, most of them were closer to what Sweden are registered in May of 2026. Then they were closer to what France registered in 2026. So yeah,

[00:58:10] just keeping that in the back of your head here. Um, I just want to go over this a little bit more to make sure I didn't miss anything. We talked about Estonia, talked about Tesla's new service center or robo taxi center. Uh, yeah, I mean, that's it. So overall, um, that was like 30, what'd I say?

[00:58:40] 33 stories all together. Um, or 33 different articles to make up today's episode. I do not know if this will actually go, if every single story will fit in the show notes for today's episode. We'll take a look. Well, I'll, I'll try, um, or the show description. It might be too big. I, this, this is definitely going to test simple casts, um, uh, uh, a system in terms of show notes.

[00:59:10] If you want to email me, you can do so. It's Bodie, B O D I E at nine one eight digital.com. You can find me on X at nine one eight digital. Although I, I'm not on there very often. I'm or usually on LinkedIn, which I'm just Bodie Grimm on LinkedIn. That's B O D I E G R I M M. And, uh, yeah, I think that's it. Did I say you can email me Bodie at nine 18 digital.com? Anyway,

[00:59:40] it's been a long show. Uh, this was this, it took me two days to, to write the show notes, two long days to write the show notes. And, uh, I don't know how many hours to record this, but what time is it right now? It's four 28. Uh, I started recording at one 30 and I had a meeting at two and, and then I picked up recording again at three. So it's four 30. So, uh, I've been here for a while. It doesn't seem like that long.

[01:00:10] All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Uh, next episode on Friday, we're going to talk to David and I really think you're going to enjoy that episode. He's going to tell, tell us about his leap motor C 10. Uh, he purchased that he's in, uh, living in New Zealand and, uh, yeah, I hope everybody has a great week and I will talk to you soon.