EVs, EREVs, and WTFs

[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. This is a very late edition of the weekend episode. I actually started trying to put this podcast together on Thursday the 27th and I was able to get through one article. It was just, it wasn't for lack of time. It was just sometimes it's really difficult.

[00:00:51] To read through the stuff and then, you know, filter that through my brain and then take that information and make it into mediocre content. It's harder than it seems. I make it seem very easy to do mediocre content, but it's much, much, much harder than it seems. So yeah, that's all to say that this episode is very late. But today, I will say today was very productive. So that's a good thing.

[00:01:21] Speaking of being productive, I'm not really sure if I've already thanked Bill for becoming a patron. So Bill, thank you very much for becoming a patron. Bill was actually, he signed up, I believe, well not believe now because it was last week. He signed up last week. We had a couple nice email exchanges and yeah, I really appreciate him signing up and becoming a patron. If you want to do the same, you can go to supportkilowatt.com and share

[00:01:50] you with your friends. You can choose to sign up through Supercast or you can also sign up through Patreon where most people are. But Supercast is always there as an option. But back to the point, a big thank you to Bill. So Bill, thank you so much for becoming a patron.

[00:02:06] Okay, a couple other quick notes. I'm planning a break at the beginning of, or excuse me, at the end of September and beginning of October. I'm still going to be putting out episodes, which I'll pre-record, but it won't be new news. There may be some, there may be actually be some interviews in there. We'll kind of see what pops up. But for right now, I'm just planning on doing news. So just FYI, end of September.

[00:02:35] Beginning of October, sometime around there, I'm going to take a break. Haven't set the days, but I'll let you know as we get closer. And oh, the CyberCab announcement is Thursday, September 3rd. So in this episode, I will not be discussing anything that has to do with CyberCab or RoboTaxi, just because by the time Thursday rolls out, that information may or may not be wrong.

[00:02:59] So might as well just hear it straight from the horse's mouth. And we will cover that episode, like I said, on Thursday. And it'll probably come out either late Thursday or early Friday for that one, because that is very timely.

[00:03:12] All right, let's jump into our EV news. Lucid is recalling 27,185 air sedans. The reason is an improperly protected wiring circuit. And this is on the low voltage side. So it's not on the high voltage system. It actually ties to some exterior lights that could overheat and potentially maybe someday cause a fire.

[00:03:41] I think there's probably a fire. I think there's probably a fire. I think there's probably a really low risk of this. Where the issue lies is back in the day, in older cars, we had these things called fuses. And when a fuse became overwhelmed with too much current, and Steve, correct me wrong if I'm not using the right one, but if it became overwhelmed, it would pop or fail.

[00:04:08] So, and you can pull the fuse out and you can look and you can see that it failed and you put a new fuse in. And if it popped again, then you got to go back and fix something. So Lucid uses an e-fuse that can be just, you know, reset with software. But basically it does the same thing. It just doesn't need to be replaced. In this specific case, the e-fuse isn't shutting down the flow of electricity when, which could cause overheating in a fire.

[00:04:36] This issue can be fixed with a software update and you'll hear why I'm laughing in just a second. Until then, Lucid is recommending that people park their cars outside. Now, if you're one of 20,719 people with a Lucid Air that this is affecting, and you've already updated your software, you're good because Lucid pushed a fix in July to update this.

[00:05:02] However, there are still about 6,000, a little more than 6,400 people who have not updated their software. And to those people, they're recommended to park outside, which I thought was interesting. Like I put this whole thing together and then the second article that I opened up just to kind of see what it had to say about the problem was like, this problem's already been fixed.

[00:05:26] And, you know, the update or the recall is newsworthy, but really it's not light your hair on fire news. It's kind of like, oh, cool, they fixed it except for 6,466 people need to update. So if you're one of those people, please go out and update. Yeah, I'm sure you'd rather park your car in your garage if you have one rather than park outside. And I would assume if you're buying a 70 to $250,000 car, you have a garage.

[00:05:57] Did you know, just kind of as an aside, that the park outside warnings or park outside recalls are issued to ICE vehicles more often than they are to EVs? I didn't know this. I just thought this was an exclusively an EV thing. But the Washington Post recently analyzed a bunch of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recalls, which dated back to 2021.

[00:06:25] And they found that gas and diesel vehicles accounted for the majority of park outside recalls. Now, if we're looking at the kind of like raw numbers, like 4.6 million ICE cars were affected by park outside recalls versus 662,000 EVs and hybrids. But here's the thing. There are far more, especially here in the United States, there are far more ICE vehicles than there are EVs. So we would expect this.

[00:06:54] But since 2021, there have been 44 ICE recalls that required people to park outside and 38 EV recalls, EV hybrid recalls that required people to park outside. And then other mixed powertrains made up the difference. But yeah, and honestly, this shouldn't shock anyone. But the reason for most of these park outside recalls is the electronic system.

[00:07:22] So it really has nothing to do with how the vehicle is propelled. It has to do with the electronic systems inside of these vehicles. And yeah, I mean, I only say this not to prove a point that EVs are better than ICE cars or anything like that. It's just that this is information that I didn't know. And I just assumed that all of these park outside notices were specific to EVs. But no, it doesn't really matter what the powertrain is.

[00:07:51] I'm not trying to point out one powertrain is better or another. This is more of a like, what is it? The more you know type of a notice. I don't know if that's the actual sound for the more you know. But there you go. The more you know. Let's move on. Hyundai is betting on extended range EVs. So Hyundai is making a move into E-Rev's.

[00:08:18] And the first of its E-Rev models is expected in 2027. So they are planning an E-Rev version of the Hyundai Santa Fe, which is a nice looking car, to be released in the first half of 27. The vehicle will be built at a plant in Alabama. And they're saying that the combined EV and gas range will be more than 600 miles for this vehicle.

[00:08:45] And as long as we're on the same topic under Hyundai Group, the Genesis GV80, I believe, is getting an extended rate. I'm pretty sure it's the GV80. Let me look that up. Yes, I just looked it up. It is the GV80. It will also get an extended range version trim coming out, which is targeting about 640 miles, which is pretty good, you know.

[00:09:14] And then just kind of a quick explainer, I should say this. If you don't know what an E-Rev is, it's kind of a it's like a traditional plug-in hybrid with a full EV, right? So there are electric motors that drive the wheels. So the battery electricity, the electricity from the battery goes to electric motors, drives the wheels. When the battery gets to a certain point, a gas powered generator kicks on and charges the battery. The generator does not power the wheels at all.

[00:09:43] Only the electric motor powers the wheel. So it is probably 90% of people's driving is done on the full electric battery. And then, you know, for people who have, let's say, you know, maybe you're running a fleet and you're driving, I don't know, say car parts around all day or you're you're a trades person and you're you're traveling from place to place to place or you're towing something. That would be what that would be a big benefit for you.

[00:10:13] Or if you're just somebody that is, you know, has a little bit of range anxiety and you don't think the charging infrastructure is quite up to snuff, then that would be an opportunity for you to feel a little bit more comfortable about your purchase. However, I will say I think that the charging infrastructure thing, the worry about that maybe is a little overblown. Not to say that it's not, you know, there isn't valid arguments to be made there.

[00:10:39] I'm just saying as things get better, weren't that becomes less and less of an issue. Like, I don't hear so much about range anxiety anymore. I don't like when I'm talking to people about electric vehicles, they're not like, well, you can't drive across the country. I'm not hearing any of that kind of stuff anymore. But, you know, we still we still certainly have things that we need to work on. But I think that's less of an issue going forward.

[00:11:05] And then I'm sure everybody knows this, but it's worth saying Hyundai isn't the only one working on this. You know, we have the new F-150 Lightning will be an E-Rev, Jeep, Scout, Ram. They're all developing E-Revs. So going forward, you know, I don't think we'll have to see how they sell.

[00:11:29] I actually tend to think that they're going to sell pretty well, if I'm being honest, because if you can charge at home, you're definitely paying less money than gas. And if you can feel, especially if you're somebody that wants one of those bigger trucks and you feel like you can feel like, you know, that you can get around without being stuck at a DC fast charger at some point.

[00:11:53] I think I genuinely think people will flock to these vehicles going forward. All right. Our final EV story. One of the issues someone needs to consider before buying an EV, as we were just talking about, is whether or not you have enough capacity at the electrical panel in your home to support a level two charger.

[00:12:20] If you don't, upgrading the panel or getting service to the panel can be pretty spendy. But Schneider Electric has a workaround. They have a panel upgrade that costs somewhere between $2,000 and $6,500. So it's not exactly cheap. But if you're looking at bringing service to your house, extra service to your house and upgrading your panel, it can be quite a bit more than that.

[00:12:45] So what Schneider Electric has is Schneider Charge, which is a 48 amp home charger. And it has a built in dynamic load management system, which monitors electricity use across the home and adjust the charging rate based on what's going on in the home. So, for example, if you're charging your car and someone starts cooking dinner on an electric stove, running the dishwasher, and maybe they're drying their clothes all using electricity.

[00:13:15] The EV charger will monitor what's going on and then it will slow that charge rate down. So it's kind of like a set it and forget it type thing. Conversely, if it's 2 a.m. and nobody's using any electricity, it's going to charge your car faster. It's going to say, okay, nothing's being used right now. Let's go ahead and bump up the charge speed, which I think is kind of cool. In order to accomplish this, it's going to come with some extra stuff a standard home charger isn't going to have.

[00:13:45] It's going to have sensors that are going to measure the electricity in real time. And then on top of that, you know, you're going to have to have somebody who actually really knows what they're doing for installation. And Schneider is partnering with Qmerit for installation. This is available right now in U.S. and Canada. It costs $726. Now, that's $726 in my zip code.

[00:14:14] I had to put my zip code in to get the price. And it wasn't, as far as I know, calculating tax in that. So I don't know why $726 in Arizona might be different in Pennsylvania. It's certainly going to be different in Canada. But anyway, install costs will depend on how your home is set up and how your panel is and all that stuff. So, you know, if this is a direction you're looking at going, you can always contact Qmerit with your questions.

[00:14:43] Like when I installed or had my charger installed, I used Qmerit. And Qmerit uses independent contractors. And I told my story once about my independent contractor. And Qmerit was like, we need to, it was not, it wasn't a bad story. It was just they were trying to do some shady stuff behind Qmerit's back. And they were just like, hey, could you just tell us who your contractor was? And I said, no, because I'm not a rat.

[00:15:11] But yes, Qmerit, my dealings with them have been very positive. Whether it's through that incident, which I didn't think they were listening to. Apparently somebody was. Or through, you know, the actual customer experience. It was all very positive. Nothing but positive things about Qmerit as a company. And the contractor was really good.

[00:15:35] They just wanted to do some things behind Qmerit's back to save a little bit of money or get more money for them. And in return, offer me to save a little bit of money. And that's what Qmerit did. Like, anyway. For me, when I had my Qmerit service installed, I had to take pictures of like my panel. And I'd take pictures of where I wanted it. And I think I had to give some measurements and things like that. But really, they gave me a fair price, I thought.

[00:16:06] And within, you know, a couple of weeks, everything was installed and done. So I have no, nothing bad to say about Qmerit. So, but if you have questions, that's how, that's the route I would go. Is talk to them about the install cost. Because if you send them that information, they could probably give you a better idea of what it's going to cost.

[00:16:27] The Schneider Charge will come with either a Nex adapter or a J1772, not adapter, Nex plug or a J1772 plug. All right. We're going to move on to our Tesla news. And we've already done our plug. So let's just move right on into it here. A couple of real quick Tesla stories.

[00:16:55] First, Tesla is ending its in-house wrap service. So if you want your car wrapped like a metallic silver or something cool like that, you can no longer go through Tesla to get that done. They did this for about three years and now they are ending that service. So, RIP to that service. Another RIP is Tesla's discontinuing the solar roof, which debuted 10 years ago. I'm not sure exactly how many solar roofs were ever installed.

[00:17:24] It actually, when they unveiled it, they said it was going to be quite cheap. A little bit more expensive than having your house retiled. And it turns out that was not the case. It was pretty expensive. I know somebody that was going to have it put on their house and then they decided just to have solar put on their house because it was so much cheaper than having the solar roof tiles put on. Let's see. Let's see.

[00:17:54] So, RIP to the solar roof. Tesla, good news for New Zealand and Australia. Tesla has confirmed that FSD version 14 Lite is in development for those two countries. Those FSD Lite, just as a reminder, is for hardware 3 or AI 3 vehicles. No word on when it's expected to release, but it is in development. So, that's good for those folks.

[00:18:18] Tesla increased the range of the Model 3 rear wheel drive in Europe by 38 kilometers. And they didn't do anything. They didn't change battery chemistry. They didn't put more cells in the battery pack. All they did was they changed out the wheels and the tires. So, the old Model 3 came with 18-inch photon wheels and that gave the car 534 kilometers of range.

[00:18:44] The same Model 3, nothing updated other than the tires and wheels. I said that before the old Model 3. The old version came with the 18-inch photon wheels. The new or updated, shouldn't start to use old, the updated Model 3. Everything's the same except for it comes with 18-inch Prismata wheels. And that gives it 572 kilometers.

[00:19:12] And the difference is the photon wheels are kind of, they look like the standard Tesla wheel. Which is kind of like a fan, whereas the, or fan blades. Whereas the Prismata wheels look more like a disc, which has better aerodynamics. And then the tires have lower rolling resistance due to the rubber compound that they're doing. Which is really cool.

[00:19:40] I love it when companies can take the same basic technology and get creative and get more range. So, yeah. 37 kilometer, let's see, 38 kilometers. Just by doing that. That's pretty impressive. Now, as of right now, this is only available in left-hand drive vehicles in Europe. There's no option at the moment for right-hand drive vehicles.

[00:20:04] And if I'm, unless I'm wrong, the only European country that would be, I guess, country that would be considered for right-hand drive in that general area of the world would be the UK. So, I'm not sure why it wouldn't work on right-hand drive vehicles over left-hand drive vehicles. But, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, as soon as it comes to right-hand drive, I'll let you know.

[00:20:30] Tesla has officially confirmed the Tesla Semi will launch in Europe. We don't have specs for the European market Semi trucks just yet, but I did read that they will unveil that at the Tesla Semi event, which is happening in late September, September 24th. Along with this news, you may have heard that Swedish freight company Enride ordered 500 Tesla Semi's.

[00:20:59] Those Semi's are not headed for Europe. Just, you know, don't, don't, it's a European company, but it's not, you know, it's not, those aren't going to Europe. Those are going to North America. So just, if you hear that, those, those 500, uh, Semi's are coming here to the U.S. And we'll cover the European or the Tesla Semi launch, um, on September 24th. All right.

[00:21:28] Uh, finishing up here, we're getting close. Yeah, we're getting close. So I lost my spot. All right. Tesla has raised Cybertruck prices in the U S. So the starting price of a dual motor all wheel drive Cybertruck is now $74,990, which is a 7% increase.

[00:21:54] And the premium all wheel drive increased to $84,990, which is a 6% increased. So both of those versions of the vehicle increased by more than, or by $5,000, not more than just $5,000. The interesting thing is that dual motor all wheel drive, that starting price of around $75,000, that one back in February of 2026, that truck came out.

[00:22:23] Um, Tesla announced that price at $59,990. And Elon immediately after that was announced said, this price is not going to last. And 10 days later, it was just under $70,000. And now it is, uh, just under $75,000, which is a $15,000 increase since February. Uh, if you're wondering about the cyber beast or the top end, the price on that has not changed at all.

[00:22:52] It's still $99,990. So, um, in terms of whether this is a good idea or not, I will let you all decide whether this is a good idea for Tesla to increase the price on a vehicle that's by all accounts, not selling that well. Although I do see more and more cyber trucks around, uh, not just in my neighborhood, like when I'm driving in different parts of the Valley, I'm seeing more and more around. So it might be selling better.

[00:23:19] Well, well, I mean, I don't think we'll ever really know because Tesla will just hide the numbers with the model three and, or the Tesla semi or wherever they're going to put it. But maybe one day they'll split those numbers out. If they're really good, if they're bad, I'm sure they'll continue hiding them. All right. We have two more stories here. Uh, Tesla theater, maybe getting more streaming platform options, which this is something I'm super excited about.

[00:23:46] And I say may because we don't know if it's going to happen or not, but a Tesla owner went to Apple TV's actual website inside the Tesla browser. And it actually launched an, an, a native app like interface. I'm not saying it was a native app. I'm saying a native app like interface. Like there was no, the, there was no place to put your URL in. It looked like all of the other apps on the Tesla theater system, which are native apps.

[00:24:14] So, um, and it acted like all of those other apps, but it was, you had to go specifically to Apple TV's website and other people tried this for HBO max, Paramount plus peacock, Disney plus, which is weird because Hulu pretty much has the same thing as Disney plus now prime video and possibly Plex. And if you don't know what Plex is, is you can have a home server and you can put your own movies and TV shows and music on that home server.

[00:24:44] And then you can stream that when you're away from home. So, uh, that would be very, very cool having Plex on the Tesla and give it some cred, uh, in the nerd world. Um, so all of these devices with the exception of Plex, cause I don't, I'm not sure that one I couldn't verify cause I don't have a Plex server, but all of these other ones, um,

[00:25:11] it doesn't mean that Tesla is going to build native apps for this, but it doesn't mean they're not. And I would, as somebody who subscribes to many, um, actually all of these services I subscribe to, I would love it. Uh, truly love it. If I could watch those on my car, when I'm just sitting there doing something, waiting for my kids to get done with something that they're up to. So yeah. Um, I'm, I'm very encouraged by this news. Doesn't mean they're going to do it.

[00:25:40] Just means they might. All right. Our final story. Tesla is recalling close to 3 million cars in China. This recall will take place on September 25th, 25th. The recall is due to the emergency release mechanisms being too hard to find or operate to get the doors open. Once you've been in a crash. And I want to be clear, this isn't the external door handles because China did have some issues with those as well.

[00:26:10] This is the actual mechanical release needed to open the door when the car actually loses power because Tesla's doors have a electronic door lock or a door system mechanism. This is the backup mechanical release, uh, for the front seat. It's really easy on most Tesla's it's in the, you know, door armrest and it's right about where you, where you put your hand anyway.

[00:26:34] So if you just pull up, it opens the door, um, for the back seats though, it's, it's harder to find. And it's usually found in the door pocket underneath a little bit of fake carpet. And then you have to pull open like a little, um, you have to pull up in like a little, uh, door, like a trap door. And then you have to finger, you know, reach your hand inside and then you have to pull out this cable to open the door.

[00:27:02] So it's not exactly easy to find, especially if you're involved in a car accident. Uh, you may not be able to open up your door depending on where the damage is, right? They do make these little like extensions that you can put on there, third-party extensions where you can just grab that extension and pull up and it will, uh, unlock the door. It doesn't, when you're using the mechanical door release though, it doesn't roll down the window like it does with the electrical door release.

[00:27:29] So when you, when you open the door with the electric door release, it rolls down the window a little bit because the windows on the Tesla's, they don't have frames at the top, right? So it has to roll down the window a little bit so that you can clear the door jam. Um, it doesn't do that. So if you're testing this out in your car, you could break your window. Just be careful. Um, you, you might want to roll your window down before testing, but yeah.

[00:27:55] Then the general thing here is that China is like, you know, this isn't, this isn't safe. So you gotta, you gotta do a recall. So Tesla issued the recall, but other car companies in China are having to release, uh, or issue a similar recall. So Xiaomi, Leap Motor, XPeng, Cherry, Xili, Dongfang, Arc, Arc Fox, and FAW. All of those companies are also doing a recall at the moment.

[00:28:23] I'm sure more to come later because China has so many car companies. Tesla's, uh, remedy to the recall includes warning labels to mark the location of the emergency latches. And then also, uh, they're going to do a software update. So when a car gets into an accident, the windows will automatically lower allowing the occupants to escape out the windows.

[00:28:49] However, um, if the car is, is damaged, that may not, you know, if you get, if it's a side impact, like a T-bone type thing, the windows may not be able to go down depending on how much intrusion is into the, the cabin of the car. So, you know, the results may vary on that, but you know, that's, that's what they said they're going to do. And the Chinese government seems to be okay with it. So, uh, we'll, we'll keep an eye out and see how it goes. And I can't remember if I said this, I'm pretty sure I did, but this is,

[00:29:19] the window thing is all done through an, uh, over the air update. So that will fix it, but you will have to bring your car in for the emergency labels, the, the warning labels to mark where the emergency latches are. All right, everybody, that is it for our show this week. Uh, a lot, I only planned on doing six stories and I think all total, I did like, uh, 15,

[00:29:45] not all 15 were individual stories, but I have 15 different sources for today's episode. So, uh, kind of went overboard a little bit, but hopefully you enjoyed it. If you want to email me, it's Bodie, B O D I E at 918 digital.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Just search Bodie Grimm, B O D I E G R I M M. You'll find me there.

[00:30:10] Uh, I've been working on my other podcast called beyond the post with Rob Dunwood, my cohost for the last several months and we were getting close to releasing season five. So that's exciting. I think, uh, Wednesday we're recording our last episode before we released season five and yeah, I hope everybody's having a wonderful, I hope you had a wonderful weekend and I hope you have a wonderful week.

[00:30:38] Uh, Tuesday or Wednesday's episode will be the, uh, another news episode. And then, you know, Friday, the weekend edition will be Tesla's cyber cab announcement. So looking forward to hearing all that. If you have predictions that you want to get on the record for cyber cab, send me an email again, it's Bodie, B O D I E at 918 digital.com. And a big thank you once again to Bill for becoming a patron. Thanks Bill.

[00:31:07] All right, everybody take care and I will see you soon.