Fisker's Recall Rollercoaster, UAW Strike Looms, & Tesla's Robotaxi Dreams

[00:00:20] A. Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt-A podcast about Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy,

[00:00:25] Autonomous Driving and much, much more. My name is Bodian, I am your host and on today's episode,

[00:00:31] we are going to talk about EV News but before we do that I have to exercise a little bit

[00:00:35] of frustration. So on Friday my logic pro stopped working. Don't know why? Uninstalled, re-install,

[00:00:43] the whole bit logic pro is what I used to record this episode and it just was a

[00:00:48] working. I kept airing out on Saturday, I was finally able to get it to work which is great.

[00:00:57] On Saturday night I went to record the episode and now I'm getting this weird doubling from my

[00:01:04] way of XLR. I had like there was just a bunch of stuff that I had to uninstall, reinstall and

[00:01:09] I don't know what fixed it but eventually it started working again. But now I'm getting this

[00:01:13] doubling which means I hear an echo in my headphones while I'm talking to you, which is very

[00:01:19] distracting. So I got the echo down, turned down as much as I possibly can while still hearing

[00:01:25] the podcast because I don't know if you know this but when I make mistakes which are plentiful,

[00:01:31] I have to go back, cut out the mistake and then start over as if there was no mistake over there.

[00:01:38] So I have to have some audio in my headphones that's coming from the computer and it's just

[00:01:44] constant echo and I don't know what's going on. All right, this is 30 minutes later from the

[00:01:50] last sentence you just heard and it turns out the problem with some of my effects that I run

[00:01:55] and I'll have to figure out what's going on with those at a later date and time but they're turned off

[00:02:00] for now. So hopefully I'm still getting a little bit echo and I don't know where that's coming from

[00:02:05] but it's not as bad as it was. So let's just go ahead and let's do a show, shall we?

[00:02:13] podcastings weird. Sometimes everything works great and other times it's days of frustration

[00:02:20] and I'm in the days of frustration phase. Let's start off with the correction. I mentioned on

[00:02:25] Bart's episode that he was looking at buying a poll star 3 which was a mistake on my point. He's

[00:02:32] going to buy an A poll star 2 or you'd prefer to buy a poll star 2. The problem was at the time of the

[00:02:38] recording, poll star did not have the newest version of the poll star 2 in Ireland so he was

[00:02:45] enabled a purchase it. Now there is an update on Bart's journey. I'm not going to share that with

[00:02:51] you right now because that's Bart's to share. Hopefully we'll have him on in a month or so and

[00:02:56] we'll all hear the conclusion of Bart's EV adventure and one more thing before we start we have

[00:03:04] some patrons to thank and all these patrons signed up in 2023 and 2024. So here we go. We're going

[00:03:12] to go with Don Jamie. Chris B. Jean Scott, Electron Raceway Fabricator, Charles F. Just another Nick.

[00:03:23] John B. Paul Charles S. Steve K. Kiwi Graham, Patrick and Brad. I want to thank everybody

[00:03:32] I just mentioned for supporting the show. It really does mean a lot all of your contributions

[00:03:37] go back into the show to make the show better. None of it goes into my own pocket to pay bills or

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[00:03:53] kill a what or support kill a what.com and you will be taken to Patreon. If you don't like Patreon

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[00:04:06] and take part in a cast plus, which is something similar where you also get an ad for your experience

[00:04:11] as well. Alright, let's start with the news. I mentioned a few episodes ago that Fiskar Ocean

[00:04:18] issued a few recalls, some of those recalls were over the updates, some of them to be specific,

[00:04:26] you actually needed to take into a repair center to be fixed. At first, Fiskar was like hey,

[00:04:32] we're going to pay for the parts, but you have to pay for the labor. And then they reversed

[00:04:36] that decision and said now now we'll pay for the labor too. Now there's some additional confusion

[00:04:42] because the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration actually recently just issued a

[00:04:47] statement saying that there are aware of Fiskar's original statement and they're working to ensure

[00:04:52] owners will receive recall remedies without charge as required by law. Now this statement issued

[00:05:00] by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has caused some confusion within the

[00:05:06] community on whether or not Fiskar is still planning on paying for those repairs or not.

[00:05:12] I think this is maybe a problem with timing between when Fiskar said hey, you know what we're going

[00:05:18] to pay for this and when the statement was released by Nitsa. So I don't think this is a big deal.

[00:05:26] Fiskar reversed their initial decisions said that they are going to pay for it and it looks like

[00:05:31] it's required by law that they do pay for it. So I would imagine that that's exactly what's

[00:05:36] going to happen. Now if you are a Fiskar ocean owner, I know we have a few, and actually you know

[00:05:43] what this is weird, right around the time Fiskar was going through their issues with,

[00:05:51] bankruptcy and all that stuff and it was kind of their downfall. They were still a company,

[00:05:56] but they were also still shipping cars. I saw a lot of Fiskar oceans and then I started seeing

[00:06:01] less and less, and then went for a long time without seeing them and over the last maybe three

[00:06:06] or four days and listen, I look, I looked for electric cars all over the place. Over the last few

[00:06:10] days I've been seeing more and more Fiskar oceans again. So I would imagine some of those are the ones

[00:06:15] that I've seen in the past, but there are enough of them that make me think maybe people are

[00:06:20] taking advantage of the really low cost of the Fiskar ocean right now. But anyway, back to the

[00:06:27] story, if you own a Fiskar ocean in your concerned about where you're going to get it serviced,

[00:06:32] you know, outside of whatever Fiskar is may or may not pay, you know, if you're worried about

[00:06:38] how many get this thing fixed when I need it to be fixed, the Fiskar owners association FOA,

[00:06:45] nonprofit-orbitization, organization formed to support Fiskar ocean owners and it's not affiliated

[00:06:50] with Fiskar motors at all. This is just a group of people who've come together to basically support one another.

[00:06:57] They have put together a network of service centers to repair oceans in U.S. and Canada. There are

[00:07:05] 21 service centers in the U.S. and 3 in Canada. Now I will say that this is probably just the beginning,

[00:07:12] you know, this is not the end of the list. This is the beginning of the list. I'm sure that they

[00:07:19] would love to have more service centers in Canada. Especially when you just consider how large Canada

[00:07:25] is, 3 isn't going to really cut it. But again, I love it when people come together and they support

[00:07:32] each other to solve problems. And that's exactly what they're doing with this group. If you would

[00:07:37] like more information and it's a cool resource, go to Fiskar. O-A dot com and I'll put a link in the

[00:07:43] show notes as well. There's actually a lot of really neat information on there even if you don't

[00:07:47] own a Fiskar ocean. Lucid Motors has opened up a hub in Detroit, Michigan. The hub will house

[00:07:55] teams of hardware engineers, research and development operations, and more. It looks like Lucid is

[00:08:02] trying to smooth out some of the rough spots in their R&D production and manufacturing processes.

[00:08:08] This is going to give Lucid access to top tier automotive talent. I'm excited to see what comes

[00:08:15] of this hub. We'll keep it on it and report back to you. Hertz is selling a few 2023 Chevy Silverado

[00:08:25] EV work trucks on their website. These vehicles are going for around $63,000.

[00:08:32] Looks like these vehicles have between 6,000 and 11,000 miles on them. I'm not sure if this is a

[00:08:40] good deal or not for the work truck. I found some new Silverado EV work trucks at dealerships by my

[00:08:46] house and those were right around $64 to $75,000. If you're looking for one of these Silverado

[00:08:54] EV work trucks, I would definitely look at Hertz's website but I would also look around and see

[00:09:00] if you can't get something close for a brand new pickup truck. GM crews is planning on rebooting

[00:09:07] their self-driving testing in California so they're going to do this in Sunnyvale and Mountain

[00:09:15] I'm going to tell you right now GM crews is not well-liked in the Bay Area and they weren't well-liked

[00:09:21] before one of their vehicles hit in drug pedestrian. I will say that Sunnyvale and Mountain View are

[00:09:27] not San Francisco. San Francisco is got its own special set of traffic issues and Sunnyvale and

[00:09:36] Mountain View are not as bad as San Fran but GM's already starting in a really bad place in terms of

[00:09:45] reputation in that area so I think it's going to be an uphill battle. Hopefully they will always

[00:09:50] have somebody in the car. I do think GM crews should continue testing. I'm not saying they shouldn't.

[00:09:56] I'm just saying maybe that part of California or that specific part of the world is not the

[00:10:03] place to enter back in. They've probably got agreements with California and that's why they're doing this

[00:10:10] but yeah, seems like a mistake. Let's see here we got two more stories on our EV segment. The UAW

[00:10:18] is considering or threatening a strike at some still-antist plants from what I can gather the UAW

[00:10:26] which is the union and automotive dealers for dodging Chrysler are both of those groups are not

[00:10:34] happy with the mismanagement of the Dodge Chrysler brand by CEO Carlos Tervarez. Some of the issues

[00:10:42] that one or the other group has are increased inventory job cuts, broken promises on reopening

[00:10:50] the plant in Illinois. Others are complaining that the CEO made short-term decisions in order to

[00:10:58] post record profits in 2023 which sounds great but decisions were reckless and could hurt the company

[00:11:03] in the coming years and the decisions made the company anemic and diminished and decreased market share.

[00:11:14] You know what this is a good one. So we're going to cover Stellantis's Q3 2024 earnings call

[00:11:20] because I'm sure it will be fascinating so we'll cover that whenever it comes out next quarter

[00:11:25] and our final story in this segment electric for all dot org has a new tool that will show you

[00:11:32] all of the EV incentives in your area. Now this is for the US only so if you're outside the US I apologize

[00:11:39] but if you're inside the US all you have to do is enter your zip code and it will tell you

[00:11:44] the tax credits and rebates in your area on new vehicles, used vehicles and lease vehicles. It'll

[00:11:50] also give you charging station incentives and it has a home charging advisory advisor excuse me

[00:11:57] that will tell you hey maybe you should be on this plan because of the EV discounts and that kind

[00:12:04] of thing so it's definitely worth looking into. It also has some of the driving perks in your

[00:12:10] state like you can use HOV later not does your state have you know an alternative fuel vehicle

[00:12:18] parking incentive like one of the things that I could get a credit on my electric bill is if I

[00:12:25] joined SRP's EV community then I would get a you know two to three months later get a $50

[00:12:30] credit on my electric bill it's different in every area but it's definitely worth checking out.

[00:12:36] All right that completes our EV news let's move on to our Tesla news Tesla has officially

[00:12:41] sent out invitations to the Robotaxi event in Burbank California this will be held at the

[00:12:47] Warner Brothers studio it will be on October 10th the invitations say we robot so stay tuned we'll

[00:12:56] cover that on the 10th and as we're coming up on Tesla's you know big breakthrough with Robotaxi

[00:13:03] according to them big breakthrough a third party contested Tesla's full self driving software

[00:13:09] and determined that there was an intervention every 13 miles so AMCI is an independent automotive

[00:13:16] testing firm they drove a thousand miles using FSD 12.5.1 and 12.5.3 so two different versions of

[00:13:25] FSD they had a 2024 Model 3 performance with hardware for they had the vehicle on the assertive setting

[00:13:35] they drove all sorts of different environments including city streets highways, mountain roads and

[00:13:41] freeways they also drove at daytime and nighttime AMCI reported 75 interventions over that

[00:13:49] thousand miles which averages out to every 13 miles now based on what I told you you might think

[00:13:55] that AMCI did not feel the test of this full self driving was up to snuff but quite the opposite

[00:14:03] they shared a bunch of videos that you can go watch but their overall impression was that FSD

[00:14:10] is impressive but the driver could overly rely on software and become complacent

[00:14:16] which has the possibility of becoming dangerous obviously so the director of AMCI testing had this to say

[00:14:24] it's undeniable that FSD 12.5.1 is impressive for the vast array of human-like responses it does achieve

[00:14:33] especially for a camera-based system but it's seeming in fallibility in anyone's first five minutes

[00:14:40] of FSD operation reads a sense of awe that unavoidably leads to dangerous complacency

[00:14:48] when drivers are operating with FSD engaged driving with their hands in their labs or away from

[00:14:55] the steering wheel is incredibly dangerous as you will see in the videos the most critical moments of

[00:15:01] FSD miscalculations are split second events that even professional drivers are bringing with a

[00:15:08] test mindset must focus on catching he also added this what's most disconcerting and unpredictable

[00:15:15] is the way that you may watch FSD successfully negotiate a specific scenario many times

[00:15:22] often on the same stretch of road or intersection only to have it inexplicably failed the next time

[00:15:28] I've actually had this happen myself whether it is a lack of computing power an issue with buffering

[00:15:34] as the targets behind on calculations were some small detail of surrounding assessment it's impossible

[00:15:42] to know these failures are the most insidious but there are also continuous failures of simple

[00:15:49] programming inadequacies such as only starting-lange changes toward a freeway exit a scant tenth

[00:15:56] of a mile before the exit itself that handicaps the system and cast doubt on the overall quality

[00:16:03] of its base programming they actually have some videos on their website showing the successes

[00:16:09] and failures of full self-driving and they said that they have more videos to come and I'll put

[00:16:14] a link in the show notes but I do think this is interesting especially when you consider in

[00:16:19] you know two weeks we're going to get an announcement from Tesla at their Robotaxi event in my

[00:16:25] guess isn't and this isn't this is an educated guess but it's not really that hard to get to this

[00:16:31] point but my guess is that Tesla will announce Robotaxi and then they'll have to start testing it with

[00:16:38] drivers in the front seat and you know it's going to be a while before it's a full Robotaxi

[00:16:45] like what what's that company wemo is you know it's going to be a little bit different

[00:16:52] all right I have one more story in our Tesla segment here and it's a weird story it's it came from

[00:17:00] the Model Y subreddit so take this with a grain of salt but in Arizona a Phoenix Arizona

[00:17:08] a young lady goes to take her driver's test she you know she's a child you know teenager

[00:17:14] her parents let her borrow their model Y so she can take her her test for her driving test in Arizona

[00:17:22] you have to take a written test and a practical test which means you actually have to go out and drive

[00:17:27] initially she passed both the written and the practical test unfortunately the computers were down

[00:17:33] eight odd so she was unable to get her physical license that day so the next day her and her mom go back

[00:17:40] and they were told that the instructor thought she was using FSD during the driver's test

[00:17:46] and she would not be receiving her driver's license her mother actually took the time to explain how

[00:17:52] FSD works and then she also explained that the car was not equipped with full self driving

[00:17:58] because they didn't they did buy that package so it's impossible for that to be the case

[00:18:03] there was some back and forth discussion between the mother and the staff at the facility

[00:18:08] and it sounds like there was a fundamental misunderstanding he's not gonna surprise you of how FSD works

[00:18:16] so when it was actually explained the issue came down to the daughter did not touch the break

[00:18:22] pedal enough during the drive and it was thought that the car was auto breaking because they don't

[00:18:28] understand how regen breaking works her mom did explain how one pedal driving worked

[00:18:34] but eight odd refused to issue the license she did eventually get her license so that's the good news

[00:18:41] but if all of this is true then there's a fundamental misunderstanding of how these vehicles work

[00:18:47] and if you're going to be testing people so that they can get their driver's license

[00:18:52] then you need to be familiar with all the vehicles that they're going to use and you know this

[00:18:58] this isn't specific to Tesla there are other cars that do this kind of thing or a form of this

[00:19:05] kind of thing the one pedal driving and the proctors need to be familiar with the capabilities of those

[00:19:10] vehicles because it may be that the model why is the only vehicle in their household or they

[00:19:17] only own Tesla's like how else does this put persons supposed to take their test with it's

[00:19:22] the vehicle that they learned on it's the vehicle that they're driving on and it's not going to change

[00:19:27] now I do think it's important that people learn how to drive on multiple different types of vehicles

[00:19:33] right back in the day uh thirty five years ago almost now when I was taking my driver's test

[00:19:43] I used an automatic I used my mom's vehicle and her vehicle happened to be an automatic for the test

[00:19:49] but my dad also taught me to drive his F250 plow truck which was a manual my first three or four

[00:19:57] vehicles were manuals which is great because I didn't have a lot of money back then and batteries

[00:20:02] in my point of view were expensive so anytime a battery would die I would not replace it

[00:20:09] just put the vehicle in neutral push it as fast as I could and then jump in and pop the clutch to

[00:20:16] start the vehicle that was that was a very frequent occurrence in my teens in early 20s

[00:20:23] I can't do that anymore but anyway my point on this is that if in the same way that the

[00:20:32] Proctor said well you weren't touching the break enough the my Proctor could have said in my

[00:20:39] automatic vehicle why didn't see shift the gears at all so because I didn't see shift the gears

[00:20:44] you didn't pass so the technology is going to move forward we all need to move forward

[00:20:50] and especially if you are going to be testing folks you definitely need to have a better idea

[00:20:59] of what these vehicles are capable of and how they work. All right I'm not going to be to dead horse

[00:21:03] on this but more training for all and by the way I also looked into this a little bit this is

[00:21:14] actually an issue that has happened a few times in several different countries so yeah just it's

[00:21:22] an education issue so let's get educated all right everybody that is it for me if you want to email

[00:21:27] me you can do so it's bodebode at nine when eight digital dot com you can also find me on twitter

[00:21:33] at nine when eight digital and yeah if you want to join the patron patreon go to patreon.com

[00:21:41] for such a kilowatt or support kilowatt I hope you all had a wonderful week i'm going to go

[00:21:48] figure out why my computer all of a sudden decided to to revolt maybe my maybe maybe and this

[00:21:56] is you know the UAW's about to go on strike maybe my computer and the software that's on it is

[00:22:02] about to go on strike I've been doing a lot of podcasting lately so maybe it's just given up the

[00:22:10] I don't know so thank you all for being patient I will talk to you on Tuesday