FSD Price Cuts

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[00:00:57] Welcome to Kilowatt's latest episodes without the ads.

[00:01:25] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy,

[00:01:30] autonomous driving, and much, much more.

[00:01:32] My name is Bode and I am your host.

[00:01:34] And on today's episode we're going back to our standard format where we talk about EV news,

[00:01:40] we do a Patreon plug in the middle, and then we talk about our Tesla news.

[00:01:44] Before we go too much further though, I do need to let you know that I'm recording this on Sunday

[00:01:49] because I already had a complete show written on Sunday and my kids have school in sporting events

[00:01:56] during the week so it's getting really hard to get these podcasts out on time.

[00:02:00] So I figured, you know what?

[00:02:01] I've already got a show written.

[00:02:02] It's Sunday, I might as well record it.

[00:02:04] So that's why you're getting this news currently.

[00:02:09] And if something big popped off on Monday and I'm not talking about it

[00:02:12] and you're wondering why, that's why.

[00:02:15] Alright, let's go ahead and jump into our EV news.

[00:02:18] Vietnamese automaker VinFast delivered nearly 10,000 EVs in the first quarter of 2024.

[00:02:24] That is a 444% increase year over year for the automaker.

[00:02:30] 10,000 vehicles in Q1 2024 not too bad when you consider VinFast is not a household name here in the US.

[00:02:38] And you know what?

[00:02:39] You got to start somewhere.

[00:02:41] Chinese automaker BYD or build your dreams showed off their new electric SUV concept.

[00:02:49] It's called the Super 3 electric SUV concept or the inner stellar chariot.

[00:02:55] This looks like it was inspired by Star Wars.

[00:02:59] Actually, you know what?

[00:03:00] I would say it's a mix between Star Wars and Halo, the overall look of this vehicle.

[00:03:05] It looks to be about the size of a Ford Escape or RAV4.

[00:03:09] According to BYD, the starting price on this vehicle will be around $28,000.

[00:03:15] No word on when exactly BYD is planning on building and delivering this vehicle.

[00:03:21] It's just a concept at this point, but it's a good looking concept for sure.

[00:03:26] Rivian is planning on laying off 1% of its workforce, which doesn't seem like a lot

[00:03:33] unless you're the person being laid off or one of the people being laid off

[00:03:36] than is absolutely terrible.

[00:03:38] But 1% of its workforce, it doesn't seem like a lot from the outsider standpoint.

[00:03:44] But there's a larger story behind those layoffs.

[00:03:47] Rivian laid off 10% of its workforce back in February.

[00:03:51] They also laid off 6% of their workforce in 2023.

[00:03:56] And I think that was around February or March of 2023.

[00:03:59] And then in December of 2023, they laid off 20 of their battery cell development workers.

[00:04:06] Now that isn't that they laid off 20% no, they actually laid off 20.

[00:04:12] With any luck, they won't have to lay off anymore.

[00:04:16] Workers at Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tennessee plant have voted to unionize.

[00:04:21] You have to wonder if the workers at the Volkswagen plant there in Chattanooga

[00:04:26] decided to unionize after they saw the Ford, Stalantis and GM workers get such a big raise

[00:04:33] and they only got a 10% raise.

[00:04:35] I'm sure Volkswagen's not thrilled about this news.

[00:04:38] However, they do have unions in other countries like their home country, Germany.

[00:04:43] So it's not like they're not used to working with unions to make that partnership successful.

[00:04:50] Let's talk about DC fast chargers.

[00:04:53] And to be more specific, DC fast chargers here in the United States.

[00:04:58] In the first quarter of 2024, there were 600 DC fast chargers brought online, which is up about 7.6%.

[00:05:08] Currently in total, we have about 8200 public DC fast chargers.

[00:05:15] Now that isn't that isn't public chargers in total.

[00:05:18] These are only level three DC fast chargers.

[00:05:22] And I should say that's 8200 public DC fast charging stations, not just the chargers.

[00:05:29] So you may be asking yourself, why am I bringing this up?

[00:05:33] Valid question.

[00:05:35] I'm bringing this up because we currently have one DC fast charging station for every 15 gas stations.

[00:05:44] And those DC fast charging stations are made up of a lot of different companies,

[00:05:49] but we're just going to go with Tesla and non Tesla.

[00:05:52] So currently there are around 6000 non Tesla charging stations and 2000.

[00:05:59] It's a little over 2000s like 2232 Tesla super chargers, which according to Tesla's website,

[00:06:07] those 2000 ish super charger stations have about 20, I think it's 25,000 actual individual charging stalls between those 2000.

[00:06:19] 2000 ish stations.

[00:06:21] Now, as for gas stations, gas stations are definitely in the lead in terms of numbers.

[00:06:26] There's around 120,000 gas stations.

[00:06:29] So while it's good that we're one charging station to every 15 gas stations,

[00:06:35] there's still a lot of room for improvement.

[00:06:37] But I don't know that we're going to need 120,000 charging stations because a certain amount of people

[00:06:44] will be able to charge it wherever they live, whether that's at an apartment or at their home

[00:06:49] or at their townhouse.

[00:06:50] It kind of all depends.

[00:06:52] But anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot more level two charging stations around the area that I'm working,

[00:06:58] like in the apartments that we go into and stuff.

[00:07:00] It's still not widespread, but there was none there a year or two ago.

[00:07:05] And now I'm starting to see them available for tenants.

[00:07:10] So we're making progress.

[00:07:12] We're not where we need to be, but we're definitely making progress.

[00:07:17] GM has a new vehicle to home bundle, which will allow you to power your home for up to 21 days,

[00:07:23] depending on your Oltium platform EV and power consumption.

[00:07:27] Now this 21 days is according to GM.

[00:07:31] So I would assume those numbers are optimistic.

[00:07:35] GM is rolling this out in the following states.

[00:07:38] California, Florida, Michigan, New York and Texas and more to follow.

[00:07:43] But it just initially in those states at the moment, there's only one GM Oltium EV that's compatible with the GM

[00:07:51] energy vehicle to home charger, which is not the best name ever.

[00:07:55] And that would be the Silverado EV RST.

[00:07:58] That particular truck has a 200 kilowatt hour battery, except for it's not out quite yet.

[00:08:04] It'll be out in a few months.

[00:08:05] It'll also be compatible with the following vehicles, the 2024 Sierra EV Denali, the 2024 for Chevy Blazer EV,

[00:08:16] which is currently being sold, but I guess it just isn't compatible with this at the moment.

[00:08:22] The 2024 Chevy Equinox EV and the 2024 Cadillac Lyric EV.

[00:08:29] It sounds like all Oltium based EVs built after 2026 or 2026 models of Oltium based EVs will be compatible with the

[00:08:40] GM energy vehicle to home charger.

[00:08:44] Come on, GM, think of something better than that.

[00:08:46] Anyway, you may be asking yourself, hey, wait a second, dude, this Chevy Hummer EV has bi-directional charging.

[00:08:53] What about that vehicle?

[00:08:55] And my answer is, I have no idea.

[00:08:57] It's not on the list.

[00:08:58] It seems like it should be on the list, but it's not on the list.

[00:09:01] As far as cost goes, the total cost is going to be $7,299.

[00:09:08] That's just for the hardware that does not include installation costs.

[00:09:12] So that breaks down to $16,000, just round it up.

[00:09:18] We'll say $17,000 for the GM energy power shift and $5,600 for the GM energy vehicle to home enablement kit.

[00:09:28] GM, get your marketing team on this.

[00:09:31] It should be called Oltium Something.

[00:09:33] This is a missed bet on your part.

[00:09:37] Anyway, GM has partnered with Q Merit for the install.

[00:09:40] Q Merit just basically contracts with local electricians.

[00:09:45] And kind of as a side note, Q Merit did my charger install and I was quite happy with it.

[00:09:53] Volvo and CATL are partnering up on a new battery project, but instead of building a new battery factory or developing new battery technologies,

[00:10:04] they're partnering up on battery recycling efforts.

[00:10:08] And this makes a lot of sense.

[00:10:10] Volvo sold over 113,000 EVs in 2023.

[00:10:14] I'm sure if you add Geely, which is Volvo's parent company, all of the brands under Geely, it's much higher than 113,000.

[00:10:22] That's not to say that the Geely brands would use the Volvo CATL partnership to recycle their batteries.

[00:10:29] But the point is, is that Geely sold and selling a ton of EVs.

[00:10:33] At some point in time you're going to want to recycle those because all of the rare earth materials and other battery materials that are important for an EV,

[00:10:43] it's easier to get them out of that battery pack than it is to get them out of the ground.

[00:10:47] And if you're selling an EV, you do, even if you don't believe it, at least want to have the outward look that you're environmentally friendly.

[00:10:58] So this makes a lot of sense.

[00:11:00] And you know what? I think I buried the lead a little bit.

[00:11:03] Volvo sold over 113,000 EVs in 2023, which is up 70% over 2022.

[00:11:12] And they're going to sell even more EVs now that the EX30 is out, which is their more affordable Volvo, which costs around $35,000.

[00:11:24] So I would expect that Volvo will have another big year in 2024 just based on the EX30 alone.

[00:11:32] All right, since we're on the topic of battery recycling, we're going to talk about Redwood Materials.

[00:11:39] And if you don't know, Redwood Materials is a battery recycling company led by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel.

[00:11:46] Redwood has a recycling plant in Nevada, and I think they have plants in California as well.

[00:11:52] But don't quote me on that. So we're just going to talk about the Nevada plant over the past past year.

[00:11:57] Redwood has ramped up the processes that will allow them to recycle battery scrap.

[00:12:05] The Nevada facility represents the first new commercial scale domestic source of nickel and lithium supply in the United States.

[00:12:15] It's the first one in decades. And keep in mind, they're getting these batteries or they're getting these materials from old batteries.

[00:12:24] They have a hydromet process, don't ask me what that means, which recovers 95% of lithium from the recycled batteries, which is pretty good.

[00:12:34] After the lithium has been recovered, it is then purified for reuse in new battery cathodes, which will minimize environmental impact.

[00:12:43] Now I do want to know a little bit more about the process and what chemicals they use and can they reuse those chemicals?

[00:12:50] Because I'm sure the process of recycling a EV battery or any battery for that matter is not zero environmental impact.

[00:13:01] I'm sure that they use some chemicals that are probably not good for the environment or the people working around them, at least on some level.

[00:13:11] I would like to learn more about that side of it. As it stands right now, I don't know enough to really say anything.

[00:13:17] So I'm just going to, you know what? Maybe I'll reach out and see if I can't get somebody from a battery recycling company to come on.

[00:13:23] I feel really confident that they're not going to tell me all of the bad things that are going on in the plant that could potentially be a PR nightmare.

[00:13:33] But anyway, let's move on. Redwood has also commissioned a large scale rotary calciner, which is the thing that I don't know what that is,

[00:13:42] but it's capable of processing 40,000 metric tons of battery feedstocks annually, including live cells, consumer electronics and EV modules.

[00:13:53] Recently, Redwood invited researchers from Stanford to quantify the environmental footprint of their processes compared to conventional mining and recycling methods,

[00:14:03] and their findings were interesting. Redwood's closed loop system cuts CO2 emissions by 40% compared to other recyclers.

[00:14:12] Their approach uses 80% less energy. It generates 70% less CO2 and requires 80% less water than traditional mining and processing methods.

[00:14:23] So overall pretty encouraging news coming out of Redwood materials.

[00:14:28] You know, I'm going to reach out to some people and see if I can't get somebody on that works at one of these places, preferably somebody that works with Redwood materials.

[00:14:39] But I'm going to be honest, I don't think anybody wants to talk about the chemicals like the fact that you reduce CO2, you're using less energy and you're using less water.

[00:14:51] I think that is they're going to sing from the highest mountain tops.

[00:14:54] I want to know what's going on with the chemicals that they're using and what long term impacts those chemicals can have on the environment going forward

[00:15:04] and how these companies are protecting their workers so that they don't get some, you know, weird, bizarre cancer from handling these materials.

[00:15:15] So we'll all reach out. Don't hold your breath.

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[00:17:55] It's definitely not a lot of money. So if you would like that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart of helping me out and supporting the show,

[00:18:01] plus you get the ad-free feed go to patreon.com forward slash kilowatt or support kilowatt dot com.

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[00:18:17] Alright everybody let's move on to our Tesla news. We don't have very many Tesla stories so this will go pretty quick.

[00:18:23] First up, let's talk about the Cybertruck. Last episode we talked about the problem with the accelerator pedal.

[00:18:29] Well we have a fix but it's not a sexy or elegant fix in the least. Hopefully it's temporary.

[00:18:38] What Tesla is doing is they are putting a rivet at the bottom of that plate into the accelerator so that it holds it on so it can't slip up.

[00:18:48] Now don't get me wrong, we have to fix the problem because we don't need anybody to get hurt.

[00:18:52] On the other side, you definitely notice it.

[00:18:58] After a while I'm confident most people won't even notice that it's there but I tend to fixate on this kind of stuff

[00:19:04] and if I had that for my vehicle it would drive me absolutely crazy the way that they did this.

[00:19:11] Over time I'm sure Tesla will engineer a better solution and hopefully all of those folks, the 3,875 folks who are whatever the number was,

[00:19:20] those folks will get that elegant sexy fix because it's not great.

[00:19:29] Last episode I also mentioned that Elon was going to meet with Indian Prime Minister Modi.

[00:19:35] They were supposedly or reportedly supposed to meet on April 21st and 22nd.

[00:19:40] Elon has postponed that trip because according to him he has a very, very busy work week.

[00:19:48] No, he says his current workload is too much so that trip will have to be rescheduled.

[00:19:54] Tesla has decreased the price of the Model Y, the Model S and the Model X by $2,000.

[00:20:00] So the Model Y now starts at $42,990.

[00:20:06] The Model S starts at $72,990 and the Model X starts at $77,990.

[00:20:15] Now with the US tax credit that base Model Y, actually you could pick that up for right around $35,000 if you qualify

[00:20:24] because they take that $7,500 off the price from the get-go now.

[00:20:30] So that's actually pretty good. That's a good deal if you're in the market for a Model Y

[00:20:36] and you don't mind the 260 mile range.

[00:20:40] But that's not all Tesla lowered the price on.

[00:20:43] Tesla lowered the price of full self-driving from $12,000 to $8,000.

[00:20:50] So in the last I think a year maybe you're in a couple months,

[00:20:54] Tesla's lowered the price of full self-driving from $15,000 down to $8,000.

[00:21:00] In Canada that was lowered from $16,000 Canadian dollars to $11,000 Canadian dollars.

[00:21:06] If you're curious and you live in Canada, it seems like they dropped the price everywhere.

[00:21:11] They're not going to research all the different price drops and report on them here,

[00:21:16] but check your local website to see how much it costs.

[00:21:20] But at $8,000 this is still not an impulse purchase. It's still pretty expensive.

[00:21:26] Tesla is no longer offering the enhanced autopilot option,

[00:21:31] but if you currently paid for the enhanced autopilot option,

[00:21:35] you can pay Tesla another $2,000 to upgrade to full self-driving.

[00:21:40] Enhanced autopilot at one time was $6,000. You pay another $2,000, you can upgrade to full self-driving.

[00:21:47] That seems a little bit closer to an impulse purchase to me.

[00:21:51] I still think the price of full self-driving is a little too high.

[00:21:56] Right now if you pay $99 a month it'll take you 6 and 2 thirds years to reach $8,000.

[00:22:05] It's better than 10 years, which is what it was just a few days ago.

[00:22:10] But I'm curious for those out there who have Teslas or even if you don't have a Tesla,

[00:22:15] would you buy full self-driving for $8,000?

[00:22:19] I don't think I would. I still think it's too expensive for me for what it is.

[00:22:25] Now granted, I haven't used it in a while.

[00:22:29] I'm probably, if I don't get the trial in June or July because my kids are out of school,

[00:22:36] I'll probably buy one month of the $99 a month FSD trial to test it out so I can talk about it on this show.

[00:22:44] And I have been talking about doing that for a while even when it was $199 a month.

[00:22:48] And honestly, I think this is a great price at $99 a month if you wanted to jump on and off of it.

[00:22:53] Like if you're going on vacations or you're going to be doing a lot of driving

[00:22:56] and you want to pay for it for a month or two, $99 a month and jump off.

[00:23:00] If Tesla wanted to offer something like you sign up for a year and you pay $49 a month

[00:23:05] and lock you in for a year, my biggest thing is I have so many different subscriptions.

[00:23:10] A lot of them have to do with this show to be honest with you.

[00:23:13] I just have a lot of subscription fatigue.

[00:23:15] And I don't want another subscription.

[00:23:18] I also don't know if I want to pay $8,000 for something

[00:23:22] and not get the promised functionality out of it either in the time that I own my car.

[00:23:28] Because I currently, I still have a hardware three car.

[00:23:31] A few days after I took delivery of my car, they started delivering hardware four cars.

[00:23:36] So I missed it by a very little bit, but I don't think hardware three is going to give you

[00:23:42] or us that full, full self-driving experience that Elon is promising.

[00:23:47] And honestly, I'm not sure hardware four will either.

[00:23:50] But $99 a month is way better than $199 a month and $8,000 is way better than $12,000.

[00:23:58] So I would, I would suggest if you want this price to go down, don't buy it

[00:24:04] and wait till it goes down to four or five or $3,000, three thousands even better.

[00:24:09] And then we'll all gobble it up together.

[00:24:12] All right.

[00:24:13] One last story here and it's going to be quick.

[00:24:16] Tesla is ending its referral program at the end of the month

[00:24:19] and I should say Tesla's ending its current referral program at the end of the month.

[00:24:24] The plan for Tesla is to launch a new referral program later this year.

[00:24:29] This doesn't mean that current customer credits will go away.

[00:24:33] It just means you won't be able to crew credits until the launch of the new referral credit program.

[00:24:40] When I read this, my initial thoughts were that the new program is not going to be as good as the old program.

[00:24:48] And what Tesla is doing is they're taking time between the new program and the old program so that some people won't be able to tell the difference that it's not as good.

[00:24:59] Now I could be wrong and I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like if you're going to offer a new referral program,

[00:25:05] it should be pretty easy to roll that old program into the new program within, you know, April 30th.

[00:25:14] It stops May 1st.

[00:25:16] It starts. Why would you end one and then wait a period of time to start another one?

[00:25:22] If you do know why that makes sense, I would love to hear why.

[00:25:26] It's bodebode at 918digital.com.

[00:25:31] All right everybody, that is it for me today.

[00:25:34] Now as you're listening to this, if you're listening on Tuesday, Tesla released their Q1 2024 earnings call.

[00:25:42] I will cover that call on Friday because my kids have a track meet on Tuesday and I will not be able to get that out by the time we get home.

[00:25:54] It's just, there's too much to do on that day.

[00:25:58] So we'll have Tesla's earnings call on Friday and if I can get everything done, we'll have GM's earnings call on Tuesday.

[00:26:07] And then normal news the next Friday.

[00:26:10] All right everybody, I hope you all enjoyed this show.

[00:26:13] I hope you all have a wonderful week and I will talk to you on Friday.

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