Mr. Musk Goes to China

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[00:01:00] Hello everyone and welcome to Killawata podcast about electric vehicles, renewable

[00:01:27] energy, autonomous driving and much much more.

[00:01:30] My name is Bodhi and I am your host and today marks the last day of our five day

[00:01:36] experiment.

[00:01:37] Honestly, this is a lot harder than it would seem.

[00:01:42] You know, short little podcast shouldn't feel like it's that hard.

[00:01:45] But this is actually it takes more time than you think to put all this stuff together.

[00:01:49] All right, let's get to the news.

[00:01:51] Neo has begun public trials of its 150 kilowatt hour semi solid state battery pack.

[00:01:57] Battery company Wee Lion is actually supplying this semi solid state cells.

[00:02:01] This is a public trial, but it is a controlled public trial.

[00:02:06] These battery packs initially from May 1st to May 31st are only going to be

[00:02:11] to people renting Neo's through Neo's destination service, which is some sort of rental car

[00:02:17] service in China.

[00:02:18] And in order to get access to the 150 kilowatt hour battery pack, you need to rent for

[00:02:23] at least three consecutive days.

[00:02:25] Now, if everything goes right beginning on June 1st, Neo will let their battery subscription

[00:02:31] customers rent a semi solid state battery pack for longer periods of time.

[00:02:37] But as it is right now, it's only available under those constrained conditions.

[00:02:43] Rivian has launched a new DC fast charger design that was designed to work with other

[00:02:49] EVs, not just Rivians.

[00:02:51] So the chargers come in 400 and 800 volt flavors.

[00:02:55] They will initially have CCS one connectors on them.

[00:02:59] So if you wanted to charge your Tesla, you need to buy an adapter.

[00:03:01] But eventually those chargers would be fitted with the NACS adapter as well.

[00:03:07] Elon recently went to China and politely asked regulators to approve full self driving

[00:03:13] in China and China agreed.

[00:03:16] Tesla stockpiles had a little bump and yeah, I find it weird though that Elon can fly

[00:03:22] to China, but he's too busy to fly to India to talk to Prime Minister Modi about

[00:03:28] a potential factory in India.

[00:03:30] Like when you fly from Texas to China, you're basically in India's neighborhood.

[00:03:35] So you might as well stop by, say hello, build a factory, that kind of thing.

[00:03:42] All right, that brings us to our final story of this episode and it has to do

[00:03:46] with the supercharger network.

[00:03:48] And Tesla sent out an email to suppliers and I would guess this would be also contractors,

[00:03:54] anybody that has to do with the supercharger network and did not, that's external to Tesla.

[00:04:02] Not the team that they laid off, not the Tesla employees who take care of the superchargers,

[00:04:07] but like external third party contractors or suppliers.

[00:04:14] So rather than me read you the email, I'm going to have AI do it.

[00:04:17] So let's go ahead and read the email together.

[00:04:20] To all concerned, you may be aware that there has been a recent adjustment with

[00:04:24] the supercharger organization, which is presently undergoing a sudden and thorough restructuring.

[00:04:30] If you have already received this email, please disregard it as we are attempting to

[00:04:34] connect with our suppliers and contractors.

[00:04:37] As part of this process, we are in the midst of establishing new leadership roles,

[00:04:42] prioritizing projects, and streamlining our payment procedures.

[00:04:46] Due to the transitional nature of this phase, we are asking for your patience

[00:04:50] with our response time.

[00:04:51] I understand that this period of change may be challenging and that patience is not easy

[00:04:56] when expecting to be paid.

[00:04:58] However, I want to express my sincere appreciation for your understanding and support as we

[00:05:03] navigate through this transition.

[00:05:06] At this time, please hold on breaking ground on any newly awarded construction projects

[00:05:11] and planned pre-construction walks.

[00:05:14] If currently working on an active supercharging construction site, please continue.

[00:05:20] Contact Email Redacted for further questions, comments, and concerns.

[00:05:25] Additionally, hold on working on any new material orders.

[00:05:31] Contact Email Redacted for further questions, comments, and concerns.

[00:05:35] If waiting on delayed payment, please contact Email Redacted for a status update.

[00:05:41] Thank you for your cooperation and patience.

[00:05:44] Alright, let's break that email down just a little bit here.

[00:05:49] It sounds like that laying off the supercharger team was not well thought out based on this.

[00:05:56] Like they even say in here, hey if we've already sent you this email, just disregard it

[00:06:01] because we're sending a lot of these out apparently.

[00:06:03] And then it seemed like they hit on this a lot in the email, even though it was just a short email.

[00:06:11] When they said, hey we appreciate your patience in not being paid.

[00:06:16] I don't think Tesla is going to stiff these businesses, but it doesn't sound like they're

[00:06:21] planning on paying them anytime soon.

[00:06:24] And that to me, if I was a contractor or supplier with Tesla would be concerning

[00:06:30] because you have to pay your people.

[00:06:32] And then a lot of cases, you've already done the work.

[00:06:35] So that becomes very problematic because now that's coming out of your pocket and not Tesla's.

[00:06:41] So hopefully if this is the case and Tesla is taking a long time to pay these people,

[00:06:47] these people get interest because that is not okay.

[00:06:51] I'm curious as to what your thoughts are.

[00:06:53] So send me an email, bode, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com.

[00:06:59] And I will say this about this week and emails.

[00:07:02] I don't think I've ever received as many emails in the entire eight years I've been

[00:07:07] doing this podcast as they did this week.

[00:07:09] Like, I mean, I'm sure I've received more emails in eight years.

[00:07:12] I'm saying like in a one week period, this is definitely a record breaker.

[00:07:17] So if I haven't responded to you, just send me a little like reminder email telling

[00:07:22] me that you emailed me because honestly, I think I got everybody.

[00:07:26] But if I don't want to miss any, I don't ever want anyone to think that they were

[00:07:30] ignored is really what it comes down to.

[00:07:33] All right.

[00:07:33] Now I do have one more special thing that we're going to play after the outro music.

[00:07:39] I used 11 Labs to create that voice that read the email.

[00:07:44] I also asked it to do it in a very, I wanted it to do it in a very droopy dog

[00:07:51] kind of a voice.

[00:07:52] Unfortunately, I couldn't get that, but I did find something as, as droopy dog

[00:07:58] as possible.

[00:07:59] And I turned the sarcastic meter all the way to the top.

[00:08:03] Now, is this going to be funny to you?

[00:08:06] Probably not, but I found it funny.

[00:08:08] So listen to the music, enjoy it.

[00:08:11] Um, on Tuesday, we're going to talk about Ford's earnings call.

[00:08:15] I hope y'all again have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you soon.

[00:08:33] To all concerned, you may be aware that there has been a recent adjustment

[00:08:39] with the supercharger organization, which is presently undergoing a sudden and

[00:08:44] thorough restructuring.

[00:08:47] If you have already received this email, please disregard it as we are attempting

[00:08:52] to connect with our suppliers and contractors.

[00:08:57] As part of this process, we are in the midst of establishing new leadership

[00:09:01] roles, prioritizing projects and streamlining our payment procedures.

[00:09:07] Due to the transitional nature of this phase, we are asking for your patience

[00:09:12] with our response time.

[00:09:14] I understand that this period of change may be challenging and that patience

[00:09:19] is not easy when expecting to be paid.

[00:09:21] However, I want to express my sincere appreciation for your understanding

[00:09:26] and support as we navigate through this transition.

[00:09:30] At this time, please hold on breaking ground on any newly awarded

[00:09:36] construction projects and planned pre-construction walks.

[00:09:41] If currently working on an active supercharging construction site, please

[00:09:46] continue. Contact Email Redacted for further questions, comments and

[00:09:52] concerns. Additionally, hold on working on any new material orders.

[00:09:59] Contact Email Redacted for further questions, comments and concerns.

[00:10:07] If waiting on delayed payment, please contact Email Redacted for a status

[00:10:13] update. Thank you for your cooperation and patience.

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