No Politics, Just EVs

[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 the technical issues just keep rolling, folks. They just keep going. So I had a little issue with Logic and Final Cut last week and I didn't know what was going on. Both of them were acting weird for different reasons.

[00:00:46] And if you don't know, I use Logic to edit my audio for this podcast and I use Final Cut to edit the video for the podcast that I do with Rob Dunwood, which is called Beyond the Post. So both of these programs were acting extraordinarily weird. I went ahead and completely deleted everything on my computer, reformatted everything, installed everything fresh.

[00:01:12] It seemed to be working fine. And then on Friday, I go to record again and my Final Cut is crashing. It says there's a plug-in problem. I could not figure out, I was, you know, removing plug-ins, trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn't figure it out. It seems like right now, as of last night at about 1130 at night, it seems like everything is back to working normal again for Final Cut and for Logic.

[00:01:40] But it seems like, long story short, the problem was, it seems, was a plug-in that I use. Removed it, everything seems to have gone back to normal. And I hope to goodness that it has because, like, I can't express how much time is spent trying to track this stuff down. Thank goodness for AI and YouTube and web searches.

[00:02:05] An interesting thing, though, this morning, after I had fixed the problem, or I thought I'd fixed the problem last night, this morning I opened up Facebook and I'm part of a Logic group. And somebody put up an error that looked very similar to the error that I had. It was a little blurry, so I couldn't tell. But it sounds like everybody in the comments was telling that person, oh, this is probably a plug-in problem. There were some other things in there, too, but I believe it was a plug-in problem.

[00:02:30] Because this happened not long after an update, so I'm guessing one of my legacy plug-ins that I had for just random stuff that I do had an issue. And this plug-in was actually, has to do with my audio interface, my Elgato Wave XLR. So, yeah. But it was frustrating. Let's put it that way. All right. Back to the actual part of this show.

[00:02:58] So, today is Monday, February 17th. And I'm going to put out an episode on Wednesday, the 19th, and Friday, which I think is the 21st, to make up for the one that I missed. So, you get three episodes this week. And I'll try to make them relatively short, because I know that three is more than I normally do. In terms of some things that people have been emailing me about.

[00:03:27] We'll just kind of get this off going right at the start here. I've had a few people, not a lot, but enough at this point where I feel like I need to address this. People are asking why I am not talking about Elon and Doge and tariffs and EV incentives and, you know, charging infrastructure and all of that stuff possibly going away. The first reason why I'm not talking about this is because I don't cover politics.

[00:03:55] And I try to keep my personal opinion, although you guys have definitely seen or heard what I think in the past. I try to get my personal opinions about this stuff separate and try to make it as even as possible. And then on the topic of tariffs, like Donald Trump just says so many different things when it comes to tariffs.

[00:04:18] If I was going to cover tariffs in any like serious way when it comes to EVs, renewable energy or, you know, other technology related to EVs, it would just I think it would just add more confusion. So I'm not going to talk about tariffs until they actually happen and affect the things that we talk about on this particular show. So we'll keep that separated as well.

[00:04:42] When Biden issued tariffs against, you know, Chinese solar panels and things like that, we definitely talked about it. And if that actually happens or Trump extends those things, then we'll definitely talk about it again. And then in terms of the EV incentives, like the IRA tax credit and all that stuff and the charging infrastructure, we honestly don't know where that's going to go.

[00:05:09] Donald Trump said it was going to go away and I thought it would be gone day one. And, you know, it's still kind of kicking around. There's different parts of it that have been talked about being removed. So we just don't know at this point what's going on with the EV incentives and the infrastructure stuff for charging. So there's no sense in going through that right at this point. When there's a definitive decision on that from the Trump administration, we'll definitely talk about it.

[00:05:39] And then finally, and this is a big one. I probably get more emails about this is the declining Tesla sales, declining Tesla sales in Europe, declining Tesla sales. In the US and all this stuff. Until Tesla officially releases their numbers at the end of the quarter, we don't really know how much Tesla sales are declining. We have they have guesses. But until they actually release those numbers, we don't know what those numbers are.

[00:06:09] So I don't see that there's any benefit in talking about that for now. Last time Tesla released numbers, they had a little bit of a down year. It was like five or six percent down. But overall, you know, it's still a lot better than a lot of the other EV manufacturers out there.

[00:06:28] So until we start seeing these numbers decline, like we see a trend instead of media outlets reporting that sales are down because of Elon's something that he said or how he's acting or some policy that he's promoting or some group that he's promoting. We we just don't know.

[00:07:15] People who are buying a vehicle, even if it's an EV or a nice vehicle, they're not buying it for the the political statement that it makes. They're buying it because it suits the needs that they have. So if somebody is looking out there looking for an EV and they're in between a Mach E and a bottle Y, they're going to look at all of the options. Both of them have both vehicles have and then they're going to buy the best car for them.

[00:07:42] Now, having said that, I could be completely wrong on this and Tesla sales drop like a rock. And if that happens, we'll definitely discuss the possibilities as to why. But for right now, I think it's a little premature because if Tesla sales are down in Q1 2025, but they're only down half a percent. I don't know that that's a big indicator if they're down 10 percent.

[00:08:10] But yeah, that's something we should be able to talk about for sure. But right now, I just think it's too early. OK, now that I've addressed that, I will say I tried to respond to everybody's emails this weekend. If for some reason that you did not get a response to your email, because I think I hit everybody. But if I didn't, please go ahead and just shoot me an email, Bodie, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com. And let me know just like a little reminder, because I might have missed it.

[00:08:40] But I don't I don't think I did. I think I got everybody. All right, let's jump into our EV news. And actually, we're going to start with our Tesla news because we don't have very many Tesla stories. So let's start with the Model Y. If you are interested in the new Model Y, but you wanted a seven seater version or you wanted the performance version of the Model Y, then I have good news for you. Those options are coming later this year.

[00:09:06] All right, next up, Tesla has launched full self-driving in Mexico. So up until this point, if you lived in North America and you wanted to travel between Mexico, Canada and the United States and operate on full self-driving mode the entire time or most of the time that you're you're traveling, you would not be able to do this. I think Canada has had FSD for about a year now.

[00:09:33] And the U.S. has obviously had it for quite some time, a couple of years. But if you were like in the United States, for instance, and you drove down to Mexico, as soon as you crossed over into Mexico, your full self-driving would turn into autopilot. It would no longer operate as full self-driving. And then when you came back to the United States, it, you know, full self-driving turns back on, which makes total sense. Now you could travel throughout North America with FSD turned on.

[00:10:02] So I thought that was pretty interesting. Now, if you live in Europe or in China and you're curious as to when FSD is going to hit your markets, it sounds like it's China and Europe are going to be Q1 of 2025. Although we are rapidly closing in on the end of Q1 2025. So we'll see if that actually happens. And if you are in a right-hand drive market, it sounds like Q2 2025.

[00:10:30] Now, in both of these situations, you know, whether it's Europe, China or right-hand drive markets, this is pending regulatory approval. And I guess China right now is using this as a bargaining chip with Tesla. And, you know, they're kind of holding up the regulatory approval to get something that they would like. So I thought that was interesting.

[00:10:56] A Cybertruck owner is claiming that he tried to return his Cybertruck to Tesla because of anti-Nazi harassment and no longer feeling safe when he drove the vehicle. Tesla told him at this time, Tesla is not accepting the Cybertruck as trade-ins. So this is what the owner had to say about the harassment he's been receiving or is claiming to have received.

[00:11:19] And he starts off by saying that when he first got the Cybertruck, people would be waving at him because, you know, whatever, it's new, it's unique and that kind of a thing. So this is his quote. Now they're not just waving at me. They're also giving me the middle finger. Someone tried to cut me off while I'm driving with my kids and three guys came out of the car and just pointed their middle finger at me and started screaming. Someone also put an anti-Nazi sticker on his Cybertruck. So pretty scary stuff.

[00:11:48] I don't think that this person is lying. I also don't know if Tesla is in fact not accepting trade-ins for their Cybertruck. I haven't received any official or I haven't heard of any official statement that Tesla is saying they're not taking Cybertrucks as trade-ins. But yeah, the biggest reason why I gave this story, and I don't think anybody from this community would do this, but this is not okay. It is not okay.

[00:12:16] If you have a problem with Elon, please take it up with Elon or Tesla. But please don't harass Tesla customers. That seems a little extreme just because somebody bought a car. And I'm not saying that just as a Model Y owner. I'm genuinely saying that. We have a culture right now in our country where if someone is deemed to be on the other side, it's okay to get in their face and be rude and aggressive.

[00:12:46] And I've seen multiple things online that seem real enough to me. A lot of these things seem fake and made up, but seem real enough to me that it hurts my heart, to be honest with you. We can all treat each other with respect and kindness, even if we don't agree. So yeah, that's a real bummer. This is a bummer of a story.

[00:13:13] But if you feel like you need to harass somebody because of what they're driving or what their views are or whatever, please don't. Again, I don't think that's anybody that's in this audience because I've interacted with many of you and you're all very kind. So I appreciate that. Let's see. The final Tesla story here. A Cybertruck owner, Jonathan Challenger, he lives in Florida.

[00:13:38] He is claiming that his Cybertruck truck crashed into a pole after hitting a curb when full self-driving was activated. Now, according to his post on X, the Cybertruck failed to merge out of the lane that he was in. He was in the far right lane and that lane was ending. So there were little dotted lines telling the driver that it's time to get into the left lane. There were no vehicles in the left lane.

[00:14:03] The Cybertruck just failed to merge into the left lane for no reason that he could explain. And by his own omission, he was not paying as close of attention to the driving as he should have. His Cybertruck hit a curb and then it hit a pole.

[00:14:24] Now, when I saw the pictures on the article, it looks a lot like somebody else took the pictures of the accident. Not of the accident, but of the roadway after it happened. So I'm not going to describe how the road was set up and how this pole was set up. Just because I don't know if the pictures are actually where the accident took place. They probably are, but I don't know.

[00:14:54] So I don't want to give you bad information on this. But the biggest thing that Jonathan wanted people to take away from this experience is whenever you're using full self-driving, pay attention. Don't get complacent, which this is good advice for everyone, whether you have autopilot, some other type of level two autonomous system or, you know, you're just in your regular car. This is just good advice. Pay attention. Don't get complacent.

[00:15:24] It's easy to get complacent. Everybody does it. I do it. Just constant vigilance. You know, the good news is the driver was not injured. And then as we get more updates on this story, because I'm sure Tesla would like to disavow the fact that, you know, full self-driving was activated at the time of the accident. As we get more information, if we get more information, I will let you know. All right, everybody.

[00:15:53] That is it for our Tesla news. But that's not it for our EV news. Before we get to our EV news, I'm just going to throw out patreon.com forward slash kilowatt. Just going to leave it there. I realize that I'm late. I realize that I'm not I'm not being a very good podcast host in terms of getting these shows out on time. I'm really sorry. It's coupled like a lot to do, coupled with family, coupled with work, coupled with technical problems.

[00:16:23] And it's really the technical problems that have really kind of hit me off of the off the mark, because I did not anticipate having technical problems. I anticipate having other issues, but the technical problems as much as I've had, I did not anticipate that at all. So, yes, if you would like to support the show, that's where you go. If you don't, I completely understand. OK, let's jump into our EV news.

[00:16:50] Chinese EV maker Xpong is now selling their vehicles in the UK, Ireland and Finland. Excuse me. The Xpong G6 is a Model Y competitor. And we'll just start with the prices to get that out of the way. In the UK, it's about forty thousand dollars or forty thousand pounds for the G6 starting price, which is about fifty thousand US.

[00:17:19] It's about forty thousand euros in Finland or in Ireland and forty six thousand euros in Finland. I'll be honest. This is a good looking car. I did not think the early versions of the Xpong vehicles. I didn't think they looked good. But this car, I think, looks really good. It's got some real Model Y vibes. And it's a good looking car. Looks good inside. Looks good outside.

[00:17:47] It comes in this really nice orange color. In terms of specs, you're looking at for the base model zero to one hundred kilometers an hour in six point nine seconds. Rear wheel drive. Sixty nine kilowatt hour battery. Lithium iron phosphate batteries for the chemistry on that. Three hundred and seventy miles of range, which is two hundred and thirty miles, which is not a Model Y competitive, to be honest.

[00:18:15] It supports a vehicle to load. So if you're out camping or you somewhere like at a soccer match and you need to charge something or or power or something, you can do that. It has a five star euro in cap safety rating. Seven year warranty. So pretty good for a point of reference.

[00:18:37] The Model Y in the UK starts at forty seven thousand pounds, but the Model Y launch edition is sixty one thousand pounds. So this is a good alternative. The only thing and I don't really care too much about the zero to one hundred kilometers time. The only thing that would concern me just a little bit is the fact that the range is so much lower for other cars that are in that price range, even in Europe and the UK.

[00:19:04] So but if this car interests you and you are living in those regions, definitely check it out and let me know what you think if you do. All right. Nicola Motors. If you don't know, Nicola decided that they were going to build a semi truck that ran on hydrogen and batteries like the hydrogen generator would charge up the battery. So it was an electric fire truck. And then Trevor Milton, who was the founder, got into a little bit of trouble. He had to go to jail.

[00:19:33] He had to step down. Nicola has just kind of been on this razor's edge of, you know, going out of business for some time now. Well, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke with the Wall Street Journal, Nicola is currently working with a law firm to explore their options in terms of selling off the company, like selling the entire company, selling it off for parts, restructuring it, closing it down. Although I don't think they'll close it down.

[00:20:01] But yeah, Nicola, Nicola doesn't have long in this world unless they get some sort of lifeline. As of this recording, Nicola stock price is sitting at around 54 cents a share. So it's not great for the stock price. I think what Nicola is doing is pretty interesting. For a while there, you could see them like around my house because Nicola is their factory is in Casa Grande and their headquarters is in Tempe.

[00:20:31] So it's real close to where I live. You would see their trucks driving up and down the freeway testing them out and they looked cool. And I think what their idea is a good idea. You know, they just they just had a run of bad luck. And I think that bad luck was somewhat self-inflicted. And, you know, obviously, Trevor Milton lying to investors is a bad thing and all the things that happened there.

[00:20:59] So, yeah, this is this this is something we'll keep an eye on for sure. I was going to do Nicola Motors earnings call this year, but I just didn't have the time. So if they have another earnings call, that's a big if we'll definitely look into that at that time. Electric commercial truck company Z or ZM Motors or excuse me, ZM Trucks has announced a new electric truck facility in Fontana, California.

[00:21:29] This is an Asian based company, but they're going to build their medium to heavy duty trucks in at their plant in Fontana. They're also going to have a headquarters there. So the entire plant is like two hundred and ten thousand square feet or the entire factory is two hundred and ten thousand square feet, which does include, like I said, the headquarters.

[00:21:50] They're expected once they're all up and running to build a hundred thousand medium, medium and heavy duty EVs out of that factory per year, which is quite a bit, quite a bit. And good luck to them. And I think I mentioned this on a previous episode, but I have a I had the CEO of Harbinger on the show. And that episode, I think, will play the first Tuesday of March.

[00:22:18] And Harbinger is a company school company. They build electric vehicle chassis for medium. And I don't know if it's heavy duty trucks, but definitely medium duty trucks, box trucks, that kind of thing. So it was an interesting conversation. I think you're going to like that. All right. Now we are going to end with my favorite new EV company that's out there. And that is Scout Motors.

[00:22:43] Scout Motors CEO Stephen Keough or Scott Keough, excuse me, gave us some updated information on the pure EV and extended range versions of their vehicles. Scott was on Motor Trends podcast. So I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to go and listen to that podcast. Just kind of as a reminder, Scout Motors has two EVs. They have the Traveler, which is an SUV, and they have a Terra, which is the pickup truck.

[00:23:11] I'm really interested in the pickup truck. I don't know if I can convince my wife to let me spend $10,000 more than I did on my Model Y for an electric pickup truck. But I think the Terra is a great looking truck. Like when I was at CES and I was looking at that truck, I had a lot of FOMO. I was like, man, I should have waited and saved up an extra $10,000 and waited for this truck to come out. It's nice.

[00:23:40] But anyway, the Harvester version, which is that extended range version that will come with a gas power generator, the generator is going to be a four-cylinder generator. And that, coupled with a 60 to 70 kilowatt hour battery, will give the vehicle a range of around 500 miles. So the battery will be 150 or so miles of that, just the pure battery.

[00:24:08] And then when the generator is running, the generator actually charges the battery, and that's what's going to give you the total of 500 miles. But if you're running around, you know, doing day-to-day activities around your house, you know, you got 150 miles of range before that gas generator kicks on. Now the full EV version is going to come with 120 to 130 kilowatt hour battery, and it'll get about 350 miles on one charge.

[00:24:37] Both versions are going to have roughly a 2,000 pound payload. We don't know what the towing number will be for each version, but they're supposed to be similar or close enough. Another thing that I found interesting was that 85% of the supply chain for the Scout Motors vehicles are localized here in the United States. Over 50% of the reservations that were made for the vehicles were Harvester versions.

[00:25:07] Again, that's the extended range with the generator. And then 70% of the reservations were for the Traveler SUV, which honestly I'm a little bit surprised that it's that high. Like the Traveler SUV, don't get me wrong, was nice. It is smaller than the Rivian R1S, but, and I haven't, you know, looked at the numbers, but I've stood next to both vehicles. The R1, or the Terra, the pickup truck for Scout Motors,

[00:25:36] looks like it's bigger than the Rivian. And, yeah, I thought that people would be more drawn to that pickup truck than they would to the SUV. But maybe that's just me. All right, everybody, that is it for us this, well, this episode. I'm going to put another show together here in a little bit and have something for you on Wednesday. And like I said, something on Friday so that we can get caught back up.

[00:26:06] And they should be fairly quick. So if you want to email me, it's bodie, B-O-D-I-E, at 918digital.com. You want to follow me on X, you can, at 918digital. And I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend. It's a holiday weekend here in the U.S. And I hope you have a wonderful weekend.