Robotaxi and the Affordable Tesla

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[00:01:28] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about Electric Vehicles, autonomous driving,

[00:01:44] renewable energy and much much more. My name is Bodey and I am your host and we have a new

[00:01:51] patron. I want to thank Graham for becoming a patron and supporting the show. I'm not going

[00:01:58] to do a Patreon plug here, I'm just going to thank Graham for taking the time and the money

[00:02:04] to support the show. As you all know, all of the money that comes in through the Patreon,

[00:02:09] that money goes directly back into the show to make it better, to buy new equipment,

[00:02:13] to pay for all the subscriptions that need to be paid for. So thank you very much,

[00:02:18] Graham, for supporting the show. I appreciate it. If you need anything or if there's a suggestion

[00:02:23] that you have, please feel free to reach out to me. Alright, let's go ahead and jump into our EV

[00:02:31] news this week. Last week we talked about EV startup Canoe and I had mentioned that I was

[00:02:38] really hopeful that Canoe could sell more than just a few of these delivery vans or any of the

[00:02:44] vehicles that they're producing because it just seems like they're getting these orders for like a

[00:02:49] handful and if everything works out, we'll order more later and it doesn't seem like those big orders

[00:02:55] are coming in. So not surprisingly to anyone who even pays the vaguest bit of attention to this

[00:03:02] stuff, Canoe had a really disappointing quarter but that's not what I want to talk about. I

[00:03:07] want to talk about how much Canoe paid for their CEO's private jet. Now the CEO, his name is Tony

[00:03:18] Aquila, I will say that I feel really confident that this is only reimbursements for when Tony

[00:03:27] would go to certain places. I don't think this is if Tony wants to go to Hawaii for vacation

[00:03:33] that Canoe is footing that bill. That's on Tony but if you had to guess how much a small startup

[00:03:42] paid for their CEO to travel around from place to place to place, what number are you thinking in

[00:03:48] your head? I'm going to give you a second. Alright, that number is $1.7 million. They paid

[00:03:57] $1.7 million in one year for Tony to fly from place to place to place and do business on behalf of

[00:04:05] Canoe. That seems excessive to me and let me tell you why because Canoe lost $302 million in 2023.

[00:04:13] They brought in around $886,000 in 23 which is not great, Al. These are not great numbers.

[00:04:24] If your company is losing $302 million, it's time to start flying budget airlines.

[00:04:31] Like if your company lost $302 million in a year and you're a startup, you don't even get to pay

[00:04:39] for priority boarding. You go the budget of the budget airlines. You sit in the back with

[00:04:45] all the rest of us losers. I include myself in that because I've never flown first class

[00:04:51] but you do this because the company that you're running is very close to going out of business.

[00:04:57] Right now Canoe's stock is trading at $2.50 a share. Now it's $2.49 a share.

[00:05:05] These are not great numbers. Here's what I have to say to Tony, free advice, Tony,

[00:05:10] if you're interested. If you want to fly your jet around, cool. Fly your jet around and pay for

[00:05:15] it out of your own pocket because your shareholders who invested in your business,

[00:05:20] they're probably losing money. Taking $1.7 million out of the business so that you can fly

[00:05:28] private doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It really doesn't make a lot of sense to me when

[00:05:33] I'm almost certain. I'm not certain because I don't work for the company but I'm almost

[00:05:38] certain that Canoe as a company has rallied together. The managers have rallied the employees

[00:05:45] together and they're like, we all got to come together. We all got to tighten our belts. We

[00:05:49] all got to make sacrifices. Well, that starts at the top. For me, sacrifices start at the top.

[00:05:54] If the guy up top isn't making sacrifices or the gal up top isn't making sacrifices,

[00:05:59] then I'm not going to make a sacrifice. That's just the way that it works for me.

[00:06:05] Alright, let's see. That went way longer than it needed to. I'm sorry. Let's go to a short story.

[00:06:14] Rivian has officially built 100,000 EVs. So congrats to the Rivian team.

[00:06:21] Moving on, let's talk about Ford sold over just barely over 20,000 EVs in Q1 2024.

[00:06:31] So let's break this down. The Mach E sold 9,589. We talked, I think it was last week, we talked about

[00:06:40] Ford lowering the price for the Mach E so that bumped sales up a little bit. And then in terms

[00:06:47] of the lightning they sold 7,743 F-150 lightnings in Q1 2024. And then we throw in the E transit

[00:06:57] vans. They sold 2,891 of those. So a grand total of 20,223 vehicles sold in Q1 2024. This is not the road

[00:07:12] to making their EV lineup profitable. Not yet anyway. As a matter of fact, Ford is delaying plans for

[00:07:19] their next EVs. The project T3, which is an EV pickup truck, is delayed from 2025 to 2026. And their

[00:07:28] three row SUV was delayed, I believe, from 2025 to 2027. Ford has mentioned in the past that they are

[00:07:37] going to focus on hybrids over pure EVs, at least in the short term. They call it a transition.

[00:07:44] Here's the problem is if these hybrids cost as much as the EVs do, and they have all of the problems of

[00:07:52] a nice vehicle and all of the problems of an EV, I don't think people are going to buy these either.

[00:07:59] I think it makes more sense for Ford to build an affordable EV that is compelling. So I went

[00:08:07] to Ford's website to find out what are their vehicles starting at. Because I genuinely have no idea.

[00:08:15] And this is including ICE vehicles and EVs. So if you want a Ford Bronco Sport, it starts at $30,000,

[00:08:23] just under $30,000. If that's too much money for you and you're like, I don't want to spend

[00:08:27] $30,000, well good news. Ford will sell you a Ford Escape for $29,495 for $300 cheaper.

[00:08:36] That's it. Those are their most affordable SUVs and CUVs. You can buy a Mustang, not the Maki,

[00:08:45] just a regular ice powered Mustang for $30,920. So just under $31,000. And then we get two trucks.

[00:08:54] If you're looking to buy the Ford Maverick XL, you're looking at spending just under $24,000.

[00:09:03] That's not actually, that's not bad. That's pretty good. It's a small pickup truck, but $24,000,

[00:09:08] not too bad. If you want the hybrid engine, you're looking at spending $25,000. So that's,

[00:09:14] you know, a way better price than the SUVs and sedans. And then you get to the Ford Ranger,

[00:09:20] which is $32,000. And then it just kind of goes up from there. So why am I telling you all

[00:09:25] this? Well, I'm telling you all this because it is, that's a lot of money like the average

[00:09:31] price for a new car here in Arizona is according to zebra.com or the zebra.com is $32,422.

[00:09:41] There are brand new firefighters that I work with when you talk to them about how much they're paying

[00:09:47] in rent because they don't own, they get paid a good amount of money, slightly over $50,000.

[00:09:53] I don't know exactly what it is, but the starting salary for a firefighter in Arizona,

[00:09:57] at least the department I work for is right over $50,000. They can afford a $32,000 car because

[00:10:06] they're too busy paying all of that extra money into rent. Like it rent is ridiculously expensive

[00:10:11] right now in here here in Arizona at least. So my point is that if Ford can't build an

[00:10:17] affordable vehicle, an affordable hybrid vehicle, nobody's going to buy that vehicle either.

[00:10:25] They're not going to buy that hybrid because it costs too much money. I don't think this is as much of

[00:10:31] a problem with people wanting EVs. There is a little bit of that, there's still a lot of

[00:10:35] education that needs to happen when it comes to new EV owners. But if you've priced your vehicle

[00:10:42] so high that people can't afford it and then you say, well they're just not ready for EVs or

[00:10:47] they're not ready for a hybrids, no you overpriced your vehicle and then you have the problems

[00:10:53] with the dealers where if somebody goes in to buy let's say the Ford Maverick hybrid, that probably

[00:11:00] qualifies for some level of federal incentive here in the United States. Whatever that qualifies for

[00:11:07] most dealers not all, some dealers I should say, some unscrupulous dealers are going to increase

[00:11:13] the price of the Ford Maverick by that same exact amount so they make more money. My point is

[00:11:21] if people can't afford your vehicles or the vehicles that you have that people can afford

[00:11:26] you're going to allow your dealers or some of your dealers to let's just say charitably overcharge

[00:11:33] for your product then that's a problem. That is a problem that is slowing down EV sales.

[00:11:42] Not to say there's not other factors slowing down EV sales I fully believe

[00:11:48] that there are other things happening in the world right now that are slowing

[00:11:54] EV sales down but I also think that a lot of that has to do with education

[00:12:00] but again I've gone off script this was literally three lines in my notes so I apologize about that

[00:12:07] I feel a little preachy today if you can't tell. Let's go ahead and move on to

[00:12:14] um let's move on to the Chevy Bolt. If you own a Chevy Bolt and you're looking to buy a 2024 Chevy

[00:12:21] Equinox well then I have really good news for you Chevy is offering current Bolt owners a $3,000

[00:12:30] discount if they would like to upgrade to the 2024 Chevy Equinox so when you couple this with the

[00:12:35] $7,500 federal tax credit you'll get a total of $10,500 off the price of an Equinox and right now I

[00:12:45] believe the starting price for an Equinox is $41,900 the more affordable version of that car is supposed

[00:12:52] to come out sometime in the near future but if you're here in the United States and you qualify

[00:12:57] for that federal tax credit and you get the $3,000 off if you're a Bolt owner

[00:13:03] you're getting that car for just over $30,000 not too shabby so if anybody out there is

[00:13:09] you know in this position send me an email bodi.bode.ie at 918digital.com and let me know if

[00:13:16] this is something that appeals to you and even if you're not in this position if you were

[00:13:20] would it appeal to you I would like to know speaking of Chevy we have updated range numbers

[00:13:26] and an updated price for the 2024 Chevy Silverado EVRST we actually have somebody in your audience

[00:13:33] who purchased one of these should receive it in the next 10 it seems like seven weeks by now so

[00:13:38] congratulations to them better than originally advertised honestly normally especially Chevy

[00:13:45] but normally when car companies announce a vehicle that's two to three years out they

[00:13:51] give it the best possible specs and then they adjust down from there not in this case the original

[00:13:58] range for the RST was 400 miles well now the updated range is 440 miles with a full charge so

[00:14:08] not the 80 percent that is a full charge 100 percent and the price the price is now

[00:14:15] 96495 which is down $10,000 so overall good job Chevy I like to see that that gives me hope

[00:14:25] that gives me hope and Chevy in their EV decisions doesn't always it doesn't always give me hope

[00:14:31] let's just say charitably I'm often frustrated because I think Chevy could do great things

[00:14:38] with their EV program and I don't feel like they live up to their potential I'm not

[00:14:43] I'm not mad at you Chevy I'm just disappointed in you let's move on to BYD

[00:14:50] build your dreams a Chinese automaker it looks like BYD will be launching their next generation

[00:14:56] blade EV battery later this year the chemistry is going to be a lithium ion phosphate chemistry

[00:15:02] the blade design these these blades are long and flat and BYD says that this saves space

[00:15:09] and is less weight they have a previous generation blade EV battery pack that they've been using but

[00:15:16] the next generation is coming out later this year BYD is also working on an electric pickup truck

[00:15:23] for global markets and why did they say global markets because I really think BYD wants to

[00:15:30] push here into the United States I saw a picture of this pickup truck it's all camouflaged up so

[00:15:36] it's hard to kind of wrap your head around what it actually looks like but based on the picture

[00:15:44] based on the camouflage it looks really similar to the Chevy Silverado SUV that our EV excuse me

[00:15:51] that we just talked about a body style that would be very favorable to people here in the United

[00:15:57] States because you know who loves their pickup trucks Americans Americans love pickup trucks

[00:16:04] and BYD building a factory in Mexico so that they can serve the South American market

[00:16:10] and maybe the North American market maybe I think they're coming they're on their way

[00:16:34] for free or go to amazon.com slash news ad free that's amazon.com slash news ad free to catch up on the

[00:16:41] latest episodes without the ads

[00:16:47] all right that is it for our EV news now it is a new month and I need to thank our patrons so

[00:16:53] I'm going to do that but before I do that I do want to tell you I have a new podcast out

[00:16:57] it's called beyond the post Rob Dunwood and I have been working on beyond the post for

[00:17:04] since October of 2023 six months and we have finally released we are going to be released every

[00:17:12] week on Wednesdays and our latest episode we sat down with Angela Hollowell and if you

[00:17:19] have any interest in creating whether that's you're just wanting to know what goes on behind the

[00:17:25] scenes or you want to know how to create something for yourself then I highly suggest

[00:17:31] that you listen at least to this episode because Angela gives us so much good information on how

[00:17:38] to get started the importance of community and why you might want to consider a service-based

[00:17:44] business before moving into your own personal projects so it's a really really good episode

[00:17:51] I'll put links to beyond the post in the show notes please go check it out and I'm really

[00:17:56] interested in hearing your opinion and by the way if you want to hear behind the scenes stuff

[00:18:01] that goes on on this podcast Rob and I talk about some of that stuff in our one-on-one

[00:18:07] conversations that we have as well so I don't give names or identifying details but if you want

[00:18:15] to know about things that have frustrated me and that you never hear about you'll definitely

[00:18:19] hear about them on beyond the post all right let's go ahead and thank our patrons let's start with

[00:18:26] our newest patron Graham Steve K Charles S Paul S John just another Nick Charles F electron

[00:18:38] raceway fabricator Scott R Ravi Jean Sean Chris B there's another Chris with the last name of

[00:18:48] B but they have another initial in there so we'll get to that Jamie not Jaime the Scottish version

[00:18:55] of Jamie not the Spanish version sorry about that Jamie Don Christopher Stephen E Alex Alki Bob

[00:19:04] sleet friendly sleet 66 Joseph B Jerbo Steve S Bruce W Isaiah Howard Bruce C Michael Muskie

[00:19:18] Rolando Tomasso Chip Chris SB Sierra my Sierra Dale Don Cameron Nate Mark and James thank you

[00:19:30] all so much for supporting the show I'm not going to do a long patreon plug here I'm just

[00:19:35] going to say if you are interested in supporting the show there are ways to do that in the show notes

[00:19:41] and I should say because I forgot to put this in the show notes we have winners for the

[00:19:48] go subscribe to Alison Sheridan's podcast contest and the winners are Mark and Chris

[00:19:56] so there was only one Chris and only one mark who entered into the contest so if you or name is Mark

[00:20:03] or Chris you won I will reach out to you later today or tomorrow I don't want to ruin the surprise

[00:20:11] so I'll reach out to you today or tomorrow and get your address and get you your coffee

[00:20:15] mug so thank you very much for everyone who participated all right let's move into our

[00:20:21] Tesla news Tesla is now the largest private employer in Austin they currently employ 22,777 people

[00:20:31] eventually their goal is to hit over 60,000 employees just in Austin which is a lot let's

[00:20:39] see Tesla FSD drivers have driven over a billion miles on fsd and if you think well that's

[00:20:46] a lot it is a lot that is that is further than it is from the earth to Saturn so it would be

[00:20:55] less miles if you're to drive from earth to Saturn that that's a lot so congratulations to the Tesla

[00:21:02] team although you didn't really do anything Tesla team you what you did was you charged people

[00:21:07] a bunch of money for a product that doesn't quite work and again this isn't in the script I'm

[00:21:13] off script all day today I'm annoyed yeah you charge people a lot of money for a product that

[00:21:18] doesn't work and now you got a billion miles of testing out of it so I guess congratulations to

[00:21:25] the folks who are paying a bunch of money for fsd in testing for Tesla I this is your award this

[00:21:37] you all did a wonderful job Tesla not so much oh let's see here I'm going to get emails on this

[00:21:45] episode because I'm very preachy let's move on remember when Tesla offered this is such a

[00:21:54] cynical show remember when Tesla offered the one-time full self-driving transfer like if you

[00:21:59] owned a vehicle and it had full self-driving if you owned a Tesla that had full self-driving

[00:22:05] you could buy a new Tesla and transfer that over and Elon said this is a one-time thing this is like

[00:22:10] you know amnesty or whatever he said it was one time deal well I think they've done that three

[00:22:15] times now at this point Tesla needs to come out and they need to be like hey listen we are

[00:22:20] lowering the price of full self-driving to ten thousand dollars okay and on May 1st anybody

[00:22:28] who pays the ten thousand dollars gets full self-driving for life and all of the people

[00:22:34] who have paid for full self-driving already whether you paid two thousand dollars or twenty

[00:22:38] five hundred dollars whatever it was when way back in the day or your you know you paid the

[00:22:44] fifteen thousand dollars doesn't really matter you get full self-driving for life after May 1st

[00:22:51] we're going to have a two thousand dollar fsd option but that two thousand dollars you buy

[00:22:57] that it stays with the car so if you buy a new Tesla three years down the road two thousand dollars

[00:23:04] again there's no upgrading to the ten thousand dollar lifetime subscription now in this scenario

[00:23:11] Tesla is going to have to do some make goods for all the people who spent fifteen thousand or

[00:23:17] twelve thousand dollars and those make goods can come in the way of referral points or whatever

[00:23:23] to make people feel good about overspending for their product but I think this is the way Tesla

[00:23:30] needs to handle this because Elon Elon thinks that people don't understand the value of full

[00:23:36] self-driving and Elon doesn't understand that people aren't going to pay that much money for

[00:23:43] something when their budgets are already stretched for a product that doesn't work yet but if

[00:23:49] you said ten thousand dollars you get fsd subscription for life or fsd service for life

[00:23:56] you're golden you're golden you I think more people would probably spend that ten thousand

[00:24:02] dollars knowing that they're probably going to buy more Teslas in the future but the people who

[00:24:09] can't afford the ten thousand dollars me would be more than happy to pay two thousand dollars

[00:24:14] to get fsd for the car that they currently own and as far as the monthly subscription goes

[00:24:20] drop that down to 50 bucks over the course of somebody owning their vehicle you're going to

[00:24:25] get more than two thousand dollars out of them and they may be perfectly happy to just pay

[00:24:30] fifty dollars for the service all right moving on to supercharger stations tesla is now deploying

[00:24:38] prefabricated supercharger stations in just four days this is about half the time as it took

[00:24:43] previously we talked to edwin jowell um i think it was september of 2023 he was a former tesla

[00:24:52] employee he was one of the first employees on the supercharger team in new york city and edwin

[00:24:58] walked us through all of this great information about finding a suitable site partnering with the

[00:25:03] property owners designing the project getting municipal and utility approvals and then there's

[00:25:09] electrical upgrades because you might not have capacity at the panels so you got to upgrade all

[00:25:13] of that stuff and then there's problems scheduling contractors and coordinating with utilities

[00:25:19] so these tesla pre builds um tesla builds these concrete slabs with holes and conduits

[00:25:26] so you just run the wires where they need to go and the supercharger stalls and cabinets and

[00:25:33] everything else they're all kind of come affixed to the things that they need to be

[00:25:36] affixed to and then they just set these uh concrete slabs in place and it's not quite plug and play but

[00:25:43] they run the power to where it needs to be run and they turn it on four days instead of eight days

[00:25:49] and not only does it lower the time for install it also lowers the price so good on you tesla

[00:25:56] for that that's that's great uh let's see let's talk about tesla's down quarter their q1 2024

[00:26:04] was disappointing and tesla blamed attacks on ships in the red sea arson at giga berlin and fremont

[00:26:13] changing over to the updated version of the model three tim levin from insid v gives us some other

[00:26:20] possibilities for the down quarter so tesla built over 47 000 some uh media sites are saying 46

[00:26:31] 000 so between 46 and 47 000 more vehicles than they delivered so they have a lot of vehicles in

[00:26:38] inventory right now and as a matter of fact tesla is selling inventory vehicles at a discounted price

[00:26:46] like if we're looking at a model three rear wheel drive not me personally but we as a group listening

[00:26:52] to this podcast we're looking at a model three or model y rear wheel drive the regular cost is

[00:26:59] 46 990 it's currently on sale for 42 290 and if you're here in the united states after the

[00:27:08] federal tax credit you're looking at spending just under 35 000 for this model y which at

[00:27:15] you know full price is just under 47 000 so uh you know pretty decent discounts now let's get to

[00:27:24] tim's thoughts tim's thoughts on why tesla kind of had a disappointing corner is that their lineup is

[00:27:30] getting old and i would say it's it's pretty mature his solution is model makeovers like we needed

[00:27:38] we need updated models we've had the same model y more or less for the last four years the same

[00:27:43] look of the model y for the last four years which you know that's when it launched um

[00:27:50] and i would go a little bit further to say that tesla needs to start when they update one of these

[00:27:55] vehicles they they need to update all of the vehicles like i understand we're not getting the

[00:28:00] traditional 2024 chevy silverado is going to be a lot different than the 2025 chevy silverado

[00:28:06] i understand that we're not doing updates like traditional automakers do them however if you

[00:28:11] update the model three within a few months you should be updating the rest of the vehicle

[00:28:15] the rest of the lines so that there is there is parity but there's also excitement as to why

[00:28:21] people want to buy your vehicle and you might say well bodie they came out with hardware four

[00:28:28] and that's pretty exciting yeah they came out with hardware four and i still don't think it has

[00:28:32] parity with hardware three vehicles it'll eventually get there and it'll eventually overtake

[00:28:37] hardware three vehicles but it's hard to sell somebody on the benefit that they may or may not

[00:28:43] see in the time that they own the car uh tim also mentions the cybertruck honestly the cybertruck

[00:28:50] isn't going to sell at volume with its current price tag and honestly who knows if that's what

[00:28:56] tesla wants they may just want to keep that a niche product so they can experiment with

[00:29:00] and keep that price high i have no idea another thing that tim thought was causing problems with

[00:29:06] the stock is elan's behavior and opinions or alienating customers and to that i say maybe

[00:29:13] i would say that some of some people may not buy just because elan's elan and those people

[00:29:20] weren't going to buy a tesla either anyway because they didn't like elan from five years ago and they

[00:29:24] definitely don't like elan today uh but there are other people who didn't like elan five years

[00:29:29] ago who do like elan today so maybe they'll try an electric vehicle who knows i know a lot of

[00:29:34] people who have bought a tesla who don't agree with elan's world view they just held their

[00:29:39] nose and wrote a check because it's a good car and elan is not tesla i think this is where a lot of people

[00:29:46] um make a little bit of an error like if you don't want to support elan and so you don't buy

[00:29:52] tesla that's totally fine i'm not judging you or trying to argue you away from your position

[00:29:59] but elan is not tesla there are over 70 000 people who work for tesla

[00:30:05] and that number is probably much higher than 70 now it was 70 a thousand a couple of years ago

[00:30:10] yes elan is the voice for the company he's the CEO but he's not the voice for the employees

[00:30:18] and that much is clear to be honest with you but he's not the voice for the employees uh there

[00:30:23] are 70 000 people each one of those people have their own voice they make their own contributions

[00:30:27] to tesla so honestly i don't know how much elan's behavior or what he says has to do with

[00:30:36] sales of the actual vehicles maybe a lot but i would has i probably not and then the next

[00:30:43] thing on tim's list is ev competition you have companies in the here in the united states like

[00:30:49] hunday and kinah they're making very cool evs and you know that's eating into some of tesla's

[00:30:56] business you also have the ev startups like rivion and lucid which granted they're not they're not

[00:31:03] blowing the world up but eventually they will and then you have the chinese automakers and if you

[00:31:09] say wait a second the chinese automakers aren't here in the united states well they kind of are

[00:31:13] poll star operates here in the us um but also tesla is a global company at this point and

[00:31:21] these chinese automakers have made enroads into you know other regions and then finally

[00:31:29] we have lack of affordable options which brings us to our next story according to reuters tesla has

[00:31:36] canceled their inexpensive vehicle the 25 000 car some people called it the m2 or the model 2

[00:31:44] depending on who's talking uh i don't know why tesla has never officially come out and said

[00:31:50] it's the that's the naming convention and i think they've actually come out and said that's not going

[00:31:54] to be the name at all but uh yeah according to three sources familiar with the matter who spoke

[00:32:00] to reuters instead of developing the more affordable ev they will develop self-driving robotaxes on

[00:32:08] a similar or the same vehicle platform according to the article elon directed the team to go

[00:32:14] all in on robotaxe elon has come out on twitter and said that reuters is lying his specific tweet is

[00:32:23] reuters is lying again elon first mentioned robotaxe on tesla's master plan part d and the plan at that

[00:32:34] time was for robotaxes to work for anybody anybody running the compatible hardware and software

[00:32:42] should be able to turn their vehicle into a robotaxe now we have no idea if that's still what

[00:32:47] tesla's going to be doing but it makes sense that if tesla's building cars in 2024 2025 those vehicles

[00:32:57] are going to be robotaxe compatible now tesla might run their own fleet of robotaxes and they

[00:33:06] may want to run it on this smaller more affordable platform because it's smaller and

[00:33:11] more affordable but there are people who are going with a group to dinner and they will maybe want to

[00:33:19] take a model x because it's more comfortable i don't see robotaxe being confined to one

[00:33:27] vehicle platform i see maybe in the beginning but i see robotaxe being you know fleet wide

[00:33:35] as long as you are rocking the required or compatible hardware and software whether or

[00:33:42] not tesla will let regular people participate that that remains to be seen but i don't i don't

[00:33:47] see robotaxe is having to be on one specific platform now as far as the more affordable

[00:33:53] $25,000 vehicle goes i you know elon's already said Reuters story is untrue so i would imagine

[00:34:02] that tesla is working on the $25,000 more affordable vehicle the team sees it as a great way to feature

[00:34:11] robotaxes at least in the beginning and elon's like hey go in all in on this because as far as we know

[00:34:20] or elon has mentioned in the past that the robotaxes won't necessarily have a steering wheel

[00:34:26] he's also mentioned in the past that there might need to be a driver in the robotaxes to

[00:34:31] begin with so you know it's kind of all over the board over the last couple of years

[00:34:38] kind of like i've been on this podcast so let me just sum this up tesla needs a affordable EV that

[00:34:45] most of the population can buy even if it's less than $30,000 i think that's going to be

[00:34:50] a huge win for them in terms of robotaxes well elon said we're going to get more information

[00:34:56] on robotaxes on august 8th of 2024 based on previous years it may be that it's a combined

[00:35:06] presentation of robotaxe and the annual shareholders meeting we'll see if that ends up working out

[00:35:12] that way but i suspect that we're going to find out more about robotaxe on august 8th and then

[00:35:18] we'll probably see a reveal of the more affordable $25,000 EV option on august 8th as well

[00:35:25] because elon's already said that we should see this vehicle later this year and august is later

[00:35:31] than it is now so that's my guess all right everybody that was a long show i apologize for that i got

[00:35:41] real preachy i got i got on my soapbox um but hopefully you enjoyed it if you want to email me

[00:35:47] it's bodi b o d i e at 918 digital dot com you can also find me on twitter at 918 digital

[00:35:54] hope you all have a wonderful day and i will talk to you on friday

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