Shaq's New Custom Lucid Air

[00:00:20] 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 Bodhi and I am your host. And on today's episode,

[00:00:30] we are going to talk about EV news, which should not be a shocker to anybody. I do need to say that

[00:00:37] I have been working on a special episode that involves Fisker Motors. Unfortunately, because

[00:00:45] of some things that I got going at work and some family stuff and just all, you know,

[00:00:51] overall holiday stuff, that will not be coming out around Christmas. I would like to take a little

[00:00:56] bit more time and make it really, really good. I have big plans for this special and maybe I should,

[00:01:05] maybe I should be a little bit more realistic and I would get it done because I've been working on this

[00:01:09] since probably September, for sure September, excuse me, for sure October. But I've been

[00:01:15] thinking about it for a long time. So yeah, just let everybody know we're just going to do news till

[00:01:22] the end of the year. So let's jump into it. Autonomous taxi company Waymo is expanding service,

[00:01:29] but they're not expanding service to a different part of the United States. They're expanding service

[00:01:34] to a completely different country. Waymo is headed to Tokyo in early 2025. And I don't,

[00:01:40] I don't know if this is in the cards or not, but I've always wanted to go to Japan. I've been to the

[00:01:45] Japanese airport several times on my way to Thailand. So yeah, is there, is there a world

[00:01:52] where kilowatt lands in Japan and takes an autonomous taxi ride and then goes back home? I don't know.

[00:02:00] But if you want to help support that patreon.com forward slash kilowatt or support kilowatt.com

[00:02:04] to make my dreams come true. It's not really my dream. It was just a cheap plug.

[00:02:14] Patreon.com forward slash kilowatt. Anyway, Michigan's first federally funded Nevi EV fast charger is

[00:02:25] active and up and running. So if you don't know the Nevi funds or the federal funds that you hear

[00:02:31] folks talking about on the political shows saying there's only been like six and they've spent $8

[00:02:37] billion, which is not true. There's something like $8 billion available to states and then the states

[00:02:44] put together a plan. And then from there they roll out these Nevi funded EV fast chargers. Well,

[00:02:53] Michigan's first Nevi funded EV fast charger is a Rivian charger. It's located at 6200 South Pennsylvania Avenue.

[00:03:02] In Lansing. If you're in that area, give it a look and let me know what you think. This is open to

[00:03:10] everyone. You don't have to own a Rivian to charge at this location. It's open to all EV owners. And

[00:03:16] Michigan should receive $110 million in Nevi funds through 2026 to roll out over 100 DC fast chargers.

[00:03:26] California utility SoCal Edison has just added 280 Chevy Silverado EVs to its service fleet.

[00:03:34] SoCal Edison is planning on transitioning their entire service fleet to EVs by 2030. So that's going to be a

[00:03:41] big help in terms of tailpipe emissions. And since we brought up the Chevy Silverado EV,

[00:03:47] let's talk about the 2025 Chevy Equinox. It's currently being recalled, not for a reason that

[00:03:54] you would think it would normally be recalled for. The car itself is fine, but the pedestrian alert

[00:03:59] system, that noise, that the sound that it makes when it's traveling at low speeds isn't loud enough.

[00:04:06] And they say that it's not loud enough to alert pedestrians. So the recall involves 7,606

[00:04:14] Chevy Equinox vehicles and just the EV versions, the ICE versions obviously don't have this kind of

[00:04:19] feature. Here's the real bummer about this is you have to take it to the dealership to get fixed. There's no

[00:04:25] over-the-air update for this. So that's a bummer. Seems like there should be, but yeah, no over-the-air update,

[00:04:33] sadly. I apologize about my voice today. It feels like I'm more monotone than normal.

[00:04:40] So if that's bothering you, my apologies. Ford has received a $9.63 billion loan to build out their

[00:04:48] Blue Oval factory in Tennessee. And some of that money will actually go into two other plants in

[00:04:54] Kentucky. And from what I understand, those two Kentucky plants will help support the Blue Oval

[00:04:58] factory in Tennessee, which is their EV factory. I think they're calling it Blue Oval City. So that's

[00:05:04] pretty cool. Ford is also teaching or informing new EV drivers how to drive in the snow and manage your

[00:05:12] EV when it's cold outside and more specifically the battery. So here are some of their tips.

[00:05:19] Park your car in the garage if possible. Well, that's not possible for everyone, but you know,

[00:05:25] it's a good tip. Remove all the snow from your vehicle before driving. This is just good advice,

[00:05:30] even if you don't own an EV. Although I will say when I lived in Alaska and other colder climates

[00:05:35] where that snowed, I loved it when that big piece of snow would eventually fall off your car. It was

[00:05:40] very satisfying while you were driving around. Probably not the best, probably not the best way

[00:05:45] to do things. But yeah, remove all the snow from your vehicle before driving. This reduces weight

[00:05:51] and it reduces air resistance. One other tip is to plug your EV in when it's parked for extended

[00:05:59] periods of time. Obviously, this helps keep the battery charged and depending on the battery

[00:06:04] management system, we can keep the battery warm. You can also set your daily departure time so that

[00:06:10] your EV battery is preconditioned and warmed up when you're ready to leave the house. And as an added

[00:06:15] bonus, the cabin is heated to whatever your desired temperature is. And they recommend using heated

[00:06:23] seats and steering wheel as much as possible over the HVAC system because the HVAC system takes more

[00:06:29] energy. So by utilizing those heated surfaces, not only are you warming your body, you're warming the

[00:06:35] interior of the vehicle. Ford a couple of years ago actually did a study and they put, you know,

[00:06:41] heated dashes and armrests and the whole thing. And they found that it was much more efficient to do

[00:06:47] that than it was to blow hot or, you know, I guess in this case, hot air on you. So the heated surfaces

[00:06:54] is a better way to go. And then ensure that your tires are properly inflated. And that's just a good

[00:07:01] idea for everybody in general. All right, let's move on to a kilowatt first, or at least I think it was

[00:07:08] a first. I don't think we've ever talked about Shaquille O'Neal on this podcast. I'm a fan of

[00:07:14] Shaq's. I've actually had friends that have had interactions with him and they have more than one

[00:07:22] friend. They have nothing but good things to say about this guy. So Shaquille O'Neal or Shaq bought a

[00:07:28] Lucid Air. But as you can imagine, Shaq is seven foot one inches tall. Even though the Lucid Air is a

[00:07:35] really big car, it's probably not going to fit Shaq's unique needs when it comes to that kind of

[00:07:42] a vehicle. So he needed the car to be modified a little bit. So Shaq worked with West Coast Customs

[00:07:49] to customize his Lucid Air. And they transformed this car from a four-door sedan to a two-door coupe.

[00:07:57] And when I tell you that this car is gorgeous, that is not hyperbole. This is a really cool

[00:08:05] looking car. And Lucid needs to steal this design, not steal it. They need to license this design

[00:08:10] because it is absolutely gorgeous. Like hands down, one of the best looking customs I've ever seen.

[00:08:18] Like I think the Lucid Air just in general is a really nice, elegant looking car. This makes it

[00:08:25] elegant and sporty. Man, it's a nice vehicle. So I mean, just chef's kiss to the job that West Coast

[00:08:33] Customs did on this car. I do wonder if this will improve Lucid's brand awareness, as Peter

[00:08:43] Rawlinson is always droning on about at the investor conference calls. Because he's constantly saying,

[00:08:52] you know, Lucid just needs more brand awareness and they're going to sell more cars. I disagree.

[00:08:57] I think Lucid needs to, I don't know, release a car that doesn't start at $79,000. But in all reality,

[00:09:06] you're probably paying $100,000 to $120,000 for this vehicle if you get it the way you want it,

[00:09:11] if you can afford that kind of thing. So yeah, but I do think what Lucid does is really clever.

[00:09:17] And I think they have a good design sense. But this car takes that up several notches,

[00:09:23] not just one, several. This is a great looking vehicle. If anybody knows anyone from West Coast

[00:09:29] Customs or Shaquille O'Neal, and you want to give me a warm introduction, I would love to have

[00:09:37] either of those folks on the show. Moving on, the Zeker 7X electric SUV is now being sold in Europe.

[00:09:47] This is Zeker's third EV in Europe, in the European market. If you don't know,

[00:09:53] Zeker is a Geely company. I keep saying Geely, and I've been corrected several times. So I'm going to

[00:10:00] try to get it burned into my brain. Geely company. Anyway, if you're curious, the 7X is roughly the

[00:10:06] same size as a Honda Prologue. Here are some of the specs on this bad chicken. It's built on an 800

[00:10:12] volt architecture. It has a 16 inch infotainment screen. And there's a custom or an option for

[00:10:19] like a 32 inch heads up display. It looks like European buyers will have the choice between a

[00:10:24] 75 kilowatt hour battery, which would deliver about 480 kilometers or 298 miles, or 100 kilowatt hour

[00:10:33] battery, which would get you 615 kilometers or 382 miles. It'll come in a single motor or dual motor

[00:10:40] configuration depending on your needs. Delivery starts the second half of 2025, and it will start

[00:10:46] at $52,990. And I think I started this off by saying that it was already there. My correction,

[00:10:55] I guess I didn't read my own notes well enough. Delivery starts second half of 2025. But I saw some

[00:11:02] of the Zeker vehicles in 2023 when I was at CES. And I was really hoping that I would see the Zeker

[00:11:09] again at the 2025 CES. And I'll let you know if I run across one of those.

[00:11:15] Our final story in our EV segment has to do with up and coming battery technology. Factorial,

[00:11:23] a battery manufacturer or wannabe battery manufacturer at this point, they're just doing research,

[00:11:28] but they just had a major milestone in the development of their solid state EV battery

[00:11:34] technology. Factorial says that its new Solstice branded technology will boost energy density by 80%.

[00:11:43] And this is 100% dry cathode, hence the solid state part of this. But Factorial said that their cathode

[00:11:51] process can eliminate, not, they didn't say that it would eliminate, they said that it can eliminate

[00:11:57] all hazardous solvents in the cathode coating process and simplify manufacturing, which results

[00:12:04] in lower costs, a 40% weight reduction in the battery pack. Factorial says that they can get up to

[00:12:10] 600 miles of driving range. That I am dubious about. I'm not sure that's good. That's real,

[00:12:16] real numbers right there. It's still pretty early on in the process. They are working with Mercedes Benz,

[00:12:22] and they're confident that Factorial will be able to start producing solid state batteries for Mercedes

[00:12:27] by 2030. So we got a little ways to go five, at least five years. Factorial says that they have

[00:12:35] smaller prototypes, which have reached over 2000 cycles of charge during their life cycle tests,

[00:12:42] which is, you know, pretty good. And the results are promising. I still think we're a little early

[00:12:46] in the process. Well, hold on just a second. I don't want to be negative here. So let's just say

[00:12:51] that what Factorial is saying now is promising, but there's a long road ahead of them to actually

[00:13:00] hit these numbers at scale for production purposes. There's just, there's a lot more that goes into

[00:13:07] that. So, um, promising, but be skeptical. All right, that completes our EV segment. I already did

[00:13:17] my Patreon plug, but if you, if you want to support the show, go to patreon.com forward slash kilowatt

[00:13:23] or support kilowatt.com and you'll get an ad free experience for as little as a dollar.

[00:13:28] You can also support the show on ACAST plus if you're interested in that as well.

[00:13:33] And yeah, let's move in to our Tesla news. Don't have a lot of Tesla stories here.

[00:13:38] So let's just dive in. Tesla's new lithium refining factory in Robstown, Texas has officially

[00:13:47] started refining lithium. This is fantastic, especially when you consider that it was about

[00:13:55] a year and a half ago that they broke ground on this factory. And from May of 2023 to December of

[00:14:04] 2024, they broke ground, started building the factory, and now they are refining lithium. Seems

[00:14:11] like a super fast timeline. That's one of the things that Tesla actually does pretty good when it comes

[00:14:17] to building their factories and stuff is, is they get it done in a hurry. There's not a lot of waiting

[00:14:21] around. Um, once this factory gets up to volume in scale production, the site will produce around 50

[00:14:30] gigawatt hours of battery grade lithium, which Tesla and I'm sure the U S government are hoping to reduce

[00:14:37] the reliance on China because that's a lot of these stories that we're, uh, we talk about lately,

[00:14:42] but, um, but yeah, congratulations to the team for getting that up and running so quickly.

[00:14:49] And I said we had three stories, but I'm actually going to remove one because Tesla's accusing a union in,

[00:14:56] uh, in Germany of, of, of, of a queue of a coup on their workers council. And I'm just,

[00:15:04] we're just not going to talk about that today. I think there's nothing here now that I'm rereading

[00:15:08] this. So let's just move on to our final story. Tesla is rolling out the latest full self-driving

[00:15:14] version to all hardware for vehicles, but what about hardware three? Well, we're going to talk about

[00:15:22] that. Let's start with hardware four. So if you have a hardware four vehicle and you paid for Tesla

[00:15:29] FSD, you're going to get 13.2.1. And I should say that hardware four AI four, those terms are used

[00:15:38] interchangeably here. So, but for this case, I'm just going to use hardware four because I keep

[00:15:44] messing up AI four. Um, earlier this year at the 2024 shareholder meeting, Tesla had said that they

[00:15:52] expect that hardware three vehicles would get the update sometime by the end of the year. Well,

[00:15:58] the end of the year is a couple of days away at this point. And a shock Eliswami, who, if you don't

[00:16:04] know is Tesla's autopilot program lead said in a recent update that hardware three customers can expect,

[00:16:11] uh, FSD version 12.6 by the end of the year. If you're like me and can count, uh, 12.6 is not a,

[00:16:20] it's not a 13, uh, version 13 upgrade. It's, it's less than 13 is what I'm trying to say here.

[00:16:28] So, um, when, when are we going to get a version 13 for hardware three vehicles? And the answer to

[00:16:35] that is I'm not sure, but I feel really confident it's not going to be when Tesla says

[00:16:40] because they keep missing deadlines. Um, yeah, it's, it's becoming more and more clear. And even

[00:16:46] Tesla said this at their shareholder meeting that it's unclear if hardware three vehicles will ever

[00:16:52] see true level five autonomy. They had, they did mention that Tesla will provide, you know, updated

[00:16:59] computer hardware. If, if hardware three can't handle full level five autonomy, it's unclear whether

[00:17:07] or not Tesla is going to charge you for that. You know, they may, or they may not. I'm not really

[00:17:12] sure. And to be honest with you, I'm not sure that hardware four is capable of full level five

[00:17:17] autonomy because Tesla is expected to release hardware five or AI five in 2025. So just to give

[00:17:26] you a little bit of perspective here, hardware three came out in 2019 hardware four came out in 2023

[00:17:34] and then hardware five is going to come out in 2025. So that's two years. I'm not sure that's a good

[00:17:39] return on your investment. I mean, it might be, but it just seems really soon after hardware four

[00:17:45] to be releasing hardware five. But what do I know? What are your thoughts? You can email me

[00:17:50] Bode, B O D I E at nine one eight digital.com. And you can also text me or message me on X at nine

[00:17:58] one eight digital. Um, let's see here. We got one little bit here about hardware four or AI four.

[00:18:06] Some new Tesla owners are having some issues with their hardware four computers. According to

[00:18:13] electric, the issue is due to the computer short circuiting. And that short circuit is possibly

[00:18:20] due to a combination of the low voltage battery and this happening during the camera calibration

[00:18:26] process. Tesla hasn't officially said anything about this. As a matter of fact, they're telling

[00:18:31] their texts according to electric to downplay the severity of the issue, but I trust electric as a

[00:18:39] source. Although I do think they're maybe a little less, you know, they're, they're not quite pro Tesla,

[00:18:46] but, uh, they used to be, uh, they they're pretty critical of Tesla as of late. And I don't think

[00:18:51] their criticism is unfair, but, uh, when, when somebody is writing a bunch of negative stories or

[00:18:58] talking into a microphone, a bunch of bunch of negative stories, you should always take their

[00:19:02] biases into consideration. But yeah, we'll keep an eye on this based on all the time that I've

[00:19:08] spent talking about Tesla. This does not seem to surprise me that there's an issue and they're

[00:19:13] telling their employees like, Hey, let's downplay this and tell people that it's not as big of an

[00:19:17] issue as they think it is. Um, and maybe it's not, you know, I'm sure Tesla will fix it. I'm sure

[00:19:24] Tesla will make it right, but they probably don't want the negative press while they're trying to

[00:19:28] figure this out. But I would be willing to guess that this turns into a recall, uh, before this

[00:19:33] is all over. All right, everybody, that is it for me today. If you want to email me again, it's

[00:19:41] Bodie, B O D I E at 918digital.com. I am on X at 918digital. I hope you all have a wonderful day

[00:19:48] and I will talk to you on Friday.