Should Tesla Invest $5 Billion into xAI?

[00:00:06] 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 on today's episode we are going to talk about news. So let's go ahead and just get into it. First up

[00:00:34] we have a couple of stories that were recommended by folks in our community. So let's start off with Joseph's recommendation. Honda is making a small, actually a very tiny van in Japan called the N-Van. It was first introduced in 2008 as a three cylinder petrol version

[00:00:57] but now it's getting an EV version. Now this vehicle is not going to be like spectacular in terms of specs. It'll seat four, it'll have 124 miles of range or 200 kilometers and it's expected to start right around 15,500 US dollars which is pretty good. This vehicle sits in the

[00:01:18] K-Car segment in Japan which is their smallest car category. It qualifies for lower taxes and lower insurance so it's a really affordable segment for the Japanese car industry. The K-Cars were first introduced after World War II because after the war Japanese folks didn't have a

[00:01:39] lot of money and it was a way to use manufacturing to prop up the economy and build jobs and then also provide an affordable car to the people of Japan. So it's actually a cool segment. There's

[00:01:55] a lot of people who are into K-Cars and if you're curious it's KEI cars. Alright, let's move on to Jamie's recommendations. It's not just Americans who are concerned about how EVs will affect the electrical grid. Some in the UK have argued that EVs will overrun the grid and

[00:02:14] induce perpetual blackouts. Now is this true? I don't know but one article claimed it won't take an enemy power to put us all in the dark just energy customers doing normal things on a

[00:02:27] normal winter's evening. This seems a bit extreme. This is not really something I'm concerned about but I do think it's an area that we should be proactive in and it should be studied and addressed

[00:02:40] because while I don't agree with the extreme views, I know here in the United States at least we have a fragile-ish infrastructure when it comes to the electrical grid. So yeah,

[00:02:55] that would be something that I would like not only here but in other countries for us to address to make sure that that doesn't happen. But yeah, let's move on. According to Charge UK at the end of

[00:03:10] June there were 930,000 EV charters in the UK and that number blew me away and then I read that it included homes and businesses which was honestly most of them. So there are currently

[00:03:27] about 65,000 public chargers in the UK so out of 930,000 total EV chargers in the UK there are 65,000 public chargers and a bit more than 5,000 of those chargers were installed in Q2 2024 so ramping up. And that concludes our community suggestions. I got to find a better name for

[00:03:53] that segment if you can think of one, send me an email bodi.bodeieat918digital.com because I would like to give everybody an opportunity to submit articles if they would like. I'm not always

[00:04:05] going to use them and honestly it doesn't mean that I don't like them. It just might mean that one the article is way over my head and I don't understand or two I've already got the

[00:04:16] show written and there's no place for it. I guess there's a third one where it just doesn't fit into the overall theme to the show because when I can I do try to theme these shows or to write them in

[00:04:28] a way that kind of tells a story or a way that makes sense so it flows. Now I just talked about chargers in the UK now I'm going to talk about chargers in the US that's how I'm

[00:04:43] transitioning. Back in the US 704 new DC fast charging stations were switched on in Q2 2024. That doesn't mean that's the amount of new chargers that were turned on in Q2 2024 that's the amount of stations there's typically a number of chargers at each station so I don't know what

[00:05:06] that exact number was but the bigger news in US charging is that in eight years there will be more public EV chargers charging locations than there are gas stations. Eight years is a long time so

[00:05:22] I'm not going to hold my breath this will be the case but I'll report back to you in eight years and see if that was actually true. Neo is holding their innovation day on July 27th which

[00:05:35] at the time of this recording is tomorrow they're expected to show off their new operating system for their vehicles SkyOS and they may show off their new phone if you didn't know Neo makes an Android

[00:05:49] phone their first one was released last year and they've committed to releasing a new phone every year after that similar to how all phone companies do things nowadays but yeah pretty cool

[00:06:01] if anything comes out of that we'll talk about that next week. Ford is extending the time that EV owners have to order a Tesla Nax adapter for free so this is a CCS2 to Nax adapter you now have

[00:06:18] until the end of August 31st so you have until August 31st 2024 and if you want to get a free adapter that will allow you to charge on the supercharger network after that you're going to have

[00:06:31] to pay 230 smackers for it. GM and SAIC which is a Chinese automotive company they are partnering on full self-driving technology in specifically China the fruits of the new joint venture on July 16th it's the system is called navigation on pilot which is really close to navigate on autopilot

[00:07:00] but navigate on pilot it'll be level two plus by the way level two plus is not a thing that's a marketing term it's just level two but SAIC has already received regulatory approval to test

[00:07:15] in China so this is kind of a big deal and GM is currently not loved when with their self-driving efforts here in the US so it doesn't make sense that they need to diversify how to hear and test

[00:07:30] in other places now I don't think that's because they drug a pedestrian in San Francisco I don't think that's the reason why they're doing this but I like to imagine that this is why they're

[00:07:42] doing this but I'm sure it's not let's move on here Rivian recently released a software update to improve charging times so Kyle Conner of the out of spec podcast and youtube channels and he does a lot

[00:07:54] of stuff plugged his new R1s I think it was a demo R1s into a DC fast charger at 0% so this is not something that a lot of people are going to do but Kyle is known for pushing the limits in

[00:08:09] terms of EVs and performance he knows what he's doing it took one hour and 15 minutes to charge from 0% to 100% now that was before the update after the update update Kyle ran the same test and the

[00:08:26] charging time was reduced by about 15% or 15 minutes excuse me 0 to 100% is definitely not what most people are going to be doing but I do think this is interesting and sounds like you know

[00:08:39] the typical let's say 5 to 80% charge that you're going to do on a DC fast charger maybe 15 to 80% that that should go much faster now Tesla is suing Rivian over stolen trade secrets and to

[00:09:00] be clear I don't think Rivian is actually stealing trade secrets Tesla is saying Tesla is saying employees who left Tesla to go to Rivian took trade secrets with them and shared them with Rivian I highly doubt that RJ Scorange would allow this to happen and I think

[00:09:19] and I might be wrong here but I'm pretty sure RJ has already said that they have mechanisms in place that would not allow anyone to upload any trade secrets into Rivian's internal database but a judge did find that there was enough evidence to continue with the lawsuit

[00:09:39] so if this lawsuit moves forward we'll typically see reports from internal documents from both companies and this could be very interesting for us as people who pay attention to this

[00:09:52] kind of thing so I don't want Rivian or Tesla to waste their money but I'd like to find out what's doing behind the scenes it's always fun to find out when Apple's suing somebody or somebody

[00:10:06] suing Apple and we get those news stories about what happened behind the scenes and who said what I think this would be interesting all right everybody that is our EV news before we get

[00:10:18] to our Tesla news I just want to remind you you can go to patreon.com forward slash kilowatt and sign up and be a patron as for as little as a dollar all the ads go away and if you've used

[00:10:30] the patreon rss feed all the ads go away and you support the show directly I don't use any of the patreon money to pay bills all the patreon money goes right back into the show so go to

[00:10:44] patreon.com forward slash kilowatt or support kilowatt dot com all right let's move on to the Tesla news the Tesla supercharger diner and drive-in that's being built in Los Angeles is coming along it's coming along there was a small issue with power lines that was keeping

[00:11:03] the second movie screen from going up but now they've removed the power lines and this should allow construction to begin on that second screen if you're not familiar with this

[00:11:16] Elon said that he wanted to build a place for like Tesla people to go and hang out and charge and it's going to be a multi-level diner where you can actually sit and watch the TV or the

[00:11:29] screens from inside the diner you'll be able to watch them from inside your car there'll be people with roller skates it's supposed to be a fun vibe and honestly there's a drone video that's

[00:11:42] linked in the article that I put in the show notes so it's also linked in the show notes it does look like it's going to be a fun place not as big as I thought it would be

[00:11:50] but it does look like it's going to be a fun place you can watch the drone video if you're interested in that Cybertruck may launch in Canada soon there was just one little issue

[00:12:01] that needed to be resolved Tesla had to get an exemption on the fly by wire steering system because it didn't meet the minimum steering angle requirements now I thought that the Tesla Cybertruck

[00:12:13] had great um tight turning so correct me if I'm wrong on this I would imagine it's something very specific with that fly by wire steer by wire system but anyway an exemption was granted so it

[00:12:29] sounds like the Tesla Cybertruck will be able to start testing in Canada and then also launch in Canada by the end of 2024 so that's pretty cool uh Elon has called to end all subsidies for all industries

[00:12:48] now Elon has said this before and I don't even necessarily disagree with him in principle my typical feeling on subsidies is we don't need to be uh subsidizing established multi-billion dollar uh companies and increasing their profits we shouldn't be doing that

[00:13:11] however I do have a caveat to that I do think subsidies are important when it comes to emerging technologies or technology that is aging out but still runs much of the backbone of

[00:13:24] of some industries you know there's just a there's there's a lot of old technology out there and not a lot of people around who still know how to use it or program for it I do think subsidies

[00:13:36] in that regard is important um going back to the electrical grid thing that we talked about um and I'm okay with individual citizens getting tax credits because it's a tax credit it's your money

[00:13:49] they're just letting you keep more of your money in tax credits on appliances renewable energy more efficient EVs are more efficient ACs air conditioners or heating systems HVAC systems um and EVs I think that's that's okay but I don't necessarily agree disagree with Elon's

[00:14:09] call to end subsidies here's the problem despite Elon's continuous calls to end subsidies uh Tesla has and continues to have or continues to benefit from subsidies uh from countries all over the

[00:14:25] world not just here in the U.S. and whether that's a direct subsidy to Tesla or that's a subsidy to the person buying a Tesla they benefit from that so is this an issue and my question to

[00:14:40] you genuinely is does Elon really want to end subsidies for altruistic reasons even if they're altruistic just in his head or does he want to pull the ladder up behind Tesla uh you need money

[00:14:53] Bode B O D I E at 918digital.com I'm not going to speculate but I would encourage you to speculate all right final story here Elon went on x and he said hey uh here's a poll what do you think

[00:15:10] should Tesla invest you know five billion dollars into xai yes or no and there was an overwhelmingly uh large percentage of people who said yes like 989,000 people voted a vast majority

[00:15:25] of them said yes and the reason why is because that is Elon's fan page and of course most of those people are going to say yes but they don't represent shareholders some of them might be shareholders but they don't really represent shareholders but my question is what benefit

[00:15:42] does this give Tesla because Tesla already has an AI team that it's currently working on AI efforts to solve full self-driving and in addition to that they're using AI to power their Optimus robot humanoid robot that they're building but I don't know what specifically Tesla gets

[00:16:05] in this scenario from xai I don't know what the benefit is I don't know what where they would see a five billion dollar plus benefit for Tesla and to further add to my confusion about this

[00:16:19] on Tuesday the 23rd at Tesla's Q2 2024 earnings call Elon specifically said that the xai developers don't want to work on full self-driving efforts they want to work on advanced general intelligent efforts and that's the whole reason why he started xai let's go ahead and play the clip

[00:16:40] with regard to xai there are people that only want to work on a g i so what I was finding was that when trying to prove people to Tesla they they were they were only interested in working on a g i not

[00:16:56] about the problems and they want to start a do a startup um so it was a case of either they go to a startup or and i'm involved or they do a startup and i'm not involved those are two choices

[00:17:09] this wasn't uh oh look they were they were they would come to Tesla they were not going to come to Tesla at any circumstances yeah I mean I would even add that you know ai is a broad spectrum

[00:17:22] and there are a lot of things which you know we are focused on full self-driving as tesla and also optimus but there's the other spectrum of ai which we're not working on and that's the

[00:17:36] kind of work which other companies have time to do in this case xai so you have to keep that in in mind that it's a broad spectrum it's not just one specific thing yeah I once again I wanted to

[00:17:49] just review myself here I tried to recruit them to tesla including to so like you can work on a g i if you want and they refuse only then was xai creative so it sounds like the xai developers

[00:18:05] don't want to be a part of tesla um I don't know why this would benefit them in any way shape or form other than it's five billion dollars and that's an impressive amount of money but then what are they

[00:18:17] going to do work on like infotainment type stuff are they going to work on a voice assistant for tesla tesla doesn't need to invest five billion dollars for them to do that

[00:18:28] what are your thoughts you can email me bodi b o d i e at 918digital.com you can also find me on x at 918 digital I'm not going to do any twitter polls or x polls but uh they're on there

[00:18:44] all right we have a little bit of time left so let me just kind of jump into some things that I've been thinking about I'd kind of like to do an event that has probably at least initially

[00:18:59] reach out to patreon supporters first but I'd kind of like to do an event where we watch something together and four or five folks from the community are on and we can discuss it it would probably

[00:19:13] have to be after the event event and then we would just discuss it as I played it on riverside so that we could all watch it together and stop when we needed to to discuss what are your thoughts on that

[00:19:27] is that something you would be interested in being part of is that something to be interested in listening to it may even be that we have so many people that we would have to like

[00:19:39] book people in shifts I don't know how exactly that would work but I can't have a ton of people on because it would be a forever show but in terms of being on or listening what are your thoughts on

[00:19:50] that and then um what was the other thing oh I have a new podcast the beyond the post podcast we are putting out new episodes we have Lamar Wilson is the first two episodes great interview

[00:20:04] with Lamar on just how to be a successful creator and how to set boundaries Lamar is great if you don't know who Lamar Wilson is it's L-A-M-A-R-R Wilson search amount he is a really nice guy

[00:20:21] and then we have this last episode was all on mics so if you're looking for a mic or you want to learn more about mics Robin I talk about that and then on July 31st our own Allison shared and

[00:20:37] she's going to be on July 31st and August 7th and we're going to talk to Allison about community building community because Allison has a great community and also the importance of accessibility

[00:20:48] when we're creating content which I need to improve on a lot it's a it's this season two of Beyond the Post is we got a lot of good stuff so there are links in the show notes for you to

[00:20:59] check them out and uh yeah that is it for me I hope y'all have a wonderful weekend it is hot and miserable here I spent all day in my garage working on a project for the house uh from seven in the

[00:21:14] morning until three in the afternoon and I think the high today was like 114 it was awful it was absolutely awful so please cry for me Argentina and thanks everybody for listening I will talk to you on Tuesday where we're going to cover General Motors Q2 2024 earnings call